Time ticked by and no one said anything, simply watched them from above. The other gate didn’t open.
The animals didn’t like the confined space and were getting antsy. Popsicle growled his disapproval and reared up to sniff at a little dog that squirmed in the arms of a girl. She was standing next to one of the men with the guns. They felt the metal container shudder a little as his paws came to rest and he stretched his neck. The man jumped back, the bear was only a dozen feet below him. He could imagine the wild looking kid with the axe running up his neck and leaping to the top. Tobias leaned forward, stroked Popsicles neck and urged him to calm down. He winked at the girl and sat a little straighter in the saddle. She was about his age and kind of cute.
“What’s taking so long?” Denny finally yelled up to the men staring down at them. “Open the damn gate!”
“They need to get checked for bites!” the man yelled back at them. “But nobody wants to go in there.”
“Let us back out, then.” Swan yelled and pounded on the wall they’d just come through. “We’ll wait outside.”
“Hold your britches on, Missy.” One of the guards said. “The mayor said he’d give you an exemption, he’s on his way.”
Swan snarled at him and dropped her hands to her tomahawks. She could put one dead center of his forehead if she wanted.
“Let me out.” Swan said, her voice full of menace and drew them from their holsters.
The other children followed her lead, weapons were unsheathed, and spears were readied but not aimed. Not yet. Guns came up on top of the wall.
“Now, now, everybody calm down.” A man in a dapper black suit said as he walked up and peered over at them. “Lower your weapons, boys.”
They did immediately.
“Sorry it’s taking so long.” The man said smoothly. “My name is Mayor Moretz and I’m the Mayor here.
He smiled a toothy grin at them, amused at his own joke.
“We had to find a place for all of you. A safe place for your animals and to be frank, for us, too. We have a rule, we always check everyone for zombie bites. I’m sure you can appreciate that your situation is a little different.”
“Understood.” Kodiak said. “But our animals aren’t used to being caged. Us either. It’s making everyone nervous. If you’ll open the gate, they’ll wait outside.”
“No need for all that.” He said. “We have a place for you, we’re just tidying it up a bit. Making it presentable for our honored guests. It’s near the back side of town, it should be ready by the time you get there. If you’ll just follow the truck, Denny will have you there in a jiffy.”
He adjusted his smile and bolo tie, a sterling silver piece with turquoise inlay.
“What about their weapons?” One of the men asked. “No weapons allowed.”
“No guns allowed.” The mayor corrected. “The children have spears and knives. I’m sure they’re no threat to you boys now open the gate, let’s get them comfortable.”
“Denny, lead them around the perimeter road over to the stockyard.” He shouted down. “One of my boys will be there to show you where they’ll be staying.”
Denny gave him a thumbs up and the gate started to slowly open.
“Now, I hate to say this, but I feel it is my duty. Please stay right behind the truck and don’t wander off into town. I have the safety of my citizens to worry about. I’m sure you understand. It’s just until we get you checked out, then you’ll be free to go about your business.”
“I’ll wait outside.” Swan yelled up at him from her position at the entry gate.
The mayor turned away and disappeared from sight. Annoyed, she holstered her tomahawks and followed the slow-moving group as they made their way down the dirt road that hugged the wall. She heard the men above keeping pace, their footfalls loud on the steel of the containers, their guns ready to shoot anyone that strayed off the path.
The mayor signaled for three of the men that rarely left his side to follow the procession and make sure they were secured. He and his bodyguard climbed back down to a waiting car.
“We need to keep this quiet.” He said as soon as they were inside. “You were right, Jimmy. Those animals will add quite a few pieces of gold to our coffers. I called on the ham, there are a couple of collectors in the Tower looking for some exotic hides. We might even get a bidding war going.”
The bearded man nodded, he’d seen the cards requesting them pinned up in the retrievers bar in the Tower back when he’d been out hustling. He’d fallen in with Moretz, a local politician who needed some trusted men to do his dirty work, and they’d taken over the little town. It was a lot easier and safer life than running the wilds looking for trinkets for the rich folk. He recruited the other three, men he’d known back when he rode with Casey and his raiders. They’d seen the writing on the wall, they knew that outfit was a little too wild and got out while the getting was good. Now all he had to do was an occasional odd job for the mayor and he lived comfortably behind the walls.
“I wish those fools hadn’t brought them here, it would have been easier if nobody knew about them but no matter.” The mayor continued. “We need to get the word out that they’re contagious. I’ll have the doc check them out and as soon as that bear can walk, we’ll get rid of them.”
“Think she’ll play ball?” Jimmy asked. “She’s one of them do-gooders.”
“She will if she knows what’s best for her and her daughter.” Moretz answered. “You see Jimmy, power doesn’t have to be brandished like a club. Sometimes subtlety, just the hint of what may happen, is all you need. She’s a mother, and mothers will do anything to protect their children. She’ll do as she’s told.”
I don’t like this. Donny signed and Swan agreed. They didn’t feel like honored guests, they felt more like prisoners.
We get Otis stitched up and get out of here as fast as we can. She flashed back at him. Kodiak is distracted, keep an eye out.
He nodded and slowed his pace, put a little distance between them and watched the buildings for anyone else pointing guns. It wasn’t being paranoid if they really were out to get you. The towns people that saw them seemed nice enough. None of them were armed, they were curious but kept their distance. Sound carried in the silence and above the clump of booted footfalls on the metal two stories above them, they could hear snatches of conversation from the men with the guns. The mayors’ deputies. Swan padded softly with her wolves and her keen ears caught phrases like they look like a bunch of savages, probably too wild to be in civilized company and they probably smell as bad as the animals and a lewd comment that the others laughed at. I’d like to tame that one leading the giraffe.
Harper heard some of the remarks, too. The men weren’t exactly keeping their voices down. It was hard to believe they’d been so excited about reaching civilization again. They had believed everything would be great, the town would welcome them with open arms and maybe even fuss over them a little. She’d imagined the ladies wanting to clean them up and smother them with love, the poor things. They’d been talking about eating pizza and playing video games, watching a movie and having an ice cream, maybe putting on a circus act that everyone could enjoy. Now they were trudging towards some animal holding pens. It might still be all right. The mayor was just being careful and he couldn’t help it if his men were a little rough around the edges. They were probably good guys and would be embarrassed if they knew they could be heard.
The girl and the little dog followed the procession but she kept her distance from the men. In her experience, they weren’t very nice. One of them had even spat tobacco juice on Coffee once and they’d all laughed.
It was nearly a mile until they got to the stockyard that was far removed from the town. Swan tried to tamp down her anger and annoyance. She wasn’t so sure she liked civilization. Things weren’t so complicated in the wild. You hunted your food, you ran with your pack, you killed the undead. Nobody stared at your backside for long moments. Nobody wrinkled their n
ose at the way you looked. She still had unfinished business back in Iowa, she still owed a hunchback hyena a little payback. Her duty was to the tribe but in the back of her mind she knew at some point she would go looking for him even if she had to do it alone. She actually preferred it that way. She and the pack could move swiftly without anyone slowing them down or getting in the way. Nobody to take care of or care about. She would see them safely to Lakota, but after that she would do what she had to in order to settle the score once and for all with the beast.
Mayor Moretz waved them into a large metal barn. Harper tugged Bert’s bridle low so he could get through the door but once inside it was plenty tall enough for him to stand erect.
“This is only temporary.” The Mayor said in apology, his toothy grin white under the black mustache.
The children looked around the open barn. A half hour ago, it had been filled with cattle and they had left cow pies all over. Kodiak urged Otis out of the old ice cream truck and Moretz waved it away.
“The doctor is on the way, try to make yourselves comfortable. Once she’s fixed up your big friend and everyone’s been examined, we’ll rustle you up some hot food.”
He followed the truck out, asked loudly what was taking the doc so long to get there and the doors slid closed behind him.
“What a dump.” Tobias said as he gazed around the interior. It was barely fit for animals, much less a wounded one. He slid off his polar bear and landed in a wet pile of freshly minted cow dung. He cursed and wiped his boots off on a clump of hay as Swan laughed and Donny’s shoulders shook in quiet mirth.
“Keep it up.” He said humorlessly. “I’ll save some of this and add it to your dinner.”
Kodiak found a relatively clean corner and guided Otis into it and got him to lay down. Harper pulled an apple out of her satchel and sliced a piece off for him. It wasn’t spam but he ate it anyway and let them scratch his ears and rub his belly.
Bert sniffed at the motionless fans mounted in the ceiling and licked at it. Flies buzzed lazily around as Swan looked into the stalls, maybe there was a clean one with fresh hay. Something felt off to her. Moretz was a little too smooth despite his smile and good old boy charm. He reminded her a little of how Gordon had fooled everyone in the beginning. Except me she thought. I never trusted the bastard.
The others stood looking around at the cobwebs and burned out lights. It was hot and there wasn’t much air circulating. The big fans along the roof sat idle and rusted. Other than room for all of the animals it had nothing going for it.
“It’s not the Hilton, that’s for sure.” Vanessa said as she pulled the saddle off Ziggy.
Swan spun when she heard the sounds of a chain going through the handles of the sliding doors. She ran back to it and tried to yank it open. It slid an inch then stopped.
She turned to run to the other end but Donny was already sprinting towards it. He jerked the handle but it didn’t budge. The windows were high on the walls and most of them were broken but all of them had wire mesh covering them. They were in a giant cage.
Kassie sat on top of the wall, feet dangling, idly scratching Coffee behind the ears. She didn’t follow the men down the ladder, they would have run her off if they noticed her. She wondered why they put them in the dirty old cow barn. There were lots nicer places they could stay. She wondered why they locked them in, they didn’t even check them for bites. It didn’t seem fair. Her mom would be here soon, though. She’d straighten everything out. She hoped she could go inside and meet them, maybe they would let her pet one of the bears, and they were so huge.
Mayor Moretz and his men stopped at the foot of the ladder and she heard them talking. She knew it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop but it wasn’t her fault they didn’t look up and see her there. She was just minding her own business.
“Nobody comes in or out. You hear me?” Moretz ordered one of his men and pointed him back to stand guard duty at the barn. “That’s a fortune in exotic animals in there. Now that I’ve seen them, I’ll let those people in the Tower know what we have. That giraffe is priceless all on its own and so are those polar bears. They’ll look good once they get stuffed and posed.”
He sent two of the men off to guard both entrances and turned to the other who had a foot on the ladder, ready to climb back up to keep watch from above.
“Keep watch from above.” He told him. “They might try to climb out a window or something. We’re headed over to get the doc. I’ll send her over to see if she can do anything for the bear, get it patched up enough to walk out of here. We’ll get rid of them tonight, even if we gotta haul it out in a truck. Meanwhile we’ve got to keep up appearances. Too many people saw us bring them in, they’ll start talking. Once the doc gets finished, we’ll spread the word they’re infected with something, something real contagious, and we’ll send them on their way. They’ll be easy to track, we’ll give them a few hours head start then pick them off from a safe distance.”
“You got it boss.” The man said “but what about them kids?”
“Dead men tell no tales.” Moretz said “We can’t let them go blabbing. Nobody will miss them so take care of it.”
“So you don’t mind if we have a go at them girls?”
“Consider it a little bonus for your dedicated work. Just make sure nobody finds the bodies.” Moretz said. “C’mon, Jimmy. The sooner we get the doc over here, the sooner we can get rid of them.”
“That’s cold, boss.” He man said with a laugh and slung his rifle to climb the ladder.
“I wasn’t always the fine upstanding mayor you see before you.” Moretz said with a smug smile and walked towards the car.
Kassie rolled quietly from the edge and hurried away from the man puffing his way up the ladder, her moccasins silent on the metal. She couldn’t hardly believe what she’d overheard. She had to warn the kids. She had to tell her mom.
9
The Island
The man’s beard was getting long as he looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t need to look good for anyone, he was by himself, but this was the first time he’d seen his image in a long time. He tried to avoid it, after all, he was a killer. His face was gaunt, too. He used to be beefy.
Portly.
Hell, who was he trying to fool? He’d been a fatso. Amazing what the end of the world could do for your figure. He hadn’t seen anyone in months and people out in the wild weren’t the kind of people you wanted to meet anyway. Everyone in the country had made it to one of the walled cities as far as he knew. The only ones left outside were usually the type of people you didn’t want to meet. They were either retrievers or bounty hunters looking to collect a reward or remnants of Casey’s gang looking for somebody to terrorize.
Steven had lived behind the walls right after the world went mad. He’d made it to an enclave up in North Dakota called the Island. It was secure and safe and he was glad to be there. He’d lost his whole family and had nearly been torn apart himself when he arrived. His truck was almost out of gas, a horde was chasing him up the causeway and he would have been killed if they hadn’t opened the gates. It was okay in the beginning but as time went by, the government got stronger and more intrusive and for him, things got worse. He couldn’t seem to catch a break. He couldn’t get a good job and the more he complained the worse it got. The party officials became downright tyrannical but everyone accepted it because they were safe. He’d become a recluse surrounded by unfriendly people. He had worked at a coal fired power plant before the fall but they had assigned him a job as fish processor. He worked eight hours a day gutting, beheading and scaling fish. He couldn’t quit, it wasn’t allowed. They would throw him out. He couldn’t get a different job, this was the one he was assigned. He told his superiors he could be better utilized at the power plant. He had experience, even if it wasn’t hydroelectric. They didn’t listen, the bureaucracy was a nightmare and no matter how many transfer forms he filled out they were always denied. They provided a house and safety and in return
you had to do what they said. He hated it.
He tried, he really had, but he wasn’t very good and he kept getting his pay docked, his rations shorted and his living quarters were downsized to a shipping container. He was fifty years old, wasn’t as fast as the younger workers and had a hard time controlling his mouth. He went from fish processor to janitor and then to night shift muckraker cleaning up the piles of fish guts and hosing down the blood. If there was a worse job on the island, he wasn’t aware of it. The council’s overseer who was in charge of the fishing industry was a severe young woman who thought nothing of stepping on her underlings to climb in position. Steven had a hard time taking orders from a clueless party official who loved her power and was eager to show how efficient she was to her superiors. She caught him taking an unauthorized break the night his life went from bad to worse.
“I’m all caught up!” He’d argued. “There’s nothing left to clean, no guts to shovel up, no blood to hose down. I’m ahead of schedule!”
“Then polish the floor. Make it shine, make it pristine for day shift.” She said coldly. “It sets a bad example for the workers not to work.”
“I’ll mop it when there’s something to be mopped.” He said and sat back down in defiance.
“Fine.” She said and pulled out her ever-present clipboard. “You’re being reassigned to hull scrubber, effective immediately. Report to commissar Sanders.”
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 61