Land of the Dead (Rise of the Empaths Book 2)

by A. S. Hames

  “Look,” Ben says.

  Up ahead. Two cattle.

  “Can we kill one?” Zu says.

  “We could,” Ax says, “but we might have trouble explaining it to the farmer, especially if he’s armed.”

  We continue past the cattle and I keep Von close to me. I can see him casting a glance at them. I try to get a sense of him, and I do a little… he’s hungry… he’s frustrated.

  As it is, the running creek we enjoyed a while back comes around and crosses our path to reveal its source as the northern mountains. There’s a small bridge to get us across – the first built structure we’ve seen on the eastern trail.

  On the other side, we’re faced with a small sign. It doesn’t say Purity though. Or Town 775. Just a single word in black.

  CRYSTAL

  A few hundred yards ahead, beyond the creek’s flood patch, surrounded by a raised earthen barrier, a small settlement sits at the foot of some low hills. They’ve even cut a channel from the creek to take water into the town. I’d call it civilization. I’m just glad we didn’t shoot one of their animals.

  “I’ll go see if they’re friendly,” I say. “But if they’re not…”

  I open the pack and take some bullets to load two guns.

  “I’m sure they’ll be good people,” Ben says. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” Ax says. “We only need one of us to make contact.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, tucking the guns into my waistband.

  “If anything goes wrong,” Ax says, “we’ll wait till dusk then carry on.”

  That quietens the mood further.

  “The map says to go straight east,” I tell them. “Once you’re past those hills, you should find the southbound trail.”

  I hand the pack to Ben and ruffle Von’s head. I sense something from both of them, but this is not the time to think about it.

  It’s a short walk across ground that must flood every time the northern mountains have rain or snow melts. I can imagine it all tumbling downriver. Up ahead and off to the right, the south-eastern hills are lit in a magical way by the low sun at the other end of this long, lonely valley. What a strange place to live.

  I take a track leading over the earthen ramparts and approach a man in a straw hat. He’s so busy fixing a wooden gate outside a whitewashed house, he hasn’t seen me.

  “Hello,” I say.

  He puts his tools down and turns.

  “Hello there,” he says. With the low sun in his eyes, he’s squinting.

  “Are you with the Nation?” I ask.

  “I’m no one’s enemy, if that’s what you mean. I’m Ross Chambers, crop farmer and rancher.”

  I can only think the obvious – another strange name. There’s something else too. I’ve seen animals ready themselves for a storm long before anyone gets to see the bad weather that’s coming. They can smell it in the air. Right now, I smell a strong atmosphere of fear, like it’s in the air around Crystal. He’s scared, but it’s not me he’s scared of.

  “Can you spare some food?” I ask. “I have money.”

  I show him twelve cents.

  “I can’t. Why are you here?”

  “Are you sure you can’t spare any food? We’re starving.”

  “You’re in the wrong place, soldier. You should leave.”

  He goes back to his work, taking a little more wood out of a hinge recess, but there’s definitely something in the air. I try to get a sense of him… and I do sense fear and anxiety. And something else… expectation? I could be wrong about that.

  I put my money away and wonder about my next move.

  “Do you know Flight Officer Charles G Kellerman, AF Base, Skyview, South State? “

  “Who are you, exactly?” he asks without stopping. I think he’s taking that top recess a little too deep. He’ll have the gate on a tilt.

  “Jay-Ruth Two-Five,” I tell him. “My friends call me Jay.”

  “We had a Two-Five come through a week ago. Or was it a Four-Five? Your names all sound the same, like they’ve been spat out by an arithmetic teacher.”

  “The Nation is at war,” I say. “And this is meant to be Town 775, Purity. And you haven’t answered my question – do you know Flight Officer Charles G Kellerman?”

  “Listen,” he says, pointing his chisel, “I don’t know any flight officers. I mean I’ve seen the damned things fly over. Damned big hornets, if you ask me…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m just a farmer. I try to concentrate on that.”

  He turns and resumes over-cutting the hinge.

  “Why did the town change its name?” I ask.

  “We had a vote a week ago,” he says, like it’s normal. He uses a wooden rule to check his hinge cut. It’s only going to tell him he’s messed up.

  “A vote to change the town’s name?”

  “A vote to leave the Nation.”

  I feel the moss green tunic tied around my waist.

  “Do you know of any rebels operating in this area?”

  “This is Crystal, Eastern Freedom Country. We don’t consider anyone rebels.” He points back the way I came. “The Nation ends eighty miles back down the Empty Valley in West Freedom Country. At least, that was the situation last week. It’s probably gone to hell by now.”

  I don’t like his off-hand manner. “You haven’t answered the question. Are there any rebels?”

  “What you call rebels are East State troops camped not far off and you’re a long way into what you should be thinking of as enemy territory. If I feed you, they’ll shoot me.”

  What are East State troops doing here? I feel like I’ve walked into a trap of my own creation.

  “You should go,” he says. “They’ll be along soon for their eggs and bread. If they find you with a gun, you’re as good as dead.” He looks around, as if to make sure no one’s listening in. “Personally, I don’t mind if you shoot a few of them. In one week, they’ve killed nearly all my livestock. I’ll have nothing left soon.”

  I notice something. I’ll be damned. Heading my way are three armed men in uniform, and their tunics are a buff color like stripped pine wood.

  “Hey!” one of these buffs calls. “Stay there.”

  They raise their guns.

  I can’t stay so I run.

  Krak! Krak!

  I pull out a gun and return fire.

  Krak! Krak!

  Bullets zing through the air, but now I’m heading down the earthworks and onto lower ground. I reckon I have ten, maybe fifteen seconds to get clean across or these buffs will be shooting at me for fun. But my stupid legs don’t seem to work too well. My heart is giving everything but it’s like someone’s replaced my blood with heavy syrup.

  “Ax! Ben!” I call. “Zu!” I don’t see them. “Ax! Ben! For God’s sake!”

  A shot comes in so close to my foot that I leap and fall and sprawl and I can only wonder where the hell they are and why the hell we ever came looking for a town called Purity.

  I scramble to my feet and continue running, even though my ankle hurts and one of John Davis Carson’s guns has fallen out of my waistband. I keep going. I still have the other gun, although it only has three or four bullets left in it.

  I’m short of reaching the bridge when I hear my name. It’s a distant call. I look east. There they are! Two hundred yards away. They must have decided to keep going in case things went badly, which now seems a smart decision.

  Krak!

  I reach the trail. It’s not so rutted and I can run a lot easier. Only I’ll have to dash across the line of fire with my enemy closing on me with every step. That’s certain death, so I cross the trail and dive flat into a shallow dip. I scramble to face the danger and wonder how to ration my bullets.

  Krak!

  Ben is shooting. Good ol” Ben. Ax joins in too. Three firing on three and the buffs have no cover. They’re not stupid, so they pull back.

  “Yeah, run you cowards!” I yell.


  I haul myself up and hurry to the others. When I reach them there are no greetings.

  “There are more camped somewhere nearby,” I warn them. I’m looking down the eastern trail and wondering if we can reach the crossroads before we’re caught. But Ax is looking elsewhere.

  “If we cut through the hills, we’ll join the southbound trail farther down.”

  He’s right. Going over the hills with little energy wasn’t the plan, but the flatter, easier eastern trail to the north-south junction is too dangerous now. The hills might be tough on us, but there will be cover.

  For a moment, I wonder about flying like a hornet. Is that really possible? I shut the thought down. If we don’t get to higher ground fast, we’re as good as dead.

  9. Buffs

  BEN

  As we head across the open ground to the east of Crystal, the locals watch us. They don’t say or do anything, so we can at least be glad they’re neutral. But the three buffs are coming back around the other side of the settlement. They’re coming after us again.

  This is okay. We’ll soon be above them in hilly terrain.

  Except…

  Zu is hobbling and struggling to keep up, so I stop, even though my fear is bubbling up like a winter stew.

  “Don’t wait for me,” she says.

  I wait for Ax and we help her up the incline anyway.

  “Hurry,” Jay says. She’s stopped twenty yards on with Von and I’m thinking they shouldn’t hang around for us.

  “Keep going,” I call, but they stay where they are.

  We soon reach them and we all move farther into the hills. Now we can find a good spot and wait. If our enemy comes after us, we’ll fight with the advantage on our side.

  “My gun jammed,” Zu says. “Back when we were firing.”

  That doesn’t help much.

  “Here,” Ax says, giving her a spare.

  “How’s your foot?” I ask.

  “It’s fine. I went over on my ankle a little. It won’t stop me. I won’t let it.”

  I’m sure she has the child-sergeant in mind, hobbling around in some distant forest. But she doesn’t seem anywhere as bad. Even so, I’m betting she would like a day or two to rest up. It’s a shame we can’t give her that.

  Death is a real possibility now, but we’re in good spirits. We’re also in a state of readiness to fight as we face the final hour of daylight in our rocky hiding place.

  “Glad you came?” I ask Jay.

  She gives me a resigned little smile and I wonder if I’m wrong to make a joke.

  “I am,” Zu says.

  I give her a little nod.

  Ax stays out of it.

  We wait. And we wait. Then, with dusk not far off, and the thinnest crescent of a waning moon on the rise, we guess the buffs aren’t coming after us. Maybe they didn’t like the odds being stacked up on our side. I can’t say that’s been the case too many times since we boarded that train way back north of here.

  Feeling encouraged, we haul ourselves to the top of the hill and start down the other side. If we’re lucky we should reach the southbound trail before it’s dark. My hopes begin to rise. If we could get a few miles…

  “Campfires,” Jay says from just ahead of me.

  Damn. They’re everywhere. Even in poor light it’s possible to make out maybe two hundred soldiers camped below us.

  “I reckon we could crawl around the edge,” Ax says.

  “Okay,” Jay says, “but a moss green tunic is going to be harder to see than a shirt.”

  We put our tunics on and, for me, it’s like a warrior preparing. And I suppose that’s what we’re meant to be, even though we only seem to be good for running and hiding.

  “Ready?” Jay asks.

  Ax and I nod. Zu shoves her straw hat up inside her tunic.

  “Ready,” she says.

  “Okay,” Jay says. “I’ll go first.

  “Stay close, Von,” Zu says.

  We get down on all fours and Jay leads us off. A yard at a time. Stopping, looking, and setting off again. Except the looking part is pointless because it’s getting too dark to see anything. Ten yards on, my face gets scratched by a scrubby bush. I feel my way round it but come to realize it’s a clump of bushes. I try another way but it gets worse.

  We retrace our route and try again, with Ax leading. We get as far as two men talking about hunting. We crawl back.

  I whisper. “What if we wait till dawn? If we time it right, we’d be able to crawl straight through.”

  “Only if it was the faintest light,” Jay says.

  “It’s a camp,” Ax says. “They’ll have lookouts.”

  I don’t know what to say. If we crawl in the dark, we might trample over someone sleeping away from a camp fire. Then we’d be in trouble. But it would be a lot worse if we were caught as the light came up. At least in the dark, we might escape in the confusion. After all, the buffs aren’t going to start shooting.

  “Let’s try again,” I say.

  I lead us back toward the bushes, but I fail to find them – so I take a guess at east and head off that way. I reckon we get about thirty feet when someone sneezes twelve inches in front of me. I veer left and continue. A yard, two yards, three. Good, I’m clear.

  My hand lands on what feels like a foot.

  I freeze.

  “Hey, gerroff!” growls a man.

  “What’s up?” says another.

  “Quit messin’, stupid.”

  “Quit messin’ yourself.”

  I move away, merging with the night, silent and unseen. Judging by the direction of the voices, we need to veer left. But that would take us too near a camp fire. We’d be discovered. We can’t go straight because that’s what got us into this mess, and now I can hear a fresh voice over on the right. There’s a wagon there. With a couple of oil lamps lit.

  Jay comes up close.

  “We need to go back,” she says.

  JAY

  As I follow Ben, I feel Von’s breath on my face. Then he’s gone again. I’m at a loss. I wonder if Von sees better than me in the dark. Or is it just their sense of smell that’s better?

  I’m relieved when we reach the bushes, or at least some bushes.

  “That was close,” Ben says.

  “Too close,” I say. “Are you okay, Zu?”

  Zu doesn’t reply.

  “Ax…? Von…?”

  Nothing.

  “Oh great,” I say. “Okay, we’ll wait till first light.”

  And so we wait, Ben and me, in a shallow ditch by some bushes, on an open stretch of land, among God knows how many armed buffs, protected only by the darkness, and yet praying for the night to end.

  “So how far to Roadway Five?” he says, whispering straight into my ear. It makes me shiver.

  I put my mouth to his ear.

  “Forty or fifty miles due south. But first there’s a town called Tine. I can’t remember its number.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be having a number, Jay.”

  “No, I suppose not. You think we can make it?”

  “I do.”

  “Me too.”

  I lay down and close my eyes. I’m too scared and too hungry to sleep, so I wonder about home, about Ma, about marrying someone… and I wonder about surrendering and asking for mercy.

  I open my eyes. A group of rebels are nodding at me like I’m a friend. The sky is clear. There’s a children’s swing frame with a rope thrown over the high crossbar, and a there’s a stool for me to stand on. It’s just a little fun, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. While they tie my hands, I notice the film woman is already hanging. She’s dead but she’s able to speak from beyond death.

  “This is your fault,” she says.

  “No, it’s Colonel Steven Rose’s fault,” I say.

  “Everyone’s dead and it’s your fault,” she insists. “The devils under the ground are waiting for you, Jay-Ruth Two-Five.”

  A rebel ties a loop in the rope and places
it over my head… and then he tightens it around my neck.

  “I hear eternity’s a long time,” he says.

  I jolt awake. It’s pitch dark. I’m in a field surrounded by enemy troops. My stomach hurts. My hand hurts. My ankle hurts. My leg, back, and arms too. I try thinking how Pa and I used to look up at the stars. It doesn’t work.

  I’m growing short on believing in good outcomes. There’s a darkness spreading through me. My thoughts seem to have a new inhabitant. There’s me, as usual, and there’s some other thinker who knows all about bad things and will indulge in examining them in too much detail.

  I try to sleep, but there’s gunfire and I’m pushing and falling through a bedroom window toward the grass… while Ax sits nearby with Julia Longwood, who’s asking for him to please not cut out her organs because she’s an empath… just like him and that appalling sister of his.

  Sleep…

  But… a voice… in my head. No, not a voice – a presence. It’s there like a visitor to our house… but uninvited… and looking in all the rooms… all the cupboards…

  Jay…

  It’s trying to know me…

  I jolt again. Am I awake? Was that someone in my head? I think so. But who?

  BEN

  I open my eyes to a hint of gray in the eastern sky. I think I can make out men sleeping about ten feet away. I look for Ax, Zu, and Von, but I don’t see them.

  I nudge Jay.

  “Time to go,” I whisper.

  Judging by the slight delay in her response, I realize she was asleep. She’s awake now though.

  Just then, there’s movement. Someone is coming.

  A big nose pokes its way up to us.

  “Von, you big rug of fleas,” Jay whispers.

  Ax and Zu are coming up behind him. We’re ready.

  We cover maybe twenty yards when we reach the next ditch. No way would this make a place to hide once the sun is up. Jay taps me. She indicates up ahead. There are three men sitting up, awake. There’s no way past them. I point to the hills to our left.

  “It’s too open,” Ax says.

  He’s probably right. In fact, the only place we can safely get to in the next few minutes is a clump of low bushes beyond the bounds of the camp. We’ll be no nearer to escaping, but it will provide somewhere to hide. Who knows, maybe the rebels will break camp this morning and we can just walk away.