“Jake refused,” said Rose. “And they hit me.”
Jake looked at the ground, growing red in the face. “I tried to defend her, but they just beat the shit out of me.”
“It was horrible,” said Rose.
“So anyway,” said Jake. “Basically, they’re tormenting us. They’ve taken everything from us. And we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Why don’t you just drive off?” said Sadie. “You said you have a van.”
“They stole our gas,” said Rose.
Suddenly, it hit Georgia. An idea. How had it taken her this long to realize it?
Sadie must have realized it at the same time, because she glanced over at Georgia.
“Is there anyone else here?” said Georgia. “In the area, I mean?”
“Not that we know of,” said Rose. “We haven’t seen anyone else. You’re the first ones we’ve seen who weren’t the pot farmers.”
“How many of them are there?” said Georgia.
“Three. Two main guys. One’s kind of the idiot lackey. And there’s this other guy. He’s huge but he doesn’t seem to talk. They communicate with him in sign language.”
“Mom,” said Sadie. “Do you think that’s what happened to Mandy?”
“Who’s Mandy?” said Rose.
“One of our friends,” said Georgia. “She disappeared today.” She didn’t mention Max and James. She still didn’t trust Rose and Jake fully. But they were gaining her trust quickly, and she was letting her guard down.
Jake and Rose exchanged a nervous glance.
“Do you know anything about that?” said Georgia, eyeing them.
“No,” said Rose. “Our van is a good ways away from their farm.”
“You say farm, but isn’t it too cold now to grow anything?”
“They have some special strain, I think,” said Rose.
Georgia nodded. “They beat you two up. But do you know why they’d kidnap someone? What would their motive be?”
“Who knows,” said Jake. “They’re pretty delusional. They keep talking about how they’ll be rich once the power comes back on…”
“They’ve talked about taking me and forcing me to work on their farm,” said Rose. “Free labor, you know.”
“Why didn’t they then?”
“I think they thought we’d find food if they left us on our own,” said Jake. “Not that we’ve had much luck with that. Just bits and pieces here and there. Nothing substantial.”
“In reality,” said Rose, “I think they just like having someone to come torment.”
“But they could do that easily enough if they made us their slaves,” said Jake. He paused for a moment, as if thinking deeply. “Nothing they do really makes a whole lot of sense, though. So I wouldn’t read too much into it. But about your friend… the answer is yes. I think that if something happened to her, it was likely these guys.”
Georgia nodded.
It was a lot to take in. But it sounded like Jake was right. It was probably the pot farmers that had gotten to Mandy.
“Well,” said Jake, folding his hands together. “We came looking for help, but it seems as if your friend needs more help than us. We have it comparatively easy.”
“I hate to think of her being forced to work on that horrible farm of theirs,” said Rose.
“I’m sorry we can’t be of any help,” said Jake. “But we can’t defend ourselves against them. I don’t know what we could do.”
Georgia thought to herself that if that was their attitude, they’d have a hard time no matter where they were. They had it comparatively easy, if some dangerous pot farmers were all they had to contend with. If they’d been anywhere else, they’d already be dead. Not that this wasn’t an area with the potential to be as dangerous as any. And not that the pot farmers weren’t a serious danger.
To Mandy, mostly.
“Max and James are already headed there,” said Sadie, piping up.
Georgia groaned inwardly. She hadn’t wanted to divulge the existence of Max and James yet. She didn’t yet completely trust these two newcomers.
“Who are Max and James?” said Rose.
Sadie must have seen the way Georgia had looked at her, so she said, “Nobody.”
“Well,” said Georgia. “The cat’s out the bag. They’re with us, and they’re headed to rescue our friend Mandy. Hopefully they’ve found her by now.”
Rose looked startled at the mention of two new people.
But Jake didn’t miss a beat. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
“They’re going to run into problems if they reach that farm,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t worry about them,” said Sadie excitedly. “They know what they’re doing. You should see Max… he can take down anyone.”
“That’s not true, Sadie,” said Georgia. “But we do have confidence that they’re up to the job.”
“The only thing,” said Jake, worry on his face, “is that that farm is booby trapped like crazy.”
“Booby trapped?”
“Yeah, they’ve got it set up where they’ll know if someone’s coming before they get anywhere near it.”
Sadie shot Georgia a worried look.
“How do you know?” said Georgia.
“They told me,” said Jake. “They told me not to get any ideas, not to sneak onto their place, because they’d shoot me in the stomach before I was anywhere near there… They said they had the whole place rigged up. And they said not to worry, that EMP hadn’t affected their defense at all. Shit, I wish there was some way we could warn your friends. It’s times like these you really wish cell phones still worked, right?”
Georgia didn’t say anything. She bit her lip in worry.
And she wasn’t the type to get worried.
At least not easily.
“Is James going to be OK, Mom?” said Sadie, tugging on her sleeve.
“He’s with Max,” said Georgia.
28
He’d almost gotten them both killed in the process, but John had gotten the radio.
Cynthia hadn’t even gotten off the dirt bike. She’d sat on it, gun in hand, screaming at him to hurry up.
It hadn’t been easy. Cynthia had left the radio buried in the pack. And he’d had to really dig through it to get the radio out.
He’d hopped back on the bike, and his leg had barely been over it, when Cynthia had gunned it and they’d sped off.
John’d had just enough time, as he’d run back to the dirt bike, to shove the radio into his own bag. He’d had to ditch a few things that’d been packed into the top. He hadn’t even registered what they were, and he hoped he wouldn’t need them later.
Maybe it’d been stupid. Maybe it’d been completely idiotic.
But he was hoping against hope that somehow the radio would be helpful in the long run. Risks and danger were worth it. So long as they survived. And so long as it paid off in the end.
At the very least, the radio would be valuable. Valuable for bartering.
So long as they eventually found someone they could barter with. Someone who wouldn’t just attack them outright. Not friends, necessarily, like Dale. Just neutral people. Surely they had to exist.
Somewhere.
The ride was bumpy. Rough and chaotic.
A couple near misses with trees. Cynthia was cutting it close, taking risks and making sharp turns.
He hoped she knew what she was doing. She was probably the last person in the world he’d expect to have known how to ride a dirt bike. Let alone handle one the way she was handling it. The guys behind them could barely keep up.
But they were keeping up.
And that was the problem.
John had to take action.
He turned his head. It was hard to see behind him, with his pack.