Zero Trilogy (Book 2): Day One (7 page)

“I can’t believe we walked that far,” Elle muttered.

Bravo tucked his head and trotted faster, pulling ahead of Elle.

“You’re a show-off, dog,” Elle said.

Bravo tilted his head, suddenly tensing.

I smell people
.

Elle stared at him. He turned on his heel and began moving forward, silently creeping through the underbrush, threading his way through the maze of trees. The shade in the forest was chilly. Elle struggled to keep pace with Bravo. Her feet felt like blocks of cement.

She needed to rest…

And then she stopped, dropping to her hands and knees in the bushes. There was movement up ahead, voices. Bravo paused near the edge of a Manzanita bush, his ears flat against his head.

“Bravo,” Elle whispered. “Come on. Back here, boy.”

He hesitated.

Okay…

Then he turned and joined Elle.

“Good boy,” she said. “Okay, what have we found here?”

She crawled forward on her stomach, straining to see through the branches and bushes. She heard the rumbling of trucks and the clear, rough laughter of men. She stopped moving, nearly placing her hand on top of a strip of rusty barbed wire. A dozen strips of
the wire had been threaded through the trees, creating a fence.

“I think we found it, Bravo,” Elle said, her voice low.

She peered through the makeshift wire fencing. There was a clearing in the midst of the forest. She saw pickup trucks and old jeeps. She caught glimpses of unshaven men in tattered clothing. Elle’s heartbeat quickened. There were a few old buildings and what looked like corrals between the trees. There were several horses and, on each tree, there was a gold star.

Slaver Territory
. Bravo crouched on his haunches, seemingly giving Elle a nudge.
Told you we’d find it
.

“You did good, Bravo,” Elle whispered.

Of course I did. I’m a dog
.

           
“Don’t get cocky.” Elle moved her gaze from the corrals and the trucks to the side of the mountain. There was an impressive rock face behind the encampment. It jutted into the sky, fierce and dominating.

           
A dirt road had been carved into the side of the mountain, winding up toward the rock. It was a new road, probably made by the Slavers.

Several trucks rumbled up the road, and in the

back of the trucks, there were people. They were

too far away to see their faces, but from here,

Elle could tell that they were packed together

like sardines in a tin can.

Prisoners? Had to be.

“What are they taking them up there for?” she whispered.

You tell me. Humans don’t make any sense half the time
.

Elle offered a half-hearted grin.

“I guess we’ll have to find out,” she said.

Good plan, girl
. Bravo’s eyes glimmered.
Let’s do that
.

“If we make it out of this alive,” Georgia said, taking a drag on a cigarette, “I’m going back to college and making something of myself.”

“I doubt colleges are going to be the first thing that’s rebuilt in society,” Jay replied, cracking a wry smile. “We’ll probably have to focus on the more basic elements of survival first.”

“I’m not an idiot.” Georgia rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying. I’d like to teach.”

“You? A
teacher
?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I just…That’s a picture, I’ll give you that.”

They were sitting on the ground, taking a brief break from the long walk out of Los Angeles. Flash and Pix sat together, silent. Elle stood apart from the group, watching and listening
.

Georgia made a face
.

“Hey, at least I have ambitions,” she snapped. “What would
you
do if you had another chance to climb the social ladder, Dr. Phil?”

Jay shrugged
.

“Oh, come on,” Georgia prodded. “Enlighten us.”

Elle watched Jay’s face. It was veiled in shadow, difficult to read
.

“I don’t know,” he said
.

Lie. Elle knew he was avoiding the truth
.

“You’re a total bore, Jay,” Georgia commented, blowing smoke into the air. “Remind me not to get stuck with you again when the apocalypse hits next time.”

Jay shrugged again
.

Georgia was smiling
.

Elle said nothing
.

“What about you, shortstack?” Georgia asked, turning to Elle. “What would
you
do in an ideal world?”

“There is no ideal world,” Elle deadpanned
.

“Come on, use your imagination for once in your life.”

Elle stared at her feet
.

“I would have stayed in Los Angeles after the EMP,” she said. “I would have saved my family.” Georgia balanced her cigarette between her fingers
.

“You’re morbid, kid,” she said, but there was sadness in her words
.

Then, in a soft voice, Jay replied
.

“I would have done the same thing.”

Elle slipped through the trees. She was a dark flash, and Bravo was her shadow. She had pulled far enough away from the Slaver encampment to avoid being seen, but remained close enough so that she could hear the rumble of their trucks and the garble of their voices echoing off the mountains.

“We’ve got to get to the top of that rock cliff,” Elle breathed, stopping behind a tree. Bravo panted next to her, following her line of sight. “I think they’re keeping
prisoners up there. If Jay and the others are here, that’s where they’ll be.”

At least, that’s what Elle was hoping.

She could be wrong. Jay, Georgia and Flash could be dead.

Hey
. Bravo nudged her with the tip of his nose.
Focus, lady. We’re on a mission, remember?

Elle nodded.

The road that led up the cliff embankment was too exposed for Elle and Bravo to use. They would have to come up behind the road, sifting through the thick brush and the cover of the trees. If they were careful, they could at least take a peek at what was up there…

“Okay, let’s go,” Elle whispered.

She crept forward, keeping a close watch on everything around her. They got close to the dirt road. Elle paused. There were no trucks coming, no men. She tensed and darted across the road, vanishing into the other side of the pathway. Bravo followed her, staying close. She grinned and rubbed his head.

“We make a good team,” she said.

The growl of an engine echoed through the forest. Elle dropped to her hands and knees and pulled
on Bravo’s collar. “Down,” she commanded. “Stay down!”

A diesel pickup truck blundered by on the road. It was going slow. The pickup bed was packed with a dozen or so prisoners. There were men and women – even a couple of children. Elle swallowed her disgust, peering at the men inside the cab. The windows were rolled down. A Slaver with long dreadlocks was driving, hanging one arm out the window. Two armed men sat beside him, and four or five guards trailed behind the pickup on foot, toting rifles and what looked like AK-47s.

Elle frowned.

This was not an encouraging sight.

She waited until the truck and the guards had passed them to get up and walk. The thought occurred to Elle that the Slavers were going to monumental pains to set up their encampment in the heart of the mountains, and they were bringing in
dozens
upon dozens of new prisoners every day.

What were they using them for? What purpose could the Slavers possibly have for prisoners? Why did they need so
many
of them?

There’s a rumor going around
, Sienna had said.
There’s something big in the desert. Something the militias can’t stop
.

Elle pushed back the cloud of worry gathering at the edges of her mind and focused on the task at hand. She knew from personal experience that staying alive in hostile territory required concentration.

One wrong move and you could be dead.

Elle and Bravo followed the basic direction of the dirt road, staying hidden in the cover of the underbrush and darting from tree to tree. The hill became steeper, and Elle had to use rocks and bushes to pull herself up. Bravo’s progress was slow but sure. They both fought gravity and exhaustion as they struggled up the hill, pausing only to catch their breaths.

They rounded the right side of the rock cliff, coming close to the clearing at the top. Elle stopped. She stayed low. The road curved around the corner here, opening to a wide space that was hidden behind the large granite face. There were four large, makeshift corrals here. Each corral was built of wood and topped with sharp barbed wire. People were packed into each corral, some of them standing, some
of them sitting on the ground. Some of them looked like they had passed out and were lying in the dirt, strewn at odd angles.

Slavers were walking between the corrals, armed to the teeth, dressed in black clothes, scarves tied around their faces. They looked like pirates – like mercenaries. There were guards everywhere – except on the rock. No one was guarding the rock. It was a sheer drop-off on the other side, at least four hundred feet to the bottom. A long fall to a quick death.

The guards were armed with more than just AKs. They had swords strapped across their backs, resembling medieval warriors.

“We are
so
dead,” Elle muttered.

She searched the corrals for the familiar faces of Jay, Georgia and Flash, but she couldn’t spot them. There was no way to see everyone. They could be anywhere.
They could be
dead
.

Elle shook herself.

If the kids
weren’t
here, at least she would have closure. At least she’d know that she had
tried
to do the right thing. She could live with that.

She could live with
try
.

At the farthest edge of the clearing, a corral was filled with younger prisoners. Elle saw a flash of dark skin and hair, faded cargo pants and a red shirt. Jay? It certainly
looked
like him, but from this distance, she couldn’t be sure. Near him, there was a girl with a matted tangle of blond curls. Georgia? God, the resemblance was striking. She was wearing a denim jacket, exactly what Georgia had been wearing the morning they had been taken by the Slavers.

But where was Flash?

She didn’t see him, and her heart sank. Maybe he didn’t survive the journey here. Maybe the Slavers killed him. Maybe, maybe, maybe…Elle’s heart hammered against her ribcage. She knew what she needed to do; it was simply a matter of
how
to get it done. Elle turned her gaze to the guards – there were too many. She couldn’t possibly sneak past them without being spotted.

“There’s only one way we’re getting out of this alive,” Elle whispered to Bravo, keeping one hand on his collar.

Bravo looked at her.
You don’t say?

Yes.

She did.

Chapter Eight

The night was freezing. Elle had left her backpack with Bravo at the edge of the forest. No moon. No stars. Only a canopy of thick, dark clouds. Elle shed her coat, wearing a tee with a thermal. Her hands were wrapped with strips of tape. She touched the cold granite of the rock cliff, barely able to see the outline of the rock against the night sky.

She could do this. It would be a piece of cake.

All of those gymnastics competitions and rock-climbing lessons would come in handy.

Thanks for forcing me to be social, Mom
, Elle thought sadly.

She picked up a coil of black rope that she had salvaged long ago and kept in her pack. She slung it over her head and across her chest. She had shoved a pair of wire-cutters into the pocket of her cargo pants, a small tool she had picked up long ago in the city. Her katana was strapped across her back, and the Smith and Wesson was secured in her waistband. She had ten shots in the magazine –
only
ten. Hardly enough to stave off a Slaver army, but it would have to suffice.

Elle found hand and footholds in the side of the rock and began climbing. It was slow, careful work. She didn’t have much light to work with, so she had to take her time. One misstep could send her down the cliff. She pulled herself up, balancing on her toes. She climbed up the far side of the rock, away from the direct view of the Slavers in the lower encampment.

You’re practically there
, Elle told herself.
You can do this!

She had climbed many buildings in Hollywood after the EMP – when Day Zero had turned the city into an urban jungle. She scaled walls, drain pipes and boardwalks. She was fast and quick, light on her feet. It had kept her alive.

Her fingers were freezing tonight. Elle struggled to maintain a grip on the slick, gravelly granite rock. She glanced down. The forest floor spun beneath her, a hundred feet below. She inhaled quickly and closed her eyes.

“Don’t look down,” she muttered.

Looking down could distract her.

She kept climbing, resting when the muscles in her arms burned. She found a large crevice in the rock and wedged herself into the crack, placing the bulk of
her body weight on her legs, letting her arms hang loose for a moment.

Pace yourself
, she thought. That’s another thing Mom had always said.
Pace yourself and you won’t get so tired at the end of the game
.

Sure, Dad had been the one who paid for all of Elle’s gymnastics and climbing classes…but it was Mom who came to every competition and encouraged her.

Okay, keep going
, Elle reminded herself.
This is
not
a game. This is real
.

Halfway up the rock. There was no turning back now. She had to go through with this. Her heart raced, fear sending pulses of electricity through her body. One wrong move could end everything.

A gust of fresh, cold wind swept over the rock face, blowing strands of hair into Elle’s eyes. She shook them off, her fingers cramping in the cold weather. She pulled herself up to the next handhold, jammed her foot into a supporting crack, and moved higher.