Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2)

by Sean McLachlan

  Annette sighed. “I know.”

  “Why does he call himself a fly, anyway? I’ve never gotten that,” Frank said.

  “Old Times slang,” Annette said.

  “For what? Someone who eats shit?” Jackson snapped. “We should shut him down. He’s exploiting those women.”

  “He’s too powerful to shut down and it won’t stop the problem,” Annette said. She was beginning to hate this job already.

  They came to the warehouse, where at the door another guard frisked them before they entered a huge room subdivided into workshops, storage, a garage, and even a few homes. They ascended a clattering metal stair into a room where a fourteen-year-old girl named Catherine sat listening to Radio Hope.

  “Boiling is a good method for killing bacteria and other pathogens in water. Water should be brought to a rolling boil for one minute. Water is at a rolling boil when a large number of bubbles are coming to the surface and don’t disappear when you stir the liquid. At high altitudes. . .”

  Annette waved. Catherine smiled and waved back before hunching over a notebook and continuing to write. She was the daughter of Kevin and Rachel, the city’s mechanics, and part of a group of teenagers assigned to write down all of Radio Hope’s broadcasts to be filed and organized into a book. It was one of The Doctor’s many projects. Catherine hung out at Marcus’ house and she’d become one of Pablo’s surrogate big sisters.

  Annette bit her lip. Marcus was almost family to her and Pablo, but she had seriously pissed him off with this election and naming Jackson as her deputy. Well, from what she’d heard families fought a lot. Maybe surrogate families were the same.

  They found The Doctor in his medical office changing Kelly Blackwell’s dressing. New City’s best plumber had been on the wall when one of the Righteous Horde’s riflemen shot her right through the jaw. Tears welled up in her eyes as The Doctor carefully redressed the wound. He glanced up, treated Annette and her deputies to a cold stare, and went back to work.

  The Doctor was a great man. Everyone admired him. He and a few other survivors from North Cape had come here almost forty years ago and started a new community. Although Annette didn’t know much about the early years, she knew The Doctor had always been in charge, not just for his obvious charisma and his vital medical knowledge but because he healed people for free. Always had and always would. When some scavenger got a broken bone set or an open sore swabbed he’d be given some advice on taking care of himself and sent on his way. Those who tried to pay were kindly refused. Gifts left at his door were given away. In a world of people scrounging and fighting over scraps, doing everything they could to get more for themselves, The Doctor was one of the few true givers left.

  He was also a Grade-A asshole.

  The Doctor did not wear his status lightly. While he did not wield absolute power, he treated any opposition as if he was some Old Times dictator. Too often she had seen him turn his back on friends who had stood up to him. Even Ahmed, his understudy and the man who saved his life with the medicines she and Jackson had delivered from Radio Hope, even he was all but an exile in the Burbs now.

  So Ahmed had become a member of the Burb Council, a political body The Doctor was trying very hard not to recognize. They hadn’t talked since.

  So many divisions, so many factions. She had never seen them so clearly before.

  And now she was right in the middle of it.

  It made her want to return to being nothing but a bouncer at $87,953. Cracking heads was so much simpler than this stuff.

  The Doctor finished with Kelly. He gave her some marijuana for the pain and told her to come back in two days for another checkup and to get her bandages changed. Only after she had left the room did The Doctor turn to look at them.

  “So, the newly elected sheriff and her appointees.” His words came out bitter.

  “I thought it best to have an election,” Annette found herself explaining. “Proving my legitimacy will make it easier for me to do my job.”

  The Doctor leveled his gaze at her. He looked far healthier than the cadaver he had resembled two weeks ago. That medicine had worked wonders. He was still skeletally thin, though. Seeing such vitality in someone so fragile was surreal.

  “And what do you see as your job?” The Doctor asked.

  “Keep the peace, pursue fugitives. . .”

  “Like The Pure One?”

  Annette nodded. “That would be a good start.”

  “And I agree,” he said, getting up and stowing away the tools of his trade in tidy drawers. “Clyde has some scouts trailing the Righteous Horde. They’ve gone back through the South Pass and are now on the plains on the other side of the mountains. The last report said the army is much reduced. Lots of them are deserting. There are gunshots in their camp almost every night. Unfortunately now that the scouts are on the other side of the mountains they’re out of radio contact so we’ll have to wait a while to get another update.”

  “We can set out immediately,” Annette said.

  The Doctor raised a hand. “Not so fast. I haven’t authorized this mission yet. I think it’s a good idea, but we have problems closer to home. First off, the Burbs are still their usual mess, plus there are deserters and stragglers all over the countryside.”

  “If we wait too long, the Righteous Horde is going to get too far away to catch up to them,” Frank said.

  The Doctor nodded. “True, but maybe they’ll stop being a problem at that point. If they couldn’t beat us at full strength, they won’t be able to beat us the way they are now.”

  “We can’t let them lay waste to the wildlands!” Annette said. “We need to take out that lunatic. Once he’s gone, the whole movement will fall apart.”

  “The wildlands aren’t my problem,” The Doctor snapped. “My duty is to keep this community together. That’s your duty too and don’t you forget it. Now about your choice of deputy. . .”

  The Doctor glared at Jackson, who glared back. Annette glanced between the two. It had been The Doctor who had found Jackson guilty of Blame. Jackson had been stripped of his citizenship and branded. Yet just two weeks ago, The Doctor had sponsored Olivia, Jackson’s fiancée, for associate status.

  So many factions, so many divisions, and I understand so little about them all.

  A knock at the door made everyone turn. Clyde poked his head in.

  “Sorry to interrupt but this is urgent. Two scavengers got in a knife fight and one ended up dead. The murderer hightailed it into the wildlands.”

  “Typical,” The Doctor snorted. “Well, sheriff, looks like you have your first fugitive to chase. Consider it a practice run.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jeb and the others got lucky. Early the next day they came across a lone scavenger. Jeb couldn’t believe it. The man must have been insane to wander alone around the wildlands right now. After killing him, they found he had enough dried meat and flatbread for everyone to get one full meal. The others gobbled their share down. Jeb ate half and tucked the other half away in his pockets. He caught Leonard sizing him up. Jeb reminded himself to make a show of eating the rest of his portion before going to sleep that night.

  Jeb took the scavenger’s backpack and discarded the bag he’d gotten off the porters. This one was better and would get more trade if he were ever in a position to trade for anything again. He decided against packing one in the other. He didn’t want to carry too much extra weight.

  The unexpected meal kept them going for the rest of the day. Jeb led them due south so they would get directly between New City and the mountains while remaining far enough east to keep outside its territory and hopefully away from its patrols.

  Only once did they spot a patrol, a dozen dots far in the distance. Sunlight glinted off gunmetal. Jeb and the others lay down behind a log and waited for them to pass.

  Once they got due east of New City, crossing the cracked remains of a road from the Old Times, they turned west toward the sea and the cove on which New City stood. Th
ey moved more carefully now, looking long and hard around them before hurrying over any exposed terrain.

  Two of them were trailing badly. Leonard and Jeb had a quiet conversation a little apart from the rest of the group.

  “These guys are gonna get us caught,” Leonard said. “I say we ice them right now.”

  “That might put the others against us. I say we keep them until we raid a farm and then leave them behind,” Jeb replied.

  Leonard studied the pair as they lay weak and panting in a cluster of shrubs where their group was hiding. He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. They might mess up the raid. They’re half out of their heads,” he said.

  “They’re still useful, let’s go,” Jeb said. “Besides, if a patrol finds a pair of fresh bodies they’ll get suspicious.”

  Leonard looked disappointed.

  They continued on their way, twice avoiding patrols they spotted in the distance. Jeb was surprised there weren’t more and wondered if perhaps New City didn’t have as big of a population as he’d been led to believe.

  Maybe we cut that down some, he thought.

  As day turned into night his energy began to flag. Those two half-meals had carried him this far but now he wondered where he was going to find the strength to get out of New City’s territory. The others were even worse off. Even Leonard looked ready to drop. Their raid would have to be a success or they’d be stuck in enemy territory, starving and unable to defend themselves.

  Night came overcast and pitch dark. A damp sea breeze chilled them as Jeb looked around for a suitable place to bunk down.

  A distant light caught his attention. He pointed it out to the others.

  “A farm?” one asked hopefully.

  “Looks too big to be a campfire,” Leonard said. “Let’s go.”

  Hope gave them strength and they stumbled along for another mile until the light resolved itself into a series of bonfires around a compound of buildings standing amid a broad stretch of cultivated fields. Jeb’s mouth began to water.

  They drew closer to get a better look at the compound. There were a dozen or so buildings of various sizes, made of heavy logs and cut with small windows that would make good gunports. A rusted old water tower had been converted into a watchtower. Jeb could see someone up there, sitting behind a pile of sandbags and gazing out onto the landscape lit by the bonfires.

  The farmers had been smart, and industrious. Trees were scarce in these parts, and to get logs to make so many buildings they must have clear cut the entire area and probably brought some in from the mountains too. The fires were backed by old mirrors that reflected the light far into the surrounding fields. Just in front of the fires stood a fence made of barbed wire and brambles.

  Jeb’s group crept to just beyond the edge of the lit area and, taking advantage of a slight dip in the terrain, settled down to watch.

  There was little movement inside other than the sentry on the water tower. Occasionally someone went from one building to the other. Once a young woman came out of the largest building and headed towards what looked like a chicken coop.

  “Nice,” Leonard chuckled. “Looks like we’ll get more than food tonight.”

  Jeb shook his head. In better times he’d be thinking the same thing. Right now, though, he only had one type of hunger.

  The woman opened the door and the faint sound of clucking hens came to their ears. The group responded with grumbles from fourteen empty stomachs.

  “So how do we do this?” Leonard asked Jeb.

  “I say we wait a few hours until most of them are asleep and those fires burn down. They’ll keep a watch but if we rush them some of us will make it to the fence. It doesn’t look too strong. Let’s gather some branches that we can lay over it to weigh it down. That will make it easier to jump over.”

  Leonard nodded in appreciation. “Smart. You’re smart.”

  “Thanks.”

  Leonard’s eyes narrowed and lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Too smart for a machete man.”

  Jeb met his gaze. “You want to eat?”

  Leonard didn’t reply.

  Gathering branches was more difficult than they imagined. The entire area had been stripped of firewood for those bonfires. Eventually they came across an empty pasture enclosed by a split rail fence. They dismantled that and dragged the rails back to their hiding spot.

  “Might as well get some sleep while we wait. Let’s draw straws for the watches,” Jeb said.

  Jeb pulled out several blades of grass and made a few shorter than the rest. These would be for the first watch. With a slight of hand he marked one of the longer blades on the top before handing them to a machete man. Everyone drew straws and Jeb picked the one he had marked. He settled down to get some rest.

  As he lay there with his head resting on his arm and waiting for sleep to come, he gazed out at the tidy compound. He’d lived in a place not much different than that as a boy, in a frame house from the Old Times next to a few newer buildings constructed by the group of farmers that his family belonged to.

  Although he was only thirty-two now, his childhood seemed like a century ago, a distant memory of someone else’s childhood told to him as a campfire story and not quite believed.

  They’d lived out east past the mountains, in a place he was sure he couldn’t find again. The land wasn’t bad and they had a decent supply of stock. They ate and were warm and his childhood had been one of undemanding chores and playful diversions. The nearby river had been clean enough to swim in, and the fields were open to him and his friends as long as they didn’t stray out of sight of the watchtower.

  Yes, their settlement had a watchtower too. Every settlement he had ever seen had one. It was as essential as a water supply. He used to climb up there sometimes and look out over the narrow expanse of his world and wonder what lay beyond it.

  At the time he figured he’d never know, and so he and his friends contented themselves with a hundred different childhood games in the river and the fields. Their favorite was baseball. Dad taught him how to throw and carved him a cracker of a bat that helped him hit homers every game.

  He had been twelve when the bandits came. But no, he didn’t want to think about that. And he didn’t want to think about the next twenty years of wandering and fighting and backstabbing either. He was too tired. Tired from the march, tired of his life, tired of the world, tired of everything. As his eyes lidded with sleep and the view of the compound he planned to raid grew blurry, he cast his mind back before that time and in his dreams the farmers of New City turned into his own friends and family, cherished faces that shone now only in his sleeping hours.

  Leonard’s cursing woke him up.

  “What is it?” Jeb asked, his hand already on his machete.

  He saw immediately. The sky to the east was streaked with the gray of dawn.

  Leonard was pummeling one of the machete men as the others looked on fearfully.

  “This motherfucker was supposed to be on watch and he fell asleep instead. If I hadn’t woken up we’d have all been sleeping until sunrise!” Leonard said between punches.

  “I’m sorry! I was so tired!” the man said from bloodied lips. Leonard hit him again.

  “Stop that,” Jeb ordered. “Someone might hear. We have more important things to think about, like what the hell we’re going to do now.”

  “We gotta go through with it,” Leonard said.

  Jeb looked at the compound. The fires had died low and cast little light. While the darkness kept him from seeing anyone up in the tower he didn’t fool himself into thinking the farmers weren’t keeping watch. He looked back at the eastern sky. Not much time.

  “Yeah, I guess we gotta,” Jeb said. “How about you take half the men and circle around to the north side. We’ll come at them together.”

  “I think I’ll stay with you,” Leonard said.

  Shit.

  “All right,” Jeb said. He turned to the machete man who looked the
least pathetic. “You. Pick six men and go around to the north side.”

  “How will we know when to go?” the man asked.

  “When you’re ready, head on out,” Jeb replied. “When we see you come into the open we’ll join you.”

  The man looked doubtful. “Um, OK.”

  “Don’t forget to take those rails,” Jeb instructed.

  The men grabbed their rails and headed out into shadowed land.

  Leonard leaned close, his bright red beard already clearly visible in the gathering light. “We gonna wait for those idiots? There’ll be too much light by the time they get into position.”

  “We’ll wait five minutes until they’re far enough along and then we’ll make a break for the compound. They’ll see us and come in the other way. There’s probably only one sentry awake so hopefully we’ll be to the fence by the time everyone else wakes up. Those idiots will still be in the open and take most of the fire.”

  Leonard grinned. “Smart.”

  Not too smart. This is a damn desperate gamble and we’ll probably all get killed.

  Jeb counted off the minutes. The eastern sky was brightening quicker than he’d like. It was still overcast and cold but he was beginning to see details of the mountains. He cut his count down to four minutes.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They rushed out into the field, running low. Each carried a pair of rails tucked under his arms. When they made it about a quarter of the way to the fence Jeb glanced back. Two of his group were already lagging behind. Fine, they’d just make better targets. He picked up speed. Leonard paced him and soon they pulled ahead of the rest of the pack.

  When they were halfway there he glanced behind again. The other group was just breaking out of the bushes. Some of the idiots weren’t even carrying their rails with them. Probably got too tired to haul them along.

  A shout from the guard tower made him cringe. There was a crack of a rifle, a flare from a dark spot on the tower, a plume of dirt not far from Jeb’s feet.

  Shit, gotta get there right now.

  Jeb used the last of his strength to sprint the rest of the way. The sentry on the tower fired twice more. Jeb didn’t look to see if anyone got hit. He made it to the fence. As a chorus of shouts arose from within the compound, he dropped his two rails against a curl of rusty barbed wire. Leonard threw his rails right next to them. It made a dip in the wire just low enough to jump over. Jeb noticed a row of wooden stakes lining the inside of the perimeter.