AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 9
November – North Dakota
“Did you know about that?” Banks quietly asks me as we take up the rear, walking toward the barricade.
“That his name was Blaine? Nope,” I answer, focusing on the detail that surprised me the most. “Did you?”
“I think he would have taken that to his grave. Not that it matters,” she says, and I’m relieved she drops the other subject.
Even though Adams, Javier, and I were at the same base, we were in different units and only knew each other to nod at. It was just dumb luck that the four of us ended up on the military’s equivalent of a life raft from our anchored ship. On the way to shore, Banks, who I had worked with, heard them talking and nudged me, indicating Adams and Javier with the slightest tilt of her chin. Once on land, the two of us approached them—Banks took the lead to fine tune the plan she had heard them discussing.
Tripping on a small stone pulls my attention back to the present and I notice that Adams has completely frozen, his face draining of color as Reese keeps one hand on his shoulder—this time, like he’s steadying him rather than welcoming him. Javier isn’t more than a couple of feet away from them and turns to look at us, tilting his head to get us moving forward again.
“Adams?”
The grief I see when he looks up at me is palpable, but we wait for him to talk before doing anything.
“My parents were in a bad wreck the day of The Event,” he starts, but quickly gets choked up, giving Reese a nod to continue breaking the news to us.
“It happened less than an hour before The Event. His mom is still in the hospital here, but his dad had been airlifted to a hospital in Fargo. We don’t have any way of knowing if the helicopter made it there or which one they were taking Artie to, but the sheriff doesn’t have much hope, not if they couldn’t operate on him,” Reese repeats what he just told Adams.
“Let’s get to this hospital then, I want to meet Peaches,” I answer, nodding at Adams and nudging him with my shoulder as I continue past the barricade. “Um, which way do I go? Is the sheriff still around? I’d like to talk to him.”
“The sheriff is Reese’s dad.” Adams comes up beside me, more than eager to get to the hospital. “Reese invited us all to stay at their place.”
“You make that call,Blaine,” I respond, trying to rewind to the moment when he was just happy to be home.
“Asshole,” he mutters.
“What about your dad…” I start, wondering if he’s considering heading to Fargo, but I stop, knowing it might be too soon for that conversation.
“I need to focus on Mom right now,” he responds and I understand, knowing it’s time to shut my mouth.
We all seem to be relieved when we find out that Peaches, while still wearing a cast for a badly broken leg, is staying in the hospital due to her current mobility issue more than anything else. In fact, she’s reading a book to several children when we finally track her down and witness her reunion with her son.
Once she’s done heaping thanks on us for helping ‘sweet Blaine’, there’s nothing we can do but stand around at the hospital, so Javier, Banks, and I leave Adams and Reese with Peaches and follow their directions to the police station.
My eyes about bug out of my head when they land on the man who announces himself to be the sheriff. I’d be surprised if his head clears his son’s armpit—in fact, I start smiling at the visual of Reese bench pressing his old man.
“Well, Sergeant, besides being happy to hear that Blaine is safe,” Sheriff Carter says after the introductions. His eyes had swept over all of our uniforms once we striped our coats off and we now stand huddled near the old iron stove that looks like a recent addition to the station. “I’d appreciate any kind of information you have about the state of the, well, country, world, whatever you know, really.”
“We’ve had a time of it, Sheriff Carter,” I start, but he waves his hand at me.
“Giles, please.”
“Giles.” I nod at him before continuing. “We were approaching the coast when it happened, and that’s a story in itself. The large cities and their surrounding areas are a disaster, Banks and Adams put their heads together and came up with a plan, pointing most of us in the direction of home.”
“Are we wrong to block outsiders from entering our town?” Giles asks me. “We’re open to trading with nearby groups, but we’ve been turning away people who are on the road with nowhere to go.”
“How well armed are you?” Banks asks and I notice the subtle shift of Giles’s shoulders. I appreciate that he doesn’t want to give up that information to strangers.
“She only asks, because there was a town in Minnesota…” I pause, my eyes briefly meeting hers as I wonder how much I should relay to the sheriff, but decide to go all in. “The men and children were massacred, the few women we found did not have an easy end.”
“That’s the shit I’ve been worried about since day one,” Giles says, slamming his hand on the large wood desk in front of him. “What can you tell me about the attackers or the scene?”
“Best we can figure, is that a group came in at night and roused everyone out of bed,” I tell him. “The bodies were all in sleepwear, supplies had been stripped from every house, so we were days behind them. The worse news is they had working vehicles and they had to be a good-sized group.”
“Don’t see many of those these days,” he says, letting out a deep sigh, and I know all the questions he has. I simply don’t have the answers.
