I was past exhausted.  The fighting and endless driving had all but wrung the last ounce of energy from my bones, but I couldn’t stop, not now.  There was work to do.

“DPM,” I started, but he was fixed on Adam, who was stalking away.  I snapped my fingers. “Mike, over here.”

He turned to me and shook his head, “Yeah, what’s up.  Glad you’re back.”

“Get a fire going and get all the lead you can find. I know we’ve got some fifty pound bricks lying around here, so get someone to round them up.   We need some lead sheets pronto.  And a Geiger counter.  I don’t suppose you’ve got one stashed away somewhere, do you?”

“Mike, what’s going on?”

“So that’s a no the Geiger counter?”

“Yeah, probably.  I don’t know why we’d have one.”

“Well, check anyhow.  I wonder if they’re hard to make, you should check into that too.”  I turned to the guard nearest me.  “Find my father and bring him here.  I don’t care what he’s doing, just get him here as fast as you can.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into my temples, trying to make the jumbled thoughts churning through my head coherent.  “DPM, hold up.  You said something Smarto and Kevin..?”

“Yeah, word is they’ve been captured at the trade summit.”

I let the words sink in for a few seconds before opening my eyes again.  “Ok.  I need you.  This may be the hardest we’ve been fucked in a long time.”

DPM started to ask something, but I cut him off when I saw my father coming down the hill from the Roadhouse in a trot.  “I need a garage,” I told him.  “Functional, but a few miles from the Roadhouse at least.”

Mike was quiet for a few seconds.  “I think I know one we can use.”

“Good.”

Skip stopped in front of us, no more out of breath than a man half his age would have been.  “What’s so urgent it’s got your panties in a twist?” he asked.

“We’re at war with the Associated North and we didn’t even know it,” I told him.

Dad seemed to slump just a bit at the weight of the news.  “You’ve got evidence I assume.”

I motioned to the tarped thing in the bed of the truck.  “I need it checked out, but…”

“But what?”

“I think that’s an atom bomb we intercepted.  We didn’t dare fiddle with it, but it reminds me of one.  DPM, do you know anyone..?”

“Sure, loads of people.  The tech’s only been dead for the last twenty years, but we’ve got loads of nuclear engineers.  Scratch that.  Nuclear weapons engineers.  Fuck me!”

“And you brought it here?  What if that was the plan and it’s on a timer?” Skip asked.

“We didn’t want to risk leaving it on the roadside to be found by harriers.”

Dad wasn’t very pleased with the answer, but he didn’t say more about it.  “DP, see if you can find someone who knows anything about bombs enough to tell us what the fuck this thing is.  Be discrete about it.  Get whatever you need from the garage and get this thing out of here, at least ten miles distant.  Take a dozen guards with you; I want Roney to hand pick his best men.  You’ve got twenty four hours to get some answers and get back here.  I’ll leave it to your best judgment if you want to bring the bomb back or not.”  Skip turned to me then.  “You look like shit.  Go get some sleep.  There’ll be an emergency council meeting when DPM gets back and I’ll need a full report from you.”

“Can’t do that just yet,” I said as I opened the back door of the truck. The AN prisoner fell to the ground in a heap.  “I’ve need some answers first.”

Time was growing short when we got back into the Behemoth; I was glad we’d searched Marlow already as we couldn’t afford it now.  I figured we had less than a minute before whatever was coming towards us would be in view, and maybe another thirty seconds before they were at the rigged car.  We had to act fast but had no plan.  We usually preferred it that way – it’s easier to improvise when you’ve got no plan to deviate from in the first place.  But this time worried me.  Adam was already injured and we had no idea what the odds where.  Whoever was coming could have a tank or a pack of attack beagles for all we knew.

I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.  I head was spinning, racing for a solution, when I felt a weight flop into my lap.  I looked down to see a fairly unstable rocket resting on my thighs.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed out when I saw the rocket sitting there.   “I forgot about the LAWs.”  I turned to Adam as he took the rocket back and put it in a satchel next to two others.  “That changes everything now doesn’t it?”  Pieces fell into place and something crazy crystallized in my head.  “Hold on,” I said, and threw the Behemoth into reverse.

I cut the wheel and had the vehicle perpendicular to the road when we slammed into the rusted out skeleton of a car.  It caved under the force and we bounced off the shoulder.  I worked the pedals and slide the Behemoth into first gear.  Cutting the wheel again we climbed back onto the road, headed away from the incoming rumble.

“Can you operate the .50 cal?”  I asked

“I think so,” Adam replied.

“Good,” I said.  We’d made it maybe sixty yards down the asphalt.  I cut the rig left and hit another rusted hulk, pushing it out of the way with relative ease; the Behemoth had a lot of balls in low gear it seemed.

There wasn’t much time left.  I reached over and took the rockets from Adam.  “I’m going to take out one of their rear vehicles.  Stay hidden and wait for my fire, then light up the rigged car with the .50.  Keep it going until I get back; If we sandwich them between the explosions maybe we can buy some time to make it out of this mess.

I was out of the car and running before Adam could voice any objections, though even if there had been time I knew he wouldn’t.  It’s not that he especially liked crazy plans, but he also didn’t have an aversion to them.

I kept the ancient cars between me and the highway, hoping they would keep me hidden long enough to get into place.  I was bent low, almost below the level of the windows in sedans, and taking long, loping strides.  This was something that Adam and I had become quite proficient at over the years as it seemed one or the other always needed to outflank the enemy.

I was less than ten yards from the blockade when the first car came into view.  I stopped on my heels and hunkered down.  Not much time now.  I slid the first rocket into the launch tube and readied the firing mechanism.  It was tricky because the rockets were home built by DPM.  Normally LAW rockets were a one shot deal; the firing tube was discarded after the rocket was launched and couldn’t be reloaded.  This was a problem in a society where tech like that couldn’t just be thrown away and replaced.  The engineers of the Roadhouse had worked out a conversion to retrofit homemade rockets into the spent tubes, but the rockets were a bit unstable and unpredictable.  I suppose that’s what happens when you mix scavenged C4 and decades old primers with homemade gunpowder.

Three more vehicles, all trucks, followed.  Each had been transformed, much as the Behemoth had, with steel plate armor.  The first and last truck each had mounted guns in the beds and men to operate them.  The middle truck’s bed was covered in a tarp; I hoped it was covering something that went boom.

The convoy stopped a few feet from the roadblock.  A man got out of the passenger’s seat of the lead sedan and walked to the trunk of the rigged car.  He stopped in his tracks when he saw Marlow.  The man dropped into a crouch and pulled a pistol.

“What’s wrong?” the driver of the lead car called out.

“Fuckin’ a, Marlow’s dead.”  He paused.  “And it looks like the bastards who did it didn’t make it very far.”

That was enough for me, but it wasn’t time to move just yet.

“Send up Jeff and Gordy, I want them to check out that rig while I defuse this.  A few seconds later two men trotted up, assault rifles in hand.  They were professionals.  It was always easy to tell, like looking in a mirror.    “Clear that truck before we get to it, I don’t want any surprises. “

“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.  Too professional.  Soldiers.

They spread out, one on either side of the road.  It would be harder for Adam to shoot up the trapped car and hit the two of them before they found cover.  That increased the chances Adam had of taking return fire.  It was time to get the party started.

I shouldered the LAW waited a few seconds for the gunners in the tuck beds to look away from my position.  As soon as they did I stood up and took quick aim at the tarp covered truck.  The gunners saw me and started to turn.  Both mounted machine guns opened up simultaneously, breaking the relative silence had hung in the air.  Dirt kicked up twenty feet away as lead impacted earth.  I saw dirt explode with each hit in my peripheral; time stretched into eternity as each shot grew closer and closer.  I pulled the trigger and was pushed back slightly by the recoil.  The first stage, a small charge that projected the rocket fifteen feet ahead before the second stage ignited, went off well.  The second stage, however, was not so good.  When it caught the rocket kicked right, out of line with the middle truck.  Luck was somewhat favourible, though, as the rear truck erupted in a column of fire.  I dropped the rocket tube and hit the ground, hoping the cars between me and the mounted gun were solid enough to slow it’s shots; I knew they almost certainly were not.  Slugs tore through the rusted panels above my head, missing my scant inches.  As soon as the gunner adjusted for another pass I knew I was done.

I heard Adam open up then, a distant staccato that was almost lost in the cacophony that surrounded me.  He hadn’t got off more than a few shots before I felt an intense heat wash under the car I was hiding behind.  The world was silent then.  There was a pressure that followed the heat and then…nothing.

I came too lying on my back, maybe twenty feet from where I had been lying.  I couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds, but the battle was all but over.  I saw with crystal clarity the burning heaps that used to be vehicles.  The rusted-out car I had been behind was completely gone, demolished by the blast of the erupting Howitzer shells.  The car they had been in was nothing more than a few bits of metal strewn about the highway.  The lead truck had been thrown like a metal rag doll and lay twisted and dead on the side of the road.  The rear truck I had shot was at least somewhat recognizable, though it’s gas tank has caught after the rocket hit; it wouldn’t be much more than a blackened skeleton when the flames finally died down.  The middle truck had somehow miraculously survived the mayhem that surrounded it.  I wondered if the AN had invented a force field when I saw movement in the cab.  Instinctively I went for the revolver at my hip, aimed, and shot.  The driver’s side window spider webbed.  I guess their technology wasn’t that advanced after all.

I turned to see Adam sweeping his fire across the road.  The first soldier already lay bleeding on the far side of the road, two gaping holes through his chest. I saw the second soldier picking himself up, figuring he had been knocked down like I had been.  The sound warbled in my ears as Adam caught the caught him, cutting his legs out with the .50 caliber slugs.  I heard the man scream as he clutched at one knee.  There was nothing but ragged flesh and a stump.  Adam cut his fire and I stalked toward the wounded soldier.  The man either didn’t hear my approach or care about it, though I suspect it was a bit of both.  I considered ending his misery with a bullet, but decided against it.  Instead I flipped my revolver over and clubbed him with the butt.  The man fell into a heap.

I removed the soldier’s belt, cinching it around the thigh of his amputated leg.  There was still a high probability he would die, but I did what I could to prevent it.  I took the handcuffs Marlow had used on me and cuffed the soldier.  He might be very wounded, but if he came too he could still be dangerous.

My ears were ringing quite badly when I heard Adam slowly trot up.  “He’s alive?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Kind of unexpected.”

“Probably not for long, but if he survives we could use someone to question once we get back to the Roadhouse.”

“Save the man’s life just so we can torture him,” Adam said.  “Kind of ironic, don’t you think.”

“It’s like ra-a-ain, on your wedding day…” I belted out.

Adam just stood there and gave me a look.  After a few seconds he said “Mike… you’re singing Alanis Morissette…overtop of a man who’s bloody stump you just tourniqueted…after I shot him with a .50 cal machine gun…after you were thrown twenty feet through the air by an explosion I created.”

“And your point is?”

Adam just shook his head again and sighed.  “All in a day’s work I suppose.”

“Pretty much.  Think you can do anything else for this guy?”

“Maybe.  I can give him a bit of the heroin, keep him doped up until we get back.

“Ok, good.  Do that.   I’m going to go see what’s under that tarp on the truck.  I hope it’s gasoline.  Or gold.  Actually, I’d think I’d prefer if it’s gold.”

“So do we have a plan yet?” I asked as my waking brain shifted into gear.

“No, any suggestions?” Adam replied

“I could kill you and present your corpse as proof I want to join him, play it from there.”

“Why do so many of your plans involve me being dead?”

“It always seems to be an option.”

“We could just go wake him up right now, put a bullet in his brain.”

“We don’t know if he’s against us or not.  Almost certainly he is, but we can’t be sure.  Besides, we don’t know where exactly he’s going.  If there’s a war brewing we won’t divert it by killing him right now.  I wonder if we can get inside though.  Remember Charleston?”

Something dark sparked in Adam’s eyes and he smiled.  “How could I forget? Hm, you want to take the AN apart from the inside?”  The smile was a grin, the spark a fire.  “I’m sure they’ve got some fun toys stockpiled if they’re planning on a war.”

+++

Marlow didn’t reappear during my watch.  We got up before dawn and had a small breakfast consisting of salted meat and coffee.  Coffee was a rarity nowadays.  Most of it had been lost or drunk after The Crossing and what little was left was usually horded.  We were lucky because I’d had three potted coffee trees before everything fell apart.  We’d rooted a half dozen more since then, and constructed a special hothouse for the trees.  While the yield was small, maybe two or three cups of coffee per tree a year, it was enough to impress any dignitaries who stopped by the Roadhouse.  I was hoping the show of coffee would keep Marlow thinking we were still pals, keep him off his guard.  The pieces weren’t in place yet to make our move.

+++

We made good time travelling that day.  The road was still reasonably clear from Marlow’s original trip south and we weren’t accosted by any bandits.  We decided to stop for camp a bit early that evening.  There weren’t any houses around, so we pulled into a small copse of trees.  We’d give our position away with a fire after dark, so I started dinner as soon as we were parked.  Adam said the area looked good for hunting and we could use some fresh meat.  He asked Marlow to join him, but Marlow declined, citing the fact he needed to patch his gear bag before it fell apart.   It seemed reasonable, his bag was in tatters, but I suspected he didn’t want to leave anything unattended.  Adam shrugged and slipped into the trees, silent and invisible after a few steps.

Marlow and I made small talk until dark fell.  I tried to seem as normal as possible while watching everything I did.   Marlow wasn’t to be underestimated, and while I was handy with a gun, interpersonal relations still eluded me.  I didn’t want to give away anything with a slip of the tongue, or a wrong body movement, but was worried that he might pick up the fact I was putting on a show.  It was a nerve wracking charade.

+++

Adam was back shortly after nightfall, a dead rabbit in hand.  I didn’t hear a shot; we’d travelled together for nearly half of our lives, but he still managed to impress me on occasion.

I traded him a bowl of stew for the rabbit and started dressing the kill as Adam ate.  Once the rabbit was taken care of I started rummaging through the car.

“What’er ya lookin’ for?” Marlow inquired.

“My tanning salts,” I replied.  I knew exactly where the salts were but used it as an excuse to search the vehicle.  I was fairly positive Marlow wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave anything incriminating where Adam or I would easily come across it, but I wanted to be sure, and this was the first time I’d had a plausible excuse to rummage around.  After five minutes of searching I “found” the salts I was looking for and prepped the rabbit skin.

The evening slowly faded into night.  The moon was bright and high above us, slightly waxing past half full in the cloudless sky.  It was bright, even among the trees, so we didn’t turn in right away.  Adam and I continued talking to Marlow, keeping up the cheery façade, excited about meeting our new northern brothers.  Adam was a good actor, and I knew that even as he spoke of the bright future this alliance would mean for our people he was analyzing everything Marlow said, looking for the smallest clues.  It was easier to play along when I had a partner, so I concentrated on being natural and let Adam do the intelligence gathering.

Marlow volunteered for first watch.  He didn’t always volunteer, and when he didn’t neither I nor Adam forced him.  I bedded down knowing it was going to be a long night for the two of us.  Adam never really slept when Marlow was on guard; neither of us had ever really trusted the man enough to be completely vulnerable around him.  I tried to stay awake with Adam, but often didn’t.  He would give me a look in the morning, silently telling me I was a dick for putting all of the responsibility of keeping us safe on him.  But I don’t think he minded all too much; he’s told me he doesn’t really ever sleep anymore anyhow.

I felt my limbs grow heavy and knew sleep was imminent.  I tried to rouse myself without letting Marlow know, but it was useless.  My mind wandered, the beginnings of dreams lapping at the edges of consciousness.  The cold ground melted away.  I fought it silently, but lost the battle as sleep overcame me.

+++

it was a spring like any other.  rain had come almost daily for the last week and the roads were muddy.  i’d like to say that i stoic about the whole thing, but i’d be lying.  adam seemed to fare better, but i suspected it was more a consequence of his quiet nature than anything else.

it was still the early years after the crossing – the hub hadn’t risen to power yet, hadnt contacted skip’s roadhouse.  for all we knew we were the only bastion of civilization left in the world.  adam and i were charged with finding what survivors we could.  sometimes we were greeted warmly, the first friendly face a person had seen in a long time.  often we were forced to explain ourselves at the end of a gun.  the dead still walked the earth, though they were dwindling in numbers every year.  my own theory was that the zed turned in the crossing had all but disappeared, either killed by the living or decomposed and rotted away.  the ones that still remained had been survivors unlucky enough to be taken by surprise after the initial outbreak started to subside.

we were making our way towards a house.  slivers of light shone through the windows, clean indications people were inside.  and people were the goal of this trip.  we were trying to find and bring anyone we could to the roadhouse territory.  there was safety in numbers and the more we had the faster we could recover.  as we approached the door i heard muffled music; it seemed to be an irish tune played by a banjo and tin whistle.  i shouldered my rifle and knocked.  the music stopped and there was a commotion.  the sound of guns chambering rounds was unmistakable and i prayed that adam would be a fast enough draw if they decided to fire first and ask questions later.  the door was cracked open.  i was greeted with the end of a shotgun.

the gruff man on the other side of the gun looked me over.  “what do you want?” he asked at length.

“id like to come in out of the rain,” i answered honestly.  “its rather unpleasant out here if you havent noticed.  weve got food and supplies we can share if youd put us up for the night.”

the man glared quietly for a tense few moments.  the door opened a bit wider.  “unload your guns and slide them and whatever other weapons you’ve got through.  it wasnt an unreasonable request, but adam and i would be almost defenseless if it came to a fight.  still, it was wet out and this was our job.

the guns were unloaded, five between the two of us, and slide through the portal along with three knives and a metal spork.  I could see the tension start to break when adam added that spork.

“thats it?” the man asked.

“thats it,” i replied.

the door opened and we stepped in out of the rain.  that’s when i first saw her, my beautiful Maria.  sitting on a beat up couch with her mother, tin whistle in hand, with her raven black hair and strikingly green eyes.  it was an image id never forget as long as i lived.

i heard the door shut behind me and the trance id fallen into was broken.

“michael,” I heard adam say. I turned to him as the scene melted away, replaced with a grey nothing.

+++

“Michael,” I heard again.  An invisible hand shook my shoulder.

“Fuck you,” I grumbled.

“Keep it down,” Adam whispered.  “It’s your turn.”

I came around slower than normal, not wanted to give up the dream.  Giving up, I opened my eyes and saw Adam squatting in front of me.  His body blocked Marlow from view.

I sat up as Adam leaned in and whispered.  “Watch your back tonight.  We’re being followed.”

“How do you know?”  I asked.

Adam replied opening his hand, which I hadn’t noticed had been clenched.  He revealed a silver ring, spotted with blood.  It had a maple leaf stamped on the inside.

“I made it look like he had an accident, but be careful, they might not buy it.”  With that he walked to his bed roll and laid down.

I stared out into the moonlit forest, watching and waiting.

Progress was slow, slower than it would have been on foot in fact.  I appreciated the behemoth that rumbled behind me, knew that it wasn’t let out for just any mission; I knew we needed it, that while Adam and I might have completed the mission at hand without it, our chances were now greatly improved.  It also had a great “Don’t fuck with us” quality, probably from the reinforced armor plating.

We had made great time inside of prime Roadhouse territory.  The main roads around Paintertown had been cleared years ago and as our pocket of civilization pushed further and further out the cleaning crews stayed one step ahead.  The problem was out here in the wastes, in harrier territory.  Marlow had pushed a path through the tangled mess on his way south, but we had to be cautious.  Anyone who picked at the bones out here had warning we were coming.  And anyone who made that kind of living knew how to set a trap.  We had to be careful.

We reached Marlow’s rig without incident.  The bodies we left were still there, much more unpleasant after sitting in the summer sun for nearly a week.  Marlow parked the monstrosity next to the overturned trailer, but left it idling.  He climbed up the hood of the car and opened one of the filling doors of the tanker.  He peered into the gloom of that gaping hole and looked unhappy.

“Empty,” Adam said, more statement than question.

“Didn’t even bother to bury their comrades.  No honor among thieves.”   I turned back to see Marlow grunting, trying to climb through the open door on what was now the top of the rig.  He disappeared through the opening and was replaced by the rummaging sounds and a lot of cursing.  Long moments passed while Adam and I shifted between watching the road, raised eyebrows at each other, and glances back for Marlow.  After a minute Adam shrugged and turned his full attention to the wastes around us.

Marlow finally appeared, panting.  He made his way laboriously back to the ground.

“Find what you wanted?” I asked.

“Yup,” he replied, flashing a small, bound packet of papers.

“And that is…?”

“If I told you I wouldn’t make it through the gates of Montreal alive.”

“Fair enough then.”

+++

We turned off the highway before nightfall and found a rundown looking farmhouse.  The roof was sagging, but would keep the rain off our heads.  And if definitely looked like rain.  I approached the front door while Adam and Marlow stood back.  None of had weapons in the open, I knew Adam was fast enough on the draw that I was in good hands if the shit hit the fan.

Two loud knocks elicited no response, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t occupied.

“Hello!  Is anyone here?”  Yeah, I know it was cliché, but it worked.  Still no response.  I stepped to the side of the door and turned the handle.  Nothing.  Cracked it open.  Nothing.  Still to the side, I pushed the door so it swung in.  A thunderous crack filled the gloaming.  Splinters of wood erupted from the ruined door.  I felt a sharp pain in my check a toothpick sized shard buried itself into the flesh there. Adam had a revolver trained on the door already; Marlow racked a round into his shotgun.  Their eyes darted back and forth between the door and windows, looking for movement.

“Firing on ambassadors of the Roadhouse is punishable by hanging,” I shouted over the ringing in my ears.  “Come out now I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

There was no response.

I motioned to Adam and he gave me a look.  I nodded.  He shook his head, but switched the pistol to his left hand.  Keeping it trained on the door he reached onto his messenger bag.  I drew my own semi-automatic pistol as I watched him.  After a second Adam produced a small, grey cylinder.  I gave him a nod, and he gave one last slight shake of the head.  I knew he disapproved.  I saw him say something to Marlow under his breath as he twisted the top of the cylinder.

Three seconds.

Adam gave the device the lightest underhand toss towards the door.

Two seconds.

It hit the porch, bounced once, and rolled into the house.

One second.

I closed my eyes and covered my ears.

I felt the pressure from the blast, saw the blinding light through my eyelids.

And then I was in the house, gun out.  The flashbang left a charred mark on the wood flooring and a smell of sulphur in the air.  I cleared the room as Adam and Marlow rushed up the porch steps behind me.  No one was there.  Instead, a chair lay topped in the corner of the room.

Adam dropped his gun to his side.  “Yeah, that was a perfectly good waste of a flashbang,” he said, fingering the string tied to the inside doorknob.  The shotgun the string was attached to had been blown across the room the explosion.

“I got shot at.”

+++

We made camp that night inside of the farmhouse’s barn.  There wasn’t much of interest inside of the house; it looked like it had been cleaned out years before.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” I said loudly enough for Adam to hear – he was sitting in the hay loft on first watch.

“How about you finish cooking those beans and bring me some before you start thinking,” he retorted.

I shrugged.  “They’re almost done.  I want to get this fire out as quick as we can so we don’t burn the damn place down.  Anyway, I was thinking.  I don’t think it was an accident we found that trap.  There aren’t many folks out here, but people have been through that house.  It’s off the main road, probably pretty inviting to anyone crazy enough to travel to the Roadhouse through this territory.  And you know we do get the occasional traveler who makes it past the harriers.  No one’s living in it, so why leave the shotgun?”

“You thinking it’s the same people who killed Sandrin?”

“Maybe.  Too soon to tell.”  The beans started bubbling and I scooped a bowl for Adam.

I tossed a few bales of old hay from the loft after I gave Adam his supper.  The hay had a smell to it after these years, but it was dry and would make a better bed than I often got.  I could already hear Marlow snoring from inside of the Behemoth, where’d he’d managed to get comfortable in the driver’s side seat.  “Wake me when it’s my shift,” I said as I climbed down to make a pile with the hay.

Adam grunted an acknowledgement through his beans.  I was asleep in my hay pile within two minutes.

My arm throbbed, even through the painkillers Doc had given me.  He’d had to reopen wounds that had started to heal to remove shrapnel.  And I suppose the painkillers we had weren’t be best anymore.  Heroin was used in the most extreme cases, such as an amputation, but that was needed so little that the supply had lasted.  Everything else, perscription or otherwise, dried up years ago.  Salicin is as good as it gets; extracted from the bark of a willow tree it is similar in effect to old school asprin.  It’s quite a gap, though, the pain that can be treated with the substances we have, and asprin just doesn’t cut it when you’ve just had hunks of metal and debris forcibly removed from your forearm.

I was more surley than usual as a result.

The meeting had gone like most meetings did.  People disagreed, people argued, and little was accomplished.  Not that it was a bad idea at all.  There is no better way to ge the gears moving than to listen to other people’s opinions.  But I’d been on the road to long, stared death in the face too many times; sometimes it just seemed like my gears were seized and the only way to solve the problem at hand was through the scope of a rifle.  The council was fairly evenly divided on the proper course of action.  Some didn’t think the Hub would retialiate, that they would believe us when we told them we had nothing to do with the ambassadors murder.  Others, inculding myself, tended to believe that even if they thought we were telling the truth their man died on our soil and we would be held accountable.  And that’s assuming they believed we didn’t just oughtright kill him.  I’d tried to keep quiet during the proceedings; many of the council members thought Adam and I were too quick on the draw, too hotheaded, too apt to kill.  Most of the council members hadn’t traveled far beyond the protected borders of Roadhouse territory.  They also thought we had too much sway over the chief-president

The council  representatives were elected every four years from each of twenty odd districts.  They acted, in theory, for the benefit of their constituents.  A few of us also hold non-elected positions.  Nick was the head ambassador to the other members of the hub.  He has probably single handedly prevented more conflicts through his diplomacy than Adam and I have, though we would rarely admit that.  Kevin is his top aide-de-camp and nearly as effective as Nick himself.  The positions Adam and I share, though we’ve variously been called gunslingers, harriers, bandits, outlaws, knights, childe, cowboys, &c., are technically Protector of the People and Defender of the Lands.  DPM (I can’t believe that nickname stuck through twenty years), solidified his position as head mechanic years ago with the gasoline to diesel/vegetable oil and gasoline to methane engine conversions.  Though he didn’t have a seat on the council he still attended meetings and had the ear of our leader, much to the chagrin of the elected members.   The chief-president himself was also elected on a six year basis.  If he were to lose a re-election we could all be removed from office, but I didn’t worry much.  My father had been running the Roadhouse for as long as I’d been alive, first as our own home and then as the infamous Roadhouse.   Hell, it even bore his name; The Roadhouse is the shortened version of the proper name: Skip’s Roadhouse.  Many people owed their lives to the man and many more have heard the stories of his heroics over the years.  A favorite was how he had brought down a zombie elephant with nothing but a bow and arrow.  I knew the truth, that he had used multiple arrows retrofitted with explosive heads; I’d been there beside him after all on the original defensive walls after all.

It was my father’s council I hoped to find tonight.  I often wondered how our relationship would have been had the world as we knew it not come to a crashing halt.  Not that it was bad now; no, not at all.  But he was often busy with official business – meeting diplomats and ambassadors, leveying taxes, deciding how best to protect and care for the people in our own borders.  For my own part I was on the road most of the time, trying to keep the peace through much more direct means and not getting killed in the process.

I walked though my childhood home, now converted into the seat of Roadhouse influence.  My father had kept his same quarters through the years, the half story upstairs bedroom, though it was now reinforced to withstand attacks, which included being fitted with a thick oaken door.  The guard on duty nodded at my approach and opened the door.

My father sat in his favorite chair, a gift all the way from the southern members of the hub.  I can’t remember exactly which territoy it came from but it was certainly a marvelous chair.  It supposedly dated from the civil war, but who could know the truth of such things anymore?

An open can of Coors Light sat open on a table next to him.  He only broke out the pre-Crossing beer when things were truely fucked.

“That bad?” I asked, nodding to the can.

“Fuck a duck.  I can’t remember a time since the crossing we could be so close to the edge.”

“You think the Hub will retialiate then?”

“Probably.  He was a big shot.  And under our protection.”

“I can go over the defenses tomorrow, see wher ewe can strengthen them.  I’m sure Smarto and DPM have cooked up something fun.  We should send runners to the outlying communities, give them some warning.”

“I thought about that already.  Runners are already on their way.  I’d rather not have to resort to violence.  There’s been too much already.”  He referred to the Crossing with its zombie hoards, of course, but also the conflict we had with the Franklin area militia during the Crossing and the war with Charleston years later.  We’ve been the black sheep of the Hub since that war so I don’t think they will have any sympathy for us now.

“Still… are we prepared for an assualt if it comes to that? ”

“Are you that out of touch?”

“When’s the last time we really had a chance to talk?” I asked him.  “Months I should think,” I said, answering myself.  “You know as well as I do that I’m gone eighty five percent of the time.”

My dad sighed.  “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?  I’m getting too old for this.  And I used to think you kids made me drink, ha!” He took another swig of the warm beer.  “You got nothing on this.  I’d take you guys high out of your minds yelling at bugs in the driveway any day over the decisions I have to make.”  He took another drink before finishing.  “People’s lives are in my hands.”

“I think you’ve got the right idea, old man.”  He hated when I called him that.  I rummaged through a desk drawer, pushing aside a loaded pistol in order to pull out a bottle of Yukon Jack.

“You’ll burn your insides out with that garbage,” he said as I poured two shots.

“Probably, but at least it’s better than the gut rot they’re making in DPM’s garage.”  I took my shot and handed the other away.  “You know, we might just have the upper hand if we can open the way to the north.  You should have seen the rig Marlow was driving.  And the smell.  Fuck me, the smell of honest to goodness petrol.  It was almost too much.”

“If we’re too valuable, if we can get them to trade the gas and desiel only to the Roadhouse, that will force the Hub to backdown, at least for a while.”

“That’s what we were trying to get across at the meeting.  At least, that what we would have tried to get across if the councilers would have seen we’re under such a dire threat.”

Dad finally took the shot I offered and followed it with some beer.  “You and Adam may be escorting this Marlow back north.  Or maybe Nick will with a vanguard.  I need to think about this, figure out who needs to go where.”  He finished the beer, shaking it just to make sure every drop was gone.  “We’ll have our own round table tomorrow, just you and the guys.  Try and figure out where we should go.  I have my own ideas right now, but I want their opinions as well.”  He picked up the Yukon Jack and slid it back into the drawer.  “Goodnight son.”