by Riley Flynn
“Yeah, our stuff has been awful for weeks,” said Timmy. “Shutting down, rebooting. Like some kind of virus got out. Anything we’ve tried has been in lockdown.”
“You civilian folks would kill for the tech they’ve got on base, let me tell you.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of things?”
Cam had Timmy on tenterhooks. As the conversation deteriorated into the two men firing technical specifications at one another, Alex tried to catch Joan’s eye. When she noticed, he jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom. She stood, walking across the room to join him.
“Yeah, man, exactly. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for years.” Timmy’s voice quivered with excitement.
“Military tech is light years ahead, you’re right. Hey, man, any possibility I could have another sip of water?”
“Sure thing, sure thing. Now, tell me about the thermal imagining they’ve got. I’ve been reading online about it and…”
Timmy walked across the kitchen, fetching water for Cam. He handed over the bottle. Alex and Joan watched and then, together, they walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind them. The ragged curtain was drawn across the window in the bedroom, leaving the room mired in an uneven half-light.
“Timmy’s making friends,” said Joan into her fingernails, keeping her voice low.
“He’d be friends with a mailbox if it could list weapon specs. What do you think of this guy?”
“The dog didn’t bark. That’s what I noticed first.”
They’d left Finn on the kitchen floor, keeping himself next to Timmy with his head balanced on his front paws, watching the newcomer.
“You think the dog’s a good judge of character?” said Alex. “He does seem okay.”
“I don’t know whether I trust him, but I didn’t trust you when I first saw you.”
“You believe his story?”
“I didn’t believe your story. That worked out okay.”
She had a point, Alex thought. When he had come crashing in through the front door of the Rockton drug store, she’d held a shard of glass up to his throat. But then she’d helped him steal medicine from a room full of rotting corpses. The start of a beautiful friendship. Meeting Cam had been tame in comparison.
“How are our supplies looking?” Alex asked.
“Food not so bad. Medicine almost done. We can feed this guy, I guess, but God forbid he gets sick.”
“All that stuff about vaccines, about the army – you believe that?”
“Could be a tall tale. You saw the procession on the road. What did that look like?”
“He could be right about that. I’m tempted to believe him. He’s telling us an awful lot, though. Just pouring his heart out.”
“Probably desperate not to be left behind. I’m thinking at least some of it is true.”
“Me too.” Joan sat down on the bed, rubbing a hand on her back. “We’re going to need to hit the road soon, though. We can stay here maybe one, two days. If he’ll have us.”
“You think it’s his cabin?”
“If he was here before us, then I suppose so. We’re intruding, after all. He seems hungry, though. If he’ll let us stay, we can share some food.”
“That sounds like a deal. If he has any medicine, it could be even better.”
“Done.”
Alex offered his hand, helping Joan up from the bed.
“How’s all that?” He pointed at her belly. “How are you doing?”
“All of that?” Joan asked, looking over the rims of her glasses at Alex. “What do you mean, ‘all of that’?”
“I just meant… I meant…”
“It’s fine, Alex. Thank you. We can ignore the inevitable, at least for now.”
The pregnancy hung over the group. An unmentioned storyline, yet to resolve itself. Just like now, Alex had noticed, Joan was remarkably deft at shutting down discussion of the impending arrival. But that suited him. For now, at least.
They walked together to the door, opened it, and stepped into the kitchen. Timmy sat at the table, his face pale. Cam was standing in the center of the kitchen, rifle raised. Alex had left it on the countertop. He had left it alone. Unguarded.
Cam watched through the scope, the gun wedged firmly in his shoulder. The dog barked.
Chapter 12
Timmy laughed.
“See, it’s balanced. I’m telling you.”
“You’re right,” said Cam, lowering the rifle.
“Might be some no-name brand but – sometimes - it just feels right, you know?”
Timmy took the gun from the stranger, raised it to his shoulder and looked through the scope, training the sights through the window.
Alex looked down. His hand was growing numb. Joan was squeezing it. Tight. He bumped her with his shoulder. She released her grip, shaking herself and taking a deep drag of air.
“Timmy,” she began, “can you put down your toy for a second?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Timmy said, with a wink to Cam. “I’ll put her down here.”
He laid the gun flat on the table.
“Nice, though, right?” he asked Cam.
“Sure. I’m guessing you folks haven’t been here too long, though.”
“One night. You know that,” Alex told him.
“Right. But I’m guessing you haven’t had a chance to look around. Not properly.”
Collapsing into his seat, grin stretched across his face, Timmy finally noticed Joan’s unmoving face, the blood drained cold from her features.
“You look like you seen a ghost, Joanie. Hell, you’re almost as pale as me. You coming down with another virus?”
He laughed to himself. Alex knew how she’d felt. Arriving back in the room, finding himself face to face with the gun. He thought he’d been tricked. Deceived. A deadly error. He turned to Cam, keen to move the conversation on to something new.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Seems to me like you fellas ain’t spent too much time looking around this cabin. I’d be willing to show you a thing or two. You know, if we was to spend some time here together.”
“You mean, if you were to stay here with us?”
Cam looked from person to person, eyes finally resting on Timmy.
“Of course you can stay.” Timmy smacked the table. “Many hands make light work, that’s what I say.”
“Do you want some time to talk this over?” Cam turned away from Timmy. “You’ve only just met me, after all.”
“No, I think we’ll be fine.” said Alex. “On a provisional basis, at least. Now, what have you got to show us?”
“There’s a few things you might like.” Cam walked across to the fireplace, looking down at a collection of the MRE packs that had been unpacked and placed there. “But if you folks have a square meal or two, that’d be really appreciated.”
“You’ll swap food for… what? A tour of two rooms? Seems a bit much.”
“My friend, you don’t know half of what I’ve got stashed here.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But you don’t know how much food we’ve got. We could be running low for all you know.”
“I see you’re not doing too badly. Your buddy here was telling me about a few documents and whatnot that you’d picked up, too. Now, if we was to sit down to dinner together, I might be so inclined to take a look at said documents.”
“So secrets and more secrets?” asked Alex. “You drive a hard bargain. Nothing quite so substantive as food, though.”
Timmy was trying to butt in, to slide into the conversation. But Alex talked fast, not giving his friend the chance.
“I’ll tell you what,” Cam said, his words sidling, “you keep me fed and I’ll show you a few things in here, help you with your mysteries, and – and this is the difficult bit – I’ll show you a few things out there. You want supplies? I know where we can get some. We just need to go get them, that’s all.”
“Then why haven’t you gone yourself?”
“I’m thinking this is a two-man job, in all honesty. And, what do we have here? A few good men – not excluding yourself, ma’am. Apologies.”
Joan hardly looked up from the table. Breathing steady, she was recovering from the shock of walking in to find an armed stranger staring her down. At least, that’s what Alex assumed was bothering her. He hoped so.
“It’s Joan,” she said. “Call me Joan.”
The deal seemed balanced. Alex knew they had a decent amount of food. But the possibility of medicine – even the chance to get some military insight into those documents – that was the real value. Focusing all his attention on trying not to reveal how much he wanted to know about the flash drives, he allowed himself to be talked into the deal.
“I suppose,” he began, “we might have an agreement…”
“Great,” said Cam. “Then all I need to know is your names.”
He held out his hand.
“I’m Alex Early,” Alex said, accepting the handshake. “Joan has introduced herself and this is Timmy Ratz. The dog’s name is Finn.”
“Pleasure doing business with you, Alex Early.”
The hands joined together, both men clenching tight. An accord.
* * *
Cam walked toward the fireplace. He reached up inside and pulled down a soot-coated backpack. From inside, he took another newspaper and threw the bag on the floor.
“Want to hide anything in here, that’s the spot. Lucky for me, I ain’t got nothing to hide. Just this.”
The newspaper was older than the scribbled version. Faded and worn but free from the marks of the fire.
“You hid this up inside the chimney?” Timmy inspected the area about the fireplace, coughing as he did so.
“Yeah. Figured no one would look there.”
“You had the fire lit too? This is recent.” Timmy lifted a blacked finger up and showed his friends.
“For a while. After I saw that drone the first time, I stopped. Figured they might see me pretty easily. Would be a rookie mistake.”
Alex was inspecting the newspaper.
“This is from weeks ago,” he announced. “I don’t think there’s anything in here we don’t already know.”
“Thought you folks might find it useful, that’s all. Never know how much other people are clued in.”
“Virus spreading, computers shutting down, curfew, and on and on. We had all this when we were in Detroit. Even the stuff about riots. We saw that when we were leaving.”
“The cities got that bad, eh?”
“They did. Why’d you hide this?”
“It seemed important. Guess it’s not that special if everyone and their friend knows.”
“Anyone who’s been in any kind of built up area, sure. Worse, too.”
Alex laid down the paper on the table. The first big secret was a bust.
“Fair enough,” said Cam. “I’ve got something else to show you, anyway.”
He led them into the bedroom. As they stepped in, Joan tugged back the curtain. It was getting later in the day. The air inside the room was still close, still thick with the sense of sleeping people.
Cam pushed against the drab metal frame of the bed, the feet complaining as they shuddered along the floor. As the bed moved, he dropped to his knees. Alex had been expecting a dusty floor.
Instead, Cam slid his hands across the clean surface and tucked his nails in between two boards. He pulled, one slat raising up with surprising ease. They leaned over the hiding place.
“Ho-ly fu-” Timmy began before Joan snorted through her nose.
“More toys,” she said. “Boys and their toys.”
“No, no, Joan, this is different,” Timmy told her, hardly able to tear his eyes away. “You don’t understand.”
Cam stood above them, beaming like a proud father.
“Belonged to the guy who owned this place,” he said. “He must have had it some twenty years, at least.”
“I’ll bet,” said Timmy. “They stopped making these in… oh, ’98, I think. Can I?”
He gestured toward the hiding place. Cam nodded his permission. Timmy reached down into the space below the floorboards, cradled his hands, and smiled.
“It’s another gun, then?” asked Alex. “We’ve already got plenty of guns. If there’s one thing we’ve got plenty of, it’s guns.”
“No, no, man. You don’t understand. We have guns. We don’t have a Savage.”
“A what?”
“A 99, Alex. Come on.”
Timmy’s hands were running up and down the gun, too excited to know what to inspect first. To Alex, it was a rifle. Pretty much like his own. A bigger scope. Nicer wood, perhaps. Not some buried treasure.
“It’s a .358,” said Timmy, turning to Cam. “Looks like a custom bolt and, I’d guess, probably a twenty-inch barrel? Man, this is a later one, too. It’s held up beautiful. Feel that balance, there.”
Timmy held the gun in one hand, then balanced it across a single finger, finding a center point. The barrel tilted forward, then the stock tilted down. Up and down, up and down. Then it simply sat perched upon the single finger. A perfect equilibrium.
“That’s what I was telling you, my friend,” said Cam, plucking the rifle from Timmy’s finger. “Yours is balanced but it don’t compare to something like this.”
“Yeah, man, I know what you mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex interjected, “but will you explain why this is important? It’s just a gun. How is this different?”
Timmy turned around, a smile on his face that read like a mix of pride, happiness, and patronizing knowledge.
“Alex Early. Alex, Alex, Alex. This is a Savage Model 99. It’s a stone cold classic, let me tell you. That rifle we’re using at the moment, it’s fine for a lot of things. Practicing with tin cans. Fine for that sort of thing. But this baby? This baby will kill a bear dead at two hundred yards. Hell, maybe three hundred. It’s everything that’s good about that other gun, but ten times better.”
“Ten times better?” Alex didn’t see how it was possible.
“That cougar the other night?” Timmy motioned out through the window. “If you’d shot it with this, we’d be wrapped up in cougar fur right now.”
“And look down in the hole,” said Cam, pointing toward the open floorboard.
Timmy crouched down, reaching in a hand. The sound of cartridges clinking against one another.
“Hell, there’s enough ammo down here to stop an army,” said Timmy, his voice trilling with glee.
Like a kid in a candy shop, Alex thought to himself. It was fun to experience such a moment of pure joy, even if it was being lived vicariously through Timmy and his ammo.
“I told you, I had to take care of myself for a few weeks. This thing will butcher a rabbit if you hit it right, does the job for you. Course, couldn’t cook once I saw the birds up in the sky and I don’t want to be eating no raw rabbit.”
“Yeah, I imagine,” said Timmy. “Hey, so you shot this thing? Tell me about it.”
Alex left them to it. Boys and their toys, Joan had said. She might have been right.
* * *
Dinner was easier. This time, Timmy took Joan’s advice and used the stove. He unpacked five of the MRE dinners and laid them out. There was pork, a vegetable stew, and then honeyed pears for dessert. Taking a pot from the kitchen, he heated up the stew and pork together and began to season them with whatever he could find. Salt and pepper, mostly, but he struck a balance.
As the dinner was served on the cabin’s plates and the military trays, the conversation thawed. What had been rigid and stilted seemed to ease into a more familiar discussion. Nothing much was said – typically talk about the food – but talk was talk. Whenever there was an empty space, Timmy jumped in and stirred everything up.
Eventually, as they finished their food and the pears, when the cabin was filled with light from the gas lantern and the sound of Finn licking the metal trays clean, they turned to mo
re serious topics.
“These files you folks got,” Cam said, unwrapping one of the toothpicks which came with the meal, “you want me to take a look?”
Alex looked to Joan.
“Sure,” said Timmy before anyone else could answer. “Where are they, guys?”
Still looking to one another, Alex and Joan argued it out with their eyes. Could they trust Cam?
There was no reason not to. Timmy seemed to; so did Finn.
If the drones above were out to recover these drives, maybe he was an undercover agent.
Then why was he on the run?
Was he really on the run?
Timmy trusted him.
What did they have to lose?
It all happened in a split second. It ended with Alex reaching into the pocket of his black leather jacket hanging from the hook on the wall and pulling out the plastic wallet containing the paper sheets and the flash drives.
“That’s all we got,” he said, throwing the wallet on to the table. “Pulled them off some pretty mean people.”
“I’ll bet,” said Cam.
Carefully, his dirty fingers stroking the edge of the plastic before picking it up, Cam began to examine the documents.
“A bit above my pay grade, I reckon. But definitely military. Or some Triple Letter fellas. Ain’t something you’re buying at Radio Shack, that’s for sure.”
“That’s what I thought,” Timmy said. “Definitely military.”
“See this here?” Cam said, holding up one of the flash drives. “People don’t much use these no more. But government does. Bit bulky, see? Milspec. Means they can jam something extra in there, pack it real tight.”
“What do you mean? Explosives?” asked Joan, leaning back.
“No, no. Not in this kind of thing. But security, that kind of thing. We could always smash it open and find out.”
“No,” Alex said, reaching out a hand. “I want to know what’s on them. Did you see the sheet of paper?”
“Yeah, I saw it.” Cam hadn’t even picked it up. “Not much good from that, though.”
“It’s in code,” Joan said. “You don’t know how to – I dunno– crack it?”
“Not one bit. They change it all the time. Probably need what’s on these babies to crack it.”
