Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2) (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The landscape rolled by outside the Hummer’s window. Despite her fatigue Susanna’s body felt alive with the thrill of moving so fast. She had never dreamed she would ever get to ride in a functioning vehicle. They were retracing her steps through the toxic wasteland north of New City, and in just an hour had eaten up more than what she had walked in her last agonizing day.

The Humvee was driven by a kind-faced man named Kevin, who had pulled up right in front of Marcus’ house so she could be bustled inside without anyone seeing. The windows were tinted, so once the doors were closed there was no chance of any of the members of the Merchants Association who remained in New City spotting a stranger riding in one of the settlement’s precious vehicles.

With her came Marcus and the two guards--Conrad and Spiegelman. All four men were decked out in Kevlar and carried automatic weapons. Marcus kept shifting in his seat like the body armor made him uncomfortable. The other three didn’t seem to mind their gear. Susanna felt small in her tattered clothing next to these well-fed men, but to her surprise she no longer felt weak. She’d left that feeling behind in the wildlands.

“So what are you going to do once you see I’m telling the truth?” Susanna asked Marcus.

Now the assistant mayor looked even more uncomfortable.

“That’s for The Doctor to decide.”

“I guess he’s too sick to come along.”

“He’s not sick,” Marcus said, too quickly, “He’s just worn out, plus he got shot in the attack and ended up getting the flu.”

He’s sick.
It’s obvious. I wonder what he has?

They continued on in silence for a time. Kevin had to be careful to avoid rocks and old walls and the occasional jagged bit of metal or glass sticking out of the ground. There had obviously been settlements here in the Old Times.

Susanna shook her head. How could the people back then have poisoned their own homes? People never learned. Wasn’t Abe poisoning his own home by leaving behind New City and causing a rift where there didn’t need to be one?

“You recognizing any of this?” Marcus asked.

“I was pretty sick, plus I was walking through that storm, but yes, this looks like where I was.”

“Keep an eye on the foothills,” Kevin called from the driver’s seat. “Those are the best guide.”

Susanna nodded, nibbling on some muffins Rosie had packed for her. Kevin was right, some of those foothills did look familiar.

“Wait, stop the vehicle,” she said.

Kevin did as she asked and she got out. She stared at the hills and the mountains beyond them for a moment and then pointed.

“See that line of rounded hills just in front of the jagged peak? Weissberg is a little to the north of those.”

“They didn’t run very far to find a hiding place,” Kevin said.

“It’s far enough if you have to walk,” Marcus replied. “Besides, look at this place. Not even scavengers would waste their time in a wasteland like this.”

I know one scavenger who does
,
Susanna thought
.
I wonder what he was doing out here? Spying on Weissberg?

“Let’s go,” Marcus said.

Spiegelman turned to him and said, “Are we just going to drive up there?”

“Just close enough to see what’s going on, then we’ll turn back.”

Susanna followed Spiegelman’s reasoning and said, “Weissberg is in a valley between two hills, with sentries on both hills. They’ll spot us.”

“So what? We’ll get back days before they can warn their friends.”

“What if they have two-way radios?” asked Conrad. “They own the radio station, who’s to say they can’t radio in?”

“And who’s to say they won’t shoot at us?” Susanna added.

Marcus bit his lip. “Damn, tactics aren’t my thing. We should have brought Clyde along but Doc wanted him at home in case the Merchants Association acted up.”

Conrad turned from the front passenger’s seat and asked Susanna, “So there isn’t any other way into this valley?”

“Not that I saw. We could walk, of course, but I don’t think you want to leave this vehicle.”

“Hell. No.” Kevin said definitively.

“We could park far enough away to be out of sight,” Marcus suggested.

“Then I couldn’t join you. I doubt I could walk a mile without falling over,” Susanna said.

Marcus sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Doc wanted me to see it personally. How about we stop a few miles off and Conrad and I go take a look? We have a portable radio and we can call in for help if we need to.”

No one answered. Susanna wondered why this man, supposedly in charge, was asking them.

“You might get spotted,” Susanna said.

“If we drive up we’ll be spotted for sure,” Marcus said. “Let’s drive to those hills you pointed out. How far away is Weissberg beyond them?”

“Maybe a mile or two.”

“So if we come up on the opposite side of the hills we probably won’t be seen. Kevin, take us there.”

Kevin steered the Hummer inland. He took a long path south to put some distance between them and Weissberg before they got under the cover of the hills. Once they were due south of the hills, Kevin turned north.

The ground grew rougher. As Kevin maneuvered between rocks and gullies, Susanna peered over his shoulder to look out the front window. They were drawing close to the hills now. A light winked on top of one of them.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What?” Kevin asked.

“I thought I saw something on top of one of the hills.”

“What did it—”

Kevin’s sentence was cut off by a metalli
c
clin
k
at the front of the vehicle. A hole sprouted in the hood.

“Damn!” Kevin shouted. Steam issued from the hole.

“Engine trouble?” Marcus asked.

“I think we got shot.”

Dirt off to their left plumed up in a line. Another line cut in front of them.

“Autofire!” Conrad shouted. “Turn around.”

Kevin swerved the vehicle. More steam was billowing from the hood now, and an ominous rattle undercut the noise of the engine.

A hole punched through the door and Marcus cried out, falling over onto Susanna’s lap.

“Get us out of here!” she screamed. “They knew we were coming.”

Kevin gunned it, then ducked as the back window was taken out with another shot.

The Hummer bucked and wove, the dirt all around it erupting with bullet impacts. The rattling in the engine grew louder, the steam turning into black smoke.

“Shit,” Kevin said. “C’mon, baby, just give me a couple more miles.”

Another bullet pinged off the back of the Hummer. Susanna shook Marcus, calling to him. He didn’t respond.

There was a loud bang. The Hummer swerved to the right. Kevin cut hard to the left to compensate and hit a large stone. The vehicle bucked and left the ground, landing on a gravelly stretch that made them swerve and skitter. A boulder loomed ahead of them.

Kevin slammed on the brakes, too late. The last thing Susanna knew was she was flying over the front seat.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The burning settlement lit their way through the wildlands as they moved into position. Even from a couple of miles away the area was illuminated a dim, flickering crimson. They picked their way across the plain, keeping well to one side in order to avoid any far-flung sentries.

Everyone kept silent, thinking about what was happening to those farmers and knowing they were helpless to do anything about it.

Helpless to save them, not helpless to avenge them
,
Annette reminded herself.

Her heart fluttered with a bad case of nerves. She only had one bullet, one chance to kill The Pure One and end all this.

But it wasn’t just that, because she was remembering another massacre by another roving band of predators, the one that made her an orphan.

She’d only been a little girl when the bandits came. Being so young they hadn’t bothered with her and she managed to escape. Her parents and the others—especially the women and older girls—hadn’t been so lucky.

She glanced over at Jeb and saw his grim countenance made frightening by the distant firelight. He had survived a similar slaughter, not once but twice, and she knew without asking that the same thoughts, the same feelings, were going through his mind.

They drew closer to the settlement, and while the cultists who stood next to the burning buildings would not be able to spot them in the relative darkness of the countryside Annette worried about patrols. She looked around for a good spot to hole up until dawn and saw a dark bulk blotting out the stars.

Raising her hand to block out the glare from the flames, she saw it was a large, rocky hill about a half mile to the west of the burning buildings.

“There,” she said. “We’ll take up position there.”

They made a large circle in order to come to the hill from the opposite side, where the darkness and the hill itself would shelter them.

It took another hour to make it to its base. It stood out clearly silhouetted by the flames.

“You think there might be sentries up there?” Annette asked Jeb.

“Probably not at night. Wouldn’t be able to see and they don’t have anything to fear anyway. They might send observers up there come dawn.”

“We’ll hit them at dawn. Didn’t you say everyone had to stay for the morning sermon?”

Jeb nodded. “Yeah, you’ll have your chance. And then what?”

Annette turned and gave him a grim smile. “And then we run like hell.”

She turned to the others, looking at Jackson, Christina, Nguyen, and Charley each one by one before she spoke.

“Look, I’m not going to order you to climb that hill. This is my shot and Jeb’s along because he made a deal. You all can head back to the pass if you want to.”

Christina snorted. “I’m not chickening out. Those pieces of shit killed some of my friends.”

Nguyen nodded. “If there’s trouble during the getaway, you’re going to need me,” he said, patting the bag of grenades at his hip.

Annette looked at Jackson, who only snorted and cradled his AK on his shoulder.

She turned to Charley, the one she was least sure about. He spotted her dubious look and laughed.

“Hell, I’m sore about losing the election, but not that sore! Let’s get on up there.”

Annette smiled. She really needed to learn how to trust people more, rely on people more. Everyone said it—Marcus, Rosie, Roy, everyone. It was the old scavenger in her, that old mistrust born of eking out a living in the wildlands. That sort of attitude had no place in New City or even the Burbs. If she wanted to be the symbol of law and order and a renewing civilization, she had to lead by example.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said at last. “Let’s get this done.”

They spread out and ascended slowly, keeping low in case Jeb was wrong about the sentries.

She caught Jeb looking at her.

Did he think I was apologizing to him too
?
She thought
.
Was I?

She signaled a stop.

“Who’s carrying the spare AK?” she asked.

“I am,” Nguyen said.

“Give it to him along with all the spare clips.”

Nguyen paused a moment, and then did as she asked. Jeb took the AK, pulled out and checked the magazine, and snapped it back in. He turned to Christina.

“You OK with this?”

Christina’s grin was visible even in the shadow the hill cast.

“Don’t worry, machete man, I know you’re not going to get trigger happy. They’d kill you as fast as they’d kill me.”

“Faster,” Jeb grunted.

They made it up without coming on any sentries. The hilltop ended in a flat-topped summit with almost sheer sides.

“Let’s be careful climbing that,” Charley said. “Don’t need a broken neck before the main event.”

“You and Nguyen go check it out. We’re taking position down here,” Annette said. “Jackson, take a look around the other side of the hill.”

“Why not take up position at the top? Better view,” Jeb said.

“See how there’s no stars? It’s cloudy now but what if it clears? The sunlight will flare off the scope.”

She led him around to a spot a few yards down from the top and sheltered to the east by a taller slab of stone.

“Here the sun won’t hit us for the first part of the morning,” she explained.

They looked out and saw all the countryside before them. Less than a mile away burned a dozen buildings. Tiny figures cavorted around the flames. To one side spread the camp, all lit up by the burning settlement, with little dots of cooking fires scattered through the camp looking like sparks coming off the main blaze.

“So tell me how the sentries will be positioned,” Annette said, hearing her voice come out hoarse. She lay down to make herself less visible, even though she knew they would never be able to spot her up here. Lying down made her heart beat a little less madly.

“There’ll be some in the darkness beyond camp,” Jeb whispered back as he lay down next to her. Christina hovered in the background. “They’ll be paired up now, at least two each of the Elect and the bodyguard. Maybe three each, I don’t know. An equal number, anyway. That’s the way things had been heading between them. Nobody trusted you with their back.”

“At least there were none up here,” Annette said. “That would have been a mess.”

Jeb shrugged. “Judging from the size of that camp they don’t have the numbers to spread a cordon this far out in the dark.”

“Right,” Annette replied. She handed Jeb a pair of binoculars. “Check to see if he’s visible.”

“He won’t be. He always hides in his tent at night.”

“Check anyway.”

Jeb looked for a few minutes. In that time Charley and Nguyen returned and reported that the hilltop was deserted.

“He’s not visible,” Jeb said. “That’s his tent over there, that big white one.”

Annette pulled out her Dakota and looked through the scope. The camp and its denizens leapt into detail. She wove a path through the crowds of laughing, feasting men until she found the tent. It was twice as big as any of the others, and guards with M16s stood at every corner. She scanned to the left and the right and saw the tent stood isolated from the rest, with the burning buildings to one side and not another tent within two hundred yards.

Don’t trust your own men, do you? Well one of your own men has led me right to you.

Something closer to the burning buildings caught her attention, some strange objects that looked like trees. She focused her scope and her mouth went dry.

Crosses. A dozen crosses with men, women, and children nailed to them.

Annette gritted her teeth and looked away.

So. They’d stay up here until dawn. The Pure One would come out of his tent, do his morning speech, and be right there to take out. One shot, get the hell out. They were better fed than these guys, and far more rested. If they ran and kept running, they’d get away.

That was the plan anyway.

Annette’s eyes strayed back to the crosses. She forced herself not to look.

You can’t help them. Focus.

Annette rolled herself up in her bedroll and settled down to wait. She told the others to get some sleep but she knew that was a pointless command. None of them would sleep that night.

So they waited. Annette had no appetite but ate anyway, as did the others. They needed to keep up their strength for the chase they knew would come with the sunrise. A cold winter wind blew around the exposed rock and they longed for a fire. Lighting one was out of the question.

As the night wore on the farmstead buildings collapsed one by one, sending up great curtains of sparks into the night sky. Members of the Righteous Horde started going into their own tents if they had them, or wrapping themselves in their bedrolls by the fire. At last the camp grew quiet. The only figures still awake were the guards around The Pure One’s tent.

Too bad that Nguyen’s grenade launcher doesn’t have the range to blast the tent into ribbons.

Annette made a face. No, there was no getting out of this. She’d have to be the one pulling the trigger. She’d pulled it so many times before and she had never gotten used to it, not even with scum like this. It was always hard, always made her feel dirty.

But her aim was always true.

She pulled the bullet out of her breast pocket and studied it in the dim light still cast by the farmstead. Yes, her aim had always been true, and if she had been home when the attack had occurred she could have taken out The Pure One and saved everyone a heap of trouble.

But no, she was off chasing Radio Hope for Abe Weissman without even knowing she was doing it. Damn guy’s conniving didn’t stop even in the face of an invasion.

No one had spoken for a long time. She hoped the others were catching some sleep. Jeb wasn’t, though. He sat a little apart, whittling that bat. The scrape of his knife shaving wood soothed her against the harsh crackle of the burning farms.

It was nice that he was doing this. She wasn’t good with her hands. She’d never made Pablo anything.

Poor kid. What with Roy and Marcus and Rosie he wasn’t starved for attention but she could tell he wanted a father. She’d put that part of her life aside when Estefan died.

She sat for a long time, remembering.

The sky started to brighten in the east. Jeb had put away the bat and lay looking out over the camp, which was gloomy now that the houses had burned down to smoldering heaps. Only the guards by The Pure One’s tents stayed up.

At last the sun peeked over the eastern horizon and the camp beneath them began to stir. After a small breakfast of pemmican and corn cake, Annette crawled around the hill until she was out of sight and then limbered up, swinging her arms, doing deep knee bends to loosen up limbs made stiff and cold by a long night out in the cold. She took several deep breaths to calm herself. Everyone left her alone. Then she got back into position, checked and rechecked her sniper’s rifle, and lay down to wait.

Smoke curled from up from several points in the camp as the Righteous Horde began to cook its breakfast. Annette noted that it blew slightly westward, as was typical in the early morning as the sun warmed up the air. She eyed the figures walking around the camp and estimated her position was a little over a hundred feet above them, and three-quarters of a mile away.

Jeb lay down next to her with the binoculars. He kept them trained on the entrance to the tent.

“He’ll be out soon now,” he said.

“Get any sleep?” Annette asked.

“I dozed a little.”

“I didn’t get a wink. You made some nice progress on that bat. Pablo’s going to love it.”

Jeb glanced at her before looking through the binoculars again.

“I’ve gotten it into the basic shape. Once you get it back, have Rachel put it on the lathe. I’m sure you can find a picture of a bat in an old magazine or something.”

“Pablo has a bunch.”

Jeb grinned. “Good boy. Use one of those then.”

Annette smiled.

Jeb got a distant look in his eyes.

“Probably got his whole room plastered with pictures,” he whispered. “Baseball, jet planes, the lunar base. . .”

His voice trailed off and he turned back to study the camp through the binoculars.

Annette felt like putting her hand on his shoulder, but held back. If things were different, it would be nice if Jeb could finish that bat himself. If things were different, a lot would be better.

“There he is,” Jeb said, looking through the binoculars.

Annette lined up her eye with the sniper’s scope. She saw two men in hooded robes emerge from the tent. The guards saluted.

“The one on the right.”

Annette heard the others shift and mutter amongst themselves.

The pair turned and the guards hurried to get around them. She didn’t have a clear shot.

In silence she watched as the group strode to the center of the camp. She could see the robed figures were talking, and that some of the men cheered them as they passed. No sound reached her on the hilltop.