Desolation, p.2
Desolation, page 2
“That’s not quite true,” Kas said, pulling something out of his pack. I stared stupidly at the black wad of fabric he held out to me until I shook it out, revealing—
“You found my hoodie?” Not mine, really. The one I’d stolen from the locker room in the coworking space where Kas and I had met. He’d been friends with the previous owner. For all we knew, she was dead and wouldn’t need this anymore.
Kas grinned. “Once we got back, I asked the women who took care of sanitizing our gear. Since it ended up in the same stack as the rest, they mended and kept it instead of throwing it out. We can pick up what else you need on the way.”
How he crinkled his nose was comical.
Right. I hadn’t had a chance to clean up since getting back to the Enclave. The last shower I’d taken before that had been at the power plant—incidentally, Osprey’s weird stunt that he’d pulled to prevent anyone overhearing us that, in hindsight, was a lot less paranoid than it had seemed at the time. Since then, I’d gotten all kinds of liquids splattered on me—from humans and zombies alike—and the rain had washed away only so much. Add to that five days of sweating like a pig while my body tried to twist itself inside out…
“A shower first would be nice, yeah.”
Ahead, a tunnel branched off from the one we were following. Seneca looked back briefly, and with a nod, he took his leave. Only Osprey reacted with a similar gesture. I was simply too beat up to care much about such niceties.
With absolutely no clue where my little cell had been relative to the larger complex of the Enclave, it was no surprise that all I could do was tamely stumble after Osprey as he led us on. Besides, all I’d seen of the Enclave before was the section just behind the main entrance that was reserved for the resident, more trusted guards, including their sleeping quarters and the cantina.
I wasn’t surprised that this wasn’t where we were headed now.
The slightly upward-sloping tunnel took a turn, and beyond the reach of the scant illumination of the flashlights that Osprey and Dharma carried, daylight started to get increasingly brighter beyond another corner. While the tunnel so far had been empty, up ahead crates and shelves were stacked against the walls, and a small table with three chairs was pushed into the very corner—some kind of guard checkpoint, I figured.
As we got closer, my ringing ears—still not quite recovered from all the weapons discharged way too close without protection—picked up the sound of voices. All male, no surprise there.
We rounded the corner, and I got a first glimpse of the people I would be living with for now. Or at least some of them, and the inside facilities they were using.
The tunnel broadened considerably here, easily wide enough for three large trucks to drive in and get unloaded at the same time. That wasn’t happening; it was only a single pickup, and from what I could tell, the cargo getting unloaded was several freshly killed deer.
At the right side of the tunnel, a larger niche had been carved into the bedrock, easily the size of a school gym. It was partly boarded off with wooden slats and tarps—more to symbolize the area being sectioned off than any kind of functional barrier. I guessed some of it was for the armory and gear, since I could see a gun rack with three rifles and some carbines in between the slats.
We moved on without missing a beat.
My residual headache flared to life as we stepped out into the sunshine. It couldn’t have been much past six in the morning—living without electricity for entertainment purposes was clearly affecting changes in people’s day-to-day schedules already—but it was still like someone had stabbed two glowing-hot iron rods into my skull.
I inevitably stopped in my tracks, swaying for a second before I got my bearings.
The mouth of the tunnel opened up onto some kind of plateau, with only low vegetation, like bushes and grass, directly around it. It must have been up on some kind of cliff, because I could see the forest in a semi-circle beyond the plateau, but we were well above most of the treetops. There were more rocks and trees off to our right, presumably leading farther up the mountains.
Several cars were parked more or less haphazardly between stacks of cargo and tools. Beyond, someone had cleared not just a path but an entire swath of grass away, leaving some kind of fire pit or cooking station in a recessed area in the middle, with tree logs all around it. There were several tents pitched behind them—helping to hide the pit from view, although because of the slope, I doubted it was visible from farther down the mountain. Behind them, three larger cabins stood, made up of massive logs and roughly hewn slats. The scent of wood was overwhelming—as was that of people.
And there were people in sight aplenty, easily fifty or sixty. Most of them were men, but not all of them.
This was more of a camp than a simple guard post, I realized.
I recognized several of the men, all in outdoor or jumbled-together military gear—Plato’s men. They’d been part of the group out by the roads when we had come back from the power plant.
When I’d done my humanly best to beat the asshole to a bloody pulp.
“I thought it was Seneca’s guys who did the perimeter watch,” I muttered, mostly to myself but also hoping Dharma or Osprey would fill me in.
Osprey did.
“Mostly, yes, but it would be stupid to have all of our defenses bunking in one place.” He was mostly staring at the cabins, as if surprised by their existence. “We have six camps like this now. Seven if you count our barracks by the main entrance. The Colonel initially wanted to drop you off in the one farthest from the central units, but after some discussion he agreed that this one made more sense.”
Clearly not having been a part of said conversation left me not getting that at all.
“Why, exactly?”
Osprey shrugged, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face. “First off, it’s only one terrifying ride on the elevator away from our space—or a twenty-minute walk, if you enjoy zig-zagging along the paths going up and down the mountain on the outside. And second… well, I’ll let her explain it herself.”
My confusion increased until I noticed he wasn’t just staring at the forest in the distance, but had switched focus to a woman coming toward us. She was in her late fifties at least, but her actual age was impossible to pinpoint between the shock of reddish-orange hair barely tamed into a bun and the deep wrinkles on her face likely because of decades of too much sun exposure—and the cigarette she was currently puffing on couldn’t have helped, either. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in extra weight, but from the way she carried herself, there was a lot of strength under the flab visible on her bare arms peeking out from the black tank top she was wearing, with tight leather pants and biker boots to round out the outfit. She was obviously the kind of woman who had her own hog and wasn’t riding pillion. While there were plenty of laugh lines on her face, the gaze of her flinty eyes was hard, and her mouth had a certain mean twist to it.
I could have been wrong, but I had a feeling that I was about to meet the leader of what was left of the Militia—and whoever she was, she was nobody’s bitch.
“Marion!” Osprey exclaimed, even going as far as to open his arms as if to embrace her.
She rocked to a halt a good ten feet away from us, making no move to come in for that hug. In fact, she took her sweet time taking another drag of her cigarette, blowing out the smoke in an annoyed huff.
The way she stared at me made it plain that she wasn’t impressed by what she was seeing.
I hadn’t had a chance to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, but that was easily something we could agree on.
“So this is the problem you manly men keep crapping your panties over, huh?” She briefly glanced at him as if she expected a response from him before her attention snapped back to me. “A scrawny, dirty little girl. Color me impressed.”
Dharma stepped up to me but left enough room to allow for my pervasive cloud of body odor not to knock her out immediately.
“Nobody’s afraid of Callie.” She said it with conviction, but at least I noticed the hard line of her rigid back. I hadn’t forgotten how she’d been looking at me after I’d demonstrated maybe a little too well what I was capable of once that thin veneer of civilized manners came off. “But yes, the BS they are flinging around is.”
Impressive, I assumed.
Marion kept staring at us both for another second. Then her face split into a bright grin, easily ripping ten years off her and adding some points in the charm department. A beauty pageant she’d never win, but particularly in combination with the raucous laugh she brayed out, a sense of warmth and welcome radiated from her that I hadn’t expected.
I was still standing there—flummoxed and disoriented—as she came sauntering over and clapped a hand on my shoulder. She had to reach up for the move, since she was actually shorter up close than her demeanor had made her appear from a distance. What little of her smell made it through my cloud of stink was a mixture of cigarettes, wood smoke, and coffee, weirdly reminding me of home—a home light years away from Charlotte and the snazzy apartment I’d been sharing with the girls.
“No worries, girl. We’ll take good care of you while you’re not allowed to play with the preppy kids.”
Maybe it was because of my still-addled brain, but my defenses still hadn’t roared to life.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I told her before I cast a sidelong glance in Osprey’s direction. “You think that’s a good idea? After what went down?”
Osprey had the grace to look somewhat conflicted, but Marion’s lung-cancer-in-the-making laugh forestalled whatever he would have answered.
“What are you afraid of, girl? Repercussions? Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I see it, they already dumped you in a deep, dark hole for days and threw away the keys. You’d think that’s enough of a fucked-up version of timeout for a minor scuffle between friends.”
I didn’t miss that while her mocking tone sounded genuine, the way she looked at me made it plain that she wasn’t missing anything in my reaction—or lack thereof.
I was honestly still too lethargic to give her much.
I could gaze blankly at her, though, and judging from how Osprey and Dharma both started fidgeting, there was still some of that thousand-yard-stare quality to it, if none of the maniacal, homicidal rage.
That wasn’t completely gone but was well and truly buried underneath the mountain of agony and exhaustion currently weighing down on me.
The slight twist that came to Marion’s mouth made it plain that she wasn’t as naïve as them—or simply knew too well what was going on with me right now.
It was absolutely weird to find a kindred spirit in someone I’d met all of five minutes ago.
Maybe it was because of this that I felt compelled to set the record straight. Anything else would have felt like instant betrayal—and while I didn’t know Marion well, I had a feeling that this was one bridge I didn’t want to burn unless I absolutely had to.
What a small show of kindness can do to a person.
“You do realize that it wasn’t just a scuffle?”
Her smile took on a somewhat nasty twist. “I wasn’t there to see for myself, of course,” she stated, glee sparking in her eyes. “But from what they told me, you were way beyond anything to make it more than that. The right drugs can make you do all kinds of wrong things. One would presume that now that you’re back in possession of your full mental capacities, you can tell the difference between right and wrong behavior again, right?”
She absolutely didn’t say so with her words, but I got the sense that she meant that next time, I should make sure to have—and keep—the upper hand, and not start shit unless I knew I would be the one to end it.
I had a feeling we were absolutely becoming tight friends.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said meekly, only some of that mocking.
She gave me a sardonic look before she turned around, gesturing me to follow. “Now see, that’s what I mean with manners.” She glanced at the men around who, to a fault, all made room for her rather than making her pivot around them. “Not so hard now, is it?”
I fell into step beside her, watching with amusement as the free space grew even further.
Looked like my actions did have consequences—and judging from the lack of suppressed anger I saw on faces all around me, possibly not the worst kind. It was kind of funny to realize that the only people who looked uncomfortable now were my friends, not quite sure what to do.
Marion stopped five steps in, glancing back over her shoulder to where Osprey and his people kept hovering. “You need her right away, or do the powers that be allow the poor girl to settle in and get cleaned up first? Let me know where and when you need her, and I’ll make sure she’ll be there. Not my first rodeo with teenage delinquents.”
Was I burning to correct her about my age? Of course, but I didn’t think for a second that she didn’t know that I was in my twenties already. Objecting would just have given her an excuse to call me a little girl—and for that to stick. That was the last thing I wanted right now.
“We’re leaving in an hour,” Osprey said, scratching the back of his head. “You think you’re up for coming with us already?”
It was a testament to the kind of man he was that he didn’t keep chatting with Marion but directly asked me. I wouldn’t have held it against him if he had done that, but it felt good to regain some autonomy, even if it was a fleeting concept yet.
“Only one way to find out, right?”
He took my response for what it was and gestured his people to go.
Dharma and Kas lingered for a moment longer, but when I made an exaggerated shooing motion—that sent another spike of pain through my head—they trudged after the others, back into the tunnel. The industrious loading and unloading resumed, most of the men around ignoring them and eventually Marion and me as well.
Oblivious to all that—since it was clearly beneath her—Marion led me toward the cabins.
“I know this is some fucked-up babysitting kind of crap, but you’ll bunk with the girls.” She opened up the door to the first cabin, still blocking the entrance with her bulk as she halted right there but letting me glance around her. Inside were two rows of bunk beds, making that twenty sleeping spaces altogether.
In the back to the right, three of the five bunk beds had been shoved together—pretty much one large resting space on top while everything below was hidden from sight with tarps and blankets, creating some kind of cave. From up top, four girls looked up and toward us—literal girls. Three were almost identical—in looks and age—making me presume they were either triplets, or at least sisters in as minimal an age difference as biologically possible. All three had curly, light-blonde hair and blue eyes, their faces covered in freckles. They were maybe eight to ten years old. The last girl was around fourteen, her hair straight and a much darker shade of blonde, her eyes brown.
“This is Tammy, Allie, Suzie, and Jenny. You get the upper bunk directly next to them. The last one in the row is empty for now; you can keep your shit up there or leave it as is.”
She then smiled at the girls. It was a warm, real smile, like a doting grandmother’s.
“Girls, this is Callie. She’ll be your watchdog for the time being. If any asshole so much as looks at you weird, you tell her, and she’ll kick the living shit out of him.”
Even feeling like I was drowning in a cloud of steel wool, that made me crack a smile.
“Hi, girls!” I said, keeping my voice low as not to split my own skull again.
“Hi, Callie,” they sing-songed back, way too chipper for their own good.
Marion beamed another smile at them before she turned back to me. “Their older brothers and uncle sleep in the beds on the other side, next to some of their friends. I don’t expect any of them to give the girls any trouble, but you never know.”
I didn’t miss that she didn’t extend that sense of protection to me, but I figured that none of them would be stupid enough to try anything in front of the girls.
“What’s in the blanket fort underneath their beds?” I asked when Marion pointedly pushed me backward out of the door and closed it behind her.
“Toys, dolls, what little extra clothes the girls have,” she offered. “And enough weapons and ammo for easily ten adults to lay their lives down for them to escape.” She sent me a sidelong glance. “Axel tells me you know how to handle a gun. I expect you to do the same.”
She waited for my grave nod before she went on, the sudden tension dispersing as soon as it had ramped up.
Marion stopped between the other two cabins, indicating the second one, maybe thirty feet away from the first. “The other women and I sleep in here, with their husbands and sons. The third cabin is for the rest of the men.” She gave me a pointed look. “I don’t want to see you anywhere near there, understand?”
I had to cut down on my amusement as I nodded. Somehow, laughing in her face didn’t sound like a suitable response.
“Don’t shit where you eat. Got it.”
“Exactly.”
There was a hint of mirth in her tone, but I didn’t even want to ask what that was all about.
“Space is a little tight right now,” she explained as she gestured at the area behind the last cabin, already cleared of underbrush. “We’re building two more cabins. You’re free to help if you want to, but since you’ll likely be out all day, nobody expects you to chop wood and lug around logs after hours. Just if you feel—for whatever reason—you maybe want to throw in some bona fide bonding time with the guys and gals here. Nobody will hold it against you if you just drag your sorry carcass in after cleaning up, sleep like the dead next to the girls, and disappear again at first light. But let me give you some unsolicited advice. Nobody likes an uppity bitch.”
This time, I couldn’t hold in a derisive snort.
“Does anything about me strike you as particularly uppity right now?”
She gave me a wry grin. “Can’t tell beyond all the dirt and gunk, but that looks like some fancy, big-city-girl highlights in your hair. Not the cheap, my-cousin-did-it-for-ten-bucks-and-a-joint kinda girls around here have.”
