Finding Shelter Read online

  Grant stank, a horrible stench that went right into Max's nostrils. The smell of an animal, the smell of rot and the smell of the death that would come soon enough.

  A noise behind Grant. Like a twig snapping.

  Without releasing his hold on Max's neck, Grant turned his head partway around.

  But it wasn't enough.

  Max saw it. Up close and personal. He saw the huge hard stick swinging right towards Grant's face. He saw Grant try to avoid it. He saw Grant try to duck.

  Max saw the stick smack into Grant's face.

  Max felt the strong hands release. It happened suddenly.

  Max gasped for air, suddenly able to breathe.

  Grant's eyes rolled back. A funny look came over Grant's face as he started to slide down to the side. Grant slid right off Max.

  As Grant's body slid away, it revealed the man who'd been standing behind Grant. The man who'd swung the stick. The man who'd saved Max's life.

  It was Wilson. The same man who'd thrown Max in the stockade earlier.

  Wilson looked tall there in the darkness. Tall and thin. A strange sort of strength about him. A grim expression on his face.

  Wilson extended a long arm down, his hand reaching towards Max.

  Max was sputtering, still gasping. But he knew he didn't have time to waste. Or options. He grabbed Wilson's hand.

  Wilson pulled Max to his feet.

  "We've got to get out of here," said Wilson. He spoke quickly. Urgently.

  "No shit," Max managed to say, despite coughing, his neck killing him.

  Wilson's hand disappeared for a moment, dipping down into an unseen holster. Reappeared with a handgun.

  Max nodded at Grant, who lay unconscious in the dirt in the darkness. The gesture was asking a question. The question was: why don't you shoot Grant?

  There were footsteps off in the darkness. Probably the penitentiary guard coming running.

  There wasn't much time.

  Wilson pointed off into the darkness, in a direction away from the stockade.

  Max realized he'd have to verbalize the question. Better to make it a statement. "Shoot him. Kill Grant."

  It was painful to speak. Painful to get the words out.

  Wilson gazed down at Grant. There was some kind of internal debate happening inside his head.

  Max could hazard a guess. Grant was Wilson's superior. But Wilson was having trouble with some new revelations about Grant. Not to mention being attacked by him.

  Max knew Grant needed to die. Right then and there. Or else Grant would come back to haunt them.

  If Grant lived, they weren't going to get very far. They weren't going to live for very long. Not with Grant alive and an entire militia camp at his orders.

  The footsteps were thudding. Nearby. Very close.

  Max wasn't armed. So he reached down, fumbling around Grant's unconscious body, looking for the holster.

  Found it. His hand grasped Grant's handgun. Got it out of the holster.

  Max raised it. Couldn't see the manufacturer in the darkness. But he could feel the weight of the gun. Felt for the safety. Found it.

  "I'll do it myself," said Max.

  Max pointed the gun at Grant's unconscious body.

  "Don't," said Wilson, pointing his gun at Max.

  "We've got to. He'll come after us."

  "You shoot him," said Wilson. "You die. If you don't, you have a chance of living."

  Max couldn't argue. The terms were clear. And Wilson's face showed no signs that he wasn't completely serious.

  The footsteps were louder. The guard was near. Very near.

  Max caught a glimpse of the guard in the darkness, raising a long gun.

  Max reacted quickly, pointing his handgun over Wilson's shoulder, at the guard.

  Max pulled the trigger. Twice. In quick succession, before Wilson could react.

  Max saw the surprise on Wilson's face. He heard the shots. Then realized that he wasn't dead or shot.

  Wilson turned his head, saw the dead guard.

  "Come on," said Max. "I assume they'll send more. Not killing Grant is a mistake, and you know that better than I do."

  "It is what it is," said Wilson, who took off at a run, heading in the opposite direction of the stockade.

  Max took one last look at Grant's unconscious body and took off running after Wilson.

  Max knew it was a mistake not to kill Grant. A huge mistake.

  But at least he was alive.

  His leg was hurting worse than usual. He could taste blood. His whole body hurt. As he ran, another tooth came loose, and Max spat it out without a second thought.

  They were running side by side now, heading into the darkness.

  Behind them, alarms sounded. Mechanical alarms. All sorts of non-electronic sounds were coming at them. Pots and pans banging. Gongs. Whistles. Shouts and yells. People hollering.

  "They're not going to give us much of a head start," said Wilson.

  Max didn't bother wasting his breath. After being beaten by Grant, it was hard enough to keep up with Wilson.

  Wilson's decisions didn't make sense to Max. Why was he doing this? Why was he risking his life? Had he gone off his rocker? Had he been so offended that his boss had attacked him that he'd simply lost his cool and decided to go on the run?

  14

  John

  "We've got to take a break, Georgia," said John.

  "Not yet. Just a little bit farther."

  They'd been walking at a swift pace all night. Georgia had refused to stop even to take a drink of water or eat a snack to keep her going. Instead, she'd made them consume their food and water as they walked, never resting, not even for a moment.

  John simply didn't know what to say to Georgia. He didn't know how to comfort her. He knew that Georgia wouldn't stand for it, anyway. She wouldn't like hearing false words of comfort.

  After all, there was no reason that John could come up with to be optimistic about the situation.

  Finding Sadie was a long shot. They were headed to the shopping area. But why did they think Sadie might be there? No reason, really. Except that some bad people had been hanging out there. And they might end up there again. They might have taken Sadie there.

  But it really didn't make any sense.

  Then again, there weren't any other options. There wasn't anything to go on.

  That's what happened these days when someone disappeared. There were cell phones. No way to track them. No police force to call to get on the case. No detectives to track anyone down. No private eyes. Nobody to help.

  Just a distraught, angry mother, and her friend, stomping along down the road in the middle of the night.

  Hopefully they didn't come across anyone that wanted a fight. Because, those that were still alive these days knew something about surviving. They either knew how to stay out of the way or they knew how to fight. And win.

  And winning meant killing.

  The farther they got from the EMP, the more dangerous the individuals remaining were. It was Darwin's theory at work. To the extreme.

  Georgia was panting from exertion. So was John.

  "I can't keep this up," said John. "’Member what Max is always telling us? And you too, for that matter."

  "What?" snapped Georgia.

  "That we're not going to be any good in a fight if we're completely exhausted. Pushing ourselves too far doesn't do us any good. Or Sadie. What if we find her, and can't rescue her because we've simply walked too far?"

  Georgia said nothing, but she clearly reorganized that John had a good point, because she stopped in her tracks.

  John stopped too.

  "Come on," he said. "Let's get a little off the road. We're out in the open here."

  The sun was starting to come up. Dawn was approaching. And that meant that it'd be more dangerous to be out and about. They'd be more visible. Easier to spot. Easier to shoot. Easier to pick off by one means or another.

  They found a little spot off the
road, near an empty parking lot, with some bushes and trees around for cover.

  John took food and water out of his pack and handed it to Georgia.

  "Why don't you sit down?" said John. "It's hard to rest when you're still on your feet."

  He had to actually put a hand on Georgia's shoulder to get her to sit down cross-legged.

  "Don't worry," he said. "I'll keep standing. Keep a lookout. All that."

  She just nodded silently and ate her pemmican, taking sips of her water.

  John didn't know what to say. Nothing came to mind that didn't sound stupid or insulting or downright insensitive.

  John didn't think the chance of finding Sadie were good. In fact, they were downright terrible.

  How could they expect to leave camp, head in one direction and find her when there were 360 other points around the circle of the camp that they could have departed from as well?

  Their plan didn't make much sense. And John assumed Georgia knew that.

  The initial excitement and adrenaline rush seemed to be wearing off. Georgia had been all geared up, ready to go find her daughter. Now they'd been walking all night and they were tired. Now the plan seemed even more pointless. Now it seemed as if they might just walk endlessly, never finding anything.

  John didn't know what to do. They couldn't just give up before they started. They couldn't just let Sadie disappear into nothing. They couldn't just forget her. It simply wasn't going to happen.

  They couldn't let her just vanish with a trace. Without retribution.

  But John also knew that if he and Georgia just simply continued walking for days and days, never finding Sadie, they'd eventually run into some sort of trouble.

  Sure, it was safer to be out these days than it had been several months ago. Safer in the sense that there were fewer people. But more dangerous in plenty of other ways.

  And danger would always be there. If they continue on and on, they'd eventually meet their own demise. No matter how prepared they were, no matter how hard they fought, if they continuously exposed themselves to danger, they'd eventually die.

  That's just the way it was.

  John held his tongue. He realized that his thoughts were getting ahead of himself. Way ahead.

  They weren't at great risk yet. At least he didn't think so. They weren't that far from camp.

  If it kept up for a week, and Georgia was intent on continuing, maybe then he'd have to talk to her. Until then, he was with her 100 percent.

  John's thoughts shifted, and he started wondering whether they'd made the right decision in heading to the commercial center.

  Maybe they should have stayed closer to the camp, circling around and around, making concentric circles with their tracks.

  "What's that?" said Georgia, interrupting John's wandering, tired thoughts.

  "I don't hear anything."

  "Shut up and listen."

  Georgia set aside her water bottle, grabbing her rifle instead.

  John knew well enough to take Georgia's advice seriously. So he shut up and listened.

  He didn't hear anything for a full half a minute, but he patiently waited. Meanwhile, he got himself ready for a fight.

  Georgia, for all her practically minded traits, did have her quirks. And she was stubborn enough not to ever hint at changing them. For instance, she insisted on using one of her old hunting rifles, when something more modern would have been more appropriate, especially for a mission like this.

  Then again, who was John to tell her what worked better for her? They were, after all, her own preferences. And it was her own daughter on the line.

  John, instead, had brought along an AR-15. Solid and reliable. A good, serious weapon.

  John, still unable to hear anything, was moving his eyes up and down the road.

  It was empty. Just nothing but pavement. No cars. No people. Nothing.

  Maybe Georgia was more tired than she was letting on. Exhausted to the point of hearing things, maybe.

  Then he heard it.

  A low, rumbling sounding engine

  "Shit," he muttered.

  They hadn't heard or seen a working vehicle in a long time. He didn't know how long.

  There were some vehicles that had somehow survived the EMP. Probably because they were older, and had fewer electronics systems incorporated into their workings. Those that had survived the EMP, though, had, at this point, probably broken down. They'd come across vehicles themselves that would start up but had simply broken down mechanically in ways that they were unable to fix.

  The final problem, and the most dire one, was that of fuel. It was hard to get fuel. That was the reality. It could be potentially taken out of gas stations, or siphoned from other vehicles, but there were so many people interested in doing that, not to mention hoarding gasoline, that it had already become quite scarce.

  John and everyone else had given up on having a working vehicle of their own. Better to just walk. Not to mention safer. Easier to hide out.

  "We need to get back more," hissed Georgia, in a low voice. "Better hidden."

  John nodded his agreement. And, in fact, he couldn't agree more. He didn't like the low rumbling sound that was growing louder now by the second.

  Georgia must have had much better hearing than he did, since she'd heard it so much earlier. John knew that she'd been careful to wear ear protection whenever she'd practiced at the range, before the EMP.

  Now, there was no such thing as ear protection. They fired their guns when they needed to, not caring about their hearing.

  And, for some reason, Georgia's seemed to have held up better than John's, he, who'd never fired a gun before in his life before the EMP had hit and had finally realized the importance of firearms.

  It wasn't good to know that his hearing was partially shot. Or not as good as it could have been.

  But it was even worse to know that some kind of vehicle was coming in their direction.

  Together, they scrambled back farther away from the road. They kept low, crouching down.

  There wasn't really anything that would completely hide them. The trees weren't thick enough, even at the bases of the trunks.

  So they had to settle for getting down on their bellies, hoping that the trees and the distance would help to keep them covered.

  John glanced over at Georgia briefly as he tried to get himself set up properly. She was a natural, her rifle somehow always in a good position.

  He, on the other hand, had to shuffle and fiddle, trying to get it just right, where the gun didn't seem to dig into him, where the kickback wouldn't injure him.

  They didn't have long to wait.

  The rumbling was louder.

  Soon enough, there it was. They could see it.

  It looked improbable. Strange. A weird sight. Almost surreal.

  It was a large army transport vehicle. It looked ancient, or at least modern in any sense.

  It was the kind of truck that you might spot in an old Korean War movie.

  It trundled along slowly, inching down the road.

  It was moving slowly enough that a man could walk alongside it at a quick pace.

  And, in fact, there were men walking alongside it. And in front of it. And behind it.

  John counted six men, all with long guns. They didn't march like they were in the army, but they walked in a purposeful way, their heads moving so that their eyes could survey the surroundings.

  The men wore all sorts of clothes. Tattered jeans. Flannel shirts. T-shirts. Work shirts. Half-torn-up dress shirts.

  They all had long hair that hadn't been washed.

  Some of them had the odd piece of camo-style gear, but not many of them.

  The sight reminded John of stories of the old covered-wagon days, where the wagon would carry the supplies and some of the people, while others walked alongside it. Once in a while, when someone got tired, they'd hop on in the wagon, and someone else would hop out so that they could stretch their legs.

  John
couldn't see what was inside the army transport truck, but he figured it had to be something. Not to mention at least a few more men.

  Those six men could have walked along that road on their own just fine. The truck wasn't doing them any favors, except maybe to carry their food.

  So there had to be some reason that truck was there. Maybe it carried something important, or maybe it had a job to do somewhere else, where it was needed.

  Either way, John didn't like the looks of it. It stank of organization. Organized force, organized power. But not the good kind.

  Hopefully, the men would be concerned mainly with guarding their truck and whatever it contained. Hopefully, they wouldn't be looking for trouble.

  So far, so good. The men hadn't spotted them.

  The truck had traveled about half the distance of the visible road that lay stretched out in front of John and Georgia.

  The men, it seemed, worked and walked mainly in silence. No one spoke. No orders were issued. No commands were shouted.

  John glanced over at Georgia.

  Her face showed no emotion. It was completely impassive. Her eyes watched the men, but other than that there was no movement.

  John glanced back at the truck and the men.

  Then it happened.

  One of the men turned, as if he had heard something.

  Turned in John's direction.

  At first, the man seemed to be looking at something behind John, even though John had heard nothing.

  What was the man looking at?

  John tried to press himself further into the ground. It was just instinct. He knew that it was useless. He couldn't make himself disappear, no matter how hard he tried.

  He and Georgia shouldn't have been spotted. But if someone were looking right in their direction, then they'd be seen.

  John held his breath. Out of fear. Out of anxiety.

  After all, Georgia could shoot well. She could fight. And John was no slouch. Not with the experiences he'd been through. And with Georgia's and Max's training.

  But two against six? And possibly more?

  No way.

  It wasn't going to work

  It wasn't going to happen.

  They'd die.

  If those guys wanted a fight, that was.

  Maybe they didn't want a fight.