Gregory still was there at the rear of the truck. He watched his confederates and the flame without comment.
A humming began. The hunters formed a circle around the bonfire, where they swayed and uttered wordless sounds. Soon came a slow, rhythmic clapping of their hands and a stomping of their feet. Some shook and hopped in place. The hum turned into a steady intonation, a moan that spoke to something foreign that belonged to the hunters alone. The murmuring tones frightened her.
The sky was now completely dark save for sparks that rose on the fire’s thermal tide. Some of the hunters, men and women both, took off their hats, coats, and shirts and cast them aside. She watched their swaying silhouettes as their movements became more pronounced with an ever-increasing fury. Some stomped their feet. Others picked up handfuls of dust and threw them into the air.
Dinah thought she heard Gregory laugh, but realized the man was making sobbing sounds. He dropped his coat and pulled his shirt off. She felt a rush of renewed fear for her own safety, but Gregory just began his own lamentation. He fell on his knees. His words were a stream of unintelligible whispers.
Over at the fire, someone was carrying a man-sized dummy on a crudely fashioned pole. The dummy was waved over the flame and spun about. Soon it caught fire. The revelers cooed and roared. The twirling figure became completely engulfed in flame.
Gregory began slapping himself, first on his arms but then on his face. He was mumbling something. She could just make out “I’m sorry” among the gibberish. It was hard to see the others at the bonfire, but some of them were down in the dirt. With belts or removed boots they beat themselves across the back, each man or woman to their own self-punishment. Was Karl somewhere in the gloom or by the fire, sharing in this ritual?
“What is wrong with you people?” she asked, but Gregory wasn’t listening.
His moans got louder. He pulled his own belt from his waist. A strange sigh came from his mouth as he whipped himself across each shoulder.
She pushed at the cage door. It was held closed by a padlock. The square spaces of the thick wire near the latch wouldn’t allow her fingers through, and it was too dark to see what kind of lock it was even if she could get her hands on it.
The burning effigy was paraded about the outer circle of dancers until finally it was again held over the flames. Some of the hunters threw rocks, sticks, or chunks of earth at it. There came shouts of “Purge!”
Dinah heard a thunk at the back of the truck.
Gregory was now out of sight. Was this some new part of the strange rite?
A groan came from somewhere below the back gate. Another thunk, followed by silence. There was a rustling. A dark figure leaped up into the back of the truck. It was a woman. She held a key.
“Michelle?” Dinah asked, disbelieving her eyes.
When the woman got close, Dinah saw it wasn’t Michelle, but a young woman in her twenties with long hair tied into a tail. She shushed Dinah as she unlocked the cage.
Dinah didn’t wait for an invitation. She followed as the woman climbed out of the truck. Gregory lay there, flat out on the dirt. Next to him was something that looked like the head of a heavy pickax without the handle. That explained the thunk. She wanted to go through his pockets for a weapon, but it was so dark and there were too many hunters nearby. Yet she hesitated. She had nothing, no food, no means of survival, not even her device.
The woman hissed and pointed away from the trucks and the ritual.
Quickly, Dinah began to fumble with Gregory’s dropped belt and tools. She found the injector he had used to kill Michelle. The device appeared simple enough. Gregory had just jabbed her with it. In the low light, she had no way of knowing if it was still loaded. She considered Gregory. All she had to do was stick him in any part of his exposed flesh. His back was already streaked with bloody welts. She could take his life, and there would be one less monster chasing her.
“Leave it,” the woman whispered. She moved out into the dark.
Dinah wanted to spit on Gregory, but her mouth was too dry. She settled for a kick. The blow was a feeble thing but still satisfying. She turned to run.
As if from nowhere, the old man was there next to her. The racket from the ceremony was still quite loud, and she hadn’t heard him make a sound. He grabbed her by the wrist.
Dinah clawed for his face and pulled at his goggles and bandanna, yanking them down. Under it all, she saw a decrepit slack jaw that appeared misaligned. She drove her knee upward, hoping that the parts above his legs were not armored. They weren’t. He grunted in pain, doubled forward, and groaned. When he didn’t let go, she bit his hand.
He screamed. She ground down with her teeth, and he finally released her. His other hand shot out.
So quick for an old man…
She stabbed him in the palm with the injector. When the needle went in, it made a hiss. She dropped it and took a step back.
The old man pulled away from her, his arm curled tight against his chest. He glared at her. The dancing light from the bonfire played across his face. His eyes were those of a stranger, yet there was something familiar about him. He moaned and fell to his knees. Before she could run, she heard him call her by name.
“Dinah,” he croaked. “You always were a mutant.”
***
Even in the bad light, she could see that the old man had Ruben’s eyes. So much didn’t make sense. He was here, now, and not some captive in her one-time home. And he was one of them.
She had found him; she had killed him. If the poison worked as it had with Michelle, he would die in seconds. He would be gone once again.
Yet he didn’t fall down. Her mind reeled. She felt sick. It wasn’t possible.
A dozen hunters were running her direction from the bonfire.
Her brother started to chuckle like a phantasm spawned by her headache, a new evil goblin related by birth. He didn’t fall. He didn’t die.
Dinah ran.
The woman who freed her was nowhere in sight. Dinah pushed through the tall grasses growing around one of the parched fields, expecting headlights at any moment. The broken soil almost tripped her up several times. Then a small form was standing motionless in front of her, and she collided with it.
It was the little boy, the one who lived under the house. In the poor light, she could see none of the boy’s features, but he didn’t smell any better than before. He got up without a word and grabbed his doll from the dirt. She pulled him along by the arm. He followed.
As they got further away from the farm they passed through waist-high thistles. Then the boy took the lead, tugging at Dinah’s hand. He led her on a tangent from where she had been leading him. Suddenly the boy let go and vanished. She could see nothing in the pitch black. She froze, expecting him to spring up, perhaps having tripped, but he stayed gone.
“Hey!” she hissed.
She heard nothing but the hunters raising the alarm behind her. They would be there soon.
She stepped forward carefully and almost fell down an open hole. The boy tugged at the bottom of her pants. Dinah got low and joined him in a small rocky pit surrounded by a wall of weeds. It was a perfect hiding place, unless someone walked right up to them. Or drove over them. Or had a Dinah-tracking sensor.
“We can’t stay here,” Dinah said. “Come with me.”
He didn’t reply, but he climbed out of the pit after her and clung to Dinah’s hand as she led him.
The hunters were calling her by name. Truck headlights cut through the night.
The boy was wheezing by the time they made it to a dry creek bed. From here they could climb into the hills. That’s where she had fled last time. Instead she followed it in the direction of other farms. She didn’t know how much strength she had left, and she focused on each step and each breath of air. Her legs felt like they were made of wood.
They ducked a few times when she thought she saw a shadow move nearby. When Dinah paused to keep from collapsing, something soft was pushed into he
r face. It was the boy’s doll. It smelled worse than he did. He made a soft grunting sound. She pushed the doll away.
“You keep it. You’ll need it more than me.”
The illumination from the bonfire cast a pulsing orange glow into the night sky. Even brighter white lights came from two of the trucks, which were now partway up the nearest hill. Perhaps Karl had told them she would head that way, so to the hills they would turn, at least until her brother or Gregory activated a tracker.
Someone or something moved in the darkness in the streambed ahead of them.
Dinah froze, watched, saw nothing. But she had seen one Wally in town not far from there. More motion, and now she definitely saw two figures, one having just slid down the short embankment next to the first.
One began to approach her and the boy. The second one had a knife drawn.
Dinah gripped the little boy close and was ready to turn and flee when the first shadow spoke.
“You need to get out of here.” It was a woman’s voice. Dinah’s night vision was somewhat spoiled from looking back at camp, but she saw it was the woman with the long ponytail.
“Who are you?”
“No time,” the woman said. “Head that way.” She pointed in a direction that would take Dinah out of the streambed and away from camp. Then the two shadows headed toward the hunters.
An explosion erupted from the hillside. One of the trucks was now burning. The flames appeared bright yellow against the black hill. Other dark figures sprang up and sprinted past. Although it was dark, Dinah noted none of them wore the long coats of the hunters, but instead were clad in the drab garb of the valley residents. Some carried crossbows of their own, and one had some kind of rifle.
Every instinct told her that this was the time to go. Whatever trouble the hunters had finally wrought was coming to a head. Yet she hesitated, knowing that Ruben was here and the answers to her questions were in her grasp. And now if he was killed, how would she ever find Rosalyn? The boy tugged at her.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Another explosion came from the hill. The second truck went up in flames. The night came alive with shouts and the snaps of gunfire The smell of burning gasoline filled the air. In the firelight, she could finally see the boy’s face. It wore an odd half-smile and held no fear. He put his hand in hers.
They went in the direction the woman had pointed. Sharp cracks continued to break the air behind them, loud but not close. The echoes of the reports made it impossible to tell which side the shots had originated from. Dinah heard a long yell, but didn’t know whether it was one of pain or exultation.
They rounded a collapsed barn and almost collided with two people rolling about on the ground fighting. Their arms and legs were interlocked. Both grunted like animals. One of them was clearly one of her pursuers, decked out in black with a bandanna around his neck. A knife lay in the dirt near them.
The boy almost jerked free from her hand when he saw them, tugging her in the opposite direction, back to his home and his hole. If she paused to help, he would surely slip away.
Dinah pointed forward. The boy understood. They moved past the struggling pair without a sound.
As they broke into a run again, it didn’t take long for the boy to tire. Perhaps he was sick, or maybe he was just out of shape, but the wheeze returned in full force. She urged him forward, and he kept up the best he could.
On the far north side of what had been the outskirts of the village, they approached several more burned homes clustered together. No one moved about and all the sounds of fighting were behind them. A long hedge of oleander ran alongside the property, and its shadows were perfect. She stopped to let the boy catch his breath. He kept an eye on her. His doll stayed in the crook of an arm.
“One minute and we keep running,” she whispered.
Someone approached. He held something in his hands that beeped with a winking green light. She began to pull at the boy’s arm, and he stumbled after her, but his short legs weren’t moving quick enough. He tripped.
“Dinah!” came a sharp whisper.
It was Karl. She kept trying to back up, but she didn’t let go of the boy. Karl got close, close enough that if he lunged he would catch her. If only the boy would get to his feet…
“Stay back.” She hauled the boy upright by the back of his pants. She couldn’t see anyone with Karl, but as dark as it was a dozens hunters could be lurking anywhere. The night had suddenly become quiet, with no more gunfire.
“Don’t touch me!”
Karl gave a quick look around as if she had spoken too loudly for his comfort. But who was he afraid might hear?
“Dinah. There’s no time to explain everything, but we have a chance to get you away.”
“You drugged me and handed me over to those murderers.”
“Keep your voice down.”
A man started screaming in pain just beyond the row of houses. Whether this was a hunter or one of the valley people, she didn’t know. She also hadn’t known that anyone could scream that loud. Karl ignored the cries and held his hand out.
“Come with me now, and I’ll get you safely away from here. I’ll explain everything. And you can decide what you want to do after that. But we can’t wait any longer. It’s too dangerous.”
Dinah had a clear route in sight across a broken field covered with ash. Maybe she could outrun him. She also might claw her way through the thick hedge and use her smaller size to her advantage. It would be possible to evade him, but with the boy in tow she knew Karl could catch them.
Karl took another step forward. “What do you say?”
Just then others came out of the darkness. One was the woman with the ponytail. She held a spear. The second was a young man just a little older than Dinah, who was carrying a crossbow loaded with a bolt. The weapon was trained on Karl.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Karl said. A third figure came up behind him and clocked him across the side of the head, knocking him down. Others seized him and tied his hands behind his back.
The woman guided Dinah and the boy in a direction away from the village. “Move it, girl,” she said.
They were soon joined by three more. A woman helped along a man whose leg appeared broken as it trailed behind him. A younger man gripped Karl and pushed him along. Karl was still conscious but he never called out or cried for help.
The woman with the Ponytail led them. Dinah kept her bearing for longer than she would have liked by the shrieks of the dying man back at the farmhouses.
They moved through the night for what must have been two miles. The boy kept up, even though Dinah had to help him several times when he stumbled on something that his little legs couldn’t quite navigate. The villagers met up with two more of their number before they stopped. They took their rest in a circle of rocks under a grove of drooping willow trees that blocked much of the night sky. Three others waited for them here.
“Report,” said the woman.
“We burned two of their trucks,” said the man with the broken leg. “Took some of them down. Caught them by surprise, as expected. I’ve got one of mine missing.”
“Killed at least three by the fire,” another said. “They got two of us there as we were trying to pick a few more off with our crossbows. And Andy got caught sneaking in to get at some of their rifles.”
“I said to hit and run once we freed the prisoners,” the woman said sharply. “If we stand and fight, we die.”
“Wait, this is it?” asked the younger man. “This is everyone that’s left?”
“We don’t know who’s left,” the woman said. “We got scattered. Others might be heading here now.”
“Doubt it,” said a second woman. She spoke through clenched teeth. Her hands were pressed to her jaw as if in pain. “We’re it. We were slow because of the prisoner. We’re the last ones here. And we knew we’d take losses.”
“Agreed,” said the first woman. “Our attack did what it was supposed to d
o. It will slow them down. Make them regroup. We watch them and keep our distance and look for an opportunity to strike again.”
“There won’t be another opportunity,” said the panicky kid. “This was our best shot. They aren’t having parties like that every night. We got lucky, and they nearly wiped us out. They’re better armed than us, and without rifles we can’t fight them. And all we saved was her.” He pointed to Dinah.
“Trevor, you should head north and meet up with the others,” the leader said.
At this apparent dismissal, Trevor went silent and didn’t budge.
“Okay then. We keep moving. And then we find out what this man knows.”
***
The woman’s name was Redmon. At least, that’s what the others in the group called her. Once he pulled himself together, Trevor called her “ma’am.”
Dinah had always felt she was in good physical shape, but the meager rations of late and her fading level of adrenaline made the journey to their next stop an arduous one. A few times the woman with the hurt mouth guided her along when she lost her footing. Dinah in turn helped the boy, who never uttered a word, which also meant he never complained.
The perfect baby brother.
Now if they could only find him a bath.
They met up with a man and a woman who had set up a cold camp up on a hill in a clearing surrounded by tall grass and a few trees. Here they were finally allowed to plop down to the ground, thoroughly spent. The rest of the group fell out and found places to collapse, except for Redmon and one of the villagers who had been escorting Karl. Karl was forced to sit near the center of the camp, and his feet were bound.
Redmon spoke in low tones to the two who had set up the camp. Apparently they weren’t ready for whatever news she shared, as the man broke off and suppressed a sob. The woman moved to comfort him. Redmon left them and came over to Dinah.
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