by Nancy Isaak
“What is it?” asked Ru.
Taking two fingers, Pauly held them up to his mouth and pretended to take a big drag off of a joint.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?!”
“They’re pulling in the harvest now. They’ve got like these guys all chained up together, cutting down marijuana plants as tall as they are. It’s like—bizarro.”
“Did one of those guards have a scar going across his face, like this?” I asked, drawing my finger from cheek to chin. “Hispanic guy about sixteen or seventeen.”
Pauly shook his head. “No…nobody who looks like that. In fact, no Hispanics at all. From what we saw, it appears to be all white guys guarding the slaves.”
“What about what they were wearing? Anybody wearing orange, like they came from the Probation Camp?”
Again, Pauly shook his head. “Nope. No orange.”
Ru looked at me. “Maybe they’re not your guys.”
“Definitely not Mateo,” I told him. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t somewhere close by. I mean, it doesn’t make sense—only six guards and all those slaves. This must be only part of their tribe.”
“Other thing you should know,” said Pauly. “Guys on the chain gang—most of them aren’t looking too good. We watched them work in the field for most of the day and those douchebag guards didn’t feed them hardly anything. Only water the slaves got was a bottle in the morning. So, I’m not sure how far or how fast they’ll be able to travel.”
“Where are you guys bunked out?” asked Ru.
“House up on the hill on the left. The one with the long driveway just got put in.”
“I know the driveway,” Ru said. “But I’ve never seen the house.”
“That’s because it’s up top,” explained Pauly. “Why we chose it for our safehouse. You can see the valley in front and behind. Plus, it looks like someone’s already been there and cleaned it out so—if it was the douchebags—hopefully, they won’t be coming back anytime soon.”
“Sounds good,” said Ru. “We’ll hole up there for the rest of tonight and through the day tomorrow. Use the time to do a little more recce. Then, tomorrow night—if everything looks good—we’ll head to the Camp and grab the guys. The ones that can make it, we take them straight down the hill. Any that can’t, we’ll keep them at the safehouse until they can walk home.”
Suddenly—Josh put his hand up.
“Guys, shush!” he hissed.
Everyone froze—listening.
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
Around the corner, came a rider on a horse. It was hard to see because of the dark but, as the rider got closer, I caught a glimpse of a submachine gun around his shoulder.
We all stayed exactly where we were—not moving a muscle. Most of the guys looked down—in case the whites of their eyes betrayed their existence. I followed suit, my eyes casting toward the earth.
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
The horse and rider moved on, down the hill, around the next corner. If he had merely looked over—or if we had moved—he would easily have seen us.
* * * *
At best, if the Crazy went all the way to the bottom of Encinal Canyon before turning around and coming back up—we had twenty to thirty minutes. Picking up our packs, we immediately started walking—fast. It would be tight but—if nothing else happened—we ought to be able to make the safehouse before the horse and rider returned.
Ru separated us into two groups—one to each side of the road. I stayed at the back of Ru’s group—where I could keep one eye out for the Crazy and my other eye on Connor. Our increased speed was obviously bothering him. His limp had become more pronounced and his shoulders and head drooped from fatigue.
After one stumble too many, I finally reached out and stripped the pack from Connor’s back and—ignoring his whispered protests—added it to my own. When he tried to grab the pack away from me, I merely pushed him back into line and kept pushing at him until he finally gave in and started walking forward again.
* * * *
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
We had been listening to him come for a few minutes now, hoping that we could make it to the safehouse in time. Unfortunately, we got only as far as the base of the driveway.
Hunkering down there, we waited behind some chaparral as the rider came around the corner. As he passed, I carefully moved aside the branches in front of me, angling for a closer look.
The Crazy—like all of us—was just a kid; 15-years old, if that.
It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like he was wearing all leather—jacket and pants. Certainly it sounded like he was, his clothes giving that distinct leather-squeak as he went by. His hair was in two braids—one on each side of his head and he appeared to have completely painted his face a dark color—possibly red. As Pauly had mentioned, the kid had a submachine gun over his shoulder and a machete at his waist.
When the clip-clops slowly faded into the distance, everyone came out of their hiding spots. Pauly walked a few short steps back to the road—to the spot where the Crazy was last seen riding around the corner. He hawked up a big loogie, spitting it on the ground.
“Poser,” he hissed—disgusted.
* * * *
The house that the scouts had chosen was high on a hill, overlooking Encinal Canyon—the view clear all the way down to the Pacific Coast. As the day dawned, Connor and I stood at the front window, looking toward Zuma.
“It’s right there,” said Connor. “You can’t see it?”
“I think you’re seeing what you want to see,” I teased. “There’s no way that you can see Ru’s place from here.”
A door opened and shut somewhere in the enormous house. Moments later, Ru came up beside us. “Hey, wow,” he said, looking out the window. “You can see our place from here.”
Connor turned and gave me a self-satisfied grin. I took it from him with a quick whack to the back of his head.
“How’d it go with the Crazy?” I asked Ru.
He frowned. “I don’t understand guys like that. I really don’t.”
“Not talking?”
“Oh, he’s talking,” said Ru. “Can’t shut him up.”
* * * *
He was seventeen—almost eighteen—days away.
We knew that because he kept telling us.
“Eighteen is when the demons take your soul. You implode, everything sucking inwards, until ‘poof’, you’re gone,” he babbled. “That’s why you gotta’ take the flesh. Keeps you grounded. We got 18-year olds—still here, no implosion, man. That’s how they did it—take the flesh, take the soul—only way you’re safe.”
His name was Quentin and—even though I didn’t remember him—one of Mateo’s original gang.
He remembered me, though.
“Ooo…we’ve been looking for you,” he had grinned, when I walked into the office where they were holding him. He was sitting on the floor, handcuffed to a filing cabinet. “You and your brothers—tasty treats—yum, yum!”
I looked over at Ru standing beside me. He shrugged.
“Quentin,” Ru instructed the Crazy, “tell Jacob about the guys you take.”
“Careful, careful—they’re not human,” cautioned Quentin, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. “They’re demons. You can tell.”
“How can you tell?” I asked, playing along.
For a moment, he looked confused. Then, he shook his head, as if clearing it. “Because they’re demons,” he said, simply.
“Am I a demon?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “You’re food.”
* * * *
“What the hell!”
Connor and I were in the kitchen, trying to warm up some instant coffee over a can of Sterno. Ru was still back in the office, questioning Quentin.
“They’re fricking cannibals!” I exclaimed. “I mean, they’re actually eating people. Like th
ey’re Soylent Greening guys, Connor!”
My hands were shaking so much that I was having difficulty stirring the coffee. The clacking of the spoon finally got to Connor and he took it away from me.
“It was bound to happen,” he said, quietly.
I turned to him, shocked. “Cannibals?!”
He shrugged. “We learned about it in Social Sciences. When society falls, man falls with it. There will always be those who try to remain civilized, but others are simply going to do what’s easiest. Instead of hunting or farming for their food, they search out the easiest prey.”
“Fricking cannibals!” I repeated.
“And using religion to justify it,” he continued. “It’s been going on for centuries. I remember my teacher telling us about how the Aztecs would eat hearts. Sometimes they’d even eat their own children. There are lots of stories like that.”
Looking fatigued, Ru entered the room. He sat down on a stool next to the counter, looking at the coffee. “I could do with a cup,” he yawned.
“It’s decaffeinated,” apologized Connor. “All we could find in the house.”
Ru shrugged. “I can pretend.”
Connor poured him some coffee, pushing it toward him.
“Milk, please.”
I handed him a carton of soy milk. He poured a little into his coffee, then even more straight into his mouth.
“Sorry,” Ru said, lowering the milk carton and wiping his lips. “That was uncivilized of me.”
“If my mom was here, she’d call you a piggy-poo,” said Connor. He grabbed the milk carton from Ru and lifted it to his own lips.
“Sorry, mom,” he said, taking a long drink.
“What the heck,” I grinned, holding my own hand out for the carton.
The truth was, I’d never had soy milk before. I was surprised to find it quite tasty—not quite like real milk, but close enough to give me some food-comfort.
Finished, I slammed the empty carton back down on the counter. “That was great!” I sighed. Then, I got serious.
“Fricking cannibals!” I growled—for a third time.
* * * *
Ru waited until we had all awakened in the late afternoon before sitting us down to explain his plan.
“According to Quentin,” he told us, “they’ve got one central base, up in Agoura Hills. From there, they’re raiding other tribes. The guys they catch are used as slaves at three different farms they’ve set up in the canyons. That’s until they become too weak. Then, they’re eaten.”
All through the room I heard gasps and exclamations of horror.
“But how come they didn’t eat that Denny guy and the other one who was with him?” asked Josh. “They just threw them to the side of the road.”
“Quentin said that Mateo was afraid of the sickness.”
“Probably a good call,” murmured Connor.
I looked at him, horrified.
“From a purely medical point of view,” he said, quickly.
“So, then it’s definite that the Crazies are with this Mateo guy?” asked Josh.
Ru nodded. “It sounds like he created them. I mean, like the religious thing they’ve got going—eat your enemy, gain their soul, stay on earth stuff.”
“But…um…does it work?” asked one of the younger guys—Harry. He had stringy brown hair that he wiped off of his furrowed brow. “I mean, didn’t Quentin say that they have 18-year olds in their tribe?”
“Quentin can say anything he wants,” I said. “That doesn’t make it true.”
“But…um…like if it is true,” the kid maintained. He was a nervous boy, drumming his fingers against each other in a constant worried rhythm.
“If it is true,” asked Ru—glaring at Harry, “would you eat other guys?”
Pauly pushed at the younger kid, almost knocking him out of his chair. “Yeah, dude,” he teased. “Would you eat some guy’s meat? Big old boy-sausage?”
The rest of the guys burst out in laughter. Harry blushed, shaking his head violently.
“Okay then—listen up,” ordered Ru, pulling out a map he had drawn. “We’re going to approach this in two waves. The first wave will take out the guards. The second wave will free the slaves.”
He stopped suddenly, grinning at us. “Free the slaves,” he murmured. “So bizarre.”
* * * *
I was angry. “Why did I even come along if it was just to sit here, twiddling my thumbs, in this house?”
“Somebody needs to stay behind and protect Connor,” reasoned Ru.
“Connor’s a big boy,” I protested. “He’s got a gun and he knows how to use it.”
Ru grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into an empty bedroom, away from the other guys. “Look,” he said, quietly. “You can’t come with us. That’s final.”
“So, I just stay here? Doing nothing.”
“You’re not doing nothing. You’re taking care of Connor. You’re guarding the prisoner. You’re making sure this place is secure for when we come back.”
“Ru, you’ve got 12-year olds you’re taking with you,” I said, frustrated. “I’d be a heck of a lot more useful to you than them.”
He sighed, moving over to a window and looking outside.
“Dude, seriously,” I begged. “Let me go. It just doesn’t make any sense for me not to.”
When Ru turned back—his face was drawn and serious. “Jacob,” he said, softly. “I’m turning eighteen in twenty-six days.”
* * * *
“I’m so sorry, Ru.”
He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “It is what it is.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“So, now you know,” he continued, “and that’s why you can’t go with us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Have you ever seen the President and the Vice-President get on Air Force One together?”
“What? Well…no…but what’s that got to do with it?”
“They don’t get on the same plane. That’s so, if the plane goes down, there’s still one of them left to lead.”
And then I realized what he was saying.
“But Josh is your second-in-command,” I gasped.
“And Josh voted right along with the rest of my guys,” said Ru. “You’re their first choice. They want you to lead them.”
“I’m not even one of your tribe, Ru.”
He came over and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You will be, Jacob…in twenty-six days.”
JOURNAL ENTRY #25
It feels weird to be sitting here, waiting for Ru and the guys to return. They left hours ago and now the sun is coming up and they’re still not here.
Where are they?
Connor says that it’s a little before six in the morning. He’s across from me now, standing at the living room window, looking down into the canyon.
He’s been standing there for hours.
* * * *
We heard gunshots around 3:30 a.m. There were a lot of them—all at once—echoing through the canyon.
Then, everything went quiet—silent.
We haven’t heard anything since.
Connor and I want to go out and search for them.
But we promised Ru that we wouldn’t leave the house until tonight—no matter what.
* * * *
I spent some time with Quentin—about an hour.
That was interesting.
He is—without a doubt—certifiably crazy. I wonder if that was one of the reasons that he was put into the Probationary Camp in the first place.
Quentin said that—after my brothers and I saw them kill that kid up along Kanan-Dume—they searched for us all the way down to Betsy. He admitted that they were the guys who messed her up. And, yes—Mateo left me the crap-greeting in the back of the car—what a dick-move!
When they didn’t find us, they went back up Kanan-Dume to Agoura Hills. They had my car registration and address from it but, apparently, not enough brainpower to pick up a
map at a local gas station.
Then, when they finally figured it out, Quentin says that they came up against another gang of guys over near Ralphs. There was a gun battle and they were scared off. (I’m figuring that was probably all those gunshots that we heard when we were living in Mrs. Holly’s house, back in November.)
For a while, Quentin said that they roamed around the Westlake Village area, breaking into houses, picking up more guys and weapons along the way. It was all fun and games until they lost their first guy the day he turned eighteen. One moment, he was walking with them on Thousand Oaks Boulevard—the next moment he was gone.
Quentin said that they were all pretty freaked out about it. Especially when two more guys disappeared.
Except—then Mateo turned eighteen and nothing happened.
He didn’t disappear.
* * * *
That’s when Mateo told them the big secret—that to escape the demons who were waiting to take you to hell, you had to take someone else’s soul.
You had to eat it.
Mateo said he knew this because his mother was a bruja—a witch. He said that she had taught him the ‘old ways’ from the time he was a little boy.
At first, they didn’t believe him. But then other guys turned eighteen and they didn’t disappear either—and they were the ones who ate the flesh. It was only the ones who didn’t eat who disappeared.