by Harley Tate
Tracy guessed they were another three miles out. “Do you think a small vet like that will have the vaccine?”
“It’s worth a shot. Farm animals are more likely to be bit by a wild animal than household pets in town.”
“What about looters? Vets have tranquilizers and sedatives and all kinds of pills. In Sacramento half of them prescribed Prozac to anxious dogs and cats.”
Brianna shoved the map back in her pocket. “Dr. Benton wasn’t that kind of vet. He worked out of his house. If you didn’t know he was a doctor, you’d pass his farm right by.”
Tracy exhaled. Brianna was right; a country vet was their best shot. “If he doesn’t have a vaccine, we’ll have to head into town.”
“The hospital will be the best choice.”
Tracy grimaced. A hospital was the last place she wanted to go. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
As the sun rose above the horizon, the pair of women emerged from the forest and onto a road cut through rock and snow. Brianna pulled a water bottle from her pack and took a sip.
If they weren’t loaded up with guns and ammo, Tracy could almost pretend they were just two women out on a winter hike, finishing up a week-long camping trip as they trekked back into town and the world before.
“Do you miss it?”
Tracy glanced up. She wasn’t the only one stuck in the past. “Our lives before?”
Brianna nodded. “Everything. Electricity, transportation, people. So many people. I used to wake up and reach for my phone first thing. Scroll through pictures of my friends, see who was doing what that day. All from my bed.”
“Now we’re cut off.”
“My parents had talked about what it would be like and why we built our cabins, so I wasn’t in the dark. But I didn’t fully grasp what it all meant.” Brianna turned to Tracy and squinted against the sun. Any trace of the happy-go-lucky college kid she met that first visit to campus was gone. She’d aged ten years in nine months.
“At least your family had the sense to be ready. We didn’t even have extra food in the house.” Tracy chastised herself for her foolishness. If they’d only had a plan for something like this, then maybe everything wouldn’t have fallen apart. Maybe they wouldn’t have lost the house. Wanda. Tucker. So many friends.
Brianna shook her head. “It’s one thing to daydream and plan and can a bunch of tomatoes. It’s another to watch the country you grew up in tear itself apart.”
“We’ll be forever grateful to you and your family, Brianna.”
She waved Tracy off. “You don’t need to thank me. Without you and Madison and everyone else, we would never be able to survive. We underestimated how hard living off the land would be.”
“I underestimated how quickly the cities would fall.”
Brianna ran a hand down her face. “We really are a bunch of animals now, aren’t we?”
Tracy wished she could wave a magic wand and reset the country. “I still miss it.”
“Me, too.” Brianna focused on the snow beneath her feet as they walked. “But I don’t miss the manufactured drama. Leave it to the apocalypse to show you how stupid selfies are.”
Tracy laughed. “How about yoga pants? Those things are worthless out in the wild.”
Brianna giggled. “Or makeup or high heels or…” Her voice slid into a sob. “Boyfriends.”
Tracy reached out and squeezed her parka-clad arm. “Fancy shoes might be gone forever, but don’t write off finding someone new.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Brianna looked around. “I don’t see a slew of eligible bachelors just waiting in the snow.” She sniffed. “Tucker was supposed to be the one.”
Watching someone so young hurt so deeply, all because of a cataclysmic event they never expected, twisted Tracy’s insides. For months, she’d fooled herself into thinking the worst was over.
The hard truth was that it would never end. She shoved the thought aside and brightened her voice. “Give it time. Maybe years from now, all the people who have found a way to hang on will come together. Rebuild.”
Brianna snuffed back tears.
“In ten years, we could be back to civilization. We could have what we lost.”
Tracy didn’t push the issue and Brianna didn’t respond. They walked, side by side in silence, down what used to be a road. Snow drifts had piled against the fence posts on either side and the women stayed to the middle, hiking on an empty highway toward what used to be a thriving mountain town.
The entire trek from the cabin to Truckee would be a slow descent down the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She refused to think about the hike back up. As they came out of a bend, a snow-covered shape slowed Tracy’s steps. “Is that a car?”
“What’s left of one.” Brianna pulled her shotgun off her shoulder. “Looks abandoned.”
Tracy unholstered her Glock and lowered her voice. “I’ll peel off. Check the field.”
Brianna nodded and eased closer to the fence line as Tracy slipped between two strings of barbed wire and three feet of snow. Her boots sunk into the soft fluff as she canvassed the area. Nothing stood out. No movement. No tracks.
“It’s clear.” Brianna’s voice cut through the icy air and Tracy made her way around the vehicle.
As she approached, Brianna knelt in front of a shape huddled beside the car.
“Did you find someth—” Tracy froze. It wasn’t a bush or a pile of discarded gear. The shape nestled beside the front fender of an ice-covered Honda used to be human.
Brianna reached out and dusted the snow away. A woman’s blue face emerged. Eyes closed, head resting on the shoulder of a man. While Tracy watched, Brianna uncovered the rest of their bodies.
Two people sitting on the side of the road, turned to ice. The man had his arm around the woman, and they were huddled together like somehow their puny body heat would make up for temperatures in the teens.
Brianna backed up in disgust. “Why didn’t they stay in the car? Or keep moving? Sitting out here, they were exposed. Just waiting for winter to claim them.”
Tracy crouched in front of the woman. Thanks to the brutal winds and months of snow, she couldn’t make out more than her shape. What was she in a prior life? A teacher? Secretary? Biochemist? What was her life story? Why did it end in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road?
Her head sagged and Tracy focused on the woman’s hands. They clasped a piece of paper. Tracy leaned forward and brushed off the snow. Is it a photo? She tugged at it with her gloved hand. Ice cracked and splintered. She yanked harder and the paper tore at the edge and came free. She stood up and brushed off the snow.
It was a photograph of a little girl. No older than ten, she looked a lot like Madison all those years ago. Brown hair, freckles across her nose, braces on her teeth. Smile full of light and life and an unblemished childhood. A snapshot of a time that seemed so long ago.
Tracy swallowed. “Any sign of a girl?”
Brianna scraped snow off the window of the car and cupped her hands around her face to peer inside. “It’s empty.”
“We need to make sure.” Tracy held a little bead of hope in her heart even though she knew it was pointless. The couple had been dead for days if not weeks. They could have succumbed to the cold back when the first snowfall landed in November, waiting for someone to find them ever since.
But Tracy persevered, searching the area and kicking at clumps of snow until satisfied the child wasn’t there. She set the photograph in the dead woman’s lap.
“You still think in ten years we’ll rebuild?” Brianna’s voice cut like the wind.
Tracy swallowed.
“In ten years, how many people will even be left?”
Tracy fought against the despair. “The girl might still be alive. Maybe she’s somewhere safe and warm.”
Brianna slung her shotgun over her shoulder and turned to the road. “For her sake, I hope she’s dead.”
Chapter Thirteen
COLT
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br /> Unidentified Farm
Near Truckee, CA
11:00 a.m.
“I’m sick of waiting.” Dani fidgeted beside Colt in the Jeep. “I say we hit them now when they aren’t expecting us, find Walter, and get out.”
Colt put the binoculars down with a sigh. “We can’t go guns blazing without a plan or any evidence that Walter’s inside. For all we know the kid was lying and this is a trap.”
“I thought that’s what I said.” She crossed her arms in a huff.
Colt frowned. He’d already busted into the warehouse without a plan or any eyes on the inside. They were lucky that time. No telling whether they’d be lucky again. The odds weren’t in their favor.
He leaned toward Dani. “You may be right, but that doesn’t mean we either ignore it or just rush in. I reconned the crap out of Jarvis and that apartment before I broke in and it worked. If I’d just rushed in, who knows where we’d be by now.”
“In a dumpster, being eaten by flies, probably.” Larkin adjusted his position and picked up his binoculars. “We do this right or we don’t do it. This isn’t like the warehouse with only one way in and a limited time horizon. Look at this place.”
After they had packed up their gear, it took an hour to find the place Frankie described. Sitting by the Truckee River in a small valley-shaped clearing, the three silos stood out like giant mushrooms in the snow. Colt had pulled the Jeep into the forest on the ridge above, far enough away to avoid detection, and found a place to camp out behind a grove of young pines.
For the past two hours, Colt had watched the farm through binoculars. From the distance, he couldn’t make out faces or confirm identities, but what he saw, he didn’t like. He turned to Larkin in the passenger seat. “It appears to be a fully-functioning farm. There’s open areas that must be plowed fields and barns locked up tight.”
Larkin leaned back. “Until we get a visual on Walter, we can’t go in there. We could be shooting up innocent civilians.”
“I could go in and pretend to be lost.” Excitement crept into Dani’s voice from the back seat. “Then you all could sneak in undetected.”
“Not a chance.” Colt wasn’t about to use her as a decoy. Not this time. “We wait until we see Walter with our own eyes or we don’t go in.”
“Fine.” Dani flopped back and crossed her arms and Colt clamped his lips shut to keep from grinning.
Despite her bravado and capability with a gun, Dani was still a teenager at heart. He tried not to tease her when it showed. Instead, he met her pouty eyes in the mirror. “How about you get some sleep? We might be up all night.”
Dani made a show of fluffing her sleeping bag into a pillow before curling up on the seat. “Wake me up when you get sick of doing nothing.”
As Colt turned around, Lottie squirmed past him and found the hollow between Dani’s chest and knees. Both fell asleep within minutes.
Colt picked up the binoculars as snoring rose from the back seat. He tried to think about what would be happening back home around this time. Anne would be readying lunch. Brianna would be coming in from the barns with empty feed pails and covered in straw from the animals. Tracy and Madison would be cleaning any animals caught overnight in the traps. The men would be splitting wood or inventorying weapons or out on a run.
There should be some activity below him, but so far he hadn’t seen much. As he waited a barn door opened. A single figure came out carrying something in his arms. From the distance, Colt couldn’t make out what it was.
He thought about Dani’s comments and her push to hit the farm. The girl had a point. Walter could be tied up in a basement or being tortured as they sat there and waited.
What if his hesitation caused Walter’s death? Colt glanced at Larkin, but the former soldier shook his head. “Your instincts are solid. We shouldn’t go in without visual confirmation.”
“And if that gets him killed?” Colt ran a hand down his face. “It’ll be my fault. I left him outside that store while I took my sweet time inside.”
“If the roles were reversed, would he have done the same thing?”
“Maybe.” But Colt still felt responsible. He couldn’t wait anymore. “We’ve hung back long enough. I’m going closer for some on-foot recon. We’re not getting the job done up here.”
Larkin glanced at the back seat. “Two of us could cover twice as much ground.”
Colt shook his head. “I’ll go alone. If I’m not back in an hour or two, wake Dani up and see if you can get some sleep. You might need it.”
He pushed his way out of the Jeep and shivered. According to Brianna’s family, this first winter without nationwide electricity had been a beast. Highs below normal, more snowfall than usual. It didn’t take a TV weatherman to tell Colt the next few months would be a challenge.
With only a thin glove on his shooting hand, Colt held his pistol low and eased into the forest. He’d parked the Jeep behind a solid stand of evergreen bushes at a vantage point well north of the farm. With bright yellow paint, it wasn’t a vehicle meant for stealth operations. Any serious reconnaissance would need to be on foot.
Colt tugged his zipper up and snugged down his skull cap. His ears would need to freeze to listen for anyone coming. A farm this size might have sentries or roving security. He couldn’t risk being seen.
The snow hampered his efforts. In the fall or summer, he could creep through the forest like a shadow and come right up on someone before they even knew he was there. But in the winter he might as well paint a giant red bullseye on his chest. Hard to conceal a two-hundred-pound man in a dark gray parka against glaring snow.
He planned every step. Creep behind this tree, dart to that bush, use that rock as cover. Edging down the hillside, it took Colt well over an hour to reach a safe vantage point. An outcropping of rock free from snow gave him enough cover to rest.
His breath blew out in thick clouds and he waited, crouched behind the warmed granite until he could control his breathing. Only then did he inch onto the top of the boulder and bring his binoculars into focus.
Whoa. First impressions could be deceiving, but Colt wasn’t prepared for the scale of the place. From a thousand yards back, it seemed large but manageable. Up close, the operation was massive. Not just one field for crops, but three ringed the central barn. Fencing separated pens for animals. Multiple barns clustered around the largest open area. The silos dwarfed even the tallest pine.
Big enough to shelter horses in the winter, the largest barn could be full of stables or vehicles or an entire army. The smaller ones could house pigs or sheep or a sizable flock of chickens. The Clifton place took ten people working around the clock to maintain; this place could easily need thirty.
As he shifted position on the rock, a side door to the largest barn slid open. Two men emerged, each holding a rifle with a scope. Colt’s breath caught. With scopes, they could spot him. He was close enough to be a viable target. Shit.
He pressed closer to the rock, willing his parka and knit cap to blend in. One thing he’d learned while on active duty was that staying still was the best way to stay alive. The military equivalent of hug-a-tree for lost kids.
Colt kept watching. The two men shared a smoke a few yards from the barn, puffing clouds into the air. A short laugh carried up the hill.
With relaxed shoulders and guns leaned at ease, neither man was concerned or afraid. Either they didn’t have Walter or he wasn’t a threat. Colt frowned and kept watching. The pair of men finished their smoke and retreated to the door. He almost wished they would head out on patrol so he could pick them off. A captured sentry might give him all the info he needed.
The door to the barn opened, but the men didn’t go inside. Instead, they ushered someone out. Colt rose up and adjusted the binoculars. Walter!
One man wrapped a hand around his upper arm and led him out of the barn. The other man followed behind with his rifle pointed at the ground, but ready. Colt squinted. A parka was draped over Walter’s shoulders
as if he were a football player staying warm on the sidelines. His hands were clasped in front of him.
Restraints? Handcuffs? Colt couldn’t tell for sure. He watched as the threesome stopped at the nearest tree line. Colt snorted. They were letting him take a piss. At least he’s not stuck in his own filth. After he finished, the man with one hand on Walter spun him around and Colt got a first good look at his friend.
A bruise colored his forehead purple, but other than that, he appeared fine. No anguish on his face. No confusion or agitation as he walked back to the barn. The guard keeping up the rear rushed forward, slid open the door, and Walter and the men disappeared.
Colt lowered the binoculars and took a deep breath. Walter is alive. Relief coursed through Colt’s veins. Ever since he saw the droplets of blood in the snow, he feared the worst. His optimism had faded by the minute, but thanks to Lottie and a chance encounter with Frankie, they found one of their own.
Now came the hard part: breaking him out. Colt eased off the rock and sat with his back to the farm. Finally a job he could handle. It had been months since he’d used any of his skills. He hadn’t even been able to shoot as much as he liked to maintain his proficiency. Ammunition was a finite resource now.
He sucked in a lungful of cold air. His newfound farming skills could take a back seat for the next twenty-four hours. Colt had a mission. He cracked his knuckles and checked the time. One thirty in the afternoon. Plenty of time to prepare.
By the time night fell, they would be ready. With any luck, by the morning they would be driving into the Clifton compound, ready to reunite a family. He crept back into the cover of the trees.
Chapter Fourteen
TRACY
Woodland Veterinary Services
Truckee, CA
4:30 p.m.
In the middle of winter, the sun set so early it caught Tracy off guard. She’d hoped to make it to the vet, find a vaccine, and be halfway home by now. But thanks to the snow and a steep descent, it took them all day to reach the outskirts of town. Declining in elevation from seven thousand to five thousand feet didn’t seem like much in the abstract, but in reality it was a brutish slog. The hike up would be worse.