Dislocated: Book Ten in The Mad Mick Series by Franklin Horton

Author:Franklin Horton [Horton, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

24

Seventeen people at Ricardo’s offices indicated they were not planning to join the group in West Virginia. Those seventeen received a week’s rations and left Chantilly on foot for the trek back to Washington, D.C. To a person, they all had the same sick feeling in their stomachs. While none of them felt that hiking through the apocalyptic wasteland of Northern Virginia was a good idea, each of them had some reason for choosing this over West Virginia.

Some hoped to reunite with friends, family, or other loved ones that they’d left behind to accept Walter Lightspeed’s offer of work. For others, this was the only place they’d ever lived, and they preferred the devil they knew over the devil they didn’t. They all understood that Northern Virginia might be dangerous, but apocalyptic West Virginia didn’t sound like any picnic either. They’d seen the Wrong Turn movies.

Among the seventeen was a group of five military contractors. Three of them had worked contract security at Camp David during Lightspeed’s time there. Having nowhere else to go after the missile attack on Camp David, they’d managed to catch a ride out with Ricardo’s people. The other two were security contractors that the Hatfields had brought in to help guard the offices while Ricardo and Conor worked with Lightspeed. All of these men had combat experience and hoped to pick up work with another security contracting firm. West Virginia might offer safety, but most of the lucrative security contracting work was being handled in the Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C. area, just as it always had been. There was no guarantee they could earn any money in West Virginia.

These five men were armed, trained, and able to offer some level of protection to the other twelve members of the group. The other twelve had been members of Lightspeed’s presidential administration and they felt their job had ended when Lightspeed was killed. They hoped to reunite with friends and family, and would recount the story of how they’d been snatched from the apocalypse, briefly allowed to live a life of luxury alongside the President of the United States, then dumped back into the city with nothing to show for it but an interesting story to tell.

“I find this ration situation to be a little disappointing,” Manuel, one of the presidential staffers, said, holding up the plastic shopping bag he’d been given on his way out.

“We should have been given a severance package,” a man named Bruce complained.

“Ricardo said that wasn’t his responsibility,” Manuel pointed out. “He said he didn’t hire us, and he was just giving us the rations as a gesture of goodwill.”

Bruce snorted. “Goodwill my ass!”

“Jesus!” A contractor named Smith had finally heard enough. “Don’t you guys ever get tired of listening to each other whine? You’re lucky he gave you anything. I’ve worked for several employers since the collapse and most of them offered the same termination package.”

“Which was what?” Manuel asked.

Smith held up a middle finger. “They gave you the damn finger and told you to get the hell out of their compound.

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