by Dave Conifer
The women outnumbered the men. After hearing about the town’s recent history, Nick understood why this was. He also knew that John wouldn’t like that imbalance. In his eyes, the entire point of the trip was to recruit new Sec Forces, and it was unlikely that he thought the women were up to that task. But it was too late to back out now, Nick thought with relief.
“Can’t argue with you there,” Nick answered. “But once we fatten them up and give them a decent place to live, they’ll be just like us. In fact, this place reminds me of where I came from. We’d be just as bad off if we hadn’t come to Tabernacle.”
“How many would you say there are out here?” Linda asked.
“Jim gave me a head count before,” Nick answered. “Seventy-one. Thirty-five women, twenty-one men and sixteen kids.”
“Um, Nick,” Linda said, “that doesn’t add up to seventy-one.”
Neither of them could hear anything that was being said by their leaders, namely Jim and Elise, around whom the crowd was gathered. He wondered if anybody who wasn’t in the front row could. But he knew it wouldn’t matter. They’d be crazy to turn down the offer, even if they didn’t know what it was. It was an offer, and that was more than they had yesterday.
They probably couldn’t believe their luck. Nick was more concerned at the moment with the logistics of getting them all safely to Tabernacle than with hearing the final decision, which in his mind was nothing but a formality.
Which it was. Before the sun had set Jim and Elise came personally to the house where the Tabernacle visitors were staying and informed them that they would be accepting the offer to come live at the camp. Now all they had to do was find a way to get them there.
~~~
Later, after the voting was done, there was an electricity in the air around Savoy Street. There was finally a reason to have hope. A planning session was called for ten o’clock that night in one of the houses. Besides the Tabernacle crew, Jim and Elise were invited. This was going to be a big job. They would need a lot of heads around that table.
Somebody else showed up at the house, somebody who wasn’t invited. Nick met them while on a quick trip before the meeting to a look for a latrine that he knew didn’t exist. As he moved down the front steps he collided with somebody who was heading in the opposite direction, and fell straight back down on his rear end. He looked up at a mountain of a man, with a beard so thick he could hardly see any face through it.
There was something in the eyes that was familiar, however. Maybe he’d come across him earlier in the day by chance, but he didn’t think so. He’d remember it if he had.
Behind the gigantic man, not yet on the steps, was his clone. They had to be brothers. The first man reached down for Nick’s hand and pulled him to his feet with one arm. “Yeah,” he told Nick. “I can read your face, and you’re right. We’ve met before.”
“You came to our camp that day,” Nick said, suddenly remembering. “I remember watching you through the gate, right? You had a crossbow.”
The second man was now on the porch. “Yeah, we were there,” he said. “And that’s why we’re here now. We know you know, you know?”
Nick smiled. “Say that again?”
“I’m Conrad Bailey,” the first man said. “Everybody calls me ‘Con.’ That’s my brother, Dexter. Everybody calls him ‘Dex.’ We just wanted to thank you for cutting slack after what we did that day. It was nothing personal. As you can see now, we were desperate.”
“We can’t find the words to tell you how it feels that you’re doing this,” Dex said. “I mean, not that I have any kids, but I bet there’s no worse feeling than watching your own kids starve, knowing there ain’t nothing you can do about it. But now you’re giving us a chance.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Con said, “You tore us up pretty bad that day. About fifteen men didn’t make it back.”
“It doesn’t make me feel better,” Nick said. “I’m sad that it came to that, especially now that I know the back story. I wish it never happened.”
Con offered a silent fist bump, which Nick accepted, while Dex rolled his eyes. “I know you have a meeting,” Con said. “But I have to ask. Why did you come? How did you even know where we were?”
“One of your men told me that day,” Nick said. “But this isn’t just a rescue mission. We need you. We need good people. We need people who’ll fight. I think you know why. You’ve seen it yourself in this town. We have a lot to offer anybody who joins us.”
“We’re beaten down, but there are still some fighters here,” Con said. “You’ll see.”
“I hope none of your guys hold a grudge when they see their new home,” Nick said. After a pause, he added “And I hope none of our guys do, either.”
The door opened. “Nick, like, John says we need to get started,” Dewey said. “You coming?”
“Gotta’ go,” Nick told the Bailey Brothers. “Don’t sweat it, okay?”
~~~
“Now that this is in motion, I say let’s roll,” John said. “Full force. Let’s get it done. I say we send somebody back to camp to bring some trucks. We can get everybody out of this garbage dump by tomorrow night if all goes well.”
“And us, too,” Dwayne said. “I’m ready to get on home.” He looked at Jim and Elise with a pained expression on his face. “No offense. I mean, everybody wants to be in their own place, right?”
“None taken,” Jim said quietly.
“What does everybody else think?” John asked. “If we all agree, then as far as I’m concerned, whoever goes back to Tabernacle can leave tonight.”
Everybody nodded their approval. “If there’s room in the van, maybe we should send a few of the local people out now,” Linda suggested. “It’ll be that many fewer to load up when the trucks get here. Maybe some of the kids, or whoever’s the worst off.”
“First things first,” John said, cutting off Elise, who looked like she was about to voice some suggestions about who should ride out in the van. “How many of us go, and who should it be?”
“I think I should go,” Carly said. “If there are any mechanical problems, that’s my thing, right?”
“Good,” John said, nodding. “Should anybody else go?”
“Definitely,” Linda said. “We’re not sending her out there by herself.”
“We’re not out of the woods here yet,” John said. “I’d hate to send some too many of the healthiest people out when there could be an attack. And the healthiest people are us.”
“Well, it’s not exactly peaches and cream between here and Tabernacle,” Linda argued. “Remember what happened on our way here? Thank God it wasn’t just me and Nick. Those guys had the draw on us until the rest of you showed up.”
“I just met two local guys,” Nick said. “They’re definitely in fighting shape, from the looks of them. How about we send one, or both of them, with Carly?”
“Who’s that?” Jim asked. “As if I didn’t know.”
“Con and Dex Bailey,” Nick said. “Nobody’s gonna’ want to tangle with either one of them.” He wondered what Carlo’s reaction would be when they showed up at Tabernacle. Surely he’d recognize them. But that was a can of worms he didn’t want to open yet. Carlo would keep his cool. He’d explain it to Carly before she left, so she could prepare Carlo for the surprise. “If you ask me, it’s a good idea to send both of them.”
Elise nodded. “Yeah, they’re no slouches,” she agreed. “But what’s the difference? Send them, send one of you, what’s the big deal?”
“Okay,” John said. “Enough time wasted on this. They’ll both go with Carly.” Before anybody could say a word they heard the joyful bellows of two burly men from the other side of the door. To Nick, that made it an even wiser decision.
~~~
The only topic left to be debated was when the van would leave. Jim pointed out how he was convinced that the roads were watched carefully by predators. They’d been attacked twice just hours after they’d sent sizab
le groups of people out of town. The van, a symbol of power and strength in today’s world, wouldn’t go unnoticed. Better to get past the sentries in the darkness.
“We can’t drive in the dark,” Carly protested. “The roads are loaded with broken down cars and all kinds of debris. We wouldn’t last ten miles.”
“Is there a moon tonight?” John asked. “That could help.”
“Even if there’s a full moon,” Carly argued, “it’s not going to be any help once we get into the woods. It’s dark in there even when the sun’s out.”
“Unless we went a different route,” Nick suggested.
“If I understand where this camp of yours is, that won’t help with the darkness,” Jim said. “Sooner or later you’ll be in the forest.”
“Okay, how about this?” John asked. “You leave an hour before sunup. By the time you get to the woods, it won’t be completely dark. But odds are that there won’t be anybody up watching at that hour. And visibility for them won’t be that good, anyway, if they do.”
They all murmured their approval of the new plan. Those that were leaving were told to go get some sleep. The rest of them worked on the van. The cans of gas on the roof were taken down and used to gas it up. Meanwhile, it was stripped of all but three rifles, one for each grownup, and every scrap of food. The extra weapons, and especially the food, would be more useful in Lockworth than in a van heading back to Tabernacle.
Twenty
The ride out of Lockworth began in an uneventful way, largely due to the time of day that it occurred. Only a few people on Savoy Street were awake, and all of them were there to see the team of three off. Carly had studied the maps and reviewed the route with those who’d driven it on the way in, so she expected no difficulty finding her way back.
Had it really been just forty-eight hours since they’d arrived in Lockworth? She knew it had, but it was hard to believe. They’d seen and done so much that it seemed like much longer. Of course, that was something she said more often than not at the end of the day since the EMP. Life didn’t go by the book very often anymore. Getting to the end of a day in one piece, even on the less trying ones, always seemed like a victory to her these days.
“How long will it take to get there?” Dex asked from the back. Carly thought about firing back a jab about how he should remember from the last time he’d been to Tabernacle, because unbeknownst to them, Nick had briefed her on their recent visit. But they were on the same side now. Besides, she reminded herself, the last time they’d come to the camp was likely a long, hard journey on foot.
The Bailey Brothers were good people, she’d already decided. As soon as she’d met them earlier in the day she’d fallen into the old habit of wondering what they were like before. She always wanted to know how people used to look, how they’d made their living, who they lived with and anything else that would tell her who she was dealing with.
In the case of the brothers, she’d learned that they ran a bicycle shop on Long Beach Island during the summer and operated a paint ball facility the rest of the year when beach season was over. “We were just a couple of fat guys fixing bikes,” Con had told her with a smile shrouded in his incorrigible beard. “The dumbest guys around.” But she knew better even after just a little time with them. They were anything but dumb, despite the primitive look they sported these days. They might look like they just walked off the set of Braveheart, but these were two modern men who’d succeeded in the old world.
“If all goes as planned,” she told him, “which we can’t really count on, we’ll show up in about thirty-five minutes. We’ll get there just in time to drop in for some breakfast.”
“Perfect,” he answered.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Carly warned. “It’s not exactly Denny’s.”
“Then what?” Con asked. “How soon do we double back after chow time?”
“That depends on how far my dad got. We were in the middle of breaking down some of the vehicles for the winter. If he finished too many of them off, it’ll take at least a day to get them out of mothballs.”
“A whole day?” asked Dex, from somewhere in the back of the van.
“That’s a long time to leave our town undefended,” Con said. “I wish we hadn’t both left, Dex. We’re the two best fighters still standing.”
“They’ll be fine,” Carly said. “Our guys aren’t too shabby. And did you see the arsenal we left behind? I just hope there are enough shooters there to keep all those guns busy.”
“I doubt there’ll be any action, anyway,” Dex said. “I mean, what are the chances that somebody shows up randomly on the exact same day we leave?”
“I don’t know,” Con said. “The other times didn’t seem so random to me. I feel like they watch us and look for chances.”
~~~
“Hey, Con,” Carly said a few minutes later, just as they were rolling into the eastern edge of the Pine Barrens. When she looked over, his chin was on his chest, with his eyes mostly closed, but he snapped to attention when she punched his arm. “You see anything weird up ahead?”
He rubbed his eyes and stared at the road ahead. His brother’s face appeared between the front seats and did the same. “It almost looks like headlights,” Dex said. “You don’t see that much anymore.”
“That’s what it looked like to me, too,” Carly said.
“It could be the sun playing tricks on us,” Con said.
“Dude, the sun’s coming up behind us,” Dex reminded his brother. “And it isn’t even up yet in the first place.”
“I wonder if it’s reinforcements from Tabernacle,” Carly said. “Maybe my dad got the vehicles road-worthy faster than we thought, and they sent them up.”
“On the other hand,” Con replied, “who else do we know that has working cars?”
“I hear ya’,” Dex said. “We don’t need any surprises here. I think they really are headlights, and it looks like more than one set of them coming right at us. Can you pull off the road into the woods, Carly? We can watch them go by. We’ll get a good look at them, and they’ll never notice us.”
“Good idea,” Con said. “Even if it’s your people, and I hope it is, they might start shooting before they know who we are.”
Carly slowed the van, already traveling at a low rate of speed due to the darkness, until she found an opening in the thickening pine forest. Once beyond the tree line there wasn’t much room to maneuver, and even less light. She’d initially planned to turn the van around to face the road, so they could watch without getting out. Even before they struck the huge trunk of a towering pine, throwing them all forward into the dashboard, she knew there’d be no turning around.
“Sorry about that,” she told her passengers. “Everybody okay?”
Con was dabbing at his nose. “I’m losing a little blood, but nothing I ain’t used to.”
“Let’s cut some branches and throw them over the van to camouflage it,” Dex suggested. “We don’t want anything shiny for them to notice.”
“We better hurry,” Carly said. Indeed, there wasn’t much time. The headlights were advancing fast and would soon be illuminating the woods around them. All three of them hopped out and dragged whatever forest debris they could find over to the van, where they piled it up as a screen. For good measure, a few boughs were draped across the roof and windshield. Good enough, Carly thought after they were finished. She held her hand up and found that the light from the approaching vehicles was already showing on her palm. She was suddenly thankful that the brothers had suggested that they hide. These guys were good.
As she heard the engines approaching she remembered how the people in the town had spoken of that sound with dread. In a world largely devoid of moving vehicles, it could be a terrifying sound. Knowing that one’s enemies were armed and mobile was scary.
Dex, who’d scampered through the trees in the direction of the headlights for a closer look, was back. “We better back off some,” he warned. “It’s getting light out. I
could see you pretty easily from way down there.”
“We can’t move the van. Could you see it from the road?” Con asked, before answering his own question. “Too late now, anyway.” They moved deeper into the woods, settling in just as the caravan came into view. Dex and Con nodded silently at each other as they watched. Carly felt sure she knew what she was seeing. The people in Lockworth had always described their tormentors as having arrived in pickup trucks, and that’s what these vehicles appeared to be.
“Are they heading back to town?” Dex asked. “It’s them, isn’t it? We have to do something!”
“Yeah, we have to do something. But what?” Con asked. Carly was coming to understand that while both brothers were brave, Dex was as impulsive as Con was thoughtful. She wondered who was older. It was hard to tell with all that beard. Maybe they were twins.
“We have three shooters, three guns and not that much ammo,” Con continued. “If we open fire we’ll take a few out at first, but none of us will survive. We know they don’t travel light when it comes to guns and ammo.”
“Then we have to follow them back to town!” Dex hissed. “We can’t just leave them to get slaughtered!”
“They’re not going to get slaughtered,” Carly said. “If anybody’s in danger right now, it’s these guys. They have no idea what they’re walking into if they think nothing’s changed in Lockworth.”
“True,” Dex conceded. “But we should still go back.”
“We will go back,” Con said. “But not until we bring Carly’s army back with us. Will they do that, Carly?”
“I’ll do my best to talk them into it,” Carly promised. “If nothing else, I can promise to get you two back even if they say no.”
“That’s the best we can do for Lockworth,” Con told Dex. “You have to calm down and stick to the plan.”
“Uh oh,” Carly said, as she watched the column of vehicles through the trees. “Something’s wrong.” Without another word, she scrambled in a crouch though the brush, carefully keeping her head down. The brothers looked at each other, shrugged, and followed her.
