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Maligator Republic

LYDIA SHERRER

When Frank Oberman’s mare finally plodded through the gates of Gallrein Farms’ compound, all he wanted was a cold shower and a hot coffee. But based on the unfamiliar vehicle parked in the gravel lot and the angry voices coming from the mess hall, he had the feeling he’d not be getting either any time soon.

Being a twenty-plus-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, though—and the father of a headstrong teenage daughter—he was used to not getting what he wanted.

“Teddy,” he grunted to his mounted companion after giving his surroundings a careful scan, “look after Shadowfax. Me’n the dogs’ll go see what the ruckus is about.”

Frank’s mare huffed a weary snort as if in relief that she, at least, was headed straight toward a good rubdown and some feed. The horse’s name was courtesy of Frank’s daughter, Maggie. He’d made the mistake of giving her naming privileges over their various animals, and a deep love of classic literature was something Maggie had shared with her mother—before her mother had turned into a zombie and tried to eat them both. He supposed the ridiculous names Maggie picked out were her way of remembering her mother.

Most days, he’d rather forget. But he knew enough to keep his mouth shut and let the womenfolk have their way.

“Sure thing, Frank,” Teddy said, dismounting his own horse and shooting a nervous look at the unfamiliar SUV. The large vehicle was splattered with mud, but still impressive looking with sides and top reinforced by steel plates complete with what looked like firing ports. Underneath the mud splatter the letters N-W-O were stenciled across the steel plate sides in bright red paint.

“You sure you don’t want some backup in there?” Teddy jerked his chin toward the mess hall.

Frank’s lips twisted in a grimace. If he had his way, he’d never open his mouth but to give commands to his dogs. Dogs were far superior companions than humans, and the six currently surrounding him and Teddy were all looking at him expectantly, though their ears were swiveled toward the human commotion nearby.

Frank sighed.

This was his community. His people. He’d fought too hard and lost too much making sure they stayed alive to let little things like sweat, weariness, and dislike of humans in general keep him from doing his duty.

“Go get the horses took care of, Teddy,” he grunted. “And keep your eyes open. Sentries were acting normal when we came in, but no sense not being prepared.”

Teddy nodded and took Shadowfax’s reins, then headed off toward the sprawling livestock barn.

“Fred, George.” Two sets of ears perked. “Go with Teddy. Guard.” He gestured at the retreating head mechanic of their community and the two German shepherds pushed to their feet and loped after him, tongues lolling in the late afternoon heat of mid-September. The mechanic was no expert dog handler, but along with select others in their farming community he’d been taught enough about operating with the three-dozen patrol and guard dogs Frank had trained since the zombie virus outbreak two years ago that he could send Fred and George back to Frank when they were no longer needed.

“Achilles, Odysseus, Huginn, Muninn.” More ears perked. “Heel, alert.”

That command would keep them close by and ready without putting them in attack mode—biting guests was generally frowned on.

Only generally, though.

Of the five percent or so of the U.S. population who had survived the Fall, there were always those happy to revert to rule by might. So far since the world went dark, four ragtag bands had attempted to intimidate or fight their way into control over the people of Maligator County.

None of them had survived to tell the tale.

Frank’s remaining four dogs fell into their usual square formation around him as he tucked his 30-06 Springfield bolt-action hunting rifle under one arm and headed toward the mess hall, his lined and tanned face even grimmer than usual. He stank of sweat and horse and itched all over. He half hoped these “visitors” gave him an excuse to make them regret keeping him from his cold shower.

“—just calm down y’all. Yelling and hollering ain’t gonna solve anything.” Joe Gallrein’s scratchy voice greeted Frank’s ears as he swung open the mess hall door where they usually held community meetings. The old man’s voice had been fuller once, but Joe had gotten a nasty bout of flu and pneumonia last winter. It’d been a miracle he’d pulled through with the rudimentary medicine they had left. But while Old Joe had been too stubborn to die and leave a gaping hole in the heart of their community, the ordeal had left him with a permanent cough. Even if his voice didn’t carry over the noisy group, though, everyone saw his raised hands and stern scowl beneath the much-stained John Deere cap that was a permanent fixture on his bald head.

Achilles and Odysseus’ appearance probably helped too. They’d stopped a few paces into the room and were staring, bodies stiff and hackles raised, at the group of strangers squared off opposite Joe Gallrein.

“Perfect timing, boy,” Joe huffed at Frank, then coughed. As the old man recovered, Frank’s eyes swept the room and noted the angry faces and hostile postures of his fellow farmers. Of those with weapons—which was almost everybody—most had them out and near at hand.

Then his eyes landed on the newcomers, noting first and foremost that none had visible weapons. That made him relax slightly, though it was also disappointing—he was unlikely to get to sic his dogs on them.

Pity.

There were four of them, two men and two women, dressed like hipsters who’d raided an army surplus depot. They looked . . . soft, lacking the tanned, lean appearance of Maligator County’s people after two years of backbreaking farm work, sunup to sundown, seven days a week. One of the men was fairly large and had a dangerous, brutish look, but the other was pasty-skinned and weasel-faced. Both the women had short hair, though the furious-looking one in front had hair so short it was only a dark fuzz, which did nothing to add to the appearance of her pear-shaped figure.

“Our guests here were just fixin’ to leave,” Joe said into the tense silence. “Mind giving ’em a proper escort out, Frank?”

The buzz-cut lady’s mouth dropped open. “What? We’re not leaving, we just got here! And I haven’t finished giving you our terms—”

“Ma’am, you can take your terms and go have ’em for Sunday lunch,” said Joe. “We ain’t interested.”

“Well reconsider, old man! Don’t think you can survive out here on your puny little farm on your own. The New World Order is rebuilding civilization from the ground up and either you’re with us or against us.”

There were snorts and jeers from the crowd.

“Oh shut yer gob, crazy lady.”

“Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out!”

Joe nodded to Frank, so he stepped out from in front of the door and jerked his head at the short, angry woman who appeared to be the leader of the quartet.

“After you, ma’am.”

She straightened and seemed to collect herself, though that didn’t dispel the pinched, sour look on her face. Instead of moving toward the door, though, she pointed at Achilles and Odysseus, whose eyes were locked on her.

“I’m not getting anywhere near those mutts. Make them go away.”

The angry muttering that met her words kept Frank from strangling the woman, but only just. His dogs were a much-adored mascot for everyone in Maligator County, affectionately titled after the breed nickname of his Belgian Malinois dogs. He actively had to work to keep people from spoiling them by slipping them bits of scraps and venison jerky when he wasn’t looking.

“They obey orders,” Frank said, his words as hard and cold as his expression, “and they don’t have permission to bite you . . . yet. Can’t promise how long that’ll last. If I were you, I’d move it before I update their mission parameters.”

The buzz-cut lady seemed inclined to get huffy at that, but she moved all the same, only hesitating a split second before marching, head held high, between the gauntlet of watchful canines.

“Achilles, Odysseus, Huginn, Muninn. Escort,” Frank barked as the last of the four strangers passed between them. His dogs relaxed slightly and trotted after their charges, spreading out to either side of the group once they were through the door and out in the open.

Unlike before the Fall, Frank didn’t worry about training his dogs using English phrases instead of the more common German or Dutch. It made it easier for the other farmers to work with them, and they were so isolated from any contact with strangers that the dogs would never obey an outsider anyway.

His pack would make terrible personal protection or police dogs, but they sure were terrific postapocalyptic guardians of Maligator County.

Grasshoppers buzzed in the tall grass surrounding the gravel lot as Frank and his dogs—and many of the mess hall occupants who had followed them out, weapons in hand—watched the strangers climb back into their vehicle. With a spinning of tires that threw gravel and dust into the air, the SUV headed back up the lane that led out of their compound and onto Vigo Road that bordered the northern side of Gallrein Farms.

Once the sound of the vehicle’s engine had faded into nothing, Frank stood his dogs down, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and headed back into the mess hall. He passed through the milling crowd of his muttering fellows without comment. Inside he found Old Joe in a quiet conference with his son Ben, general manager of the farm, his granddaughter Sarah who was manager in training, and Gary Gaines, their head of security.

“They give you any trouble?” Ben asked Frank as he walked up to the group.

“Nope. The short angry one looked ready to spit nails, though. Who were they?”

Ben sighed and Gary rolled his eyes.

“Some kooks out of Cincinnati,” Gary said. “Called themselves the ‘New World Order’ or something equally asinine.”

Frank’s brow wrinkled further. “Cinci? Long way to come for . . . what? And why in the world did you let them in the front gate? They coulda been armed to the teeth inside their vehicle.”

“Give us a little credit, Frank,” Gary said. “We searched them first, they weren’t armed. And they said they had an important trade deal to propose. Claimed they had access to vital supplies like antibiotics and other medicine we’ve been desperate for.”

“Likely a load of crap. How’d they know we were even here?”

“Comrade Coates”—Gary paused to chuckle at Frank’s look of disbelief—“I’m not kidding, that’s really what she called herself. Anyway, the short angry lady said she represented the ‘new start of civilization’ based out of Cincinnati. Claims they have a whole river trading system set up and had heard about us over the ham network. They seemed to think we’re a poor, desperate hellhole of ignorant rednecks in need of their ‘benevolent guidance’ to turn our ‘little operation’ into something that will one day ‘support civilization.’”

Chills marched down Frank’s spine despite the warm evening air, and he swore viciously.

“The ham network? I thought we’d agreed on radio silence for all long-range transmitters after that last band of raiders tried to steal the beef cattle in the spring. Even before that we’ve been careful. How the hell—”

Ben held up a placating hand, and Frank cut himself off. He respected these men, but the safety of their entire community depended on drawing as little attention as possible.

“We don’t know, Frank. And we have been careful. At least since the spring. Before that . . . well.” Ben sighed and shrugged.

“Come on, Dad, you know JJ,” Sarah piped up. “He’s a growing teen and this isolation has been really hard on us younger people. He spends hours in front of that radio, listening to a world gone mad and trying to glean what he can. Remember we used to broadcast when there were still survivors to rescue in the area. Maybe these NWO people have known about us for a while and only now had the resources to come looking.”

Frank shook his head, then removed his own sweat-stained ball cap and scrubbed his close-cropped head in frustration.

“Support civilization, huh?” he asked next, changing the subject to something he might be able to get answers for.

“Yeah-up,” Gary replied, adopting a bit of a drawl for emphasis. Before the Fall he’d been a big-time stockbroker from New York who’d moved to Bluegrass country to indulge in his gun and hunting hobby. They’d found him a few months after the world went dark, living off the land and hunting zombies for sport. He’d been instrumental in their “Operation Death Parade” of last August that had mostly wiped out the zombie population of nearby Shelbyville, enabling them to clear the roads, rescue the few remaining survivors in the area, and start scouring the city for usable supplies and parts. He’d suffered a leg injury during the operation, though, and without the necessary medical intervention available had been left with a permanent limp. After that he’d turned his full attention to the security and protection of Gallrein Farms as his new calling. Frank worked with him on mindset and tactics, drawing from his own years as a Marine MP, and in turn Gary oversaw the training of all able-bodied community members in matters of weapons and defense. The womenfolk could opt out after they’d mastered the basics of pistol, rifle, bow, and crossbow. But all the menfolk were put on rotation to train regularly throughout the year. The only thing they couldn’t do much of was firearm target practice, due to limited ammo. They’d scrounged quite a bit from Shelbyville after they’d cleared it of zombies. But they had no way of manufacturing more, and the fledgling U.S. government they heard talk of over the ham radio network was still focusing its efforts on the coasts and the more populous southern states, so they didn’t expect any help from that quarter.

They were on their own, and they’d come to terms with that. Frank, in fact, liked it just fine.

“And what, exactly, did they envision ‘supporting civilization’ would entail?” Frank asked, voice dry as chaff in the wind.

Gary shrugged. “She didn’t go into detail. From the tone of her little speech it sounded like she expected us to fall over ourselves in gratitude at their offer of ‘benevolent guidance.’”

The words made Frank’s nose wrinkle, and he resisted the urge to spit on the floor.

“I ain’t never heard anything more crazy in all my days,” Old Joe said, then reached back to one of the long mess tables and lowered himself onto its bench with a sigh. “She couldn’t find her way outta a corn bin with the door wide open.”

Gary and Sarah grinned, but Frank frowned. This was no time for humor.

“I heard some pretty heated voices afore I came in,” Frank said. “Those crazies threaten you with anything specific?”

It was Ben who answered. “Nothing like that. She just kept going on about how we’d never survive without the New World Order and that we’d be sorry if we refused their help.”

Frank grunted and stared at the opposite wall for a moment as he contemplated the situation. Odysseus, no doubt sensing his tension, gave a soft whine and nosed Frank’s empty palm. Frank gave his dog an absent scratch around the ears, then huffed out a sigh.

“We should double the numbers on perimeter patrol and hold a general meeting to make sure everybody knows what happened and what to keep an eye out for. Other’n that, let’s just hope those crazies go looking for someone more gullible to con.”

Ben and Gary exchanged a look.

“Frank, we’re not even half through bringing in the corn, and we’ve still got over three quarters of our other crops and vegetables to harvest, not to mention half our heifers are getting ready to drop calves in the next few weeks. We’ve got butchering to do, canning, drying, smoking, and planting the winter wheat. This is our busiest time of year. I don’t know if I can spare anyone during the day, and extra night patrol will take away precious sleep we need to recover from fifteen, sixteen-hour days in the fields. This is all-hands-on-deck season. You know that.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. He knew it too well. He’d taken precious time off tending his herd of Boer goats on his own little farm a few miles down the road to do this day patrol with Teddy. Though Maggie and Mrs. Rogers—an old neighbor who’d moved in with them after zombies killed her husband—could handle the goats, chickens, and dogs, only he and a few others were trained for long patrols with pairs of Frank’s zombie-killing dogs.

He and Teddy had just returned from scouting out Bagdad, a tiny town about seven miles east and home to the Bagdad Roller Mill. The people of Maligator County had been forced to scrounge further and further afield to find parts for their cobbled-together farm machinery, and Teddy had wanted to take a good look at the mill before they dipped into their precious stores of biofuel to drive a convoy out. They’d modified their smaller gas-powered pickups to run off a mixture they distilled from corn, while the bigger trucks and farm machinery used a crude biodiesel made from soybean oil.

Being able to farm on the scale they were—nearly fifteen hundred acres plus maintaining multiple herds of livestock—was a miracle in and of itself. The only thing that made it possible was because of the Bulleit Distillery barely three quarters of a mile southeast of Gallrein Farms. It was separated from their main compound by part of Guist Creek Lake, but they’d built a ferry to get supplies across and the abundance of nearby water for livestock and crops made up for the inconvenience. They couldn’t operate the distillery at full capacity, of course. There weren’t enough parts and supplies to keep everything going. But with the help of good old Bill Tackett, a moonshiner they’d found holed up in the hills near Waddy, they’d been able to get a few of the vats working again and operating at a scale that could sustain their fuel needs if they were careful.

But they needed parts. They always needed parts. Thus, Bagdad.

The tiny town itself was devoid of life. The zombies in it had long since been hunted down or died from starvation and cold exposure, while the few surviving humans had been rescued and folded into their community. That didn’t mean there were no zombies left. There were always those odd few that had managed to hide out somewhere and feed off rotting food or unfortunate wildlife. Those sorry creatures would take you down in a flash if you let your guard drop. But these days the main concern was other humans.

The only people who’d survived a zombie apocalypse and two years of civilization collapse were those willing to kill to survive. Whether bands or wandering individuals, they were all dangerous. The question wasn’t if they were capable of slitting your throat and robbing you blind, but rather how much humanity and restraint they’d held onto—and how much of it they felt like showing you on any given day.

The Fall had made killers out of all of them. Even him. Maybe especially him.

“See if there’s anyone you can spare,” Frank said to Ben and Sarah, knowing the two would do their best. Then Frank turned to Gary. “In the meantime, double- and triple-check every radio. Make sure the patrol teams stay sharp. Up the frequency of check-ins and see what you can do to increase the coverage, even if it’s just keeping the teams constantly moving instead of stopping at each station.”

“Got it, boss.”

Frank snorted but Gary simply grinned at him.

“Better you than me,” Ben chuckled. “You at least understand him when he starts talking powder loads and moaning about all his precious guns he doesn’t have ammo for anymore.”

Frank ignored the good-natured jibe. “I’m headed to the showers, then I gotta get back to Maggie. Keep your radios close and remember to use the code we trained everybody on. It doesn’t do us any good ’less we use it.”

The others nodded, so Frank turned and headed off at last to find relief, his dogs following obediently after. The crowd outside the mess hall had dispersed, each man and woman going back to the tasks they’d been busy with before they’d been interrupted by visitors.

The communal showers were a crude affair: a simple tin-roofed cinderblock building between the two larger, but also simple barracks that served as the single men’s and single women’s quarters. There were set times before and after the workday for men and women to shower separately. Any other time the showers were up for grabs, but there were locks on the doors at either end of the building. Frank had all his dogs come in with him and gave them a brief spray-down before he took a quick wash himself. While they had enough electricity to spare on something as important as running water, everybody took military-style showers: two minutes, in and out. The cold water helped with that. They only ever had warm water—and lukewarm at that—available in the winter when they turned on the water heater.

By the time he was done and changed into his spare set of clothing, Frank felt considerably better. At least, until his radio squawked and a message came in on the frequency they’d designated for farm security. Frank kept his radio on that frequency by default, since he was often pulled in to consult or advise on dog handling.

“Alpha Team to Long John Silver. Lone hog, not tagged, not visibly angry, just turned onto Vigo from Cropper. ETA one apple pie. Over.”

A few seconds later, Gary’s voice crackled in reply.

“Long John Silver to Alpha Team. Stick to standard procedure. Headed up now. Break. Long John Silver to Devil Dog, you coming to dinner? Over.”

Frank grabbed his radio. “Devil Dog to Long John Silver, gimmie two apple pies. You need a lift? Over.”

“Long John Silver to Devil Dog. Pillion with your boney backside? Is that a proposition or a threat? Over.”

Frank shook his head but couldn’t keep his lips from twitching upward. “Devil Dog to Long John Silver, that’s up to Shadowfax. Meet at the mess. Out.”

Grabbing his things, Frank signaled to his dogs and they made a beeline for the livestock barn. He found Teddy tightening Shadowfax’s saddle strap after having rubbed the mare down and checking her feet for rocks. Frank nodded thanks to his friend, then stuffed his dirty clothes into his saddlebag and slipped his rifle into its scabbard on the saddle. Shadowfax waited patiently as Frank swung up, then started off without complaint when he urged her out the barn door. He called to his dogs, including Fred and George who were lying on the straw nearby, and the six canines surrounded him as they trotted off to the mess hall. Gary was waiting by the door, and Frank slowed and offered him an arm to grab so the man could haul himself up and onto Shadowfax’s rear behind the saddle. It wasn’t a comfortable position to ride, but with Gary’s bad leg it was vastly better than him limping the quarter mile up the gravel lane to Gallrein Farms’ front gate.

Frank urged Shadowfax into a smooth canter, wanting to get to the front gate as quickly as possible. Functioning vehicles with enough gas to drive around were rare outside their community, and another one showing up so soon after the crazy NWO’s departure put Frank on edge. The fact that it was alone with no visible weapons—the “not visibly angry” part of the front-gate guard’s transmission—was only slightly reassuring.

By the time they arrived at the reinforced front gate flanked by two enclosed, fifteen-foot-high watchtowers, the new vehicle was already stationary outside the gate and a blond-headed, bearded man had his head out the window, conversing with one of Alpha Team.

While the gate guard instructed one of the newcomers to exit the vehicle and approach the gate, Frank pulled Shadowfax to a halt in the shade of one of the watchtowers. He and Gary slid down and he tied the mare off, then slid out his rifle, just in case. His dogs waited patiently on either side of him for their next command, tongues out and panting after their short run.

The man who cautiously approached the gate, unarmed as instructed, was not the one who’d originally hailed them from the vehicle. This one’s dark face was clean shaven and he had a high and tight military cut to go with his alert and well-built bearing. He wore sensible cargo pants and a pocketed shirt, and Frank noticed an empty pistol holster on his hip.

“Evening, sir,” he said, stopping a good ten feet from the gate and greeting Frank with a closemouthed smile, his hand held open and unthreatening at his sides. “I’m Terrance Jones, member of the United States Fifth Northeast infrastructure survey team. We’ve been assigned to the Ohio River Valley region and our job is to investigate and inspect the state of public and private infrastructure in this area. Our goal is to survey the general state of things as well as identify any critical pieces of infrastructure that are still able to be repaired and brought back online. We also try to touch base with any communities we meet on the way, since locals are best situated to know the area and can pass on valuable information on how the U.S. government can be of help rebuilding and reconnecting our great country.”

The man smiled again and fell silent. It was obvious by his smooth delivery that he was used to repeating his spiel, and Frank raised an eyebrow, glancing at Gary. Gary looked thoughtful, but no less suspicious than Frank felt.

U.S. government. So, they were finally here. The question remained: was that a good thing, or a bad thing?

“Don’t suppose you got any identification?” Gary asked, leaning one elbow on the gate and resting his opposite hand casually on the Remington 1911 on his hip. Frank listened in, rifle held in the ready carry position as his eyes flicked from their new guest to the man’s vehicle, which was a dusty and unimpressive SUV.

“Sure do.” Terrance reached slowly up to a breast pocket and extracted a flip wallet, which he flipped open and held out toward Gary.

Gary grunted, rightly concluding that no matter what the man did or didn’t have, in their post-zombie world it meant little to nothing.

“We don’t get a whole lotta news out in these parts,” Gary said, his time in the Bluegrass smoothing out and mellowing the remnants of his New York accent. “Who’s president these days?”

“Former Vice President, Rebecca Staba,” Terrance responded promptly.

Gary grunted again. “What’s left over of the government? Military? Cabinets? Legislature?”

“Not much,” Terrance said with a grimace. “We’ve reformed a core of the federal government, executive branch mostly, but there’s scattered members of the legislature that we’re coordinating and slowly joining up with.”

“SecDef?” Frank wondered out loud, though he already knew from various official broadcasts over the last year.

“The former SecDef didn’t make it. It’s headed now by Steven John Smith. You might have heard a bit about his daughters on Devil Dog Radio.” One side of the man’s mouth quirked upward, but Frank wasn’t moved. All this proved was the man had a radio and paid attention. To be fair, that was a far step above the four previous groups of hungry, dirty, ruthless lowlifes who had tried in various ways to take what wasn’t theirs. But it still didn’t mean the man was official U.S. government—and even if he was connected to the government, that didn’t mean whatever he intended was going to result in a better future for Maligator County.

“Who you got with you?” Gary asked, jerking his chin toward the SUV.

“That’s my survey team. We’ve got two specialists, a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer, and then me and my partner are their security detail.”

“That’s nice,” Gary said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. “So what can we do for you, Mr. Jones?”

Terrance spread his hands. “As I said, we’re a survey team trying to get a handle on what’s left of our national and local infrastructure, so we can make accurate and timely plans to recover what can be recovered and rebuild what needs to be rebuilt. Obviously, we won’t have the resources to completely reconnect our vast country for decades, but there are key facilities and resources that are essential to save now, before they break down even more, if we ever have a hope of rebuilding. Once lost, it could be generations before we regain the technology necessary to manufacture the advanced parts needed to get them fully functional again.”

“Sounds like you have your hands full. What’s that got to do with us, though?”

“Well,” Terrance said slowly, looking around at the sturdy lookout towers and the tall fields of browning corn on either side of the gate. “It’s obvious you all have done an amazing job of pulling things together out here. There’s not many places where I’ve seen crops growing on this scale. One of the key pieces of infrastructure we’ve identified as needing government protection and oversight is livestock and agriculture, though especially livestock. As you can imagine, between hungry survivors, wild animals, and bloodthirsty zombies, there’s not a lot of livestock left. If we don’t save what we have we’ll lose their domesticated genes entirely. Same with crops, though they have a longer shelf life, so to speak.”

Frank’s frown deepened. Though he was more convinced that this group was from whatever fledgling government was attempting to put their country back together, the man’s words increased, not lessened, the apprehension tightening his gut.

In his former life, he’d spent over two decades working for the federal government. He knew better than most what a bloated, wasteful, bureaucratic hell it was. Or had been, at least. That didn’t mean he had any regrets about serving his country, far from it. But neither did he have any illusions about the government’s capability when it came to stewarding precious, irreplaceable resources.

Maybe it was different now. Maybe the zombie plague had culled the useless bureaucrats and the new federal government was leaner, smarter, better. But even if it was, what was to stop them from sweeping in and taking over Gallrein Farms under some excuse that it was “essential to the rebuilding of the country”? It would simply be a more civilized version of whatever takeover those crazy NWO flunkies had probably been planning behind their greedy little eyes.

This was Maligator County, and the farmers here had owned and worked the land long before the zombie apocalypse. They’d survived on their own with nothing and no one there to back them up. What right did anyone have to take it away from them? Besides, a bunch of ham-handed, clueless bureaucrats with armed bully boys to enforce their decisions would likely run the entire farm into the ground in under a year.

Better to stay off everybody’s radar and build cautious ties with small scale traders to get the few essentials they couldn’t come up with themselves, like medicine.

Frank exchanged a look with Gary, and based on his friend’s deep frown, they were thinking along the same lines.

“Well, we wish you the best of luck,” Gary said, looking back at Terrance. “There’s not much here to see. We barely get by ourselves. We’ve been too busy surviving to do much poking around. I’d say go back toward Louisville or up north to Cincinnati if you want to find valuable infrastructure. We heard there’s some kind of trade route up there along the river. Maybe they’ll know more.”

“I think you’re not giving yourselves enough credit,” Terrance said, gesturing around him. “This is exactly what we’ve been looking for: intact agricultural infrastructure. Those corn rows are too straight to have been planted by hand, which means you must still have functioning equipment of some kind. That means people with mechanical and agricultural knowledge, and we need to preserve that knowledge and find ways to multiply it so we can replicate it and scale it up. Supplies fit for scavenging are getting more and more scarce. We need to ramp up agricultural production if our country is going to survive the next five years, much less the next few decades.”

“Sounds like a real pickle,” Gary said, nodding sympathetically. “But like I said, there’s nothing to see here. I’ll bet there’s plenty of functioning ranches surviving out west where there were hardly any people for miles around to spread the virus. I’d head that way if I were you. See what you can find.”

Terrance pursed his lips, his gaze knowing. Frank tightened his grip on his rifle at the sight, hoping this nosey busybody would take a hint and go away. He had zero desire to hurt the man or his companions, but if it came down to him or them . . . 

The distant sound of a revving engine floated across the still evening air, and Frank cocked his head, brow furrowing. It was coming from the opposite direction the government vehicle had come. From the direction of his own farm, as matter of fact.

Terrance heard it too and shifted his stance, looking wary.

“Friend of yours?”

“Possibly,” Frank said, before Gary could speak. “Won’t know till it’s in sight. You might wanna go back to your car for a spell. No sense taking risks.”

Terrance gave them one last look, then strode back to his SUV and hopped into the driver’s seat. He put it in reverse and backed into the uncut grass beside the gate’s entrance, aiming his nose at the oncoming engine noise and clearing the way to their gate.

When the vehicle in question came into view down the road, Frank’s breath hitched and a surge of adrenaline shot through his limbs.

“Is that your truck, Frank? Who’s driving it?”

“Maggie,” Frank said, voice tight. “Cover me, I’m going over.”

Gary pulled his radio off his belt and spoke some quick words to the guards in the towers on either side as Frank climbed the gate and gave his dogs the command to follow. Within seconds his old farm truck reached the entrance to Gallrein Farms and took the turn at highly questionable speeds, sending dust and rocks flying everywhere. Frank got to the side of the gravel drive and tried to calm his breathing as Maggie brought the truck to a sliding halt in front of the gate.

“What in the—”

“Dad! It’s Mrs. Rogers! She fell and broke her leg and it’s bleeding really bad. I tried to put a tourniquet on it but it’s still bleeding and I don’t know what to do. We’ve got to get her to Juliet!”

“Gary! Open the gate!” Frank hollered as his eyes took in Maggie’s sweaty face and clothes smudged with blood and Mrs. Rogers’s form slumped up against the opposite door, her skin deathly pale. He rushed to help Gary haul open the reinforced gate and barely registered the distant slamming sound of a vehicle’s door. But the sound of pounding steps on gravel made him whirl and raise his rifle.

“Woah! Stand down, sir, stand down!” Terrance called out, hands raised. “I’m a former Army medic with three combat tours in the sandbox. It sounds like you’ve got an emergency on your hands and I have medical supplies.” He plucked at the strap of a bag slung across his torso. “Please, let me help you.”

Frank hesitated for only an instant. “Your men stay in their vehicle, clear?”

“Roger that.”

In response Frank laid his rifle in the grass and sprinted back to the truck. Terrance joined him on the passenger side and caught Mrs. Rogers’s slumped form as Frank carefully opened the door. Frank helped him lay the older woman gently in the grass, then followed the Army medic’s calm commands to hold that and put pressure there while the man dove into his medkit and got to work. Within seconds Terrance had a proper tourniquet on Mrs. Rogers’s leg, stopping the bleeding from the ugly break that showed bits of bone poking through skin. Frank breathed a prayer of thanks that his elderly neighbor was unconscious through it all, though her deathly pale and clammy skin made him follow up the prayer with a vehement string of mental curses that Maggie would have scolded him for.

Together they got Mrs. Rogers back into the truck with Terrance beside her, holding her steady. Frank slammed the door shut and Maggie sped off toward the compound and Juliet’s rudimentary infirmary in the old welcome center. Frank grabbed his rifle from the ground and swung up onto Shadowfax as he called commands for Fred and George to stay with Gary and his other dogs to follow him. Then he was galloping after the truck as fast as his mare could take him.

A few tense hours later, Frank was holding a restless vigil with Maggie on the bench outside the old welcome center’s front doors. Dusk was upon them and the quickly cooling air brought with it the smells of corn husks and freshly cut hay. Many community members had come and gone, expressing their sympathy and offering prayers of support. Frank really should have been busy doing something—anything.

But Maggie needed him there.

She didn’t say it, but he could tell she blamed herself for Mrs. Rogers’s injury. The older woman had become a mother figure for Maggie over the past two years, and Frank’s heart—cold and practical as it was—couldn’t take the thought of his daughter losing another mother.

He was swimming through dark thoughts and memories he’d long thought buried when his dogs’ ears perked and their heads turned toward the doors. A moment later, Terrance came out of the old welcome center, his dark skin dully reflecting the lights within. Frank and Maggie rose as one, and Maggie’s hand found his, squeezing it with bruising force.

“She’s stable, for now, but she lost a lot of blood,” Terrance said in a low voice. “My main concern at this point is whether or not her body will be strong enough to fight off infection. Also, there wasn’t much I could do about the break itself, not with the meager tools at hand. If she does recover her strength and escape infection, I doubt she’ll ever walk again, at least not without crutches.”

Maggie choked back a sob and hid her face against Frank’s chest. Frank wrapped her in numb arms and cupped the back of her head, pressing a reassuring kiss to her crown.

“You can go see her, if you like,” Terrance said. “She’s unconscious still, but I’m sure Ms. Dietsch and Mrs. Smith would appreciate some extra hands to help clean up.”

“You go, Mags, and take Achilles and Odysseus. I’ll come visit later.”

His daughter hurried off with their two oldest and most loyal dogs following eagerly. All the dogs he trained obeyed him faithfully as their alpha, but they worshipped at Maggie’s feet with pure puppy love. She’d always had a way with animals, and he often shook his head in chagrin at how easily she captured their affections.

As soon as the doors to the old welcome center closed, Frank’s focus returned and his eyes swung to Terrance Jones.

“Thank you, for saving Mrs. Rogers.” The words almost stuck in his throat, but he forced them out anyway. They were true and right, no matter what he thought of the man or his current errand.

Terrance gave a somber nod. “Just doing my job.” Their eyes met, and Terrance’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Frank sighed, mulling over the double meaning of the Army medic’s words.

“You look wore out,” he finally said. “Rest of your team is waiting in the mess. Come on over and get some grub. I’ll gather a few people as might wanna hear you out. We’ll talk.”

Twenty minutes later, Frank entered the mess hall followed by Ben, Gary, Teddy, and Old Joe. He had Huginn, Muninn, Fred, and George with him now and he’d wrangled up some raw meat for their dinner. He plopped it down in four piles and gave his dogs permission to eat while Terrance shook hands and introduced himself and his team to the farmers: Owen Paltrow, their mechanical engineer; Daniel Thomas, their civil engineer; and Ethan LeMonte, former police officer and Terrance’s security specialist. The two engineers seemed talkative enough, and both had inquisitive, bright demeanors. LeMonte was silent and watchful, which Frank could appreciate. He also appreciated the warm smile that passed over LeMonte’s face when he saw Frank’s dogs. Maybe the police officer had worked with dogs before. Or maybe he was simply a dog person.

Either way, it was a point in his favor.

As Terrance repeated his spiel, Frank listened silently. He’d already shared his concerns with Ben and the others, and they had all agreed: helping rebuild civilization was fine and dandy in theory, but their first concern was for their families, their second for their property and everything they’d built to survive.

Who could they possibly trust in this new dystopian reality they lived in?

By the time Terrance finished, Ben looked thoughtful and Teddy’s eyes were alight with excitement, but Gary and Joe still had worried wrinkles across their brows.

“Young man,” Joe said, “we’re mighty grateful for what you did to help Mrs. Rogers. We owe you a debt of gratitude. But—well, let’s just say us country folk’ve never had much reason to trust the government. I’m sure you can appreciate us wanting to keep to ourselves and look after our own families.”

“Of course.” Terrance nodded. “But I’m sure you can also understand that what you’ve accomplished here has massive implications for the rest of the country—possibly even the entire world. Your farm is a vital part of enabling mankind to rebuild a free, prosperous world instead of descending into warring tribalism and a dark age of technology. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to keep all this to yourself when it could help so many. You might even say it’s your patriotic duty.”

Old Joe frowned deeply and if Frank had possessed hackles like his dogs, they would have bristled.

He’d already served his country and put his life on the line for decades. Was being left alone to farm their own land and take care of their own families too much to ask after what they’d already been through?

“This is our land and our resources,” Joe said gruffly. “This farm has been in my family for five generations. I don’t owe it to nobody.”

Terrance’s brows lifted. “So you’re telling me there’s not one vehicle, not one tractor part, not one piece of livestock or seed of grain that you didn’t take from your neighbors after they went mad with the virus?”

This time scowls gathered on the faces of the farmers at the table.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Joe said. “’Course we salvaged and saved everything we could. You think our neighbors, the people we knew and loved, woulda wanted us to starve and die over stuff they didn’t need anymore?”

“Not at all,” Terrance said, raising his hands placatingly. “I was simply trying to point out that what you’ve built here has depended as much on the wealth and resources of others as on your own private property. Everyone has had to do hard things and make hard decisions to survive. As they said in Wolf Squadron in the early months: what goes on in the compartment, stays in the compartment. But we’re past that stage now and the only way our country has a hope of surviving is if we all work together. The first step of that is understanding what infrastructure we have left and what we can still save from complete collapse.”

Old Joe huffed, which turned into a cough that he did his best to suppress as he waved a hand dismissively at Terrance. “Well y’all can leave us off your little survey. There’s nothing collapsing here and we only got enough for our own families, no more.”

Terrance’s jaw tightened. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s my duty to report everything we find. What’s done with that information isn’t up to us”—he gestured at his team watching silently from further down the table—“we simply pass it on to our superiors.”

That statement made Gary and Frank exchange a look, and the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch.

“I think what my father is concerned about,” Ben said, speaking up for the first time, “is lack of representation and legal recourse. Of course we want to help others, it’s why we’ve worked so hard to preserve our community in the first place. But we don’t know you, and this new government that has been formed, while it does hold some legitimacy in the form of the few surviving elected officials, well . . . who or what is there to hold it in check?”

Silence met Ben’s question, though Terrance didn’t flinch away from the farmer’s concerned gaze. Ben looked around at each person at the table, then continued:

“You seem to think we’ve left the desperate times behind. But the way we see it, the desperate times are still ahead of us. We have nothing protecting us but anonymity, and if some government official decides ‘the country’ has a right to our land, our resources, our livelihoods that we need to survive, then what recourse do we have?”

There was another long silence before Terrance heaved a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. “I understand your concerns, Mr. Gallrein. They are the same thing many others are wondering, scattered across the country. But one fact I know for sure is that we are doomed if we can’t figure out how to trust each other and act like a country again. I know the situation is still desperate, but it will get even more so if we don’t act together. All your machinery and electronics, how long will they last before you need parts you have no way of scavenging or manufacturing? A year? Five years? A decade?”

Now it was Ben’s turn to remain silent.

“Let’s be optimistic and say a generation,” Terrance said with a shrug. “We’re already not sure how much advanced technology we can save. But it’s a certainty that within a generation, if we don’t get some kind of manufacturing back online and get energy and transportation resources flowing again, we’ll be back to living in the preindustrial era. But it’ll be worse than before, because even then we had huge amounts of science and technology information built up, and brilliant minds developing new things every day. Now? Barely five percent of the world population is left and so much of our information has been destroyed or lost. We could easily slide back into the dark ages. Who knows how many generations it would take to come back from that—or if we ever could.”

A deep, somber silence descended over the group, and no one spoke for a long time.

Finally, Ben sighed and stood up. “Gentlemen, you’ve given us much to think about, and as my father said, we’re very grateful for your help. But it’s getting late and we rise well before dawn. Perhaps things will seem clearer under the light of day. We don’t have much to offer, but there’s a small cottage you four should fit in. Your team can stay the night with us and move on in the morning. We will, of course, be posting a guard outside the cottage for our community’s safety. I hope you understand it’s nothing personal, simply a precaution.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Terrance said with a nod. Then he motioned to his men. “Let’s get going so these good people can sleep. We thank you for the hospitality.”

Ben returned the nod, then pulled Frank and Gary aside to whisper a few words. They both nodded, and Gary motioned to the survey team and led the way out the mess hall door, flashlight on, with Frank and his dogs bringing up the rear.

The cottage was at the very outskirts of the compound on the northwestern corner and bordered on two sides by cornfields. Several sheds and pens—the former petting zoo area from long ago—separated it from the main compound. Only the roof of the old welcome center and part of the mess hall was visible from the cottage, while the barracks and the buildings behind the welcome area like the machinery and livestock barns, dairy, silos, solar panels, generators, and more, were hidden.

It was an ideal place to isolate visitors they didn’t want snooping around or seeing too much.

There was no bathroom, electricity, or running water, just a fireplace, a table and some chairs, and a single bed. But the survey team didn’t seem to mind, and after driving their SUV over to it and getting out what supplies they needed, they said a polite goodnight and disappeared into the cottage with their own flashlights illuminating the way.

“Welp . . . you want first watch, or you want me to take it?” Gary asked Frank, his expression hidden in the near darkness.

“You better take it,” Frank grunted, then stretched his arms out and yawned. “Me’n the dogs are tuckered out after that long patrol, and since your sorry ass is parked in a chair all day I know you’re still fresh as a daisy.”

Gary’s snort sounded loud in the quiet night. “I wish my butt was parked in a chair all day. You’d think people would remember I’ve got a gimp leg but no, it’s Gary this and Gary that all day long.”

“Quit your grumbling, old man. If we didn’t keep you busy, you’d go off looking for something to do, the more dangerous the better.”

“It’s not my fault sitting still is boring.”

“Healthier, though.”

“Not according to my doctor,” Gary said and chuckled.

“Your long-ago zombified doctor? Or you talkin’ ’bout Mrs. Smith who’s been apprenticing under Juliet? You know I’ve been watching you two. You’re sweet on her, aren’t you?”

“Ooooh, I dunno. Maybe.”

Frank snickered, hearing the embarrassed grin in Gary’s protestations that no amount of darkness could hide.

“You can’t resist a fiery lady with a gun in her hands, can you, Gary? And Mrs. Smith . . . ” Frank whistled appreciatively. “She’s a vicious beast if you get on her bad side. Best of luck to you, my friend. You might wanna be careful what you wish for, though. She can shoot near as good as you, and with your gimp leg she could prolly whoop you in a fight.”

“Don’t I know it. And she’s even more glorious for it.”

Frank shook his head, his grin spreading wider at the dreamy tone in Gary’s words. Then he headed off into the darkness to grab a spare sleeping bag from men’s barracks, not needing a light to guide him on the familiar terrain. His dogs trotted silently with him, sniffing this bush or that barn door as they went along. When he got back, he unrolled his sleeping bag beneath the maple tree beside the cottage where they’d taken up a position. Then he called his dogs to him and gave them each a good petting, speaking quiet praise for a good day’s work. Some dogs were food motivated and some were toy motivated. But the best dogs were driven by the deep bond they formed with their alpha, and hearing his praise was all they needed to reinforce their day-to-day training. Not that Frank didn’t play with his dogs or give them treats at times. But those were the exception, not the norm.

Before bedding down, Frank put Fred and George on guard with Gary. Then he stretched out on his sleeping bag, rifle within easy reach beside him and his S&W Model 66 Combat Magnum revolver tucked under the fabric near his head. Huginn and Muninn lay down close by, heads on paws, though their ears were still pricked and attentive to the nightly noises.

Frank closed his eyes and did his best to clear his mind of worry. His good friend and patrol buddy Reggie Dale had volunteered to go to his ranch and spend the night there to feed the animals and keep an eye on things. Maggie was safe in the women’s barracks. Mrs. Rogers was as well cared for as they could manage. And the worries of tomorrow could very well wait until tomorrow to be worried about.

He fell asleep to the noise of a breeze blowing through the drying corn and the soft chirp of crickets in the grass.

* * *

“Psst. Frank. Wake up. There’s something fishy going on.”

Gary’s voice, barely a whisper of breath in the still night, brought Frank to abrupt wakefulness.

“Dogs are signaling danger, but I can’t figure out more than that. I think I heard footsteps on the gravel, though, down by the old welcome center. Don’t wanna use the radio to check with the patrols, anybody could be listening in.”

Frank nodded and rose to a crouch, holstering his pistol and then finding his rifle. With a barely audible sound through his teeth, he summoned his two pairs of dogs to his side. All four were alert, eyes and ears pointed toward the main compound.

“What danger, Fred. Zombie?”

The dog didn’t move a muscle, so that was a no.

“Humans?”

Fred chuffed quietly, the sound more like a huff than anything else.

“Gary,” Frank whispered. “What about the survey team? Could one of them have snuck out a window and got past you?”

“Past me, maybe. But not the dogs. I don’t think it’s them, Frank.”

Which meant only one thing: intruders.

It could be anyone, but Frank had a sudden vision of the angry, spiteful twist of “Comrade” Coate’s face as she’d stomped off to her vehicle earlier that day. It was the face of someone simmering in resentment, and resentment was a powerful motivator.

It also made you dumb as a rock.

Sloppy and foolish were probably more accurate terms, but “dumb as a rock” seemed more fitting for Comrade Coates.

Questions zipped through Frank’s brain: How many were there? What was their goal? How long had they been watching Gallrein Farms? Had they killed the gate guards and come in the front? Or cut the electric fence and come in elsewhere?

“Gary, stay here with the dogs,” Frank breathed. “I’m gonna get backup.”

Quiet as a shadow and just as invisible in the complete darkness of the Gallrein compound, Frank slipped from the tree to the cabin and carefully opened the front door.

“Rise’n shine, fellas,” he whispered to the darkness within. “It’s another glorious day in the Corps. We got bogies outside and were wondering if y’all wanna join the fun.”

There was a shifting as soon as he started whispering, and by the time he’d finished, a dark shape had joined him at the doorway.

“I didn’t know you were Marine Corps, Mr. Oberman,” said Terrance, his white teeth faintly visible against the pitch blackness of his face. “If I’d known I would’ve been sure to give you more grief. After all, we can’t let a little thing like a zombie apocalypse erase perfectly respectable branch rivalries.”

“Save it for later, young’un,” Frank grunted, though he, too, was grinning. “Dogs sniffed out some intruders snooping ’round the old welcome center, but there’s been no alarm sounded, which likely means they snuck in or took out the guards. Earlier today we had an unwelcome visit from some loonies called the ‘New World Order.’ Ever heard of ’em?”

Terrance’s white teeth disappeared as his smile turned to a frown.

“Yes, actually. We were briefed on them since they control part of our assigned area. They’re a large group based in Cincinnati and they dominate trade up and down the Ohio River. We’ve been told they’re fairly stable trade partners for anyone with enough firepower to defend themselves. But we’ve also heard reports of ruthless takeovers and some pretty crazy propaganda.”

“Can’t get much crazier’n calling themselves silly names like the NWO.”

“You’d be surprised. But as best we can tell, they’re just the biggest bullies on the block who use brainwashing and cultlike tactics to keep their rank and file in line. They claim to be ‘for the people’ while robbing everybody blind and subjugating those who don’t go along.”

Frank’s apprehension deepened with each word Terrance breathed into his ear.

“I’m gonna guess this is a hostile takeover, then,” Frank whispered. “They were mighty pissed we kicked them out earlier. Could be they’ve been planning something for a while, and that was the last straw. We need more intel, though. You’n your partner up for some recon?” Frank’s eyes flicked to the second dark shape of LeMonte that had joined them.

“Affirmative,” Terrance said, his white teeth showing again.

“The others?” Frank asked, noting that the two engineers had made no move to join them.

“They’re too valuable to risk. You can teach anyone to hold a gun, but not many engineers left these days. Give us a sec to gear up, though.”

Frank nodded and waited, then led the way back to the maple tree and Gary. He went over the compound layout for their allies, then they assessed their supplies. He and Gary had their handguns and Frank’s rifle, but not much in the way of spare ammo. Terrance and LeMonte were considerably better equipped with military issue M4 carbines, combat vests, and helmets. Even better? They had four magazines apiece and night vision monocular mounted on their helmets.

“Your superiors must really like you,” Frank muttered, half in jealousy, half in jest.

Terrance snorted softly as he got his night vision monocular situated. “The world is a scary place these days. They wanted to make sure we came back alive.”

For some reason the comment moved Frank in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. What he did understand, though, was that these men didn’t have to put themselves in harm’s way. Yet here they were. And that was the very core of everything good about his beloved country—the country he’d fought and bled for.

The country he wasn’t sure would ever exist again.

He shook his head and was about to signal their group to move out when shouts and screams shattered the quiet night.

Women’s screams.

From the direction of the barracks.

There were more sounds of a struggle, yells, a few gunshots, and then suddenly a roar of engines in the distance.

“Move, move, move!” Frank hissed and took off bent low with Gary, Terrance, and LeMonte following single file. He could hear Gary’s uneven, limping run behind him, but knew his friend could keep up, at least for a little while. His four dogs loped silently beside them, ears swiveling as they reacted to the cacophony of violence echoing through the darkness.

The darkness didn’t last long, though. There was a screeching crash of metal in the direction of the front gate, and then four sets of headlights appeared over the crest of the hill, bumping up and down as the vehicles that they belonged to careened along the gravel drive at full speed.

Frank didn’t slow. Even though his heart was in his throat and every instinct in him screamed to rush headlong toward the barracks where Maggie was, he kept his head down and led his team silently around the back sides of sheds and pens. Seconds before the invading vehicles reached the main gravel lot, the four men ducked behind the cover of the greenhouses on the east side of the old welcome center. Bright headlights splashed across the frontmost greenhouse and along the welcome center, the mess hall, and the pair of barracks with showers between them to the west.

By the time Frank and the others had circled the greenhouses and reached the rear of the welcome center, the gunfire had stopped, but the shouts had increased. Frank slowed beside a portion of the back wall where a ladder was affixed to the outside. He handed off his rifle to Gary, then dug in the holder on his belt for his spare rounds. Once Gary had everything he needed, Frank drew his revolver, motioned to Terrance and LeMonte, and took off again.

At the far corner of the building he slowed and peeked around it before advancing. He was about to come into sight of the back of the barracks when a familiar voice echoed through the night, amplified as if the person was using some kind of megaphone.

“Citizens of Gallrein Farm, lay down your weapons! We are holding your women hostage to ensure a safe and peaceful transition of power. They will not come to any harm as long as you offer no resistance. I, Comrade Coates of the New World Order, hereby take command of this facility for the good of the people and a brighter future. You will lay down your weapons and come out to the courtyard in order to swear loyalty to the New World Order and the good of your fellow citizens. Anyone who does not comply will be considered an enemy of the people, with hostile intent, and will be dealt with accordingly.”

Ringing silence fell.

Rage churned inside Frank’s chest. If those slimy, arrogant, imbecilic tyrants harmed one hair on his daughter’s head, he would join his dogs in ripping them limb from limb.

Only one thought kept him functioning through the fear and anger clouding his mind: Maggie had Achilles and Odysseus with her. They were his smartest, most experienced dogs, and could rip the throat out of a full-grown man in seconds. They would keep her safe.

They had to keep her safe.

Frank tried not to dwell on the knowledge that Maggie was unlikely to consider her own safety but would send the dogs wherever they were needed to help others.

The eerie silence deepened further. After a minute or two in which it became clear no “citizens” were obediently dropping their weapons and meekly crawling out into the light to grovel at Comrade Coates’s feet, the megaphone rang out again and the woman repeated her message in a decidedly more agitated tone.

Under the cover of that harpy’s shrill demands, Frank motioned to his companions and they had whispered conference, then broke apart and started creeping forward toward the barracks.

Frank had no idea what had become of the front gate guards, but hopefully there was at least one if not two patrols out there in the darkness with rifles and a pair of dogs. There were also the married couples staying in the various cottages around the property, plus the Gallreins in their farmhouse behind the dairy. Lastly, the men’s barracks housed nearly fifty single men from teens to old folks.

And all of them, men and women, young and old, had weapons of some kind or another.

All Frank had to do was figure out how to get into the women’s barracks and deal with whoever was threatening the hostages. Then their people could start picking off these hooligans from the safety of the darkness and surrounding buildings.

After some careful creeping, Frank, Terrance, and LeMonte had their backs pressed against the rear of the women’s barracks. On the way there Frank had gotten another glimpse of the gravel lot and confirmed that their enemies were still circled up in the middle of it, headlights pointed out, individual combatants set up behind the open, steel-plated doors of the SUVs. The headlights would make it difficult to pick off targets, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it. He’d left his dogs sitting patiently in the shadow of the old welcome center, watching him like a hawk and waiting for their next command. The barracks had a back door, but it was shut and locked tight at night. Knocking or breaking it down would make too much noise and might prompt retaliation against the hostages.

If only he could get some sort of message to Maggie. Perhaps there was someone inside who could unlock it and let them in?

He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked to his right at Terrance. The man jerked his thumb and drew Frank’s attention to the rear of the men’s barracks thirty feet away. The back door had opened, and farm hands in various stages of dress were creeping silently out one by one, each of them clutching a weapon from rifles and pistols to bows and crossbows.

Frank nodded grimly, though the icy fear in his chest was as cold as ever. None of those men could help Maggie and the other women from out here.

“I’ll give you ignorant pigs one last warning!” The angry screech of Comrade Coates’s voice rang out again. “If you don’t lay down your weapons and surrender right now, I’ll—eeeeyyaaaagh!!!”

The rant ended in an abrupt and bloodcurdling scream, which turned into frantic sobbing overlaid with a familiar growl. In the background were shouts and sounds of fighting, all of it amplified as if the woman had forgotten to turn off the megaphone.

Frank froze in horrified fascination for only a second. Then he pushed off the wall and turned to his companions. “Set up on the corners of the building and give ’em hell!”

Terrance’s teeth flashed in the dimness and the two men split, one to each corner. While they set up, Frank summoned his dogs to his side and tried to visualize the lock on the back door to the barracks, plotting how he could shoot it off or damage it enough to break through the door.

He had to get through. He had to make sure his daughter was still alive.

Just then, a panting voice rang out over the still broadcasting megaphone.

“We’ve got ’em handled in here, Dad! Now go show those bastards what us ‘ignorant pigs’ do to bullies and thugs!”

Hot, soaring relief swept through Frank’s chest and he grinned at the echoing boom of his 30-06 rifle, held in the steady hands of Gary in his overwatch position on the roof of the old welcome center. Right on its heels the crack-crack-crack of measured M4 fire spat out as the gathered NWO forces scrambled to find targets in the darkness.

As if that had been some sort of agreed upon signal, suddenly the night was filled with the varied sounds of over a dozen different types of firearms spitting hot lead, while the return fire of their opponents sounded more like Terrance and LeMonte’s M4s. The twanging of taught bowstrings didn’t register over the gunfire, but Frank could tell by the occasional pained screams of their enemies and the clank of sharpened wooden points off steel that volleys of arrows and crossbow bolts were joining the hail of bullets.

Frank was preparing to try and shoot the lock off the barrack’s back door when it suddenly opened, revealing the grim, bloodstained face of Mrs. Smith.

“Don’t just stand there flappin’ your mouth, you big oaf, go help your daughter!” The matron’s stern voice snapped Frank out of his astonishment and he rushed into the barracks past rows of nightgown-clad women. Their expressions ranged from fearful to angry, but they were alert and the ones in the front were passing weapons towards those in the back. A few sharp words from him sent Huginn and Munnin back to guard the rear door while Fred and George trotted ahead, ears perked.

When he reached the common room at the front of the barracks, the first thing he saw were several women of their community hefting M16s standing over the bloody remains of their former captors. Two rough-looking men and a skinny woman with a mohawk lay sprawled on the floor, their throats gory messes that slowly leaked blood onto the concrete floor. He spotted several of their own women sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall nursing injuries, and Juliet was moving swiftly between them, checking their status. Then his eyes flicked to the center of the room and the sight he saw drew him up short: Maggie kneeling beside Comrade Coates, pressing a blood-soaked shirt to the unconscious woman’s neck while Achilles and Odysseus stood protectively nearby.

Frank stood for a frozen second, hatred like he’d never felt before coursing through him.

“Mags, leave her,” he said, barely recognizing his own grating voice. “Let her reap what she sowed.”

His daughter’s gaze flew up to him and tears swam in her eyes as relief transformed her face. Despite the tears, though, she scowled at him.

“Shame on you, Dad. We’re better’n that, and you know it.”

“She deserves it,” he snarled.

“Of course she deserves it! But it’s not our job to give people what they deserve. Love your enemies, remember? Or does that only apply to other people, not to you?”

“She tried to hurt you,” Frank persisted, barely able to push the words past the anger locking up his jaw.

“Yeah and look what she got for her troubles.” Maggie grinned savagely and the tightness in Frank’s chest finally relaxed enough that he felt like he could breathe again.

Maggie was safe. She was alive. He hadn’t lost her.

“Now quit standing there, Dad, and take over security so the other ladies can help us with the wounded!”

Belatedly Frank lurched forward, scanning the room again automatically for threats.

“Fred, George, guard door,” he commanded, pointing at the front of the barracks. Then he holstered his revolver and nodded to the nearest woman, a middle-aged bank teller they’d rescued from Shelbyville, holding out his hands for her rifle. She passed it to him and rushed over to Juliet, asking how she could help. He was about to give the other two women guard instructions when a repeated shout became audible outside in between the rattle of gunfire.

“We surrender! We surrender! Stop shooting, we surrender!”

A booming call of “cease fire,” rang out in Terrance’s voice, and everything went quiet. The former Army medic continued speaking, ordering the remaining NWO members to throw their weapons away from their vehicles into the light, then to come out with their hands up and lie down on the gravel. There was a moment of silence, followed by a clatter of metal on gravel, a shout, and the sound of a struggle. Frank peeked carefully out one of the front windows of the barracks to see two figures grappling beside one of the SUVs. The shine of the headlights was too bright to see detail, but it looked as if one was trying to wrestle the rifle out of the hands of another, while the one with the rifle screamed obscenities and accusations of betrayal at his fellow. Then Terrance came into view, moving swiftly toward the vehicles with his rifle held high and tight to his shoulder in tactical firing position. Glancing the other direction Frank saw LeMonte mirroring Terrance’s advance. The two men stepped over and around the bloody bodies scattered near the vehicles with practiced ease. To Frank’s relief, the bodies he could see were wearing an eclectic collection of army-surplus-style clothing, not nightgowns or hastily pulled on jeans.

Terrance, who was in the lead, ended the struggle between the two NWO members with a powerful buttstroke to the back of the head, cutting off the ranting screams of the one who seemed to have a death wish.

After that it was all over but the shouting.

* * *

Comrade Coates did not survive, despite Juliet and Terrance’s best efforts. Frank couldn’t bring himself to feel even the least bit sad about it but refrained from saying so to Maggie. On a practical note, the crazy woman probably would have been a useful source of intel, but they still had six other prisoners, five of whom seemed more than happy to spill every last bean they had about the inner workings of the New World Order.

The picture they painted was bleak: The New World Order was a dictatorship with a fancy name that required mindless devotion from its “citizens”—AKA those they subsumed by coercion or force. Those who did not toe the line were sent off to work at the “Peace and Education Camps” until the relentless brainwashing and backbreaking work of subsistence farming had sufficiently reformed them. In practice, of course, those who disappeared were never seen again, and there was an unspoken policy that any woman in need of “reforming” was free game to be used without consequence or punishment.

The New World Order purported to be “rebuilding a better world” and “fixing the systemic errors” of pre-Fall society. According to the prisoners, the NWO would not rest until the entire country had been “liberated” from the evils of the past. But for all its supposed utopian glory, the five NWO fighters who had surrendered seemed relieved at their capture. It would take significant work on their part to gain the trust of the people of Maligator County, but they were off to a good start.

The sixth one, well . . . it was a big farm with lots of livestock who made conveniently large piles of thick, pungent manure. Somebody had to collect all that manure to fertilize the greenhouse gardens, and Frank felt certain a few months on the shit list—literally—would soften him up.

All the intel was freely shared with Terrance and his team, and Frank could only wish them luck completing their survey mission of the Ohio Valley Region. He did not envy the job the U.S. government had cut out for it dealing with power-hungry factions across the United States like the NWO.

Of course, whatever the already strained U.S. military did or didn’t do about the NWO in the distant future did not solve Gallrein Farms’ immediate problem, namely, what would they do when the next wave of NWO fanatics came for their farm?

It was a pressing concern, and Frank was shanghaied—not unwillingly but not exactly enthusiastically either—to remain at Gallrein Farms to help strategize on what was to be done.

* * *

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Terrance Jones said three days after Comrade Coates’s ill-advised and disastrous invasion attempt. They were gathered around the dining table of Joe Gallrein himself with Joe, Ben, Sarah, Gary, Terrance, and Frank in attendance. “The good news is that I spoke with my superiors in Florida, and they are absolutely on board with sending whatever supplies and manpower you need here to fully support your efforts to preserve your livestock and crop lines. That would include zombie virus vaccines for everybody, significant security personnel, weapons, and ammo to keep the resources here at Gallrein Farms safe from incursion by hostile groups.”

The farmers around the table exchanged glances and Frank leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “So what’s the catch?”

“That’s the bad news,” Terrance said, his words belied by his spreading smile.

Frank’s eyes narrowed.

The former Army medic’s grin only grew, and he held up a hand in a “wait for it” gesture as he pulled out a bulky satellite phone from his cargo pocket and made a call.

“Yes, this is Terrance Jones of the Fifth Northeast survey team, calling to speak with Secretary Alvarado, as requested.” The man listened for a moment, then gave a series of letters and numbers that Frank assumed was a security code of some kind. Then Terrance switched the phone to speaker and set it in the middle of the table. “Secretary Alvarado, may I introduce Joe, Ben, and Sarah Gallrein, owners and managers of Gallrein Farms, Maligator County. Also present are Gary Gains, the farm’s head of security, and Frank Oberman, the trainer of their exceptional canine force. Gentlemen, you are speaking with United States secretary of the interior, Ms. Olivia Alvarado.”

The looks around the table had gone from worried and confused to wide-eyed and awestruck. When no one immediately said anything, Old Joe cleared his throat.

“It’s an honor to speak with you, ma’am, though I can’t rightly say we’re sure what this is all about. Us country folk are pretty plainspoken and straightforward, so would you mind returning the favor?”

A feminine sounding chuckle came over the sat phone, and Secretary Alvarado spoke:

“Of course, Mr. Gallrein. Mr. Jones has given me a complete report of the ‘excitement’ you had a few nights ago, and he hasn’t stopped singing the praises of your people or your incredible accomplishments since. Word of your farm and everything you’ve kept going is a piece of good news we’ve sorely needed, and I intend to personally see to it that you get whatever you need to keep Gallrein Farms safe and prospering. All that we, your government, ask in return is your wisdom and knowledge to help our country organize our survivors and reestablish our agriculture base across the country.”

Both of Frank’s eyebrows rose, and he could tell the three generations of Gallreins were equally taken aback.

“Ben Gallrein, I heard you have a dual degree in agriculture and business from the University of Kentucky and have been running your family farm with your father for the last twenty years. That is experience we sorely need, and on behalf of the United States Government, I would like to appoint you as our new secretary of agriculture.”

Stunned silence greeted Secretary Alvarado’s statement, and Frank finally understood the Cheshire-like grin on Terrance’s face.

His immediate gut reaction was denial, knowing in all likelihood that such a position would take Ben away from Gallrein Farms. But another part of him glowed with pride on Ben’s behalf.

“I—I’m truly honored, Secretary Alvarado, but I really don’t think I’m qualified for such a lofty position of authority. I don’t know a thing about politics and I—”

“Oh hang all that,” Secretary Alvarado said. “The last thing we need in the federal government right now is politicians. We need someone who knows how to build and maintain large-scale farming operations who also has the interpersonal skills to work with a diverse range of people, from everyday farmers to the President herself.”

Frank looked at Ben and saw his friend’s Adam’s apple bob as he visibly swallowed.

“I, uh, still can’t say that I feel qualified for such a heavy responsibility, ma’am. But . . . well . . . I certainly want to help my country if I can. Before you take that as an acceptance,” he continued quickly, “I have to make it clear that my top priority is my family and my people here in Maligator County. I won’t abandon them or this farm.”

“Of course not, Mr. Gallrein, and I would be worried if you were eager to do so. When you do accept my offer,” Secretary Alvarado said with an audible smile in her voice, “the appointment will still have to be approved by the legislature in Texas. President Staba, of course, has already expressed her enthusiastic support. In addition, your first job as secretary of agriculture will be to arrange for your replacement at Gallrein Farms and get everything situated with the new people and equipment we’ll be sending you. That will take time, and I can assure you that your government is just as invested in the protection and success of Gallrein Farms as you are. You have the largest and most diverse group of surviving livestock we’ve found anywhere since the Fall, and I hear you’ve perfected using biofuels to keep your machinery running. These are stunning accomplishments considering the hell you’ve endured, and we count your farm as a critical piece of infrastructure to be protected at all costs.”

“Th-thank you, ma’am,” Ben said, glancing uncertainly at his father. “I would like to clarify, though, if you’ll excuse my rudeness: Gallrein Farms and its resources belong to my family and the people of Maligator County, and we will decide what is done with them.”

“I agree, Mr. Gallrein, with the caveat, of course, that when you become the secretary of agriculture, it will be your duty to build a plan for how to use all the resources of our great nation to help rebuild what the zombie plague destroyed. That will mean some sacrifices—time spent teaching others how to farm, maintain equipment, make biofuel, etcetera; seed and livestock sent to other locations to become the start of new farms; possibly even experienced personnel sent as well to organize and supervise the establishment of new agricultural infrastructure. All of that will be necessary, not only from you, but from every farmer across the nation if we have a hope of rebuilding what we’ve lost. Do you understand?”

“I do, ma’am. It’s a massive job, one I don’t think I’m cut out to spearhead. And you’re asking a lot from me personally, as well. I hope you don’t mind if I ask for a few days to think about your offer and discuss it with my family. It’s not a decision I have a right to make on my own.”

“Understood, Mr. Gallrein, and that will be perfectly fine. I look forward to passing on your acceptance to President Staba. Any more questions you can direct to Mr. Jones. If he doesn’t know the answers he knows who to call to find out.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing, Mr. Gallrein. I know running a farm is busy, busy work.”

“That it is, ma’am. And thank you.”

“No, Mr. Gallrein. Thank you. You make me proud to be an American. I look forward to working with you. Now, Mr. Jones?”

Terrance picked up the sat phone and switched off the speaker. As he walked to the other side of the room speaking quietly to Secretary Alvarado, Ben looked around the table where everyone was staring at him. He sighed and chuckled ruefully, “She doesn’t make it easy to say no, does she?”

“Why would you say no, Dad?” Sarah asked. “Obviously it won’t be easy, but think of the difference you could make? I thought the whole reason we were worried about getting on the government’s radar was someone swooping in and taking over the farm, right? But if you’re in charge, that fixes the problem! And you’d make a great secretary of agriculture, wouldn’t he, Pops?”

Old Joe gave his son a half smile. “If anyone would, it’d be our Ben. Though you’ll have a job and a half talkin’ Barbara ’round. Her blood runs bluer’n the Bluegrass itself, and she’ll have a thing or two to say ’bout moving to some southern swamp like Florida.”

“I wouldn’t even worry about that part yet. How can I leave you all, leave Gallrein Farms? Who would take my place?”

Old Joe sent a pointed look in his granddaughter’s direction. “Ain’t that what you’ve been training Sarah for these past years? She’s a grown woman. Twixt the two of us, I figure we can manage.”

Ben pursed his lips, brow furrowed in worry. “Gary? Frank? What do you think?”

Gary shrugged. “I’d be thrilled to get better weapons, more ammo, more security. The offer seems sincere, and it’d solve a lot of our problems, especially our most recent one spelled N-W-O. With you at the helm of the decision-making, I’d be hard put to come up with any reason to refuse.”

Ben’s gaze turned to Frank. “Well?”

Despite knowing the question had been coming, Frank didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked to Terrance, still in the corner speaking quietly on his sat phone. Images of the past few days flashed through his mind: Terrance and LeMonte, rifles raised, advancing unprotected towards hostile forces they’d had no obligation to fight. Terrance with medkit in hand, working for hours on end to patch up the wounded. Owen and Daniel, the engineers, shaking hands with Teddy and Old Bill Tackett, eagerly discussing the farm’s systems and what replacement parts they were most in need of.

If these men were representative of the newly formed United States federal government, then Frank thought there was a good chance they might all survive the hell that had befallen their nation.

A curious feeling swelled in Frank’s chest. It’d been so long since he’d felt it, he wasn’t sure at first what it was. Then he realized:

It was hope.

“United we stand, divided we fall,” Frank said, looking back at Ben and giving a firm nod.


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