The Human Wilderness (A New America Trilogy Book 1)

by S. H. Livernois

  He strolled around the bend. The wall loomed above the road a quarter mile ahead, cutting off the asphalt abruptly between clusters of crowded pine trees, like a dam on a river. He spied a group of little black forms lined up, armed and marching toward him.

  Eli raised his hands. They raised their guns.

  "Stop right there!" one of them ordered.

  The group stood about twenty feet away, their figures hazy on the shadowed road.

  "Declare yourself a survivor or we'll shoot in five seconds!"

  "I'm not infected!" Eli yelled. "I'm a friend!"

  The strangers didn't lower their weapons.

  "We'll come to you," the voice said.

  Two of the five men approached, guns first, to a distance of six feet. Both wore nearly identical gear: heavy boots laced to the ankle, fleece jackets and thick canvas pants, their middles protected by bulletproof vests and faces concealed with gas masks. Both aimed handguns at Eli's head.

  He wondered if they brandished them to frighten, or if they were loaded. He told himself not to be afraid and pasted on a friendly smile.

  "Strip down to your shirt," said the man on the left, who was apparently the group's leader. "Drop your pack and weapons on the ground."

  Eli obeyed as the man yelled over his shoulder at the three behind him. "Search the woods!" The men broke off and raced into the trees. Then, to Eli, "Where do you think you're going?"

  "Nowhere," Eli said. He pointed over their shoulders at the wall. "Is that a settlement?"

  "We ask the questions. Arms up." The man on the left motioned to his partner. "Search him."

  Without hesitation, the second man holstered his weapon and followed the order. His obedience was uncomfortably familiar. So was the rough way he patted down Eli's sides and legs and tied a rope around his wrists. The man thrust his gun inches from Eli's left temple; he could see the barrel from the corner of his eye.

  "Where are you from? Another settlement?" the leader said.

  Eli pictured Hope and its familiar faces. The place felt so far away, it was as though it never existed. "I'm from nowhere. Just a wanderer."

  "A wanderer? Well, you look like a wild animal. Do you act like one, too?"

  Eli looked down at himself — his clothes were torn, black with dirt and splashed with flecks of blood. "No, sir."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Nowhere." The armed man rammed his gun into Eli's temple. "That's the truth!"

  "You doing reconnaissance?"

  "No."

  "Where's the rest of your people?"

  Eli sighed and lifted his tied hands. "I have no people."

  The others returned from their sweep of the woods. One of the trio approached the leader. "All clear."

  The leader nodded and his men fell in behind him. Five gas masks faced Eli. Five guns aimed at his face.

  "We can't have you poking around out here," the leader said, "so you're coming with us."

  Eli put on a smile. "That's kind, what with winter coming and all."

  "We didn't say you could stay." The leader gestured to three of his men. "Go on and take position. We'll take him to Olive." The leader grabbed Eli's arm and shoved him forward. "Let's go."

  The road shot like an arrow to the wall. Eli thudded toward it, his captors silent behind him. "Who's Olive?" he asked over his shoulder.

  "The one who makes all the decisions around here," a gruff voice answered.

  Eli nodded. "And what's she looking for?"

  "People useful enough to keep alive." One of his captors poked him in the back with a gun barrel. "Now keep your mouth shut or I'll kill you right here."

  Eli stood at the wall, five guns pointed at him from behind, two more from a guard tower above. The gate squealed open with a sound like nails on metal and Eli was jostled through and onto a boardwalk. This stretched over a moat filled with razor wire and wooden spikes and ended at a squat building.

  "There's only one way to go," a voice said behind him. "Move it."

  The building was actually two, separated by an open walkway. Eli was shoved in first and ordered to undress and wash himself with tied hands while strangers looked on. He was then led across the walkway into the second building and held at gunpoint as he dressed. His five captors appeared, one by one, unmasked, disarmed, and in clean clothes. The leader — an older man with a gray beard and sharp, black eyes — took Eli's arm and tugged him toward a small, barred room.

  "No need to hold him," someone called. "She's taking visitors now."

  Gray Beard stopped and smiled at Eli. "Lucky you."

  Eli was led down another boardwalk to the second gate. He expected the corrugated metal to open to a sight similar to the streets of Hope, but the scene on the other side was much different.

  The gate opened onto the crest of a road that split the settlement in half; it descended a steep hill then flattened out in a valley before climbing a second hill on the other side. Men patrolled its length. Three mansions stood on the right side of the road, their front yards filled to the road with a sprawl of cabins that formed miniature neighborhoods with muddy tracks for streets. On the left side of the road more cabins filled every inch of the land up to the bottom of the second hill.

  At the hill's crest sat a fourth mansion, alone in an island of well-manicured, empty lawn. It was the grandest in the settlement and gleamed in the sunlight as if made of glass. Gray Beard pointed at it.

  "That's where we're headed. Move."

  Eli passed fenced gardens where dirty, barefoot, sullen-faced people stooped over crops while a guard watched over them. Others toiled in the shadows of barns, hammered roofs, or cooked at fires. Their weary eyes flitted to Eli briefly as he walked by. A cleaner, well-dressed minority chatted and laughed among them. They watched Eli as he reached the valley and climbed the hill, their demeanor much different: suspicious, superior. He searched among them for Simon's dark face.

  "Can't wait to see what she makes of you," a voice grumbled behind him.

  Olive's mansion was a three-story monstrosity with tall windows, a pillared porch, and a cupola on the roof. But Eli saw it only for a second. His gaze was drawn to a large house in the backyard.

  It was just like Roger and Anna described: imposing, two stories, brick steps, wide black windows. The wall towered behind it, and a fenced garden stretched in front.

  The guest house.

  Eli barely felt the road beneath his feet or the ragged breathing of the stranger behind him. Seven girls worked in the garden. He'd followed their tracks through the woods, heard their stories recited like myths, tinged with grief and mystery. Their white-clad figures bent over bushy tomato plants, plucking bright red fruits from the vine. Were they really here? Were any of them Rooney, Dana, Megan, Bonnie?

  They were captives and victims, stolen from faraway homes and dragged across a barren wilderness, and so he had imagined them scrawny, bruised, hungry, hopeless. Eli's leg muscles flinched, ready to run to their rescue. Then he looked closer at the seven faces, now peering at him like curious birds. Peaceful smiles brightened their young faces. They seemed happy. Well fed. Unafraid.

  He glimpsed beyond the girls in white to the house's shrouded windows. Were girls secreted inside, like Roger and Anna had said?

  "What are you looking at?" a voice barked.

  Eli broke his trance. Gray Beard had caught him staring; the man stood before him, small eyes boring into his.

  "Nothing," Eli muttered.

  "Beautiful things, aren't they?" He gazed at the sight and sighed deeply. The tips of Eli's fingers tingled to punch him in the jaw. "Never mind them. They're not for you. At least not yet."

  The guard poked him in the back with his gun, herding him up a stone path to Olive's mansion. They crossed a spacious porch to stand in front of a tall, ornate wooden door. Gray Beard knocked and the door creaked open; a thin, tall girl with shoulder-length hair peered out, then opened the door further.

  Gray Beard stopped him in the middle of
a high-ceilinged, airy foyer. "Stay here. And don't piss on the rug."

  The foyer opened onto an expansive room with gleaming floors. The entire back wall was constructed of windows that filled the room with sparkling sunlight. Green foliage swayed outside. Everything in the house was white or gray. In the middle of the echoing room was a plush white sofa, a pale blond head hovering over its edge. The head turned to the left and a sharp voice, jagged and piercing like a shard of glass, erupted into the room.

  "As far as I'm concerned, you have one job here, Martha, and I believe it's a simple one." The voice was breathy, soft, even girlish, if not for its icy edge. "To ensure those girls behave themselves. To maintain order and secrecy. You have failed."

  Another voice, low and soft, answered, "Yes, ma'am."

  "I don't like rebellion, Martha. This wicked girl is fomenting trouble and discord. She'll put ideas in the others' heads. Do you not see the danger in that?"

  "I do, ma'am —"

  "Then shut her up," the woman cut in. "I have enough to think about, Martha. You've heard, no doubt, that I have two escapees to concern myself with, people who can ruin —" She stopped herself and took in a sharp breath, kneading her forehead. Her head pivoted back to her invisible audience.

  "If I had any control over this situation, I'd have you killed. And I'd smile while doing it." She smoothed the back of her pin-straight hair. "How fortunate for you that you're someone else's creature."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  The woman's voice whipped off the white walls. "Enough with your false remorse. Do not give me another reason to call you in here again. Now get out of my sight."

  Footsteps pattered through the living room, and a woman, clad in white like the girls, moseyed into the foyer. She was older, with silver hair cut severely at her jaw and a self-righteous, amused smile. She took no notice of Eli as she crossed the foyer and let herself out.

  In the living room, Gray Beard leaned over the woman's shoulder to whisper in her ear. She nodded slowly and leaned her white-blond head against a delicate, long-fingered hand. The guard came to fetch Eli.

  "Olive Grant will see you now."

  Chapter 25

  Olive Grant didn't rise to meet Eli — he had to come to her.

  The guard grabbed Eli by the arm and tugged him out of the foyer and into a spacious living room to the couch where she sat. Her blond head didn't at the sound of his footsteps. Only when he stood directly in front her did her bulbous, translucent blue eyes finally look at him.

  The woman, who Eli guessed to be about fifty, smiled an unnaturally wide grin, her eyes as cold and lifeless as a statue's. Then she focused on a spot over his shoulder.

  "And who are you?" The icy edge had melted from her voice, but like her eyes, it held no warmth.

  "Eli Stentz, ma'am."

  "We found him on the road, about a quarter mile from the gate," Gray Beard said.

  Olive's white-blond brows rose across a tall, waxy forehead and she stretched a long, thin arm over the back of the couch. "Indeed," she said to her bony knee. "And what were you doing so close to my town, Mr. Stentz?"

  Eli shrugged innocently. Olive's glassy eyes sharpened. He sensed impatience and cruelty in her. Superiority.

  "Looking for a place to stay for the winter, ma'am," he said.

  "Mmm. And you'd like that place to be here?"

  She dragged her gaze down his body, where she lingered on his broad chest and thick arms. Her face, sharp-edged and bird-like, brightened, and a curl rose to the corner of her wide, thin mouth. She looked through him with those cruel eyes, finding something equally cruel inside. Eli looked away in shame.

  "If you'll have me, of course."

  She smiled again. "We'll have to see how you fit in, Mr. Stentz." She pointed at his side with a slender finger. "You're wounded."

  Eli glanced down at his side — his shirt was damp with a narrow streak of blood. "It's nothing."

  "How did that happen?"

  Eli scrambled to find a story. He hadn't thought to come up with one and was never good at lying. "I was attacked by robbers." It had happened, but years ago. "One nicked me before I killed him."

  Something like excitement flashed across Olive's face, and she smiled again. This time the expression lit up her eyes, and delicate wrinkles sprouted across her smooth skin.

  "If you stay here, we'll have Dr. Ghrist take a look."

  "Thank you, ma'am."

  "Let's talk outside, shall we?"

  Olive swept off the couch with a graceful motion that reminded Eli of a crane. She walked slowly through a pair of French doors to a covered brick terrace, leaving a wake of flowery perfume behind her.

  Eli spied a trellis covered in flowering vines, a fire pit, patio furniture, and, gleaming turquoise in the sun, a swimming pool. He remembered the weary, dirt-stained faces and squalid cabins outside. His temper rose.

  "Please, sit," Olive said, motioning to a love seat laid with bright-red cushions.

  Eli obeyed and sat at the edge of the seat, putting his hands on his knees. Olive fluttered down on the other end, stretching out her long body.

  "Mr. Stentz, as much as I'd like to provide you refuge for the winter, I'm afraid we don't open our doors to just anyone. You see how many I must support as it is." She scrunched her long nose, as if recoiling from a stench. "I have established something of an interview process for prospective residents to see if they can fulfill my needs."

  Eli nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

  "I expect you to answer my questions honestly and thoroughly. Is that understood?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Her pale form bent forward. "Look at me, Mr. Stentz."

  He obeyed. Everything hinged on Olive Grant's whim. If he faltered, he'd be killed and the girls would live out their days as captives. Eli ignored the fear shivering in his chest, the disgust and hatred. He forced his heartbeat to slow.

  Olive cleared her throat with a delicate cough. "Have you killed people, Mr. Stentz?"

  "Yes."

  "And how many, approximately, would you say have died by your hand?"

  Eli stared into her translucent eyes and counted dead men. "A dozen. Maybe more."

  Olive crooked a pale eyebrow, as if Eli just became more interesting.

  "And was it purely for enjoyment? Or survival?"

  Eli focused on the color of Olive's irises, trying to match them to other shades of blue. Memories blocked his view: shooting a man in the chest to stop him from shoving a child in front of a Parasite. Smothering another to keep him quiet while a herd stomped through their camp. Stabbing another through the chest because he was ordered to. He felt the rush again and tried to ignore it.

  Eli forced himself to speak.

  "Survival, ma'am. Some tried to kill me. Some tried to kill my friends. Sometimes I was ordered to."

  At this, Olive grinned and nodded. Eli decided her eyes were the color of the sky reflected in a puddle.

  "Ordered to, you say?" she said, tapping her knee with her fingers. "By whom?"

  Eli and the others had called him the Commander. He hadn't thought of his real name in three years. It was buried next to his other sins and to speak it was to confess more than he wanted to.

  "His name was Seth Hume."

  "And who was he?"

  A black cloud fogged his mind, erasing Jane, Frank, and Lily. It was as if he'd just escaped the Commander and never found Hope at all, but arrived in this moment, with Olive's cold eyes searing his face.

  "He was the leader of a small group I joined just after the Fall."

  "What kind of group?" Her long hand gestured impatiently. "What was its aim?"

  Eli pictured the men's faces, and Seth's, but he didn't let himself go further than that. He concentrated on the facts. Stayed calm, unemotional.

  "There was eight of us. Survivors from other groups." Eli's voice sounded far away, cold, detached. Olive propped her narrow chin in her hand and listened raptly. "Seth took me in, gave me a job and a gun. Our a
im was to survive to the next day. I was ordered to help him do that." Eli studied his hands. "We scavenged, we stole, we threatened. We attacked and killed."

  "I see. And what fate befell this scavenging group of men?"

  Twisting hallways, shrill screams.

  "We raided the wrong place one day. I was the only one who got out."

  He prayed she wouldn't ask anything more about it.

  "When did this take place?"

  "Three years ago."

  "And since then?"

  "I wandered from place to place," he lied. "Survived in the woods."

  "I imagine that experience has engendered some interesting skills."

  "I can trap, hunt, track, fish," Eli said. "Pretty good at killing infected, keeping out of their way."

  "I wonder ..." Olive crossed her arms and her pale eyebrows knotted in a scowl. "Does a man who's spent the majority of the past couple years isolated from other people, fending for himself and himself alone, have the capacity to contribute to a working society?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Does that man have the capacity to fulfill the needs of another?"

  Goosebumps flushed Eli's skin as he sensed what Olive wanted. She liked and needed killers. And she saw a killer in him.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said.

  "To be obedient and discreet without fail?"

  Eli nodded.

  "To follow orders?"

  Dread struck him like lightning. "Yes, ma'am."

  With that sweeping, bird-like grace, Olive placed her elbows on her knees, resting her chin in her entwined hands.

  "And can you do it again?" Her eyebrows rippled upward. "Steal, threaten, attack? Kill?"

  Eli ground his teeth. He tried to push away the memory of who he was and remember who he'd become. But Olive wasn't looking at that man. She found the beast and she read his sins; she wanted to bring him back to life.

  "Absolutely." Eli heard blind obedience in his voice. The voice of the man he'd tried to bury.