Max shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got. Unless we find another car.”
The Honda moved faster than Max had expected. Even in reverse, just tapping the accelerator lightly sent the car zooming out of the garage. Max had to slam on the brakes just to keep from going too far off the driveway.
Max brought the car up to the Ford Bronco, where everyone was waiting.
“Holy shit,” said James, getting out of the Bronco. “Nice ride.”
Mandy laughed nervously when she saw it.
“I just hope it works,” said Georgia.
Something seemed off to Max. Something was wrong.
It hit him suddenly. “Where’s Chad?”
Chad was nowhere to be seen.
Everyone spun their heads around.
“Shit,” muttered Mandy. “That asshole’s left us.”
“No one was watching him?” said Max.
“I was watching the street,” said Mandy.
“Me too,” said James and Sadie together, looking guilty.
Max couldn’t chastise them. You couldn’t expect people to watch the guy who was watch.
“Chad’s been so much better since stopping the pills,” said Max. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe someone took him,” said Sadie.
“Like kidnapped him?” scoffed James. “Why would they do that? Plus, we would have heard something.”
“We’ve got to find him,” said Max.
“Let’s just get out of here,” said Mandy.
“We can’t leave him,” said Georgia.
“Remember, Mandy,” said Max. “He saved our lives back at the farmhouse. We’re all going or no one’s going.”
“So what do we do?”
Max didn’t say anything.
The truth was that he didn’t have the slightest idea, short of going around the neighborhood looking for Chad like he was a lost dog.
4
John and Cynthia had been walking alongside the rural road for the last twenty minutes. They kept mostly within the tree line, in case a car passed by.
So far, they hadn’t seen anyone. John hoped it would stay that way.
“I wish I knew how to use this thing,” said Cynthia, holding up her handgun.
“Put that down,” said John. “You’re going to shoot one of us by mistake.”
“I’ve got the safety on… I think.”
“Wow,” muttered John. “Here, look, don’t put your finger inside this guard around the trigger. Not unless you’re going to shoot someone.”
“Makes sense,” said Cynthia, nodding, returning the gun to its holster. “How’d you figure that out?”
“Must have picked it up somewhere. Wait.”
He grabbed her arm and held her.
“There’s someone up there,” whispered John. “In the woods. Do you see them? Stay still.”
Up ahead, there was the faintest bit of movement. A flash of a color. Synthetic, definitely not natural.
“Yeah,” whispered Cynthia. “I see them. What do we do? Run?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s wait,” said Cynthia. “See who they are.”
They ducked down, out of the way, behind a large tree.
Five minutes later, they could see them. A man and a woman, each with a large hiking backpack.
“They don’t look dangerous,” whispered Cynthia.
“I don’t know…”
John’s gut was telling him not to be afraid. The pair was in their mid-twenties. If it hadn’t been for the EMP, they would have looked like normal hikers, not out of place on any serious trail in Pennsylvania.
But John’s brain was telling him that he needed to play it safe.
The hiker couple didn’t look like they were armed. They didn’t look like the types—not that that meant much these days.
John and Cynthia stayed hidden.
“What do we do?” whispered Cynthia.
John didn’t answer. He didn’t want to give away their position.
Instead, when the sound from the hikers got louder, John rose into view, pointing his handgun at them, holding it as steadily as he could.
“Don’t move,” he said loudly.
Cynthia rose up and copied John, holding her gun out too.
“We don’t want any trouble,” said the man.
“Hands in the air,” said John.
They did as he said.
John got a better look at them now that they were close. The man had close-cropped hair. The woman was pretty, with long blonde hair tied into a ponytail. They both wore wedding rings.
John had changed. Weeks ago, he’d been living the high life in Center City. He’d been the one someone would have tried to mug. Now he was pointing a gun at strangers.
But he’d been through a lot.
Cynthia glanced over at John expectedly. She was waiting for him to do something.
John had to figure out how to determine if they were a threat or not.
They certainly didn’t look it.
But how could he tell just by talking to them? Just do the best he could, he guessed.
“What are you doing out here?” said John.
“Same as you, I guess,” said the man. “I’m Derek, and this is Sara. We’re from the suburbs. We decided to hike out when things got bad.”
John nodded.
“You armed?”
“I wish I was,” said Derek. “But unfortunately no.”
“Put your packs down,” said John.
John moved over, keeping the gun trained on Derek, and grabbed the packs. He kicked them off to the side. They were heavy, loaded down with gear, and likely food. Gallon water bottles dangled off the sides.
John wasn’t going to let his guard down, even though the vibe he was getting from these people screamed “normal people, not a threat.”
“Keep your gun on them,” said John to Cynthia.
Keeping his own gun on them, he patted them down one by one, checking everywhere he thought a gun might be hidden. Waistband, under the arm, the ankles.
“Looks like they’re clean,” said John.
Since there might be a weapon in the packs, and knowing that it would take a long time to go through them, John pushed the packs farther away.
“You can relax,” said John. “Let’s sit down and have a talk.”
“Awesome,” said Sara. “I’m beat. We’ve been walking forever.” She threw herself down on the ground, and Derek did the same.
“Sorry about all that,” said John. But he kept his gun in his hand.
“No worries,” said Derek. “We know how it is. Everyone’s gone crazy. You don’t know who to trust.”
John nodded. “Tell me your story. Where are you coming from?”
“Ardmore,” said Sara. “And we’re headed out as far as we can get. We’ve been hikers forever, so this seemed like the natural route. We already had all the gear.”
“We hike the Long Trail in Vermont every year,” said Derek. “That’s actually how we met.”
They seemed like nice, honest people. The more they talked, the more John found himself trusting them. And they really didn’t seem to mind the guns. Maybe Derek and Sara had a good read on people, and could sense that John and Cynthia weren’t going to murder them for their possessions.
Derek and Sara told them what it’d been like in the suburbs. They’d stayed through the formation of the rogue militia, the same group that had tried to kill John. The group that had murdered Cynthia’s husband.
“I went through there myself,” said John. “It seemed like it was made up of military guys? The police? It just didn’t make sense. I mean, I knew guys in the service, and cops too. They were good men. And women.”
John shook his head. “I mean, it was a mix. There were some military guys, some cops. There are bad eggs in any basket, you know? A lot of the guys that we saw in the militia were actually criminals. They’d escaped from the penitentiary. Others were just scrounger types, nobodies who’d been waiting for a chance to break through and have things their way. And the guys who’d been cops, a lot of them just figured they were doing the right thing. Trying to keep things under control and all that.”