Reclamation (Best Laid Plans Book 4) Read online

  Reclamation

  Book Four of

  Best Laid Plans

  by

  Nathan Jones

  Copyright © 2016 Nathan Jones

  All rights reserved.

  The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some creative license has been taken in describing them, and a few locations are entirely fictional.

  This book is dedicated to my brother Seth, for his invaluable help with the technical challenges I couldn't handle on my own. Thanks to him I was able to focus on writing, and words cannot express my sincere gratitude.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Retaliation

  A bigger jolt than usual shook Trev out of his fitful sleep, nearly jostling him off his place on the bench in the back of the truck. Leaning against him Jim did start to fall, and still half asleep Trev reached out and caught his brother, pulling him back up.

  They were slowing down, and by the crunch of gravel under the tires they'd left the asphalt road and were pulling onto a shoulder to stop. “Finally,” he mumbled.

  Around him his other family members, most of whom had also been asleep, began to stir and expressed their own relief as they stretched and worked out kinks in their muscles from the awkward sitting positions. Trev retrieved his captured AK-47 from where he'd stowed it between two diesel cans and made his way to the back of the truck, where he made sure his weapon was ready to fire before leaning out the opening in the canvas tarp.

  His bladder felt like it was going to explode, and behind him his siblings and cousin were whining for him to get out of the way for similar reasons, but he refused to hop down until he was certain the area was safe.

  It was after dark. That meant they'd been driving for a long time without stopping, since they'd stolen the truck from the internment camp in the early afternoon. Trev couldn't be sure what his uncle Lucas, who'd been behind the wheel this entire time, had been thinking during the drive, but it was obvious he refused to take any chances until they were well away from the danger they'd left behind.

  Trev didn't blame him.

  “It's safe,” he finally said, the pronouncement driven more by his desperate biological need than his careful inspection. And his trust in Lucas's care when it came to picking a stopping point.

  It looked safe at a glance, at least, with them on a small road in the middle of a peaceful looking countryside, not a single source of light to be seen in the darkness aside from the truck's headlights and taillights. At least until the truck's engine abruptly turned off and the lights died, probably so the vehicle would be harder to spot while they were stopped.

  Without another moment's hesitation he hopped down and trotted towards the nearest bushes, slinging his rifle as he went. Behind him he heard the rest of his family similarly escaping from the back of the truck and scattering in all directions to answer the call of nature. A few door slams from the cab suggested his mom, aunt, and likely his uncle as well had similar goals in mind.

  “Does anyone have toilet paper?” Linda called from somewhere off to his left.

  “Doubt it,” his dad called back sympathetically. “Find a tree or bush with lots of leaves.”

  “Great,” his sister muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. After spending so long on the road and roughing it in less than ideal locations Trev could sympathize, but there wasn't much to be done about it now that they'd left the internment camp far behind; they might've been held against their will there, but if nothing else it had offered those sorts of basic amenities.

  At least they had the luxury of privacy now. During the drive there'd been a few times when his family members trapped in the back of the truck hadn't been able to wait any longer, and they'd had to find creative solutions to the unpleasant situation. Trev's dad had done his best to encourage them to look on the bright side of things, since it was better to be tackling the problem riding in a truck headed for home than using the latrines in the internment camp with fallout raining on their heads. That was dubious encouragement, since none of them wanted to be reminded about what had happened earlier that day.

  Half a minute later, feeling almost human again, Trev paused to get a better look at the landscape around him. It was surprisingly peaceful and quiet, with no sign of the devastation the world had suffered over the last twelve hours. After their harrowing escape from the internment camp he almost expected to see mushroom clouds on the horizon in every direction.

  Shivering slightly, he pushed down those grim thoughts and made his way over to where his uncle had a book of maps spread over the hood, reading it by the light of a small flashlight. “Was this with the truck?” he asked.

  Lucas shook his head. “One of the few possessions Eva and Mary were able to pack up to bring along in all the confusion. I was fine leaving furniture and extra clothes behind, but maps of all the lower 48 States were pretty much a must.”

  “So where are we?”

  His uncle pointed at the map of Wisconsin he'd opened the book to as he answered. “Nearly to the border, maybe an hour or two away from La Crosse.”

  Trev whistled. The truck couldn't go much faster than 50 and they'd been driving nonstop, but even so that was pretty good time. They'd made it all the way across Michigan's Upper Peninsula and through most of Wisconsin, and had nearly reached the border into Minnesota. “So how long have we been driving for?”

  “About ten hours.” Lucas grimaced and stretched, popping his back. “Been a long time since the road trips of my youth. That was a pretty brutal drive.”

  “Not just for the driver,” Trev's mom said as she appeared at Trev's side, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before leaning over to frown at the map, then at her brother. “Did we really have to go through all that without even bathroom breaks? We could've changed drivers at the same time.”

  “I don't know about you, Clair, but I was kind of in a hurry to leave the fallout behind.”

  Trev's aunt arrived at the scene in time to hear the exchange, and she came over to lean against her husband as she aired her own complaints. “We all were, but we had to have outrun that in the first few hours, right?”

  Lucas gave Trev a long-suffering look. For the most part everyone in the family was pretty reasonable, but when they were in the mood to be unreasonable they had a tendency to dog pile. Not that they didn't have a good excuse to be on edge, after the horrific events of the day.

  “Fallout's the most pressing reason, but it definitely isn't the only one,” his uncle said. “The Gold Bloc troops have ventured almost as far into Wisconsin as into Michigan, so we face potential trouble with every mile until we can get past their lines, hopefully in the next few hours.”

  He turned to Trev. “You probably didn't see it since you were in the back, but we passed a second internment camp not long after leaving the Upper Peninsula, this one intact by all appearances. We didn't get close enough to see more than that the fences were still up and there were people
inside, and I took pains to avoid getting close enough for a second glimpse, but it was definitely up.”

  Trev felt a surge of sympathy for the people still in that camp. Living in the Mackinac camp had been bad enough, but after seeing the brutality of the Gold Bloc soldiers after the nukes flew he guessed things had to be much, much worse for anyone still unlucky enough to be their prisoners.

  Eva wrapped her arms around her husband, and the complaint had left her voice when she answered. “It was harrowing enough just being a passenger spending hours weaving a path on backroads to avoid any vehicles, and even then running into more than a few. Your uncle did a great job bluffing his way past any trucks we did encounter by driving innocuously. There were a few close calls when I was sure we'd be stopped, but we never were.”

  Lucas nodded. “In the confusion of a nuclear war, the Gold Bloc soldiers were probably too worried about their own problems to harass other trucks for routine inspections. But even those brushes were enough to get my heart pounding.” He took a final look at the map, then reluctantly shut and folded the flimsy book and tucked it under one arm. “We should keep going. I'm going to refill the diesel tanks while we get everyone in.”

  Trev nodded too. “All right. I'll take the wheel this time.” He raised his voice to a quiet shout to call everyone back to the truck.

  His dad materialized not far away in the dim light of stars and a crescent moon. “Hold on,” he said quietly. “We're in a hurry to get home, and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned, but have we thought about what we're going to do for water, food, and rest? We've still got a long ways to go, and I'd prefer not to have the drivers falling asleep at the wheel and delirious from thirst, exhaustion, and hunger.”

  “It's just another thirty or so hours,” Lucas argued. “We can make that pushing, and all get a nice long drink, meal, and sleep back in Aspen Hill.”

  Trev thought of his disastrous first day's hike right after the Gulf refineries attack, when he'd pushed himself too hard and ended up getting injured on a pothole a few inches deep. “If we've left the blockheads and fallout behind there's no reason to push that hard. We'd just set ourselves up to be in a disaster we're not equipped to handle for no good reason. Besides, we have a truck now. Maybe we should think about what we could do to make our situation better before getting home.”

  His uncle gave him a thoughtful look. “What did you have in mind? Scavenging, foraging?”

  “Newtown,” George guessed.

  Trev clapped his dad on the shoulder in confirmation. He'd talked about the town a bit with his family while they'd been stuck in the internment camp waiting for an opportunity to escape, and it was hard to ignore so much wheat and other necessities available for trade for almost absurdly reasonable prices. “We could do a lot of good for the town, and make sure we have enough food to last us a long time.”

  “I'm not sure how much I like that,” his mom said, pausing in feeling her way along the truck to the back. Trev could hear the frown in her voice. “We were so fortunate to all get out alive together, and we've got the truck and enough fuel to get to Aspen Hill. Why tempt fate?”

  “We haven't got much more than the clothes on our backs,” Trev argued. “And when I left the town it was in big trouble in more ways than one, especially with food. Newtown could provide us with a lot of the things we need, and even some things to make life more comfortable.”

  To his surprise his dad spoke up against the idea too. “How exactly would we pay for any of this? We can't afford to sell the truck or any fuel, which just leaves the three guns you captured, some spare magazines and ammo, and the flak jackets and a set of riot gear. We might get something out of that, but do we really want to sell what we need to defend ourselves in a bad situation?”

  Eva cleared her throat. “Lucas?”

  “Right,” his uncle patted his belt, a vague motion in the darkness. “I've got a dozen one-ounce gold coins sewn into the waistband of these pants. They started out as an “in case of emergency” thing while we were in Norway, but I've held on to them since.”

  Trev couldn't help but grin. “Like father, like son.”

  Lucas's voice turned somber. “I'm not throwing my weight behind the idea though, Trev. We could just as easily buy things in Aspen Hill, from people we trust more and with much less risk.”

  “No, you can't. Nobody has anything to sell, and even if they did they wouldn't be taking gold when most people are trying to just get by and feed themselves. Newtown's the only place in a good enough shape to be trading for precious metals.”

  There was a long, thoughtful pause, which was broken by the hair-raising sound of a vehicle engine in the distance. His mom made an alarmed noise, and they all listened intently for a few seconds until they could reassure themselves that the noise wasn't heading their way.

  “This is a bad place and time to debate this,” Lucas said. “Let's get back on the road. We can all think it through as we drive.”

  Trev nodded and followed his uncle to the back of the truck to haul some diesel up and refill the tanks. While he did that his parents and aunt got everyone up into the back of the truck, leaving him, his dad, and Mary in the cab for the next leg of the trip. Both had gotten enough rest that they thought they could take over if he started to get too tired to keep driving, and they also looked more than a little eager to be sitting on the slightly more comfortable stiff leather front seat for a change.

  In just a few minutes they were back on the road, Trev behind the wheel doing his best to reacquaint himself with driving a vehicle for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. He also didn't have the most experience with stick shifts, and embarrassed himself by riding the clutch and jostling them all the first few times he shifted gears.

  At least he didn't kill the engine, and no one called him out on his bad driving. Even Mary, who might've hummed a teasing song in other circumstances, kept quiet as they drove, eyes straining into the blackness beyond the headlights.

  They breathed a sigh of relief when they crossed the Mississippi River into Minnesota less than two hours later, although there was a bit of worry that the bridge might be guarded. Trev approached cautiously in the darkness with the headlights on and had everyone duck low in the seats.

  There was no point trying to be stealthy since the engine would've given away their presence anyway, and it was likely any Gold Bloc sentries would have night vision. So the only way to make the best of a bad situation was to keep their eyes open, and be ready to get out of there fast if there was trouble.

  There wasn't. Either the invading forces hadn't made it this far yet or the confusion of the previous day had disrupted their security. Either way Trev crossed the bridge at a safe but fast speed and barreled on into the night.

  With no food, water, or real need to rest just yet there was no reason to stop, and in a way it was a tremendous relief to see the miles rolling away under the truck's tires. Each minute that passed meant they were that much farther from the troubles behind, and that much closer to home and an end to the insanity they'd fled.

  Since his dad and Mary were sleeping there wasn't much to do to fill the time but think, so he did. Mostly about Newtown, since the alternative was thinking about the Gold Bloc invasion and the global thermonuclear war mankind had finally succumbed to earlier that day. He'd already been thinking about that for most of the drive, so it was a relief to focus on their immediate future instead.

  For Trev it wasn't so much an issue of whether they should visit the town as how they should approach it. There was no question they needed to stop somewhere, at least for water, unless they wanted to drive straight through to Utah for more than a full day. Whatever his uncle might claim, thirst and exhaustion would make driving hazardous well before then, especially after the frantic time they'd had escaping the internment camp and the stress it had put on their minds and bodies.

  Newtown was the only safe place Trev knew about, and it was a realistic goal to set. They'd ha
ve to drive another fifteen or so hours to reach it, but they could manage that without putting themselves in too terrible a position. Which left the main question whether they wanted to risk revealing they had a truck, or just go in on foot at first.

  Trev honestly wasn't sure, although he did know that eventually they'd probably have to give away the fact that they had a vehicle; if they did visit the town it would be stupid not to buy as much wheat as the truck could carry, since the good it could do for the family and the rest of Aspen Hill couldn't be argued.

  Lugging several thousand pounds of grain out of town would be suspicious enough that only an idiot wouldn't see what they were doing, at which point they may as well not insult their hosts by trying to hide the existence of the truck. Of course that risk depended on Trev's assurance of Vernon's integrity, which he couldn't be completely confident about.

  They'd either have to cache their AK-47s or check them in to the sheriff, leaving them at his mercy with a very tempting target. Trev could understand his family's concerns, and he shared them. But at the same time at the end of Trev's first visit there Vernon had returned the silver rounds the barflies had shaken him down for, as well as his checked gun.

  A few ounces of silver and a .45 couldn't come close to comparing to a truck with enough fuel to travel hundreds of miles. That might tempt even a saint these days. But could they afford not to take the chance, when so much good could come from it?

  Trev mulled that over as he drove on, through the first faint predawn glow until it was light enough that he could turn off the headlights so the truck would be harder to see. He considered it lucky that they hadn't run into any roadblocks or ambushes up to this point; while in Gold Bloc territory the enemy would've kept the roads safe for their own vehicles, but now that he and his family were back out in territory that was still firmly US there was no telling what they might run into.

  He'd need to be more cautious than he had been.

  Just after dawn they stopped for another bathroom break, this one not causing quite the stampede the last one had. Afterwards they huddled together around the hood to seriously discuss whether or not to risk Newtown.