by Hunt, Jack
“Reminds me of my room when I was a kid.”
Max looked around but didn’t reply. “You mind if I take a seat?” he said, gesturing to the computer desk chair.
“Free country.”
Sam sat down and glanced over his desk that was full of schoolbooks. “You had one year left to go?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you gonna do after that?”
He sighed. “Does it matter?”
“Not right now but you never know. The lights might come on.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He shrugged. “Whether they do or don’t, the future still matters. You matter. Especially to your mother.”
Sam got up and went over to the window and closed it.
“Is that why you’re here? To give me some lecture. Did my mother put you up to this? If so don’t bother. I don’t need to hear it.”
“No. Maybe you don’t.” He paused. “Tell me, Max, are you having a hard time sleeping? Your mother said she was. I mean after all you two went through with those intruders.”
“I sleep fine,” he said slumping down on his bed and grabbing up a music magazine. He flipped through it pretending not to listen but Sam could tell he was just doing it to act like he didn’t care.
“You know, the first person I killed was an accident. I still remember his face,” Sam said.
That piqued his interest. His eyes peered over the magazine and met Sam’s.
“Before I managed to land a job here, I was a rookie cop based in Bangor. Anyway. My partner and I got a call of a robbery in progress at a jeweler’s. Two guys burst into the store with guns raised, and did a smash and grab. We cornered them about four blocks from the jewelry store. It was nighttime. We had no details other than they were masked, and wearing black. So… my partner swerved the cruiser down this alley. He jumped out and took off after one while I went for the other one who scaled up a fire escape. Eight stories high. I ended up in a foot pursuit across multiple buildings until I cornered him on this one roof. He pulled what I thought was a gun. I took the shot. When I reached him he was bleeding out. I pulled the mask off and it was just a kid. No older than fourteen.” Sam shook his head. “I still see his face to this day.”
“You lose sleep over it?” Max asked.
“I did. For many months. I drank a lot. I snapped at people. I questioned whether or not I wanted to be a cop.” He ran a hand around the back of his neck.
“So what changed it for you?”
“Time. Time changed it. That and having someone to talk to about it. I sat with a therapist and eventually I stopped having nightmares.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“I’m just saying that I get the need to act out, but your mother cares for you. You’re all she’s got. Just give her a heads-up in the future. Let her know where you’re going. You want her to treat you like an adult. Treat her like one. And if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
Max nodded.
“Anyway, where did you go?” Sam asked.
“Just fishing.”
“Catch anything good?”
He screwed up his nose and shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“Well speaking of fishing. I need to speak with the community. They’re not gonna like it,” he muttered as he got up and headed for the door.
“Why?”
“Well. I shouldn’t be saying this as it hasn’t happened yet but we got a visit from FEMA officials today, and the military. They want all coastal towns to be involved in contributing to the cause.”
“The cause?”
“The camps,” he replied.
Max pulled a face. “Why don’t they just come and do it themselves?”
“Many hands make light work,” Sam replied. “They want to focus on the camps, not on bringing in supplies. They want us to do that.”
“Are you…?”
“I don’t think we have much choice.”
Max snorted. “Why don’t you tell them to do it?”
“I did. They didn’t listen.”
“Perhaps that’s why Ray fought back,” Max said quietly, thinking Sam didn’t hear.
Sam screwed up his face. “Ray? Who’s Ray?”
Max got this look on his face as if he realized he shouldn’t have said anything.
“Max. Who’s Ray?”
He groaned. “He heads up the Maine Militia.”
“The militia?” He stared back at him. “How do you know them?”
“I… Look, don’t tell my mother. She’ll just freak. Besides, I’ll be eighteen in a month and—”
Sam walked back to him. “Max.”
He grimaced. “That’s where I was today. I mean, I didn’t go out to meet them, so to speak. Our paths crossed, you could say.”
“They’re in Castine?”
“No, on an island. Not far from here. They’re from Belfast across the bay but had to leave because of a run-in with the military. They were taking everything that the townsfolk were bringing in.”
“The militia was?”
“No. The military. FEMA.”
“Everything?”
Max nodded.
“But they told us they only wanted a portion.”
“Well maybe they do from us, but that’s not what happened in Belfast. They took guns, ammunition, fish, canned food, dry food, yeah… pretty much cleared them out. Ray and his guys stepped in and stopped them. They took it back and well…” he trailed off.
Sam went over to the window and looked out. He could see a few small lights in the distance. Fires? Maybe lights powered by solar generators? “So they’re hiding out on an island?”
“I wouldn’t call it hiding. Staying low until the military raise their head again.”
Sam nodded. “How many are there?”
“Uh, twenty, maybe thirty.”
Sam pondered it for a moment. While he didn’t know how things would play out in Castine, he was interested to find out what Ray knew about FEMA. Up until that point the only information they got came from Teresa and she was the least reliable source of truth. “You think you could take me to see them?”
Max’s brow furrowed. “I guess.”
9
Death could strike at any moment. They could feel Billy’s eyes boring into the back of them as they hiked by day, and camped at night.
Four days.
Four days of grueling hiking.
Four days since Billy had vanished.
In that time they’d put in nearly twenty miles a day, passing through the state of New York and gunning for Kent, Connecticut. They kept it simple. Using streams and rivers as a water source, hunting rabbits and using what little supplies they had left to get them through each day. They avoided Warwick and Chester, but had to pass through Newburgh to cross the Hudson River. They’d argued a little but it was mostly regarding Billy.
Landon knew he was following closely, just waiting for his opportunity. So why hadn’t he taken it? There had been plenty of opportunities. This led Beth to believe he was gone but he didn’t buy it. Even though they hadn’t seen or heard him, he was out there. The indication that he was near was Grizzly frequently turning his head and growling. Beth said it was probably a cougar but Landon didn’t think so. Still, each time they looked into the forest, no one was visible. While Billy didn’t have a rifle or handgun in his possession when he left the camp, he still posed a threat. Branches could be sharpened and rocks could be turned into weapons. It wasn’t a matter of if he would strike, only when.
Landon wanted to send Grizzly out to hunt him down but Beth was against the idea. “I’m not sending my dog after that maniac,” she’d said.
“He doesn’t have a weapon, Beth. You should have let me go after him. At least that way we could both sleep at the same time.”
“My father warned me about this. I don’t think I’ll ever let my guard down again. ”
“You didn’t let your guard down,” Sam said. “We
trusted him, just like we did Tim and Nancy.”
“Yeah and where did that get us? It took us almost a week to replenish our gear, and we still don’t have half of it. Now we’re looking over our shoulder every two minutes and I have to have Grizzly on a leash, otherwise he’ll take off into the forest.”
They had been rotating shifts at night.
Nights were always the hardest.
All it would have taken was a rock thrown at him or to have Billy creep up on the campsite and they could find themselves in a fight for their lives. That’s where Grizzly came in handy. Even the slightest movement caused his ears to perk.
Landon sighed and reached down. His hamstrings were sore from walking but he refused to let it slow him down.
“I think we should stop in Pawling,” Beth said.
“Why? It’s only one more day until we reach Kent.”
“Because we are down to our last few bullets, and I have no arrows and we have no food left.”
“So we set a few traps.”
“No.”
“Look, we agreed to avoid the towns as much as we could.”
“As much as we could? “ she repeated. “You didn’t want to stop in Warwick or Chester, and you wouldn’t stop in Newburgh.”
“You saw that group.”
“We could have found something.”
“Yeah, well, I say we keep going.”
“He’s not out there, Landon.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. I don’t, but after four days you would think he would have shown himself. He had no gear, no ammo, nothing, Landon. Now for the millionth time. Listen to me. He’s gone. He’s either dead or he split while he had the chance.” She stared at him. “It’s been four days. Think about it.”
He was thinking about it.
Hell, he hadn’t stopped since his close brush with death.
They continued on. The trail elevation went from four hundred to seventeen hundred feet giving them gorgeous views. They passed by multiple lakes, rivers and ponds and saw homes dotted along the wooded shoreline. The Hudson River was full of boats, people out fishing, trying to catch anything to survive. At one point they found they had lost sight of some of the white blazes and had to double back along a footpath, which they came to discover wasn’t the AT. Landon was sure he would see Billy when they backtracked but he wasn’t there. A part of him hoped he was dead but he was starting to think that the reason Billy hadn’t attacked was because he knew they were expecting it. By holding off he was lulling them into a false sense of security. Once they lowered their guard he would strike.
As they began to see signs for Pawling, New York, population 8,463, Landon felt his pulse speed up. While the trail wasn’t safe, it somehow felt safer than passing through a town. What Tim and Nancy had told them had stuck with him. Five and a half months since the blackout gave society plenty of time to revert back to their animal instincts. They’d already witnessed it in Mountain City.
Old Route 55 soon merged with Main Street, and as they approached from the west they noticed its residents had followed the same path that other towns had by setting roadblocks. “Look… Beth.”
“We’re going through the town. We need supplies, Landon.”
He lowered his head and sighed. It wasn’t like he could argue but needing and getting were two very different things. There must have been thousands of people who were in need. Time would have given the townsfolk a different mindset. Long gone were the days when towns would offer help. It was every man for himself, and if it wasn’t, they had to question their motives.
“It’s blocked off. Let’s cut through there,” Beth said, pointing to a suburban neighborhood. In the days after losing their gear they’d done the same thing. Entered towns, broken into homes, rooted through abandoned buildings and gathered what they needed, but in all instances they had faced danger. Mostly it was those trying to protect the little they had left but there were a couple of towns that were under the control of military. Whether they were government or militia, that was hard to know. Those towns they’d given a wide berth. But it was to be expected. For some the blackout meant desperate times, for others opportunity.
They crouched and cut through a yard at the back of a row of two-story homes. Many of the windows were smashed, a door had been torn off and garbage was everywhere. The smell of feces and piss carried on the wind as they entered a home that looked as if it had already been looted.
Blood was smeared on the floor; the walls and one section of a sofa were saturated. Landon followed the trail of red with his gaze and could almost envision what had occurred. Someone had shot the homeowner in the back of the head from outside, then dragged the body out. While Beth and Grizzly explored, he waited on the back porch looking at the trail that disappeared off the deck across the grass and paving stones, and stopped at a dark brown shed. Landon looked over his shoulder and saw Beth opening cupboards. Holding the only handgun that had bullets, he crossed the yard and tugged on the shed door. It was stuck. He pulled hard and as soon as it swung wide he was hit with the smell of death. His gag reflex kicked in. He held a hand over his mouth as he looked upon four decayed bodies stacked on top of each other.
Why move them unless whoever had done it had chosen to stay in the house? Landon jogged back to the home, scanning the windows. He stopped for a second and thought he saw someone in a neighbors window but when he looked again they were gone.
“Beth. Hurry it up. I have a bad feeling about this town.”
“Absolutely nothing. Empty boxes. No cans. Nothing.” She slammed one of the cupboards. “Let me check upstairs.”
“No! Let’s go. We’ll try another house.”
She glanced at him and could tell he was on edge. “All right.”
They exited and crossed over a fence that had collapsed or been knocked down and went into the neighbor’s yard. Landon kept looking over his shoulder. A shot of fear went through him as he looked up at the windows. The house beside it was in a similar state except there were no trails of blood. While Beth went through the cupboards he went upstairs and checked the bedrooms. Everything was in a state of disarray like someone had been through the home and ransacked it. There were holes in the walls, graffiti, and trash scattered everywhere. Landon made his way to the rear window and looked out. It gave him a good view of everyone’s backyard. He then went to the front of the house and that’s when his heart nearly stopped. The same woman he’d seen up in the window was speaking with a group farther down the street. They looked to be your typical suburbanites. The kind of people he might have seen talking among themselves on a Saturday morning while cutting grass. Except they weren’t typical now. They looked disheveled, desperate and armed. The very second the woman turned their way and pointed he knew they were fucked. The group took off, running fast towards the house.
“Beth. Beth!” he yelled, backing up and launching himself down the stairs in three strides. He slammed into the wall at the bottom and she nearly bumped into him.
“We need to go. Now.”
“But I found some—”
He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her with such force she knew not to argue. There was no time to tell her what was happening only that escape was the only option. They burst out of the back into the yard and took off through one neighbor’s yard to the next heading south while the group was coming from the east.
Based on the distance between them and the house he knew they weren’t going to be able to make it out of the neighborhood. “In there. Quick!” he said pulling her towards another home. They entered the rear door, his handgun raised, expecting trouble. They could already hear voices of people searching for them. All three of them bounded up the steps and without even having time to clear the rooms of the house, Landon reached up and pulled a cord to open the attic. A metal ladder slid down and he urged Beth to go up.
“Grizzly,” she said.
“I’ll lift him up to you. Come on. C’mon!” he said glancing
towards the stairs where he was sure he heard someone enter the house. They moved fast and as soon as Landon was up, he pulled up the steps and closed the door to the attic. Cloaked in darkness they waited there in silence. Nothing. Not a single sound.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Stay quiet,” he said. Grizzly moved on top of the wooden flooring; his nails were so long it sounded like rain tapping the roof. “Beth.” She immediately got hold of Grizzly and tried to keep him still. Making his way over to a gable’s slatted vents, Landon peered out and saw the group going from house to house.
He turned back to Beth.
“We’ll stay here for now. When it gets dark we’ll head out and leave.”
“I’m not leaving, Landon, until we get what we came here for.”
“You want to die?”
“We’ll die anyway if we don’t find more ammo. How many bullets have you got left?”
“Three.”
“Yeah. Three,” she said, “and I have none.”
He was about to reply when they heard someone’s voice. “You can come out. They’re gone now.” Beth flashed Landon a look. He shook his head no. “Listen, if I meant you any harm, I would alert them. Okay? Now I’m going to reach up and pull the attic door down. Do not shoot. You hear me?”
“Okay,” Beth said. Landon pulled a face.
“Are you out of your mind?” he said through gritted teeth in a low voice.
“Not everyone is bad, Landon.”
“Oh so because you encountered a couple of guys who didn’t murder you, you think we should trust more strangers?”
Before he could finish, a woman’s face came into view. She had dark wavy hair that fell past her shoulders. “Hello there,” she said. “My name’s Abigail. Abigail Spencer. And you are?”
“Don’t come any closer,” Landon said.
“Whoa. It’s okay. I’m not armed. I’m going to raise my hands now.” Slowly she lifted her hands to show them and then told them she was coming up and to not shoot. She was an attractive woman, not much older than him. She was wearing a white blouse, and dark black jeans with flats. She certainly didn’t look as though she had been through months of suffering. It was a strange sight that was for sure.
