Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

you’re skinny. They’ll probably just use you for sex and bone dump.”
    “What?! Sex and bone, what?!”
    “Never mind. Come on. You gotta go inside this pool house. If I don’t get in the house soon they’ll let the dogs bite me.”
    “Is that what happened to your arm?”
    “Yeah, and my leg. See?”
    “Oooh, crap. That’s awful.”
    “Yeah, well, that’s life out here in the badlands.”
    I could hear them walking around the pool.
    “You don’t have to stay here, you know,” said Peter. He was talking a little too loudly, so I knew it was for our benefit.
    “Yes I do. Trust me, I’ve tried to get away. Twice. They keep finding me and bringing me back.”
    “How is that possible?”
    “They have friends everywhere … all over this neighborhood. No one comes in or goes out without them finding out.”
    My blood stopped flowing for a few seconds, my heart in total seizure. I looked up at Winky and she appeared as freaked out as I was. They’re going to find out we’re here! We can’t wait until tomorrow to do this thing! We have to let the others know!
    I motioned for Winky to come over to where I was. As she moved down from her perch, taking a few seconds to shake the feeling back into her legs, I watched for Peter. I could barely make him out in flashes between the leaves.
    “Well, I got all the way to your house before anyone saw me.”
    “That’s what you think,” Sean said bitterly. “When they go out later today they’ll stop and talk to all their contacts and find out what and who was around this house while they slept. Then they’ll start tracking. They’re worse than the friggin dogs.”
    The chains rattled and the pool house door opened. “In you go.”
    “What is this place?” asked Peter, tentatively.
    “They call it the meat locker.”
    A few moments later, the door slid shut again and the chains rattled, locking my friend Peter inside, and very possibly sealing his fate, if I didn’t find a way to get in there and get him out before the canners or their dogs tore us to pieces.
    ***
    We took advantage of the fact that the dogs were temporarily elsewhere, I hoped not making a meal out of Buster. We climbed to the top of the wall, hiding behind the trunk of the tree.
    “What do you want me to do?” asked Winky, breathlessly.
    “I need you to go and let everyone know that we can’t wait. We have to go in today. That guy Sean said something about them going out hunting.”
    “Yeah, but he also said they check with their contacts to see what’s been going on around here first.”
    “So we can’t wait for them to do that,” I said. “We have to move in now, before they finish their breakfast.”
    I looked across the yard at the spot where I knew the small door in the wall was. “Do you think they got that door opened?”
    “Doesn’t matter. We can blow it open if we have to.”
    “Yeah, but we need to do this quietly if we can. The more kids we can move out before those guys figure out what we’re doing, the better off we’ll all be.”
    “Yeah, okay. You’re right. So what’s the plan?”
    “You go down and tell everyone about the spies they have. Someone needs to go get the truck and move it close before they make contact. Hopefully our truck is still there and in one piece. Rob and Paci need to get ready to set off that bomb out front and blow the front door off or whatever. While they go in the front and pick off the canners, I’ll drop down here by the tree, inside the wall, and meet Trip, Kowi, and the others in the backyard. We’ll get all those kids out through that door over there in the wall. No way are they all going to be able to climb this friggin tree. I have no idea how Celia did that.”
    “Girl’s got skills.”
    “No shit. Okay, so are we good then?”
    “Yeah. And Bryn?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thanks. For doing this. For teaching us the krav maga. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it.”
    “You’re welcome,” I said, reaching out to give her a quick hug. “Thanks for giving my family and me a home. If I don’t make it out of here, I just want you to tell everyone that. It meant a lot to me.”
    “It’s our pleasure,” she said, before getting down on her stomach on the wall and then sliding down over the outside of it to hang for a few seconds before dropping to the ground. She fell back onto her butt, but was up in a flash, running down the side of the wall, headed towards Jason who had stepped out to meet her.