Trail of Tears

by Derek Gunn

  Lucy’s job was to search through everything and ensure their limited storage allowance was no exceeded. Of course, to do that she had to separate the items that just did not meet their requirements. Harris felt his heart grow heavy. Who was to say that a book of memories was no less important to these people than a cooking utensil? Was a loved pet no less important than a book on engineering? It was an impossible situation. They had managed to make two hundred sleighs in total, cobbling together various pieces that they had found around the city and by pulling wooden panels from walls in the buildings. A hundred of the largest sleighs had already been sent on ahead with the most essential items and the others were being reserved for the wounded, the old, and the remainder of their supplies.

  These people had suffered so much though, scraping for a living through the energy crisis and then being bled to feed the vampires. There was only so much they could take. He could not take their dreams from them as well.

  “I know this is hard, honestly I do,” he began and people stopped their conversations as his voice carried over them. “I know how much your possessions mean to you, but we just do not have the room. I’m sorry.” The crowd began to mutter and he held up his hands for silence.

  “However, we will take every item that cannot come with us now and seal them where the food supplies are stored currently. The room is dry and cold so your possessions will remain safe there until I can get a team back here to retrieve them.”

  Harris saw Lucy raise her eyebrows but she said nothing. He could see a number of people purse their lips and nod while others spoke animatedly among themselves. One little girl come forward with a box full of small cuddly toys and lift it up to him.

  “Mr. Harris, will you put these in the safe for me,” a tear dripped from the girl’s eye as she handed up her prized possessions and Harris knelt and took the box from her. He picked one of the toys from the top, a small white teddy bear with a red hat, and handed it back to her.

  “Why don’t you keep that one and I’ll keep the rest safe for you.” He smiled and the girl smiled back. She hugged the toy.

  “Will you really come back?” A man asked and others nodded their approval at the question.

  “Have I ever promised anything that I did not make good on?”

  His simple statement was met with a number of nods and the man who had asked the question approached Harris with a large picture album gripped to his chest.

  “That’s enough for me,” he said as he handed over his most precious possession. “That’s all I have left of my wife. Be gentle.” Harris nodded to the man and then he abruptly turned and strode from the room. More people started to come forward and soon the queue in front of Lucy reduced significantly. She came over and kissed Harris, her tears wetting his cheek.

  “You are a special young man, Peter Harris. Thank you.”

  * * *

  Robert Seager had not left April’s side since the community had been attacked. They had worked almost non-stop getting the community ready to leave their home. Everyone bustled through the corridors carrying items, retrieving supplies or removing debris and bodies. The fact that it was so cold meant that the bodies had not yet started to rot but they still had to be cleared.

  Father Reilly directed the effort, made sure that no one spent too long on the detail, and that people were among friends and family when they performed it. He did not want anyone coming across the body of a loved one with no one close by to support them. The ground was too hard to dig so the graves were shallow. They didn’t know if they’ have time to bury them all.

  It had been April who had come up with the best solution. She had quickly outlined her idea to Seager at the back of the hall and he had been forced to present it to everyone. It had been nerve-racking; not just because he wasn’t sure he understood April’s true intent—her fingers had moved so quickly and his knowledge of sign was still so limited—but also because he was not used to speaking in public. It had worked out though. April told him he had gotten her meaning in general, although he had embellished the parts that he had not understood. The parts he had changed had been better than her original plan, she had told him. And she kissed him in the heat of the moment and become embarrassed. She hadn’t kissed him since, but there had been little time and their task was not exactly romantic.

  Seager and April were putting the final touches to their plan the morning before they were due to leave. The area in which the dead bodies were placed was a natural hollow in what used to be a water feature in a nearby park. The water had long ago been siphoned off for cleaning in the community and the bodies lay closely packed in the bowl. People came throughout the day to say goodbye to their loved ones before they left.

  Seager laid the funnel at the edge of the area and walked back along its length to make sure the pipe was straight all the way back to the fuel depot. April’s idea had been to burn the bodies in the community’s main auditorium, using their home as fuel. Seager had added the use of the dry lake bed. Most of the people who came to say a prayer at the lakeside thanked them for their idea, and Seager was astonished by how much comfort their solution was bringing to everyone.

  They would not be able to light the pyre until after the main body had left, in case there were any patrols around. Seager and April would remain behind with Harris and a few others and perform the ritual. Father Reilly had also wanted to stay but Harris had vetoed that immediately. Instead, there was to be a funeral mass tonight for everyone to say goodbye. The wind was already picking up and the clouds above were agitated and angry-looking. The snow had stopped for now but it looked like more would fall tomorrow when the people left for the train, making the journey more difficult for everyone.

  Seager had not thought much about God in recent years. His parents had brought him to church when he was young but that life was over. He was alone now. His parents had not been in the same group with him that had been saved so he had no idea whether they were alive or dead. He had felt lost when he had first come to this community. Father Reilly looked after all the waifs and strays so he had a bed and food, but sixteen was very young to have your world turned upside down by vampires and the loss of your parents.

  He knew he had not handled it very well at first. He had used his size to ensure he was a part of any group, feeling he had to intimidate others in order to gain their acceptance. He had slowly come to realise that the group would accept him if he was just himself. At first he had thought that Emma Logan was the girl for him, and he had clashed regularly with Conor Ricks for her affections. As he looked over at April, he realised that he had been wrong. It had been Emma’s strength that he had responded to, a surrogate for the mother he had lost.

  When Conor had left with Harris he had thought his way was clear with Emma but it had become plain that Emma would never feel for him that way. He had been surprised that he had not been annoyed at this. Instead he had given Emma comfort and had been happy to do so. He had come to realise that his thoughts kept returning to the small girl who had strutted onto the stage and stood up to the council.

  He had known the stories about April, of course. She had been Steele’s ward and she was mute. That was how everyone described her.

  He now realised that being mute did not define her. And acting the bully did not have to define him either. From the moment he had seen her on the stage he knew that he had found what he’d been searching for. Not someone to replace his parents but someone who could help him achieve his potential. He still liked Emma, of course, but more as a sister.

  Of course, he had not told April about his feelings. On her return, he had merely shadowed her trying to find the right time to introduce himself. It hadn’t come. And then the community had been attacked and events had spiralled out of control. That very chaos gave him a focus he had never had before. As he looked over at April, he now realised where her strength came from when she walked onto the stage to support Harris. It came from caring for other and putting them first over your own fear
s. For the first time in years, Robert Seager felt fulfilled and, despite the carnage around him, complete.

  * * *

  Emma Logan fretted as she watched Conor Ricks being loaded on to the sleigh. He looked almost comical, wrapped in blanks, bandages, and a thick coat. Only his eyes and nose appeared from the mass of clothing and she smiled at his obvious embarrassment.

  “I can walk,” she heard him complain, though the sound was muffled from the scarf that covered his mouth.

  “No you can’t,” she replied sternly. “You’re lucky Amanda didn’t wrap you in a hard cast to make sure you stayed put. Your last walkabout nearly tore every stitch from your body.”

  “If I had stayed put there’d be a few more holes in her precious patient,” he grumbled.

  “I hope that is not complaining I hear.” Amanda Reitzig strode into the room and checked Conor’s vitals before nodding and continuing on to the next patient. “I can always give you something to put you out if you insist on complaining. There’s no medical board you can complain to anymore, you know. You are entirely at my mercy.” She winked at Emma, but Emma could see the strain in her face. Moving thirty wounded people over seven miles through blizzard conditions on makeshift sleighs was not an easy task. She had been at the same meeting where Amanda had told the committee she expected to lose a third of her patients unless she was supplied with the best clothing and people to look after her charges.

  Emma looked around the infirmary and wondered which patients would arrive alive at the train. Would any of them get there safely? The wounded would travel in the middle of the exodus.

  The day had begun brightly with only a few dark clouds in the distance. It was cold but at least the wind had reduced. It had snowed overnight so the sleighs would travel easily but those who had to pull them would find it difficult with their legs disappearing into the canopy up to their thighs.

  The first of the party of over eight hundred people had already left, pulling their sleighs and weighed down by heavy packs. This was the final check on the wounded before they too left. In the last hour the wind had picked up again and with it had come clouds roiling in the sky. There was no snow yet, but everyone knew it wouldn’t be long before it came. Emma had been assigned to guard the wounded along with two of Phil McAteer’s soldiers. Their number would also include a hundred people. They would take turns pulling the sleighs—a half hour pulling with an hour walking on a continual rotation.

  The last party to leave would include Harris, McAteer and the others. They would have next to nothing to carry except their weapons and they would protect their flank. If no one followed them then they would soon catch up to the wounded and would be able to lend their strength and support. However, no one really expected them to have an easy time.

  Advance scouts had seen a large force coming in their direction. The thralls who had attacked them had obviously been missed. Emma shifted the weight of the XM8 and marvelled at how light such a nasty looking weapon was. She didn’t really expect to have to use it. If Carter and his men caught up to the wounded then it would mean that Harris and the others were dead. And if that was the case then it was already over.

  She saw Harris come in to check on Sandra Harrington. She had still not woken up. She could see the pain in Harris’ face. The poor man seemed to get the worst of everything but kept coming back for more. There was a huge man beside him and he laid a hand on Harris’ shoulder and said something that she couldn’t hear. Harris nodded and then moved away from Sandra.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Emma found herself saying and Harris stopped and looked over at her.

  “I’d appreciate that, Emma. Thank you. How’s Conor?”

  She smiled as she nodded towards the bundle of cloths and blankets. “He is the worst patient in the world. He’ll live though, if Amanda doesn’t kill him first.”

  She saw Harris smile but the familiar spark in his eyes was missing. Father Reilly came in and hugged Harris and they spoke quietly before Harris and the big man left. Father Reilly turned and smiled at Emma, but he too was distracted and far from the jovial man she had come to know. The fact that Father Reilly was travelling with the wounded spoke volumes for the precarious nature of their journey.

  “Okay, everyone,” Amanda returned with a huge cast of people behind her wrapped up for the weather. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  The Trail of Tears

  Chapter 13

  Harris watched the last of the wounded sleighs pull away and he wondered, yet again, if they were doing the right thing. He had never doubted himself so much before and his indecision was adding to the nervousness of his team. He didn’t see an alternative. However, the thought of loading everyone onto a train that might not run and taking off with limited food supplies into unknown territory was petrifying.

  Of course, trying to hold off an army of thralls and trying to remain hidden from the vampires without the microwave shield was also pure madness. He had forty on his team, everyone in jackets and gloves of the whitest material they could find. Their only hope was to remain hidden and draw the thralls into a trap. He had thought of setting up a series of ambushes on the roads to their home but, with the snow, there was really no way to be certain which way Carter would come. If he sent his team out to cover the three main routes he would only be splitting his team into less effective numbers. And he would still have no guarantee that Carter would walk blindly into their traps.

  His advance scouts had already reported that the thrall force was the largest they had ever seen and that they were taking their time, checking for ambushes. He imagined that Carter thought he had all the time in the world. Where else could so many humans go on short notice? In fact, Carter’s caution was the only reason they had been able to get everyone out in time. Carter’s force was so large that his job now was to delay him long enough to ensure the others got away. Whether he and his team would catch the others before they left was still in the wind. He had told Aidan Flemming to leave when everyone was aboard and not to wait on him, and McAteer had told Cabreezi to ensure that the orders were obeyed.

  He didn’t see what he and the others were doing as a sacrifice. If they failed to delay Carter here then he would catch the others out in the open and they would not stand a chance weighed down with the wounded and supplies as they were. Most of his team realised what they had signed up for and, if some of them hadn’t fully grasped their situation, then he really didn’t have time to enlighten them.

  Harris had been preparing for this day for over a week now and had sent out teams to pull more buildings down, spreading their rubble across the narrow streets, and blocking many of the routes into the city. Carter wasn’t stupid, though. If there was only one route into the city then he would know it was a trap so Harris had ensured that the damage appeared natural. In some cases he had blocked some roads with the burnt-out carcasses of cars that he hoped Carter would move rather than divert around. By making Carter come through a route that was difficult to pass, he hoped he would give the thrall commander the impression that he was outsmarting the humans. He didn’t know Carter that well, but he had spent enough time with him to know that he thought very highly of himself. Forging his way through obstructions rather than diverting around them would appeal to his sense of strength and infallibility.

  Harris and his team had waited until the others had gone before he ordered some of the bodies retrieved from their graves. If he was to sell the story that Carter’s patrol had caught them and done significant damage there would have to be bodies visible around the base. He hated to desecrate the bodies in this way, but there was no way Carter would walk blindly into a trap, he had to be enticed. He felt that Denis Jackson and the others wouldn’t mind helping just one last time, though he wasn’t so sure that the community would understand his motivations. Even McAteer had looked at him strangely, though whether he was appalled or just surprised Harris wasn’t sure.

  McAteer had turned about to be a lot easier to work w
ith than he had expected. There was no jostling for power or undermining of authority. If Harris came up with a good idea McAteer merely nodded. McAteer had suggested some refinements that made the plan better and Harris had accepted these improvements with good grace. He was reminded of his time with Steele where his mad schemes had been toned down and refined. Harris realised that he missed having someone to share his plans with. Someone to share the responsibility. Of course, McAteer was equally quick to argue against a bad idea. Harris missed having someone to argue with as well.

  They had spread the bodies out on the snow with their team mingled among them, playing dead until the trap could be sprung. It was a risk, but he did not expect Carter to waste ammunition making sure that all the bodies spread before him were dead, especially when many of the dead were terribly mutilated by the high-powered bullets the thralls used. They wouldn’t get them all, but that wasn’t the mission. The mission was to buy the others the time they needed to get clear.

  * * *

  “Will we go around, sir?”

  William Carter pursed his lips as he studied the street. It had once been a wide two lanes with footpaths on either side but the destruction caused during some previous altercation had left buildings gutted with rubble strewn across the surface. There were cracks all along the main road and more than a few holes gauged out by grenades and from heavy equipment being dragged or torn from where they had been plugged into the ground.

  There was still quite a wide track open along the length of the street but two burnt out husks of cars lay in their path. The cars did not look as though this was where they had been set alight. The ground beneath them was not scorched by the same fires that had gutted the vehicles. They looked as though they had been placed in the way. Further down the stretch of street another car laid sideways blocking access.