At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3 by K. M. Fawkes

Author:K. M. Fawkes [Fawkes, K. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Garrett had already dropped everything he’d found off at the truck and told Bart to sit and wait. Now he was in the neighborhood on the other side of the strip mall, looking at the houses. He didn’t want to be here anymore. Didn’t trust what he might find in those houses. But he’d agreed to scout the town and take everything he could back to his own community, and they’d long ago agreed among them that “scouting” meant going into every possible situation and seeing what they might find. Their continued survival depended on it.

Now, if the market had been raided, he was guessing the houses had been as well. Either that or they still had people living inside of them. Either way, he doubted he’d find anything of value—and thought there was a chance that he’d open up a door to find a rifle pointed right at him.

But he had to know for sure. Half a cart full of groceries and a full cart of water and soda, plus some tools and gas cans—and the fuel Bart had managed to find—was an okay haul. But it wasn’t what they’d been expecting, and it certainly wasn’t what they needed. As long as there was a chance that he could find more, he had to take it.

Especially if it meant they didn’t have to come back to this town. This town that felt so wrong. Crossing Las Ramblas off the list completely could mean that they went somewhere else next time.

“And in this game, efficiency is everything,” he muttered as he started walking and turned up the driveway to the first house on the right. It wasn’t anything fancy—just one of those housing tract homes where the developers had practiced their own sort of efficiency by using the same design again and again, and buying supplies in massive orders that got them some sort of discount.

Pretty typical for this area. Nothing special. And it looked deserted, which was a plus.

He climbed the three steps to the hacienda-style patio and put his hand to the doorknob, then paused and listened carefully for any sound on the other side of the door. After a minute, curiosity satisfied, he twisted the knob and pushed the door in about three inches—just enough to glance through the opening and look around the foyer.

Nothing. A side table that ran about four feet long on one of the walls, adobe-colored tile on the floor, off-white walls. Artwork that might have passed as acceptable in the mid-1980s, but now looked like the height of gaudiness. And on the other side of it… nothing but stark, heavy stillness.

Now came the tricky part. He’d always disagreed with Alice on this part, because he firmly believed that the best thing to do—the smart thing to do—was to call out into any home, to either warn the people inside that they were coming or shock them into making a move. Either way, it increased your chances of knowing what you were getting into.

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