“No one,” said Koppel, his voice shaky and weak. “No one’s plotting.”
Smitty shoved his Magnum against Koppel’s skull, cocking it. He had a touch for the dramatic at times. “Try again,” he whispered.
“There’s no one. Really. But I have something better. There’s a woman in the area.”
Kara was stunned into silence. There hadn’t been any newcomers since Max and his friends.
Kara needed more women there. She craved to have more women there.
“Where are they? Who are they?”
“There’s just one woman,” said Koppel, his voice straining. “She’s with Max’s brother. They came looking for the compound. They’re looking for Max.”
“And you turned them away?”
Koppel was too terrified to speak. He just nodded. Tears were streaming down his face. He knew that he was going to die, despite giving her what she wanted.
“And where are they?”
“I don’t know. But they couldn’t be far.”
“We can make this easy for you or hard for you. You’re going to die either way. Might as well be as painless as it can be, right?”
“I don’t know. Honestly. I saw them towards the north. They must have been coming south.”
“Did they have a vehicle?”
“I don’t think so. They looked dirty, like they’d been hiking for a long time. There were just the two of them.”
“Smitty,” said Kara. “It’s time to show Koppel that we mean business.”
Smith flashed her a grin. He’d do anything for her, so long he thought it benefited him. “With pleasure,” he said.
Smitty drew his fixed blade hunting knife from the sheath on his belt. In a flash, he grabbed Koppel’s ear, pulled hard, and sliced it off with his knife.
Koppel’s scream echoed around the four concrete walls. Blood spurted from where his ear had been.
“It can get a lot worse,” said Kara, her voice still sweet. “Now tell us what you know.”
“I swear. That’s it! I swear!”
Smitty looked at her. “I’ll cut the other one off. Or maybe an eyeball?”
Kara shook her head. “He’s telling the truth. Let’s not waste our time with him any more. Finish him.”
Smitty gave her the nod. He thrust one arm around Koppel’s neck, jerking it back. His other hand ran his knife across his throat. Koppel managed to scream for a split second. Smitty let Koppel’s body drop with a hard thud on the concrete.
“Get someone to clean that up,” muttered Kara. “I don’t want to see a speck of blood in here when I get back. Now come on, we’re going hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“For that woman, idiot.”
“You’re going to go yourself? Don’t you think you should stay here? You’re too valuable.”
“I’m going,” said Kara. “I’m not trusting such a delicate operation to an idiot like you. We’re not going to have any more screw ups here. Get two good men. Maybe Johnson and McCarty. We’re going light and tight.”
“When?”
“Right now, you moron. We’re not letting them escape.”
Smitty practically ran out the door. He was eager not to displease her.
Kara stood up, checked her handgun, and gave Koppel’s body a kick with her boot. She gazed down at his expressionless face and his open eyes. She felt no horror or sadness. She felt no sorrow from the killing.
Fifteen minutes later, the group was assembled. Kara stood in front of them and stared them down, saying nothing for a long time. Smitty, Johnson, and McCarty were all tall, strong men. They had endurance. They could outrun most others. Johnson and McCarty had both worked in private security before the EMP. They were tough as nails, and willing to do whatever she said.
The men all had handguns and rifles. Kara wanted to go light, so she didn’t carry a rifle. Each of them had a flashlight. The community had been able to recharge the batteries with their homemade electrical generator.
“You all know the mission,” said Kara, finally speaking. “There’s a guy and a girl. Kill the guy like a dog. He’s of no use to us. But the woman is not to be hurt. We need her in good health. Now, they hiked in. If they were smart, they’ll have hiked all night. But we’ll still get them. If they were stupid, they’ll have stayed nearby, camping for the night. We’ve got the advantage. We’re well rested, and we’ve got flashlights. We’ll split into two groups and track them down. Everyone clear?”
The three of them nodded.
The four of them moved out into the darkness. Their boots tread heavily on the ground. The night was cold.
5
There wasn’t anything Max could do. He didn’t know why the men were being hanged, whether they were innocent or guilty.
Max left the front yard. The noise of the crowds followed him. He heard them cheer when the stool was kicked out from under the first man.
None of the man’s noises reached Max, but he could imagine the man’s face contorted terribly as he struggled to breathe with the rope pulling tight against his neck. The man hadn’t been high enough to break his neck. Those makeshift gallows hadn’t been designed for killing swiftly and painlessly. They’d been designed to torture, to provide public spectacle.
Max kept moving from house to house. He moved quickly and quietly. He was aware that the crowd might disperse at any moment, that hundreds of people might be coming back to their houses. And he knew that they were all riled up, that they had become a mob, capable of doing anything. If he wasn’t careful, he might wind up hanged himself.
The next house Max found had a car in the driveway. It was an old Japanese import, compact and economical.
Max paused near the car. If he started it, the noise would surely attract the nearby crowd. But it was a risk he’d have to take.
It took Max about ten tries to break the passenger-side window with the butt of his pocketknife. He chose the passenger side, so that if the car worked, he wouldn’t be sitting on broken glass in the driver’s seat.
He reached in and hit the unlock button, but nothing happened. That was weird. Maybe the battery was dead. Max got the door open with the manual switch, and climbed over to the driver’s seat.
Running his hand underneath the front seat, he found the car keys by sheer luck. But when he went to crank the engine, nothing happened. The engine didn’t turn over. The battery wasn’t working.
It could very well just have been a regular dead battery. But Max’s mind went to another possibility. What if the EMP had affected different areas differently? They still didn’t know the source of the EMP. But whether it was natural or artificial, it was possible that its intensity was higher over some areas. Most of the cars Max had run into so far hadn’t been affected for some reason. Maybe farther west, the cars had all been shut off.
Max didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to speculate. The noise from the crowd was different, and closer. It sounded like they were disappearing. Maybe the last man had been hanged, and people were drifting purposefully back to their homes.
The gas gauge wasn’t registering, but it was possible there was gas still in the car.
Max wouldn’t be able to tell whether there was gas unless he tried to siphon it. He hit the button to pop the door to the gas tank.
In a neighbor’s shed, Max found what he was looking for. A big two gallon plastic container of pesticide. He unscrewed the cap, and found that it was half full. He poured it out into some bushes, and hurried back to the compact car.
Some of the pesticide would remain as residue in the bottle, but it probably wouldn’t affect an engine. Even if it did, the longevity of the Bronco’s engine wasn’t exactly on Max’s mind.