“Ten more minutes,” I told myself. “You get ten more minutes, and if you haven’t found any clues by then, swallow your pride and go back to Dad.”
I trekked onward, squinting through the darkness for a hint of humanity. Just as I was about to give up and turn around, a dark spot in the snow caught my attention. I leaned closer. It was a fresh droplet of blood. And up ahead. Another few drops. I followed the trail, all of my senses now at attention, until the smell of burning wood tickled my nose. A small fire burned in a clearing up ahead. I approached as close as I dared before ducking behind a cluster of holly bushes, peering through the leaves for a better look.
It was one of Base One’s soldiers, a man with blond hair and red cheeks that I didn’t recognize. He had cleared the snow from a patch of ground around the fire to sit down. His bloodied pant legs were rolled up to reveal an open wound in the back of his calf. From the looks of it, he’d caught a bullet in the muscle there. As I watched, he bit down on a stripped stick that had fallen from one of the trees, doused the wound with what I assumed was some kind of drinking alcohol, and reached into the bullet hole with his bare fingers. A mangled yell made its way past his clenched teeth, but the pain was justified. He fished the bloody bullet out in a matter of seconds and flicked it across the snow with an air of disgust. Then, to further impress me, he took a needle and surgical thread from his nearby bag and began to stitch up the hole in his leg.
From what I could see, he had two weapons on his person. The first was a big ass tactical knife that lay open beside his first aid kit. The blade was covered in blood, like he’d used it to cut away the ruined parts of his flesh. The second was a handgun in a thigh holster, which he had unbuckled from his pants in order to tend to the wound. The gun now rested on the flat stump of a fallen tree, within arm’s reach of the soldier. I retreated from my hiding place, circled the camp until I was behind the man, and advanced again. The crackling fire and the soldier’s muttered swear words covered up the sound of my footsteps through the snow. When I was close enough, I grabbed the gun from the stump and shook it free of the holster.
“What the hell—?” the man said, but before he could look my way, I locked my arm around his neck, tipped his chin up, and pressed the handgun to his jaw. “Ow! Go easy on me, would you?”
“You didn’t tense,” I said, noting the relaxed set of the soldier’s shoulders. Anyone else in such a precarious position would have panicked.
“That’s because I’m about to do this,” he said, and reached up over his head to grab the back of my jacket. Before I could react, he hauled me over his shoulder and slammed me down in front of him, right into the fire. Sparks scattered everywhere as I rolled free and patted the smoking fabric of my jacket. A metallic click echoed through the clearing. Somehow, without ever leaving his seat on the ground, the soldier had gotten the gun from me during his little trick.
“That wasn’t very nice.” He leveled the gun at my foot instead of my head. We were mere feet apart. He could blow me apart if he wanted to. Instead, he just observed me with mischievous, navy blue eyes. “Do you mind tell me why you jumped an innocent man camping in the woods.”
“Innocent?” I threw a handful of frozen dirt at him. It bounced off the insignia on his jacket, but he didn’t bat a single eyelash. “Innocent, my ass. You’re from Base One.”
Realization opened up his expression. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? From Camp Haven?”
“Yeah, one of the only ones that survived.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me!”
He lifted his gun a little higher as my voice echoed through the trees. “Be quiet.”
“That little pistol won’t do much against my rifle,” I said.
“You’d have to get it off your back first,” he pointed out. “By the time you do that, I could already have fired two kill shots. One through your head and one through your chest. I really don’t want to do that. If you would just let me explain—”
“Explain what?” I challenged. “How Base One decided that their people were more important and valuable than ours? How you marched into a peaceful camp that probably would have shared our supplies with you if you had only had the decency to ask? How you murdered innocent men, women, and children for no reason other than to show off an unnecessary amount of power?”
“I didn’t murder anyone!” His chin quivered, as if a flood of emotions threatened to spill forth from between his lips. He set the gun in the snow and kicked it over to me with his good leg. “There. Does that help? Will you listen to me now?”
“The knife too.”
He folded the blade into its sheath and tossed it over the fire. I caught it one-handed then sat down across from him.
“I used to be a Marine,” he said, returning to his leg. He tore open a sterile bandage, positioned it over the stitched wound, and taped it down. I wondered where he’d gotten the medical supplies in his first aid kit. “Before all of this shit hit the fan. Got an honorable discharge a few years ago, but I never really got back to a normal life. I was always a bit of a loner, so when that damn EMP went off, I didn’t have anyone to look after. I decided my best bet was to get out of the city, head up into the mountains. I found a few of my old unit buddies along the way who had the same idea. They said they’d heard a rumor about an old base up in the Rockies that the Army was using for emergency purposes. They were recruiting able men and women to join them.”
“Sounds sketchy,” I said as I turned my palms inward to warm them up over the fire.
“It was,” the man agreed. “But at the time, I didn’t really have too many other choices. We headed up to Base One, got cleared, and joined the ranks. If I had known about the Sergeant Major before then, I never would have set foot in that place.”
“Buddy Arnold.”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Only in passing. Keep talking.”
“Buddy’s unhinged,” he said, rolling his pant legs back down to cover the bandaged wound. He zipped up his jacket. “Talk about a man drunk on power. He runs Base One like a damn prison. The civilians that live there are scared shitless of him. A lot of the soldiers are too.”
“So why stay?”
“Because the other option was certain death.”
“I want to know why he wanted to attack Camp Haven,” I said. “We hadn’t done anything wrong. We weren’t interfering with Base One. Why kill everyone there?”
“Were you there for the first raid too?” he asked. “At the med bay?”
“Yeah.”
“Base One was ill-prepared for this sort of thing,” the man went on. “Buddy was so focused on gathering weapons and other defensive supplies that he didn’t think about much else. Like sickness. Someone came in with a bug. Next thing you know, we were all half-dead from it. Camp Haven was the closest source for medical supplies, and you’ve probably already guessed that Buddy doesn’t like to share.”
“How many people are there at Base One?”
“Five hundred, give or take.”
I let out a low whistle. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah, so it gets kind of hard to keep everyone happy,” he said. “When Buddy suggested we take down Camp Haven in its entirety, I outright refused. I was one of very few. Most of the guys wouldn’t dare to stand up to him.”
“And yet you still have a bullet hole in your leg,” I reminded him. “How did you manage that if you didn’t storm Camp Haven with the rest of your friends?”
“Buddy shot me,” he answered, gritting his teeth. “As punishment for defying him. Then he told our medical team to leave the bullet in my leg as a reminder of my mistakes. That was the last straw for me. I snuck out when the night guards switched shifts, climbed up here, made camp, and now here we are.”
“What happened to being afraid of dying out in the wilderness?” I asked.
“I figure I’ll take my chances,” he replied. “I served my country already. I did my part. Buddy
is the worst kind of military guy. I knew guys like him in my own unit. They take pleasure in torturing others, all while they hide behind a mask of patriotism. It’s bullshit, and I refuse to be a part of it.” He pulled a can of Vienna sausages from his pack and popped the lid off the tin. “You want one?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, fishing the first sausage out of the preservatives with his fingers. “So what’s your story? You made it out of Camp Haven alive and out of Base One’s hands. From what I know, that makes you and me the only free people out here.”
My pulse pounded faster. “You’ve seen other survivors?”
“Yeah, I was in the hospital at Base One when they brought everyone in,” he replied. “They didn’t look great, that’s for sure—”
“Did you see a tall man with dark curly hair and bright green eyes?” I interrupted. “He’s about six foot three. Wiry build. He was wearing a dark gray sweater and a black coat.”
He chewed thoughtfully on his canned sausages. “I’m not sure. They brought a lot of guys in.”
“What about a teenaged girl?” I pressed. “Blonde hair, brown eyes. She would have had a newborn baby with her.”
“Oh, I remember her!” He brightened, strangely happy to have information to offer to a woman that had just held him at gunpoint mere minutes ago. “She was a feisty one. Told the C.O. that she’d chop his balls off if he so much as got near her baby.”
“That’s Pippa,” I said. “She’s like my little sister. Is she okay? What’s going to happen to her?”
“She seemed fine.” The soldier took another bite out of a sausage, spraying juice across his chin. “Got a couple of scrapes on her face that our med guys cleaned up. The baby was deemed healthy too, once she finally let someone take a look at him.”
“Her. The baby’s a girl.”
“My apologies. Anyway, I’m sure she’ll be fine. Base One is a lot gentler with the ladies,” he said. “They’ll give her a job in camp, like washing laundry or something. As long as she keeps her nose down, she’ll be okay.”
I heaved a sigh. “That’s the problem. Pippa isn’t the type of girl to keep her nose anywhere but as high in the air as she possibly can. What about the men? What happens to them?”
“Two options,” he said, holding up his peace fingers. “First, if you’re lucky, you impress them. They’ll make you a private, bottom of the barrel. Then you go through an expedited training process before joining the ranks. Or second, you don’t impress them or you make trouble. In that case, it’s the worst kind of grunt work for you. And believe me, you don’t want to have to be the person that cleans out Buddy’s personal shitter for him. You just don’t.”
“Where’s Base One in relation to us?”
He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Back that way a few miles.” He looked up from his sausages. “Oh, no. Is that what you’re doing out here all alone? You’re looking for Base One. Honey, take my word for it. You don’t want to find it.”
“My friends are there.”
“And there they’ll stay,” he said. “You’re better off out here on your own if you can survive it. Stay away from Base One.”
“Why are you still protecting it?” I demanded. “I thought you hated the place.”
“I do,” he insisted, finally setting the sausage tin down to speak to me over the fire. “Honestly, I don’t give a damn what happens to Buddy and those other assholes. For all I care, you could call in an airstrike to blow the place apart, but I got the feeling you don’t have that happy power. Listen to me, lady. If you want to survive, you’ll do the smart thing and turn around. Forget about your friends. Save yourself.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t leave them there. They’re all I have left.”
He sighed, leaned against the fallen log behind him, and plucked the last sausage out of the can. “I figured as much. The guards switch shifts every six hours. That’s your best bet of getting in. Go through the main gates. They don’t use them often because they think it’s too obvious. And if you see a guy with a shaved head, biceps like the devil’s, and a voice like a can opener, run in the opposite direction.”
“Buddy Arnold?”
“Buddy Arnold.”
“Thanks.” I stood up, dusting dirt from the seat of my pants. I hesitated then returned his gun and knife to him. “That way, right?”
He nodded. “Good luck out there. I hope you find your friends. You seem like a decent person, even if you did hold a gun to my head.”
I shook his outstretched hand. “You’re not so bad yourself. What’s your name?”
“Aaron.”
“Nice to meet you, Aaron,” I said, walking about from his campfire. “I hope to see you around.”
“Whoa, wait a second.” He twisted around to watch me go. “You’re not going to tell me your name?”
I walked backward through the woods to keep an eye on him. “I’ll make you a deal. If we meet again, I’ll tell you my name.”
“Oh, we’ll meet again.”
I grinned and waved, leaving the soldier at his camp. It was reassuring to know that not everyone at Base One ran on power-hungry bullshit, but I couldn’t let my guard down. Not until Buddy Arnold had been taken care of.
I followed Aaron’s directions toward Base One. This time, I found plenty of hints that I was heading along the right route. Trails of footsteps crisscrossed in the snow. Smeared bloody handprints decorated some of the bark on the trees, as if an injured hostage needed a shoulder to lean on and was never offered one. Farther along, I found the remnants of my father’s crossbow victims from earlier that day. The bodies had been collected from the woods. There were marks in the earth from where the living soldiers had dragged their dead comrades to whatever fate Buddy Arnold deemed appropriate for them. I followed the tracks down the incline of the mountain until the ground leveled out. A stone platform jutted out from the trees, beyond which a line of lights illuminated the night sky. I flattened out on my stomach, crawled toward the platform’s edge, and looked out.
“Holy shit,” I whispered
Neither Dad nor Aaron had exaggerated the sheer size of Base One. It was a stone fortress built in a small valley between the higher walls of the mountain, stretching at least half a mile in each direction. Guards walked along the top of the ramparts, guns at the ready to fire at anything that moved, but the interior of the camp was quiet and still. Everyone—including Buddy Arnold, I hoped—was asleep in bed, but as soon as I made to shift away from the edge, a hand came down on my shoulder.
Chapter Three
Aaron’s knife was still in my pocket. I whipped it free and whirled around, but my attacker knocked the blade out of my grip with frustrating ease. I scrambled across the snow for the weapon, all too aware that I didn’t have time to bring the rifle into a decent position to defend myself.
“George, stop! It’s me. It’s Dad. Amos.”
I rolled to a halt. Sure enough, my father stood in the clearing with me, armed once again with his crossbow. “Dad? Shit, you scared me to death! I thought you were someone from Base One.”
“If I was, you would already be dead,” he said, sitting next to me. He looked out at Base One, his nose wrinkled as if he had caught a whiff of something mightily unpleasant. “I should have known that you would come out here the first chance you got. You’re still the same kid, never thinking about the risks.”
“Except I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You sure are acting like one,” he replied. “Leaving in the middle of the night. Heading into the dark alone and unprepared.”
“I brought my rifle.”
“And you couldn’t raise it quickly enough to defend yourself against me or that lonely soldier you found back there in the clearing.”
“You followed me?” I asked, incredulous. “You know, Dad, this is one of the reasons I left you up here in the first place. It isn’t normal—”
“You got lucky with that guy,” he said,
adjusting his seat on the ground to get a better look at Base One’s enormity. “He could have killed you if he wanted to.”
“Not everyone wants to kill me.”
“No, but you can’t blindly trust strangers in the woods either.” He picked up the knife from where I’d dropped it and handed it back to me. “Call me paranoid. That’s fine. But now we’re in a situation where paranoia could save your life, so for once, just once, could you please listen to me?”
I tucked the knife into one of the pockets of the tactical jacket. If it weren’t for my father’s presence, I probably would have tried to return it to Aaron. Dad had plenty of knives to choose from, and I’d accidentally taken an important survival weapon from the repentant soldier. But if I mentioned the internal guilt to Dad, he would accuse me of being soft once more.
“Are you convinced now?” he asked.
“Of what?”
He gestured to Base One, sweeping his hand wide across his chest to emphasize the sheer size of the rival compound. “That your run-of-the-mill rescue ideas won’t fly in a place like this. You’re heard it from multiple people now, one of which has had firsthand experience with Buddy Arnold.”
The thing that irked me most was that he was right. The scale of Base One was too massive for me to tackle alone. I had no intel, no team, and no way to get inside. Sheer determination wouldn’t cut it for this mission. I needed some kind of edge, and I had no idea how to get one.
Dad lightly bumped my shoulder. “George, I know how much these people mean to you. I know you feel like you can’t leave them at Base One in good conscience, but think of it this way. They’re safe for now. They have a place to sleep, food to eat, and clean clothes to wear. Who knows? Maybe Base One isn’t so bad after all.”
“Weren’t you eavesdropping on my conversation with Aaron back there?” I asked him. “He said the civilians there are treated like crap. He left because he couldn’t stand to live there anymore. He would rather be alone in the woods.”
Blackout (Book 2) Page 3
