“Take a step back, please, ma’am,” he said.
She twitched nervously. The bags under her eyes were multilayered, and a ring of mascara had run down her cheeks. She handed him her labor card and then did as asked.
The line behind her had only grown longer. Two armed guards by the table kept careful watch.
Larry leaned in closer to Arthur in confidence. “It’s been two months, Mr. Mayor, and some of the boys are getting a little … well. You know, antsy.”
“About what?” Arthur asked, playing oblivious.
“What do you think? They want some action. They’ve shown about the most restraint they can, and you can’t expect them to hold out for much longer.”
Arthur turned to him dismissively. “If I let that happen, we’ll never hear the end of it. These people will fight back. That’s all they would need.”
“Easy for you to say. You got a wife,” Larry said.
Arthur glared at Larry with contempt. “You leave her out of this.”
Larry brazenly stepped forward. They almost touched noses. A few of the freemen under the pavilion caught a glimpse of what looked like trouble brewing.
“Something has to be done, Arthur. I’m telling you this for your own good.”
One of the freemen, Jerome, walked over and pushed Larry away. “Are you out your mind?” His booming voice and exceptional build intimidated most people he encountered—in prison and in the real world. “Gettin’ in the mayor’s face like that in front of all these people?”
Arthur waved Jerome away. “It’s quite all right, Jerome. We were just having a discussion,” Arthur said.
“Didn’t look like no discussion to me. Looks like that man be trying you.”
Larry said nothing and stormed off in frustration. Before Arthur could call out to him, the frizzy-haired woman in line began screaming and arguing with Nathan. Her outburst had garnered everyone’s attention.
“What do you mean two pills of Vicodin! That’s not enough to last me the week! Hell, it ain’t enough to last me two days!”
Nathan sat frozen and offered the cup containing her pills. “Ms. Bernard. Your labor card indicates that you failed to perform more than five tasks this week. You haven’t earned it.”
“That’s bullshit!” she shouted as her voice cracked.
“Well. You can take it or leave it,” Nathan responded.
She lunged at him and smacked the cup out of his hand as the crowd gasped. Standing to the side, Dwayne raised the buttstock of his rifle and smacked her in the head with it.
Her small body dropped to the ground. Gasps from the crowd turned into screams. Arthur charged forward and pushed his men out of the way. Once he made it into the center of the crowd, he raised his arms and urged everyone to be calm.
“It’s OK, people! Don’t worry!”
Their hands covered their frightened faces as they backed away and the line began to thin out.
“It was just a misunderstanding!” Arthur said. “Come on. Everyone back in line.” As the reluctant herd went back to their places, Arthur glared at Dwayne. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said under his breath.
Dwayne shrugged. “I’m sorry. She tried to attack Nathan. Ain’t that what we’re here for? To enforce order?”
Arthur’s face reddened with anger, but he kept his voice low. “Yes. But not always out in the open like this.” He looked down at the woman, lying unconscious on the cement, then back to Dwayne. “Just get her the hell out of here, and give her four Vicodin for the week when she comes to.”
Two of his men stepped forward and took the woman away just as a ringing noise sounded in the distance. The crowd looked over as a group of freemen ran down the road toward the pavilion in a panic.
One of them clutched a small speaker that amplified the sound as they approached. Arthur had a bad feeling in his gut. The crowd began to move out of line in a clamor.
“Let’s not be rash here,” Arthur said, calling out to the crowd. “Distribution will continue. Everything is under control!”
The approaching men ran past the crowd and into the pavilion as if they were on fire. The lead man with the mini-siren, Randy, nearly tripped over himself as the guards huddled together, curious. Even Dr. Layish, who usually kept to himself, began walking over.
“We got a major problem …” Randy said to Arthur between heavy breaths. The two other men caught up, clutching their sides.
Arthur led them away from earshot of the crowd, but several of the guards followed. “Stay at your posts!” he said with clenched teeth.
Despite his demands, there was no sign of anything going back to normal. The words, “major problem” had resonated with everyone within hearing range.
“What is it?” Arthur demanded of Randy. “We have enough issues as it is.”
Randy wiped the sweat from his forehead and yanked the dark-blue bandana from his head.
“Intruders,” he said. He coughed and spit on the ground. “They came into town in a truck. Drove around our barricades and went straight for our hospital.”
Now they had Arthur’s attention. “Hospital?” He leaned closer to Randy. “What were they doing there?”
Randy continued. “Two scouts went to check it out. Parker and Johnson.” He paused, swallowed, and took another deep breath. “The intruders, they shot ’em. Johnson’s dead. Parker took one in the shoulder.”
“And just where are these intruders now?” Arthur asked. He frowned and narrowed his eyes, trying to hold back his anger.
“Almost got them at the north wall, but they got away. Saw the truck barrel out of here, up toward Route 9 West.”
“Like an actual moving vehicle?”
Randy nodded. “Came in here like a bat out of hell and then took off.”
Arthur thought to himself, feeling both panic and rage. “What were they doing at the hospital? Did they take anything?” he asked.
“That was the first thing we checked. They broke into the supply room on the third floor. Took damn near about everything. Saw blood on the pavement outside. I think we got one of them. Injured him anyway.”
Arthur clutched Randy’s shoulder. “Where’s Parker?”
Randy looked around. “We-uh. We got him in a hospital bed. Came back to tell you and get Doc.”
Just as Dr. Layish glanced over at their huddle, Arthur signaled him over. The guards watched from their positions in the pavilion, waiting to be clued in. Dr. Layish came over, but stood apart. Before Arthur could say anything, Larry emerged from out of nowhere, oblivious to what was going on.
“I wanted to make amends, Mr. Mayor.” His tone was apologetic. “I thought about what you said, and—”
Arthur cut him off. “Not now, Larry.” He turned to Dr. Layish. “Doc, we need you to go to the hospital with us. We have a man there who’s been shot.”
“Shot?” Larry said. He had already put Arthur’s rebuff aside. “What happened?”
“Outsiders,” Randy answered. “Raided our hospital supplies and shot Johnson and Parker.”
Larry’s face flushed. His handlebar mustache twitched. “You shittin’ me?” He began pacing. “I told you we needed guards posted at the hospital twenty-four, seven. Where are these sons of bitches?”
Arthur swung his hands out. “Enough. Keep this on the down-low. Let’s go to the hospital with Doc and find out from Parker exactly what the hell happened.”
He grabbed Larry, Randy, and Dr. Layish and stormed out past the restless crowd, toward the hospital a few blocks up the road. The guards watched with keen interest, but reluctantly stayed behind to do as they were told. The sooner the drugs were distributed, the sooner they could all rest.
“Brantley!” Nathan shouted, calling for the next person in line.
***
Parker lay in a dingy hospital room on the first floor of the recovery ward. The door slammed open as Arthur stormed in, full of rage. Dr. Layish followed, with Larry and Randy trailing behind. Parker jolted upright
in his bed. He was shirtless, with his shoulder wrapped in red-soaked bandages. His face was pale and sweaty—his expression disoriented, even delirious.
“What happened?” Arthur asked, his voice hard and unsympathetic.
Dr. Layish stepped in. “Mayor Jenkins, please. This man is seriously injured. I need to clean and dress this wound before it gets infected.”
Arthur pushed Layish to the side. “In time, Doc. Those outsiders could be anywhere right now.” He leaned down closer into Parker’s face. “Tell me everything.”
Parker struggled to speak as Layish handed him a bottle of water. He gulped the water and nearly choked.
“Easy, now,” Layish said.
After a gasp and a painful wince, Parker looked up at Arthur, ready to speak. His choppy hair clung to his forehead. “Johnson and I,” he said, “were pulling security… checking out the hospital, when we seen these two guys stealing gasoline from the cars in the parking lot. We followed them to their truck where …”
He winced again. The room was silent in anticipation. “They met up with their friends.”
“What kind of truck did they have?” Arthur asked.
“Old Ford pickup. They had bags of supplies from the hospital. We fired a warning shot at ’em, but they was armed. Shot at us and tore through the parking lot.”
“They hit Johnson?” Larry asked, stepping forward.
“No, they shot me. They ran over Johnson.”
The room was stunned. “Animals,” Arthur said, and shook his head in disgust. He looked down at Parker. “Where did you see them go?”
“I don’t know. I lost consciousness.”
“I told you,” Randall interjected. “They were last seen driving north on Route 9 West.”
Arthur thought to himself, barely paying attention as Dr. Layish examined Parker. The doctor then turned to the group. “I’m going to need some supplies to treat him. Anything you can provide.”
Parker’s head fell back as he groaned in pain. Arthur stepped back and looked at Randy. “Get Doc what he needs.” He then pointed at Larry. “Come with me. I’ve got an idea.” They left the small, dimly lit room in haste as Layish attended to the injured man before them.
Arthur and Larry walked out of the hospital parking lot to a baseball field across the street. The dying grass crunched under their shoes as they walked. In less than a month, the ground, roads, and vehicles would all be covered under thick blankets of snow.
Arthur’s mind was focused on one thing: finding the intruders. He led Larry up some bleachers where they overlooked the flat, desolate town, surrounded by distant mountains. Arthur pulled out a pair of binoculars from his jacket and searched past the highway to the rolling hills north.
He had a hunch about their intruders. They were outsiders in every sense. They had come into town because they needed supplies, and they needed supplies because they were living somewhere isolated.
Arthur handed the binoculars to Larry. “Look past the interstate.”
Larry put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned ahead.
“You see that mountain? That one to the right. Has to be a good five, six miles from here. That’s Bear Mountain. I’ve heard some stories. Even before all of this happened, I heard about people living out there. The mountain people, we called them.”
Larry lowered the binos and looked at Arthur. “You really believe that?”
“No, but we can use that story to our benefit. This makes having the wall even more important. It protects us from the mountain people in case they try to rob us again.”
“How do we know that they’re not living in some other town close by?” Larry asked.
Arthur thought to himself. “I don’t. But we need to get a search party together, go into the mountains, and make sure. It’s the only way.”
***
The trek on foot to Bear Mountain took the entire afternoon. Arthur and his five-man scout team split into two groups and traveled down both sides of the road looking for clues. Their weapons were at the ready, and they were as prepared as any foot soldiers. The plan was to find the intruders, but no decision had been made on exactly what to do with them.
Their opponents had weapons, which made ambushing their mountain enclave problematic. Larry held a map in this hands, leading the way as the group crossed a long bridge over the Hudson and came to the mountain in question—rising above unabated wilderness. Bear Mountain reached altitudes of eight thousand feet, and its width stretched over hundreds of rugged acres. They could be searching for days, and they were already exhausted.
At the end of the bridge, they found a hiking trail. Arthur called the men to gather around to discuss their strategy. In the group were Larry, Parker, Eddie, Dwayne and Jerome—among the most loyal and skilled of the escaped convicts in his gang of freemen.
“Gentlemen, before we go any farther, I want to thank you all for making this trip so far. From our time of wrongful incarceration to the miraculous events that led us to take control of an entire town, I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”
Larry stood impatiently to the side. He had heard the speech many times. It was a pep talk. Something to get them fired up. The convicts respected Arthur and followed him primarily because he seemed to have the answers. And in the world of chaos that surrounded them, answers were everything.
Arthur continued. “Our town, our very way of life is under attack by feral outsiders living in the mountains.” He held his hands out, palms up. “Now, I don’t know how many outsiders we’re dealing with here. That’s why we have to be extra careful.”
The men were dressed in green camouflage apparel, with black skullcaps on their heads. Arthur pulled off his cap and brushed back his thick gray hair. “If you see anything, just point it out. Don’t shoot anything unless I tell you to. And for God’s sakes, don’t blow our cover.”
“What if they shoot at us?” Jerome asked. “I ain’t going out like that. Not by a bunch of mountain hillbillies.”
“Our first priority is surveillance. We need to study them. Find out what their defenses and weaknesses are. Then we strike.”
Arthur looked around, sizing everyone up, ensuring that the group was on the same page. “And who knows. We could even come up cold.”
The men groaned, but before they could protest, Arthur started moving ahead. They dutifully followed, one by one. The hiking trail grew steeper and steeper as they progressed. Their boots crunched on sticks, pebbles, and rocky chunks of dirt, and the air began to grow noticeably colder the higher they went. They were trying not to climb, but to circle around to the far side of the base.
They entered the thick brush on the west side of the mountain and saw nothing but trees and large stones heaved from the ground. Larry kept track of their pace count. Parker navigated, and the others followed. Arthur pulled out his binoculars and looked for movement, smoke, fire, tents, shanties, or cabins—anything that indicated the presence of others.
Three hours of uphill walking and many miles later they stopped. Arthur locked in on something ahead through his binoculars. He then signaled his wary and exhausted men to take cover.
“Forty meters. Looks like houses, no, cabins!”
Better yet, he saw movement. There were people there. He could see a truck too. Perhaps the very same truck used in the heist. For the time being, the group did nothing but wait and watch. It seemed as though they had all the time in the world.
Confrontation
The deadly firefight sent a rush of adrenaline surging through Rob as he gunned the pickup in a frantic escape from the hospital. Startled and disoriented, much like the others, he could barely remember the way out of town. The Ford pickup roared down the road and hit a pothole, again throwing Carlos and Brad onto the truck bed with brute force.
Wind blasted inside the truck from the gaping hole in the windshield. Mila pleaded with Rob to slow down. She could barely keep her grip on the passenger-side armrest, and debris was blowing in their faces. Peter lay
on the floor, under the dashboard, cradling his injured hand. Mila reached for her medical tote bag, only to have it fly out of her hands when Rob hit another bump.
“You need to slow down!” she shouted.
“I can’t!” Rob said. “We’re sitting ducks!”
He didn’t know what turn to make or where to go. All the streets looked the same. Peter’s blood was everywhere. Their left headlight dangled from the front bumper, fresh from running a man down. Rob had never killed anyone. He’d never even been in a fight past high school. And as far as he remembered, a hit-and-run was still a crime.
His first instinct was to go to the police, but of course there wasn’t a single officer in sight, and no station to go to, either. He took a sharp right down a residential back road, losing all sense of direction. His heart raced as his hands clenched the wheel. Up ahead, he could see that the road had been blocked off with more vehicles, like another barricade.
Avoiding the trap, Rob took his first left, realizing that no matter where he turned, there were barricades in the way. They turned down a street where a six-foot-high concrete wall ran across the entire two-lane street. Rob slammed the brakes. Mila flew forward and caught herself against the dashboard. Peter nailed his head against the lower ashtray. The truck screeched to a halt as smoke rose from the tires.
Five men stood at the end of the wall, stacking cinder blocks.
Mila squinted. “What is this?”
Rob took a moment to catch his breath and looked out as well. “A wall. They’re blocking every exit.” He whipped his head around. “We need to find a way out.”
Carlos shouted from the truck bed in pain. “What’s going on up there?”
“We’re trying to find a way out,” Mila shouted back.
Suddenly, two armed men came rushing toward them across a nearby yard, covering ground in haste.
“Get out of the truck!” one of them shouted.
Rob put the truck in reverse and slammed the gas pedal. The truck jolted backward as Mila screamed. Rob kept his eyes on the rearview mirror for anything in their path as Carlos and Brad stayed flat in the back. The two men—large and covered in tattoos and piercings—maintained their breakneck pursuit.
End Days Super Boxset Page 55