Chapter 13 - Discovery
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just faded, steely blue. An autumn sky. Sara blinked. Pain asserted itself. A particularly tender spot on the back of her head clamored for attention.
She sat up. Waves of dizziness assaulted her. Her hand went to her scalp, felt under the red hair. No wetness meant no blood. A good sign. There was a nasty goose egg under her probing fingers, though. It hurt when she touched it.
Damn that Brewer! Playing hero.
She looked around. Only empty brown prairie as far as the eye could see, bisected by a black ribbon. Maggie was still plodding on the road, northbound. A big favor to be thankful for, that the horse hadn’t gone off the road and overturned the wagon. About the only thing she was sure about.
How long had she been out?
A glance at the sun didn’t help. Sure, it had moved, but she hadn’t been paying attention. It wasn’t where it had been before.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, she found the reins.
“Woah, Maggie.”
The horse obliged.
She climbed down and thought. What would Brewer do? Water the horse. He always did that first. Around back was a bucket. A minute later and Maggie was drinking.
Sara patted the horse’s flank. What to do next? Staring down the way they came revealed nothing. She shivered in the wind. She stared the other direction.
Ahead was home. A powerful need to find out what happened in High Plains, to her family, her friends, weighed heavy on her heart.
Behind her, maybe Brewer was hurt but alive. She chewed her lower lip.
“Fuck it.”
She turned Maggie around.
* * *
It turned out she had been out for a good while. The sun moved a couple of handbreadths in the time it took to get back to the barricade, the branches and debris still across the road except for one spot. She had her belt in her hand this time.
There was no one in sight. Getting off and looking around the road surface, she saw a largish, dark green tube on the ground by the barricade. It smelled of volatile chemicals to her. Propellent of some sort? She wasn’t sure. On right side of the road she discovered the remains of a campfire. The grass all around it had been flattened. Maybe there were half a dozen depressions around the perimeter. They looked like they were the size of a person. A couple were bigger. Six people? Luggers? Was that how many there were back in Cotillion? This was hard.
She pursed her lips and gave a final glance around. A glint caught her eye, something in the sun a little farther from the road. A few steps brought her to it.
Her hand shot to it in recognition. It was Brewer’s knife. It lay open in the grass. She turned it over, inspecting it. There wasn’t any blood on it. Just dirt.
“What has that sorry, misbegotten piece of Gaia shit gotten himself into?” she mumbled.
Letting out a sigh, she folded the knife and looked across the rustling, dead grass.
Visions of what they had encountered at Cotillion filled her head. Grimly, she walked back to the wagon. Brewer would have to wait.
* * *
The journey home took longer than expected even with guilt and anxiety driving her. Although they were harsh task masters, she had to stop and rest, and she seemed more tired than usual. Somehow, she missed the dead rider and the horse, a marker on her journey out. Maybe something had claimed them. Didn’t really matter. She was glad of one less reminder of death.
She spent one night under the same satellite dish they had stopped beneath before, fretting all night long before sleep claimed her. And the cheese Brewer had found was giving her stomach problems.
Examining the wheel of cheese under the big antenna in the morning didn’t reveal anything wrong with it. With some regret, she put it in the now empty food locker in the back of the wagon. Best to set it aside for now. She hoped that she wasn’t becoming lactose intolerant, a real inconvenience considering her main source of protein. Nibbling on the hardtack seemed to settle her insides.
She figured she would get to High Plains before nightfall at this rate. Even though she was sent away, she felt for sure they would let her in. Well, pretty sure anyway. If there was anyone left there, of course. A shiver ran through her. What if this Lystra person was still there? She put the biscuit on the seat next to her. A cautious approach was warranted.
It was midmorning when she found the first bodies, a group of three naked women, hands tied behind their backs, throats slashed. They had slumped to the ground where they kneeled. Panic formed when Sara found brightly colored tunics by the side of the road.
A couple of hours passed before another cluster of decomposing cadavers were found. These were clothed. Blood and dirt muted the patterns on the shirts. There was a single man among the females.
In sight of the walls of High Plains was a killing field. She didn’t count the bodies. She didn’t think she had to as she was fairly certain she knew how many there would be. Every single one had a colorful shirt. The stench made her eyes water. Her hand went to her nose. Too late! Her stomach knotted. Acid burned the back of her throat. Her already upset stomach didn’t have anything to relieve itself of, thankfully.
With the coat sleeve over her mouth and nostrils, she drove the wagon through the corpses to the gate, shaking in her seat. The smell grew worse.
The gate was wide open. They hadn’t bothered to close it. Dismounting, she led Maggie by the reins through the street. Chaos was inside. She had to pick her way around the piles of broken furniture, pots, crates, timbers and other household items. Everything was jumbled together.
The odors from beyond the gate was here still. But there was another smell that was growing. This one tugged at her heart. It was acrid, harsh. Her stomach threatened to revolt again. She remembered the scent from the other Cloister, back in Cotillion, the smell of burning. Her heart rate spiked. On rubber legs she made her way down the avenue.
A sniff and her eyes went to the side of the street. There were black smudge marks above the doors and windows of the buildings lining the road. A whole block was gone, only burnt ruined timbers remained.
Sara’s breathing slowed. The source of the burnt smell was found. “They torched the houses? Sweet Gaia.”
Drifting down the street slowly, she looked for a place that didn’t have smoke marks. She went inside one of those places where more chaos reined. Doors hung open, windows smashed, and furniture upended. The town was ransacked and vandalized. Grimly, she noted the difference with what had happened at Cotillion. She checked a few more of the standing homes.
All the food was gone. She was not really surprised.
Maggie led Sara to a large building a little off the main road that seemed untouched by the madness. Leaving the wagon by one of the large doors, she went inside. Several rows of stainless steel cylinders over twice as tall as her were visible in the last of the daylight. The aisles were clean. She had a sad smile lift her lips when she realized what the building was. No wonder Maggie brought her here. This would be a good place to spend the night.
A sound from somewhere inside sent her into overdrive. She whipped off her belt and held it coiled, her hand wrapped around the buckle, thumb by the jewel. She stalked the source of the sound.
A muffled cough came from up ahead. She crouched close to a large tank with a lot of pipes coming from it. A low groan, nearby now. It sounded like it was on the other side of the tank. On the balls of her feet, she peeked her head around it.
“Sara?”
Sara looked down. The source was close to the floor. A tarp covered the legs of the Abbot who was propped up against a kettle.
* * *
Some things were still working at High Plains. Sara was able to turn on the lights in the brewery. That was about the only good news. The Abbot was not well. That was not so good. When Sara removed the tarp covering him, she could see that there was something seriously wrong with his left leg. The thigh was very swollen, the skin mottled black, blue and green. Putting her hand to his forehead told her that he was burning up. His lips were chapped and dark.
“Here, sip this.” She had found a cup and filled it with water from one of the tanks.
“Thank you,” he said. Abbot tried to smile but it became a grimace. His hand shook, spilling the water, so Sara held it steady for him.
Sara watched him take a few swallows. His Adam’s apple seemed to have trouble going up and down. “What happened?”
The Abbot struggled to sit up. Sara helped him. She rolled up the tarp to place behind him.
“Thank you again. Where to start? The night you and Brewer left.”
“You mean the night you drugged me and put me in the box.” Sara’s eyebrows slanted together.
Abbot grimaced again. “I am very sorry that happened. I had nothing to do with that. Do you think anyone asked me? You know your father. He didn’t want another argument from you. And he wanted you ready. It was the most expedient way.” Abbot’s eyes closed for a second and he took a shuddering breath. “Still, it was lucky for you. Very lucky.” A coughing fit started.
Sara waited for him to stop. “I don’t know what to do for you.”
Abbot looked at her. His eyes seemed watering. “I don’t think there’s much anyone could do now. Maybe if the Doc was working.”
Sara nodded. “So, what happened that night? We saw some of it.”
“They came from the west. Thousands of them, tens of thousands, with torches. Fire. Can you believe it? They were at the gate, all around us. We thought they were raiders or Eaters, like other times. Just a lot of them this time.” He shook his head. “They weren’t any of those things. Too many.”
He motioned with his hand to the cup. Sara held it to his lips.
“Ah. You are a blessing. I don’t think I would have lasted much longer.”
Sara kept her mouth shut.
“They had loudspeakers. They started saying we, the people in the Cloister, were responsible for the town’s troubles. Ungrateful Help. They said it didn’t have to be that way, that we didn’t care about them, not to believe us.” Abbot shook. He clenched his fists. He closed his eyes.
The silence stretched out. Sara watched his chest quiver with shallow breaths. After a few minutes, she left him and explored the rest of the brewery.
She found a cache of food next to one of the biggest tanks in the place. It was next to a nest of pipes and valves, out in the middle of the floor. The tank was impressive, close to three times as tall as a lugger. A hatch on the top was open. A ladder was on the ground nearby, next to a large block with a lot of fins. The fins on top were all bent over, touching each other.
Food gathered, she brought it over to where the man lay. His eyes were open and looking about.
“Oh good,” he said. “I thought I was dreaming you.”
“No, I’m really here. What happened to you? How did you escape?”
A pained look wiped across his face. “I got left outside. They sealed up the Cloister when I was at the Brewery, trying to find the Luggers to load up beer to take back. So I hid in the big tank. The ladder slipped when I tried to climb out. When it got quiet.”
“And the raiders?”
Abbot’s mouth downturned. “We made their rants come true. About not caring. We left them all outside to their fate.”
“That saved them. I saw what happened in Cotillion where they brought everyone inside. They burned it out with something from the Before Times. There was nothing left inside. Just little piles of carbon and ash.”
His eyes went wide, his pupils pinpricks. “Dear Gaia!” His hand went to his mouth.
“I found your food stash. Do you want something?”
The Abbot shook his head.
Sara snacked on a protein bar. Her stomach was finally settling down. With her mouth full, she said, “How did they get everyone?”
Abbot’s chin dropped to his chest. His breaths came haltingly. “I’m not sure. I just heard a cheer go up and chants of ‘Farmer, Farmer.’ I’d guess one of the Farmers used their access code to open the service doors. Awfully sloppy of them, to leave those active. Bob should have taken care of it. I can’t imagine how it would overlook something like that. Do you have any clue what happened to the people from inside? It sounded like they were led away. I hope they’re okay.”
Sara’s mouth formed a tight knot. She nodded at him.
“Do you have some more water? I’m really thirsty.”
“Of course. You can have as much as you want. There’s plenty here.” She raised the cup to him.
“Bless you. You always were a good kid. Your father didn’t appreciate you.”
Sara clenched her jaw. Finally, she said, “Thanks, Abbot.”
Abbot again closed his eyes. They twitched to unseen sights.
She settled in.
* * *
Abbot’s breathing grew shallower, more ragged. His head started shaking a little while he slept. Sara studied him. She realized that he was shaking all over and becoming more violent. His arms started to thrash.
“Abbot? Abbot!” She reached in and gently shook his shoulder.
His eyes sprang open. They were glazed. Casting about, they didn’t focus on anything. “You’ll never get the canister! We sent it away!”
Sara paused. “Canister? What canister? My canister!”
Abbot started to fade. His eyes narrowed to slits. Sara straddled him on her knees, grabbed handfuls of his robe and shook him. “What about the canister?”
Eyes opened fully. “Sara. It’s good to see you. When did you get here?”
“What were you saying about the canister? The one you sent with me?”
“The canister? Oh yes, that canister. They kept saying on the loudspeakers to turn it over and they would leave. I didn’t believe them for a second. You still have it?”
Sara let go of his clothes. She stood up. Her jaw dropped.
“My dowry? The thing you were going to give to Cotillion instead? What’s in it?”
Abbot pulled away the hair that was plastered to his face, looking up at her. “I don’t know. Honestly. It’s something your sister worked on for a long time before the crop thing.” A cough wracked him.
“Why would my father do that? It sounds valuable.”
The Abbot shrugged. “I’m sure he had his reasons. See-Oh’s don’t explain to mouthpieces why they do things.”
She shook her head. A bitter taste was in her mouth. Her insides twisted, and she felt a rising gorge. She took a couple of steps to lean against a large tank.
“What are you planning to do?” The Abbot’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“I... I don’t know. Go to the Cloister, see if there is anything left there. Some things are running, after all. Maybe find something for you. Will you be alright by yourself for a bit?”
A groan was her answer. A look at his gray face dissuaded her from going. He was resting. Or passed out. She didn’t think it mattered anymore. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, despite the chill. Might there be some medicine to ease his suffering?
Abbot shivered. Sara went to the wagon and brought back a blanket. The blanket was tucked in around him.
“Water.” A raspy croak.
Sara fetched the cup again and held it up. Abbot wetted his lips and throat. A low rattle came from him as he breathed. He drifted off again.
Sara sat next to him. Her own eyes started to close. It was very late.
“Sara, dear, Brewer is special. We didn’t get to run the tests, but we suspect that he’s like you. Except natural.”
Her eyes jerked open. “You shouldn’t talk. Save your strength.” She rearranged the covers. A brief hesitation and she took his hand.
He looked at her. A smile grew on his face. “You are too sweet.”
He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. Sara stared at him. His chest didn’t rise again.
Sara sat there for a few minutes holding his hand. She stood. A low sigh escaped her. Taking the quilted blanket, she went back outside, to the wagon, to Maggie.
“Good horse.” She rubbed Maggie’s nose.
A nicker was her reward.
Climbing into the seat she headed up the road to the Cloister in the deep of night.