Enduring Armageddon (35 page)

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Authors: Brian Parker

Tags: #post apocalypse survival, #the end of the world as we know it, #undead, #survival, #apocalypse, #dystopia, #Post Apocalyptic, #nuclear winter, #teotwawki, #Zombies

BOOK: Enduring Armageddon
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“No way. That’s just a story that they make up and tell people to lure them here to work in the fields or at one of the energy generation plants.”

“Wait, are you saying that people here are slaves?” Alejandro interjected.

She glanced at him. “There are very few people who you could actually call a ‘slave.’ Most of the people are more like indentured servants,” she stopped and giggled a little to herself. “Mr. Hardy would be so proud that I knew the difference between the two.

“He was my social studies and history teacher in high school,” she explained. “People come here hoping to find a new life other than the shitty day-to-day survival in the wastelands. What they end up getting is a place to stay and food in exchange for twelve or thirteen hours of work a day. From the ones I’ve talked to, they don’t really mind it though. They’re alive and earning food for their family. The alternative is to take your chance out in the wastes.”

I considered it for a moment. Sure it sounded rough, but maybe it was the only way to survive. Hell, we worked the roughly same amount in Balmorhea just to stay alive. Maybe they had to be harsh in order to continue their existence, but it still didn’t excuse what seemed like an accepted practice of rape. “What about those that are slaves?” I asked.

“Mostly sex slaves or house slaves,” she replied nonchalantly. “Hollis had been trying to keep me pure enough to sell as a house slave because there’s no money in sex slaves. The army takes what they want so they don’t pay for it. House slaves usually sell for about a month’s worth of food, but we haven’t eaten in four days and Hollis was desperate so he took half price.”

I choked a little on my spit. “Three cans of soup is considered two weeks’ worth of food?” I asked.

She noticed my slip up. “Where are you from that you can afford to carry so much food with you?” she asked in awe.

“I’m sorry, Cara was it?”

“Yes,” she replied simply.

“I’ve got a strange feeling about this place and, no offense, but I don’t know you yet. We don’t want our town’s peace to be destroyed by our ignorance, so until we leave and get back out on the road, I really don’t want to let you know where we’re going.”

She considered my words for a few moments and said, “Alright, that makes sense. I would do the exact same thing in your place. Well, actually I would have turned around and not come into New El Paso if I had the choice, but that’s just me.”

“Why is everyone so distrustful?” Jackson asked.

Cara leaned forward and hugged him. “I like that you seem so nice. Like all the boys before the war.” She lowered her voice even more and Alejandro had to lean over to hear her over the clatter of our horses’ hooves on the pavement. “New El Paso is raising an army. You had to have seen a bunch of them on the way in. They say the army is for defense from the growing menace up north, but a lot of us think that they want to start taking out the communities around here to steal all of their supplies.”

“Have you ever heard of Van Horn?” I asked her.

“Oh sure, we used to play them in football all the time,” she said.

“No, I mean about what happened to them after the war?” Cara shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know about the town’s demise. “We saw that the town is totally empty of people and the buildings are being systematically torn down for construction material.”

“It makes sense. They’ve been building all sorts of barracks and they’re constantly adding to the wall. I always thought that they were going into Old El Paso for the stuff.”

“Well, they’re not,” I paused and reconsidered my statement. “At least they’re not
only
going into the Old El Paso. They’ve definitely destroyed Van Horn.”

“That’s too bad,” she muttered. “Are you sure that you don’t just want to turn around and go home? I don’t want you guys to get conscripted into the army or something.”

“Would they do that?” Alejandro asked.

“You bet your ass they would,” she said. “Jackson is at high risk. He’s the perfect age. He’s young, thinks he’s invincible, able to be trained for combat, probably a little naïve—sorry—and willing to do whatever he’s told by a strong male role model.”

I considered her words carefully. “Is there somewhere that the two of you could hide out while Alejandro and I talk to the ministry?”

“Hmm,” she mused. “Since we’re going north, I suppose we could go stay at the way station about a mile outside of town.”

“What about south?”

“I knew it! About six miles outside of town, there’s a road that goes east towards Verne’s Garage. The old man still owns the place and I’ve been there enough that he knows who I am so he won’t shoot me on sight. They’ve let him keep the place because he fixes all their vehicles with parts from the massive junkyard out back. We’ll hide there until you come and get us. Verne’s Garage, okay?”

“Alright,” I said as I reigned up my horse. I leaned over and wrapped Jackson in a huge bear hug. “Be safe and be smart. Listen to Cara for clues about what’s happening, we don’t know anything about this place and she does. I know that you get hot-headed sometimes, like up at the gate, but use your head. People may try to goad you into action because they have back-up that you can’t see—like that sniper on the wall.”

He nodded while I thought about what else to say. “If we’re not there three hours after you get to Verne’s, then go ahead and leave. You remember the way back, right?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“If we don’t come back, warn the mayor and tell them that we may want to consider moving further off of the road.”

He nodded again and his lower lip quivered a little bit. “We’ll be fine, alright? They don’t want two used up old men like us for their army,” I said in an effort to comfort him. “Take care of my boy, you hear?”

“Don’t worry, Chuck. I’ll take us through the north gate and around the back way so they won’t even know where we went,” Cara said.

“Alright, you two get out of here.”

Jackson slowly backed his horse away from us and then turned it around and headed back towards the Main Street gate. We didn’t know Cara at all, but I didn’t have any alternative. She was our best hope at the moment to help us get back out of the town safely. She was right. Jackson was exactly the type of person that a conscript army would take. I kicked myself for not making him return to Balmorhea that first day.

 

* * *

 

The Ministry of Trade, as it was so loftily called, was little more than a small, square office space in a tiny storefront along Main Street. Alejandro and I hitched our horses to the wooden railing that must have been installed after the war. Even though the town clearly had running vehicles, it seemed like most people walked, rode a bicycle or used horses to get around instead of wasting the precious fuel.

We walked in and I was shocked to feel air conditioning against my skin.
Real
air conditioning! A young woman wearing makeup sat at a desk right in front of the doors and a small group of men sat over in the corner. I was reminded of Virden so long ago. It was actually a little unnerving at how similar the set-up was. What was it about our past that even in today’s world, this was what people thought was the best layout and format for a business?

“Hi, what can I help y’all with?” the receptionist said.

“We’re here from Carlsbad, New Mexico,” I lied. Alejandro and I had hastily conducted a map recon of the area and Carlsbad was about a hundred miles or so from New El Paso, straight down Highway 62. We’d already decided that there wasn’t anything that these people could provide for us, and even if there were, this wasn’t a society that we wanted to work with. If we wanted to get out of here, we needed to carry on just like we’d planned so as not to raise any suspicion. “We’d like to talk to the minister about a trade proposal.”

“You must be the fellas that we got word about from the front gate,” she said as she looked out towards the street. “I thought there were three of you and one of the refugees from the settlement outside the wall.”

“The heat got to my son,” I answered her unspoken question. “He’s not used to being on the road so much. He’s sitting in the shade of a house a few blocks back with the girl we bought. We really don’t need him to do our business, so I figured that it would be fine to let him rest.”

She nodded in understanding. “My son was the laziest little guy before the bomb. Now he works like crazy out on the wall. I hope your son feels better.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “I’m Chuck and this is Alejandro. We’ve been able to farm and produce some vegetable crops. We want to know if the residents would want fresh, non-contaminated vegetables.”

She was writing notes as fast as I talked. “Mmm hmm,” she mumbled. “What kinds of vegetables?”

“Mostly the green leafy stuff like lettuce and cabbage, plus some broccoli. We’ve had some success with potatoes and beans and peas, but our tomato crop has been an abysmal failure overall.” Except for our location, it would be easier to keep our lie alive if we gave truthful information.

“Any fruit?” she asked expectantly.

“I’m sorry. We weren’t able to get any oranges or anything like that. We do have apple trees planted, but they’re so new that I can’t honestly say whether they’re going to produce anything in a few years or not. We tried watermelons too, but we just don’t have enough water for them to really do well.”

“Hey, we also planted some fig and date trees,” Alejandro said in an effort to get into the conversation instead of just standing there.

“I’m sorry sir, but I’ll talk to Chuck,” she said with a slight sneer. “Most of the Changed are outside our walls and work in the fields there. You’re not from around here, so I’ll let it slide, but we don’t usually allow your kind inside our buildings and the Ministry of Trade certainly doesn’t conduct business with your kind.”

“You don’t find that discriminatory and racist?” I asked the secretary whom I’d previously thought of as pretty.

“Don’t get testy with me. I’m the gatekeeper to the minister and I can damn sure make it so you don’t see him,” she said in an escalated voice. I glanced up and saw two of the men from the table drifting our way with their hands resting on the handle of their pistols.

I held up my hands in a placating gesture. “You’re right. We don’t know the customs around here. The Changed are treated just like every other survivor where we’re from, that’s all.”

“Well, around here, they’re considered dirty and diseased, little more than the mutants that ran around killing everything before they died out,” she replied and tried to compose herself. “While you’re in New El Paso, you should know your place and where you belong. The minister will not meet with any of the Changed present, I can tell you that. So, your
pet
will have to wait outside.”

“Are you serious, lady?” Alejandro said as his hand drifted down towards his own weapon.

“Hold it right there, freak!” one of the men said as he drew his pistol and aimed it at Alejandro’s head.

“Whoa! Whoa! Jesus, just everyone calm the fuck down!” I shouted. “It was a misunderstanding. We don’t know the customs here. My buddy is going to go wait outside with our horses while I talk about a trade proposal.” I implored Alejandro to go outside with my eyes and a slight jerk of my head towards the door.

He looked at the receptionist and back at the man with the drawn pistol. “Whatever, man. I don’t need this shit and our town doesn’t need these people.” He turned around on his heel and shoved the glass door as hard as he could to open it.

The guard reholstered his pistol and said, “You know we’ll be right over here if you need us, sugar.”
Such a southern gentleman
, I thought.

“Okay, now that that ugliness is over, we can get back to business. Chuck—is that a first or last name?”

“It’s my name. I don’t really use my last name anymore, there’s no point.” I’d also decided to not use my last name with the ministry in case Jason or anyone in his caravan had passed the information about their dealings with new communities to these people. That was just one more link to where we were really from that I didn’t want the ministry to know.

“Hmm, that’s peculiar. Okay, Chuck, the minister is available to see you,” she said with this ridiculous little smirk. God, I wanted to slap that racist bitch across the face!

I walked around the counter and started towards the minister’s office but was interrupted by the guards who said, “Use the hand sanitizer, man. You have to wash those mutie germs off of you and that disgusting nose is probably festering with bacteria.”

Again, I exercised incredible self-restraint by not saying anything. I looked around and mounted on the wall was a pre-war anti-bacterial lotion dispenser. I walked over and liberally squirted a mound of the foam into the palm of my hand and rubbed it in. “Is that good enough or is there something else that I need to do?”

“Drop the fucking attitude before I drop your ass in a six-foot hole,” the guard answered. “Other than that, you may proceed.”

This place got worse by the minute and every second I stayed inside I could feel my skin crawling in revulsion. I knocked lightly on the mahogany door and a soft voice drifted through the wood telling me to enter.

I’m not sure what I’d been expecting when I entered the trade minister’s office, but what I found sure as hell wasn’t it. A man sat slumped in his chair behind a large desk while a mop of blonde hair bobbed up and down in his lap. “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” I said as I turned around.

“Nonsense my boy, come on in,” he laughed. “Monique can be trusted to keep her ears shut and her mouth open while we chat. Have a seat.”

I was really getting skeeved out by this place. I closed the door behind me and noticed a completely nude woman on the leather couch behind the door. She winked at me and licked her lips. I edged past her to the seat that the minister had indicated and sat down.

“Candy, come over here and give our guest a proper New El Paso welcome,” the minister ordered.

The naked girl stood up and came over to me. I held up my hands and said, “I’m married, Mr. Minister.”

He laughed at me. “So am I, but I sure do love fucking these two broads!”

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