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.