by Eric Vall
“I can,” I said with a nod. “That’s why we knocked.”
“Alright, if you really are here to help you can come inside, but leave your rifles there,” the man said as he nodded to our guns.
I looked down at my gun and frowned. I didn’t really want to leave it in such shitty weather, but I also didn’t want to push my luck with what was clearly an uneasy man. I looked up at Tara and nodded. We were not going to be here long anyway, and our weapons were well maintained. They should be able to survive a few minutes. “Agreed.”
The man led us inside but stopped us in the entryway. “You guys wait here a moment. I am going to give my family a heads up.”
I nodded, and the man slipped away.
“Well, that went better than I was expecting,” Tara whispered to me.
“Yeah, but next time try not to antagonize our potential allies,” I remarked.
“What, I was just telling him the truth,” Tara said. “We really do have better things to be doing.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Uh, they took Jenny,” Tara said as her blue eyes narrowed a bit. “They are going to--”
“Not if we get them first,” I said.
“I know,” Tara sighed. “Sorry I’m like… being a bitch. I just… I can’t stand to think what those guys are going to do to her. Fuck, I don’t even know her. I just--”
“You both can come in,” the black-haired man interrupted her as he poked his head out of the door.
“Everything good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Follow me and please don’t make me regret letting you guys in here.”
The man led us down a hallway and through an ornate set of double doors into a sitting room. There were a couple comfortable looking leather couches, and three plush chairs all arranged around a large flatscreen TV. Three new people were already in the sitting room. The first was who I assumed to be the wife. She was a tall blonde woman with sad blue eyes, a pointed nose, and soft features. The woman wore a plain blue dress that almost covered her dirty bare feet. Hiding behind her were two young boys. Neither of them looked to be older than six, and they eyed Tara and I fearfully.
Both the boys had thick black hair like their father, but they were already tall like their mother. They each had on a set of tiny denim overalls, and no shoes.
“Hello, I’m Tav, and my friend here is Tara,” I said. “You all must be the Millers.”
“Nice to meet you, I think,” the woman said. “How do you know who we are?”
“We met Briar about an hour ago,” Tara explained, “He told us your last name.”
“Yeah, we’ve been hunting the National Guard guys all day and wanted to come this way to make sure you were safe,” I said.
“We were sorta hoping we might make it here before they did though,” Tara sighed.
“Clearly we didn’t manage to do that, but we still wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said. “Especially after seeing what they did to Briar and his farm.”
“Is he okay?” The woman quickly asked.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said. “We patched him up and made sure he wouldn’t bleed out.”
“Oh my god, he was injured?” The man asked.
“Yeah, seems he put up a fight when the soldiers wanted to take his stuff,” Tara said.
“Any trouble with that here?” I asked.
“No, we gave them what they asked for,” Mr. Miller said. “They didn’t seem very friendly, and I didn’t want to give them a reason to use that big gun they had with them.”
“Big gun?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was some sorta machine gun,” The wife answered.
Unfortunately that didn’t tell me much, but at least I knew they were packing something other than M4s.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about the guys that robbed you?” Tara asked.
“Uh, sure, we’ll tell you what we know,” the man said. “Please, have a seat.” he motioned to the large chairs.
“I appreciate it, but I think I’ll stand,” I said. “We won’t be here long anyway.”
“I’m Justin, by the way, and this is my wife Marla,” the black haired man said.
“There are our sons, Mitch and Frank,” Marla said with a small smile. “Say hello guys, these two are friends of Briar.”
The two little boys, both of whom had jet black hair like their father, peeked around their mother just long enough to wave and mouth the words hello.
“They’re a bit shy,” Marla said.
“I can’t blame them,” Tara replied. “It’s been a long day for everybody.”
“Yeah, we lost a lot of stuff today,” Justin said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to stick around here much longer. Not without our livestock.”
“Hopefully we can make it just a little better,” I said. “Once we catch up to this National Guard caravan, we’ll try to get all of your stuff back for you.”
“You serious?” Marla asked as she raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, we’ll get your stuff back,” Tara assured her.
“What’s it going to cost us?” Justin asked.
“All we need from you is whatever information you have about the soldiers,” I said.
“That’s it?” Justin asked. “That seems a little too good.”
“We have a nice home setup for ourselves close by and are really only interested in taking care of this problem,” I explained, “There’s no reason not to return your stuff once we do that.”
“I really don’t know what to say,” Marla said. “I had started to think that we might never find another reasonable person outside of our neighbors.”
“Yeah, first there were those biker guys, and now there are these military assholes,” Justin agreed. “Was pretty sure everything had just gone to shit.”
“It seems like a lot of things have, but me and my group are doing what we can to live a normal life up here,” I said. “Though we really do need to get going soon, so I need you to tell me what happened.”
“Right, yeah, sorry,” Justin said as he took a seat next to his wife. He looked at the blonde woman, gave her a nervous smile, then turned back to me. “Um, well all of a sudden we heard the rumble of engines. We hid thinking it was the bikers, but actually got excited once we saw that it was military trucks.”
“Let me guess, that excitement didn’t last too long,” Tara said.
“Yeah, we ran out to greet them and they didn’t look very happy to see us,” Marla said.
“Sounds a lot like what happened to Briar,” I muttered.
“We tried to explain our situation, but they weren’t taking no for an answer,” Justin said. “At some point I realized that these guys meant business so I, uh, sorta just gave them what they wanted. I wasn’t going to risk the safety of my family for my supplies.”
“I don’t blame you for that,” I said as I looked at the kids. “These guys don’t seem to mind getting their hands dirty.”
“That’s what we were afraid of,” Marla said.
“Well, after that we pretty much hid inside while they ransacked the farm,” Justin continued. “They took our livestock, came in and raided our cupboards, and even took some comfort stuff like blankets too,”
“They left you guys alone though?” I asked.
“Yeah, once we made it clear we were going to cooperate they just kinda went around us,” he replied with a nod. “I didn’t like the way some of them were looking at Marla though. It’s hard not to think about what they might have done if they had taken her.”
Marla burst into tears and hugged her boys tightly. They tried to comfort her but were too young to even understand what exactly was wrong.
“Hey, there’s no need for that,” I said softly to try to help.
“Let me take care of this,” Tara leaned over and said to me.
I nodded and a moment later my platinum blonde companion crossed the room and knelt down in front of Marla and the boys.
>
“Hey, don’t worry,” she cooed. “Tav over there has helped me and my friends out of far worse scrapes than this one. When the lights went out me and a few other girls were alone. At first things were fine, but we quickly started to run out of food and water. So we made a habit of looting the nearby town for supplies. One day, while in town for more supplies, a couple biker guys found us. That’s when Tav showed up. He took care of them and then helped us to turn things around. Now we have our own place to live complete with running water, a steady supply of food, and even hot showers.”
As Tara continued to tell a cliff notes version of our recent history, I pulled Justin aside.
“Can you give me any details about these troops?” I asked.
“At first there were only two trucks, but once they started to look around four more made their way onto the property,” The black haired man said.
“So six trucks total?” I asked.
“Yeah, they were all the same kind too,” he replied with a nod.
“Big canvas covered cargo trucks?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” he replied. “They looked a little old, but I guess only old things are running now.”
“Yeah, older vehicles didn’t get impacted by the EMP on account of their lack of electronics,” I explained.
“Yeah, I feel silly for selling my grandpas old car last year,” Justin sighed. “It was made back in the forties, and if I still had that I might have been able to get my family out of here and--”
“Hey, stay with me,” I interrupted the emotional man. “You gotta focus on what can be done now.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Justin agreed. “Sorry, what else do you wanna know?”
“How many soldiers were there in total?” I asked. This felt a lot like the conversation I had with Briar just an hour earlier, but the more I could learn the better prepared I would be to face them when the time came.
“Around twenty,” Justin said. “Mostly guys in their early twenties, but they were led by an older guy. If I had to guess I’d say he was in his late forties. He had really short grey hair, and a gnarly scar on the back of his left hand.”
“That’s helpful,” I said. “Knowing who the leader is means I can try to take him out first.”
“Good,” Justin said, “Most all the guys seemed to have pretty standard looking military guns. I was never much of a gun guy myself so I don’t know what they are called, but, like we said earlier, one of them hung out in the back of a truck with some real mean looking machine gun. It kinda reminded me of that gun used in Rambo. It even had the belt of ammo and everything.”
“You’re sure there was only one of these, right?” I asked.
“I mean, as sure as I can be without asking,” Justin said. “I didn’t exactly ask them for an inventory of their weapons.”
“That’s fair,” I sighed as I looked over to where Tara sat.
Her story must have worked because Marla had a small smile on her face, and the boys had moved to sit on the ground next to her. I smiled at such an innocent and wholesome sight. Sometimes I needed moments like this to help make all the stress and violence worth it. These were the people I had joined the army to fight for, and they were the people I would fight for now when they needed it most. I turned my attention back to Justin. “We should get a move on. These guys might have left Marla here, but Jenny was not so lucky.”
“Thank you for taking the time to make sure we were okay,” he said.
“It’s the least we could do,” I said. Then I turned to Tara. “Alright, we gotta go. Marla, Mitch, Frank, it was nice to meet you guys. If all goes well you’ll see us again before the day is out.”
Tara stood up and Marla quickly got to her feet and wrapped the platinum blonde in a hug.
“Thank you guys for doing this for us,” Marla said.
“It’s what we do,” Tara said.
“Still, it means a lot,” Mrs. Miller said as she let go of my girlfriend. Then she turned to me and smiled wide. “Be safe out there.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said as I bowed my head towards her. Then I turned and headed for the front door.
Tara caught up with me, and Justin walked us out.
“So do you actually plan on fighting these guys?” Justin asked.
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“Well do you have backup coming or something?” he asked.
“Not today,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s just us two,” Tara said.
“We didn’t have time to rally the troops today,” I explained. “If we had to use the roads, we would have never caught up with these guys.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Justin asked as he opened the door for us. “Those guys seemed pretty well armed.”
“We’re good at using the woods,” Tara said.
“Yeah, if we are smart about this we’ll be fine,” I said as I stepped outside.
“We took out the gang of bikers less than a week ago,” Tara said as she retrieved her gun. “We were outnumbered just has much then.”
“What if I come with you,” Justin said.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” I said as I picked up my gun and started to give it a quick inspection.
“I’m good with a gun, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Mr. Miller said. “I have done quite a bit of hunting and have a nice .308 in my closet. I can grab that and follow you guys to wherever you are going.”
“We don’t have room on our four wheeler,” Tara said. “We’re really only set up for two people.”
“It doesn’t feel right letting someone else fight my battles though,” Justin sighed. “Really, I should have tried to do something when the Guard first arrived.”
“That would have been an incredibly dumb idea,” I said. “You might be low on supplies right now but at least you’re alive. I doubt they would have let you live if you had tried to resist.”
“Yeah, Briar is only alive because we came along,” Tara said.
“Look, your family needs you now more than ever,” I said. “Stay with them, be strong for them, and keep an eye open for danger. They stand a much better chance of staying alive with you around than they go on their own.”
“You’re right,” Justin conceded.
I put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile. “Go keep everyone calm and leave the dirty work to us.”
“Yeah, we’ll be back before you know it,” Tara said with a grin.
“Alright,” Justin said. “Thank you so much.”
“Thank us by staying safe,” I said.
“I will,” Justin said. “You two do the same.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Tara said. “We’ll be fine.” Then she strolled over towards the distant ATV with a smirk on her lips.
I gave one last nod to Justin and then ran off and caught up to Tara.
The earlier storm had passed us completely and now beams of sunlight broke through patches of scattered grey clouds. A chill still hung in the air, but at least the rain had stopped.
“So, you ready to tell me what has you so upset?” I asked as we reached the four wheeler. “I know you told me about Jenny, but you’ve never met her.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said as she climbed on and wrapped her waterlogged arms around me.
“After your little moment there when we first got to the Miller’s I don’t think you have much of an option,” I said as the machine under us rumbled on.
“Fine,” Tara sighed. “I’ll explain as we drive.”
“Okay,” I replied. Then I pulled out the map and planned out our next route. It looked like there was nothing except open fields between us and our goal. That combined with the fact that the caravan would have to navigate several miles of dirt road to get to this place meant that it wouldn’t be hard for us to beat them there despite our stop.
I tucked the map back into my vest and gunned the engine. The large tires tore into the earth
and sprayed mud at the world behind us as we tore off across the flatland. The scattered sunlight and the cool wind quickly started to dry our clothes as we rode.
“This won’t take long so you better start talking,” I yelled back to Tara. I was going just fast enough so that we could talk over the wind.
“It’s kind of a long story,” she replied.
“Then talk fast,” I said. “We should make it to the next farm in five minutes. Maybe less if the ground starts to firm up.”
“Alright, fine,” Tara sighed. “Well, back before all of this happened I was, like, a bit of a party girl.”
“No surprise there,” I said.
“Yeah, well it seemed like a glamorous lifestyle,” she said. “Then one night me and a couple girlfriends went out to this house party. It was a real high class party though in some multi story mansion, and some celebrities were even supposed to be there.”
“I take it that was not the case?” I asked.
“It was really nice,” Tara said. “There were no celebrities, but it was the sort of party where it felt like they could have actually been there. Well it started out like any other good party. We got some drinks, danced, and did a bit of flirting. A couple hours later my friends started to go off with some of these guys they had just met. This wasn’t exactly unusual, so I didn’t think anything of it, but when a couple hours passed, I started to worry. I stumbled around and tried to find my girlfriends.”
“I can guess the end of this,” I sighed.
“Yeah,” she growled. “I found them passed out in one of the rooms, and a bunch of guys were… fuck. It was disgusting. I started to yell at them, but one of the assholes hit me in the face, and I got knocked out.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath and fought against the desire to press her for more details.
“They didn’t actually, you know, rape me,” she said after a few moments. “They knew who my father was, but my two friends also came from rich families.”
“What happened after they knocked you out?” I finally asked.
“I woke up, and the guys were gone,” Tara sighed. “I called the police and my friends had to… like… ugh… they talked to the police and had to get examined.”