The Off Grid Survivor Box Set: Complete The Off Grid Survivor Series Books 1-4

by Connor Mccoy

  As he set his head on the pillow, an odd twinkle caught his eye. He turned to the window. It reminded Conrad of a street light. But that was impossible now. What could it be?

  He slipped out of bed and walked to the window. The light came from the woods beyond his property. The light blinked in a steady sequence.

  Conrad knew that signal. He had to go meet with them.

  He turned back to the sleeping Camilla. Better to leave her a note before he left. He wouldn’t just disappear and leave her wondering what happened if she should awaken before he returned.

  Conrad’s boots crunched the dirt and small branches as he trekked through the woods. He kept the small beam of his flashlight down near the ground, about level with his knees. “Alright, come out wherever you are,” he said to the night air.

  “Don’t worry, we’re finished playing hide and seek,” spoke a familiar voice.

  Conrad shone his light between a gap in the trees. “Who’s that? Reginald?” he called.

  “It’s Reg.” The Hooper City resident tromped out of his hiding place and approached Conrad. “Now, you’re not forgetting that in your old age.”

  Then Conrad noticed Nigel, Jeff, Lance and several other men emerging from behind trees. “Well, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Reg offered his right hand toward Conrad’s right hand, but Conrad raised his left. “Easy. Right arm’s still giving me trouble.”

  Reg smiled. “Sorry to hear that.” Instead, he lightly slapped Conrad’s left arm.

  Just then, a face Conrad hadn’t seen in a while emerged from behind a tree trunk. Conrad’s eyes widened. “Carlos!”

  Carlos Almeida waved. “Hello, Conrad.”

  Conrad approached while offering his left hand. Almeida ran a store in a nearby town, at least until just about all the residents fled shortly after the EMP. “I haven’t seen you in ages.” Conrad took a gander at the man. He definitely had lost a lot of weight. In fact, Conrad had to study the man’s face to be sure it was Carlos Almeida. “In fact, you disappeared months ago. What happened?”

  “Quite a story,” Carlos said with an awkward smile. “I got sick for a long time. Nearly died. I was brought to Hooper City to get my strength back.”

  Conrad wondered how much strength Carlos successfully recuperated. Conrad had cashed in eggs and vegetables in his store for years, and the man always wore a bright smile and a head of thick hair. Now age lines cut into his cheeks, and tints of gray appeared on his hair roots.

  The crowd continued to grow. Now Conrad counted about twenty-five men and women. “So, what’s with all the party guests, Nigel?” Conrad asked. He looked down and noticed the belt on Carlos’s waist. He was packing two guns, one resting in a holster on each side of his waist. That was an additional surprise. Conrad never had spotted Carlos with a weapon, either.

  “We’ve come to help you, Conrad,” Almeida said.

  Nigel stepped close to the old rancher. “We’re here to stand with you. The army makes a move, we make them regret it,” Nigel said.

  Conrad looked at all the men and women behind Nigel. “Well, I’m honored and humbled by the turnout. But it’s not your fight.”

  “Maybe it’s time it was,” Nigel said. “Conrad, the army isn’t far from Hooper City. If we don’t stop them at your place, they’ll come after us. Hell, they probably already are there. I’d bet my twelve-gauge shotgun that they had spies in my city asking about you.”

  “If you try fighting them, odds are most of you will die,” Conrad said, “and then Hooper City will be easy pickings for whoever’s still out there.”

  “Hooper City’s lost either way,” Nigel said. “At least out here we can weaken them, maybe show them that pushing onward isn’t worth it.”

  “For the past few months, we’ve been free to do as we want. Maybe it’s not worth it if we must live under someone’s thumb,” Jeff said.

  “There’s no way anyone would follow them if they kill you and other innocent people,” Carlos added. “Word will spread. People will stand against them.”

  Conrad hoped that would be true. Even so, he was starting to wonder about Captain Deaden. She might be too authoritarian for his tastes, but was that lady really going to storm in and grab him and his family by force, even if it meant shedding blood? Sure, she wanted his land’s crops, but that could be greed talking. Land and resources were a precious commodity. People would lie and cheat to get them.

  So why don’t I think Joanne Deaden is in that group? Conrad scratched his right cheek. Maybe Sarah’s influence was rubbing off on him. Who’d have guessed that could happen?

  But if she truly wanted to do the right thing, then Conrad had an idea that might just secure his family’s future.

  “I’ve got a plan.” Conrad smiled. “I think it’ll be just the thing to send Captain Deaden and her flunkies packing.” His smile then faded. “At least, it may be enough to broker something. But I’ll need your help. Won’t take much, but did you bring any gasoline with you?”

  “We did.” Nigel turned to Reg, who nodded and walked off into the crowd. “Not a lot, maybe three cans.”

  “Two will do,” Conrad said.

  Nigel took a step closer to Conrad. “What are you going to do?”

  Conrad licked his bottom lip. “You played poker recently?”

  “I did before all the craziness started. Guess I stopped because I didn’t want to fall into bad habits. But I do recall I was pretty good at it.”

  “Bullshit!” Jeff called from a few steps away.

  Conrad chuckled. “Well, I’m a bigger fan of gin rummy, but I’ve played a few good rounds. With your gas, and some of mine to boot, I think I can put together my own winning hand.”

  “Now is that a real winning hand or a bluff?” Nigel asked. “Because if it isn’t four aces, Captain Deaden might call your hand if she’s got something better.”

  Conrad watched as Reg returned with a single can of gas. “She might. But she might not have a winning hand, either.”

  Conrad gripped the gas can hard with both hands. This is goddamn humiliating, he thought. Unfortunately, he could not trust his right hand to hang on to the can’s handle. At least with Lance by his side helping to haul the gas to his home, he didn’t feel quite as burned up about it. The young man had been present at the surgery, so he understood Conrad’s problems.

  He and Lance, who clutched his own can of gas as he walked, tromped slowly through the tall weeds on the way to State Road 22. With the tall trees, they were almost completely enveloped by darkness. Lance had asked to use a flashlight, but Conrad refused. The visit from Deaden had set his nerves on edge, and he hesitated to cast any light, even if he aimed it low. He wondered if she had left patrolmen around to spy on him. Fortunately, he had scouted out the surrounding land dozens of times. He understood how many steps it would take to reach the road, and where the cover was best.

  “Ow!” Lance suddenly cried out.

  Conrad turned his head. The thick darkness made it impossible to see if Lance had hit anything. “Problem?”

  “Damn. Sorry. I hit a sharp twig…no, a tree root,” Lance said.

  Conrad chuckled. “Yeah, the remnants of a great oak tree that fell about ten years ago. Just keep close behind me. We’re almost out of here.”

  Conrad led Lance to the side of the road. The rancher looked both ways. It seemed like a weird thing to do as no regular traffic had passed through here in months, but Conrad remained concerned about being watched.

  There’s probably no chance that I can spot any scouts in this darkness, he thought. But on the other hand, they probably couldn’t see him either, or at least they wouldn’t know what he was holding, unless they scouted the road with night vision goggles.

  He couldn’t put it off any longer. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Conrad slipped across the asphalt as quickly as he could. With Lance accompanying him, the rancher made it to the other side, near the boundary of his ranch’s fence.

  “Just keep
close,” Conrad said as he slowly marched through the grass and weeds. “So far, no one’s seen fit to mess with us, but I can’t take any chances.”

  “Right,” Lance said.

  Conrad laughed. “You don’t talk very much, do you? No need to clam up. I don’t think we’re going to draw bad company just by chattin’. So, where are you from?”

  “I grew up in Far Range,” Lance said. “Lived there all my life. Not much to talk about, just a tiny town off 22.”

  “Any brothers? Sisters?” Conrad asked.

  “No. Just my mom and dad.”

  “Ah. Can I ask if they’re in Hooper City with ya?”

  Lance sighed. “They were vacationing in Florida when the sun fried everything. I haven’t heard anything from them since.”

  Conrad shook his head. “Damn. Sorry to hear that. But it doesn’t mean they’re dead necessarily.”

  “I know, but everyone says not to get my hopes up.”

  At last they had reached the point where the fence curved inward. Conrad turned toward the side of the house. “Now, stay close, because Bertha and Goliath here are guarding my home. We’ll have to slip around them to get around back.”

  “Bertha and Goliath? What…holy shit!” Lance stumbled backward when a big shape suddenly obstructed his path.

  Conrad laughed. “See?” He put the gas can down, then rapped the tree trunk with his left knuckle. “Put these two babies here so no one could drive up to my place uninvited.” He picked his can back up. “Course, that doesn’t mean they can’t show up with a tank or a hundred men.”

  Lance followed Conrad toward the home. “How long have you had this place?” Lance asked.

  “Oh, thirty years, give or take. I got it pretty cheap. After the missus decided we were through, I didn’t have a ton of cash at my disposal. But it turned out the fella who owned this place really didn’t understand farming all that well. Once I cleared the land, dug the irrigation, reinsulated the inside and added on the den and the porch, it really started to be something.”

  “So, you built some of this house yourself?”

  “Sure did. I might have to think of adding on some more with my grandson and probably a whole flock of them just behind him.”

  Lance kept his eye on the house as he walked, despite the fact it looked almost formless in the dark.

  Once they had reached Conrad’s back porch, the rancher set down his can. “There.” He then groaned. “Shit.” He stumbled to a nearby chair and sat down. “My right arm’s wondering why I’m not in bed like a good old geezer.” He massaged his right limb.

  Lance placed his own load down next to Conrad’s. “Do you need help?”

  “Naah. Just a few minutes of rest. I’d offer you something to drink, but it won’t be long before morning, and I need my wits about me.” He pointed his thumb to a nearby seat. “C’mon, sit down. I’m not going to make you stand around like a statue. Rest.”

  Lance obeyed. He shifted around in the seat to make himself comfortable. Meanwhile, Conrad let out a sigh and looked at the stars beyond the porch.

  Just then, as the moon’s light shone on the top of the house’s wall, Lance sat up. “What happened there?” He pointed to the spot.

  “That?” Conrad turned around. “Just a bullet hit.”

  “Oh. Is that from when Derrick came after you?”

  “No, that’s a Kurt Marsh special. I got some mementos around here that I’ve never fixed. Sometimes they’re just painful reminders. It’s a hell of a thing when people die on your land.”

  Lance fidgeted a little, moving his legs back and forth against his chair legs. “I was wondering, did anybody get badly hurt during the fight with Derrick? I know nobody died.”

  “Well, no one suffered anything lasting, if that’s what you mean,” Conrad replied.

  “That’s good. Really good. I was worried.”

  “Yeah, we made it through alright, though that’s when poor Cammie got her first bullet wound. She took one during each of our battles. I joked that if this keeps up, she’ll rattle like a jar of change when she walks.” He chuckled. “They said you could hear the metal inside Andrew Jackson when he walked by you. He took so many hits in shooting duels, and he never got the bullets out.”

  Lance nodded. “Did you ever run into the guys that tried to take your place?”

  “No. I heard about some of them. Rumor had it some of Kurt’s men actually killed a couple of them in a gunfight. Then some others tried to steal the harvest in Hooper City. Don’t sound like people I’d ever want to keep tabs on, except if they tried anything funny with me again.”

  Lance bit his lip. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sure some of them feel pretty stupid about the whole thing. Derrick, he sounded like he could solve everyone’s problems. I guess when you’ve had your own world turned upside down, lost everything, and don’t have a clue where your next meal is coming from, you’ll do anything. You can even talk yourself into doing something you’d never want to do.” A tremor ran through his body. “It’s not easy to live with.”

  As Lance spoke, a growing suspicion came over Conrad. At first, he wondered why Lance was so interested in the gunfight with Derrick. Then, Conrad recalled what Nigel had said about giving sanctuary in Hooper City to one of Derrick’s men.

  Somehow, it all fell into place. Conrad gripped the chair rest. A flood of angry emotions washed over him, and if his arm wasn’t still stinging, he might have said something. Being forced to think cooled him back down again.

  Get it together, he thought. This isn’t some psychopath like Kurt. And if he wants to be on the straight and narrow, you’d better make sure he stays that way. At least get a feel on how he’s lived since.

  “So, what’s life been like for you since summer?” Conrad finally asked.

  “Hard. I never thought I’d ever have to work for my own food and water like this. If I jumped in a time machine and went back a few years, my past self wouldn’t recognize me.” Lance held up his hands. “Nigel, Reg, all the men in Hooper City pushed me to the wall.”

  “So, you appreciate what it means to work honestly, and not to bite into the bullshit that guys like Derrick throw around to attract knuckleheads?”

  “Yeah.” Lance ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I was a big knucklehead.”

  Conrad settled back in his chair. “You got a girl?”

  “I do. I mean, yeah, I definitely do.”

  Conrad nearly smiled, but he didn’t feel like it just yet. “What’s her name?”

  “Tracy,” Lance replied.

  “Far along?”

  Lance rubbed his eyes. “Well, after New Year’s Eve, I think we are.”

  Now Conrad smiled. “I had a feeling you might. That’s good. Now, I’m not saying you’re there yet, but you do realize if you and the lady have a bundle of joy, you’re going to have raise him, or her, in a place that’s far different from the world you grew up in. No smart phones and Internet and video games. You think you’d be ready for that?”

  Lance looked straight into Conrad’s eyes. “Well, I wasn’t ready for everything around me to go to hell. But it didn’t matter. I had to change, or I’d be dead by now. So, whatever happens, I’ll work hard to give my family a good life.”

  Conrad nodded. This kid sounds like he’s had reality pounded into him good and hard. I think he’ll be fine.

  Conrad rose from his seat. “You should get going. I’ve got some things to take care of.”

  Lance stood up from the chair. “Sure.”

  Conrad swallowed. “Look, don’t feel you owe me anything from this day on. In fact, I’d prefer you keep your distance for a little while. You want to set yourself at ease over the past, then live well, and if you do end up siring your own brood, they’re going to be a part of the future of this country. And the fewer knuckleheads we have out there, the better.”

  “Right.” Lance smiled. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Conrad lightly slapped the side
of Lance’s right shoulder. “Good, good.”

  He stood by one of the porch posts as Lance walked off toward the front of the house.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carla yawned as she rocked little Conrad in her arms. “Someone really needed his midnight snack, didn’t he?” The baby didn’t respond, instead nesting gently in his mother’s embrace. “Yeah, you get to be carried around and sleep, but someday you’re going to have to walk on your own two feet!”

  Giggling, Carla stepped through the threshold into the living room. To her surprise, Liam, Conrad, Camilla and Sarah all had gathered there. They weren’t preparing for the day. They just…stood there.

  “Hey.” Carla laughed nervously. “What’s going on?”

  Liam smiled, but the red in his cheeks showed he was hiding something. “Well, we were going to wait to do this, but dad wanted to see if we could go ahead, well, right now.” Behind him, Conrad chuckled. The older man leaned a little bit, standing unsteadily, and bags showed under his eyes. Carla wondered if he had had any sleep.

  Camilla walked up to Carla. “Here. I’ll hold him for you.” She extended her hands to little Conrad.

  “Okay.” Carla slipped her son to Camilla. Little Conrad didn’t make any noise, evidently still deep in dreamland. Then, with a wolfish smile, Camilla crept away to the couch, where she sat down.

  Liam dug into his pocket. “I, uh, I have something for you. Actually, there’s something I want to ask. Damn.” He looked to his parents with a pathetic expression. “I’m botching this, aren’t I?”

  “Just shut up and ask her,” Conrad said.

  “Right.” Liam cleared his throat. “Carla, I want…I want to ask you…” He jabbed his finger into his pocket. “Actually, let me, uh, grab it first.”

  Conrad turned to Sarah. “You can admit it. He’s not really my son, is he?” Sarah responded with a slap to Conrad’s chest.

  “Ah, got it!” Liam pulled his hand free. Then he opened it up, showing off the ring he had traded for in Hooper City. “If you’ll have me, this is for you.”