The dining room connected to a living room with hideously orange furniture and a carpet that looked like it was composed of lava flow—reds and oranges smashed together. There were lots of bookcases filled with glass and porcelain knickknacks but no books.
What kind of people had no books? Red judged the occupants and found them wanting.
She reckoned she wasted ten or fifteen minutes fooling around with the window and checking the kitchen cabinets. The living room had a large picture window that looked out onto the road. The angle was perfect—she could see quite a distance back the way she’d come, and if she switched corners it was easy to see another half mile or so in the other direction. After that the road rose into another rolling hill and whatever was beyond it was hidden.
The picture window had blinds and a sheer curtain and heavier curtains over those—orange, of course. While Red didn’t understand why anybody would want to spend so much time contemplating the stuff that covered the windows, she appreciated that it gave her plenty of camouflage. There was even a handy chair to sit in just at the angle she needed to watch the road.
She thought the walking patrol should come along any minute, unless they’d passed by while she was in the kitchen. That would be unfortunate, because her plan was to let them get about fifteen minutes ahead of her and then continue on.
After that she thought she would find another good place to watch the road and hopefully follow them to their base. Sparrow Hill Road was not a good place for following because of all the exposed land.
She dug in the bag that D.J. had given her and found a small container packed with cold rice and egg, and another container with a peanut butter sandwich.
Red ate the cold rice and egg and watched the road. She wished she had a watch, but before the Crisis she’d only had one of those fancy smartwatches and those were useless bricks without electricity to charge them and cell grids to provide necessary information like time.
But the satellites were still out there, circling around sending back data, right? Red thought. She wondered if there were people who knew more about electronics than she did, out there still sending and receiving information. There were probably radio and Morse code people communicating all over the world.
It was only Red and those like her (which was, to be fair, probably most people) who were helpless without their smartphones and Internet connections. Hell, it was only because of her father’s insistence that she learn that Red could read a map. She knew that most adults around her age only knew how to follow Siri’s turn-by-turn directions.
She finished the rice and tried not to twitch the curtains. Where were they? D.J. had said the patrol came through every two hours, like clockwork. Red was certain it had been more than two hours since she got on the road, and even accounting for their different starting points she should have seen them by now.
Something Has Happened, she thought, and the back of her neck started itching again.
“But that something doesn’t have to mean that D.J. or the kids are in danger,” she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silent room.
It could mean that Regan’s group had met up with the Kidnapping Militia and they were fighting it out, just like in the town where Adam had died. Or it could mean that the other militia, the crazy Locust Militia that took all the available resources, had encountered the Kidnapping Militia and they were fighting it out. Or the Kidnapping Militia had decided that it was pointless to stay in the area and had moved on to another one.
There were loads of possibilities. Those possibilities didn’t have to include Red’s friends in jeopardy.
And you are not a comic-book hero with some kind of special sense for danger. You are just an overly imaginative woman in a potentially life-threatening situation and the tension is getting to you.
“Yes,” Red said, agreeing with her internal monologue. “You’re just getting yourself Into a State for no damned reason.”
She saw movement from the