"Think you can pedal for 25 miles?" the conductor asked, and chuckled.
"I'll pedal," Barrington said. "She rides."
"Next bus goes out tomorrow. Six o'clock. Morning."
"What about tonight?" Jeri asked.
The conductor shook his head. "Last one left. I don't send out buses that can get stuck in the dark. Even with running lights. Not worth the risk, especially with the mobs between here and Lakeshore."
Again, Barrington and Jeri conferred with one another in silence, exchanging glances, but not words.
The conductor chuckled. "There's a good put-up over there. Hell, there's a few you can choose from. Stay the night. Ain't so bad out here. Maybe not the luxury you're used to, but not as bad as some places, especially not as bad as those put-ups close to the gate."
Barrington took Jeri by the hand and followed the conductor's pointing finger to a three-story house with empty, weed-infested lots on either side. A wooden staircase ran down the back of the brick home. Thick beams reinforced the front porch and the windows reflected of the setting sun. The conductor was right, Barrington thought. Compared to the houses closer to the gate, this one seemed luxurious.
"We need two rooms," Barrington said to the heavyset proprietress sitting on the porch in a lounge chair. Its padding showed off dancing bears and prancing horses, but in places the threadbare fabric revealed its age with holes that let the stuffing come through.
"Two? Ain't together?"
Barrington felt Jeri's tug on his arm. At first, soft, but then insistent. "Stay with me. I don't want to be alone."
"One room."
"For two? Or you want two beds in the basement dorm. Cheaper down there. No privacy, but cheaper."
"A room," Jeri said, and cleared her throat and spoke again, more emphatic than before. "One room for the two of us."
"A hundred for the first night. Another fifty if you stay for two. And thirty per night after that."
Jeri paid the stout woman, who then she led them inside, into well-lit parlor -- battery operated lamps, Barrington noted -- with sofas and armchairs. A narrow hallway took them to a heavy door at the end.
"There's privacy," the woman said. "Kind of. But the wall's are thin, so if you're embarrassed by anything you're doing, don't do it or don't make any noise." She chortled and pushed open the door.
Barrington looked at the nearly empty room. A narrow bed stood against one wall. A table occupied a corner. Shelving made of cinder blocks and old planks of wood ran the length of another wall.
"Toilets out back," the woman said, pointing at a nearby door with a hand-lettered "Exit" sign above it.
"Can we get something to eat?" Barrington said.
"Come on back to the parlor and find the kitchen. I got soup on all the time. Fill yourself up with bread. One bowl and one slice per person included in the price."
Jeri tossed her blanket roll to the floor. "Does the door lock?"
The proprietress laughed. "You got something worth taking. You got jewels in there or something?" She backed away. "Come on to the kitchen when you two kids are ready."
The soup was hot, but watery and greasy. The bread, coated with a mix of fat and flour, was tasty and Barrington asked Jeri to fork over another Mylar ogre for a second piece. Out on the porch, a few of the neighbors sat talking about the influx of new exiles. From what Barrington surmised, most everyone in this house had been born Outside; only a handful admitted to once being exiles themselves.
When they returned to their room, Barrington blinked a few times, hoping to acclimate his eyesight to the pitch blackness after Jeri shut the door. She complained, she couldn't even see the bed, and opened the door a crack to let in light from the bulb in the hallway ceiling. Barrington found the desk lamp immediately. He turned the switch. The lantern glowed. The more he turned the switch, the brighter the light.
"Turn around," Jeri said, motioning with one hand.
"I can turn off the light if you're -- "
"Then I can't see the bed." She put her hands on her narrow hips and shook her head. "I'll get in. Then you."
"I can sleep on the floor if you're worried about anything."
"Just get in bed after me."
Barrington turned away when Jeri again motioned to him. He listened to the sounds she made as she discarded her pants and shirt.
"I'm in," she whispered, and giggled.
Warmth filled his chest. He shuddered. He thought of Dell and the silent love-making they enjoyed, made so much better by the thought of her parents on the other side of a thin sheet of wallboard.
He turned off the desk lamp and scampered out of his clothes. He couldn't discern distinct images when he looked directly across the room to where he supposed the narrow bed to be. He blinked. He waited. A large shadow loomed directly ahead and he walked forward. Two steps. Several more.
Barrington slipped into the bed, his hand brushing Jeri's bare back.
"Butt to butt," she said, and giggled. "I've got sharp nails, so don't try anything."
"What would I try?" He turned on his side, his back to her. A warm feeling crept from the base of his neck, past his shoulder blades, and into his thighs. He ached to touch her now. He squeezed his eyes shut. This was no more than a physical reaction to Jeri's body, her warmth, the thought of her lean form nearby, so close he could brush against it if he moved only a little bit.
"Damn!" Jeri sprang to her feet. She tumbled over Barrington's body, fell to the floor, jumped up. In the dark, he saw fluttering arms, a writhing body.
He jumped up as well, suddenly stung by something on his leg. He swiped at the feeling. He stumbled from the side of the bed, across the room, to the desk lamp, which he turned on. Jeri, naked except for panties, batted at her thin thighs, her bare back to him. She knelt and slapped at her feet.
Barrington turned up the light and looked at the bed. He stepped close to it. The sheet and coarse blanket lay on the floor, all clumped together. A few dark insects race away. In the bed, down where their feet had been, more insects settled in the mattress cover.
"Bed bugs," Jeri gasped.
Barrington took a closer look. The insects were too big for mere bed bugs. He didn't think Jeri wanted to hear that, so he said nothing. He smacked the mattress and more of the small beasts erupted from holes in the fabric.
"We must've disturbed their nest," he muttered.
"I don't care. I'm not getting back in there."
Shouts came from the other side of the walls, admonishing them to be quiet. A knock on the door, at first soft and inquiring, became heavy and insistent. Barrington opened it a crack. The proprietress stood in the dimly lit hallway.
"You're making a racket, kid. I told you, the walls are thin, so keep it down. You beating up on her in there?"
"There's bugs in the bed," Jeri hissed. "All over."
The old woman grinned. "Get used to it. This ain't one of them lakeside luxury buildings for the rich, you know."
"I want another room," Jeri said.
"This is it, kid. This is the only room tonight. I'm full up."
"The basement?" Barrington asked.
"Or a different mattress?" Jeri ventured.
"Ya got what ya got. Live with it."
The old woman walked away, head shaking, wild strands of hair spraying from the salt-and-pepper bun at the back of her skull.
Barrington shut the door. He looked back at Jeri standing near-naked in the middle of the room, her arms across her small breasts, her body shaking. She turned away and started to put on her trousers.
"I'm not staying here," she said.
"There's no place to go."
"We'll find some place else."
"We already paid for the night. We're not getting your money back. You think that old lady's going to -- "
"I don't care!"
Again, shouts from the other side of the walls. Jeri slipped her feet into her rubber clogs, picked up her blanket roll and left the room. Barrington, dressing quick
ly, followed and met her out on the deserted porch.
"There's no lights," he said. "Where do you think we're going to go?"
Jeri sniffed. He thought she'd stifled a sob. He tried to see her face more clearly in the dark. He sensed tears in her eyes.
"There's gotta be some place better," she said, and stepped down from the porch, her rubber soles muting the impact she made. She walked along the sidewalk and Barrington followed. They could've just stayed in the room. Perhaps they could've huddled close to one another using her blanket spread out on the floor as simple padding against the hard, coarse boards.
He caught up to her. He couldn't keep her from walking away. She cried. She sniffled, head down, head shaking, her long blonde hair caressing both sides of her small face. Barrington stood stock still and watched her for a few moments before rushing to her side again.
"I don't want to go back there," she said. Barrington put his hand to the back of her head, his fingers entwined with her hair. Tears dampened his shirt. He put an arm across the small of her back.
"Ain't that some sight now," someone said, and several dark figures emerged from the surrounding darkness. Lamp light fell on Barrington and Jeri standing on the sidewalk. Some of the light scattered itself on the weeds and debris of the adjacent empty lots, the remains of old houses long forgotten by the cityscape.
"Some sight, some sight." A tall man emerged from just ahead, his face obscured by the darkness and by the pointed hood atop his head.
"What's the matter, princess?"
Barrington turned from one speaker to the other. He sensed they were surrounded. Running wouldn't get them anywhere. Besides, how far and how fast could Jeri run? And how could he fight off this many attackers?
Someone with a handheld lamp stepped closer. Barrington realized it was a woman, perhaps someone younger than Jeri. She pointed at the blanket roll.
"Empty your pockets," the hooded man said. "And open the blanket. Let's see what you got tonight?"
The others laughed. The young woman with the lantern stood mute, her face also hidden by a hood. When light from another lamp crossed her, Barrington gasped at the mangled and tortured features of her face. Flat nose. No lips. Prominent scars on her cheeks.
Jeri knelt on one knee and spread her blanket. The young woman rifled through the meager belongings.
"Damn," someone said, and then stepped up to the scarred woman and kneed her aside. "Next to nothing."
"Your pockets. Empty them."
Jeri obeyed. Barrington turned his trouser pockets inside out. He stepped back when a hand threw itself close to his chest. Fingers grappled with his shirt pockets.
One of the figures that stepped close to the lamp light held up the ogres he'd taken from Jeri. "Five strips and some loosies," he announced.
"You got All-Pods?"
"I got hers."
"Ya got our money," Barrington rasped. "That's all we got."
The hooded man took Jeri's All-Pod and hefted it in one hand. "We'll get over to Mickey's. Bet there's more. You look like you got more."
Jeri swiped at the hooded man. She grabbed the All-Pod from him. Barrington knocked over the closest man and turned towards the weeded lot. No one stood in his way. He reached for Jeri, and then looked back at her to urge her to follow. Hands grabbed her. She scratched at a face. She stumbled from an attacker's grasp.
A fist smashed the side of her face. Then again, the other side. A third hard punch sent her reeling and she fell, her All-Pod spinning from her hand. Barrington tripped. He felt hands on his back. Something beat at his belly and he doubled over, gasping.
"Rounders!"
Barrington struggled to his knees. The handheld lamps blinked off. One of the attackers grabbed at his neck, cursing, and then a small explosion sent him howling. He fell, arms outstretched, fingers clawing at the churned-up asphalt in the street.
Several figures wearing the distinctive round hats of the local police swarmed the area. Their pistols made a popping sound. Explosive darts, Barrington realized. Air-propelled projectiles. He'd seen them used in the city. Effective at short range, but not as versatile as rail guns or even old-fashioned gunpowder weapons.
The girl with the scars lay on the ground, blood oozing from her side. She twitched. One of the police knelt by her and shook his head.
"What we got?" someone asked. A female voice.
"Not much, Captain."
"Some ogres. An All-Pod."
"That's ours," Barrington said.
The captain laughed. "Ain't yours no more." She pointed at the man who'd fallen in the street. "Search that one. Let's make this worth our while."
"That money's ours, too," Barrington insisted.
"Look, kid," the captain said. "You're alive. Okay. These shits would've killed you. We won't. We just take what we take and you get on with your life."
"We could give them lift," one of the police said.
"Sure," the captain said. "You want a lift? Back to headquarters?"
Barrington didn't answer. He didn't know what to say. He left the question dangle for a moment. When the captain gave him an insistent look, demanding to know, he nodded. "Where's headquarters?"
"Just on the outskirts of Lakeshore. A lot safer than hanging around here."
"Fine. Okay. Thanks. Let me help my friend." Barrington started to go to Jeri.
"Don't bother," the Rounder kneeling by Jeri's inert body said. "She's dead."
Barrington froze.
"Get her eye print," the captain said. And then, to Barrington. "This her All-Pod?"
He nodded.
"Won't do her any good now."
Barrington joined the Rounder at Jeri's still form. She stared skyward, shock in her dead eyes, blood massed around her nose and mouth, bruising across the entire right side of her small face.
"Wife?" the Rounder asked.
"Friend," Barrington answered.
Chapter Three
After a long and grueling week as a mucker, Barrington got a job with a construction crew as a carter, which meant four days-a-week pushing a wheelbarrow full of chopped-up concrete and old rebar nearly a half-mile to a waiting wagon pulled by two old mules. He didn't know where these leftovers from a crumbling office building went, and didn't care. As a carter he didn't end each day full of stink, but he did endure cramped legs and aching forearms. After five straight days of strenuous labor, he told himself the work should become easier as time went on.
Standing in the open field of rubble, he looked at the barbed wire fence facing him and the tall dark spires of the off-limits luxury buildings that hugged the lake. His heavy wheelbarrow sat on its struts. Diggers emptied their shovels of loose clumps of old concrete and twisted pieces of metal. Gray dust billowed near the carrier's handles.
"Good to go," a digger said.
Barrington continued to stare at the faraway buildings beyond the fence. A thin haze hovered midway between the tops and the bases of the buildings, which made it look like the upper halves floated on the clouds. Unlike the rubble strewn turf in which he worked alongside hundreds of diggers and carters, the area on the other side of the fence lacked any sign of past occupants. Gravel and clumps of thorny weeds, along with patches of grass, decorated the mounds and flatland.
"Gonna cart that or watch for birds?"
Barrington looked sideways, towards the direction of the snarly voice that interrupted his thoughts. Jennings stood there. He'd already made it clear that he didn't want to be called "Mister." He didn't tell workers his first name. He was "Jennings," he'd said when he assembled the crew that very first stay nearly a week earlier.
"What's over there?" Barrington asked, jerking his head in the direction of the open field.
"See that fence? Don't get any ideas about crossing it."
"I'm not."
"Get on with your work." A wide grin brightened Jenning's dark face. He put his hands in the deep pockets of his sleeveless, knee-length coat, a thin garment that he wore over his b
are chest and white shorts. Gnarled and calloused feet encased in open leather sandals grounded the big man, and steel chains adorned his thick neck.
"Do you know what's over there?" Barrington asked, and smiled in response to Jenning's friendly gesture.
"Just more of nothing. More of nothing." Jennings pulled an extendible baton from his jacket pocket. He snapped his wrist. The club lengthened and he bit the air with its hard tip, which made a sound that caused Barrington to wince. In the dorm, he'd seen the effect this weapon made on the backs of others. Jennings didn't need to hit hard to leave purple marks.
Barrington lifted the wheelbarrow by its long handles and resumed his work. He had every intention of not making Jennings angry enough to lay that baton across his back. He pushed hard, put his weight behind the heavy wheelbarrow, muscled the steel-rimmed wheels over a rough patch of old cement, and positioned it into the tracks left by scores of previous trips by himself and others this past week.
A girl pulling a wooden wagon with a water barrel strapped to the bed passed, smiling at everyone who threw her a glance. She reminded Barrington of Jeri. The round face. The pretty eyes and pretty mouth; the overall pretty complexion. Blonde and fair, the girl wore a wide-brimmed straw hat to ward off the hot sun, which even now, at midmorning, beat the open field and its army of workers.
He tried not to think about Jeri, tried hard not to see the final image he'd taken from that night nearly two weeks ago. Her bloodied head and tightly shut eyes, the odor of death and the body's final release hovering like a cloud about her body. The Rounders didn't care. They took her All-Pod, kept the money they'd salvaged from the attackers, and sent a boy off as a runner, presumably to bring back a lorry to cart away Jeri's body. There was no attempt to determine if she followed some religion that demanded a ritual of burial, basic prayers for the dead, or special rites of interment.
Barrington asked the Rounders what would happen to her. He got back a grunt and a sly laugh and an indication that the girl's body would be cremated with everyone else' killed that night, or discovered dead on the road, the victim of old age or suicide or starvation. Her All-Pod would be hacked in an attempt to identify any family that might be concerned about her.
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