Chapter 511

"If you give a human or someone trained by humans or someone who just once walked by a human, time to dig in, you have lost. They have won, it is their planet now." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

The two boys were silent as the bent the branch backwards, tension in the wood rising, until they got it against another branch. The third boy quickly slid into place a hand crafted wooden peg attached to a rope.

"OK," the third boy said softly.

The other two slowly let off the pressure. The oldest nodded, swallowing thickly. He glanced at the wooden stakes, two that had been resharpened. The others had dark stains on them.

The boy who's age was in the middle made a motion and the three boys moved through the woods silently, their ears up and rotating side to side as they listened carefully for anyone in the woods. They moved silently, avoiding loose leaves, watching for dry sticks, keeping an eye out for pebbles.

At a hand sign the boys knelt down and the middle one moved forward to a hole in forest floor. He looked in then looked around before motioning the two up.

The two other boys, one older, one younger, looked in the hole. Inside metal stakes gleamed softly, the edges filed and cut to create crude ugly barbs. Three stakes were obviously missing.

The middle boy pointed at his own eyes, then used the same fingers to point around, one hand going to the hatchet on his belt. He unsnapped the restraining strap with a thumb, slowly and carefully, to avoid noise.

The younger boy pointed.

Dried blood smeared across rocks and leaves.

Lowering their grav-ski masks, the three boys moved slowly, following the smears of blood. All three of them were holding weapons. The oldest held an axe, the middle one a hatchet, the youngest a brush clearing blade. The two oldest kept an eye out on the surroundings as the youngest one tracked the blood.

There was a smears all over a rock, including handprints. One stake was on the ground, the blood dried and no longer of interest to anything but the local equivalent of ants. The middle one picked it up, shook the ants off of it, and slid it in between his belt and jacket.

Blood smears were on the trees, on some of the bushes, on rocks.

Next to a log another stake was on the ground, completely covered with dried blood, chunks of dried flesh in between the crudely filed teeth.

The youngest circled around, then pointed at more tracks.

Someone had come in from the side, tracking the wounded one.

The boys spread out slightly, silent, looking around.

They found the body.

It was spread out on a rock, the throat cut, the jacket slashed and torn from heavy blades. A stake was still stuck through the foot, angled outward. The body was male, lean and hungry looking. Even several days after death the black around the eyes, the dried blood on the face and under the ears, all gave silent witness of what he was.

A Black Eyes.

Driven mad by the screams of the Slorpies, cannibalistic, violent, they often banded together behind those perceived as the strongest. They preyed on the weak, the vulnerable, and those they outnumbered. Rape, murder, robbery, and worse were their coin and bands of them moved from place to place, with some of the more vicious and stronger bands settling down and claiming territory.

All three boys knew that nearby, less than fifteen miles away, a camp of at least a hundred had set up in the ruins of a town. They dyed the tips of their ears red and called themselves Red-Tips, in a wholly unimaginative name for anyone who's brains hadn't been scrambled by psychic warfare.

Even though the boys couldn't see any red dye on the tips of the ears, they could tell that the body did not belong with the Red-Tips by what was scrawled in blood on the boulder.

R WURLD

YUR LAK

The middle boy moved up and used a knife to pry to stake out of the foot.

Together they moved back, taking a different route, separating and rejoining as they turned a half mile trip into nearly two miles in case of watchers.

Once back at the pit they started back to work. One of the boys dug a small hole, dropped his pants, and defecated into the hole. The stakes were all jabbed into the feces, then the hole covered. The stakes went back into the hole, pointing up, firmly enough into the ground at the bottom of the hole to ensure that they stayed upright even when something stepped on them but loose enough for a panicked and injured victim to pull the stake free.

A cross hatch of twigs covered in leaves concealed the hole and they moved on silently.

The body of a female Black Eyes was held upright by the branch that had driven three sharpened stakes into her guts. The boys could see how she had vomited up blood before she died. They silently pulled her free, dragging her twenty paces to the side.

They reset the trap.

The middle boy took the time to examine the ears.

No red dye.

He nodded at them, then used his hatchet to cut off the corpse's head. They pulled the body over to a tree, tied a rope to one leg, and hoisted the corpse into the tree until it was nearly ten feet up. They took the head over and threw it on the ground five paces past the trigger wire for the branch trap, directly under the body. They also ran three leg-snares, making sure they were obvious, without showing that the body was used as the counter-weight.

Once they were done they took a break, pushing up their grav-ski masks, drinking and eating silently, constantly watching around them.

The middle one often looked older than the others.

When they were done eating the boy made a motion, an up and down waving of his hand across his chest. The other two nodded and they set off, silent in the woods. The afternoon was still cool, even with the snow melted.

When they got to the creek they spent time examining that bank, the water, the little glittering soft sand bank. Satisfied that nothing was going on, they moved down to it. They followed the edge, sometimes sand, sometimes pebbles, sometime rock.

They reached a maintenance road bridge over the creek and paused, looking it over.

The short yellow ribbon tags that had been carefully place to make sure they could only be seen from upstream were missing. They'd been tied to short branches and wedged in between braces up by the bridge's top well enough to resist wind, but anything travelling over the bridge would shift the braces and make the branches fall.

They climbed out, using the bridge, and looked around. The youngest moved up and looked at the dirt at each side, then flashed three fingers, then rocked one fist in front of himself.

The other two nodded.

All three boys faded into the brush, only the older boy visible as he kept an eye on the three sets of vehicle tracks. They had different tread marks and the same amount of water in the deeper parts from the previous night's dusting of snow that had melted off when the sun had scorched through the sky, burned away the clouds with unrestrained UV light, and melted the snow.

A camp cabin came into sight and all three boys went belly down.

Two adult males were arguing by the front of one car.

The middle one lifted a set of macrobinoculars and looked at them.

The mirror shades hid their eyes, but he could see the blood in the fur beneath their eyes. Their motions were angry, jerky. They'd bled from the ears and the blood crusted the fur beneath them. One kept having to wipe his mouth to wipe away the foamy drool.

"...telling you that nobody's out here," Foamy snapped. "Them Red Ears are just a-feared of the woods."

"What about all the old blood stains?" the other one asked, his shoulder involuntarily twitching.

The middle one recognized it as Black Eye Shakes.

"Bah, probably last time. We been here almost two days. Nobody out here," Foamy answered.

"Don't trust it. Feels weird," Twitchy said.

"Don't be a girly girl. Nobody out here in these woods," Foamy said, reaching out to shove Twitchy.

Twitchy slapped Foamy's arm away, holding up a sharp knife. "Don't make me gut you."

Foamy growled and for a moment all three boys tensed. They'd seen these scenes before.

"Fine, fine. Save it fer tha Masked Killer," Foamy said. He spit on the ground. "Ain't nobody out here no way anyway."

The boys watched as the two moved into the house.

They moved slowly, carefully, so that they were each watching the cabin from a different angle.

The screams and pleas for mercy and to stop were ignored as was the laughter and cruel mocking.

Darkness slowly came and still the boys held position and watched, only shifting their bodies now and then to keep circulation moving and to prevent muscle cramps.

The middle boy held still when he felt movement near him.

A Red Ear, dressed all in black with I WIL LEEV written in dark red paint on the front and back of his black jacket, moved up and actually stepped on the middle boy's hand. The boy said nothing, just closed his eyes and swallowed.

The Red Ear stared at the cabin, shook his head, then turned, grinding the boy's hand into the dirt, then hurried back the way he had came, breaking into a run as soon as he felt he was far enough away from the cabin to not be noticed.

After a few minutes the middle boy gave a whistle like one of the birds that were still calling to one another.

The other two made the same whistle.

They shifted until the youngest was watching the back door, the oldest watching the front.

The middle boy moved into the open, moving from shadow to shadow, changing his posture to meld with the shadows, until he got to the cars. He dropped onto his back and wiggled underneath them.

The other two boys held their breath.

Shadows moved in front of the windows from the Black Eyes in the cabin, there was laughter, someone screamed in pain and there was more laughter.

The boy squirmed underneath the next car. After a few moments he crawled under the third, once of his pockets bulging, his knife in his hand.

Breathing slow and steady, mentally reciting the mantras from the books they had read, the other two boys looked at the rocks and twigs in front of the doors, keeping the door at the edge of their vision while staring at the rocks.

Moving fast the middle boy darted out from behind the second car and vanished into the bushes. He counted to twenty, getting his breathing under control, then whistled, this time using the sound of night birds that had only just started to wake.

The other two answered.

Minutes passed and nobody came out.

The middle boy gave another bird whistle. The other two answered.

Moving carefully, the middle boy moved up and stopped next to the empty liquid fuel tank. He rose up slowly and looked through the window with one eye, staring at the wall with the other eye.

In the room were a half dozen males and five females. Three of the females and one of the males were tied to chairs. They all had bleeding wounds on their chest, stripped to their waists. They had blackened bruised bloodshot eyes. White powder or paint had been scrubbed away from the sides of their heads, but one still had a white handprint on the side of their head in the fur from white paint.

The others were sitting around, swilling alcohol, eating food obviously taken from emergency supplies. They all had blue stripes emulating their whiskers dyed into their fur on their faces. Two of the five were already passed out on the couch, one having dropped the bottle of alcohol he had been drinking out of. The ones passed out had their shirts off and the boy could see the scars of self-mutilation all over their torsos and abdomens.

As he watched two of the awake males untied one of the males in the chairs and yanked him to his feet. They moved him to where one of the untied females was bent over a table, her pants dropped around her ankles. She was eating a chunk of meat, staring at the fireplace as if she was entranced, the reflection of the fire dancing in her large bloodshot eyes. The untied male shook his head and one of the other males put a knife against his throat as the female waggled her backside.

The boy ignored the forced sexual act, scanning the room with one eye.

The boy could see knives, brush cutting blades, a shotgun, a single combat rifle. Terran military, dirty and smeared with grease, leaning against the windowsill. There was supplies haphazardly tossed around.

The boy counted to ten, closed his eye, and slowly lowered his head down and to the side in a smooth motion.

He moved to each window, peeking in.

One window let him see the back door. There were two Terran military rifles against the door. He nodded to himself before moving on to the next window.

It took him nearly an hour to complete his circuit.

When he was done he moved away the cabin, so it was still in sight, but they were over twenty paces away, then made the sucking whistling sound of a small night rodent. Two answered him the same way, three other answers were confused whistles.

The three boys regrouped. Hand signals went back and forth. The youngest got up, his grav-ski mask in place, and moved quickly and quietly at a run into the woods.

The other two shifted position so they could see the front and back doors.

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Ellie knocked twice, then once, then three times on the door before opening it. His father was lowering a shotgun from where he was standing near the fireplace, giving him an angle on the door and the front window without endangering anyone else.

It was late, the fire burning low. The house smelled good, of warm food and family, as Ellie stepped in, quietly closed the door, and pushed up his mask.

"Black Eyes at Ranger Cabin Five," he said, his voice still quiet. He shook his head and repeated it in a louder, firmer voice.

"How many," his father asked.

"Twelve," the boy said. "Five are maybe prisoners, maybe being jumped in. They have cars and guns and think that they're going to live here," he paused. "The Red Ears know they're there."

The adult male sighed. "I'll get her."

Ellie winced but nodded. He went over to the fridge and pulled out a can of Liquid Hate, Popcorn and Kiwi Fruit, and set it on the counter as his father went into the bedroom. After a moment he came back out.

"She's getting ready," he said.

Ellie swallowed a mouthful of his own drink, a duldenfruit fizzybrew.

Uncle Inkree frowned slightly at his son as the boy swallowed a third of the fizzybrew quickly. He didn't like how the boys had taken to drinking fizzybrew after going outside, but his niece had told him it helped get rid of 'the shakes' and so he'd bitten his tongue about it.

"Does she scare you?" his son asked.

Inkree thought for a moment about lying, then nodded. "She does. The Terran medicine changed her and I don't know if that's good or not."

"She would have died," Ellie countered. He chugged down another long drink and set the bottle down. "And we'd be dead."

"I know that," Inkree told his son. "I just can't help but wonder why the Terran medicine changed her so much."

"Mister Mewmew isn't worried," Ellie said. "The soldiers that came by weren't worried."

"Those soldiers were bug people, what do they know of Hesstlans?" Inkree asked. He shook his head. "I still do not understand why she would say we weren't going to the refugee site."

"Because refugee sites get attacked," a raspy girl's voice said from behind him.

Ellie chugged down a couple swallows of his fizzybrew as his cousin stepped into the room and quietly closed the door where all the littles were sleeping with Meglee.

She was taller than even his father, wide shoulders, long arms. The dangerous weight loss of radiation poisoning had been replaced by thick muscle, easily visible due to the loss of body hair on her arms, face, head, and neck. She was tightening the straps on a matte black torso covering as she moved up to the counter. When she stopped, she pulled on the heavy coveralls, the baggy look of the heavy work clothes making her look even larger.

She cracked open the Liquid Hate, smiling slightly at the "you'll be sorry" the can squeaked. She took a long drink, smacked her lips, and smiled. She looked at Ellie.

"How many?" she asked.

"A dozen. Looks like a new gang. They're Black Eyes, but they have blue whiskers painted on their faces," he said. "Are they new?"

The young woman nodded.

"They have three cars, supplies, and they sound like they plan on staying," Ellie said.

"They're going to be," the young woman said, her voice cold and hard. "Much longer than they think."

Part of Inkree wanted to ask if what was going to happen was necessary.

But he'd seen what charity and mercy brought in this terrible new world.

The young woman twisted the cap back onto the can, putting it in her pocket. She took the grav-ski mask off of her belt and pulled it over her burn scarred head. The mask was chipped, gouged, and in one place two talons had raked over the eyepiece from a sloprie creature.

The boy drained the last of his fizzybrew and followed the young woman out into the night where tiny snowflakes were starting to flurry through the air.

The door shut, and Inkree felt better.

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The middle boy could feel the approach.

The animals went quiet. The breeze fell away. The snowflakes stopped dancing on the wind and instead just drifted down. Sounds became muted, hushed, and the darkness in the forest deepened. No longer were the shadows simply shadows, they felt like they concealed malevolence.

He had moved slowly, carefully, managing to ease open the door and pull the Terran combat rifles outside. He had followed the instructions he had learned and quickly opened the rifle, removing the firing mechanism and jimmying the sensor before putting the rifles back.

There was no way to get at the one in the front room, as there were still five of the adults awake. One of the females had been released and she had immediately let her face be striped with blue.

The boy knew that killing was only going to happen to the ones with white handprints if they refused to join the gang with blue stripes.

Now he was crouched down, behind a stump, his arms on the top and his chin resting on his arm as his head was tilted at an angle, one ear up, one ear pressed against the back of his head.

The snowflakes were silently falling in the darkness, glimmering in the light from the windows.

Silence surrounded him and he felt his sister as she knelt down next to him.

"Tell me," his sister said softly, her voice raspy. She pulled a half-finished can of Liquid Hate out of her pocket and opened the lid, taking a swig as he described everything to his sister.

"Snow's hot tonight. Get under cover," the large young woman said, standing up. "You know what to do if any get out of the perimeter."

He just nodded, getting up and moving under a low tree.

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It was only a few hours before dawn when the knock on the door heralded the arrival of all four. They came in silently, the tall young woman passing by all of them, moving over to the basement hatch and pulling it open. She went into the basement, pulling the hatch after her.

The three boys went out to the pump, filling buckets up. They came back, pouring the buckets into the large metal tub. Aunt Fenn heated up one bucket for every five, so that the water was warm and steaming.

As each boy bathed, modesty a thing of the past, Aunt Fenn rubbed into their fur the shampoo from a tube marked "FOR MINOR RADIATION HAZARD EXPOSURE", making sure the foam was thick and rich. Each boy finished and moved aside for the next, pulling on a light nightgown that before everything had changed they would have complained was for girls.

The basement hatch opened and the young woman moved up into the room, quietly shutting the hatch. She was wrapped in a bathing sheet and moved over to the door. The fur on her back had started to come back in, fine and soft, swirling patterns that were different than they had been before.

Her chest was bare of fur, covered in patchy scarring from burns. The same with her arms, face, head, and shoulders.

She had been looking straight at more than one atomic blast when it had gone off.

Aunt Fenn helped her out into the yard and over to the pump. She was still smeared with blood and Aunt Fenn helped wash her with buckets of cold water. The young woman shivered but didn't complain about the ice cold well water.

While the boys carried buckets of water inside to refill the cast iron tub, Aunt Fenn scrubbed the foam into her fur, used a rag to scrub it into her skin. In a few places part of the burn scars sloughed off, silent testimony that the Terran medicine was still doing its work.

The young woman was led back into the cabin, helped into the clean water.

She didn't try to hide her nakedness from the male relatives.

Her long illness and the deprivations she had suffered had stripped away modesty.

"How are you?" Aunt Fenn asked as the young woman slid down in the tub and gave a warm sigh as move of her body was submerged.

"Tired," the girl said. "I'm not back to full strength."

Aunt Fenn nodded. The boys were sprawled out on the couches, all three of them already asleep from their long night. She nodded toward them. "They're tired too."

"They have a right to be," the girl said. She lifted one arm out, grabbing the can of Liquid Hate, Pumpkin Spice and Whiskey Soaked Cherries, and popped the top so the can squeaked 'you'll regret this' as she took a drink.

"How bad?" Aunt Fenn asked. She often had stomach cramps from anxiety when the boys went out.

The young woman shook her head slightly as she closed her eyes and sighed. "It was like always. Lure a few out, cause fear and confusion, throw a body through a window, let none escape," she sighed again.

"What?" Fenn asked.

"One had a refugee camp ID card," the girl said. "She had black eyes."

"Oh," Fenn said softly. "What will you do?"

It was silent in the cabin for a long moment, just a soft rustling as the coals shifted in the fire place.

"Keep protecting them, you, the littles," the girl said.

"Nothing will ever be the same, will it?" Aunt Fenn asked.

"Nothing was ever the same," the young woman said. She laid her head against her aunt's arm. "But, I guess, that's OK."

"I love you," Aunt Fenn said.

She was no longer surprised just how deeply she meant it.

"I know," Dambree answered.

Mister Mewmew watched from his basket near the fire, the black macroplas triangle in the middle of his face giving no clue as to his thoughts.