The day after: An apocalyptic morning (22 page)

              "We may do just that," Paul said. "But first, I think we should talk to him. He went to a lot of trouble to do what he did and then he simply gave himself up. I suspect that he has a proposal of sorts to make for us. Is that right, Mr. Adams?"

              "That is exactly right," Skip agreed.

              "A proposal?" the woman asked. "What could he possibly have that we need?"

              "What indeed?" Paul said. He waved Skip to a chair. "Why don't you have a seat, Mr. Adams and tell us what brings you here."

              "Don't let him sit on our furniture," she said, wrinkling her nose. "He's disgusting."

              Paul looked at her pointedly. "Jessica," he said, "Mr. Adams is a guest here at the moment. I will not ask a guest to remain standing no Micker what he looks or smells like. Besides, it's a lot harder for him to attack anybody if he's seated." He waved to the chair again. "Go ahead."

              Jessica fumed and seemed about to say something else before deciding it wasn't an issue worth pushing. She pulled her own chair out and sat down as far away from him as she could get. Just from the brief exchange he'd witnessed, Skip could tell that Paul was a little more conscientious about contradicting her than he was about contradicting Dale. Interesting.

              He pulled out a chair and made himself comfortable. Paul remained standing, his gun held in his hand, barrel pointing at the floor. Before any conversation could begin, Dale entered the room. He shot a foul look at Skip and then walked over to the table, grabbing a seat next to Jessica.

              "The guards are still in position on the bridge," Dale announced. "They report seeing no unusual activities tonight. They say that there is no way that anyone could have come up the ladder behind them without them noticing it."

              "The ladder?" Jessica asked.

              "When you talk to them again," Skip said, "tell them that I came up just as the female guard was finishing up the blowjob on the male guard, but before they both ducked down and started making the Suburban rock."

              A collective gasp came from the three members of the group.

              "That is disgusting that you would imply something like that," Jessica said. "Paul, take this man out of town immediately!"

              "Goddamn right," Dale agreed righteously.

              But Paul only looked embarrassed. "Were they really doing that?" he asked Skip.

              "He's making this up as he goes along," Dale yelled. "Jesus Christ, Paul, can't you see that? Steve and Laura wouldn't do anything like that. Especially not on guard duty!"

              "If he's making it up," Paul asked his companions, "then how did he know that there was a male and female on tonight? How did he know that we use a Suburban?"

              Neither one of them had an answer for that.

              "They were really doing that," Skip said. "But don't be too hard on them. They wouldn't have seen me anyway. They were in a lighted position and I was in complete darkness. The rain and the canyon noise kept any noise I made from reaching them. While I wouldn't recommend that particular activity on watch, it wasn't because of it that I got in."

              "Christ," Paul muttered, pacing back and forth for a moment.

              "Paul," Jessica said, "don't go yelling at Steve and Laura just because of something this... this man says. I mean, sure, it might be possible. But I think that you should talk to them first and find out..."

              "Oh, I'm gonna talk to them all right," Paul said. He looked over at the doorway. "Missy!"

              A moment later it opened and she stuck her head inside. "Yes?"

              "Find me two more guards and have them take over at the bridge for Steve and Laura right away. Once they're relieved, I want those two to report immediately to me."

              Missy took a moment to digest all of that. She nodded and said: "Right away, Paul. I'll have Barbara and Maggie go out there."

              "Good enough," Paul said. "Please close the door as you go."

              No sooner had it swung shut then Jessica asked, "Do you really think it was necessary to do that, Paul? I don't think we should make too big of a deal about this. Rumors have a way of getting out of control. I'd really hate it if Cindy heard that Steve was..."

              "The guards are my responsibility, Jess," Paul said wearily. "I'll handle the situation as I see fit. And as for containing the rumor, you of all people should know it's already too late for that."

              Jessica blanched a little, obviously unaccustomed to being talked to like that. "I don't really think that..."

              "I will handle the guard situation," Paul said firmly, in a voice that there was no compromising with. "It is my responsibility. Now how about we move on to the subject of Mr. Adams here, shall we?"

              "Fine," she pouted.

              Paul looked over at Skip. "Why don't we get right to the point and save everyone a lot of time? What exactly is it that you want?"

              "Safety," Skip said immediately. "Since the comet came down I have almost died more times than I care to count. I want to be safe and live long enough for the sun to come back out. This town represents safety of sorts. You are organized and functioning. I want to be a part of this."

              "You want to join this town?" Paul clarified.

              "That is correct."

              "Impossible," Jessica articulated. "We're not a charitable organization here. We don't even know if we have enough food to feed ourselves for more than a few months. Taking on another mouth, especially a sneaking thief, is out of the question."

              "Oh, it wouldn't just be one mouth," Skip said, ignoring the sneaking thief remark. "It would be three. After the comet hit I picked up a couple of teenage kids that had been camping with their parents. Their parents were killed and now I'm looking after them."

              "Kids?" Paul asked. "Where are they?"

              "That doesn't Micker!" Jessica yelled. Next to her, Dale nodded his head in agreement. "We can't take any more people in here! Our food supply is critical enough as it is."

              "Why don't we hear the man out before we make any decisions?" Paul asked her.

              "There's nothing to hear," she said. "He's a beggar. We've already made the decision that we can't feed beggars. Not if we want to live."

              "I'm not a beggar," Skip interjected at this point. "I have something quite valuable to offer you in exchange for taking me and my companions in. Something that you need here almost as much as food."

              "Oh?" she asked, looking at him skeptically. "And what might that be?"

              "My experience," he said simply.

              "Your experience?"

              "Exactly," he told them, leaning forward a little. "I have six years of active experience as a military man. I was the pilot of a combat helicopter as part of the 3rd Armored Cavalry. I flew medivac during the invasion of Panama. I flew combat missions during Desert Storm. I know all about natural and man-made defenses because it was my job to penetrate and destroy them. I was also a cop for eight years in one of the shittiest cities in California. I know about security. I can help you defend this little town from invasion by the hordes of starving and desperate people that are outside, because, believe me, they will be here and they will find a way to get in if what I've seen so far is any indication of how you're protecting yourselves. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that you've made it this long without being hit."

              "Thanks, but no thanks," Jessica said icily. "Our security is quite adequate."

              "No," Paul said, taking a step closer to the table. "It is not."

              "Paul?" Jessica said, glaring at him. "What are you saying? You are the one that set up our defenses!"

              "And that is why I'm saying it," he said. "I'm a fireman, Jessica. A fireman. My job was to sit in a fire station and wait for someone to get sick or burn their house down. I've never been in the service. I did the best I could because no one else had any ideas, but, as Mr. Adams has shown us, my measures are simply not enough."

              "We can't feed him!" Jessica insisted. "Especially not with two kids tagging along with him."

              "If we don't take him up on his offer," Paul told her, "there may not be anyone here to feed. He penetrated our most secure line of defense, Jess. That bridge was the one thing I didn't worry about and he walked right across it and sat on the wall less than a half-mile from here. Can you imagine the kind of mistakes I've made on the north side of town or the east?"

              "How do we know he's not scamming us?" Dale put in. "So he says that he was in the army and that he was a cop. How do we know he's not just making that up?"

              "I agree completely," Jessica said, smiling at the linebacker next to her.

              Paul looked over at Skip, giving him a look that told him the ball was in his court. Skip handled that ball nicely.

              "I have no way of proving who I am," he said. "All of my identification is buried under a couple of tons of mud up by Castle Point. All you have is my word at this particular point in time. However, as a gesture of good faith, I'll give you some free advice about how to secure your bridge route and keep from being invaded from that direction."

              "I don't think we need to listen to any advice from this man," said Dale.

              "I do," Paul disagreed. "Let's hear it."

              Skip looked at Jessica, waiting for her to parrot the opinion of Dale, as he had done with all of her opinions. She did no such thing, she only looked at him expectantly, an arrogant expression upon her face.

              "You need to occupy the hill on the other side of the bridge," Skip said. "The one that I observed your current guard position from."

              "Oh that's just brilliant," Dale said, smirking. "You want us to put our people outside of our protected area and let them get cut off?" He turned to the two other members of the committee. "This guy is scamming us."

              "He does have somewhat of a point," Paul said to Skip. "What happens if that position is attacked? How would we get them back across the bridge?"

              "You don't seem to understand," Skip said. "I'm not suggesting that you place people outside of your area, I'm suggesting that you extend your area to include that hill. From up there you have a panoramic view of every conceivable approach to the bridge. The only blind spot would be if someone came around from the other side of the smaller hill across the road like I did. And even then they would have to cross about a hundred yards of open ground along the canyon ledge before they could access it. You could close that loophole simply by stringing some barbed wire or something like that on that approach. Or you could maintain another watch from your original post."

              "I'm sorry," Paul said. "I really don't see the advantage to what you're talking about."

              "The advantage," Skip explained, "is that no one could approach anywhere near the bridge without being seen. As it stands now, they're able to walk right up to it before you see them, right?"

              "Well, right."

              "And as I've proved, they can use the very hill that I'm talking about to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of your defenses. If you position your guards where I'm suggesting, no one will be able to get within a quarter mile or so without being seen. That overlook is perfect and it would be almost impossible for a force to dislodge your guards from there without heavy weapons, mortars, or air power - things which are in kind of short supply these days. The only way up that hill is from the road, which is a very steep climb, or from the south, the way we came up, which is an even steeper one. If you hold that hill, you hold everything within view of it because your guards can just pick off anyone that tries to climb up or get to the bridge. Two guards with a sufficient supply of ammunition could fight off fifty people easily."

              Jessica and Dale were both doing their damnedest to keep looking skeptical about him, but he could see that they were carefully considering what he was saying. "Does that make sense to you, Paul?" Jessica asked hesitantly.

              "Yes," he said. "It does make sense. I'd have to look the place over to be sure, but I don't see any flaw in what he's saying." He looked over at Skip. "What about at night? That was the problem we had with the original guard position. You just can't see the bridge at night. That's why I came up with the idea of the video cameras."

              "And that was a damn good idea," Skip said. "I have to give credit where it is due. I'm not sure that I would have even thought about something like that."

              "Thanks," Paul said, beaming a little. "I was rather proud of that."

              "And you should be. But your problem is that, although it's a great idea, you did not execute it as well as you could have. You left a hole that I was able to find and exploit. And the reason I was able to find that hole is because I was able to observe you at will before I made any sort of move."