Jaz’s lip curled into a snarl. “I bet those bastards wish now they hadn’t hit Lancaster with that haze crap,” she said. That brown goo stuck to everything, killing plants and animals in hours. People, too. But it had to be applied by plane, and that wasn’t an option anymore. Even the old crop dusters had electronics to control the chemical spray, so they couldn’t commandeer and use those. At least, not for gas attacks. Not yet. “They’re just looters now. At Clanholme we shoot them when we can.”
“They hit us yesterday and we haven’t slept since,” Josh replied. “Everyone’s pulling double shifts on the walls until the Rabs leave the area.” His people called the Arabic invaders “Rabs,” Jaz recalled from Josh’s visit to Clanholme. Short for “Arab”? Maybe for “Rabble”?
The mayor continued, “I’m surprised you made it through, with half a dozen of their little terror teams running around between us and you guys.”
Choony shrugged. “I’m surprised, too. I think we might only have made it here because our lost guards tore into the first team that spotted us. That’s a guess, but we saw a reflection on a hill, and these days it pays to assume the worst, so we fled. Our guards went to check it out, and then we heard a firefight from that direction. Haven’t seen our people since. And then we ran into some more at that farm and almost lost our wagon, fording the creek at a run. Our horses are exhausted.”
Josh raised an eyebrow, then said, “My condolences for your loss of the Marines. We’ve all lost people, but it still sucks every damn time it happens. So where are you headed, if we let you out of here?”
Jaz slammed her foot to the floor. “What do you mean, ‘if’ you let us out? Thought we were allies.”
“Calm down, you’re not a prisoner here. But I won’t open my gate again until I know it’s safe for my people. Right? I have scouts out, and they should return by nightfall if they didn’t get themselves killed.”
Jaz grimaced. “What have your scouts got to do with us?”
“Well, depending on what they say, I might open the gate to let you folks get on with whatever it is you’re out here to do. It will be getting dark, and a good time for you to slip out. Maybe you should take a nap or something and get rested before then… I don’t recommend camping out within ten miles of us. If you’re fast and lucky, they won’t catch your trail in the snow. If they do, you’re in for a rough time out there. Are you sure you don’t want to stay awhile?”
Choony grinned. “The snow’s a lot lighter around here because all the trees either blocked it or caught it. At least it’s been a lot easier going than I thought it would have been, and once we’re in the woods I imagine there won’t be much at all.”
The faint sounds of gunfire came through the open window. In response to Jaz’s inquisitive look, Josh said, “Don’t worry about that. It’s the Rabs taking potshots at us. They can’t starve us out, because we grow most everything we need in the greenhouses across the street. It used to be a nursery and garden center. But they can try to trick us into using all our ammo, and then they’d waltz right in. I ordered our people not to shoot back unless they get a clear shot, so those are just Rab shots you hear.”
Jaz whistled. “Damn. With all that going on, I’m almost surprised you opened up for us. I couldn’t have blamed you if you left us out there in the snow.”
Josh grinned, a real smile this time, and his eyes lit up for a moment before exhaustion again overtook enthusiasm. “You aren’t Rabs, so I couldn’t leave you out there to die. Not when we’d have you safely outgunned if you were up to no good. But, seeing that you’re Clan, I’m sure glad I did. And of course, I’d never turn down a beautiful chick in distress,” he grinned again, jokingly, and added a lascivious wink.
“Perv,” Jaz said and batted her eyelashes super melodramatically. “But thanks. Real talk. You didn’t have to let us in, but you did. Cassy was right about you peeps.”
“After what happened with White Stag, if the tales are true, I’ll take that as a compliment. So tell me where you’re headed, and I can maybe give you the best route. Given that you had to cross the creek, I imagine you got sidetracked a bit.”
Choony said, “Definitely. We were going north to the game lands forest, then we were going to skirt around it to the west, ending up in the Falconry. Cornwall, they used to call it.”
“Oh yeah, you got sidetracked alright. I don’t recommend going back the way you came, but it’s up to you. Since you’re here, though, there’s a way right through the woods. Take the highway west out of town, north to Boyd Road. To get there you gotta cross the Turnpike, but at night it shouldn’t be too dangerous. You’ll also have to creep by the weirdos in the compound across the Turnpike. It’s a Christian group, but not like most Christians.”
“What do you mean?” Choony asked. “The Christians I know are all good people.”
“Well, these ones aren’t good people. They think this is the Tribulation, and all the good people are already dead. They’re trying to earn a trip to Heaven, doing God’s work by killing anyone they run across, figuring anyone still here is evil and needs to go to Hell, but God just forgot about them. Or something. They’ll kill you and take your stuff as a tithe, if they see you. Thankfully, they go to bed at dusk every night. Early to bed, early to rise.”
“Holy crap. For real?” Jaz exclaimed. “They’re nothing like our Christians, then. Ours are full-on ‘turn the other cheek’ types, but good people. Forgiving people.”
“Nothing like ours, either, me included. But whatever the case, don’t wake them up when you go by. Anyway, turn right on Boyd Road then and it takes you right to the heart of Cornwall.”
“The Falconry.” Jaz grinned.
“Whatever. What do they got that you Clanspeople need?”
“We’re not sure,” Choony interrupted before Jaz could speak. “Cassy heard rumors from a trader. Maybe the same trader came through your town. We didn’t know about them, so Jaz and I are going to say hello and see what’s up.”
Josh had one eyebrow raised, but nodded. “Cool… I don’t know much about them, except they consider themselves the guardians of the game lands. They sit on the only road going through the forest, shaving days off the trip for people on foot. For which they take a tax, but I haven’t heard of them being bandits or sleazy. They do earn their little fees.”
“Good to know,” Jaz said with a smile. “Thanks for having people fix our wagon, too. I figured we broke something bouncing across the creek, but I didn’t know what.”
“Just a busted shock absorber, from what my folks say. Quick fix. We’ll have it done before the scouts return. Tell Cassy we said hello, but don’t forget to tell her we helped out. And I know radios are scarce and we’re a small group, but we’re strategically located. Will you let Cassy know we’d like to have a radio, so we can keep in touch with all you friendly settlements?”
Jaz and Choony agreed, said goodbye, shook hands—did all the expected socializing—and then went out to find a nice place for a nap. It would be a few hours before the sun went down.
* * *
Back at Clanholme, Cassy busied herself rubbing down a horse, just returned by a scout who had been riding the Clan’s border all day. The late afternoon sun, low on the winter horizon, cast faint, speckled light into the barn. Nearby stood the real reason for Cassy’s interest in the horse—the new guy, Nestor, was busy mucking stalls with a shovel and wheelbarrow. The manure would go straight to the composting pits that, by virtue of being dug into the ground, never got too cold or wet from leachate.
To Cassy’s satisfaction, a Marine guard stood within view as well, unobtrusively. Michael had made sure Cassy’s instructions to have Nestor watched at all times were followed. Cassy hoped they’d catch him doing something wrong, justifying her mistrust of the swarthy man. Something about him set off her survivor alarms. She still couldn’t put her finger on just why she didn’t want him in the Clan, and wished Choony were there to talk to. He had a way of asking questions that le
d Cassy to a deeper understanding of herself and her motivations, all without seeming to or getting preachy.
Nor could she talk to her mom about it, though usually Grandma Mandy was a great person to bounce things around with. She was a very perceptive woman. But Cassy knew exactly what her mom would say, down to the disapproving tone of her voice as she browbeat Cassy for being too distrustful, the man earned his place, he’d saved the kids, he’d done nothing wrong, he was doing his share of work, blah blah. Maybe Cassy didn’t understand her own mistrust, but she had learned the hard way to believe in her instincts—they could be wrong sometimes, as they had been when Choony arrived, but they’d been right much more often.
Maybe she needed to talk to someone else. Choony and Grandma Mandy might not be options, but Ethan was, and the hacker shared her suspicion of strangers. She finished rubbing down the horse, put the bristle brush on its shelf, and left the barn by way of the back doors to avoid passing Nestor, mucking stalls. She went to the main bunker entrance inside her house and followed the dark tunnel from the hidden entrance in the shelved canned goods pantry under her stairwell. Two knocks on the heavy metal hatch at the end of the tunnel and it swung open to reveal the LED-lit interior of the bunker. Ethan stood at the door and, when he saw who was there, he smiled.
“Come on in, Cassy. I’m surprised to see you here. What’s up?”
“Just wanted to bounce some thoughts off a fellow conspiracy theorist. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure thing. But you aren’t a conspiracy theorist, really. Not by my standards. You just have a healthy understanding of what assholes people generally are when the mask comes off.”
“Maybe. I hope that’s not true about most people, but I’m afraid it probably is. People really are terrible, it’s not just my imagination. Even good people do terrible things these days, just to survive. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you spent any time with the new arrival, Nestor?”
“A bit, yeah. Mostly out of curiosity. I know you don’t trust him, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about.”
“So what did you think? Am I just being paranoid?” Cassy scratched her nose, a reminder of how much the dry air of the bunker always bothered her skin. Maybe a humidifier was in order for him and Amber, if the scrounge team found one.
“Probably. He’s quiet and intense, but that’s not a sin these days. I guess he could be a spy, but if so he has already learned everything he’s going to. I don’t think he could learn anything that would harm us. Quite the opposite—if he is a spy, he’ll report how strong our defenses are and his people will find a different target. But my gut says he isn’t scouting us out for anything.”
“So you think he really is just a wandering survivor who was in the right place and time to save the girls?”
“I have no reason to think otherwise. I think maybe you’re just—”
Ethan was interrupted as the inner hatch to the bunk room opened, and Amber stepped out wearing a nighty. Ethan grinned and said, “Did you have a good nap, hon?”
Amber nodded, and smiled at Cassy. “Hey girl. How’s our fearless leader?”
Cassy suppressed a smile. It was obvious Amber hadn’t been sleeping, and her disheveled appearance had a different cause. “I’m good. Just had to bounce an idea off Ethan, nothing big. Are you two going to have the weekly report done on time, or do you need another couple days?” It was an irrelevant question, meant to change the subject. Ethan’s reports were always on time.
“We’ll have it in time for you tomorrow as usual, of course,” Ethan said, feigning a hurt look on his face. “But I do have to get back to the terminals. If there’s nothing else…”
Cassy scratched her nose again. “No, that was it. See you two at dinner, yeah? Let me know if anything important comes up.”
She turned around and left the bunker, still feeling unresolved about Nestor. But at least now she could be reasonably sure it was her own issues, not anything Nestor had done, that set off her warning bells. If Ethan didn’t mind someone, they were probably decent enough. He didn’t like most people, after all, to the point of being almost reclusive. Cassy climbed the ladder back into her house with her nervousness somewhat calmed.
* * *
Choony got the wagon across the Pennsylvania Turnpike without incident and into the dense woods on the far side. He’d scouted on foot before bringing the wagon, looking for a place in the woods with enough clearance for both wagon and horses, so they could scout ahead on foot without leaving the horses too far behind. He had no intention of blindly riding past the compound of some death-cult religious nutjobs.
Then he and Jaz moved out on foot, gliding between the trees, parallel to Highway 322 but on the side opposite to where the compound was said to be. And just as Josh had told them, the complex was a quarter mile ahead on the west side of the road. He squatted behind a fallen log and peered at the scattered low buildings.
Jaz joined him a second later and nudged his arm with her elbow playfully. “Anyone awake in Nutty Land?”
Choony shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. I don’t see any candles or lights on, anyway. Let’s just sit here for ten minutes or so. Look for anything that moves. If there’s movement, then people are awake and we have a new problem.”
Jaz said, “I’m going to go scout around to the north, see how the path ahead looks. It’d suck if we got past the compound but, like, the road was torn up or something. We’d have to go back, prolly. Be right back.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jaz returned. Choony had stayed in place so that she’d know where to find him in the dark. Choony whispered, “How does it look?”
Jaz grinned wide enough for him to see even in the dark of the forested night. “Looks good. There’s a tree that leans all crazy over the roadway, but doesn’t block it. I rigged a surprise in case we need to get out of Dodge quickly when we bring the wagon past the nutjobs. Let’s go.”
They made their way to the wagon, and Choony got the horses moving again. They kept to the road’s right shoulder, as riding down the middle of the paved road would have made a racket with all the horse-hoof clopping and the wagon’s wheels creaking. The softer dirt of the shoulder helped a bit with noise from both. They went slowly, without speaking. On their left, the compound—once a church and various smaller buildings, now walled with stacked dead cars—remained dark.
All went well until they were roughly parallel to the compound’s gate. The entrance to the compound, the road, and the wagon were suddenly lit up as though in daylight. Choony realized they were being lit up by spotlights, and a bolt of fear washed over him. There was no point fighting, as they’d be greatly outnumbered and he wouldn’t harm another person, so he snapped the reins and the wagon lurched forward.
Choony kept waiting for the sounds of gunfire, and he saw Jaz in the seat next to him with her shotgun pointing in the general direction of the gate. A moment later, Choony saw the tree Jaz had mentioned, which tilted crazily over the road.
Jaz shouted, “Watch this!” She leaned over the right side of the wagon and now had a knife in her right hand. She held her arm out as far as it would go, and then Choony saw a rope strung from the tree to the ground. He didn’t have time to wonder about it, however, as they sped past it in an instant. Choony kept the horses at a full run until they were well around the next corner, and still no sounds of gunfire could be heard.
The horses began to slow, and in a couple of minutes they were back at a brisk walk. The noise of their hell ride faded to the muffled sounds of hooves and wheels in soft dirt.
As the adrenaline wore off, Choony said, “May I please ask just what you had planned? You mentioned a surprise at the tree, but I must have been too busy watching the road because I saw nothing special happen.”
Jaz had her jaw set and eyes narrowed, and she looked pretty angry. “Screw you, Choony. You know damn well you didn’t miss it. Nothing happened. My stupid idea didn’t work, that’s all. You don’t need to te
ase me about it.”
Choony suppressed a grin. Now that the danger seemed to have passed, her petulance was kind of cute. “So I see.” After a minute of silence, he ventured to say, “So what should have happened?”
Jaz said nothing in return, and for long minutes they rode in silence. Finally, he heard her take a deep breath. “So, I tied our rope to the tilted tree. The other end, I fed around another tree, and the loose end was tied to a young tree. The rope was tight enough to pull the sapling almost over. I wanted to cut the rope, sending the sapling snapping out over the road. In an old movie, it knocked a cowboy’s pursuers off their horses and let the hero escape, laughing.”
Choony did laugh then, a hearty belly laugh. Jaz flushed red and pointedly looked away from him. When he caught his breath, he said, “I’m sorry for laughing, Jaz. I didn’t wish to hurt your feelings. I just couldn’t help it. If you’d actually cut that rope, the sapling would have hit us, not our pursuers. And of course, there was no one behind us. I think those lights were on batteries, motion-activated. And lastly, trying to cut a rope on a wagon with horses at a dead run seems a little… risky. The idea might have worked if we’d stopped after passing the tree and adjusted things. I didn’t want to stop just then. Did you?”
Jaz made a weird face, and Choony wondered if she was about to yell at him, but then she began laughing, too. It sounded like she was trying to resist, which only made it come out harder once the first snort had forced its way out. Catching her breath, she said, “Yeah. No. Well, it worked in the movie. I guess it was pretty silly.” She wore a winning, embarrassed smile, and it was infectious. Choony grinned back at her.
The journey became much more pleasant after that. And Choony realized that, although the idea hadn’t worked, it was creative and showed forethought. It would also have probably been non-lethal. The girl was stronger and smarter than he had given her credit for, and he had no doubt that her next scheme would be much more carefully thought out.
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 7
