Fury Rising (12 page)

“How much control do you have? A hundred percent? Ninety? Can you still put others in harm?”

“I can usually tell when it’s coming,” Daniel said. “I get enough of a warning to get far away. Why do you think I never lived with you guys? I took precautions. I made sure I’d never put any of you in danger.” Daniel glanced over Mason’s shoulder. “Times ticking. Are you in or not?”

Mason thought about all the things he’d wanted to say to Daniel over the past few months. A wide variety of accusations, demands, foul words, and other nasty conversations played out in his brain. But he’d never thought for a second that he’d say the words that came next.

“Sign me up.”

Daniel tossed the bolt cutters on the ground and gave the metal one last yank. The fencing gave way, revealing a space big enough for Mason to get through. “That should do it. Crawl on through.”

“I need to get Raj. He’s here too and I’m not leaving him.”

“This isn’t a mass breakout, man. I’m not Aries. I don’t care what sort of happy time family you’re leaving behind. We’re not moving them all over to the suburbs today. Just you.”

“Raj comes. He’s here because of me. Idiot got himself caught over a dog.”

Daniel grinned. “Really?”

“Yeah, tried to get it some kibble. Found some Baggers instead.”

“What were the Baggers doing at the dog store? Oh wait, I’m sure there’s a good joke there somewhere. Give me a second.”

Mason looked back at the dinner tent. Raj was still chatting away, oblivious to everyone around him. Mason sighed. He couldn’t leave him, not when Raj had gone to all the trouble in the first place. This was turning out to be an interesting day. Nothing from anyone for weeks and suddenly everyone and their dog were practically fighting over Mason to get him out. He’d never been this popular before.

Raj finally looked up and Mason took a chance and waved at him to come over. Raj got the hint and excused himself. He slowly made his way across the yard, although several people stopped to talk to him. Mason didn’t know if he should be jealous or thankful. Even after several months, people still went out of their way to ignore him. Raj had gone through half a day and already he was becoming everyone’s best friend. The price of being popular was rough.

Mason had no ties to the place. He wouldn’t miss it or the people when he left. Sure, he had a few relationships with Chaplin and Karen. But they were brought together by force, not by choice. The only person he cared about was Casey. If Raj was right and Michael and Clementine were rescuing her, there was no longer a need for him to stay. Although he agreed with Aries that they should eventually get everyone out, it didn’t have to be today. Leon wouldn’t kill them either. Mason had made sure to keep his distance so that Leon wouldn’t have any more ammunition to blackmail him with. Just Casey. If Raj said she was safe, Mason would have to trust him and take the chance.

But if Raj didn’t move quicker, they might not make it. They weren’t safe and it would only get riskier the longer they waited. The Plaza might be large enough to find occasional hiding places, but the Baggers still patrolled regularly. Someone was bound to notice the dead ones at the gate. And all hell would break out shortly after.

“This is too easy.” Daniel obviously felt the same way. He kept his rifle in his arms, his eyes moving along the length of the casino. The glass windows had long since been painted over so no one could look in or out. Very few people knew what went on inside there. Mason knew. He’d spent time behind those walls. Many went in, but very few ever came out. The Baggers kept the most important survivors inside, Locked away in cages like animals. People they planned on using to rebuild their society.

“What?”

“This. Seriously, tourist boy, you can’t be this gullible. Where are all the Baggers?” Daniel looked back at the casino doors. “I know you can’t feel it, but I can. This place is a ghost town. Empty. The whole group could walk right out the front gate and no one would be the wiser.”

“They’re inside. Probably torturing someone or watching a movie. Who knows what Baggers do in their free time?”

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment; a deep look of concentration crossed his face. “Yeah, some I can feel. But not the usual.”

“Let me guess. You’ve been keeping count?”

“I’m one of them, remember? I can sense them.”

“So your spidey senses are tingling. It means nothing. You haven’t been here in a while. They’ve branched out.” Mason pointed over towards some of the condos by the waterfront. “They’ve taken over. Got the electricity running. Living the life of luxury these days.” Mason paused. Raj had finally managed to break away from the last of his admirers and he stopped a few feet away from them, eyeing Daniel carefully.

“Come on,” Daniel said to both of them. “This isn’t time for a reunion.” He yanked the fence back again. “We can talk about what a bastard I am later. Pints will be on me.”

“Mason?” Raj hesitated.

“We needed a way out. This is it.”

Mason didn’t wait. He got down on his knees and crawled through the fence, half expecting to hear alarms or whistles or Baggers running up to beat the crap out of him. Nothing happened. Raj must have decided that freedom was better than his short stint in prison because he scuttled through the hole before Mason managed to get back on his feet.

They headed straight towards the water, keeping their backs low. Daniel was right. The whole thing was too easy. Almost as if Leon wanted Mason to break free. But that was impossible. Leon couldn’t have known anything about the plot, right? Raj had assured Mason that Colin had nothing to do with the rescue missions, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t overheard them and figured it out.

“I don’t suppose you brought a boat?” Raj said. “Would be nice. Little jaunt back to camp?”

“I’ve got a car over by Science World,” Daniel said.

“Great. Do you mind making a small pit stop for me? There’s a pet shop over by Denman that I need to pop into. Found me a lovely pooch in need of a home. Promised her I’d come back.”

“A dog? Really?” 

“She’s sweet. I’ve got it all worked out already. Going to name her Cleopuptra. Come on, guys, it’ll be good for camp moral. How long has it been since anyone’s had a pet? The kids will die.”

Mason glanced over at Daniel and they both grinned at each other. Mason thought about how Casey’s face would light up at the sight of an animal. At the same time, they needed to get back quickly to warn Aries. But five minutes wouldn’t hurt. Right?

“You’ve got two minutes,” Daniel said.

“Brilliant.”

By the time they reached Daniel’s parked car, he’d started to fill Mason in on all the gory details. Mason listened and they began to formulate a plan.

              First things first. They needed to protect Aries and the others.

Then they were going to do something absolutely crazy.

Leon wouldn’t know what hit him.

Michael

It took some time, but they finally coaxed all the children out of the SUV. There were five of them in total, the youngest barely out of diapers. Janey, the oldest at ten, wouldn’t give up her knife. She clung to it, giving Michael suspicious glares, making him not want to turn his back on her for a second. Wouldn’t that just sum up the end of the world? He’d survived countless Bagger attacks. He’d risked his life more times than he cared to remember. He’d even been through an earthquake and come out the other side with almost no injuries. And here he was, terrified for his life because some little girl with a knife wanted kill him.

It was obvious Janey didn’t relish giving up control of the situation to Michael and Clementine. She’d been in charge while hiding in the SUV and she didn’t want to release that power until she felt the other children were safe. She straight out refused to even consider going with them until Clementine sat down with her and they tried working out an arrangement. Janey was determined to be the best temporary mother and guardian; she came with a list of rules they would have to follow.

“If you try and hurt them, I’ll kill you,” she said with an expression so determined and severe, Michael had to bite down on his cheek to not laugh. Not that he thought she was funny. No, the little child was scary as hell, and that only depressed him more. Only in the new world created by the Baggers would children have to grow up that quickly and fierce.

Janey calmed down a bit when Michael braved going back into the house to retrieve snacks and juice boxes of orange juice for the drive. They’d been trapped in the SUV for more than twelve hours. The children were hungry and a little dehydrated. They needed food and drink. Janey wanted to do it herself, but there was no way Michael would let that kid see what was inside. She had enough nightmares in her life. No need to bring more. So he went in and brought out what he could salvage from the mess. Although most of the food had been taken or consumed, he still scrounged up a few juice boxes and a package of animal crackers.

“We’ll take it slow back to downtown,” Michael promised. “We might be able to find a store that hasn’t been completely looted. I’m sure we can find something.”

Janey nodded and finally relaxed her grip slightly on her knife. 

With the agreement reached, they loaded up the children in the back of the white van. They had to sit on the floor and Janey complained about the lack of seatbelts, but she still allowed it. It wasn’t until Michael rounded the corner and headed back to Vancouver, that he started to relax. From the high point of the highway, he could see ahead for miles and the road was clear.

Casey jabbered on the entire time, giving them a play-by-play of the events that led the children to take shelter in the SUV.

“We was having supper. Beans.” Casey wrinkled her nose. “Gross. Always beans. Sister Bea said it’s better with mustard on ‘em, but I didn’t believe her. And they was cold too. Cause the stove stopped working. Sister Bea said we couldn’t fix it.”

“Yuck,” Clementine said. “I don’t like beans either.”

“They are grooooooose.”

“Like stinky pig poop,” Clementine agreed. One of the boys beside her laughed so hard, he sprayed his orange juice all over the back seat. This brought on more hooting from the group.

Michael couldn’t help but grin as he stole a few glances at his girlfriend while he drove. She was a natural. These children had just spent the entire night in the backseat of an SUV, terrified and positive they were going to die. After five minutes with Clementine, they were back to almost normal kids. Michael couldn’t be more proud of her. Just another reason why he adored her. She gave herself completely to others, constantly and without complaint. She did what needed to be done and always made it look easy.

“Brother Mark came in,” Casey continued. “And he told us we had to get out. He looked funny. His face was all weird. Scrunched up, like this.” She tried to mimic the expression. “And his voice was like a girl.”

Two of the younger boys made high-pitched squeals and giggled.

“He was scared,” Janey said.

“A Bagger?” Michael couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. The Baggers were a lot of things, but cowardly wasn’t a word he’d ever consider using to describe them. They never flinched or hesitated. Their lack of humanity allowed them to kill without remorse. That’s what made them so deadly. “Are you sure? Maybe they were just people like us.” That made more sense to him. He couldn’t imagine the Baggers being thrilled at babysitting duty. They probably just took some of the prisoners and forced them to do the dirty work.

“They were monsters,” Janey said. “I saw their eyes. I know what they look like. And talk like. That’s why they made us call them ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. They faked pretending to be our friends. They were mean.”

“They slapped Andrew,” another girl said. “Cause he cried. And once Sister Bea locked Janey in the basement all night because she wouldn’t listen.”

“Okay,” Michael said.

“So Brother Mark and Sister Bea talked in the other room,” Casey continued. “She got scared too when she came out. She made us stop eating and took us outside. That’s when we heard the noise.”

“Boogeymen,” Andrew said and the others murmured in agreement.

“They got us in the car,” Janey said. “But they didn’t have the keys. I think they wanted to get us out, but that’s when all the others showed up.”

“Millions of them,” Casey said.

“Billions!”

“No,” Janey said. “But a lot. More than I could count. They came down both sides of the street. Sister Bea told me I was in charge and I had to keep everyone silent. She told me to lock the doors. Then she was gone.”

“She screamed a lot,” Casey said. “When the boogeymen got her. She screamed. I didn’t like it.”

Michael thought about the bodies he’d seen back at the house. Torn apart. Barely recognizable as either human or Bagger. He would have screamed too.

“Janey made us all stay down,” a little boy said. “I wanted to look, but she wouldn’t let me. Even after the Boogeymen left. She was mean too, just like Sister Bea.”

“Shut up,” Janey snapped. “I’m nothing like them.”

“You’re right,” Clementine said. “That’s not a nice thing to say.” She turned around in her seat to look right at Janey. “You’re very brave. You saved everyone.”

Clementine reached out and put her hand on Michael’s leg. He glanced over at her and immediately understood her expression, mostly because he was thinking the exact same thing. Terrified Baggers. Boogeymen. Something new was happening and it didn’t sound good. They needed to get back to camp quickly to discuss the events with Aries and the others.

If they skirted around the edge of downtown, they might be able to make it to the Lion’s Gate Bridge without having to abandon the white van. It would save a lot of time. But if they ran into the Baggers, things would get more difficult. Michael sighed and pushed down on the gas pedal. Best to just drive and worry about it when they got closer to Vancouver.

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