Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2) (19 page)

“. . .powder for keeping your baby dry and free of any rash. The first ingredient is lavender oil, which you can make by. . .”

Susanna smiled. The whole world was poisoned and the folks at Radio Hope were talking about raising babies. They really did live up to their name.

The woman’s voice accompanied her through the Burbs, telling her how to care for a baby she didn’t have.

Up ahead she saw a large awning over a square compound encircled with barbed wire. A few dozen bedraggled figures huddled within.

Susanna stopped.

Frank turned around and extended his hand.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you. We’re just keeping you here for your own protection until we can figure out what to do with you. The machete men are in another pen. You’ll be safe.”

Susanna eyed him.

“I’m not a criminal.”

Frank smiled at her.

“I never said you were.”

“Then why lock me up?”

Frank’s smile faltered. “Well, you know, after what happened. . .”

“I was a slave,” Susanna growled. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Frank beckoned to her. “Come on. Dinner will be coming soon.”

“I want to see The Doctor.”

“You’ll see him when he makes his rounds tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow, now.”

Frank faced her full on, frowning.

“Look, I’m not going to discuss this anymore. You’re going in and that’s that.”

“No.”

Frank grabbed her wrist.

“No!”

The deputy hauled her screaming and struggling down the street. Even though she was almost too weak to walk, she fought him with every ounce of remaining strength. Frank’s face grew red and for a moment Susanna thought he was going to hit her, but in the end he dragged her over to the compound, fumbled with a key to unlock a padlock on the gate, caught Susanna when she used that opportunity to try to escape, managed to tuck her under one arm as he unlocked the gate and tossed her inside, where she landed in the middle of the crowd.

She lay there, utterly spent. The woman on Radio Hope continued her lecture.

“. . .apply with every changing to keep your baby fresh and clean. . .”

The clang of the gate and the click of the lock told her she was a prisoner. After a minute she caught her breath and managed to sit.

An old man next to her leaned over. “You shouldn’t resist, you know. They’ve been good to us so far. Best not to anger them.”

“Shut up.”

She wobbled to her feet and approached the wire. The wall to New City loomed over her. A bored-looking guard with a rifle stood at the parapet.

“I need to see The Doctor!” she called to him.

“Anyone who can give Frank that much trouble is healthy enough,” he called back.

She looked at the fence. It was only a few strands of wire. If she was careful she could get through. She grabbed two strands of wire and pulled one up and the other down, making a space.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the old man whispered behind her.

“. . .when your baby is teething it’s best to give him something soft to chew like a. . .” the broadcaster continued whispering in her ear.

Susanna put one leg through the gap and shifted her weight to it.

“You! Back inside!”

“. . .twist of soft leather or a wad of cloth. . .”

Susanna eased her body though the gap. A spike pricked her finger.

“Psst! The guard is watching. Don’t get us into trouble.”

“. . .teething generally takes a few months and is accompanied by. . .”

“I said get back inside! Now!”

The click of the safety catch snapped through the evening air. Susanna’s outer shirt, Eduardo’s shirt, caught on the upper wire.

“Don’t anger them! They’re feeding us!”

“. . .while your baby will be in pain and will cry and have some restless nights, it’s all normal and nothing to worry about. . .”

Susanna tugged, trying to pull free.

“Stop where you are! That’s an order!”

“Don’t make them mad!”

“. . .it’s all part of your baby’s natural growth. . .”

Susanna threw herself forward. Eduardo’s shirt ripped. It entangled her, a long strip holding her to the wire like a flannel leash.

“Get back in the pen immediately or I will shoot!”

“Please, oh please!”

“. . .remember it’s a passing phase and soon your baby will enter a new stage of development. . .”

Snarling, Susanna tore at Eduardo’s shirt until it came free. It hung on the wire like a tattered banner.

She started walking toward the wall.

“TAKE ONE MORE STEP AND I WILL SHOOT!”

She looked up at the guard, the angry, frightened eyes, and the third eye, the dark eye of his rifle barrel, staring right at her. She kept walking forward.

“I want to see The Doctor. Now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Annette looked out over the landscape as they ate
up the distance. The mountains already appeared close. She’d been given a ride by Kevin and Rachel a few times before, usually to go hunt down one criminal or another, but she’d never gotten used to riding in a vehicle.

At least she didn’t get carsick. Jeb looked like he was ready to puke. She hoped he didn’t puke on Christina. He was liable to get a bullet in the belly if he did that.
Despite her being annoying and a bit slow in obeying orders, Annette was glad she had asked Christina to come along. Not only was she a citizen, which helped give all this an official sanction, but she was a good shot and suspicious by nature. The woman made a perfect guard.

Not that she t
hought it was necessary. Jeb seemed glad to be away from the Righteous Horde. Who wouldn’t be? And he obviously longed to settle down in New City. Jeb had probably been decent enough before he got swept up in something far too big for him to control. Who’s to say what she would have done if The Pure One’s goons had taken her captive?

Annette gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t have been given the same options as Jeb. For her the choice would
have been submission or death.

If all went well,
no one would have to face those stark choices again. She’d assembled a good team. Tanya had been a scavenger all her life and was an expert tracker. She’d spent several years on the plains hunting game, so she’d be on familiar territory. Nguyen was a good shot and a good team player, and Jackson, well, Jackson was Jackson. Even though he was annoying and disruptive, after all they’d been through she knew she could trust him with her back.

It would have been nice to have brought Frank along too, but someone needed to ke
ep order in the Burbs while she was gone. She’d given him deputizing powers in case things got out of hand, and with more refugees coming in every day, things probably would. The massacre that farmer had all but boasted about. . .what those scavengers had done to that woman. . .this was a hard world. Now that she had a bit of power, she would do her damnedest to rub some of the edges off. She’d get that woman justice if she could. The slaughtered machete men, on the other hand, well she’d just have to let that slide. No one was going to go after that farmer for what he did.

A lot of people have
turned sour after the attack, and what the fuck is it with all this sudden Blame? Everyone’s shooting off about someone or another. It’s the attack that did it. Seeing an army with an ideology it wanted to shoot into us.

At least nobody was getting loud about it, just quiet grumblings, nasty looks. You had to get on a platform and shout it like Jackson did to get branded and exiled. In the Burbs all you could do was exile. There hadn’t been a branding since that riot five years back. The scavengers got to keep their opinions as long as they shut up about them when they were in town. Worked well until now. If the law against Blame stopped working, then what the hell were they going to do?

First thing’s first. Kill The Pure One. The world won’t be a better place until that army disintegrates, and from what Jeb says that man’s charisma is the only thing holding it together.

But
then what?

“Jeb, what do you think will ha
ppen when I kill The Pure One?”

Jeb
thought for a moment. “There’ll be a power struggle. His high priest will try to take over but I don’t think he’s got it in him. The bodyguards and the Elect will start fighting over whatever food they got left. There are all kinds of factions, rivalries. The Pure One keeps a lid on them but once he’s gone, damn, it will be one hell of a gunfight.”

“I’d lik
e to see that,” Christina said.

Jeb surprised everyone by nodd
ing and replying, “So would I.”

He means it
,
Annette thought
.
I’m not sure I buy him one hundred percent but he wants the Righteous Horde wiped out.

“You’ll still have a problem, though,” Jeb said. “You’ll have a bunch of little groups tur
ning bandit all over the plains.”

“Hey, yeah,” Jackson said. “What about the farmsteads
out there?”

“Not our r
esponsibility,” Christina said.

“They’ve never done an
ything against us,” Jackson snapped.

“And they’ve never done anything for us,” Christina countered. “They’ll just have to take their chances. And their chances will be a lot better if the Righteo
us Horde is in a dozen pieces.”

Annette shook her head. Typical citizen thinking. New City first and screw everyone else. For all of Jackson’s gas, he was one of the few people she knew who actually cared about everyone. Hell, he even cared about the villagers on Toxic Bay.
He was like the people who ran Radio Hope, someone who really wanted to make the world a better place for everyone, instead of just safer for himself and his friends. Too bad he was such an idiot about it.

Jeb said.
“They’ll have a better chance, sure, but a lot of farmsteads are going to go down.”

“What
do you care?” Christina asked.

Jeb turned to her and scowled.

“Because I’m sick of all this shit. Look, you’re getting rid of a huge problem only to get stuck with a big one. Who’s to say next season some of those new bandit groups don’t end up back in your territory?”

“And
what should we do about it, machete man?” Christina asked.

“Nothing you can do
with a force this size.”

Tanya spoke up for the first time. “I know some of the farmers on t
he plains. They’re decent folk. It would be a shame to just leave them to fend for themselves.”

“I’m not
sure there’s anything we can do,” Annette said. “We’re already helping them by getting rid of The Pure One.”

Assuming my one bullet takes him out
,
she added silently.

“We could get The Doctor to send an
expedition with enough guns to take them out one group at a time,” Tanya suggested.

“He’d never agree to
that,” Annette said. “Too risky, and he won’t want to leave the city exposed.”

“But we
can’t just leave them hanging!”

“
What else can we do?” Annette sighed.

“Try to unify the farmers into an arm
y to fight back?” Jackson suggested.

“They should be doing th
at on their own,” Christina snorted. “But you know farmers, they don’t look out for anyone but their own hamlet. That’s why they’ve always been such easy pickings for scumbags like this guy.”

She emphasized her point by j
abbing her gun into Jeb’s ribs.

“Lay off him.
He’s helping us,” Annette said.

Got to watch her. Don’t want her plugging the guide.

They trundled over the landscape in silence for a time. Annette was glad to see most of the farms had reopened. Men and women were breaking up the soil in their fields or cleaning out irrigation ditches or rebuilding fences. Come to think of it, she saw a lot of missing fences. After a minute she realized why—the Righteous Horde had probably used them for firewood.

She worried about the poisoned rain. It had been worse than usual, and the darkening horizon promised more. She hoped they’d get some clean rain to wash it away before springtime. If the farmers planted their crops with this stuff fouling up the soil, it was going to be another bad harvest.

“Hey Nguyen, what kind of gun is that?” Jeb asked.

“It’s a QBZ-95-1, one of the ol
der-model Chinese weapons. Not as common as a Kalashnikov but even sturdier.”

“No shit?”

“You can immerse this puppy in water and it will still fire,” Nguyen said with obvious pride.

“What ammo does it use?”

“Well, that’s a problem. It shoots 5.8×42mm DBP87 rounds. They were never made around here and they’re getting scarce.”

Great
,
Annette thought
.
Someone else with ammo trouble.

“It’s a lot like other assault rifles,” Nguyen went
on. “A choice between single shot, three-round, and full auto, and it’s pretty stable on full auto. Much more accurate than the AK.”

“Yeah, but if you can’t find am
mo what good is it?” Jeb asked.

“I have enough for the time being, plus I got a little bonus surprise,” Nguyen said,
patting a satchel at his side.

Annette gave him a look and Nguyen shut up. After a glance between the two, Jeb was smart enough not to ask
about what was obviously none of his business. What was in that satchel was one of the reasons she’d brought Nguyen along—he had three rifle grenades and some blank rounds to fire them with. That could come in handy. At least she hoped it would. Since he only had three, he’d never actually tried it out.

The four-by-four began to work its way up the main pass,
marked by an old road closed in on both sides by slopes as it cut between the mountains. They jolted and bounced along as Rachel was forced to drive on the road.

“S
orry about the rough ride. The shock absorbers on this baby aren’t what they used to be,” Rachel said, grinning from ear to ear.

A particularly bad pothole made them all bounce high enough for
their heads to hit the ceiling.

“Christina, stow your pistol,” Annette said. “I don’
t want you firing by accident.”

“I have my fin
ger outside the trigger guard.”

“Stow it anyway.”

Christina grumbled but did what she was told. Jeb looked relieved until Christina pulled out a Bowie knife and held that up to him instead. Annette shook her head and turned away. Probably best to keep him a bit scared.

Rachel s
lowed the vehicle to a crawl as she maneuvered her way around a recent landslide. As she got around the heap of dirt and stones, she had to make a hard turn to avoid a washout in the road that would have sent them toppling into a gully.

“That rainstorm really hammered the road,” Rachel said. “Every year it gets worse and worse. Need to talk to The Doctor about
sending a work party up here.”

Another jolt stopped her from
what she was going to say next.

“Tak
e your time, Rach,” Tanya said.

“And don’t risk the four-by-four,” Christina said. “If the road g
ets too dangerous we can walk.”

Rachel shook her head. “You might not catch up to them if I don’t get you to the top of the pass. Do
n’t worry, we’ll make it.”

In mocking response, a light rain
began to patter the windshield.

“Aw, crap,” Rachel said. “That’
s going to make the road slippery.”

The
y rounded a turn and came out from between two steep slopes. While the left side of the road hugged the mountain, the right opened up into a deep, steep-sided valley at the bottom of which a shallow stream flowed over smooth stones. The edge of the road had weathered and cracked until half of it had disappeared. The slope down to the stream was littered with slabs of concrete. The road took a hard turn to the left and up a steep incline. Rachel set her shoulders, shifted gears, and took the hill as slowly as she could. The rain increased in force and the wind whistled outside. Everyone inside the vehicle fell silent.

The four-by-four trundled over potholes and fissures. A cracking sound behind them made Annette turn just in time to see a piece of pavement shear off and get tossed by the back wheel into the ravine.

Rachel hit the gas and the back tire spun in mud.

“Erosion’s undercut the road,” Rachel shouted over the whine of the tires.

They gained traction and lurched forward. Rachel eased off the gas and they crawled up the slope as the wind and rain grew in strength. After a few feet they came to a stretch of pavement in good condition, a smooth rise glistening with a sheet of running water. They edged up it as the vehicle swayed from a sudden side wind.

Another loud crack sounded underneath the vehicle. The four-by-four shuddered, tires spinning. Mud and grit flew up behind it, showing the weathered pavement had broken through again.

Rain drummed on the windshield and the road tuned into a blurry gray curtain. A gale slammed into the side of the vehicle, pushing it to the side, the back tire losing its grip. Annette’s stomach clenched as the vehicle jerked to one side and spun almost completely around.

“Shit!” Rachel shouted.

Slamming on the brakes did nothing. The wind and the water were against her and the vehicle skidded down the slope. Annette peered out the windshield and couldn’t see the road anymore.

A moment later she realized why—they were at the edge of the slope.

Rachel ground the gears and brought it into reverse. The four-by-four slammed to a stop. The front tires spun, a shotgun blast of gravel and dirt flying up before them. They edged backwards up the slope. One foot. Two feet.