“We were doing fine.”
“It didn’t look like it to me. You have no supplies and no weapons. There are shitty people out there.”
I swallowed hard. Apparently, he didn’t realize that he and his men were shitty people. Taking us even though we didn’t want to go.
“Maybe we don’t want to be saved.”
The man laughed. “Then I’m doing you a bigger favor than I already thought I was. I’ll save you from yourself, or you’ll end up like that girl on the ground back there.”
“What if we just walk away?”
“You really can’t do it, can you?”
I shook my head.
“We aren’t going to let you walk away. It’s our duty to bring peace back from this chaos.” He looked me up and down again, I hated the coldness in his eyes. No matter what I’d say, I was pretty sure he’d only hear what he wanted to hear. “We are not bad people.” He stuck out his hand, and I looked at it awkwardly. “I’m Tom. I was a farmer before the shit hit the fan.”
“Gwen,” I said pretending not to notice his hand.
He let his hand fall back to his side. “You’ll see, Gwen. You’ll be thanking me in a couple hours.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Whoa, you can do it.” Tom chuckled at himself. “See anything is possible. Now, how about you get back up there and walk with your friends. I’m done answering questions.”
The group of men acted as if they were doing what they believed was right, but my stomach was uneasy, and it wasn’t just because they were leading us further away from Nick and the others.
We walked most of the day. I tried to move my feet slower, but Tom would just keep hounding us to move faster.
I tried to take a mental picture of everything we walked past. When we were able to get free, we’d have to find our way back to the gas station, and this wasn’t an area I was familiar with. If I had to guess, neither were Danny and Jamie, even though I hoped that they were.
It was around dinner time that we stopped walking. The men walked around in a circle on the soggy ground.
“This will do,” Tom said turning to us. “We’ll camp here for the night.”
“On the wet ground?” I asked.
“Do you have a better idea?” one of Tom’s men asked.
I shrugged. “Inside a building.”
“I don’t see any buildings, do you?” the man asked. He looked down at me as if I were a foolish child.
“Not here, but I’m sure we could find something before we lose daylight.”
“We know this area pretty well,” another man said, plopping down on the ground. He opened the pack he’d been carrying and started chewing on some beef jerky. The man looked up at Tom. “Are we sharing with our guests?”
“We always do,” Tom said flashing me a smile.
Another man reached into his pack and pulled out a faded blue tarp that was muddy on one side. One of the others was stacking sticks near the tarp.
My eyes met Jamie’s as he leaned back against one of the nearby trees. Most of the leaves were missing, and the bark was black. It looked like the tree was fighting for its life.
I could see the desire to leave was strong in his eyes. Danny, on the other hand, didn’t reveal anything which was perhaps something he’d picked up from childhood. It was probably a skill he’d mastered to survive living with his asshole of a father.
Two of the men continued to walk the circle. Both of them holding their guns tightly just in front of their chest.
They shared some of their food with us, but my stomach still rumbled after I’d finished eating. Staying inside the gas station with a variety of foods had been a luxury.
“There’s more at our home,” Tom said seemingly noticing the disappointment on my face. “We typically ration what we take along… you know,” he said with a shrug, “just in case. Hadn’t planned on finding so many today.”
I tried to figure out which way we’d need to go to get back to the gas station and which way would take us to my grandma’s house. Having veered so much from Nick’s original shortcut we’d been on was throwing my sense of direction off.
The second Tom’s men fell asleep, we’d make our run for it, but I wasn’t sure if the best way to go was back toward the gas station. I didn’t want to get lost. But more importantly, if they came after us, I didn’t want to lead them right back to my brother and the others.
I scanned our surroundings as darkness slowly fell around us. There were several times I thought I saw movement in the distance, but when I blinked whatever had been there, was gone. Maybe nothing had been there in the first place.
Tom barely took his eyes off of us. He tried not to make it obvious, but it was… it was painfully obvious.
All I could think about was how the hell we were going to get out of here. Once we were free, then I’d worry about which way we’d need to go.
But getting free was the problem. If we made them think we were happy with what they were doing for us, maybe then they’d let their guard down.
“If you have such a nice place, what are you doing out here?” I asked picking at a ragged fingernail.
“Is it question time again?” Tom asked.
“It’s contagious, huh?” Now I’ve got you asking them.” I flashed him a smile.
He grinned back. “Kill me now.”
“In all seriousness, why bother coming out here?” I asked.
“Truth is we need the help. We’re building. We’re growing.” Tom leaned forward, looking at me as if I should be interested in what he was saying. “The more we get, the quicker we’ll get everything back to what it was.”
“Don’t you think help is on the way?” Danny asked through narrowed eyes.
Tom chuckled. “Do you?”
“My dad said they weren’t coming. I couldn’t help but hope that they were,” Danny said.
“I’m not going to be the one to burst your bubble kid,” Tom said punctuating his sentence with a quick snort. “But we’re going to make things better. We’ll get this shit going again.”
“Do you know what happened?” Jamie asked exhaling slowly.
Tom narrowed his eyes. “That cloud? No idea what that was, but we lost three men to it.”
I glanced over at Jamie. I was sure he could feel me looking at him, but he didn’t turn to meet my gaze.
“Some kind of chemical,” the guy sitting next to Tom said. “It was like a poison eating them from the inside out.”
I didn’t mean the cloud,” Jamie asked. “I mean the first wave… the red sky.”
“No idea. I think there was an EMP but the sky, that was a different poison. Wiped out everyone I knew,” Tom said.
The guy next to Tom leaned forward. “Heard it was some kind of attack on the United States, but no idea if that was true.”
“There could be areas out there they missed. Other people out there… places to go,” I said.
“Could be,” Tom said with a shrug. “But they could be the next target.”
“Or maybe we’ve been quarantined, and they’ll never let us out of here,” Tom’s buddy said.
“Canada?” Danny asked, and all three men looked at him.
Danny shrugged and looked away.
“That’s a good idea, Danny,” I said pressing my lips into a tight smile.
Tom chuckled. “They’ll never let us in, and we have no idea if things are even good up there.” Tom pulled out a cigarette and narrowed his eyes at me while he lit it. “Trust me, what we have going on is the best you’re going to find.”
“Can’t we decide that for ourselves?” I asked. His eyes met mine for a second and the heat that radiated out of them was so much that I had to look away.
Tom stood up. “You act like I’ve taken you prisoner.”
“So, we can leave?” I replied standing, but only came up to his shoulders. My height wasn’t anywhere near as intimidating as his was.
I could tell Jamie and Danny were
standing just behind me. The air around us had changed drastically. It was thick and dense like the humid fog on a hot summer day.
There was a gunshot in the distance. Tom’s men on the perimeter ducked down and the other two at Tom’s side ran over to join them.
Tom, however, sat down, crossed his leg, and kept his eyes and his gun on us. “No, you’re not free to go. I need your help. If I have to recruit you against your will, I will. You’ll change your mind soon enough.”
Twenty-One
After an hour or so the men had given up on the random gunshot. I’d given up hope that it was Bronx coming to save us. I didn’t really want him coming for us because Tom’s men wouldn’t have hesitated to wipe him out of existence.
The night passed by slowly. Jamie and I took turns sleeping, but I didn’t think I fell asleep for more than a few minutes here and there. I didn’t trust Tom or his men.
There was always three of them awake at any given time. I guessed since they were down men since the cloud came through, it changed their rotation. Maybe that would mean the be more tired during the day. Only problem was I would be too.
When the sunlight peeked over the horizon, Tom called for us to all wake up. If we could see, we could walk, which I agreed with, but I didn’t want to be walking anywhere with him or his men.
The day passed by rather quickly. They fed us, and every time I slowed my pace, Tom was right behind me telling me to pick up my feet. It was like the further we got from the gas station, the meaner he became.
He kept telling us it wouldn’t be much further, but we kept moving, and I didn’t see anything in front of us for miles.
The ground was still quite damp, but it was a vast improvement from the standing water we’d started with. Every day the sun was out more and more evaporated away.
I could tell Tom was looking for a place to stop for the night which meant we weren’t at his secret camp yet. I was starting to wonder if there really was a place he was working to rebuild.
“Do you think Nick’s doing any better?” I asked Jamie as I twisted my fingers together.
“It hasn’t been that long,” he responded, his eyes jerking around as he took in our surroundings.
“I know, I just—”
“There’s something out there,” Jamie said, his voice low. “Or someone.”
I squinted, but I couldn’t see whatever it was that Jamie was seeing. “Is it them?”
“I don’t think so.” Jamie shook his head. “In fact, I hope it’s not because these guys will take them out no problem.”
Just as I turned to look at Nick, something zipped through the trees. A soft thud made me turn on my heel to see what had made the noise.
“Get down,” Tom whispered as he waved his palms at the ground.
Again, something whizzed through the air landing softly somewhere behind us. My fingertips dug into the moist soil as I looked over at Jamie.
“Are those bullets?” I asked.
“Sniper?”
My eyes scanned through the trees, but the shadows hid whoever was out there.
“I know that’s you Tom!” someone shouted. Another bullet zipped by hitting a nearby tree.
“Jesus,” one of Tom’s men said.
“Shoot back,” Tom growled.
The man snorted. “I don’t see anyone to shoot, do you?”
“If I can’t see them they can’t see us,” Tom said.
“Well, that’s not necessarily true,” I muttered.
I could feel Tom’s gaze shooting daggers at me, but I choose to ignore them. I’d rather get hit with his visual daggers versus one of the bullets.
Maybe this would be our chance to get away. Find a way to escape. But we needed to do it without getting shot in the back by either Tom or his enemy’s stray bullets.
“We want our stuff back!” the voice in the distance shouted.
“Shit!” Tom said into the dirt. He turned back to his buddy. “We gotta get out of here.”
Tom made several hand gestures at his men and then nodded. We stayed low to the ground as we changed course.
Two of Tom’s men stayed behind us, and two led the way. Tom stayed just behind Jamie, Danny and I. There wasn’t anywhere for us to go but forward. If we tried to drop back, Tom’s enemy would take us out thinking it was Tom and his men.
Our only choice was to keep going. At least for now.
We kept moving after darkness swallowed us, the pale moonlight dimly lighting the way. I kept tripping over twigs and branches, at least that’s what I assumed they were.
We hadn't heard anything in hours, so I braved asking Tom a question. After all, I knew how much he loved questions.
“Who were those guys?” I asked.
“Bad guys. We had to kick them out,” Tom said.
“Seems like maybe they think you guys are the bad guys,” I said.
Tom glanced at me before turning forward again. His eyes reflected the moon giving them a slight sparkle. “Seems those thoughts are contagious.”
“Maybe if you didn’t take people against their will,” I said, and both Jamie and Danny chuckled softly.
“And once they see what we’re doing, they always change their mind,” Tom said confidently.
“Those guys don’t think so,” I retorted.
Tom shook his head. “Those guys are idiots. Which is why they got kicked out. If we hadn’t lost our men to that fog, we would have been able to end them once and for all.”
“They come around a lot?” I asked.
“No, they just find us while we’re recruiting. Trying to pick us off one by one,” Tom said. “That’s just the kind of scum they are. Anyway, it’ll be over soon, so nothing to worry about.”
I swallowed. “How do you know that?”
“Ten or less of them left. They might have lost some to the fog too for all I know.” Tom sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “Hope they did. Anyway,” he cleared his throat, “we should be there by morning if we keep walking through the night.”
“Yay,” I said making sure there wasn’t a drop of enthusiasm in my voice.
“You’ll see,” Tom said. He grinned at me in the darkness, the moon lighting his teeth as if it were a black light. “You guys will never want to leave.”
I wasn’t even there, and all I could think about was leaving. There wasn’t anything they could have that would make me want to stay.
Nothing.
“We’ll see about that,” I muttered.
Tom grunted. “A little less talk and a lot more walk.”
Twenty-Two
When morning came, we stepped out into a clearing. The tall grasses in front of us danced back and forth in the light breeze.
Tom stopped and looked around. He pointed and started leading us seemingly back from where we’d come from.
I was so twisted and turned around that I had no idea which way the gas station was. For that matter, I wasn’t even sure which way my grandma’s house was. I needed a road, a sign, something so that I could reorient myself. Being out in the middle of nowhere in an area I’d never traveled before as like being trapped in a maze.
If I was lucky, Jamie or Danny would remember the way back to the gas station. But maybe it would be better to head to my grandma’s and wait for Nick just like he had wanted us to do.
It was just like Nick to get his way. Things never changed.
“It’s just over that hill,” Tom said scanning the horizon.
“How long are we staying home this time, Tom?” one of his men asked.
Tom shrugged. “Not long.” He turned to me. “Every time we go out there we find fewer and fewer people.”
“I’m surprised you find any at all,” I said.
“I’m surprised we found anyone after that poisonous fog,” Tom said eying us one after the other.
“How did everyone at your amazing place survive?” I asked.
Tom looked at the ground as he shook his head. “Our base was just
outside the cloud. I don’t think it came out quite this far. Something descended out of the sky, and the cloud grew out from it. Then it started crawling across the ground.”
“So, it wasn’t widespread?” I asked.
“Don’t think so. Of course, there could have been more than one.” Tom bit at a hangnail mostly ignoring me. “But the one here stretched out far. Miles. I was lucky to be on the outside, although when it grew, I got pretty worried.”
“You followed it?” Danny asked.
Tom nodded.
He’d mentioned losing men to the fog. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had sent the men into the fog to investigate and then left them to die when they didn’t come back. Although I wasn’t sure why I thought that, it wasn’t like I knew Tom all that well. But I did know he was forcing us to join him against our will. He was probably capable of a lot more.
We moved through a thin line of trees, half of which looked like they were dying. When we got to the other side, before stepping out, Tom held up his hands to stop us.
I could see a fenced in zone that looked as though it had once been a military base of some kind.
Tom pulled out a mirror and wiggled it back and forth in the sunlight. Something flashed back at us through the fenced in area, and Tom shoved the mirror back into his pocket before motioning for us to walk.
Two of Tom’s men led the way. One looked to the left and the other to the right. All of them held their guns with their eyes darting around like the silver ball in a pinball machine.
“Is your home not safe?” I asked.
“Usually is, but you met our friends that want to destroy everything we’ve built.” Tom exhaled slowly. “Need to protect what we have.”
As we approached the fence, my stomach started to swirl sending thick bile up the back of my throat that I couldn’t swallow back down. If we stepped inside the fence I was almost certain we’d never get out again.
My heart started to race, and I could feel sweat beading up at my temples. Jamie looked at me, and I was sure he could tell what I was feeling based on the pinched-up expression he was wearing.
Jamie grabbed my hand as the chain-link fence clanked as it was pulled to the side. My feet stopped working, and he squeezed my hand. He leaned in close.
The Red Sky Series (Book 2): Blue Cloud Page 12