Thorns & Thistles ( Archived) (6)

Thorns & Thistles

Val sat in the deep dark, unmoving.
The wind soughed through the stunted grain around her, but only her eyes tracked the course of the breeze through the miserable field. She waited, barely breathing. The slingshot in her hands, the pile of smooth, round stones beside her, waited as well.
True darkness was upon the Earth now, the wild energy of daylight stored in the air had finally stopped crackling through the upper reaches of the sky, and all was black and silent. Aurora, old Jake had called it. With or without a moon, night was only truly dark after Aurora had spent her magic.
She could smell the flinty odor on the breeze from the east. It was a smell of the day coming. Dry and hot, as usual; the sun burning the land, no rain for weeks, and what little of that was acrid and almost as deadly as the sun the sun in its sudden, torrential violence.
"Feast or famine," old Jake would say, "too much or not enough. 'Tis always the way of things."
Old Jake was gone now. Back to the dust.
She was alone with the orphans now. Protecting, and trying to nurture, this cursed land.
For What?
To have as the fruits of her labor only the thorns and thistles of a world thrashing in its death-throes?
That's what.
She recoiled at herself inside. It wasn't like her to feel bitter like this.
Lonely. That's what she was. Alone now, caring for a group of starving children. Just like old Jake had done before her. Starting with her. For what, she asked? But it was rhetorical. She knew the answer. For Jake; for what he'd done. For what he'd taught her.
What other reason did she need?
Truth be told, it was the waiting that was getting to her.
The Jackos weren't scared of the scarecrows Jake had made and taught her to make. They were too smart to be fooled, even by the clever "Animaltronics" Jake had salvaged. So, here she was, a hunter, whether she wanted to be or not.
She couldn't afford to lose any more of their meager crops to the Jackos' late-night raids.
A pair of long, grey ears suddenly crested the ocean of grain about twenty yards out, and Val stopped even breathing, her fist tightening on the rock in the cup of her slingshot.
The motion sensors flagged the intruder, and the metal scarecrows scattered throughout the field all sprang into mechanical motion, the "robots", as Jake had called them, stirring to a feeble semblance of life. Good enough to scare crows most of the time, but the Jackos were another story.
The activity of the old robots gave her enough cover to slink into a crouch.
She pulled the slingshot taut, her eye behind the stone and on her target, and waited for it to move closer. The Jacko poked its head out of the grass, long ears alert and stubby nose sniffing, its nearly blind pink eyes staring at Val without seeing her.
Bzzt. The stone hit the Jacko right between the eyes, and it leaped at least two meters straight up like its feet were springs, but it flopped down in a boneless puddle afterward, dead. The field was suddenly a flurry of motion and sound, and then, silence. Val waited, still quiet, but no further targets appeared.
She walked over to the dead rodent and looked down at the carcass.
Tomorrow's stew would have some meat.

Chapter 2:

Dens & Rocks


Rev.6:15: And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains...

The sun was harsh, and it was mean, and Johnny didn't like the sun.
Truth be told, he didn't like much of anything about the surface, other than the fact that he could do what he wanted. Never enough water to start out with, and what little to be had was for drinking. That meant for some right ripe company, if you cared to be around other people.
He didn't.
If he liked being that close to people he'd still be underground with his parents, well-fed, washed, and comfortable. The third generation of the elite since the “change” had forced them, literally, underground and well, they were all. frankly, boring as hell. He hated his family. First chance he got, he ran away from the underground.
That was why he was trudging through the wastes, on his way to nowhere specific. He was starving, thirsty, and worst of all, hunted, by humans and, now, by wild animals.
The gnarls had found his trail and he would be nothing but food if they caught up with him. He could hear them howling in the distance. Just like coyotes in the films he used to watch with his family, only meaner, bigger.
Deadly.
He checked his canteen, and groaned. The damn thing was nearly empty.
looking around at the cracked landscape. There, in the distance, he could see a line of trees that were half-way healthy, and an old windmill that churned slowly in the stiff breeze. He could see a small plume of smoke, so someone had to be there.
He set off that way, shouldering his meager pack of supplies. Maybe they had some weapons to trade. He needed another sharp knife besides his machete. He had some spices stolen from the commissary to trade still, plenty of oregano. That seemed popular...
“Hold it right there, mister.” Piped a young voice as he came through a sad-looking cornfield, and he turned to see young boy with a spear pointed straight at his liver through the stunted stalks of maize, a short lunge from making him an ex-Johnny.
Johnny slowly raised both hands above his head.

“Hey, Val! Stranger in the corn!”
“Um. Hi.” He said, his pounding heart thickening his voice. “I'm Johnny.”
“You're toast if you so much as twitch, mister.” The mangy-looking boy said, bring his spear a little closer. Johnny tried his best not to twitch.
A girl about 17 came out of the mill at a run toward them, her long wheat colored hair flying free in the wind. She was dusted with a light coating of flour. Seemed the mill was a working mill, and Johnny had caught her out. She came closer, and Johnny started to get nervous.
She wore an expression of suspicion and fear, and that meant things could go real bad real quick if Johnny couldn't talk that spear away from his belly. The feral child holding it looked like he wanted to just skewer him and be done with it. He edged to within about sixteen centimeters of Johnny's skin, and he tensed up, shoving his hands even higher.
“What do you want?” The question came as she got about twelve paces from him. All of a sudden he realized she had some sort of agricultural tool in her hand, a wicked half-curve of a blade, what was it called? A sickle.
“I'm just passing through...I mean you no harm.” He glanced at the scruffy little boy near poking him through the liver. “Could you, um, calm your little friend here down? I'll walk back the way I came and take my chances with the gnarls. They seem the safer bet.”
“Back off a bit, Willy, before he pees his trousers.” The girl snorted out a sort-of-laugh. “You ain't hardly more than a boy yourself, Johnny. Afraid of a few gnarls on your trail, are you?”
“We don't need any more strays, Val.” Willy backed off, but was far from mollified. “Got barely enough to feed us as it is.”
Val's flour-whitened face grimaced, making her look like a wan ghost. She didn't need William reminding her of their plight, not in front of the stranger.
“Willy, let me take care of this.” She said, exasperated, and he relented. “Go gather everyone at the main house.” He was far too aggressive lately, she thought as he retreated, still scowling at Johnny. He wanted to hunt, bring some meat in, he said. She thought it was too dangerous. Jackos were one thing, but there were far worse things out in the wide world. Better thorns and thistles than prey to man or beast.
“I thought you might like to trade, Miss Val, was it?” Johnny brought her focus back to the present. “I have some fine rare spices from one of the bunkers, still vacuum sealed.” And he indicated the pack on his back.
“Yeah? You're from one of the bunkers eh?” Val sneered. “ What did you do to get kicked out, Johnny? Besides steal, that is.”
“That's funny.” Johnny said, chuckling, “You judging me based on being from a bunker.”
“What's so funny about that?” Val said, confused.
“The world has gone to hell, and you think its any better underground?”
“I don't know.” She said. “Is it?”

Val had heard of these bunkers, of course. All of the surviving poor scratching out a living above the safety of the dirt had. Moles, they were called. Rich people, who could afford the same miracles of science that had doomed the surface of the planet.
“So, yeah, these things are grown hydroponically down below.” The scrawny stranger was saying, spreading the vacuum sealed plastic bags on the ground in front of her. She barely paid attention to the vaguely green contents, studying the young man who called himself Jack.
What she saw didn't really impress her.
His limp, sun-damaged black hair hung long down over a patricians face; long, narrow nose, and brown eyes just a little too close together to be perfect. Handsome, but in a shifty, ratlike way.
She shrugged inwardly. Good god, Val, why the reproductive evaluation, she thought to herself, its not like your going to marry the fool.
She forced herself to pay attention to the words he was saying.
“...what I really need in return, is a good, sharp knife and any other weapon's you can spare, and fresh water if you have any.”
“Um...the knife and the water I can probably arrange.” She said after thinking. “You'll have to talk to Willy about any extra weapons. He's been tinkering in the barn, but I don't know if he has anything serviceable.”
“I don't think Willy trusts me.” Jack said, stuffing his stuff back into the pack.
“I don't trust you, Jack.” She said, her voice flat. “Just because your in trouble doesn't mean you don't deserve it. How would I know?”
“I understand, Val.” He said, then shrugged. “I'm not asking for anything but an honest trade.”