Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure by Mark Tufo Read Free Book Online Page A

that stood in their way, some of the older kids they took, for the most part they left us kids alone, and I mean all alone.” Beth’s heart stung with pain for the kids, not only had they started life with a shitty hand , God had decided that wasn’t enough and took even those cards away.
    “Lady , don’t look so butt hurt , ” Max laughed.
    “Does it show t hat bad?” Beth said as she wiped the precursor to a tear away.
    “Lady , your face is droopier than L ittle T ’s stuffed bulldog, ” Max said as he pointed to a small child sitting in the upper bunk. As Beth turned to see the little boy he immediately pulled his superman blanket over his head.
    Max stood on his tip toes to whisper in Beth’s ear. “He’s still a little scared, his dad went to work one day and never came home, his mom… well , she ran into the same gang of thugs w e did, and it wasn’t pretty. I f we hadn’t come along a couple of days later he would’ve starved to death over his mom’s body.”
    Beth wanted to run over to the little boy and cradle him in her arms and tell him everything would be alright. Max , sensing her motives, grabbed her hand.
    “Don’t — he hasn’t let anyone touch him since we found him. He eats, plays with whatever toy he wants and sleeps, that’s about it. We figure he’ll come around eventually.”
    “How old is he?” Beth asked as L ittle T pulled the blanket back a little to expose one eye.
    “Probably four, but he hasn’t told us. Pretty much everyone here has the same kind of story.”
    “How many of you are the re ?”
    “Well , of me?” Max said pointing to his chest. “Just the one.” H e flashed a brilliant smile. Beth couldn’t help but perk up a little. “ A ll of us, including you now, there’s twenty-seven .”
    “Twenty- seven! How do you feed everyone ? W hat do you eat?” 
    “For a while , we lived off the highway gas station a couple a miles up the road, we cleaned that thing out in a couple of days, we had more D evil D ogs and R ing D ings and potato chips than we knew what to do with. But I’ve got to tell you, I’m probably the only eleven year old that can’t stand junk food anymore . M y headmistress would have been so proud, I used to steal cookies from the pantry whenever I could, I got my hand slapped more than once. But Mrs. Herron was a really nice old lady . S he always made that place feel like my home. She died protecting me.”
    “Max , I’m so sorry ,” Beth said as she stroked the little boys arm.
    He shrugged, “ I t’s over n ow. N ow we look out for ourselves, all of us here are each other’s family and for the most part it works.”
    “What do you do for food now that the junk food is gone?”
    “Trust me lady, it’s not gone . W e just don’t want to eat it anymore.” He grimaced as he grabbed his belly, just the mere thought of another T winkie did that to him now.
    Realizing that he had not answered her question, Max stated simply, “We trade.”
    “Trade what and with who?”
    “You sure do ask a lot of quest ions for a grown- up, most of you guys could care less what a kid is up to.”
    “Well , for one thing , Max , I’m not like most grown- ups and another thing, I don’t think that I’m all that old.”
    Max laughed. “Yeah , I guess you’re not nearly as old as Mrs. Herron.”
    “Thanks, I guess ,” Beth said sardonically. “So really , who do you trade with?”
    “There are these people, out in Worcester, mostly decent folk just trying to get by . T here are a couple of jerks in their group , but they leave us alone, at least since they tried to follow us a few months back.”
    “What happened?” Beth said, trepidation flowing into her voice. The thought of these kids being stalked like she was, scared the hell out of her.
    “We shot one of the guys in the ass and they turned tail and rode away so fast I almost peed myself laughing.”
    “That’s terrible!” Beth shrieked, “ Y ou shot someone?”
    “It