Enduring Grit: an EMP survival story (The Off Grid Survivor Book 3)

by Connor Mccoy

  “Of course,” Hunter said. “Consider it done.”

  The shooter backed up into the hall. Only then did the men breathe deeply. It was understandable, after all. When in the presence of the leader of the town of Davies, Kurt Marsh, it seemed no one could even breathe without his permission.

  DARBER PULLED BACK the tongue depressor from Carla’s mouth. “And, perfect. No infections, no signs of bacteria, no allergies.”

  A loud sneeze rang out in the hallway beyond Carla and Liam’s room. Darber turned around, as did Conrad, who was standing in the corner by the bed, while Carla giggled. “As opposed to other members of this household,” Darber said.

  Tom poked his head into the room. He was clutching a tissue over his mouth. “Sorry.” Then he blew his nose with a loud honking sound. “God knows what I picked up out there.”

  “Could be ragweed or pollen. You’ve been working around the animals without incident for a few weeks, so I doubt you have animal allergies,” Darber said.

  “Lucky me,” Tom said, then blew his nose again.

  “Even so, stay clear of animals with long hair for a while and see what happens,” Darber said, “Let’s see if it helps you recover more quickly.”

  “Yeah.” Sarah then approached Tom and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t need a night watchman who sneezes all the time.”

  “It’d be like painting a target on my head,” Tom replied. “I sneeze, and the bad guys know where to shoot.”

  Darber stood up. “Anyway, we’re finished here.”

  Carla jumped up. “Thanks.” Then she gave Darber a hug before exiting the room. Tom and Sarah turned and departed down the hall ahead of Carla.

  Conrad waited until Carla had left before taking Darber by the shoulder. “Oh, Ron.” He pulled Darber a little closer before speaking again, a little more quietly. “I think it’s about time we tend to our other piece of business. We’ve been putting it off for too long.”

  Darber had taken a brief moment to think about what Conrad was saying. “Oh, right. That piece of business.”

  REGINALD POINTED to the closed overhead door on the big building that overshadowed him and Lance. “We just got finished bringing in the latest haul of crops yesterday. Tomorrow, we’re going to start dispensing them around town.”

  Lance looked down the street. “I wish it wasn’t so close to the edge of the city.”

  “Well, we couldn’t help that. This was the best storage facility in the area.” Reginald, better known as “Reg” to everyone, looked up at the sign that read Full Moon Storage. “I know the location leaves it at some more risk, but we set up two good monitoring stations up that street.” Reg turned and gestured to the small store just a few yards up the street. “That’s where you’ll be staying. It used to be a school supply store before we refitted it for a lookout post. It’ll free up Morgan to join us over here.”

  Lance tugged at his new shirt. In addition to shelter and food, the town had provided him with clean clothing. He swore never to take clean clothing for granted ever again. “So, how is this going to work again?”

  “Simple.” Reg walked out from the shade of the storage facility, allowing the sun to shine on his ebony skin. “When trouble shows up, you rush out to the old copy center and give the alert. We’ll take it from there. We set up a chain of runners from one store to another to spread emergency alerts. Now, the gunshots might stir us up, but we can’t take any chances.”

  Reg then turned, his back to the street. “Also, we got a special cloak inside. It’s dark red, like those buildings nearby. Stick it on you. In the dark, it’s going to be hard to make you out. Just make sure you don’t move too quickly until you know you’re out of danger.”

  “You really think of everything, don’t you?” Lance laughed.

  “We got some helpful tips from a friend of ours. One of our traders is a survivalist. He pops in every now and then. He gave Nigel and the rest of us some advice once the calamity calmed down.”

  “Good thing he knew about this stuff, huh?” Lance asked.

  “No kidding. I’ve been in the furniture business for twenty years, but I didn’t know jack about how to blend into a city during a crisis. That’s the ‘gray man’ theory.” Reg chuckled. “Say, you’re feeling better, right?”

  Lance stretched his arms. “Yeah.”

  “How about you take a practice run? Go all the way to the store and back. Don’t go nuts. Try jogging first.”

  Lance sucked in some breath. Then he took off running down the street toward the school supply store.

  As soon as Lance reached the store, he heard a sound that made him stop before he made the turn back to Reg. He looked ahead, turning his head to the side to aim his ear in the direction of the noise.

  The sound grew louder. Then the pebbles on the asphalt near Lance’s shoe shook.

  “Lance?” Reg called. “Hey, what’s going on? You hear something?” Reg started walking toward Lance, but then he slowed his pace. “Hey, does that sound like…”

  “A car! No, a truck!” Lance called back.

  A few seconds later, a red truck crossed an intersection up ahead. The truck was hauling a small trailer with several adult males riding on top of it. The vehicle only showed itself for an instant, but that’s all Lance needed. He had seen that truck before, on the roads of Davies.

  “Shit,” Lance whispered.

  By now Reg had caught up to Lance. “What is it?”

  “Shit,” Lance repeated.

  “Hey, snap out of it. You’re as white as a ghost. Do you know who that was?” Reg asked.

  “Um…” Lance’s first instinct was to say no, but he had given away too much fear in his body language. Besides, he didn’t like the idea of lying to Reg. He had been in such ill company for so long that it made him bottle things up. But now that he had been surrounded by good people for three days, he didn’t like the idea of hiding things from them.

  Lance finally came up with an answer that seemed to quell all his nagging voices. “They’re from Davies,” he said.

  “Davies?” Reg asked. “That’s the town Conrad was talking to Nigel about.”

  “What?” Lance’s mouth dropped open at the mention of the name ‘Conrad.’

  “Yeah. Conrad Drake. He’s the survivalist I told you about. Turns out he came from Davies not too long ago,” Reg said.

  Lance’s skin grew even colder. Holy shit, I didn’t realize these people knew Conrad!

  “I think we better talk to Nigel,” Reg said.

  Lance was starting to regret he said anything.

  “STOP HERE,” Kurt ordered.

  Fallon, seated in the driver’s seat, complied and applied the brakes. In the passenger seat, Kurt waited as his men disembarked from the truck’s back seat, the truck bed, and from the trailer, and finally, for Hunter to open Kurt’s door.

  Hunter nodded as Kurt stepped past him. The rest of the men gave Kurt a little space. Kurt was aware the scene must come off as odd to any bystanders. If they lived in Davies, they’d understand. Under the ruling hand of Kurt Marsh, Davies had been pacified and its citizens fed. Kurt was more than a town leader, he was their god, with Hunter the high priest.

  But Doctor Darber had decided to flee Paradise. In Kurt’s view, this was a serious sin indeed.

  Kurt Marsh’s posse gathered in the street, all of them wearing masks except two men. One of them, Hunter, was fairly short but bundled up under a coat and a hat. Kurt was the only figure who fully exposed his face—or lack of it. Most of his ears were burned clean off, and horrible burns scarred him up to his right eye and up over his scalp. He wore no hat to cover his bald, burned head.

  “What do we do?” Behr asked.

  “A show of force, perhaps?” Hunter asked, in an oily tone that indicated he’d love to put on a violent display.

  “No,” Kurt replied. “We question the town. Our presence alone will provoke the fear we need. Besides, I don’t want to start a fight before I know whe
re my doctor is. Put a bullet in the wrong man and we lose our lead to Darber.”

  As the men dispersed, Kurt kept his gaze on his surroundings. This part of town was largely abandoned, with fire-damaged buildings on either side of the street and abandoned businesses. Despite the signs of life Hooper City presented, it was clear no community was spared the ravages of societal breakdown. Some just suffered it worse than others.

  In part, it saddened Kurt that he never had run across an unscathed community. However, another part of him revolted at the thought. After all, why did his town suffer when another town was spared such a fate?

  Cruel fate, Kurt thought. Cruel fate stole my family when others lived through this madness. I may be more merciful than Fate, or I may be a hundred times worse. Kurt enjoyed not choosing. It was his way of getting back at Fate. After all, if his family was murdered at random, perhaps Kurt should adopt the same thinking. He’d be as gentle as a lamb or as ruthless as a wolf when the time came.

  “Mister Kurt!” Behr ran up to the truck. “The other truck! We found it! It’s on the next street over!”

  Kurt Marsh walked into the middle of the street. “Then this is the place we’ve been looking for. Keep asking questions. My doctor could be anywhere around here.”

  “I JUST GOT BACK from Karl’s. They didn’t run into trouble. So far, all they’re doing is going around asking questions about Doctor Ronald Darber,” Jeff said.

  Nigel leaned against the wall of his store’s office. Lance and Jeff joined him inside. Nigel had dismissed Reg to gather more information about their new “guests.” “Same story we’ve been getting all day,” Nigel said, scratching his cheekbone.

  “Yeah, but they’re still brandishing weapons. There’s enough of them to cause a ruckus if they wanted. Nigel, we could end up with a panic. People are getting nervous. They’re wearing masks over their faces like a street gang,” Jeff said.

  Nigel shook his head. “We can’t let this go on. It’s time we all take our posts. All crop stores are guarded night and day until they beat it. I’m going to go find their leader and have a chat with him.” He glanced at Lance. “Okay kid, time to saddle up. We need a big show of men outside, and you’re going to be one of them.”

  “Wait! I got to be outside? I’m not the lookout?” Lance asked.

  “That’s the deal. You want to work for you supper, now’s the time.” Lance looked at Jeff. “Give the kid a gun. Hopefully, we don’t need to use them, but we can’t take any chances.”

  “No, stop, I can’t do this!” Lance waved his hands.

  “And why is that?” Nigel frowned. “This is a town where we all do our part. Now, you said you could handle a firearm. Time to handle it.”

  “But…but…you don’t understand. I can’t let them see me. They know who I am.”

  Nigel’s frown deepened. “They know you? Okay, did you cause them some trouble?”

  “That truck. It’s one of theirs. I took it from them. I used to work in Davies, but then I escaped.”

  “Now, that I didn’t know.” Nigel gripped the back of his office chair. He might be a man of thin build, but his sunken-in facial features made him look almost ghoulish when the man got angry. “Was there a chance these guys would come looking for you?”

  “I didn’t think so! Maybe they’re not! They’re asking about Doctor Darber, right? So, all I got to do is duck inside somewhere until they go away. See?”

  Nigel’s eyes fixed on Lance. The young man swallowed hard as he realized he wasn’t helping himself.

  “There’s twenty masked men rooting through my city looking for Doctor Darber. Somehow, you’re involved. There’s a lot you didn’t tell me when you showed up with that truck. Now, if you want us to hide you, you better spill it all and spill it quickly. We have dozens of men outside risking their necks for this town, and I’m not going to tolerate a quitter when the going gets tough. And if you’re partly to blame for them coming here, I might as well boot you outdoors and let them see if they have any business with you.”

  Lance nodded. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.”

  So, he told Nigel and Jeff about how he ended up in Davies and how he worked for Kurt’s men, about when he spotted Conrad on the road, and when he told Vander and the other men about it, and his whole journey out here.

  “So, how’d you recognize Conrad?” Nigel asked. “You know him?”

  “No, never met him,” Lance said quickly. That was the truth. He did, however, run away from Conrad while the homesteader was chucking grenades in his direction.

  “Then what’s the deal?” Nigel asked. “You seem afraid to even talk about him. Like I said, you need to spill it all.”

  Lance gulped. “You promise not to, you know, tell him about it. I know he comes around here, so you gotta keep this under wraps.”

  “Did you do something wrong to him?” Jeff asked.

  Lance trembled. “You might say. You’ve heard of Derrick Wellinger, right?”

  “Yeah, a regular wannabe rancher who didn’t have the touch for it. Why? You crossed paths with him?” Nigel asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “What do you mean?” Nigel curled his right fingers inward. “Be clear, kid. I’m getting tired of the runaround.”

  “Derrick wanted to…to steal Conrad’s ranch. So, he hired a bunch of men with guns to do it. And I…I tagged along.”

  Jeff’s features tightened. “You helped Derrick shoot up his place?”

  “I didn’t know there’d be anybody there but him. I figured Derrick would just talk Conrad into leaving. Look, I was on my last legs. It was stupid. I get it. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “You’re damn lucky nobody in that house got killed,” Jeff said.

  “Really? Well, that’s good,” Lance said.

  “Of course, Conrad’s son and his main squeeze, plus the girl who’s carrying Conrad’s grandchild, all were in there. So, he might have something to say about you shooting at them,” Nigel added ominously.

  Lance’s skin chilled. “Oh, shit,” he whispered.

  “Nigel!” Reg jogged into the room from a nearby hall. “They’re headed this way. The whole mob of them.”

  Nigel sighed. “Thanks, Reg. I’m headed out there.” Then he glared at Lance. “You stay here and hide. Wait until I come back.”

  Nigel had taken a few steps toward the door before he stopped. Jeff was following, but halted when Nigel refused to walk any farther. “There’s another side door outside,” Nigel said. “I’m not stupid. I know you could run, but I can’t spare a man to guard you. You want to run, that’s your business. But if you got any sense of personal responsibility in your guts, you’ll stick around, because you still owe a debt to somebody.”

  Then Nigel turned and left, taking Reg and Jeff with him.

  Lance poked his head out the door. Sure enough, the side door lay a few steps down the hall, with no obvious locks. A quick escape seemed easy.

  Why not run? He didn’t owe anybody anything.

  He ought to leave this place. He should skip this town, get away while he still could.

  Instead, he didn’t move from the office.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  NIGEL TRIED KEEPING a straight face as he approached the posse, to avoid betraying any fear or apprehension. The odds, though, looked a little grim. Ten men backed up Nigel, but twenty stood in the shadow of Kurt Marsh.

  “Welcome to Hooper City,” Nigel said, in a neutral tone. “What can we do for you?”

  Hunter pointed to the truck that sat in front of Hooper Feed. Nigel had allowed it to be parked there. He had instructed Lance not to drive it around town, since it should be used for emergencies only. Lance eagerly had agreed. Now Nigel wished he had had the foresight to move it to someplace secure where it could not be seen. “Where is the driver of that truck?” Hunter asked, “Who came here?”

  “We don’t know. Truck’s been abandoned for days. Whoever drove it here is long gone,” Nigel said. “You’v
e had time to ask around. I’m sure nobody else knows anything. Perhaps your man just went AWOL.”

  “If you’re lying to us, the consequences won’t be pretty. The Phoenix will set your town ablaze,” Hunter said.

  “Hey, if you want the truck back, it’s all yours.” Nigel pointed to the vehicle. “We don’t have a reason to lie to you. We’re just trying to put our town back on its feet, to the extent we can.”

  “You had better—” Hunter began.

  But this time Kurt spoke up, cutting him off. “Search the truck,” he said.

  Five of his men hurried to the vehicle. One of them possessed a spare set of keys, using it to open up the truck’s driver side door. The men did a quick examination, pulling open the glove compartment, looking in and under the seats, and flipping down the sun visors.

  One of them held up a folded map. Kurt and Hunter quickly approached as the man unfolded it against the side of the truck. Kurt pointed to the circled spot off State Road 22. “There. It says, ‘Conrad Drake.’ This must be where my doctor is.” Kurt then turned to Nigel. “This man, Conrad, does he come around here?”

  “Not often,” Nigel replied. “What’s your beef with him?”

  “He took my doctor. I want him back. Will he come here soon?” Kurt asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nigel said. “And I don’t think he’ll be so willing to show his face if he spots you with all your men and guns looking to blow his ass away.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kurt said. “We know where he is.”

  “You intend to negotiate peacefully for your doctor’s return?” Nigel asked.

  A few of Kurt’s men laughed under their masks. Even Kurt managed a slight, crooked smile.

  “We are very good at negotiating. And, you know, I always get what I want. Now, there’s still the matter of this truck’s driver. He’s one of my own, and no one deserts me. So, I expect compensation for him, or Hunter here will light the first match.”