Shadows of Sherwood (2 page)

Robyn scooted toward the edge of the trailer top and peered down. She could see no movement in the lot, just the cold, hunched shapes of the junk piles. A light had come on in one tin hut, so she hoped that meant some of the guards were taking a break from patrolling the fence.

Robyn slid off the roof and landed silently on the gravel. Well, almost silently. As she dropped into her ready crouch, she heard a rush of fleet footsteps and suddenly found herself staring into the business end of a bulldog. It might have occurred to her that both ends of a bulldog are capable of some pretty serious business, but right then she had other things to worry about. Namely, teeth. Forty-two of them, all sharp and drooly.

CHAPTER TWO

Junkyard Jumble

“Whoa,” Robyn whispered.

The dog curled back its lips even further. A low growl started in the back of its throat, and Robyn could tell the dog was working itself up to bark, loud and hard.

But she was a low, dark shape, unmoving. Not tall and long limbed, flailing and running in fear, like a normal human. For a long second the dog growled and grunted in confusion. Its hesitation bought Robyn just enough time.

“Good doggie,” she whispered in her most patient voice. She patted the air, then jacked back her elbow, reached into the side pouch of her jacket, and came up with a plastic bag.

The dog barked. Loudly. Robyn cringed.

“I've got something for you, boy.” She unzipped the bag and extracted a fat strip of bacon. The dog sniffed and growled. She laid the bacon on the ground between them, a peace offering. She tossed a second strip a few yards to her
left, into the pile of gravel casually mounded against the side of the trailer.

The dog froze, turning his nose between the near bacon, the far bacon, and the intruder.

Robyn held her breath, though she needn't have. It worked. The dog slobbered up the near slice of bacon and trotted toward the far one, with part of the first still hanging from his teeth.

Robyn sighed, satisfied. It worked because Robyn was the sort of girl who knew not only how many teeth a bulldog had, but also exactly what to do to get a bulldog on her good side. She folded the remaining bacon into the bag, which she kept clutched in her hand, just in case.

The dog had already barked, and that meant trouble. Keeping low, she crept away from the trailer, away from the pools of light cast by the bulbs at the fence and toward the deeper dark surrounding the junk piles.

Robyn heard the faint scrabbling of boots on gravel. Not her own.

She took off running. Her boots crunched on the gravel. It sounded extra loud, but she hoped the guards might mistake her sounds for theirs. Staying quiet would've been too slow. Sooner or later, probably sooner, someone would come check on the dog to see why he'd started barking. So she ran the width of the lot and pressed her back up against the side of the hut with the lights on, where the people were.

She waited. Sure enough, a few moments later, the door around the corner lurched open.

“Waldo?” A deep voice. “Where are you, boy?”

Across the lot, Waldo barked.

Footsteps. From the sound of them, it was one man, large. The pale wash of a flashlight swept the gravel. Robyn sucked herself skinny and pressed deeper into the shadows. The footsteps receded away from her, toward the dog.

Robyn glanced up at the night sky, at the faint ambient light from the city, hoping that Waldo was the sort of bulldog who ate fast.

She listened to the pace of the large man's footsteps for a few beats, then took up a pace that matched it. He stepped, she stepped. When his foot crunched the stones, hers crunched at the same time. She moved along the tin walls, ducking past the door where the man had come out. She darted across the open lot.

Behind her, the staff-house door clattered open again. “He don't bark for no reason,” a second deep voice was saying. “Something's up.”

Robyn slipped behind the high piles of rubble as two additional men moved out of the building, silhouetted by the light from inside. Fortunately, they moved away from her.

Robyn wove between the tall junk mountains. She knew her way around this maze, and the height of the piles alone offered some protection from the searchers. She felt safe enough, for now.

Adapters and circuits . . .
Her thoughts drifted back to the reason she was here. They dumped the most metal and
electronics in this section of the compound. She headed toward her favorite pile, to the now-distant sound track of the men calling after the dog.

Waldo, apparently, had other plans. Robyn recognized the rhythm of his paws on the gravel. He bounded around a corner and butted his head against her knee. Robyn laughed—nearly out loud!—at the hopeful, flop-tongued expression on his face. He growled low.

“Shh.” Robyn dangled the bacon bag from her hand. “I know what you want.”

Waldo nosed the bag, then turned soft puppy eyes on her.

“All right, Bacon Breath.” She leaned over to scratch his stubby ears. “Just don't give me away, okay?”

Waldo whimpered in apparent agreement as he scarfed two fresh slices of bacon.

“I hope you got some more where that came from.” The words drifted out of the gray air, seemingly from within the nearest mound of sheet metal.

CHAPTER THREE

Trouble

Robyn spun toward the voice, propping her hands on her hips. “Sneaking up on a girl in the dark? That's not very gentlemanly.”

A ratchety, rattling laugh filled the darkness. “Got no choice but to sneak,” he said. “With all what's going on here tonight.”

Robyn peered at the cluster of sheet metal, trying to spot the craggy old face amid the rubble. Even with the near-full moon overhead, she couldn't see him. “Where are you?”

“Hiding,” he said. “Like you better do, 'fore they come round again.”

Robyn crept closer and knelt on the gravel. A small sheet of metal shifted, and a man's thin, wrinkled face poked through the gap. He still had a bruised-looking gash on his cheek. It had been there for weeks, with no sign of healing, but Robyn made no comment.

“You give that mutt my supper?” he said.

“Only part of it,” Robyn said. “Sorry, Barclay.” She handed him the bacon bag, empty but for a few crumbs, then unzipped her backpack and took out a foil-wrapped parcel.

Barclay parted the silver wings and sniffed the contents: two thick biscuits, a pile of carrot rounds, and a few strips of cold chicken. The bacon had been an afterthought.
A lucky one
, Robyn thought now.

“I'd hoped not to see you tonight,” Barclay said around a mouthful.

“Yeah?” Robyn thought the way he was chowing into the biscuits told a different story. “Why?”

“Shadows on the moon.” Barclay tipped back his head and stared up at the high white oval, looming large in the sky. Wisps of darkness drifted over and around it, filtering its light. “It's not normal.”

“What do you have for me?” Robyn asked. “Did more of my circuits turn up? Any sign of a voltage adapter yet?”

Barclay pushed a small pouch through the gap. The grubby, folded canvas fit in her cupped hands. It unfolded to reveal a small black box with wires sticking out of it, and several squarish ports along one edge. One thick gray cord wrapped around it.

“What is it?” Robyn asked. It looked like a whole bunch of nothing. But she knew sometimes those were the best finds of all.

“You don't see modems like these so much anymore,” Barclay said. “You ask your father, eh?”

Right. “Why don't you tell me?”

Barclay grunted. “Get on home now. Stop coming around here like this.”

“You always say that.”

“I mean it this time.”

Robyn rolled her eyes. “You always mean it. But you don't stop collecting cool things for me.” She rewrapped the odd wiry object and stuffed it into her backpack.

“Got nothing better to do,” he answered. “You, with all this rummaging and tinkering. It ain't healthy. Ain't you got some friends to play with?” The comment stung. Robyn spent most of her days alone.

“You're my friend.”

“
Pfft
. Friends your own age.”

“Everyone my age is asleep right now.”

“Wonder why that is?”

“No idea,” Robyn said. “Everything interesting happens after dark.”

As if on cue, dogs started barking. Multiple dogs. Waldo pricked his ears and joined them. He jumped up and dashed away through the junkyard.

“Look what you done,” Barclay grumbled. “They'll come a-searching for you and find me.”

“I'll go now,” Robyn said.

“You get down,” Barclay said. “Under that there cardboard. The big sheet.”

“Eww.”
Robyn groaned. It smelled like very dead fish under there.

Barclay chuckled. “Welcome to my world. That'll keep the dogs from scenting you.”

Robyn pinched her nose and rolled under the cardboard. Then she let go of her nose immediately—breathing that stench through her mouth was almost worse. Like tasting it.

They waited in silence.

But the men did not come. The dogs' barking died down, and in the wake of it rose the sound of engines idling. Then many tires crunching on gravel.

Robyn rolled out from under cover. She was too curious not to.

“Girl,” Barclay protested, but Robyn was already climbing. She scaled the precarious pile of rubble and poked her head over the lip.

Across the lot, the vehicle gate churned open. A row of large trucks drove out through the gate. Not normal trucks or even garbage trucks. These vehicles were dark canvas-covered things. A whole stream of them, more than a dozen perhaps, each with a driver, a passenger, and four dark-dressed men standing on the runners and clinging to the handrails along each side.

Robyn climbed down from her perch and stared through the path in the rubble as they rumbled past the outer fence. Chills coursed over her.

In the distance, the Hightower Clock struck midnight, its deep brass tones echoing out over the city. Black clouds bunched in the sky, obscuring the moon.