“Crimeny. This is going to be a long trip.” Jason leaned back and moaned. “What makes you so concerned about traps out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?”
Hatcher shot the man a withering stare. “When you stumbled upon us, what were your initial thoughts?”
“Relief.” Bren replied. “You saved us from the runners.”
“After that.” Hatcher’s voice took on an edge and Jason and Bren both allowed themselves to remember the fear they felt when facing the men inside the warehouse.
“Fear.” Bren whispered.
“I don’t know how to put into words what I felt. Powerless, I guess.” Jason continued to stare out the windshield, but cast quick glances at Hatcher.
“And we’re the good guys. Imagine if we hadn’t been. All the evil things you might have imagined wouldn’t even begin to touch what people are capable of once you’ve removed law and order from the picture.”
Bren shuddered and Skeeter cast a worried look to her. “So, what would these people do?”
Hatcher shook his head. On one hand he wanted to protect Skeeter from the horrors taking place out here in the world, but on the other he felt he needed her to understand why he made the decisions he made. With a heavy sigh, Hatcher leaned against the steering wheel. “Skeet, they do all sorts of horrible things. They’ll raid other people’s camps to steal food, weapons, equipment…anything they think they can use. If they feel it will help them survive, they take it and they don’t care who they hurt. They steal the women for sex or to be slaves. Sometimes the children, too, if they think the kids are of any worth.”
Skeeter looked to him, her face blank. “What about the men?”
“They just kill them. Any who are strong enough to help fight they assume will try to take revenge one day. The ones who aren’t strong enough to fight aren’t worth keeping around.” Hatcher turned a troubled eye to the teenager. “It’s a brutal world now, kiddo. All the more reason I wanted you to stay back where it was safe.”
Bren wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “And that doesn’t count the runners. You already know what they do to folks that they can catch.”
Skeeter turned away and tried to hide the tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Hatcher.”
“What’s done is done. We just have to make the best of a bad situation.” Hatcher geared down and slowed the truck for cars blocking the highway. “Jason can you see around these?”
“Nope. But I don’t see any that can be pushed to block the road.” He rolled the window down and stuck his head out. “Hold on a second.” He sat up on the edge of the door and stared out over the dead cars. Slipping back into the cab he began rolling the window back up. “I only see four cars and the sides of the road are clear. If you wanted to go around them you should be able to.”
Hatcher slowed the truck even more and studied the flat landscape surrounding the blockage. It was a remote area, but a little too remote for this many cars to have blocked the highway completely. “My gut doesn’t feel right about this.”
Hatcher stopped the truck about fifty yards shy of the dead cars. He leaned against the steering wheel and stared at the four cars sitting crooked in the road. “Something looks off over here.”
Jason reached for the door handle just as Hatcher yelled, “Get down!” He shoved the truck into gear and popped the clutch, jumping the truck forward as a makeshift spear came out of nowhere and struck the front fender. Had he not leapt the truck forward, there was a good chance the front tire would now be flat. Hatch pushed the big military truck forward, his eyes scanning for the source of the spear. “I can’t see them!”
Jason popped his head up and glanced out across his side of the cab. “I can’t see anything on this side, either.”
Hatcher rolled the large truck to the first of the four cars and pushed the much smaller machine off the road and into the ditch. As the tires slid in the soft dirt and sand, he heard a muffled pop and saw dirt and debris fly up into the air through the side window. “They booby-trapped the right of way!” He mashed the accelerator and continued pushing cars out of the way.
“I got one!” Jason pulled his shotgun up from the floor and was reaching for the window crank when Hatcher yelled at him to save the ammo.
“Don’t waste your ammo unless we have to stop.” The truck jarred and jumped as each car impacted the heavy pipe bumper and was pushed out of their way. “If you roll down the window, they have a clear shot at our heads.”
Rocks and more makeshift spears bounced off the thick metal sides of the truck. The rear window shattered into a spider web of cracks but remained in place as the truck was pelted with stones. Hatcher pushed the last of the cars to the side of the road and felt the whump of a blast as the side of the road erupted with flying debris.
“Where the hell do they get explosives if they’re attacking the truck with rocks and sticks?” Jason yelled.
“Those are spears.” Hatcher pushed the truck harder to accelerate and checked the side mirrors in time to see a small group of people scramble to the road and watch them drive away. “They’re either out of ammo or they were trying to scare us into driving off the road.”
“This is nuts.” Jason turned around and tried to look out the back of the ruined rear window. “I can’t see shit behind us.”
“I’m tempted to have you climb in the back and keep watch. Where there’s one group there’s likely to be more.”
Skeeter turned to Hatcher and squared her shoulders. “I’ll do it.”
“The hell you will.” Hatcher shifted gears and
