by T. W. Brown
“You say that a woman was hanged the other day,” I said. “What makes you think that it was my mother?”
“Because…” His voice was barely above a whisper.
I had to struggle and strain not only to be able to hear his words, but also to be able to decipher them. The man’s lips were probably twice their original size as well as being split in multiple spots. I could make out one particularly ugly hole where it was obvious that his lower teeth had come through the flesh. Also, I could tell that several of his teeth were broken and could not begin to imagine how this sort of damage was actually inflicted.
“The president made everybody come out to witness it. She announced it on a bullhorn and had a huge banner hanging above the gallows. She gave you an hour to turn yourself in…and you didn’t.” All of that took what felt an eternity to say as the man coughed, choked, and spat through every word.
“You are a liar,” I said, leaning down close to him. “My mother was in the cube enduring the same fate as the president of Sunset Fortress did…I heard with my own ears before that expedition I was sent on ever left.”
The man shook his head very slightly. He coughed again and blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. I was having a very hard time looking at this without feeling some sense of pity. After all, it was Dominique, not this man, who had killed my mother—one way or another.
“All I know is what was said. And the woman was able to speak before she was hung…although I don’t think she got to finish. She told you to run and never look back.”
Once again it was what felt like a lifetime until the man could get all of his words out, but I heard each and every single one very clearly. I asked him to describe the woman who was hung and he did…perfectly. It was certainly my mother he described. So then I asked him to describe the woman who was currently in the cube. I could feel something in my chest starting to squeeze. I had a feeling.
“…and her face has a nasty bite scar.”
Phaedra.
I felt my knees go weak again. It seemed like I was spending a lot of time trying not to faint. My head swam with this revelation. If what he was saying was accurate, then I had, in fact, caused my mother’s execution.
I had not even considered that perhaps Mama Lindsay’s girlfriend, and also a good friend of mine, a woman named Phaedra Woods, might be what Dominique had been using as leverage against my mother until I had surrendered. And now, in my haste, I had made the choice to run.
My mind was reeling with all of the bits and pieces that I fixated on to make my choice to run. In my mind, every whispered conversation between the guards had been about me. And now, my mother was really and truly dead.
Bob had me by the hand and was escorting me out of the tent where I imagine that the torturing would resume and this man would eventually die. The pity I had felt a moment ago was gone. I suddenly did not care that he probably had nothing to do with Mama Lindsay’s death. I wanted him to pay.
I jerked away from Bob and went right back inside. I heard Felicia call my name, but I didn’t care. As I entered, the pudgy man had moved in beside the person whose name I would never know…nor would I ever care to know.
The pudgy man had the metal bar in the mouth of the man on the table and was punching him in the chin. Each punch was punctuated with a word.
“When. Are. The. Troops. Coming. This. Direction?”
The bar was pulled from the man’s mouth and I could hear what had to be teeth crumbling. A dark line of drool extended and broke with an audible and wet sound. Blood leaked from both corners of the man’s mouth.
I stood there as the session continued. I saw things that my mind went to work on right away to erase so that they would only visit and haunt my nightmares. I refused to move until the event reached the conclusion that I knew was inevitable.
Through it all, I don’t think I heard any of the questions being asked or the answers that may or may not have come in response. I simply stayed there until the man’s body shuddered and arched up one final time.
***
“If this president is amassing an army, there has to be a reason,” Felicia insisted.
I was at the table with Bob, Felicia, and a really sweet couple that were visiting members of another tribe. What I had discovered after the torture session was that a half a dozen tribes had sent people to this place for some sort of meeting. The word had started to spread that soldiers were coming and they were targeting individual tribes.
“We heard something outside of the Salt Lake Unified Zone that the Vegas Empire has sent ambassadors to the Native Confederacy,” Greg Carrick said. I noticed that he had whispered to his wife (or whatever she was supposed to be) before offering that bit of information.
“How long ago were you down that way?” Bob asked.
“Three months or so,” Ginger, his wife, said. (I noticed that she did not look at her husband before speaking.)
“So she is forcing people to join her?” I asked. The beauty of being alone was that I didn’t have to look at—or not look at—anybody before I spoke. “How loyal does she think this army that she is building could possibly be?”
“Considering the fact that she is holding family and loved ones hostage, I believe that she has little concern about that issue,” Felicia said.
I felt my face flush. My eyes met Felicia’s and I saw what she had just said—and in whose company—dawn on her. Everybody at the table had grown instantly silent.
“Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry,” Felicia said and grabbed my hand.
“It’s okay,” I lied.
It wasn’t okay. It would never be okay. I had gotten my mother killed. However, I could already feel something burning inside me. I guess I had never actually experienced hatred before. I was certain that I was experiencing it now.
However, there was something else in my mind that I was having trouble with. All my life, I had a certain image of my mother—Meredith, not Mama Lindsay. I had been able to see how some people disliked my mother. I also saw that she was a very strong woman who did what she did without apology. She was strong. Many called her selfish.
One of the things that I had always warred with was the idea that I did not want people to see me as her. I wanted Mama Lindsay’s and Mama Janie’s influence to shine through. I spent much of my youth worrying about whether what I did or did not do would be seen a certain way.
One of the things that I had always had a problem with in regards to Meredith Gainey was the fact that, despite how much you read her book, you still never got to know her as a woman. Right now, I needed somebody to help me with what was going on in my mind. I wanted revenge. The problem with that was the fact that I was still very much aware of how my trip east had ended up: I had come to the conclusion that I was just one person. There was really nothing that I could do realistically against Dominique and her NAA. To be more specific, there was nothing that I could do by myself.
“If she is building an army, then maybe we should be doing the same thing,” I said.
The four people sitting around the table with me looked at me as if I had suddenly become one of the zombies. Greg’s wife, Ginger, actually made a face like she saw or smelt something offensive. I just stared back at them all with as little expression as I could manage.
What did these people think was going to happen? Did they believe that Dominique would simply go away? Or, was this a case of ‘it hasn’t happened to me yet, so I will just ignore it’? I think that might be part of why the zombies had been so successful. People were not willing or ready to do anything until it had a direct impact on them, and by then it was too late.
I thought of some of the things that I had learned from Mama Lindsay, and even from Jenifer long before she became president. Corridor 26 did not just spring up. It took a lot of work. There are stories about how the people who settled that area had to deal with zombies and raiders. The zombies are just the easiest to talk about and label as bad because they are an absolute. You know that
none of the zombies will ever try to be your friend. With people, especially once there were so few, you wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. The problem with that was that there were a lot of really bad people walking around. I think more so in the early days than now. It was that initial surge of people reacting to having nobody telling them what they could and could not do.
From what I read in both my mother’s and my father’s journals, it was clear that there were some very bad people out there. However, there were plenty of the good sort. And I think the bad sort of helped take out the bad in many cases because, while you could find a group of basically good folks to work with and strive to create something with, the bad was probably always seeking to be in control. “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians” is what Mama Janie used to say when it appeared that everybody wanted to be in charge at the same time. I think too many bad people in one place was probably the best thing to happen. Each of them would get greedy or want to be the boss and that would lead to fights which would lead to dying. At least that is how I see it.
That is also how I believe that places like The Corridor have been so successful. That is why the Confederated Tribes have managed to take an entire state and secure it from invaders—dead or otherwise. These are what I believe to be the examples of people at their best. This is in a big contrast to what I saw when I made my journey up the Columbia Gorge. There are areas that are apparently known to be sort of like a ‘No-Man’s Land’ that people avoid if possible.
I never thought of Corridor 26 as some sort of bastion of goodness. It is just where I grew up…where I lived. My little journey opened my eyes a bit. However, this new development with Dominique (I refuse to call her president of anything) has me re-thinking my basic beliefs.
I grew up around people who had a ‘live and let live’ ideology. From what I read in history class, I guess we could almost be considered pacifists. But that is not entirely accurate because we had small clashes with tribes that might wander into our area and try to test our defenses for whatever reason. Also, we made regular excursions out to the wilderness. There were times when human-versus-human conflicts took place. It had become rare over the past several years, but it still happened.
However, there is a chapter from the early days that I think too many people might have forgotten. The Genesis Brotherhood was an extremist group that used religion as something twisted and evil. (I should clarify that I have no problem with religion, however, I believe that anything taken TO THE EXTREME is problematic.) My birth mother, Meredith Gainey, along with a few others went in and took those people out. Yes, there were casualties, but I believe that, if she were alive today, she would be one of the first people signing up to take down Dominique and her version of New America.
“Are you suggesting that we go to war?” Bob asked in regards to the statement that I had made seconds ago that had caused silence to fall on our little table.
“Of course she isn’t,” Greg laughed.
“Actually, that is exactly what I am suggesting.”
Things got lively after that. I was on one side, and all four of them were on the other. I could understand Bob and Felicia; after all, they were Travelers. However, Greg and Ginger were part of a settled tribe. They had to know that the same fate I had witnessed and related that befell the Spartans would eventually be theirs as well.
It became clear that none of them would support this idea; however, Felicia said that perhaps it was worth bringing to the attention of the council. Personally, I could not believe that this had not already been discussed. I know that one of the core values we held at Sunset was that peaceful negotiation was always preferable to just going to war. Even in the EEF we were taught to try and negotiate if we were ever confronted. It was a big part of training. We even had mock encounters with people who were varying degrees of hostile.
As we left the tent to go look for these council leaders, I started to worry. The more time we spent talking, the more time Dominique had to openly conquer. I sure hoped that we would not be dragging this out too long.
***
“We need to keep order,” Ethan Lind spoke over the din rising from the crowd.
Ethan was a pretty non-descript man when you looked at him. But when he spoke, his voice carried. It was low, but not rumbling…and very powerful. He was somebody that you would forget you saw ten seconds after he walked by, but if he spoke, you would never forget his voice. And the rumor is that he can sing, too.
He is the leader of a tribe that camped close to the Sunset Fortress. His people had taken the name Apollos and could be spotted by the purple that you would find made up the majority of their garb. I had actually eaten dinner with him on more than one occasion when he was on business with Mama Lindsay or President Jenifer. He was the person that I had laid out my plan to after Felicia suggested that I bring it to this council.
Turns out that Ethan had been the person who sent messengers to as many tribes as he knew of to call this meeting. I was hoping for two things: first, that he would be receptive to my idea; and second, that he would be able to convince the others that it was worthwhile.
“You cannot actually believe that our options have been reduced to building an…army…” the woman spat out that word like it left a bad taste in her mouth. “That would drag us down to her level. I say that this is a problem for the incorporated towns of the Corridor system. They are the ones who made agreements to supply so many people per year to that war machine in trade for supplies and from the NAA’s engineers when it came to building their walls. They have been shipping their children off for years. It is not our problem if the NAA has suddenly changed the deal on them. If you keep bees, you must expect to get stung.”
A chorus of “Here! Here!” and other stupid phrases of support were being shouted by the majority. It did not look to me like these people were willing to budge an inch despite the fact that, as I explained it to Ethan, he had seemed agreeable and presented it as a good idea to them. These people were living up to some of the stereotypes that people who lived in the Corridor had painted them with. One of the biggest being that the tribes in the area cared for nobody but themselves.
I had lived my life hearing those sorts of things. I had also heard that and worse when it came to Travelers, but after meeting Bob and Felicia, my attitude had definitely changed.
As the little council meeting went on, it was becoming clear that my plan was not going to be welcomed by these people. Then a woman stood up and walked to the front of the room. I recognized her right away. The woman from the Spartan tribe that I had helped escape.
“You people make me sick,” she spat as she turned to address the crowd.
Not exactly the approach that I would take if I wanted people to do something, but to each his or her own, I guess. I looked around the room and saw a lot of mouths hanging open.
“We have been saying for years that there could come a time when we might need to band together. Of course, we believed that the threat would come from the people in the Corridor wanting to expand, but the fact remains that we saw this coming. And now, my people have been scooped up by this lunatic. My children barely escaped because of this woman…”
I liked being called a woman. And I didn’t see the point in telling her that she would have been snatched up also due to her age. She was on a roll and I could see a few people starting to stare at the ground. She was using the good old motherly tactic of shame and guilt. Yay for her!
“…and if what I am hearing is true, this is just the beginning. You will all feel rather foolish if you return to your homes and end up suffering the fate that the people of the Corridor, people who have never done us any harm by the way, as well as several of the tribes in the area.”
She stood there for another few seconds and scanned the crowd of silent people who had just moments before been practically shouting down Ethan, one of their most respected leaders. I glanced over and was surprised to see Bob looking at his feet and Felicia picking
at her fingernails like she had just found the most interesting thing under them.
“And if we did band together…what would you have us do then? Attack this NAA? They would slaughter us wholesale,” Greg Carrick stepped forward.
“Nobody said anything about meeting these people in a straight up fight. However, we have the advantage of knowing this place far better than she or her soldiers. We could set traps, perform ambushes. History is full of armies that were defeated by the locals. In fact, if you read up on the history of this country, I believe it was born out of just that sort of conflict,” the woman said with the air of somebody that was lecturing small children.
I knew what she was talking about. History was one of my favorite subjects in school. I guess, if you thought about it, this situation was not that much different. And, to coin a sports phrase that I had heard on more than one occasion in my life, we had “home field advantage.”
I desperately wanted to say something, but this woman was doing just fine without any help from me. A low murmur started as the people gathered began to whisper and mumble to one another. I noticed a few that were still holdouts—Greg and Ginger among them.
“If we do nothing, then it will be our own fault when we fall under this new tyranny that wishes to bend us to whatever plan this self-proclaimed president may have.”
I decided that maybe I had something worth offering and stepped forward again. “I know that none of you have any reason to trust me, I am an outsider. But I was there when my mother and the president of Sunset Fortress got the word about how Dominique assassinated the person who had been the president of New America. I know that under the former administration there were deals in place that asked for any community receiving help to offer up recruits for the NAA. But my mother told me that those recruits were voluntary. And at any time, a community could opt out of the deal. Assistance would cease, but we were within our rights to withdraw from the agreement.”