The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  Judd tried to avoid the question and asked his friends behind the doors for help. Again, they abandoned him, choosing to look the other way and not offer any assistance. The man beat him with a heavy stick, screaming at him that he had to be the eyes and ears outside of Salmon-Jello. He was the watcher.

  Judd had been confused. Why was the man so angry about fish-flavored gelatin? The pretty nurses used to give him Jello and it was one of the only things—besides television!—that he missed about life before the big booms. Of course, fish Jello sounded nasty, but it wasn’t reason to beat up poor Judd. Finally, he realized that Salmon-Jello was the name of a place. He begged for forgiveness once again and the man relented as Judd told him all about his friends in their cells and the food supply that he’d found. Telling the man about his life in the prison before the big booms seemed to calm the man slightly. He introduced himself as Kendrick Rustwood.

  Kendrick told Judd that he worked for him now and his job was one of the most important out of all the people that Kendrick had working for him. He was to be the watcher. If any soldiers in the trucks came back from Salmon-Jello, Judd had to find a way to contact his new master.

  Judd wasn’t a fool. He promised to work hard at being a watcher and Kendrick seemed satisfied with his vow. Then the man turned and left the cellblock, telling him that he’d be back with an army soon.

  From the window, Judd saw him get on a bicycle and pedal off in the direction that the sun came up in the mornings, which seemed silly to him. It was so hot, why anyone would want to go closer to the sun was beyond his understanding. He watched until Kendrick disappeared and began planning how he could watch for the soldiers as he’d promised he would.

  A long time later, it could have been months or maybe years, Judd didn’t really have a good way of keeping track of time, Kendrick returned with trucks of his own. These were smaller than the ones that the soldiers had used and had paintings of giant birds all over them. Judd liked the birds and planned to draw them on the walls. He thought that would please Kendrick.

  About twenty men came with Kendrick, all of them mean and vulgar. Judd’s friends didn’t like the men, so they kept quiet, which only made them the butt of the men’s jokes. They laughed and used the ends of brooms to reposition his friends, who couldn’t get out of the way. It infuriated Judd that they’d pick on his friends, but knew better than to mess with their kind. They were just like the nasties over in Cellblock A; he didn’t like going to Cellblock A because of all the mean and rude things the prisoners over there said to him.

  The images of what Kendrick’s men had done to his friends made Judd stop as he limped through Cellblock B. He peered into Jake’s cell and asked, “You doin’ okay, buddy ol’ pal?”

  I don’t like when you think about what they did to me, Jake replied.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I know you don’t. I couldn’t help it. The soldiers came back! I have to tell the master that the soldiers were here. I couldn’t help myself from thinking about it. I was just remembering about when I met him.”

  It’s humiliating. My eyesight is still blurry, Jake muttered accusingly.

  Judd squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to not remember. Every time he tried not to remember something, it only reminded him of what he was trying to not remember, which made him remember what he was trying to forget. Why is the human mind so difficult? he asked himself and then cut off his thoughts. It certainly wouldn’t do to be answering your own question; that’s what the crazies in the East Ward did, he giggled out loud again.

  The images of that night flooded back into him and even though he felt bad for the hurt that it would cause Jake, he couldn’t stop the memory. One of the men had reached through the bars and pulled Jake’s head towards him. Part of Judd’s mind realized that the skull had come completely off of the skeleton’s body, but that part of his mind wasn’t usually allowed to speak. All it did was make day-to-day life harder for Judd when that part voiced its opinions.

  The thug had pulled Jake’s head over to the bars and shouted, “Hey, you know how we always say things like ‘I’m gonna skull fuck you?’ Well, watch this!” He unzipped his trousers and poked his dick back and forth into poor Jake’s eye sockets. His friend screamed in pain as the men howled in laughter. Several of them tried to position a couple of his other friends with their rear ends towards the cell doors so they could rape them. Thankfully, Judd’s friends had collapsed and refused to cooperate. Charlie hadn’t talked to him since that night, though.

  Come on, Judd! I told you not to think about that! Jake admonished.

  He ducked his head low between his shoulders. “Sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to. I…” He remembered why he was in the cellblock. He didn’t have time for small talk, he had a mission to perform. “I gotta go tell Kendrick about the soldiers!”

  Judd hurried away from Jake’s accusatory, if blurred, stare and made his way up the staircase to the warden’s office where he kept the machine. He wished that he could have kept it in his room so he could be encouraged by his friends, but the office was the only place where the antenna would reach the roof and have a clear line of signal to his master.

  He limped past the squiggly, rust-colored birds that he painted in the stairwell in his own blood a few months prior. In hindsight, that had been a bad idea. He got lightheaded halfway through the project and birds four and five looked a little off to him. He wanted to fix them, but couldn’t bring himself to cut off another finger.

  That night, long ago when the Vultures visited and did those awful things to his friends, Kendrick had given him a gift. Several gifts, really. First off, he didn’t allow the men to harm poor old Judd and then he gave him more food and several barrels to collect rainwater so he could stay healthy. The best gift that he’d given the watcher was a way to contact him.

  Somehow, Kendrick had found a radio—a radio!—that worked. It was green and had black keys with white numbers and green letters on the front. It was a very fancy piece of equipment that only specialized operators like Judd knew how to use. The master had showed him how to operate it and said that he must always leave the batteries out of it and could only use the radio if the soldiers returned.

  His hands shook in anticipation. He’d waited oh so very long to talk to Kendrick again. Sure, they’d gotten off to a rocky start with the beatings, but old Judd had deserved it for not knowing what the master wanted. Besides, he’d been beaten his whole life by the people in the prison, so he could handle little things like a few bruises and broken bones. The master was only trying to teach him the correct way of doing things. He’d even broken Judd’s leg so he could stay safe with his friends behind the safety of the prison fences. That way, he didn’t get hurt out in the wild lands around the town. It was for his own good, after all.

  In the warden’s office, he worked the latch to open the compartment where the battery went and folded the hinged lid over. Inside the drawer was a battery that had never been opened, it was sealed in a metallic foil bag of some sort. Judd made quick work of the packaging with his knife, wrinkling his nose at the strange odor that came from inside.

  Once the battery was free of the foil, he examined it until he found the indention where the plug down inside the battery box would fit and aligned the two before pushing the battery home. He tapped it gently several times to ensure that it was seated properly and then closed the lid, latching it to ensure a good connection between the post and the battery.

  He connected the wire that ran to the antenna on the roof to the upper left of the radio like he’d been shown and then fiddled with the knob on the left until he rotated it all the way over to the letters “FCTN TST” and waited. Judd didn’t know what the letters meant, but Kendrick had told him that it was important to do that first to get it going.

  The little screen lit up with a pretty greenish-yellow light and the word “GOOD” appeared in black letters. That meant the radio worked, so he twisted the knob back up to the “ON” position. He pulled a noteboo
k out of the desk drawer that had a secret code written on it.

  Judd couldn’t help but mumble the words out loud as he pushed the buttons. Sometimes talking out loud helped him to concentrate and not screw it up. “One. Two. Three.” He tore his eyes away from the screen and verified the next number in the code before continuing. “Four… Five!”

  He waited. Nothing happened so he checked the notebook again. That’s right, he was supposed to hit the “STO” button. He depressed it and again, nothing happened. Judd picked up the radio and looked at it. Why wasn’t it working? Kendrick had made it work to show him. Had all that time caused the radio to go bad, like all the rest of the electronic stuff, like the television?

  Then he remembered about the black handset with the twisty cord. “Oh, man. How could I have been so stupid?” he yelled, startling himself with the noise. He plugged in the handset and examined it. There was a button on the side of it that he had to push to talk.

  He pushed the button in with his middle finger and what remained of his pointer. “Uh, hello. This is Judd. Master?”

  He listened to the receiver and still nothing happened. Maybe I should have practiced this a few times, he told himself. He thought back to that night when Kendrick had shown him how to operate the radio and remembered that he had to let go of the button for them to answer.

  His fingers flew open to allow the radio to work and he almost dropped the handset in the process. He listened for a few seconds and then pressed the push-to-talk button again, “Hello. This is Judd.”

  He released the button immediately this time and a woman answered, “Hello, Judd. My name is Starr. The Vultures have been waiting for your call.”

  Judd was ecstatic that the radio worked, but he was disappointed also. He’d wanted to talk to the master, not some girl. The only girls that he’d ever talked to were the nurses and his momma, but they’d abandoned him to the prison with only his friends for company. “Uh…hello?” he asked into the handset. “Is Kendrick there?”

  “Rustwood is presently engaged. Do you have a message for us?”

  He thought about what “presently engaged” meant. He knew that before people got married, they were engaged. Did this Starr-woman mean that Kendrick was getting married and that’s why he couldn’t come to the radio? That must be it! He was happy for his master, getting married was a big deal.

  “Tell him that old Judd says congratulations!” he stated emphatically. “That’s exciting.”

  “Okay… I’ll let him know that you said so.” She sounded angry to him, had he said something wrong? “Do you have news from your location?”

  “No ma’am, the television in the cellblock doesn’t work anymore, so there’s no news.”

  “What the hell are you talking about you crazy bastard? Kendrick said you were a fucking looney, but Jesus!”

  Her insults slid past him and didn’t affect him. Before he came to stay at the detention center people used to say things like that to him all the time. The only time it had ever really bothered him was that one time when the O’Connor boy said that mean stuff and then hit him. Judd didn’t really know what happened after that. The next thing he knew, there were police officers everywhere. They were really nice and gave him a free ride to his new home. The part of his mind that didn’t get to talk much told him that he bashed the boy’s head in with a baseball bat. Of course, that wasn’t true, that part of his mind just liked to make him feel bad. That’s why it wasn’t allowed to talk much.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not a looney. The crazy people live in the East Ward and the baddies stay in Cellblock A. I live in Cellblock B and make paintings and talk to my friends. Sometimes we play cards.”

  “Stop. What the hell are you talking about?” the woman asked. “Do you have information about San Angelo or are you just wasting the battery on the radio?”

  “Oh!” She reminded him about why he’d called. “Yes, the Jello soldiers came through in their trucks today.”

  “Jello? What the fuck? Oh, you mean Angelo. The soldiers from San Angelo came in to Eden today. Is that what you’re saying?”

  That’s what he’d just told her. She was the crazy one. He’d already told her about the soldiers three or four times. Talk about not listening. He thought that maybe she was slow in the head, so Judd spoke slowly and made sure to enunciate each syllable. “The soldiers from Salmon-Jello came through town today. Kendrick told me to call when they came back.”

  “Alright. Got it,” she answered. “I’ll tell Rustwood about your message. Keep the radio connected, he’ll contact you soon.”

  Judd leaned back away from the radio and smiled. The master would come back to him soon. He had to tell all of his friends! They would be so excited—well, everyone except Jake. He didn’t like the Vultures and told Judd that constantly. Everyone else would be happy to see their old friends though, especially the guys over in Cellblock A, they really liked the Vultures a lot.

  NINE

  “I’ve always been able to know what would happen in the future,” Maria mumbled, choosing to stare at the empty bowl of stew instead of either adult seated at the table. “I didn’t start having the visions until a few years ago—that’s when my family got mad at me and made me leave.”

  “Where are you from?” Aeric asked.

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t know the name of the place. I was too little to learn it; San Angelo is a lot bigger. There were ten or eleven houses behind a big wall.”

  “That could be just about anywhere, then,” Veronica interjected. “Does it really even matter where she’s from?”

  Traxx glanced at his wife, “Of course it does. If there’s a powerful settlement nearby, then we need to know about it.”

  “They obviously weren’t that powerful if they were scared of Maria’s visions.”

  “Oh, they’re probably all dead by now,” the girl said without a hint of remorse. “Nobody liked me because of my dreams. I told them about the birds coming there too and they wouldn’t listen. That’s when they made me leave and go out into the wastelands.”

  “These ‘birds’ that will attack San Angelo, can you describe them?”

  Maria seemed to sink into herself and she picked at one of her fingernails. “I don’t like to talk about my visions. They’re scary.”

  “You certainly didn’t seem to mind talking about it when we were in the Barrio,” Aeric said.

  She frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Traxx. When a vision happens, I can’t stop myself from saying whatever I see. I don’t mean to be bad.”

  He smiled at her use of the words and reminded himself that even though she certainly seemed older, the girl was way too young to be carrying all the baggage that she had. “It’s alright, you’re not bad. Were the birds black, maybe with a hooked beak?”

  She nodded, obviously intent on not speaking about the vision. “Do you know what a vulture is?” Aeric asked gently.

  “No, sir.”

  “Hmm. Okay, I think I know what you’re vision meant about the birds. There’s a gang in Austin called the Vultures. They’re a really nasty bunch—or at least they used to be. We’d thought that they all died out or killed each other off. Now I’m not so sure that we were right.”

  He paused to organize his thoughts into a manner that would be understandable for her and then continued, “They took me hostage right after the war. My girlfriend killed their leader when we escaped and came here.”

  Maria’s eyes widened and she looked over at Veronica. “He killed someone?”

  “No, honey,” Veronica interjected with a pointed stare at Aeric. “Mr. Traxx had a girlfriend who was in a very bad situation and she killed the Vulture leader. Aeric didn’t do it.” Aeric agreed with his wife’s tactic; it was probably best to not upset the girl any more than she already was.

  “What happened to her?”

  Veronica chose to avoid the obvious question about what her bad situation had been. Maria didn’t need to know the details of what happened to them in
Austin. “Kate—that was her name—died in childbirth.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” she answered with a sad smile. Then, her eyes glazed over and she stared intently at Aeric for a moment before saying, “Your son is going to kill you.”

  “What?” Aeric’s voice boomed across the little dining area.

  Maria jumped and scooted her chair backwards, causing the same noise that had grated his spine earlier. “I said I’m sorry that your girlfriend died,” she whimpered.

  “No, the other thing,” he demanded.

  “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

  Veronica’s eyes flashed an angry warning at him. He took the hint and sat back in the chair with his arms folded across his chest. She reached over and grasped the little girl’s hands. “Sweetie, you said that Aeric’s son was going to kill him.”

  She looked back and forth between them. “I did? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Veronica waited a moment and then asked, “Is that normal for you to say strange things in the middle of a conversation? Do the wrong words sometimes come out, or is that part of your Gift?”

  “I, uh… I don’t know. Most of the time I know what I’m saying. It’s like I’m standing beside myself and I watch my mouth move and words come out, but can’t stop it from happening.”

  “So maybe it was a slip of the tongue then,” Veronica offered hopefully.

  Aeric knew what the girl said, even if she didn’t realize that she did. Telling someone that their child was going to kill them wasn’t something that you accidentally say, he told himself, fuming in silence while his wife tried to defuse the situation.

  He thought about his boys, Mason, Anthony and John. Could one of them actually kill him? How was that even possible? Of course, it could always be some type of mercy killing, like if he was disemboweled by one of those damn demonbrocs that Huerta was raising in the Barrio. Whatever the reason, it didn’t sit well with him that Maria had so casually stated that one of his sons would kill him, without realizing the impact that her words had on him.