Forsaken World (Book 5): Homecoming

by Watson, Thomas A.

Biting her bottom lip, “The ladybugs are the ones who came to get me to look for the cat, so I could see Ms. Wasson nearly naked in her backyard with Ian and Lance,” Jennifer admitted.

  Rolling her eyes up and staring at the roof of the tent, “They should be too young to be as devious as they are,” Lilly moaned softly. Dropping her eyes back to Jennifer, Lilly saw fear for the first time of the ladybugs on Jennifer’s face. “Don’t ever let them see you are afraid,” Lilly advised. “Man card rules say to have no pity for weakness.”

  “They don’t have man cards,” Jennifer hissed.

  “Did you see how excited they were when Lance said a girl could have a man card? I really think if they strained hard enough to pee, they would sprout a dick,” Lilly predicted. “How many times have they recited that fucking man code with Lance and Ian? We caught them yesterday teaching it to Jodi, and they were teaching it to her from memory.”

  Listening very carefully, Kathy leaned close to Dwain. “Should we bring Jodi home?” she breathed out.

  Shaking his head, Dwain nearly put his lips on Kathy’s ear. “You try and I’ll kick your ass. Jodi is going to become a badass,” Dwain whispered with pride. “Besides, I don’t want the ladybugs mad at us for taking away a prospective ladybug.”

  Not hearing Kathy and Dwain’s conversation, “Is Lori going to become a ladybug?” Robin asked, and everyone heard what sounded like hope in her voice.

  Turning to the Bear Trap Clan, Lilly realized they’d heard. Lilly thought she had let the cat out of the bag, but everyone that had met the ladybugs, including the Bear Trap Clan, knew you didn’t mess with them. Little girls or not, they held power over those at the cabin.

  Giving a small smile, “Sorry, Robin, but Lori hangs with us more than the ladybugs,” Lilly told her, and thought she saw disappointment on Robin’s face.

  “Why didn’t she come over then?” Heath asked, looking across the yard at Lori working on what looked like Rover.

  “She and Denny are checking the bots over. Ian and Lance said we couldn’t help,” Jennifer told him.

  Turning back, Heath could see Denny inside the battle bot with Rhonda sticking her head in, watching what he was doing. “Why is Lori working on Rover?” Heath asked. He had seen Rover, the remote controlled bot with a machine gun mounted on it that could be driven around outside the fence and around the cabin to engage something. He and Dwain had thought of trying to build one, but didn’t even know where to start. “Why did they make it bigger?”

  “Heath, that’s not Rover. That is a bot that will be going with us tonight,” Lilly told him as she and Jennifer gave a shiver.

  “You’re driving the bots when they breach the camp?” Heath asked.

  With no emotion on her face and staring at Heath, “Nobody will be driving the bots,” Lilly stated flatly.

  Afraid to ask more, Heath and everyone turned hearing running feet and saw Denny coming over. “The light is on,” he said.

  Lilly gave him a smile and turned to the others. “Don’t do anything loud,” she told them.

  “Lilly, battle bot checks out. I’m going to get the nozzle and mount it,” Denny said, but was clearly asking permission.

  Thinking for a second, Lilly nodded. “Just mount it, don’t test it.”

  A huge grin jumped on Denny’s face. “I will,” he said, turning away.

  Wanting to talk to Denny and get away from the ladybugs Heath followed, making sure to detour wide around the sand box. “Hey, son,” he said, walking beside Denny. “What light?”

  Pointing to the back of the house, “That one,” Denny answered.

  Looking at the house, Heath saw the back porch light on, but it was red. About to ask questions, Heath’s step faltered. “Denny, there are bodies on the back porch,” Heath said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  It was easy to tell, they weren’t stinkers. “Um, where did they come from?” Heath asked.

  “Lance and Ian took them last night. Four of the Pirates passed out on the top of the trailers that form the wall around their camp. Ian said it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

  Walking past the porch, Heath grabbed Denny’s shoulder as he stopped. There were three bodies sprawled out. Each had a bloody spot on their back and at the base of the skull. “What the hell are they testing?” Heath asked, but wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

  “Dad,” Denny said, grabbing Heath’s arm and making him turn to look at him. “Keep your voice low,” Denny told him, because Heath’s voice was going over a normal tone. “They will get pissed if you mess up their experiment.”

  Nodding and lifting his gaze back to the bodies, “What are they experimenting on?” Heath asked in a low voice.

  “The most effective way to kill a target quietly and quickly,” Denny answered and Heath dropped his shocked gaze to his son’s face to see if Denny was joking.

  “Did you watch?” Heath asked.

  Scoffing, “No, I’ve been working on battle bot,” Denny told him. “Dad, let me get the nozzle.”

  Letting Denny go, Heath turned away from the porch, not sure how to process this. “Where is Holly and Dawn?” he asked, trying to rationalize what Denny had said.

  “In the bunker,” Denny told him, leading his dad to the barn. “There are motion cameras around the build area, but Lance wanted her in the bunker, in case the tigers roamed around since you were coming. The tigers don’t seem to care about me, Lori or Jodi anymore. I don’t think they are used to Holly and Dawn yet.”

  Hearing ‘tigers’ got Heath’s mind off the experiments and made him look around. “Do they know if the tigers even leave the diversion fence? They do bring deer in to give the tigers.”

  “The tigers leave all the time, Dad. But they always come back to the stand they built for them in the tree,” Denny answered as they reached the barn.

  Stopping at the entrance, Heath just didn’t understand why a house at the top of a hill with no fields would need a barn this big. Built with red metal sheets and white trim, the barn was an easy ten thousand square feet. Giving up on trying to figure out why, Heath followed Denny inside. “Denny, when did all this get put in here?”

  “We’ve been bringing stuff here from the cabin since I got here, Dad,” Denny said, rolling his eyes and heading to a workbench.

  Heath had been inside, but not recently. There had been stuff he knew the boys had placed, but he was looking at three CNC machining centers and two CNC lathes. He knew all of them came from the machine shop he’d helped the boys get metal from near Girdler. “When did they get those?” Heath pointed.

  Turning to see what his dad was talking about, “Oh, they brought those in last week after doing patrols. When they finished a patrol, they would bring one over,” Denny told him.

  “Son, you can’t pick those up by hand,” Heath pointed out the obvious.

  “Duh, Dad,” Denny moaned, grabbing items from the workbench. “There is a forklift and tractor parked behind the barn.”

  Realizing that was very stupid on his part, “Are they going to hook them up?” Heath asked, noticing more equipment.

  “If they do, we are going to need more power than just that one Stirling engine here,” Denny said.

  Not knowing what to ask next, but getting ready to fire off questions, Heath stopped. In the back right corner was another military sandbox, but this one made the one outside look tiny. “It has to be sixty feet by sixty feet!” Heath gasped.

  “Wow, you’re good, Dad. I had to get a tape measure to see that,” Denny said, filling his arms.

  Moving over to the model, Heath saw a four-foot-tall platform and climbed up to look down at the model. Seeing hills, valleys displayed, “This is here,” Heath gasped when he realized what he was looking at.

  “Yes, sir, it’s a 1/300 model,” Denny told him, then walked out with his arms full.

  Unlike the model outside there were no trees, only areas painted green where trees were, but there were tiny houses and each ho
use had a flag with a number. Having patrolled the area, Heath realized it was the numbers Ian and Lance had assigned to each house. A perfect circle laid out in red string encompassed nearly the entire model. “The three mile perimeter,” Heath grinned and turned to see if Denny was impressed he had figured it out, but saw Denny was gone.

  Giving a sigh he turned back and saw a tiny house representing the build house, but the cabin wasn’t on the model. Looking over to where the mansion he’d moved into was, Heath didn’t see a house there either. Then he looked at where the Beard Clan had moved and again, there were no houses. “They didn’t mark where anyone was,” he mumbled and saw the clubhouse wasn’t marked, but the meeting house was.

  He looked at where the battle bots were and saw miniature tanks. Able to see it in 3D that all the battle bots except those near Hinkle were outside the three mile perimeter, Heath could tell each spot had been planned. Where gun bots were, an orange thumb tack was placed and white string was placed out, showing the area covered.

  Going over the model, Heath saw a candy skull southeast of the cabin. “Research area,” he mumbled. Lance and Ian had told them where it was, but never showed them. Nobody in his group patrolled anywhere near the cabin and after the boys told them of the research area, the Bear Trap Clan didn’t even patrol the east sector, section three. Now able to see where it was, Heath felt better because he’d thought it was further east and closer to section four than it was.

  They had patrolled the other sections, even though Lance and Ian didn’t want them to. Heath had wanted to take some work off their plate.

  “Like it?” Lance asked, walking in.

  Turning around, Heath saw Lance walking over. “Very impressive,” Heath nodded. “You don’t have where people are living marked.”

  “No shit,” Lance laughed. “It would be very hard for someone outside our group to get here, but it could be done. I’m not marking where any stay. They would have to figure that out.”

  Understanding and liking that, “You have stuff on here like this pond in the valley below that aren’t there,” Heath pointed.

  “Not yet,” Lance grinned. “That’s why we built the sandbox, so we can see what it will look like and what it will interfere with. Well, the ladybugs built most of it, they have gotten really good at models.”

  “Yeah,” was all Heath said. “And everything is to scale?”

  Climbing up on the platform, “Pretty much, the pond, as you call it, will be twenty acres,” Lance said.

  Looking at the pond on the model and where the creek ran into it, Heath looked at the slope below the pond. Snapping his fingers, “Hydro,” he smiled.

  “You’re getting good,” Lance chuckled.

  “I’m looking at the slope and I’ve walked that area. It can’t be more than a fifty foot drop. Is that enough? I know the creek has good flow, but I think that creek going into Dewitt would be better for hydro. Shit, it’s a river now.”

  “We’ll get enough,” Lance said, watching Heath gaze over the model.

  “If it’s to scale, you have buildings on the slope coming up to the build house. They have to be a hundred yards long.”

  “Yep. I wonder why we would put big ass buildings inside a ‘south’ facing slope?”

  Turning to Lance, “Greenhouses?” Heath asked, and Lance nodded with a grin. “You have a big ass one already. Ours is almost done and the Beard Clan is starting theirs this week, why another?”

  “Those will be community greenhouses. We want to build three, one above the other.”

  Knowing the greenhouse at the cabin would have Ian and Lance’s group literally swimming in food, and his and the Beard Clan greenhouses should keep them fed fairly easily, Heath didn’t understand. “That is a lot of work to build something we are duplicating.”

  “Not everything grown is eaten. We need a source for fuel,” Lance said, and Heath nodded. “Or at least, an explanation for one.” Heath turned to Lance very confused, but Lance just winked. “That I can’t talk about yet. Something Ian and I are working on in the research area.” Just hearing that, made Heath uneasy.

  Turning around, Lance hopped off the platform and headed for the door. Jumping off and following, “Where you headed?” Heath asked.

  “I was taking out the trash and Denny told me you were in here,” Lance said, walking out with Heath in tow. He followed Lance to the back porch and noticed a new body. Looking up, he saw the red light was turned off and Lance was heading for the door.

  Pausing his step, “Can I come in?” Heath asked.

  “I don’t care,” Lance shrugged, opening the door. “Just going over data now.”

  Following Lance inside, Heath saw Ian in what used to be the living room, sitting behind one of the two desks that took up most of the area. Each desk had three huge screens and Ian never looked up as they came in. “Lance, we are staying consistent,” Ian said. “There is less than a two percent difference between my two numbers and yours.”

  “Deviation?” Lance asked, walking over to a dry erase board that took up most of one wall.

  As the two talked, Heath smelled the unmistakable coppery scent of blood. Following the scent, he turned down the hall that led to the master bedroom. He froze in the doorway. The walls were painted with black and white stripes all the way around. Then he noticed the stripes were very precise. The carpet had been ripped out and there were precise black and white lines painted across the floor.

  Realizing there was a lot of light, he looked around and saw bright shop lights hanging from the ceiling. “What the-,” he mumbled, moving to the wall and saw a camera mounted and aiming at the center of the room. Looking around the walls, he saw six more cameras at different heights aimed at the center of the room. Turning to the center, Heath saw three cameras mounted on the roof pointing down and then noticed a metal loop bolted into the ceiling.

  Stepping over he heard a squish, and looked down to see a puddle of blood he’d stepped in. Stepping back, he saw the blood on the floor and even on the walls that he only now spotted. “I give up,” he said walking out, and saw a mat at the door that someone had used to wipe the blood off their shoes.

  Wiping his feet off, Heath went back to the living room and found Lance leaning over Ian. Moving to Ian’s other side, Heath’s eyes bulged out.

  On the three screens, from many different angles and views, showed Lance coming up behind someone standing in the center of the room. The person had tape over their eyes and their hands tied at the waist. Watching in wonder, Heath realized Lance wasn’t moving slowly, the video was playing in slow motion.

  As Lance neared the man, he held his right arm back and Heath spotted a rather large knife. When Lance neared the man, his left leg came out and Ian clicked the mouse, pausing the video. Making a note, Ian clicked again and Heath noticed a timer running at the bottom. From watching Mythbusters, Heath understood why there were lines painted in the room. The boys were using them to measure speed.

  It seemed to take forever, but Lance kicked the man in the back of the knee as his right hand plunged the knife in the man’s back, making Heath wince at the slowness. Noticing the boys looking over at the right screen, Heath turned to see numbers and lines. He had been in enough hospitals to know he was looking at heart rate with an EKG, oxygen saturation, and respiratory monitor. The last number had dB beside it and he knew that represented sound decibels. Seeing the heart rate spike in slow motion, Heath gave a shiver knowing why.

  As the man started to go down from the kick to the back of the leg, Heath saw his face was frozen in a grimace with Lance’s left hand over his mouth. Watching Lance pull the knife out, Heath felt uneasy as the right hand with the knife came back and plunged again as Lance held the man’s head to the side. In sick fascination, Heath watched Lance shove the blade in the base of the man’s skull.

  Lance gave the knife a twist and then pulled it out, letting the body drop to the floor. When Ian stopped the playback, Heath continued to stare at the screen ju
st processing what he’d just watched. “That was the highest decibel reading at seventy-six,” Ian said, clicking the screen and a play bar came up. “Right here.”

  Heath saw it was just after Lance shoved the blade in the man’s skull. “Yeah,” Lance said. “That’s when his bowels emptied.”

  “Never heard in the videos or books that when you shank ‘em in the skull, they shit and piss,” Ian snorted.

  “What was stabbing speed?” Lance asked, and Ian rewound and pulled up an overhead camera before playing it back.

  “Twenty point three miles an hour or twenty-nine point seven, seven feet per second,” Ian answered. “Lance, we’re staying consistent. This is the fastest and quietest way.”

  Then it occurred to Heath, they were testing what they had learned scientifically. “You’ve tried other ways,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah, don’t cut someone’s throat if you want to be quiet,” Ian advised. “They make a lot of noise and pulsating blood splattering around is rather loud.”

  Not taking his eyes off the frozen image on the screen, “None of those outside had their throats cut,” he said.

  “Yeah, tried that with a Devil Lord,” Lance said, leaning up and moving to the dry erase board to write down numbers.

  Throwing his head back, “Because we killed all the little dick Devil Lords,” Ian cackled. “We did it at the pirate camp the first night, but those two were alone and passed out.”

  “Yeah, but we aren’t testing throat cutting again. Too messy, too loud, and takes too long for them to die,” Lance said, very business-like.

  Somewhat surprised to hear the ‘long’ part, “I thought that would be pretty fast,” Heath admitted.

  “Nah,” Ian said, stretching his arms over his head. “Over two minutes for them to exsanguinate, and noise levels broke a hundred decibels from the blood splatter, thrashing about, and choking on the blood.”

  With his mind providing pictures he really didn’t want, “Why stab them in the back?”

  “Kidney,” Lance said, still writing.

  “Yeah,” Ian nodded, dropping his hands to the keyboard. “Stab them in the kidney, they can’t scream and the body locks up. But after you stab them in the base of the skull you have to let the body down easy, so it doesn’t make a lot of sound.”