Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) (56 page)

Chapter 57

On the Road Again

E
RIK
LOOKED
AT
THE
university maintenance van.
 
It was all the Professor was willing to part with—even under threat of immediate violence.
 
The paint on the sides of the old repair wagon had faded long ago, but it ran, had AC and the windows weren't too grimy.
 
There were no windows behind the driver and passenger seats, so inside it was like a cave.

He closed the squealing door as Brin loaded the last of their supplies in the back.
 
Erik winced—they'd need some WD-40 if they wanted to remain hidden in this thing.

"Well, she's not much to look at it, but she'll get us north," sighed Ted.
 
He slapped the side of the white van and looked around.
 
"You see 'em?"

Erik shook his head.
 
"Haven't seen anyone since noon.
 
I think they're giving us a wide berth."

"Not as wide as you'd think.
 
There's two up the road, right where we have to go.
 
Been watching us all morning," he said, rubbing his throat.

Erik squinted in the distance.
 
"I don't like this."

Ted laughed.
 
"Which part?"

"The part where we traded our second M4."

It was Ted's turn to wince.
 
"Yeah, well, call it the price of freedom.
 
I couldn't get the old bastard to budge.
 
We get a van, but only one rifle.
 
We want your M4 back, we walk."

"
My
M4?" Erik wheezed.

“I didn’t give up
mine
,” Ted replied.
 
He clapped Erik on the shoulder.
 
“Come on.”

Erik sighed.
 
"It still pisses me off."

"Well, look at it this way, we got another mouth to feed!"
 
Ted grinned and disappeared inside the van.

Erik frowned.
 
Lucy was easy enough to get along with when she wasn't trying to showcase her medical knowledge.
 
To her credit, she knew a lot more about first aid than the rest of them combined.
 
Brin was okay with her tagging along, so in the end he’d agreed.

The breeze kicked up again, cooling his skin in the warm sun of the mid-afternoon.
 
Autumn rushed south to meet them.
 
Georgia and the Carolinas were still in the embrace of late summer.
 
Maryland and Virginia had just been kissed by the first colors of fall.
 
But Delaware had been enveloped by the changing of the seasons.
 
Further north, the colors would be more vibrant—in Upstate New York, they might have even had a snowfall already.
 
From his youth, he knew a late October snow wasn't unheard of up there.

Thinking about the changing weather—and the extra supplies they'd need made Erik all the more anxious to get going.
 
His mind kept hashing over the cold weather list: more food and water to keep energy up in cold weather, extra clothes and gloves, boots…the list went on.

He tested the rear door on the van and satisfied it wouldn't fling open, slapped it with finality.
 
"Okay, folks, we're all loaded up.
 
Let's get going."

"I'm ready when you are,"
 
Lucy said, stepping up toting her canvas medical satchel.
 
In her other hand she dragged a large plastic garbage bag, stretched at the seams.
 
"I got the kindling you asked for."

"Great," Erik said, forcing some enthusiasm for the girl into his voice.
 
"That paper and stuffing is going to come in handy when we need to make a fire later on."

"I looked everywhere and gathered up everything else I could on your list," Lucy said, tossing the bag into the van.
 
"It wasn't much, just some butter knives, pens, some blank paper and stuff like that.
 
They didn't have any food or water in the visitor’s center so we only have what Mr. Jensen got from the Professor—"

"You can call him Ted.
 
You're one of us now, Lucy," Erik said as he helped her into the van.
 
One of us.

"Right," she replied, looking down. She tucked the hair over her ear and looked past Erik. "It still feels weird leaving."

"You want to stay?" asked Brin from the dark interior of the van.
 
She reclined on a pile of cushions next to Lindsay.
 
The recalcitrant patient's leg had been propped up by a seat cushion liberated from the visitor's center.

"No!" snapped Lucy immediately.
 
"These people are sick—I want to get as far away as I can.
 
It's not that…it's just…this is the only place I've felt even close to being safe since the collapse."
 
She took a long, wistful look at the colorful trees that dotted the landscape and the looming hulk of the library across the street.
 

"If you can forget about the Jocks, the Rebels, and those psychopaths that follow the Professor, it's really pretty tranquil, you know?"

Erik listened to the birds on the breeze and watched the colors shimmer on the trees.
 
"Yeah," he said.
 
"I can see that."

"Head's up—our friends are coming closer," warned Ted.

Erik ushered Lucy into the van before he shut the side door with a solid thump.
 
He moved up next to the passenger door and opened it to pull his pipe free.
 
Ted started the vehicle.

"Come on, just get in," he called.

Erik stared as Roger and Tammy approached the van.

"You really leaving?" asked Roger.

“As if you care?" Erik asked, narrowing his eyes at Tammy.

“Good riddance,” she spat, as she took a half-step behind Roger.

“Yeah, you better step back, bitch,” hissed Brin from inside the van.
 
“He won’t hit you but I will—”

“Come on, let’s go,” barked Ted before Brin could get out of the van.

"You're just going to abandon us to the Jocks?" asked Roger in an accusatory tone.
 
His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
 
"That’s not right, man."

Erik kept his hand at his throat, massaging the purple bruise.
 
“Kiss my ass.”

"Lucy!" called out Tammy, peeking around Roger’s shoulder.
 
"You in there?"

"I don't want to talk to her," she whispered from inside the van.

Erik slid the pipe in the front wheel-well and climbed aboard.
 
"Yes she is, and she doesn't want to talk to you."

"You'll never make it, Lucy, you know that, right?" Tammy said sweetly.
 
"I hear you were pretty good, Lucy—won't be long before these guys want to have—"

Ted gunned the engine and the old van roared, drowning out the vulgarity of her words.
 
Erik shut the passenger door and they rolled away, leaving the taunts and insults shouted at the van in their wake.

Chapter 58

Pennsylvania

T
HEY
SAT
IN
SILENCE
as the van crept north through town. Erik wondered what exactly Lucy's role had been with the Professor's group.
 
Roger and Tammy’s reaction to her departure indicated she'd been forced to do more than just provide medical assistance.
 
The thought stuck with Erik and twisted the knot in his stomach.
 

He gripped the barrel of their only remaining M4.
 
It seemed no matter where they went, violence and the horrible aspects of human nature were never far behind them.
 
Whether defending the Freehold
 
from drug-addled fiends hell-bent on destruction or fighting off Russians intent on conquest or some kind of perverse
Lord of the Flies
scenario. Erik shook his head at the senselessness of it all.

So much for civilization.
 

Maybe that's why Brin took such a liking to Lucy.
 
That line of thinking brought up a whole other darkness that Erik wasn't prepared to deal with.
 
What exactly happened to Brin at the Russian prison camp?
 
Would she ever tell him?
 
Would she tell Lucy?
 

Even inside the safety of his own mind, Erik couldn't bring himself to mention the unmentionable.
 
His deepest darkest fears he kept on a short leash, locked inside a prison of his own creation.

He tried to focus on the colors of the trees as they rolled through the college town.
 
Cars that had run out of gas or been in accidents littered the streets.
 

It took longer than expected to pick their way through town.
 
Using a map they had found while looking for extra gas didn't help—most of the streets in the small town of Newark weren't even
on
the map—but they finally managed to pick their way through to route 896 and turned northwest.
 
They didn't want to go anywhere near Philadelphia, which is exactly where I-95 would have taken them.

As they rolled through Jock territory, Erik noticed more and more students were out and about, rummaging through buildings and homes and some even jogging.
 
He frowned.
 
Erik could tell right away the Professor and his bunch of sycophant bookworms didn't stand a chance if the Jocks decided to mount an all-out offensive.

"Stay frosty," Ted muttered.
 
"We're deep behind the lines.
 
Everybody stay down as low as you can.
 
I don't want any lucky shots."

Erik ignored the murmured replies and rustling from the back of the van.
 
Every now and then one of the passengers would bump the trays of tools lining both sides of the van.
 
At some point, they’d have to catalog what they had.

"I'll keep my eyes open for a more comfortable ride if we come across anything," Erik offered.

"I don't think that would be such a bad idea.
 
I think this thing's leaking gas or something…I swear we've only been driving for about 30 minutes, but it looks like we've already burned up a quarter tank."

Erik grimaced.
 
He didn't like the idea of having to stop and hunt for gas deep in the middle of Jock territory.
 
Even if only half the stories the Professor's group told were true, he wanted to be well north of this clusterfuck of a town before they stopped.

He shot a quick glance over his shoulder and saw Brin kneeling next to Lucy, who huddled on the floor.
 
The two women muttered to each other while Lindsay and Teddy looked on with wide eyes.

Erik brought his attention back to the window.
 
Two impressively large men stood by the road, hands on their hips, bent over gulping air after a run.
 
One stood as they drove past and yelled something at the van and Erik got a good look.
 

That guy could be a linebacker for the Bucs…

"Yeah, buddy, we don't want whatever the hell
you're
selling," muttered Ted.
 
He pushed the accelerator down in a clear stretch and the maintenance van surged forward.

The trees grew thicker north of the main campus as the road climbed higher into the Appalachian foothills.
 
Just a few minutes after leaving Newark University behind, they passed a sign welcoming them to Pennsylvania.
 

"Well, I guess that's that," Brin said.
 
"I didn't realize Delaware was such a small state…"

"Welcome to Pennsylvania, kids!"
 
Ted announced.

Erik half-turned to talk over his shoulder.
 
"I'm just happy we didn't run into any Rebels.
 
The further we get away from that mess back there the better," he whispered

"You got that right," agreed Ted.

“You shouldn’t speak.
 
You need to rest your voice,” Lucy suggested quietly.

It took another two hours before Lucy spoke.
 
The entire time, the only sound in the van was the gurgling engine, purring along at the sedate pace Ted was forced to weave around countless obstacles.
 
Every so often they'd come across an accident that forced them up on the shoulder and into the grass that lined the road.
 

It was slow going, and they only traveled about 100 miles before dusk, but they were moving.
 

All in all, Erik mused, they’d made out okay.
 
Sure, they’d traded one of their more valuable weapons, which hurt—but they still had the Russian 9mm pistol Ted brought acquired in the prison camp and the XD Erik found at the RV, plus Ted's M4.
 

He sighed.
 
They'd lost half their firepower but gained a vehicle and a huge cache of tools, though what they might be used for was anybody's guess.
 
They had a decent amount of food to go along with a pretty impressive supply of antibiotics and first aid gear, so that was something.

Thanks to Lucy.
 

As the sun stumbled toward the horizon and they crawled north, the world outside grew darker, which meant inside the van it was pitch black.
 
He could barely see Lucy, Brin, and Lindsay as they sat against the far wall of the van, heads together in mumbled conversation.

Girls.

Erik still wasn't sure what to think of Lucy, but Brin and Lindsay seemed comfortable enough with her.
 
He figured that counted for a lot—Brin was not exactly the trusting type.
 
He turned back front and watched another group of cars, abandoned on the side of the road, trunks open and debris littered around them.