She rolled her eyes. Her life had never been glamorous, but the move he was offering wasn’t exactly something to gloat over. For now, she didn’t give herself time to dwell on it. The only way to change her circumstances for the better was to get the hell out of this place, and that was going to take some stealth and cunning.
They walked outside and the bright glare of the sun had her shielding her face from the sunlight. She had thought it was late evening. It was hard to gauge time when you were locked in a dark box all day and night.
“There you are!” Carla’s voice was cheerful as she walked toward Regan and Cameron. The woman actually wiped her hands on her pants and smiled as if this was any normal day, any normal interaction.
“She’s ready,” Cameron announced.
“Great. I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay and be a part of our thriving community,” Carla said with a smile.
Regan stared at her. She sounded serious, like she believed her own bullshit. This woman was insane. Truly crazy. There had been no choice offered her, and the cooperative wasn’t a community. It was a dictatorship with an insane woman at the helm.
“Cameron said I have chores,” Regan mumbled, trying to pretend to be humble.
Carla nodded. “Yes. Sadly, a few of our people succumbed to their illnesses. We can’t risk the others getting sick and need to remove the bodies. You will be on the crew taking the bodies to the morgue.”
“The morgue?” Regan echoed, one eyebrow raised.
Carla cleared her throat. “There’s an abandoned warehouse a few miles away. It’s become something of a community morgue.”
Regan wrinkled her nose. “Gross. That has to be disgusting by now.”
Carla smiled. “Dear, it isn’t nice to speak ill of the dead.”
Regan’s eyes widened. She had never met a truly crazy person. Sure, she’d seen Silence of the Lambs and some of the other movies that depicted clinically insane sociopaths, but meeting one in the flesh was an entirely different experience. Carla had seemed so normal. She was anything but.
“Are we carrying them?” Regan asked, trying not to freak out over the idea of dragging dead bodies down the street. “And how far away is this place?”
“It’s a couple miles out, on the outskirts of town. The stench of the rotting corpses tends to be rather unappetizing,” Cameron explained quietly. “The city as a whole kind of decided the warehouse was the best place for the dead.”
Regan nodded. Her mind was trying to make sense out of Carla and her very strange behavior. She glanced around the courtyard and saw people busy at various chores. A couple of women were dunking what looked to be bedsheets in buckets of water and then hanging them to dry on a rope. Carla herself was covered in dirt. When she noticed Regan staring at her hands, she smiled.
“I was doing a little gardening,” she explained, gesturing to a row of raised garden beds off the center of the courtyard, laid out in direct sunlight.
“Oh,” Regan replied, unable to think of anything else to say.
She felt as if she had stepped into The Twilight Zone, truthfully.
“Take her to the side entrance so she can meet her crew leader,” Carla instructed.
Regan had turned to follow Cameron when Carla reached out and grabbed her forearm. Her grip was hard and tight. She looked Regan straight in the eyes. “You run, I’ll find you.”
Regan nodded and jerked her arm out of the women’s grasp.
“She won’t run, Carla,” Cameron promised.
Regan didn’t answer. Instead, she followed Cameron to the side of the building and saw an old van that would have been any kidnapper’s dream with its blacked-out windows. There were several people dragging dead bodies toward the van and unceremoniously loading them up.
The sound of crying caught Regan’s attention. She looked to the side and saw two young children sobbing as they watched the bodies being loaded from inside the walls of the courtyard.
“Who are they?” Regan asked Cameron.
He frowned. “Those are Rachel’s kids.”
“Who’s Rachel?” Regan asked, afraid to learn the answer.
Cameron pointed to one of the bodies lying on the pavement outside the back of the van. The woman couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
“Oh my God,” Regan said.
She’d been not much older than these kids when her mother had been killed. As much as she hated the foster care system, at least it had been something. The kids in front of her had nothing and no one. There wasn’t a social worker to even pretend to care about them.
“What will Carla do with them?” she asked Cameron.
“They’re young and healthy. They’ll prove valuable to the community. We’ll all watch over them. Carla will make sure one of the other women takes them under her wing. She says it takes a village to raise a child.”
Regan laughed harshly. “I don’t think Carla is ever going to make mother of the year.”
“Stop saying things like that,” Cameron cautioned quietly. “People are loyal to her. She’s given us somewhere to live and given us food to eat. We’re safe here.”
Regan shook her head. “What about me, Cameron? Am I safe?”
“You will be once you learn your place. You’re kind of stubborn, Regan.”
She laughed. It felt good to laugh, even if it was at her own expense. “I am very stubborn. Never forget that. Now, tell me what we’re doing here? What’s with the van?”
“We use it to transport the bodies.”
“It runs?” she asked, spinning to look at the van more closely.
He nodded. “It was found inside a parking garage. Between the cement and it being an older model, it was unaffected by the EMP.”
Regan was amazed; she hadn’t even considered finding a working vehicle. “Are there more running vehicles?”
He shrugged. “Of course. The problem is finding gas. We only use the van when we have to.”
Regan couldn’t believe it, but soon got jarred out of her surprise.
“You!” one of the men hollered, looking at her. “Get over here and help us!”
“You better get going. Don’t do anything stupid, Regan,” Cameron warned her.
She nodded her head silently, her mind still on the van.
Regan held her breath as she helped load the next woman’s body into the van. There were six bodies piled one on top of another in the back of the van when they’d finished.
“Let’s go,” one of the men ordered.
Regan looked around and realized it was her and one other person besides the crew leader. She inwardly groaned. There were only two seats in the van. She was pretty sure she wasn’t getting one of them, which meant she was riding in back with the dead bodies.
She did the best she could to find a spot on the floor as far away from the dead as possible, which, in reality, was only a few inches of separation, with her scrunched down behind the passenger seat. She didn’t know if the corpses were still contagious, but she didn’t want to risk catching whatever they’d had.
The van backed out of the small parking lot and down the street. It was a little weird to be in a moving vehicle after being on foot for so long. The driver took his sweet time navigating the streets littered with stalled vehicles, but Regan was convinced he purposely jerked the wheel to make her lose her balance and fall into the bodies.
When they arrived at the warehouse, it was evident what it was from the second the back of the van opened.
“Oh God,” she groaned.
The other helper and the van driver had tied bandanas around their faces. Regan did what she could and pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. It didn’t help much.
One by one, the bodies were dragged to the big cargo bay doors leading into the warehouse.
“Are we leaving them here?” Regan asked.
“No, we only open that door when we’re good and ready,” the crew leader told her in a gruff voice.
Regan was not looking
forward to that moment.
“Each of you grab one, and when I say go, move fast,” he ordered.
Regan copied the other guy and picked up one of the bodies under the arms, preparing to drag it into the building.
“Now!” the leader shouted, pushing the door up.
Regan nearly vomited on herself. The smell that came out of the building was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Between the three of them, it took less than three minutes to deposit the dead inside the vacant warehouse that was currently serving as a morgue. The smell of death and decay was too much, acting as a near physical barrier to keep the living out. Regan raced out of the building and vomited in a pile of bushes outside. The crew leader slammed the door down and quickly joined her.
“Let’s go,” he said after a few seconds of heaving, standing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Regan managed to stand up straight and crawled into the back of the van. She never wanted to see or smell anything like that again. It was unbearable. Soon, the near area of that warehouse would be full, or else so nasty it would be impossible for any normal human to get within a couple hundred feet of it. Where would the bodies go then?
She didn’t want to stick around and find out. The city was not what she’d thought it would be. She needed to find a way out.
Back at the compound, Regan was allowed to stay out of her cell for a while. She wandered around chatting with others, trying to learn more about the cooperative.
Sam, the man she’d met before, seemed to be watching her a little too closely. It made her uncomfortable, and she wondered again whether he and Tina had been sugar-coating things on purpose. She’d started to move away when he stopped her.
“Don’t do it,” he said in a low voice.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“I can see it in your eyes. Don’t try it. They’ll kill you,” he whispered.
Regan looked around. “What are you talking about?”
“You want to leave. A lot of us do. Those who have tried, well, you took some of their bodies to the warehouse.”
Her eyes widened, their previous conversation suddenly forgotten. “I thought they died from the flu.”
He shook his head. “Not all of them.”
“They tried to escape? What happened?” she hissed.
“They got caught. That young mother was given to one of the gangs. She was brought back barely breathing. They did unthinkable things to her. She held on for days before she finally passed away,” he said, sadness leaking from his voice.
“Her kids? What will happen to her kids?” Regan asked, wanting to hear it from someone else.
“They’ll be okay for now. She wanted to get them out of here. She paid a high price for it, and now there’s no one to protect her children from these people. They’ll have to adjust, or else.”
Regan swallowed the lump of sorrow in her throat. She wasn’t sure who she could trust. This man could be a plant. He could be testing her. The first lesson she had ever learned was not to trust anyone. Cameron had reaffirmed that when he’d stabbed her in the back and lured her into this prison.
“What are they doing over there?” she asked, noticing a group of people, including Carla, gathered around a picnic table.
“Carla’s decided she doesn’t want to risk getting sick. They’re planning a run to get as much medicine and other medical supplies as they can,” he explained.
“Do they know where to hit?” she asked, hoping it didn’t sound like she was too interested.
He shrugged. “Carla has identified a couple places that seem like possibilities. It’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck operation. Everything else will be suspended while they put this plan into play.”
“Oh,” she said, hoping she would get the chance to be involved.
It wasn’t long before Carla stood up on the table and clapped her hands before sticking her fingers in her mouth and whistling.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” she yelled.
Everyone in the open courtyard drifted toward the table. Regan guessed there were at least thirty people or so. She wasn’t sure if there was anyone else in the building or roaming the streets causing mayhem. Regan blended in as she made her way to the table.
In moments, Carla began explaining their mission to procure as much medicine as they could. There were teams assigned. Regan hoped she would be on one of the scouting teams. She wasn’t. She was assigned to the sorting room on the other side of the basement from where her cell was. It was where they stored the food. She would be sorting through the medicines and any other goods that came in.
The meeting was concluded and a meager dinner was served. Carla had begun rationing the food. It was barely enough to keep people alive. Regan had a feeling her decision to cut back on the food had nothing to do with supplies, and more to do with power and control.
She had barely finished her plate when Cameron appeared. “It’s time,” he said in a low voice.
“Have I earned my old room back?” she asked hopefully, hating the desperation she heard in her voice.
He shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
She heaved a sigh and followed him inside. Once again, she studied the layout of the building as they moved, looking for any points of weakness she could use to escape. Nothing looked appealing, but she could find her way out of the building in the dark. That was important.
“Will you be back in the morning?” she asked.
He nodded. “We’re supposed to leave early. Get some sleep. You may only be in the sorting room, but she hates it when people sleep when there’s work to be done.”
“Got it.”
“Good night, Regan.”
She didn’t answer. The door shutting and locking reminded her of his deception. She wouldn’t forgive him anytime soon. Tomorrow, the numbers would be thin. There’d be a better chance for her to escape with fewer people watching.
Regan closed her eyes and imagined the sweet taste of freedom. That’s what helped relax her enough to sleep.
22
At breakfast, everything changed for Regan. Two of the scouts came down with the flu and were in no shape to make the run. Cameron summoned her into Carla’s office.
“Cameron tells me you’re quick on your feet and could be an asset to the team,” she said from behind a giant desk.
“I am. I’m used to working the streets.”
Carla nodded. “You look like it.”
Regan didn’t take offense. She didn’t care what Carla thought about her. If she could get outside the walls, she could run and get lost in the city. The cooperative wouldn’t find her. She would move on to Miami or head north and find another urban environment to fade into. First, she had to get free.
“So, am I going?” Regan asked.
Carla nodded. “You’ll be on team three. Cameron will show you who to report to.”
Regan turned and walked out of the office to where Cameron was waiting.
“Show me to my keepers,” Regan quipped.
He cringed. “You’re with Craig and Dylan. Do what they say. Don’t make them mad.”
His foreboding tone made her nervous, even before he introduced her to the two men she was going to be working with. Regan understood why Cameron had that look on his face. Dylan and Craig were large. They looked like they’d been lumberjacks before the world had gone from bad to worse.
“Look what we got here, Dylan. Carla must really like us.”
Regan shook her head. “Touch me and I’ll break your fingers, and then something else.”
The one she assumed must be Craig chuckled. “She’s too scrawny for my tastes. I like a woman with some meat on her bones.”
“Leave her alone, guys,” Cameron warned them tightly.
Regan was as surprised by his threat as the two men were. They burst into laughter.
“I’ll be okay,” she assured Cameron with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve dealt with much worse. These t
wo aren’t a threat to me.”
“Let’s move!” Dylan barked, ignoring their exchange.
Regan was more than happy to go. “Where are we going?” she asked, following behind him.
“There’s a small Urgent Care we’re hitting first.”
“Are we walking or driving?”
“Walking. It’s not too far.”
The trio left the courtyard with Regan sandwiched between the two of them. It would have been comical, had it not been so serious. The men were quiet as they stalked through the city streets. Regan’s eyes darted back and forth, looking for places she could hide when she broke away from dumb and dumber, but nothing truly seemed promising.
“There it is,” one of her escorts called out.
Regan looked to where he was pointing. The glass front door was already shattered.
“It looks like it’s already been ransacked,” Regan pointed out.
“We look anyway,” Dylan growled.
The door was actually locked, forcing Regan to crawl through the broken glass to stand up and unlock it for the two men to come in after her; she didn’t bother running—either of them could have forced his way in after her if she had tried to use the opportunity to get away into the building. So, together, they searched the front of the building and then the exam rooms.
“Back there,” Dylan said, grabbing Regan and pushing her toward a door that looked like it led to a closet.
He pulled the door open as far as he could. Shelves had been knocked over, making it impossible for the door to be opened all the way. Regan could tell it was a small pharmacy of sorts.
“I need a flashlight,” she remarked.
“No, get your ass in there and move those shelves out of the way so we can look around,” Craig demanded. “There’s probably a window in back to give more light anyway.”
Regan rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
She managed to slide through the narrow door opening, barely.
“Move those shelves and open the door,” one of the men barked out.
Regan blinked several times, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. She grinned when she spotted another door.
Surviving the Swamp (Survivalist Reality Show Book 1) Page 22