Years After Series | Book 1 | Nine Years After

by Clary, LeRoy

  I studied the maps more when we camped for the night. There were squiggly lines that must indicate mountains. There were three. The center one had the rose icon.

  Tess suggested we visit a farm or two along the way, not because we needed anything, but to gather more local information about the army activities in the area.

  I agreed. However, she had hesitated when telling me the whole truth because of an awkward pause in one place while she considered her words. While hoping she was telling the truth, I doubted she told the entire truth. She held back.

  That was something I could live with. We all have secrets and things we do not want to tell strangers—or new friends. Too much trust in someone you just met could be disastrous.

  I made that last up. I’d only met four people that were not part of Deep Hole, so what did I know about trusting strangers? It had sounded good in my head.

  Despite my intentions to believe in the good of Tess, the request raised a few small flashes of red. I’d go along with her, smiling all the way. Inside, there would be a measure of doubt.

  If she knew anything about my maps, she would have the same doubts about me.

  Tess used the binoculars to watch a farm for ten minutes before rejecting it. We moved on to the next. She again rejected visiting. The third farm was different, at least to her.

  She said in a satisfied tone, “This is the one. By the way, the dye on your skin makes you look odd, not tan. Not Asian, for sure. If anyone comments, just say you’ve been ill.”

  “Odd?”

  “Yellow with some brown, but not like a suntan. Maybe you could say you took medication for a bad reaction to something you ate. Don’t say more. Change the subject.”

  I glanced down at my hands and noticed for the first time the coloring was not uniform. There were blotches on the webs between my fingers and other places where there was a little color. In a few areas, it streaked. We boldly stepped from the shelter of the trees and into brilliant sunlight.

  My face and arms were exposed to the sunlight, hopefully, to help correct the skin tone, and also hopefully, the walnut juice didn’t prevent the process by blocking the sunlight. I adjusted the web belt and shifted the gun more to my front where it was easier to walk. Two women were kneeling in the dirt, pulling and tossing plants aside, leaving others intact.

  They noticed us as we came closer and Tess called a greeting. Both stood and wiped dirty hands on filthy pants. My take on their actions was that the hands would remain cleaner if they didn’t wipe them on their filthy pants or found something else to wipe them on.

  There were smiles all around. One woman was a little older than Tess, maybe late thirties. The other was a girl, ten or eleven with teeth too big for her mouth and freckles across her nose.

  I had never seen freckles and wanted to ask about them, but wisely held my tongue. It was as if she had been struck with small dots of walnut juice. There were several funny things I wanted to say. A single glance at my bare arm and I knew the girl had far more to laugh about.

  After introductions, we were invited to eat. The woman said, “Our men are helping harvest down the road, so we’re doing their weeding chore as a surprise.”

  I noticed all the plants that remained growing in the ground looked as if they were the same variety. All others, those that looked different, had been tossed into the row where we walked, to die and dry, from the looks. That made sense. Use the ground to grow only what you want it to grow.

  At the house, we sat at a small table with three legs that were even and one too short. The table rocked and the girl knelt and slipped a wedge of wood under the short one, a task she seemed used to doing. There was bread, fresh baked and it became my new favorite food. The woman also used a pan to scramble eggs, my first, and after trying them, they became my newest favorite food.

  Tess did our talking. I did our listening.

  Before long, I knew about the weather, the health of farmers nearby, and what crops were doing well. When the woman mentioned hiding cattle from the damn thieving soldiers belonging to Sir Wilson, Tess perked up. When she did, I also paid attention.

  “Every few days, they come anymore. What are they, stupid? They think we have more calves, lambs, or kids?” She looked at me. “I mean baby goats, not children, of course.”

  Tess and I nodded and smiled together, her because she understood the humor, me because Tess nodded and smiled. I didn’t get it. We’d discuss it later.

  The mother went on, “What little we do have, we hide in the edge of the forest every four days. That’s their schedule. Every four days, regular as the sun in the morning.”

  “When were they here last?” Tess asked.

  “Yesterday, so my youngest here and I can get some weeding done without her having to stay in the woods with the younger animals. I worry about her out there.”

  “Do others hide their animals the same way?” I asked.

  “If they don’t, they get them stolen by the soldiers. We get IOUs for them that are never paid.”

  IOUs I understood. We used them in our poker games. I still had more than a few in my cubicle in Deep Hole, if nobody had cleaned it out. They were about the only personal things I’d left behind, them and a small gold necklace my mother wore.

  I hadn’t thought of it since leaving, but now it made me angry.

  “Something wrong with the eggs?” the woman asked.

  My anger must have shown on my face. I lied again, which was becoming easier each day. “Those soldiers have no right to take your cattle.”

  “Can’t agree more,” she said.

  The girl abruptly stood. “I got more weeding to do.”

  I stood also, thinking of giving Tess time alone with the mother. “I’ll help.”

  The girl led the way, swinging her arms and skipping as she moved. She was at the age where girls have legs too long and thin for their bodies, so they move awkwardly. Her hair was long enough to reach her shoulder blades. A ribbon held it together at the back of her head, where it hung free and bounced with every step.

  In Deep Hole, we all kept our hair an inch long, both sexes.

  She paused. Her hands went to the back of her head. “Why are you looking at my hair like that? Is something wrong with it?”

  “No. I’ve never seen hair like that.”

  “My dad says it’s the color of cornstalks, but I think it’s more like honey. What do you think?”

  “Sunshine,” I said with a grin.

  She turned her back to me after flashing a brilliant smile. I wanted to reach out and stroke her hair, run it through my fingers. The thought of her father chasing me with a club in his hand prevented me from doing so. Still, long hair like that must feel soft and different. I liked it. I reached up and felt mine. She laughed.

  At the place where they left off weeding, we knelt. She pointed, “Those with the wide leaves, we keep.”

  I knelt beside her and pulled the tops off a few, tossing them into the walkway.

  “Hey, you’re leaving the roots.”

  I looked blankly at her.

  She reached down to the base of a plant and pulled, instead of the leaves. Another section came free from the ground. She said, “Leave the roots and they grow right back. You never weeded before?”

  “No.”

  She gave me a smirky sort of grin. “That’s a kind of place where I’d like to live.”

  I looked around, smelled the damp earth, the additional smells of the plants we pulled from the ground, felt the sunshine, the clean air and a touch of wind to cool the sweat. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Why not? No weeds at all sounds good to me.”

  Her fingers were plucking three or four for each I pulled. I said, “You have to appreciate what you have. Working for a goal gives you that satisfaction.”

  She surprised me. “I can see that. You don’t value what comes easy.”

  There was a statement right out of the mouth of a child that I would remember. You don’t value what c
omes easy. I speeded up my fingers and pulled faster, trying to keep pace. In a half-hour, I was exhausted, and my back ached when she finally stood. I joined her and bent to relieve my backache. My legs protested, my knees were skinned, and I mentally patted myself on my back for a job well done as I looked along the row.

  She moved over to a new row and knelt again.

  The row was twice as long as what we’d finished and that was not all the bad news. There were dozens of more rows after that one.

  I dropped to my knees and started pulling weeds again, with no end in sight. I learned what tedious meant. Five minutes later, Tess and the mother strolled down the row and stopped near me. Both were smiling. Tess said, “Sorry to interrupt Danner, but we have to get on our way.”

  Again, I stood, this time a little faster. I could have kissed her.

  We all hugged briefly, something people on the surface seemed to do a lot, and we headed back into the forest. Once there, Tess said, “Your first bread and eggs?”

  “They were worth the stop.”

  “And we found out the army patrols here every four days and were here yesterday. That gives us a couple of worry-free days. Think about how valuable that information is. All it cost were a few weeds you pulled.”

  Wishing to add to the conversation, I said, “When you pull weeds, you have to get the roots, or they grow right back.”

  “Is that right?” she asked. A strange little smile at the corners of her mouth made me think she may have known that all along.

  By late afternoon, the three hills we were seeking stood directly ahead.

  Tess said, “Your family probably lives near that one.” She pointed to the one on the left.

  I said, “Let’s go to the middle one, first.”

  She flashed a puzzled look in my direction, then quickly looked away as if wondering about my insistence in choosing the least likely of the three. However, she didn’t ask.

  Not asking meant she trusted me. That gave me pause. I was being sneaky and believing she believed me. Something didn’t quite fit in our relationship.

  I said, “I have a reason.”

  “One you don’t wish to share?”

  “Not yet.”

  “At least you didn’t lie to me. For that, I’m grateful.”

  Me too, although I didn’t say it out loud. As we neared the middle of the three hills, my eyes examined everything. The tiny rose on the map gave a general location, but now that I was on the surface, I realized how large an area it covered. It might take days to locate—or maybe it was concealed, and I never would.

  Was the entrance located near the tip of the stem? Or the center of the flower? Was it a precise location or a general estimate? Could it be located on either of the hills to the sides? Was the icon a generalization or specific?

  The forest hid much of the area beyond a few yards. That was true of much of the land. It was almost as bad as being in the tunnels below. I could see what was directly in front, nothing to either side or that was far away. I decided to stop and examine the map more closely and determine if there were more clues. Tess joined me, looking over my shoulder.

  The stem of the rose as the indicator made no sense. The rose itself seemed to be located on the west side of the middle mountain, and if the squiggles indicating the hills were accurate, the door should be above the level of the valley, on the side of the hill.

  That seemed reasonable, probably to keep water out in floods. I compared it to the location of Deep Hole and found it much the same.

  I pointed and said, “I want to go there.”

  Tess didn’t object. Her head came up and she compared the map to the hill and nodded. Instead of waiting for me, she followed the path of least resistance between the hills and then turned to our right as a convenient trail went in the correct direction. She found a footpath that angled along the hillside, always climbing higher.

  My head was down, my eyes focused on the ground I was going to walk on next, when she said in a whisper, “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  My head came up with a snap. There, a few hundred feet away along the path we followed, was the steel door to another sanctuary.

  It stood open.

  I didn’t know what to do. We stopped walking. The implications were clear. Someone inside had come out. The door had been unlocked from inside, at some point.

  Tess said, “Should we go closer?”

  “Not yet. Let me think.”

  “It shouldn’t be open, should it?”

  I hesitated. “No, I can’t think of any good reason for that. Let’s go slowly to investigate. Pull your pistol, just in case.”

  The best scenario that came to mind was that someone inside the sanctuary had come out earlier and brought all the people to the surface, but the chances of that sort of a coincidence couldn’t be that generous. All the other thoughts that came to mind ranged from not-so-bad to terrible.

  There were no fresh footprints on the ground, no grass that had been crushed by feet, nothing to indicate the door had opened recently. I was learning what to look for and that only made it seem worse. I understood the negative side sooner than I would have a week ago. We crept closer, ready to shoot at any danger. There was none.

  When standing in front of the open door, the small tunnel to one side was revealed. It stood half my height, wide enough for one person to crawl through, and as I moved inside the open door, the raw interior, including the rock debris they had ripped out with tools or explosives spread across the smooth, finished stone floor.

  I looked at the walls for the speaker with the green light, first. It had been ripped from the wall, and near it, another tunnel had been dug in the rock. I knew it led to the metal stairs where an elevator had once carried refugees below. Below that was the third door, the entrance to the living quarters for three hundred people or perhaps more. I didn’t know the size of the sanctuaries, only that some were far larger. This one appeared to be the same dimension as Deep Hole.

  A thick layer of dust coated the floor, along with sticks, leaves, and other debris that had blown in over the months. There were no footprints across the floor, indicating that no one had crossed it in months, maybe longer.

  If they had taken the time required to dig two tunnels through solid rock, I had no doubt they had done the same for the third door, the one below. Whoever had done it, would have removed everything of value down there, leaving a few hundred dead behind that I didn’t wish to see, and they must have forced the code for opening the doors from someone.

  Without instructions from my conscious mind, my nose started twitching for the scent of decaying bodies. Fortunately, it didn’t discover any.

  Tess said, “Come on, Danner, there’s nothing for us here.”

  Us. She’d used that word instead of saying there was nothing for me. I appreciated her consideration.

  Then, as I turned to respond, the enormity of what had happened here, and what could happen to my home, bore down on me. I went to my knees and wept uncontrollably. Tess stepped outside into the clean air and allowed me time to recover.

  While on my knees, I saw a regular shape in the dust and rock. My hand instinctively reached out. It was a single unused nine-millimeter bullet. I brushed it off, rubbed it on my shirt until the brass shine returned, then ejected the clip from my gun. I cleared the chamber, placed that bullet in my pocket and inserted the one from the floor in the clip where it would be the first to be used.

  There was a symbolism I didn’t fully understand, but it made me feel better. That done, I stood, wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve and walked outside. Tess was right. There was nothing in there for me, no reason to investigate further or to remain at that place.

  Tess sat on a boulder ten yards away. She turned slightly as I approached, although the tilt of her head said she knew I was there. She left me alone as I sat next to her.

  Instead of dwelling on the entrance to the sanctuary, my eyes took in o
ur beautiful surroundings. We were maybe two hundred feet above the little valley between the two hills. The other hill was a hundred yards away, at most.

  Both were covered in heavy underbrush and above that grew tall evergreens, mostly cedar and a few pines. I knew that because Tess had been teaching me to identify our surroundings as if I was a child. She pointed, told me the name, then a while later, pointed at the same kind of thing and asked me to repeat what she’d said.

  I think children do better at the game than me. But, over time, I had come to recognize a few. We sat where we could see the opposite hill. Nothing stood out, just a tree-covered slope a few hundred feet high, like the one we sat on.

  Tess said, “Ready?”

  I stood and faced the narrow path we’d climbed. Tess sighed and stood beside me. We took perhaps five steps down the path when a shout of panic came from below, “Trap! It’s a trap.”

  I frowned in puzzlement and recognition, not knowing which way to flee. The voice was familiar, but why was it shouting about a trap? My eyes searched for danger.

  I didn’t have time to consider it more. Tess grabbed the sleeve of my shirt and yanked me to the ground, as she slithered down the slope to the protection of a small ravine that ran down the hillside, a wash from previous rains. Two shots rang out, almost together. Bullets struck the hillside behind where we had stood an instant earlier.

  Once in the little gully, we crouched and jogged downward, our pistols in our hands ready to defend ourselves. Tess was again in front, acting as if she knew what she was going to do. At the bottom, where I would have turned to our right and escaped whoever had shot at us, she turned left toward where they had come from.

  The warning shout had been Bream. I remembered his voice now and looked to see where he’d disappeared. There was no sign of him. He must have followed us.

  We ran forty or fifty yards and she paused, pointing to the base of the hill where we’d been. There were boulders standing taller than the top of my head to hide behind. I went that way.

  She went the other, leaping behind the base of a tree so large I wouldn’t have been able to put my arms around it and touch fingertips. She held her gun in front, ready to fire from behind the tree trunk as I settled down on my belly between two boulders, where I could see the direction she watched, and at the same time, see her out of the corner of my eye.