“I said we’ll get them. Everything that’s happened tells me they’re headed here. When they get here, we’ll kill them.”
“You’d better. And then you’d better retrain your hunters. This group has gone soft. The first batch was the best,” the woman criticized.
“Your hunters, huh? Well, if it wasn’t for me, those citizens would have risen up and cut your throat years ago,” the Boss retorted.
The Magistrate’s voice was ice. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just saying…” Whatever the Boss had to say was cut off as the Magistrate made a gesture with her hand. The closest hunter leapt forward, and with a slash of his long knife, cut the Boss’s throat from ear to ear. The hunter spun the Boss around, and shoved him off the porch, keeping the blood arc from getting on the Magistrate or the porch.
I looked at Jake. “They keep this up, we could just go home now, and they’ll kill each other,” I whispered.
Jake just shook his head and readied his bow again. The Magistrate looked once at the body of her Boss and walked back inside. If she was looking at anything other than a piece of trash on her lawn, she didn’t give any indication of caring.
The other three hunters dragged the body away, heading off towards the smaller of the outbuildings. I tapped Jake on the shoulder and he nodded, putting his arrows away and putting down his bow.
We looked at the house again. Everything seemed quiet, and the lone hunter on the porch was standing as rigid as a statue.
“We’re going to take care of the other three. If he gets frisky,” I said quietly, pointing to the man on the porch, “just shoot him dead.”
Jake and I slipped away into the darkness, moving silently through the trees. There was enough moon to see where we were going, but not enough to really get a sight picture on a target. Plus, it was cloudy, so every now and then the moon would slip behind a cloud and plunge the entire valley into deep darkness. With their black clothes, the hunters were nearly invisible.
The three went over to the building, and while the one dragging the body reached it last, the other two went inside and opened the large garage door. Inside was a small pickup truck with the bed replaced with just flat pieces of board.
The three put their guns on the ground by the door, leaning against the building. We had one chance to get them without their guns, and this was it.
Jake was off before I could say anything, trying to cover the twenty yards from the trees to the hunters before they could get back to their rifles. I was right behind him, barreling along with my ‘hawk and knife in hand.
Something alerted them, because as one they turned and looked at us, their eyes no longer hidden by dark goggles grew wide at the apparitions coming out of the woods.
Jake flew past the two on the right side of the pickup while I used my momentum to slam into the one on the left. The man flew through the air, tumbling to a stop against a box of paint cans. Every garage had one, I guess.
The man shook his head and bounded up, whipping his knife out and charging. I ducked under the slash, pivoted, and slammed my elbow into the back of his neck. He went down again, and crawled back up to his feet, shaking his head and holding his knife out to keep me away. I stalked him then, crouching low, and keeping my feet on the ground, waiting for him to try another attack. He didn’t disappoint. His forearm went up to keep my axe away from his head while his knife jabbed towards my gut. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jake standing loosely with both his knives out. The men facing him seemed to be bleeding from a couple of cuts each, and neither was eager to close in.
I turned aside from the stabbing knife, but not quite enough. I felt a line of fire along my ribs, and the forearm of the man battered into my forehead. I trapped the knife arm with my own, and I could feel the man trying to poke me with the knife. His hand grabbed at my face, looking to take out my eyeballs. I snarled in fury and punched him in the face with my other hand. Unfortunately for him, that hand held my tomahawk, and the blade opened a huge gash in his forehead. Blood poured into his eyes as he tried to shake free. I wasn’t about to let him go, and ran the edge of my ‘hawk along his throat. Blood sprayed all over me, and I knew I was going to look a fright. The man dropped the knife, and I dropped him, letting him thrash on the ground.
I turned my attention to Jake, and he was only facing one man this time. The other was on the ground with one of Jake’s knives in the back of his neck. Jake held his knife low, waiting for the man to move. The hunter lunged, and Jake slipped aside, spinning and punching his knife into the man’s chest three times. The man shuddered from the steel penetrating his chest, and fell into a heap on the ground. Jake retrieved his knife and looked over at me.
“Jesus! Is that your blood?” Jake asked, hurrying over.
“No, just some of it.” I winced as I probed the knife cut on my side. The blade had scored the skin, and might have gone deep enough to scrape a rib. In either case, it hurt like hell.
Chapter 62
Jake nodded, and we walked back to the trees. Julia and Kayla were waiting, and Julia gasped when she saw me. I reassured her that I was fine, just a cut on my ribs. The other blood wasn’t mine. Julia checked my side and quickly put her scarf around my waist, tying it tightly to keep the blood in.
We were about to head over to the house when there was a strange sound. It seemed like a humming that was coming from the road. The hunter on the porch noticed it, too, and went around to take a look. From where we were we couldn’t see what the trouble was, so we decided to move around carefully and see what was going on.
On the other side of the house, there was a large group of people. All of them were armed with various types of guns and bows. In front of them was a group of men and women dressed in black with various colored stripes indicating their status. Each of them looked a little roughly used, and I honestly couldn’t blame them for that.
I saw Burt and Mary, and stepped into the light of one of the fires. Several guns came up, but Burt called them off.
“You survived! Just barely,” he said, looking at my blood stained clothing. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s hunter’s blood, anyway.” The crowd cheered, and there were several nods of approval.
“What happened to you guys?” Jake asked, looking over the group.
Burt smiled. “When you all started taking care of the hunters, we decided it was time to do something ourselves. We caught three of these bastard turncoats in a building and made them tell us where our weapons were. Now that we’re armed, we’re changing things around here.”
“Looks like it,” I said. The hunter had been captured, and she was a young woman of about twenty five. Her eyes darted around, and I could see she was trying to figure out a way to grab a weapon and escape. Something about her was familiar, and in the firelight she reminded me of someone else.
“You have no right to be here!” A voice commanded from above. “Disperse, and I shall forgive you this once!”
Behind us, on a balcony overlooking the front lawn and the assembled people, was the Magistrate. Her white hair was in disarray, and she fumed at the assembled townspeople before her. She was gripping the railing and glaring out over the people, trying to bend them to obedience through sheer will.
There was a huge volley of gunfire, and the Magistrate literally blew apart. Probably fifty bullets hit her at once and threw her back against the glass doors of the balcony.
I looked over at Jake. “Wasn’t really expecting that,” I said quietly.
Jake looked serious. “Me either.” He went over to the hunter and took her arm. She resisted for a second, but then he whispered into her ear, and her eyes got huge, filling with tears.
Fifty guns cocked again, and this time they were aiming at the hunter. Jake stood in front of her and addressed the crowd.
“I get that you want revenge. I really do. But this woman is our prisoner, and we’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t kill us all just to kill her,�
� he said with more calm than I was sure he felt.
I didn’t know what he planned to do if they pushed the issue. We certainly couldn’t fight all those guns.
Burt looked at Jake, and Jake spoke again. “We helped you out here, and I’m looking for a favor. I would appreciate it if you’d give me this one thing.”
Burt looked defiant, but Mary interceded, and Burt grudgingly nodded his head. “All right. But she has to be out of this valley in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” I said. I had had enough of the valley to last a lifetime, although I was curious as to how President Jackson was going to deal with all we had to tell him. Well, that was his problem.
We went over to the pickup with the flatbed and dumped the body of the Boss off of it. Jake was of a mind that the bodies of the hunters and the rest were not our problem, we had done our bit. We drove back towards the house where we had left the Jeep, and while Jake and Kayla talked with the former hunter, I wandered down to the river to clean up. The water was not just freezing, it was ”Holy Shit!” freezing, and Julia had a hard time not giggling as she cleaned up my wound.
Chapter 63
We headed out in the morning, making our way back the way we had come. The mountains, valley and river looked particularly bright, and we were moving away from what I considered a job well done. I asked Jake if he was of a mind to explore any more of the mountains further to the south, but he said he was happy to leave these mountains behind.
The hunter, whose name we discovered was Paula, told us a lot about what had been going on at that valley. The Magistrate was truly an evil woman, and she richly deserved the death she got. The re-education school was nothing more than a brainwashing center, and the teachers there used any means to get the kids in line. Torture, sexual abuse, anything to break their spirit. The ones who showed promise were given better treatment. Others who fought back were sent to the sawmill. She herself had seen what was going on and played the game long enough to be brought to Wallawa to become a hunter. For her it was nothing more than survival. She had just become a hunter when we had invaded the valley, so she hadn’t had any time to kill anyone.
Even so, I still kept my hand on a weapon when I was around her, since I knew that some lessons went deep and were hard to just ignore.
We were on the road for a couple of days when we reached the place where the RV’s were. Jake slowed down again, and I patted him on the back.
“Can’t hurt to look,” I said.
We pulled into the lot and drove around a bit, looking at various types of pull behind RV’s. Several had broken windows, and a few had caved in roofs. Nature in the mountains was not very friendly, as we were discovering as the skies were increasingly grey and the winds getting colder. Jake found one that looked pretty good, and we took a look inside. The cabin was clean and comfortable, with only a thin layer of dust. The kitchen was nice, and there was a lot of storage for all of our stuff.
It took the rest of the day for us to clean it up and for Jake and I to figure out how to hook it up to the Jeep. We got lucky in that we found several full propane tanks, and there was a bunch of hitches that we were able to try before we found one that worked.
We slept in the trailer that night, and even though Julia and I slept on the small double bed by the bathroom, it was better than sleeping in the Jeep.
The next day, we pulled into Jerome, and I was a little nervous about what we were about to do. But we had to get it done, and maybe this would go as expected.
The sheriff’s office was quiet, and we walked up to it like we had before. It seemed so long ago, even though it was only about a week. I knocked on the door, and heard a familiar voice.
“Come in!”
I walked in, and smiled at Sheriff Conners. She was standing by a large wall map, putting up pins and making some sort of connections with some red yarn. I had no idea what she was about, but she smiled back at me when she saw who I was.
“Oh, goodness! You came back! Did you come to your senses and avoid that horrible place?” She asked.
I shook my head. “No, we got there and took care of things, and the Clan won’t be bothering anyone else anymore,” I said.
Sheriff Conners put her hands to her mouth and closed her eyes. “Thank God. And thank God you made it.” She reached out and put a hand on my arm. “I wish I had gone with you, just to know what happened to my daughter.”
I stepped aside. “I think I may help you with that.”
Paula came in and stood in the doorway. Julia and Kayla had gotten her out of her hunter clothes and did something to her hair. The similarity between mother and daughter was striking now, something that I had seen in the darkness back at the magistrate’s house.
“Mom?” Paula asked in a small voice.
Celia Conners eyes filled with sudden tears. In a small voice she said “Paula? Baby, is that you?”
The two women rushed together, crying tears of joy. Something got in my eye, and it took me a minute to get it out. Julia hugged my waist as the tears formed in her eyes as well. Kayla wiped away a bit of moisture, and Jake just stood there like a lump.
We left the two women to spend some time alone, and went back to the motel. The owner was still reading a book in the same position we had left him. I wondered if he slept that way. He was delighted to see us again, and I gave him a silver coin to add to his collection. He tried to refuse, but I told him I’d be offended if he did, especially after the way he had helped us out last time with Brent.
We left in the morning, saying goodbye to Sheriff Conners and her daughter. Conners told us Paula was going to be her deputy, and we thought that was a great idea.
“God help any lawbreakers with her on the case,” Jake said quietly, getting punched in the arm by Kayla.
Chapter 64
We pulled out of town, following the same path that had brought us here. The only difference was we made our way south to Interstate 80. Back in the day, my dad had insisted that several main highways be cleared of abandoned cars and zombies. The point was to make sure that if an outbreak occurred, the army could get there quickly without delay. Off the highway, you were on your own. But the highway itself was straight, clear, and without things you needed to avoid. There were the occasional potholes, but other than that, we were able to make good time.
Three days out of Jerome, we crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. Julia and Kayla were as anxious as I was to just get home after all the crap we had gone through. My skull still bore the scars of that freak’s bullet, but the salve from the Doc really worked wonders.
Another day, and we were home, pulling up to the Lodge and greeting our fathers. I expected no better hello than the one I got.
“What did you do with the van?” my dad asked. “And what the heck happened to your head?”
I put my arm around my dad’s shoulders and steered him inside. “Dad, do I have a story for you.”
Three days later I finished my report to the president and gave it to Julia. She was going into the capital for some supplies with Kayla, and she wanted to see one of the doctors there. She hadn’t been feeling well, and I wanted her to make sure everything was okay. I wished we had brought that country doctor home with us, but we can’t uproot everybody for our convenience.
Dad was appreciative of what we had done, and he and Uncle Charlie wanted every detail Jake and I could give him. A day later, on the stone patio outside the lodge, he listened with rapt attention as I described the gates, the communities, and the valley of Enterprise.
“I had to make a choice,” Dad said. “Put the gates up on the east side of the mountains, or take the army through and put them up on the west side.” Dad shrugged. “If I had thought at the time there was going to be communities in there I might have made a different choice.”
“No way you could have known,” I said.
Jake agreed. “Half the towns in there seemed to be doing fine, and if they wanted to set up gates themselves, no one is stopping them.�
��
Uncle Charlie looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s time to clear out those mountains and get some more states added to the union.”
Dad nodded. “Could be a trip is in order.”
I rolled my eyes. “You two need a hobby.”
Everyone laughed, and then went quiet as we heard a boat returning to the docks. I patted my dad on the shoulder and walked with Jake down the long stairway to greet our wives. In the woods, we could hear the cougars growling and fighting with each other. Over the years the number had grown to more than fifteen. It was a getting a little crowded out on the trails.
Julia and Kayla came walking up the trail holding hands. When she saw me, she broke away and ran up, jumping into my arms. She held me tight and whispered in my ear. Kayla hugged Jake and gave him the news.
We all went back up to the patio where our fathers were looking over a map, studying the mountains and marking where good places would be to set up new gates.
“You guys can’t go anywhere,” I said firmly, standing with my feet apart and my arms crossed.
“And why, pray tell?” My dad asked, giving me the You’d-better-have-a-damn-good-reason-for-speaking-to-me-that-way look.
“Well, I would prefer it if your grandchild knew his grandfather better than I knew mine,” I said.
Uncle Charlie looked at his daughter and then swept her up in his big arms, hugging her and smiling his joy. My dad wrapped me up in a hug as well, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the old zombie fighter had a tear in his eye as well.
“Any thoughts on names?” Uncle Charlie asked, after putting Julia down.
Julia smiled shyly. “Aaron and I had talked about this before, and we wanted to know what you thought. If it’s a girl, Sarah Ellen, and if it’s a boy, then Jonathon Charles.”
Dad smiled. “Perfect.”
Uncle Charlie raised a hand. “Why not Charles Jonathon?”
Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates Page 22
