by Nathan Jones
Kristy flinched, eyes filling with tears. But after a moment she nodded resolutely and shook free of his hand. With no more delay she led her son over to the vehicle and stowed her and her son's things and the two guns on the rack beside Tom's pack. Then she helped Skyler climb onto the seat just in front of their things, practically sitting on the backpack. Once her son was settled she wedged herself onto the back of the seat just in front of him, giving Tom plenty of room to drive.
He was already pushing the four wheeler's electric starter as she settled in. Nothing happened, although he wasn't sure why he'd expected anything else. He grabbed the starter cord and gave it a powerful heave.
Whatever state the vehicle's electronics might've been in, its engine had been well maintained and started on one pull. Tom immediately straddled the seat and put the ATV in gear, jamming the gas. As they lurched forward Kristy yelped and reflexively threw her hands around his waist, scooting forward to hold on tightly.
In spite of the danger of the situation that proved to be surprisingly distracting. Tom couldn't remember the last time he'd been this close to a woman, even in an innocent situation like this. It took an unexpected amount of concentration to ignore the sensation and focus on his driving.
And he really needed to focus, because handling the ATV on the rough slope turned out to be a bigger challenge than he'd expected.
How long had it been since he'd driven a vehicle? He'd had a couple chances since the Ultimatum, since even though working vehicles were few and far between and fuel was almost nonexistent he'd seen a few, when he'd been part of the occasional trade convoy. But that had been in the early days while society was still in its death spiral towards the Dark Ages, EMP and nuclear strikes combined having destroyed all but the barest vestiges of civilization.
Sure, driving was like riding a bike, a skill you never really forgot. But even so the fine points took a while to come back, as he discovered when he took the ATV down the slickrock slope at too shallow an angle and nearly rolled it sideways when they hit a sudden bump. He had to throw his weight towards the uphill side while yanking the handlebars downhill, and behind him Kristy clutched his waist in a death grip not much different from what you'd do for someone who was choking, forcing a strangled grunt out of him.
“Sorry,” he said as he righted the vehicle, a second before her own halfhearted apology as she loosened her grip.
At the bottom of the slope he turned left, taking them north along the rise. It served as a perfect cover between them and the bandits looting the convoy, although unfortunately it only stretched for a mile or so before tapering down to nothing. If the bandits had ATVs out searching for people who'd fled they'd probably go out that far, and there was an uncomfortable amount of open space before he reached more ridges and folds in the terrain that would block them from view.
A minute or so later he approached the end of the rise, where he stopped and got off for a moment to peek out at the view southward, binoculars in hand.
From what he could see the bandits were still busy with the convoy and no searchers were in sight. Now was his best shot.
Tom hurried back to the ATV and hopped on, popping it into gear and gunning the engine. They shot out from behind cover and he pushed for the best speed they could manage, heading for a dip in the ground a few hundred yards farther on.
Halfway there he heard Skyler shout at his mom in alarm. The boy said something else, but with the roar of the engine and the wind of their passage Tom couldn't hear it. Although he felt Kristy shift against his back as if looking behind her.
Then the woman turned forward again and abruptly pounded on his shoulder.
Tom cursed in surprise and did his best not to jerk the handlebars to one side in response. “I'm kind of busy here!” he snapped, veering away from a crack that suddenly appeared in the ground ahead of them that would've definitely gotten them stuck.
She pounded his shoulder again. “We're being followed!”
He cursed again, gunning the engine to even more dangerous speeds as they came out on a stretch of unusually flat, smooth ground; he'd really hoped they'd gotten away clean. Since he couldn't risk looking backwards he had to rely on her eyes. “How many?”
The woman leaned closer to reply, strands of windblown blond hair tickling his ear. “Just one! Two people on it!”
Okay then. Tom took a deep breath and continued on to the dip and down behind it, skidding to a halt the moment he was out of sight. Then he hopped off, unslung his rifle, and moved to a spot where he could plant its bipod on the lip of stone pointed back the way they'd come.
Since fleeing his hometown during the shortages Tom had lived by a very simple mantra: bullets were food, and they were getting harder to come by every day. He couldn't afford to waste them, which meant he couldn't afford to miss.
So for the last eleven years he'd worked very hard to make sure he never did.
His rugged bolt action .308 was practically a part of him, its high end scope teased and calibrated until he could get a kill shot on an elk at a hundred yards in mid leap. He could sight in and snap off a shot within moments of unslinging the familiar rifle that was more accurate than most men could manage after half a minute of careful aiming.
Tom hated shooting people, even if they were trying to kill him. Bullets were potential meat from game, and they were getting harder to come by every day. But if he had to do it he wouldn't miss.
He didn't; the four wheeler was moving pretty much straight for him, which made his first shot at three hundred yards relatively simple. It took the driver hunched over the handlebars of the fast moving vehicle square in the chest.
The man jerked violently, and as Tom had already learned through painful experience this terrain wasn't forgiving to poorly driven vehicles. The four wheeler veered sharply to the left and almost immediately flipped, flinging the limp body of the dying driver and the flailing form of his passenger in different directions.
After working the bolt and spending a couple seconds of aiming Tom put a bullet in the second man as he huddled on the ground in pain, obviously injured.
He immediately panned his scope across the landscape behind the downed ATV, searching for more pursuers. Once he was sure no one else was following them, at least not yet, he slung his rifle back over his shoulder and bolted to the four wheeler.
Tom soon had them going again, following the dip until it became a gentle slope down into a fold where they'd be out of sight in all directions but the way they were going.
He'd only been driving for few minutes, though, when Kristy abruptly pounded on his shoulder to get his attention. “Hey!” she shouted through the wind. “We're going the wrong way!”
He kept his eyes forward. “How do you figure?” he shouted back.
“You think I'm stupid? We're going northwest, we should be going south or east or somewhere in between!”
He snorted in disbelief at the idea. After watching the convoy get overrun he would've thought the woman would be happy to make a beeline back for civilization, such as it was. He honestly couldn't imagine a reason she'd want to continue, and hadn't expected her to insist on it.
Although it was certainly a nuisance. “Once those bandits realize what happened to four of their people and one of their vehicles they're going to be swarming this area looking for us. But they probably don't have the fuel to search for long, so if we keep going we'll eventually get out of their search area.”
Kristy pounded on his shoulder again, making him rethink how nice it really was having her sitting back there. “We're almost to Newpost and if we go there we can find help to rescue the others! Besides, you made a deal and you're going to honor it. Turn around!”
“I missed the part where we were taking a vote on this!” Tom shouted back, more sharply than he otherwise would've after being pummeled like that. He slowed to a stop beneath an overhang on one side of the fold, then twisted in the seat to face her. “I saved your bacon, I took this ATV and got us away
safely, and I'm the one who's going to get us out of here alive. If you want to hop off and try your luck on foot you're welcome to, otherwise quit hitting me.”
The flaxen-haired woman recoiled slightly, either at his bloody appearance or his tone. But after a moment she squared her shoulders and her blue eyes met his firmly. “This ATV can take us to Newpost and it's the closest safe haven. Why wouldn't you want to go there?”
Tom snorted. “This four wheeler will only take us anywhere for a few hours. You can go maybe a hundred miles on one of these with a full tank of gas, and I doubt the guys we took it from recently topped it off. We still have at least 250 miles to go, so even under the best circumstances we wouldn't make it half the remaining distance. On top of that however far we got would put us in the worst of the badlands with only what this machine is able to carry. It's not enough.”
That seemed to stump Kristy for a moment, then she seemed to have a realization. “If we run on this thing until we're out of gas we'll be left with whatever supplies we've got no matter which direction we go. Is that going to be enough to get us out of here?”
He opened his mouth to snap a reply, then hesitated and closed it. It probably wouldn't be, actually. Almost certainly, even if he guided them on a better route that would keep them closer to water and easy game and forage. He opened his mouth again to curse, then once again cut off when he spotted the kid peeking over the woman's shoulder.
Kristy gave him a tight-lipped smile, no joy or humor in it, just a sort of grim triumph. “We'll want to return to the convoy and see if the bandits left us any supplies we might need. And while we wait we can at least discuss where we're going, give me a chance to convince you Newpost is the right destination.”
Tom couldn't think of any reason to refuse, aside from the obvious: that the bandits would be swarming this area looking for them. Still, finding a spot to hide was probably a smarter move than running the ATV out of gas and winding up in the middle of nowhere with insufficient supplies.
He hadn't been panicking when he'd decided to make a beeline northwest, or at least not exactly, but he'd only been thinking of this escape from the perspective of whether he could survive on his own. He hadn't considered the extra responsibility of a woman and child, which would require more effort.
While he was deliberating Kristy glanced down at her arms where she'd been holding onto him, and her face twisted in revulsion as she realized some of the blood on him had gotten on her. “It'll give us a chance to wash up, too.”
Well that was also hard to argue with. Tom had to admit it would be nice to not be looked at by his two companions as if he was some bloody savage, and more importantly he didn't want to feel like one, either.
Without a word he turned to face forward, kicked the vehicle back into gear, and continued on down the fold.
“Are you serious?” Kristy demanded over the noise of the revving engine. She shifted in an unfortunately now familiar way, and Tom tensed in preparation for another blow to the shoulder. But she seemed to think better of it at the last second and simply leaned closer to his ear, voice fierce. “I thought you'd be the sort to see reason.”
Tom fought to keep the irritation off his face, even though she couldn't see it. “I'm finding us a hiding place, somewhere we can wait out the bandits until they decide we're not worth wasting any more fuel searching for and leave. Then we'll head back to the convoy and see what supplies we can find.”
“Oh.” She sounded a bit sheepish. “And the decision about going to Newpost?”
“Well that depends on whether you can convince me to go, and more importantly on if the bandits left behind what we'd need to get us there.”
Thankfully that was a good enough answer to shut the flaxen-haired woman up. Tom followed increasingly narrow offshoots of the fold, along paths that got more and more rough and hazardous for the four wheeler, until he'd reached such an inconvenient spot he didn't think even the most committed bandits would try to search for them there. To be honest he probably shouldn't have tried taking the ATV this far himself, especially with his dubious driving skills.
He maneuvered beneath another overhang that should cover them from sight from above, then hopped off and began loosening the straps to retrieve his pack.
Kristy, looking slightly more composed now than her panicked state during the attack, followed him and opened her mouth to continue the discussion. Tom cut her off. “I'm going to go keep watch, make sure our pursuit doesn't find us. We can chat when I get back.”
The flaxen-haired woman gave him an irritated look. “What about me and Skyler?”
“Stay hidden and sit tight, but be ready to start the four wheeler and get out of here if it looks like you'll be found.”
Without waiting for a response Tom slung his rifle above his pack and started climbing the nearest steep, almost clifflike wall of the fold. He was sure she'd try to have the last word, but thankfully the only thing he heard during the climb was the rustle of the furnace wind in his ears.
* * * * *
Just as Tom had feared, almost before he'd finished climbing out of the fold he heard the roar of engines as four wheelers and side by sides in a broad search line approached from the south, pausing to scour every nook and cranny of ground as they went.
From the sounds of it more than a few had followed them down into the fold and were now searching its main route and various offshoots, which wasn't great news. Tom was fairly confident he'd picked a decent hiding spot for the mother and child and their vehicle, but “fairly” wasn't “completely”.
Especially not when the bulk of their pursuit sped right past, only for a dozen or so men to come into view from the north searching his way on foot. He cursed to himself at the sight.
Didn't these guys ever run out of gas? He would've thought after not seeing any sign of their missing ATV they'd assume he'd done what he'd first planned, ie gunned it in one direction until the tank was empty and he'd gone far enough that it wouldn't be practical for them to keep pursuing, if they even had the fuel to.
They honestly couldn't think he'd gone to ground, could they? And if they did why were they wasting so much time and fuel trying to get him? Every moment near the site of their attack on the convoy represented a risk, however small, and he was sure they wanted to get their loot and prisoners back to whatever home base they'd set up.
He must've really pissed them off, which he supposed wasn't surprising since he'd killed four of their men and stolen a precious vehicle, complete with fuel. That was bound to draw some ire. Even so, they'd eventually reach the point where pragmatism would overcome their anger and they'd decide he wasn't worth using any more gas.
Wouldn't they?
If so it wasn't any time soon. Tense minutes passed, bandits sweeping the area as far as he could see in all directions, on foot with vehicle support, until they'd been searching for almost an hour. Some even neared his own hiding place, at one point actually forcing Tom to hunker down clutching his gun, scarcely daring to breathe for almost a minute until they moved on.
That was a close call, but only minutes later things got even worse. The bandits searching the fold finally reached the rough, winding gully Tom had taken the four wheeler down. Unfortunately rather than passing on by to more likely paths they turned and started almost directly for where Kristy and Skyler hid, huddled next to the vehicle beneath the overhang below his position.
Tom tensed without moving, raising his rifle to prepare to shoot. Then he thought better of it and dropped a hand to his knife, ready to draw. He didn't think he'd be as lucky with four men as he'd been with two, but just like before any gunshots would certainly bring enemies swooping down on them from all directions, and this time they'd have no easy retreat on the four wheeler.
This was about to turn very, very bad. Four on one was pretty much suicide, but the bandits were headed right for Kristy and Skyler and he didn't see what choice he had but to try and stop them.
The soldiers continued down t
he gully, weapons raised and eyes alert. Tom had a good angle to avoid being seen, but even so he barely breathed as their eyes repeatedly scanned the walls and top of the gully. He was clutching his knife so hard his fingers had started to hurt, and every muscle was tensed in preparation to drop down and strike.
He knew he'd probably die if he did, but put that out of his mind and focused on the fight itself, searching for a way to win against impossible odds.
Closer, closer. Tom was almost certain they could see into the overhang now, but so far they hadn't spotted the mother and child and raised the alarm. With only a few moments left before he'd be forced to act he shifted subtly and drew his knife.
The piercing whistle that came from the mouth of the gully made him jump high enough he was afraid the men below would spot the movement. He forced himself to freeze again and turned his head to see another couple soldiers there. They called insistently in Portuguese, and Tom was able to pick out enough words similar to Spanish to realize they were telling their friends it was time to go.
He took his first real breath in what felt like a minute as the four men below turned back. They wasted no time rejoining the other soldiers, who led the way out of sight down the fold.
Tom kept half an eye on the mouth of the gully in case they came back while he began searching the surrounding area for other potential threats. To his relief he saw that all around him soldiers were converging on each other, meeting up at designated pickup sites. Soon the circling vehicles closed in to pick up the various groups of bandits, and within minutes they were all roaring to the south again.
Before long even the sound of engines had faded, leaving him with nothing but the familiar rush of wind across the badlands. Tom waited five more minutes to be sure they weren't coming back, then slung his rifle over his backpack and started climbing back down into the gully.
When he reached the bottom he found Skyler seated on the four wheeler ready to go, while Kristy was standing nearby with her arms crossed, waiting for him. “The bandits?” she immediately asked.