by Eric Keller
Again, neither of them spoke. A strained silence hung amongst the distant sound of the river and the chirp of a squirrel. Aslan sighed and nodded to Mr. Badger. The axe handle whirled and cracked into Griff’s bad ankle before instantly swinging back around to smack Jacob across the shoulder.
“I’ll ask again but only one more time. Where did you come from?”
When they hesitated, Mr. Badger lifted the handle over Jacob’s head. Jacob wanted to tell Griff to shut up. Keep the assholes from Malden, keep them from Louisa. But, before he could react, Griff blurted out, “Upriver. Long way upriver.”
The axe handle was lowered as Aslan continued, “Good, good. Apparently, you upriver guys are fast learners. How’d you end up down here?”
The story spilled out of Griff as he continued to look at the ground and used a whispering, defeated tone Jacob could not believe came from his generally cocky friend. They were brothers, Tina a girl their father rescued after the Bombs. Their sickly, starving parents sent the three of them out from their farmhouse in search of food when spring finally came. Unable to find anything near home, they decided to make the three-day hike to the river in hope of catching fish. After spending an hour on the bank with no luck, they ventured downriver where they came across an old aluminum boat washed up on an ice flow.
Thinking their fishing chances would be better out in the deeper current, Griff explained how they tethered the boat to a tree and ventured out into the raging river. All day they caught jackfish with almost every cast, laughing as they filled the boat with protein. As the sun set, they grabbed the rope to pull themselves to shore. Straining against the current and their aggressive pulling, the weathered rope broke. In an instant, they were speeding downriver with no way to stop.
All night and most of the next day they traveled. Eventually, they were stopped by the island and ended up here. Shaking his head as if he were fighting off tears, Griff finished by saying, “After all this time, our parents are probably gone, too sick and too hungry to last long. They died, they died thinking we abandoned them on purpose.”
Jacob watched as Mr. Badger and Steel Eyes shared a look while Aslan squatted down in front of them, stirring the grass between his feet with a twig. It took great effort not to speak, to not try to convince this man of the truth of Griff’s lie.
Finally, Aslan took the twig, placed it under Jacob’s chin and lifted his head. Glaring at him, the beast of a man asked, “That what happened?”
Knowing he was very bad at lying, that he could never tell tales like Griff, Jacob decided to keep his mouth shut and merely nodded, trying to look solemn. Aslan rose back up.
Aslan said, “Ok, I believe your little story. Guys stupid enough to build a fire big enough to signal everyone for a hundred miles while laughing like loud jackasses are definitely stupid enough to get stuck in a runaway boat for a day and a half.”
Despite the pain and fear, a sliver of relief slipped through Jacob. Griff had done it. The thugs would not be going to Malden. Louisa. His mom and dad. Sam. Uncle Leo. All the kids. They were safe.
“Our friend, she’s sick, we need to take care of her, try to get her home. Can we go?”
Griff’s question elicited a snort of a laugh from Aslan. He shook his massive head and said, “No son. You can’t go. We don’t let people go.”
. . .
“They were cutting her up for food, no question.”
The patrol regrouped behind the ridge at sunset as planned. Predictably, Hale’s story was met with disbelief. Milo stammered out, “Eat the body? I mean, how do you know?”
Hale looked over at Taco who, nodding, softly said, “Butchered her.”
Clarence pushed forward, “Makes no matter. We came to destroy these vermin anyhow, now we’ve got an extra reason to end them.”
For once, Hale agreed with Clarence. “Yeah. But we’ve counted six rifles and at least ten men. That’s what we’ve seen, there could easily be more. We can’t simply storm that many guns with only our bows.”
With a hint of fear in his normally demanding tone, Clarence said, “You’re supposed to be the expert on this. What’s your plan?”
Most of the night, while lying up on the ridge, Hale pondered how to proceed. Divide and conquer seemed to be their best option.
“We can’t barge straight in, but I think we can take them down one or two at a time. Hopefully, they go for more firewood like we saw yesterday. If they do, we ambush the guards and hope the workers don’t do anything stupid. If it goes as planned, we end up with two of their rifles and maybe get some allies with information.”
From there, a lengthy discussion of logistics and roles occurred and, in the early morning, when the guards left the longhouse with half a dozen tethered people following the mule cart, the Bankers were silently moving through the trees alongside them. They reached the clearing unseen, spread out and remained hidden to wait, letting their targets get into the rhythm of their work. When the sleepy looking guards were sufficiently lulled into the tedium of the routine, Hale let out a low chirping noise.
Taco slipped from behind a pine tree like a shadow with a knife in hand. In three quick, silent strides he grabbed one guard and slit his throat to the spine. Before the blood-covered man could sink to the ground, five arrows thudded into the other guard. He started to let out a throttled yell, but a final arrow buried itself into his ear, sharply cutting off the noise.
The workers looked at Taco with his inside-out jacket, holding a bloody knife. They took in the fallen men with wide eyes and mouths ajar. They did not call out or try to flee, but only huddled together. Hale stepped into the clearing, showing his empty hands as he approached the frightened group.
“Hello, I’m Hale. We’re from Thule. Help us and no one gets hurt.”
A young, terribly gaunt man moved slightly forward. He managed to make eye contact with Hale despite any fear. “What do you want?”
His tone actually carried a defiant edge. Despite the scene, perhaps the man was not actually scared. Hale thought it might be more correct to see the man as desperate enough to no longer care. “We’ve come here to put an end to this place and take their supplies for ourselves.”
Behind him, Hale could sense the other Bankers moving into the clearing, expertly disarming the dead guards and surrounding the others. Despite this show of force, the worker in his tattered coat and with a dirt-smeared face, let out a scoffing laugh. “So what? We help you then you take off and leave us to starve and freeze? Or maybe you decide t’ eliminate us as well?”
Before Hale could respond, Clarence charged forward, sticking a finger in the captive’s face and growling, “You’ve got no choice. Help us do what we need to do, or it ends here and now for you.”
Enough became enough. Hale grabbed Clarence by his collar and yanked him to the ground. Predictably, Clarence threw his hands up to protect his face before curling into a ball rather than fight back. As the others quietly chuckled, Hale calmly said to the turtled man, “Learn how to control yourself before you get someone hurt.”
Returning his attention to the captives’ apparent leader, Hale said, “Sorry, ignore him. What’s your name?”
Maintaining the distrustful glare regardless of the commotion, the man said, “Marvin.”
Hale extended his hand, and Marvin reluctantly shook. “Well Marvin, I have no interest in killing innocent people. We only want to be rid of these assholes and their rifles, they’re the threat, not you. How many captives are there?”
After a moment of reflection, he responded, “Us six plus three others back there.”
At this a woman touched Marvin’s elbow, prompting him to correct himself, “Sorry, two others back there. We lost Dean last night.”
“Yeah, I saw that. What the hell’s going on here? What is this place?”
With a sigh, Marvin said, “Well Hale, they call this place Gergesa and I’d say it’s the home of pure evil.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
JUNE 10, 2046
DAY THREE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY
The knock was so soft it took Morreign a second to realize someone was at her cabin. She left her breakfast of stale corn mash on the table and limped the two steps to her door. Expecting it to be Leo coming to check in on her, seeing Louisa on the porch surprised her. The girl lifted her head and pushed the hood off her glowing, yellow hair, showing Morreign her perfect, angelic beauty.
“Hi, I was wondering, if, you weren’t busy if maybe we could talk.”
As Jacob’s closet friend and without a family of her own, Louisa practically lived with them. Louisa often ate dinner with them or played cards or merely visited in their cabin until the late hours of the night. However, except for a few fleeting moments, Morreign could not recall spending time alone with the girl. In fact, Louisa might be the only person in Malden with whom Morreign expended no effort getting to truly know. The sad realization made her wonder why she avoided no one but this lonely child.
“Of course, sure. You have breakfast? I have some extra corn mush. It’s bad but filling.”
“Sure, thanks. I just, I don’t know… guess I couldn’t sit around the Lodge any longer, you know?”
The child took off her jacket revealing a body no one would mistake for that of a child. Appreciating, for the first time, Louisa as a grown woman made Morreign realize Jacob was very far from being a boy. She supposed, living isolated, made it easier for parents to keep their children, but in many ways, at Malden, she supposed kids grew up faster than in the past.
They were expected to work and contribute from a young age and whining was not tolerated. Further, true threats like hunger and deadly disease hung about them, replacing previous worries like bullies, low self-esteem and acne. However, the kids were never truly outside the embrace of Malden, never more than a holler for help away from caring adults they knew all their lives. Now, with her last child out somewhere in the wilds, Morreign wondered if raising children sheltered in such a way was a mistake.
“Yeah Louisa, I think I know what you mean. Come on in, have a seat.”
With a slightly awkward silence mingling amongst them, Morreign spooned up a bowl of corn and poured a cup of tea. Setting the sad meal before Louisa she said, “The tea is only dried dandelion, not very good but I like it better than the dirty taste of the river water.”
“Thanks.”
They made small talk about the weather and the gardens as she ate. Then, as Morreign moved to clear away the dishes, she noticed a tear slipping down Louisa’s pink cheek. Cursing herself for not thinking, she put the dishes aside.
Louisa obviously did not come for bad food and chit-chat. The girl came to her because she was suffering and knew Morreign likely was suffering in much the same way. Morreign sat beside her, wrapping her arm around her. After a second of hesitation, Louisa hugged her back, and the tears came in earnest.
When the roughest of the crying finished, Louisa looked up at Morreign and said, “Sorry, I’m sorry, but I’m… I’m scared. I keep asking, ‘what happened to him’? To them, I mean.”
Morreign’s instincts wanted her to lie, to placate Louisa’s suffering with niceties about how they merely got lost and were probably hiking back right now. But she knew lying would not work. Louisa was smart enough to know better and tough enough not to let herself believe comforting falsehoods. “Honestly, Louisa, I don’t know, I wish I did, but I don’t.”
More sobbing followed by her weakly saying, “I need him to come back. I can’t, I can’t be alone. Not now, now that I know what life could be with him.”
Forcing herself to sound firm and sure, Morreign said, “Look, I don’t know what happened to them but Jacob is out there, and I know he’ll do everything in his power and then some to get back here, back to you. I know this because, for all these years, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I ignored the look, or at least tried to ignore it, I think because acknowledging it would mean I’d need to admit that Jacob was no longer only mine. But I saw it nonetheless, and it was there always. Any man who carries that look will risk everything and more to get back, and that’s especially true for a man like Jacob.”
“The last night, the night of the celebration, we fought. Not fought exactly but I, well, I disappointed him, and he was mad.”
For the endless hours, since they went missing, Morreign’s mind continually found its way to imagining her life if Jacob did not return. With both of her children gone, going through all the difficulties of creating what they were creating at Malden would seem pointless. She doubted she could go on if that became her reality. While knowing it to be very thin, she clung to the hope he would come back, convincing herself he would make it back and now another motivation for him returning came to her.
“I know Jacob as well as anyone, not only does he love you as deeply as it’s possible to love someone, he’ll want to come home so he can tell you he’s not mad. The idea that you’ll be worried or upset will drive him crazy. He’s too damn considerate to do otherwise.”
This got a brief chuckle from Louisa, “Yeah, you’re right he’d swim cross that icy river twice to apologize for even a perceived slight. Too polite for his own good.”
. . .
Hale figured it best to befriend the frightened workers. Some of the Bankers were lazily chopping away at trees so the sound of axes would carry and no one would think to check on the work crew. This allowed the captives to sit and rest while eagerly eating the patrol’s supplies.
Marvin, spooning canned beans into his mouth, sounded more cooperative now as he explained, “They always call themselves The Prepared of Gergesa. We call them Preppers but only when they can’t hear. Listening to their chatter, it seems they’re all bunch of survivalist nuts who got lucky when the world actually came to an end. I think they were probably a good bit insane before the war but, now that they think they’ve been proved right, they’ve gone totally nuts.”
Hale said, “We came by this place about eight years ago. Didn’t want to take it out back then ‘cause they seemed like nothing more than families. Well-armed families but families all the same. Lots of kids running around.”
This got sideway looks from the captives. Marvin stopped eating and said coldly, “Those kids you let live turned into cruel, murderous cannibals.”
It never occurred to Hale that his choice to leave people alive could’ve been a mistake, but he figured it best to move the discussion away from this problematic past, so he said, “Yeah, but I’m back to correct that. With these two guards gone, how many are left to deal with?”
“That leaves ten. Six men, four women. Women shoot as good as the guys. Three more are out ranging somewhere, been gone for a while but not sure when they’ll show back up.”
“Guns? Ammo?”
“They’ve got enough guns that each of ’em can carry three with extras leftover. Not sure on ammo but there are cases in the basement, so I doubt you’ll be able to run them out. Remember, these assholes devoted generations to being ready for an apocalypse.”
Hale cursed under his breath. When the ammunition at Thule ran out, most of the men were despondent, but the idea of a world without guns appealed to Hale. Before the Bombs, gun control escalated to the point that, essentially, no one but military and native hunters were allowed to keep them. Unregistered rifles undoubtedly existed but the penalties for having one were so strict that they were confined to cellars and attics. He could only wonder at how these Preppers managed stockpile such
an arsenal, but he supposed zealots could always find a way.
“Ok, give me the complete lay of the land. Who sleeps where and when? Who watches what?”
Marvin, with the help of the others, detailed the operations of the Preppers while Hale and Milo carefully listened. Finally, when it seemed all available information was provided, Hale asked, “If these guys are so well prepared for the end of the world, how’d the cannibalism come about?”
Marvin shrugged and said, “They were already into that ‘fore they caught me. There’s a tinge of religion ‘round it, treating it like a sacrifice or something, but they only decide to go that route when other meat ain’t around, or they got more workers penned up than they need. Also, they always pick the person that’s the least helpful in getting things done and fatten them up. Have to say, it’s a decent motivator to keep us working hard.”
Thousands of other questions about this freakiness poured into Hale’s mind, but there were more pressing matters to deal with. He asked, “How long before you all are supposed to go back?”
Scraping out the last of the beans and checking the sun, Marvin said, “Oh, damn, yeah, you don’t have long. Normally around noon two Preppers come out to spell the guards.”
After glancing at the sun and thinking for a moment, Hale said, “Good, gives us another ambush opportunity, limit their numbers so more.”
Marvin shook his head, “Nah, they normally call from a long ways out and expect a response from their friends, these bastards are cautious, well-trained and serious. You got lucky on these guards, they were the younger ones and sleepy from being up doing their bullshit chanting and feasting last night. The others, they ain’t half as sloppy and will be rested, won’t get caught in an ambush.”
. . .
Sharp pain shot up his knee as Jacob stumbled for the hundredth time under the weight of a heavy pack they had loaded on his back. Steel Eyes roughly grabbed the rope tied around his raw wrists and pulled him to his feet. Ahead of him, Griff limped stoically onward, a canvas bag strapped to his back as well. Behind him, Jacob could hear Tina heavily breathing under her load. For hours they marched like this through rough, heavy brush as mosquitos and black flies feasted on them. Jacob realized they were following a trap line as they had come across two snared squirrels, he could only hope it was a short line with something better at the end.