by GM Gambrell
Eighteen
They were up before the sun rose and on the road as the first light began peeking over the dead and ashen forest. Sir Dog, having slept through the night like a rock, seemed to rebound with some enthusiasm, hanging his head out the side of the speeding Jeep and enjoying the wind rushing through his fur. Duncan sat in the front with Jim, and slowly his opinion of the big man began to change. The man was so worried all the time about what was happening to the world outside the city that he just couldn’t see him trying to blow anything up or assassinate anyone. After the conversation with the Centaur, he was desperate to get back to his people and speed up the process of evacuating underground. He was more concerned about the safety of his people than he was the fate of the Magicians.
The black forest finally faded, giving away to grassy pastures and towering pine trees surrounding covered waterways that twisted and turned through the area like a snake crawling through the grass. There were patches of the Creeping Death, but, overall, the vegetation was bright and vibrant. It reminded him of his garden, but the area was so much more alive than anything he’d ever attempted to grow. He wanted to stop and just stay in the forest. He could see himself doing that, scavenging for food, enjoying the plants…it would be a serene life. Every time they passed a patch of the Creeping Death, though, he remembered Gregory’s words. It was spreading and, eventually, all this would be gone.
The roads where rougher where the Creeping Death hadn’t killed off the vegetation and it was harder for Jim to navigate along the ancient roads. Travel was actually slower than it had been leaving the city, and with every turn, Jim had to back up and go another direction. Duncan could sense his frustration.
“Where exactly is it we’re going?” he asked.
“To our people. We have to pass along the Centaur’s warning and let them know that our operations and preparations have to be sped up.”
“And what are you going to have them do? Where will they go?”
“Hopefully there will be enough preparations to start moving back into the local base. If not, the majority of the people will have to start heading for the Valley and the larger base there.”
“What’s the base?”
“You’ll have to see it, Duncan. It’s indescribable to someone who grew up in the city.”
They drove on through the day, only stopping to let Sir Dog clear his bowls. They ate from Jim’s stores while on the move. Jim didn’t stop until they saw smoke from cooking fires ahead and he slowed the Jeep, cautious. “There are people there.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? We’re looking for people to warn?”
“Yes, and we will warn them, but that does not mean they are not dangerous. Our kind are a scattered, lost people, and we have yet been able to bring everyone in from the cold. These people could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? To their own kind?” The idea flabbergasted Duncan. The Magicians, whatever else they were, generally weren’t dangerous to each other.
“Yes, to their own kind. To us. I’ve always regretted that about our kind. The Magicians, when challenged, will unite against the problem as one people, as they did in the Last War. They are one united front, rock solid. When we’re presented with that same challenge, we devolve into bickering subgroups. It’s an old tendency of our kind that we’re striving to overcome. We have to stand together or we’ll fall apart. So when we arrive, be quiet and stay in the Jeep. I’ll do the talking.”
Duncan nodded in agreement but was uneasy. Sir Dog seemed to sense his discomfort at the thought and scrambled between the seats and into his lap. He made sure the two steel bars were within easy reach, though he didn’t know how he’d use them against men. If it hadn’t been for Jim arriving with his guns, the dogs would have eaten him. He knew he was going to have to learn to fight if he was going to survive in the Wastes, but the thought bothered him. He didn’t want to know how to fight, and this wasn’t what he’d imagined when he’d romantically dreamt of life in the Wastes. He’d thought it to be utterly uninhabited, open to him, and never thought there would actually be dangers.
He understood now that thinking like that had been silly on his part, and then noticed the flaps on Jim’s holsters were undone, exposing the two black pistols beneath.
The human camp was really a collection of ancient vehicles much like Jim’s Jeep. There were large six-wheeled trucks, small off-road vehicles, and a number of trailers. Tarps were strung between the vehicles making impromptu shelters, and a large fire burned at the center of the location. There a couple dozen people were working around the vehicles, tending to the smoking meat, working on ancient weapons he recognized from the old Magician books. Though old, the guns still looked very deadly. The people were a motley lot, dressed in ragged armor and rags, and dirty looking. A few scattered children, skinny and wraithlike, hid behind their mothers’ patched dresses as Jim and Duncan pulled up.
A man holding a large black rifle came to meet them, barrel leveled in their general direction, but not aimed directly at him. His other hand was raised in a gesture of welcome.
“Howdy, friend,” the man said.
“Hello,” Jim returned. “We wish no harm and only want to trade and share information.”
“Then enter unmolested,” the guard returned and Duncan go the impression that this was some sort of standardized greeting, like when addressing one of the dogs back home. It seemed like a safe enough situation but the hair on Sir Dog’s back stood up and he growled softly at the guard.
Jim pulled the Jeep into the center of the camp, close to where the women worked around the large center fire. They looked sad and a bit wary of the newcomers, and the children darted away, hiding in the shadows. There were a few other dogs around the camp, but they were even scrawnier looking than Sir Dog and, as with the people, looked hungry.
Jim whispered to him. “Something’s not right here. Be on guard and ready to run. Should shooting break out, find some place to hide.”
Duncan’s heart leapt into his throat and he tried to hide the fear on his face as he rescanned the camp, trying to find what it was that had made Jim so uncomfortable. The whole place made him uncomfortable, but he knew that was because he’d spent his entire life in New Dallas. It was all so new to him and he couldn’t find what had set Jim off. They parked the Jeep and got out, following the guard under the main canopy where more guards waited, sitting on boxes and bags and cradling their ancient weapons as if they were babies. They appraised the newcomers like meat at a grocery store.
“Please, sit down,” the guard that had met them at the edge of camp said, indicating some empty boxes. “My name is David.”
Jim took his offered hand. “I’m Jim and this is my son, Duncan.”
Duncan nodded to the man and didn’t say anything about the lie. He understood that he needed to play along.
“We welcome you to our band of traders,” the guard began. “We haven’t seen any other people for quite awhile. What colony did you come from?”
“How is Big John Smith?” Jim asked, not answering the man’s question and instead directing the conversation elsewhere. “I tell you, that man is a legend not just among traders, but humans in general. I’ll never forget when he brought that entire truckload of canned food by our old place. It was an amazing sight to see. That man had a knack for finding ancient stockpiles.”
David looked at him with some confusion, then his friends, then back to him. “I heard Big John died a few seasons ago, but I don’t know how. Where exactly is your old place?”
“That’s a loss for us all,” Jim told the man. “I hope to one day give my condolences to his family.”
David nodded, obviously annoyed that Jim was evading his question, and Duncan detected the slightest of head nods and winks, the trader apparently urging his cohorts to agree with him. He was silent for a few moments and then asked, “Where are you from, Jim? We haven’t seen a lot of people this close to one of the cities. Trading is, at best, thin out
here.”
“We’re from the south,” Jim lied. “We’re just passing through the area.”
“Interesting,” the trader began, scratching at his chin. “We just came from the south and haven’t seen any colonies down there at all. The Creeping Death is thick near the sea and around the ruins of Old Houston. No humans live there.”
“You misunderstand,” Jim began. “We were just passing through.”
“On the way to where?”
“To be honest,” Jim began, lying again, “we’re not sure. The Creeping Death drove us from our home. We had no choice but to flee near the Magician’s city. We’re looking for some place to resettle, to start over.”
The scraggily guard rubbed his thick, dirty beard. “Yes, we’ve seen that a lot. Colonies are falling everywhere to the Death. People are on the move like you, trying to find a new place. Tell me, Jim, where did your people survive the long dark years?”
Duncan was curious about the history of the Dark Years, what the humans called their time underground. It was another part of history that he wanted to explore.
“My people were originally from Sanctuary,” Jim told him and Duncan didn’t know what Sanctuary was, but he guessed it was a common, well known place. Jim was divulging no information, giving the man nothing that would endanger someone else even though Duncan had no idea, at that point, what the danger was. They were all humans, right?
“Ah, Sanctuary, the biggest of the colonies out west. Many people are from Sanctuary, including Brian over there,” David said, pointing to where another of the rough looking men sat, rubbing his rifle down with an oiled cloth. “Brian, do you know this guy?”
“Nope.”
“And what exactly does that mean?” Jim asked and Duncan noticed the edge in his voice. “There are a lot of people from Sanctuary, and I haven’t been there since I was a child.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, friend, nothing at all. Tell me, what can we do for you here?”
Duncan suddenly missed the two steel bars from the Jeep, not that they would do him any good. He sensed the situation deteriorating quickly and had to hold Sir Dog close to him to keep him from bolting. A woman entered the tent, carrying a tray of old, cracked and faded cups. She began passing the water around the room and Duncan noticed the look of abject fear in her eyes. Unlike the guards who seemed relaxed, this woman was terrified.
“I’d like to trade for some fuel, if possible, and maybe some canned goods.”
The men laughed collectively. “Really? Fuel?” David asked mockingly. “What could you possibly have to trade for fuel? It’s the most valuable thing on the planet, right now.”
“Besides an escape from the Creeping Death?” Jim asked. “Could it be worth more than that?”
“There is no escaping the Creeping Death,” David insisted. “It will cover the planet within our lifetimes.”
“Oh, it will be quicker than that,” Jim acknowledged. “Well before that, if the Centaurs are right, and I have no reason to doubt them. What I can trade for fuel is information, friend. I can point you in the direction of relative safety, where your fellow men are making a stand against extinction. I can point you to a place that, through hard work and perseverance, we might survive long enough to outlast the Creeping Death. Is that worth some fuel?”
The men laughed together again, David the hardest. “Really? You’d point us to a new Sanctuary? You’d save us from the Creeping Death? How noble of you.”
“I would. But first, you have to tell me who you actually are. I know you aren’t traders.”
David was silent a moment, but smiled through broken teeth. “How did you know?”
“There is no such man as Big John Smith that I know of and I’ve traveled with many of the large trading caravans for years at a time. It’s a good way to see the world. Nor am I familiar with your group. Plus, you just answered the question for me.”
Duncan couldn’t help but admire the way Jim had wrangled the information out of the men who weren’t actually traders.
David laughed. “Yeah, I figured that was a trick to check us out and bet wrong. No big deal. It won’t matter in the end.”
Duncan was scared again and wished once more for the steel bars that he had no idea how to use. He kept looking to Jim, who was still calm, for that time to run or duck. Another guard rushed under the canopy and whispered in David’s ear. The man smiled again.
“It seems you and your son are wanted in New Dallas for crimes against the state. Would you care to explain?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Jim said and Duncan watched as his hand drifted down toward the holster on his right hip. “But I would like to ask you something. You obviously work for the Magicians and trade in humans. Are these women part of your group, or did you kidnap them? Are they innocents in all this?”
“They are part of the group now, whether they like it or not,” David insisted to the thunderous laughter of his other men. “Whatever we want is ours.”
“And I’m to take it their men were probably killed in that taking?” Jim asked and again Duncan was amazed at how calm the man was. Here he was, in a tent of a dozen armed men, and he was talking as if he were in complete control of the situation.
There was more laughter. “And what if they were? What are you going to do about it?”
“And I suppose even this trading convoy was, in some part, stolen from legitimate traders. Tell me, where did your people hide during the Dark Years? I’m not familiar with your accent.”
David spat. “We never hid, not once in a thousand years. We’ve never crawled underground like cowards.”
“So you’ve always been traitors to your kind, working for the Magicians.”
“It’s not traitorous when they’re the ones in charge. They take care of us and they’ll see us through the Creeping Death. They’ve told us that everything will be fine once they start the Restoration. And you’ll tell us where you’re heading so we can take those people too.”
“Again, how did your people survive the Dark Years?”
“At sea,” David told him. “Out in the Gulf, where our ancestors worked the oceans and the ocean floor to produce the oil that ran the world. The Magicians have never bothered us there, and have always helped when we asked.”
“So there are many more raiders like you out there?” Jim asked and Duncan wondered how long the guard would let the man fish for information.
“Of course there are. We’ve raided the coastal towns for generations. We’re the New Vikings.”
“I’ll have to remember to mention that to the Captain of the USS Barak Obama,” Jim said, “the next time I see him.”
The name of the ship, though meaningless to Duncan, seemed to strike fear into David. He sat up straighter and glared at Jim. “We don’t care about them. There’s nothing they can do to hurt us. The sea floors are too shallow for that great ship now. The Obama couldn’t get to us if they wanted to.”
“I heard it was in the Pacific,” another of the guards said. “They aren’t coming to the Gulf.”
“And anyway,” David started, “the Magicians will take care of us.”
Jim sighed audibly. “The Magicians take care of no one, not even their own. They’ve had a thousand years to start the Restoration. Have you seen anything restored?”
“The Magicians will make it right.”
“Is that your final answer? You choose them over your own kind?”
“Yes,” the man said with all the confidence of someone who thought they’d already won.
“So be it,” Jim said, and in an instant he was in action. He moved so fast Duncan could barely keep up with him. He had a pistol in each hand and the guns boomed like thunder. The guards were so taken by surprise that they hardly reacted. Duncan, with Sir Dog firmly in his grasp, tumbled backwards behind the crate he’d been sitting on. The gunfire went on for what seemed like an eternity and Sir Dog whimpered the whole time. He finally heard another weapon fire that was a different sou
nd than Jim’s pistols, presumably the guard’s, but Jim’s distinctive revolvers barked again and then there was silence.
“Duncan?” Jim asked after a few moments of silence.
“Yes, sir?” Duncan replied, nearly in a panic. He stood on shaky legs, letting Sir Dog drop to the ground. The dozen guards were dead and David, wounded, tried crawling outside the tent. The captured women and children stared from outside, panic and fear on their faces.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jim said, then turning to the women. “Do you have anything to return to? Is there anything left of where they captured you?”
One girl, not much older than Duncan, stepped forward when all the others were silent. “No, sir. They…they took everything and burned the buildings. There’s nothing left of Hackberry.”
“Hackberry…that’s down on the coast, to the south. Richard Millhouse was the mayor, if I’m not mistaken. How did you avoid the Creeping Death? It’s rampant though that area.”
“We didn’t. We survived the best we could off the bayous, catching fish and alligators that were on the prowl for food. We were going to have to move eventually anyway. Mayor Millhouse died in the fight when they came.”
Jim nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man. I’m moving onto a colony not far from here in Shreveport. You’re welcome to come with me and they’ll welcome you with open arms, but there will be much work. I wasn’t lying when I told David that we’re preparing to go back underground. It’s the only thing any of the colonies are working on anymore and I fear that the time is even shorter than we originally thought.”
“There isn’t another way?” the girl asked, fear evident in her eyes.
“No,” he said simply. “There is no other way that we know of, and we’ve been working on the problem for many a year. We will, at some point in the near future, escape back underground, and if we have to wait another thousand years, we’ll do that too.”
The girl turned and spoke to the other women for a few minutes and then turned back to them. “We’ll go. Tell us what to do.”
“Duncan, help them get situated. Move all the supplies to one vehicle, along with all the fuel. You’ll have to siphon it out of the vehicles we leave behind. Do you know what that means? You’ll have to find a tube and stick it in the tank, then suck on the end to get the flow going.”
“I’ve done that with my vegetable juice motors,” Duncan told him, though he didn’t know it was called siphoning.
“Good. Pick a vehicle that is large enough to carry everyone and the supplies. Get started and let’s try to be ready to go in a couple of hours. I’ll…I’ll deal with this,” he said, pointing to David.
Duncan nodded in agreement and started for the vehicles. He saw the look of terror on the stricken raider’s face and wondered what Jim would do to him.
Her name was Jessica.
The young girl worked in a flash, directing the older women in packing only the most useful of the raider’s stolen goods, the food, water, and fuel, while helping Duncan get the fuel out of the vehicles they were abandoning. The girl was simply amazing, and Duncan began to look forward to the quick moments they had together. She was just a bit taller than Duncan, with long, flowing red hair and deep, tanned skin. Her right eye was puffy and bruised but both were bright and blue and shone anyway. She was dirty, and she stank, but he paid it no mind, remembering he hadn’t had a bath in days either. The girl was full of energy due to Jim’s rescue; the reprieve from certain death had invigorated her.
“Where are you from?” she asked during one of her quick trips back to help him.
He didn’t see any harm in telling her the truth. “New Dallas.”
Her eyebrows raised in suspicion. “You’re a Magician?”
“No, I was born without magic. I don’t think there are very many of us, born in the cities like that.”
“Like Jim?”
“Yup, like Jim.”
“Well, I guess that’s all right, then,” Jessica said with some trepidation. “But still…why are you here and not in the comfort of the city? Why chase your next meal when you can get someone to conjure it for you? I heard they live in splendid glory there, that they don’t want for anything, are never hungry, and never cold.”
“It’s a long story,” Duncan said, and it really was. How did you go about telling someone that you were on the run for a crime you didn’t commit?
She winked at him, and he saw something there that, deep down inside, thrilled him. “I think we’re going to have lots of time.”
“They thought I helped Jim blow up the courthouse, that I killed a couple people,” he began, slowly. “There was a trial, and a friend of mine told me that I’d been convicted.” For some reason, he didn’t want to tell her about Marissa. “So I ran away. My father helped me escape the city, and then Jim found me in Old Dallas with Sir Dog.”
Sir Dog had taken an instant liking to the girl, as he had with Duncan. He felt pretty sure that Sir Dog was a solid judge of character. He had promised to trust who the dog did, and not trust whom the dog didn’t.
“Did you kill those people?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did Jim?” she asked again, the doubt in her voice easily identifiable.
“I don’t think so, but honestly, with all that’s happened in the last few days, I really haven’t gotten a chance to sit down and talk to him about it. I have reason to believe, at least in the case of the courthouse in New Dallas, that he was set up and framed. But I can’t prove that, just as I can’t prove I’m innocent of that crime.”
She nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard stories about him. He’s been at war, in one way or another, with the Magicians all his life. But I’ve never heard of him being a violent man until, like here, he’s pushed in to it. He’s respected throughout the Wastes as a fair and honest man. If you don’t think he did it, I tend to agree. There is no reason to attack them like that. They already beat us once like that. We know we can’t stand up to them in an honest fight.”
Duncan wanted to ask her what she knew of the Last War and compare notes but there simply wasn’t time yet. “From my little time around him, I’d say those people who respect him are right. There is just so much I don’t know about him or,” he waved his hands around, “any of this yet.”
“It’s all new to you, isn’t it? It’s like taking the magic out of a Magician and dumping him here.”
“I was never a Magician,” Duncan told her defensively. “I always took care of myself.”
“I’m sorry. I meant no offense. Look, I have to go get those old hens moving. They’re lost without someone to tell them what to do, but I’m looking forward to talking to you more, okay?”
Duncan couldn’t really think of anything he’d like more. He nodded in agreement and watched, dumbfounded, as she went about the task of getting the camp broken down and moving.
The Wastes weren’t as bad as he thought they were going to be.