What Befalls the Children: Book 4 in the Troop of Shadows Series

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  “I won’t tell you much about our village. Yet. You’ll be seeing parts of it soon anyway.”

  “So tell me about before. Did you always live there? No offense, but you sound...”

  “Not like an Appalachian hillbilly?” she finished.

  “Yes.”

  “I started out here, but the day after I graduated from high school, I left for Knoxville. Leaving the holler was...frowned upon, but I’d won a full academic scholarship to the University of Tennessee.”

  “You were a rebel. Nice. What was your degree?”

  “Political science. I minored in economics.”

  “So you planned to go into politics?”

  “Yes, ultimately. I’d been involved in local elections for years after college, much of it volunteer stuff. Then I got a job at Mayor Haslam’s office back in 2008. When Haslam got himself elected governor, I was on a fast track to be selected as his top advisor. I was getting ready to move to Nashville when the pandemic started hitting the news.”

  “Bill Haslam. A Republican, right?”

  “Yes, but party affiliation never mattered to me.”

  “What did?”

  Without hesitation, she replied, “Power.”

  “I see.”

  She laughed again. “I realize that sounds bad. Maybe control would have been a better word choice.”

  Ray decided to change the subject. “How terrible was it in Knoxville during the end?”

  “Horrible for a lot of people. I always had a feeling we wouldn’t catch the sickness, though. Can’t explain why. And I had a plan because I’d seen the writing on the wall earlier than most. I knew I’d be leaving and taking my children home to the holler. A remote, rural location was the smart choice to ride out the chaos. Once I realized it was going to be much worse than what the officials in DC were telling us, I made a list, rented a U-Haul, loaded it up, and left town. Not before polite society began to collapse, though.”

  “I can confirm that what was coming out of DC was willfully inaccurate. You and the children must have been in danger, I imagine. What about their father?” He couldn’t help himself.

  “I have no idea what happened to him. He was not part of our lives, and my kids never knew him.”

  He could tell by the tone in her voice that the subject of paternity was now closed. Shifting again, he said, “I’m curious about what was on your list. Emergency preparedness was what I did for a living, you know.”

  “Sorry. OPSEC.”

  He smiled, tripped over a vine, and fell flat on his face.

  He waited for laughter that didn’t materialize. His hand no longer held onto her sleeve, but he managed to stand up. “Where’d you go?”

  No response came from Serena Jo, but he heard movement.

  He ripped the scarf from his eyes.

  Two women stood facing each other across those yards. Both pointed rifles at each other. Serena Jo wore a grim expression. Lizzy smirked. A picture flashed through his mind: a graceful snowy swan facing a clever ebony-hued raven. The imagery was both a bizarre and unwelcome distraction at the moment.

  “I’m a better shot,” Serena Jo said, her tone matter-of-fact.

  “You can’t know that. Your knowledge of any marksmanship ends with you. Besides, if you kill me, you’re killing your little girl. Yes, I know she’s yours. I’ve been watching your village. She’ll die of dehydration and hunger long before you can find her.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “No you won’t.” Lizzy’s grin unfurled.

  Ray covered the two steps between himself and Serena Jo faster than he would have thought possible.

  “You’ll have to go through me, Lizzy,” he said. “Something tells me you don’t want me dead. Not yet.”

  “I don’t need to be rescued,” Serena Jo hissed from behind.

  “You should probably listen less to your inner voice, Ray. Your instincts are dreadful.” Lizzy giggled. Then a section of her upper sleeve exploded. The sharp report of a rifle followed.

  Ray blinked in confusion. Serena Jo hadn’t fired. Then his brain caught up to events. By the time that happened, Lizzy had disappeared and Otis jogged past.

  “Don’t kill her, Otis!” Serena Jo yelled to his back.

  Without breaking stride, Otis nodded.

  “Damn it,” Serena Jo said once he’d entered the tree line.

  “He winged her,” Ray said.

  “I’m not sure he hit anything but fabric. She’s skinny. You said she was slender, but she looked emaciated. I guess Fergus was right.”

  “Are we going after her?”

  Serena Jo shook her head. “Otis is the best. Better than me. If he can’t track her, she can’t be tracked. I need to get back to my boy.” There was urgency in her voice now. She sounded close to panic.

  “We can make better time if I don’t have to wear the scarf.”

  “Let’s go,” she replied, and took off at a run.

  Chapter 19

  Fergus

  “So apparently a bear does not defecate in the woods,” Willadean said as Fergus struggled with the scalpel.

  “Sometimes your precociousness is annoying,” he replied, concentrating on the handcuffs behind his back.

  “I wish I could say that was the first time someone told me that.”

  Fergus laugh-grunted. “If a certain person had located the handcuff key instead of a razor-sharp scalpel, we’d be out of here by now.”

  “I’m just a kid. You should be doing the heavy lifting.”

  She had a point. He’d managed to get himself out of a small metal box back in Florida. He should be up to this challenge.

  “It’s the blasted lock on the blasted handcuffs. They may not be standard issue. Damn it. She’s coming back. Get on your bed.”

  Lizzy stormed through the door, flipped on the light, ignored Willadean cringing on the tiny bed, and thrust her hand through the cage bars. “Give it to me, pointy end toward yourself.”

  Fergus stared into those green-rimmed black orbs. There would be no denying this Lizzy, who seemed different from the Lizzy that brought their supper. He turned his back to allow access to the scalpel in his hands.

  “You’re lucky I don’t slit your wrists with it.”

  Biting his lip to keep from supplying a tart retort, he felt the metal slide from his fingertips, along with any hopes of a quick escape. The next second, he felt a tiny stabbing sensation in his neck.

  Damn it...

  ***

  When he awoke unknown hours later, the memory of his scythen conversation with Harlan hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness. He forced it to the forefront.

  Perhaps the cavalry is coming.

  A raging thirst superseded all thoughts. He squatted on the cement floor to reach the red solo cup. The tepid water may be dosed with more of the drug with which Lizzy had injected him, but it didn’t matter. His body needed hydration.

  “Finally,” came Willadean’s voice through the gloom.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “I’m not sure. I fell asleep about an hour after she left. We sure pissed her off. I wonder how she knew about the scalpel. What are we going to do now?”

  “Fewer questions until I’m fully awake, please."

  “Fine.”

  He closed his eyes again and reached out with his scythen. Lizzy was definitely no longer in the cabin. “She’s gone,” he said, louder now. “We should assume going forward that she may be listening or watching. Understand?”

  “Already thought of that.”

  “I assume you weren’t drugged as well?”

  “I was not. I’m a good girl,” she said loudly.

  “Willadean, do you know about your brother’s...nighttime activities?”

  “You mean yanking his wanker or that other thing?”

  “That other thing. Careful, love.”

  “He never told me about it, but I got a whiff of it because we’re twins. That’s probably all I s
hould say.”

  “Very good. Since I asked about it, you can probably fill in the blanks.”

  A half-minute passed before she replied. “Gotcha.”

  “You’re a clever girl.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “How are you doing? Are you nervous? Worried? It’s okay to tell me.”

  “I am a little of both. But I have faith that everything will work out fine.”

  “Good. I have faith too.”

  “I don’t mean the kind you get from the Bible,” she added. He could hear the derision in her voice.

  “So you’re an atheist?”

  “I like to think there may be a God, but I’m not certain of it. I can’t imagine God would allow all those people to die from Chicksy. It wasn’t pretty for them at the end, you know.”

  Fergus felt the familiar lump in his throat. That always happened when he thought about the children, both those who had died in the pandemic and those who had survived it only to witness the unspeakable suffering.

  “But I also look at the forest and the mountains and the sky, and I think all that beauty couldn’t have happened by accident.”

  Fergus smiled but didn’t respond.

  “On a side note, I hope she lets me use the bathroom when she comes back.”

  “I’ll turn my back so you can have privacy at the bucket.”

  “I can wait. What about you?”

  “I can wait, too. I think I’m dehydrated,” he added, grimly. “I need to think for a few minutes, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Sure. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He pondered their situation. It was difficult not to be frustrated under the circumstances; one of his more finely tuned talents was escape. Yet Lizzy’s containment system had flummoxed him. If Willadean had located the dropped handcuff key, would it have even worked on the nonstandard cuffs? The cage in the basement, the isolated location, the restraints...all smacked of preparedness.

  The notion of a ‘kill room’ surfaced in his mind. A faint aroma of bleach permeated the floor; he’d noticed it when taking sips from the water cup. Why was bleach needed to clean the floor? What better location than a remote forest in which to conduct one’s nefarious deeds? What better setup than an underground room furnished with chains, handcuffs, a metal cage, and — likely — implements of torture tucked inside a rolling cabinet? Lizzy must have dropped the scalpel then inadvertently kicked it under the cabinet during some previous visit to the basement. Had she been too distracted by a former occupant of the cage to notice? He thought of the bleach again and how its use would destroy trace evidence.

  Any self-respecting, sadistic serial killer would own dozens of such devices: pliers to remove teeth, bamboo shards to jamb under fingernails, cudgels to break kneecaps. Perhaps Lizzy delved into more medieval forms of torture: the breast-ripper, the pear of anguish, the head-crusher.

  Fergus had seen those used in Europe firsthand. He very much didn’t want to be the victim of any of them, nor their modern counterparts. Withstanding torture wasn’t impossible. He’d done it before. But the psychological damage it would inflict on Willadean was unthinkable. Also unthinkable: Lizzy performing such torture on the child. Lizzy was a monster. Was she also that kind of monster? His gut said no, but his gut had been wrong before. They must escape — and soon. Time wasted waiting on rescue was better spent formulating a plan.

  “Are you thinking about how we’ll escape?” Willadean whispered.

  “I know there’s an avenue I’ve yet to uncover. I’m rather adept at escape, you know.” Even if Lizzy were listening, the message was necessary. Willadean must believe in him and his ability to save her.

  The girl snickered. “You’re so not a college professor.”

  “I’ll take the fifth.”

  Silence from the bed now. Willadean’s outsized intellect was doubtless pondering a multitude of titillating former professions for him. But when she spoke, he realized he was wrong.

  “I think our best bet lies in a different direction...”

  “What? Wait. Don’t answer that.”

  “I hadn’t planned to,” she said. Then, “Trust me. No more talking. Okay?”

  The subtle chastisement made him smile. She was right, of course. If Lizzy were somehow listening, the less she knew about their state of mind, the better.

  After what seemed like hours, his scythen pinged, immediately followed by footsteps outside the door.

  Lizzy entered the room. She hadn’t yet flipped on the light switch. He listened to her labored breathing with a jolt of excitement. Was she ill? Injured? He had his answer seconds later when light flooded the room.

  Thorny vines twisted their way through strands of normally sleek locks, creating a tangled hairdresser’s nightmare. Her pants were shredded and muddy, and her pale face was pinched in pain. Blood oozed from a small hole in the fabric of her left sleeve.

  Fergus opened his mouth to speak, but Willadean beat him.

  “Oh, you’re hurt,” she said, using that childish voice from earlier. “Can I help you?”

  Lizzy clutched a first-aid kit with fingers that might have been broken.

  “I can’t do it myself,” Lizzy said to Willadean. Her voice sounded calm on the surface, but Fergus heard a sub-harmony of pain.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to remove my shirt and clean the bullet wound. I’ll guide you through it.”

  Fergus watched with fascination as the drama unfolded. He knew Willadean well enough at this point to recognize that she was playing a part: that of a concerned, caring child.

  “I don’t know if I can do that with these chains.”

  Brilliant!

  Lizzy nodded, set the first-aid kit on the tiny bed, and then pointed to a front pants pocket with one of her functioning fingers.

  “Got it,” Willadean said, after fishing out the key that would release her from her bonds.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, child, or your friend will pay for it. You know what they say about injured animals?”

  “They can be even more dangerous than healthy ones. I won’t do anything stupid.”

  Fergus found himself being persuaded of the girl’s sincerity.

  Several heartbeats later, Willadean was free. Fergus shuttered his scythen so as not to transmit excitement. He might not make it out of the kill room, but Willadean now had a fighting chance. He tried to get her attention by shifting loudly in the cage, jangling the chain’s links against each other. As soon as she looked his way, he would mouth the word: RUN!

  Willadean pointedly kept her attention on Lizzy. She peeled off the tattered outer shirt with care, revealing a fitted tank top. Its bareness exposed outlines of scapula and thoracic vertebrae. Lizzy was skin and bones.

  Mirroring his thoughts, Willadean said in a sweet voice, “We need to get some food in you. You’ve been so careful to keep us fed, but you probably haven’t eaten a decent meal yourself.”

  From his vantage, Fergus could only see Lizzy’s backside, but something about her body language indicated surprise.

  “Child, open the kit and remove the peroxide and a sterile gauze pad. Pour two capfuls of the peroxide on the pad, then clean the outside of the wounds. The bullet went through, so there are two areas to tend.”

  “Willadean is my name, but my mama calls me Willa. You can call me Willa, too.”

  Victim strategy 101: make it personal with your captor...become a human being, not just a body or a number. The red beard twitched.

  “Very well. Once you’ve cleaned off the blood, I need to get a look, but I can’t do it from this angle. Take the compact mirror from my other pocket and place it next to my arm.”

  Willadean did as she was told. Apparently Lizzy didn’t like what she saw reflected in the mirror.

  “The next part is going to be tricky. I’ll need you to take the tweezers and fish out the fabric stuck in the wound. Do you see it?”

  “Yes. Okay, Miss Lizzy,” Wi
lla said. “Should I spray it with the Bactine first? Mama uses that to clean our scraps. It says on the bottle that it relieves pain.”

  “Yes, do that, though I fear an over-the-counter pain-relieving spray will be a bit like using a blanket to smother a forest fire.”

  “That’s a wonderful simile. Did I tell you I’m a writer?”

  Lizzy’s head dipped once.

  “I’ll add it to my list of metaphors and similes. A well-written simile feels like March sunshine on winter-pale skin. See what I did there?” Willa grinned at her captor.

  “I do. Very clever, Willa. Now, let’s get this over with quickly.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Fergus heard a sudden, hissing intake of air. The next moment, Willadean brandished the tweezers, with the bloody swatch of cloth caught between its pointed tips.

  “Got it!” she said.

  “Very good,” Lizzy said. “Now get more gauze and hold it firmly against the wound for a few minutes. It’s begun to bleed again. We can’t apply the butterfly strips until the surrounding area is dry. No talking for now.”

  Fatigue had joined the pain in Lizzy’s voice, no longer a sub-harmony, but a dominant note.

  Several minutes passed. No one spoke.

  Fergus jangled his chains again, but Willadean refused to look his direction. The child was not being obtuse — she probably couldn’t be if she tried — she was being stubborn. Or maybe she was trying to stay in character. Lizzy would surely sense a ploy if it were too overt.

  “It’s time to put the butterfly strips on. Both sides. Do you know how they work?” Lizzy said.

  “I sure do. We used them once back in Knoxville when I cut my hand on a broken glass. Mama said it wasn’t deep enough to get stitches, so we cleaned it out with peroxide, sprayed it with the Bactine, and then slapped on a butterfly strip. Just like we’re doing today. You remind me a lot of my mama. She’s smart and pretty too.”

  Fergus smiled.

  Chapter 20

  Ray

  “This is impressive,” Ray said. They walked along the hard-packed dirt road that meandered through several dozen cabins. Some looked almost new, while others might have been around for generations. Serena Jo continued along the main walkway, motioning for Ray to follow.