Desolation, p.23
Desolation, page 23
I got a long-suffering look for my antics.
“I respect you enough not to lie to your face.”
That statement was sobering on more than just one level, leaving me even more glad that he’d decided to stick around.
Since I had nothing better to do for now, I let my focus roam across the camp, trying to sort people into groups. I wasn’t familiar with enough of our people to strictly speaking sort them into ours versus the Asheville bunch in most cases, I had to admit. Most sat in clusters, so the teams they would break up into come tomorrow were rather obvious. What was also obvious was that some of them were missing—including Blondie, I realized, when I didn’t find him smirking back at me where he’d been sitting ten minutes ago. Blake was also missing, but I’d seen him disappear into the surrounding forest as I’d gotten my stew, presumably on some kind of watch.
What had been going on became obvious when Jared returned to us a short while later, a single sheet of paper in hand. Wordlessly, he spread it out on the vehicle’s hood as Axel and I leaned in to look at it. It was a hand-drawn map of Asheville—presumably, because what other city made sense considering our current location?—with several areas struck out in black and others circled in red.
The map confused me somewhat.
“Wait. They’ve been in the city already?”
Jared grimaced, showing a little too many teeth for a smile.
“No. Those are estimates of where things are potentially worst or best. Most of it is based on location—like where they erected the FEMA camps and the zones around hospitals and schools used for treating the sick. The green Xs are gun stores, although I doubt we’ll find anything left there that hasn’t been looted yet.”
“Depends.” He gave me a suffering look for my interjection. I shrugged. “If they started looting too late, the weapons and ammo might still be there. Just buried under several layers of gore.”
I fully expected Jared to make fun of me for that—and he smirked, all right—but instead his expression turned considering.
“It’s not the most idiotic idea you’ve ever had,” he mused.
“Considering I’ve offered up how many others?” I asked, trailing off pointedly.
“Exactly.”
We stared at each other for several seconds straight before I glanced back at the map.
“We could also swing by the Biltmore and loot some priceless art. I’m sure burning that at night will keep us warm for all of five minutes before the undead eat us.”
Jared snorted. “One of the tent cities was erected right on the sprawling gardens. Might not be that easy to start your life of petty artnapping just yet.”
We were both surprised when Axel cut into our banter.
“But they might have some hunting rifles and crowd-control stuff at their security checkpoints—if they had any.”
“Plus, just because people died there doesn’t mean they stayed there,” I noted. “After the masses tore down the gates, the triage tents were pretty much deserted. More deserted than the surrounding city that was then teeming with zombies.” Just thinking back made me shudder—particularly the part about my brain having been way too addled to fully grasp the danger of the situation.
How I—and Kas, by extension—had survived would always remain a mystery to me.
Dumb luck was not something I wanted to keep relying on.
“Are you done being stupid?” Jared griped.
I was tempted to keep going, but then noticed something else. “Those outbound red circles, here and here. Are those farms or something?”
Jared didn’t go as far as to look impressed, but at least he didn’t continue to make fun of me—which so far had been well-earned, I had to admit.
“Farms, and some outlying towns that might be just far enough outside not to technically be a swarmed suburb. Mike’s plan is to hit them on the way back, or if we never make it into town.”
As I studied the map, I realized why Jared didn’t sound too enthusiastic.
All of them were south of I-40—the damn interstate that had cost Xander’s life. While he clearly didn’t care about my dead friend, that obstacle in and of itself must have been irksome enough for them in the past to remain of note.
“Where did you cross it when we got back from the power plant?” I asked, having zero idea where Kas had done it since I’d been too out of it to remember such inconsequential things like waypoints.
“Way farther east,” Axel said when Jared didn’t answer immediately. “We did some scouting right before the mobs. Not sure about how the situation is now, but around Old Fort, there was enough room to drive across the lanes between the wrecks.”
“Still is,” Noah said, suddenly materializing behind us. “That’s where we are going to cross. There are also several campgrounds around the area. Might be a bust, might be a treasure-trove of riches. We’ll only know if we check.”
Jared cast him a sidelong glance. “And you’re telling us that why, exactly?”
Noah held his taunting gaze easily. “Because it would make a lot of sense if you tag along, then see if you can hit any of the targets in the southern parts.” He briefly glanced at me. “Including a gun shop. I know you were joking, but there’s one right here pretty close to the woods. Owner also was a pretty responsible kind of guy. The kind who wouldn’t have forced his employees to come in too sick to stand, so just maybe you’ll find it all boarded up but still intact.”
He was still staring at me. When I eyed him askance, he shrugged. “Jared mentioned you’re good with locks. And that brute who keeps running with you can take care of anything that might require blunt force. Only problem is you’ll have to take a much longer hike than the other groups, but Jared has assured us that won’t be a problem, either.” When I grimaced, Noah chuckled. “After all, we did find you crawling through the fields in the middle of nowhere. Must have been a reason why you were out there in the first place.”
So much for them believing what we’d told them when we met.
I couldn’t exactly fault them for that—and Zeke and Noah had seemed way less trusting than Mike.
“How much more of a hike?” I asked, not quite sure where relative to the city we were right now. Somewhere to the northeast didn’t tell me enough.
“Twenty, thirty miles,” Noah offered. “Each way.”
My heart sank. It wasn’t that I couldn’t walk the distance. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy—or sedate—and that was without us lucking out and actually finding something to loot.
Jared studied the map once more before he uncannily responded to my morose thoughts. “The idea is we sneak into the city, hit our targets without attracting too much attention, and then get out of there with a car or two that we’ve newly liberated, provided not every single inch of road is completely gridlocked.”
“Might work,” Axel muttered, considering. “Even if we can’t drive directly from the city, if we simply lug the loot five miles outside and do a couple of trips, it would make a difference.”
“If we don’t all get killed before we even get close,” Jared observed, his tone light.
Noah chuckled darkly. “That’s the thing. We won’t know—”
“Unless we try,” I said, finishing the sentence for him.
“That, and we have one more advantage.” He waited until all of us were looking at him. “Asheville still got electricity. That means we actually have a chance of seeing what we’re doing.”
That confused me way more than it explained anything.
Jared—once more amused by my irritation—flashed me a quick grin. “Mike said they’ve noticed some emergent behavior of the mobs. Or swarms, as they mostly call them. They’re almost exclusively diurnal. That means—”
“Active during daylight.” We stared at each other, him weirdly happy in response to my smugness. Yes, I knew big words. We’d already established that.
Then the real meaning of those words sank in, making me deflate.
“That means that thirty-miles hike we do at night. After full darkness, before they rouse at dawn.”
Which also explained why they hadn’t bothered us when we’d crashed in that barn but had been ready to tear us apart when we’d tried sneaking out in the morning. If only we’d crashed during the day and ventured back out at night—
But this way, we had run into Mike and his guys, and wouldn’t be here, planning this harebrained operation.
“Exactly,” Noah said. “Will probably take you two days to get there, maybe three if resistance is high. We have no idea how much the artificial illumination at night affects them. But it’s a chance, and we have to take it.”
“Maybe they’ll just stand under the streetlights and stare at them. Like moths,” I suggested, not believing it myself.
I got a smirk from Jared, but that about concluded our guessing games.
“So you’ll come with us? We’re aiming to pass by Fairview, maybe crash there for the night, and then check out how far we can get into the city proper.”
Jared nodded after giving the rest of us a moment to speak up—that we let pass. “Still have to coordinate with the rest of our teams, but that plan is as fucked up as the rest. Count on us.”
And thus, it was decided.
As I watched Jared follow Noah back into the midst of the camp to then chat with the other Militia people, I wondered if he’d just doomed us, or whether we’d gotten lucky. I told myself that the idea with the outlying towns and farms was a good one. Maybe we wouldn’t even have to make it into the city…
But that was exactly why we were here, I reminded myself.
Gah! This playing at being a hero absolutely sucked.
Since I was mostly done with it, anyway, I finished my beer and retreated back into the car, since it was the most comfortable place to sit. It was still light out but here between the trees, dusk hit us early, and after an entire day cooped up driving, nobody seemed too keen on anything except mandatory guard duty. There were enough of us that not everyone was required to take a shift, and I didn’t protest when I wasn’t called when Mike went through the roster.
And thus the day ended in an almost boring, rather anticlimactic way.
Sleeping in a car with three men was not my idea of a restful night, as it turned out.
In the never-ending war of heat versus getting eaten alive by mosquitos, the ghastly pests won, meaning Jared declared we couldn’t open the windows more than a crack. Nobody’d eaten beans the day before, so flatulence wasn’t at an all-time high, but just the stink of four not-too-well washed bodies was enough to make ignoring it a daunting endeavor. I didn’t dare voice a single complaint, curled up in the front passenger seat, lest someone rightfully call me a crybaby. Yet when the urge to pee got strong what felt like a small eternity into the night, it took me no time at all to give in and use that as an excuse to slip outside to stretch, breathe in the cool, fresh air, and get a couple of moments to myself.
I also sneaked to the very outside of the camp perimeter to step behind a massive oak to relieve myself, because my bladder really was full, and there was no need to waste such a perfectly good opportunity—
I knew something was wrong as soon as I straightened and fixed my clothes again.
Fuck. I’d forgotten my damn bat!
Maybe Jared had a point about making fun of me and my lack of survival sense.
But try as I might to smell into the night, there wasn’t even a whiff of decay. Just the faintest scents of food, body odor, cigarettes, stale beer, and all kinds of excrements, proving that I hadn’t been the first with my idea and nobody gave a shit about cleaning up after themselves.
My intellect told my instincts to back down. Must have been a small animal rustling through the underbrush, or maybe one of the guards.
While all that made a lot of sense, my mind wouldn’t let go, my body staying keyed up.
Something was wrong.
I remained standing where I was, straining all of my senses to find something concrete to latch on to—
My fingers closed around the hilt of my combat knife, hurting as my fist clenched tight.
I couldn’t say what it was that tipped me off. Maybe something as ephemeral as air getting replaced by someone stepping up behind me. I sure didn’t hear or smell anything. But a moment before they could make contact, I whirled around and took a step back instinctively, my arm coming up, the knife ready—
Stark bright lights seared into my retinas, making me want to close my eyes. Instead, I kept them wide open as they started to tear up, fixed on Blondie’s face—and the point of my knife, hovering less than an inch in front of his left eye, my other arm raised between us to either fend off a punch or grab his shoulder and give myself better leverage for my impending attack.
With adrenaline screaming in my blood, it took immense effort to force my muscles to lock down and freeze rather than go through with the motions that instinct had already programmed into my body.
It was sheer luck that the lights had come on and startled me, enough to give me a moment’s pause for my brain to jump into the breach and keep myself from committing bloody murder.
Of course I was just bluffing.
Of course I’d never stab a man for something as simple as sneaking up on me.
A second set of lights came on—a smaller flashlight beam, not the industrial-strength fake sun still bearing down on me. The harsh lights clicked off, leaving afterimages swimming across my vision.
I forced myself to blink, pretending nervousness and weakness.
Must have been an easy sell with my eyes leaking tears down my cheeks. And there was a good chance that they’d easily confuse my thousand-yard stare with doe-eyed fear.
It took me a lot, but eventually, I managed to make my hand shake, as if I was close to losing it with panic.
Beyond the—still frozen—man too damn close to me, I saw an entire ring of people closing in around us, if leaving enough room so nobody would feel threatened. So much for expecting the camp to be asleep. Just my luck that Jared appeared virtually out of thin air, rocking to a halt next to us, level with my gently shaking knife. He made a point of cocking his head to the side, then glancing at the weapon from all angles.
Less than five seconds had passed, yet it felt like an eternity to me.
I knew I should have been folding now; dropped the knife, or at least withdrew my arm.
Instead, I felt the muscles across my jaws harden as I gnashed my teeth.
Fucking idiot—
“Ever watched one of those Krav Maga videos on the internet?” Jared mused. It took me a second to realize he was crooning to my would-be attacker, his voice deceptively gentle. “The ones about how to defend yourself against an attacker wielding a knife?”
Blondie licked his lips, nervous. His gaze darted from me—or rather, my knife—to Jared, but not completely, making him look rather cross-eyed.
“N-n-no? Don’t th-th-think so?”
“It’s really quite impressive,” Jared went on explaining. “Particularly since most people have zero idea just how quick and lethal knife fights can be. They imagine them to be that slow, wide-sweeping bullshit that you see in movies. But it’s the opposite of that. It’s quick and vicious. Stab, stab, stab, and you’re dead.”
Blondie slowly started to recover, his body taking on a more cock-sure posture. His gaze still flashed to me once, but mostly focused on Jared now.
“Nah, can’t say I’ve ever seen that.” He paused. “Why exactly are you droning on about this, asshole?”
Jared flashed him a bright, surprisingly real grin.
“That’s quite obvious. Because if you had, you could tell that the way those attackers hold their knives, just before they kill someone in seconds? Exactly the same way she holds her knife right fucking now.”
I could feel attention all over shift to me.
Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
The moment had come and passed when it had been time for me to back down and fold; to pretend I had zero knowledge, let alone muscle memory, to do anything even close to that.
It took colossal effort for me to force my body into compliance and to take another step back and lower the knife before sliding it back into the sheath on the outside of my right thigh.
Mistake number two: I should have fumbled the move, and for sure done it with a lot of aiming and double-checking. Not keep staring into my would-be victim’s eyes while I flipped the knife end over end and—blindly—made it disappear in one quick, sure motion.
Oops.
Something close to true delight shone in Jared’s face as he didn’t miss a single motion, then caught and held my—without a doubt defiant—stare.
For once, I was the one brow-beating him with intensity.
He wasn’t the first to look away.
He didn’t even show a smidgen of discomfort.
Oh, no. Not at all.
He actually looked a step away from launching himself at me—and not with the intention of attacking me.
Too bad we still had way too much audience for… whatever this was.
It was that realization that finally made me snap out of whatever mode I’d gotten caught up in and look away, then do a quick check on the others. Several men had already turned away, no longer alert now that the situation was clearly defused.
Axel and Blake were still there, off to my left, lurking behind Jared, Blake pretty much looking ready to ask for a bucket full of popcorn, Axel annoyed by the disturbance of his beauty sleep. I noticed that all of the Militia men were present as well, but hardly any of Plato’s guys, and only two from Blondie’s posse.
Mike and Zeke were there with five or six of their guys, several of them stepping out as I was counting them. The vibe coming off the gathering was hard to read—tension was dissipating quickly, but disdain lingered in the air. I almost expected someone to get mad at me any moment now, seeing as without the siren call of my very presence, all of us could have been sleeping still, but it was likely Jared’s jeering that had kept any of them from voicing such BS.
