“What takes you out into the field, son?” Tom asked.
He didn’t like using a deliberate condescending tone with the younger man, but it felt effective at least to help him get the lay of the land. It was a weird kind of social PTSD, never knowing who you could trust. With such thoughts, maybe Wilhelm wasn’t so daft after all. Tom put his own seat belt on as well.
“What about you, Denny?” Tom asked. “Operational team too?”
“Nope.”
Greerson didn’t seem inclined to say much else. Tom nodded his head.
“OK, cool.”
And he settled back for the ride.
*
THEY MADE THE first ten miles out of the sanctuary zone without much conversation. Ernest Eric Wilhelm III was fascinated by the disastrously unfolding scenery, and despite Tom’s own recent travels, there was a hypnotic quality watching the effects of the end of the world etched across the facsimile of what would’ve once been familiar terrain, at least to a denizen of that lost world in which the TV images of twenty-first century America never showed how easily it could all be torn away.
Nature’s revenge on the urban sprawl of yesteryear never ceased to amaze him, and if it weren’t for the fact their route was so deliberate and much of it cleared by earlier City relief efforts, they would’ve seen the country roads and side streets and whole townships slowly succumbing to saplings uprooting the macadam and suburbs crumbling into ruin.
After a while, Tom gave the Councilor a long sideways look sensing Wilhelm’s attention.
“Sorry, Tom,” the other man said with a wry smile. “I’m sitting here wondering how it is you came to find yourself here . . . you know, us together, headed out into the great unknown?”
“It’s a question I ask myself too,” Tom said. “Is the City’s going to make a deal with Freestone?”
“I can’t answer that one yet, Tom,” Wilhelm said.
Tom nodded and exhaled, thinking through the unguessable complexities of the day ahead and just as quickly knowing anything he might predict was pure fantasy. His brutal treatment by the ever-bemused Freestone was still writ bodily through him, competing for attention amid the mostly still unaddressed aftershock of the whole week, the whole month, echoes of gunfire filtering slowly through his thoughts as he quietly pondered MacLaren, Pamela, Brix, and all the other members of the ill-fated mission which passed through here so recently.
“We’re going through Sunbury, right?” Alvarez twisted in his seat to ask.
“Yeah,” Tom said and let the moment draw out. “Did you know Hugh, Leroy? Hugh Anderson?”
Tom caught a quick look of a flushed denial on Leroy’s face caught in the rear-view mirror.
“Naw, man,” he replied. “Know who he is, though.”
“Was,” Tom said.
“You know what I mean.”
Tom glanced to Wilhelm.
“Making this deal could help a lot of people,” Tom said without missing a beat. “You know, with winter on the way.”
“I’m cognizant of that,” the Councilor replied. “We have to tread carefully. They gave you a pretty rough welcome, last time. We could be . . . taking a serious risk, here.”
“But you came anyway.”
“You too,” Wilhelm said.
“MacLaren’s team opened fire first,” Tom said. “Frankly, Freestone could’ve done worse. Would’ve been within his rights.”
“‘Rights’,” Wilhelm said and gave a skeptical laugh. “Picking off stragglers trying to make a new life for themselves – they don’t have any rights.”
“They have whatever rights they can enforce,” Tom said.
“But it’s always been that way,” the Councilor said. “Everyone just lost sight of that.”
“With winter coming –”
“I know, Tom.”
“– trading for cattle could be a real lifeline.”
“We’re not equipped for anything like that.”
“There any truth in what the Herald reported about the rations cuts?”
Wilhelm was rarely as good as he believed at masking consternation, and Tom got that sense it still wasn’t entirely welcome when Tom talked out of turn. That’s why Wilhelm saw him as hired help. Tom kept giving him the hairy eyeball all the same, and Wilhelm’s irritation transformed into a diplomatic and begrudging grin.
“We’re a victim of our own success,” he said.
“Explain?”
“Three years ago, Dana and Abe Ben-Gurion concocted this plan,” Wilhelm said. “I readily agreed. It made sense. We were running out of room at Rickenbacker. The Dead . . . other problems seemed to be assuming a bigger priority. The Furies had become just another . . . logistic to contend with.”
“And?”
“We underestimated how many new Citizens the resurrection might attract,” he said. “We based our numbers on the number of stragglers who came across our community, and instead. . . .”
“So?”
“It’s basic economics,” Wilhelm said. “The City eats more than we can bring in. Food production – growing our capacity – that’s much slower than any of us would like. We have precious few Citizens with the expertise we need. We need farmers and mechanics, but instead. . . . we have web designers and bartenders and taxi drivers.”
Wilhelm fell into brooding contemplation, but Tom wasn’t finished.
“And the Enclave?”
“What about it?”
The Councilor glanced at Greerson and Alvarez as if thinking they might not be listening into everything – unavoidable, given human nature and their confines.
“What about it?”
“They seem to eat pretty good in there.”
Greerson chuckled, then pretended he didn’t.
“Yes,” Wilhelm said. “They do important work running the Administration. Your daughter’s set to benefit. I made you the same offer too, if you recall?”
“There’s talk the Enclave’s just the Council’s back-up plan.”
Wilhelm hummed.
“As the saying goes,” Tom said, “‘winter is coming,’ right? There’s going to be a lot of mouths to feed.”
The Councilor gave a slow, uneasy smile, then levelled his gaze back at Tom.
“I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here,” Wilhelm said gently.
“OK,” Tom replied. “Explain it to me, if you don’t mind?”
The other man snickered as if bemused and entirely unsold on Tom’s polite tone.
“This is not a welfare state,” Wilhelm said. “We are giving anyone who wants to try to rebuild the world the chance to do it. But it’s not a free ride.”
“The workers get paid in rations.”
“Yes,” Wilhelm said. “That can’t continue forever.”
“And the Enclave?”
“Yes, of course,” Wilhelm said fiercely. “We have to have a fallback position. Goodness, Tom, did you think we are going to throw away everything we have gained? It is an . . . ambitious undertaking . . . and with no guarantees of success. The City’s an opportunity. A gift. Nothing more. It’s up to everyone to make it work. We never guaranteed everyone’s survival.”
Wilhelm gave a brash laugh steeped in a kind of harsh cunning Tom hadn’t credited him with before.
The 4WD hit a series of potholes and Alvarez apologized, but Tom’s thoughts were already miles away, sifting everything just said as he tried to discern how he felt – and whether the admission didn’t make Wilhelm his best ally so far, even with the misgivings he couldn’t shake lodged deep in his bowels.
*
THE ROAD TO Sunbury reclaimed Tom’s attention as the passing trees and overgrown fields and derelict gas stations and fading signs for nearby hamlets brought back all the memories of his recent survival in full force. The 4WD ran smoothly under Leroy’s direction, enough of its mysterious diesel supply to get them to the rendezvous and back with not much more to spare.
Tom was pondering what to do with the wa
gon once it was rendered useless, and then – like so often occurred – that line of inquiry became suddenly and violently moot.
Several wrecked trucks blocked the highway ahead, and Tom registered them just as he realized Alvarez didn’t know the roadblock wasn’t there just a few days ago.
“Hey,” Tom said. “Heads up.”
“What?”
“That roadblock’s new,” he said. “Slow down.”
“Don’t worry,” Leroy chuckled. “Plenty of space to go around.”
He motioned ahead at the trampled dirt off the roadway void of anything other than long grass, though the fields beyond showed outcrops of naked rock the local farmers had been too cheap for blast riggers to remove.
“No,” Tom said. “Slow down.”
“Tom. . . .” Wilhelm warned.
“I’m a good driver,” Alvarez replied. “Just be chill. Watch.”
The 4WD slowed a notch as Leroy steered off the roadside, kicking up a cloud of dust as the truck thundered past, skirting the other vehicles so clearly placed to block the road that Tom would’ve drawn his handgun if not for the residual wish to keep it a secret – and hoped it wouldn’t be needed any time soon.
And then the wagon rocked with a massive bang.
Alvarez said nothing, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as the vehicle slewed sideways across the dirt and rough gravel with its front tires utterly blown. Wilhelm screamed in fright, and Denny Greerson clutched the dashboard and threw an equally fraught look back at them. But in the slow motion of the moment, Tom was transfixed by the shifting view through the windscreen of the landscape twisting around as the fast-moving 4WD lost its bearings and Alvarez fought the wheel as if he could avoid the whole thing flipping on the uncertain surface and potentially killing them all.
Instead, blinded by the road dust and grit swirling like a hurricane around them, the wagon juddered to a lengthy halt and Tom barely managed not to get thrown against the doorframe. The seatbelt clinched him tight and he snapped back, colliding with Wilhelm beside him as their heads struck together and the Councilor came off second best.
“Jesus Christ!” Greerson cried.
“What the hell just happened?”
Tom was almost angry at his own outburst, though that anger was spoiled for targets. He took in Wilhelm looking groggily back at him, concussed with incomprehension, while their driver had his door open within a second to get out of the near-fatal wreck.
“Leroy?”
“Stay in the vehicle,” the young trooper growled.
Tom registered the pain in his left arm, deployed in desperation to stop him smashing against the passenger door window. Glazed by the effort, he watched slack-jawed as Alvarez turned, drew the sidearm from his hip, and lifted it at them.
Tom pulled the Python from the small of his back and fired before it was even fully lifted, the gunshot savagely loud in the 4WD’s cabin.
The bullet punched through just above his navel, but despite staggering backwards in shock, Alvarez seemed determined to return fire until Greerson flew out of his seat and across the gear shift just as Tom fired again, taking the trooper directly through the heart.
Wilhelm screamed something about his ears, his hands over them as he slumped down in his seat, and Greerson’s trajectory took him into Alvarez, his full weight driving into the dead man as the driver’s footing gave and the pair of them tumbled into the dirt on the left side of the wreck.
“Vanicek!” Greerson barked almost at once.
Tom shot a look at Wilhelm failing to cope and figured leaving him in the back seat might be the best move for now. Feeling every twinge of pain in his left arm, he then forced his door open and himself out into the dusty blinking light of day.
“Around here!”
Tom skirted the vehicle and found Greerson bent over the front tires. Both were torn apart. Chunks of rubber littered the trail behind them, but it was the wooden posts jutting with nails that drew their attention, several more old planks of wood strewn back behind them, laid out with dangerously long nails reaching for the sky like metal weeds in the hot summer glare.
“It’s a trap,” Greerson said.
He drew his pistol as Tom scanned back over their path, then looked in to see Wilhelm huddled in the back seat clutching his head. Blood wept from a gash to his temple Tom was belatedly shocked to see came from their unintended collision.
“Your driver was going to kill us,” Tom said.
“Not my driver.”
Greerson moved around to the back of the wagon and jerked open the trunk, stowing his 1911 as quickly as he’d drawn it and upgrading to a cut-down close-quarters Colt assault rifle. He pulled out another one and held it out to Tom.
“Leroy’s,” the troop commander said. “Won’t be needing it.”
Tom flicked his eyes down meaningfully at his bandaged right arm.
“Not much use to me,” he said.
Greerson thrust it towards him anyway.
“All hands on deck, motherfucker.”
“Literally,” Tom said mostly to himself.
Now conscious of his heart hammering in its confines, Tom eased his right arm out of the sling and took the rifle, unlatching the safety as Greerson scanned their surroundings and jogged in his runners back towards the roadblock. For the slightest moment, Tom experienced a twinge of caution. He awkwardly lifted the short-barreled firearm high enough that he could pour fire into Greerson’s back if needed, his paranoia was that sharp. Wilhelm remained slumped in the 4WD as Tom felt the acerbic quality of the precious seconds elapsing as he dared check about himself for any more immediate threats.
At first, the metallic noise barely registered, but a split-second later he heard the rifle shot roll across the flat terrain.
Tom and Greerson crouched, thirty yards apart now, using their respective vehicles for cover. Tom scanned desperately around. A moment later, intuition if nothing else directed his eyes further ahead to where a number of other long-abandoned cars rusted a hundred yards down the highway.
Then another distant rifle retort sounded out as the lead wreck’s cracked windscreen shattered.
Hooded figures moved in a tactical crouch along the far side of the wrecked convoy.
“Greerson!” Tom yelled and pointed at the movement. “Get into cover!”
A hit squad of four masked men started out from behind their sanctuary of wrecks firing identical weapons to what Tom and Denny carried. Greerson had to throw himself across the hood of the last vehicle in the roadblock to escape getting cut down.
Half-crouched with his back against the side of the angled 4WD, Tom realized his cover wasn’t much better. He retreated to the rear of the wagon firing an exploratory burst his frozen and aching right arm could barely direct.
Astonishingly – and unrelated to either of their efforts – the first among the four anonymous commandos took a rifle round through the chest just above the collar of his Kevlar and the impact threw him back as if drawn by an invisible wire. The hit squad wore helmets and maybe even telemetry to guide them, but they started shouting at each other the moment one of their number was down, their backtracking into shelter almost comical if the stakes weren’t so dire.
Bullets pinged across the other side of the stalled 4WD as Tom got his head down, rapidly making up for lost time as he realized the four – now three – mystery commandos ahead weren’t the only threat.
Another camouflaged assassin knelt beside one of the out-thrust boulders in the field fifty yards away, and at a far more perilous angle than Tom liked – and confirming fears he and Greerson were trapped.
There was a brief lull as the players rearranged themselves, and into that deadly pause came another booming gunshot.
Shards of pulverized rock leapt away from the granite outcrop offering cover for the fourth surviving assassin.
They might be trapped – but they also had an unexpected ally.
*
THE SNIPER COULD be almost anywher
e. Tom simply didn’t have the military experience – never should even be in such a catastrophic situation, his thoughts screamed – to tell where the gunman or woman was perched. All Tom knew was the first shot had been a warning, of sorts, drawing their attention to the ambushers.
Several more gunshots now rang out, and then a kind of calm descended on the scene, dust from the crash of just a minute before swirling lethargically across them counter-point to the tension in the air.
“Where the hell’s that shooter coming from?” Greerson yelled.
Safely ensconced on the other side of the roadblock, Greerson was also hopelessly compromised.
“He’s firing at the others!” Tom shouted in return.
He checked his weapon feeling very much like a man impersonating someone who knew what they were doing, conscious the weapon’s magazine would be exhausted quickly. In the lull, Tom cranked the rear hatch open again and then had to drop right down into a squat as more bullets tore through it, elevated above the height of the rest of the vehicle, raining broken glass upon him.
“Tom!” Wilhelm cried out from his hiding place within. “What’s happening?”
“Stay down,” Tom yelled back. “Just . . . stay the fuck down. Someone’s trying to kill us.”
“Us?”
“They might be after you,” Tom said.
“What?”
“I think the driver was drawing on you first.”
There wasn’t much more time for chitchat. More weapons fire drowned out whatever the Councilor shouted next, and huddled under the awning of the shattered rear hatch, Tom had a ringside seat to Greerson’s aborted attempt to get into a better position. Reaching up blindly and digging around in the broken glass now covering the inside of the 4WD’s trunk, Tom found another magazine of 5.56mm rounds and looked across hoping for sign of Denny Greerson and coming up again with nothing.
“Fuck.”
He was sick of becoming collateral damage in conspiracies beyond his understanding or control. But that didn’t change the present reality. Tom tucked the full mag into his belt, checked the Python was in place, then quested around blindly for more ammo in case he could get it to Greerson – provided Denny wasn’t dead already.
After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set Page 54
