Free Bugging Out by Noah Mann Page A

driveway brought me to the crest of the rise, the trees thinned naturally in one spot so I could stand and look across the valley to the peaks soon to be lost in shadow. For now they were still bathed in that warm glow from the fading day. A glow that usually set them alight with bursts of color, pines vibrant green, aspens glittering in what fall color they still retained this late in the season.
    But I did not see that. What lay upon the mountains was a muted mask akin to cold granite, as if an avalanche of grey had swept down from the jagged tops more than halfway to the flats below. Wisps of color still remained low on the slopes, but above them to the crest of the peaks was little more than a colorless canvas, nature robbed of its beauty.
    From my coat pocket I took the small pair of binoculars I always carried and brought them to my eyes, dialing in the distance as best I could with the compact optics. The view I found was more startling that what the naked eye had presented me.
    It was death. Every tree and every bush in the dead zone was drained of their natural hues. They stood and squatted now as grey sentinels marching down the mountain toward the valley. Moving west. Coming my way.
    I lowered the binoculars and stared at what was soon to be upon me. Yet it didn’t make sense. A week before there’d been no sign of the blight across the valley. Now it had swept over and down the mountains, covering tens of miles in just days. How that was possible I didn’t know, but possible it was. No, certain it was, because there was no denying what my own eyes were witness to.
    “What the hell is this?” I asked the emptiness, but soon realized the land before me wasn’t quite as empty as I’d thought. The rumbling engine beyond the trees below told me that.
    I stowed my binoculars and moved quickly down the hill, driveway ahead, road to the right, though I could see neither through the still-green woods surrounding my refuge. My ears told me that the vehicle, the engine powering it having seen better days, was chugging along the road a few hundred yards to my east, heading north.
    Until it slowed and turned. Moving slowly east. Up my driveway.
    The AR swung easily from my shoulder as I brought it to bear, slowing my pace. I flipped the selector to fire and kept my finger against the side of the receiver, just above the trigger. Ahead, maybe fifty yards now, I could just make out the unnatural line cut through the forest—my driveway. And I could hear the vehicle chug to a stop, right about where my chain was. A door on the vehicle groaned open and then closed with a heavy thud.
    Who the hell is out there? I asked myself. They’d taken the turn from the road to my driveway like they’d expected it. Like it was a known, not just some chance track off the way they were traveling. A half-dozen other driveways split off the road heading north to Whitefish, but the vehicle that now idled loudly some thirty yards from me had turned onto mine . With some purpose, it seemed.
    Ten yards now, and I could make out the rough shape of small RV, not sleek and new, but boxy and well-traveled. A figure moved forward of it. Up my driveway. A man. He stepped over the chain that blocked his vehicle’s path and continued.
    Five yards now. I shifted left and skirted the edge of the driveway, keeping some cover of the woods between us. A sweatshirt covered his upper half, hood pulled over his head, hands jammed deep into the garment’s from pockets. Just to keep warm, maybe.
    Or gripping something within.
    I raised the AR and stepped from the woods, taking a position in the middle of the driveway, lining the tactical sight on the hooded stranger, its illuminated reticle superimposing a glowing orange triangle on the man’s back. At this distance I would not miss. That reality didn’t make the possibility of having to do so any more palatable.
    My finger eased onto the trigger, heart racing.
    “Don’t move,” I said, and the stranger