by Brant, Jason
Lance couldn’t help but notice her legs were freshly shaved. They actually glistened under the overhead lights. Her appearance was indistinguishable from someone working in an office several years ago.
These people are living in the lap of luxury, he thought.
“Someday, I’d love to hear all about this place and how you managed to build something so spectacular. Right now, though, I need to find the bastards who took my wife and kid.” Lance cocked a thumb at Eifort. “We’re both at the point of freaking out.”
“I understand.” Snow’s grin slid from her face. “I’ll try to help in any way I can. Did you see who took their loved ones, Brandon? Was it the bandits?”
“Yeah.” Brandon gestured at Eifort. “She killed one as the others drove off in a big van or truck, just as the sun went down. We had to run to a safe house. Hid there all night. That’s why I didn’t make it back in time.”
“You did the right thing, even though you should have been home long before that.” Emily appraised Eifort. “You killed one of them?”
“So far.” Eifort set her jaw. “We’ll see how many more I can get by the end of the day.”
Lance thought Eifort sounded more like Cass today than she did her normal self. That didn’t surprise him, though—people should know not to fuck with a mama bear’s cub.
“Do you know who these bandits are?” Lance asked. “And where we can find them?”
“I know of them, but not necessarily who they are.” The boss lady pushed off the desk, moving over to a wall of windows to her left. She stared out over the dead city beyond, squinting against the glare of the early morning. “They’ve been kidnapping our people over the past several months. At first, we thought some of our friends and loved ones were being snatched by the demons at night or maybe they just decided to leave The Light in search of somewhere new to start over.”
She ran her hands through her hair. “It wasn’t until one of our scavengers saw them driving around in a pickup truck with two hostages tied up in the back that we realized what was happening.”
“How do they have fuel?” Eifort asked. “We thought all the gasoline had gone bad.”
“The old fuel has, but they’re able to make more somehow.” Emily turned back to them. “And that has made it incredibly hard for us to get any meaningful information. We just can’t catch up to them. We’re relegated to bicycles for any kind of travel more than a few miles. For us to go beyond the city is hazardous enough without even taking into account the armed men driving around.”
“So you have no idea who they are, and you can’t help us.” Lance ground his teeth.
They’d wasted too many hours so far this morning for nothing. Now they were even farther behind Cass and Dragon with no idea where to go. He needed to punch something.
“I didn’t say that. I said it’s hazardous for us to go outside the city, but not that we haven’t succeeded to a certain degree.” She started toward Lance, stopping a few feet in front of him and meeting his eyes. “Some of my guards managed to go north along I95 into Harford County. They spent weeks attempting to follow the vehicles. The bandits have managed to clear an entire lane along the highway for a good twenty or thirty miles. That’s what allows them to travel so quickly, even after nightfall.”
Lance felt his hopes rise slightly.
Now they were getting somewhere.
He saw Eifort’s hands kneading her pants in nervous anticipation.
Emily continued. “They saw some of the bandits passing off a hostage to a group of people living in the woods north of Bel Air, a city a few miles off 95. They couldn’t get close enough to identify anyone or hear what was being said, but they did see the men loading their truck up with cases of alcohol and other supplies after the hand-off.”
“They’re trading people for booze with hermits living in the woods?” Lance glared at her. “You expect me to buy this bullshit? No one can survive outside anymore. They’d be dead within minutes after nightfall.”
Eifort’s face reddened as she glared at Emily. “And who would go through the trouble of kidnapping someone in exchange for booze? You can kick in the front door of almost any house in the country to find a couple of bottles of whiskey or wine.”
“My men aren’t liars.” Emily returned Eifort’s death stare. “They saw what they saw. And they mentioned the bandits hadn’t dropped off all their prisoners, just one. They left a few hours later, heading north.”
Lance tried to temper his anger. “What’s that far north?”
“Valerie?” Brandon’s head snapped up. “Are they taking them to Valerie?”
“I think so.” Emily’s features softened. “There is another settlement across the Pennsylvania border that has been expanding rapidly. We were in radio contact with them until a few months ago.”
“What happened a few months ago?” Lance asked.
“Our relations turned…hostile.”
“This place is run by a woman named Valerie?”
“A raving lunatic named Valerie. We aren’t sure, but we think the bandits might be working for her.”
“Working for her how?” Eifort asked. “By kidnapping random people for her and delivering them like cattle? You’re telling us that we walked into Baltimore yesterday, then stumbled into some kind of turf war between you and some other group who is involved in human trafficking?”
“That’s an oversimplification.” Pursing her lips, Emily put her hands on her hips. “But that’s essentially my guess as to where your family might be heading.”
“They took my friend,” Brandon whispered. “Charlie.”
“The bandits?” Lance asked.
“I think so. She disappeared a few weeks ago.”
Emily stepped forward, putting a hand on Brandon’s shoulder, but focusing on Lance. “She was a scavenger like Brandon. One night, she didn’t get back before sundown. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“I’ve been searching for her every day.” Brandon’s shoulders slumped, seeming to wilt under Emily’s comforting touch. “I found her bag a few days later in the middle of a street in Little Italy. She would never leave it behind. Her father gave it to her.”
Lance could tell Brandon was close to Charlie by the desperation in his tone when he spoke about her. His body language was that of a defeated man. Lance wondered if Charlie was a childhood pal or possibly a girlfriend.
Brandon seemed like a goofy kid, but a good one.
Lance hoped he would find this Charlie girl when he discovered where Cass and Dragon were. Brandon had helped them, and he wanted to return the favor.
Emily released Brandon’s shoulder. “Several others have disappeared in similar manners. We sent out a handful of our men to the camp in Harford County to see if we could negotiate with them, but they never returned. We’re in a tough position because we can’t devote too many resources to searching for them, but we also want to protect our people. If we send out our guards in search of the missing, we leave ourselves exposed. But if we do nothing, then what good are we to each other? If we don’t care for one another, then what’s the point of this place?”
Lance could appreciate her concern and the predicament she found herself in. Their problems were aligned, seemingly caused by the same dickwads who snatched his friends and family.
Emily straightened her back out, smoothing her jacket. She eyed Lance and Eifort for a moment before striding over to them and stopping in front of Megan. “You came to the city looking for a safe place, correct? Maybe some supplies or food? Something like that?”
Eifort nodded.
“And you’re going out in search of the men who have attacked us.” Emily walked over to Lance. “Perhaps we can help each other.”
“And how is that?” Lance was thinking the same thing, but he wanted to hear her proposal before tossing out his own ideas.
“We’ll give you bicycles, weapons, supplies, and directions to the camp in the north. We’ll also write down the names o
f those we’ve lost. If you can find the bandits, or anyone who has run into them, and learn what happened to our people, we’ll bring you into The Light and keep you and yours safe. You won’t have to run anymore. Your children won’t be hungry again. They’ll grow up in as normal a situation as anyone can have now.”
The offer felt too good to be true. The Light, as stupid a name as that was, appeared as close to a perfect living situation as possible. They had power, safety, food, and weapons.
Lance and company had none of those things.
He didn’t even have his loved ones.
That a leader in Emily Snow’s position would so quickly offer them shelter made Lance pull back a bit. Sure, she wanted them to do some reconnaissance for her, but that seemed a lopsided trade.
But did he have a choice? She was offering everything they would need to at least trail behind Cass, Dragon, and everyone else. Without the directions and supplies, he might never find them.
Lance raised an eyebrow at Eifort.
She gave him a tiny nod.
“Done.” Lance turned back to Emily. “Let’s get started.”
9
The men had hogtied Cass and the others several hours earlier. They’d placed her facedown on the floor of the truck, her arms and legs bound behind her. The vehicle had stopped moving a long time ago.
As best she could tell from the sounds and vibrations through the floor, the bastards had taken Adam and Greg out of the truck at least three hours ago and hadn’t returned. She occasionally heard the sound of a lighter flicking from outside, but nothing else from the men.
Lilith wept on the floor beside Cass, her tiny, heartbreaking sobs muffled by her gag and hood.
Cass felt tears of rage and helplessness run down her nose, dampening the fabric of her hood.
Though she continued to work at the bindings around her wrist and ankles, she’d made no progress.
They had no choice but to sit and await their fate.
10
Brandon watched the two strangers pedal away from The Light, heading north through the city. He’d asked Emily to let him travel with the survivors he’d saved to search for Charlie, but she’d forbidden him from doing so. She feared losing him as she had Charlie.
Though he understood why it was so important for them not to seek retribution carelessly, he hated how little they had done to find answers about their missing friends and neighbors.
To Brandon, Charlie was so much more than just a friend and neighbor.
She was the first girl to ever pay any attention to him.
The first girl to kiss him.
There weren’t many teenagers in The Light for Brandon to talk to, let alone beautiful young ladies who would give him the time of day. He’d fallen head over heels for her the first time he’d seen her. When her beautiful eyes fell upon him, a heavy feeling settled in his stomach. That sensation had only intensified over time as they’d become closer, more intimate.
When she’d kissed him, he thought his head had come close to exploding.
They hadn’t gone beyond that yet, but he felt like something would happen between them soon. At least, he’d hoped. He was a teenage boy, after all.
A few days after their longest make-out session, she was gone.
Brandon turned away from the window, crossed his office-turned-bedroom, and headed down the hall. Charlie’s room waited four doors down from his, unused for weeks. He stood outside it, leaning his head against the wood.
When she’d first disappeared, he, Emily, and the head guard Fred all had gone inside to search for clues. They hadn’t found so much as a note explaining where she planned to scavenge for the day.
Emily had a rough idea, based on where she’d assigned a few of the others to look for supplies. When Brandon had gone out searching, he’d only found her bag. It was more of a satchel as far as he was concerned. But since she’d always called it her bag, he did, too.
She’d told him several weeks before about her father. He’d left the family when he’d divorced her mother, but had given Charlie the bag for her birthday. She hadn’t seen him all that often after that and had cherished the gift.
Even during the apocalypse, she’d taken care of it.
When Brandon had spotted it in the middle of the street, it had confirmed his suspicion. Someone, or something, had taken Charlie. He’d spent the next several days combing the city for any clues to her whereabouts, ignoring his duties to The Light.
Eventually, Emily had called him up to the office and begged him to continue scavenging. If not for The Light, then for himself, to take his mind off Charlie’s disappearance. She’d promised to do everything she could to help find her, but Brandon knew there was little they could accomplish.
So he spent his days alone, finding what he needed and napping, before coming back to his room as late as he possibly could. He didn’t like the pitying looks everyone gave him because he’d lost his girlfriend.
He tried his best to seem outwardly cheerful, but his insides were rotting and gnarled. Just knowing what had happened to her might help. Or it might make it worse. Either way, he had to know.
Brandon breathed deeply through his noise, hoping to catch a scent of her lotion or shampoo, but couldn’t smell anything through the door.
Sighing, he went back to his room.
For the rest of the morning, he stared out the window at the empty city.
11
Though the fall weather had cooled recently, the late morning sun beat down on Lance as they pedaled along the highway. Sweat covered his entire body, dripping off his nose periodically.
He hadn’t ridden a bike since his teenage years.
It felt foreign, but the old adage about how quickly the movement came back proved true.
Eifort had a much easier time maintaining her balance and working the gears. Her pace stayed constant and rapid, making it difficult for Lance to keep up. Once they’d left Emily’s building, Eifort had barely said a word as she led him out of the city and merged onto I95.
Her husband and child were waiting for her a county, possibly a state, away, and it was obvious she wouldn’t wait any longer to find them. Though Lance’s endurance had blossomed over the years, he still had a hell of a time keeping up with her.
She pushed onward, her movements like that of a well-oiled machine.
The highway was remarkably clear. One lane of it, at least.
The cars that had once obstructed the slow lane were pushed onto the shoulder, over banks, or jammed between vehicles in the other lanes. A truck carrying hostages could practically fly along the highway without any need to stop.
The thought made Lance want to vomit.
If the men who’d taken his family hadn’t gone to where Emily thought, then how far could they have gone? How much of the highway had they cleared over the years? For all he knew, they could be past New York City by now. Or maybe they’d cut north and headed to Canada.
If Emily was wrong about the camps in Maryland and Pennsylvania, then all hope would be lost.
Lance pedaled faster as he fought to shove those thoughts away.
“This is the exit,” Megan huffed over her shoulder. “We’re getting closer.”
They angled their bikes toward an off-ramp, Lance noticing the cars along the sharp turn were cleared off the road. So the bandits used this at least once in a while. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have spent the time clearing the way.
The heavy pack on Lance’s back had begun to annoy him ten miles ago. Emily’s guard, Fred something or other, had supplied them with a rifle and a pistol apiece, several boxes of ammunition, and enough food and water for several days. The food was of the dried or canned varieties, but it was more than he’d eaten since they were forced to leave the islands.
They both expressed their gratitude for the supplies as they’d left, but after a few miles, the weight of the packs had turned from a blessing to a hassle.
Sunlight glinted off an SUV pushed to the shoul
der as they approached. The back hatch was open, the inside full of leaves and dirt. Brown stains covered the windows and seats. Lance pulled his gaze from it, not wanting to see if any bones remained inside.
Eifort led them from the ramp onto a much smaller highway heading north. Nature had begun to reclaim this road after a few hundred yards, the weeds from either side working their way across the cracked pavement.
A cramp twisted into Lance’s left calf, making him nearly swerve into a sedan in the next lane.
“Hold on,” he hissed. “Damn leg is cramping.”
Eifort braked and turned around, easing up next to him. “Let’s take a quick break.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re dehydrated, and you’ve barely eaten all week. Let’s break for a few and refuel. We won’t be any good if we have to fight and you can’t walk.”
Grumbling, he got off the bike and hobbled over to a black BMW that rust had attacked over the years. He dropped his pack beside it and sat down on the pavement in the shadow of the car.
Kneading his calf helped the muscle relax.
“Here.” Eifort tossed him a water bottle from her back.
He caught it and twisted the cap off, chugging half the warm water in two gulps. After throwing it back to her, he reached into his own bag and pulled out a handful of energy bars he’d taken from The Light.
They tasted like stale shit.
Not that he knew what stale shit tasted like.
But if he had to guess, he would assume it was like years-old energy bars.
Judging by Eifort’s grimace after she bit into the one he handed her, she agreed.
Even still, Lance relished the nourishment as he swallowed the crappy bars. He needed the calories no matter how poor they tasted. His body had craved sustenance for far too long.
Lance finished the bar, tossed the wrapper through the smashed-out window of the car behind him, and started on another. This one promised a raspberry flavor on the front. It tasted like chalk.