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Maisey stumbled through the undergrowth listening for the rest of her band. Spiky dead weeds and last fall’s rotting leaves made the footing precarious. It was going to take them all afternoon to get back to last night’s camp. Ten miles was a ridiculously long hike after their failed attempt at an attack. She cursed the fragile bus and Rusty’s schemes again. She didn’t know how she was going to regroup. They were very low on supplies, and their fruitless foray had just ruled out the possibility of bartering with the dairy. Not that she had anything to give in trade even if they had let her get close enough to ask.
She kicked at the plants in her way in frustration. There was food to be had nearby, and it was now completely out of reach because she had let Rusty get the upper hand. Her band was a loose affiliation of the starving and the ruthless. She had learned the hard way that she needed the latter to feed the former. Every day was an ongoing dance of negotiation, persuasion and coercion that was wearing her thin. But after today’s fiasco, things would be even more volatile. She wasn’t looking forward to facing her hungry, scared people.
A few of the stronger members had reached yesterday’s camp first, and someone had filled their water bottles. She’d chosen an old barn because the pump still worked, and the roof was sound. It was dark and cool inside. She collapsed in a heap on the dirt floor, panting and sweaty from the hike. Her hair reeked of smoke, and her throat ached. Raven brought her a mug of water. He was another one of her band that she mostly trusted. She gulped it down before questioning him. “Are they following?”
“I didn’t see any sign of them. They were more concerned about the fire.” He squatted next to her to whisper. “There were actual firemen with hoses putting it out. They brought up a tanker through the wood. Almost to where the bus was.”
Maisey was stunned. She hadn’t seen that level of infrastructure since the world fell apart. Raven was an odd duck, but he had excellent scouting skills. He prided himself on seeing things others didn’t notice. She did not doubt his account of what he’d seen. It just added to her fears. If those people were that organized, her band was in serious trouble.
“Do you think they have train food?” Raven asked in an even softer voice.
Despite her fears, a small hope rose within her. There were always rumors that civilization had one last bastion remaining with food for everyone, hot showers and clean sheets. But there were always the whispers that followed of dictators, tyrants, brutal harems and cannibals. Nothing that good could be that simple. “Ya think they’d share with us now?” she asked harshly.
Gracie staggered into the barn, hiccupping with tears. “They took JoJo, Donner and Slip.”
A stab of loss hit Maisey hard. Donner was the one person she could always trust to watch her back. They had been working together for almost a year now. He’d wandered into her band last summer and had been her right hand ever since. She’d expected to have to fight him, but he’d been happy to take second place. Unfortunately, he trusted Rusty a lot more than she did.
“What do you mean by took?” she asked the grieving teen.
“They came out and got ‘em. Picked ‘em up and took ‘em away,” Gracie said, wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve.
“They were wounded?” Maisey asked.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe they took them to a doctor,” Raven said. “If they’ve got firemen, maybe they’ve got doctors.”
“Really?” Gracie asked, perking up. “Do you think they’ll take care of JoJo?”
“Sure. That’s probably what they did.” The lie slid off her lips too easily. Maisey knew that the soldiers had taken her men to interrogate them which meant armed men might be on their way to this barn right now.