At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by K. M. Fawkes

  “If Mom could only see me now,” he murmured, half-smiling at the thought of what she’d do. She’d spent half of her savings on his education, and she would have absolutely lost it if she knew it had all come down to him figuring out which tools would be most useful while breaking and entering.

  He shoved everything he’d gathered into one of the tool chests scattered on the workbench, then turned and looked into the shop once again. He didn’t think they’d need anything else, but he wanted to make sure before he moved on to the next stop on his list.

  A quick glance across the shop, his gaze taking in the various vacuums, saws, worktables, and lifts in the place, and he shook his head. What a waste. All that machinery—all the skill it took to work it—and it was all thrown out the window.

  Turning on his heel, he went for the early ’70s Ford F-250, his favorite of the two trucks, and threw open the door. It was a crew cab, which was convenient because it meant there was more room in the cab for extra people and supplies, and also had a camper shell on the back—good for transporting people. Though Garrett had loved to ride in the back of a truck when he was a kid, the wind in his hair, the landscape flying by, it wasn’t exactly the safest method when you had people out there shooting at you.

  Not that anyone had shot at them. Not yet. But he wasn’t discounting it as a possibility. From everything he’d seen, New Mexico had truly become the Wild West again. And he didn’t know whether there were any other good guys out there.

  Shutting the door of the truck, he turned and made for the exit. Tools packed, check. Time to make sure they had some snacks for the road. Then he’d go and bang on Bart’s door to get the kid up. He could see the sun starting to peek over the horizon in the distance, through the door, and he’d prefer to get on the road before it was fully up.

  The Ford was a great truck. But it didn’t have air conditioning.

  He strolled up to the schoolhouse and walked around the side, already building a list of things in his head that he wanted to take with him on the trip. Then he jerked to a stop and yanked the gun out of his waistband.

  The doors to the storeroom were wide open, the new padlock lying on the ground next to them.

  He slid up against the wall, putting it to his shoulder, and crouched down a bit, holding the gun up in front of him and pointing it right at the doors. Surely those thieves hadn’t come back already. Surely they would have realized that they’d already taken most of the goods. And why come back when they had to suspect that Garrett and his people would have put heavier guards on the storeroom after the first break-in? It didn’t make any sense.

  Then again, he’d never been a thief. He didn’t really know how much logic they actually used.

  He took one step forward, then another, keeping his knees bent so that he maintained the best possible potential power in his legs. If someone came out of those doors and had a gun, he was going to have to get out of the way in a hurry. He didn’t know how many of them there might be—or what sort of firearms they might have brought with him.

  He blew out a slow, silent breath and narrowed his eyes. Who was supposed to be on guard duty right now, anyhow? Where were they? Knocked out on the other side of the schoolhouse?

  He shuddered at the thought that the same thing might have happened again, but strengthened his grip on the gun. If those bandits had come back, he had a word or two to say to them—and those words started with a warning that if they moved, he’d shoot.

  Two steps closer. Three. He was right on top of the doors now, and about to lean over so he could see down the stairs, but paused for a moment and let his senses reach out to the surroundings. Where could he run if this all went wrong? What would offer the best shelter within the closest distance? There was an alley between the two buildings next to the schoolhouse, his subconscious told him. That would be the best cover he could reach—if he could reach it quickly enough.

  Then, quite suddenly, just as he was about to start leaning over and looking into the storm doors that opened onto the storeroom, someone jumped out of the storeroom right in front of him—and cussed.

  “Fuck! What are you doing?!”

  Garrett staggered back, heaving in breaths as his heart tried to jump out through his mouth. Bart. It was Bart.

  “What am I doing? What are you doing? You almost got yourself shot, kid!”

  Bart gave him a look that communicated exactly how stupid that would have been. “Shot? For coming here and getting our road trip snacks collected so I could get them into the truck? Why the hell would you shoot me for that?”

  His voice was cracking all over the place with his nerves, demonstrating his youth, and Garrett let the gun drop to his side, caught firmly between laughing and shouting at the kid. Finally he settled on laughing and threw his arm around the boy.

  “I’m glad you’re thinking ahead,” he said. “And I’m sorry I almost shot you.”

  Bart huffed out a laugh that held a healthy dose of sarcasm. “Let’s get going, Cap. I’m all nervy about this trip, and you’re not making me feel much better.”

  By the time they saw the sign for Las Ramblas an hour later, Garrett was starting to understand what Steve had said about the trucks being in terrible shape, and he worried that they might have been ignoring a growing problem. The two functioning vehicles at Trinity Ranch were already over half a century old. Combine that with the fact that they couldn’t give them much in the way of mechanical care, and had them in the less-than-gentle desert environment, and you had a breakdown waiting to happen.

  Now, the Ford’s engine was starting to sound like it was running on six cylinders rather than eight, and it had a whine that he hadn’t noticed when they started out.

  Garrett and Bart both cheered when the khaki sign showed up on the highway indicating that Las Ramblas was coming up in five miles. They needed to siphon some gas before they ran out, so that they didn’t have to get into the reserve tank they’d brought with them. And Garrett, who was feeling distinctly claustrophobic, wanted out of the confines of the car.

  As they entered the city, though, he started to feel more nervous. This was a much larger town than Trinity Ranch, and sported not only supermarkets and strip malls, but also long, sprawling neighborhoods full of houses. There were lots of cars around, which was good news in terms of siphoning gas. But they could also be signs of people still living there.

  Garrett had hoped there would be. He wanted to milk them for any news, any information about what was happening outside of their area—and even whether they had heard anything about this mystery town in Mexico, and if it even existed at all. But now that he was here, now that he was actually facing the possibility of seeing those people, his paranoia was running wild. It was only him and Bart here, and they’d only brought three guns with them. They were in a truck that was nearly out of gas. They were strangers.

  Now that he was facing the task of approaching people on strange ground, he was rethinking his plan. He had no way of telling whether those people would be friendly. If they weren’t, he wasn’t going to have many options about getting away from them—and keeping Bart safe.

  Chapter 8

  Garrett rolled to a stop on what he took to be something like Main Street, right in front of a strip mall that included a large supermarket. There was a large parking lot here as well, and he was starting to think that whatever had happened to this city, people had left in a hurry.

  Or they hadn’t had a chance to leave on their own at all.

  He wasn’t even sure what that thought meant, exactly, but it brought chills to his skin all the same. Suddenly the fear of what the people here might do was overshadowed by the fear of what had happened to them.

  There were, however, at least twenty cars still in the parking lot, and half of them looked to be gas-powered cars that might have fuel in their tanks, even if they didn’t look old enough to still be running.

  “Right,” he breathed out quietly, his eyes jumping from the cars to the market and
back, and then to the side. They were at the end of a long street in what must have been the shopping district. Stores lined the street, with cars parked in front of them, but he didn’t see any actual people. Lots of signs of humanity—paper littering the street, graffiti on the signs, trashcans overflowing with spoiled goods. But no one actually wandering around out there.

  Where were the people he’d expected to find? Were they hiding? Or was this town actually deserted as well?

  “What’s the plan?” Bart asked, his voice sounding as if he was just as spooked as Garrett.

  “You start siphoning gas,” Garrett answered quickly. No use beating around the bush. Bart had come here to help with the fuel situation, and they were in the perfect spot for it.

  “It’ll take you next to no time to fill the cans we brought,” he continued. “Get all three of them filled up, and then spec out the cars to see how much more gas you think there is. I don’t want to leave any sitting here if we can help it.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it’s going to matter if there’s more,” Bart observed. “If I’ve already filled up the empties, we won’t have any place to put it.”

  “I’m going into the stores,” Garrett said, nodding toward the buildings. “I’ll look for more gas cans. If you find more available fuel, we’ll use those.”

  “Right,” Bart said. He nodded once, then jumped out of the truck and moved around to the back. “Let’s get this over with. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  Garrett exited his side of the truck and moved toward the back as well, agreeing entirely with Bart’s analysis of the situation. He didn’t know what it was about this town, but something about it was definitely triggering his senses.

  He reached into the back of the truck and got the bag he generally wore strung over his chest when he went on raids, and then his favorite 9mm Glock. It wasn’t the most powerful weapon, but it was best in tight quarters, and certainly the most reliable.

  If he got into a sticky situation, this was the one he wanted with him.

  “I’ll be inside for no more than half an hour,” he said quietly. “That should give you plenty of time for the siphoning. Once you get a full can, bring it back and fuel up this truck, then go back to collecting. I want to get out of here the minute I’m finished looking through the supermarket.”

  “Couldn’t agree with you more, Cap,” Bart answered, pulling the funnel, tube, and an empty gas can from the truck. “What should I do if you don’t come back in half an hour?”

  Garrett pressed his lips together. He was a punctual man, with a good sense of time. If he didn’t get back to the parking lot within the time he’d set out, it would be because he’d run into trouble. Trouble that he didn’t want Bart to have to experience.

  “If I’m not back, come to the doors and shout for me,” he said. “If I say everything’s fine, it means everything is fine. If I don’t answer, or if I say ‘it’s all good,’ it means something has gone wrong. If that happens, get the hell out of here.”

  He didn’t wait for Bart’s answer. He didn’t want to give either of them a chance to rethink this. Instead, he started for the supermarket and the hardware store that sat next to it.

  He’d hit the hardware store first, he thought—go for any tools he thought they might need, and the gas cans. If there was still a lot of stuff in there, then he might bring a full team back. If the place was cleaned out, he’d grab whatever looked useful and then move on to the market.

  He didn’t want to come back to Las Ramblas if he could help it. He’d thought they might want to, but the feel of the place had very quickly changed his mind. But it would be a lot more helpful to Trinity Ranch if he walked into stores that were still fully stocked—and that required more hands than just his.

  When he got to the doors of the hardware store, he found them lodged shut. Locked from the inside? He wondered. It didn’t make any sense for them to have been locked—unless there were people in there who had barricaded themselves in. Either still living… or now dead.

  He gagged at the thought and turned to the right. He’d seen a garden center there, and if this was like any other hardware store in the nation, there would be another door there.

  When he got around the corner and reached the gate for the garden center, he found it wide open, and he sighed in relief. Maybe this was going to work after all.

  Ten steps took him through what he guessed had once been a display of roses and fruit trees, and he was at the door to the main building. It slid open at his tug, and he strolled in—then almost ran back out again.

  The place stank like nothing he’d ever smelled before, and it didn’t take much to realize that there had been people barricaded into the store when something went wrong. Those people evidently hadn’t made it back out again.

  The stench of death colored the air like a miasma, and Garrett shivered, thinking about it sticking to him. Darting back out into the fresh air, he took three deep, cleansing breaths and shuddered, willing himself to forget the smell of that place. Willing himself to be brave enough to go back in there—and risk running into the bodies of those who had been trapped. Or who had trapped themselves.

  He darted a gaze to his left and saw a rack of gardening handkerchiefs. No telling what they would have been used for in the past. Perhaps they’d allowed the wearer to go outside into the garden and work without inhaling a bunch of New Mexico dust. Right now, he hoped one would protect him at least slightly from the smell of death inside, while he ran around and looked for what he needed.

  He grabbed a bright green kerchief and wrapped it around his head, knotting it behind his head so that it sat securely over his mouth and nose. He paused and then did the same with a second kerchief. He tied a third kerchief around his neck, and tucked the loose ends of the first two into the third, to make this a somewhat more airtight mask.

  With that done, he turned back toward the doors, took another deep breath, and shoved them open. Then he was running, glancing quickly at the signs as he passed them, trying to decide which aisles he actually needed to hit.

  He grabbed a shopping cart on the way by a row of them, judging that to be the more effective way to gather things, and then he spotted the hand tools aisle. He rushed down it, finding it still well-stocked—a surprise, but a welcome one. Evidently the people who had stayed here—and survived?—hadn’t thought to rake the place over for tools.

  Grabbing everything he thought they might have a use for, Garrett flew down the aisle, stopped haphazardly and pulling things off the shelf, while doing his best not to breathe.

  Once he was at the end of the aisle, he started rushing down the main walkway again, glancing up at signs and steering chaotically around the wreckage of end caps and displays, probably looking like a kamikaze pilot who had imbibed too much alcohol. Gas cans, where would he find gas cans? Was there an automotive section here? Would they be anywhere near the gardening supplies?

  He saw an aisle labeled automotive and pulled a sharp right, the grocery cart in front of him almost tipping as he skidded around the corner. There, right on the end, were gas cans. He shoved as many as he could fit into the cart, then pulled a U-turn and sprinted all out for the doors, back into freedom.

  As he rushed toward the door, he counted all the blessings it had taken to get him out of there without running into any bodies.

  He stopped quickly at the truck to unload his haul and motion for Bart to come pick up the new gas cans, then started pushing the grocery cart toward the market. This one… Well, if his past experiences were anything to go on, this one would be even tougher. Grocery stores were great because they had food. They were also horrifying because they’d once held food that required refrigeration and even freezing.

  Still, if the hardware store had been mostly untouched, it could mean that the grocery store also still held goods. He could only hope that was the truth.

  Two steps through the doors, which opened easily for him, and he felt as though he was going to thro
w up. If the hardware store had smelled like death, the grocery store smelled like he imagined Hell would smell. The stench of rotting food, including quite a bit of meat, was overpowered by the cloud of death. It was unmistakable, and he knew what it meant: that there were numerous bodies in this place as well. What had happened here, that so many people had died within the stores? Were they actually using them as living spaces or something?

  More importantly to his current situation, would it have affected the food?

  It quickly became apparent that he didn’t need to worry about that, though. He rushed down the first aisle to see that it had been picked almost clean. There was a box of food every so often, but whoever had come through here before had left very little.

  To make it even worse, great clouds of flies were swarming through the building, no doubt brought by the smell of death. He was running through a store populated by death and the flies that came with it, and he was starting to seriously suspect that he wasn’t going to get anything out of it.

  Death and flies. This was what the world had come to. This was what the mighty U.S. looked like these days. The thought was horrible, and horrifying. Did the rest of the country look this bad? What about the world? Had society survived anywhere, or was it all like this?

  It didn’t take long for him to get to the last aisle—it hadn’t been a large market—and realize that he already had as much as he was going to get. Garrett cast a despairing look at the shopping cart and saw that it was only half full. Some water. More canned and boxed goods. Barely worth the effort.

  He hoped Bart was having more luck with the gasoline outside. If they could collect enough gas, it would at least make the trip worthwhile.