“Yeah, yeah, good to see you too, big guy,” he muttered, making a half-hearted attempt to return the brute’s awkward hug.
One of the infected men in the crowd shouted angrily. Tanner couldn’t understand what he had said, but Korn apparently didn’t appreciate his tone. He marched over and rapped him sharply on the head with a thick gauntleted hand. The man’s legs buckled, but Korn caught him by the throat. Holding him upright, he began reciting the story of how he and Tanner had led Mother’s army into Mount Weather. Korn’s English was at times broken, and he often seemed to leave out words that he felt were unimportant. Even so, it was a stirring, if not somewhat embellished, account of heroism and victory.
As he spoke, Samantha inched closer to Issa and reached out to touch the back of her arm.
“Hi Issa.”
Issa turned to her, knowing full well that for a girl who rarely showed affection, Samantha’s gentle touch was the equivalent of a tear-filled embrace.
“Hi Sam,” she said, smiling.
“What happened to your face?”
“What? Am I not beautiful anymore?”
Samantha smiled. “No, you’re still pretty. By the way, thanks for stepping in when you did. I think Tanner was about to go berserk on them.”
“Of course.” Issa turned to Tanner. “Still getting our daughter into trouble, I see.”
He leaned closer and kissed her. What was meant to be a quick peck turned into more as Issa handed the big rifle off to Samantha and wrapped both arms around his neck. When they finally broke, they turned to find Samantha staring at them with an amused look on her face.
“What are you looking at?” he said.
“I was remembering when she first kissed you at the reservoir. It seems like you two can’t get enough of each other.”
“That bother you?”
She shrugged. “It’s a little yucky, but kind of sweet too.”
“Good, because we’re likely to keep on doing it.”
Korn finished his story and turned back to face them.
“All of you will come to Mother.” From the way he said it, it was somewhere between a request and a command.
“Do you think we’ll be safe without Jarvis’s blood?” whispered Samantha.
Tanner turned to Issa for the answer.
“They’re different now,” she explained. “More able to deal with their rage.”
Tanner looked past her to the church lawn filled with bodies. Some things may have changed, but others had not.
“How did you end up with them?” he asked.
“It’s a long story, one that I’m sure you won’t be happy to hear.”
Tanner crossed his arms. “Go on.”
“I met some women who needed help. It ended up being more trouble than we could handle. Fortunately, Korn and his army showed up in time to lend a hand.”
“You shouldn’t have gone off by yourself.”
“No. I shouldn’t have.” She pressed up against him. “Forgive me?”
The heat of her body melted his anger like butter in a hot skillet.
“You’re going to have to earn your way back into my good graces.”
She grinned. “Oh, am I now?”
“There you go again,” muttered Samantha.
Korn interrupted by pointing to the Mercedes.
“You follow to Mother.”
Accepting that they weren’t going to be able to simply shake hands and walk away, Tanner said, “We’ll need the keys.”
Before Korn could ask, the man that Tanner had knocked down the stairs stumbled forward. His cheek and mouth were both bleeding, but he said nothing as he handed over the keys.
Twirling them around his finger, Tanner said, “All right, lead the way.”
Korn said something to two of the infected before turning and marching back to a burnt-orange Jeep Wrangler. His throng of fighters followed him back to their vehicles, all except the two who had been given orders. To Tanner’s dismay, one of the men climbed into the backseat of the Mercedes, and the second held out a pipe, sharpened to a point on one end.
“Looks like we’ve got babysitters,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Samantha said, squeezing in next to Issa. “The kind with pointy sticks.”
“Let’s just hope that Mother’s glad to see us.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” asked Issa.
He glanced over at the bulge of their unborn baby.
“Something tells me that throwing you a shower might be the last thing on her mind.”
As Tanner approached Mount Weather, he couldn’t help but recall the history of the compound. After the outbreak, it had been converted from one of FEMA’s operation centers to an emergency retreat for the highest levels of government. With its rural 434-acre complex, as well as a 600,000-square-foot underground bunker, it had promised to be the ideal safe house for the President, the few remaining members of Congress, and a contingency of military personnel.
After a concentrated effort to seal the tunnels under Washington, D.C., however, the infected had risen up and overrun the center. Many of the soldiers and civilians had managed to escape to the New Colony in Norfolk, Virginia. Those who didn’t were butchered by the infected as they poured in through an underground entrance. Tanner couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility for those deaths, knowing full well that he had enabled the uprising with his incessant search for President Pike.
With the urging of their two unwanted passengers, Tanner turned right onto Blueridge Mountain Road. Directly ahead lay a large security building, the awning reaching out over the road. Four infected men in military uniforms stood guard with M4 rifles in hand. Tanner pulled in behind Korn and the rest of the convoy as the guards checked each car before waving it through.
As he inched the Mercedes closer, one of the men came alongside the vehicle. The guard’s skin was pocked, and his eyes as black as soot, but his disfigurement wasn’t as serious as the worst afflicted. He motioned for Tanner to roll down the window.
“You are to follow General Korn to our headquarters. If you do anything other than that, you will be considered hostile. Do you understand?” Given his condition, the man’s speech was remarkably clear.
“Loud and clear.”
The guard motioned for him to go ahead, and Tanner eased in behind Korn’s Jeep. Other members of the convoy broke off, heading to different parts of the compound. By the time they pulled in front of a three-story metal and stone building, the procession had pared down to a handful of vehicles.
Samantha looked out her window as soldiers marched by in small formations. In the distance, she could see a grass-covered airfield with a dozen neatly parked helicopters.
“They’ve got an army, a real army.”
“I told you,” said Issa. “They’re changing, becoming more human again.”
One of the infected men grunted from the back seat, motioning for everyone to get out.
Tanner glanced back at their unwanted passengers.
“Smiley here apparently didn’t get that memo.”
They unloaded from the Mercedes and were escorted into the building. It was stuffy, and the air reeked of body odor. Thankfully, the temperature was still mild enough not to make it unbearable. A stairwell off to the right led both upstairs and down.
Korn turned to them. “You stay. I speak with Mother.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and headed for the stairwell. The two men he had appointed earlier remained behind. It took nearly twenty minutes for Korn to return, and when he did, he marched directly up to Issa.
“Issa come. Tanner and girl stay.”
Tanner studied his face, hoping to determine whether something had gone wrong. It proved impossible. Korn only ever wore two expressions. The first said, I’m going to kill you, and the second, I’m not going to kill you right now, but I might kill you later.
“Just so you know,” muttered Samantha, “I do have a name.”
Korn ignored her.
“Issa come,” he repeated, this time motioning with his hand.
Issa turned and gave Tanner a quick kiss on the cheek.
“No matter what happens, keep your cool,” she whispered. “They’re looking for a reason to surrender to their baser instincts.”
“Aren’t we all?”
She squeezed his hand and turned to follow Korn down the stairs.
“Where do you think that leads?” Samantha said, eyeing the staircase.
“Down,” he answered.
She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother asking you things.”
“You and me both.”
They stood waiting for another ten long minutes with a whole lot of nothing happening. As the minutes passed, Samantha grew increasingly bored.
She turned and studied their two infected guardians. One was almost Tanner’s height, but lacked thirty or forty pounds. His face was disfigured, jaw and cheekbones so prominent that they looked like they had been built up with plumber’s putty. The other man was short and thick and had a face as flat as a bulldog’s.
“I’m Samantha. What’re your names?”
Neither man spoke.
She pursed her lips. “I think I’ll call you Musketeer, because of your pointy chin. And you,” she said, gesturing to the other man, “you can be Tillman on account of reminding me of a bulldog I once saw that could ride a skateboard? Crazy, right?”
Again, they said nothing.
“How do you two like it here?” She looked around. “It looks nice. Better than down in the tunnels, that’s for sure. Do you guys ever get back down there?”
They stared at her with passionless black eyes.
She thought for a moment. “Hey, I know. Let’s have a joke to liven things up. Knock, knock.” She waited expectantly.
Musketeer and Tillman looked to one other but neither answered.
“Oh come on,” she said. “Knock, knock.”
Tillman’s lips parted like he might speak.
“Ye-e-es,” she coaxed, “go on.”
He closed his mouth defiantly.
She shook her head. “Believe me, I can do this all day. Knock, knock.”
Musketeer growled and said, “Who’s there?”
She smiled. “Broken pencil.”
He looked to Tillman, who only offered a slight shrug.
“Broken pencil who?”
“Never mind. It’s pointless.”
Both men took a moment and then made noises that sounded somewhere between a chortle and a gag.
“Good, right? You can use it later if you want.” She turned to Tanner. “They like my jokes.”
“They might be the only ones.”
“Funny.”
Korn reappeared from the stairwell, but there was no sign of Issa.
Tanner took a step toward him.
“Where is she?”
Musketeer and Tillman both puffed up as if readying for a fight.
Korn waved them back as he motioned to Tanner.
“You and girl come. See Mother.”
Tanner thought about pushing the point of Issa’s whereabouts but recalled her words of warning.
“Come on, Sam. Let’s go see what Mother has to say.”
“Okay,” she said. “But you should know that if things get dicey, I’ve already used my best joke.”
Korn, Musketeer, and Tillman escorted Tanner and Samantha down a long flight of stairs. At the bottom, they followed a series of corridors to a thick steel blast door, sitting open. As they passed through the doorway, Samantha rubbed her palm across the shiny metal.
“It’s like we’re going inside a bank vault.”
“More like a bunker.”
“Is it the one you went into with Korn?”
“Same bunker. Different door.”
“So it leads down to the tunnels?”
“It must.”
They continued on, weaving through corridors lit by dim incandescent bulbs. Along the way, they passed small groups of infected. All of them wore military uniforms, and many carried notebooks or rolled-up maps.
Samantha leaned closer to Tanner and whispered, “They’re planning something.”
He nodded.
They followed Korn to a large double door at the end of the corridor. Two of Mother’s troglodytes stood guard. Like Korn, they were larger than normal men, tall and thick with muscle. But unlike him, their hair had fallen out, their faces now a patchwork of boils and blistered flesh. The last time Tanner and Samantha had seen troglodytes, the fearsome creatures had been armed with nail boards. These two carried M870 pump shotguns. Times were a changing.
Korn turned to Tanner and Samantha and held out his hands.
“Guns.”
There seemed no point in arguing about it, so they handed over their shotgun and rifle. Samantha did, however, keep the derringer tucked neatly away. Once their weapons were taken, Korn led them into the room, while Musketeer and Tillman remained outside.
When Tanner and Samantha had last seen Mother, she was a corpulent blob lying on a pile of blankets, babies suckling her six flabby breasts. Now, they stared at a woman whose face was unblemished, beautiful even, with long, perfectly brushed black hair and skin rich with color. She remained a behemoth, easily eight feet tall and topping five hundred pounds, but clothes once consisting of stitched-together bed sheets had been replaced with a handmade dress woven from a patchwork of brightly colored silk. She sat on a thick stack of cushions, straight and tall, and there was an air of elegance that made her seem every bit the queen.
Mother studied Tanner and Samantha as if reading their thoughts. When she finally spoke, her voice was silky smooth, almost to the point of harmony.
“How interesting that we should meet again. It seems that fate is never above reminding us that everything is possible.”
As Samantha had done with their first meeting, she stepped forward and did a little curtsy.
“Your Highness.”
Mother acknowledged her with a smile before turning her attention to Tanner.
“The last time you stood before me, you promised a new world for my people. At the time, I couldn’t fully appreciate your words. But now, now I see.”
There was something about her words that hinted of trouble in paradise.
“I promised to help your people escape the tunnels, and that’s what I did.”
“After which, you vanished without giving me so much as a chance to offer thanks.”
“I thought it better if we moved on. Sam and I have a hard time staying put, don’t we, Sam?”
She shrugged. “Lately, we’ve been doing okay.”
He cut his eyes at her.
“What I meant to say was that we’ve been traveling a bit less than normal. But we did just get back from flooding a nuclear plant, if that helps.” She looked over at Tanner for his approval.
He closed his eyes.
“Worst of all,” said Mother, “you took our beloved Issa.” She turned her glassy black eyes toward Korn. “Even my most trusted general felt her loss.”
“Issa and I wed through your colony’s claiming ceremony. Korn knows that better than anyone.”
Mother nodded. “True, but what a man knows and what he feels are often not the same.”
Korn shifted his feet around, obviously uncomfortable about the direction in which the conversation had turned.
“No matter,” Mother said, waving a hand. “You and Issa have both returned. And her with child, no less.” She paused. “My question is why?”
“I’m sure Issa explained that she wanted to share the good news with you. She was certain you’d be delighted.”
“Delighted, you say?”
He nodded. “While a lesser woman might feel threatened, she knew that you, as the colony’s beloved matron, would surely feel only happiness at seeing others experience the joy of childbirth.” Tanner knew that he was laying it on thick, but the dance was underway with all its flourishes.
Mother smiled. “Of course I’m delighted. It does, however, pose a challenge.”
“What kind of challenge?”
“How do you think our women will react to the revelation that they can only become pregnant by outsiders? It would create an unhealthy dependency, don’t you think?”
Tanner considered pointing out a very different unhealthy dependency but decided it was not in his or Samantha’s best interest. Instead, he said, “I suppose. Perhaps it’s best then if only you and a handful of your trusted advisors know of her condition.”
She smiled. “On that we find ourselves in agreement. Perhaps it will make things easier going forward.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only that I haven’t yet decided how best to handle this. Perhaps when the baby is born, it will become clearer.”
Tanner didn’t like the sound of that at all. They sure as hell weren’t sticking around Mount Weather until Issa gave birth.
“We’ll be sure to send word.”
Mother took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“You used to be like us. Now,” she waved her hand, “now, you are not. Can you explain that?”
Samantha jumped in. “We had blood in our veins from the first person ever infected. It eventually wore off, so now we’re back to normal. Uh, I mean now we’re back to looking more like regular people.” She puckered her lips, still not quite liking the way that it sounded. “What I mean to say—”
“I think she’s got it, Sam,” Tanner said, cutting her off.
“Interesting,” Mother said with a nod. “You of all of the outsiders were able to experience our way of life when we struggled so dearly. Perhaps that makes you different than the others.”
Tanner remained quiet, sensing that she was finally getting to the point.
Mother made a pained expression. “Not a day passes that I don’t hear of horrors being inflicted on my people.”
“I’m confused,” Samantha said, raising her hand as if she were in school. “I thought your people were all here in Mount Weather.”
“No, dear. My people stretch across this wicked land. All who are infected need someone to love and nurture them.”
“Wow. That sounds like a big job.” She found herself staring at Mother’s enormous midsection. “No offense… Your Highness.”
The Survivalist (Freedom Lost) Page 28
