A River of Ash and Bone, page 31
“I tripped on a broken piece of concrete and fell onto a discarded lawnmower,” she huffed. Sure enough, a quick glance at her knees revealed a variety of scrapes and bruises. “So I scraped out a quick SOS in the dirt and tossed your hair tie on top of it–sorry–and then ran in a different direction so they wouldn’t find it, because at that point they were practically right behind me.”
“That was smart thinking. If they find that, along with the X’s we carved on the way there, maybe we’re not doomed after all. Assuming that they know we got snatched up by the very same group whose base they found on this past trip.”
We sat in uncomfortable silence for a long chunk of time before I spoke again. “Do you know what they want with us?”
She shook her head, eyes growing dark when a voice rang out across the hollow space. “Glad to see you’re finally awake,” the man with red hair commented as he nodded at me. “Now we don’t have to carry your heavy ass all the way back to our base.”
Ex-fucking-scuse me? The man was at least three times my size, surprisingly built for someone living in what was supposedly a huge metal and concrete box in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and he was complaining about my deadweight? He was the reason I was unconscious to begin with!
“I’m so sorry to have inconvenienced you,” I said sarcastically. Feeling oddly vulnerable lying on the floor like I was, I ignored my blossoming headache and worked myself into a sitting position against the wall at my back, using my elbows. Anna maneuvered with me so we didn’t yank on each other’s arms where they were tied together.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, lass.” I heard a murmur around the corner and muffled laughter. “We’ll be there in an hour or so. No bitching unless you wanna be gagged. We leave in ten.” With that, he turned on his heel and left.
“Could be worse,” she muttered weakly.
I rolled my head to the side to eye her incredulously. “If you say so.”
So much for my fucking “heroic” plan.
We reached their base just as the sun set for the night. It was exactly as Merikh and Caelan had described, except for the zombies they’d spotted around the fence line. We were facing a couple of large warehouses, and behind us were nothing but empty fields. A few torn-up parking lots sat to our right. Now that I knew we were in the same place the guys had spotted, the only question was if they would know we were here and how long it would take them to figure it out.
“Come on, then,” the dark-haired man urged, pulling me by my elbow and tsking when I stumbled. Anna followed behind me, no longer tied to me by the wrist. We made our way down the gradual incline and navigated through all the fencing to end up right at their front door. This was just perfect, the exact thing that the guys had been worried about and I’d delivered myself on a silver platter, and not only that, I’d dragged Anna down with me.
One of them knocked an odd rhythm on the set of heavy doors until we heard the sound of a bolt unlocking before they were yanked open, and we were ushered into the large space.
I took advantage of the fact that we were momentarily standing still and looked my fill of the place. It was much darker than outside, due to the lack of windows. The only light came from the narrow windows near the ceilings and the candles decorating the shelving units against the walls of the warehouse. There were multiple doors to the right and at the back was a door that must’ve led to a room or hallway. It was just as messy as I’d predicted on the way here, huge boxes filled with paper and trash that I suspected they didn’t care enough to haul outside or into another building.
Multiple men were ambling around the space, some were even playing cards in the corner. They had fewer numbers than we’d assumed, clearly having experienced the joys of natural selection, or maybe they were just so shitty that everyone steered clear and they were never able to replenish the few they lost.
Anna made a small noise, and I stopped short when I followed her line of sight and realized what was sitting in the center of the room.
Women.
They weren’t gagged, sobbing, or bleeding like I would’ve expected. They were largely silent, watching us with surprise and maybe a little suspicion.
The girl in the middle caught my eye first. She was wearing a long lilac-colored dress, and her dark, unruly curls were tied back in a tight ponytail. She somehow seemed different from the others, more self-assured and confident. The other three were in a sloppy huddle, making quiet conversation as they kept a wary eye on us. What the actual fuck was going on here? To see up close, the worst-case scenario that had been preached to me day in and day out by my father… It was like diving into icy water and having my senses shocked.
“Come on,” a new man said gruffly, shoving a hand into the middle of my back to get me moving. I hadn’t even noticed him coming up behind me. Anna grumbled a curse, clearly displeased with all the shoving.
The smell was unbearable. Clearly, they didn’t have access to enough water to shower with and it showed. It was throwing me back into my past, when I’d go weeks without finding a safe enough area to bathe, falling asleep every night trying not to cry about how dirty I felt and the sheer gratitude when my dad had found a tucked away stream or a home with a working well.
God, I was so privileged to have been so angry about being at their camp. Naïve, selfish, childish. I rubbed my hands over my face. I hadn’t understood how good they had it. Sure, I’d heard stories about these kinds of groups and how they operated, but it was one thing to hear whispers and another to see it up close in all its glory.
“Take ’em to Gunner,” the new man commanded. He was older than the others, skinny as a rail with a beard down to his chest. I ignored his ogling and marched along after the red-haired man we’d come with. The other two broke away, greeting their friends and casting the odd glance in our direction and they filled them in while we were marched to one of the doors along the right wall, right in the middle. He knocked several times, waiting patiently until someone grunted for us to come in, then swung the door open.
The room was fairly small. A medium-sized window lay against the wall opposite us, and a desk took up nearly the entire room. The floor was covered in trash, and an odd smell filled the space. My eyes landed on the man sitting in the office chair. Large, grizzled, intimidating. His long, scraggly beard hit his stomach, and when he smiled, his teeth were yellowed, missing, and chipped from what looked like years of poor dental hygiene. Even when I’d had only a cupful of water left, I used a minuscule amount to brush the toothpaste off my teeth after leaving it overnight. This man looked like he hadn’t touched a toothbrush in twenty years.
“Fresh meat?” he asked with a leer, eyes scanning their way down my body.
I resisted the urge to shudder, clenching my fists tight so that my nails dug sharp divots into my palms. Anna made an indignant noise and received a pinch to the arm from the man behind us.
The man–Gunner, I supposed, if the guy outside was to be believed–crossed his arms over his large belly and leaned back in his chair, content to watch us. Back at camp, everyone was filled out, the result of years’ worth of steady meals and having enough for seconds. But out here in the wild, it was uncommon to find anyone eating well. To see this man comfortably fed when his men and the girls outside were underweight and hollowed out was a good indicator of what kind of leader he was. Selfish, greedy, self-serving.
“Nah. Found these two with Colby. Guess he knew ’em from the camp. Whiny fuck fired his gun and drew a horde. He’s dead.”
“Good riddance. We had no more use for him anymore anyway. Got all the information we were ever going to need.” I kept my mouth shut as he watched us. “He wanted revenge, y’know,” he said casually. “It only took two seconds for him to throw your entire camp under the bus just for a taste of it.”
That didn’t surprise me one bit.
“They’ll come for us,” Anna threatened. I had the simultaneous urge to both cry and scream. Didn’t she know not to antagonize them? Why engage them in conversation and give them more ammo against us?
Gunner narrowed his eyes. “And who would that be? Don’t see how they’ll know where to find you, even if they did want to waste their time rescuing you.”
Anna rolled her eyes, popping a hip. Damn, she was nothing if not bold even in the worst of times. I wished I had half her defiance because I was maybe, slightly spiraling just a little. I had to cut myself some slack, all my worst nightmares were coming true. Well, some of them, at least, since I’d yet to be gnawed on by a zombie… so that was something.
“The guys who run the camp. If not for me, then for her.” She gestured a hand in my direction, wrist looking chafed and reddened by the rope they’d had on her hours ago. For once, she sounded oddly unbothered about the fact that I’d gotten involved with the guys. I supposed she very well couldn’t be if it was currently working in her favor.
I ground my teeth, close to telling her to shut the hell up before she told them something important. The man who was hovering at our sides glanced at Gunner, a look passing between them that I had no idea how to decipher.
“So,” Gunner grumbled, almost to himself. “Finally got a girl, huh? Bagged all of ’em too. Must have one hell of a pussy,” he commented, looking my way.
I recoiled in disgust, bile rising in the back of my throat at what he was implying.
“Calm yourself,” he snapped. “Got no energy for disrespectful whores like yourself.”
That was something, at least. Although it didn’t escape my notice that he’d said nothing regarding his men. Anna turned a sickly pale color, seeming to realize that she’d slipped up in her attempt to get us set free. Something about that fact had interested them, and I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
“Put her in the spare room,” he ordered the redhead, nodding in my direction.
“And the blonde?”
“Put her out with the rest. She’ll make a nice addition to their group.”
Anna started cursing under her breath as the men grabbed her, escorting her out and expecting me to follow.
Gunner warned my back as I left the room. “I’ll see you soon, girl.”
I’d been in this small room for what felt like forever, although it was only the next day. It was an average room, in surprisingly better shape than half the places I’d stayed, probably due to the industrial aspects. It was just me, the concrete walls, dirty floors, and an off-putting musty smell. Fortunately, it was absent of the clutter and trash covering the floor in the main room. I could hear voices coming from outside, girlish tones that rose and fell accompanied by what sounded like giggling, and non-stop shouting or raucous laughter from the men.
I’d had to pee in a bucket, and much to my mortification, I’d made eye contact with the woman who was sent to collect it. Fortunately, I’d had nothing to eat or drink since before Anna and I left camp, so although I was starving, I had no sudden urge to go again.
The bright midday sun shining through the tiny window told me it was around noon. I’d spent the night curled up on the cold floor and berating myself for being so foolish. I missed the comfort of the cabin, missed Caelan tossing and turning in his sleep, trying to take up as much space as possible and everyone else grumbling at him for it. There was a keen ache in my heart when I thought of my guys, and if I made it out of this alive, I’d have no problem admitting that they were right.
I bolted upright when the door opened with no warning, hastily composing my facial expression. I’d never make it out of here if I wore my despair and regret on my sleeve. I needed to bottle it up to get through this. I could always sort through my emotions when I was back somewhere safe.
The man who entered was the opposite of whatever I’d been expecting. He must’ve been in another room when I was paraded through last night; I would have noticed him otherwise. Tall, dark, and expressionless, he was handsomer than he had any right to be. Goddamnit, why do the murderous assholes get all the good looks?
He looked to be around Caelan’s age, maybe a little older, and I was surprised this group had any younger blood. His dark brown hair was overgrown and clinging to his neck where it curled slightly and his eyes were just as dark, a rich brown so deep they looked black. If I’d thought they would show some measure of disgust or disapproval at opening the door to find a starving person sitting on the floor, I would’ve been wrong.
I watched as he reached into his pocket, salivating when he pulled out a battered protein bar and tossed it in my direction. Seconds later, he pulled a clear plastic bottle from his other pocket. The water inside was a cloudy color, and I stared at it with suspicion.
“It’s from a communal supply, boiled rainwater.” Sounded plausible enough, and to be honest, I was too thirsty to care. I was banking on the fact that it would make no sense to drug me. I chugged it in seconds, sighing deeply at the full feeling in my belly and the way my throat instantly felt less parched. “We try to scrounge up warm meals every now and then,” he informed me, his voice deeper than I’d predicted. “If we do one tonight, I’ll be sure to bring you a bowl.”
“Why?” The question left my lips before I could stop myself. Why the hell would I ask him that? What if he rescinded the offer, and I was stuck eating a bug or something equally horrid just to avoid starving?
His mouth tipped up on one side like he could read my thoughts, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he took a few more steps into the room and slid both hands into the pockets of his pants. “You have something they want,” he drawled, looking out the window at the miles of concrete and wasteland.
They? Not we? I filed that away for future reference, setting my back to the wall and crossing my arms over my chest as I watched him, worried over his potential response. “And what would that be?”
He sighed as he turned to face me. “Leverage.”
Leverage?
“I’m going to tell you a story, and I’m hoping that in doing so, you’ll have a better understanding of why you are here.”
I took a steady breath of the stale, musty air and let it out slowly. “Alright.” A loud laugh from outside the door drew my attention until he began speaking.
“We’ve been nomadic for years. We scout for safe buildings that meet our needs, clear them out, and stay as long as possible.”
I was following so far, but what did this have to do with me?
When he continued, his voice was surprisingly monotone. “We lost a good chunk of members last winter after an incident with an unsecured building. A few months later is when we heard about your camp.” It slowly dawned on me where he was going with this. “We had no way of knowing how many people inside were armed, or what kinds of resources you had. But the scavengers we spotted looked well-fed and happy enough.” His expression grew troubled, and it appeared like he almost had to force his next words out. “My… father. He was tired of starting over, never really living. He got greedy, and selfish.“ He huffed a bitter laugh. “He’s always been greedy and selfish. But all that loss… I suppose it does something to a person. He’s not the same man he was years ago. Anyway, he wanted it for his own. The camp. His men were starting to act out, everyone was starving, and he was steadily losing control. So he told his men to watch from afar, seeing who came and went, how often, and where.”
It clicked that he was referring to Gunner. I really hoped the adage like father like son didn’t apply here. I could use any semblance of an ally, and if this guy was willing to spill so much information and had pull within the group, he would be a good one. I didn’t dare interrupt for fear he’d stop talking altogether, but I wanted to ask just what the point of letting the zombies into our camp was if they wanted to take it over so badly.
“Eventually, your leader left. Mark.” My stomach soured. “Gunner was getting tired of watching and waiting. We were ordered to ambush him at one of the nearby homes, and he was presented with an ultimatum. Provide us with food, resources, and weapons, and we would keep our distance. We were in no position to mount any kind of takeover, not once we learned how many you all have behind those walls, but he didn’t know that. Trained or not, we would have been massacred, and our numbers were already low. He got us whatever he could, smuggled it out whenever he got a chance, and left it at a drop point. It worked fine for several months until Gunner started demanding more. More resources, more meat, more, more, more.”
His voice grew raspy, like he wasn’t accustomed to speaking for so long. He cleared his throat, taking a few moments to just breathe.
“We’ve been running low on certain things,” I murmured.
He nodded. “I’m not surprised. We–they–increased the demand until Mark just couldn’t meet it anymore. He came to us over a month ago, confessing that the camp was starting to run suspiciously low in certain things, that we needed to lay off or we’d get nothing. He was staying with us while we negotiated but, unfortunately for him, we met Colby a few days later. My–Gunner–thought it was divine intervention. Mark is giving us trouble, he was growing impatient and irrational, and here comes this angry fount of information who’s all too eager to share every bit he can about the camp and its residents and the best part is that the only thing he wanted in return was revenge. With actual information on the inner workings of the camp, maybe taking over wasn’t so far-fetched after all.”
It finally hit me what he was saying. “You killed Mark. You no longer needed him.” Yeah, by all accounts, the guy was a complete bastard, and the triplets probably wouldn’t care, but a loss was still a loss. I supposed it was good that they’d have a definitive answer instead of wondering what had happened to him forever.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “They killed him. With all this new information from Colby, there was no need to stay in the shadows, waiting for scraps. We had a list of weak spots, guard changes, weapons supply, a rough headcount; everything we could possibly need to go on the offensive. They started by weakening you slowly, driving up paranoia and mounting small attacks, like what happened with the zombies.”
