King of the Wasteland: Follow-up to Knight of the Wasteland

by Jon Cronshaw

  Sal nods, hooking her arm around his. “Lead the way.”

  They follow the trail to the communal hall and find David and Sis waiting at the door. David gives Abel a knowing smile.

  “Don’t,” Abel mouths, eyes narrowing.

  Returning to their seats, Sal brings out a carafe of water and four clay cups. She fills the cups and takes a seat across from Abel. “How many of these raiders are we dealing with?”

  He shrugs. “About thirty, forty tops.”

  Sis nods. “Thirty-six, but there were some in truck.”

  “And they were armed?”

  “Twelve had rifles,” Sis says. “King had shotgun. I saw a pistol, and some hand-weapons, knives, clubs. Others might be hidden.”

  Abel raises his eyebrows. “Damn it, Sis. You caught all that?”

  She gives Abel a confused look. “Need to.”

  Sal leans back, sighing. “What we lack in weapons, we make up for in numbers. We’ve got around two hundred here.”

  “Half of those are kids though,” Abel says.

  “True enough,” she nods. “But children can still perform tasks.”

  “You got weapons?”

  Sal squirms on her seat, waving a hand. “Our best strategy is defence. We need to protect our perimeter.”

  David and Sis share a confused look.

  “The fence,” Abel says, gesturing towards the door. “There’s a lot of fence to cover.”

  “I see truck push through fence in other place,” says Sis. “This one bigger, but won’t hold for long.”

  Abel taps his fingers on the table and reaches for his cup. “We need to block the road,” he says, taking a sip. “Dig some trenches. If the truck can’t get to the fence, it can’t damage it.”

  Sal stands and rubs her chin. “What about the caravans? We can’t trade if the road is blocked.”

  “Everything’s got to be on hold. Trade can wait.”

  “Okay,” she says, pacing. “I’ll get some defences put in place. We can dig trenches along the road here to stop the truck.”

  “Do fires,” says Sis. “Fire burn. They won’t go on fire.”

  Sal nods. “Trenches filled with fire?” A smile creeps across her face, her eyes brightening. “This might work. They’ll move on and we’ll avoid bloodshed.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” David asks.

  “We’ll figure something, kid,” says Abel. He turns to Sal. “I think you need to call that meeting.”

  TRINITY’S RESIDENTS swarm through the church door as David and Sis take turns striking the bell outside. Abel stands next to Sal, his arms crossed as men and women take their seats on six rows of benches, children running around or bouncing on their mothers’ knees. A six-foot crucifix stands behind him, carved in dark oak with delicate flourishes around its edges, reflected flames shimmering across its varnished surface.

  Sal lights a pair of beeswax candles resting on the altar with a match, extinguishing it with a flick of her wrist. A faint herby smell lingers in the air, mingling with chatter and nervous sweat.

  Abel gives a nod when David and Sis enter, closing the door behind them, and standing with their backs against the wall to the entrance’s left. The chatter turns to hush when Sal clears her throat.

  “Friends,” she begins, taking her place behind the altar, her hands gripping its oak edging, dark knuckles turning white. “First, I need to apologise for calling you to this meeting without notice. We have been made aware of a threat to our community. We must come together to defend what we have worked so long to build.”

  Murmurs, coughs, and restless shuffles come from those seated. Abel steps forward. “Some of you know me, a lot of you probably don’t. I’ve been coming to Trinity for a few years now, both as a trader and...” He pauses and swallows, turning to Sal, and then back to the seated residents. “I was addicted to plez and some of your people freed me,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing over to David. “I know Trinity isn’t my home, but this place means a lot to me. The people here mean a lot to me.” He glances over to Sal.

  A woman on the front row with hair pulled back into a ponytail frowns and gets to her feet. “I’m sorry, I don’t see how this has any—”

  “Please, be seated,” Sal says, glaring at the woman. “Let Abel finish. This is important.” She turns to Abel and offers him a half-smile. “Go on.”

  Abel licks his lips, nodding to himself when the woman sits back down. “A man calling himself a king is leading a gang of around thirty raiders.”

  “Thirty-six,” Sis calls from the back.

  “Right,” Abel nods. “Thirty-six raiders. The gang is organised and well-armed.” He pauses, swallowing. “One of them came here to say they want to take over Trinity—”

  A tumult of shouts and gasps erupts from the residents, all of them talking over each other. Abel takes a few steps back, flinching as he knocks into the crucifix.

  “Stop!” Sal shouts over the noise. “Stop it, now. We need to stay calm and focused,” she says, lowering her voice. “They offered us an ultimatum — either we leave or we die. But I say we fight. I say we defend our community and keep everyone safe.”

  “How can we keep safe against raiders?” the woman with the ponytail asks.

  “Yeah, the fence won’t hold,” a man says.

  People call over each other, their words turning into noise, voices growing louder. A few men shove each other, and a mother nudges her way towards the door, sweeping her child protectively into her arms.

  Abel bangs a fist against the wall, letting the thuds ring out. Heads turn with startled jerks. He allows the shock to resonate as the silence spreads across the room. “I thought you were better than this,” he says, his lip curling as the residents stare back at him wide-eyed. A few of them avert their gaze, looking at the floor or down at their hands. “If you work together, you can stop them. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but if this community means to you even half what it means to me, then I know you’ll do everything you can to defend it.”

  “With God’s help, we can do this,” says Sal, lifting her chin and moving back behind the altar. “We will pray and we will work through the night to make Trinity safe.”

  “What can we do?” a woman asks.

  “We need to barricade the road,” Abel says. “We need to make trenches. We need to make it impossible for those raiders to reach the fence with that damn truck.”

  “Make fires,” Sis calls.

  “And why should we listen to you?” the woman with the ponytail asks, her arms folded.

  Sal steps forward and marches toward the woman. “Abel speaks for all of us,” she says, waving towards him. “He’s seen what we’re up against and he’s a friend to our community. Listen to him as you would to me.” Coming to a stop inches from the woman’s face, she raises a forefinger. “Take orders. Don’t argue.” She looks around, glaring. “That goes for all of you.”

  The woman nods, the tension dropping from her arms.

  Sal holds the woman’s gaze for a long moment before taking her place back behind the altar. “Let us pray,” she says, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes. “Dear Lord, please give us the strength to protect our community and keep us safe in these darkest times. We call on you for your blessings and protection, and to thwart the evil around us. Amen.” She raises her head.

  Abel places a hand on Sal’s shoulder as the residents head to the door. “You think they’ll be okay?”

  Sal takes in a sharp breath. “God willing.”

  7. The Nest

  Abel hurls another clump of soil onto the growing mound. The pit stretches for ten metres in front of Trinity’s fence, slashing through the trail like a jagged scar. The trench reaches up to the middle of his chest. He sighs as the muscles twitch in his lower-back and shoulders. He looks at David, his skin coated in sweat and dirt.

  The fence scrapes open and Sal emerges with a water bottle, Sis following her through the gap. “You
two should take a break,” she says. “This is looking good.”

  Abel glances up, shakes his head, and then carries on digging. “I’d rather just carry on.”

  Dropping his shovel, David scrambles from the pit and takes the bottle with a grubby hand, unscrewing the cap and gulping down the water, his head thrown back.

  Abel looks up at the towering crucifix above and nods. He drives his shovel into the ground and pushes down onto it with his boot, standing it up in the dirt. “Trench is getting there,” he says, wiping sweat and grime from his forehead.

  “Come and have a drink,” Sal says.

  David looks down at the ground, gasping. “It needs refilling,” he says, offering the bottle to Sal. “Thirsty work.”

  “Damn it, kid. That was for both of us,” Abel says, climbing from the hole.

  Sal smiles. “There’s plenty to go around. Sis, will you be able to fill this up at the pump like I showed you?”

  Sis nods, takes the bottle, and goes back into the settlement.

  Abel watches her, shaking his head. “Has she been okay?” he asks, turning to Sal.

  “You can tell she’s had a difficult time. She told me about her sister.” Sal sighs. “She’s seen some terrible, terrible things. No child should go through what she has.”

  “Right,” Abel says, rubbing the back of his neck. “How are the defences coming on?”

  Sal gestures along the trail towards the highway. “The trenches are getting there. The fields are too soft to allow something like a truck through. A few of the residents are building barricades and Sis had the idea of making dummies.”

  “Dummies?” David asks.

  “She thinks if we make King Omar believe there are more of us, they’ll be less likely to raid us.”

  Abel shakes his head and shrugs. “Maybe that’ll work. They’ve already had someone on the inside. You think he wasn’t taking everything in? I bet he was counting numbers, seeing where people could hide...” He frowns, his voice trailing off. “I don’t know, Sal.”

  Sis slides silently through the gap in the fence, the bottle clasped between bony fingers, lines of water coursing along her arm and dripping to the ground — black spots against the brown earth.

  Abel takes the bottle and smiles. “Thanks,” he says. “How are you doing?”

  “I want to make nest,” Sis says. “I could take out wheels, people...whatever.”

  “Damn it, Sis.” Abel jerks the bottle from his lips. “We’re not doing that.”

  “Who’s ‘we’? You don’t have to.” Sis shrugs.

  A deep line forms along Sal’s brow. “You want somewhere you can shoot people from?”

  Sis nods. “I can hit them from far. Road clear.”

  Sal shakes her head. “I can’t allow that,” she says, her voice growing deeper. “This is a Christian settlement. We do not kill.”

  “They won’t die in walls,” Sis says. “I’ll get them on road.”

  “Damn it,” Abel mutters. “Just do what Sal says. We’ll find something else for you.”

  David looks up at the crucifix and then back along the trail. “Sis is right. They’ve got weapons. You’ve got to change how you see things. It’s not that simple.”

  “Damn it, kid. If we kill when it suits us, we’re no better than them.”

  “This is defending a community. You’re not killing to raid. It’s different.”

  Sal shakes her head. “Thou shall not kill does not have caveats or exceptions.”

  David lets out a sharp breath. “So you’d let all these people die?” he asks, waving his hands, gesturing to the fence. “Standing back and letting people die is fine, but stopping killers isn’t?”

  Abel clenches a fist and turns to David. “Kid, it’s not for us to question the way Sal runs things. We’re guests, remember? Apologise.”

  A long silence hangs in the air. David scowls, turning to Sal. “What kind of God do you follow that lets people die?”

  Sal doesn’t answer.

  “I could do warning shots,” says Sis in a quiet voice. “Only aim for truck. Scare them. No killing.”

  Abel and Sal turn to her. “Okay,” says Sal. “We can do that.”

  “Things would be easier if you just took out that king,” says David. “You should aim for him.”

  Sis shakes her head. “I said I won’t.”

  TRINITY'S ENTRANCE stands wide open as men and women bring barricades onto the road, dragging them around the trenches and lining them up at regular intervals. The barricade nearest to Abel consists of a simple wooden frame, with sharpened pine stakes jutting out at awkward angles. Others stand like walls — sheets of steel, bricks and concrete.

  Children run by, heaving bundles of straw and kindling. Men carry large logs on their shoulders, dropping them into the trenches.

  “We should light these fires at sunset,” Abel says.

  Sal nods. “Do you think this is going to work?”

  “Who could say?” A grim smile passes over his face. “All I know is that you can't let these raiders take over. You've done too much good here to let them take it away.” He looks down as Sal takes his hand, biting his bottom lip as he meets her gaze.

  “Thank you,” she says. “We've achieved so much in such a short space of time.” A shuddering breath leaves her mouth, the tremors reaching her shoulders. She drops Abel's hand as a parade of men and women pass through the gate carrying figures made of stuffed sacking and cloth.

  “No one is going to fall for these,” Sal says in a voice just loud enough for Abel to hear.

  Abel watches as they move past the barricades. “When it's dark and the fires are burning, you’re not going to be able to tell. If it gives them pause, then they’ve done their job.”

  Sal shakes her head and looks around. She turns to the crucifix and makes the sign of the cross over her chest. “I sincerely hope you're right.” Her hand drops and her eyes widen. Abel follows her gaze to see Sis scaling the crucifix with a rifle strapped to her back and a bag of bullets hanging behind her.

  “Damn it, Sis,” Abel calls. “Come down from there. Can't be climbing up that.”

  Sis ignores him until she's seated on the crossbeam. “I got a good view here,” she calls. “Can see the big road, top of tent.”

  Abel turns to Sal. “She okay doing that?”

  Sal gives an almost imperceptible nod, and swallows. “The cross is a symbol of protection, an embodiment of our faith.”

  “Looks like it's going to be more than just a symbol.” He glances up at Sis adjusting her rifle's sight. “If God’s really watching over you, I’m sure He’ll be fine with it. If not, I’m sure He can forgive you.”

  “Please don’t be facetious, Abel. I appreciate your help, but that’s a very disrespectful thing to say.”

  Abel sighs and offers Sal a smile. “Just trying to lighten the mood, is all. We’ve got a big task ahead of us.”

  “I will pray for protection,” she says looking up at Sis. She turns to Abel. “And I will pray for your forgiveness.”

  Abel grins. “You do what you need to. I need to get back to work.”

  “This is serious,” Sal spits. “We need to take every advantage we can.”

  There’s a long silence. Abel goes to speak but stops himself.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to offend. We need to get these barricades set up and trenches finished before it gets dark.”

  Sal folds her arms across her chest. “Please, speak your mind.”

  Abel removes his cap and rubs his beard, his eyes making their way up the crucifix and then back to Sal. “It doesn’t matter, really.”

  “It matters. I won’t chide you.”

  Sighing, Abel places his cap back on his head and looks around. “The thing I don’t get is you’re always looking for help from God, but I’ve never seen anything that’s ever helped anyone that hasn’t been done by people.”

  “God works in mysterious ways. Who a
re we to question His will?”

  “But that’s my point. Look at what we’re doing here. We’ve got people working together to protect their homes and families. This isn’t because of God, it’s because we’re working together.” He shakes his head.

  “I think your understanding of God is different from my own. If you’re expecting a magical hand to directly intervene, and send those raiders away without us lifting a finger, then you’re right to be sceptical.” She raises a forefinger, her eyes brightening. “But God is with us, guiding us with love, giving us the focus, and drive to help ourselves.”

  “I can do that without God.”

  Sal shakes her head emphatically. “You’re wrong. You are completely wrong. Refusing to believe in something does not make it false.”

  “And believing in something doesn’t make it real, Sal. It’s the same argument. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Look at everything you’ve done, everything you’ve accomplished, how far you’ve come since I first met you. You couldn’t have done any of that without God’s love.”

  Abel sighs. “Now I should be the one who’s offended.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “It was hard for me to get clean. I’ve worked really hard not to go back, to resist, to try to be a better person, to live by a code. You’re reducing that to nothing by saying it’s God.”

  “Not at all.” Sal takes his hands. “You’ve found love in your heart and that love is God. It takes nothing away from your efforts at all. You’ve done wonderful things, but you couldn’t have done that without hope and love.”

  “Right.” Abel looks past Sal’s shoulder and takes a step back. “You know we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this, don’t you?”

  Sal smiles. “I know. But I have to try. I’m determined to save you.”

  “You already did.” Abel rubs the back of his neck and looks up at Sis. “How’s it looking up there?”

  “Clear,” she says. “Need to finish trenches. Stop talking.”

  Abel smiles at Sal and offers her a shrug. “Best do as she says.”