by Mark Mathews
“Man that is the worst thing that I’ve ever smelled!”
Max was dry heaving, too, and Garrett felt a little better. He didn’t want to be the only one who was bothered so badly by the stench. Wren had her shirt up over her nose, and he had to laugh a little. She looked like an old fashioned bandit. It was endearing in a way, and he just wanted to pull the shirt down and kiss her; sort of like the Spiderman kiss, but not upside down. He immediately scolded himself for thinking about a comic book hero while there was serious work to be done.
“I know! I thought I was going to see my lunch again there for a little while.”
Ben didn’t look as bad off today as usual, and that gave Garrett hope. He was glad his friends were in this together with him. To be honest, he didn’t think he could do it without them. Not anymore. He stifled a sarcastic chuckle. He’d always thought he was being prepared with all of the things he’d been doing, and yet he wasn’t prepared enough for everything that was going on here. Not even a little bit. He’d thought his training had taught him everything he needed to know, and yet, here he was, still feeling completely at a loss because of a single storm. He had to get all of that out of his head, though, because he needed to focus and take care of his family.
They turned one last corner and were at the sheriff’s house. Garrett inhaled sharply. The man’s house was almost as bad off as their own. If not worse. He couldn’t see the inside yet, so he really didn’t know who would win that argument. Garrett called through a broken window, trying to listen for any sound of movement. The only thing he heard was wind going through the house from the other smashed windows. Getting a bad feeling in his gut, Garrett tried the door. It was unlocked, and he carefully stepped inside, avoiding the broken glass from the little window panes in the door. He started searching the house, looking for Sheriff Ramsay. As he got to the back, he noticed a room that was almost completely demolished. He let out a low whistle, seeing there was nothing at all to be saved, then he stopped dead. There was an arm coming out of a pile of broken furniture and other debris.
“I found the sheriff!”
Garrett called over his shoulder as he immediately bent down to try clearing some of the debris off the sheriff. He got to the sheriff’s face and saw that Ramsay’s eyes were closed. Garrett’s heart started racing, and he put a shaking hand to the man’s throat, looking for a pulse. There was nothing. He heard the thundering of feet behind him, and the sharp gasp from Wren that said she knew right away that the sheriff was dead. This blew a huge hole in their plans. They would have to regroup and think of something else to do.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be so easy. Garrett already had done hours’ worth of brainstorming to come up with this plan. He didn’t want to involve too many people if he could help it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ramsay, it was more that he didn’t know people quite so well. He wasn’t sure what it would take to win them over to his side…or make it so others could turn his people away from him. He’d been on the fence about Kayleigh and Nat because of that fear, but he’d gone out on a limb because of the situation with John, and so far he hadn’t regretted it.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Ben was always a bit on the callous side when it came to casualties, and that was something that bothered Garrett at times, but now he understood. In the world they were forced to live in now, that trait would get him far, and it was one Garrett needed to adopt to get through things now. Garrett opened his mouth to say something, but Wren held up her hand to silence him. She cocked her head like a bird, and listened to something that the others couldn’t hear yet.
“Someone’s coming! We need to hide, quick!”
Garrett motioned for them to follow him, and the group headed down to the basement. It was the closet place to go, and the only place that had an escape if they needed it. The windows from the basement would be at ground level so they could crawl out if they got cornered. At least, that was Garrett’s thinking. He locked the door behind him, then thought better of it. If he locked it, then he as good as gave away their position. Unlocking it, he moved down the old wooden stairs as quietly as he could. There was a group of voices coming closer toward them, but no one could make them out yet. The floorboards creaked as booted feet moved over them, then something loud thudded to the ground, making Wren wince. The loud noise was enough to set anyone on edge.
“Well, I’ll be. The bastard’s dead. Will you look at that?”
Garrett froze. That voice he recognized. It was Austin, and that meant the group over their heads were his cronies. They were ones who had attacked them when they were out at the little gas station on the edge of town. It sounded as though he’d found a few more recruits, though, since Garrett didn’t remember there being that many pairs of feet.
“That’s good, though? Right? That means we don’t have to kill him and make it look like an accident after all. Then again, I don’t really think anyone would care if we just killed him outright. We’re the stronger ones anyway, and no one would dare go up against us. Right, Austin?”
The voice was young and sounded way too eager. Austin must have promised to protect this kid to get an extra gun in the group. Garrett could tell Austin was the type of person to find someone he easily could manipulate, then toss to the curb when he was done with them. Garrett never could sink to that level. Everyone he was taking care of was friend and family, so he never could stab them in the back like that.
“I suppose that’s one less thing that I need to take care of, yes. Now it looks like the town is going to be without someone to lead them. I think we should get my campaign started immediately. The town will need to think I’m the best choice. Then we can start going down the list of my enemies and killing them off, one by one. With no one to oppose me, people disappearing won’t draw any unwanted attention.”
Garrett felt a chill run down his spine. He knew he was on that list of enemies. So that was Austin’s plan. Garrett realized it would give him some more time to plan a defense against Austin and his group. He already was expecting it to happen any day. Now he had a little extra time while Austin did his best to win over the town. This would be something that needed to be talked about in a family meeting later on that night. He hoped Alice and Brooke got home okay. He was starting to feel a tightness in his stomach that he couldn’t explain, but he knew he suddenly was worried about their safety. Austin still loved Alice, at least, as far as Garrett knew, and she was the mother of his child. That alone should make her safe, but Brooke…
She could be used as leverage against not only Garrett, but Alice. Austin just might be low-down enough to use them both to get Garrett out of the way. It wasn’t something that he would put past Austin anymore. He needed to get home…now. This was something that he needed to discuss with Alice, and he also wanted to go over the house again to see what he could fix and what he could reinforce. He had no idea how long Austin would be campaigning, and he didn’t want to be the central target of a mob or an army without a fort that could withstand the assault. He had women and children in there to protect, and not that many people to man the towers, so to speak.
Listening hard to what was going on above him, he tried judging the best time to leave. He didn’t want to take his group out of the windows just to run into Austin and his group as they were leaving, because then the campaign time wouldn’t matter. Austin would shoot him on sight. Besides, who was to say that he hadn’t convinced Alice and Brooke to come and live with him wherever he was staying? What if they already had Jenny and Seth? His heart dropped out of his chest. The thought that all of his children might be gone crushed him. Even though Seth technically wasn’t his, he was head over heels in love with that little boy. He needed to get the hell out of there. He could hear silence in the house, but he wanted to wait a little longer.
“We need to get back.”
It was Wren. She could pick up on him almost as easily as if he were an open book. He hated that he couldn’t hide anyth
ing from her anymore. She was staring at him, and he was afraid she would see right through him down to his very soul. He didn’t always let people in this far. The fact that she was doing it all by herself, without him having a say in it whatsoever, was unnerving to him. Alice never had gotten to know him that well, and it put another nail in the coffin of their relationship. He couldn’t help but compare the two women whenever they did something that he found either amazing, or completely stupid.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GARRETT WAS off in his own little world. He was holding Seth, who was peacefully sleeping in his arms, and wandering aimlessly through the house, looking to see if there was anything he possibly could salvage. Or maybe use to make something else salvageable. It wasn’t looking so good, but he refused to give up. As long as he was keeping himself moving to rock the baby to sleep, he wanted to go through the rooms to see if looking at the broken places again would inspire him to see them in a new light. Unfortunately, he wasn’t having any luck. Making his way carefully through the minefield of rubble, he saw the sun glint off something and he moved in that direction. It was a picture frame with the glass smashed out. The picture was still intact, and as he leaned down carefully to pick it up, he was mindful of not jolting Seth enough to wake him.
The faces of his family stared up at him from the photograph, and he thought back to how happy they once had been. Memories swirled around in his mind’s eye, and he almost lost himself in the past. His heart wasn’t in it anymore. Alice had seen to that when she’d left him for Austin. Garrett frowned. He couldn’t help but think about the way he was feeling about Wren. It was different from how he’d fallen for Alice in the very beginning, but it had the same whirlwind quickness and the intense strength that he’d felt before. That made him wonder, could it fizzle out as quickly as he his affection for Alice was doing? That thought brought Alice’s face to mind, and he closed his eyes for a minute to think back over everything they had been through together. The birth of three healthy children, the PTSD that he’d had from the military, and the end of the world…
Shaking his head, he tried clearing it, but now Wren’s face was looming in front of his mind’s eye. He started thinking about how happy he could be with her. She was more like him and understood what was going on. With the world going to hell in a handbasket, it would be nice to have someone with him that knew what was going on, and how to handle it in most cases. To be honest, Alice’s nerves and her fears were grating on him, wearing him down, and making him feel weaker than he already knew he was. He pushed both women out of his mind, but before he could change the subject completely in this conversation with himself, he wondered if he was falling in love with Wren.
The next face he saw was Jenny’s, then Brooke’s, then Seth’s. He wondered if he ever would be able to look at Seth as his own. Granted, he would raise the boy as his own no matter what, but on the inside, where his fears clamored to be heard, would he be able to shut them up? These kids deserved a father, and he didn’t want to give them up. They were his whole world. He’d grown up without a father figure, and he would never do that to his children. Whether they were biologically his or not, he would be there for them, come what may. Even if they pushed him away like Brooke seemed to want to do. They were the most important things to him…and yet he couldn’t seem to get Brooke to love him, or even like him. Seth, well, he’d like to think that he could raise Seth a little better than Austin would. His train of thought got interrupted when he heard the front door slam. That had to mean Alice and Brooke were back. He felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders when he saw both of them standing there. At first, he thought that maybe only one had returned and was getting help for the other. So the slam had to mean they were upset about something.
“You’re back. Are you okay? Did anything happen? Anyone bother you?”
The questions were out of his mouth before he could take them back, and the eye roll he got from Brooke told him he was being as bad as an old mother hen. Alice’s expression differed, however, and in her eyes he saw a light and a glow. The eyes are the window to the soul they say, and right now he could tell Alice was thinking he cared about her because of how he was checking up on them. He could kick himself for that later, but right now he needed those questions answered. Granted, he’d need to find a more dignified way of getting that information from them next time, but for now that’s how it was. Alice came over to Garrett and wedged her way into his arms for a stolen embrace. Garrett was keenly aware of the fact that Wren was in the room, but he pointedly stared at the ground for the few minutes that it took to loosen Alice from his neck. He could feel his cheeks and the backs of his ears burning with embarrassment, but there was nothing he could do.
“We’re fine. I saw Austin while we were out.”
Alice paused there for a long moment, and Garrett was about to ask her what else had happened because she was taking so long to finish her thought. She had tears in her eyes when she finally looked up at Garrett again.
“He said the sheriff was dead.”
He’d hoped he could get away with not telling them how bad the storm has been. Now it looked as though Austin had ruined that, too. He passed the baby over to Alice and put a hand up to his eyes. He didn’t want to see the faces of Brooke or Alice when he had to share the bad news. He still was blaming himself for the sheriff’s death, even though no one ever would understand why. If Garrett only had tried a little harder to convince Ramsay to join his group when he had been down at the sheriff’s station. Then Ramsay might have made it to the basement with the rest of his group, and only his house would have been destroyed. Free will had made the sheriff decline the offer, but Garrett was the type of person to still believe that it was on his shoulders.
“We went over to the sheriff’s house while you were gone, thinking that maybe we could borrow his car in exchange for some supplies. We need to be ranging a little further to get more, and we’d thought that maybe some of the factories wouldn’t exactly be thought about. Unfortunately, when we got to his house, we could see that it was in pretty bad shape, too. We went inside and found the sheriff, crushed to death by his own furniture.”
He heard two gasps, and winced immediately. He hadn’t wanted to put that mental image into their minds, but they needed to understand what could happen if they didn’t listen to him. If they went off on their own like they had. He’d tried keeping himself busy, but all he could think about was whether they would make it home safely.
“Austin says he’s in charge of the whole town now, and I should go back and live with him.”
Garrett’s heart started racing. That was exactly what he’d been afraid of the whole time. He’d worried that she would go back to him with the kids, and leave them less than safe. He wanted to ask her what she’d decided right away, but he held his tongue, waiting for her to say more. She didn’t, and he knew that he had to tell her about what he and the team overheard. To save her and the kids, he needed to show her exactly how much of a bad guy Austin was.
“He wants to be in charge, yes. When we were at the sheriff’s place, we could hear people coming in the front door. We hid in the basement until they left. It turned out that the people were Austin and his group. We listened to them while we were hiding, and he said he was going to start campaigning for control of the town now that the sheriff was dead. One of his friends laughed it off, saying that now at least they wouldn’t have to kill the sheriff and make it look like an accident. I think that Austin is one of those men who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants, never mind logic and reason, and that’s what makes him the most dangerous person out there right now. I don’t think it’s safe to be with him, but I won’t stop you if that’s what you want to do. All I ask is that you leave the kids here with me so I can keep them safe.” Now it was Brooke’s turn to stare.
“You’d let her go but make us stay here? That’s so unfair! I want to be with my mom. Away from you.” With those words she stomped up the stairs to what w
as left of her room. Garrett couldn’t help but feel that he’d lost her yet again.
“I don’t want to go to Austin, but I don’t want to stay here anymore. What are we going to do?”
She was on the verge of breaking down again, and in an effort to stave off the tears, Garrett jumped in with what he and the rest of the group had been discussing in her absence.
“We don’t want to be here anymore either. We’ve drawn up a plan, and we think we have what we need to make it happen. The only thing we need to find is a truck.” Alice stared at him for a moment like he’d gone crazy, so Garrett had to elaborate a little.
“Ben used to drive trucks before he joined the army, so he could drive one. We’ll raid a few places around here that are empty, like the sheriff’s house, and then pack up the truck and leave. Where we’d go, I’m not quite sure yet, but at least we would have options.” It was still a bit of a loose plan, seeing as they didn’t have the truck yet.