The World That Remains (Evergreen Book 2)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Incoming,” said Annapurna. “Left, hill.”

  Harper ducked around the back end of the van, taking cover at the corner and aiming to the west. Four people in dingy street clothes caked in grey dust approached, crossing a wide hill of ash-covered grass that separated the gas station from a row of tight-packed houses. A young black woman at the far left sorta-aimed an AR15 at Annapurna. Next to her, a skinny Hispanic guy held a shotgun resting back over his shoulder, the barrel pointed to the rear. The third guy had to be six and a half feet tall, muscular but thin, bald, and carrying some manner of machine gun with a huge ammunition box. At the far right stood a guy with a massive ginger beard and an AK47, which he generally pointed at Cliff. Several hatches dangled from a pair of leather belts in an X across his flannel shirt.

  Fortunately, they didn’t wear blue sashes, but they also didn’t look too happy to see visitors.

  Everyone stared at each other for a silent moment.

  They’re checking us out. Harper looked each of them in the eye one after the next. The woman gave off a ‘please don’t be hostile’ vibe while the tall guy with the big gun felt more like he expected to fight but the idea didn’t thrill him.

  “Yo, Jay, that your sister?” whispered the guy with the shotgun, nodding toward Harper.

  The man with the huge red beard shook his head. “Nope.”

  Cliff raised his left hand in a gesture of greeting.

  At a scuff from behind, Harper whirled to her left. Zach rushed around the van and stopped next to her, raising his rifle while shouting, “Got left!”

  “No!” shouted Harper, swinging her shotgun up into his varmint rifle, knocking it skyward a second before it went off with a sharp snap.

  The woman dove to the ground on her side, aiming at Zach/Harper. The other three also all trained their weapons in her direction. Annapurna and Cliff took aim at the guy with the machine gun.

  “Hey!” yelled Zach, shoving his gun against hers, trying to push her out of his way.

  “Don’t shoot!” screamed Harper, her voice childishly high from fear and ragged from anger. She hooked Zach’s leg and rammed her shoulder into his chest, knocking him over.

  He landed flat on the concrete, barking like a kicked goose as the impact knocked the air out of his lungs.

  She froze, her back to the four people pointing guns at her. They had her dead to rights if they wanted; her maneuver to take Zach down left her two steps away from any cover. Considering Zach had shot at them, she couldn’t believe they hadn’t shredded her already. As furious as she was with him, having a firing squad focused on her made her tremble.

  Four seconds of silence passed.

  Zach coughed and groaned. “Ow.”

  “What the hell’s his problem?” asked a deep-voiced man.

  Thank you… Harper exhaled, hoping that if they hadn’t shot her yet, they wouldn’t.

  “FNG,” said Cliff with a note of scorn. “Always the FNG.”

  Harper gradually turned her head to the right, peering over her shoulder at the people who all still pointed guns at her. Maybe they aimed at Zach on the ground at her feet, but if they fired at him, they’d tear her up, too. She almost dropped the shotgun and put her hands up, but that felt too much like surrendering, so she merely stood as still as possible. Cliff had his AR15 trained on the tall man, who continued to cover Harper with the machine gun, though his eyes had shifted to lock stares with Cliff. It seemed he knew he’d be the first one dead the instant any more bullets flew.

  “The hell was that for?” wheezed Zach.

  “If you sit up, I’m going to shoot you myself,” said Harper. “But I probably won’t be able to before the guy with the machine gun shreds us both.”

  “Who are you people? What are you doing here?” asked Beard.

  “Scouting group from Evergreen,” said Cliff. “Just stopping here for some gas. Not looking for trouble.”

  “They ain’t wearing blue scarves,” said Beard.

  “Neither are you.” Annapurna lowered her AR15. “That’s why we’re trying to talk.”

  “Evergreen?” asked the black woman.

  “Yeah. Town up in the hills. Little rough at the moment, but we’re working on it.” Cliff eyed the tall man. “That’s some impressive hardware. Where’d you find a ’249?”

  He glanced at Harper, then back to Cliff, still not lowering his weapon. “Flipped Hummer. Things got kinda rough around here month or two ago.”

  “Just a little,” said Harper.

  “Amazing the kind of respect ya get while carrying one of these.” The tall man hefted his machine gun.

  Harper twitched.

  “No doubt,” said Cliff, perhaps inadvertently doing a Clint Eastwood impression.

  Zach started to sit up, but Harper put her foot on his chest to hold him down.

  “Just, don’t… everyone’s still ready to shoot each other.”

  “Speaking of,” said Cliff. “We’re a dog fart away from some real unnecessary bloodshed. What say we all stand down?”

  “It’s cool, man.” The Hispanic guy lowered his shotgun. “You ain’t got no blue sashes on, so we can chat. You okay, Nikki?”

  “Yeah.” The woman glowered at Zach, ceased aiming at them, and got back up off the ground.

  Harper clenched her grip on the shotgun in anger at the realization he’d targeted the black person first. Though, the woman did stand at the left end of their formation, so that didn’t necessarily prove he’d decided to fire at her for her skin color despite the stuff he’d said about Logan. He might have merely thought ‘kill them from left to right.’ Though, Zach had achieved the impossible—he’d made her dislike him even more.

  Cliff and Annapurna relaxed. When the guy stopped pointing a machine gun at Harper, they shouldered their rifles on their straps. Jay, the man sporting the big ginger beard, shifted his stance to hold his AK47 sideways, but didn’t appear completely at ease.

  Harper exhaled, slouching with relief. “Okay. Get up slow. Don’t even think of pointing your rifle at anything.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” snapped Zach.

  “The side of not killing innocent goddamned people.” She scowled, took a step back from him, and turned to face the strangers, keeping her posture as non-threatening as possible.

  Cliff approached the tall man, offering a hand. “Cliff Barton.” He proceeded to introduce everyone. When he referred to Harper as his daughter, a wave of warmth crashed into a wall of guilt for her real father. But, he’d died. Dad would be happy I’ve got someone willing to look out for me.

  “All right,” said the tall man. “I’m Will Gordon. Good to meet someone who ain’t shit nuts.”

  “Nicole Rawlings.” The woman also approached to shake Cliff’s hand.

  “Eddie Alvarez, but you can call me Al.” The guy with the shotgun laughed as if he’d told a joke.

  Cliff also chuckled. Harper furrowed her eyebrows at missing the humor.

  “Jay Gibbs,” said the ginger, also shaking hands.

  “Excuse me one moment.” Cliff turned on his heel and ‘military walked’ over to Zach. He grabbed him by his collar, shoving him against the side of the van, up off his heels. “One more like that, and you’re gonna disappear out here. This ain’t some kinda game, you got that bro?”

  “Uhh…” Most of the color faded from Zach’s face. “Yeah. Got it.”

  Cliff leaned close, nose to nose with him. “You pull a stunt like that again and something happens to her, I swear I’ll wrap that little pop gun they gave you around your neck like a damn bow tie and hang you from a streetlamp by it.”

  “N-no problem. Won’t shoot at anything ’til you say to.”

  “Zach, you do have a brain in that thick ass skull, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Use the damn thing. You see someone about to get the drop on one of us and they look like they’re definitely going to attack, fire. You see someone in a blue sash… if they’re not holding t
heir hands up and yelling don’t shoot, feed them a bullet. Don’t be the asshole who turns a conversation with normal people into a gunfight.”

  Zach nodded so fast it looked like his head might fall off.

  Cliff let go of him. He glanced at Harper with an expression that said ‘bringing this punk was a bad idea.’ “Nice sweep.”

  Nicole, Eddie, Will, and Jay walked closer to the van, appearing somewhat more relaxed, the tension gone.

  Whew. That was too damn close. Harper shouldered the Mossberg and spent a minute or three taking deep breaths until the adrenaline faded enough that she stopped shaking. Zach remained leaning against the van with an expression like a small boy who’d been torn a new one by his dad in front of his friends. He seemed incapable of making eye contact with anyone, no doubt second guessing his desire to be on the militia.

  She almost felt bad for him… almost. Harper wouldn’t do anything to get him killed out here, but if this trip scared him off the militia, she’d hardly complain.

  While Rafael roamed around searching for the couplings used to fill the underground gasoline reservoirs, the rest of the adults got into a relatively casual conversation. Harper hung back, still too rattled by coming within inches of having four people shoot her to be interested in talking.

  “I’ve known Eddie for years,” said Will. “We used to live next door to each other. Spent a couple weeks living outta my basement, but the MREs are almost gone, so we headed out. Ran into Nicole here about a month ago when she’d been shooting it out with the Lawless.”

  The woman spat to the side. “Every last one of those mother—” She eyed Harper. “Bastards can die.”

  “There’s been a nuclear war and I’m seventeen. I can handle the bad words.” Harper managed a weak smile. “What’s the lawless?”

  “Them crazy sons of bitches with the blue sashes,” said Will. “Call themselves The Lawless.”

  Nicole scowled off to the side. “Their recruitment policy is only slightly less aggressive than the damn Witnesses.”

  “Last time I checked, Witnesses don’t shoot people who aren’t interested in joining.” Jay chuckled.

  She sighed at him. “War done melted down your sense of humor.”

  “Join?” asked Harper. “Those guys tried to grab me and my kid sister… and I didn’t get the feeling they wanted to recruit me. They had a different word starting with r in mind.”

  Nicole, who appeared to be in her early twenties, gave her a pitying look, then a brief hug. “Oh, baby girl, they would’a done me like that, too. But that ain’t all they want. They take anyone they can get, force ’em to run with the gang.”

  “Especially kids, the smaller the better. Easy to mold them into little psychopaths.” Eddie frowned.

  Harper couldn’t help but think of the ‘shadow man’ who’d abducted Mila. They sure as hell tried to warp her. Maybe they’d even succeeded to a point. How many nine-year-olds could nail a man in the eye with a throwing knife and be more upset that magic wasn’t real?

  She’s gonna be okay. That girl’s mom loves her.

  “Those dudes sorta established a city in the rubble. Usin’ Mile High Stadium as some kinda fortress. The guy runnin’ things came from the penitentiary, supposedly multiple life sentences. Mostly a bunch of cons at first, but they’ve been growing.” Will shook his head. “Total Mad Max BS if you ask me. Anyone who refuses to join and kill for them, they use for entertainment.”

  Harper shivered.

  “Not just that.” Will flicked a switch on his machine gun—probably a safety—and let it hang from a strap around his chest. “Yeah, sure they do that to some, but word is they force others to knife fight like some sorta MMA-to-the-death bloodsport.”

  Jay whistled. “I heard they got this maze of concrete road dividers and junk. They make people ‘run’ it while a couple snipers try to pick them off. Tripwire bombs, spike pits, fire barrels, all sorts of crap, too. Say anyone who makes it to the end, they let go, but never heard anyone made it.”

  Nicole pursed her lips. “And this is why my ass wasn’t gonna let them sumbitches take me.”

  “Are you guys serious?” Harper swallowed bile at the thought of some crazy warlord in football pads sitting on a throne like something out of a Roman gladiator movie ordering Madison to ‘run the maze’ and laughing as guys tried to shoot her. No, wait… girls they would’ve kept until they got old enough to… “Please tell me you’re just trying to freak me out?”

  “Sorry, kid,” said Will. “Just what we heard. No idea if it’s true. Probably is though, which is why we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  Harper nodded, smiling at these four people. At least not everyone in Denver has gone crazy.

  “Surprised you guys are out here wandering. Army’s got an encampment up at Eldorado,” said Cliff.

  “Yeah… been there.” Jay shook his head. “Place smells like a latrine that’s been lit on fire. Way overcrowded. Got people jammed twenty and thirty per tent, like zero privacy. Bunch of shit going down at night no one wants to talk about. Assault, theft, drugs, prostitution, people getting into fights over food. I guess some are keepin’ themselves safe, but you can’t jam that many people into such a small area without some friction.”

  “So yeah, we ain’t going there.” Will chuckled.

  Rafael ran back to the van, got in, and moved it around the wrecked canopy, backing up to a cluster of round metal plates on the ground, one of which he’d opened. He hopped out, unloaded a bunch of gas cans from the back, then fed a red rubber hose into the hole. Zach wandered over to the van, brooding off away from the majority of the people. He didn’t bother trying to talk to Rafael either

  Harper kept an eye on him, worried he might simmer for a while before lashing out, either at her or Cliff. He didn’t seem like the type of boy to take losing gracefully. More like the sort of kid who wound up on the news because he brought a gun to school and killed the girl who refused to go out with him. Though, aside from trying to shoot Nicole, he hadn’t been violent. That felt more like panic when faced with a group of unknown, armed people.

  Still, she didn’t trust him. She also wondered if Cliff really would ‘make him disappear’ out here if he screwed up again, or if that had merely been an over-the-top threat to scare him straight.

  “Eldorado Camp ain’t horrible,” said Nicole. “Just… desperate. We’re looking for something better.

  “You could head up to Evergreen.” Annapurna smiled, describing the place and the farm.

  Harper zoned out, not really paying attention to her explaining life in Evergreen. Her mind ran in circles picturing her friends stuck in an overcrowded refugee center, trying to survive from day to day without being groped, stabbed, or ending up prostituting themselves for food. Worse, hearing that the ‘blue gang’—or Lawless as they called themselves—had gone full psycho and turned a stadium she’d been to as a child numerous times into a sadistic base camp went beyond surreal. More than simple distance separated her from the city she’d grown up in. Denver, at least the Denver she knew, truly felt as though it no longer existed. Granted, rumors had a habit of growing with every person they touched, so it remained possible that the outlandish stories weren’t true.

  Mile High Stadium could be as likely to hold a handful of Lawless sitting around drinking beer as a neo-Roman emperor who’d abandoned any claim to sanity. The mere chance it might have gone that far meant she could never let them get her. Where once she thought it a good thing that they’d hesitate at simply killing her because they’d try to kidnap her for being a girl, now, she agreed with Nicole: she’d rather go down shooting. If the Lawless wanted to take her prisoner, they would damn sure bleed for it first.

  Annapurna’s description of Evergreen appeared to intrigue their new friends until she mentioned they would have to surrender any firearms bigger than handguns or join the militia. That didn’t go over well with Jay or Will, who preferred to remain independent. Eventually, the group said they p
lanned to travel northeast, trying to survive on their own for now.

  Once everyone felt assured no one would spontaneously decide to start shooting, the four wanderers made their way off to the east while everyone else resumed a defensive posture around the van.

  With each passing minute, Harper’s anxiety grew. She no longer so much cared about successfully obtaining medicine from the hospital; only getting home to her family mattered. As if it didn’t scare her enough to be near the Lawless, Zach had been promoted from douchebag to dangerous douchebag. If the gang thugs didn’t kill her, Zach’s recklessness—or bruised ego—might.

  She exhaled out her nose, watching him as much as she watched for approaching trouble.

  Finally, Rafael gave up trying to siphon anything more from the tank and reeled the hose in.

  Harper jumped in the van, sat on the floor, and tried to hold her anxiety in check. At least riding in the cargo area meant she didn’t have to look at Zach.

  30

  St. Joseph's

  Rafael started the van and drove back up onto Route 6.

  No one said a word.

  Though she couldn’t see anything but her hair hanging over her face, Harper sensed the mood behind her. Annapurna and Cliff both quite likely believed Zach nearly got them all killed. She clung to the idea that her father of circumstance would have been more upset at her death than dying himself. Whether or not true, she liked to think it. She’d only been with him for a little over three months. How long did it take for a familial connection to form?

  A while back, he’d said something about combat forging brothers… or sisters in some cases. Soldiers who’d ‘been through it’ together wound up more like literal brothers than mere friends. Surviving the trip out of Lakewood back in November had bonded them into perhaps the closest thing to a family two people could have in the absence of genetic relation or marriage.

  Heh. It’s a totally new world. Anne-Marie writing down that he’s my dad probably is legal.

  “Why’d you decide to open fire?” asked Cliff, a minute or two into the ride.