As the girl in the distance grew closer, her scream grew louder. It was a continuous wail, so high pitched that it almost sounded like the squeals of rusted metal that echoed through the ruins of cities when the wind blew. He could see her now: strawberry-blond hair streamed behind her as she ran and her patchwork skirt was so tattered and ripped that part of it seemed to slide off her hip, revealing her underwear with no regard for decorum or modesty.
By the time Tanner scooped the girl into his arms, he realized that her screams weren’t the wordless shrieks he’d first assumed them to be. In fact, they were actually a single word shouted so loudly that her voice broke and cracked with the strain. With her head thrashing near his cheek and tears dripping onto his shoulder, Tanner’s eardrum felt as if it were being punctured with needles. Wincing, he tried to remind himself that whatever discomfort her cries caused could be no worse than what she’d lived through. For the solitary syllable that the girl yelled was the word
Running with only his own body weight to support had been difficult enough, but the added deadweight of the girl made his ankle feel as if it were about to snap. Nor did he struggles help. Part of her mind must have insisted that she was still back in her own community, replaying the events over and over as her fists thudded against Tanner’s back and her body writhed and twisted like a headless snake.
“It’s okay.” He whispered in a ragged pant. “I’m a Sweeper. You’re safe, darlin’. You’re
His words did nothing to penetrate the time loop she was stuck in and by the time they made it to the base of Knoll, Tanner’s face was crosshatched with scratches and welts from the girl’s grappling. The residents of the community scampered over the grassy ring and pulled the girl away from him, assuring her repeatedly that everything was all right, that she was among friends and the nightmare was over. The worried furrows in their brows and the way their eyes flitted from the girl to the field beyond, searching for signs of the savages who’d done this to her, told a different story, however.. Tanner could tell these people didn’t believe their own words any more than he did.
The nightmare was far from over.
The nightmare was just beginning.
XIII.
“Life is not a clear and easy path, but is beset with brambles, thorns, and obstacles. Only through honor, strength, and wisdom may we hope to see the clearing beyond.”
XIV.
Tanner Kline lay in the darkness and listened to the distant pounding of drums as he tried to focus himself. The steady, unfaltering rhythm had boomed through the night for hours and was starting to take its toll on the residents of Knoll. Just after sunset, the drums had begun. They echoed through the fields and resounded off the hills, making it impossible to tell how many there actually were, and the community collectively laid near the top of the ridge, their eyes peering over the apex as they watched for the first wave of the attack.
When there was no sign of a Spewer advance, they fidgeted in the grass and toyed with weapons that were more like refuse of the Old World. Knoll’s Sweeper had been either lazy or inept. Perhaps both. Much like the binoculars, the arsenal of this community had been neglected to the point that they almost seemed as dangerous as the Spewers hiding within the forest. Rust textured barrels that should have been smooth and slick, causing Tanner to discard many of the weapons with a disgusted grunt. If these deathtraps had actually been fired, they would have blown off the wielder’s hand. Or worse. To make complicate matter further, there was no organization to the ammunition at all. Shotgun shells mingled with .22 bullets which were scattered in a wooden box among calibers that didn’t match any of the firearms in Knoll’s armory. The settlement had probably traded for these in bulk… which was understandable. Ammo, after all, was a rare commodity. Not everyone had the skills or equipment needed to cast their own and poorer communities were forced to take what they could get. That being said, however, Kline could not excuse that fact that the unusable rounds had not been traded for more appropriate ones after the fact.
Not only was there the sad state of their defenses to contend with, but the drumming had also unnerved the residents to the point that they were turning on one another. It had begun with people stinging sarcasm in response to innocuous questions . That soon degraded into bickering which, after several hours of stress and tension, turned into full blown arguments. And the entire time those savages stayed far enough within the forest that the settlers only caught occasional glimpses as they moved among the trees. Always fleeting, always out of range… but definitely there.
During a scuffle over who would arm themselves with a pump action shotgun and who would use a derringer small enough be hidden by the hand holding it, Tanner had snapped. His voice boomed through uproar, shaming the residents into silence as he glared at each and every person.
“When you’re ready to stop acting like those fucking animals out there,” he’d yelled, “and start behaving like humans, come get me. Until then, I’ll be in my quarters. Just try to not fucking kill each other in the meantime.”
He’d eventually calmed to the point that the tension melted from his shoulders and now he lay on a cot, turning the events of the day over in his mind. The girl, whose name was Rosemarie, had been inconsolable at first, fighting and struggling against the very people who’d rescued her. With her blue eyes muted behind a glaze of shock, she’d screamed and cried and babbled incomprehensibly until Tanner smacked her sharply across the face.
“So many,” the girl muttered as the red palm print on her cheek faded, “so many. They were everywhere, all
