“I used to go running at Valley Forge Park all the time,” said Cynthia.
“You know it well then?”
“You could say that.”
“Park it is then,” said John, making the decision quickly. “But I’m worried we’re not going to get there by morning.”
“If we take Maple Street,” said Cynthia, “we can save a lot of time. We can cut right through to the park.”
“I’m starting to think it’s good I brought you along.”
Cynthia didn’t say anything. But then again, she was still grieving. Her husband was freshly dead. And he didn’t even qualify as “freshly buried.”
Maple Street was a long, narrow road. Beautiful trees formed a canopy overhead. The sun was rising, and light was spreading out across the world.
The view was incredible, but John was worried. There’d be nowhere to hide in the daylight.
Twenty minutes later, they’d made it to the southeast corner of Valley Forge Park.
They crossed over a road and made their way into the park, which was, in parts, thickly forested. They crossed a single dirt trail as they headed deeper into the wilder areas of the park. Cynthia knew the way well, which was good, because John wouldn’t have known which way to go. If he’d been by himself, he could have easily found himself exiting the park by mistake, or heading to the main trail and the parking lots.
For all John knew, there were people in the park. After all, it was the biggest public space in the entire area. Maybe people would have come here to camp, to get away from the power outage, thinking that they were far enough removed. John already knew better. There wasn’t any escaping this madness. At least not until one was much farther away.
John was exhausted when he finally set his pack down. He lay on the ground and stared up through the trees at the slowly brightening sky. Near him, Cynthia was softly crying.
“We’re going to have to hide out in the woods for the day,” said John. “We can eat, and then you can rest. I’ll take first shift, and then wake you up in the middle of the night.”
“OK,” said Cynthia, her voice soft and weak.
He knew that he had no words of comfort for her that would ring true.
“You’d better eat something,” said John, groaning as he finally sat up, getting into a cross-legged position. He started rummaging through his pack for the energy bars, and handed one to Cynthia.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve got to take a leak,” said John.
He hadn’t urinated since the shed, where he’d gone in the corner, leaving himself to deal with the smell for the rest of the day.
He walked a little ways away from Cynthia, heading further into the park. When he looked over his shoulder, he could still see her, sitting there, her energy bar untouched and unopened.
He undid his pants and let out a sigh of relief as the urine started to flow.
In the silence of the morning, without any nearby freeway traffic, there was nothing but the sound of the birds and squirrels.
Or so he would have thought.
From off in the distance came the unmistakable sound of human voices.
Human voices and human laughter, mixed together.
John cut himself off midstream, in order to listen better. The sounds were faint, but they were definitely there.
If he hadn’t known any better, he would have said it sounded like a party. A large one.
He turned around and motioned for Cynthia to come over. But she didn’t see him gesturing.
“Cynthia,” he hissed, trying to speak loudly and quietly at the same time.
She looked up.
“Come over!”
She came over, and her ears must have been a little better than John’s, because she perked her ears when she was still about ten feet from John.
“You hear that?” said John.
She nodded. “Sounds like a party.”
“Who would be throwing a party during a time like this?”
John already knew the answer. People that they didn’t want to run into, that’s who.
31
The Ford Bronco had stopped a ways down the road. One of the men had gotten out of truck and was walking slowly towards Max. He was big and burly, with a thick frame and an equally thick neck. Max couldn’t yet make out his features without the binoculars, and he didn’t want to raise them, since it might be seen as some gesture of aggression or trickery. The other man stayed in the Bronco.
This may have been Max’s worst idea yet. But he was going to go through with it. If he’d been by himself, he would have just fought them. Even if it had meant dying. But there were the others to think about, particularly James and Sadie. They were too young to die in a gunfight.
That was all coming from Max’s brain. It was all reasoning.
What was coming from his gut was something different. His gut was telling him that the men wanted something from them. They didn’t necessarily want to fight to get it, but of course a threat was definitely on the table. The threat of physical violence. But the men had passed by slowly in their car. They’d had the opportunity to attack them then. They’d had the opportunity to attack them for miles and miles. But instead they’d followed at a distance. If that wasn’t an indication that they wanted something, Max didn’t know what was.
Max had gestured to them, waving his arms in the air in some kind of makeshift semaphore language. He hadn’t been sure he’d gotten the point across, but then the man had gotten down from the Bronco and started approaching. Maybe the whole meaning hadn’t gotten through, but some part of it had.
The man walking towards him was getting closer. He held a shotgun, but he didn’t point it at Max. Instead, he held it casually, letting the muzzle point towards the ground.
Max had his hand on his Glock, but it stayed in its holster.
The man stopped when he was in shouting distance.
Neither spoke for what felt like a long time.
“What do you want?” shouted Max finally.
No response. At least not yet.
Max waited. He gripped his Glock tighter.
“Food?” shouted Max. “Weapons? What do you want? I’m willing to negotiate.”
The man started laughing. He must have to put extra force behind it, to make it heard from where Max was standing. It was like a combination between a shout and a laugh. Max hadn’t heard anything like it. Laughter projected like that was creepy. It sent a chill down Max’s spine.
“We want one thing,” shouted the man.
Max waited.
The man was building the suspense on purpose, it seemed.
A gust of wind blew through the trees, ruffling Max’s hair. Overhead, clouds moved across the sun, darkening the day.
“We want the women,” shouted the man. “The two young ones.”
He wanted the women? What the hell?
Max felt disgusted. So society had collapsed and these men were looking to kidnap themselves wives or pleasure objects? What kind of sick men was he dealing with?
Max didn’t answer. There simply wasn’t an answer for a demand like that.
“Give us the two,” shouted the man. “And we’ll leave you all alone. Trust me, you don’t stand a chance against us. We’re going to get what we want, one way or another. Doesn’t matter to us.”
“Over my dead body,” shouted Max.
The man laughed again, that creepy extra-loud laugh. “With pleasure.”
Max drew his Glock. But he was probably too far to get off a good shot. The man’s shotgun wasn’t going to be much good either. Likely, the men had other weapons in the truck. He held the shotgun with practiced casual ease, indicating that he was familiar with weapons.
Max jumped back in the van, as best he could with his leg.
“Go!” he shouted.
Georgia, of course, already had the van in drive. A second later, they were off.
Behind them, the man stood watching them, not making a move to get back into the Bronco quickly. The way he waited, unconcerned, was more concerning than his insane demand. It was as if he already knew he could get what he wanted.
“Faster,” shouted Max.
Georgia didn’t need to be told. The minivan was speeding down the rural road. The engine was whining, a high-pitched noise it hadn’t made before. They’d never pushed the minivan to its limits, not like this.
Georgia was a good driver. She knew how to take the turns. She knew when she could push the minivan and when she couldn’t.
“They’re going to take us?” said Sadie.
“Sick freaks,” said Chad.
“We’re not going to let anything happen to you,” said Georgia.
“Don’t worry, Sadie. They’re just some sickos,” added Chad.
Mandy didn’t say anything.
Max had worked his way into the back. He had his binoculars to his eyes.
“If there’s a turnoff, take it,” he shouted. He still hadn’t lowered his volume from when he’d been shouting at the man. His heart was racing and his skin felt ice cold. These guys had scared him. There was something… professional about them… and something cold, impossibly cold.
There still wasn’t any sign of them.
But Max knew they wouldn’t be far behind. They were simply letting Max and the others get a head start. Maybe it was fun to them. Maybe it was just a game.
If they could just turn off somewhere, down some side road, maybe they had a chance of losing the men.
But there was no road.
It was just straight ahead, for as far as the eye could see.
“There’s nowhere to turn,” shouted Georgia.
Through his binoculars, Max saw the Ford Bronco appearing in the distance.
It was coming for them.