The bearish man in his early fifties looked as if all the color had washed out of him at some point, with just a hint of his once-ginger complexion in his balding hair and the lip of his thick beard. Although big chested, the man had an oddly hollow bearing too, like maybe he’d lost more than just color in recent times. He stood beside a close-backed two-door truck as if he’d pulled over for a call, but a number of tall metal canisters beside him suggested otherwise.
“I said make it ready, and I don’t care,” the man growled into the radio.
Beside Lucas, Kevin turned and nudged at him with his chin.
“Coming?”
Lucas aborted any questions of his own as Kevin ignored him anyway, moving in a crouch between the upended furniture and the café wall, continuing at half his height to the next pillar, and then the one after that. Lucas slithered down onto his belly to follow, which didn’t allow much accuracy for the more-than-curious looks he threw his friend’s way. As before, so too now. Every time Lucas nearly reached him, Kevin advanced further in a stealth mission with no clear aim.
Eventually, the boys sneaked around to the side where the bearish man continued complaining to someone on the other end of the handset. There was nothing incriminating nor particularly interesting about the one-sided conversation. The truck driver had an ear plug in place for whatever replies came, and he held the frame of the still-open truck door in a death grip before then slamming it shut and walking to the rear of his ride, ratcheting open one of the back metal doors one-handed.
“C’mon,” Kevin hissed.
The smaller boy flitted across the open street and reached the far side of the man’s truck while the driver was still making a slow, halfhearted review of his stalled labors while he nodded his head to whatever the radio was saying, thumb thrust into his tool belt.
“Do I sound like I run a fuckin’ refinery, Cal?” the man sighed more than growled.
Lucas swallowed a breath whole and sprinted as quietly as he could across the gap, then crouched down beside where he found Kevin wearing a broad, shit-eating grin. The other boy at once reached up behind himself and gently cranked open the passenger door out of sight from the rear.
“Watch for me,” he whispered.
The truck reeked of crude oil, and the door, not just around the handle, was greasy with the stuff. Once the door opened, the smell grew stronger, and Lucas tried not to blanch hard in fear as Kevin wriggled upwards halfway into the cab and started fossicking around.
And the truck driver continued talking until suddenly he wasn’t.
Lucas kept watch in all directions, which meant his eye was off the ball when the bearded man stepped out from the pump attached to the back of the truck and caught him there, Kevin’s squirming rear end hanging from the open side door.
“What the hell?”
The driver started towards them, and Lucas barely said his friend’s name before the man was on them, hauling Kevin by his ass from the truck and hurling him bodily across the concrete.
Luke was too stunned to move, though he rose from his crouch on instinct as the truck driver bore down on him. The small knife in his jacket was forgotten as the man reached down, pinning Luke’s forearms together and putting them into one big hand.
And then he kicked Lucas hard between the legs.
Pain exploded in his crotch and in his consciousness. The force of the blow lifted Lucas up, and he was down again with a sickening wave of agony and introspection which churned through him and from his gut. First he was breathless and dry retching, and then just as quickly he started vomiting on the driver’s steel-cap boots.
Kevin then launched himself at the man with a fierce war cry, and the man just as calmly caught the boy around one ear and slammed him into the truck’s metal flank.
Kevin’s head rebounded from the metal with a dull chime and the boy fell the rest of the way to the ground with eyes already rolled up into his head, blood gushing from his ear. He flopped in a pile just in front of where Lucas fought to reel in his puking in the name of self-preservation. But the big man was too strong, quick enough to take all the time needed to return to the gasping boy and grab him upright by the wrists again.
“Stop your moaning,” he said. “You’re not gonna need yer balls by the time I’m done with you.”
He slammed Lucas hard against the front of the truck, then threw a balled fist into the boy’s midriff. Any chance for more oxygen deserted him, and Lucas reached out to grab the man’s leg even as he passed out.
*
THEIR CAPTOR LOCKED the boys into the back of his rig, not even bothering to tie their hands. Kevin sagged unconsciously on top of Lucas, who eased his friend to the hard metal tray floor while sucking in huge gulpfuls of air trying not to completely freak out. His legs shook like a dog getting scratched and it was an effort not to pee, though he grimly wouldn’t allow himself that, his battered pride taking precedence over near-death panic. Beside him, Kevin stirred groggily, and the work truck roared back into life and started moving at once.
Lucas stopped himself lurching on top of Kevin, peering around the enclosed space that reeked of oil, nothing inside except half-a-dozen tall metal containers for whatever the driver was trucking from outside the sanctuary zone. The vehicle bounced continuously, and Lucas caught onto the back wire mesh to steady himself, no loose tools or anything in sight. Then he checked back on his young companion and felt his stomach drop completely. Kevin was out cold and taking only the shallowest of breaths.
“Kevin,” Lucas muttered repeatedly as he tried to jostle his friend awake.
He knew unconscious people shouldn’t be moved, but without Kevin beside him, Lucas was plunged to new depths of fear, all the while hating himself and his confrontation with the truth that he was nowhere so brave as when the feral boy was at his side. Luke was also torn at his friend’s injury, and terrified the half-unseen wound could be fatal, that his friend’s life hung on the line, that it was all down to him – and he fervently wished at the same time Kevin was still with him to help.
Kevin, or his father Tom.
Lucas shivered. It turned into a shudder, and then renewed efforts to empty his guts. Any more vomiting, and he risked bringing up turds, but that thought alone stilled him as his gaze swam drunkenly in the half-light, fighting still to stop the moving vehicle throwing him against the harsh, unforgiving insides of their cage.
He wiped off, sitting with his back against the doors which were locked with a steel latch from outside. In the absence of anything else to guide him, Lucas fell back on a lifetime’s conditioning and took a long, steadying breath, forcing air into his lungs, and then open-mouthedly drinking in one more calming breath after the other. It was a hyperventilation in slow motion, Lucas gasping at times, almost letting the retching resume, until more than several minutes had passed and the bulk of his immediate terror was driven from his lungs.
There was nothing to drink, but Lucas licked his lips anyway.
His gaze slowly fell back upon his friend. Kevin stirred slightly, moaned, but remained unconscious.
Lucas arose carefully from his crouch and moved back beside his blood brother, checking the boy’s waistband until he found the short-handled sickle knife.
*
THE TRUCK CAME to a grinding halt and Lucas repositioned himself at the back of the cage. It was a terrifyingly long time before the back latch clanked ajar and one of the doors opened, followed by the other one admitting the weakening day. There was only so much that deep breathing could achieve, and Lucas fought the skyrocketing adrenalin hissing through his veins as the driver stared at him a long, sad moment, then grabbed Kevin by one ankle and dragged the unconscious boy out.
He dropped Kevin to the ground and the boy gave a low groan.
Lucas had considered ambushing the man at the door and now regretted it, but he stayed where he was, clinging to the back mesh with the hooked knife in his hand concealed behind his back.
The driver glanced do
wn at Kevin out of sight on the paved surface of a dingy alleyway. They were in the sanctuary zone again. But the man had only mild interest, checking the lane was clear of onlookers once more as he returned his eyes to Lucas.
“Don’t make me come in after you, boy.”
“Fuck you.”
“I have your friend.”
The man calmly plucked Kevin from the ground and held him upright by the dirty t-shirt which bunched at Kevin’s armpit and then promptly split, the jostled boy’s eyes coming open, but without clearly making sense of what was going on.
“No,” Lucas said.
“Then out with you,” the driver told him.
The man backed away, dropping Kevin for the second time to flash his hands, as if that meant anything about Luke’s safety as his nerves ratcheted another notch and the impulse to puke made a cavalry charge return. Lucas shook his head fiercely, shaking his terror back.
And at the same time, too afraid to do what was required.
He only took a step, assailed by his own tears which threatened full-scale blubbering as Lucas checked down on his friend, Kevin staring back disoriented. The knife concealed in Luke’s hand felt like it was held by a ghost limb over which he had little control.
The driver eyed him, then shot forward whip-fast to grab Luke’s shirt-front and haul him out the rest of the way, taking the tried-and-true method of pitching him face first onto the hard ground to knock the sense out of him.
He followed it with a boot to the ribs Lucas curled up against in time, the thuddering blow landing right in his kidneys and forcing him to unclench in pain.
The driver saw the sickle knife, but too late. Lucas rolled over and away, standing groggily to brandish the weapon – only to have it slapped from his hand.
A second man in an oil-stained anorak lit an open palm across the side of Luke’s face and the boy fell away, almost completing a pirouette as he landed wetly on the ground beside Kevin.
“Thanks,” the driver said to the newcomer. “Help me with the other one?”
“Fresh meat,” the weather-beaten older man replied.
“Yup,” the driver agreed. “Didn’t even have to go looking for these ones – they found me.”
“Sweet.”
“Yes it is.”
The driver bent forward to grasp Luke’s wrists, hauling the terrified boy to his feet with ease. Luke tried to resist, but it was futile. The driver back-handed him, splitting Luke’s cheek. And then the fear overcame him completely and he shat his pants.
Left behind for a moment on the pavement, Kevin’s eyes followed, but it was like he didn’t hear the men’s talk and all that it implied.
His eyes remained locked on Lucas instead with a look bordering on utter hatred.
Pressure on for Council to announce election timetable
by Delroy Earle
CALLS are mounting for the City Council to offer a timetable for democratic elections.
The chaos from last week’s Uprising has affected City programs, but worse is the loss of confidence among ordinary Citizens.
Speaking with traders on The Mile, the Herald heard numerous stories from Citizens who felt abandoned by the City Council.
Citizens said disorder allowed other crimes to flourish which were not counted in the official death toll.
Citizens told the Herald many no longer felt safe in their homes.
There were also reports some Citizens had fled the City.
Deep Ecologists’ spokeswoman Moira Blaze confirmed her collective were “actively discussing” alternative plans to remaining in Columbus.
“We have called it the ‘sanctuary zone,’ though that no longer seems fitting,” she said.
Baker Wordsworth S Magee said crossfire from the Battle of St Mary’s hit her neighbor Janice Snowman in the leg.
“Janice lost her leg,” Mrs Magee said. “If it wasn’t for the Sisters, she’d be dead.”
Radio operator Montgomery Stewart said fatalities also created other problems, such as Citizens fighting over now-empty housing.
“My neighbors have vanished,” he said. “They weren’t combatants. Where’d they go? Now there’s strangers living upstairs. We need more patrols in Brown Town.”
Traders Alliance spokesman Samuel Hoskeens repeated comments he would prefer to see elections for a new Council.
“Existing Councilors must put the test to the people and see if they still have support,” he said.
“Most of us have pitched in to make this thing work, and there’s appreciation for what the City has done.
“No one else was going to take on such a big undertaking and none of us would be here without it,” he said.
“But this is Year Two of the City now, and it’s hard to say that things are going well. Maybe we need some fresh blood.”
Council President Dana Lowenstein mocked rumors she was actively discussing potential candidates in an election designed to shore up the remaining Council’s support.
She said nothing could be considered until prisoner Madeline Plume and her Lefthanders “soldiers” came clean with details about their remaining membership and intentions.
“We have endured a storm,” she said. “Let’s make sure there’s not worse to come.”
Mr Hoskeens said he was approached and would only help the Council if it reflected public sentiment at Wednesday’s planned meeting.
He also demanded two positions for the Traders Alliance because “traders’ views get ignored too much”.
Other names in the mix include Raptor crash hero Tom Vanicek, as well as rumors a fresh Brotherhood candidate would be sought after leader Edward Burroughs was killed.
Chapter 7
THE FIRST DAYS were almost the easiest, in hindsight. They brought her in as naked as the day she was born and Madeline was too deaf and concussed to know it, even when the guards took turns raping her. It wasn’t her first time. She just wanted to believe she’d get her turn to get back at them. But as the days progressed, it was harder and harder to hold out much hope.
They’d interned her with the remaining men who somehow survived the epic gun battle and then the explosion at St Mary’s. Maybe the Administration made their first mistake there. It was hard to tell. With ten of them captured, Miss Plume included, they were too many for detention in their Enclave, and they had to use the cells in the recommissioned old DEA station instead.
Security, though, was tight.
The worst thing wasn’t that they took three days before someone brought a doctor. Plume had been concussed before, and though the explosion above her bunker had also killed all of the other men in with her, deafness, disorientation, cracked ribs, and bruising from the mauling left her in the anesthesia of unconsciousness until she was alive enough to know she was alive and therefore probably going to live.
No, the worst part of it for Plume was that all of her men had to watch.
Apart from a couple of the surviving Lefthanders who’d quit on sanity in the first few days – Patrick and DeVille now lived at the back of the cells opposite her with blankets over their heads – the seven other survivors of the Battle of St Mary’s sat on their floors stricken, some clutching the bars or resting bearded heads against them, resolutely committed to their watch over her in some misguided show of solidarity now they had nothing else left to offer, trapped animals like her – but not quite like her, since they were men.
Instead, they witnessed every hour of her degradation, every time it occurred.
Madeline was cold-blooded enough to question whether seeing their figurehead abused and defiled would lose her the other Lefthanders’ loyalty. But once she was able to stand on her own again, she realized her ordeal had only instilled a new determination.
They watched her fiercely, with respect. A watch of honor.
“We still have people,” Loring said.
The young man’s words came to her like a submarine signal. Plume winced, and held up her hand for him to stop.
; “They could be listening,” she said.
Her ears felt full of wax, and Madeline tentatively reached up fingers repulsed at once at the thick crust of gore they encountered. She tasted bile, and other worse things, and fastened the hospital gown back around her to walk like a blind lady back to the cell’s fastened cot. She retrieved her vomit and semen-stained blanket and unfolded it around her like a cloak, trying not to show the pain it caused her, moving her arms above shoulder height, her protesting ribs, the deep ache in her womb, the rawness between her legs and her torn and stinging anus.
Exhaling heavily, she sat in similar fashion, closing her eyes to ignore yet more bodily complaints – in fact just trying hard not to black out from them.
At once, the holding cell doors cracked open, and Plume barely dared look that way as Denny Greerson and the jail commander McGovern walked in.
*
AFTER THEY WERE done, Greerson remembered he had a job to do.
“You can hear me?” he asked the woman harshly, as if her injuries were her own fault – precisely what he believed. How else he could justify his behavior was beyond her, otherwise.
Madeline nodded, though her head sank tiredly until McGovern grabbed a fistful of her dark hair to force her gaze upright.
“He’s talking to you,” her jailor said. “How you gonna hear him if you can’t watch his lips, you deaf bitch?”
She wanted to tell them they’d done this to her, but now, in as many ways, they’d done worse. Greerson was still buckling up his pants when McGovern threw her back as if she disgusted him, folded up his arms, and rested one palm on the butt of the Taser on his belt.
“Plume,” Greerson said to get her attention once more. “You ready to talk?”
“About what?”
She sounded disinterested, but that was just Madeline trying to sound anything other than pained – or afraid at what these two bozos could threaten. One glance across the holding cells showed her men still watching her, and exhaustion swept through Madeline at the thought that, on top of everything else, she had to fight against her own suffering as a performance for morale.
After The Apocalypse Season 2 Box Set [Books 4-6] Page 14
