The day after: An apocalyptic morning (30 page)

              "Come on," Skip said, going over to his pack and picking it up. "Let's get into town. It's about a twenty-minute walk during the day but they have hot baths and warm food and fresh clothes there. You guys deserve all of that."

              "Hot baths?" Christine said. "Are you making that up?"

              "Nope."

              "Wow," she said, giving another sniff. "I didn't think I'd ever get to have a bath again."

              "I don't usually like baths," Jack said, "but I think I can make an exception."

              They began walking across the bridge, heading towards Paul and Jessica, who were still standing on the other side, watching the reunion.

              "Look how filthy those children are," Jessica told Paul as they approached close enough for them to see. "It'll be a wonder if they don't have some sort of... disease or something."

              Paul looked at her in annoyance. "Jess," he said, "it's not like they have bathing or laundry facilities out there. They've been living in the wild for nearly two weeks now. What did you expect them to look like?"

              "Children just should not be exposed to this sort of thing," she said, giving an extra hard chomp on her gum. "It's criminal if you ask me. That man is a menace!"

              "Christ," Paul muttered, shaking his head in wonder. Just what world did Jessica live in? It certainly was not the same one that he did.

              Skip made the introductions once they were close enough to talk to each other. "Jessica, Paul, these are Jack and Christine, the baddest-ass fighting team that I have ever had the privilege of serving with. Jack and Christine, this is Paul and Jessica, two of the leaders of Garden Hill. They are going to discuss with the other members of the town today whether or not we will be staying with them."

              The kids muttered some brief but polite "nice to meet you's" to their hosts.

              "Skip has told me what you two have been through," Paul said, shaking each of their hands. "Let me be the first to tell you that you sound like a couple of troopers."

              " Christine dear," Jessica said, looking at her, making no move to shake either hand. "Are you crying?"

              "I'm okay," Christine said, giving a very teenager-like shrug. "We've just had kind of a rough morning."

              "I can imagine," Jessica said. "Being left all alone out there all night long."

              "They had a little encounter with a few men this morning," Skip said. "That was why they were late for the meeting on the hill."

              "Men?" Jessica said.

              Skip let Christine tell the story, thinking it might be therapeutic for her. In a way it was. By the time she was done with the second narration, her tears had dried up and her voice was a little more like itself. Jessica however, did not seem to be terribly impressed with what she was hearing.

              "That all sounds rather fantastic," she said, making no attempt to hide her skepticism.

              "Fantastic?" Jack said, anger showing on his face. "What is that supposed to mean?"

              "Yes," Christine said, giving a rather evil glare of her own. "What is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say I made that up?"

              "Well you must admit," Jessica said, "that it seems highly coincidental that such a thing would happen right before we start considering whether to take you in. And the fact that two children could come out the better in a gun battle with two grown men, well that is very difficult to swallow."

              Skip took an angry step toward her. "I don't give a shit who you are, lady," he said. "You will not call Christine and Jack liars. Not while I'm around. How dare you belittle what they have just been through!"

              Jessica, alarmed by Skip's tone and his advance towards her, then made a mistake. She let her hand drop down to the butt of the gun on her waist. Before her fingers could even close around it, before Paul or Skip could intervene, there was the simultaneous clanking of two rifles swinging towards her as Jack and Christine instinctively moved to protect their leader.

              Jessica squealed as she found herself facing two automatic weapons and took another step backward. Her feet tangled together, overbalancing her. She fell to her butt on a puddle of standing water, sending up a little spray.

              "Holy shit," Paul said, keeping his own hand well clear of his weapon.

              "Stand down," Skip barked at them. "It's okay. She was just posturing."

              Slowly they lowered their rifles. "She was gonna pull a gun on you Skip," Jack said. "Didn't you see it?"

              "Don't worry about it," he told them. "Everything's cool."

              "They pointed guns at me!" Jessica yelled, still sitting in the water. "At me!"

              "And you were about the point a gun at Skip," Paul said, extending a hand to help her up. "It's okay. Nobody got hurt."

              "What if they would've shot me?" Jessica, seemingly near hysterics, asked. "I can't believe these children are carrying loaded guns and that think they can just go pointing them at people who have invited them into their town!"

              "Skip," Christine said, fighting back tears again, "I don't need a bath this bad. Let's get out of here. How can we stay in a town with someone like that?"

              "Shhh, Christine," he said, glaring at Jessica. "It's okay. They're not all like her."

              "Get those guns away from them," Jessica yelled at Paul. "Why aren't you doing something about this?"

              "Shut up," Paul said to her.

              "What did you say to me?"

              "I said shut up," he repeated. "Everything that's happened here, you brought on yourself. First you call them liars right to their faces after they relate a traumatic experience they went through this morning and then you try to draw a gun on their leader."

              "Did you hear the way he talked to me?" she asked.

              "He talked to you just like you deserved, Jess," Paul said. "And I will not take those guns away from those kids. It is quite obvious they know how to use them properly. I don't think they'd give them to me anyway. Now, can we start heading back to town or would you like to stand out here in the rain and piss off a few more people first?"

              "You're forgetting your place," she said, pointing an angry finger at him.

              "And that line is getting old fast," he replied. "Now, let's move out, shall we? We have a lot to do today."

              "I won't stand for this, Paul. You're mocking my authority."

              "That's only because you're abusing it. Now let's go."

              She muttered a few more things under her breath but said nothing else aloud. She turned and began heading across the bridge, her feet splashing through the puddles.

              About six miles to the southwest of the bridge, on the wilderness side of the canyon, the two hunters that Skip, Christine, and Jack had encountered two days before were on their last legs. They had long since consumed the two cans of turkey chili they had been given and the brief surge of energy that meager offering had provided was long since used up. In desperation they had tried eating a few of the dead squirrels that they had found lying around, cutting them up and peeling the stringy, foul smelling meat from the bones. Since they had no means of making a fire in the relentless rainstorm they tried to choke the horrible tasting chunks down raw, but neither had been able to force it past the back of their throat without triggering uncontrollable vomiting.

              They had staggered on, making increasingly worse progress as the hours ticked by, lugging their hunting rifles with them more out of instinct than anything else. Both had started to think that maybe those rifles would be used pretty soon to simply end it all. One quick pull of the trigger while the barrel was placed in the mouth would instantly quiet the painful rumbling in their stomachs, instantly end the black fatigue that pulled at them incessantly. Neither had suggested this aloud as of yet but both knew the suggestion was coming. Both also knew it would more than likely be agreed upon once it was brought up. Maybe they could shoot each other at the same time? If suicide really were a mortal sin, wouldn't the simultaneous mercy killing of each other be a loophole around that particular prohibition?

              "Let's rest a minute, Jack, " Rod, the older of the two said wearily. They were just about to start up another rise. It was only a shallow one, no more than fifty feet up at a gentle angle, but to Rod it looked nearly as formidable an obstacle as Everest.

              "Yeah," Jack agreed, breathing hard. "A rest will be good." He slumped to the ground, not caring that he'd landed right in the middle of a patch of poison oak.

              They did not talk, they did not look at each other, they did not really even think as they sat there, their bodies drawing on whatever non-essential tissue it could find to burn for energy and propel them forward. Their mouths hung open listlessly, their sunken eyes staring at nothing. They did not even hear the cracking of branches or the squishing of boots through mud as three men crested the top of the hill above them.

              All three carried assault rifles and wore camouflage clothing from head to foot. They had sidearms on their hips, heavy packs upon their backs, and military helmets upon their heads. The first man to spot the two hunters below them gave a hand signal that Skip would have been familiar with. He had taught the same signal to Christine and Jack. The two men to the rear halted in place for a moment and then spread out to the sides, their rifles pointed downward, beads drawn on the two men. The men to the rear then passed more signals to a larger group behind them. This group of thirty, who were all armed and equipped as the front three, spread out to the flanks and found cover.

              The man on the point at first thought he was dealing with a couple of dead bodies, so slack were they, so motionless. It was only the lack of any mutilation caused by scavengers that convinced him that these two just might be still alive. Whatever they were, they did not look like they presented much of a threat. He waved the two men to his sides forward and began a slow advance of his own, closing to within ten feet of the men before they finally looked up.

              Both blinked at them, taking in their features without fear or even much surprise.

              "Who the hell are you guys?" asked Rod wearily.

              "Placer County Militia," said the point man, his rifle never wavering from Jack's chest. "Who are you? Hunters?"

              "Yeah," Jack agreed. "What's the Placer County Militia? You the army, or what?"

              "We are now," the point man said cryptically. "We are now. Anyone else out there?"

              "No, not with us anyway."

              He nodded, his eyes neither believing nor disbelieving. He pulled a small walkie-talkie from one of the pockets on his webbing and keyed it. "Two hunters armed with rifles," he said into it. "They look harmless enough. They say there's no one else out there and I don't see any signs that there might be."

              "Right," said a tinny voice from the speaker. "Hold in place. I'll send second and fourth squads out in front of you to check things out. I'll be down in a minute."

              "Right."

              A moment later came the sound of multiple people moving through the trees on both sides of them. A moment after that, three men crested the hill above. Their carried their rifles over their shoulders, their stride normal instead of cautious. The one in front was about thirty years old, clean-shaven, with a few locks of reddish hair protruding through the front of his helmet. He stopped just behind the point man and took in the two hunters.

              "I'm Lieutenant Bracken," he said at last, "leader of the third platoon of the Placer County Militia Group. Who're you two?"

              They told him their names, both speaking quietly. He then asked them how they came to be in the woods, which they also answered, explaining about their annual hunting trip. He nodded at their words, showing no other reaction to it.

              "Either one of you have any military experience?" Bracken asked them next.

              "I was in the coast guard," Ron said hesitantly. Jack simply shook his head.

              "The coast guard," Bracken repeated, obvious disgust in his voice. He shook his head a little. "NRA members?"

              They both nodded.

              "Good," Bracken said. "That's a point in your favor. Where you heading to?"

              "We were working our way to the Auburn bridge," said Rod. "We wanted to see if it was intact. We couldn't get across at Garden Hill."

              "Oh?" Bracken said, interested. "Is the bridge down there?"

              "No," Rod said. He then explained about how it was guarded and how the townspeople would shoot at anyone who tried to cross it.