Afterland (32 page)

“So you have a lot to fight for.”

“And a lot to fight against.”

Anna nods. “I have a question for you.”

“Sure.”

“Why did you come out and meet our snowmobiles?”

“Nobody else was going,” I say.

“But you could have stayed too.”

“No,” I say. “You guys meant that there was something out there. You meant hope. I hated Hopetown for everything that it had done to me; all the fear and hatred that it instilled in me, how meaningless it had made my life. You guys were the first chance to change that.” Anna nods and smiles. “And your story?” I say.

“I suppose I’ll start mine at the Blast, if only for context. I was eleven and alone. Neither of my parents had survived the Blast and they were fairly closed people while they lived, so there wasn’t even anyone who would take me in.”

              “I’m sorry.”

              “Don’t be,” she says. “I never wish it was different.”

“Really? Never?”

“Yes. You know, I believe that all things, good and bad are all stops on each of our own unique journeys. If things were different then, they would be different now. I’m happy now. Why should I wish to change anything that brought me here?”

“I suppose that’s one outlook to have on the world.”

Anna shrugs lightly.

“I suppose. Anyway, I was starving, and thirsty, and dying, and alone. I passed out on the bank of a river right after I drank. And here’s the magical thing. I could have died. I should have died. How likely is it that a lone eleven year old would survive even a day? But I was granted a miracle and I survived. I woke up some time later. I don’t know when it was. It could have been an hour or a week, and I found this newly developed urge to live. And I still wasn’t sure that I would survive, but that was my first spark, if you understand what I mean.”

              “Yeah. Wow.”

              “I consider it a miracle. I’m so grateful for this chance that I had to live. After I stood up at the river, it took me about a week to find a town. Just like your Hopetown, it wasn’t much of a town but it had food and people who were willing to feed a little girl. This was my second miracle. I was on the verge of death, but I got enough sustenance to bring me back to life. I was taken to their infirmary. After they had fed me and healed me
—
I had an infection of my knee
—
that was really all that they could do. Nobody was willing to take on an extra child. They wouldn’t give me my own house; I was only a single child, after all. There was talk of making an apartment building of sorts, where everyone who came alone could settle, but then there was the question of who would build it and somebody would still have to be responsible for me. I was the only single child in my town, so building an orphanage wasn’t an option. I heard them talking outside of the infirmary when they thought I was sleeping. Some people said that they were obligated to find me a home. Some man said that I was a burden and that they should let me die. Nobody agreed openly, but nobody challenged him.”

              “Finally, a man who didn’t have either of his arms told the infirmary that he would take me in. His name was Joseph. He  was a veteran of several different wars and a kind man. I did all the work that he couldn’t do. That was the deal: he would feed and house me in return for work. He opened a bar and it sustained us until he died. I was sixteen, going on seventeen. Seventeen was the age at which they considered you as an independant person back then. I thought I would be able to keep the bar and continue living off of it, but the CGB seized it, saying that I couldn’t keep it because I wasn’t old enough. I was only a couple of months away from seventeen. They really took it because they needed a building. They turned it into an interrogation chamber. But that meant more than just a lost bar to me. The population of my town had boomed and there were no jobs left. I had to keep feeding myself somehow and there was only one business that was still in demand.”

She pauses and I await the next word in a type of horrified awe, because I know which business never loses demand.

“Prostitution,” I whisper.

“Yes.”

              “I’m...I’m sorry.

              Anna wraps her arms around herself and for the first time, I sense that the story pains her.

              “You don’t have to continue, if you don’t want to.”

              “I promised you a story,” she says with the slightest shadow of a smile. “I’ll finish it. Prostitution was...Well, you sell yourself, Molly. And you don’t just sell your body. You sell your mind, your soul, you pride. I had always considered myself an extremely prideful person. I thought that I would always belong to myself, that I would always keep my pride, no matter what. But I didn’t know what survival was like. I had come close to starvation six years prior, yes, but I was a child then. I was predisposed to miracles and I didn’t know what the world could do to me. But when I was sixteen, I was very aware of the cruelties of the post-Blast world. I should have been a child still, but I wasn’t. I was afraid of starvation. I was afraid of freezing to death. I was afraid of dying. I was afraid of losing my pride, but not as much as I was of losing my life. There were brothels on every street corner. All I had to do was pick one and...start. Those were the worst two years of my life, but I was alive, which was more than I had hoped for at many times in my life. And it was through the brothel that I heard about a Rebellion. One of my clients claimed that they came to his town. I was grasping at straws, but I figured that I had saved up enough money to leave. If I didn’t find the Rebellion, I could always find work in another brothel. I left to the town that the man had come from. They had, indeed, seen a couple of young people on snowmobiles, but whether or not that was the Rebellion was a hotly disputed topic among the townspeople. But one of the women there told me that in a neighboring town, there was a gang that pulled a heist and some of them ran off to find the Rebellion. It was Matt and Hannah’s town. They had left really recently, so I could follow their tracks. Not their literal tracks, but stories of where they went. I stopped in all the towns along the way and asked if anybody remembered where the two exiles from another town went. The last town was a little bit closer than Hopetown. They said that the exiles had gone off into the mountains. My food and my money were running short by then, but I figured I could survive long enough. I never found out. This was another one of the miracles that I was granted. I found tracks, snowmobile tracks, before my supplies ran out, and I followed them to camp. And now I’m here.”

              “Wow,” I say. “You’ve made it through  a very difficult life.”

              “I consider myself very lucky,” she says.

              “I don’t think you’re lucky. I think you’re strong.”

              “Thank you, Molly, but truly: I don’t think I made it alone. I’ve been blessed to have such wonderful guidance.”

              “Are you talking about...God?”

              “Yes.”

              “Oh. Are you religious?”

              “I can’t attribute my beliefs to any one religion, but I believe that there is a higher power somewhere that watches and guides all of us.”

              “Oh. Um, why?”

              “At least one person here must have told you that everyone must have something to believe in.”

              “Yeah.”

              “I choose to believe in God.”

              “Why?”

              “You know, like you, I’m terrified of failure.” I have no idea how she knows that I’m scared of failure but I nod along. “Believing in something bigger than me makes my fear seem irrelevant. The world will go on. Whether I succeed or fail doesn’t matter because it’s all part of a bigger plan. I believe that eventually, success will come. It might not be success as we think of it now, but everything will be all right. And then, everything will end. What we did will be completely inconsequential to the fate of the world. But God will remember us and we become immortal.”

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I head up to the Field of the Fallen to shoot and clear my head. I have a lot of thoughts competing for my attention. From the story Anna told me yesterday to what we’ll do about Mike’s plight. I’m not really paying attention to my surroundings, so I am startled when I hear a voice greet me.

“Hello.” I look up.

“Mike.” My blood rushes in my ears.

“I’m glad to see you’re keeping up your training.”

“Um...yeah.” I stand rooted to the ground. Mike attempts a weak smile and I am afraid my heart will burst out of my chest.

Here he is, smiling at me.

Mike, who agreed to a murder. Who agreed to
my
murder. I won’t survive against him. If he chooses to kill me, I
will
die.

Would Mike kill me? I want to say no, I want it so bad I almost believe it.

But the fact remains, I don’t know.

He might. For the right price.

What am I worth? How much would he be willing to trade for my life? How much did Augustus offer him?

This is a dangerous game, and I don’t understand all the pieces. But there are no winners. Only survivors.

And I’m not sure I’ll be one of them.

My life is in Mike’s hands now.

And he is standing here
smiling
at me.

“I...I have to go,” I mutter. “I...um...I promised Big Sal that I would, um, well you know.”

And then I run back to camp, leaving Mike standing alone in the Field of the Fallen.

                            __              __              __              __              __              __              __              __              __              __

              During the evening break, Smaller Sally pulls me aside to the woods.

              “Alright, so I found out who the Carviates are,” she says. “They’re really creepy. So, in short, they’re a cult of weirdos that worships murder.”

“Okay…”

“They make up new and creative ways to kill people and there’s basically no reason for it except for the sake of murder.”

“Oh, um. Wow, okay.”

“Yup. So,” she says, “Are you up for rescuing Veronica, James, and Drew?”

I smile. “Of course.”

CHAPTER 22

              We spend the next day planning our rescue. Smaller Sally shows me a crude sketch of the location and map of the Carviates’ camp. It’s located in the remains of a town slightly South of here.

              “How did you get this information anyway?” I ask.

              “Big Sal. She knows everything, remember?”

              “Right. Of course. How convenient. Anyway, what’s the plan?”

              “Good question. I was thinking we go in and save the people that need to be saved.”

              “Is that it?” I say after a pause.

              “Yeah, pretty much.”

              “That’s not a plan, that just our goal.”

              “Who says that can’t be a plan?” Smaller Sally shrugs.

`              “The fact that it’s a cult that worships death?”

              “Murder.”

              “What difference does it make?”

              “Worshipping death is poetic. Worshipping murder is just creepy.”

              “Okay, but either way, we need a better plan.”

              “Do you have an idea?”

              “Not really, but let’s review what we know.”

              “Ah, yes, the number one step.”

              “Right. So it’s in a town slightly South of here. What’s it called?”

              “I’m not sure. Let’s call it Region X.”

              “All right. Region X. So this Region X, correct me if I’m wrong, but Region X is more or less a fully functioning, entirely Carviate owned town?”

              “Right.”

              “Okay. So they’re spread out across the entire town, yes? But their headquarters or whatever they call it it is in the center in this building here?” I jab the center of the paper with my pointer finger.

              “Yes.”

              “So you said that they keep their prisoners in the center. Before rescuing them, we have to pass two series of challenges: one to get in, one to get out.”

              “I like the way you think. You’re actually very smart.” Smaller Sally interjects. I grin, despite the gravity of the situation.

              “Thank you. Anyway, so this here is fortifications?” I point to the scrawl that Smaller Sally drew encircling the town.

              “Yes. And see all of these Xs? That’s where the guards are supposed to be. I’m not sure how accurate it is.”

              “All right, we can work with that. So let’s say that we get in. Next, we have to make it to the center. Ideally that would happen while everyone is out of town or at least all in one place. Do we have an approximate head count?”

              “A little over ten-thousand.”

              “Ten-thousand? Wow, that’s a lot of people to worship murder.”

“Yup.”

“Well, okay, then. So we either need a diversion or to get there when they’re already gone, so that would be during a religious event or a sacrifice or whatever the hell they do.”

              Smaller Sally laughs.

“I’m not sure. My knowledge is fairly limited, but I haven’t heard anything of a scheduled sacrifice that the entire town participated in. You know, we could also go in during nighttime. There won’t be anybody on the streets.”

              “Right. Good idea. But we’ll still need to deal with the guards, at least to get around them.”

“During night time, we should be able to get around them without much problems.”

“You sure?” She nods. “Okay good. That should also at least help with the guards on the outside. What type of fortification is it? More specifically, how do we get through it?”

              “It’s a big stone wall. We can climb.”

              “All right. Holy crap, this is just getting progressively weirder and weirder. Anyway, what we have so far is...still that we just go in.”

“Yup.”

I shrug.

“Then just casually scaling the wall it is. Next question: how are we justifying leaving so late to the Rebellion?”

“We can make up a raid. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Alright. In that case, if everything goes as it should, we arrive in the dark, scale the wall, run through the town and make it to the prisoner cell and free Veronica, James, and Drew. They’ll be in what? A cell? How are we getting them out?” Smaller Sally grins again and I notice her smiles getting progressively more fiendish.

“Don’t worry, I’m handy with a lockpick.”

“You know, you’re kind of starting to creep me out.”

“It’s all part of the plan. Anyway, what do you have next?”

“So next we have to make it back out. I envision it being basically the same as going in but in reverse.”

“And with three other people in we don’t know what state.”

“Right, that too. They might not be able to climb. That makes it harder.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she brushes me off.

“The unspecificness of this plan is a little, I don’t know, unsettling, maybe? Don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Well then, in that case…”

“In that case, let’s go kick some Carviate butt.”

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              The next morning, we set out again, this time with two snowmobiles so that we’ll be able to take the hostages back. With us, we have our usual arsenal of weapons as well as two guns. Smaller Sally has a set of lockpicks and three grappling hooks with her. I have the medical kit my mother gave me, supplemented with items from Rebekah’s survival hoard. We say farewell to the Rebellion, telling them that we’re sabotaging more power lines. Smaller Sally takes the snowmobile in the front. This time, however, instead of being distressed at her driving, I am relieved at the energy behind it. I take a deep breath and prepare for the tasks ahead. Before leaving, we smoothed out the wrinkles of our plan although it is still much less foolproof than I would like it to be.

“Let’s just hope for the best,” Smaller Sally said before we left.

              “And if we fail?” She only shrugged. “You’re really not afraid of death, are you?” I said.

              “I wouldn’t say that. But if you’re always afraid of death, when are you supposed to live?”

              We ride for several hours without stopping. Neither of us say anything and the air tingles with anticipation. Smaller Sally seems calm, maybe excited if anything. I try to mimic her aura, but I can feel my fingers shaking with nervous adrenaline.

              We ride for five hours. My toes and fingers loose all feeling. The backpack of emergency supplies bounces around on my spine. Finally, we stop. I get off immediately and stretch my tense limbs. Smaller Sally does the same. She puts several branches over the snowmobiles and nods towards me. We begin to jog. After ten minutes, we stop. We left our snowmobiles uncomfortably close to our destination, but since we don’t know if the prisoners are still in good health, we decided not to put them too far away, lest one of the three that we rescue collapse.

              From this distance, we can just barely make out the wall over the canopy of the forest. We walk out to the edge of the woods and survey the city from the shadows. It is even more intimidating than how I imagined it. The wall must be almost fifteen meters tall of dark, rough stone. There are little bowls of fire placed on top of the wall what I assess to be every half of a meter and in the light, I can see that barbed wire circles across the perimeter of the wall. Two more obstacles we’ll have to get past. Shadowy figures also holding torches move along the top of the wall. Guards. I assess the distance between them. Smaller Sally was right. In the dark, we should be able to avoid them with relative ease.

The inside of the city must be illuminated by torches as well. The city glows with an ominous red light. I bite down on my lip and crack my knuckles.

“Ready to go?”Smaller Sally whispers. I nod. She throws me a grappling hook. I take it and we crawl through the tall grass around the city, carefully following the shadows.to a place near the wall that is in between two guards. We are dressed entirely in black and covered by the night, so hopefully, we won’t be visible.

This plan relies too much on assumptions. But assumptions are the only thing we have.

I throw my grappling hook over the wall, pulling on it to make sure that it is secure. We begin to climb. Smaller Sally climbs slightly faster than me so that when she drops down to the other side, I'm still climbing over. I try not to look down, knowing that I'll only lose time.

I crouch on the top of the wall and swing over to begin the climb down. I smell something burning and realize that part of my jacket is smoking; it must have caught on one of the small fire bowls. I spit on my hand and hastily pat it out. I can’t afford to be this sloppy.