The Killin' Fields (Alexa's Travels Book 2) (28 page)

In the other zones, there were nearly two dozen people lining the fences, ignoring each other to stare at Alexa and Mark as if they were aliens.

Mark took up another casual post nearby as the doors opened and a large group of white faces surrounded Alexa. Again, he had little doubt about clearing them from her if trouble started. They were all so thin; he didn’t think they’d had three square meals since the war.

This side is poorer than the black side
, Mark thought.

Alexa listened to their fighting on her presence and the trouble it would cause for all of them, patiently remaining silent until Mark wanted to interrupt them just to have quiet for a minute or two. And if he was feeling that way, she had to be also.

“Are we done here, boss?” Mark asked. “Fire’s gonna be out soon.”

Alexa nodded and stood up. “We’ll be on our way since you don’t require anything. Good night.”

As they walked away, the attitudes changed drastically, as they always did.

“No, don’t go!”

“Stop her!”

“Wait! Please, wait!”

Alexa stopped, voice cold. “Ask me.”

Melissa, the elected leader of the white side, stepped forward slowly. “I’m against it, so you know.”

The older woman, with her librarian’s hairdo, pulled her ragged shawl closer. “It’ll only get more of us ejected.”

“Ejected?” Mark asked.

“The troublemakers,” Melissa answered tiredly. “Along with the elderly and the strong men.”

Alexa studied her, noting abusive natures that hadn’t subsided since the war. She was shaking as if she needed a fix and Alexa curled her nose up. “Resign your place. You’re not fit to lead them.”

Melissa’s face paled, and then reddened as the chatter around them stopped. It was replaced with shock.

“You’re still using?” someone called from the small crowd.

“She’s drugging again!”

Alexa turned from the woman and faced the residents. “What would you ask of me?”

“Kill him!” came the response, in many forms.

Alexa left them while they were still shouting out the things they wanted done to Roscoe’s body.

Mark wasn’t sure why these people hadn’t needed her to explain that it was really the master of the house in the corn as if she had before, and realized word would spread. She didn’t need to keep repeating all of it.

Mark was glad for that as the last zone came into view. The construction field was fenced and walled, a clear warning not to enter unless you were able to handle whatever might be on the other side.

Alexa climbed the walls and dropped inside with a small leer of anticipation that curled Mark’s stomach. She was pissed. She wanted blood and she would be free to spill it as soon as she received the same expected response from the outcast zone.

“Roscoe’s master doesn’t stand a chance,” Mark stated.

Alexa didn’t answer. She was too furious to make claims or boast, and this last zone would send her over the edge, she was sure. There was no way the outcasts would be better.

3

“Someone started a fire. The townsmen are fighting it.”

Those words caused every head in the underground room to swivel toward the door, as if to see Alexa and her fighters there.

“You saw her?” Robert asked.

“Yes. She has one man with her. She’ll be here next, I’d wager,” Emmerson stated, out of breath from his run.

The room cleared within a minute, except for Robert and Emmerson.

Robert sighed resignedly and pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his cane. He wasn’t old enough to need one, but the wasting sickness had crippled parts of him and weakened the others. Some days were good. This wasn’t one of them.

“Send for our council,” Robert ordered. Since the war and being ostracized here, word of mouth was the only reliable communication. Even writing letters and notes had become things of the past. Paper was too easily ruined or stolen. What was in a man’s mind was harder to get to.

Robert gently shut the door for a quick moment of peace and quiet in which to reflect and make his choices. Leading the outcasts hadn’t been easy since the war, and Robert didn’t lack for courage, but Alexa and her men were killers and he wouldn’t forget that.

Robert knelt in the center of the room and bowed his head in prayer. “Oh Lord, hear my pitiful pleas and have mercy on my people.” Robert’s voice roughened with emotion. “There are so few of us left, but we still believe!”

A door opened behind him, but Robert didn’t hear it. He was in that place where he was sure is God was listening intently to every syllable and every tone, searching him for the worthiness that all helpless cases must carry.

“Please, don’t let them be hurt. Take them under your wing and remove them from the path of these stranger’s and their guns. Let them live in peace and continue in your light.”

Robert felt a tear roll down his cheek at the silence. “Amen.”

He stayed where he was for another minute, getting himself under control. His people expected a leader and he would give that to them. He would hand this fight over to Alexa and hope it was the correct choice.

Robert stood up slowly, feeling his fifty-eight years more so now than he had in a while. The feeling of a bad storm coming was unmistakable in his joints and sinuses.

“Does he answer you?”

Robert turned too quickly and lost his balance. He sprawled at Roscoe’s boots, moaning heavily.

Soft, menacing laughter flowed through the dim, dusty hall.

“Easy, old man.”

Robert cringed away from the hand that would have helped him, instead rising one his own. “Be gone, Satan!”

Roscoe chuckled. “I’m nowhere near such perfection as that.”

“Only my God is perfect!”

Roscoe pointed a hand at Robert’s arm and the man moaned in pain again.

“Be careful of your words,” Roscoe warned, staring down in vague contempt. “Or I’ll kill them all the second she’s gone.”

Robert shut his lids. “Please, Lord. Please. I believe!”

When he opened his eyes, Roscoe was gone and the sound of voices came down the hall and through the open door.

Robert shoved himself up awkwardly. Alexa was their only hope, their one chance to be free, and he was taking it no matter what the others here wanted. It hadn’t taken an eternity in hell to break Robert. A world war, an insane Mayor, and four years had done irreversible damage.

4

The outcasts wore hand-sewn clothes and old shoes that had been stuffed with papers and wrapped with tape of every kind. It was obvious to Alexa that the stores in each zone were off-limits to those from the other sides. The faded neon of Emmerson’s shoes lead the way through stacks of corroded cars and trucks that would never meet the shredder they had been intended for.

The main junkyard building was where Emmerson led her and Alexa motioned to Mark to be careful of the sharp, rusted metal edges that would encourage infections in even the smallest injuries.

They went down into the basement of the junkyard warehouse and then down another flight of stairs to a tunnel lined in stones and torches. At the end of it was a wooden door with deep gouges that said the wolves came this far into the city.

The earthen walls and floor of the single room had been covered in wood and sheet metal scavenged from the dead city above. In the center was the black and yellow hood of a car on a large crate. There were four people of mixed race sitting on the floor around the makeshift table, and they stared with the desperation that Mark and his mistress had expected.

Alexa didn’t waste any time, taking the only empty seat as Mark leaned against the door. She looked to Robert. “Tell me what happened here and why I’m being haunted to kill your leader.”

Robert’s face clouded over. “He stopped being our leader long ago.”

“Tell me,” Alexa insisted. “Leave nothing out.”

Mark considered himself ready to handle about any story that was told, keeping one eye on Alexa and the other on their company.

“After the war, Roscoe was the Mayor here,” Robert told them. “He and his family were in charge here and he tried to do right by us. He had the gates erected, put out guards and curfews, and interviewed anyone who came in. He and his men were forced to kill rovers who wanted to take over the town, and for a while, we had a semblance of peace.”

Robert broke off in a fit of coughing and those closest hurried to comfort him.

“It was during that time Roscoe split the races,” Emerson took over the tale. “The infighting and gangs already here were taking their toll, always robbing, raping, killing to get to the few stashes of food left. Roscoe grew tired of it and arranged a radio broadcast. He gave orders to divide the city in half, black on one side, whites on the other. He promised to send a fair share of all supplies each month to both sides of the line.” The messenger handed back to Robert, who’d caught enough breath to resume.

“It had to be expanded shortly after that. Roscoe hadn’t counted on the other races wanting an area, or those who had family on both sides being kicked out by their own kind. The blacks didn’t want white sympathizers and spies on their side of the tape. The whites threatened to shoot any blacks found on their side. After a bit, Roscoe declared an outcasts area where everyone else could go, but when he wanted to give them a supply cut too, both the white and black sides protested until he was forced to give up that idea.”

“It’s when he started changing,” Avery said sadly from the place of honor at the dirty stone table. “Then
HE
came.”

Robert frowned. “Hush now. You’re going out of order.”

Avery fell silent and Robert looked to Alexa. “There was a vote to kick those people out of the city. Everyone saw what the desperate survivors did after the war-the open murder, the violent thefts, the kidnappings-but Roscoe stepped to the front of the crowd and begged for their lives. He said he would build a security system here that nothing could get through. He promised us we’d be safe.”

“And you believed him,” Alexa finished that part of the story, thinking they’d at least had a good man in charge in the beginning. Most towns and cities had fallen within a month or less. Lincoln had survived much longer.

“Of course. We were those desperate people,” Robert confided without shame in his tone or on his face. “He forgave us, let us stay. How could we not believe?”

The feel of fanaticism filled the room and Alexa grunted, “Finish your story.”

Robert took up where he’d left off, not showing signs that the order bothered him, but Alexa knew it had.

“Three months after the war, a small group of survivors were let in. Among them was a woman with a purple stripe in her hair and a man who had the feel of trouble, though he said the right things. Your prisoner. Roscoe found out these two had come from the west, a direction we never heard from, and he took them into his home. Once there, the man became fast friends with Roscoe’s daughter.”

Mark knew what would come next and steeled himself against it, hating his own kind. Why couldn’t men have been born differently? Why did they always have to take what they shouldn’t have?

“He stole Roscoe’s only daughter from her room and took her from the city. When her body was found, she’d been abused and strangled. The man was gone.”

“And the purple-haired woman?” Mark asked.

“She escaped, though we heard she’d been shot and died. We hunted the entire city for her,” Robert stated angrily.

“It was dark days,” Avery agreed. “The nights grew and the days shrank. Our leader, in his grief, no longer met new arrivals or cleared them. The gates were left to wanderers who were as bad as the man who’d taken his child. We demanded protection, safety, and when he finally raised himself to listen, he gave us damnation instead.”

“He blames you,” Alexa guessed. “Because those people would have been put here, with the outcasts, if he hadn’t taken an interest in them.”

Robert nodded. “Yes and there was nothing for us after that but vengeance. The passing ceremony was made a law and the limit on children came next. The food dwindled to near nothing and when strangers wandered in, the guards stayed with Roscoe, in the town hall.”

Robert had another coughing spell and Emmerson picked up the tale again. “We tried to leave after the fire, but it was too late. He owns us.”

Alexa was glad to be through the recap, but those details had connected several pieces for Mark and confirmed some for her. “And you believe now that if he dies, you’ll be free?”

Robert shook his head gravely. “We are damned. We would save the future.”

Alexa rose at those words, satisfied. “As would I. You have a blessing for me, I think?”

Robert allowed the others to help him up and he chanted lowly while pulling a long knife with a golden handle from beneath his robe.

“It has no mercy. Pick your targets well.”

“I always do,” she answered evenly.

Alexa slid the knife into her main belt, moving her k-bar to the rear. “We’ll go now. Unless there’s anything else we should see or hear?”