The Redeemed

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Yes. When the Virus gets to the point where it makes people violent, the person they were is gone forever.” Tris sighed.

  Emilio patted his daughter’s back. With Abby looking down at the mattress, he gave Tris a pleading stare, as if she had the ability to grant his wish… that his girl wasn’t going to die. “Is she?”

  Tris tried to project confidence at him. “Everything I’ve seen says no…”

  “But…” Emilio hung his head, staring at the grenade in his hand. “It’s not your burden. If that’s what’s going to happen, I’ll deal with it.”

  Abby sat up, strands of snot connecting her fingers to her nose, which Emilio spent a moment wiping. “Ugh. This sucks. I hate being sick, and can we please stop talking about killing me?”

  “You should eat something,” said Emilio.

  “I’m not hungry.” She squinted at Tris. “No comments from the peanut gallery, Miss Skinny.”

  Tris grinned. “That’s good, actually.” Her heart fluttered with hope. “Pre-Infected are ravenous.”

  Emilio sniffled, pocketed the grenade, and lapsed into Spanish muttering again.

  Abby struggled to breathe for a moment before swallowing something and gasping for air. “Kristen’s a whore.”

  “Abby!” yelled Emilio.

  “What?” Abby blinked at him. “She was…” The girl looked toward Tris. “She used to work at the bar, sleeping with men who paid her. She’s pretty, but she’s not pretty inside. Selfish. She wants outta here, no matter what she has to do.”

  They sat in silence for a little while, Abby swishing her feet back and forth.

  “Is this enough to convince them?” asked Emilio. “You said if she was… she’d be hungry?”

  “I don’t think that Warren guy is going to believe anything that doesn’t conform to his preconceptions.” Probably going to wind up shooting him. I should just do it right now and save everyone the trouble of waiting. She grumbled in her head. I can’t just kill a man in cold blood.

  Abby’s teeth chattered. Her skin had dried off, and the little color she’d gotten back had faded again. Tris pulled the blanket up over her to the neck, and felt her temperature: clammy.

  The girl drew her legs in close, shivering. “Cassie’s pretty cool. She used to fix stuff and work on radios and crap in the panel house. Now she’s bored. She kept sneaking out to the radio. Warren almost shot her too.”

  “He’s an idiot,” muttered Emilio.

  “Cassie is why I’m here.” Tris smiled. “I heard her on the radio.”

  “Lloyd… uhh, Mister Black is kinda strange, but he’s funny. He said he used to teach at a college. He tells stories about talking rabbits sometimes, and a duck made of taffy.” Abby tried to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit that made her face red. When it subsided, she glared at the ceiling, exasperated. “Ugh, I hate this so much! Being sick sucks!” Her anger faded to worry. “I don’t wanna get shot.”

  Tris held the girl’s bound hand. “I’m not going to let anyone shoot you, Abby.”

  “Lauren’s nice too,” said Abby in a monotone, a phlegmatic wheeze in her voice. “She’s the older lady. Micah’s grandmom. She used to cook all sorts of stuff. When I first started sniffling, she’s the only one other than Dad who told Warren to go screw himself.”

  The dark-skinned girl with frizzy hair peered in. She stared at Abby for about a minute before shuffling away without a sound.

  “That’s Trisha.” Abby shivered. “She used to be my friend, but she’s been… I dunno. Weird.”

  “Her mother became Infected. Luiz had to put a bullet in the woman right in front of her.” Emilio grumbled. “Where did this come from? We had a wall. We had security.”

  Tris stared at Abby’s hand, stroking her fingers over the back above the knuckle. The child smiled at the comforting touch. “I found an Enclave drone on the way in, crashed on a rooftop. Why is a harder question, other than them wanting to wipe everyone out because they think people who live out here are all savages with radiation-damaged DNA. Amarillo had a reputation for being powerful, with a great army that they might’ve considered a serious threat, but they’re too cowardly to come out all this way to see. That… or Nathan was trying to get to me.”

  “This can’t be your fault,” said Abby. “You’re nice.”

  “Thanks… but Nathan isn’t. He’s the reason I’m not in the Enclave anymore. I was arrested because I refused to marry this guy they chose for me.” Abby gasped. “Nathan acted like a friend and helped me escape, but he really wanted me to take a bomb to kill some people.” Tris patted her belly. “He put a bomb inside me. Tiny, but powerful enough to kill me and everyone within fifty yards. A friend…” She bit her lip. “The man I love…” Abby’s eyes gleamed. “Cut me open and threw it. I got away alive and Nathan’s the kind of bastard who can’t let that go.”

  “So you think this guy attacked us somehow because of you?” Emilio raised an eyebrow.

  “Kevin bought into the Roadhouse about seven months ago. Nathan probably found out… that’s why I never used my name on the radio. If he thought he could get to me somehow by destroying Amarillo… I dunno. It’s so crazy it’s almost egotistical to think that he’d go to that much trouble for me.”

  “What kinda person could do this to us?” Abby gawked. “We didn’t do anything to them!”

  “Someone who isn’t human.” Tris scowled.

  Abby broke out in a sudden sweat and shed the blanket. She flapped her dress against her chest to cool off. Micah, the twelve-ish boy, appeared in the doorway holding a tin can with steam wafting from it. Strong light in the outer area reduced him to a silhouette.

  “Get outta there,” yelled Warren, somewhere behind him. “You’ll get your ass sick too.”

  The boy twisted, a sheen of deep brown appeared along the edge of his profile as the light wrapped around his face. “Sh’aint one ’o them things, Warren. She’s got a damn cold like Gramma says. You’s just bein’ a shit to her.”

  “Dammit, boy,” yelled Warren. A chair slid.

  “One more step,” yelled Lauren. “See what happens.”

  “You’re all insane.” Warren’s grumbling faded into quiet.

  Micah walked up to the foot end of the bed. He looked at Tris. “You said even if she got the bad sick, it ain’t gonna breathe in, right?”

  Tris nodded. The scent of baked beans reached her nose.

  The boy offered Abby the can.

  She jerked at her chained arm and scowled. “Please let me out.”

  Emilio took the can. He held it between his knees, staring down into it, muttering under his breath how everyone needed to feel safe she wouldn’t hurt them. He seemed to be trying to convince himself not to go attack Warren more than comforting Abby. Micah hung his head and trudged back into the basement.

  Abby showed little interest in the beans, but tolerated being fed like a baby by her father. Tris took the opportunity to hunt down a toilet. The survivors sat in clusters here and there around beds, sleeping bags, and shelves. Ellis and Zack wandered at the edges of the room where tiny rectangular windows sat at street level. Lauren sat on a folding chair facing a cot, upon which Isla, Micah, and Trisha sprawled, listening to a story. Jose kept to himself in the south end nearest the stairwell leading up. The thirteen-year-old had an M-16 as well as no apparent concern if he survived. He caught Tris looking at him and shot back a stare of ‘whatever’ before facing away.

  She sighed.

  Warren and Lloyd argued at the distant northeast corner, next to a pair of shelves loaded with toolboxes and unidentifiable mechanical parts. The old man tried to convince Warren that waiting was a horrible idea, and bringing Abby along in her current state was less of a risk than sitting around. A glint in the somewhat younger man’s eyes gave away a hint of paranoia beyond reason. Tris tightened her jaw. That guy is going to be a problem. Zara, where are you?

  To the left of the supervisor’s office, a small, primitive bathroom looked
(and smelled) as if it had been supporting twenty people for weeks. She gagged but did what she had to do before returning to the office.

  Abby started cringing away and turning green about halfway through the portion of baked beans, at which point Emilio ate some. Tris caught a glimpse of a sliced sausage in the brown ooze as she took a seat on the edge of the bed. The girl held her gut with her left hand, looking like she’d throw up at any minute. She begged Tris to free her from the handcuffs with her eyes, before slumping, forlorn. Tris spent the next half hour or so staring at the floor, debating the ethics of shooting Warren in the head. She glanced at her shoe while considering picking the lock on the cuffs… but if these people panicked, multiple children could get hurt in the chaos.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” yelled a woman’s voice too far away to recognize. At the distance, it could’ve been Cassie or Kristen. “One got inside!”

  Abby rolled onto her knees, thrashing at the cuffs while twisting her arm. “¡No quiero morir! Let me out! Please! ¡Dios mio! I’m gonna die!” She burst into wailing tears, her right hand turning red. “Daddy, please!”

  A gunshot echoed outside.

  The child closed her eyes and screamed her lungs empty while trying unsuccessfully to pull her hand free. Terror got the better of her and she kept jerking at her arm as if one more tug might just break the chain if she pulled a little harder.

  “Warren’s a god damned dead man.” Emilio leapt up, drew his gun, and stomped out. “Warren, puta madre cabrón! Key. Now!”

  “Dad! No!” Abby tried to grab him, but the cuff jerked her to a halt before she could reach him. “Don’t leave me!”

  Tris got up and moved to follow, but the girl got her by the arm, clawing for a frantic grip on her shirt.

  “Tris, please.” Snot and tears gushed down her face, some running into her mouth. She coughed a little. “Please don’t leave me alone. If they find me, I’m gonna die!”

  “West side!” shouted Ellis. “Zack, Tom, get your asses over there.”

  A ripple of small arms fire preceded a boom that could only be a shotgun.

  “Got one,” yelled Lloyd.

  Abby shrieked and threw her free arm around Tris, bawling.

  “I won’t leave you.” Tris shoved Abby behind her and grabbed her AK-47 from the floor by where she’d napped. She one armed it, flicked the safety off, and aimed at the room’s only entrance.

  The cuffs kept clattering on the steel bedframe, mixed with Abby’s determined grunts and panicked gasps. Pattering tiny footsteps approached; Isla appeared in the doorway. She stopped short and likely came close to wetting her pants, her already pale face blanching deathly white at the sight of Tris’s rifle pointing at her head.

  Tris lifted the weapon away from her. “Sorry, sweetie.”

  Isla darted in and crawled under the bed without making a sound.

  Tris directed Abby’s death grip to her belt and got both hands on the AK. She trained it at the door, her nerves fraying at random pops of gunfire and screaming outside. Emilio shouted somewhere in the din. They’re going to shoot each other instead of the Infected. Tris took a step forward, but stopped at Abby desperately pulling at her while rattling the cuffs.

  Micah ran into view some twenty feet away from the door, aiming a handgun in a two-fisted grip. The boy hesitated for a second before muzzle flare lit his face from a single shot. He grinned, yelled, “got one!”, and darted out of sight.

  “I don’t wanna die,” whined Abby. She tried to stand on the cot, stuck in a stoop with her right arm chained to the bedframe. “Please don’t leave me like this.”

  The chaos outside was too loud and too frenetic to bother shouting over. Tris glanced out of the corner of her eye at the trembling girl behind her, and down at two pale feet sticking out from under the bed below a tangle of frayed blankets. For a second, she considered shooting the chain or going for her picks, but worried the instant the rifle stopped pointing at the door, the onrushing horde would arrive. With her AK, she literally held two children’s lives in her hands.

  “I got you, Abby. You too, Isla. I won’t let anything get past me.”

  She squeezed the handle of the AK, glaring over the gunsights. Come on you fuckers. I dare you to try and get in here.

  raetor blinked his beady little too-close eyes at Kevin, twice. “Boy, you got some set of balls on you. I can respect that.” He patted the counter twice. “Two coins, or an interesting trade if you got anything.”

  Kevin put four coins out. “Two cars.”

  “G’won and plug in then.” Praetor chuckled. “F’you get your ass perforated, that car of yours is mine.”

  “Be a shame to waste it as a display piece.” Kevin looked him up and down. “I don’t think you’d be able to fit in it.”

  The room chuckled.

  “Well now, we might as well hurry up and get your ass kicked.” A woman with mocha skin and large almond shaped eyes emerged from the crowd, smiling at him. Hair sprayed wild from her head in an explosion of jet as wide as her shoulders. Her large tattered white shirt hung halfway down her thigh, leaving one shoulder exposed. “If you’re plannin’ on doing anything other than gettin’ turned into road kill, follow me.”

  Fitch checked her out, smiling.

  “Easy there old man. You’re old ’nuff ta be my Pa.” The woman winked. “Dip that thing in some cold water before you pass out.”

  Kevin couldn’t help himself but stare at her tight leather leggings as she passed by on her way to the door. He paused outside only long enough to connect the charge cable to a post-mounted socket before following her down the street. The kids had run off out of sight, though the sounds of them playing still echoed in the trees. A few adults lingered in view, evidently curious at the outcome of what would happen inside Praetor’s place.

  “I’m Phoenix,” said the woman without turning back to look.

  Kevin glanced at three houses on the right that could’ve been lifted from any normal settlement, not one infested with a homicidal biker club that’d declared war on the Roadhouse. “That where you got conceived or do you have a habit of coming back from the dead?”

  “Maybe a bit of both, smart man.” She added a sashay to her stride that rattled the pistols on her hips. “Don’t get the wrong idea here. I’m taken. This ain’t no offer but trying to keep my favorite bar from getting shot up.”

  He debated saying he hadn’t been interested, but that might piss her off. What was it about some women…? He considered mentioning he was taken too, but she didn’t need to know that. In the end, he enjoyed the view of a fine, undulating, leather-wrapped ass for a little over two minutes as they walked into the heart of Pinos Altos. How utterly like a settlement this place looked confused him. Houses, families, farm animals… What on Earth was a biker gang doing here? Most bizarre of all, the people didn’t have that air about them to suggest their town had been taken over against their will.

  Phoenix headed for a large wooden building, more of a log cabin, which had likely been hand-built within the past ten years. At least twenty e-bikes of various size and condition lined up in front of it with a gap by a two-step stairway. A pair of black flags hung from the porch roof, bearing hand-painted renditions of the Redeemed logo―the white circle with the fist clamped around a sword by the blade.

  To the left of the structure stood a lot with several tables full of parts and tools. Two had canvas canopies protecting electronic bits, motors and wiring systems. Around the workstations lay a sea of bike frames, tires, and a handful of almost-finished e-bikes that looked only a few screws short of being ready to drive.

  Past the repair yard, a row of a ten or so small huts stood in a line with a number of Redeemed hanging out. Some drank, some slept in chairs, a few sucked face with women. This part of the city looked like what he’d expected. Had they rolled in on nothing but bikers, maybe he wouldn’t have even gotten out of the car. Something like the scene where the Enclave man had been giving weapons to raiders played
out in his head, with Redeemed falling under a hail of fire from the two M60 machineguns on his hood. He glanced back in the direction they’d come from. Speaking of which, he didn’t feel comfortable leaving the car in the open.

  “In here.” Phoenix pushed open a plain wooden door covered in a haphazard layer of black paint that left smears of naked wood exposed near the edges.

  He ducked the flags and followed the strange woman.

  Dust flickered in trails of sunlight from small glassless windows around a single large room. The almost-warehouse had a second floor loft over the rightmost third, accessed by the bastard offspring of a staircase and a ladder. Seven or eight people up in the loft, at least three of them naked, lounged about on sofas and recliners.

  Downstairs, a scattering of metal folding chairs in blue, beige and green surrounded a square dirt patch that reminded him of one old movie about kickboxing. Beyond that, twenty or so guys hovered at a pair of pool tables and a long folding table loaded with cases upon cases of prewar beer. The mere sight of fifty-year-old suds made him gag.

  His gaze returned to Phoenix, but lingered on her ass for only a second before diverting to a large man in what he could only call a throne. While the man came nowhere near Praetor’s degree of ridiculousness as size went, even sitting, his presence made Kevin feel small. Strong cheekbones, a patterned headband, dour expression, and a sharp nose conjured the image of an ancient Native American war chief about to pass judgment on an invader.

  Phoenix draped herself on a fur-covered chair at his side, a simple C-shaped curve of wood covered in animal hides.

  Kevin approached the man and nodded in greeting. He couldn’t come up with a good reason to dislike him yet, and had about thirty or so good reasons not to start a gunfight arranged around the room, all watching him with intent curiosity. “Komodo.”

  The president of the Redeemed raised his eyebrows a notch at the sound of his name. “I am. Who are you that brings war to my doorstep?”