Finding Shelter Read online

  "What is it?" said Wilson, his voice clearly conveying his annoyance.

  "Sorry to interrupt, sir," said the man, without continuing. Wilson didn't immediately recognize the voice.

  "Just get on with it. Come on in."

  The tent flap moved aside, and a short, stocky man entered. Wilson recognized his face, but he couldn't recall his name at the moment.

  The man entered awkwardly and moved to where he stood in front of Wilson's table.

  Apparently, he saw no need to state his name.

  Wilson glared at the man. "Well," he said. "Spit it out. What is it?"

  "Ah, yes," sputtered the man, who was apparently nervous as well as awkward. He moved his mouth around for a few moments awkwardly, without any sound coming out. Finally, something seemed to spark in his eye, and he spit it all out. "One of the eastern outposts picked up a man," he said. "They told me to report it to you."

  "Picked up a man?" said Wilson. "Well, that's hardly news. What was he doing? Why was he picked up?"

  "He'd heard about the movement, sir. He'd heard about Grant. He wanted to join up."

  "So?" said Wilson, growing more annoyed by the minute. "I don't see how any of this is news. We have new recruits coming in every day. They've heard the news. They've heard about what we're doing, either from gossip or from the fliers. Why wasn't he taken to the barracks for new recruits? Why are you telling me about this all?"

  "He refused to go, sir."

  "Refused to go?"

  "He's stubborn, sir. Wanted to talk to Grant himself."

  Wilson let out a dry laugh. Grant wasn't known for giving audiences to complete unknowns. Especially not people picked up by an outpost or a patrol. "I don't think that's going to happen," said Wilson.

  "Well, sir, he's making things quite difficult."

  "Is he now?"

  The man nodded. There was fear in his eyes, which were darting around nervously. Fear that wasn't just for Wilson and his position. Was it fear for this audacious stranger?

  "Send him in. I'll talk to him."

  The man nodded and stepped once again through the tent flap.

  Wilson sighed as he watched the man go. This, unfortunately, was a large part of his job. He had to smooth out the wrinkles in the camp so that Grant could occupy himself with more important things.

  In mere moments, the man returned, this time with another man. Had he been standing outside the tent door all this time?

  It was all highly irregular. A new recruit allowed to go as he pleased throughout the camp, waiting outside Wilson's office.

  Wilson studied the man. He walked with a slight limp. He was a little taller than average, and of medium build. Carried some muscle, but not a lot. Fairly thin, as most people were these days.

  There was an intense look on his face. At least a week's worth of thick stubble.

  There was an intense intelligence in his eyes. An intelligence that Wilson didn't see often.

  The man carried himself like he was someone. Like he didn't have anything to prove.

  He had a commanding presence.

  In a way, he reminded Wilson of Grant.

  But there was no one like Grant except Grant himself.

  "Name?" said Wilson, deciding to discuss the irregularities later.

  "Max," said the man.

  "We go by last names here, generally."

  "Let's just leave it at Max. Are you Grant?"

  "Nope," said Wilson. "But I'm as close as you're going to get to Grant today. You're lucky to be talking to me."

  "Well," said Max. "That's fine. I just wasn't getting anywhere with your lackey here." He nodded his head to indicate the nameless man who'd brought Max in. "I knew I needed to move up the chain of command."

  Wilson had seen this sort of thing before. It was a test. He was trying to see if using the word "lackey" would made anyone angry. Anger was a good way to test a man. Not to mention an organization.

  Wilson wasn't falling for the bait. He'd hear this man out, whatever it was he wanted to say. It was all highly unusual. But, then again, Grant himself was in many ways highly unusual. And there was just something about this Max. Something about his presence. Maybe he really did have something to offer. Something unique.

  "So spit it out," said Wilson.

  "I heard you're looking for local militia leaders," said Max. "I'm here to volunteer, provided everything is up to my standards."

  Wilson's jaw dropped. "So you're coming here, a complete unknown, demanding a leadership position."

  Max nodded. "That's right," he said. No hint of a smile on his face. His face was dead serious.

  "What makes you think we'd do that?"

  Max shrugged. "I have the necessary skill set. And I heard you were looking for leaders."

  Wilson said nothing for a few moments, his eyes not leaving Max's face.

  This was completely ridiculous. Completely absurd. A complete waste of time. He'd been duped, apparently, by Max's "presence," whatever that was. But he wasn't taking any more of it. He had things to do. Important things.

  Wilson was getting more annoyed by the second.

  "All right," he said, taking his eyes off Max's. "Enough's enough. Throw him in the stockade with the others. I've had enough of this."

  "Yes, sir," snapped the lackey, whose name Wilson still couldn't remember.

  Max said nothing.

  "Come on, buddy," said the lackey, grabbing Max forcefully.

  Max didn't resist, but he didn't go willingly either. He just stood there.

  In an instant, the lackey had his sidearm drawn and pushed into Max's side.

  "You don't have any cuffs?" said Wilson to the lackey.

  The lackey shook his head.

  "Let me see if I have some."

  Underneath the folding card table desk there were a couple crates packed with odds and ends. After a moment of rummaging through one of them, Wilson came up with a pair of plastic binders that functioned as handcuffs. Likely they'd been scavenged from a police station.

  Wilson grabbed the binders and tossed them to the lackey, who, without hesitation, snapped them onto Max's wrists.

  "Maybe we can talk again," said Wilson. "After the stockades have taken some of the arrogance out of you."

  Max said nothing, but he stared Wilson down as he was led out of the tent, cuffed, at gunpoint.

  Good. That was how the camp was supposed to run. Efficiently. No nonsense. People with crazy ideas got sent to the stockade. People causing problems got locked up. There was too much to do to get bogged down in the nonsense ideas of every crazy individual who came by.

  Now that the nonsense was over, Wilson could finally get back to work. He grabbed a couple of his clipboards and stared at them. But he couldn't quite get himself to focus on the work.

  There was something about that man, about Max, that stuck with him. Something strange.

  4

  Terry

  Terry was headed back home from a scavenging mission. He was weary. His legs were aching. He'd walked too far.

  He'd gotten too thin over the last few months, and it felt like his whole body was deteriorating. He wasn't just losing fat, but muscle too. And he imagined that his lymph tissue and thymus was slowly deteriorating as well.

  Terry had been studying to be a nurse practitioner before the EMP. He'd taken enough anatomy and physiology classes to fully understand the effects starvation were having on his body.

  His joints ached. It felt as if he had arthritis. The symptoms matched completely with what he remembered reading in his textbooks. But he wasn't a day over thirty years old. Likely, it'd been brought on by starvation and stress that had wrecked his hormones.

  It was almost like mental torture, knowing exactly what hormones were likely out of whack. He knew exactly why he and his family were suffering. But he couldn't do anything about it.

  He felt weak. He felt powerless. He felt that, as the man of the family, he should have been providing for his wife and his you
ng daughter.

  And the fact that he couldn't help them tortured him more than the physical agony of the arthritic joint pain. It was almost too much to take, seeing them deteriorate along with himself each day.

  He would have done anything for his wife and daughter. Anything. He would have gladly sacrificed himself if it would have meant that they'd be happy, healthy, and safe.

  But sacrificing himself would do no good.

  His wife was getting weaker by the day. And she'd never had a strong constitution. She couldn't go out and scavenge like Terry could. She wouldn't be able to care for their daughter if something happened to him.

  And his daughter? She was too young to be self-sufficient. Far too young.

  Terry's resentment and anger were growing stronger by the day. He'd managed to keep his family alive for so long with his intellect. And now? His intellect wasn't failing him, but it was no longer doing him as much good as it'd done in the past.

  He was running up against real-world problems that no amount of cleverness could solve. It seemed as if each time he went out on a scavenging mission, looking for goods manufactured by the pre-EMP world, he came up empty-handed.

  Before that group had moved into the state park nearby, Terry hadn't had the same kind of difficulties in his scavenging expeditions. He'd known just where to go. He'd known what to expect in terms of confrontations.

  But since that large group had come by, the supplies in nearby stores and homes had been dwindling at a depressing rate.

  At least that's the way it seemed to Terry.

  Soon enough, there wouldn't be anything left. And Terry and his family would fade away. Either they'd starve to death or their immune systems would weaken to the point where they'd succumb to some infection in the coming winter. Probably pneumonia. The other possibility was that they'd be too weak to defend themselves against some coming attack.

  So far, Terry had relied more on stealth than combat. Sure, he carried a gun. A couple of them. He'd taught himself to shoot after the EMP, even though he'd never been a "gun person" before.

  Terry had kept this family alive merely with his wits. Others used their strength.

  Terry had been strong enough before the EMP. He'd done his cardio and his light weights at the gym. But now? He was weak. And only getting weaker.

  His wife wasn't doing well. She was too thin. Far too thin. And right before the EMP had hit, she'd been looking good. Putting on weight nicely to go along with the new pregnancy. And then? She'd had a miscarriage. It had either been the stress or the lack of food. Probably the stress though.

  So that dream was gone. The dream of having another kid. A sibling for Lilly to play with. But bringing another child into the world wouldn't have been good.

  Lilly wasn't doing so good either. Neither he nor his wife wanted to admit that their daughter would, more likely than not, die. Sooner or later. Unless she got better nutrition.

  The way Terry saw it, he'd done everything he could. He'd kept them alive by hiding them in a small section of the attic, behind a false wall. They'd spent days cowering there, with hardly any room to move. They hadn't been able to make any noise. They hadn't been able to do anything, even go to the bathroom properly. They'd had to urinate and defecate while wearing their clothes.

  It'd been horrible and humiliating. But they were still alive. The men who'd invaded their home had eventually gotten bored and moved on, leaving behind a wreck of a house.

  Terry was getting more tired the more he walked. He still had a ways to go to get home. With each step he took, the more agitated his mind got.

  It felt as if his mind was jumping all over the place. He couldn't really keep his thoughts straight. It felt almost as if he was cycling through the same confused thoughts over and over again.

  The only thought that he could keep straight was the thought that it all wasn't fair.

  It was the thought that told him that there was someone to blame for all this.

  Not someone far away. Not whoever or whatever was responsible for the EMP. Not society at large for not creating the proper checks and balances and redundancy systems.

  Not himself for not being more prepared.

  No. It was all the fault of that group that had moved into the state park nearby. They were sapping the surrounding area of supplies. Soon there'd be nothing left. And that large group would flourish with the help of all those calories.

  Meanwhile, Terry and his family would just die off.

  Terry was getting angry. His face felt hot. It was probably getting bright red too.

  He was walking faster than he normally did. His ratty, torn-up sneakers were stomping along the ground harder than they normally did.

  Each step felt like it might help release his anger. It was if he were slamming his feet against the earth. As if he were trying to punish the entire planet for what it had done to him, for the situation that he was in.

  And in that moment, in his intense anger, he couldn't remember that everyone else in the country, and probably the world, was in the same situation. Instead, it felt like he, Terry, was alone in his misery and plight. It felt like he alone were up against completely unfair and unjust odds.

  Unless he did something drastic, he realized in his anger, his situation would only deteriorate. He'd only get screwed over again and again until he was dead. And was that fair to his wife and daughter?

  No, it wasn't fair that they were stuck with a provider who couldn't even manage to provide.

  Terry wasn't paying much attention to where he was headed.

  He was walking through the trees blindly, heading in the right direction, but not looking at the ground at all.

  Suddenly, his right shoe collided with a small log. He stumbled, and then fell heavily to the ground.

  He managed to break his fall partially with his left hand.

  But it wasn't quite enough. Pain flared through his weak, arthritic body.

  He lay there on the ground, panting. He felt too weak to utter the curses than ran through his mind.

  His whole body felt like a disaster. And mentally, he was even in worse shape.

  He didn't know if he had the strength to get up. So he just lay there.

  He knew that if it weren't for his wife and daughter, he most certainly wouldn't have the slightest shred of strength. If it weren't for them, he'd just lie there until he died of dehydration. Or until someone came along and put him out of his misery.

  It would have been a tough way to go. But it would have been a blessing. He would have welcomed it.

  Suddenly, he became disgusted with himself. Disgusted with his thoughts. Disgusted with the idea that he wanted a way out. That he wished he didn't have a wife and daughter.

  After all, what kind of man was he? Who wished to die because it was easier?

  Well, he was weak.

  Terry was weak and he knew it.

  But he also knew that he'd eventually get himself off the ground somehow. That he'd find some way to scrape by another day. Find some more half-rotten food somewhere and feed it with tears in his eyes to his family.

  Suddenly, Terry heard a noise that sounded like faint footsteps off in the distance.

  He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or not, so he tried to hold his breath, so that his out-of-breath panting wouldn't get in the way of hearing what was there.

  Sure enough, there it was. Faint, yes. But definitely there.

  Terry moved himself around like a worm, getting into a position where he was lying face down on his belly.

  He wanted to be out of view for whoever was coming.

  He poked his head up a little to look around.

  No sign of anyone.

  Not yet.

  He waited for a full minute, counting from one to sixty in his head, before poking his head up again.

  This time, he saw it.

  A person.

  But it wasn't the type of person that he was expecting to see.

  It wasn't some tall th
in man, with scraggly hair and a long, dirty beard. Sometimes, it seemed as if those were the only types of people he came across these days. And it wasn't as if he came across people very much at all.

  It wasn't a man at all.

  It was a small child. A young girl. About his own daughter's age.

  What was she doing out here all alone?

  He could see her fairly well. She didn't seem to see him, so he kept his head up for a few more minutes, getting a better look at her.

  She carried a handgun.

  Her clothes were ratty and worn out. But they were more or less clean. And they weren't as ratty as one might expect them to be.

  Based on her appearance, Terry doubted that she was all alone in the world. She must have belonged to some family or group.

  Maybe she was lost. Maybe she'd been separated from her group, and she was trying to find them again.

  Terry thought he saw her looking in his direction, and he ducked his head back down.

  Suddenly, a diabolical thought popped into Terry's head.

  Before the EMP, he'd been trying to become a professional helper, someone who helped people. But now? Now he was desperate. Now he needed to do something.

  He needed to take action.

  The plan hatched in his head, coming to him almost fully formed.

  Whoever this girl belonged to; they'd likely do anything to get her back. Or at least give up plenty of their food or supplies. And possibly some information crucial to learning the secret stores and supply areas where they got their goods.

  Terry didn't waste any time. He felt invigorated with the possibilities of kidnapping this girl.

  He didn't bother to think of the consequences, of the harm he would do. After all, he was, in most ways, a broken man. A shadow of his former self.

  Terry popped himself up into the standing position, ignoring the various aches and pains in his body.

  He kept his weapons holstered and away. He stuck his two hands up in the air, his palms open, as if he was surrendering.

  He walked forward slowly, towards the girl walking alone.

  "Don't shoot!" he called out. "I come in peace!"

  He knew that she wouldn't shoot him. No matter how battle-hardened she was, she wouldn't shoot a man with his hands in the air. An adult might have. But a kid? No way.