Footsteps behind him. Hickman swung around to find himself at the business end of a shotgun. His heart thumped ten to the dozen as he raised his hand. "Hey, Ward! It's me!"
For a moment, he thought the old man was actually going to pull the trigger. After all, he could always claim he'd thought Hick was an intruder. McAndrew's finger shook and he stared straight down the barrel. And then he lowered the gun and Hick exhaled.
"What are you doing, Paul? Do you make a habit of breaking into folks' houses uninvited?"
"I knocked. I was worried when I didn't get a response," Hick lied. He couldn't work out where McAndrew had been. Out back, maybe? The place was pretty small and it was hard to imagine how he hadn't heard Hick calling or moving around if he'd been inside. There was only the one story, after all … wasn't there?
Ward shrugged with a show of nonchalance that was entirely artificial. "I guess I'm getting deaf in my old age. Now, what can I do for you? I got propane so I can boil a kettle."
"That's alright, Ward, I'm not payin' a social visit."
The old man feigned surprise, thin skin stretching over high cheekbones. "Suit yourself. Take a seat." He eased himself into an old armchair and indicated its twin.
"So, what are you tryin' to achieve with all this stirring up you're doin'? Yeah, I know all about it. Your sermons used to be as borin' and predictable as vanilla yogurt, and now you've come across all revolutionary. Maybe I should've had you dragged out and shot as a terrorist…" Hick smiled as he said this, but McAndrew's face only darkened. He looked like a man on the edge of something: breakdown or sedition? That was what Hick needed to find out.
McAndrew took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "Paul, you know technology brought us down, our civilization."
"People brought us down, Ward. You don't blame the knife when someone gets stabbed."
"You're wrong. Technology was both the symptom and the cause of our destruction. At first, it was helpful, but soon enough it became a crutch, and many of the things that made life worthwhile and virtuous were lost. People became selfish and materialistic. We need to return to a simpler way of life."
Hickman grunted. "I've heard of another group sayin' that. And folks who don't go along with them find themselves on the sharp end of an ax or the business end of a rifle. Strange how they don't mind some technology—the kind that kills."
"I don't know what you mean."
And, in that instant, Hick knew the man was lying. He saw the terror etched into the pastor's craggy features. His mind whirled as he tried to work out all the implications, but he needed time to think it all through, so he pretended he believed McAndrew.
"Well, I'm here to offer you a compromise. Truth is, whether we like it or not we're going to have to live a simpler life. We aren't goin' to be able to get the internet working again, or TV or mobile telecoms, so if you've got ideas, I'm willin' to listen."
McAndrew went to respond, but Hick raised his hand.
"But let me tell you this, Reverend, if you continue tryin' to stir up trouble, I will crush you. Oh, and I know all about the cozy little deals you've struck with other traitors. They'll get theirs when you get yours, believe me. This isn't kind old Gil Summers you're dealin' with, I'm as much of a snake in the grass as you are …"
"How dare you!" McAndrew got to his feet—rather slower than dramatic effect demanded. "I am a man of God!"
"Then act like it!" Hick roared, jumping up and jabbing a finger at the old man. "This'll be the only warning you get. You're either on my side, or you're against me and you won't be the first to learn the hard way that's not a good place to be. Remember good ol' Ned Birkett?"
McAndrew shook his head and turned away from Hick, heading for the window, visibly shaking. "Goodbye, Paul."
Without another word, Hickman strode from the house, slamming the front door behind him.
He was halfway up the road when his anger dissipated enough to think straight. And then a frozen fist gripped his heart as he realized. The old man had been frightened, true enough. But something—or someone—else terrified him more than Hick's threats. He picked up the pace. Things were even worse than he'd imagined.
"So, it's your fault, is it?"
Hickman's next stop was to see how Martha Bowie was doing. "I think the words you're lookin' for are 'thank you, Paul'."
She frowned, but didn't have the energy for the fight. To Hickman she looked like she'd been wearing an inflatable fat suit that had deflated. She looked out from sunken eyes in a face framed by sagging white flesh. One arm rested on the comforter, all bones and spare skin. But she was alive, thanks to him.
"I gave strict instructions to my good-for-nothin' husband that I was not to be given anyone else's medication."
Hick leaned back in the chair at the bedside and accepted a mug of tea from a smiling Dave Bowie. "I reckon Joe and Dave knew you'd make an exception if you knew it was my drugs you were usin'. But, anyway, you're welcome."
She gave him side-eyes. "Why are you here, Paul?"
"Just makin' sure my investment was worth it."
"What's that supposed to mean? And talk plain; I ain't got the energy for any BS."
Hick sighed theatrically. "You're breakin' my heart, Martha. But look, I gotta go out of town for a day or two and I just wanted to make sure that you Bowies have got Rusty's back while I'm away. And I could sure do with Joe's help."
"Joe? What good can he do?"
"Elwood Miller needs help rebuildin' his place and I want to send an extra pair of hands I can trust."
"Well, as long as it's his hands you're after and not his brains, you might be alright."
Hick glanced across at Joe Bowie, who was smoothing down his wife's comforter. What sort of a man put up with being spoken to like that? And how much use would he be to Miller? Beggars couldn't be choosers, unfortunately. He'd have sent the couple's son, Jenson, if he could have, but the boy was still recovering from the gunshot wound he'd gotten when trying to rescue Rusty.
"Okay then. We'll be headin' off first thing tomorrow, Joe. I'll be seein' you, Martha."
His final call was to Rusty Kaminski. He found the sheriff in the newly restored police station where he was hunched over a pile of papers. He looked up and gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk before putting down his pen with a sigh.
"Recruitment forms?" Hick said, reading the upside-down lettering.
Kaminski nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure I don't know how I'm supposed to pick one from the other. I ain't trained for this."
"You got a lot of applications?"
"I did. I guess folks are gettin' bored of bein' idle."
Hickman held out his hand, palm up, and Kaminski, after a moment's hesitation, passed over the top few sheets.
"It's not just that. I think they're getting nervous. They see the CDF on the streets and they figure a uniform and a gun might be mighty handy." He scanned the form, written in handwriting that was almost calligraphic in its neatness and regularity. "Duck Dale—he's a good enough fella. Worked for Office Shack in Ezra. Did me a good deal on an ex-display chair. Not the most imaginative, but he's a hunter."
Kaminski took the sheet from him and put it into the "approved" pile. "That's okay; I don't reckon we need any more imagination, just folks who'll do what they're told. But you're not here to help me with my recruitment, so what can I do for you?"
Hick told the sheriff of his conversation with McAndrew and his concern that the old man was hiding something. "I dunno, but my gut tells me he's in a lot deeper than we think."
"D'you think he's got any connection with that organization Devon and Jessie ran into?"
Hick pushed back the chair and got to his feet. "I don't have any proof of that, but he sure is scared of someone or somethin'. I did my best to scare the bejesus out of him, but I ain't sure I broke through at all. It's as if anything I threaten him with ain't a patch on what he's already got hanging over him."
"I'll keep an eye on him as best I can
," Kaminski said as he moved the recruitment paperwork back to the center of his desk.
Hick reached the door. "Be careful. He's a crafty old reptile, but we don't wanna frighten the turtle back into its shell if we're gonna get to the bottom of it."
Kaminski nodded and muttered, "Thanks for the advice," with more than a trace of sarcasm. But Paul Hickman was already striding away.
#
Ward McAndrew shut the radio down and almost fell over his own feet in his haste to climb the stairs from the basement when he heard the knocking at the door. He couldn't afford to be caught out again. If the folks of Hope found out the truth, he'd be strung from the nearest streetlight.
He was puffing by the time he reached the front door, so he paused for a moment to catch his breath before opening it, heart hammering and hands shaking as he did so.
"Good evening, Reverend," said a slight figure on the doorstep. "I have come for your guidance and to confess my sins."
He calmed a little, though he scanned the gloom outside for any signs of watchers. "Well, I don't do confessions, I'm not a Catholic priest, my dear. But I am happy to help as I can." He was a good liar. What he really wanted was to go down to the basement and listen for any further messages. He couldn't do anything else tonight, not until Hick left the town, and he had nothing else to do other than fret and scheme.
The figure moved past him and into the living room.
He sat in one armchair and gestured to the other. "Now then, what is it you'd like to confess, Sam?"
Chapter 5: ZZ Top
They met trouble sooner than they expected. Two highways merged at a place called Oasis that was nothing more than a rotten series of wooden buildings with weathered For Sale signs and bushes growing through the asphalt. And at the intersection, a dozen or so figures with assault rifles used three rusting pickup trucks for cover as they waited for the convoy to stop.
Gert jumped out of the leading truck and Devon, after handing Dorothy over to Gil, followed him. As he passed the back of the vehicle, camouflage-clad figures climbed down and took up covering positions.
"You should leave this to me and Mara," Bekmann said as Devon caught up with him.
"I'm in charge of this mission, Gert, and I've been involved in my share of negotiations."
The Dutchman grunted as if to suggest that nothing Devon had ever experienced qualified him for a position of authority. Mara, who was functioning as his second-in-command, stepped back a little.
A man dressed in a black leather jacket over blue jeans emerged from between two vehicles, hands open to show he had no weapon. He had a foot-long gray beard, wore dark glasses and a baseball cap. Hand him a guitar and he'd have been a regular Billy Gibbons. A sharp dressed man.
"You boys are kinda lost. I suggest you get back in your trucks and turn right around before Ulysses back there gets too much of a hankerin' for some old diesel action." He thumbed over his shoulder at a huge man in faded denims and a red bandana who waved back.
Bekmann glanced at Devon. "He's got an RPG, a rocket …"
"I know what an RPG is," Devon hissed. Then he turned back to the ZZ Top lookalike. "My name is Devon Myers, and this is Gert Bekmann. We're from south of here."
"My name's Eddy," the man said, looking only at Bekmann. "And you ain't comin' through here."
Bekmann shifted uncomfortably, "Look, man, we're just passing through and we don't want any trouble. "
"You goin' to Springs?"
"That's right," Devon said. "We want to make contact with the survivors there."
This time ZZ shot a poisoned look over at Devon. "You be quiet. I'm talkin' to the organ grinder, not his pet monkey."
Devon's hand shot to his hip, but Gert grabbed his arm and pushed him away as the red mist cleared a little. He could hear laughter from behind the barricade.
"You should thank your boss; he just saved you from makin' a big mistake."
Gert held on to Devon. "Let me handle this," he said, under his breath.
Devon pulled back, then brushed himself down and stepped back a couple of paces without looking at the man with the ludicrous beard.
"We control Springs so you need to head in a different direction unless you want to get into a fight you ain't gonna win. You got five minutes to tuck yer tails between yer legs. And don't come back. I won't be so po-lite next time."
Gert said nothing. He simply spun on his heels and stalked back to the truck, grabbing Devon on the way. "Come on, let's get out of here."
He walked back to the second truck and held open the door for Devon. "Follow my lead, then get ready to step on the gas."
"What are you planning?"
But he was jogging toward his truck. Seconds later, however, Devon saw a figure slip along the blind side and disappear around the back of the rearmost vehicle.
Seconds later, the front truck fired up its engine. "Hold on to Dorothy," Devon said to Gil, silencing the inevitable questions before they were asked. "I don't know what Bekmann's planning, but I want you to keep down."
He could see Mara's red hair in the side-view mirror of the front vehicle. It began to move away, and Devon started up his truck, following it closely and trying not to look across at the bandits, though he could see out of the corner of his eye that they were raising their weapons in the air and he could hear them bellowing laughter.
He did a one-eighty and watched as the final truck began its turn and then straightened, its back facing the triumphant biker gang.
Wumph.
Bang!
The center of the line of pickups flared orange and green, followed seconds later by the plink, plink, thunk of metal showering the asphalt. Devon gasped as the rear truck reversed quickly and the lead vehicle began turning back toward the ruined barricade.
Crack-crack-crack.
Small-arms fire erupted from the back vehicle. Devon could see Bekmann standing just inside the open rear doors, the barrels of five or six rifles poking out of the darkness, muzzles flaring as they emptied their magazines into the panicking bandits.
Bekmann saw him and gestured him to slow down a little as they inched their way backward toward the gap they'd created in the barrier with their RPG. He ducked as a bullet pierced the side of the truck just above his head and Devon watched as ZZ Top ran, shotgun in hand, at Bekmann's vehicle. With Terminator-like calm, Bekmann raised his handgun, and the shot took Eddy in the shoulder, sending him onto his back, his final round going skyward.
Gert Bekmann jumped down as the truck accelerated backward. He looked down at the prone Eddy whose beard had turned from bleached ginger to dark red. He aimed his weapon and then shouted, his voice echoing in the suddenly quiet desert air. "You insult my friend, you insult me. May God have mercy on your miserable soul."
And he shot the man before spinning around and jumping back into the truck which reversed back between the gap as the snipers picked off the running figures.
"Come on, Devon," Gil said.
He looked across at the former mayor who was white as a ghost, and stabbed down on the gas pedal, careful to weave his way around Eddy's ruined body. No one moved behind the barricade, though Devon chose not to wonder how many had been shot at close range and whether any had tried to surrender. Bekmann ran past him and jumped into the cab of what had been the lead truck, pulling it to the side of the road and easing past the others to get back on the road to Springs.
They headed along 80 until the mountains and desert gave way to a greener land with grass-covered hills. Bekmann had pulled over a few miles after the fight and they'd spoken quickly before he checked on the soldiers of the third truck, the ones he'd stood beside as they'd cut down the bikers.
Devon agreed that they shouldn't approach Springs from the highway, but the country here didn't have many other roads, so he wasn't surprised when Bekmann pulled onto a dirt track and headed for a point on the horizon where the hills seemed to end. It was rough driving along deeply rutted tracks that were thawing in the afternoon sun
and then onto fields with no pathways at all until they finally crested the shoulder of the land and could see the settlement below them.
Bekmann reversed to a point just out of sight of the city and called a halt for the day. He and Devon crept up to the brow of the hill and looked down. It was late afternoon, and they could see orange pin-pricks scattered seemingly at random. Devon imagined people gathered around braziers. People with weapons.
They lay on their stomachs silently watching until Bekmann finally broke the silence. "You don't think I should have killed that zwijn, pig?"
Devon rolled onto his side a little. "I don't know. Seemed a bit callous."
"Callous?"
"Oh, heartless, harsh?"
"Ah, hardvochtig. Perhaps, but what do you think he would do if he lived? Would you welcome such as him in Hope? He would find us. We were lucky this time. They thought they could scare us away. I would not wish to face them if they were ready for us. Besides, the world will not miss the likes of him."
Devon rolled back and gazed down the slope. "Well, I appreciate what you said. Now, what's the plan?"
"I thought you were in charge of this mission. That is what you tell me, no?”
Devon caught the smile as it lit up the Dutchman’s face.
“Well, I guess you’ve made your point on that score.”
“In that case, I suggest we wait until just before sunrise and go into the outskirts. We need to find out how many of those bandits there are. But you, Devon, you are a father now?”
Devon was grateful for the gathering darkness to cloak his embarrassment. “How did you hear about that? It’s not mine, Jessie’s baby.”
“What? Who is this Jessie?”
“What are you talking about?”
Bekmann chuckled. “The child you found!”
Last Stand: Book 3 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (The Last City - Book 3) Page 4