by Lowry, C. L.
“That is precisely why we need to bring her in and question her about it.”
“I just want to go on record to say I don’t agree with that.”
“Why not?” Latoya asked.
“Look at Dalton and the people that followed him. It is no secret that people are starting to feel like prisoners in here. So, now you want to start having a formal court system and accusing people of crimes that don’t exist? We don’t need that type of division right now.”
“There are rules in here that need to be followed,” Seth countered. “Without rules, there will be chaos. If we start having chaos in here, then we are no different than those savages out there.”
“And if we treat our people like prisoners, they will continue to leave, and there will be no one left.”
“You have to do something. The rules state that members must be trained and given permission to carry weapons. Are you suggesting that we allow this girl to break the rules?”
“No, I’m not,” Maverick pleaded. “Just give me the chance to talk to her. I’ll find out where she got this stuff from.”
“Even if she says that the gun fell out of the sky, she knows that there are rules to follow in this place.”
“Well, that may not be true,” Latoya added. “She was a bit standoff-ish, so I haven’t gone over the rules with her yet.”
“Exactly. So, how can she break the rules if she doesn’t even know them?”
Seth was irritated. He wanted a zero-tolerance policy in the camp. Any chance he got, he proposed that the camp be run with a military structure, but he was always outvoted by the other leadership. He knew times were changing. The more mistakes that occurred, the sooner the others would start seeing things from his perspective. Seth did not want the members of the group to have as much freedom as they were given. He believed that the camp was vulnerable, and it was only a matter of time before someone slipped and caused a lot of damage.
Maverick and Seth were always clashing. Maverick was more strategic, and Seth craved power in the worst way. They both wanted the same goal, which was getting the world back to normal and re-establishing the government, but they had two different opinions on how to reach that goal. The current structure that was set up for The Saviors was the only thing they kept the camp from dividing into two groups.
“Latoya, do me a favor and go get the girl,” Seth ordered. “I’ll send one of my men to go get the boy. We’re not going to play politics. The safety of the entire group is at stake right now, and we need to know what’s going on with these two.”
CHAPTER 41
Levi and Sade sat across the table from the leaders of The Saviors. The teens were nervous. They did not know who three of the leaders were. Levi recognized Maverick, but Sade had never met him. Sade’s bag was emptied out on the table. Levi’s eyes were locked on the gun that he gave Sade. Sade’s mind was racing trying to figure out how her items got in the room. Levi’s heart was beating out of his chest. Although he was nervous, it was not just about the gun on the table. He also had one hidden in his room.
“Do you know why we brought you two here?” Seth asked.
Sade and Levi both looked at each other, but neither responded to the intimidating man’s question.
“We need to know where you got all of these items from.”
Sade and Levi both stayed silent. Levi looked at Maverick, who had his head down. The other leaders had their poker faces on. Levi could not read the room. He was not sure where the conversation was going. The teens were smack dab in the middle of an interrogation and did not know why.
“You two are new here, and we know you couldn’t have gotten these items on your own. We want to know who helped you steal this food from our inventory.”
“Steal?” Sade hollered. “We didn’t steal anything. This is my stuff.”
“Your stuff?” Seth scoffed. “You don’t have any stuff in here. We took you in, and we have rules.”
“I don’t care about your rules. I didn’t ask to be here.”
“Young lady, you need to calm down and show some respect,” Helena advised.
“He just accused me of stealing. Where is my respect?”
“You are a child. I don’t owe you any respect!” Seth yelled.
“Everybody, calm down,” Maverick said. “We don’t want another Dalton situation on our hands,” he muttered to the other two. “Let’s hear them out. Where did these items come from?” he asked in a soft voice.
“The church,” Levi answered.
“Your family’s church?” Maverick asked.
“Yes, we snuck out and went over there to look for our friends. Someone had set a fire to the church, and there were a bunch of bodies inside. We took what we could carry from inside and brought it back. There were weapons and food, so we grabbed some stuff for ourselves and took the rest to the inventory room.”
Maverick looked over at the other leaders.
“How do we even know that any of this is true?” Helena asked.
“You can ask Destiny’s dad. He caught us when we came back. He opened the van and saw everything. He even ate some of my vegan jerky,” Sade replied. Both Levi and Sade smirked, remembering the reaction on Patrick’s face when he ate the jerky.
“Vegan jerky?” Helena asked.
“Yup. I’m vegan, so it’s hard for me to eat in this place. Luckily, I found my jerky at the church. It’s right there on the table.”
Helena looked at the items on the table. Maverick walked over and picked up one of the items. It was the vegan jerky. He grinned and tossed it in front of the other leaders. “You two can head back to your rooms. We’ll talk later.”
Levi and Sade did not want to risk Maverick changing his mind, so they exited quickly. She did not even bother asking to get her belongings back. “What are we doing?” Maverick asked the others. “We’re just going to sit here and accuse these kids of something they didn’t do?”
“How were we supposed to know that they snuck out?” Helena asked.
“You could have just asked them.”
“They are kids.”
“So what? This isn’t the nineties. These kids aren’t just sitting around watching cartoons. They are different now. They have seen and gone through so much. Probably more than you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you even tried to have a conversation with some of these kids in here? They are mature and eager to help out. Maybe you could recruit some of them to assist you in medical.”
“We don’t need kids. We people with experience. Kids don’t have experience.”
“But you can train them.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’ll leave that up to you three,” Helena responded. A nasty scowl spread across her face. “So, let me guess. They don’t have to follow the rules? They can just have weapons around other kids?”
“They have to know the rules in order to follow them. I’ll tell you what. They can be with me. I’ll train them.”
“You’re going to train these kids to be on one of your search teams?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Well, good luck, Maverick. And just remember if something goes wrong, it’s on you and not us.”
Maverick did not bother to respond. He put all the items back in Sade’s backpack. He returned everything except for the gun, which he tucked in his waistband. He opened the door and felt a thump behind it. He pulled the door back, revealing Levi and Sade. “What are you two doing?” he asked.
Both teens stood up straight, and Levi pushed the door to close it. “So, you’re going to train us, huh?”
“Oh, so that’s what you two were doing. You were eavesdropping on my conversation.” Maverick smiled.
“We just wanted to know what you were going to say to them.”
“Especially that mean lady,” Sade added. “I don’t know what her problem is.”
“Her problem is that you two are hardheaded. She doesn’t want to be bothered
with a couple of kids that don’t want to follow the rules.”
“A wise man once said that you have to know the rules in order to break them,” Levi responded.
“Oh, really? And who is this wise man that you are quoting?”
“Nobody really. Just an old fart that has three bossy friends.” All three laugh.
“Well, this old fart just got your friend her stuff back.” Maverick tossed Sade her backpack. “Make sure you two go get some rest. We start training early in the morning.”
CHAPTER 42
It was the morning, and a stray cat was walking across the stone wall. The white and orange cat was so dirty it looked gray. The cat was thin, a result of weeks of not eating. Just like every other creature, the cat was on the search for food. Hopping from stoop to stoop, the cat was on the prowl. A small mouse or a bag of trash would have been more than enough to satisfy the feline’s appetite.
The cat continued wandering down the street, sniffing the street, hoping to pick up a good scent. The filthy feline hopped over a fence and into a junky backyard. An arrow was fired and tore through the side of the cat. It let out a painful scream and flopped around. The more the cat flopped, the deeper the arrow became inserted through its body.
Suddenly, the cat stopped flopping and just lay on its side. The cat panted for a while before becoming lifeless. Maverick walked over to the scrawny cat and lifted it by the arrow. “See now, this is why we train,” he said. “You don’t eat if you don’t train. In our case, we all don’t eat if we don’t have people who train.”
Levi was impressed. He picked up the bow that Maverick fired the arrow from. It was worn down but obviously still functional. The device fascinated him. He pulled the string back and let it go, pretending as if he was shooting a target.
“You know that cat had as much right to live as we do,” Sade said to Maverick.
“That is true, young lady, but I also know that we won’t live unless we eat.”
“But you let us bring rations from the inventory room in our packs. We can just eat that stuff. You didn’t have to kill that cat.”
“If I allowed you to just eat the rations, you will always depend on them to survive. What we are doing out here is training. Training you for the present but also the future.”
“Can you teach me how to fire this thing?” Levi asked.
Maverick tossed the cat at Levi’s feet. “Sure, but before we get into that, I want to see you skin this cat.”
“I can’t believe this. I’m out,” Sade said, walking back into the building. Maverick’s crew had cleared out a retail store which was now being used as one of their training facilities. The 1,500-square-foot building had been cleaned out. The main training that was conducted in that building was room clearing tactics, close quarter combat, and weapons training. Sade walked inside the building. She did not feel the need to watch the cat get slaughtered. Seeing it get shot with the arrow really irritated her.
Maverick handed Levi a knife. Although he did not care to cut the cat open, the young man was excited to have the training. No one noticed, but Levi was growing into his own. Between the encounter with The Underlings to the situation at the hospital, he had been exposed to a lot in a little bit of time. He experienced what it meant to be a leader, and he did not feel like he lived up to the role. Levi looked up to Maverick and respected how Maverick stood up for him and Sade. If it were not for Maverick offering to train the two teens, The Savior’s leadership would have voted to have the kids banned from the camp.
Levi did not forget how Sade acted when they first left for the church. He came to the realization that he had to upgrade from the bat, which was why he hid the gun in his room and put one in Sade’s bag. Levi was preparing himself for whatever sticky situations he might encounter.
His hand shook as he held the knife to the neck of the deceased feline. “Keep your hand steady and give me one slice straight down the center,” Maverick ordered. “Don’t cut too deep. Just enough to get under the fur.”
Levi stuck the blade of the knife into the neck of the cat and sliced it straight down. Maverick reached in and began peeling the fur-covered skin back, exposing the meat of the animal. Levi carefully watched each step, then peeled the other side. Levi was grinning from ear to ear. He was proud of his accomplishment and so was Maverick. However, Sade was not of fan of the lesson. She reluctantly watched her friend and his new teacher from a window, but she could not see much. Levi’s back was to her, so he could not see her, and she could not see him skin the cat.
“Good job. Now, all you have to do is cut off the head, and we’ll be done with this lesson.”
“Is there a certain way I do that?”
Maverick chuckled. “There aren’t too many ways you can cut a head off. My only advice would be to use a bigger knife, but unfortunately, we only have that little pocketknife, so make it work.”
Levi did not need to hear another word. He took the knife and began hacking the cat’s head off. Hack after hack, he slowly caused the head to separate from the body. The skinned fur was attached to the head like a cape. “That was easier than I thought.”
“No one said it was going to be hard. All you have to do is pay attention, and you can learn any skill in the world.”
“So now, what do I do with this head and fur?”
“Do whatever you want to with it. That’s yours.”
Levi was proud of his accomplishment, but he was also mindful of his friend’s feelings. Sade loved animals. She was a lot more forgiving now than she was prior to the world changing. Although she did not agree with all the means of survival, she still understood having to survive. Nonetheless, Levi wanted to be somewhat respectful, and he walked around the corner to dispose of the cat remains.
“Now that you got it skinned, I’m going to show you how to make a fire so you can cook your meal.”
Levi followed Maverick as he gathered some branches and stones. Levi made a mental note of the sizes and types of items that were picked up. Sade was standing outside when they returned with their material. She watched intently as Maverick carefully set up the items and prepared to make the fire.
He meticulously placed down stones to make a barrier and then dropped twigs, bark and dry leaves in the center of the stones. He was impressed by his tender nest. Using a small knife, Maverick cut a notch into a piece of fireboard. He slid a large branch into the notch and began to roll the shaft in his hands rapidly. Embers began to form on the fireboard. With the branch between his hands, he continued rolling it back and forth. Maverick softly blew on the embers and placed the fireboard in the nest. He continued blowing until the embers lit the twigs and dry leaves.
Sade and Levi carefully looked on, watching exactly what Maverick was doing. He was exposing them to an entirely different style of living. Neither of them had even seen a fire started like this in person. It was always in a movie or on television.
Smoke began to appear from the pile, and soon after, there was a small fire. Maverick gently blew air onto the small flame, causing it to spread around the rubbish and grow.
“Sade, do you have any questions?” Maverick asked.
“I have plenty, but none about the fire,” she replied.
“I’m sure you do.” He laughed. “We are about to cook, so maybe it would be best if you waited back inside.”
Sade walked back inside the building. Maverick pulled out three branches and began setting them up. Two of the branches were shoved into the ground around the flame. Each of those branches had other branches coming from the top of them. The third branch was slid through the body of the cat.
Maverick placed the third branch between the other two and over the flame. “The key to a good meal is constant rotation,” Maverick said. “At this distance from the flame, this meat is going to cook slowly. Every three minutes I want you to rotate it.”
“Yes, sir. When will I know when it’s done?”
“We’ll keep checking it and make sure the meat has coo
ked through.”
Sade looked around the building. She walked over the creaky floor wondering what the building was used for. For some reason, she liked it. It reminded her of when her father bought their new apartment. She loved the space she had before the furniture was put in. She would be running around with her friends all the time. For some reason, the empty building gave her a warm feeling inside.
She also thought about the fire that Maverick just made. She wanted to mimic the training she just received, so she retained all of the information he gave them. She grabbed the nap sack that Maverick told them to pack. She reached in and grabbed a pack of her jerky. It was lunch time for her.
Levi rotated the cat over the flame. His mouth began to water thinking about sinking his teeth into the warm meat. Maverick just watched the young man. He was quite impressed with the teen’s willingness to learn and to adapt to the training environment. Although this was just the beginning of the training, it was a good start.
CHAPTER 43
Levi pulled the string back on the bow, then released, letting the arrow fly through the air. The arrow stuck into a wooden fence. An old paperback book that sat on top of the fence was the target, but Levi was happy with the result of his shot. It was his first time using the weapon, which was why hitting the book was not that big of a deal for him.
He loaded the bow again, pulling the string back and letting it fly. The second arrow struck the fence just slightly to the left of the first arrow. Sade laughed. “What’s so funny? You can’t do any better than that.”
“It’s only one way to find out,” Maverick said. “Let’s see if Sade was paying attention.”
Sade stepped next to Levi. Due to the injury to her arm, Maverick preloaded the crossbow he let her train with.
Sade carefully aimed the crossbow and pulled the trigger. The arrow struck the book, knocking it off the fence. “Oh, snap!” Maverick yelled. “She’s a natural.”
