The Human Wilderness (A New America Trilogy Book 1)

by S. H. Livernois

  He had to wonder: When would his punishment come?

  Chapter 11

  At dawn, Eli stood at the window again, watching a weak sun expose a foggy, wet landscape and the wall, now slick with rain.

  The prisoner slept through the dim sunrise, until voices cracked suddenly through the morning's quiet and he woke with a start. Two men appeared and released him from the stockade. The prisoner collapsed into their arms and was dragged out of sight.

  Eli raced to the door, and peeled it quietly open. He remembered the stony edge to Amos' voice, the casual way Jack spoke of the prisoner's sentence.

  There may not be any laws left, but that doesn't mean there can't be justice.

  The building was empty and quiet; Eli crept into the hall, into the cavernous lobby, and sprung out the front door and into cold air. He jogged down the brick walkway as a chorus of raindrops pattered on pine needles and roofs and trailed frigid rivulets down his neck.

  Everyone in town had crowded in the middle of the settlement; they stood in a ring facing something Eli couldn't see, chatting in excited whispers. He found Amos among them and ambled down the path to his side.

  "Morning," Amos said.

  Eli nodded.

  Two men held the prisoner up by the arms, as if displaying him to the crowd. The man's eyelids fluttered closed and his jailers shook him awake.

  "Robert Donovan," a voice boomed. "A week ago, three witnesses saw you stab Travis Crawford in the belly. As he has since died of his wounds, you are guilty of murder."

  Amos sipped something steaming from a tin cup and crooked his head toward Eli. "How do you do it where you're from? Deal with criminals?"

  "Punishment equal to the crime," Eli said. "Steal food, you don't eat for three days. That sort of thing."

  Amos' gaze flicked to the bruises on Eli's face. "And violence?"

  Eli had a flash of himself on a stage, a sea of faces before him, a fist crunching against his jaw. "Same thing."

  Amos nodded. The voice hollered, "Amos will declare the sentence."

  Robert flinched toward the sound. "He goaded me, I tell you. He was drunk and threatened my Linda —"

  Amos grinned, sipped his drink. "And what did he say, Mr. Donovan?"

  Hope sparked in the man's eyes. "He said he was going to teach her a lesson in the barn. Called her a whore."

  "And that makes it okay to stab him to death?"

  "I didn't mean to do that, sir."

  "You killed a man. That's all I need to know." Amos paused and a hush settled over the crowd, broken only by a crow cawing in a nearby tree. "I sentence you to a lifetime of hard labor."

  The man collapsed into the dirt and his captors dragged him off. Eli almost cried out in the man's defense — he'd barely had a minute to explain his side of the crime. He frowned at Amos.

  "That's it?"

  "He's volatile." Amos' cold eyes narrowed. "His type should be shackled and caged for the safety of others."

  "What will he do for the rest of his life?"

  Robert's captors pulled him toward a small building; his heels dug into the dirt and he screamed about Linda and that Stan was going to rape her. The crowd watched the spectacle, their skeletal, yellowed faces either grinning or apathetic. Amos' thin lips stretched in a smile.

  "Whatever we want him to. Plow in spring, harvest in fall. Repair roofs or the wall, whatever else needs fixing. We don't have enough people or food for him to just rot in a cell."

  Robert vanished into the building, screaming and kicking, and the door slammed shut.

  "I hear there's more survivors. There's no hope for us alone. But together —"

  "Don't waste your pitch on me, Eli."

  "We could help each other survive."

  "And you think that's for the best?" Amos' eyes unfocused, as if remembering something. "The place I lived before this, a couple years ago, had a visitor once who suggested that very thing. The world had already ended, but he was spouting about doomsday. Can you imagine? Doomsday, after the apocalypse. He said 'humanity and civilization will fall into ruin, never to be resurrected again,' or some such nonsense. He thought like you did. Find each other, save each other."

  "And what did you tell him?"

  Amos stopped smiling and studied his fellow survivors, who were now drifting away from the excitement to all corners of the walled settlement. Eli followed his line of sight, spied Frank and Jane strolling toward them wearing their gear and packs.

  "I asked him what in the hell he wanted to save humanity for. We were always like this, you know. Cruel, selfish, destructive, violent. Civilization was just an illusion. And now, we've just proved who we really are. Who we've always been."

  "And what's that?" Eli said.

  "Animals, fighting to survive. Take Mr. Donovan. The apocalypse didn't make him a bad guy. He always was. We all are."

  Amos' words struck like a blade in Eli's gut. A visceral, intense feeling of sorrow and fear filled the gaping wound. "We're not doomed."

  "Sure we are," Amos answered.

  He fixed his steely eyes on Eli, accusing him, seeing the man Eli truly was inside. He stared right back. Amos' face was pale and hardened, the eyes lifeless.

  "I have to disagree with you there," Eli said. Jane and Frank drew closer, and he raised a finger, asking them to wait. Jane crooked an eyebrow, stopped behind Amos with a huff. "Thank you for sheltering us here. But we'll be on our way."

  Amos nodded and shook his hand. "Good luck finding your girl."

  "Same to you."

  "Move your ass," came Jane's voice. Something heavy hit Eli in the stomach: his pack.

  Amos glanced from Jane to Eli to Frank and smiled. "I'll show you folks out."

  He led them between the gardens while sipping his steaming drink. Robert had returned: he was shoved to his knees before a row of carrots at the base of the wall. Eli stared up at its comforting barrier, the hollow of dread gouging his chest.

  "Last time I was out there, I passed a place up north." Amos signaled the watchman in the tower above. "Pretty well fortified, people were friendly. If you need safe haven, I'd head that way. It's a courthouse, in a town called Elsberry."

  Eli's knees buckled. The courthouse. He took a deep breath.

  "Thanks for the tip," he croaked. "And try those nets. Sinew is your best bet for cordage."

  "We will." Amos put a hand on Eli's arm. "If you find the kidnappers, kill 'em for me."

  Eli stared into that hard face a moment; the steely eyes glimmered, as if imagining their violent deaths. He didn't want to feel Amos' bloodlust because it was a slippery slope. Still, Eli nodded as the gate began to squeal open and a sliver of the woods outside emerged. Frank appeared to his left.

  "I'd never abandon Lily," Eli said. "You know that."

  Frank nodded slowly, peeked at him from the corner of his eye. "I know."

  The gate now gaped open with a crashing thud and Eli's path into the wilderness unfolded among the red pine, washed clean in the rain. His heart skipped into a frantic rhythm.

  The courthouse. Gray stone, three stories, a wall looming over a main street strewn with bones. Gunshots burst from a forgotten place in his memory. Eli shook away the image, took a deep breath and led the way through the gate.

  Shards of torn trees, ripped apart by the storm, littered the forest floor. Eli blazed the trail, throwing aside branches to clear passage for the others. He replaced his fear with plans and ideas for where to go next and what to do when they found the kidnappers.

  "Let's keep west. Bet they got stuck last night, like us."

  Frank nodded, Jane hummed. They passed the spot Eli had been trapped; he put the sun behind him and pitched west.

  They passed a small pond with a beaver dam, a towering cliff of granite, and a stretch of muddy lowlands that sucked at their boots. When they reached the other side, Eli found tracks emerging from the woods to their left. He pointed them out.

  "Just two sets. Scouts, maybe?" Eli hovered over the
prints a minute.

  Frank stopped beside him and stared off sadly into the distance. Black shadows had gathered under his eyes, new wrinkles sprouted by his mouth. His friend glanced at him briefly and nodded. Eli offered a small smile, then rose and pursued the tracks, which tumbled down a small hill toward a thin silver creek and disappeared. Eli found them again on the other side, climbing upwards and into a flat expanse of widely spaced trees. The midday sun finally broke free of the clouds.

  Eli fell back to walk beside Frank. "When we catch up, we'll have to stay hidden and be ready to ambush them." He turned back to Jane, who marched behind. "Hopefully they'll give her and the others up without much of a fight."

  Jane nodded. Eli saw hardness in her mossy green eyes. She was still angry at him. Both of them were.

  Eli chased the footprints through the sunlit woods, past a small cave, a crumbling stone foundation, and over an old road that cut a narrow slash over the forest floor. It was nearly hidden except for a faded metal road sign standing beside a tree. The woods grew hilly and dense, so Eli almost missed the square shape poking over a leaf-strewn knoll: a roof.

  Jane noticed it the same time he did. "It looks just like the other one," she whispered.

  Together, they jogged to the cabin. It looked the same as the one near Hope — slapdash and made of rough-cut logs with a metal roof. Eli orbited the cabin with his nose to the ground: the earth was pitted with footprints. He pointed it out to the others with a jolt of excitement.

  "These are fresh."

  His chest light and heart thumping, Eli pursued the prints as they wove away from the cabin, still heading westward. A breeze brushed past his face with a sound like a whip. He froze. Behind him, something hard thudded into a tree trunk.

  An arrow.

  He shouldered his own crossbow and aimed it at the sound. With his free hand, he motioned to Frank and Jane: back away, get low.

  A moment passed in tense silence. Eli moved only his eyes, flitting desperately from trunk to trunk, searching for the archer.

  Then Eli saw him. A sprinting black figure, two dozen feet away. He stopped. Turned. Raised his bow.

  Eli spun around. Frank and Jane stood stock still, their faces pale with shock.

  "Duck!" Eli launched himself against them, knocking both to the ground.

  A second arrow ricocheted off a tree and whisked into a nearby bush.

  "What the hell?" Jane yelled.

  Eli lay on the forest floor; cold, wet leaves soaked him from hip to shoulder. He flipped onto his belly, aimed his bow. Found the archer running away, deeper into the wilderness.

  He jumped to his feet and tore after him.

  Chapter 12

  The dark figure raced through the trees. Wove around the gray trunks. Dipped down and climbed up the waves in the land. He was tall, stocky, broad shouldered.

  And fast.

  But so was Eli. He chased the shadow down the same weaving path.

  The forest rushed past in a blur of green and brown, sunlight and shadow. Up ahead, a girl screamed. The archer was running toward the sound.

  Eli pushed his legs to move faster. He rammed into tree trunks, jarring his teeth. Branches whipped past like slingshots, slapping his legs and chest and face.

  "Lily!" Frank screeched behind him.

  Nerves prickled Eli's stomach. Was it her? Was she really this close? The thought energized his muscles. Rocks jutted from the earth to jar his feet. Bark scraped his coat sleeves. Cold water splashed his legs. The shadow flitted ahead of him, never losing speed.

  I'm coming, Lily Bear.

  Then the archer disappeared.

  One second, he pitched sharply left. The next, his figure vanished into the ground. Eli ran to the spot. The land swooped down into a vast emptiness. He stopped abruptly, teetering on the edge of a steep embankment. The archer tumbled down it to the bottom and into a sunny clearing. On the other side were shadowed woods. Voices erupted from inside, drifting above the trees.

  Above them all, a voice shrieked, "Dad!"

  "Lily!" Frank yelled back.

  Something hard slammed into Eli's shoulder as Frank leapt from the edge of the plateau and tumbled down the embankment.

  "Frank!" Jane came up behind Eli, eyes flicking to meet his. Mossy green, frightened, bright as an emerald in the sun.

  Eli nodded, took Jane's hand, and they jumped.

  His feet swept out from under him and Jane's sweaty hand was wrenched from his grip. Sticks and rocks thrust up to smack him in the back, legs, shoulder. Sky and earth traded places.

  Eli landed on his stomach, dazed and dizzy. He searched his surroundings. The world reeled then straightened. The clearing opened up ahead. Trees loomed dark on the other side.

  Someone stood fifty feet away. Small, dark-haired.

  "Oh my God," Jane breathed beside him.

  Lily.

  Curly hair and dimples. Cut-off shorts with dangling white threads. Knobby brown knees. Rope tying her wrists. A strip of fabric around her neck.

  She stood at the boundary between sunlight and shadow, between woods and meadow.

  "Lily!" Frank hollered.

  Eli saw only Frank's boots, thundering across the ground, racing toward her. So fast and yet in slow motion.

  Was it really Lily? Eli spied movement among the trees behind her. Tall figures dragging smaller ones. A dozen arms and legs vanishing into the darkness. Lily was smiling. Frank's arms stretched open in a hug. Eli sprung to his feet and chased after him.

  Behind her, a thick arm thrust out from the shadow and into sunlight. A large hand wrapped around Lily's tiny neck and yanked her back. Her scream sliced through the quiet forest, sending birds fluttering from their nests.

  "Lily!" Frank raced to the trees; they swallowed him.

  Three thoughts flashed across Eli's mind in a split second.

  Frank's screams were luring Parasites.

  Lily was close.

  And Eli would soon have to kill someone to save her.

  A black dread choked him at the thought.

  Eli dashed from warm sunlight into cool shadow, through a thick growth of old mottled trees. Their distant tops crowded out the sky. Barren, brown earth sprawled ahead. The place seemed to swallow sound. Eli heard only his heart, thumping in his ears, Jane's footsteps behind him, and Frank's screams, carrying through and over the trees.

  "Lily!"

  Be quiet, be calm...

  Eli thudded down a hill, leapt over a creek, and then up the other side. Trees clustered at the top, blocking out the view. Frank hollered again. Eli pitched left; the trees sprung apart, the woods opened up, the land careened downward. Sunlight dappled the ground. Eli skidded to halt and ran into a tree, grasping its rough bark.

  Below him, in the middle of an old railroad bed, Frank stood alone and screaming.

  "Lily!"

  Frank stood in a deep cut in the land; banks shot steeply upward on both sides. A massive fallen tree, surrounded by a sprawl of tangled branches, blocked his way.

  "Lily!" he called. "I'm coming!"

  He began to climb.

  Eli raced down the hill, the momentum pushing at his back until he nearly fell. He stretched out one arm as he ran, yelling for them to stop, and jumped down into a ditch. He climbed up, fingers digging into the dirt.

  "Lily!"

  Eli scrambled to the top, found Frank standing atop the trunk. He grabbed a branch overhead and pulled himself higher. Eli ran down the slope to Frank and pulled him down by the jacket.

  "Let go!" Frank tried to fling off Eli's hand. "She's calling for me!"

  But Eli was stronger — he pulled Frank to the ground, grasped his shoulders, and pulled him in close.

  "Stay here," Eli said. "I'll go."

  Frank tried to shove off Eli's hands, but he held on. Stared into the old, familiar face, now shivering with mania and desperation.

  "She's my daughter!" Frank huffed.

  "I know. And I'll bring her back."

 
; Eli imagined it — killing her captors, scooping her up and spiriting her way — and the picture made him joyous, sick, breathless. The mania in Frank's eyes melted. He nodded, trusting Eli's promise.

  A bloodcurdling screech echoed in the distance. "Dad!"

  Eli's stomach tightened with fear. "You hide." He caught Jane's eye as she bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. "You, too."

  He squeezed Frank's arms. Smiled a little, reassuring his friend. Then he propped his foot on the trunk, raised one arm in the air to grasp at a branch, and pulled himself up and to the other side.

  Eli sped over the ground as if flying. Chilly morning wind whistled through his nose and dried his eyeballs. Blood sped through his veins, pumping his heart painfully against his ribs.

  "Lily!"

  Eli's stomach sank.

  Jane.

  Bodies rustled foliage ahead. Shadowed forms slipped between the trees and boots thundered on the ground. Eli chased after them, but they never got closer. An unending forest unrolled ahead, airy and thickly green now, the ground carpeted in moss and fern. Eli's legs pulled him up another hill to an airy plateau.

  Dread spread from his stomach to his feet like lead.

  A man stood at the plateau's edge, two dozen feet away. Stocky, camouflaged with leaves, every inch of him protected with leather or wool or hard armor. Mud covered the only exposed skin above his mouth guard. The land plunged into emptiness behind him. Eli spied two heads bobbing downward and out of sight.

  "Lily Bear," Eli muttered.

  The man wasn't Simon. Had he expected him to be the archer? Eli didn't know what he thought, but was stunned by the sight of another face, another survivor, a predator.

  The stranger sauntered forward with a wave as if they were old friends meeting on the street. Jane stopped violently behind him, breathless and cursing and with her spear pointed at the stranger.

  "Where is she?" Eli slipped his finger behind the trigger of his crossbow.

  The stranger shoved his hands in his pockets. "Fancy meeting you here," he called in a hoarse voice. Eli heard the trace of a smile. "I suggest you turn around now, before someone gets hurt."