After walking for roughly 30 minutes, the group had stopped at an overpass while some of the tribesmen traveled down to the river below to fill canteens of water. Jillan Bays sat on the front of a blue 2025 Ford Mustang, scratching his flushed-red, poison-irritated arms. He had taken off his shirt to wrap it around the cut on his arm, from when he fell through the roof of a car. He had never been so miserable. He sneezed three times, and his vision blackened for a moment as his head swam. Snot dribbled from his nose, and he shivered from the revulsion of it. He wiped it away with the blood-soaked shirt on his arm. A tribesman was standing next to him, presumably his guard. The tribesman stared at him.
“What?” asked Bays, annoyed.
The tribesman waved a finger over his lips. “Bloody mustache.”
“So what,” Bays replied.
“You know, in time, your body gets used to the pollen–to the air,” said the tribesman.
“I’m not getting used to anything out here. I’m getting back to the city as soon as i can,” Bays said. He thought of his impending deadline to return to work, and the hopes of making it back in time were becoming more and more distant. He would have to call the emergency services dept. back as soon as he had a chance to himself.
“You’ll die if you plan on walkin’ back,” said the Tribesman.
Bays knew that this was probably true. He said: “Not this kid, I’m not afraid of this overgrown wasteland.”
“Your body might adapt to the pollen and the sun and the bugs, as ours have,” said the Tribesman. “We are the strong ones, who learned how to rebuild society when we were banished from yours. We learned how to fend off the creatures of the jungle and build cities of our own. But now that the mutant beast stalks us, we must constantly move. And that means less of us survive. When we get sick, and fall behind, the monster closes in and makes its kill. It can smell blood, your blood.”
“Then get me to a safe place and I can call for help, I’ll be out of your hair,” said Bays.
“It is a shame we couldn’t get your surgery supplies. You see, the King’s daughter is ill. Makes the beast attacks us all just to get to her, relentlessly. We were all relying on that package to heal her.”
Bays thought about this. “And her life is more important than anyone else in the tribe just because she’s a princess? That doesn’t sound much like ‘only the fittest survive’ to me. In fact, it sounds a lot like the way we live inside the city. I guess some things never change.”
“We’ve become accustomed to the idea of sacrifice. Your city has forgotten the true impact of that word’s meaning.”
“I can call for help from here, even…” said Bays, holding up his wrist communicator. Suddenly, Bays was blind-sided by a club to his fore-arm. His communicator splintered and shards of it went spinning away. He gripped his arm, and what was left of his communicator dangling from his wrist. Bays looked at the tribesman who had sneaked up on him. “Well what’d you do that for? I tried to deliver the package!” The two tribesman grabbed him and held him by his arms.
“Do you know why the Great City States started hunting us Jungle Dwellers as soon as they took power in New Savannah?” said one of them. They had begun to drag Jillan to the edge of the bridge.
“I would love to find out,” said Bays, struggling and kicking. “Why don’t you sit me back down and tell me the story.”
“The mutants have become numerous and threatened their other colonies. The Great City States want to eliminate the food source for the mutants, and control their population so that they do not become a threat here. Soon they won’t expel people from within the cities anymore; they will kill the citizens who get out of line,” said the tribesman. ”I wouldn’t expect that they would be much of a help do you either, at this point.” They held him against the metal beam of the bridge’s edge. “We know they can track you with this device.” Bays looked at his communicator. The keypad and face-plate were smashed, but it was still flashing red from inside. “You see, Chuck here used to be a manufacturer of these comms bracelets. That is, before they caught him with drugs and rejected him from the city. He knows how these bracelets work.”
Chuck smiled and waved, and walked up to strip the braclet from Bay’s arm. “It has an automatic tracing signal. And if its active–as you can tell by this little flashing red light you can only see after the faceplate is broken off–they are tracking your signal from a mobile unit.” Chuck tossed it off the side of the bridge, and it landed in the branches of a tree.
Bays felt someone taking off his shoes, and struggled to get free from the group of Dwellers. “I risked my neck when I worked for you! And now you’re just going to leave me to die?”
“You will help to expose two of our enemies today. You are doing us a great favor.”
The group lifted him up, and tossed him over the side.
6-30-08
