Dead silence.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to preach there,” Laura took a breath and put her hands on her hips. “But you see what I’m saying. Without Nero, there wouldn’t be any of this. A lot of the people who have found a home here would have been dead long ago if it weren’t for him. Possibly myself even.”
“So you’re here then because you want to survive?” Josie posed the question.
Laura shrugged.. “Not just survive, I wAlex live. Before, I was surviving. Now, I feel I’m actually living again. Like I’m actually contributing to something greater than myself. That’s what I want to do. You should be the same way.”
“But that’s not what I want to do,” Josie said.
“Then what do you want to do?” Laura asked curiously.
“Right now?” Josie looked out the window at the mountains beyond Nero’s town. “I just want to go see Roy and then I want us to go look for our daughter together. I found her a couple days ago, and now I’ve lost her again.”
“Where is she?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know,” Josie replied. “Roy’s friend Jon took her away from the wreckage, into the woods before we were taken.”
“I’ll talk to Nero about it,” Laura set a hand on Josie’s shoulder. “Like I said, they’re building a school. Your daughter would fit well in here too. She could make new friends even. We can get a group together and go find them.”
“She’s diabetic,” Josie said worryingly. “And she was out of insulin. She was already doing a little worse when I last saw her, I could tell…”
“There’s insulin in the infirmary,” Laura said.
“There is?!” Josie immediately stood up from the bed.
“Yeah, yeah, at least I think there is,” said Laura, taking a couple steps back from Josie’s sudden rise.
“Show me,” Josie demanded. “And then let’s go find her together.”
“Okay, okay,” Laura held her hands out. “But I don’t make those of kinds of decisions around here. I was just supposed to show you around. We can’t just leave unless if Nero allows it.”
“Well then,” Josie folded her arms. “Let’s go have a talk with him about that.”
Chapter 36
Ben Cooper lay helplessly on the bed in the infirmary, strapped down to the bed by a strong leather belt around his waist.
After being dragged out of the crashed Suburban, a bandana had been wrapped around his face to effectively blindfold him. He was then carried out on his stretcher for a long ways, seeing nothing but blackness though he could hear the men talking around him as they carried him.
He wasn’t able to make out all parts of their conversations, though they had mentioned getting him to an infirmary and keeping him and ‘all the others alive.’ At the very least, that gave Ben relief knowing that he most likely wasn’t going to be killed, which he almost certainly thought he would after having encountered Ojo again.
It was only after Ben had been carried into a building of some kind, transported over to a bed, and then strapped down by the belt that the bandana had been finally removed from his eyes. He saw a wooden ceiling as his eyesight returned to him and adjusted to the levels of light. The floorboards beneath him creaked under the weight of other people in the room.
One middle aged woman had stood over him, inspecting his face and eyes, checking his pulse rate on his wrist, and then visually inspected his gunshot wounds that had begun to open up and bled a little. He had three bullet wounds in all, one on his leg, one on the arm, and one in the gut, but the arm and the gut wounds were the most recent and the only ones that really bled anymore. The leg wound still ached from time to time, but only from physical force or when he would apply pressure to it.
All in all, Ben’s body had gotten used to the pain created from the bullet wounds, so he was gritting his teeth less and wasn’t as badly affected, physically speaking, when he was being transported and carried around.
“Where am I?” Ben had asked the woman in the room. “Where are the others?”
“Not now,” was all the woman grunted.
Ben guessed her to be a nurse of some kind, and like most nurses he had known in his life, she wasn’t very talkative or social.
“When was the last time you had water?” the nurse lady asked.
“I can’t even remember exactly,” Ben replied.
The nurse lady rolled her eyes, irritated at Ben’s lack of knowledge on such a simple subject. She left the room briefly and returned with a canteen of water. She tilted his head up, and had him gulp half the canteen down.
The water was refreshing to Ben, and drinking it made a cool energy seep into all parts of his body, through his arms, down his legs, and deep into his stomach. It served as instant if brief relaxation as he nestled back into the mattress and the pillow.
After reapplying bandages over the wounds on his gut and arm, the nurse lady set a quilt over Ben up to his shoulders. The quilt was clearly old, as it had that distinctive aged and rustic smell to it that Ben personally didn’t like. He chose not to communicate this to the nurse lady, as she seemed irritated and rushed already as it was.
The nurse lady then left the room and shut the door behind her. Ben heard the sound of a key being inserted into a lock and turned, and it finally settled into him that he was a prisoner who they were trying to keep alive, but still a prisoner. It was as if he had been in prison with Ojo and the others all over again.
Once he was alone, Ben rose his head to get a good look at his surroundings. He was in a relatively small sized room that also had a bunk bed next to the wall in addition to the bed he was laying in now. There were also a handful of medical supplies in a plastic clear container, a sink, and a cabinet that was closed.
Ben guessed that the building he was in was the infirmary or the hospital, as he had heard the militia men talk about that previously when they had carried him, and that this was one of the rooms for patients.
There was a sudden creak in the floorboards outside the door, and Ben realized that there was at least one guard standing outside. It served as a reminder that he was indeed a prisoner all over again. In other words, he had no freedom.
But still, conditions were admittedly better here than they had been when he had been in prison with Ojo and the gang. The bed he had in his cell back then, for instance, was very uncomfortable with a mattress so thin he might as well not even had it, and a pillow so stained and filthy that Ben had tossed it aside and used his elbow as a pillow instead.
Here, at least, the bed was comfortable (even if the quilt had that rustic smell to it that he didn’t like), the pillow was clean, his injuries were being cared for, he had been given water, and he had directly overheard that steps were being taken to ensure his survival.
Ben wondered about what was happening to Roy and Josie, and if Jon and Alex had gotten away when they had evacuated the Suburban and fled into the woods.
A deep dreariness then began to overtake him as he sunk back deeper into the mattress and the pillow, and his mind began to fog. Ben closed his eyes, and within ten seconds, he was asleep.
* * *
Ben was jolted awake when the door to the room was unlocked and swung open.
How long had he been asleep for? He didn’t know. Most likely it had been only a half hour or even less.
People were walking into the room and Ben turned his head to the right to try to see who it was. He was expecting to see the nurse lady again and one or two others, but instead, two militia men were dragging in the body of someone else, who they carried past Ben and and then deposited on the lower half of the bunk bed.
Once they had set the man they were carrying down and cleared out of the way, Ben could see that it was Roy. He was muddy and filthy, his face was beaten and bloodied to the point that he was barely recognizable, and there was more blood seeping out of an open wound on his leg above the knee.
The nurse lady then returned, her face flushed red.
“What’s he do
ing here?” she demanded to know.
“Grizzly ordered us to bring him here to the infirmary,” one of the masked men responded.
“Dammit now I’ve got two more to take care of instead of one?” the nurse lady hissed.
“Not our decision,” the other masked man shrugged. “Open leg wound above his knee, might want to take a look at that. Nero wants him physically able to be joining the missions in a week, which you know just as well as us means he wants him ready in half that.”
The nurse lady ran her hands through her red hair and frowned. “Okay, okay, fine. But the two of you are going to help me out.”
“Huh?” the first militia man asked. “We were just told to bring him here, we’ve got tasks of our own…”
The nurse lady tossed one of them a wash rag and interrupted with: “He’s filthy as hell and that leg wound’s going to need four hands to stitch up. One of you get him out of those dirty clothes and start cleaning him up. The other help me with the stitching.”
Ben stared at the ceiling as Roy was being taken care of, fearing that watching the process would illicit a negative response from the nurse lady or the two militia men or all three.
Fifteen minutes later, the nurse lady and the militia men had finished and left the room again and shut and locked the door behind them.
Ben turned his head to see that Roy was on his back, covered to the shoulders in another old rustic quilt, and appeared to be asleep. His face wasn’t as dirty as it had been though it didn’t exactly look any better from the previous beatings. Like Ben, he was strapped to the bed with a belt to help inhibit any kind of escape.
“Roy?” Ben whispered.
Roy said nothing. Maybe he was asleep.
“Roy?” Ben asked again, louder this time.
“What, kid?” Roy rolled around and opened his eyes without glancing at Ben.
“You alright?”
“What the hell do you think?”
“I mean are you fully conscious? Can you think straight?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Josie?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know, they took her away somewhere else,” Roy replied.
“Where?”
“I said I don’t know, dammit. They’re keeping here alive though like us, I know that.”
“What about Jon and Alex? Did they get away?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Roy clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk. He was only using the minimum number of words necessary and Ben could tell by the tone of his voice that he clearly wasn’t up for a conversation.
Nonetheless, they were alone, which meant that they could speak freely. So Ben continued with another question: “Do you have any idea who these people are?”
“Do I look like I do?” Roy retorted while turning his head away from Ben.
“Like, do you think they’re here to help us or to hurt us?”
“Why else do you think they would be keeping us alive?”
“I don’t know, to use us, maybe,” Ben said. “They deliberately tried to capture us, you know. They were never trying to kill us. That’s why they were all missing when they were shooting at us. They were missing intentionally.”
“Yeah,” Roy grunted, still keeping his face turned away.
“Roy,” Ben said, after a moment.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Roy turned his head this time to face Ben.
“I’m sorry for what I did earlier, being with that prison gang in the attack on your house and all,” Ben continued. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Roy said nothing but listened closely, making eye contact with Ben.
“I was in your house that night when you shot Ojo’s brother, Dominic,” Ben went on. “Me and one other guy. The three of us broke in together. It originally wasn’t part of the plan. We were just supposed to scout the area for supplies, but Dominic wanted to go in anyway. So we did. Then you shot him and me and the other guy got away.”
Roy took all of it in, the expressions on his face not reacting one way or the other.
“I never wanted to hurt any of you,” Ben had stopped talking for a moment when he thought Roy would speak, but when he didn’t, he continued. “I even wanted to leave that group. But I couldn’t. I needed them to stay alive, you know? Plus Ojo wasn’t going to let me leave. He nearly shot me when I tried to. So even though I was a part of that gang, I want you to know that I personally never wanted or intended to hurt anyone in your family.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore, kid,” Roy sighed. “We’re in this together and we’re on the same side now.”
“You have to watch out for Ojo, Roy,” Ben warned. “I was there when he found out you had killed his brother. I know him. He’s not going to forgive or forget. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. And right now, the only thing he wants is to kill you.”
Roy tried to relax back in his bed, turning his head away again.
“It’s not the first time someone’s wanted to kill me, kid,” he said. “I’ve been shot at before. More times than you have.”
“Have you ever had someone swear vengeance on you before?” Ben asked. “Have you ever had someone decide that they will stop at absolutely nothing to see you dead before?”
To that, Roy said nothing.
The conversation was over, and when Ben could tell that it was, he tried to relax back into the mattress and the pillow to catch some more sleep.
Chapter 37
Jon picked up the pace on the old game trail that cut through the woods. Alex was falling behind by several steps and slowing down.
“Pick it up,” Jon instructed.
“I want a break,” Alex whined.
“We had one a half hour ago,” Jon glanced at his watch. “Let’s keep moving.”
“I want another break,” she insisted.
She was holding onto the Glock 19 9mm pistol that Jon had given her, but the heft of the real gun was weighing her down like an anchor, unlike the lightweight plastic toy guns that she had used to play with.
“I told you, we need to get to those people I know,” Jon said. “They’re the only ones who can help us rescue your parents.”
“How much longer is it?”
“I don’t know, a couple hours maybe.”
“That’s too long!”
Jon rolled his eyes. He had never had kids before and knowing how to communicate with them was simply not his forte, let alone realize that she simply couldn’t keep up with him due to her younger age and smaller size.
But things were particularly worse because Alex had diabetes. That meant her body produced preciously little insulin in contrast to other people. Without insulin, her body simply had a very hard time converting food into usable energy…and she had gone for a few days without it.
Jon finally stopped walking and turned to face Alex, who stopped walking as well. She took advantage of the moment to plop down on an old fallen log that rested by the side of the trail. She set the Glock on the log next to her but instead it fell to the dirt.
Jon stepped up to her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Tired,” she replied.
“How tired?” he asked.
“Just tired,” she responded.
“Don’t lie to me,” Jon said, sounding like her father.
Alex stayed quiet for a moment before continuing: “I’m not doing too good.”
“Okay, can you elaborate?”
“Huh?”
“Can you explain further?”
“I’ve been feeling this way for a long time.”
“How long?”
“A few days.”
“Okay, and just how bad are you feeling exactly?” Jon asked, picking up the Glock that she had let fall to the ground and holstering it in his left thigh holster where it truly belonged.
“Like it’s hard to walk, and my legs are shaking,” replied Al
ex.
“Then you need more food.”
“No, I need my medicine.”
“You need food to feel energy so you can keep walking. We can hunt for something.”
“No, you don’t understand, without my medicine food doesn’t even work.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Jon curled his lips and looked around the woods, through the trees and brush, trying to think of a solution. The birds were chirping and a couple of squirrels were scurrying up and down the nearby trees. The wind whistled.
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