Chapter 1 #2
It takes an hour to move all the boxes into the hiding place I’ve been using for anything worthwhile I find in this town for fear that someone else will come upon it and grab my loot while I’m absent.
There’s a cave in one of the hills to the west that’s impossible to see unless you’re right in front of it.
I’ve got a motley assortment of plastic tubs and old boxes already stowed there, and I add all the boxes from today with the others.
I pick out several bottles of Advil, packs of diarrhea medicine, and a collection of shampoo and lotion, putting it all in the same box, which I then heave up to set on my wagon.
I keep my pistol in my hand and at the ready as Molly and I leave the township, hiking northeast on one of the old trails I use to get around.
There aren’t many roads left usable in these woods, and those that remain are far too dangerous for me to travel on.
If the roads aren’t filled with bandits and criminals, they’re under the control of Logan’s soldiers.
Almost as bad, as far as I’m concerned.
I pull my wagon, staying on guard as I walk for three hours until I reach Cleverly, the populated community closest to my camper.
There are about fifteen houses and trailers with a community garden and what used to be a bar.
I avoid the eyes of a few people hanging around outside the bar as I wheel my wagon around the back and bang on the door there.
Molly is excited, as she always is when we get somewhere.
When no one opens the door, I bang on it again, this time with the butt of my pistol.
After another minute, a middle-aged redhead woman named Frankie opens the door for me. “Hey, Kat,” she says with only a hint of a smile. She’s far too tired and cynical to grin or laugh. “You got something for us?”
“Yeah. I’ve got some good stuff today.”
“Then you better come in.” Molly runs over to greet her happily, and Frankie deigns to reach down and quickly ruffle the fur on the top of the dog’s head.
I pull the wagon into the back room of the old bar while Frankie goes to get Billy, a laid-back, wiry man of undeterminable age with longish hair and a grizzled beard. I retrieve a bottle of Advil and a box of the diarrhea medicine.
“Whatcha got, Kat?” he asks as he lopes in, wearing the same jeans he always wears and one of his three flannel shirts.
My name is Katherine, but no one calls me anything except Kat. Without wasting time on small talk or greetings, I hand him the medication I picked out just now.
He opens the bottle and the box to make sure they hold the advertised contents. Then he leans over to see into my box while Molly pokes her muzzle past one of the flaps so she can see too.
Letting out a low whistle, Billy looks up at me. “Where’d you find all this shit?”
I meet his gaze without wavering but don’t answer with words.
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Keep your secrets. We got eggs and bread and goat cheese today.”
“I’ll have some of all of that. Plus some ham and bacon.” When I see him start to frown, I close the box and grab the handle of the wagon. “I’ll take my stuff elsewhere if you’re going to be a greedy asshole about it.”
He rolls his eyes again. We play this little game every time. He tries to offer me less than I deserve, and I put my foot down until he caves.
“Fine,” he grumbles. “Ham and bacon too. But you’ll need to give me one of those lotions too.”
I pull out one of the bottles of lotion and hand it to him.
“Okay,” he says as he accepts it. “I’ll get Frankie to pack it up for you.”
“Good.”
I stay in the back room after he walks out, guarding the remainder of my loot with my pistol out.
Billy can generally be trusted to not try to steal from me or hurt me, but no one can be trusted completely. And some of the men who hang out in this place are no better than militia or the gang types that join droves.
I saw two guys nearby as I entered that I recognized. A huge man with a beard who never speaks and another smaller, grungy guy with a predatory leer.
They work for Logan, a leader farther into the woods who offers protection for loyalty like an old-school Mafia boss.
I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him.
I don’t trust men at all anymore.
I wouldn’t put it past Logan’s guys to come back here and try to take me and the supplies I’ve scavenged by force.
When Frankie returns after several minutes, she’s got my food wrapped as a large package. She also leans down and sneaks a bite of something to Molly, but it happens so quickly I can’t see what it is.
It makes Molly squirm with joy.
Hiding a smile, I fit as many of the provisions as I can into my backpack and then put the rest in the wagon. Better to look like I’m not carting around quite so much of what people might kill me for. I say goodbye to Frankie and leave by the back door.
As I make my way around the building, Logan’s soldiers hanging out in the front give me open once-overs. The big guy’s expression is neutral, sober, but the other one leers in a way that makes me feel naked.
I should have put my sweatshirt back on even though it’s so warm right now that perspiration is dripping down my back and between my breasts.
I’m too exposed in this tank top. My body is nothing to write home about.
I’m short, compact, and was always curvy until getting enough food became an issue.
But that man would look at any woman in the same way.
Whether she was attractive to him or not.
Whether she was in a bikini or a snowsuit. That look is not about me.
It’s only about him. Who he is and how he views women.
Damn Logan. He obviously doesn’t care that his soldiers are assholes.
I avoid the guy’s eyes and work to keep any sort of reaction from my face as I pass, snapping my fingers to summon Molly when she slows down with a low growl in her throat.
She doesn’t like those men either.
The big guy elbows the other one with a scowl, and they both turn away from me.
They’ve got Logan’s business to do, and I’m not important.
I wave at an older woman sitting on a ramshackle porch attached to a single-wide trailer when she calls out a friendly greeting. We’ve never had a real conversation, but she sees me all the time when I come for provisions.
Molly and I have passed the last house and are cresting a hill—I only need to stay on this road for a few minutes before I pick up the trail that will take me home—when I realize there are people on the road down the slope.
I check my pistol, even though I already know the safety is off, and get Molly to heel before I start walking again.
It’s a man, a woman, and a boy. The boy is maybe eight or nine. He and his mom live in Cleverly. I’ve seen them occasionally over the past year. The mom has a man—very likely the boy’s father since they have the exact same shade of red hair—but the man down the hill is not the father.
I’ve never seen the man before, but he’s wearing khakis and a collared shirt, so I wonder if he’s a Holy Roller, which is how everyone refers to an insular, ultraconservative religious group that has a compound somewhere south of us.
I used to see them around here a lot, proselytizing and trying to scoop up the vulnerable before Logan pushed them out of the region.
The clean-cut appearance is always a clue since no one else wears those kinds of clothes anymore.
This man has a friendly hand on the boy’s back. The woman is standing close to them, and they appear to be talking. Not walking.
I move off the road to skirt them at a respectable distance. I’m not going to get too close because I have no idea who that man is.
When I’m nearer, the man says, “The Lord’s blessings on you, sister.”
Definitely a Holy Roller. They’re no better than Logan’s soldiers. Preying on single women with promises of safety and then trapping them in the compound until they submit to becoming one of the elders’ (many) wives.
Even I, as isolated as I am, heard the whispered warnings from women.
Don’t ever accept help from a Holy Roller.
You’ll never get out.
One of the only decent things Logan has done is force the Holy Rollers out.
Warning bells sound loudly in my head as I check the woman’s expression and see fear there.
I nod but don’t respond with words or smile. My palm is sweating around the handle of my gun.
Molly starts growling low in her throat.
A quick glance at the woman shows her to be standing tense, gripping the hem of her shirt like it’s a lifeline. “Everything all right?” I ask her, keeping my voice light and friendly.
“Y-yeah. Thank you.”
“We’re just having a friendly chat here, aren’t we?” The man’s voice grates on me. He gives the boy a few pats on the back that are obviously supposed to be casual and jovial.
I keep walking, grabbing Molly by the scruff of her neck with my left hand when it looks like she’s going to launch herself at the man.
She knows as well as I do that he’s a threat.
I knew even before I saw that the hand behind the boy’s back is holding a knife.
The man is wary. Watching me. So I keep my eyes straight ahead until I’m past them. It’s only when I’m far enough for him to let down his guard that I whirl around.
I shoot him in his right shoulder, making him howl and drop the knife. He falls, and the boy dives away from him, tumbling into the ditch beside the road.
The woman runs for her son, and Molly and I run for the man. Molly grabs a mouthful of his pants and starts tugging while I kick the man in the jaw before he can reach for the gun holstered on his belt.
My kick is hard enough to knock him out.
I retrieve his gun before I straighten up. “Good girl,” I tell Molly, snapping again to get her to let go. “Good job.”
The woman has her arms around her boy when I reach her. “Thank you. We were married a long time ago, and he came all this way to find me. He kept saying he’s still my husband in God’s eyes. But he’s not. He’s not.”
I nod and hand her the gun I took from the man.
Then Molly and I walk away.
We’ve not quite crested the next hill when I hear the gunshot.
The hour it takes to hike back home is uneventful. After I turn off the road onto the trail, I don’t see a single other person.
I’m relieved when I reach the creek and follow the bank toward where my camper is hidden behind thick trees.
The first sign that something is wrong is the broken limb I always rest loosely across branches of two trees, which has now fallen to the ground. I snap for Molly and pull my pistol back out of my holster.
The next sign is something dark staining the dirt a few feet farther.
I don’t know for sure, but it might be blood.
The clearing around my camper is utterly silent. Not even the stray frog or bird I occasionally hear.
I move slowly, scouring my surroundings until I see something out of place around the back of the camper.
Some of the stacked wood has rolled off the pile.
Moving warily, I walk around, gun extended and a once-again-growling Molly at my heel.
There’s a man sprawled out on the ground beside the camper.
He’s big. He has a full beard and closely cropped hair. He’s wearing camo pants and a gray T-shirt with the sleeves torn off.
There’s blood all over his shirt and waistline of his pants.
He’s injured. Very injured. He’s big and strong and unknown and collapsed right there next to my home. He’s not dead. There’s sweat on his skin, and his chest is rising and falling in fast, shallow breaths.
Molly freezes at exactly the same time I do.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this half-dead man lying a few feet from my front door?