“Let them go!” Sully shouts and recaptures my attention. “Free our people.” His voice echoes down the street, resounding with truth and righteousness through the cavernous hollows of my being. Goose bumps cover my skin. A part of me feels like clapping, applauding everything Sully has done until now. When Jericho unsheathes a machete from his thigh and hacks at the leather straps until they break, tears stream from my eyes freely.
“You’re welcome to join us,” Sully approaches one of the newly freed men and says. But the man doesn’t respond, and his eyes dart from side to side.
In fact, all of them are wild-eyed. They babble and wander, mumbling incoherently to one another. Frightened and cagey, they resemble injured animals.
As soon as the last of the six is loose, they run off, rambling incomprehensibly.
Sully lowers his chin to his chest. He holsters his guns and shakes his head slowly then rakes his fingers through his hair. I resist the urge to run to him. I can feel his disappointment, his frustration.
“Their minds are broken,” Will says. “They’ll wander around aimlessly until they get themselves killed. They’ll be dead before the day’s end. We just risked our lives for nothing.”
Anger flashes across Sully’s face. For a moment, he looks every bit as deadly as he did when battling against Urthmen. “No,” he says, his tone so calm it is threatening. “We didn’t risk our lives without reason. Those men will live and die free, as every human should, not live and die chained to a cart like an animal.” He looks to Jericho who nods solemnly in agreement. He then turns and begins walking back toward the bushes, toward June, Riley, and Oliver; toward me. “Let’s go,” he says and does not look back.
I realize in the brief time it takes him to close the distance between us that I am honored to fight alongside him. He represents all that I have been taught, all that I am and will ever be. I realize that like June, Will, Riley and Oliver, Jericho and Sully are my future.
Chapter 13
We travel for several more miles after Sully killed the convoy of Urthmen, crossing the street and remaining hidden by the trees that line the other side. While we do, the scene continues to replay in my head over and over. I search my heart for regret or remorse for what happened, even though I did not do the killing. But I come up empty. Maybe I am not better than the Urthmen as Will implied when I was about to kill the family of them back in town. Maybe he is right. Maybe I am a monster. If being a monster means wanting to live for more than just a day, to try to secure some kind of future for my sister and I, then I am every bit a monster. I want more than today, I want tomorrow, and many days, months and years thereafter. I want a life. I want to live. I wonder whether Will understands the difference between surviving and living.
Several times while we jog along, Will’s eyes meet mine. His expression is always the same: troubled. He’s likely seen more death and gore in the last week than in his entire life. Seeing his parents die at the hands of Urthmen has scarred him, of that I am confident. How could it not? All the other carnage only serves to further widen the aching chasm that has been opened within him. He did not approve of what Sully did earlier. He’d made that plain enough. I enthusiastically approve, but I still feel bad for Will. The wound of his parents’ deaths is still fresh. I try to convey to him with my eyes that I am sorry for his pain. There isn’t much I can say in front of everyone else. Preserving Will, Oliver and Riley’s privacy is important to me. They can share what they want with Sully and Jericho when or if they want to. It is not for me to determine that for them.
“Where are we going?” June asks Sully and distracts me from my brooding.
“We are going to the place where Jericho and I live. But listen June, and everyone else,” Sully addresses not just my sister, but all of us. “You need to do exactly as I say. The next turnoff will take us to the edge of a heavily wooded area. As soon as we get in there, everyone needs to follow my orders, okay?”
June agrees first, followed by Oliver and Riley’s mumbles of approval.
“Avery, are you good with that?” Sully asks me directly.
“Yep,” I reply stiffly after a quick glance at Will.
Will’s upper lip is lifted higher than usual. He shakes his head slowly, as if disgusted.
“How about you, buddy? You good with that?” Sully addresses Will.
“Do I really have a choice?” Will snaps.
Amusement dances in Sully’s dark eyes. “You always have a choice. Just this one is either listen to me, or be blown to smithereens,” he says with a wink. “Choose wisely.”
Will is left with his mouth agape, a question or angry comment burning somewhere beyond it. Not waiting for it, Sully shrugs and turns from everyone. He continues leading us until the line of trees and shrubs we follow gives way to thicker clusters of growth.
The sun is not as high in the sky. I am hungry and exhausted. I would love nothing more than to eat and rest in a safe place. But we are out among Urthmen, in their territory. I doubt such a place exists.
We cross a small seasonal stream, swollen with water and leaves. Once we are across it, we are immediately swallowed by an abundance of thorny bushes and brush. Branches, crisscrossed at every turn, threaten to gouge our eyes and undergrowth tugs at our pant legs. Trees grow larger the deeper we delve and canopy our path, filtering much of the sunlight. Wherever it is we’re headed, I doubt any Urthmen would bother to look. The landscape is downright hostile. More than once, I hear June say, “Ouch!” and assume that, like me, she is getting pricked by spiny burrs and limbs.
As if the thorns aren’t enough, a riot of tangled vines slithers at our feet, waiting to trip us as we plod along. Sully and Jericho, of course, move easily, gracefully even.
Fortunately, the bushes and undergrowth start to thin and walking becomes a little easier.
“Okay, everybody stop,” the bass of Jericho’s voice pours from him like heated honey. He freezes, his massive body eerily still as his eyes sweep the surrounding area. He points to something I do not see at first. When I strain my eyes, though, I realize it is a nearly invisible wire about chest height. “You see this?” he asks us. We lean in and look. “This line leads to explosives. Animals indigenous to this area pass beneath or around it easily, but it is rigged to trigger those explosives when something heavy, like an Urthman, walks into it.”
“Each of us has to step under it carefully, then wait for further instruction,” Sully chimes in. “There are more like this one throughout the woods.”
June slips her small hand in mine. It is clammy and cold.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll be fine. We’ll go together and just wait for Sully or Jericho to tell us what to do next,” I tell her.
Will expels air from his nose loudly. I snap my head toward him and tip my chin while furrowing my brow, as if to ask what the matter is. He rolls his eyes and frowns. I guess he is not a fan of Sully and therefore not happy about following his orders. I would prefer not to be blasted to bits as the Urthmen were in the convoy. I hope Will shares my wish to stay in one, whole piece. He gestures for June and I to go before him. I nod and turn my body sideways then dip my head and upper body beneath the wire. June does too. We repeat this process about ten more times, navigating an intricate labyrinth of lines, until I see a white clapboard structure with sooty streaks smudged from the upper windows to the roof. The paint is peeling and weeds have grown over the first-story windows, but I can clearly see that it is a house. Beside the house, two vehicles are parked. One is a truck and the other is, if my memory serves me correctly, a camper. I have never seen the latter, only heard of them and seen creased and faded images. Regardless, both appear to be in decent shape. They do not resemble the cars I saw lining the streets when we first ventured out of the forest.
Next to me, June’s grip on my hand tightens. “Whoa, is that a house?” she asks.
“Ah, home sweet home. Well, kind of,” Sully steps up beside me and says. His shoulder brushes mine and heat spirals from the poi
nt of contact, twisting down my arm and spreading through me like fire.
“This is where you and Jericho live?” June asks.
“Yep, that’s right,” he replies and takes a step back causing our arms to touch again.
“And there aren’t any Urthmen in there?” she asks, her brows gathered in concern.
“Nope.” Sully shakes his head.
“You sure?” June persists.
“I am,” Sully says confidently.
“Wow, you have your own house,” June marvels.
“Everyone should have a place to call home, one that isn’t under constant attack,” he says earnestly.
“What must that be like?” I hear myself say without thinking.
“What, you never had that?”
“I guess we did for a while,” I say absently. “But the monsters that come out at night in the forest found us, and once they find you,” I allow my voice to trail off, but Sully finishes my sentence.
“They never stop,” he says and a chill races up my spine.
A pause spans for several beats. Will has taken Riley and Oliver to relieve themselves with Jericho covering them. I am alone with June and Sully.
“So you rigged this place with all the wires and explosives?”
“That’s right. Knowing this place is equipped with trip wires and bombs helps me sleep at night.”
“Sleep,” I say ruefully. “I miss that.”
Sully grips my upper arms and turns me so that I face him. His expression is intense as his piercing eyes bore straight into my soul. “Tonight, you will sleep, I promise you that. Everything will be okay.” He holds me with both his hands and his gaze, but oddly, I do not feel nervous or uncomfortable. To my surprise, I am calm. It has been a long time since anyone has taken care of me in even the slightest way. Sully has saved my life three times; first in the arena, second when he stitched my wound, and third when we came upon the convoy. Being saved is foreign to me, but pleasant all the same.
“She needs it, Sully,” June says softly and breaks the powerful eye contact. “Avery is the best fighter there is. She’s killed boarts, Urthmen, spider-monsters, crazy humans who wanted to use her to breed more humans, and a bat. And that’s just in the last five days.” June frowns. Her eyes well up with tears. “She saves everybody all the time. She needs sleep. She needs someone to take care of her for once.”
Hot tears singe the backs of my eyelids. They appear suddenly, along with June’s stark observation. Her words have touched a nerve I did not anticipate was so raw.
“Wow,” Sully says and releases my arms. He turns his attention to June. “Sounds like your sister is something special, not that that surprises me or anything; I knew she was the second I saw her in the arena.” He pokes the tip of her small nose. “And as long as she’s with me, I’ll give her a break, okay? I’ll take good care of her.”
June looks as if she may explode. Emotion is fairly bursting from her. Her eyes are wide and a grin stretches across her face. “Good,” she says. Her single word is so laden with excitement I have trouble suppressing my own smile.
“Come on.” Sully reaches out a hand to her. “Let’s go inside. I’ll show you around.”
The soft swish and rustle of leaves and the snap of twigs means Will and his siblings are back.
“Whoa, you have a truck and a camper?” Will says as soon as he sees the parked vehicles. “Do they work?”
“I’ve rebuilt the engine and transmission. As far as I know, everything works. Only problem is, we don’t have gasoline.”
“Gasoline?” I ask. “What’s that?”
“It’s the liquid that was used to run vehicles in the past. But it’s scarce now. What little is left is fiercely guarded by Urthmen,” Sully says. “We’ll talk about all that tomorrow, though. Come on. Follow me around back so we can go inside.”
We file behind Sully, June leading the way, and follow him around the side of the house, past the camper and the truck to the back of the house. But to my surprise, he does not climb the short, rickety looking flight of steps. Instead, he begins separating long, reedy weeds until a door, placed flush against the earth, appears. He pulls a key from his pocket, unlocks a padlock looping through two metal hoops and opens the door.
“Wow!” June exclaims.
“It’s an old bomb shelter,” Sully tells her just before he turns and begins descending a ladder. “Come on down.”
June does not hesitate. She climbs down immediately. I follow, then Will, Oliver, Riley and Jericho come afterward. Jericho shuts the door behind us and engages a lock from the inside.
I expect to be submerged in darkness. But peculiar, ashen light fills the space below me. It intensifies when I am standing on a hard floor. My eyes scour the room and I stop mid-breath when I see rectangular screens with pictures within them. The picture changes continually, and appears strangely familiar.
“What is,” I start, but I cannot form a sentence. I am riveted by the image, transfixed by what I think I am seeing. “Is that the wooded area we just came through?”
Sully smiles slyly. “It is.”
“So those are,” I begin, but I dare not utter the word.
His dark eyes brim with anticipation. “Go on,” he urges me as if we are the only two people in the underground bunker.
“Picture boxes,” I ask more than I say.
Picture boxes are the stuff of legend, they are fabled stories Will and I heard as children and now share with our young siblings. Never in my wildest imaginings did I ever believe I would see one for myself. I thought they’d always be objects my mind’s eye conjured. But here they are, in Sully and Jericho’s lair, and right before my very eyes.
“Picture boxes, televisions, they’re both just names, but yes, that’s exactly what they are.” Sully’s words snap me out of my trance.
It is all so surreal, so magical. I swallow hard then ask one of the many questions blazing in my brain. “But how are we seeing the woods we were just in?”
“Cameras,” Sully answers and I feel my jaw drop. I know I must look like a buffoon, standing as I am with my mouth agape. But I am flabbergasted. Cameras are devices used long ago that transmitted live images for digital recording or viewership. Until today, I considered them even more elusive than the picture box.
Another question plagues me, one that involves both the picture boxes and the camera. Long ago, a power source was necessary to keep things like them functioning. “What’s powering the camera and the picture, uh, I mean televisions?”
The children’s heads bounce between Sully and I, in awe, as they follow our interaction. Now, they are watching him, waiting for his response. I am too, as it turns out.
“Solar power,” he answers.
“What’s that?” June asks.
“Well, it means we use the sun’s rays to power a generator that powers the television and the cameras.”
“Whoa, cool!” Oliver exclaims.
“Wow,” Riley adds.
“How did you learn to do such a thing?” June asks, her voice quiet and reverent.
“He knows how to fix things,” Jericho’s voice rumbles like distant thunder and sends our attention his way. A small chuckle rolls from deep in his chest. “I told you before, Sully can fix anything.” He shrugs his enormous shoulders and flicks his hands to the sides.
“The technology existed long before the War of 2062. I just gathered materials along the way and tweaked them,” Sully says matter-of-factly.
“What about the guns?” I ask, intrigued beyond measure. “How did you get them? And what about the bullets?” I fire the questions in rapid succession, my mouth working in time with my brain.
The corners of Sully’s mouth hook upward to a sneaky smile. He narrows his eyes at me and again, a playful glint gleams in his eyes. “I rebuilt the guns from old parts I found through the years. As you can imagine, I found a lot. Urthmen are dumb as stumps. They wouldn’t know what to do with any of the stuff I came across, so the
y left it, right Jericho?”
“That’s for sure,” Jericho agrees.
“As for the bullets, well, I got lucky with that one. Years back, I found a bullet press in a bomb shelter, completely intact. All I needed to do was search for scrap metal to make the jackets and formulate the propellant.”
“The what?” I can’t help but ask.
“The stuff inside the actual bullet,” Sully answers.
“Okay,” I reply and do not hide that I am confused.
“It’s really not that big of a deal. I find sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter.”
“Salt who?” I stop him again. “Now you’ve totally lost me.”
Sully laughs. It is a pleasant sound. “Now that’s even less of a deal than the other stuff. Salt peter is harvested from decomposed manure. It’s also found in caves, but manure is easier to come by.”
“Manure? You mean poop?” June asks and is barely able to keep from giggling.
“Yep,” Sully nods with a naughty expression on his face. “I mean poop, old animal poop to be exact, but poop all the same.”
June and Riley are overcome by a fit of giggles. Even Oliver can’t resist and joins in. I smile and so does Jericho. Will, however, is not amused in the least, a fact that is not lost on Sully. He frowns and looks between Will and I. I shake my head slightly and close my eyes. Will watched his parents die and is now responsible for his two siblings. Laughing at the word “poop” is not at the forefront of things he needs to do.
“Does anyone else live here with you two?” I ask and steer the conversation back to the host of questions rattling around in my head.
“Nope, just Jericho and I,” Sully answers.
“We have freed many humans, but none have stayed,” Jericho adds.
“No one ever stays and fights. They all want to hide and live,” Sully says.
“Well we’re not going anywhere. We’re with you. We want to fight.” I hear the words spill from me; know that I have spoken for all of us when it is only me who feels that way. I cannot imagine jeopardizing June’s safety, or Will, Riley and Oliver’s for that matter. Yet, I cannot imagine leaving either. The life we led was no life at all, running and hiding, living in constant fear of how we would defend ourselves when the time came, and it always would. Finding Urthmen in the forest was not some random improbable occurrence we could chalk up as an isolated incident. It meant that the moment we feared had finally come.
Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) Page 15