DustOff Read online

  There was no telling what they would come across in the woods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Brother James waited in front of the alter.

  His legs were folded underneath him, like a yogi meditating for enlightenment, and his hands were gripped tight and locked under his chin as if he were begging for something.

  Salvation or sanity, Lt wasn’t sure which.

  He hadn’t had much use for praying for a couple of years.

  Not since a three-day vigil at his dying daughter’s bedside.

  He knew all about mysterious ways, and “man plans, God laughs” and a hundred other platitudes folks had about dying.

  He also knew that fortune favors the bold, and the Universe was a fickle creature when it came to protecting evolved sacks of meat from a floating rock in space.

  The armor helped. It was better than any prayer.

  And he never had a problem with being bold.

  “Hell, I’ve even been called a reckless son of bitch, every now and then,” he snorted under his breath.

  No one could hear him through the faceplate.

  Candles set on sconces in the wall, homemade wooden shelves nailed together from scrap lumber, and covered with wax made from animal fat flickered in the sanctuary.

  If it could be called that.

  Lt wondered.

  James lived here with six women, and he wondered if it was just his home or a worship center as well.

  No matter, he thought as he stopped in the middle of the floor a short distance from the praying man.

  Annie stopped a step behind him and off to one side, waiting. Watching.

  The man on the floor took a deep breath, held it and let it out.

  His eyelids fluttered open and took a moment to focus in the dim light of the room.

  When they did, a smile creased the thin cheeks and he reached up to brush a shock of hair back from his forehead.

  “I prayed you would do it,” he beamed.

  “Yeah, well, your prayers have come true, Reverend Jim.”

  The man folded himself off the floor and bounced across the short distance between them.

  “When will you go?” he gushed.

  Lt wasn’t sure if he could trust a man that gushed.

  Gushing was something reserved for meals like the one they served, or the number of heads collected after a battle with the Lick.

  Not for agreeing to help.

  Though, Lt considered. Maybe it had been awhile since anyone offered to help them.

  Maybe the excitement was for an act of kindness in this crazy world.

  “Soon as you point me in the right direction,” Lt said.

  Brother James knit his eyebrows in confusion.

  “We don’t know which direction,” he said.

  “You got to have a place for me to start looking.”

  “That’s what we need you for. Eli said you were good at finding things.”

  Lt nodded.

  “I see the confusion,” he said. “Ya’ll ain’t got a clue and need me to Sherlock this shit.”

  The eyebrows knit again.

  “Does that mean you’ll do some detecting work?”

  “I ain’t a cop. Never wanted to be,” said Lt as he turned to lead the man outside. “But I got me a few ideas on how we can check.”

  He stood on the steps outside of the church and surveyed the grounds.

  After a few moments, he pointed to the wiry haired girl he had seen in the woods.

  She was still in the company of her two companions, but at work on the end of a row of green bean plants, chattering and laughing as they pulled weeds.

  “Her,” said Lt.

  “What about her.”

  “Bring her over here.”

  Annie stood up from the step and joined them.

  “Why do you think she knows something?” Brother James asked.

  “She found us in the woods?” Annie asked.

  “Yeah, she was spying on us in the woods.”

  Brother James put two fingers to his lips and blew a shrill sharp whistle that cut across the compound.

  It was loud enough to grab everyone’s attention and all of the people doing work stopped to stare at him.

  The men glanced around in alarm, hands drifting to the rifles they wore strapped to their backs even as they farmed, while others started moving toward the doors of the two buildings to seek safety.

  James waved his hands over his head, some pre-designated signal for an all clear and pointed to the wiry haired girl.

  “Myra,” he said to Lt and beckoned her with a finger.

  She stared at the ground as she shuffled to join them on the steps.

  “Brother James?”

  Lt thought she might curtsey, but she stood two steps below them, eyes studying patterns in the cracked concrete at her feet.

  “How did you find us in the woods?” Lt asked.

  She cleared her throat and shrugged.

  “You do that a lot? You see things?”

  She coughed and nodded, a slight movement of her head that was only perceptible by the motion it sent through her bushy mane of hair.

  “You spy this guy they want me to find?”

  Myra nodded.

  “Which way did he go?”

  One dirty finger on her left hand pointed in a western direction.

  “That’s it?” Annie asked. “You’re going to need more than just a direction, Lt.”

  “He’s going to leave tracks out there,” Lt explained. “We’ll find ‘em and hunt him down.”

  “I can show you,” Myra croaked in a whisper.

  “Show me what?” Lt stared at her.

  “Show you where he went.”

  Her eyes drifted up, locked on his and fell back to her feet again under his intense gaze.

  “You know where he is?” Brother James reached out and yanked her arm.

  “No,” she squealed. “We just know where he goes. We watched him.”

  Her eyes locked on Lt again, and drifted over to Annie.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Brother James asked.

  She bit her lip and held back tears.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “He attacked us,” Brother James fumed. “And you knew where he was? We could have gone after him.”

  “I was scared,” she whimpered. “He’s not alone.”

  Brother James let go of her arm and turned to Lt.

  “We thought it was just the one,” he stammered. “I can send some of us with you. To help.”

  Lt shook his head.

  “Got all the help I need,” he said. “Come on.”

  He led Annie away from the Church and towards the woods where the girl had pointed.

  “You too,” he said to Myra.

  She scrambled off the steps and ran to join them. Her two friends drifted in their direction.

  “Just you,” said Lt.

  She shook her head and waved them back.

  “What the hell is going on?” Annie whispered out of the side of her mouth.

  “I don’t know,” Lt growled “But I aim to find out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  “Son of a bitch,” Lt lifted his blaster and aimed toward the sky.

  “Don’t,” a voice called out to him from behind one of the trees.

  He could see other men now, moving like ghosts shifting out from behind trees to catch a peek of him before they ducked back into the safety of the thick boles.

  “You could say “get behind me,” Annie muttered. “But we’re surrounded.”

  Lt slowly shifted his head to look around the clearing where Myra had led them.

  It wasn’t much, as far as clearing went. A small hillock in the middle of the forest, surrounded by a thick mix of pine, oak and hickory trees.

  Scratchy, thin grass grew on the hillock, which afforded little view of the surroundings due to the trees.

  But it was well hidden, which Lt supposed was the point.

/>   “Lover’s lane,” he said as he lowered his blaster.

  Myra pushed around him and climbed the short path to the top of a hill.

  A man moved from behind a tree and walked to meet her. He kept his rifle aimed at Lt and Annie, but he needn’t have worried.

  There were at least a dozen other guns pointed at them that he could see.

  “We keep walking into these things,” Annie said. “Maybe you need to practice hunting or something.”

  “Yeah, hunting Lick’s I’m pretty damn good.”

  “Are you? I mean, I just saw the one time. And you have the Suit too.”

  He smirked under his face plate but kept his mouth shut.

  “Maybe you trust the wrong people.”

  She could see his helmet move as he nodded.

  One of the people he trusted to lead him toward the bad guy was at the top of the hill, warms wrapped around the waist of the man, her head buried in his chest in a hug.

  “I’d tell you to drop your weapons,” Lt called out. “But I’m gonna let you keep ‘em. Won’t do you a lot of good against me anyway, and I don’t want to send up smoke signals in a firefight to let the Lick know where we are.”

  The man detached from Myra and took two steps down the hillock toward Lt.

  “You backed the wrong horse,” he said.

  “You the one doing all the killing back at the church?”

  His finger tightened on the trigger guard.

  The man shook his head.

  “Kill? Who’s been killed?”

  He glanced at Myra sharply, and she answered him with a head shake.

  “No one’s been killed,” the man smirked. “Sounds like you fell for Brother Jim’s lies.”

  He reached up and grabbed Myra by the hand.

  “If you hold your fire, I’ll take you to the man you’re looking to find.”

  Lt turned his reflective faceplate toward Annie.

  “What are you looking at me for?” she said. “You got us out here. Let’s go find him.”

  They fell in step behind Myra as the rest of the men moved into a formation behind them, escorting them up a narrow game path on the other side of the clearing.

  “Don’t think I won’t forget you led us into an ambush,” Lt said to the girl.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Doc paused outside of the hole to his lab. He could see the computer console sitting on the metal table in the middle of the room, but he still needed help to get inside.

  “Get Burmage,” he instructed one of the guards.

  The man nodded, checked with the other guard to make sure he had Doc covered, then ran into the crowed corridor to look for the community leader.

  It wouldn’t take long, thought Doc. Burmage had been itching to get inside the interior lab since they opened it up.

  Now that a chance presented itself, the man would almost knock down anyone who got in his way.

  Even as he thought it, he could hear the scuffle of a body moving through people, cries and curses thrown after it as Burmage ran down the hall toward him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "Like wagons waiting on an attack," Lt said.

  The men led them into a shallow glade where two country roads intersected after a bridge.

  There were two paths along either side of the embankment leading to the creek bed under the concrete arch.

  Rocks dotted the downstream end of the creek, creating a shallow pool of flowing water that overtopped the small dam to continue meandering through the woods.

  The open space next to the water looked like a makeshift parking lot from before, the kind of place locals would pull into to cast a few lines to fish, or to spend hot summer days cooling off in the water.

  Now there were six RV's pulled in a tight circle, bumper to bumper with a tiny opening between two that allowed access to the interior.

  Lt guessed they had been there for some time.

  All of the RV's had flat tires, and the undercarriages were covered with boards, pieces of tin and detritus scavenged as wind block.

  Myra went first through the narrow space, so tight she was forced to turn sideways to squeeze through.

  Annie went next and followed her into the center of the encampment.

  Lt couldn't fit. His armor was too bulky, too wide.

  "Try again," the man who met them in the clearing growled and pointed his rifle at Lt.

  "You get more flies with honey," Lt said.

  He squatted and leaped.

  The suit augmented his strength, the impulses passed from the nanotechnology in his bloodstream to the servomechanisms inside the biomechanical suit.

  He landed on top of the twelve-foot roof and bounded down into the clearing before anyone on the inside could react.

  Lt was surprised no one screamed, though there were a few grunts as the men in the clearing scrambled for their weapons.

  He left his blaster strapped to his back.

  If they started shooting, he'd pin Annie between his armor and the side of an RV to keep her safe, before he unleashed hell.

  But right now, they were aiming. Not shooting.

  "You like to make an entrance," Annie said as she moved closer to his side.

  "Said the woman who crashed us just to make a point."

  "I wasn't making a point," she snarled.

  "Exactly," Lt crowed. "You just ain't that good of a flier."

  "I am an excellent pilot," she shot back.

  "I ain't discounting your abilities. In space," he said.

  "We're not done with this," she seethed, but he could see the quirk of a smile at the corner of her mouth and it gave him a tingle.

  He had to appreciate someone who could feel humor in the presence of danger. Gallows humor, maybe but fun to find none the less.

  "Which one of you sons of bitches is killing women and children?" Lt called out.

  One of the RV doors opened, and Brother James stepped out into the sunlight.

  "Greetings," said the man.

  He just looked like Brother James, Lt thought. Same body, almost the same face. Not twins though.

  "I guess you've met my brother," the man smiled. "I'm Brother John."

  "He doesn't look like a killer," said Annie.

  Lt glanced around as the men from the clearing filed through the narrow gap between the RV's and fingered their weapons, ready to aim and fire.

  "You saying I look like one, Warbucks?" he muttered.

  There were at least fifteen guns against them, he counted.

  He didn't see a weapon on the man who called himself Brother John, but he could have a pistol hidden on his back.

  Myra was off to one side, but still exposed if they started shooting. And fifteen rifles were dangerous enough that Warbucks might get hurt, so he held off.

  "I'm saying I guess I expected something different."

  "We like our killers ten foot tall," Lt said. "You're kinda short."

  John smiled, showing a lot of teeth.

  "Is that what he's still saying? I killed people."

  Lt shifted.

  "He said you killed women and children. I can't let that stand."

  The smile faded slightly but was still plastered to his tan face. Wavy hair framed thin cheeks, intelligent eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunlight.

  "You don't have to take my word for it," John slapped the side of the RV he came out of.

  The door opened, and eight women came out.

  "Before you start thinking Lazarus," John said. "They were never dead."

  "Well Baptist, I was thinking zombies or maybe vampires on account of some reading I've had the pleasure to enjoy. I don't normally go straight to a biblical reference, unless you're talking horsemen."