Wanted (28 page)

Tanya dug the ammo out of the sling she had made and handed it to Carl and Jessie, then checked her own guns like they had, just to make sure she was not missing out on anything.

“
All right, I been teaching you hand signals last couple of days, you remember them?”

They nodded.

“
Let’s do this quick and safe – I’ll buy the first round,” Carl said, then turned and headed out.

The approach of something resembling humanity had boosted their spirits and their energy levels. They crossed the interstate commando style without any incident. Carl led them with a five yard spread between them across the final field. It was much more sparsely covered, which worried him as they moved across it. The hard packed dirt helped, as well as having some trails to follow. They moved faster, but he still felt exposed.

A few minutes later, they gathered on the far side of a sandy ridge west side of another paved road. Across it was a ranch style house, though from a couple of glances Carl had taken he expected it was abandoned. A few windows were broken and sand had blown up against the house.

Carl began to make plans on where to deploy his squad, as he was now thinking of them, but stopped when he heard something out of the ordinary. He listened, looking around, and the others caught it too. To the north they could hear a vehicle. A plume of dust was visible and gave proof that there was indeed something headed their way, right past them on the road they were hiding only a few feet away from.

“
Find cover!” Carl snapped, slipping back down into the small ditch that ran beside the road. It was far from optimal, but his desert colored fatigues and brown t-shirt blended in well enough. The others crouched in the same ditch or, in Tanya’s case, up on top of a mound of sand and dirt that was tall enough to hopefully keep her out of the line of sight of those in the vehicle. It also gave her an elevated sniping position, should the need arise.

They waited tensely and silently while the seconds ticked past. A little bit over a minute later, a truck rumbled past. It was an old, blue Ford half ton extended cab with several barrels in the back of it, as well as a mounted M2 machine gun. The man who was operating the weapon had it swiveled towards town, as though he expected trouble. As it passed them and headed south, Carl noted the rear wall of the cab had been cut and modified to allow someone from the cab to quickly man the machine gun.

“
Everybody’s got a .50 cal but me,” Carl said, scowling.

“
Sounds to me like somebody’s get machinegun envy,” Jessie said as she picked her own head up out of the ditch.

“
Don’t worry,” he said with a smile that looked more like a sneer, “I’ll be sure to compensate.”

“
Can’t wait,” she retorted with her own overly sweet smile.

“
Okay, enough flirting,” Tanya said, sliding back down the hill to join them. “Can we please figure out what to do now?”

“
These places been picked over,” Carl assumed, based on how abandoned they looked. “Let’s follow that truck and see where it goes.”

“
You do know they have a truck and we have feet, right?” Dustin pointed out.

“
Then we’d best get a move on,” Carl said, standing up. He thought he heard Dustin grumbling about something, but he ignored it for now. If the boy wanted a pissing match they could do it later. Right now he had better things to worry about.

Carl led the way, heading down the road and doing what he could to offer them some cover, but by and large they were taking a calculated risk. He glanced back a few times and saw Jessie struggling to keep up, her feet bothering her. He ground his teeth and pushed on-either Jessie would find it in her to keep up or she’d have to find them. If worse came to worse, he could always go back and find her.

Carl slowed when he realized that the dust trail was settling or dispersing. The truck was gone and so was his means of tracking it. He swore and came to a stop along the side of the road. Tanya joined him shortly, looking around nervously. A glance back showed Dustin had fallen back to help Jessie, who’s limping was becoming more pronounced.

“
Now what?” Tanya asked.

Carl looked up ahead and saw a few buildings a distance off to the right, between the road they were on and I-40. There were some trailers as well as various dead trees and forest vegetation. “There,” he said, pointing. “We go there. Looks like a campground, we’ll reconnoiter there and figure out what’s next. There’s got to be something we can scavenge or use in this town.”

Tanya nodded and turned to watch Dustin and Jessie as they slowly caught up to them. Carl relayed the plan and, cutting across country again, they headed out in the same spread as before. Using what cover the uneven ground provided, Carl moved slow enough so that Jessie could keep up.

He called a halt again as they neared the campground, gesturing for Tanya to move up and join him. Once she reached him, he gestured for her rifle and took it once she handed it over, a questioning look on her face. Carl looked through the scope, adjusting it as he swept back and forth over the campground turned compound before handing it back to her.

“
Found our truck,” he muttered to her, then turned to gesture the other two up to join them. Tanya raised the rifle herself and peered through it, seeing what Carl had seen.

“
Campground’s been turned into a fortress,” Carl told them once Dustin and Jessie had joined them. “The truck is there, so we found some people.”

Dustin looked excitedly at his sister and Jessie, then back to Carl. “So let’s go! They’ll have water and a phone and all that stuff!”

“
And maybe standing orders to shoot on sight,” Carl replied. “Jessie, you keep them here, I’ll make contact.”

“
They know who you are,” Jessie said, reminding him of his encounter with Captain Garza in Edland. “If there’s a price on our heads it’s on yours too. Then where’s that leave us.”

Carl stared at her, then finally nodded acceptance. “Alright, we all go in-by the numbers. There’s a barb wire fence then about 50 yards to what looks like a storage or equipment building.”

He detailed the way he wanted them to assault the campground, then they moved out. It went off without any major hitches, although Dustin had trouble clearing the two level barb wire fence when his turn came. Tanya, as before, was the last one in.

Carl slipped around side of the building and found a door in the side. It was locked when he tried it, but foot prints in the sandy desert floor confirmed that not all of Needles was a ghost town. He peered ahead and guessed it to be several hundred yards through multiple camp sites, some with trailers in them, to the clubhouse. The skeletons of trees and bushes, as well as a few dying or dead cacti separated the camp sites.

Carl glanced up, seeing the sun was only a little past the middle of the day, and wondered how stupid storming a potentially hostile compound in the middle of the day was. With a scowl, he realized he had no choice. A few gestures to give directions and he was off, running at the same time Dustin moved to take up his new position. Jessie and Tanya staggered their moves next. In this manner they moved through the campground quickly and quietly. Carl saw signs of inhabitation, and even heard a couple talking inside one trailer he took cover beside, but rather than stop short to investigate, he pushed forward to the clubhouse.

Carl signaled to the others, stopping them from where they took cover behind some dried out cactus husks that still looked lethal with their needles. People were unloading the barrels from the back of the pickup truck and moving them inside the clubhouse. Carl counted three men, with another person supervising. None of them appeared to be armed but he saw a rifle near the woman, leaning against a wall.

“
Stay here,” he growled to them. Jessie opened her mouth to protest but Carl’s glare kept her quiet. “Tanya, keep that woman in your sights, if she goes for that rifle stop her. You two, cover me if it gets ugly.”

Tanya was already setting up her rifle and sighting it in. Jessie nodded and shifted to a better firing position. Dustin followed her lead, leaving himself exposed in the process. Jessie quickly redirected him to cover their flank in case things got ugly and reinforcements came at them. Seeing them ready quickly, Carl nodded and bit back his smile. It had taken truly miserable conditions, but he had turned them into an almost combat ready unit, albeit a small one.

M4 slung across his back, Carl rose up and walked casually across the open ground towards the crew at the truck. A hundred yards easily separated him from his destination, but he had crossed nearly two thirds of it before the woman glanced his way and, after an additional moment of staring at him, she realized she did not know him.

“
Hey!” she shouted, turning to make a grab for her gun.

“
Don’t touch that rifle!” he yelled at her. Between the two of them shouting, the other three men either turned to look or reappeared around the side of the clubhouse. “You’re in my sniper’s crosshairs,” Carl added.

She turned back to him and waited while Carl closed to about 10 yards. He stopped and looked at her, the truck, and the three men pressed into manual labor. “Who’re you?” she asked.

“
You first,” he said.

“
Name’s Aggie, this here is the Needles KOA campground,” she said. “Now you go.”

Carl ignored her. “What happened here? To Needles, I mean.”

“
Fever or fallout,” she said, not wanting to give him much. “Colorado River’s poisoned, killed the whole region.”

“
My squad needs some water and medical attention, got any to spare?”

“
You ain’t military,” she said, staring at him. “Pretty shitty looking for mercenaries. I’m betting you’re bandits. Probably just you too, otherwise you’d have taken what you wanted.”

“
Your defenses ain’t the best,” Carl pointed out. “How about that water?”

“
What you got to trade?”

Carl’s first instinct was to respond by letting her know he could have her killed with a look. Diplomacy, he realized, might be a better tactic. “We’re low on supplies,” he admitted. “I can show you how to rig up a proper defense, stop anything short of a tank.”

Carl glanced at the clubhouse and saw how dark it was inside. “No power? I could help you with that too.”

Aggie snorted. “Earl, go get Harold.”

One of the men snapped off a, “Yes, ma’am,” and hurried off past Carl to the only house on the campground, a single story building that was clearly better maintained then any of the others he had seen thus far.

“
Where you come from?” Aggie asked him while her man was off fetching Harold.

Carl shrugged, “We been walking for a while. Came in from the west.”

“
Ain’t much out there,” she observed. “LA still a wasteland?”

Carl nodded. As far as he knew, he was telling the truth. Better she think they were from further away than what the truth was. “Saw a tanker head west yesterday, any idea where that’s headed?”

She shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine. They drove straight through on 40.”

A few moments passed in tense silence, waiting for Harold to arrive. A few more people started filtering into the picture, emerging from buildings and trailers to come and see what was going on. Many of them were armed, Carl noted, but none of them carried a weapon with the familiarity that made him nervous.

“
Why don’t you call your men in,” Aggie suggested, “you done no wrong to us, we won’t be doing none to you. We can’t reach an agreement, you go your way. We ain’t going to stop you.”

Carl smiled. Aggie was an older woman, late forties or early fifties he figured. She had a sunhat on, shielding her face, but he could still see the lines and wrinkles the desert sun had caused her. “I’d just as soon wait. You got an awful lot of people with guns.”

She smiled back, then shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, then lapsed into silence while they waited.

Their wait was short lived. Harold, a man wearing a cowboy hat who looked to also be in his early fifties, returned with the man sent to fetch him. He walked up to Aggie and stood beside her, eyeing Carl all the while. Carl noted he wore a large caliber revolver in a holster on his hip and carried it comfortably.

“
Name’s Harold,” he began. “I hear you’re in need of some supplies and help?”

Carl nodded. “Water,” he said. “Medical attention if you’ve got it.”

“
We don’t put much stock in money around here,” he said, glancing around. Carl noticed how his eyes were searching for the hidden members of Carl’s squad. “And I’m guessing you’re not having much for trade?”

“
Right,” Carl said. “Your men look untrained, we can work for it.”

“
Work for it?” he mused, then chuckled. “You think we need an army? Look around, Needles is dead! We’re in the middle of a wasteland nobody wants to call home!”

“
Harold,” Aggie said, interrupting him.

He glared at her, silencing her. Carl noted the look and knew there was something they weren’t sharing. “Maybe,” Carl said, “but we still came in without any problems. Next time it might be some slavers or bandits. Maybe just a pack of wild animals looking for a meal. Your barb wire going to hold them off?”

“
What’s your name?” he asked after a moment of thought hidden behind a half smile.