“I’m sure Lipton thought his days were numbered either way.”
Fletcher nodded. “He obviously didn’t know Frost wasn’t coming back from the meet.”
“True, but it’s also possible Doc might have still bugged out, even if he did.”
“Because of me?” Fletcher asked.
“Not sure how he views your disciplinary techniques, sir.”
“Good point. Though most of the time, I was just following Frost’s orders.”
“I doubt Doc would understand the difference.”
“Of course not. All he saw was the result. Men like him can’t handle all the violence. More so when it might be aimed at them.”
“You should know I ran a quick inventory of the fuel reserves.”
“What’s the status?”
“Only ten percent left.”
Fletcher sighed, then blew out a long breath of air. “The timing couldn’t be worse. Need to start rationing.”
“Already in place, sir.”
“I guess there’s no choice, now.”
“Craven?”
“I want a meet—ASAP.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“In the meantime, send out a patrol and see if we can locate Doc. Drag him back here in chains, if you have to, but I want him alive and still able to work. Understood?”
“Copy that. Do you want me to use our men or Frost’s?”
Fletcher’s tone turned sharp. “Ours. You know what needs to happen with the others.”
“Just wanted to be sure that was still the plan, in case something changed.”
“What needs to be done needs to be done. This bullshit with Doc has nothing to do with any of that. Just sped up the timetable a bit, that’s all.”
“What’s the backup plan if we can’t find the asshole?”
“Same as if we do find him. That refinery will take time to get working again, so we need more fuel either way. Go to the Trading Post and grab what you can from Heston’s stock. Don’t forget the tank on that old backhoe. And his generators, too. Syphon off everything you can.”
“I’ll get right on it, boss.”
‘Oh, and Dice?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Double the men assigned to each truck, too. We need to get lean and mean to make the fuel last,” Fletcher said. “And press that damn source of yours. Whatever intel he has for us, we need it now.”
“And if he has nothing?”
“Then he has nothing. We are out of options at this point, other than Craven’s trackers.”
“Assuming they’re reliable.”
“Craven says he’s tested them.”
“He said that before about the spray and we know how that turned out,” Dice said.
“He did eventually get it working.”
“But at what cost? We can’t afford to lose anyone this time.”
“You’re right. But unless your source comes through, we really don’t have any other options.”
“He’ll want payment, regardless of the reliability of the intel.”
Fletcher pinched his eyes, looking the part of an old wise man, someone who was always ten steps ahead of his adversary. “Now that’s not really up to him, is it?”
“He won’t trade without the fuel.”
Fletcher took a minute before he spoke again. “Does he check the drum before he leaves?”
“Not that I recall.”
“I’m guessing it’s all about the weight.”
“And our history.”
“Then there’s your answer, Dice. It’s all about the eye test. What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.”
Dice paused, making sure he heard the words correctly and understood Fletcher’s meaning. He thought he did. “At least, not until we decide.”
“Exactly. Might just need him later.”
“Understood. I’ll get that arranged as well.”
CHAPTER 13
The Nomad hiked up the next hill as he crisscrossed the south side of his patrol area, looking for signs of activity. So far, he hadn’t spotted much on this frigid day during what he assumed was one of the summer months. July maybe. Or August, closing in on summer’s end.
Then again, that was only a guess, having lost track of the calendar long ago. He wondered if anyone else knew the true date, their lives awash in a blanket of gray, each new sun climb a carbon copy of the one that came before.
His days were just like theirs—filled with malaise—only for different reasons: his endless treks across the landscape, looking for more of the disadvantaged who needed his unique skills.
When the world is besieged by misery, there comes a time when someone has to rise up and bring about a modicum of balance, otherwise there’s no chance of hope’s return. Without balance, only the strong will get stronger, while the meek disappear from existence, with nary a whimper.
That was the rule that applied to everyone unlucky enough to have managed to draw breath this long, even if they didn’t recognize it as such.
In truth, though, when you live in an unforgiving place such as this, these types of journeys were nothing more than a wandering haze of cold and loneliness.
Hours turned into weeks, and days ran into years, everything blurring together in an expedition to nowhere in particular. Only when he found himself facing the unexpected did it make getting up each morning worth it.
His quest wasn’t a normal one, but it was exactly that—his. A quest he thought important enough to dedicate what remained of his life to it, even if it meant occasionally compromising his own principles to achieve the mission. Today was one of those occasions.
A half a mile back he had come across a fresh trail, leading him here. It hadn’t been made in a straight line. More in a snake-like pattern, winding from left to right and back again, as the owner of the footprints battled their own paranoia in a tentative advance forward. A bleak, empty existence can do that, turning purpose into nothing more than random desperation. Or the hunt for one’s own end. He wasn’t sure.
The trail eventually led him to a scattering of snow, still clinging to life after the overnight drop. The trail only held small footprints from a four-legged rodent—another desperate creature foraging alone for its very existence.
He hadn’t run across anything yet from two-legged creatures, but he knew they were in the area. Both the hostile variety and the friendly types, though sometimes it was difficult to know which was which.
Motivation was usually the tell, but that assessment required a prolonged reconnaissance to make certain he didn’t misread a target’s intentions.
A misread usually meant someone would experience the edges of his blades when they didn’t deserve it, or a villain slipped away unscathed.
He wasn’t sure what was worse: maiming an innocent or freeing the guilty. Neither met his agenda, though his purpose had evolved in recent months, transforming into a new mission, as if he were closing in on something profound. Whether that change would lead to some kind of defining moment in history—his or the world’s—he didn’t know and wasn’t noble enough to judge or quantify.
It may have only been a lingering premonition of his own death, confusing his thoughts in such a way as to morph his terms of duty and honor.
The Nomad worked his way down the hill, then hauled his legs up the next incline, getting a sense he was close to his destination.
GPS satellites were long since extinct, as was the technology that took advantage of them, forcing him to become adept at navigating by the stars at night and using his heightened sense of location during the day.
Daytime was the more difficult, more so now than before The Event, with the landscape missing many of the landmarks he’d come to know and trust during his formative years.
Before his next step, a gust of wind smacked him in the mask, attempting to lift the cover from his head. He brought his feet to a halt and grabbed hold of the homemade disguise to secure it in place. Once the burst was over, he resumed his m
arch.
“Should be there by now,” he mumbled in a less than confident tone, wondering if his sudden need to reassure himself was an attempt to provide optimism for his impending arrival. Or perhaps it was a warning to his suspicious self.
Either way, one thing was clear. He was late for this meeting. A meeting with someone important. Someone he trusted. Someone who needed both his guidance and his protection.
He pushed his legs to the top of the next rise, bringing a new scene to his eyes—a snow-covered depression the size of a football field, with a half-buried school bus smack in the middle of the lowest point. It sat at a steep angle, the hood at least ten feet higher than the rear axle.
Snow drifts had buried the back half of the bus, much like he remembered when he chose this location as the rendezvous point. The front of the bus was less encumbered, with its twin doors near the front hanging open on the side, flapping in the wind on their battered hinges.
He closed the distance in a short minute, expecting to see the face of his waiting friend. Unfortunately, the bus appeared to be abandoned, much like he felt after his disfigurement ten years earlier.
All it took back then was a single run-in with an angry volcano to change his life in an instant.
The Nomad didn’t understand any of it when it happened, not just with the accident, but with the people around him. Everyone he knew seemed to withdraw from his life, as if the generals in Washington had ordered their collective retreat.
He was still the same man, other than what he saw in the mirror each night when he removed his mask. Duty had taken its toll, leaving him less than his former self, not just on the surface, but deep inside, too.
Thirty-three steps later, Nomad’s assessment changed when he came across a myriad of tracks in the snow—barefoot tracks, thousands of them, heading in every direction at once.
The Scabs had been here. An entire herd. All of them drooling in search of their next meal. If they’d been successful, he’d most certainly find blood belonging to his friend. Or possibly nothing at all.
The Nomad pulled his twin swords and brought them up in a striking position as he bent down on one knee to scan the area with a keen eye.
It’s always wise to minimize your profile when you walk into an uncontrolled sector. Not so much to reduce your scent from the creatures with a taste for flesh, but rather to give the men with high-powered rifles less to shoot at, assuming they were nearby.
History had taught him that the Scabs were often hunted by the men with the chain tattoos. Men who ran with the soulless leader known as Simon Frost. A man the Nomad despised like most others who were still alive in this hellhole, but a man everyone came to tolerate, for no other reason than to make it through to one more sunrise.
The rules of survival had elevated Simon Frost to the rank of bearable, if that was even the correct term. Of course, for that to happen, one had to choose to abandon every moral, every ethic, and every decency that made them who they were.
He’d learned firsthand that it doesn’t take long for your moral compass to change direction when death is on the hunt for you every minute of every day.
More recently, though, the roles between Frost’s crew and the Scabs had reversed, with the hunters now the hunted, despite their superior intellect and firepower.
He’d seen the change in tactics live, when he held back and witnessed the cannibals overrun the Trading Post, tearing through those who opposed their advance. It was an unbalanced war to be sure, but a conflict with clear skirmish lines and differing rules of engagement.
The Nomad knew the Scabs had been growing in numbers, but he had no idea how effective a mass attack would be when it was unleashed with precision.
The tactics employed meant one of two things. Either their collective intelligence was growing or someone with superior skills was coordinating, acting as puppeteer for the damned.
The Nomad took a quick measurement of the track next to his boot. Size eleven was his guess, roughly an inch smaller than his. He ran a visual check of the other footprints nearby. None of them were noticeably smaller, though one set seemed deeper and flatter than all of the others, without much in the way of toe prints, except one—an odd-shaped big toe on the right foot. It was overly large, as if it had swelled to double its normal size.
His eyes came up as he studied the area from left to right, looking for signs of a threat along the ridgeline that surrounded him. There was no movement among the shadows. No unexpected blurs. No random grunts. No prolonged growls. No clatter of boots or gear, or the determined breaths of men with a live target in their sights.
It was time to move ahead.
He rose from his knee, but remained in a crouched position as he swung around to the left, deciding to work the perimeter in a clockwise direction. Not because it was the proper tactical choice, but rather because he’d chosen counterclockwise the last three times he performed this maneuver.
“Got to mix it up,” he mumbled in a tone barely above a whisper, his eyes tracking the horizon beyond the bus. If there was an ambush waiting, it would come from the rise at his ten o’clock, matching the path of the sun. He figured somewhere beyond it was a throng of meat-eaters, or a patrol of men with M-Spec rifles.
He advanced another thirty yards left and swung around, putting the bus at his five o’clock position. Still nothing. No blood. No signs of a struggle, either, just the sea of footprints etched in the snow, including the deeper set with the mutant big toe.
Someone else might have wondered if the footprints had been staged as part of some kind of ruse. Yet he knew better, having seen this same mass set of tracks before, minus the big-toe print. The Scabs had worked the area like a squadron of ants, carpet bombing the expanse in their quest for food.
Just then, he heard a rattling thud behind him, followed by a series of grunts. He spun with his curved weapons leading the way, their razor-sharp blades in a forward position.
When his eyes tracked the sound, he spotted someone inside the bus. A girl. Young and blonde. Hair like a rat’s nest. Her hands were pressed up against the window on either side of her nose-less face. An instant later, her grunts resumed, as did her pounding on the glass, making an awful racket.
He held out his hands with the blades aimed at the ground. “Shhhhh!’
She stopped the racket, bobbing up and down on her legs, looking as though she were about to open her very first present on Christmas morning.
The Nomad held up a hand, releasing two fingers from his grip on one of the blades, then pushed his palm down a few inches in a repetitive manner to send her a command.
She ducked down to a point where he could only see her eyes, plus the crown of her frizzy mop, her hands no longer in view.
He gave her another hand signal, telling her to hold position while he worked his way around the bus to check the area.
She rose in the window and bounced up and down again, this time waving at him to come closer.
He ignored her request, working the area with his swords at the ready.
First, he made his way to the top of the ridge ahead, then leaned up and peered beyond. There were scores of tracks leading away, heading toward a pile of rubble in the distance.
As before, they were all barefoot tracks, size eleven or so. No small prints or any signs of men in boots. The odd thing was, the deeper set of tracks with the big toe had disappeared.
The Nomad worked his way to the right, repeating the same scan multiple times until he confirmed there were no threats. He returned to the bus, this time approaching the doors hanging open along the side.
He climbed the steps and went inside, where he was greeted with a flying leap from the blonde girl. She wrapped her scrawny arms around his neck, with her equally thin legs latching onto his waist.
“I missed you, too, Seven,” he said, peeling her off his body before her strength suffocated the life out of him. “Sorry I’m late. Any trouble?”
Seven grunted once.
&nb
sp; He knew that to mean no, even though that went against conventional thinking. “What about those tracks?”
She held up her hand and swirled it, then shrugged with a fast shake of her head immediately thereafter.
He understood. “Happened before you got here.”
Seven confirmed with a double groan.
“Better to be lucky,” he said, pulling out a hunk of meat he’d smoked back at camp. “Even you couldn’t escape that many.”
The Nomad tore the piece in half and gave it to her, needing her to take the nourishment in slowly. There was no way to know when she’d eaten last, or what she might have eaten. Plus, smoked meat was her new favorite, something he was sure would count as the first step in evolution among her kind.
She stuck it in her mouth and bit down, her jagged teeth making quick work of the food. A school of piranha had nothing on Seven. After she swallowed, she pointed at the remaining section his hand, then gestured to his mouth, looking concerned for him.
“No, this is for you,” he said, offering her the remaining portion. “But I need you to eat it slower, so you enjoy it.” He wanted to add the words “like a normal person” but knew that would be pushing the bounds of their relationship a bit. She’d taken great strides recently, but finding your humanity doesn’t happen all at once.
“Come on,” he said, dangling the food in front of her, watching her eyes track the sway of the treat. “I know you want it. Go ahead. I brought this for you.”
She refused with a push of her hand, snarling and waving at him to eat it.
He shook the food harder, regaining her focus. “This is not open for discussion, Seven. You need to eat. Now take it. Please.”
She paused for a beat, then grabbed the piece and brought it to her face in slow motion. However, just before it found her lips, she changed course and jammed it into his mouth, pressing his lips together with her fingers.
Seven then leaned up on her toes and flared her eyes, looking imposing as she chomped her teeth together several times, exaggerating the motion.
“Fine,” he said with his mouth full, starting to chew. “But remember what I told you. Eat more. Every chance you get. You know how I worry.”
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