Puppet Master

Part 3 The black barn

Chapter three
The black barn

Water started hitting the ground above us. The loose dirt started to dampen with the insuring downpour. Boots came running over the top of us.
"Now you see." Bailiff growled things when silent again aside from the rains. Bailiff started digging away the hole enough to get through. I was already covered in mud but crawling out of the hole covered me completely. Standing up I wiped my face off so I could see. "Come on we need to move they will come back fast." Bailiff started sprinting and I chased after him. Glancing behind me the gloom covered the way back to the camp. The night was even darker with the rain.
"Bailiff, slow down!" I yelled ahead he was almost gone into the trees my leg was starting to fail me. He stopped and waited for me to catch up which took several minutes.
"We cannot stop, we must reach the barn by daybreak." He leaned down at me as I was bent over hands on my knees trying to breath.
"My leg still has a hole in it and your patch rips." I snarled.
"Well try not being shot." He lifted me up.
"Great advice." I started walking again.
"We aren't even to the fence yet we will stop running then." Bailiff pulled on my arm making me go faster. The trees began to tighten making it harder to run in the foliage as it thickened as well.
"Where's the fence." I yelled at Bailiff.
"Shouldn't be much farther." He ran faster. A while later a tall fence shown in the dim light. Rain still came down heavily. We stopped at the tall fence barbed wire ran in huge coils all along the top I had to slick my soaked hair back to see up at the fence. It has thick wire like chicken wire to the ground.
"How do we get through this?" I walked up to the fence.
"Watch." Bailiff smiled in the deep gloom. He stepped up to the wire and started up it. He hung on the top of the bar, the barbed wire curled around. I couldn't see what he was doing in the dark. I looked around the trees in case someone was coming. Barbed wire fell and almost hit me.
"What the hell a little warning would be nice!" I hissed up at the nutcase pulling himself over the bar and dropping down to the otherside of the fence.
"Come on move!" He waved at himself. I scrambled up the fence and over the hole Bailiff made in the barbed wire. I slipped and fell down the other side and hit the ground at Bailiff's feet. "You coming?" Bailiff laughed down at me. "We're free now let's get to the barn." He helped me up. This side had fewer trees and almost no brush. Hours later Bailiff was finally slowing down.
"Please tell me we're close." I begged limping badly.
"Yes relatively." Bailiff gasped still trying to run. Light started to show but it wasn't sunlight. "There it is!" Bailiff laughed running again. I painfully ran after him. A massive black wood barn showed lantern light came through cracks. It was out in the middle of nowhere probably why it was chosen. Bailiff opened the large door and Mark ripped him inside. Then they started laughing. I walked in and closed the door. Jack and Jacob came out from behind a wall. "How long have you been here?" Bailiff sat on a box.
"Almost two hours what took you so long?" Mark walked across the barn.
"We had to hide in a blown out fox hole." Bailiff shrugged. I stopped paying attention to them and looked down at my leg as it bled.
"Umm guys I'm bleeding." I pointed down at my right leg as my pant leg was bloody and dripping onto the floor.
"Alright upstairs I've got stuff up there." Bailiff got up, picked up a lantern and started climbing up a wooden ladder on the wall next to the door. I followed and struggled with my leg getting up the completely vertical ladder. Up above was covered with random things farm equipment, chairs, bags, tents, chests all kinds of things. Bailiff kicked his way to a wooden box and opened it. "Get a chair." Bailiff took a bag up out of the box. I got a chair and put it in a clean spot. Mark and the others came up as well. "Roll the pants up." Bailiff brought a chair over and sat down in front of me.
"So why here?" I held my pant leg up as Bailiff cleaned off the blood.
"It's one of my hideouts when I ran I collected a bunch of stuff I figured it would be the best." He grinned taking out several things from the bag. "Hey Mark could you hold him all my stuff for numbing is out?" Bailiff waved one hand over. Mark started over.
"Can't you just knock me out?" I pleaded.
"Sure it won't be easy though." Bailiff smiled. Mark stopped behind me and something hard hit me across the back of my head knocking me out.
"Ow." I gowned sitting up on the wooden floor.
"Sorry I didn't have anything that could nicely do it, Marks good enough." Bailiff came up beside me. "Your leg will definitely be fine now, honestly I am surprised it didn't get infected." He helped me up my leg burned badly.
"Alright so what now?" I looked around holding my head.
"We need to get cleaned up and hidden first." Bailiff crossed his arms.
"That I can do." I limped away. "Is there any food here?" I opened a wooden chest.
"After so many years no I don't think even jerky wouldn't last as long as I've been gone." Bailiff sat down in a chair.
"Damn we should eat after that." I sighed.
"Whatever you say Shadow man." Bailiff chuckled.
"Why are you called that?" Jack piped up.
"Just a nickname the soldiers gave me before I started my run. I left messages on buildings exposing our dear leader. It took them years to find out it was me I was Shadow man, Shadow master." I shrugged. Jack nodded and left looking through stuff. I found a box full of clothes I looked down at my ragged and damp clothes. I dug into the box looking for things that would fit. I found a nice shirt and jacket that would fit but I couldn't find more fitting clothes in that box. I spent the next several minutes searching for more clothes. I hid in a corner and changed out of my clothes and into the new ones. It felt so nice to have new clothes. Walking back to the others doing similar things.
"Well don't you look like a regular city boy?" Bailiff laughed. I just chuckled flapping the jacket. I tried to find a mirror and a hat but the best I could find mirror wise was a silver spoon. I moved on to looking for a hat. I found a light brown and black billed Aviators cap. I stuck the spoon in a gap in the boards of a box and slicked my black wet curly hair down then put the hat on.
"Are you really cleaning up to a spoon?" Mark laughed across the barn..
"I don't have a mirror has anyone found scissors?" I glanced at everyone. A knife flung at me sticking into the box holding the spoon. "No, scissors a knife won't work." I hissed at whoever threw the knife. Jacob grumbled. Mark walked over with tiny scissors and slammed them into my hand and walked off. I trimmed my beard very short, setting the scissors down I ran my hands over my beard smacking away the loose hairs. Bailiff came over.
"My turn." He lightly shoved me away. He cut all his hair very short. A while later we all were fixed up with little showing we'd been in the camps. The fatigue on our faces was all the signs there were. "Well now find a place to sleep though there is little of the night left." Bailiff sighed sitting down. He cut his beard to where he only had a thick mustache and short goatee but almost shaved his head bare. I found a blanket and sat down in a chair and fell asleep almost instantly. I dreamed of nothing someone shoved me over I hit the floor and roared getting back up ready to kill. Mark stood there laughing at me.
"That's not funny." I hissed as all the others were laughing.
"Yes it is." Bailiff chuckled slapping me on the back.
"Do you have any guns?" I asked as he walked away.
"If I did I'd never been captured and sent to the camp." Bailiff growled.
"Right any other weapons?" I looked around again. Light from the sun slipped in through cracks in the barn lighting things up well.
"Knives that's it." He emptied a box onto the floor. "Find last minute things we leave soon we're too close to the camp. No backpacks." Bailiff growled at us and made sure we understood. I went on the hunt for a bag and weapons there was no way I was going to be unarmed again. I found a long knife with a black leather sheath. A few minutes later of shifting through boxes and farm equipment I found a nice brown satchel. I put it on and put the knife in it. I put other things like an extra shirt hat and a few medical bits just in case. My leg hurt really bad but I'd gotten so used to it hurting it didn't bother me as much. Everyone else was ready to leave Mark was a little antsy more than the rest of us, not quite sure why.
"Is everyone ready we will never come back here." Mark spun around to look at all of us.
"Yes let's go we need to get to a town we'll lose them for enough time." Bailiff started for the ladder. I hurried after him, down below Bailiff opened the large door leading outside and gazed around. "Alright let's go." He ran out. We followed till Jack fell in the thick woods. I turned around and he pushed himself up Mark helped him the rest of the way.
"I'm good let's keep going." Jack pushed Mark away. Walking again it was eerily quiet I didn't like it and it was evident Bailiff felt the same. Bailiff stepped out onto a gravel road. I liked the change and looked up to the sun a moment.
"Keep to the side if my memory serves me right there's a town six miles away." Bailiff started down the side of the road I drifted back behind Mark. Jack kept looking around in wonder.
"So you really can't remember anything." I shoved my hands in my pockets walking beside him.
"No like has been said I can't even remember my name. They named me Jack because we work in the woods. The last memory I have is waking up covered in blood under a tree." He parted his hair on the side of his head a long bad scar was on the side of his head. "That's where the tree hit me." He fixed his hair.
"I'm sorry all you know is that camp." I shook my head looking around.
"Yeah but that makes getting out so much better no fences no guards nothing." He smiled.
"No birds." I looked up.
"Yeah that's a little weird I expected them to be out here." Jack glanced around himself.
"Probably killing them all." Jacob grumbled behind us. I looked back at him.
"What makes you say that?" I walked backwards.
"It's one of the reasons I was put in the camp. I found whole buildings full of dead birds mainly pigeons a foot deep in massively huge warehouses. I was caught breaking into one." He fixed his brown jacket.
"Why do you suppose they'd do that?" I couldn't even start to think of a reason.
"Pigeons are well known messenger birds our leader probably got so paranoid he ordered all fowl terminated." He shrugged.
"I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest he's insane." I huffed.
"Figure that out on your own now?" Jacob mocked me.
"I've known that since I was four when my parents were taken to the camps. My grandfather raised me and taught me everything I wasn't supposed to know. When I wasn't exposing our leader, I know how to build guns and bombs." I growled. Everyone stopped and looked at me.
"Really?" Bailiff made an open mouth smile.
"Yes I would put how to put pieces of guns together drawing them on walls anyone smart enough and followed my drawings would know how to build seven different rifles and handguns." I looked at them all.
"I didn't know you did that." Bailiff laughed. He turned back around and we started walking again.
"I'm very glad we have you now those are rare skills now." Jacob smiled, it was weird I'd never seen him smile or talk this much. We made idle talk for a good long time, something started rumbling.
"End the chit chat into the brush!" Bailiff yelled and dove off the road. I jumped over a bush and the rumble became a roar of convoy. Jacob hid next to me in the brush. Black trucks came roaring by filled with soldiers twenty trucks went by holding men or supplys. After the trucks left, soldiers with rifles ran behind the trucks in rows of four. A whole platoon ran in front of us. They left our sight and earshot.
"Back up on the road." Mark stood and jumped back on the road and dusted himself off.
"What do you suppose they're doing?" I asked Bailiff.
"I don't know the camp only lost about thirty soldiers." He shook his head as we started down the road again.