Free Monthly #16 Melani: In the Wild

A selection from 21st Century Short Stories

Introduction

As we close in on the release of Emergence (links to order preorder/order are easily found here or wherever you’d buy books online), there are still some short stories I have written this year that take place before the events in the novel. The matter of Melani and what happens to her comes to mind. We are close to the end of the story of her as she flees from the Abnormal reservation. Today we find out what she is up to since escaping with some of her friends.

21st Century Short Stories | Melani: In the Wild

Four weeks passed since Dev, Emma, Mary, and I escaped from the reservation. We had spent a full day evading the patrols and drones before anyone seemed to notice we were gone. I noticed that there was a substantial increase in drones flying up above on the second and third days as search parties combed the expansive forest. It was a wild place full of critters and little else. It was a whole new world for us to explore, if we could get away from our captors.

We continued to travel with cover of night, always pausing for the buzzing of the drones that relentlessly scoured the land as they looked for us. We also made some progress on the rainy days when the drones were less common. Luckily, we were able to mask our heat signatures by using the emergency blankets we packed that contained some space age type of foil that Dev said would protect us from thermal imaging. Since no one had stopped us, we had to assume that the blankets worked.

On the seventh day, we stopped seeing drones altogether which allowed us to take more risks with where we walked. We eventually found a cavern near a river across a patch of sparse vegetation. We decided to convene in the cavern. By a unanimous decision, we voted to stay and get acquainted to our new life. While Mary and I wanted to continue putting distance between us and our captors to be safe, we had to acknowledge the reality of our party. Emma did not have the same stamina that we had and that it would be good for all of us to rest for a while. I helped Emma set up our space in the small cave while Dev and Mary searched for edible vegetation and dry wood for a fire.

The three weeks that brought us to the present were spent realizing that foraging for food was not going to be sustainable. We tried to snare animals and attempted to learn how to turn them into meat we could use as a food source, but we found it more difficult than initially anticipated. If we failed to turn the local animals into sustainable meals, we would die of starvation. I spent most of this time scouting as the idea of killing and gutting animals was revolting to me. The others agreed that exploring was a good idea. Knowing the area around us would help prepare us for a quick departure should the Absolutists catch up with us. My knowledge of the area would also ensure we did not traipse through the forest into the backyard of homesteaders.

As it turned out, the three-mile radius around our cavern was mostly desolate. The winding river and the forest stretched north and south for all three miles. To the west, the trees petered out to flat and grassy prairie land. I crossed the river once and searched the eastern front and found several houses that were five or more miles away. A few roads also stretched between the houses and then down south where I guessed they ended at the reservation.

Scouting the wilderness and taming the wild were two entirely different things, neither one was something I had considered when plotting our escape. I did not know if anyone to the east was friendly and so I did not try to make contact. To add to the list of concerning unknowns, none of us knew if the river we were nearby was the Mighty Mississippi or a contributory. We knew that the reservation would have to be on the west side of the Mississippi, but we had no idea how far. Any homesteaders to the west of the Mississippi may be friendly to us and our plight, but since we were not sure, and as we were Abnormals, the risk was far too high for us to engage the homesteaders. Not until we knew more about our exact location and who they were.

After convening one evening to debate the matter, we concluded that the river was not big enough or deep enough to be the divider that the All-Seeing Eye made the Mississippi to be. That made us curious as to the nature of the homesteaders, since they would have to be west of the river and thus part of Middling America, as we called growing up.

The days were hot and humid, and the nights were warm and just as humid, all of which made personal hygiene one of our biggest concerns. We could bath in the river, but it was risky business as it left us exposed to anyone viewing from above in a drone or satellite. We continued with a sleeping rotation so there was always someone staying up to make sure we were safe from our captors. Those up during the night were the ones who ended up bathing shortly before or after their watch shift.

Our tools proved useful as we worked through all the problems that needed solved. There was much trial and error for every task we set ourselves to and that included learning what the tools we brought were good and bad at. We found the best ones to begin constructing a barrier with a door and weapons made of wood. We did not have knives, so spears were the sharpest weapons we could muster until we decided which tools were not going to be useful. We would transform those metal objects into weapons when that day came.

 All was going well until one morning we were shaken awake by Mary who had been watching throughout the late-night rotation. “There’s something going on.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused by her words.

“Vehicles. Small vehicles.”

It did not take me or Dev long to realize what danger was presented by such a sighting. With adrenaline pumping into our veins, we leapt to our feet and helped Mary make sure we would be as invisible as possible. There was not much we could do about our cavern barrier, but we could at least ensure the fires, the one outside and the smaller one inside, were not noticeable by dousing them with collected rainwater.

The vehicles could be heard off in the distance and when I asked how Mary knew what they were, she shrugged and said, “They were close enough for me to make out their lights. They kind of looked like what the guards used whenever they cleared the fencing quickly. Those small ATVs or whatever.”

“I thought they had given up.” Dev hissed, exasperated by the news.

“Perhaps we wanted them to give up, but would they really?” I asked and everyone fell silent for a time as we listened to the vehicles peruse closer to our location.

“We ought to do something about our features should they find us.” Emma said quietly.

“We can probably use some dirt to darken our hair, but we can’t do anything about our eyes.”

Dev strode toward the muddy area around the interior fireplace and grab some of the globs and smeared it into his hair. After several seconds, he shook his head and turned back to us. “How do I look?”

“Like a salt and pepper haired teenager.” I said musingly. “Let’s stick to not using the ashes from the fire. Where’s the water?”

Emma handed me what was left of the water inside and we worked together to rub as much of the brown dirt from the ground into our hair as we could. The sounds of the vehicles drew closer all the while. By the time we were down to the last strands of Emma’s hair, the vehicles were so loud they had to be close enough to see our makeshift home.

As if to answer my thoughts, we could here shouting, and the vehicles ceased to move. After a few seconds, the hum of the vehicles turned off. There was a knock at our door which made me tense. We all glanced at one another in the dim light. The moon was out in full force and our barrier had plenty of gaps in it. There was a solitary person at the entrance waiting for a reply.

Everyone looked at me as the person knocked again and I felt the weight of the situation fall upon my shoulders. I laid us out of captivity, and I was the leader of our group whenever we needed a tie breaking vote to determine what we needed to do. The responsibility for this situation was mine. I put on as much of the old Melani charm that I could muster and strode to the door and opened it.

There was a menacing man that appraised me as I opened the door and gave my most winning of smiles. He was not amused. “What are you doing out here young lady?”

“We are just camping, it’s what we do.” I said with a gung-ho attitude, but the man did not buy it.

He pushed his way past me and held up a flashlight to see our small cavern in all its glory. He sneered as he studied the place and took little time to turn and walk back out. “Looks more like you are trying to live out here. You know there’s Abnormals loose right?”

“We hadn’t heard.” Dev replied.

“Hadn’t heard?” The man chuckled to himself. “Do you think that you can cover up who you are?”

Before we could so much as slam the door or grab something to defend ourselves, the men around him charged forward and apprehended us. They jerked us around as they tied our hands behind our backs and then they threw us to the ground. The man crept forward as he watched and squatted before us so that we could make eye contact. His eyes were like daggers as they glared at me. “You will not escape again I’m afraid.”

The man lifted his arm up and played with his wristphone. I groaned. Even if we managed to keep our features from being discovered, none of us had wristphones. It was an obvious oversight that I realized too late. “If I were you, I’d think about how normal girls your age, you know, those of us who aren’t Abnormals, would have lied about being out in the woods all alone with a boy. Not that it will matter, but it will distract you from what’s going to happen next.”

“What? Why?” Dev’s angry voice came from my left.

The man did not answer. Instead, he pressed a button and spoke to someone on the other end. “We have the Abnormals in custody.”

“Good work Agent Melvin. Good work. Bring them to the new Reservation to be with their families. I will speak to Lily about next steps.”

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