Chained - Everything you know is a lie...

by Susanne Valenti

Chapter Twenty Four

  The journey north would take two days by road. There was a farmhouse a little farther than half way where we would take shelter for the night.

  The trees changed subtly as the car wound its way onwards. They were darker the further north we went, the leaves rougher in appearance. The undergrowth was different too, it looked spongey and damp but not humid like the forest we had entered initially. It just looked wet. The temperature dropped as well and I huddled down into my seat, my breath misting on the windows.

  "Is it much further?" I asked. Laurie was asleep again and Alicia was concentrating on the road. Coal had been staring vacantly out of the opposite window in silence for what seemed like years. "I'm bored to death."

  "I'm not sure it's possible to be bored to death," Coal replied, his mouth curling up at the side.

  "Well it must be. I can feel my heart giving up on beating, my lungs can't be bothered to work and my brain is definitely trying to disintegrate." And my legs were numb, I was hungry and I needed to pee but I tried to reign in the moaning a bit.

  "What do you want me to do about it?"

  "If I knew I'd have done it myself already." I looked over my shoulder at Kaloo who had curled up in the truck bed and fallen asleep. Her fur blew back and forth in the wind but she looked perfectly at ease. I shivered at the thought of being out there with her. Behind us on the road were two other trucks, filled with Hunter and his men.

  I could feel Coal watching me and shifted my eyes to meet his.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I was just wondering what this must be like for you, after living hidden away in your tower your whole life. To come out here, to see all of this. You're coping extremely well considering." He gave me a look that made me feel like a science experiment.

  "Am I now?"

  "Yes."

  We sat in silence for several moments looking at each other. I didn't know what else to say to him. He was distractingly attractive and every time I thought of something I instantly forgot it. Eventually I just turned my attention back to the window.

  "Do you steal weapons from the SubWar battles often?" I asked after a while.

  "Not really. I was looking for some plants they needed in the hospital. I had more trouble finding them than I expected and I ended up close to the battlefield." He shrugged. "I've always been a bit of an opportunist so I thought it wouldn't hurt to stock up."

  "So it was just dumb luck that we met then?"

  "I guess. You can think of it as fate or divine intervention if you prefer," he teased.

  "Maybe I do prefer. I'd rather not think that my life was one random choice made by a stranger away from being over."

  "Okay then. I prefer to think things happen for a reason too. Maybe you can return the favour and save my life some time."

  "If the opportunity ever arises then I promise I will," I said. The likelihood of him ever needing to be saved by me seemed rather slim.

  "I'll hold you to that." He smiled and it sounded like he meant it.

  I held my fist out to him with my pinky finger extended.

  "What's that for?" he asked, looking blankly at my hand.

  "Pinky swear. A promise means nothing if it's not a pinky swear." He still looked confused so I caught hold of his hand and linked his little finger with mine. "Now it's official."

  Coal looked baffled and then started laughing as he took his hand back.

  "So do you feel like telling us why we didn't stay at your house last night?" I asked casually.

  "Us?" He glanced at Laurie who was asleep again.

  "Well you can tell me and I'll fill her in later," I offered.

  "It's nothing really I just didn't exactly leave town under the best of circumstances last time I was there. I might have pissed off a few people and I couldn't be bothered to deal with it for the sake of one night." He glanced back out of his window.

  "Did you piss off anyone in particular?" I asked.

  "Maybe. Probably not. I doubt she's holding a grudge really."

  I bit my tongue against the questions which his answer raised and racked my brain for a different topic of conversation.

  "Any chance this farm has hot water?" I asked.

  "Yeah, we have a power generating turbine at all of our secured buildings. There's a network of them up and down the country."

  "Well that's something then."

  We lapsed back into silence and the minutes dragged on. I drummed my hands against my legs again and again and was eventually rewarded by Alicia swerving the car hard enough to make me hit my head against the glass.

  "Ow!" I rubbed at my forehead and glanced back at Kaloo but she hadn't even woken up at the movement.

  A few moments later we turned off of the road onto a dirt track. The wheels kicked up a spray of mud and Alicia slowed us down. Hunter's trucks sped past us and disappeared ahead, splattering my window with mud as they went.

  "It's about a mile down this track. I don't fancy having a rock fling up and damage this baby so they can go ahead and ruin their own trucks," Alicia called over her shoulder.

  "Isn't it getting a bit dark? Do we have to worry about cougars out here?" I asked.

  "No," Coal replied. "Not cougars."

  "What then?"

  "Hopefully nothing, but predatory creatures are more active at night so it's always a little riskier to be out and about which is why we prefer to be indoors."

  I ignored his vagueness and looked out at the gloom.

  The trees weren't thick around the track. They had moved back to create a barrier further out. We were surrounded by long grass with husks on their tips and it changed the landscape drastically. It made it easier to see the sky and I watched as stars blinked into view.

  "Is this corn?" I asked.

  "Yes. It never used to grow as tall as this apparently but now it's over twenty five feet at full height. It produces at least four times as much corn per husk as the original plant too," Coal said.

  "I suppose this is what they were aiming for originally," I mused.

  "Shouldn't screw around with nature." Laurie waggled a finger authoritatively, awake at last.

  The truck started to judder a bit then made a whining sound before giving up and coming to a halt.

  "Damn it," Alicia cursed, slapping her hands down on the steering wheel. "We're out of power. We need to get to the farm house to charge it up again."

  "Should we wait here for Hunter to realise that we got left behind?" Laurie asked.

  The engine stopping meant that the heating had gone off and I was already feeling the cold creeping in. Alicia considered what to do.

  "No. It's not far. We can walk it in less time than it would take for them to even realise we were missing." She opened her door and hopped out, the rest of us followed. It felt so good to stretch my legs after being cooped up for hours and I was glad of the opportunity to walk about.

  Alicia climbed up on top of the truck to look around.

  "The road actually circles the field. I can see the other trucks still making their way around but the farm is just through there," she said, jumping down and pointing through the corn field.

  "Through the middle of the field? In the dark?" I asked, trying to make it sound like the prospect wasn't terrifying.

  "Well it's still the best part of a mile if we walk around the road but it's less than half that through the field. We can run it in like five minutes, ten tops," Alicia said.

  I glanced at Laurie who shrugged and Coal who was looking up at the dark sky.

  "Let's do it then, just all stick together no matter what," Coal said. He let out a whistle and Kaloo jumped out of the truck and bounded around us, obviously pleased to stretch her legs too.

  Alicia locked the truck and we shouldered our packs.

  "Let's go," Coal said and we pushed our way into the corn.

  We soon realised that we could barely walk through the dense corn stalks let alone run. We kept in single file, for
cing a path between them which was much harder than it should have been.

  The stalks were surprisingly rigid. They resisted our passage and snapped back into position with enough force to actually hurt on the few times that they caught me by surprise. Kaloo didn't seem to have nearly as much trouble, she darted in and out of view, her rustling appearances making me jump every time. Alicia had taken the lead followed by Laurie and me, then Coal. I stumbled and his arm was around my waist, keeping me upright. How nice it would be if I could just stop falling over my own feet.

  "Thank you." I turned to face him and he let me go.

  The corn snapped closed into place, instantly surrounding us as the others moved ahead and we were suddenly alone. I glanced down and saw my boot lace trailing into the mud.

  "Tie it or you'll just fall over again," Coal said.

  I smiled apologetically and dropped down to one knee. Coal took his assault rifle from his back and spun to look at the corn surrounding us.

  My numb fingers fumbled with the fine laces but I finally pulled them tight and stood. The cold pressed against me and I shivered. Coal turned and bumped into me and I had to catch hold of his arm so that I didn't fall over again.

  "I'm sorry," Coal said.

  I dropped his arm quickly. Our breath rose in little clouds between us.

  A keening howl started up somewhere to our right.

  "What was that?" I gasped. Coal pressed his hand across my mouth, silencing me.

  "Coyote," he whispered. "Hopefully just one." He beckoned and we followed the slightly bent path that the others had taken onwards into the surrounding stalks.

  A yapping noise started to our left and was joined by another somewhere behind us.

  "Why is there never just one?" I hissed.

  "Stay slow and quiet," he whispered and we pushed on carefully.

  The corn that towered above us let only slithers of moonlight through, there was no way to tell how far we still had to go.

  The inflexible stalks were practically impossible to move through with any semblance of stealth. Every movement we made caused a chorus of rustling, signalling our position to the pack of wild dogs that were slowly forming a circle around us.

  The yapping carried on, picking up from several directions.

  Coal took a knife from his belt and motioned for me to follow suit. Rather than empowering me, the feel of the weapon in my hand just made me more worried. Great aim wouldn't do me much good against an attacker that I wouldn't see until they were on top of me. I pushed against my inclination to panic and found the cold, calm place within me that would help me focus on the fight.

  A strong gust of freezing wind sent a wave of movement through the field. On and on we slipped through the maze of corn while howls broke the night air all around us more and more frequently.

  The wind finally let up and I tried to get the chattering of my teeth under control. The metal hilt of my knife was so cold that it sent shooting pains up my arm and made my hand feel numb. I adjusted my grip and held the blade steady.

  A shape burst between the stalks and I raised my knife only to have Coal knock it back down with his free hand. It was Kaloo, her hackles were raised and she let out a high pitched bark that sounded like a warning. She circled us once then started purposefully forward, keeping close.

  The yapping and shrieking of the coyotes had gained a frantic edge. Kaloo snarled, showing a full set of gleaming white canines which reminded me that she was as much of a beast as anything that was hiding within the field. I was grateful to have her on our side.

  A flash of movement to my right made me jump and I nearly dropped the knife. The coyote slipped out of view as quickly as I spotted it but Kaloo gave chase.

  Rustling broke out around us in earnest. Coal stopped short and I walked straight into the back of him.

  "Ow!" I complained, rubbing at my nose.

  "Shhh," he spun me around and pressed his back to mine. "They're getting ready to attack, get your gun out."

  I did as commanded and shoved my knife back into my belt before snatching my shotgun from my back. I held the gun up in front of me like a talisman, my numb fingers slipped into place as I repressed a shiver. Slowly, Coal started to move, I took his lead and we turned in a circle with our guns raised and ready.

  My breath huffed out in little clouds which momentarily obscured my vision. The growling and yapping sang out all around us, making it impossible to guess where the attack would come from. I clenched my teeth and steadied my breathing, my eyes darting back and forth.

  The husks beneath our feet split and crunched as we wore down the ground in a small circle.

  Sounds of canine fighting replaced the excited yapping in the direction that Kaloo had taken and I felt a small bubble of hope swell in my chest.

  The curtain of corn stalks in front of me rattled and began to part. I slipped my finger onto the trigger, ready to fire. Snarling and the snapping of jaws came from the rippling crops followed by a screech of pain.

  I let out another breath as Kaloo stuck her head back through to look at us. Her blue eyes held a question which I answered with a shaky laugh.

  The sounds of approach had halted and we took the opportunity to make our escape.

  Kaloo lead us out of the corn field with her nose in the air. We were a short distance from a set of wooden steps that led up to a grand old farm house. We sprinted up the steps onto a porch that ran the length of the building. Kaloo circled behind us and growled at the field, a clear warning to anything that might try to follow.

  From the porch we could see the tops of the corn stalks, waves rippled back and forth as around ten shapes moved within its depths.

  The door opened behind us and Alicia stood there with her hands on her hips.

  "Really? What happened to 'stick together no matter what'?" She raised her eyebrows at us, waiting for an explanation.

  "I tripped and by the time I righted myself you were gone," I muttered to my feet as I dragged my eyes away from the field behind us.

  "Sure, whatever. Are you going to stand out here all night and wait for those coyotes to try their luck with Kaloo or are the three of you coming in?"

  We stepped past her and Kaloo trotted up the steps behind us. Her tail was in the air, wagging profusely as she strutted through the door.