The group was so drunk, Ben and his family could have walked right past them and probably wouldn’t have been seen, but they stayed hidden while they walked until they were out of view and earshot of the gang. They kept on, putting as many miles between them and the town as possible.
They set up camp in, appropriately enough, an old campground. It was on the shores of a small lake, so Ben and Katie went fishing for dinner while Lila started a fire. Ben was confident they’d come back with fish. The lakes and ponds were so populated these days that they were bound to catch a half a dozen within minutes.
An hour later Ben was grilling some good-sized fish over the fire. Lila had found what once was someone’s garden, but had run wild over the years. Although most of the vegetables had died this late in the season, she still managed to come back with an armful of potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots.
They had just started their meal when Ralph growled.
“Oh, not again,” whispered Lila, reaching for her rifle.
There was rustling in the overgrown forest beyond the camp site. It sounded different this time, though. Not dogs. It was almost clumsy, Ben thought.
“Hello?” came a man’s voice. It was halting, like he was out of breath. “Can I approach?”
“Come in slowly,” answered Ben. “Hands wide.” It was almost déjà vu, he thought.
A man who looked to be in his thirties came into the clearing. The sun hadn’t yet gone down, so they could get a good look at him. He had a well-kept beard peppered with flecks of gray. He was also scared. They both knew immediately that he was no marauder.
“Please,” he said. “My wife is hurt. She needs help. We were attacked by dogs. They scattered all of our belongings. I have nothing to use to help her. Please?”
“Of course,” said Lila. “Bring her in. Do you need help with her?”
“No, I can get her. Thank you so much.”
They still had their old sleeping bags, so Lila put them down for the man’s wife to lie on, then got the bag of items Ben had retrieved from the drug store. A few minutes later, they heard more crashing in the woods and the man emerged supporting his wife, who was covered in blood and barely conscious. By his side was a young girl, older than Katie, but not by a lot—maybe eight or nine.
“Set her down here,” said Lila, motioning to the sleeping bags. “Where is she hurt the worst?”
“The top of her head, I think. It’s pretty bad.” He was wringing his hands in distress. “Usually I know what to do, and I’m a lot calmer than this, but we don’t have anything now, and … and …”
“Come over here,” said Ben, interrupting. “Let Lila see to her.” Lila had been motioning to Ben to distract the distraught husband.
“I’m Ben, and this is our daughter Katie.”
“I’m Rob, and this is Amber.” As he talked, he kept glancing back at Lila, who was washing the blood off to get a closer look at the wounds. “My wife is Jenny.”
“What happened?”
“Dogs. A big pack. Six or eight of them. They must have smelled the venison in Jenny’s backpack. They hit us so quickly we didn’t even have time to draw our weapons. We tried to fight them off with sticks and whatever we had. Jenny was trying to get her pack off, but it was stuck, and they kept jumping on her to get to it. When she finally got it off, they ignored us and ripped at the pack. We just had to get as far away as possible. I was about to lay her down and try to find some water to wash her when I smelled the fish cooking.”
All the while, Katie was staring at Amber.
“Why is she staring?” asked Amber.
“Katie has lived her whole life in the woods. She’s never met another kid. You’re the first one. I just think she’s shy. Maybe you could talk to her. Maybe she won’t be so shy around people then.”
Lila motioned for Ben and Rob.
“Amber, stay with Katie, okay?” said Rob. “We’ll be right over here.”
Katie looked at Ben, who nodded his approval, so she stayed sitting.
“I think Jenny has lost a lot of blood,” said Lila when they moved over to her. “She seems to only have the one wound, but it’s pretty ugly. The dogs almost scalped her. A large part of her scalp has come away from her head. But it’s still attached to the rest of the scalp, so I think I can sew it. I’ve tried to wash it as best I can. I want to pour hydrogen peroxide on it. We don’t know if it’s still any good, but it’s worth trying. It might hurt, so I’ll need you to hold her. She goes in and out of consciousness. Maybe if we’re lucky, she’ll stay unconscious.”
They weren’t lucky. As soon as the peroxide hit the wound, Jenny screamed. It was long and loud, and then she passed out. Lila threaded a needle, sterilized it with a match and more of the hydrogen peroxide, and set to work stitching the wound. This time Jenny didn’t wake up.
“It’s just regular thread,” said Lila. “But it’s the best we have. Hopefully it will do the job.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of this. She was losing so much blood, I don’t know if she would have lived through it.”
“I think we’ve all been there,” said Ben. “I’m glad we were here to be able to help.”
Rob cocked his head to the side. “You said your name is Ben, and that’s Lila? The Ben and Lila? Most people think you’re dead.”
“Yeah, so we’ve heard.”
“Do you know there’s a song about you?”
“You’re joking,” Ben said with a laugh.
“I’m serious. There were so many stories about you, some musician somewhere came up with a song. I really don’t know the words, but it has to do with you both suddenly appearing from nowhere and saving people. You helped people escape from a prison compound, and you rid the world of vermin. It has you arriving on a boat from a distant land.”
“Yeah, Massachusetts … by foot, though. You know, I think many of the stories were exaggerated a hundred-fold. We were in the right place at the right time to help a number of people, but there were people we couldn’t help. We’re still haunted by that.”
“Well, wherever the truth lies, the fact is, you became an inspirational couple to many people. The stories of you—however exaggerated—gave people hope, and God knows we all needed hope.”
Katie and Amber still hadn’t said anything to each other.
“Katie, it’s okay to say hi.” She moved over to Ben and snuggled next to him. “Well, maybe later,” he said to her.
Looking at Rob, he said, “This is all very new to her. All she’s ever known is Lila and me, and Ralph the dog. It’s going to take some time. Where are you from?”
“Out west. Jenny is from South Carolina and really wanted to come home. I’m okay with it. We heard there was a small community near her hometown. She’s hoping she’ll know someone. We’ve been in Minnesota.”
“Do you know anything about a community at Yellowstone?”
“I do. Never been there, but I’ve met people who have. It’s good. I hear it’s maybe a thousand people in all. They’re spread out, but they built a small gathering place—I guess a town, of sorts—with a school and a church. The reports have been good.”
“You didn’t want to go there?”
“No, Jenny really wanted to go this way.”
“We’re headed for Yellowstone,” said Ben.
Rob assumed a worried expression. He said quietly, “Then we’d better talk after the girls are in bed. Need to tell you some things. I don’t know if you’re going to want to make that trip.”
Could it be the “evil” was finally going to be explained?
Chapter 7
Jenny still hadn’t regained consciousness, but her breathing and pulse seemed normal, so Lila wasn’t worried. While she slept, the other adults put the girls down. Not a word had yet been said between Katie and Amber. Ben and Lila gave Katie a kiss, and she was asleep in minutes. After the day Amber had had, she was right behind Katie in sleep.
Ben stoked the fire while Lila checked agai
n on Jenny.
Rob looked over her shoulder as she changed the bandage on Jenny’s scalp. There was a fair amount of leakage, and Lila had to change the dressing every couple of hours.
“How’s she doing?” he asked.
“I did the best I could with what I had, but it’s not going to heal pretty,” answered Lila. “I know all about things like that,” she added, pointing to her eye patch.
“How did it happen?” asked Rob.
They walked to the fire and sat down with Ben. She told Rob the story of the deer, which then transitioned into the story of their journey south and their six years in the cabin. When they were done, Rob took his turn and related his story.
He and Jenny, along with two-year-old Amber, were in the basement of a bank in Milwaukee checking their safe deposit box when the event hit. The stunned family and the bank employee spent a week walking the streets of Milwaukee, encountering a very few equally stunned survivors. Finally, common sense kicked in and Rob and Jenny came up with a plan. Rob had relatives near Minneapolis, and since that was closer than South Carolina, they made that their destination. The bank employee was still consumed by fear and didn’t want to leave her home city. The last they saw of her, she had hooked up with a group of about eight equally shell-shocked individuals.
“I’m sure they were all dead within a couple of months,” said Rob. “I don’t think they had one rational mind among them.”
Eventually they made it to Minneapolis. Of course, Rob’s relatives were nowhere to be found. They joined up with about thirty others and formed a loose community—together mainly for the illusion of force, in case they encountered dog packs or bandits, as they called them. They lost ten of their group in the earthquake. Theirs was the second of the three quakes, the one originating on the Madrid fault. After six years in Minneapolis they finally got tired of the violent winter weather and decided to head south to Jenny’s hometown.
“So Minneapolis wasn’t hit by the plague?” asked Lila.
“No. Maybe the cold weather kept it away. I only found out about the plague last year. We’ve been on the road a few months,” he finished. “And now,” he said, looking at the anticipation in Ben’s face, “you want to know about the ‘evil’, as I’ve heard it called.”
Ben nodded.
“Most of the people who refer to the ‘evil’ have never experienced it. We haven’t. So this is all second-hand—or maybe third-hand. It’s a group, a big group, out to create their own empire. I don’t know how they all found each other. Maybe they were already together and survived the event as a group. I have no idea. I do know that they take hostages—men, women, and especially children. Anyone they deem not strong enough, they abandon—often in places they will never survive in. They seem to have long-range plans—again, I don’t know what they are. The group is based in western Nebraska, but sends searchers far and wide looking for communities to consume. I doubt if you’d find a viable community anywhere from Illinois to Montana. The rumor is that they won’t touch the Yellowstone group. Maybe because they are too large and too strong? I don’t know. But here’s the thing. They have electricity—lots of it. They have gas and they have vehicles. That makes them very powerful.”
“And their goal is to build an empire?” asked Lila.
“The information we got has been piecemeal. Some of those who talked to us were too scared to say much, and others just didn’t know anything beyond what they had experienced. One guy we talked to was part of a small community in Iowa—fifteen or twenty people. One day the trucks swooped in—three of them—and rounded up all the residents. The guy said he was out hunting and came back just in time to see what was happening.”
“Did he try to help? asked Ben.
“One guy against six heavily armed men? He knew he didn’t stand a chance. Besides, he had no family there, so he didn’t have the motivation any of us would have. He said they just loaded everyone aboard the trucks and took off.”
“Were they new trucks or old?” asked Ben.
“Don’t know.” He looked at Ben. “I know what you’re thinking. That was the first thing that struck me. Have they found a way to repair the circuit boards? Can’t tell you that, but they seem to be a fully functioning society. Just the fact that they have electricity means they’ve made some sort of progress.” He turned to Lila. “To answer your question as best I can, I would say that their goal is to populate that society. I used the term ‘empire’. That seems to be the best way to describe it. Of course, it wouldn’t take much to form an empire out here. The remaining population seems to be even smaller than I imagined.”
“Ben and I both had experiences with those kinds of people,” said Lila, remembering her weeks of internment without Ben on their trip south.
“I heard about that,” said Rob. “One of the people who joined our group in Minnesota had been in that camp and told us all about it. He said you were the inspirational leader and killed the head honcho. That was nothing compared to this, though. I bet over the last few years there have been dozens of attempts to build a new government—a new republic—mostly by people who only had their own needs in mind. This one is different. The motivations are the same as many of those others, but they are much better organized, are strong from the top down, and again, most of all, have the ability to turn the power back on.”
“How do they get around the earthquake devastation?” asked Ben. “The craters and canyons would make it almost impossible to go very far by truck.”
“Don’t know how. They just do it.”
“They must have a leader,” remarked Lila. “Any information on who it is?”
“Not a clue.”
They were all silent for a minute, then Rob said, “Anyway, it’s not safe out there. You never know where they’re going to be. If they catch sight of you, they’ll pick you up. This is the first time we’ve felt safe in a long time. I don’t think they’ve come this far east yet. The Yellowstone community is a great goal, but it’s going to be a dangerous trip, especially with a young girl. You need to think about it. If you change your mind, you’re welcome to come with us to South Carolina.”
The conversation stalled at that point, and they called it a night. Lila checked on Jenny, then she and Ben crawled into their sleeping bags next to Katie, while Rob did the same with his family.
Nothing was ever easy in this new world. There was always a tradeoff. We had a chance to start a new life in Yellowstone, but the dangers in getting there were extreme. I knew that it was important for Katie to grow up around other people, but I was already missing our life by the lake. We appreciated Rob’s offer, but we were determined to go west. If it had just been Lila and me, there would be no inner conflict at all, but did we want to expose Katie to the danger the “evil” presented? Realistically though, was there anything in the new civilization that didn’t present a danger? Would Rob’s journey be any less hazardous than ours?
No, there was no question about it. We had to try.
Chapter 8
Their trip west was going molasses slow. Every time they got started, something would pop up to impede their progress. On one level it was frustrating, but on another, they knew they wouldn’t reach Yellowstone before the winter even under the fastest circumstances, so they would just deal with the hand they were dealt. They stayed with Rob and his family for four days to allow Jenny to heal.
Two days after they met, Ben and Rob backtracked Rob’s trail until they found the spot of the dog attack. After a couple of hours of searching, they were able to recover most of the scattered belongings, including all of their weapons.
Rob looked through a ripped backpack and said, “Jenny is going to be so happy. We had a few pictures and other mementos from our old life. They’re still here. It would have killed her to lose them.”
When they arrived back at the campsite, they found Jenny sitting up and eating some soup Lila had prepared. The smile on Rob’s face when he saw her said it all. Ben was greeted with a surpris
e of his own. When he saw Lila, she put her finger to her lips and pointed to the edge of the woods. Amber and Katie were talking animatedly and playing together. Another bridge crossed.
Finally the time came to part ways. Seeing how much Katie and Amber had bonded almost made Ben and Lila change their minds and accompany Rob and family to South Carolina. But something was drawing them west. Who was to say that the plague that wiped out much of the east hadn’t killed the settlement Rob and Jenny were hoping to find? The little they had heard about the Yellowstone settlement gave them hope. It sounded like the exact situation they were searching for—the ability to retain their privacy while still having contact with others. Their gut feelings told them that the South Carolina settlement—if it existed—would not be what they were looking for. They had to listen to their inner leanings.
The goodbyes were tearful—oddly enough, Ben noticed, not for Katie and Amber. Had growing up in the new world made them more resilient? Could they adapt to change more easily? Maybe it was a very simple concept: they had enjoyed each other’s company, but now it was time to go. Ah, thought Ben. If only the adults could learn something from that.
They traveled several days seeing no other people and no dog packs. At first they would check out town names against their atlas to know what state they were in, before coming to the realization that they really didn’t care. States no longer existed. As long as they were going in the direction they wanted, they could start to use the towns later on to help with course adjustment.
Eden Lost (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 2) Page 5
