“You’re getting old,” he muttered when his back protested. “Two years ago, you ran a marathon.”
Yeah, but not through the snow. And not for eighteen hours a day for a week.
“You’ve got me there,” he said to himself. “And now, I’m not only talking to myself, I’m agreeing with myself. Not a great sign, mental-health-wise.” He shook his head. Neither is prolonging the conversation, dude.
Brad got up and went to the closet before he did anything else crazy. He’d slept in sweats and he’d been very warm, but he wanted a little more protection than that before he ventured out to explore the place he’d ended up in. He pulled on a sweater and then tugged a pair of fatigue pants over what he was already wearing. Then, he added a camouflage jacket and another pair of socks.
There wasn’t any additional footwear and he eyed his boots with profound dislike. The miles and miles of walking hadn’t done them any good, but at least they were dry now. Not that they would stay that way for long.
Maybe he could find a way to seal them up again, he thought, once he had a moment to rest. For now, he’d try to keep to the covered sidewalks. The sun had been up for a few hours already, so if Neal’s information was true, they should have been swept by now.
He yanked the boots on and laced them up tightly. Then, he added a scarf, hat and gloves before grabbing his key and opening his front door. It was time to take a good look at this place and see if he’d ended up smack-dab in the middle of another cult or not.
Brad leaned against the doorframe, blinking at the scene in front of him. It was like walking out into a television show from the good old days. There were a few kids building a snow fort in the courtyard outside his door.
Voices floated down the sidewalk and he turned his head to see that a few women stood outside watching the kids play. They were bundled to their ears just as Brad was, but they were chatting over steaming mugs of something while they kept an eye on the youngsters. They glanced his way and smiled before going back to their conversation.
One of the kids yelled suddenly and one of the women called, “Liam! Play nicely or you’ll spend the day inside!”
Liam, who had probably known that the particular section of snow fort he’d lured the younger kid into would fall down, put his hand out, tugging the younger one up and dusting him off. The women went back to their conversation and the kids went back to their construction. Brad wondered where the men were and then realized that he could hear the dull thunk of axes against block as someone chopped wood around the corner. Everyone was doing their part, it seemed.
It was all so damn normal that he felt off-balance and out of place. All of his previous introverted nature rose up once more. He could just go back inside and read, he realized. Neal had told him that he could sleep in. Why hadn’t he done that?
“It’s a little weird, isn’t it?” a woman asked from his right.
Brad turned to her in surprise. He hadn’t heard her approach. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s just that everything was so awful for so long,” the woman said, raising her cup to her lips and taking a long drink. “It’s strange to walk out of the wilderness and into this.”
“Yeah,” Brad agreed. “It really is.”
He couldn’t help but eye the cup, wondering if she had any coffee that he could bargain for. She smiled ruefully, seeming to read his thoughts.
“It’s nothing fancy,” she explained. “Just hot water.”
“Oh,” he said, trying and failing not to sound disappointed.
She smiled. “The hard part might be over, but there are a few things that might never come back. Coffee is unfortunately one of them.”
“Right,” Brad said absently as he turned the phrase over in his mind. The hard part was over? As he looked around the facility, he could see why she would think so. It was pretty damn idyllic here. Or course, that didn’t mean that he was convinced that things were on the upswing for good, but he’d take the reprieve.
“I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Brad,” he said, holding out his gloved hand.
She put her mittened one into it and gave him a smile. “Charlotte,” she said. “Most people call me Charlie, though.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said. Then, her name clicked in his still-fuzzy brain as he remembered the Major’s instructions to Neal the night before. “Charlotte…you’re my next-door neighbor, then?”
She nodded, inclining her head toward the unit next to his. That would explain why he hadn’t heard her approach.
“Just a few feet away if you ever need anything. My husband Jack is here, too,” she went on. “He’d be out here, but he had to go over everything with the truck last night and he was up late. The Major said he could take today off, and since he gave Jack the day off, he let me have it, too.” She smiled, clearly excited by the fact. “It’s so rare to get a day completely free. Not that the Major is a bad guy or a dictator or anything,” she hurried on. “There’s just so much to do, and not very many of us.”
“He seems like a nice guy,” Brad said, wanting to put her at ease.
Charlie nodded quickly and eagerly. “He really is. He took us right in and we don’t know what we would have done in this winter if we were out there.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know how you survived it. But I guess that doesn’t matter now. You’ll love it here. I’d better get back inside,” she went on. “I can’t let Jack sleep his free day away. I just wanted to say hello.”
Brad smiled at the rapid-fire delivery of information. “I’m glad you did. Would you happen to have any advice on what I should do next?”
“Take some time to do some wandering before you go find Neal for your orders,” she said. “As long as you stay in the fence, you’re safe.”
Fence or no fence, Brad didn’t believe for one second that he was safe. Not completely, anyway. But he wasn’t going to take it away from her.
“I’ll do that,” he promised, giving her a wave that she returned cheerfully before he set off down the sidewalk.
He strolled along at an easy pace, trying to keep count of the people he saw. Everyone kept saying that there weren’t a lot of people here, but Brad had to disagree. There must have been nearly fifty, with soldiers and civilians combined. Which meant that they outnumbered the Family.
Brad’s walk slowed even more as he allowed himself to contemplate returning the pain they’d given him. An eye for an eye and a cabin for a cabin. Of course, part of the population of both groups were children. And as much as he wanted revenge, he really didn’t want to kill any children to get it.
Of course, with the proper show of power, maybe things wouldn’t have to end in death. At least, not for everyone. He was surprised at how quickly he dismissed the notion of letting Auntie and Uncle live. He didn’t have long to dwell on his suddenly less-humane impulses, though, because Major Walker’s voice rang out.
“Good morning, Brad.”
“Morning,” Brad said, jogging over to where the man stood. “Neal said I could sleep in before I found him,” he explained. “But I thought I’d go for a walk instead.”
“Not a bad habit,” Walker said with a smile. “You found me in the middle of mine. I take one every morning. No matter how cold it is. It’s always a good idea to check the fences, look for tracks or break-ins.”
“Have you had any?” Brad asked, falling into step beside the man.
“Not yet,” Walker said. “But you never know what a desperate person will do. And I like knowing exactly who is in my facility at all times.”
It made perfect sense. The Major smiled when he said it. Brad still had to repress a shiver. He must be getting paranoid about authority figures.
“Yeah, that seems important,” he said lamely. “I—” he broke off when he heard a distinctive sound. “Do you have cows?” he asked in shock.
Major Walker nodded. “We certainly do. That’s part of the reason I was so pleased to hear that you have veterinary experience. I’d
like for you to look them over today, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Brad agreed. “I’m happy to do it.” He wasn’t really a farm vet, but he had taken the necessary courses and he assumed he could figure things out as he went.
“After you get done there, I’d like you to join the hunting party that’s going out,” Walker went on. “We can always use more meat.” The Major gestured to a man who was checking part of the fence in the distance and the man came jogging over. “This is Ben. He’ll show you around the farm section and direct you to the hunting party later on.”
Brad realized he was being dismissed. “Sounds great,” he said.
Major Walker left them to it, continuing to stroll along the fence.
“He really walks that whole fence every day?” Brad asked.
“Not the whole thing,” Ben answered. “But he inspects sections of it every day. We all try to help, but there just aren’t that many of us.”
Brad didn’t argue the point. It was only his first day. Instead, he simply followed the man to the farm section. There were five cows and several goats, as well as a chicken house. He raised his eyebrows at seeing that.
“I built that in the fall,” Ben said. “My grandparents had a farm that I basically grew up on.”
“Impressive,” Brad said, and he meant it. It was surely the best chicken house he’d ever seen. The chickens inside it were a little scrawny, but Brad didn’t see any obvious health problems. All in all, it was a pretty good little farm. It would almost certainly mean eggs and milk this spring. And maybe next year, if the herd grew enough, there would be meat.
He ran his hand over the velvet nose of the cow closest to him and she nudged him on the shoulder with her big head. The cows that they’d managed to catch were all very docile—which explained why they’d managed to catch them, Ben admitted.
“We found a farm a few miles away back in the fall,” he said as he thumped his hand on the fencing that surrounded the paddock. “That’s where this came from. The cattle were all there, too. They seemed just as happy to see us as we were to see them and we managed to drive them here pretty easily.”
Brad knew that Ben meant “drive” in the cowboy sense, but he couldn’t help the mental picture he got of the cows lined up patiently in the front seat of one of the military trucks. Sammy and Martha would have gotten a kick out of that. He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to Ben’s story.
“I guess I’d better meet up with the hunting party now,” Brad said once he’d examined everything to the best of his ability.
“Sure,” Ben agreed. “Come with me.”
“I hope they don’t expect too much,” Brad said as they walked closer to a group of men cleaning their rifles and leaning against one of the big trucks. It wasn’t a big crew—just two soldiers and one other man. “It’s not exactly the right season for this kind of thing, you know.”
Ben nodded. “Sometimes they don’t come back with anything,” he admitted. “That’s why the crews are pretty small. But the Major wants us to look every day. Sometimes, somebody gets lucky.”
Chapter 8
“You ever been out on a hunt before?”
Brad looked across at the man riding in the back of the truck with him. The two soldiers had taken the front seat, which made sense. They had the most firepower. If they ran into anything strange, it was better for them to be the first to handle it.
“Well, yeah,” he said with a half-smile. “It would have been kind of hard to survive if I hadn’t.”
“Right, right.”
The man ducked his head again and went back to cleaning his nails with his pocket knife. It seemed like a really dumb thing to do in the back of a moving vehicle, but Brad didn’t point that out. The other man seemed like the nervy type and Brad didn’t want to cause him any added stress by questioning his hygiene habits. He did wonder why they’d given him a gun, though.
“Where’d you come from?” the man asked, once he’d finished with his right hand and moved onto the apparently-easier left hand.
“Bangor,” Brad said, deciding to be honest for now. “What about you?”
“Searsport. I was a tax attorney.”
Now that was a surprise, but Brad tried not to show it. It wasn’t that the man didn’t look like a tax attorney. In fact, he fit the stereotype pretty well with his sly glances and meager frame. But how the hell had a tax attorney possessed the skills to survive both a nanobot virus and the EMP apocalypse that had followed?
“Really?” Brad had to ask.
“Yeah.” The man snorted. “It’s okay. I can see it on your face.” He twirled the knife in a quick gesture. “You’re wondering how I survived, right?”
Brad shrugged sheepishly. “I mean…a little, yeah.”
“The fact is, my old man loved to hunt. I mean, really loved it. Mom said he was obsessed with killing things and he was always trying to mount deer heads and make rugs out of bear pelts. She wouldn’t let him bring any of them into the house.” The guy looked off into space for a second and then shook himself free of his memories. “Anyway, once I was old enough to hold a gun, he started dragging me out with him every weekend. I guess it paid off.”
“I guess so,” Brad agreed. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Caleb,” the man said. “I know your name is Bradley.”
“How did you—”
“I pay attention to who comes in,” Caleb said. Then, in a lower voice, he added, “and who goes out.”
“What—”
“We’re here,” the soldier at the wheel said and Caleb stopped speaking abruptly, looking furtively up at the front seat.
Brad opened the back door of the truck and walked around to the front as quickly as he could. Then, he dropped down to tie his bootlace. The two soldiers moved on into the woods, talking to each other in low voices.
When Caleb walked by, he looked up and said, “What exactly did you mean? Everyone who leaves?”
“Nothing,” Caleb said quickly.
“Come on,” Brad said, standing up and catching the man by his sleeve when he stepped back. “It wasn’t nothing. I want to know—”
“Are you two planning to hunt or talk?” the driver asked, turning back to look at them from the edge of the woods.
“I’m hunting,” Caleb said, swinging the rifle up. Brad barely heard his mutter of, “Not now, you moron,” before he headed off after the soldiers.
Well, that’s a little personal, Brad thought, remaining where he was while he checked his gun.
“Brad!” the driver called. “You—”
“I’ll be there once I’ve checked the gun,” Brad said pleasantly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be able to find you.”
And that was the God’s honest truth. The soldiers were stealthy and Caleb was quiet, but they were both elephants compared to Lee. Brad wasn’t one bit worried that he wouldn’t be able to find their trail. After a moment of silent staring from the soldiers, during which Brad began to break down the rifle, they finally headed off. Apparently, they weren’t used to people who didn’t ask how high when they said to jump. But Brad hadn’t survived this long by going along with what the military asked him to do.
He shook off the annoyance and got down to business. The gun he had been given was a fairly standard rifle, and one that he recognized. It didn’t look that fancy, but he knew that it was amazingly accurate. It also wasn’t that heavy, which was a good thing because who knew how long he’d be carrying it? It would be one thing if they’d been heading to a deer stand to talk shit and wait, but they weren’t. They were in for several hours of walking. There was nothing worse than dragging around a heavy gun with you when you were wandering around hoping that some animal was going to be dumb enough to cross your path.
Thankfully, the gun looked like it had been cleaned recently and when he checked, it was loaded. It wasn’t likely to blow up in his face, and in the event that he found a target, he knew he’d be able to hit it. After a f
ew more minutes of checking the gun over, Brad wandered into the woods after the other three men, looking at the ground for new tracks.
There weren’t any. At least, none from animals they were likely to be able to track down and eat, which was exactly what he’d expected. He glanced up at the sky after about half an hour of staring at the ground as he walked. That constant looking down had cramped his neck.
He sighed in relief as he looked upward, even though the view wasn’t anything spectacular. The sky was a uniform iron gray. The good side of that was that there was no sign of snow.
Which didn’t mean that his feet weren’t completely freezing. He looked down at his boots with a sigh. There was a huge crack in the sole of the right one. That probably explained why his toes were already numb. He made a mental note to look for some superglue as soon as he could. And to wear two pairs of socks in the meantime.
He could tell by the tracks that Caleb had gone to the left when there was a break in the underbrush. The two soldiers had gone right a little way up the path. Brad went down the middle, but he veered left as soon as he was reasonably sure that the soldiers wouldn’t hear him.
He walked deeper into the woods, checking for a different trail, now. It wasn’t too hard to find and he followed it. Within twenty minutes he found what he was looking for. Caleb was down on his knees, looking intently at a set of tracks on the ground.
“Tell me what you meant back there,” Brad hissed.
Caleb jumped and stood, turning to face Brad with his hand over his heart. “Jesus fuck. You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry. But I want to know what you were talking about.”
“You can’t wait until—”
“The soldiers are off to the right,” Brad said. “I made sure they were pretty far away. If you talk fast, it should be fine.”
Caleb snorted softly. “Fine. Since you’re not going to let it go, I guess I might as well. I’ve been here for a while now. Since the end of the summer, actually. I’ve seen plenty of people come in. And some of them…” he shrugged and made a helpless gesture with both hands. “Some of them just disappear.”
Enter Darkness Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 34
