by SD Tanner
He wondered how everything was going back home. When he’d left a week earlier they were still taking in large groups of survivors daily, and Pax was looking further afield for supplies. Lydia was now eight months pregnant, and TL asked Pax and Captain Ted to keep an eye on her. Nelson was busy keeping the islands producing food. Pop was split between the islands and the Ranch, working to maximize the crops. He felt it was chaotic and it offended his need for control. In his mind, chaos was only one step from failure. Like any leader away from his domain, he was anxious everything would survive in his absence. Reminding himself he didn’t believe anyone was indispensable, he returned to worrying about the potential move to the UK.
Axel turned down a road heavily invaded by grass and weeds. It must have been kept trim, but now the weeds were pushing through the cracks in the road, reaching for the sun. It wouldn’t be long before the road disappeared under their demanding growth. Driving along the middle of the two-lane road, there was a small concrete hut with darkened windows. It must have once acted as the security gate to the factory. Beyond the gate was a long stretch of road, and in the distance there was an outline of grey buildings through the canopy of trees. The boom gate that once held back visitors until they were cleared was gone, and all that remained was a fragment of the arm that lifted the bar to allow cars to pass. Judging by the jagged shards, someone had driven through the boom gate at some speed and torn the bar from the arm.
Their vehicles trundled one behind the other, until they reached an empty parking lot with two silent and grim four-story buildings. Past the two buildings was another security gate leading to another secured area.
“Axel, drive to the other gate. I wanna see what’s in there.” With a flick of his head towards the two buildings, he added, “They just look like offices and I ain’t interested in ‘em.”
The next set of gates looked sturdier than the ones leading to the offices. Still barred and bolted, they were made of heavy metal, and painted a dark and dull green. It appeared no one had entered the site through these gates for a long time, and they looked as locked now as they would have before the world ended. Next to the heavy metal gates was a small security office with a narrow revolving door made of metal bars. People who worked on the site must have cleared security, and then walked through the small revolving bars to the side. It seemed to be highly secure in an old-fashioned way, but given the site was built during World War II, the antiquated approach to securing the site didn’t surprise him.
Parking next to the gates, they climbed out of the vehicles and walked to the revolving metal door. Pushing the bars, the metal spiral squealed in protest, but slowly moved. With his natural bulk, and wearing full tactical gear, it was a tight fit, but he squeezed himself into the small gap. The revolving metal door screeched loudly as he shoved his way through. Ip followed and then Axel and TL. He surveyed the site while they struggled through the small door. There were small huts dug into trenches, lined up one next to the other, with another matching row behind.
“This ain’t what I was expecting to find, Axel.”
“It was their attempt at safety and risk management. The huts are built into trenches, and if one blew it wouldn’t take out the whole production capability,” Axel replied.
He nodded. It was a simple, but effective approach to safety. Not waiting for Philip, Logan, and the shooters to join them, they started walking towards the huts. He heard a crack and felt a bullet ping at his feet. Having not seen anyone for a week he was surprised, but quickly recovered and grabbing Ip, he dived for cover. Despite being annoyed at being shot at again, he was relieved there was at least some life left in the UK. Wriggling free from his grasp, Ip ran towards the huts, unsheathing her machete as she moved, clearly intent on killing the shooter. Being fast on her feet the shooter missed her and she disappeared into the row of huts.
“Shit. Cover me,” he shouted, as he sprinted after her.
He found her inside the first of the huts that was half-buried in a trench. With her machete held high, she was about to cut the throat of the person he assumed had shot at them. He was an older man in his fifties, and he was down on his knees, with his arms over his head desperate to protect himself from her attack.
“Stop!”
Swinging the blade down in a graceful arc, she stopped at his command, but didn’t move away from the man.
“Put your weapon down.”
She turned to him and her blue on blue eyes seemed to spark angrily, but she lowered her blade and stepped back.
Walking to the man who was still watching Ip warily, he offered him his hand and hauled him to his feet. The man was wearing dirty jeans and a filthy sweatshirt, and he looked wild and unkempt.
“I’m Gears. Who the hell are ya, and why the hell were you shootin’ at us?”
Nervously running his hands through his untidy mop of salt-and-pepper hair, he said, “I’m Roger, and I used to work here. Have you people come from the U.S.?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t answer my question.”
TL was standing in the doorway of the hut and he asked, “Are you alone here?”
With a wary expression, Roger replied, “Yes.”
He didn’t believe him, and was about to say so, when TL elbowed him out of the way.
“Hi, I’m TL. This gorilla is my brother. We’re here with a couple of Brits who said the UK might be safer than the U.S.. We’re not looking for trouble, but we are looking to make friends.”
TL always had a knack for calming people down, and Roger was no exception.
“There’s only a few of us. We all used to work here and got stuck when the outbreak happened. Luckily we had some weapons and were able to hide in one of the old bunkers on the site.”
Roger agreed to take them to the bunker they now used as somewhere to hide when strangers turned up. It was an old and very dilapidated air raid shelter left over from World War II. Roger shared the bunker with a woman in her forties, called Margie, and her daughter Wendy. Originally, there were more people at the shelter, but gradually they’d all left looking for their families, or they’d simply never returned from a supply run. Sharing their supplies with the three survivors, they sat outside the shelter enjoying the fresh air and drinking coffee from their MRE packs.
After explaining they needed a large supply of ammo, Roger said, “Well, if it’s ammo you want, you should head to Warwickshire. There’s fifty thousand pallets of the stuff there. I can’t imagine it’s all been used.”
“While it’s good to know it’s there, we’ve gotta get manufacturing up and running, but longer term we’re gonna need more than jus’ weapons and ammo,” he replied.
Margie originally worked as a local historian and librarian, and she asked, “Why do you need manufacturing? People should to return to living in small villages like they always did.”
“That’s a big step backwards, Margie,” Philip replied. “We have a power grid, water pipes, communications lines, transportation and technology. We don’t have to lose it all and go back to the dark ages.”
“That’s true,” TL added. “As idyllic as village life and farming sounds, it wasn’t that great. There were famines and disease. A lot of people died and most of them died young.”
Nodding, he said, “It’d be better if we can retain as much of the infrastructure as we can. Mankind fought hard to get this far and to lose it wastes generations of work.”
“So, what’s your plan?” Roger asked.
“We don’t have one yet. This is a recon mission to see if the country is viable.”
“And is it?”
“It could be, but we need to think it through.”
Wendy had been sitting quietly, and she asked, “Have you seen the fighters?”
“Given I dunno who you’re talkin’ about, I guess not. Who are the fighters?”
Taking a sip of his coffee, Roger sighed and said, “They’re some sort of renegade group. They came by here once looking for ammo, but didn’t find anyt
hing and left. From the little I know, they’ve been roaming around taking what they want. We’ve seen them a few times when we go looking for supplies, but we’ve managed to avoid them.”
“Not all of us have,” Margie said quietly.
Putting his hand on hers, Roger replied, “No, that’s true. We lost a few people early on, before we knew to hide from them.”
Axel patted his SA80. “Yeah, well, come near us and they’ll get a taste of this.”
He wasn’t surprised there was some sort of militant group running around the country. In fact he would have been surprised if there wasn’t one. So far they’d not made their presence known to them, which meant there were few of them left, or they didn’t want to attack a heavily armed and clearly military group. Either way he wasn’t worried, and agreed with Axel that they’d give as good as they got.
Roger was the site Quality Manager. Showing them around the site, his knowledge of the operations was impressive. Keen not to lose the man, TL persuaded Roger and the two women to join them and they quick to agree. After the tour they elected to spend the night in the offices where Roger and the women had made themselves a home.
Once everyone was settled for the night, he went outside and found Ip sitting in the dark next to the main doors. He hadn’t forgotten about the strange markings on her forearms.
“Are you okay, honey?”
She didn’t reply and continued to stare blankly into the night. Touching her arm to gain her attention, he asked more insistently, “Ip, are you okay?”
She still didn’t reply, but she turned to look at him. Not understanding her reluctance to talk, he put his arm around her shoulders.
“Okay, honey, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
Leaning into his body, she sighed, but still said nothing. Tilting his head until it was touching hers, he felt comforted by her calm presence, and he kissed her on the side of her head. “You’re gonna be okay, honey. You know we’re always here for ya.”
CHAPTER FIVE: Who pays the ferryman (Pax)
With his hands zip tied behind his back, squeezed tightly between two hunters sitting with their bodies pressed against his, he really didn’t think he could be more uncomfortable. The sight of Ruth being torn apart and eaten alive was running through his head on an endless loop. As much as he tried to dismiss her face and focus on his own predicament, she wouldn’t leave his mind. He didn’t know what was wrong with him lately. First BD penetrated his thick hide, and now he felt a physical pain in his gut remembering how Ruth died. He’d seen many good men die and it wasn’t his way to dwell on each loss, he’d always accepted they’d died doing what they believed in. It wasn’t as if he dismissed their sacrifice. If anything, he completely accepted the reasons they chose to lay down their lives.
The acne-faced man was sitting in the front of the truck, and he was stuck in the back between the stinking, bloodstained hunters he was sure were the ones he watched torture Ruth. If Ip was with them she would have made short work of the hunters, but then he thought she would probably have been shot before she could. He felt no fear. As far as he was concerned, if it was his time to die then he was ready to go. He’d always felt that way and sometimes even he wondered about his lack of concern for his own life. Right now he felt more tired about his situation than anxious. He knew eventually the alarm would be raised and fully expected a rescue mission would be mounted, but he was also aware he might be long dead before they found him. Although he wasn’t feeling anxious about his impending death, he did kind of hope it would be quick. He’d always wondered what it must be like to know you were about to draw your last breath and it would be the last time you exhaled.
He recognized the area they were driving through from when he, Gears, Ip and Captain Ted reconned the camp four months earlier. It was a large and well-established army site near Hopkinsville. As the truck passed by the various army barracks, warehouses, offices and buildings, the whole area looked even more desolate than he remembered. Wherever Ruler went the land and life around him seemed to wither and die. The ground was brown and barren and not even weeds were growing. The trees had died, leaving darkened skeletons that reached for the skies. People were slowly shambling around the site, cowed and looking defeated. Only the men in black moved with purpose. Dressed in their black pants, shirts and matching baseball caps, they were all armed with M4s, and strutting about as if they owned the place, which he supposed they did. Hunters were roaming freely and they blended in with the general drabness of the camp. None of them seemed affected by the daylight and he assumed there were super hunters nearby.
While they drove the long straight road through the camp, a stench began to penetrate the ventilation system. The first time they’d snuck into the camp at night, he and the others noticed the vile smell of vomit, blood, and human feces. The odor was stronger now, only now it was laced with the dank, damp stench of rotting corpses, making him wonder how many dead bodies there were around him. He remembered the human body parts dump they’d found at the Ranch, and he still didn’t understand what it was doing there. Hunters ate their prey, leaving only skulls and well-chewed bones, and they certainly didn’t pile human remains into a body dump.
“Home sweet home, boy!” The acne-scarred man declared happily.
They parked outside of the warehouse he saw during their recon. Last time he was here they’d uncovered the plans for the attack on their bases and rushed back to Wolfie’s. Although they’d seen the warehouse from a distance, they never got an opportunity to learn what it contained, but he guessed he was about to find out. Ignoring the acne-scarred man, he peered through the windshield trying to understand what was going on. In front of him were young, healthy and well-presented people. They were moving around confidently and he wondered who they were. Before he had a chance to ask, he was pulled from the truck and thrown to the ground. The acne-scarred man kicked him in the spine, and he felt a sharp pain fire down his left leg.
“Cut that out!” A man shouted, as he stormed towards them.
“Sorry, Hull, didn’t see ya there.” The man spat next to his head and a thick glob of mucus landed inches from his face.
Hull slapped the acne-scarred man across the head. “I told you not to touch him. I’ve got orders to deliver him unharmed. Now fuck off before I shoot you for being a wanker.”
Looking alarmed by his threat, the man abruptly left. Leaning down, Hull hauled him to his feet. His left leg still felt slightly numb, but refusing to show his discomfort, he pulled himself away from Hull’s grasp. “What the fuck do ya want with me?”
“I don’t fuckin’ want anything with you,” Hull replied, equally as aggressively. Grabbing him by his arm, he hauled him towards the warehouse. “Ruler wants your ass then Ruler gets your ass. End of.”
“Where is that piece of shit?”
“I wouldn’t be so keen to see him if I were you.”
“Yeah, well, you ain’t me, and I don’t give a shit about that asshole.”
With a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, Hull replied, “Yeah, well you should. No one ever wants to see Ruler, not even me.”
“I’ve only got one life to give.”
Roaring with laughter, Hull said, “If that’s all he took, we’d all happily be dead. You’ve got a lot to learn, little man. Welcome to hell.”
Two men in black were waiting in the warehouse, and turning to them, Hull said, “This one’s your problem now.”
Looking around the warehouse, there was a wall of cages, much like he would expect to see in a prison. Inside each cage was a small cot, two buckets, and a chair. Attached to each cage were a set of cuffs hanging loosely from the roof. The cuffs were designed to hold their victims arms well above their head. As he scanned down the cages, he saw many were empty, some were occupied, and at least two had people hanging from the cuffs. He also noticed, aside from some bruises, every prisoner looked healthy and well fed, and no one looked seriously harmed or damaged.
St
anding around the cages, the men in black were watching him closely. Staring back at them back, he thought, I’ve got nowhere to go. Buried so deep inside Ruler’s camp, it was unlikely he could escape.
A white-haired man bustled over. “Take him to the cage at the front and chain him up. I need to check him over.”
He allowed the two men in black to push him into a nearby cage. While one held a gun on him, the other cut his zip tie, and then a cuff was slipped over each wrist. With his hands now over his head, he stood, legs apart, supporting himself so his body weight didn’t force the cuffs to cut into his wrists. It wasn’t comfortable, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before his shoulders would start to hurt badly. Glancing to his left, a young woman with raven dark hair was lying in the cage next to him. She was curled up in a fetal position and sobbing softly. He whistled lightly to her, and she briefly looked in his direction, before rolling over so her back was facing him.
After a few minutes the white-haired man walked in holding a small pouch, and asked brusquely, “Are you injured?”
Not expecting to be asked about his welfare, he was taken aback. “Are ya seriously worried about my welfare? ‘Cos if you are, feel free to remove the cuffs.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your welfare,” he replied in a polite tone of voice. “Answer the question, or I’ll have you stripped naked and answer it myself.”
Not feeling in a cooperative mood, but thinking being chained dressed would offer more protection than being chained naked, he said, “Nah, I ain’t injured, but I’m real touched that ya care.”
“Check his back,” a woman said, as she peered into the cage. “One of Hull’s meatheads kicked him.”
The woman was beautiful. She had long flowing dark hair, a rosebud mouth, and a killer body she wasn’t hiding from anyone. Noticing his lingering look, she smiled, and her teeth were sharpened to points. With her blue on blue eyes the woman was obviously a super hunter, but he’d never heard one talk before.
