by Justin Bell
“Enough of this,” Rebecca muttered from the rear, and within seconds, the duffel bag clanged to the road, and her hands were up, a pistol clutched in her tight fists. “We asked. We tried to be nice. Now, we get a little more forceful—”
Max didn’t even see the hooded man move, but suddenly the bow was up and an arrow launched, streaking through the air, its straight, wooden shaft cutting like a knife. It struck Rebecca’s pistol with a loud stone-on-metal clash, and the weapon sprang from her hand, spinning end over end, clattering to the road.
“Ow!” she shouted, drawing her hand back, though the arrow had not struck it directly.
“Hey!” Angel shouted, turning toward the man with the bow, his fists clenching. Another hooded man appeared, leaping from the trees, this one not on a horse, but watching from where he couldn’t be seen. As he landed in a low crouch, he brought out a short stick, a bamboo shaft, twirling it skillfully in the air. With a swift blur of motion, he cracked the stick into Angel’s leg, driving his knee to the pavement, then brought it up and around, drilling it into his left temple. Angel grunted and toppled forward.
Rhonda didn’t take time to think, before she could even consider the ramifications of her actions, the pistol was out and swinging around, kicking in her grip as she fired upon the nearest man on horseback. One of the hooded strangers shouted and lurched backwards, fingers releasing the reins and hit the pavement shoulder-first, his neck twisting. Bodies moved all around, Rhonda’s group peeling away as the horses scrambled at the loud sound of the gunshot. One of them reared up, screaming its high-pitched neigh, then lunged, the bent front legs striking Tamar’s shoulder and sending him sprawling. Winnie dove left as Phil stumbled forward, making room for the charging horse. More men burst from the trees, all carrying the same bamboo sticks, and descended upon the group in a fury.
Another gunshot roared, but the round punched through the trees, scattering leaves, but hitting no one, and suddenly another horse was barreling toward Rhonda. Arrows flew, screaming past her left ear as she lurched and brought her pistol around again, but the horse collided with her, knocking her forward and throwing the weapon from her fingers. As she hit the pavement, starbursts exploded behind her eyes, the world around her shifting into technicolor blurs, horses and men and chaos swallowing her whole.
Chapter Three
Although the fog of unconsciousness had faded in Rhonda’s head, the encroaching clouds in the slate gray sky were closing in, signaling the approach of dusk. She blinked away the final curtains of confusion, pushing herself up into a seated position, shoulders screaming and her head a slamming bass drum of pain.
“Mom?” Max asked, his voice faint.
“Max?” she replied. “Where are you?” She rubbed a hand through her scraggly hair and came away with a fist full of hard, dried hay caked to her palm and to her head. Staring at it, she shook it free from her hand and let it fall silently back to the ground, which was already covered in the stuff, a mixed brown and tan wasteland of dead and dying grass. The darkness of the growing night and the lack of outside lightness left her in a shadowed obscurity, completely lost.
She heard the quiet crunching of feet on dried grass and turned toward the noise, seeing her son approach.
“I’m here, Mom,” he said. “The others are in the barn.” He gestured with his head toward the large, dark colored building behind him.
As her vision cleared and adjusted to the night, Rhonda got a better idea of her surroundings. She and Max were surrounded by a large, square set of fencing, extending out from the barn and reaching several yards in each direction. Hay covered the surface of the ground everywhere she looked, and beyond the fenced perimeter she could see vast fields of tall plants and grass and the dimly lit shadow of what looked like a house. Small yellow rectangles ran up the length of the house nearest to them, ebbing slightly with the glow of light beyond them. A large, cylindrical silo sat a distance away from the main structure she was looking at, and she saw other buildings drenched in the absence of light as well.
Reaching up and grasping a rung of the fence, she started to pull herself upright, then turned toward Max, but something tugged at her leg, keeping her caught.
“Don’t bother,” he whispered. “They’ve got us chained up in here. You and I are out here in the fence, the others are in the barn.”
“Why are they separating us?”
“They weren’t in the mood to explain.”
A faint whinny and huff of horse breath sounded from her left and Rhonda turned to look, barely seeing a second fenced-in area through the dark. The horses weren’t quite visible from this distance, but she could hear the dull whump of hooves and the sporadic cough of breath. As she looked back toward the house, she saw an orb of light floating in mid-air, slowly bobbing and drifting toward them.
“You’re awake,” a voice echoed from beyond the orb.
“Where are we?” Rhonda asked. “Why have you chained us up?”
There was no reply, but the man holding the floating orb lifted his leg up and over the fence, sliding over and down, holding a lantern as he moved as gracefully as a teenage gymnast.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked as he drew closer, though not too close, Rhonda noticed.
“I’ve got a chain around my leg,” she replied. “And my head is killing me. So, no, not really comfortable.”
The man nodded. “I see. Michael’s not especially comfortable either, so I suppose that makes us even.”
“Who is Michael?” Rhonda asked.
“The man you shot with that wicked weapon. Have you already forgotten? Is the value of human life such that you cannot recall whom you tried to kill?”
Rhonda leaned back on the fence, pressing her palm to the dull ache of her forehead. “Sorry, my memory isn’t great at the moment.”
“You took quite a blow to the head when you fell.”
“You didn’t answer her,” Max said, a bit more insistently than his mother had. “Where are we?”
“You’re hardly in the position to demand answers from us, young man.” He walked closer and Rhonda could see the faint glow of light on his gray beard and recognized him as the same man who had led the group that had ambushed them.
“Elias? Isn’t that what you said your name was?” she asked.
“Ah, so the memory improves,” he replied.
“The memory, yes,” she answered, “the understanding, not so much. Why have you captured us?”
Elias lowered the lantern, letting the yellow light cast a reverse shadow on the dried hay on the ground. “All of this could have been explained if you had given us the opportunity.”
“You had men hiding in the trees,” Rhonda said. “Men with bows and arrows. And sticks. You attacked us!”
“That foul red-headed woman pulled her weapon!” Elias hissed. “What would you have us do?”
Rhonda bit off the words forming in her mouth and drew a long, tired breath, trying to calm herself. “I apologize,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse us, the way the world has become, we are somewhat defensive.”
Elias lifted the lantern again and she could see the pale reflection of light in his curious, brown eyes. They were narrowed and inquisitive.
“You do know what has happened, don’t you?” Rhonda asked.
“I know modern man is eating himself alive as he’s been doing for centuries,” Elias replied. “Abandoning the peaceful ways of our elders, consumed by greed and objects over people.”
Rhonda looked around at the farmlands and noticed for the first time a lack of machinery. No tractors, no hay balers, not even a pickup truck. The shrill belt of a horse neigh broke the still air behind her.
“You all seem to have created an area that is nicely isolated out here,” she said.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Elias replied. “But yes. The Unbound have fared pretty well in recent years, compared to what we know of the outside world. We have spent years building this community, and the ev
ents of the past month or so have made the work all worthwhile.”
“Something to be proud of,” Rhonda replied.
“Something we’ve had to work very hard for,” Elias said. “This life isn’t easy. It requires many hands. Young and healthy hands.”
Rhonda narrowed her gaze, though in the low light of dusk, she hoped Elias couldn’t see it. Something in the way he’d said those words made her exceptionally uneasy.
“Where are my friends?” she asked. “Are they okay?”
“The rest of them are in the barn,” he replied. “We didn’t want to leave you alone and unconscious out here, and the boy wanted to stay with you.”
Rhonda smiled and looked toward Max who was standing several feet away, also chained to the fence. She looked back toward Elias.
“I’m very sorry we interrupted your peaceful way of life, Elias. I apologize and we’d like to be on our way. We can get out of your hair and let you get back to your farm.”
Elias didn’t reply. He made no gesture or sound of acknowledgment, he only continued staring, the lantern slowly throbbing in his right hand.
“How far is Philadelphia from here?” Rhonda asked.
“I fear you’ve misunderstood our intent,” Elias replied.
“I don’t follow.”
“Yes, you have interrupted our way of life. Very much so, in fact. But you are not going anywhere.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“I mean exactly what I said,” Elias continued. “As I said, tending the farm is hard work. We require young hands. Your group has several, and we intend to put them to work.”
Rhonda tensed her arms. “Elias, please. We have somewhere we need to be. I have apologized. We didn’t mean to encroach, we just want to pass through.”
“I accept your apology,” he replied. “However, passing through is not an option.”
“You can’t just keep us prisoner here,” Max replied.
“I can’t? Why not? I fear local law enforcement is probably fairly pre-occupied at the moment. Not that anyone knows of us here anyway. I’m afraid your future existence is completely under our control. And if you want to remain alive, then you will help us tend our farm.”
Rhonda took a step forward, the chain clattering around her ankle. “Don’t do this,” she hissed. “Trying to keep us here against our will is not going to end well for you.”
Elias chuckled. “Then it seems we have a difference of opinion.”
Rhonda lunged at him, but Elias stepped backwards just out of her reach, the chain pulling taut and yanking her leg back, pain stabbing at her knee. She jerked as she reached the end, and he stepped toward her, lifted his hand and sent it slamming down across her cheek. She lurched back, striking the fence with her spine and twisting awkwardly.
“Hey!” Max shouted. “Hands off my mom!”
Elias turned on him. “Respect your elders, boy!” he shouted. Max’s chain also pulled, keeping him tangled where he was, and Elias stepped into his range of motion, slamming him in the stomach with a closed fist. Max coughed and dropped to the ground on his knees, his breath catching.
“He’s twelve years old, you bastard!” Rhonda shouted as she tried to pick herself up.
“At twelve years old I was calling my father ‘sir’ and waking up before dawn for the family chores, woman. If you want me to keep my hands to myself, your filthy whelp had best learn some manners. Do you understand me?”
Rhonda glowered at Elias who stood in dried hay, his left fist clenched from where it had struck Max, the fingers of his other hand still clutched tight around the handle of the lantern.
“Now, the two of you had better get some sleep. The work day will be starting very early tomorrow and you need to be well rested.” Elias turned and walked away, vaulting smoothly over the fence, the glowing orb of his lantern fading into the unsettled darkness.
***
The world looked like a different place after sunrise. Rhonda and Max had been allowed back in the barn a few moments after Elias had left, one of the few women they’d seen so far emerging from the house and guiding them back inside where the rest of their group was penned in. There were no chains inside the barn, the doors on both sides were simply held in place with thick iron bars and padlocked so they could not get out.
As the sun crawled its way toward the peak of pale, blue sky, light streamed in through sparse cracks in the boards that made up the barn, which was a tall, almost intimidating structure. A row of stables went along the east wall of the building, though no animals were kept there, and a thick layer of hay covered the entirety of the floor as it did outside. There was a loft on the west wall, emerging from a tall, peaked ceiling, thick rafters running north to south above their heads.
The rattling clatter of padlocks opening woke Winnie and she jolted up from sleep in the hay, turning over on her elbows, her eyes fluttering to get accustomed to the brightness of early day. Hinges squeaked as the large barn door eased open and a pair of small faces peeked in, children by the looks of it.
Winnie sat up and looked at the young faces and waved gently at the children, who snickered and waved back. In the next stall over, she heard some hay rustling and saw Tamar’s head peek out from above the squat wall separating the two sections. His eyes were puffy with interrupted sleep, and he blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“How old are you?” Winnie asked, taking a few steps toward the children, and around her, other prone bodies started stirring.
“I’m seven,” said one small girl, head covered in snarled brown hair.
“Girls!” a voice barked and the two children startled, then backed away from Winnie, looking nervously toward the door. A tall, broad shouldered woman made her way through the door, wearing a long, ankle-length dress and white hood pulled over raven colored hair.
“Back to your studies, young ones,” she hissed. “If Elias caught you in here, he’d get the paddle!”
The two girls chittered among themselves and pushed past the woman, making their way to the door and back out into morning.
“Good morning,” she said to Winnie, with a smile that was wide but felt forced.
Winnie nodded toward her as Tamar made his way around the wall and came up next to her.
“We let you sleep in today,” the woman said. “Don’t get used to it.” Her voice was hard and gruff, as if every sentence she spoke was a lesson to be taught. “The pigs need to be fed. The two of you, get out to the pen. George is out there waiting. Don’t try anything funny; our archers are everywhere. You won’t make it more than ten feet.”
Winnie and Tamar glanced at each other, then walked past the angry woman and vanished out the door.
“Is this really how this is going to work?” Rhonda asked, emerging from one of the stalls herself. Her eyes were wide and alert, as if she hadn’t slept at all, or had awoken several hours earlier. “You’re going to keep us trapped here to tend to your animals?”
“Plenty of work to go around, miss,” the woman replied, bowing lightly.
Rebecca approached the woman from the other side. “What did you do with our things?” she asked. “The bags. There was food and supplies. First aid. My friend over there—”
“Don’t worry about your bags,” the woman snarled. “We found those nasty weapons in there. Everything is safe. If your friend requires medical care, he will get it.”
Fields looked back at Angel, who was struggling to get to his feet, then glared back at the woman.
“What are you going to do, put leeches on him or something? He needs stitches. Bandages. Actual treatment, not this 18th century garbage.”
“Choose your words carefully, girl,” the woman snarled. “We treat those who treat us. I don’t know how you live your lives, but here, the Unbound follow the Golden Rule.”
“I’m sorry, but the ankle chains didn’t feel very golden to me,” Rhonda snapped.
“Very true. They were far kinder than the bul
let you put in Michael. Perhaps I should go retrieve an archer and we can truly meet the criteria? Would that please you?”
“How long are you going to keep us here?” Phil asked, walking over toward the group. He still wore a bandage over his head and walked with a crooked limp, the shambling gait of someone not quite balanced.
She drew back as if she didn’t understand the question. “I beg your pardon? You’re part of the Unbound now. That isn’t something you just… stop doing.”
“Please, you must understand,” Rhonda said. “My daughter… she’s in Philadelphia. Her life may be in danger.”
“We cannot concern ourselves with those who do not share our philosophy. They make their choices. They live or die by the direction of their life, and their direction is not ours.”
“Will you cut that out?” Rhonda almost shouted. “We are not going to stay here forever!”
“Oh, no, you certainly won’t,” the woman replied. “Eventually you’ll die. Whether it’s of old age or an arrow is completely up to you.” She turned away as three more figures pushed into the barn, three men, dressed in black uniforms, each of them with a bow strapped over his chest. As she left, she turned and looked over her shoulder.
“Now I think it’s about time we all got to work, don’t you?”
***
“They’re not going to have mercy on us for long,” Rebecca said quietly as she and Angel walked the perimeter of the outside fence. He moved slowly, one arm over her shoulders, and she helped him along with a hand pressed against his back. As a pair, they moved like an elderly couple, gingerly and cautiously, not wanting to take any misstep or any chance of a trip and fall resulting in a broken hip.
“Isn’t much I can do for ‘em at the moment,” Angel said, picking up his pace slightly. “I can’t lift. I can barely stand.”
They stopped walking and turned toward the fence, supporting themselves on it as they stood there. The day was bright and warm, the world silent around them with the exception of the occasional animal noise. The sun beat down on their heads and Rebecca closed her eyes, a smile creasing her face.
