Free They Who Fell by Kevin Kneupper Page B

there were marks. Little notches carved into the trees, or rocks that looked out of place. Hobos had used these same kinds of signals decades before: symbols that were unintelligible to the uninitiated, but meant something to Holt. They directed them onward and inward, until they finally arrived at Marv’s Colony.
    Marv was an eccentric—a rough, tough New Yorker who’d been too old and too fat to join the feeble efforts at a resistance after the Fall. He was slimmer these days by necessity, but maintained the healthy gut that men his age just couldn’t seem to get rid of. He was balding on top, with hair running wild at the back to compensate. He’d worked blue collar jobs in the city for years, but when the angels came he fled to the island. Unlike a lot of others, he stayed, retreating with his family to a relatively isolated area of wilderness that had once been a communal farm of some sort. Now it was just buildings and trees, including a sanitarium that had been out of use since long before the Fall. Rumors were that the place was the scene of various brutal murders and child abductions, though no one had ever offered precise details. Those seemed like heinous atrocities then, keeping anyone but the indigent far away. Now such stories would be routine, more to be expected than to be horrified by. Marv wasn’t afraid, and he was the one who had discovered the basements, a series of rooms and tunnels under the old sanitarium that served as the home to a half dozen families who survived by setting up a way station for humans passing through the area. You had to be in the know to find it, but Holt was certainly that.
    Holt approached the sanitarium slowly, leaving the others some ways behind. Marv could be jumpy around people he didn’t know, and while Holt had been there a number of times, the rest of the cell was less familiar. They’d stopped here on the way in, but who knew whether Marv would remember them? Even if he did, it was normally the older children who were stationed somewhere in the upper levels to watch the approaches. A larger group might give them cause to shoot first and tell their parents later.
    Walking towards the entrance, Holt stopped near a pile of rusted gurneys and other assorted medical artifacts from another age. Regular guests knew that it was both polite and prudent to await an invitation inside, and this was the appointed place. It wasn’t long before he saw a figure in the darkened doorway at the side of the building—Marv, beckoning for him to come forward. Holt gave a signal behind him, and the others slowly approached as well. They walked together to the door, then jogged the last bit as Marv became visibly agitated at the amount of time they were spending out in the open. Manners were nice, but New Yorkers were never much for those anyway, and once their peaceful intent had been signaled it made little sense to tarry where anyone flying overhead could easily spot them.
    “You survived!” Marv said with a laugh. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you bastards again. Not tubby for sure.” Dax squirmed, but said nothing. He was used to insults, but they paralyzed him with indecision. He’d fume inside, and spend a few hours boiling and plotting revenge. But he never quite had the stomach to fight back in the moment, and thus was ever a promising target.
    “We almost didn’t,” said Holt. “But it was worth it. We bagged one.”
    “No shit,” said Marv, his voice a mixture of awe and skepticism.
    “No shit,” said Thane, holding up the scabbard of the sword he’d retrieved.
    “Well, fuck me,” said Marv, eyes widening. “Can’t believe you idiots actually got one. Can’t believe. Me, I swore you’d be dead. You know, you wanna sell that thing, I can find you a buyer. Lotta people would pay a lot to get one a those.”
    “Not for sale,” said Holt. “We just need a night’s room and board. Then we’re heading inland for supplies, and for some business I’ve got