Jason Frost - Badlands

"Speak, Palmer," Fallows said impatiently.

"Up ahead… abandoned truck. Same as that pilot said… belonged to the… scientist."

"Any sign of the man?"

"No, sir. Truck had a flat, so'd the spare. No sign of foul play."

Foul play. Christ, Fallows thought, once a cop always a cop. "What about papers? Anything?"

"No. Nothing. But looks like someone has already rummaged through the glove compartment. Probably recently."

Fallows could see by Eli's expression that he was waiting to be asked. Fucking cops. "How do you figure that, Eli?"

"Well, the truck had been there quite awhile. Weeks at least. But I found an empty Coke can in the cab and there were still a few sticky drops on it." Eli Palmer smiled, having finally proved that he had belonged in Homicide rather than Burglary, just what he'd been telling the department for three years before the quakes.

"Good work, Eli." Fallows smiled. "They can't be too far away. We take it slow and easy from now on. I don't want to spook him. Let's go."

Everyone was on their feet and following Fallows.

Fallows turned to Tim and grinned. "Still got that bullet, kid?"

"Yes."

"Good. You're going to need it."

There were maybe twenty of them. They ran out of the house, circling Paige and Eric like Indians attacking a wagon train. Only they didn't attack. They stood still, each holding something to use as a weapon. A hammer, a saw, a hunk of firewood, a screwdriver, a fork.

The oldest was a girl of about fifteen. She wore a tattered but clean dress and a full-length apron. Her blond hair hung down her back almost to her waist. The weapon she was brandishing was a wooden spatula.

The rest of the children stood silently, obviously waiting for her command. The youngest was about three. He carried a sharp stick that reminded Eric of roasting hot dogs.

"Hi," the oldest girl said. Her voice was neutral, her eyes wary. She gripped the spatula tightly as she studied Paige's and Eric's automatic weapons.

"Hi," Paige replied. "We don't mean you any harm."

The girl waved the spatula at the guns. "Then put those things down."

"Can't do that," Eric said. "We're being followed by some men who want to kill us."

The girl shrugged. It wasn't her problem. "Then maybe you should go."

"What's your name?' Paige asked her. "My name's Paige."

One of the young boys giggled. "Page? Like in a book?"

"Yes," Paige said.

Several of the children giggled.

"I'm Wendy," the girl said. "What do you want?"

"We're looking for a man, an older man in his sixties. About my height, gray hair and a thick moustache. He used to live here."

Wendy shook her head. "No adults live here. Just us kids."

"No adults?"

"That's right."

Eric could see Paige trying not to show her disappointment, but her shoulders sagged and her eyes were shining with held-back tears. He stepped toward Wendy and all the other children lifted their weapons and stepped toward him. He looked at them and stopped. "May we come inside and look around? The man we're looking for used to live here. Maybe he left something behind to tell us where he's gone."

"There's lots of stuff inside. We just left most of it."

Paige brightened. "May we look?" Wendy hesitated, studying their faces with a child's skeptical eye. She looked at the guns again and sighed as if she had no choice. "I guess. Only don't mess things up, OK? We've been cleaning all morning. Peter will be back soon."

"Peter?" Eric said.

"Yeah. He's out hunting. Me and Peter take care of everyone. Kinda like their parents, see."

"What happened to everybody's real parents?"

"I dunno. Dead. I guess. Peter and I were on a field trip with some other students from Uni High in L.A. We were studying tide pools for Mrs. Levy's biology class. Then the quakes hit and most everybody else in the class was killed. Mrs. Levy fell into the ocean and got pulled out to sea. Me and Peter started running. We passed this junior high school and tried to steal a couple bikes so we could get away faster. The whole building had collapsed. Dead kids and teachers everywhere. We grab the bikes and start pedaling out of there when we see some kids wandering around bawling. They'd been on the playground of some elementary school when it hit. With everybody around us dead, they started following me and Peter. We finally ended up here."

"Was it empty when you got here?"

"Sure. Otherwise we wouldn't have stayed, right? The place was a mess, I can tell you that. It's bad enough picking up after all these kids, but when the place was so gross to start… Well, I guess we can't complain. At least we have a home now."

Eric and Paige exchanged looks.

"So you and Peter have been taking care of all these kids by yourselves?' Eric asked.

"We ain't babies," one of the boys snapped. He was about eleven.

"We do our share," one of the girls, ten, added.

There was some muttered approval among the others.

"All rights, that's enough," Wendy scolded gently. "Let's wash those grimy little paws and get ready for lunch. I haven't been slaving over a hot fire all day for nothing, right?"

The kids scattered to behind the house.

"Got a pump back there," Wendy explained. "Whoever was here before rigged it up. We get all the water we need. I guess that's why we never left. Here at least we can eat and drink."

Eric nodded, looked around. "And you're pretty isolated, too. Ever bothered by strangers?"

"Up here?" She laughed. "Nope. Oh, once some couple and their kid wandered by, wanted to stay and take over from me and Pete. But the kids voted them down and they moved on. Thing is-" she grinned-"their kid wanted to stay with us. They dragged him away crying and screaming."

"Sounds like you've made quite a home here," Eric said.

"We have. Better than some these kids came from. Sure, sometimes we miss our folks, and we've had a few runaways go off looking for their parents. But mostly we just take care of each other." She looked at her watch. "I gotta get back to the cooking now. You wanna come in and look around, fine." She turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door open for Paige and Eric to follow.

"Jesus," Paige said.

"Yeah," Eric said.

They walked into the house.

The inside was consciously rustic. Lots of clumpy wooden furniture and rough wood walls. Even the ceiling was bare beams. Walking into this house gave Eric a funny feeling. Everything was so neat and normal looking, he could almost forget there had been a disaster.

Wendy strolled straight through the living room and dining room out into the kitchen. A little girl with pigtails peeked around the corner at Eric and Paige. She hugged a doll made out of a stuffed sock and button eyes.

"Hi," Eric said.

She smiled, hugged the doll closer.

"What's your name?"

"Sarah," she mumbled into her sock doll.

"What's his name?" Eric pointed at the doll.

"I dunno."

"Come on."

"Rupert, I guess."

Paige was rummaging through the drawers of the oak desk in the corner by the old TV console. The TV screen was dust-free and the rusty rabbit ears still formed a neat V, even though there was no electricity, no TV stations broadcasting. She struggled with one drawer, finally forcing it open. Like the rest of the drawers, it was stuffed with papers. "Hey, Eric, how about giving me a hand here, huh? Play Mr. Charm later."

Sarah frowned at Eric. "Is she your mother?'

Eric laughed.

Paige shook her head disgustedly. "Kids."

Eric winked at Sarah and she giggled and ran into the kitchen. He walked over to Paige and started pulling wads of folded paper from the drawers.

"Wendy must've just shoved everything that Dad had lying on the desk into these drawers. Christ, she may be even a bigger neat freak than I am."