THE TRASHMAN (30 page)

The main thing was, once I had the servant girls and children, I would have to escort them to the Armory. I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted as loud as I could, “Can you hear me?”

Seconds passed and the man replied, “We can’t understand your words.”

I sat and waited. He didn’t disappoint me.

“Can I send one of the servant girls to you?”

I gathered my weapons and ammo. One shot fired from the Beretta into the air was my answer. As soon as I pulled the trigger, on the possibility I’d marked my position for a barrage of weapons fire, I stayed low and concealed, and left that spot.

Nothing happened. I remained crouched, watching the entrance to the Resort. A woman came out and began walking directly toward my ridge.

It took her forty-five minutes to cross the village and scramble up the forested hillside. I saw she was off line by a few hundred feet and moved to meet her.

I found a small clearing and called for her. She was a slim little thing, barely five feet tall. Her hair was dark brown but the blonde tips showed it had once been dyed.

I saw nothing in her hands; even so, I had her stop and turn to see if she had a hidden weapon. She was wearing jeans with a jacket covering her pullover top.

“I’m going to ask you to take your jacket off. Do it slowly. I’m only checking to make sure you don’t have any weapons.”

She unzipped the jacket, speaking as she shrugged out of it.

“I don’t have any. Are you going to hurt me?”

With duct tape closing the cut on my forehead, several days of facial growth and filthy BDUs, I knew I presented an unsettling appearance. “No, girl, I’m not. Toss me the jacket.”

Snagging her toss, I could tell by the weight of the jacket there were no weapons in it. “Turn one more time so I can see your back.’

She did a complete turn and I tossed her the coat.

“Put it on, it’s chilly.”

She slid it back on and asked, “Why are you all killing everybody?”

“You don’t know why?”

“Most of us girls think it’s because of what Kenneth and James and his men were doing, but some of them think you might be just as bad as them.”

“So you know about the killing and raping.”

“Plenty of killing and raping all the time. Raping us, raping women they catch. Killing anybody that doesn’t measure up to what they want. Listening to them talk and laugh about how people begged for their lives and how they suffered dying. Yeah, we know about the killing and raping.”

She began crying. “They rape us every night, and during the day, too. We don’t even fight ‘em because all that gets you is hurt.”

“Listen, they won’t be doing that anymore. My name is Ralph. What’s yours?”

“Stephanie Owens.”

“How old are you, Stephanie?”

“Sixteen.”

That set me aback. Hard use had added five years to her face and ten years to her eyes.

“Stephanie, I need you to carry a very important message for me. Tell the men to load the trucks carrying you and the children with enough food and water to last three days. Tell them I want those trucks moving out of the village by 3:00 this afternoon. Let the men and women know that they have to wait until tomorrow, noon, to leave. If any of them try to leave early, they’ll be shot. Can you remember all that?”

“Yes, sir. I’m not stupid.”

“Easy young lady, I wasn’t meaning to insult you. I was asking to be sure. The mothers of the children aren’t going to want to give them up, but—”

“All the babies were orphaned by the plague and some of them were stolen from women killed by the road patrols. Maybe some of those women love the babies they have, but they aren’t theirs.”

“I feel better knowing that.”

“Where are you taking us, mister?”

“To a place where you can be sixteen again and no one will do to you what those men are doing.”

“Not just the men doing it, some of the women, too.”

“Honey, I know you’ve had a hard time, but let’s get this done so you’ll be free. Hurry back to the Village and tell them what I want.”

“I will.” She went only a few feet and then turned. “Thank you, Ralph.”

I nodded to her retreating back and watched until she was out of sight. I went to my camp, packed my belongings, and trekked the ridge once more to the point by the southern access to the Village. I was bone tired, my head was throbbing, and the wound in my side was hot and swollen. I knew before this day was over, I’d be past the point of exhaustion.

*****

The men and women still alive in the Village went to work right after Stephanie returned. Six pickup trucks of different makes and models were driven to the front of the damaged Recreation center. Other trucks were driven to houses, where often as not, the children in them had to be taken by force from the women’s hands. I felt bad about that, but right or wrong, it wasn’t an option to leave them with a foster parent or parents who went along with the Bradfords ways. In my opinion, they weren’t fit to raise and influence a child.

The Village beat my three o’clock deadline by fifteen minutes. I waited at the top of the ridge for the trucks to arrive. As the first one topped the ridge, rifle at ready, I stepped into the middle of the road and raised my hand for them to stop. A young girl was in the driver’s seat of the lead truck with another girl holding a toddler in her lap.

“I need Stephanie,” I shouted.

I heard a truck door open and saw her come from between two trucks. I kept my eyes on the trucks as she approached.

“Good job, Stephanie. How many people do we have?”

“I counted nineteen Village slaves, twenty children under thirteen, and nine teenagers.”

“Is there anyone in the truck who shouldn’t be?” I asked her.

“Steve Pitts, Bradford’s nephew. He tried to rape me once, but I fought him off. I told them we didn’t want him, but they were afraid to break your rule. He’s seventeen.

“I need Steve Pitts,” I shouted.

A tall, blond-haired boy jumped from the rear of a pickup and sauntered toward me.”

“What you want?”

“If you’re old enough to rape, you’re old enough to suffer life with the rest of the garbage down in the valley. Get going, boy.”

“Fine with me, I didn’t want to come anyway. They made me get on the truck.”

He turned and strutted away like he was a rooster. I pulled the Beretta and fired a round at his feet. He froze and then turned to look at me.

“Boy, I want you running down the hill as fast as you can. You slow down and I’ll put a bullet in your back.” I fired at his feet again. “Run boy!”

He ran. Got fifty feet away and tripped, falling hard and rolling a few dozen feet. I fired another round in his direction and he scrambled to his feet to continue his headlong dash down the hill to rejoin the trash.

Stephanie said, “You scared the crap out of him. You know those people aren’t going to change, don’t you?”

“I know. I’ll have to come back and hunt them down.”

“Where are the rest of your men?”

“Honey, I’m it. There aren’t any more.”

In disbelief, she said, “There has to be. The whole town’s blown up and killed.”

I shrugged. “Just me. Look, we need to get moving. Is everything all right in the trucks?”

“Other than a bunch of freaked out crying kids, yeah, everything’s alright. I watched them load the food and water. I made sure they all have coats and blankets, stuff you didn’t list. Then I watched who got in the trucks. I was the last one. Oh. I made sure they filled all the trucks with gas, too.”

“Stephanie, now it’s me thanking you. Good job. Get back in your truck, we’re leaving.”

I went to the lead truck and had the girl driving climb into the bed and I took the wheel. The chubby teenage girl holding the toddler was crying.

“Hello, my name is Ralph. What’s yours?”

“Betty.”

“Do you know how to drive?”

“No sir.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Mama Claire told me I had to leave and I might never see her again.”

“I’m sorry, but bad things were happening back there at the Village. She wants you to be safe. Who’s that in your lap?”

“I don’t know. I think his name is Bobby.”

Bobby was asleep. I hoped someone in the bunch following us knew his name for sure.

I leaned out the window and called for Stephanie again.

In the rear view, I saw her jump from the back of a truck and come running.

“Do you know how to drive this truck?”

“Yeah, I made sure they were all automatics.”

“I’m going to where I hid a jeep. You’ll need to follow me back. Climb in the bed.”

We came to where the utility line cut intersected the road. I waved for the trucks behind to slow and pulled to a stop.

“Wait here,” I said to Betty, and went to the first truck. A boy was at the wheel. I told him I was going to pick up another vehicle and to stay where he was.

I drove the lead truck to where I’d hidden the jeep. It had over a half tank still, but I topped it off with the jerry cans strapped to the back. While I did that, Stephanie turned the truck around and got in position to follow me.

Back at the convoy I went from truck to truck to give encouragement to the women and children, telling them they were in for a short, bumpy ride, and to hang onto each other so they wouldn’t be thrown out of the beds. I also told the drivers to drive careful on the unpaved rough-cut route under the wires. Except for the second truck, all the drivers were young women. They, like Stephanie, looked used and worn.

The younger children were inside the cabs of the trucks. There were no infants and I was thankful for that blessing.

When I returned to the Jeep, Stephanie was in the passenger’s seat. I climbed in and looked at her.

She said, “I’m your co-pilot. If you’re the only one that’s did the attacking, you have to be tired. You look like you’re dead on your feet. I can help you stay awake.”

“You’re a pretty wise young lady for your age.”

“A girl grows up fast at the end of the world as we know it. I can’t believe I used to love reading those kinds of books. Crank it up, Ralph, and let’s get going. While you’re diving, you can tell me all about this utopia we’re headed to.”

Our conversation was stilted due to the bumpy terrain and having to pay close attention to areas that were severely eroded. When I finished telling her about the Armory, and William and Carl’s hopes to build a society, she called me out.

“So, you don’t know the situation since you left. Christ, Ralph, they could be dead for all you know.”

I didn’t like her tone. She was the sort of person who got under your skin and then speaks like she’s known you forever. “There is that possibility; we’ll know when we get there. No matter what, though, we’ll have to find some place to set up. Some place you can defend and scavenge provisions for the short term. That means I’ll be delayed getting back up here to finish my mission.

“What’s so important about your mission? You’ve already rescued us and the children and killed most of Bradford’s gang. Why are you so fired up to kill the rest?”

“Stephanie, look at it this way. An evil person knows they are going to kill, rob, or rape. A good person hesitates when meeting people; they don’t have the instinct to victimize. That puts them at a disadvantage and they become victims. Each one of the remaining people back at the village can potentially harm dozens. We can’t allow that. To rebuild a decent society we need the good folks to survive. The only way to insure they do is to protect them. Killing scum like the Bradfords and their ilk saves lives.”

“Okay, Ralph, but if you enjoy killing them—”

I interrupted her sentence. “I don’t enjoy killing, but I do get a great sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Stephanie, let’s put you in this equation. If Steve, the boy who tried to rape you had resisted when I told him to leave, how much would it have bothered you if I shot him?”

Her reply was delayed while she considered my question.

Eventually, she said, “Every time a bomb went off, or some of the town’s people were killed, even though we didn’t know if we’d be the next to die, we girls silently cheered. Looking at your question, it would have shocked me, but I would have felt vindicated, satisfied he was dead, same as I felt about all the rapists and killers back there.

“Ralph, the patrol killed my mother and father. They shot my baby brother and then the four of them took turns on me before they brought me in. After that, it didn’t take the Bradfords long to train me. Beating and starvation saw to that.”

Stephanie was a child in need of a hug. I sincerely prayed Salvo and his family and the pastor with his flock made it to the Armory. All these children, slave girls included, would benefit from the loving arms of older women.

“Ralph, next smooth place, we need to stop. All this bouncing made me have to pee.”

“Five more minutes we’ll be on hardtop. We’ll stop for a break and eat.”

“I made them feed us before we loaded up… Oh, crap. I forgot toilet paper.”

The hardtop of the road came up sooner than expected. I turned onto it headed south. When all the trucks were on the road, I stopped the convoy and turned to speak to her.

“In back, on the floor board, you’ll find a couple of pistols, two rifles and some spare magazines. Do you know how to use a weapon?”

“I’ve fired a pistol before. I’m sure two of the older girls can, they talked about hunting a few times.”

“Good. There’re three rolls of paper in my pack. Grab the weapons and toilet paper. I’m going to where the patrol way station used to be and get more toilet paper from the supply shed. Tell everyone to get out and stretch, and take care of needs, but I want you, and whomever you arm, to guard the road in both directions.

Even though I’d wedged the door to the shed closed, it was open. Rain had blown in wetting the remaining supplies. Most of the TP was on the floor and even the plastic covering didn’t protect it. I found a twelve-roll package of toilet paper on an upper shelf the water hadn’t gotten to.

I put it in the passenger’s seat of the jeep and loaded the dead guard’s weapons into the rear. Taking advantage of my solitude, I rummaged through the TP on the floor and scored a dry roll. Even though I felt sorry for the ones on the road, I went to the outhouse to take care of
my
business.