Wilson was following Max along a back road. They were walking in the middle of it.
Wilson kept turning around. He was waiting for the moment when he’d see them all coming for them. He was waiting for the moment when he’d know that he’d soon be dead.
Of course, Wilson doubted they’d be killed on the spot. More likely, Grant would want to make an example out of them. Especially Wilson.
What had Wilson been thinking?
If he’d been smart, he would have let Max, the prisoner, die. He would have let Grant do what he’d wanted. Then Wilson could have snuck off into the night any time he’d wanted. He could have taken enough with him to carve out a comfortable little niche for himself somewhere far away, somewhere where no one would bother him.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t done that.
He’d let his anger get the best of him. He’d let himself lose control.
And yet, despite losing control, he hadn’t killed Grant.
Why?
It was as if Wilson had been unable to break completely free. Despite hearing what Grant had done, despite hearing how power-hungry and insane Grant had become, or had always been, Wilson had been unable to strike the final blow.
Not only that, but he’d prevented Max from doing so too.
He should have pulled the trigger himself.
He should have plunged a knife into Grant’s heart.
At least that way, when Wilson drew his last breaths, he’d know that he’d done some good in the world. He’d known that the psychopath he’d served for too long was dead, hopefully rotting away in a shallow grave, his corpse indistinguishable from the millions of other corpses that littered the country.
“Max,” called out Wilson, picking up his pace. It seemed as if Max was getting farther away from Wilson. He was moving an incredible pace. Limping along rapidly.
Max didn’t answer. And he didn’t turn around.
Wilson had given him one of his handguns, keeping the other for himself.
Wilson had the gun in his hand now.
The weight of it didn’t feel comforting. It didn’t reassure him.
The gun was a reminder of what was going to come. A fight. Violence. Death.
Wilson himself had devices and procedures for situations like this. He knew exactly what to expect.
He’d tried to tell it all to Max. Explain everything to him. But Max hadn’t been interested. He’d just been interested in going. Getting far away.
But Wilson knew that getting far away didn’t matter.
No matter how far they got, the militia men would always be able to catch up to them. After all, they had fleets of working vehicles. Trucks. Cars. Motorcycles. Dirt bikes.
All working. All gassed up. All ready to hunt Wilson and Max down.
The alarms had been sounded early. Everyone had been on alert. Those on guard duty had responded, but hadn’t left their posts, in case an attack was imminent. Those on reserve duty had responded, some of them filling out defensive positions, and others taking up the hunt early.
Max and Wilson had managed to evade the groups of the first responders.
And, so far, they’d been able to keep ahead of Unit B.
Unit B was a crack unit. A special unit. A unit of men who rarely had equals.
Unit B was scary enough. Terrifying, really. Wilson had seen the reports of what they’d done. They had no mercy. They were barely men. More like caged animals. In a fight, at least.
Unit B wouldn’t be all. Grant would respond personally. With his own group. His secret group. The group that did the worst things. The unspeakable things.
Wilson shuddered. A chill ran down his spine. It wasn’t a good feeling, being on Grant’s bad side.
Why hadn’t he killed him when he’d had the chance? Because he was weak. Horribly weak.
Wilson was suddenly overcome with shame. Horrible shame and self-loathing.
He couldn’t do this. Who did he think he was? He was the man behind the desk. He didn’t need this, dying out there, exhausted, dehydrated, starving, after days of being hunted like some animal.
Wilson couldn’t do it. The emotions were overpowering. Simply too much.
He stopped in his tracks.
He stood for there a few moments, gazing off at Max’s back as Max continued walking, getting farther away.
Max didn’t notice. He didn’t turn around.
Wilson felt so hopeless that he couldn’t even tolerate the idea of standing up. It felt as if the whole world was pushing down on him, as it were all above him rather than below him.
He sank to his knees heavily. And then that seemed like too much effort to stay positioned like that, so he sank down, falling onto his side.
He lay like that, essentially in the fetal position, staring straight ahead.
Everything felt pointless. Everything felt impossible.
There was no answer.
There were too many problems.
“Hey!”
It was Max’s voice.
Wilson ignored it. His hand relaxed its grip, and the handgun clattered to the pavement.
Footsteps nearby. Max’s footsteps.
Wilson didn’t move his head, but his eyes followed Max as he strode towards him with long strides.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Wilson said nothing.
Max extended a hand down, offering it to Wilson.
It was too much work to take it. Too much work to get back up. Too much work to fight it all.
Wilson ignored the hand.
Really, it was too much work to lie there. It was too hard. Maybe there was an easier way out.
“You know as well as I do that we’ve got to get going. Shit, you probably know it better than I do. They’re coming for us, and they’re not giving us any breaks. Like you said, they’re not going to pull any punches.”
“There’s no point.”
Max said nothing. Just stared at Wilson.
Wilson lowered his gaze, his eyes focused now on the pavement. The black. The yellow line. The way the pavement was chunky. It was all up close. All easier to focus on than what was really important, than what was really going on.
“I know exactly what they’re going to do to us. There’s no point in fighting back. I’ve never seen it work. I’ve been with Grant since the beginning. He’s ruthless. You just don’t even know. You think that…”
“I’ve met men like him before,” said Max. “I know what they’re about.”
“I thought I knew him,” said Wilson. “I thought he meant what he said.”
“You can’t trust what people say. Especially when they’re talking about themselves. Everyone lies.”
“I should have known that. Before the EMP, I was a… well, it doesn’t matter now. What do you care what I was? But I knew people. I may have worked behind a desk, but I could still read people. I thought I knew the signs…”
“People are tough,” said Max, his voice gruff and tired.
“I’m just going to end it all,” said Wilson. He spoke quickly, and acted quickly as well. His hand seized the handgun that he had dropped.
Wilson felt as if he’d suddenly found the answer. He felt as if he’d been looking for this answer all his life, and as if his life had been nothing but struggle, toil and hardship.
It was if this is what he’d been looking for all along. But he didn’t realize that his view of his life was distorted. It was almost as if they were false memories. He hadn’t been like this before. Not all the time, anyway. He’d had his ups and downs through his professional life. Moments of depression. Moments of elation. All fairly normal. Fairly standard.
Wilson brought the gun around quickly, his arm swinging, his elbow digging into the pavement.
The muzzle of the handgun was pressed against his temple. He pushed harder, making the muzzle dig into his temple. Somehow the pressure felt good. Somehow the pressure felt right.
“You’re going to have to do this alone,” said Wilson. His voice sounded strange and far away, even to himself.
In a way, it was a shame to make Max do this all himself. To make him run and then get captured. To make him go through the torture and eventual death all by himself.
But really, what was the difference? It wasn’t as if Wilson’s presence was necessary. It wasn’t as if Wilson’s presence would alleviate Max’s suffering
And even if it had, what did Wilson really owe Max? Max was a stranger. A nobody. Nothing more than just some guy.
Wilson has his finger on the trigger.
It was a strange sensation, knowing that he was about to pull the trigger. Knowing that he was about to put an end to it all.
It was such an easy answer. Such a brilliantly simple solution.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
Were there any last thoughts? Anything he wanted to say before he did it? Before he did himself in?
No.
Nothing came to mind.
Before he could pull the trigger, something happened.
Something slammed into his wrist. Something hard. Pain flared through his arm.
Wilson yelped and dropped the handgun. His hand felt weak, with pain in it, and the dropping motion was automatic. Reflexive.
Wilson turned his head to look. To see what had happened.
It was Max’s boot. Looking big. Imposing.
It was a horribly worn-out boot. Cracked leather patches. Frayed laces. Eyelets that were almost bursting out of the leather. The side of the sole cracked and shorn away.
The boot was pressed hard into the underside of Wilson’s wrist.
“I can’t let you go through with that,” growled Max.
Something about his voice reminded Wilson of Grant. And he suddenly remembered that that had been his first impression of Max. That there’d been something Grant-like about him.
“It’s the only way out for me,” said Wilson, his voice weak and frantic.
Suddenly faced with the idea of not getting what he’d wanted, Wilson became desperate.
His heart started to pound. It felt like his eyes were bulging. Some tears started to flow. His body felt shaky, as if his blood sugar were getting low.
Wilson made a grab for the gun with his other hand. It was his only way out. The only thing he could think of.
Before he could grab the gun, Max kicked it. The gun went clattering across the pavement, bouncing slightly on the uneven road.
“It’s the only thing I can do,” said Wilson. “You don’t understand what you’re up against. You don’t understand what we’re facing.”
Suddenly, Max’s hands were on Wilson’s shoulders. Max was leaning down over him, and now he pulled. Hard.
Wilson was pulled up roughly to his feet.
Max didn’t look nearly as strong as he was. It was that wiry strength. That hidden strength.
Max pulled Wilson roughly towards him.
Max’s face was right up against Wilson’s. Wilson could see every feature, every pore. He could feel Max’s hot breath.
It was like those army movies, where the drill sergeant got right in the face of the recruit. Yelled at him. Screamed at him. Threatened him, until he did what he wanted.
But Max didn’t do that. he didn’t yell. He didn’t scream.
Instead, he spoke in a low, calm voice.
“We’re not guaranteed to survive,” he said. “But if you come with me, I promise that you have at least a chance. And you’re right, you understand the consequences better than I do. You understand exactly what they’ll do to us. That’s partly what’s making it so hard for you. It’s easier if you can’t imagine the consequences. It’s easier if you can forget, if you can just plow on forward.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Exactly,” said Max. “I have a lot of practice with this. And because I’m good at this, I’m going to give you some tips. Tips on how to deal with this.”
“It’s not going to help.”
“Even so, you’re going to listen. Now the way I think about it is this: They’re coming for us. They’re people that we don’t like. To put it mildly. Now do we want to make it easy for them? Do we want them to laugh about us later, when they’re sitting around, cracking open beers that they scavenged from somewhere? Do we want to go out like that, or do we want to go down as legends, as people who fought for their survival, fought for what’s right?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Wilson. “After we’re dead, we’re dead. We just die, and that’s it. Nothing matters after that.”
Max shrugged. “Everyone has their own opinion on that,” he said. “Me? I’ve got my opinions. I’ve got my beliefs. I keep them to myself. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Except I need to correct you on one point. One crucial point.”
“What’s that?”
“You think that you’re dead and that’s that. It’s not. If you die, the world’s still here. Dying is the easy way out. The coward’s choice and the hero’s choice. Seems like a contradiction but it’s not. If you die, Grant and the others are still there. Still able to terrorize. Still able to torture. Still as power hungry as ever. If you kill yourself, it’s just selfish. Just the choice of a man who wants to close his eyes and pretend that the world will disappear when he does it.”
Wilson didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he could see that there was truth in Max’s words.
Wilson felt something change in his body. It was his emotions. It was the tension that had been there, that had been holding his captive.
The tension was starting to melt away.
It seemed as if Max had provided him with the answer he’d needed. It was the way out that he hadn’t been able to see before.
“If I’m already willing to die,” said Wilson, his voice sounding strong and confident. He couldn’t remember the last time his voice had sounded like this. “Then there’s no reason to fear dying at the hands of those who follow us.”
“Exactly,” said Max. “Couldn’t have said it any better myself.”
Max released his grip on Wilson, and Wilson found himself standing up all by himself. Supporting his own weight. Standing on his own two feet. All the clichés applied.
He felt like a man.
It was a strange, sudden twist. A sudden change in outlook.
Suddenly, a plan started developing in Wilson’s mind.
“OK,” he said. “Here’s what we’ve got to do…”
“What we’ve got to do is run,” said Max. “They’re going to be closing in. We didn’t have much of a head start. Come on, I’m glad you’re feeling better. But we’ve got to go.”
“Run like rats in the night?” said Wilson.
“Exactly,” said Max. “When the time comes, we’ll fight. But for now, we run.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Wilson.
“You do?”
Wilson nodded. “I know how they work,” he said. “I know what they’re thinking. And, more importantly, I know what Grant is thinking.”
“Then spit it out,” said Max.
Max’s posture said that he was ready to listen. That he was ready to change his plans.
The pressure was all on Wilson now.
But it felt good.
It felt good to be relied on. It felt good to want to fight.
Wilson was going take down Grant, even if it was the last thing he did.
He hadn’t done it when he’d had the chance, and now he was going to make the chance. Create opportunity.