Hunted (Collapse Book 2)

by Riley Flynn

  Cam waved one of the flash drives in front of his face. The hard, dense plastic was coated in fingerprints. Smudges. The flat metal strip, the entry point for the computer, mocked them. So easy to just plug in and read everything, Alex thought, back when there were computers everywhere.

  Barely a few months ago, a room without a computer was a relief. Like one of those sensory deprivation tanks. Unplugged. Tuned out. Step into a computer-less room and be free from the world of information, just for a moment. Well, now the whole world was like that and Alex wanted to know what the hell was happening. Now, computers seemed like a distant dream.

  “I thought the military had fixed codes, for sending orders and such,” Alex said, more a statement than a question.

  “That’s true. Sort of. We have code words, sure. But codes is complex these days. Might as well be speaking Navajo.”

  “Navajo?” Joan reached out for the sheet of paper. “Why Navajo?”

  “World War Two,” said Timmy, holding up a confident finger, always proud to interject a fact when possible. “They used Navajo speakers to talk in code.”

  “Yeah, something like that. Not sure about Navajos. I got a lot of Cherokee blood in me, sure, but I’m nothing to you for this. I reckon you’ll need whatever’s on these drives to figure out what’s on the paper.”

  “What about the formatting?” asked Joan. “Is it laid out like anything familiar? Orders? Any kind of paperwork?”

  “Doesn’t strike me as anything. Something like that would probably be built into the code. They’re pretty hot on this kind of thing.”

  He gave the flash drive one last look, examining the metal entry point in exacting detail.

  “Where exactly you get this, anyway?”

  “Some pretty mean people, like I told you,” Alex responded, picking up the other drive and imitating the newcomer. Cam had already asked the question. Was he looking for a different answer? Was he absent-minded?

  “See, I might know where some of those mean people was hanging out. Might be that they had a few more pieces like this.”

  “Oh yeah?” Alex’s ears pricked up. If Cam had seen these people, had seen them recently, then all their paranoia might be justified. People might be chasing them. Maybe Cam had noticed, too.

  “So, I was telling you about that spot where I think some supplies might be, right?”

  “I remember,” Alex said, keeping his words short and curt.

  “It was a fight,” Cam continued. “Pretty mean people on both sides, I reckon. Plenty of folks gunned down, official and unofficial. Now, their friends never came to pick them up, on neither side. They’re still out there, probably not looking so great now. Their vehicles. Their weapons. Whatever they had on them. All still there.”

  “So why haven’t you gone and looked?” Alex asked. “Seems like a gold mine.”

  “Two-man job, my friend. Way they was travelling, down through a split in the ground, a gulley kind of place. Rises up on both sides. I get down in there, I’m a sitting duck. I need someone there to cover me.”

  “It’s close?” Timmy asked. “Near here?”

  “Bout three clicks thataway.” Cam pointed to the north.

  “And you think they were military?” Joan’s glasses were slipping down her nose, her head tilted forward.

  “They was something. You don’t get that kind of hardware without some powerful friends. Or a lot of money. Or both.”

  “Maybe they’ve got a computer.” Timmy’s words were charged with excitement. “If we get hold of one, I could rig it, I reckon. We’ve got chargers, batteries. Just need the silicon.”

  “People might still be hanging around,” Joan said, worried. “It could be a trap. Exactly set up for someone like us. Or you, Cam.”

  “Two-man job,” he told her. “That’s what I been telling you folks. Fetcher and a spotter. Two men.”

  “You really think they’ve got something?” asked Alex. “Something more than we have? We don’t need guns. We have enough fuel to get to Virginia, probably.”

  “Fuel, guns, food, tech, meds.” Cam reeled off the list, tapping a finger each time. “I reckon they’ve got the lot.”

  The meds. For Timmy. For the baby. Food and guns and fuel, they could get by without those.

  Alex looked at his friends. They’d all heard the list. Maybe Cam didn’t know it but he’d said the magic word. The difference between life and death, between the end of Timmy’s recovery and – soon – the arrival of Joan’s baby. Even now, he was conscious of ensuring she had everything she needed.

  It was one hell of a decision. They could do with the supplies. Not just the meds. The curiosity. The chance to get ahead of anyone who might be behind them, searching for the materials he’d stolen. The chance to discover what was on those flash drives, to figure out how exactly the world had fallen apart so fast. It could all be three clicks away. Or it could all be a trap.

  Their goal was to get to Virginia, not to find information hidden away in random computer files. But, then, that information might help them stay one step ahead. Not just ahead of people, but of the virus itself. Of the situation. Information could be the difference between life and death. It could equally be useless.

  But there was a curiosity burning away inside Alex’s mind. He had to satiate it. He had to know more. If he was going to protect his friends and help them reach the farm – that promised land – then he needed all the help he could get. That might mean Cam. That might mean extra supplies. That might mean figuring out what was on those flash drives.

  The uncertainty itched away at Alex’s insides and he was desperate to scratch at it.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” Alex announced. “Dawn. First thing. Just me and you, Cam. You two hold down the fort.”

  “A man of action.” Cam smiled. “I like this guy.”

  A slow nod from Joan and an excited fidget from Timmy. He wanted to go, Alex knew. He wanted nothing more in the world. But even he knew how sick he’d been.

  This road to recovery was long and hard; he was still building up the muscle mass. He could barely stay awake for more than five hours. Timmy knew he couldn’t come and it killed him a little inside; Alex could see it in his eyes.

  The November sun was setting. Darker every day. After the table was cleared, a map was found from somewhere and they plotted their dawn raid. Cam knew the route. He pointed to a spot. Indistinguishable from any other. Nothing to say the man was right, not on paper. Nothing to say he was wrong, either.

  Alex watched the new arrival. The stranger, the man who had come in from the forest. Trust was a hard thing to earn. Cam was yet to pay his dues.

  Alex sat in one of the chairs, dragging a sleeping bag across his body and preparing to snatch a few hours’ sleep. Dawn could not come quickly enough.

  Chapter 13

  In the dark, Alex twisted and turned. He woke up, his thoughts still full of monsters. Touching the beads of sweat on his forehead, the image of the dead people loomed large in his mind. They weren’t leaving him alone. Gang members and Eko victims. People he’d killed and people he’d seen die. This time, he’d seen Timmy’s face in there. It had been too much to handle and he’d jerked away.

  No more sleep, he knew instantly, his eyelids grieving for the extra hour’s rest. His feet stretched out, his head hanging back over his shoulders. He hadn’t slept well but at least he’d slept.

  Not for long, he noticed. It was still late. Someone moving on the porch must have stirred him. Alex could see Timmy’s familiar frame through one of the windows, pacing up and down.

  Quietly, worried about waking the others, Alex prepared to slip outside. The leather jacket, the one they’d liberated from the bike shop, went over a woolen sweater he’d recovered from his apartment. All of it unwashed; clean clothes were an age ago.

  Alex didn’t wear a watch, didn’t have a clock to hand. Time was a more malleable truth these days. Dawn was the target: he had an appointment, a mission. That was a while aw
ay yet.

  The kitchen was just as they’d left it the night before. Cam had fallen asleep in one of the chairs, sitting almost bolt upright. Carefully and quietly, so as not to wake anyone, Alex headed for the porch. Walking on his toes, he stepped over the dog sleeping in the doorway.

  The air was crisp, cold; it woke up the lungs in an instant. Alex knew that sleep was off the menu, so he closed his eyes and swallowed another lungful.

  “Hey, man.”

  Timmy sat on the woodpile, the no-name rifle balanced across his knees, a weary look on his face.

  “Hey.”

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping any time soon. People keep sneaking up on me.”

  “Like Cam did?”

  “Joan and him. I’m just waiting for you to jump from behind a tree and finish my heart off for good.”

  “I can go hide in the woods if you want.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Timmy shifted uneasily. The gray in his eye shimmered in the dark, almost silver.

  “Hey, Timmy. You think he’s all right?”

  “You mean Cam?”

  “Yeah.”

  Alex tread carefully down the floorboards. The man was sleeping in the kitchen; he might well be able to hear every word. Walking across to Timmy, Alex cleared a space on the stack of logs and they sat close to one another, speaking in hushed voices.

  “Possibly,” Timmy said. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “How long does making up your mind take?”

  “It’s different for everyone, you know? With Joan, see, I knew right away. She’s the trustworthy type.”

  “But not so much Cam?”

  “He’s different, man.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Thought someone should sit up on watch.”

  “Because of him?” Alex asked, looking at Timmy with the rifle in his lap. “Watching out for Cam?”

  “For Cam and all those things he was telling us about. The cougar you saw. I know you’re always looking over your shoulder.”

  “That’s why you got the gun? Standing on watch?” Alex asked the question, a pang of shame echoing through his thoughts. He should have thought of this. He should have volunteered.

  “Cam hasn’t slipped up yet, man. Got an answer for everything. Maybe he’s right about the people out there.”

  “There’s definitely someone out there. I’ve been hearing things – out in the forest – and they can’t all have been Cam. There’s someone out there, Timmy.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m sure. I just don’t know whether it’s us they want.”

  “You’re getting as paranoid as me, man.”

  “That why you’ve got the gun?”

  Timmy tapped the barrel of the rifle like an elderly dowager stroking an expensive Persian cat.

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re going to stop the bad guys when they come to take our cabin?” Alex laughed. A nice distraction from his dreams, at last.

  “Bit of that, man, bit of that.”

  “There’s something else?”

  “Yeah,” Timmy admitted, allowing the question to be worked out of him. “I just wanted to check, you know?”

  “Check the gun? I’ve kept her in pretty good shape. I know you care about that stuff.”

  “Nah, she’s fine. I mean, I wanted to know what I could do.”

  Timmy pulled back his sleeves and Alex saw the thinness of the arms. Timothy Ratz had never been a particularly strong man. Even before the sickness, the most generous of his friends might have labeled him lithe. But now, he had lost most of his muscle mass. What little bulk he’d had was evaporated away.

  “I just wanted to know,” Timmy said, raising the rifle, “how much I could do. If trouble came around the corner right now, could I stop it?”

  His wrists were shaking under the weight of the gun. Trembling. Alex could even see it in the dark. Sighing, Timmy dropped the rifle back on to his lap.

  “How long can you hold it?” Alex asked.

  “Not long, man. Not long. But it’s getting better. I’ve been working on it. Exercises here and there.”

  “You’ll be back soon. You’ve beaten a disease which has wiped out half of America, seems like. That’s got to be worth more than holding up a gun.”

  “Maybe. Wasn’t much use when those gang members flipped our car though. When we got caught in that firefight. I was dead weight.”

  His head bowed down onto his chest, Timmy hid his face from his friend. They sat in silence for a moment.

  “You’re not dead weight, Timmy.”

  “I am, man, and I hate it. I just want to help.”

  “You are helping. Every step. See, this morning. I wouldn’t have thought about posting a guard. You just went and did it. That’s a good idea. It’s something we need to do.”

  “I didn’t really decide, though, I just came out and sat here.”

  “But you did it. That’s the point. And, tomorrow – today, I guess – you’re going to have to stay here and help Joan. She’s great, but neither of you can manage alone. I won’t be here. You’ll be important.”

  “I just want to help, man.”

  “Exactly. I can’t do this without you. If I go to this place with Cam and don’t come back, everything depends on you. You’re the brains of this outfit, Timmy.”

  “What do you mean if you don’t come back?”

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen out there. There’s nothing on the map. Nothing but the word of some guy we just met. I don’t think anything’s going to happen; I’m just saying: if I don’t come back by sunset tomorrow, you got to pack up everything and get to Virginia. I don’t care what Joan says, you just do it, right?”

  Alex’s mouth was dry, his throat sore. A hangover from the nightmare? The fear was real but hard to focus. Just a general, constant worry. Action helped.

  With every single action, from the smallest to the largest, Alex allowed himself a few moments to forget. He could act mechanically, pushing his thoughts to the side. It was one way of dealing with the world. But it was a fearful method. Scared to face the true nature of the situation.

  Coughing, rubbing his throat, Alex smiled at Timmy. He didn’t want his friends to see his fears. They had enough to deal with. If something went wrong, they’d have to press on without him.

  “We can’t go to the farm without you, man.”

  “Yes, you can. You have to. We spent hours looking at those maps. You know where the farm is.”

  “But it’s your farm. Where you grew up. Your family farm.”

  “It hasn’t been mine in years. It’s ours now.”

  Timmy fumbled with the bolt on the rifle, playing with it absentmindedly.

  “So this is our plan, huh?”

  “Unless you’ve got a better one. Worried?”

  “About what? The virus? The drones? The gang members? The government? The stranger sleeping in the kitchen?”

  “About the future.”

  The bolt clicked back and forth, the chamber empty.

  “How bad can it be?” said Timmy. “Compared to now, I mean. I’m looking forward to it, actually. Growing stuff. Getting our hands dirty. Real back to basics kind of life.”

  “Oh, you’ll hate it,” laughed Alex. “It can get really boring out there. Reckon you can stay still that long?”

  “That’s the challenge, ain’t it?”

  They laughed together, remembered themselves, and lowered their voices. Above, the heavens had turned from their navy blue to a gray slate, but the sun was still nowhere to be seen.

  “Hey,” said Alex, “what did you think about those things?”

  “The drones?”

  “Yeah, you think they’re for us?”

  “I don’t know, man. You think they know we have those flash drives? I thought they’d gotten rid of most of the drones. Military mostly uses satellites now. I guess
they might have a few out here, especially if there’s a military presence.”

  “Yeah, but I mean – are they looking for us? For Cam?”

  “Could be. They could be looking for him. Hell, he could be one of them. Whoever ‘them’ is. Those things could track a rat down a drainpipe.”

  The sky was empty; the world was quiet. Alex stood up and stepped forward, the conversation doing nothing to help his dry throat and his worries.

  “I’m going to have a look,” he said, hoping for some kind of certainty, “just for a moment.”

  “Don’t do it, man. What if someone sees you? There’s some crazy stuff out there.”

  “But what are the chances that the entire American government, all that power and might, is trying to find us? While the whole world falls apart, they’re tracking a few people through a forest. Surely they’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

  Alex stepped out from the porch, walked out to a clearing in the trees, and stared up at the sky.

  “Man,” Timmy called in his loudest whisper, “don’t risk it.”

  Alex walked back to the cabin.

  “I just wanted to check. And we heard that thing coming yesterday. Surely we’ll know when it’s around.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t know what else is out there. Drones. Vehicles. Guys with guns.”

  “We’re guys with guns.” Alex tried to fill his words with confidence. The words felt awkward on his tongue but Timmy didn’t seem to notice.

  “They’re guys with more guns,” said Timmy, “and better aim. Besides, we did kill some people. We did steal those files. We’ve seen things, man.”

  “You think those sounds I’ve been hearing out in the forest could be someone after us?”

  “You’re asking me that again. I don’t know. I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

  He was right, Alex realized. He’d been asking the same kind of question over and over. His nerves were starting to show.

  “You’re right. See, that’s the clear, critical thinking only you can provide. No Eko virus can take that from you.”

  “Just take things safe, man.”

  “Yeah. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.”