Scattered: Book 2 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival series: (The Long Night - Book 2)

by Kevin Partner

  "But she's only fourteen!"

  "I know," Al said. "But her most fertile years are just around the corner, it's a fact of nature."

  Bella leaped up, spilling her chair backwards onto the floor, and went to stand at the window. "Are you suggesting we leave her there? Because she'll be cared for? Like a brood mare?"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Isabella. Haven't you got the brains you were born with?"

  "But you just said—"

  Al joined her at the window. "I said I understand what they're doing, not that I agree with it. No, we need to get our girl out of there."

  "Dad," Bella said, putting her arm around the old man's shoulder. "Why are you still alive? I thought they'd kill you for sure."

  Al grunted. "So did I, to be honest, but I soon worked out that Skulls hadn't been lying when he said they're not murderers. They're a load of klutzes, and he's the brightest of them, which isn't saying a lot."

  "But there's a lynching post out there!"

  "It's just for show. Skulls had the brains to know that they wouldn't survive long if they didn't look like they were tough, but he's a good boy, really."

  Bella whistled in amazement. "And did you get the turbine working?"

  "I did, though it's only really good for powering the lights and we're careful not to overuse them—don't want to attract any trouble. Notice that they've cleared the road? No more traps?"

  "I hadn't, actually, I was a bit preoccupied."

  "Well, we're making our way legitimately now, real trading and scavenging. Folks stop and we give them what they need in exchange for anything they've got to trade."

  "What if they haven't got anything?"

  Al smiled. "Then they get what they need anyway. Took a while to persuade Skulls it was the right thing to do, but we got there."

  "Dad, why do they follow you?"

  "Because, my daughter, Skulls is just bright enough to know he's stupid and the others follow his lead. Besides, they get coffee now—I got the machine working again. Gives the batteries a pounding, but worth every amp. Now, let's go find Skulls and then we'll go get our Maddie back."

  Bella, Al and Skulls headed west the following morning. Al had been uncomfortable bringing Skulls along because that left the little community at the intersection with the combined intellectual capacity of a fifth grader, but the big man had insisted. Bella, in turn, hadn't wanted Al to come because of his age and because she'd only just discovered he was alive. And Skulls hadn't wanted a woman along on a mission that was, obviously, man's work. So, they made for a motley crew as they drove along the highway in Skulls's favorite pickup.

  Maddie was being held at a place called Cedar Ranch near Bulverde, TX, according to the orders they'd been given back at the base. Al, who'd stripped all of the cars that had been abandoned at the intersection, had a stack of route maps, so they soon discovered that Bulverde was to the north of San Antonio, and that meant a long drive, staying outside the TLX military area for as long as they could manage it. Al made notes on the map every time they came within sight of a checkpoint. In each case, as soon as they saw it, they reversed up the road and got onto the country lanes.

  "They're only guarding the main interstates and highways," he said, once they'd been forced to do this for the fourth time. It looks to me as though they've created a protected zone around fifty miles east of San Antonio. I wonder why they're not covering the smaller roads."

  Skulls, who was taking a turn at driving, shrugged. "Maybe they ain't got as many new recruits as they need."

  "You're probably right," Al said.

  Bella, who'd been watching from the back seat said, "They told me their first priority is security, so I guess Jake and others like him will be found manning a checkpoint on some country road before long."

  "There's worse things he could be doing," Al responded.

  They found a roadside motel to sleep the night. Skulls, who seemed to have no fear of the dead, had swept through those rooms with doors that were shut and found two next to each other that were clear. Al and Bella took the first and Skulls the other.

  Once they'd shut the drapes so they could light candles, Bella went into Skulls's room and found him sitting on the bed looking up at a painting on the wall above the headboard.

  "Nice painting," Bella said.

  "Yeh," Skulls said without taking his eye off it. The print showed the side view of a woman looking out of a window onto a wooded landscape. "It's a Hopper. Cape Cod Morning."

  Bella's eyes widened. "Do you know a lot about paintings?"

  Skulls shrugged. "It's a hobby. I like Hopper. Feel as though he has somethin' to say. That woman there: looks like my Freda."

  "Who?"

  He turned to her, and she saw the pain on his face. For the first time, she noticed the unfolded picture laying on the bed in front of him. A pretty woman in biker gear smiling to the camera.

  "My lady," he said. "Gone now, o'course. What would she think of what I became? Just a thug."

  Impulsively, Bella put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said. "Look, what should I call you? Skulls isn't your real name."

  "It is now, Bella. Maybe I'll go back to being plain Steve one day, but not yet. Your pa, he saved me, turned me around."

  Bella smiled. "He's gotten into the habit of doing that," she said. "Are you going to come into our room and have a bite to eat?"

  With a nod, Skulls folded the little photo and slid it into his inside pocket. Bella followed him into the next room where her father was stirring a can of beans.

  Cedar Pass Road was a narrow lane with the entrances to farms and ranches on either side. Most appeared to have been constructed in the past few years, perhaps as the realization of long held dreams that were now nothing more than dust and ashes.

  "That's it," Bella said. She was sitting in the passenger seat beside Skulls and could make out the stone sign.

  Without warning, he slammed his foot on the brakes and immediately began reversing up the road, though he kept the engine's revs low and they crept backward.

  "What is it?"

  "Guard," he hissed, pointing beyond the gate. Now Bella could see—a single figure walking back and forth with the unmistakable outline of a rifle pointing downwards.

  They turned as soon as they could and took a side road that ran parallel to the ranch until it turned into a dirt track and then disappeared entirely.

  "Good grief, they post guards on these women?" Bella said.

  "No wonder they're short of sentries on the roads," Al responded from the back seat. "Still, we came to do a job, and I don't intend to leave this place without my granddaughter."

  Bella turned to Skulls, who was scanning the surrounding woods and scrub. "What do you think?"

  "If it was my daughter, I'd do anythin' to get her back."

  "But she's not your daughter, so will you help?"

  He turned to her, smiling. "Sure. Maybe time to make Freda proud of me."

  Dusk was approaching as they crept toward the boundary of the ranch. Skulls led the way, carrying his sawed off shotgun, followed by Bella and Al who both had Glocks that had been liberated by Skulls's gang over the weeks.

  Skulls climbed over a paddock fence and then helped the others down. The rear of the ranch was made up of a well cultivated garden that opened onto scrubbier land that retreated into the distance. Across the garden strode a figure, pacing to and fro as if in deep thought.

  Bella took the lead now, gesturing the others to follow her. If that was the mysterious "Ham" who owned the ranch, then he looked a lot younger than she'd imagined. She'd learned to recognize teenagers at long distance and she wouldn't put this boy's age at above nineteen.

  They reached the low brick wall that marked the garden's boundary and peered over. The boy approached another dark figure and took something from him before, to Bella's horror, walking directly toward them.

  Crouching as flat to the wall as they could manage, they watched as the boy stood above them, a
dark shape against the darkening sky, and lit a cigarette which flared orange before settling down again.

  "I've got a gun and it's pointing right at your crown jewels," Al whispered. "Don't say a word. Just nod if you hear and understand."

  The figure froze for a moment before nodding.

  "Smoking's bad for your health, son," Al said as he got painfully to his feet, keeping his gun trained on the boy.

  "We don't have nothin' here, and there's guards," he said in a trembling voice.

  "Is Maddie here?" Bella asked.

  Again there was a moment's pause before the boy spoke. "Yes."

  "We're getting her out of here," Bella responded. "And you're going to help us—do you understand?"

  She saw the boy's shoulders sag. "You can't get away. They'll be on you like a pack of dogs."

  "Leave that to us," Bella said, sounding more confident than she felt. "Where is she?"

  "In her bedroom, but you can't get to her. She's guarded."

  Skulls loomed from behind a column of bricks. "How many guards?"

  "Two at the moment. One's gone off shift."

  "How many out back?"

  "Just the one. Max."

  "Now, why don't you just go tell that guard to go make a coffee?" Al said. "Don't play any tricks on me, son, you'll be in my sights all the way."

  The boy's silhouetted head turned in his direction. "It won't work. I'm as much a prisoner as Maddie is."

  "What?"

  "Look, I'll help you, but you've got to take me with you, ok? And you've got to promise not to kill the guards."

  Bella could hear Skulls's eyeballs rolling so she got in first. "We'll do our best, but they'll have to be incapacitated."

  "You can lock them in the basement," the boy said. "Leave some food and water and they'll be fine until the next supplies drop in a few days."

  "Sounds to me as though you've been plotting your escape for a while, son," Al said.

  "More of a daydream, really."

  Skulls jumped onto the lawn and Bella heard the boy gasp. "I'll be watching you, punk," he said. "Put a finger out of line and it'll be the last thing you do."

  The boy nodded, and they followed him across the garden.

  "Hide here," he said as they crouched against the back wall of the house. "I'll call Bob and you can grab him. But no killing, right? I like him."

  The boy stepped into the shadows and called out the guard's name. Moments later, he appeared around the corner again, followed by a larger figure. Skulls leaped up and pressed the end of his shotgun barrel into the guard's chin.

  Al held the man at gunpoint while the others tricked the guard around the front in the same way. They led them into the basement where the boy, whose name was Luke, locked them up. The guards evidently thought Luke was helping the invaders under duress, because neither protested at all.

  Bella threw herself at Maddie when they found her. She'd been sitting up in bed, reading. Her face changed from a frozen kind of fear to utter joy as she recognized her mother and the two cried and twirled around as they hugged. Then Maddie saw her grandfather and the tears began again.

  Luke came in, looking a little sheepish and Maddie disengaged from Al and embraced him as well, causing the boy's face to flush. "We have to get him out of here too, mom. He hates it."

  "We sort of agreed to take him with us," Bella said, surprised by her daughter's obvious affection for the boy. "I didn't think you'd want a reminder of your imprisonment. I mean, he's the son of the man they were going to force you to marry."

  Maddie shook her head. "No, that's not it at all. I was going to marry Luke. He hated the idea as much as me, but he's trapped too."

  "We need to put a lot of miles behind us if we're to get away. If they catch us, they'll hang us all," Luke said.

  Maddie ran around and packed her essentials before following the others out to the car. She gasped when she saw Skulls at the wheel.

  "Don't worry none, " Al said as he opened the passenger door. "He's on our side."

  They skidded away and, once they were out onto the country roads, Skulls turned off the car lights and drove by reflected moonlight.

  Luke fell asleep almost instantly, his head on Maddie's shoulder and Bella smiled from the front seat. "Tell me about him. Did he lose everyone as well?"

  Maddie shook her head. "No, he was lucky like us, though his father is a horrible man. We'd best hope he never finds us."

  Bella went back to watching the road ahead and marveling at Skulls's ability to pick his way through in the dark.

  "Mom," Maddie said softly, jerking Bella out of her half sleep. "We can't turn back now, can we?"

  "Why, what have you forgotten?" Bella responded with a smile that died as she turned to look at her daughter's stricken face.

  "Seriously, we can't go back, right?"

  Bella shook her head. "No, we've come too far out into the country, we'd never find our way to the ranch and, anyway, that would be just heading for trouble."

  "Good. You see, it's Luke's father. You need to know, and now's as good a time as any."

  "What about him?"

  There was a pause as Maddie summoned up the courage to speak.

  "His name is John Murphy. Mom, he's the President of the TLX."

  Chapter 19

  The sun rose behind them as they headed west toward Minneapolis. Solly and Ross had slept in a vacant car lot, wrapping themselves in blankets taken from the motel as the temperature dipped below freezing. Solly wanted to get around the city and back onto the interstate before it went dark again, so they'd been up and away early.

  There was a government in Washington, DC and he was heading to another Washington on the other side of the country. Solly Masters had never been a political animal, but his heart had leaped at the thought of government being reestablished. There had been some official announcements in the hours and days after the Long Night, but nothing since then, and he'd assumed the federal government was a thing of the past. Last he'd heard had been that someone called General Tusk had declared martial law.

  John Baptiste—the man they'd met at the motel—had told them that there was a new civilian president who'd been appointed on the basis that she was the most senior surviving member of the old administration. Solly couldn't even remember her name, but he'd felt the hunger that had driven Baptiste to travel east. Solly's immediate future, however, lay to the west and then, once he'd discharged his duty, as he saw it, he would go south and lay to rest the likely ghosts of his family.

  Baptiste had also told him that Texas and two other states had formed a new federation that was gathering a militia. This news had left him in two minds. On the one hand, he was glad to hear that some sort of order was being restored in his home state, but, on the other hand, forming an independent country was asking for a whole heap of trouble further down the line.

  "Dammit!" he said, banging down on the steering wheel.

  "What's the trouble?" Ross responded, startled out of sleep.

  Solly sighed. "Sorry. I've spent too long in this truck and my mind's wandering. I feel like I need to be heading south and east, when I'm actually driving north and west."

  "I know. You want to find out what happened to your family."

  "Both my families, Ross," Solly responded.

  "Do you miss Janice?"

  A lump formed in Solly's throat as he thought of her. He'd done his very best to stop his mind wandering over the past few days but in the depths of the night he often saw her face. And then the guilt would build, followed by the fear that he'd left her and the children to fend for themselves while he went on a wild goose chase across the continent.

  He felt so conflicted. How much simpler life would be if he had only one thing to think about, one responsibility to uphold. He wanted to go south to find Bella and the children, or back east to the farm which, now he was away from it, felt like home. And yet he was heading away from both and the invisible cord that bound him to those places was stretc
hing tighter and tighter.

  "Yes, Ross, I miss Janice. And the others."

  "I miss Jaxon. I thought I was going to hate him, but he turned out okay. But wherever you plan on going, we're gonna need to pick up some gas today." He gestured at the fuel gauge.

  Yes, that was the plan. They only had one jerrycan of diesel left, and Solly had pinpointed a series of rural gas stations on the route map for them to try, in the hope that at least one was still usable. They still had Landon's bailer bucket contraption in the trunk, so they wouldn't be reduced to siphoning from abandoned vehicles.

  They finally struck lucky after noon. They'd passed three of Solly's targets, but two were burned out and the third was surrounded by vehicles arranged like a wall on all sides. Shots had rung out as they approached, and Solly had been forced to back up quickly and go another way.

  This gas station, however, looked entirely deserted. They'd seen no signs of human life as they'd driven through small settlements, barging their way through where the road was still blocked by long abandoned vehicles. It reminded him of Sleeping Beauty—as if the kingdom had fallen asleep in an instant.

  They rolled onto the forecourt and parked beside the one free pump, the other two blocked by cars that sat beneath a skin of dust. Snowflakes began to fall as they got out, carefully scanning the dark interior of the kiosk and the surrounding houses. It was as still and silent as a tomb.

  "Where's the tank cover?" Solly asked as he scanned the ground.

  Ross ran over to the side of the kiosk and came back with a large broom which he used to clear the leaves and dirt that had accumulated until he revealed a dull metal cover.

  Solly fetched the bailer bucket and levered up the cover before reaching down and unscrewing the cap to the tank. He then lowered the bucket inside as Ross brought the first jerry can from the trunk, unscrewed the cap and dropped in a funnel.

  "We've struck oil!" Solly said as the sloshing of the bucket echoed up out of the hole. "Now, let's see whether this thing works."

  He pulled on the rope and lifted the tube out. "It's full!" Solly upended the bucket and carefully poured it into the jerrycan.