by Hunt, James
The father stood, moving his son behind him, and then cleared his throat. He was dirty like his boy, his clothes worn and torn, rougher around the edges than his son, and Luis got the impression that the pair had been in a bad spot since even before the EMP. “We’ve been hiding here.”
“Since when?” Luis asked.
“A while,” the father answered, swallowing, and running his tongue over burned and chapped lips. “I thought you might have been those people again.”
“What people?” Zi asked.
“They had guns, like yours, but they wore masks,” he answered, touching his face, which was covered in a mangy beard. “They tore the place up last time they were here.”
“How long have you been here?” Zi asked.
The man wiped his eyes and then sniffled, drawing in a breath. “Long time. We worked out a deal with Harry before he left. Said we could look after the place, stay in the building while we did.” He stared down at the junk scattered around their feet. “He was a good man.”
Luis looked at the old man and his son. They were even in worse condition than the people they rescued from the town. And Luis suspected that they had been in this condition for a long time. “Listen. We’re here to grab some of the RVs that Harry has lying around. We’re taking them back to the Bowers Ranch.”
The father nodded. “I’ve heard of the family. Harry talked about them.”
“We have plenty—”
Zi grabbed Luis’s arm, leaning close. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” She stepped away from the father and son, and Luis followed suit. When they were alone and away from the others, she lowered her voice. “What are you thinking?”
“Zi, they—”
“They were just shooting at us only a few seconds ago,” Zi said, struggling to keep her voice at a whisper. “We don’t know them at all, and I don’t think James would want us bringing back more people to feed and shelter. That problem brought us here in the first place.”
Surprised by her reaction, Luis studied her and shook his head. “We can help them. Just like we did with the people from town. I mean look at them, Zi. They don’t have anything.”
“I just think that it’s a bad idea to invite someone you hardly—what?” Zi frowned, cocking her head to the side.
But while Zi maintained her hardline stance, Luis only shook his head. “And what would have happened to you if James had used that same line of thinking in the city?”
“I didn’t try and shoot James.” Zi thrust a finger in his face. “This is different, and you know it. I don’t know about you, but I think we have enough people to worry about shooting us in the back of the head without bringing on others that sleep in the same area as us.” She huffed out the last few words and then drew a deep breath, which calmed her down a bit. “Is it really worth the risk to bring them just to make your conscience feel better?”
Luis knew that it might be foolish to bring them, and he understood the risks, but he still couldn’t push the thought out of his head. “People make mistakes, Zi. That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a second chance or an opportunity to make things right. None of us get it right the first time.” And after that, he walked back toward the father and son, asking if they could show him where the campers were parked and hoping that his words resonated with Zi.
39
After one hour into James’s ride to the west, he still hadn’t come up with a good plan of how to convince Banks to get his people involved. The man was notoriously reclusive, and the only reason that James knew about him and his operation was because the pair bought MREs from the same company.
James arrived to pick up his flat of prepackaged food, and Banks happened to arrive and pick some up at the same time. The pair started to talk, and every few months, the pair would meet up to talk shop at a neutral location.
Even though Mary believed in prepping and being a survivalist, she was always skeptical of Banks because of the way he was so reclusive. She had said he was too paranoid about who he trusted. And while James didn’t disagree with his wife, he doubted that Banks was having any regret about taking that line in the sand now that the world was falling to pieces.
James stuck to the highway for as long as he could, using it to guide him, and then when he passed mile marker eight-ninety-two he veered north, breaking the horse into a gallop and stayed as true north as he could muster.
Banks had purchased more southern Texas land over the past two decades than any real estate developer in the entire state. He got most of it cheap, seeing as how there wasn’t anything resembling civilization for miles in any direction. But that was just the way Banks had wanted it.
Banks had transformed all of his thousands of acres into a compound with a thriving community that lived completely off grid. It was a safe haven for anyone that Banks trusted, or could help him, and those individuals were few and far between.
James pulled back on the reins, the horse shaking his head back and forth to protest the sudden stop. James turned the animal in half circles in every direction, trying to find a landmark to catch his bearings, anything that he remembered from his previous conversations with Banks. But nothing came to mind.
A wind blew from the northwest and the horse stomped its hooves, growing restless and alarmed. James glanced in the direction of the wind, squinting, but seeing nothing but shrubs and grass.
Still, the animal flung its head back and forth, jumping on its hind legs, trying to buck James off as he struggled to regain control of the animal. “Hey!” He pulled back on the reins, trying to steer the animal to be still. “Easy! Easy.” He placed one hand on the horse’s neck, hoping to soothe her through touch. “There we go.”
The wind died down, and so did the animal’s tantrum. James once again glanced in the direction of the wind, squinting, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and while he couldn’t see it, he did start to feel it as the horse did.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he broke out in a cold sweat, his heartrate elevated as he reached for the pistol at his hip. He unholstered the weapon, waiting for any sign of movement, but the longer he stared, the more it all just blended together.
Finally, when there was nothing, James motioned the animal forward again, but he kept the weapon drawn, hoping that it would be a deterrent if there really was anything out there.
One thing that James hadn’t considered was that if Banks’s compound had already been attacked. It wasn’t likely, but it wasn’t impossible. And because he’d never even been to the compound, James needed to consider every angle.
After all, the man valued his privacy. What little information he fed to James could have just been misinformation. And just when he thought about turning around, a gunshot shattered the quiet afternoon air.
The horse jumped, and so did James. He turned around, noticing that the gunshot had come from behind them. In the same motion that James fired his pistol, he heeled the horse and the pair rocketed forward.
Still unable to locate the shooter, James only fired once, then ducked low on the horse, trying to make himself as small a target as he possibly could. The rush of wind blew past his ears, a faint ringing lingering because of the gunfire.
A geyser of dirt and grass erupted ten yards ahead and the horse reared, bucking James from the saddle and onto his back. The contact from the landing knocked the wind out of him, and he gasped for air, disoriented as he gazed up at the sky.
Knowing that he was a sitting duck out in the open, James rolled to his stomach, reaching for the pistol at the holster, then realizing he’d dropped it when the horse had bucked him off. He crawled on all fours, scouring the ground for his weapon, a high-pitched din ringing in his ears.
The horse had trotted off, galloping away, and just when James had his fingers on the weapon, he was quickly tackled from behind and face planted into the dirt.
“Stay on the ground! Don’t move!” The orders were barked angrily as the man who tackled him attempted to pin Jame
s’s hands behind his back, but he wouldn’t let go of the weapon. “Drop the pistol! Do it now!”
James thrust his head backward and felt his skull connect against the man’s nose, who quickly cursed, and then twisted James’s wrist until the weapon was dropped. James felt the cold steel of handcuffs clamp around his wrists.
James thrashed back and forth, but the swinging of his shoulders was useless.
“Enough!” The man who had handcuffed James slammed him onto the ground, and because James couldn’t use his arms to brace for the impact, he hit it hard.
The front side of James’s body exploded with pain the moment he made contact, and his body went limp, his vision fading as more boots stepped around him.
“What do you want to do with him?”
“We should get rid of him now, save everyone the trouble.”
“What if he’s not one of the terrorists?”
“I know he’s not a terrorist!”
“Then why don’t we take him back?”
“You really want to lug his body all the way to the compound from here?”
James struggled to speak, nothing but raspy whispers passing over his tongue.
“Shut up!” The order was followed by a swift kick in the ribs, and the deliberation continued. “I say we get his horse, and we finish him now. Bury them in the sand, and no one is the wiser.”
It was quiet for a moment, and the longer the silence lingered, James knew that his chances of survival were waning. He finally coughed and managed to spit out a word. “Banks!” He coughed again, his senses slowly returning after the assault. “I know Banks.”
James was lifted off the ground and stood upright, and the barrel of a pistol was pressed against his right cheek.
“You know Banks?” The man with the pistol had a thick, matted beard. It was covered in dust, along with most of his face. In fact, James noticed that the man’s attire was nothing but camouflage gear, matching the surrounding fields. It was why James hadn’t been able to spot the shooter before.
“I’m James Bowers. I know him. And he knows me.”
The second man, dressed in similar attire minus the beard, pushed the pistol out of James’s face and studied him with a hard glare. “If you know Banks, then you know that he doesn’t like unexpected visitors.”
“I know,” James said, the pain in his body starting to numb. “But he’ll want to see what I brought him. He needs to know what’s coming.”
The pair of men exchanged a glance, and the bearded one shrugged.
“I’ll need my horse,” James said, looking at the bearded man. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“You son of a—”
“Get him his horse.” The second man pushed James forward, and the pair started walking. “I’ll meet you at the gate.”
“Are you kidding me?” the bearded man asked. “You’re really going to listen to this clown?”
Neither James or the man’s partner answered, and then the bearded man grumbled as he started off to find James’s mare.
The walk was long, and hot, and the world blurred. James’s head lolled from side to side like a bowling ball, and the man behind him kept a firm grip on the restraints at all times.
“I hope you have something good for Banks on that horse,” the man said, finally breaking the silence. “Gibbons will make sure you have a bad time if he chased that animal down for nothing.”
“Believe me,” James said. “If I had a choice of either facing Gibbons or finding what was in my horse’s saddle, I’d pick Gibbons.”
After what felt like an eternity walking under the hot sun, James finally caught his first glimmer of the compound on the horizon. At first it just shimmered like a desert mirage, and James wondered if it was really even there, but the longer he stared and the close they moved, the more detailed the compound became.
“Stop.” The man tugged back on the restraint.
James turned around to see what the man was doing, but before he could see what was happening, the world around him went dark as the bag was placed over his head. “Is this really necessary?”
“It’s protocol,” the man said. “No one sees the inside of the compound unless you’re a member. And I don’t remember seeing you at last week’s meeting. Now move.”
James stumbled forward, guided by the man who had cuffed him. With the world dark, he relied on his hearing, and the closer he moved to the compound, the louder the world became.
A gate opened, its gears grinding. Chatter fluttered past, James’s captor shouting a few words to whoever opened the gate. More whispers and talking, a few gunshots far away that James figured was firearm training. He was turned left, then right, then left again. More doors opened, more chatter, more greetings, and the one final door and then James was shoved into a chair and the bag was ripped off his head.
The brightness of sunlight blinded James and he turned his face away. His arms were still cuffed behind him in the chair, which forced him to sit on the very edge. Two men stood in front of him, both of them different than the men who had caught him out in the open.
They were dressed in tactical gear, arms crossed over their chests, each of them providing a thousand-yard stare that James suspected worked on most folks.
“I need to speak with Banks,” James said.
“And you need to give us a good reason why we shouldn’t gut you where you sit,” the man on the left spoke first and dropped his arms. He stepped closer, and James saw a beard that was tripped short. He was well groomed. “You’re lucky my guys didn’t blow your head off.”
The second man stopped forward. He was bald, clean-shaven, shorter than his friend. But he had a scar that worked its way along the jawline. It was so seamless that James almost didn’t notice it was there at all. “Why do you need to speak with Banks?”
“My name is James Bowers,” he said, his voice raspy, but he cleared it and the strength returned. “My family has owned ranchland east of here for decades. I came here to tell him that his compound might no longer be secure.”
The bald man arched his eyebrows and he leaned forward, flaring his nostrils. He tilted his head to the side. “Why?”
“Ruckins,” James answered. “The town was overrun with those terrorists. There were probably over two dozen of them, and they were toting some heavy artillery, I’m talking military-grade weapons.”
“And what makes you say that?” Beard asked.
“Let’s just say I got an up-close look,” James answered.
Baldy clenched his jaw.
“I had the item we found on my horse,” James said. “But you guys set off that bomb and scared him off. The animal needs to be recovered if—”
“This is bullshit.” Baldy turned toward his bearded comrade. “Do you really want to deal with this right now? We can’t take him to Banks, he’ll think we’ve lost our mind.”
“It’s not bullshit,” James said. “It’s a piece of a bomb. A piece of a nuclear bomb.”
James knew that dropping that knowledge on the pair of men was a Hail Mary, but he didn’t want to waste any more time.
“The same people who detonated the EMP are going to detonate a nuclear bomb,” James said. “I don’t know where, but I have a piece of it, and that means there are most likely groups with other pieces and they’re going to come looking for it.”
James studied the two men, hoping that he was able to reach them in some way, and judging by the look in their eyes, he thought that he might have, but he was wrong.
“Take him to the cell,” Baldy said. “Banks will decide what to do with him when he comes back.”
“Hey, wait!” James protested, but it did little to do anything as he was ripped from his chair and black-bagged once more. “We don’t have time for this!”
James’s voice was ignored as he was whisked away. Again, he was directed in several directions until he was finally shoved forward, the bag ripped off his head, and a heavy clang echoing behind him as the caged door was closed.
James hurried toward the door, gripping the bars. “They’re going to come back! Hey!” He pounded his fist against the bars, the dull thud echoing as he watched the guards disappear.
40
The bunker was surprisingly cool, and despite the claustrophobic fears that had kept Nolan aboveground for most of his life, he figured that he’d need to get used to being six feet under sooner or later. The lights were dim, giving everything a dull, vanishing look. Including the people.
Nolan didn’t mind the folks, but he didn’t want to answer questions. He was too tired. It might have been a selfish thought, but he was old and dying and he thought that he deserved a few selfish thoughts. Because if he couldn’t have them now, then when in the hell could he have them?
“You can’t avoid them forever,” Mary said, keeping her voice to a whisper.
“Watch me,” Nolan said, pretending to check Mary’s bandages.
Mary laughed, and he smirked as he removed the thick, coke-bottle lens glasses and leaned back in his chair, trying to straighten out a back that didn’t seem to want to be straight anymore. He took a deep breath and then folded his hands over the book and papers in his lap.
“How are you holding up?” Mary asked.
Nolan did a little tsk, tsk, tsk, clucking his tongue in the same motion, and then shook his head. “You’re the patient, not the doctor.”
“Nolan.” Mary reached for his arm and wrapped her fingers over his wrist, her touch warm.
“I’m fine,” Nolan said, hoping he hadn’t lost his touch for false reassurances. “Really.”
Mary studied his face for a moment and then finally released his wrist. “James said you might only have a couple of weeks?”
Nolan shrugged. “Could be more, could be less.”
“And… Is it going to be—”
“Yes,” Nolan said. “It will be very painful, but it will be quick. It’s an aggressive cancer. I just need a good place to lay down once it gets really bad.” He examined the bed she currently occupied. “How’s this one?”
