by Jack Hunt
Elliot sat in silence feeling Shelby’s eyes boring into the back of his head. They’d been inside that chapel for the better part of an hour waiting for someone to arrive. He already knew who it was and fully expected the situation to change when they locked eyes.
The door creaked open. He heard the sound of several boots, some whispering and then Elliot rose to his feet. When he turned he came face to face with Lucas. Mack’s men really had done a number on his face. It would never be the same again.
“That’s him,” Lucas said. Shelby nodded.
“Seems my man here says you were part of the group that ambushed and killed my men.”
“I don’t deny that. However, I didn’t kill anyone. I was as much a prisoner as your man here.”
“Bullshit,” Lucas said before balling his hands. Things were about to kick off and get ugly but before they did he wanted to make sure they had all the facts. He wasn’t lying so he didn’t have to worry. He stepped forward. “I want them dead as much as you do,” Elliot said. “Now I know you lost friends but so did we.” He decided to throw in a few lies, something that might add weight to his paper-thin confession. “They killed some of our men. There were seventeen of us in the beginning.”
He knew if he played into what he’d been told about Shelby and the way he was handling things at the compound, perhaps he’d believe it.
“So why did they leave you all alive?” Lucas asked.
“He gave us an ultimatum, join them or die with the rest. I wasn’t going to stand by and let him kill kids, or any of my friends. I figured the first chance we got we would escape. That’s what we did.”
Shelby stepped forward and walked past Elliot looking as if he was contemplating everything. Elliot knew he was asking the same questions everyone asked when trying to determine what was a lie and what was truth: Could this happen? Was someone capable of doing this? Would I do this? Based on Calvin’s feedback, Elliot already knew Shelby was manipulating those in the compound to do what he wanted and those who didn’t fall in line were punished. Right now he was playing a mental game and everything rested on this.
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t. I wouldn’t,” Elliot replied without missing a beat. “But I’m not asking for anything from you except to allow us to leave in exchange for providing the location of Mack’s camp. Now I mean if you already know it, that’s fine. But from what I learned, you didn’t even know he was alive. Am I right?”
Shelby didn’t confirm or deny. He walked over to Rayna and got real close causing her to stiffen. “You’re a good-looking woman.” He took her chin and moved it from side to side. “Is he telling the truth?”
She nodded. Shelby looked at the ground for a second then grabbed her by the ass and pulled her in tight to him before looking around at Elliot. Everything inside him wanted to lash out but he remained calm and collected. He wanted him to believe he was unfazed by it. Shelby released her and walked back over to Elliot.
“If you’re lying, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
“I wouldn’t have walked in here if I was lying, now would I?”
“I don’t know, desperation breeds all forms of insanity.” He eyed him as if looking for a crack in his demeanor or waiting to see if Elliot would change his story.
“Where’s the location of Mack?”
“Northeast of here but you won’t find it without me. It’s heavily camouflaged. You’d probably walk straight by it and wouldn’t know it was there.”
“What kind of setup does he have?”
Of course he wasn’t going to tell them they lived in the trees. It was all about the element of surprise and that was the only thing they had going for them. So he lied. “It’s a fenced-in community. I can point it out, you can handle it from there, right?”
His throat started to go dry from being under the microscope of Shelby, Lucas and the rest of his men. Shelby continued to walk around the chapel with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Here’s how this is going to work. You will go with Lucas and a handful of my men and point out the location of Mack’s camp. If you’re telling the truth I’ll release your friends to you and you can go on your way but she stays.”
“No, that’s not the deal.”
Shelby turned and charged over with fire in his eyes. He lifted a hand as if he was going to strangle Elliot but he didn’t touch him. “I could force you to show us and then kill you after but I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. I’m a fair man.”
“My problem is not with who you choose to release, my problem is that you are going to need more than a handful of men to get close enough for me to point out where they are.”
“And why’s that?”
Elliot shook his head. “Because that place is a fucking fortress and by the time you see it, they’ve already seen you. You send in four or five of your men and they aren’t coming out. That includes me. Now. You want them? You’re going to need to send in more than that. This is a one-shot deal.”
Shelby breathed in deeply. “So you’re telling me you’re fine with me keeping this woman?”
“She wants in anyway, isn’t that right, Rayna?” he said looking at her. She nodded.
“Then my friend, you have yourself a deal.”
He turned to Lucas, clicked his fingers and directed them out. “Let’s go to war.”
Chapter 15
Gary froze at the bottom of the stairs. The hulking man had the shotgun barrel against Calvin’s temple. Although he had his own weapon in hand, it was down low and the chances of him being able to squeeze off a round were slim. The man was around six foot two, wearing a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans, workman boots and a dirty red baseball cap.
“Put your rifle on the ground and slide it over,” he said.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble. We didn’t know anyone was here.”
“So that gives you the right to break into a home?”
“My friend is hurt. I needed to find some medical supplies.”
There was a long pause.
“Like I said, put your rifle and that handgun on the floor and slide them over, nice and slowly. I would really hate to kill your friend being as I just decorated the living room.”
Gary didn’t hesitate. He figured if the guy wanted to kill them he would have shot Calvin by now. He unslung his rifle, placed it on the floor and did the same with his Glock. He kicked it across the hardwood floor. Both weapons stopped a foot from the man.
“Right. Now get over there. In that seat. Keep your hands where I can see them. One wrong move and I will end him.”
Gary nodded and walked into the living room and took a seat across from him. “That’s it. Good.”
He assumed he would tie them up but he didn’t.
“Look, my name’s Gary. And you are?”
He was hesitant to reply at first then he said, “Roger.”
“Roger. Good to meet you. Look…”
“Shut the fuck up. This isn’t Oprah. What happened to your friend?” he asked.
“He was shot.”
“Well obviously. How? Where? And by whom?”
Gary shifted in his seat. The springs in the bottom must have been broken as one of them was poking into his left butt cheek. As he moved, Roger got a little antsy.
“Don’t move.”
He raised a hand. “Whoa, steady. Something is sticking me in the ass.”
The man chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get that replaced. Used to belong to my wife. God rest her soul.”
“I saw the photo of her upstairs. Those your boys too?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m asking the questions and you still haven’t answered.”
Gary swallowed and made up something. “We were traveling south in our vehicle when we were ambushed by a group of ten men. They shot my friend and took the truck.”
“What year was the truck?”
“What?” Gary asked not expect
ing him to ask that. The question seemed a little bit out of place. Then again, he understood what he was trying to do. As a cop, he was used to asking specific questions. Criminals used generalities. The key was to dig deeper asking for specifics until they eventually contradicted themselves or made it obvious that they were lying.
“1979 Scout. Red with a black stripe down the side. You seen it?”
He shook his head. “No.” He then got this smirk on his face. “So tell me this then, how is it that they stole your truck but didn’t steal your weapons?”
Oh shit. He hadn’t thought of that. Don’t panic. Don’t swallow. Just answer him. You can do this.
“Two miles from here we holed up looking for medical supplies. There were none but there were some weapons.”
“How convenient,” he said with a tone of suspicion. Yeah, he wasn’t buying it but there was little Gary could do. This situation was out of his control. The only thing he could do was hope to communicate, distract and eventually overpower him. Roger shuffled a little and took a seat across from them, though this time the gun was on Gary. There was very little chance of Calvin bouncing to his feet.
“Look, I need to treat my friend here. You want the weapons they’re yours. Do you have any medical supplies?”
He stared blankly back at him as if he was considering whether to help him or shoot him.
“Maybe. Answer this first. You come across three men on your journey?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Positive. The group that stopped us was larger in number.”
He nodded and narrowed his eyes. “In the kitchen, second cupboard below the coffee maker. Get up slowly.” The man rose to his feet and told Gary to move into the kitchen. There was no chance of him being able to rush him. He kept his distance. Gary crouched and fumbled through the cupboard and pulled out a large plastic container full of pain medication, bandages, ointment, and vitamins.
“I’m gonna need a bowl of water to clean his wound,” Gary said.
“No need. There’s a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in that box.”
“While that’s helpful it can actually harm the tissue and delay healing.”
Roger sneered. “Bullshit. I’ve used it all the time.”
“To kill bacteria, sure. But it can destroy healthy tissue.”
“What are you, a doctor?”
“I was a police officer.”
He snorted. “Well how about that? I finally got to pull a gun on a cop. You bastards were always dogging me over stuff I didn’t do.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Then where you from?”
He sighed. “You mind me answering these questions while I tend to my friend?” He was getting a little annoyed by this asshole. He had a good mind to take the risk and charge him and shove that shotgun up his ass.
Roger gave a nod and then told him in the pantry was a large jug of water pulled from the stream.
“Has it been disinfected?” Gary asked.
“You think I’m stupid?”
Gary was close to answering that question but instead held his tongue and retrieved the jug of water. He scooped up a clean cloth on the way back into the living room and set about helping Calvin. He removed his jacket and tore his shirt open to get a better look at it.
“Don’t you go getting blood on my couch.”
Gary cast him a sideways glance. He was getting on his last nerve. He helped Calvin to the hardwood floor and poured water over the wound, wiped away the blood and used a small flashlight to take a look. There was no telling what kind of damage it had done. Based on the flow of blood he figured that it hadn’t torn through an artery otherwise they wouldn’t have made it this far. He would have bled out a hell of a lot sooner.
“You need pliers to pull the bullet?” Roger asked.
Gary pulled Calvin towards him and looked at the back. “No. It went right through. Lucky really. But even if it had got stuck I wouldn’t have pulled it.”
“Why?”
“It can cause more damage.”
He glanced at the guy thinking he wasn’t too smart.
Gary elevated the arm to decrease blood loss and applied a wad of bandages to the front and back. There was no major swelling that would indicate internal bleeding so he stuck with the bandages and tape, then wrapped another bandage around over and under his arm to hold it all in place. It wasn’t ideal but it did the trick for now. Once they reached the FEMA camp he’d need antibiotics, hopefully they had some.
“Where are you guys coming from?”
“Lake Placid.”
“That’s a long way from here. What brought you down?”
“I had friends down here. Family,” Gary said thinking of Elliot and Rayna. In many ways that’s what they had become. He hadn’t really given much thought to why he chose to go with them. He could have stayed in Lake Placid but there was nothing there for him. He would have probably made it another week and then taken his life. That’s how low he’d felt after losing Jill. Although he still thought of her often, the sting of losing her wasn’t as harsh. It was strange how quickly he’d recovered from the loss. He’d found himself overanalyzing it. Did it mean he didn’t love her? Being married for so long, the spark that had once revved his engine had dulled. Though he’d tried for many years to put the spark back in their marriage by taking her away on vacation, he always found his eye wandering, looking at other women and imaging a different life. If he was honest, he hated that part of himself. It felt like betrayal but then on other same hand it felt like coming to the realization that he was no longer attracted to her the way he had been when they first got married.
“Your wife with you?” Roger asked, obviously noticing the ring on his finger. Gary wasn’t sure why he hadn’t taken it off.
“No, she’s dead.”
There was a pause while Gary finished with Calvin’s dressing.
“Same here. She died two months ago,” Roger said.
“Was she attacked?”
Roger breathed in deeply. “No, she hung herself.”
He might have been shocked by that had it been a year ago and peppered him with questions about her mental state but since the EMP they had seen many take their lives. It was easier than trying to deal with the daily struggle of living and fighting.
“Buried her out back. Now all I have are my two sons. Philip and Ben.”
Gary’s stomach churned within him. “I saw a third boy. Where’s he?”
Roger shrugged. “He joined the Navy. No idea. Hopefully still at sea.”
“You heard any more about the attacks?” Calvin asked. “On the country I mean?”
“Not much has changed in the way of help. FEMA camps have been set up. As for the fight against the North Koreans, word has it that Canada, the United Kingdom and some of the European countries, along with our Navy fleets, attacked North Korea. No word on the damage but I’m pretty sure they’re fucked. They also said that some of the military have returned to the shores and are providing support to the FEMA camps. I figure we are looking at years before we see this country back up and operational again.”
Gary rose to his feet and Roger got all antsy again.
“You think you could lower the weapon?” Gary asked.
“You’re joking, right?” Roger replied.
“It was worth a shot. What now?”
“We wait for my boys to get back. Then we’ll decide.”
The boys weren’t coming back which meant they were going to be waiting a long time. No, they didn’t have time for this shit. Then again, it was dark and even though he was wielding a gun, it was safer than being out there. Gary decided to act like he didn’t care.
“Sounds fine. Do you mind if I have a cigarette?’
“You got tobacco?” Roger asked with curiosity.
“One pack of smokes.” He motioned to Calvin who was carrying them. Calvin reached into his top pocket and tossed them to the floor. Roger gav
e him the go-ahead and Gary handed one to him. All three of them lit up and studied each other. Gary opted to take a seat on the floor with his back against a cabinet full of ornaments. Calvin sat awkwardly on the couch with one arm slightly raised. Gary was worried but there wasn’t much they could do.
“What did you do before this?” Gary asked Roger.
“I was a farmer. My wife and I have a field of crops out back. She used to raise horses.”
“How come you haven’t made your way to the FEMA camp?”
“We did, they turned us away. Said they were full and we had nothing to offer. Just like our government. Screw us when the world is right, and screw us when the world has gone wrong. We came back here and have tried to make a go of it. My boys hunt for food in the day with a friend of theirs.”
Gary nodded. “Don’t you worry about them?”
“No. They can handle themselves.”
“So shoot first, ask questions after?” Gary asked.
He laughed. “If they shoot first, there will be no questions after.”
He nodded thinking back to their encounter. He glanced at Calvin and he stared back. Had Calvin finally figured out what was going on? Gary hadn’t told him who he’d seen in the photo frame upstairs but since he’d given Roger a false story, he had to assume Calvin would connect the dots.
“What if they don’t come back?” Gary asked.
“They always come back.”
He nodded. “But what if they don’t?”
Roger scowled at him. “You know something I don’t?”
Gary shrugged. “I’m saying it’s dangerous out there.”
There was a look of concern on his face. He got up from his seat and went over to the window, keeping one eye on Gary while peering out the window. “They should have been back by now.”
Gary eyed their weapons across the room. Roger had placed them on top of a table in the dining area. Roger looked back at Gary and returned to his seat.
“So you didn’t tell me where you were heading.”
“To the FEMA camp.” He just came out with it. He didn’t think it would matter.
Roger started laughing. “Ah, you think because you were a cop they are going to let you in?”