by James Hunt
“Reuben.” Wren skidded on her knees, her skin breaking upon contact with the pebbles and rocks in the dirt, her dress riding up her dirty thighs. His face was beaten and swollen almost beyond recognition. She cradled his head in her lap, the tears dripping from her face and landing on his dust-covered cheek.
Reuben gargled, and Wren gripped him tighter. Blood and spit spewed from his mouth as he lifted his head up and rolled to his side, clawing the dirt and gasping for air. Wren quickly helped him sit up, and the sound of more gunshots sharpened both their senses. “C’mon. We need to go.”
Wren acted as little more than a cane for the large man as she struggled to bear his weight. She aimed for the nearest building and kept her eyes open for any pursuers and found two heading right for them. She hastened her pace, pulling Reuben with her. “Hurry.”
Reuben lowered his shoulder and heaved his body weight, and the force was enough to burst through the door of the abandoned building. He collapsed after the quick exertion, and Wren barricaded the entrance. She hit the floor just as bullets punctured the structure’s decrepit wood. She crawled along the grimy floorboards, the dress covering her stomach catching exposed nail heads. She looked and saw Reuben had collapsed to his side and lay still as death.
The desk and chairs she’d thrown against the door buckled with every thud that their pursuers thrust against it. “I know you’re in there, bitch! Don’t think you can hide from us!”
Wren opened old drawers and padded through the darkness, trying to feel for anything that could pass as a weapon. Her head throbbed, and the pains and aches along her body were no longer subdued by the rush of adrenaline. Every pulse-pounding beat from her heart triggered an agitated roar from her body. Her arms and legs shook uncontrollably, whether from fear or fatigue she wasn’t sure.
Bullets exploded through the door, turning the old wood into Swiss cheese. Round after round penetrated, making the hole grow large enough to fit a hand through. Wren felt the cool of metal and wrapped her fingers around a pair of scissors. The door cracked open, and Wren hid in the corner, keeping her body in front of Reuben’s unconscious one. She wasn’t going to let him suffer any more because of her. If he died, she died.
The snarling face of one of the shooters appeared in the crack. He hooted raucously at the sight of her and vigorously beat against the door, widening the opening with every smack. Finally, he squeezed through, rifle first. “Well, well, look at this.” The gunman’s clothes were soiled and grimy, and the body that wore them wasn’t any better. He flashed a grin, his teeth caked in plaque and turning yellow. His wild hair added to the ensemble of insanity. “The big man can’t give you lovin’ anymore, sweetheart. But why don’t you let me give it a try?”
The gunman’s friend slithered in next, flashing a similar grin, though his had far fewer teeth. He lunged forward, yipping and howling in excitement. Wren kept the scissors open and jutted out at arm’s length. She mirrored their actions, jerking side to side as they each took turns taking a swing, laughing in the process.
“She’s still got some fight left in her.” The first gunman set the rifle down, raising his fists playfully. “Your man lasted a while in the ring. Let’s see how long you fare.”
“Don’t mess up her face any more. It’s swollen enough as it is.” The two hyenas bobbed up and down, the second gunman keeping his rifle aimed at her while the first gunman swiped his hand a few times as Wren fended him off with the scissors.
“You know, you’re lucky we’d rather fuck you than shoot you. It’d make this whole process a lot easier if you wasn’t breathing.” He sprinted forward, trying to barrel into Wren, but she sidestepped, slashing the scissors’ open blades across the goon’s forearm. He cursed and clutched his arm. “Fucking bitch!”
Wren smacked into a chair as she shuffled backward, aiming the blade between the two thugs. The first gunman she’d wounded grimaced, then lunged forward. Wren drove the tip of the scissors into his path. She felt the tear of metal on flesh, but the brute kept coming, wrapping his arms around her neck. He squeezed, choking the life out of her, and she felt the scissors drop from her hand as she struggled for air. Her head throbbed, and the room started to fade to black, but through the pain she felt the hot tickle of the man’s breath against her ear as he whispered, “I’m going to enjoy this.”
Another crash at the door turned the gunman’s attention to the intrusion, and before the second gunman could shoot, his body was riddled with lead. The goon on top of Wren loosened his grip, and she wriggled free, picked the scissors up from the floor and rammed the tip of the blades into the man’s ribs. She felt the metal scrape bone and catch on the wiry muscle. She kept her eyes on her attacker’s face as she pulled the scissors from his side and rammed them into him again and again, each blow triggering a scream until the man could no longer stand on his own feet. He collapsed, gargling blood and clutching his side.
Wren hovered over him until his very last breaths. Blood dripped from the tip of the scissors in a slow, steady drizzle onto the floor. Her knuckles flashed white over the grip, and it wasn’t until he lay completely still, the blood, breath, and life drained from his body, that Wren dropped it from her hand.
“Wren.”
At first she thought it was Reuben, but when she turned, she saw that the man behind the rifle was Nathan, the thick mustache under his nose wiggling tirelessly from his heavy breaths. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, but she was so hysterical with delirium that the words she yearned to speak were lost on their way to her mouth.
Nathan stumbled forward, the rifle in his hands falling across his chest, the strap clinging tight to his body. “My god, are you all right?” He looked behind him, screaming out the door. “I found her!”
“He needs help.” The words left Wren’s throat scratchy and raw. Nate looked at her, confused, and she lifted a shaky hand to Reuben in the corner. “Save him.” The room started to spin, and she stumbled forward a few steps, her center of gravity shifting from side to side.
“Easy, Wren.” Nathan gently grabbed her waist, stabilizing her for the moment, then helped her to the ground next to Reuben while Ben examined her face. “What did they do to you?”
They beat me. Groped me. Cut me. Whatever they wanted to do to me. But she was too weak to speak. It was all she could do to keep her concentration on Reuben’s face, and though he lay unconscious, she felt her spirits lift as she noticed the slight rise and fall of his chest.
Chapter 10
Iris and Ben screamed at one another, but Wren couldn’t decipher their words. She barely felt Nathan prod at the cuts on her face. Every once in a while, a light sting would detract from her concentration, but for the most part all she could focus on was Reuben.
Nathan and the others had tried to convince her to let the doctor work on him alone, but their requests fell on deaf ears. They didn’t know. None of them understood. Everything was paid in blood now. Nothing else mattered but the people who took care of you, and who you took care of in turn.
“We need to gather what supplies we have here and head back to the camp.” Iris’s voice had reached a crescendo. Her flushed cheeks revealed the hours of frustration she and Ben had exchanged since their arrival. “Every second we wait here is one more we give Edric to regroup and strengthen his defenses.”
“You heard what Wren said, Iris.” Ben dug his heels in, thrusting a heavy hand in her face. “It was Ted that was running the goons here in town. He’d been attacking us. And we don’t know if he was working with Edric or not. If he was, then he could be telling Edric exactly what we’ve done. They’ll know we’re coming!”
“He doesn’t know.” Wren turned her head to the conversation, and the room went quiet. Nathan ceased his work on her cut lip. Her voice lacked animation and enthusiasm, but even she felt the sharpness of her words. “Ted is playing both sides. He was a member of the terrorists that caused all of this. I don’t know if he’ll go back, but if he does, he’ll keep Edric in
the dark about what he’s doing.” She looked back to Reuben. His eyes were closed, and his breaths were sharp and quick. The doctor had washed away most of the blood and dirt, leaving nothing but the cuts, bumps, and bruises that mapped his face. “He’ll tell Edric whatever he has to in order for them to kill us. And then he’ll destroy the camp.” It was the silence that finally forced her to shift her gaze from Reuben to Ben and Iris. Everyone in the room was looking at her, and she read the uncertainty on their faces. “This isn’t politics anymore. There is no council. There is no order. We need to kill them all. Anyone who steps in our way.” She pushed herself up. Nathan offered his hand, but she knocked it away. “The moment the doctor is done with Reuben, I’m heading back there to get my children. And I don’t give a damn if you all decide to come or stay. It’s your lives.”
Wren limped out of the room and took a few steps onto the cracked pavement of the sidewalk outside the abandoned lawyer’s office they’d taken shelter in. The group of thirty that had defected with Iris and Ben were gathered outside. The moment they realized it was her, they stood. She wasn’t sure if they’d expected a speech, or advice, or an update on what Ben and Iris had decided, but she didn’t care. Every one of them had abandoned her children, and she didn’t give two shits about how she was supposed to make them feel.
The windows Wren passed were shattered or cracked. All of the stores that had offered anything of value were stripped bare. Nothing but shelves and dirty floors remained. They were empty. The town was empty. She was empty.
An old park rested on the town’s outskirts. It was overgrown with weeds, and a rusted playground was falling apart in the center. A pair of swings drifted forward and back in a lazy cadence until she stopped their aimless purpose. She sat and kicked her legs, and the rusted chains squeaked with each pump. As she swung, she tried to imagine the park before the EMP went off. She tried to listen for the squealing laughter of children but heard nothing. She tried to picture the small hands and arms swinging from the monkey bars, the short legs pushing off the teeter-totter, but couldn’t see beyond the rusted steel and motionless toys.
Nathan took a seat in the empty swing next to her, the support beams groaning louder from the added weight. He kicked in time with her own strides, no sounds between them save for the whine of the chains. It wasn’t until Wren stood from the swing that Nate finally spoke. “We tried to get them out, Wren.”
Her face and jaw were still swollen, but she could open the left side of her mouth more easily now that the doctor had given her some anti-inflammatory meds. Though she still sounded like she had a mouth full of gauze. “You tried? What the fuck does that even mean? People usually try to pay their taxes, or try to do well at their job. Tell me just how much you tried, Nathan.”
“About as much as you tried to help me in that ambulance in Chicago!” He thrust himself up from the swing, the seat dancing wildly upon his exit.
The verbal slap was more than Wren had expected, though she knew it wasn’t out of line. “How long have you been holding that in?” She sat on one of the steps of the jungle gym and carefully rubbed her temples. While the swelling had reduced, the pain hadn’t.
“I’m sorry.” Nate kept his back to her, his head down. A puff of grey dirt clouded the air around his ankles as he kicked the ground aimlessly. “I know you did it to save the kids. I was too much of a liability.” He turned around, the anger wiped from his face and replaced with despair. “Wren, Edric had the girls and Zack under lock and key. We would have lost everyone that tried to get them out.”
“I’m going to get them back, Nate. I’ll go by myself if I have to. And if Ted’s there—” She clenched her fists, cracking her knuckles. The thought of that animal anywhere near her girls was warrant for murder.
“You won’t have to go alone.” Nathan grabbed her fists, and she loosened her grip. “I can promise you that. Iris and Ben need you, though. The people that came, a lot of them came because of you.”
“Me?”
“That night when you stood up to Edric after the attack on the fence, it was all anyone could talk about.” Nathan pointed back to the main portion of town, where she’d passed their group. “Those people saw you as something more than what they were offered. They respect you. They’ll follow you.”
“I don’t want anyone dying for me. It’s not my place to ask them. I’m not the leader they think I am.” I’m not a leader at all. Reuben’s broken body flashed in her mind, and she shuddered to think what would happen to the rest of those people if they followed her. The knowledge that he’d endured so much savagery for her well-being had tipped her over the ledge of sanity. “I’m not going through that again.”
Wren left Nathan at the playground and returned to the cluster of people who’d defected from the camp. She was short of breath by the time she arrived, and once again everyone stood, looking to her, wanting to hear what she’d say. “I’m not the person you think I am. All I’ve done, all I’ve ever done, has driven the people around me to pain.” She felt blood collecting in her mouth as she forced her jaw open wider, projecting her voice. “That man inside? He followed me. He tried to help me. And he nearly died for it. Save yourselves. Save your family. There still might be someplace that’s safe, and if you leave now, you’ll be able to find it.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Iris stepped out of the building with Ben in tow. She circled Wren, and the crowd drew nearer. “You think those people are going to risk their lives just for you?” She shook her head. “Edric drove us from our homes. He took everything that we had worked so hard to build. There is more at stake than just your children. The camp was designed to keep us alive. It’s our future.”
“You said that we needed to save our families?” Nate asked, stepping through the crowd. “We are. You are our family, Wren. You kept your word more than Edric and the rest of those back at camp. We’re not going because of you. We’re going because we are you.”
Everyone nodded, their decisions made. Iris and Ben stood on either side of her, and Iris thrust her rifle into the air. “We will not fail!”
Every rifle, pistol, knife, and fist lifted into the air, joining Iris’s symbol of perseverance. And in the center, with both hands by her side, stood Wren, engirded with her own military. But if she was going to extract her children without Edric hurting them, she’d need more than brute strength on her side.
***
The table was cleared. Nothing but the Frankenstein-like pieces of paper taped together in an oddly shaped mass rested over the old wood. Wren had to grip the pencil tightly, or she found that her lines would slant. Every muscle burned, but it felt good to return to a familiar post. “I doubt Edric managed to rebuild the gap in the wall since I left, which means he has a back door he’s forced to guard, with even fewer men to do it.”
Wren constructed the entire compound from memory, save for some of the details Iris and Ben provided. They revealed two important secrets no one outside the council knew: Edric didn’t have all of the lock combinations to the individual weapons vaults in the garrison, and an underground fuselage on the east side of the camp.
“Now, the ammunition and weapons in Edric’s and Jan’s vaults are well stocked, and we have to assume that Ted has joined up with them by now, adding his arsenal.” Iris pointed to the only concrete structure in the camp, which acted as their garrison. “Ben and I had been pulling ammunition and weapons out in secret for the past week in anticipation of Edric’s behavior.”
“You’re sure Edric can’t access your vaults?” Nathan asked.
“No, he can,” Ben answered. “But it’ll take some time for him to break his way inside. And it may not even be something he’ll try. But regardless, as of right now, they do have more weaponry than us.”
A burning fatigue cramped Wren’s shoulder as she hovered over a few of the previous sketches, doing her best not to smear the lines. She took a step back and rested her arm. She massaged her hand. While the grip of the pencil felt
good, not all of her dexterity had returned, which was evident in the schematic. “It’s done.” Wren cocked her head to the side. “For better or worse.” She planted her finger on the gaping hole in the fence. “I don’t think Edric will have any guards on that portion of the fence. He’ll keep it open and booby trapped for anyone that comes through.”
“We have to go in at night. It’s our best chance of surprise,” Ben said.
“Agreed.” Iris looked to Wren, the others following her lead. “I doubt Edric will have your girls far from his side. Especially if Ted regrouped with him and told him you’re in the mix. Wren, I don’t know what he’ll do once he smells the ambush.”
“I do.” Wren glanced down at the portion of the sketch that outlined Edric’s house. “I’ll need to go in first. And I’ll need a distraction big enough to make the whole camp turn into chaos.” She dragged her finger across the map to the underground fuel tank. “There’s enough gas in that tank to wake up the entire state of Illinois. It’ll be big, it’ll draw attention and confusion, but it will give me enough time to get my kids and you guys a jump start on the offense. We’ll need teams at different points of entry. The more we can use the chaos of the explosion to our advantage, the better. Once that blast goes off, we’ll have a good ten minutes before Edric has a chance to reestablish any kind of order. That’s where we can even the odds.”
