Josh smiled, and then pointed to Henry. “You look out for Tally—that’s also an order.”
Henry’s cheeks reddened, which above the tactical vest, utility belt, and MP5 on a sling, Josh felt was enormously endearing. He knew in his heart he wasn’t ready to give up Tally to the adult life, but Henry was doing very well so far in the interview-with-dad stage.
If they all got through this…
Karel skipped down from the ranch. She was out of her uniform completely and in a denim shirt that was a size too big for her, wearing black jeans stuffed into the top of a sturdy pair of cowboy boots. She had a pack over her shoulder and a Colt Government in a hip holster. “Keysell,” she said as she approached the line of her men.
Keysell stood to attention. “Ma’am.”
“You do not deviate. You do not stop, and you do not come back for me. Is that clear?”
“Crystal, ma’am.”
Josh reeled. He wasn’t expecting this. Not in three months of Sundays. Karel was coming with him and he wouldn’t have to go into Pickford alone. From what he’d seen of Karel and her abilities as a fighter and tactician, she had just tripled his chances of surviving this.
“If you’re on good roads, keep going one hour into the night and leave an hour before sunup the next day. You can be there in three days without a hitch. Don’t have any hitches.”
“Will do my best, ma’am.”
Karel and Keysell saluted and split. Karel approached Josh.
“You’re coming with me?” he asked.
She nodded and grinned with a sarcastic glint in her eye. “I was last out of the door when they asked for volunteers.”
“Whatever the reason, I’m grateful.”
Karel fingered the denim of the shirt. “I need to ask Donald if I can borrow this shirt anyways. Rude not to.”
Josh smiled.
The convoy moved out.
Tally hung back a few moments to hug Josh again and then jogged to catch up as the buggy turned out of the gate onto the road.
The small convoy clip-clopped away from the farm with Maxine keeping Tally-Two at walking pace. Next to her on the bench seat, under the canopy, Storm had put his head against the side wall and closed his eyes. Maxine didn’t know if he was just avoiding conversation or if he’d really fallen asleep, but didn’t plan asking to find out. The painkillers and antibiotics would be doing their thing, and the boy was still in recovery from his cancer treatment and battlefield surgery. He’d been through several mills, and if he wanted to withdraw for a bit, that was okay with her.
The road back up into the national forest was smooth and had been well maintained. She remembered that hadn’t been the case when she’d taken this route before to locate Doctor Larry Banks in his cabin in the woods. She knew that ten miles away from the M-Bar, the quality of the road surface would begin to deteriorate, and so it was a good idea to allow Storm to get as much rest as he could before the bumps and potholes in the road made it impossible.
Periodically, Keysell or Poppet would stick their heads beneath the canopy to check that they were okay, and Larry would remind them when the next pills should be taken. Although the burns on her hands were still a little painful, she remained determined to steer the buggy and keep Tally-Two on track. The first aid she’d received, and subsequent dressings, protected and cushioned the reins in her fingers, so for now, until the painkillers started to wear off, she felt able to manage the buggy with little issue. If they had to go above a walking pace, then that would be another matter.
And so, with the silence in the buggy, while Storm rested or withdrew, Maxine was once again left alone with her thoughts.
She’d been ready to tell Josh the truth that morning, right up until the moment when she’d discovered that her father had left the ranch to take on Dale Creggan in Pickford.
The double-hit of potentially losing both her parents within days of each other had shaken her from top to bottom. Josh would wait, as she didn’t have the space in her head to deal with that and the fallout it might cause right now. She had to get her children away from the M-Bar and out of Creggan’s orbit. They had always been the most precious things in her life, but now, with Donald leaving, everything suddenly felt more precarious.
She was kicking herself for not keeping a better eye on Donald, rather than thinking about herself or Josh’s sensibilities. What had happened between her and Gabe Angel was of zero importance in the grand scheme of things—especially now that her father had put himself in harm’s way. If she hadn’t been concentrating on personal rubbish, she might have guessed Donald would be prone to doing something drastic and revenge-filled. It should have been predictable. Yet again, focusing on something outside of her blood family—Josh was not blood, after all—had led to another disaster.
She knew she couldn’t blame Josh for Donald leaving the ranch, but he certainly felt like something that had gotten in the way. Waves of bile-fueled anger washed through her as she thought about it. But as with all emotions and thoughts since the Barnard’s event, she knew that there was an extra layer of darkness layered onto her thinking. She had developed enough insight since it had happened to realize the effect on her thoughts, but she’d come to the conclusion that maybe the effects of the supernova only enhanced—or, more accurately, exacerbated—what was already there in one’s mind. She genuinely felt that she should be angry at Josh and herself, irrespective of the effects of the supernova, but the ramped-up anger and vitriol she felt were definite amplifications.
Perhaps there would be a time when she and others would be able to make sense of what had happened to their thinking and their mental processes; maybe they would even be able to treat it. Who knew? She didn’t, obviously, and right now, reaching for any kind of solution felt as far away as Barnard’s Star itself. Further even.
Maxine was snapped back to the here and now by a crackle of gunfire and shouting. They were on a tree-lined section of the road. Spruce lined the sides of the route behind short, knee-high barriers. Sunlight filtered through the branches, giving the impression they were in an undersea grotto. Maxine pulled Tally-Two to a stop, wincing at the sting in her palms. Tally-Two was a little skittish, but was well-trained enough not to bolt.
Maxine looked out of the buggy. Something had gone on behind them, and all she could see was a group of black-clad Defenders congregating by the side of the road.
“What’s going on?” she called out.
Larry walked backward towards her, keeping his eyes on the road behind them. When he was level with Maxine, he said, “Guy with an ax. Came swinging out of the trees. If it hadn’t been for Henry, he would have taken Tally’s head clean off her shoulders.”
7
Josh and Karel walked for two hours across the plain, going parallel of Allegheny Mountain, before taking the road southwest towards Pickford. Josh figured they’d look like less of a threat to the Pickford townsfolk if they arrived by road rather than out of the trees.
Karel’s pack seemed heavier than Josh’s, and she kept moving it about her shoulders to get it comfortable. He knew the militia had come with grenades and other explosives with them, and a lot of ammunition, so he wondered what firepower she carried with her.
“We should dump some of our ammo and weapons a couple of miles outside Pickford. We walk in there with all that stuff—” he pointed at her pack, “and they’re going to want to take it from us stat.”
“I’m not going into Pickford,” Karel said, tapping the side of her nose conspiratorially. “You are. I’m going to hang back and keep an eye on you from a distance. On the map, there’s a bluff to the west of the town that will give me a tactical overview. We’ll go up there first. Pick out the best place, so you know where it is, and then you can go into town.”
“You’ve made a lot of assumptions. Creggan is bound to have men up there already.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said with a smile. “I’m counting on it.”
Josh shook his head at t
he reaction. Karel was a remarkable woman—like many he had met along the roads he’d traveled since the supernova. She was bright and brave, and no shrinking violet. Between her and Poppet, Josh felt that he’d found some of the best of the best.
“What made you join the militia?” he asked.
“You have to stand up for what you believe in, Josh.”
“Why not the police? Why not the Army?”
“What’s the point?”
Josh side-eyed Karel as they walked. His life of civic duty dismissed in three words.
“I can feel you looking at me like I just killed your puppy, Josh, but look around you. Where are the cops? Where is the army? All that money, all those resources, and it was the Third Maryland Defenders who took on Carron… General Carron, that is, U.S. Army, who tried to turn Cumberland into his own private kingdom. I didn’t see anyone from the government helping us there. If we hadn’t stepped in—the militia, this is—who do you think Larry would have operated on instead of your son? Where would Storm’s appendix be now? I’ll tell ya, Josh… it would still be in his gut, about to burst out and say howdy like that thing from Alien.”
The rush of words and passion from the woman rolled over Josh like a steam roller.
And still she continued… “You’ve paid all your taxes, you’ve put up with all the BS the politicians—of any stripe—have poured on your head, and what do you have to show for it, Josh? Five minutes into the apocalypse, you can bet your last tax dollar that the President was in his bunker and counting his warehouses of food, and that what was left of the Army was stationed at the door, ready to shoot starving civilians.”
Josh blinked.
He certainly couldn’t argue with the analysis based on his own experiences since the Barnard’s event. No one had come to rescue them on the Sea-Hawk in the Atlantic. A vicious civil war had broken out on the liner Empress, too, which may have killed hundreds, and there had been no Navy or Coast Guard steaming to their assistance. When he’d gotten back to the mainland, there had been Trace Parker setting up Parkopolis on the outskirts of Savannah—his own crime-town of land-pirates bleeding dry what was left of the resources in the city. Josh had just barely escaped with his life, and when he’d gotten to the M-Bar, he’d found it ripe for attack by local forces who were loyal to a man who’d persuaded the population of Pickford to believe that any strangers might be diseased.
And not once had he come across any kind of legitimate group enforcing the rule of law or the U.S. Constitution, other than Karel and the Third Maryland Militia. A group of weekend soldiers. Private citizens who had armed and trained themselves at their own expense. Citizens whose desire to survive and protect the way of life they believed in had led them to put their own lives on the line again and again.
There was a yawning gap in America now. A void that was being filled by men like Creggan and Parker, as well as the far-off and as of yet unseen Harbormaster—a person whose machinations Josh had only become tangentially aware of since he’d gotten to Savannah. The so-called Harbormaster—a nickname? A job title? His real name?—was casting a large shadow, whomever he was, and it seemed his influence would grow rather than diminish. Josh had eventually found out that, for all of his self-confidence, evil intent, and desperate grip on power, even the Georgia despot Trace Parker had, in fact, been working for the Harbormaster. Trace Parker, who was a monster to everyone around him, had had a monster of his own. The Harbormaster.
Knowing that, it was difficult to argue with Karel.
If there had been any systems put in place by the government to assist the population in a time of crisis such as this, then those systems had failed dismally—and certainly, in the form of General Carron in Cumberland, those systems which did exist could not be relied upon to not turn against the local civilians in a bid to enslave and exploit them.
Two miles outside Pickford, according to Donald’s map, they saw the bluff and the ridge of pine rising up from the plain. They crossed a boiling white river over a narrow wooden bridge that had seen better days. Then they began, at Karel’s direction, to turn northwards on a route that would take them through a forested area bounded by overgrown farmland and lead to where the hills began to lift. It wasn’t hard going yet, but the bluff looked to be steep-sided and rocky. If that was really going to be their final destination, then it might be a tougher climb—and, crucially, more exposed.
In the trees, they were hidden from the road, and the trail was rising, but not too steeply. At one point, Karel signaled for them to stop and drop. Ahead and through the trees, they saw a man leaving the road and walking up into the forest. He didn’t look like he was patrolling per se, as he walked without stealth or guile, and his gun, a pump-action shotgun, was carried loosely in his hand. He looked less like a sentry and more like someone out for his dinner.
Karel motioned Josh to wait there with the packs and struck out through the trees, head bent and legs moving quickly. She moved swiftly and in near silence. Soon, she’d disappeared and Josh was alone, save for the breeze in the branches and the occasional bird call echoing through the trees like the first scene in a horror movie.
The weather was holding and the day not too hot. It was, however, more than a little humid because of the clouds which had bubbled up as they’d walked. Josh couldn’t tell if the sweat breaking out on his forehead was because of the closeness of the atmosphere or anxiety over what he knew was to come.
Although he had a good view of the road, down through the trees, the man who Karel had gone hunting for seemed to be the only one between them and Pickford who had ventured along it. Josh had no idea how many people were left in Pickford now—according to Maxine, it had been a town of around two thousand people. Who knew how many of those had fled or been killed in the purge undertaken to contain Creggan’s notion of disease? Creggan, Maxine had told Josh while they’d been waiting for the attack on the M-Bar to begin, had allowed her into town and spoken to her without too many problems, so perhaps any sign of star-madness was what the people of Pickford reacted to.
A harsh rustle to his left had Josh spinning on his haunches and drawing the SIG. He sighted along the barrel and felt the tension building on the trigger as the man from the road appeared through the trees.
Luckily for the man, he walked ahead of Karel; she was pushing him, bent over, by the scruff of the neck. One of his eyes was freshly closed with a red, swollen and soon to be black bruise. His arms were already behind him in the small of his back, zip-locked together at the wrist. Karel threw his shotgun down into the ferns and pushed him down to his knees.
“This is Gerry,” Karel said, pulling a knife from her belt and putting it against the bruised man’s neck, “and he’s going to tell us everything he knows.”
Five hours later, as the afternoon was thinking about calling night in over the trees for a twilight tryst, Josh walked into Pickford. His chin was rough with stubble, his hair awry—mussed up at Karel’s insistence—and he’d smeared his jeans and jacket with thick lines of West Virginia’s finest mud.
“You’ve never been involved in community theater, have you?” Karel had responded to his bemused face as she’d run her filthy fingers through his hair and caked mud onto his knees and shins. “You need them to believe you’ve been on the road for weeks, on your own, dodging marauders and whatnot. You put fresh clothes on this morning and you shaved yesterday. It’s almost like you don’t want to be believed.”
Karel had finished messing him up and sent him towards town, watching him through binoculars from her vantage point halfway up Copper’s Bluff—as the map and Gerry had confirmed it was called. The bluff was a craggy fist of sandstone that punched the sky above the Ghilly River bordering Pickford just beyond the western town limit. The bluff was nude rock above a scrubby coating of brush and spruce. Gerry had said there was a permanent three-man lookout post up there, but they were only concerned with anything approaching the town from beyond the river. There were guards and a roadblock at the ea
stern end of town. So, Josh and Karel had decided that Josh would come into town from the south. He went over his story and his new identity as he trudged along the road into town. He’d left the MP5 and the magazines with Karel, but moved some of her military ration packs over to his rucksack and kept the SIG and the shotgun.
The impression he hoped he would give would be of a guy looking for a place to settle. Karel had suggested he tell them he’d come up from Lewisburg, where things were very bad. He didn’t know if things were very bad, in truth, but Lewisburg was far enough away from Pickford that any news from there likely wouldn’t have percolated upstate. If Maxine’s assessment of Creggan was accurate, his fear of disease would probably make it unlikely that expeditions would have been made there. Karel’s logic seemed sound.
Truth be told, Josh was happy to have something to concentrate on beyond the gnawing knowledge about Maxine and, through her, Storm. On the journey that morning with Karel, he had vacillated between suppression and giving into the hurt. Now that he was going to have to affect the persona of another character than himself, he had even more to distract him, and he was all the gladder because of it.
The trees thinned as he walked down the two-lane road towards the town. It would be dark in an hour or so, and the air was much cooler now; the humidity had gone out of it. The summer was only knocking gently on fall’s door, but the blazing heat was gone from the day in a pleasant way. Fall had always been Josh’s favorite time of the year. Not just for the golden colors and the smoky air, but as the first step along the road to Christmas and the time he would spend with Tally and…
I’m going to have to get used to that, Josh told himself as he started to curve around the road and saw the roadblock up ahead. Appealing thoughts about his children and family life that got chopped off at the knees when he thought about Storm.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 3): Bitter End Page 7