Chaplin wagged his tail.
“Jay-sus.”
He still wagged.
“Hell, it doesn’t matter that Dad and I spent sweat upon sweat trying to disguise the dwelling so it’d be quiet and unnoticeable. It doesn’t matter that, if Stamp’s sending his men round to search out more water for his property, he might resort to trickery to get one of his guys inside here and drag us off the property. Most of all, you know what we have to lose by letting anyone near. No, you’re just sitting there cocking your head and flashing your browns and begging like none of that is of consequence.”
The dog just kept cocking and flashing while the stranger’s visage hovered in the visz, as if gauging the hidden device.
Chaplin gnawed out a few more muddled sounds. He asked for help.
I turned away, forcing my concentration on the visz again. It was as if I were stuck in one of my nightmares, where Chaplin had finally given up on me and had decided to go his own way, leaving me behind.
On the screen, the stranger crumpled to his knees and hunched over in what looked to be agony. Chaplin winced, then stamped round, fidgety.
But letting the man in would be too much of a risk . . . in so many ways. Yes, he was wounded, and I felt for him. I’d been wounded, too, way back when. But that was exactly why I couldn’t drag him inside. I knew better than to welcome anything in.
And I knew the rest of the community would probably feel the same way. From the sights I often saw on the viszes, which were trained on the underground common area where other New Badlanders had begun gathering again recently, I could tell that the world hadn’t changed fast enough for anyone to be trusting strangers. The bad guys were still out there, and Johnson Stamp might prove to be one of them. According to gossip, he’d permanently moved here about a month ago, establishing a setup for uncovering water in the area, seeing as the earth didn’t produce a whole lot of it for regular folk these days. Of course, corporations had the means to desalinate ocean water and seed clouds, but their services came at a steep price few could afford without indebting themselves body and soul. Water was life, especially in an out-of-the-way place like the New Badlands.
The stranger made one last pain-ragged appeal over the visz.
“No . . . harm,” he croaked out, lifting his head back up in supplication.
Then I saw something I couldn’t be sure of. His eyes, already whitened by the camera’s night vision, flared, reminding me of a gunslinger opening his jacket to show that he wasn’t armed.
I sucked in a breath when he hit the ground again, dust wisping up round his flattened body like smoke seething out of the earth.
Chaplin whined deep in his throat, an accusation.
Well, screw him and his dog brain. Maybe his Intel was rubbing off him, what with living out here in the wilds. Maybe we’d all have every last bit of sense bleached from us soon. Wouldn’t surprise me, seeing as I was halfway there already.
I ignored the visz and clung to my crossbow, still remembering that odd flash in the stranger’s eyes, riddled by it.
Chaplin put his paw on my boot and I said, “I’m not falling for his tricks.”
Hurt, he repeated.
“And his hurt trumps what might happen to us should we let him in, whether or not he’s Stamp’s man?”
No answer from Chaplin on that, because he probably had enough brain cells working to realize that this stranger could be a million things spelling a last mistake. Besides exposing our home, there was a chance that he was one of the bad guys himself—and bad guys would pull anything to make their way in life. See, after old prophecies had come to a head—things like pestilence and earthly change—the bads had taken advantage of all the chaos. The mosquito epidemic had wiped out and separated much of the population in the old States, and terrorism had coerced the normal, law-abiding citizens to take homebound jobs, where they only face-to-faced with their core families. But that was only the start.
U.S.-based terrorists had rigged massive charges along the quake faults of the West Coast to blow off some of the “devil-ridden” area, and the government had extended full security for the good of the country. But a lot of people thought the government could be just as bad as any enemy, and they’d left the urban hubs, seeking safety on compounds or isolated places like the New Badlands. From that point on, bad guys had risen from the ashes all over the place. There’d been a spike in identity theft, so we’d dug the ID chips out from under our skin. We stopped using the Internet and mass tools of communication. We basically wiped ourselves off the face of society since the government—which had even stopped pretending that it wasn’t composed of many a bad guy itself—had been too slow to regulate privacy information legislation.
That was when bad guys seized even more identities and properties with impunity. Basically, to live nowadays, even if the government was said to have been weakened by out-of-country monetary sanctions, you had to decide whether to eat or be eaten. And, right now, I wasn’t about to put myself on a banquet table.
When I checked the visz one last time, I saw that the screen was empty. A trickle of sweat slid down my temple. Eat or be eaten, I thought again.
But Chaplin didn’t seem to get it. If someone had helped you when you needed it . . .
“Stop,” I said before he could really cut into me. “Don’t be talking about that. You know better.”
The dog merely waited me out, big-browning me with those eyes. It was almost like I could see exactly what he was thinking, too: images of my mom and preteen brother reaching out, screaming while covered with blood as the bad guys got to them. To us.
If someone had helped us when we needed it . . .
Damn it all. Maybe the only thing separating us from the world we were hiding from was moments like this, when you could make the choice to do more than just stand by while someone else fell.
Could I just help the guy a little, then send him on his way? Was it possible? I did have an arsenal of weapons on my side, after all.
I had a lot of things he’d be afraid of, except I wasn’t so willing to use everything at my disposal. He could thank me for that later.
Damn it. Damn it.
I raised a finger to Chaplin, but it trembled. “You’d better be right. If this man’s fooling us with those injuries, I’ll gun him off good and make sure Stamp knows we’re not buying whatever he might be bringing. Then you and me are going to have a talk about common sense.”
My dog shifted from one paw to the other, happy as could be. His gaze seemed . . . what? Inappropriately misty? Bright?
Adrenaline thudding, I set down my crossbow and rechecked my revolver. It’d been made in the early 2000s but would work fine, bolstered by the modifications and the old ammunition, plus the homemade, I’d loaded into it.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Stupid. But Chaplin would never let me forget that I was no better than a bad guy if I didn’t at least see if the stranger was truly wounded. The dog had put up with a lot from me, and someday, I’d push him over the line. I didn’t want that day to be now.
With a hard glance at him, I tucked the revolver back into its holster, grabbed the crossbow, then moved toward the wooden ladder. I slowly climbed toward the exit panel, wanting to take the high ground in case I needed it.
God-all, when was the last time I’d willingly been outside? To hell with Chaplin for reminding me that this was the right and decent thing to do. To hell with him for playing that horrific card.
I heaved in oxygen, held my breath, slamming open the panel and emerging into the darkening dusk. Through my night sights, I scanned the area for traps.
Nothing amiss.
Or maybe not.
I scanned a second time while the night air baked over me: dragon’s breath, they called the extreme conditions forced by all the changes.
Heartbeat tangling, I smoothed myself out as I breathed. Breathed.
At the same time, I kept thinking: Outside. I’m outside. I should get back in. . .
.
Trying to shove my doubts away, I maneuvered over the dry, rock-bitten hill until I slid to the ground. A few sharp blades of cockroach grass, named because it’d sprung up in defiance of the harsh weather, pricked through my pants.
Inside. Get back inside . . .
Now I went a step farther, shutting myself from feeling altogether: smelling, intaking, experiencing. Then I approached the stranger, aiming my crossbow at his chest. It’d be quite a sight when he opened his eyes. Hopefully, he’d report back to Stamp that there was nothing near here worth even a third look.
Unless he was really hurt.
Peering closer, I discerned that the stranger’s wounds seemed genuine enough, not to mention his obvious pain. Then, as I knew it would, the blood on his skin zoomed in at me, and I clamped off the sight before I could have a reaction. A contained tremor blasted through me and, when I was strong enough to open my eyes, I saw that his knees were drawn to his chest as he clutched his long coat round him. His jaw was clenched, as if holding back another fruitless request to allow him inside my home.
With a brief glance at the visz lens hidden amongst the scrub, I wondered how everyone seemed to be finding the equipment when I’d done such an expert job at camouflage.
Inside! Get yourself inside!
I cleared my throat so my voice would come out strong. “You one of Stamp’s drunkards?” I was still targeting him, my lungs so tight I could barely talk.
The harmless moon caught a gleam in his eyes as he opened his gaze. He grimaced, dragging himself over to me. I stepped back.
“Shelter,” he uttered.
Definitely not faking. I’d heard so many screams in my head over the years that I knew what agony sounded like.
Even so, I scanned him over for weapons with my bow monitor. Unarmed. But a quiver reminded me to keep clamping myself off from his wounds, his hurt.
The stranger stirred on the ground.
Inside! Go!
But I couldn’t move. The sight of his blood was transfixing me again, owning me. Frantically, I grasped my minibow one-handed and jerked a dust kerchief out of a pocket, holding it over my nose.
“Do anything dumb,” I said, “and you die.”
“Understood.” His whisper was barely discernible.
I wondered if I should get my dad’s old med equipment and take care of him out here, but that would mean lingering in the elements. That might be more dangerous than bringing him in.
A sound behind me persuaded me to swing round my crossbow, but I yanked it up once I saw what was happening.
Three feet away, a scrub-shrouded trapdoor that served as another entrance to the domain had spewed open. And damn it all if Chaplin wasn’t waiting right there like the most hyper welcoming committee ever.
He barked, intoning an invitation for the stranger to come in.
“Chaplin!” What was the mutt thinking?
Before I could react, the stranger rolled to the opening, his body disappearing as the entrance swallowed him up.
The thud of his weight hitting the dirt of my home pounded in my ears. I ran to the opening, peering down to find him sprawled near Chaplin, who was already licking the man’s wounds.
“Are you crazy, dog?” I jumped to the floor, too, crouching to ease the fall. Right away, I reached over to secure the trapdoor again. Then I pressed the kerchief to my face. “You don’t know what’s in his blood!”
But that wasn’t true. Intel Dogs had an even keener sense of smell than their ancestors, than any type of canine, in fact. Chaplin could warn me about the proximity of any intruders after taking an outside hunting trip; he could tell me if the man was carrying disease or not, too. My dog must’ve known the stranger was otherwise healthy.
Chaplin avoided me while tending to his patient. Keeping the crossbow in hand, I put some distance between me and the stranger as I headed for my living space.
Breathe, I thought, thankful, so thankful to be back inside. Lucky to have come back without bringing trouble .
You can breathe now.
In the food prep area, I leaned against a cupboard, where I could still my racing blood and my tremors. Then, after getting hold of myself, I pulled out some linen that could stanch the stranger’s bleeding. I also ditched my bow and brought out antiseptic and a general first-aid kit, from which I opened a bottle of antiseptic gel and smeared the contents under my nostrils.
Back in the day, I would’ve been able to access the Nets to see if I was nursing a person correctly, but since the bad guys had taken over, that wasn’t possible. I’d trashed anything—the computer, the phone, the personal devices—that could possibly allow criminals access to my life. There wouldn’t have been good reception out here in the nowheres, anyway.
When I came back and sat down next to the stranger, I realized that Chaplin had licked off the blood, giving the man’s features clean definition. Unhindered by crimson, there was something stoic and haunted, his nose slightly crooked, his barely opened eyes gray, his skin pale, just like everyone else’s since day-walking without a heat suit was dumb business.
Looking at him did something, curling me from the inside out until I felt twisted up. Heat surged through me, but I couldn’t stop, even though I knew I should.
It was just that . . . Well, in what looked to be all the clothing he owned—a long, battered coat that matched the misery of his trousers, a frayed bag slung over his chest, plus three shirts layered and weather-beaten—he seemed like one of those storied cowboys who used to wander the landscape of mid-twentieth-century cinema. I’d seen a few of those old movies Before, previous to the world’s degradation. Hell, most all New Badlanders dressed in this kind of gear, but . . . it wasn’t the same. Maybe it was the silver-star color of the man’s eyes or his civil way of asking for help that’d done it. Maybe I was a right fool, too. But there was something about him that brought back a link to the comfortable, the soothing fiction of myth.
The stranger watched me just as well. Something seemed to tweak the front of my mind again, calming me down, making me think it was okay for him to be here.
When Chaplin tilted his head at me, I blinked, pushing the stranger’s influence out of me. I was real good at pushing.
Feeling oddly unburdened now, I straightened up, then busied myself by pressing the antiseptic-dipped linen to the stranger’s head wounds.
Weird, though. He didn’t seem to be breathing. But he was alive all the same.
I glanced at Chaplin. “Does he ring familiar to you? I’ve never seen him wandering round on any of the visz screens before.”
Chaplin shook his head, and I continued to apply pressure. The quicker I nursed him, the quicker he’d be out of my hair.
“Just because he doesn’t register,” I added, “it doesn’t mean he isn’t a part of Stamp’s crew.”
Now, it seemed as if the stranger had fallen into a light stupor after expending enough energy to get himself past the trapdoor. He closed his eyes, his muscles relaxing. His lips opened slightly, and I found my gaze on the cuts and bruises that were making his mouth swell.
That weird heat started making me uncomfortable again, so I pushed it back. “How do you think he got himself hurt, boy?” I asked Chaplin.
My dog growled out an answer. Beat up by one of Stamp’s guys.
“Makes sense, I suppose.” I grabbed another cloth, dipped it in the gel, then kept right on nursing. “One of them could’ve gotten blazed on turtlegrape and found a distraction in this unfortunate.”
Although Stamp and his men had been more aggressively exploring the area very recently, none of my neighbors were willing to fully reveal themselves so Stamp could be shooed off. They were still hoping to stay unidentified.
But it looked like we’d been discovered anyhow.
I used a corner of linen to wipe down the stranger’s face, then paused. Hadn’t there been a scratch round his cheekbone?
Chaplin wagged his tail faster, enthused about my willingness to nurse. Darn
the dog.
“Bag,” the stranger whispered, his voice raw. “In my bag . . .”
I touched the leathered carryall strapped over his chest, and he grunted in the positive.
“Unguent,” he added before going silent again.
I searched the contents of his bag, taking care not to discomfort him. A comb, a scrap of fragrant pink cotton, a flask that seemed cool to the touch, a jar . . .
I grabbed it, screwed off the porcelain lid to find a solidified pool of goo, then scooped out a gob. It tingled on my skin.
As I slathered it over his wounds, I minded my breathing again. It’d quickened in these last seconds, fighting with my pulse and making me much too aware of the scratch of slight beard on his face, the coolness of his skin.
I caught a small smile right before the creases round his mouth went slack and he succumbed to rest.
And that was how the next few hours passed, with the man resting. Oddly, his head wounds hadn’t been as bad as I’d first thought; they certainly seemed to have been humdingers at first, but I was no medic. Still, expert or not, I took care to mind every bit about him, even his lack of breathing. But he was alive enough, so I didn’t search for lung activity too diligently.
In the meantime, I brewed some loto cactus–flavored water for when he awoke. He’d be sorely thirsty, no doubt, and the concoction would make him heal all the quicker.
As the water boiled in a stainless steel container I’d once salvaged from an abandoned highway weigh station a few miles distant, I sat on my ground couch. Chaplin cuddled up next to me and, out of enjoyable habit, I petted him between the ears. But I kept tabs on the slumbering stranger. In fact, I was so vigilant about watching him that something outside caught me by surprise. It took Chaplin’s growl to shake me to the present—to the other visitor showcased on a visz monitor.
Chaplin kept growling. Even I felt myself tensing until I forced myself to better serenity.
“Lo?” the second visitor called out in greeting.
Like the other intruders from Stamp’s camp these past few nights, this guy was speaking Text, the shorthand English that had become so prevalent because of chat rooming, texting, and the like. Since the Badlanders had long ago cut themselves off from all that crap, they’d clung to Old American, just like the shut-ins who tucked themselves away in their urban hub homes and the businesspeople who communicated also in Hindi and Chinese with the global community.
Bloodlands Page 2