Trackers 2: The Hunted (A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Didn’t find anyone?” Rex asked in a gruff voice, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Five days ago, he’d been an easy-going, soft-spoken man. The initial shock of losing his daughter seemed to be turning to anger‌—‌an anger without a target. It was a dangerous combination. Colton wasn’t so sure putting Rex to work was a good idea, but his old friend had insisted.

  Colton shook his head and walked to the shoulder of the road to wait for Don. The lack of refugees at least solved the growing dispute between Colton and his new second-in-command about whether to let more people into town.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, not long after Colton had returned from Prospect Mountain with Jake’s body, he had instructed his officers and armed volunteers to continue turning away refugees unless they possessed a specific skill that could benefit the town. People like doctors, engineers, mechanics, and police officers were highly needed. But since the storms had dumped radiation over southern and central Colorado, there hadn’t been anyone to turn away, and Colton was beginning to wonder if there was anyone still out there.

  He studied the snow-brushed mountains as they waited. Winter was near, and he wasn’t sure he could get Estes Park through the cold without Jake. Even with the unexpected help of Raven, Colton didn’t have enough manpower to get through the challenges Estes Park would face in the next few months.

  First on Colton’s list was to find the bastards that had put one of his officers in a coma. Raven and Lindsey were already working on that, but even if they did catch those responsible, there wasn’t room in the small Estes Park jail to hold them. Theo, the thug that had started a shootout at Raven’s house, was already locked up, along with several citizens who’d been caught looting.

  “Got a vehicle inbound!” Rex shouted.

  Colton looked up from his cigarette to scan the highway for Raven’s Jeep. Instead, the growl of a diesel engine echoed off the bluffs. He reached for the grip of his Single Action Army Revolver, but he kept it holstered when he saw it was Lindsey driving Jake’s red 1952 Chevy pickup. Raven sat in the passenger seat, and Nathan was in the bed with a rucksack over his shoulders.

  Colton took one last drag and stomped the butt out before walking down the road to meet the truck. Lindsey pulled onto the shoulder and waved.

  “Mornin’, Chief,” she said.

  Raven hopped out and went to the lift gate to let his dog out and help Nathan down. The new K9 unit and the battered pilot walked over, Creek’s tail wagging as he trotted next to the men. Nathan’s broken arm was in a cast, and his skin was covered in lacerations and bruises. He and Raven had both taken a hell of a beating on Prospect Mountain in the battle that had left Brown Feather and Turtle Tankala, as well as Jake, dead.

  “Major, you look like you got run over by a car, then a bus, then a train,” Colton said. “When are those Marines coming to get you? I thought Secretary Montgomery was sending them out to pick you up.”

  Nathan shrugged. Even that seemed to hurt. He winced and looked out over the road. “I haven’t heard anything, but they must still be looking for my nephew. I thought I might get a better signal out of the valley, just in case my sister tries to reach me.”

  Colton still couldn’t believe the pilot was the brother of the Secretary of Defense. He also had a bad feeling that the Marines searching for Nathan’s nephew weren’t going to find anyone alive at the Easterseals camp in Empire, Colorado.

  Lindsey pulled off a pair of aviator sunglasses and met Colton’s gaze. The past five days had etched new lines around her eyes.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  “We canvassed several folks on Black Canyon Drive, including the Arnettes,” she said. “They think they saw the suspects running across Devils Gulch Road yesterday.”

  “You think they could be hiding out in a house there?” Colton asked.

  “That’s my guess,” Lindsey said.

  Raven ambled over to them. A bandage masked the gash on his cheek and bags hung below his dark eyes, but despite his injuries he seemed in high spirits. Colton snorted. Give Raven something to chase and he’d be happy in hell itself.

  “Lots of people live up that way, Chief,” Raven said. “They could be anywhere. My suggestion would be to send a message to folks up there to keep an eye out and send word if they see anything.”

  “Can’t risk it,” Colton replied. “Remember, our suspects are addicts, and when their pills run out, they will be looking for a new source. No telling what they’ll do to get more.”

  “The Chief is right,” Nathan added. “You need to find them before they hurt someone else.”

  “What do you want us to do, Chief?” Lindsey asked. Her shoulder-length red hair fluttered in the wind. She was in her early twenties‌—‌too young, it seemed to Colton, to experience the horror of the past several days. He’d fought alongside men and women her age or even younger in Afghanistan. It changed them. Hell, it had changed him, too.

  “Take Creek and see if he can pick up a scent. Maybe we can narrow down their location. If you locate our suspects, I want to know before you move in,” Colton said.

  Lindsey nodded, and Raven touched the bill of his baseball cap.

  “Good luck,” Colton said. He went to pat Creek, but the dog was already darting after Raven. The Akita might be designated as a K9 unit, but he was loyal to one man and one man only.

  Colton was reaching for another cigarette when his radio crackled.

  “Chief, you copy?”

  Colton plucked the radio off his duty belt and brought it to his lips. “Go ahead.”

  “I found a survivor,” Don heaved. “A woman. She’s in bad shape, sir. Looks like‌—‌” Static crackled over his voice.

  “Come again,” Colton said. “You’re breaking up.”

  “She’s‌—‌” Static. “Shot.”

  The word sent a chill through Colton. He lowered the radio and pivoted back to the Chevy.

  “Hold up, Lindsey!” he said. “Move the barrier. I’m heading out, too.”

  Rex and the other men holding the road stared at him without moving.

  “Do it,” Colton said.

  Several of the men began shifting the concrete blocks.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Raven asked.

  “Don found a survivor on the road. Sounds like she’s been shot,” Colton said. “We’re going to pick her up.”

  “Without suits?” Lindsey asked, leaning out of the truck’s window.

  Colton cursed. He had forgotten about the radiation. He raised the radio back to his lips.

  “Don, can you get that woman back to town on your own?”

  White noise crackled from the speakers, a long delay before the reply. Don spoke in a low voice as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

  “Sir, I don’t think she’s going to make it. Even if I get her back to the hospital, we’re already low on medical supplies. We have to look after our own.”

  Colton almost cursed a second time. He had set a dangerous precedent by ordering his officers to turn people away. But never once had he told any of them to abandon someone who needed medical attention.

  What would Jake have done?

  That answer was an easy one. Colton knew his best friend would have carried the wounded stranger on his back, if need be.

  Colton clicked the radio. “We’re not in the business of leaving people out there to die. Bring that woman back to town.”

  “But sir, I thought we agreed‌—‌”

  “That’s an order.”

  “All due respect, but this is a waste of time and resources,” Don said.

  Everyone on the road was staring at Colton now, the tension palpable around him. Some of the volunteers probably agreed with Don, but this wasn’t a democracy. Colton called the shots, and he had to show everyone that he was still in charge of Estes Park.

  He pressed the radio button again and said, “Do your job, Sergeant!”

  There was no response, just the buzz of static.

  �
��Good call, Chief,” Nathan said. “That guy is a piece of work. You better watch your back around him.”

  “Get going,” Colton said. “I’ll handle this. You find those junkies. I want them locked up by nightfall.”

  “Okay, Chief,” Lindsey said.

  Colton folded his arms across his chest and looked back out over the mountains, recalling the night of the attack when he and Raven had found Melissa Stone’s body. He’d known when the jets crashed and the lights went out that it was the start of something larger, but he’d had no idea that in five short days he would be the one deciding who lived and who died. With a heavy sigh, he jammed another cigarette in his mouth and went back to work.

  Ty Montgomery coughed into the gas mask strapped to his face. The world smelled like burning cedar and plastic. His hands were zip-tied to the armrests of his wheelchair. There was no use in fighting the restraints. Even if he could slip out of them, there was nowhere to go. He was trapped with the other kids in the back of a pickup truck. There were four of them from the camp, all around his age, plus the new kids, Micah and Emma.

  This was the second time they had been moved in the past two days. They had spent last night in a warehouse. A couple of the campers were autistic, and the constant chaos was hard on them, but the men didn’t care. They just shouted and pushed the kids around.

  Ty’s best friend at camp, Alex, was right to have hidden when the soldiers came. If Ty had been able to, he would have done the same thing, but he had been captured along with these other kids, and the men were treating them like animals.

  Sometimes, it seemed like this was all a bad dream. Except that it smelled too nasty and hurt too much to be a dream. He tried again to process the events of the past five days. First the massive explosion that had sounded like a volcano erupting. Then the fires. His friends had all been taken to different locations at the camp where they had taken shelter from something called radiation. After the rain had stopped, the Sons of Liberty soldiers had shown up with guns. Then they shot Mr. Barton and Mr. Gonzalez. That’s when Alex had limped away and hid.

  Ty shivered at the memory. Mr. Barton and Mr. Gonzalez had been his friends. He just hoped that Alex was okay, but deep down, Ty had a bad feeling that he wasn’t. Alex had a minor form of cerebral palsy, and Ty was worried he wouldn’t be able to take care of himself. He wished he’d gotten to say goodbye.

  “Up there!” shouted a muffled voice.

  The truck slowed and the soldiers all stood in the bed of the truck. Most of them didn’t talk much around him and the other kids. The only nice one was a young man with a pimply face named Tommy. His arms and neck were covered in tattoos like the others, but he never shouted.

  Ty listened whenever the men did talk where he could hear them. They called themselves the Sons of Liberty, and their leader was the General. He had a smooth voice and squiggly scar on his head, like Harry Potter. The General kept saying the time had come to take back the country from the corrupt government and restore it to what it was meant to be back when the nation was founded. The other men always cheered.

  Ty didn’t understand. His mom was in the government, and she was brave and kind. Why did they want to take it back from people like her?

  These men weren’t like any soldiers Ty had ever met. They certainly weren’t like his Uncle Nathan or his mom. These men all wore funny looking space suits, and instead of helping people, they kidnapped children and shot that old lady in the back.

  She wasn’t the first person they had killed along the road.

  A jolt rocked the truck, and Ty grabbed the armrests of his wheelchair. His blindfold slipped down enough that he could see Tommy and another man named Carson standing to his left.

  “Pull off,” Carson ordered. He patted the roof of the cab.

  The pickup crawled to a stop, and Carson jumped out onto the road. Tommy remained behind.

  “It’s okay,” he said to the kids. “We’re just stopping for a few minutes.”

  The muffled voices of the other soldiers sounded from all directions. They piled out of the vehicles in front of the convoy. Ty bowed his head to see better over his blindfold.

  On the shoulder of the road, under a canopy of evergreens, stood a man and woman. They were both wearing backpacks stuffed with camping gear. The man waved to the Sons of Liberty, and a beaming smile spread across his face.

  “You guys sure are a sight for sore eyes. My girlfriend and I were starting to think we were the last people on Earth!”

  “We haven’t seen anyone for over a day,” the woman said. She wrapped her arms around her chest, shivering.

  Ty wanted to tell them to run, but it wouldn’t do any good. They wouldn’t make it far.

  Two of the other soldiers, Joshua and Bernie, strode toward the couple. They were both thickly built with bushy beards, shaved heads, and tattoos. They approached with their guns lowered toward the ground. The General joined them a moment later.

  “Where are you two headed?” the General asked. Despite the breathing apparatus he wore, Ty could still clearly hear his smooth voice, like the narrator of a show on the Discovery Channel.

  The young man looked to the west. “We’re trying to get away from those fires.”

  “You sick?” Joshua asked.

  The woman nodded.

  “Can’t use ‘em,” the General said casually. He walked back to the truck, leaving Joshua and Bernie in the street.

  “What? What do you mean?” the young man said.

  “He means you’re fucked,” Joshua said with a laugh. He turned with Bernie and followed the General.

  “You can’t just leave us here!” the man said, reaching out. “Please‌—‌”

  His girlfriend ran past them, grabbing the General by the sleeve before they could stop her. Bernie and Joshua both raised their rifles.

  “Get the hell back!” Bernie shouted.

  The woman held up her hands. Her boyfriend did the same thing and slowly got in front of her to shield her body with his own.

  “Whoa, whoa, we don’t want any trouble,” he said.

  The General stood his ground and calmly said, “Give me your backpacks.”

  The woman looked at her boyfriend, who nodded back at her. She unslung her pack and handed it to the General, who then tossed it over to Bernie.

  “Yours, too,” the General said.

  “But this is all we have. How are we supposed‌—‌” the young man began to say when the General threw a right hook. A flash of metal glimmered in the sunlight as his fist connected with the man’s jaw. A crack rang out, metal on bone.

  The woman let out a scream and dropped next to her injured boyfriend.

  The men laughed as the General held up the brass knuckles he liked to wear on his right fist over his glove.

  The General crouched in front of the couple and tilted his head.

  “People just don’t listen,” he said. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time to give me your packs.”

  The woman helped her injured boyfriend pull off his pack. He let out a moan as she pulled it from his shoulder. The General grabbed the bag and glanced back at the truck, meeting Ty’s gaze for a moment.

  “Take note, kids. This is how we survive in the new world.”

  He stood and walked back to the truck, but Joshua remained by the couple. “Hey General, I got an idea. How about we take this lady with us?”

  “She’s sick,” the General replied. “But hey, if you want her, be my guest.”

  The injured man pushed himself to his feet and stood in front of his girlfriend, one hand clutching his jaw.

  “Run, Sarah,” he said.

  “Stay where you are,” Joshua ordered.

  The injured man pulled a small knife from a sheath on his belt and held up the blade in a shaky hand. “You’ll have to go through me.”

  “Don’t do it,” Tommy whispered from behind Ty. “C’mon, man. Just let ‘em go.”

  Joshua let out a bellowing laugh. Instead of shoo
ting the man, Joshua lowered his rifle. Ty let out a sigh of relief.

  Tommy looked down at Ty and then tugged the blindfold back over his eyes. The last thing Ty saw was Joshua pulling his own knife.

  The woman screamed. Cheering and laughter from the soldiers followed. Then came the grunts and cries of pain from the young man, topped off by his girlfriend screeching in agony. It was over in less than a minute, but it felt more like an eternity to Ty. Tears welled in his eyes. One of them streaked down his filthy cheeks, and he couldn’t even lift his hands to wipe it away.

  No. Don’t you cry. You’re stronger than that, he thought.

  If his mom were here, she would probably have told him it was okay to cry, but she was in Washington, D.C., working like always. He loved his mom more than anyone in the world, but he was mad at her, too. Why hadn’t she come to rescue him?

  The sobs from the other kids rose into a wailing cacophony. One of the soldiers told them to shut the hell up. Tommy tried to calm them down in his quiet, nasally voice.

  “It’s okay,” he kept repeating.

  A gunshot sounded, followed by two more. The woman stopped screaming.

  “I told you not to waste bullets, Bernie. Those two were already as good as dead,” the General said. “Were you this stupid in Iraq? If so, I’m surprised you made it back in one piece.”

  Several of the men chuckled. Ty tried to move his hands, but even if he could loosen the restraints, he couldn’t exactly run away. Frustrated, he tugged harder on the zip-ties.

  “Kid, don’t do that,” Tommy said. “It’ll go better for you if you just hold still.”

  Ty froze. Tommy was right; he needed to be good until his mom came to get him.

  “Let’s move out!” the General shouted. “We’re almost back to the Castle.”

  The doors to the other vehicles opened, then slammed, and then the convoy rolled forward. His wheelchair jolted, and although he couldn’t feel anything below his waist, pain lanced up his spine from the impact. He let out a muffled cry and held onto the armrests.