“The leader’s name is Loco?” How appropriate.

“No. I don’t think that’s what his parents named him. I think it’s a nickname the kids who were locked up made for him. His friends called him Dave.”

“You said they stay in a big house?”

“Yeah. A mansion by the ocean. It has a high wall around it and lots of trees. The house is huge with marble floors and stuff.”

“Where did you stay? And the other kids … were they with you or somewhere else?”

“There’s a small house kind of, by the pool. We were all kept in there.”

“How did you get away?”

“There was a big fight one night, in the pool house. Some of the new kids tried to attack the canners. I slipped out in all the confusion and ran to the wall. I climbed a tree and went over it and kept going until I passed out in some bushes in some neighborhood. I woke up later, maybe the next day, and just kept walking until I got to my parents’ house. I took our old canoe here and that’s it.”

“You did all that with your arm … freshly … injured like that?” I glanced at her wrapped stump, noticing the bandage looked very clean.

“Yeah. They have a kid there who’s like a doctor. His name is Sean. He makes sure everyone is treated after being cut up.”

“That’s … uh … nice. I guess.”

She tipped her head up at me, a truly malicious look in her eyes. “No. It’s not nice. It’s not nice at all. He does it so we’ll live longer and keep their meat fresh, Bryn. He’s evil and awful and he needs to die. Slowly and painfully. I don’t care if he’s not the one calling the shots.”

She said it with such conviction, I knew he was going to be at the top of her list for total annihilation, when and if she ever saw him again.

“No, you’re right,” I agreed. “He’s a monster. But I’m grateful he took care of your arm so you could escape and get back to your family here. So right before I kill him for you, I’ll thank him for saving your life.”

She snorted. “Not if I get to him first.”

I smiled. I liked her fighting spirit. “Can you give us an address to that mansion?”

“Yes. I etched it into my brain, hoping someday I’d be able to go back and end them.” She was staring off into the distance, as if playing out her retribution in her mind.

“Okay, good. Can you tell me what they have for weapons?”

“Rifles. Guns. A fucking flamethrower … ”

“A flamethrower?”

“No. A fucking flamethrower.”

“A fucking flamethrower. That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not. But it sure makes for an interesting barbecue.”

“Oh, man. That’s messed up.” It made my stomach turn just thinking about it.

“Yeah. I kept waiting for it to run out of fuel but it never seemed to.”

“Well, it will eventually. What else do they have?”

“The usual cannibal implements - machetes, knives, bolt cutters, saws …”

Bolt cutters? Saws? I didn’t want to know any more about that, so I distracted her with another question. “So other than over the wall, how do we get into this place?”

“Front gate is always locked. There’s a tiny door in the wall on one of the sides of the property, for gardening I think, but it’s locked too. I tried to use that before going to the tree. Climbing with one arm is a real bitch.”

“I can imagine. Good thing you built up your arm muscle with all that batting practice.”

She half smiled before getting serious again. “They have two big dogs too. Mean ones. They eat kids too.”

“Great. So we have to find some rat poison, I guess.”

Celia smiled. “I’d like to serve that little meal, if you don’t mind. I never hated an animal before, but these things aren’t really animals - they’re monsters. Just like Loco.”

“Sounds like they all are,” I said quietly.

“Maybe not all,” she said, shrugging. “I got the impression that a few of them were too afraid to say anything, but that they didn’t agree with what Loco was doing. Sean is one of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill him if I ever see his ugly face again.”

“They may not have agreed, but they didn’t leave, did they?”

“No, they didn’t. But maybe they felt like they couldn’t, or they’d end up being the next meal. I mean, first of all, the dogs were used sometimes for punishment purposes. And Loco’s group wasn’t the only one around. Some of the other kids I was with in the pool house told me about what they’d seen. Jerry, a kid with only one leg left, he’d been there for a week or more. When he was conscious, he told me about how they’d taken him and a couple others from a nearby town and had almost gotten killed by another group of canners on their way back. It’s like a canner war out there. Everyone’s fighting over bodies now instead of beans and rice.”

“That is just so wrong.” I shook my head, frustrated with my vocabulary. “That’s not the right word. I can’t think of how to say how wrong that is.”

“It’s evil is what it is,” said Celia. “Pure evil.”

“Yeah.” I had nothing to add to that. It did seem to be the most apt description.

Coli came over and joined us, saving me from hearing more. My gratitude made me feel a little bit ashamed of myself. A part of me was thinking that I should sit here and listen to every awful thing that Celia had to say, as a way of making things better for her. But then I wasn’t really sure if talking about it and reliving the horrors was the best therapy. I decided that I’d let her figure that out, and not feel bad about not wanting to hear the details of canner madness.

“Hey,” said Coli, sitting down next to us. “How are you feeling, Cee?”

“Fine,” she said, looking away.

“She’s ready to kill a couple dogs and a canner or two. That’s as much as I’ve been able to figure out so far,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“A dog? That yappy poodle thing that Bryn brought?”

I gave an exaggerated gasp. “Who, Buster? How dare you?”

“No,” answered Celia, again in monotones. “The dogs that the canners had for protection.”

“Oh. I get it,” said Coli, looking at me as if seeking direction.

I decided to just jump in and finish the conversation. “So, okay, we’re probably going to need about ten guys on our scouting mission. We’ll get the map location from you, Celia, and then we’ll make our plan. We’ll get out there and do some recon. I don’t know if we’ll be able to actually do anything on our first trip out, but maybe.”

“Why not just go in there and blow them to smithereens and be done with it?” asked Coli.

“Well, we have some kids to rescue, first of all. We don’t want to kill the innocent ones. And we have to get rid of all the other bad guys. I hate to say that … that we have to kill them. But if we don’t, they’ll just keep doing what they do and probably eventually follow us back to the swamp. Even if they don’t see us and don’t know where we came from, we won’t be able to hide our existence forever. They’ll come to the swamps when they run out of kids there.”

“That is just so wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Coli.

“Yeah. No kidding. If you have better ideas, I’d love to hear them. I’m no expert.”

“I wish we had an expert. Maybe we could go to the library and look up a book on war tactics.”

I suddenly remembered George’s journal that was still in my backpack. “I have a small one. I’ll get it out tonight and see if there’s anything good in there that could help us.”

“You have a war book. In your backpack.” Celia said it like a statement.

“Yeah. A neighbor gave it to me.”

“What, was he like a fortuneteller?” asked Coli. “Like he knew all of this was going to happen?”

“Kind of. I mean, he served in the war, so he was kind of experienced with how people can go nuts when there’s not enough food and stuff.”

Coli shook her head, like she was disappointed in humanity. I couldn’t say as I disagreed with her. It got very quiet in the hut and we all just sat there for a while, listening to the hum of cicadas in the trees.

“So when is the covert operation going to happen?” asked Coli.

“I’m not sure. In a week? Maybe two?”

“That’s too long,” said Celia, grabbing my arm. “The kids will all be dead by then.”

“Yeah, but we’re not ready.” I was feeling slightly panicked. “I mean, physically ready, to do anything like take on a group of nutbags with weapons.”

“You have to get them ready, Bryn. You can’t wait.” Celia was starting to sound unhinged again.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t want to lie, but I knew it would be a mistake to go this soon.

“Talk to Kowi and Trip about it. They’re in charge.”

“Talk to me about what?” said Trip from behind us. I whipped around to see him standing there, shirtless, a bright red shiner on his cheek and a black eye marring his beautiful face.

“Wow. You look like crap, Trip,” said Coli, smiling. “Bryn kick your ass again?”

“No. She didn’t. Her friggin boyfriend tried to, though.”

I didn’t argue the boyfriend point this time. It seemed like a waste of breath with these people anyway.

“Looks like he succeeded.”

“You should see what he looks like.” Trip turned his attention to me. “What do you need to talk to me about?” He walked over and stood by his sister, Celia.

She refused to meet his gaze, turning her head to stare off into the trees.

“We were talking about going after the canner and rescuing those kids. But I know you don’t want to go, so I’ll wait to talk about it when Kowi’s there too.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been overruled. I’m okay with going if everyone else wants to risk it.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “That just seems a little too simple, Trip. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who changes his mind so easily.”

He lowered himself down to sit cross-legged on the other side of his sister, fixing me with a stare. “You’d be surprised what you don’t know about me … one of those things being that I’m not an unreasonable person.”

Coli snorted and stood. “Well, I can see it’s time for me to leave. I don’t have waders tall enough for this crap lake. See you guys later.”

I watched her back disappear into the trees.

“Wait!” I yelled, jumping up to follow her. I turned to Celia and Trip on my way out. “Be right back.”

Coli stopped and waited for me to catch up.

I reached her and said quietly, “I need you to teach me that sneaking thing you do.”

“Fine. Come now.”

“Just give me a minute to say goodbye. To Celia.”

“Two minutes.”

I ran back to Celia and Trip, noticing that she was still doing her best to ignore him and he was doing his best to try and not be offended by it.

“Hey guys, I have to run. I have a little training to do with Coli. Can we talk about this more later?”

Celia shrugged, not looking at me.

“Yeah. I’ll come get you,” said Trip. “After lunch?”

“Perfect. Maybe see if Kowi wants to join us.”

Trip scowled. “Sure. I’ll see.”

I left them without a backward glance. They had their issues, and I didn’t need to be the one to fix everything for everyone. Not everything is even fixable in this world, anyway.