Fireside by Brian Parker Read Free Book Online

flag bandana on their arm. They’d gladly taken the weapons and bicycles from the dead, easing their journey to San Angelo.
    Had the survivors who’d fought way out east of San Angelo somehow made it all the way to Sterling City? It was entirely possible that they’d bypassed San Angelo because of the large pseudo-military force that the town boasted and made their way here? If that were the case, what had happened to the original townspeople? They were questions that wouldn’t be answered by staring at the corpse of a dead man, so Aeric had his team follow the rope towards the ambush site, watching carefully for any more sentries.
    They made their way past several buildings until they came to a large, open parking lot where he called a halt. The stone building sat right in front of them and on the other side was the alley. Realistically, he knew that the people wouldn’t still be there, it had been almost an hour since the ambush so they’d probably returned to their homes.
    Everyone looked to him for guidance, what did he want to do now that they’d made it back into the town? He wished that he had a way to communicate with Tyler on the other side of the road. He thought about it for a moment. They had no way of knowing where the alley led on the back side. The anger that had fueled him immediately after discovering that Russ was dead had subsided now that he’d walked back into town. He thought about why they’d came back and what it would mean if they didn’t clean out this nest of villains.
    The idea that they’d have to face them again spurred Aeric into action. “Alright, let’s go around to the back side of that building,” he whispered. “We’ll go two at a time for safety and when we get to the back, we’ll see what’s over there. Try not to use your guns if you run into anyone—unless you have to. Questions?”
    There were none, so he sent the first two across the gravel parking lot. He cringed as the sound of their boots crunching on the rock echoed across the small space. Everyone scanned the area for activity in response to their noise. Nothing else happened until one of the men he’d sent across started gesturing wildly for him to come over to where he was.
    He jogged across by himself, feeling foolish for crouching at a run. It was something that he’d seen in countless movies. Guys always crouched when they ran in the movies, it makes sense, right? he asked himself. When he arrived, he saw that it was Charles who’d waved him over.
    “What’d you see?”
    Charles held his fingers to his lips and replied, “Listen.”
    Aeric did as he was asked, straining to hear what Charles wanted him to hear. Then he heard it. The faint sound of music came from inside the building. It sounded like a couple of guitars and a set of drums. They were having a goddamned concert after murdering one of his people.
    He peeked around the side of the building into the alley. It was empty. All of the rats must have gone back to their nest. His eyes fell on several vacant cars and he had an idea. “Block the back door with as much shit as you can,” he told the Shooter that had been with Charles. “Quietly.”
    He waived a few men over from the remaining group and gave them a mission to go find Tyler’s team and pass a message to them. Then he and Charles jogged back to where the old cars sat and saw that they’d conveniently already left all the supplies that he’d need sitting in the front seat of one of the vehicles.
    *****
    The residents of the town had been siphoning fuel from the vehicles around town, probably to start their fires each night, so he’d filled several jugs with the remaining gasoline and rifled through the trash to find five glass bottles. He kept one of the jugs for himself and sent a man up on the roof of the low building to pour the remaining ones across the rooftop.
    The sounds continued to drift from inside the building. They were rocking to some old school punk rock. Whoever was