She had to come with us.
Not as a hostage, but as a guide. The prisoner was our only source of information about Eden, their defenses and their weapons. If we were going to make it through the land they’d claimed as their own, she was our only hope.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re starting to understand just what you’re up against,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Don’t you just hate it when the cold hard truth comes up and gives you a swift kick in the nads?”
“Shut the hell up!” Mel snapped.
I fought back the urge to tell our prisoner precisely where to go and instead, focused on trying to gather as much information as I could before I broke the news to her that she was coming with us.
“Do you have a name?” I asked again. “Mine’s David. The person standing outside the rear doors with her carbine aimed straight at the center of your visible mass is Melanie. I strongly recommend against pissing her off.”
Her eyes panned over to Melanie who stroked the butt of her carbine for effect. “Dawn-Marie,” she said after a short moment of silence. “Are you going to cut these handcuffs so that I can eat the peaches?”
I reached into my web belt and pulled out my KFS set. I removed the fork and the knife and slipped them back into the frog on my web belt, and then I dropped the spoon into the pouch of sliced peaches. I glanced back at Mel and said, “Cover her. If she does anything stupid, you know what to do.”
“Not a problem,” said Mel as she pulled the carbine into her shoulder.
I took the bag of peaches and placed them a few feet away on the tarp as I took out my Buck knife. She twisted her body over to the right, exposing her hands, and I slipped the blade between the two cable ties and cut them. Dawn-Marie exhaled heavily as she slowly raised her hands above her head. I eased myself back out of arm’s reach and pointed to the peaches with my knife.
“There you go – eat.” I said firmly.
Dawn-Marie reached over and snatched the peaches off the tarp. She dug into the pouch with my spoon and started stuffing herself with mouthful after mouthful, the syrup dribbling down her chin.
“These are better than what we’ve been eating,” she said, as she gulped down another spoonful of fruit. “I haven’t had sliced peaches in months. We’ve been surviving on a shit pile of canned stuff – mostly beans, pasta and canned meat.”
“We aim to please,” I said. “Now I want you to answer some questions.”
She lifted the envelope to her mouth and drank down the remaining syrup. “Such as?” she said as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Seventeen. How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen. Mel over there is fifteen. The oldest person in our group is the same age as you – that’s Sid. He’s the guy who smoked you in the head with his carbine.”
“Just a bunch of orphans … sort of like me after the monsters killed my family. The only family I had left are dead thanks to you people.”
Melanie snorted. “You assholes started it!”
“And your little military unit ended it, didn’t you?” she said venomously. “But you won’t last. Those patrols will hunt you down and kill all of you!”
I snorted. “Then we’re just going to have to do our level best to avoid your so-called patrols. That machine gun … you’ve got some military people with you.”
She made an enormous effort of rolling her eyes. “No shit, Sherlock. Machine guns don’t exactly grow on trees and neither does ammunition.”
I nodded. “What are these patrols using to get around? Do they have armored personnel carriers like us?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’ve ever seen – huge waste of fuel. Some are on horseback and others are using ATV’s and light vehicles.”
“How many are in a patrol?”
She threw me smug look. “What? Do you think I’m going to tell you everything? The hell with that! Your little band of weekend warriors will find out soon enough.”
Mel climbed into the back of the carrier, her weapon trained on Dawn-Marie. “She’s playing you, Dave. Don’t fall for her BS – she’s trying to mess with your head.”
I studied the girl’s face and noticed that the defiant glare was still burning, as furious as ever. “Do you have cable ties in your kit, Mel?”
She reached into her rucksack, pulled out a pair of red cable ties and tossed them to me. I swiped them off the tarp and showed them off to our prisoner.
“Give me your hand,” I ordered.
She huffed and stuck out her right hand. I slipped a cable tie around her wrist and pulled it tight. I slipped the other one underneath and then fastened her wrist to a welded tie down beside the engine panel.
“Here’s the thing about your patrols,” I said doing my best imitation of the voice of doom. “If they start shooting at us, you’re going to be inside a carrier with our crew. If we come into contact with any of your patrols then you’re going to be stuck inside a big-ass lightly armored rolling target. That means if they hit this carrier and it brews up, you’ll burn alive. Have you ever seen an armored vehicle brew up, Dawn-Marie? It’s not a pretty picture.”
She tensed up as the entire color drained out of her face. “So I’m a hostage then?”
I shook my head. “Taking hostages would imply there’s someone out there to negotiate with and you’ve made it pretty clear that your people don’t negotiate.”
“And if I refuse to cooperate?” she asked.
I leaned in until I was no more than an inch from her face. “Then we’ll make a decision about what to do with you, but don’t worry. You said we were all going to die out there once your patrols find us, so put two and two together.”
She didn’t even hesitate in responding to my veiled threat. “The closest patrol outpost is ten miles away.”
“And I bet they heard the shooting,” said Mel. “We need to head out, Dave.”
I crawled to the rear doors and hopped out of the carrier. Mel kept a close eye on Dawn-Marie as I gazed over to the barricade to see Sid Toomey and Kenny Howard carrying what looked like two full Jerry cans of diesel each. Pam covered them both from a gap in the wire as they plodded around the smashed cars and over to the nose of Ark One.
“It would appear that our scrounging efforts have yielded us some diesel,” I said shifting my gaze back onto Dawn-Marie, who now looked like all the fight had been taken out of her. Cold hard truth tends to have that effect on people. “We’ll top off the carriers and move out in fifteen minutes. Oh … and Mel?”
“Yeah?”
“Be kind to our guest,” I said. “But not too kind.”
Sid told me there was enough fuel in the front-end loader to top up the carriers as well as our Jerry cans. It would be dark soon and I wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and Dinsmore. After a quick consultation with Cruze, we decided we’d keep going for another hour or so. Our destination was a thick stand of trees about 20 km to the northwest. We’d be hatches down for a second night – not entirely desirable, given that every one of us was dead dog tired of being crammed inside the APC’s, but necessary, given the threat of armed patrols.
So we pushed on, bouncing across farmers’ fields and traversing at least half a dozen grid roads. The temperature had plummeted – small flecks of snow began falling, landing on the hull and then melting from the heat of the engine. We’d covered nearly five hundred kilometers since we broke out of the city. I wanted to take comfort in our success, but what about Eden? My gut, which was rumbling almost as loudly as our engines, told me that for a huge group of survivors to band together so quickly – well, it just didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Every instinct a survivor possesses is to protect what they’ve got. Why would farm families create a makeshift society when so many would slit your throat for a freaking can of beans? The Eden tribe possessed military hardware, they’d laid claim to land stretching for miles in every direction, they’d cobbled together roving security patrols. There had to be a central figure that was pulling the strings. But no leader, however skilled in the art of diplomacy or how inspiring he or she might be, could rebuild so quickly after the last one disintegrated unless they had expert help that could only come from one source: the army.
I needed more information from Dawn-Marie.
We pulled into a hide deep inside a thick stand of poplars that stretched for about three clicks across a ridge overlooking dry, frost covered farmer’s fields. When I crawled into Ark Two, it was shortly past nine o’clock. Melanie Dixon was fast asleep against the rear door and Kenny Howard was perched up in the turret, keeping a watch on things with the infra-red.
“Everyone been fed?” I asked, as Cruze made me a cup of hot chocolate from a small pot on her mountain stove.
She handed me the steaming tin mug and I blew on it before taking a sip. “Yeah, everyone’s had some chow – even our honored guest.”
I glanced over at Dawn-Marie, still fastened by one arm to the hull tie-down. She looked like she’d been crying, and I wondered if the tears were genuine or if she was trying to play Cruze’s team. She stared blankly at the rear doors through puffy red eyes as I gestured for her to take a sip of my hot chocolate. She shook her head and sniffled.
“You’re smart, Dawn-Marie,” I said quietly. “By now you must realize we didn’t want to get into a fight with your people.”
“
That explains why you bombed the shit out of us then, doesn’t it?”
she shot back.
She was still as defiant as ever. I nodded to show that I meant her no harm, so I kept my tone as non-threatening as before. “What happened to your parents? Your brothers and sisters?”
“Dead – what are you, stupid or something? Nearly everyone died in the days after the outbreak.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I replied.
“No you’re not!” she snapped. “Empty words at the end of the world – that’s all you’re good for.”
I took a deep, patient breath and said, “My mother took her own life. We were hiding out in Mewata Armory. We were hunkered down there for six months. She couldn’t take it. I guess lots of people made the same choice as she did.”
Cruze nodded slowly. “My family died on the second day. They were torn apart in front of me.”
The girl shifted her gaze toward Cruze. Her features softened a little. “Everyone has a story of loss, don’t they? Christ, what kind of world is this now? People are animals – sometimes they’re just as bad as the stiffs. What are you going to do with me?”
I blinked. “What do you want us to do with you?”
She shrugged and her eyes slid over to my carbine. “I don’t know … does it matter at this point? We’re all going to be dead soon.”
Cruze shifted herself across the jump seat and leaned in. “That’s a pretty bold statement, Dawn-Marie.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you people freaking dense? They’re going to find you. They find everyone who isn’t part of Eden. They’ll kill all of us including me.”
I gave her a surprised look. “Why would your security people kill you?”
“Because I’m not dead back at that barricade,” she said flatly.
Wow. I didn’t see
that
coming.
It didn’t make any sense at all – Dawn-Marie was supposed to be a part of the Eden tribe. If we’d left her at the barricade, she could have provided the patrols with valuable information about our vehicles, weapons and what kind of threat we posed to whoever was in charge. I took another sip of my hot chocolate. At least she was opening up to us.
“What can you tell us about how Eden came to be?” said Cruze as she handed the girl a mug of hot chocolate.
Dawn-Marie blew on the rim of the cup for a moment and took a small sip. “Our farm was about five miles outside of Dinsmore,” she began. “Just Mom, Dad and me and my brother Darcy. He’d turned eighteen the week before everything went to hell. We first heard about the outbreaks on the dish … you know, the satellite TV?”
I nodded. “Go on.”
She took another drink and resumed her gazing at the rear doors. “My father decided it was time to take steps to protect ourselves – when the Internet died. TV and radio had stopped broadcasting for a couple of days by then but we still had power from a backup generator as well as an Internet connection. It’s weird how the Internet was the last thing to break down. We followed the outbreak through social media – Twitter offered minute by minute updates from people who were trapped in cities and towns worldwide. Mom got infected when she and Dad went into Dinsmore to get provisions. The village was alive with the creatures – Dad said she was attacked inside the truck. He got her home but she bled to death on the way. My brother tried to stop Dad from shooting her, but she turned right in front of us. The thing she became … it was savage. It was like her memory had been wiped and her mind had been replaced with some kind of feral madness … but you know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen it. Dad shot her in the head and we burned her body. That was almost six months ago.”
I gulped back the last mouthful of hot chocolate from my tin cup, and wiped it out with a rag. Dawn-Marie looked like all of us – disheveled and carrying a thousand yard stare from walking on egg shells the better part of a year. I’d seen that look before, in pictures of soldiers at the front during the Second World War and in some of the men from the King’s Own who’d returned from Afghanistan.
She had a scar over her left eyebrow that looked to be still healing and I noticed the stitches she’d been received were a hell of a mess – like someone had closed the wound with a sewing needle and thread.
Dawn-Marie had given us her personal story of surviving those first terrifying days, but I was no closer to learning about Eden, who ran it and what kind of threat that it posed. And we didn’t have time to take a trip down memory lane either. I wanted to find out as much as possible as quickly as possible and get our carriers the hell off Eden land, so I decided to take the direct approach.
“How soon after Day Zero did Eden start to take shape?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t tell me to go to Hell again.
She avoided my gaze for a short moment and that’s when I realized she was ready to tell me what I needed to hear. “Eden was an idea that made sense when everything was insane, okay? After Mom died, we fought daily battles against the monsters. We’d drive around in Dad’s pickup and shoot the creeps as soon as we saw them – we eventually ran out of ammunition for Dad’s hunting rifles, and we had to rely on smashing their heads in. Dad was killed two months ago clearing a farmhouse. Darcy got infected and had to be put down. I was on my own for a week when Sunray’s people found me. After that, everything changed.”
Sunray?
Cruze and I quickly looked at each other. We knew what Sunray meant because it’s a term no civilian would ever use. It means a formation commander, or leader, and Dawn-Marie’s use of the term immediately confirmed my suspicions that a military element was probably behind the creation of Eden. Now we just had to figure out precisely who Sunray was.
But we weren’t prepared to let her know that we understood what Sunray meant, so Cruze decided to play it cool. She tore into the wrapper on a granola bar and offered the first bite to Dawn-Marie. She shook her head. “Sunray … is that a person, or is it code for a group in charge of things?” asked Cruze.
“We were told it was a person,” said Dawn-Marie. “From the base up in Wainwright. All of Sunray’s people are from there.”
“How many?” I asked, hoping like hell that we weren’t up against a battalion-sized unit. “Maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand … nobody knows really.” she said, her voice trailing off. “They weren’t bad at first. They offered hot meals, communication between farms and medical help, a sense of order. I think that’s why so many people joined them – everyone was terrified to even breathe. We didn’t know where to turn. They promised to protect us but we’d have to submit to their rules.”
Kenny shifted in his perch inside the turret. “All’s clear as far as I can tell,” he said quietly. “Not that I’m trying to eavesdrop, but I remember hearing they moved troops out of Wainwright to provide reinforcements for the Brigade in Edmonton. They even mobilized the recruits. So whoever this Sunray dude is, maybe he’s not infantry. Maybe he’s a bean counter or something.”
“Assuming it’s a he,” said Cruze. “Hell, assuming it’s just one person – it might be a pseudonym for a command structure of some kind.”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. The end of the world presents a hell of an opportunity for your run-of-the-mill megalomaniac. Dawn-Marie, you said that you had to submit to a bunch of rules. What kinds of rules?”
“Stuff about keeping order and security,” she said quietly.
“And Sunray’s security patrols – two or three man groups. Women and girls would have to watch their backs or they’d take what was referred to as
certain liberties
. I’ll let your imaginations fill in the blanks as to what those liberties were. I found out about it the hard way, but whatever.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
Cruze said with a sharp edge to her voice. Dawn-Marie simply nodded and from the look in her eyes, I didn’t have to ask what she meant.
“They fucking
raped
you?” said Kenny as he peeked down from the turret. “Bastards! If that’s the kind of shit this Sunray dude allows then I’ll be happy to put a fucking bullet in that asshole’s head.”
There was dead silence in the carrier for a few moments. Dawn-Marie’s revelation confirmed to me that she wasn’t one of the bad guys. If anything, she was a victim and it sounded like everyone living in Eden faced danger not only from the creeps, but also from Sunray, whoever the hell he was.
She glanced at her wrist. “I’d appreciate it if you guys would cut me loose. I can’t feel my hand any more.”
I reached for my Buck knife and was about to cut the cable ties when Cruze grabbed my arm. “Wait. How can we know to trust her? She might decide to go postal all of a sudden.”
I glanced at Dawn-Marie. She looked me square in the eye. “Where the hell would I go? You guys outnumber me, and I’ve been pretty open about what got me stuck in this tank with a bunch of wannabe soldiers from Cowtown. It’s like I said before: I’m dead if they find me because I should have died defending the town.”
“I believe her,” I said to Cruze as I pulled out the knife. “We’re all she’s got for now. Dawn-Marie knows that if she does something stupid, she’s as good as dead.”
Cruze threw me a reluctant nod, so I reached over and cut the tie. Dawn-Marie’s arm dropped down onto her lap like a lead weight.
“Thanks,” she said, as she massaged her wrist. “Listen … I’m living on borrowed time. We all are. If Sunray doesn’t find us, we’ll wind up getting our asses chewed off by the creeps.”
“We’re in the business of surviving,” said Cruze with a note of determination in her voice. “We have a plan – to get as far the hell away from civilization as we can get. We’re going north. There’s an outpost of some kind up there.”
She snorted. “You’re talking about Sanctuary Base, right? We’ve heard about it on the shortwave radio. It’s a hell of a trip from here, assuming the place still exists and hasn’t been overrun with the dead.”
“You had shortwave?” I asked. “Back at the farm?”
“That’s right,” she said. “All I know about Sanctuary Base is that they’re made up of army reservists and First Nations militia – real badass types. My Dad was trying to figure out a way for us to get up there and join them – they sounded like they had it all figured out.”
“Does this Sunray know about them?” Cruze cut in.
Dawn-Marie shook her head. “If we do then it stands to reason everyone knows. We didn’t tell a soul outside of our immediate family. I didn’t even tell the two gunners Sunray left in Dinsmore to keep us on our toes.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “The two guys in that front-end loader – they were Sunray’s people?”
“Yeah. They brought that gun with them two days before your people showed up.”
“And that’s how they’re keeping everyone in order, right?” asked Cruze. “You’re all forced into service.”
Dawn-Marie tapped her nose. “Bingo. The rules are that the rules change on a moment’s notice. Sunray’s people took stock of all the vital resources on every farm – from the grain in the bins, to livestock, to fuel. A few farms resisted. They were taken care of.”
“That’s why you started shooting at us,” Cruze said grimly. “If you hadn’t, those guys on that machine gun would shoot whoever refused.”
She drew her knees up to her chest. “That’s right. They were enforcers. Most farms have an enforcer or two in place to keep everyone in check. The security patrols happen when there’s a shift change. Two new enforcers arrive to replace old ones – when they leave, they do a roving security patrol on their way to the next farm or small village. They’re switched out so the enforcers don’t get too cozy with the locals. Two weeks on duty and two weeks later a new couple of enforcers come to town.”