Meanwhile, Mary scrambled away and snatched the knife that the minister dropped. Joe got back to his feet. The minister teetered, his hands over his wounded eye. Blood seeped through his fingers and ran down his arms. The pain must’ve been excruciating because his lips were twisted in a hideous grimace. And then he finally fell to his knees.
Joe threw his arm around Mary and hugged her to his side. She handed him the knife, but Joe didn’t see any use for it now. The minister was immobilized enough for them to get away, and there was no sense in wasting time in making their escape. Joe tossed the knife across the floor, but before he turned to leave, he stopped.
He noticed the minister was trying to tap his ear to turn on some device.
“Are you there?” the minister said.
It obviously wasn’t working because he kept tapping for a couple more seconds. Then he gave up and started digging in his robe for what Joe figured was his mobicom. The last thing they needed was to have a manhunt after them, so he quickly reached in the minister’s robe. The minister tried to grab Joe’s wrist, but he was too weak to get much of a grip. Joe fumbled around inside the robe before he found the mobicom. He yanked it out and threw it across the room.
“You’ll regret this,” the minister said.
Joe didn’t pay any attention to him. He turned to Mary. “Let’s get out of here.”
He took Mary’s hand and spun to the door. He meant to grab the diesel before they left, but Mary tugged on his hand and wouldn’t move.
“What?” he said. “What is it? Let’s go. Come on.”
“The money,” she said.
She let go of his hand and ran straight toward the minister, who had slumped to a sitting position with his legs sprawled out in front of him.
“Mary!” Joe shouted.
She ignored him. She dashed around the minister’s body and squeezed in between him and the chair and grasped the briefcase by the handle. Even in the minister’s agony, he recognized what was happening. He tried to paw at Mary to stop her, but he really couldn’t see what he was flailing at, and Mary ducked out of his reach with the briefcase.
“Let’s go,” Joe said.
After he got the diesel, he grabbed her hand again and they ran for the door.
“Stop,” the minister shouted. His voice gurgled. “Stop! You can’t leave me like this.”
Joe turned. The minister’s arms lay heavy to his side. His head lolled back and forth. His face was covered in blood, his gaping red eye oozed, and his shoulder still leaked blood.
“Don’t just leave me here.” Red spittle bubbled at his lips. “Have some decency. Put me out of my misery. Kill me, for God’s sake.”
“We should help him,” Mary said.
“Don’t listen to him. It’s a trick.”
“He’s in pain.”
“So what? It’s not worth it.”
He pulled open the door and pulled Mary into the dark winding stairway. They whirled around the steps, ran through the empty hall, and out into the quiet darkness.
When they got to the wagon, Joe lugged the diesel into the hidden compartment. He tried to stuff the briefcase of money in there too, but it didn’t fit. He wondered why he was taking the diesel with them, anyway. They had the money, didn’t they? It was right there in the briefcase, although he didn’t check for sure. He was so used to protecting the diesel, doing everything to make sure it was safe, that it seemed strange to just leave it now. It had served its purpose. There was no sense in trying to smuggle it back out of the city. So he hefted the diesel out of the compartment and onto the street.
He looked at the container for a moment. The reason for their trouble, for their whole harrowing journey, for almost getting them killed, was all for the diesel’s money. In that instant, it hardly seemed worth it. All that for a few gallons of liquid that could be burned. That’s all. He unscrewed the cap. The burning smell of diesel filled his nose. Then he tipped it over with his foot and watched the fuel darken and glisten the cracked cobblestones.
Chapter 42
The south gate was lit up with lights. It was the quickest way out now. Two turrets sat on the walls on each side of the black gate. Machine gun muzzles stuck out each of the dark windows like spikes on the head of a club. They waited in line as guards scanned people and riffled through their belongings.
There was no one behind them. Mary stirred. She spit on her hand and rubbed it on the dried blood staining Joe’s cheek. He noticed the blood splattered across the front of his shirt. He knew the guards would ask about it, so he pulled it off and crammed it beneath the bench. He also tore Eve’s bandage off his elbow and tossed it out. He didn’t want to give the guards any excuses to question them.
When they reached the checkpoint, the guard that came to Joe’s side had pinched eyes that barely opened.
“You ever heard of clothes,” he said. “I hope you got pants on in there.”
Joe didn’t pay any attention. “How far is the nearest town?” he said.
The guard stared at Joe. “I ask the questions around here, not you.”
But the guard next to Mary spoke up. “There’s nothing until Duncan Ridge,” he said. “Four days out.”
“It’s radioactive,” the pinch-eyed guard said.
“That was a long time ago. My second cousin’s boyfriend’s uncle works for Toxic Reclamation, and the last time they checked they said more people were resettling it.”
“Deformed and diseased people.”
“Not so much anymore. The defects and stuff have gone down.”
Pinch-eyes seemed annoyed now. “Are you done?” he said. “Because we have a job to do, in case you forgot.”
He leaned his head to the side, away from Joe, and looked at Mary. Then he held up his scanner.
“It appears we have a problem,” pinch-eyes said.
He leaned his head to the side again to look at Mary.
“What is it?” Joe said.
He was nervous and anxious, not only because of the guards, but also because of the minister. Even though they’d left him terribly wounded, Joe still couldn’t shake the sense that he could still find them somehow. Perhaps he had crawled to his mobicom. Perhaps he got the device in his ear to work.
“It says here you came for a breech birth, but it looks to me like that girl still hasn’t popped.”
“My neighbor Celia had that problem,” the other guard said. “Some doctor turned it all the right way, although he wasn’t a licensed doctor, on account of him losing it somehow. I think he botched some surgery for an official or something. Anyway, she said he was old, really old, so I guess he knew what he was doing.”
“How’d he turn it?” pinch-eyes said.
“I don’t know, really. I guess he must’ve reached inside her and moved it around.”
“And then she gave birth, right?”
“No. She went home after that.”
Pinch-eyes didn’t say anything. He looked at the screen on his scanner again.
“But it says birth on here. So how come she still has the thing if it says birth?”
“I don’t know,” the other guard said. “Maybe it was a mistake.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Darrell.”
Joe cleared his throat. He tried to remain calm, but he wanted to push the proceedings along.
“It’s just like he said,” Joe added. “The doctor turned it around, but she’s not ready to give birth yet.”
“Where’d you have it done?”
“Public ward.”
“Which one?”
Joe didn’t know. “Across the bridge,” he said.
“Which one?”
“North.”
“That’s F sector,” Darrell said. “I know that one. PW5. My aunt lives around there.”
“Would you shut up?”
Pinch-eyes continued questioning Joe. “There’s no record on here. If you actually went there, there would be a record. And since there isn’t, it means you’re lying.”<
br />
“Wait,” Darrell said. “Didn’t we get a brief this morning that said there was some transmission glitch in F sector?”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut your filthy hole!”
Darrell chuckled nervously and looked off toward the gate. He adjusted his rifle strap.
“Can we go?” Joe said.
“No,” pinch-eyes said. “No, you can’t.”
“Stupid dirt-eater,” Darrell said.
“I just wanted to know if you were done,” Joe said. “We have a long way to go.”
“We’re not even close to being done,” pinch-eyes said. He looked behind him again. “Get the boys,” he said to Darrell. “We’re going to conduct a search.”
Now Joe wished he hadn’t said anything. But that didn’t prevent him from wanting to say something more, to tell the guard a search wasn’t necessary. He even thought about giving him some money, but then Joe thought the guard might take it all, or accuse him of bribery and arrest them both. As he’d already learned, sometimes pushing the issue only made things worse rather than better. There was nothing he could say or do now that was going to stop the search anyway, so the best thing was to go along with it and get it done quickly.
Joe looked over his shoulder.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
Pinch-eyes raised his rifle. “Bring your wagon around to the holding area.”
As Joe steered the wagon off to the side of the guardhouse, he saw that the people coming toward the gate were only traders of some sort. They had one large truck box pulled by two bisox and two smaller pickup wagons with campers built in the beds.
Meanwhile, Darrell reemerged from the guardhouse with five other guards following in a line behind him. Pinch-eyes ordered two of them to check the wagons that were rolling to a stop in front of the barrier to the gate. He ordered Joe and Mary to get out of the wagon and made them stand in front of the horses.
“Those are some sorry ass horses you have.”
Among the three new guards, one was noticeably taller than the rest. He kept fidgeting like he was uncomfortable.
“Strip down,” pinch-eyes said.
Joe was puzzled. He thought they were going to search the wagon.
“You mean take off our clothes?” Joe said.
“Don’t get smart with me. Take off your clothes.”
“Hey,” the tall guard said, “leave them alone.” He had a long narrow face that reminded Joe of a garden trowel. He also had eyes that seemed to suffer the feelings of whatever they witnessed. They were the wrong eyes for a guard to have. “They’re just simple dirt-eaters,” the tall guard said.
“Who yanked your chain?” pinch-eyes said. “I intend to be thorough. I have the authority to conduct any search deemed necessary.”
“You know they don’t have anything.”
“One more word out of you and I’ll have you disciplined.”
The tall guard glared at pinch-eyes. He gripped his rifle and slid it out from his side and across his stomach in a ready position.
Joe was glad to have someone standing up for them. He hoped it would draw attention away from him and Mary so they could get the search over quicker and get out of the city. Joe glanced at the tall guard to show his gratitude before Joe unfastened the buttons on his pants and let them drop to the ground. After he stepped out of them, he looked at Mary. She hadn’t moved.
He leaned toward her. “You have to do it. Then we can go home.”
She shook her head, two quick shakes.
“Quit stalling,” pinch-eyes said.
Mary flinched, like something jabbed her, and she held her belly.
“For God’s sake, leave them alone,” the tall guard said again. He stepped forward. “She’s pregnant.”
Pinch-eyes turned his head slowly to face the tall guard. He looked him up and down. Then he walked casually over to him, only a few steps, but he made them seem longer. He stood in front of the tall guard and pushed up the front of his helmet.
“What makes you so concerned?” pinch-eyes said. “You got dirt-eater blood in you?”
“He’s dumb enough, that’s for sure,” Darrell said.
“No,” the tall guard said. “I don’t have any dirt-eater in me. It’s just common decency. There’s no reason to mess with them.”
“No reason? Doing our duty is no reason?” Pinch-eyes looked at the other guards before he looked at the tall man again. “I think it’s time you learned your duty.”
Pinch-eyes gazed up at the dark sky, as if it held a clue to learning duty. Then he swiftly rammed the muzzle of his rifle into the tall guard’s groin. The tall guard instantly locked his legs together, hunched over, and pressed his hands to where he’d been hit. But before he crumpled to the ground, he managed to lift his agonized face for a moment and muster a twisted grin.
“Put him in restraints and take him down below.”
They trussed him by the wrists and ankles and dragged him away. Joe kept quiet and still. He didn’t want to make the wrong move.
When the guards returned, pinch-eyes instructed one of them to help Mary undress. The man stepped quickly up to her, as if he was going to rip her clothes off, but then he stopped and stood still, as if unsure of what to do next. He reached out for her shoulders, but changed his mind and went for her floppy hat. Mary screamed like he was tearing out her hair. She latched onto the hat and tried to wrench it free. Her reaction was the exact opposite of the way she reacted when the minister captured her. Maybe she had had enough. Joe certainly had. He tried to get his hands on the guard to push him away, but two other guards swarmed over Joe and contained him. Darrell grabbed Mary while the other guard grabbed the torn hem of her dress and yanked it up off her body.
“Stop!” Joe shouted. “Stop! Leave her alone!”
“Enough!” pinch-eyes yelled.
The guard stopped, and Darrell let go of Mary. She slumped to her knees. Her yellow hair shrouded her face. Her hat lay crushed and torn on the ground. She shielded her naked breasts with one arm while she cradled her belly with the other. Seeing her like that hurt Joe more than seeing her in the grip of the minister. Or perhaps the emotions were different and that was why it felt worse.
Joe wrenched free from the guards and knelt down beside her. He stared into her eyes. What he saw dug even deeper. Her eyes trembled, but it wasn’t out of fear or pain or exhaustion. She looked at him as if he was the only one who ever saw her. He slid his arm gently around her bare shoulders and then slid his other hand across her swollen belly before he helped her to her feet.
Pinch-eyes shook his head at them. “Look at you two pathetic wastes.”
“Yeah,” another guard said, “that girl looks like she’s got a tumor growing out of her.”
“Looks like a boil on my ass,” Darrell said.
“She don’t even look human.”
“Worthless dirt-eaters,” pinch-eyes said. “We should cleanse the city of dregs like you.” He shook his head again. “Get out of here. It’s making me sick looking at you.”
Joe grabbed Mary’s dress and fitted it over her head and pulled it down over her body before he put his own clothes back on. Then he picked up their ratty shoes, and they both got in the cab to finally go.
Chapter 43
The forest road descended along a twisting channel where the air grew colder and damper. Joe dug the bloodstained shirt out from under the bench and put it back on. Dripping moss hung from trees. The darkness grew thicker. Lester and Sam’s hooves slipped on the slick, rocky path. The wagon jerked and jounced. They were finally out of the city, but Joe still felt it on his skin, like slimy grease you couldn’t wash off.
He kept looking behind him, expecting someone to be there, but all he saw was the black darkness like thick, wet tar. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that they weren’t still in danger. The deeper they went into the forest, the more he believed that they had miraculously made it out in one piece.
He hadn’t checked the briefcase
of money yet to see if there was actually money in it. A part of him didn’t want to. If there was nothing inside, the disappointment would be overwhelming, especially since they’d dumped the diesel and now they would have no way of getting the money at all. At the same time, he had to know.
He stopped the wagon.
“What is it?” Mary said.
“That case,” Joe said.
Joe pulled the floorboards out and yanked the briefcase up onto his lap. He fumbled with the latch until it sprang open. There, on the cloth that lined the inside of the briefcase, sat several fat stacks of bills. He didn’t know how much it was, but at least it wasn’t empty. Joe should have been happy, but he didn’t feel that way right then. He felt relief more than anything. Maybe later, when the events that led up to getting the money receded in his memory, he would feel all the joy he had anticipated from the very beginning.
Besides, their journey wasn’t over. They still needed to reach home. But now that they had the money, they could buy needed supplies like food, water, and a new rifle. It was an advantage they didn’t have before, and one that could ease their way back home. All they had to do was make it to Duncan Ridge, the town the guards had talked about.
Chapter 44
Near dawn, the dark and dense forest began to lighten. Joe could see the green and brown lichen covering the stones in the road and coating the tree trunks that crowded the roadside. The thick tree branches overhanging their path began to appear against the heap of leaves stirring above. After all the noise of the city, it somehow seemed too quiet, too isolated, too alone. He couldn’t wait to feel the comfort of the bright, wide open plains again.
As the wagon bumped along, Mary convulsed in pain and clutched at her belly more and more. She tried to hide her discomfort by turning away, but it was useless. She groaned and twisted in her seat.
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