by Eric Vall
“I understand,” Paige said, and she gave me a small smile. “We’re all here for you, you know.”
“I know that,” I said, and I walked over and pulled her into my arms.
She sighed into me and laid her head against my shoulder.
It was sweet of her to be so concerned about me. I knew it wasn’t commonplace for the girls to see me so upset. I kept my head about me, it was one of the things they could count on, and while that was still true, my fight with Brody the day before must have been something strange for them to witness. They’d seen me go up against bears, and a few men, with my knife, but mostly they saw me take people out with my gun. It was safer than close combat, and in this day and age with no proper medical care to speak of, everything was about safety first. I don’t think the girls had ever seen me blatantly attack someone with my fists before, and it probably put them a bit out of sorts, though I knew they supported the idea. We were all equally pissed at Brody, there was no denying that.
Still, her desire to make me feel better about everything was admirable, especially when I knew she was just as upset.
I kissed the top of her head, then let her get back to work. Tara and Bailey returned with the hoses, and after a while, we had a nice pile of most of the supplies on our list, along with quite a few other gardening things that we thought would come in handy, like landscape staples and rods for beans to grow up along.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps, so I turned around to see Anna running toward us.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I heard a vehicle,” the redhead breathed as she skidded to a halt. “I think it was a jeep.”
“They’re here,” I said.
“I think so,” she agreed with a nod. “But I can’t see anything, I could only hear it.”
“Everyone up to the roof, now,” I instructed, and Bailey took off with all of us close behind her.
The blonde led us to the stockroom, and up a ladder against the back wall. There was a hatch at the top of the ceiling which led to the room, and we all crawled out quickly and headed to the front of the store. There was a concrete lip around the building that was about three feet high, and we were able to crouch behind it and peer over to check out the town.
As soon as we got onto the roof I could hear the vehicle, and it was definitely a jeep. There was no doubt in my mind that it was more of those assholes, probably the same ones who had killed that innocent couple that still laid down below on the street.
When I peered over the edge of the building, I got a good view of the neighborhood, and I could clearly see that there was a jeep headed down the road straight toward where we were. I didn’t know if they had heard us, or if they were just making rounds, but either way, they were in for a rude awakening.
A few streets over there was another jeep, so I did a quick scan around, and even checked behind us, but I didn’t see any others. I guess they figured that a two jeep team was plenty large enough for a town this size.
“I only see the two,” Anna said when she saw me looking around.
“Me, too,” I agreed.
“The one is headed right for us,” Paige said.
“Good,” I growled. I was livid. About the couple on the ground below us, about the women who had died the day before at the hands of someone I had once considered a friend, and about all the rest of the innocent civilians who had been abused or killed at the hands of these merciless douchebags. I was ready to take them out, and I was ready to do it right then.
“If we kill them then won’t it alert whoever is in charge that there’s someone after them?” Anna asked. “Especially since we took out that caravan yesterday.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “But that was a lot further north than where we are now. They probably won’t connect the two, but even if they do, these assholes deserve to die.”
“They did kill that poor couple down there,” Bailey said with a frown. “And it looked like they were just passing through.”
“I’m with Tav and Bailey,” Tara said. “Let’s take these fuckers down. I’m so sick of running into druggies.”
“Alright,” Anna said with a determined nod. “Let’s do this.”
“What’s our strategy?” Paige asked.
“We can’t start shooting now,” Bailey said. “We could scare off the jeep that’s a few streets away.”
“Even if we didn’t scare them off, they’d know we were here,” Anna pointed out. “Better to have the element of surprise.”
“Right,” I agreed. “We’ll wait until they’re both close enough to take them down at once.”
“I’m sure I can take out a driver,” Bailey said as she set up her M14 and got it into position.
“We’re all sure you can do that,” Tara chuckled.
“Good idea, Bailey,” I said. “You take out the driver of one, I’ll take out the driver of the other one. Everyone else be ready to start picking guys off.”
“Sounds good to me,” Anna said, and she checked the chamber of her rifle.
I watched the jeeps traveling slowly through the town, and I set my sights on the one that was closest to us. It would arrive soon enough, and my hope was that once they saw our truck they would stop and give the other jeep time to catch up, but if they happened to get out and start problems then we’d just have to take them out first. Either way, both of these jeeps were full of dead men walking, and I was ready.
“Here they come,” Anna whispered as we all watched the jeep get closer to the street we were parked on.
The jeep pulled up slowly, and I watched as the men inside looked around with skeptical eyes. They had their M16s raised, and they had obviously spotted our truck.
I waited for the driver to pull over and park, but before he did he went out of his way to run over the couple that laid in the road. These jackasses had been the ones to kill them, and now they were just adding insult to injury.
“Oh, my god,” Bailey whispered next to me, so I reached my hand out and put it on her arm for a second.
It was an utterly disgraceful treatment of the dead, and if I was pissed before, then that single act put me into full on rage mode. I wanted to reach through that driver’s side window and pull that guy out by his throat. What kind of monster runs over the dead for no reason?
I felt my jaw set as the jeep finally came to a stop, though the driver didn’t turn the engine off. Instead, they all sat and looked around for a moment while they talked amongst each other.
“What are they doing?” Paige whispered.
“They’ve obviously spotted our truck,” Anna added. “Why aren’t they inspecting it.”
“They’re probably waiting for backup,” I answered.
“You think?” Tara asked. “These guys don’t seem afraid of attacking people, and I doubt they waited for backup before they killed that couple.”
“That couple didn’t have a military vehicle,” I said, and I felt a slight smile spread across my lips. “They’re scared.”
These guys were used to going up against opponents who couldn’t defend themselves, but today that would change. We weren’t your average travelers or even your average survivors. We were a well-oiled machine that was about to fuck their days up.
The other jeep made its way down the road at the slow pace that these assholes typically kept, but they were only a few streets down, and they’d soon arrive on our street and see their buddies parked outside.
We wouldn’t give them a chance to confer with each other, though. We’d take them out before they could even think. As soon as the other jeep was in range it was time to go into action. I looked over to my girls to see that each of them had their rifles set up and aimed, and their faces wore expressions of anger and defiance. We were all mad about the couple down there, and seeing the driver run them over had only served to fuel our hatred.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. I had to keep a cool head and make sure that I hit my target, otherwise, we could all be in dang
er. We couldn’t give these guys a chance to react or they could easily figure out that we were firing from the roof.
There were four men in each jeep, just as there usually was with these assholes, which was plenty for everyone to at least get one douchebag of their choosing.
“Call your targets,” I whispered as the other jeep grew closer and closer. I didn’t care what vehicle or guys the girls chose, but I wanted the driver who had run over the couple.
“I’ll take the second jeep driver,” Bailey said softly.
“I’ll take the second jeep, too,” Anna said.
“I have the first jeep driver,” I said, and I was more than happy with that pick. It was just a formality for me to call it anyways, the girls all knew who I planned to take down first.
“I got the first jeep with you,” Tara whispered.
“I guess I’ll go where I’m needed,” Paige added.
“Get ready,” I said as the second jeep approached the first.
The men from the first jeep moved to step out, so I let the driver get out onto the street and slam the door shut before I locked in on his throat and pulled the trigger.
He was flung back into the truck by the force of the bullet, and blood immediately started to flow down his throat to his chest. He dropped his M16 and instinctively reached for his wound, but it was far too late.
Before the first driver even had a chance to reach for his throat, I heard Bailey’s rifle crack, and I knew she had taken out the second driver.
Panic ensued as the men that were outside of the jeep tried to rush for cover, and those inside the second jeep tried to get the dead driver out of the way so they could make a getaway.
A few of them let out a spray of bullets, but they obviously didn’t know where to shoot. I had given them too much credit in thinking they would figure that out easily. These guys were organized, yes, but they weren’t military trained. They probably didn’t have formal training whatsoever, and the only thing they knew how to do well was point and shoot. Unfortunately, that skill rarely helped in an ambush, something that became abundantly clear to them as my team steadily took out their men.
I got another guy who had tried to hide on the other side of the first jeep, but he exposed himself to fire into the storefront and took a bullet to the dome in the process.
Tara took out his buddy that tried the same thing, but toward the front of the jeep instead of the back, and Paige took out the guy who tried to climb back in through the window.
Our jeep was clear, and I heard Anna fire another shot, but when I aimed my rifle at the second jeep I realized that that had been the final shot. Their jeep was clear now as well. The driver was half pushed out of the front seat from when the others tried to get him out of the way, and another guy was sprawled out across the passenger seat, still with his arms on the driver as if to finish pushing him out the door.
It looked like the other two had tried to make a run for it.
“Did you purposefully let those two get almost to the corner before you took them out?” I asked as I looked at the bodies.
“Yup,” Anna said. “I thought they deserved to feel a little bit more fear.”
“Bailey?” Paige snickered. “You were down with this?”
“Well,” the blonde hippie said, and she lowered her head, “I saw what Anna was doing, and I thought about those women yesterday and how scared they were. I guess I agreed that they deserved a little bit of terrorizing.”
“I like it,” I told them with a wide smile.
“That’s creepy,” Tara said.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re smiling about us killing these assholes,” she chuckled.
“It’s true,” Paige said, “you don’t normally do that.”
“I guess I don’t,” I agreed. “But these were low lives, and they deserved what they got.”
“It’s true,” Tara said. “I was pretty shocked when they ran over that couple.”
“That was so sad,” Bailey added with a frown.
“And unnecessary,” Anna said with a shake of her head. “Such a dick move.”
“Which is exactly why I wanted that driver,” I said.
“Oh, we know,” Paige said.
“I figured you did,” I laughed.
“I could practically hear you fucking that guy up in your mind,” Anna said.
“It was a pretty hot sound,” Tara said, and she winked at me.
“You think so?” I asked.
“It’s always pretty sexy when you get mad,” the platinum blonde said, and the other girls nodded their agreement.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “I thought maybe I had scared you all when I attacked Brody yesterday. I know you don’t see me get angry that often.”
“I think we were all more concerned about you,” Anna said. “You never lose your cool like that, we just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “I wasn’t scared of you, it was just awful to see you so upset.”
“Especially since there was nothing we could do to fix it,” Bailey said.
“I enjoyed watching you whoop Brody’s ass. Fuck that guy. ” Tara shrugged, and we all laughed.
“Of course you would,” Anna chuckled.
“Alright,” I said with a clap and a grin. “Let’s pack up our supplies and rob these assholes blind before we head home.”
The girls followed me back down the ladder into the stockroom, and we started to carry supplies from our pile out to our truck. We had managed to find everything on Rolly’s list, plus a few other things that might come in handy. You never knew when you’d have another opportunity to pick up more nails, screws, and toolbelts. Everything fit into the back of the truck easily, and soon we were ready to rifle through the jeeps across the street.
“Alright,” Anna said as she walked backwards toward the jeeps, “let’s see what these fuckers have.”
“More drugs probably,” Paige chuckled.
“Do you think it makes them more suspicious or less suspicious when they find their guys all dead, and the drugs haven’t been taken?” Tara asked.
“Why would that make them more suspicious?” Bailey asked.
“They’re already paranoid,” Tara said with a shrug, “maybe that would just add to it. They’d probably think that someone was targeting drug addicts.”
“This isn’t an episode on a crime TV show,” Paige laughed. “I bet they’re just happy since that means more drugs for whoever finds them.”
“Good point,” Tara agreed.
“That is a good point, actually,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Bailey asked.
“From now on, when we go through the jeeps and find drugs, we get rid of it,” I instructed.
“Fair enough,” Anna said. “We don’t need to be putting more directly back into their hands.”
“Right,” I agreed.
I started to pull M16s off of dead men and toss them into a pile, along with anything else I found on their persons that I thought could be useful. They didn’t have much, two of them had knives, and I found a zippo on one of them, but mostly they didn’t carry anything except their guns and cigarettes.
“How do these guys always have cigarettes?” Anna asked as she pulled a pack out of one of their jacket pockets. “It doesn’t make sense. What, did they steal all the cigarettes as soon as the EMP hit?”
“Probably,” I laughed.
“A lot of places sell cigarettes,” Paige said. “And you can get them by the carton, so they probably went and stole as many as they could once everything went to hell.”
“It doesn’t surprise me at all that cigarettes and booze would be the first things to fly off the shelves when shit goes down,” Tara chuckled.
“Gotta have the necessities,” Bailey joked.
“Has anyone found anything else interesting?” I asked.
“Found more white powder stuff in the glove box,” Paige said.
; “Not surprising,” Anna snorted.
“There’s something else,” the brunette said.
“What is it?” I asked, and I headed over to the passenger’s side of the jeep where she stood.
“It’s a map,” she said as she inspected the paper.
Everyone gathered around as we peered over Paige’s shoulder to get a better view. I could feel the girls press up against my back and shoulders, and Tara even hung onto my arm and stood on her tiptoes to get a vantage point.
“Does it give any indication of where more outposts are?” Anna asked.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Paige said with a shake of her head.
“Well, what does it tell you?” Tara asked.
“It’s a map of Vermont,” the brunette answered.
“I’m not following,” Anna said.
“Does that mean that they’re only in Vermont?” Bailey asked.
“I think it does,” I agreed as I looked over the map as well. There were a few marks that had been made with pens, but they appeared to be accidental, and there were no indicating marks like circles or lines to show where they were headed or where they came from.
“Why do you think they had a map?” Bailey asked. “Do you think they’re not from around here?”
“Have any of the others had maps?” Tara asked.
“Not that I remember,” Anna said with a shake of her head. “But I might not have thought anything of it if I saw one.”
“That’s understandable,” Paige said. “And no, Bail, I don’t think it means they’re not from around here.”
“Then what?” Bailey asked.
“Even someone who lived in Vermont probably wouldn’t know every small town around,” I said. “I think the map is just for traveling. These guys are probably assigned different posts each day, so it makes sense that they’d need a map to get there.”
“Exactly,” Paige said. “I bet none of us could name any cities outside of fifty miles of where we grew up. No small ones at least.”
“I could barely get street names down,” Tara said with a shake of her head.
“So the map doesn’t mean anything?” Bailey asked.
“Not really,” Paige said. “But I’ll take it anyways and look it over at home. I might be able to find something about it that could be useful.”