Defending Camp

14

Max and Mandy had driven away in silence through the moonlit night. They hadn’t seen the Spaniards again, and they hadn’t discussed the topic any further. They both knew well that there were plenty of people out there in worse situations.

It seemed to be affecting Mandy more than it affected Max.

Sure, it was a shame. A real shame. But Max knew his limits. He knew what he could do and what he couldn’t do. There wasn’t any point in beating himself up about it. There wasn’t any point in ruminating endlessly on what couldn’t be done.

Max chose instead to focus on what he could do.

He couldn’t save everyone. But he could help one poor kid who was stuck alone with no one to help him. Dan sounded like a good kid, the kind of kid who was smart enough to do the right things, make the right choices. But that didn’t guarantee survival. Far from it.

They’d found a place where they could cut across to the parallel road, Route 100. It’d been bumpy, but the truck had done fine across the mud. There’d been tire tracks indicating that other vehicles had taken this very same route.

Route 100 led across the state border. It was a four lane highway, not exactly the type of road that Max relished being on. But they had to take what they could.

“I don’t get it,” said Mandy, peering through the windshield into the darkness that the headlights cut through. “Why aren’t there a bunch of cars here? You’d think there’d be more, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Max. “I thought roads like this would be packed full of cars. I thought it’d be a parking lot, with people dying in their cars, stuck, and starving.”

“What do you think happened?” said Mandy.

“I don’t know,” said Max. “Who knows. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this, though. We’ve had such a limited perspective on the whole event, and the countries response. It’s time we got some more information.”

“It’s good it’s not an endless traffic jam of unused cars,” said Mandy. “Or else we’d never get there.”

Max glanced over at Mandy in the passenger seat. She looked beautiful sitting there in the moonlight. A single tear was rolling down her face. She brushed a strand of her hair back away from her face, and turned away from Max, looking out the passenger’s side window.

“You OK?” said Max.

“Yeah, ” said Mandy. “It’s nothing.”

They drove in silence for almost a full minute before Max spoke.

“What is it?” he said.

“It’s just… I don’t know, Max. It’s everything. I mean, it’s one thing when we’re constantly trying to survive. When things are a little more calm, I don’t know, then it really starts to get to me. Our society has fallen apart completely, and I just hate to think of the nightmares that so many people are living now… or their last days if they’re dead.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “It’s tough.”

Expressing empathy and comforting people wasn’t exactly Max’s strong suit.

But he felt bad for Mandy. He knew that the situation wasn’t affecting him as much as it was her. He could hear it in her voice that she was really feeling the pain of everyone. At least at that moment.

Max didn’t know what to do.

So he turned the wheel and guided the pickup to the side of the road. There wasn’t anyone else on the road, but Max didn’t want to park the truck right there in the path of any vehicle that might happen to come speeding by.

The right two wheels of the truck were on the grass. Max put it in first and killed the engine.

“What are you doing?” said Mandy, sniffling a little as she spoke.

He turned to her. She was wiping another tear away from her eyes, looking away from Max, obviously embarrassed about her reaction and her tears.

“Look at me,” said Max.

Mandy seemed to hesitate, but she turned to Max and looked him right in the eyes. Her eyes were watery, but beautiful, particularly in the moonlight.

Max leaned towards her. Her hair had fallen again in front of her eyes. He pushed it back behind her ear.

He kissed her. Their eyes closed, and their lips gently touched, gently at first, then harder and faster.

The kiss seemed to last a long time.

Finally, they both pulled away, moving at the same time.

Mandy ran her hand through her hair, keeping her eyes fixed apparently on her shoes, sneaking glances over at Max, who didn’t look away from her.

“What was that for?”

Before Max could answer, the sound of a vehicle caught his attention.

“Do you hear that?” whispered Mandy in hushed tones.

Max didn’t answer. He was listening.

It sounded like a civilian vehicle cruising along, at least sixty miles per hour. It was, though, of course, hard to guess its speed.

Nothing was showing in the rearview mirror.

Turning, Max looked through the flat back windshield of the pickup.

That’s when he saw the headlights speeding right towards them.

He reached for his Glock instinctively.

The vehicle was traveling fast, and it was abreast of their truck before they knew it, only moments later. It barreled right past them.

It was some type of sports car. Low to the ground. Maybe a two door. Hard to get a good look at it.

“What the hell was that?” whispered Mandy.

Suddenly, the tail lights of the car glowed a burst of red, and the car screeched to a stop. The driver had evidently just slammed on the brakes, the smell of burning rubber wafting back to them.

The sports car had stopped about a hundred yards in front of the pickup.

“What do we do?”

“Get ready,” was all Max had to offer.

Max’s mind was flashing through the different possibilities. There’d been so many encounters like this since the EMP, where there was no way to know the intentions of the other party were. There’d been times where no harm was meant. And there’d been times when Max and the others had been tricked, like at the compound.

Mandy was checking her rifle, making sure it was ready.

The door of the sports car opened and slammed closed.

A tall figure stepped out. A man. Big chest. Strong build. Not too emaciated, considering the conditions. He wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

It was a strange sight to see him striding towards the pickup.

He must have been someone with a secure place to stay, plenty of food.

But why was he cruising down the highway as if the EMP had never happened, stopping in the middle of the night, apparently not worried that Max and Mandy weren’t the sort of people who simply shoot him on sight for no reason other than to take his car and whatever he had in it?

Max rolled down his window. The air was warmer, despite the fact that they hadn’t yet traveled that far south. It had a bit of a bite, but nothing intense. The snow storm of a week ago seemed almost like a distant memory.

“I’d better get out, actually,” said Max, realizing that he’d have to stick his left arm out the window to get a good shot at the guy. If it came to that, he didn’t want to rely on his left arm.

“Maybe we should just leave,” said Mandy. “Turn on the truck and leave.”

“If he’s got bad intentions,” said Max, “we’re not going to be able to outrun him.”

“Good point. But be careful, Max.”

Max gave her a slight nod.

He opened the car door and stepped out, leaving the door open.

He heard another car door opening and glanced over at Mandy, seeing her standing there, rifle in her hands, behind the truck.

She gave him a small smile.

“Howdy!” called out the stranger, who was getting closer.

Max had his Glock raised, pointed right at the man’s chest. It was the easiest shot to make. Greatest body mass. Biggest target.

“What do you want?” called out Max.

The stranger didn’t have a gun out. But he was walking with a stride that might indicate he was packing. Probably a holster on his belt, obscured by his long untucked shirt.

He was dressed like a cowboy, boots and jeans. Not the kind of person who worked, but the kind of rich guy who wanted to look a certain way. His jeans weren’t any old jeans. They looked like those high-end types, the ones that cost a couple hundred dollars a pair.

The strangest thing about his clothes was that they weren’t dirty or torn. He looked like he belonged walking around LA or some fancy neighborhood of New York City. Before the EMP, of course.

How could someone look like this after the EMP, when the rest of them, Max and Mandy included, were basically filthy? Max’s clothes had countless tears and rips.

The stranger stopped about ten feet from Max. Wide stance. Hands on his hips. Confident pose. He looked straight at Max before speaking, sizing him up.

“Just the normal things,” he said, laughing as he spoke. “I’m just like anyone else.”

“I’m going to need a straight answer,” said Max. “Considering the circumstances, that is.”

The stranger’s gaze drifted over to Mandy. In comparison to the way women typically looked before the EMP, Mandy looked wild. She had no makeup, and her hair hadn’t been properly washed since the EMP. To Max, she’d never looked more beautiful. Her hair had become voluminous and untamed, and the moonlight illuminated one side of her face, accentuating the angles of her face.

“I’m not looking to harm anybody,” said the stranger. “If that’s what you’re wondering. You can put the gun away.”

“It’s a precaution,” said Max. “And it’s staying here.”

Max kept the gun trained on the stranger.

“Fair enough. You can’t be too cautious in times like these.”

“What do you want?” said Max.

He was getting tired already of the way the conversation was going. This cowboy didn’t seem like a straight talker. But he obviously wanted something.

If Max had been a different sort of person, he would have shot him then and there.

But despite all he’d been through, all the treacherous people he’d had to fight, he wasn’t that sort of person. And he didn’t want to become one. Even in a lawless land, a man had to act a certain way, have a certain moral code, so to speak. Otherwise he was just as bad as any of them.

“I’m just out driving, thought I’d see what was up with the truck parked on the side of the highway there. I haven’t seen many vehicles on this road. Not since…”

“Not since what?” snapped Mandy. Evidently she was getting tired of the conversation too, and the way the cowboy was acting.

“Well, if you don’t know, you don’t know.”

“Who are you?” said Max.

“Well,” said the cowboy. “I was hoping to acquire your abandoned truck there, but as I can see it’s not in the least bit abandoned, I’ll be heading on my way then. Good day to you all.”

The cowboy briefly touched the brim of his hat, turned on his heel, and walked back to his sports car with long strides.

Max didn’t lower his Glock until the tail lights glowed again and the cowboy gunned the engine, speeding off into the night, burning rubber.

“That was weird,” said Mandy. “Really weird. What the hell was that all about?”

“No idea,” said Max.

“None of that made any sense.”

“No,” said Max. “No it didn’t. Come on, let’s get going.”

Max looked behind him down the dark road before climbing back into the cab. There was no one there. No lights. No nothing. The night was silent.

Max cranked the engine, his mind turning over a thousand times a minute, trying to figure out what that encounter had meant and what might come of it. There was one thing he knew for sure, and that was that the cowboy hadn’t been the least bit honest with them. He’d wanted something or he wouldn’t have stopped.

“The scary thing about all that,” said Mandy, “was that that the guy didn’t seem the least bit afraid. Did you notice that? He had two guns pointed at him and he didn’t seem to care. He acted like we weren’t a threat at all.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “I noticed.”

He let the clutch out slowly until he reached the catch point. The truck began to inch forward into the night.