The men wore all sorts of clothes. Tattered jeans. Flannel shirts. T-shirts. Work shirts. Half-torn-up dress shirts.
They all had long hair that hadn’t been washed.
Some of them had the odd piece of camo-style gear, but not many of them.
The sight reminded John of stories of the old covered-wagon days, where the wagon would carry the supplies and some of the people, while others walked alongside it. Once in a while, when someone got tired, they’d hop on in the wagon, and someone else would hop out so that they could stretch their legs.
John couldn’t see what was inside the army transport truck, but he figured it had to be something. Not to mention at least a few more men.
Those six men could have walked along that road on their own just fine. The truck wasn’t doing them any favors, except maybe to carry their food.
So there had to be some reason that truck was there. Maybe it carried something important, or maybe it had a job to do somewhere else, where it was needed.
Either way, John didn’t like the looks of it. It stank of organization. Organized force, organized power. But not the good kind.
Hopefully, the men would be concerned mainly with guarding their truck and whatever it contained. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be looking for trouble.
So far, so good. The men hadn’t spotted them.
The truck had traveled about half the distance of the visible road that lay stretched out in front of John and Georgia.
The men, it seemed, worked and walked mainly in silence. No one spoke. No orders were issued. No commands were shouted.
John glanced over at Georgia.
Her face showed no emotion. It was completely impassive. Her eyes watched the men, but other than that there was no movement.
John glanced back at the truck and the men.
Then it happened.
One of the men turned, as if he had heard something.
Turned in John’s direction.
At first, the man seemed to be looking at something behind John, even though John had heard nothing.
What was the man looking at?
John tried to press himself further into the ground. It was just instinct. He knew that it was useless. He couldn’t make himself disappear, no matter how hard he tried.
He and Georgia shouldn’t have been spotted. But if someone were looking right in their direction, then they’d be seen.
John held his breath. Out of fear. Out of anxiety.
After all, Georgia could shoot well. She could fight. And John was no slouch. Not with the experiences he’d been through. And with Georgia’s and Max’s training.
But two against six? And possibly more?
No way.
It wasn’t going to work
It wasn’t going to happen.
They’d die.
If those guys wanted a fight, that was.
Maybe they didn’t want a fight.
John and Georgia would just have to wait and see what happened.
The man still seemed to be looking at something behind John. At what? A tree? An animal? Another person?
Then the man’s head snapped back down and around, his eyes fixating right on John.
The man barked an order, inaudible over the rumbling of the military truck.
John’s eyes scanned the men rapidly. They were moving into some kind of position, some kind of formation, as if they’d done this all before.
The truck stopped, but the engine kept rumbling.
No shots fired.
Not yet, anyway.
John glanced at Georgia. What would she want them to do?
Fight or flee. That was always the question.
Still no shots fired.
Why hadn’t they just shot them?
But the men were moving out towards John and Georgia, taking slow, plodding steps. They were now in a line. Their weapons were drawn. Their eyes peeled. Their heads scanning.
The sight reminded John of a search party, when volunteers would get together and comb the woods for a body.
It was all very strange.
What kind of fighting position was this?
Why hadn’t they just shot at John when the man had spotted him?
Georgia turned to him. “Get ready,” she hissed. “We’re running. After I fire.”
“Wait, what? You’re going to shoot?” whispered John, as quietly as he could. “Shouldn’t I…?”
“No,” hissed Georgia, her voice firm and commanding. “Run after I fire. Get ready. I’m shooting in five seconds.”
The message was clear. John was to do as he was told. He didn’t understand the logic himself right now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
He shifted his body, trying to position himself so that he could get up quickly.
This didn’t make sense.
Wouldn’t they just shoot them as soon as they popped up? Especially after Georgia shot one of them.
It seemed like a suicide mission.
It seemed like a horrible plan. A horrible idea.
John trusted Georgia, but did he trust her this much?
15
Grant opened his eyes to sunlight peeking in through the rudimentary window.
It was early morning.
His head hurt. Throbbing pain. A splitting headache.
Other parts of his body hurt, but his head was foggy and he couldn’t identify what they were.
For a second, Grant didn’t know where he was.
His mind jumped to conclusions.
Had he been kidnapped? Taken hostage? Someone intent on capturing the great leader of the most powerful militia on the East Coast?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Then he saw it.
Something moving outside the window. It was a tree. A tree he’d seen before, its branches gently swaying in the breeze.
Then it came to him in a flash, and he realized where he was.
Grant was in the infirmary.
He turned his head, looking around.
He was in a rudimentary hospital bed, probably scavenged by one of his reclamation teams.
There was an IV running out of his arm up to a clear plastic bag. Some kind of saline solution, probably.
The militia wasn’t short on supplies, not even hospital supplies. And it was all thanks to Grant’s own initiative, sending teams out to scout the areas both far and near, searching for anything that could be useful.
“Nurse!” snapped Grant, his voice loud and commanding.
A flurry of tiny footsteps in the hallway. Someone was scurrying towards him.
Two heads popped in, appearing in the doorway.
A man and a woman.
Both nurses.
He recognized them as nurses. Real trained professionals from before the EMP.
They weren’t messing around here at the militia camp. Grant wouldn’t have stood for anything less than the real thing. He’d made sure that the nurses were real, that the equipment was as good as they could get it without electricity, and that there was even one real doctor.
“How are you feeling?” The woman snuck through the doorway and into the room. She acted as if she were doing something wrong, as if she shouldn’t be there. She walked with a bit of a stoop, hunched over, her eyes downcast.
Grant understood well what was going on here. She was scared of him. And the male nurse was too.
Good. They had good reason to be scared of Grant.
“What happened?” barked Grant.
He needed answers. He needed them fast.
The last thing he could remember was that Wilson had betrayed him.
That bastard. After all Grant had done for him.
Grant would get him.
Grant wouldn’t tolerate threats to his authority, whether internal or external. He’d squash them the way he’d always squashed them.
Wilson had served him well for a long time, but it was clear that he wasn’t the man Grant thought he was.