Nero clapped his hands in approval. Josie wasn’t looking at him, but she could sense that he was grinning in delight as well.
“Good!”
* * *
Josie was thrown down on the muddy street next to Roy. She rolled onto her back but was pressed down by the filthy boot of a militia member. A second later, the muzzle of an AK-47 was pressed against her cheek. She offered no resistance.
Ojo still had the blade of the machete pressed against the back of Roy’s neck.
“You may relax now, Ojo,” Nero commanded, standing amongst the militia with both arms folded.
“You promised me I would have my vengeance!” Ojo yelled without hesitation. “I told you multiple times I wanted the blood of this wretched bastard in exchange for my services!”
He was just so anxious to raise that machete and swing it down hard against Roy’s neck to complete his vowed revenge for the earlier death of his younger brother, Dominic. There was nothing he wanted more in the world than to kill Roy. To Ojo, killing Roy was now his life’s purpose. It was the only thing he could possibly do, in his mind, to show his dead brother that he truly cared for him and would do right by him. It was the only thing left worth living for in a world of instability and chaos.
“I promised you the opportunity,” Nero reminded Ojo. “In exchange for you and your companions joining my militia I promised food, water, shelter, access to medicine, and the opportunity to complete your revenge should it ever arise. And arise it did! But now circumstances have changed. These two serve me now just like you do. Killing one or both of them would be a waste of great significance, especially when you consider the heavy and unacceptable losses we’ve sustained over the past few days to get them. Do you understand?”
Ojo said nothing, the furious energy building and raging inside of him, as he kept a firm two-handed grip over the machete. His opportunity to kill Roy was right now, but doing so would surely mean sacrificing his own life after a long and torturous death at the hands of the militia members, for he knew how cruel Nero could be when he wanted or needed to be.
“You know I will ask a question or give orders twice if I have to, Ojo,” said Nero. “But never do I ask or give orders a third time. So I give you the order a second time now: relax.”
A few tense seconds passed, but they felt more like minutes if not entire hours to everyone else standing around there.
But finally, Ojo let go of the machete with one hand, and then with the other, he reluctantly lifted it away from the back of Roy’s neck and took a few spaces back to put some distance in between himself and the man he hated with a fiery passion.
A true opportunity to avenge Dominic’s death would come later, Ojo decided. It just wouldn’t be now.
“Good, good, Ojo,” said Nero calmly with the same sort of approval he had shown Josie just mere minutes before. “I always knew you would make me a good soldier, despite the grave misgivings of my chief lieutenant.”
Nero was referring to the Grizzled Man with the long black leather coat and eye patch who stood off to the side. He was always clearly in charge and running the show until Nero would physically appear on the scene, in which case he would simply go silent and observe events rather than take part in them, almost as if he was embarrassed to be subservient to a much younger man of higher rank or status like Nero.
Nero then turned to the Grizzled Man and ordered: “Have him taken to the infirmary to get that leg wound healed. I want him physically ready to be taking part in the missions in a week.”
Unlike Nero, the Grizzled Man did not have to be told twice. He immediately pointed to two men, who came forth to lift up Roy under his arms and then drag him away to the infirmary.
Josie watched her husband being taken. As he was being dragged away, his sorrowful eyes met Josie’s. It was for the first time in her life that Josie had seen the look of surrender and despair on Roy’s face. For the first time, he had actually given up.
“And as for you…” Nero’s voice shook Josie out of her little trance watching Roy as he stood over her. “You already are physically ready to be taking part in the missions. Therefore, I think it’s time for you to meet your new mentor.”
Chapter 35
This time Josie was brought into one of the rooms of another of the cabins. She was forcefully led in by two militia members who simply shoved her in and then shut and locked the door behind her.
Josie took advantage of being alone to step over to the window and peer outside between the window curtains for a better look of the town.
It was a previously abandoned ghost town that had likely been built in the early 1900s. There were several cabin-sized homes, in addition to a couple of larger general stores, one of which clearly had been converted into Nero’s headquarters as she saw Nero and the Grizzled Man stepping into it with two armed guards standing outside.
Multiple tents of varying types had been erected throughout or around the town as well to help house the members of the population. There were also a few more buildings currently under construction, being built of chopped down logs. These incomplete buildings looked to be of larger size than the cabins; Josie immediately guessed that they would either be used for storage or for housing even more people.
Portions of the perimeter to the town, from what Josie could see from her position, were well defended and fortified with trenches, foxholes, and even some makeshift bunkers built out of earth and logs. There were even sections of a wall that were in the middle of being built as well.
Most of the men and several of the women, Josie could tell, were a part of the armed militia, and several were patrolling the outskirts of the town. It was clear that having strong security and a viable fighting force was a big priority for Nero. If you were physically able to walk long distances and carry and shoot a weapon, you were a part of the militia, Josie guessed.
Many of the older men and women, however, were entering and exiting the tents and buildings, cleaning dishes, repairing guns, or sewing. Just outside of the town, Josie could also see the edge of a large field of crops to which multiple older people were tending.
There were a handful of children of varying ages in the town as well. The younger children were running around and playing, though the older kids had clearly been given tasks and responsibilities like all of the adults.
All in all, Josie deduced that there must be at least a few hundred people in the town, over half of whom must have been in the militia. After all, Nero had sent no less than forty armed militia members after her, Roy, Jon, Alex, and Ben. Capturing all of them had obviously been a big priority for him. The more soldiers he had, the better.
And that was exactly what Josie couldn’t figure out. Nero had previously told her directly that he wanted her, Roy, and the other members of the group to serve him in his militia.
But why did he need them? Josie couldn’t help but wonder. He already had a couple hundred armed men and women in his militia right now. Why did he feel he needed more to the point that he would send a sizable percentage of his fighting force after them? Why was he willing to sacrifice no less than a dozen members of his militia for them? It just didn’t make any logical sense, but perhaps Nero simply wasn’t a logical person.
Was it because his militia wasn’t well trained and he wanted better fighters? Was it because he somehow knew who Josie and Roy were? What was the reason? It perplexed Josie to the point that it was already giving her a headache.
Josie had tried to watch Roy as he was being dragged away so she could have seen where they had taken him, but after the militia men had picked her up and forced her into the cabin she had lost all sight of him. Nero had mentioned taking him to the infirmary, but from her position Josie couldn’t see any building that clearly was a hospital of any kind.
At the same time, from this window she didn’t have a full view of the town either. There were no doubt many more buildings and tents around the area too.
Suddenly, Josie could hear the door to t
he room being unlocked behind her and she quickly shut the curtains and turned around.
The door opened and a middle-aged woman in camouflage stepped through and shut the door behind her. She had no visible weapons on her.
“Well, well, well, when they said they had captured a Josie, I could hardly believe my ears,” the woman said. “I thought for sure it must have been a different Josie than the one I knew.”
The woman looked up to look Josie eye-to-eye. Josie immediately recognized her: it was Laura from the military prison camp she had been at a few days before, the same Laura who had watched her back and given her advice on how to stay alive.
“Laura?” Josie asked.
“Thank god I’m not the only one who remembered,” Laura replied.
“How’d you end up here?” Josie blurted out, in half-disbelief that Laura was literally standing before her now.
Laura chuckled. “I’m sure you have many questions. But I’m pretty sure I ended up here the same way you did: you just can’t make it out there without being drawn like a magnet to where all the people are, right? Isn’t that how we both ended up at that hellhole of a military prison camp?”
“You were captured too?” Josie asked.
“Captured?” Laura was a little perplexed. “More like saved. You know, after you and that kid snuck away from the camp it made me wonder why I hadn’t tried that already. You were a little naive, I could tell, but you had guts. So I went for it a day after you did. And I made it.”
“And you just stumbled on in here?”
“Not exactly. Scavenged around with a few other desperate peeps until I ran into some of the militia. They brought me in, took me in I should say, and now I’m here to help you.”
Josie took in what Laura had told her. “I guess it was fate then.”
“Yeah, my older sister used to tell me that fate’s a bitch,” Laura remarked. “But now I realize it’s a thing of beauty. Like the universe has everything planned out for us already, you know? How else would have we coincidentally run into one another again? Anyway, what about you? Heard you put up a bit of a fight.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what you should do when people with guns you don’t know are trying to kill you,” Josie replied.
“Except they weren’t really trying to kill you,” Laura responded. “There’s a strict policy on that here. Only kill if you have to or in defense. The more members we bring into this community, the more we can grow, and the safer we’ll be.”
“Where’s Roy?”
“Oh, your husband? Last I saw he was being taken into the hospital. Don’t worry, we have a good doctor. I know he’s been well taken care of. Had a nasty wound on his leg, I saw that. That short tattooed guy, though, really has it out for him. I might be a little worried if he tried something.”
“The man who was holding the machete outside?”
“Yeah, him. He was brought in with two other guys a couple days ago. Gotta keep an eye on them. Too unpredictable for my tastes. I think his name is Oyo or Oho or Ojo or something crazy like that. I don’t know, I keep my distance.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” Josie asked.
“Nothing,” replied Laura. “Except everything. You’re a part of the community now. You’re given tasks and you complete them. You get food, security, medicine if you need it, and a warm place to sleep at night in return. Simple.”
Josie said nothing and sat down on the bed in the room, holding both of her hands together as if she were praying.
“Hey, I know how you must be feeling,” Laura approached closer to Josie. “It was a little strange for me too at first. But you’ll settle in soon enough. You’re a good fit. And I’m sure you have many questions. I can answer anything you want before I show you around the place.”
“How long will we be here for?” Josie asked after a moment, keeping her head down.
Laura shrugged. “There’s no contract. You just contribute and you get to live here. What more to it is there than that?”
“The guy with the eye patch,” Josie looked up. “Who is he?”
“Ah, Nero’s second-in-command, you mean,” Laura responded. “Afraid I don’t know his name. No one does, not even Nero. He just refers to him as his ‘lieutenant’ or ‘chief lieutenant.’ The rest of us? We call him Grizzly. Because what else do you see when you look at him?”
“What about Nero?” Josie asked. “How’d he end up with that kind of a name?”
“I know, it’s silly, right?” Laura chuckled. “His real name is rumored to be Patrick, that’s all I know. Never heard anything about his last name. Apparently Nero was the nickname he was given by everyone else when he first started putting together this little society we’re living in now. After the Roman emperor, you know?”
“Right,” Josie said. “Though I admit I’m not an exactly an expert on ancient Roman emperors.”
“I’m not either,” said Laura. “But I do know, from what I’ve read and heard, that Nero was young when he first took power in Rome, and that he was extraordinarily cruel too. Like the guy would watch you burn at the stake for entertainment if he didn’t like you or felt you posed a threat to his reign. I guess that’s a little extreme in comparison to this Patrick fella, if that is his real name, but you can still sorta see the similarities in a toned down sort of way. He’s attractive and nice when you meet him, almost intoxicating if he’s close to you, but he knows how to get what he wants and more importantly he knows what it takes for a group like us to survive. If that means delivering death to those who threaten us or acting like a dictator to maintain order, like the real Emperor Nero, he’ll do it.”
“And you willingly serve him?” Josie asked, perplexed.
“Look at the new world we live in, darling,” Laura explained. “The power grid is down. No electricity or running water. The cars don’t work, at least not most of them. People have tribalized themselves into groups and clans killing one another like savages for what precious resources remain. I’ve seen neighbors firsthand, people who used to be good friends and deliver each other’s mail each day, shoot or stab one another for a box of cereal. It happened in my neighborhood just down the street. Yes, the military’s mostly functioning and there’s martial law in the major cities, or at least there was, but that’s about the closest thing there is to the way things were before. Everywhere else? Anarchy. Death. Disease. Starvation. Dehydration. Murder. Screaming. Suicide. It’s all the textbook definition of chaos. Need I bring up more details?”
Josie shook her head.
“But the solution to chaos, of course, is order,” Laura continued. “When there’s chaos, we die and we die painfully. But when there’s order, we live and we grow old. It’s that simple. And when you look out that window at this town, at this little isolated piece of civilization that Nero has built from the ground up, tell me what you see. Do you see chaos or order? I tell you, after being at that hellhole of a military prison camp where I first met you, after losing my family in the cities, after scavenging on my own and later with a few other desperate scumbags in the woods, here is the closest life has ever been to order in a long time for me. No, things aren’t nearly as peaceful or idyllic as they were. No more going to work from nine to five each day and saving up for vacations and retirement. We still have to hunt, we still have to scavenge, and we still have to defend ourselves against attack. But we live together as a community and we’re growing. Soon we’ll be thriving. We’re taking more people in, good people like you. We have food, we have a hospital, and we all have a place to sleep without fear of being murdered or raped in the middle of the night. There’s even plans to build a school for the children and possibly even a library if we can gather enough books. Everyone has their responsibilities and contributes with their own unique talents and skillsets, and it keeps things going like a wheel that keeps on spinning. So no, Josie, maybe Nero isn’t the nicest guy. Maybe he will threaten to kill certain folks like your husband to get what he wants, and sometimes h
e’ll even follow through. I’ve witnessed it. But if that’s what it’s going to take to bring people together and allow us to live like humanity should, then you’re damn well right I’ll, as you say, ‘serve’ him.”
Dead silence.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to preach there,” Laura took a breath and put her hands on her hips. “But you see what I’m saying. Without Nero, there wouldn’t be any of this. A lot of the people who have found a home here would have been dead long ago if it weren’t for him. Possibly myself even.”
“So you’re here then because you want to survive?” Josie posed the question.
Laura shrugged. “Not just survive, I wanna live. Before, I was surviving. Now, I feel I’m actually living again. Like I’m actually contributing to something greater than myself. That’s what I want to do. You should be the same way.”
“But that’s not what I want to do,” Josie said.
Our Survival: A Collection of Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thrillers Page 22