Slowly, he lowered his gun.
Cynthia stared at him. She said nothing, but her expression must have said more than she’d thought.
“You weren’t there in Philly with me,” said John. “You didn’t see what the mob was like. There’s no reasoning with them. If they’re coming this way, we’re going to have to kill them all if we want to stay alive.”
There was a viciousness and callousness in his voice that Cynthia had never heard before, despite everything they’d been through, despite the battles they’d fought together, and the enemies they’d come up against.
Cynthia felt her eyes starting to water.
She didn’t know what she was feeling. She couldn’t identify it. Her emotions seemed to be hidden away, buried by the necessity of survival.
She reached up to her cheek and wiped a single tear away before anyone else could see it.
“There’s someone else!” shouted Georgia.
“They’re coming!” shouted Sadie.
Cynthia turned. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion still.
She saw her friends first before the mob. She saw the determination on John’s face. He looked suddenly much older, the lines on his tanned face merging together as his lips curled. Was it disgust she saw there too, written in those lines, disgust for the mob of humanity that was converging upon them and their camp?
She saw Georgia standing tall despite her injury. Her stance was wide as she shouted commands that Cynthia didn’t seem to hear.
It was as if Cynthia was watching a movie and someone had turned the sound down. Everything felt surreal. A dull roar replaced all the voices. She saw Georgia’s mouth moving, saw that she was shouting, but the words didn’t seem to reach Cynthia’s brain.
Cynthia fumbled with her gun, trying to bring it up into position. But her hands didn’t seem to work properly.
James and Sadie were lying on their stomachs, their rifles propped up over a log.
Finally, Cynthia saw the mob.
Was it twenty men and women? Thirty. She didn’t know. Her brain wasn’t processing things correctly, and she was slowly growing aware of that fact.
Someone was right next to her, shaking her.
“Cynthia!”
John was shouting right into her ear.
“Cynthia!”
The dull roar died away. All of a sudden.
“What?” said Cynthia.
“Snap out of it!” screamed John. His face all twisted up. Anger. Frustration. Intensity.
Everything seemed to speed back up to the right speed.
A mob of armed people, half-clothed and desperate, were converging on the camp.
There wasn’t much time.
What had she just experienced? Was it some kind of stress reaction?
There wasn’t any time to figure it out.
She needed to act.
Quickly.
20
DAN
“What’s going on, Joey?” whispered Dan, lying still. He wasn’t moving, just like he’d been told.
“They’re coming,” said Joey, who didn’t make any effort to lower his voice.
Shouldn’t he have been whispering?
“Who?”
“Who knows,” said Joey. “They come in, kill you, take you away. Depends on the day. Depends who you are. Who knows.”
“Why are we lying back here behind the counter?”
“I’ve seen them drive by and simply shoot up the buildings. I was hiding in the hardware store and they drove by with some kind of machine gun and just shot up the place. Nearly died.”
The noise outside was intensifying. A deep rumbling. Sounded like big trucks. Were they the same ones who had driven by his grandparents’ house?
“Who are they?” said Dan again.
For some reason, it was important for Dan to try to make sense of what was happening. It wouldn’t do him any practical good. He knew that. But everything seemed so chaotic. So confusing. If he just had some definite information that he could wrap his head around… Maybe it would make it easier to cope. He didn’t know.
“There’s someone in here!” It was someone shouting from outside.
“I saw someone go in!”
They were deep voices. Sounded like they were standing right outside the door.
Dan hoped Joey had locked it.
Joey certainly hadn’t been the best employee at the hardware store. Even though he was young and short and small, Dan habitually outworked Joey at almost everything he did. He’d sold more than he had, and he unloaded more from the trucks when they came in.
Joey wasn’t the kind of guy Dan wanted to bet his life on.
“Shit,” muttered Joey. “They know we’re here.”
“Did you lock the door?”
“Yeah.”
“At least they’re not just shooting,” muttered Dan.
It wasn’t much of a consolation. And the words sounded hollow as soon as he’d spoken them.
“Is there a back way out?” said Dan.
“There’s no point. They’ll have the back covered.”
“How do you know?”
“They almost got me at the hardware store.”
“Are they soldiers or something?”
“Seems like it. Not US soldiers though.”
That didn’t make Dan feel any better.
“What do you mean? They’re from somewhere else?”
“No, I think they’re Americans. Just not regular soldiers. Maybe they’re rogue guys. Who the hell knows. The point is, they’re going to kill us.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Get to them before they get to us,” said Joey.
“I don’t hear them. Maybe they went away.”
“No,” said Joey. “They’re there.”
Glass shattered. Probably the door. They’d probably hit it with the butt of a rifle.
Dan clutched his kitchen knife. He wished he’d had a gun.
There wasn’t much time left. There weren’t any footsteps yet. But soon the men would be coming in.
“Listen, kid,” said Joey, turning to Dan for the first time. Joey’s eyes locked onto Dan’s. They looked wild and intense. Sweat was on his brow. His hair was dirty and his beard was long and unkempt. His face was gaunt and lean, his eyes bulging slightly. “I gave you a hard time at the hardware store. I’m not going to say I’m sorry. But I’m going to make it up to you.”
“What are you talking about? You never gave me a hard time.”
“I was making fun of you every time you turned your back.”
“Oh,” said Dan.
“I’m going to rush them. You go out the back. They’ll be there, but do the best you can. It’s the best I can do. And if you make it, I want you to remember what I did.”
“Joey,” said Dan. “Wait…”
But Joey wasn’t listening. He stood up, holding his shotgun with both hands, finger on the trigger.
Joey shook his head, his long grey hair moving wildly. He let out a noise, half-scream, half-roar.
“Go!” he shouted.
Dan couldn’t move. He felt frozen with shock and fear.
Another noise at the door. Sounded like they were breaking more glass.
Something was slamming into the door.
Joey dashed over the counter, rushing forward towards the front exit. He charged them, shotgun first.
He fired. The shotgun blast rang through the store.
Dan stood behind the counter now, as if he was a barista working at the café.
Another gunshot. A different sort of sound.
Joey’s head snapped back, blood bursting forth into the air, his hair swinging wildly.
Dan finally broke free from his frozen pose. He needed to move. Now.
The pack was weighing him down, but he couldn’t ditch it. He needed it to survive.
Dan dashed through the back of the store, leaving the counter behind, looking wildly for the exit.
He p
assed a large industrial sink that was still full of dirty dishes. A broom closet with the door open, a yellow plastic mop bucket still filled with dirty water, the mop lying on the ground.
There was a heavy steel door.
Dan slammed against it, pressing the long horizontal bar that served as a handle.
He didn’t look behind him. He dashed outside into the sunlight that almost blinded his darkness-adjusted eyes.
Dan looked up and down the paved alley, his heart pounding and his head moving jerkily back and forth. There was a dumpster off to his right, full of trash. The smell was intense, almost completely overwhelming.
There was no one there.
Dan dashed down the alley, not knowing which was he was heading.
Behind him, he heard the steel door burst open, slamming against the brick wall.
Dan had no way to fight them. His knife wasn’t a match for their guns.
Maybe they wouldn’t shoot him since he was a kid. Probably not, though.
Dan got around the corner of a brick building just in time.
A burst of gunfire rang out, dispelling any illusions of juvenile safety.
He had to ditch the backpack. Somehow, he got it off his shoulders, throwing it off him with too much force. He needed his energy to run.
Dan ran straight and fast, his arms pumping intensely like pistons, his feet slamming into the pavement, his knees rebounding high towards his chest, towards the sky.
He could probably outrun them. But he was headed right back to Dwight Street.
He reached Dwight.
A large military truck, painted in a camo pattern, sat there, rumbling.
Dan didn’t stop running. As hard as he could. Maybe he could make it to the other side of the road, crossing right in front of the truck.
There was someone there, right in his path.
Dan didn’t think. He didn’t stop.
It was some type of soldier. A rogue one. A big gun.
Flashes of scattered impressions came into Dan’s brain. Fragmented.
Without stopping, he jammed the knife forward, right into the man’s stomach.
The man screamed, swinging his rifle around. It wasn’t in position to fire. But the hard metal of the muzzle collided with Dan’s head.
Pain kicked through him. Hard, harsh pain.
Dan’s vision went blurry.
Someone was grabbing him. Strong arms. Rough hands. Seizing him, pulling him backwards away from the man he’d stabbed, who lay there now on the ground, the kitchen knife jutting up into the air.
The man he’d stabbed wore no military uniform. He had long, wild hair that flowed out from beneath a blue baseball cap.
Whoever these people were, they definitely weren’t the US military. Joey had been right. They were probably just some guys who’d gotten a hold of some military gear, like trucks and guns.
“What do we do with him?” said a voice behind Dan.
“Detention center.”
Dan felt something on his wrists. Plastic.
Were they zip tying him?
The plastic around his wrists tightened. It was extremely tight, to the point of being painful.
Someone kicked him in the back. Hard.
Dan’s arms fastened together behind him, he fell hard face-first onto the pavement. He tried to fall on his shoulder, but it was only partly successful.
His face collided with the pavement. Another blow to the head.
He didn’t black out.
He lay there, pain kicking through him, listening to the gruff adult voices of the men above him.
Dan thought of Joey, and the way he’d looked when he’d been shot. Had he gotten one of them himself?
21
ART
Art woke up. He didn’t know if it was day or night. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t recognize the room.
His life had turned into a nightmare.
His entire body was in pain. He no longer remembered the individual blows he’d received. He no longer remembered how many times he’d been hit in the head.
His memory was fuzzy. He remembered the rebels torturing him, then Sarge marching in.
But all the details were nothing but a hazy cloud that hung over his mind, weighing him down with an impossible depression.
He was beyond wanting to die.
He was beyond everything.
His old life, before the EMP, was nothing but an image that haunted him. It felt like someone else’s life, someone else’s memories.
Art tried to move. But he was tied. His hands were bound. He didn’t even realize it at first. He felt disconnected from his body in some sense. Maybe his mind was trying to protect itself from the horrors of what had happened to the body, retreating within some kind of strange mental space.
But as he tried to move, struggling against the cords that bound him, his mind began reconnecting with his body, and the pain came flooding back like never before.
There wasn’t any point in thinking about the pain. But he couldn’t ignore it.
The light in the room was low. Just a couple flickering candles. They were probably candles that he himself had pilfered on some mission weeks ago. They were some of those large bath candles that gave off a strong scent. The room smelled like a mix of perfumes.
The smell was nauseating.
Art didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Or had any water.
He’d probably evacuated his bowels at some point during the beatings. He could smell it even over the scent of the candles.
The door opened softly.
Art looked up.
It was Joe, his one friend in the militia.
Joe closed the door gently.
“What the hell did you get yourself into, Art?”
Art just shook his head.
“You’d better get to talking. You don’t have much time. Sarge is coming soon. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“I don’t know,” said Art, his voice impossibly weak.
Joe took a small plastic water bottle out the cargo pocket of his pants. The bottle wasn’t meant to be reused, but it had been refilled countless time from the large tanks of water that were delivered to the men. No one in Art’s group knew where the water was coming from, only that it was coming. The water delivery functioned like a silent threat. Everyone knew that the water might stop coming, and that they’d be on their own when it came to their basic needs. They were only fed for as long as they were useful to someone.
The plastic water bottle was crumpled, a thousand lines in its thin plastic.
Joe unscrewed the small cap and put the bottle to Art’s lips.
“Drink up, buddy,” he said. “I don’t know the next time you’re going to get something to drink.”
The water flowed through Art’s parched mouth. He drank and he drank, half-choking on the water, trying to get it all down his bone-dry throat.
Art finished the bottle. Water had gotten all over his mouth, dripping down onto his torn and blood-stained shirt.
Was it his blood? He hadn’t noticed it until now.
He didn’t know. And he didn’t care.
“You think there’s going to be a next time?” said Art. Speaking was easier now, after the water.
Joe was silent for a moment. He began pacing back and forth in front of Art, deep in thought, staring at the ground, glancing up occasionally.
“If I’m going to die, I’m going to die,” said Art. “You can tell me. It’d be a relief.”
Speaking hurt. His chest, mostly. But this might be the last chance he had to say anything, and suddenly it seemed important to communicate something, anything, to the one person in the world who might remember him. Everyone else he’d known was probably dead. And people from his old life, well, they wouldn’t recognize the man he’d become anyway.
“I don’t know what Sarge is going to do,” said Joe. “That’s the truth, Art.”
“Then why’d you come to see me?”
“I
don’t know, Art. I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you get me out of this rope. Help me get out of here. We both know this is the end for me. Once Sarge walks through that door, I’m done for. And I just don’t think I can take any more, Joe. You know we’ve both been through a lot. So you know when I say that I can’t take any more, that I’m dead serious.”
Joe looked at him, pausing in his pacing.
“I can’t do it, Art. We’ll never make it out of here.”
“Where the hell are we anyway?”
“Just another house. Filled with militia guys. Just like our place.”
“Ah,” said Art. “We’re nothing to them, you know? We’re nothing but foot soldiers, doing the bidding of Sarge, and whoever the hell’s in charge of him.”
Joe said nothing.
“What’d you do before all this, Joe?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what was your job? Your line of work, whatever.”
“Insurance,” muttered Joe. “I worked in insurance.”
Art would have never suspected that. Joe seemed like anything but a white collar worker.
Not that it mattered.
Heavy footsteps outside the door.
“Shit,” said Joe. “Look, Art. I’m sorry, man.”
Joe moved rapidly to the doorway before Art could say anything. Hell of a lot of help he’d been.
The door burst open before Joe could get out. Someone had kicked it. The door smacked right into Joe’s head, causing him to reel back a little. He looked stunned.
Sarge stepped through the doorway. He looked wide. Powerful. Strong. Tall. He wore big boots. His large hands were formed into large fists.
Sarge took one look at Joe, who was holding his head, reached for his handgun, pulled it out, and shot Joe in the forehead. One shot and it was over.
A spot of blood appeared on Joe’s forehead, and he slumped to the floor, as limp as a rag doll.
Sarge took big powerful steps towards Art, who didn’t struggle against the cords that bound him. Not at all. What was the point?
Art had no more power of his own. He was just a puppet. Along for the ride. Whatever that might be.
Sarge leaned down over Art, his nose touching Art’s. Beads of sweat rolled off his ugly forehead. His face was redder than normal. Every pore was enlarged, as if under a magnifying glass.
Defending Camp: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The EMP Book 6) Page 12
