Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (7 page)

This seemed to satisfy them, and we rode in silence for several miles before falling into friendly banter. The only thing that gave it away as not being a normal ride on a sunny afternoon was the way everyone kept darting their eyes around while they talked, constantly keeping watch on the surrounding area, guns drawn and ready to fire.

* * *

“You really need to let me take a look at your nose,” Nancy complained.

We’d passed a few farmhouses along the way, none of them seeming like a good place to settle down for the night. If we didn’t find something soon, we’d just have to deal with a less than favorable position and hole up. I didn’t know what we would find in Blueville, so I was hesitant to spend the night there.

“It’s fine, Nancy. Just hurts is all.”

I’d managed to clean most of the blood off my face with Zack’s help. He’d said it wasn’t very crooked and looked fine as far as he was concerned. But it was swelling and still throbbed like a mother. Nancy sighed and turned her attention back to the road. Jake and Zack were riding scout about fifty yards ahead of us. They’d wanted to go farther, I didn’t feel comfortable splitting up like that again, so a compromise was reached. Gus had apparently gotten over his fear of the horses and was trotting alongside me. I didn’t take that as a very good sign.

“About three miles to go,” Nancy said.

She stuffed the map back into her saddlebag and double-checked her rifle. I heard Mia doing the same next to me. I was about to grab the walkie and instruct the guys to head over to a house I’d just spotted off to our right when the air filled with shouting. I jerked my head around and saw several men jumping out of the brush and trees along the road and pointing weapons at Jake and Zack. The three of us automatically raised our rifles at the men, but the guys were already surrendering and holding their hands and weapons up. Made sense, we were outnumbered. I still kept my sights on the head loudmouth, the one who had approached my people and was shouting orders.

It wasn’t long before the men started pointing and gesturing to us. Nancy and Mia looked at me, Gus growled, and I cussed under my breath. The head loudmouth began striding towards us, his weapon aimed at me, mine still aimed at him. His men had lowered theirs and were standing close to Jake and Zack. Not so close they could be downed with a swift kick to the face, close enough they could put a bullet between the newcomers’ eyes if they had to.

“Kasey…” Mia began.

“Gus, stay,” I told him.

The approaching man came to a stop a few feet in front of me. He was clean, looked well fed, and was dressed in camouflage and boots. He didn’t really
look
like a criminal, or a psycho. I’d been wrong before.

“Lower your weapon, ma’am,” he said.

“How about you lower yours first?” I countered.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see both Mia and Nancy looking back and forth between me and this man. They’d already lowered their rifles.
Way to back me up, guys.

“I won’t ask again, ma’am. Lower your weapon before someone gets hurt.”

Since I was the only one still pointing a barrel at these guys, I figured I might as well do as the man said. It was also getting dark, and the things we’d seen earlier were worse than these guys could ever be. I sighed, took another hard look at the men surrounding Zack and Jake, and lowered my rifle. I set my jaw and stared at the man in front of me, who had lowered his weapon immediately. He seemed relieved I had done as he’d requested; he held his rifle casually in one hand hanging at his side and put his other on his hip.

“Thank you. Now, who are you people and where are you headed?”

I thought about lying to him, but my thoughts came back to the issue at hand. It was dusk and we needed to get the hell out of the open. These guys looked as though they’d been taken care of, so I assumed they were from Blueville. If that was the case, we could kill two birds with one stone: get to our destination before dark, and stay relatively safe with a group of decent-looking folk.

“We’re travelers, and we’re headed that way.” I pointed down the road behind him.

He glanced at his men, then raised an eyebrow at me. “If you’re going that way, then you’re coming with us. But listen, we don’t want any trouble. You look like honest people, but you’ll understand if I don’t take your word for it. You’re welcome to stay the night with us. We’ll feed you, give you a place to sleep. Then you can be on your way tomorrow. If that’s satisfactory to you, then hand over your rifles. You can keep the sidearms I’m sure you’re all wearing. But you should know this: if you start something, or even look like you’re going to try, we shoot first and ask questions later. Understood?” He wrapped up his speech by sliding the sling of his rifle over his shoulder and crossing his arms. I had to admit, I was impressed.

“Yessir. Now let me tell
you
something.” I leaned forward in the saddle and rested both my arms on the horn. “We’ve been on the road a helluva long time, mister. We’re tired, we’re hungry, and we’re not in the mood to be threatened. So if you or your buddies try something, or even look like you’re going to, we shoot first and say the hell with the questions. Now, am I making
myself
clear?”

It was a ballsy move, and thankfully Mia and Nancy didn’t try to argue. The man looked shocked at first, then tilted his head in a nod.

“Crystal, ma’am.”

He led us to the others, who then proceeded to retrieve their horses from the woods, take our rifles, and fall into position around us. From what I’d seen so far, these men seemed experienced at this sort of thing. They almost reminded me of military.

“Are you sure about this?” Zack asked under his breath, falling in beside me.

I chanced a quick look around; the men didn’t seem threatening. They were simply riding along with us, their guns raised, and keeping an eye not on us, but on the surrounding area. The Mouth was in front talking into a walkie. I assumed he was informing someone back in town they were bringing home some stragglers.

“Yeah, I think we’ll be alright. And you can’t blame them. We’d react the same way if the situation was reversed, and you know it. Let’s just focus on staying safe tonight. We’ll figure out the rest later,” I replied. Jake, Mia, and Nancy kept glancing at us as I spoke. I gave them a firm nod, ending the conversation and turning my focus on the encroaching darkness.

* * *

“What’s going on?” Jake asked. I just continued riding along, except now all my senses were on high-alert.

Instead of riding into town, the men had led us off the main road and onto what seemed to be a well-maintained secondary road. I had no idea where it led; we hadn’t studied the map that well, only enough to know where Blueville was. The Mouth was still riding casually, his men didn’t seem to be getting excited or anything of the like, so to someone who didn’t know better the situation would appear to be innocent. Except we did know better. There were more dangers in the world now than just deadheads, some more sinister and twisted. For a moment I almost fell into thinking of the old stereotype that had been used over and over in movies: The backwoods cannibal who kidnaps a group of naïve tourists, then takes them back to his cabin deep in the woods. I chuckled to myself after I realized that was the sort of horseshit that always pissed me off in the pre-Z days, and I’d be damned if I was going to believe it now.

“Hey, where are you taking us?” I finally spoke up to the guard next to me. He shifted in his saddle and propped the butt of his rifle against his hip before answering.

“Someplace safe, ma’am, outside town. Don’t you be worrying about a thing, we’ll be there soon enough.”

For some reason his answer wasn’t reassuring.

I glanced to my left and shrugged lightly at Jake, who proceeded to look to his left at Zack, then twisted in his saddle to glance back at his grandmother and Mia. Gus was trotting along between me and the guard, seemingly satisfied with our situation. That
did
give me comfort. If he wasn’t afraid of these men, maybe we would be okay.

We started up a banking curve in the road and noticed the skyline ahead of us was lit up. There was some sort of large complex just on the other side of a grove of trees. From our location we couldn’t yet see what it was, though the closer we came, the more details we could pick out. There looked to be a high, chainlink fence just on the other side of the trees, and something curly stretched along the very top of it. I knew what it looked like, but I didn’t let myself believe it. Not yet. Once we reached the top of the embankment, the road stretched out before us for another seventy or so yards, ending at a very large and very intimidating series of gates.

“Holy crap…” Jake uttered. I seconded his surprise with a grunt.

There were two guards posted at the outer gate, and two more at the inside gate. One of them threw up their hand in greeting as we rode through the stand of trees, then smiled and slung his rifle as The Mouth rode up to him. The men surrounding us had come to a stop, forcing us to rein in as well. That was fine with me; I was too engulfed with what I was seeing to pay much attention to them anyway.

“Holy
crap
,” Jake said, this time loud enough for the others to hear him.

Each one seemed to have their own exclamation over what was in front of us, but I simply sat and stared. Gus ran ahead and jumped up against the other guard, the one not talking to the Bossman. He patted him, said a few words, then brushed him away and went about opening the gate. I found my voice and called him back to me, watching as the big gate was slid back by some sort of pulley system. A wide open meadow spread out on the other side of the inside gate (I estimated roughly a hundred, a hundred and fifty yards), and in the middle of this was a huge complex of stone and metal—a series of buildings, all attached, and all heavily fortified. Along the edges of the roof at different points I could see more armed guards, and a series of spotlights positioned around the building, all facing out to light up the surrounding open grassland.

It was a prison, and a highly functioning one at that.

“Did you see this on the map?” I asked Nancy.

She simply shook her head as pure relief crossed over her face. Mia was smiling her crooked smile, the guys were both watching me intently. I held their hard gaze for a long moment when The Mouth called for us to follow him. The men who had escorted us this far hung back and waited for us to clear the gate before following. It was just coming dark, and I noticed the gate guards packing up their gear and locking up the gate for the night. Once we made it through the inside gate and began the long ride towards the prison, I twisted around in my saddle and saw that all four guards were indeed following us on foot. I nodded to myself and figured they only stood watch during the day, but at night they locked up and went inside with the others. Smart idea.

I was riding behind The Mouth, and heard him talking to someone over his radio as we neared the heavy steel gate of the prison.

“You have the rooms ready, Shirley?”

“Yes, sir. Got supper warmed up for them too. I had Kelly put fresh blankets and such in their rooms, so they should be set,” the anonymous female voice answered.

I had to smile; the townsfolk were here, and they were surviving. I wouldn’t have been surprised if every single person from town was inside those walls. From the looks of things, they had a pretty good system set up. I shifted in my saddle so I could glance at my friends, most of whom were smiling as well. Zack was the only one who wasn’t. But that was Zack. Protective, stoic, always calm.

We came to a rest just before the reinforced entry, and listened as a series of bolts and locks were turned and lifted. The large door slid open, much the same way the fence gates had been opened and closed.

“I’ll be dipped in shit,” I murmured.

The Mouth led us through and into a huge courtyard. The heavy-duty door slammed shut behind us, causing Gus to jump and quickly flip his head around. I said a few calming words to him and scanned the area. There were a few people out milling around, but not as many as I expected. Mostly they looked like they had somewhere to be, or somewhere to go, and didn’t waste much time in stopping to stare at the newcomers.

“We’ll put your horses up in the stable tonight,” The Mouth said. I looked in his direction and saw he was twisted slightly in his saddle to look only at me. Apparently he’d figured out I was the leader of this group.

“We’d appreciate that, thanks,” I replied. He turned back and led us around the side of the closest building. There were smells drifting through the air now; hay, grain, manure.

“Is it bad that the smell of horseshit is makin’ me hungry?” Jake asked me. I laughed and shook my head.

“No, Jake, not bad at all.”

* * *

After settling the horses down for the night in what I must say was the Hilton of horse stables, Michael (which turned out to be The Mouth’s actual name), led us inside to the cafeteria. There were more people in that particular section of the complex, and most seemed friendly enough. They would either smile as we passed, or outright come over and trade a few words while we went through the dinner line. Michael had explained that people here ate in shifts, albeit small shifts, as they came in from their guard duties and such. He said he would fill us in on the details later, but for now we could eat and get some sleep in the rooms they’d had prepared for us.