“Olivia,” he said. “Rope. Quickly. Get me some rope.”
She didn’t say anything. They had been through these kinds of tense moments before together. From experience, they both knew that the best way to survive was to simply provide the other with what they asked for. Or do what the other said.
She turned her back. A moment later, she turned back around, strong rope in her hands.
Terry grabbed it.
Now he had what he needed.
“Shut the door,” he said.
Terry turned on his heel and marched back out the door, determination in his stride.
He could do this.
He needed to do this.
It was for his family. For his survival.
He was the man of the house, after all. He needed to set things right. No matter what it took.
10
Max had dozed off sometime after the sun had gone down. It hadn’t been restful sleep. But instead a sleep punctuated with nightmares. Terrible dreams where Mandy had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. Only to have something unspeakably horrible happen to it.
He’d wake up, breathing heavy, feeling as if he’d just run a mile, with the intense darkness of the night around him. The clouds must have been heavy in the sky. The faint snores of his stockade companions.
He’d wake up and think of Mandy and wonder whether she was OK, whether she was eating right. He’d wonder what would happen to Mandy and the baby if he didn’t return.
If Max had one quality that had helped him survive, it was that he never gave up. Somehow, he’d always pushed on. He’d always continued, no matter what the odds.
Max had always been able to ignore how he’d felt about a situation, ignore the mounting dread that the body and mind naturally produced in the face of difficult odds. He’d always been able to divorce himself from the fears that came up.
Others may have thought that he just hadn’t felt fear. But it wasn’t that. Fear was natural. Fear was everywhere. Fear was omnipresent.
It was what Max did with the fear that mattered.
But now? Now that he and Mandy were together? Now that there was a baby on the way? It was harder. So much harder.
He hadn’t thought it would be. And now, faced with the reality that he couldn’t process his dread and fear as well as he could before, he didn’t know what to do.
Something that came easy to Max had suddenly become hard. That fact made it all seem so much more difficult.
He’d been asleep when the guard had come in. Given him a couple of swift kicks to wake him up, the pain intense and pumping through him.
He’d been dragged out of the stockade. Tossed to the ground like a rag doll, unable to fight back properly because of the pain. Another kick, this one harder.
Max lay on his side, involuntarily doubled over in the dirt.
He had no gun. No weapon. Even his watch had been taken from him.
He was weak from hunger. Weak from thirst. Weak from pain.
No matter how strong a man was, or thought he was, he could become nothing in the blink of an eye. He could become as weak as anyone. A couple of days without food would bring most men to their knees.
And most thought that they could deal with pain. But most hadn’t experienced real pain.
Max looked up. A bright flashlight shone into his eyes.
He couldn’t see much.
The light danced around. Max hoped for a glimpse of someone. His captors. Of his tormentors.
But he saw nothing. Not even a shadowy outline.
“Leave him with us. Back to your duties,” said a harsh, deep voice. Gravelly. Male, definitely. Maybe early fifties. Late forties at the youngest.
It was the voice of a man who was used to getting what he wanted.
Then another voice. A familiar one. “What are you interested in him for? He’s just a nobody. Came in today, arrogant as hell. Wanted a leadership role. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Who was it? Where did Max know that voice from? His brain was sleepy. He wasn’t putting things together properly.
“You think he’s a nobody?” said the other voice, the gruffer voice, laughing harshly. “We’ll see about that.”
“How do you even know about him? I haven’t even given you the nightly briefing. You don’t have any of my reports from today.” The familiar voice again.
Suddenly, Max realized who it was. It was Wilson. The man in the tent. The man with the paperwork. The man who had sent him to the stockade.
“I have my sources,” said the gruffer voice. “I have eyes all around.”
“And if he’s not a nobody, Grant, just who is he?” said Wilson.
Grant! It was the man that Max had heard so much about. The leader himself. The famous Grant. The man who was going to restore order. The man who was going to stamp down chaos. The man for whom Max had, essentially, left his wife and unborn child for, thinking that he had the answers.
Well, maybe he still did.
“You remember the group that we had the most trouble with? Back about a month ago? All that fighting? We lost a lot of good men.”
“The guys who called themselves the New Disorder? The anarchist group? The ones who welcomed the new chaos of the world and would stop at nothing to accelerate the spread of chaos, violence, and civil unrest. The ones who had hated civilization and society since who knows when.”
“Exactly,” said Grant. “You remember the leader?”
“The guy who called himself, improbably I might add, Moby Dick. Absurd name. Yes, I remember him. What about him?”
The pain was subsidizing a little bit for Max. He knew he shouldn’t make a move. Not yet. Not before he knew what was going on. And what was going to happen to him.
But Max couldn’t help himself. The fight was still in him.
Max moved. Just a little. Trying to see if he could get a look at Grant or Wilson. See what kinds of weapons they had.
Max’s movement was ever so slight.
Grant didn’t speak until after Max felt the pain. An incredible pain. Sharp and intense. It felt like a piece of metal had been smashed hard into his thigh.
“Don’t move anymore,” came Grant’s stern voice. “Or you’ll get it worse than that.”
“Shit,” muttered Wilson. “You don’t want to break his leg, do you?”
The pain was bad.
But Max had felt worse.
“Maybe I do,” said Grant.
“Just tell me what the hell’s going on,” said Wilson. “What does a violent anarchist group have to do with this man here? Do you think he’s one of them or something?”
“Nothing like that,” said Grant.
“He’s not one of them?”
“No.”
“How do you know for sure? Maybe he is. Maybe this is a late-stage attack. An infiltration. Or a decoy. Something, anyway.”
“He’s not one of them,” said Grant. “And I know because I talked to one of the leaders.”
“One of the leaders? You talked to him? I thought they were all dead. We killed them all. Didn’t we?” Wilson sounded more confused by the minute.
“Not all of them,” said Grant. “I struck a deal with one of them.”
“A deal?” Wilson couldn’t have sounded more shocked.
“Exactly. A deal. It is what it is, and I won’t apologize for it.” He sounded vicious. Cruel. Intense. “In exchange for letting some of them live, I asked them to keep their ears to the ground. Provide me with information. They’re in hiding now, their mission failed, but they still know people. They hear things.”
“This is insane,” said Wilson. “I just can’t… you struck a deal like that… without consulting me…”
“Get over it,” snapped Grant. “That’s the way things are. I don’t have time to consult everyone.”
“I’m the second in command, though.”