Between Rubble and Ruin: Chapter 3 – Same as You
Chapter 3: Same as You
Head hung like the earth itself dangled from her chin, Patience sat crumpled on her knees, arms tied tight to a metal post behind her back. The slaver camp was nothing but a few tents and a fire that had been used to weather the previous night’s storm, but to her it felt like the inside of the most inescapable prison.
The cold touch of her own knife lifted her chin. Paulson crouched in front of her and grinned, bringing Patience’s gaze to drop down in place of her head.
“Have a nice night, sweetheart?” He chuckled. “Rain wasn’t too wet?”
“Eat a dick.” she grumbled in response, turning her head from the knife. Paulson tapped it a few times against her cheek.
“That’s no way to speak to to the one that saved that little girl.” he replied with a smirk. “How do you suppose the kids are doing?” Patience exhaled but couldn’t respond, so Paulson continued to talk for the both of them. “Froze to death? In the stomach of a fallen maybe? Lots of ways for a couple a’ kids to meet a horrible, horrible death.” She looked straight into his eyes with a growl.
“Shut up and kill me so I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”
“Kill you?” he laughed mightily before his face turned to a scowl. “Darling there is so much worse I can do to you.” Patience tried to look resolute, but her facade wavered. In truth, she had never been more horrified. Paulson slid the flat side of the knife across her chin and stood up, face changing back to a bastard’s smile. “So get comfy.”
The other two occupants of the camp strode to join Paulson. One was the second gunman from back at the schoolhouse, the other was someone visible to her for the first time. He was a beast of a man, tall and strong with wild untamed hair of gold and a disheveled beard to match. A jagged hunk of metal that resembled an axe was strapped across his back while a magnum rested in the holster on his side.
“Shame you only got one.” he said to Paulson, who nodded back. “How’d that happen again.”
“That place was a pile of rot, floor gave.”Paulson explained. “Little one fell right into a basement of fallen.”
“The large one glanced at Paulson’s accomplice whose eyes darted away.”
“That right?”
“That’s right, Jeff.”
“Hold on.” Patience blurted out, looking up at the men. ‘Jeff?’ Leader of the bloodthirsty child-murdering slavers is named fucking ‘Jeff?”
“What you expected me to be called ‘Warkiller’ or ‘Bloodeater’ or something?” Jeff replied in annoyance. “Can’t help what my mother called me.”
“Something more manly at least, Jeffrey.” Patience smirked, hoping to get under the man’s skin. He smiled and took it in stride, turned to the third man and began to speak.
“Was it like he says, Griff?”
“See?” Patience interrupted. “That’s an actual man name.” Griff stared at her with mouth agape and then glanced at Jeff as if he wasn’t sure how the boss would take the badgering.
“Uh….” Griff mumbled. “Not really?”
“You son of a whore!” Paulson exclaimed in anger, staring down his comrade.
“I’m sorry.” Griff retorted. “I’m not going down with you!” Paulson stepped towards Griff and wound back his arm.
“I’m going to f-” BANG! Patience and Griff flinched as Paulson hit the dirt, a fresh hole in his head.
“No survivors.” Jeff shrugged nonchalantly as he holstered his gun. “He never quite understood the rules.” Patience stared at the now dead raider laying an arms reach from her, his hollow eyes still somehow filled with anger. She couldn’t claim to be upset, be she sure was surprised.
“Real efficient bossing there, Jeffomundo.” He smirked and crouched down so their eyes were level.
“Sometimes you just need to put a bullet in all of your problems, right?” he stated, hand upon the grip of his holstered magnum. Patience grimaced back at him. “You understand right? After all I count that as the 4th one of my men you got killed.”
“It’s been a pleasure!” She spat.
“Look at those eyes. I’ve seen those eyes before in every one of my men. You are a wolf. A born killer!” Patience looked away.
“You can cram your ‘same as you’ speech right up that corpse’s corpsey-ass.” She growled back. She wasn’t going to let him toy with her. He would not get the satisfaction. Jeff picked the knife up off the ground and glared at her with wicked eyes.
“Oh I’ll teach you what you are.” he growled, staring her right in the eye as he lifted the knife up above his head. The knife plunged down with considerable force. Patience closed her eyes and braced for pain, expecting it to meet her body. No pain came, however, and she opened her eyes to find the knife stabbed to the hilt into the ground in-front of her, the raider boss having stood up. “As I rip the heart right out of that little girl.”
He stared at her with the most wicked and frightful visage she had ever seen. Then as if brushing the situation from his shoulder he smiled, turned, and walked back towards his tent, lackey in tow. Patience was left staring at her knife a mere foot ahead, taunting her with her inability to retrieve it.
Somewhere between where things were and where they are now, Judith and Carlos carefully traipsed through the woods, the evening sky piercing the canopy and bathing the forest floor in light. They followed the shadow of the old highway that towered above the trees, held up by cracking pillars that had been claimed by vines, and pushed past the rusted chain-link fences and moss-covered cars and trucks that now looked nearly natural in the way the foliage and moss had melded with them.
“You look scared of it.” Carlos observed, pointing to Judith who cradled her handgun as if it were as volatile as rotting dynamite, eyes darting between it and the path in front of her. “Why did you go back for it?”
She looked down at the thing, her sister’s words echoing in her skull like a church bell that could not be stopped. “We’re the soldiers now.”
“I’m not.” he rebuked, thoughts drifting out into the sky. “Mom always kept me safe. I wonder if she’s already back home, I hope she isn’t worried!”
“Go back then.” Judith grumbled, stopping to look back at the boy following her towards a fight. He was just a stranger, really. They knew nothing of each other.
“It’s okay.” he smiled back. “She’s like my mom, yeah? You need your sister, so I’ll help you get her back.” Judith returned the smile, briefly feeling better about the situation. She was a gentle girl, and she wasn’t going to let this ordeal change her, slavers be damned.
“Still, I do hope it doesn’t take too long!” Carlos clarified, casually putting his arms behind his head. “I’m starting to get hungry. You ever try fruity blasters?”
“F-” she stammered. “What?”
“They are old world, from before. We found boxes of them back at the schoolhouse.”
“I’m not sure I want my fruit to blast me.”
“They are crunchy and yummy, you’ll love ’em.” he beamed. “What do you eat?”
“Clucker eggs.” she answered, suddenly wondering what happened to the poor things in the aftermath she and Patience had left behind.
“I wonder what those are.”
“They,” she began, before realizing explaining how some funny little birds pooping out eggs (that also could contain babies) that you cook the juices of to make a soft and fluffy meal was too strange a concept to bother with. “Never mind, let’s keep going!”
“Oh, right!”
The young girl was no tracker, but still she walked with timid purpose, southward following the general direction her sister and her captors had taken. Judith wasn’t ready to be alone out here, she needed her sister to survive and even more she simply wanted her sister to live. It was just yesterday she lost her parents, her caravan, all of her friends, and all of her things. How could she live with such despair if her sister was taken from her too? And yet as the two quietly, yet clumsily stalked the forest all her brain could find to do was imagine that death, mentally preparing her for what deep down she recognized as almost an inevitability.
They cautiously hit the edge of a clearing. Judith’s eyes lit up, spotting her sister among the minuscule, yet somehow imposing camp set against the crumbled remains of one section of highway. Her head was hung and her back turned, but she was there and she was alive.
“Patience!” Judith half-whispered starting to bolt from the clearing. Carlos scanned the area spotting a trio of cans dangling like wind-chimes from a nearby tree. He snatched out at his new friend’s arm and yanked her back into the brush. She frowned at him only to be rebuked with a finger point towards the cans, then at a similar set at the opposite end of the clearing.
“Wire.” he whispered, tracing his finger between them. Judith quickly understood. She almost ran straight into a makeshift alarm. She felt silly, of course they would have something to warn them in the darkness last night, it would be vastly too dangerous not to.
They crept ever closer around the forested perimeter, from her sister’s rear to her left. The camp was quiet and empty, but a few scattered tents could be hiding a swarm of trouble. The two tiptoed into the camp, careful to avoid unwittingly triggering and noisemakers. Her sister appearing in her peripheral, Patience’s eyes bugged out in surprise and fear. She darted her head between Judith and the tents, horrified of those within them. Of course she wanted out. Of course she was horrified to stay here, but she was even more horrified of seeing her sister share the fate.
Judith whispered her sister’s name and gently hugged her while Carlos nabbed the knife and started to cut her hands free.
“Judy you shouldn’t have come here.” snapped Patience.
“Don’t be so bossy.”
“This belt!” Carlos gasped in surprise, just a modicum too loud. “This is my mom’s!”
“What?” Patience grumbled back before realizing what that meant. The boy’s mom was that fallen. She wanted to tell him but no good could come of it at the moment. His mother was dead and gone like they would be if he wasn’t quick about that rope. “Finish cutting me loose!”
“Go on, boy.” chimed in a smug voice. “Cut her loose.” Jeff stood outside one of the tents, weapons not yet drawn. Carlos shook off his questions and cautiously kept cutting. Filled with panic, Judith stood up and aimed her gun at him. He smirked at the shivering little girl and took a bold step forward.
“Shoot him, Judith!” her sister screamed. Judith’s hands were shaking like a road sign in a storm. She knew she had to do it. She had to kill! Still her hands would not steady and her finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger. Jeff quickened his approach. “Fucking shoot him!” She tried as hard as she could to calm her nerves but it was too late, he was upon her. He reached out and held the barrel of the gun with a wicked smile.
Suddenly Carlos finished his work, and feeling her hands free, Patience immediately sprang forth and plowed into Jeff’s knees, bringing them both tumbling to the ground. She got atop him and tried to throw a punch but he grabbed her with one arm and ripped her from him, sending her tumbling a few feet away. He got up, pulled her to her feet and held her at his side. Hearing the commotion, Griff emerged from another tent.
“Run!” Patience commanded her sister as she struggled to escape her captor’s grasp. Judith however stood frozen. Carlos grabbed her arm and stared to pull her away.
“We have to!”
“I’m sorry.” Judith squeaked with tears in her eyes as she turned and fled, leaving her sister to the wolves yet again. They ran into the opposite treeline from which they had entered and didn’t stop.
“Get after ’em, Griff.” Jeff barked to his underling.
“But..” he stammered. “They’re heading towards the old city!”
“And?”
Griff swallowed his fear and hesitantly gave pursuit, knowing what the price of disobedience could be. Jeff shoved Patience closer to the post she was once tied to, swept up one half of the rope, yanked her hands together and bound them, creating something of a leash.
“That girl isn’t like us.” He grunted at the solemn face before him. “She doesn’t have it. She’s not a survivor.” She glared back it him, defiant eyes trying to hide the despair inside.
“You’re wrong.”
“Do you know where they are running too?” he asked before chuckling to himself, her silence queuing him to continue. “A city for the fallen. And so much worse.” Patience scrunched her lips and swallowed in fear.
“This isn’t over.” She chided her captor. “You haven’t won.” he snorted in laughter and yanked her rope, causing her to stumble forward as he pulled her towards a tent.
“Every one of my men was once you.” he boasted as he ducked into his tent before emerging with the Miller family rifle in one hand. “Until I made them the killers they always should have been.”
