At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by K. M. Fawkes

  Three months here, which made it October, as far as he and Alice could guess, and they’d settled in and made a relatively safe and secure home for themselves. Garrett, Alice, Manny, Julia, and the rest of the ragtag crew that had managed to escape Green’s alternate universe had chosen houses for themselves—an easy process, since there had been so many open—and set out the day after their arrival to figure out what their next steps were.

  They’d gathered the people who were still left in the town—a mere handful—found out what supplies they had, and started planning missions to go out into the countryside for more supplies. The most surprising part had been that some of the townspeople had seemed to know Alice already, which had made Garrett suspect that this was a town she’d been secretly prepping for her own future, before Green had found and arrested her. A small town that she’d known of, indeed. This had been her insurance against the disaster she could see coming. Her own fallout shelter.

  Again, though, he hadn’t asked. He wasn’t the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth. He just sent up a silent prayer of thanks for her vision and started making lists of the things they needed.

  At that first meeting, his group of former prisoners and the townspeople had taken a vote and elected Garrett leader, much to his shock. They’d used solid reasoning, though—he’d done time in a military environment and had run his own business. Those who had broken out of the prison had also brought up the fact that he’d organized the entire effort, and though he’d been surprised, Garrett hadn’t been able to argue with them in that regard. Besides, there were things he knew they needed to do. And he didn’t feel certain that anyone else was going to make sure they were done.

  Before Garrett and his team had arrived, the people of Trinity Ranch had been surviving on supplies they found in empty houses in town, but they had failed to come up with a plan to replenish their dwindling food, water, gas, and other necessities. Months later, and though the attempts the townspeople had made at farming in the harsh climate had been largely unsuccessful, Garrett had organized searches to other towns to gather the supplies they needed.

  These days, the place was running pretty well.

  Every time a wanderer arrived in their little town, the current residents did interviews and then either invited the newcomers to stay or sent them on their way. The population of Trinity Ranch was now up to a whopping twenty-eight people, which even included some kids.

  Garrett had to admit that he took pride in what they’d built here. Pride in the fact that they were even managing to survive, against incredibly stacked odds. No electricity. No water. No real contact with the outside world, and no way of telling whether the nanovirus was still out there or not. No way of knowing whether the outside world even still existed.

  Or if it would welcome them if they showed back up on the radar.

  Because he knew that at some point they were going to have to do that. Trinity Ranch was a great stopping point, but that was all it could ever really be. They would eventually run out of other towns to raid, and once that happened, they would be out of supplies. Out of water. No, they were going to have to move on. As leader, it was his job to figure out how they were going to do that—and when.

  Soon, he thought. It was going to have to be soon. He’d seen strangers in the distance too often lately, and there was no way of knowing whether they were friend or foe. Ally or enemy. The town was fairly well fortified, and he had several men here who could handle a gun. The problem was, they were also a town that had a stockpile of supplies. Supplies that other people would want. And that made them a target.

  Garrett had developed a system of guards, and conducted defense drills with those guards. They had watch posts and a system of fire signals in case things went south. But they were only twenty-eight people, and some of them were children. Even the guards… Well, it had occurred to him that there was a good chance those guards might become too lax at some point, as domesticated life took over. Even guards can get sloppy when they think they’re safe.

  And that didn’t even take into account the number of military bases lying around in this part of the state. Given what happened before, with General Green, he didn’t trust them. Any time they made their way onto a base he did it with his heart in his throat, his finger on the trigger of his gun. Military bases seemed to attract nutjobs, and he wasn’t in a hurry to run into another man who thought he was going to rule the world now that the U.S. government seemed to have fallen.

  “Hey Bart, wait up!” he called out suddenly to the boy on the bike.

  The kid skidded to a stop and turned, his face breaking into a grin when he saw Garrett. “What’s up, Cap?” he asked, using the nickname he’d given Garrett on Day 1—and which Garrett had never gotten used to. He knew what it was—a nod to Captain America of comic book fame. But there was no way he could live up to it.

  No way he’d ever even try.

  Still, it had been important to a kid who had lost his entire family to starvation. Garret hadn’t had the heart to disappoint him by making fun of the nickname.

  “You going to the old schoolhouse?” he asked.

  Bart’s grin suddenly dropped off his face as he realized that this might be about security or supplies information. “Sure am. It’s time for me to go on duty. Do you need something over there?”

  “Got a meeting with Alice,” Garrett confirmed, striding down the steps of his new home and working to catch up with Bart. “Go slow, I’ll walk with you.”

  Bart immediately stretched up as if he’d been given the most important responsibility in the world. He got off his bike and walked it as they strolled down the street.

  “What are you guys meeting about?” he asked solemnly.

  Garret barely stopped himself from grinning. The kid couldn’t be more than sixteen, but he had an overblown sense of self-importance already, and Garrett was betting that at some point, he’d had a little sister who he was way too protective over. In that way, Bart reminded Garrett of his own younger self.

  “Just the supplies,” he said, matching the boy’s tone with a monotone of his own. “Every day we have a meeting at sunset to catalog how much we have left, where we’re running low, and how long we can last if we don’t bring anything else in. You know that. You’re often there when we meet.”

  “Doesn’t mean I listen to you,” Bart replied. “Not my place. Although…”

  He paused, and Garrett glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Although?”

  Bart heaved a deep sigh, tipped his head as if he was really considering whether or not he should ask what he had on his mind, and then gave himself a quick nod. “Garrett, what’ll we do if we can’t find any more supplies? What if we’ve stripped everything from the towns around here? What if…”

  “What if we find we have to move on, because there’s nothing here to keep us alive?” Garrett asked, filling in where he thought the boy was going.

  Turning to him with big eyes, Bart nodded. “After what happened with my parents and my sister… I don’t want to have to go through that again. What if we can’t find more food? What if it all just disappears?” His words were coming out in a rush, now, and suddenly Bart was acting like a young kid. A young kid who had lost his entire family. Who had actually had to watch them die.

  Garrett put his hand on Bart’s shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. “I won’t let that happen, Bart. That’s why we do these meetings. If we see that we’re running low on something, we know we have to go find it. If we end up running low on everything, well, we’ll just have to find a new place to live. A safer place.”

  The relief on Bart’s face almost broke Garrett’s heart—especially because he knew he couldn’t actually make those promises. Not for certain. He’d never had less control than he had right now. But that didn’t mean he was going to take them back. He would have done just about anything to get rid of the frightened, haunted look in Bart’s eyes. And if telling him a white lie about their security was all it too
k, well, Garrett had never shied away from lying, when the occasion called for it.

  At that moment, their conversation was interrupted by Alice, who came running up, her chest heaving as she struggled to breathe in the hot desert air.

  Garrett put a hand out to support her and stared at her, confused. Alice was one of the least emotional people he’d ever met. He’d seen her shoot Green at point-blank range, and then heard her tell him that the man hadn’t deserved mercy. If anyone had ever had ice water running through their veins, it was her.

  Whatever had her so riled up, it was bad.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” he said quietly, staring into her eyes.

  She stared back, her eyes equally concerned. “It’s bad,” she confirmed. “I got to the storehouse early, figured I’d get a jump on our catalog for the day, save some time. When I got to the basement, the door was hanging open. The lock was destroyed. And the stores…” She put a hand over her mouth and gulped, trying to collect herself. “Garrett, someone’s taken almost everything. Everything we’ve been building up for months. Gone.”

  Chapter 2

  Garrett had to remind himself to stay upright. That Bart was watching, no doubt terrified at what he’d just heard. That Garrett was the leader here, and that people would be looking at him, expecting him to actually lead them. Rather than going to his knees in shock and horror.

  Gone. He could hardly believe it. All their hard work over the months of being here, and before that, all of Alice’s hard work as she gathered supplies. All that planning, all those raids, all the danger of going out into the country barely armed, when they knew someone was watching them. Everything emptied out.

  Then the next thought came tearing into his head. Either they’d been robbed by an outsider, or they had a mole in their operation—someone who was gathering the supplies in preparation for running, or actively handing their supplies over to someone else. Someone who was pretending to be their friend—their family member, even—and was actually stealing from them. Neither was a good option. Both were dangerous.

  But the who didn’t matter right now. It mattered more that he get to the storeroom and figure out exactly how much had been taken. Alice wasn’t given to exaggeration, so he assumed that by “almost everything” she actually meant almost everything. Still, panic did funny things to the human mind, and first impressions could be a lot more dramatic than reality. Maybe she was wrong. He could only hope that she was.

  “Walk with me,” he said bluntly.

  He didn’t wait to see whether she was going to follow him, but immediately increased his stride to its full limit and rushed down the road in long, lanky steps, his mind racing through the possibilities.

  What were they going to do if everything was gone? They’d been gathering supplies for three months under his guidance, and the town itself had been stockpiling things before that, with Alice’s help. True, they hadn’t shared it with everyone—Bart’s family was testimony to that—but he and his fellow escapees from Green’s prison had arrived to find plenty of food, water, and fuel in the town. After that, using what gas they had to go to other towns and increase their supply had been a logical step. Not easy, necessarily, but also not impossible.

  If those stores were gone, it would mean not only that they didn’t have much food or water left, but also that they might not have enough fuel to go gather more food and water.

  “Fool,” he muttered, kicking at the dust on the road. “Idiot!”

  He was furious with himself. His gut had been telling him for days that they were getting too comfortable, that they needed to increase security on the things that mattered most. He’d known there were people out there who had eyes on them, and he’d known that they were going to have to gather up what they had and get out of there, sooner rather than later. And yet he’d delayed, too proud of what they’d built, too comfortable in this little town that was starting to feel safe. He’d known that they had to do something. And he hadn’t done it.

  No, he couldn’t fully blame himself for whatever might have happened. But he could sure as hell take some of the guilt onto his own shoulders. His gut had never lied to him before. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to it before it was too late?

  It took them less than ten minutes to reach the old schoolhouse, whose basement had become their storeroom. It was the chilliest place in town, given its location, and had come ready-made with storm doors in the ground, which had hoops for a padlock. When he reached it, he saw that the padlock was in fact broken. Hanging in pieces, to be specific, with one piece on the ground in front of the storeroom. The doors were thrown open as well. Whoever had been here had come packing something big enough to break a padlock, and they hadn’t bothered with trying to be subtle.

  Garrett waited until he heard Alice and Bart come huffing up behind him, then took a deep breath and started down the stairs. The storeroom had, via some creative architecture, several small windows along the top of its walls, so the room was fully lit by the setting sun—despite the fact that it was a basement. It had always made this room doubly valuable, since they didn’t need to bring any of their precious candles down here, as long as they were here during the day.

  Now, though, the long rays of the sunset showed him a sight that made him gasp.

  When he’d been here yesterday, the place had been full of goods. One entire wall had been taken up with things that were in easily stackable containers: crackers, cereal, cookies, cases of canned goods—anything they could find that they could either use as food or use on food. Another wall had held meat, which was both more valuable and more perishable.

  Mostly they’d found bags of dried meat, like beef jerky. Anything fresher had gone bad months before. But there had also been hundreds of tins of canned chicken, corned beef, soup, and tuna, courtesy of a well-stocked market they’d found several towns away. They’d grabbed as much as they could carry and then gone back the next day to finish clearing it out. They’d estimated that they had hundreds of gallons of water after that, given the number of gallon jugs they’d been able to bring home.

  And on the final wall, they’d kept whatever gasoline they could find. That had been the most difficult thing to come by, since people hadn’t exactly left fuel sitting around in easily portable containers. They’d had to actually siphon it out of whatever gasoline-powered cars they’d found, the vast majority of which no longer functioned in the wake of the EMP. And there had been ten full containers sitting there, yesterday.

  Now, they were nearly all gone. As was at least half of the food, and what looked to be nearly one-quarter of the water.

  And now Garrett did sink down to his knees, his legs unable to keep him standing any longer.

  “Good God,” he breathed.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Alice answered, her voice containing an uncharacteristic quiver.

  “Fuck,” Bart added, somewhat more succinctly.

  That got a half-smile from Garrett, who had been thinking the word but not wanting to say it, given Bart’s presence. It seemed the boy had a better command of the more colorful words in the English language than he’d given him credit for.

  “That about sums it up,” Garrett said, moving from his knees to a sitting position and staring into the half-empty room.

  This was bad. Lately, their raids had already been garnering them less and less in the way of supplies, and there was a good reason for that: they were running out of places to raid. They’d hit all the nearest towns several times over, and had cleared them out as quickly as they could. They’d done the same with the military bases in the area, and had focused on any place they could reach on foot, to try to spare the gasoline.

  But they were running out of places to look. There were a finite number of towns in this part of New Mexico, and once they cleaned them out, there was no restocking. It had always been a problem with their plan. Now it looked like their deadline for figuring something else out had become a whole lot tighter.

  “Looks a whol
e lot like we’re going to have to figure something else out,” Garrett said, putting voice to his thoughts. “And soon. There aren’t enough towns left in this area for us to replace all of that. At some point, we were always going to have to think about our next step. With half of our goods missing…”

  “We might have to think about that next step a whole lot sooner,” Alice finished for him, her voice stronger now. “I agree. Do we need to try to figure out who did this?”

  She was right. Garrett was jumping ahead of himself. Already trying to solve the problem, move to the next step, when there was a more important question. If bandits had done this, then they needed to figure out how to guard themselves against them before they came back for the rest of the loot. If this was someone in their midst, they were going to have to ferret them out and get rid of them before they did anything else—including starting to plan for where they were going to go next.

  “Who was standing guard today?” Garrett asked quickly. “We know everything was here last night, and someone should have been here all night, with someone new here all day. If we have a mole in our midst, it’s likely that whoever was standing guard knows who it is.”

  Alice didn’t pause for more than a millisecond. “Steve was on night duty last night,” she said. “Checked in right after we did our check of the stock.”

  “And Manny’s here now,” Bart added. “I’m here to relieve him.”

  Garrett took a deep breath. Manny was one of the men he had been imprisoned with at Green’s military base. The man—a former soldier, though he’d never been one of Green’s men—was honest and forthright, and had been one of Garrett’s closest allies these past few months. In fact, he’d been an ally from the day Garrett had landed in the prison, courtesy of Green’s thugs.

  Steve, on the other hand, had been a problem since the day they arrived. He’d been a big shot in his last life, or at least acted like he had, and had been the sole and only vote against Garrett taking the leadership position here in town. Once he was overruled, he’d seemed to decide that it was his job to undermine Garrett at every opportunity. Garrett had never liked the guy, but hadn’t been in a position to do anything about it. In this new version of the world, you couldn’t be picky about how much you liked your allies.