Following the Strandline

by Linda L Zern

  She frowned in confusion.

  He explained. “It’s an Army Water Buffalo, a tank for water. Can’t trust the water around here. That’s one guess. Not a good guess.” He shrugged his bony shoulders.

  “Why don’t they just boil the stuff they find out there? We would.”

  It was his turn to look confused. “Yeah, that’s a question, isn’t it? Maybe the tank’s full of lemonade.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “All I know is that the army used those tanks to haul water. Water buffaloes and this is a siege.” The word siege had people turning to stare at them. Tess could see the worry in their faces, the stiffness of their movements. She gave Jamie’s hand a hasty squeeze. “Go see about Ally. We’ll talk. Later.”

  He looked relieved to go.

  Stress crawled behind the wall of the fortress the way the fog had blanked out the invaders outside in the earliest parts of the morning—thick and suffocating.

  The way the men’s eyes followed anyone they thought might have information made Tess itch. They watched her with wary, tired eyes. She wondered how much of her frustration showed on her face. How had it come down to this, boxed in like rats inside a crowded trap?

  A man with a bowl of stew got brave enough to stop Tess’s restless pacing. Surprised, she realized she was starving, and that made her think of the way Parrish would want her to eat, be strong, stay strong. She nodded her thanks and slid to her butt where she stood, back against the mud and dirt. The spoon they’d given her was bent but worked; she started to shovel goat and squash into her mouth. She was thinking of licking the bowl clean when the screaming and fighting started.

  No one in the courtyard moved toward the sounds of kids hollering, a woman shouting. A few of the men turned their backs.

  “Forget this.” Tess dropped her bowl next to a cooking fire and raced to the corner of the front of the building. She skidded to a stop to see Blake and Blane hanging by one ear from the hands of a woman whose hair sprang out from her head like a nest of snakes. She kicked Blane into the dirt face first and then dragged Blake farther around the side of the building. Blane cried when Blake choked back a scream.

  “What are you doing? Get your hands off of those kids.”

  Tess plowed into the woman, grabbing for Blake. The Amazon slung Blake onto the ground next to his crying brother.

  She slammed a backfist into Tess’s face. More shock and then rage.

  Tess crouched and rammed her head into the woman’s gut. The woman’s head made a satisfying smacking sound when it hit the blocks of the wall behind her. The boys scrambled away on their hands and knees. Tess plowed her fist into the woman’s face.

  Under the anger was surprise on the Amazon’s face. She wasn’t used to having people stand up to her. She smiled a bloody smile at Tess, and then swiped a quick hand across her face and fell back into a fighting stance. Fair enough. Tess was feeling ready to beat the snot out of someone.

  “Tess. Tess. Teessssssss!” It was the sound of someone screaming her name that broke through the haze and brought her back. She stepped toward the boys on the ground and brought her fists up. “Come on.”

  “Tess.”

  Gwen struggled between the guards.

  “Shut her up.” They dragged Gwen backward off her feet and out of sight.

  Britt waded in and shoved the Amazon farther out of Tess’s space. “What is this? Hazel? What?” She raised an open hand to Tess. “You! Don’t move.”

  “This idiot was manhandling Blake and Blane, dragging them around like garbage she was throwing out.”

  Hazel straightened up, turning her eyes away from Tess and the boys. “Those boys were sneaking around inside the building without an escort or permission.”

  Snarling, Tess took a step toward Britt.

  Britt shoved her back. “You. Stay with those two.”

  “They were looking for their mother. It’s what kids do.”

  Outside the walls, the sounds of an armed camp picked up. Their starving draft horses whinnied, Goliath hee-hawed a reply. He was still around and still standing. Impossible to keep the Strandline mule down. Blake and Blane huddled close. When the boys got up to go after their mother, Britt barked, “Stop!”

  “What’s wrong with this place, a kid can’t go in and see his mother?”

  Hazel backed up to the wall. “It’s the law. Why don’t you get that? Boys become men and men spoil everything.”

  “Shut up,” Britt ordered, “both of you. Haven’t we got enough breathing down our necks without this nonsense?”

  “Boys and men outside.” Britt snapped her fingers at the boys. “Stay put. Tess, you get inside. There’s going to be enough trouble today without discussing the merits of the male-female split around here.” Britt dragged Hazel away. She called back, “Fix that crying.”

  Tess went to the sobbing boys, drawing them in. “Stop. Stop. I need you to be big right now.”

  “We hate this place. They’re mean.” Blake tried to get himself under control.

  Blane rubbed at his nose with his shirtsleeve. “We want Mom.”

  Breathing hard, Roy Terry jogged up to them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize what was happening. I was helping the men on the far wall. The women. The girls. They have a hard time with this sort of thing.”

  “Here. Take them. Settle them down.” Tess sprinted away. “I need to find Gwen. I need to help her,” she called over her shoulder.

  She found Gwen at the base of the escalator, an Amazon guard standing over her.

  She jumped up. “Are they all right? They were just coming to find me. They don’t understand this, this place. I don’t understand this place.”

  “You,” Tess spat at the Amazon watching them. “Go. We don’t need your supervision.”

  With a headshake and a mumbled, “Sorry,” the girl looked embarrassed more than tough and walked away.

  Tess pulled Gwen down to sit on the steps and pulled her close. This woman who was more than a friend, who’d mothered her more than her mother, pulled Tess’s head down to her shoulder, absentmindedly patting her back.

  “I’m supposed to be reassuring you,” Tess said. They clung to each other.

  “We are strangers in a strange land, Tessie my love.”

  Tess laughed for what felt like the first time in a very long time. “We are.”

  She pushed back so she could focus on Gwen’s melting brown eyes. “The boys are with Terry. He’s watching out for them. If things get too dangerous, I’ll make sure they’re allowed back inside with you.” She squeezed Gwen’s shoulders.

  “Okay.” Gwen reached up and patted Tess’s cheek. “Okay. They’ll be okay. They’re here. We’ll be okay. We’ll get through this and then figure out the rest. We will.”

  They sat close—forehead to forehead—they way they had when Tess was a frightened, lonely child.

  Tess walked Gwen out to the men’s courtyard to check on the boys. No one tried to stop them. Roy Terry pointed out where Blake and Blane sat eating near Goliath’s pen. Gwen waved and hurried to join them. Terry walked back to Tess.

  “Come with me.” When she hesitated, he added, “Please.”

  Tess followed Mister Terry away from the circle of silent men at the fires. Two Amazon guards watched them weave in and out of the assortment of tents.

  “How long do we just sit here?” Tess wiped sweat and dirt out of her eyes. “How long can we keep this up? Aren’t those your people out beyond that front gate? What are we doing?”

  He walked away, expecting her to follow.

  The men around them tended fires, dressed, readied themselves for another day of siege. She followed Terry to the farthest edge of the building, stepped around the corner and then behind a half wall of concrete and was surprised that he’d brought her back to see the bubbling water of an artesian well filling the small cement cistern.

  “Haven’t you wondered why El picked this place? She knew about the water, from before, when she was a captive here.”


  Tess walked to the pipe that bubbled fresh water. She reached out and let the cold splash flow over her hand. “It’s Ally’s waterfall. Here it is, after all. Not exactly the way I described it, but still.”

  He looked confused.

  “Ally came to see the waterfall. It was my fault. I’d told them about the old days, the old mall, the waterfall and ice cream and movies and all the rest. And look! It was here all along.” She was tempted to laugh, afraid if she started she might not stop.

  “I did see you that day back at the spring,” he said. “But you already know that. I’d been watching you, thinking that you might be, well, be going to skinny dip.” He had the good sense to look embarrassed when she trained her eyes on him. “Anyway. I saw you with him, with Parrish, and I was fixated, and not for the reasons you might think. I mean that.”

  He continued, “El told me what she wants from you. I know what’s in the note she dictated for me to write.”

  “Dictated? To you? You know more than I do then.”

  He nodded and then ran a hand over his forehead. “Okay. But she told you what she wants. You. Here. To make this place into something more than an armed camp. Right? We beat those idiots outside that wall, and then we make a new world. “ He turned his big, pale gray eyes on her. He looked like a hopeful owl.

  “El’s not well. She’s talking silly. And we’re sitting here with our thumbs in our ears while people we care about are out there. That’s all that matters. I can’t stand this waiting.” She paced away from him and then back, her eyes on the fire-blackened rim of the wall.

  “You’re wrong about El. She’s right. I saw you with Parrish. I saw the way you two looked at each other, and I remember it shocked me—seeing you together. I thought that kind of thing had gone out of this world. I did. I understand why she wants it to be you and your family because I saw how it was for you at the spring that day.”

  She could almost feel the way the water had caressed her skin and the way Parrish’s eyes had burned when he’d looked at her. “What do you think you saw?”

  “Love. I saw love. Don’t you know? El is counting on that for this place. She’s counting on you. All I’m asking is that you give her a chance. She’s been fighting her way through a lot of despair for a long time.”

  Something was in his voice when he talked about El.

  “So what’s that? When you talk about her?”

  He tried to shrug off her notice. “It’s why they let me wander about, I suppose.” He looked like a boy caught sneaking treats from the kitchen counter. “I helped her escape, to get away from Myra, to get started on her all girl revenge tour, and it’s my fault Myra’s out there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because a long time ago I thought burning down the world would make me feel better.” He paused and turned his back to Tess. “It was the right thing to do, freeing her, helping her find Britt. And now she’s dying.”

  “But she acted like she didn’t know you, in the beginning.”

  “It’s not the kind of world where connections or the past or what you feel for others are best advertised.” His voice hitched. “You could change that, here, in this place.”

  Tess walked to the man and watched him cry. Grief tore out of him as the tears dripped off his wobbly chin. He cried ugly and hard. It was like that sometimes, when the regrets pounded to the surface like an underground spring of stinking egg water. She reached out and touched his arm, tried to listen for any hints of what might be happening behind the indifferent, hard-packed wall surrounding them.

  “Mister Terry, what if we can’t get them back? Parrish, my sister, Samuel, Stone, my father?”

  He dropped his head to his chest and whispered, “We will. El will.” He left her standing next to the endless flow of water.

  Outside the wall, the sounds of activity grew louder, meaner. Men shouted. It was a collective muttering that grew and throbbed and pumped. A strange rhythmic pounding sound thrummed through the ground. On top of the wall, guards shielded their eyes as the sun crept up to blast them from the east.

  Now would be the time to strike, while the Marketplace guards on the wall were blinded. It’s what Tess would do. Is this what it meant to start thinking like a leader? Learning to figure out how to kill the enemy more efficiently?

  She felt eyes on her. The Amazons tracked her every move, following obvious orders to keep her locked up and powerless.

  Her hands ached. She looked down at her clenched fists, forced herself to relax her hands, and saw the half-moons of blood her nails had made in her palms. She wiped the blood off on her pants.

  She stood looking at the top of the wall. Other people streamed around Tess, pretending to ignore her. The people of the fort were full of chores and petty missions, lots of busy work. They hauled food, shoveled waste, cleaned and fetched. They were busy distracting themselves. She recognized the nervous need to be doing and not thinking. Someone called to her from the top of the wall. She brought her hand up to block the sun, focused on the man waving at her. Roy Terry. He got around.

  Britt stood next to him, watching the world outside.

  It was time to face whatever was out there. Tess started toward the wall, heard the shout, and saw Britt go rigid as a lamppost. Cupping her mouth, Britt screamed out something at whatever was happening out there.

  Dread swamped Tess. She watched Britt reach for the guard’s rifle, snatch it out of the woman’s hand, raise and aim it. Mister Terry turned, said something, tried to wrestle the gun back out of Britt’s hands.

  Surely, the enemy was out of range. This Myra person would know how far out to position her men. Our ammunition was unreliable, homemade.

  Our ammunition, our, the word tumbled around in her head. When had she started including survivors from the S-Line in the mix of the Marketplace inhabitants?

  Britt slapped at Terry’s hands; he stepped back, losing his balance, first tipping forward and then back. The woman guarding the gate reached out, her expression blank, and with one hand, shoved. Roy Terry fell. He hit the ground with a snapping pop in front of Tess.

  Fast, it happened fast. People shouted for help. Men rushed forward. A few children stared at the still, crumpled body at the base of the wall.

  Tess rushed forward too and saw that he was alive.

  “Mister Terry. Mister Terry!”

  He answered with a cough and a moan. He looked older in the bright light of morning. The lines of his face cut deeply into his bone-white face. Twenty feet, thirty feet or close to it, but he was still alive. His arm was twisted out of line—dislocated.

  “Tess,” Mister Terry grated out. “Tess. El is right. Whatever happens next, it’s important that you listen to El.” He stopped, stiffened, turned ashen, and then fainted.

  People pressed in to take him. Tess ordered, “Take him to Doc Midge. Hurry. Do it.”

  The men brought an old carpet, the edges nailed to two fence posts. They picked up the wounded man, placed him carefully in the middle of the faded carpet. Four men moved to lift the ends of the posts. Terry did not move. Tess looked up at the women above them on the wall. The woman hadn’t bothered to look back to see what had become of the man she’d shoved. Their attention stayed riveted outward, on the invaders.

  Hands shaking at their indifference, Tess started up the rope ladder to the top of the wall.

  “Go back,” Britt said, hardly glancing down at Tess. “You’re not going to be any help. Go with that man, Terry. Go. Talk to El. Tell her—” She gasped and raised the rifle but failed to take the shot—again.

  At the top of the wall, Tess saw it, the twin crosses rising at the edge of Myra’s camp. She knew those pieces of rusted metal, their shape, their symbolism, and the people tied to the crosspieces. She knew the two people hanging from the derelict crosses dragged from the big, broken Church of Oviedo.

  CHAPTER 51

  Two bodies hung limp and bloodied, side by side, ZeeZee and Parrish.

  Dead. They
looked dead. The men at the base of the crosses kicked dirt into the holes of each standing pole as if they were finishing up a fence line. Tess felt her hands tingle and then go numb. She swayed. The guard who’d shoved Mister Terry off the wall pushed Tess onto her butt—more girl power in action. A half-finished wall of logs had begun to line the top of the wall, protecting them—a palisade. El’s wall was going to be the real deal.

  “Don’t fall.” Britt kicked at Tess’s foot. “Get up. You can’t be weak. They’re watching.”

  “Who?” Tess reached out to grab at Britt’s cargo pants, vomit searing the back of her throat. “Are they . . . ? Can you see them? Britt, can you see if they’re alive?” Hysteria clawed at her skin.

  “Get up,” Britt hissed. “Now.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and pointed back into the heart of the fort.

  The guard reached down and dragged Tess back up to her feet. “Look.”

  Below them, a group of men and a gaggle of children watched Tess and Britt. They’d wandered back to the gate, the front wall, curiosity pulling them as surely as a towrope. She saw them muttering to each other, the children shuffling closer to the men’s legs. The news of Mister Terry’s fall had spread. People coming off the top of the wall couldn’t be a good sign. They pointed up at her.

  “You wanted to see, so see. But now you need to stand up to it. You can’t let those people down there know you’re frightened. I mean it,” Britt said.

  Tess nodded, stood taller, locking her hands behind her. “I get it.” She made herself look at the crosses.

  “This scope’s broken, and the ammo, this crap we’re shooting now, won’t reach their front line.” Britt lowered the weapon, squinted into the sun. “Tess, if that is your sister, I think she’s alive. She’s moving. I need El’s binoculars. I know she has a pair.”

  Britt speared the guard with a look. “Go. Tell El what’s happening here.” The woman started down the rope ladder, shouting to the crowd to get out of the way. They jumped back, parting for her as she ran.

  If only Tess could convince herself she saw it too: ZeeZee alive, moving. And what about Parrish? “Are you sure? I can’t see it. What about Parrish? We’ve got to get to them.”