by T. K. Malone
Teah turned slowly, picking up her drawstring bag as she did. Briscoe was now some fifteen yards away, sitting on a small boulder. He wasn’t quite as nondescript as Ned had painted him out to be. Dressed in a khaki T-shirt and combats, tan boots and an olive-green cap, he looked muscular, bulging but not bulky, and had one of those square heads she associated with the army. Cropped blond hair peeked from under his cap and deep-set eyes followed the barrel of the gun. Spike Briscoe clearly wasn’t taking any chances.
“You afraid of me?” she asked, reaching into the bag and bringing out two smokes. She threw one to Briscoe and lit the other, kicking away the sack.
“Only a dead man isn’t afraid of a rattler.”
“Yet you bite their heads off?”
“Don’t believe all you hear.”
“You said you didn’t owe me a quick death; why Ned?”
Briscoe lit his smoke. “Him? He wasn’t with me. Way I look at it, there’s only two sides left. There’s me and there’s army. Now, you may think that that’s a bleak picture, but just remember: there ain’t no one in any army who’s grown crops, fished rivers or trapped a squirrel. Nope, all they’re good for is killing.”
“So you think Ned was army?”
“Think? I know he was army. No doubt about that. What I don’t know is whether he was still active or just one of them deserters, and it don’t much matter now. One thing I do know, though, is if he was still army I should have killed him. Another thing I know: if he wasn’t but was trying to buy his way out of a desertion charge, I should have killed him. I refuse to become a bargaining chip.”
“Buy his way…”
“Immunity; say that he’d struck a deal with them to infiltrate my little compound, say that. Driving you up here. Calling in drone strikes. Someone killed Helen and Jez, and it sure weren’t me. Someone killed Morrow, and it sure weren’t me. Dangerous times, Teah, times when a king’s gotta pull up his drawbridge and protect the peasants inside.”
“What if he was just an ex-soldier seeking refuge?”
Briscoe shrugged. “Then he’s one unfortunate who made a wrong choice and lost to the percentages.”
“You always talk in riddles?”
Briscoe smiled, took a drag on his smoke and pretended to tip his cap. “Well, your comments are more laced with venom than a snake’s tooth. A one-in-three chance he was straight up, that’s all. I’m not taking that for the luxury of another mouth to feed.”
“What about Trip?”
“Trip? Hell, he ain’t got no axe to grind. Trip is Trip, always has been. ‘Sides, every compound needs someone who can run a bar, but it ain’t all about serving drinks. A barman’s gotta know when to throw ‘em out, when to console them, ‘n when to laugh with them. Ain’t all about the alcohol.”
“Good to know,” Teah said, and flicked her butt away. “So what now?”
“Now? Hell, Teah, what’s your rush? We’re just getting to know each other.”
“Strikes me it’s going to get dark soon. So, what do we do? Just sit here and yak?”
Briscoe threw the gun to one side and stood. “Nope,” he said as he walked over to her. “Sooner or later—probably sooner—we’d end up at each other’s throats. I get the feeling that’s just how it would be. So I guess we may as well make it now.”
“Make what now?”
He offered her his hand, indicating she should get to her feet with his other. “Thing is,” he said, “if there’s a fight in the air, it sours everything. So I figure we just get it out of the way. If you survive, you can go on your way; if not, I’ll dig you a hole.”
Teah took his hand as he bent toward her. Never miss an opportunity, Lester’s words rang through her mind. She pulled and rolled backwards, bringing her feet up. Briscoe was taken by surprise, stumbling forward before he could get his legs set. She kicked her feet into his stomach, a burst of his hot breath engulfing her. He was heavy, though, a dead weight, and her legs buckled rather than straightened as the man came alive. She pushed sideways instead, trying to get out from under him, but his arms had tensed, ripping free of her grip, and his hands were now firmly planted either side of her head. He booted her, the impact raking down her shins as he used her as a springboard and rolled over the top of her.
They ended up head to head, where they paused briefly, the opening exchange done.
“Nice try,” he muttered, and she scrambled around on all fours, then sprang to her feet. “You’ve lost your hat,” he said, then lunged at her, so fast she’d no chance of swerving out of the way. His shoulder caught her in the stomach, pushing the air in her lungs into her throat. She felt herself propelled backward, crashing into the boulder he’d been sitting on, her back arched across it before her head cracked against its far side. He fell upon her, his hands pinning her arms against the rock. “Had enough yet?”
She panted, watching his eyes—overconfident eyes, she thought—then brought her knee up. Briscoe grunted and let go of one of her arms. She swung at him, catching him on the chin, but with little force at the bad angle. She brought her knee up again and again, but he’d shifted slightly and now it just hit bone.
“You only get one free shot there,” he growled and grabbed her hair, pulling her head up and smashing it against the rock, once, twice, then for a third time. He shoved himself away and she rolled off the boulder, onto the muddy ground.
What felt like blood wet the back of her head, her mind now foggy and confused. He was walking away, that she could see, but her vision was blurred, going in and out of focus. She prised herself to her knees then tried to stand, to go after him, but her legs didn’t feel right, seeming to have no strength. With a massive effort she managed to stumble toward him, gaining enough speed that when she went crashing into his back it arched under the impact.
Briscoe let out a grunt as he fell forward, biting the ground. He tried to turn, but Teah was astride him, pounding his head with what little strength she could bring to bear through her fists. He soaked it up for a while, then planted his palms on the ground and pushed himself up. She rode him for a moment, unsteadily, until he gained purchase with his boots and flipped himself into the air.
Trapped by Briscoe’s momentum, Teah sailed off him, soon thudding to the ground, where she only had time to think of scrambling away before Briscoe smashed down on top of her. She screamed at the crushing of her ribs, sure some had snapped under the impact. She felt herself being pulled around, then a fist crashing into her cheek, her head snapping around. The weight on her chest lightened and she realized Briscoe had rolled off.
“You fight dirty,” he said between gasps for air.
Teah didn’t reply. She checked herself: a rib or two definitely broken, the back of her head probably a bloody mess, her cheek on fire. She tried to push herself up but the pain was too much, and so she slumped back down. Briscoe lay next to her, his body unprotected. Raising her arm, she brought her elbow down into his stomach, then back against his lungs. He yelped in pain and doubled up.
“Yep,” she muttered. “The way Lester taught me,” and she finally staggered to her feet. Briscoe was on all fours, trying to catch his breath. Sizing up her target, she kicked him in the gut as hard as she could, then lurched around like a drunkard, trying to take aim again. But the pain at last overwhelmed her and she sank to her knees. Briscoe lay on his side, but was soon crawling back toward her, finally swinging his fist at her open jaw.
Again, her head snapped back and she crumpled into a heap, Briscoe collapsing beside her.
“Now I’ve had enough,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he confessed.
“Smoke?”
“Yeah, why not?”
They both crawled over to the drawstring bag.
5
Teah’s Story
Strike time: plus 4 days
Location: The Preppers Compound, Morton Valley
The damp dusk air stung Teah’s split cheek as she drove up the trail. Despite settling something
—she wasn’t quite sure what, not as yet—Briscoe sat in the passenger seat, a handgun trained on her gut. The throat of the valley had got even tighter, and now the trail snaked along its side, turning back on itself time after time to scale the slope. She vaguely remembered it, vaguely recalled seeing it from the back of Lester’s old cart, and knew she was near where they’d fought.
“Do you have to hold that gun on me all the time?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Should have dug Ned a hole before we fought.”
“Dragging him to the mine was enough.”
“True,” she had to agree.
The angry protests of her ribs were spiteful as the truck bounced along the rough trail, each rut and rock causing her to gasp involuntarily. While she still mourned Ned and the suddenness of his demise, she couldn’t help but think things had worked out reasonably well for her. Apart from the broken ribs, beaten-up face and the gash in her head, she was still alive, and it very much looked like she was getting into the preppers’ camp. If she was ever going to get Clay back, the man she’d just fought was her only chance.
Jake’s motives confused her the most. Why he’d want to kill Briscoe was beyond her. Did he really think by murdering him he would be able to walk in and take command of the compound? While she didn’t know anything about the place, she doubted that would happen quite as fluidly as Jake had inferred.
“So, how many folk you got in your little tribe?” Teah asked, regretting every word and each compression of her ribs they brought.
“That’s no huge secret. There’s about five hundred of us, give or take. I don’t know the exact numbers, but we fill up the valley.”
Teah let out a whistle. “Up here? There that much grazing and stuff this far up?”
“See, you’re not from the mountains, so you wouldn’t understand. Valleys are strange places. They get narrow, get broad, and sometimes they just open up all majestic-like. This here bit we’re going through is just downright inhospitable, but it acts as a wall, a sort of defense. See that up there?” He pointed to the top of the ridge. It flicked in and out of view through the trees, and Teah nodded. “Up there’s a small pass to the next valley along. That’s the Achilles heel, if you like. I have to station men up there day and night. If the army’s going to come, they’ll try and sneak through that way. Drones and helos up the river, trucks along the trail. They won’t stand a chance, just so long as they can’t sneak through there.”
“Got it all figured out?”
The truck swung around another one-eighty curve and headed back up the valley. They soon left the trees behind, nearing the top of the ridge. Teah tried to pull her coat close, to fend off the chill in the air, but her ribs protested too much.
“Pull up there,” and Briscoe pointed to a small rocky outcrop, where Teah soon stopped the truck.
When he told her to kill the engine, silence fell around them, but only for a few seconds before two sharp and separate clicks signaled that a couple of rifles had been trained on them, though she suspected more her than him.
“Everything alright there, Spike?” someone called out.
“Sure is.”
“You sure, boss?” another rang out.
“All cool, Warner.”
“Might have to come and check the truck out, boss.”
“Be my guest,” said Briscoe, then he turned to Teah. “Suspicious bunch, our lot. Don’t even trust me.”
“More like they don’t trust me.”
“Hell, Teah, they don’t even know you yet.”
From seemingly nowhere, a man was now walking toward them, dressed in grey camouflage combats, a rifle slung over his back and one in his arms. He wore a helmet with what looked like night-vision glasses pushed up on it, his painted face melding into his clothing so it made him look even more military than most soldiers. He neared the truck and trained his rifle on her. Teah instinctively raised her hands, gasping from the pain it caused. Circling the truck, the man checked out the back.
“Steady there, ma’am. Remember: there’s more than my gun trained on you.” He came up to her side and clicked the door open, pushing her legs out of the way with the barrel of his rifle. “You alright there, boss. Looks like you’ve both been in a hell of a tear up.”
“Think I’ve broke a rib. She’s broke more.”
The man looked at Teah’s face. “Something about a few cuts makes this one look better,” he said with a hint of a leer. “Some women can just carry the beat-up look.”
“Still ain’t worked out who won, mind,” said Briscoe.
“Best kind of fight, sir.”
“See you back at base, Warner. Good job.”
“Later,” and the man lowered his rifle and walked away.
Teah started the truck and pulled back out onto the trail.
“Would they have shot us if we hadn’t stopped?”
Briscoe grunted. “You? Sure. Me? I like to think they’d have given me the benefit of the doubt.”
Teah tried to grunt but failed dismally.
Farther on, the trail leveled and headed back into the trees. She switched the headlights on, keeping up a steady pace all the while she could see the road in front. The beams of light bounced around, though, jumping from sequoia to sequoia to stony track. Briscoe had fallen silent, which she cherished. Thoughts of Ned coursed through her mind; there’d been too much killing lately. Ray, Jez, Helen, and now Ned, and that was without Morrow and Grizzly, and not to mention the population of Black City. Ned’s death had been cold, though, and so she wasn’t sure what to think of Briscoe.
“Pull up about a hundred yards farther up here, just where the trees break,” he said, and so she did. Skidding to a halt on the gravel of the trail, she looked out into the gloom. Briscoe reached down and pulled her drawstring bag up and into his lap. “Smoke?”
“Feels like the smoke’ll come out of my chest.”
“Might be broke, but in my experience, more often cracked or bruised.”
She took the offered smoke. “There a difference between cracked and broke?”
“There’s a difference between cracked and snapped, and that difference is a whole world of pain. So, what do you think?”
Teah puffed on her smoke and again looked out. As her eyes became accustomed to the dusk, she saw the valley below. It had opened out into a huge, undulating terrain of shades of grey. Here and there glowed amber lights, concentrated in places and sometimes sparsely set apart. Clearly those of dwellings, there was also a line of them strung across the valley, maybe a few hundred yards before the properties began.
“Funny things, valleys. They can be all crags and rocks like Lester’s—like Lester himself, I suppose—and then they can change and become hospitable, and not necessarily where you’d expect them. Up here, these mountains that surround us shield us from the weather, hem in our own little climate. Up here, the fields stay snow free ten months of the year. That’s why we chose here, that and the winds which pass over the city never blow this way. Preppers, see; we’ve been preparing for this holocaust for as long as we’ve been able to walk. We talked about sides, and I said the army was against us.”
“Yes,” she said, still looking out, now marveling at the scale of the place.
“And I said the army had never grown any crops. But we can. We’re ready, but when the army runs out of food, when it can’t just go shoot a gun to get a sandwich, then who’s that machine going to turn to?”
She shifted in her seat, the weight of his words playing on her mind.
“Let me make it easy for you,” he went on. “The army will come and take. They won’t ask. They’ll sequester everything, and all those years of us preparing will be up in smoke.”
“Unless you fight.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Unless we fight. Yup, it’ll come down to that, but then again, like I’ve said, we’ve spent years getting ready for this. Them? Not so much. The Free World army has gotten lazy. They rely on their dr
ones to kill from the air, remotely. We’ve studied them, and we reckon we’ve a good chance. Especially as they seem to be intent on fighting among themselves at the moment.”
“They’re what?”
Spike threw his butt out of the truck. “It seems the two divisions left are squabbling over some prize or other. Hell, they may even do our job for us. No doubt it’s over some refuge or supply dump. They haven’t stopped pulling rock out of that valley next door,” and he nodded that way. “Been building something. Haven’t stopped for years, and now, whatever it was: they’re squabbling over it.” This time he pointed down the valley. “Best get driving if you want to clean up and eat. Just be sure to stop quick if we’re flashed, but I’m sure Warner would have radioed ahead.”
“My son…” but then she wondered if she should tell him.
“Son?”
“He was in Aldertown when the army came.”
Briscoe grunted. “Then sooner rather than later, you’re going to need to get him back. Like I said, the army—they’ve lost their way.”
“Do you think they’ll…”
“What? Kill him? Hurt him? No, they’ll have some plan for him, for them all. Hell, maybe they are going into farming. With the government gone, who the fuck’s going to pay them?”
Teah didn’t reply. Jake had reassured her Clay would be okay. Ned, Trip, all of them had dissuaded her from going after him. But now she knew she had to. Now she knew she couldn’t trust anyone’s advice. She also knew she wasn’t going anywhere with a gun pointing at her belly.
The trail began to wind down the side of the valley, back toward the river’s silvery water. The moon hung above the line of the ridge and dusk had turned to night. As Ned had promised, abandoned vehicles lined the road or stuck out of ditches, lending the trail a foreboding air. Their route now hugged the river’s more meandering course, until the headlights picked out what looked like a vast wall, lights on top becoming more distinct as they neared. She slowed and then stopped about fifty yards from it.