Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2) (10 page)

“What’s she doing here?” Kent asked.

“Cooking your dinner. I do enough around here as it is. And where did you get that
cut?”

“Tommy did it. He—”

“Shut up, tattletale,” Bridget snapped.

Susanna gritted her teeth. Imagine talking like that to your own child! With a mother like that, no wonder they were such brats. She turned around. All three were sitting at the table now, t
he two boys glaring at each other. Kent’s cut was still bleeding.

“Bridget, do you have something I can clean that cut with?”

Actually you should clean that cut but I know that’s not going to happen.

“Yeah,” Bridget said, getting up and going into her bedr
oom.

Tommy grabbed the jug and took a swig of the whiskey. Susanna stared open mouthed.

“I’m going to tell,” Kent said.

Tommy smacked him upside the head.

“No you’re not,” he said. Then he gave Susanna a haughty look. “And neither are you.”

Susanna shrugged and went back to the cooking.

Bide your time. Regain your strength. And then get the hell out of here.

Bridget returned with a little ball of cotton and sat back down at the table. Kent looked like he was about to say something but his big brother gave him an evil look and he shut his mouth. Susanna looked at the cotton ball, impressed. They were rare and scavengers demanded high trade for them. They hadn’t been made since the Old T
imes. Someone once told her they were actually from a plant that grew down south but she wasn’t sure that was true.

After a few minutes the water was hot enough and Susanna summoned Kent over. She washed his hands and face first while he whined and struggl
ed, then started to clean the cut. Kent squalled.

“Shut up already!” Bridget said.

“What’s going on in here?” a male voice demanded.

“Hi dad!” Tommy said.

“Oh, hey Derren,” Bridget said. “Susanna, this is my husband Derren.”

Susanna turned to the door and
dropped the cotton ball.

It was the guard who had molested Donna.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You got to be fucking kidding me!” The Doctor shouted. “Two weeks ago you were swinging a machete at my people and now you want to live here?”

Annette looked at Jeb and shook her head. This guy was a bold one, she had to give him that. The prisoner hung his head and mumbled something.

“What was that?” The Doctor said.

“Paradise,” Jeb mumbled.

“What?” Annette said.

“This is paradise. Electricity, food, law, you got eve
rything,” the former machete man said.

Annette frowned. “Yeah, we have everything, and you wanted to take it all away.”

“We didn’t have a choice,” Jeb said.

Clyde snorted. “That wouldn’t have kept you people from killing us all. Well, the men anyway. What
would you have done with the women?”

Annette’s eyes narrowed. Yeah, she had seen those bedraggled women carrying the gear at the back of the Righteous Horde’s column. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they had another job to do at night.

“That was the Elect and the bodyguards. We machete men never got to touch a woman,” Jeb said, then bit his lip as if he hadn’t meant to put it that way.

“Got to touch a woman? You said more than you meant to there, didn’t you?” Annette said. “You would have loved a piece of that, wouldn’t you?”

And to think I was beginning to feel differently about this scumbag.

Jeb shook his head, looking sad.

“No. The screams I heard from their camp at night still haunt me.”

“Whatever,” Annette dismissed him.

Jeb raised his head, looking first at her, then Clyde, and finally The Doctor. He had a pleading look in his eyes.

“Fine, don’t offer me anything. I’ll still guide you to The Pure One. I’ll point him out to you and you can cap him. All I want in exchange is a bag of food and t
o be let go. I’ll take my chances in the wildlands. The main thing is to ice that nutcase before he destroys the world for good. There were enough people like that in the Old Times and look where it got us. We can’t afford to have more of them.”

“I agree w
ith you on that,” The Doctor grunted.

Hope dawned in Jeb’s face. “So we have a deal?”

The Doctor nodded. “We have a deal. You act as guide and if you’re good to your word we’ll let you go.”

Jeb turned to Annette.

“Getting you to The Pure One won’t be the problem. But how are you going to kill him? He’s always surrounded by at least twenty bodyguards, and there’s the Elect to worry about too. There are a few hundred of them.”

Annette treated him to a grim smile. “I’m a sniper.”

Jeb raised an eyebrow. “Really? Got a good weapon?”

Clyde laughed. “The best rifle I ever seen. She can take out someone at more than a thousand yards. I can’t tell you the things I offered in trade for it, but Annette won’t let anyone even touch it.”

Jeb looked confused. “But during the attack The Pure One was in plain view. Why didn’t you take him out?”

Annette felt a sick feeling in her stomach.

If I had been manning the walls instead of hunting down Radio Hope for Abe, I could have ended the war right then and there. Damn it, Abe! If you had told me the real reason for that mission I would have never gone. How many people would be alive today instead of lying in that mass grave next to the cove?

She realized Jeb was waiting for an answer.

“I was on a scout,” she mumbled, not able to look at him.

“Anyway,” The Doctor said, “let’s get down to business. Annette, I need to talk to you. Clyde, take the prisoner back to the holding pen until we need him.”

“Can you put me somewhere else? Those other guys are a bit crazy. I don’t feel safe with them,” Jeb said.

“You’re right in view of the walls, nothing’s going to happen,” Clyde said, gesturing with his pistol to get Jeb moving out the door.

When the two left, The Doctor moved to the next room and sat heavily down on the sofa. Annette took a chair nearby.

“You OK?” she asked. “You look tired.”

The Doctor rubbed his eyes. “We’re all tired.”

He took his hand away from his face and glared at Annette. She resisted the urge to wilt. At $87,953 she faced drunken scavengers swinging knives and bottl
es. In the wildlands she’d faced bandits and cultists. None of them intimidated her more than The Doctor’s disapproval.

“Yeah, I’m tired. Tired of patching up the wounded, tired of trying to keep a lid on the Burbs, but most of all I’m tired of defiance fr
om people who should be showing a bit of gratitude.”

Annette straitened her spine. “I was duly elected sheriff by the voters of the Burbs.”

“There wouldn’t even be a post of sheriff unless I had created one for you.”

“The vote gave me legitimacy and indepe
ndence. I need to be seen as my own woman otherwise I won’t have any authority. There’s a lot of bad feeling in the Burbs against the citizens of New City.”

“And I’m trying to bridge that divide by extending law and order to the Burbs. Hell, it’s like some
thing out of the Wild West!”

“The what?”

The Doctor waved a dismissive hand. “A barbaric period in the early Old Times. My point is that if the people of the Burbs want to be treated with respect, they have to stop shooting and knifing one another.”

“I’m w
orking on it. It’s only my first week, remember. By the way, I visited Fly Daddy Bradley,” Annette said.

“Why?” The Doctor asked, obviously surprised.

“Because one of the independent prostitutes got cut up. I think he did it.”

“Did she say he did it?”

“She wouldn’t say a thing.”

“Then I don’t see what we can do.”

“I made a new regulation against soliciting.”

“I got your note. Not sure what good that’s going to achieve.”

“It’s going to show Fly Daddy who’s boss. I told him if there are any more attacks on working girls that I’ll ban prostitution.”

The Doctor’s glare returned. Annette bit her lip.

“I didn’t give you authority to create laws, only regulations,” he said.

“Oh, so you support prostitution?”

“No, but banning it isn’t going to stop it. Besides, some of these scavenger girls have nothing else to trade. You want them to starve?”

“That’s what Fly Daddy said.”

“Watch it.”

Annette paused, threw out the first thing she wanted to say, reconsidered, threw out the second thing she wanted to say, and then se
ttled for, “Look. I respect you. I respect what you’ve done for the people here and I’m grateful for the help you’ve given me. Remember when you removed that bullet from my gut a couple of years back? Yeah, I owe you a lot. I acknowledge that. But you made the decision a long time ago to let the Burbs run most of their own affairs. Well, now you have to live with that decision. The Burbs are developing on their own. We need you and you need us. You’ve always left us outside the walls when an attack came—”

“
Letting your children inside!” The Doctor interrupted.

“Yes. When the Skullcrushers came around Pablo got to stay within the walls. And that other bandit group, whatever they called themselves, same deal. But the people of the Burbs had to scatter into the wildlands and hide. The last time the Skullcrushers raided I spent a week curled up under a tarp trying to keep dry in the pouring rain. I was lucky they didn’t find me like they found some people. Every time there’s an attack people in the Burbs die.”

“Yeah, and look what happened when we let them in a few weeks ago.”

Annette had no response to that. Infiltrators from the Righteous Horde had slipped in with the scavengers. One shot The Doctor and that set off a firefight inside the walls that left dozen
s dead, mostly innocent people. Even the mere act of letting everyone in had caused a deep rift between the Merchants Association and the rest of the New City citizens.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” The Doctor said.

Oh, what a surprise. You’re about to tell me what to do.

“First, I want you to question those prisoners closely, assuming Clyde isn’t doing that already. Then I want you to spend a couple of days getting the Burbs slapped together. The jail I’ve heard you talk about isn’t a bad idea, just don’
t expect us to pay for it. New City has enough expenses right now as it is. The harvest was bad, as you know, and then there was the attack.”

“I understand. The Burb Council is already on the jail situation.”

“Fine. Get things settled down in the Burbs and assemble a team to go after the Righteous Horde. I’m sure you’re going to want to take one of your deputies. Take Jackson and leave Frank.”

Annette raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

She already had made that decision but she was curious to see what The Doctor’s reasoning was.

“Because Jackson knows the wildlands. He was a scavenger once. And Frank is more popular in the Burbs. He can do a better job holding the fort while you hunt down that maniac.”

Annette nodded. Those were her exact same reasons.

Damn, do The D
octor and me think alike? That’s a scary thought.

“I’ll want to make some special deputies to bring along,” Annette said.

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of volunteers. Clyde will equip you with whatever you need. When it comes to that, New City will spare no expense.”

Annette thought a minute.

“You know, they have a big lead on us and if we wait another two days they’ll get even further away.”

“Stability here is our priority.”

“We can catch up easily enough,” Annette said.

“How?”

“Give us a ride in one of the vehicles. Kevin or Rachel can drive us to the South Pass. That will shave off at least two day’s travel.”

The Doctor considered a moment. Annette tensed. She knew she was asking a lot. New City’s collection of vehicles, lovingly preserved by Kevin and Rachel, who were as much married to their engines as they were to each other, were more valuable than anything else New City possessed except for the solar panels and tidal generator.

At last The Doctor nodded. “All right. From what Kevin and Rachel tell me the All Terrain Vehicles can even make it to the other side of the pass. Plus the scouts say the Righteous Horde is moving slow, foraging everything they can. You’ll be able to catch up with no trouble.”

Yeah, no trouble
,
Annette thought, shivering
.
But there will be trouble enough once we do catch up.

“Now I need to see some more patients. It’s getting to be about dinnertime and Marcus told me to tell you that you’re invited to his house. I think h
e’s already told Pablo.”

Oh great, trouble is coming sooner than I thought.

Annette bade The Doctor goodbye and reluctantly headed down the steps and out of the warehouse. She usually loved going over to Marcus’ for dinner. He was a kind man, and his wife Rosie was even kinder, and a damn good cook to boot. The problem was, Marcus was seriously pissed off with this whole election thing.

She arrived to find everyone already there. Marcus and Pablo were tossing a baseball in the front yard while Marcus’ wife Rosie, her gray hair tied in a bun, puttered around the kitchen and peeked smiling through the window at them.

Annette’s tension eased somewhat. Marcus and Rosie had had several children of their own. If they had survived they’d all be older than Annette was now, but the world had taken them away one by one. Now they were “Uncle Marcus and Aunt Rosie” to any number of local kids.

Marcus spotted her and tossed the ball to Pablo one last time.

“Go on in and get washed up, time to eat,” he told him, tousling his hair.

Pablo gave his mother a wave and a smile as he hurried inside. Marcus turned to her.

Here it comes.

“I heard about you threatening Fly Daddy Bradley,” he said. “Nice work.”

“News travels fast in this town.”

“The Burbs never had a sheriff before. Y
ou’re the talk of the town, especially among citizens.”

Annette bit her lip. “Um, yeah.”

Marcus smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Yes, I’m annoyed, and so are most of the citizens. I understand why you called an election, though. I even understand why you named Jackson as deputy.”

Annette blinked in surprise. “So everything’s OK?” she asked.

Marcus laughed. “OK? No, nothing’s OK, but I know you’re going to do what’s right, even if that goes against what we want.”

“I’m not sure The Doctor shares your u
nderstanding,” she said as they walked inside. Annette noticed he still walked with a limp that he’d had since the attack.

“Doc’s a fine man but it’s his way or the highway.”