Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2)

by Sean McLachlan

  By afternoon the land looked a bit healthier, with little patches of growth here and there. A small stream beckoned her but the stench coming from it kept her from refilling her jug. She tried to ignore her parched throat as she continued.

  By evening her head was spinning. She ate some more nuts, coughing as the hard fragments went down her dry throat, and kept on moving. The plain darkened and temperature plunged. Her clothes were still damp. She was exhausted beyond exhaustion, but to stop would be to die.

  Thus Susanna Waites entered the longest night of her life.

  The sky had cleared. Stars shone sharp in the cold sky. In different circumstances she would have looked up at the starry vault with awe. Perhaps she’d see another satellite. She chuckled at the thought of herself making another bold statement to the empty wildlands. A part of her wondered if she was going insane.

  “The whole world’s gone insane,” she muttered.

  The words sounded like a shout in the silent landscape. She kept walking. The cold air and her damp clothing numbed her, and she knew that she could get no rest and no sleep if she wanted to see the dawn.

  She walked, and the stars wheeled overhead. Her thoughts went back to all the times she had stood outside and stared at them—when she was small and her mother brought one boyfriend to the cabin after another, when she was older and all the other girls were running off into the fields with the boys, when she was an adult and the silly prattle around the communal fires annoyed her and she wanted to be alone, and on the march, when she had to wait for Donna.

  She had really needed the stars then. Jeb had picked Donna as his regular toy, and Susanna as his regular servant. She’d sit outside by the fire, shining Jeb’s boots or preparing dinner while trying not to listen to the moans and whimpers coming from inside Jeb’s tent. The stars made her feel far away.

  And now? Did she want to be far away from this chilly, empty, dead plain?

  No, because for the first time in her life she was going somewhere, and this freezing night was the price for it.

  Her legs worked automatically. Susanna no longer felt fatigue or cold. She no longer felt anything physical. At times she stumbled, and in that brief panic to right herself she’d have the sense of the old Susanna, the frightened Susanna. A moment later the emotion faded, replaced by nothing but cold, weary will.

  In the middle of the night she crested a low ridge and descended the other side. The ground looked strange, like it was covered in thousands of oddly shaped rocks. As she stepped on one it spun out from under her feet. She slipped. A hollow rattling sounded through the dark as she slid several feet down the slope, hands grasping for purchase.

  She came to rest after a moment, her hands touching heaps of smooth shapes.

  Plastic. Piles of plastic bottles and jugs.

  She’d fallen into a dump from the Old Times.

  Susanna stood up and walked through, feet slipping with every step, the plastic crunching underfoot or careening away with hollow thuds that sounded too loud in the otherwise silent darkness. She sniffed the air for toxins but sensed none except for what the rain had brought down. This was a regular dump, one of the countless wastelands produced during the Old Times. It couldn’t hurt her. She carried on, at times wading thigh-deep through plastic.

  At last she came to the other side, slogging up a ridge of gritty soil through which the wind whipped shreds of plastic bags that fluttered phantomlike in the starlit night. Beyond spread an open plain. The wind blew a bag around her leg. It tugged at her a moment before it spun away and out of sight. She kept walking.

  Dawn found her barely able to stay on her feet. She pulled out her bag of nuts, found only six left, and put them back without eating them. The sky was patchy with clouds. A feeble, intermittent sun did little to warm her.

  Around noon she collapsed. She fell hard on her side and lay still for a long time. She was too numb to worry about the cold, too tired to care. Yet still she didn’t sleep. Some part of her realized that her body wanted to give up. She couldn’t let that happen. With feeble, fumbling hands she grabbed a rock and smacked open the last of her nuts, chomping on them slowly. She coughed as they passed down her dry throat.

  I have to get up. I have to keep moving.

  In a minute.

  No, now!

  Susanna pushed herself to a sitting position. Her head spun. She waited until the world regained its balance and then looked south toward New City, still at least a day away.

  And that’s when she saw him. He came striding toward her across the desolate plain, erect and proud. He carried no weapon she could see, only a large pack and a walking stick almost as tall as he was. As he drew closer she saw his face, a face she’d never forget. He was an older man, with thinning, gray hair. His nose was swathed with a large white bandage and a splint that showed it had been broken recently. Medical tape splayed out from the bandage like the fingers of a hand spread across his face.

  That face was scowling.

  Susanna tensed, then realized he was not scowling at her, and those eyes that burned with a fevered energy were not glaring at her, merely sizing her up. That scowl and that glare were his usual looks. They were engraved on his features.

  A holy man? An insane scavenger? There were many strange types in the wildlands. Susanna picked up the rock that she had used to crack her nuts and struggled to her feet.

  He stopped a few paces from her.

  “You from the Righteous Horde?” he asked. The way he said it, it sounded like he already knew.

  “Yes. They enslaved me and then left me behind.” Susanna saw no reason to lie.

  “You know you’re walking toward New City.”

  Susanna nodded. “I’m hoping they’ll take me in. I have something to offer them.”

  A trace of curiosity flickered across the man’s features, but they didn’t soften.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Susanna. And you?”

  “They call me The Giver.”

  Yeah, definitely some sort of holy man. Well, I’ve had enough of holy men.

  “You look cold,” he went on. “Not far from here is a thicket where we can get enough wood to build a fire and dry you off.”

  “I have nothing to trade.”

  “No trade is needed,” The Giver said, turning and walking away.

  Susanna paused for a moment, then followed.

  An hour later they sat before a crackling fire. Susanna spread out her blanket and outer layer of clothes to dry, and sat as close as she could to the fire as steam wafted off her second layer of clothes. She wrinkled her nose at the stench. At least she was warm. The scavenger said little. He had offered her a drink out of a canteen and had set out an iron griddle on which he was cooking a corn cake. Susanna stared at the food and felt a growing sense of despair that she couldn’t understand. She had been saved, and yet she felt miserable.

  “Good bit of luck coming across you, lucky for both of us. I have some dealings with New City and I think you can help me out. You see, I need to know what’s going on there but can’t really show my face. Got other things to take care of in the wildlands. From what I know of those people they won’t turn someone like you away.”

  “Someone like me? You mean someone who’s not a threat?”

  The Giver looked at her. “They must know the camp followers weren’t going along of their own accord. The citizens are a stuck-up bunch but they ain’t stupid and they ain’t cruel unless they feel threatened. Someone like you won’t make them feel threatened.”

  “Oh,” Susanna said, staring back at the corn cake. Of course no one would feel threatened by her. Why would they?

  “So anyway you can be my eyes and ears. We can make an arrangement for you to come out to the wildlands every now and then and tell me what you’ve learned. Get a domestic job, like a servant for one of the citizens. They won’t take much notice of you after a while and they’ll let slip lots of things that may be useful to know. I’ll be sure
to keep you in good trade. Extra food and clothing and things like that. I’ll give you a few things to start out with from my pack here.”

  “What do you need to spy on New City for?”

  The Giver snorted. “For their own good.”

  Susanna looked back at the corn cake. That was more of an answer than she expected, even though it told her next to nothing. The Giver flipped the corn cake, saw it was done, and scooped it up with an iron spatula. He held it out to her.

  “And why do you think I’ll do this for you?” she asked.

  “Because I saved your life. Eat up. You need to build up your strength.”

  Susanna blinked and stared at the corn cake. Then she realized why she had felt so despondent since the scavenger had come along.

  “Go on, take it. I need you to be strong.”

  Susanna slapped the corn cake away.

  “I don’t need your charity and I don’t want to be your errand girl.”

  The Giver looked surprised. “I’m not asking you to do anything bad, just watch out and see what’s going on.”

  “I have my own reasons for going to New City and I don’t think they’re yours,” she said, struggling to her feet and grabbing Eduardo’s clothes.

  The scavenger picked up the corn cake and brushed the dust off. “Don’t be like that, eat something! You’re not strong enough to make it to New City.”

  “Fuck you. I know I’m not strong. I’m not good-looking either. No, don’t shake your head, I don’t want your false sympathy. I’m not too smart either, and I’m not a very good cook, and my vegetable patch was never as productive as everyone else’s and fuck you. Everyone I know is dead or a slave and I’m still alive, and that counts for something. And everyone I know sold out their principles and I haven’t, and that counts for a hell of a lot more. So I’m going to go to New City without your help.”

  The scavenger stared at her. She picked up Bridget’s basket and tossed it to him.

  “Here, this is in trade for building the fire. I stole it from the last person ever to own me.” With that she turned and headed south.

  “Wait!” he called after her.

  She turned back, frowning at the scavenger. He was holding out the corn cake. “Another trade. I’ll give you this if you do one thing for me.”

  Susanna’s eyes narrowed.

  “What’s that?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Annette hurried through the Burbs. She had a million things to do before she could head out into the wildlands after The Pure One. More refugees had arrived. Some scavengers had brought in a couple of machete men. One was wounded—they swore he got it in the battle and not from them—and the other was so starved he was barely conscious. Another dozen porters had been rounded up too. These had been treated with more kindness than the previous lot, although one old man’s bloody lip showed Annette’s she wasn’t getting the whole story.

  So besides dealing with Clyde to expand the two enclosures in front of the wall, and getting Ahmed to go around to make a collection to feed the prisoners, coaxing some food from The Doctor when that didn’t turn out to be enough, and dealing with a crowd of hecklers tossing rocks at the machete men, she had her regular police work to do.

  There’d been another case of theft at the market. This time it was a kid, a snot-nosed little shit who thankfully wasn’t one of Pablo’s friends. Her son had a decent taste in playmates. She only hoped that would last into his teenage years.

  The problem was, what to do with the brat? He was a minor, and his father was a bum who lounged around the bars cadging drinks and slept until noon in the shack he had won in a card game. A search of the shack found barely enough trade to compensate the market stall owner and pay for a day in prison—for the father. Annette couldn’t bring herself to locking the kid in Ahmed’s spare room. Seeing there was no food in the kid’s house, Annette offered him some lunch. She got a middle finger in return.

  More trouble came with a fistfight on the other side of town. Frank waded into it to break them up, and got slugged for his efforts. He slugged the slugger and took out two of the guy’s teeth. The “victim” then went all over town whining about police brutality. The Doctor summoned him to check on his mouth, and when the guy came out of the office, his mouth swathed in bandages, he made a humble apology to Frank. Whatever The Doctor had told him, it had worked.

  These and a flurry of smaller problems kept her from getting over to the prostitute’s place until late afternoon. It was a large red tent near the edge of the Burbs that housed a group independent working girls. Annette noticed a grim-faced man with a spiked club standing guard at the doorway.

  “You’re new,” she commented as she came up to him.

  “Hey sheriff,” the man replied. “Yeah, just hired today after Tiffany went missing.”

  Annette blinked. Tiffany was the name of the girl who had gotten cut. She hurried into the tent.

  Three sad-eyed women sat around a small fire heating up some tea. Only the front half of the tent was visible, the rest being cordoned off with cloth partitions. An exaggerated moaning from behind one of them told her why.

  Blushing, Annette sat down on a spare stool.

  “What’s this I hear about Tiffany missing?” she asked.

  One of the girls sniffled and wiped her eyes. “She must have disappeared last night. The pegs on her side of the tent had been pulled up and her bed was empty.”

  “When did you see this?”

  “Not until late morning. We let her rest but when she didn’t come to breakfast I checked on her and she was gone!”

  “Why didn’t you come tell me?”

  Another of the girls shot her an angry look. “You couldn’t protect her when she was right here, what the hell are you going to do now that she’s gone?”

  Annette bit her lower lip.

  “Did any of your hear anything last night?” she asked.

  They all shook their heads. The teary eyed one said, “Things got pretty loud here last night. We had a party. Someone could have snuck in and taken her easily.”

  Annette noticed that each sleeping area could be partitioned off with curtains. Tiffany’s coworkers would have seen nothing.

  “Any of you receive any threats? Anyone approach you?” Annette asked.

  The angry one frowned. “You know who did this. If you’re the law around here, go arrest him!”

  Annette stood up. “I will if I can get some evidence.”

  Half an hour later Annette burst through Fly Daddy Bradley’s front door with Frank and Jackson right behind her. They stormed down the hallway as squawks and angry shouts came from the rooms to either side. She flung the door to Fly Daddy’s room open without knocking and found him in bed with two of his employees.

  “Sheriff Cruz!” Fly Daddy said with a smile, “To what do I owe this—”

  “Where is she?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Annette stormed over. “Where is she?”

  “To whom are you referring?”

  “You know who. Tiffany. She went missing last night.”

  Fly Daddy made a good impression of a surprise and worry. So good, in fact, that Annette felt a prick of doubt. Shaking that off, she leaned close to him.

  “An independent working girl gets cut up and now she’s gone missing, taken from her tent last night. Where is she?”

  Fly Daddy raised his hands from around the shoulders of his girls and made a helpless gesture.

  “How should I know?”

  Annette turned. “Frank. Jackson. Search every inch of this place.”

  “Right,” Frank said. They both turned and stormed out. A moment later she heard the sounds of crashing doors, female screams and male protests. Annette turned back to the pimp. He was getting out of bed and putting on a purple bathrobe.

  Where the hell does he scavenge this stuff?

  “Now I must object. I am a law-abiding businessman who offers opportunities to underprivileged girls and c
omfort for the male population. You have no right to—”

  “Investigating a murder I have every right to search your place.”

  Fly Daddy’s calm demeanor cracked somewhat. “Murder! Now you’re accusing me of murder?”

  A crash down the hall made him look over her shoulder.

  “My deputies,” Annette explained. “Searching.”

  Fly Daddy shook a finger at her. “If anything is broken I’ll make my complaints to The Doctor.”

  “You do that. In the meantime, sit your fat ass down. I’m going to talk to your girls. Without you around.”

  The pimp’s eyes narrowed. After a moment he sat down.

  One by one, Annette spoke with each of the prostitutes. All of them swore that Fly Daddy and his bouncers had been at the whorehouse all night. She tried everything from bribery to bullying, and still none of them changed their story. Frank and Jackson’s search also turned up nothing. At least they had the satisfaction of seeing all of Fly Daddy’s customers run off.

  An hour later, Annette and her deputies finally left.

  “Not a god-damned thing,” Frank growled. “And you didn’t find any clues at Tiffany’s tent?”

  Annette shook her head. “Nope. And if we don’t find a body or have some witness come forward, I don’t know what we can do.”

  “Weren’t you going to ban prostitution if this happens?” Jackson asked.

  Annette ground her teeth. “The Doctor is against it. Says it will just drive it underground. Besides, we don’t know for sure Tiffany’s dead.”

  “Of course she’s dead. That fat fuck killed her,” Frank said.

  Annette said. “Maybe. Yeah, probably. But what can we do without proof?”

  “Ban prostitution like you said you would,” Jackson said.

  Annette stopped and faced her deputies. “That will take time and a huge amount of effort, and we have more important fish to fry.”

  “The Pure One?” Jackson asked.

  “That’s right. The Doctor has given us the go ahead. We leave tomorrow.”