by LeVar Burton
Amy nodded.
Roy patted her on the head and continued. “Anyway, it wasn’t a secret that the United States Navy was heading up the Mississippi. We knew it. The people upriver knew it too. So did the Militia. They waited until the boats were almost to Clarksville, then floated several hundred barrels of gasoline down the river to meet them. When the barrels reached the boats, the Militia blew them up with explosives—set the river right on fire. The damn thing burned for days.”
“They set the soldiers on fire?” Amy asked, horrified.
Roy turned and looked at her. “That’s the kind of thing that happens in war. Terrible things. But both sides did stuff like that; it wasn’t just the Militia.”
“Did all the soldiers on the boats die?”
“A lot did, but not all. Those that didn’t get burned up retreated across the river into Illinois, joining up with other units. If the Militia would have let the government soldiers go, things might have turned out different, but they smelled victory and went after them. They chased them all the way to Beardstown. That’s where the government soldiers decided to make a stand. They dug in just north of the town and waited for the Militia to catch up with them. While they were waiting, they called in another air strike. The jets caught the Militia out in the open, in these fields you see here, dropping napalm and high-explosive shells on them. Bombs are a lot like bullets, they aren’t particular about who they kill. A lot of government soldiers also got blown up by the bombs, so did a lot of innocent civilians.
“I had a nephew who owned a house not too far from here, had himself a pretty wife and a new baby girl. When the fighting broke out he packed up his family and tried to get away, but they never made it. They were killed by some idiot flyboy, with one too many bombs to drop, who couldn’t tell the difference between a tank and a pickup truck.”
Roy coughed and spit out the window. “Damn fool thing, war. My nephew wasn’t even a soldier and didn’t want nothing to do with no race war. He was white, like me, but his wife was Chinese. He died because of someone else’s hatred. Him and his family are buried out there in one of these fields, but I don’t know where. I can’t even place flowers on their graves.”
He finished talking and an uneasy silence settled over them. Not knowing what else to do, Amy slid next to the old man and placed her hand lightly on his arm. She didn’t speak, because she didn’t know what to say. Instead she sat there, quietly watching out the window as they drove along. Off to the left, a burned-out tank sat rusting in an empty field. Amy saw that someone had stuck a white cross in the ground in front of the tank, a memorial to the insanity of war.
Chapter 25
Leon Cane was tired beyond words, and there was a dull ache in his lower back from too many hours spent riding in a boxcar. He could still feel the swaying and rattling of the train, even though he had gotten off several hours ago. He now sat in a clearing amidst a clump of oak trees, a few hundred feet back from the road, not far from the Illinois River. Just up the road was the town of Bartonville, population 8,962. Beyond that was the city of Peoria.
He had decided to get off at Bartonville rather than ride the train on into Peoria. Larger cities could be dangerous, especially to someone who didn’t know their way around. He would rather take his chances in the country. Besides, on the southern outskirts of Bartonville was an open-air farmers’ market where produce and vegetables were bought, sold and traded. Luckily, the train had slowed near the market’s center because of congestion. When it did Leon abandoned his free ride.
Walking through the market, he had purchased a small onion, three small tomatoes and a large catfish with what little money he had left. The fish and vegetables were now impaled on a stick, slowly roasting over a small fire. Leon leaned forward and turned the fish over. It was almost done. Good thing. He was starving and the smell was driving him crazy.
Talking with some of the locals at the market, he had found out which train to catch to get to Chicago. Unfortunately, he would have to hop the train at a junction just north of Peoria, which meant extra walking. Already exhausted, and with darkness setting in, he had decided to find a place to bed down for the night. The voice in his head still tugged at him, urging him onward, but there was nothing he could do until morning. The mystery lady would just have to wait.
Leon had just leaned back against the tree when he heard the crunch of footsteps on dry leaves. Turning, he discovered he had company.
A little girl watched him from the shadows beneath an elm tree. She was Caucasian, with long auburn hair, and looked to be somewhere around ten or eleven years old. She also looked hungry, appearing to be more interested in Leon’s fish than in him. Maybe the aroma of his dinner had drawn her. That worried him. If she had smelled his fish cooking, someone else might too.
The little girl didn’t say anything, or make any attempt to come closer. She only watched. Leon didn’t say anything either. But when the fish was finished cooking he divided it into two pieces. One half he kept for himself; the other half he placed on a flat rock next to the fire. The girl watched him with interest.
“Your half is getting cold,” Leon finally said, glancing up from his meal. The girl stared at him for a minute longer and then slowly approached, her movements reminding him of a timid little squirrel. She picked up the fish, placing two ears of corn on the rock in exchange. Leon looked at the corn and smiled. “Fair trade,” he said. The little girl nodded and began to eat her piece of fish.
Neither of them spoke as they ate, each too busy devouring the delicious white meat of the catfish. When they finished with the fish, Leon shared the onion and tomatoes. The little girl accepted the tomato wedges, but passed on the onion. He then spread out the campfire and laid the two ears of corn on the burning embers to roast. Leon also remembered that he had a couple of slightly stale doughnuts in his bag and offered her one. She countered his offer with a loaf of homemade bread wrapped in an old T-shirt.
“Why, this is quite a feast!” Leon said, sniffing the loaf of bread.
“Yes, a feast,” she replied, biting into a doughnut.
Leon pulled the butcher knife from his knapsack and saw fear dance into the girl’s eyes. She took a step backward. He quickly held up his other hand. “Don’t be afraid, I just want to slice a piece of bread … if that’s okay.” She relaxed a little, then nodded.
“It would be bad manners to tear a piece from such a fine-looking loaf,” he continued, cutting off a slice of bread. “Would you like a slice?” She shook her head no.
He returned the knife to his knapsack and handed back the loaf. “It’s also bad manners to have dinner with someone and not know their name. Names are important,” he added, remembering what Red had said to him. “I’m Leon Cane. And you?”
“Amy Ladue,” she answered, speaking around a mouthful of doughnut.
“Pleased to meet you, Amy.” He tried the bread. “This is wonderful. Did you make it?”
She shook her head. “Sister Rose made it. She’s not really my sister, that’s just her name. She’s a lady I met on the other side of the river.”
“The Illinois River?”
Again she shook her head. “The Mississippi.”
“The Mississippi? That’s quite a ways from here. You walk all the way by yourself?”
“Not all the way. I got a ride with Farmer Roy. He’s the one who gave me the corn. I rode on a barge before that.”
Leon was surprised. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one who had been doing a bit of traveling. He wasn’t sure how much of the girl’s story could be believed, especially the part about riding the barge, but he had a feeling she was telling him the truth.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“St. Louis,” Amy answered. “I mean that’s where I used to live, but I’m going to Chicago to live with my mother.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Leon’s mind. If Amy had a mother, why would she be traveling alone? No one in their right mind would let their kid travel by the
mselves, especially nowadays. Despite the fact that her clothing looked fairly clean, he suspected she might be one of the growing number of homeless children forced to make it on their own.
“What about your father?” he asked, daring to delve deeper into the child’s personal life.
“He died in the earthquake,” she answered. “I thought my mother was dead too, but I found her again. She had namnesia and didn’t know who she was.”
“Amnesia,” Leon corrected.
“Right. Amnesia.” Amy nodded. “My mother called me and now I’m going to Chicago to be with her. She has a big house, with a swimming pool. And I’ll get to go to school.”
Leon was now convinced Amy was making everything up, because he knew all public schools had been closed. Since phone service was also pretty much a thing of the past, there was no way her mother could have called her. Still, he didn’t say anything. Who was he to spoil the child’s fantasy? If she wanted to pretend that her mother owned a big house in Chicago, then let her. He went along with the story, humoring her with a nod when a nod was needed, allowing Amy to rattle on about her mother, their nice house and the school she would be attending. One thing for sure, she was quite a storyteller.
The two of them talked late into the night, falling asleep near the glowing embers of the fire. They probably should have taken turns standing watch, but Leon felt they were far enough from the road to be reasonably safe. And truthfully he was just too damn tired.
He awoke early the next day, with the morning dew still heavy on the grass and the first rays of sunlight just starting to peek through the trees. Stretching the kinks from his back, he sat up and looked around. The forest was alive with the melody of songbirds greeting the dawn. In the tiny clearing he saw a female cardinal, two blue jays and a robin. He also spotted a pair of rabbits. He thought about how good roast rabbit would taste for breakfast, but only for a moment. He had no way to hunt the rabbits—no gun, no bow, not even a slingshot—and he wasn’t about to make a fool out of himself by trying to chase them down.
Turning his attention away from the rabbits, he watched the sleeping form of Amy Ladue. The child lay on her side, facing him, her chest slowly rising and falling. His daughter would have been around the same age had she not died. Maybe even the same size …
Stop it. Leon shook his head, pushing back the images that threatened to flood his mind. Your daughter is dead. Blinking back tears, he turned his attention back to Amy.
The little girl’s presence presented something of a problem. Even though they had just met, she obviously felt safe around him and would probably attempt to latch on to him for protection. Kids were like that. Leon felt sorry for her, but he was in no position to assume the responsibility of looking after a child. Any child. And even though they were both heading to Chicago, he did not want Amy to be with him for fear of endangering her.
Endanger? Was he heading into danger? Most certainly. Though it was silent for now, the voice that called him was from a woman in serious trouble. He too might be in trouble once he reached Chicago.
Leon sat back and thought about the situation. He was almost to Chicago and he didn’t even have a plan. He had been so preoccupied with just getting to Chicago that he hadn’t even thought about what he would do once he got there. What could he do? He had no gun, no weapon other than a rusty butcher knife. The men who abducted the woman would be armed and extremely dangerous.
You’ll probably get yourself killed.
He smiled. Maybe, but he had no choice. He was drawn to the voice as a moth was drawn to a flame. But Amy had a choice. He would not endanger the child. She would just have to find some other adult to latch on to.
Getting to his feet, Leon quietly gathered together his belongings. Amy continued to sleep soundly. She would probably be upset when she awoke later and found him gone, but he was only thinking of her. She would be better off hooking up with someone else, someone safer to be around. Besides, she was not his daughter; therefore, he owed her nothing.
With knapsack in hand, he left the clearing and started walking toward the road. He’d gone only about fifty yards when he stumbled upon two bodies lying in the tall weeds. Leon jumped back, horrified.
“Oh, my God!”
The victims, a young black man and woman, had each been shot once in the forehead at close range. They lay on their backs, their eyes open and glassy, staring sightlessly up at the morning sky. In addition to being shot, they had also been gutted and skinned, like animals, all but their hands, feet, heads and genitalia. Their naked, skinless bodies were pink and bloody, like something fresh from a womb. Swarms of flies crawled over the bodies, feeding off the bloody flesh and laying their eggs in the meat. Sickened by the sight, Leon turned away and threw up.
He had heard about Skinners from others on the street, whispered stories told around late night fires about evil men who hunted and murdered people of color, selling their skin for illegal medical skin grafts. In some cases the internal organs were also taken and sold. Leon had always thought the stories to be mere fantasies, brought on by alcohol, drugs or a primitive urge to create bogeymen where none previously existed, but now he knew otherwise.
Terror blew icy kisses up and down his spine as he thought about how close the Skinners had been to his campsite, perhaps even performing their hideous act while he and Amy slept. He knew the victims had not been murdered here, for the gunshots would have awakened him. But they might have been skinned here, and that was bad enough. The bodies hadn’t been there the day before, so it had happened sometime during the night, which meant the Skinners might still be in the area.
Leon’s peaceful little campsite didn’t seem so peaceful after all. Nor did it seem very safe. Turning away from the bodies, he hurried back to the clearing. He wasn’t sure if Skinners hunted anyone other than black people, but he didn’t want to take the chance. He could not leave Amy alone, sleeping, with the possibility of such fiends still lurking in the area.
He reached the clearing and slowed down, trying desperately to calm himself. He didn’t want to frighten the girl, but it was all he could do not to snatch her up and run screaming into the woods. Taking a deep breath, he leaned over Amy and gently shook her.
“Amy, wake up.”
She opened her eyes, seemed confused for a moment, then sat up and looked around.
“Grab your things. We have to leave.” He spoke softly, but there was a tremor of fear in his voice that he couldn’t disguise.
“Why? What’s the matter?” Amy asked, sensing something was wrong. She tensed, looking about the clearing.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Leon lied. “But if you don’t hurry, we’ll miss the train to Chicago. You don’t want to keep your mother waiting. Do you?”
He had found the magic words. Amy jumped up and quickly gathered her belongings together. Not wanting her to see the mutilated bodies, Leon chose a different path through the woods to the road. Like it or not, once again he had a traveling partner.
Chapter 26
Rene Reynolds wanted to go to the police, but she didn’t know where to find a police station. Even if she did, they would be of little help. Most police departments operated on strictly a cash-only basis. She had no money to pay them, no identification card to even prove who she was. Driving a stolen car only added to the problem. Instead of being a victim, she would probably be considered a criminal. The police would lock her up until the owner of the car could be located, delivering her back into the hands of Dr. Sinclair or one of his men.
With going to the police out of the question, her only chance for safety lay in putting as much distance as possible between Dr. Sinclair and herself. She drove through the empty boulevards of Chicago, past run-down tenement buildings and deserted office complexes, choosing streets entirely at random, constantly checking the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following. So far, no one was.
She was completely and utterly lost, trapped in a city she did not know, traveling down avenues that wer
e both dark and dangerous. She passed the same park twice, and the same abandoned brewery three times. On a narrow, one-way street she had been chased by four club-wielding men who sprang at her from darkened doorways. They had shouted obscenities and threats of violence as she sped away to safety.
After nearly two hours of panicked driving, she reached the outskirts of the city. She headed west, following a deserted, nameless highway, careful of the enormous potholes, which suddenly appeared out of the darkness and threatened to swallow her car. An hour later she turned south on a narrow two-lane blacktop road, speeding along between open fields and patches of deciduous forest.
It was just before dawn when the car’s temperature gauge began to climb into the red. She ignored it and kept going. Thirty minutes later the engine seized up and died. The car coasted to a stop.
“Damn … Damn … Damn!” Rene slapped the steering wheel in frustration. She turned off the ignition, then tried to start the car again. The engine growled but would not turn over.
Angry, she got out and walked around to the front of the vehicle. A cloud of steam rose from the engine; the air was filled with a choking chemical smell. In the pale light of the coming day she could clearly see the two bullet holes in the car’s grille. The man who had shot at Rene in the garage had missed her but killed the radiator.
Tears of anger and frustration filled her eyes. She wiped them away with clenched fists and stood trembling in the center of the road. She was in the middle of nowhere, broke, without food, water or transportation, a thousand miles from home, hunted by a crazed maniac of a doctor. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
But as she stood there, Rene suddenly remembered a phrase her father had been fond of saying: things are always darkest before the dawn. Just thinking of that phrase, thinking of her father, helped to lift her spirit and calm her anger. He was right. Instead of looking at everything in the negative, she should be seeing the positive side of things. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere, true, but it was better than being stuck in a jail cell. She had escaped from Dr. Sinclair, even if it meant leaving behind the Neuro-Enhancer. She had no money, again true, but neither did a lot of people and they survived. Maybe she could find help somewhere, at a farmhouse perhaps. At least she had gotten out of Chicago. And if Rene didn’t know where she was, neither did Randall Sinclair.
