Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

My gratitude made me feel a little bit ashamed of myself. A part of me was thinking that I should sit here and listen to every awful thing that Celia had to say, as a way of making things better for her. But then I wasn’t really sure if talking about it and reliving the horrors was the best therapy. I decided that I’d let her figure that out, and not feel bad about not wanting to hear the details of canner madness.
    “Hey,” said Coli, sitting down next to us. “How are you feeling, Ce?”
    “Fine,” she said, looking away.
    “She’s ready to kill a couple dogs and a canner or two. That’s as much as I’ve been able to figure out so far,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little.
    “A dog? That yappy poodle thing that Bryn brought?”
    I gave an exaggerated gasp. “Who, Buster? How dare you?”
    “No,” answered Celia, again in monotones. “The dogs that the canners had for protection.”
    “Oh. I get it,” said Coli, looking at me as if seeking direction.
    I decided to just jump in and finish the conversation. “So, okay, we’re probably going to need about ten guys on our scouting mission. We’ll get the map location from you, Celia, and then we’ll make our plan. We’ll get out there and do some recon. I don’t know if we’ll be able to actually do anything on our first trip out, but maybe.”
    “Why not just go in there and blow them to smithereens and be done with it?” asked Coli.
    “Well, we have some kids to rescue, first of all. We don’t want to kill the innocent ones. And we have to get rid of all the other bad guys. I hate to say that … that we have to kill them. But if we don’t, they’ll just keep doing what they do and probably eventually follow us back to the swamp. Even if they don’t see us and don’t know where we came from, we won’t be able to hide our existence forever. They’ll come to the swamps when they run out of kids there.”
    “That is just so wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Coli.
    “Yeah. No kidding. If you have better ideas, I’d love to hear them. I’m no expert.”
    “I wish we had an expert. Maybe we could go to the library and look up a book on war tactics.”
    I suddenly remembered George’s journal that was still in my backpack. “I have a small one. I’ll get it out tonight and see if there’s anything good in there that could help us.”
    “You have a war book. In your backpack.” Celia said it like a statement.
    “Yeah. A neighbor gave it to me.”
    “What, was he like a fortuneteller?” asked Coli. “Like he knew all of this was going to happen?”
    “Kind of. I mean, he served in the war, so he was kind of experienced with how people can go nuts when there’s not enough food and stuff.”
    Coli shook her head, I think disappointed in humanity. I couldn’t say as I disagreed with her. It got very quiet in the hut and we all just sat there for a while, listening to the hum of cicadas in the trees.
    “So when is the covert operation going to happen?” asked Coli.
    “I’m not sure. In a week? Maybe two?”
    “That’s too long,” said Celia, grabbing my arm. “The kids will all be dead by then.”
    “Yeah, but we’re not ready.” I was feeling slightly panicked. “I mean, physically ready, to do anything like take on a group of nutbags with weapons.”
    “You have to get them ready, Bryn. You can’t wait.” Celia was starting to sound unhinged again.
    I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t want to lie, but knew it would be a mistake to go this soon.
    “Talk to Kowi and Trip about it. They’re in charge.”
    “Talk to me about what?” said Trip from behind us. I whipped around to see him standing there, shirtless, a bright red shiner on his cheek and a black eye marring his beautiful face.
    “Wow. You look like crap, Trip,” said Coli, smiling. “Bryn kick your ass again?”
    “No. She didn’t. Her friggin boyfriend tried to, though.”
    I didn’t argue the boyfriend point this time. It seemed like a waste of breath with these people anyway.
    “Looks like he succeeded.”
    “You should see what he looks like.” Trip turned his attention to me. “What do you need to talk to me about?” He walked over and stood by his sister, Celia. She was refusing to meet his gaze.
    “We were talking about going after the canner and rescuing those kids. But I know you don’t want to go, so I’ll wait to talk about it when Kowi’s there too.”
    “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been