Free Impersonator (Forager Impersonator - A Post Apocalyptic Trilogy Book 1) by Peter R. Stone

couldn’t catch me, so I grabbed his crossbow and ran outside. You saw the rest.”
    “No, I don’t think they did,” Ryan muttered under his breath. He stole a glance at me, distrust, or was it disbelief, framing his handsome features. I was so glad the other three didn’t see my little ‘dodge-the-bolts’ sideshow. That would have taken some explaining. Thankfully, Ryan was keeping quiet about it. Maybe he figured no one would believe him even if he did share it. Maybe he was having trouble believing it himself.
    “We’re gonna have to start calling you Ethan Jones the Second,” Jack said. At least he was impressed by my exploits. I could see why Brandon liked him so much – he was cool. Why he liked Con and Matt, I couldn’t fathom.
    “You hurt, Brandon? You were limping when you came out of the house,” Matt asked.
    “Nah, it’s nothing.”
    “All the same, get that leg examined when we get back to base,” Con said.
    “Seriously, I’m fine.”
    Con clearly didn’t believe me, but he let it drop. Maybe it was a guy thing to hide the extent of your injuries. Brandon sure did. He came home from school once with his knee half scraped off, didn’t go to sickbay or anything, just put up with it like a little Aussie battler.
    “So what do we do now – go home?” Jack asked.
    “And why would we do that?” Con snapped.
    “Uh, Skel?”
    “The Skel are back where we left ’em. We’ll hit another suburb and get back to work. We have a quota to meet.”
    “Party pooper,” Jack muttered.
    “Excuse me?”
    Jack acted all innocent like. “I didn’t say anything.”
    “I heard somethin.’”
    “Just clearing me throat.”
    “Well, keep it to yourself next time.”
    Con drove west for another twenty minutes, putting as much distance between the Skel and us as he could without crossing into the foraging area of the western suburbs’ teams. He eventually settled for a picturesque street with median strip and opposing nature strips overgrown by native gumtrees.
    I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to stop myself crying out when I climbed out of the truck, such was the pain in my leg. I massaged it gently, trying to restore some flexibility.
    We couldn’t cut down any more downpipes, thanks to leaving our tools behind, so Con sent us searching houses and backyards for hard plastic chairs, tables and stools.
    “You two do that side of the road, we’ll do this one,” Con said as we climbed from the truck. He handed us a couple of machetes from the toolbox. “Think you’ll need these for this street.”
    Searching every darkened window and shadow with echolocation for hidden Skel, I followed Ryan down the first driveway. He bashed down a rickety wooden gate and we entered a backyard buried in waist-high wild grass and even taller blackberry bushes. We used the machetes to hack a path through the vegetation to get to the back of the house. There we spotted a pile of plastic garden chairs stacked haphazardly on the patio beside a matching table with two broken legs.
    I kept glancing at him, hoping he’d talk to me, hoping he’d saying anything, but he remained as mute as a fish. I tried to respect his unspoken request to refrain from talking, but the silence ate away at me until I couldn’t take it any longer.
    “You okay?” I finally asked. I was trying to separate a pile of plastic chairs so I could carry them in several loads. I didn’t get very far, though. I tried to push and pull the chairs apart, but it felt like someone was plunging knives through my torso.
    “I...” Ryan snapped off a table leg but didn’t look at me.
    “Yes?”
    “I didn’t want this stupid job. Scavenging for junk, close encounters with Skel, jerks like your teammates.” He flung the table away from him. It hit the other stack of chairs, snapping off legs and sending up a cloud of dust. I could feel the anger radiating from him.
    I took a step back. “Then why–”
    “It’s the only job I could get!” He