Jessica, on the other hand, encouraged them to take seconds. “Don’t be shy, we have plenty of food now,” she told the Bartlett family.
After dinner, everyone sat around in the living room and swapped stories while the kids played board games on the coffee table. The adults were happy to let the kids unwind. After everything they had been through, it was a huge relief to Logan and Christine.
Logan told the group the story about how they had come all the way from Tucson before the bombs came down, and all the way through how they wound up in front of Bryce, Jessica, and Benjamin.
At the end of Logan’s story, Bryce’s group all had to pick up their jaws. They had things pretty easy up here compared to the shit this poor family had gone through in the same amount of time. Now, it made sense why the Bartlett family was so happy to make this place their new home. The hatchery offered food, shelter, and most importantly security.
After the riveting story Logan told the group, Benjamin decided to call it a night, and along with him, most everyone else. Logan and Bryce, on the other hand, stayed behind and stared at the last embers of the fire.
Eventually, Logan turned to Bryce and said, “I want to thank you again for bringing us here. You could have just left back there.”
“Yes, I could have, and I almost did,” Bryce told him, being honest. “Once you told me about you and your wife’s careers, I couldn’t resist. I’ve needed a guy like you the whole time I’ve been here,” Bryce explained.
“See I have a plan for this fish hatchery, and it’s going to take men like you to help me achieve it. I’ve done you an enormous favor by bringing you guys here, and I expect that you will honor that with your help,” he said flatly.
Logan seemed to take a minute to process this information, and with a little hesitancy he said, “Whatever you need, Bryce, I’m your man.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like that,” Bryce said with a smile.
Bryce stood up and shook Logan’s hand, and said, “Once again, welcome to the compound, I really am glad to have you.”
With that, Bryce got up and walked down the hall to retire to his bedroom.
Logan stayed behind to ponder on the situation he had put himself and his family in. He didn’t know what Bryce’s ultimate goals were, but Bryce told him he had a plan. Logan just hoped that it was something good, and not something evil.
Logan didn’t see anything nefarious about Bryce Sloan, but then again you couldn’t know a man until you had fought with him, and Logan was sure that he would fight with Bryce sooner rather than later.
Logan decided to leave it be for the night and go to bed. After the past few weeks, and with everything that had gone down in Logan’s life, he figured he could sleep forever. At least that was how he felt anyway. He got ready for bed in the bathroom, kissed his children good night, shut off the lights, and joined his wife in bed. It didn’t take long before he succumbed to his exhaustion and completely passed out.
Chapter Thirty
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
It was mid-morning before the Bartlett family began to rise in their bedroom. The rest of the group saved them some breakfast, but started to go through their daily chores. Everyone figured the Bartletts deserved to relax after what they had been through.
Logan, always the Navy man, was the first to roll out of bed. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and cleaned himself up in the bathroom. A cold shower always worked best for Logan, he was used to the cold water, and it always served as a reminder for him that things could be worse than they were.
After he cleaned himself up, he went into the kitchen where only Cindy, Victoria, and Trystan remained. Everyone else was outside focused on their projects.
“Good morning,” Logan said to announce himself as he walked in on their discussion.
“Did you sleep well?” Cindy asked.
“Like a baby!” Logan exclaimed.
“That’s good, I’m sure you needed it. We left you some breakfast,” Cindy waved toward the powdered egg scramble they made for breakfast.
“Where’s everyone else?” Logan inquired.
“They disappear outside all day, just about every day; we don’t usually pay much attention to it, we have our own projects to keep us busy,” Victoria said, and nodded toward her son.
Logan nodded his head; he knew how hard it was to raise a toddler. He couldn’t imagine trying to do it right now, under the current conditions. Logan figured that this kid had it pretty easy up here, compared to what an untold number of other children had gone through in the past month.
Logan skipped breakfast, said goodbye to the ladies and headed outside in search of the men, particularly Bryce. Logan wanted to talk to Bryce more in private to try and discern exactly what he was trying to accomplish. Logan could sense that he clearly had more in mind than just survival.
Logan took a quick walk around the hatchery and absorbed all of the sights. Along the way he ran into Jessica, who stood at the end of the big pond with some of the fish food from the warehouse to feed them.
“Hey, Jessica, have you seen the guys?” Logan asked.
“Yeah, they’re probably looking around down by the highway. We go down there to keep an eye out for infected and for signs of other people,” she replied and pointed to the road leading down to the highway.
He started walking down the road, but she called out to him, “It’s about three miles to the bottom, why don’t you take one of the quads down there?”
Logan thanked her for the advice and walked over to the warehouse where the last four-wheeler was located. He found the quad, hopped on, turned the key to start the engine and sped across the hatchery and down the road. He took the turns in the road a little too fast. After a few minutes, he realized that he was actually having fun for the first time in a while. Before long the fun came to an end, because the highway was just up ahead. He started to slow down, unsure of what may be on the highway.
Sure enough, as he got to the edge of the highway, the other four-wheeler was sitting on the side of the road. Bryce, Benjamin and Greg on the other hand, were nowhere to be found. After Logan thought about it for a second, there weren’t any other ATVs either, which he found strange.
Logan hopped off his quad and started to look around for the guys. He walked out to the highway and spotted Bryce in the distance. He was looking through the trunk of a broken-down car a few hundred yards down the road.
Logan walked toward Bryce, not quietly, but not making too much noise. Logan did not want to sneak up on Bryce and potentially get shot, but he also didn’t want to yell down to him and alert any nearby infected. It only took him a minute or two to close the gap enough to be within speaking distance of Bryce.
“What are you doing out here?” Logan asked in a conversational voice.
Bryce turned around and brought his AR-15 up to his shoulder and pointed it at Logan, whether out of fear or just plain habit.
“Whoa, buddy, it’s just me!” Logan threw his hands into the air.
Seeing that it was Logan, Bryce dropped his rifle back into the sling, shook his head, and waved for Logan to come over.
Logan hustled over the rest of the distance to where Bryce looted the vehicle..
“What are you doing out here?” Bryce asked.
“I came to find you and see what you were doing,” Logan said.
“I come down here to look for anything I can find, but I run into infected all the time, that’s why I said to keep an eye out” Bryce said.
“Have you found anything good today?” Logan asked.
“Not really, but I was just going through this luggage and check this out!” Bryce held up a see-through women's lingerie collection.
Logan took a look into the car, and inside was the emaciated shell of a slim-framed blonde woman and two very silicone implants visible through a very low cut tank top. Logan imagined that before the Outbreak she didn’t have a care in the world. After the Outbreak, however
, she had taken a bullet to the head and left to decompose in her vehicle.
“Well, I don’t think she will need them again,” Logan chuckled.
Logan switched gears to a more serious matter, the matter he came to find Bryce for, “So what exactly are you trying to accomplish in the scheme of things here?”
“I was almost waiting for you to bring that up,” Bryce replied coolly.
Bryce wasted no time at all in his explanation to Logan about how he wanted to make the hatchery an outpost and build an army of trained survivors to start taking back the smaller towns. He told Logan that they had food, water, and electricity, but what they needed was strong fighters. Bryce needed more people like Logan to help him succeed.
“We can live a long time up in the hatchery without needing to go into town much, but you’ve seen my dad and my father-in-law; they aren’t soldier types. Every time I go into town, I am risking my ass, and I need some backup,” Bryce said.
“If we run into another group of infected and we have to stand and fight, we are totally fucked. We need to level the playing field a little and add more lead down range,” Bryce finished.
Slowly, Logan understood what he wanted to accomplish. Bryce didn’t want to just try and survive the apocalypse; he wanted to rebuild civilization one brick at a time. This was something that Logan had never stopped to think about before now, since his entire life since the Outbreak had only been about surviving the current day, making it through the next, and protecting his family along the way.
“I understand what you’re trying to do, Bryce, and I want you to know, if there is anything you need, I will do what I can,” Logan said proudly.
Bryce saw the look in Logan’s eyes, and at that moment, he knew that he had found his most valuable ally.
The two of them shook hands one more time, and sealed the unwritten and unspoken agreement.
“Come on, let's get out of here and go find my dad and Greg. I think they went fishing over on the creek,” Bryce said.
“Why don’t they just go fishing in the big pond by the hatchery?” Logan asked with a laugh.
“They like going fishing for fun, not to throw an empty hook in the water and catch a fish,” Bryce replied with a shrug.
Just as Bryce was about to turn around and head off back to the quads, a hand reached out from under the car he had looted and grabbed his ankle.
Bryce cried out. Logan spun around and saw the arm and hand of an infected latched onto Bryce..
Logan didn’t carry a gun with him since he hadn’t planned a visit to the highway. He looked around and found a signpost lying on the ground.
Bryce crawled backward while the infected man tried to pull him back under the car. He scrambled to get his gun out of his holster, but he had fallen onto his side and couldn’t unlatch the holster.
From behind, Logan leapt over Bryce’s head and crushed the skull of the infected man with the signpost. He lifted the post over his head one more time and brought it down violently all the way to the man’s neck. The hand that grabbed Bryce did not let go, however, and Bryce reached down to pry it loose.
Bryce finally got loose from the dead man’s grasp and scrambled away from the car.
“Holy shit!” Bryce exclaimed.
“Yeah, no kidding!” Logan yelled back.
Then the two men looked at each other and simultaneously, they both burst into laughter. An onlooker might have thought that the incident had caused them to go crazy. For these two men, however, the idea of death was both terrifying and exhilarating. Clearly, neither one of them was entirely rational.
After the ordeal, Bryce and Logan cruised back up the road on the quads and decided to go back to the hatchery instead of interrupting the fishing session.
They got back to the hatchery and all the women and children were up now stirring around the crew quarters.
Before they entered the building, Bryce stopped Logan and asked him, “What do you think about going back into town?”
“What do we need to go to town for?” Logan asked, seriously puzzled.
“I think we should look for more survivors and grab as many supplies as we can,” Bryce replied.
Logan pondered on this for a few seconds, as he thought it through. He knew that they had enough supplies for a while, but having more was always good. Then he thought that if Bryce hadn’t gone into town, he could still be stuck in Payson. He nodded his head.
“Sounds good to me, let’s do it,” Logan said.
Bryce nodded his head in agreement and left it alone. He had proposed the trip primarily as a test for Logan, to see if he would actually participate like he said he would. Bryce also wanted to make sure that Logan had the skillsets of a SEAL and wasn’t a fraud. Of course this wasn’t the only reason Bryce wanted to go back into town he always had a plan.
The two men walked in the kitchen and explained the plan to their families. Their family members gave them both concerned looks and looked back and forth at each other.
“You just went into town,” Victoria spoke out.
“Yes and we saved Logan and his family, and we got the very much-needed fuel. Now we are going to go back to raid the gun shop, try the pawn shop, and try to clean out the last few market stores,” Bryce told the group.
“You never know, we might run into someone else who needs help, and we can help them,” Logan said.
Their families gave the two men looks, but it was already decided, they needed to make these kinds of runs for the growth and survival of the hatchery. They couldn’t just hole up and wait it out; they would have to complete these missions in order to achieve the ultimate goal. Bryce wanted to add more people to the group, and if they were going to do that, they would need more food, guns, and of course people.
With the discussion settled, they told their wives that they were going to get their gear packed up and get ready to head out.
Logan and Bryce took their rifles and some extra ammo and headed for the Outlander. Jessica volunteered to go along on the run, and neither Bryce nor Logan had any objections to another person coming along, however, when Robby sprinted outside and volunteered to come along, Logan objected.
Logan immediately told him, “No way in hell,” and shooed him away.
“Dad, come on, I’m sixteen, and you need all the help you can get,” Robby argued.
Bryce looked at Logan and nodded his head in agreement, the more the better in this instance.
“Can you shoot well, Robby?” Bryce asked.
“My dad was a SEAL, are you seriously asking me that question?” Robby asked with a shit-eating grin.
Bryce grabbed an extra rifle and handed it to Robby. Robby gladly accepted the rifle, but looked to his father for approval. Logan gave his son a nod, and Robby jumped in the back of the Outlander next to Jessica. She patted him on the leg and gave him an approving smile with a wink, which made him blush.
Before they headed out, the rest of the members of the hatchery all came forward to say goodbye. Bryce rolled down the windows and they all said their goodbyes, waved to each other, and heard all of the “be careful” speeches.
Bryce put the car in gear and headed down the winding road, which lead to the highway. Before he knew it, he drove down the highway toward yet another visit into Payson. As much as he hated to make these runs because of the inherent danger, the need for supplies outweighed the dangers, and plus he couldn’t help but feel exhilarated every time.
On some level, Bryce had already grown fond of the action, the adventure, and on a primal level, the killing.
He knew that he shouldn’t feel excited about the killing, but on the inside, deep down, he knew that he was meant for this role. He knew that in the long run, no matter what it took, he would lead a group of survivors out of the ashes and into prosperity. He knew that he would build a new, more efficient civilization, and he would be there, at the heart of it all, as the leader. That was what made these runs so exhilarating for Bryce, because he knew that each
time he stepped outside the comfort of the compound, he was one step closer to his goals.
Chapter Thirty-One
Payson, Arizona
For Bryce, the drive into Payson passed by like all the others. This time, however, Bryce and Logan made small talk with Jessica and Robby to try and keep their minds off the trip. It had only been a full day since Logan and Robby were saved from the town, and now they were already going back. Neither father nor son liked the idea of going back so soon, but Logan knew that it was necessary to get all the supplies and extra people they could get.
Bryce slowed down at the border of town and rolled forward slowly toward the center where the highways converged. He took a left on the main highway and headed toward the gun shop. They arrived at, and all four of them got out of the vehicle with their rifles at the ready. Logan and Bryce entered the gun shop first and took a look around. Robby watched the door and Jessica stayed with the vehicle, because they didn’t want to get snuck up on and they certainly didn’t want to lose a running vehicle.
The scene inside the gun shop was exactly what Bryce expected; the store was all but picked clean, with only a few guns left. Most of the semi-automatic rifles like their AR-15s and AK-47s were gone. The only weapons left were a few old beaten-up hunting shotguns, some World War I era bolt-action rifles that were past their prime, and one Chinese-made SKS rifle. Since Bryce and Logan were not completely picky, they dropped their duffel bags and loaded everything they could get their hands on. When the duffel bags were loaded, they sent Robby to the Outlander to load the weapons into the back.
They grabbed all of the ammunition they could get their hands on, which was not a whole lot; all that was left was the bulk military rounds. All of the new packaged ammunition was gone. Bryce found a few hundred rounds of ammo for the guns they already had, and a small amount for the new guns they just found in the shop. Logan looked at the half dozen or so rifles and shotguns they had collected and frowned. He knew that they were going to need more than these guns to make a dent in the real world. The bolt-action guns were not exactly ideal either. They may have been high tech during World War I, but this was effectively the apocalypse and they needed better technology.
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