by Schow, Ryan
“One day they’ll remember you put them in cages,” Jill said.
“We have to get our plans together first, then find those who appear to be most beneficial, and let the others off into a different neck of the woods when we’re done with them.”
“How many are you aiming for?” Gregor asked.
“Five hundred breeding adults, whatever kids look like they’re strong and capable.”
“Sounds like Sparta,” Jill said.
He laughed and said, “I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Then: “Oh hey, follow me. I want you to meet our CO.”
Jill and Gregor were escorted to a somewhat dark skinned man with the kind of no-nonsense look on his face Jill thought of as being typical of top brass.
“Colonel Bradshaw, this is Jill and Gregor. They are part of the group I met back in Roseville when we were on medical supplies detail.”
It took a moment to jog his memory, but then he said, “You’re LAPD, right?”
Gregor smiled and said, “Yes. I am. Jill served before.”
Colonel Bradshaw stuck out his hand and said, “Errol Bradshaw, pleased to meet you.”
Jill and Gregor both shook his hand, and then he excused himself by saying, “Our Highway 5 road block was nearly breeched. A trio of malcontents in a big rig shot Anders then made a CATFUed mess of that entire post.”
Gregor looked at Jill and mouthed the word, “CATFUed?”
She said, “Complete and totally effed up.”
Col. Bradshaw continued. “They’re bringing the group in now. The three shooters have been subdued—two men and a woman—and we’ve got a mother and two teenaged girls in tow. The holding cells are fully prepped, the toilets are unflushed and we’re making room for mother and two girls now.”
Meaning cut this short, or let me go, Jill thought.
Even though Col. Bradshaw was a pleasant man on the surface, with these guys the surface almost always looked calm to the public eye. Just beneath that still exterior, however, she suspected that storms were raging. Such was the bane of a military man, especially one with his rank.
“If you have any interest in being part of our future society,” Col. Bradshaw said, “Just let Ham Sandwich know and perhaps we can talk when things are a little less hectic.”
Jill and Gregor nodded, thanked him, then watched as the malcontents Col. Bradshaw spoke of were perp-walked back to the holding cells with the unflushed toilets.
Of the three of them, there was a big man with a beard, a skinnier good looking man with shoulder length curly hair and an attractive woman. They all looked worse for wear, their faces bruised and knotted.
Farther up, a pretty woman and two girls were being hustled into a cage. Just then a man in BDUs approached Ham Sandwich and said, “Col. Bradshaw wants you out front.”
“Bruce, this is Jill and Gregor,” Ham Sandwich said. “Bruce is one of our guards here.”
Jill was about to say something when Bruce said, “The sight-seeing tour is over. Show yourselves out.”
Ham Sandwich turned to Jill and Gregor and said, “Remember what I said. We can always make the space.”
The two of them nodded, then watched the men leave.
“What a prick,” Gregor said, referring to Bruce.
“Totally.”
Instead of showing himself and Jill out, Gregor walked to the nearest cage where there were two women, an older boy and four young girls.
“Excuse me,” Gregor said to the woman.
She remained seated until Jill came over to the chain link fence.
“What?” she said, her mood rather dour.
“Are you here because you want to be here, or because you don’t have a choice in leaving?”
She didn’t say anything. Then her eyes flicked to the left and right of them.
“We’re here because we want to be here,” she said, cautious.
Jill didn’t believe her for a moment.
“Okay,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Gregor asked.
No one said anything with their mouths, but what they said with their eyes and body language could have filled an entire book.
Off to the left, farther in, Bruce had put the mother and two girls in a cage, told them they’d get some food later and to let someone know if they had to go to the bathroom.
When he left, Jill looked over the warehouse filled with hundreds of caged people, then turned to Gregor and quietly said, “This doesn’t feel right.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You feel it, too?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Without notice, she started into the maze of cages.
“Jill,” Gregor said, calling after her.
“Hang on,” she said heading for the woman and two girls who had just come in. When she got to the cage, the woman looked at her, clearly in turmoil. “Are you guys okay?”
“Do we look like we’re okay?” the woman asked, her eyes smeared with tears.
“Not really,” Jill said.
“Are you with them?” she asked. Jill shook her head. “Can you get us out of here?”
“What’s your name?”
“Amber,” she said. “This is my daughter Abigail and our friend, Corrine. We’re from San Diego and they have our friends.”
“The three that just came in?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Jill looked back to where the three prisoners were taken.
“Marcus is the bearded guy, Nick the pretty boy and Bailey is the girl. These guys, they wouldn’t let us through, then they took us. Please, you have to help us.”
“Hey!” a voice called out from behind them.
Bruce.
“What?” Jill said, turning around.
“Leave them alone. You have to go now. You shouldn’t be here, unless you want a cage, too.”
“I think she has to go to the bathroom,” Jill said. It was all she could think to say at the time because Bruce wasn’t exactly a beacon of warm feelings and hospitality.
By then, Gregor was by her side, leading her out. “No worries, man. We’re on our way now.”
Gregor skirted her off, Bruce’s eyes on them the entire time. When they got out front, the fresh air seemed to loosen her constricted throat, but she couldn’t mask her expression.
She was pissed.
When they were in their SUV headed out, Gregor pulled over to the side of the road, stopped and looked at Jill. She felt pale, cold, angry.
“Are you okay?” he asked, putting his hand on her arm.
She shook her head, then looked at him with a bottomless despair in her eyes and said, “No, Gregor. I’m not.”
“You want to see what the new enemy looks like,” he muttered, pulling back onto the road, “it’s guys like that.”
After a long bout of silence, she said, “Gregor, we have to do something about them.”
“Funny thing is,” he said, “I knew you’d say that.”
When they finally got back home, Rock was there to greet them. Gregor climbed out of the SUV and said, “You’re looking better.”
“What you’re seeing is worry,” Rock said. “Not a sign of good health.”
Jill got out of the truck, her emotions mixed by the sight of him, and said, “Why would you start worrying now?”
She didn’t mean to antagonize him, but she was hurt, still waiting for him to come to her and apologize, still waiting to finally hear him say he wanted to be with her again. But he wasn’t saying it. If there was one small consolation, it was that he didn’t appear to be with Maisie either.
“I’ve been worrying about everyone in this homestead lately,” he said.
“Is this the softer side of you?” she said sarcastically as she walked past him. “Meet us inside in a half an hour. We’ve got things we need to talk about as a group.”
And with that she walked off and left him there to wonder where they’d been, what they’d seen and what they wanted to talk about.
> A half an hour later, after she’d had time to change clothes and pull her hair back in a ponytail, Gregor gathered everyone with fighting capabilities into the living room of the main house.
“Jill and I saw something disturbing today,” Gregor said to the group. “It turns out there’s a faction of either current or former servicemen who are looking to create a utopia. They’re picking and choosing citizens on the fly, then kidnapping them and putting them in cages in an empty Walmart warehouse on the outskirts of Sacramento.”
“So?” Rock said.
“So that’s going to be a problem,” Gregor said.
“It’s not our problem,” Alfie said.
“Well we’re going to make it our problem,” Jill said. “Because we met these guys in Roseville.”
“So?” Oscar said.
“So what if they want to take from us?” Jill asked, trying to temper her voice. “They’ve already tried to recruit us. And they have dozens of people in cages. You heard that part, right? About people being taken?”
“We all heard,” Rock said. “I’m in. But I need a few weeks to heal. I’m still not one hundred percent.”
Jill turned to him, expecting Gregor and his team to be on board long before Rock.
“Just like that?” Jill said.
“Just like that,” he replied.
“It’s a noble mission,” Gregor announced.
“To protect and serve,” Kane added. Then with a sly smile, he said, “And to massacre if need be.”
Alfie started to grin. Jill always felt like there was something off about Alphonse, but to see him smile at the thought of confrontation, possibly even all out war…
“I guess I’m in,” Alfie said.
A few of the other men in the camp said they were in as well, including, Cole Taylor and Marvin. She was about to say something, to object, but what could she say? Finally, she said, “Not Cole. He’s too young.”
“I can fight,” he protested.
“Good, then you can protect the place while we’re gone,” she said. “You, too, Marvin.”
“When are we going?” Chad asked. Chad and Gregor started at the academy together and were the closest among them.
“We’ll need to do some recon, let Rock heal up, check our ammo stores and then game plan.”
“I can run recon,” Alfie said.
“And I’ll run backup for Alfie,” Kane added.
“Good, it’s done then,” Gregor said. “Any questions?”
“ROE?” Rock said.
Someone had to say it. If Jill was in charge, and she wasn’t because Gregor had four guys and she had an ex-boyfriend, she’d say shoot on sight, but Gregor was a former cop…
“Shoot on sight,” he said.
“Roger that,” Jill heard herself say, earning an uncomfortable look from Rock.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Rock asked.
“What about Ham Sandwich?” Jill said.
“Ham what?” Rock asked.
“He’s the guy who invited us in there. He’s not bad. Maybe he’s just there because he didn’t have a chance to be somewhere else.”
“If he draws on us, we put him down,” Gregor said. “If we can talk to him first, we’ll give him the chance to be with us or against us.”
“I can live with that,” Jill replied.
Rock just shook his head.
Chapter Thirty
“Why are you here?” he was asked.
Draven knew he’d be asked the question and depending on how he answered it, one of three things would happen to him. He’d either be let into Demon’s group, shown out or killed. He didn’t really think there’d be more options than that.
Well, there was one.
Before he was asked the question, he was escorted to the back of one of the houses where a door was opened up to a laundry room. It was larger than most laundry rooms, almost half the size of a regular room. In the middle of said room, there was a chair set up.
“Have a seat,” his host said.
He wasn’t friendly.
But he wasn’t unfriendly either.
“Why are you here?” the voice asked the second he sat down. He looked up and that’s when he saw the man he’d shot in the ear.
“I’m looking for my sister,” he said. “She lives in the house next door. Or lived, maybe. I don’t see her here and I’m worried.”
“What makes you think she survived all this?” the man with the 312 and 323 tattoos asked.
“I don’t know that she did.”
The man opened his hands, gave a smile, almost as if to say, “What now?”
“The house next door, it’s not even her house. Her ex lived there, but she didn’t. It’s just, I can’t find her and I was hoping she went back to him.”
“Why didn’t you try looking earlier? Before all this?”
“I just came from Indianapolis.”
“How did you get here?”
“On foot.”
“That’s a long walk,” the small man with the taped up ear said.
“Nearly two hundred miles.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Draven.”
“I’m Demon,” he said. “I oversee this little group.”
“This doesn’t seem little,” Draven said.
“Did you see that this chair is bolted to the floor?” he asked. He gave it a kick and said, “Right into the concrete. Pounded in there with nails designed for this purpose and this purpose alone.”
Draven looked down between his legs, saw the chair legs had been rigged with custom attachments then nailed down through the linoleum. He glimpsed this earlier, but he didn’t want Demon knowing he was wise to it.
“Why would you nail a chair to concrete?” Draven asked, innocently.
“I have trust issues.”
“And I just want to find my sister.”
Demon looked down at him and he looked up at Demon. The staring contest didn’t last long. One of the first mistakes guys make when trying to wield influence is to posture up right off the bat, especially when the odds of survival are low.
He looked away first.
“Where are you staying?” Demon asked.
“I’ve been squatting here and there,” Draven lied, “staying pretty much where I can.”
“We have a room. You can stay overnight, but if you want to stay longer, you’ll have to earn your own keep, and a few other things.”
“What do you mean, a few other things?” Draven asked.
“Times have changed,” he said, pointing to his ear. “We were out gathering supplies when we were ambushed. In the midst of it, some asshole shot half my ear off.”
“What the hell?” Draven said.
He shook his head, waved it off like it was some consequence of the times, then said, “It’s not exactly safe these days, and it’s bound to get worse. So if we need someone to accompany the men, it would be useful if you knew how to shoot a gun.”
“I’ve never shot a gun.”
“We’ll teach you. Or you can just stab some people. That’s fine, too.”
“What if they’re not bad people?” Draven asked.
“If they’re not with us, if they stand between us and survival, trust me, they’re bad. Oh and the chair. The reason I wanted you here is to let you know that if you decide to stay, and you cross us, I’ll strap you to this chair and cut your head off with a dull knife.”
“Oh, that’s all?” Draven said with a hesitant grin.
“Formalities,” he said jokingly. “Now you know. Let’s go get you some food, see if we can find this sister of yours.”
Demon got him set up with a sandwich and a warm Diet Coke, then walked him around and introduced him to a few people. All in all, the man seemed civil, if not for the air of toxicity brewing just below the surface of him.
“So now that you’re here, eating our food and meeting our people, are you thinking of going or staying?”
“I don
’t know.”
“Let me ask you this,” Demon said, “what is your worth?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know you must have some worth to be here, participating in the luxury and safety of our group, yes?”
“That would be true in any situation,” Draven said. “Without worth, you’re just wasting air and resources that could be spent on other people.”
He smiled and said, “True.”
Draven paused a moment, thought it over, then he said, “What’s your real name? Because I’m pretty sure when you fell out of your mother’s uterus she didn’t look at you and say ‘Oh how cute, let’s call him Demon?’”
He gave a hearty chuckle then said, “My birth name is Guillermo Rodriguez, but Demon suits me so much better.”
“How do the women feel calling you Demon?”
“It’s not my concern what they feel, only that they are of value to the community.”
“What about the kids?”
“It scares them,” Demon said casually. Then: “A true leader rules by fear or by example. The best ones rule by both.”
“If you could only choose one or the other, which way would you prefer?”
“I’d rule by example,” Demon said, “but by extension of those I keep closest to me, I prefer to rule by fear. Have you met the redhead with ice blue eyes?”
“I’ve seen her.”
“She is the tip of my spear.”
“A woman?”
“This is no ordinary woman,” he said with a flare of interest.
“She’s definitely got the look.”
“Yeah? Well she’ll cut your heart out and eat it for breakfast. Steer a little clear of that one.”
And just like that, she was there.
“Speaking of my top enforcer,” he said to the redhead. “This is Draven. He’s new and thinking of maybe trying out our community.”
She just looked at him, unblinking. He thought he could hold her stare, smile her down a bit, but in the end, she got him to look away, and that was something that scared him. It felt like she was looking into his soul and wondering how to snuff it out.
“Where are you staying now?” Demon asked. “Specifically.”
“A few blocks up,” Draven answered.
“A few blocks which way?” the redhead asked, something in her mind catching.