Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1)

Book One of
The Borrowed Land

Our Home is
Nowhere

Luke Prochnow

Copyright © 2013 Luke Prochnow

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover art by Caleb Prochnow

Edited by Averill Buchanan

Interior Formatting by Aubrey Hansen

Ten Heroes Publishing

Contents

Act I

Act II

Act III

Act I

1

The Boneyard: a field full of wrecked and rusted vehicles baking desperately beneath the sun like weathered corpses, clumps of brown grass springing up intermittently between layers of machinery. It stretched for two miles in all directions, and was packed so heavily with abandoned vehicles that scavengers had to clamber over roofs to get about.

Ben kicked aside a battered license plate as he lugged his gas can over to an old Ford truck, its original color impossible to determine. Sweat pooled above his eyes when he bent down to flip open the truck’s gas cap. He sniffed the area around the hole; it didn’t smell of anything, so he picked up his gas can and kept moving.

He’d discovered the Boneyard a couple weeks ago and had been returning twice a week to siphon what fuel he could from the vehicles. He recalled the first time he tried to siphon fuel, close to three years ago, which ended in him vomiting for ten minutes straight, trying to rid his body of the gasoline that found its way into his stomach. He was an old hand at it now.

After checking a few more vehicles, he found one that seemed promising. The stale scent of gas lingered over the gas cap—not a strong scent, but enough to give him hope. He inserted the stained tube into the tank, placed his mouth over the other end of the tube, and sucked greedily. Gasoline—liquid gold—flowed into his gas can for close to ten seconds before the tank was spent.

He caught some movement a few feet away in the corner of his eye. He stood quickly and swung his rifle down from his shoulder. It was empty, but only he knew that and if worse came to worst, he could use the barrel as a bludgeon. He hadn’t seen many predators in this neck of the woods; now that he thought of it, he’d never even seen animals in the Boneyard. He’d heard rumors of coyotes and bears roaming up from the south to escape the desolation, but he doubted that it was much better here than there. Ben whistled. As if in response, a toothless, scrawny dog crawled out from beneath a car and slunk across the field, vanishing somewhere amidst the rubble.

Ben scrambled over the hood of a car and stood watching the blood red horizon
meet the ocean blue of the sky.

Beyond that horizon, somewhere in the North, were Jen and Timothy, the two people he cared about most in the world. If they were here with him, he’d give up the scavenging life in a heartbeat, no questions asked. But there were two sides to every coin. Ben loved being alone, loved traveling where he wanted with no one to tell him what to do or when to do it. He had no masters—or mistresses. Life depended on how many bullets he had for his rifle and how much fuel he had in his tank. He wondered how he could feel so free, yet so imprisoned at the same time.

A prop plane flew out of the sun, buzzing past with its obnoxious clanking. Ben, still atop the car’s roof, put a hand over his eyes and watched the plane make a U-turn in the sky as it searched for a decent landing strip amongst the strewn car parts. Then it headed off to the east about a quarter mile out from the Boneyard and began its descent.

Ben made his way towards the makeshift airstrip. He had a feeling he knew who the pilot was. As he got closer to the landed plane, his hunch was confirmed: Tesh, the pilot, was leaning against the cockpit in his slick, tight brown pants and silk scarf, a huge hand cannon strapped to his waist. He and Ben were polar opposites. Ben, with his weathered
vest, long-sleeved shirt covered in grime, and jeans that were beaten to hell, looked like some unearthed creature wrought of dust. Tesh, always the model of etiquette and sartorial elegance, beamed at him and threw him a stick of jerky.

‘Benjamin! My favorite Virginian and terror of the semi-
north, how are you this fine summer day?’

‘Not bad,’ Ben replied in a Boston accent that he didn’t know how he’d picked up. He chewed the jerky, savoring the delicious flavor and wondering how Tesh managed to live like a king even after everything had gone to hell. Last he heard
, Tesh was in Alaska hunting polar bears. Or was it Antarctica?

‘Always were the strong, silent type,’ Tesh joked.
‘Cigar?’

Ben took the thick barrel of tobacco and allowed Tesh to ignite it, trying to remember the last time he’d seen a cigar. After sucking in a deep mouthful of smoke and letting it out slowly, he asked, ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘No buying into common courtesies like
how’re you doing
or
how was your trip? Did you kill anything big
? People live the way they want to live—well, not entirely. Not anymore.’

Ben stopped chewing and watched Tesh walk away from the plane, his close-fitting clothes showing off his thin body, knowing there was only one thing Tesh could be talking about—or one person rather: Townes. Ben had no idea how Tesh knew about what happened between himself and Townes, but Tesh seemed to know a lot of things you wouldn’t expect. He was a man who had his fingers planted firmly in a lot of pies.

‘The short of it is, I’ve got a job for you, Ben. A quick in and out gig.’

Ben nodded, unsurprised. The only time he ever saw Tesh was when he had a job for him; there was no other reason for their paths to cross. Tesh was always too busy hunting in exotic places or socializing with Phillip, that bastard traitor of an ambassador in Midland. Ben despised men that couldn’t admit their guilt and fess up to their responsibility because they were too ashamed. He didn’t care how many television shows the ambassador had appeared on professing he knew nothing about the impending war. He
had
to have known.

‘In and outta where?’

‘The only place difficult to get in and out of. The North.’

Ben lowered the cigar to his thigh. Behind Tesh, the sun was almost entirely down. Only remnants of light remained. The air felt cooler as a slight breeze picked up over the field, winding through the Boneyard. ‘I ain’t goin’ back there,’ Ben said, but he thought of Jen and the little boy and knew he was lying.

Tesh looked somewhat taken aback. He clearly hadn’t expected Ben to refuse so hastily, but he recovered quickly. ‘In payment, I’m offering you absolute sanctuary from all manner of things.’

Townes, Ben thought. ‘I’m fine as is,’ he replied.

‘You could be better. We all could be better. After this simple job, you could be
much
better. It would take three days tops. Sneak into a government building, steal a few pieces of paper, and walk out. Once done, I’ll see to it personally that you’re taken care of.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘That’s all an entrepreneur can ask. Take this.’ Tesh slapped a cellphone into Ben’s hand. ‘There’s only one number in it. I need a decision within three days. If you’re game, call me. If not, well, enjoy being hunted the rest of your life.’

Tesh walked back to the prop plane, his scarf fluttering in the wind, and pulled his aviator goggles over his eyes. ‘By the way, it’s a two-man job,
so I’d recommend speaking with your comrade Finley,’ he said and climbed aboard the plane.

After a few false starts the propeller roared to life, chugging through the air. Then the plane rolled slowly across the field, eventually picking up speed until it lifted off the ground and vanished into the twilight.

Ben had no desire to go back to the North. It had been a year since he’d last ventured beyond the massive wall erected to keep rabble like him out. The danger of sneaking past the heavily armed gate wasn’t what worried him—he had already thought of a viable way to get through—what worried him more was seeing Jen and not wanting to leave.

He walked around the perimeter of the Boneyard, eventually spotting his ATV in the distance. It looked so ratty that any other scavenger would likely mistake it for Boneyard scrap itself. Only one of its two headlights worked, the balding tires were so thin they could burst at any moment, and the paneling was scratched and gouged. Ben tied the gas can down onto the ATV’s rear platform and inserted his rifle into a jury-rigged holster. He wasn’t sure of the exact time. Many things had lost their meaning since the war: time was one, money was another. They had been replaced by other things that people had taken for granted before: shoes, socks, toothbrushes, bullets, knives.
A roof over their heads.

The ATV’s engine growled, spitting black smoke that was almost invisible in the darkness. Ben put on his leather riding gloves, thin from overuse. Before leaving the Boneyard, he checked his fuel gauge: he had a quarter of a tank; on an ATV that could get him a pretty good distance. He couldn’t remember the last time his tank had been full. Any spare gas he had was traded for necessary materials, which reminded him that he needed to stop by the Trading Post to see about getting some bullets.

Dirt and grass sprayed against his legs as he tore away from the Boneyard and flew along the open plain towards the small town twinkling with white lights like the eyes of a dozen hidden animals.

2

Jerome was closing up shop when Ben pulled into his tent. The trader glanced up at him from a footlocker he was stuffing full of jeans and t-shirts. Boxes lay over the grass beneath the swaying tent. Each box was marked with hieroglyphics of some kind. He rested a hand on his knee and wiped his sweating face. ‘What say, Ben?’

‘I need some bullets.’

‘Whatcha got today?’

Ben slid off the ATV and unloaded the gas can from its back.
‘Three gallons. Diesel by the smell of it.’

Jerome coughed hungrily.
‘Liquid gold. Lemme see.’ He unscrewed the top from the gas can and sniffed, shutting his eyes and smiling blissfully. ‘On the money,’ he remarked. ‘What kinda rifle you sportin’ there?’

‘Thirty aught six.’

Jerome’s eyes darted from box to box until they settled on one a few feet away. He tore open the top and carefully removed a weathered carton of assorted bullets. ‘Thirty aught six,’ he mumbled to himself as he sifted through the bullets, gathering up a handful of them. ‘For three gallons, I’ll give ya ten.’

Ben stared at Jerome and, shaking his head, stooped to pick up his gas can. ‘Don’t waste my time.’

When he turned to leave, Jerome shouted, ‘Okay, okay, ya damn pirate. I’ll give you twelve.’

‘Thirteen.’

Jerome spat. Ben could tell he was thinking real hard, but he knew he had him. Jerome was a hoarder and could scavenge better than anyone Ben had ever met, but he was terrible at bartering. He was also the worst thing a person could be in that day and age: a pushover.

‘Thirteen then,’ Jerome said, dropping Ben’s bullets into a separate box and tossing it to him. ‘You gonna string me up to your jib also?’

Ben counted the bullets, then folded the box back up and slid it into his breast pocket. ‘No hard feelings, Jerome. Gold for silver’s a fair trade, ain’t it?’

Jerome scoffed, putting the container of bullets back into the box and sealing it tightly.
‘Gold for silver my ass. Gittout. I’m closed.’

Ben parked a couple yards away from the tent, taking advantage of Jerome’s floodlights to load up his rifle with shells. He sat on the cushioned seat of the ATV with his feet swung over the side and leaned against the scarred paneling. The rifle lay over his knees as he languidly slid bullets into the chamber. Every now and then, he heard Jerome grunting as he hauled boxes onto the bed of his truck. Finally Jerome called, ‘Lights out!’ and the floodlights died, draping the area around the tent in total darkness. Ben remained on the seat, waiting for his eyes to adjust, trying to make out distant shapes that seemed to meld and shift with the backdrop. Just like the world, he thought.
Constantly changing. Constantly on the move. Not able or willing to stay in one place for a long period of time. He knew he was the worst of them—unable to sit still for minute, like a child on speed.

.........

The butcher paper bled with raw meat. Ben stacked the wrapped venison into the fridge. He turned, slamming the door shut, and exited into the sunlight to check on the fresh deer that was already swarming with flies. He waved them away and grabbed the deer by the back legs. All night he’d spent carving the choice cuts of meat from the deer and now it was time to dispose of the carcass. He wasn’t especially worried about wild predators stalking around his home during the night, but he preferred that they kept their distance, and the remains of a succulent deer was just what he needed to keep them busy elsewhere.

Dragging the deer to the edge of a clump of trees, he rolled its body into a ditch three feet deep. Viscera and blood spilled over the dirt as its lifeless, clouded eyes stared upwards. Ben grabbed the shovel from against the tree and began filling in the hole. As he scooped the last pile of dirt over the deer, he heard a dune buggy pulling up to his mobile home and turned to look. Finley got out and, leaning against his front door, lit a cigarette.

‘Got some blood on your hands,’ he said, pointing at Ben with his cigarette.

‘How’s the kid?’ Ben asked while he washed his hands in a basin of old rain water beside the mobile home.

‘Best thing that’s ever happened to us.’ Fin, younger than Ben by a year, tucked his long hair behind his ears.

Ben watched the deer’s blood mix with the water. All he could think about was Jen, pregnant with Timothy, and the last words she had said to him:
You’ll never be able to take care of us
. He deeply resented her for that remark, yet he could never get her out of his mind. He’d never felt that way about anyone, before or since. He had been willing—he had been
ready
—to take care of them, but she hadn’t believed in him, not the way Fin’s woman believed in him. What was the difference between them? What did Fin have that he didn’t?

They got into Fin’s buggy and drove to the small Virginia town of Milford, already alive with activity. Loggers hauled themselves from their tents and ramshackle houses to the forest, wielding axes and tall mugs of steaming coffee. Most of the town’s trade came from lumber. Further south, the trees had begun to fall and crumble into dust. They didn’t have the manpower—or willpower—to build houses from stone any longer. Lumber had become a necessity and Milford unwittingly found itself on the map once again.

Even the towns that hadn’t been affected by the bombs or the Mexican army were still contaminated by the aftermath. It was as if their small world had gone to sleep for the last ten years and was just beginning to stir, shaking off the scabs of old wounds. Ben had seen more men and women than he could count fall into despair. Without so much as a goodbye, they had wandered into the forest or the Black Desert, never to be seen again.

Ben and Fin passed the train station, now converted into open sleeping quarters for those less fortunate. The railroad tracks had been peeled up and hauled away piecemeal until nothing remained but a few spare rusted spikes and rotten planks of wood. They turned down the main street and pulled up in front of a small shop with a red and blue cloth awning. Two lumberjacks pushed out of the shop, talking animatedly to each other and sipping hot coffee.

Fin ordered coffee for himself and Ben. They sat in the far corner of the shop watching the town wake up. Other shops across the street began flipping on their lights and turning on OPEN signs. Traders hawking esoteric wares dragged their kiosks onto the sidewalk and began preparing for the day.

Fin leaned back in his chair, dirty fingers wrapped round the coffee mug. ‘Tell me more about this job you mentioned.’

‘We’re fetching blueprints for some hovercraft,’ Ben told him.

‘I was thinkin’ we were done with the North.’

‘So did I. But you can’t pass up good work when it comes your way.’

‘
You
might not be able to. I’ve got a woman and a kid to look after. They expect me to be around, not riskin’ my neck in some faraway land. I’ll help you get past the Wall, but other than that…’

‘The Wall ain’t the problem. We might need to hack computers,’ said Ben. Computers weren’t his strong point. They hadn’t figured much in his childhood. Ben had grown up with Townes at an orphanage in Slushland, and most of their time was spent playing explorers in the playground or sneaking out after hours, stalking the town, searching for the freedom they sorely missed in their everyday life.

A woman wearing an apron covered with images of birds and carrying a half pot of coffee walked up to them, abruptly halting their conversation. ‘Hey Ben,’ she said shyly. ‘Would you like a refill?’

‘Sure.’ Ben pushed his mug closer to the edge of the table without looking at her. She tilted the pot and filled his mug.

‘It looks like you’re out of sugar. Do you want me to get you some?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Ben looked up at her for the first time and could see that his sharp reply had hurt her feelings.

‘Hey June, I’ll take some sugar and cream,’ Fin added quickly, smiling at her and trying to take the edge off Ben’s rudeness.

She nodded at him, returning his smile,
then shuffled off to the kitchen. When she had gone, Fin slumped forward on the table. ‘Why do you have to be like that to her? You know how she feels about you.’

‘I got other stuff on my mind than how she feels.’

Fin lifted himself up, sighing. ‘Fine. Back to the job. The bottom line is I can’t be riskin’ my neck like I used to. Other people depend on me now.’

‘Tesh’ll make sure you’n your
girl are taken care of for a long time to come,’ Ben said, suddenly realizing how eager he was for Fin to agree to do the job. It was a bitter-sweet thing: seeing Jen again would open old wounds. But she had Timothy and the boy needed to meet his father at least once. ‘Two days and we’re back. No later’n that,’ Ben promised.

Fin didn’t say anything for a while. At least he’s considering it, Ben thought.

‘If it was any other time, this would be a no brainer,’ Fin said eventually, tapping his thigh anxiously with two fingers.

‘I’ll give you half my earnings if you agree.’

Fin looked up at Ben, suspicion etched all over his face. His eyes narrowed; he licked his dried lips, and asked, ‘Why d’you want this job so bad?’

‘’Cause it’s easy and I’m restless. Here’—Ben went to a shelf and brought back a chessboard and box of chess pieces—‘We’ll play for it. I win, we do it. If you win, it’s your call.’

What Ben lacked in technological ability, he made up for in chess; it had been one of his favorite pastimes at the orphanage with Townes. When Townes had been too busy being punished by the headmaster, Ben would play against himself with a tiny chess set hidden beneath his bed. But Fin was smart and could put up a good fight on the chessboard. They’d played plenty of times before and were almost equally matched.

‘Fine, we’ll leave it to the gods of competition,’ said Fin, and they began setting up the board.