by Connor Mccoy
“It’s not an advantage to us if he learns something that gives them the edge and then he takes it to them,” Angelica said.
“I am still sitting here,” Glen said. “You could try talking to me instead of about me.”
“You’ve cost me enough,” Terror said, his anger rising.
“You had to come here and disrupt everything.” He glared at Glen, willing the rage to subside. He knew that if he lost it here, he would lose all his credibility. This man had saved his life, and he owed him a debt of honor.
“You should leave now before I kill you.” He stood up, enjoying the feeling of power he had towering over the man.
“You,” he said to Angelica, “escort him to the wall. Make sure he walks away and doesn’t come back.” He glanced at Glen. “If he does come back, shoot him.”
Angelica grabbed Glen by the arm, hauled him to his feet and dragged him from the room.
Terror dropped his head to the table. His head was pounding again.
Chapter Ten
Angelica led Glen out of the library and out onto the sidewalk. “You know, if it were me, you’d be dead,” she said. She walked quickly, and he had to quicken his pace to keep up.
“You’ve got to know I’m not with those other people. I never lived in this town.” Glen drew his eyebrows together. He had lost his jacket, and it was starting to feel cold. He supposed he should be happy he still had his flannel shirt and his shoes.
“Doesn’t matter,” Angelica said. “You clearly aren’t with us. You broke into our pharmacy, stole stuff. I would have killed you right then.”
“And why aren’t you killing me now?” he asked. “I can tell you want to.” Shut up, he told himself. Are you crazy? You’re putting ideas into her head.
“I do. I think letting you go is a major mistake.” She shook her head. “But I’m loyal. And if you die on my watch, I’ll lose his trust.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “So you get to live, this time. But if I catch you out there in the woods, all bets are off.”
Glen believed her and vowed to be far, far away before she came looking for him. He hoped the three youngsters never ran into this woman. She’d eat them for lunch. Their chances of coming away intact from an encounter with her were slim. Her hand was curling and uncurling around the hilt of the knife she had in a sheath hanging from her belt. She wanted to use it, that was for sure.
They walked in silence along the road that led to Main Street. Glen wondered where Christian, Mia, and Sally were. Hopefully, far away from here. Maybe they had headed north like they’d had planned before they had met him. That would be good. Although the thought of never seeing them again gave him a strange feeling. He’d gotten used to them over the last few days. He felt responsible for them, which was crazy. They’d crashed on him.
He thought about Christian’s wounds and wondered again if he’d asked one of the girls to slash him. Although, if that was the case, surely, she’d taken her job a little too seriously. Of course, he could have injured himself. It would be hard to control the amount of force you’d need to plunge a knife into your own gut. A shiver went down his spine. He didn’t even like to think about it.
People were watching them walk down Main Street. They stood on their porches or in the doorways of the shops. Children watering their gardens stopped to stare, one boy so engrossed that he didn’t notice he was watering the ground at his feet instead of the plants. Glen stretched his fingers into a wave without raising his hand, so Angelica wouldn’t see, and the boy tentatively waved back. Children were the same the world over, he thought.
He saw a line of men and women with gunshot wounds waiting to be seen by the doctor. Or at least that’s what he assumed they were doing. They looked pained, and many of them were holding bloodstained clothes to the bullet holes in their bodies. The more seriously injured likely already were being treated. He hoped the doctor wasn’t drunk today, or more people would lose their lives due to incompetence.
He wondered if he should offer to help treat the wounded. It would be ages before the doctor got to these people waiting in the street. He turned to Angelica, “Let me treat them. These people are in pain and losing blood. I could cut down the amount of time they have to wait.”
“Forget it.” She eyed him curiously. “Always a doctor before anything else. Isn’t that true? Unfortunately for you, I was told to get you out of this town, and that’s what I plan to do. You can go treat your own people.”
He wondered what she meant. Oh, yes. She was inferring he was connected to the other side. He didn’t bother to correct her. There wasn’t any point. Even if she believed him, she was going to keep up the fiction of his involvement with the settlement. It was such a waste of time and energy. He could be helping these people here.
They passed the pharmacy, where something seemed to be going on. There was a crew of people exiting with cleaning supplies, and a knot of men in earnest conversation standing in the street. One of them waved his hand toward the pharmacy, and his voice became a squeak. But Glen could not hear what he was saying. Something had them worked up. That was clear.
Then they were passing the grassy mall and the fountain where he’d killed the woman. That was going to haunt him for a while. Why had he thought she was aiming at him? It was so clear in hindsight that she’d been focused on a target much farther off the ground than himself. He looked away from Town Hall and hoped he never came to this town again. He did not want to be reminded that he had taken the life of a person who’d never meant him harm.
Finally, they came to the wall across the road that separated the town from the outer world. There was a gate here. Angelica unlocked it and held it open for him.
“I suggest you just keep moving,” she said. “Like I said, if I catch you around here, your life is over.” She looked at the sky.
“Night’s coming. Better find yourself some cover if you don’t want to be picked off. Our side, their side, common criminals. Plenty to be watching for.” She closed the gate behind him. “Too bad you don’t have anyone to keep watch while you sleep. The road’s a dangerous place.”
He started walking and didn’t look back. No reason to tell Angelica that he wasn’t planning on using the road. He’d stick to it until he reached the forest and then cut over to the path they’d come in on, head up to the top and back toward home. The road was not part of his plan at all.
He felt eyes on his back, a crawling sensation between his shoulder blades, and a voice in his head screaming at him to run. But he stayed steady. Walking with purpose, but not speed. You couldn’t call what he was doing a saunter, but he wasn’t running away. Nice and regular, and just keep breathing.
But the tingling sensation in the center of his back was hard to resist, and it was all he could do not to break into a run.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the edge of the woods. Another 100 yards and he’d be out of sight, even if someone had followed him out of the gate. He didn’t think they’d pursue him into the forest, where he potentially could ambush them. He thought they were smarter than that.
But he started to run just in case. He wanted to be far enough ahead when he left the road that they wouldn’t know where he had gone. He jogged a few minutes and then risked a look back. There was no one behind him, so he jumped the shallow ditch and ran into the undergrowth beneath the trees, feeling the beginning of hope. He might just make it out of this after all.
It wasn’t long before he began climbing the slope to the top of the bluff. He just kept going, as straight up the hill as possible. He was bound to run into the game trail, sooner or later, if he just kept moving. The higher he went, the more his spirits lightened. He almost couldn’t believe he was going to survive this. And there was the game trail, another win. He stepped onto it and continued uphill.
Dusk was approaching when he started looking for the trail that would lead him southeast, toward home. He had hoped he’d get farther away from the town, but there was no po
int in traveling at night without a light. He could end up breaking a leg. There still was enough ambient light when he reached the fork in the trail to keep going. As long as he could make out the features of the path, he could keep moving,
But then suddenly there was something in his way. A dark silhouette that began as a mass, but then resolved itself into individuals. Several large men blocking his way. How could the town people get here before him?
He heard a sound and turned to see another group closing in from behind him. He thought briefly about running uphill through the trees, but he was almost guaranteed to end up injuring himself. The roots of trees, bushes, brambles, he wouldn’t be able to see any of it in the undergrowth. So, he stood still, the hope draining from him, and waited to be captured and taken back to town to be executed.
A flashlight shone in his face and a voice he didn’t recognize asked him who he was.
“Glen Carter,” he said, and wondered if he should give more of an explanation.
“And what are you doing in these woods, Glen Carter?” The voice was low and resonant, and Glen thought he might have liked this man, given other circumstances.
“I am heading back to my home south of here,” he said.
“And where are you heading home from?” There was no impatience, just matter of fact information gathering.
“I was in the town.” He was beginning to think he should just tell the whole story rather than make this man ask a million questions.
“Were you in the town voluntarily?”
“No, I was not. I was captured trying to steal medicine from the pharmacy. I think they wanted to keep me there because I am a trained doctor, but the leader didn’t trust me. He would have killed me, but I saved his life, so he felt honor bound to let me go. However, one of his generals told me that if they caught me in the woods, they would kill me. So, if that’s what you are here for, please get it over with. I’m tired.”
There was a murmur from behind him, and a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped forward.
“We are not from the town,” he said, “and I think you’d better come with us.”
“You aren’t taking him back to the settlement, Jonno?” It was a high, immature voice filled with anxiety.
“No, Beckett, I’m not going to take him home. But there are better places for questions than this. And we need Eric too.” Jonno turned his attention back to Glen. “Will you come with us, or do we have to force you?”
“I’ll come,” Glen said, trying a smile, but even he could tell it was weak. “You can’t be any worse than where I just was.”
They let him walk unmolested, leading him back the way they had come, but just when Glen thought they were taking him back to town, they split off of the main path onto a much narrower trail that wound along the side of the hill. He figured they were traveling roughly parallel to the road that ran through the town, maybe two miles from it. A mile of forest and a mile of the hill. Maybe. It probably wasn’t that even.
The one benefit was now that he was traveling in a group, he felt he was unlikely to be dragged back to the town and killed. And, as long as he cooperated, he was being treated like a human being. No ropes or gags. That was a plus. As they marched through the layers of leaves, he worried about his kids and where they might be. He hoped like hell they weren’t in the town.
An hour later they came to a barn in a clearing. It was lit with lanterns, and a couple of rings of hay bales had provided a place to sit in the middle of the barn. It looked like a backwoods version of Town Hall. There was a fire pit in the center of the ring, but no fire had been lit that night. The fires probably were reserved for celebrations, he thought.
Jonno waved a hand at the hay bales. “Take a seat,” he said. “It may take a while for Eric to arrive. I sent someone off to fetch him, but it’s a bit of a hike.”
“Can you tell me why you attacked the town, while we’re waiting? I’d like to know your story.” He also was hoping for an explanation that would ease the guilt he felt over killing the woman. Not that he was hopeful that he’d get it. It would have to be one fantastic story to take away the remorse he felt over that.
“We needed supplies and food,” Jonno said. “It was a raiding party.”
“That was a lot of firepower for a raiding party,” Glen said. “I thought it was some kind of vendetta.”
“You’d be at least partly right in thinking so.” Jonno sat on a bale adjacent to Glen’s.
“We used to live in that town. Terror, he calls himself, he came roaring into town one day in a convoy of jeeps and pickups, kills a bunch of the men. Anyone who had the balls to go up against him gets shot. He runs all the lawmen out of town, sheriffs and town police both. Once we figured out who he was gunning for, we grabbed our families and took off. All the officers, firefighters, anyone with any authority. He offered to let the female officers and firefighters stay, but none of them would. They could see what kind of man he was.
“One of the guys had a farm outside of town, so that’s where we settled. And we’ve done okay, for the most part. But we don’t have a supply of medicine, and we run low on fresh food. They didn’t offer us any of the power generating gear they had stolen. They kept it all for themselves, didn’t they?” He rubbed an eyebrow. “Truthfully, we’d probably raid the town every so often, even if we didn’t need anything. One of these days, we’ll run those posers out.”
“So, that’s your town,” Glen said softly. “They told me you’d left voluntarily.”
“Yeah, he’d want you to believe that, wouldn’t he? No, he ran us out of town, and he would have kept our families, but they saw what was what and snuck away that first day before there was any kind of real security system set up. My wife, Louise, she led the exodus. Spirited the children away in a garden cart covered in clippings. Told the soldiers that she needed to mulch some crops. My Weezy, she has such an innocent face, she took in all those tough men. I hear there were raging tempers when the big men found out. I’m damn proud of my Louise.” Jonno grinned.
“How many families got free?” Glen asked.
Jonno shot him a look. “You are a curious man, Glen Carter. I hope you aren’t planning to betray us.”
“No, I really am just curious. You don’t have to tell me anything. But having just barely gotten out of that town alive, I can sympathize with you. I’m only alive because of a fluke in his character. He can’t act in a way he believes is dishonorable. At least until he’s discovered that’s the only way he’ll get what he wants.”
“Yes, I believe you speak the truth. Tyrell is an unstable man. And his generals are worse. That woman, Angelica, is ruthless and cruel. That she let you walk away is a miracle. I would have expected her to shoot my legs out from under me as I walked away.” Jonno shook his head. “No, you are lucky to be alive.”
“I can’t disagree with that,” Glen said. “Walking away from her I could feel her eyes on my back. I didn’t dare to turn and look, but I was so thankful when I was finally out of sight.”
Christian opened the door into the big building, letting Sally slip through, then Mia followed. They waited as he came through and rolled the door closed. The interior looked like an old tire warehouse. In the shadowy light huge racks loomed above them, mostly empty, but here and there a set of tires still rested in their cradles. It was cold and dusty and didn’t look like it had been used in a very long time.
“I can think of a hundred uses for a building like this.” Christian crossed to a set of tires resting at eye level and ran a hand down one of them. “And yet they leave it completely unused. It’s a waste.”
Mia followed him down the center aisle. For some reason, Sally had gone to look behind a big panel van that probably had been used to haul tires. Mia guessed she was looking for likely hiding places, but she thought they probably should leave the town. They could stake it out from the woods, maybe get a glimpse of Glen and discover where they were holding him. She didn’t like this town. It seemed like a trap t
o her.
Sally made a startled noise, and Mia turned back to see what was up. She found her around the front of the truck, gazing upward. Mia raised her eyes and gasped. There was half a village of people hanging from the girders. From the looks of it, whole families had been hauled up to die from hanging. There was a woman, Mia assumed the mother, surrounded by three children and a fourth in her arms. She somehow had reached the dying child and pulled it to her. But it had died anyway, there in her arms.
Mia turned away and bumped into Christian, who had been standing behind her. “It’s awful,” she said.
“Come away,” Christian said. And then louder, “Come away, Sally, there is nothing you can do here.”
Sally came, but she looked dazed. “Why would anyone do that?” she asked. “Kill entire families? Mothers and their children? My God.”
“I think we should get out of this town,” Mia said. “They’ll kill us if we get caught.”
“I agree,” Christian said. “We should go back to the woods and watch for Glen from there. Or maybe we could get up high in a church steeple or something. We could see what was going on from up high.”
“I don’t care,” Sally said. “But I need to get out of this building. I just want to throw up now.”
“Come on, Sal,” Mia said, leading her farther down the center aisle again. “We’ll cut through and get out on the other side.”
She secretly was hoping that once they were at the other end of the building, Sally would be able to tolerate staying hidden here until darkness fell. It was not smart to wander around the town during daylight. Especially since the gunfire seemed to have receded, and the townspeople could come out of their hiding places now. It would be so easy to get caught.
A noise like a hammer being dropped stopped them in their tracks, and then Christian drew them over near the racks to stand in the shadows. But no one appeared, so they started forward again and finally reached a door. Christian cracked it open, but it didn’t lead to the outside. Beyond it was an office space, and what might have been a sales display/waiting room. There were a few chairs scattered about, along with posters and odd tires that might have been on display.