Badlands Trilogy (Novella): Redemption In the Badlands

by Jarrett, Brian J.

  The white carriers avoided the campfire, shielding their eyes from the light. The one in the lead looked around, getting a lay of the land. As the thing’s coal-black eyes passed over the flimsy windows, Boyd’s stomach did flip-flops, his skin turning to gooseflesh.

  Then the lead carrier called out to the others with a sound resembling a growl and a bark. Four others joined it, diving into the dead girl’s carcass, stripping flesh from bone, slurping down the meat like lions devouring a gazelle.

  The scene scared Boyd shitless.

  But if Tony was afraid, he sure as hell didn’t show it. Nothing scared that little fucker. He looked over at Boyd. “Did you see that?” he exclaimed, a giddy expression plastered on his face. “Damn things ripped her tits right off!”

  In spite of it all, Boyd grinned. He didn’t dare show weakness in front of their leader. Tony would order Moose to tear Boyd’s head from his shoulders without so much as an afterthought. You never showed Tony you were afraid and you never questioned his authority. Boyd saw what happened to the poor fucks who did that.

  Now Dogpile was itching to take him out.

  It wasn’t that Boyd didn’t want the same thing, but you only got one chance to take out Tony Morello. And you had to take Moose out first to do it.

  And if you fucked up, Tony would skin you alive.

  Boyd studied Tony’s face as he watched the white carriers devour the girl’s corpse. True, Boyd had taken turns on her the same as the others had, but he drew the line at fucking a corpse.

  He wasn’t a monster, after all.

  Tony Morello was a monster. Boyd was convinced of that.

  And if Tony was this bad at twelve years old, Boyd could only imagine how bad he would be when he became a teenager.

  Chapter Eight

  Dan opened his eyes and saw ceiling tiles. He sat up, and his world spun for a moment. The spinning stopped quickly, but his head still pounded, the pain exacerbated by each heartbeat. He touched the back of his head and felt a large lump there. She’d gotten him good.

  He looked around the room, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light. Small desks and chairs sat in their original line-up, as they’d been left years ago when school was cancelled, never to be in session again. The large whiteboard at the front of the room still had ink on its surface. Lessons scribbled by a teacher long since dead to students no doubt just as dead.

  Dan stood. Thankfully the bout of dizziness didn’t return. In the corner of the room, he saw a plastic bucket. He hadn’t been in this room very often, maybe once or twice when he’d first moved in and was exploring the building, but he was damn sure he hadn’t put a bucket there.

  Lilly, he thought.

  He walked to the door and tried the knob.

  Locked.

  He banged on the door with a closed fist. “Lilly!” he yelled. “Let me out!”

  He peered through the wire-reinforced narrow window set within the door. No sign of the girl anywhere.

  He pounded again, watching through the window.

  After a few minutes, he gave up. All he could do now was wait until she came to him.

  If she ever planned to come back at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Lilly returned to the room an hour later. She knocked on the door, pulling Dan out of a daydream. He walked to the door and met her, peering through the window.

  In her right hand, she had his .38 pistol. In the other hand, a bowl. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her skin still had that pallid look to it.

  “Back up,” she said. The closed door muffled her voice. “Up against the far wall with your hands on your head.”

  “Lilly, you don’t have to do this,” Dan said. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  “Back up against the wall, or I leave you to rot.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “You don’t know what I’d do or what I’ve done. Now back your ass up.”

  Dan sighed. She had the gun after all.

  He walked to the wall on the opposite side of the room and backed up against it before placing his hands on his head.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  The sound of shuffling keys drifted into the room. The doorknob turned, and the door slowly opened.

  Lilly stepped into the room. “You try anything, and I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in you.”

  “Whatever gave you an idea like that?”

  Lilly declined to answer the question. Instead, she walked into the room and sat the bowl down on one of the desks.

  “What’s in the bowl?” Dan asked.

  Lilly glared at him as she backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Dan walked over to the door and looked through the window. She was already gone.

  Sighing again, Dan went to the bowl. Inside it, he found a spoon jammed into tepid beef stew.

  Dan grinned.

  He glanced up toward the sky. “I hope you know what you’re doing, big guy,” he said as he sat down at the desk and began to eat.

  * * *

  Another hour passed. Dan, in turn, passed that time reading a geography book he found on one of the shelves in the room. On the inside cover, he found a list of names, each of which had belonged to a child the book had been assigned to during a school year. Three names appeared on the list, one for each school year the book had been in use. Dan wondered if any of those children were still alive. He doubted it very much.

  Then a thought popped into his head. He’d forgotten to remind Lilly to take her pill. Sure, she’d locked him away, but that didn’t mean that his obligation to help her was gone. Besides, the practical part of his mind reminded him that if she died, he’d be trapped inside the locked room. The windows were permanently sealed, and the door’s window was the type reinforced with wire mesh. Maybe he could break the big sealed windows with a chair and jump out, but even from the second floor, he was likely to break an ankle when he landed on the concrete below.

  And a broken ankle in this world might as well be a death sentence.

  So he went back to the door and pounded. This time he didn’t wait for her to arrive. Instead, he just beat repeatedly until his hand began to hurt and the sound became annoying even to himself.

  It hurt, but it worked. Lilly arrived at the door after ten minutes of his infernal racket.

  “You’re sick with fever,” Dan yelled through the door. “There are pills on the table in the lounge. Antibiotics. Take one a day until the pack is used up.”

  Lilly only looked at him with that hard face and those soft eyes.

  Then she walked away without a word.

  Chapter Ten

  Dan slept on the floor that night. He found that Lilly had left him a blanket and a pillow, at least. So there was that. Between the cold floor and more than a little worrying about being locked away in his own home by a stranger, he got little sleep.

  Lilly wasn’t much of a talker, but she also wasn’t much of a killer. Like a fool, he’d left his pistol in the same room with her when he’d gone to the john. She had every opportunity to put a bullet in his head.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, she’d locked him up, fed him, and provided him a pot to piss in. Even a blanket.

  Hell, he almost didn’t blame her distrust. Given the circumstances, he might very well have done the same thing in her place. She didn’t know him from Adam. There were a lot of sick people out there these days, some bad before the virus and others that had turned bad afterward. He liked to call the latter of the two conditionally moral.

  As the sun rose on his second day of captivity, Dan couldn’t shake the most important fact of all.

  She could have killed him, but she didn’t.

  If he could get her to listen, he could turn things around. He could appeal to her better nature. The fact that he was still alive proved she had one.

  And then, as if on cue, Lilly knocked on the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Lilly, did you take your pi
ll?” Dan asked through the closed door.

  The woman ignored the question. “Back against the wall again.”

  Dan took his place just as he’d done the prior day. When his back was against the wall, he put his hands on his head.

  Lilly worked the keys and opened the door. She had his .38 pistol in her right hand, and another bowl clutched in her left.

  “You know I’m not going to hurt you, right?” Dan asked.

  “Shut up,” Lilly said. The color had all but disappeared from her face. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  “You don’t look well.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Are you taking your pills?”

  Lilly sighed. She closed her eyes and kept them this way for a few moments. “I’m not taking your poison.”

  Dan shook his head vigorously. “It’s not poison, Lilly. Read the box. They’re antibiotics.”

  “Now you’re a fucking doctor?”

  “There aren’t many of those around anymore. Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.”

  Lilly placed the bowl on the table before picking up the empty one from the prior day. “You worry about you, and I’ll worry about me.” She walked to the door and slipped through, back into the hallway. She returned a moment later with a plastic pitcher that she placed beside the bowl.

  “The pills,” Dan said as Lilly turned to leave. “They’re important!”

  She paused and stared at him for a moment before exiting the room without a word. The keys jangled again as she locked the door.

  Dan shot a glance up toward the sky. “That went well. You’re sure you know what you’re doing here?”

  No response. There never was.

  That’s why they called it faith.

  Dan walked over to the bowl and checked its contents. More beef stew, but this time with a pitcher of water to wash it down.

  Not only had she not killed him, but she was also still feeding him. A good sign.

  Now he had to find a way to get through to her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tony Morello sat in the passenger seat, staring out the side window, watching the ruined countryside flash by.

  “I want a candy bar,” Moose said.

  Behind the wheel of the van, Boyd said, “Good luck with that. Hasn’t been a candy bar on a store shelf in years.”

  “Candy bar!” Moose echoed from the van’s back seat. He sat in between Patel and Dogpile, his unusual girth pushing both men on either side to the edge of the seat. Like sardines packed inside a moving can.

  “Easy now, Moose,” Tony said.

  “Candy bar!” Moose exclaimed.

  Boyd adjusted the rearview mirror, using it to catch a glimpse of Moose. A broad smile plastered the retard’s face, giving him the appearance of the world’s largest child. At seven feet tall with the brains of a fourth grader, maybe that’s exactly what he was.

  “Candy bar!” Moose continued. “Candy bar!”

  “You heard the man,” Tony said. He turned to Boyd. “We got no choice now.”

  “There ain’t no candy bars, not anymore,” Dogpile said.

  In a flash, Moose grabbed Dogpile by the throat, the big man’s smile disappearing. Dogpile’s hands went up, but he was too slow to keep Moose from getting a nice, firm grip around his windpipe.

  Dogpile gagged, his face turning red as Moose squeezed harder.

  “Candy bar!” Moose exclaimed. Instantly, he’d gone from the world’s largest child to the world’s biggest brat.

  Boyd really didn’t give a fuck about Dogpile. But if they planned on offing Tony and his oversized playmate, then he needed Dogpile alive.

  “Tony, can you call off your dog?” Boyd asked.

  Tony side-eyed Boyd. Of all the crew, Boyd probably had the most pull with Tony. And that pull didn’t amount to much.

  Boyd glanced in the rearview mirror again. Dogpile’s face was turning from red to blue. Patel’s eye shone white with fear.

  “Please?” Boyd asked.

  Tony considered the request, watching Dogpile slowly expire. The little fucker was in no hurry, that was for sure.

  “Let him go, Moose,” Tony finally said.

  Moose hesitated.

  “We’ll stop for a candy bar,” Tony said. “Promise.”

  Moose’s fingers loosened and then Dogpile was free, sucking huge gulps of air into his lungs as the color slowly returned to his face.

  Moose, on the other hand, appeared to have moved on from the event as if it had never happened. “Candy bar!” the big oaf exclaimed, clapping. “Snickers!” The word came out nickers.

  Dogpile gulped for air as he rubbed his bruised throat. “What the fuck man! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Shut up, Dogpile,” Boyd said, eying Dogpile in the mirror. They made eye contact.

  Dogpile read the message Boyd was transmitting with his eyes and thankfully shut the fuck up.

  Be patient, Boyd’s said with his eyes. We’ll get our chance.

  Patience, as they said, was a virtue.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lilly closed the door to the room and locked it behind her. As she tucked the keys into her front pocket and turned to walk away, she moved a little too quickly, causing the room to shift. She placed a hand against the wall and waited for the spell to pass. It did rather quickly, faster than yesterday.

  Hopefully, the antibiotics were doing their job.

  She was taking the pills, of course, following the instructions on the box. She just didn’t want him to know it.

  He seemed like a nice enough guy, and that’s why she hadn’t killed him outright. But a lot of them started out as nice guys before they turned into something else. She couldn’t take any chances. Besides, there was something off about him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was almost as if he was too nice. Or maybe just too trusting. Who the hell leaves a loaded pistol in a room with a stranger they just met?

  And then there was the mysterious odor of death permeating the building. The source of which she still hadn’t been able to track down.

  Not to mention the carriers’ screams. She couldn’t figure out where that was coming from either.

  Maybe this guy was torturing carriers. Lilly had witnessed first hand the terrible things sometimes done to them. She didn’t have any love for the infected, but the poor bastards had once been people. That counted for something. Dispatching them was merciful, but torturing them? That was just plain sadistic.

  Last winter, she passed through a glorified commune that called themselves a town. They holed up in a couple of empty houses and kept a few of the carriers on ropes, tied to trees. On slow days the “townsfolk” would gather to watch their leader systematically dismember a carrier with a machete as his followers cheered.

  But when the boss decided to slice a ten-year-old infected girl to ribbons, Lilly quietly made her exit under the light of the waxing moon. Even though she’d left those people behind months ago, Lilly couldn’t get the sound of the little one’s screams out of her mind. It was hard enough to keep one’s sanity these days; hanging around with psychos who disassembled the infected for fun made it impossible.

  Or maybe he wasn’t torturing the infected. Maybe he had a group of survivors locked up somewhere. Hell, maybe he was like some post-apocalyptic Dexter Morgan, capturing and collecting the murderers of the post-virus world, stretching them on racks or burning their feet with hot irons.

  Either way, it made her skin crawl.

  Lilly had traveled a lot after the virus struck. She stayed on the run, never settling down for very long. Harder to hit a moving target that way. What she needed, she carried on her back. Or at least she had until now. She remembered stumbling into the building (a grocery store maybe?) and the siren song of sleep calling to her. Exhausted and with fever, she gave into it, and sleep took her hard.

  Now she was here, in the home of a stranger, weaker and sicker than she’d ever been in her life. As if reminding h
er of this fact, the hallway tilted just a little, setting her off balance again.

  She needed to lie down. Lots of water and some rest. Hopefully, her appetite would come back in a day or two. All her life she’d been twenty pounds overweight; now she desperately needed twenty pounds to return to the land of the malnourished. Earlier in the day, she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and found a skeleton looking back.

  But she bypassed the water and went right to the couch.

  Sleep took her again the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lilly finished the pills as the instructions on the box indicated. She drank water; whatever she could keep down. It alleviated most of the burning thirst and filled her belly with something. By day three the fever broke, and the hunger pangs began their nagging. She tried some of the beef stew and got four bites down before she threw it right back up again. Too soon, she decided, so she gave the rest to her captive.

  Dan Owens. That was the man’s name. He told her on the third day, while he used her name repeatedly when addressing her. Trying to appeal to her humanity, she supposed. A little preacher psychology. But as reticent as she was with the good pastor, she had to admit, it was working a little. He was agreeable when they spoke, and he never tried to escape during her visits to his room.

  But that didn’t prove he wasn’t just biding his time. It didn’t prove that he wasn’t simply lying in wait until he found his opportunity to take her out.

  Each time she went to his room she found an empty bowl beside an empty pitcher. By the second day, Dan had begun to fill the bucket too. Now the room reeked of excrement, but she was too goddamn weak and tired to anything about it. It was enough work just opening the cans and getting the food together for him.