So there I was, sitting on the back porch, a glass of iced tea in my hand waiting for Dax, as ordered, when Tiffy came and sat down beside me.
“Hi, Tiffy.”
“Hi, Dahlia,” she said with the cutest little smile I’d ever seen. This was what children should look like, healthy and smiling, not how I’d seen them at the compound.
She looked around, her curls bouncing as she did, and then leaned closer. “I heard you met Hairy?”
“Harry? Who’s he?”
“No. Not Harry. Hairy. That’s what I call him, the beast.”
This kid had some serious intel. No one knew what happened out in the forest with the beast. I certainly hadn’t fessed to it after what happened with Dax afterward. “Why do you say that?”
“My friends told me.”
Were her friends spying on me? “Who are these friends?” I kept my voice light as I asked.
“Can’t say. Hairy’s nice. We play together sometimes but only when I can sneak out. I’m not supposed to play with him, any of beasts, but I think that’s mean. They get lonely out there. And they don’t mean to hurt anyone, even Hairy. He just does what makes him happy.”
I was really starting to think this kid shouldn’t be left alone at all. Whatever had happened to her, even forgotten or buried so deep I couldn’t see it, seemed to have stolen a few chunks of reality. After everything I’d been through myself, I felt like a total hypocrite thinking she was crazy, but using the beasts as playmates didn’t have another label in my book.
“Tiffy, I don’t think you should do that. The beasts are dangerous.”
“Not to us,” she said, and took my hand.
Don’t feed into her delusions. Don’t ask; just tell her to stop. “Why not?”
Her little eyes rolled to the sky. “Because we are magic, silly.”
“That’s right. I remember you saying something about that.”
“My friends are waiting to meet you, so let me know when you’re free. They get impatient.”
She kept talking about friends and I thought back over the last couple of days. Not once had I seen another kid.
“Are they around?”
“They don’t live here.”
“Oh, okay.” I was starting to think these friends were of the invisible variety. But how had invisible friends known about the beast in the forest? Unless it was a lucky guess?
The backdoor opened and Dax looked at the little girl. “Tiffy, you aren’t telling stories, right?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes again. “Dax, I’d never do that,” she said with the most authoritative little voice I’d ever heard.
God, I liked this kid.
“Just make sure it’s okay.”
It was an odd conversation to be sure, but I let it go. I had enough oddness in my own life to question anyone else’s. Compared to what I had going on, they were regular ole Janes and Joes.
“We’re leaving now,” he said to me. Not asked, told. He was making a point and I didn’t particularly care for it.
“Yeah.” I smiled at the little girl. “Bye, Tiffy. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“You’re coming back, right?”
“Yes. I’m coming back.” I looked at Dax for confirmation of time. “Tonight?”
“Late tonight or early morning.”
Her little head nodded and then she pulled me closer to her so she could whisper in my ear. “We’ll talk later.”
“I’ve got the bike up front,” Dax said, and I followed him as he walked around the house. Awkward and tense was an understatement, but I was having a hard time pinning down who was the main culprit. Was I projecting my uncomfortable feelings or just picking up on his general mood? Or was it a little of both, ricocheting back and forth until we were repelling each other like the same poles of a magnet?
He halted beside the bike but stopped short of getting on it. “She really likes you. You’re good with kids.”
“Thanks,” I said, waiting for the but, and there definitely was one.
“She’s got attachment issues. Since you aren’t going to be around for the long haul, it’s best if you keep your distance.”
My head dropped. I knew he was right and I felt bad for not realizing it myself. I nodded, not needing to say anything. I got it. Boy, did I get it.
He got onto the bike and I climbed on behind him, swearing I’d keep my distance from him and her.
That turned out to be the most talk we did all day. We rode about an hour and a half away, to another “hole,” as they were called.
We didn’t talk on the way in.
We got ales, I spotted not one but two Dark Walkers, but I shook my head and denied their presence and we drove back.
Dax was gone by dinner.
Chapter 20
I awoke to a knock the next morning, but instead of this one being followed by orders direct from Dax, it was Bookie whispering, asking if he could come in.
I jumped out of bed and ushered him in. He closed the door behind him and then said in hushed tones, “Word is Dax has to go out to the rig for something that should keep him most of the day. How quick can you be ready?”
“Five minutes,” I said as I was already gathering my hair into a ponytail.
He moved to the door as I grabbed my traveling outfit.
“Show your face at breakfast. I’ll drop a couple of comments how I’m going to give you a tour of the area so as not to arouse suspicion with anyone while we’re gone. At my signal, meet me behind the barn.”
“Got it.”
He left to go downstairs and spread the lie and I was downstairs five minutes later, like promised.
I choked down a plate of eggs while waiting for Bookie’s signal, which turned out to be nothing more than him nodding toward the vicinity of the barn. He had a bike waiting and ready to go. Neither of us wasted any time chatting. I hopped on the back and we were off less than a few minutes later.
We slowed down an hour later and I knew without anyone telling me that this used to be a city. The partial frameworks of buildings still stood tall in places, and other than the Cement Giant, I wasn’t sure if I’d experienced anything so creepy. It was like I could feel the ghosts of the world that once was.
I climbed off the back and Bookie pushed the bike along, talking to me as he did. “It’s better to walk this part. You can see sinkholes coming easier than if we were riding. Problem with these old cities is, if what’s left of the buildings doesn’t crumble down on you, the ground might fall out from underneath. All the metal that held things up is deteriorating to nothing. Then there’s the other diggers.”
“What are diggers?” I asked, looking at the buildings we passed. Some still had a window or two intact that you could see the sun reflect off underneath a heavy veil of vines.
“Diggers are people who come out looking through wreckage for things. You could call me a digger even though I’m mostly after books. Diggers are usually harmless but you’ve always got a couple bad apples, ones who try and stake a claim to a certain ruin as theirs.”
“But after so many years, what’s left?” When I caught a glimpse into some of the places, they didn’t look much different on the inside than the outside.
“How much do you know about the Bloody Death?” he asked then quickly added, “Other than the obvious, having had it.”
“Showed up out of nowhere and decimated the human race.”
“You know how quickly it spread?”
“Like a bat out of hell.”
“Once it hit and people realized what was happening, they were dead or hiding. Lots of stuff left behind, even now. There’s still niches, here and there, that survived the elements. Like that.” He pointed down what once was a street to a building ahead. “That’s the book place. A library, they called it.”
“I’ve heard of those.” The “library” looked like half of it had been swallowed into the ground. It didn’t look any better as we got closer.
He grabbed somet
hing out of one of the bike’s side bags that looked like a little mini lantern and handed it to me. He laid the bike on its side and started covering it with vines.
He lit the lantern I was holding and then took it back. “Follow me and watch your step.”
I followed him into the dark chaos. It was like crawling down into a cave, a really musty one. I couldn’t see too far beyond us with the one light, but I was actually climbing over books as we walked farther in.
“So what did you want to look for?” he asked, stopping. “I’ve figured out some of the sections.”
“Instructional-type stuff. Like how to build things.”
“How to build what? Maybe I already know how to do whatever it is you want this book to tell you to do,” he said.
“Probably not.”
He shrugged. “Try me.”
“Do you know how to build bombs?”
His face scrunched for a minute like he was trying to find the knowledge in his head, as if he’d read so much he had to scan his internal database. He finally said, “Drawing a blank. Why do you want bombs, though?”
“Because I left people back where I came from and I have to get them,” I said as I squatted down and started looking through the pile on the ground: History of George Washington, World War II. “I think were in the wrong section.”
He nodded and we walked, partially climbed, over to a different pile about ten feet away. He was looking through some books on the ground as he said, “I’ve heard about those places, the kind you came from. Was it bad being there?”
“Yeah, they pretty much suck.” I picked up Sweet Southern Desserts with a picture of the nicest-looking pie I’d ever seen. No bombs but this looked like a keeper.
“Why do you want to risk going back?”
Now that I was out of that place, I wanted to wipe the memory of living there clean from my mind, but I couldn’t. After I got them out, though, I was going to get a big jug of that whiskey stuff, and me and the girls would have a grand night where we could get out all our grievances. Then we’d torch the memories like they’d never happened. Or at least I hoped. I knew how sticky memories could get, but I had a lot of faith in that whiskey.
“I can’t leave them behind. But I’m going to need these bombs. It’s the only way I’ll be able to do it on my own. I’m going to blow the place up.” I flipped open French Cuisine. “I think we need to try a different pile or we’re going to have to hunt some food down.”
“I’m going to go help you.”
“Help me what?” There were some awesome-looking desserts in this book, too.
“I’m going to go back with you and help you get your friends out.”
“You are?” I’d thought it impossible a second ago, but French Cuisine was forgotten.
He nodded and smiled at me.
“But you don’t even know them. Why would you risk yourself?” I asked. “You could die. I might die.” Death wasn’t an outcome I hoped for but I wasn’t delusional. It was a real possibility, and I was avoiding tallying up the odds because I knew that they’d be stacked against me.
“I know that and I know you and I know what is right. I’ve read the history, and this isn’t how the world should be. People used to help each other. It’ll never get back to something like that unless we make it like that.”
I fell back on my ass in the middle of food books. Bookie didn’t look anything like a fighter—the exact opposite, actually—and yet here he was willing to go to the compound with me because it was something he thought was worth fighting for. Or maybe he looked exactly like a fighter because he had more heart crammed into his lean frame then anyone I’d ever met besides myself.
I forgot about the fact that I was a Plaguer and jumped up, throwing my arms around him. Before I thought of what I’d done, he was already hugging me back.
It only took a second or two before the awkwardness kicked in and we were breaking apart. I wasn’t sure who stepped back first.
He was quick to break the unease of the moment. He was good that that way. “I don’t know if you should be this happy. I’m not sure how much math they taught you at that place you came from, but although two is twice as much as one, in our equation, two still equals fucked.”
I laughed harder than I should’ve, and he joined me as only two people in over their heads together could. We might have been idealistic in our reasons, but we were realistic in the outcome.
“I’ve got some other good news,”
“Besides having company going out in a ball of flames?” I asked, still making a joke of it because if I didn’t, the idea of him dying with the rest of us was too much.
“I already know where we can get what we need.”
“Explosives?”
“Yes. And they’re not far from here. Come on.” He was grabbing my hand and tugging me after him.
Instead of going somewhere else in the city, we got back on the bike and didn’t stop until we were in the middle of an empty field.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, getting off the bike.
“Yes, there is.” He kicked out the stand and walked four feet from the bike and then knelt down. He was on the ground and digging through the dirt, tugging on something, when all of a sudden a square chunk of grass and dirt rose up.
“What is that?”
“It’s a silo. A shelter someone made to weather the storm.”
He climbed down and motioned me to follow him. He disappeared completely. I walked over and saw the room below he was standing in and climbed down the ladder behind him.
The place wasn’t that big but it was certainly well stocked.
There was a set of metal bunk beds along the wall and a table against the other.
“Somebody made this to prepare for the end of the world but it doesn’t even look like they used it,” Bookie said.
“Talk about missing the boat.” What a waste. All that time and planning and they still bit the dust. They must have waited too long, and like so many others were dead before they got out of Dodge. I kind of wished I could go back and talk to whoever built this and say, Buddy, world’s ending. What are you waiting for?
Bookie walked to the far-off wall where a metal cabinet was and opened the latch. “This is what I brought you here for.”
I’d read about explosives in books but I’d never seen them in person. “These all explode?”
“Yep. Well, I think so anyway. Whoever made this probably figured if they ended up having to use the place, they’d need to booby-trap it. I’m guessing they’re landmines and grenades, but we’ll have to do a bit more research. I don't have extensive knowledge of explosives.”
“I think we start moving the stash closer to home—I mean the house. It’s going to take us a bunch of trips just to get the stuff there. Then we figure out how we’re going to get it to the place I came from to blow it up.” Seeing the mound of grenades piled up, the reality of what I was getting him into, hit hard. “This is going to be a tough job,” I said, looking at him and wondering if he really knew what he was gearing up for.
“I’m ready. Are you up for it, Doxie?” he asked.
Doxie? That was Moobie’s sidekick! “You read Moobie?” I didn’t think copies made it out into the Wilds.
“Who doesn't?”
“We’ve got to clear one thing up. I’m Moobie.”
“I’m the one with the supplies. I’m Moobie.”
“It’s my plan,” I said, confident that he’d come around to my way of thinking in time. “But okay, you can be Moobie, for now.” I might get the kid killed. I guessed I could let him think he was in charge for a little while.
***
“I knew we took too long,” Bookie said, using the back of his hand to hit my arm before he pointed toward the house.
Even in the dark, I could see Dax’s silhouette standing on the porch, feet shoulder-width apart and arms crossed in front of his chest as he watched our approach. One of the perimeter guards had probably tipped
him off that we were coming.
When we’d left the silo, hitching that wagon we’d found to the back of the bike seemed like such a great idea. We’d already gotten four times the amount of explosives we would’ve been able to carry back and stashed them in the forest. It had also taken four times as long to get back. It wasn’t like we could abandon our load halfway when we figured out how much slower we were moving.
My back was already stiffening at the sight of Dax. “He doesn’t have any right to say where I go. I’m not his prisoner.”
Bookie made a groaning noise before he said, more to himself than me, “Oh God, this is going to be ugly. I thought I’d at least live until we bombed the compound.” He was joking, but I could hear the nervousness underneath the humor.
I walked determinedly toward the looming Dax. His eyes flickered over me, then moved to Bookie. I stepped closer to Bookie in response, drawing Dax’s eyes back to me. He seemed to be getting more pissed by the second.
“I know you took a bike. Where did you take her?” Dax asked, looking back at Bookie.
“I—”
“I asked Bookie to show me around,” I said, cutting Bookie off and bringing Dax’s anger back to me. This was my heat and I wasn’t going to let Bookie burn for me. He was already doing enough.
It redirected easily. “I didn’t break you out so that you could get killed touring the Wilds. You don’t leave here without me.” He looked back at Bookie. “And you—”
I stepped completely in front of Bookie this time.
“I agreed to work with you. Not to listen to your almighty commands.”
“Dal, what the hell—” Bookie started saying from behind me until I cut him off again.
“I’ll do whatever I want,” I said to Dax, making sure I was the sole target of his anger. If I got him angry enough at me, he’d most likely forget about Bookie.
“We’ll see about that.” Dax turned on his heel and walked in the house.
The Wilds: The Wilds Book One Page 15