CHAPTER TWENTY

 

Dana let the time pass. He could tell from the angle of the sunlight through the boards that it was late in the afternoon. Finally, he crawled out of the hay, put on his still slightly damp clothes, and when he could avoid it no more, looked down to the ground. There was Blake, naked, lying face up. Or, what was left of his face. His chest looked like someone had hit it with a big sharp tool three times. Blood was everywhere around him. His body was paler than his normal dark complexion. Janet was sprawled nearby, blood everywhere around her. There were only small bloody holes in the front of her blouse and one in her knee. Dana wanted to cry. He wanted someone, anyone, to save him from this nightmare. He was alone, and the people who had helped him had died horribly. He was trembling with fear, and began to wonder if he had done the right thing by running.

He had to think, think of what to do next. He couldn’t stay here. He told himself that he had to pull himself together, and to be bold. He told himself he could do it. It was either be tough and carry on, or die. He took a deep breath. Now that he had told himself the die was cast, he began to calm himself a bit.

He had to head towards the next target house. He stared between the boards of the barn, looking in every direction for anyone, or anything, moving. Nothing was. He could only hear the sounds of insects buzzing and clattering, whatever they were. He had noticed that singing insects stopped their characteristic noise when he and Blake had gotten near them, so the continuous noise he heard gave him some confidence. Finally, he strapped on his pack and descended the ladder.

He felt the heft of his pack, and thought he might see if there was something useful in Janet’s house. Then, he would raid Blake’s pack. He stopped at the edge of the barn door and carefully surveyed the area. Nothing. Inside the house, he found that the food in the refrigerator was warm, but not yet going bad. He made several sandwiches and wrapped them in waxed paper, and took some apples. He took a large knife from the kitchen and wrapped it in a hand towel. He refilled his water bottles from the tap. Then, he went back to the barn and stuffed Blake’s hand-light, tarp, and some of his nutrition bars into his pack. He looked down at Blake’s body, the blood beneath it beginning to thicken and draw flies. Blake had been a fool. He didn’t deserve death for taking the risk he had taken, but that had been the penalty nonetheless, and Janet had paid, too. The simple risk/benefit calculation Dana had made had convinced him to hide himself. Some people, he thought, weren’t prone to thinking clearly.

On the map, he saw a forest directly in his path, and realized there were no roads cutting all the way through it. That looked like an ideal place to traverse, and he started walking south-southeast. It was dusk, so there was some light, but Dana felt he had to get away immediately.

Every kilometer or so, he came to a road, and checked it out carefully before scampering across. The first time he found a muddy creek, he rubbed mud on his face and arms. The mud helped with the mosquitos, anyway. The light began to fail, and his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. In short order, he reached the large wooded area, and began to breathe a bit easier. He knew that as he approached the Texas border, he would probably encounter more and more evidence of the army, and his progress would become slower and more dangerous. He also realized with surprise that he was now not terribly worried. That was new for him. He began to feel as though he could handle what was thrown at him. His suppression drug must be wearing off, he thought.

Once inside the forest, Dana picked trails through it, always trying to head south. Sometimes he had to use his hand-light to see the trail. He was learning to move quietly, to place his steps to make the least noise. His test of his own silence was the volume of insect noise. When the volume didn’t decrease, except within a few feet of him, he felt he was moving silently enough. At one point, he saw a deer grazing silently in the low moonlight between some trees. Dana stood perfectly still and watched the deer. After a few moments the deer looked up and stared directly at him. It seemed confused about whether what it saw was a threat or not. Finally Dana made a small movement and the deer vanished, leaping away with almost magical silence itself.

He had been traveling for a few hours, so he decided to stop to eat. By the sound of it, there was a brook in front of him, and he could make out some fallen trees nearby. He sat down on one and opened his backpack, and began to eat one of the sandwiches he had prepared. When he finished, he put on the backpack and was about to work his way across the brook, when he heard rustling on the other side. He froze. There was definitely something, perhaps a large animal or a human, moving through the forest, not caring how much noise it made. Dana was terrified. It was dark, and there was something big over there.

Carefully, Dana stepped behind the fallen tree, and crouched down behind it. He heard the thing rustling and moving from his left to his right, and then he saw it dimly, in a small clearing. It looked like a human, carrying a weapon. It stopped in the clearing and looked around. Then he heard it say, in a deep male whisper, “Never gonna get that deer. Might as well settle down here.” It was a man. And, what was more, he could see the glint of a neck ring. The man sat down with his back against a tree, laying the weapon across his lap.

Dana considered if he should announce himself. He didn’t know if he could trust the man not to shoot him and take his supplies. He might make a useful ally, or he might be deadly. Dana decided to wait for the man to fall asleep.

After a time, the man’s head drooped, and he began to snore. Dana took the large kitchen knife out of his pack and unwrapped it, and left the pack behind the fallen tree. Dana moved very quietly sideways, paralleling the brook. When he judged he was far enough away, he made his way down the bank and over to the other side. The he moved very quietly back to the clearing where the man was, holding the knife in his hand, shaking a little with fear.

Dana could hear the man still snoring. He crept up slowly to the man’s side, pulled the weapon from his lap, and put the knife at his neck, saying, “Don’t move. Be quiet.”

The man stirred and said, “Huh? Who the hell are you?” But he didn’t move.

“My name is Dana. I’m running, just like you. I don’t want to hurt you, I want to help you get that neck ring off. You’ll have to trust me.”

The man turned slightly and Dana pushed the knife a little bit into his flesh. The man relaxed. “Okay! I’ll trust you! How are you going to get the ring off?” He had also covered his face and arms with mud. Dana realized with satisfaction that both of them must be nearly invisible on a dark night in their black clothing.

“I have a tool that I hid on the other side of the brook. Stay here, don’t move, and I’ll come back with it,” said Dana. The man nodded assent.

Dana took the gun, crossed the brook, and found his backpack. He called across the brook, “What’s your name?”

“Alden,” the man replied.

Dana took out the ring removal tool, and returned with the tool and the knife, leaving the weapon with the backpack. “What you have to do, Alden, is to stay perfectly still. I have to find the points on your neck ring where this tool fits, and then activate the tool. You’ll feel some heat. Just be still.” Dana felt the back of the neck ring until he found the small indentations. He put the back edge of the knife in his mouth, and then applied the tool for a minute, and the ring sprang open.

Alden gave a muted “Yahoo! For the first time in 30 years, I’m free of that damn thing! Thanks, man! They can’t stop me now!” He rubbed the places on his neck that had been covered by the ring.

“Alden, just stay where you are, and I’ll bring over some food and water and we can talk, OK?” said Dana. Alden agreed.

Dana splashed over the brook and got his backpack and the weapon, and brought them back to the clearing, staying about 5 meters away from Alden. He propped the weapon up against a tree, and opened his backpack. He tossed Alden a sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of water, being careful to hold the big knife in the other hand, and keep his eyes on Alden the whole time.

While Alden ate, Dana asked him how he had come to run. Between bites, Alden told his story. “I lived in a dorm in Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border. My occupation was repairing drones. For twenty-five years, I repaired drones, mostly the wild bird type with cameras in them. With a bunch of other guys, I worked in a big, open building. I never knew what all those circuits and chips in them did, but I had manuals on how to diagnose problems and replace chips, wings, battery packs, and stuff. These drones sometimes have artificial intelligence in them, and they can be let loose to fly around until their batteries are running low, looking for anything out of the ordinary, which they transmit back to the army or to Male Control. They come back to their home station when they need a recharge every day. The AI in them is smart enough to recognize if a man is behaving suspiciously, and the military drones can recognize enemy personnel and equipment. When we thought we had one fixed, we would set it to fly around the big room, where there were manikins of men walking around at one end of the building, and life-size mock-ups of various military equipment at the other. When they sent the right signals back to the viewscreen we used to control them, we could ship them back for use. Of course, we were always supervised by an army of matrons, and searched before we left the building. We were working dawn to sundown shifts because of the war. I don’t know if the other guys did, but I started trying to put them back together so that they would probably break down in flight. They would have killed me for that, but I didn’t care anymore.

“Last week, a missile, I think, hit the main power station nearby, which was in Oklahoma, while we were at work. The power went out completely. The matrons disappeared. We all took off, but I think most of the guys just went back to their dorms. I took a couple of control viewscreens and ran. I can tap into any nearby drone and see what it sees. So far, there aren’t any MC or military drones looking around in this area.”

Dana asked, “How did you get your ankle ring and wrist ring off?”

Alden chuckled. “I learned a trick. Every time I had a new set of hardware put on, I would tighten the muscles in my wrist and ankle so that they were bigger than normal. I practiced that a lot. That meant the rings were slightly loose. When I got out of the building and found a quiet place, I pulled them over my foot and my hand. It wasn’t easy. I scraped off a lot of skin. If there was enough light, you could see the big scabs that are forming. It was excruciating. But, of course, I had no way to get off the neck ring, until you came along. I figured, as soon as the power came back on, I was toast, because they’d track me with my neck ring. But, now I can put a lot of kilometers between me and it, and they’ll come running here and find nothing.”

Dana said, “Why didn’t you run straight for Texas?”

Alden jaw stiffened, as if he were grinding his teeth. “Because I wanted to kill as many women as I could! I’ve been traveling west. Every day, when the sun goes down, I’ve been marking the place where it set, and I’ve done my best to travel west all night, looking for women to kill. They took everything from me! I’ve had to obey their stupid Rules, and when I didn’t, I’ve been shocked so bad I thought I was going to die! It was no way for a man to live. So, I’m taking my revenge. The first one I killed was a soldier standing guard at an intersection. I waited until there was no traffic, and then threw a big rock that hit her in the head. I took her gun,” he pointed to the weapon leaning against the tree, “and shot her, and left her in the middle of the intersection. I’ve killed several women, usually in isolated houses, every night since then. I shoot the ones who have control boxes on them. The young ones without control boxes nearby, I rape first, and then shoot them. You wouldn’t believe how good that feels. I’m going to do that until they corner me, and then shoot myself. I’ll have a hell of a time until they get me!”

Dana said, “So, you must be the one that patrol was searching for today, who nearly caught me. I heard their leader say that they were looking for a man, just one. After they killed my friend, and a woman who helped us, they seemed to think they were done, because they didn’t do any more searching.”

Alden smiled. “Yep, I bet that was me. Glad I could cause a stir. Sorry about your friends, though. Now, if you’ll hand back my gun, I’ll be on my way. Once I get through this forest, I bet I can kill at least three women tonight.”

Dana had made a decision. “Alden, I will give you food and a water purification straw, and a tarp to hide under, but I won’t give you back your gun. It is just too likely you would shoot me.” He saw Alden eyeing the gun behind him, and waggled the big knife. “Don’t even think about it, Alden. You can kill the first soldier you see and take another gun.” Dana threw the items to Alden, keeping his eyes on him the entre time.

Alden got up slowly, staring intently at Dana. “Alright. I guess I can’t hate you, because you got me out of that neck ring. That might give me a few days extra, and I might get to kill another dozen women. I’d better get started. Good luck to you, Dana.” He turned west and walked away. Then, he stopped. “Hey, Dana, why don’t you join me? You and I could kill and rape a dozen of these bitches apiece. We could watch each other’s backs. C’mon, man!”

“No,” said Dana. “I don’t want any part of killing the innocent. These … girls … in those houses and standing guard at the intersections are just brainwashed kids. I would only kill one of them in self-defense. I might want to kill the women who made the decisions, but not the ones you’re raping and killing. Not me.” Alden stared at him for a moment.

Dana watched him walk away in the dark. As before, he made a hell of a racket as he walked, so Dana was fairly sure Alden was at least 50 meters away when he picked up the pack and the gun, and started moving silently east. He knew that, at some point, the authorities would find the neck ring, and they would know by then that Alden was moving west. Dana needed to get out of the zone they would be searching. It would also be a good idea to keep Alden from finding him, since Alden would think he was headed due south. As he walked, he realized he should have bargained the supplies that he had given Alden for one of his drone control screens.