“Alright,” he said. “We’ll let you through.”
“I’d suggest you leave it open.”
“We have to feed our families,” he said.
“Bring them out, and each will get thirty MREs,” I said, “but I have a suspicion there are no families to feed. This is what people who have weapons do to people who don’t. You take from others. The bridge had better be open when I return, and if it isn’t…well, you can figure out the rest.”
He was angry, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Just like I suspected a lot of others had felt as he’d extorted supplies from them.
I closed the wagon, and Ray climbed back into the driver’s seat. Behind him sat Sadie Owens, her rifle held in her hands. She’d been a hell of a shot when she started working in the Guard. Now there was no one who could shoot better.
“Sadie, keep these folks in your sights,” I said.
She smiled and turned to face the rear with her M1A sniper rifle.
I turned to face the group. “Use your heads. Things are changing, and you’ll need to change with it.”
I jumped back into the saddle and rode south again.
We were passing the northernmost buildings of the Port of Philadelphia by the time I reached the lead wagon again.
“There’re a lot of people inside the building ahead,” Jimmy said as I passed the war wagon. “Be prepared.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “If anything happens, don’t wait for me; do your thing. I’ll feel better knowing you’re already moving.”
“I will.”
I detected the smell of a lot of unwashed bodies.
“That how you knew?” I asked. “Smell?”
“You’re getting better,” he said. “People stink.”
“Most of them.”
Most people did. Some didn’t. I was remembering brown eyes, black hair, and the smell of roses when the side of the huge warehouse erupted with people, and shots rang out.
“Shit,” I cursed and leapt from Dagger’s back.
Jimmy was halfway across the area between us and them by the time I hit the ground, and the world seemed to slow down around me. He hit them like a tornado of destruction, and bodies began flying through the air. I was almost at the forefront of the crowd when I saw someone moving much faster than the rest of them. He was going for the caravan, and I changed course. He was fast and launched himself over the war wagon to rake claws across the throat of Kelly Darnett, who’d just started to pull the bolt back on the fifty. He landed on the other side of the wagon and ran around the front to rip claws across the front of the horses pulling the wagon. The savage grin on his wolf-like face disappeared when fifteen hundred pounds of horse slammed into him with a shoulder and sent him rolling away from the second horse. The wolf was fast, but Dagger was on top of him before he reached his feet, and a huge hoof landed on the Geno’s chest. I was close, but not close enough to stop what happened next. A second Geno landed on him and claws raked down his neck. Dagger screamed, and I couldn’t shoot at the Geno for fear of hitting the thrashing horse. Claws raked down his side just before I reached them, and I roared as the blood sprayed from the wounded horse.
Then I was airborne and hit the Geno, sending him flying through the air. Dagger staggered, and I felt a heavy weight in my chest. Then there was the rage that filled my brain, and I met the Geno as he tried to come back at me. I took a cut across my jaw just before my fist sank to the elbow through his chest.
I felt a tug at my shoulder where a bullet struck me, looked at Dagger as he sank to the ground, and I let my rage take the wheel. Adrenaline flooded my body, and I ran toward the charging mass of men and women. They had clubs, pipes, and various other melee weapons. The Guardsmen opened fire, and the center of the mass took the brunt of it. Then I was into them, and I let that rage out. I felt another tug at my side and never slowed down. My foot slammed into a chest, and the bones shattered. His body flew backward into another of his comrades.
I twisted a head completely around, and did the same to a man’s body as I ripped past him. I’d grabbed his shoulders and spun him with all my enhanced strength.
I was lost in the madness for a time when someone grabbed me. I started to throw him, but I saw the grey skin of Billy’s arms.
I stopped thrashing.
“It’s over, Sir.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He released me, and I looked around at the devastated mob of attackers. I turned, and my eyes settled on Dagger, laying still. I groaned and leapt from the center of the mass of bloody remains. In moments, I was beside the horse and pulling the saddle bags from behind the saddle.
“God, Zee,” Phil said as he knelt beside the dying horse. “I don’t think I can do anything for him.”
I pulled the cylinder from the pack and jammed the needles into his neck. “I can.”
I released the nanites.
“Jesus, Zee,” Phil said. “Those aren’t programmed. I don’t even know what they’ll do.”
“I don’t either, but he deserves every chance I can give him.”
“He damned sure does.”
Any chance is better than none in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter 38
I was sitting beside Dagger when he stopped breathing, and Ray showed me where I needed to push on his side to perform chest compressions. Ray cupped Dagger’s nostrils to blow into him.
“Don’t you quit, you son of a bitch,” I said as I pushed.
I’d almost given up when he took a deep breath.
“I’ll be damned,” Ray said as Dagger blew out through his nostrils. “It’s true, he always answers when you talk to him.”
I heard approaching feet from the north, and I was on my feet with a .45 in each hand when Lee walked into the light of the fire.
“I’d rather you not shoot me,” she said with a slightly crooked smile.
I holstered the pistols, and she stepped forward.
“We heard the gunshots, and I had to find out what happened.”
“Curiosity is dangerous, Lee,” I said. “You could’ve found us dead and them waiting for you.”
“We were prepared to defend ourselves if need be.”
I could see the others out in the darkness. My eyes were much better than most.
“I guess you were,” I said.
“Is any of that blood yours?”
“Maybe,” I said.
She shook her head. “The horse is that important?”
“Yes, he is.”
She nodded. “Then we’ll stay here while the doctor looks at you.”
“There are some wounded on the wagons. Have him join Phil. I heal pretty quickly.”
“I’m guessing it has to do with your youthful looks?”
“It might,” I said and sat back down beside my horse.
She walked over and settled beside me. I know I smelled of sweat and death, but she still sat there with me, smelling like roses. She walked with me as I checked on each of the men who were wounded, and the two women. When I wasn’t checking on them, I was sitting with Dagger. She stayed all night with me, and I told her a tale of Agents and Farmers and the quest to save the city that Pop had begun. I talked with her for most of the night as I watched the wounds start to close on Dagger’s neck.
“That’s amazing,” she said. “I’ve never seen nanites at work.”
I smiled as I watched my friend healing before my eyes. He rolled a bit and staggered to his feet.
“Hold on, boy,” I said and placed the bucket of grain in front of him.
He buried his nose in the bucket and devoured everything we could put in front of him.
“It seems you were prepared for this,” Lee said.
“Similar to the reaction I had to the nanites. He’ll be hungry as long as they’re working on him.”
I reached into the saddlebag, pulled an MRE from the pack, and started chewing on the nutrient bar.
“Since
it appears your horse is going to recover, would you consider cleaning all that off of you.” She was pointing at me. “You smell pretty ripe.”
I chuckled and nodded. “And you smell like roses.”
She smiled, and I left her watching Dagger happily munching on a second bucket of feed.
I looked back as I approached the side of the port building where we’d been getting water. She was stroking the big black horse’s neck.
Others were also looking in her direction, but they were staring at the miraculous recovery of the horse that had become a legend on the Farms. No doubt that legend would grow when we returned home.
I watched Lee as I cleaned the blood from my clothes. The shoulder had already closed, as had the wound in my side. I hoped Jimmy was right about the nanites taking care of the bullets. Neither had gone through. Both were lodged in the muscle tissue, which was much denser than it used to be. It would take a little more to get through it than what they’d been using, whatever it had been. I hadn’t talked to anyone after the fight except Phil and Ray. Both had kept their reports short. We lost four, and seven were wounded.
It seems a rampage through a mob of people, ripping them apart, was enough to freak out some folks. They’d heard what happened to the Blues, but no one had seen it. They’d all seen it this time, and it was something that made them all a little nervous.
Except Billy, who’d seen it before.
“Looks like he’ll be okay, Sir.”
Billy was standing behind me with new pants, shirt, and coat.
“I had to throw my clothes in the river,” he said. “Blood isn’t coming out of them. The coat might be salvageable, but most of that’s toast.”
I looked down at the brown crusted clothing I wore. “You’re probably right about that. Thanks Billy.”
“You got it, Sir.”
“Any of your folks hurt?”
“Not to speak of,” he said. “Alice got grazed by the third wolf’s claws.”
“Third?”
“Yeah, but she made short work of the guy. He had no idea what he was getting into.”
“I’m guessing Galloway knows we’re on the way and has an idea of our normal policy on slavery,” I said.
“Looks like it,” he responded. “Now maybe he’ll see what he’s facing. If he has any sense, he’ll fold up his tent and do what he’s told to do.”
“No one escaped, Billy,” I said. “How will he know what he’s facing?”
“Sir, there were close to four hundred people and three Genos. No one survived. He should be able to add two plus two.”
I shrugged. “A lot of people suck at math, Billy.”
“That’s true, Sir. Maybe Galloway doesn’t suck at math.”
“What are the odds?”
“Probably has to use his fingers to count to ten, Sir.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.”
Sometimes you have to expect the worst of people to really appreciate the good ones in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter 39
I watched as the three wagons headed north toward the Consortium. I wondered if Lee was as good a person as she seemed. It was hard to look at someone from the city with anything but the eyes of a man who’d lost everything to the evil that had flourished since the Fall.
“She’s good people,” Phil said, as if he could read minds.
“I know,” I said.
“You could do a lot worse.”
“I know that, too,” I said and walked forward. I’d sent Dagger with them. He was still eating like there was no tomorrow, and he didn’t need to be out here in the middle of a fight until he was done with the changes he was going through.
“You sent Bogs?” he asked.
“I asked him to watch over Dagger,” I said. “I don’t want a twelve-year-old kid out here doing this shit. He’s been through enough without that.”
“And I thank you for that.” Eddie’s voice came from the wagon behind us as he jumped from the back seat. “Nearly broke that kid’s heart when the horse went down. He kept saying he wasn’t fast enough.”
“He’s not the only one,” I said. “Me and Dagger have gone through a lot of shit over the last few years. He’s been with me through it all, and considers every one of us his herd.”
“Wasn’t hard to see what you thought of it, Sir,” Eddie said.
“Don’t you start with the ‘sir’ thing, Eddie,” I said. “I already have to hear it from Billy.”
“You’ll be hearing it from a lot more people after yesterday,” he said. “Might as well get used to it.”
I scowled.
“There’s no hiding what you can do,” he said. “We all looked at Billy as the most powerful person we ever saw, until yesterday. He said when he grabbed you, you’d already started picking him up from the ground, and it felt like he was holding onto a giant coiled spring that was about to let loose.”
“Jimmy’s twice as tough as I could ever think of being.”
“Jimmy killed them like a metronome, Zee,” he said. “He’s a machine when he’s in there, but I’ve never seen anything like the unbridled rage that was you. People flew back from Jimmy the whole time as he sent them flying with punches and kicks. Parts of people flew everywhere when you reached them. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”
My head dropped, and I was glad I was facing the way we were traveling. Perhaps they wouldn’t see the shame I felt for what I’d done. I’d done things to people who were running away from me at the end. I didn’t stop until every one of them was dead. Billy had reached me as I was trying to find more of them to kill. I knew that rage from last year. It was the rage I’d carried into Lassiter. That rage that had carried me through being shot over and over. I’d refused to go down until I’d put the bullet through Lassiter’s head myself. Pop had killed the elder Lassiter, and Jimmy had done what Jimmy does. Pop sent him back to the Farms with me in his arms, then he’d hung everyone from the streetlights. But I remembered that rage, and now I knew just how close it was to the surface. And I could do so much more damage with it.
“It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, too, Eddie. I can’t change it. It happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“I’m not asking you to change it, Sir. It makes us all even more dedicated to you.”
“How the hell does that work?”
“I heard some of the men talking, Zee. Do you know what they’re saying? If he’ll do that for a horse, what will he do for the rest of us?”
He continued, “Now I know you and Dagger have been partners since the Fall, but what would you have done if it had been Bogs? What would you have done if it had been Phil? Or Sadie?”
What would I have done? That was the question, and I looked back toward the wagons for a moment. I would have done the same for any of those he’d named.
“My guess is you would have done the same for them. And when you’ve known each of us as long as you’ve known them? It’s who you are, and we all know we’re fighting for someone who would do that for us. So you’re just going to have to live with the ‘sirs’ and go forward.”
I chuckled softly. “Guess there’s no escaping it?”
“No, Sir,” he said with a grin.
I scowled, but it was toward our direction of travel, and he couldn’t see my face.
“Anyway,” he said. “What I came up here for was to tell you about the fuel depot up ahead on the right. We were doing some scouting while we were at a halt for the evening. Found a lot of tanks with different fuels.”
“Any diesel?”
“I think so,” he said. “I asked Billy to taste some and let me know, but he just gave me the finger.”
“He should be able to tell by smell after drinking as much as he has,” I said. “He really needs to learn how to syphon fuel.”
“You have to time it right,” Eddie said.
“No, you put the tube in t
he gas and blow into it,” I said. “The back flow after you blow will pull the gas up the hose. Try it a few times if need be, but you don’t have to drink diesel fuel.”
“Oh my god, he’s going to die if that works.”
“You’re going to tell him?”
“Hell, no,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to watch him drink diesel again first.”
“You’re a brave soul, Eddie.”
“I married Yvonne,” he said. “She’s Cajun. Everything else pales in comparison.”
I laughed.
“There we go,” he said. “That’s what I was looking for.”
I saw the large tanks in front of us and to the right. “That’s a lot of fuel storage.”
“None of them are full,” he said, “but I think that big one over there is diesel fuel.”
“I sure hope so,” I said. “A few blocks back I saw a bunch of trucks and tanker trailers.”
A bunch of diesel would make things so much better next month during harvest, and it would give us the ability to plant more corn in a day than we could do by hand in a month. Even a little fuel can go a long way in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter 40
“Here’s the route I’m thinking we’ll run,” I said, pointing to the map. “Right on Allegheny, and up to Aramingo, where we’ll turn left and work the zones down through here.”
“Not going straight after Galloway?” Phil asked. “We all know he was the one behind that ambush.”
“We have a lot of supplies left, and these folks need it,” I said.
He grinned.
“What?’’
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t sound like nothing to me.”
“Could be that you hated every city dweller six months ago. Now you’re plotting ways to help those same people. I find that a little inspiring.” He grinned again.
“Oh, shut up,” I said with a shake of my head.
“And one of them seems to like you a lot more than most of them.”
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