by Eric Vall
I turned around and made eye contact with Anna, then I gave her the signal to get into position and all the girls swiftly and quietly assembled. Bailey took the middle of the building, and she had her sniper rifle set up in a matter of seconds. Paige and Kimmy were at one end with their pistols drawn, and Tara and Anna came to the other side of me and aimed their pistols down as well. It took less than thirty seconds for them to get into position, and I was proud of their effort. Even Kimmy looked ready to shoot if necessary.
“Hey,” I called down, my pistol fixed on the guy closest to my side of the road who peered into the backseat of our jeep. “It looks like you all are just travelers trying to get somewhere, but I’m on a short fuse today, so you have about five seconds to walk the fuck away from my jeep.”
“Who the fuck are you?” the guy closest to me asked, obviously unimpressed with my threat. The last thing I needed right then was to deal with little punks who thought they owned the world now that there was nobody around to hold them responsible.
There were lives on the line, and I really didn’t want to waste any more time on these assholes.
“I’m the guy with six guns aimed at your fucking head,” I sneered. “Are you the guy who’s gonna get shot today, or the guy who’s gonna leave to live another day? The choice is up to you.”
“Fuck you!” one of the guys across the street shouted, and he lifted his rifle to try to get a shot off, but I beat him to it with a shot to the forehead.
His head exploded like an overripe watermelon, and the other men flinched with surprise.
“I’ll repeat it,” I yelled. “Are you gonna leave, or are you going to die?”
The men below paid no attention to me, they screamed about their dead friend and cursed my name for what I’d done to him.
“Fuck you, man, you shot Ronnie!” one of them cried.
“Fuck this guy!” another added.
“Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” I muttered as I dropped to the ground so I was out of view.
Bailey let off a shot that took out the guy closest to our side of the road, but the rest of them wisened up quickly and hid behind the vehicles below.
A couple of them popped up from behind the pickup truck and fired off a few rounds, but Paige got one in the neck, and Anna took down the other with a shot to the dome.
Half of their crew was already gone, but these guys obviously had pretty large egos, and they weren’t about to let this go and walk away. We were beyond that point now anyways.
The two guys behind our jeep popped up and let a few rounds off at us, but they had pretty poor aim and they hit nothing but the building.
The last guy behind the pickup truck popped up, then, though, but before I could pull the trigger, Kimmy took him out with a shot that missed but the ricochet landed low in his neck, but definitely did enough damage to make him bleed out on the street. Part of me worried about how she would feel having to see such gore laid out in front of her, but when I glanced over to check on her she didn’t look phased by what had happened and I had to remind myself that I didn’t know her background very well. For all I knew she could’ve seen a hundred dead bodies before the EMP even hit.
I turned my attention back to the guys behind our jeep, but the firing stopped and I heard one of them curse before he tried to duck out of sight. I caught him in the forehead before he was out of view, but from the way they had stopped firing I assumed they were out of bullets.
Tara took out the last guy from the side when he tried to duck down, and the fight was over just as quickly as it had begun.
As much as I had been irritated that we had to deal with this at all since it took up precious time that we didn’t have to waste, I was also impressed with the girls, particularly Kimmy. Nobody had asked her to step up and follow our lead, in fact I figured that she would stay further back on the roof so that she was out of the line of fire, but she had taken charge and even got a hit.
“Good shot,” Paige told her after the fight was over, and she raised her hand for a high five.
“Thanks, but that was pure luck,” Kimmy breathed. Her cheeks were flushed, and her chest rose and fell quickly, but she looked like she was more excited than scared, so I thought that was a good sign.
“Yeah,” Bailey agreed with a smile. “I’m impressed you got a shot on your first try like that.”
“I missed, but the ricochet bailed me out,,” Kimmy chuckled. “I picked one guy and watched him, so I was ready when he popped up. Besides, you all did most of the work.”
“You did a good job,” Anna congratulated her, and I was happy to see that our new girl had won the affection of our second in command. I was worried that Anna would only ever see her as a liability, but Kimmy was quickly proving herself to be quite capable in the field, and Anna had an open enough mind to allow her opinión to change.
“Good job,” I said, and I looked around at each of my girls, “everybody.”
“Now, then,” Anna sighed. “Since that’s out of the way let’s get this show back on the road.”
“Right,” I agreed. “We can’t waste any more time.”
We quickly gathered Kimmy’s bags and everyone went back through the roof access door into the building.
I pushed the step stool up through the slat, then closed it, but that wouldn’t be enough to deter someone, we needed a way to block off the roof access so nobody could get in.
“Hm,” Paige said as she and I stared at the small opening above us. “How are we going to do this?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” I said. “We can’t exactly just lock the door.”
“I don’t think the door locks,” Bailey said.
“It doesn’t,” I chuckled. “But even if it did, somebody could easily get through there. We need a way to block this off so nobody can get up to the roof.”
“Why do we have to block it off?” Kimmy asked.
“Uh… so nobody steals the solar panel,” Tara said, and she looked at her like ‘are you serious?’
“I know that,” Kimmy said, “I just meant we don’t have to block it off, we just have to hide it.”
“How could we do that?” Anna asked. “It’s a giant square cut out right in the ceiling. That seems pretty difficult to conceal.”
“It’s not giant,” Kimmy chuckled. “Hang on, let me try something.”
The dark skinned woman pushed past me and crouched down to check out some of the stuff in the supply closet. A moment later she popped back up with a fairly large rectangular light fixture that looked like it had been broken for years, and a few screws.
“Okay,” Tara said as she inspected the things in Kimmy’s hands. “I’m intrigued, continue.”
“Thanks for the permission,” Kimmy laughed. “If we just screw this old light fixture into the ceiling then nobody will notice the hatch for the roof.”
“That’s pretty brilliant,” Paige said.
“Thanks,” Kimmy said with a smile.
Once again I was impressed with Kimmy’s ingenuity.
I quickly helped screw in the light fixture since I was the only one tall enough to reach the ceiling without the help of the step stool we had left on the roof, then we headed back down to the jeep and set off again.
It was mid afternoon, then, and the sun was still bright as we drove, but this time the girls chatted in the back about various things. I knew they liked Kimmy before this, and part of me had worried about their reaction to her tagging along, but she was fitting in just fine and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched them in my rearview mirror.
We still had a little ways to the refinery, and it was hot out, so I reminded the girls to drink plenty of water while we had the chance. We’d make dinner once everything was established at the refinery, but they needed to keep up their water intake.
“So,” Kimmy said while everyone quieted down to get a drink. “Is it always like this when you guys come out? I never really inquired before, but do you run into guy
s like that often?”
“Oh, all the time,” Anna said.
“Really?” Kimmy asked, her eyes wide with curiosity. “It would seem like there wouldn’t be that many people roaming around anymore.”
“It used to happen even more often,” Paige said. “Lately we were just running into druggies, but we took out their outposts so we haven’t seen any more of them. Those were just civilians we saw.”
“They were probably headed south,” Bailey added. “Most people went south before winter or tried to at least. It makes sense, if you aren’t set up for snow, then you’ll die pretty quickly out there.”
“Sad,” Kimmy said with a frown.
“It is,” I agreed. “Not all of the people roaming around are assholes, but some of them definitely are.”
“Yeah, that was made clear today,” Kimmy scoffed. “I can’t believe they decided to try to fight after you gave them the opportunity to just leave.”
“A sort of mentality takes over for some people where they think they own everything,” I explained.
“I guess when most of the time you can just take whatever you want now that would make sense,” she said. “But their cockiness got them killed today.”
“It did,” I agreed. “Whatever’s abandoned is free game for anyone to take, but stealing from others during this time is still unacceptable. At least to me.”
“To any decent person,” Paige muttered.
“Right,” I told the brunette with a smile. “But not everyone thinks like that. People are selfish, and unfortunately a lot of the time it’s the selfish people that survive.”
“That makes sense,” Kimmy sighed. “People who say ‘me me me’ are more likely to push someone aside to take care of themselves. Meanwhile, the nice people get taken advantage of.”
“Exactly,” I said. “But that’s why we created the place we have now. Everyone helps out and contributes how they can, and I try to make sure nobody gets forgotten or taken advantage of.”
“Ohana,” Paige said.
“Nobody gets left behind,” Kimmy added with a smile.
“What’s ohana?” I asked.
“What?!” Tara asked, and she shot forward out of her seat. “Have you never seen Lilo & Stitch?”
“Is that a movie?” I asked.
“Dear god,” Tara groaned. “Kimmy, please tell me that you can get a TV and DVD player working so we can give Tav the movie education he so desperately needs.”
“Hey,” I laughed, “I’m not that sheltered.”
“I don’t know,” Kimmy said, and she pursed her lips. “You haven’t seen Lilo & Stitch, which is basically a crime as far as I’m concerned, so I’m with Tara.”
“Thank you,” the platinum blonde chuckled.
“I’ll do my best to work on a TV next,” Kimmy promised. “But they can get pretty complicated, so it might take a while.”
“It’s not like we don’t have time,” Anna said with a shrug. “I would love to watch some of my horror films again.”
“Nobody wants to watch scary movies with you,” Tara said with an eye roll.
“I’ll watch them by myself, then,” Anna said, and she stuck her tongue out at the platinum blonde.
“That’s some serial killer shit,” Tara said.
“I’d like to watch,” Kimmy said.
“Really?” Anna asked. “You’re a horror buff?”
“I wouldn’t say horror buff,” Kimmy said, “but I always loved a good B rated horror film, they’re so funny.”
“What the hell is happening?” Tara asked, and she looked back and forth between Anna and Kimmy.
“You know,” Kimmy explained, “all B list movies are pretty terribly made. They have bad CGI and horrible acting, but honestly the horror ones are the best.”
“Right!” Anna exclaimed. “They’re supposed to be so scary, but they end up just being hilarious.”
“I know!” Kimmy laughed. “It’s insane that they even get made.”
“Alright, then,” Tara said. “You all can have your horror fest, the rest of us will watch Disney movies like normal adults.”
“Are Disney movies more adult than horror movies?” Paige asked with a raised eyebrow.
“They’re nostalgic,” Tara huffed.
“Riiiiight,” Paige chuckled.
I smiled to myself as I focused back on the road. If Kimmy hadn’t won Anna’s affection earlier with her shot from the roof, she had definitely won them with her love of horror films. Brody had tried to impress the redhead with his own love of the genre, but Anna saw right through his facade. Kimmy seemed like she genuinely enjoyed the movies, though, which went a long way in Anna’s book.
Kimmy had only been out with us for a few hours, and as selfish as it was I already wanted her around more. I knew this would probably be her only excursion unless something else came up that required her particular skill set again, but I liked having her around.
After a while we were close to the refinery, so I pulled into the driveway of the old house we had stayed at last time we scoped the place out.
Once the jeep was parked and we all hopped out, I reached up and stretched out.
“I know we talked about me staying behind,” Kimmy said, “but I can stay out of the way if it’d be better for your whole team to be with you. Whatever you decide is fine, and I don’t want to pressure you, I just didn’t want you to have to leave anyone behind with me when you might need them.”
She was clearly nervous, and I could tell she wanted to go with us, so I gave her a quick smile and acted as nonchalant as possible.
“Yeah,” I said as I continued to stretch. “I guess that’d be fine, you did good back at that apartment building, just stick with Paige or Bailey like you did last time.”
“Oh, great,” she said, and her mouth parted into a wide grin. “Thank you, that’s… I mean, I’m glad you won’t have to leave anybody behind.”
“Cool,” I said, and I had to stifle a smile. It was absolutely adorable how excited she was to be a part of the group. I think part of it was that she felt safe enough around us to know that we wouldn’t let her get hurt, but more than that I think she liked the adrenaline rush. As a mom she’d spent a lot of time caring for Anthony, and while I was sure that was incredibly rewarding, I doubted it was as exciting as a shoot out. Besides, this could possibly be the only mission she ever joined us on, I might as well let her have a little fun, and I’d make sure that she was safe at all times.
“So we’re all going now?” Bailey asked as she walked over to me.
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Okay, cool,” the blonde said. “It’s gonna be dark in a couple of hours, though, we should probably get walking, it’s a mile or so isn’t it?”
“I think that’s about right,” I agreed, and I turned to address everyone. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Anna answered immediately, and she stood up from where she had been stretching as well.
“Yup,” Paige said with a sweet smile, and she pushed her glasses further up on her nose.
“Ready,” Kimmy said, and she did a terrible job of trying to hide the grin that consumed the bottom half of her face.
“Let’s go,” Tara said.
“Alright,” I said with a clap. “Follow me.”
I led the girls down the driveway and across the street to the trees and field that would lead to the refinery down the road. The grass had grown even taller since the last time we were there, and I made sure to keep an eye out for snakes as we walked. It was unlikely we’d come across a rattler or anything else that was incredibly poisonous, but there was always the possibility, and you couldn’t be too careful now that there were no hospitals with antivenom around to save you. A healthy adult could probably survive a rattlesnake bite, it was more of a myth than anything that you’d die in thirty minutes once bitten. That was the advised time to get medical attention, but even without proper antivenom a healthy adult could most likely survive, though they coul
d have serious complications or side effects. One wrong move nowadays could mean death, and it was my job to keep all the ladies behind me safe.
The sun was low in the sky as we walked, and it continued to move west and turn the day into twilight. I looked back every few minutes to make sure everything was fine since all the girls were so quiet, but it didn’t take long before we reached the clump of trees that shielded the refinery from the main road.
“Okay,” I said, and everyone gathered around me. “Spread out a bit through the trees, we’ll get a look at who’s on guard duty and what route they’ve chosen, then we’ll meet back here in five minutes. Got it?”
“Got it,” Anna agreed.
“You can come with me,” Bailey told Kimmy with a smile. “I heard Tav tell you to stick with someone like before.”
“That’d be great, thanks,” Kimmy agreed. “I promise I’ll stay out of your way.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bailey said.
I smiled at the blonde hippie girl, of course she had offered to be Kimmy’s buddy, she was too sweet for words most of the time, and at that moment I was incredibly happy to have her on the team. Not only was she the best shot around, but she was an incredibly good person and friend.
“Okay,” I said. “Five minutes, now go.”
The girls fanned out through the trees, and I watched to make sure everyone got into a good position and also so I knew exactly where they were. I didn’t like to be in the dark about where they were hidden just in case anything went wrong.
I made my way to the tree line and crouched down. I could already hear voices, so I knew that people were out and about, and the machinery in the refinery seemed to be going as well.
We were near the barracks, and from where I crouched I could see the driveway to the refinery and the small area out front where the civilians had made a fire pit with chairs around it. Some sat there talking while guards patrolled the area. It looked to be the same people we had left there before, but I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize any new people or not. We hadn’t spoken to everyone, and we’d only been there with them for a day or so. I didn’t see Renee, though, which concerned me a bit. When we had left them it seemed that she was the natural selection to lead the place, I just hoped that Brody hadn’t sent someone else to be in charge.
