Zero didn’t bother to turn around and he didn’t hear any footsteps following after him for a long time. Just when he was starting to feel like Root had abandoned him, he heard footsteps on the pavement quickly approaching from behind.
Root ran past him. “Hurry up, Zero.”
“I’m glad to see you made up your mind,” Zero said, hurrying to catch up.
“I’ve always said…I’m looking to discover…the bigger picture to…everything around us,” he said, struggling to breathe and talk at the same time while he was running. “My world is already different…than when I woke up this morning. I have a feeling this…may change everything even more.”
Zero’s legs felt like they were going to collapse beneath him. He was physically powerful, but running long distances was never one of his strengths—especially considering the fact that he had lived the majority of his life confined to an area that would take him only about two minutes to run from one side to the other.
Half the sun was now hiding behind the horizon. The half that remained visible was now glowing orange and illuminating the clouds above in an array of purple and pink. A few of the brightest stars had begun to appear in the sky opposite, peeking through the clouds.
A pair of headlights shined toward them as a pickup truck appeared around a corner in the distance. Zero had no idea who those lights might belong to, but whether they were from another Remnant vehicle or from one of the Elites, he wanted nothing to do with it. He jumped off the road and hurried into the trees to hide. Root joined him, ducking into the brush. They watched as the pickup passed by. It was a small truck—white with two brown stripes down the length of it.
“Did you just see that?” Root asked. “You know what truck that was, don’t you?”
“It looked an awful lot like the same truck that was used to take Mud.”
“This means we’re on the right track. She’s got to be farther down this road somewhere.”
“Do you think there’s a chance they’re out looking for us?” Zero asked.
“What for? They already took her. What more would they want from us?”
“Do you think there’s a chance they didn’t take her to steal her baby? What if they’re trying to help her?” Zero jumped to his feet and hurried out to the road. He began to run again in the same direction they had been heading.
“What makes you think they know how to help her? They’re just animals.”
“We seem to run into them everywhere we go, which means they’re fully capable of reproducing. You and I just barely learned that women even exist, which means that even though their brains are scrambled, in some ways they know more than we do. I wonder if they could tell we have no idea how to help her.”
Zero’s legs cramped up, but he didn’t dare slow down—especially not now that he felt so certain they were on the right track. He didn’t want to stop anymore until they got where they were going—even if he didn’t know where that was. Every time he stopped to hide or to think, his body ached even more when he began running again. Now every inch of him hurt.
Another set of headlights began to illuminate the street around them, but Zero didn’t bother to hide this time. He moved to the side of the road, expecting the vehicle to speed past them. He heard the puttering of an engine and the sound of tires slowing on the pavement as the owner of that vehicle pulled up alongside them.
Zero turned to see the white pickup truck again. Root was standing with his shoulders square to the truck, backing up to create some distance between them.
The driver pulled the truck to a stop. He left the engine idling as he opened his door. He put both feet onto the pavement—placing one hand on the top of his door and keeping the other on the steering wheel. “In,” he said, pointing to the pickup’s bed. “In.”
“What do you think?” Root asked. “Do we get in?”
“I think we have to. Do we have much of a choice?”
“Of course we have a choice.”
Zero looked at Root, then at the truck. “I’m not sure we do. I’m going after Mud either way, and I don’t know that we’ll ever find her if we don’t get in this guy’s truck. He knows where she is.”
“She might be dead by now. This could be a trap.”
“She might not be.”
They both turned and stared at the Remnant, who was still pointing to the back of the truck. “In. In. In.”
Zero approached the Remnant until he was almost within arm’s reach of the driver’s side door, which created a barrier between them. He looked the Remnant up and down. “Can you understand me? What have you done with Mud? Is she safe?”
“In. In.”
“Is she alive?”
“In. In.”
Zero took a deep breath and walked around the door—keeping a close eye on the driver to make sure he wouldn’t try anything crazy. He placed both hands on the side of the pickup bed, and jumped up, swinging his legs over the side. He landed inside the pickup’s bed. He rested his back against the wall of the bed next to the wheel well.
Root soon joined him. “I’d be lying if I said I trusted this guy.”
The air rushed through his hair. The driver took every turn at an incredibly high speed. Zero gripped the edge of the bed’s wall, hoping he had the strength to keep himself from being tossed out.
When they crested the top of a hill, they saw a few lights spread out amongst the trees—each one illuminating a small shack. Zero rubbernecked as they passed each one, trying to steal a peek at whoever lived there. The farther they drove, the larger the homes became. Within a few minutes, instead of wooden shacks located amongst fruit trees, he saw small cinder block buildings located next to larger gardens. He saw cows, chickens and hogs.
They turned off the main road and followed a smaller one, until they approached a large wrought iron gate.
The driver stuck his head out the window. “Out.”
Zero looked past the gate at a large, white, three-story building. A beautiful lawn stretched for 50 yards between the edifice and where they were at the gate. Half a dozen peacocks were scattered around the courtyard, picking at the grass.
A Remnant stepped out of a small booth at the side of the gate. Much to Zero’s horror, he was holding a rifle in his hands—one that looked an awful lot like the one that had been used to try to blast Lefty and him as they ran through the woods a few days earlier.
“Out,” the driver repeated.
“Where are we?”
“Out!”
The Remnant with the rifle walked up to the side of the pickup. He spoke calmly, but Zero couldn’t understand a syllable of what he was mumbling. Root didn’t react when the barrel of the rifle was pointed at his chest, but Zero knew exactly what that meant.
“You don’t want him to pull that trigger,” Zero said softly. “That thing he’s pointing at you will blow a hole all the way through you ten inches wide. I think we’d better get out of this truck.”
They climbed out of the pickup’s bed on the side opposite the Remnant and walked to the trees next to the road. They watched as the truck backed up, performed a three-point turn, and sped away.
The Remnant kept the barrel pointed at Root as he walked backward toward his little booth again. He picked up a small communication device, pressed a button, and spoke into it. “Che-boys at gate.”
“Che-boys?” a voice crackled over the speaker. “Here?”
“Yes. Two Che-boys. Here.”
The Remnant’s voice was awkward, difficult to understand, but the voice coming from the other end of the line spoke clearly. He had a rich baritone voice. He didn’t sound like a Remnant at all.
“Let them in,” the voice through the speaker said.
The Remnant lowered his weapon and pressed a button. The gate jerked, then swung wide. The Remnant pointed at them, then at the large white building.
“Go ahead,” the Remnant said.
They walked past the Remnant and across the lawn.
“Peacocks don’t bite, do they?” Root asked.
Zero shrugged his shoulders, flinching every time a peacock raised its head to look at them.
They approached the front door. It was about ten feet tall—a golden-colored wood with all sorts of flowered designs carved into it.
Zero reached up to knock, but the doorknob clicked and swung open in front of him.
Before them stood a medium-sized man with light-colored skin and white hair. He wore a long silky green robe that was open at the top, showing off his silvery chest hair and a dozen gold chains around his neck. He held a large crystal cup with an amber-colored liquid inside. He brought it to his lips as he looked them over, displaying a large gold ring on his pinky with a red gemstone centered in it.
“Well, what do you know? He was telling the truth. How on earth did two Che-boys make it to my doorstep?”
Chapter 14
Zero took a step back, stumbling from the porch. There was something unsettling about this place. Why had the Remnant driven him here? Surely he knew—even with his diminished ability to communicate and his fried brain—that the only thing Zero wanted right now was to find Mud and make sure that she and the baby were okay.
Zero wondered if Mud was actually inside this building, but he heard no screaming. He didn’t think she was even here. Where had this Remnant brought them?
He looked past the white-haired man into the front room but saw nobody inside.
“Come on in, boys,” the man said. “I think we’re about to have a very interesting conversation.”
Zero and Root looked at each other, communicating with their eyes about whether or not they wanted to follow him inside.
“Who are you?” Zero asked. “What do you do?”
“David Mitchell.” He held out his hand.
Zero stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before shaking it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.”
“What what means?” David asked.
“I don’t know what a David Mitchell is.”
He laughed. “It’s just my name. It doesn’t mean anything.” He waved for them to follow after him, turning to walk back inside.
Root was the first to step in. He stopped three steps inside the door, folded his arms, and looked up at the ceiling. “What is this place, sir? What do you use it for?”
“This is my home, boys. I live here.”
“I’ve never seen a ceiling so tall,” Root said. “Or so pretty.”
“Why don’t I take you boys on a tour of the place? Just wait until you see the hot tub on the third floor,” David said.
“No thanks,” Zero said. “We’re not interested in having a conversation. We’re not interested in looking around. We need to find Mud. That’s all I care about right now.”
“You’re looking for mud? What on earth for?”
“They took her. She has a baby person in her belly and they took her.”
“You’re kind of all over the place right now, boy.” David dropped back into an armchair and stole a sip from his drink. “Wait, so Mud is a woman’s name? Who took her?”
“The Remnants.”
David began to laugh. “The Remnants?”
Zero didn’t find this funny at all. “Sir, do you have any idea where the Remnants would take her? I think they wanted to steal her baby person.”
David began to laugh even harder, slapping his knee as he did.
Zero felt the urge to grab him by the throat and shake him. “This isn’t funny,” Zero said. “Look at this.” He pulled up the leg of his pants, revealing the oval shaped bite mark that had scabbed over. “I’ve been bitten and it’s probably only a matter of time before I turn into a Remnant too.”
David was laughing so hard now that he began to cough uncontrollably. “Stop. Stop. I can’t breathe.” Tears were streaming down his cheeks now—his face red. He spilled some of his drink onto his lap.
Zero had heard enough. He turned on his heel and stomped toward the door. If David was only going to laugh at their troubles, then clearly he was not going to be any help.
“Wait. Wait.” David sucked in a big breath, trying to stop laughing. “I’ll help you find Mud. It’s just that I’ve never had a real conversation with a Che-boy before. I know all about you guys, sure, but it’s just…” He took another deep breath. He pushed an intercom button on the nightstand next to him and leaned over it. When he opened his mouth to speak into it, Zero jumped back at the sound of the words coming out of his mouth. Not a single sound he made was coherent. It was the type of nonsense he had heard quite often over the last week, but this was the first time he had ever heard this type of gibberish come out of the mouth of someone who wasn’t a Remnant.
A small dark-skinned Remnant woman with straight black hair that hung to her waist entered the room. She wore a colorful strip of fabric wrapped around her hips. The most unusual thing about her appearance was her smile. She looked genuinely happy, and that was not something he was used to seeing when interacting with Remnants. It made Zero feel both curious and terrified.
David and the Remnant woman jabbered back and forth for a moment before she crossed the room and picked up the phone. She punched in a few numbers, then proceeded to speak gibberish into the receiver for about 20 seconds. She hung up the telephone, said something incoherent to David, and smiled at Root and Zero before exiting the room.
“What just happened?” Root asked. “How are you able to communicate with that Remnant?”
David chuckled. “First of all, she’s not a Remnant. Her name is Guadalupe. She’s the muchacha here, which is what we call maid servants. She’s just a regular person like you and me. You just can’t understand her because she’s speaking a different language than you, and you’ve only ever heard English all your life.”
“And that guy guarding your gate? He’s not a Remnant either?” Root asked.
“That’s Ignacio,” David said. “And no, he’s not a Remnant. Remnants don’t really exist.”
Guadalupe entered the room again and handed him a cigar. He held it under his nose and sniffed it, savoring it for a moment with his eyes closed before placing it into his mouth.
Zero’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean nobody is a Remnant? I’ve seen them. I’ve fought with them. They’re vicious, like animals.”
“Let me guess,” David said, fighting the urge to laugh again. “When you fought with them, they had black goo dripping out of their mouths. They bit people and dragged them into the woods.”
“Sometimes they had black saliva. Sometimes they didn’t,” Zero said.
“Okay, sometimes they didn’t.” David pulled something from the breast pocket of his robe and used it to clip off one end of his cigar. “I bet every time you saw black goo coming out of their mouths, you were either still within the city walls or you were near one of the Elite.” He put the cutter back into his pocket and pulled out a small chrome butane lighter, which he flicked open before lighting the end of the cigar. He sucked on the cigar, causing the end of it to glow orange.
“Not always.” Zero was as confused as he was frustrated. “Our bus was attacked when we were driving from our school grounds to where we were going to take our placement tests. The only people on that bus were the students, the bus driver, and some random guy—I don’t remember what he did.”
“And I bet that random guy was the person who got the worst of the attack. Did he get bit and dragged off into the jungle or something?”
“Yes.”
“He was Elite.”
“No. He wasn’t. He was just a regular guy.”
“Trust me. He was Elite.” David sucked in another lungful of smoke, then pulled the cigar from his mouth to stare at it admiringly. �
��He was there on that bus specifically to play a role. His job was to be attacked. And it sounds like he played his part pretty well.”
Up until this point in the conversation, confusion and disbelief had overshadowed Zero’s ability to feel anything else. But now, as comprehension began to set in, anger was beginning to take over. His lips were beginning to tighten.
“Why?” Zero asked.
David shrugged his shoulders. “It could have been for a number of reasons. Did the Elite have any reason to think you or one of your classmates was getting a little too curious and comfortable with the outside world?”
“My friend, Lefty,” Zero said, his eyes on fire now. “But we got attacked by Remnants in the woods far away from any Elite—nowhere near the city limits. Was that somehow a ruse too?”
“You mean dark-skinned men who don’t have black goo dripping from their mouths? No. Those are just people attacking you because they hate you. People in the real world tend to do that whenever they see Che-boys.”
“The real world?” Root asked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you guys live in a little society bubble,” David said, holding his hands out in front of himself to mimic the shape of a bubble. “The only things you know are the things people have chosen to let you see. Judging by the way you’re talking, you haven’t been outside of your little bubble for very long. How did you escape, anyway? It’s not every day I get Che-boys showing up on my doorstep.”
“Why do you guys keep calling us that?” Root asked. “What are Che-boys?”
The side of David’s lip curled up into half a smile before he looked down at his cigar, ignoring the question. “You know, people swear up and down that Cubans make the best cigars, but I think I actually prefer our homegrown ones.” He stared at his cigar for a moment before looking back up at Root. “I’m sure we could continue this conversation all night long, but you should probably get to the hospital.”
The Elite: a dystopian post-apocalyptic young adult novella series (Remnants of Zone Four Chronicles Book 4) Page 8