The Vulgus Chronicles

Vulgus Chronicles - Chapter 5

5

The base unit showed one green light, and one blinking amber light.

"I think it's just the screen that must be dead," Manny said.

"Juice! We need juice!" Dweasel said.

"Maybe we can get some electricity somewhere," Hannah said.

"I don't know how to do that," Manny said.

"Well, all those plug-ins in the kitchen are dead," Cookie said. "All the power's been out since the storm troopers came to town."

"Do you have any batteries? What about this lantern?" Hannah asked.

"That's the wrong kind of juice," Dweasel said. "That has big batteries. They won't fit in this screen. Wrong kind of juice."

"Maybe we can try the other screens and boxes," Hannah said. "They've gotta have the same batteries."

Without a word, Dweasel got up and walked briskly toward the basement. He came back in a moment and grabbed the lantern. "I gotta take this," he said, then disappeared down the stairs.

"I can help," Hannah said.

"Oh, just let him do his thing. I'm sure he'll fetch them all and raise a fit if you try to help him."

Manny took a moment to look at Hannah in the light from the fireplace. She noticed, and then looked away. She did look tall with strong shoulders. He wondered if that bothered her growing up. No one liked to stand out during adolescence. Her manner suggested she was shy and awkward, but her enthusiasm for being with them came across. She apparently enjoyed their company as much as he enjoyed hers.

"Is anyone else living with you across the street?"

"Um—no. Not anymore. I mean, I didn't live there before a month or so ago. But no one was with me."

"Hiding, like us?" Manny asked.

She nodded vigorously but said nothing, looking away.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen, I think. Maybe a little older. I lose track."

"I'm nineteen," Manny said. "Where's your family? What happened to them?"

She shrugged several times. "Pennsylvania, I guess?"

"How'd you wind up here?" Manny asked, trying to be inquisitive rather than interrogating.

She shrugged more, but didn't answer. "How'd you wind up here," she asked in return.

"Well, I can't really say," Manny said, turning his eyes away this time. It occurred to him that she had something to hide, something possibly as traumatic as he had experienced. Everyone seemed to have varying degrees of bad memories of late.

He looked back at her challenging eyes, "I was in..." he paused a moment. "I was in a prison camp." He fudged. The horror of where he really was would be too much for anyone to accept. Cookie didn't even know. Certainly Dweasel didn't know anything about his background. To him, Manny was just a gimp that he had to help or tend to periodically. Manny often wondered if Dweasel resented him, or if it was just his nature to look perturbed all the time.

"It was a labor camp, really. The government stuck me in there, but I escaped."

"I thought you said you were in the military," Hannah said.

"That came later, but it wasn't the Global Alliance or anything. Kind of the US military—of sorts." He felt it important to reassure her of such. Leading up to the news blackout, the respective militaries of sovereign nations had been drastically reduced in both size, influence and power, while the Global Alliance Defense Force grew substantially, to the point of being an occupying force. They were perpetrators of terrible things, and the civilian population was generally terrified of them. Except, of course by those who sought to curry favor for advantage. Considering Hannah was so young, Manny figured she would find it difficult to understand those distinctions, let alone the complexity of his gruesome story.

"What kind of work did you do?"

Grateful to move on, he thought quick. "Breaking rocks, digging ditches, working the farms." He winced inside. The last made-up job came too close to the truth.

Clomping sounds announced Dweasel's return. He had a stack of the base units in his arms, barely secured by his chin. He came over to them, and then stopped, frozen for a moment. He then turned and brought them toward the kitchen. They could no longer see him, rather hear him return to the basement.

Cookie also disappeared toward the kitchen.

Hannah twisted her hair and looked at the fire. Manny said nothing and watched her distant gaze.

After a few moments, she spoke. "I ran away from home."

Manny remained silent.

She switched hands and twisted the hair on her other side. Her eyes darted to the carpet, the fire, and the carpet again.

"I had a boyfriend. He was twenty-five. We were gonna go to Hollywood and become actors. He said I was tall enough to be a fashion model." She paused, blinked several times, and then wiped the wrist of her sleeve across her eyes. "We never made it."

Manny hesitated. Then, "Where is he now?"

She shook her head several times and shrugged.

Clomp, clomp, clomping came up the stairs. A misstep, and the sound of base units tumbling onto the stairs. Manny looked over his shoulder to the hall feeling some dread.

"Dweasel! You okay?" Cookie whispered hoarsely from the kitchen.

Manny turned back to Hannah. She stood and abruptly hurried to the hall. At first Manny thought Hannah was going to help Dweasel. Then he heard the back door creak open followed by the slam of the screen door.