Harper smirked. “You better be making a crappy joke.”
He laughed. “Of course. If I’m Dad now, that means I need to be fast with the stupid jokes all the time, right?”
She sighed at the ceiling, but ended up grinning.
After dinner, she and Renee headed to the medical center to visit Logan.
She nearly jumped out of her sneakers with joy upon seeing the drain tube removed. They sat around for a while talking about random stuff until the topic of near misses came up. Renee got clingy with Harper over being saved from the Lawless before she’d been forced to murder someone or been molested.
“Total luck,” whispered Harper. “I’m really glad I found you, too… and that idiot Zach didn’t kill you. I don’t even want to think about the odds. If Tegan didn’t suggest going for meds on that day, and we didn’t go to that hospital…”
“It’s almost like the universe knew you wanted your friends back.” Renee shivered.
“Damn.” Logan whistled. “It’s amazing you got away from those guys without them touching you. What’d you do, kill a couple?”
Renee shook her head. “No. I lied about my age. Told them I was only fourteen. Guess they haven’t gone totally savage yet.”
“Nice.” He cocked an eyebrow at Harper. “Why do you call Dr. Hale, Tegan?”
“Because she wanted me to. Maybe she thought I looked broken or something and needed a human touch.”
Renee play-punched her in the shoulder. “You did kinda look broken, but you’re starting to seem a little more like you.”
“Heh, thanks.”
They talked on, following random topics for about an hour, not realizing how loud they were before Tegan walked in and gently shooed them out of the med center for the night. Harper said good night to Logan with a careful hug, then headed down the hall, but paused, waiting for Tegan to finish checking on him as well as the two other men still recovering. Eventually, she headed into the corridor. At seeing Harper just standing there, her tired expression shifted to concern.
“You’re worried about Logan? Drain came out nice and easy. No sign of infection. We cleaned him up and stitched the site. Another week or so and he should be able to walk around.”
“Awesome.” Harper lowered her voice. “Hey. Awkward question?”
“All right. If it’s about birth control, we don’t have any. Otherwise, do you want to go into a room somewhere?”
“No, it’s not that. I’ve got like three boxes of pads left. What are we supposed to do when they’re gone? What did women in the 1800s do?”
“Oh.” Tegan chuckled. “Well… that depends I suppose on where they lived. You have to remember that the world was quite a bit different in those days. Women of childbearing age often had multiple children, some in a near constant state of pregnancy. That interrupts the cycle, as does lactation. Having five or six kids spaced fairly close made for quite a few years that bleeding wasn’t even an issue for them. But, some women used wool or rags… or just bled on their clothes. Remember though, the dresses they used to wear back then weighed like twenty pounds.”
Harper chuckled. “Ick. Rags? That’ll soak right through.”
“Wear skirts or dresses until things slow down. I think in Ancient Rome they used to wrap cloth or lint around wooden slugs and use them like tampons.”
“Ouch. No thanks.” She cringed. “My luck, I’d get a splinter up there and die of an infection. So… rags. Great.”
“You should check with Liz. I know they cleaned out at least three Walmarts’ worth of feminine products plus every supermarket we could reach. No way we’ve run out of them all by now. But it won’t last forever. At some point, things are going to get pretty medieval. Or at least pretty Old West.”
“It’s already the Old West. I’m honestly surprised no one has pulled a gun over a poker game at Earl’s brewery.”
Tegan laughed. “Can’t gamble when there’s no such thing as money.”
“Oh. Right. Duh. Night… and sorry for getting a little loud in there.”
“It’s all right. More than two teenagers in one place generally requires hearing protection. You can’t help it.”
Chuckling, Harper waved and headed out into the near-pitch-black night. It took a second or six for her eyes to adjust from the electric lighting inside the med center enough to see the road. No blinking lights from aircraft went by overhead, nor did any of the city’s streetlamps work anymore. Jeanette had disconnected them to save power for homes, the med center, and the quartermaster’s. They’d hacked together a giant battery cluster from pretty much any large batteries they could scavenge. Deacon had done most of the work on the wiring that tied them all together into a single power system. Still, they had no real source of replacement parts without risking long-range scavenging trips using unreliable vehicles—and no guarantee parts would exist at all.
She’d have to accept the likely reality that Evergreen having electrical power might be a short-lived last hurrah of civilization. One, two, maybe as long as five years from now, the town would go dark and stay that way.
Harper stared at the endless black of the sky. It’s so damn quiet. As if I needed another reminder the world is broken. “No. That’s the wrong way to think. I gotta stay positive if we’re going to survive this. All the noise pollution is gone. It’s tranquil.” Hopefully, the fallout won’t get us.
She clutched the Mossberg’s strap tight and made her way home.
22
Eldorado Springs
Thursday morning, Harper rushed the kids through breakfast and out the door for their last day of school. Rather than another farm day, the teachers wanted them at the school for a recap of the stuff they’d learned so far. No doubt, the kids would appreciate the feeling of safety that came with being inside.
She hurried back down Route 74 to the quartermaster’s building. Sure enough, the white van Rafael resurrected sat parked near the door. Annapurna and Deacon helped load boxes in the back, as well as a bunch of Styrofoam coolers that smelled strongly of fish.
“Umm, guys?” Harper grabbed the next box of fish and carried it out to the van. “Any chance you could do me a favor while you’re at the Army place?”
“What’d you have in mind?” Deacon took the box she carried and loaded it.
“Can you ask their records guy if any of my friends are there? I’d really like to know if they made it out alive.”
“Aww.” Annapurna put an arm around her after handing Deacon another case of fish. “We can ask. Who are they?”
“Christina, Andrea, Darci, and Veronica.”
“What do they look like? Last names?” Annapurna walked back into the quartermaster’s building.
Harper followed. “Umm. Darci’s kinda thin. Black hair, blue eyes. Looks permanently stoned. Kinda punk. Veronica’s black. She’s athletic and—”
“Why don’t you just come with us?” Deacon grabbed two boxes at once and started back outside.
Harper picked up the last Styrofoam cooler, biting her lip. Leaving Evergreen still worried her, mostly over what it would do to Madison if anything happened to her. She had to stay alive to protect her siblings. But, her need to know what happened to her friends turned out to be a worthy opponent for her nerves. “How long a ride is it?”
Annapurna grabbed a white plastiboard box with Postal Service markings full of cabbages. “Before the war, it would’ve been about fifty minutes depending on traffic. There’s no traffic at all now, but we don’t know what shape the roads are in. The Army said it’s a decent run straight up Route 93. Skirts past Golden, avoids Denver entirely. It probably won’t take us too much more than an hour each way.”
Dammit. I hope I don’t regret this. “Can you guys give me like twenty minutes? I need to check with Walter if it’s okay and then—wait. An hour? We should be back before the kids are out of school. Okay, five minutes. Just need to ask Walter if it’s okay. Is that cool?”
“Sure.” Deacon nodded. “Wouldn�
��t mind having that cannon of yours along for the ride.”
Harper emitted a nervous laugh. I really shouldn’t roll the dice with my life like this. Anything could happen. But what if the guys are alive and okay at that camp? Not knowing is eating me up inside. Screw it. “Okay. Be right back.”
She handed the cooler of fish to Deacon, then ran across Route 74 and down a bit to the office building that had become city hall. Walter and Anne-Marie stood sipping coffee in the same room with the big town map where she, Cliff, Madison, Jonathan, and Summer Vasquez had been interviewed six months ago. They paused their conversation to look over at her.
“Good morning, Harper.” Anne-Marie smiled. “Is everything okay? You look… urgent.”
Walter raised his mug in greeting.
“Sorry. The trip to Eldorado Springs… Is it okay if I go with them? There’s a chance that my friends might have been evacuated there and I have to know if they made it.”
“Are you sure?” Walter walked up to her. “It’s not a particularly dangerous trip, but you’ve got that sister of yours to think about.”
She looked at him. “Have you been letting me slide on scavenging runs for Maddie?”
“Well… You ever see Saving Private Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
“You two lost your folks, maybe your friends. It’s possible I’ve been trying to schedule you on the less risky scavenging trips for Madison’s sake. She’s already lost her parents. It’s got nothing to do with thinking of you as a kid, or weak. Just, well, I’m an old sap and I don’t wanna leave that sister of yours all alone.”
“I…” She sighed. “I’m both a little insulted and a lot relieved.”
“But, you’ve been on some supposedly routine trips that became decidedly un-routine. The route’s mostly open highway. Not going into any cities or places where bad actors could hide. They’re also not planning to stay at the camp for too long, so if you go looking around, you’ll need to do it quick.”
Harper stood tall. “I understand and won’t add a delay. Heard some rumors that it’s not really all that great a place to be, so if my friends are there, I’d like the chance to get them out. Is it okay if I bring them back?”
“How many are we talking about?” asked Anne-Marie.
“Four at most. Girls my age.”
Anne-Marie gave her a nod. “I have no problems with that. Another four teens wouldn’t throw off the food calculations.”
“Awesome.” She bowed her head. “I know it’s really unlikely that all four of them will be there.”
Walter gripped her shoulder. “Listen up, Harper. You keep yourself safe. Don’t do anything nuts. And you get back here to your family. That’s an order.” His serious expression faded to a smile.
“Understood, sir.” She froze. “Am I supposed to salute you or hug you?”
“You’re not enlisted, so either one works.”
Laughing, she hugged him, then rushed out, sprinting home to grab shotgun shells. She usually only carried an extra twenty or so in her hip bag for patrols, but wanted to bring more on any sort of trip away from town in case something went wrong. As fast as she could move, she dashed to her bedroom closet, opened the box, and transferred several handfuls, not bothering to count.
After zipping it, she hurried back outside and sprinted down Hilltop Drive. Fortunately, the van waited for her. As soon as she climbed in the side door, Rafael started the engine. It struggled a bit to catch, but not so much that he seemed worried. Deacon filled the passenger seat. Annapurna sat on the floor between the two front seats, facing the cargo area. The van didn’t have a lot of room left, but Harper managed to squeeze herself in the space between the sliding side door and the Postal Service boxes of veggies.
The smell of fish and produce filled her sinuses.
Annapurna gave her a little smile, somewhere between appreciating her nerve and being grateful to have another gun on the trip. With her AR-15 and dark blue police jumpsuit, she totally looked like a SWAT officer. Deacon also ended up joining the militia, though helped Jeanette on the side with electronics work. He carried one of the M4s taken from the earlier attack. Another AR-15 rested in an improvised sling under the dashboard to Rafael’s left.
She couldn’t see much of the road ahead from her spot on the floor, though the side window at least offered a view of the sky.
Dad? Mom? If you’re out there in any sort of way, please tell me if I’m being stupid.
A few minutes into the ride and for no particular reason, she found herself humming the song Mad World. It made her think of her friend Darci, who’d been obsessed with it after a goth girl on one of those singing talent shows covered it.
Yeah… the world really has gone mad.
Deacon and Rafael discussed the route while the big guy fought with a paper map.
“Now I know why people made damn iPhones.” Deacon seemed frustrated enough to shred the map because it wouldn’t open right. “These shits is a pain in the ass.”
Rafael laughed.
He shook the paper, finally locating the stubborn fold and opening it flat. “Think we’ll be making this run often? Trading with the Army?”
“Not sure. There won’t be any usable gasoline for much longer. This thing still runs off unleaded. I had to spike it with some pure ethanol from Earl’s to get it to work. Honestly, I’m surprised the thing is still running on this gunk. Gas usually degrades in about six months. Damn good chance this is the van’s last ride.”
“Are we gonna get stranded out there?” Annapurna tilted her head back to look at Rafael.
“This gas is at least eight months old, probably closer to nine since I’m sure whoever owned this van didn’t fill it up the day of the strike. Hear all that knocking and shit? Course, if we get stuck at the camp, they can give us a ride back.” Rafael grinned back at her. “If we wind up trading with the Army on any sort of routine basis, it’s gonna be horses and carts like something out of medieval times… unless we get the biodiesel working, or start brewing ethanol.”
“Hope this thing doesn’t take a dump on the way there.” Deacon gestured at the cargo area. “Be an awful waste of food.”
Harper eyed the boxes. I guess we’re not doing too bad if we can trade away this much. Then again, it is mostly fish. Hope it’s not radioactive. She gripped the Mossberg tight, trying not to feel too sick to her stomach with worry. Randomly deciding to hop on a trip out of town could be the dumbest thing she’d ever done… besides possibly being talked into shoplifting by this girl Denise as a ‘coolness’ test. Needless to say, she’d failed—and never spoke to her again.
Cliff’s gonna be pissed at me if this goes wrong. He’s probably still going to be mad at me for not asking him first. I’m eighteen, dammit. Stop thinking like a child.
Harper sat in silence, jostled by the occasional swerving motion whenever Rafael dodged an obstruction in the road. The others didn’t talk much except for airing their curiosities about what to expect at the Army camp. They hadn’t heard much about it, but assumed they’d find a giant field of tents. Annapurna wanted to drop off the cargo and get out as fast as possible.
“Umm, guys? Do you think you could give me a few minutes to ask around about my friends? I swear I’ll go as fast as I can.”
“Yeah, sure.” Deacon extended his fist back over his shoulder. “This ain’t a long trip.”
Harper stretched forward to bump knuckles. “Thanks.”
She spent the remainder of the ride either looking out the side window at the passing ruin of cities or staring at the shotgun, mentally asking her father to keep her safe and get her back to her siblings—and Logan.
The van eventually slowed to a stop. Rafael rolled down his side window.
“What’s your business here?” asked a man outside.
“Dropping off food from Evergreen. Check with Colonel Fowler. Arranged the deal a couple months ago.” Rafael pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. “Don’t have much gas left. Be nice if we
could unload and get going quick.”
A woman in desert camo peered in the right side windows, nodding in acknowledgement of Harper’s wave.
“All right,” said the soldier by the door. “Looks legit. They let us know you would be stopping by at some point. Go on in.”
“Thanks.” Rafael drove forward.
A chain link gate topped with razor wire went by the window seconds before the van swerved to the left and then the right. He stopped, backed up a short distance, then killed the engine.
“Go on and ask about your friends. We can do the unloading.” Deacon opened the passenger door and got out.
Harper shoved the side door open. She jumped down, stretching away the discomfort of sitting in such an awkward, cramped pose for about an hour. Once her legs decided to cooperate, she slung the Mossberg over her shoulder and took in her surroundings.
A dusty breeze rolled in from the east toward the mountains, noticeably warmer than up in Evergreen. The place had the look of an Indiana Jones movie set in the Egyptian desert, only without the sand dunes. A tall fence, mostly chain link but with some solid metal parts, encircled a massive tent city. Rafael had stopped the van close to the front gates in a sort of courtyard formed in the middle of several Quonset-style buildings arranged around an open space. Watch towers of portable scaffold stood at all four corners along the outer fencing, each manned by two soldiers—one with a machine gun. Rafael had backed the van up to one of the larger huts. To her left, twenty rows of canvas tents stretched off more than a football field’s length into the distance.
People milled around in the ‘streets’ between tents. Laundry hung here and there, boxes and crates formed improvised tables where men played cards or checkers. The scene appeared reminiscent of some nonspecific Middle Eastern city slum, the buildings rendered in canvas instead of stone. The air reeked of body odor and ass, likely due to the two large latrines standing at the edge of the courtyard—both apparently way overused.
The Lucky Ones (Evergreen Book 3) Page 20
