“Now what?” Tanya asked.
Carl looked up ahead and saw a few buildings a distance off to the right, between the road they were on and I-40. There were some trailers as well as various dead trees and forest vegetation. “There,” he said, pointing. “We go there. Looks like a campground, we’ll reconnoiter there and figure out what’s next. There’s got to be something we can scavenge or use in this town.”
Tanya nodded and turned to watch Dustin and Jessie as they slowly caught up to them. Carl relayed the plan and, cutting across country again, they headed out in the same spread as before. Using what cover the uneven ground provided, Carl moved slow enough so that Jessie could keep up.
He called a halt again as they neared the campground, gesturing for Tanya to move up and join him. Once she reached him, he gestured for her rifle and took it once she handed it over, a questioning look on her face. Carl looked through the scope, adjusting it as he swept back and forth over the campground turned compound before handing it back to her.
“Found our truck,” he muttered to her, then turned to gesture the other two up to join them. Tanya raised the rifle herself and peered through it, seeing what Carl had seen.
“Campground’s been turned into a fortress,” Carl told them once Dustin and Jessie had joined them. “The truck is there, so we found some people.”
Dustin looked excitedly at his sister and Jessie, then back to Carl. “So let’s go! They’ll have water and a phone and all that stuff!”
“And maybe standing orders to shoot on sight,” Carl replied. “Jessie, you keep them here, I’ll make contact.”
“They know who you are,” Jessie said, reminding him of his encounter with Captain Garza in Edland. “If there’s a price on our heads it’s on yours too. Then where’s that leave us.”
Carl stared at her, then finally nodded acceptance. “Alright, we all go in-by the numbers. There’s a barb wire fence then about 50 yards to what looks like a storage or equipment building.”
He detailed the way he wanted them to assault the campground, then they moved out. It went off without any major hitches, although Dustin had trouble clearing the two level barb wire fence when his turn came. Tanya, as before, was the last one in.
Carl slipped around side of the building and found a door in the side. It was locked when he tried it, but foot prints in the sandy desert floor confirmed that not all of Needles was a ghost town. He peered ahead and guessed it to be several hundred yards through multiple camp sites, some with trailers in them, to the clubhouse. The skeletons of trees and bushes, as well as a few dying or dead cacti separated the camp sites.
Carl glanced up, seeing the sun was only a little past the middle of the day, and wondered how stupid storming a potentially hostile compound in the middle of the day was. With a scowl, he realized he had no choice. A few gestures to give directions and he was off, running at the same time Dustin moved to take up his new position. Jessie and Tanya staggered their moves next. In this manner they moved through the campground quickly and quietly. Carl saw signs of inhabitation, and even heard a couple talking inside one trailer he took cover beside, but rather than stop short to investigate, he pushed forward to the clubhouse.
Carl signaled to the others, stopping them from where they took cover behind some dried out cactus husks that still looked lethal with their needles. People were unloading the barrels from the back of the pickup truck and moving them inside the clubhouse. Carl counted three men, with another person supervising. None of them appeared to be armed but he saw a rifle near the woman, leaning against a wall.
“Stay here,” he growled to them. Jessie opened her mouth to protest but Carl’s glare kept her quiet. “Tanya, keep that woman in your sights, if she goes for that rifle stop her. You two, cover me if it gets ugly.”
Tanya was already setting up her rifle and sighting it in. Jessie nodded and shifted to a better firing position. Dustin followed her lead, leaving himself exposed in the process. Jessie quickly redirected him to cover their flank in case things got ugly and reinforcements came at them. Seeing them ready quickly, Carl nodded and bit back his smile. It had taken truly miserable conditions, but he had turned them into an almost combat ready unit, albeit a small one.
M4 slung across his back, Carl rose up and walked casually across the open ground towards the crew at the truck. A hundred yards easily separated him from his destination, but he had crossed nearly two thirds of it before the woman glanced his way and, after an additional moment of staring at him, she realized she did not know him.
“Hey!” she shouted, turning to make a grab for her gun.
“Don’t touch that rifle!” he yelled at her. Between the two of them shouting, the other three men either turned to look or reappeared around the side of the clubhouse. “You’re in my sniper’s crosshairs,” Carl added.
She turned back to him and waited while Carl closed to about 10 yards. He stopped and looked at her, the truck, and the three men pressed into manual labor. “Who’re you?” she asked.
“You first,” he said.
“Name’s Aggie, this here is the Needles KOA campground,” she said. “Now you go.”
Carl ignored her. “What happened here? To Needles, I mean.”
“Fever or fallout,” she said, not wanting to give him much. “Colorado River’s poisoned, killed the whole region.”
“My squad needs some water and medical attention, got any to spare?”
“You ain’t military,” she said, staring at him. “Pretty shitty looking for mercenaries. I’m betting you’re bandits. Probably just you too, otherwise you’d have taken what you wanted.”
“Your defenses ain’t the best,” Carl pointed out. “How about that water?”
“What you got to trade?”
Carl’s first instinct was to respond by letting her know he could have her killed with a look. Diplomacy, he realized, might be a better tactic. “We’re low on supplies,” he admitted. “I can show you how to rig up a proper defense, stop anything short of a tank.”
Carl glanced at the clubhouse and saw how dark it was inside. “No power? I could help you with that too.”
Aggie snorted. “Earl, go get Harold.”
One of the men snapped off a, “Yes, ma’am,” and hurried off past Carl to the only house on the campground, a single story building that was clearly better maintained then any of the others he had seen thus far.
“Where you come from?” Aggie asked him while her man was off fetching Harold.
Carl shrugged, “We been walking for a while. Came in from the west.”
“Ain’t much out there,” she observed. “LA still a wasteland?”
Carl nodded. As far as he knew, he was telling the truth. Better she think they were from further away than what the truth was. “Saw a tanker head west yesterday, any idea where that’s headed?”
She shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine. They drove straight through on 40.”
A few moments passed in tense silence, waiting for Harold to arrive. A few more people started filtering into the picture, emerging from buildings and trailers to come and see what was going on. Many of them were armed, Carl noted, but none of them carried a weapon with the familiarity that made him nervous.
“Why don’t you call your men in,” Aggie suggested, “you done no wrong to us, we won’t be doing none to you. We can’t reach an agreement, you go your way. We ain’t going to stop you.”
Carl smiled. Aggie was an older woman, late forties or early fifties he figured. She had a sunhat on, shielding her face, but he could still see the lines and wrinkles the desert sun had caused her. “I’d just as soon wait. You got an awful lot of people with guns.”
She smiled back, then shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, then lapsed into silence while they waited.
Their wait was short lived. Harold, a man wearing a cowboy hat who looked to also be in his early fifties, returned with the man sent to fetch him. He walked up to Aggie and stood beside her,
eyeing Carl all the while. Carl noted he wore a large caliber revolver in a holster on his hip and carried it comfortably.
“Name’s Harold,” he began. “I hear you’re in need of some supplies and help?”
Carl nodded. “Water,” he said. “Medical attention if you’ve got it.”
“We don’t put much stock in money around here,” he said, glancing around. Carl noticed how his eyes were searching for the hidden members of Carl’s squad. “And I’m guessing you’re not having much for trade?”
“Right,” Carl said. “Your men look untrained, we can work for it.”
“Work for it?” he mused, then chuckled. “You think we need an army? Look around, Needles is dead! We’re in the middle of a wasteland nobody wants to call home!”
“Harold,” Aggie said, interrupting him.
He glared at her, silencing her. Carl noted the look and knew there was something they weren’t sharing. “Maybe,” Carl said, “but we still came in without any problems. Next time it might be some slavers or bandits. Maybe just a pack of wild animals looking for a meal. Your barb wire going to hold them off?”
“What’s your name?” he asked after a moment of thought hidden behind a half smile.
“Carl,” Carl told him.
“Your outfit got a name?”
“Not an outfit,” Carl said. He had concocted a story already, but he saw no reason to volunteer it if it was not necessary.
“Look Carl, we aren’t getting anywhere. You’re gonna have to show me some trust. I’m not the one who can’t lick his lips,” he said, reminding Carl that he had the upper hand.
Carl nodded slowly. He knew where he stood, he’d just hoped Harold wouldn’t pick up on it so quickly. “Were you a cop?”
Harold smiled. “Spent some time as a sheriff back east before Aggie and I moved out here and bought the campground.”
Carl turned and gestured to Jessie and Dustin. A moment later they emerged from their cover and made their way over, Jessie leaning heavily on the boy for assistance. “My sniper’s still out there,” Carl said as they approached
“Carl, come on,” Harold said, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter to you that I was a police officer?”
Carl shook his own head and smiled, “I’ve known my share of cops,” he said.
Harold laughed out loud, “Fair enough. So, who do we have here?”
“Couple of lost souls we picked up a while back. Jessie and Darin,” Carl said, remembering the name Dustin had adopted while staying in Edland. “Brother and sister.”
“And your sniper? Who’s he?”
“That’s my daughter,” Carl said, continuing the lie.
“Your daughter?” Aggie gasped in surprise. “Your daughter is your sniper?”
He nodded. “She dropped a mule deer from 400 yards in a cross breeze two days ago,” he said. “That was the last time we ate.”
“That’s a good shot,” Harold said. “What’s she shooting?”
“Colt M24, chambered for the .308 Winchester magnum.”
Harold whistled, impressed. He turned as Jessie and Dustin arrived and did a double take. Then he grinned and started laughing. A minute later he slapped his knee and pointed at Jessie. “Hot damn!” he said, turning to his wife. “You know who this is?”
Aggie stared at Jessie and then her mouth fell open too. “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my! What…how… oh dear, we’ve got to get you inside and let you sit down!”
Carl stared, shocked at the sudden change of attitude. Aggie rushed over to Jessie and helped carry the exhausted woman over to a dirty lawn chair that was being dragged by a couple of men Harold had snapped his fingers at. They put it under a faded umbrella that rose out of a round table and held it steady while Jessie was carefully allowed to sit in it.
“Somebody get some water! You, Gene, go get Doc Allen!” Aggie said as soon as she had stepped away from Jessie.
“Miss Banks, this is an honor! I never… well, I hope you’ll forgive us our rudeness, we had no idea! Are you filming a movie out here?”
“Miss Banks?” Carl repeated to himself. He knew who she was, he just had no idea this was the sort of reception she would receive. He shook his head and saw Jessie meet his eyes briefly with her own. She smiled, flabbergasted as well, and returned to soaking up the attention.
Carl snapped out of his shock when Harold pressed a tall glass filled with water into his hand. “Drink up, friend,” he said with a smile. “Sorry about all that, but, you can’t be too careful these days.”
Carl looked at it and then was drinking, trying to take it slowly. It burned going down at first, but once the dust and dryness was washed away it tasted sweeter than the most sugared soda. He forced the glass away, half empty, and saw Harold admiring the actress, who was trying to fight Aggie for the water the woman kept pulling away from her after she took a few sips.
“That’s one hell of a woman you got there,” Harold said.
Carl looked at him, surprised again. “Not my girl,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep her alive.”
Harold nodded, then seemed to hear what Carl had said. He turned to look at him. “You know who she is, don’t you?”
Carl shrugged. “Said she was an actress.”
Harold laughed and clapped Carl on the shoulder. “An actress? Well, yeah, she is. She’s our favorite, Aggie and me. Got every one of her movies too! Hey, if you guys stay long enough you’re welcome to come up and watch them!”
“Thanks,” Carl muttered, not quite sure about the offer.
“Hey, your daughter? Better get in here if she’s as bad off as you guys are.”
Carl nodded and looked away, surprised he had forgotten about Tanya in the wake up all that was happening. He gestured and she hopped down from the top of the trailer she had somehow managed to climb up on, then jogged her way in. “This is my daughter, Tanya,” Carl said loudly as she approached so that she would hear and understand.
Carl reached out and shook her hand, instantly surprised by the strength of her return handshake. He yelled over to one of the men and a glass of water was handed to her as well. She drank eagerly from it, and then stopped when she saw Carl’s was only half empty.
“Nothing wrong with it,” Carl assured her. “Just taking my time. Drink too fast and you’ll get sick.”
She nodded, smiled a little, and took another prolonged sip.
“Jizzy Banks, here in my campground,” Harold mused, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“My life’s been full of surprises since she showed up too,” Carl said meaningfully. He saw Tanya smirk out of the corner of his eye but Harold was too spellbound by the actress turned dust bunny to notice.
Chapter 17
“Carl, what say you and I take a walk,” Harold said after Jessie had been sufficiently fawned over and they all drank their fill.
Carl nodded. He had expected something like this. “Tanya, keep an eye on those two for me, I’ll be right back,” he said. She nodded and forced her way in through the crowd to be closer to her brother and Jessie.
Carl’s eyes caught Jessie’s again. She was smiling and trying to be friendly but he could see the strain in her expression. He smirked at her, then shook his head and turned to walk away. “Carl! Wait!”
He turned back, surprised at the urgent tone in her voice. She tried to get up but she was promptly reminded to not move by the doctor, a quirky and fiery woman by the name of Tempest Allen. “I’ll be back,” he told her.
In spite of his reassurance, Jessie looked almost frantic. She looked around quickly at the people surrounding her. Her eyes fell on Tanya and Dustin, also near her, and she looked back at Carl. He could see the way her eyes looked at him suspiciously. “I’ll be back,” he said again, emphasizing it to reassure her.
Carl turned and walked with Harold, who had watched the entire exchange but said nothing. The older man led him towards the house, but veered to the north of it and said nothing until they were out of earsh
ot and eyesight of the others.
“Pretty girl, Miss Banks,” Harold observed.
Carl fought the urge to snort in derision or agree with him; instead he stayed quiet and let Harold wonder.
“I know Jessie was in the army,” he continued when Carl refused to take the bait. “What about you?”
“You seem to know a lot about her,” Carl observed.
“My wife and I are big fans,” Harold admitted with a chuckle. “We’ve got everything she’s ever done – thanks to the Internet, when we still had it. We even got our hands on the recruiting videos she made.”
Carl grunted, surprised. “Cops make the best stalkers.”
Harold laughed again. “I like you, Carl! So how about it, what’s your story? I’m not prying, see, just need to make sure we haven’t let a wolf into my flock of sheep. We got enough problems to deal with, don’t need a new one.”
“I spent some time in the army,” Carl offered after a moment. “Did some private work after that. Came back here after I’d had enough.”
Harold stopped and surveyed the distant barb wire fence. “Here’s the rub, Carl. I think I like you, you seem like my kind of guy. I can’t blame you for not opening up, can’t say I’d be too quick to do it in your shoes. I need more though. You keeping Miss Banks safe earns you some points, but I’ve got an active imagination. Aggie calls me paranoid,” he said, chuckling. “We’re still alive though, considering what’s out there, so that ought to mean something.”
“What’s out there?” Carl asked before he could stop himself.
Harold looked at him for a long moment before he said anything. “You know what happened here?”
Carl shook his head, wondering how much of this he was going to put up with. He had never been known for his skills at diplomacy.
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