I’m sure my face betrayed my true feelings because Sergeant Murphy said, “Hey now, man, New El Paso has a legitimate government elected by the residents. That’s the first step in reestablishing the United States. Once we can stabilize regionally, then we can attempt to do something more.”
I was hungry for any type of knowledge that I could take back to Balmorhea so I asked, “Has there been any attempt to contact any other communities anywhere else?”
“Hell yeah,” he replied in frustration. “We’ve sent people in every direction, but hardly anyone has ever come back. We don’t know if they didn’t make it or if they just stayed where they were.”
I nodded my head slowly. “Thank you, um, sergeant,” I said since I wasn’t really sure what to call him.
“No problem, man. Hey look, we gotta get back out there or else the captain will have my ass. You should be okay, you’re nose is fucking disgusting, but you should be okay.”
I limply shook his hand and rolled my head to the side. The men shuffled their way out and the screech of metal on concrete told me that they helped Alejandro put the shelf back in place.
“Okay, Jackson, help me drag this body back to the bathroom,” Alejandro said. “Chuck said that there was another one in there anyways.”
I tried to stay awake, but my battered body craved rest and I fell asleep before they’d even dragged the body around the corner.
* * *
The next few days were kind of a blur for me. We made camp each night in a defensible position and tried to be as inconspicuous as three horsemen could be in the relatively flat terrain. We didn’t realize it until the next morning, but while Sergeant Murphy had chastised us for not knowing about harpies, he didn’t tell us how to spot one of them or how to avoid the mentally deranged. As a result, the few times that we did see anyone, we tried to avoid them and probably ended up looking suspicious to everyone who saw our crazy antics.
The trip ended up taking an extra day that we hadn’t planned on since I had to stop and dismount Rusty every couple of hours because my head still felt like mush and I’d get terrible tunnel vision after a while of bouncing along on the back of the horse. My vision had cleared enough to see beyond ten feet when I wasn’t having an episode, so that was an improvement. And whatever that boric acid stuff was that they’d used on my nose had done a terrific job of cleaning out the potential infection and basically sealing the wound. I wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests but I was thankful to be alive.
We began to notice a change in the landscape as we neared the settlement. Everything was still dusty and dry, but there were crops being grown alongside the road. Giant irrigation pipes ran from a central point and moved in a circle around the field. It seemed like the same set-up that they had in place before the war. I wondered if they used generators to pump the water up from the ground or if there was some other method of generating electricity like we had back in Virden.
I got my answer soon enough as we came to a giant sun shade stretched over what must have been two hundred exercise bikes and ellipticals. Every piece of equipment held a worker who was busy generating the electricity needed to power the water pumps. Fat stacks of wire as thick as a man’s forearm ran in every direction out into the fields, presumably to different pumps and irrigation pipes. The finishing touch was a full squad of armed guards facing out into the fields. I assumed that they were guarding the workers against the harpies and giant insects that Sergeant Murphy had warned us about.
We got the stare down by a few of the guards, but no one challenged us as we passed the men and women on the machines. I waved in an effort to be friendly but none of them acknowledged that they even saw me from behind their sunglasses. I was reminded of the British palace guards who used to stand guard wearing those ridiculous helmets and not moving a muscle when people got in their face. These guys seemed just as determined to watch us without noticing us.
New El Paso sprawled outside of the walls that they’d built for themselves. Ramshackle huts made of wood, brick and tin littered the approach to the town. It was clear now where all the material from Van Horn had disappeared to. These people must have built this section after the town’s protective walls had been put in place. I wondered what the plan was for those who were outside the gate if a bunch of giant scorpions came crashing through the shantytown.
When we got about a quarter of a mile away Alejandro suddenly cried out and held his hands against both sides of his head. “So many thoughts, I…can’t…” he broke off for a moment and then yelled, “Get out of my head!”
That must have done the trick because he shook his head from side to side as if he were trying to clear away the memory of them invading his thoughts. “There were so many people asking me questions all at once,” he explained. “They seem to have gone away. Wait.”
He held up his hand and tilted his head to the side as if he were listening. “New El Paso’s Changed population would like to welcome us to the community. I told the representative what our business was and he promised to get back to me shortly.” He let out a frustrated sigh and said, “This is all so strange. I suppose these people have had more than two years to figure out what to do with the whole telepathy thing, but I’m just learning about it. It’s almost overwhelming.”
“You’ll get the hang of it, buddy,” I reassured him while I leaned over and patted his leg that was closest to me.
We rode into the beginning of the secondary community outside of the gates and the street began to line with people. Men, women and children, most of them were Changed. “They think it’s strange to see me riding like an equal to you,” Alejandro murmured under his breath to me.
“What the hell do you mean ‘like an equal’?” I asked him with a look of concern.
He shrugged and was interrupted by a man offering to sell his Changed daughter to us. “She’s almost a virgin!” he shouted. “The guards have only taken her one night. She’ll be good to you for as long as you need her! Just give me some food and she’s yours!” He pushed her into the roadway and she bounced off the chest of my horse causing me to stop.
“What the hell kind of place is this?” I murmured to my companions.
“Please, sir, I’ll be good to you. My father is telling the truth. I’ve only been with that one squad. I’m practically whole. We’re starving. Please take me with you!” the girl pleaded. Half of her face was melted away while the other half was unscarred. She’d probably been pretty before the radiation burns had damaged her.
“We can’t offer you anything better. We barely have enough food as it is,” I replied loud enough so that everyone in the crowd could hear me.
“Please,” she begged us. “I can’t hide from the guards forever. Sooner or later, they’ll take me to their barracks for good and I won’t ever get out. Please just pay my father and take me away from here.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t. I don’t even—”
“Stop,” Jackson bellowed from slightly behind me. “I have three cans of soup that I can spare. That should feed you for a week.”
The man pushed his way between our horses to stand in front of Jackson, clearly he’d decided to negotiate with him. “Four cans and she’s yours, boy.”
“Jackson, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? We can’t afford to lose that food or take on another mouth to feed,” I chastised him.
“I’m doing the right thing, Chuck,” he answered. “You heard her. These people think that it’s a positive thing that she’s only been gang-raped one time. It’s going to happen again and again until she’s dead. The food I’m offering is what I brought with me, not anything that you had. If I have to, I won’t eat until we get back home.”
I started to say something to him but thought better of it. Maybe he was right. It was the right thing to do, but were we really bartering a couple of cans of soup for a person? Is that what the world had devolved into? Maybe there wasn’t any hope for us. My lips thinned as I held back my comment and
I slowly nodded my head. “Okay, Jackson. It’s your call.”
He nodded back to me and turned back to the man. “I only have the three cans of soup,” he said. “But I have a pocketknife that I can add.”
The man seemed to consider it a moment and then agreed. “Hand them over and she’s yours. Take good care of her.”
The transaction was made for three cans of soup and a worn out pocketknife, and that’s how Jackson bought Cara’s freedom from the man who wasn’t really her father.
* * *
I can’t say that I was pleased to have the girl along, but seeing the relief on her face after the transaction was complete made me think about this world that we were now attempting to reinsert ourselves into. Jackson had been absolutely right in offering to save the girl’s life. But what happens the next time we’re faced with similar choices?
We can’t trade off all of our food and expect to survive the trip back. Sure, the journey was only about four days, but our experience with the harpy and the information that Sergeant Murphy had passed along only confirmed that we really didn’t know what to expect out here. Maybe it was a mistake to leave our town and we should just let the merchants remain the middlemen. I felt in my stomach that something important was going to happen here, but I had no clue what it was.
Alejandro was the first to see the hand snaking under the flap of my backpack. He kicked the man’s hand away and the crowd reaction varied between cheers and vague threats. After the girl’s purchase the locals knew that we had food so we needed to tighten up the security on our packs. “We need to get inside the walls,” I said as I eyed the agitated crowd. I didn’t want Jackson’s good deed to turn ugly.
It took a little bit of work, but Jackson was able to pull the girl up behind him and our horses pushed their way through the crush of bodies. The crowd resisted at first, but we slowly made headway until we broke through and continued towards the gate. The Changed seemed to hang back away from the shadow of the walls as if there was an unspoken boundary that they couldn’t cross.
One of the guards at the gate openly laughed at us as we walked by. “Hey, Cara, see that guy finally sold you to these strangers,” one of the men sneered as we walked past. “Oh well, you were a great piece of ass that night. Took it like a champ and kept coming back for more!”
“What the fuck is your problem, man?” Jackson yelled at the guard.
“Mind your fucking business, kid, or else I’m authorized to shoot you on the spot and nobody would give a fuck,” the guard replied. It was almost comical to me that the guard, who was about the same age as Jackson, had called him a kid. “I was talking to that tramp behind you,” he finished.
Jackson’s face turned three shades of red and he started to go for his rifle. “Jackson!” I yelled. “Let’s just go inside, forget these guys.”
“Yeah, listen to your old man, kid. If you pull that rifle out, we’ve got snipers that would explode your head like a watermelon,” the second guard stated. “Leave ‘em alone, Chris.”
As one, all of our heads jerked up towards the top of the wall. Sure enough, there was a long barrel peeking over the side aimed directly towards our group. “What the hell is wrong with these people?” Jackson muttered while he took his hand off the rifle’s wooden stock.
“Keep your goddamned mouth shut, Chris,” the second guard replied. “I’m sorry, folks, welcome to New El Paso. Is this your first time here?”
“Yes, we’re from Bal…” Something stopped me from divulging where we were from. Maybe it was the desecrated town of Van Horn, maybe it was the fact that we had food while others were starving to death. I wasn’t sure why, but the alarm bells were blaring in my mind, telling me to say that we were from somewhere other than the southeast of the town.
“We’re from up north,” I amended. “We wanted to assess the trade situation and see about setting up direct trade with the city.”
“What have you got to trade besides a fucking mutie and a whore?” Chris asked.
Without warning the other guard punched him right in the temple. He crumpled like a rag doll. “Sorry about that,” he said with a shrug. “You know how kids are these days, gotta discipline them hard and fast to let them know who’s in charge or else they’ll try to overthrow the government or something.
“Anyways, welcome to New El Paso. You’ll want to see the minister of trade. Go down Main Street—that’s the road you’re on—and there are signs for the ministry.”
“Thank you, mister?” I added a little inflection to the last word to make it a question.
“Ramsey,” he replied. He looked beyond me towards Jackson and said, “Cara, you know that I never took part in, well, in that night. I hope these folks treat you nicer than you ever got here.”
“Thanks, Ramsey,” she replied. “I just want to leave this place and never come back.”
He stepped forward and offered me his hand. “Safe journeys, friend,” he said. Then he leaned a little closer and said, “Don’t tell them where you’re really from, things aren’t what they seem here. Please, keep my friend safe.”
“We will. Thank you for the advice,” I answered.
We walked through the gate and I checked out the construction as we passed through it. They’d made the wall with compressed layers of material. The interior section seemed like it had been made from regular brick, while the outside was made of the large cinder blocks. In between those two layers was a solid mass of rocks and mud. I’d guess that there was probably cement in there as well. The entire wall was easily thirteen feet tall. I wondered if it completely encircled the town or it they’d only reinforced the areas around the gates.
Once we made it through the archway, we stepped into a different world. The trash and ramshackle buildings from outside were absent. The town itself was quaint and they’d taken care to preserve what it must have looked like before the apocalypse. Sure, there were new houses being built, but it seemed like we were walking into another town just like Balmorhea.
“Hey, I used to live over that way,” Cara said as she pointed down a road that ran perpendicular to Main Street.
“Then why were you living outside the walls?” Jackson asked naïvely.
“When they came from Old El Paso, they gave everyone a few options,” she said. “Leave peacefully, join their army—like Ramsey did—or die. The administration wouldn’t allow a mutie like me to stay in the town and my parents tried to stand up to them and were shot. That’s how I ended up with Hollis. He saved my life and told them that he’d take care of me. He was nice at first, but then… Well, you know how that story ends.”
I craned my neck to look at her squarely in the face. “Ramsey said things aren’t what they seem,” I whispered. “What does he mean?”
“I haven’t been inside the walls for more than a year, so there may be other things going on, but the people in charge of New El Paso are not nice people. I heard that even the original band that came here and took over has already been overthrown and a new group is in power.”
“I thought they were freely elected,” I stated.
“No way. That’s just a story that they make up and tell people to lure them here to work in the fields or at one of the energy generation plants.”
“Wait, are you saying that people here are slaves?” Alejandro interjected.
She glanced at him. “There are very few people who you could actually call a ‘slave.’ Most of the people are more like indentured servants,” she stopped and giggled a little to herself. “Mr. Hardy would be so proud that I knew the difference between the two.
“He was my social studies and history teacher in high school,” she explained. “People come here hoping to find a new life other than the shitty day-to-day survival in the wastelands. What they end up getting is a place to stay and food in exchange for twelve or thirteen hours of work a day. From the ones I’ve talked to, they don’t really mind it though. They’re alive and earning food for their family. The alternative is to ta
ke your chance out in the wastes.”
I considered it for a moment. Sure it sounded rough, but maybe it was the only way to survive. Hell, we worked the roughly same amount in Balmorhea just to stay alive. Maybe they had to be harsh in order to continue their existence, but it still didn’t excuse what seemed like an accepted practice of rape. “What about those that are slaves?” I asked.
“Mostly sex slaves or house slaves,” she replied nonchalantly. “Hollis had been trying to keep me pure enough to sell as a house slave because there’s no money in sex slaves. The army takes what they want so they don’t pay for it. House slaves usually sell for about a month’s worth of food, but we haven’t eaten in four days and Hollis was desperate so he took half price.”
I choked a little on my spit. “Three cans of soup is considered two weeks’ worth of food?” I asked.
She noticed my slip up. “Where are you from that you can afford to carry so much food with you?” she asked in awe.
“I’m sorry, Cara was it?”
“Yes,” she replied simply.
“I’ve got a strange feeling about this place and, no offense, but I don’t know you yet. We don’t want our town’s peace to be destroyed by our ignorance, so until we leave and get back out on the road, I really don’t want to let you know where we’re going.”
She considered my words for a few moments and said, “Alright, that makes sense. I would do the exact same thing in your place. Well, actually I would have turned around and not come into New El Paso if I had the choice, but that’s just me.”
“Why is everyone so distrustful?” Jackson asked.
Cara leaned forward and hugged him. “I like that you seem so nice. Like all the boys before the war.” She lowered her voice even more and Alejandro had to lean over to hear her over the clatter of our horses’ hooves on the pavement. “New El Paso is raising an army. You had to have seen a bunch of them on the way in. They say the army is for defense from the growing menace up north, but a lot of us think that they want to start taking out the communities around here to steal all of their supplies.”
Enduring Armageddon Page 27