Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands (17 page)

“Sounds like a plan,” Terry said.

“We should get some sleep,” Trish said. “There’s not much more we can do tonight.”

Ed lay awake for several hours, considering their options and listening to the carriers howl in the distance until sleep finally came for him.

Jasper and Sue left the following morning at daybreak. They each carried an empty backpack, along with an M16 and a hundred rounds of ammunition between the two of them. The early morning air was cool, but with summer fast approaching the days were getting hotter. By noon the sun would be sitting overhead and Jasper knew he’d be sweating like a pig. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a shower. He missed that quite a lot.

Sue didn’t talk much, so Jasper left her to her thoughts. He’d always found himself more toward the introverted side of the scale, so he could understand. She’d talk when she wanted to or when she felt the time was right. Besides, they needed to keep their eyes and ears open and their guard up.

They walked along the back streets south of the machine shop, searching the defunct stores for anything that might be valuable. The area in which they’d stopped had been an industrial zone before the virus, with warehouses, tractor trailer lots and one-story office buildings. Modest houses cropped up along the way, intermingled with the industrial buildings.

They walked for an hour, with Jasper marking the way by scratching his first initial on various roadsigns. He did this ten times before Sue finally decided to speak. “What’s that for?”

“Breadcrumbs,” he replied. “Wouldn’t be a good idea to get lost out here.”

“I guess you do what you gotta do.”

“You have a better idea then?”

“I just remember it.”

“You can memorize all those turns we took?”

“Sure can. We took two lefts, a right and two more lefts back at the old Conoco station. Another right at the burned out VW van and then another left. To get back, you just reverse it. Easy enough.”

“Damn,” Jasper replied, chuckling. “Impressive.”

“I’ve always been good with directions. I grew up on a farm and spent a lot of time in the woods. There you gotta remember your way to and from. Just a sequence of turns with some landmarks thrown in.”

“I’m glad you came then. Looks like you might be the best scavenger we got.”

“I might be,” Sue replied, smiling. Jasper noticed it was the first time she’d smiled since he’d met her.

“Ed,” Sue continued. “You and him go back a ways, eh?”

“We do.”

“What’s his story?”

“He and his boys came from the East Coast. Met his girl, Trish, along the way. They walked to St. Louis and stayed there until somebody blew it up. I found him in a wrecked train and helped him get back to his family in Kansas City.”

“Is he solid?”

“As the day is long.”

Sue nodded. “We needed that. We didn’t have nobody before. That’s how we ended up in this mess. The wrong people in charge.”

“I’ll second that.”

“That woman got a lot of people killed.”

“Alice?”

“Of course I mean Alice.”

“Ed left her in the cell. She’s probably dead by now.”

Ann’s eyes narrowed. “He shoulda killed the bitch himself.”

“Ed’s not like that.”

“He’s gonna need to be. This ain’t no game we’re playing here.”

“He knows that.”

Sue grunted in response. “Keep those eyes peeled. Who knows what kinda freaks we’re gonna run into out here.”

* * *

They walked for another twenty minutes, investigating a few small shops and houses along the way. They found only empty vending machines and barren shelves, long since pilfered by survivors. The houses gave up very little. Most had been picked clean, their broken windows and open doors an invitation for nature to come inside and do as she pleased. Inside they found some batteries that were mostly corroded and useless, a few bottles of spring water and some canned food that had ruptured from the excessive heat.

During their search, Jasper found a five year old tabloid lying on the back of a toilet. As Sue picked through the kitchen, Jasper thumbed through its pages, marveling at the vapid and childish content. Celebrity gossip had been the nation’s priority before the virus. Who was screwing who and which actor had just gone to rehab. The best and worst dressed on the red carpet. Photos of celebrities who dared show an ounce of cellulite on the beach, photographed in stealth by sociopaths with telephoto lenses.

“Silly, ain’t it?” Sue said from behind him, causing Jasper to jump.

“I was never much for these rags,” Jasper replied, tossing the tabloid to the bathroom floor.

“Growing up where and how I did, that kinda shit just wasn’t real,” Sue said. “Bunch a pretty people always looking at themselves in the mirror, surrounded by a bunch of people who wanted to be them.”

“Seems even more ridiculous now after everything that happened.”

“Most of them folks are dead. Same as the folks who wanted to read about them. Instead of reading this garbage they should have been taking a hard look around. They would have seen this coming.”

“Did you see it coming?” Jasper asked.

“Yep.”

“Were you some kind of prepper or something?”

“I wouldn’t call it that, but I had the skills to survive. Growing up in the country will give you that.”

“I don’t miss this kind of bullshit,” Jasper said, gesturing toward the tabloid on the floor. “I miss my brother though.”

Sue nodded. “There ain’t shit here. Let’s keep looking.”

They left the house behind, taking the bottled water with them. After another half mile they happened upon a small grocery store. A battered sign reading
Smith’s Super Value
clung to the front. Broken windows and doors greeted them, like shattered teeth on a malevolent face.

“What do you think?” Jasper said. “Might be some stuff left behind.”

Sue shrugged. “Could be.”

“Worth checking out?”

“Sure. Just get that rifle ready.”

“Already on it.”

They unslung the M16s and held the barrels toward the ground as they entered the building. Sunlight penetrated almost all the way into the small space, leaving only shadows near the very back. A glance in that direction told Jasper that the back wall had been the refrigerators. Anything there would have spoiled ages ago. No point in even looking.

As they searched the aisles, broken glass and twigs crunched under their feet. A few desiccated corpses littered the floor, so badly decomposed that Jasper couldn’t be sure if they’d been carriers or survivors. He supposed it didn’t really matter anymore. Like the gossip in the tabloids, that world and all the people in it were gone forever.

The store gave up nothing. Only empty wrappers, leaves, dirt and bird shit sat on the shelves now, more evidence of Mother Nature cleaning up the mess that had been humanity. Jasper thought it should depress him, but it didn’t. There was something comforting in knowing that the planet would go on, even if he didn’t live to see it. “All the tree huggers bitching and moaning about destroying the planet,” he said, looking around the room. “They were all wrong. We couldn’t destroy the planet, but we sure as hell could off ourselves.”

The crunch of a footstep on broken glass sounded from across the room. Jasper gave Sue a concerned look. She nodded in return, pointing toward the area from which the sound had come. She motioned for them to duck. Jasper complied, squatting silently and readying the rifle.

Another step echoed throughout the store, accompanied by voices. More steps followed, the sound growing louder with each step.

Be ready
, Sue mouthed to him.

Jasper nodded. His heart raced as adrenaline dumped into his system.

A moment later at the end of the aisle a boot stepped into view.

Just before dawn, Lester, Sam and Chloe packed up the rest of their things, including Rita’s shotgun. They left her house behind at daybreak. A search through the house and the garage had produced a large backpack big enough to carry the bulk of Chloe’s items. As a show of good faith, Lester volunteered to carry the load. She didn’t seem particularly appreciative, but he’d come to learn that Chloe Pearson wasn’t one to wear her heart on her sleeve.

Lester allowed Sam to carry his two pillow cases of food and other supplies they’d added from Rita’s still balanced on the broom handles they’d taken from the school where Sam had lost his mother. He figured he’d let the little shit work for it. Chloe carried her bag slung over one shoulder and Sam’s over the other shoulder.

They made their way back to the highway, following Chloe’s suggestion. She hadn’t yet decided where to go and Lester didn’t push the matter. Ultimately she elected to simply follow the road and figure things out as they went. Sam followed obediently, trudging along behind Chloe like a stray dog searching for a home. Lester looked forward to putting him down, just like he’d done to dozens of stray dogs over the years.

They stopped around noon, taking shelter under a large oak tree in an overgrown field just off the cracked road. They ate canned tomatoes and peaches, sharing a single can of beef stew between them.

“I still can’t believe Rita’s dead,” Sam said, slurping down a peach from the can.

“It’s a tough world these days,” Lester replied.

“I just don’t know why she would’ve been out at night like that,” Sam continued. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Chloe added. She glanced toward Lester before scanning the highway, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Lester eyed the girl. Had her look been coincidence?

They cleaned up, tossing their empty cans in different directions, far into the tall grass. No sense in leaving behind a trail for others to easily follow.

They walked for several more hours, the sun beating down from above as warm wind stroked the tall grass lining both sides of the crumbling roadway. Eventually the farmland gave way to a sparsely populated residential area. They passed a few defunct gas stations and took the opportunity to investigate, but the shelves had been laid bare years prior. Lester figured as much, but Chloe wanted to investigate so he complied.

She caught him looking at her in the second store. He’d tried to control himself, but when he saw her neck exposed, slightly dirty and lined with beads of sweat he couldn’t help himself. He could see the knife blade separating the skin, the blood gushing forth. He smiled at her, but she didn’t return it.

Empty handed, they left the convenience store and continued along the derelict road. Two deer bounded away as they approached. Chloe raised the shotgun, breathing a heavy sigh of relief once the source of the noise had been identified. Lester enjoyed the fear in her eyes. It made her beautiful.

As the sun began to descend toward the horizon the daylight waned. By then they’d escaped the farms and meadows and now found themselves in a small town, complete with warehouses, train yards and cheap frame houses.

“We should stop for the night,” Lester suggested. He glanced at Chloe. “Do you agree?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Don’t want to be out at night. We could end up like Rita.”

“How about that building?” Sam said, pointing toward a warehouse with a large sliding door on the front. “Looks solid.” He walked up to the small doorway leading into the warehouse, placing both hands up to the reinforced glass and peering inside.

“Be careful,” Chloe said.

“It’s fine,” Sam said.

“What do you see?” Lester said, walking toward him.

“Shit!” Sam said. “I think I saw somebody in there!”

A voice sounded from behind them. “Hands in the air where I can see them. Anybody moves, I shoot.”

Locked inside a room within Enoch’s church, Alice Sappington sat in a chair beside a flickering candle, contemplating her situation. Barnes—the leader of the cannibals—agreed to finding the second truck. She’d exaggerated the number of guns, but Barnes wouldn’t know that until they caught up with the truck. By then she would have already killed Ed Brady. Everything after that was optional. Besides, Barnes would be happy with the booty that truly was on the truck.

And the people, of course.

Of all the things Alice had seen after the virus, cannibalism was by far the most extreme. Not that she really gave a fuck either way—people died every day and that was just a fact of life—but there were plenty of ways to use people outside of eating them. People were far more useful than a simple food source. They were much more valuable alive, provided they remained obedient. Control over people defined true power. Anything was possible with enough people; even the pyramids. Put enough slaves on the job and you could reshape the world.

Barnes didn’t understand this very important fact. He’d rather barbecue them or smoke them into jerky to feed to his wolf pack. That was just disgusting and stupid. Still, Steven Barnes was the best chance Alice had at finding and killing Ed Brady, so she’d play along for as long as it took.

After Barnes freed her from the cell he tried to get the information out of her. No doubt he planned on using that information for himself. Alice knew that he’d simply kill her once he had it, so she balked. He threatened, even had his big dog Womack in the room, salivating at the thought of cutting her throat, but she didn’t relent. He must have seen how serious she was because he agreed to allow her to come. That and she knew how to drive the truck. That surely helped.

She studied the interaction between Womack and Barnes. Clearly Womack was the only person Barnes treated as an advisor, as an equal. Everyone else acted as braves in his little tribe.

Womack himself was downright frightening. His eyes…something behind them spoke of depths that led straight into Hell. After taking the church from Enoch it didn’t take long for Womack to start butchering. He killed them in front of the others, binding their wrists and suspending them from the ceiling like cattle. He butchered them alive, licking his lips as he sliced them open, peeling back the skin. The screaming went on for hours as he filleted a half dozen of the prisoners. He could have at least killed them first; the noise was downright annoying.