Scattered: A Post Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (The Long Dark Book 2) by Kevin Partner

Author:Kevin Partner [Partner, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribbleit
Published: 2024-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Ramos and Tucker shadowed the foraging party as it headed into a residential area. They kept their weapons in their hands and followed as far behind the group as they could without the risk of losing them. Dusk was falling as they passed a big blue self-storage building and climbed a hill lined with single story houses.

The party was walking along the low picket fences without looking to the left or right—they knew exactly where they were going. As Paulie reached the first house, she glanced across to see that the door was open and two black bags lay outside, with cable ties sealing the top.

Marvin touched her arm and crouched down as their quarry stopped a few houses up. Each took a white boiler suit from their pack and climbed into it. Two of the suited figures went into the house and the rest dispersed, two by two, into the neighboring properties.

Paulie gestured right and Marvin followed her around the back of the first bungalow, the one that had been cleared on a previous expedition. They flitted into the garden, keeping low, until they were around the back of the house.

"Oh, my G—" Paulie moaned, before slapping her hand over her mouth.

The remains of a bonfire lay on the lawn. Blackened garden furniture and firewood piled around an upright post. And tied to the post were the charred remnants of what had once been a human being. The legs had been totally consumed, but the torso remained, and, at the top, the head was untouched by flames.

"Didn't happen long ago," Marvin whispered. "Couple of nights, I reckon."

The victim's face was twisted into a grimace of unimaginable agony, eyes staring at the heavens as if begging for deliverance. A young man, his shoulder length hair fell over the collar of a white boiler suit.

"Animals," Marvin said.

"Come on," Paulie responded, dragging her eyes from the hideous scene. "Let's get behind one of the houses without a guard." It was simple math—there were a dozen boiler suited house cleaners and two armed men watching them. That was the reason, presumably, for such brutal treatment of transgressions.

The guards were standing on either side of the road, each outside one house. She and Marvin slid until they had two properties between them and the guards. They wouldn't have long, but she needed answers. She had to understand what was going on here—she couldn't return to Arbroath without knowing the true nature of the threat to the north.

They found a side door. Paulie could hear heavy footsteps inside. The workers were dragging something across the floor. Her nose burned with the stench emerging through the gaps in the door frame. "I think they're disposing of a body," she said, gasping, "so we're going to have to wait for them."

Marvin's face dropped. "In there?" he hissed.

Paulie nodded and turned the door handle. It was locked, but Marvin levered open the small window above it, letting out a cloud of the disgusting gas, before reaching around and unlocking the door from the other side.

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