Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2) (17 page)

An hour later they sat before a crackling fire
. Susanna spread out her blanket and outer layer of clothes to dry, and sat as close as she could to the fire as steam wafted off her second layer of clothes. She wrinkled her nose at the stench. At least she was warm. The scavenger said little. He had offered her a drink out of a canteen and had set out an iron griddle on which he was cooking a corn cake. Susanna stared at the food and felt a growing sense of despair that she couldn’t understand. She had been saved, and yet she felt miserable.

“Good bit of luck coming across you, lucky for both of us. I have some dealing
s with New City and I think you can help me out. You see, I need to know what’s going on there but can’t really show my face. Got other things to take care of in the wildlands. From what I know of those people they won’t turn someone like you away.”

“Someone like me? You me
an someone who’s not a threat?”

The Giver looked at
her. “They must know the camp followers weren’t going along of their own accord. The citizens are a stuck-up bunch but they ain’t stupid and they ain’t cruel unless they feel threatened. Someone like you won’t make them feel threatened.”

“Oh,” Susanna said, staring back at the corn cake. Of course no one would feel threatened b
y her. Why would they?

“So anyway you can be my eyes and ears. We can make an arrangement for you to come out to the wildlands every now and then and tell me what you’ve learned. Get a domestic
job, like a servant for one of the citizens. They won’t take much notice of you after a while and they’ll let slip lots of things that may be useful to know. I’ll be sure to keep you in good trade. Extra food and clothing and things like that. I’ll give you a few things to start out with from my pack here.”

“What do you nee
d to spy on New City for?”

The G
iver snorted. “For their own good.”

Susanna looked back at the corn cake. That was more of an answer than she expected, even though it told her next to nothing. The Giver flipped the corn cake, saw it was done, and scooped it up with an iron
spatula. He held it out to her.

“And why do you think I’ll do this for you?” she asked.

“Because I saved your life. Eat up. You need to build up your strength.”

Susanna blinked and stared at the corn cake. Then she realized why she had felt so despondent sinc
e the scavenger had come along.

“Go on, tak
e it. I need you to be strong.”

Susa
nna slapped the corn cake away.

“I don’t need your charity and I don’
t want to be your errand girl.”

The Giver looked surprised. “I’m not asking you to do anything bad, just watc
h out and see what’s going on.”

“I have my own reason
s for going to New City and I don’t think they’re yours,” she said, struggling to her feet and grabbing Eduardo’s clothes.

The scavenger picked up
the corn cake and brushed the dust off. “Don’t be like that, eat something! You’re not strong enough to make it to New City.”

“Fuck you. I kn
ow I’m not strong. I’m not good-looking either. No, don’t shake your head, I don’t want your false sympathy. I’m not too smart either, and I’m not a very good cook, and my vegetable patch was never as productive as everyone else’s and fuck you. Everyone I know is dead or a slave and I’m still alive, and that counts for something. And everyone I know sold out their principles and I haven’t, and that counts for a hell of a lot more. So I’m going to go to New City without your help.”

The scavenger stared at her. She picked up Bridget
’s basket and tossed it to him.

“Here, this is in trade for building the fire. I stole it from the last person ever to o
wn me.” With that she turned and headed south.

“Wait!”
he called after her.

She turned
back, frowning at the scavenger. He was holding out the corn cake. “Another trade. I’ll give you this if you do one thing for me.”

Susanna’s eyes narrowed.

“What’s that?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Annette hurried through the Burbs. She had a million things to do before she could head out into the wildlands after The Pure One. More refugees had arrived. Some scavengers had brought in a couple of machete men. One was wounded—they swore he got it in the battle and not from them—and the other was so starved he was barely conscious. Another dozen porters had been rounded up too. These had been treated with more kindness than the previous lot, although one old man’s bloody lip showed Annette’s she wasn’t getting the whole story.

So besides dealing with Clyde to expand the two enclosures in front of the wall, and getting Ahmed to go around to make a collection to feed the prisoners, coaxing some food from The Doctor when that didn’t turn out to be enough, and dealing with a crowd of hecklers tossing rocks at the machete men, she had her regular police work to do.

There’d been another case of theft at the market. This time it was a kid, a snot-nosed little shit who thankfully wasn’t one of Pablo’s friends. Her son had a decent taste in playmates. She only hoped that would last into his teenage years.

The problem was, what to do with the brat? He was a minor, and his father was a bum who lounged around the bars cadging drinks and slept until noon in the shack he had won in a card game. A search of the shack found barely enough trade to compensate the market stall owner and pay for a day in prison—for the father. Annette couldn’t bring herself to locking the kid in Ahmed’s spare room. Seeing there was no food in the kid’s house, Annette offered him some lunch. She got a middle finger in return.

More trouble came with a fistfight on the other side of town. Frank waded into it to break them up, and got slugged for his efforts. He slugged the slugger and took out two of the guy’s teeth. The “victim” then went all over town whining about police brutality. The Doctor summoned him to check on his mouth, and when the guy came out of the office, his mouth swathed in bandages, he made a humble apology to Frank. Whatever The Doctor had told him, it had worked.

These and a flurry of smaller problems kept her from getting over to the prostitute’s place until late afternoon. It was a large red tent near the edge of the Burbs that housed a group independent working girls. Annette noticed a grim-faced man with a spiked club standing guard at the doorway.

“You’re new,” she commented as she came up to him.

“Hey sheriff,” the man replied. “Yeah, just hired today after Tiffany went missing.”

Annette blinked. Tiffany was the name of the girl who had gotten cut. She hurried into the tent.

Three sad-eyed women sat around a small fire heating up some tea. Only the front half of the tent was visible, the rest being cordoned off with cloth partitions. An exaggerated moaning from behind one of them told her why.

Blushing, Annette sat down on a spare stool.

“What’s this I hear about Tiffany missing?” she asked.

One of the girls sniffled and wiped her eyes. “She must have disappeared last night. The pegs on her side of the tent had been pulled up and her bed was empty.”

“When did you see this?”

“Not until late morning. We let her rest but when she didn’t come to breakfast I checked on her and she was gone!”

“Why didn’t you come tell me?”

Another of the girls shot her an angry look. “You couldn’t protect her when she was right here, what the hell are you going to do now that she’s gone?”

Annette bit her lower lip.

“Did any of your hear anything last night?” she asked.

They all shook their heads. The teary eyed one said, “Things got pretty loud here last night. We had a party. Someone could have snuck in and taken her easily.”

Annette noticed that each sleeping area could be partitioned off with curtains. Tiffany’s coworkers would have seen nothing.

“Any of you receive any threats? Anyone approach you?” Annette asked.

The angry one frowned. “You know who did this. If you’re the law around here, go arrest him!”

Annette stood up. “I will if I can get some evidence.”

Half an hour later Annette burst through Fly Daddy Bradley’s front door with Frank and Jackson right behind her. They stormed down the hallway as squawks and angry shouts came from the rooms to either side. She flung the door to Fly Daddy’s room open without knocking and found him in bed with two of his employees.

“Sheriff Cruz!” Fly Daddy said with a smile, “To what do I owe this—”

“Where is she?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Annette stormed over. “Where is she?”

“To whom are you referring?”

“You know who. Tiffany. She went missing last night.”

Fly Daddy made a good impression of a surprise and worry. So good, in fact, that Annette felt a prick of doubt. Shaking that off, she leaned close to him.

“An independent working girl gets cut up and now she’s gone missing, taken from her tent last night. Where is she?”

Fly Daddy raised his hands from around the shoulders of his girls and made a helpless gesture.

“How should I know?”

Annette turned. “Frank. Jackson. Search every inch of this place.”

“Right,” Frank said. They both turned and stormed out. A moment later she heard the sounds of crashing doors, female screams and male protests. Annette turned back to the pimp. He was getting out of bed and putting on a purple bathrobe.

Where the hell does he scavenge this stuff?

“Now I must object. I am a law-abiding businessman who offers opportunities to underprivileged girls and comfort for the male population. You have no right to—”

“Investigating a murder I have every right to search your place.”

Fly Daddy’s calm demeanor cracked somewhat. “Murder! Now you’re accusing me of murder?”

A crash down the hall made him look over her shoulder.

“My deputies,” Annette explained. “Searching.”

Fly Daddy shook a finger at her. “If anything is broken I’ll make my complaints to The Doctor.”

“You do that. In the meantime, sit your fat ass down. I’m going to talk to your girls. Without you around.”

The pimp’s eyes narrowed. After a moment he sat down.

One by one, Annette spoke with each of the prostitutes. All of them swore that Fly Daddy and his bouncers had been at the whorehouse all night. She tried everything from bribery to bullying, and still none of them changed their story. Frank and Jackson’s search also turned up nothing. At least they had the satisfaction of seeing all of Fly Daddy’s customers run off.

An hour later, Annette and her deputies finally left.

“Not a god-damned thing,” Frank growled. “And you didn’t find any clues at Tiffany’s tent?”

Annette shook her head. “Nope. And if we don’t find a body or have some witness come forward, I don’t know what we can do.”

“Weren’t you going to ban prostitution if this happens?” Jackson asked.

Annette ground her teeth. “The Doctor is against it. Says it will just drive it underground. Besides, we don’t know for sure Tiffany’s dead.”

“Of course she’s dead. That fat fuck killed her,” Frank said.

Annette said. “Maybe. Yeah, probably. But what can we do without proof?”

“Ban prostitution like you said you would,” Jackson said.

Annette stopped and faced her deputies. “That will take time and a huge amount of effort, and we have more important fish to fry.”

“The Pure One?” Jackson asked.

“That’s right. The Doctor has given us the go ahead. We leave tomorrow.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The guards woke Jeb up early the next day to give him breakfast. Instead of two eggs he got three, and the bread was more than usual too. Just as he was finishing, Annette came up to the enclosure at the head of a small group that included the people who had originally captured him.

His heart lightened to see Pablo was with her, tagging along beside her and tugging at her hand.

“Pleeeease?”

“For the third time no.”

“I’ll be really good.”

“You’re always really good, but the wildlands are too dangerous.”

“I was born in the wildlands.”

“And I brought you here to keep you out of them. No.”

“Rachel can bring me right back. I won’t even get out of the car.”

“No, no, and no. And, oh, by the way? No.”

Annette came up to the wire. Pablo hung back with the others, looking glum.

“Ready to go for a ride?” she asked.

“Ride?”

“Yeah, we’re driving up to the pass to save time.”

Jeb’s jaw dropped. “You guys have a vehicle that can make it up the mountains?”

“We got six!” Pablo said. “Two Hummers, three four-by-fours, and a forklift.”

Jeb shook his head. “This place is getting better and better.”

The kid pouted. “You’re lucky, Rachel’s giving you a ride.”

“You don’t want to go where we’re going, kid,” Jeb said as the guard let him out.

“Yeah, but you get to ride in one of the four-by-fours!”

Annette frowned to see her boy talking to him. Thinking fast, Jeb saved the situation.

“How about you ask Rachel to drive you around the Burbs a bit? She’ll probably need to check the vehicle anyway. All your friends will see.”

Pablo’s face brightened. He turned to his mother.

“Can I?”

“You can ask. Don’t be disappointed if they say no.”

Pablo was off like a shot before she finished her sentence. She smiled after him and when she turned to Jeb that smile held for half a second. Then she remembered herself and took on a serious look.

“OK, here’s the deal. You’re going to guide us to The Pure One and I’m going to take him out with this,” she jabbed a thumb at the rifle case slung across her back. “In return you’ll get a pack of food and some gear and you can go on your way. You show your face around here again and it’s open season.”

Jeb nodded. “That’s a fair trade. I’d rather be a citizen of this place, though.”

Annette snorted. “Even I’m not a citizen.”

“But couldn’t I stay in the Burbs?”

One of the women in the group cut in. “Not even the Burbs would take you, machete man!”

Jeb recognized her as the citizen named Christina, the hard case who had wanted to gun him and the others down when they’d surrendered. He looked around and saw the group was almost identical to the posse that captured him and the machete men. He recognized the deputy named Jackson. He was off to the side hugging a hot little number. The woman was crying.

Jackson felt a pang of jealousy.

Must be nice to have someone give a shit about you.

“So these are the folks coming with us?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Annette said, pointing them out. “This here’s Christina Raines, Charley Shibell, Jackson Andrews, and two more you don’t know—Tanya Popov and Nguyen Phan. I’ve warned them about you.”

He looked at the two newcomers. Tanya wasn’t bad looking. But what was with this Asian guy? He wasn’t. . .

The guy frowned at him. “No I’m not Chinese, so don’t ask.”

“Sorry, do you get that a lot?” Jeb asked.

“Too much.”

“Oh wait, yeah, you don’t even look Chinese. We came across a band of them a few months back, probably the descendents of one of the armies. Wiped them out.”

Nguyen smiled. “At least you guys are good for something.”

“After what those people did to this land—“

“Blame,” Annette said.

Jeb looked at her. “What?”

“Blame. Blaming any particular group or religion for the fall of civilization is illegal here.”

“What the fuck?”

Jackson tapped a scar on his cheek in the shape of a “B”.

“Gets you branded and exiled from New City,” he said.

Jeb blinked. He’d been wondering about that scar.

“So wait, talking about what happened is illegal?”

Christina nodded. “Yeah, and since you’re riding with the sheriff you better keep your mouth shut.”

“The Chinese aren’t to Blame anyway,” Jackson said. “This land was going to hell way before they invaded thanks to—”

“Shut up, Jackson,” Annette snapped.

“You’ll see things my way after working for the system long enough.”

Annette rolled her eyes. Jeb got the feeling that this conversation had played out countless times before.

Jeb glanced back at Nguyen, who gave him an understanding look.

“So, where you from?” Jeb asked.

“Here.”

“No, where are you really from?”

“Here, but if you’re asking my heritage, my ancestors came from Vietnam.”

Jeb had never heard of Vietnam. “Oh yeah, I heard they kicked China’s ass in one of the old wars.”

Nguyen laughed. “Yeah, I bet they did!”

A rumbling behind him made Jeb turn and gasp. A four-by-four drove over the field in front of the walls. At the wheel was a middle-aged woman grinning from ear to ear as Pablo sat in the back seat, leaning out the open window and yelling for all he was worth.

As they passed by Jeb the boy waved a
nd shouted. “You were right! Rachel let me go on the test drive!”

He smiled and waved back. Annette waved too and
called out, “Get back inside, don’t hang out the window!”

Pablo dove back inside and then stuck his feet out and wiggled them as
Rachel made another pass.

“I think h
e’s sassing you,” Jeb chuckled.

Annette r
olled her eyes. “I know he is.”

Jeb looked at the vehicle in wonder. He had only seen functioning cars and trucks maybe a dozen times in his life, and the last time was so fa
r back he couldn’t have been much older than Pablo. And these people had six.

After a couple more passes the four-by-four pulled up in front of them. Pablo bounded out and danced around his mother, talking so fast
that no one had the slightest idea what he was saying.

Jeb peered
inside the vehicle. Rachel gave him a suspicious look that broke into a grin at his obvious admiration.

“Not many of these left,” she said with pride. “Took us a year to get it in running
condition. Had to cannibalize twenty other vehicles just to make up this one.”

“It looks great. Sounds like it runs great too, not th
at I know anything about that.”

“Good as the day it was made. Of course we had to add a few things. The upholstery is all new, and we
had to replace the wheels.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that. The rubber from old tires
is all cracked and dried out.”

“We make our own rubber here.”

Jeb stared at her openmouthed. “How?”

The suspicion came back. “T
hat’s our business, not yours.”

Jeb shrugged and l
ooked back at the four-by-four.

“Never thought
I’d get a ride in one of these,” he muttered.

“Neither did I,” Nguyen said, coming forward with a couple of packs. He was armed with a strange type of assault rifle Jeb didn’t recognize. Christina came right behind him along with Jackson, both carrying the same weapons they’d carried in the posse. Tanya took up the
rear, armed with a Chinese-model AK-47. Rachel opened up the back for them and they stowed their gear inside.

“This one’s for you,” Nguyen slapped the smallest pack. “Food enough for the mission along with a firestarter, a blanket, and a canteen. You steer us
right and it’s yours to keep.”

Christina fixed him with a glare. “You steer us wrong and I’ll blow your fucking head off. I still can’t believe we’re b
ringing you along.”

“Relax, he was pra
ctically a slave,” Nguyen said.

“Slave with permission to kill,” Christina snorted. “I’ll
be watching you, machete man.”

And I’ll be watching you, bitch
,
Jeb replied silently.

Rachel slammed the back door shut. “Time to go, folks. Hop in. The Doctor only authorized one vehicle for this trip. It’s going
to be crowded so give everyone half a cheek.”

Everyone said their goodbyes to the friends and family who crowded around.
Jeb hesitated a moment, then slid inside. The seat felt surprisingly plush and comfortable. Christina sat down next to him and jabbed a .22 automatic in his ribs.

“This is to keep
you friendly,” Christina said.

“Keep your finger outside the trigger guard. I don’t want you plugging me the first tim
e we go over a bump,” Jeb said.

“Yeah, that would be a
real shame,” the woman replied.

Through the window he could see Annette giving Pablo a hug. He was whining and cr
ying for her not to go. She tried to put on brave face and failed.

Jeb felt sadness and envy tug at him. No one had cared
about him in a long, long time. At last Annette sat in the front passenger seat, wiping her eyes. Rachel hopped in the driver’s seat and her husband Kevin gave her a lingering kiss through the open window.

“Take care, and radi
o in once an hour,” Kevin said.

“I will.”

Jeb looked at the dashboard and saw a radio similar to the one they’d taken from the New City patrol. Rachel flicked a switch and it crackled to life. She revved the engine and a moment later they were moving forward. Jeb looked around, heart pounding.

“I can’t believe this!” Jeb
said. He spotted Pablo running along behind in their dust cloud waving. He waved back.

“I can’t believe I’m actually rid
ing in a vehicle!” he repeated.

By the time they’d driven down the main street of the Burbs and into the outlying farms he wished he wasn’t. Th
e motion of the four-by-four felt strange and left a queasy sensation in his stomach. The swaying along the uneven path and getting jabbed in the ribs by Christina’s pistol every time they went over a bump didn’t help either.

“You’re looking a bit green around the gills,” Rachel said
, watching him through the rearview mirror. “Focus on the outside. Your body isn’t used to this and you’re getting car sick.”

“Car sick?”

“The Doctor explained it to me once. Your body senses it’s moving but if you look at the inside of the car your eyes think you’re staying still. That confuses your body and makes you feel sick.”

Jeb took her advice and looke
d outside. That helped a little. They passed fortified farmsteads and people working in the fields.

“Sorry we’re going so slow,” Rachel said. “Got to be careful with this b
aby and it’s not an emergency.”

Jeb looked at the landscape whipping past. They seemed to be going an impossibly fast speed and this chick
was apologizing for going slow?

“Just how fas
t are we going?” Jackson asked.

“The speedometer’s busted
but I’d guess twenty miles an hour.”

“Twenty miles an hour?” Jeb gaspe
d. “That’s a long day’s march.”

“We’ll catch up to your frien
ds in no time,” Christina said.

“They’re not my friends.”

“So what’s the plan, Annette?” Nguyen asked.

“Rachel’s going to drive us up to the top of the South Pass and from there we’re going to head down to the plains on the other side. After that, Jeb here is going to lead us to the Righteous Horde.”

“Or what’s left of it,” Nguyen laughed.

“There’ll b
e plenty left,” Jeb said. “Even though they ditched the porters and machete men, that still leaves hundreds of the Elect and The Pure One’s bodyguard. They don’t get along, though, so there might have been some infighting.”

“Good,” Jackson said. “Tell us mor
e about the nutcase in charge.”

“I never got
to talk with him,” Jeb lied. “We had to sit through his speeches, though. He’s crazy. Hates anything he thinks is impure. Once on the march a couple of the Elect came across some toxic waste and got sick. You know how that happens sometimes. Nobody’s fault, just bad luck. But he thought it was a sign of God’s wrath and had them executed.”