by AR Shaw
He slowed as they neared the trio, and as he did, so did they. Even stopping within twenty yards of one another, there was no way to communicate over the noise without the bullhorn.
“Hello,” he said, testing to see if his voice was loud enough for them to hear.
The man in the center, from the opposition, growled back at him, “Hi.”
“My name’s Bishop. Who are you?”
“Morrow’s the name. Look, our people are dying. We need your help. We’re not going away. Whatever you got on that chopper, we’re taking!” he yelled out in anger with a twang in his voice.
Bishop thought about that for a minute.
“I don’t think you want to do that.”
Morrow surged toward him a foot. “I think I do!”
Before he got too carried away, Bishop said, “Why don’t you come with me for a minute—just you. I’ll let you see what’s on board.”
Morrow looked from side to side at his other men. “All right. You two stay here.”
“Agreed,” Bishop said and backed up in the snow, turning around with Morrow joining him. They sped away toward the Osprey.
Bishop radioed ahead. Once they parked their snowmobiles nearby, Bishop called into the Osprey, “Yeager, open the door for the two snow- and ice-covered men to enter.”
Once inside, Bishop couldn’t believe not only the sound but also the smell. There was more than one spoiled diaper in the group.
He took off his helmet and met Morrow’s eyes as he took off his own at the same time. Bishop was as astonished as Morrow.
“Infants? Are you crazy?” Morrow said.
“Yep,” Yeager said.
“See, we don’t have anything in here you or your people might want to take unless, of course, you want more mouths to feed.”
“Uh…yeah,” Morrow said, clearing his throat, “but still, come on, we’ve tried to talk to you. We’ve brought you offerings in the past like you’re some kind of God. You’ve done nothing but attack us without even hearing us out our provocation. We just need a little help, man. We wouldn’t keep coming back if we weren’t desperate. You obviously have a lot of resources down here. We’ve known about this bunker here forever. Hell, we have lived right on top of it for generations.”
“That’s wasn’t me,” Bishop said.
“What? You’re new management?”
“Something like that. What do you need?”
“Anything you can spare and maybe an agreement.”
Bishop nodded. “How many people do you have?”
“We’re down to about three hundred.”
“That’s it?”
“We were a small town, to begin with. We’ve had starvation, and you killed several of our people yourself.”
The man was so thin that Bishop could make out his body even with the overcoat on. It was also the gaunt look in his eyes and cheekbones that gave away. If the rest of his people were anything like he was, they were dying fast.
Taking a deep breath, Bishop asked him, “What about Denver?”
“It’s a dead zone. Those who go in don’t come out. And we’ve heard a lot about cannibalism. Hell, we’ve shot several in our own town for that heinous crime.”
Thinking the man’s thoughts were wandering, Bishop noticed Walt’s look from the cockpit. It said, What the hell, man. This was quickly becoming Walt’s thing to say. Can’t you hear the babies crying? “Okay, look,” Bishop interrupted Morrow, “we need to get the babies inside and quick. We have more loads to bring in.
“What I can do right now is give you a few days’ worth of food after we get these infants safely inside—things like rice, flour, canned meats. And then you come back in a week, and we talk about an agreement. We need more avgas. You need food. We can trade. We’ll work something out.”
Morrow looked as if he wanted to speak, but the words just wouldn’t come. Instead, his eyes filled with tears. He held out his hand, and Bishop was only too glad to shake the desperate man’s gloved hand.
“You mean it?” Morrow finally said.
Bishop nodded grimly because he knew what the man was going through, though as a leader of starving people. He knew his nightmares. He shook his hand in a firm grip. “I do. We can work together.”
34
“Are you out of your mind?” Cassie berated Bishop.
“About negotiating with the locals? I thought you were in favor of that idea. I really don’t think inviting them to continue to attack us each time we land is going to work. They’ll get lucky eventually. We have plenty of room in here. There are pods still completely open. They have less than three hundred people. We could eventually house all of them down here, with room to spare, but I think it’s best to give them some supplies for now until we have all of our people here before we bring them on board…or inside. Do you not agree?”
She looked at him as though she really believed he was nuts. “No, not about the locals. About the babies. You can’t really let them keep doing this. The next load will have nothing but toddlers. Avoid Alyssa; she wants to crucify you. Who’s going to take care of them all until the parents get here? Those girls who came with them are wiped out, and the babies themselves are going to need round-the-clock care.”
“Well, if we’re not using the soldiers on constant guard against the locals, we can use them to take care of the babies for now.”
“Oh, you’re funny. They’re going to love that. Their trained security personnel. They’re trained to kill, not change diapers, and it looks like despite their best efforts with the air pressure, a few of them are in serious pain with ear problems.”
He sighed, for he hated to see a child in pain, but the wailing made him realize that a few of them were in tremendous agony. “I’m sure Alyssa is tending to them. And the soldiers…they’re about to learn. I’d say it’s an easy transition for them.”
She was shaking her head at him now, her mouth slightly ajar. “Please, Bishop, make them send the mothers next.”
He sighed. “Look, if you were a mother, would you send your child ahead to a safe haven or leave them behind in a dangerous place where there are known cannibals? Are you going to ask the mothers who sent their children in there to wait even longer? Not me…I’m not doing that to them. They were brave enough already.”
Looking down, he heard her say something…he wasn’t sure what, but he was pretty sure it was an expletive. Not blaming her, he was thinking in streams of expletives since this all began.
“Walt is leaving again in the morning. Have some of the men report to Alyssa; she and Maeve and Carmen can’t be expected to take care of the babies on their own.”
“Wait…why don’t we ask some of the townspeople if they have anyone willing to come here to help care with the children? Those girls will have to sleep at some point. I mean once the next shipment comes in, we’re going to be shorthanded. We could really use the help.”
He hadn’t really thought of that. It was true, though. Until they had more supervision, they were outnumbering themselves with the children. They needed to get a few people from town to help them, but they didn’t really know them.
“All right. Look, get Morrow on the radio. I’ll talk to him after Walt leaves. We could take a few experienced people, single mothers perhaps, who’d be willing to bring their kids as well in exchange for care.”
She agreed, and as he left the conference room, he opened the door to a cacophony of babies wailing down the hall. It seemed their cries echoed through the metal corridors. Inside, he was laughing because, honestly, those cries represented life, lives he had to save, and so far they’d done that much. They were here, and though he didn’t exactly agree with Austin and Jax’s decision or methods, he was honestly thankful he wasn’t there to make it.
35
As Jax passed through the lobby early the next morning, a mother, one he’d dealt with the prior day, still lay sobbing on a nearby couch. She was inconsolable, apparently after handing her infant off to Austin.
She hadn’t left the lobby since. Either crying or staring out the window since the Osprey left off with her infant son, she desperately waited until it was her turn to board that helicopter to meet her child.
Austin knew that the decision to send the youngest and most vulnerable first was his ultimately, and that meant this mother’s grief too, was his. But he didn’t give a damn. The job he’d accepted was to get the greatest number of the residents there, who wanted to go, and knowing what they were facing in the dying town of Coeur d’Alene, it was the only way.
About 45 percent of the list showed up that morning for the first load. Austin had been right: the families of the 15 percent scheduled to go had disappeared overnight or opted to make things work on their own thereafter they’d voiced their protests. He didn’t care about that either; he really didn’t. They would survive here for a time after they all left. They would leave them with supplies, but in the long run, the ice would get them, if they were lucky, if not starvation, then cannibalism. Man was capable of horrible things; they just didn’t know it yet. There would be no harvest for the coming years. They would not survive this for long, not in these conditions.
“Good morning,” Jax greeted Austin as he found him poring over the next list of transports. The kid looked as though he was about to puke.
“I just don’t know how to go through this again. I didn’t sleep at all.”
“You talked with Bishop by radio. The babes all made the trip well enough. They survived. Now they’re being cared for, and nobody ate them.” He put his jazz hands out for effect.
Austin lifted his hand from his face, peering at him, confused.
“Come on, Austin, the plan is working. I know everyone’s shaken up, but we know this works. We can’t falter now. The new ones are arriving soon. Buck up. We have no choice now. We have to get through this.”
“Yep, but this…this is insane. Oh, did I tell you we caught that woman you described?”
“What woman?”
“The one who had human meat in her backpack.”
“I was hoping she was the one you were referring to. Where is she?”
Austin sat back in his chair. He looked thinner than before, and Jax suspected he wasn’t eating his daily rations. He’d have to make sure he watched him eat this evening.
“She’s in lockup. What do we do with her?”
“Wait. How do you know it’s her?”
“Well, you can go and make sure, but she had a backpack loaded with the same thing you showed me. I’m pretty sure it’s her. Same backpack.”
“Where’s the backpack? And its contents?”
“On the burn pile.”
“Good.”
“What about her?” Austin asked again.
“Same thing,” Jax said. “Shoot her.”
“Execute her? Without a trial?”
Knowing where this was going, Jax said, “Let me think about that. Perhaps we could have a trial. Actually, let me ask her a few questions first. We don’t know who’s in the backpack, after all. I mean the sheriff in Rockford Bay is missing two young girls.”
“Well, we’re pretty sure they were the ones they reported. A middle-aged woman and her adult son. They fit the description, and they’d shot the son when they tried to escape. So it’s more than likely the same pair.”
“Okay, well. I’ll go and see her to make sure after we get the next load on its way.”
That’s when a low and audible sound was heard in the distance. The Osprey was on its way. It was at least a five-hour trip, not counting weather conditions, to Deer Trail, back to back, and the less time they stayed on the ground, the more successful chance they had of delivery and a repeat trip. There was room for no mistakes. So once the craft was refueled and the maintenance was checked, the next load was aboard. Again the wailing and again the anxious young ladies aboard. They were about to pack in babies to toddlers, and this time, knowing what to expect for the next five hours, the pilot, Walt, seemed a little less angry as he shoved in foam earplugs before putting on the outer headphones.
36
Later that night, Jax went into the lockup.
“She’s back there,” the guard said, pointing in the intended direction, figuring he’d come to identify her.
“Thanks,” Jax said.
Walking down the dimly lit corridor, Jax hoped the prisoner was the same woman. His hands actually flexed. The table flashed again before his eyes. The children’s heads upon the rough wood. Their eyes at least closed. They still had no idea who it was that they’d found in the backpacks, but two sisters—aged five and six, respectively—were still missing. In his own mind, he had no doubts.
Candles lit the darkened room. The light of his flashlight, the same one that had fallen and spun around early that morning when he discovered the horror this woman carried around with her, felt heavy in his palm.
He shone the light through the bars. A form sat up from the cot, shielding her view from the beam. “Who is it?” she asked in that same gravelly voice, annoyed at the intruder.
The bed creaked as she began to sit up, her weight obscene in these times, to him. Not like Austin. Not like a man who didn’t eat enough out of consciousness of the events going on around him. This gluttonous woman was an evil against humanity. Her eyes widened when she recognized him. Shoving herself back against the wall, she went from confrontational and belligerent to terrified. “Please don’t!” she yelled, holding her hands up in front of her face. “I feel so horrible for what we did. I swear to God…we wouldn’t have done it if we weren’t so hun—”
A sudden loud bang erupted, though Jax didn’t jolt. Only his right arm flexed with a familiar and practiced recoil. Her head flew back against the wall. It was a direct hit. The smell of gunpowder rose to his nose. Boots ran on pavement, coming nearer.
“Jax! What happened?” yelled the guard.
“Justice.”
37
Waking in a queen-size bed with Maeve in his arms sleeping soundly, Bishop lifted his free arm to check the time on his watch. She’d come in nearly as late as he did last night after her shift with the babies and was as worn out as much as he was.
Again, he was admonished for the pain some of the infants were going through due to burst eardrums. There was nothing he could do about it, and it looked like the Osprey was outfitted with everything possible to mitigate the damage, but they all knew some of them would end up with injuries to their delicate inner ears. Still…they were alive. They would recover. Some may have long-term effects, but, hey, in his mind, that was a win. Why did they all hold him accountable for the infants’ pain? He didn’t understand that part. But, perhaps, they needed someone to blame, and he was their likely candidate.
Though he still got the dirty looks from Alyssa, Maeve at least seemed a little more reasonable. It wasn’t his fault after all, but he still felt guilty. On the other hand, nearly thirty females, some mothers of children, some grandmothers, came in from Deer Trail to take shifts with the rest of the staff. It was a great exchange and showed that you had to work with one another to survive. This picking off their people each time they came for help would never work.
If there was one thing Geller did right, that was preparation of the underground bunker. The space available was enormous, and the supplies were more than sufficient for now, though he knew it would not last infinitely. They had to keep the greenhouses growing, they had to keep sending out hunters and gatherers, and they had to keep defending themselves against those who wished to take them over. Yes, they could absorb the few hundred of Deer Trail after they brought in those who wanted to come in from Coeur d’Alene, but that was it.
“Maeve,” he whispered into the side of her head. “Baby, I’ve got to get up.”
She whined.
He smiled.
“Must you?”
He held her tight.
In protest, she rolled to her side and untangled her limbs from his. As soon as he lifted from the bed, she moved over
to where his heat remained.
“When is the next flight getting in?”
He checked his watch again after he buttoned up his pants. “In about an hour. I need to check on things.” He put his EDC items on his person and sat down again on the edge of the bed and tied his boots.
She slid her hand over his thigh. “You’re doing good things here, Bishop. I dare say we made it.”
He stopped and looked at her, whispering, “Don’t dare say the words yet, my dear. We’re a long way from made it.” He kissed the side of her head, hoping the words hadn’t stung. “I’ll check in around noon. Wait, are you taking a shift today?”
“Uh…no. I figured every other day as long as Louna is still recovering. Even though we’re just down the hall from the nursery, I don’t want to leave her for more than twenty minutes at a time. Ben watches her like a hawk. They’ve really bonded. And I’m taking Alyssa’s boys while she’s working.”
He nodded. The two children had been through a lot together. They were closer than he and his sister had ever been back when the world was in some semblance of normal before the war.
Ready to go, he said, “I’ll check in on them as I leave.” He reached down to kiss her. She met his lips eagerly. “I’ll know where to find you if you’re not here then.”
Smiling, she said, “Yes, just follow the sound of crying babies.”
Again he felt the guilt.
She must have detected his change in mood and said, “Bishop, to me that sound means life. Can you imagine what silence means? They’re alive. They’re wailing, but they’re alive.” Her voice cracked at the very end.