Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands (24 page)

Jasper swallowed again, his mouth dry like sand.

Another step and then a flash of movement appeared from the corner of the room, out of the shadows, slamming into the approaching attacker and knocking him to the floor. Jasper heard the knife strike the floor with a metallic clang, followed by the sound of a struggle.

A figure rose from the floor, still cloaked in shadow, approaching the bed.

Jasper held his breath.

When the figure stepped into the light Jasper saw the most perfect vision of his life. Emily stood before him, a bloody scalpel in one hand, her face beautiful in the anemic light. They looked at each other for a several seconds, their eyes connecting.

Jasper thought he might be in love.

Then he saw movement from the floor, in the shadows as the man with the knife got to his knees. He stood, the pale light revealing copious amounts of blood as it poured from the slit Emily had made in his neck.

“Emily! Look out!” Jasper cried.

Emily pulled back as the knife-wielding man lunged toward her. She ducked to the side as the knife sliced through the air, inches away from her face. His momentum carried him past her. Seeing her opportunity, she jammed the knife into the man’s back, grunting audibly as she drove the scalpel blade as deeply as she could. Their attacker fell hard, knocking over a table with medical supplies as he crashed to the floor. Lying prone, the man twitched once more before becoming motionless, a pool of dark red blood forming around the body.

Emily ran to Jasper and hugged him.

He hugged her back, just as tightly, as panicked voices echoed throughout the hallway outside the door.

* * *

With Lester dead, Emily left Jasper in the room to find the others. She met Ed and Terry in the hallway where they exchanged their own accounts of the events. She returned to Jasper to update him before joining Ed and Terry in the search for survivors.

Ed found his family hiding in a vacant room within the building, gathered together with Tina, Dario and Reggie. He held them tightly for what seemed like forever, the knowledge of how close he’d come to losing them palpable.

“We have to search the building, look for survivors,” Ed said to Trish. “Some people might be injured.”

“Of course.”

“The kids can’t see any of this.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

“I know you will.” Ed smiled. “I love you.”

Trish lightly touched Ed’s face. “This isn’t your fault, you know.”

Ed sighed, but didn’t respond.

“I’ll help,” Dario said from across the room.

Ed glared at him. “You won’t do a goddamn thing.”

Dario opened his mouth, but didn’t speak.

Ed turned back to Trish. “I’ll be back.”

“Go,” she said. “I have this.”

Ed left her with the boys and joined Terry and Emily in the search. They searched the common area, the room where Lester had first launched his attack, where Ed’s group of survivors had slept. There they found Tex’s body, along with the bodies of two of his men. After some more searching they discovered the body of Tony, who had only the day before helped Ed bury his dead. Now Tony numbered among the unfortunate deceased.

Next they found the body of Herb. Bright red blood coated his bleach-white hair, the lower part of his face a jagged mess of torn muscle and shattered bone. Just feet away from Herb’s body they found Kevin Cook, felled by a bullet, the same fate that had befallen his partner.

Ed attempted to prepare himself for what he’d find next, but when he actually saw it he knew that was impossible. The twisted bodies lying on top of each other, ripped to shreds, blood collecting in thick pools, seeping out of the room and into the hallway. Children, their eyes open, imploring.

Terry turned away. “Jesus Christ, Ed. Why?”

Emily wiped her eyes.

“Do you want to check them?” Ed asked, turning toward Emily and gratefully averting his eyes from the horrific carnage before him. “You know, to make sure?”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do for them.”

Ed nodded before closing the door. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. The words felt empty and hollow. Useless and pathetic.

Emily nodded in return. “Let’s finish this. We need to account for everyone.”

“What about the others? The ones not in this building?” Ed asked. “In your main group?”

“There’s no one else,” Emily replied.

“But Tex said—”

“He made that up. He told everybody that story, trying to protect us. We were just a small group and this was our only building. He just took a lot of people in. He cared a lot for people, for all of us.”

“I’m sorry about all of this,” Ed said.

“It’s not your fault. Taking people in was what Tex was about. He took me in too. And it’s what he liked about you. He told me that.”

“I still feel horrible about this. I know that doesn’t make it any better, but it’s the truth.”

“It doesn’t. Nothing will,” Emily said. She glanced at the closed door. “Let’s get moving.”

With the group’s numbers greatly reduced after Lester’s rampage, the survivors of the massacre reformed in the supply room of Tex’s building. Chloe and Sam stayed together, sitting side by side while holding hands. Their heads down, they stared at the floor. Jasper had been moved from the infirmary to the supply room. Emily sat beside him. Dario and Reggie took seats facing Ed, while Autumn, red-hair still wild and unkempt from sleep sat off the side by herself. Her friends who’d also given themselves new names, Summer and Winter, hadn’t been lucky enough to avoid Lester’s rampage.

Zach, Jeremy and Trish sat off to Ed’s side of the room, along with Terry. Ed glanced at Trish and she nodded in return, the sadness and sense of loss apparent on her face. Zach and Jeremy looked overwhelmed. He knew that look well. After so many years facing the horrors of the virus, his two sons had had more stress than any child should.

Ed faced the assembled group of mourning survivors and found that he had no idea what to say. Things had gone so wrong, so quickly.

“Go on, Ed,” Terry said. “Just say what’s on your mind.”

Ed nodded. Despite it all, he was happy to have Terry Wilkinson by his side.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” Ed said honestly, hoping the rest of the words would come to him as he went. “This is beyond terrible, beyond horrific. As most of you already know, the man who did this is dead. You can thank Emily for that.” He paused, still collecting his thoughts. “Look, I don’t have answers. I can’t make any of this any better. All we can do is figure out what our next move is and grieve for those we lost once we get to somewhere safe.”

“What’s left for us?” Autumn asked, her eyes as wild as her hair. She glanced at Emily. “Everybody we knew is dead.”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Ed said, “but you’re welcome to come with us, you and Emily both.”

“What, so you can get us both killed?” Autumn replied.

“Hey!” Terry boomed. “Ed didn’t get anybody killed.”

“Yes, he did. He brought that monster in here,” Autumn said, her eyes wet.

Chloe looked up from the floor. “If anybody’s to blame, it’s me. I knew there was something wrong with Lester, I just didn’t know what.” She paused. “Or how bad it could be.”

“Then why didn’t you say something?” Autumn asked.

“I didn’t know he’d do what he did,” Chloe replied. “I swear.”

“Then it’s both your faults,” Autumn said. “You and Ed.”

“Shut up!” Sam yelled. “Just shut up and leave her alone!”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Trish said, redirecting the conversation. “Not Ed’s, not Chloe’s. Not Tex. It’s that psycho’s fault. He picked up the gun, he killed all those people. Him and only him.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dario added. “You got your family. Autumn lost hers.”

Terry glowered. “You got a lot of nerve saying that, you little prick. When the bullets started flying you were the first one to run.”

Dario continued, ignoring Terry. “I pegged that guy Lester from the beginning. I knew he was trouble when I took him prisoner.” He pointed at Ed. “You let him go.”

Ed glared, but didn’t reply.

Dario pointed at Chloe and Sam. “How do we know those two aren’t going to turn around and do the same thing? Probably all in cahoots with each other.”

“We didn’t do anything!” Sam yelled. “It was Lester.”

“Dario has a point,” Tina said, her typically meek voice rising an octave. “We don’t know these two. We should at least put a guard on them.”

“I’ll volunteer for that,” Dario said, looking at Ed. “Somebody’s gotta take charge around here.”

“Asshole!” Terry yelled. “You sniveling little piece of shit.”

The room erupted in a raucous flaring of tempers. Terry’s face went red and he hurled accusations and insults at Dario and the dissenters. Yelling escalated to screaming and with so many people in the room still armed, Ed saw this headed in a violent direction. They’d already lost so many people on this day. They couldn’t afford to lose any more.

“Stop!” Ed yelled above the noise. The rabble in the room slowly dwindled to a hush as angry eyes bore holes through him.
This is it
, Ed thought.
This is where everything falls apart
. All these years he’d only ever been a father trying to get his sons to safety. He’d never intended to be anything more than that. And now he saw no reason to try to be, not anymore.

“I never wanted this, any of it. I’m stepping down. If you want to continue with somebody else in charge, then do it. I’m heading out with my family tomorrow morning. We’ll take our fair share of the supplies, nothing more. The rest of you can have the truck. We’ll go our way, you’ll go yours.”

“You can’t step down, Ed,” Terry said. “We need you.”

Ed left the room without another word, leaving the survivors to carry on amongst themselves.

* * *

Ed lifted one of the plastic gasoline canisters off the back of the truck and handed it to Zach and Jeremy. The boys gripped the handle of the canister and carried it together as they made their way toward one of Tex’s vans. After a quick search revealed several sets of keys, Ed found the keys that went to the van in question, commandeering the vehicle for the next leg of their journey—without the rest of the group.

“Is this a good idea, Ed?” Trish asked. She stood on the ground, behind the truck. “I thought we’d talk about something like this before we did it.”

Ed fumbled with more items in the truck bed. “What would you have me do, go to California with that crew? Half of them want to kill me.”

“I don’t know what I’d want to do, but I’d like to talk about it first. You don’t just get to make arbitrary decisions for your family.”

“So now you’re against me too?” Ed asked, looking her in the eye. “Like the rest of them in there?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Sounded like it to me.”

Trish took a deep breath. “Ed, you know I love you. You know I trust you. I know that this has been hard on you, but I’m asking you, have you thought this through? What’s your plan?”

Ed sat on the truck bed and sighed. “Everything’s gone wrong. All those people are dead.”

“They are. You said yourself there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.”

“It’ll get better,” Trish said. “Eventually.”

Ed nodded.

“In the meantime, what’s your plan?”

“We can’t do this anymore,” Ed said. “This group is too big. And these people are strangers to us. We can’t trust them.”

“We can trust some of them; Jasper and Terry for sure.”

“Of course, but we gotta stay small. We’ve survived this long because we’ve always been a small group. We trust each other. We rely on each other. All those people…it’s too much.”

Trish nodded. “Okay. Reduce the size of the group. Now we’re getting somewhere. But how are we going to get there? You said you weren’t taking the truck.”

Ed pointed toward the dilapidated van Zach and Jeremy were attempting to load.

“That thing?” Trish asked. “We won’t make it twenty miles.”

“It’s better than walking, which will take us forever, and it’s easier to maneuver than the truck. Besides, the truck is too big for a group our size. We’ll take what we need from the truck and put it into the van. Then we can get the hell out of here.”

Suddenly Terry’s voice boomed from the distance. “Ed! Wait up!”

Terry hurried toward them, rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked almost comical, his run more of an exaggerated waddle than anything else. He stopped in front of them, slightly out of breath.

“I’m coming with you guys,” he said between breaths. “I know you said only family, but if I have to spend another minute with that little cocksucker—”

“Which cocksucker are you talking about?” a voice asked from behind them.

They turned to see Dario, an M16 clutched in his hands and pointed at them. Behind him stood Autumn, Tina and Reggie, all with their own rifles. “Tell your kids over there to bring me back my fuel.”

The mid-morning sun burned hot in the sky while Ed Brady sat on the hard concrete sidewalk leading up to Tex’s building, replaying the events of the morning over and over again in his head. Zach and Jeremy sat beside him. No one spoke. They only sat, as they’d so often done in the years after they left the border town, especially in the days after Sarah’s death, when their family unit had been so harshly broken.

He felt numb, shell-shocked. Overwhelmed and helpless. Visions of dead children, their eyes open and staring haunted him. Bodies piled on top of more bodies, huddled in a corner with no escape from a madman. A man he’d inadvertently allowed into his inner sanctum. Twenty-two people were dead now, because of one man. He felt sick at the thought.

And now Dario, another person he’d graciously allowed into his group, had turned on him and taken the truck with all their supplies, along with all the weapons and all the fuel. Everything they had to make the trip to California was now gone. Their one shot at the coast and at the safe haven that Hawaii might offer had vanished. The knowledge of their losses and the sense of failure that came with it left his sense of hope and purpose beaten and bloody.