Page 23 of Bait
“Motherfucker.” Candela ran down from the cabin and came back to where we were. She cracked open the small back window, trained the rifle, and fired two shots. One blew a hole in the windshield on the driver’s side and the other hit one of the tires. The truck instantly swerved off the road and crashed into the sand. Bianca shot some rounds off too and hit a couple of the guys who were hanging off the side of the truck.
“Stop the rig, Torch,” Candela shouted as we watched the truck swerve around on the road and ultimately end up in a ditch. My hands were shaking so bad I had to fist them and jam them in my pockets. I couldn’t stop looking at the men lying on the sand. The women screaming with the children in their arms. “We need to make sure the women and kids are okay.”
“I’m not stopping, Candela,” he shouted back, which pissed her off. She banged her fist hard on the window then pointed at me unhappily.
“Brains, go make him stop.”
Me? He never listened to me. If anything, he’d probably drive away faster. I was about to remind her of this, when she shook her head and pointed in Torch’s direction with an expression that screamed “do not try me.”
“Go,” she shouted, and I ran up there because the very least I could do was make myself somewhat useful after she and Bianca had taken down the bad guys.
“I’m not fucking stopping,” he growled, taking the rig off-road with a maneuver I was pretty sure I’d seen in one of those action movies the council loved to screen in the bunker.
“One of the women fell off the truck and there are kids. They might kill them,” I pleaded, watching the scene of the crash from the passenger window. He scowled at the road in front of us and with a string of curse words in English and Spanish, he turned us around and headed back to the accident.
The moment the rig stopped, Torch reached behind his seat and pulled out a very big rifle. “You stay here,” he ordered before jumping out.
“Why?” I cried out at the closed door. When I turned around to talk to Candela, she raised an eyebrow, as if saying “what can you contribute here?”
“I can do first aid, talk to the kids,” I insisted, reaching for the place in the cabinet where I’d seen Torch pull out the kit when I cut my finger. Candela looked like she wanted to argue but Torch called for her. Then to my surprise, he shifted to me.
“Bring that kit down here, Sass, I know you can patch people up.” Candela smiled at me, shaking her head at Torch’s orneriness, but I was too happy to remind him he’d just told me to stay in the truck. She jumped down after Bianca while I hurried to get the supplies. I might not be the best shot, but I knew what to do when people got hurt.
With the first aid kit and a jug of safe to drink water in hand, I stepped down from the rig and almost threw up right on myself at the sight. One of the dead men was lying on his back and there was blood still coming out of his torn throat. There were one more, but he was face down on the ground. Bianca was going through the bodies briskly, taking their weapons and anything useful she found on them. The men looked dirty, their clothes soiled stiff, like they hadn’t seen water in months. God, and the smells. Candela was talking to the women. I approached her, giving a wide berth to the bodies.
I’d never admit it, but she’d been right. This was not anything I was used to, and the sight of all that blood made me physically ill. I froze for a moment not sure what to do, but when I heard my name, I kicked into action.
“Alma, come here, we need to clean up a wound.” Bianca waved me over as if I was part of the team, and soon, I was busy cleaning up cuts and checking people for concussions. The four women and three kids were all hungry and thirsty, so I passed out some jerky and fruit.
“Don’t eat too fast or you’ll get sick,” I told a little girl of six or seven who’d just crammed a piece of jerky into her mouth and swallowed it without chewing it.
“How long were you with them?” I asked one of the women who had a cup tipped to a toddler’s mouth. I noticed she still hadn’t had anything to eat or drink herself. Just like a mom would.
She had lovely dark skin and her hair in knots, but she looked weary. Like she’d been through hell. “We were hoping to get to the Old Flagstaff settlement,” she told me, which perked Bianca up. “We heard they needed some weavers and basket makers.”
“That’s where I live,” Bianca said happily. “We just came from there.” She pointed in the direction of her home and smiled at the woman. “And we do need weavers!”
“Were you on foot?” I looked around at where we were. There was nothing but chaparral as far as the eye could see. She nodded and held out her cup for me. I poured her some water, and she finally drank.
“We were staying out of the way, going through the pine forests and avoiding abandoned towns, but they caught up with us a couple of nights ago.”
It seemed that the world was trying hard to repair itself but there were still some out there who wanted to devolve things into the old hierarchy.
At least they hadn’t been in captivity for a long time. Once the women were fed and Candela and Torch took care of the bodies, we had to decide what to do with the women. One said they could drive the truck if we could help them replace the tire. Thankfully the raiders had a few spares, and Torch was able to put a new one in.
“Can I give the children a bit more food and water?” I asked Candela as she talked to one of the women. Bianca was chasing around a couple of the kids. I asked the women if there was something they really needed in case before going to the truck for water and food to leave with them. But I only saw three of the women. I figured the fourth was looking for a place to relieve herself.
“I’ll be back,” I shouted as I walked to the rig. Everyone was busy, but Bianca waved at me, so I headed back to the vehicle on my own. Despite the intensity and all the death from the past hour, I felt different. I’d felt useful just then, like maybe I could have a role, some value in this new world. As I approached Torch and Candela’s monster home on wheels, I felt a little ownership too. Not like it was mine yet, but I felt grateful for the safety it provided. I was grateful for the two people who it belonged to.
I was so distracted thinking of what had gone down in the last hour that I didn’t notice the fourth woman from the group standing around behind the rig.
“Hey,” I said when she seemed to be startled at my arrival, I tried to smile since I knew she was probably skittish. They’d been through a lot and unlike the other women, she’d kept to herself. “You need anything?” I pulled myself up the two steps leading to the rig’s door, hoping to put her at ease. Her eyes were hard, and I wondered what had been done to her. I couldn’t tell her age—she could be twenty or forty. Her skin was pale, not quite brown like mine, but tanned and weathered. Her hair was in a long braid and black with some streaks of gray. “Were you in a bunker too?” I didn’t know why I asked her that. She just seemed so distant, like she wasn’t at ease out in the open. I knew that I was probably faring better because I was with people I felt safe with and trusted. But if I’d had to navigate all this on my own, I’d be closed off too.
For a moment I wondered if she didn’t speak English because she stared at me like she had no idea what I was saying. I was going to ask her again when she pulled out a gun and pointed it at my chest.
ChapterEleven
“Don’t say a word or I’ll shoot your fucking face off.” She put her hand over my mouth and shoved me into the rig hard enough to make me stumble. The first thing I noticed were the mugs Bianca and I used which were on the ground now, after Torch’s maneuvering of the rig. The blankets Torch used the night before were folded neatly on the couch. It was so familiar already, except I’d just let a person with a gun inside. Once again I’d let them down. “You’re going to tell me how to turn this thing on.” I really thought about screaming when she removed her hand, but I had a feeling she wasn’t bluffing.
