“But look at this,” said Max. “It’s real. There’s the deed to the land and everything.”
He showed it to Mandy. It looked real all right.
“Damn Chad,” muttered Mandy.
“You think the others will go along with it?” said Max.
“Why are you asking me? They’ll do anything you say.”
Max didn’t say anything.
They briefly looked through the rest of the house. There wasn’t much that they could use. The kitchen had been emptied. The food in the fridge and freezer was rotten.
They left, somehow got Chad into the back seat, and drove back to the house they’d gotten the Honda from. The neon sign out front made it easy to recognize.
The Ford Bronco was already there, waiting for them.
“You found him,” said Georgia, getting out of the Bronco. She sounded relieved.
“Yeah,” said Max. “But he seems shocked. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“He’s messed up on drugs again,” said Mandy.
Georgia frowned.
“Either way,” said Max. “We’ve got to keep a close eye on him.”
Mandy wondered if Georgia was on her side in thinking that Chad was becoming more of a liability by the minute. Even Georgia’s kids were way more competent at just about everything, except when it came to brute strength. Chad was good for moving heavy things.
Mandy knew in her heart she wasn’t a cruel person. She wouldn’t have been able to leave Chad behind, if she’d been given the choice.
But wasn’t it normal that she felt some resentment towards him?
It was their lives that were at stake, after all.
“So we’ve got a new plan,” said Max. “We’re headed to Kentucky.”
“Kentucky?” said Georgia.
Max explained about the school report that Chad had been clutching in his hand, as well as the deed to the house.
“There’s no one around there,” said Max. “And we can head southeast and avoid the whole mess of Ohio, which is fairly densely populated.”
“But we don’t have any maps,” said Georgia. “Unless you found some, that is. How are we going to get there?”
“We didn’t find any maps,” said Max. “Maybe we can find some at a gas station or something. Or a truck stop. But either way, all we have to do is use the compass and head southeast. If we cross over Route 64, then we’ve gone too far south, and we’ll have to keep going east.”
“How do you know that?”
Max shrugged. “Just some fact that stuck in my head, I guess. I used to have to process interstate roads sometimes at work.”
“All right,” said Georgia. “Let’s do it.”
She didn’t have to think about it long, noticed Mandy. She, like the others, trusted Max.
But what was going to happen when he eventually made a mistake? He was only human, after all.
“I’ll take the Honda,” said Max.
“I’ll go with you,” said Mandy.
Max shook his head. “I need you with Georgia. I’ll take Chad and keep an eye on him. James, you can come with us. That OK, Georgia?”
“Sure,” said Georgia. “I know he’ll be just as safe with you as with me, Max.”
Max nodded. “Well, let’s not waste any more time. I’ll lead the way. You follow, Georgia. If there’s a hiccup, we’ll just have to improvise.”
6
John
“I know you’re out there,” shouted someone. The man sounded middle-aged. But that was just a guess.
John didn’t dare to even whisper. He just hoped that the others would have enough sense to stay still, and not say anything. And that Cynthia would keep her gun ready.
Footsteps through the woods. Heavy ones.
The man would be there soon enough. He was crashing through the woods, breaking small branches as he moved.
John glanced at Cynthia. She looked scared. But she looked ready. She was holding her gun with both hands. Maybe she didn’t have the right technique. Not that John knew what the right way to hold a handgun was. She was pointing it forward. He supposed that was the most important thing.
Nothing could be perfect. Not the way things were, not since the EMP had hit and society had collapsed.
“I saw your setup at the farmhouse,” shouted the man. “Come on out. I’m a friend. My name’s Miller. I was just at the farmhouse, looking for the bastards who attacked my family. Come on out. My name’s Miller. I don’t know who you are.”
John still didn’t move. He suspected the worst. He suspected a trick.
If the man came into view, John was ready to shoot. He was ready to kill.
Something about the whole situation felt different than when he’d run across John and Sara such a short time ago. They hadn’t had that threatening vibe around them.
But this man who he couldn’t see—he spoke like he was mad. Like he was angry, enraged. And he’d moved harshly through the woods, as if he was looking or a fight.
“I don’t know if you know Max,” said the man who called himself Miller. “He was at the farmhouse before you.”
Max? Did this guy know John’s brother?
“Whoever you are,” said Miller, speaking loudly. “I know you’re not the men who killed my wife and son. I saw that you buried the bodies. I saw your journals. You’re normal people, like me. Well, as normal as we can be.”
“You know Max?” said John, speaking for the first time.
“Yeah,” said Miller. “Who are you? Show yourself to me.”
John might have been acting stupidly. But curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know more about what had happened to his brother.
John stood up.
“What are you doing?” hissed Cynthia.
“Dude,” whispered Derek. “Don’t go.”
John ignored them and walked forward, through the thick trees.
Moments later, he saw the man named Miller.
John was almost surprised that Miller didn’t simply shoot him, that it wasn’t a trick.
But Miller made no move for the gun in its holster on his belt.
“I’m John.”
“Miller,” said Miller.
Miller was wearing clothes that had been torn in places. There was blood all over his shirt, dark and dried. It didn’t seem to be his blood. He stood tall and strong, like he hadn’t been injured.
Everything in the way he stood screamed: anger.
“Max is my brother,” said John.
Miller’s face lightened a little. Not much, though. There was too much anger there.
“As I told your brother,” said Miller. “I knew your grandfather. Good man. Good family.”
“What happened to Max?”
“He left. They were coming. I stayed to fight and defend my property and my family. Dumbest damn thing I’ve ever done.”
“You lost your wife and son?”
Miller couldn’t even get the words to come out. He just nodded. There was pain in his eyes. Deep pain that would never go away.
Miller didn’t seem like a threat. At least not to John and the party.
“Come on, everyone,” called out John. “You can come out. He’s not going to hurt us.”
Slowly, Cynthia, Derek, and Sara emerged through the trees.
Miller nodded at all of them.
“We need to exchange some information,” said Miller. His face was deadly serious. “I need to know about the men who attacked us. I need my revenge.”
John nodded. He felt bad about what he was going to say next, but he knew he had to say it. The whole world had gone to shit, and this wasn’t the time for altruism, even if the man had lost his family. “That’s fine. But I’m going to need something in return. We’re barely surviving as it is.”
Miller studied him. “Fine,” he said. “Whatever you need.”
“Let’s head back to the farmhouse,” said John. “We can talk there.”
“Good,” said Miller. “You
have a vehicle?”
John shook his head.
“Come in mine, then.”
The others seemed a little hesitant, but they seemed to trust John’s instincts. They all followed Miller back to his SUV and got in.
“You know where it is then?” said John.
Miller nodded. He was already driving fast down the rural road.
To say that Miller wasn’t in the mood for small talk would have been an understatement.
But what could you expect from a man who’d just lost his wife and kid?
John didn’t know what to say. But maybe it was better that way. He knew there was nothing he could say to make it better. The fact was that things wouldn’t get better. This was the new reality. The new world.
Miller pulled into the driveway, driving fast, dirt and gravel from the driveway spraying up. He stopped hard right at the front of the farmhouse.
They got out wordlessly. Miller didn’t wait for them. He walked right up to the front door and walked inside.
“Maybe I can find us something to eat,” said Cynthia.
John nodded at her, and she started going through the piles of food stores, passing things around to everyone.
Food usually brightened everyone’s spirits. But not in this case.
There was going to be no quenching Miller’s rage. No calming him down. Anyone could have seen it just in the way he sat, all hunched up, tense. And from his face.
John watched as Miller ate one of the energy bars Cynthia had timidly handed him. He wasn’t doing it for enjoyment. It was purely fuel for him. Fuel for his quest to find those who’d done it.
“So what do you know?” said Miller. “Tell me everything.”
“We…” started John. He realized that he didn’t know any more than Miller did. He’d already told him about the bodies in the farmhouse. “Truth is, Miller, I don’t really know much. We just met Derek and Susan… sorry, I mean Sara here. They were telling us about what’s happened in the suburbs. A sort of rogue militia has taken over.” John looked over to Derek and Sara, hoping they’d start to fill in the gaps.
“Yeah,” said Derek. “I could go on and on, but the gist of it is that we had to get out.”
“Tell me more,” said Miller, his eyes narrowing.
Derek told him everything he’d just told John. Sara chimed in here and there, but Derek did most of the talking.
When he was finally done, Miller didn’t say anything.
“You think it was the same guys?” said John, looking at Miller.
Miller gave a stiff nod. “Definitely.”
“But what about all those bodies we found here in the farmhouse?”
Miller shook his head. “These guys were professionals. They knew how to fight, most of them anyway. The others were just cruel and savage. They were taking orders. Doesn’t sound like the group here. After all, they just ended up killing each other.”
“How can you be sure, though?” said Cynthia.
John knew her well enough now to know that she thought she could convince Miller that there wasn’t a fight to fight anymore. She thought that somehow she could save him if she “fixed” him psychologically. But John knew that there wasn’t a fix. He could see it in Miller’s eyes. Miller would go down fighting. John had never been more sure of anything in his life.
“I dug up some of the bodies,” said Miller. “Didn’t take long. Shallow graves.”
Cynthia shuddered at the thought.
The truth was, they hadn’t even really “buried” the bodies at all. Shallow graves was an exaggeration.
Miller was silent for a while. No one else dared to speak. Not with the intensity he was emanating.
“I’m going to get them,” he said finally. “Maybe not the same bastards who did it. But I’m going to destroy them from the inside out. I’ll go after the leader. That’s what I’ll do.”
“But,” said John. “It’s… the whole thing is set up just like a government at this point. I don’t know how it happened so fast. But that’s the truth. I think part of it is that the prison gangs already had their hierarchies. And that just sort of continued once they gained control of the whole Main Line area.”
“I don’t care,” said Miller. “I’ve got to try. I’m going back there. Tell me more. I need details. I need to know how to find this bastard Kor or whatever he calls himself.”
“I… I don’t know,” said Derek, looing nervous as Miller bore down on him with his gaze. “It’d probably be really hard to track him down. I think they keep moving. He keeps his inner circle tight, and there’s some kind of crazy complicated chain of command.”
“You were telling me,” said John, “that Kor was after this shielded shortwave radio, right?”
“Yeah,” said Derek. “One shielded with a Faraday cage. That’s the main thing he’s after.”
“A shortwave radio shielded with Faraday cage?” mused Miller, rubbing his chin.
For the first time since John had met him, Miller looked almost… happy. Well, you couldn’t call it happy really. But there was a smile on his face. A horrible kind of smile. The kind of smile that a man has when he knows he can get what he wants, but when what he wants isn’t a good thing.
“You’ve got a plan?” said John.
“If that’s what he wants,” said Miller. “Then that’s what he’s going to get.”
“You have a radio?” said John. His mind instantly went to a thousand places. If he had the radio, maybe they could use it themselves to communicate with whoever else was out there with the same device. If there really was anyone.
“No,” said Miller, smirking. “But I’ll pretend that I have one. I’ll get close to him and take him out. And whoever else I can in the process.”
John nodded silently.
“When are you leaving?”
“Now,” said Miller. “I have a small box that I’ll say is the radio. I won’t let anyone look at it but Kor himself, the mighty leader of the shit-eating monsters who took my family from me. It’ll get me close to him.”
“Won’t they just take it from you?” said John. “Why would they bring you to him?”
Miller paused. “You’re a smart man,” he said. “I’ll tell them that I’ll reveal the location only to their leader. That’ll get me a meeting with him. If there’s one thing I know it’s that you can get what you want by giving a man what he wants. And he wants this, right?” He looked at Derek and Sara, drilling into them again with his fierce angry eyes.
“Sounds like it,” said Derek.
“More than anything,” said Sara. “He’s sending raiding crews all over, looking for it.”
“Good,” said Miller. “Now I’m a man of my word. You’ve helped me. What can I do for you?”
He stared right at John.
“Tell me about Max,” said John.
“He’s gone west,” said Miller. “He and his group. There were… I don’t know, six of them with him?”
“Six?” said John.
Who could they have been? One was Chad, which didn’t make any sense.
“Fine people,” said Miller. “They were the last ones aside from me to see my wife and son…”
Miller looked like he was about to start tearing up. But he didn’t. He had no more tears left to give.
“Any idea where they were headed exactly?” said John.
Miller shrugged. “I don’t think they knew. They knew, though, that they couldn’t defend the farmhouse.”
“They couldn’t?”
Miller shook his head. “And they were right to leave. Look at what happened to me. In my hubris, I thought I could defend my house. I had everything set up perfectly. I thought I was so clever, and look what it got me. Max did the right thing. He took them all away. Where they ended up, I haven’t the slightest clue. And whether they got there safely, I have even less of an idea of that.”
It was tough news to swallow. John had been hoping that Miller could have given him something more specific.
It also meant that John and Cynthia were likely going to have to abandon the farmhouse. Max would have been better prepared. He knew more about this sort of thing than John. If Max couldn’t do it, with his small army of six people, then what chance did John and Cynthia have? Even if their new acquaintances Derek and Sara stayed along with them?
Not much of a chance at all.
“Well,” said Miller gruffly, getting up. “I’m going.”
For a moment, John didn’t know what to say. His mind was reeling. Headed in a hundred directions at once.
“Good luck, Miller,” said John.
Miller walked out the front door, letting the screen door slam behind him.
“How could you let him go like that?” hissed Cynthia. “He’s marching to his death.”
“What did you want me to do?”
“You could have not told him about the shortwave radio, for one thing. Now he has a plan.”
“They’re going to kill him,” muttered Sara, covering her face in her hands.
“Who are we to tell him what to do?” said John. “He lost his family. This is what he wants to do. He’s not going to be happy until he gets his revenge.”
“You’re just saying all that ‘a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do’ stuff,” said Sara.
John shrugged. “Sometimes that’s the truth.”
“He made it sound dangerous here,” said Sara. “Like people are going to be coming back.”
John nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “And it sounded like my brother knew he wasn’t able to defend this place. And that was with more people. Even if you two stayed. I was hoping I’d be able to convince you to stay. Strength in numbers and all that. But now, frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Yeah,” said Derek. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea if we stayed.”
“Can’t blame you for that,” said John. “I think we should be leaving ourselves. What do you say, Cynthia?”
“I don’t think we should stay,” said Cynthia, sighing as she looked around the relative comfort of the living room. “But this place has started to really feel like home. I hate to leave it. And where would we go?”
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