After The EMP Box Set [Books 4-6]: The Chaos Trilogy

by Tate, Harley

  “If it’s the man I’m thinking of, he can’t be trusted.” Walter stared past the glow of the small fire at their feet and into the darkness. “He’s more of a cult leader than anything else. One of those end times types.”

  Not the answer Colt hoped to hear. “What else do you know?”

  “Not much. We’ve tried to keep clear.”

  We. That meant Walter wasn’t alone. Colt figured as much, but confirmation was good. Maybe Walter would be willing to take them in for a time. At least until they could regroup and determine where to go. He tossed out a feeler. “Our group plans to head to Lake Tahoe.”

  “I wouldn’t. It’s overrun with people from Reno and Sacramento. Everyone flocked to it when they fled the cities.”

  Damn. “Then where do you suggest?”

  “Somewhere small with access to running water. A place that you can secure without constant patrols and can keep you alive through the winter. We’ll have a cool, comfortable summer in these parts, but winter comes in hard and quick if you aren’t ready for it.”

  Colt snorted. Nowhere like that existed without planning. “So fairytale land, that’s what you’re saying.”

  “You just have to take your time and look.”

  “I’m not sure time is on our side.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to work a bit—”

  Larkin burst into the clearing as Walter spoke. His face was flushed with exertion, but his eyes held nothing but pain and dread. Whatever he had to say, it wasn’t good.

  Day Thirty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  DANI

  Northern California Forest

  7:00 a.m.

  Dani sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Despite passing out on the forest floor, she actually felt halfway decent. It had been the first night since Colt regained consciousness at Harvey’s place that she didn’t wake up every hour.

  Exhaustion had its merits. She brushed the dirt and leaves off her jeans and headed out into the woods to find a secluded spot to relieve herself. It sure beat nasty toilets and city sewage.

  She tramped back into the clearing as Walter emerged from his tent. Dani glanced around. The fire was out and Lottie still slept in the same spot she’d left her. She didn’t bother to say hello. “Where are Colt and Larkin?”

  Walter glanced up as he zipped the tent closed. “They left early this morning.”

  Dani frowned. It was unlike Colt to leave without telling her. “Is something wrong?”

  Walter hesitated.

  “If you don’t tell me, I’m setting off to find them right now.”

  Walter exhaled. “You’re a lot like my daughter. Strong-willed and impatient.” He walked over to the fire and crouched in front of it. “Larkin left to check on your friend last night. When he came back, he said Doug was missing.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  Walter shrugged. “That’s all I know. Colt made the decision to sleep for a few hours. Said he wouldn’t be any good on a night mission in his state. They took off as soon as it lightened up enough to see.”

  Dani shook her head. “He should have told me. I could help.”

  “Colt would like you to stay.”

  Dani threw her hands in the air. “That’s ridiculous. Three sets of eyes are better than two.”

  “I’m sure between an army officer and a former SEAL, they can find one city firefighter in the woods.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Marine Corps, retired.”

  Dani frowned. She hated the thought of Colt out there without her, but Walter had a point. Larkin would be a better sidekick than she could ever be. But it didn’t mean she wanted to be left behind. What if they ran into trouble?

  So many questions swirled around in her head. So many conflicting emotions. She didn’t know the man crouched in front of the fire. He seemed like a good guy, but even her mom could clean up nice. Dani had half-listened to the men talk about how they met and their experiences over the last month, but she’d been so tired, she missed plenty.

  Part of her wanted to stay like Colt asked and part of her wanted to rush out and find him. She chewed on a nail. “So you have a daughter?”

  Walter nodded. “She’s a few years older than you. Almost finished her second year in college before the EMP.”

  “Are you a good father?”

  The question caught Walter off guard and he blinked. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

  “What’s the point? It’s not like being polite will get me anything but dead.”

  “I suppose not.” Walter flicked a lighter and held it to a dry bit of fluff. It caught on fire and he eased it under the half-burned logs from the night before. Only then did he answer. “I’d like to think of myself as a good dad, yeah. I love my daughter. I would do anything to protect her and keep her safe. Maybe I was a little hard on her when she was younger, but I hope she appreciates it now.”

  Dani swallowed. Walter sounded like the best dad ever. What she would have given for someone other than Gran to give a rip about her. She worked her lower lip back and forth between her teeth. “Where is she now? Why isn’t she out here with you?”

  He watched the flames of the fire rise as he answered. “When we left Sacramento, we headed up here to a cabin one of my daughter’s friends knew about. It’s safe and secure and Madison is with her mother. I’m here pulling my weight. I can’t live off other people’s generosity. I have to contribute.”

  Dani knew exactly how he felt. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for letting us stay here overnight.”

  “It sounded like you were in a desperate situation.”

  She pursed her lips. “I’m not giving up.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “The car crash wasn’t our fault. We couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “Colt and I will make it. We’re survivors.” Dani didn’t know why she felt the need to defend herself to this stranger, but she couldn’t help it. He needed to know she wasn’t some helpless girl who needed saving. She would survive even if he turned his back on them.

  Walter poked at the fire. “I’ve got some food if you’re hungry. It’s not bacon and eggs, but there’s more jerky and I dried some early salmonberries I found the other day. There’s even a patch of miner’s lettuce closer to the creek.”

  Dani’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She swallowed and tried again. “I’ve already taken some of your food. I…I can go without.”

  “It’s not a problem.” He stood and made his way to a collection of sacks of various sizes before waving her over. “Come, I’ll show you.”

  Walter pulled open a sack at his feet. He scooped a small cup into the sack and came out with some pink things that looked like lumpy raisins. “Salmonberries usually aren’t ripe until May or June but this bush must have gotten a bunch of early sun.” He held the cup out as Dani walked up. “I dried them a few days ago. Help yourself.”

  Dani plucked a single fruit. She sniffed it before taking a tentative bite. Sugar and tart exploded inside her mouth and she almost smiled. “It’s kind of like a raspberry.”

  “Indeed.” Walter closed the bag before reaching for another. “I’ve also harvested some burdock root. We can mash it up and fry it. Tastes sort of like a parsnip.”

  A parsnip. Dani racked her brain, but came up empty. “Is that a like a potato?”

  Walter chuckled. “Let me guess, you grew up in the city.”

  Dani didn’t know what to say so she shoved another dried berry in her mouth. She didn’t want to tell the man that he might as well be speaking a foreign language.

  Memories of Gloria teaching her how to shell peas sprang to mind and Dani’s tongue turned to lead. She forced the berry down her throat and thumped her chest. “My mother wasn’t real good with this sort of stuff.”

  “I’d be happy to teach you.”

  Dani focused on
the ground. Why was he being so nice? Did he want something? Was he going to use her against Colt somehow? He couldn’t be just a good guy with no ulterior motives. People like that didn’t survive anymore. It didn’t work for the Wilkins family or Melody… or maybe even Doug.

  She kicked at a pinecone and watched it roll away. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “Because the more I get to know you, the more hope I have for the future.”

  Dani glanced up. He didn’t seem to be blowing smoke. The open look on his face said he meant every word. It didn’t make sense. Why would anything she said give him hope? “I’m nothing special.”

  “That’s exactly why I have hope. You’re not standing there snarfing down my food, or complaining about the woods, or thinking only of what you’ve lost.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “Because you aren’t looking for someone else to save you. You’ve decided to save yourself.”

  Dani supposed Walter was right. Was that the difference between her life before the EMP and now? Before the grid failed, was she spending her days secretly wishing for someone to swoop in and save her from her mom and the life she was forced to live?

  She sucked in a deep breath and huffed it out. Maybe Walter was everything he said he was and more, but she wouldn’t take his generosity lying down. She pointed at the sack. “Would you mind showing me what you’ve harvested? I need to know what’s edible around here.”

  Walter smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

  The two of them worked through every sack and container Walter had assembled and then moved onto various plants around the campsite. Dani sampled everything from miner’s lettuce to dandelion greens to young cattail shoots.

  Walter explained what grew when and what to look for along the creek bed versus inside the forest. He even showed Dani how to make tea out of elderberry flowers and wild violets.

  She smiled over the rim of her mug. “Thank you for everything. I never knew so much food grew in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Believe me, neither did I. If it weren’t for some enterprising friends of my daughter, I wouldn’t be much better off than you. I can hunt, but I always left the foraging to others.”

  Dani sipped her tea and nodded. For the first time in forever, hope blossomed in her chest. Even if they had to camp in the woods, with a little bit of knowledge, they could survive. She turned to reach for the pot of hot water when the mug in her hands shattered.

  Ceramic shards flew in all directions. One jagged piece lanced her cheek and Dani screamed.

  Walter grabbed her and dragged her to the ground. “Get to the rifles! Now!”

  He shielded her with his body as they scrambled across the ground. Shots rang out from a position deep in the forest. Dani couldn’t tell if it was one shooter or a whole militia full of men. Blood coated her cheek and oozed down her neck as bullets pocked the dirt at her feet.

  Walter lunged for a rifle and tossed it back to her as she spun around. Whoever was shooting wouldn’t kill her without a fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  COLT

  Northern California Forest

  7:00 a.m.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Colt traipsed through the forest, an arm’s length away from Larkin. The pair had been circling the muddy river bank where they found Melody’s body for over an hour looking for any sign of her brother.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “What did he do with Melody’s body?” Colt couldn’t make heads or tails of what must have happened in the night. When Larkin came back to Walter’s camp explaining he couldn’t find Doug, Colt blew it off. He figured the guy needed some time to grieve.

  The last thing Colt wanted to do was confront Doug again in the dark. But now that they couldn’t find a single trace of him, Colt second-guessed himself. Maybe if they’d gone straight back and hunted the surrounding area, they would have come across him and been able to calm the grieving man down.

  “We’ve looked up and down the creek and he’s not there. I didn’t see any mound for a burial site, either.” Larkin paused to think. “That means he either took her body back to the Humvee or he’s gone completely crazy and run off with her into the forest.”

  Colt gulped a mouthful of water from the canteen Walter let him borrow and nodded. “Let’s hit the Humvee. If he’s there, great. If not, we can strip the Humvee and haul everything back to the camp.”

  “What do you know about Walter?”

  “He saved an entire planeload of people when the power went out.” Colt scratched at his beard. “Beyond that, not much. He left as soon as we landed. Said he had a wife and daughter in Sacramento he needed to get back to.”

  “Where are they?”

  Colt shrugged. “Somewhere safe is my guess. You’ve seen his setup. He’s obviously gathering food for more than just himself.”

  Larkin nodded. “I was so thankful when I ran into him yesterday, I didn’t ask any questions. A man with venison jerky in his pocket is a good man to know.”

  Colt agreed. If all went well, running into Walter might mean the difference between living and merely hanging on. “I think we should offer him some of the guns and ammo. It’s the least we can do.”

  “Sounds fair. It’s not like we can carry them all anyway.”

  The pair of military men lapsed into silence as they hiked toward the Humvee. Colt kept his eyes open for any sign of Doug, but they reached the vehicle with no further clues as to the man’s disappearance. Colt set his rifle down and leaned against the fender. “Let’s strip this thing and then go dig up the weapons. We should be able to haul it all back if we use the cammie netting to make a sled.”

  After a few minutes of rest, Colt and Larkin set to work. Colt hauled the netting out of the rear of the vehicle and set the netting poles on top. Larkin popped the hood and pulled the easily accessible engine belts and the battery.

  The inside yielded the pioneer kit Colt had already used to bury Harvey, the SINGCARS radio, and corresponding SL-3 kit. Colt thought back to the first night he regained consciousness at the Wilkins family home. Will had tuned in the radio to hear Walter’s voice admonishing them to not give up hope.

  He wondered if the man still had the ability to broadcast. If he didn’t, he would by the time Colt lugged the radio back to camp.

  Larkin stopped to stare at all the gear. “You find a pack mule in there, too?”

  Colt chuckled. “I think you’re lookin’ at him.”

  “You find any whiskey in there?”

  “Not a drop.”

  “Damn.” Larkin shook his head. “That’s priority number one when we find another town. Whiskey. I am not huffing all this stuff a hundred miles without a payoff at the end.”

  “I’m hoping we won’t have to go nearly that far.”

  Larkin paused. “Walter’s place?”

  “Or somewhere nearby. It can’t hurt to ask.”

  “I suppose not. But you know what is gonna hurt?”

  “Carrying all this?”

  “And the ammo, too. Don’t forget the ammo.”

  Colt groaned. “Lead the way, soldier. I was too busy burying Harvey to know what you did with it.”

  Larkin motioned toward a makeshift path due south of the Humvee. He stopped at the base of a gnarled pine tree. The ground beneath the lower branches was fresh and free of debris. “It should all be here. Guns and ammo, both.” He frowned. “I swear I covered it better than this, though.”

  With the shovel and the pick axe Colt and Larkin took turns digging up the loose soil above the guns. Colt struck something solid first. “I’ve hit something.”

  Larkin gave a start. “No way. I buried everything way deeper than that.” He fell to his knees and used the pick axe’s blunt side to scrape away the dirt. Instead of a black duffel bag, he exposed the graying flesh of a human arm. He leaned back in shock. “What the—?”

  Colt kneeled beside him and together they uncovered enough of the body to
confirm what neither expected: Melody. “Doug must have buried her here.”

  “But why?”

  All the answers that he came to find filled Colt with dread. A few more than others. “The bags might still be beneath her. We need to move her.”

  Larkin stared at Melody’s corpse for a moment before moving. “Right. Of course.” He reached for her, sliding his hands beneath her ribs. As he stood up, the dirt fell away, exposing her dark brown curls and cold, dead skin.

  Colt attacked the hole with the shovel, scooping and throwing dirt as quickly as possible. After five minutes of solid effort, he stopped. “They aren’t here.”

  “Not a single one?”

  “Doug took everything. The duffels. The ammo. All of it. I’m down to hard-packed earth.”

  Larkin’s jaw tightened into a steel line. His muscles flexed as he lowered Melody back into the grave. “When we find him, I’m beating the answer out of him. I don’t care if he was Melody’s brother or not.”

  Larkin stalked off to ready the supplies while Colt re-buried Melody’s body. By the time he finished, sweat soaked his shirt, but did nothing to dissipate his anger. Doug had been hard to read from the start. When they worked together to rescue Gloria from the militia, Colt thought the man had changed. But after this…

  If they did find Doug, Colt wouldn’t stop Larkin from doing what he promised. They couldn’t risk anyone’s safety with a man who might have gone off the rails.

  Before he left, Colt paused at the edge of Melody’s grave. He didn’t have a cross or a bouquet of flowers, but he could say a few words. “I’m sorry for all that you suffered at the hands of Jarvis and Captain Ferguson and the militia. I never meant to mix you, your brother, or the Wilkins family up in any of it.

  “You were nothing but kind to me. Hell, thanks to your handiwork with a needle I’m not oozing pus and trying to chop off my own leg.” He knelt and put one hand on the middle of Melody’s grave. “I’ll miss you, Melody. I’m sorry you can’t continue on this journey with us.”