Prepper

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Sorry, sir. He didn't make it. I'm pretty sure he was dead when we pulled him out, but once we were able to break contact and get him back here, one of the medics made the call. Was he a friend?"

"Yeah, I guess so - well, I think he was a friend of Kate's -- my wife."

"The lady in the car?" Hartt's expression changes.

"Yes." I answer solemnly, my emotions threaten to rise again to the surface.

"How is she? She okay?"

"No, not really Hartt. She's in pretty rough shape-- intensive care, waiting for evac. Hopefully they can do more for her in Grey Harbour. Hopefully they can get her out of here before the GFA show up."

"Yeah, the evac." Hartt says his voice trailing off as he exchanges a knowing look with another soldier standing nearby.

"Evac is a giant SNAFU." The other soldier says. "No way they are getting all these people out of here in time. Whoever decided it would be a good idea to gather all these people here in an emergency should be shot."

"She was..." I say under my breath. I don't know if it was Kate's idea, but I think she was involved. I can see the reasoning. Huge parking lot, all the mall facilities, access to both the expressway and a multilane thoroughfare. I can't think of a better location, but I suppose the question at hand now is, how defensible is this position.

"So, Hartt are you serving up coffees or what?" I ask.

"Sorry, yeah, coffees, lattes, espresso - you name it."

"No shit? You never cease to amaze."

"I worked here in high school, for a while. Got fired though. That was back before I got my shit together. So what do you want?"

"Just a black coffee."

"Have you eaten? Grab a biscotti. Most of the other food is gone."

"Where are the workers?"

"We told them to get the fuck out." The other soldier says.

Hartt smirks. "We told them to get in the evac line. Then we sort of took over. A lot of the guys are hungry and tired, so I started firing up the lattes. Then we dug into the muffins, coffee cake, sandwiches - guys started hauling stuff back to command so those guys would get some too."

"Where's command?"

"Far corner of the parking lot, near the multi-plex."

I grab a biscotti, it explodes into a multitude of dry cookie fragments when I bite into it. Hartt laughs. The coffee is piping hot, the first sip scorches my mouth so I cap it and decide to take it outside to cool.

"You going to be here for a while?" I ask Hartt.

"Until command needs me. With my shoulder messed up, can't really do much other than make coffee. Oh, hey, I almost forgot." Hartt reaches into a pack sitting on the floor next to his rifle. "You had this on you when we pulled you out of the car." He slides the Sig Sauer across the counter. "Thought you might want it back."

I snatch it up, safety check it and quickly tuck it in my waistband. "Thanks Hartt, you always seem to have my back. I hope I don't need it."

"At the rate you're going, you likely will." He says with a friendly wink and a crooked smile.

It's true though, and I feel quite relieved to be armed again. I wonder what happened to that MP5?

I walk out the doors into the biting cold and wrap both hands around the coffee. Continuing in the same direction, I follow the sidewalk until I start to shiver. Soon my teeth are chattering and only the dregs are left in the cup. I spot a waste bin up ahead, it's so ridiculous that I should even care that I dispose of the cup responsibly but I do it anyway. The waste bin, I find, sits in front of a thrift shop and it's open, I head in to warm up.