Tanner’s jaw tensed as his training rushed to the forefront of his mind.
It’s begun.
There was no denying it now, no chance that the smoke on the horizon was an accidental fire or anything other than all out war. For the terrified girl was covered in fresh blood.
There was no hesitation, no regard for his own well-being or safety. He dropped the binoculars without thinking. Before they even hit the ground, Tanner Kline slid down the outer embankment and tumbled across the grass outside the relative protection of Knoll. Half-running, half limping, he shambled toward the girl, tempering the explosions of pain in his ankle with the calm familiarity of the Sweeper mantra.
Without the help of field glasses, the running girl was nothing more than a speck in the distance. Though she had looked several years older than his little princess, Tanner’s mind superimposed Shayla onto the memory of that brief glimpse. It was all too easy to imagine his daughter’s pigtails bouncing as she fled from the horrors that caused the spatter to stand in stark contrast against a face that looked drained of blood. The birthmark on her throat, the one which almost looked like a tiny heart, pulsed and throbbed with each palpitation of her carotid artery and he could even imagine seeing inside her, her real heart thudding like a frightened bunny.
As the girl in the distance grew closer, her scream grew louder. It was a continuous wail, so high pitched that it almost sounded like the squeals of rusted metal that echoed through the ruins of cities when the wind blew. He could see her now: strawberry-blond hair streamed behind her as she ran and her patchwork skirt was so tattered and ripped that part of it seemed to slide off her hip, revealing her underwear with no regard for decorum or modesty.
By the time Tanner scooped the girl into his arms, he realized that her screams weren’t the wordless shrieks he’d first assumed them to be. In fact, they were actually a single word shouted so loudly that her voice broke and cracked with the strain. With her head thrashing near his cheek and tears dripping onto his shoulder, Tanner’s eardrum felt as if it were being punctured with needles. Wincing, he tried to remind himself that whatever discomfort her cries caused could be no worse than what she’d lived through. For the solitary syllable that the girl yelled was the word no, repeated again and again as if her mind refused to come to grips with what she had witnessed and could make it all disappear if she only protested loudly enough.
Running with only his own body weight to support had been difficult enough, but the added deadweight of the girl made his ankle feel as if it were about to snap. Nor did he struggles help. Part of her mind must have insisted that she was still back in her own community, replaying the events over and over as her fists thudded against Tanner’s back and her body writhed and twisted like a headless snake.
“It’s okay.” He whispered in a ragged pant. “I’m a Sweeper. You’re safe, darlin’. You’re safe.”
His words did nothing to penetrate the time loop she was stuck in and by the time they made it to the base of Knoll, Tanner’s face was crosshatched with scratches and welts from the girl’s grappling. The residents of the community scampered over the grassy ring and pulled the girl away from him, assuring her repeatedly that everything was all right, that she was among friends and the nightmare was over. The worried furrows in their brows and the way their eyes flitted from the girl to the field beyond, searching for signs of the savages who’d done this to her, told a different story, however.. Tanner could tell these people didn’t believe their own words any more than he did.
The nightmare was far from over.
The nightmare was just beginning.
XIII.
My father went a’sweepin’
across the fields of gold
with rifle by his side,
tall and brave and bold.
My father went a’sweepin’
across the savage land,
never glancing back
at my small and waving hand.
My father went a’sweepin’
while I stayed behind,
watching through my window
wondering what he’d find.
My father went a’sweepin’
among the trees and fern,
My father went a’sweepin’
Never to return.
-The Ballad of The Sweeper,
Traditional Settler folk song
“Life is not a clear and easy path, but is beset with brambles, thorns, and obstacles. Only through honor, strength, and wisdom may we hope to see the clearing beyond.”
- Spewer Proverb
XIV.
Tanner Kline lay in the darkness and listened to the distant pounding of drums as he tried to focus himself. The steady, unfaltering rhythm had boomed through the night for hours and was starting to take its toll on the residents of Knoll. Just after sunset, the drums had begun. They echoed through the fields and resounded off the hills, making it impossible to tell how many there actually were, and the community collectively laid near the top of the ridge, their eyes peering over the apex as they watched for the first wave of the attack.
When there was no sign of a Spewer advance, they fidgeted in the grass and toyed with weapons that were more like refuse of the Old World. Knoll’s Sweeper had been either lazy or inept. Perhaps both. Much like the binoculars, the arsenal of this community had been neglected to the point that they almost seemed as dangerous as the Spewers hiding within the forest. Rust textured barrels that should have been smooth and slick, causing Tanner to discard many of the weapons with a disgusted grunt. If these deathtraps had actually been fired, they would have blown off the wielder’s hand. Or worse. To make complicate matter further, there was no organization to the ammunition at all. Shotgun shells mingled with .22 bullets which were scattered in a wooden box among calibers that didn’t match any of the firearms in Knoll’s armory. The settlement had probably traded for these in bulk … which was understandable. Ammo, after all, was a rare commodity. Not everyone had the skills or equipment needed to cast their own and poorer communities were forced to take what they could get. That being said, however, Kline could not excuse that fact that the unusable rounds had not been traded for more appropriate ones after the fact.
Not only was there the sad state of their defenses to contend with, but the drumming had also unnerved the residents to the point that they were turning on one another. It had begun with people stinging sarcasm in response to innocuous questions . That soon degraded into bickering which, after several hours of stress and tension, turned into full blown arguments. And the entire time those savages stayed far enough within the forest that the settlers only caught occasional glimpses as they moved among the trees. Always fleeting, always out of range … but definitely there.
During a scuffle over who would arm themselves with a pump action shotgun and who would use a derringer small enough be hidden by the hand holding it, Tanner had snapped. His voice boomed through uproar, shaming the residents into silence as he glared at each and every person.
“When you’re ready to stop acting like those fucking animals out there,” he’d yelled, “and start behaving like humans, come get me. Until then, I’ll be in my quarters. Just try to not fucking kill each other in the meantime.”
He’d eventually calmed to the point that the tension melted from his shoulders and now he lay on a cot, turning the events of the day over in his mind. The girl, whose name was Rosemarie, had been inconsolable at first, fighting and struggling against the very people who’d rescued her. With her blue eyes muted behind a glaze of shock, she’d screamed and cried and babbled incomprehensibly until Tanner smacked her sharply across the face.
“So many,” the girl muttered as the red palm print on her cheek faded, “so many. They were everywhere, all at once everywhere, with their spears and their knives, swarming over the walls. My mom . . . my mom, oh God, my mom . . . .” Her voice had rose in pitch as she stared at her gore covered smock only to drop back into a harsh whisper again. “Mommy… I sh
ould’ve . . . I should have done something. I should’ve done something, but I was scared, God I was so scared. So I just… ran. I ran.”
Tears glistened in the girl’s eyes and Jayme had stepped forward with concern obscuring the fear on his face. “Shhh. You did what you had to., It’s okay. Come on, girl. Mona here will help you out of these clothes, wash you up, and get you some . . .”
“Stay away! Don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me!”
Tanner had seen it more times than a man should be allowed. Following a tragedy, survivors sometimes retreated into themselves, shunning even the most well intentioned acts of compassion. It was almost as if they secretly believed contact with the living would irrefutably sever their ties with the dead. The girl just needed time to adjust, to process the barrage of atrocities she’d been witnessed and try to come to terms with the fact that self preservation had overridden the desire to help her family and friends.
“Let her do it herself. Give her the clothes and show her where the water is.” His anger at the situation caused him to say it more gruffly than he’d intended, which led several settlers to pierce him with stares of condemnation “She’s no good to us now. She needs to calm down before we can learn anything useful.”
The time alone, it seemed, had done the young girl good. Though her face was still ashen and blank, she’d calmed down to the point that she could speak without breaking into tears. Being of the same age, Jayme’s daughter, Mona, had given her a fresh tunic and skirt. With the clean clothes and the grime and blood washed off, Rosemarie looked like an entirely different person. In fact, she looked so familiar that Tanner was certain he’d seen her before, most likely at one of the swap meets his home community sporadically sponsored. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but neither was she so plain as to blend into the background. Sharp and angular, hers was the type of face which momentarily captured attention by its character and definition alone. But, by the same token, the notice was only fleeting; within five minutes, she would be forgotten.
The Spewers had attacked just before dawn, she’d said, responding to Tanner’s questioning. From the east with the rising sun at their backs. A seemingly never ending stream of savages that quickly overran the entire settlement. But no, there hadn’t been any drums – the assault had come as a complete surprise.
To Tanner these details were important. It showed cunning on the part of the Spewer tribe. They knew the glare of dawn would blind the opposition while protecting their own warriors’ eyes; they also knew the only match to the superior weaponry of the community was an overwhelming show of force. With the column of smoke alerting others to what had transpired, they’d obviously been forced to change tactics. The drumming, no doubt, was a type of psychological warfare, meant to set the enemy’s nerves on edge.
All of this, however, was simply craftiness. Savages had no true intelligence, only a murderous instinct for death. And that would be their undoing. Certain that they would attack under cover of darkness this time, Tanner had instructed the rest of the community to ring the edges of their protective hill with distilled oil. Knoll had nearly a dozen barrels clustered near the tent which served as a kitchen and it had taken the help of everyone to roll several of the heavy drums up the embankment, with even Rosemarie offering to assist.
“You’ve seen enough warfare for one day.” Tanner had told her. “I can’t ask anything more of you, child.”
The girl had wrung her hands together as her eyes pleaded with him. “ But I’ve got to do something. I just can’t stand around. I have to stay busy, to keep my mind off … to keep me from thinking about…”
“What did you do before?” he interrupted. “In your old community. What was your primary duty?”
“I . . . I cooked.”
“Okay then,” Tanner nodded, “it’s settled. You cook while we prepare for battle. Deal?”
He’d smiled broadly at the young girl, hoping to melt away some of the sorrow etched into her face, but she’d only been able to manage a lopsided grin whose warmth never touched her eyes.
By the time night had fallen, the ring of earth surrounding Knoll was a blazing wall of fire and the buildings flickered in the orange glow. Certain that the savages couldn’t breach the defenses without reducing themselves to cinders, the community had filed to the kitchen area to fill their bellies. Rosemarie proved herself to be a capable cook and she’d shyly stroked the sleeves of her tunic while the others heaped praise upon her skills.
But that had been hours ago. With dawn fast approaching, Tanner knew a new stratagem would have to present itself. The barrels of oil wouldn’t hold out indefinitely and the discord that led to his self-imposed seclusion would only grow worse as tensions continued to build. By the girl’s telling, there were hundreds of Spewers lurking in the forest, which meant a direct attack against them was out of the question. There had to be some solution, something he was overlooking.
“Shayla, baby,” he whispered to the darkness, “Daddy’s coming home. I promise you, baby. I’m coming.”
A shuffling sound from the corner caught his attention and Tanner looked up in time to glimpse something moving in the shadows. Even though it disappeared like the remnants of a dream, he would have sworn on his oath as a Sweeper that what he’d seen was the flash of brass buttons on a red, velvet jacket ….
XV.
In the morning sunlight, the black smoke curling from the mound of earth surrounding Knoll looked like the arms of a malevolent demon pulling the community into its embrace. The smell of burnt oil was so thick that the air itself felt greasy and the mouths of everyone within the compound were coated in saliva that had absorbed the scent. Only the toddler had found respite in sleep throughout the long night; everyone else had dark bags drooping beneath bloodshot eyes and faces that somehow seemed leaner than when they’d first welcomed Tanner into their fold. They shuffled about with sagging shoulders, mumbling only the most minimal of comments to their neighbors between stifled yawns.
Rosemarie already had the cooking fire blazing by the time Tanner checked in on her. She still had that sallow, lost look to her, like someone who’d awoken from a dream only to find reality was so much worse than anything her subconscious could conjure. She stirred the iron pot and stared blankly into the distance. The oil lamp that had provided light for her preparations prior to sunrise still burned uselessly on the table next to her and Tanner placed the revolver he’d been carrying next to it. Perhaps it was because he had a daughter of his own, but he felt a special kinship to this waif and wanted to do everything he possibly could to help ease the pain in her heart.
“We need to save oil, honey.” He said softly as he turned the knob and extinguished the lamp. “How are you doing? I know … it’s a stupid question. But sometimes it helps to talk, you know?”
The girl said nothing, choosing instead to crumble something that looked like dried leaves into the steaming pot.
“Okay,” Tanner continued, “fair enough. I just want you to know that I’m here. If you ever need me. We’re both strangers here, after all, so I figure we got to stick together. And I will get us out of this. Even if it’s just you and me. Anyhow, I’m getting ready to call a meeting with all the residents. You’re free to come, if you’d like.”
Rosemarie looked up from her cooking and studied him silently for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that it was almost lost beneath the crackling flames. “I think I’ll just keep cooking. Can’t let it get too hot or it’ll ruin my secret ingredient. Everyone seemed to really like it last night and I’d hate … I’d hate to disappoint anyone.”
“You don’t have to prove yourself.” Tanner reached for her arm, but the girl jerked away so quickly that he put up his hands to show he meant no harm. “I understand. I really do. When someone’s been through something like you have, it takes time. Time to trust again. To allow yourself to be happy. It may seem like that day will never come … but it will.”
He waited to see if the girl
would say anything further and, when she didn’t, turned to leave. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say to the citizens of Knoll, but knew what they needed now was encouragement. Even if it was a lie, they needed to be told that all was not hopeless, that there was a way out of this.
Passing the building which had been his quarters since he’d come to Knoll, Tanner noticed Roger’s barrel organ leaning against the wall. Chill bumps crept over his arms and he froze like a deer who’d just heard a rattlesnake. Part of him wanted to pry the lid of the instrument up, to prove that the workings weren’t comprised of cylinders with metallic spikes; but there was another part that blanched at the very idea. Even though it made him feel foolish and silly, he was positive that if he peered into the organ, he’d see the body of a little boy wedged into the machinery. The child would look up at him with lifeless eyes before tilting back his head to reveal the smiling gash.
He was just a Spewer. Just another vermin needing exterminated. By the time Shayla is a woman, he’d already be infectious. You did the right thing, Sweeper. For the community. For mankind. It had to be done.
Pulling his gaze away from the organ, Tanner realized the fire along the ridge was sputtering out. He’d have to make the pep talk quick and send a crew back to the kitchen for another barrel. All it would take was a few moments, a window of opportunity where the savages could throng into Knoll. They settlers would be overrun and it would all be over.
Apocalyptic Organ Grinder Page 7
