Author: Bob

A new story is in the works. I think it is a good one. The setting is great. The backstory is awesome. The characters should be compelling. It’s all there except for one thing, and it’s something with which I always struggle.

The tale itself is simple. A group of paranormal investigators go on a job and split into two teams of three. They go through their normal investigation experiences. That is the easy part; I can see it all clearly in my head.

Describing those external activities is straightforward. The whole thing plays like a movie in my head. I sometimes wonder if I should be writing screenplays instead of these short stories and novels. There needs to be a way to go from my brain direct to DVD (or streaming these days).

The hard part, for me at least, is clearly describing the interpersonal relationships of the characters. Each of those teams is made up of a romantic couple and a camera operator. Each couple has similar experiences, but reacts very differently. Further, each goes in with their relationship in a different state. Conveying this with correct emotional value and not just piling on exposition can be difficult.

With multiple characters, it is permissible to change the viewpoint, basically which character is “telling” the story at any given time. If the story changes viewpoint too often, it will confuse the reader. If the viewpoint doesn’t change enough, it gives the feeling that only those characters are important and the reader must rely on those characters to make correct assumptions about the thoughts and feelings of the others. Characters tend to be very unreliable in this regard.

In the novel The Ruins by Scott Smith, there is an ensemble of characters and the viewpoint changes between them. It seems to work fairly well. Honestly, I did not like the characters and hoped they would die and be replaced by more likable characters, but that was probably how they were intended to be written. Even there, though, there was a smaller group within the ensemble who got more viewpoint time. The lesser characters only got point of view if they happened to be (effectively) alone. This kept the viewpoint from becoming confusing and did establish some characters as being more active in the story.

At the moment, I’m contemplating making the two camera operators the primary viewpoint characters. It fits with their function of trying to keep the others in frame and in focus. In doing so, they also tend to lose their own situational awareness, which may work out. Also, they are not involved in the couple dynamic of the other team members, so they can be more objective. I imagine the other characters just get used to the camera operators and don’t even think about them.

I think I may take this approach. It will require rewriting the parts I’ve already got scribbled. I kind of wonder how long this story is going to run. The last two stories ran about twenty-three thousand (It Gets Away) and forty-six thousand words (Timmy’s Zombie Abatement Service). That’s the range for a novella. None of that includes notes and related writing. This may end up taking a while. I hope I get it right.

As a neat writing tool, an author may conduct an interview with a character from their story. This can help the author get their head around the character and try to flesh out some details. In this case, Arty Behrman is the new main character to the story following my novels Cordell’s Rebellion and Hour of Consequence.

BT: Hello Arty. Tell me a little about yourself.

AB: There’s not much to tell. I’m a reporter with a local TV station. I’m thirty-two years old, single, and live in an apartment.

BT: How long have you been a reporter?

AB: Just a couple of years. I got a journalism degree and started with the station. Mostly just field work for now.

BT: What did you do before becoming a reporter?

AB: After high school, I didn’t really have a plan, so I just did retail for a while. It was alright and I got to meet a lot of people. But I kept seeing the older retail people, you know, the ones that never got out, and I kept seeing me becoming that. I guess that kind of motivated me to go to college.

BT: What made you choose journalism?

AB: That’s a good question. Mostly just laziness. Without knowing any better, it looked like it would be an easy job, just go around asking people stuff. My mom used to watch old movies from the forties and fifties where the reporters just breezed through and got away with anything they wanted. Boy was I in for a surprise.

BT: Where did you study?

AB: Just at the little college here in town. I don’t know the name because you never named the town where that Reverend John novel took place. Why didn’t you ever give it a name?

BT: Oh, that. I was being intentionally vague so the readers could fill in what they needed and I wouldn’t have to create all the details. Since I planned on doing more stories later, I didn’t want to limit myself with arbitrary details that I threw together earlier. I’ll create something before we get too far. I’m guessing that it was the same college where this story starts, but we will have to see. I’m not sure that you could afford the tuition at that school. Anyway, now that you’re a reporter, what are your goals and ambitions?

AB: Yeah, that’s sort of an issue. My goal in going back to school was to not be an old retail person. Mission accomplished. Like I said, I picked journalism because I thought it would be easy; there wasn’t really any planning beyond that. That’s probably why I work for a tiny, falling-apart local station. They’re the only ones desperate enough to hire me. They send me out without a camera man; I have to do that myself. I’m never going to be an anchorman. Unless I break a really huge story, no other network is going to give me a second glance.

BT: Do you think you’ll be breaking any big stories? Is that something you’re trying to do?

AB: Not really. Again, not really ambitious. I should probably figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m in my early thirties and don’t have any real plans. My ambition should probably be to get my life figured out, but there’s just no motivation.

BT: Do you think a major disruption to your life would help?

AB: You mean like having some old church dude start a rebellion or something? I’m good. I can do without. That may have worked out for Reverend John, but he already had his big break and then had a community to fall back on. If all that happened to me, I’d probably be in jail or get shot early on. No thanks.

BT: I wouldn’t worry about that happening again. Cordell’s little story came out in 2018 and real right-wing nuts did a real-world insurrection in 2021. That’s old-hat. I was thinking of something a little more sciency for you.

AB: Would it include me losing my job or being shot at or exploded or anything like that?

BT: Maybe a little.

AB: Again, no thanks.

BT: It wouldn’t be that bad. You would be the main character. That would be pretty good.

AB: Like the main character in For Whom the Bell Tolls?

BT: Ask anyone who has read my writing; I’m no Hemmingway. No, as a main character, you would have to go through a character arc of discovery and growth that would disrupt your current life and leave you a better person.

AB: A better person with or without all his extremities?

BT: In the current version of the plot, all of them. Really, the discomfort should be kept to a minimum.

AB: Would there be the “big break” that makes me a real journalist?

BT: The current notes say there would be a couple of big stories. There’s a good chance you wouldn’t be able to discuss them publicly for various reasons. But, yeah, definitely big news stories.

AB: Dammit.

BT: Your buddy Gary Jakanda would be there. He’s pretty good in a fight. He saved Reverend John’s backside a few times. Does that make it better?

AB: No, it doesn’t make it better. I want to just cover my simple, local stories, go home to my grungy apartment, eat my ramen, and doom scroll until I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want or need any adventure.

BT: Now you’re sounding like a Tolkien character.

AB: Screw you.

BT: Look how well it worked out for that character.

AB: Yeah, look how well that worked out. He ended up cursed, senile, leaving a cursed artifact on his beloved nephew who then had to go to hell and back, getting permanently poisoned on the way. Then, both of them were so screwed up that they had to be sent to a mystical rest home across the sea so they would be slightly less miserable while waiting to die.

BT: They saved their world.

AB: Uh huh, they sure did, for all the good it did them. Listen, if you try to use me as the main character in your little story, I’m going to mope and complain the whole time. I will go out of my way to be miserable and to resist anything even remotely resembling heroism. Your story is going to suck completely and I’m going to laugh my ass off when it’s done.

BT: That’s the spirit! I look forward to that struggle. It should be interesting.

AB: What? No. That’s the opposite of what I said I was going to do. I am very specifically going to not be interesting. Your readers are going to hate it. You’re going to hate it. I’m going to hate it.

BT: Well, thank you for the interview, Mr. Behrman. I found it very informative and I look forward to telling your tale.

AB: No. Stop it. I don’t want to be in your tale.

BT: Too late.

Tom wasn’t sure if it was the cold, the ache in his bones, or the pressure in his bladder that woke him. Either way, he saw the sky growing lighter in the east. Time to start moving again.

He stood to go behind a tree, probably a short distance away from the others. There was no need to disturb their sleep; they all needed the rest and the day would be long.

He jumped and turned when he heard, “You’re up too, eh?”

Carlos stood, leaning against the tree where he had rested the night before.

“Yeah,” Tom answered after regaining his wits. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He made a slight waving motion and moved off into the woods a bit.

By the time he returned, the others were stirring, stretching the night’s stiffness from their achy joints and muscles. “I guess we should eat and drink anything we plan to and then get going. Now that we got light, we should be able to make good time.”

Juanita and Pedro each disappeared in a separate direction to find their own trees. While they were gone, Carlos fished some deer jerky and walnuts from some bag.

Tom had always been impressed with Carlos’ practicality. It made sense, Carlos was a bit older and, therefore, more mature. Nothing seemed to throw the man; he was always ready. Tom guessed that Carlos must have been born shortly after the Storm, maybe even as the Storm was going. He would have been one of the earlier people born with spots. Who knows what that would have been like.

From the stories Tom heard, people first thought the spots were a sign of disease or poisoning. The spots always meant the baby would grow up small. They called it a birth defect. For some people, the spotted babies were just in need of care. Other people decided that the spots meant the baby was wrong somehow and needed to be destroyed. As time passed, that all blended into the separation of the two groups: those with spots and whose without. The ones without caused the massacre in the camp down in the valley.

He gnawed on a piece of jerky, trying not to think of what he had seen the day before. Nancy and the others would want a description. He would have to relive the imagery, look at it again in his mind. When she finally heard it all, when she made it clear that he described it enough, he would bury those images in the depths of his head and never think about it again. The Plainos often used alcohol to make memories go away; he may have to try that.

With breakfast over, the four stood for a moment to signify that the rest period was over.

“We should probably go,” Juanita said.

They each shouldered their bundles and started uphill through the woods.

On the Hill

Oliver and Noah woke and joined Will and Jimmy. They looked out over the hilltop.

The two second-shift guards were still there, sitting on the ground, each facing away from the hole. They held their bows across their laps, an arrow ready but not nocked.

“There are a few others in the ground that have bows,” Will said. “I think the total, including the guards, is five. That shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

He gave a moment for the others to add anything relevant. With nothing coming, he continued, “It’s almost sunrise.” He nodded to the brothers, “You two go get the horses and lead them up here as quiet as you can. If we can ride out there quick, we can take them by surprise.”

The Vanier brothers rolled back into the woods and were gone.

“What’s the plan, Will?” Jimmy asked.

“Boss Henry brought us down here to wipe out a Spotty menace. There’s a bunch of them down in that hole. It would take a lot of valuable bullets if we shot all of them. I got a better idea. We’ll get them when we open that door..”

Jimmy nodded his understanding. He didn’t smile, or show any other emotion. It was just a job to be done.

---

Nancy had lain awake for a while, watching the dawn slowly drive out the stars. At the end of her guard shift, she found a place near a small fire, but that had died to ashes. The morning air chilled her nostrils, and the thought of getting up seemed unpleasant. Still, there were things to do and no one else was going to do them.

A shot echoed through the hole. A firearm!

She jumped to her feet, grabbing her bow and feeling for an arrow in her quiver.

The sound of horses, hoofbeats and neighing, surrounded the ground above the hole. That’s where the gunshot came.

All around, people screamed and either stood to find what was happening or curled up to hide.

Herman Junior fell into the hole, knocked by a man on horseback.

In a matter of minutes, four Plainos on horses had taken position at each wall of the hole. Every one of them carried a rifle.

One of the men called down, “Throw your bows out or we will shoot every damned one of you!”

Nancy pointed her bow at the one that spoke. She was sure she could take him. Just loosening her fingers would put an arrow through his neck and he would be done.

Looking around, she saw that she was the only one in a position to fire on the attackers. Mary and Oak held their bows, but not ready. Herman Junior was still recovering from his fall. Heman stood where he had been on guard, but with no bow in his hand.

It was hopeless. She could kill the one Plaino, but the others would shoot her dead before he fell off his horse.

She lowered her bow and un-nocked the arrow. The Plainos had won. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and threw her bow out.

Seeing her action, the others with bows tossed theirs as well.

The one who had spoken earlier called out to the others. “See, boys, there’s nothing to worry about with these Spotties. Those farmers may be afraid of these diseased little freaks, but real men aren’t.”

The Plaino nearest to Herman nudged his horse toward the guard and pointed with his rifle first to Herman then to the hole. Herman took the hint and climbed into the hole.

All the spotted people were now in the pit with no easy way out and at the mercy of the horsemen.

The speaker continued, this time toward Nancy’s people. “You get the honor of helping us with a little exploration. Since you don’t have that rusty door open, I’m guessing that you don’t know how to open it yourselves. That means you get to help us open it and we all get to see what’s inside.”

Nancy knew about the door. She never really wondered about the other side of it. All the things about the house were from before the Storm, and many things from that time no longer mattered. Some were even dangerous, especially if they were damaged or if you didn’t know how to use them. If it wasn’t food or shelter, Nancy didn’t have much use for it.

“I need all of you to move away from the door, and gather up at the other end,” the man continued. “Come on, now, move!” He fired another shot into the air.

A couple of the captives screamed, but they all rushed away from the door, crowding against the far wall.

“Now all you Spotties stay where you are while my boy takes care of a few things.”

Nancy watched the Plaino nearest the door dismount. He tied a rope to the saddle of his horse and dug some packages from pouches carried by the horse. He then walked to the side of the hole and tossed the free end of the rope in.

A moment later, the man was in the hole. He stood before the door, looking it over. Stepping forward, he ran his hands along the edges and the hinges, searching for something.

Nancy assumed the large wheel in the face of the door would open it. She thought about suggesting that to the Plaino, hoping that if they could open the door they might go away. No, she thought, the Plainos always took too much pleasure in hurting her people; they weren’t going away anytime soon no matter what happened with the door.

The man took some sort of mud from his packages and packed it in around the hinges of the door. He unraveled some thin rope from another package and buried the ends into the mud. He tossed the rest of the coil up out of the hole. He seemed to inspect his work and then climbed out of the hole using the rope tied to his horse.

Nancy watched all of this, suspecting something bad was going to happen. She tried to ignore the people gathered around her. Some cried, others muttered to each other, speculating about what was going on. Still others just stared at one thing or another, having given up on hope.

The apparent leader of the Plainos spoke again. “You stay where you are. We are going back a little to work our magic.” He always liked how references to magic could keep simple people cowed. “If you go near the door, the magic will probably open you up instead of the door, and that would get real messy.”

In unison, the Plainos urged their horses away, going around the hole and back to where they had been the previous night.

Oliver, the one who had been in the hole, led his horse instead of riding. As he walked, he unspooled the fuse along the ground, careful not to pull too tight. Pulling too much might yank the detonators out of the plastic explosives. Boss Henry made sure that only trained people could handle fuses, detonators, and the like; the materials were just too rare and the good ingredients couldn’t be manufactured again yet.

The fuse spool ended about twenty feet from the hole.

Oliver stopped at that point. Noah rode by and took the reins of Oliver’s horse, leading the animal away. Oliver knelt on the ground, getting his tinder box ready and waiting for the others to get to the treeline and cover. As soon as they were there, he would light the fuse.

Looking Ahead

As they approached the hilltop, Tom and company decided to scout the situation. Leaving their bundles safely behind, they prepared their bows and stalked toward the rendezvous.

Near the treeline, they heard the shot. Freezing for a moment, they looked at each other. None of them knew any of their kind who had firearms, but they all knew what firearms were. Left over from before the Storm, they were tools of destruction, and the Plainos coveted them. A shot on the hilltop meant only one thing.

“Come on,” Tom whispered, fitting in as much urgency as he could.

They risked more noise in trade for speed.

At the edge of the clearing, they stopped and hid. From behind a tree, Tom watched as Herman climbed into a hole in the ground. There were four Plainos on horseback, another thing Plainos loved, and pointing firearms into the hole.

One of the Plainos seemed to be shouting something, but Tom couldn’t hear it well enough.

“What are they doing?” Pedro asked.

Tom answered as best he could without being loud. “I think they got our people down in that hole. They’re probably holding them prisoner.”

“Why would they hold them prisoner?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. Images from the camp flashed back into his mind. There were no prisoners there, but there had been a lot more Plainos. Maybe with only four of them, there weren’t enough bullets to kill everybody. Tom knew that firearms can run low on ammunition. Maybe the Plainos were just waiting for more Plainos to arrive. He didn’t want to say that out loud.

Carlos slid up close. “Any ideas?”

Tom thought for a moment. His usual tactic was to run away and hide, but that was just to save himself. Trying to save a bunch of other people was a new thing. “No,” he answered. “You?”

“They’re too far away for our bows to be reliable right now,” Carlos said. “We can see if they decide to get closer and then kill them. I only see the four of them. Do you think there are any more?”

They all looked around the clearing and listened for sounds of horses.

“I think there are only the four right now,” Pedro said, “but they may be waiting for help.”

“Ok,” Tom said, “I don’t think we can do anything right now without getting shot. Let’s wait a while to see if they get into bow range. As soon as they do, well,” Then he thought for a moment before turning to look at the others. “That’s my plan, so I’ll do it. If you don’t want to, you might want to get away while you still can.”

Each met his gaze and then they all turned to look at the clearing again.

They watched as one of the Plainos climbed into the hole. A few minutes later, he climbed out again. The loud one shouted something. Then, they moved away from the hole, three on horseback and one on foot but leading his horse. Their direction brought them in the general direction of Tom and the others.

With his right hand, Tom placed one finger to his lips to suggest that they be very quiet. Then, waved his fingers, telling them to move toward where the Plainos would meet the woods.

His heart beat increased, becoming loud in his ears. It made him aware that if he made any noises, any stepped-on twig, he wouldn’t hear it. That made his fear worse. They only needed to move about thirty feet, but it was a long thirty feet but a short distance for a Plaino gun.

The three Plainos on horseback neared the treeline, dismounting as they did. Two of them handed the reins of their horses to the other. He led all four horses further in the woods. The remaining two men laid down on the ground, covering their heads.

The fourth Plaino, the one who had stayed in the clearing, did something with a thin rope on the ground, stood up, and ran toward the trees as though filled with fear.

Tom saw Pedro pull away, following the Plaino with the horses. That left the other three, one each for Tom, Juanita, and Carlos.

---

Faring raised his head to watch Oliver. He knew that he needed to be facedown when the explosion happened, but the thrill of watching was too much.

Oliver stood and began his run. Faring and Jimmy made sure to leave a wide, clear space for when Oliver came in, because he was going to be in a hurry.

The smoke of the burning fuse rose in the air, forming a trail toward the hole. In a few moments, the door hinges would blast away, sending shrapnel through those Spotties in the basement. A few bullets would take care of the survivors and then he and his boys could dig around in that vault.

He watched Oliver stop. The brother fell forward, clutching at his chest. That was wrong.

He heard Jimmy grunt beside him.

He tried to rise up to check his friend, but something hit him in the back. At first, it was just a pressure, like he had been hit with a stick, then the pain came. It was in his back, or maybe his front. No, it was both. He tried to push himself up, but moving his arms caused pain to flare through his back.

Carlos stomped on Faring’s head as he ran toward the smoking rope. “¡Mierda!” he cried while running. In his youth, he had seen fuses used. He remembered what waited at the other end of that burning line.

Running as fast as he could, he got to the fuse five feet from the edge of the hole. Fumbling to get his knife out of this pocket, he dropped to his knees a couple of feet past the burning end. With his knife finally out, he grabbed the fuse, and cut it.

He tossed the lit piece away from him and then slumped, his shoulders hanging down.

Tom and Juanita jogged out to him.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked.

Carlos swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Big boom,” he said, holding up the remaining end of the fuse.

Tom’s held tilted to the side, not understanding.

Juanita walked over to the smoking strand Carlos had tossed. She kicked it a little to see it better. In a matter of seconds, it had burned up.

Carlos stood and turned to the hole. Together with Juanita and Tom, they walked to the edge.

They saw Nancy and the others all gathered to the far end of the hole.

“What’s going on?” Tom called. “Were there just the four of those guys or were there more?”

Nancy took a deep breath and let it out fast. Things had just gotten better. “We only saw four of them.” The muscles of her shoulders and back loosened.

Tom heard the sound of horses from behind him and turned.

Pedro emerged from the trees leading four horses by their bridles.

Turning back to the hole, he said, “That’s how many we got. It should be over.”

A New Dawn

With a little work, everyone got out of the hole. Most moved into the shade and comfort of the trees. Pedro and Juanita led a small group to get the gathered supplies from the old camp. They took the horses to use as pack animals.

“You guys were lucky I came along when I did,” Carlos told Nancy.

“What do you mean?”

He smiled. “Don’t you know what they were doing to that door?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think it was anything good. They were going to open it somehow. I think opening it was going to kill us.”

Carlos made an exaggerated nod. “That’s right. They put plastic explosives on the hinges. It would make a big boom and send pieces of the door out at everybody. It would be like being shot by a hundred guns.”

Tom asked, “Do you know about that stuff?”

Carlos shook his head. “I only know a little. I know it is very dangerous to play with.” He smiled. “I think I have an idea.”

Five minutes later, the door fell open. Some of the people came out of the woods to see what was left.

Much of the basement was damaged. The walls, which had survived the Storm itself, collapsed. The sturdy blocks no longer held the soil back, so it flowed into the opening, pushing a few of the remaining blocks with it. The collapsed places made it easier to walk into and out of the hole, acting much like a steep stream bank.

The vault itself went deep into the hill to open into a large room. The room contained shelves and bunks made of metal. Nancy’s people looked through the materials there. Much of it had rotted, but there were still plenty of useful things. The shelves held containers labeled ‘shelf stable” foods. There were medical supplies. Some of the blankets were still useful. Large tanks contained water. The water was good but the tanks were too large to carry.

The vault also included firearms and ammunition. These guns were different from the ones any of them had seen. They seemed to be more complex, more dangerous. Noone was sure what to do with them.

“Maybe we should figure out how to use them,” Tom said.

“Are you willing to get hurt trying to figure them out?” Nancy asked. That question chilled further thought of the matter.

“But we can’t leave them here for the Plainos to find,” Carlos said. “They will use them.”

In the end, they decided to break what they could, smashing and bending the firearms themselves. For the ammunition, they set about disassembling the rounds, pouring out the powder into a large pile in the middle of the hole. Once they were completely finished with the vault and the hole, they tossed a torch onto the pile, watching it flare into the sky before burning away.

Fed and rested, the group gathered under the trees to shelter from the late morning sun. Nancy called them together to discuss what to do next.

“We all faced dangers in our lives. Now, as we get further from the Storm, it seems everyone is getting together into groups for their own survival. The Plainos build their villages. Now there are groups like Silus’ people. For a while, our camp in the valley was a good place, but we didn’t prepare to defend it. It’s gone now. From the descriptions of what was left, I don’t think we can go back there anymore.”

There was a general nodding and murmuring of agreement on that. Just the short descriptions given by the reconnaissance party was enough to put a chill in the others. It was the type of story that would cause nightmares for generations.

She continued, “Carlos says he knows of a forest to the southwest that is too hilly for farming. That means the Plainos don’t want it. We could live and hunt as we like, but we may have to put up defenses to keep it for ourselves and people like us. That’s where I’m planning to go. I can’t make you go with me, but you are welcome to come along.”

Lutz, one of the first volunteers rescued, asked, “Who put you in charge?”

Nancy rolled her eyes. This was why she always kept to herself in the woods. “Nobody put me in charge. I’m not in charge. I’m specifically saying that I’m not telling you what to do. I’m saying that I, myself, am headed to this forest. I’m telling you that you are welcome to go wherever you want, but if you want to go where I’m going, that’s ok by me.”

One of the others shouted, “Sit down, Lutz. You’re the one who talked us into going with that Enoch woman.”

Lutz looked around and saw a consensus in the expressions of the others.

The one who put Lutz in his place raised his hand and said, “I vote that we follow Nancy and make her our leader. She and her friends have kept us alive so far.”

That was not what Nancy wanted. The past couple of days had been exhausting. Just realizing that it had only been a couple of days was even worse; it seemed like a long week.

The gathered people seemed to agree with the suggestion and were saying so. “Let’s follow Nancy.” “Nancy for queen!” “Nancy for president!” “I’m with Nancy.”

Carlos stepped up behind Nancy and placed his hand on her shoulder. “It looks like you have a people to follow you, whether you want it or not.” Then he stepped in front of her and held up his hands to the group. “Ok, I think we all agree, Nancy is our leader. That fact that she is reluctant about it means that she will do a good job.”

Pedro stood up and asked, “So, is it just the people here now, or can other people join us?”

This caused a murmur in the group until they slowly turned to look at Nancy, awaiting her answer.

“It looks like your first royal decree, your majesty,” Carlos said to her with a grin.

Nancy scowled at him. Then she looked across the crowd. They really were looking to her for an answer. “We may have to make a case by case decision. In general, I think we should let anyone like us join. If Plainos join, we would never be able to trust them and it would just cause trouble.” Something else occurred to her. “We also have to watch out for groups like Silus’ but we should probably warn everybody about them too. I know I would have liked it if someone had warned me.”

The heads of the group nodded agreement like the seeds on tall grasses blowing in the wind.

She knew they would keep asking her stuff and she would rather just get going. “We should probably start on our way. We’ll head southwest, but may need to adjust depending on what we run into. I don’t think any of us want to get into any fights, so let’s stay very hidden and very quiet. We want to stick to the woods and move through so nobody knows we’re there. Is everybody good with that?”

Somebody from the group called out, “We’ll be like elves in old fairy tales.”

Nancy had never heard of anything like that. “What are those?”

“Fairy tales were old stories to entertain children and teach them moral lessons. The elves were magical forest creatures that could disappear and reappear as they wanted to. My mom had a bunch of books with fairy tales that she read me when I was little.”

Nancy wasn’t a believer in magic, but she liked the idea.

Lutz piped up again, “Yeah, they used to have them in adult fantasy stories too, before the Storm. The place I grew up, some of the adults read the books out loud at night, and sometimes they played games with the same characters. Their elves had bows and swords and cloaks to help them hide.”

It was good that everyone understood the idea of hiding and living in the woods, even if that understanding came from stories about magic creatures. Hopefully that would help with their trip to the forest, if they ever got started. “Ok,” Nancy said, “We can be elves.”

Pedro added his part, “Why in English elves? We have things like that too. Why not call ourselves los duendes?”

This brought more murmuring in the group.

Nancy meant that they could emulate the behavior of the fairy tale elves, not that they would call themselves elves. The extra discussion was delaying the departure again.

Carlos saw the frustration on Nancy’s face and decided to intervene. “Everybody, listen up.” He gave them a moment to focus on him. “There is a compromise with English and Spanish that will be close enough. We can call ourselves ‘los elfos’ or use whatever you want. Either way, we should probably discuss it when we camp tonight. For right now, I think Nancy wants us to be on our way before any more Plainos show up to find their friends.”

The thought of more Plainos put a strong motivation in the new Elfos.

“Thanks,” Nancy whispered to Carlos.

“De nada, Elf Queen.” The grin on Carlos’ face stretched nearly to each ear.

Ever After

Within half an hour, the group calling themselves “Los Elfos” began their trek toward their new home.

At first, they were not as quiet or as hidden as the elves of fairy or fantasy stories. Having those stories as a model, and having a name for themselves, helped them build those skills as a culture.

They also made use of superstition and fear to keep their lands safe. Once established, few outsiders would venture willingly into the forests of these secretive beings. An intruder was sure to disappear, never to be heard from again.

By the end of the Engineer Wars, eight centuries later, the Lovelo Kingdom was a formidable power in the world, they were just hard to find.

Carlos, Pedro, Tom, and Juanita made their way back to Owl Hollow. Their encounter with Enoch and the volunteers gave them some confidence that there wouldn’t be anyone there to greet them. Still, they moved carefully. As they reached the camp, the sun had started toward the horizon.

They spread out as they reached what was left of the camp. Tom listened for signs of anything.

The south wind didn’t enter the valley, only passing through the tops of the trees and making a soft rasping rattle. It somehow made the silence that much deeper in the valley itself. The dimming western sun lit those same treetops, leaving the valley floor in a growing gloom and deepening shadows. The hairs on the back of Tom’s neck stood and a shiver ran down his spine.

He walked forward into the camp. Without a signal, the others had done the same. Tom was closest to the road, and could see where Silus’ people had set up their tables and boxes, all now overturned and broken. Burnt patches of ground showed where the coals of the braziers had fallen. He looked closer, worried that someone may be lurking behind one of the larger pieces. That’s when they saw the people.

Some wore the ragged clothes of Silus. Others wore clothes that he knew, the clothes that had been worn by people he knew. Horses had crushed their corpses. Dried blood and other fluids left dark stains on the ground. Flies buzzed everywhere.

Tom was used to death. There was the normal death of hunting. There were the people killed in the village he escaped from. Those people died in the ones and twos, always in some clean way, hung or shot at a distance where you didn’t have to see them. His own father died somewhere behind him as his mother ran away with him in her arms.

This was different. It was large and blatant and filled with unexplainable hatred. The people who did this were violent at a level he couldn’t understand. He had never been sure why the Plainos hated them anyway. This, this slaughter, suggested something more.

He turned to wretch and couldn’t. There wasn’t enough in his belly. But his body wanted to expel something, wanted to expel this scene, the reality of it, the wrongness. His knees buckled, almost dropped him to the ground, but he caught himself. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he willed himself to take a deep breath, and then another. The stench of death was on the air, but he needed air in his lungs.

Turning back, he saw that the others were having similar reactions to the scene. Juanita was behind a tree, the sound of sickness escaping her. Pedro stood with his hands over his face, his torso convulsing as though sobbing. Carlos was on his knees, his hands clasped before his chest, and his face turned to the sky in prayer. None of them would leave the camp unscarred.

He forced his legs to move further into the camp, only watching the corpses enough to avoid stepping on them. They had a mission and the survivors were counting on them. Focusing on the mission, that was going to be the key to getting out of this place. ‘I could just run the other way,’ came the thought to his head. He shook his head ‘no’ and kept moving forward.

After a couple of minutes, the others joined him. He was about in the middle of the camp by that time. “Are you guys alright?” he asked.

Juanita shook her head. “I don’t think I will ever be alright again.”

Pedro pointed her direction. “What she said.”

Carlos gestured around. “God, what a mess! What are we going to do? Do we bury them? Do we say something? God, this is awful.”

“I don’t think we have time to bury them,” Tom said. “We have people waiting on us to get them water and other stuff. Burying would take too much time, and really, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

The four stood with their heads down, staring at the ground. Tom was right, but it didn’t help any.

Tom wasn’t sure why, but he seemed to be the de facto leader of the team. He wondered how Nancy did it, with everyone relying on her despite her not having any real authority. It was probably his relationship with Nancy that made him the leader here. As a leader, he had best do something right.

He could tell that there were now two missions. The original mission for water and information still stood. The new additional mission was getting his teammates out of the valley with as little mental damage as possible.

He knew Carlos was a mature and solid person, very reliable. The other two were younger and probably less able to cope. Minimizing their exposure would be important.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “There were some extra canteens in my tent up there,” he pointed to the flattened piece of green tarp a little way up the hill. “Juanita and Pedro, if you want, you can grab those and then start filling them from the stream. The stream is probably cleanest where it comes out of the hill at the west side of the camp.”

“While you’re doing that, Carlos and I will go through the other tents to see if we can find useful things like more canteens or safe food. Does that sound good to everybody?”

They all nodded, with Junita and Pedro not looking up.

The two younger members headed to their task. Carlos hung around a bit. “I saw what you did there. It is good to get them out of the camp, away from all of this.”

Tom grunted and shrugged his shoulders. He had never learned social skills.

“About us,” Carlos continued. “Are we looking for anything particular or just whatever we find?”

Tom shrugged again. “I don’t know. We definitely need water and food. We got those thirty people to take care of. Other than that, we could use more weapons and anything else that might be useful. If we can find an undamaged tent or two, we can use the cloth to make bundles to carry back.”

“I have a suggestion,” Carlos said. “If we find some keepsake that is unbroken, maybe we should take that too. Those people with Nancy have lost everything. Maybe some little trinket can bring them some peace.”

That hadn’t occurred to Tom. He knew some people grew very attached to things. The things brought them comfort or reminded them of someone they cared about. He hadn’t found any such object for his own and assumed that he never would. It just wasn’t something he would do. It was good that Carlos was there; he could make the caring suggestions.

The two men split up, Carlos to the south and Tom to the north. Instinctively, they stayed away from the end of camp where Silus’ people had set up. There would be nothing useful, or clean, there.

Tom meandered through the wreckage of his former home. Most of the tents were destroyed, trampled by horses or sliced. The things inside were just as broken. He was somewhat relieved to see a tent that was splayed open so that he could see the debris of what it used to contain. It was the other tents that filled him with dread.

He approached a tent that lay flattened but still in one piece. He remembered the guy who used to live there. That guy always complained that he only had the blue tarp from which to build his shelter when we would rather have something easier to camouflage. Tom struggled to remember the man’s name, but that wasn’t important, he would probably never need the man’s name again. What was important was whether the man was still at home.

The lump under the tarp could have been made by a sleeping bag, pots, or just about anything. Part of it could be made from a corpse, a crushed, broken, mangled, rotting, corpse of a person who was living just the day before and now was not.

Tom stared at the lump in the tarp, breathing hard. He needed to look under there, see if there were things that would keep the living alive. The back of his brain told him to run. In the quiet valley, the sound of blood pulsing through his ears roared. He swallowed hard. He needed to complete the mission.

He reached down and, with his eyes averted, pulled up on the edge of the tarp.

Nothing moved.

He closed one eye and slowly turned to look with the other.

No corpse.

He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to regain his composure. He thought, ‘Am I going to go through that with all the tents? I don’t think I’ll survive.’

Most of the contents of the dwelling had been crushed thoroughly. There were two usable canteens and a quiver of arrows. Tom decided to take the tarp as well, folding it into a small square for easier carrying.

He only found a few other tents where the cloth was intact, and none of them looked like they held the dead. Tom was grateful for that.

Finally, he came up to Nancy’s old tent. Nancy always kept useful things, and a store of dried meats, flour, and any other food she could keep. If any of it had survived, it would be a great find. He approached from around the fire ring and the rough wooden table to see what he had forgotten about.

That Thing, the timid teen who had just joined them, had died in front of Nancy’s tent. She hadn’t died in the slaughter, though. Tom had seen her die. She did it herself. She stepped out of the tent, saw how horrible life was, and decided she was done. Her body still laid there, still curled around that knife she put into her own gut.

Something finally cracked. Tom’s eyes filled with tears, blurring his vision. She was just a teenager. The Plainos were hunting her down when Nancy found her. She had only just been rescued from that horror only to be thrust into this new one.

That’s sort of what started all this, he thought. Nancy killed that Plaino and sent his buddy off with a warning. That’s what got the Plainos mad enough to attack the camp. They came in and killed everybody. It started because they wanted to hurt this one girl.

Not true, he decided. The Plainos had been hurting all of them for a long time. That’s why they had the camp, to get away from the Plainos. Besides, if the Plainos hadn’t showed up, those ragged bastards would have killed or mutilated everybody. He risked a quick glance toward the east end of camp.

Anger had done its job and sobered him up enough to return to the mission. He ignored the corpse of That Thing and rummaged through the broken supplies from Nancy’s tent. Since she had buried some of her supplies, they didn’t get as squashed. He gathered what he could and bound it in the larger, useful half of the tent cloth.

He started to leave but made a decision. He pulled the remaining half of the tent forward and covered That Thing. “I’m sorry, girl. It’s the best I can do now. Wish you could have had a better life.”

He went on.

As the sun set lower, greater darkness settled into the lower part of the valley. Tom and Carlos met Juanita and Pedro at the stream. The tent search turned up another half dozen canteens and a few other sealable containers that could hold water. They filled them quickly.

“What about this other stuff?” Pedro asked.

Carlos held out some tarps and a backpack. “I guess we can split it up into four equal loads and everybody can carry some back.”

In a mutually agreed, but unspoken silence, they gathered their packs and got ready for the trek. It would be slow, trying to move quietly uphill through the woods. The burdens made them unsteady on their feet and there were no paths toward Old house Hill.

Tom took one last glance toward the old camp. A wave of sadness ran through him, and then was gone. There was still the mission, and they needed to go.

Getting There

Nancy knew about the Old House Hill and its reputation. She had also visited it several times while hunting. A large house stood there before the Storm. She wasn’t sure why the Plainos thought it was haunted, but it didn’t matter as long as they stayed away.

On earlier trips, she found a large hole in the ground, part of the old house. It was deep enough to camp in but not so deep that you couldn’t climb out. Metal tubes stuck out here and there, and she found old, rotting pieces of wood that would probably burn easily. There was also an old, metal door on one wall, but rust had taken that a long time ago.

If she could get these people into the hole, they could have fires without anyone in the distance seeing them. It would also get them out of the wind for the night. She wasn’t sure what they would do in the morning, but the night was taken care of.

---

Jimmy Nakano tapped Will Faring on the shoulder. “Hey, look! Somebody’s coming.” He pointed to the east side of the clearing.

Faring stared across the grass. There was just enough sunlight left to see a group of small people coming out of the woods. They seemed to be headed toward the hole in the ground.

“Should we get ’em?” Jimmy asked.

“Not yet,” Faring answered. “Let’s see who they are and what they’re doing.”

---

Nancy led the group straight to the hole. With the low sun angle, the hole made a dark spot, almost like a grave, in the middle of the tall grasses.

“Watch your step,” she called out in general. She knew the group was exhausted. The volunteers were still recovering from being drugged. Nobody had much water all afternoon. She just needed to keep them moving until they could settle down and rest.

It was uncomfortable to cross the open, grassy space without the cover of the trees. She had grown to consider the trees her natural habitat, her home. The trees could hide her, an important feature in a world filled with people who would attack whenever they could. As true as it was that Plainos avoided the hill, the experience with Silus’ people showed that there could be new enemies at any time.

The idea of a stopping place motivated the group to move a little faster. Within a few minutes, all of them were gathered around the east end of the hole. Some were looking in while others just stared nowhere in particular, exhaustion having stolen their curiosity.

Nancy tried to use her best leader voice. She hated being loud; it felt like she was giving away her hiding place. “This is that old house the Plainos are scared of. I’ve been here before and there is nothing bad about it. We’ll camp in this hole in the ground for the night. No one can see our fires from a distance. It’ll also keep the wind off of us. We should be safe. Just be careful of old pieces of metal or broken wood. You can burn the wood.”

She called over to Oak, “Start helping people get down. There’s a piece of metal tube part way down on this wall that can be used as a step.”

By this time, the Vanier brothers had moved closer to Will Faring. “Watch them,” Faring said. “They’re climbing down into that basement. Probably planning to camp for the night. I only saw a few of them with bows and didn’t see any guns. You guys see anything?”

The other three shook their heads in response.

“Good,” Faring continued. “We’ll let them get settled. If I was them, I would leave one or two on guard at the top, but Spotties don’t always think like we do. Once they’re down, we’ll move.”

It took a while to get everyone down safely. Many of the volunteers were either too exhausted or hadn’t been in athletic shape to begin with. Oak lowered Henry and Henry Junior down first. They stayed near the pipe and helped the others get down. When Mary was lowered, she helped guide people away from the pipe and got them to gather firewood.

While this happened, Nancy walked away from the hole and circled around it. She still felt vulnerable out in the open. The sun fell just below the horizon, leaving enough light to see the clearing, but not clearly. The first stars rose in the east, promising a clear night. That would make things chilly, but at least they wouldn’t get rained on.

She got back around to Oak as he lowered the last of the others down.

“All, done,” he said. He seemed relieved and a little tired.

“That’s good. I didn’t like having everybody out in the open.”

He looked around, scanning the clearing and the woods around. “Expecting trouble?”

She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m always expecting trouble.”

They stood for a moment, each looking out into the growing night.

Below, the people in the hole were setting up little groups, each with their own fire. Nancy thought the wood would last longer if they made fewer fires and larger groups, but was too tired to argue with them. Many of them had just been willing to run off with a violent cult because it used promises of comfort. Getting that out of their heads was going to take a while.

She thought back to something Old Herman used to say, “Comfort is the enemy of progress.” He was an old man from where she grew up and had been in something he called Army before the Storm. With his survival skills, he kept a lot of people alive in an old building. He said it used to be a mall, a place where people could get things they needed. Then he would laugh and say they also got a lot of things they didn’t need. He didn’t care if you had spots or not, saying we all had to pull together. When he died…

She shook her head slightly to get herself back to the present. “What are your thoughts?” she asked Oak. “I’m thinking the two of us stay up here on guard for a while. About midnight or a little later, we see if Herman and his son want to change places.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said. He leaned over the edge of the hole and called out, “Hey Herman!”

Herman called back, “Yeah?”

“Nancy and me are going to stand guard up here for half the night. You and and your boy ok with changing places with us later?”

Herman Junior answered, “Sure thing!”

Herman looked over at him. “Well, I guess we’re ok with it.”

“That takes care of that,” Nancy said.

She pointed to the northwest corner of the hole. “I’ll go over there. You can stay here. You see anything, give a yell.”

“Sure thing,” he said, mimicking Herman Junior.

She walked around the edge of the hole, staying far enough from the edge so she could watch the treeline and not worry about falling in.

Over, hidden among the trees, Boss Henry’s men watched.

“They’ve only posted two guards,” Noah whispered. “They must not expect an attack.”

Faring shook his head in the dark. “It’s more likely that they only got two who would be any good as guards. Did you see how they had to help most of them down? I don’t think this is an army; it’s a group of damned refugees. They probably ran away from that camp we hit. When it comes to fighters, I think we have them out numbered.”

Oliver whispered, “Should we go get them?”

“Not yet,” Faring answered. “Let’s wait till just before sunrise. They’ll just be waking up and we’ll be able to see if they have any nasty surprises for us. Besides, we still need to blow up that door, and that can take care of a bunch of them.”

With that, the four fell into their regular sleep-and-watch schedule, the same one they had used for as long as they had been together.

Moving in the Dark

Trying to move quietly with a heavy load went slowly for Tom and his crew. Each carried a bundle, including water, from the camp and the exertion wore them down.

“Let’s stop for a rest,” Tom said. He stopped and lowered his load to the ground.

The others did the same.

They all dropped to a seated position as if practiced.

“How much further do you think it is?” asked Pedro.

It took a moment for anyone to answer as they all tried to reckon their movements and the location of the Old House Hill.

“I think it is still an hour, maybe two,,” said Pedro.

“That’s in daylight,” said Tom. “With the sun going down, we’re going to trip on every root and twig out here.”

Juanita added, “They are counting on us to get water to them. Will they be ok?”

“Nancy will see to their needs,” said Tom. “She’s pretty good at getting things done.” That was one of the reasons they all followed Nancy, they could trust that she would figure out a way to accomplish the goal. Tom wished he had that skill, but that wasn’t really a thing.

Carlos added, “Yeah, but Nancy would keep going through the dark even if it killed her. She’s not one to stop, but none of us are her. If we get hurt or lose our way in the dark, it just makes things worse in the long run.”

Pedro nodded in agreement. “What he said.”

Juanita had been looking back the way they came. It was still quiet, and night had fallen there earlier than up the hill. “I know we don’t have too much farther to go,” she said, “but I still feel too close to the camp. I don’t like it.”

The others turned to look back at the darkness of the valley. Each had their own memories of the things they had seen. It was never going to be a clean place, never again.

Carlos broke their silence, “I think we are far enough from that. The ones left there won’t bother anybody. The ones who caused it are long gone, safe at home in their beds.”

Tom looked around at the growing dusk. “I think Carlos is right about getting hurt. If any of us gets hurt bad, not only will we not get all this stuff back to the others, but we become a burden. I don’t want you guys to have to carry me back and I don’t want to die out here in the woods.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Pedro. “Want to take a vote to make it official?”

Tom held his hand up. “I vote ‘rest for the night’.”

Juanita held her hand up. “Me too.”

Carlos and Pedro held their hands up as well. “It’s decided,” Carlos said.

They each took a tree to rest against, their packs held close.

Changing of the Guard

Oliver nudged Noah and whispered, “Something’s happening.”

Noah shuffled to see better.

Near the hole, the two on guard had gathered near the bigger of the two. They reached down to lift two more people out of the hole. All four seemed to chat briefly before the original guards climbed down. One of the new guards took position on the opposite corner of the basement.

Noah whispered, “They changed their guards. That’s kind of organized.”

“Think we should wake Will?” Oliver asked.

“Nah, we’ll tell him when it’s his shift. It don’t matter right yet.”

The brothers went back to their silent vigil.

Daybreak was still hours away.

The quiet walk south brought warmth back to everybody’s legs. Nancy led her small group through the woods, trying to stick to animal trails or water-worn areas to minimize the noise. By mid morning, they reached the floor of the valley and neared the road and stream.

She gestured with her hand to get everyone to gather. “Ok, we’re getting close to the road,” she said. “The trees are going to thin out; anybody we run into is probably going to see us.”

“Do you think there’s still anybody there?” Mary asked.

Nancy shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. We just don’t know what’s going on.”

Oak asked, “You got a plan?”

“Maybe, but it’s not a happy one,” Nancy answered. She passed her eyes over all the group members, analyzing each for a moment. There were some who were known for their skills as hunters, but the others were just people who had nowhere else to go. They all needed to get better at the hunting life if they were going to make it. “Ok,” she started, “here’s my idea. Some of us are better at being quiet and shooting arrows, you know, hunting. I think a small group of us should sneak up to the road to check things out. The rest wait here until we get back.”

“Who do you think should go?” Tom asked.

Nancy glanced away for a moment. “I’m open for volunteers.”

The final selection included Nancy, Oak, Tom, Juanita, Herman, Carlos, and Pedro. It took a brief argument to convince Herman Junior to stay behind, but his mother won out. The seven stalked their way toward the road.

As Nancy had described, the trees grew thinner. The shade of the dense pines gave way to the more dappled light of the aspens. They were at the eastern end of the valley where the hills on either side flattened and it all emptied into wide grassland. The undergrowth was still tangled and hid dry, easily stepped-on twigs.

A wind from the southeast rustled the leaves of the trees, making a soft roar and moving the branches so that the sunlight coming through put on a light show. To Nancy, this meant it was likely to hide any small noises her people might make, but it may also make it easier to hide an enemy. Silus’ people also had spotts and might be hard to see if they wanted to hide.

They nearly reached the road when they saw Enoch and the volunteers.

Nancy stopped and the others drew near.

Tom was the closest. “What are they doing?” he whispered.

“Probably waiting for the rest of their group,” Nancy answered. “There’s only eight of those ragged guys. Why are our people just sitting around?”

Herman sidled up, “I think there’s something wrong with those guys. It looks like they’re chained together.”

Nancy looked more closely at the volunteers. Still about thirty of them, but they weren’t moving much, just sitting on the ground. Herman was right about being tied together; some had chains and others ropes.

Tom leaned in to whisper again. “I really want to kill Silus’ people and untie ours.”

Nancy looked at his angry face and then turned to see that Herman held the same expression. The others had moved in close to hear.

Whispering just loud enough for them to hear, “Does everybody want to do this? Are we all agreed on attacking?”

Nodding heads gave the answer.

“Ok,” she said. “Spread out so we have all of them covered. I’ll give a signal and we all attack. Got it?”

They quickly split and spread among the trees to get a better vantage on Silus’ ragged men.

Nancy moved forward to a position near the edge, kneeling behind a tree trunk. From there, she watched the subtle disturbances in the weeds and undergrowth as her people moved to their places. Her pulse raced and she struggled to keep her breathing under control. Her anger at the Plainos had always made it easy to attack them, especially if they were actively engaged in violence toward one of her kind. Now, she was attacking people like her, sort of, and they weren’t actually being violent at the moment. Still, she remembered what happened at the camp. She also thought about That Thing.

Nancy checked the arrow nocked on her bow, and then strode out of the woods, making enough noise to draw attention to herself.

Enoch and the ragged men saw her and shook themselves into position.

The emissary of Silus raised her arms in greeting. “Welcome! I bring you a message of hope, peace, and love from Brother Silus.”

Nancy raised her bow. “I already got Silus’ message. Take him my reply.”

Enoch looked down at the shaft sticking out from her chest. Her smile drooped and eyes began to water. Then she fell back against the side of her sedan before sliding to a seated position, motionless.

The sedan bearers looked on in shock, but just for a moment. They received their own arrows and joined Enoch on the ground.

In less than a minute, all Silus’ people were dead.

The seven emerged completely from the woods, amazed at their success.

Oak immediately ran to the volunteers to check them. The first he saw, a fellow named Lutz, who sat staring forward. Oak knelt in front of him. “Hey! Hey, Lutz! You ok?”

Lutz looked up at Oak’s face and blinked a few times.

Oak called over to Nancy, “I think there’s a problem. You got to see this.”

“In a minute,” Nancy said back, trying to keep her voice low. She then turned to Herman. “You go back and get the others. Bring them quickly; I don’t want to be out in the open too long.”

Herman nodded his acknowledgement and plunged back into the woods.

Turning to Tom, Juanita, Carlos, and Pedro, she said, “Take up some guard positions around here. We don’t need anybody catching us.”

The four split to surround the scene as best they could. Tom and Juanita went to either side of the trail back toward their former camp and hid just inside the trees. Carlos and Pedro followed the other end of the trail and split, going slightly uphill and finding hidden viewing positions.

With that covered, she could attend to Oak. “What’s up?”

Oak pointed to Lutz. “I think they’ve been drugged or something.”

“Why would they drug them?”

Oak shrugged. “Docile lambs to the slaughter? I don’t know, but that might be why they’re still here.”

“Crap!” Nancy thought about it. If the volunteers couldn’t move, there were only two choices. They could leave the volunteers and let them be at the mercy of anybody who found them, or they could wait around until the volunteers recovered, with the same results. “You don’t think they can move at all?”

“Maybe,” said Oak. “I haven’t tried yet.”

“Well, if they can’t walk it’s going to be a problem.”

“I can try to get him up to see what he can do.”

Nancy looked at Lutz. He sat with splayed legs and his back hunched. Chains held his wrists together and connected him to the hands of the person next to him. Nancy pointed that out to Oak, “You’re going to have to get him unchained before you can do anything with him.”

Pad locks held the chains on ten of the volunteers; rope held the others. While Nancy undid the ropes, Oak searched for a key. He checked Enoch first, and then her sedan. It was the first time he was that close to them. The odor said they weren’t into bathing.

The sedan contained a padded seat covered in a patchwork of white and light gray cloth and fur. Next to the seat, a cabinet hung from the wall. The cabinet seemed like something built in the old days, before the Storm. The joints fit tightly together and the hinges on the doors all matched like they were made by machines. The wood would have been smooth, but something had scratched it quite a bit. The inside had three small shelves and two drawers.

Oak found a key in a small drawer in the cabinet. “I’m glad I didn’t have to search those guys that carried her,” he thought. “They don’t seem that clean.”

Nancy had most of the others untied, choosing to untie rather than cut so she could keep the rope. One of the women she untied was only groggy, as though the drug was wearing off.

“What’s happening?” asked the prisoner.

“A lot,” Nancy answered. “What do you remember?”

The woman shook her head and blinked a few times, trying to remember. “We left the valley and got out here. Then they said we had to take communion; they said it was a ritual that connected us with God. I don’t know much after that.”

“That’s ok,” Nancy said. She placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “There is a bunch of stuff you don’t want to know about.”

Herman returned with the rest of the group and then helped Oak with the unchaining.

A few more of the volunteers became aware of things around them. One of the men, recently unchained, pushed himself to his knees and looked around. He saw Silus’ people on the ground, arrows sticking out of them. “What did you do?” he demanded. “What the hell did you do? I get it if you didn’t want to go, but why did you have to kill them?”

Oak tried to reassure the man. “They weren’t what they seemed. After you guys left, they attacked the camp. They had a whole army of those rag guys.”

“What are you talking about? They wouldn’t do that. They were servants of God!”

Nancy walked over to one of the dead men in rags. She was sure that anybody, other than Enoch, who served Silus went through the same treatment. She pulled the hood off the dead man.

His mutilated head rolled back. Little remained of his nose and both ears had been cut to strands dangling from his scalp. Random scars, some from cutting and others from branding, crossed his face. Part of his skull showed through where he had been scalped.

“This,” Nancy said, “is your servant of God. When they attacked the village, they started branding and cutting everybody they could catch. They drugged you and were leading you to this. If the Plainos hadn’t shown up with guns and wiped everybody out, your nose would probably be all over your face by now.”

The man, and many others of the volunteers, stared in disbelief at the misshapen head of Silus’ servant.

Nancy put her hands on her hips in an attempt to seem forceful. “Alright, we got to move. We don’t know if more of Silus’ people are coming. We don’t know if more Plainos are coming. All we know is that we won’t be safe here. Let’s get everybody on their feet and get going.”

An initial attempt brought some of the volunteers around, but it took nearly an hour before the whole group began their journey southward and uphill.

Mostly Headed Home

After the raid, the villagers and their allies had returned from the valley. The victory left them exhausted, unaccustomed to the adrenaline. That night, back at the village, they held a celebration with what resources they had, but most needed their beds early.

By late morning the next day, Boss Henry had his men ready to go.

Mike Billings saw them off. “I appreciate your help. We couldn’t have done it without you. You’ll let us know if we can help you some time.”

Boss Henry pulled himself up onto his horse. “I’m sure we’ll need each other’s help again. We regular people got to stick together if we’re going to make it. Just remember what I said about bandits; I hate the idea of your village getting massacred just over some grain.”

“I appreciate it,” Mike said. “Have a safe trip home”

With that, the New Chicago team headed south down the road.

By early afternoon, as they arrived at the west end of the valley road, the same valley road that guided yesterday’s raid, Boss Henry called for a halt.

He motioned to one of his men, “Will, I want you to take a few men and check something for me.”

Will Faring, the man he addressed, pulled his horse forward. “What do you need, Boss?”

“You know, Will, I’m not one for spooks or haunts or things like that. Most rational people are like that. You know what I mean?”

Will nodded.

“Good,” Boss continued, “so you’ll understand if I don’t really believe that those men at the village think that those hills are haunted. I think there may be a chance that they just didn’t want us looking around.”

“I can see that,” Will agreed.

“Now, we saw that the hill with the dead cows really does just have dead cows on it, but that could just be there to scare people away. What we didn’t see is that other hill, the one with the old house. That’s the one that’s got me curious.”

Will nodded again. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“You do that and then catch up with the rest of us.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” Will pointed to three other men and turned his horse toward the hill. His three companions followed.

Boss Henry watched the group head off, and then started his own group back to New Chicago.

The Hard Part

Getting the newly released volunteers up the hill took quite a while and created a lot of noise. Nancy was sure they all knew how to be quiet and had to keep reminding herself that they had been drugged. Still, every snapped twig or grunt made her cringe.

Ultimately, they had to reuse the rope with which they had been bound. The line of drugged people held the rope for guidance and followed the path as best they could. Oak, the largest and easiest to see, led the line, trying to guide them along a path that didn’t require any complex steps or climbing. His easy path made things slow too, but it was the best way to keep everybody moving.

It was late afternoon before they got to a place where they could stop to rest. The exercise, with its increased blood flow, sped the recovery, and people were getting back to their old selves and their old stealth. The image of the mangled servant of Silus also sped them.

The woods on that side of the hill, being near the end of the valley, were not as dense, nor was the underbrush. That made it harder to hide. Nancy hated that part but decided getting distance quickly was more important than being unseen. Now that they were at the top of the hill, where an enemy could see any silhouettes for miles, it would be more of an issue.

“Ok, everybody, sit down and try not to make too much noise,” she said.

Those who had been with her the previous night or longer immediately dropped. The new people took a bit more encouraging. Once they realized that it was for both rest and hiding, they sat fast enough.

Oak left the volunteers and made a crouched walk to where Nancy sat. “What’s the plan, chief?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes at being called chief. “We got to figure that out.”

Her group of seven hunters all made their own way, hunkered down, to sit around Nancy, each with a form of Oak’s question.

“We still have the main problem,” she said. “We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know if there are more of Silus’ freaks out there. We don’t know where the Plainos are. And now, we have to move this group of people.”

The others nodded agreement.

Oak added, “We don’t know where we’re moving them to and we don’t know what we’re going to feed them.”

Nancy raised her open hands up and dropped them in exasperation. “That’s another issue. We need food and water for everybody. The nearest water is the stream down through the valley, where our enemies are. We can’t hunt enough food for all of these people, and a lot of them can’t hunt.”

Carlos asked, “Do you want someone to go check the camp to see if we can salvage some food and get water? I’ll do it. Maybe see if there are any bad guys there.”

Tom chimed in, “That’s probably a good idea. We can get information and maybe some leftover supplies. If the Plainos are gone, they probably killed all Silus’ people. Anything the Plainos didn’t scavenge may still be useful.”

“Ok,” Nancy said, “that’s probably the best plan we have. Thanks, Carlos. But I don’t want to leave all these people out in the open or just sitting around. I want to take them to the old house. We’re already on the hill, but we can get more forest cover and maybe use some of the old structure as shelter until we decide what to do next.”

“Besides,” Juanita said, “The Plainos won’t go there. They think it’s cursed.”

The decisions were made. Carlos, Pedro, Tom, and Juanita would go back to the village. Oak would continue to lead the volunteers; they seemed comfortable with him. Nancy would take point on the path to the old house. Herman and Herman Junior would fall in behind to watch for anyone following the group. Everybody else went with the volunteers.

The sun moved lower in the western sky, showing the distant mountains on the far horizon.

Side Job

Will Faring led his three men to the crest of the hill. He had known the brothers Oliver and Noah Vanier since childhood. He met Jimmy Nakano when they both started working for Boss Henry. He could trust them but, more importantly, they all worked together as a single unit.

The men from that farm village seemed genuinely afraid of this hill. They called it Old House Hill as though that was supposed to mean anything. The world was littered with leftover buildings and crap from before the Storm. It was just junk that someone built once and then got broken. It didn’t mean it had anything supernatural attached to it.

Boss Henry told him everything about the Storm. Most people heard about the Storm, but it was before any of them had been born. Boss Henry heard it from his old man, and the old man was from before the Storm happened. That’s why Boss Henry knew so much.

According to the old man, the Storm was the result of some experimental technology. That means some guys were trying to make a new kind of machine. The old man said he was watching it on something called the news and reading about it online. Those were old machine ways of talking to each other. Anyway, the guys were trying to get their machine to work and some people called terrorists blew it up and made it work wrong. Faring had been taught a little of the art of blowing things up. He could see that as an issue.

Man did it work wrong. The old man said it punched a bunch of little holes in the world and that made everything go wild. He said it was like when you snag a piece of your clothes and it starts to unravel, but there were a bunch of tiny snags everywhere. The weather was part of the world, so the weather unraveled and that’s why we got the Storm.

There was nothing magic or anything like that. It was just a big machine that did something it wasn’t supposed to. That’s why Boss Henry says there’s no such things as curses or hauntings or anything like that. He says it can be fun to tell stories around the fire but as soon as you got to go through the door, it’s all just machines.

That’s why Will didn’t harbor any fear of the supernatural as he and his companions broke through the brush and into the clearing on top of Old House Hill.

The clear area stretched quite a ways, almost the size of a small village itself. Tall weeds covered the ground. Scattered throughout, pieces of debris of some sort rose from the ground. It mostly looked like long, thin sheets of metal sticking up as though someone had stabbed them into the ground.

Will scanned the area looking for signs of movement. Seeing none, he started his horse forward. He drew his rifle from its scabbard beside the saddle.

Without a word, the brothers turned their horses to follow the tree line toward the south. Jimmy Nakano turned his horse north.

As Faring made his way through the grass, he saw various pieces of things that were once part of a building, maybe several buildings. He had seen pictures in books that showed how people lived before the Storm. A house with several other buildings was not uncommon in a rural setting. This hilltop would have been such a place.

The regular lines of bricks protruded from the ground showing the foundations of those buildings. He was right, there had been several, and they were really big. The books told him that the biggest of these buildings would have housed farm machines or livestock. The people before the Storm had incredible machines that did everything for them. Boss Henry was going to bring that world back someday.

It was difficult to see all the things in the grass. The wind blew the tops of the tall grasses around and the tangle of previous years’ growth wrapped the artifacts tightly. Some things looked like parts of rotting boards, all covered in moss and peeling paint. Other things were clearly metal, often rusted beyond structure. There were a few things that were probably plastic. Will had been told all about plastic and had seen many examples. Before the Storm, people made all the plastic, but no one knew how anymore. Boss Henry may want this plastic gathered at some point.

Halfway across the clearing, he stopped. The foundations of this building didn’t just mark the boundary, but marked an actual hole in the ground. The large, rectangular hole was nearly as big as the largest building. The bottom, covered with grass and pieces of whatever had been there before, was about a man and a half down. This may have been the actual dwelling for the people who lived there. Faring thought of all the people he knew who lived underground for protection from the elements and from attackers.

He decided to wait there until his men rejoined him. With the sun sinking behind him and the wind sighing through the grass, the hole took on a somber feeling. He understood how the superstitious people would think this place was haunted. The upper lines of the foundation and the far wall of the hole took on an orange tint. The rest of the hole slowly filled with shadow as though it had sprung a leak of darkness and would soon be overflowed.

The three approached from the east, having met at that side of the clearing. They stopped at the east side of the hole, looked in, and then rode around. Noah and Oliver rode around the south side, and Jimmy the north. As they went, they looked through the hole as best they could.

“Did you find anything?” Will asked as they got to him.

They shook their heads no.

“There’s just bits of building and little bits of rotted things that may have been something,” Jimmy said. “There was less as I got further east. I think whatever wind did this hit from the east and threw everything that way.” He pointed toward the setting sun.

“That’s kind of what we saw,” added Noah.

Oliver nodded.

Will pointed to the hole. “I want to know what’s down there, but it’s almost night. We’ll need to camp up here tonight and do a thorough investigation tomorrow. While we still have some light, let’s make sure there are no surprises down there.”

All but Faring dismounted. Jimmy pulled a rope from his saddle and started to uncoil a part. He handed one end to Oliver and walked to the edge of the hole.

Oliver tied the end of the rope to his saddle and stood by his horse to keep it calm.

Noah grabbed the rope and slid it through his hand as he walked toward Jimmy.

The two men nodded to each other, then Jimmy stepped back into the hole, holding the rope looped around his backside.

As he descended, Jimmy walked backward down the wall, letting the rope slide slowly around him and through his hands. As he reached the bottom, he took one careful step onto the grassy ground. Noting that it was solid, he let himself the rest of the way down.

He drew a knife from a belt sheath and held it at the ready in front of him. Taking careful steps, he followed the perimeter of the hole, looking for anything in the walls or the ground that could hide a danger.

Faring watched this from his horse. He knew his men and what they could do. Boss Henry had relied on them for plenty of side projects. They had explored old buildings, retrieved useful items, removed obstacles, and any number of other special tasks. No matter what happened, Boss Henry could rely on them, and they could rely on each other.

“Found something!”

Jimmy’s call from the hole seemed excited but not alarmed.

Faring got off his horse and walked to the edge of the hole, rifle at the ready.

Jimmy pointed to part of the wall. “There’s a door here. A big one, made out of metal. Looks like people could go in. The hinges are big too. I can’t see the latch to open it.”

“Does it look like it has been opened recently?” Faring asked.

Jimmy looked around for signs of activity. “No, the whole thing’s rusted.”

Faring thought for a moment. If it was rusted shut, it was unlikely to be a threat right away, but it would be worth exploring, maybe with explosives. “Ok,” he ordered, ‘finish the rest of the check and we’ll see if we can open it in the morning.”

He went back to his horse. From what he remembered from the books, most people did not have large metal vaults in their houses. That was something for rich people, the ones who had resources. Whoever had this house must have had something worth locking up. It could be precious metals, machines of some sort, or even weapons.

Someone once told him about people called preppers who stockpiled weapons and food for when things went bad. The Storm would have definitely been a “gone bad” situation. Is that what happened to this house? Did preppers live there? If so, that vault may contain their stockpiles. If the wind that destroyed their home happened fast enough, Boss Henry would be really happy with what they found.

Jimmy made it the rest of the way around without finding anything more than the remains of old metal pipes and rotting wood beams. Oliver and Noah, with help from the horse, helped him out of the hole.

Will pointed toward the treeline. “We’ll camp over there, out of sight. If anybody shows up to this so-called haunted place tonight, I want to know about it. Tomorrow, we’ll open that door and then head home with whatever we find.”

The other three walked their horses toward the trees. It wasn’t the first time they had camped in the cold and dark, waiting for someone to come along.