The girl and the little dog followed the procession but she kept her distance from the men. In her experience, they weren’t very nice. One of them had even spat tobacco juice on Coffee once and they’d all laughed.
It was nearly a mile until they got to the stockyard that was far removed from the town. Swan tried to tamp down her anger and annoyance. She wasn’t so sure she liked civilization. Things weren’t so complicated in the wild. You hunted your food, you ran with your pack, you killed the undead. Nobody stared at your backside for long moments. Nobody wrinkled their nose at the way you looked. She still had unfinished business back in Iowa, she still owed a hunchback hyena a little payback. Her duty was to the tribe but in the back of her mind she knew at some point she would go looking for him even if she had to do it alone. She actually preferred it that way. She and the pack could move swiftly without anyone slowing them down or getting in the way. Nobody to take care of or care about. She would see them safely to Lakota, but after that she would do what she had to settle the score once and for all with the beast.
Mayor Moretz waved them into a large metal barn. Harper tugged Bert’s bridle low so he could get through the door but once inside it was plenty tall enough for him to stand erect.
“This is only temporary.” The Mayor said in apology, his toothy grin white under the black mustache.
The children looked around the open barn. A half hour ago, it had been filled with cattle and they had left cow pies all over. Kodiak urged Otis out of the old ice cream truck and Moretz waved it away.
“The doctor is on the way, try to make yourselves comfortable. Once she’s fixed up your big friend and everyone’s been examined, we’ll rustle you up some hot food.”
He followed the truck out, asked loudly what was taking the doc so long to get there and the doors slid closed behind him.
“What a dump.” Tobias said as he gazed around the interior. It was barely fit for animals, much less a wounded one. He slid off his polar bear and landed in a wet pile of freshly minted cow dung. He cursed and wiped his boots off on a clump of hay as Swan laughed and Donny’s shoulders shook in quiet mirth.
“Keep it up.” He said humorlessly. “I’ll save some of this and add it to your dinner.”
Kodiak found a relatively clean corner and guided Otis into it and got him to lay down. Harper pulled an apple out of her satchel and sliced a piece off for him. It wasn’t spam but he ate it anyway and let them scratch his ears and rub his belly.
Bert sniffed at the motionless fans mounted in the ceiling and licked at it. Flies buzzed lazily around as Swan looked into the stalls, maybe there was a clean one with fresh hay. Something felt off to her. Moretz was a little too smooth despite his smile and good old boy charm. He reminded her a little of how Gordon had fooled everyone in the beginning. Except me she thought. I never trusted the bastard.
The others stood looking around at the cobwebs and burned out lights. It was hot and there wasn’t much air circulating. The big fans along the roof sat idle and rusted. Other than room for all of the animals it had nothing going for it.
“It’s not the Hilton, that’s for sure.” Vanessa said as she pulled the saddle off Ziggy.
Swan spun when she heard the sounds of a chain going through the handles of the sliding doors. She ran back to it and tried to yank it open. It slid and inch then stopped.
She turned to run to the other end but Donny was already sprinting towards it. He jerked the handle but it didn’t budge. The windows were high on the walls and most of them were broken but all of them had wire mesh covering them. They were in a giant cage.
Kassie sat on top of the wall, feet dangling, idly scratching Coffees behind the ears. She didn’t follow the men down the ladder, they would have run her off if they noticed her. She wondered why they put them in the dirty old cow barn. There were lots nicer places they could stay. She wondered why they locked them in, they didn’t even check them for bites. If didn’t seem fair. Her mom would be here soon, though. She’d straighten everything out. She hoped she could go inside and meet them, maybe they would let her pet one of the bears, and they were so huge.
Mayor Moretz and his men stopped at the foot of the ladder and she heard them talking. She knew it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop but it wasn’t her fault they didn’t look up and see her there. She was just minding her own business.
“Nobody comes in or out. You hear me?” Moretz ordered one of his men and pointed him back to stand guard duty at the barn. “That’s a fortune in exotic animals in there. Now that I’ve seen them, I’ll let those people in the Tower know what we have. That giraffe is priceless all on its own and so are those polar bears. They’ll look good once they get stuffed and posed.”
He sent two of the men off to guard both entrances and turned to the other who had a foot on the ladder, ready to climb back up to keep watch from above.
“Keep watch from above.” He told him. “They might try to climb out a window or something. We’re headed over to get the doc. I’ll send her over to see if she can do anything for the bear, get it patched up enough to walk out of here. We’ll get rid of them tonight, even if we gotta haul it out in a truck. Meanwhile we’ve got to keep up appearances. Too many people saw us bring them in, they’ll start talking. Once the doc gets finished, we’ll spread the word they’re infected with something, something real contagious, and we’ll send them on their way. They’ll be easy to track, we’ll give them a few hours head start then pick them off from a safe distance.”
“You got it boss.” The man said “but what about them kids?”
“Dead men tell no tales.” Moretz said “We can’t let them go blabbing. Nobody will miss them so take care of it.”
“So you don’t mind if we have a go at them girls?”
“Consider it a little bonus for your dedicated work. Just make sure nobody finds the bodies.” Moretz said. “C’mon, Jimmy. The sooner we get the doc over here, the sooner we can get rid of them.”
“That’s cold, boss.” He man said with a laugh and slung his rifle to climb the ladder.
“I wasn’t always the fine upstanding mayor you see before you.” Moretz said with a smug smile and walked towards the car.
Kassie rolled quietly from the edge and hurried away from the man puffing his way up the ladder, her moccasins silent on the metal. She couldn’t hardly believe what she’d overheard. She had to warn the kids. She had to tell her mom.
9
The Island
The man’s beard was getting long as he looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t need to look good for anyone, he was by himself, but this was the first time he’d seen his image in a long time. He tried to avoid it, after all, he was a killer. His face was gaunt, too. He used to be beefy.
Portly.
Hell, who was he trying to fool? He’d been a fatso. Amazing what the end of the world could do for your figure. He hadn’t seen anyone in months and people out in the wild weren’t the kind of people you didn’t want to meet anyway. Everyone in the country had made it to one of the walled cities as far as he knew. The only ones left outside were usually the type of people you didn’t want to meet. They were either retrievers or bounty hunters looking to collect a reward or remnants of Casey’s gang looking for somebody to terrorize.
Steven had lived behind the walls right after the world went mad. He’d made it to an enclave up in North Dakota called the Island. It was secure and safe and he was glad to be there. He’d lost his whole family and had nearly been torn apart himself when he arrived. His truck was almost out of gas, a horde was chasing him up the causeway and he would have been killed if they hadn’t opened the gates. It was okay in the beginning but as time went by, the government got stronger and more intrusive and for him, things got worse. He couldn’t seem to catch a break. He couldn’t get a good job and the more he complained the worse it got. The party officials became downright tyrannical but everyone accepted it because they were safe. He’d become a recluse surrounded by unfrien
dly people. He had worked at a coal fired power plant before the fall but they had assigned him a job as fish processor. He worked eight hours a day gutting, beheading and scaling fish. He couldn’t quit, it wasn’t allowed. They would throw him out. He couldn’t get a different job, this was the one he was assigned. He told his superiors he could be better utilized at the power plant. He had experience, even if it wasn’t hydroelectric. They didn’t listen, the bureaucracy was a nightmare and no matter how many transfer forms he filled out they were always denied. They provided a house and safety and in return you had to do what they said. He hated it.
He tried, he really had, but he wasn’t very good and he kept getting his pay docked, his rations shorted and his living quarters were downsized to a shipping container. He was fifty years old, wasn’t as fast as the younger workers and had a hard time controlling his mouth. He went from fish processor to janitor and then to night shift muckraker cleaning up the piles of fish guts and hosing down the blood. If there was a worse job on the island, he wasn’t aware of it. The council’s overseer who was in charge of the fishing industry was a severe young woman who thought nothing of stepping on her underlings to climb in position. Steven had a hard time taking orders from a clueless party official who loved her power and was eager to show how efficient she was to her superiors. She caught him taking an unauthorized break the night his life went from bad to worse.
“I’m all caught up!” He’d argued. “There’s nothing left to clean, no guts to shovel up, no blood to hose down. I’m ahead of schedule!”
“Then polish the floor. Make it shine, make it pristine for day shift.” She said coldly. “It sets a bad example for the workers not to work.”
“I’ll mop it when there’s something to be mopped.” He said and sat back down in defiance.
“Fine.” She said and pulled out her ever-present clipboard. “You’re being reassigned to hull scrubber, effective immediately. Report to commissar Sanders.”
“I can’t.” he said. “I can’t swim.”
“This is not our concern.” She said. “Report for duty or suffer the consequences.”
“No. What are you going to do, cut my rations again? I’m not going in the water.” Steven said, the old fears slamming into him as if it were forty years ago and he was drowning in the lake again. “I have aquaphobia, I get panicky if I’m in water over my knees. I’d be useless.”
“This is not our concern.” She said repeated, her pleasure obvious even though she tried to hide it behind the stern face the party officials wore. “You will do as I say. Report immediately or you will be exiled.”
“Fine.” he’d said. “I quit. I’m out of here. I’m going to Lakota.”
“You can’t quit. You’re fired.” She said with satisfaction and started scribbling notes. “We don’t need your kind.”
She spoke into the walkie talkie, requested guards to escort him off the island.
“No need.” He said and kicked over the bucket of fish slop. “I’ll get in my truck and go. Goodbye and good riddance to all of you controlling bastards.”
It splashed all over her shoes and pants of her crisp black uniform.
“Your truck and all of your possessions belong to the people of the island.” She said with barely contained fury. “They were forfeit when you joined our society.”
“We’ll see about that.” Steven said and headed for the door.
She blocked his exit and spoke quickly into the microphone.
“Subject is aggressive and attempting to flee.” She actually smiled when she added “and he has assaulted me.”
Steven paled at that and started to protest. Attacking a member of the party was punishable by death. They had a cage on a chain they put you in and then dropped it in the lake. It stayed there, twenty feet under water, until it was needed again. He’d seen it happen a few weeks ago. He’d be forced into it next to the bloated, rotten half eaten man who’d been caught stealing. The crabs would be clinging to it, biting off tiny chunks of flesh and feasting on the meat. They’d swim over to him as soon as the cage plunged back in the water. It was a horrible way to die.
He should have left six months ago. He should have figured out some way to steal some gas and get out of the gates. Now it was too late, the vindictive woman was going to have him killed.
He panicked and shoved her out of the way, he couldn’t let them put him in the cage and he knew they would. He wasn’t a productive citizen and she would swear he’d attacked her, that he had laid hands on a party official. She slipped on the bloody mess from the bucket and he ran past her out of the warehouse. He heard the sirens and saw the flashing blue of the judicial police and knew it was too late. There were only two roads on and off the island, both guarded and heavily fortified. They would hunt him down, hold a farce of a trial in the morning and he’d be publicly executed tomorrow afternoon. The Island believed in swift justice and severe penalties. He sprinted for the docks, he had to find something, anything that wasn’t chained down. He had to get to the mainland miles away and unseen in the darkness. He couldn’t paddle it in a canoe or raft, there wasn’t time. Sunrise was only an hour away, they’d find him.
The fishing trawler that went out every morning just before dawn was idling at the dock as men yelled back and forth, secured gear and got ready for a long day out on the lake. Steven swallowed his fears, calmed his nerves and hurried out towards them as the gangway was being pulled in.
“Wait, I’m supposed to be on there!” he yelled and waved his arm.
“And who are you?” one of the crew asked as he ran across the walkway.
“Steven Overturf.” He said. “I was told to report for duty.”
“We already have a full crew.” The man said. “I didn’t hear about this, where’s your paperwork? We need to see the Captain.”
“Fine by me.” Steve said and turned to leave. “I’m just doing what I was told. One of the commissars told me to get on the boat to get trained. I’ll tell her you wouldn’t let me on. Just wait here, I’ll try to find her so she can tell you herself.”
“Hold on.” The man said and scratched his beard. “I guess we can figure this out later, we’ve got to go or we won’t make our quota for the day.”
He didn’t want any trouble from the government, they left the fishermen alone for the most part.
They backed slowly out of the dock and were powering towards deep water before the police arrived to find the body of the overseer cooling in a pile of fish heads, scales and entrails. She’d slipped in the mess when she’d been shoved aside. Her feet flew out from under her and the back of her head had caught the corner of a steel table.
It was hours later when the Captain got a call on the radio to be on the lookout for any unauthorized craft headed for the mainland, a killer was on the loose. Steven knew his time was up and grabbed the flare gun.
“It’ll kill you just as dead as a bullet if it hits you point blank.” He warned and forced them to take him ashore.
He’d been on the run ever since, hiding out in rural areas and keeping on the move. He’d always been a paranoid man, even diagnosed with mild schizophrenia by some quack. He wasn’t crazy though. People really were out to get him and hold him back. At his old job in the power plant he was constantly bypassed for promotions. He was in the same position he’d started out doing fresh out of college. The same thing had happened at the Island. They were all out to get him, that’s why he kept being demoted. He knew they would hunt him, he wouldn’t be safe in any town. He was sure the Island had sent out a description and his wanted poster was hanging in every guard shack at every gate in every fortified settlement.
10
Diablo
Diablo approached the smoldering ash of the campfire. Every sense on high alert for danger. He’d smelled the smoke when he was still miles away and followed the scent. Sensing no threat, he gobbled down the strips of venison and lapped up the still warm grease from the skillet. He sniffed at the potatoes and frui
t. They held no interest for him. He sniffed where each of them had sat. He inspected the spots where they’d relieved themselves behind trees until he found her scent. He growled as he inhaled. He could smell a trace of Demonio on the bark of the tree where her cloaked back had rested. Nose to the ground he followed her scent up the hilltop where it was mingled in with new scents. He didn’t recognize these. They smelled of men, tobacco and diesel fuel. He sniffed the blood on the ground where Otis had bled and lapped at its stickiness. He circled the mashed down grass where the trucks had parked and hunted for their trail. It seemed to end here. The diesel smell still clung faintly to the brush and grass so he followed it. He wouldn’t allow another predator to take his prey and set out a loping gait to see where it led.
The trail led him to a road and then to Gallatin. He stayed in the trees, camouflaged and invisible to those who watched from the walls. Many scents came from the lair. Humans, garbage, the smell of cows and cooked food mingled in with exhaust fumes and other odors he couldn’t identify. It was noisy too. Voices of many people and machines. He shied from the sound, they reminded him of his time behind bars and he wouldn’t go back into another cage.
He followed the tree line around the town until the smell of decay and carrion was strong in his nose. He slinked his way through the trees and brush until he reached a large pit far beyond the walls. Flies buzzed and whirled around the hole. High above, carrion birds circled in slow, lazy spirals.
The Feral Children | Book 3 | Nomads Page 7