After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) (69 page)

I carefully turned the truck around and we headed back.

We took the other road heading south, following the tracks which now seemed to have belonged to the Marchands and Tremblays
et. al.

We reached 101. I could see that The Fires had burned every tree and building along the well-plowed two-lane highway. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved, if scorched earth and skeletons of pine and birch was a sign that there was no one there to spot us.

We turned left and headed toward the blockade.

It would be less than ten minutes before we met the first roadblock.

“We’ll need to surprise them,” I said. “Do you see a way to get close to 572 without being seen?”

Kayla peered over the tablet. “Another machinery road. I doubt they’re even guarding it.”

“They might not have to, depending on if there are any trees left over there.”

“No good?”

“I didn’t say that. Where do I go?”

“Turn right on Birch Road.”

“Where’s Birch Road?” I asked. We couldn’t rely on a legible sign still standing, not when everything else had burned away.

“Not this next one... the one after it.”

I kept driving to the next junction.

“This one’s plowed,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

I took the gravel road toward the south.

“Now turn left,” she said at the next intersection.

The plow had turned left, too, leaving the other two directions to the snow.

I could see the green of living trees pushing through the black and gray stalks of dead pine.

Then I saw a yardsite.

“See any smoke coming from those buildings?” I asked.

“Yeah... I see some...”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Goddammit. That’s why they’ve plowed.”

The road curved up ahead, around what looked to be a lake.

“There’s a couple houses on this lake,” Kayla said with her gaze on the tablet. “Looks nice.”

“Looks like the perfect place for murderers to kick back and relax.”

“Oh... crap...”

“I need you to be honest with me, Kayla. Do you know how to shoot?”

She nodded. “My ex used to take me hunting. Wanted me to learn how... I never did hit anything.”

I stopped the truck. “Your turn to drive.”

As Kayla took the wheel I checked the Mossberg; I was saving the C12 for the roadblock. Or I was hoping to save it.

“We’ll drive right on by, like we belong here,” I said. “Speed up a little so it looks like we’re used to the road.”

“What if they start shooting?”

“We keep going. It’s not that easy to hit a moving truck from a good ways away.”

“But they’ll come after us.”

“They might. We’ll keep with the plan. We reach the machinery road, ditch the truck, and head toward the junction. Believe me, Kayla, there are enough Souls at the roadblocks that a couple more on our tail shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

“You’re just oozing with confidence right now...”

“I’m expecting the worst and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.”

Kayla took us past the first yardsite. There was one pickup truck in the yard.

Nothing stirred.

We drove past the second yardsite. Smoke in the chimney, but no vehicles out front.

I had a feeling that the residents had rushed up to the roadblocks when they heard there was a big fish in the net.

The fact that they hadn’t come back yet meant that there was a chance the shooting hadn’t started.

We rode the bend around the lake and the road started to straighten out.

And then I saw the pit.

We’d arrested a man for scavenging back in the days of the Protection Committee, back when we’d considered scavenging illegal and not the only way to stay alive.

He’d told me about the big pit; he hadn’t been the first to mention it. He’d said that he and and the rest of his work crew had been ambushed on Highway 11 that November, on their attempt to make it home to North Bay. He’d said that Souls of Flesh had taken them out to an open mine.

To a pit that was filled with the rotting remains of other men.

“This is where you’ll die,” the Sergeant-of-Arms had told the men. “The only question is how long it will take.”

They were surveyors, the prisoner had told me, but that had been enough for them to be considered agents of a foreign government in the eyes of the Sergeant-of-Arms. One by one the men were interrogated, and one by one they had given nothing that had satisfied The Souls.

All three surveyors were chained up in the pit, he’d told me, chained by the ankle to eye screws, drilled and epoxied into the bedrock.

The Souls left them there to die.

It wasn’t cold enough to die of exposure. They had to wait to die of thirst.

The prisoner told me that he waited for three days, and by that point he’d started to hallucinate.

And someone came to see him. An angel, he said, a beautiful woman with blond hair so light that it was almost white. And she cut his chain and freed him, and she left a dead man in his place.

And she gave him a backpack full of supplies and she told him to run.

I’d never believed his story. Not all of it, at least.

He hadn’t been the first to mention her, but everyone knew that the legendary Dalya Blue didn’t exist. There was no angel rescuing men from the pit. If anything, the men who’d been spared had given something to The Souls, something that made them unworthy of ever being allowed back into society.

We’d released him, but only because we’d made sure he’d kept on his way to the West.

I don’t know if he ever made it someplace.

“Are there people down there?” Kayla asked as we drove by.

There were. Dozens if not hundreds of bodies.

From up on the road I couldn’t see the chains.

But I knew... that was where they’d died.

“Keep going,” I said. “We don’t want anything to do with this place.”

“They dump their bodies there. The Souls.”

“No, Kayla. That’s how they kill them.”

We parked the truck at the intersection with a road called Tamarack. The only sign of a machinery road was a lack of trees across the road from us.

We were lucky; The Fires hadn’t taken the forest between us and Highway 101.

We put on the snowshoes and loaded up with as much as we could carry. Kayla took the Mossberg and the backpack filled with grenades and shells, while I took out the C12 and stuffed the last four magazines into my small pack.

We started walking due east, past an abandoned yardsite, into the trees.

After a few minutes we reached a marshy stream, cattails poking above the snow.

“We should keep going to the next stream,” Kayla said. “We can follow it up to the highway, look for our people.”

“I’m guessing the fixed blockade is directly on the junction of 101 and 572,” I said. “It’s the first chance anyone coming from Quebec would have to turn off 101, so The Souls will try and stop that from happening.”

“So the blockade is meant for people heading west?”

“They were probably surprised to see a caravan travelling the wrong way. But not too surprised to keep them from throwing something together to box that caravan in.”

“So the other roadblock is lighter.”

“I’d guess so. So we hit the heavy one. We launch some of your grenades and we add some bullets to the mix. The guys at the other roadblock will think that there’s an assault from Aiguebelle or something.”

“And all of the sudden that caravan won’t be so important anymore.”

“Hopefully they’ll just push right past. I’ll let Alain and them know that once the roadblock behind them falls apart, they need to get moving back toward home.”

“They won’t want to head back,” Kayla said.

“They don’t have a choice. It’s that or die, isn’t it?”

Somehow I knew they wouldn’t see it that way.

We followed the second creek north to where the highway passed over it. We then took to the ditch, trudging through the tops of the snow-covered wigeongrass, trying to keep our heads low.

The three trucks from McCartney Lake weren’t far away. I saw someone in matching armour... maybe Lisa, maybe Sky.

I wondered if whoever it was would start shooting.

“It’s me,” I said. “Baptiste.”

“Thank Trudeau,” Lisa said.

“And Kayla,” Kayla said.

“Where’s Justin?”

“Not here,” I said. “I can’t believe you guys are still in one piece.”

“I can’t believe you guys are on foot,” Lisa said.

“Have they tried to get in contact?”

“They have a megaphone. They don’t have that much to say. Just ‘lay down your weapons and you won’t be harmed’. As if we didn’t notice their goddamn pit of corpses. So what’s your plan, exactly?”

“You and I are going to hit the east roadblock from the other side,” I said. “We’ve brought enough firepower to keep them busy and to hopefully draw the guys on the other side of you into the fight.”

“We don’t want to draw people up here.”

“Everyone needs to get into the trees. If they come through they’ll see you’ve all run off into the bush. You guys don’t matter as much as the supplies you’re leaving behind. And we’ll make enough noise that they’ll come straight to the two of us.”

“And once they’ve joined in on trying to kill us?”

“Then everyone else gets the fuck out of here, heads back home.”

“We’re not going home.”

“Well you can’t stay here.”

“We need a new plan.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. “Take it or... well, you gotta take it.”

“We’re going to Temiskaming.”

“You can take the last concession road south to 572,” Kayla said. “Tamarack Road. That’ll get you to Hwy 11, and you can try your luck on there.”

“There’s no way that junction’s unguarded,” I said. “It’ll be just as locked down as the one up the road here.”

“We need to destroy the roadblock,” Lisa said. “It’s our only option.”

“No... the smart option is to come back home with us.”

“This isn’t up for debate.”

“Well, here’s what we’ll do, then. You and I will try to kill every last man on that roadblock. And then we’ll try to kill the guys rushing to reinforce from the second one. Once we manage to murder two dozen hardened and well-armed bikers, we’ll go our separate ways.”

“You don’t think we can do it.”

“I don’t think we can. Because we’re not John Rambo.”

“What?”

“Fuck, Lisa. You’re going to get me killed.”

“I’m coming, too,” Kayla said. “We have three sets of armour. We should use all three.”

“Then we’ll get Alain to suit up,” I said. “You’re of no use to us, Kayla. We need someone who can shoot.”

“Alain needs to stay with his family... and all I need to do is lob some grenades at anything that moves.”

“And you think you can do that why?”

“Because I know how to throw a ball, Baptiste. Haven’t you ever heard of a strip club softball league?”

“I thought you were a free agent. Touring the north or whatever.”

“You know a lot about it for someone who never came to see me dance.”

“Maybe I managed to sneak in a show. We’re going to need another set of snowshoes.”

“I don’t need snowshoes,” Lisa said. “You’ve got Justin’s phone?”

“I do.” I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and checked. “We’ve got a signal. Works better down this way.”

“So we’ll call Alain once it’s done.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’ll tell him to keep on down 101.”

“Shit, Lisa,” I said. “If we actually pull this off you can tell Alain whatever the hell you want.”