“Absolutely dreadful. I do not think I would have lasted one more day on that hideous ship without the need to thoroughly disembowel someone.” She glanced over her shoulder once more toward the ship, and if looks could kill, the ship would’ve been disintegrated.
“I sent the finest cruise ship in the world for you,” Kane said. “I know how you enjoy things of a certain standard.” He looked up at the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship before him.
“The ship itself was lovely, thank you. However, we were not allowed to stay in one of the suites. Rowland took those lovely rooms for himself, and he forced me to stay in one of the … in one of the common rooms!” She saw Rowland begin his descent from the ship. “He said it was for our safety, but I know the truth,” she whispered to Kane. She quickly left to avoid another confrontation with her former host.
Kane chuckled quietly as she left, then turned to greet his old friend. “Rowland, I am pleased you are here. I hope the journey was uneventful. Ah, let me rephrase, I hope she did not try your patience too terribly. Alas, there is much I need to attend to and I could greatly use your assitance.” Kane extended his hand to the much taller man before him.
“I am likewise happy to see you, my friend and leader.” Rowland returned the handshake as he glared at Eva’s retreating form as she made her way to one of the awaiting limos. “You certainly have your hands full with that one, Kane. However, I think I managed to be quite convincing in the lessons I levied upon her during the trip.”
“I cannot argue that point, my friend. She is, indeed, quite difficult to deal with, and she is, what is that term … ah, yes, a spoiled brat. Yet I could not ask for a more loyal consort. For all of Eva’s … quirks, let’s say, she always follows my decrees and directives to the letter. She does deliver excellent results when needed. If all my consorts were as eager to follow orders as she, they would still be with us. Speaking of my other consort, where might he be?” Kane looked up at the empty disembarking ramp.
“I asked him to assist in gathering some of my personal effects and securing them for transport to our new headquarters. He’ll be along shortly.” Rowland had other things he wanted to discuss with Kane, but decided to wait for a more opportune time. Instead, he said, “Why don’t we wait until we arrive at our temporary housing before we continue this discussion? You can inform me of all that has occurred since we last spoke, and you can share your plans for the foreseeable future. I’m eager to hear what you have in store for us. Also, I am intrigued to discover just what it is that you had stored in the hold of the ship that even I was not allowed to see.” Rowland knew Kane well enough to make sure there was not a trace of sarcasm in his voice. He may have been curious, but he was no fool. He and Kane were both masters, that much was true, but Kane was the eldest of them all, and he was their leader. He would not openly challenge Kane, not even on something as simple as cargo.
“Yes, I apologize for the intense instructions. I do have my reasons for needing to do so, and later I will share them. The secrecy was necessary to ensure there would be no interruptions to my plans. Fear not, all the information you need shall be revealed this evening. Now, come, I should like to hear of all your ordeals since the onset of this plague on the return trip to our new headquarters.” Kane led Rowland toward the caravan.
The two masters climbed into the front vehicle in the convoy and went on ahead of the rest of the newly arrived passengers. The remaining limos in the caravan waited for the remaining consorts and the baggage they were retrieving.
Meanwhile, in the background, there was a large metal container being unloaded from the cargo hold of the ship by a large crane onto an awaiting semi-trailer. Eva sat and fumed as she watched the mysterious container being unloaded. She also took note of the extra security guarding the area. She was puzzled by the contents of the mysterious box, and more so as to why she was not privy to its contents. She let out a small grunt of frustration.
The driver of the limo had been silent, as was expected, yet he did not want to be on the receiving end of her wrath, either. “Ma’am, is there anything I can do for you? Would you like something to drink, perhaps?”
“Your silence!” She took a deep breath to compose herself. “I wish to leave now. I want that dreadful ship out of my sight and out of my mind. Take me to our new living quarters immediately, that is all I require at this time.”
Although he knew he might regret it later, he said, “My orders were to wait for the others, ma’am.” When she did not respond, he risked a glance in the rearview mirror, and immediately decided he would rather suffer the wrath of his superiors, and try to explain that she hadn’t allowed him to wait for the others, than deal with her. The look she speared him with could have easily melted his eyes from his head had he not averted his gaze. “On our way then.” He put the vehicle into drive and pulled away.
Eva arrived at the new headquarters building just as Kane and Rowland exited their vehicle, still deep in conversation. She quickly exited her car and made her way over to join them. “Master, if you have a moment, I would like a few words with you before we convene with the rest of the Council?”
“As would I, my child. Rowland, if you would please excuse me for a few moments, I will join you upstairs shortly,” Kane said as he excused himself to talk in private with his anxious consort.
“Master, I have many questions I feel I must ask if I’m to carry out your will to the best of my abilities,” Eva began. “Firstly, what is the relevance of that mysterious box I saw the men unloading from the ship?”
“That is the reason I wanted to speak with you myself. I have requested that the crate be delivered to a secure warehouse in the center of town. I need you and Tovas to go to the warehouse immediately. Your driver knows the location. Once you arrive, you’ll find your instructions. I expect you to follow them to the letter. Once the meeting of theCouncil has concluded, I will be along to ensure you are prepared for your assignment.”
“Master? Are we not to be present for the gathering of the Council?”
“No. You and Tovas are needed elsewhere this evening. I have need of your assistance in this other matter and it is much more important. You have been an integral part of these plans from the beginning, Eva. This evening’s meeting is simply to placate the other members of the Council and to ensure they do not interfere in other matters. I trust you will perform admirably in the task I have set for you.” Kane started for the elevator, paused, then turned a hard look upon his consort. “This is your opportunity to make reparations for your mistake in Venice. Do you understand?”
Eva nodded. She may have been a vapid brat, but she knew full well a threat when she heard one, especially when spoken by this man and in that tone. In a rare moment of clarity, she did not speak again, and, instead, returned to her transport to wait for Tovas’ arrival. As she sat she pondered the nature of her mission. She also stewed over the fact that she and Tovas had been excluded from the night’s major gathering. Kane must believe this extremely important if I am being excluded from this rare meeting of all the Council leaders. She continued to pout and felt her anger grow with each passing minute. Just as she was about to blow up on the driver simply for something to do, she spotted the headlights of the remaining vehicles pull into the parking garage. Luckily the timing allowed her a moment of respite from her thoughts while she waited for Tovas to exit one of the vehicles. When he stepped out of one of the limos, trailed by both of Rowland’s consorts, she left her vehicle and briskly made her way to inform Tovas of their mission.
“Master has given us orders to be carried out immediately. We are to depart post haste.”
Tovas bid farewell to his fellow consorts and moved to Eva’s vehicle, completely unaware of what he was being sent to do.
As Eva and Tovas exited the parking garage, another incoming caravan of cars passed them. None of those vehicles were present at the arrival of their ship, however, and Eva barked out an order for her driver to stop. Eva watched as the new arri
vals quickly exited their vehicles and started to unload a very large old trunk from the rear of one of the vans. They quickly unloaded the item before they proceeded to the elevators. Once there, they were joined by four fully-armed security personnel who took up a defensive perimeter around the others before they moved out of Eva’s sight.
“Continue on,” she barked at the driver. She leaned back in her seat and contemplated the implications of what she had seen.
Tovas knew Eva quite well. He simply sat in silence and watched all this activity. He knew that it must be eating Eva up that she had not been made privy to all that was occurring. A small childish part of him took immense pleasure in her anger and discomfort and he couldn’t quite keep a small smile from spreading on his lips. As always, Eva was much too self absorbed to notice.
CHAPTER 51
Tovas and Eva
David lay on his belly atop the soda trailer and looked out at the throngs of slabs wandering by the camp walls. He actually hoped the winds picked up again, and quick , as he watched them get closer and closer to the barrier, and was afraid that without the wind or the fires, the slabs would soon get a whiff of their scent. David was completely unaware he was actually the one under surveillance. Off in the distance another set of eyes was trained directly on him.
Just out of sight in the darkness stood Tovas in the shadows, eyeing the fortified position. As he pondered the possibilities of what could be inside, he was snapped out of his thoughts by a voice from behind—Eva’s.
“What do you see Tovas?”
“Another encampment,” he quietly whispered back. “I do not think you shouted loud enough for them to hear you, would you like to try it again?” He turned away from her and returned his attention to the man atop the wall to see if they had been overheard.
“Another one? What is this, the fifth or sixth one we’ve run across thus far? I must say these people must be quite resilient to have been able to survive this long … and under these conditions. It is almost admirable. Now, please get back in the vehicle. I am sick of smelling these decaying abominations as they continue passing us by.” Eva shut her door and left Tovas alone in the dark surrounded by passing slabs. Not one of the slabs meandering by them and their location paid them any attention.
Tovas kept watching and eventually saw David slink away from his perch atop the trailer. Tovas didn’t see anything in the man’s behavior to indicate he had noticed anything other than the passing slabs. Tovas then went around to the other side of the Humvee parked behind him and entered the back door opposite his counterpart.
“We’ll wait for the back-half of the storm to provide us with some concealment,” Tovas stated to Eva and ther two escorts in the front seat. “Then we will enter the camp and eliminate the survivors as we have done with every other camp we’ve come across. Do not forget to reapply the oils we were given so that we remain hidden among the miserable beasts we’re surrounded by.” He opened up a briefcase at his feet and pulled out four bottles of anamber-colored liquid and passed them out to all the occupants in the vehicle.
After they had all applied the oils, the driver slowly backed the vehicle in between two houses to hide it from sight so they could wait for the storm to return. As the driver continued to back up the Humvee, the truck jolted as they struck something behind them. Eva let out a vicious string of curses at the driver and then told him to get out and inspect the vehicle for damage. As the driver got out and moved to the rear, he found the front bumper of another Humvee that matched his own, covered in the bushes. Upon further inspection, he found that it was the one sent out months ago on a search mission for a missing consort that hadn’t yet returned. The driver quickly returned and relayed this information to his passengers. Upon hearing this, both Eva and Tovas exited the vehicle to further inspect what they had discovered.
As Tovas walked around the rear of the found vehicle, he tripped over something and looked down to find a boot sticking out of the bushes. He leaned down and pulled the boot out from its hiding spot and found a body still attachedto it. He could tell it was one of their men by the uniform he wore, and he saw a large wound on the man’s chest. As he inspected the body, Eva found another body and pointed out the obvious broken neck. Tovas noticed only one of them had his sleeve pulled up on an arm to reveal the tattoo that all the men under their command had been marked with. This intrigued him since not many people would know exactly where to look for this mark, and here it looked very deliberate. He slowly turned and faced the encampment again and wondered just who they would find inside when they arrived. He kept that information to himself for the moment, knowing that his counterpart would definitely overreact if she thought there was a traitor to their order inside the camp.
“Well, it appears we are not the first of our order to arrive here,” said Tovas. “I think it best if we take it slow when we enter. We have no way of knowing if these two divulged any information before they were killed. Let’s return to the vehicle while we wait for the storm to return.” Tovas climbed back into the vehicle, and sat in silence contemplating all the possibilities that the dead soldiers presence might allude to. He did his best to ignore Eva as she vented quite loudly about the incompetence of the dead soldiers, in allowing themselves to be killed, as a lesson to the two soldiers accompanying them.
CHAPTER 52
Kyle, The Camp, Tovas, and Hope
David returned from his scouting mission and found Kyle, Ron, Benjy, and Storm checking out the back of Kyle’s house. Apparently, they had missed some damage to the back door on their first pass, and had found that a rather large limb from a tree had crashed into it, breaking the frame around the door. They were quickly putting some nails and screws into it to secure it back to the wall.
“Alright, guys,” David said. “It looks like the slabs are getting thicker. So we better hope this storm hurries up and gets back, ’cause it won’t take long for them to smell us in here.” David leaned down to pet Storm, who had taken advantage of the momentary break in the rain to come outside and stretch her legs.
“Well, I’ve noticed the breeze has picked up a little in the last few minutes,” Kyle said. “So you may soon get your wish. After we get this done, I’m going back to the main gate and ride out the storm from there. If we survived the initial wall of the storm and the eye, it should be easier to ride out the second half, since it’s usually weaker on the back side, and less rainy, too. As soon as we can get the fire pits going again, we need to get them lit. Hopefully we can just lay low after that.” Kyle set the final screws into the doorframe.
Ron smiled. “Well, that should hold for now. I’m going to take Josey back to the kitchen and then come back to finish watching over Hope. Ya’ll better go get into position.” Ron then went inside, grabbed Josey and left.
David quizzically looked to Kyle as they started around the house towards their stations. “What’s going on with her? Man, you holding back on me about something?”
“I’ll catch you up on everything as you get into position. Come on, let’s walk and talk.” Kyle continued with David, with Storm tagging along to the armory where he planned to stay since he didn’t have a tower to watch from anymore.
After getting David caught up on all the latest and arriving inside the armory, Storm decided to relocate there for the moment when Kenny broke open a box of dog treats. Kyle then stepped outside and felt the wind had picked up quite a bit more and figured he should go check on Wes at Patty’s house so they could get ready. On the way, the wind howled in the distance, and he heard a sound that he’d been dreading, but hadn’t spoken aloud since the first signs of the storm. He listened for a few seconds, and slowly the sound of a freight train approaching could be heard in the distance.
“Shit, a tornado.” Kyle sprinted back to the armory to warn everybody. However, before he’d even made it halfway back, he caught a flash of lightning as he looked over his shoulder, and in the distance he could see the small twister approaching from the west, near t
he river. It wasn’t very large, and it looked like it might actually miss them for a second until another flash showed it moving straight at the corner of the camp. Before he could react, he watched the tornado slam into the camp wall behind Patty’s house, and then in the blink of an eye it enveloped the dwelling. All the windows immediately shattered and a large section of the roof flew off and landed over the wall, while the rest of it collapsed into the house.
He was pelted with flying debris as he dove into the ditch next to the armory. Once the debris stopped raining on him, he peeked over the edge of the ditch and watched the twister move toward the main gate. It reached the wall and tossed the bus he’d been stationed in earlier out of the way like a child would throw a toy car across a room. He watched the bus land a good 50-feet outside the camp, and then saw the twister move away from the camp as if the camp and its inhabitants weren’t worth its time anymore. That’s when he realized that the front door to the camp was wide open.
A sense of shock overtook him he looked at a nearly 50-foot wide gap in their first line of defense. Immediately, Kyle ran to the armory and started to beat on the door, unsure if they even knew what had just happened. David opened the door and looked at Kyle’s panicked face before he asked the question he already knew the answer to. “Tornado?”
Kyle nodded and told him about the front gate before he took off in a sprint toward the kitchen. As he bolted in, he could tell they were unaware of what just happened and quickly caught the adults up on the situation, as he ordered them all to get to the Devastator and make plans to evacuate. Before he left, he grabbed Brian and told him to wait until he could get Ron and Hope to the bus and that he would be right back with them.
When Kyle reemerged back into the outside world, he was quickly reminded that the gate was not the only danger they faced. He caught the full force of hurricane winds again as the other side of the eye wall had arrived. He looked toward the gate and saw nothing had made it in so far, but in the darkness he couldn’t be completely sure. He did, however, see David, Benjy, and Storm making their way over to Patty’s house to check for survivors, instead of falling back to their escape vehicles. He saw Yankee Dave and Kenny standing in the doorway of the armory surveying the damage. As they both made eye contact with Kyle, he gave them the lock-down signal, and they both nodded before they shut the door to the house and made their preparations to stay behind.
Humanity's Hope (Book 1): Camp H Page 23