The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 3
Bea realized that she’d been mistaken thinking that it was five men in the vehicle—one was a woman. She was rail-thin and sharp-featured: Sharp nose, sharp chin, and sharp cheekbones. Discerning eyes that took in everything with a single pass. She had a head of thick brown hair that looked like it might be a mess of curls if it weren’t braided so tightly to her scalp. She, as well as all the others, wore armor, and seemed generally well-equipped. Unlike Jax, they all exited with rifles strapped to their chests, as well as pistols on their hips.
The man from the front passenger seat seemed to be of an age with Jax, but that was the only similarity. Where Jax was tall and lean, this man was stockier and powerfully built. Thick black hair stood out almost like a short afro, and his face was ensconced in a bushy, black beard, shot through with silver around the jawline. Where Jax seemed to vacillate between sternness and good humor, this man looked flat-out mean.
From the backseat, immediately following the sharp-featured woman, two younger men got out. One was light-skinned, with a ruddy, sunburnt complexion, and a general way about him—the set of his face, the swagger of his walk—that pegged him as a willful clown.
The other young man was far more serious. He had shaggy black hair, and brown skin, and seemed to be of middle-eastern ethnicity. Bea found herself staring at this young man, fascinated by what she saw as a strange contradiction: He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, and everything about his face was youthful. And yet, there was something in the hard set of his eyes and mouth that told her he had the experience of a much older man.
Bea was so momentarily distracted by this dichotomy, that she started when she realized the young man was looking right at her. Her heart did an uncomfortable little jig, feeling like his eyes were boring into her, and almost as a reaction to this, she pulled back from her scope, not liking how it magnified his face and made them feel oddly close.
He kept his eyes on her, and tilted his head when she pulled back to look at him with her naked eye. He seemed to be evaluating her as hard as she’d evaluated him.
And then he did something very strange: He smiled at her. A big, warm, guileless grin, that made the hardness seem to fall away from him like a skin he’d just shed.
And then he winked at her.
Chapter 3
It was obvious to Sam Ryder that he’d made the woman uncomfortable when he winked. Rather than respond in kind, which would have been a bit too much to hope for, she made a little recoiling motion with her head and scowled at him.
Which only made Sam smile wider. It was only when she shook her head with a note of dismissive irritation and focused back in on the others that Sam felt momentarily out of place. No one had ever accused him of being a charmer, and it wasn’t something he typically tried his hand at.
But after everything they’d just been through over the last month, after all that bloodshed and loss, he’d been in a somber frame of mind, and heavy thoughts of regret and loss had chased him all the way north to this little corner of California.
When they’d pulled into this little settlement comprised of a bunch of shipping containers—not so different from the settlement that Sam had grown up in—he hadn’t been expecting much.
But when he’d looked up and seen that pretty face staring down at him, it had taken him by surprise. After all the ugliness lurking in the background of his mind, even something so simple as a beautiful woman had been like stepping into the warm, spring sun after a cold, hard winter.
In this life, Sam had realized that you had to appreciate what beauty there was to be found.
“Oh-ho,” Jones murmured at Sam’s shoulder, giving him a nudge. “I see you’re already building inroads with the ladies.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Nice.”
Well. That hadn’t taken long.
“Careful, Jonesy,” Sam remarked, turning his attention to the others. “She’s got a gun.”
“Pff. Everybody’s got guns.”
The apparent leader of this settlement, a lanky guy that looked like he’d be more at home behind some accounting books than leading a fellowship of survivors through the end of the world, was watching Sam and his teammates with a concerned look. He also seemed inordinately impressed by their armor and weapons—a sign that this much firepower was unusual in these parts.
“Who are you people?” the man asked.
And with that, Jax turned and smiled knowingly at his team.
He hadn’t exactly been lying when he’d introduced himself as “Jackson, but my friends call me Jax.” His name was indeed Jackson, but that was his middle name, and none of his actual friends called him either Jackson or Jax. His name was Lee Harden, and they all called him Lee. But only in private.
Why the subterfuge? Because Lee Harden was not a name you wanted to introduce yourself by. Partly because they’d promised never to buck the official story that he was dead. But also because the name came with a whole slew of baggage that was best left buried.
“This,” Lee/Jax said, gesturing to the nearest team member. “Is my second in command, so to speak. His name is Lincoln.”
His name wasn’t Lincoln at all, not even his middle name. He of the fierce demeanor and bushy black beard was Abram Darabie, but they all called him Abe when in private, and since they called him Abe, they decided that Lincoln was an easy enough pseudonym to remember. As it so happened, the name of Abe Darabie carried almost as much baggage as Lee Harden.
“And this,” Lee now pointed to she of the sharp features and keen eyes. “Is kind of my other second in command, Marie. We call her ‘Ma.’ But she’s not really anyone’s mom.”
It was actually just Jones that called her ‘Ma,’ but Lee liked to introduce her that way because it sounded friendlier. In the very beginning of all this, Jones had insisted that she was the “Team Mom,” and began to call her that, which, over time, got truncated to Ma.
“And these young men over here are Sam and Jones.” Lee flicked a finger between them. “Sam’s the dark-skinned one. Jones is the sunburnt one.”
They weren’t important enough to have pseudonyms. Though, in truth, Sam Ryder was an adopted name, of sorts.
Six years ago, as the plague burned through the populace like a wildfire, Sam Ryder had been Sameer Balawi, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan. He was only twelve years old when the world changed. And he’d changed with it.
Gone were his parents. Gone were his sisters. Gone were his obsessions with video games and social media. He’d been stripped down, shaken up, and scattered, and when he’d finally pulled the pieces of himself back together, he’d become something very different. He’d become Sam Ryder.
“So…” Lee clapped his hands together and turned back to the leader of the settlement. “You got any place we can talk?”
The leader of the settlement looked around, as though he wasn’t sure that such a place existed. “Like…in private?”
Lee bobbed his head. “Private would be best.”
The other man’s face clouded. “Would you be willing to disarm yourselves?”
“No,” Lee said, simply. “But I’ll meet you in the middle.” He flicked a finger at Marie and Abe, who shared a brief roll of the eyes, but acquiesced to the unspoken command and doffed their rifles, placing them on the hood of the truck.
Lee looked back to the leader. “I’ll be accompanied by Ma and Lincoln. Sam and Jones will remain out here with the truck, fully armed. But the three of us only have pistols, just like you. Fair enough?”
The leader either didn’t have the guts to demand more from them, or he stupidly thought that it actually was fair. Luckily for him, they really weren’t there for nefarious reasons. They always remained civil, until given a reason not to be.
The leader nodded. “Alright, then. We can talk in my…house.”
Lee quirked a brow. “Anyone you’d like to accompany you?”
The leader, halfway to turning around and leading them to his “house,” stopped and glanced back. “I’ll be fine by myself.”
Sam thought that was interesting. It wasn’t good for the leader of a settlement to be an island unto themselves. Did this man not have a support network? Or did he fancy himself so smart that he didn’t need any outside counsel?
Marie turned to Sam and Jones and raised a thumbs-up as she fell in behind Lee and Abe. “You boys good?”
“I want a juice box, Ma,” Jones immediately replied.
Marie just ignored him and turned back around.
“Ma!” Jones called at her back, for no other reason than it was his eternal pleasure to disrupt the seriousness of every occasion, trampling gravitas underfoot wherever he found it. “Come on, Ma!”
Marie never turned back around.
Jones slumped and scuffed his heel in the dust. “Well, shit. Just wanted a fuckin’ juice box.”
Sam sighed at his friend, but smiled, because what else were you going to do with him?
His gaze drifted up to the lookout again, and noticed the woman behind the rifle peering down at him with a curious, evaluating stare. When their eyes met, she flushed and turned away.
“Alright,” Lee grunted, easing himself into the folding chair that had been offered. It was the only other chair at the chintzy little card table besides the one in which Ted Foley had seated himself. Abe and Marie were content to stand. “First thing’s first.” Lee leaned his elbows on the table, careful not to overload the flimsy thing with his weight. “What do you call ‘em?”
Ted, who sat stiffly across from Lee, frowned. “Beg pardon?”
Beg pardon? Lee almost laughed. He hadn’t heard that formalization in God-knew how many years. This guy was a peach.
Smiling with private amusement, Lee drew a circle in the air. “The people infected by the plague. What do you call them around here? Always easiest if we work off of the same terms.”
“Oh. Uh…we just call them ‘infected.’ Or ‘crazies.’”
“First generation or second generation?” Lee’s gaze zipped around the room as he spoke, cataloguing what it contained, the state of everything, and what that all said about the man who called it his home. “Do you call them the same thing?”
Ted’s face pinched up. “What?”
Lee looked at him sharply, a note of irritation blooming right behind his sternum. Ted had seemed like he’d be more brains than brawn, but so far Lee had seen neither. But maybe he was just off his game. That was understandable.
“Most folks discriminate between the first and second generations,” Lee explained. “The original ones and the new ones that mutated?” Ted’s expression was still rather vacant. Lee felt the need to clarify. “First generation would be all the people that got sick at the start of the plague and went batshit crazy. Most folks just call those infected. When I refer to the second generation, I’m talking about the big bastards that evolved to become our perennial pain in the ass. So do you have a different name for them, or do you just call them all ‘infected’?”
Ted leaned forward a bit. “I thought all the original ones died out.”
Lee shook his head. “Mostly. But not entirely. They’re still out there.” Eyes wandering again while he spoke. The room was dimly lit by a single solar-charged lantern. Most of the floor space seemed to be a storage area for a variety of bric-a-brac—all the things that they didn’t have a current use for, but might in the future. Engine parts, scraps of steel, power tools with no power to plug into, a set of bald tires, and a collection of storage bins.
All in all, though, Ted kept it surprisingly tidy. The floors looked like they were swept regularly. There was no trash. No stink of rank body-odor. Or the stink of rodents, for that matter. The snug area at the front of the box contained only the table and two chairs, and what looked like a futon cushion for a bed, a single blanket folded neatly at its foot. Leaning against the wall was a mountain bike that looked like it was still in good repair. Lee hadn’t seen any vehicles in the settlement—maybe this was how Ted got around?
Lee continued, tapping a finger to his forehead. “The plague all but destroyed the frontal lobe of the first generation of infected. They don’t do much but run around and eat whatever they can get their hands on. Basically, they don’t take care of themselves like a normal animal would do. In cold climates, they died out after the first winter. But they’re still around in more temperate areas where they don’t freeze to death. And where they can scavenge enough food.”
Ted shook his head. “I haven’t seen any of them in years.”
“But you do have the new ones around here? The ones that mutated?”
“Yes. We just call them ‘infected’.”
Well. That showed a marked lack of imagination. Without exception, every settlement that Lee had been to had their own name for them. Big’uns, teepios, hunters, eaters. Hell, one particularly superstitious group had even called them demons.
“Well, if you don’t have a name for them,” Lee said, returning his gaze to the room. “Then we do. We call them primals. To keep things simple, we’ll be using that term from here on out. The primals hunt in packs led by an Alpha, but as a whole colony, they’re matriarchal—the females run the show. We call the females Omegas.” Lee ticked off three fingers. “So, primals, Alphas, and Omegas. You got all that?”
Ted blinked a few times, and seemed to be re-evaluating Lee. “You guys have done this before.”
“Done what?”
“Travelled to different settlements.”
Lee chuffed and gave an amused glance over his shoulder at Marie and Abe. “Yeah, we’ve done it a time or two.”
Ted placed his hands on the table and folded his fingers together. “And what exactly is it that you do at these different settlements?”
Lee gave him a level stare. “We identify problems, and then solve them.”
Ted’s brow furrowed and he leaned back. “Who do you work for?”
“Would you believe me if I said the Interim Government?”
Ted actually laughed. “No. I would not believe you.”
Lee smiled and shrugged. “Well, in that case, we’re private contractors.”
Ted let out a disconsolate sigh and then stood up. “I’m sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
Lee remained seated. “Oh?”
“We barely have enough to get by ourselves,” Ted said. “We have nothing extra to pay you with. So I don’t see the purpose in continuing these talks.”
“Ah.” Lee had no intention of leaving just yet, and chose to let Ted know by wrangling his bum leg up and crossing it over his good one, then began to massage the knot in his hip. Old bullet wound. Standing hurt more than sitting, but God, sitting sure made it tighten up.
Ted stared down at him, looking a little put out that Lee hadn’t allowed himself to be dismissed.
Lee found a little speck of dried something-or-other on the table and began to scrape at it with a fingernail. “What keeps you up at night, Ted Foley? Is it thoughts of the primals, coming in and tearing your people to shreds? Or is it other people you’re afraid of?”
That seemed to give Ted pause. His fingers worked nervously where they hung at his sides. His jaw muscles pulsed. His eyes were looking at Lee, but he seemed to be picturing something else.
“I’d say it’s fifty-fifty,” Ted finally answered, his voice a tad rough.
“Well, it just so happens that I am in possession of some things that have been proven mighty effective against both.”
“What’s that?”
Lee smiled sanguinely and spread his hands. “Guns and ammunition, of course.”
Ted looked exasperated. “I already told you: we have nothing of value to trade.”
“Yes, you did already mention that.” Lee gestured to the empty seat across from him. “Could you sit down? You’re looming and it’s making me nervous.”
Ted quirked his head. “You don’t seem like the type to get nervous.”
“Anyone that doesn’t get nervous died a long time ago. Please. Sit down.”
Ted grunted and seemed like he’d make a deal out of it, but then just crossed back over to his chair and slumped into it, looking defeated. “If this is a sales pitch, you can stop. I know we need more weapons. Better defenses. Hell, better training. But, again, we can’t pay you.”
“I’m not a travelling salesman, Ted, and this is not a sales pitch.”
“How, then? How do we make a deal?”
“Well, for starters, do you have a place we can sleep?”
Ted considered this for a moment. Then chuckled dubiously. “You mean you’re going to give us weapons and ammunition in exchange for room and board?”
“Let’s just start with a place to sleep, and we’ll see where we go from there.”
Ted rapped his fingertips on the table. “Okay. Yeah. I’m sure we can find some room for you.”
“Great. In exchange for a place to lay our heads for a few nights, we’ll…consult.”
“Consult,” Ted echoed, as though the word were a trap door.
“Yes, consult,” Lee said, waving the man’s suspicions away like fruit flies from a rotting apple. “And we can start with who you thought we were when you set up that ambush.”
Ted fidgeted in his seat. “You’re strangers. We didn’t know who you were. Hence, the ambush.”
Lee clucked his tongue. “It’s a lot easier to identify problems when the people with the problems are forthcoming about them.” He skewered Ted with a look that made it plain he saw past the bullshit. “You thought we were someone else when you saw us coming. Who did you think we were?”
Ted chewed on that for a minute. Fidgeted again. Damn, but he was a squirmy motherfucker.
Eventually, Ted let out a laborious sigh, and with it, all the bullshit evaporated. “There’s a man. His name’s Colin Horner.”
Chapter 4
Sam was supposed to be scanning his surroundings, but, really, there’s only so many times you can look at the same cluster of Conex boxes and curious-suspicious faces. Not that he was being a complete slack-ass. Only that there was a magnetic pull to his vision, that kept sucking his eyes back to the woman in the lookout.
