The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

  Becky held the light as Seth got the crate open with the mini-pry bar that was standard Eagle equipment. They hefted the lid to the floor instead of shoving it over and making noise. Angela had also said to be as low key as possible. It implied there were people or problems around, despite them not spotting any.

  Seth held the bag open for Becky to dump the packages into, both of them reading the labels in concern.

  Potassium Iodide Tablets

  14 tablets, 130mg

  They didn’t speak their fears, but thoughts roamed with terrible suspicions as they emptied the crates. Angela had three items on her list, but this one was underlined and they’d decided to procure it first. The other two items were nearby.

  It only took a few minutes to empty the crates. When the couple finished, they took the big canvas bag of tablets with them to find the next items. In the stillness of the fulfillment center, Seth finally broached the subject he’d been avoiding.

  “Are you happy with me?”

  Becky paused for moment. He’s going to do this now? “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Seth shrugged, leading them around by the map he had taken from the front office. “I know you’re not. I can feel it. I need to know if it’s me or the past.”

  “Can this wait?” Becky requested calmly. “At least until we’re camped for the night?”

  Seth hated that answer. It meant there were things to talk about. “Sure.”

  Becky wasn’t relieved. She hadn’t known that Seth was still watching her. She’d been doing a great job at hiding her chaotic mind.

  Seth reached out to take her hand for a long moment where sparks flew and their hearts calmed. He didn’t say I loved you or I’ll do whatever she need, but she felt it.

  Becky squeezed his hand, wising she had more love to give him. Seth was one of the good men, but her heart was often an empty void or a screaming lava bed of regret. There wasn’t much room for anything else.

  Outside, light snow flurries whipped against the warehouse. The wind sent drafts of icy wind over the town that chilled even those in winter clothing. The evening sky was dark and dreary, the moon not visible through the clouds, and few creatures were stirring. Seth liked it that way. He had chosen to do their hunting at night and sleep during the day. They had been able to avoid several groups of people, spotting the fires in time to take cover. Seth didn’t want to be seen by anyone if he could help it. Having only the two of them along made for bad odds in a fight.

  “Did you hear that?” Becky asked suddenly.

  “What?” Seth was comparing the crates in front of them with the id numbers on the sheet in his hand.

  “Like a…growl, maybe?”

  That got Seth’s attention and he scanned the area with his light. There were a dozen places for someone to hide. Uneasy, Seth gestured toward the crates. “You open ‘em.”

  Becky got on it as Seth did another slow sweep with his light. If she thought she heard something, then she probably had. He rotated to study another direction, and found multiple shadows behind them.

  “Heads up.”

  Becky pulled her gun as she straightened. The feeling of danger swarmed, making her ease over to Seth’s side. Their problems were animals, not man, but the reactions would be the same. Neither of those enemies was forgiving.

  Seth motioned her behind him as he grabbed the bag they had filled. Seth quickly walked toward the office where they could make a stand, not sure why the dogs weren’t attacking.

  Seth locked the office door and put the bag in a corner, flying over plans to handle their problem. He didn’t want to use guns. It might draw more dogs, or worse, people.

  Becky stared through the dirty glass at the small pack of wild dogs that had followed them, wondering what type of life they’d had before the war. Thanks to nature and the apocalypse, animals hated humankind. They attacked and chased, even stalked in some cases, but Becky remembered when they had been best friends with people. Did they? Did the dogs also long for a return of the old world?

  She concentrated, trying to push inside the mind of the smallest mangy animal. She found a dark voice and an almost scary shadow in every corner of the dog’s small mind. Shaped like windy warriors, they whispered awful things about the humans in the glass room.

  Becky realized the animals weren’t under their own control. It was terrifying, and she turned to tell Seth what she’d discovered.

  “Shh…”

  Seth was staring down a wiry dog that they hadn’t noticed under the desk. Seth had his knife out, and the dog wore a vicious snarl on its snout.

  A low growl rumbled from the dog’s chest.

  Becky watched the dog leap at Seth, saw his knife come up…

  Seth fell from the weight as Becky rushed forward with her own blade and stabbed the dog in the throat. Her knife sank through and she jerked on it, hoping she hadn’t gone far enough to hurt Seth.

  Seth shoved the hot corpse off, slinging blood from his arm. He’d been bitten.

  “Damn.”

  Becky hurriedly dug out her medical kit as Seth retrieved his blade from the dog’s chest. She handled the bite on Seth’s arm as she’d learned in Angela’s class, but her stomach twisted harshly the entire time. The wound didn’t want to stop bleeding, even after she’d bandaged it as tightly as she could.

  Seth tolerated the actions because they couldn’t get a fire going right now without suffocating. Cauterizing the wound was preferable to him over a two-week injury that would require stitches, daily inspections, medication... Seth studied the dogs that were now lying outside the door, then Becky’s kit. “Do you still have that vial?”

  Becky went still for an instant, and then understood what he had thought of. “Very bottom.”

  Seth didn’t ask why she had it, but the question went to the top of his list as he dug the vial out.

  Becky got the small jar of peanut butter they’d almost finished with lunch and held out small gobs for Seth to coat in the white powder. She still didn’t know exactly what it was, but Seth appeared to because he frowned the entire time. Becky didn’t ask. She knew what it was supposed to do, and that was too much information.

  Seth took each coated peanut butter ball and rolled the drug up tight, then lined them on the window ledge. He wasn’t certain what reaction the ecstasy would have on the wild dogs, but he knew that when they calmed down, they would sleep. He and Becky would then kill them. After being bitten, Seth wasn’t as worried about drawing people. If strangers came to cause trouble, they would shoot them too, but he didn’t want to lose the items they’d come for. Angela had made it clear Safe Haven needed them. However, if the drugs didn’t work on the dogs, Seth planned to open fire and handle whatever came from it. The pain in his arm was a hot fire, making him angry that he’d been bitten at all. He hadn’t searched under the desk, putting them both in danger. He deserved to be bitten and it pissed him off.

  Seth nodded to her. “Easy and only a small bit.”

  Becky opened the door and the dogs lunged forward.

  Seth’s toss was good. Two of the balls landed on the noses poking through the door. Tongues came out and the two balls vanished.

  While those dogs were busy prying their jaws open around the peanut butter, Seth tossed the rest of the balls, being certain all of the animals got at least one.

  “What now?” Becky asked, studying the dogs that were no longer snarling in rabid hatred. They were watching the door for more treats.

  “We wait,” Seth responded. “How about a nap?”

  “Too wound up. You go ahead.”

  Seth had the same problem, along with the fire in his arm. He swallowed two Tylenol, but shunned the painkillers that Becky offered from her medic kit. He had to stay alert. The Tylenol would knock it down enough for him to function.

  The dogs reacted to the party drug faster than Seth expected, whining, growling, snapping. They fought with each other, chased their tails, puked, and forgot about the humans they had
trapped. Drool puddled on the floor, mating took place, and time slowly passed.

  When the dogs began to lay down, some cleaning themselves, some shuddering, Seth motioned to Becky. “Take the right.”

  They eased the door open.

  Two of the animals were still nearby and Seth quickly shot them before they could lunge. The suppressed noise still echoed loudly in the warehouse. The sounds of nails running madly across concrete came swiftly.

  Becky and Seth were ready, easily hitting the wild animals as they scrambled down an aisle of boxes. The three canines fell together, sliding into shelves of merchandise that buried them.

  Pleased, Seth and Becky retrieved their bag from the office and then returned to the crates, listening for anyone who may have heard the reports. Arm throbbing, Seth held the light this time, staying alert. Five was a small pack for wild dogs now. On the ride here, they’d witnessed small herds of canines with numbers in the dozens.

  It took half an hour for them to gather the rest of the items and then load the truck they’d pulled inside one of the bay doors. As they prepared to go home, Seth looked over, admiring her fiery hair in the dome light.

  Becky felt it coming, but didn’t try to stop him.

  “Should I give you space? Is that what you don’t want to tell me?”

  “Not even close,” Becky snorted, fastening her seatbelt. “Why do men always assume the worst?”

  “Because the vibes you women put off are always bad,” Seth responded defensively.

  “I hate myself,” she confessed, knowing he needed to hear it to understand where she was coming from. “I’m trying to forgive me, like the rest of the camp, but it’s hard.”

  “Yes,” Seth agreed. He had his own mistakes haunting him, some from before the war. Not being able to save his daughter was still the cause of his nightmares and that was after getting a pickaxe through the leg by people who wanted to eat him.

  “I kept the vial to remind me of my mistakes,” she stated quietly.

  “Not to use it sometime, maybe on Neil?” he guessed.

  Becky flushed.

  Seth frowned, but he’d known all along that he was a substitute for what she really wanted. He’d just thought he could fill those shoes.

  “No,” Becky said, laying a hand on his good arm. “I wouldn’t betray you that way, no matter what screwed shit is in my head.”

  “You’ll end it with me first, right?” he wanted to know, to verify.

  “Yes.”

  Her answer broke Seth’s heart and he eased them out of the warehouse without saying anything else. This was what he deserved for falling in love with her. He’d known it when he rescued her from Rick. Becky’s heart belonged to Neil, whether that man wanted it or not.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Buttons to Push

  Page 1

  Refugee Crisis Hits Safe Haven Refuge!

  by Reporter Cynthia Quest

  September 24th, 2013

  There are hundreds of them. We can’t sleep without hearing the shouts and fights, the gunfire. The flood of refugees we all expected after the war has finally arrived and if not for these mountain walls, we would have already been overrun.

  There are too many for our Eagles to go out and gain control, and more people are on the way–hundreds or maybe even thousands. Think about that. Daily assaults are already taking place and we can’t stop them. Someone has died out there every day this week. Women are being hurt, supplies are being stolen, wolves are trying to sneak in with the sheep, and more is on the way. What are we supposed to do? I agree that we have a duty to our fellow man, but we don’t to killers or anyone who will destroy what we’ve built. Most of those people can never be allowed in here. Let me explain why.

  Reason One: We don’t have the room for that many people. Look around these caves and tell me we can fit thousands down here? We’re already cramped and our new numbers of official members are only at four hundred and ten. Why haven’t they set up their own settlement? We did. Why can’t they go do that now? There are simply too many of them. We will run out of everything and none of us will survive. The majority of these people are scavengers. They have nothing except needs.

  Reason Two: Their lack of morals and ethics will bleed into our camp. We will have a crime rate for the first time. There are thieves, rapists, murders, pedophiles, and even cannibals in these groups. That came straight from the boss, folks. Evil is on our doorstep. Do we really want to welcome it with open arms? We’re almost safe down here. These strangers will change that.

  On a side note, not following rules, hurting, killing, and betraying has resulted in people being barred from our peaceful settlement before now, including Adrian. If we allow these killers in, why did we bother to banish our former leader? If we do this, I say Adrian has to be given the same chance to reform. I also think there’s as much chance of that, as there is of these strangers obeying our laws.

  Reason Three: Many of them are ill. We haven’t experienced the outbreaks that most people have because we’re careful about who joins and because we’ve been lucky, frankly. With so many people coming in, the odds of missing something deadly are huge. And what about the people who refuse to be tested? We don’t have any laws that force them to. We could all die of the measles or even the plague. It could happen. We only have two actual doctors. Imagine thousands of refugees. There’s no way we can keep up with that many people at once. We’ll be out of medical supplies within a month. When we can’t help them anymore, our doctors and nurses will be assaulted or even killed. We’ll have to run constant foraging trips, even during the winter weather, and it still won’t be enough. We’ll kill ours to save them, but many of these coming refugees won’t survive anyway because they’ve been breathing in the ash. We can’t help them.

  Reason Four: There is no way that Safe Haven can rehabilitate that many people at once. We don’t have the guards or the resources to patrol them. People have been caught trying to sneak in here by cutting holes in the fences. You know of the attempts to get through, the semi that was used to ram the gates. These people are desperate and bad things always come from that. Some of them are innocent and need our help, but how do we tell the difference?

  In my opinion, we can’t.

  I want the gates shut to refugees until spring. We’ve fought hard to get where we are. I say we let them do the same.

  What do you think?

  Page 2

  Are We Ready?

  Winter is coming, and with it–a whole host of new problems. Are we ready? I’ve talked to our XO, Marcus Brady, about that very subject. Here’s what he had to say.

  Cynthia: Are we ready for winter?

  Marcus: No, but we have a little more time to gather what we need. We have to keep working.

  Cynthia: Won’t that be hard with all those refugees at the gates?

  Marcus: Yes, but we have more than one way off the mountain. In fact, we have several.

  Cynthia: That’s good to know. How far behind are we on gathering?

  Marcus: Only a couple of weeks. The coming storm might add to that.

  Cynthia: Are we expecting a lot of snow?

  Marcus: Yes, but the wind and cold will be the real issue. We’re prepping the cave for it.

  Cynthia: Are you confident we can make this work?

  Marcus: Honestly? No, not as much as I was when we got here. There are too many people waiting to get in.

  Cynthia: So you agree we shouldn’t let any more people in here with us?

  Marcus: I think we have to be very careful about how many come in, but the boss wants our people and some of them are that.

  Cynthia: Is it worth the risk?

  Marcus: Life is always worth the risk.

  Cynthia: That’s very true. Do you have any advice for people concerning the weather?

  Marcus: Keep your feet and hands warm and dry. Frostbite is not your friend. Stay inside as much as you can. We have plenty of work in the caves that needs to be done, includ
ing installing the showers and helping monitor the animals that have been brought down.

  Cynthia: The animals we’re leaving topside because of their size, will they survive the winter?

  Marcus: Yes. We’ll be building a large barn that will shelter them, along with the supplies and food they need. We’ll be melting snow for them to drink, like we’ll be doing for ourselves at some point.

  Cynthia: Filtered and treated?

  Marcus: You know it.

  Cynthia: Do you think the cold weather will convince some of the refugees to leave?

  Marcus: It might make them more desperate.

  Cynthia: Are there extra guards on the gate?

  Marcus: Yes. It’ll stay that way.

  Cynthia: What about the rumor that this winter could last twice as long as what we’re used to?

  Marcus: Yes, that’s been confirmed now. All of our weather trackers agree that this will be the longest winter any of us has ever experienced.

  Cynthia: Are we ready for that?

  Marcus: Not as much as I’d like to be, but once we’re in the cave, we just have to tough it out.

  Cynthia: That brings me to the final questions. Is this mountain settlement a mistake? Should we have gone south? Is Kendle searching for a boat for us, despite what we were told about making a stand here?

  Marcus: Wow. Let’s see. No, it’s not a mistake. We have to try this. No one wants to leave our country…except Kendle. Yes, she is searching for a ship, but for herself and the few people who’ve chosen to go with her. When she returns, we’ll have an idea of what things are like along the coast. Eventually, we’ll have to go there to gather supplies. It’ll be nice to have a first-hand account.

  Cynthia: That’s all I have for you at the moment. Is there anything you’d like to say?

  Marcus: Don’t get rowdy at the party. We’ve put the brig on the bottom floor with the ghost.