The Human Farm (The Human Farm Trilogy Book 1) (8 page)

19  

Lili had been asleep for several hours, she seemed to be feeling less pain since eating that paste because she didn’t toss and turn and she seemed to not be having nightmares any more. Dawn sat by her side watching patiently as her friend slept, making sure she was comfortable and safe.     

              As she sat in the solitude of the house a banging could suddenly be heard throughout the house waking Lili from her sleep. She shot up, her eyes wide open, “What is that? Who could possibly be knocking here in an abandoned village?” she asked. 

              “I do not know, but I shall find out,” said Dawn as she moved to the door.

              Dawn moved slowly to the door, she opened it a crack to look out and the door flew open as Kev fell inside. He was unable to stand any longer, he looked up and saw Lili lying on the makeshift bed Dawn had made, he looked her in the eyes and said, “Lili, I’m sorry.” Then he passed out.   

              “Kev,” Lili screamed. “What happened to him? How did he find us?” she asked.  

              “I do not know and I do not like it,” Dawn said as she grabbed him, pulling him inside so she could shut the door. She pulled him over to the floor near Lili and they saw all the blood soaked bandages.  

              “He’s hurt bad,” Lili sobbed as she started removing the bandages. “We need to clean him up.”   

              “You clean him up and grind up some more of that ginger root into a paste. See if you can get him to eat it, I am going to make sure he has not brought anyone with him,” said Dawn as she made her way out the door.   

              Lili grabbed the bottles of water they kept near her bed and began slowly cleaning the wound on Kev’s hand, it was a small gash with a little bit of blood oozing from it, most of it dried by now. Lili grabbed some clean rags that Dawn had gathered and wrapped his hand. She then slid her way down to his leg. She winced at the sight of this wound, it was much worse looking. It was bigger and red around the outside edge with plenty of blood still oozing from it. Lili did her best to clean it and wrapped fresh bandages around the wound.   

              Once she’d finished cleaning his wounds she grabbed some of the root and cut them up into the bowl, she used the end of the knife and started smashing the root over and over again until it was a thick paste. She scooped it out and put a big chunk of it into his mouth, pouring some water in and tilting his head a little, she had to hold his nose closed to make him swallow the water and paste. She laid him back on the floor and let him rest, she had done all she could.   
   

              Lili couldn’t help wonder why he was here, she was still angry at him for what he’d done to her, he’d betrayed her and gotten her into a lot of trouble with the councilors and the guardians and now he had the nerve to show up here. She couldn’t understand why he did all those things and now decided to show up here. Did he think everything would really be ok, that they could just be friends after what happened? Lili was still so angry but she was also worried that her friend was laying there on the floor, hurt and possibly dying. She might not even be able to talk to him again, to simply ask him why.   

              It was about this time that Dawn came back inside. “We are safe, there was no one else with him. I do not understand how he managed to find us here.”

              “Well if he lives you can ask him yourself. I cleaned his wounds and gave him some of the paste. The wound on his leg doesn’t look good though.”

              Dawn bent down and removed the dressing from the leg wound and looked at it, “You are right this wound is infected, he will need something different for this. If he does not get some soon he will die, or we will have to cut off his leg.”

              Lili’s eyes grew big and tears started to form at the thought of Kev dying. “Can you find something for him around here?” she asked wiping away some tears. “I know he betrayed me and I’m still so very angry at him but I don’t want him to die.”

              “Yes I will go and see what I can find. I only hope no guardians come this way, between your ankle and his injuries we will not be able to leave this place any time soon,” said Dawn.   

              “I’m sure we will be ok, we have you to protect us,” Lili said with a smile.   

              “I can only do so much.” She made her way back out the door leaving Lili and Kev to rest.   

20 

Dawn tried hard to understand these humans but sometimes they just seemed so illogical. She did not understand why Lili would still be so attached to someone that betrayed her the way Kev had done. She thought about this as she headed off into the woods. She took her time going this time, the man was passed out and in no immediate danger so she felt no need to hurry.   

              She was walking by one of the other houses and peering into some of the windows when she spotted an old abandoned A.I. Unit lying on the ground inside. She kicked the door in and went inside to investigate. She cautiously approached the unit but it had long since ran out of power. She looked it over and saw it was an upgraded model with better arms than she had now with built in lasers which could come in handy.   

              She pulled the arms from the sockets of the A.I. and stuffed them into the sack she was carrying along with her. She left the house and headed on down the road making her way back into the woods and gathering more birch leaves as well as ginger root. She also spotted a bee hive high up in a tree and knew that honey was a good cure for infected wounds. Dawn set the sack down near the tree and easily climbed the tree to where the hive was.   

              The bees swarmed around her angrily as she neared trying their best to sting her, protecting their hive, luckily for her she could not feel their sting. She simply ignored their onslaught and ripped the hive from the tree giving it a good shake to extract all the bees. They hovered over her head angrily making a mad attempt at her head with no luck. Dawn made her way back down the tree and shoved the hive into the sack.     

              Once her bag was full of leaves, roots and bee hive she made her way back to the house. She slipped back inside to find that Lili had fallen back to sleep. Dawn emptied the contents from the bag onto the floor. She set the arms she had taken from the A.I. off to the side and piled up the leaves and roots in a corner.    

              Dawn grabbed the bees hive and extracted some of the raw honey from inside, she untied the bandage from around Kev’s leg and smeared the honey on his wound then tied the bandage again. She did not care if he lived or died for what he had done to Lili but Dawn knew that Lili still cared about him and she would be heartbroken if he were to die. All she could do now was sit back and wait until they got better.  

              Dawn grabbed the arms she had taken earlier and looked them over, they seemed to still be in good shape with only minor damage from the elements, and this could be easily fixed. She immediately got to work on cleaning and fixing the arms and weapon systems. Once she had the arms repaired and in working order she first took off her own right arm and attached the new one taking time to be sure it was attached properly. She flexed her hand and moved her arm around a bit to be assured it worked right. Once that arm was working properly she went to work switching the left arm.  

              The biggest difference between the new arms and the old ones was there more robotic look. Once she had both arms attached and working properly she set the old arms off to the side. She wanted to test out the lasers to be sure they would work properly in case they ever needed them. She searched the house and found several empty containers lying around, she set them up on a shelf at the opposite end of the room. She held out her arms and extracted the laser from within the arm and took aim at the first container. She fired and the container immediately blew to bits and was set aflame. Lili heard the noise of the laser and jumped in her bed with fright.  

              She looked all around the room in a panic, “What was that?”

              Dawn looked over, forgetting that Lili would probably be startled by the noise, “I am sorry, I did not think about the noise waking you. I found an old A.I. Unit that had worn out, it had laser arms, so I upgraded my arms. I figured we might need the weapons to help us if we are to get out of the city, away from the A.I. and we could also use it to hunt,”

              Lili scrunched up her nose, “I don’t eat meat,”

              “What about him?” Dawn asked pointing to Kev.  

              “Yea he does, as much as I detest it, I cannot stand the thought of innocent animals being killed and eaten.”

              “Sometimes Lili you have to do things you do not like in order to survive. This is just the way of life, I have learned this from watching many things in this world in the time since my creation,” said Dawn

              “Yea I guess, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. So how long do you think we’ll have to stay here? How soon can we get into the wild areas you mentioned and farther away from the guardians?”   

              “That will depend on how soon your ankle heals to where you can put some pressure on it, and on how quickly your friend will wake up and be well enough to travel. It could be hours or it could be days. I put something on his wound to help, it will take some time to heal and he will need more medication later.”

              “Oh, what if the guardians show up before we’re able to move?”

              “That is what the new laser arms are for,” said Dawn.

              Lili laid back down with a smile, she knew her friend would protect them from any dangers that might arise from the outside world. All she needed to do was to get some rest and wait for her ankle to get better so she could walk again and hope that Kev would wake up soon.

21   

It was nearly two days of sitting around the house doing nothing but resting before Kev finally woke up. They would give him more of the ginger paste and cover his wound in honey every so often, his leg started to look better and the fever started to slowly subside. Near the end of that second day he opened his eyes and looked around, he felt weak from lack of food. “W..what happened?” he asked.   

              “Kev you’re awake,” Lili yelled. “You showed up here, although I have no clue how or why you found us then you passed out from your injuries. How did you get hurt, what happened to you Kev? You’ve been passed out for nearly two days.”   

              “Lili slow down and take a breath, he is weak and can barely speak.” said Dawn.

              Dawn handed him a bottle of water that he took with shaky hands and took a few sips letting his dry throat get a nice coat of water, he took a few more sips and licked his lips to get some moisture back into them. He looked around the room and saw Dawn first then his eyes fell on Lili and they opened wider “Lili, it’s really you, you’re here,” he said.  

              She shook her head wiping a tear from her eye, “Yes it’s me Kev I’m here. Now why are you here and how did you find us?”   

              “Oh Lili, I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he said as he tried to sit up. His body was stiff from not moving for so long and pain shot through his body. Dawn knelt beside him and helped him to sit up. He looked up to her, “Thank you. Lili, I was so stupid, I hope you can forgive me, I was wrong I just didn’t want to see you get hurt but I see now I was wrong and stupid. I overheard the councilors talking, they were planning to kill you.”   

              Lili’s face went into a mask of horror at what he’d just told her. “Now you see Lili why I got you away when I did instead of going back, I knew what they would do to you. There is much more going on there than you know, more even than I know.” Said Dawn     

              Kev spent the next hour telling them everything he’d gone through to get away from the others, track them through the tunnels and then how he climbed the building and spotted Dawn from the top. He also told them of his injuries. Lili listened to every word he said with rapt attention, “Oh Kev you’ve been through so much just to come and find me, you have no idea how angry I’ve been at you this whole time. I could never stay angry at you. I’m just glad you’re ok and with us now and that you see the truth of things. This world above is so big and so beautiful,” said Lili.

              “Yes it is indeed, and also full of many dangers, we will need to be careful.” said Kev.   

              “Not to worry too much about that, Dawn has some new weapons on her arms to protect us and she can use them to hunt for food so we can survive once we get farther away from this city. Once you are feeling better and if I can walk on my ankle we can leave this place,” said Lili.

              “I am feeling well enough to walk, but what happened to your ankle?”

              “When we came through the tunnels we made a hole in the collapsed section and part of it caved in on my ankle, it crushed it. Dawn had to carry me all the way here,” said Lili.  

              “That would explain why there was only one set of footprints on this side of the tunnel then,” said Kev with a smile. “I was worried when it went from two sets to just one that something bad had happened.”   

              “Here come and help me up you two and we’ll see how well my ankle is doing,” said Lili.   

              Kev stood up and moved around a bit to stretch his stiff aching body. With Kev and Dawn at either side of Lili they helped her to stand up. She put all her pressure on her good leg and then slowly put pressure on the other leg, she felt the pain coursing through her quite a bit but it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. “It still hurts but I think if I had something to lean on as I walk I could make it,” said Lili.   

              “I think I may be able to find something that will help you with that,” said Dawn.

              She moved around the house looking all around in every room picking up scraps of wood and pieces of cloth and old cushions she found lying around. She laid them all out in a pile in the center of the room then grabbed her old arms and ripped out all of the wiring from them. Kev and Lili watched her work with fascination as she moved about with all these scraps. Dawn fit all of these pieces together and bound them tightly using the wiring from her old arms and in no time had a pair of makeshift crutches.

              “Here try these.” she said as she handed the crutches to Lili.   

              Lili took the crutches but was not really sure what she was supposed to do with them, she just looked at them, studying them as if she was trying to figure out how they worked. “You use them like this,” Dawn said as she took them and demonstrated how they worked. “They will help to support most of your weight while you walk.”

              Lili took the crutches back and used them the way Dawn had showed her, she had a big smile on her face as she managed to move around the room without feeling any pain from her ankle. “This is great,” she said.

              “Well, now that we can all move again perhaps we should pack everything up and leave this place. We are too close to the guardians, I have already had one close encounter with them, I would rather not have any more,” said Kev.   

              “Yes I would have to agree,” said Dawn.

              So they began packing everything they would need, they gathered all the herbs and vegetation Dawn had gathered as well as her old arms, just in case she needed spare parts, as well as the extra food and water. They left the house and started out down the street, coming across another house which had a garage with its door wide open. Kev looked in and saw a bunch of stuff, Kev wanted to stop and look inside so they detoured to scavenge for anything they might be able to use

              The first thing they found was what Dawn called a wheelbarrow, it had a wooden wheel and handles. They all figured it would come in handy to help them carry extra supplies along with them. They also found tools they might need, they picked up a hatchet, as well as a box of nails, a hammer, saw and various other tools. Some of these things seemed to have collected a bit of rust but were still useable. They loaded everything into the wheelbarrow along with the sacks of provisions they had been carrying. Dawn found some old garden hose in the back and used it to fashion a harness around the handles so they could use it to pull the wheelbarrow without having to use their arms and sparing them from the ache of gripping the handles for long periods of time.   

              Now they had more supplies for their journey they started out heading south trying to gain as much distance as they could, putting as many miles between them and the guardians as they could.