Born in the Apocalypse 2: State Of Ruin (9 page)

Chapter 21

When I was finally in the saddle, I urged Judy to greater speed than standing still, and she was happy to comply. We hit the main road in this area and headed west.

I was somewhere northwest of Freeport, but I had no clue as to exactly where. The road I was following was called Cedarville Road, but I hadn’t seen anything of Cedarville. Maybe it was behind me. I really didn’t care. This part of the state was very wooded and hilly, and the further west and north I rode, the better I liked it. There was game here in great supply, as I routinely spotted small herds of deer.

If I could find a decent place to settle into, I might make this place home and move up here. I’d have to ask Kim if she wanted to come up as well, and get a wagon to bring up my favorite things, but it was possible. People moved all the time.

As I traveled further west, I could see signs of a town on the horizon. There were homes that were without barns, and they were getting closer together. I kept an eye out for any Trippers, but I didn’t see any activity like that.

Judy and I reached the outskirts of the town of Lena, and things were very quiet. The sun was high overhead, and it was a nice late spring day, with few clouds and a gentle breeze to push us along the way.

We moved further into town, and I pulled my rifle out of its scabbard. I don’t know why I did that, maybe it was a response to Judy tensing up a little. Maybe I was sensing something that was out of place. I couldn’t say what it was. But as we moved further into town, the feeling got stronger and stronger.

I walked Judy carefully through town, onto the main street that took us right into the heart of the town. There were old businesses on both sides of the street, and it looked like in its day Lena was a thriving place. I crossed a railroad and turned up another street. The quiet of the place was downright creepy. It was as if the breeze was avoiding this place. I passed a long grey building that looked like a storage center, and that was when I stopped.

In a small clearing by the railroad tracks, there was what looked like the remains of a carnival. Rusting rides still had remnants of bright colors on them, and some were looking like they were just waiting for the next set of riders. The Ferris wheel was a small thing, but it was decorated like no other ride. On every car there were corpses, hanging from the sides. Every body had a rope around its neck and hands tied behind their backs. Men, women, and children were all hanging, twisting in the breeze with their dark faces up to the sky. Some of the people were hanging just low enough that their feet could almost touch the ground, and I wondered about that cruelty of letting someone see salvation just inches away. As I looked, I began to see how it was done, and it was sickening to think about; the people were tied to the carts, then hoisted into the air, while the second group was tied to the next cart, and so on. The corpses were in pretty bad shape, and I guessed they had been there for at least a year. At the base of the Ferris wheel, some of them had fallen off their ropes and were crouching in broken piles.

In the center of the Ferris wheel, someone had hung a cardboard sign. It only had three words, and I had to squint to make them out. The scrawled letters spelled out “Resistinse has consecuences.” Obviously, spelling was not a priority.

I shook my head and turned Judy away. She was more than happy to leave that wheel of pain and death, and I didn’t blame her. That was just sick and twisted, and I was going to have to keep an eye out for anything that looked remotely out of place. If that was what I could expect, I began to think my best bet in this area was to shoot first and ask questions later.

I let Judy walk in whatever direction she wanted, and it just so happened she was heading south. As long as it went away from here, I was fine with it. We hit what seemed to be a major road and I turned right, heading back west. I knew at some point I was going to hit the wall. Some weird part of me wanted to see a corner of the wall. I couldn’t say why.

The road was Route 20, and it was an easy walk. The countryside was full of rolling hills and streams, and in a few places, I threw a wave to a family living on their own in the middle of the hills.

I spent the night in an old stone barn near the road, and Judy was thrilled with the accommodations. I was sure she could still smell the old inhabitants that used to hang out in the same place. I slept in the old hay loft, fifteen feet off the floor, and when I pulled up the ladder, I was as safe as I could be. I thought a lot about what I had seen earlier that day, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. Was there some kind of revolt against a local power? Why else would anyone go to the trouble of killing everyone and putting a sign on it? That was a message, plain and simple.

I hoped whatever caused that was well and over with and I wouldn’t have to deal with whoever did that.

Chapter 22

We kept moving on and reached the northern edge of Stockton. I didn’t even want to go near the place, so I circled Judy wide around the town. There may have been people there, there may have been Trippers, I didn’t really care.

I picked up 20 on the other side and we kept on walking. The land turned very hilly, and there were several nice valleys with farms that were very much still alive. It stood to reason that the terrain was not very friendly to Trippers, and chances were pretty good that at the bottom of several canyons and deep ditches were the bones of Trippers who fell.

Near the top of a large hill, there was a tower. It was a huge structure, stretching up at least a hundred feet. There was a ramp system that wound its way up the tower, and after a little coaxing, I was able to get Judy to walk up the ramp. It was getting on in the evening and I hadn’t seen a decent farm to spend the night in a little while, and I didn’t want to test the hospitality of the folks who were just trying to survive.

At the top of the tower, I secured Judy and fed her from the meager stores I carried with me for nights like this. I had a bit of corn feed for Judy and a canteen of water that I put in a small metal bowl. I fed myself some jerky and corn, mixed with some bread that I had to soak for a bit. I looked over my supplies and decided I needed to hit a town of some sort soon and try to do some trading. I could feed myself by trapping and hunting, and Judy was happy as a clam to graze wherever she could. But the dried goods for times like this were harder to come by.

The view from the tower was spectacular, and I could easily see for miles. I could see the grey line of the wall to the north, and there was another to the west. I couldn’t see where the corner was, but I figured it was somewhere close. I looked to the south and east, and wondered how Kim was getting along. Life sure seemed easier out here, further away from the city, but I knew there were other cities around, and there would be Trippers coming out of those as well.

The sun set behind oncoming clouds, and I was glad for the timber roof above my head and the solid walls of the tower. I was safe from the rain that might show up later in the evening, and so was Judy.

I talked to my horse until the sky was dark, then laid out my bedroll for the night. I secured the tower by closing the gate that barricaded the entrance. Any Tripper coming up that way would have to climb a four and a half foot fence, and Judy would kick them down the tower steps if they tried it.

I dozed off to the sound of approaching rain; it whispered on the new leaves of the trees below, and pattered quietly on the roof above. I put my cooking pot out on the ramp to catch some water for the morning, but unless we got a steady rain all night or a sudden downpour, it wouldn’t amount to much more than a mouthful for Judy and me.

Deep in the night I woke up, and I could see the rain had stopped. I looked around at the landscape and to the south, I could see a few lights of farms as some kept lanterns lit or fires going. To the east, I could see a light here and there, but it was mostly dark landscape. I looked over to the west and I was surprised to see clouds lit up by some big light below. I had no idea what might cause such a light, but it was very curious. My mind drifted back to the first time I saw something like that, back when Trey and I were in a building high above the ground like this one.

To the north, there was not only one light like that, but three. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, and I was intensely curious about it. I watched the north for a long time, wondering if I was going to see lights like I had before. After an hour, I figured there was nothing to see and I went back to bed.

In the morning, I discovered it was a hell of a lot harder to get a horse to go down a ramp than go up one, and it took me most of two hours to coax that stubborn mare down to earth.

A quick meal and we were back on track, heading towards the corner of the wall. I could think of no other place to go at the moment, and I suppose I needed to think about where I was going to head after that.

Chapter 23

As I neared the town of Galena, I pulled off the road and followed a sign the read The Galena Territory.  A second sign read Eagle Ridge Inn and Resort, which sounded interesting.

The roads were a little more grown over than what I was used to, but they were still passable. We walked carefully in, and I noted there were a lot of homes centered around an area taken up by a large building. That building was Eagle Ridge Inn, and it lay near a large lake I could see stretching out under the trees that surrounded it. Several horses were hitched at the entrance, and I figured it had a few people living in such a large place. It was shaped in a kind of L, with a large meeting area where the two sides met.

I turned Judy’s head away from the building and moved deeper into the territory. The roads turned from paved to gravel, and the grass had really taken a lead on these parts.

Up in the hills, I saw some occupied homes and some unoccupied ones. I even saw some faces look out as I rode past, but they didn’t return the wave I threw them. I rode up a hill and below me in a small valley was a huge horse barn. It was at least a hundred yards long and about half that wide. Judy could literally run herself in circles in there without wanting more space. I almost turned down to inspect it when I saw the blackened windows and blown-out doors. At some point, they must have had a serious fire in there, and I wasn’t looking to see if there was anything to salvage.

Around the bend, I took another turn and looked out across another small valley. There was a two-story blue house across the way, and another house nearby that was burned out as well. I was beginning to wonder if there was some sort of sinister pattern around here when I rounded a corner and saw a house sitting up on a hillside.

It was a small home with a porch on the second story. The first floor went into the hillside and the whole thing seemed to be in decent shape. I went up carefully and led Judy behind me. I tied her to one of the porch pillars and circled the house. Everything seemed solid, so I went up the stairs to the second floor and stood on the porch above Judy. I could see clearly out over the valley, and saw that there was an old barn and outbuildings down in the valley. Everything was overgrown with weeds and trees, and it seemed like it had been abandoned even before the Trippers came calling.

I tried the glass door to the house, but it was locked. I was about to try breaking in when my eye caught a place in the siding just a few feet from the door. Pushing on the small panel, it flipped over and dropped a key out near my foot. I couldn’t believe it would be that easy, and when I tried it, it wasn’t. Not giving up, I went around the house and discovered the key would work in a back door on the first floor. Pretty clever, that.

Inside the house was neat if a little dusty. It looked like people didn’t really live here all year long, they just came up here spend some time away from their other homes.  I found some tools and cleaning supplies, and surprised Judy when I popped out the lower door. She shook her head at me and I laughed at her.

Looking at the space under the porch, I figured it would make a decent stall for Judy in the short term, and I resolved to go down to the farm to see if there was anything I could use. I found a bucket, and I poured the last of my water into it for Judy to drink. Grass we had plenty of, so I wasn’t worried there. I saw several game trails up the hill, so I set two snares to see if I could get a rabbit for dinner. I hiked up the hill behind the house, just to see what was behind me, and at the top of the hill, I could see many surrounding hills with homes sitting on them. I could also see herds of deer as they moved out of the protection of the woods to the feeding grounds below. Off in the distance, I saw the human-worked land of crops growing, and there was a sparkle to the west that told me where the lake was. On the other side of the hill, there was a mass jumble of rocks and trees, and I knew no Trippers would ever make it over the ridge. Hell, I was tired just climbing up this far, and my head was relatively normal.

Back at the house, sitting on the porch, I was struck by how peaceful it was. It was nice to finally relax for a bit. I figured I’d stick around for a while and see what I could see around here. It was a nice place and there was a lot to be said for the solitude.

I had a lot to do, but I was pretty sure I was going to like this place for the time I was here.

Chapter 24

“Hello the house!”

The call came early in the morning, and it was accompanied by Judy giving a nervous nicker. I stepped out onto the porch to see that three men on horseback were positioned on what might have once been my front lawn. The men were all hard looking, and seemed to be armed. I saw that one of them was positioned in front of the other two, so I assumed he was the leader.

I had been at the house on the hill for over a week, just taking things easy after a month of travel. I had explored the immediate areas, and while there were a lot of places I had seen, there were still some hidden hollows left to explore. Across the valley, there was a hidden trail that led past an old one-room schoolhouse that you couldn’t see from the road that circled the valley. The trial led to the top of a ridge with a winding road that led back to the main lodge. I don’t think anyone had used that trail in years. I also had found a pump well down by one of the outbuildings in the valley and after some coaxing, got the pump to start sending out water. I took planks off a fence down by the barn and used them to shore up the small corral I kept Judy in when I wasn’t letting her graze on the hillside.

“Can I help you?” I asked. I wasn’t wearing my gun, and for some reason, I felt extremely underdressed for the occasion.

“You alone?” The speaker was a thick man, probably in his mid-forties, wearing a greasy T-shirt that barely covered his bulging gut. His arms were large, and I could see there wasn’t much fat on those. This man had done some heavy work in his time. His knuckles were scarred from past battles, and I had a suspicion about why he was the leader.

“Hang on, I’ll be right down,” I said. I ducked back into the house and quickly buckled on my Colt. I thought about covering it, but then I might need the second it would take to sweep the coat back. I took a quick look outside the back windows and didn’t see anyone there so all of my problems were out front. That was better.

I stepped outside, calming Judy down. She was pacing back and forth and clearly did not like the men in front of her stall.

“Howdy again. How can I help you gents?” I said.

The leader took in my height and shoulders at a glance, and then his eyes traveled down to the gun at my hip.

“Names Mort Piker. This territory belongs to me. Anyone living here has to ante up to stay here.” He looked at the house and corral. “You’ve secured the place pretty well, but it won’t matter now.”

“Why not?” I asked. “I’m not bothering anyone.”

“You hunting my land? Your horse feeding on my grass? That’s bothering me. So in order for you to stay, we’ll just take that fine horse off your hands. Saddle and tack, too,” Piker said.

“What? That’s crazy! You’re not taking my horse,” I said, dropping my hand to my gun.

Piker snorted. “You looking to get killed over a horse? Get your hand off that gun before I take it off you and shove it up your ass. Mike, get that horse.”

“Mike, is it?” I asked of the man that moved. “You try to take my horse and I’ll kill you,” I said. “And Piker? I’ll shoot you next.”

Mort snarled. “The hard way, huh? Pete, shoot this kid.”

The man Mort referred to brought up his gun, bringing the stock to his shoulder. He dropped the rifle and tumbled off the horse while the other two men handled their horses. I laid a calming hand on Judy and slid my smoking Colt back into its holster.

The horses finally calmed down, and Mort was beet red mad. I could tell he wanted to kill me in all sorts of nasty ways, but I shot too straight and too fast for him to try anything here. I kept my eyes on him and his friend. I knew in an instant I had made an enemy who was going to do everything he could to make me suffer.

“This ain’t over, punk. Your last day’s coming. But you’re going to suffer first.” Mort wheeled his horse and rode away, followed by Mike, who had put Pete on Pete’s horse, led the two away.

I went inside and began packing. I had no illusions about what as going to happen next. Mort was going to return with a lot more men and he was going to burn me out as soon as he could. He’d already lost a man and judging by how quick he was to have me killed, I figured he was judge, jury, and executioner in these parts. I had a feeling he might have been the one behind the Ferris wheel of death.

Half an hour later, I hear Judy snorting outside, so I went downstairs to see what was up. She was moving back and forth on the far side of the stall, but she had done that before so I didn’t think anything was too out of order.

I stepped outside to calm her down. “Hey, girl, what…?”

Something struck me a wicked blow to my head, and I went down to my hands and knees. I saw a pair of boots behind me and I tried to reach for my gun, only to feel it jerked out of my holster. I looked up just in time to see another fist hit me in the head, and a boot kicked me in the ribs. I tried to crawl away to get some distance, but another blow landed and everything went black. The last thing I heard was Judy’s enraged neighing.