Badlands Trilogy (Novella): Redemption In the Badlands

by Jarrett, Brian J.

  Lilly nodded. “I suppose.”

  Silence ensued, eating up the next few moments as fire lapped at the bottom of the metal buckets, sending more steam into the warm air. The burning wood hissed and popped loudly.

  “What about you?” Dan said. “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

  Lilly looked at him. She opened her mouth, thought better of it, and closed it.

  She glanced toward the buckets. “Water’s boiling,” she said. She looked at Dan, motioning with the pistol. “Better get back to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dan had filled four of the coolers before the evening forced he and Lilly indoors. An entire day without random carriers roaming onto the property had allowed them to make real progress. By the time the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon, Dan already had the large coolers inside the school.

  Closing the school’s front doors, he secured them with a chain and padlock. That little system had also been devised by the building’s prior occupants.

  “Don’t even think of trying anything,” Lilly reminded him.

  Dan kept this mouth shut and ascended the steps toward the second floor. But instead of heading toward the teachers’ lounge, Lilly directed him back to his classroom-turned-prison.

  “Not again,” Dan said. “Come on.”

  “Just do it and don’t give me any shit.”

  Dan opened his mouth to contest his internment but thought better of it.

  He couldn’t expect everything to change overnight. Besides, he’d made a hell of a lot of progress with Lilly as it was.

  Lilly directed Dan into the room. “I’ll bring your food by later,” she said, closing the door. With a jangling of keys, she locked it, leaving him alone with his blanket and books.

  Dan sighed, staring at the lonely blanket on the floor.

  If nothing else, at least the bucket was clean.

  * * *

  Dan awoke to the sound of birds chirping in the trees surrounding the school, intermingled with the muffled cries of the carriers from the pen. He sat up, cursing Lilly for the ache that had set into his lower back, courtesy of a week and a half of sleeping on the school’s utilitarian tile floor. The pain in his shoulders, however, he welcomed. Hard work did a body good.

  He threw back the cover and made his way straight to the bucket. After emptying his bladder, he went to one of the two large windows and peered outside. From his vantage point, he could see half of the pen containing his carriers.

  He kept going back to those cocoons he’d seen littering the grounds. Because that’s what they were, weren’t they? What else could they be?

  Pulling himself away from the window, Dan went to the door and peered through the narrow window set within it.

  There he found Lilly, sleeping in the hallway again.

  He decided not to wake her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Just as Boyd had expected, the Aldi had been damn near stripped bare long ago. Dead leaves blown in through the broken windows littered the floor, combined with chunks of fallen, rotting ceiling tile covered in bird and animal shit. Birds had built nests in the nooks and crannies of the building, including the holes in the roof. There were probably bats roosting in the ceiling too.

  Despite the pillaging, a half-dozen canned food items still sat on the shelf, sealed and presumably edible. Boyd made a mental note to get these on the way out. Intermingled within the sealed cans, a dozen or more ruptured tins sat, the dark stains of their rancid contents all but gone now.

  Finding any food items in the stores these days still surprised Boyd. Just went to show how few people survived the virus. Not even enough to raid all the stores completely, even four years later. Maybe they would find that goddamn candy bar after all.

  Boyd adjusted his grip on the pistol as he stepped carefully through the debris littering the aisles. While Boyd would freely admit that few crews were running the roads more dangerous than his own, it didn’t mean that another group of hard asses wouldn’t try to take them out. Boyd had even heard of cannibals roaming the lands these days. Thankfully Tony hadn’t resorted to cannibalism…yet.

  “Candy bar!” Moose exclaimed.

  So much for keeping things quiet. That goddamn retard was gonna get them all killed one day.

  Boyd looked over to find Moose on his hands and knees, reaching behind a demolished shelving unit. He had his arm in all the way to the elbow, his tongue sticking out of his mouth as he struggled to concentrate on the task at hand.

  Boyd gripped the pistol a little tighter. With Moose tangled up like that it would take only a single shot. But could he get Tony too? The kid stood there with his own pistol, a weapon he knew very well how to use. But neither of the remaining crew members appeared to be thinking like Boyd. Dogpile was busy rummaging through the shelves looking for God knew what while Patel had his finger buried in his nose.

  Fucking idiots. He had half a mind to shoot those two morons after Tony and Moose were gone.

  Moose retracted an arm as thick as a tree trunk. In his large hand, he clutched a box of knock-off Ho-Hos. “Candy bar!” he exclaimed with a child-like wonderment in his eyes.

  Not exactly a candy bar, but close enough. Now maybe the simp would pipe down for a while.

  As Moose got to his feet, the sound of something falling off of a shelf and onto the floor echoed throughout the building.

  Boyd’s heart took a jolt of adrenaline, picking up the pace. He glanced over at Dogpile and Patel to find them interested and aware for a change.

  Tony put a finger to this lips. He pointed toward the source of the sound and motioned for the others to follow.

  With so much debris on the floor, it proved difficult to navigate without stepping on something and giving away their position. But Boyd hadn’t survived this long by being stupid or loud; he stepped carefully and quietly around the random obstacles littering the floor, eyes wide and searching.

  He arrived at the end of the aisle and peeked around the corner, giving the perpendicular aisle a solid scan. Everything came up clear. He motioned for the others to follow.

  He took two steps.

  Then he saw the source of the sound.

  A child sat beneath an overturned table, knees pulled up to his chest, attempting to hide and doing a poor job of it. Dirt covered his face, crusted around the edges of his mouth. He sat with his eyes closed, rocking slightly back and forth. Boyd searched the surrounding area for the kid’s parents, but saw no one. Orphans were pretty rare these days; tough for a kid to make it on their own.

  Maybe, Boyd wondered, if the kid just held still Tony wouldn’t see him—

  “Hi there,” Tony said.

  Boyd frowned. So much for going unnoticed.

  Tony stepped around Boyd as he headed toward the child. He placed the pistol in his back pocket, closing the distance slowly.

  “You here alone, little man?” Tony asked.

  The boy didn’t reply.

  Boyd glanced around at the others. Like always, Moose had that same stupid fucking look plastered on his face. But Patel and Dogpile watched Tony carefully. It looked like Patel was holding his breath.

  Tony made it to within a few feet of where the boy sat. He knelt down, speaking in a calm, quiet voice. “What’s your name?”

  The boy remained silent.

  “It’s okay,” Tony continued. “You can tell me.”

  “D-D-Danny,” the boy replied.

  “Good to meet you, Danny. I’m Tony.”

  Danny looked up at Tony, a tear in the corner of his eye.

  Boyd’s chest tightened. He didn’t like this at all. He’d done some time in the old world, some serious time in his younger days. There were some real animals in the joint, guys who’d done unimaginable shit, but there was one thing those guys didn’t put up with. Anybody who’d done shit to kids got their ticket punched. An unspoken code. And there wasn’t a prison guard in the world who got in the way.

  Boyd had done
some awful shit in his time, but there was still enough of his conscience around to know where and when he’d crossed certain lines. He drew the line at kids.

  “Hey Tony, let’s blow,” Boyd said. “Moose got his goddamn candy bar.”

  But Tony ignored him, his focus on the boy. “You don’t have any family here with you?”

  Danny shook his head.

  Boyd swallowed hard. He looked over at Dogpile and Patel, but the two of them watched the scene with rapt interest, ignoring Boyd altogether.

  “Come on, Tony,” Boyd said. “Let’s just get the fuck outta here.”

  Tony kept his eyes on the boy. “We’ll go when I feel like going.”

  Boyd gritted his teeth.

  Tony went back to the boy. “I want you to close your eyes. Can you do that?”

  Danny nodded, closing his eyes. The tear hanging in the corner of his eye finally ran down his cheek, cutting a line through the dirt smeared there.

  Tony smiled. “Good. Now I want you to do something else for me. You think about your parents, and you say ‘there’s no place like home.’ Can you do that for me?”

  A pause. Then the boy repeated the line. “There’s no place like home.”

  “Good boy,” Tony said.

  He reached for his pistol.

  Boyd watched, frozen to the spot. No way he’d—

  Tony pointed the gun and pulled the trigger twice. The shots exploded like cannon fire inside the building.

  Boyd’s heart pounded in his chest as he looked at Dogpile and Patel. The shock on their faces undoubtedly mirrored his own. Moose, on the other hand, stared at his box of treats.

  Tony stood, turning back to the others. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, shoving the pistol back into his pocket. “That was a mercy killing, and you all know it. That kid would have never survived out here on his own.”

  He headed toward the door, Moose in tow, knock-off Ho-Hos in hand.

  Patel started after them next, leaving Dogpile behind with Boyd.

  Dogpile looked over at Boyd, his face a ghostly white.

  “Soon,” Boyd whispered. “Bide your time for now.”

  Dogpile nodded before heading off behind the others.

  Boyd looked down at the little boy’s body, slumped against the table leg. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him. Both of his eyes remained closed as if he might only be taking a nap.

  He took a step toward the door, off to join the others.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  With most of the coolers filled, the second day of gathering water went much more quickly than the first. Dan built a smaller fire this time, and they found themselves boiling the last of the collected water by noon.

  Dan topped off the last of the coolers with the boiling water before loosely placing the lid on top to allow the heat to dissipate. He’d probably drank his fair share of PCBs over the last year or so from all that heated plastic, but slow death from chemical poisoning held a strong second place behind a quick and violent death by carrier.

  “Now we can knock off early for lunch,” Dan said before picking up the cooler and heading inside.

  Wordlessly, Lilly followed behind, pistol trained on his back.

  Once inside, Dan locked the door behind them. He headed up the steps and toward the teachers’ lounge on the second floor, cooler in hand. After placing the cooler on the floor of the room, he helped himself to a cup of the cooled water they’d collected the previous day.

  He finished the cup, wiping his mouth on his shirt. “That hit the spot. Say, Miss Lilly, how about a home-cooked meal for a change? The fire’s still got enough oomph left to warm up a little of that beef stew.”

  Lilly regarded him suspiciously.

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want a hot meal. You can even keep the gun on me if you want.”

  Lilly considered the offer. “I suppose. But no bullshit.”

  “As you wish,” Dan said, grinning.

  Maybe he was finally getting through to Lilly after all.

  * * *

  After checking the overgrown and weedy school grounds for carriers or other threats, Dan headed outside with two saucepans in hand, each filled with a healthy helping of beef stew cooked and canned well before the world came to an end. Dan thought that beef stew might be the perfect food for the post-apocalypse. It kept nicely, even all these years later, and it had the right amount of protein and fats to sustain a person for a good long while.

  Dan placed the saucepans on the metal grating and had a seat while he waited for the stew to boil. It took less time than he’d expected. Using two towels that he’d brought with him, Dan gripped the metal handles of the saucepans before heading back to the front door.

  Lilly opened the door for him, allowing him inside, the gun still in hand. This time she locked the doors instead of Dan, placing the pistol in her back pocket. She gave him a stern warning once more about not trying to kill her before turning to engage the padlock.

  Dan watched her, a steaming pot of hot food in each hand, marveling at the slightness and shape of her body. He might be a man of God, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a man. Maybe folks in the old world would have judged him, but God had moved the world on to something new now, leaving those people behind to the annals of history.

  Besides, the Bible said ‘judge not, that ye be not judged.’ Dan always liked the King James translation; in spite of the fantasy creatures like satyrs and witches, it had the richest language of any version. And only a fool interpreted the Bible literally.

  Inside the teachers’ lounge, Dan transferred the stew into bowls, placing them on the table. He poured two cups of the sanitized water they’d collected earlier, placing them on the table beside the bowls. A couple of spoons rounded out the ensemble.

  He pulled out a chair and motioned for Lilly to sit. She hesitated like he knew she would.

  “Suit yourself,” Dan said, taking his seat. “Never let it be said, however, that chivalry is dead.”

  Lilly moved slowly, taking the seat across from him. She placed the gun on the table, within reach. “You try anything and I’ll—”

  “You’ll shoot me,” Dan interrupted. “I know the drill.”

  He took a bite of the stew, closing his eyes as he chewed. “Exquisite.”

  Lilly took her first bite. The hardness of her face lightened a bit. “You’re not a bad cook, Dan.”

  “Not bad? You downplay my culinary talents.”

  Lilly laughed. No, she giggled.

  Dan couldn’t help but return the smile.

  They finished their meal in peaceful silence.

  Sometimes, Dan thought, words ruin everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lilly wiped her mouth on an old t-shirt Dan had lying around. Paper napkins were a luxury afforded only in the past. She drank the last of her water, placing the cup on the table before leaning back in the chair.

  “My compliments to the chef,” she said.

  “It’s about time,” Dan said. “It’s not often in times like these that a girl gets a home cooked meal.”

  Lilly smiled. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Silence ensued, passing between them like a tangible thing.

  “Do you believe in forgiveness?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.

  Dan considered the question. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about that over the years. My daddy always said that if a man asked for forgiveness, and that man felt genuine remorse, then God would grant it. He said that if Hitler or Stalin or Jeffrey Dahmer truly asked to be forgiven, they would be. Cased closed.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I always thought that was bullshit.”

  Lilly raised her eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound very preacherly of you.”

  “Well, I’m not what one might call orthodox.”

  “So you don’t believe in forgiveness.”

  “It ain’t that, but sometimes there are things you can’t take back.
Take Hitler, for example. He killed millions of innocent people. Hell, Stalin killed even more. Millions, Lilly. Can you wrap your head around that number?”

  Lilly shook her head.

  “Mothers, fathers…brothers, sisters. Babies, for Christ’s sake. I don’t believe evil like that gets off the hook that easy.”

  “So you think forgiveness is conditional.”

  Dan nodded. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

  “Then how do we decide who’s guilty and who’s not?”

  “Ultimately, I’d say it’s God who decides. I just don’t believe He forgives that quickly. But He does forgive. We just don’t know who he’s gonna pardon and who he’s gonna condemn.”

  “Then how do you administer justice? You can’t just give monsters the pass and wait for them to die, hoping that some god is going to punish them in an afterlife that may or may not exist. That sounds like bullshit to me.”

  Dan shook his head. “Justice can be served by man. Justice is different than forgiveness. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. But whether or not that person is forgiven once they pass into the great beyond, that’s up to God.”

  “Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out?”

  “Not exactly, but in a sense.”

  “Again, not very preacherly.”

  Dan shrugged. “Maybe not, but a man’s gotta stay true to his heart.”

  Lilly paused, collecting her thoughts. Dan didn’t hurry her.

  “What if I told you I did something unforgivable?” she finally asked.

  “I guess I’d ask what that thing was.”

  Lilly went silent again. Dan took another sip of water, allowing her more time.

  “I haven’t always been like this, you know,” Lilly continued, “I wasn’t always this fucking mean. Before the virus, I had a family. A wonderful husband and a beautiful son. I had a perfect life, or as close to perfect as anybody’s life gets.” She paused. “You know I don’t even know what happened to them? I don’t know if they caught the virus or if they were killed by those freaks like you keep out in your pen. That’s the worst thing about all of this, the not knowing. And it’s my fault. It’s my fault I don’t know.”