“That is a hole.” Harper pointed at his shoulder. “You have a bullet inside you.”
“Figured that might happen. Brought some alcohol.” Lennie ambled over.
Harper blinked at him. “You’re limping. Did you get hit, too?”
“Just once. Vest took it, but it knocked the wind out of me. Don’t think a rib broke, but that’s gonna be a bruise.” Lennie gestured at Logan. “You two check them trailers for anything interesting. I’ll take care of the big guy.”
“Logan’s hit, too.”
“’Tis but a scratch,” said Logan in a lame British accent, which he dropped before adding, “probably a fragment of guardrail, not a bullet.”
Reluctantly, Harper forced herself not to insist he get bandaged right away and headed around the other RV and all three trailers, Logan and Ms. Tiller following to help. Other than bedding and a modest stash of ammunition (mostly 9mm handgun rounds as well as a scattering of .30-06) she found no sign of any kidnap victims or useful supplies beyond water jugs. Every thirty seconds or so, Daxton asked if he could look yet. Deacon kept replying ‘not yet.’
By the time they gathered the ammo and cleared the rest of the camp, Lennie had finished bandaging Deacon, who sat there examining a bloody 9mm bullet between his thumb and index finger.
Logan walked up to him. “Might want to clean this out before Harper yells at me.”
“Damn right,” she said, her voice a mix of playfulness and worry.
Lennie held up a small plastic squeeze bottle containing clear liquid. “This is gonna sting a wee bit.”
“Won’t be as bad as last time.” Logan offered the man his arm.
Ms. Tiller went into the third trailer and came back with a small piece of luggage, a nylon carry-on bag. As far as Harper knew, the woman had been married but didn’t have any kids. She vaguely remembered stories of a younger brother doing something science-related, possibly working for the USGS, but forgot the details.
“Oh, that does sting a bit,” said Logan. His face remained calm, but a few blood vessels in his forehead swelled into view.
“Heh.” Lennie dribbled alcohol into the relatively small wound, then bandaged it.
“Can I look yet?” asked Daxton.
“Almost. We’re about to get going again.” Harper looked around. “Anything here worth taking?”
“That chicken?” Logan pointed at the fire.
Daxton stared at the birds, drooling.
Having finished bandaging Logan’s arm, Lennie put his supplies away, then ran around collecting all the guns from the Lawless. “Heh. This sumbitch had a Desert Eagle. That explains the damn thunder.”
“Okay well… let’s grab the chickens and get away from the dead people. We can eat it somewhere else.” Harper looked at Ms. Tiller. “So, umm… do you want to stay with us?”
“Just the four of you and a boy roaming around? I suppose. Better than those idiots.” She smiled at Deacon. “Guess you’re pretty safe.”
“We’re not roaming. Actually, we’ve got a nice little town going in Evergreen. You should come back with us. Teachers are in demand.”
Ms. Tiller chuckled. “What’s the pay like?”
“Food and a place to live. Clothes. And you won’t need to shoot anyone.”
“Sign me up. That sounds like more than my last job.”
Harper laughed. “Wow. Was it really that bad?”
“Unfortunately… yes. If I hadn’t been married, I wouldn’t have been able to make rent unless I got a roommate.” Ms. Tiller shook her head. “This is what happens. Keep skimping on education, you end up with nuclear war and gangs of murderous creeps.”
Harper blinked. “I’m not sure if I should laugh at that or cry.”
“Both are appropriate,” said Ms. Tiller.
Logan put an arm around her from behind. “It’s going to be dark fairly soon. Don’t think you want to sleep near dead guys.”
“Nope. I do not.” Harper fished four shells out of her hip bag and stuffed them into the Mossberg. “Okay. Let’s get going.”
They continued following Route 40, eating chicken while trying to hustle.
Between mouthfuls, Harper filled Ms. Tiller in on their present mission and a little bit about Evergreen. From there, they compared stories of what happened after the nuclear strike. Her former teacher spoke in a somewhat detached, emotionless tone as if relaying the tale of something that happened to someone else. She’d been gathering canned goods from a King Sooper when a pack of Lawless found her. Terrified, she’d pretended to be tough, channeling the Klingon character she occasionally cosplayed at conventions, always intending to slip away from them at the first chance.
Within hours of ‘joining’ that group, they ended up at the house where she and her husband had been hiding out. Another group of Lawless had already killed him.
“Oh, man,” said Deacon. “That just ain’t right.”
“Hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was to pretend I didn’t recognize my husband. Don’t think I did it too well. Bet a few of them knew.” Ms. Tiller took a deep breath. “Guess they showed me that as a warning what would happen if I didn’t do what they wanted.”
Harper blushed.
“No. Not that. Couple of them asked. Figured sooner or later, someone would take it if I kept saying no, but I guess they have this weird code of honor. I acted like a tough bitch, faking being a little nuts and a lot violent. They didn’t even grab my ass.”
“Wow.” Harper whistled. “They had my friend Renee for a while. She had to pretend she was fourteen to keep them from forcing her to have sex with them.”
Logan scowled. “We’re not hunting them down why?”
“Because they didn’t actually touch her and it’s not worth getting killed for revenge.” Harper spat a nugget of gristle off to the side. “But… if we find any.”
“That was some damn fine shooting there, kiddo.” Lennie smiled. “Would’ve liked a bit more warning, but I ain’t never seen four headshots in four seconds like that.”
Harper bit off another piece of chicken. “It was more like six seconds. Heads are bigger than clay pigeons, so it’s easier shooting. Sorry about the lack of warning. Figured we were about to get overrun.”
“Oh, I wasn’t yellin’ at you about the warning. That was directed at them bastards.” Lennie emitted a wheezy chuckle.
“It’s kinda freaking me out you’re so casual about killing people.” Ms. Tiller looked over at her. “But, I guess after what happened with your father, and everything else, it’s understandable.”
“I don’t like killing people. But shooting Lawless in the face doesn’t bother me… much.”
“They killed the guys who tried to shoot me,” said Daxton. “Think those guys tried to shoot at them, too?”
“Probably. But them Lawless dudes usually shoot first.” Deacon bit off a huge hunk of meat.
“Hungry?” asked Logan, smiling.
“No fridge. Whatever we don’t eat, we’re gonna have to toss.” Lennie broke off a smaller piece of chicken and handed it to Daxton. “Eat as much as you can. Better not to waste it.”
“Those three guys were staying at that trailer village when we found the place,” said Ms. Tiller. “They, umm. Didn’t want to join. No, I didn’t kill any of them. Missed on purpose.”
“Guess we’re lucky you decided to change sides when we showed up.” Lennie wagged his eyebrows at her.
“Nah. You guys are the first time it felt like someone had a chance at surviving. I was trying to sneak away since I figured you’d just shoot at me, too. But ran into Harper. She didn’t blow my head off.”
“Yeah. She’s sweet like that.” Logan grinned.
Harper didn’t know whether to blush or raspberry him.
After a long period of silent walking and eating, Harper looked over at Ms. Tiller. “Is it true that the sports arena has gone full Mad Max, like the Lawless have a king and stuff? Make people run these long obstacle courses while
trying to dodge snipers in some kind of twisted game show?”
“Sorta. I’ve never been there, but a few of them said they have a camp in a football stadium. Most of what you’ve heard are probably wild stories to make people scared of them so anyone they run into will just surrender right away or join.”
“So they don’t make people run murder gauntlets?” Harper raised both eyebrows.
“Uhh, they do, but it’s not that involved. It’s only done for people who joined and then either tried to steal stuff and leave, killed another member of the group, or did something they consider bad—like turn traitor.” She whistled nervously. “Good thing we didn’t leave any witnesses.”
“It’s kinda freaking me out that you’re so casual about shooting people,” said Harper, faintly smiling.
Her geek-culture-obsessed former physics teacher looked down at her Uzi. “Yeah. It’s a rough world out there. This thing doesn’t really have a stun setting.”
“Heh.” Harper picked at the shotgun’s pistol grip. “That would be awesome. Stun settings, I mean.”
“Right?” asked Logan.
Harper looked at Ms. Tiller. “I heard they made random people run that gauntlet thing for amusement, and no one ever survived.”
“It’s not as involved as I’m sure the stories make it out to be. Basically, they send the prisoner running down a street that’s been blocked off on the sides, creating a track with only one way out at the end, an arch they call ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ Someone makes it to that thing alive, that’s freedom.”
“Do they actually let them leave if they make it there?”
Ms. Tiller shrugged. “Not sure. No one’s made it yet. At least not that I’ve seen or heard about.”
“It’s beyond messed up to hear you talking about this in the same tone you used to teach physics,” said Harper.
“I agree. I’ve probably disassociated to a point. Feels more like I’m no longer in the real world and just stuck playing a character.”
Harper peered over at her. “Can you stitch your brain back together?”
“Yeah. Hopefully. If Evergreen’s as calm as you’re saying it is, I’ll probably start to feel safe there sooner or later. Then it will finally hit me that Robert’s dead. Couldn’t process that around those guys. So, I’ll most likely be a complete mess for a little while, then gradually level off into something approaching normal.”
“I used to think normal was boring.” Harper sighed. “Now, I miss it.”
“Yeah.” Ms. Tiller stared at her portion of chicken like she couldn’t bear to eat any more, but still took another bite.
“I hear that,” said Deacon.
“Normal is boring.” Lennie smiled. “Don’t mistake normality for civilization.”
Deacon whipped a cleaned bone into the trees. “Lawless are real far outside Denver.”
Harper frowned. “I was thinking that, too.”
“Route 70 goes right to the city. They sent us out here as a ‘remote scouting team,’ looking to ambush-recruit anyone going by. I didn’t mind it so much since we didn’t see anyone out here in months except for those three men at the trailer lot and you guys. I’d much rather sit around doing nothing except hunting for food than messing with people who are only trying to survive.”
“Dunno if Walter is going to ask you to ‘donate’ that Uzi to the militia or not since it’s basically a pistol, but you won’t have to use it back home. Except for the constant worry about being raided, it’s pretty close to civilized.” Harper smiled.
Ms. Tiller laughed. “We do extreme things when we have to. I wouldn’t mind going back to carrying textbooks. If I never fired a gun again in my life, I’d be happy. If your Walter wants this thing, he’s welcome to it.”
Eventually, little remained of the chickens but bones and cartilage that ended up scattered across the roadside, each piece dropped when it held no more edible meat. Despite a break or two for bathroom needs, the group reached the intersection to Route 6 about an hour and a half after leaving the Lawless camp. For a little over two miles, they followed a picturesque elevated highway flanked by mountainous hills. A whitewater creek running along the side started on the right, then passed under the road to the left. Maybe fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a tunnel in a sheer rock face. A little white sign at the top read ‘Tunnel 6.’
Predictably, none of the lights on the ceiling worked.
No abandoned cars had been left in the tunnel, perhaps indicating that the rock had shielded those vehicles from EMP at the moment of the blast. Then again, there hadn’t been all that many cars out here to begin with. The ones they did see had likely run out of gas rather than been wiped by electromagnetic waves.
The tunnel only lasted for about five hundred feet or so, not long enough to become pitch dark. Not far from that tunnel, they reached ‘Tunnel 5,’ an even shorter one. Harper wished she could have come out here before the war to enjoy nature without having to worry about being killed at any minute or starving to death. She wanted to take a kayak or raft down the creek, or maybe bike the trail beside the water. Alas, it would be a while before anyone did that sort of thing for fun anymore.
So weird. We used to do stuff for fun that people way back had to do in order to survive. Well, okay, sorta. Lewis & Clark didn’t have bikes to ride on trails. But rafting and hiking used to be life for people, not recreation.
Eventually, after covering a little over two miles, they reached 119. Based on her ruler jockeying the wall map in Walter’s office, she’d guessed they’d need to go about five miles more before reaching Golden Gate Canyon Road. Tall hills carpeted in pine trees stretched up from both sides of the road. Tree cover in some places, plus bushes, had grown so thick that the Lawless—or some other dangerous thugs—could be hiding four feet away from the pavement and she’d never notice them. Every so often, mostly whenever the road curved with the valley, she caught a glimpse of more distant green-covered hills. Scraps of scorched power lines occasionally hung from utility poles that hadn’t burned to charcoal. Except for that and the road itself, the place appeared mostly untouched by humanity, and so quiet that every scuff of a shoe on the blacktop seemed to echo all the way back to Evergreen.
Harper kept her attention on the densest spots in the foliage, on guard for attack. If not people, perhaps a mountain lion or bear. Given the remoteness of the area and the unlikelihood that anyone would travel this road often at all, it didn’t make sense for anyone to set a trap here. Heck, Ms. Tiller said that Lawless had been wandering back and forth out here for a long time without seeing anyone until they went farther out and bumped into those three guys Daxton grabbed food from—and they stuck to a major highway leading to Denver. Their leader decided to take over that camp as a permanent base from which to extend the Lawless’ reach. Ms. Tiller figured the guy she called Randall merely got tired of walking around.
All things considered, they made reasonable time, but the sun went down before they made it to the next turn in her route.
“Think we should stop somewhere?” asked Logan.
“Nah, we’re kinda close now.” Daxton pointed ahead. “It won’t take us that long to get there and it just got dark. It’s not time to sleep yet. We got a few hours.”
Harper looked to her left where the road widened into a tiny parking lot. Beyond it, a glint of moonlight shimmered on the surface of a smallish lake. A couple park service signs stood at the edge of the parking lot near the start of a dirt path, but she couldn’t make out what they said in the dark.
“That’s not Kriley Pond is it?” asked Harper.
“No. That’s… I dunno.” Daxton shrugged. “Way little.”
“Okay. Might as well keep going if everyone’s up for it. Better to spend the night at a settlement than out here in the open.”
Lennie and Deacon nodded, murmuring agreement.
“If we had to, we could go up the hill a bit and take cover in the trees.” Logan pointed left at the less steep side. Wouldn�
�t mind a pee break.”
Before Harper could even say anything, all the guys plus Daxton appeared to get on the same mental wavelength. The instant he said the word ‘pee,’ they scrambled to form a firing line at the right side of the road.
To her absolute horror, Ms. Tiller went to the other side, casual as anything, and proceeded to water the grass. More than the realization that a former teacher was actually a human being who had working biological processes, the woman’s complete lack of hesitation unnerved her. She’s been among the Lawless for a while. Still, Harper couldn’t argue the need to go. Short of an annoying hike up a steep hill into trees, this area had zero cover.
At least it’s super dark. They can’t see my butt or me blushing.
She did her best to empty her bladder and not give anyone too much of a show.
Conversing amongst themselves about their expectations for what awaited them in Kriley Pond, the men kept their backs turned until Harper and Ms. Tiller stepped back onto the road.
A few minutes into their resumed walk, Ms. Tiller shook her head. “I never imagined I’d see one of my students walking down the highway with a shotgun, wary of an ambush.”
Harper let her arms—and shotgun—hang low, tired of carrying the damn thing all day. “Yeah, but like you said… it’s a rough world for a girl.”
Ms. Tiller chuckled. “Guess a can of pepper spray doesn’t quite do the trick anymore.”
“I don’t need pepper spray. I have a Deacon.”
“Religious?” asked Ms. Tiller.
“Not really,” said Deacon.
Harper pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “He’s Deacon.”
“Oh.” She looked back. “Yes. I can see how he’d be a deterrent to violence.”
Deacon laughed.
Logan fake pouted at her.
“Aww.” Harper leaned against him. “I know how far you’d go to keep me safe, but you’re not seven feet tall and four hundred pounds.”
“Hey, now. I’m 335,” muttered Deacon. “Or at least, I was the last time I had a working scale nearby.”
Evergreen (Book 4): Nuclear Summer Page 24