Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  “Come on into my office,” Dr. Mark said, his low voice filling the house.

  He stepped down the hall through an open door into a small round room that had been converted into a makeshift doctor’s office. An old examination table dominated the middle of the room, and a pair of chairs were set in front of the open windows. Dr. Mark washed his hands with water in a plastic tub on the counter, dried them on a towel, then pointed at Raymond.

  “I take it this is our injured person,” he said. “Hop up on the table for me, guy.”

  Raymond walked over to the examination table. Dr. Mark opened a cabinet and pulled out an old khaki-colored Army medic bag, slinging it over his shoulder. It had a large red cross on the flap and seemed about a hundred years old.

  “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, approaching Raymond. He helped him take off the sling, then pulled back the ripped sleeve. “Is it broken?”

  “Dislocated,” Elna said.

  The doctor’s back was to her, so she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but she heard Raymond give a little intake of breath.

  “How did it happen?” the doctor asked.

  “I fell,” Raymond said, before giving another little cry of pain. “In a dumb way, I must admit.”

  “Who set the shoulder back in place?” the doctor asked.

  “I did,” Malin replied.

  “You’re not a doctor, though,” Mark said, giving him what Elna thought was a disapproving scowl over his shoulder. The man was a beast. A simple scowl sent a shiver down her spine.

  “No, sir, but I’ve dealt with dislocated shoulders before,” Malin said, sounding a little too defensive. “Old surfing injury. It’s not hard.”

  “You say that, but this man is in quite a bit of pain,” Mark said. “Even the slightest touch. It seems you did some tissue damage. If I had to guess, I’d say his rotator cuff is torn. These things are better left to experts.”

  To this, Malin merely shrugged.

  “You got it back in the socket, though,” Dr. Mark said, as he began unwinding the bandage. “I’ll give you that. How did you fall?”

  Raymond glanced at Elna before saying, “Fell off a boat when we hit the dock. Landed on my shoulder. Cut my arm on the edge of the dock.”

  Mark tossed the bloody bandage into a nearby trash can. “This wound is deep. It looks like it might be infected. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

  “Long time,” Raymond replied. “I’m not even sure. Maybe when I was a kid.”

  “Well, I don’t have a suture kit,” Dr. Mark said, digging into his Army medic bag, “but I can seal the wound with surgical glue. You don’t want to deal with an infection, not these days. You have any idea how hard it is to find antibiotics? You might as well go panning for gold. Keep this clean. Change the bandages regularly. If you get sepsis, you’re not going to live long.”

  Dr. Mark pulled a small tube of surgical glue out of his bag, then a cotton swab, then a fresh bandage.

  “It might be none of my business,” Mark said, after a minute, “but where are you folks headed? You said you fell off a boat, and this wound is fresh enough that it must have happened within the last day or so. That means you came ashore and took to the highway intentionally.”

  Instead of answering, Raymond looked past Mark’s shoulders to Elna. Clearly, he wanted her to make the decision about how much to say. Elna bit her lip as she debated this. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “We’re headed to Manchester. Small town on the coast. There’s a specialty clinic there.”

  Dr. Mark finally stepped back, revealing the freshly bandaged wound. He’d done a much tidier job than Elna.

  “Manchester, is it?” he said, as he helped Raymond put his coat back on. “Well, forgive me for butting into your business, but what you’re doing is incredibly unsafe. You don’t want to travel openly on Shoreline Highway. It’s a good way to get robbed, raped, and killed.”

  “We have no choice,” Elna said. “His boy needs us to bring a specialized treatment back to him, and we need a heart medication called midodrine.”

  “Midodrine,” Dr. Mark said, as he started putting things back in his medic bag. “For orthostatic hypotension. Good luck finding it. The pharmacies have all been looted.”

  “Are there any alternatives?” Elna asked.

  “Fludrocortisone,” he replied, “but that’ll be just as hard to find.”

  “We have to try,” Elna said.

  Dr. Mark closed the flap on his medic kit and buckled the leather straps. Then he put Raymond’s arm back in the sling, adjusted it slightly, and turned fully to face Elna. She couldn’t help but feel like he was some great marble pillar about to topple over on her.

  “What do we owe you for the medical care?” she asked. “That guy on the road said you’d barter. We’ve brought a few things.”

  He held up his hands. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “Why don’t I help you get to Manchester? I’ve needed to travel down that way for a while now, but it’s not safe to go alone. It’s a small town, and I’m pretty sure I know the clinic you’re referring to: Pacific Specialty Care.” He crossed his arms over his enormous chest. “If you let me tag along, I’ll show you some back roads that avoid the dangerous highway. We’ll be safer as a group and we can both get our needs met. What do you say?”

  Elna was so blindsided by the offer that she didn’t know what to say. For a few seconds, she just stared at the man, trying to work out the pros and cons in her head.

  “What’s in it for you?” Malin asked.

  “Hopefully, I can replenish some of my medical supplies,” he said. “I’m the only doctor in this entire county, and I’ve needed to restock for weeks. Hell, I can help you find antibiotics, midodrine, whatever you need. It’ll be mutually beneficial. What do you say? Don’t worry, I won’t be any trouble.”

  “How fast can you get us there?” Elna said. “We’re sort of pressed for time.”

  “A day or two at most,” he replied. “Assuming we don’t run into trouble. But even if we encounter some unsavory group, we’ll be more threatening together.” He stretched to his full height. “Well, at least I can be.”

  Malin and Raymond turned to stare at Elna. She felt their eyes boring into her. They were going to leave this decision to her. Mark was a big brute of a man, but he hadn’t given her any reason to doubt him. He seemed nice enough, and he didn’t give off any Rod Smith vibes. Random travelers like Grover spoke well of him. Was it worth the risk?

  You’ll never get to Manchester without local help, she told herself. You don’t know the road or local conditions.

  “Okay,” she said, after a tense moment of indecision. “Okay, fine. We’ll travel together and see how it goes. If you feel like we owe you anything for the treatment and guidance, we’ll talk about it once we get there. Sound good?”

  “Agreed,” Mark said, extending his enormous paw to her. “We can leave tomorrow morning, or we can leave this afternoon, whichever you prefer.”

  “I would prefer to leave right now,” Elna said, shaking his hand. Her whole hand seemed to disappear into the folds of his palm. “But maybe we need to rest and set out in the morning.”

  “So be it,” he said. “I’ll pack a few things, and we can head out at sunrise. I’d offer you a guest room, but I just met you. However, you can sleep on the porch tonight. I’ll bring some pillows and blankets. That’ll have to do.”

  “It’s fine,” Elna said.

  And with that, he went to the cabinet and began stuffing items into his medic kit. Elna made her way back through the house, stepping outside onto the porch. She was followed by Malin and Raymond. Once the front door was firmly shut, she turned to her companions.

  “Does it feel like a mistake?” she asked them, quietly. “I wish it weren’t so hard to trust people these days. Everyone feels like a threat.”

  “It feels like we don’t have a choice,” Malin said. “Raymond, what do you say, buddy?�
�

  Raymond looked thoroughly miserable, scowling and swaying on his feet, but he managed to shrug. “I just want to get there. If we have to trust this giant, then okay. There is safety in numbers. But that doesn’t mean we fall asleep—let’s stay alert. Now more than ever.”

  13

  Mark proved to be a boon right away as he produced a small flatbed handcart. They managed to fit both Raymond and their supplies on the cart, and then the giant of a man even offered to push it for them. To Malin, whose arms were in sheer agony after pushing the rusty handcart for hours, this one thing made any risk worth it.

  Unfortunately, he could tell that Elna was not nearly as excited. If anything, she seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown, constantly gnawing at her lower lip and scowling off into the distance. They’d spent the night sleeping on Dr. Mark’s porch. Only now, in the bright, crisp morning light, did they finally set out, and while Malin had been grateful for a relatively peaceful night’s sleep, Elna didn’t seem happy about it.

  As soon as they reached the town’s one intersection, Mark headed east, leaving the highway to follow a winding road through a densely wooded area. Malin saw a few faces peering at them from the windows of nearby houses, but nobody else was outside. Abandoned, stalled vehicles were everywhere, blocking lanes, driveways, filling ditches. Malin was shocked at the sheer number of dead cars and trucks everywhere. Fortunately, the side road didn’t seem as bad as the highway, and the little flatbed cart was small enough that they were able to squeeze through the gaps.

  Malin felt pretty good. Not having to push the handcart made a huge difference. Actually, it was the best he’d felt since they first set sail. The sun was up, and it even managed to produce a little warmth. His aching arms and shoulders had a chance to rest.

  We should’ve done this a lot sooner, he thought.

  They’d walked almost an hour in utter silence before Mark finally spoke. “The criminals tend to operate in gangs,” he said, “and they mainly roam the highways, because they know that’s where they’ll find the most victims. Some of them are bold, breaking into homes and such, but most are opportunistic cowards. On a back road like this, we should be relatively safe.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Elna replied. “Are you sure this will take us where we need to go?”

  The trees rose up tall on every side, giving the small road an almost tunnel-like feel. In some ways, Malin preferred the enclosed feeling to being out in the open, where eyes could watch them from a distance.

  “This road circles back around to the highway a few miles south of town,” Mark said. “Trust me, I know where I’m going.”

  “Okay, if you say so,” Elna muttered. “We’re trusting you, Mark.”

  Malin scanned the vehicles in passing, hoping for some sign that one of them still worked. Raymond was sitting cross-legged on the cart, supplies stacked around him, and Mark seemed to have no trouble pushing them. That allowed them to make better time, so they set a brisk pace. Raymond had taken the crate of wine and placed it in his lap. Malin saw sunlight glinting off the gold-foil label of one of the bottles.

  They were rounding a bend out of sight of the town, passing through deepening shadows, when Malin felt a familiar crawling unease. It was like fingers tracing a line down the back of his neck, and he shrugged his shoulders to make it go away. When that didn’t work, he glanced behind himself. Immediately, he saw movement as some distant figure quickly ducked behind a car. It happened so fast, he didn’t get a good look at the person. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure it had been a person.

  “Yeah, so, not to freak anyone out here, but we are possibly being followed,” Malin said. “By someone or something.”

  Elna immediately looked over her shoulder, but their follower was well hidden now. Mark stopped pushing the cart and turned, gazing at the road behind them.

  “You know, I thought I heard something a while back,” he said. “I don’t see him now, but keep your eyes and ears open.”

  He resumed pushing the cart. Malin tapped Elna on the arm and followed. They went another hundred yards or so before Malin heard footsteps behind them—the scuffing of shoes on loose gravel.

  “Okay, my suggestion,” Mark said. “Malin, drop back and see if you can flush the guy out. Take some kind of weapon—whatever you’ve got—and startle him, if you can. We can’t let this guy get the drop on us or steal supplies while we’re sleeping. So, let’s get him now.”

  Malin liked this idea very much. The thought of scaring off some creep who wanted to sneak up behind him touched an angry place within him, but he looked at Elna first to make sure she was okay with it. Mark wasn’t the boss here, after all, even if he was their guide.

  “Go for it,” Elna said. “Just be careful. Arm yourself.”

  Digging the crowbar out of their supplies, Malin dropped back, moving so that a minivan was between him and their follower. He let Mark and Elna get a few yards ahead, then he turned and started back the way they’d come. Their follower had gone quiet. He was hiding back there somewhere, but Malin had a general idea of where he’d last heard him.

  Moving low, he tried to spot the stranger’s shadow somewhere beneath the cars. He didn’t see anything, but he stayed low as he moved, slipping from vehicle to vehicle.

  “Come on, guy,” he muttered. “Let’s not play games. Show yourself.”

  He heard the distinct sound of a trunk hood bowing inward, as if someone had stepped on it. Whipping about, he turned to his right and raised the crowbar to swing it. He caught a glimpse of red cloth dipping behind a large sedan parked on the shoulder in the far lane. Rising, he leapt toward the sedan. As he did, a figure rose up on the far side. He wore a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled up to hide his face.

  Malin had the wild idea to fling the crowbar at the man. His back was a broad, red target against a green background. He hesitated a second, and the opportunity passed as the stranger disappeared into the trees. Malin heard his footsteps moving through the brush for a few seconds, gradually fading into the distance. And then he was gone. After waiting a bit, he lowered the crowbar and hurried to catch up to Elna and the others.

  “Did you flush him out?” Mark asked.

  “Yeah,” Malin replied, moving up beside him to put the crowbar away. “Some weird guy. Looked young to me, but I didn’t see his face. Just a red hooded sweatshirt. He ran off into the woods.”

  “Good. Maybe he got spooked and he’ll stay away now,” Mark said. “Was he armed?”

  “I couldn’t tell. He didn’t try to defend himself, so maybe not.”

  Elna was lost in thought again, her lips working from side to side. Malin almost asked her what she was thinking about, but he let it go. They followed a few twists and turns through the wooded area before turning back to the southwest and cresting a rocky rise. From here, they had a view of the highway, and Malin spotted another small tent camp set up among the dead vehicles. Even from a quarter mile away, they looked like a ragged group of people.

  Whether or not the distant people also saw them was unclear, but Malin noted that Mark eased over to the northbound lane of their road, keeping as many vehicles between them as possible. Raymond seemed to be doing much better now that he didn’t have to walk. As Mark pushed the cart, Malin noted the absolutely beastly muscles in his forearms.

  Dude’s more ripped than me, he thought. Might come in handy if we get in trouble.

  And then he heard the footsteps behind him again. He looked back and thought he saw a hint of movement as someone ducked behind a van.

  “Let me handle it this time,” Mark said, gesturing for Malin to take his place at the cart. “You really have to strike fear into them. Watch.”

  Malin grabbed the handles and was immediately surprised at just how heavy the overloaded cart was. Mark made it look so easy. The small rubberized wheels didn’t seem overly fond of the rough asphalt. As he pushed the cart, keeping it on the far-left side of the road, Mark dashed back the way they’d come, m
aking plenty of noise along the way.

  “Whoever’s following us is persistent,” Elna noted, “which means he’s probably desperate, and desperate people are dangerous.”

  “We’ll sleep with one eye open tonight,” Malin said, “assuming Mark there doesn’t crush him like a bug first.”

  Elna gave him a tight-lipped look.

  Mark returned a moment later, cursing under his breath. “The little twerp waited until I got close, then took off like a startled rabbit,” he said, grabbing the cart handles. “I can’t tell if he’s armed. He didn’t point any weapons at me.”

  “Did you get a look at his face?” Malin asked.

  Mark shook his head. “He’s hiding under that hood. He doesn’t want to be seen, but he’s also not trying very hard to go unnoticed with that red sweatshirt.”

  “It’s almost like he wants us to know he’s following,” Elna said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Mark said.

  “Maybe not, but we’d better be ready if he tries something.”

  Mark tightened his grip on the flatbed cart handles. His palms squeezed against the flaking metal, and the muscles in his forearms bulged.

  “Believe me, I’m ready,” he snarled. “If I get my hands on him, he’ll regret we ever crossed paths.”

  They were descending a slope, headed back toward the highway, when they entered the next small town. A small city park at the north edge of town had been converted into a tent camp, with small tents planted in uneven rows. A few dozen people milled about the camp. Malin thought they were a dour and depressed-looking lot, all wild, tangled hair and dirty faces. The whole area reeked of smoke and filth.

  As Malin and the others passed by, reaching an intersection with the highway and turning south, he saw many unfriendly eyes watching them from the park. One old man with a walking stick even stood up, as if preparing to approach and speak to them. However, after a few seconds, he sat back down, laid the stick across his legs, and scowled in silence.