“We’re leaving you with some food and water. If we don’t manage to stop the activation, at least the food will keep you going until somebody turns up and kills you.”
“You can’t leave me like this, please.”
“Yes we can,” Jack replied.
“You’ll be digging your own graves.”
I ignored Anthony, slammed the door closed, and then passed Jack the Ruger from my bag.
“Cheers, I’ve always wanted one of these.”
Anthony shouted from inside the Range Rover for help but we ignored him. It had started to rain, so we all jogged back to the garage.
“Let’s search the garage and house, if you find anything of use, then bring it out to the front. We need to find and disable any comms equipment,” I said.
I headed into the house with Lea, leaving Jack in the garage. The door opened easily and I motioned for Lea to search upstairs. The lounge area had a stone effect fireplace along one wall, some couches, and a bookcase. I leafed through the bookcase pulling out random books and shaking them for any hidden papers. It felt like a waste of time, so I pulled over the bookcase and kicked around the debris with my foot, but found nothing of interest. The kitchen was sparse and clean, I couldn’t find anything to help us other than the sealed food, which would come in handy for brunch. The dining room on the other side of the staircase contained a table and six chairs, there were pictures on the wall of interest and I took down a framed photo of a fishing group. In the centre, was a man holding up a large fish, the brass plate on the timber frame read ‘Ron’s catch of the day.’ Interesting, I thought and tucked it under my arm. I kicked over a bureau and rifled through it, but found nothing else. I walked to the door as Lea came down the stairs shaking her head.
“Only the usual kind of stuff up there.”
Outside, Jack was still making noise in the garage, I approached to see him hammering away at the activation device.
“Leave it, Jack.”
He turned with sweat pouring down his forehead, surrounded by a mess of garage contents, now smashed in pieces.
“Let’s torch it. For all we know, there are weapons, radios, anything hidden. I’ve found a radio but these fuckers are slippery,” Jack said.
It made sense; Jack threw me a box of safety matches.
I picked up the lawnmower, opened the fuel tank, and emptied it onto the garage floor. Inside the house, I opened the gas supply to the stove in the kitchen, set fire to the curtains in the dining room, and walked out. We regrouped at the garage. I lit a match and tossed it onto the fuel that had been spread around.
Lea had been quiet and looked uncomfortable. I considered this was probably because she thought our techniques for gaining information were questionable. To me, they were completely justified considering the circumstances.
We jogged back to the trees opposite the house and headed back down the highway.
“What’s that under your arm?” Jack asked.
“Let’s get to the car, and I’ll show you.”
We slowed towards the road and edged round to check all angles for movement before getting back into the Chevy.
I passed the picture to Jack who took the back seat.
As I pulled away, a huge explosion sounded in the distance and a thick black cloud was visible above the trees.
“So this is Ron?” Jack called from the back seat and passed the picture to Lea.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Anyone else on there you know, apart from Anthony and Ron?” I said.
“That’s Martina on the left.”
She pressed her finger against the glass and kept it there for a few moments.
“So you think she’s still innocent?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“What if you saw a picture of me with those guys at the team building? Would that make me guilty?”
“You have to admit…”
“So, we’re really going? I’m surprised you didn’t ask Anthony more questions,” Lea said, changing the subject.
“Yes, we’re going. We can’t waste any time. It might only be two hundred miles, but we don’t know the state of the roads or how many detours we might have to make,” I replied.
“What’s your plan for Ron?”
Jack popped his head between the seats.
“He’ll see.”
We were now in Ohio after travelling in silence for an hour, picking our way along the highway at a reasonable pace, I think we were all contemplating our next showdown. Sometime later, as we passed by Cleveland, the obstacles on the road started to increase. We had slowed significantly and had to keep stopping to move obstructions from the road, or to swap to other vehicles beyond them. It was time consuming, but we’d left ourselves a generous buffer.
We came up to four cars that crossed the highway blocking our path. Some bodies lay outside the vehicles, but all had corpses inside as far as I could see. Apart from one.
The car blocking the outside lane appeared to be empty. As I opened the driver’s door to get in and start the engine, an arm flopped out. The incredible stench of rotting flesh hit me, and I looked down to see a purple bloated face of a small lady who was wedged into the foot-well.
My legs wobbled as I staggered back to the car with my hand over my nose and mouth. We’d all got used to the smell — it was everywhere — but I’d never received such a powerful blast of it, and the view had been equally as revolting.
“Car swap time again,” I said to Lea and Jack.
“Can’t you just move that car? What’s inside?” Jack sighed.
“You don’t want to know.”
We grabbed our supplies and moved around to the opposite side of the obstruction. Lea quickly found a nice Toyota with a full tank of fuel. I hoped this would see us all the way to Monroe, which would also mean reducing the car searches and being in exposed positions.
Eventually, the debris on the road thinned out again and our pace picked up. The next major place we would pass was Toledo. After that, it was Monroe.
I was just about to comment about breaking the back of the journey, when Jack vomited out of the back window before it had completely opened.
“What’s up? Are you alright?” I asked.
“I think I’ve eaten something dodgy. My guts feel terrible.”
“You haven’t eaten anything different from us. Have you?”
Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“When I went to fetch the Range Rover we shot up yesterday from the side of Jerry’s house, I found a chicken sandwich in the glove-box. I put it in my pocket, as it looked nice and fresh and completely forgot about it until a couple of hours before breakfast. I was starving.”
None of us had slept for over twenty-four hours. Adrenalin was keeping us going and now Jack had food poisoning? These were definitely not the best conditions to be staging an assault on Ron’s house.
“Let’s get close to Monroe, then get some rest, you probably need it more than anyone, Jack. See if you can catch any sleep and get some water down you, I don’t mind driving. We’ll go to Ron’s tomorrow morning.”
“Isn’t that cutting it a little bit fine? The activation is tomorrow morning,” Lea said.
Jack, who was now holding his stomach, groaned.
“It’s probably not a bad idea. I feel like shit. Besides that, it’s probably going to be dark by the time we get there. I’d prefer to take the house when it’s light. We don’t know the territory like you.”
“Won’t we have the element of surprise in the dark?” Lea asked.
“We would, but so would anyone who might be guarding Ron,” I said. “Badly organised as they are, I doubt they’d be advertising their positions. In the dark, we wouldn’t be able to see where people are stationed until we got right on top of them. I’ll need some rest anyway.”