Apocalyptic fiction; Boys -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
They brought them into the camp. By this time Steven and the girl had
found that their captors were far too strong and too many to escape
from, and quite adept at protecting themselves from the foulest of
blows. But still the two of them struggled now and then, panting like
animals.
Everything at the camp, which was over on Long Island, near Flushing
Bay, was neat and trim and olive-drab, and it was almost evening now,
and as the jeep rolled up the avenue between the rows of tents Steven
and the girl stopped struggling to blink at the first artificial lights
they'd seen in a very long time.
In the lieutenant's tent, the big man Steven had tried to kill said to
the man behind the desk, "Like a jaguar, sir. Right out of the tree
he came. I had him spotted, of course, but he did a peach of a job of
trailing me. If I _hadn't_ been ready for him, I'd be a dogtag."
The lieutenant looked at Steven and the girl, standing before him, and
the four soldiers who stood behind them, one to each strong dirty young
arm.
"The others got the girl, eh?" he said.
"Yessir. When we first heard 'em, I started making enough noise to
cover the rest of the boys." The sergeant grinned. "I swear, he came at
me as neat as any commando ever did."
"God," said the lieutenant, and closed his eyes for a moment. "What
a thing. Let this war be the last one, Sipich. So _this_ is what
happened to New York in six years. Maniacs. Murderers. Worst of all,
wolf-children. And the rest of the country...."
"Well, we're back now, sir. We can start putting it all back together--"
"God," said the lieutenant again. "Do you think the pieces will fit?"
He looked at Steven. "What is your name, son?"
Steven snarled.
"Take them away," said the lieutenant wearily. "Feed them. Delouse
them. Send them to the Georgia camp."
"They'll be okay, sir. In a year or so they'll be smiling all over the
place, taking an interest in things. Kids are kids, sir."
"_Are_ they? _These_ kids, Sipich? ... I don't know. I just don't
know."
The sergeant gave an order, and the four soldiers urged Steven and the
girl out of the tent. There was a bleat of pain as one of the children
placed a kick.
The sergeant started to follow his men out. At the tent flaps he
paused. "Sir ... maybe you'd like to know: we found these two because
they were playing and laughing. We were scouting the park, and heard
them laughing."
"They were?" said the lieutenant, looking up from the forms he was
filling out. "_Playing?_"
"It's still there, sir. Deep down. It has to be."
"I see," said the lieutenant slowly. "Yes, I suppose it is. And now
we've got to dig it up."
"Well ... we buried it, sir."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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