The Price of Freedom

by Chris Kennedy

  We had to stop them.

  It doesn’t pay to let people run off with your weapons in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  “Yes,” I said. “They’re taking the guns out back. Follow me.”

  “We’ve got guys out back,” one of the men said. “They can’t get out that way.”

  “Good, you stay here, then,” I said, not having time to convince idiots of the obvious facts in front of them. “I’m going.”

  “I’m with you,” said the man who’d shot at me. I glared at him. “I promise not to shoot at you anymore,” he added. I nodded.

  “I’m in,” said a second.

  “Fine,” said the one who’d spoken. “I’m in, too. Lead on.”

  We went back through the car care center. I didn’t see anything there I needed; I had a pretty strong feeling cars had just become a thing of the past. There were still a couple of cars in the bays, no doubt left where they were when the war started. I threw my bag into the trunk of one of them.

  “My stuff,” I said, arching an eyebrow at the three men. It was even darker in the auto bays, so I repeated it to make sure they got it. “Mine. Got it?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  “No problem.”

  The third man nodded, but that was enough for me.

  Unburdened, I led them to the door. There was a small window, and in the moonlight outside, I could see men to our right, carrying heavy bags and boxes out of the store and loading them into a variety of cars and pickup trucks.

  “Quietly,” I said. The men nodded, so I eased the door open. I slid along the wall of the building, trying to stay as stealthy as possible and not highlight myself in the open. I glanced behind me and saw that the men were following my lead.

  I also saw the last man had let go of the door and it was closing by itself. There was no way I could reach it in time.

  Click! The soft sound of metal on metal—amplified by the lack of normal nighttime sounds—was almost like a gunshot to my ears.

  The men loading the trucks heard it, too, and they dropped their loads to draw their weapons. I threw myself to the ground, acquiring a few more gravel burns, as the men behind me started shooting. At least five men had been loading the vehicles, and two of them went down in the initial barrage.

  Two of the others took cover behind their vehicles; the third one stood in the open, blazing away at the men behind me. “My” men got him with their second rounds, although I heard a grunt and at least one of the men behind me hit the ground. I slowly worked my way up to the cars as the two groups fired at each other. The other guys were firing from the far end of their cars and couldn’t see me as I approached.

  Hoping the men behind me wouldn’t shoot me in the back, I slowly rose to a crouch as I approached the vehicles. Gravel crunched to my side, and I threw myself backward as a shot rang out, and a bullet slapped into the trunk of the car next to me. I rolled toward the new threat and saw more men coming from the store. Unable to use the rifle, I dropped it and drew my pistol.

  The men had been carrying a variety of loot, but they dropped it when they saw me. The first man had items in one hand and a pistol in the other; he fired at me again, and pain blossomed in my side as the bullet grazed me.

  I finally lined my pistol up with him, and I fired, taking him in the chest. As he started to fall backward, I switched my aim and shot the second man in the chest, too. The third one almost had his gun up, but he was punched forward as bullets hit him from behind. Steven’s head appeared at the door, and he looked for additional targets.

  Motion caught my eye from my left, and I rolled back to find a man looking down at me from behind a car. I couldn’t see much of him, though; all I could see was the cavernous barrel of his pistol, which was pointing right between my eyes. “Die, Mother—” A bullet hole appeared in the center of his forehead, and he fell backward.

  “Are you all right?” the man who’d shot at me in the camping aisle asked as he ran up. Happily, I hadn’t killed him before as he’d just saved my life.

  Even people who shoot at you can be your friends in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m good, thanks,” I replied. “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks,” he replied as he helped me to my feet.

  I looked behind the car; the other looter was dead, in addition to the one with the bullet in his brain. Steven and the rest of the Rose Manor Community Watch came running up from the store.

  “Well done,” he said. “Looks like you stopped them from getting away with all the good stuff.”

  I spared a glance toward the vehicles that still had their hoods and hatches open. In addition to the guns and ammo, it looked like they had grabbed a lot of water and canned food. They’d obviously been there for a while.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “You almost let them get away. You didn’t think to send some folks around back?”

  “We did,” Steven replied. He looked around. “There’s one,” he said, pointing at a body in the back alley. “And another one over there.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Steven nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Well, before this gets awkward,” I said, “I did what I said I’d do. Are you still going to give me a cut of the weapons, or are we going to have to have some more killing?”

  Steven glanced at John, who had just run up, and shook his head. “I don’t think we need to do anymore killing right now,” he replied. “We’ve already lost enough men for one night, and we need to get out of here with this stuff before the next group of looters gets here.”

  I picked up my rifle and walked over to one of the dead bodies who had a similar-looking one. “How about I take these rifles and five 100-round boxes?”

  “How about three boxes?” John replied. “We have a lot more people and an entire neighborhood to defend.”

  “Sounds like four boxes,” I said. He nodded. “Will you let me have that car and some of the canned food?” I pointed to a car that was standing open, but didn’t have anything loaded into it yet.

  John shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Deal,” I said. I’d been dreading carrying all the stuff back to the boat; now I wouldn’t have to. “I have a bag of stuff inside that I’m going to grab, but everything else in there is yours. We part as friends?”

  “Sounds good,” John said. He held out a hand. “Thanks for your help.”

  I nodded as I shook his hand. “Any time.” I put my rifles into my new car as the Rose Manor folks got to work loading the other cars and trucks. Before they could change their minds, I grabbed my boxes of ammo and some canned meat, then I turned to go.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I tensed, but it was Steven. “Hey,” he said, “it was nice meeting you. If you need a place to stay, come join us.”

  I turned and smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “Unfortunately, I have some unfinished business I have to attend to before I can settle down.”

  “Too bad. We’d be happy to have you.”

  “Maybe if I’m back this way.”

  He smiled sadly; we both knew the odds of that happening were nearly nonexistent. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  I shook his hand and drove to the door of the auto care facility. The door had locked when it closed, but there was a chunk of concrete sitting to the side which the mechanics probably used to prop the door open on hot days. I smashed in the glass, opened the door, and went to retrieve my pack. I realized that I had left a few things I needed, though, and ran back into the camping section for a solar-powered flashlight, a sleeping bag, a pad, and a tarp.

  Steven was at my car when I returned with my gear and pack, and I gave him a hard stare. He held up a gallon jug of water. “Figured you’d probably need some water, too,” he said. “Take care.” He turned and jogged back over to his people, and I walked around to the trunk to see if he’d taken anything. To my surprise, in addition to the two one-gallon jugs of water,
there was now a fifth box of ammo.

  I stared at it a second, then shook my head.

  There are still some good people in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nine

  I threw the gear into my car and jumped into the driver’s seat. There were a lot of people headed our way, and it was beginning to make me uncomfortable. Most were trying to get in on the grab for goods, and some were armed. I had no doubt there would be more firefights as additional people came and fewer things remained. I smiled. Anyone looking for camping gear was going to be out of luck. Although I might have wanted more ammo, I really couldn’t have carried a lot more, especially with what I’d grabbed from the camping aisle. All of it combined—including the water, which was bulky and heavy—was more than I could carry.

  Happily, I didn’t have to. I started back the way I came. People were starting to come from all over as the initial shock wore off, and they turned their minds to survival. Several cars were pulling into the parking lot as I was leaving, and one tried to cut me off. I swerved to the right down the length of the lot and escaped out the other exit. The car didn’t follow, turning back to the store instead.

  Several people were walking down the street. All the scene really needed to look like something out of a post-apocalyptic video game was some burning buildings in the background. As I came around a curve in the road, I could see a glow from the direction of downtown St. Helens. Buildings were burning; the scene was complete. A shiver ran down my spine. Although nuclear war had been talked about for a century, no one had really expected it to happen. Maybe no one expected it because it had been talked about for so long; I didn’t know. It had happened, though, and the looks on people’s faces ran the gamut from shock and surprise to fear and anger.

  Bad things were going to happen across the globe tonight as civilization fell further. I wondered as I drove how much the population of Earth had already decreased today, and how much more it would decrease tonight. My goal was to not be one of them—if I could make it through the first few days, my chances of achieving that goal would rise exponentially.

  The best way to do so, I figured, was to avoid civilization entirely until things stabilized. I had enough food, although finding enough water would be difficult. I passed the pub while I was thinking about my situation, but decided not to stop. The party was still going strong, and the building appeared full. At some point, things would get bad when they realized they were consuming resources that were unlikely to be easily replaced.

  I stopped at the warehouse where I’d picked up the waterproof bags, as I’d seen a soda machine there. I took the smaller bag inside and was studying the machine, trying to decide how to get the water bottles out of it, when I heard a voice.

  “Whatcha doing?” a man asked.

  I froze, not wanting to get shot. “I’m trying to get some water from the machine,” I said.

  “Power’s out,” the man said. “How you going to get it?”

  “I had just decided to shoot it with my pistol.”

  “Will you share half with me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I just want water and the diet soda.” I suspected I’d need caffeine in the morning and a good cup of coffee was going to be hard to find.

  “I’d like half the water,” the man said.

  “Sounds fair,” I replied. “Deal.”

  “Go ahead and shoot it, then.”

  I fired, shattering the front of the machine, then I turned to look at the man. He was unarmed and standing about fifteen feet away, holding a large pack like the one I had in the car.

  “You don’t have a gun?!” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “What’s to stop me from killing you or taking all the water for myself?”

  “Not a thing,” the man said, “although there’s no reason to waste a bullet you may need later on killing me.”

  I nodded. That much was true.

  “You did agree to leave me half, though,” the man added.

  I nodded again. “I thought you were holding a gun on me.”

  “I never said I was,” the man noted. “You just assumed it.”

  I filled my bag with half the water bottles and five diet sodas, then I stood up and looked at the man. “Good luck,” I said with a nod.

  “You, too,” he replied, then I went out, got in my car, and drove off.

  Keeping your word is still important in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Ten

  I drove the rest of the way back to the boat, although the car got stuck in the field about 100 feet away from it. The five minutes it took to move the stuff from my car to the boat were probably the longest of my life. Aside from the Dellik chase, anyway. Eventually, I got it loaded, and pushed the boat off into the river. As I looked back, I could see a couple of shadows drift across the field to the car. I hadn’t left anything valuable in it, and it was pretty thoroughly stuck; they were welcome to it.

  I motored quietly up Scappoose Bay and took a small channel on the south side of the water. The channel went nowhere, but it was out of sight of the main channel. I ran with my lights off, but I didn’t need them—the glow in the sky to the south was more than enough. Although only a few buildings were on fire in St. Helens—courtesy of looters, I suspected—it appeared most of Portland was burning, including everything I had once owned and thought valuable.

  I found a sheltered pool about twice the size of my boat and dropped anchor, then adjusted my gear so I could get to the back seat. You would think a 20-foot-long boat would have enough space to stretch out; you’d be wrong. The boat had pilot and copilot seats in the front and a small bench seat in the back, with a little bit of floor space—well, “deck” space—between them. By the time I laid out my weapons and other gear, most of the space was filled.

  Finally, though, I got it out of the way so I could spread out the sleeping bag on the back seat and use the pad for a pillow. It was the least comfortable bed I’d slept in in several years. I put my head down and was out like a light.

  * * *

  Eventually, the light woke me, and I jumped. I had no idea where I was—kind of like waking up after a night of binge drinking, it took my brain a while to start firing on all cylinders. After a couple of seconds, it came back to me, although I wished it hadn’t. The gently rocking motion, the swamp…it was May 2nd, the day after the world died. It was a tribute to how badly damaged I’d been the day before that I’d slept past 8:00. I stretched and was reminded of the damage. I hurt in places I didn’t know I could hurt. At least the sleep had given my body and its nanobots time to heal, and the bullet wound wasn’t much more than a scar and a little bit of stiffness, as were all the other cuts, nicks, and scrapes. The healing process, however, had left me ravenous; the empty feeling in my stomach was what had woken me up.

  I swung my legs—stiff after being curled up on the boat’s too-short seat—to the floor and sat up to take stock. I had a boat and supplies for several weeks, assuming I had access to a water source. I was about 13 miles north of Portland, so radiation shouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t go any further south. The water was probably okay in the creek I was in. Once I moved out to the Multnomah Channel or—even worse—the Columbia River, the water would be carrying a lot of radioactives away from Portland, and I wouldn’t want to use it. I pulled my pack over to check out the supplies I’d acquired the night before.

  The first things I noticed when I picked up the bag were the bullet holes. Apparently, the guy in the store had missed me when he fired, but he hadn’t missed my bag. Gone was the waterproofing to 132 feet. The bag would still be okay for most things, but if I really wanted to keep my ammunition dry, I’d need to put it in the other bag. That meant hand-carrying it, which would be tiring as the ammo was heavy. I decided to leave it for now—the two holes weren’t that big. Happily the bullet hadn’t destroyed any of the equipment as it went through the bag. It had hit one of the knives and been redirected b
ack out.

  As I munched on one of the 2,400-calorie emergency food bars—now a little less as it had a bullet hole through it—I tried to decide on my course of action. In the light of day, I could truly appreciate just how screwed I was.

  I was the better part of 3,000 miles from where I needed to be. I couldn’t confirm it, but I suspected the mass transportation system was no longer operational. I would have to go around many of the areas, as they were now radioactive holes. Then, assuming I made it to my destination, I would need to find a secret base and kill an unknown number of people.

  How would I get there? If there’d been power, I could have used the Columbia River to get all the way to Idaho. Of course, there was no power, so I wouldn’t make it past the locks at Bonneville, and I’d have to transit Portland’s radioactive zone, and that would still leave me 2,500 miles from Philadelphia.

  Walking was out. It would take a really long time, be really dangerous, and require walking across the Rocky Mountains. No thanks. I hated walking, and to walk that far? Nope; wasn’t going to happen.

  I wondered, idly, if I could find a small airport that still had fuel. Maybe I could leapfrog across the country, from small airfield to small airfield. Of course, that would be a great way to trap myself as people locked down the transportation hubs to try to confiscate whatever resources they could. If civilization had truly been destroyed, I was in no real hurry to get there. My orders had been to go to Philadelphia and kill Obsidian’s management, not to have it done by some arbitrary date. Rushing there might end up with me getting caught and terminated by some random band of looters. That led to mission failure, and I’d never failed in a mission—my last one wouldn’t be my first.