“Get off me!” shouted Jake, twisting away from John.
He needed to get away. He needed to breathe.
Even Rose couldn’t calm him down this time.
“Jake!” shouted Rose.
But it was too late.
He was off, running away from the camp as fast as he could.
He had nothing with him but the clothes on his back.
There was shouting behind him, but he couldn’t make out the words. He ignored it.
He felt like a cornered animal.
Jake ran across the snow, through the moonlight.
It felt good to run. It was better out here, away from everyone.
The cool air felt good in his lungs. Soothing.
Jake ran and ran. He was far away from the camp now. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his boots hitting the ground as he kicked up snow.
Exhausted from running, he slumped down, his back against a tree. The seat of his jeans rested in the snow. It was cold, but he didn’t care.
He looked out into nature. It was beautiful, the freshly fallen snow covering the trees like blankets. Scenes like this were why he and Rose had wanted to travel the country. They’d wanted to take it all in. They’d wanted to experience nature rather than living out their lives locked away in some office building under fluorescent lighting.
Minutes ticked by, and Jake was unaware of them. A few minutes turned into half an hour. Then an hour.
Out here, his mind was starting to feel clearer.
He was physically exhausted from the running. He didn’t know how far he’d gone, but when he turned to look, he couldn’t see any hint of the camp or the campfire.
Jake put his fingers to his neck, to check his pulse. It was still beating rapidly. But that was normal from the running. He wasn’t going as fast as when he’d had the panic attacks.
Had he gotten over it?
The freezing temperatures felt good. They seemed to sap the heat and anxiety from his body.
Jake stood up, dusting himself off.
He was ready to return to camp. He’d have to apologize to Rose. She’d understand, though. He’d told her all about the panic attacks he’d used to have. The others, though, might not be so understanding.
He had, after all, put everyone in danger. Maybe they’d come out looking for him, exposing themselves to the enemies who could strike the camp at any moment.
“Who are you?”
The voice was unfamiliar. It was coming from behind him.
Jake turned to look.
A wild-looking man was standing there. His hair was long and greasy. His beard was scraggly and wild.
He wore a huge parka. He held some kind of rifle in both hands. It was pointed right at Jake.
Jake didn’t have a gun with him. The others at camp had made him take one, but he must have left in the van. During the panic attack, carrying a gun had been the last thing on his mind.
Not that he had any idea how to use it anyway.
Jake’s heart started beating faster.
He might have been about to have another panic attack.
But it probably didn’t matter.
It was too late.
15
Anton
“Ricky’s not back yet?” said Anton.
The man shook his head.
Anton couldn’t remember his name. To Anton, he was just another lackey. Nothing but a soldier. Someone who would do his bidding. Someone who would raise Anton to greatness. He wasn’t one of the important ones. Not someone he was trying to impress.
Not like Marshal.
“What’s the word?” said Marshal.
“Seems like Ricky’s not back,” said Anton.
The men were sitting around the fire. They’d been there for what felt like hours.
At this point, they were once again warm. Not to mention well fed.
They’d bought plenty of good food with them, and Anton could tell the men were feeling better.
This was the rest they’d needed.
The snow had stopped falling, and the night seemed peaceful and calm. If it hadn’t been for the reality of the mission and the EMP, they could have been mistaken for a group of very committed hunters.
Not that their weapons would have been typically used by hunters.
Anton, though, wasn’t as relaxed as the rest of the men. The pressure to impress Marshal was growing on him. He needed to get this over with. And the sooner the better.
Anton glanced over at Marshal, who seemed as calm as ever.
“All right,” said Anton. “We’re going to move on out. It’s time.”
“What about the scout? Ricky?” said Marshal.
“What about him?”
“I thought the plan was to wait until he got back.”
“It was,” said Anton, inflating his chest instinctively, even though it wasn’t visible underneath his parka. “But apparently he’s not coming back. Maybe he ran off. He was always a coward. Or maybe he got killed. We don’t have anything to worry about, anyway.”
“I don’t know,” said Marshal. “I thought this Max figure was supposed to be clever. And dangerous.”
“What do you care? I thought you said you were just along for the ride?”
Marshal shrugged and gave Anton one of his perplexing half-smiles. It unnerved Anton, right down to his bones. But he chose to ignore it.
“I’m in charge,” said Anton. “These are my men, and I’m saying we go.”
“Your call,” said Marshal, seeming not to care too much either way.
Anton gave the order, and the men started packing up their gear, checking their weapons. The mood was jovial. They’d eaten, and spirits all around were better. The men joked with each other as they got ready.
“We’re going to slaughter them.”
“They won’t know what hit them.”
“Max is as good as dead.”
“I’m going to be the one who gets him.”
“Says who?”
“Yeah, says who? He’s fair game to all of us.”
“No, he’s mine.”
“That’s what you think.”
“He killed my brother.”
“At the compound?”
“Shit, man, I didn’t realize.”
“He’s still fair game.”
“Come on, you better let Art have him. He killed his brother, man.”
“He killed a lot of people.”
The banter was getting Anton feeling better about it all. They would, after all, completely slaughter Max and his group.
Max, for all of his apparent cunning, didn’t stand a chance.
Anton’s group were committed men. Basically soldiers. They were well fed, well-rested, and better armed.
Sure, they’d had to walk a long way to get here. But for all the past weeks and months, they’d slept on their bunks in the compound. Max’s group, on the other hand, had been living like animals, sleeping where they could, struggling to eat, struggling to survive.
Anton’s men were strong. They’d take them easily.
“All right, men,” said Anton, addressing the group.
The banter died down.
Anton tried to make his voice deep and commanding-sounding.
“We’ll break into two groups,” said Anton. “You three, come with me. We’ll approach from the north. The rest of you, you’ll go with Marshal. You’ll hit them from the east.”
Marshal glanced at Anton.
“That OK with you, Marshal? You leading one of the groups.”
“Fine by me,” said Marshal. That strange smile was still on his lips. It worried Anton. Was Marshal up to something? He tried to push the thought to the back of his mind.
“We’ll all head there together,” said Anton. “Once we get in sight of the camp, we’ll break up into our two groups. We won’t have to worry about crossfire if we stay strict with our approach angles. So use your compasses. Visibility’s good, so we won’t have to worry about tha
t. We’ve got the advantage of better firepower. We’ll hang back and pump them full of bullets.”
“We can’t lose!”
“They won’t know what hit them.”
Anton smiled wryly at the men. They were obviously ready for victory.
There was no way they could lose.
Max didn’t stand a chance.
16
Max
Despite the dropping temperatures, Max was warmer now. The fire had helped immensely. He would have been dead without it. His body was still stiff, and didn’t feel quite right.
He’d gotten too cold. He’d let his mind start to slip away. He and Mandy could have easily died out there, lost in the snow, not to be found until the following day.
Max hadn’t seen Jake dash off into the woods.
But he’d learned about it soon enough. John had rushed over to tell him.
“Problems with Rose and Jake,” he’d said.
“What happened?” said Max, turning his attention away from the surrounding woods.
“Jake ran off. Panic attack. Rose ran after him.”
Max didn’t know what to do. He had to make a decision quickly.
At any moment, the enemy could attack. And Max was expecting the worst. Expecting that it’d be more men than they were counting on. That they’d have better guns than they were expecting. And that they were more strategically-minded and ruthless.
If they went after Rose and Jake, they’d risk leaving the camp less defended than it should have been. Even if they only sent one or two people. And it wasn’t something that Max could tell someone else to do. It’d have to be him.
If he left, that meant leaving the camp and his friends. It’d be as bad as leaving Jake and Rose out there alone.
After all, the longer Jake and Rose stayed away from the camp, the more likely they were to die.
“Are they armed?”
“I think Rose is. But Jake isn’t.”
“Shit,” muttered Max.
“Should we go after them?”
Max was thinking as fast as he could.
It was one of the tough decisions. But they all tended to be that way. And there was a limit to how used to it you could get.
Max shook his head. “No,” he said. “We can’t risk leaving the camp less defended than it is.”
“But they’ll die out there,” said John.
Max nodded. “Maybe.”
“You can’t just let them die.”
“We need to stay here,” said Max.
“We’ve got to go,” said John. “We can’t leave them out there on their own.”
John’s face was starting to show his anger and frustration.
Since meeting his brother again, Max had been impressed with how practical John had gotten. He was a different man than the one Max remembered from before the EMP. The events had changed him. His new life had changed him.
So it surprised Max that John wanted to risk all their lives for Jake and Rose. After all, Jake and Rose hadn’t been too keen to carry guns, to learn how to use them, or to learn any number of things that would have saved their own lives.
Everyone needed to be responsible for their own safety. To an extent. Those who weren’t, well, that was the breaks.
And John knew that. And Max knew that John knew that.
There was something else going on. There was some kind of frustration that John was carrying inside him. And it didn’t have to do with Jake and Rose. It had to do with Max.
Max knew what it probably was. John had thought Max had had all the answers. He thought that Max would save him.
And now that he’d found Max, the reality was tough to swallow. Sure, Max sometimes knew what he was doing. He was good at certain things. But he hadn’t been in the military. He wasn’t an expert fighter. He was a practical man who knew his own limitations. He thought clearly in desperate situations. He had a good head on his shoulders, and the ability to keep pushing on and on when the going seemed impossible.
But that wasn’t enough for John. He’d wanted a savior. Someone who wasn’t even human. Someone who could save not only John, but Jake and Rose too.
Maybe in John’s mind the fact that Max was “giving up,” on Jake and Rose meant that he’d give up on John at some point too.
And that wasn’t who Max was. He wasn’t a savior. He’d tried to save Chad. He’d done all he could, and Chad had died anyway. It’d been Chad’s own fault.
“John,” said Max, quietly. “Leave them. Hopefully they’ll come back.”
John didn’t say anything. His eyes gleamed with something that wasn’t quite anger. But it was as intense as anger.
There wasn’t time to worry about all that, though. Max knew it was only a matter of time before the enemy would arrive. This wasn’t the time to hash out some kind of strange sibling rivalry. Or whatever it was.
“I’m going to check on James,” said Max.
John nodded but said nothing.
Max left him, and began trudging through the snow towards the spot where James was hidden.
As soon as Max had been able to think clearly again after almost freezing to death, he’d come up with the idea of positioning three scouts around the camp.
Currently, James, Sadie, and Cynthia were in three separate locations, hidden in the snow and the trees. Each of their positions was a few hundred feet away from camp. If one looked at it from a bird’s eye view, the three points formed a triangle that surrounded the camp. That gave them complete visibility for anyone approaching.
James, Sadie, and Cynthia were chosen because they were some of the physically smallest members of the group. And they all had experience, too. Max had known he could count on them, whereas Jake and Rose were still a completely unknown quantity.
And it was good he hadn’t decided to count on them. They’d rushed off into the woods, probably to meet their own demise.
Max couldn’t think about them now.
Mandy, of course, had volunteered in Cynthia’s place, but she’d been still recovering from almost freezing to death. She’d needed time by the fire. If the enemy didn’t show up for hours, there was always the possibility of rotating the watch. But for now, Max had wanted those three out there.
The plan was that if James, Sadie, or Cynthia spotted anyone approaching, they were to dash back to the camp and warn the others.
The only problem with the plan was that the temperature had dropped, and the three wouldn’t have the warmth of the fire.
But Max had packed them all in with a good amount of snow, which would actually act as an insulator, helping to keep them warm.
He was headed now to check on each one of them, to make sure they hadn’t gotten too cold.
But before Max had reached the edge of camp, before he’d even gotten to the tree line, he heard footsteps pounding heavily on the ground.
Max’s hand was already on his Glock. He had it drawn and ready, finger on the trigger.
He saw movement in the trees. Someone was sprinting at top speed right towards him.
He saw the face, and it took him a moment to recognize who it was.
It was James, his gun in his hands, terror on his face.
“They’re coming!” He spoke in a hushed whisper, but the urgency was clearly there in his voice.
“How many?”
“Three or four. I’m not sure.”
“Come on.”
Max turned on his heel and dashed back to the fire, where the others were. He could hear James running behind him.
So far, Max’s plan had worked. They had advance warning.
But they’d need more than just that to survive.
If they stayed in the camp, they’d be sitting ducks.
The van probably wouldn’t work as any kind of permanent shelter, except to obscure them briefly from view. The bullets would pierce the metal. The van wouldn’t keep them safe.
To stay alive, they’d need to snap into action. They’d need to execute the second pa
rt of Max’s plan.
Max reached the fire only seconds before James.
James put his hands on his knees, doubling over, his breathing fast and rapid from sprinting.
“They’re coming,” said Max. “James saw them.”
The heads turned towards him. Terror colored their faces.
But they weren’t the types to let fear destroy them, to let it paralyze them. They were strong, and Max’s attitude had rubbed off on all of them.
They grabbed their guns, standing up rapidly.
They knew the plan. But they looked to Max for further instruction.
“We need to get the other scouts,” said Max. “Mandy, you know where Sadie and Cynthia are. Bring them to the place we talked about. We’ll meet you there.”
Mandy nodded.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps thundering through the snow hit Max’s ears.
He turned to look, his Glock still ready.
“It’s Sadie!”
Sadie was running top speed towards them, her fairly short arms and legs pumping with incredible speed.
“They’re coming!”
“Shit,” muttered John.
“Two groups?” said Mandy.
Georgia said nothing. There was only grim determination on her face.
Max hadn’t been expecting that the enemy would split up like that. He’d been expecting only one single scout to come rushing back.
Despite the surprise, there was nothing to do but act.
And fast.
“Mandy,” said Max, pointing to the area where Cynthia lay in hiding, waiting and watching.
The possibility of three groups was unlikely. And if they had splintered into three groups, it didn’t matter. The strategy at this point was going to be the same.
They were coming from the north and the east.
Max’s plan had been to have everyone at camp sneak away, hiding within the trees in locations where they’d be able to attack the enemy. The unexpected locations would be their advantage, along with the thick cover of the trees. The enemy would come in, expecting an easy battle, expecting to simply pepper the camp with bullets, slaughtering everyone there.
Max was playing the guerrilla warfare game. He’d scouted the area, and already shown everyone where they were to hide. They’d be spread out, and the enemy would hopefully be clustered together.
Fighting Rough Page 8
