Puppet Master

Part 4 Lost trails

Chapter four
                                                  Lost trails

   I couldn't stop thinking about what so many soldiers headed towards the camp, it was haunting. We walked for hours, the sun was past its peak the road started to show more frequent use the gravel was packed down harder. 
  "Shouldn't be much longer before we reach the town." Bailiff sighed. 
  "I hope so I'm starving literally and figuratively." I scanned the desperately thinning trees. An hour later of solid quiet walking we heard a car more often signifying that a town was nearby. 
  "Remember you know nothing you are simple." Bailiff looked back at us, we nodded. Worn buildings appeared broken and boarded up windows dotting them all. The long round headlights of vehicles were very sparse in the cracked and crumbling streets and people less than cars. Two soldiers with rifles came around a corner. "Cross the street now." Bailiff hissed starting across the street. We followed after him and started down the right side of the street opposite the soldiers. 

   They watched us turning their heads covered with black cloth like all others. 
  "So where are we going?" Mark jumped next to Bailiff as the soldiers disappeared around the corner.
  "We need to leave the country then I need a map." Bailiff stuck his hands in his pockets. 
  "What! How are we going to do that! We can't leave the country there's machine guns and soldiers all over the borders!" I almost yelled.
  "Yes but we need to otherwise we should have stayed at the camp." Bailiff spat at us, I turned away. 
  "How will we leave?" I asked after a while of silence. 
  "The whole border isn't covered, I know of a few places that might be open on the border." He walked faster, we came to a long line of people spanning two whole blocks. 
  "What's the line for?" Mark asked a very small man at the end of the line. 
  "Simple food." The man gulped from obviously standing in this line many times hungry looking up at the massive man Mark was. 
  "How long is the wait?" Mark shoved his hands in his pockets. 
  "From here, two hours." The small man glanced down the long line.
  "Ah this will feel like nothing compared to home." Mark smiled looking over all the people easily. He'd cut his hair shorter so it was hanging just above his shoulders. The small man turned back facing the line ahead.
  "How bad was it?" I looked up at him. 
  "Four hours was the shortest it ever was." He kept looking over everyone. 

  I looked to the others Jack was looking around in awe even though the city was a ruin. Jacob was falling asleep where he stood. Bailiff was mumbling to himself and waving his hands around likely forming a real plan. We waited for a very long time finally coming to the building where food was being given out the line had grown behind us. The man in front of us got his share and ran out of the building. I was handed a bowl of some kind of soup and bread. I moved out of the way and waited for the others outside. It was so much more food than we got at the camp. We ate as fast as we could, I'd gone so long being so malnourished made it hard to eat so much food at once but I ate everything the others that suffered so much longer finished faster than me. 

   A pile of other people's bowls almost to my hip sat nearby, we set the bowls on top and continued down the streets. 
  "We need a place to hide, the curfew will start soon." Bailiff hurried ahead of us.
  "I know of places." Jacob piped up. 
  "Have you been here?" Bailiff stopped and spun around to face the rest of us. 
  "You seem to forget I broke into places, I know what to look for." Jacob lifted his head up more. 
  "Then lead the way." Bailiff waited, Jacob started ahead and scanned every building. 
  "Most of these are occupied we should move to the outskirts." Jacob ran down the street. 

  We reached the edge of town and all the buildings were hardly standing. Jacob stopped at a tall eight story building and scanned the building up and down. 
  "Here it's empty." We followed him in, inside was worse than outside, parts of the floors were missing all the way to the top. We had to walk over the fallen ruble from the upper floors. 
  "Now we sleep, I advise you all to sleep where you can see through to the roof." Bailiff sat on the ground. 
  "What about a plan?" I asked after finding a spot that I could see through all eight floors. 
  "Tomorrow, I will come up with a full plan but we need a full night's sleep we've missed too much sleep." Bailiff sank from my sight behind some ruble. I fell back and watched the sky through the gaping holes above till I drifted off.