Avenger (The Bugging Out Series Book 6)

by Noah Mann

  I never got the chance. From the right, up on the bank, a fast whooooosh sound snapped the silence, and a flash of something, dark and long, rocketed downward at Olin, the man jerking as something struck him.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  He squeezed off a burst just as I ducked, rounds sailing past my head. So close that I felt a searing hotness upon my right cheek and temple. Olin twisted, the AR falling from his grip, his position allowing me to see the crossbow bolt protruding from both sides of his neck, razor sharp broadhead at its tip half embedded in his right shoulder.

  I glanced up the bank of the creek and saw who had fired the saving shot. Dalton. He stood there above the mist-covered waters, empty crossbow in one hand, the other drawing a revolver from his waistband.

  Splash!

  I looked fast toward the sound. Where I should have seen Olin, there was only empty air and swirling mist where he’d stood. He’d gone under water, using the fog to mask his retreat.

  Above, Dalton began sidestepping his way down the bank, coming to my aid.

  “No!”

  I shouted my admonition to him as I found my Springfield on Ansel’s submerged body. After clearing it of water, I fished my AR from the creek where Olin had dropped it and did the same.

  “I’m dealing with him,” I said, sloshing through the veiled creek toward Dalton.

  “I suppose it’s good my aim was off, then,” he said.

  Behind him, just approaching the top of the creek’s bank, was Lo. He held his AK at the ready, backing up his leader.

  “Just let me handle him,” I said.

  Dalton glanced to where Ansel’s body had fallen near the shore, then to Moira’s feet dangling from the edge of the covered bridge. A somber realization washed over him, though it was not born of any grief toward these two.

  “Gina wasn’t back in town,” Dalton said. “She’s dead, isn’t she.”

  “She is,” I confirmed. “Olin killed her.”

  Dalton looked to the creek, ground fog creeping up the opposite bank and into the grey woods. There was some connection between him and the woman who’d been shot dead on my porch. Possibly something they’d kept to themselves. Whatever the reason for his solemn reaction, my focus had to stay on what mattered to me—Olin.

  “Thank you,” I said to the leader of Camas Valley.

  He acknowledged my all too inadequate appreciation for saving my life with a simple nod, then I got moving.

  * * *

  Olin had to have headed north, underwater for a few dozen yards, then using the thickening mist to hide his retreat. I followed what I thought his path would have been, emerging from the creek, dripping and cold as I climbed up the western shore.

  The woods that spread out there were shrouded in a wall of fog now, grey on grey. Hardly any visual cues presented themselves which would indicate the man’s location. Except the one which stood out stark in the ashen landscape.

  Blood.

  The bright red splashes lay upon the wet forest floor like Rorschach arrows, pointing the way forward. I followed them, AR sweeping slowly left and right, its suppressed barrel dipped slightly. Every muddy step announced my presence, and there was a distinct possibility that Olin had retained some weapon other than those I’d made him drop, but I continued, one minute, two minutes, three, moving deeper into the woods. Deeper into the fog.

  Until I heard the gurgling.

  It was breathing, wet and ragged. Close. A dozen yards ahead and to my left. I redirected my aim toward the sound and closed the distance, an image resolving, clearer and clearer with each step I took. A figure. On the ground. Head propped awkwardly against the stout trunk of a towering fir that had long ago succumbed to the blight. It stood now like a tombstone for the man who was not yet dead, but not far from that state, either.

  Olin’s swimming gaze found me as I finally stopped, a few feet from him, my AR ready to end him.

  “Where is it?”

  He posed the question with crimson spittle spraying from his mouth. The deadly broadhead had cut some vital veins in his neck, blood pouring down his throat and into his lungs, drowning him from within.

  “Where is it?”

  Like a dog with a bone, he would not let go. Would not abandon his mission. I wondered if that pointed to him being a man of incredible dedication, or foolhardy determination. Neither mattered.

  “Tell me,” he said, the final seconds of his life draining away. “Where...”

  The information meant nothing to him now, and meant everything. He could do nothing with it, could take no action to retrieve any sample of BA-412 he was directed to, but still he had to know.

  “Where...”

  He uttered the plea that final time, then coughed, his eyes rolling back and chest rising high, once, twice, before settling to stillness. Gone.

  I lowered my AR and stared at the man who’d murdered my friend. Who’d come across the wasted country in search of a prize that could drive a final nail in humanity’s coffin. He wanted to know where it was. Wanted me to tell him.

  “I don’t know,” I answered the dead man.

  Then I left him to rot and made my way back through the woods and across Sandy Creek. Dalton and Lo were gone, but I wasn’t stranded. A short walk to the north of Remote and a quick search led me to what I was looking for.

  Gina’s motorcycle.

  She’d left it after riding cross country from Camas Valley, saying that there was enough of a charge remaining to carry us to over the hills toward Winston. All I needed was for it to get me back to the highway, then west to the coast. I slung my AR and swung a leg over the cycle, studying its simple controls for just a few seconds before activating its electric motor and riding out of the trees.

  I was going home.

  Forty One

  I didn’t report in. Didn’t stop by the Town Hall, or the garrison headquarters. I passed through a checkpoint that had been set up on the north side of town and rode through the darkened streets until the juice finally gave out on the motorcycle I’d taken. From there I walked, heading for the only place I wanted to be. That I needed to be.

  Home.

  The screen door was closed, the entry door beyond it open, cool air flowing into the house. I stood on the porch and just looked for a moment. Looked and listened. I saw the inside of my house, of our house, through the fine mesh. Chair and couch and hallway and lamps. But the familiar sights were not what warmed me. What soothed me.

  It was what I heard that did that.

  Tiny splashes. And the most beautiful voice. Both came from the kitchen, I could tell. Elaine was bathing our daughter. Singing to her. But...

  But how could that be? How could my wife be acting so very normal after how we’d separated? Something wasn’t right. I reached for the screen door handle, my hand about to grip it and let me into my home, when I was stopped by a sound.

  I heard the vehicle pull up across the street behind. I knew before I looked who it was. Schiavo stepped from the Humvee and stood next to it, in the street, staring at me. I sampled the joy within my house for a moment more, then left the porch and crossed the street, meeting the captain next to her vehicle.

  She gave me a look, up and down, the expression which accompanied her appraisal of me both apologetic and thankful. And relieved.

  “You look like hell, Fletch.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  Caked mud. Ansel’s blood, splattered across one side of my face. I’d wiped some off on the ride back from Remote. Other things, though, would not be so easy to cleanse from my body, and my mind.

  Despite this, I felt...whole. It was Olin’s demise, I knew, that had brought such a feeling of contentment to me. Witnessing his death, bringing an end to the man who’d murdered my friend, who’d threatened my wife and child, was a relief.

  “I’m sorry you had to take him on,” she said. “Olin.”

  I’d only been back a few minutes, and had spoken to no one about what had transpired, yet she k
new.

  “Dalton radioed,” Schiavo said, recognizing the mix of surprise and confusion on my face. “He told us what happened.”

  Dalton...

  The man must have reactivated the repeater and transmitter that Ansel and Moira had shut down.

  “Elaine knows I’m all right?”

  Schiavo nodded. I shook my head, still coming down from the adrenalin rush of all that had happened.

  “Dalton,” I said.

  The leader of Camas Valley had saved me. And he’d watched Olin dispatch two of his lieutenants. He had to have been witness to that event, and what led up to it. Yet he did nothing to intercede. He’d somehow known, or known enough to be suspicious, of both Ansel and Moira. Perhaps he’d developed some belief as to their planned treachery on his own. But I thought not.

  “You told him,” I said.

  There was no specificity to my statement, but from Schiavo’s reaction, from the rise of her chin and the quick, shallow breath she took through her nose, it was clear that she knew exactly what I was accusing her of doing.

  “You told him that I recognized Ansel after the break-in,” I told her. “And that Moira hurt herself getting away.”

  She shook her head.

  “Martin did,” she corrected me. “When he went east with the convoy. I asked him to tell Dalton, and only Dalton.”

  The leader of Camas Valley had been privy to our suspicions when he first visited Remote. He’d even brought Moira with him. That was either a signal that he hadn’t yet embraced the accusations, or that he wanted to keep Moira and Ansel believing that they were in his good graces.

  “Why didn’t you say something? Martin could have told us when we sent Dorothy back with the convoy.”

  “Dalton swore me to secrecy,” Schiavo explained. “I imagine so he could find the proof he needed to take them out with the rest of his peoples’ blessing. But Olin took care of that for him.”

  I’d been saved by the convergence of both luck and design. And by Schiavo’s successful attempt at backdoor diplomacy. Had she not opened up to Dalton, there’s little chance he, or anyone, would have come to my aid at Sandy Creek.

  “You weren’t going to tell him,” I said, recalling Schiavo’s exchange with me outside the Town Hall.

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “Martin changed my mind.”

  “How?”

  “He was absolutely convinced that you were targeted,” she said. “His belief in that was unshakable. He was worried, Fletch. About you. So, I modified my view on the matter.”

  “Modified?’

  Her face shrugged over an innocent smile. I was beginning to understand. Not only had Schiavo gone against what she’d told me she was going to do, or not do, she did so without actually doing so.

  “You had Martin feel him out,” I said. “Just see if he wanted any information we’d come across.”

  “That we’d stumbled upon,” Schiavo said. “Innocently stumbled upon. The fence and blood, Moira’s wound.”

  “You didn’t mention Ansel,” I said.

  “No. He’d have to make that connection on his own. And, apparently, he did.”

  She’d made Dalton want the information. Made him seek the full picture himself by having Martin bait him with the vaguest tidbit of what we’d discovered.

  “You let him fill in the pieces,” I said.

  “That’s the only way a man like him works. He has to trust his instincts before he trusts what others tell him.”

  “And you had to trust him,” I told Schiavo. “That’s not easy to do.”

  “I imagine he thinks the same about us.”

  The captain was right. Our world view was shaped by factors that were unimaginable before the blight nearly wiped civilization from the face of the earth. Wariness was a virtue for many, however much it might seem to darken a person’s soul.

  “For now,” Schiavo said, “he’s on our side.”

  I wondered if the alliance was as tenuous as her choice of words implied. Or if it was just complicated, and would continue to be.

  That, though, was an issue I would not have to deal with.

  On the ride back to Bandon, as I cruised down the narrow highway, past stands of dead trees I could already imagine replaced by towering green new growth in the years and decades to come, the thought of changes began to settle my mind, my heart, my soul.

  “I want to see my daughter grow up,” I told Schiavo. “I think I’ve paid my dues to this town for the time being.”

  My statement, seemingly disconnected from what we’d been discussing, caught the captain off guard.

  “What are you saying, Fletch?”

  “I just want to be a nobody. I want to open a contracting business and help people put in doors, and hang new windows. I’ll finish out my time on the Defense Council and then I’m through.”

  Schiavo listened, absorbing what I’d just told her. I was no different than the next person in Bandon, except I was. I’d been asked to do things that most others hadn’t, and I’d been forced to do what was necessary so that I, and others in town, could survive. I’d volunteered and been drafted on occasion for tasks and missions that would not have existed in the old world, much less conceived. I wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t indispensable. But I was an asset. I knew that. I preferred to act rather than wait for others to do the same.

  Now, though, my time at the head of the line was up.

  “I can’t say you don’t deserve to live your life as you choose,” Schiavo said. “You’ve earned that right ten times over.”

  And that was it. There would be some formal discussion with the Council when the time was right. For now, though, it was enough that I’d taken that first step of making my intentions known.

  “It’s been an interesting time, Fletch.”

  “Interesting is one word for it, I guess.”

  For a moment Schiavo turned introspective, grinning through the silence.

  “What?”

  “From a green Army lieutenant to this,” she said. “Now I’m negotiating trade deals.”

  “Batteries for eggs,” I said, recalling the most amusing tenet of our trade agreement with Camas Valley.

  “Coup plotters for your life,” Schiavo added, looking warmly at me. “The best trade I’ve ever made.”

  Her gaze shifted past me. To the house. My house.

  “Go start your retirement from public service,” she told me.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. In thirty seconds I was back on the porch, then through the front door, and finally at the doorway where the hall let into the kitchen. Elaine stood at the sink, lifting our daughter from the small plastic tub she’d used to bathe her. I watched my wife for a moment as she dried Hope, then wrapped her in a towel.

  Then, she stopped, sensing my presence. She turned, a subdued smile spread across her face.

  “Hi, beautiful.”

  “Hi yourself,” Elaine said.

  Neither of us made a move toward the other. My wife just stood there, holding our daughter, tiny hands groping past the towel and grabbing at the long black strands of hair hanging tantalizingly close.

  “He’s dead,” Elaine said.

  “He is.”

  “Did you...”

  I shook my head. Her face tightened with surprise.

  “I watched him die,” I told her.

  There was no need to offer her any details. No need to expand upon how I’d watched Tyler Olin leave this world. That he was gone was enough, for her, and, for me.

  “So it’s over.”

  “Everything is,” I said, expanding her statement. “Everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m done with all that. All the things we’ve done until now, we’re through. I’m through. From right now until my last breath, I’m yours. Our family is all that matters. Not enemies, not alliances, not missions or battles or anything. It’s just you and me and Hope from now on.”

  A hint of doubt rose in her e
xpression, then settled, a small, relieved smile building.

  “Us,” Elaine said. “Just us?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked to where I stood, lifting our daughter to her shoulder. I bent forward and kissed Hope on the top of her head, then I looked into Elaine’s eyes. They glistened with a sheen of happy tears.

  “Just us,” she said again, as if some dream had come true.

  “Forever,” I assured her.

  Forty Two

  The settlers were transported back to Remote just two days after we’d pulled them out. This time, though, they were more on their own than before. The garrison outpost was no longer staffed. Talk amongst those inhabiting the town had centered on turning that now empty building into, of all things, a restaurant.

  At first blush such an idea seemed foolish. But when it was considered in light of our communities moving forward, going from surviving to thriving, the existence of such an establishment, however limited its operation might be, would create the potential for commerce. Visitors from Bandon, and, possibly, from Camas Valley, would be free to travel to Remote for, of all things, a bite to eat, something so nostalgically normal.

  With the forty settlers returned to Remote, the population of Bandon sank below 800 residents again. Until the beacon began.

  One of my final acts as a member of the Defense Council had been to recommend restarting the beacon, our daily broadcast to any who might be listening that Bandon was a safe haven. Despite Dalton’s admonishment that we were only inviting trouble, the Council agreed, and, once again, Krista initiated her transmissions, beckoning survivors to join us.

  This time, they did.

  They came out of the dead woods and on the roads, mostly from the east and south. In ones and twos, and even a group of seven. Survivors. People who now believed that the message they’d been hearing, either directly through radios they’d scavenged, or second hand from other survivors, was genuine. No longer was it polluted by injections of fear that had almost certainly been spread by Olin. There was no consensus as to why he had taken to poisoning the town’s reputation. It might have been to isolate us further. Or, possibly, he thought that any person not in our orbit was a potential puppet for him to control at some point, as he had Dorothy.