Free CICADA: A Stone Age World Novel by ML Banner Page B

them—appeared to be asleep.
    Each time they came upon a lean-to or something similar, Max pulled out a plastic flashlight and blasted its light up and down the pole, looking for a Union Jack.
    They ran across several of Max’s flyers; some were posted on the trees, but most had been discarded on the ground along with so much garbage piling up after a year of living here. The putrid smell of human waste was everywhere. These once-pristine forests were now no more than a dump of trash and humans.
    After an unsuccessful hour, they were running out of campsites. So they doubled back and looked for any signs that a flag had once hung on a tree, assuming it must be taken down at night.
    They looked again at one of the early lean-tos they had scrutinized, and because they had approached from a different direction, they had missed a piece of fishing line stuck into the bark. It was definitely used for securing something.
    Tom was just about to kick over the lean-to when he heard a crackle of pine needles beside him. Pivoting, he saw a thick piece of wood coming down on him. It just grazed Tom’s head, his movement surely saving him from death, and hit the tree instead. The truncheon thudded and bounced out of the attacker’s hand. Max spun around and fired off a silenced round into the man’s leg, not wanting to kill him just yet; it sounded like a small twig breaking and nothing more.
    “You shot—” Tom brought the butt of his pistol down hard on the back of the man’s head. This didn’t knock him out but was effective in quieting him.
    The man, known as Club and feared by many, shuddered enough that the bandana he wore as a protective hat slid off his head to the pine needle floor.
    Max kneeled down face-to-face with Club and smiled, just slightly. “You were the one who attacked that place over there.” He pointed toward Cicada. “And you tossed in the grenade. Good job, by the way; they had it coming to them.”
    The man wasn’t sure whether these two were friend or foe but decided it was better to cooperate. “Ah, yeah… it’s those damn scientists; they have food and water and we have nothing,” he said, grimacing from the pain.
    “I thought so. Now tell me where you got your explosives. We want some to take out that place—maybe we could split the spoils?”
    Feeling a little more confident, Club told them, “There’s a guy who brought these to me. He leaves me a sign when he’s left me a new supply and sometimes instructions about where to hit the fortress.”
    “Where are the sign and the drop-off points?”
    Club hesitated at first, and then gave up his only bargaining chip. “It’s always at the same place: a split aspen, like from a lightning bolt, just off the road by the Cicada sign. I’m expecting a delivery tomorrow, just before sunrise. Maybe we could—”
    Tom scooped up Club’s bandana hat and shoved it into the man’s mouth, holding it in place. “Do you need anything else?”
    “No, I’m good,” Max said.

    As the sun broke over the rugged horizon, Beatrice Peters stepped out of her parents’ tent to relieve herself. When she looked up from where she’d squatted, she fell back, as if her shock pushed her over. It was Club. He was as dead as anyone she’d seen, and these days, she’d seen lots of dead people. This was certainly ironic being that many of them died at Club’s hands. He had even boasted last night about killing one of the people from the fortress on the hill.
    She scuttled back a little, pulled up her pants and stood; she wanted to make sure what she saw was real, scrutinizing every hair and twig. And the knife. Club was strung up in the tree that made up his lean-to. His tongue was dangling out of his slack jaw, and his eyes were swollen in a permanent state of terror, forever staring into the ground. His hunting knife was sticking out of his chest. It pinned a bloody white piece of paper with words on it, as if he were some sort of community billboard. She