Fourth Quadrant: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book Two by W. Michael Gear

Author:W. Michael Gear [Gear, W. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781639772957
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2022-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Hey, you’re sitting up,” Lauren said as she walked into Mike Vinich’s hospital room. She shrugged off her riding coat and propped her helmet on a chair.

Didn’t matter that it was late afternoon. Her head still felt like someone had driven ten-penny spikes into her brain. Lauren had spent too much of her night with her head hanging in the toilet, her stomach trying to pump itself out past her teeth like a prolapsed cow.

Knowing the consequences, she’d drunk as much water as she could hold after each bout of the heaves. And, thankfully, breakfast had stayed put.

Propped on a mound of pillows with a hunting magazine in his hands, Mike’s eyes lit up when he saw her. The weird nose-covering cannula was supplying oxygen, but the hanging bag with the feeding tube was gone. All the stainless steel sparkled as though freshly polished, and she smelled the distinctive odor of cleaning fluid.

“Yeah. Sitting up. Not sure I like it, either. My chest feels like someone yanked it in two and ripped out one of my lungs.”

“That about sums it up.” Lauren took the chair at his bedside and smiled at him. “You look better, though. Are they letting you have solid food?”

Mike laid the magazine on the bedside table, and she could see the majestic six-point elk on the front cover. “Mashed carrots and vanilla pudding. Tasted like baby food.”

“Better than the fare provided by a feeding tube.”

His mouth puckered. “You think?”

Lauren laughed and propped her elbows on the bed to look at him more closely. The fluorescent lights shone on the pink-and-healing scar on his right cheek, where he’d slammed into the truck rack as he fell. “Well, I hope you enjoyed the vanilla. All traffic on the highways has stopped. Truckers aren’t delivering supplies. So think of it as the last vanilla you ever get.”

Mike smoothed one hand over the white sheet at his side, while he considered that. “I heard they’re jerking truckers out of their cabs and murdering ’em for their loads. I wouldn’t risk it either.”

Lauren’s smile faded. “Agar’s on it. Trucks now get Militia escort. Unlike Guard, they don’t worry too much about shooting people. Truck jackings have become a high-risk venture or a quick way to suicide.”

His brows drew together. “But armed escorts, that’s just local, right?”

“And sanctioned. Gotta have state pass to prove what you’re hauling is one of the authorized loads. Stuff critical to keep the state operating. Otherwise, you don’t make it past the highway check points. And there’s no fuel at any price these days. People took every bottle and tin can they had down to their local service station, filled them, and buried them in their back yards.”

“Any way that will ever change?”

“Yeah. The refinery is now running full bore. As long as they can get crude. Word is that they’ll be starting deliveries to service stations by the end of the week as the kinks are worked out of the supply line from the oil fields.

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