He looked down at his knees. “Family stuff. Family problems are always the worst ones.”
The young woman said, “What did he do, convince her not to talk to you anymore? I know something happened to her. Was that his fault?”
Abram thought he heard a slight change in the woman’s tone, something slightly desperate. This question was the real reason she had come, he realized. He opened his eyes wide and cocked his head, looking at Frank with a slight shake of his head. Don’t blow this for us…
Frank chewed his lip a moment, considering her. Then, he said, “My daughter died of cancer. Her treatments were expensive. My life savings would have only covered half of her treatment course. Kent came across a deal that was too good to be true, one that should have guaranteed we had the money to make those payments. He certainly wasn’t making enough to contribute much at all for her treatment, so this deal, it was going to be his contribution to saving her life. But like I said, it was too good to be true.”
The young woman nodded slowly, eyes becoming unfocused as she digested his words. Then her expression sharpened, and she nodded. “I get that. On the one hand, you didn’t have enough to pay it anyway, so one of them high-risk investments could have fixed everything. That’s assuming the treatment would have cured her—I ain’t no doctor.”
“More or less.”
She nodded. “But I see his side too. Your daughter, now, he surely does talk about her. Full of regrets, wishing he’d gone to college, got a better job, and able to pay some for treatments. He figures if he’d done that, y’all would have had no cause to make that risky investment, though I’m just figuring that last part.”
Abram said, “So you can see both sides.”
She nodded, without looking back at him. “Yep. There’s always two sides to these family things, and no one good or decent thinks they’re the ones in the wrong. Make no mistake, Mr. Brown, Kent is a good man. He stepped up when the wheels fell off everywhere at once, and he did what was needful. I think he figures that saving all these people here might somehow make up for his failings with your daughter.”
“It doesn’t.” Frank’s tone was flat, lifeless.
“I know that don’t help you none, Mister, but I thought you should know. You still ain’t answered my question, though—why are all you folks here?”
Frank looked up at Abram, over her shoulder.
Abram coughed into his hand to clear his throat, and said, “We knew it was only a matter of time until some of the bandits in this region got themselves organized. Well, that’s happening. We left the safety of our home to warn you people, but also to ask for help dealing with them. We have plenty to offer in trade, but if the bandits get a hold of us, they’ll be the ones with all our supplies. It would be everything they need to come and hit other communities—like yours—and I think that standing together might offer us all a better chance of holding out against this new threat. Stand together, or hang alone.”
Briefly, he thought of mentioning Gary, to explain why he feared bandits would be coming for the compound sooner rather than later—if not these bandits, then some bandits—but decided against it. It was just an unnecessary complication, which might distract them from the basic truth, which was that they had a shared enemy. Burnsville was closer to the bandits than the compound was, after all. But they’d get to Abram’s people in due time, if they weren’t stopped.
The young woman’s gaze roamed Abram’s face, judging, weighing his words. She nodded.
Relief flooded Abram. If they could get this person’s help, they would be far more likely to sway Kent, and swaying Frank’s son-in-law was vitally important to his compound surviving the coming storm.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, standing from where she had crouched down to sit on her heels during the conversation. Before she got to the door, however, a vehicle horn rang out, piercing the early evening quiet. Moments later, multiple voices began to shout.
The only words Abram could understand at that distance, though, were the repeated commands to get out of the vehicle. More newcomers?
“Crap,” the young woman said, and she hurried from the room. The door closed behind her, and then the sound of all those locks being secured.
Abram looked at Frank questioningly, but the old, gray-haired man merely shrugged. An ominous feeling crept through Abram, though he had no reason for it, just a gut instinct that told him their situation had somehow just gone from bad to worse. He sat back down in his spot and closed his eyes, but sleep was a long time coming. Only then did he realize he’d never asked her name.
27
“What the hell is going on?” Kent Brockman stood an inch too close for comfort to the sentry who had come to report to him, a habit he had that put others on their heels, usually. He was a big man, and he’d long ago gotten used to this making others flinch.
The sentry, however, had too much adrenaline going to notice. “Sir, a stranger drove right up to our checkpoint, in a vehicle loaded down with canned food. He says he’s with a bandit group, and he’s here to warn us they’re coming. Sir, I think he’s a spy, and—”
Kent stepped back far enough to cut him off with a chop of his hand through the air without hitting the guy. “Stop. Think. Bandit spies don’t drive up with a truck full of goods to deliver; they sneak in, or they say they’re wandering merchants willing to sell those cans. Anything other than to say they’re bandits, and anything but handing over cans of food like a delivery truck. You feel me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kent normally enjoyed being called “sir,” after a lifetime working meaningless jobs for some pretty horrible bosses, but this affected the safety of his people. It was no time to gloat. “Take me to this guy.”
“Okay. But Kent, you should know, he’s covered in blood. Says it isn’t his, but some bandit’s.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind. Let’s go see this bloody guy, and figure out what’s what.”
Kent followed the sentry out of the house. He glanced around for Brooke, but she wasn’t there, and he didn’t have time to find her. He kept pace as they made their way to the sentry’s waiting golf cart, courtesy of the local COSTman store, which didn’t need it as much as the town, since no one worked there anymore.
He held tightly to the frame around the open space where a door would have been on a real car, but the cart actually made better time, darting between vehicles and buildings and poles en route to the eastern checkpoint, just this side of the forest tree line. Rather than driving straight to the checkpoint, however, his sentry drove like mad for the house nearest to it, which was where the sentries stayed between shifts when they were in rotation, and where searches were conducted, contraband held for transport or disposal, and so on.
“Inside, sir. The guy says his name is Danny.”
Movement to his left caught Kent’s attention, and he turned just in time to catch Brooke flying at him.
She let his bulk stop her momentum, and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. “Bandits,” she said. “Coming here?”
He couldn’t help smiling at her, despite the circumstances. Her tackle-hugs always brought a smile, lighting up his day. Even dark days, like this one. “Not if I can help it. We’ll deal with it, somehow. We always do.”
The sentry waited a couple seconds, politely, then cleared his throat. “The, uh, guy who came to warn us, he says he’s from Clarks Crossing, and that it has been taken over by bandits. That’s not too far from us, sir.”
“No shit,” Kent said, tearing his eyes off his woman. She was a lot younger than he, which she said was the reason she hadn’t yet introduced him to her father, but he was insistent. Eventually, she would bring them together, because it was the right thing to do. Certainly, if she were Frank’s daughter, that was what Frank would have wanted—Kent based a lot of his decisions on what that honorable old man would do. Respect. It was what kept the world running right.
Wait. Kent froze
. “Clarks Crossing?” His eyes clicked back to Brooke, and instantly caught her deer-in-headlights expression. Yeah, that was where her old man’s place was—it was her hometown. “Damn,” he muttered. “Let’s get inside. Baby, you want to hang out here, and I can—”
“Screw that,” she said, eyebrows furrowing. “Try and stop me from going in.”
He let out a sigh. There was no point arguing with her when she got her back up like that. “Okay. I get it.”
He motioned the sentry to take them in, and followed the man up the low, flat cement steps to the slab patio, then through the door.
The scene that greeted him was utter chaos. A man Kent didn’t recognize sat, bound to a chair; he was covered in blood on his right arm, especially, but Kent remembered what the sentry had said about the man claiming it wasn’t his own blood. Standing over the man—Danny, he recalled—the watch captain was bent over so he stood face-to-face with the prisoner, and shouted in his face, “Bullshit. You’re a bandit, and that blood belongs to whoever you took that truck from. It belongs to Clarks Crossing, and there’s no bandits in town. That place is too strong to get taken over by the likes of you.”
Recognition blossomed on her face and Brooke let out an excited shriek, then rushed up to the prisoner, wrapping her arms around him. She covered him protectively and looked up at the watch captain. “Oh my God, leave him alone!”
She touched her forehead to Danny’s and cupped his face with one hand. “You look like hell. What happened? What bandits? My daddy would never bend over for bandits.”
“Stand down,” Kent said to the sentries who were moving toward the prisoner to peel them apart. Then he said, “Your name is Danny? So, you’re from Brooke’s hometown? She seems to know you.”
The prisoner nodded.
Kent asked, “Why did her old man turn bandit? And why’d you turn against him?”
Danny’s frightened expression shifted into a glare. “Never. Wyatt would never do that. Or, he wouldn’t have.”
A chill ran down Kent’s back. Past tense.
Before he could ask another question, though, Brooke stood bolt upright and shouted, “What do you mean, ‘wouldn’t have’? Where’s my daddy?”
When Danny didn’t answer immediately, she repeated the question, only louder.
Danny looked down. “He died, fighting another town.”
She went to Kent and flung her arms around him. This time, when she buried her face in his chest, it was for an entirely different reason, and all he could do was stroke her hair and pat her back.
Danny continued, “The guy who took over after him, Black, he’s not one of us. He just walked in and took over, him and that brute guard dog of his. Black has got the whole town thinking it’s okay to be bandits. Only, they don’t think they’re bandits.”
Kent said, “Explain this. They don’t think they’re bandits…But are they?”
The prisoner’s jaw tightened. “Right now, he’s got them convinced it’s their duty to bring back civilization, and that doing so is going to require what he calls taxes. I call it tribute. Basically, he’s going to go around telling other survivors they need to either pay up or bad things will happen to them.”
She shook her head, face still planted firmly on Kent’s now-damp chest. “No, that’s not possible. I know them. Those are good people, and they would never listen to some stranger. Tell me you lie.”
Danny looked down at the table in front of him. “I wish I were. When Wyatt died—I’m really sorry, Brooke—but when he died, they looted the town they were battling. That’s another story, and a long one. Anyway, I’m not sure what Black did, but I think something really bad happened to the people living there. So now, our people have to think like this monster who is leading them says to, otherwise it would mean they were bandits. No one wants to think of themselves as a bandit.”
Kent said, “No, decent people don’t want to think that. I feel you. But why are you here? You didn’t know Brooke was here? Why not?” Still patting her hair, he added, “You didn’t tell him you were here, did you?”
She took a deep breath before replying. “No. I was worried he wouldn’t like you, so I didn’t want to tell him where I was. I told him I was camping with friends, a week-long thing. After that, you said it wasn’t safe enough for me to go home yet. I thought…we’d have time. I thought…” Her voice trailed off to nothing.
From the corner of his eye, Kent saw Danny nodding, maybe confirming that part of her story.
Kent said, “Why wouldn’t your father like me? Like, why did you feel you had to hide us?”
“He said I need to marry a nice young man, and he always talked trash about couples we saw with girls younger than their guys. I’d have told him about us, eventually. I was just waiting for the right time to tell him my boyfriend was closer to his age than mine.”
And now, the right time can never come…Kent’s anger-ember faded. Of course, Wyatt wouldn’t have liked his daughter to be with some guy almost twice her age. But it wasn’t like he’d tricked her into falling for him, and he hadn’t gone around looking to get together with someone so young. It had just happened…
Kent squeezed her a little tighter. She had just learned her father was dead, and that the people she had grown up with were willingly being blinded into banditry. That couldn’t be an easy one-two punch to take. He looked back over at Danny. “So, what is it you came here to warn us about, young man?”
Still looking down at the table, Danny said, “Mister, Burnsville is really high on his list. He said so himself, I heard it from his own mouth. It’s because of all the strip malls and big-box stores in town, so he thinks you have a lot of stuff his people might want. Stuff no one needs, more like bribes to keep his people happy and distracted.” He practically spat the last three words like venom from his mouth. He added, “I think you’re strong enough to stop him. When he comes, demanding ‘loot, or else,’ you have to stand up to him. Someone has to take Black out and stop all of this. I want you to be that someone. I risked my life coming to warn you, and until Black is gone, I can’t ever go home. I knew it when I left, but that’s how serious I am about putting an end to the monster.”
“You’re damn right, we’ll kill that bastard,” Brooke snarled as she spun to face Danny. “I’ll do it myself. My daddy will not die for nothing. Right, honey?” She looked up at Kent, over her shoulder.
Kent eyed the young man, who had risked everything to warn them. But if this Black guy was so tough, maybe fighting him would be more expensive than forking over loot—stuff no one needed anyhow, if they could believe this guy. Fighting meant people dying—his people, and hers. But a strongman on his side, guaranteeing their safety in exchange for meaningless trinkets, mere stuff, might be more valuable alive than dead, his protector instead of his conqueror.
But…he’d replaced her father. That needed to be made right, too.
Argh. He’d have to think on this one long and hard. But how could he even tell Brooke his concerns? Either way, his highest priority was his people and their safety, not her feelings. It sucked, though—his gut wanted to fight that Black fellow, for Brooke’s sake as well as on principle. But where had fighting gotten him all his life? A stint in prison, poor job prospects, back when there were jobs, and a couple cracked teeth that still bothered him, that’s where.
Danny said, much more quietly, and in a voice that sounded to Kent like he was tight with emotion, “Brooke? I think…Black had something to do with your dad’s death.”
Dammit. That made Kent’s blood chill. Not only had he replaced her father, he might have killed him, too? Kent felt his options shrinking.
Brooke’s back had gone ramrod straight. “You think…what? Why?”
“He was with Black when he died. People said Wyatt had been shot chasing down a townie, and Black was the only one in position to go after them to make sure your dad was okay. I don’t have proof of it, but I’m telling you, Black had something to do with it. When that ma
n smiles, it gives me the creeps, and he took over right after. Before they left on that raid, Black and his pet thug were brand new, but he claims Wyatt passed the baton to him before he…died.”
Brooke leaned back hard against Kent, shoulders beginning to shake.
“I’ve heard enough. I need to think, and consult the town council,” Kent replied, but the more he thought about it, the more resistance seemed like it’d be the opposite of what he should do. The man had murdered someone to get to the top, so what would he do to Burnsville if he didn’t get what he wanted?
Then again, what would a bandit warlord demand the next time? Or the time after that? And he had no idea how he could tell Brooke, if he decided to go along to get along. But that was a whole different issue, and he’d worry about that after he made his decision. Yeah, that’s what he’d do—talk to his advisors, get their input, and only then decide what to do.
What would Frank do?
That thought jarred him, and he recalled suddenly that he could find out easily enough. All he had to do was face his former in-law once again. The last time had not been pleasant, and they’d argued. Kent had said some things to the man he so respected that he immediately regretted, while Frank, who had nearly lunged at him for it, had said some things Kent knew damn well the old man had meant, which had hurt enough that he’d almost taken a swing himself. The memory of that argument still pissed him off, in fact.
Still, given their current circumstances, it seemed unlikely he’d have to fight the old man this time. Maybe it was time to let Frank stop cooling his heels in lockup. He’d had his father-in-law locked away, albeit comfortably, because he couldn’t have a man who hated him, a stranger to the town, wandering around free with a bunch of other strangers—and because he’d truly been too busy to want to deal with it at that moment. If Frank was there to see him, which is what they’d said and seemed the only possible reason for such a visit, a free Frank would have moved mountains to find him, but having their meeting on Kent’s schedule, at a time and place of his own choosing, was important if he wanted to keep control of the situation when they finally did meet.
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 18
