“Come out where I can see,” she whispered.
There was movement six feet over to her right, and then he was there beside her. Turning to face him, she could see in the darkness the shape of his outline; that the hair of his head stood out in a tight fuzz and that his beard twisted in unruly snarls. She clicked her light on again and shined it in his face. The red LEDs didn’t do much in the way of detail, rendering everything in shades ranging from black to pink, but she thought she saw smears of dirt stretched across his brow as if by hastily splashed water, and his left eye was swollen nearly shut. He smelled horrible, like rancid mud, sweat, and a hot burning sickness.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she demanded.
He looked at her unblinking, trancelike, and said nothing. His mouth was cracked so he could breathe and the brief puffs that spilled forth to mingle with the night air were sour. She opened her own mouth to repeat the question, but he spoke before she could.
“I’ve been down in Jackson. Making a nuisance of myself.”
“A nuisance?”
“Yes. They’ve tried to organize into guard posts to stake off their area but… the area they have to cover is far too large for their number. I’ve harassed them in the south, disturbing them to such a degree that they’ve pulled back into a tighter area. Consolidated up at the resort.”
Amanda’s mind was racing, at war with this new information and her need to be infuriated with him. “I don’t understand. What does that mean? Or… let me put it this way: so fucking what, Jake?”
“Turn off that light,” he said. The words had come clipped; short of biting. It was the angriest she’d ever heard him, and she realized he wasn’t nearly in as much control as she’d assumed. She turned off the light and waited.
After a moment, he said, “They’re all pulled back to the resort; living inside of it. They’re trying to keep everyone within sight of each other, supposing that I can’t get to them that way, which I suppose is correct for now. But it does mean we know where to find them later. They’ll keep as they are for a day or two before they’ve worked up enough courage to start patrols again. And when they do, they’ll be staging from that area.”
“When the hell did all this happen?”
“They pulled back earlier this evening. Why?”
“I’m wondering how long we have before they send a messenger up here to let Clay know what’s going on.”
“Oh, they already have,” Jake said dismissively.
“They have!”
“Yes. I’d expect perhaps a day, no more than two at the most, before they realize the messenger never arrived.”
“Oh,” she said, relaxing.
“So we have that amount of time to address the problem here. What about the others? Are they alright?”
Amanda stuffed the light and knife into the backpack, zipped it up, and walked over to retrieve the duffel. She said, “So far so good. No one’s been mistreated, so there’s that. We’re heavily guarded, though. They watch us in shifts, running regular patrols around the compound.”
“Yet you’re up here now…”
“Yeah. They’re not very good at it. They’ve fallen into a pattern; lazy, you know? When one of them passes by your place, you know about how long you have before they come around again. I think they must have relaxed because they got all the weapons locked up in Billy’s attic.”
“Oh,” said Jake in a light voice, as though he was pleased by this news. “That’s interesting…”
“They let us hang on to knives and stuff to work with, but that’s about it. They also watch some of us a lot more than others. Gibs can’t get more than two feet without three of them appearing out of nowhere to shadow him, right? But nobody watches Wang at all; it’s like he’s not even there for them.”
The shape of Jake’s head turned slowly in the darkness, and she heard him sigh gently. “That’s good.”
“So, the plan is to get these back down to the Bowl and stash them away in the bus; we’ll stick them in the luggage compartments—oh, I forgot to mention that. They search our homes, too.”
“Oh? How often?”
“Twice a day. Once in the morning and then again in the evening.”
“Thoroughly?”
Amanda shrugged. “I could probably stash my Glock without them finding it but… they’d find this…” She tapped the duffel bag with her foot.
“Yes,” Jake said and fell silent.
“After that, it’s only a matter of getting the weapons into everyone’s hands. I just haven’t figured that part out yet. We’re pretty much left to ourselves in our homes; they don’t barge in except for when they do their searches. Apart from that, we’re left alone. Most of us have kind of become shut-ins, you know?”
Jake nodded. “What’s everyone’s condition? Are you healthy? Can you fight?”
“Everyone who could fight before is able to now except for Alish. She’s been getting around in Wang’s old wheelchair.”
“Yes…” Jake repeated. His voice had taken on a lifeless, dangerous tinge.
“I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do with the kids, though,” she said absently.
The statement seemed to catch Jake up short. She detected a pause in his breathing, and the outline of his body had gone perceptibly tense. She wondered about this for a moment and almost had the words collected together to ask about it when he asked, “Do you think you could get them all up here?”
“The kids?”
“Yes. To this spot.”
She thought it over. “Maybe? The problem is that they’re spread out. Clay’s men have all set up a bunch of tents out by Brian’s place, right? Across from the greenhouses. It’s almost the same exact area where Warren encamped.”
Jake nodded. “I understand.”
“They spread out through the common ground. Groups of two and three; sometimes just strolling around and others just sitting in chairs. They gasbag most of the time, but they’re alert enough that they’d notice the kids out and about. We’ve got Maria and Rose over on one side of the compound, Lizzy up at my place, Ben in the bus, and Brandon, Piper, Dominic, and Haley down at Patty’s two campers. They’re free to roam during the day, which they don’t anyway, but there’s a curfew at sundown, and if we try to move them around after that it’ll be noticed.”
“What about a distraction? Would it help if I made one for you?”
Amanda considered that. It was a possibility, but…
“Risky,” she finally said. “It might work, but they’ll round us up for a headcount after. So if we go that route, the fighting needs to come immediately after. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for planning… or fuck-ups.”
Jake grunted and fell thoughtfully silent. Then he said, “I’m afraid I don’t have a lot to offer here in the way of planning. You know more about what will work down there than I do. I’ve been gone.”
“Let me take it to the others,” Amanda said. “I’ve worked it out, so we’re allowed to all meet in one place—”
“Really? How’d you pull that one off?”
“Well… I convinced Clay we’re all pretty Christian up here. Otis knows his way around a Bible, and I’m no slouch either, so we kind of all get together, you know?”
Voice light, almost on the edge of a smile’s sound, Jake said, “That… is brilliant.”
She felt the wave of heat in her cheeks and tamped it back in annoyance. She disliked that such light praise could make her feel so.
“I wonder…” he continued absently. “Do you think that’s something we should do regularly? I mean after. Would some form of regular worship be appreciated? I was never much for it, myself, but others seem to assign a lot of val—”