The Release

by Tom Isbell

  The stain is visible even in the palest moonlight. Kidney shaped and black in color, it represents her mother’s dying moments. Hope’s eyes travel to the outside wall, and there, scribbled in blood, is one word: Dekker. Just as he boasted back at Camp Liberty, the sergeant wrote his name after he murdered Hope’s mother.

  Hope can’t turn away fast enough.

  Book places his hand on Hope’s elbow and guides her down the stairs. “Come on,” he says, and she nods absently.

  They leave the porch and reach the flagstone sidewalk. Hope looks around.

  “I wonder where …”

  She sees it then—a small wooden cross embedded in the earth. Her feet take her there like iron fillings to a magnet.

  She has never seen her mother’s grave before. She knew her father came back here years later and buried her—his wife; Hope and Faith’s mother—but he never spoke about it. And Hope and Faith never asked.

  There’s only the slightest indication that this is a burial plot—just the vaguest hint of borders and edges that mark the grave. A mound of snow atop a mound of earth. It’s the cross that gives it away.

  Hope bends down and crouches at the marker, rubbing her fingers along its grooved edges. Her index finger traces each of the letters of her mother’s name: Charlotte Patterson Samadi. The dates of birth and death are there as well, but they mean little to Hope. Just numbers. It’s the person she misses.

  Hope looks up, only then realizing the grave rests in the shadow of a giant ponderosa pine. It was Hope’s mother’s favorite tree.

  Hope’s throat tightens up, and tears press against her eyes. She rises quickly and stumbles away. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or where she’s going. All she knows is that she misses her mother terribly, she needs someone to comfort her, to hold her, to tell her everything’s going to be all right. She falls into the outstretched arms of Book—an embrace filled with need and grief and utter longing.

  They creep back to camp, silent, and Hope is grateful when they can each return to their beds. The next morning, packing up and setting out, she can barely look Book in the eye. Once more, she volunteers to take the lead position on the trail.

  Midway through the afternoon, the group finds itself on a series of rolling hills with hardly a tree in sight. Being so out in the open makes Hope nervous, and she picks up the pace as best she can. When she eventually spies a grove of fir and spruce in the distance, she begins to relax. They can build fires. They can hide themselves in the woods. She ducks her head into the wind and bulldozes through waist-high snow.

  Then they hear the howls.

  Everyone stops and looks behind them. On a far-off ridge stand dozens of wolves, their faces wreathed in steam. They’ve been trailing the Sisters and Less Thans this entire time. The incident with the Hunters only slowed them down.

  “Come on,” Hope says, and they begin to march again. Faster now. Desperate. Hope is no longer leading; they’re all leading, trying to get to the woods as quickly as they can. There’s only one slight dip of land left to go. After a quick descent into a valley, there’s a gentle rise leading to the grove of trees. Then they’ll be safe. Surrounded by woods. Encircled by fire.

  That’s when Cat comes to a stop. Then Book, then Hope, then everyone. A line of wolves, stretching from side to side like a fortress wall, stands between them and the grove of trees. Even in the swirling snow, Hope can see their gleaming eyes, the dried blood that paints their snouts.

  “Spread out and weapons,” Cat says. He’s can’t hide the fact that his voice is trembling.

  With teeth bared and bodies lowered, the wolves come slinking forward. Their bellies graze the snow.

  The Sisters and Less Thans stretch the line and fumble for arrows, spears, slingshots, anything. There may be 120-some of them, but there are easily twice as many wolves.

  As the wolves creep closer, Hope can hear their rumbling growls. There’s something awful and ominous about the sound, a tornado drifting across the plains, ready to overtake them.

  For one of the few times in her life, Hope’s legs are shaking. She tries to channel her nervous energy into her spear, gripping it harder than ever, but the hand holding it feels slack and worthless.

  Live today, tears tomorrow.

  She glances down the line. At the very opposite end is Book. He holds his bowstring taut. Is it her imagination, or does he shoot a look in her direction?

  The wolves are two hundred feet away now, and the two groups face off. One final battle. One last stand.

  When the pack starts to race forward, it does so as a group, as though someone shouted Go. There is an awful beauty in the attack: the sleek motion of legs; paws churning snow; blazing eyes boring through the afternoon gloom like candle flames.

  “Draw!” Hope yells at the top of her voice.

  “Fire!” she calls out a moment later.

  Darts and spears and rocks and arrows whip through air. Many hit their targets. Yelps ring out. Blood splatters snow.

  But only a small number of the wolves go down. The rest surge forward, faster now, angry now, and Hope cannot just hear their growls, she can feel them, vibrating her feet, radiating up her legs.

  “At will!” she cries, and the LTs and Sisters fire as best they can. Arrows soar. Darts zing. Wolves race.

  And then it’s too late. The wolves are on them, launching themselves through air, soaring through space.

  The LTs and Sisters turn and run. Hope keeps stopping to fire off arrows, but it’s not enough. The weakest of the LTs have been caught, and even from a distance, she can hear the growling, the snapping of teeth, the rip and snarl as wolves bite into the sick and wounded. The pitiful cries of Less Thans bounce off the wintery sky.

  Others stop and fire as best they can: Diana, Book, Cat. Still the wolves come, racing through a nightmare landscape of dead and dying Less Thans, of wounded Sisters. The trees are too far away and there’s nowhere to hide.

  A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye swings her around: a wolf, the alpha male, sailing through air, lands on Book. Heart pounding, she runs in his direction.

  “Book!” she hears herself calling out. “Book!”

  She readies an arrow as she runs. Not stopping, she lets the bowstring go and the arrow catches the wolf in the back flank. It topples to one side, then just as quickly rights itself, reattaching its bloody teeth to Book’s leg. Book is trying to beat it off, but she knows if she doesn’t get there fast, he’s as good as dead. The thought of it is more than she can take. Her mouth opens wide and she releases a scream that shakes the trees.

  She reloads and is about to fire again, but an arrow whizzes by her head. She has to duck. Someone almost hit her. Idiot.

  Another arrow flies by. And then another after that. Before she knows it, there are hundreds of them. The sky is raining arrows, arcing above the heads of the Sisters and Less Thans and striking the wolves one after the other—thwack thwack thwack thwack—dropping them to the ground like birds smashing into windows.

  She goes to release her arrow, but the wolf attached to Book’s leg lies there motionless. A half dozen arrows jut from its side. She can’t believe it. Only a handful of wolves remain, and just like that, they’re taken care of as well.

  No wolves. All dead.

  Hope stands there, stunned. All the Less Thans and Sisters, too. In the course of sixty seconds, the battlefield has turned into a slaughterhouse. Before her lies a field of dead and dying wolves, their lean bodies riddled with arrows, blood staining the snow as far as the eye can see. Rivers of red atop a landscape of white.

  Hope looks to the heavens and offers a silent thanks. Then she turns and stares behind her, peering into the falling snow. And out of the mist comes a horde of people, riding horses and covered in hides, wearing the hideous skulls of beasts.

  Skull People. Hundreds of them.

  The biggest of the bunch—a man with a bushy beard that’s spotted with snow—reins his horse to a stop and dismount
s into the blood-soaked snow. His thick biceps strain against his buckskin jacket.

  “Looks like we got here just in time,” he bellows, all smiles. And then he turns his head and spits off to the side. “Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s build some fires and cook these critters.”

  28.

  SEVERAL HUNDRED SKULL PEOPLE dismounted from their horses and began gutting wolves and dressing meat. Others built fires and set up camp. A final group began burying our dead.

  While Helen ministered to my bloody leg, my eyes scanned the faces.

  “She’s not here, Book.”

  It was Goodman Dougherty. He knelt alongside me, checking my wound. He’d been my boss back at the Wheel, and although he was now down to maybe 250 pounds as opposed to the 300 from before, he looked much the same. His clothes were a combination of torn denim and faded leather, and his beard was thicker and bushier than ever.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother.” My eyebrows must have arched in surprised, because he went on to explain. “We heard how you came to their rescue.”

  “She didn’t make it?”

  “Passed away not long after you all left.”

  Maybe it was the wound, maybe it was the thought of my grandmother’s final moments, but whatever it was, I felt suddenly dizzy. The blood drained from my face.

  Goodman Dougherty placed a thick hand on my shoulder. “You all right there, chief?”

  “I’m fine.” But of course I wasn’t. I wanted—needed—her to survive. There was so much I wanted to ask her. Not just about my family. Like why on earth she seemed to think I could save the country.

  “And I believe you know this old bat,” Dougherty said.

  I swiveled my head to see Goodwoman Marciniak. Her hair was whiter than I remembered it, and her wrinkles more pronounced, but her eyes still twinkled with warmth.

  She gave Dougherty a slap on one of his beefy arms. “I heard that.” Then she turned to me and said, “It’s nice to see you again, Book.”

  She stretched out her arms, and as we hugged, it hit me how grateful I was she had made it out of the Compound. She was now the closest link to my grandmother.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get that wound cleaned up and some food into you all. Then we’ll talk.”

  Sitting around a series of blazing fires and eating grilled wolf, we told the Skull People our stories, and they told us theirs. Those who had survived the ambush of the Crazies had escaped through the very tunnel that was now littered with corpses. When I told them that the Compound was no more, you could see the sorrow etched on their faces.

  “How have you been surviving since your escape?” Flush asked.

  “Wandering, mostly,” Goodman Dougherty answered. “Playing hide-and-seek with the Crazies. Hunting and foraging. Trying to find food to fill our bellies.” He slapped his ample stomach. “That’s easier for my friends than me.”

  He turned to the side and hawked up a ball of phlegm. It was as if the cave dust was still embedded in his lungs.

  “Where are the Crazies now?” I asked.

  “Hard to say. We’ve ridden through a few towns where they used to live, and we can’t find any sign of them. Maybe they’re riding out the winter in some cave—who knows? Come spring, I’m sure they’ll reappear like the cockroaches that they are. No love lost between the Skullies and the Crazies.”

  It was true. The Crazies wanted nothing to do with law and order. They’d just as soon everyone followed their own rules.

  “So why’d they join forces with the Hunters and ambush you?” I asked.

  “Don’t know for sure, but it must be that they want guns.”

  “And the Hunters? What’d they get out of it?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question, all right. Why? Have you seen ’em recently?”

  Dougherty noticed the look I shared with my friends, and I told him about the ambush at Dodge’s, the capture on the ice floe, the wolf attack. When I finished, he let out a long, low whistle.

  “Gotta hand it to you,” he said. “You all knocked off two sets of enemies in one three-day period: first the Hunters, and now the wolves.”

  “With some help from our friends.”

  “Sure, but that makes your life a whole lot easier, don’t it?”

  Yes, I wanted to answer, but there are still plenty of enemies out there.

  I looked around. Ripples of laughter bounced from one conversation to another, and it was good to see everyone enjoying themselves. The Skull People seemed rejuvenated by the Less Thans and Sisters, and we liked being in the company of elders. Also, it was comforting to finally be around people who weren’t trying to kill us.

  “So where are you headed?” Goodwoman Marciniak asked.

  “To the next territory.”

  “You’re going to the Conclave?”

  There was that word again, the one the Man in Orange had refused to explain. My expression must have made it obvious that I had no idea what Marciniak was talking about.

  “The Conclave is a series of celebrations,” she said. “First and foremost, it’s the inauguration of the next president. Plus it’s the twenty-first anniversary of Omega. As his final act, President Vasquez wants to bring everyone together. ‘Wiping the slate clean,’ he calls it. A time for reconciliation.”

  “And you’re going?” I couldn’t believe they could be so forgiving after all that had been done to them.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Goodman Dougherty said. “We may not agree with everything this government does, but hell, we’re not getting any younger. And it’ll be better to be part of something than against it. And maybe in a future year we can get some of our own people elected.”

  A sudden anger boiled within me. I wasn’t so ready to forgive. Not after being raised in Camp Liberty and having seen my friends slaughtered before my eyes.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the map of the United States. I unfolded it on the snow.

  “Well, well, well,” Dougherty said. “What do we have here?”

  “A map.”

  “I can see that. Where’d you get it?”

  “I took it from the Compound library.”

  “You ripped that out of a book?” Goodwoman Marciniak asked, looking mortified.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “A library book?” It looked like she might pass out.

  “Ease up on the boy, Marjorie,” Dougherty said. “It’s just a couple pages.”

  Marjorie did not appear the least bit pacified by Goodman Dougherty’s words.

  I wanted to remind her that the Compound was now just a pile of rubble, and that I actually saved these two maps from destruction. But that probably wouldn’t have swayed her. A library book was a library book.

  Goodman Dougherty leaned over the map, his greasy fingers sliding from one town to the next.

  “It’s been twenty years since I’ve seen one of these. Almost forgot what they look like.”

  Others leaned in to have a look, studying the map with something like reverence. For me, it was like magic, as though this rectangle of paper with its squiggly lines and mysterious place names held vast secrets.

  “Near as I can tell, we’re about here,” Goodman Dougherty said, pointing to a spot in the middle of nowhere.

  “And the Conclave?”

  He dragged his finger east to a place where two rivers met. “Should be about here, I’m guessing.”

  “That’s where the inauguration is?”

  “Yup. Three weeks from now, that’s where they’ll be swearing in the new president.”

  “What’s his name, by the way?”

  “Her name,” he corrected me. “A woman by the name of Cynthia Maddox.”

  Every Less Than and Sister stopped what they were doing. My heart rose in my throat.

  “What’s the matter?” Dougherty asked. “You all look like you just seen a ghost.”

  “Cynthia Maddox as in Chancellor Maddox?” I asked.r />
  “That’s the one.”

  “She’s going to be the next president?”

  “Won by a landslide, apparently.”

  “Then we can’t let the inauguration happen,” I said.

  Dougherty and Marciniak shared a look. “Why not?”

  “Because it’ll be the death of every one of us here.”

  29.

  THEY NEED TO GET to the Conclave and stop the inauguration. If Chancellor Maddox becomes president, no territory will ever be safe. Not the Western Federation, not the Heartland, not any of them.

  There are eight who head out that next morning: five Less Thans (Cat, Flush, Red, blind Twitch, and Book), two Sisters (Hope and Diana), and one Skully (Goodman Dougherty). Argos, too. Together, they will try to save the country … even though the country doesn’t know it needs saving.

  Before they leave, Hope tells the Skull People what she and Cat discovered: that Chancellor Maddox was stockpiling weapons at the Eagle’s Nest.

  “I wouldn’t read too much into that,” Goodman Dougherty says. “Armies do need weapons, after all.”

  But then she sees him share a glance with Goodwoman Marciniak, and she knows she’s got him thinking. Which is probably why he decided to join the group. He’s not convinced Chancellor Maddox is as evil as the LTs and Sisters make her out to be, but he’s going to help them get to the Conclave just the same.

  “Good-bye again,” Hope says to Helen. She starts to remove the good-luck necklace, but Helen stops her.

  “You keep it,” Helen says. She doesn’t state what they’re both thinking: You’re going to need it more than me.

  Hope gives Helen a nod of thanks and then turns and goes. She doesn’t look back for fear of getting emotional.

  The group of eight mount the fastest horses and begin to ride off through the snow. Argos trails them, following their path.

  “See you in the next territory!” someone yells after them.

  Hope waves back, but she knows it’s unlikely she’ll see any of them ever again.

  They ride half the day without talking. The snow thins, the weather clears. The clouds drift apart, revealing a sky so clear and blue it’s almost blinding. Hope’s thoughts are interrupted by a distant sound. A kind of squawking.