“And what is it I’m trying to sell you?” Tester said.
“Same thing my father, Ben, doesn’t hold with at all. Hope,” Peter said.
Tye took the last watch, and as the gray of daybreak seeped over the land camp was broken, packs trussed, and the party was making time east by sunup. The old road was totally overgrown, but a curved concrete retaining wall marked its edge. Lush green weeds and grass covered the cracked blacktop, and to Tye the road looked like it ran off the end of the Earth into the dark clouds on the horizon. There were no buildings, cars, or any other signs of the gone world.
“We’ll turn northeast soon. Hopefully we can find interstate sixty-five,” Tester said.
Tye dove for cover behind a thick bramble bush. “Down. Get down. Virals.” The devils had appeared out of the brush like wraths. “Great. These things seem smart like the others,” Tye said.
“Every viral is different, just like every reborn,” Ingo said.
“Thanks for the update,” Tye said. Arrows whizzed overhead as he peeked through the bushes.
A large group of Uruks were moving toward their position. They carried crude knives, bows, and clubs, and hid in the tree break, slithering like snakes through the tall grass and weeds. Tye didn’t want to waste ammo, but he had to do something. They’d be on them in moments.
He stood, shouldered his rifle, and shot the Uruk closest to him. Tester bounced up next to him and killed another, followed by Milly and Kat. “Cease fire,” Tye said. “Cease fire.”
When the gun smoke cleared, there was no sign of the virals, except the six dead left behind. Tye examined the corpses and found these diseased people were much further gone than others he’d seen. Their bodies were a bloody mess, the disease having eaten away their skin, leaving only tissue and bone.
“Don’t go too close,” a gentle voice warned.
Tye spun around to find a young girl with long dark hair who wore a white robe. Her eyes were deep blue and heavily flecked with silver, with irises the orange-red of fire. The silver sparkled, and Tye blinked with disbelief and winced in pain.
The girl watched them, a smile spreading across her face. “Hi Kat,” she said.
“Hansa?” Milly said.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Again.” Hansa giggled.
Chapter Eighteen
Year 2069, Mississippi
Hansa’s face grew sorrowful. “I’m sorry you had such a hard time. There was nothing I could do. I’ve been banned because I make people uncomfortable,” she said. The girl looked so innocent, so young, but Milly had learned the hard way she was a wise old soul.
“It’s good to see you. What have you been up to?” Milly said. They walked a deer path that meandered down overgrown blacktop. Sagebrush blanketed the ground, and bees buzzed around the phallic like purple flowers of blazing star. Spruce pines towered above oak and dogwood trees, and their dense canopies blotted out the sky. Squirrels and rabbits scampered in the underbrush, and birdsong rose above the buzz of insects. The rabbits were particularly good eating.
“Waiting. That’s what I’ve been up to.” Hansa didn’t elaborate. The party exchanged glances. “It’s OK. That’s what I do.” Hansa giggled.
“You could have mentioned Stadium was a trap,” Peter said.
“Trap?” Her eyebrows knitted.
“You know Tester?” Tye said.
“A little.”
“How?” Tye pressed.
“He knew I was out looking for you. Ingo didn’t explain things?” Hansa said.
“Why didn’t you explain things? You had a year,” Milly said.
“Don’t move or you’re all dead.”
Milly froze and looked to Tye, who stood still, but had brought up his rifle.
“Drop your weapons. Now!” The voice sounded like broken glass scraping on metal.
“Fuck you, asshole,” Tye said. “Get out…”
A shot rang out and Peter’s head exploded, spraying blood, brain and bone all over Milly and Ingo. Robin and Jerome screamed. Milly stood frozen with shock as Peter’s headless body stood next to her for an instant before collapsing to the ground like a marionette that’s had its strings cut. Milly didn’t know where the shooter was, and since Tye was putting his rifle on the ground, she guessed he didn’t either.
“Last time. Put ’em down or I’ll shoot another one.”
Milly pulled her Glock and placed it on the ground before her, and Jerome and Robin put down their swords. Tester and Kat hesitated, and that cost Kat her life.
Another rifle shot rang out in the stillness and the side of Kat’s head tore away. Blood poured over her tattered shirt, and her remaining eye looked to Tester, then Milly, and then she was gone. Her corpse toppled over and rolled down a small incline.
Virals crept out of the sagebrush.
“Do what he says! Do it!” Tye said.
“Get on your knees,” said the rifleman. “Now!”
Uruks of all shapes, sizes, and states of decay inched from the foliage. They were controlled fury, twitchy and tense, and when Milly saw the silver collars around the viral’s necks, she understood. Crying and wailing filled the glade, and she watched the large pool of blood spread around Peter. In that moment she realized she’d loved him. He’d spent most of his life chasing her, and she’d spent most of hers running.
Tester and Tye growled, but with a look from Milly, dropped to their knees. “You’ve killed enough people today, haven’t you Tye?” Milly said. If he hadn’t provoked the man, Peter would still be alive.
A man wearing jungle camouflage head-to-toe emerged from the forest with the fanciest gun Milly had ever seen held before him. He leveled the weapon at each of them and examined Peter’s corpse. “Too bad you morons don’t understand English. I don’t like shooting clean folk.” He picked up Peter and Kat’s guns and put them in a bag and slung it over a shoulder. “I knew that little girl would lead me to something.” He looked around. “Say, where is that little thing with the long black hair?”
It was then that Milly noticed Hansa had slipped away again, and it made her happy on several levels. She was safer away from this nightmare, and it wouldn’t bother Milly one bit if she never laid eyes on the girl again. Hansa had inadvertently led this psycho to them and then disappeared as fast as she had reappeared. Perhaps the girl was bad luck.
A zombie sprang forward at Robin, but didn’t reach her. Their captor yelled and brandished a small black box. The monster screeched, and fell to the ground, thrashing about in pain just short of its prey. “You lost soul piece of shit,” the man said. “Been shocking that fuckwit for years and he still doesn’t get it. The dogs caught-on in a week.” The zapped viral stared at the man with cold hatred, slime and blood dripping from its mouth, eyes as big as bottle caps.
“I’m Sargent Maxwell, but my grunts call me Axe.” The man’s thick black beard hung to his chest, and it was beaded with gold and silver filled teeth. “These virus-ridden maggots are like owning wolves. Even with the juice collars. They’ll take a jolt to get a bite out of you.”
He approached Tester, who trembled with fury. “That your girl?”
Tester said nothing. Blood dripped from his clenched fists.
“You military?”
Tester said nothing and Axe moved on to Tye. “Big blackie. You were definitely military. A real thoroughbred. Might be racist but all that hard work slaving made you physically superior. Except in this case, I got this. My trusty M4 carbine.” Axe caressed the rifle.
“Little blackie and the Beaver,” he said to Jerome and Ingo, and moved on to Robin, who he sniffed, but continued on without saying anything. When he got to Milly, he stared as if in a dream. He reached out his hand and caressed her face with the back of his hand. Milly wept, tears leaking down her cheeks. Axe didn’t appear to notice as he examined her.
“Adaline,” Axe said. “Is it you?”
“Who is Adaline?” Milly said.
“My daughter. You…” He held out h
is hand again.
In her peripheral vision she saw Tye and Tester moving closer, but Axe lifted the rifle casually and fired a ribbon of bullets into the ground before them.
“Please don’t kill them,” Milly said. “Adaline doesn’t want you to.”
Axe swung the gun across his chest until it was pointed at Milly’s head. Tears streamed down Axe’s face, and his eyes burned like cinders. “What did you say?”
“Adaline wouldn’t want you to,” Milly said.
The slight modification appeased him, and Axe lowered the weapon. “You’re Adaline. Don’t mess with me Adie,” Axe said.
“Sorry,” Milly said.
Axe smiled. “Today is your lucky day assholes. Because my daughter Adaline wants you spared, you will live.” He pulled rope from his pack. “You, the tall one with the long greasy hippie hair. What’s your name?”
Nobody answered.
Axe brought up the M4 and pointed it at Tye.
“I’m Tester.”
“Well, Tester. Tie up your friends.”
Milly walked next to Axe, followed by Tye and the rest of the party who were strung together, wrists bound. They were surrounded by the forlorn souls of the infected, and their stench turned Milly’s stomach. At her insistence, Axe had agreed to allow four of the diseased to stay behind and bury Kat and Peter. Axe wanted to leave them to the birds, but had explained to the group that his daughter was kind hearted, even in a time when kind hearts got crushed. Once Axe was gone and the threat of shock no longer applied, her dead friends were probably hog chow, but what choice did she have? Axe had insisted she shouldn’t worry, and that he told his slaves he’d check, and they’d be shitting blood for a month from all the juice he’d put into them if they didn’t do as he’d asked. Milly didn’t think the half-dead people understood.
“Axe, I’m not…”
“Call me dad,” Axe said.
The man’s delusion was full on, but it seemed to calm him, make him less erratic. He hadn’t shot and killed anything since Milly had taken the starring role of Adaline. “Dad, can you let my friends go? Please? I’ll stay, but they need to go.”
“No,” Axe said. “Don’t mention it again. They’ll live in the old fort and I won’t hear no more about it. You wanted them alive. They’re alive, but they’re your responsibility. You’ve got to clean up after them. Get their food. It’s no picnic. You sure you want them?”
“I just want to go,” she pleaded. “Why can’t you let us do that? What do you want?”
“I want my daughter close, and if she needs pets, so be it. I can’t let your friends go because they’d try to rescue you, and they’d tell others about the compound. Then I’d have all kinds of assholes up here trying to take my shine,” Axe said.
Milly deflated like a balloon.
“Don’t fret. It won’t be that bad. I got good food, safe place to sleep, and you can play with your pets. You might like it.”
“If I don’t?” Milly said.
“They die,” he said. Milly stiffened and didn’t bend. “They die in a horrible way with you watching.” He nodded toward the infected. “You get my meaning? Ever watch a wolf cub tear into meat for the first time? In case you don’t get the analogy, you’re the meat.”
They walked for hours and long into the night. Milly’s feet ached but Axe refused to rest or stop. His slaves fanned out around them in the undergrowth and constantly communicated via whistles and shouts. Before dawn, a tall brick wall rose out of the underbrush and Axe turned right and followed its base. They came to a large metal door set in concrete, above which a sign read Pass Christian Armory Service Entrance. Axe produced a large ring full of keys and made a show of twirling it on his finger. He unlocked the door, and they passed inside. A warren of hallways lay beyond.
“Say your goodbyes,” Axe said. He opened a side door and motioned for Milly to go in. “You’ll see your friends in the morning. Don’t worry.”
Milly stepped into the dark room and the door closed behind her with a clang.
“Sweetie I want you to pay close attention now. What I’m telling you will determine how happy your life can be, and how long that life will last,” Axe said. “Put this on.” He tossed her a sack and Milly put it over her head. She felt him near her, then the cold steel of handcuffs on her wrists.
They left her cell and Axe guided her through several turns, and they went outside. She felt a cool breeze, and her hood lightened from black to blue as sunlight hit it. The clang of a large door lock opening, followed by the creak of a metal hinge. The door closed with a rush of air, and Axe pulled her hood off, but left her cuffed.
He held three keys before her. “This is an old school armory. One key is for the door we just came through. Come on,” he said.
He led her down a long brick hallway with abandoned lighting fixtures running down the center of the ceiling. They reached a fork in the passageway. Axe said, “Your friends are to the left. The unclean ones are kept to the right. I gave your friends full access to the courtyard.” He turned left and stopped when he came to another door. This one was made of wood and set into the concrete wall. He lifted the second of the three keys and unlocked the door. He had to push hard on it to open it a crack and they slipped through, and he closed it behind them.
Axe lit a torch, and they made their way through a maze of rooms before coming to another door at the end of a long hallway. He raised the third and final key. “This one opens this door. Your friends are beyond it. You get three hours each day. Bring them that food there,” he said. A crate of supplies rested next to the door. “I gathered it for you today, but starting tomorrow, it will be your job.”
Milly nodded.
“The second of two keys for your handcuffs hangs on a hook just inside this door. See that up there? The cut in the stone?”
She nodded.
“When your three hours are up, you leave the handcuff key with your friends, put on the cuffs, and come back through this door. Lock it behind you and walk up the hall. I’ll be watching to make sure you’re alone and the cuffs are on.”
She nodded again.
“When not with your friends, you’re free within the boundaries of the compound. While you’re free, the three door keys will be hidden in separate places. If you kill me, or otherwise hurt me, you won’t be able to get food and water to your pets and they’ll die. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“And you understand this place is an armory, and there’s no way you can break your friends out?”
She nodded.
“And that if your friends were to escape, I’d be forced to do something I don’t want to do,” he said.
Milly was still Milly, and she said in her best baby voice, “What’s that, daddy?”
He looked at the floor, then said, “Hurt you.”
Axe unlocked the door, opened it, and tossed her the third key. Milly picked up the supplies and passed through the door, closing and locking it behind her.
She found Tye, Robin, Jerome, Ingo, and Tester waiting.
“We’re screwed,” Milly said.
Chapter Nineteen
Year 2072, Respite
Hazel pressed against the bulkhead, tugging on a piece of fabric that was caught in a hatch that had been dogged down for longer than she’d been alive. Dust and rat droppings clung to her arms and hands as she struggled to free the material. It looked to be enough to make a new dress, and that made the blue and green fabric valuable. Four years prior a cyclone had churned the sea, turning and shifting the pieces of the Oceanic Eco, revealing new sections of the destroyed cruise ship that had never been scavenged.
The material started to rip and Hazel cursed, and Randy laughed. It had been his idea to crawl into the bowels of the wreckage, but somehow she’d ended up in the lead. “I can’t get it without ripping it. The bulkhead hatch is sealed.”
“Let me help,” Randy said. He squeezed next to her and for an uncomfortable minute the two of them were cr
ammed together, their faces inches apart. She felt his hot breath on her face and sputtered. Hazel felt him tense, and he squirmed forward, trying to get away from her. She felt the bulge in his pants as he pushed by, and she smiled. Boys and their uncontrollable bodies.
The hatch creaked as it swung open a crack and Randy scrambled through. “Wow,” he said. “It’s untouched in here.”
Hazel worked her way through the opening and found Randy trying to strike a flame with a rock and metal shard. The sound of the metal clicking on the stone echoed throughout the hollowed-out steel of the Eco and sparks skittered into blackness. Tightly wrapped palm fronds caught, and the cabin filled with orange flickering light.
Dust moots rose as they moved about the cabin, which clearly hadn’t been touched since The Day. Most of the fabrics had deteriorated to nothing—the bedspread, sheets, pillows—but there were a few shirts and pants still useable in the closet. They stripped the cabin of wire and metal, saying nothing as they worked. The salvage from this room would fetch a high price at trade market, and Hazel was already thinking about what she’d do with the strange case she found. It was leather and contained nothing except an odd device she thought might be a small computer. When she slid the on button, nothing happened. She tapped against the numerical keypad. Nothing.
Randy led Hazel back through the hatch, pushing the bag of bounty before him. Randy’s flame had gone out, and darkness filled the passageway. They walked on the ceiling because this section of the Eco was upside-down in the surf. The sound of water lapping against the broken hull resonated throughout the corridor and made Hazel’s hackles rise. The Eco’s remains were in the shoals, and all it would take was opening the wrong hatch, or moving in a way that shifted the wreckage, and they’d be in deep trouble.
Salty sweat stung Hazel’s eyes, and her back hurt from climbing. They hadn’t gone far when Randy stumbled over a grate covering an air duct. “I can fit in there,” he said.
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