Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise

by Jack Flacco

  Crawling over Matty again, Randy awoke after Jon had accidentally kicked him while swinging his legs into the clear. Randy blinked several times then used his shirt to wipe his eyes of the sleep. The first thing that came to his head was to check how Matty was doing. He didn’t know how much blood she had lost, but it would have accounted for her not waking up quickly like the rest of them. He stared at her intently, watching her chest rise and fall. Good, at least she was breathing, he thought.

  Randy also examined the room and couldn’t see the old man. Where did he go? Why did he save them? Wasn’t he part of the society that built the fortress? Why wouldn’t he support his friends, if he had any?

  He thought of these things and that was when the trap door to the trick wall opened. Randy pulled the nightstick he carried with him closer, not knowing what would come from the secret door.

  It was the old man. He brought with him a wrinkled brown paper bag. He carried it as he closed the trap door behind him.

  Randy slipped the nightstick back in its place and rose to his feet. He sneaked across the floor on his toes not wanting to disturb Matty and approached the old man who opened the brown paper bag on the table in the center of the room. Randy noticed the bread and the milk. It confused him. How could the old man get fresh bread and milk? Someone would have had to bake it. What about the milk, someone would have had to milk a cow? Where did the cow come from?

  “Have a seat.” The old man said.

  Jon didn’t need anyone telling him what to do. He sprung to his feet and jumped into the chair next to the food. Randy followed, sitting opposite the eager young boy. They stared at the food as if they hadn’t eaten in days. It had only been hours, but they were growing boys.

  “Take the bread. It’s fresh.”

  Randy grabbed a loaf and broke it, passing the other half to Jon. The old man poured milk into two clean glasses he had taken from a cupboard. If Randy didn’t know better, he would have thought chewers didn’t rule the earth.

  “My name is Tobias. My friends call me Toby. You can call me Toby.”

  “I’m Randy. He’s Jon and on the floor is Matty.” He took a large bite from his loaf then with a full mouth spoke his words, “Where did you get the bread?”

  “I know someone at the town’s bakery. She gives me bread and milk every day and I give her a story I’d written the night before.” He snickered. “Don’t worry. It’s not real milk. We all love that powdered stuff. Do you see any cows around?”

  “I don’t understand.” Jon said, and took a bite from his bread, washing it down with a gulp of the delicious liquid. “I thought everyone here would have been our enemies.”

  “Hard to find nice people around here.” He said as he broke bread. “We’re not all like the ones in charge. Some of us are of the old way of thinking. We built this place as a refuge away from the undead, a place where people could lodge and stay. Or they could move along to other parts. Eventually, that all changed with the younger generation taking hold of this place and ruling on different terms.”

  Licking his lips, Jon didn’t care the milk was that powdered stuff, it was not only tasty but also filling. The bread and milk complimented each other so well that Randy had a hard time not eating his fingers. Once one mouthful disappeared, another took its place.

  Toby took a seat on either side of the boys. His gray, wiry hair covered the sides of his head quite well except the top. His dark eyes were as pools of the darkest night. His lips full and his face round that it couldn’t contain the smile he had for the boys, who gulped the food in fistfuls.

  “You boys had a big dinner last night.” He joked.

  “Mister, we haven’t had so much food in a long time.” Jon said.

  “Your friend on the floor doesn’t seem to think so. Seems she’s too tired to eat anything.”

  “She’ll be fine.” Jon said then looked at Randy. “Maybe I should wake her before we eat it all.”

  “It’s quiet.” Randy said. “It’s kind of nice this way.”

  A smile floated on Jon’s face as it did on Randy. They knew once Matty would awaken she would try to convince them to head for the docks. They sat in their chairs enjoying the peace.

  Minutes passed as the three ate bread and drank milk when Randy stretched his feet under the table and patted his stomach. It felt good to be full again. He took the lull in conversation to ask Toby a few questions. “You said the younger generation took over this place. It mustn’t have been long because it’s been a few months since the change took place.”

  “We had a leader who gathered us together fairly quickly from the hill country. He knew if we needed to survive we had to make a home in this hell we call earth.” Toby said, wrapping the brown bag tight and placing it on the empty place setting where he thought Matty would sit.

  “But the wall. The food. All the people. Where did it all come from?”

  “Word spreads fast when you’re building a wall. Most of the people here came from the army—those who didn’t like what was happening out there. The others picked up information from those who traveled having heard of this place.”

  “A little place in hell called Paradise.”

  “Right. It started that way. The wall took a month to complete. We had to keep the rat brains in line with death squads stationed at the outskirts killing anything that moved. It was amazing how quickly things moved along once we didn’t have things getting in the way. When we put the wall up, we had our first attempted invasion. Marauders lay siege on the walls of the city trying to take over. Young former soldiers spent a good part of a week fighting them off. It was terrible. The amount of ammo we spent. The people we lost. We weren’t sure if we’d survive.”

  “But you did survive.”

  “We did. It came at a cost. The young former soldiers took hold of the place, killed the leadership and went out with vehicles attracting the undead to follow them back here. They thought if the wall couldn’t prevent a future invasion, then the undead would. Josh, the new leader, set up a strict curfew. Anyone found outside after sunset would be shot. He made an example of the early lawbreakers by hauling them to the top of the wall and throwing them to the other side where the rat brains waited for a meal.”

  Randy and Jon sat in a trance, waiting on every word Toby had to say.

  “We all knew the curfew was a sham. Josh and his gang of thugs needed bodies to keep the undead interested in patrolling the wall. After a while, the offenses became trivial. You looked at any of them the wrong way and it would have caused them to eye you with suspicion. Next thing you know, you’d be taking a flying leap in the mouths of the undead.”

  By this time, Matty yawned and stretched. She rubbed her eyes then realized where she was. She pulled the gun she had taken from the guard at the warehouse and pointed it in every direction.

  “Matty,” Jon said as he stood on his feet. “It’s me. It’s me. Put the gun away. You’re safe.”

  When her nostrils picked up the scent of food nearby, she sank the gun between her belt and belly. She rose and drifted to the table where Toby had saved her breakfast. Her gaze panned from Jon to Randy, to the food and to Toby.

  “Go ahead. I saved enough bread for you in the bag. There’s a lot of milk left over for you as well.”

  After several seconds on her feet, she dove on the chair and broke into the brown bag on the table. Her mouth couldn’t keep up with her hands. The faster she chewed, the more she wanted. Even after Randy had poured milk in his glass giving it to her, she didn’t stop to breathe. The milk ran along the corners of her mouth and down her neck. She said, “This is really good.”

  “Oh, really. No kidding.” Jon said.

  Toby’s wrinkles crest along his face as he smiled at the young girl. She noticed, but kept her attention on the bread.

  Randy stared at the center at the table, still thinking about all that Toby had said.

  “Where did you come from?” Toby asked.

  Matty stopped chewing and
answered the question herself. “Arizona.”

  “Arizona? That’s far. How did you get here?”

  “We drove. Our car broke down several miles from this place.” She lied.

  “How did you find us?”

  “It wasn’t hard. Saw the wall from the hills and wanted to see inside.”

  “Are there others?”

  “No. Just us.” She stared at him hoping he’d get tired of the interrogation.

  “Matty.” Jon finally stepped in.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s not our enemy.”

  “Why? Did you ask him? Did any of you two bother asking him about this place?”

  “We did. He answered our questions. Toby volunteered the information. We didn’t have to ask him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why would he volunteer the information?”

  “Matty, listen. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Do I? I’m sitting here getting a barrage of questions and you don’t think it unusual?”

  The room went quiet. Matty’s words swam through the boys’ heads. She had a point. They didn’t know him. He was a stranger. Why would he give away all he had without expecting anything in return? Things were so simple before she woke up.

  “Ask me anything.” Toby said. His gaze was steady and his voice gentle.

  Matty cleared the food from her side of the table and leaned in. “Where were the crates going yesterday afternoon?”

  Toby’s gaze wandered. He asked, “What crates?”

  “The crates the former soldiers were loading from the dock to the boat. The boxes had holes at the top. Where were they going?”

  “Oh.” Toby’s face turned bright with understanding. “Those crates.”

  “Right. Those crates.”

  Jon and Randy exchanged glances thinking they wanted to know about the crates, too. Randy tapped his fingers on the table with anticipation of the answer while Jon wrestled in his seat. They weren’t thinking from Matty’s perspective where she had been asleep all that time. She had the advantage of seeing it from a distance. They were too close and needed to back away from it in order to see clearly. They had the same thing running through their mind—what about the crates?

  * * *

  Silver and Lenny unpacked the ammo from the Humvee carrying the crates to the pickup while Ranger fit the ammo between the gas canisters on the bed. He packed them tight making sure they didn’t move. Abigail stood against the side of the pickup watching the whole thing, wondering how much ammo Ranger would add. She thought they certainly needed the ammo but she didn’t know the amount.

  Lenny kept his mind active on other things even though it drifted on his friend Russell. He had closure, but he couldn’t forget his best friend and of how he met death. Lenny wanted his thoughts to linger on the neighborhood, but he knew it wouldn’t have been the healthiest thing to do—both physically because of another potential attack and mentally, he had to let his friend go.

  “That’s the last of it,” Silver said, dragging the crate on the pickup hatch to Ranger’s feet.

  “Take a break.” Ranger grabbed the crate. “We’ll be on our way soon.”

  The boys went into the Humvee and sat separately in their respective seats. Silver wouldn’t have had it any other way. His mind drifted on Sunglow. He still couldn’t believe she died trampled to death. As weird as his mind worked, he thought she at least didn’t die at the hands of the chewers. A morbid thought, yet it comforted him.

  Once Ranger packed the last of the ammo crates between the gas canisters, he sat down and looked at the sky. His thoughts carried him into the past. He didn’t entertain the memories of Darla as long as he would have liked, but they were there, ready whenever he needed to relive them.

  Abigail crawled on the pickup hatch and joined Ranger sitting on the crate next to him.

  “Are you going to be okay? Ranger asked.

  “I’ll be fine.” She stared into the distance.

  “Abigail, I’m going to ask you to do something and I hope you don’t think I’m tryin’ to get rid of you.”

  “It depends on what you want me to do.”

  “I’m going to ask you to go with Silver. He’s going to need your help.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “It’s something very special. I need the both of you to follow through. No mistakes.”

  “You don’t trust Silver?”

  “I trust him. I want to make sure it’s done right. Understand?”

  “You trust me more.”

  Ranger didn’t answer.

  “I’ll go with him, but under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Once we’re done doing this, whatever it is you have planned, I want to leave.”

  “Leave us?”

  “Leave for an island somewhere away from all this.”

  “I’m not sure we can do that, Abigail.”

  “You have to promise me.”

  He stared at his feet.

  “Promise me.”

  Ranger glanced at her and found her sincere face hard to refuse. How could he say no to her? He would have to be ignorant. He said, “I promise.”

  Chapter 24

  That morning, Paradise’s leader barged through the door of the warehouse and saw the guard lying on the floor next to the open cages. Josh had been running around all night trying to catch his prized prisoners that he had forgotten all about investigating the source of the escape. Conveniently, the guard who had facilitated the prisoners escape was regaining consciousness.

  “What happened?” Josh’s feet stopped short of the guard’s head. With him, an entourage of other guards followed and stopped on the same spot.

  “My head.” The guard rubbed the back of it as he rose from his stupor.

  Josh bent to one knee, grabbed the guard by the lapels and shook him. “I asked you a question. What happened?”

  “I don’t remember.” The guard lied. He didn’t want Josh to find out he had opened Matty’s cage for a quick get-to-know-you session. “I just don’t remember.”

  “How did you get the scratches on your face?”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember.” He did remember. Matty jumped him as soon as he had opened the cage to grab her.

  “You don’t remember.” Josh dropped him on the floor then lifted himself tall. He turned to one of his goons and said, “Steadman. Do we need people on our team who do not remember?”

  “No.” Steadman said, towering in the background with boulders for biceps.

  “Right, and what do we do with people we don’t need on our team?”

  “We throw them from the top of the wall.”

  Josh nodded his head.

  “No!” The guard screamed but it was too late. Josh’s guards grabbed him and dragged him from the warehouse, as he kept repeating, “No. No. No!”

  Once Josh and Steadman stood facing each other alone, Josh asked, “Have you checked the stores?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about the docks?”

  “I have a few men checking on them now, but I don’t think we’ll find them there. The last we saw them, they were heading toward the ghetto.”

  “The ghetto? We’ll never find them in there.” Josh pinched his chin and thought aloud. “Wait a minute. We’ve always wanted to clean that place up, right?”

  Steadman nodded.

  “Send in all available guards to raze the area. Those kids couldn’t have gone far. I’m sure they’re sitting tight right under our feet.”

  “You got it.”

  * * *

  “What about the crates?” Matty asked old man Toby sitting across from her at the table while Randy and Jon listened on either side.

  “Children. Like you.” Toby answered.

  Children? In unison, the kids pressed their backs to their chairs. They had no idea what he meant. Toby could read their faces though.


  “A few months ago, the town’s children began going missing. We thought the rat brains had bored a hole through the wall and taken them. When we couldn’t find a wall with a hole, some of us believed Josh had ordered the children thrown from the top of the wall. We had no clue. We were wrong.”

  The kids kept their eyes fixed on Toby. They hung on to his every word.

  “We began hearing rumors Josh had set up an island off the coast of the bay with the children as its main asset. He wanted an army of obedient soldiers. He thought if he could brainwash the kids, take them away from their parents, he would have a new generation of soldiers who would only listen to him and him alone. Right there, we knew Josh had lost his mind and needed to go. We’ve been struggling ever since.”

  “Where is this island?” Matty asked.

  “Alcatraz.” Toby said, draining his glass of milk.

  “I know that.” Jon said. “It was once a penal colony in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. The government shut it down because of corrosion, and other problems. If Josh has taken the children there, then they’re good as dead. There’s no way on that island other than by boat. I’m not even sure if the walls are still up.”

  Staring at the ceiling, Matty’s head scampered in thought. Randy and Jon recognized the look and shook their heads. Toby didn’t know what to make of the boys’ reaction.

  “We’ve got to help them.” Matty finally settled her gaze on Randy.

  “No, Matty. We’re not Ranger.”

  “Ranger?” Toby asked.

  “We have to help them.” Matty leaned in and placed both elbows on the table. “What if it was you? You saw what that guard wanted to do with me. Who knows what goes on there? We have to help them if another generation is to survive the undead mess. I think it’s only fair.”

  “How are we going to get there?” Jon asked. He knew he couldn’t convince his sister to change her mind. He had tried that on many occasions but failed with every attempt. He might as well have asked her what she thought about it.