by Jordan Ervin
The man’s eyes went wider with every word Adam spoke. Adam had slowly approached Livingston as he delivered his final montage—finding himself inches from the man’s shocked face by the time his final shout echoed through the night.
“Adam Reinhart,” the man breathed. “You’re serious?”
Adam stared back wordlessly, his eyes like hot coals heating the air around them.
“Well, hot damn!” Livingston shouted enthusiastically. “Did you hear that boys? We’re rich! I sure hope you’re not lying about this. Word from up top is the men who find you get to live their lives out in lust and luxury.” Livingston tapped his earpiece as the others laughed and spoke. “Ripley, Jefferson—we’ve got to get these men back ASAP. Comms are still shit in this valley. Pack up and fall in on me. You’re not going to believe who we found.” The man smiled back at Adam as Gene, William, Lev, and Edward were brought to their feet. However, an annoyed guise quickly lined Livingston’s face as he waited for a reply. He tapped his earpiece again angrily. “Ripley, Jefferson—get off your asses and let’s move!” Another few seconds passed, Livingston’s eyes scanning the darkness in front of him. He muttered a curse under his breath and pulled out an older handheld radio that had been strapped to his side, raising it to his mouth. “Damn it Ripley, you better—”
Five of the soldiers grunted, falling to the ground before the distant cry of gunfire filled the night. Livingston dropped both radio and knife as he lunged to the ground with a shout. Adam dove to the ground with shock as two more men had rounds rip through their chests.
Livingston began shouting into his radio, blaring orders as he scanned the darkness. Adam glanced over at the man, but his eyes focused on something else. Something metallic lightly reflecting the moon off of its thin razor edge. Adam reached over with a snarl and grabbed his knife. He then pounced on Livingston, sticking him once in the lower back. The other man cried out in pain as Adam flipped him over onto his back. Livingston looked up in horror with his hands outstretched as Adam bellowed.
And as Adam began to plunge the knife repeatedly into the man’s chest, he couldn’t help but notice how strangely similar it all felt to the dream in which the dragon burst from within.
Seconds that felt like hours passed, Adam continuing to raise and lower the knife long after the man below him had ceased moving. Eventually, when the throbbing pain at his side and the sharp twinge in his cheek reminded him that he was still a living man, Adam stopped. He looked over at the others—the three of them slowly making their way to their feet as they glanced around nervously. Every single Imperium soldier who had stood was now on the ground, dropped dead by a single bullet, save Livingston’s butchered corpse. Adam glanced down at his half-naked body—only his cargo pants and shoes giving him any sort of cover. Blood and sweat mixed with a layer of dirt had turned Adam’s skin into a collage of deep black and dark red.
If death had a color, Adam was pretty sure he was wearing it.
This is it, Adam thought glumly, breathing heavily as he clenched the knife in his fist. This is what I must become.
He slowly rose and approached the others. Gene glanced at him before doing a double take.
“You look like hell,” Gene said as he turned to William and began nursing his wounded shoulder.
“It’s fine,” William said. “Son of a bitch only grazed me.”
“How’s that hand?” Gene asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” William said with a wince. “Who the hell was shooting?”
Almost as though to answer them, six men emerged from the darkness, scoped rifles lowered to their side.
“Check the home up the street and see if those supplies are still there,” the man at the front said to one of the men beside him before turning to Adam. “Sorry for the delay. We had to take the snipers out that he was trying to radio. For all the Imperium’s apparent superiority, they’re deploying men who are nothing more than conscripts with an automatic range finding scope. They might have been good, but we were most definitely better. We were about to take the shot when Rambo here decided to get in Mince’s face.”
“Mince?” Adam asked.
“Yeah, get it? The man you butchered. Minced meat.”
Adam stared back blankly at the man, wondering who in the world he was talking to. The other man eventually shrugged his shoulders when no one laughed.
“Good joke, Red,” one of the other men said flatly as he shook his head.
“First of all, stop calling me that,” the man at the front replied with a smile. “And secondly, I don’t think it was that bad of a joke. Almost as good as our shooting.” The man looked around on the ground, staring at the dead soldiers with a nod of his head. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you now.”
“Take care of us?” Adam asked, fingers tightening around the knife instinctively.
“I mean we’ll help you out,” the man said slowly, his eyes glancing down at the knife. “We don’t mean you any harm. We’re your friends, got it?”
“And I’m supposed to believe you just happened to be here, waiting to save us?” Adam asked hesitantly.
“Actually, yes,” the man said with a grin. “We’re from Vonore, Tennessee. It’s a small town about fifty miles west of here just over the mountains. We arrived here nine days ago in search of supplies. One of the guys at our homestead had a cabin up here with seven non-Chambers guns, some ammo, and a lot of food stored up.”
“Was it the house behind us?” Gene asked.
“Hell no,” the man replied. “We got here and loaded our stuff up days ago, but before we were about to head out of town, we saw Imperium troops heading in. By the time we snuck over on that ridge and found them, they were unloading enough supplies from that house to make me drool like a kid in a candy store. Their big drone left yesterday—thing was big as a house. Regardless, they loaded everything up in a house down the road and set up that ambush. Looked like dozens of older rifles and half as many crates of ammo. I’ve got one of my men checking to see if the supplies are still there, but I’m not going to hold my breath. We would have taken the soldiers out days ago, but we never saw them all out in the open until now.” The man paused, his eyes searching Adam as though he was trying to uncover some hidden meaning behind a painting. “My friends and I were listening in with a direction mic as soon as we got into position. Now I have to ask, is it true?”
“Is what true?” Adam asked hesitantly.
“Are you really Adam Reinhart?” the man asked. “The congressman everyone was looking for last year?”
Adam paused, looking to Gene, though the older man just shook his head.
“I am,” Adam said, knowing he could do nothing to stop the armed men if they wanted him dead. “Who are you?”
The man at the front smiled and slowly approached Adam. He then shouldered his rifle behind him and stuck out his hand.
“The name is Jack Parker,” the man replied with a grin. “And this here is Alan Bedford. He and I were cops in Nashville before Lukas Chambers set a fire to the nation. These other men…they’re friends of mine.”
Adam reached out and shook Jack’s hand, nodding with a reluctant approval. “Well, you have our thanks.”
“If you’re willing to go a little further, we might be able to give you a bit more than our thanks for everything you did to try and stop that bastard from destroying this country.”
“And what would that be?” Adam asked.
“My word,” Jack replied. “Things nowadays are better together and we can take care of you for the time being. Whatever you went through to get here, whatever happened on the road, it’s over for now. You’re among friends again, congressman. You’re among Americans.”
Chapter Nine
An Oath to Live By
Rick Reinhart shuffled through the downtrodden crowd at the center of Montgomery, Alabama, a mask of grim despair lining his face. He walked onward underneath an overcast sky shadowed by a low-hanging canopy of clouds, holding his w
ife’s hand as she limped forward with determination in her eyes. Rick glanced down at her feet, fighting back the urge to curse aloud.
Rick, Eric, and Trey had fashioned new soles from the tires of a broken-down vehicle shortly after the skirmish at the burned-out base seventeen days ago. They had hoped to make the journey in half the time, but traveling across a war-torn country by foot had proven to be anything but quick. Despite their best attempts to find Judi a real pair of shoes, they had found nothing at the few trade posts they had traveled through. Her makeshift footgear was now disintegrating into porous socks that barely clung to her black and blistering feet. Judi was resilient and had refused to give in, cry, or trade with the younger girls who shared her same shoe size.
Rick, however, was not as tough.
He was angry, he was weary, and he never had thought he’d lose the battle for sanity over a crumbling pair of worthless shoes. Rick Reinhart felt as though he were two hundred and eleven degrees Fahrenheit—smoldering as he stood on the brink of pure rage.
They walked toward the western gate of a trading post that had been set up at Alabama State University with ample food and little hope. They had hoped to cut straight west for Texas, but rumor had it that whoever was besieging the Gulf Shores would be moving north any day now. Another rumor claimed that the mysterious group had been defeated by the Imperium and that everyone should flock east now. Another rumor stated they were all part of some alien scientific experiment to study the effects of mass turmoil on humanity; granted, the man who claimed that had also just finished one of the vendor’s all organic salads. It was all small bits of gossip supported by no concrete facts.
Fortunately, Trey had managed to modify his wrist-mounted computer to access HAM radio broadcasts the day before. Unfortunately, he quickly determined that those to the south would arrive in Montgomery in four to five days. Eric had decided their best course of action would be to quickly move northwest toward Memphis—crossing the Mississippi River there and avoiding whoever was attacking from the south. He said it would only add an additional week to their trip, perhaps two weeks if ground and air transportation continued to evade them. Eric still held out with the hopes that he would find a plane to fly them west, though even he knew that was highly unlikely. Still, Rick didn’t know if he had a couple of weeks or even a few days before he snapped.
He wasn’t so sure he had hours of sanity left within him.
He glanced to his left and let his eyes linger briefly on his daughter-in-law. Sarah walked next to him, holding Grace’s hand and singing softly with the smiling girl. Sarah’s blonde hair caught the sunlight and their gentle voices temporarily soothed his aches. Sarah was beautiful and Rick loved her like a daughter. Losing Adam had been hard, but having Sarah and her family there with him had kept a part of Adam alive. Next to Sarah and Grace were Elizabeth and Eva, chatting on about Arabian horses. Apparently, Eva was convinced she would own a ‘flying horsey’ one day, no matter what Elizabeth told her. Rick smiled as Elizabeth kindly argued with the young girl. Next to them were Judah and Alexandra, chatting as they carried packs stuffed with food on their backs.
Alexandra had continued to open up with the group, going as far as actually holding a conversation or two with Judah. The two laughed and smiled as they quizzed each other on the Morse Code Eric had begun to teach them. It was almost as though the high barriers of solitude Alexandra had raised to enclose herself were beginning to crumble. In a season where fear ruled and death was a familiar face, those surrounding Rick were all that kept him from losing control. They were his family, resilient and courageous, willing to press on together as the endless road ahead attempted to grind them into dust. In a way, that made them much stronger than Rick could ever hope to be. Sure, they now had the three Rangers to accompany Eric as well as the ever-lively Trey Webster, but those men were not what made their group strong. It was camaraderie and bravery. It was their willingness to adapt to the circumstances with bravery that he noticed most, and it was disheartening for Rick as he realized how much he was failing to find his own courage.
Despite Rick’s fondness for those who trekked with him, his feelings toward Eric Corsa were another story entirely. Eric had never spoken an unkind word to anyone in the group, but Rick still couldn’t help but harbor a hidden bitterness for the man. Rick saw the way Eric looked at Sarah now and the way she looked back at him. He knew it was none of his business, but they were barely a month past the news of Adam’s death, and already Eric was a shoulder for the weeping widow to cry upon. Rick tried to suppress his resentment, scolding himself for such a childish irritation. Eric had saved the last remaining members of the Reinhart family and for that Rick would always be grateful, whether he liked it or not.
More than anything, Rick was frustrated with the new world that had swallowed him whole. He felt like a zombie, walking from city to city as flesh and sanity rotted away from his bones. He had lost his two sons, the nation he had once fought for as a younger man, and nearly all hope. He was a man born of the old breed, and he felt as though he had begun to die as the old world perished.
“I’m tired,” Rick mumbled, his empty eyes gazing ahead.
“We can’t stop yet,” Eric replied as he walked next to Sarah. He pulled out an old paper map, scanning over its surface as he talked. “We’ll use the Interstate Sixty-Five Bridge on the northwest side of the city to cross the river. It’s the closest crossing and I want to be over it as soon as possible. Last thing we want to do is stick around and wait for those to our south to show up. I know you’re tired; we’re all tired, but we can’t afford to stop for sleep till nightfall.”
“I don’t need sleep,” Rick replied, nearly out of breath as he fought back the fury that was creeping upward. “I’m tired of walking. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of sleeping with one eye open, hoping some…vagabond with a gun doesn’t kill my grandbabies for a handful of shitty food.”
“Rick!” Sarah said harshly, staring at him as she clutched Grace’s hand tighter. “Calm down. It’ll be okay.”
“Like it was okay for your husband?” Rick asked, his lower lip beginning to quiver. “Like it was for my two boys?”
The others looked over at Rick, their eyes probing him as he wiped a tear from his cheek.
“I mean, where are we going?” Rick said, failing to conceal the hopelessness in his voice. “What the hell are we looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, her face flustering with anger and uncertainty. “But we’ll know it when we see it.”
“How’s that?”
“Cause we’ll find ourselves among good people again,” Sarah said. “We’ll find a new home to raise our family and we’ll live in peace.”
“Sarah, I love you, but you’ve got to understand, I lived for my family. Yes, you are part of that now, but you’re not the family I raised. I’d give my life for you and the kids without a second thought, but I’ve already lost everything I built in fifty-nine years. I love you all, but I’m empty inside and have no idea how to fit into this world. I’m not like you. I can’t acclimate. I have no home in this godforsaken land.”
“Rick,” Sarah began, “You can’t—”
“He’s right,” Judi interrupted, causing Rick to turn his head and stare down at his wife. His beautiful, broken, disheveled wife. Her hair was thick with sweat and yesterday’s grime, but she was still beautiful in his eyes. He saw the love of his youth in her. She was his last remaining rock and he knew without her, he wouldn’t walk another step.
If she died, he would truly have nothing left.
“We grew up watching movies about stuff like this,” Judi continued, her empty eyes looking forward as they passed through the gate. “Most of it was a romanticized adventure and life on the road as portrayed by well-fed actors. But it wasn’t real. We never prepared for this…reality. We only saw the highlights. What they failed to portray were the endless hours in between those exciting moments. Those hours are lonely, even in the compa
ny of family. We spent our entire lives trying to build a better life for our kids. And now,” Judi smiled, glancing over at Rick as tears filled her eyes, “it’s all gone. We were supposed to be winding down as we watched the next generation rise. Instead, we’re left with a hollow life to mock us at the end of our story.”
The silence that followed was nearly as haunting as Judi’s words had been. Even a few of the strangers around them walking toward the gate glanced her way. The shuffling of feet across the pavement battled the distant calls of birds moving northwest. A few more silent seconds passed before the whine of a turbo-charged diesel engine approached from behind.
Everyone on the road slowly parted to the side as a massive fuel truck rumbled by. It had been one of five fuel trucks that entered the camp a few days ago—each with more than ten thousand gallons of fuel in tow. The other four were still behind at the trading post, wrapping up their exchanges before moving on to extort another city of hopeless refugees. They had nearly caused the trading post to descend into a riot as people begged for fuel. Their going rate for a gallon of gas had been an outrageous amount of food, a bag full of ammo, or a non-Chambers System firearm. Rick thought most people would have been wise enough to turn the deal down, but he had been surprised at the amount of people willing to sell the last of their food for the nearly non-existent commodity. At least ten armed men sat atop each truck, looking down on Eric and the Rangers with cautious eyes as the truck passed.
“I’m sorry your future didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, Rick,” Eric began as the truck’s engine faded ahead. “But your future is our reality. It is what it is and despite what your life has become, you need to remember that you once took an oath to defend this nation. I know you served all those years ago and I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but you can’t quit now.”
