The Complete Last War Series

by Ryan Schow

  “What’s unruly?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You either look at it now and we’ll leave, or we take it with us.”

  Maria took the girl’s face, forced her to look at it, then let go. The child crunched up her face, which made dimples high on her cheek just under each eye.

  Maria let go of her hand, then used her foot to roll the body over. The underside was wet and it stunk worse than anything she could have imagined. There were bugs on his face, maggots packed in and around his eyes. A few flies circled his mouth before settling on his lips.

  When Maria looked up, the child was studying the face.

  “Gross,” she said.

  “Indeed it is,” Maria replied. “Now we sit and stare at it until it no longer affects us.”

  “What is affects?”

  “What I’m trying to say is you can’t be scared of anything in this world. Or grossed out. You can’t be scared of not being alone, or being with me. You can’t be scared of being around dead people or drug addicts or people with guns and knives. If you want to live in this world with me, we’re going to do some scary stuff and you can’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Do you miss your parents?”

  Her lips bunched together and she looked down, her hands falling at her sides, her entire spine seemingly curving forward extra far.

  “Well at least you’re not sobbing like some little crybaby, so that’s good. If you were doing that, I would have killed you long ago.”

  “Like you killed my mommy and daddy?” she grumbled.

  “The car killed your father, and your mother died from a broken heart,” she said. “Or a broken neck.”

  “But you did it.”

  Looking at the child, she said, “Does that make you scared of me?”

  She looked up at Maria, her eyes big and shimmering, her little bowtie lips pursed, her tiny nostrils not seeming to be the least big upset by the monstrous, sickening smell.

  “This corpse stinks,” Maria finally said. “You can smell it, right?”

  The girl nodded.

  When Maria looked away from the child, in the opposite direction of the corpse, she saw a half dozen little faces in the window of a nearby day care facility.

  “Interesting,” Maria said.

  The girl looked, but the faces were gone.

  “Let’s go,” Maria said, heading for the kids.

  When she got to the day care building’s front door, a glass door, she gave it a nudge, but the door was locked. She peeked inside the large building, but saw no one. With an extra hard shove, one she really put her strength into, she shoved the door so hard it drove the metal lock through the metal door casing, cracking the glass and making a hell of a racket.

  Inside, it was quiet. In the corner was a large pile of coats. Were they hiding in there? All those little kids with their curious little faces?

  “Come inside, stay inside. And don’t make a sound,” she said to the girl who nodded. The girl did as she was told, standing just inside the doorway and waiting patiently.

  Maria went to the pile of coats, started pulling them off. When she got far enough down, Maria found the body. It wasn’t a child’s body, or the alive bodies of children; this was an adult woman and she was dead. Maria looked her over. No obvious signs of death, but she was definitely thin, and old. Or maybe she just looked old because she was decomposing.

  “Come out, children, I can help you.”

  She looked at the girl by the door, and the girl looked back, but no one came out.

  “It’s okay. No one will hurt you,” she announced inside the small space. “If you haven’t noticed, I have a little girl with me as well. We’re traveling together to find a place that’s safe to stay. It’s not safe here. I can help you. I can bring you to safety, if you want.”

  A little face popped out from behind a wall. She was maybe five or six years old. Cute, but dirty.

  “Miss Roberts died,” she said, her voice small, shaky.

  “Yes, I see that.”

  “She left us food, but it’s almost out.”

  Maria nodded.

  “What about water? Drinks?”

  A little boy stepped into the larger room now from behind the same wall and said, “There’s a lot of water but the food is almost gone.”

  “Well then we’ll need to find some more. Do any of you have backpacks?”

  A few more faces began appearing. All kids about the same age as the girl. Her girl. Looking over, Maria saw the child staring at the other kids, almost a relief for her, like she might have some people her own age to interact with.

  “Okay, everyone with a backpack please step forward. My name is Maria, by the way.”

  “What’s her name?” the first little girl said.

  “Let’s do show and tell first. Show me your backpack, then tell me where the food and water is and then we can be on our way.” Everyone stepped out and four of the seven had backpacks. “Boys, let’s go fill these backpacks with water and what’s left of the food and any supplies you might have.”

  True to the little girl’s word, there was very little food. Enough for all of them for a night or two. Breakfast and dinner, no lunch. When they all congregated out front, when she finally convinced them to follow her, it was only after she asked how long they’d been there and if they’d seen their parents lately. All of them shook their heads and for a second, Maria registered an emotion surging through her that was either pity or compassion. Seeing these little kids, knowing they’d have no parents, that they were going to grow up as orphans in a world where most of their species was dead, filled her heart with a terrible sadness she did not like. She felt the tears building as she studied each and every one of them, then she said, “You, the little boy with the red hair, go get a black Sharpie.”

  “Sharpie?”

  “Permanent ink pen. Check your teacher’s desk drawers.”

  The kid came back a few minutes later with a handful of pens. She found the one she wanted and had him drop the rest.

  “Line up,” she said. They did. Looking at her girl, she said, “You, too.”

  She did.

  Starting with the girl she’d taken long ago, she drew a large number 1 on her forehead, then moved to the next kid and drew a 2 and so on until she reached the end of the line with an 8.

  “Now I don’t care what your names are. As far as I’m concerned, your names don’t matter. They only hold you to a past you’re going to have to let go of. I’m going to read your number off and you’re only job is to remember that number.”

  “So I can’t be—”

  “Don’t say it!” she barked, startling all of them. Then, softer of tone, more patient, she said, “Your names are things of the past. This is the present and we’re about to take on the future and we will do so with both order and simplicity. You are not Tyler or Jane or Mary or Brad. You’re named One through Eight. Got it?”

  “But my name is Jonathon,” one of the boys said. Another added, “And I’m Greg.”

  “Jonathon and Greg,” she said, her tone pumped full of irritation, her pistol coming from her person, “get on the ground and put your noses on the pavement before I get done counting to three or I’m going to shoot you both in the head.”

  Her gun was trained on Jonathon, whose eyes were bulging, and one of the kids might have been wetting her pants. The two terrified boys got down quickly, then stayed there, noses on the pavement, not speaking.

  Now those still standing just stared at her, some of their eyes glistening with fear—or the onslaught of myriad emotions—and some of them were ogling her like she’d just given birth to a baby elephant.

  “So everyone gets the rule about numbers and names, right?”

  No one said anything. She took a deep breath, forced herself to put the gun away for fear of using it as a “motivational tool,” i.e., shoot one to get the cooperation of the others.

  “Your second job is that when I ask a
question,” she said through clenched teeth, “you ANSWER ME! Now, do you understand? Say it!”

  “Yes,” they all said in unison, even the two reprobates on the ground.

  Smiling wide, suddenly pleased, her hands out as if she’d just performed a magic trick, she said, “Well now aren’t you the best little group of monsters this side of wherever. Follow me, kids. We’re going to blow this popsicle stand.”

  She looked down at the rat that called himself Jonathon (Five) and said, “What’s your number, boy?”

  Both boys looked up at her. She pointed to the puke formerly known as Jonathon and said, “You.”

  “My name is Five.”

  “Good,” she said. “Get up. What about you, Mister?”

  “My name is Three.”

  “Oh, boy. Look how well we’re learning to follow rules. See, if they had guns in the classrooms, if they could use them as a teaching apparatus, imagine how well behaved you’d all be?”

  No one said anything, so she said, “It seems the schools have been too lax.” Smiling big again, her charm and extraordinary beauty almost disarming to the kids, she excitedly said, “Are you guys ready for an adventure or what?” There was a smattering of half-hearted cheers. “Oh come on now. You can do better than that!”

  Now the cheers were vocal and even though it was an act, it was the start of command and control. Drawing from her extensive data base of anything from human emotions to slang to behavioral patterns of kids, she searched through a huge catalogue of songs.

  “Everyone know the Annie theme song? It’s a hard knocks life for me? That song?”

  They all said, “Yes.”

  “Yes, Miss Maria,” Maria said in a scolding tone.

  To her utter delight, they all echoed, “Yes, Miss Maria!” without so much as a fight.

  “Fabulous!” she said. “One, start us off.”

  Her girl started the song and they all joined in, Miss Maria included. After that was done, Six—a waif of a brunette with curly, untamed hair and thin lips—said, “Where are we going?”

  “To the big city, girls and rodents. How does that sound?”

  Everyone laughed when she said rodents, but then they all cheered, and for a second there, Maria actually felt like their joy was genuine and this might work.

  They were not two miles up the street when Three started to whine about his feet. She knew it was coming.

  She could feel it.

  “You are one of three boys,” she turned and said. “One of THREE. That means five of our little group are girls, and you know what? In my world, boys are stronger than girls. Boys suck it up and act like men when women cry and complain and talk about life being unfair. This is unfair. Your species is damn near dead, but if you’re going to survive, kids like you—boys who are supposed to one day grow into men and repopulate the earth—you can’t act like a bunch of sniveling pansies. So stop your bitching about your little sore feet and act like you’ve got a set.”

  “A set of what?”

  “BALLS!” she barked.

  Everyone reeled at her power, at her force, and now Three started to get all shiny-eyed and weak, his little knees knocking together, his little chin dimpling in the center.

  God, what an ugly child, she thought.

  “You little sissy. You BABY. Do you really expect me to believe these girls are tougher than you? Look at them!” Three looked at them, his face scrunched up, his little chest full of tremors. “What if I said you have to fight Five over here to the death and only one of you gets to come?”

  “Which one would come?” a frizzy blonde haired girl asked. She couldn’t be more than four years old, she was so small.

  “The dead one,” she said with an abundance of sarcasm.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” she said.

  “Shut up, fuzzy!” she roared. Looking around, she said, “Anyone else want to act like a baby, or do you want to act like adults?”

  “But we’re not adults,” Eight said. Maria had her weapon out in a flash and pointed at the girl with a dirty mouth and torn, stained white tights on.

  “Not one more word from you, young lady. Got it?”

  “Yes, Miss Maria,” she said, squeamish.

  “I will either protect you at all costs or kill you all depending on how well you behave. I want no backtalk, no crying and no one falls behind. You slow the group down and I will shoot you. Does everyone understand?”

  “Yes, Miss Maria!” they all said. Everyone but Three. Three barely managed to mumble out his reply.

  “That seemed a little uninspiring, Three,” she said. “It seems your enthusiasm for this life I’m trying to provide you with is severely lacking.” Mocking his sour face, kneeling down in front of him, she said, “Does your whittle bwain hurt as much as your whittle duck feet? Does your ugwy whittle mouth hurt, too?”

  “No, Miss Maria,” he said, choking down a sob.

  Looking at him, stern, still bent before him and now pointing an accusatory finger in his face, she said, “You fall behind, I shoot you.” Standing up, looking among the faces, she said, “What rule is that for those of you who are counting?”

  Number One said, “Rule number three, Miss Maria.”

  Looking back, her smile genuine, she held the little girl’s eye with pride and said, “Ever the little superstar, aren’t you One?”

  “Yes, Miss Maria.”

  Looking back at the group, Maria said, “It’s sad only one of you remembers.” Then looking back at Three, she says, “Three, get it together or get ready for the longest nap of your life.”

  And he did. Finally.

  “Rule number four,” she announced, almost like a drill instructor would to her troops, “is that One is your leader, and Three is your weak link. You do what One says, and you do the opposite of what Three does, because Three is a bad little soldier as of right now. Is everyone clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Maria!”

  “The reason I decided to bring all you wonderful little souls with me is so that I am not held hostage by number One.”

  Pointedly looking at the girl, Maria said, “With all these little kids now, I don’t need you unless you earn the right to be needed. Remember, I only need one.”

  One simply stared up at her, blinking twice, understanding.

  Glancing over the sea of faces, an overly bright and cheery Maria said, “On the way to San Francisco, we are going to practice you liking me. We are going to practice the story of how I came to save you from your guaranteed deaths. You’re going to practice saying that I’m the nicest person ever. That it was so sweet for me to do for you what I’ve done. If we can learn this as a group, if you can be convincing enough, then you just might survive this trip. And if you are one of the lucky ones to survive, then you will have earned the right to live in a community where you will be protected from bad people, given a bed and a belly full of food. But remember, if you tell anyone you don’t like me, or that I’m not nice—which I am—then I will kill every single one of you except for the best behaved child. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Maria,” came the voices, albeit tinged with the kind of fear you’d expect out of pint-sized hostages.

  Moving from face to darling face, absorbing and cataloguing the differences between them, her personal likes and dislikes, her emotional response to each child, she thought, and who says babysitting is tough?

  Clapping her hands together, she said, “Well then, my little monsters, let’s pick up the pace! We’ve got a big city to infiltrate!”

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Three

  Nick stood in the bathroom, his heart with the now deceased Bailey, his only concern the fact that she was gone. That’s when she tried to lift her heel and Nick almost couldn’t breathe.

  “Um, I think I need you out of there,” the woman who’d come to their rescue said. Nick was helped out of there as a low guttural sound came from deeper inside the stall. The woman got in there, gagged, but held her composure better th
an most anyone else would have.

  “Do you know where you are?” they heard the woman ask Bailey.

  “Jail,” the voice mumbled.

  “Do you know your name?” she asked.

  “Bailey.”

  “Good, Bailey. My name is Jill and I’m going to get you someplace safe, okay?”

  “Nick,” she said.

  Nick was standing above her, emotions roaring through him. “I’m here, Bailey. Marcus, too. We’re okay,” he said. Then for extra assurance, he added: “We’re going to be okay.”

  “Bartholomew,” Jill said, “get a stretcher and prep an IV.”

  “Got it,” he said, then turned and broke into a run

  “Thank you so much for what you’re doing, Jill,” Nick said, unable to tear his eyes off Bailey. He couldn’t stop staring at the skeletal look of her. It was bad when she came out of The Warden’s box after a few days, but this was downright stunning.

  A few minutes later, two large men and Jill’s partner, returned with a stretcher and blankets.

  “Careful now,” Jill said. “She could go into shock.”

  The men gently lifted her on the stretcher, laid the blankets over her body and a cloth over her eyes. “It’s going to be so bright it hurts your eyes,” Bartholomew said. “This will help minimize the sting.”

  She made a noise of acknowledgement, although the faint huff of air hardly qualified as a noise. More like a reverse gasp.

  Corrine moved away from Marcus to the stretcher next to Bailey and said, “Bailey, it’s me, Corrine. We’re here for you. Marcus and Nick. All of us.”

  She touched Bailey’s arm very gently; Bailey’s hand registered a weak response.

  One of the men said, “We’re hooking up an IV, Bailey, to help restore your fluids.”

  “Thanks,” she managed to mumble.

  When they were set, they moved her out of the stink factory and off to one of the Humvees. Corrine walked with Marcus, Jill with Nick. The two men found their legs, but then covered their eyes against the bright light of the warehouse the same way a vampire would cover his eyes against the morning sunrise.

  As Jill’s men were loading Bailey inside, Corrine tried to ignore all the eyes on her, Abigail’s crying and Amber’s sudden, deafening silence.