A New America Trilogy (Book 1): The Human Wilderness

by S. H. Livernois

  "They were dead already," he said.

  Chapter 31

  From the cupola atop Olive's house, Eli could see the inside and outside world. An inside world of captivity and danger; an outside world that reminded him how far he was from home. He'd hoped the chilly air would blow the screams out of his mind.

  He was wrong. All he could hear were screams.

  To the south, a pocked and faded road shot out from the wall and disappeared into the wilderness. To the north, rounded green mountains stretched along the horizon. Behind him to the west, white curls of campfire smoke puffed from the trees. The shrill calls of Parasites echoed faintly.

  Inside the walls, wheels scraped against asphalt. Men shouted. Eli watched as two figures trudged from the west side of town toward Olive's, each hauling a cart. Bodies were sprawled across both, their hands and feet dragging across the road. Dark blood stained the collar and chest of one, while an arrow jutted from the heart of the other.

  This isn't who you are. You're a good man. I know it.

  Olive stood at the end of her stone path, awaiting the dead with arms crossed and blond hair rustling. The cart stopped in front of her and the men — two of her guards — grumbled an announcement. She nodded, gaped at the bodies. Then her screeching voice cut the silence: she wanted extra patrols, more surveillance, curfews, more guards at the guest house.

  "And find who did this!"

  One of the guards responded by shouting orders at the other men, Wyatt among them. Four filtered down the road to begin their patrols and four others took posts at the guest house — Wyatt and a second guard went in front and two others in back.

  Two in back.

  Eli gripped the ledge of the cupola and peered down. One of the men strolled along the side of the building and disappeared around its back corner.

  The back door, like Pete said. A way in — and a way out. Eli remembered the oak tree, its hefty branches reaching to the wall's lip. He could climb the tree and launch himself over the edge into the buffer zone, like Simon had done.

  Eli's mind dashed over the possibilities: he'd have to climb the wall to the passageway, but he could figure that out. Sneak into the guest house, escort the girls out through the back door and into the wilderness. But it was impossible under the guards' watchful eyes, and without an ally.

  Two of the six rebels he knew of were dead, and Rooney had been silenced. What now? Eli scanned the expanse of Grant's Hill, its maze of twisting streets and crowd of ramshackle cabins hiding his allies. Eli was only one man, powerless to help. And what could one man do?

  Kill her. Everything will fall apart.

  One man could execute Olive. Three years ago, Eli would've put a bullet in the back of her head without blinking, if Seth had ordered it. Eli was slipping on that man's skin again.

  No, not a man, a beast.

  Three gunshots burst in his ear, women wept, a heartbroken man screamed forever. Eli gripped the ledge of the cupola to keep himself from sinking into the memory. Sensations assaulted him: the wet slice of a knife through a man's neck, Simon's skull cracking against an oak tree, blood spurting hot from a gash in Bill's cheek. Bullet holes between three pairs of blue eyes.

  Acts of instinct and survival. Eli always had violence in him — the Fall just gave him the opportunity to act on it. Was the man he had tried to be in Hope even real? The man who loved Jane, who Frank protected, who Lily looked up to?

  Eli's heart thumped weakly, unevenly. He let go of the ledge and stumbled to the other side of the cupola. Dr. Ghrist was strolling down the road toward the bodies, still splayed across the carts. He bent over them, shook his head, and stared back at the guest house. His voice drifted upward in the silent air. Eli leaned over the railing to listen.

  "... the rebels?"

  Olive said nothing.

  "I thought you had this under control."

  Olive's mouth formed silent words, her narrow lips drawn into a tight slash in her waxy face.

  Dr. Ghrist motioned angrily at the guest house. "And what happens next? What about them? They are supposed to be under your protection, remember?"

  "Enough!" Olive said.

  The doctor shook his head, muttered something. Eli had stopped listening. A weightless, light feeling tingled in his stomach. The thrill of a sudden realization.

  The doctor had access to the guest house. He wanted to protect the girls. He opposed Olive but was close to her. Pete and his conspirators likely wouldn't trust someone so apparently loyal. But Eli knew better.

  Keep control over those men of yours. They have no right to be in there and those girls are not theirs to do with as they please.

  Maybe Eli wasn't completely alone.

  Olive barked an order at the doctor and he followed her up the stone path to the porch and inside her mansion. The guards took up the carts and hauled them away. Eli turned to the west and the vast wilderness beyond the wall. The campfires still puffed smoke and the Parasites still howled. A blue sky hovered above it all.

  Eli lined up the clues and tried to make sense of them.

  Girls in white, floating around town, peaceful and serene and happy. Unknown others, locked away and abused. A mission Simon was too afraid to speak of. One mysterious ringleader, controlling it all. A plan and a list of questions began to form. Maybe there would soon be answers. The beast retreated into his corner, growling but quiet.

  Outside the wall, movement on the road fluttered in the corner of Eli's eye: three figures bobbing from the trees. He could tell two of them were guards, the third was likely another survivor. Another person who had to prove himself or be killed, accountable only to himself.

  Eli was the only man in the room again. He knew what his fellow men were capable of, what they did when let free. And he knew what was happening in the guest house.

  Girls are always victims.

  But this time, he wouldn't stare at the floor and let it happen.

  Clouds rolled in just before dinner, heralding a sharp autumn wind. It stirred a thin haze of woodsmoke curling from a dozen small fires set in between the cabins to ward off the chill. Eli wove through the fragrant white cloud and narrow, muddy paths on his way to Dr. Ghrist's.

  His house was built of gray stone and was the town's oldest. Eli stepped to its red front door, where a handwritten sign had been pasted to announce clinic hours — dawn to dusk. Eli turned an ornate doorknob and walked inside.

  He entered a narrow hallway with dark wood flooring. Before him, a staircase stretched into a second floor. To the right was a formal dining room, to the left a sitting room. There, an older man sat in a chair in a pool of light streaming from the window, having a coughing fit. Eli walked in and sat in a chair opposite him, perched his hands atop his knees, and waited. The man's spell stopped.

  "Thyme tea with honey is good for coughs." Eli offered a smile. "Course, the doc will likely say so."

  The man flashed small, watery eyes at him. "Thank you kindly, sir."

  Eli felt small and mean in this stranger's eyes — the enemy. He tried again.

  "I guess summer's on its way out. Can almost smell the snow coming."

  The man cleared phlegm from his throat and stared at his fidgeting hands. "Yes, sir. I expect so."

  Footsteps thudded along the hall and Dr. Ghrist emerged in the doorway. His eyebrows arched at the sight of Eli, then landed on the older man.

  "Come on in, Mr. Parker," he said.

  The man rose and scuttled to the doctor's side.

  "I'll be with you soon, Eli." Dr. Ghrist smiled and followed his other patient down the hall.

  "No rush," Eli called after him. To himself, he recited his opening line.

  Dr. Ghrist, I ain't the man you think I am. And I need your help.

  Eli sat alone in the quiet room, among the stiff dining chairs, the floral wallpaper, a grandfather clock in the corner ticking away the minutes. Outside the window, the crowd of cabins sunk into a gray haze as the sun set and Eli went over his brief speech
, again and again.

  I know you want to protect them ...

  His stomach was hollow, prickling. He took deep breaths.

  A half hour later, footsteps sounded in the hallway and adrenaline jolted Eli awake. Mr. Parker limped past the doorway, Dr. Ghrist close behind. The front door creaked open and thwacked shut. The doctor padded back to the sitting room.

  "Mr. Stentz, you'll be my last patient of the day." He opened his arm. "Follow me. "

  Eli walked down a narrow hallway through a kitchen and past a living room with an open hearth; the ceilings dropped low and the air smelled old. Deeper into the house they stepped down into an addition, where the air was warm and fragrant with herbs. With a pang of grief, Eli smelled rosemary.

  Dr. Ghrist led him to a long hallway and into the first room on its right side. "Here we are." Eli swept past the doctor and entered.

  The room was small and lit with a single oil lamp burning in the corner. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling. Over its only window, closed lace curtains glowed pearly gray. Eli spied a twin bed, covered only in a taut sheet; a rocking chair faced it. Dr. Ghrist walked to the other side of the room, where a bookcase filled an entire wall and was stacked with jars and books. He rifled through the jars.

  "Have a seat." The doctor pointed over his shoulder to the bed, and Eli obeyed. "I imagine by now you've heard of the bodies found this morning."

  Eli swallowed hard. "Yeah."

  "Terrible thing." The doctor unscrewed the lid of a jar, took something out, then returned the jar to its shelf. "I fear for this place and where it's headed."

  These words were a flashing spark in the tinder; excitement built in Eli's chest. "Me, too."

  Dr. Ghrist turned from his bookcase and padded to the rocking chair. He eased into it with a sigh, and the wood creaked as he leaned forward. "Let's see how you're healing."

  Eli put up his hand. "Actually, that ain't why I'm here."

  The doctor eased back in his rocking chair. "Something else the matter?" Over his glasses, the doctor's gray eyebrows furrowed in concern. The knot of nerves in Eli's stomach melted.

  "I ain't sick," he said. "I need to talk. I ain't the man you think I am. And I need your help."

  Dr. Ghrist sat back in his chair with a sigh and slapped his hands on his knees. "Help with what?"

  "Them girls in the guest house."

  The doctor's gaze fell to a spot on the floor and he chewed at the corner of his mouth. Eli began his planned speech.

  "I overheard you the morning you came to see Olive. You talked about the girls. Said that Olive's men couldn't do what they wanted to them. I know you want to protect them."

  The doctor nodded.

  "A girl named Lily was kidnapped from my town." Eli's throat tightened; he coughed to loosen his voice. "I followed her trail here. Met the families of the others taken. I came here to save them."

  Eli searched the doctor's eyes, hoping he'd recognize the good man hiding behind the henchman.

  "You and Olive don't get along, I can see that." Eli dropped his voice. "What she's doing ain't right. Help me get them girls out of there."

  The doctor cleared his throat.

  "You're playing with dangerous forces, young man," he said coolly. "Olive is a dangerous woman, and she doesn't take betrayal well. And she's under pressure to please. A puppet on a string, if you will." He peered at Eli over his glasses. "You mess with that, and you'll be in trouble."

  "It's worth the risk," Eli said. "Them girls are prisoners. Being hurt, drugged. You know that."

  The doctor chuckled, but his crooked smile straightened quickly. "You should stay out of it."

  Eli's hope sputtered out; coldness and anger spread through him. "How can you ask me to do that?"

  "You know what that woman is like by now, Eli. She's weak and afraid." Dr. Ghrist sat at the edge of his chair. "Her desperation makes her volatile. Tell me — what do you think Olive will do if something threatens to disrupt her delusional little world?"

  "We're talking rape, here."

  Eli dipped inside that cold room in the asylum again. Heard the women cry and scream in pain. His face grew hot with shame.

  Dr. Ghrist crossed his legs and rocked in his chair with a slow, screeching creak. He raked his eyes across Eli's body and a sneer rose to his lips. "I know your type, Eli. You grew up in some hick town. Ignorant, sheltered, dumb as an ox. Joined the military because, well, what else are people like you supposed to do? No, men like you are meant to follow the orders of much smarter people."

  Eli's fingers twitched. He imagined crushing the doctor's nose, hearing him squeal.

  "The only language you speak is violence. And 'yes, ma'am,' 'no, ma'am.' Still, I wonder — what are you trying to do here, exactly? Save those whores?" Dr. Ghrist studied Eli's face and laughed. "You have no idea what you're doing. And you have no idea what you're getting into."

  Eli stared at the doctor — the long, soft fingers wrapped around his knee, the pouch of sagging skin under his neck, the thin fringe of white hair.

  I didn't know I was leading them to some sick pervert. That wasn't the mission.

  Eli imagined a bleeding hole between the doctor's eyes. "You think you can just do what you want cause the world lets you, eh?" He stood from the bed, every muscle in his body tensed and ready to strike.

  "That's right."

  "You're wrong." Eli spat the words like he believed them. They felt hollow and meaningless in this dark room in a walled town in the middle of an empty wilderness.

  "So what are you gonna do about it?" The doctor stood and marched to Eli until they were nose to nose. "Those whores don't need your help. They serve an important purpose I doubt you'd understand."

  Acid sloshed in Eli's throat. "To be your sex slaves? That's purpose?"

  "I told you: we all must do what we can to survive."

  The doctor walked to the door, motioned Eli to leave. He stood.

  "Now, let me tell you what you need to do: go back to taking orders like a good boy." He slapped Eli on the back, popped the door open. "You've been very helpful so far, you know. And I suggest you continue being helpful. Otherwise, I may tell Olive just what you are."

  Eli clenched his teeth.

  "And what's that?"

  "Another disappointment."

  Chapter 32

  That night, Olive hung another prisoner hung from the ceiling of her torture room by his wrists. Blood streamed from his nose and down his chest in wide ribbons.

  "Again!" Olive paced behind him, her face scarlet and sweating.

  Eli stared at her severe profile, etched in madness, and took orders like a good boy. He cracked the man in the jaw and his head snapped back. A cold sickness clenched Eli's guts.

  "I won't ask you again! Who killed my guard?"

  "I don't know," the man answered breathlessly.

  "Again!" Her voice was like a gunshot in the small room.

  Eli punched the man in the stomach and Olive's bulbous eyes widened with fervor.

  "What else are you planning? You think you're going to get in there and what? Rescue them?"

  The man stared at Olive through a film of pain. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Again!" Olive yelled.

  Eli punched the prisoner across the jaw again. Spit and blood flew from his mouth and his head sank to his chest. Olive glanced at the two other guards in the room.

  "Get out of here," she spat.

  They obeyed.

  Olive stared at her prisoner for a breath as he writhed in his restraints, his body uncomfortably stretched by its own weight. Eli fell back against the wall and rubbed his sore knuckles, watching the blood dribbling from the man's mouth, the twitching as pain wracked his body. Eli fought the urge to vomit.

  Kill her. Everything will fall apart.

  Eli tried to think of another way. Could he storm the guest house himself? Have the doctor banished? Talk sense into Olive? Recruit more allies and build a small army? He could start
with Wyatt…

  But in the meantime, he'd still be Olive's punisher. Eli dropped his head.

  No more. Please.

  The prisoner's eyes drifted closed. Olive studied him, her thin mouth stretched into a straight, white line.

  "These rebels are ruining everything," she said in a quivering voice. "He'll be here any day. He won't like what he sees. This world. This wretched world." She dropped her waxy face into her long-fingered hands and whispered, "We're all doomed."

  Olive took a deep, trembling breath, grasped her head, and squeezed. Took three steps to the other side of the room with her eyes shut. Her shoes scuffed the cement floor, her silken clothes fluttered. Then she took three steps back.

  "Doomed, doomed," she muttered.

  The word thrummed in Eli's head until the room vanished. Flames danced in a fireplace and woodsmoke filled his nose. Outside, Parasites howled. And then he heard Seth's voice.

  "Life as we knew it is gone. Humanity is going extinct. The world is Hell. Life is punishment and death is a blessing. Simply put, boys, we're all doomed." Seth grinned, his eyes dead and cold. "So let's enjoy ourselves."

  Eli scraped his knuckles against the rough cinder-block wall. A sting of pain chased away the memory and Olive took shape before him, still pacing with head in hands, hopeless words tumbling from her mouth.

  Words he'd let himself believe once. He'd been guided, twisted, used.

  Eli spoke without thinking, in a voice barely above a whisper. "We're not doomed, Mrs. Grant."

  Olive snorted and lifted her face from her hands, flicked her head at the moaning prisoner. "They don't seem to think so. They don't realize there's nothing left to fight for."

  Olive looked at him with a certainty that chilled his bones.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway; seconds later, a guard craned his neck into the room. "You're needed upstairs, ma'am. Another stranger at the wall."

  Olive stared at the floor blankly as if she hadn't heard him. "Cut him down and put him in the cell. Then join me upstairs." She swept from the room and disappeared, leaving Eli alone with the man he'd tortured.