They looked cleaner than the trio inside the gas station, but that wasn’t difficult, since they hadn’t changed or washed in days.
The nearest man carefully reached past the shattered glass that lined the door’s upper section and flicked the deadbolt. With that, he yanked the door open and stepped through the gap in the barricade the attackers had made.
Unhesitating, he raised his shotgun to point it at the trio behind the counter. More of his party spread along the front of the store outside, to point their weapons through the missing windows at Max, Jimmy, and Chambers.
“Lay down your arms,” the man said in a thick Texan accent.
Chambers safetied his pistol and placed it on the counter before stepping back with his hands raised. He nodded at Max and Jimmy, and they did likewise with their weapons.
“Talk,” the man said.
21
5 days to extinction
Max looked at Jimmy, who was looking at him. His friend’s face was flecked with scarlet and maroon, and he looked just as speechless as Max felt.
For starters, Max had no idea what sort of answer the Texan was looking for. Would he want to hear that Chambers was an agent from an organization that had gotten advance warning of the invasion decades ago? Or that Max was a walking science experiment?
Or that Jimmy was…well, Jimmy?
Luckily, Chambers spoke, with a faint Oklahoman accent Max hadn’t heard from him before. “Well, me and my two boys have been putting distance between us and Oklahoma City since our farm was overrun by the savages coming out of there. We’ve been on the road since the day after the invasion, staying out of towns and foraging supplies where we can. That’s what we were doing here when a mob of those things swarmed in and tried to end us.”
The man pointing a shotgun at them eyed each of them in turn. His gaze came to rest on Chambers again. “What’s with the camo?”
The agent shrugged. “Hunting. I hunt a lot—deer, turkey. Some hog. Figured the camo might come in handy out here.”
The Texan exchanged glances with the only woman, who stood beside him aiming an AR-15 style rifle at the trio. Her face was screwed up as she studied them. Finally, she nodded.
The Texan lowered the shotgun, and the rest of his party followed suit. “Maisie thinks you’re all right. Therefore, so do I. Come on. You can stay with us, for as long as you like. Let’s withdraw from this vulnerable position.”
Max quirked an eyebrow at the pseudo-military talk, but said nothing.
“We have horses tied up nearby.” Chambers nodded toward the woods.
“All right.” The Texan pointed toward the road. “Our rides are over there, but we’ll accompany you to get your horses.”
“Much obliged.”
Max glanced in the direction the man had been pointing and saw seven four-wheelers parked in a haphazard cluster. We need to move fast. The parked quads would attract the GDA’s attention if they came upon them, and they were probably combing these highways.
But Max couldn’t very well say that. Not without blowing Chambers’ cover story. So they ambled in the direction of the horses at the leisurely pace set by the Texan.
“I’m Gord, by the way. Gord Benson.”
“Ted Chambers.” They shook.
Jimmy was trying to catch Max’s eye, but he ignored him. Maybe he was wondering why Chambers had used his real name. But why wouldn’t he? It wasn’t as if Benson would recognize any of their names.
As if to confirm, Chambers gestured toward them. “My boys are Max and Jimmy. Max went to school for a year and dropped his accent like a hot potato, but I swear he’s still an Okie somewhere in there.”
Benson laughed, tipping his ten gallon hat in their direction. A couple minutes later they reached the horses, just where they’d left them, each tied to their own tree. None of them mounted, yet—it didn’t seem polite, while Benson and his crew were still on foot.
“Beautiful animals,” the Texan said, whistling as his eyes fell on Yago. “You said you’ve been keeping mostly off the roads?”
Chambers nodded.
“That’s smart. The shit-for-brains seem to be getting livelier, these last couple days. Can’t be too careful.”
“Shit-for-brains?”
“Yeah. Savages, you called ’em, didn’t you?”
They started back toward their waiting quads.
“So, a hunter, huh?” Benson said. “You use a dog for hunting turkey?”
“I brought Elsie along to hunt just about anything, but a savage got her. Poor girl.”
“Aw. I’m sorry. I used to bring the family beagle, but she’s getting too old for it now. Besides, she had a case of buck fever worse than mine. Yapped her fool head off and drove away any game, long before I even got a glimpse of it.”
Chambers and Benson talked hunting the rest of the way to the quads, and the agent did it convincingly enough that he persuaded Max he knew what he was talking about. Probably he did.
Then Benson got to his quad and turned it on, and the motor made conversation all but impossible. Maisie climbed on behind him, wrapping her arms tight around his ample stomach, and the others found their places on the other ATVs, adding their engines to the din.
Before leaving, Benson and his companions filled up their quads from the gas pumps. With that done, Benson peeled off along the highway. Max directed Yago to follow, though he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder every minute or so, to check for pursuers. Jimmy seemed jumpy too, but if Chambers was nervous, he hid it well.
To Max’s relief, they soon turned down a side road, which fed into a winding dirt path. After twenty minutes riding along it, they came onto a dirt road. They were on that for less than a minute when Benson turned down a long drive with blackjack oaks crowded in close on both sides.
Farther in, the trees receded, giving way to a sizable wheat field with a cluster of buildings at its center—a house, barn, and modest grain silo, all huddled together.
Benson pulled up in front of the house, and his companions joined him. Tugging on Yago’s reins, Max brought him up short a few meters off. Behind him, Daisy danced—she didn’t seem to like the quads very much.
“Welcome to Fort Benson,” Benson said, spreading his hands. “Open to anyone who isn’t a shit-for-brains and who’s willing to work. And to defend the place.”
With the motors turned off, Chambers managed to get Daisy in hand. “Thank you for trusting us enough to bring us here. You and your wife.”
Maisie and Benson shot each other disgusted glances.
“Wife?” Benson said. “You think I’d marry this sow?”
Maisie hawked up a mouthful of phlegm, then spat it into the dust of the driveway. “Think I’d touch this land whale with a pole?”
Max reflected on the fact they’d looked pretty cozy together on the quad, but he didn’t bring it up.
“My wife’s been dead twenty years, and the day she died I swore I’d never touch another woman. As for trusting you folks, I figure it’s us against them, now.” Benson nodded at the sky in the direction of Oklahoma City, even though the alien craft there was well out of sight. Assuming it was still there.
“Amen,” Chambers said.
The house’s front door opened, and a girl stepped onto the porch wearing jean coveralls over a gray tank top. She flicked amber hair away from her face, revealing striking green eyes.
“Hey, honey.” Benson mounted the porch to sweep her into a hug, then turned with his arm around her. “Gentlemen, meet my daughter, Tara. Tara, these are the gentlemen.”
She smiled. “Pleased to meet you.”
Max’s entire body was rigid.
He’d seen her before, in his dream. The one in which they’d fallen in love.
Her voice was the one that had been whispering inside his head for days.
22
5 days to extinction
“Fort Benson has everything an alien apocalypse survivor might need.” Gord Benson was leading them a
round the property with great, swinging strides. “Except room to stretch out. Not indoors, anyway. We have space for people…just not a lot of it. See up there?”
Max, Chambers, and Jimmy followed his finger to a place just underneath the house’s eaves. A rectangular depression had been cut out of the red wooden siding.
“Gun turret.” Benson gave a satisfied nod. “Opens inward. A shooter up there has a cone of fire that includes most of this field over here.”
They continued around the house, and Benson rambled on. “I’ve been running a local survivalists network for a few years, now. An expensive hobby I thought might come in handy someday. Clearly, I wasn’t wrong.”
“A network.” Chambers raised his eyebrows. “Unusual behavior for a survivalist. Most survivalists I’ve known always planned to keep to themselves once the end came. Hell is other people, and all that.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t flush with the cash for everything I wanted to build here. I did have this prime piece of land, though—been in the family for three generations. I moved from Texas to take it over after my pa died. Everyone in the group contributed what they could to making into a proper stronghold. And here we are.”
“What did they help you build?” Max asked.
“Stuff like this.” Benson stopped at the door of a sturdy-looking shed, lifted an unlocked padlock from the latch, and pulled open the door. Inside, metal cylinders, cubes, and funnel-shaped containers were connected by pipes and hoses. A narrow aisle led down the center of the equipment.
Chambers whistled. “Your very own diesel filtration system.”
“You got it. Shit grows in diesel over time, making it jell. If you can’t filter it out, you’re hosed. Pardon the pun.” He patted a length of hose neatly coiled around a metal spool, grinning. Then, he pointed to a large white door at the back. “Behind there is where we store the diesel, lots of it, and propane too. Propane’s nice and stable. We have a little gasoline, but it goes bad without the proper preservatives, and it was outside our budget to keep large quantities of all three. But so far, gas stations are still up and running, thanks to the power grid staying up. You already knew that, though. You three are lucky we needed fuel on the way back from our supply run to Medicine Lodge.”
“We avoided Medicine Lodge,” Jimmy said, smirking at Chambers. “Someone was too scared.” The agent didn’t react.
Benson shrugged. “You were right to be scared. You don’t have our numbers, and I doubt you have our firepower. I’ve always been a bit of a gun nut. Goes hand in hand with the whole survivalist schtick, I guess.”
He shooed them back out of the shed. After he’d replaced the padlock, still not bothering to lock it, he pointed at the farmhouse’s roof. Max, Jimmy, and Chambers followed the gesture, to where gleaming rectangles were affixed to the roof in a row.
“Solar panels.” Cheerful pride infused Benson’s voice. Clearly, he enjoyed showing off Fort Benson. “If you’re wondering where all the money for this came from, we had a natural gas investor pretty heavily involved with the survivalist group.” Benson’s tone dimmed. “He was out of town when the shit hit the fan. Not sure if he made it or not. Doesn’t feel great, considering he funded most of this.”
Benson shook himself, as if trying to fight off the grim pall threatening the conversation. They continued around the house, and the big man knocked on another shed as they passed. “Generators. Diesel, naturally. For if and when we get attacked. Our defensive lighting needs a nice amount of power to run.”
Max and Chambers exchanged glances. Defensive lighting. Not bad.
The barn came into view again as they circled the farmhouse, Benson continued pointing out more places where he’d cut through his buildings’ upper walls to create defensive positions. “I’m planning to put a couple at the top of the grain silo, too. I just need the right tools. Hoping to pick them up on our next trip into Medicine Lodge. I’m worried about noise, though. It’s not hard to attract the shit-for-brains. I gotta give that some more thinking.”
Benson had started to mumble, as though losing himself in thought. Jimmy hung behind, motioning for Max to drop back to join him.
“Hey.” Jimmy kept his voice to a whisper as he eyed Benson walking ahead of them. “Did you see the way she looked at me?”
Max shook his head. “Who?”
His friend gave him an incredulous look. “Benson’s daughter. Tara.”
Max shrugged. He’d been too dumbfounded by meeting the girl whose voice he’d been hearing for days. Who he’d dreamed about falling in love with.
“I’m making it my personal mission to get inside her pants,” Jimmy said. “Probably when he goes to sleep.” He nodded at Benson’s back.
“Good luck, I guess.” Judging by Max’s memories of high school, Jimmy would likely succeed. At least, he’d never known him to fail. “Chambers might not be happy if you sour our welcome here, though. He seems to be warming to the idea of holing up here for a while.”
“Chambers won’t know. Look at those two.”
Up ahead, Benson was roaring at some crack Chambers had made. Max knew his former principal to be many things, but comedic wasn’t one of them.
“Looks like true love to me,” Jimmy said.
Max said nothing, his eyes on the segmented ring of freshly turned earth he’d been studying ever since they began Benson’s tour. As their circuit of the property drew to the end, he confirmed what he’d suspected: the dug-up earth went all the way around the house and barn. He considered asking about it, but decided against it. Sometimes, the most unwelcome guests were those who made a point of stating their observations out loud.
“Go get it, Tilly.” The familiar voice floated across the farm, bright and cheerful. “Fetch! Go on, girl.”
Max spotted the voice’s owner between rows of wheat, throwing a bright red ball for a beagle toward the tree line. It fell well short, and within seconds the dog was upon it.
“Now bring it back!”
Tilly didn’t seem so sure about that. She cocked her head at Tara, ball clamped firmly in her jaws.
“My work begins.” Jimmy shot Max a grin, then stuck his thumbs in his pockets and sauntered toward Tara.
“Jimmy.” Chambers’ voice rang out from the porch, where he stood next to Benson with arms crossed.
Max’s friend turned slowly, his smile fading. “What?”
“I need you to show me some things with the horses.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.” Chambers nodded at the trio of horses, which were tethered to a length of fencing that ran in front of the Benson household. “Gather up Daisy and Ollie and bring them out back.”
“I wouldn’t go past our secure perimeter.” Benson also stood with his arms crossed, tendons bulging over tanned muscles. Next to him, Chambers looked like a toothpick. “The shit-for-brains can come up on you quieter than you think.”
“We’ll be fine.” The agent patted the FNX Tactical on his hip.
Benson studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Just don’t go far, if you do go past the perimeter. And watch for the tripwires—they’re marked with yellow tape. If you need help, call for it. My lookouts will hear you.”
“Will do.”
Apparently giving up on his pass at Tara, Jimmy trudged toward the horses and began untying them, wearing a sour expression.
“Anything I can help with?” Max asked Chambers.
“You’re fine right where you are. Better yet, have a seat. Take a load off.”
“All right.” His old principal had an odd glint in his eyes, but Max wasn’t able to parse it.
Chambers and Jimmy disappeared around the house with the horses, and Max took a seat on the porch step, unsure what to do with himself. Benson clapped him on the shoulder, then went inside without another word. There was no one else in sight, except for Max and Tara. A few meters away, Yago snorted.
Tara caught his eye, smiling, before turning to throw the ball again, which
she’d managed to wrest from Tilly’s mouth.
Max blinked, his face a mask. Damn. I should have smiled back. Clearly, his reaction time was lacking.
I should go talk to her.
But about what? “Hey,” he imagined himself saying. “You probably get this all the time, but I’ve been hearing your voice in my head, even though we’ve never met. Yep. Been hearing it for days, now. Oh.” He imagined himself rubbing the back of his head, then pointing at her with two fingers. “Also, you were in my dream, and I totally got you pregnant.”
Or maybe I’ll just talk about the weather.
He stood up from the porch, his palms suddenly sweaty. He wiped them on his jeans, then walked toward Tara and Tilly.
She saw him coming well before he reached her, and she smiled again before bending to pry the ball from the beagle’s mouth. This time, she had less success, and Tilly emitted a play-growl as she tightened her grip.
“I don’t think we were officially introduced,” Max said, immediately hating how formal he sounded. Nevertheless, he stuck out his hand. God, this is already a disaster. “I’m Max.”
She shook, her grip just firm enough. “Tara Benson. Do you have a last name?”
“Edwards.”
“What do you do, Max Edwards?”
“Do?” He repressed an impulse to glance behind him, toward where Chambers had left his view. Would the agent want him to tell the truth about that? “Nowadays, I don’t do much, other than run scared all over Oklahoma. And Kansas, now.” He was stalling for time, and he knew it.
Tara seemed to sense it, too. She studied his face, her level of interest apparently spiked. “How about before that? Before they showed up?” She gestured toward Oklahoma City.
That’s what I get for being evasive. He sighed, and Tilly barked from beside Tara’s calf. It felt like they were both interrogating him. Screw it. “I recently got back from my first year at the academy, over in Colorado Springs.”
“The Air Force Academy?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. Did they let you fly anything?”
Mother Ship Page 12