Zomblog 05: Snoe's War by T. W. Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

capturing the other. He was currently being questioned by Rick and a few others. Since there was a crowd standing around outside a small hut and the occasional muffled yelp could be heard, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the questioning was taking place.
    “Also…we need to talk, Snoe,” Felicia said after a moment where she gave me a looking over like she was trying to figure something out.
    “Okay,” I said with a nod as I scooped out a bowl of the meaty stew that was simmering in a pot over a nice fire that was doing a great job of keeping the chill in the air from getting a grip on me.
    “It’s about your mom.”
    I heard that sentence and right away I could tell that I did not want to hear what she would say next. She was going to tell me that my mother had met her end in that bizarre cube that had already claimed Jenifer; but I already knew that.
    “Now…mind you, we only have the word of that man in there to go by…and I would not necessarily believe anything that comes out of the mouth of somebody that is being tortured…”
    She said the word “tortured” like it was no big deal. I was not sure what sorts of things happened to Travelers to make them so able to be matter-of-fact with something as horrible and cruel as torture, but hoped that my heart never turned so cold that it did not break just a little at the idea of one human being using pain to get another to speak or do the torturer’s bidding.
    “It seems that your mother was publically hanged the day you escaped.”
    The words slammed into me and I have no idea how I ended up on the ground staring up at Felicia. The bowl I had been about to dig into had fallen from my hands, but it didn’t matter because I was no longer even the slightest bit hungry.
    “That’s not true,” I insisted. “They had her in that cube.”
    “I don’t know anything about that,” Felicia said. “And like I said, I wouldn’t exactly take the word of somebody being tortured. People say a lot of things to try and get out from what is being done.”
    I got up and started towards where this person was being interrogated. A couple of people must have tried to slow me down, but after I pushed through them, Felicia was at my side and telling people to back off.
    There was a guy standing at the entrance to the tent. Quite honestly, he looked like he would rather be anyplace else at the moment. And from the sounds coming from inside, I guess I could understand. Once again I found myself praying that I never became immune to emotion or feeling to the point that I could so easily tune out another person’s suffering.
    “I want to talk to him!” I blurted as I entered the tent.
    I have heard about cameras. I have seen photos and understand what they are and how they work. We don’t have anything like that now. There are people who draw or paint, but that is really not the same. At that exact moment, I wished for one of those things so that each of the men standing around that table could see the looks on their faces. No matter how much bluster and denial they could muster, they would not be able to deny the fact that each of them knew deep in his heart that he was doing something wrong.
    “Snoe…” Bob was the first to recover and came towards me with his hands out as if he meant to shield me from what was so easy to see just a few feet away.
    “I want to talk to him,” I repeated. “Felicia says that he has admitted to seeing my mother hanged the other day. I want to talk to him right now.”
    “Let her pass,” another man spoke up. This one was a little taller than Bob who was easily six and a half feet tall.
    “I don’t think that is a good idea,” another man said.
    This one was a short, pudgy, balding man who looked like he had been dunked in a trough of blood. His face was splattered and for some reason, my eyes fixated on a single drop that grew and grew on his chin until it simply could not defy gravity for another second.
    Despite his