The other George, a muscular man with fading tattoos and a motorcycle gang-style beard, grinned and winked at me. “Your dad’s a kick, sweetheart! You know he hasn’t watched a football game in over fifteen years? We’re catching him up on the odds. I’m thinking it’s the Patriots again this year. God, I hate those bastards.”
“Too bad the EMP put the NFL out of business,” I said. “I don’t think the Superbowl is going to happen anytime soon.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Clearly, the older men at this table were living in an augmented version of reality. They preferred to believe that everything would go back to normal in a few weeks or months rather than face the truth of living in this church, eating canned food, with Marco Coats as their leader for however long it took to rebuild the city.
I cleared my throat. “But what the hell do I know? Dad, can I borrow you for a minute? I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure.” Dad collected his tray, which he had polished clean of food. Somehow, he had managed to choke down all of his soup. “See you around, fellas.”
“Find us for dinner, Amos,” the other George said. “I’d like to hear more of your survivor tales. It’s like a reality TV show.”
“Will do, George.”
I ushered Dad away from the others. We were among the first to leave the community center after lunch. Apparently, the Legacies were so starved for interaction with the outside world that they supplemented it with each other’s presence instead. Just in case, I pulled Dad into a storage closet to keep our impending conversation from wayward ears.
“Did you find out anything from those guys?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he replied. “I was buttering them up. All I figured out was that the three of them were part of the first group of Legacies, the ones that supported Marco from the start.”
“That’s good!” I said. “I’ll know who to follow tonight.”
“Tonight?” Dad bumped up against a broom and knocked it over. It ricocheted loudly off the storage room’s door. “What’s going on tonight? Who are you following?”
“Caroline told me that a group of Legacies goes out every night to look for food and supplies,” I explained. “Apparently, they leave in and out through the bell tower and an exit on the second floor. I’m going to spy on them tonight. There’s something fishy about this place. Denver is totally wrecked. I find it hard to believe that they’ve found enough food to feed everyone here without running into any trouble.”
“I thought we were trying to get out of here,” Dad said. “Not debunk the mystery of the Legacies’ storeroom.”
“We are,” I agreed. “But I like to know what type of people I’m breaking bread with.”
“Hang on,” Dad said. “Isn’t the entrance to the bell tower right near Marco’s room?”
“Yeah, that’s what I need you for.”
We played it safe for the rest of the day, engaging with the other Legacies as they went about their business at the church. Most of the time, they simply tried to keep busy. They worked far less to keep their compound running than we had in Camp Haven. What with all the canned food, there was hardly a kitchen to maintain. They didn’t dry and store fresh meats or vegetables. Everyone cleaned their own space, and the Legacies kept a schedule of whose turn it was to clean out the toilets at the end of every day to avoid arguments. In their downtime, the Legacies played cards, read books, organized group sports or games in the courtyard outside, or hung out in the community center to drink tea and instant coffee. All in all, I had a hard time fathoming how laid back this group of people was about the current state of the world, but I also envied how easily they lived in comparison to those outside the church.
When dinner rolled around, a delicious meal of fried Spam and canned peas, I found Caroline in her corner, reading again. She was one of the few people who kept to herself at the church. When I sat down at her table without asking, she raised one eyebrow as she peered at me over the book cover.
“This is going to become a habit of yours, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Hey, I thought you wanted friends,” I said. “You were the one who told me that there weren’t a lot of women here your age. I’m just trying to fit in.”
“What’s the point?” But she set her book down next to her tray of nearly finished food anyway. “You’re leaving as soon as you can, aren’t you?”
I pushed the cubed Spam around the tray, trying to convince myself to eat it. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I don’t.”
She fell silent. Without conversation to occupy my mouth, there was no avoiding the Spam. With a wrinkled nose, I brought a cube of meat up to my lips and bit down. Shockingly, it wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be. In fact, it tasted like the bacon I used to mix into my omelets when I still had access to fresh eggs and a working stove.
“If you’re going tonight, you should be extra careful,” Caroline said.
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s a new moon.”
I speared another cube of Spam. “So? What, are the Legacies reverse werewolves or something?”
“No, but I think they take advantage of the darkness,” Caroline explained in a low voice. “They always come back with more supplies after a new moon.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Maybe for the rest of us,” she said. “But the last few times those guys have come back from a new moon night, they had blood on their hands.”
I missed my mouth with the fork, and the Spam splashed into the mushy peas. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
When darkness fell and most of the Legacies had retired to their rooms, I crouched in my bedroom with my ear against the door, listening for any sign of movement out in the corridor. Around midnight, the sound of footsteps justified my aching knees. I peeked through the window. A group of five men, some of which I recognized from lunch that day, trotted past my room toward the main part of the church. They wore crude riot gear—chest plates, gauntlets, and helmets—made from whatever materials they had on hand, and each of them carried a gun in a holster around their waist. To finish off the strange look, each man wore a pair of black goggles around their neck.
“Night vision,” I muttered. “Where the hell did they get those?”
I counted to thirty once the men had passed my door. Then I knocked a pattern against the adjacent wall that separated my room from my father’s. Thankfully, it was made of plywood and particle board rather than the stones of the outer wall. A few moments later, my father knocked back, and I heard the door to his room creak open. I met him in the hallway.
“Look what I found,” he said, handing over a nine millimeter handgun.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the other George,” he replied, chuckling. “It was almost too easy. At dinner, I told him that I was always a gun guy. He showed me right to the room where they keep all of the weapons. He thought we were bonding. I couldn’t swipe your rifle or my crossbow without getting noticed though. This is all I got.”
“Is it loaded?”
He produced two clips from his pocket. “Here. Use it wisely.”
I loaded the gun, ditched the empty clip, and slipped the spare one into my back pocket. “Thanks, Dad. This makes me feel a whole lot safer.”
“I still don’t like the idea of you going out there alone.”
“What choice do we have? Are you ready? We’re going to lose track of the Legacies if we don’t hurry.”
“Give me five minutes,” he whispered, continuing down the hall. “As soon as you hear the diversion, make a run for the bell tower.”
“What’s the diversion?”
“You’ll know it when you hear it.”
He disappeared into the shadows at the end of the corridor, and I hid in the doorway of my room to wait. The next few minutes were excruciating. Every creak and or groan from the old building sent another shot of adrenaline rushing through my veins
. I had no idea what I was doing here, or what would happen if and when I made it all the way up the bell tower and out of the church. All I knew was that I had to get out of the Legacies’ compound before Marco Coats found a way to keep me and Dad here forever.
A sharp series of small explosions interrupted my train of thought. I ran down the corridor and ducked into an empty room close to the church’s main hall. Marco’s room and the bell tower were a little farther along, but the sounds were loud enough to rouse the Legacies from their beds, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself once they left their rooms. Sure enough, sleepy faces began to emerge from the hall to look around for the source of the noise.
“What is that?”
“Is that a bomb?”
Marco Coats himself ran right past my hiding spot, down the corridor toward his charges. “Everyone back to your rooms, please! There appears to be a disturbance in the courtyard. Remain inside.”
As the Legacies took the advice of their leader, I ducked out of the empty room with a chuckle. Marco wasn’t as quick on the uptake as everyone thought he was. I could tell from the poppy explosions that Dad hadn’t done anything too dangerous. He’d simply rigged a couple of cherry bombs, which were completely harmless unless you got too close.
The entrance to the bell tower was locked from the opposite side. I rolled my eyes, checked that the hallway was clear, and aimed a massive kick at the door. The lock popped free, and the door sprang open. I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and looked up. A rickety set of stairs wound around the inside of the cylindrical tower. At the very top, the church bells rested silently. It was a long way up.
“Ugh, please tell me I don’t have to make it all the way to the top,” I mumbled as I took the stairs two at a time. A few flights later, it became obvious that there was no entrance to the second floor from this area. Either Caroline was lying or misinformed. I continued all the way up, my legs aching in protest, and looked out of the first of four windows that allowed the bells’ solemn tones to reach the rest of the city. From this height, it was easy to orient myself. The church was a few miles from the edge of the city. It wouldn’t take long to reach the woods once we found a way out of the Legacies’ grasp.
The drop from here to the ground was too far for the Legacies to jump. Rappelling down the bell tower was pretty much their only option, and I was relatively sure that the Legacies weren’t doing that every night. I checked the next window, the one closest to the roof of the building.
“Bingo.”
A rope ladder hung from the window, leading back down to the lower eaves of the church. Carefully, I lowered myself through the window and hooked my feet through the first rung of the ladder.
“Don’t look down, don’t look down,” I muttered as I began to climb down the ladder. I glanced at my boots to check the position of the next rung and accidentally got a glimpse of the space between me and the ground. I jerked my eyes back up. “Shit, I looked down.”
When my feet landed firmly on the roof of the rectory, I let out a big breath. From here, I could see the parking lot of the church. Five people jogged across it. The Legacies’ salvage party. If I didn’t hurry, I would lose them.
The window directly beneath me was open. I lowered myself over the edge of the roof, dangling from the shingles, and kicked my legs back and forth to swing toward the window. Once I had enough momentum, I let go of the roof and jumped into the open window, rolling to a stop in the hallway. I got to my feet and followed the corridor to the opposite end. Another window. Another ladder.
“Here we go again,” I said. Thankfully, this was the last leg of my escape. The ladder led into the parking lot. I sprinted across it, trying to catch up with the rest of the Legacies while keeping light on my feet. Caroline had been right about the new moon. The city was beyond dark. My eyes struggled to see the ground in front of me. I carried a flashlight on my belt, but I feared the light might expose me if I turned it on. No wonder the Legacies carried night vision goggles. As I cleared the church’s property, I had to slow down or risk tripping over something in the dark. I paused, listening for the Legacies instead of looking for them. A tin can tinkled in the alley ahead.
“Way to go, Jeff,” the first man said. I recognized his voice. It was the other George, Dad’s new friend from lunch.
“It’s just a soda can.”
“Lock it down, will you? Let’s keep moving.”
I followed the voices, catching sight of the Legacies’ silhouettes as they crept through the alley. It was slow going. I had to keep hidden, which meant trailing the group at a safe distance. I lost them once or twice in the shadows of the streets. The farther we traveled from the church, the more I wished I’d put a little more thought into my plan.
“There.”
The Legacies stopped so suddenly that I almost knocked over a garbage can in my haste to find another hiding spot behind them. I crouched behind the can, listening to their whispered conversation.
“I see three,” the other George muttered. I had no idea what they were looking at. The only thing in the area was an old gas station with all of its windows bashed in. “Anyone else?”
“No, boss.”
“Let’s go.”
The other George and his team crept toward the gas station. They spread out, two to the left, two to the right, and one in the center. I slipped from my garbage can cover and snuck to their last position to watch. George silently counted down on his fingers. Each Legacy drew his gun. When George put his last finger down, they burst into action.
“Go, go, go!”
The team leapt through the windows of the gas station. Inside, three people sprang up from where they had been sleeping on the floor.
“Put your hands up!” Jeff ordered, brandishing his gun. “Hands up!”
The three people, two men and a woman if my limited vision wasn’t deceiving me, obeyed. The other Legacies looted the gas station, tearing it apart until they found a small stash of non-perishable foods hidden beneath the register.
“Got it, boss!”
“Please.” The woman’s wavering voice carried out to my hiding spot. “Please, don’t take our food. That’s all we have left.”
George shrugged. “Sorry, lady. We got people to feed too. You know what it’s like. Every man for himself out here.”
“You son of a bitch,” one of the woman’s companions snarled in George’s face. He lowered his hands and stepped into George’s personal space. “Who the hell are you to come in here and steal our food? Get the hell out!”
“I don’t think so.”
The man seized George by the throat. A second later, a gunshot went off. I flinched, and the woman screamed as the man crumpled to the floor. He was dead. George lifted his gun.
“Anyone else?”
The second man stepped forward, putting himself between George and the sobbing woman. George aimed at his head.
“Stop!” I yelled, springing up from my hiding place and sprinting toward the gas station. I leapt through one of the windows, grabbed the barrel of George’s gun, and ripped the weapon out of his hands. “Stop, stop! They’re innocent people!”
In the next second, the other Legacies aimed their own guns at me. I lifted the other George’s weapon level with his head. Stalemate. He raised his hands.
“You’re Amos’s daughter,” he said. “We just brought you in yesterday. What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Stopping you from killing anyone else,” I replied, breathing hard. “These people are in the same boat that we are. They’re trying to survive, and you’re taking what little supplies they have for your own comfort. It’s wrong.”
“That’s life,” the other George snapped. “Give me back my gun.”
“No.”
One of the other Legacies aimed a sharp kick to my hamstring from behind. The muscle cramped, and my knee gave way. George pried his gun from my grip and patted me down. He found the nine millimeter in my belt, along with the
spare clip.
“I told Marco that you were going to be trouble,” he said, sliding my gun into a spare holster. He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to stand. “Get up. We’re going back to the church. I love being right. Fellas, get the rest of the food and head out. We’re going to have to call it an early night.”
He pushed aside the survivors of the raid, who were too stunned by the violent robbery to do anything but watch as the Legacies dragged me outside. The church’s bell tower loomed in the distance. My teeth clenched together as the other George pushed me through a mound of trash. I thought about climbing the numerous ladders of the church with the Legacies’ supervision.
“Great,” I muttered. “This should be a grand old time.”
Chapter Six
Getting back into the church was not a pleasant experience. George watched my every step, often grabbing me by the scruff of the neck or the back of my jacket to remind me that he was the one in control here. If the circumstances were different—if Dad weren’t still inside the church—I would have figured out a way to knock George unconscious for his rough touch. As it was, I could only spit petty insults at my new bodyguards as they hauled me back to Legacy territory.
“Where’s Marco?” Jeff asked when we reached the bottom of the bell tower. “He’s usually waiting for us here.”
George shook me by the collar of my coat. “Well? Answer the question!”
“How should I know, you bilge rat?” I said. “He wasn’t here when I left to follow you morons.”
George tightened his fingers around my throat. “Marco’s always here. Tell me where he is before I strangle you right here and leave you in your father’s bed for him to wake up next to in the morning.”
“Fine,” I gasped, eyes watering as they bulged out of my head. George released me, and I massaged my bruised throat. “We set off a diversion in the courtyard. He’s probably out there cleaning it all up.”
George hauled me down the corridor. Before we could reach the courtyard, Marco himself came jogging in from outside.
Blackout (Book 2) Page 7
