Bankrupt: Wipeout Book 6: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series)

by ES Richards

  Samuel grumbled at his father’s response but stayed quiet. At least if his dad was still fighting him on the little things, then that meant he wasn’t completely spent just yet. Charles was right too, there would be time later for asking about everyone’s wellbeing, first of all they needed to get where they were going.

  Their little group made up of four men and two boys walked out into the night like a tightly-knit unit. Samuel couldn’t help but feel the prickle of excitement on the back of his neck. He hadn’t realized it, but a part of him missed the adventures he and Austin had shared. Living through them, he never would’ve dreamt about repeating the horrors, but there was something that came to life in him again as he thought about where the night might take them, something that had been lying in wait ever since he returned to the city.

  Before Trident’s collapse, the thought of venturing out into the night to find some unknown group of people who had vaguely hinted at the possibility of safety would’ve been a firm no in his books. Not only would he have rolled his eyes at the chance of success or the possibility of the group being who they said they were, but he would’ve shied away at the first sign of danger. Samuel had never been a risk taker, he was a boring, middle-aged businessman who functioned from one day to the next without ever really making anything happen or doing anything worth getting excited about. Looking back on that person now, Samuel couldn’t believe how much he had changed. Not only in his mannerisms, but his outlook on life too. He’d never waste another day in his life for as long as he lived and now the idea of finding a secret faction hidden away somewhere in New York City was not only a possibility for him, but something that almost made him feel giddy.

  “Whoa, hold up!” Austin hissed from the front of their group as he rounded a corner, bringing the six of them to a halt. From his place just behind Bowie – who was sandwiched between Dante and Miles – Samuel could see over the little boys’ heads and down the street to what Austin was looking at.

  “Is that a roadblock?” Miles asked.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Samuel exhaled as Miles voiced what was in his head. “Not again.”

  “This can’t be right,” Austin shook his head and turned back to look first at Dante, then at Samuel. “Did you see any of this when you drove in?”

  “No, nothing. But we didn’t come this way.”

  Austin furrowed his brow. After the time the two of them had spent together, Austin knew he could trust Samuel in this sort of situation. They’d encountered far worse and lived to tell the tale, this blockade was surely nothing too concerning. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re about to find out,” Samuel replied, nodding his head toward the roadblock that Austin now had his back to. Two men were approaching from it, both of them carrying what looked like automatic weapons in their hands. “Everyone cross your fingers that this isn’t another Poughkeepsie.”

  “Evening fellas,” Austin greeted the two men calmly as they arrived, standing at the front of the group and blocking their view of his son. Samuel moved forward too, curious and willing to do what he could to help. “Everything alright here?”

  “All fine,” the taller man replied. “Can I ask what you’re doing out at this time? You know there’s a city-wide curfew in place, right?”

  “What? What curfew?”

  “The curfew,” the man repeated, saying the words again like they would miraculously suddenly have some meaning behind them. “You been living under a rock or something?”

  “I’m sorry,” Austin replied carefully. “I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. We haven’t been outside in a while. We’ve been,” he paused, “dealing with some family issues.”

  The taller man looked to his accomplice and raised his eyebrows, getting only a shrug in response. The other one didn’t look interested in the exchange at all, shifting the weight of his weapon in his arms and turning away from the group slightly, indicating to his colleague to get the exchange over and done with. There was a trashcan fire over by the roadblock that reminded Samuel and Austin even more so of the one they’d encountered on their way into Poughkeepsie. It was all too familiar and much too suspicious.

  “Anyway,” Austin kept his tone light and breezy. “We were just heading down this way to a friend’s house. It’s only a couple of blocks away,” he lied, “we’ll be there in no time. And then I promise, we’ll stay in – really, honestly didn’t know about this curfew.” He mixed his fiction in with the facts, putting on a display of embarrassment and innocence to the men.

  “Can’t let you do that,” the man spoke curtly, stepping forward and blocking the sidewalk as Austin tried to casually encourage his family to walk on. “You’re not allowed to leave your designated zone.”

  “Zone? Oh, come on.”

  “This is what I was talking about,” Miles whispered out of the side of his mouth, nudging Dante with his elbow.

  “Give us a break pal, it’s a free country. Just stand aside.”

  “Sorry, pal,” the man spat out the word sarcastically. “You’re not authorized to leave your zone. Now I’m going to have to ask you to turn around and go home or I’m going to have to make you.”

  Austin looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and was ready to square off with the man in front of him, when Bowie asked Dante what was going on. Austin stiffened. Before, he had only had to look out for himself. He could take risks and be reckless without worrying too much about what happened next; now however, he had his family to think of. Bowie and Dante both needed him, and he couldn’t put them in harm’s way just to save his ego.

  “Alright,” he held his hands up to the armed man. “Alright, I hear you. We’re going. Come on guys,” he turned and looked at his family. “Let’s go back home.”

  Chapter 4

  “I’m not going back in there. I can’t.”

  “Dante, come on,” Austin hissed, glancing over at Bowie as they all stood outside their apartment building. “Look at him, he’s freezing. We can’t just stay outside here all night.”

  “I can’t do it, Austin,” Dante shook his head again. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “What about another apartment then? We haven’t heard the Millers upstairs this whole time – I’ll bet their place is empty. Will you go up there?”

  Dante paused and thought about the suggestion, weighing up in his head whether it was a suitable middle ground or not. He’d walked away from their home believing they were never coming back; considering the final goodbye he’d said to his mother to be just that: the final one. Now that they were back there, he didn’t want to upset her resting ground, but Austin was right, they couldn’t just stay outside.

  “Okay,” he gave in. “We can check it out at least.”

  The moment he stepped into the apartment building; Dante felt a shiver run up his spine. Something inside of him started screaming at him to leave, to turn around and run and never come back there, but he squeezed his fists tightly by his sides and silenced the voice. He needed to keep going. He needed to put that feeling out of his mind and push on, for his family. His mom was dead, but as Austin kept reminding him, there was still so much to fight for. The rest of them still had a chance and they needed to take it.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Samuel asked Austin as they climbed the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder at his father who was struggling more and more with each flight. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know,” Austin nodded. “That zonal thing is absolute bull. Miles,” Austin stopped walking and turned toward the teenager, “how much have you heard about it already?”

  “Not a lot. I mean there have been rumors about it for ages. Apparently, it’s supposed to make rationing better. Means that everyone can get their fair share.”

  “Didn’t seem too fair to me,” Charles huffed from the back of the group, thankful for the break as they all stopped halfway up the stairwell.

  “Any idea where the other
blockades are set up?”

  “No,” Miles shook his head at Austin’s question. “That’s the first one I’ve seen.”

  Samuel looked over at his friend. “What’re you thinking?” he asked, cocking his head to one side. “You’ve got an idea, haven’t you?”

  “The start of one,” Austin replied with a grin, shrugging his bag from his shoulder and dropping it on the stairs next to him. “There’s no point going all the way up to the Millers’ place if we’re not going to stay here, right?” Faces nodded around him, none of them really wanting to be in the building. “Then what are we doing? There’s got to be one of those blockades we can get past, I mean,” Austin looked at Samuel and grinned again, “it’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

  Samuel smiled. “You serious?”

  “Why not? This is as much our city as it is theirs. I say we’ve got a right to decide where we want to live.”

  “Hang on, Austin,” Dante interjected, less enthusiastic about the plan than both Austin and Samuel appeared to be. “We can’t just charge one of these places down – look at us – they had automatic weapons and who knows what else. We’ve got to be smart about it.”

  “We will be, babe,” Austin reassured his husband. “Don’t worry. Samuel and I can go out and scout around, see what’s what. Then we’ll pick the easiest route and get out that way. Don’t worry – I know what’s at stake here.”

  Austin looked down at his son who was sitting on a step next to Charles, the two of them the most spent on energy out of the group. It was the middle of the night now and Bowie needed to sleep. Surely, Austin could see he was practically dozing now as the conversation continued around him. He needed somewhere safe to spend the rest of his nights and it wasn’t going to be in this building. Dante had been right in the first place, they shouldn’t have come back inside. Looking to Samuel, he raised his eyebrows in question.

  “I want to come too.”

  Everyone turned to look at Miles, the teenager resolute in his announcement. Samuel pursed his lips for a second, then glanced at Austin out of the corner of his eye and shrugged.

  “Why not,” he said, “another pair of eyes might be useful.”

  “For real? You mean it?”

  “Sure,” Austin chuckled. “But you follow our lead, okay? Do exactly as we say.”

  “Promise,” Miles nodded enthusiastically. “You won’t regret it.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later they were out on the street. They’d left Charles, Dante and Bowie sitting in the building lobby now, waiting for them to return with the all clear. The rush of excitement filled Austin as they set off on the sleuth mission, hoping that soon they would all be in a new home surrounded by warmth and safety.

  Austin knew that for Samuel, things were slightly different. He was worried about his father and how the old man was coping; Charles wasn’t the sort of elderly gentleman that liked going out for long walks or keeping fit. His idea of a day of exercise was cheering on the horses on television, or very occasionally making it down to the dog track in person. That hadn’t happened for a couple of years now though, one minor heart attack telling the old man that even those days were behind him. It was a diet of red meat and red wine in his younger years which had sealed Charles’ fate, but Samuel was now worried it was all catching up to him at the wrong time. He hoped that this hideaway – or whatever they should be calling it – really did have the medicine and facilities they’d alluded to originally. If they could’ve helped Meghan, then surely, they could help Samuel’s father.

  Rounding a corner, the three of them saw what they were up against as they spotted yet another roadblock.

  “Alright,” Austin stopped and turned to his friends. “Side streets. Stay quiet. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  Samuel nodded, while Miles looked a little confused by the lack of instruction.

  “Just follow me,” Austin smiled at him, “and stay quiet.”

  Weaving down alleyways and squeezing between buildings, the three of them zig-zagged their way toward where the blockade was, avoiding the main road in order to not be seen. When they were close enough, Samuel withdrew some binoculars he’d packed from his bag and took a closer look at what lay ahead of them, squinting through the darkness to assess the obstacle.

  The barrier itself was a bit lackluster, just a few plastic pylons which would normally be used for roadworks, accompanied by a few spools of barbed wire stretched across the street. Compared to what they’d seen in Poughkeepsie, it was child’s play.

  “Check it out,” he remarked, handing the binoculars to Austin. “Looks pretty basic. And there are only a couple of guards again.”

  Taking the binoculars and peering through them, Austin slowly reviewed the blockade. Unlike Samuel, he spotted something else. Maybe it was the way the moonlight reflected off it due to his slightly taller position, or maybe it was just sheer luck, but as Austin cast his eyes over the roadblock, he saw a distinct tripwire pulled taut across the length of the road.

  With his heart pounding in his chest, he followed the tripwire from the middle to one of the buildings at the end and saw in horror, that it was connected to a small bounty of explosives. Sure enough, the other side of the road was rigged up in the same manner, the blockade set to blow and bring down the buildings if anyone tried to cross it. Austin deemed it unlikely that just a couple of people treading lightly would be caught out by the tripwire, but if a large group of people tried to escape their zone, or if someone was running toward it, the wire would easily go unnoticed and the whole street could be brought to the ground.

  “Those animals,” he grimaced, handing the binoculars back to Samuel. “They’ve rigged it. Look. There’s a tripwire just above the ground. Do you see it?”

  “What?” Samuel exclaimed, squinting through the lens. “Where? I can’t… Oh. Oh, what? How could they do something like that? That’s obscene! That’s…”

  “I know,” Austin shook his head as Samuel ran out of words, his friend finally handing the binoculars to Miles so the teenager could see what they were talking about for himself. “Do you think they’re all like this? I don’t remember seeing anything earlier.”

  “Me neither,” Samuel said, “but it would make sense. It would also explain why there’s only a couple of people at each post. They don’t really need to waste a lot of manpower standing watch if the street is rigged up to blow the second someone puts a foot wrong.”

  “How is this designed to help people?” Miles mumbled under his breath, finally having seen the tripwire for himself, astonished that it could be real. “That’s barbaric.”

  “Come on,” Austin urged with a shake of his head. “Let’s see if all the others are like this.”

  Chapter 5

  “Just keep hold of my hand, little man. It’s going to be okay, Daddy’s going to keep you safe.”

  This time, Samuel led the group as Austin helped Bowie to keep up with them. After spending an hour running around the streets in darkness, they’d finally tracked down a roadblock that didn’t have a single person keeping watch over it. Samuel had thought it might be a trap at first, but after Miles bravely volunteered to try and cross it and see if he was stopped, they discovered it really was just left to its own devices. Like every other blockade, a low tripwire ran across the road that was hooked up to explosives on either side. But unlike the rest, it didn’t host any extra deterrents and so made the perfect location for Samuel, Austin and the rest of their group to escape through.

  Miles had proved himself extremely valuable on their nighttime scouting mission – he’d shown bravery and willingness and also saved the three of them from being spotted on one occasion where Samuel and Austin overlooked a man in uniform. Samuel had already made the decision in his head to get to know the teenager more once they were somewhere safe; he found it sad that Miles was out on his own, the loss of his family barely touched upon in conversation yet. At least he’d found Austin and been taken unde
r his wing, much like how the two of them had saved the little boys outside of Poughkeepsie, there was no way either of them could just walk away from a child in need.

  Stopping the rag-tag group just ahead of the blockade, Samuel signaled to everyone to wait while he and Miles continued on ahead. They needed to check for any guards or watchmen just one more time before they brought everyone across. It was going to take time to ensure no one stepped anywhere near the tripwire and so they needed to be certain they wouldn’t get caught. It was perhaps only an hour or two at most away from dawn now; Samuel wanted them to be safely hidden away by the time the sun rose above the city.

  “Careful now,” Samuel said to Miles as the teenager approached the tripwire. “Watch your step.”

  “It’s cool, I got it,” Miles replied casually as he stepped over the wire, walking out of one zone and into another without even breaking a sweat. “Go back and get the others, I’ll keep watch from here.”

  “Alright,” Samuel nodded. “Whistle if you see anything.”

  Leaving the teenager on the other side of the zone, Samuel quickly crept back down the street to collect his father. Charles had thankfully managed to catch an hour’s sleep back at the apartment building and he looked slightly better for it. Even still though, the man’s face was gaunt and he looked weak before he even stood back up again.

  “You ready?”

  “Of course,” Charles nodded, slinging a bag over his shoulder. “Just show me what to do, son.”

  “Have you eaten anything yet today?”

  “There’ll be time for that later,” Charles dismissed the question as he walked beside his son toward the blockade, refusing the aid of his arm for support. He would be proud until his dying breath, something Samuel already knew about this father – he just wished the old man wouldn’t see accepting help as a failure. “If this place we’re heading to is everything it’s cracked up to be, that is.”