Masterson shrugged and stepped off, following the others toward the candlelit corner. Faces slowly materialized around the table. Four women—their hair pulled back and wearing dark clothing, army surplus jackets, and ill-fitted hunting parkas—were hovering over a road map covered with push pins.
A red-haired woman looked up at Clem, scowled, and turned to Ruth. “Who are the strays?” she asked.
“Found them on the road. I didn’t think they would make it through the night on their own,” Ruth said.
Clem grunted; the red-haired woman looked at him, then back to Ruth. “How’d it go?”
Ruth moved around the table and ran a hand across the map, pointing a finger at a long stretch of road. “Here,” she said, taking a pin and pressing it into the map. “We wrecked one of their trucks and a squad of their soldiers. No casualties on our side.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Any of the little ones?”
Ruth nodded. “Yeah, you were right about them; they’re still eager to take us in. Whatever has them spun up, it hasn’t stopped them from wanting prisoners. We stopped in the road like you told us and that thing came right out to greet us.”
The red-haired woman showed no emotion; she looked back at Clem and Masterson. “And what’s the story with these two?”
Ruth scowled. “They were up in the weeds—watching us, I guess. They seemed useful and didn’t get in the way so I brought them back.”
“Useful? Ha! Hell, if we hadn’t been up there, they would have cut you down,” Clem said. “You can’t hit an up-armed patrol with hand guns and liquor bottles.”
“My ass! You put us in danger; my girls had it handled.”
Clem laughed at that and moved closer to the table. Looking behind him, he found an old wooden chair and pulled it close before sitting down.
“Go on… make yourself at home,” Ruth scowled.
Ignoring her, he leaned forward and stared down at the map. “So, what have we got here?”
The red-haired woman looked him over then let her eyes drift to Masterson, her gaze stopping at his weapons and equipment. “I’ve seen enough soldiers in my time to know you’re either military or one of those veteran militia crazies. Which is it?” she asked.
“Which would you prefer?” Clem said.
“Mister, whoever you are, we don’t have time for games.” She turned and whispered to one of the younger girls positioned around the table. The young girl, barely a teen, nodded then moved back, disappearing to the left.
Masterson stepped out of the shadows and stood over Clem’s shoulder. “Military, ma’am. Excuse our manners; we’ve been on the run since those things showed up. We were prepping to ambush the group on the road when your party came along.”
“So you haven’t followed the call to surrender like the rest of them?”
Masterson looked down at her curiously. “Surrender, ma’am?”
She turned back to a radio. “A man has been on the radio broadcasting a looped message. He claims they’ve negotiated peace. Said all of the military units were being stood down. If we drop our weapons and come in peacefully that these things—friends he called them—would take care of us.”
“Anything else?” Clem asked.
She nodded. “They claim we are the aggressors now; that they have come in peace, and we attacked them.”
Masterson shook his head and looked to Clem before looking back to the red-haired woman. “Honestly, this is the first I’ve heard of any surrender. As far as I’m concerned, my boys will fight until they don’t have any fight left in them,” he said.
She nodded curtly, looked at the map, and pointed a finger. “Okay then, so how many in your command? Where are they? We need supplies.”
“I’m sorry; I dissolved what was left of my company yesterday.”
“Then you did surrender,” she snapped back.
“No, ma’am; just sent them underground so they could cause more damage. I assure you they are doing what they can to slow down the enemy.”
The young girl returned to the table, holding a notepad. She handed it to the red-haired woman, who flipped through pages cautiously before stopping at one then set the notebook on the table. “Toronto is completely lost. They have the city surrounded; only unarmed civilians are being allowed to enter.”
Clem cleared his throat and spoke up, answering for Masterson. “Before we get into all of this Q and A, how about you tell us who you are and what you’re all doing here?”
She smiled and pulled up a chair of her own. “They call me the Grandmother, and this is the resistance.”
“Resistance?” Clem said, trying to keep a smile from his face.
“Mister, I’m sure you can find humor in this, but after they showed up, things changed. All of our men are gone; the camps aren’t safe anymore. While the military has been doing whatever it is you do, those things were going from town to town, killing every man standing against them and taking the rest away. Most of the camps, and some of the cites, are completely occupied now.”
“Wait, what do you mean taking the rest away?” Masterson asked. “Taking them where?”
The woman lifted the notepad and shook the small book. “We think we know where, but what we don’t know is why. Most of us came from the city before it was sealed off; some of us from the camps to the south. Those things came in after the first of the bombs dropped on the cities and military bases. Then they waited… they used the black eyes to corral us, and then they started capturing. I was with my husband and two daughters when they cornered us on the road. We tried to surrender…”
“What happened?” Masterson asked.
“One of their soldiers executed my husband then one of the small gold ones did something to us, and we couldn’t move. They put my girls in their truck… I would be gone too if Ruth and her
