Tobias hefted his rifle. So did Carl.
They waited for a minute, neither moving, and then they started forward again, inching toward the trees. They saw them almost at once, a half dozen abbies running back and forth in a small clearing.
Carl whispered, “What are they doing?”
Tobias remembered his time as a boy in his past life and how his family had two dogs and sometimes the dogs would run around the backyard chasing and nipping at each other. It was harmless, his mother explained when he expressed worry. They were animals, she said, and this was how animals let off steam. And here, nearly 2,000 years later, the same thing was happening.
Tobias’s whisper was even quieter than Carl’s. “They’re playing.”
The sun had reached its apex, the temperature rising considerably, when Tobias said, “I think we better change that again.”
The second cloth had turned crimson just like the first. When Carl glanced back at him, much of the color had drained from his face.
“It can wait. We’re almost there.”
It had been almost an hour since they left the abbies playing in the clearing. They had traveled through more trees, over a creek, and had entered even more trees. Here the foliage was thicker and the heat not so oppressive.
Tobias’s throat was dry. He was tempted to take a swallow from one of his water bottles but wasn’t sure what to say if Carl asked him for some. Surely the man knew he had supplies. What if he and his family had nothing? Tobias didn’t like the idea of sharing the few supplies he had, but he also couldn’t just let the family starve.
“Here we are.” Carl bent forward and brushed aside some pine branches to reveal the top of a steel hatch.
“What is this?” Tobias asked.
“Not really sure. We think it was a bomb shelter, once upon a time. We just happened to come across it one day a few months back. Had we found it sooner, maybe our daughter wouldn’t have—”
His voice hitched and he shook his head. He bent down again and took hold of the lever and pulled it up. As he did, a makeshift bell attached to the underside of the hatch cover jingled.
Carl lowered himself down onto his knees, wincing at the pain. He called into the hatch, a smile on his face, “Honey, I’m home!”
No answer.
“Honey?” The smile fading.
Again no answer.
“Beth? Samuel?”
When again there was no answer, Carl scrambled to his feet. The glance thrown toward Tobias this time was filled with fear. He turned and lowered himself down into the hatch as quickly as he could.
Tobias stepped closer and watched the man descend the ladder. The drop wasn’t that far. By the time Carl was off the ladder, he could have reached up and grabbed Tobias’s hand if Tobias reached down.
“Beth!” Carl disappeared from view. His voice echoed down below, calling out his wife’s and son’s names.
Tobias felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his backpack to the ground, unstrapped the rifle from his shoulder, and placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder.
He could already hear Carl somewhere down below, beginning to cry no no no no, his voice gaining in pitch with every word. Tobias dropped down onto concrete and ducked his head as he went down a slight incline, a narrow sort of tunnel, the space widening as he went, the room maybe 12 feet wide and 12 feet long, a malodorous musk filling the whole room, and there was a lantern in the corner, just enough light for him to see Carl on his knees, his back to Tobias, leaning over something on the ground. The man wasn’t even making coherent words anymore; he was mewling like a wounded animal, the noise filled with so much sorrow and grief Tobias felt his own heart ache, and he approached, wanting to say something, his attention so focused on Carl that he didn’t notice the shadow off to the corner moving until it was already too late.
He turned at the last second, watching the woman coming at him, the ceiling just high enough to allow her to raise something over her head, and before he even had a chance to raise his hands in defense, something struck him on the side of the head, sending him to the ground.
He tried standing back up, tried going for his knife or his gun, but the woman hit him again. And again. And again.
“I think he’s coming around.”
“How can you tell?”
“He’s no longer snoring.”
Tobias opened his eyes. At once pain flared through his head. He tried touching the spot on the left side of his head where it hurt the most, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate. They were bound together and tied to something above his head. He was sitting on the ground, cold concrete beneath him, his back against the wall.
Two figures stood in front of him in the near-dark. One of them crouched down, holding a lantern toward Tobias, the flickering light showing a woman’s face.
“Sorry about that,” she said, inspecting the wound on the side of his head. “I got a little carried away with myself.”
“Who…what…” Tobias shook his head, trying to clear it. “What the fuck is going on here?”
The other figure crouched down, Carl smiling back at him.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way, my friend, but que sera, sera.”
“Who are you really?”
“Oh, my name is really Carl. And this lovely lady here, her name is really Beth. As for Samuel, well, he’s no longer part of our group, I’m afraid to say.”
“You need to let me go.”
“Do we now?”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Is that right?” Carl coughed out a laugh. “If anything, my friend, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
The pain flared again in Tobias’s head. “My mission—”
“Yeah, yeah, your mission. Just like all the others before you. In case it hasn’t been made clear to you yet, your mission has changed.”
“What others?”
Carl and Beth looked at each other for a long moment, neither one of them speaking. Finally Beth asked him, “Would you like something to drink? There are several bottles of water in your backpack. Seems only fair we let you have some of it.”
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
Was that desperation in his voice? Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could see the blankets in the corner, the cluster of weapons in the other corner, and that was about it. He glanced up and saw the ring sticking out of the wall, keeping his hands held above him, the thin cloth binding his wrists together.
“You poor, poor man,” Beth said, real concern in her voice, reaching out and lightly touching his face.
They hadn’t bothered to bind his ankles together. Big mistake. As Beth leaned in toward him, Tobias kicked out and knocked the woman aside.
She fell back with a startled cry. The lantern fell from her hand to the floor. The flame flickered but stayed alight.
Carl stepped forward, his fist connecting with Tobias’s jaw.
“You son of a bitch!”
He raised his fist for another punch but instead turned away and hurried over to Beth. He fell to his knees and whispered to her, touching her belly gently, and it was then that Tobias noticed, even in the failing light, how it was slightly overextended.
“You’re pregnant?”
“You shut your mouth!” Carl shouted, springing back to his feet as fast as a man with a limp leg could, turning toward Tobias, once again raising his fist.
“Don’t.” It was Beth, on the floor, slowly sitting up. “He’s just scared, Carl. We don’t want to make it any worse for him than it already is.”
Tobias said, “How long are you going to keep me here?”
Carl dropped his fist with reluctance. “Long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“For however long it takes until we’re done with you.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ll start with your legs first. Probably your left leg, then your right. Infe
ction is always a concern, so we’ll be sure to cauterize the wound. We have this piece of metal that we like to use. We get a good fire going up top, put the metal in long enough to do the trick. Then after your legs, we’ll do your arms. We’ll save your torso for last. That’s always the tastiest bit, too.”
“You’re insane,” Tobias said.
“No”—Carl shook his head slowly, almost thoughtfully—“we’re survivors. And you, my friend, are going to feed us well for the next week.”
“Who is she?”
Beth sat off to the side on the blanket, her back against the wall, reading the leather-bound journal.
Tobias said nothing.
“Or is it a he?” She smiled. “No, based on the handwriting, I think it’s a woman. Do you love her?”
He said nothing.
Carl said, “Don’t waste your time with him, Beth.”
He was crouched in the other corner by the weapons, extracting everything from Tobias’s backpack. He came to the first aid kit and opened it, started rummaging through the contents.
“This will certainly come in handy,” he said, holding up the small bottle of Advil.
Beth set the journal aside, watching Tobias closely. The light from the lantern beside her showed her profile. She looked like she had been beautiful once. But her face had become weathered, her hair long and ragged. She looked just as much as a Neanderthal as her partner.
“You think we’re monsters, don’t you?”
Tobias said nothing.
“How long ago did they wake you up?”
Still nothing.
“Was it in the hospital? Did they try to play off that ridiculous truck accident story? Or…did you wake inside the mountain?”
He blinked, trying to keep the surprise from his eyes.
She suppressed a smile. “Yes, we know all about it. Even more now than we did before, when we were prisoners inside the town. Not everybody is completely oblivious there, you know. In fact, I’d say almost everyone knows the town is a lie. Many also know there’s no point in trying to fight it, so they’ve become indifferent. Others such as myself and Carl, well, we weren’t content with just letting the puppeteers pull our strings.”
There was that word again—puppeteers. Tobias found it to be such a curious yet apt word for the people in charge.
“In my past life I was a librarian.” She smiled, shook her head. “Can you believe that? I spent most of my day shelving books. Carl here worked at a hardware store.”
“Beth, don’t.” Carl gave her a look but she waved him off.
“He needs to know this stuff,” she said.
“No he doesn’t. None of the others did either. Why do you keep torturing yourself like this?”
“Because he’s owed that much at least.” She looked back at Tobias. “We don’t like doing this, we really don’t. It’s just…sometimes there just isn’t any other choice.”
“Tell me something,” Tobias said. “As connoisseurs of human flesh, do we really taste like chicken?”
Carl shook his head, turned back to the first aid kit.
Beth said, “So were you from town or did you come from inside the mountain?”
Tobias said nothing.
“I don’t recognize you from town, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t wake up after we left.”
“How long ago did you leave?”
She shrugged. “Can’t really say. Your sense of time starts to dissipate pretty quickly with no set schedule. No job to go to. No TV shows to watch. No children to make dinner for.”
Her hand unconsciously touched her belly for a moment before moving away. She picked up the journal again, forced a smile at Tobias.
“This was a smart idea, keeping a journal. It’s one of those things we tried in the beginning. But then we missed a few days, and a week went by, then a month, and we just didn’t bother keeping up the charade anymore. Terms like weekday and weekend are foreign to us now. It could be Monday. It could be Tuesday. It could be Saturday. It doesn’t matter. It’s just another day, and we’re still alive, and that’s all that matters.”
“How did you manage to escape?”
“Like I said, there are some in town who know the truth. Well, they may not know the entire truth, but they know the town is a lie, that they’re being watched. They even know about the microchips in their legs. They take them out so they won’t be tracked and meet together in secret.”
She watched the understanding come to his eyes and started nodding.
“You know exactly who these people are, don’t you?”
“Wanderers.”
“That’s right. We knew we were being kept in town for a reason, but we could never figure out what that reason was. We knew about the fence, too, and speculated what could be beyond it. Was this some kind of social experiment? Was this some kind of…well, we discussed many different things, but could never decide on any of them. So eventually we talked about sending a group out through the fence to see what was out there and report back.”
“But you never went back.”
She shook her head slowly, staring now off into the darkness.
Carl had set the first aid kit aside and sat quietly listening.
“I volunteered to go, as did Carl and Samuel. It made the most sense, as none of us had families yet. We knew that would happen eventually. Already the puppeteers had started the matchmaking. We were being set up with other single people in town, people who had already decided to follow the rules like good puppets. None of us wanted to go through that hell, so we volunteered to venture into the hell beyond the fence.”
“When did you do it?”
“During one of the fêtes. We used it as cover to make our escape. We got the few supplies we could and left. The plan was to be gone for only a few hours, no more than a day. To see what was beyond the fence and then come back. There would be questions about our disappearance, but we thought we could make it work.”
“But then?”
“Then…then we saw what was out there. Out here. Just…nothing. And those monsters. The demons. We couldn’t…we couldn’t take that news back. For the longest time the only thing keeping us going was hope that something was beyond the fence, something that might save us from the hell that was Wayward Pines. But once we realized the hell beyond town was even worse, just what did we have to live for?”
“How did you manage to survive so long?”
“We stayed in trees a lot. We slept in shifts. We found a cave and stayed there for a while before moving on. We hunted game, but not much game was in the area, not with those demons. But we made it work. We were surviving in a world that seemed to have forsaken us. Then one day, one of your kind came along and ruined everything.”
“What do you mean, ‘one of my kind’?”
“A nomad. One of the people sent from the mountain to explore the outside. He happened upon us. Heard our voices through the trees, I guess. He was shocked to find us there. We thought he had been sent to bring us back, so we attacked him. Samuel”—she shook her head sadly—“he died during the fight. Once we had incapacitated the nomad, we tried getting information out of him. He wouldn’t tell us much of anything. But Samuel was now dead, and we blamed him, so we…”
“We killed him,” Carl said. There wasn’t any hint of guilt to his voice.
Tobias asked, “And then you ate him?”
“Shut up,” he growled. “And no, we didn’t. The thought never even crossed our minds. It wasn’t until months later, when another one came along and we were completely out of food, did the idea start to make sense.”
“He was headed west,” Beth said, “just like all the others that came after him. There’s been, what, maybe five so far? There might be others that explore different points, but it seemed every couple months a nomad would come through the same area headed west. We’d wait until he appeared, and we’d take his supplies, and we’d…well, we’d do what we needed to do to survive.”
“You murder
ed them.”
“Remember how I said in this world the days of the week no longer exist? The same goes with the idea of murder. Out here, among these demons, it’s a foreign concept. Once you leave Wayward Pines, you’re no longer the person you thought you were. You change the moment you leave the fence, and whether it’s for good or bad, nobody is there to judge you.”
“However you want to justify it and sleep better at night.”
“Shut up,” Carl growled again.
“Like you,” Beth said, “these nomads claimed to be on a mission. Some of them wouldn’t tell us much at all, even when we…well, when we put them under duress. But others did talk. They told us everything. About the main puppeteer, Pilcher, and how Wayward Pines was his vision. How he put all of us in suspended animation. How there are still others in suspended animation, just waiting there like props in a play. Which were you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You never answered my previous question. Did you wake up in town, or was it inside the mountain? If it was inside the mountain, then you probably knew about the whole thing before it happened. Back when the world was still our world. Back when reruns of Seinfeld would play on the TV late at night and it cost over fifty bucks to fill a tank of gas. Did you say goodbye to your loved ones? Or did you bring them with you? Or did you not have a chance like the rest of us? Just one day you went to sleep, and a thousand years later you woke up in this hell?”
“Eighteen hundred.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s how long it’s been. Eighteen hundred years. And yes, I am on a mission. In fact, if my mission goes well, there’s a chance I might be able to save us all.”
Carl snorted air through his nose. “Nice try, asshole.”
“Don’t mind Carl,” Beth said. “He gets cranky when he doesn’t get his nap.”
Tobias asked, “What are you going to do with it?”
“Do with what?”
“Your child. You’re just going to raise it here in the wild, with no medicine, or vitamins, or even food?”
“We’ll manage,” Carl said. “People were giving birth before they had hospitals. You ever hear of the Oregon Trail? You ever hear of the Wild West? They didn’t have hospitals back then. They barely even had doctors.”
Wayward Pines: Nomad (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 2
