Without Law 12

by Eric Vall

  “Alright,” the brunette said.

  Anna came out from the science building with a small bag that I assumed had the C4 in it, and she put it into the jeep before she headed toward the gym to get the chocolate and things I had asked of her.

  “Tara, go with Anna,” I said.

  “What are we doing?” the platinum blonde asked as she followed the redhead.

  “Everyone else get into the jeep,” I said. “They’ll be back in just a minute. I’m going to go check on Kimmy.”

  “Is it mean if we make Kimmy ride bitch?” Paige whispered to Bailey.

  “She’s the new girl,” I called out as I walked away. “A bit of hazing should work out fine, but there’ll be two of you riding bitch regardless.”

  “Fuck, he’s right,” Paige said.

  “Not it!” Bailey exclaimed.

  “Oh, come on,” Paige said, “you’re the tiniest.”

  I reached the door of the dorm building, but just as I was about to open it Kimmy pushed her way out.

  “I was just coming to check on you,” I said.

  “Sorry,” she said, and she seemed slightly flustered. “I was just saying goodbye to Anthony.”

  “Okay,” I said, but I noticed then that she had tear stains on her cheeks. “You know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Nobody would blame you if you felt that you couldn’t leave your son.”

  “I’m going,” she said, a bit more confidently. “I already showed Betty and Rolly how to work the radio. Of course nothing will happen until we get our signal going, but they know what to do now and they’ll be ready when we call them.”

  “Alright,” I said with a small smile, and I reached down to grab one of the bags she had slung over her shoulder. “Here, let me help you with that.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Tara and Anna met us at the back of the jeep, and Tara looked me up and down and glared heavily.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, and she looked away for a second then looked back at me with an even more intensified glare. “You just don’t carry our bags is all.”

  “Oh, god,” I laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” Kimmy said, and I could see she was suppressing a smile. “I asked him for help.”

  “This isn’t about you, Kimmy,” Tara told her with a smile, then she turned to glare at me again. “It’s about Tav playing favorites.”

  “I do not!” I scoffed.

  “She’s fucking with you,” Anna said with an eye roll, and she walked around and hopped into the passenger’s seat.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m just fuckin’ with you,” Tara laughed. “Obviously Kimmy’s new to our missions, she deserves some special treatment before she has to deal with dead bodies, meth heads, rapists, and cannibals.”

  “Jesus,” Kimmy breathed.

  “Don’t worry,” Tara told her, “we’ve got your back.”

  “But you’re riding bitch!” Paige called from the backseat.

  “That’s fair, I suppose,” Kimmy chuckled.

  I put her bags into the back of the jeep and shut the hatchback, then I walked around to the driver’s side, hopped in, and started the vehicle. I hadn’t even told Anna to gas it up, but I saw that it had a full tank and I knew she was responsible for it.

  Tara, Paige, Bailey, and Kimmy squeezed into the back amidst a ruckus of giggles and shoves and “well, move over”s.

  “Everyone good back there?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Paige said.

  “Mhm,” Tara said, but it was clear she wasn’t happy about being smushed.

  In my rearview mirror I could see Paige and Kimmy in the middle, and Bailey by one door and Tara by another. Anna smiled to herself as she put her foot on the dash and rolled her window down slightly. Having the passenger’s seat was just a perk of being my second in command, but I knew she was enjoying it even more than usual with all the elbowing that was happening in the backseat.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and I started down the driveway. “Paige, show Kimmy where we’re headed on the map.”

  “Oh, right,” the brunette said, and she disappeared out of my rearview for a second while she tried to find the map again.

  Kimmy agreed that it looked like a good place for us to go, so I headed toward the refinery knowing that Paige would alert me when it was time to turn.

  The sun shone brightly through the windshield, and I found my sunglasses in the cupholder so I put them on and put the visor down. It was quiet as we drove along, the trees passed us in a blur of deep green, and I stared ahead and thought about what we were going to do once we arrived at the refinery and how strange it would be to use a CB radio again. I hadn’t used one in years, but I had always loved the things. My dad had an old one in the garage that I often played with as a kid. I didn’t really know how they worked back then, but I would switch around the dial and talk my best trucker code into the mic. I bet a lot of people around got a kick out of my small voice coming through their radio with made up codes that meant nothing.

  “I’m hungry,” Paige said. “And don’t say I’m always hungry, because our breakfast was definitely interrupted.”

  “I’m a bit hungry, too,” Kimmy admitted.

  “Reach into the back,” Anna said. “There’s a box with power bars on top.”

  “Nice,” Paige said as she turned around and retrieved the bars to pass out to everyone.

  “So,” Tara said after she took a bite of her bar, “how long will it take to put up this waypoint or whatever?”

  “It shouldn’t take too long,” Kimmy said. “I should be able to have it done in an hour or so.”

  “Cool,” Paige said. “However we can help, let us know.”

  “I will, thanks,” Kimmy said, and she opened her bar and took a bite.

  “I was thinking,” Anna said. “Do you think Brody’s talked to the people at the refinery yet?”

  “What do you mean?” Bailey asked.

  “She means has he told them to shoot us on sight yet,” Tara clarified, and I saw panic flash across Kimmy’s face in my rearview.

  “Not quite how I’d put it,” Anna said, “but yeah, that’s right.”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I doubt he would have done it himself, though.”

  “Meaning he would have sent someone down there,” Bailey said. “Do you think the people would listen, though?”

  “Maybe,” Paige said. “Especially if he sent someone down there to keep tabs on them.”

  “Well, shit,” Tara said.

  “We’ll have to grab one of the guards when we get there,” I said. “I’m sure they have a guard duty. We’ll wait, grab someone, and see what they know.”

  “Alright,” Tara agreed.

  “Anna, Tara, I want you with me on that,” I instructed. “Paige, Bailey, you’ll stay at the jeep with Kimmy.”

  “Okay,” Bailey said.

  “I really don’t need any special treatment,” Kimmy protested. “I’m just here to help, you don’t have to worry about me.”

  Anna glanced over at me, then turned to face the backseat.

  “We just want to make sure you’re safe,” she said. “I’m sure you can handle yourself, but we’ve been through this before, so it’ll work out better if you just go along with what we do.”

  “Okay,” Kimmy said. “I didn’t mean to overstep… Like I said, I just want to help.”

  “I know,” Anna told her with a smile. “And we appreciate it, but that also means that it’s our job to keep you safe.”

  “Just think of us as your bodyguards,” Tara said. “Do what we say, and you won’t get hurt.”

  “I’m not sure if that was a threat or an explanation,” Kimmy laughed. “But either way, I’ll try my best.”

  “That’s all we ask,” Bailey said with a sweet smile.

  “So the people at this refinery,” Kimmy said, “you think they’ll be on your side?�
�

  “We think so,” I said. “We’ve met them before.”

  “Nobody likes Brody,” Tara explained. “He’s an asshole.”

  “So you want to turn his people against him,” Kimmy said with a nod.

  “I think most of them already are,” Paige said.

  “I did notice something weird when they attacked the school,” Bailey said.

  “What?” I asked. “What did you see?”

  “It kind of looked like some of the guys were missing on purpose,” she said, and she shook her head slightly like she was confused.

  “I saw that, too,” Paige said. “Not all of them, but some of them for sure.”

  “What, were you guys battling storm troopers?” Kimmy snickered, but nobody laughed except Paige. Kimmy’s cheeks turned red, and she looked around to Bailey and Tara to try to explain. “You know, like in Star Wars how they can never hit anything? It’s a movie… You’ve never seen Star Wars?”

  “Don’t bother,” Paige told her after she stopped laughing. “I’m just happy to have another nerd in the group. That was good.”

  “Star Wars is so classic, though,” Kimmy said.

  “Isn’t that the one where the bad guy is the dude’s dad?” Tara asked.

  “That would be the one,” Kimmy said, but she was clearly unimpressed.

  “Okay, back to the subject,” Anna chuckled. “You guys really think they were missing on purpose?”

  “Definitely,” Bailey said. “One of them made eye contact with me, and he deliberately moved his weapon. I probably shouldn’t have, but I missed on purpose since he did.”

  “I think that was a good call,” I told her.

  “Really?” Bailey asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “As long as that guy got away.”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Now he knows that we don’t want to hurt them, either,” Anna said.

  “I guess that’s true,” Bailey said.

  “I’m just surprised you could miss at all,” Tara said. “Even on purpose.”

  “That’s what being a good shot is,” I laughed. “If you can’t miss on purpose, then you’re not a very good shot.”

  “Yeah, that could be really bad,” Bailey chuckled.

  “Maybe that guy will tell the others about what happened, too,” Paige said. “It could help get even more people on our side.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  It was a strange plan, and one that I’d never really done before, but it made sense. Brody’s people were unhappy with him as their leader, but they were also terrified of him. If we offered them a way out where they didn’t have to do anything, I was sure they’d take it. There was no risk to them, after all, and when you had a boss like that it was only a matter of time before he pissed off someone enough that they’d come after him.

  Luckily, it was us he’d pissed off. Anybody else might want to take the refinery and the fort for themselves, but we were just happy to get rid of Brody and be able to set up a reasonable trade for fuel. Renee, the woman in charge of the refinery when we were there last, seemed reasonable enough to me. Far more reasonable than Brody’s offer of trading a tractor for fuel. It reminded me of that old Christmas story where the woman sells her hair to buy her husband something for his watch, but at the same time the man sells his watch to buy his wife hair clips. Something like that. It was ridiculous and it pissed me off even more considering that we were the ones who had taken the refinery in the first place.

  Brody had used us for the last time. My knuckles turned white as I clenched the steering wheel harder than I needed to. I took a deep breath to steady myself. We were going to deal with this asshole, and we were going to do it soon, and with his own people. If that didn’t add insult to injury, I didn’t know what would.

  “The town will be up here on the right,” Paige said. “You’ll need to turn at the next road.”

  “Alright,” I said. “How far off course is it?”

  “Not far,” the brunette said. “Five miles, maybe.”

  I took the next turn, and we disappeared onto a road that looked like it had barely been used since the EMP hit. There were leaves and pine needles everywhere, and the trees were so dense that they cast a large shadow on the road that instantly made me cold after the sun had shone on us for so long.

  I pushed my sunglasses up to my forehead and put my visor up since it was so dark in the shadows. I only hoped that the town wasn’t like this. I had been enjoying the sunshine after the day we’d had.

  “I feel like we’re on one of those ghost shows,” Bailey said. “You know, where they’re like, did it suddenly get cold in here?”

  “I know, right,” Tara chuckled. “It’s freezing. I miss the sunshine.”

  “It’s been like one whole minute,” Paige said with an eye roll.

  “That’s too long,” I said.

  “You, too?” Kimmy laughed.

  “I was enjoying the sun,” I said with a shrug.

  “We should be there soon, you bunch of babies,” Paige said.

  “You’re a baby,” Tara muttered.

  I pressed harder on the gas to get us through the trees, and after a couple of minutes I could see the entrance to the town, and it was bright with sunlight. I accelerated more, then breathed a sigh of relief and slowed down once we were back in the sun once more.

  “Oh, thank god,” Tara sighed, and I saw Paige roll her eyes in my rearview. “That’s so nice.”

  “Okay,” Paige said, “keep an eye out for the tallest building around.”

  “That should be easy,” Anna chuckled, and she gestured to the town in front of us.

  It was definitely small, but not quite the smallest we’d ever been to. It was an old town, though, that was clear from the store fronts and houses. It looked like nothing had been built after 1950. Like the road that led to it, the town was littered with old leaves and pine needles that had been left from the previous fall. Grass sprung up in yards though, which gave the town a sort of brightness compared to the dull paint on the houses and stores. Most of the windows and doors I saw appeared to be intact, and I wondered if anybody had been through there at all. The place was well preserved, but also eerie as hell. The abandoned vibe of it paired with the old architecture made me feel like we had just walked into a catastrophe of Chernobyl proportions.

  “This place is giving me the creeps,” I said.

  “Really?” Anna laughed. “I kind of like it. It looks like nobody’s been here.”

  “Yeah, I don’t see any busted windows,” Tara said. “It’s weird.”

  “It’s weird to not see busted windows?” Kimmy asked.

  “You don’t get out much, do you?” Paige teased.

  “No, I guess not,” Kimmy chuckled.

  “Normally towns are pretty picked over,” Bailey explained. “Especially after this past winter when all the Canadians came through.”

  “Hm,” Kimmy said as she looked out the windows. “Well, this place is pretty small, and it’s off the main road, maybe it got overlooked.”

  “The doors could be open, too,” Anna said with a shrug. “We’ve seen that before in small towns.”

  “People left and didn’t lock their doors?” Kimmy asked.

  “Yeah,” Paige said. “It’s like they were in too much of a panic and didn’t think about it or something. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

  “I can see that,” Kimmy said with a nod. “Small town people are generally a lot more trusting anyways.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Oh, I see a busted window!” Bailey exclaimed, and she pointed to a building on our right. It was a small general store, and looked to be one of the only places in town to get food, so it made sense that if somebody was going to bust in anywhere, it would be there.

  “Car bingo, apocalypse edition,” Paige laughed.

  “Hey, there’s a two story building at the end of the street,” Anna said with a point.

  It looked like a
n apartment building. It was old, and a dingy yellow color, with a large wooden door on the front and numerous windows on either side that were decorated with varying shades and patterns of drapes.

  I pulled up in front of the place and shut the engine off.

  “Alright,” I said. “Tara, why don’t you stay with Kimmy while the rest of us clear this place?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. “I think if she stays behind us then we should be alright.”

  “This place does look pretty abandoned,” Paige pointed out.

  “Kimmy, are you comfortable with that?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she agreed, “I’d like to see what you all do. Besides, I’m sure it will be quicker this way.”

  “Well, we can’t bring your equipment with us while we clear,” Anna explained. “So it will probably take about the same amount of time, but I think it will be a good lesson.”

  “Anna’s right,” I said, “and this is a great place to show you how to clear somewhere. I don’t think it’s a skill you’ll need often, but it’s a good one to have.”

  “Should I bring my pistol?” she asked, and she reached for the .38 on her hip.

  “You should bring your pistol everywhere,” Paige told her. “Anytime you leave campus it should be on you. Actually, pretty much any time you leave your room.”

  “I guess I haven’t quite gotten used to carrying it all the time,” Kimmy said with a frown.

  “No worries,” Tara told her, “soon it’ll just be instinct.”

  I was proud of the girls for the way they were taking Kimmy under their wing. I knew Anna worried about her being a liability, but she was right, if Kimmy knew even a little bit of what to do, it would make her more of an asset and less of a concern when things got serious.

  With her being a mother, I didn’t anticipate that Kimmy would become a permanent addition to our group, but it would be nice to have her around every now and then. She had more mechanical knowledge than any of us, especially when it came to electronics and things, which was a pretty useful skill nowadays.

  I was surprised that she wanted to see how we did things, honestly, but she was an intelligent person, and I’d found that intelligent people tended to be pretty curious. We’d have to be careful since she was new to being out in the open, but I thought she was up to the task.