Good, thought Max. Let his opponent not take it too seriously. Let him think it’s a game. Let him have his fun. Until the moment is right and he dies.
Max wanted as many chances as he could get. He didn’t care that the man was giving him a breather, just to toy with him more. It’d be better for Max in the end.
“You fight OK,” said the man. “But you don’t stand a chance against me. Come on, get up.”
Max struggled to his feet. His leg was killing him.
They both put their hands up, and began slowly circling each other. Each was looking for the chance to get a punch in.
The man came at Max with a right hook, fast and powerful.
Max managed to dodge it, even with his leg, stepping to the side.
He came back at his opponent with a left hook, even though he was right handed. It caught the man in the side, and he lost his breath for a moment before straightening back up.
“Good one,” he said. “But you’ve got to hit me harder than that.”
The continued circling each other, punching and dodging. The wind was blowing and time was passing.
Max took another punch, this one to the face. Blood streamed out from his nose. It might have been broken. Not that it mattered.
He’d gotten the man in the stomach with an uppercut, but the man was strong, and he didn’t seem winded at all.
“I’m getting tired of this,” said the man, spitting. “You’re stronger than I thought. But not as fun.”
Max said nothing. He kept his thoughts to himself.
“You haven’t said a damn word,” said the man. “You’re too good or something? Is that it? Taking the high road? I’ll show you the high road.”
The man reached into his pocket and drew forth a folding knife. It was an automatic, and a second later, with the push of a button, a vicious looking double-edged dagger blade shot forth from the handle.
The man charged Max, holding the knife, ready to stab.
Max dodged the blade, but he couldn’t dodge the man’s bulk.
The man collided with Max and they both fell to the ground.
Max was on his back, looking up into the man’s gruesome, scarred face. Max’s body was pinned down, under the man’s massive weight.
Before the man could stab him, Max seized the man’s knife hand with both of his own. He twisted, pulling down, hard. But he still didn’t let go of the knife.
Max let go with one hand and swung with a close fist at the knife. Part of his fist landed on the knife blade, cutting Max’s hand. But he’d hit the handle too, and the knife went flying, clattering on the pavement.
Max bent his leg, bringing his boot closer to his hand. He was reaching for the knife in his boot. This was his chance.
“Don’t think I don’t know about the knife in your boot,” snarled the man. His hand slammed down on Max’s hand, pinning his wrist against the pavement. “Oldest trick in the book.”
Max’s other hand was free. And bleeding.
He dug into his pocket, his fingers closing around his folding knife. His thumb found the hole. He opened the blade in his pocket.
“I’ll just beat you to death,” spat the man. His eyes were glowing with rage. “This is for trying to stab me… a damn dirty trick…”
His fist collided with Max’s face.
Max saw stars. His vision went blurry.
Max saw the fist rising again, ready to strike. One more blow and Max knew he’d be unconscious.
Max drew the knife from his pocket with his left hand. He brought it up fast, drawing it across the man’s throat, slicing diagonally.
A line of blood appeared on his throat.
Everything seemed to pause. Blood started gushing, flowing freely from the long cut.
A garbled, messy scream, muted.
The man was gasping for breath. It sounded like he was underwater. Blood-filled coughs.
Max felt the hot blood splatter onto his own face.
Thirty seconds later, the man was dead. His heavy weight collapsed fully onto Max. Max pushed, but he couldn’t get out from underneath the corpse.
Max could barely see.
He could only think of one thing… Georgia.
Two shots rang out. Like a syncopated rhythm. One after the other. Rapid and loud.
Georgia had shot her rifle. The other man had shot his.
Who had lived? Had either of them?
34
It had been many days since John and Cynthia had left Valley Forge Park. They’d walked north during the dark nights and slept during the days. The journey was exhausting, and they were hungry and often incredibly thirsty. They had to ration the energy bars, since it was the only food they had. They’d gone through phases of being completely sickened by the flavor of the bars to enjoying them again, and then the cycle repeated itself. In the end, they didn’t have a choice. They were the only things available to eat.
It had been tempting, when they’d reached dawn, to simply abandon the watch system, letting both of them sleep at the same time. In the end, though, keeping watch had saved their lives at least once. Cynthia had been awake when a group of men and women had come through the forest. John and Cynthia never learned who they were or what, if anything, they were looking for, because Cynthia had shaken John awake and they’d rushed off silently through the woods.
John and Cynthia had stayed away from the road as much as they could. They walked in a single file line, Cynthia staying about fifteen feet behind John. They didn’t get a chance to talk much that way, which was OK, since there wasn’t much to talk about. At the end of a long night of walking, they were both too tired to chitchat. And it didn’t feel appropriate, anyway, with society crumbling all around them. They’d settled into a comfortable, strange little routine.
John was left with his own thoughts most of the time. But he found that he didn’t have many of them. After everything he’d been through, and with the exhaustion, his mind seemed to want to rest. His dreams, though, were filled with chaos and violence. The images haunted him for the first few hours of waking. Then, he was able to shake them off and let his mind be free of everything, nothing but a blank slate. In many ways, the terrain seemed to calm him on its own. He remembered hearing that people actually became more relaxed when out in nature, compared to living in cities. Maybe something like that was happening to him. He didn’t know, and he didn’t think much about it.
John had lost track of how many days they’d been walking for. Maybe close to a month. He didn’t know. He hoped that they were close to the farmhouse by now. He hoped that they were headed in the right direction. They were going completely off the North Star. But just going north obviously wasn’t going to be good enough. They could have easily passed by the farmhouse by a few miles and they never would have known.
It was getting close to morning. The light was starting to come up. Earlier in their journey, they’d been careful to never walk when there was any light. But now that they hadn’t run into a single soul in many, many miles, they had gotten a little more relaxed. John was also interested in making good time, and the more minutes they spent walking each day, the closer he figured they’d be to the farmhouse.
There was something up ahead. Something metallic between the trees. John couldn’t make out what it was, but he saw the early morning light flashing off of whatever it was.
He stopped in his tracks, and waited for Cynthia to catch up to him.
“Do you see that?” he said. He wasn’t going to rule out the possibility that he was suffering hallucinations from exhaustion and hunger.
“Yeah,” said Cynthia. “I see it.”
It might have been the first time they’d talked in days. John wasn’t sure.