If my stepfather had Evergreen Fishing Resort on the northeast side of Loon Lake Road, and the brats had been to Clinton as well as up and down our roads, the army brats must have set up camp south toward Cache Creek. They could be farther north of Clinton, but the resources south made more sense for an army outpost. And they must have somehow taken over an outpost—how else would they have gotten the weapons they had?
Then a crazy idea came to me. I remembered a book I had read, Watership Down, about these rabbits who start a new colony only to discover they need more rabbits. They also find another colony where some of the rabbits want to escape their crazy leader. Maybe it could be that way with us and the army brats. We could defeat my stepfather if we aligned ourselves with his enemy. While I didn’t completely trust that Timothy wasn’t a nutcase, he certainly had to be more reasonable than my stepfather.
“No, we aren’t ready to fight the One-Eyed King. But there’s a group with proper numbers and guns who might be ready. Maybe we can convince them to join us. Even just some of them.”
Kady’s footsteps on the ladder made me wonder if she had heard us. I was so lost in my mind that I hadn’t even noticed where she was.
“Who’s paying attention in the roost?” Kady asked, her tone half mocking me. But I knew she was also serious. By what the men in the truck had said, they were with my stepfather, and that meant he had attempted to kill us. To kill me. And knowing Kady, in her mind, to kill her.
“Sorry,” I said back to Kady. I really didn’t know what else to say. Big Guy and I hadn’t had a chance to make a plan, or come up with a lie about where we were going. I waited for her to say something else. She looked as if she were ready to say something, but she just stared at me.
“You two are going after whoever was behind this, aren’t you?” Kady said quietly, her voice shaking. “Kill him. Do it for Blake, and do it for all of us. Don’t be merciful. Just don’t.”
“Well, are we?” Big Guy asked.
I nodded and walked past them to give Kady and Big Guy a moment together before we left. I went to Oliver’s room, closing the door behind me.
“That’s the patter of steps of a man trying not to tell me he’s off to get revenge,” Oliver said, shivering beneath her comforter. I sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off my shoes, and lay beside her. It made me think back to just a few weeks earlier when she and I were at the Jeffersons’ homestead and we slept in the same bed for the first time. I didn’t want to admit it then, but I’d been comforted by her presence. As I wondered if she was still comforted by mine, Oliver rested her head on my shoulder and took my hand in hers.
“Do you remember the army brats?” I asked.
“The guys who shot and killed the farmer’s wife? How could I forget them?” Her tone told me she knew where I was going with this, and just how stupid an idea she thought it was.
“They might have medicine. And some of them may want to help us.” I sat up and moved to the edge of her bed, keeping her hand in mine. Her skin was calloused but clammy from fever. Time was running out, but if this was going to be the last time I saw her . . . Just as I opened my mouth to speak, Oliver quickly sat up and kissed my cheek.
“Someone could walk in, y’know,” I reminded her.
“I know. I don’t think I care. Life is too short.”
Oliver stopped rambling. I stared at her, waiting for her to say something. I didn’t know what to say. When she leaned in and pressed her lips on mine, I knew she hadn’t been waiting for me to find the right words. She’d been waiting for me to just—love her back. Big Guy opened the door just as our lips parted. I couldn’t take my eyes off Oliver, or let her hand go. For the first time, I understood that the apocalypse was never going to be the end of the world as long as we stayed together.
“Come back to me,” she whispered in my ear as she lay back down and let my hand go. She struggled to smile, and I knew I had to get moving. So I did. For her—I would find medicine. For Blake—I would find people who could help me kill my stepfather once and for all.
BIG GUY AND I TOOK Loon Lake Road west toward the main highway. To pass the time, I listened to the crunch of dry gravel beneath the truck tires and Connor’s panting. Big Guy drove fast and a little erratically. I wondered if he’d had any lessons before everything went to shit.
“Hey,” Big Guy said, breaking the silence between us, “I know we’re in a time crunch and all, but I need to do something in case my parents come back and wonder what happened to me.”
“Okay,” I said to him. We were in a time crunch, but there was also a good chance one of us—or both of us—wasn’t coming back. I completely understood why he’d want them to know what happened.
“I just want to leave a note for my dad. You probably think it’s pretty stupid.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t arguing. Didn’t need an explanation.
“I know we need to find medicine fast. I’m not trying to be a dick. I bet you think I’m such a dick.”
“Of course I do.” I tried to say this with a lightness to my voice as though it was funny, or maybe ironic. I smiled in a way that I had seen people smile when they joked. But Big Guy just kept this serious face and didn’t say anything. No response other than his cheeks turning red. He didn’t seem angry and I wondered why he kept talking.
“You know, if you and Oliver are gay—I just want you to know it’s okay.”
I tried to concentrate on the passing tree line as we turned onto the main highway. What Big Guy said made me think back to my books, to Cue for Treason, a story set in Shakespearean times, where a teen hid with a theater troupe to avoid being arrested. He meets a boy named Kit, who turns out to be a girl named Catherine. I tried to remember how he reacts when he finds out that Kit is a she and not a he, to learn if I should do the same. What I recalled was that he trusts her, before and after he finds out.
Even if our colony knew Oliver wasn’t Oliver, she would always be in danger if someone stronger captured us. As long as the world thought she was a boy, she’d be safer in it. But more than that, what I knew was true was that my feelings for Oliver would not have changed if she had turned out to be a he.
“I don’t know what’s going on with him and me. Can we not talk about it?”
“Okay. How about we talk about that day I started pushing you around in back of the school?”
I let my burning cheeks answer for me. What did he think, that I didn’t remember getting pounded as a bunch of kids cheered him on as if he were some prizefighter? As much as I tried not to dwell on it, I couldn’t help but remember the times Big Guy had teased me at school. Especially the two times he had sought me out to beat me up. A part of me hated that he still believed he could take me.
“I did it because I had convinced myself that I was doing the school some big favor by punishing the weird kid. Or at least I think that’s why I did it. Or maybe I did it because I wanted to prove to everyone that I was in charge of who was cool. I don’t know.”
“Why are you bringing all this up now?”
Silence returned between us, and I once again heard Connor’s panting and the crunch of tires on the road.
“Because I’m sorry,” Big Guy mumbled, and I saw his lower lip trembling. “I was really horrible to a lot of people who didn’t deserve it. I was the worst to you. I didn’t know how bad things were for you. I didn’t know I was making things worse. I was this complete asshole, and here you are the one who saved me. And you did, you know. You saved me.”
I had absolutely no idea what to do with what he was saying. Shake his hand? Punch each other’s shoulders? I wasn’t about to hug him as I would have Oliver. I had a suspicion this was coming out because of what had just happened to Blake.
“Don’t worry about it,” I finally said. “Let’s just find out where these army brats are, and how much danger we’re in.”
Big Guy steeled himself. “Facebook status: ‘Off to possibly die with the weird kid from school who has just become one of my
best buds.’”
His last few words were said with a nod and a smile. I got the joke, but I didn’t laugh.
THE HIGH SCHOOL, A flat-roofed square building, all gray with windows that didn’t open, was in a dip just on the south end of Clinton. Big Guy’s home was just on the opposite side of the school from the highway, and so we cut through the field. When we drove past the football posts, I caught him glancing at them. I expected a fondness or sadness of a life he’d never get back. What I saw was a stern gaze—as if he was mad at them or something.
We entered his yard from the rear, but the back door was closed and locked. Big Guy fished around in his pockets. I realized he’d never given up his house keys. He was clinging to the last feeling of home he had. As he pushed a key in the lock, I took off for a quick run around the house. I checked windows and the front door—also I watched Connor’s reactions for any sign of deaders. When I was satisfied we were safe, I went inside through the back door.
Big Guy was standing in the living room in front of a glass cabinet that held all his trophies. Had we come all this way just so he could see his stupid trophies? Other than the trophy case, the walls of the room were barren. The paint was faded where pictures had once hung. The furniture was all upright and even crocheted doilies were centered on the end tables and backs of chairs. Why would looters take personal photographs? I took out my notebook to write down what I had just found, when Big Guy said, “They were here. They came back. They left. No note. Nothing. They left me!”
“What d’you mean?”
“I had a cough. My dad told me it was the Sickness. I told him I wasn’t bit. He refused to believe me. I showed him—stripped right down while he screamed at me to put my clothes back on. My mom was crying.”
Big Guy stopped talking. His breaths were so hard that he spat all over the glass trophy case. He clenched his hands by his side, and tensed his shoulders. “I was gonna leave them a note now, so when they came back they’d know I wasn’t sick. But they came back already. They never even looked for me!”
“How do you know this?”
“Because they took the pictures. Who else would take the pictures?”
Connor scrambled behind me as Big Guy threw a chair at the trophy case. Glass scattered everywhere.
“I did everything he ever asked! Everything!” He fell to the ground. He wept into his hands. “Why didn’t they leave a note? Why didn’t they tell me where they went?”
For the first time, I understood that he’d also had it rough. He’d also had a father who had pushed him. He had a father just like all those in the books I’d read where the dad tried to live out his dreams of winning football trophies through their sons. That was why Big Guy was such a dick. The same reason I was such a dick to him. Our dads.
“I’ll wait outside. Take as long as you need,” I said as I turned to leave.
He’s a part of my colony, I said to myself and stopped before I reached the door. He was now a part of my family, and now we were each other’s family. We all had lost everyone who mattered to us. Against everything that told me I was ridiculous, I approached Big Guy and wrapped my arms around him. As he cried, I stayed with him. To help him carry his sadness. When I shared this with him, he stopped being Big Guy and became Tom, my friend.
I DROVE THE ROUTE TOWARD Cache Creek from Clinton so Tom could process. We drove in silence. Tom—and that’s what I would call him not only to his face but also in my thoughts—lay on the flatbed, alone, coddling one of his trophies. Connor sat on the bench with me. Ten minutes from Cache Creek, at the junction of the highway where it split southwest down 99, I saw them. I pushed hard on the brakes, and the truck screeched to a halt.
“What?” Tom asked through the back window.
I pointed ahead. The brats had two tanks parked sideways, blocking each road where the highway split. A couple of soldiers started walking toward us, shouting. No need to make out what they were saying—they wanted surrender.
“What now?” Tom asked.
“Stay in the truck, Tom. Stay with Connor. If things go south, turn the truck around and drive as fast as you can. When I’m able, I’ll return with the medicine and soldiers.”
“No way! I’m coming, too.” Tom grabbed my shoulder through the window.
“If they let me in peacefully, yes you are. But if they shoot first, you need to help Kady protect Oliver.”
I took my notebook out of my jacket pocket, but instead of writing in it, I threw it on the seat beside me. It was too important to take with me. It needed to be protected. Tom protested, asking inane questions. I ignored him and grabbed Connor by the muzzle. “Stay with Tom. Go home!”
Connor gave my face one lick, and I hoped he understood.
I leaped out of the truck and onto the road. Tom leaped out after me, but I dodged his hand grasping at me. I stuck to the center of the road as I approached the boys, my arms out and palms showing that I was not a threat. Connor scrambled behind me, and I cursed under my breath. He gave me a sharp glare, as if saying, “To the end. Together.” I heard the truck behind me do a U-turn and then stop. Running, but not driving off. I hoped the army brats would be reasonable—up until the point when they readied their automatic weapons at me.
“So be it,” I whispered to Connor. “I’m Bigwig. I’m Bigwig,” I repeated this as a mantra, staying focused on the strong leadership character from Watership Down. The one who ultimately gives his leadership to the better-suited rabbit, just as I knew I would one day do for Oliver.
“HALT!” commanded one of the boys from on top of the tank.
I quickly counted ten guys and just as many girls dressed in camo. Half of them scrambled around to get behind me. Connor stopped beside me. I halted. Tom still hadn’t driven away.
“Throw down your weapons!” The boy’s words were followed by a gunshot that ricocheted off the ground in front of me. Connor jumped. I looked down at him and quietly said, “Run home!”
Connor scrambled to the side of the road, and as he fled, the army brats laughed. One of them pointed his gun at Connor. I drew a machete and threw it through the air at him. It hit the muzzle of the gun, causing him to miss when he fired.
“You said throw my weapons,” I called back.
“Hold your fire!” the kid told his brats. He hopped from the tank and walked to me. “You’re the one Timothy is looking for. Machetes. Dog. Yeah, you’re the one.”
His matter-of-factness was startling. Several of the larger boys grabbed me and pulled my weapons from me. I didn’t struggle. As I heard Tom speed away, I knew this was exactly what I needed. This would get me into their base, and connected to any brats that wanted out.
Chapter Nineteen
They took me to the once historic Hat Creek Ranch—what I would call Efrafa, the evil warren in Watership Down—with the two boys keeping their AK-47s pointed into my back. Now I knew where the army-clad deaders had come from. This was the perfect spot for the army to have taken over when the virus began. Situated east of the mountains, yet far enough in a valley that no one could station themselves in the hills to fight them. Windy enough that they had erected several wind turbines to keep electricity flowing—a ready-made campground with electricity hookups and a supply of horses to reserve fuel. I wondered where Timothy, my Woundwort, was and how he could have taken over this place.
We marched up to solid iron gates—the kind usually found around construction sites to keep looters out, with added barbed wire around the tops. Two kids on either side stood on watch holding AK-47s on either side. I wanted to write this in my notebook: four soldiers at the gates. As my captors talked to them and the gates opened, I spied metal towers that looked as if they were built from scaffolding. A metal ladder led up several flights of scaffolding to a fully exposed platform up top. A kid lay on her belly, one on each level, each armed with a rifle and binoculars.
One of the kids urged me forward with a push of his gun in my shoulder. The soldiers marched me slowly, as if they wanted
me to see the force they had stationed on the one major highway through the north. I drew a mental map of the compound—the location of the bunkers, the mess hall, even the tent where I heard a movie playing. One of the only original structures was a white-washed barn with steel siding and a concrete base, behind what looked like the main lodge. Large fans replaced windows. Must be a med center. Or a jail, perhaps.
We passed one group of kids practicing how to shoot rifles, another where a girl was teaching wrestling, and a field where both football and dodge ball games were happening. I wondered if anyone was out in the fields growing food—surely, with electricity, the army brats would have kept the irrigation system active. Considering their numbers and how well organized they were, I began to doubt my chances of escape.
“We’re taking you to a holding area first, where you’ll be checked for bites,” one of the boys behind me said as the two continued leading me at gunpoint into what appeared to be the main lodge—a colonial-style building with yellow wood paneling. Several kids with AK-47s resting against their chests paced back and forth along a white railing around the porch.
“Move it!” the guy behind me growled as he pushed the butt of his machine gun into my back. They hurried me inside, where they took me into a room and closed the door.
“Strip down. Put these on.” One of the boys threw me an orange jumpsuit that looked like prison garb. I glared at him and he said, “Look, it doesn’t please me, either. We gotta do it to stay safe. That’s all.”
I nodded in admiration at their dedication to one another. The virus was dangerous, and it would be an easy thing to sneak in an infected person who could turn in the night and destroy the camp. I remembered that was what Oliver had said started the original infection during New Year’s Eve fireworks. One person was sick, and then two, then four, and then eight. After I had done as the soldier asked, the other soldier checked me over.
Children of Ruin Page 15