Authors: S.M. McEachern
“It would be neighborly of us to let them know Ryder’s men are in the area,” Eli said.
“I thought the recruiters were long gone and we were trying to catch up to them,” Reyes said.
Eli regarded us with bug-eyed amazement. “The way you two are flying across
the lakes? I’m hoping we didn’t pass them.”
“You haven’t said anything so I hate to ask, but how are you able to make the raft move so fast?” Jin-Sook asked me.
Doc had said it was time to come out of hiding and, honestly, I didn’t want to spend the rest of the journey trying to keep it a secret.
“You’ve heard me mention Doc,” I said, and Jin nodded. “These suits are his design. He calls
them exoskeletons, and they enhance our strength and speed. Apparently we can glide with them too, but I’ve never tried.”
“Me either, but I’m dying to,” Reyes said with almost gleeful excitement.
Summer moaned.
“Summer could use the rest anyway,” I said and started paddling toward the shore.
“And it’s only going to get rougher up ahead. We might as well go on foot for a while,” Eli said.
I wasn’t sure if he said that for Summer’s benefit or if it was the truth. “If you don’t mind me asking, Eli, how do you remember the river so well? I thought it’s been fifteen years since you escaped Ryder.”
“I’ve led quite a few expeditions, mainly just checking out the surrounding area to make sure no one’s moved in on us,” he said. “But always in the mountains. Once we reach the plains,
I’ll be going by memory.”
We pulled up to the shore, and I helped Summer out of the raft. I was beginning to think we might not be able to use the boat again at all.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
“Why don’t you three stay with the raft and Reyes and I will go up to the house?” I said.
Jin-Sook shook her head. “Eli can stay with Summer. I’m coming with you.”
“These suits protect us against
assault, Jin,” I said. “Your skins don’t.”
She touched her bow. “Even with your suit, Sunny, I’m still a faster shot than you.”
“True,” I conceded. I turned my attention to Eli. “Make sure she drinks,” I said, pointing to Summer. She held up her flask and saluted me.
I didn’t want to greet anyone bearing arms, yet I had no idea how our presence would be received, so I took the diplomatic
route and unsnapped my holster to make my gun readily available. Reyes’ long strides put him in the lead, and Jin-Sook stayed hidden among the trees.
There were four houses altogether, constructed of crudely cut logs with mud and straw packed into the crevices. They formed a half circle around a common area, complete with a table made of stone, handmade wooden chairs, and a dugout fire pit
with a smashed clay pot sitting in the middle. Nothing stirred in the small little village. It was quiet.
Reyes and I approached with caution, and my hand tightened around the grip of my gun. “Hello!” I called out. No one answered.
A shutter gaped open on the side of one house, revealing a glassless window. From where I stood, I peered into the dark house and saw only something hanging on
a wall. No movement came from inside.
I was getting a real bad feeling.
“The whole place looks abandoned,” Reyes said in a low voice. “I’ll take a closer look through the window.”
I drew my gun. “I’ll cover you.”
As I inched my way into the courtyard area, the wind brought the smell of something putrid. I gagged and breathed through my mouth. “Do you smell that?” I whispered loudly.
“Yeah,” Reyes said. He was an arm’s length away from the window. “Hello?” he called. He reached out and pulled the shutter back while simultaneously raising his gun.
My eyes darted from one house to the next, straining to detect any kind of movement. There was none.
“Empty,” Reyes said, stepping away from the window. “I’ll check the next one.” He moved faster this time, using the speed his
exoskeleton gave him to cross the space between houses. He knocked once and pulled the door open. “No one here either.”
He opened the door of the next house, but this time he slapped a hand over his nose and mouth and stumbled back a few steps. “
Jesus!
” he said, gagging.
My heart hammered as I raised my gun, pointed it at the other houses, and moved toward Reyes. I didn’t need to see Jin-Sook
to know she wasn’t far away, unseen in the forest, an arrow cocked and ready to fly. It was reassuring.
“Don’t go in there,” Reyes said.
Ignoring him, I stepped through the door and stopped in my tracks when I saw a bloated, naked body on a rumpled bed. She was face down, her gray hair straggling across her face, her arms out to the side, and the tops of her feet lifelessly resting on the
floor. Insects were making a meal out of the bloated carcass. My stomach tightened, nausea rising. There was no doubt she had been raped; what I was having difficulty accepting was that someone could actually do this to another human being.
I didn’t want to make the connection to Summer, but my mind went there. Even though I knew my best friend had been the victim of an evil man, I had never
really
seen
his crimes and, since Summer never talked about it, could only imagine what it had been like. Reality, it turns out, was much worse than anything my imagination could muster. And suddenly I saw all those nights Summer drowned herself in a bottle, keeping her thoughts to herself, from a new perspective.
The smell was horrendous, and the sight of the bloated corpse horrific, but I
couldn’t stop myself from going to the woman to cover her nakedness with a blanket. I thought about moving her, to give her a more dignified resting position, but her flesh was too fragile. She had been there a while.
I surveyed the one-room shack. A stone fireplace filled one corner, and two beds lined the walls. Four straw mats lay in the middle of the floor, one with a handmade doll sitting
on it. Wooden bowls and spoons were scattered around, their contents spilled as if they had been kicked over.
I stepped forward and picked up the doll, turning it over in my hands. Real human hair adorned its head, wound into two braids that framed a hand-drawn face, the smile a little crooked. The body was made of stuffed animal hide, which had been loved to a soft suppleness. My hand automatically
went to my belly. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as my mind wondered where the owner of the doll might be. Dead? Raped like the lady who was left here to rot?
Reyes’ figure darkened the doorway, snapping me out of my moment of grief. “So what do you think, recruiters or
bourge
?” He said the last word sarcastically and motioned to the figure on the bed.
I couldn’t fault him for thinking
that since my mind went there too. “I guess evil wasn’t preserved only in the Dome. It’s everywhere.”
“There’s no one here. We should go,” he said.
I made to drop the doll back down onto the floor mat but reconsidered. It was obviously a well-loved toy; a testament that happiness had once lived there. Maybe I was too late to help these people, but at least I could save what they had made.
I tucked it in my backpack.
As we exited the little house, a low growl startled us, and we spun at the same time to face it. A mangy-looking dog poked its head around the side of the house, its red-stained muzzle wrinkled tightly as it bared its teeth. Another growl joined the first, and a second dog moved out from between the houses.
Reyes took aim and pulled the trigger. Wood splintered off the corner of the house and
both mutts jumped, one retreating back between the houses. Reyes swore under his breath.
I aimed my gun at the one out in the open and pulled the trigger. Just as he dropped, I heard the whistle of an arrow and then a dull thud when it found its target. We looked around the corner of the house to find the second dog on the ground with an arrow in the back of its head. I wasn’t sure where she
was, but I gave Jin-Sook a thumbs-up.
Reyes gave a low whistle. “She’s good.” He ran a hand over the splintered wood. “And I need more practice.”
“I want a quick look around before we go,” I said. I wanted to know what the dogs had been eating.
Behind the houses, a third dog stood sentinel over a large bone, slaver dripping from its toothy snarl. Bones were strewn around the small yard,
some still with bits of flesh and cloth clinging to them. There wasn’t much left of whoever the bones had belonged to, so I assumed the pack must have been hanging around, looking for a way into the house to get at the other body. And Reyes and I had just opened the door for them.
“Looks like it was an older person,” Reyes said, motioning toward a skull with a tuft of gray hair still attached.
I breathed a guilty sigh of relief. Whoever this was, they were too old to play with dolls.
Reyes raised his gun and shot the dog point-blank. It didn’t know enough to run.
Jack
The moment I was dreading finally arrived as our caravan departed from the guiding influence of the river and turned toward the setting sun. Provided we didn’t have much farther
to go, I was confident I could find my way back to the river. An old city rose out of the sea of trees, its crumbling towers vivid against the red- and gold-streaked sky. I knew what skyscrapers were, had seen plenty of them in the movies. But this was the first time I had seen them for real. They must have been quite something before they were eroded by time and neglect. Under different circumstances,
I would be excited by the thought of exploring such a place. However, right now I was just relieved that such a prominent landmark stood as a signpost to guide me back to the river. The prospect of finding my way home was not lost.
We left the foothills and headed right for the city. Within a few miles we came to a well-worn trail, and our ride smoothed out considerably. It wasn’t a straight
trail, but rather it weaved around debris and holes in the ground. After a bit of studying, I finally realized the holes were old basements and we were traveling through a pre-War suburb. It was difficult to discern the exact layout of the community because it was so overgrown with brush, trees, and vines.
The closer we came to the city, the higher the skyscrapers loomed. There was an ominous
feel to their presence that I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one to feel. By the look of Naoki and Talon’s faces they were also in awe. The sheer number of people who must have lived there before the War was incomprehensible. I thought our Dome was densely populated, but this… Each skyscraper alone must have housed thousands, which made me think the pre-War population of this city was in the
hundred thousands, if not close to a million. Yeah, I knew the earth’s total population was close to eight billion when WWIII broke out, but this was the first piece of evidence I had ever seen that gave credence to that number.
As we rolled into the city, the ominous feel of the place turned to just plain creepy. There were so many buildings, all of them in a state of collapse. Their hollow,
dark interiors beckoned me to peer into their depths to see if eyes were staring back. Movement on the top of a half-crumbled low-rise building caught my attention. Hollywood didn’t miss it either. He waved to whoever it was, and within minutes more than a dozen men came out of two nearby buildings to greet our convoy. Hands were shaken, arms slapped, and recruits inspected.
One man greeted
Hollywood with a long-lost-best-friend man hug. “Ralph, it’s good to see you home,” he said, stepping out of the hug and gripping Hollywood by the shoulder. “I took care of your wives while you were gone like I promised, my friend. And if any of your sons have my eyes, it’s purely coincidental.” Laughter rose up at the joke, and Hollywood beamed at the attention.
My rifle was passed around and
bets were taken on what price it would fetch, with some guessing it was worthless and others predicting a wife and two bushels of fresh produce from the first spring harvest. Hollywood proudly showed off my jacket, which he was still wearing, and drew their attention to me. I didn’t like the way some of them leered at me, especially in my current shackled state. I only had my legs to fight with,
but fight I would if any of them tried to touch me. But then Hollywood told them an exaggerated version of Ryan’s fighting skills and how he, Hollywood, had to shoot the warrior down himself. After that story, no one wanted to let us loose.
Just before the sun was completely gone, another group of men emerged from a crumbling building. This group was different. Some of the men had their hands
tied behind their backs. Looking at Naoki, I motioned with my chin in the direction of the group, and he craned his neck to see. As they came closer, I noticed that the cross-shape branded into the cheeks of the men with their hands tied was still raw.
New recruits
, I thought.
“Hey, Sanjay,” I said in a low tone. The younger man had stayed close to our wagon, remaining apart from the rest of
the men. He turned his head to look at me. “What’s with those guys? Where are they coming from?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “One of the mines.”
“A mine in a collapsing building?” I asked. He nodded. “What do you mine?”
“Plastic usually, but whatever we can find of value.”
I shook my head. “I thought you
made
plastic.”
His eyebrows furrowed together in an
are you for real?
kind of expression.
“You have to have plastic to melt it down and make stuff.”
Naoki leaned forward to give Sanjay a pointed look. “Is that why you kidnapped us? To make us mine for your plastic?”
Sanjay was about to answer him when Hollywood came around to the back of our wagon and opened up the wooden crate. He was humming a happy tune. “We’ll be home by lunchtime tomorrow,” he said, taking out the container
of “bear meat.” His eyes settled on me. “And I’ll finally get rid of you.”
I flashed him a smile. “You’ll miss me.”
Hollywood ignored me and motioned Sanjay toward the water bottles. “Give them extra rations. I want them looking strong and healthy when they’re appraised.” He left to tend to the bears.