by Alex Mersey
No greeting.
No orders.
A decision was being made, of that she was sure, and there was nothing she could do. She was completely vulnerable, at the mercy of a stranger she couldn’t see. Her breaths quickened, one overrunning the other as if afraid to be the last. Here at the end, all Beth had was the blackness and regrets, whispers of Alli and a prayer that Sean would watch over her.
And she had Jackson.
“You okay?” she gasped.
“Fine,” he replied.
She felt a tug at the back of her head and the band of cloth loosened, fell away. She blinked against the dim light to clear her vision as she stared, stared into the face of the man who played God over her and Jackson.
The throwback sent a buzz to her head. He looked exactly the same, the heavy beard, the creases weathered into his skin, he even wore the same jeans and leather. “Clint?”
“Hello, Beth.” He came over, helped her up from the floor. “Let’s go somewhere more comfortable.”
All that fear whimpering inside her whipped into red-hot anger.
Clint!
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been waving them off with a knapsack of provisions and best wishes, but this was so typical. The man had a drug lord complex and apparently he’d wasted no time in scrounging up some worthless minions.
His grip on her arm tightened as he tried to steer her out the room.
“No.” She slapped him off her and dug her heels in. Her heart still raced, trying to catch up to this startling turn of events. Just as easily as everything had gone so horribly wrong, one small thing had gone right. And all of it went into one boiling pot to fuel her fury. Clint was the man in charge. The leader of these thugs! “I’m not going anywhere without Jackson.”
Clint looked down at Jackson and cocked a brow.
“I mean it, Clint.”
“So I see.” He gave his man the nod and turned to go. “Bring them.”
Asshole.
Their guard, the greasy haired man from the ambush, stripped Jackson’s blindfold and yanked him to his feet. “Move.”
They didn’t need telling twice.
“Friends of yours?” Jackson said sarcastically as they stumbled from the small, stark room.
She didn’t have time to explain Clint, wouldn’t even know where to begin. He’d shot one of his own, blown his brains out without a pause or flinch. Of course, that man had been Vince and she would have found a way to do it if Clint hadn’t.
“Just let me do all the talking,” she said.
“Okay, sure, but I do have one question.”
“What?” They were in a dark passageway, lit only by filtered sunlight spilling from the stairwell to her left.
“Are we getting out of this alive?”
“Yeah, we are.” She exchanged a look with him, held it until the guard pushed past to lead them deeper into what appeared to be an underground warren, narrow passages and closed doors.
They turned a corner and left the spill of sun behind. A little further along, light bled from an open doorway to keep the utter blackness at bay. They were ushered inside and the door closed, leaving them alone with Clint.
He rested against a massive desk, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded, watching her from hooded eyes.
She glared back.
His mouth hitched. “Damn, it’s good to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
“Sorry about that.” He shrugged. “We have policies in place and I wouldn’t like to set a bad example for my men.”
“So what?” She so, so badly wanted to slap that grin off his face, but unfortunately her hands were tied behind her back. “You’d kill us just to keep up appearances?”
“No one’s going to kill you.”
“Your men didn’t get that memo.” The torment he’d put her and Jackson through iced her spine. “They were waiting for the order, weren’t they? One look from you and they would have done it, execution bloody style.”
“Such are the times, I’m afraid,” Clint said. “No one leaves here alive unless I’m confident they won’t be back and bring their friends.”
“That sounds rather anti-social.”
“Oh, we’re very sociable to the right people.”
“Criminals and thugs?”
He laughed, thoroughly amused. “I have thirty good men, but I’m always looking to strengthen my numbers. Interested?”
Beth snorted and glanced around the room. White-washed walls and cement floor. Some type of basement with a pair of slit windows just above ground level, pushed open to let in light and air. “I see you’ve downgraded.”
“It’s not the view from the club house, sure, but there’s a whole damn sublevel here built with reinforced cement and we have a fucking hospital collapsed on top of us. You can’t beat that for flying under the Silvers radar.” He looked at her a long moment. “How’s your sister doing?”
Beth softened fractionally. “Alli’s recovering. She’ll be okay.”
“You found her those antibiotics, then?”
“We found her a doctor, thank God.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he drawled. “And everyone else? You’re all still together?”
She nodded. “Although Sean had a narrow escape. We were here, you know…” She glanced up at the ceiling, didn’t need to imagine the ruins heaped on top of it. She’d walked through them. “We brought Alli here when we left the club house.”
“I know.”
“We were here when the Silvers attacked.”
“I didn’t know that.” His eyes sunk deeper beneath his brows. “We saw the fighter drones fly over, watched most of the strike from the lookout point. I thought you’d be gone by then.”
“Yeah, well…” Beth shifted to show her bound hands. “Are you going to do something about this or am I supposed to beg?”
His gaze went to her hands, settled there. “Let’s leave that for now.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Clint stayed propped against the desk, arms folded. His eyes lifted to hers and she saw it. He wasn’t kidding. Not at all. “I’ve got something to say and you’re not gonna like it.”
“Because everything else about this day has been so bloody charmed?”
“I am sorry.”
“Spit it out, Clint.”
He unfolded his arms to scrub his jaw. “You and your friend here—”
“Jackson!”
“You and Jackson…” He flashed Jackson a hard grin. “No one’s going to hurt you, I swear. You’re both free to go.”
She shifted her hands out of sight again to face off with him. “So what part of that don’t I like?”
“The jeep,” he said flatly.
“You wouldn’t.”
He said nothing, just looked at her.
“Clint, we need that jeep.”
“We all need that jeep.”
“But it belongs to us.”
“And it belonged to someone else before you took it,” he said. “We’re not all that different, you and me.”
“That’s not the way it happened.”
“Okay, I’ll humor you.” A patronizing smile snuck out. “How did it happen?”
“How should I know?” She sent Jackson a warning look, but he wasn’t on the verge of butting in to help or hinder. He just stood there, watching her and Clint with a mild expression that could be—probably was—bemusement.
She turned to Clint again, thinking fast.
Clint wasn’t all bad. He’d shared his club house and provisions with them. He’d shot Vince for what the bastard had done to her. He’d seemed genuinely concerned when Alli had sickened.
He wasn’t good, either. He was the kind of man who viewed the apocalypse as an opportunity to grab power. He took what he wanted and she’d already made the mistake of assuming their brief acquaintance exempted her. He wanted the jeep and he was taking it. If he knew about Little Falls…well, he mig
ht not want that, he preferred hiding in plain sight beneath ruins, but he’d definitely want the supply of weapons at the army camp.
“Sean found the jeep.”
“So who did he take it from?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “He didn’t say.”
Clint held his hands out, as if his regret would soften the loss. “Beth, I wish I didn’t have to, but that’s the first working vehicle we’ve come across. I can’t let it go.”
“And how are we supposed to get back?”
“Get back to where?”
Not Little Falls. She didn’t want Clint and his men anywhere near her town. “It’s not any place you’d know.”
“I’ll have my men give you a ride, but I’d need to know where home is, Beth.”
She didn’t want a ride. She wanted her jeep. “I’ll have to show you on a map.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Not really.”
“But it’s big enough for you and all your new friends?” he said with a sly look at Jackson.
“Just Jackson.”
“And the doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“The one you found for Alli.”
“Oh…” She had to keep her damn lies straight. And why was he so interested in the doctor? She didn’t have to think too long or hard on that. Doctors were almost as rare and precious as running vehicles. “Um, no, the doctor attended Alli here, at the hospital, before the Silvers attacked. He’s not with us.”
Clint regarded her, stroking his beard.
Beth stared him in the eye, as if she had absolutely nothing to hide. She’d never been good at deception, but as Clint had said, such were the times.
“I’ll get that map, then,” he drawled.
The second he was out the door, she turned to Jackson.
“What a stand-up guy,” he smirked.
“He’s not getting our jeep.” She smiled. “I have a plan.”
“I wish you didn’t.”
“Shut up and listen.”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?”
“Jackson,” she sighed. “I’m serious.”
“Okay, let’s hear it,” he muttered and his attitude went downhill from there. He made a point of interrupting to highlight out each and every hole in her plan.
There were many, Beth admitted, but it wasn’t like he had any brilliant ideas to bring to the table.
∞∞∞
Clint walked out with them to the jeep. “My men have their instructions,” he said soberly. “You have nothing to fear, Beth. They’ll drop you off a short walk from Solkirk, safe and sound.”
As expected, Clint had fallen right into that part of her plan. He wasn’t an idiot, and driving the jeep all the way into the town was an invitation to an ambush—or would be if the town hadn’t been empty, but he wasn’t to know that. She was pretty sure his men had further instructions, to circle around on foot and scope out the place. It didn’t matter. Even if Clint learnt the town hadn’t been blasted to wreck and ruin, he could have it all, raid to his heart’s content so far as she was concerned. Jackson hadn’t been thrilled about her giving up Solkirk, but the jeep was more valuable than any bounty the town had to offer.
The two men were already in the jeep, the driver and another escort, both armed with guns and muscle.
Beth decided one last plea to Clint couldn’t hurt. “Aren’t you going to untie our hands?”
“It’s for your own protection.”
“How?” she snorted.
“So you’re not tempted to try anything and get yourself killed in the scuffle,” he said. “They’ll cut the zip ties when they drop you off.”
“You are so full of bullshit.”
Clint took that with a grin and opened the jeep door for them. “Take care, Beth, it was good to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she muttered as she hopped into the back, shuffled along to make space for Jackson.
At the last moment, however, right before the jeep revved away, she looked up at Clint and didn’t say it, but he read it in her eyes—Take care, Clint—and inclined his head. Because this was a new world now and you never knew which goodbye would be the last.
Without hands to steady herself, she went flying into Jackson as the jeep swerved to avoid a slab of rebar jutting onto the road. He tensed to absorb the momentum, but she still ended up shoving him against the door. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
She wedged her back against the opposite door and anchored a foot on the rear seat between them. Jackson did the same and they were facing each other, her first opportunity to look at him, really look, since this day had gone to shit.
Dirt scuffed his angular cheekbones.
Clumps of hair matted into the blood dried around that gash at his temple.
Shadows darkened his usually warm eyes and she felt that responsibility weigh on her shoulders. She’d made a bad call bringing them out so far from Little Falls. It could still cost them their lives. Her plan was risky, she knew that, but so was the forty mile hike back to Little Falls if it failed. They had no food, no water, no guns, no map.
She glanced skyward, searching for danger amongst the cirrus clouds streaking over. Or maybe just wasting time, reconsidering—they was nothing to reconsider! She plastered on a smile and switched her attention to the men up front.
The driver was just a crop of messy blond hair visible above the seat.
She had a profile view of the one on the passenger side, glimpsed the barrel of the rifle resting in his lap. Clint was right about one thing. If her hands weren’t bound, she’d make a stab at wrestling him for it.
She raised her voice to be heard above the engine, “Where are you guys from? Not Philadelphia, I hope. I heard that place got seriously churned. I’m from England. Battersea, actually. This was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime and now I’m stuck here. Talk about rotten timing, huh? Say, what do you think of the Silvers? I’m not sure they’re really aliens. I mean, come on, aliens? Personally, I think it’s a corporate takeover, like in the James Bond movies where the multi-billionaire psycho plots his crazy to take over the world. Jackson says I’m the crazy one. I guess we’ll see.”
Beth kept it up, manufacturing crap on top of crap as the miles slid by. Finally, she recognized the signs of them approaching Bridgewater. She squealed to penetrate the clutter of crap she’d been feeding them for over an hour. “Wait! I know where we are. Hey, could you let us out? We’ll walk from here.”
“The boss said to get you closer to Solkirk,” the driver called out.
She prodded Jackson with a look. A little help here?
You’re going to get us killed, he mouthed, or something close to that, and turned his eyes to the passing scenery of trees marred with clumps of ash.
Fine, she’d do it on her own.
“Jackson, the parking garage where we found the jeep is here somewhere,” she said, her voice pitched high enough to drill through bone. “I’m sure it is.”
The driver stamped on the brakes, slowing them to a crawl.
His partner bent his head between the seats to look at her. “You found this jeep in a parking garage?”
“Um…” Beth dialed down the bubblehead persona, as if suddenly realizing she’d said too much.
“Are there any more?”
“Jeeps?” she asked hesitantly.
“Jeeps, cars, anything that still runs.”
“How should I know?”
“You got a whole lot excited for someone who doesn’t know.” The man’s broad face creased into a warning scowl. “How do we get there?”
“It’s another mile or so,” Beth told him. “Then a right turn down one of the streets, I’m not really sure.”
He whipped his rifle around on her. “Maybe this will jolt your memory. The boss said not to kill you, but he didn’t mention nothing about you needing all your legs and arms.”
Beth gulped visibly and i
t wasn’t all for show. She’d expected more restraint from Clint’s goons. Silly me. “In that case, take the next left.”
He swung forward again and grunted, “Left at the next turnoff.”
Jackson glared at her.
She shrugged, but her pulse quickened with anxiety as they turned into the road that led to the parking garage and the biggest hole in her plan. Ritter. He’d hear the jeep coming a mile away, that’s all she could rely on. He might be down there to meet them, he might be elbow deep in grease on the upper level, he might come out guns blazing. No, not guns blazing. He’d see her and Jackson in the jeep. He’d play this clever. That’s how she’d sold her plan to Jackson, even if he hadn’t bought it.
The crumbled remains of Bridgewater stretched along their left. Her gut twisted as they drew ever nearer, slowing to a stop where the road ended in a small mountain of rubble and ash overlooked by the multi storey parking garage.
“Watch them,” the driver said, hefting his weapon over his shoulder as he jumped out.
The second man stood up in the front of the jeep, one hand curled over the top of the windshield, rifle held loosely in the other.
Jackson’s boot tapped her shin, got her attention. He gestured with his chin, with his eyes, Get down.
Too late.
Private Ritter popped out from midway up the rubble, one foot planted on a chunk of rebar, looking like a lethal lone crusader in his army camo and ammo belt, assault rifle locked and aimed on the man in the jeep although he kept the other in his line of sight.
Both men paused. The one up front hissed a curse, but didn’t try anything.
“That’s far enough,” Ritter barked as the driver started moving slowly again, edging around the jeep. “Consider this your last warning.”
“You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” the driver snarled.
“Move another muscle and I’ll never have the pleasure, and that’s alright with me,” Ritter said with a hard grin. “Beth, you okay?” he called without taking his eyes off his targets. “What the hell’s going on?”
“They ambushed us,” she shouted.
Jackson started to shuffle to his knees and she slammed her leg out, boot pressed to his chest. Met his scowl with a firm shake of her head. Any movement now could distract Ritter, confuse the situation.