After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) (27 page)

We passed by the cottage where the girls had been kept, but the truck wasn’t there. There was no sign that the Spirit Animals had stayed the night.

We got to the Blackwell’s without seeing or hearing the Toyota, and once I broke in we found the keys just where Tabitha had expected them to be. After some impromptu siphoning from one car to the next and emptying a half-full gas can in the garage, we had a rusty old Honda Fit with three quarters of a tank.

I had Natalie drive, while I sat in the passenger seat staring out with the binoculars I kept from our hideout. Tabitha laid down in the backseat, clearly exhausted but nowhere near sleep.

I wasn’t just looking for the Toyota; I was watching for any sign of the Porters, not sure I wanted to find anything. Hopefully they were back at McCartney Lake, telling the sad story of how I got left behind, and hopefully doing their best to make sure that no one came rushing back to find me.

As we neared the bottleneck near Clute, I could see Natalie tensing up.

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “if they’re up there, I’ll see them long before they know we’re coming.”

“I know,” she said. “I just can’t help it.”

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Please don’t do that,” she said sharply.

“Sorry.”

I went back to scanning the road ahead.

“Something’s there,” I said.

“Oh, god...”

“It’s not a roadblock... I see a couple of vehicles...” I strained my eyes to see more. “A white van and a green truck.” I knew both of them. “That’s our truck... and I think the other is the Walkers.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know that I’m not looking at a gray Toyota. I’m sure about that.”

I heard Natalie sigh. She looked over to me and shot me the slightest of smiles.

I wasn’t surprised to see that it was Dave Walker and Fisher Livingston that were eyeing us as we approached. Justin and Rihanna were there, too, standing alongside the other two and looking no worse than before.

“You girls don’t need to get out of the car,” I said. “You can just wait here if you’d like.”

I climbed out of the passenger seat and walked over to the Porters.

“You guys are okay,” I said. “I really didn’t think you would be.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Justin said.

“Ryan Stems,” Livingston said. “A gray technical with a mounted machine gun.” I was expecting more sneer from him.

“Only saw two of them,” I said. “With assault rifles and that mounted gun. Did you know they carried those kinds of weapons?”

“I thought you knew, Baptiste.”

“Who are those girls?” Dave Walker asked.

“Natalie Girard and Tabitha Smith,” I said. “They were being held against their will up there.”

“You saved them.”

“I guess I did.”

Dave Walker frowned at me. I could tell that he wanted to keep hating my guts.

I appreciated the effort.

“So what happened, Justin?” I asked. “Did they come after you guys?”

“They started to,” Justin said.

“There’s no way you could have outran them.”

“We didn’t... we outgunned them.”

I almost laughed. “Bullshit.”

“They turned around once we got in sight of the Walkers,” Rihanna said.

“They just let you go?”

“I don’t think they’re stupid,” Livingston said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“If they knew who you are, they would have known that you wouldn’t be an easy target. Once they saw us coming up the road they must have decided not to take on an even larger group. I’ll bet they’re a little scared of you, Baptiste.”

“They have two assault rifles and an anti-aircraft gun, Livingston... even with my armour they could have turned me into confetti. Had I even been there.”

“I doubt that,” Dave Walker said. “I’m sure you would have taken one or both of them with you.”

“They’re not about to risk being wiped out,” Livingston said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “They lose a guy at the airport, and now there’s just two of them? Ryan Stems decides to cross the Driftwood River and start a war with just two of his closest friends?”

“Who knows?” Livingston said.

“Well we have no proof either way that it was Stems,” Dave Walker said. “Not yet.”

Not until I ran into the man in the coyote helmet.

“Is that what this roadblock is for?” I asked. “Are you hoping they’ll just fall into this clever little net of yours?”

“It’s not a roadblock,” Walker said. “Not yet.”

“We were actually trying to figure out if you were worth saving,” Justin said.

“You guys’ve been here all night?” I asked.

“The truck’s been here all night,” Rihanna said. “We don’t really have enough diesel to be tromping around the district. But Fisher drove us home last night.”

I wasn’t pleased with the first-name basis. “So how did you get back? Don’t tell me Livingston stayed the night.”

Rihanna chuckled. “You didn’t notice our little shitbox,” she said. She pointed to their little electric car parked a little up the road. I noticed a familiar idiot sitting in the front seat.

“And you brought Matt,” I said.

“He wouldn’t stay put.”

Say what you will about Matt, he still seems to want me to like him, enough that he’d want to help. Or perhaps he had just hoped to see my dead body for himself.

“Don’t tell me you guys were actually planning on coming back for me,” I said.

“We weren’t going to leave you there,” Livingston said.

“You’d have loved that, eh, Livingston? Saving my ass so I can’t keep telling you to kiss it?”

“That was one of the perks.”

I shook my head. “I appreciate the idiotic sentiment.” I looked back to the little rusted Honda. “I’ve got to take those girls home.”

None of us spoke much as we made our way south towards the Girards.

I had Natalie take the extra long way around Cochrane, since I didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever we might find in town.

I knew I had to deal with the two remaining Spirit Animals, assuming that there wasn’t still a coyote to make three. It wasn’t about revenge for what they’d done to Natalie and Tabitha; those men would strike out again at someone... probably not us, not yet... but someone.

I won’t be able to sit by and hope someone else kills them first.

At one point I’m pretty sure I could hear Tabitha snoring, and I was glad that one of us was getting some sleep.

“I need to ask you,” Natalie said to me as we neared Bondy Lake.

“What is it?”

“Would you ever consider letting us come live with you?”

“Why would you want to do that? You have your family.”

“I don’t want to be with my family.”

“Hold on... when you were on your way to see us... were you hoping to move in with us?”

She started to cry. “I don’t know how Antoine feels about me... but I’ve always wondered if he loves me.”

“I don’t -- ”

“I don’t expect you to know if he actually loves me,” she said, giving me a warm smile. “I just want a chance to ask him.”

I knew Natalie didn’t want to go back home to her family, but where she hoped to go instead was a place that no longer existed, not the way she wanted it to be.

I had to tell her that.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

“What?”

“Why don’t you pull over for a minute so it’s easier to talk.”

I waited until the car was stopped; I then reached over and pulled out the keys.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“It’s about Ant,” I said. “We lost him.”

“What do you mean you lost him? Where did he go?”

“There was an accident, Natalie... Ant didn’t make it.”

She collapsed against my shoulder, pounding her fists against me. Then she started to weep.

And I wept, too.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt worse for anyone.

I don’t know why that is.

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