Wayward Pines: Nomad (Kindle Worlds Novella) (2 page)

Still…

“I never heard about any family disappearing from town.”

The man winced again, both in pain and irritation. “Why would you? The puppeteers wouldn’t want people to know. They wouldn’t want the secret getting out.”

Puppeteers
. Tobias found a strange sort of logic in the word.

“How have you managed to survive this long?”

The man shook his head, tears starting to well in his eyes. “Not all of us did. My—my—my daughter, we lost her. We almost lost my son, too. It was…it was awful.”

A beat of silence passed.

The man said, “I won’t take you to them. You’ll have to kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“I won’t let you take them back to that town.”

“I told you, I’m not going to kill you.”

“You’re lying.”

“If I was going to kill you, wouldn’t have I already done it?”

The man thought it over. “You’re just trying to trick me. Make me think you aren’t here to take us back.”

“What I am,” Tobias said, “is a nomad. Do you know what a nomad is?”

The man, wincing again in pain, shook his head.

“Basically I’m exploring the outside. I’m not here to take you back, or kill you, or cause you any harm. Like I told you, I never even heard about a family leaving town.”

“That’s because of the puppeteers,” the man said, and then went quiet for a beat. “
You’re
one of them, aren’t you? You’re one of the bastards who’s pulling everyone’s strings.”

Tobias was losing his patience. They were getting nowhere. As incredible as it was to find another living person outside of the fence, it wasn’t like they had the time to sit and enjoy a long tête-à-tête.

“You have shelter?”

The man just stared back at him.

“Well?” Tobias prompted.

“I’m not taking you there. You’ll have to kill me instead.”

“If we don’t get to shelter at some point soon, I won’t have to kill you. The abbies will do that instead.”

“What are the…you mean the demons?”

“They’re not demons.”

“Why do you call them abbies?”

“It’s short for
aberrations
.”

“No”—the man shook his head—“they’re definitely demons. This is hell, and the demons run wild.”

Tobias couldn’t quite argue the point. This
was
hell, though not in the Biblical sense.

“You’re hurt,” Tobias said. “You won’t be able to make it back to whatever you call home by yourself.”

“I’m not going to fall for your tricks.”

“Would you stop it? I’m not tricking you. I didn’t even know you and your family existed until five minutes ago. I’m willing to save your life, and the lives of your family, but you need to meet me halfway.”

The man didn’t look convinced. He stared suspiciously back at Tobias through that ragged mane of hair, Tobias wondering just how long before his own hair ran wild all over his body: shaving cream and a razor blade two things that were not a necessity here in the wilderness.

Finally the man asked, “Do I have your word?”

“Yes.”

The man didn’t look happy about it, but he also didn’t look like he was prepared to die despite everything he had just said.

“Fine, but I’m putting all my faith in you.” He held out his rough, dirt-embedded hand. “Can you help me up?”

The man said his name was Carl. He asked for his rifle and knife back. Tobias wasn’t going to do it but then Carl started up again on how Tobias was trying to trick him, so Tobias gave the rifle and knife back with the promise that if Carl made even the slightest movement that could be construed as a threat, Tobias would take out Carl’s other leg and leave him here in the woods.

“Fair enough,” Carl said, and strapped the rifle over his shoulder.

They headed down into the valley. The pace wasn’t nearly as fast as Tobias would have liked, but they were going at Carl’s speed as he limped along. He kept looking back over his shoulder, too, expecting Tobias to be holding a gun on him and seemed disappointed when he saw it wasn’t the case.

After about a half hour Tobias told Carl to stop. Carl went stock-still and even started raising his arms. He turned, slowly, and the expression on his face was the one of a dead man.

Tobias gestured down at Carl’s leg. “You better change that.”

The cloth had turned crimson and soaked much of the pant leg, running down to the man’s boot. He was trailing drops of blood.

Tobias found another piece of cloth in his backpack. He hated giving this one up even more than the first.

Carl wrapped it around his thigh, held up the bloody one. “What should I do with this?”

“Just leave it.”

Carl dropped it to the ground and they started out again. Another hour passed. Neither man spoke.

Tobias had so many questions to ask but knew now wasn’t the time. If he had expected to run into other humans, it would be another nomad. He knew that most of the nomads who ventured outside the fence never returned. Surely some were still alive somewhere. Maybe they had lost their supplies. Maybe they had lost their direction. Maybe they had turned “abby” as Pilcher had once put it, the wilderness taking them over and changing them into a completely different species.

Tobias asked, “So what did Pilcher tell you before you left?”

Carl paused just long enough to glance back. “Who?”

The confusion on the man’s face looked real enough, but Tobias couldn’t be certain. It was possible this man had once been a nomad. It was also possible that this man had escaped Wayward Pines with his wife and two children and managed to survive all this time.

Tobias shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s keep moving.”

They heard the abbies before they saw them. Coming down from the mountain into the valley, they heard the screeching and clicking through the trees and both immediately went still.

Tobias hefted his rifle. So did Carl.

They waited for a minute, neither moving, and then they started forward again, inching toward the trees. They saw them almost at once, a half dozen abbies running back and forth in a small clearing.

Carl whispered, “What are they doing?”

Tobias remembered his time as a boy in his past life and how his family had two dogs and sometimes the dogs would run around the backyard chasing and nipping at each other. It was harmless, his mother explained when he expressed worry. They were animals, she said, and this was how animals let off steam. And here, nearly 2,000 years later, the same thing was happening.

Tobias’s whisper was even quieter than Carl’s. “They’re playing.”

The sun had reached its apex, the temperature rising considerably, when Tobias said, “I think we better change that again.”

The second cloth had turned crimson just like the first. When Carl glanced back at him, much of the color had drained from his face.

“It can wait. We’re almost there.”

It had been almost an hour since they left the abbies playing in the clearing. They had traveled through more trees, over a creek, and had entered even more trees. Here the foliage was thicker and the heat not so oppressive.

Tobias’s throat was dry. He was tempted to take a swallow from one of his water bottles but wasn’t sure what to say if Carl asked him for some. Surely the man knew he had supplies. What if he and his family had nothing? Tobias didn’t like the idea of sharing the few supplies he had, but he also couldn’t just let the family starve.

“Here we are.” Carl bent forward and brushed aside some pine branches to reveal the top of a steel hatch.

“What is this?” Tobias asked.

“Not really sure. We think it was a bomb shelter, once upon a time. We just happened to come across it one day a few months back. Had we found it sooner, maybe our daughter wouldn’t have—”

His voice hitched and he shook his head. He bent down again and took hold of the lever and pulled it up. As he did, a makeshift bell attached to the underside of the hatch cover jingled.

Carl lowered himself down onto his knees, wincing at the pain. He called into the hatch, a smile on his face, “Honey, I’m home!”

No answer.

“Honey?” The smile fading.

Again no answer.

“Beth? Samuel?”

When again there was no answer, Carl scrambled to his feet. The glance thrown toward Tobias this time was filled with fear. He turned and lowered himself down into the hatch as quickly as he could.

Tobias stepped closer and watched the man descend the ladder. The drop wasn’t that far. By the time Carl was off the ladder, he could have reached up and grabbed Tobias’s hand if Tobias reached down.

“Beth!” Carl disappeared from view. His voice echoed down below, calling out his wife’s and son’s names.

Tobias felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his backpack to the ground, unstrapped the rifle from his shoulder, and placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder.

He could already hear Carl somewhere down below, beginning to cry
no no no no
, his voice gaining in pitch with every word. Tobias dropped down onto concrete and ducked his head as he went down a slight incline, a narrow sort of tunnel, the space widening as he went, the room maybe 12 feet wide and 12 feet long, a malodorous musk filling the whole room, and there was a lantern in the corner, just enough light for him to see Carl on his knees, his back to Tobias, leaning over something on the ground. The man wasn’t even making coherent words anymore; he was mewling like a wounded animal, the noise filled with so much sorrow and grief Tobias felt his own heart ache, and he approached, wanting to say something, his attention so focused on Carl that he didn’t notice the shadow off to the corner moving until it was already too late.

He turned at the last second, watching the woman coming at him, the ceiling just high enough to allow her to raise something over her head, and before he even had a chance to raise his hands in defense, something struck him on the side of the head, sending him to the ground.

He tried standing back up, tried going for his knife or his gun, but the woman hit him again. And again. And again.

“I think he’s coming around.”

“How can you tell?”

“He’s no longer snoring.”

Tobias opened his eyes. At once pain flared through his head. He tried touching the spot on the left side of his head where it hurt the most, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate. They were bound together and tied to something above his head. He was sitting on the ground, cold concrete beneath him, his back against the wall.