The Vostok movement was a classic Russian design. Tough and rugged. Able to take a beating, but not as precise as the Swiss-made watch movements.
For all Max knew, his new lifestyle was making his watch run as much as thirty seconds fast per day. He figured that his watch, at this point, might be as much as half an hour off.
There was an atlas back at camp. If he looked up the sunrise times, he’d be able to set the watch accurately again.
Provided he got back to camp alive.
It wasn’t like the exact time mattered so much now, anyway. Although if he needed to use the watch as a compass, aligning the hour hand with the direction of the sun, it might mean seriously decreased directional accuracy.
They walked for another half an hour through the rain before they came to anything.
It was a rest stop on the other side of the highway.
Max and Mandy stood there, in the cover of the trees, quite far back from the highway itself. They were wet and cold, shivering in the rain.
“I still haven’t gotten used to seeing a highway completely empty like that,” said Mandy.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” said Max. “Come on.”
“We’re going to go over there?”
Max nodded.
“What if there’s someone inside?”
“There might be. But we’re going to need the food if we want to keep going. I’d do it myself, but I’m going to need backup.”
“The thought of going into that place creeps me out,” said Mandy.
“It should do more than that,” said Max. “You should be scared. We have no idea who could be inside.”
“Thanks, Max,” said Mandy, flashing him a wry grin. “You really know what to say to calm me down.”
“This is one of those times where we don’t want to calm down,” said Max. “The adrenaline helps.”
Max went first, leaving the trees and taking his first step onto the highway in some time. The pavement was wet and his boot sent standing water up his already-soaked pants.
4
Janet turned around only once as she ran. She didn’t see Art get shot, but she saw his body on the ground.
She just turned back around and kept sprinting down the suburban road. Her muscles burned. They felt like they were filled with lead. But she kept going, her sneakers pounding against the pavement. Her arms pumped at her sides, her handgun clutched in one hand.
She heard the shouts behind her. And the gunshots.
But she just kept running. As fast as she could.
She knew they’d have no mercy with her. And why should they? She’d betrayed the only people alive who knew her name. The militia was her family, and she was leaving it.
She knew their tricks. She knew how they operated. After all, until moments ago, she’d been one of them.
When searching someone, the militia followed a protocol that Sarge had taught them. They were trained to pair up and spread out. If Janet got far enough away, she was likely to encounter two militia members rather than a larger group.
If she was worth searching for, that is. A lot of the times the militia preferred to save their time and manpower and just let people who didn’t matter go free.
But that was only for those who weren’t threats.
And Janet was certainly a threat.
She knew many of the safe houses, many of the hideouts. She even knew where Sarge was.
If a militia member disobeyed an order, he was rewarded with a severe beating. Or a bullet in the head, depending on Sarge’s mood.
If a militia member obviously defected, like deserting the safe house, they got a bullet in the head. No discussion. No questions.
What Janet had done was worse. She’d freed a prisoner.
She was going to get more than a bullet in the head if they caught her.
They’d revel in torturing her, causing as much pain as possible.
But she wasn’t going to let that happen.
Her mind was so set on killing Sarge that she knew she wouldn’t and couldn’t let anything come between herself and her goal.
Janet couldn’t run anymore. Not at the pace she’d been going.
She ducked between two houses, sprinting down the shared driveway.
The homes were large and had been, before the EMP, coveted and expensive places to live.
No one lived there anymore. Janet knew because she’d been part of the raiding party on these particular homes not that long ago. She and ten others had entered every house on this block and shot the people who’d been in the houses. They’d murdered them in cold blood.
It’d been hard for Janet at first to kill. In her former life, before the EMP, she’d been a hairstylist. But that was all so far in the past now. When she occasionally thought back to her old life, something she normally avoided doing, her memories didn’t even feel like her own. They felt more like some movie of a stranger.
Janet was hardened now. Countless kills had done that to her. She had to survive. She did what she had to do. No matter what. No matter who she had to kill. She’d killed women and children. She’d tortured men until they’d cried and screamed and begged to be killed. She’d pulled out eyeballs and disemboweled living men.
That was just life. Life in the militia.
If she was being honest with herself, the transition to a hardened killer hadn’t even been that hard for her.
It had been for some of the men in the militia. Many of them hadn’t been able to hack it. They’d tried to sneak away in the middle of the night. And they’d gotten shot for it.
A lot of the time, it’d been Janet who’d shot them.
But somehow, slowly, the hardened personality that she wore like armor had started to unravel. She began having dreams of what had been done to her family, what the militia was really responsible for.
So in a split second she’d decided to leave. To stop it all.
Her mind had gone right to Sarge.
She had to kill him.
But she had to get to him first.
Janet knew that she didn’t have much time. Two militia members would show up soon. It wouldn’t take them long.
She needed to get into a position that would give her a slight strategic advantage. After all, she had a realistic understanding of her own abilities. She knew that she wasn’t any better than the rest of the militia guys. In fact, she was probably a lot worse at many things than some of them.
She’d never handled a gun before the EMP. Never even seen one.
She had plenty of experience now, though.
The yards here were large. A large shed sat in the back corner of one.
It was common knowledge among the militia that people on the run tried to hide in sheds. They were convenient and often unlocked.
But they were death traps. A quick burst of gunfire through the flimsy wooden sides and everyone inside would get hit.
Janet ran over to the shed. She grabbed the handle and turned it, pulling the door open just a hair. Hopefully that’d be enough to convince them that she’d gone into the shed. She didn’t want to make it too obvious.
It was night, but the moon was out and the sky was cloudless. They’d be able to notice the small detail, and she’d have enough light to shoot them by.
There was a gazebo made of ornately-carved wood in the center of the yard. Janet briefly considered trying to duck down in there. It’d be a good vantage point to the shed. Very close. But not enough cover.
Her eyes continued scanning the yard.
There wasn’t much time.
There were some bushes that grew right up against the house. Before the EMP, they’d been kept neatly trimmed, and they hadn’t grown much over the winter months. But they’d have to work.
Janet ran over to them and managed to squeeze herself between the bushes and the stucco-like siding that covered the lower portion of the house. The thin branches broke as she pushed her body farther into the space. The branches scratched her face and poked her.