Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2) (16 page)

Annette sighed. The Doctor was right, of course. She could see that. But if she got those creeps in her sights. . .

Another thought came to her.

“Earlier today a farmer all but bragged to me that he had slaughtered a bunch of machete men near his farm.”

“Self defense,” The Doctor said.

“But—”

“Self defense.”

Their eyes met again. After a moment she looked away.

Pick your battles, Annette, pick your battles.

She got up.

“Well if we’re all done here I need to see a stabbing victim nobody seems to care about.”

“That working girl you say Fly Daddy cut up?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah, and I hope you have more room in that corral for him, because I’m putting him in right with the machete men.”

Yeah, pick your battles, and that’s one I’m picking and plan to win.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jeb woke up to toxic rain spattering his face. The rain had a pungent, rotting odor cut with a metallic tang. He cursed and tried to get further under the tarp, pushing aside the machete men to get away from the stinking downpour.

It was no use. A fierce sea wind blew the rain almost horizontally. The tarp didn’t do anything except flap above them like a frightened ghost.

He wrapped his blanket around him, covered up his head, and tried not to breathe too deeply.

He hated these rains. They happened out on the wildlands pretty regularly. A dust storm in a poisoned area would kick toxins high up into the atmosphere to mingle with the clouds, or some old factory container would burst and send up a cancerous vapor. But this rain was coming in off the sea. While the oceans were all poisoned, it was mostly with stuff you couldn’t smell or taste. This chemical stench smelled more like some toxic waste spill or old munitions dump. The rotting funk mingled with it smelled like dead fish, so maybe it was some new spill in the water. Perhaps there were islands out there with old factories or cities that got nuked. He didn’t really know.

Damn, this is a bad one. You’re not going to make it to a hundred if you keep breathing in this shit.

The storm lasted all morning, soaking them through. The sick machete man developed a fever. Jeb called out to the guard on the wall with the news. It wasn’t that he was worried about the guy; he just didn’t want the idiot coughing near him. The guard grumbled a response Jeb couldn’t catch.

Poor bastard is just as exposed up there as we are down here
,
Jeb thought.

About half an hour later The Doctor came out with two assistants, both covered head to foot in hooded wool capes. Jeb gazed at their clothing with jealousy. They looked warm and dry. The prisoners were ordered to stand to one side, covered by a pair of riflemen, while the assistants put the sick man on a stretcher.

“Hey, any chance we could get some better shelter?” Jeb asked.

The Doctor scowled at him. “Don’t press your luck.”

They left and Jeb hunkered back down under the tarp.

At around noon the rain stopped. A guard came back out and built a fire next to their enclosure and set up several wooden stakes next to it. Then he ordered the prisoners out.

Another guard came with a large bucket of water. He turned to Jeb.

“You, wash your clothes and hang them by the fire to dry. You’re heading out soon and we don’t want you stinking up the patrol. The rest of you, strip down and hang up your clothes too. You can still stink for all I care, but The Doctor has something against you getting pneumonia and dying. Why, I’ll never know.”

They did as they were told and were given dry blankets to wrap around themselves until their clothes dried. One of the machete men shook his head in disbelief.

“We nearly took their city and they still care about us more than The Pure One ever did.”

Jeb nodded. The Righteous Horde had been a meat grinder. As long as you were strong and could serve the cult well, you did OK. As soon as you weakened, that was it. He couldn’t count the number of times sick men and women had been stripped of their clothes and belongings and left by the side of the path to die. The Pure One claimed that any illness was a sign of God’s wrath. He hoped this rain made it over the mountains and gave the son of a bitch cancer.

A couple of hours later Clyde and Annette showed up. Jeb stood up and eagerly waved.

Clyde unlatched the gate.

“We going already?” Jeb asked.

Clyde shook his head. “No, we got some questions for you first.”

They walked a little apart from the compound.

“So what’s the best way to get him?” Annette asked.

Jeb thought a moment.

“Let’s see, if you got a good range so he isn’t suspecting anything, I’d say right at dawn. He would always have a sermon before anyone could eat breakfast. Damn annoying considering we were hungry all the time. Anyway, he’d find some high point in the middle of camp and do his sermon from there.”

“Sounds like a bold move for someone who feared assassination.”

“Yeah, it was come to think of it. I guess he figured no one would dare. And no one ever did.”

“We’re going to change that,” Annette said. “So all we have to do is wait for him to give his little talk and take him out.”

“I’ll have to be there. The high priest sometimes gave a speech before or after, and with them dressing the same on the march you’ll need me to tell the two apart.”

Clyde nodded. “That’s fine. You’ll have a good pair of binoculars. On loan, of course.”

“Of course,” Jeb said with a shrug. Nothing was free in this world.

The Head of the Watch cocked his head and studied Jeb. “So tell me more about him.”

“The Pure One? I don’t know much. Never knew his real name.”

“Surely people talked around camp. Ever hear any of his first followers say anything about his origins?”

Jeb thought back. He’d joined fairly early on, and for a time he tried to brownnose with the bodyguards to see if he could become one of them. It soon became obvious that wasn’t going to happen. The bodyguards had been with The Pure One since the beginning and no one else was trusted in their ranks. All those chummy conversations and handing out booze did get him some interesting stories, though.

“I overheard some of the bodyguards saying he came from up north. You know those old industrial cities?”

“Yeah, some of those are worse than Toxic Bay,” Clyde said. “Funny place for him to hang around in.”

“Rumor was that he was a scavenger. His family stumbled upon some waste and they all died, all except him.”

Clyde’s brow furrowed. “I got a good look at him through my telescope. He didn’t look poisoned.”

“They say he didn’t get hurt at all, and that’s when he realized God had chosen him.”

“Whatever,” Annette snorted.

Jeb grinned. “I didn’t say I believed it.”

“What’s he like? Any weaknesses?” Clyde pressed.

“Driven, crazy but sane, if you know what I mean. He really believes all this stuff, not like some preachers. Weaknesses? Not that I know. I never saw him take a woman into his tent, and while he let people drink he never touched the stuff himself. He’d fly into rages sometimes. When someone defied him or questioned the least little thing he totally flew off the handle.”

Annette smiled. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

Clyde gave her a stern look but couldn’t keep a trace of a smile off his face. He turned to Jeb.

“So what are his plans? He ever talk about them?”

Jeb grinned. “You know he did, and you know I won’t tell you until I get my end of the deal.”

“Yeah, yeah, how about his future plans. Not where he’s going right now, but what he wants.”

Jeb sighed and looked out across New City and the Burbs. “He wants it all, and he won’t stop until he gets it or gets killed.”

“I know which option I pick,” Annette said. “OK, back in your cage. Clyde, make sure to feed him up good. We don’t want him lagging behind on the march.”

Clyde locked him back inside and the two walked away. Sitting under the tarp, Jeb looked toward the mountains. What was the Righteous Horde doing now? It all seemed so long ago. He felt a tremble of fear to know that he was going after them. He still didn’t know how he was going to play this with Annette and the rest. That secret information he claimed to have amounted to exactly nothing.

You better think of something to give these people. You made a deal, and if you break a deal in the wildlands, you end up dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nightfall found Susanna deep in the wildlands. All afternoon she had crept through gullies and around rocks, trying to stay out of sight. Once she’d seen a patrol in the distance and had to hide behind a rotting log as ants crawled over her until the patrol passed out of sight.

At a clean stream she drank deeply and filled Bridget’s whiskey jug with water. She imagined the beating that woman would get from Derren when she came home without her slave and, even worse, without the whiskey. She found herself feeling a bit guilty.

Guilty that you made a break for freedom? Don’t be ridiculous.

Still, Bridget was a sad, lost woman, and she knew something about that.

Yes, but she’s weak. I’m no longer weak.

Susanna had left Weissberg territory. She vaguely recognized this area from her delirious, starving march to captivity. It was a mostly featureless plain with a few low, scrubby hills. From here for at least two days’ march it was toxic wasteland. These Merchants Association people were smart. They’d found a lush, clean area cut off from New City by useless land that not even scavengers would waste their time in.

Night found her resting between a few large rocks that kept her out of sight and shielded her from the worst of the wind. She wrapped the blanket around her, stuck her hands in her pockets, and tried to sleep. Despite the tension of the day and the weary hours of walking and hiding, sleep eluded her.

An unfamiliar feeling kept her awake. It was a strange combination of relaxation, energy, and awareness that seemed almost unreal. It wasn’t fear, although she was wary of her surroundings and concerned about the long march ahead with so few provisions, but she found that she didn’t fear that as much as perhaps she should. Things seemed different now. Weissberg, the place where she had been a slave only that morning, now seemed a distant memory. Her uncertain future in New City was almost a matter of indifference. And being stuck out in this wasteland didn’t bother her at all.

It took her a long time to figure out what exactly she was feeling—confidence. This was what people called confidence.

“It must be nice to feel this all the time,” she said out loud to herself. “I’ll have to try that.”

At last she fell into a deep, relaxing sleep as the stars were blotted out by storm clouds to the southwest.

The next morning she awoke to harsh reality. A cold, rain pelted her, bringing with it a foul odor of acrid chemicals and rotting fish.

God, what the hell did the clouds pick up? This will foul every stream for at least a day after it stops, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.

She curled under her blanket as the rain soaked her. She shielded her precious picnic basket with her body, keeping her tiny supply of food safe.

All morning the rain poured down. When it finally stopped around noon, a cold wind picked up that chilled her to the core. She had to get moving or she’d get sick. Susanna got up and hurried southwards under a heavy grey sky.

The whole countryside stank. The soil seemed to exhale the toxins, making her eyes water and her nose and throat burn. She tried holding up her blanket to her face, but it had been soaked by the rain and made breathing even worse.

At least walking warmed her up. The air was too cold for her to dry off, so she had to keep moving.

By sundown she was worn out but still soaked. For the fiftieth time she searched the basket for a flint and steel, but Bridget hadn’t packed one. Her own firestarter lay somewhere in the wildlands near Eduardo’s body.

Why do I always have to pay for being nice?

She found a sheltered spot and ate the sandwich the guard had given her. All she had left after that were nuts. The water was nearly gone too. As she sat there trying to warm herself she realized that she had grown tired too quickly. She had only walked for half a day. Her starved body had gotten a first flush of energy thanks to eating properly for a time, but that was all spent now.

At least I’m free. If I die, I’ll die free.

Susanna shook her head. No thoughts of dying. She would live and get to New City. She had things to do.

Dusk turned into night and the temperature dropped. Susanna started to shiver. She looked up at the sky and saw the clouds had broken up enough that she could see stars. Using them as a guide she continued south.

Walking stopped her from shivering but made her ever wearier. She was sleepy too and kept stumbling, but she didn’t dare lie down and close her eyes. The sky cleared completely and she walked under a brilliant vault of stars.

One caught her eye. It was moving.

She gazed up at it in wonder. The little white dot made a slow, silent arcing path through the sky.

A satellite. Her mother had told her about them from stories handed down from her own mother. They were machines put in the sky around the Earth in the Old Times. She couldn’t remember what they had been for. Some sort of computer thing, although she had never seen a functioning computer. Weapons too, probably. They made a lot of weapons in the Old Times.

She stopped to watch it, then remembered her mission and started walking again, eyes fixed on the silent white dot cutting a path through the heavens. She stumbled on a rock, but kept watching the satellite, raising her feet high with each step to reduce the chance of stumbling again.

When she had been a little girl, back before her teen years when boys told her she was ugly, back before her adult years when she was ignored and never taken seriously, back when she was happy, she and her mother used to make wishes on the stars. A good harvest, or finding a fat squirrel in one of the traps. Perhaps she should make a wish on this satellite.

Her voice rang out across the darkened plain.

“I wish for justice. Not just for me but for everyone.”

She smiled and let out an embarrassed laugh. A lot of the scavengers and loners out in the wildlands talked to themselves. Now she understood why.

As ridiculous as it was, the wish gave her extra strength as she forged on ahead through the night.

At dawn she rested in the ruins of an old house. Only two walls still st
ood to the height of a few feet. It was enough to shield her from the worst of the wind. Her clothes were still wet and as she lay on the ground she shivered. Sleep wouldn’t come. After a couple of hours she ate a few nuts and forged on, stumbling across a gravelly plain under a leaden sky. A few tufts of half-dead grass and one wilted shrub were all the vegetation she saw.

By a
fternoon the land looked a bit healthier, with little patches of growth here and there. A small stream beckoned her but the stench coming from it kept her from refilling her jug. She tried to ignore her parched throat as she continued.

By evening her head was spinning. She ate some more nuts
, coughing as the hard fragments went down her dry throat, and kept on moving. The plain darkened and temperature plunged. Her clothes were still damp. She was exhausted beyond exhaustion, but to stop would be to die.

Thus Susanna Waites
entered the longest night of her life.

The sky had cleared. Stars shone sharp in the cold sky. In different circumstances she would have looked up at the starry vault with awe. Perhaps she’d see another satellite. She chuckled at the thought of herself making another bold statement to the empty wildlands. A part of her wondered if she was going insane.

“The whole world’s gone insane,” she muttered.

The words sounded like a shout in the silent landscape. She kept walking. The cold air and her damp clothing numbed her, and she knew that she could get no rest and no sleep if she wanted to see the dawn.

She walked, and the stars wheeled overhead. Her thoughts went back to all the times she had stood outside and stared at them—when she was small and her mother brought one boyfriend to the cabin after another, when she was older and all the other girls were running off into the fields with the boys, when she was an adult and the silly prattle around the communal fires annoyed her and she wanted to be alone, and on the march, when she had to wait for Donna.

She had really needed the stars then. Jeb had picked Donna as his regular toy, and Susanna as his regular servant. She’d sit outside by the fire, shining Jeb’s boots or preparing dinner while trying not to listen to the moans and whimpers coming from inside Jeb’s tent. The stars made her feel far away.

And now? Did she want to be far away from this chilly, empty, dead plain?

No, because for the first time in her life she was going somewhere, and this freezing night was the price for it.

Her legs worked automatically. Susanna no longer felt fatigue or cold. She no longer felt anything physical. At times she stumbled, and in that brief panic to right herself she’d have the sense of the old Susanna, the frightened Susanna. A moment later the emotion faded, replaced by nothing but cold, weary will.

In the middle of the night she crested a low ridge and descended the other side. The ground looked strange, like it was covered in thousands of oddly shaped rocks. As she stepped on one it spun out from under her feet. She slipped. A hollow rattling sounded through the dark as she slid several feet down the slope, hands grasping for purchase.

She came to rest after a moment, her hands touching heaps of smooth shapes.

Plastic. Piles of plastic bottles and jugs.

She’d fallen into a dump from the Old Times.

Susanna stood up and walked through, feet slipping with every step, the plastic crunching underfoot or careening away with hollow thuds that sounded too loud in the otherwise silent darkness. She sniffed the air for toxins but sensed none except for what the rain had brought down. This was a regular dump, one of the countless wastelands produced during the Old Times. It couldn’t hurt her. She carried on, at times wading thigh-deep through plastic.

At last she came to the other side, slogging up a ridge of gritty soil through which the wind whipped shreds of plastic bags that fluttered phantomlike in the starlit night. Beyond spread an open plain. The wind blew a bag around her leg. It tugged at her a moment before it spun away and out of sight. She kept walking.

Dawn
found her barely able to stay on her feet. She pulled out her bag of nuts, found only six left, and put them back without eating them. The sky was patchy with clouds. A feeble, intermittent sun did little to warm her.

Around noon she collapsed. She fell hard on her side and lay still for a long time. She was too numb to worry about the col
d, too tired to care. Yet still she didn’t sleep. Some part of her realized that her body wanted to give up. She couldn’t let that happen. With feeble, fumbling hands she grabbed a rock and smacked open the last of her nuts, chomping on them slowly. She coughed as they passed down her dry throat.

I have to get up. I have to keep moving.

In a minute.

No, now!

Susanna pushed herself to a sitting position. Her head spun. She waited until the world regained its balance and then looked south toward New City, still at least a day away.

And that’
s when she saw him. He came striding toward her across the desolate plain, erect and proud. He carried no weapon she could see, only a large pack and a walking stick almost as tall as he was. As he drew closer she saw his face, a face she’d never forget. He was an older man, with thinning, gray hair. His nose was swathed with a large white bandage and a splint that showed it had been broken recently. Medical tape splayed out from the bandage like the fingers of a hand spread across his face.

That face was scowli
ng.

Susanna tensed, then realized he was no
t scowling at her, and those eyes that burned with a fevered energy were not glaring at her, merely sizing her up. That scowl and that glare were his usual looks. They were engraved on his features.

A holy man? An insane scavenger? There were many strange types in the wildlands. Susanna picked up the rock that she had used to crack her
nuts and struggled to her feet.

H
e stopped a few paces from her.

“You from the Righteous Horde?” he asked. The way he said it, i
t sounded like he already knew.

“Yes. They enslaved me and then left me behind.
” Susanna saw no reason to lie.

“You know yo
u’re walking toward New City.”

Susanna nodded. “I’m hoping they’ll take me in. I have something to offer the
m.”

A trace of curiosity flickered across the man’s features, but they didn’t soften.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Susanna. And you?”

“They call me The Giver.”

Yeah, definitely some sort of holy man. Well, I’ve had enough of holy men.

“You look cold,” he went on. “Not far from here is a thicket where we can get enough wood to build a fire and dry you off.”

“I have nothing to trade.”

“No trade is needed,” The Giver said, turning and walking away.

Susanna paus
ed for a moment, then followed.