Lethal Seasons (A Changed World Book 1) (8 page)

“There was a period of time when the government spent most of its resources herding people. After the riots, they ushered people into smaller units. After the cities failed, they tried to corral people into settlements. Finally, by establishing the med centers as hubs, they forced people to settle nearby or do without.”

History of a Changed World
, Angus T. Moss

Nick felt too exposed, stopped in the middle of the highway. Smoke sailed across the road in gauzy streamers, and the glow ahead seemed to be getting brighter. “Think the fire’s hit the highway?”

In answer to his question, Wisp pulled up the navigation again. “This program only updates once a week.”

Nick wondered how he knew that. He seemed too well informed about things that Nick didn’t even know existed. “So it won’t have the fire,” he acknowledged. He watched Wisp’s hands run over the controls pulling up different programs. He wasn’t just looking at maps. There was an air filtration system that he turned on, and the ground radar was up again. “What are our options?”

“I may be able to stitch together some side roads.”

Nick took a deep breath trying to ease the tension in his shoulders. The back of his neck prickled. He felt like there were eyes on him. “We need to get off this road.”

“Turn around.”

Nick followed Wisp’s instructions to a smaller road that felt like it was going in the wrong direction. The pavement was broken into an uneven mosaic. Despite the excellent shock absorbers, the ride was more lurch than wobble. He had to drive slower, worrying about the effects on his injured passengers. In a few minutes, Wisp directed him on to a dirt road, which was often safer because there was no asphalt to disintegrate. This road was smoother, but narrow and largely untended. He had to maintain a slow speed, sometimes tearing through sections overgrown with vines and weeds, other times barely able to locate the road from the fields on either side of it. The van was well enough equipped for the off-road portion of this trip. They drove in silence for nearly an hour. His hands were locked on the wheel, and his eyes gritty from staring at the meandering lane in the jouncing headlights.

“Do you want me to drive for a while?” Wisp asked.

Nick didn’t take his eyes off the road as he considered it. Did he trust this person enough? This biobot? Had they gotten that far already by sharing a firefight? Did he trust him with the fragile passengers? His head ached from it all. He didn’t know where they were in relation to High Meadow. Roads changed every year, some washed out, got buried by landslides or a forest of trees tossed by a tornado. Landmarks melted under the onslaught, and the land he knew as a kid changed too quickly. Without a compass or GPS, it would be hard to make his way back. He was still mulling over his answer when Wisp touched his arm.

“Trouble ahead.”

“Now what?” Nick grumbled. He increased the beam illumination and the headlights showed a barricade of broken furniture blocking the road ahead. A handful of men with long guns stood at the edges.

Wisp made a sound like a growl. “This is a bad place.”

A bullet pinged off the windshield. Nick flinched automatically. “Son of a bitch. They’re trying to kill us.”

“Not bandits. Worse.” Wisp said. “They will kill the men and take the women.”

Nick didn’t slow. “Think we can plow through that crap?” He was worried. They didn’t have a lot of choices here.

“This is a very sturdy vehicle. Escape is our best option.”

Another bullet pinged off the windshield.

“Better tell them to hold on,” Nick said. Wisp went into the back to warn the others.

Nick headed straight for the barricade. As he got closer, he saw that it was more than just furniture. There were logs and tires. He probably wasn’t the first person to try ramming it. But he was pretty sure he was the first to try in an armored vehicle. He gunned it.

The impact wasn’t as spectacular as he had envisioned. The van crashed through wood, climbed over tires, hit a brief free area before ramming into a pair of old pickup trucks and pushing them yards down the road. As soon as the van’s tires were solidly back on dirt, Nick threw it into reverse to get around the trucks. The bandits were firing, bullets pounding the vehicle. The sound got louder, and Nick realized Wisp had opened the roof to return fire. He almost told him not to, but if a tire was hit, they’d be sitting ducks.

Nick swerved around one of the trucks and found the road again. When he saw the next barricade in the headlights, he hit the brakes so hard it knocked Wisp off his feet. Across the road, bound into place along a chain, were captives. In the glare of the headlights, they looked like children. A high cackle broke through the sound of the gunfire, followed by catcalls and hoots. Nick felt a gut-deep loathing for the man who had thought this up. Someone scrambled forward from the back of the van.

“My God!” Jean leaned against his seat. “We have to help those kids!”

Nick was thinking the same thing. But his mind wasn’t working fast enough. Men were lining up in front of the van. Dirty men with greasy hair and clean rifles. They wore animal pelts at their belts and strands of odd shaped beads around their necks. There was a feral-ness to them that raised Nick’s hackles and made his muscles twitch in anticipation of violence. As long as Nick kept the doors locked, they were safe in the van. But the longer they sat, the bolder the attackers would become. He needed a plan right now.

“Get out of that thing!” A slightly larger, somewhat cleaner man with a bald head banged on the hood of the van. He grinned, showing a mouth full of rotting teeth.

“Wisp, can you tell how many there are?”

“Many.”

Nick heard Wisp moving in the back, but he kept his eyes on the men.

The bald man threw his head back and cackled again. The sound had the sharp edge of insanity to it. Then he spun and shot one of the children.

“No!” Jean screamed as the slender figure dangled limp from the chain. The remaining children huddled in on themselves.

Nick lurched to his feet as automatic fire sounded above him. Wisp was firing on their attackers from the roof hatch. The men in front of the van crumpled to the ground in bloody heaps. Jean shoved a gun into Nick’s hands. “Lock this,” he snapped at her as he charged out the door.

He started firing before he had his bearings. Jean had given him an automatic weapon and the kick tossed him back a step. He blasted the woods around the car as he headed for the children. He could hear Wisp firing single shots from the top of the van. The area was pitch black but for the headlights. He couldn’t imagine how Wisp was finding targets.

He didn’t look at the kids. He knew if he did it would make him so angry he’d stop thinking. He went straight to the the chain and tracked it to a huge metal ring anchored to a massive old tree. He’d need a grenade to get that loose. A bullet whined by him and thudded into the tree showering him with chips of bark. He spun scanning for the enemy. A skinny boy of about fifteen was hiding by the side of van. He raised a gun and aimed. Nick ducked behind the tree as another bullet slammed into it. When he looked out, low and slow, the boy was down. Nick looked for Wisp, but couldn’t see him above the headlights.

“Look for a key,” Wisp called to him.

Six men down and Nick didn’t have the slightest doubt they needed killing. He located the bald-headed man among the bodies in the road as that one seemed to have been the leader. Close up the bandit was even more disgusting. His teeth weren’t just rotten, they’d been filed to points. A new level of repulsion welled up in Nick as he realized the pelts were human scalps. The odd beads were small bones, probably also human, he didn’t want to look too closely. The man stunk of old sweat and rancid fat. His clothes were filthy. Nick felt contaminated as he searched the pockets in the stained jeans, but was rewarded with a ring of keys. Now he had to face the prisoners.

With occasional gunshots sounding behind him, Nick worked at releasing the prisoners. Taking a better look at them, he realized they weren’t children. They were men and women, starved and broken. The taut chain across the road held them on their knees, some straining up or down to remain at the imposed height. None of them looked at him as he unlocked the steel collars around their necks. One man bolted as soon as he was free, scrambling away on all fours. There were six women and three men, not counting the one that ran. One man was wheezing badly. Once released from his collar, he collapsed on the road, gasping for breath.

The captive who’d been shot was starvation thin. Nick unlocked the collar and lowered the body to the ground. He barely weighed anything. Signs of abuse were all over his body. Nick kicked the chain away. He needed to bury this man, to put him to rest with a shred of dignity. He dragged the body out of the road and lay him on a strip of grass. He looked back at the rest of the prisoners. They remained where they had slumped, eyes down, unmoving, festering sores from the collars weeping pus onto their stained clothing. They needed food, water and medical supplies. He was momentarily caught between wanting to give aid and cautious at using their dwindling supplies. With William and Bruno using up the bulk of medical supplies, and all of them needing food and water for at least another day, he wasn’t sure how much they could afford to give away.

As if she’d read his mind, Jean made the decision for him. She brought water and train food to the captives, but they didn’t respond to her. Eyes lowered, most of them shied from her where they crouched on the road. She left a bottle of water and packet of Stew-goo, both opened, in front of each one. Then she came to where Nick was coiling the heavy chain at the side of the road. “What should we do?” she asked.

Nick didn’t want to bring these people to High Meadow. They were damaged, physically and mentally. Angus wouldn’t turn them away. But they would probably need care for the rest of their lives. It was a cold thought, but they were a liability. If they had any other trouble on the road, this lot would be of no help. He regretted letting Wisp talk him out of riding the train. A clean, well-lit station would be a god-send right now.

“You got em fed and watered. It’s warm enough to sleep out tonight. See if any of them will let you check their wounds.”

Jean winced, a look of revulsion crimping her brows.

“Sorry,” Nick said. “I can do that in a bit.” He turned to look for Wisp.

The biobot was standing by the front of the van watching the woods. Nick went over to him. “We need to do something about these folks.”

“Grand View is just north of here. They have a med center.”

Nick felt a fast flash of anger. He didn’t want to go further north. He wanted to get to High Meadow.

Wisp flicked a pale-eyed glance at him before returning his scrutiny to the woods. “We can leave them here, but I am not sure that we were able to eradicate the entire cult.”

Nick shot a frown at him. “Cult? You know who these nuts are?”

Wisp walked a few steps away, standing over one of the bodies. “Without a closer look, I didn’t realized who they were. The bone necklaces and scalps gave them away. They call themselves Maneaters.” He gave Nick an eye roll. “Not the most imaginative bunch. They are cannibals. There are a few groups of them around. They believe the only way to survive is to eat those that appear immune.”

Nick felt sick, defeated. Cannibals. What had happened to these people that made them believe that was a viable course? He stared out into the surrounding woods. Small towns scattered across the country had become entirely isolated over the years. Many agricultural communities had carried on in their own tradition without much fuss. Other towns had devolved into petty oligarchies or church-based cohorts. Then there were pockets of pure evil, like this one. He felt a strong longing for High Meadow and its high ideals.

Despite how sick this made him, he felt responsible for the captives. The best course was to take them to the closest source of medical help. “How far to Grand View?”

“I will look for a road.”

As Wisp went back in the van, Nick walked around the vehicle to check it. A few scratches and dings. The tires were all in good shape. He came to the boy that had shot at him. Close up, he could see he was wrong again. Not a boy at all, just a skinny, runt of a man with filed teeth and three scalps on his belt. He felt no regrets. This was a death deserved for a vile predator.

“Wha’ abou’ da chirren?”

Nick spun, startled. One of the captives stood near him. She stared at the dirt. Nick’s gut twisted. Her bones had been broken and healed at odd angles. She looked badly put together, all angles and lumps. “What?”

She shot him a quick look, one eye socket was sunken. She gestured with a stick-thin arm. “Da chirren.” Her words were garbled from a lack of teeth and a mangled tongue.

Nick followed her gesture, peering into the darkness. Wisp exited the van and joined him.

“You understand her?”

“She’s fearful and hopeful and yearning for something over here.” Wisp walked confidently into the night.

Nick wondered if his pale eyes let him see in the dark. He had to shuffle along, snagging his feet on vines and weeds. A wobbly finger of light came from behind him. Jean joined them, flashlight in hand.