Fireside (12 page)

Lorelei couldn’t help that she held her breath as the truck bounced down the jutted highway beyond the town. They used to go on patrols far into the wastes and she knew these areas were more dangerous. They’d stopped going so far once they stopped coming in contact with survivors of any kind. The dwindling population of San Angelo needed more and more protecting at home as they fortified their position and began sustainably growing their own crops and producing small herds of goats instead of eating them right away.

She glanced through the rear window once again and saw the whitened knuckles on several of her troops as they gripped their weapons, which were a mixture of military and civilian rifles, it came down to whatever ammunition they could find. Most of the Shooters had been with the team for a long time, so they remembered the troubles that could be experienced beyond the ground defense area. Demonbrocs bred and grew to maturity quickly while the insect population had grown in size exponentially. It wasn’t uncommon to see centipedes and scorpions that were three or four feet long once their genetic makeup had been altered by the radiation all around them.

The last of the concrete foundations faded behind them in the truck’s rearview mirror, causing her to feel like they were truly on their own in the wasteland. Everything familiar to them was now gone.

The long, dusty road snaked off into the distance. It was so covered by the drifting dirt that if the skeletal remains of trees and the occasional rusted sign hadn’t been present, then she wouldn’t have been able to say definitively where it was. The landscape had changed so much since her platoon had first arrived here. Back then, there was grass and the occasional tree as well as green cacti dotting the roadway.

The cactus plants were still a staple in the sands, but they’d changed as much as the wildlife. What people used to think of as thorns were laughable little stickers compared to what they’d become. The need to develop larger and more dangerous spikes to keep away the birds and other creatures had caused a rapid evolution in the plant life as the shorter-thorned varieties were quickly consumed for the moisture contained inside of them. A man could be impaled on the forest of spikes jutting in every direction on the remaining varieties of cacti.

It wasn’t long before the flat, barren landscape lulled Lorelei into a daze. The occasional dilapidated home with the remains of a few trees were the only thing to break up the monotony of the open wasteland. Occasionally, a demonbroc would appear near the road; usually not long enough to get a shot off at the creature, though. It was a tedious task and she couldn’t help but allow herself to believe that there was nothing out here.

They were almost thirty miles from San Angelo and the captain was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. The other crews must be in the same state out to the north and east of the city. The years of cold weather and acid rain followed by heat and near-drought conditions had done their job in west Texas. No one remained alive outside of the larger concentrations of people and those who did survive certainly weren’t going to leave the safety of their walls.

She decided that it was time to turn around. There wasn’t any point in being out here anymore. It turned out that Aeric’s fears about raiders had been unfounded. Still, she planned to continue sending Shooters on regular patrols further into the wastes. It was an oversight that could have been dangerous if there were some type of large, well-provisioned force remaining in Austin.

She studied the tattered map in her lap for a moment and saw that they were almost to the town of Eden. She’d done a few sweeps through there in the early years when there was still a lot of fuel and enough manpower to dismantle an entire town for its supplies. The town had already been brutalized by gangs by the time they got there so they didn’t have to compete with residents for supplies, it was a ghost town.

Her worst memory from those days was the old prison on the east side of town. The guards had abandoned their post and went to their homes, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. Unfortunately for them, the magnetic locks had stayed engaged when the EMP knocked out the electricity, only an electrical pulse could have unlocked the failsafe measure built into the doors in the event of a power outage. The prisoners had starved in their cells, dying by the hundreds. The Gathering Squad didn’t even bother trying to salvage any building material from there. Once they’d cleared out the kitchens and supply buildings, they abandoned everything else. Presumably, the skeletons of those men would be locked away forever.

Lorelei tapped the driver on the arm. “Hey, Ollie, we’re gonna head back. In about half a mile, we’ll come to the old town of Eden. Take a left on the main road. We’ll go north on that for a few miles, then when we come to a big four-way intersection, we’ll go left and head back west towards San Angelo.”

Ollie nodded his head and shouted over the roaring steam engine, “There’s nothing out here, ma’am. It’s all just desert.”

“That’s why I’m calling it. There’s no sense in going any further out this way. There’s only more sand and dirt.”

The truck chugged into Eden and Ollie followed her directions. It had been a successful and uneventful mission with nothing significant to report. Just the way the captain liked it.

EIGHT

He watched the truck turn north up Main Street through his binoculars and breathed a sigh of relief. The watcher thought that he’d finally been compromised. Oh, he knew that he could hide in the prison, the ones who used the dirty, foul-smelling machines of the past never entered his home. His friends scared them.

The black smoke pouring from the truck had been easy to see for miles—or was it leagues? Maybe even furlongs? The man scratched at the bald spot on the side of his head where he’d long ago rubbed away the hair that grew wildly everywhere else. He didn’t know what an appropriate measure of distance was now that everything was measured in how much water someone could carry. His fingernail slipped under the scab where his fingers scratched and he lifted it away, placing the course disc of skin and blood on his tongue.

He sucked at the scab while he watched the truck disappear in the distance. Satisfied that they weren’t stopping or coming nearer to his home, he chewed on the softened treat and then wiped away the smear of blood that had welled up at the scab’s former site. He licked the salty red smear from his fingers and waddled over to the guard tower ladder.

Several painful minutes later, he limped towards Cellblock B, which was his primary home. His right knee bent outwards at an angle, a lifelong gift from his master. He remembered the man who’d maimed him, for all intents and purposes trapping him in the Eden Detention Center. His master had been a young man, so angry and full of hate, even back then.

Seventeen years prior—or was it one hundred? Maybe forty-one? He could never keep such a trivial thing like time straight in his head either. Anyways
a long time ago
, Judd Carlisle had been a survivor, living in and around the town of Eden. The soldiers in the trucks searched the town, but they didn’t find him, no they hadn’t! He’d hidden cleverly in the refuse and watched them taking the supplies that he’d stockpiled for himself.

He didn’t have any weapons besides a knife, so he knew that going up against them would be suicide. Judd may not have had much to live for—even back then when he was healthy—but he was alive and planned to stay that way. He hid and observed in silent rage at the loss of his food and resources. They stayed for days, loading up their giant trucks with basically everything that was moveable.

After three days, the hunger in Judd’s belly had grown beyond his ability to control any longer. His friends whispered to him in the darkness that he would be safe if he snuck up to one of the trucks and took back some of the food that they’d taken from him. He’d argued that he would be caught. His friends wouldn’t listen to the logic he presented to them. They were convinced that he’d be okay if he waited until the middle of the night—
and they’d never apologized for being wrong
, he thought angrily as he walked towards his room.

He’d finally relented to their murmurings of safety and crept up to the side of a truck where he’d seen them place the canned goods they’d stolen from his home. His friends had promised to watch his back for any type of trouble; he’d been foolish enough to believe them. They typically weren’t very reliable and abandoned him when he needed them the most. They’d missed the approach of the youth sneaking up on him in the darkness.

He was caught off guard by the cool muzzle of the youth’s rifle pressed against his jaw as he reached underneath the tarp. Judd knew instantly that all the years of sneaking and hiding since the big booms had come to an end. He remembered television—oh God, did he miss
that!
—and the damage that a gun could do. He’d watched a show one time where a group of bikers ambushed a policeman and spread his blood like paint on the side of his car. He definitely did not want his blood painting the truck, so he held up his hands in surrender.

Judd couldn’t help but giggle at the idea that he was afraid of his blood
painting
a truck.
Was that my inspiration?
he wondered as he tapped the nub of his index finger on the side of his head. Out loud, he said, “I never realized that’s where it came from. Wow, funny.”

He stopped thinking about painting and remembered the master. Judd had turned to the youth who held the gun against his face and tried to smile. Unfortunately, the jagged, rotten stumps where his teeth had broken on cans before he figured out how to use a can opener scared the boy. He lashed out with the wooden part of his gun and knocked poor old Judd to his knees.

Judd cried out in pain and the youth wrapped a gloved hand over his mouth, dragging him away into the darkness away from the trucks. He was beaten savagely with the rifle and begged for mercy. None came. The youth was relentless in his anger at Judd for trying to steal the things that were rightfully his.

He’d passed in and out of consciousness until finally, the beating stopped and he awakened in the prison yard. The youth told him that what he’d experienced was merely a sampling of the pain that he would visit upon the watcher if he didn’t do what he asked. Of course, Judd promised that he would do whatever the man wanted him to. He would have been crazy not to—and that was one thing that Judd was not, no sir, he was not crazy. Those kinds of people, the
crazies
, lived in the isolation ward. The nurses used to let him walk around outside the ward, even gave him important jobs to do like keeping the windows on the guard shacks clean so they could keep the crazies locked away.

The youth didn’t believe him that he wouldn’t run away, so he broke Judd’s knee and then left him in the warden’s office. The next night, the youth returned with food and several large bottles of water. He gave Judd a bottle of pills with careful instructions about how many to take and when, he said that they’d keep the infection away and that his leg would heal.

The trucks left and Judd thought he’d never see them again. The food that the youth had given him ran out so he crawled through the prison to the cafeteria and found enough scraps to last him a long time. He made new friends with the men behind the bars in their old cells, although they never wanted to come outside, so he always had to go to them to talk, which got annoying sometimes. Why did he
always
have to be the one who sought out their company? Wasn’t he a good enough friend that they’d want to come see him?
Kinda rude when you think about it, yes sir
.

Even though his knee flared out at a painful and awkward angle, his leg did eventually heal enough for him to walk unaided. The injury made running or traveling for long distances impossible, though. One day, he was minding his own business, rolling down the cellblock hallway in the warden’s chair when the youth materialized in front of him. He’d aged into a man by that time and asked what Judd had seen since their last encounter.

Judd tried to avoid the question and asked his friends behind the doors for help. Again, they abandoned him, choosing to look the other way and not offer any assistance. The man beat him with a heavy stick, screaming at him that he had to be the eyes and ears outside of Salmon-Jello. He was the watcher.

Judd had been confused. Why was the man so angry about fish-flavored gelatin? The pretty nurses used to give him Jello and it was one of the only things—besides television!—that he missed about life before the big booms. Of course, fish Jello sounded nasty, but it wasn’t reason to beat up poor Judd. Finally, he realized that Salmon-Jello was the name of a place. He begged for forgiveness once again and the man relented as Judd told him all about his friends in their cells and the food supply that he’d found. Telling the man about his life in the prison before the big booms seemed to calm the man slightly. He introduced himself as Kendrick Rustwood.

Kendrick told Judd that he worked for him now and his job was one of the most important out of all the people that Kendrick had working for him. He was to be the watcher. If any soldiers in the trucks came back from Salmon-Jello, Judd had to find a way to contact his new master.

Judd wasn’t a fool. He promised to work hard at being a watcher and Kendrick seemed satisfied with his vow. Then the man turned and left the cellblock, telling him that he’d be back with an army soon.

From the window, Judd saw him get on a bicycle and pedal off in the direction that the sun came up in the mornings, which seemed silly to him. It was so hot, why anyone would want to go closer to the sun was beyond his understanding. He watched until Kendrick disappeared and began planning how he could watch for the soldiers as he’d promised he would.

A long time later, it could have been months or maybe years, Judd didn’t really have a good way of keeping track of time, Kendrick returned with trucks of his own. These were smaller than the ones that the soldiers had used and had paintings of giant birds all over them. Judd liked the birds and planned to draw them on the walls. He thought that would please Kendrick.

About twenty men came with Kendrick, all of them mean and vulgar. Judd’s friends didn’t like the men, so they kept quiet, which only made them the butt of the men’s jokes. They laughed and used the ends of brooms to reposition his friends, who couldn’t get out of the way. It infuriated Judd that they’d pick on his friends, but knew better than to mess with their kind. They were just like the nasties over in Cellblock A; he didn’t like going to Cellblock A because of all the mean and rude things the prisoners over there said to him.

The images of what Kendrick’s men had done to his friends made Judd stop as he limped through Cellblock B. He peered into Jake’s cell and asked, “You doin’ okay, buddy ol’ pal?”

I don’t like when you think about what they did to me
, Jake replied.

“I’m sorry, Jake. I know you don’t. I couldn’t help it. The soldiers came back! I have to tell the master that the soldiers were here. I couldn’t help myself from thinking about it. I was just remembering about when I met him.”

It’s humiliating. My eyesight is still blurry,
Jake muttered accusingly.

Judd squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to not remember. Every time he tried not to remember something, it only reminded him of what he was trying to not remember, which made him remember what he was trying to forget.
Why is the human mind so difficult?
he asked himself and then cut off his thoughts.
It certainly wouldn’t do to be answering your own question; that’s what the crazies in the East Ward did
, he giggled out loud again.

The images of that night flooded back into him and even though he felt bad for the hurt that it would cause Jake, he couldn’t stop the memory. One of the men had reached through the bars and pulled Jake’s head towards him. Part of Judd’s mind realized that the skull had come completely off of the skeleton’s body, but
that
part of his mind wasn’t usually allowed to speak. All it did was make day-to-day life harder for Judd when that part voiced its opinions.

The thug had pulled Jake’s head over to the bars and shouted, “Hey, you know how we always say things like ‘I’m gonna skull fuck you?’ Well, watch this!” He unzipped his trousers and poked his dick back and forth into poor Jake’s eye sockets. His friend screamed in pain as the men howled in laughter. Several of them tried to position a couple of his other friends with their rear ends towards the cell doors so they could rape them. Thankfully, Judd’s friends had collapsed and refused to cooperate. Charlie hadn’t talked to him since that night, though.

Come on, Judd! I told you not to think about that!
Jake admonished.

He ducked his head low between his shoulders. “Sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to. I…” He remembered why he was in the cellblock. He didn’t have time for small talk, he had a mission to perform. “I gotta go tell Kendrick about the soldiers!”

Judd hurried away from Jake’s accusatory, if blurred, stare and made his way up the staircase to the warden’s office where he kept the machine. He wished that he could have kept it in his room so he could be encouraged by his friends, but the office was the only place where the antenna would reach the roof and have a clear line of signal to his master.

He limped past the squiggly, rust-colored birds that he painted in the stairwell in his own blood a few months prior. In hindsight, that had been a bad idea. He got lightheaded halfway through the project and birds four and five looked a little off to him. He wanted to fix them, but couldn’t bring himself to cut off another finger.

That night, long ago when the Vultures visited and did those awful things to his friends, Kendrick had given him a gift. Several gifts, really. First off, he didn’t allow the men to harm poor old Judd and then he gave him more food and several barrels to collect rainwater so he could stay healthy. The best gift that he’d given the watcher was a way to contact him.

Somehow, Kendrick had found a radio—a radio!—that worked. It was green and had black keys with white numbers and green letters on the front. It was a very fancy piece of equipment that only specialized operators like Judd knew how to use. The master had showed him how to operate it and said that he must always leave the batteries out of it and could only use the radio if the soldiers returned.

His hands shook in anticipation. He’d waited oh so very long to talk to Kendrick again. Sure, they’d gotten off to a rocky start with the beatings, but old Judd had deserved it for not knowing what the master wanted. Besides, he’d been beaten his whole life by the people in the prison, so he could handle little things like a few bruises and broken bones. The master was only trying to teach him the correct way of doing things. He’d even broken Judd’s leg so he could stay safe with his friends behind the safety of the prison fences. That way, he didn’t get hurt out in the wild lands around the town. It was for his own good, after all.