365 Days Hunted

by Nancy Isaak

  For some, it was relief; for others, it was joy.

  Some of the guys fell to their knees on stepping out of the longboats, praying their thanks to God on having finally reached sanctuary. One of the older guys actually bent down and kissed the sand. Another kid, probably 8-years old, simply sobbed.

  Eventually, though—they all grew quiet.

  Waiting…

  * * * *

  We had surrounded the freed slaves, watching them as they were now watching us. I could see hope in the newcomers’ eyes—but fear as well.

  “Welcome,” I said, moving in front of them. “My name is Jacob Riker and I lead this tribe. For those of you who don’t know where you are—this is Zuma Beach and we live up on that cliff over there.”

  I motioned to the Point to the left of us and heads turned to look.

  “We call ourselves the Locals,” I continued. “And you are welcome to stay with us or go your own way. It is your choice. But know that we are a community of brothers here—a tribe. We work together, we live together—and we protect our own. If you choose to join with us, we will find you a home and a position in our tribe. If you decide to leave, we will find you a backpack and fill it with food and water and wish you ‘safe journey’. Until you make your choice, however—please allow us to welcome you as our guests.”

  When I stopped talking, Wester and Ethan immediately came forward, stopping in front of the little guy who had been sobbing. He was still sniffling and close to tears.

  “I’m Wester and this is Ethan.” Reaching into the pocket of his board shorts, Wester pulled out a lollipop. Its stick was bent and its paper torn.

  “I got a little water on it,” Wester told the kid, “so you probably got to suck off the wrapping, but it’ll still taste good.”

  Slowly, the sniffling boy reached out and took the lollipop. He didn’t unwrap it, though—just held it in his hand like a piece of treasure.

  “Come on,” said Ethan, reaching out and grabbing the kid’s free hand. “Me and Wester are gonna’ walk with you to our home. You’re gonna’ like it here. You’ll see.”

  And, pulling gently, Ethan eased the kid away from the rest of the newcomers.

  * * * *

  Jonny was next. Holding out his hand, he approached a tall, dirty blond guy who was probably around fifteen. “Dude,” said Jonny, pleasantly. “Glad you could make it.”

  The blond smiled, shaking Jonny’s hand.

  “Come on, bro,” Jonny continued. “Let’s get you up the cliff and get you fed.”

  At the mention of food, a murmuring ran through the crowd of newcomers. Without my even having to say a word, my guys immediately began to pull chocolate bars and bottles of water and juice out of their backpacks. Moments later, it seemed like every newcomer had a Local beside them—shaking their hand, placing a piece of chocolate in it, and helping them toward their new home.

  It filled me with pride—the way my guys responded.

  * * * *

  Except for Damien and Goran.

  As we walked up the hill toward our compound, I noticed that the twins kept to themselves. They were positioned on the edge of a large group of guys—newcomers and Locals—but they weren’t contributing to any of the conversation. Instead, they just walked along, heads down—talking quietly.

  I remember thinking that perhaps it was one of those ‘twin things’—where they really only communicate well with each other.

  Or maybe they were just shy.

  But, honestly—I don’t believe that.

  And that has me worried.

  TRUE GLADIATORS SAVE

  Not a single newcomer chose to leave Point Dume and, over the next few days and weeks, we managed to integrate each and every one into our community. At times, it wasn’t easy. There were arguments over living arrangements, jobs given, or simple differences of opinions, but—eventually—each of the newcomers settled into their new homes and became part of our tribe.

  Unfortunately, our population also decreased by five during that same period. Two of our original Locals and three of the newcomers disappeared on their eighteenth birthdays. Each of them left us—as had become our custom—from inside the cage, holding desperately onto the hands of the people who were closest to them.

  But—no matter how tightly we held on—they still left.

  In a blink of an eye.

  Gone.

  * * * *

  That first afternoon of the newcomers, I was kept busy—along with Josh and Porter—assigning sleeping arrangements and getting the new guys fed and checked out medically. There was some concern that the freed slaves might be carrying something contagious so—after much discussion—we decided to house everybody in the new medical center.

  After seven days, if no one showed signs of sickness—the guys would have complete freedom to move around the compound. In fourteen days, we would move them into their own homes.

  * * * *

  It was almost midnight before I finally had a chance to talk to Kieran and Pauly. We walked out to the edge of the cliff, taking our coffees with us. Choosing a spot away from any prying eyes or listening ears, we sat on the ground—drinking our coffee and talking.

  “Sorry, you had to wait so long,” I apologized. “Took a while to get everybody settled.”

  “You’re kind of a bureaucrat now, big brother,” Kieran teased. “Looks good on you.”

  “Shut your mouth,” I growled. “I hate all this administrative crap.”

  “Probably only going to get worse,” Pauly predicted. “More guys we get.”

  “Well, hopefully,” I said, “if we organize everything correctly, the camp will almost begin to run itself.”

  They both just laughed.

  “It could,” I insisted.

  They laughed even harder.

  “Dumbasses,” I muttered under my breath.

  Still chuckling, Kieran elbowed me, pointing farther along the cliff to a large, dark rectangle leaning out over the edge of the rocks.

  “What the heck is that?” he asked.

  “Porter and Connor’s new invention,” I said. “A portable crapper.”

  “But it’s over the end of the cliff,” said Kieran.

  “That’s the whole point,” I explained. “There’s that empty field down at the bottom and Porter assures me that it doesn’t drain anywhere near the creek or where we swim.”

  “So, you’re telling me that we have to climb out on that thing and squat over a hole that’s, what, a hundred feet in the air just to take a dump now?"

  “It’s a sanitation thing,” I shrugged. “So we don’t all get cholera or something like that. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t think so!” said Pauly, looking absolutely horrified by the idea. “There is no way on earth that I’m going out on that thing!”

  “It’s really not that scary,” I assured him.

  “A hundred feet up,” he asserted. “Over a hole!”

  I chuckled. “Someone’s afraid of heights, I take it.”

  * * * *

  The three of us talked until the sun rose the next morning.

  Kieran and Pauly told me their tale in bits and pieces, starting with how they made their way up into Agoura Hills.

  “We figured on cutting across Pacific Coast Highway around Paradise Cove, but there were guys on the other side of the highway,” said Kieran. “We couldn’t tell how many, but we could see their campfire.”

  “Do you know if they were Crazies?” I asked.

  Kieran shook his head. “But we figured that it was stupid to take a chance finding out, so we just kept on walking.”

  “There was a campfire at Winding Way, too,” said Pauly. “That kind of cut us off from that trail that goes over the mountains there.”

  “Big coincidence,” I muttered. “Two campfires—right where guys might try and cross over and head up into the Valley.”

  “That’s what we figured,” agreed Kieran. “So, I climbed one of those tall trees—on t
he other side of Paradise Cove. Looked down the highway toward L.A., far as I could. Saw at least two other campfires, spaced pretty equal.”

  “So, it looks like the Crazies are cutting us off,” I said—not happy. “At least from going south or getting into the Valley.”

  “Somebody is,” said Kieran. “Or maybe they’re using those spots to grab guys coming north up the highway from Los Angeles. Taking them to use as slaves—or worse.”

  “We’ve had Alpha Teams go out and they haven’t seen any sign of the Crazies,” I said. “But they’ve been concentrating on the area around Encinal Canyon.”

  “That’s where we finally crossed over,” said Pauly. “It meant backtracking and cost us a couple of hours, but it seemed the smartest move. Wound up spending the first night up at that safehouse on the hill.”

  “And you didn’t see any Crazies at all around there?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Not on Encinal,” said Kieran. “Maybe we should consider it our territory now.”

  “Might be a smart idea to set up guards along it,” I mused. “If we could hold it, Encinal would be a good escape route for us, if we need it. Plus, it would give us a way to get into the Conejo Valley.”

  * * * *

  Kieran and Pauly had waited until the following evening before they made their way into Agoura Hills by circling around through Westlake Village.

  “It’s real quiet there,” said Kieran. “Very eerie.”

  “Almost like everyone’s gone,” nodded Pauly. “I don’t mean like disappeared. I mean, like anyone who was left is gone, too. Like there wasn’t a sign anywhere that someone was living there.”

  “What do you think?” I asked. “The Crazies?”

  Kieran shrugged. “It’s right next to Agoura Hills. We know that the Crazies have been grabbing guys to use as slaves. Maybe they went through Westlake and snatched all the survivors. It was weird, though. I went up high—on one of the roofs there—and couldn’t see a single light in Westlake Village, not anywhere. But over in Agoura Hills—there was light.”

  “A lot of light,” added Pauly.

  “Electric?” I asked, hopeful.

  “No.” Kieran shook his head. “More like a lot of torches, big campfires, that sort of thing.”

  “So, the Crazies must have a lot of guys.”

  “Not including slaves,” said Kieran, “we counted eighty-nine. There are probably more. Guys were always coming and going. But eighty-nine is what we counted all in one place at one time.”

  My hackles began to vibrate. I really didn’t like the sound of that. “Where did you see eighty-nine guys in one place?”

  * * * *

  “You did what?!” I was absolutely furious that Pauly and Kieran had disobeyed my direct orders and had gone back to our house in Agoura Hills.

  “We waited until it was dark,” Kieran assured me.

  “You were specifically told not to go there,” I complained.

  “And you also told us to use our own judgment—and Pauly and I judged that it would be okay.”

  “We were really careful,” added Pauly. “We took the long way round, came down through Oak Park into Agoura Hills. Didn’t even see a single Crazy along that route.”

  “Probably already took all the Oak Park guys as slaves,” I grumbled.

  “No doubt,” agreed Kieran. “Although I know that some of the Oak Park guys have joined the Crazies. There are a couple of footballers I recognized in their tribe now.”

  “Great…just great.” I grumbled. “So—did you go inside our house?”

  Kieran looked down at the ground, silent. Pauly wasn’t saying a word either.

  “What?!”

  “Our house isn’t there anymore,” Kieran finally admitted. “It burned down.”

  “There was a fire in Agoura Hills?”

  Kieran shook his head. “Just our house.”

  “Any chance it could have been an accident?” I asked.

  “No,” said Kieran. “Ours was the only house that burned. Mrs. Holly’s had some damage, but that was only because it was next to ours. Other than that, every other house on the block was untouched.”

  “It was Brandon,” I said. “He did it.”

  “Probably,” agreed Kieran.

  * * * *

  “A secret room?!”

  “In the attic,” said Kieran. “The trap door is hidden inside of the closet. Pauly found it.”

  “I was scavenging,” Pauly nodded. “Looking for some new clothes.”

  “And you’re sure it was Jay’s house?” I asked, astonished. “Kaylee’s friend?”

  Kieran nodded. “There are pictures of Jay and her family everywhere. And in her bedroom, there’s even a picture of Jay with Kaylee.”

  “And that’s where you spent the next few nights?”

  “Well, days,” said Kieran. “We figured that it would be a good base to work from. It was close to where the Crazies had their main camp. And it’s next to that culvert that goes around Chumash Park, so we could use that to move around without being seen.”

  “Smart,” I said. “I didn’t even think of using that culvert. The Crazies didn’t have any guards on it?”

  “Not that we could see,” said Pauly. “Maybe they didn’t even know it was there. It’s kind of hidden, down along the edges of the park, behind the bushes.”

  * * * *

  Although I thought Kieran and Pauly had taken a big chance by staying in a townhouse so close to Kaylee’s, I still had to admire their ingenuity. Using the culvert had made their travels through Agoura Hills a whole lot safer and allowed them quick and easy movement through the center of the Crazies’ stronghold.

  Plus, the townhouse complex where my brother and Pauly had stayed was only five minutes away from the 101 Freeway. If they had needed to get out of Agoura Hills quickly, that would have been their quickest route.

  The thing that bothered me, though, was that their hideout was also close to Kaylee’s townhouse. If Brandon had burned down our home, then there was a very good chance that he would do the same to Kaylee’s eventually—if only to spite me.

  At least, Kieran had been smart enough not to stay in Kaylee’s townhouse. Their first night in Agoura Hills, he and Pauly had actually chosen a townhouse farther back in the complex, in a completely different section from Kaylee’s. However, the next day—when Pauly decided to do some scavenging—he had found the tiny, secret room tucked up in the attic.

  Which was when they had moved closer to Kaylee’s home.

  That the secret room had been in a townhouse that belonged to Jay Sitipala—my girl’s best friend and close neighbor—struck me as more than coincidental.

  Kaylee Michelson had disappeared along with all the rest. Yet—somehow—she was always still there, at the edges of my life. She should have been a mere wisp after so much time, an almost-forgotten memory of the girl I had once loved.

  So—why did she keep appearing?

  * * * *

  “Some of the Crazies are camped out in Chumash Park,” said Pauly. “But most of them are in the school.”

  “Agoura High...our school?!”

  Kieran nodded. “They’ve set up beds inside—kind of like barracks. We didn’t get too close, but it looks like most of the slaves are kept in one of the gyms. At least, that’s where they came out of each morning.”

  “They’ve got these chains on the slaves, around their wrists and necks,” explained Pauly. “Like those chain gangs in the old prison movies. They move the slaves around in groups of about six or eight—all chained together by the neck. When they get to wherever they’re taking the slaves, they undo the neck chains, but they’ve still got these other chains attached to their wrists.”

  “They make them work like that,” added Kieran. “The Crazies have some gardens in back of the school and in some of the yards along Driver. That’s mostly where the slaves seem to be working, digging up the ground, planting seeds, that sort of thing.”
<
br />   “So, it wasn’t just the three camps, then. The Crazies still have more slaves up in Agoura,” I groaned.

  “At least twenty that we saw coming out of the gym,” said Pauly. “Who knows how many more they collect each week walking along the 101 Freeway.”

  “Plus there have to be guys coming north up the Pacific Coast Highway that they’re scooping up,” said Kieran. “Not to mention that Agoura is close to the 118 Freeway. There will be guys coming along all those ways. Let’s face it—it just makes sense to come to Southern California because it’s warm and near the ocean.”

  “Easier to survive and catch food,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Kieran nodded. “Only they have to get past Agoura Hills first…and that’s where they’re being trapped.”

  * * * *

  Kieran and Pauly had taken to watching the comings and goings at Agoura High from the relative safety of a wooded hill on the opposite side of Driver Avenue. The hill was part of the townhouse complex, which made it easy to reach, and the trees and bushes had provided enough cover that they could remain hidden whenever they watched the school.

  “We got lucky,” said Kieran. “That hill goes all along Driver, so we just moved through the bushes whenever we needed to follow the action across the street.”

  “They didn’t have any guards on it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Pretty stupid of them.”

  “Which means they’re over-confident,” I murmured. “Good to know.”

  “It’s because they’ve got so many guys in their tribe,” explained Pauly. “They know they’re difficult to attack.”