Forging Hope: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller by Ryan Westfield

Author:Ryan Westfield [Westfield, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

14

MAX

Max had imagined a somewhat more dramatic scene with himself standing in front of a line of shadowy powerful figures. He’d vaguely imagined something like in one of those old black-and-white movies about lawyers in which one had to argue their case with great conviction for a lengthy period of time.

In reality, the victory was easy.

Almost too easy.

From what he could tell, they had made up their minds before even speaking to him, before even hearing him out. It made sense, in many ways. After all, his reputation had preceded him. They knew very well who he was and where he had come from. It wouldn’t have been that hard to guess what it was that he wanted.

Max also suspected that Jim had perhaps summarized what it was that he wanted.

In reality, the day ended up being a long, boring day of just waiting. Almost nothing happened.

He waited in a hallway outside the mess hall. Of course, there were soldiers, guards, MPs, or whatever you wanted to call them, who accompanied him. In fact, they never left his side, even when he had to take a trip to the latrine. They stood slightly behind him when he faced the big metal trough that must have been taken from some abandoned sports stadium.

At first, Max had tried to converse with them. Early on, it was in an attempt to see if he could glean some information from them. Perhaps they might say something useful. Perhaps they might slip up.

But they didn’t respond at all, at least not verbally. One of them nodded his head occasionally as Max spoke, his eyes glued to what seemed like a spot slightly above Max’s forehead. But soon Max realized that the nods in no way corresponded with what Max was actually asking. The man was just sort of vaguely nodding along, as if he were tapping his foot to a song. And the other two guards? They remained completely silent and stared mostly straight ahead at the opposite wall.

Max’s stomach was audibly rumbling from hunger. He could deal with it, but at some point, the smells of the nearby mess hall started drifting down.

Some orderly from somewhere—badly dressed and with greasy hair—came and invited Max to eat.

The soldiers led him there and sat with him without actually eating anything themselves.

The food was some sort of gruel, with most of it being undefinable. If someone had put a gun to his head and forced him to guess, Max would have offered up “oatmeal as a base,” as a possible suggestion, but in reality, the substance was so non-oatmeal-like that he never normally would have guessed that.

Once in a while, he’d encounter some bit of something or other, some morsel, that seemed to resemble a piece of meat, or perhaps a piece of fruit, but the rest was just mush. Whatever they’d had on hand, whatever was about to spoil and rot, they’d cooked down into whatever it was that he was eating. He found more than a few small bones.

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