And that, Red realized, was not a practical solution now that the sun was up. The patrols would have returned to walking in groups of three, not six, but she would be easier to find without the cover of darkness. It would not be a good thing for Red to encounter them. She’d been feeling a little too free and easy, letting her mind wander around.
Red saw two houses maybe a half or three quarters of a mile distant—one covered in blue siding and closer to the road, the other made of brick and tucked a little farther back. She decided she would stop in the brick one—break in, if she had to—and use it to spy on the road for a while.
She was getting that itchy feeling on the back of her neck again, and she didn’t know if it was because the patrol really was coming up behind her or if she was just being paranoid. Either way it seemed like a good time to find a hidey-hole and stay there until the patrol passed.
By the time she reached the brick house her neck was so itchy it felt like a mass of spiders were nesting on her spine. Something was wrong, really wrong, and she didn’t think it was just her worry-brain working overtime.
Something has happened to Sam and Riley, she thought as she broke one of the back windows on the house with her axe. She was hardly aware of what she was doing, because the fear had taken hold now and logic was no longer welcome.
She climbed through the window—it was low, thank goodness, because she couldn’t deal with another problem at that moment. The window was over a kitchen sink, which meant that when Red boosted herself through, her hands went into the basin and her chin banged against the faucet.
Her legs were dangling outside and she thought, It would be just my luck for them to come along and find me like this, with my limbs hanging out the window. All they would have to do is grab me and pull and there wouldn’t be a damned thing I could do about it.
Red managed to turn her torso to the right and kind of flop onto the counter and yank her legs after. Something ripped as she went through and when she sat up on the counter she saw that the left leg of her pants was ripped from shin to foot. It was a good thing she had a fake leg on that side or her skin would have been ripped from shin to foot, too. She hadn’t done a great job of clearing all the glass from the bottom of the sill and had paid the price.
Tearing her pant leg was weirdly calming, because it made her settle down and focus on where she was and what she was doing.
“Stop freaking out for no reason, Red,” she said to herself.
The kids were fine. They were with D.J. She was the one who was more likely in immediate danger.
She hopped off the kitchen counter and looked around. The air was stale but it didn’t have the rotten reek of dead things decomposing. It was likely the owners had just locked up and drove away. The kitchen had yellow wallpaper with little cartoon geese in various poses—wearing a hat and reading a newspaper, or walking to the market with a basket.
Red supposed it was cute, but since in real life geese were jerks she didn’t really see the appeal of anthropomorphizing them and putting them all over your wall.
She couldn’t resist checking the cabinets and was disappointed to find nothing but a few stray cans of tuna with expired dates on them.
“How long do you have to keep tuna for it to expire?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
The kitchen connected to a dining room complete with a heavy wood dining set. It had probably been repeatedly polished by loving hands but now there were no hands to do it and a thick layer of dust had formed on the tabletop. In the center of the table was a bouquet of fake flowers composed of artificial greens and purples set in a clear blue vase. Red couldn’t even tell what flowers they were supposed to be imitating.
The dining room connected to a living room with hideously orange furniture and a carpet that looked like it was composed of lava flow—reds and oranges smashed together. There were lots of bookcases filled with glass and porcelain knickknacks but no books.
What kind of people had no books? Red judged the occupants and found them wanting.
She reckoned she wasted ten or fifteen minutes fooling around with the window and checking the kitchen cabinets. The living room had a large picture window that looked out onto the road. The angle was perfect—she could see quite a distance back the way she’d come, and if she switched corners it was easy to see another half mile or so in the other direction. After that the road rose into another rolling hill and whatever was beyond it was hidden.
The picture window had blinds and a sheer curtain and heavier curtains over those—orange, of course. While Red didn’t understand why anybody would want to spend so much time contemplating the stuff that covered the windows, she appreciated that it gave her plenty of camouflage. There was even a handy chair to sit in just at the angle she needed to watch the road.
She thought the walking patrol should come along any minute, unless they’d passed by while she was in the kitchen. That would be unfortunate, because her plan was to let them get about fifteen minutes ahead of her and then continue on.
After that she thought she would find another good place to watch the road and hopefully follow them to their base. Sparrow Hill Road was not a good place for following because of all the exposed land.
She dug in the bag that D.J. had given her and found a small container packed with cold rice and egg, and another container with a peanut butter sandwich.
Red ate the cold rice and egg and watched the road. She wished she had a watch, but before the Crisis she’d only had one of those fancy smartwatches and those were useless bricks without electricity to charge them and cell grids to provide necessary information like time.
But the satellites were still out there, circling around sending back data, right? Red thought. She wondered if there were people who knew more about electronics than she did, out there still sending and receiving information. There were probably radio and Morse code people communicating all over the world.
It was only Red and those like her (which was, to be fair, probably most people) who were helpless without their smartphones and Internet connections. Hell, it was only because of her father’s insistence that she learn that Red could read a map. She knew that most adults around her age only knew how to follow Siri’s turn-by-turn directions.
She finished the rice and tried not to twitch the curtains. Where were they? D.J. had said the patrol came through every two hours, like clockwork. Red was certain it had been more than two hours since she got on the road, and even accounting for their different starting points she should have seen them by now.
Something Has Happened, she thought, and the back of her neck started itching again.
“But that something doesn’t have to mean that D.J. or the kids are in danger,” she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silent room.
It could mean that Regan’s group had met up with the Kidnapping Militia and they were fighting it out, just like in the town where Adam had died. Or it could mean that the other militia, the crazy Locust Militia that took all the available resources, had encountered the Kidnapping Militia and they were fighting it out. Or the Kidnapping Militia had decided that it was pointless to stay in the area and had moved on to another one.
There were loads of possibilities. Those possibilities didn’t have to include Red’s friends in jeopardy.
And you are not a comic-book hero with some kind of special sense for danger. You are just an overly imaginative woman in a potentially life-threatening situation and the tension is getting to you.