Linda Andrews - The Meltdown

Whether they liked it or not.

Up ahead, a male Airman planted himself at the end of the truck pulled alongside Sunnie’s. Frustration cut deep grooves into his pale cheeks. “Reverend, I understand your work is important but there are others that request your help.”

“I can tend those in here until the shooting stops.” The whine came from behind the canvas.

Mavis clenched her teeth. Maybe not everyone should be part of the village. Especially men like Reverend Trent P. Franklin. She hated the man on sight and didn’t trust him farther than she could spit into the wind. God forgive her, but she wished the man had been killed in the firefight. “I thought priests were supposed to put others’ needs above their own.”

“He’s not a priest.” Sally’s lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. Contempt twisted her lips when she stared at the Reverend Franklin hiding in the shadows of the truck.

She stopped and surveyed her bodyguard. There was a story here. But was it enough to excommunicate the preacher? “He isn’t?”

“No. Priests are celibate. Reverends and ministers aren’t.” Pink colored the lieutenant’s cheeks. Her jaw worked a couple of times before words came out. “I…I—”

“I understand.” Ew! Sleeping with a snake held more appeal than that blond haired, blue eyed scum bucket. And the snake was still a serpent after shedding its skin. She had a nasty feeling that something far worse lurked under the good Reverend’s well-maintained facade. She needed to check with the general and see if his men were still keeping an eye on him.

“It was a slip of the tongue. I’m Catholic, so everyone in a collar is a priest to us.” But even preachers usually wore a collar. Reverend Trent P. Franklin had been in grungy street clothes when the Marines introduced the wolf into her flock.

Mavis shuffled to the back of Sunnie’s truck. Two Marines stood at the rear of the personnel carrier. They counted to three, then each lifted a blond kindergartener from the truck. The children squealed as they were swung high.

“Do you know the Reverend well?” Is that why you slept with such an asshole? To return, however briefly, to your life before the world went to Hell?

A handful of teenagers paused above the dropped gate. The girls accepted a helping hand from the servicemen, but the boys leapt to the ground in splats of mud.

Sally shook her head then tucked a loose strand of hair under her helmet. “No Ma’am. I was the one who registered the Reverend when he arrived in camp.”

Ah, yes, Mavis had meant to look into how the military had registered people. That had not been her department with the Surgeon General’s Office. Perhaps they had gleaned some nugget she could use.

“You did?” She counted the children as the teens shepherded them past. Four youngsters and two tweens. Although pale and thin, they appeared unhurt and even smiled. But they’d known each other before. They would do alright. She watched the teenage boy David had brought in teasing two battered teenage girls and chasing after the youngsters. Her gaze swung to the Reverend’s spot. Gone but not forgotten.

“I suppose the Reverend asked who needed the most attention. And given that you were registering folks, you’d know. Right, Sally?”

Dull eyed adults shuffled along the dirt road. Many had specks of blood staining their clothes. They followed each other in ant lines—stepping where the one in front stepped, moving in syncopated rhythm but not in harmony. Harmony required a connection; these were little more than robots allowing servicemen and women to guide them. These were her high risk category; the ones that would sit down and die.

Sally snorted. “The Reverend was more interested in camp politics than ministering to anything but his needs.”

The hair on Mavis’s nape rose. The wolf was hunting among her flock. Like all predators, he was trying to suss out the strong and the weak. No doubt he’d already picked his targets.

He’d find out soon enough, he picked the wrong herd. These folks were under her protection. And she never showed mercy for those that threatened hers.

She shifted to the side, leaned against the truck behind Sunnie’s. Heat wafted from the engine grill. She needed to be smart about culling the Reverend. Killing a man of the cloth wasn’t actually good community building. She needed more data to formulate an effective offense.

Working in tandem, the Marines unloaded first a wheelchair then an old man with withered legs. A red-haired woman tucked a blanket over his lap. He swatted her behind and she straightened with a huff.

“For that Henry Dobbins, you can make your own way down.” With a toss of her head, she tucked a white haired woman’s hand in the crook of her arm and stomped off.

“I intend to, woman.” The old man chuckled. He rocked the chair back and forth a few times. By the time, he got it moving, most of her neighbors had been unloaded. They waved at her before following him along the dirt road.

“Did he talk about himself at all?” With his arrogance, he was bound to want to talk about how smart he was.

“Once he got started, I couldn’t get him to stop.” Sally clasped her hands behind her back. “I thought reverends were supposed to be good listeners .”

Mr. Quartermain climbed gingerly to the ground; his grandson jumped down next to him. Glaring at her, the boy shoved aside his long hair and adjusted the bow and quiver of arrows on his shoulder. She smiled back. No doubt the kid missed his internet full of government conspiracies. Hmmm. She swatted at a fly buzzing in her ear. If the man was half as smart as he thought he was, he might use the general paranoia to institute a regime change.

She’d have to warn Lister.

“What else did Reverend Franklin talk about?”

“Franklin, Ma’am?” Sally’s forehead wrinkled.

Mavis watched the man in question finally climb down from the protection of the truck. They were talking about the same wolf, weren’t they? What were the odds that two wolves would appear in her flock? She nodded toward the flannel-clad man. “Yes, Reverend Trent P. Franklin.”

Sally’s eyes narrowed. “He registered under Benjamin Trent.”

“Did he now?” Ah, yes, she’d forgotten the man’s disdain for women. Arrogance could be his fatal flaw.

“Definitely.”

“What information did you gather when he registered?”

As if feeling her gaze, the Reverend slanted her a glance. Straightening, he brushed and smoothed his flannel shirt. Annoyance slithered off his face before he smiled.

Shit! The asshole was coming over.

Sally shifted in front of her, blocking her view. “I got his fingerprints. They’re not the best.”

Reverend Franklin slowed.

Fingerprints could open lots of information vaults. Mavis grinned. She could hug the officer and the military for their intelligence gathering in times of a disaster. “I’m surprised he gave them up.”

Doubt tempered her joy. Unless… unless he didn’t have a record.

“Reverend!” A woman shouted. “Reverend Trent!”

He turned in the direction of the call and the smile scurried away from his lips.

Soon, the woman in a blood-stained uniform dragged him out of sight.

“Trent refused to give them so I took advantage of a distraction and pressed his hand to the reader.” The lieutenant chuckled. “I don’t think he knows that I did it.”

He would hate knowing a woman got the better of him, especially, if she was able to use it to expose him as an imposter. “Run a background check on him. Full check.”

Every conman left a trace somewhere.

“But Ma’am, the electricity…”

Yes, the electricity was out. “The government’s personal generators are still working, which means the computers connected to them are still running. You just have to find a working cellphone signal.”