“Shannon, it’s me, Aron. Look at me.”
She looked up. I saw recognition in her eyes.
“What are you… how did you find…?” Her mouth quivered as she spoke.
“I’ll explain everything, but right now we need to go.”
She looked at Jamal and began to cry. Her tears washed lines through the blood that was smeared on her face. She looked at me and nodded. I grabbed a sheet from the floor and draped it around her.
Kamish said, “Come on.”
I looked over and nodded. Kamish went out first. He waived us on and we followed. I kept one arm around Shannon’s shoulders as we worked our way back to the shore. On the far side of the pier, I saw a row of huts along a boardwalk that stretched out over the water. It was the rendezvous point. Michio would be waiting for us underneath the boardwalk.
We stopped and made sure the coast was clear before crossing the wide path that led to the pier. Once on the other side, we moved fast. It wasn’t much farther now, just a few hundred feet. All we had to do was get to the far side of the huts and work our way under the boardwalk. But as we approached the huts, Shannon suddenly stopped.
“I can’t,” she cried.
“Of course you can. We’re almost there,” I said. “See? It’s right over there, under the huts.” I pointed and she looked.
Shaking her head, she said. “I can’t leave. Not without her.”
“Without who?” Kamish asked.
“The girl. She was on the boat with me. She doesn’t have anyone to help her.” She pleaded and looked into my eyes. “They took us into that hut there, the one on the end. I can’t leave her there.” She looked up at me with pitiful eyes.
I looked at Kamish. He shook his head, but I said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
The boardwalk was unguarded. We ran up to the hut.
“Is this the one?” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Is there anyone else in there with her?”
“No,” she said. “They tied her up to the bed before they took me away.”
Kamish opened the door and we followed him in. An emaciated woman in her mid-forties stood on the far side of the room. She held a rifle tight up against her shoulder, her cheek glued to the butt of the rifle. Staring at us with one eye through the sight, she moved the barrel back and forth between me and Kamish.
I’d never seen a woman with a face like that before, so hard and callused. She had the face of a deep-earth miner. Her head was shaved, except for a shock of red hair that ran down the middle of her skull. At first I thought it was a man, but then I saw her flabby tits swing freely beneath a dirty white tank top.
“If you move,” she said in a thick, Russian accent, “I will shoot you between the eyes.”
I wasn’t about to move. But without warning, Shannon ran past me, straight for the woman.
“Shannon, no… stop!”
I tried to grab her, but Kamish held me back.
“I said do not move!” the woman with the Mohawk shouted.
I froze and waited for her to shoot Shannon, but Shannon brushed right past her. Then she stopped, and turned around. A thin smile stretched across her face, a smile that sent a chill up my spine. Her eyes were wide and darted back and forth between Kamish and me.
Why didn’t the woman shoot her? She didn’t even look at Shannon, she just kept her eyes locked on me and Kamish.
Like a computer program choking on unexpected data, my brain couldn’t process what had happened. I felt like I needed a reboot.
“Shannon,” was all that I managed to say.
Shannon laughed.
She must be in shock. What else could explain her wide-eyed stare and the way she panted like an overheated dog? But shock didn’t explain why she wasn’t dead on the floor. I wasn’t ready to face the truth, but the truth refused to be ignored. It pushed its way up through the layers of my consciousness and exploded in my head.
“You’re…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“You’re what? With them?” A maniacal cackle escaped her mouth. “That’s right, Aron… I’m with them. I thought for sure you had figured it out back there… when you broke into our hut.” Tears began to fall from her eyes. “When you murdered Jamal!”
“No,” I said. “He was raping you. I… I saved you!”
“He wasn’t raping me, you stupid bastard! He was making love to me.” Her voice cracked. “And now he’s dead.”
As I watched, her face transformed. The sadness disappeared and was replaced with a calm and cool expression. Pulling the sheet from her shoulders, she tied it off just above her breasts. Then standing up straight and pulling her shoulders back, she said, “You killed a great man, the man that I loved.” Her last words cut through me like a machete through a banana leaf.
“Great man? How can you say that? He was a murderer, a fanatic!”
Shaking her head she said, “He was no fanatic. He was a genius. After the storm, when everyone else huddled together in their towns and villages, he built an army. Societies collapsed, but his army grew. He understood what it took to survive in the new world. You call it murder, he called it what it was, thinning the weak from the herd”
I heard a low guttural growl and looked over at Kamish. He glared at Shannon, seething with fury. I spoke up before he did something that would get him killed.
Looking back at Shannon, I said, “I don’t know what he did to you or what they did to you after they kidnapped you yesterday, but you’re not thinking straight.”
She laughed that cruel laugh again. “Yesterday? I’ve been with Jamal for nearly three years. Do you really think that I went for a walkabout?” She laughed again. “I was on a supply run when they took me prisoner. Nobody came looking for me. So I did what I had to do to stay alive. It wasn’t easy, but then I met Jamal” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. “You want to know what he did to me? I’ll tell you. He opened my eyes. He saw within me the spark of a survivor. He reminded me of the lessons I had learned growing up in the slums of Dublin. Fists, Aron… fists. You fight for what you want or you get nothing.”
“That’s not what Islam teaches,” I said.
“You’re such a dolt. Jamal didn’t care about Islam or any religion. He used religion to build the army. His army gave him strength, the strength he needed to take the resources so we could all survive.”
“He didn’t just take resources. He killed innocent men, women, and children.”
“I don’t have time to explain this to you. You’d never understand anyway.”
She looked at the woman with the rifle “Nika. Give me the weapon and tie them up.”
Nika handed Shannon the rifle. Shannon pointed the barrel at Kamish. “Start with him, the big one. He looks like he might try something stupid.”
“What should I use?” Nika asked.
Motioning with her head toward the window, she said, “Use the cord from the curtains. And be sure to tie his hands tightly. Don’t worry about cutting off the blood supply. He won’t have need for blood when I’m done with him.”
Nika nodded and went over to the curtains.
“No!” I said. “If you’re going to kill anyone, then you kill me. I’m the one who cut up your boyfriend.”
I saw rage flash in her eyes, but she remained calm. “Trust me. You will die. But first, you must tell me a few things.”
“I’m not telling you anything, you bitch!”
“Is that any way to talk to the woman who rescued your heart?” She laughed. I felt the darkness rising within me. It took every ounce of willpower to keep it in check. I had to stay in control. I had to think of a way out of this.
“Once I start to cut up your friend like I cut up Rick, you’ll tell me everything I want to know.”
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.