The woman nodded her head.
“My name’s Darrick,” he said, taking the gag out of her mouth.
“They’ll kill you,” she said in a soft voice.
“Not if I get the drop on them,” he answered. “How many of them are there?”
She looked at her rescuer with thankful eyes and answered, “More than you can handle alone.”
“There’s one out back, one here, and I killed one at my homestead. Are there more than that?” he asked, untying the woman’s hands and feet.
“I’ve only heard rumors, but from what I heard, they’re like a plague of locusts. They’re just not here. Supposedly, they’re somewhere east of here. They keep rambling on about an omen.”
“An omen? What sort of omen?”
“I don’t know much else,” she answered, tired and exhausted.
“What’s your name?”
“Kara.”
“Kara, I’m going to head around to the south side of the house. Do you think you can distract the man who’s outside so I can get the drop on him?”
“Just say when.”
***
Larry grew tired of waiting for Shawn to fetch his lighter and butane, so he decided to try to catch them on fire just using a Bic. As he sat there flicking his lighter, he heard a feminine voice from the back door of the house.
“Hey, big boy.”
Larry looked up and saw that Kara was free from her bonds. He stood up to walk towards her, but didn’t make the distance. A shot rang out through the countryside, and a pink mist blew out from the face of Larry as he fell dead.
Behind him, Darrick was holding his high-caliber rifle. “Not that I’m keeping score, but that’s the second man I’ve killed today.”
“Wanna make it three?” she said, hoping he’d finish the job and knock off her attacker, who was still lying unconscious on the hallway floor.
“You go ahead. I’m looking for my brother, Jimmie Mitchell. Have you seen him? Tall, slim, beard and mustache?”
“Not for weeks.”
“Weeks? He turned up missing today.”
“Me and my partner met your brother a couple of weeks ago. We were heading east when we found Jimmie’s homestead. We didn’t chat long, but he mentioned his name and gave us some jarred tomatoes. I only remember because he etched his initials on the top of the jars. J-M, right?”
Darrick nodded, then continued his focus on Kara’s story.
“When these guys found us, they shot my partner, JR, and kept me around. They found me more useful. I guess they figured JR would cause them more trouble than he’d be worth. They said they were scouting west, and they took me with them. So I ended up backtracking to this point. I can’t tell you the horrors I’ve had to endure at the hands of these vermin. As heavy a toll as that taxed me; I don’t have it in me to kill a man. You go ahead and finish what you started,” she concluded.
Darrick went back into the house. Kara heard the gun go off and knew that the task was now complete. She looked up into the heavens with a grateful heart and then closed her eyes. She felt the sun shining on her face as she took the time to enjoy its warm embrace for the first time in quite a while.
Darrick stepped back out onto the porch and asked, “What now?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she answered.
Darrick felt responsible for her as he considered her answer. “I guess you can come back with me until you decide. It’s just me, my wife, my son, my brother and his wife. But, for now, you can help me look for Jimmie,” he said, bending down to Larry’s body to pull the rifle off his back. He handed it to Kara. “You know how to use this thing?”
“Sure, just point the boom stick at the bad guy, make sure it’s on fire, and pull the trigger, right?”
“That’ll get the job done. There’s an old livestock barn on the north side of the property. It’s the only place I haven’t checked yet.”
Darrick walked off toward the old barn, and Kara stayed in the backyard, considering what her next move would be. She looked at the carnage and considered her own future. When she looked into the woods, she saw a blue-colored object that neither she nor Darrick had noticed. Kara walked closer to it and saw a dead man partially covered in woodland debris. She walked towards it and rolled the stiff man over. It was Jimmie Mitchell. The nice man who had given her and her partner a couple of cans of tomatoes. She ran out of the woods and into the front yard of the property, where she met Darrick. Her intentions were one thing, but getting them to work for her was another.
“There’s nobody in there,” he told her as he came walking up.
“Maybe he’s already headed back home?”
“Could be. I guess we won’t know until we go find out.”
She couldn’t reason within herself why she did it, but the lie made Kara feel bad. In truth, she didn’t have it in her to tell her rescuer that his brother was dead in the woods. Now she had this nagging secret in her head that was haunting her before she even stepped off the property. It was a problem that she’d have to manage, one way or another.
“I think I’m going to have to turn down your offer to return with you,” she said out of the blue.
“Why? Where will you go? Where will you stay?”
“I don’t know. I came from the west, and there’s trouble to the east. There’s colder temperatures to the north. Maybe I should head south?”
“Alone?”
“I can’t be bothering you and your family. You’ve got a missing brother and…” Kara could barely keep the lie inside. She was convincing herself that she wasn’t lying, she was only holding the truth from him. A truth that would spare him pain. Whether a lie of commission or a lie of omission, she was still lying to Darrick. He overlooked her behavior. After all, she had been held prisoner for months. Her wrists, ankles, and facial bruising were a testament to her mental and physical toughness. Her spirit was impressively upbeat for a person who had spent so much time in captivity and torture.
She broke down and started crying. Her tears were a mixture of liberation and guilt. It caught Darrick off guard. He moved in to hold her, but she refused him.
Darrick backed away, saying, “Okay, okay, I get it. You don’t want to be touched. I’m just –”
Kara interrupted him. She decided to come out with the truth. “It’s not that. It’s –”
Darrick interrupted Kara. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and you don’t have to relive it.”
“Darrick, I –”
“No,” he interrupted again. Whatever you have to say can wait until you’re ready.”
Kara knew what he was thinking, and it had nothing to do with his missing brother, Jimmie.
“And you’re coming back with me. You’re going to have to learn to trust again. Between Carissa, Tonya, and my son, you’ll find somebody to connect with.”
“Are you sure your wife will be fine with you bringing a girl home?”
Darrick began leading the way back to the Mitchell homestead. “One as pretty as you, probably not. But she’ll come to understand.”
Kara began to follow. “Which one is your wife?”
“Tonya is my wife. Carissa is my sister-in-law, and Andy is my son.”
“How long have you and Tonya been married?”
“About ten years, give or take. It’s hard to tell these days, you know, no calendar and all.”
“What’s she like?”
“She’s headstrong and determined. Not one I’d mess with if I were a girl,” Darrick answered, catching on to her interest in him. He couldn’t help but feed into her line of questions. She was a pretty woman and intelligent. She had a natural allure that made him give in. “She’s sick with ovarian cancer. We don’t know exactly how far along it is. Somewhere between stages three and four, we think, based on the information we had before the Pulse. It’s hard to say. It’s been unchecked for a while now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How far is it
to your homestead?”
“You said you’ve been there. It’s Jimmie’s place. Well, it’s our place, as in mine and Jimmie’s. It’s been our family homestead for generations. I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you about our dad.”
“Your dad, also? Are you sure there’s room for six?”
“Seven,” Darrick corrected.
“Huh?”
“There will be seven. Me, Tonya, Carissa, Dad, Andy, you, and Jimmie, when we find him – if he’s not home already.”
“Oh yeah, Jimmie,” she said in a submissive tone. How long was she going to be able to carry on this lie? She had tried to tell Darrick, but he’d shushed her. Not once, but twice. Half of the conviction she was feeling had subsided because he refused to listen to her. The other half of the weight was still a heavy burden that, for the time being, she was willing to bear.
Darrick caught the skip in their conversation. He thought nothing of it. Kara had been through so much, so virtually everything he thought was off about her he contributed to her recent history.
“My brother is the eldest of two. He was still living at home with Mom and Dad when I left for the military. Next thing I know, Mom’s dead and Dad has old timer’s disease. So I apologize in advance for any weird behaviors you may witness at the Mitchell homestead.”
“I doubt anything I witness will be worse than what I’ve been through.”
Darrick almost felt bad for leading her into the point she made. He wanted to apologize, but since she brought it up, he asked the burning question that was nagging at his mind. “Tell me about the men I killed? You mentioned they have a larger group?”
Kara and Darrick continued to trudge along the trail back to his homestead. They had nothing better to do than talk, so she was more than willing to share all she knew, which wasn’t much.
“They kept talking about a man named Denver. I think I heard them say his nickname was Gibby, but I’m not completely sure. They seem pretty fearful of him. They talked about the group being large and in charge, but never mentioned the actual size.”
“Did they happen to mention what direction they were moving in or what their intentions were?”
“That’s the crazy thing – they talked like they’re not heading in any particular direction. They’re like locusts. They consume everything wherever they are and then move on to the next source.”
“Did they happen to mention where they are now?”
“No. Just somewhere east.”
Enclave Camp
Several miles east
High above the earth, a murder of crows circled. They formed a dark spirally vortex that descended several yards. For the survivors on the ground, they were nothing new. Everywhere the survivors went, the crows were sure to follow. What started as a pair grew into a murder of several dozen. They circled overhead continuously, following the survivors wherever they roamed. They disappeared in the night sky, and in the morning when the sun pierced through, they appeared once again overhead. What was their purpose, you might ask? The large group of survivors left many dead in their wake. Man’s flesh, trash, and debris were all worthy for the crows’ food. Human flesh was the most popular. Natural and processed foods were gobbled up by the group. They left little to eat for the crows, aside from corpses.
The evening hours were pushing in, and Denver had a very strict protocol in place. Scouts were sent out in particular teams of two on certain days of the week. They were required to report back one hour prior to sunset in two days’ time, without exception. This schedule was made, kept, and enforced by a man named Rueben Reisner, but everybody called him Ten-Stitches because of the scar that ran diagonally across his face. Rumor had it, Rueben had been with Denver since the beginning. The stories were that Denver and Rueben escaped from a psych ward when the Pulse happened. The maximum-security hospital shut down, and the employees abandoned their jobs once they learned that there would be no more checks. Nobody ever bothered to investigate the rumors because there was never a need to question the validity that Denver and Rueben were indeed insane. The only thing that mattered to this very large group of survivors was the fact that their bellies had food in them. The way Denver managed them was second to that.
Rueben was standing outside the ranch that had been serving them for months. There had been ample amounts of cattle, hogs, chickens, horses, and smaller animals prior to their arrival months ago. Now, as time would have it, those numbers had dropped. He looked down at his hand. Held tightly in his dirty fingers, a piece of paper was blowing in the wind. He would look up at the two formations of men standing before him and then back down at the paper.
“Has anybody seen Max, Shawn and Larry?”
Rueben was a big man at a staggering six feet seven inches tall and weighing in at 270 pounds. If truth be known, there wasn’t a single person standing in those formations that was interested in saying anything that would make him upset.
The men looked at each other. Some of them shrugged their shoulders, and others shook their heads.
One formation of men was fifteen strong. That served as five scouting parties. Six with Max, Shawn and Larry, but they were missing. Rueben was a stickler for timeliness. His schedule worked flawlessly most of the time. Two formations of eighteen men. Thirty-two in all. One group reports in, and the other is sent out. But on this occasion, there was one group of eighteen and another of fifteen. That didn’t sit well with the schedule keeper. What if Denver got upset and blamed him? This matter had to be dealt with before he spoke a word of it to Denver.
There were no functioning watches or clocks, so it was custom to use an older more reliable method to tell time. Rueben looked toward the sun with his arm outstretched and his hand making the hand sign for drink. With his pinky and thumb outstretched from the horizon to the sun, he figured that they were one hour from sunset. It was unusual for the men to be late. The last time Max, Larry and Shawn didn’t show up for roll call, they had been flogged with a horse’s whip thirty times each. This time meant certain death. Denver didn’t tolerate insubordination. If the men didn’t do exactly as they were told, then severe penalties followed. The first offense was torture. The second offense was execution. Denver believed everybody deserved a second chance, but there was no such thing as three strikes and you’re out. Rueben knew this.
He let out a grunt and said, “Group A, fall out and get some rest. Be back here in two days’ time, one hour before sunset. Group B, stand fast.”
Max, Shawn and Larry’s group scattered from formation, afraid of what was about to happen. Rueben walked up and down the line of scouts who were about to be sent out. The way he figured it, there were fifteen in one group and eighteen in the other. Those were numbers that couldn’t be reconciled without making an adjustment.
Rueben had a pistol that he carried on his side. Nobody had the courage to challenge Rueben. When his pistol was pulled, everybody was quiet. They knew there was going to be blood, so they watched and waited. The pistol was back in its holster after the three men hit the ground. They weren’t head shots, but they were fatal abdominal shots. In earlier times, before the Pulse, they might have survived, but since it was Rueben who shot them, they were to be left for dead.
“The rest of you can group yourselves in teams of three and head out. Be back here in two days’ time, one hour before sunset. Go find Max, Larry, and Shawn. Double rations for the man who finds them. Triple for the man who finds them alive.”
The men scattered, knowing full well that they had a mission to find those missing men.
Standing off to the side of Rueben was a man by the name of Cornelius Woods. He was the group’s spiritual advisor. Everybody called him “the Rev,” but he insisted they just call him Cornelius.
Rueben didn’t like the Rev. He had been jealous of him since the first day he arrived. Denver was a spiritual man, albeit he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. There wasn’t a soul in the group who knew Denver’s mind but Denver. The thing that made Rueben so jea
lous of the Rev was that, some of the time, when Denver would become upset and frustrated, he would call on the Rev; for Rueben that gave the Rev access into Denver’s mind that he didn’t have. Rueben’s mental diagnosis had never been determined prior to his commitment. He had been classified as Unfit to Stand Trial and sent into the mental health system, where he later met Denver.
With a sneer in his voice, he looked over at the Rev and said, “What are you looking at?”
The Rev responded by walking away.
Paranoia began to escalate in Rueben’s mind.
What if he tells Denver that three men never returned from scouting? That would make me look weak.
Rueben followed the Rev around the corner of the ranch house.
“Hey,” he growled.
The Rev stopped and turned around.
Rueben just wanted to warn him in his own way. “How many times have I told you not to be snaking around me?”
“Snaking?”
“You know I don’t like it when you’re watching over my shoulder.”
“I was just passing through. I enjoy the evening breeze.”
Rueben wasn’t buying his story. Whether from paranoia or a nose for deception. “Just find your ruck. It’s almost curfew.”
The Rev walked off toward the pole barn. It used to be full of cattle, but they were all wrangled up and herded to the pasture so that the group could have some shelter. His spot was in the corner over against the door, where he could be called on and answer to Denver in a hurry if he had to. He plopped down on the floor and leaned back against the wall.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” the man next to him said. The Rev was oblivious to the number of people who were gathering in the barn. The last few days he had been dealing with several issues of his own. He was aware of the fact that he was going through psychological stages that were affecting his judgment and attitude. That was why he didn’t answer the stranger to his left.
“My name’s Byron,” the stranger tried again.
“Cornelius,” the Rev answered. “My name’s Cornelius.”
After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead Page 5