Wasteland Marshals

by Gail Z. Martin

  Moraine State Park’s rolling hills had been shaped long ago by glaciers, leaving behind a lake and beautiful scenery. Shane and Lucas rode into what had been the main parking lot. RVs and vehicles parked along the edges, and soggy tents filled the campsites, people who had left everything behind except for what they could pack and ended up here. The park had basic facilities, and a stocked lake, so Lucas guessed there were worse places to sit out the end of the world.

  Lucas and Shane tethered their horses and went to the office. Park Ranger Mitchell Wilson greeted them with a surprised smile when he answered the door.

  “Lucas and Shane—what an unexpected pleasure. Come on in. I’ve got a fire going and a hot pot of coffee. You need anything for your horses?”

  Lucas shook his head. “They’ll be fine. We can’t stay long, just wanted to check in—and ask a couple of questions.”

  “I’m happy for the company. This way,” Mitchell said, gesturing for them to follow him into the cozy lobby of the ranger station. Mitchell shared the station as both office and living quarters with another ranger, and they took turns with the outdoor work. “Jim’s out checking the trails,” he said, referencing his fellow ranger. “We had plenty of limbs down and trail washouts after the storm. We put up as many of the tent folks in the recreation building as we could to ride out the worst of it. There’s going to be a lot of work to do to clean up. It’s hard to keep up on the maintenance.”

  “Can’t you press some of your squatters…I mean, residents, into working off their use fee?” Shane asked as Mitchell poured coffee for all of them.

  “Oh, I do,” Mitchell assured him. “But not all of them are up to the work. We get by,” he added with a shrug. “Now, what brings you this way?”

  “We’ve heard that people passing by think there’s something different about the park,” Shane ventured, fudging a little about his own experience. “Almost a sense that calls to them. Have you heard anything like that?”

  Mitchell sat back, cradling his coffee. “Now that’s interesting,” he replied. “Truth is, those of us who chose to work the parks always felt a bit of that. Where we’ve felt it the strongest, we applied to be posted. Haven’t you ever heard people say that a location ‘spoke’ to them?”

  “I guess so,” Lucas agreed reluctantly. “But I didn’t mean it literally.”

  Mitchell nodded. “You might not have, but many cultures think that there are nature spirits. Maybe there’s something to all that, and the shake-up from the Events means the spirits can be heard again.

  “All I can tell you is that I loved Moraine from the first time I laid eyes on it, like I found somewhere I should have always been. Jim said he felt the same way. So, was it just a combination of all the features we always wanted or did the park ‘claim’ us? I don’t know. I’m just glad to be here, even with all the shit going on outside.”

  They spent another hour catching Mitchell up on what they had seen and passing along a warning about the prepper activities. Mitchell filled them in on what the refugees who had taken up residence in the park told him about the places they came from. Some of the information was true, but Shane and Lucas knew much of it was hearsay, exaggerated, or just plain wrong.

  “We need to get going,” Lucas said after they had finished their coffee. “Still have to get to Bedford.”

  “Glad you stopped in,” Mitchell replied, setting his cup aside. “Do me a favor, and if you see any peddlers on the road, send them this way. We do all right for food, but things like pots and pans, knives, and that sort of thing are in short supply.”

  “Will do,” Shane promised, and they headed back to their mounts.

  “So?” Lucas asked as they swung up to their saddles. “Did the park say anything to you?”

  Shane rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.”

  “That’s a strange thing for the park to say,” Lucas replied. “Since it doesn’t even know me.”

  “Maybe it’s all-seeing,” Shane said as they headed back to the road. “And it already knows how annoying you can be.”

  “Is that a no?” Lucas pressed.

  “I’m not sure,” Shane answered. “It’s hard to put into words. The whole time we were talking with Mitchell, I could swear I heard faint singing, just at the edge of what I could make out.”

  “Do you think there’s something to what he said, about places having a spirit?”

  “Lots of cultures believe that,” Shane said.

  “When we get to Old Bedford, I bet the witches will know,” Lucas replied. “Folks like them have to know something about nature spirits.”

  “If they don’t, the scholars will,” Shane said. “You know, with all the shit that’s happened, one of the good things is seeing the historic villages come back to life.”

  “Don’t forget we’re heading to Gettysburg,” Lucas warned. “That’s one location I really could do without seeing come back to how it used to be.”

  Living history museums, like Old Bedford Village, had been uniquely ready to weather the end of modern civilization. Since the sites were dedicated to preserving and teaching the old ways of living, the volunteers and staff had the skills necessary to survive when the outside world collapsed. The Old Bedford folks moved into the historic homes and brought the museum back to life as a real village, working the land, raising animals, and using what they’d learned about old skills like weaving and forging iron. Already a magnet for history buffs, the old sites also tended to attract covens and academics that needed a new home.

  Did those sites also have a spirit, and did it call to the witches and scholars? Lucas wondered. Now that Shane and Mitchell had raised the question, Lucas found he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  They fell into their usual companionable silence as they road. The highway was empty aside from themselves, making it seem all the more desolate, an eight-lane throughway with no traffic. Just in case, they had weapons handy. Lucas kept his crossbow slung over his shoulder and his quarrels within reach, while Shane had a large machete in a sheath on his belt and a selection of throwing knives in a bandolier slung across his chest. Their shotguns were handy, and the rest of their weapons and ammunition were in the saddlebags. In the dead stretches between settlements, they’d learned the hard way that anything could be lurking—human, animal, or something much worse.

  Lucas was just happy that the rain held off. It would take more than three days to reach Old Bedford, and Lucas really didn’t want to be hunkered down against bad weather for the whole time. They spent the first night in an abandoned house, and the second in a sturdy barn, and as evening loomed on the third night, Lucas found himself hoping to find a place that was both dry and warm.

  “You know what we were saying about places having a vibe to them?” Shane asked. “If that’s true, then I don’t like what I’m sensing from this hollow. Let’s pick up the pace. It feels…wrong.”

  Lucas had looked over to Shane as he spoke. When he turned his attention back to the road, he saw a young girl standing in the middle of the highway.

  “Whoa!” He pulled in on the reins sharply, and Shane did the same.

  “What?” Shane asked. “What’s the problem?”

  Lucas pointed at the girl. “Don’t you see her?” The girl waved her arms, and while she remained silent, the message of warning was clear.

  “There’s no one there, Lucas,” Shane replied. “I think it’s one of your sightings. All the more reason for us to get gone.”

  The ghost girl vanished as Shane spoke, proving his point.

  “Then I second your heebie-jeebies and vote we find a place to hole up, pronto.”

  “Heads up!” Shane warned, as the pounding of hoof beats sounded just over the rise ahead.

  Four men on horseback crested the hill, riding abreast. Three of them carried swords, and the fourth had a rifle. They stopped, blocking the highway.

  “Stop right there,” the leader said. “We don’t want trouble. Just leave us your saddlebags and your horses,
and we’ll let you walk away, no hard feelings.”

  6

  “Fuck you,” Lucas replied. “Not going to happen.”

  The man with the rifle brought it up to his shoulder. “You might want to reconsider.”

  Shane’s throwing knife embedded itself deep in the rifleman’s bicep, and the thief screamed, dropping the weapon. The other three robbers rode forward, swords raised. Lucas leveled his crossbow and fired, and the bolt hit the lead rider hard enough to unseat him. The man fell, dead before he hit the ground.

  The remaining thieves barely slowed their pace, riding toward Lucas and Shane with a war whoop. Lucas loaded another crossbow bolt and held his position, confident his bolt could reach its mark long before the brigand’s sword was in range. Shane pulled a shotgun from its sheath on his saddle and aimed for the man in front, blasting him with a spray of buckshot, sending him toppling from his horse. Lucas’s second bolt took the third man through the right shoulder, leaving him alive but wounded.

  That left two dead thieves, and two bleeding. Shane racked his gun again, looking down the barrel at the two survivors. “Don’t try my patience.”

  The youngest of the thieves reined in his horse, raising his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot me. I told them this was a bad idea.”

  “Yeah?” Lucas replied. “And that was before you tried to rob two US Marshals.”

  The two men paled at that.

  “Shit,” the younger thief said. He had the crossbow bolt in his shoulder. “I said this was going to be trouble,” he griped, turning to the companion with Shane’s knife in his arm. “Didn’t I? And you thought it would be easy pickings.”

  “Shut up, Danny.”

  “This is all your fault!” Danny shouted. “Next time, you’d better goddamn listen when I tell you something won’t work!”

  Shane glanced at Lucas and rolled his eyes. “All right,” Shane ordered. “Get down off your horses, and keep your hands where we can see them. Lie down on the ground, with your hands behind your heads.”

  “He’s gonna shoot us,” Danny whined. “Gonna shoot us dead, and you said this was going to be easy!”

  “Shut the fuck up, Danny!”

  Lucas held his crossbow on the men while Shane kept his shotgun at the ready as he moved among the brigands, kicking their weapons away from them.

  “Danny, I’m going to give you some rope, and you’re going to tie your buddy nice and tight,” Lucas said. “I’ll check the knots, so if you try something, I’ll know, and you’ll be sorry.” He pulled several lengths of rope from his saddle bag and tossed them to Danny, not getting close enough for the thief to make a grab for his bow.

  “This one’s dead,” Shane reported, from where he bent over the man with the crossbow bolt in his chest. He paused next to the man he’d gotten with the shotgun. “So is he.”

  He turned his attention to the two wounded survivors, glancing first at the man with the knife in his bicep. “We need to tie up his wound.” He looked at Danny. “Rip a strip of cloth from your shirt and bind his arm up. Don’t want him bleeding out on the ride. Once he’s tied up, we’ll see to your injury.”

  “Derek and Tom are dead, Ben!” Danny shrilled. “And we’re gonna bleed out. All because of you and your fucking bright idea.”

  “I’m gonna kill you if you don’t shut up,” Ben, the man with the knife wound, grated.

  Danny was so nervous he dropped the rope several times, but he managed to get the knots right, finally. Shane bound up Danny’s wound around the quarrel and then tied him up while Lucas covered them. “I’m leaving the arrow in until you get where you’re going, to help seal the wound. It’s a hunting tip, so it should be easy to take out.”

  “Are you gonna hang us?” Danny asked, and his voice cracked with the fear.

  “We could,” Lucas replied, looking as if he was thinking it over. “What do you think?” he asked Shane.

  “Not worth the rope,” Shane replied, gathering up the weapons. “Although we’d be within our rights.”

  “You ever heard of the US Marshals?” Lucas asked. Danny shook his head, still face down on the ground. Ben grunted, so scared that he’d pissed himself. “Since the Events, we’re the law in our territory. So we can be judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “I don’t wanna die!” Danny wailed. “We haven’t done much thieving, I promise. We’re new at it, that’s why we suck.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Ben snarled.

  “Well, your horses are pretty much crap,” Shane said. “Where did you get the swords?”

  “My dad used to make them, for Renaissance festivals and conventions,” Ben replied grudgingly. “Had them lying all around the house.”

  “That explains why none of them have a real edge on them.” Shane gathered up the swords and leaned down for the rifle. “Aw, fuck. Seriously? It wasn’t loaded.”

  “We figured it would scare you into giving us all your shit,” Danny said. He rolled close enough to Ben to give him a swift kick with his bound feet. Ben tried to retaliate but went still and quiet when Shane stuck the tip of a sword against his neck.

  “This may not be sharp, but sawing away at you until your head falls off wouldn’t be pleasant,” Shane promised. “Get my drift?”

  “What’re you gonna do with us?” Danny asked, and the quaver in his voice made Shane re-evaluate the man’s age, guessing him to be in his late teens.

  “We’re gonna dump you and your crap horses at the next enclave for the sheriff to deal with,” Lucas said. “The dead guys, we leave for the vultures, as a warning to the next sons of bitches who decided to loot travelers. We take your weapons, so you aren’t tempted to do something like this again—assuming the sheriff doesn’t just throw you down a mine shaft and let you rot.”

  Danny squeaked, looking pale enough to pass out. Ben muttered curses that trailed off into a moan.

  Shane patted them down, taking away anything else that could be used as a weapon. Then he and Lucas hoisted the wannabe highwaymen onto their horses, belly down across the saddle, and tied the reins of the dead men’s horses to the last saddle. Lucas rode point, and Shane road behind, making sure neither of the thieves tried to escape.

  The sheriff at the next enclave looked none too happy to see them. “What do you want me to do with them?”

  “Anything you want,” Lucas said. “Thought they might be local, and you’d want to take that into consideration. My partner and I have places to be. Didn’t have time to hang them.”

  “Yeah, they’re local,” the sheriff replied. “Not the first time they’ve been in trouble, but they’re usually too dumb to pull it off.” He glared at the bound men. “I’m thinking I’ll put them on work detail, get some use out of them, instead of throwing them a necktie party. We’ve got some digging and shoveling that suits them just fine. Might be the first honest work they’ve ever done.”

  “They’re all yours,” Shane said, as he and Lucas headed back to the road. He had tied the swords behind his saddle and meant to see if he could give them a working edge with a good whetstone when time permitted. He and Lucas rode in silence until they were back on the road.

  “You didn’t actually want to hang them.” Shane’s tone made it a statement, not a question.

  “Not particularly,” Lucas replied, looking off toward the horizon. “Seen enough death, don’t need to see more.”

  “But the preppers—”

  “That was different.” Lucas’s voice turned hard. “They weren’t just going to take someone’s coins. They killed. They enjoyed killing. How long until they weren’t happy to just wait for travelers to come to them and started raiding the other enclaves?”

  “I didn’t mind scaring the shit out of this last bunch, but I really didn’t want to go through with hanging them, either,” Shane agreed.

  “As it is, two of them’re dead anyhow.” Lucas’s voice was flat, and Shane knew that meant the death bothered his partner. “And the guy with the shoulder wound is go
nna lose that arm, if he survives.”

  “Not your fault,” Shane replied.

  “I shot him. He attacked with a weapon,” Lucas said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. They would have been entirely within their mandate to have killed all four of the men, since highway robbery and horse theft had regained their status as capital offenses. Still, Shane felt unsettled over the man’s death, and he could tell Lucas did, too.

  “I hate when it goes like that.”

  They rode for a while, and Lucas seemed pensive. Finally, Shane decided to poke the bear. “What’s eating you? You’re not usually this quiet. I mean, half the time I can’t get you to shut up.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Not sure how I feel about the ghost thing, I guess.”

  “Oh, so it’s okay when I have visions, but you see a ghost, and it’s the end of the world?”

  Lucas gave him a look. “We’ve already had the end of the world, dumbass.” He paused. “It’s just not something I ever really took seriously, you know? I heard about it from my mom and grandma, and I had some experiences I couldn’t really explain away, so I just didn’t think about them.”

  “But now, it’s happening more often, in ways you can’t just write off,” Shane supplied.

  “Yeah. Just like your ‘hunches’ and ‘intuition’ and ‘gut feelings’ are turning into full crystal-ball-reading style visions.”

  Shane grimaced. “I have never, ever, used a crystal ball. Wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had it—maybe throw it at someone?” He gave Lucas a side glance. “I mean, now that you’re a ghost whisperer, are you going to start knocking on tables and talking in funny voices?”

  “Shut up,” Lucas said, but there was no heat in his voice. Shane grinned. They’d argued far more heatedly over which superheroes could beat each other up. If the world had to fall apart, it was nice to still have his best friend.

  They spent the night holed up at what used to be a Motel 6. Shane suspected that the only reason it hadn’t been filled by squatters was that half the roof had been torn off. The office had been flattened by a long-ago storm. He and Lucas found a room at the end of the row and considered themselves lucky since they’d slept in much worse accommodations. The carpet wasn’t quite as disgusting as Shane expected, which he attributed to the room’s windows remaining intact.