Hell's Children: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (18 page)

The room fell quiet as everyone considered his words. Jack considered them too. He considered them incredibly stupid, and the white-hot anger he’d felt for Steve the other day came crashing over him. Just barely, he held it in check.

Miguel took advantage of the silence. “We should have a vote—all those who want to join the Dragsters, raise your hands.” He immediately raised his hand, then nudged his brother, who half-heartedly raised his, too.

Carla raised hers.

“You take that hand down right now, Carla,” Freida said in a low growl, and the younger girl lowered it. “We ain’t joining them animals. Not ever.”

Jack let his eyes sweep the rest of the group, taking their measure.

“I won’t join them, especially under these conditions,” he said. “What the Dragsters did was designed to push us into acting dumb. Fortunately for us, I intend to do the smart thing. I’m asking you to trust me. One more time.”

Miguel, looked around for more supporters. When he didn’t find them, he and his brother lowered their hands.

J
ack asked
Freida if they could slaughter five more cows, explaining that if they had to retreat from the farm under Carter’s larger force, it was better to have the meat in storage than doing without and feeding the enemy.

“You really think he’d do that?” she said.

“I didn’t think they’d come after us. I was dumb, and two people paid for my mistake. He knows you’re under our protection. But they’re your animals. If you don’t want to, we’ll be fine.” He shrugged. “Or we won’t. Guess we’ll find out, huh?”

Laughing, she said, “Don’t be so negative. I like you being nice about it, but from now on, what’s mine is yours, so long as what’s yours is mine. Deal?”

Hardly believing she was serious, he held out his hand and said, “Deal.”

Freida shook it firmly. “But I’m the only one who gets to boss my sister around.”

“Definitely,” he said, smiling.

A few days after the murders, Lisa and Steve came to the farm in a truck filled with wood. Jack showed her the meat they’d smoked from the first and only cow slaughtered so far. They’d stored it in trash bags with as much air pressed out as possible.

“What do you think?” he said, taking out a stringy piece and handing it to her.

Lisa put it in her mouth and chewed slowly.

“It’s good,” she said. “For now. But I’m worried it’s not dry enough, or that it’ll suck up moisture every time you open the bag. The books all say the best way to do this is a combination of salt
and
smoke. They say if you do that, you can keep it for years. Doing it this way”—she gestured at the bags—“I’m worried you’ll only get a few weeks.”

Lisa was a stickler in the truest sense—a perfectionist who found fault in other perfectionists. In contrast, Jack was more likely to do the best he could and make adjustments on the fly. But not when it came to food safety.

“If you want salt,” he said, “we’ll get salt.”

Miguel and his brother joined Tony, replacing the two lost friends as the group’s newest scavengers. Not wanting to tangle with any more gangs, Jack had them focus their hunt for salt in Warrenton.

The first day out brought in boxes of salt from supermarkets. Lisa said some of it was okay to use, but the rest was iodized table salt. The books all said sea salt or rock salt was the best. She didn’t know if you could use table salt or whether it would mess up the meat, and she didn’t want to chance it.

While that was going on, Brad constructed the biggest smoke rack yet—fifteen feet long and five feet high. When he was satisfied with it, he returned to Big Timber in the middle of the night, which they all agreed was the safest time to travel alone.

It quickly became apparent the scavengers wouldn’t find enough salt in stores and houses to meet their needs. In the end, it was Steve who solved their problem.

“My dad used to de-ice the roads every winter,” he said. “Had to use lots of salt to do it. They store them in those big cone things near the roads. If we can find one of those, maybe that’d work.”

Jack knew what he was talking about, having seen the curious structures himself countless times. He’d always thought they had sand in them, or maybe gravel if he thought about them at all. “But where would we get it for this winter?”

Steve smiled slyly. “When did the Sickness first start?”

Jack looked at him blankly, then his eyes widened. “
Last
winter. And people stopped going to work around that time, too.”

Carla, who was always there so long as Tony was around, said in a mock-complaining tone, “Last year’s fashions for the rest of my life. I’m cursed.”

Jack forced a laugh, happy others were here to act as a buffer between him and Steve. Jack had been the first to apologize after the former Dragster returned, and Steve had graciously accepted it. Still, it felt weird hanging around the guy who’d nearly killed him.

Tony said, “I know where one is, but it’s way over on the Dragsters’ turf. Seen it one time when I was out, up by the main exit.”

Jack wanted to yell at him for venturing so close to the hostile town, but held off. One, it wouldn’t do any good. Tony would just smirk and act cool, the way he always did. Two, if he wanted to get himself killed, that was his problem. It was hard enough protecting people who listened and used their heads.

“I say go at night, when they’re sleeping,” Steve said. “I’ll even go with you.”

He sounded enthusiastic about it—almost like he wanted to make up for the fight Jack started. And though Jack knew it was unfair to let him risk his life for crimes he wasn’t guilty of, he also couldn’t pass up the help.

“We’ll go in with our lights off,” Jack said. “No radios. The four of us should be enough.”

What Steve said about the Dragsters sleeping rang true. No one at the farm liked keeping a night watch, or doing patrols out in the cold. Jack had almost relented on that, but images of Mandy and Pete’s broken bodies stayed him. He couldn’t let something like that happen again. Really, he was just counting down the time until he made another mistake. Someone had to lead, though—and not Miguel, however much he was angling for the job.

After turning down for the night and taking another two painkillers—which he’d come to look forward to, adding to his worry—Jack awoke to the sharp crack of pistols. Following that was more gunfire, this from a carbine. Then came what sounded like a muffled crash.

Though sluggish from the medication, he stumbled from bed, dressed hastily, and hurried down the stairs. Too late, he remembered his pistol on the nightstand. Returning for it, he ran into Freida.

“What’s happening?” she said. “Who the heck’s shooting?”

“Don’t know.”

He continued past her, collected his pistol, then joined her in the living room.

More rifle shots boomed from outside.

“It’s Tony!” she shouted, pointing out the window. “He’s shooting at some car!”

Tony and Miguel were on watch that night.

“Stay here,” he said, then left through the front entrance with his weapon ready.

Out in the street was a black four-door sedan with the windshield shot up and shining white in the moonlight. The car had dipped into the drainage ditch in front of the house where the fence began. The back window was either blown out or rolled down. Two boys were lying slumped in the front.

Miguel was crouched behind the truck with his rifle raised, a look of horror on his face.

Tony fired into the car. Then he fired again, and again, and
again
. When he stopped, the only sound was of cows mooing loudly in terror.

“I think you got them,” Jack said, flicking on the flashlight he’d snagged on the way out.

Tony jerked his head around and aimed at him. Gone was his usual swagger and bluster. Here was a frightened child in a demented world.

“Jack!” he said, eyes widened. “I think I killed them. They drove up and I was making my rounds, just like Lisa said to, and then they come up and started shooting. I didn’t think—I just shot back.”

“First, lower the gun,” Jack said, staring at the steaming hot muzzle.

“Huh?” he said, then looked down. A second later, he nodded. “Oh yeah. Safety rules. Gotta remember. My head’s all foggy.” As if punctuating the point, he dropped his rifle with a clatter and stumbled toward Carla and Freida, who were standing outside with weapons of their own.

Jack looked between the rifle on the ground and the motionless car and tightened his grip on the pistol. Cautiously, he approached the vehicle. The headlights were on, but it wasn’t running. Both boys in the front were in the useful age range. They were also clearly dead.

Freida yelled something in alarm, and he flinched at the crack of gunfire from the car.

“I’ll shoot you, you come any closer!” someone shouted from inside it.

Jack dropped back, his body low. “Hey, stop shooting!”

“No,
you
stop shooting! We was just trying to scare you!”

Jack stashed his pistol in his back pocket and raised his hands in the air. “How about you toss that gun out? We’ll talk about it inside, where it’s warm.”

“I don’t trust you!”

Jack seethed quietly. “You gotta do something, kid. All we want is to talk. We’re not letting you go until we find out what this is about, so you may as well come in now.”

Several moments passed where he worried the boy was trying to get a bead on him, or possibly make a break for it. Then he shouted, “You better not shoot me! I’m coming out, okay? I’m unarmed. None of this was my idea. We was just scaring you is all.”

“I know that,” Jack said calmly. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Over behind the truck, Miguel stirred from his spot and said, “Dude, what are you doing?”

Freida, who’d come down into the yard, said, “Be careful, Jack.”

Hands came out of the window and then a head popped out. The expression on the kid’s face was one of misery and fear. “You said you weren’t going to shoot me!”

“We won’t,” Jack said. “They’re just being cautious. Now hurry up.”

The boy crawled out like a bug from a hole and fell over in a heap into the ditch. He scrambled unsteadily to his feet and threw his hands in the air.

“Come closer,” Jack said.

The boy crawled out of the ditch and stopped about five feet away.

“You can lower your hands,” Jack said. “What’s your name?”

“Ray,” he said. “They made me come with them to scare you, that’s the truth a hundred percent. I swear on my folks. I swear.”

“Who made you come? Who’s idea was it?”

“Carter and his friends. All of them. They’re real pissed at you guys.”

Jack nodded toward the car. “Is one of them Carter?”

Ray snorted. “No way—he’s back in town. He’s still not sure how many you are. He figures not many, but ain’t sure on account of what you said that time on the radio. That was you, right? On the radio that day?”

“Yeah.”

“Carter’s mad as hell about how … uh, what happened the other day. With Trisha and all. So he made us come.”

“To scare us,” Jack said.

The boy nodded. “Yeah.”

“You killed my friends. Was that also to scare us?”

Ray said, “That wasn’t me! That was Tucker, in the car.” His eyes grew desperate. “Oh, man, can I stay with you? Here in your gang? He’s gonna be so mad. We need to run. Get as far away as we can.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jack said. “Who’s the other kid in the car?”

“Bill. He’s like me, just following orders.”

“To scare us,” Jack said again.

“Yeah. I swear.”

Lisa had been right all along. Steve, too. The Dragsters would keep coming, and there was nothing he could do to stop them if he didn’t adjust. Society was gone. Laws were just how you felt that day. The world had fallen on dark times, and it craved dark solutions.

Jack pulled his pistol and shot Ray in the chest.

“I know, man,” he said. “It worked.”

J
ack turned around
to the shocked stares of Miguel, Freida, and Carla. A few seconds later, Tony stumbled back outside, his face a mask of fear.

The farm was silent. Even the cows had quieted.

Steve said, “Why’d you shoot Ray for? He didn’t have a gun. Ray was okay, man. I can’t believe it.”

Tony got in the boy’s face. “They killed our friends! They shot at the house! What if someone else died? Huh? Hell with him. Got what he deserved, you ask me.”

Steve backed away, cringing under the other boy’s menacing rage.

Jack said, “He came here to hurt us, plain and simple. Carter picked him because he wouldn’t have problems shooting up houses in the middle of the night, or gunning down helpless people who’d never hurt him.” He looked down, saw he was still holding the pistol, and stuck it back in his pocket. “I know some of these guys are your old friends. But you’re either with us or you’re not—you and Molly and anyone else who joins. We don’t have a jail or police or any of that. One day, maybe. For now, the punishment for attacking our people is death. It has to be.”

Not waiting for a reply, he pushed past, heading for the front door. Before entering, he turned back and said, “Be ready to move in five minutes. We’re going for the salt tonight.”

After Jack got his rifle and jacket, Tony helped him stack the three bodies in the trunk of one of the cars. Every time Tony touched skin and not clothing, he grimaced and wiped his hand. They didn’t talk. They just did the work.

Jack wanted to thank him for his support, because he was beginning to regret Ray’s summary execution. Ray had said the driver—Tucker—had killed Pete and Mandy. If that was true, did that mean Ray really was an
okay guy
, like Steve said? Was the bar really that low?

A darker part of him saw a political angle to his violence: to instill fear in the enemy. If he’d spared Ray, Carter would have seen it as weakness. Not just him, either. Miguel was already challenging his decisions, and Tony had never been completely on board with him as leader.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Tony said after they closed the trunk.

“Not even a little bit,” Jack said tightly. “We need to do something about them. The Dragsters.”

Tony nodded. “Like what? I ain’t joining them, and I don’t wanna kill no more people, if that’s what you mean. Tonight was self-defense. What you did?” He shook his head. “I mean, I get it. But I dunno … maybe we should just get the hell out of here like Steve said. Sounds like a whole lotta them and not many of
us
. You feel me?”

Jack had nothing to say to that. It was the truth.

* * *

I
nside the salt thing
,
as Jack thought of it, there was indeed a tremendous amount of salt piled up. So much so that Miguel and Tony had to take several short breaks as they filled up the truck bed. Outside the salt thing was a big mound of sand, but they left that alone, not knowing what to do with sand even if they had another truck to take it.

Jack heard about all this after the boys returned to the farm with Steve around three in the morning—because he wasn’t with them. They parted ways just after the first exit into town. His mission was more grim, more ruthless, and he’d already lost enough of their respect.

He peered across the big bridge into town. A sign said the river was the south fork of the Shenandoah.

The dumb cabbages hadn’t placed a watch on the bridge. In a way, this offended him. Kill his friends, shoot up the house he was sleeping in, and not set a watch? Carter and his gang needed to experience the same sort of fear they’d been dishing out.

“You think they have guards posted in town?” Jack said.

Steve said, “Even if he tried to, people would just sneak off after he left. It ain’t like the army.”

Jack nodded.

The bridge had a double-lane road going in and one coming out. The right lane was blocked by cars. The left lane offered a narrow entrance that nobody had plugged since the last time he was here.

He looked off to the side. The bridge would have been a beautiful way to enter the town, up high with the river shining below. Hard to believe how mighty humans had gotten, that they could defy geography so effortlessly. If someone asked him to build such a bridge, he wouldn’t know where to begin. In fact, there probably wasn’t a single person left in the world who knew how to make concrete.

From his studies, he knew the Dark Ages had been the same way. The Romans knew about concrete. That’s how they’d made the domes on their temples. Then Europe forgot the secret when the empire fell.

“Quit stalling,” Jack said quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He pulled through and into town with his lights off, driving slowly. Steve told him where to turn and he did, following his instructions past lightless shops and houses stacked like monuments to forgotten kings. The world had become a museum, or more accurately a cemetery. He knew if he opened the windows or turned on the fan, the sickly smell of death would invade the car.

They came to a section of neighborhoods with colorful, fanciful old homes interspersed amongst regular houses. Along the street, the parked cars changed from boring and sensible to fast-looking and flashy, each of them sporting little checkered flags tied to the mirrors and antennas.

“Slow up, man,” Steve said. “It’s down there, see? The big one.”

Down on the right was the biggest house in the area, trendy-looking and out of place. Jack couldn’t understand why anyone would put something like that next to the colorful houses with their rounded spires and wraparound porches.

Every house had a chimney here, but Carter had taken the biggest, ugliest one. Probably took a constant supply of wood to heat it.

“What are you doing?” Steve said when Jack pulled into a driveway.

“Turning around.”

“But I thought you wanted to—”

“I am, shush.”

Jack backed into the street, turned on the headlights, and reversed down to where the big house was. When nobody came out to challenge him, he popped the trunk and got out. One by one, he dragged each corpse over and stacked them face-up to the sky. Nobody coming outside could miss it. And just so there was no doubt who’d done it, he slipped a folded note into Ray’s front pocket:

Carter,

Before the Sickness, littering was a crime. So keep your trash off my property. Also, why don’t you come yourself next time? Our snipers need the practice.

He signed the note “Jack.”

“That ought to do it,” Steve said, staring down at the dead face of Ray.

“Not even close,” Jack said.

He unslung his rifle, pulled and released the charging handle with a snap, then began firing at Carter’s house, aiming for the windows.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Steve said, holding his ears, eyes widened in shock. “We need to go!’

There were six windows in the front, all easy targets even in the dark. When he ran out of bullets, he loaded another magazine and stowed the spent one in his belt. Then he resumed shooting. He liked the idea of Carter trying to heat his big house with busted-up windows. He wasn’t worried about hurting someone innocent because Steve said Carter didn’t like children hanging around, and the gang was guilty as hell.

“Over there!” Steve yelled, pointing across the street at another house.

Someone with a flashlight came out, shining it at them.

Jack aimed at the flashlight and hit whoever was carrying it. A girl, it turned out, now screaming on the ground in agony. He’d feel bad later. Not as bad as he’d felt burying Mandy, but bad.

Another flashlight, this one from Carter’s house. Another shot, and more screaming from the boy carrying it.

“Jack, stop! Let’s
go!
”

More were coming out, some with flashlights, others were shooting at them with pistols. These cabbages loved their pistols. No long-range accuracy at all, even if they’d had training.

Steve got in the driver’s seat and screamed back a final time, threatening to leave him.

At the last second, Jack jumped in. Bullets whacked into the back of the car as they tore out of there. When they were clear, Steve chose a back way out of town he knew about.

Nobody followed them.

* * *

B
y the time
Jack returned to the farm, Lisa and Greg had arrived. Molly, Olivia, and Brad had stayed behind to watch the children.

As requested, his friends came in two of the vans, which they used to block the western approach. Anyone trying to slip around it would get trapped in the ditch running along both sides of the road, making an easy target.

Even a small force could be devastating on the defense. He remembered seeing WWI footage with his parents during the “folly of man” phase of his education. Now he wished his group had machine guns.

Tony and Miguel had filled the truck bed high with salt. It sloped on one side like a snowdrift.

Lisa said, “Oh, Tone, this is perfect, thank you.”

Jack cocked his head at that, wondering when she’d started calling him
Tone
.

“There was a whole lot of it,” Tony said, smiling bashfully. “Not too heavy, neither. Figured better having too much than not enough.”

To Lisa, Jack said, “Did you bring everything I asked for?”

“Sure. What the heck do you want that crap for?”

Jack mustered a halfhearted smile. “Since you asked so nicely.”

He told them.

“Are you out of your stupid mind?” Lisa said when he was done. “That guy’s crazy! He’s not gonna help us. What are you thinking?”

“Blaze isn’t crazy. He’s something better.”

“Yeah what?” she said.

“He’s a bully, like Carter, which makes him predictable. We can use that. Or we can pack up and run somewhere else to hide. But guaranteed, everywhere we go has a different set of bullies in charge.”

Greg said, “Maybe not. It’s a big country.”

He was right about that. It made sense that places existed with nobody left alive at all, or places so remote they never had many people to begin with. But he hated the idea of starting again, especially this late in the season. He wouldn’t force anyone to stay, though. That was definitely no way to lead.

Miguel sighed loudly. “I’m not sure about this crazy plan, bro. Why don’t we just make peace with them? All this meat we’re getting, they’d have to take us in. We can’t defend this place forever. You know we can’t.”

By mutual agreement, neither Jack nor Steve had told anyone about the shooting outside Carter’s house. All it would do was serve to worry them further. There was no way to join Carter now, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.

Freida marched over and poked Miguel hard in the chest. “This is my property and my stock, and I ain’t giving it to them murdering criminals. You keep talking like that, you won’t be welcome. You hear me?”

Miguel backed up. “I’m sorry, I’m just saying … we gotta use our heads. I mean … I like Jack and all, but …”

Now it was Greg’s turn. “But what? We took you in, fed you, taught you to shoot. You’re as safe with us as with them. Safer, because we actually plan things out. You should have stayed with Blaze, you like killing and stealing so much.”

After that, Miguel stayed quiet, his face blank while the others fleshed out the plan.

The next day was spent butchering and preserving. If Jack’s plan worked, they wouldn’t have to find somewhere new. Then they could grow their own food one day, supplementing it with less beef while they built up the herd—add more deer and other game animals, like squirrels and turkeys. Maybe those rabbits they’d talked about raising. Lots of possibilities.

“Before you leave on your dumb stunt,” Lisa said, “who’s going to finish the butchering?”

There were still three cows to go, and Jack’s head was killing him. He wouldn’t be able to help.

Jack said, “Miguel. He knows what to do. We need people to step in for these types of things. Steve bashing me in the head proved that.” He smiled to show he wasn’t mad.

Steve’s guilty expression cracked into a nervous smile.