Free Dark New World (Book 2): EMP Exodus by J.J. Holden, Henry Gene Foster Page A

get his wife to the nearest hospital, in Elverson some eight miles away, even though it would have meant risking moving fast through a forest at night. That would have been a recipe for more injuries…
    “Father God, thank You for sparing my wife, and for bringing Cassy into the clan when You did. And we thank You for all Your blessings, especially those we don’t know about. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
    Mary raised her hand and lightly stroked the growing stubble on her husband’s face. “I was scared to leave you and Hunter,” she said. Then her eyes got that slightly squinty look she got whenever she was feeling mischievous, and Frank grinned even before she continued, “I mean, he’d starve without someone to make sure he eats, and I haven’t forgotten the week you made nothing but chili when I was visiting Mom!”
    Frank forced a laugh for his wife’s sake, but inside he was churning. This had been such a close call, and if not for Cassy’s knowledge he might have made the bite wound worse, and spent hours trudging to the nearest hospital even knowing that it was likely looted or even occupied. It could have been a calamity.
    If his clan was to survive, they would have to knuckle down and make sure everyone got at least a bit of training in all their people’s combined skills. It was a damn wake up call, that’s what this was. The time of overly-specialized people who knew nothing about surviving without CNN and microwaves… That time was over. Possibly forever. Frank wondered whether that would ultimately be a bad thing.

    * * *

    Peter Ixin sat with the woman spy in his scope, dead center, but his inner struggle kept him from squeezing the trigger. As much as he wanted—no, needed—to see the bitch die, he had a responsibility to his own people. He had to keep following her and her dipshit people to find whatever it was they were moving so purposefully toward. Then, and only then, he would return to the Farms, or whatever was left of them after the invaders had attacked it, and lead his people to safety. They would wash over this bitch and her companions like a rising flood, wash out the filth, and leave the spy’s refuge as a new Eden for his own people. It just had to work . It was like God himself was guiding him, and he had no doubts about how this would play out. The spy would die, and he, Peter Ixin, would be a savior and the new leader of his people. They would start again, but with Peter in charge. None of the damn leftover stupidity of the ways of the “modern world.” It would be bliss. But first, he had to follow her and get back to his own people…
    Peter sat back down comfortably in the small wooden shelter he’d built with fallen tree limbs, boughs, and mud. He set his rifle down and then hung up his wool blanket using makeshift clamps to fix them to a thin cross-branch.
    The clamps were nothing more than six-inch bits of thick twigs, cut halfway through the middle, and split along the length from center cut to about a quarter of the distance to each end. Bending the green twigs caused the cuts to separate, but when the tension was released the cuts closed back up again to firmly grip the edge of his blanket.
    He had a small Dakota fire hole going for warmth but ate his meager food cold. The smell of food cooking would travel far and could give away his presence if the wind shifted. The fire itself, however, was almost undetectable beyond a few dozen yards at most. It burned mostly underground, and only faint wisps of smoke escaped so long as he didn’t put on too much wood at once. Just keeping the coals going would give him all the warmth he needed for the night.
    Peter rose up again and peered through his scope at the spy’s camp. There was some sort of commotion going on with the plump wife of the group’s apparent leader. A minute later he saw a muscular man, who just had to be a soldier of some kind, walking into camp holding a vine. No… Not a vine. A snake, about two feet