Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series)

by Peter R Stone

  "It's not broken," she said between sniffs. She was sitting on the floor beside the wall, breathing heavily while wiping her bloody nose with the back of her hand. An ugly bruise was developing where she'd been kicked on the forehead as well. My heart went out to her, and I wanted to check on her more closely, but I had to look in on the others first.

  "I’m okay too, thanks for asking," Shorty piped up.

  Leigh, I saw, had retreated to the farthest corner near the window where he sat with his arms cradling his stomach. He didn't look happy at all. "Should 'ave stayed in Newhome," he grumbled.

  David was still lying beside the fridge, and though the cuts to his hands and forehead looked ugly, it was a cut on his chin that caught my attention. It looked pretty deep and was bleeding freely.

  I knelt beside him and pressed a handkerchief I had in my pocket against the wound, a temporary measure at best.

  "David's chin's bleeding pretty bad, Nana-chan," I called out, for she'd received first-aid training during her time with the Hamamachi Militia.

  With a groan, Nanako picked herself off the floor, retrieved my backpack and dug around in it, largely by feel since it was dark in here. Finally, she produced a flashlight and the small first-aid kit I'd brought from our flat.

  "Let me see," she said and shone the light on the wound when I removed the handkerchief. "It looks pretty deep. Needs stitches."

  "I figured as much, but not much we can do about that here."

  "I know," she agreed as she searched through the first kit and pulled out a couple of butterfly bandages. "These'll have to do, but it's gonna scar."

  "It'll make a great trophy wound, then," Shorty said snidely while running his fingers over his broken nose, quoting my own words back at me.

  "You aren't ever gonna let that slide, are you?"

  "Nope," Shorty agreed with a laugh.

  Returning my attention to David, I moved aside and held the torch so Nanako could first clean the cut with a sterile wipe and then apply the butterfly bandages. When she was done and the blood had stopped flowing, she applied bandaids to several of his other lacerations.

  "This is your fault – you know that, don't you?" she asked me while she worked with deft fingers. "You shouldn't have brought her back." She spoke without anger, but she may as well have been shouting the accusation.

  "But I thought she'd appreciate us saving her from the Skel," I protested. I wondered if I should mention that Shorty was the first to suggest bringing her back.

  "Seriously, Ethan, sometimes you are so naive it scares me," she said as she finished working on David and packed away the first-aid kit. She tapped me on the forehead. "You gotta think more before you act, okay?"

  "What are you saying – that we should’ve let the Skel have their way with her?" I shot back testily.

  "I'm not saying that at all – but you of all people should have known how dangerous she was."

  "So what should we have done then?" I was annoyed by her attitude, yet at the same time, seeing her covered in blood, and David unconscious and covered in bloody cuts, left me feeling both guilty and apologetic.

  "You could have rescued her and then left her somewhere safe."

  I could see her point, but I didn't want to concede it. The girl was one of my kind, and I would have done anything to save her, since there weren't many of us left, thanks to the Custodians euthanizing all the male echolocators they caught. And with the exception of myself, that was probably all of them.

  "Speaking of her, shouldn't we restrain her or something before she wakes up?" Shorty asked fearfully.

  "How about a bullet through her head instead?" Leigh suggested.

  "Leigh!" was my retort.

  "She almost killed us all, Jones!"

  "I know!" I snapped back, "And I'm sorry, but she's as much a victim as we are. She was taken from her family as a young child and brainwashed into becoming a tool for the chancellors."

  "My heart bleeds for the little cow," Leigh mocked.

  After frowning at Leigh, a gesture he wouldn't have seen in the poor light, I went and knelt beside the Custodian girl. I unlaced her boots and used the laces to tie her hands behind her back and her ankles together. Not that I thought this was necessary; she'd probably be out for some time.

  That done, I went to Nanako and examined the bruise on her forehead and her bloody nose.

  "Will I live?" she asked.

  "I think so."

  David moaned, rolled over onto his side, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked like death warmed up, and was clearly in a lot of pain, from his groin, stomach, and all the cuts.

  "You okay, mate?" I asked. Top marks for the stupidest question I'd asked anyone this year – which, admittedly, was only eight days old. That gave me 357 days to come up with something stupider.

  "Oh, yeah, fantastic. Is she dead?" he asked when he noticed the Custodian girl lying face down on the floor beside the empty shelves.

  "Jones knocked her out," Shorty answered, coming over to sit beside David.

  "Took you damn long enough," he grumbled. "Told you not to bring her back with us."

  Nanako flashed me an 'I-told-you' look.

  "In hindsight, we should have tied her up first," I said.

  "Now you think of it," Shorty quipped.

  "So what do we do now?" David asked as his fingers strayed to examine the bloody cut beneath his chin.

  Nanako caught his hand and shook her head, her dark-pink bangs shaking from side to side. "No, don't touch. It's just stopped bleeding and you don't wanna go sticking dirty fingers on it anyways."

  David nodded and dropped his hand. "Well, Jones, what now?"

  "We need to leave the area," I replied. "Every Skel in the vicinity must have heard that gun battle and will no doubt come running to see who won, and when they find their buddies dead, they' re not gonna be happy."

  "You want us to go on walkabout after we've just had the daylights beaten out of us?" David asked.

  "It's all right for Jones; the cow barely touched him," Leigh said.

  "Not true!" I protested, running my fingers over the ribs she'd punched. They weren't broken, but there was gonna be one peach of a bruise.

  Leigh used the wall to pull himself to his feet. "I'm all for leaving now. The further we get away from Newhome the better."

  "What about Sleeping Beauty?" Shorty asked while staring at her longingly, or lustfully, perhaps was a better word.

  "We leave her here, of course," Nanako said as she clambered to her feet too, sending a meaningful glance in my direction.

  "But..." I began.

  "She had her chance, and she fluffed it," she declared adamantly.

  Chapter Five

  "Can't we at least untie her when we go?" I asked, realising I'd lost the right to choose the girl's fate.

  "So she can come after us again? You can forget that!" David said, siding with Nanako.

  "But we can’t just leave her in the middle of the aisle; the Skel will most definitely check in here," Shorty protested.

  "Good!" Leigh snapped.

  "Shorty’s got a point – I’ll hide her upstairs somewhere," I said as I retrieved my gun from the floor and then flipped the Custodian girl onto her back, before dragging her towards the stairs by her armpits. Getting her upstairs was a lot harder than I’d anticipated, thanks to the condition of the stairs and my left arm not functioning properly; but I managed it in the end.

  Upstairs consisted of several rooms, including the gutted remains of an office and a bedroom that overlooked the street. I dragged her into the bedroom, which was in utter shambles, with one plaster roof panel having collapsed to spill mould-infested insulation batts to the floor. The bed’s metal frame was intact, but with the windows shattered, dirt and leaves had been blown in and were covering the rotting mattress and the floor.

  I laid the girl on her side against the wall beside the bed, and picked up the plaster roof panel with the intent of covering her with it,
but paused at the sight of the pitiful scene of her small body slumped unconscious against the wall and her head lolling on the floor. I wished there was another way than this; I mean, she was an echolocator, one of my kind, the second one I’d met. If only we’d been able to get her to join us, what a time we could have had, two biologically engineered soldiers working together. Would’ve been awesome.

  As I studied her trussed up, abandoned and alone, a complex partial epileptic seizure suddenly triggered. A sense of déjà vu that I’d experienced this exact situation before overwhelmed me, confusing and disorientating me with its implications, which I immediately rejected – this had not happened before. And then came the vision-strength image – another memory from my missing year – of me sitting on a crumbling red brick wall on the outskirts of Skel territory. My Austeyr assault rifle was across my lap, and I was feeling totally miserable, for I’d just been forced to shoot my own Ranger teammates in self-defence after trying to stop them from delivering a bunch of helpless refugees to the Skel to be their slaves. The image passed just as quickly as it had come, and then every nerve ending in my body spiked with adrenaline. Next came the disturbing falling sensation, and lastly; the excruciating stomach pain.

  The seizure only took a few seconds, but I felt as though I’d been through a major ordeal and woken from a very deep sleep. Blasted things, these seizures – I hated them, but at least they always gave me some sort of glimpse into my past.

  The girl suddenly groaned and writhed about on the floor in pain, for her head would be hurting like it’d been hit by a sledgehammer. She opened her eyes and struggled frantically against her bonds, but then fell stock-still when she noticed me standing before her and holding the plaster panel.

  Going against my better judgement, I discarded the plaster panel and pulled out my knife. Her eyes went wide in horror, thinking I was about to stick her, but when I cut the shoelaces binding her wrists together, her expression changed to one of anger and undisguised hatred.

  Without saying a word, I made my way to the door, at which point I turned to appraise her. "Don’t let the Skel catch you this time. They’d practically stripped you naked when we found you. If we hadn't happened along and killed them..." I let my voice taper off, letting her mind finish the sentence.

  Her eyes widened in shock, for this would’ve been news to her since she was unconscious at the time. Her expression changed, then, but not to a softer one as I'd hoped, but to one of defiance, as though she either didn't believe me, or didn't care.

  Not waiting to hear her response, I hurried downstairs to the others, who had donned their backpacks and were ready to go.

  Nanako handed me my pack. I slung it on my back and then led the way to the back door. Lesson number one when Skel are around – don’t go out of a building the way you went in. It took a couple of minutes to jiggle the lock open, and then we passed single file into the laneway, which was filled with plastic wheelie bins, metal hoppers, stacks of wooden pallets, and tons of refuse, such as discarded, broken office furniture or shop fittings. And throughout it all, bushes and wild grass flourished as they attempted to reclaim the area, sprouting from every crack in the concrete and every spot in which soil had accumulated.

  Nanako touched my arm. "You cut her free, didn’t you?"

  I glanced down into her beautiful brown eyes, but saw acceptance, not condemnation. "Ah, yes."

  "Thought you would."

  "You know me better than myself, then – it was a last-minute decision," I laughed softly.

  "I know you inside out, Mister, and don’t you ever forget it," she said, poking me in the chest.

  "No, Ma'am," I said, and pointed to the dried blood that caked her mouth, chin, and neck. "We gotta get you cleaned up. That must be so uncomfortable."

  "Please do," she replied.

  "Anyone know where there’s a working bathroom?" I asked the lads softly.

  "Funny boy, Jones," Shorty chuckled.

  "What does someone have to do to get breakfast around here; I’m starving," Leigh complained.

  "There should be some fruit in your pack," I replied.

  Leigh dug around in his backpack and pulled out a blackened, bruised banana. "You mean this?"

  "Eat it, it’s still good for you," I assured him.

  "Says who?" he quipped, but proceeded to peel the skin away and eat the banana anyway.

  "We're going to Ballarat, right?" David asked.

  "That's the plan," I assured him.

  "Considering our condition, it's gonna take us at least a day or two to get there, ain't it?"

  "About that," I agreed.

  "And you think we're gonna to manage that on the half-rotten pieces of fruit we've got in our backpacks?" he asked.

  "Once we've put a good distance between us and the Skel, we can bag ourselves a couple of wallabies to roast."

  "Aww, man, wallaby?" Shorty complained. "Can't we do better than that?"

  "Wild dog? Feral cat?" I suggested.

  "I was thinking lamb," Shorty replied.

  "Out here?

  "I can hope, can't I?"

  Having finished his banana, Leigh sidled up beside me. "Jones."

  "What?"

  "I've been thinking..."

  "That's never a good thing."

  "Ha-ha. Seriously, I've been thinking that when we get to Ballarat, I wanna stay there. Getting my behind handed to me a few minutes ago by that Custodian girl reminded me just how much I hate all this fighting and stuff. I just wanna settle down somewhere quiet, okay?"

  I looked at Leigh and saw the fatigue and resignation in his face. He'd had enough, and I didn't blame him. Still, there was the bigger picture of our families being stuck in a town that was surrounded by Skel. If we couldn't break the siege, Newhome and our families were doomed. I thought of my little sister, who'd just recently climbed out of her sick bed to tentatively experience the fullness of life for some years; of my older sister, about to get married although she was barren; of my mother, who'd always been there for me; and, well, my father too, I guess, even though he'd disowned me the last time we'd met.

  "What about your family?" I asked.

  "Jones, you know as well as I do that I'll only hinder you if you bring me to Skel country. So please, let me stay in Ballarat," he whined.

  "We don't have to make any decisions now. Let's wait until we've had a good rest and..."

  "No! I wanna know now; I want this load off my mind," he pressed.

  I sighed. The poor guy was probably right; he'd been through more than the rest of us, and to be honest, when it came to combat, he was the least capable of our group. "Fine," I conceded, though with an edge to my voice. "You wanna stay in Ballarat when the rest of us are gallivanting around trying to save Newhome and our families, you can stay."

  "Thanks mate."

  So much for trying to prick his conscience.

  "Okay, let's go," I said, and we set off, with everyone sending loaded glances at each other. No doubt they all wanted to stay in Ballarat as well.

  But we'd only gone a few steps when the sound of guttural voices bellowing at the far end of the laneway caused me to spin about in alarm – Skel!

  "Take cover!" I hissed as I quickly ushered everyone behind a large metal paper-recycling bin.

  "Skel?" Nanako asked, voicing the fear on everyone's minds.

  I held up my hand to quiet them and focused on what I could hear, for I could just make out what the Skel were saying. "There's a whole bunch of them," I whispered.

  "What are they doing?" Leigh asked a tad too loudly.

  "Shhh!" I said, frowning at him. "They're looking for whoever killed the Skel war party that had jumped the Custodians. In other words – us."

  David tugged on my sleeve. "Then let's get out of here!"

  I looked at David, who was as pale as a sheet, Leigh, who was no better, and Nanako, still crippled by fatigue thanks to her recent ordeal. Trying to outrun the Skel when they were in this condition was gonna be
a nightmare.

  "Okay, stay close to the back of the shops and follow me," I said, and then picked my way as quietly as possible down the laneway.

  We'd gone only a few steps; however, when I heard vehicles approaching, and then two large, black 4WD cars appeared at the other end of the laneway.

  We were trapped.

  "Down!" I hissed, and we melted into the shadows at the back of the pharmacy beside us.

  "Rangers," David spat.

  Chapter Six

  "As if the Skel weren't enough," Leigh moaned.

  "Let 'em come," Shorty said, "The more the merrier."

  "Shorty, you're a nutter," Leigh moaned.

  Several Rangers wearing army fatigues and armed with Austeyr assault rifles disembarked from the vehicles. However, unlike the Skel at the other end of the laneway, they didn't spread out and begin searching the buildings. Rather, their leader spoke on his Smartphone while his men just stretched their limbs.

  "That's Colonel Yamada!" Nanako practically yelped.

  "The Ranger colonel?" I asked, surprised.

  Nanako nodded emphatically. He was too far away for me to see clearly, but even from back here I could tell that he exuded power and authority. And I found it weird, that although I'd been very close to him, that he'd taken me on board as his protégé, I didn't recognise him at all. Man, but this amnesia was weird.

  "Can you hear what he's talking about?" Nanako asked.

  He was practically shouting at the phone, so yeah, I could. "He's trying to convince someone – a Skel leader, at a guess – that whoever killed their five warriors can't be a Custodian, because Custodians don't kill Skel with single shots to the throat, and also that he wants this person, whoever he is, taken alive."

  "He's onto us, then?" Nanako asked, on the verge of panicking.

  I watched as the Colonel finished the call and turned to his men, and my blood froze in my veins when I heard him say, "Stay frosty, boys – it's Jones; he's out here. When the Skel flush him out we have to move and move quickly – I don't want those oafs killing him."