The girls grew more desperate, anxious, like animals howling in the dark, each voice identical to the next and combining into a deafening chorus that bounced off the walls and filled the house.
"Where is the Savior?"
"Where are we going?"
"When do we start the Trapping?"
"Won't Mr. Percy find us?"
"Is Mrs. Grant dead?"
"Enough!" Jane yelled. From outside came the sound of more breaking glass, a sweeping whoosh, a gentle crackle, footsteps crashing across the ground. "Trust me, you're safer away from here."
"But the creatures ..."
"Where will we sleep?"
"What about food?"
"Silence!"
The girls tittered into an obedient calm. The voice that quieted them was strong, regal, older. A few girls whispered a name with a tone of worship and fear.
"Rebecca."
Eli spied a tall girl bobbing between them down the stairs. At the bottom, she wove through the crowd with her white dress skimming the floor, drapes of black hair flowing across her shoulders. She approached Jane and glared at her with her chin held high.
"We're not going anywhere," she said. "Our home is with the Savior."
Jane started to protest, but it was Simon's voice that rang out.
"Home?" He took the blond girl's hand and placed it over his heart. "Beth, you're a prisoner. You've been abused, for Chrissake."
"Our strength has been tested, that's all, Simon." Beth pulled her hand away. "Those men were weak. Our purpose is to set them on the right path."
The wrinkles on Simon's young face deepened as the heartbreak set in. Eli looked at the boy with sadness despite the sharp stab of revenge in his heart.
"If that's what you believe, you're a fool," Simon said.
Outside, the sounds of battle had ceased and Eli smelled burning wood, heard distant voices calling out orders. Inside, someone chuckled, a throaty, unamused sound.
"You're the fool." Rebecca floated toward Simon, a grin spreading across her chiseled, square face, gray eyes glinting haughtily. She placed her hands on his whiskered cheeks. "But you'll understand … someday. And you'll thank us."
"For what?" Simon said angrily.
"For saving you. For rescuing humanity from sin and torment, and building a more perfect world."
To Eli, the girl's words were almost comforting. But the fervor in her voice and mania in her eyes sent a shiver down his spine. She sounded just like Quinn.
Indoctrinated.
Eli marched into the center of the living room and gazed up, squinting into the shadows where the most frightened girls hid. "Come with us. I'll get you home. I promise." He heard his own words from far away and hoped they would prove true.
"Lies!" Rebecca screamed. "Don't listen to him. Don't abandon your sacred purpose! You've been chosen —"
"Is that what you call it?" said a shrill voice. A figure stumbled through a knot of girls gathered at the bottom of the staircase. The girl was tiny and thin as a twig, with straw-colored hair; she looked barely older than twelve.
"I saw what they did to Rooney."
"Rooney was a deserter, Anna."
"She tried to save us!"
"She betrayed us."
"You told us she was sick, but she wasn't, was she?"
Rebecca smiled. "She had to be forced to take the right path..."
"And the ones the doctor drugged?" Anna thrust a skinny finger into the air. "Was that part of this path?"
Rebecca stepped forward and nodded at Anna. "It's a small price to pay for greatness. You will see that someday."
Eli's stomach dropped as a picture became clear: the girls were divided. Those who followed Martha and Quinn — like Rebecca and Beth — and those who fought their capture, like Rooney.
One side indoctrinated and brainwashed, the other brutalized and left hopeless, with not even their friends to help them fight back.
Anna shook her head and caught Eli's eye. "I want to go home. Why should we trust you?"
In her large brown eyes, Eli found the reality of his promise, of being someone people trusted — a leader. The responsibility was crushing, but it enlivened him. He walked across the living room and fell to his knees before Anna.
"Because I won't let anyone hurt you again."
Anna stared hard into his eyes, searching for something. Relief softened her face and she nodded. "I believe him. Let's go!"
A ripple of movement began at the second-floor railing, spread down the staircases, into rooms, down hallways, through the living room. The sight pumped Eli's blood with energy and joy.
"Line up at the back door!" he called.
"No!" Rebecca cried. "You're safe here!"
Girls with flushed faces flocked to the kitchen, some with bags in hand, others with nothing. Eli counted only a dozen — haggard, thin, jittery with fear. Rebecca paced among them.
"The outside world is a barren wilderness, teeming with the soulless, with people who will harm you — "
Rebecca's words were severed in her throat: three of the girls attacked, pinning her arms and covering her mouth. They dragged her from the living room and down the hallway. A door slammed shut.
"You can rot in there like Rooney!" one of them screeched.
"Rebecca!" a few girls whined.
"How dare you!"
The dozen girls huddled together in the kitchen, chatting and peeking out the door as Jane and Simon ran around the house, trying to gather others.
"You'll die out there!" a voice called.
"You won't be welcome in the golden city."
White figures stood stubbornly along the second-floor railing, along the staircase, sat in plush leather chairs in the living room with their arms crossed. Jane trudged into the kitchen with Simon on her heels.
"No more?" Eli said.
Jane shook her head.
Eli turned his attention to the girls huddled together. A breeze wafted in through the open door. "Line up single file, now, and pair up." They obeyed. "All right, first group."
They took one step and a voice thundered outside. Jane raced to the front windows and peered out; she raised a shaking finger to her lips. The door opened a sliver and Jane flinched from it, then froze. Eli had a glimpse of blue sky, a column of white smoke, and Quinn's towering frame on the steps facing Olive's yard.
"Sweep every building," he ordered. "Find him!"
At the sound of his voice, a scattering of claps and relieved sighs erupted through the house. Jane ran back to the kitchen and grabbed Eli's hands with her warm, calloused ones.
"Hide!"
Eli didn't want to let go of Jane's hands. But then someone tugged at his shoulder and her fingers slipped from his grasp. He was steered to a slatted, narrow door and pushed inside amid shelves stacked with jars of vegetables and jam. The door clicked shut and Eli found himself crouching in the dark beside Simon. Narrow stripes of white light streamed into the pantry and fell across the boy's pale, sweaty face. Outside the pantry, dozens of boots rumbled across the floor: a contingent of Quinn's men. The leader's voice boomed above the din and everyone quieted.
"My chosen ones," he said, his voice cracking, "I must beg your forgiveness." The girls whispered "savior" in a slow, rhythmic soprano. "What you've endured is unspeakable. I was ignorant of it, but that's no excuse."
Their voices erupted in a shrill chorus: declaring forgiveness, rejecting the apology, reciting worship and praise.
"Thank you, thank you, you're too good to me," Quinn said. "But I have failed in my sacred duty. Leaving you here was not wise. I made that decision out of desperation and you have suffered for it. From this day on, I vow to do what I must to keep you safe." He paused, and the girls hushed. "You will put this place behind you and come home with me."
Simon groaned "no" and reached for the door. Eli thrust out an arm to stop him. The girls inhaled collectively, then applauded and cheered. Quinn's deep voice grumbled under the din. Silence fell.
Several voices cried out at once, but a single voice rose above the clamor.
"But she tried to make us leave here, Savior! She lied and tried to trick us."
Eli imagined Quinn sinking a blade into Jane's stomach, like he did to Martha. He held his breath until his lungs burned and pressed a shaking hand against the door, biting back the urge to lunge outside.
Wait. Trust her.
"That's true," Jane began, "but I was trying to rescue them from Olive. And from a man I assumed would hurt them, too. Now I know the truth."
"We are of like minds, you and me," Quinn said. Eli sensed a smile in his voice. "You'll come with us. Help me. Help the girls."
Eli let out his held breath in a relieved gust, and fear swiftly took over. Where would Quinn take her?
Jane cleared her throat. "I'd be happy to. Wherever they go, I'll go. I'll watch over them."
A door crashed open. The girls gasped as boots thundered across the floor.
"We've swept the town," a man announced. "Her men are dead, but she's disappeared."
"And the prisoner, Eli?"
"No sign of him, either."
Quinn growled, low and raspy. "Take a dozen men and expand the search outside the walls. If he escaped, he can't be far. Find him."
The footsteps shuffled away.
"We leave at once," Quinn said. His voice moved into the kitchen. "It's a long journey."
Voices and footsteps traveled upstairs, through the second-floor rooms over Eli and Simon's heads, back down into the living room. Through the slats, Eli could see the girls' bundled forms clustered by the back door.
Eli's stomach sank: he'd promised them a journey home.
Quinn called out for quiet, and the girls obeyed. "Silence and serenity, my chosen ones. "
"Serenity is my shield," the girls repeated together. "Silence is my armor."
As the first girls drifted outside, reciting their mantra, Simon groaned Beth's name and lunged for the door, hand outstretched. Eli thrust out his arm and Simon's hands dug into his skin.
"Shhh," Eli hissed.
The girls filtered out, two by two, their figures flanked and protected by a crowd of Quinn's armed men. Simon writhed against Eli's arm, whispering "Beth" over and over. As the last of the girls vanished, Eli spied Jane bringing up the rear of the line with Quinn.
"Where is home?" she asked.
"I hang my hat at an asylum, about ten miles or so from here."
"An asylum?" she said loudly.
Quinn paused at the door and they stood silhouetted in white light. "It's cozier than it sounds."
"I hope so," Jane said with a chuckle. She glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen and a small smile curled her lips.
I'll be okay, the smile said. Come get me.
Her strong shoulders and sandy curls slipped through the door and melted into the brown and gray blur of dead grass, steel wall, and distant trees. Then, she was gone.
An empty silence reverberated like a drum in the girls' wake. Eli's arm grew slack and Simon pushed past him. He sprung through the door and into the kitchen, screaming, "Beth!"
Eli stood in the pantry a minute, listening to Simon's screams echoing through the house. He sprinted through the kitchen and to the door. It was still open and cold air blew dead leaves and the scent of autumn inside. He bounded over the threshold and through the passageway to an open gate. This opened to another walled passage that crossed the buffer zone and ended in a second open gate. Eli stood in its frame, gazing out across a swath of open land and a cluster of forest beyond it, swooping downward.
A dozen heads were sinking below the crest, one by one, leaving Eli alone in that cold, gray wilderness. His legs twitched to follow Jane and the girls to the asylum, but he fought the impulse.
A condemned man couldn't chase his executioner.
"Keep her safe," Eli prayed.
He went back into the house. Passed through the empty kitchen, the cavernous and quiet living room. Simon sat silently on the stairs, his head in his hands. Eli walked to the front windows, peeled back a curtain and lifted the blinds.
Golden morning sunlight raked across Olive's front yard and the corpses of fallen men stretched across the brown grass like small hills. The air was filled with the sounds of their slow dying, the smell of burning wood, white smoke. People flitted through the haze.
The smoke was drifting from Olive's mansion. A fire blazed somewhere inside: flames shot outward from the roof, orange tongues licking the roof. A few feet away, someone sat slumped and facing the burning house.
Olive. She was completely still, her fur stained with blood. Eli couldn't tell if she was dead or paralyzed by fear, her entire world now burning into embers around her.
A hand touched his shoulder.
"The asylum is north. The mountain is to the south. Are you coming?"
Eli looked at Simon, found the young man's eyes bloodshot, his face drawn and pale. Eli nodded.
"Then follow me."
Chapter 44
A half hour later, Eli and Simon hid quietly in a cluster of thick sumac, watching three armored men. They stood a dozen feet away, still and stiff as the trees around them.
"No sign of him," whispered one.
"Better make a show of it anyway," answered another. "Can't just head home now. He'll know."
Simon fidgeted, his breathing like a saw in Eli's ears, his eyes frantic and frightened. Eli's own muscles tingled with the need to keep running. He gawked at Simon over his shoulder.
"Quiet," he mouthed.
"East?" said one of Quinn's men. The other responded with a nod. "Let's go."
They moved away silently and Simon jerked to his feet, ready to run. Eli grasped him by the arm.
"Wait."
With one hand clutching Simon's arm, Eli counted out five minutes. Then he let go. Simon sprung from their hiding place. Eli followed him along a black river and past a pond clogged with a beaver dam. They popped out onto a thread of narrow, broken asphalt cutting through the trees. This turned into a gravel path overgrown with saplings and surrounded by a thick, dark forest of conifers. Eli searched among them for flitting white figures and tiny bodies, hiding like forest creatures behind tree and bush. For skin and bones and leathery skin, dead eyes.
The woods were empty. They should've caught up to them by now. Where were they?
Eli prayed the four who'd escaped were hiding at the cave, waiting. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, hoping Simon did the same as he turned left onto an old railroad bed and raced on.
Serenity is my shield. Silence is my armor.
Each minute felt like an hour. The air thrummed with their footsteps and ragged breathing. The cool woods bit Eli's skin, its pine and earth smell filled his nostrils. He felt sick and weak — acid sloshed around in his empty stomach, his limbs and lungs ached, his head throbbed — but his legs kept dragging him along. Perhaps it was adrenaline, or maybe something else: the promise of a second chance, the thrill of purpose.
Simon skidded to a halt and whipped around, searching for something. Eli stopped, became aware of the fatigue in his body, the sweat beading on his skin, and Simon's vulnerable neck, inches from his fingers. They tingled with the unfulfilled, instinctive need for revenge. He raised his hand.
Simon's boots scraped the carpet of needles underfoot and he turned right at a wooden sign buried among the leaves.
"Payne Mountain Trail Head. Elevation 1,883."
Eli's vengeful urge passed. He followed Simon onto a narrow, leaf-strewn path that cut through a forest stripped bare of its leaves. The sun climbed the sky, casting golden beams through the tree trunks, raking a forest floor soft with fallen leaves. Then the terrain shot upward and transf
ormed into tumble of rocks. Eli pulled his body over these as the path twisted and looped back on itself. His muscles shook and his boots and hands lost their grip on the stones. With every step, he thought of the four girls he hoped were waiting at the cave, and the pain vanished.
The rocks thinned and the trees closed in, shutting out the light. Pine needles carpeted the ground. Simon wheezed a dozen feet ahead, his head held low. Eli followed until the forest opened up and sunlight twinkled across the forest floor. The ground pitched upward and a steep switchback soared into the sky. Eli put his head down, took a deep breath, and climbed.
He clutched saplings and dug his fingers into cold earth to pull himself up. Nausea clawed up his throat. A voice reminded him he hadn't eaten or drank in twelve hours. Then the land finally flattened and Eli stood at the top with his hands on his knees, waiting for the cramping in his legs to ease.
A bracing wind whistled and tossed dead leaves over his head and the sun, now at its crest, blazed raw in a pale blue sky. He gazed up at a span of naked trees, a blue landscape peeking between them. To Eli's left, Simon was bent over as well, catching his breath.
Then he stood straight and swung left at a dead run, down a dip in the ground and out of sight. Eli chased after him, into dank air scented with minerals.
The cave was small and nestled at the far end of a scoop in the earth. Above its black, teardrop-shaped hole was a roof of grass and twisting trees. Wet black rocks enclosed a yard of mud and stones like arms. Simon's voice screeched within the cave's depths.
"Hello?"
Something crashed against the cave wall. Simon's figure emerged and sank to the ground; he ran his hands through his hair and yelled in frustration, then fell silent and stony.
Eli searched the woods surrounding the cave, then descended into the cave and ventured deeper inside. There, dim sunlight traced stacks of boxes, piles of sacks and weapons, a few of them turned over and their contents strewn across the cave floor. Eli turned around and made his way back to the entrance. He stood over Simon.
"Where are they?"
Simon shrugged. "He musta got them."
Eli's heart thudded against his ribs and he wobbled across the mud and away from the cave, up the little hill back into the sparse mountain woods. He collapsed to his knees and stared blankly at the trees and the hazy blue view beyond them, too tired to think but consumed by sadness. The weight of the day pressed in on him from all sides.
The Human Wilderness (A New America Trilogy Book 1) Page 32