Kristen Simmons: Three

“Let’s keep moving,” I said.

“They’re close,” said Billy. “They’ve got to be close. Why do we have to be so quiet? They probably think we’re an FBR tracking team or something. We need to call out to them, let them know we’re on their side.”

Jack was turning in a slow circle, eyeing the bushes as though something might pop out at any moment. The hairs on my neck prickled.

“You ever met the kind of people that live in the Red Zone, Fats?” he asked. “They’re not the type you invite to dinner.”

Billy groaned. “This is a waste of time! If the survivors don’t know we’re here, they’re just going to keep running!”

“Keep it down, kid,” said Rat dismissively. But part of me agreed with Billy. If there were survivors, they were either running from us scared, or not aware that we were pursuing them.

Billy pulled the gun from his belt.

“No,” he said. “I’m sick of you all acting like I’m some stupid kid. Wallace and me were running Knoxville while you guys were still in your pathetic blue uniforms.”

My pulse was pounding. “Billy, put the gun down. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Shut up, Ember.” His voice cracked. “Stop telling me what to do!”

Chase stepped in front of me. A sudden image of the young soldier in the rehab hospital flashed in my mind. Harper—scared, unable to decide whether he should turn us in or let us go. Billy was close to tears, his eyes were tinged with red, and his shoulders were twitching.

“What do you think we should do?” Chase asked. “Tell us, and we’ll talk it over.”

“This.” Billy tilted his chin up and shouted. “Hey!” He swallowed a deep breath. “ Is anybody out there? ”

Jack lunged toward him, but stopped cold when Billy lifted the gun. Blood screamed in my ears. Behind me, I heard Sean swear. Everyone went very still.

Billy raised the gun overhead. He fired once. Twice. The sound shattered the silence. Nearby birds took flight, their wings making a jumbled thwap sound. I hadn’t realized I’d ducked until the warm mud oozed between my fingers. Rebecca whimpered somewhere behind me.

“Put it down, Billy,” ordered Chase.

“Or what?” Billy’s voice was eerily calm. He did lower the gun, but there was something different about him, something that gave me chills.

He placed the gun in his waistband and gave me a strange look, as if I were the crazy one because I was on the ground.

No one asked him for the gun.

“You’re nuts, you know that, Fats?” asked Jack. He cracked a smile for the first time since before the tunnels had fallen. “You would have liked it in Chicago.”

“Yeah,” Rat said with a nod. “Yeah, he would have.”

We moved on.

ITwas just after sunset when the second transmission came through. We had practically collapsed in the small clearing, collectively famished and exhausted. I’d tried to connect with the mini-mart again, but no one had answered. Either the battery in their radio had finally crashed, or they’d simply turned it off to save power.

When the blinking red light on the transceiver turned green, the others jumped into action. They gathered around where I knelt, creating a canopy of faces that looked down on me expectantly. With a surge of adrenaline, I unraveled the cord to the handheld microphone, dialed the knob to the correct frequency, and pressed the RECEIVE TRANSMISSION button.

“Go ahead. We’re all here.”

A wave of static came over the line.

“Is it too redneck to say you look sexy operating a radio?” Chase said quietly enough so that only I could hear. I was glad to see some of the worry erased from between his brows.

“You should see what I can do with a nightstick.”

He smirked, both of us remembering the time I’d clocked him in the side while swinging blindly to defend us from thieves. The expression disappeared as Tucker’s voice came over the line.

“Find anything yet?”

The marshland was alive with the buzz of insects and the croaking of frogs, and the others tightened the circle around the radio and me so they could hear.

I pressed the button on the microphone. “Not yet. Did you get to Grandma’s house?”

“They should be in Virginia,” said Chase. “That’s where they said they were heading first. Somewhere near Roanoke.” Sean nodded.

“Yeah. But she’s not home.”

The anxiety settled over us, heavy and palpable. My mind flashed to the Wayland Inn burning, to the Chicago tunnels bombed. Was our team’s first stop already discovered, or was there simply no one there?

“What’s that mean, not home?” asked Jack. He gestured for me to hurry up. “Ask already.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Not sure,” Tucker answered. “The house is still there, but no one’s inside. Our friend with the dental problems went to ask some questions.”

“Truck,” said Jack. “That has to be who he’s talking about.” Truck, the big musclehead carrier we’d met in Chicago, was missing a few of his front teeth. He and Jack were friends.

“How long has he been gone?” I asked. Chase nodded his encouragement.

There was a long pause. So long I thought maybe the line had been disconnected.

“Awhile. He said he’d be back by now. The other driver went to look for him.”

Tubman, the other carrier who we’d met in Knoxville. This seemed like a bad plan—Truck and Tubman were the people who carried messages between the resistance posts. If they were gone, the rest of the team wouldn’t know where to go.

“Something’s wrong,” said Rat.

“Any signs of trouble?” I asked.

Another pause.

“Got to go,” Tucker said hurriedly. “I’ll call tomorrow at dawn.”

“Wait. What’s going on?”

The line went dead. After a moment, I let the microphone fall into my lap. For a few seconds, no one said anything, then everyone spoke at once.

“Should have gone with them,” Jack was saying.

“Bad idea,” said another guy. “They’ll be strung up for this, you know they will.”

I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Chase took the microphone from my lap and wound the cord around the handle.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He shook his head, his expression dark. “I think we need to move on.”

He was right; exhausted as we were, it did no good sitting around stewing over Tucker’s call. We had to press on, even if it was only to verify there was no one who’d survived. We had to get back to the mini-mart. People were still depending on us. I kept the radio close though, just in case Tucker decided to call back.

At the end of the clearing was a raised walkway—left over from the national park—that crossed over a marsh to the woods on the other side. The boards were rickety, missing in chunks, and the handrails were mostly disintegrated.

Billy climbed the first step. It groaned beneath his weight.

“Hey, Fats,” said Jack. “Send a lightweight to test the bridge. You break it, no one’s getting across.”

Billy stepped back, grinning. “Rat, you’re up.”

Something stirred in the water. When I held my breath I swore I could hear the snap of jaws.

Rat swore. “Why don’t we just go around?”

“Scared the swamp monster’s gonna get you?” chided Billy.

“Bunch of babies.”

It was Rebecca that had spoken. She pushed between Billy and Sean and hoisted herself up the steps, relying mostly on her braces. Sean went after her, but when he grabbed her arm she shook him off.

“See?” She was breathing hard when she reached the top, and shoved the sweaty hair back from her forehead. “It’s fine.”