Hunted (Collapse Book 2)

by Riley Flynn

  “Sheesh, you folks ain’t the trusting type, I can tell.”

  Ted stepped away from Cam. Alex rushed his hand to his hip, feeling for the pistol.

  “Woah, woah.” Ted threw his arms up in the air, his nasal voice whining like a siren. “Was just sitting down here. That a crime?”

  Looking from Timmy to Joan to Cam, Alex relaxed. He didn’t trust this man. Already, he was talking too loudly. A slobbering East Coast accent infected the man’s speech, a real throwback dialect. People only talked like that in movies. There was something fictional about Ted. Something unreal. Uncanny.

  * * *

  “What do you want, Ted?” He sat down opposite the newcomer, looking him right in the eye.

  “Straight to the point, heh?” Ted picked at his fingernail with his teeth. “I can respect that. That’s kind of why I’m here. See, I’m a man of business.”

  The others began to sit down. Cam kept the rifle pointing at Ted’s back.

  “Your friend here not going to take his gun off me?” Ted threw a thumb in Cam’s direction. “Don’t matter. Trust issues, huh? Yeah, we all got ‘em.”

  “I asked you what you want.”

  “I’m just making conversation, you know? I’ll answer. Got a problem with a bit of small talk?”

  Alex shook his head.

  “Thought not. Now, yeah. You folks got any food, by the way? Anything for a friend.”

  Timmy tapped the empty tray.

  “We’re all out. Sorry, friend.”

  Finn had strolled across to Ted and began to sniff at his hands.

  “Hey, sweet dog. He… er… friendly?” Ted began to lean backward.

  “He has his moments.” Timmy whistled and the dog trotted back beside him, turning to face Ted and staring.

  “Where you folks headed? Not many people out here nowadays…”

  “Are you going to tell us what you want, or what?” Alex began to worry. Something about Ted crawled across his skin, making it prickle.

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there. What did I say? Oh, yeah. Business opportunity. That’s what we’re here for.”

  Silence.

  “Tough crowd, sheesh. So, yeah. I got a few things you folks might want. Ammo. Tools. That kind of thing.”

  Even from across the campsite, Alex could see Timmy’s interest pique. It was the eyebrows, raising just so slightly. Ted noticed it, too.

  “Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.”

  Ted pulled on the open lapels of his jacket. He pulled the coat wide, revealing the inner lining. Scattered across the fabric, stitched into place, were various items. Hardware. Hammers. Ziploc bags filled with bullets.

  “You checked this?” Alex asked Cam.

  “He’s got no weapons. Doesn’t look like anything we can’t handle.” Cam took a fresh grip on the rifle anyway.

  “Hey, no one needs to get handled,” Ted stuttered. “I’m just looking to make a few sales. Man’s got to eat.”

  “Who’s even buying anything these days?” Alex couldn’t figure out the math. “Who has money? Do they need it anymore?”

  “Always value in a dollar, my friend. If you got any unwanted old world cash, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. Same with gold. What good’s that, eh? Of course, a good old barter works just as well.”

  Alex looked around the others. Blank faces.

  “No, I don’t think we’re interested. We don’t have any money, thanks.”

  Standing up, motioning for Ted to get up and leave, Alex was anxious to see the back of him. There was something strange about the man. A fidget. An unease. He never sat still. All the time, his eyes were twitching round the dark corners of the camp site, searching for something unseen.

  “Hey, folks. Everyone’s got something valuable. Don’t do yourselves down. It’s all just money at the end of the day, right? Just trying to make a buck, you can’t resent a fella for that.”

  Those eyes kept twitching.

  “Listen,” Ted continued, his voice speeding up, “we’re all going to need something when it all goes back to normal. Dollar, yen, euro, whatever. I don’t care. Just let me take a look at what you got, okay? Maybe you got something I like. Something I want.”

  Ted’s eyes were everywhere. Alex followed them, watched them dance across the shadows.

  Something moved.

  A person, moving through the darkness.

  Alex took out his gun and pointed it at the movement.

  “Stop!”

  Everything went silent. Everything except Ted.

  “Hey, buddy. What’s up? What’s going on? You going crazy on me all of a sudden? Hey, buddy, what’s up?”

  Alex motioned with a hand, calling for quiet just like Cam had done. A balled fist.

  Holding the pistol steady, Alex stepped out into the darkness. His eyes adjusted.

  There. A person. Holding up their hands.

  “Step forward.” Alex’s voice was calm. An order expecting to be obeyed.

  The person shuffled forward, revealing themselves.

  Another man, dressed just like Ted. Jacket and sweaters and all. He held a rusty revolver in his dangling hand. He was taller, thinner. A pair of thin-rimmed glasses perched upon his nose and a fur-lined hat pulled down over the greasy strands of hand which hung over his forehead.

  Alex pointed the gun at him.

  “Hey, buddy. We’re all friends here. What’s going on?”

  Alex could hear Ted. He couldn’t see him anymore. All his attention was focused on the man with the rusted revolver.

  “Cam, take hold of Ted. These two are up to something. And it’s not something nice.”

  A scramble behind him, a scream. Alex stepped to the side, keeping his attention on the tall man while allowing himself to see what was happening behind.

  Ted had taken hold of Joan. From the depths of his jacket, he’d pulled out a knife. He held it to her throat.

  “We’re all friends here, folks.”

  Alex didn’t move. He kept his pistol pointing at the man from the shadows. Ted dug his knife deeper, pressing it into the skin.

  “Let her go.” Alex tried his best to sound calm. “Put down the knife and let her go.”

  “I’m sure we can come to some sort of… arrangement.”

  “No arrangement. You’re going to put down your knife or I’m going to shoot your friend. And then I’m going to shoot you, Ted.”

  “Maybe. Maybe you are. But you reckon you can do that before I cut her?”

  Joan’s glasses had fallen on the ground. Finn growled.

  “Well then”—Ted grinned again—“looks like we got ourselves one of them Mexican stand offs.”

  The man with the rusted revolver stared at Alex. He echoed Ted’s smile. There was no joy in it.

  “Now.” Ted licked his lips. “You’re going to show my buddy here what you got. Maybe we can trade something. Tit for tat, you know?”

  Timmy whistled.

  “Strike!” he shouted to the world at large.

  Alex saw the blurred shape leap through the air. Finn’s teeth locked into Ted’s arm. The man howled in pain, flailing wildly with the knife.

  The rusty revolver twitched.

  “Leave it.” Alex held his gun steady, hiding the nerves. The man froze.

  Cam kicked Ted’s hand, knocking the knife from his grip. Timmy picked up Joan from the ground, but she knocked away his hand and pulled herself upright. She was angry, spitting curses at everyone. Finn was tearing through the sleeve of the anorak as though it were wet tissue paper. Alex whistled and the dog stopped.

  “Maybe now we can make a deal.” Alex took his turn to smile.

  Chapter 27

  “I’m telling you, everyone’s in on it. Everyone.”

  The wind blew in through the open windshield. Up front, they wore the face masks and goggles they’d used on the motorcycles. As Alex drove, Finn placed a paw on each of the front seats and thrust his head between them. He didn’t car
e. The air blew around his ears. Timmy kept talking, leaning down below the dog’s head.

  “The whole damn mess, man. I bet they all know.”

  When Timmy was shaken, Alex had noticed, he talked. Joan didn’t. She was still seething. Angry with the entire state of the world. But she was worrying for two. Timmy just had to talk for himself, running his mouth until he found an explanation or a theory which could possibly explain why bad things happened. Alex played along. It was part of the healing process.

  “Those two guys? They were just grifters, Timmy. Thieves.”

  “Nah, man. They were in on it. Makes me feel better about leaving them tied up, anyway.”

  The car creaked and moaned. Every single one of Alex’s welds shuddered when they hit a pothole. Like loose fillings during a family meal: inevitably painful.

  As Alex and Timmy talked, Joan sat in the middle, trying to make herself as comfortable as possible. No mean feat.

  Cam sat in the trunk. Just about enough space now, with the tent and everything else. He used the binoculars to watch behind them, peeking through a gap in the plastic sheeting.

  “See anything yet?” Alex shouted into the back of the car, the wind taking his words through to the back. Cam held his thumb up, visible in the rear-view mirror. All clear.

  The journey took too long. They could hardly travel above twenty miles an hour before the air billowing inside the car became unbearable. When it started to rain, they’d been soaked. Every half an hour, they stopped, pulled into a gap on the side of the road and waited. Watching.

  So far, nothing had driven past them. No sign of anyone since Charleston.

  Gradually, the roads were filling up. These were the familiar sights on the road to Virginia. Abandoned cars, filled with the dead. Those who had tried to escape before they’d been overcome by the Eko virus. Diseased vehicles crashed into trees, into barriers, and into one another.

  “Nah, this is exactly what I’m talking about, right? So everyone’s in on it. Everyone but us. Well, maybe Finn. We still don’t know his story.” Timmy stroked the dog’s chin and got his hand licked. “So the way I figure it is: they planned this whole thing from the start. For real estate. Get everyone killed, then the Chinese or the Germans or someone move in here and take over.”

  “That’s insane, Timmy.” Alex still couldn’t find a space to pull over. “And it doesn’t help us right now.”

  “No, see, it does. Because there’s going to be a break down in law, right? So everyone’s going to need to start again. We’re going to have to do everything with, like, contracts and stuff. Between people. No government, right? Paradise. Anyway, so we’ll be on the farm. And, once we’re there, it’s ours. Well, yours. But, what I’m saying is we’ll have a head start.”

  “You think people unleashed a global pandemic to get people off their property?”

  “Sure. Why the hell not? Did for Columbus, right? Smallpox blankets, man. Hey, Cam, didn’t you say you were Cherokee? You’ve probably seen this all before, right?”

  “I’ve seen some stuff, sure.”

  They drifted along, the wind still buffeting around the inside of the car.

  “You think they’re still out there?” Timmy almost had to shout. “You think they’ve followed us from Charleston?”

  Alex had been thinking that exact thought. He was certain everyone in the car had been doing the same.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ve only got one plan anyway.”

  “Yeah, I know, man. But, like, do we even know where we’re going?”

  Alex had pointed the car south and not thought about it anymore. He was following the road signs when he could see them. They were on the right track, just about.

  “I guess so, but what’s the other option?”

  “We could hide out somewhere. Pick some strategic spots.”

  Alex nodded and watched the road.

  “That seems… far too sensible for a Timmy suggestion.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Ah, now you got me. You’re the one from around here.”

  “Not this part of the world. Joan? Cam? Anyone?”

  Cam stirred in the back seat.

  “I might know a place.”

  Timmy handed back the creased pages which flapped in the wind.

  Cam pulled the map closer to his face. He began to unfold it, doubling the size every time, like origami in reverse.

  “Here,” he said finally. “Right here. We head back north, come down on the other side – it’ll take a while – there’s a place to stay. Somewhere unexpected.”

  “You know the area?” Alex had grown up on the other side of the national park. This part of the world was almost a foreign country to him.

  “A bit. We were stationed up here before… you know… everything. There’s an airport. Abandoned for a few years. Loads of empty, flat space. Good for keeping watch. Plus, they won’t expect us to get so close to a town.”

  “You reckon we could steal a plane, Cam?” Timmy sounded excited again.

  “If you wanted to crash smack bang into the ground, maybe. I don’t think there’s much like that left there. A ghost town. Even the army won’t go near it.”

  Timmy took the map from Cam and held it up for Alex to see. Beckley. A small town, even on a big map. A long straight line to the side of it. A runway. Alex looked at the surrounding area. One night at that airport and – if they got up early enough – they might even be able to make the park the next day. From there, it was basically a hop, skip, and a jump to Roanoke. He could almost smell the farm air.

  “It’s longer this way,” Alex announced to the car, “and probably more dangerous. We’ll be going close to this town. We don’t know for sure that it’ll shake them. Are we all on board?”

  No one said anything. They all had doubts, Alex knew. He did. Edging closer to the military – to anyone – seemed like a risk. But the world was full of risks. So everyone kept quiet. No one said no.

  * * *

  They drove to the airport. Cam and his map guided them up into the hills. As Alex steered the car around a particularly looping bend, the plains opened out below them. He heard Joan call from the back.

  “Stop! Alex, wait. Pull over.”

  Yet another stop. Yet another pause. The farm still seemed a century away. He did as he was told.

  Behind him, with everyone else remaining in their seats, Joan eased herself out into the fresh air. She ran to the edge of the road, right to the edge where the slope dropped down to the hillside, and she stopped. Armed with the binoculars, she stared out over the horizon.

  “What do you think she’s doing?” Alex asked the others.

  “Probably spotted her ex.” Everyone laughed at Timmy’s joke, but not loud enough that Joan could hear.

  “What the hell is that?” she shouted back. Something in her voice was off. The tone. They moved quickly to get out of the car.

  Alex and Timmy jogged up next to her.

  “What? What are you looking at?” Alex asked her and she just handed him the binoculars.

  “Over there,” she said, guiding his arm as he scanned the ground below. “Can you see?”

  “I don’t see anything, Joan, just a-”

  Then he saw it.

  Alex’s eyes had passed over the town of Beckley, immediately below them.

  On the other side of the urban area, off in the distance, were rows and rows of white-roofed buildings. He could see them without the binoculars.

  When he looked closely – as close as the lenses would allow – he could see the strangeness of it all. They weren’t buildings. They were tents. There must have been thirty of the curved dome roofs, all the size of two football fields joined end to end.

  All around these tents were two sets of fences, separated by maybe ten feet. Guard towers appeared at regular intervals. Alex tried to spot people, to see if anyone was moving down there. But he was too far away.

  “What do you
think it is?” He handed Timmy the binoculars. “Military base?”

  “Woah.” Timmy had begun to take it all in. “Prison? FEMA camp? What the hell, man?”

  “Cam, what do you think it is?” Alex was asking the question to empty air.

  He turned around. Cam was still sitting in the front seat of the car. He hadn’t stirred. Alex walked over to him.

  “Hey, Cam, did you see this? Do you know what it is? Looks military.”

  “I know what it is.” Cam’s voice was low. He stared forward.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “It’s late. We should get going. We need to move.”

  “Sure, but this thing is-”

  “No way we can waste more time.” A quiet bark of a sentence. Alex knew when not to press a matter.

  “Guys, we should get moving.”

  “We can talk about it in the car,” Cam told him.

  With Cam in the front seat and Alex driving, they listened to the story. Cam talked as loudly as he could over the swirling wind as the car wound its way up the sloped roads, higher and higher toward the top.

  “We were stationed near here. Pretty short notice, they shipped us in. Told us it was a quarantine station and, well, we hear it all on the news and that sounds about right. Bunch of us rag tag army types. Drawn from all over. No front-line boys by any means. It’s safe, they tell us, something for everyone’s benefit.”

  Cam held his hand over his face as he spoke. He’d refused Timmy’s googles and mask but tried to keep the air from catching his cheeks. It was cold, even as slow as they were travelling.

  “So it’s like a hospital city, that’s what we’re telling one another. Soon enough, we’re starting to go out in the communities. New town every day, talking to those folks who reported problems. Sick people, we took back with us. Then the white crosses on the doors start to appear, then there’s the whole thing with the president, and we’re still picking people up. Only, now, we’re not seeing so many people.”