At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by K. M. Fawkes

  Garrett let that one rest for the moment. He had plans, but now obviously wasn’t the time to bring them up. He still needed too much information.

  “And what about the rest of the place?” he asked, his voice subdued. “What else is going on here?”

  “Forced labor,” Alice answered. “He’s gathering all the survivors he can from the surrounding areas and putting them to work. We don’t know what his ultimate goal is, but we’ve heard rumors that he executes anyone who defies him. And that there are others in other rooms. Rooms where he’s torturing them to death.”

  “Right,” Garrett breathed.

  That settled it, then. He had to get out of here before he became one of those people being tortured to death, because he knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t going to be able to keep his mouth shut. And when he escaped, he realized, he was going to be taking the rest of these prisoners with him. No soldier left behind.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning the prisoners were loaded onto a large truck—which must at one time have been used for transporting troops, Garrett figured—and driven away from the military base. Having taken the seat next to Alice, Garrett kept his mouth shut and merely watched the road pass them, trying to figure out where they were going and how close he might actually be to someplace he recognized. The desert looked like it did in so many other places, though—red sand over sun-bleached rocks, row upon row of cactus and scrub pine, with the occasional century plant or agave thrown in for good measure. Jackrabbits dashing through the sand, sometimes even a snake, and hawks in the sky.

  No, the surroundings weren’t going to tell him anything at all about where they were. He was going to have to get out and count on the sun and the stars to guide him, and that was really all there was too it. If he was lucky and could figure out where the soldiers were storing the supplies they’d taken from him when he was arrested, he’d also have the compass he had stashed in his backpack.

  But he wasn’t counting on that. Getting out, that was really all that mattered. Now that they were out of the compound—and out of those cells—his need for freedom was even stronger.

  “Where are we going, do you think?” he whispered to Alice.

  “To a town where they think everyone is dead,” she answered promptly. “It’s always the same. The soldiers will have been out into the area and found a town where it looks like everything is dead. Once that happens, there’s no one to stop Green and his men from taking whatever they want. And as long as we’re their prisoners, we’ve got no choice but to help them. Do whatever they want.”

  Garrett stifled what would have been a grin in less severe circumstances. “So, we’re going out to loot the dead. Going out to do exactly what I was arrested for doing.”

  Alice turned and gave him what might have been a returning grin—in another life. “Except this time it’s state-sanctioned looting, and that makes all the difference. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut and you’ll be fine. People who argue tend to be executed. And I don’t know about you, but my new motto is that as long as I’m alive, I can find a way out of this mess.”

  “A woman after my own heart,” he said, glad to hear the confirmation about her thoughts on escape.

  They hadn’t been sent with many others, but Manny and Raoul were both in the truck with them. Garrett planned to try to get them alone out here in the open, sound out their feelings on the idea of escape. He would have talked to them earlier, in the brig, but he wasn’t sure yet whether they were being spied on in there. A better idea was to do any of their scheming out here in the open. Where they’d at least see the soldiers coming.

  “Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” he asked, continuing the thread with Alice.

  She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Depends on what the scouts can find. They only attack towns where everyone is dead. Or at least…” A shadow crossed her face, and Garrett wondered fleetingly what it was about, but then she was talking again. “They mostly only attack towns where everyone is dead. So the scouts have to find a place where they’re pretty confident that they won’t find people guarding the stuff.”

  “This the only way they get anything?” Garrett asked.

  He hadn’t thought of it before but now that he was sitting down and letting his mind run through the facts, he realized that Green and his company were feeding quite a few mouths. Though they might not require money, they certainly did require food.

  But Alice shook her head. “Everyone they find who agrees to cooperate goes to work in the fields,” she said. “He’s building a commune. Growing his own food, that sort of thing. Yeah, we’re looking for food and water while we’re out, to make that easier, but it’s not the only source of food.”

  Then they were pulling up to a small town that looked little better than Timmons had—though it hadn’t yet been burned—and one of the soldiers was standing up at the front of the truck.

  “This is Jupiter,” he belted out. “Town’s dead. Everyone in it is dead. Get in there and see what you can find. Grab food, water, and anything that looks like it might be valuable. Bags are at the back of the truck.”

  And that was that, evidently. The soldier jumped down out of the truck and strode off toward the town, leaving Garrett and the others to follow as they would. Garrett watched him go, then turned to Alice with a frown on his face.

  She shook her head. “Don’t let them fool you. We might look like we’re going to be operating independently but they’ve got eyes on us like you wouldn’t believe. The two who came with us aren’t the only ones in this town. It’s not safe to try anything.”

  Right. Well that complicated things. It didn’t mean he was going to stop planning, though.

  He rose and followed Alice toward the back of the truck, grabbing a large canvas bag from the pile when she did. Each bag had a strap, and he pulled it over his head and then threaded one arm through it. At least it would make carrying things—and potentially running—easier.

  Garrett and Alice stuck together as they walked down the street, Garrett’s head on a swivel. This place was just like Timmons had been. Main Street with all the fixings, and several smaller streets carving off into the residential areas. At least that meant it was familiar—and that he’d know where to look when it came to food and water.

  “I say we hit the supermarket first,” he said reasonably. “Then maybe head back toward the houses.”

  “The market will go to the soldiers,” Alice answered. “They always take the easiest spots. The safest spots.”

  “Leaving the dangerous spots to us,” Garrett realized aloud. “The places where there might be bodies. Where there might be sickness.”

  “Exactly. Why take the risk with the soldiers when they can send their prisoners in and risk them instead?”

  Garrett shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else from someone who’s basically running an authoritarian regime from his very own army base. You think that soldier was right about the EMP killing the virus?”

  A short pause, during which Alice took a sharp right onto the next street, which ran between what had been the bank and a local bar, and then she said, “Guess we’d better hope so, huh?”

  Her words didn’t make him feel much better. Garrett had spent weeks avoiding any run-in with the virus, and now he was waltzing through a town that had died of it. While desperately trying to figure out how to get away from the man who had captured him.

  Add it all to the list of things I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, a voice in his head said, and he stifled a laugh. This was no time for jokes. But in the same breath, maybe jokes were all that was going to keep them sane through this.

  They’d just entered the first house—a single-story, ranch-style number that looked just like both its neighbors—when Alice started talking.

  “So, who were you before any of this happened?”

  Garrett turned, located the kitchen with his eyes, and cringed. The place was a
mess. It looked like it had been looted by at least three other people before they got here, the pictures laying broken on the floor and the couch cushions torn apart in the living room. They were going to be lucky to find anything at all here. But he guessed that wouldn’t serve as a very good excuse for Green and his soldiers.

  He also got the idea that they were in a “moving faster is vital” situation. Which meant the faster they gathered anything in this house, the quicker they could get to the next one, and the less chance they had of getting in trouble.

  “I was an architect, like I said,” he said, striding into the kitchen and going right to the cupboards. Perishables first. He hadn’t seen any bodies in here, and he was hoping that meant that the people who’d lived here had escaped rather than died—which would mean that anything in their kitchen should be fair game. And safe.

  He went on. “Worked for wealthy clients who thought the world was ending and wanted to build structures where they could stay if that happened.”

  “Like those old basements where people stayed when there were tornadoes?” Alice said, moving into the kitchen next to him and making for the refrigerator.

  “Exactly,” he confirmed. “Only fancier. And also, not just for tornadoes. For everything—nuclear war, climate change, the zombie apocalypse…”

  Alice threw open the refrigerator, let out a cry, and took several staggering steps backward, her hands to her face.

  Garrett whirled around, positive that something terrible had happened, but huffed out a laugh when he saw that there weren’t any bodies in the fridge. Just a bunch of rotting food. Then he smelled what had caused the reaction.

  “Several days without power, now,” he said, nodding. “I don’t think that fridge is ever going to be the same.”

  Alice nodded, still holding her nose, then turned around, took a deep breath, and dove for the fridge. She rummaged through it as quickly as she could, grabbing at anything that looked like it had been sealed and tossing it at Garrett. Unprepared, he dropped the boxes he’d been holding and started trying to catch stuff and stuff it into his bag. When the flow of goods finally stopped, he looked up to see the refrigerator door closed and Alice moving away from it as quickly as possible, still holding her breath.

  They made their way into the next room and dumped his bag on the floor so they could go through their booty more easily.

  “And who were you before the virus?” Garrett asked, returning the question as he shuffled through bottles and cans, trying to decide what would have kept and what would have spoiled.

  “A normal person, I guess,” she said sharply. “Just like everyone else.” Then her voice softened and her shoulders relaxed a bit. “I was a schoolteacher,” she said. “Second grade. And a single mom. I had an eleven-year-old son. Jesse.”

  Her voice faded away, and it didn’t take a genius to know what had happened to the kid.

  Garrett kept his mouth shut, letting her carry forward as she would. Alice didn’t speak again, though, and they finished sorting through the food and drinks, dividing them evenly between their bags, in silence. Once they were done they hurried out of the house, unwilling to stay in that deserted dwelling any longer, and made their way toward the next.

  “He was my life,” Alice said suddenly, once they were out on the street again. “His dad had left when he was born, and good riddance to him. Never did anything but beat me up in the first place, so I was glad to see him go. Me and Jesse had a good life. A safe life. But that all changed with the virus. We didn’t know much at first—didn’t know it could be passed to people who hadn’t had the shots. Didn’t know how quickly it would pass from one person to the next. How quickly it killed.”

  She stifled a sob, and Garrett instinctively put his arm around her. No, he didn’t know this woman. Yes, he’d just met her, and yes, they were in a horrible situation where he didn’t think anyone could count on anyone else. But he’d never been able to see a woman cry without feeling as if he wanted to take care of her, and now was no different.

  He pulled Alice into her arms and let her sob against his chest, wondering blankly whether there was more he should be doing—or whether they’d get in trouble for this too, from the soldiers who were no doubt watching them.

  Watching them, and perhaps laughing.

  He tightened his arms as she started to grow quiet, and when she pulled back he leaned down to look into her eyes. To hear the end of this story that she so obviously felt in the deepest places of her heart.

  “I never even got to say goodbye,” she murmured. “He died on a school field trip. Healthy and fine when he left for school, and then he just…didn’t come home.”

  She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath, and suddenly the Alice that Garrett had come to know was back—full of sharp edges and hard surfaces.

  “Everything stopped mattering to me, then, and I turned my heart off. Had to if I was going to survive. And I have to survive, if only to remember my son. No one else is going to remember him for me.”

  Garrett carefully drew his hands back from her shoulders, everything about her demeanor telling him that she wouldn’t thank him for treating her with kid gloves. Not anymore. She might have needed a hug when she was telling him that story, but now she was back to being a survivor, and he didn’t want that sharp edge turned against him.

  “So how did you get here?” he asked, turning again toward the next house.

  She fell into step with him, her expression hardening. “Shot one of Green’s men after he showed up at my front door and tried to force me to go with him—‘somewhere safe,’ he said. His buddies almost killed me on the spot, but then one of them pointed out that I knew the area around here and might come in handy. They took me to their court and sentenced me to life for murder. I’ve been looking for a way out ever since.”

  Garrett nodded, taking it all in. If Alice knew how to use a gun, and wasn’t afraid to do it, she was definitely valuable.

  Definitely someone he was going to be able to use by his side once he got out of here.

  Chapter 16

  When they got into their third house, their bags already heavy with food and drinks, they found something they hadn’t been expecting. This house looked much like the others; it had already been robbed several times, and the furniture was broken, the kitchen ransacked. In this house, though, they found a body. A boy, no older than thirteen or fourteen, stretched out across the living room floor. Garrett saw him and moved to get between him and Alice, instinctively seeking to protect the woman from the sight, but she’d already seen the kid and threw her hands up to stop him.

  Stepping quickly around him, she went to the boy and dropped to her knees.

  “Alice, be careful!” Garrett hissed. “He might have died of the virus!”

  “He’s not dead, idiot,” she snapped back. “Have you ever seen this much color in a dead man’s face?”

  She put her hand to his forehead, and then the other hand to his neck, feeling anxiously for a pulse. Now that she’d said something, Garrett could see that she was right—the boy had good color still, though he wasn’t moving.

  Suddenly, Alice’s hand went still on the kid’s neck and she looked up.

  “He has a pulse.”

  At that, Garrett was rushing to the boy’s side as well, fumbling in his bag for one of the water bottles they’d picked up. Alice propped up the boy’s head while Garrett carefully poured water into his mouth, wondering at the wisdom of giving someone water when they were obviously unconscious. To his surprise, though, the water somehow woke the boy up, and he opened large, clear blue eyes and turned this gaze from Garrett to Alice and back again.

  “Who are you?” he croaked.

  “Friends,” Garrett said simply. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Broken ankle, I think,” the boy responded. “I heard a scream. Fell down the stairs and passed out. When I woke up again everyone was gone. My mom and dad…” He stopped and frowned, and his face grew firm. �
�They weren’t here when I woke up, and the house had been ransacked. No food. No water.”

  “How long ago was that?” Alice asked, her eyes meeting Garrett’s.

  He nodded. If the boy had been without food or water for long, it was no wonder he’d passed out on the living room floor.

  “Three days,” the kid answered.

  “Well we’ve got food and water,” Garrett said, motioning for Alice to give him something to eat. “Let me see about this ankle.”

  He moved down toward the kid’s feet and pulled off his boots, considering as he unwrapped the long laces. These were good hiking boots and came with full ankle support. If this kid had been wearing these when he fell, his ankle would have been well protected. No way it was broken.

  That thought was confirmed when he got the boots off. The left ankle was swollen and looked bruised, but it also looked completely straight to him, and he’d found that broken bones—even when they were in joints—tended to give off a sort of crooked appearance. They always looked broken. This one just looked swollen.

  “I think you’re fine, kid,” he said bluntly. “Probably just a sprain. Can you sit up?”

  After some struggling and plenty of grunting, they got the kid to a sitting position and pulled him over so he could lean against what was left of the couch. Then Garrett cast his gaze up to meet Alice’s, and she nodded. They left the kid with the remains of the granola bar he was eating and went into the kitchen together.

  “You’ve been in this situation longer than me,” he said, his voice as quiet as he could make it. “What do we do with him? Try to take him with us?”

  “No,” Alice said immediately. “If we tell the soldiers about him, they’ll just take him prisoner, same as the rest of us.”

  “We can’t exactly leave him here,” Garrett reasoned. “By himself. He’ll die for sure.”