Avenger (The Bugging Out Series Book 6)

by Noah Mann

  “Of course,” Grace said.

  Krista reached out and stole Elaine’s hand from her mother.

  “I promise I’ll do a good job,” she said, sincere enthusiasm all about her.

  “We know that, sweetie,” I said. “But we’re going to have to figure out some way to pay you.”

  The days of money were over—for now. There had been discussions of how to introduce some currency into what had become a very fluid barter system. That was a decision, and an effort, I wanted nothing to do with.

  “But we can figure that out later,” I told the girl.

  She let go of Elaine’s hand and stepped close to her mother and brother.

  “I’ve got to get Brandon to Mrs. Detwiler’s so I can get to work,” Grace said.

  My friend’s widow had arranged for a trio of older women to care for her son while she worked at the town’s hospital, which, until recently, most had been referred to as a clinic. It had become more than that by necessity. A place where bones were set, cuts were stitched, tumors were removed, and children were born, the facility provided every possible care that Commander Genesee and, when needed, Doc Allen were capable of.

  “We’ll see you in a couple weeks,” I said through the window. “Take care.”

  Grace and Krista gave us a wave as I pulled away, accelerating to join the back end of the convoy. In a few minutes the line of vehicles was out of town, cruising slowly along Highway 42 as the rain that had been falling eased, clouds parting ahead to the east, enough that long rays of sunlight pierced the storm and spread across the sky, glowing and translucent.

  “All these people,” Elaine said, looking to the trucks and vehicles ahead. “They’re pioneers.”

  “I hope they find what they want,” I commented.

  Elaine nodded. I glanced to her and noticed that the Mp5 which had been on the floor of the pickup, lying at her feet, was now on her lap, one hand resting atop the grip. And as we entered the deeper woods, grey trees sweating a dewy dust in the damp morning air, I sensed her head swiveling, scanning to either side of our vehicle. I might have thought the action a throwback to her days as an FBI agent, just a cop’s vigilance on display. But most who’d survived this long through the blight had developed a similar sense of awareness to their surroundings. It didn’t trouble me that she was on guard. That was who she was.

  But it did remind me that there could be any number of threats out there. The hiders Dalton had spoken of, like those who’d ambushed us, could be behind any tree. Whether they were willing to take on a convoy of this size was debatable. But we had to be ready. My wife knew that.

  It was a shame that, almost certainly, my daughter would have to be taught the same lessons as she grew older.

  Twenty Nine

  Our quarters were temporary, a house a hundred yards north of the covered bridge. Once we’d unloaded the pickup and received our supplies from the larger trucks in the convoy, Elaine and I set up Hope’s collapsible crib and laid her in it. Her eyes swept the unfamiliar space above, hands groping free of the blanket which wrapped her.

  “She’s so active now,” Elaine said. “When she’s feeding she’s grabbing at my face, my hair.”

  I looked around the front room of the house which we’d been assigned during our stay in Remote. A beadboard panel had peeled away from the underlying two-by-four structure. Above, the plastered ceiling had cracked and a four foot section lay in the corner of the space.

  “Maybe we can give her a hammer and she can help get this place together,” I said.

  Elaine, too, gave the room a once over.

  “It’s not so bad,” she said.

  “It’s not so great, either.”

  “We’ve stayed in worse,” she reminded me.

  How true that was. In little more than collapsing shacks and outdoors on our way to and from Cheyenne. In the belly of a fishing boat chugging north to Alaska.

  “Besides,” she began, “we’re together. All of us. That’s what’s important.”

  I leaned close and kissed her. Below us, our daughter made a sound that almost reeked of amusement.

  “Was that a laugh?” Elaine asked, both of us staring at Hope.

  “You need some manners, young lady,” I said, pulling Elaine into an embrace and kissing her deeply.

  Again, our daughter chuckled. This time, though, neither of us let the other go. The moment, regardless of the locale, felt too wonderful to stop.

  * * *

  We met at the garrison’s outpost in the converted general store. Enderson and Hart had set up half a dozen chairs, but only five were needed.

  “Nick is wrangling an uncooperative generator,” Mike DeSantis explained.

  A top notch mechanic, Nick Withers had fought alongside me against the Unified Government forces. That encounter, I’d feared, had broken him. But it hadn’t. He’d recovered from the episode where fear had frozen him, and was pulling more than his own weight in the establishment of the settlement.

  “We’ll fill him in on what we discuss,” Rebecca Vance said.

  She took a seat, Mike next to her, notebook open on his lap where a computer tablet would have been not so many years before. The two soldiers and I joined them in the rough circle of chairs.

  “Our first night,” Corporal Enderson said. “We don’t expect any problems or threats, but everyone should stay aware. If something serious does develop, two shots in rapid succession will let me and Specialist Hart know that we’re needed. And that’s our plan—to back you up if necessary. This is your town.”

  Mike smiled and nodded at the simple explanation of the garrison’s role in Remote. Rebecca, though, held any reaction close, her deep suspicions seeming to not allow even the slightest approval of actions authorized by Bandon’s leadership.

  “Fletch is here to assist with the repairs and construction,” Enderson continued. “I know he’s discussed plans with you.”

  “He has,” Mike confirmed. “It’s an aggressive schedule, but I think we can manage it and wrap things up in two weeks.”

  “Good,” Enderson said. “So then if—”

  “What about these people to the east?” Rebecca asked, interrupting. “These people you’ve made an alliance with.”

  “Camas Valley,” Enderson said.

  “What do they expect from us?”

  “Nothing,” I said, answering for the corporal. “The arrangements are between Bandon and them.”

  “And we’re in the middle,” Rebecca stated.

  She wasn’t entirely incorrect. But not for the reasons she thought.

  “Rebecca, once the garrison outpost is gone, and it will be gone eventually, if you all of a sudden need the cavalry, Camas Valley is a lot closer than Bandon,” I said. “Not everyone is out to oppress you.”

  I might have held back, but, since I was the first person to be on the receiving end of Rebecca’s distrust when she and Nick and Mike came to my house, I figured I’d heard enough of her complaining, warranted or not. But the reaction I received from her, to my surprise, was not some volley of vitriolic return fire.

  “We just don’t know them,” she said.

  “Trust is an issue, Fletch,” Mike said, joining with his fellow settler. “We’d like to meet them at some point.”

  “I’m sure that will happen sooner rather than later,” Enderson said, looking to Hart next. “Specialist...”

  “Any medical issues, injuries, anything like that, let me know right away,” Hart said. “I’d like to prevent any—”

  The medic’s encouragement to bring issues quickly to his attention ended abruptly as the building began to shake, the structure rolling through a sizeable earthquake. I stood, the floor beneath my feet shifting enough that I reached out to the old counter to steady myself.

  “It’s settling down,” Enderson said as the motion slowed, the world stilling around us.

  “That was interesting,” Mike said.

  I looked to the door, wanting to bolt through i
t and get to my wife and daughter. But I didn’t. The shaker hadn’t been violent enough to do any appreciable damage, so they would certainly be safe, particularly with Elaine watching over our daughter.

  “A damage survey would seem appropriate,” Enderson said. “Fletch?”

  “I wouldn’t expect much from this one,” I said. “But we don’t want to start off repairing new damage tomorrow if we can deal with it tonight.”

  “Let’s touch base tomorrow to see if we have any issues crop up after the workday,” Enderson suggested.

  “Agreed,” Mike said.

  The meeting, as formally informal as a gathering such as this could be, broke up, each of us not wearing a uniform heading back to their homes to give the structures a quick once over after the quake.

  Rebecca, though, did not go straight home.

  I was last to leave, talking with Enderson and Hart for just a minute. When I finally came through the front door and stood in the shelter of the outpost’s covered drive, where automobiles had once pulled in for gas, I saw Rebecca standing near one of the posts supporting the horizontal structure. She’d leaned her AK against the post and was lashing a length of wood to the support so that it jutted upward at an angle, as a short pole might.

  And that was just what it was, I realized. A pole. A flag pole. That became abundantly clear when she reached into her backpack and retrieved the bolt of cloth, stars and stripes upon it. She tied Old Glory to the pole and stepped back, letting the breeze catch it and smooth the folds.

  “It looks nice,” I said.

  The woman turned toward me, not surprised by either my presence or my comment.

  “I brought it just in case,” she said. “And the place didn’t look right without it.”

  I’d been assured by the leaders of the settlers that they would still consider themselves part of the United States of America, even if they’d separated from Bandon. Rebecca Vance had taken it upon herself to demonstrate that very fact in the truest way possible.

  “No, it didn’t,” I agreed.

  * * *

  I returned home to find a fire crackling in the hearth and a broken window I’d planned to deal with in the morning already boarded over.

  “You’ve been busy,” I said as I came into the kitchen.

  “Just don’t get used to this domestic side of me,” Elaine admonished me.

  There would be no cooking with electricity in this kitchen. Not yet. I had seen when coming in that Elaine had rigged up one of the fireplace pokers to hold the Dutch oven we’d brought with us over the fire in the hearth.

  “We’re cooking old school tonight,” she said. “And tomorrow night. And...”

  “The night after that,” I joined in. “Etcetera.”

  I gave the space a quick once over and took a step toward the hallway.

  “Nothing broken,” Elaine said. “No new cracks.”

  I stopped and smiled at my wife as she dumped chicken pieces into the pot already brimming with beans and tomatoes.

  “You’re a qualified inspector now,” I said.

  She put a lid on the heavy pot and handed it to me.

  “Go cook us some chili. I’m going to check on Hope.”

  I did as I was told, hooking the pot’s handle to the poker before easing it over the fire. The contents began to sizzle almost immediately. But my attention was drawn away by my wife’s voice, uncertainty in it.

  “Eric...”

  I turned toward her. She stood where the hallway spilled into the front room, her gaze fixed out a side window that looked into the woods.

  “Who is that woman?”

  I stood and looked out the same window and saw immediately who had drawn my wife’s attention. It was a woman, standing deep amongst the trees, most of her lost in shadow. But not her hair, enough fading daylight left to hint at the long red locks draped over her shoulders.

  “She’s not one of ours,” I said, stepping toward the door and taking my AR in hand. “Watch my back.”

  Elaine retrieved her MP5 and stood near the window as I stepped outside and came around the porch. By the time I reached the side the woman was on, she was gone. I looked back to Elaine and saw her gesturing through the window, pointing up the slope. I redirected my attention and saw movement, quick movement, the figure almost lost in the thickening forest. Had Elaine not seen what I was, I might have thought I was hallucinating, seeing yet another shadowy figure that fled before I could reach it. But this was real. The woman out there was real.

  I aimed myself at the place the woman had last slipped through the trees, pushing myself up the gentle hill. Too fast, it turned out, an old, dried out root jutting up from near the base of one tree catching my foot, sending me stumbling forward. Regaining my footing, I pressed on. But on toward nothing. There was no more target to aim myself at.

  The woman was gone.

  Thirty

  Nick Withers and I brought my pickup to the large storage building next to the outpost to peel some clapboards from the side and metal panels from the roof. In a few days the structure would be scavenged down to bare bones, which would then be cut up for firewood.

  “What are those people called?” Nick asked me as we stepped from my pickup. “Hiders?”

  “That’s what Dalton called them.”

  “Maybe the woman was one of them,” Nick suggested.

  I’d reported the encounter Elaine and I had had with the woman the previous evening, and it had spread quickly through the new residents of Remote. No one else had seen her, it turned out, nor noticed any sign of a visitor.

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “What about someone from Camas Valley?”

  “Just out for a look at us?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that what they did to everyone in Bandon? Spy on us?”

  If that was the case, this woman was the least covert observer I’d ever seen. But, I had to admit, when I’d first laid eyes on her, right after Elaine had pointed her out, it did appear that she was watching us. The collective us, I reminded myself. Even though...

  Even though she was near our house, and no others.

  I forced that burst of paranoia down and came around the front of the truck, gesturing to the building.

  “We’ve got work to do,” I said.

  Nick and I each took hold of the twisted front door and peeled it fully back, separating it from the overhead track upon which it had once rolled freely.

  “So do you think she was spying?” Nick pressed.

  The man was strong in the physical sense, but a tad weak upstairs. Rumor and gossip fed him, I was learning.

  “Nick, it really doesn’t matter,” I told him as we laid the remnants of the door away from the entrance. “If she comes back, we can ask her.”

  He seemed to take my statement as a signal that I was tired of the subject, which I was.

  “I’ll get the ladder,” he said.

  The plan was simple—we’d start at the top, Nick on top of the building to pry the edges of the metal roofing loose, while I’d pound it upward from below using a length of two-by-four. It only took a few minutes for the young mechanic to place the ladder and climb up, demolition bar in hand.

  “I’ll be right under you inside,” I said. “Give me a shout when you have one edge loose and I’ll start pounding.”

  “Got it.”

  I carried the two-by into the storage building and positioned myself below where Nick was standing. He loosened the first panel and I bashed it free of its remaining fasteners from below. With a few pulls he dislodged the slab of thin metal and tossed it to the ground below, shifting his position to the next panel and setting to work on it. Two were removed. Then three. Then four.

  At five the effort stopped cold.

  “Fletch...”

  The young man called to me through the opening above, but I did not answer. I couldn’t. My attention was fixed not on the roof we were dismantling, but on the ground just beyond my feet.

  It w
as the spot I’d stumbled upon when surveying the building on our inspection trip to Remote. Schiavo had come in and found me doing almost the exact same thing I was doing now—staring at two small rocks which had been arranged next to each other in the same fashion as Olin had at his hideout. He’d used them to cook over there, and it seemed as though he must have here, as well, with Schiavo stating that he must have done so on his way to Bandon, or while fleeing.

  But how could I be staring at them as I was? I’d knocked them away with a kick of my boot before the captain and I had left the building.

  I had done that, I was certain. Or was I?

  Could that be just a phantom memory? An innocuous belief that I actually had scattered the pair of angular stones?

  “You did,” I said to myself, confirming the impossible.

  “Fletch, you okay?”

  I looked behind and through the growing rectangular hole in the roof. Nick Withers stood at the edge of the opening, squinting down into the darkness at me.

  “Anything wrong?”

  I shook my head. What was I going to say to him? To anybody? That rocks that shouldn’t be here were?

  “Nothing,” I told Nick. “Just taking a breather.”

  “Mind if I take one?”

  “Not at all,” I told him.

  I listened to his footsteps on the roof as he moved toward the ladder. I turned back to the stones, staring at them for a few seconds before stepping close and swiping my boot across the dusty floor, knocking them against the wall and into a pile of debris.

  Again.

  * * *

  Elaine had begun tending to the outside of our house, which would become a settler’s place of residence once we departed. I found her on the side of the building, Glock on her hip, applying a bead of glazing putty to a cracked but usable window pane. Beyond it was our daughter’s room, and every few seconds as she worked I could see my wife peering through, checking on the most precious thing either of us had ever known.