Chapter 21


The following morning,

"I don't like the sound of these scavengers." Danny said to Wolf, Burk and Alisha. Miller would have been included but he was currently trying to convince his mother to come with them than stay in the ghost town that was formally Miller's hometown.

"Larrin vaguely mentioned them, said they weren't the kind of people you want to cross paths with. Frankly, I find that the less she has to say usually means it's bad. I know for a fact she never travelled this far north. So she wouldn't know what we're walking into up north." Wolf told them.

"That gas station attendant didn't say anything about them at all." Alisha pointed out.

"Yeah but he was very anti-military. Can we really trust a guy who lives in the middle nowhere but has a functioning gas station and stock to sell. He probably uses them to get what he needs or is one of them." Danny pointed out.

"True but if Mrs Miller's intel is correct we're going to run into more problems than Scavengers." Wolf said reminding them all of how Mrs Miller had given them some pretty good insight into the territory they were heading into. They expected to hit safe zones but from what they all understood was safe zones were nothing but glorified camping grounds. What Barbara described sounded more organised and heavy duty.

"Agreed, we have two cars now. So we could split up, that way Mrs Miller doesn't get caught in thick of it with us." Danny said formulating a plan. He just wished there was a functioning airport for them to get Mrs Miller to St Louis directly but there wasn't. So if she decided to join it meant they'd have to look out for her.

"The woman was ready to blow my nuts off with a shotgun. I think she'll be fine." Burk commented wryly. Wolf and the others smiled as they found it pretty funny that Mrs Miller was tough as nails but once the veneer was lifted; well she was just like every other Mom in the world who worried about everyone being taken care of and well fed.


"Mom, I'd really like you to come back to St Louis. I have friends we can stay with until we can find a place." Miller said to her, the next morning. They'd stayed the night in town. Miller had slept in his old room that had felt really weird being home. He just always held the dream that it would be untouched and everyone would be just hanging around waiting for the cure.

But now it was a ghost town, one he wanted to get his mother out of. But she looked reticent at leaving, part of him understood that she hadn't travelled further than the next town over. It wasn't that she had no interest in the outside world, it was just a matter of funds.

"Honey, my whole life is here." Barbara told him in a kind but sad way. Miller frowned as he wondered why she would want to stay. All he saw was an empty town.

"But there isn't anything here. Mom, please come with me. We can always come back for the stuff." Miller begged her, he knew the other's were eager to hit the road and they'd found an old pick up that was still in good order so they could travel more comfortably than being crammed in the SUV.

"Or I could stay and then you can come back." Barbara told him, she didn't want to tell him that she'd already been out in the world and what she saw frightened her. Here in her home town she felt secure, she knew the lay of the land and could protect herself. If she left it would be leaving behind a large part of who she was and she wasn't sure she was ready for that.

"My job is in St Louis. Please, I want you somewhere safe. St Louis is safe, you could work in a library or another bookstore or whatever you want. But at least I know you wouldn't be alone. Please Mom." Miller begged him, Barbara looked at her son seeing that he was desperate for her to leave with him. He never begged her for anything which meant it was important for her to go. She pressed her lips into a fine line and looked around the bookshop that she'd lived in all her life then back to her son.

"Ok, let me pack a bag." Barbara told him, she saw the relief and joy in her son's eyes that told her she made the right choice even if she wasn't comfortable with it.

"Thank you Mum." Miller told her.


"This isn't fun." Kat told Larrin who laughed as they were stripping wallpaper off the walls of the main bedroom upstairs. They'd scored the walls with a knife and then used a sponge to soak the walls with diluted liquid detergent to soften the paste. So now they were slowly peeling off what would pull off the wall and leaving the more stubborn bits for later to pry off with a scraper.

"I know, but it has to be done." Larrin said as she looked at the pink and purple swirl wallpaper and pulled off a large chunk of it, tossing it on the drop sheet behind them.

"I'm going to school next week." Kat said making conversation.

"I know, I'm jealous. I'd join you but I'd be bored since I've already done high school. Though year 9 was my favourite grade." Larrin said with a chuckle. Kat smiled as she could just imagine Larrin in class but more like her being at the front of the class teaching it. Not as a class member.

"You going job hunting soon?" Kat asked.

"Not yet, to be honest I'm not really ready to go out there. It's a little weird how normal this place is so I'm just waiting for the fallout." Larrin told her, she hated being a negative about the world but after what happened with her PhD and the world falling apart. How people treated her because of her accent, it just left her nervous about leaving the bubble of safety she was in now.

"I get it." Kat said to her, she was worried about going to school.

"You know that all the other people at school will have been through the same stuff as you. You won't be alone. You'll make friends." Larrin assured her.

"I know," Kat said quietly as she went back to stripping the wallpaper off the wall in front of her.


"Good to go?" Danny asked as he pulled to old pick up truck in front of the shop. Wolf, Burk and Alisha had gone a head to scout the roads and get the lay of the land.

"Yeah," Miller said as he placed his Mom's bag into the tray bed of the truck. She hadn't packed light but he wasn't going to begrudge her that as she was going to come with him back to St Louis. He knew it was selfish but he wanted her with him. He wanted to know that when the Nathan James sailed again, she wouldn't be alone as she'd have Lt Foster and

"I'm driving." Barbara said as she held out her hand to Danny for the keys.

"Ma'am with respect, the roads are a little dicey." Danny told her, he watched as Barbara kept her hand out and gave him a rather snooty look.

"I have over thirties years of driving with not one accident on my record. Can you say the same, young man?" She asked him. Danny looked to Miller for help but the man just kept his mouth shut. The bad part was that Danny couldn't really say he had a clean driving record though in his defence most of his scrape ups happened on mission but he couldn't tell Mrs Miller that so he handed her the keys.


"Lunch!" Kara called into her house. She had to admit it was mess but looking better by the hour as she walked in seeing that majority of the carpets were gone which was a major improvement. She heard movement as Kat and Larrin came down the stairs.

"I'm starved." Larrin said as she and Kat came down the stairs to greet Kara.

"I'm not surprised given it's 1pm." Kara said with a laugh as she pulled a small scrap of wallpaper from Larrin's hair.

"Thanks, it's messy work." Larrin said as she took the scrap of paper and stuffed it in her pocket to throw out later. "Hey, have you seen Tex? He said he was off for supplies but he's been gone all morning." Larrin added as the three women left the house and headed next door for lunch.

"He went to go get a few things from the shops. He'll be back later." Kara told her.

"What things?" Kat asked out of curiosity and to join the conversation.

"I'm making key lime pie and he's better at sourcing things." Kara informed her.

"Key lime pie? I've never had it. Will I like it?" Larrin asked as she had never heard of it before but she had pretty low expectations when it came to food. So she'd eat about anything to survive.

"I have a feeling you'll like it but I'm using it to bribe a co-worker of mine to look over the house." Kara told her so Larrin wouldn't get her hopes up. She had yet to find out where Commander Garnett was residing but she'd worry about that after Tex came home with the ingredients. She just hoped that Garnett was in a good mood as the woman was a little hard to read these days given the grief she was enduring from losing not just her family but also many of her engineering crew.

"Can I lick the bowl? Assuming there is a bowl to licked." Larrin asked her in a hopeful manner.

"Sure." Kara said with a chuckle at Larrin's compromise.


"You said they had a fence. I was expecting something made out of chicken wire. Not Shipping containers." Danny said to Mrs Miller, they'd been driving for over a day to where Alisha had last spoken to her girlfriend Sarah. She'd last been in Milwaukee, so they drove north east for most of the day when they were just on the outskirts ow Waukesha that they encountered the wall.

It was two shipping containers tall and covered barbed wire at the tops. The wall spanned a good distance but didn't seemed to be manned as they hadn't seen anyone on the top of the containers. In fact it was all quiet which was unnerving to say the least given their travels had been uneventful.

It seemed like majority of America was just filled with what Mrs Miller liked to call 'Dead Zones' as they were either ghost towns completely devoid of human life or like Gitmo; filled with rotting remains. It was shocking to realise just how devastating the pandemic had been to their country. None of them really knew what to expect but this new world was disorientating. The fact that they could drive for miles and not encounter another person made Danny uncomfortable, as it made him wonder where everyone was. Why they hadn't seen any scavengers as of yet but then Danny had a feeling it was just a matter of time given how close they were to a populated area.

"They were brought in to make one of the first cordon sanitaires. They expanded it in the months afterwards or so I'd been told. I've never been this far east. I just heard travellers on the road talk about it." Barbara told them, as they drove parallel to the wall to find some form of checkpoint or entry.

"But those quarantine zones are supposed to keep the sick in." Miller said as he remembered Larrin talking about them and how she had been trapped inside one for a time.

"Well, I guess the scavengers cleaned out the sick and the Regent moved the people in." Barbara speculated.

"Does he really call himself a 'Regent'?" Danny asked her as he thought it was pretty stupid.

"She does, yes. After the government dissolved, the safe zones fell apart. Those that remained intact became their own little colonies and forts. As the months progressed and there was no hope of a cure. They built up walls." Barbara said as she looked at the walls out the car window wondering why they were even tried when it all looked foreboding to her.

"Of shipping containers? This far east?" Danny said in disbelief as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He knew it would make a for a good radio call home as it would definitely interest the Commanders and the President.

"I watched on the news when they set up the first one. They were flown in, I'd say they procured the rest via cranes and trucking them in." Barbara said pointing out the obvious.

"I wonder how big this territory is." Danny said.