by Nathan Jones
“Enough,” he snapped.
“They caused us a lot of suffering we didn't deserve,” Pete shouted over the noise of the raider leader's cursing. But in spite of his rage, after a tense moment he stepped back and continued in a more controlled tone. “Maybe we should make them pay for it before we kill them.” There were a few murmurs of agreement from the gathered defenders.
As they faced off Matt firmly met the orphan's eyes. Pete had more reason to hate Turner and the raiders than most, not only for his dad's fate in that first attack on the garden but because his family's modest food storage had been confiscated during Ferris's occupation last fall and his mom had died from sickness and hunger during the winter. But however Matt sympathized, he wouldn't let the young man take his revenge.
“Go cool off. I'll talk to you later.” For a moment he was afraid his order would be ignored, but then Pete sullenly lowered his eyes. Turning on one heel, the young man slung his rifle back on his shoulder and stomped away.
Turner was still cursing up a storm as he awkwardly tried to get back up on his knees with his hands tied behind his back, blood streaming from his nose and one eye already starting to swell shut behind an ugly bruise. The raider leader glared balefully at Pete's back the entire time, but once he was finally up again he turned that glare on Matt. “So much for humane treatment.”
Matt gagged him.
* * * * *
Turner died as he'd lived, spewing hate and poison at the people of Aspen Hill around the gag he'd worn since his defeat. At no point did he even try for any sort of reasonable communication, not even at his trial.
When he was offered a chance to defend himself on the stand and they removed his gag he immediately started to describe what he and his people had done to the surviving members of the Norman family. He seemed to relish the horror and disgust on the faces around him, and even though he was quickly gagged again he appeared triumphant during the rest of the proceedings.
The other raider prisoners were more bitter than angry. Their only regret seemed to be that they hadn't left immediately after realizing the town wouldn't be an easy score, or at least after they started taking serious losses.
A tribunal of townspeople sentenced them all to death. There was some argument on the exact method, since some wanted more painful executions such as slow hanging. The town had a lot of anger to unleash at the prisoners after the weeks of suffering and loss they'd been put through, and many even called for the raiders to receive extra punishment before being put to death.
Catherine and the rest of the tribunal harshly rejected those suggestions, which amounted to torture, plain and simple. Civilization may have been falling apart around them, but the town of Aspen Hill would remain civilized.
In the end it was decided the prisoners would be executed by firing squad, same as Razor's gang members had been. Scott didn't have any more blanks for them, but somehow Matt doubted anyone would be losing sleep over being part of the squad. There were no shortage of volunteers for the duty.
Turner cursed into his gag as he was lined up with the other raiders, eyes blazing with hatred for everyone he looked at right up until the moment his head was covered.
Less than a minute later the firing squad loosed a coordinated volley, and the ringing silence that followed signaled that it was finally over. The raider threat was eliminated for good, the town was safe, and they could finally get back to the task of surviving.
They'd won, but it had been a costly victory. They'd lost about 75 people to the raiders or to starvation and nearly that many were recovering from wounds, over 50 houses had been destroyed, and the gardens were a shambles with no hope of anything better than a pitiful harvest. A harvest which they desperately needed to be good, because even if they had taken Turner's offer they wouldn't have been able to give him any food. The town was back to boiling leather and eating rodents and insects.
“I suppose this means we can finally get some sleep,” Lewis, standing beside him, muttered. The brown-haired man looked dead on his feet.
“A bit, I guess,” Matt agreed. “Although we've still got an uphill battle ahead of us. The town was doing bad before the raiders arrived, and now we're almost worse off than we were during the winter. We were having housing problems before half the buildings in town got blown up, for one thing. That's a lot of clearing and rebuilding we'll need to do. And even that takes a distant second priority to food.”
Just the thought of it made him feel exhausted. The defenders had eaten better than the rest of the town because they needed their strength to keep fighting, but even they'd gone hungry. And while they'd found a decent store of food along with the other supplies scrounged from the destroyed raider camp and trucks it wasn't a miraculous amount. Enough to keep 50 or so men raiding for weeks on end, maybe, but barely enough to put a dent in the town's hunger problems.
They'd have to get back to hunting, try to salvage what they could from the gardens, forage the surrounding area, and see if the raiders had butchered all the Norman family's sheep or simply driven them off. It was going to be a lot of work, in many ways even harder work than defending the town had been.
But it was work that had a future, that would put them on the road to survival and eventually prosperity.
His friend glanced at him. “So now that the threat's gone I guess we can move back to the shelter.”
Matt hesitated. “I guess,” he agreed. “Although it feels a bit like we should stick close to town until our situation's more stable.” He glanced over. “You're welcome to stay at our house too, of course.”
Lewis yawned, not even trying to cover it. “Thanks. Now that you mention it even that cot in the noisiest, brightest room in the house is tempting at the moment. Jane's already gone to bed, so if you don't mind I'm going to leave you to whatever leadery things you have to do and go pass out too.”
He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Go on. You've earned it.”
“So have you,” Lewis said, walking backwards a few steps and nearly tripping. “Don't make us sic Sam after you to get you to bed.”
“Deal. If you see her let her know I'll be home soon.” Although Matt was pretty sure his wife was still at the clinic helping out, like she'd been doing almost nonstop for the past day or so. Maybe he needed to go make sure she got some sleep. And while he was at it he could check in on Chauncey and see if his friend was doing any better.
As he watched Lewis make his way through the crowd that had gathered to watch the executions he felt the faintest smile fighting with the other bleak emotions roiling in him. Things were bad, sure, but they'd made it through a terrible time and were still alive.
And while they were alive they'd find a way to keep on going and make things better.
* * * * *
It took Trev four days after leaving Newtown to realize he'd forgotten to see if anyone there had a radio.
They seemed like the kind of people who would, and if they did they would've almost certainly heard something he'd find useful. After all, before he left Chauncey had told him that the deadline and the imminent Gold Bloc invasion were just about the only thing anyone talked about over the airwaves, and he had a feeling the discussion would only intensify as time went on if things escalated the way it seemed like they were going to.
Sure, he'd just gotten beaten up and he was intent on getting some supplies and getting out of there, but Trev still regretted his oversight. Especially since it took him so long to even realize it.
No help for that at the moment, though. Having a bit of knowledge about the road ahead would've been nice, especially now that he was traveling through more densely populated regions, but even if the route he and Lewis had planned was a bit outdated after a week and a half of travel it was still a good one, and he followed it faithfully.
He'd made 90 miles the afternoon after leaving Newtown, and then over the next four days had pushed just to manage the 150 miles a day he'd originally intended, burdened by the extra weight in w
heat he'd purchased at the trading post. The first day afterwards he'd struggled to get 140 under his tires, while the next day he'd pushed himself a bit harder and managed to exhaust himself getting 150 miles by full dark. Yesterday he'd managed the same feat of 150 miles a bit easier, his muscles finally adjusting to the extra weight, and today he hoped to manage even better and maybe go slightly farther.
He had plenty of incentive to put some miles behind him today. He was getting closer to Chicago and wanted to get the Windy City behind him as quickly as he could, by the end of tomorrow if possible. Being so close to such a major population center, especially one that had fared worse than most in the riots following the Gulf refineries attack, had him on edge.
Since Newtown he'd crossed the rest of Nebraska and then Iowa, and just that morning had taken the chance of crossing a smaller bridge over the Missouri River into Illinois. From what he'd noticed on other trips the Missouri effectively marked a divide, with less populous states west of it and more populous states east of it.
That certainly seemed to be the case. Aside from Newtown, a few encounters with travelers like the Lincolns, and having to go around a few towns that were obviously still populated, he'd felt a bit like the only person left on the continent in his travels across the Great Plains.
Some of that might have been the terrible loss of life over the winter, but more of it was probably people staying put instead of being out on the roads, scattered in smaller communities that could eke out an existence on the land or, like Newtown, had found sources of food large enough to support them.
That wasn't the case east of the Missouri. Trev passed half a dozen communities imposingly walled off and guarded in the hours since his crossing. He was forced to find ways around them, and while doing so constantly felt an itch between his shoulder blades like he was about to get shot. He traveled as quickly as he could, eyes darting for the slightest hint of nearby danger and hand gripping the strap of his rifle.
He also had to go out of his way to avoid people on the road. It was hard to distinguish between travelers, but from the numbers Trev guessed that they weren't just refugees looking for anywhere that would take them. There were probably travelers heading for specific locations among those numbers, and he even saw a few well stocked caravans that could've been traders going from town to town.
No matter how friendly a group seemed he steered clear of them. His goal was to get to Michigan, not make friends, and he had what he needed so there was no reason to take any risks. He was also nearly to the point where he'd have to leave the trusty usually-merged Highways 34 and 6 he'd followed for so long, since they kept going up to Chicago and he wanted to stay well clear of there.
Today's plan was to split off onto Highway 17 and follow it as far as it went, stopping for the night somewhere near Streator if he could manage the same distance he had the last two days. And assuming he didn't run into a threat that forced him to drastically change his route to avoid trouble. That stopover would put him about 100 miles southwest of Chicago, which he hoped was far enough away to avoid whatever potential trouble the population center was embroiled in.
From that point he'd have to basically thread the needle between population centers going through Illinois, a bit of Indiana, and Michigan before he reached the less populated regions surrounding Greenbush and his journey's end. It would be the most dangerous part of his trip, which meant he needed to take it slow, keep his eyes open, and be prepared for trouble.
Unfortunately he also needed to take it quick and reach his family as soon as possible. He'd been on the road for 11 days and still had a good 3 or 4 more to go, assuming he could reach Streator today and kept managing around 150 miles a day.
The journey was starting to take its toll, especially with the added cargo of wheat, and Trev was dealing with mental exhaustion as well as physical exhaustion from the constant tug of war between being alert for potential dangers and pushing for a faster pace at or beyond the boundaries of what was safe.
There was a chance he could ride into a trap at any moment, going too fast to see the warning signs in time and possibly too tired to notice them at all. And that fatigue might slow his reactions so he couldn't properly defend himself, assuming it was a situation where defending himself was even possible.
It was an inconvenient time to find himself going through more densely populated regions, and Trev began debating taking a few hours or even half a day off to just rest and sleep, and maybe use the wheat and spices and other supplies to cook himself a proper meal.
He decided he'd sleep on it tonight and pressed on. His resolution served him well, since he reached Streator before dark as planned in spite of needing to slow down and even take different roads to avoid other travelers and suspicious spots on the road.
Trev was fairly confident the town would have people in it, so he stopped for the night well outside its limits. And after the number of people he'd seen that day he even went so far as to walk his bike a safe distance off the road and find a good secluded spot to spread his sleeping bag.
Between his exhaustion and the knowledge that he might be traveling just as hard tomorrow sleep came quickly.
Chapter Fifteen
The Final Stretch
Very early the next morning Trev was awakened by a sound he hadn't heard in a long, long time.
At first he thought he was dreaming, but then the alertness honed by days of wariness kicked in and his eyes flew open. He continued to lie absolutely still in his sleeping bag, keeping his breathing the same so it would look like he was still asleep, but the whole time he strained his senses to figure out what was going on.
It wasn't a dream. Somewhere in the darkness of the sky above he heard the droning of a jet engine.
For a moment he just stared up at the stars, shocked by a sound that had been commonplace a year ago. During his time at college in Orem he'd heard jet engines passing overhead just about every day, whether or not he was even paying attention to the noise. Only now it seemed alien, cutting through the other night sounds around him in a way that didn't belong.
With a bit of concentration he was able to track the sound over the usual night noises and determine it was coming from somewhere to the northeast, in the direction of Chicago. And after more listening he decided it wasn't such a commonplace sound after all, although he'd heard it on several occasions like Fourth of July celebrations.
It wasn't the sound of a passenger jet but a fighter jet, distinctive and easily recognizable as different.
The noise grew a bit louder for a while before fading, and Trev concluded it wasn't going to come anywhere close to him. Even so it set his heart pounding, and he hastily packed up his camp in the faint predawn glow and got out on the road. The visibility wasn't great, but the surge of adrenaline from hearing that noise had washed away his fatigue and filled him with the need to move.
If he couldn't get back to sleep he might as well get going.
He very much doubted that had been some innocuous flyby. While on the road he'd had no way of knowing if the Gold Bloc invasion had started, or when, but the presence of a fighter jet in the air seemed like fairly solid confirmation that it had. Which meant he needed to find his family and get them to safety before his time ran out. Assuming it hadn't already.
The miles seemed to pass like molasses in the darkness. He had to move more cautiously, not only wary of unseen obstacles but of potential ambushes. The bike was fairly quiet at least, and it, the trailer, and his clothes were all dark colors.
Still, he stopped often to check the way ahead, not so much looking as listening carefully and keeping his eyes open for any sources of light that might suggest a fire or some other human presence. He also had his flashlight if he really needed it, in easy reach in his coat pocket, and his binoculars once it got a little lighter.
Trev might not have been too happy about traveling in the dark, but he had to admit it had at least one perk to outweigh its drawbacks: that he saw and heard no one out
there with him.
That was probably because everyone else felt just like he did about being out at night, when anything could be out there. And not just humans either, but any one of the wild animals that were probably becoming more prevalent and dangerous without animal control to keep them in check. Animals that felt completely at home at night and spent it stalking other animals with weaker senses foolish enough to go blundering around in the darkness.
For those without keen senses and training, or at least night vision gear, the night brought with it a profound sense of vulnerability. Most people would find a safe place to hunker down until dawn rather than go looking for trouble.
Thankfully he didn't sense any animals either, aside from the usual ones filling the air with night noises. Those went silent at his approach and took a while to start up again behind him, and he could only hope they'd do the same for any unfriendly beasts stalking along the road. If he did encounter anything dangerous he could hope his flashlight would scare them off without having to use a gun and draw even more notice to himself.
He doubted he was making anywhere near the kind of speed that would justify this early morning departure, but at the same time it was relaxing in a way to go slower and not push himself. In spite of his weariness his muscles seemed to be doing fine, and he felt like he could go this pace for hours before stopping to rest.
He did just that, as the horizon slowly brightened with a predawn glow until it was light enough that he could make out what the dark silhouettes around him actually were. Which was kind of a relief to be honest.
A long time ago he'd been on a trip with his dad, Lewis, and Uncle Lucas on their way up to the Halssons' land up in the mountains. He and his cousin had been frightened by the dark shapes passing by, imagining all sorts of monsters and dangerous animals. His dad had done his best to reassure them with some words of wisdom, but that hadn't helped Trev much.
