Hella Rises: Dawnland

by Karen Carr

“Oh man, you guys are soaked,” Zora said. “Boa, go get some towels.”

  Boa went over to one of the bookshelves and grabbed a stack of towels. Zora took the top one and proceeded to wipe dry the floor and Boa handed us the rest. I dried my hair with the fresh towel and wiped off the rest of my body.

  “You got any new shoes?” I asked, flipping the Birkenstocks off.

  “Sorry, Hella. Of course,” Zora said. “You all stay right there, don’t drip anywhere else.”

  Zora was about to leave us, when I stopped her. “You don’t have to do that now. I need your help.” I turned to Saudah and Stan. “I need all of your help.”

  “What’s the matter?” Zora asked.

  “Santiago is in town,” Saudah said. “We heard.”

  “Wait a sec,” Zora said. “This is too much for the front of the store, besides you guys are leaking all over the place. Come on.”

  Zora locked the front doors, told Boa to watch the shop, and led us through a door in the back of the store to another room. This room had old wooden floors and a few comfortable old couches in the corner. Zora gathered some new boots and clothes for me and the rest and then handed us towels.

  “Strip, dry, change, and sit” Zora said, gesturing to the couches.

  We each stripped our wet clothes and changed into the dry ones and chose a spot on the couches. I proceeded to tell them everything that happened in the Roadhouse, including the fact that Ana knows English and how weird Lily was acting and the fact that Hipslow sent Huck and Zeke on a mysterious mission.

  “Wow,” Stan said. “I expected Trevan to be a sycophant, but Lily?”

  “And I can’t believe Ana,” Saudah added. “She was locked up in there with us, wasn’t she?”

  “Yea, with Huck,” I said. “He told me.”

  “You trust him?” Stan asked.

  “Huck?” I asked, surprised Stan would even question Huck. They had become friends. But then again, I thought Lily was my friend. “Do you?”

  Both Stan and Saudah nodded enthusiastically, maybe a little too eagerly.

  “Good,” I said. “I do too.” Except for the fact that he betrayed me with Ana, even though he said it was for my own good.

  “What are we going to do now?” Saudah asked. She put a comforting, albeit cold and sogging wet, arm around my shoulder.

  I put the towel on my head and dried my hair. “I still have six or seven days until my contract runs out with Hipslow and Mace’s begins. I’m going to get out of here before that, like tonight.” I touched Stan and Saudah’s knees. “Are you guys with me?”

  “Sure,” they both said.

  “Without question,” Saudah added.

  Zora gazed around the back of the store, at all the stuff she had collected in the short time she was here. I was impressed with the quantity and quality of goods around her.

  “I know, Zora. I can’t ask you to leave,” I said.

  “What are we going to do without you?” Zora asked. “We won’t be protected. No one here will.”

  “I can’t stay,” I said. “Mace…”

  “I know,” said Zora. “It’s just.” She paused. “You know the guy in accounting?” I nodded. “We’re getting serious. He’s the greatest guy I ever met, even before all these dead heads.”

  “I’m not asking you to go,” I said.

  “I’m not asking you to stay,” Zora said.

  Zora came over to the couch and hugged me. She smelled like roses and oranges and lemons. I thought I heard her sniffle and when she pulled away, she was rubbing her eyes. I felt a little blurry eyed myself. It wasn’t that long ago that we had been run out of Haverlyn Village, and now I was going to leave Pittsboro.

  “I’ll stay for a couple more days, if I can. That will give Hipslow’s men a chance to finish the barricade around the village, at least the downtown.”

  “We’re already almost safe down here,” Saudah said.

  “We? Where are you guys living now?” I asked Saudah.

  “Thanks to Hipslow, Georgia’s letting us stay in the Bed and Breakfast for free,” Saudah said. “She makes the best breakfasts.”

  “Yea, I know,” I said.

  Suddenly, we heard Boa scream from up front and we all jumped to our feet and rushed out, none of us faster than Zora. I forgot what a good fighter she was, but was reminded when she bolted through the door with her gun out.

  We ran into the front of the store, where Trevan and Lily were bullying themselves in. The rain had stopped and they weren’t wet, so I thought they must have waited until it stopped to find me. Cowards, afraid of a few raindrops.

  “Store’s closed,” Zora said. “Traitors not welcome.”

  “You sure?” Trevan said. He took out a stack Pittsboro’s form of money, the Plenty dollar bill and waved it in front of Zora.

  “You think you could buy back my friendship? Get out of here, Trevan. Everyone in the town knows what you did. You are not welcome.”

  Trevan sneered. “Oh, I’m sure I will be very welcome.”

  “No you won’t,” I said.

  I pointed out the window and waved to my fans who had gathered outside. Some were covering their eyes and trying to get a good look at what was happening inside. Others were at the door wondering if they should come in and help me. Finally, an older gentleman with coveralls stepped in.

  “You alright in here, Miss Hella?” the coveralls man asked. He held a hat in his hands. Two more men filed in the door behind him, and a woman followed them. They blocked the entrance.

  “Zora was just asking these two to leave,” I said, pointing to Trevan and Lily.

  “You wouldn’t kick us out?” Lily asked. “What happened to your save the world attitude? We’re people too.”

  I smiled. “Get out of here, Lily, before I slap you again. You are no longer welcome. You’ll be fine on your own.”

  “Mam,” the man at the door said. “Do as she asks. We don’t want any trouble, but we’ll give it to you if you don’t obey.”

  “King of the world, huh Hella?” Trevan asked.

  “Queen,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not leaving,” Trevan said.

  I didn’t want any trouble in Zora’s store. The town’s people were ready for a fight, but the place would be wrecked. “Well then, I am. Come on, guys. We’ll see you later, Zora. After I shake my babysitters.”

  I walked out of the store with Stan, Saudah and my small army of townsfolk.

  I spent the rest of the day surrounded by twenty to thirty people at all times. I was aware that Trevan and Lily were close bye, but no one let them near me. I made arrangements with a couple of the guys to follow Trevan and another few to follow Lily to give them a taste of their own medicine.

  Finally, after dinner I enlisted the help of Stan and Saudah and was able to sneak away to my house. It was dark out by the time we were done with dinner. We sent a young woman who looked like me off in my golf cart and then I snuck out of the back of the new restaurant where we were having dinner.

  Before we left, Zora had given me an all-black outfit, hoping that I would be camouflaged in the night. She even gave me a ski mask that I could pull down over my face and a pair of black combat boots. I snuck into the alley, put on the black gloves and pulled down the ski mask. After that, I ran through several blocks, making sure I wasn’t being followed.

  I then ducked in the stand of trees that would lead me behind my old house and stealthily made my way through them. Finding my way through the woods in the dark was hard, but at least Hipslow had cleared this patch of the underbrush. I walked along thinking I was an animal, remembering what it was like to be alone those first few weeks. A piece of my heart wanted to be alone again, when I didn’t have so many entanglements. I was truly free back then. My burden had increased so much since those days. I was now responsible for over eighty nine people and counting.

  I arrived at my backyard, but still didn’t move out of the woods. I watched my house in the dim light of the moon,
thinking of the dead body in the outhouse. So much had transpired since I left, that I hadn’t had time to ask anyone about it. I was just about to move forward into the yard, when I heard a snap of a twig behind me.

  I froze and held my breath.

  I saw the figure. It was a tall man with a slender but muscular physique. The figure was making his way through the woods toward me from the opposite direction. I was right in his path. If I didn’t move, he would find me.

  I decided to try and blend into the tree I was standing against and moved my body behind it, accidentally pushing a branch on the ground in the process. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the branch was long and skinny and made a scraping and crunching noise through the dead leaves and twigs as it moved. Anyone who wasn’t deaf would have heard it in the still night.

  I held my breath and poked my head around the tree to see where the figure went. Suddenly, the man grabbed me from behind and I shrieked. His hands pushed into my sides and I kicked him in the balls. He grunted and I was able to escape. I ran a few feet through the woods, and he tackled me again.

  This time I went down and he landed right on top of me.

  I scrambled to get away from him, but his large muscled frame crushed me into the ground. My mask was pushed askew, and I had trouble breathing.

  “Get off of me,” I managed to say out through the fabric.

  The man yanked the ski mask from my face. “Hella?” the man said.

  “Huck?” I asked, seeing Huck’s striking jaw and razor stubble in the moonlight. “What are you doing skulking around in my woods? You scared me to death.”

  Huck eased the pressure from my stomach, but remained on top of me, looking at my face intently. “Are you alright?” he asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Get off my ribs and I’ll check,” I said.

  Huck pushed off of me and stood up, offering me his hand. “I was watching your house, to make sure no one went near it. Why are you dressed like a cat bugler?”

  “It was Zora’s idea. I had to escape Trevan and Lily.” I took his hand and stood up, then pulled my hand out of his. “Don’t you have to get back to Ana?”

  “Oh come on, Hella,” Huck said. “Let me explain, but not here. Can I come inside?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But, who is going to guard the house?”

  “Zeke,” Huck said. He pointed in another direction and I saw another figure running swiftly but quietly through the woods.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Hi, trophy,” Zeke said. “I thought that was you. What are you doing dressed like that?”

  “She’s being stealth,” Huck said.

  “Hardly stealth,” Zeke said. “I heard you two all the way from across the street.” The three of us laughed and in an instant I knew we would all be friends. In some weird way, Zeke and I had reconciled our relationship and turned back into brother and sister without saying a word. He would still protect me, I knew that without a doubt. I’d let Huck keep my heart for a while, and decided to trust him as well.

  “We’re going inside, Zeke,” Huck said. “Can you take over a couple of hours?”

  “Sure,” Zeke said. “Take it easy, Hella, and don’t scream so loud next time. You’re going to wake the dead.”

  “Speaking of the dead, can you guys come see something before we go inside?” I took them into the backyard and over to the outhouse, but the body was gone. “It was right here, I swear.”

  “I know it was, Hella,” Huck said. “We moved it. Sorry we didn’t see it when we cleared the place.”

  “Did you notice the guy was shot in the head?” I asked.

  Huck and Zeke exchanged wary looks.

  “He was locked in that outhouse,” I continued. “I had to break open the door and he fell out, bullet wound to the head and no guts spilling out of his eyes. Did you find a gun?”

  “No,” Zeke said.

  “If there was no gun, how did he kill himself?” I asked them, knowing they had no answers. “You know he wasn’t a zero. Someone killed him in cold blood.”

  “By the stench, he wasn’t dead that long,” Zeke said. “Maybe a week or two, but longer than we have been here.”

  “You’re not going back in that house,” Huck said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Zeke said. “We can go to the cave.”

  “The cave?” I asked. “You guys have a cave like Batman and Robin?”

  “I get to be Batman,” Zeke said.

  Huck frowned and then grabbed me around the waist. “As long as in this version, Robin gets Cat Woman.”

  We all laughed and joked the rest of the way to the bat cave. The cave turned out to be an abandoned warehouse a half a mile from downtown. We were too far to protect the flock, but the boys convinced me that everyone slept safe and secure at night. Most people were still in the gym and others who were downtown stayed indoors at night.

  The warehouse was a one-story red brick building with large loft windows. Some of the windows were broken and some of the brick had been tagged by tasteful graffiti. In the moonlight the place looked like a faded beauty. Zeke went in first to check the place and then I followed with Huck.

  They took me down the disheveled building with the moon glowing through holes in the ceiling. There were puddles everywhere from the rainstorm.

  “Watch out,” Huck said as a snake slithered into our path.

  The warehouse smelled pungent and damp, but did not have the smell of the dead. Huck and Zeke took me through a door which lead to a long garage, this one with no holes in the roof and lots of bike parts.

  “What’s this, your chop shop?” I said.

  Zeke and Huck laughed.

  “Yea,” Huck said. “Actually, it is.”

  We travelled to the far wall where there were two cots setup, much like the ones in the gym.

  “I’ll sleep in the loft,” Zeke said.

  “Wait,” I said. “Can we talk for a bit?”

  “Together?” Zeke said. He eyed Huck.

  “Yea, why not?” I smiled.

  I sat on a cot, while Huck and Zeke chose to sit on a couple of folding chairs they brought over from the garage. They brought out a small tin can and lit a fire in it. Sitting still in the flickering light, I felt suddenly awkward with Huck and Zeke, both of whose lips had been pressed against mine. I sensed they felt the same way, nobody knew how to start.

  We talked about the weather, how we couldn’t fly in the rain, and the dead body. At first Huck and Zeke competitive and even combative, but then we all relaxed and we all started joking. After a few humorous moments, we became quiet and serious.

  “What are you doing for Hipslow?” I asked.

  Huck and Zeke stared at each other, the glint from the fire shooting off of their eyes.

  “You tell her,” Zeke said.

  “We’re planning your getaway,” Huck said.

  I chuckled. “Without me? Why is everyone negotiating and planning without me?”

  “For your own good,” Huck said. “Hipslow wanted to keep as much information from you as possible, so you wouldn’t feel obligated to share. Zeke and I have been scouting for safe places to go after you finish your job here. Hipslow doesn’t even want to know where we go or what we have found. He wants a safe haven for you so that Mace can never find you. We’re going to leave in five days, Hipslow doesn’t even know that.”

  “We are?” I was stunned. I was going to run away. “Who else is coming?”

  “We haven’t told anyone our plans,” Zeke said.

  “The Professor’s going to have to come because we’re taking the helos,” Huck said. “I can fly one, you can fly the other. If Zeke can catch up on his lessons, he can fly the third. We figure Stan and Saudah are going to want to come, so they’ll fly with the Professor in the fourth. We have two more seats for anyone else you chose.”

  “What about Harper, can she come?” I asked.

  “You really want to take a kid?” Zeke asked. “She’ll be safe
in the village. We’ll have almost completed the wall by the time we leave.”

  “You are right,” I said. “Harper stays. She needs to get an education. What about Trevan and Lily?”

  “You want to take them?” Huck asked.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “But I have thought about kidnapping Lily and knocking some sense into her. What happens when they figure out I am gone? What happens to everyone left behind?”

  “You’re going to leave a note saying you’ve gone,” Huck said. “No one will be able to find you. Hipslow will send Trevan and Lily back to Mace with the note. He doesn’t think Mace will do anything to the town, but Trevan and Lily…” Huck didn’t finish his sentence.

  “They’re supposed to be watching me,” I said. “If they fail.”

  Zeke made a slicing motion with his hand against his throat. “They’ll be toast.”

  “I’m going to be responsible for their deaths?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “Or they are going to be responsible for yours,” Huck said.

  “What about Ana?” I asked. “She speaks English, you know?”

  Huck seemed genuinely surprised, and then wary. “Of course she does,” he said. “That little bitch. I caught her looking at some of my notes, but I didn’t think she could read them.”

  We talked a long time more about the possibilities. Huck and Zeke shared stories about places they had found, each of us rating the best. Huck had found a little farm, and Zeke had gone farther out to a small town. We all knew this wouldn’t be our final destination, and that we would have to keep going, but we pretended that each place would be home. We talked about roasting marshmallows and raising chickens and all the fun things we were going to do.

  As I fell asleep on the cot wrapped in Huck’s arms, I thought about our escape. I felt like a cheater running away and wondered if it was the best thing to do. My gut told me that I would have to fight Mace sooner or later and that it was probably smarter to do it sooner while his army was still small.

  Chapter 14

  Four days had passed since Trevan and Lily had arrived in town. I avoided them like the plague, but they always found me. They figured out the red dot line quickly and would randomly appear on my stops. Hipslow had told me to just follow my routine, including the lessons with the Professor, and all would be fine. I took his advice, with the exception of the fact that Huck, Zeke and I planned our escape every night. We told no one our plans.