The Escape Read online

  “This is how some prisoners need to be put into the appropriate mind frame for an interrogation,” Lanche said. “Trust me, we’ve done this before. And it’s a nice, gentle way to get you in the mood to talk. So much more fun than waterboarding. Well, for you at least.”

  Evan swallowed hard. He didn’t want to do anything that would make Lanche hit the girl again.

  “I have nothing to tell you,” Evan whispered.

  “Stand up and play with yourself. We’ll talk more after you’ve finished.”

  The humiliation, the shame, filled him. How could he do that, standing naked in front of the Colonel, that evil fuck Scar, and an innocent girl?

  Evan shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Well, either you’re going to do it, or Annie will have to do it. You don’t want me to make Annie touch your willy, or do you? Your choice.”

  “My choice is neither,” Evan spat.

  “That’s not a choice. Annie, be a doll—help us warm up our boy over here.”

  Annie looked at Evan, her eyes filled with tears. “He’s just a kid.”

  “No, he’s eighteen. Totally legal. Besides, I don’t think you’ll get in any trouble with the law,” Lanche said, laughing. “Go on now.”

  Annie shook her head. “Please don’t make me do this.”

  “I’m not making you,” Lanche said. “Evan here is. Because he won’t do it himself.”

  Evan looked around the room wildly. How could he escape? How could he get out of this horrific situation?

  But he was naked, and unarmed, and the girl’s leg was broken. The door was locked, and the Colonel and Scar had guns.

  Lanche started to lift Annie out of her chair, making her yelp in pain.

  “Stop,” Evan pleaded. “I’ll do it. Stop hurting her.”

  “Go ahead.” Lanche set her back down and stared at Evan’s naked body, not with any obvious sexual desire. Only a sadistic gleam in his eyes.

  But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even give a halfhearted attempt.

  Scar came up behind him, and the hairs on the back of Evan’s neck stood up.

  The blow to his head took him by surprise, and he fell.

  Everything went black.

  Emily and Mason, upstate New York

  Emily was glad Mason had agreed to be reasonable about letting Samuel continue to camp on their land. Well, what they considered their land.

  “I’m going to give Samuel a tomato and some seeds from the garden, so he can start his own,” Emily told Mason.

  Mason looked like he was about to tell her not to, but thought better of it. She could tell by the expression on his face.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said finally. “Guess it couldn’t hurt to have some more crops growing.”

  “That’s right.”

  They headed over to Samuel’s campsite.

  “Samuel?” she called. “It’s Emily and Mason.”

  The man came out from behind a tree. “Sorry. Heard people coming and I hid,” he said. “Don’t like trouble if I can avoid it.”

  “We have seeds for you,” she said. “Do you know how to plant a garden? You can grow your own vegetables. You’ll have to water them.”

  He smiled at her, taking the tomato and the tiny cloth bags of seeds. “Thank you, neighbor. That’s really nice of you. I’ll get these bags back to you when I finish planting.”

  “Thank you,” Emily smiled. It was nice to have someone who knew the value of even a little thing like scraps of cloth.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” he said.

  Mason frowned. “What?”

  “Here, you can listen for yourself.” Samuel went into his tent and pulled out a bag, and out of the bag, he pulled . . . a radio.

  “Does it work?” Emily asked.

  “Yup. It was still in the box from the store, and the box was in my metal filing cabinet. I was using it as a big junk drawer instead of an actual filing cabinet, you know how it goes.” He laughed. “But after the Pulse, it was the only thing that worked in my house. I’d bought it for blackouts and forgotten about it until I was scrounging everywhere for food.”

  He cranked the handle fast, and a tinny, far-away-sounding voice came out of the small black radio.

  Mason stared at it in shock. “You were right, Em.”

  “I know. I never thought I’d hear it again, though,” she whispered. “American Victory Radio?”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?” Samuel asked.

  “That’s a story for another time. What’s it say?”

  “Well, same recorded message for the past year, mainly, but the interesting thing is that every now and then I get something coming through on this other channel, here.”

  He moved the dial carefully, but only static came out. “Well, it usually comes at nightfall.”

  “What comes?” Mason asked.

  “Some guy,” Samuel said vaguely.

  “What’s he say, though? What’s the message?” Emily asked.

  “Well, he says there are a bunch of them. Survivors. That they’re doing well. Eating, fishing. And he always signs off with, um . . . live and let live.”

  “Live and let live,” Mason repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “Doesn’t sound like the army,” Emily said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Samuel said slowly. “Maybe that’s his point. His way of saying that they’re not under government control.”

  Emily gasped. “How?”

  “I don’t know. But if you’d like to help me plant these seeds, we can wait here until the transmission comes through. When the sun starts to set.”

  “Mason?” she turned to her husband to see if he was on board. His gaze was still plastered to the radio.

  “Of course. Can we listen to the other station? The one Em knew about?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Samuel turned the dial back until the familiar strains of The Star-Spangled Banner played from the radio. “This is it. The end of the recording. Should start over soon.”

  A short burst of static was followed by the very same message Emily had heard once before.

  “This is American Victory Radio,” a man’s voice said. “Check in daily for news from around the country as we rebuild, better and stronger than ever.

  “President Powers has declined, amidst much controversy, help from United Nations officials to rebuild,” the voice on the radio continued. “American Victory Radio supports our new president’s decision, as America must not cede control to outside forces.

  “If you are in need of food, shelter, or medical care, there are state-sanctioned shelters in every state across the US,” the voice continued.

  “If you wish to take federal food rations, any food you have on hand will be taken and added to the federal food bank.

  “We at American Victory Radio do not advise, repeat do not advise, taking federal rations unless absolutely necessary for survival.

  “And please, on that note, Americans, don’t loot from your neighbors. Don’t steal. Don’t let the terrorists who destroyed us with the Pulse destroy our integrity as well.

  “We are still, after all, America.”

  “It’s the same thing I heard before,” Emily whispered. “But what does that mean, that they keep playing the same message?”

  “I think it means trouble,” Mason said. “It said to check in daily for news, but has there been any, Samuel?”

  “A couple times, yes,” Samuel said. “Well, when I was listening anyway. Once they listed a bunch of FEMA camps with a large population of survivors. Grand Central was on the list. They made it sound like the safest place to be in New York.”

  “It’s not,” Mason said. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. One that had me up at night worrying.”

 
“What did it say?” Emily stared at the radio as if it held all of the answers she needed.

  “Don’t know,” Samuel said, rolling a bag of seeds in his hand. “It was in a foreign language. Couldn’t make out a word of it.”

  Letliv, Connecticut

  BARKER

  Barker felt good about being allowed to hold on to his rifle as they followed Trent into Letliv. It made him feel safe, because if he were going to need to use it on someone, they probably wouldn’t have let him keep it.

  Twisted logic, but it worked for him.

  “So, who’s in charge around here?” he asked Trent.

  “No one.” Trent shrugged. “But I’m going to put a paper up on the board on Main Street to let everyone know you guys are here, so they can make a list of the names of their family in New York.”

  “Will that work?” Jenna asked.

  “Yeah,” Trent said. “Everyone usually checks it before heading home for the night, since we post important news there. There’s a market every morning on the street for people to trade or barter supplies and food, so by then we should have the list for you all to go over. People will want to meet you.”

  The town looked so . . . normal. People were outside, and they all looked fed. Barker had grown so accustomed to seeing people near starvation that the sight of healthy, nourished folks was almost a shock.

  “How do you feed everyone?” he asked.

  “We’ve got fish as our main food source, and every lawn is a vegetable garden. Fresh milk was a problem for a while until Sharon came in, a few months after the Pulse, with goats.”

  “Goat’s milk,” Clarissa said. “I’ve never tried it.”

  “They need to be milked twice a day,” Trent said, “so sometimes if you take on the chore you’ll get a jug of milk in return. The woman who owns the goats doesn’t fish. But she keeps her family fed by trading the milk.”

  “Go back a moment,” Jenna said. “What do you mean that no one’s in charge? How is that possible?”

  “Nobody here wants to be under government rule, or martial law. So we’re not.”

  “How has the army not taken over this town?” Clarissa asked.

  “They have an entire country filled with people who need to be cared for. They don’t have the resources to deal with the people who actively don’t want to be taken care of.” He looked at her too-thin figure. “If you call living in a FEMA camp being taken care of.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t.”

  Barker couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that there was no one governing the town. “What happens if someone breaks the law? Or are there any laws?”

  Trent grinned. “We have no rulers, but there are rules. Basically, the right for me to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”

  “Okay, I get that,” he said. “But what if someone violated that right, and punched someone out? Are there consequences?”

  Trent nodded. “Well, yeah. It’s happened. People get into disputes over stupid shit, like letting garden pests run rampant and ruining the neighbor’s garden. If a rule is broken, then whoever broke it would be ostracized. They wouldn’t be able to trade supplies at the market, or they might even be kicked out. We agree on basic principles.”

  “What happens if someone gets into a fight and kills a person?” Jenna asked.

  Barker wondered if she was thinking about the men they’d had to kill along the way to Letliv.

  “That hasn’t happened yet, but an armed society is a polite society. There’s always a way to get what you want. Remember the Internet? The Internet wasn’t under government control, but it managed itself okay.”

  “People got scammed on the Internet all the time,” Clarissa said, raising her eyebrows.

  “One time a man didn’t fulfill his end of a barter agreement to give a pound of fish to a woman who gave him carrots,” Trent said, “and she told everyone in town. He had to work three times as hard to rebuild his reputation to be able to barter again.”

  “Ah, so she gave him a bad review, like on eBay,” Jenna laughed. “God, remember eBay? I used to get so many purses on that site.”

  Barker wrapped his arm around her. “And they would arrive on your doorstep like magic.”

  “I miss the mail,” she sighed. “And the Internet.”

  “It’ll all come back with time,” Trent said. “But I don’t think it will ever be the same. There’s no way to exactly replicate the grid and infrastructure we had before the EMP.”

  “So no one’s tried to steal one of the goats?” Clarissa asked. “You make it sound like the goats are worth more than gold around here.”

  “They are,” Trent said. “When you taste the milk you’ll see why! Sharon does better than most of the fishermen with those goats of hers. But no one’s stolen a goat. It wouldn’t be worth it—how do you hide livestock in a small town? And why, when you can so easily get some of the milk by working something out with Sharon?”

  “So this Sharon woman has a monopoly on the goats?” Jenna asked.

  Trent laughed. “Two are pregnant right now, and she’s selling the kids when they come. But even if she did have a monopoly . . .”

  “That’s not a problem?” Barker asked. “I mean, isn’t this like a commune or something, everyone working together?”

  “We’re not socialists. We’re not communists. Capitalism is still alive and well.” Trent laughed. “I’m probably not explaining it very well. But it’s worked so far.”

  “Anarchy,” Barker said. “You’re telling me that anarchy has worked so far.”

  “I guess. We believe in self-ownership and nonaggression. That’s why we renamed the town. Our motto is ‘Live and Let Live.’ So . . . Letliv.” He smiled. “See?”

  “If it works so well,” Jenna said, “then why is everyone armed?”

  “Because there are people outside of Letliv who don’t believe in the ‘Live and Let Live’ credo. And we plan on keeping our way of life.”

  Barker had never believed that a society without rulers, without authority, could work. He was a lawyer before. . . . Everything he’d been taught before the Pulse revolved around laws and having people with the authority to uphold those laws.

  But martial law had changed everything. No one had any rights anymore. The very government that was trying to help the citizens was starving everyone to death. And God knew corruption ran rampant at Grand Central under the hands of Colonel Lanche.

  So maybe live and let live was better, for now, anyway.

  “What can we do to earn some dinner and a place to sleep tonight?” Barker asked.

  “Let’s go to the docks and find out. Jenna and Clarissa should be able to find rooms with families, and you could sleep on my couch, if you want.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Trent,” Jenna said. “But Barker and I sleep together.”

  Clarissa turned away, and Barker could see her cheeks were flushing. She probably thought Barker didn’t want her around Jenna after what happened, but it wasn’t the case.

  “Anyplace where the three of us could be in the same room?” Barker asked. “We’re used to camping, if space is an issue.”

  “You can share the floor if you want, but it’s just for tonight,” Trent said. “If you choose to stick around, you’ll have to find your own place.”

  “How?” Jenna asked. “Isn’t all of the land already taken? The homes?”

  “The size of Letliv is as big as it wants to be, if that makes sense. There are homes farther out that are abandoned. Entire surrounding cities are empty. There’s plenty of room, it’s just a matter of how far you can walk if you want to get to the market. Until there’s enough people to start a new market in another location, anyway.”

  “How many people do you have here?” Clarissa asked.

  “Not enough,” Trent said. “Always
room for a few good men. Or women.” He gestured toward the posting board, which was covered in old sheets of paper, many wrinkled or torn or written over. “Let’s get that list of New Yorkers started. We’ll want to know if our families were at Grand Central with you.”

  “You keep saying we,” Barker interrupted. “Did you have family in New York?”

  “My kid sister,” Trent said. “Annette Taylor.”

  Clarissa gasped. “You don’t mean . . .”

  Trent stopped walking and grabbed her hand, as if he was afraid she would run away. “Did you know her? My sister?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I know Annie.”

  Letliv, Connecticut, inside an abandoned local radio station outside of town

  Jenna sat back and watched with interest as Trent connected a large battery pack, made from what looked like rebuilt car-batteries, to a microphone, and flipped a switch.

  “I try to do this at dusk,” Trent said. “Send out a radio transmission. I have no idea how far it travels, if it reaches anyone at all. But I try.”

  Barker took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Good evening, anyone who’s listening,” Trent started. “Today’s been good to us. No deaths to report. And we’ve got a few newcomers. We’ve got word that the camp at Grand Central Terminal is a dangerous place to be, so anyone thinking of heading there might want to rethink that.”

  Trent paused and took a breath. “Don’t forget to boil your water. It’s all contaminated, even if it looks clear. In other news, I found out my sister is alive, thank God. But she’s not with me yet. Not much else to report.”

  He shrugged. “Signing off. Remember this if nothing else . . . live and Letliv.”

  Trent flipped the switch to off and disconnected the wires. Then he took a hand-crank camping radio and turned the dial slowly, carefully, listening for anything other than the static.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Jenna asked, when she heard the sound of . . . something. “A voice?”

  “They’ve been playing the same message for months now,” Trent said, and let the radio play the America Victory Radio bulletin.

  Jenna listened intently. “It’s what Emily heard,” she whispered. “Has to be.”