Judgment Day -03 by Arthur Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

simple enough. He would get ahead of them and set a trap of some sort. Once he had them stopped, he would figure out a way to overcome what were some pretty serious odds against him. How he would accomplish such a feat wasn’t important at the moment. Right now, all that mattered was disrupting their plans. With chaos, he thought, comes opportunity.
    Highway 17 paralleled I-95 all the way up to Savannah. The roads crossed at two points, either of which Mason could use to get back on the interstate and set his trap. The first crossing was only about ten miles ahead, not far enough to ensure that he wouldn’t encounter Nakai and his men before he was ready.
    The second was twenty miles beyond that, at the town of Richmond Hill, a place made famous in the 1930s and ’40s when Henry Ford built a huge plantation there. The community, which only measured a few miles on a side, was skirted by the Ogeechee River on one side and I-95 on the other. And while it wasn’t in their Chamber of Commerce brochure, Richmond Hill struck Mason as an ideal spot to ambush a gang of murderous mercenaries.
    When he was about halfway to Richmond Hill, Mason came across a long row of RVs and tents set up along the opposite side of the highway. His first thought was that the inhabitants were probably a group of survivors like those he had met back in Sugar Grove. Carl Tipton and his family had been moving westward in search of a viable community in which to settle down. Perhaps these people had decided to stop looking, choosing instead to set up one of their own.
    Mason slowed his truck as he approached the first RV. A gaunt man stood in the shadow of an outstretched awning, a rifle hanging from his shoulder. He watched Mason warily but didn’t ready the weapon. Not wanting to risk driving by the entire convoy without knowing their intentions, Mason pulled to the shoulder on the opposite side of the interstate.
    Careful not to seem too threatening, he climbed out of his truck slow and easy. Bowie hopped down next to him, and immediately sniffed the air. Even Mason could smell the odor of something cooking. Given his recent run in with a family of cannibals, however, he was reluctant to draw any conclusions about what might be on the grill.
    The rifleman across the street called out over his shoulder, and within a few seconds, others began peeking out from their tents. Surprisingly, no one moved out into the sunlight. Mason raised a hand and waved—a simple gesture used for centuries to indicate that one’s hand was free of weapons.
    Three men finally stepped from the lead RV, immediately opening black umbrellas over their heads. They huddled together and started across the road toward him. Fortunately, none of them appeared to be carrying a weapon.
    Bowie growled at the strange sight of three men carrying umbrellas on a sunny spring day. Mason leaned down and patted him.
    “Be good. We don’t need any more enemies. Besides, if you’re nice, they might feed you something.”
    Bowie looked up and blinked, his growl changing to a soft whine.
    Mason patiently waited for the three men to approach. He didn’t want to be out in the open, nor did he want to move too far from the rifle sitting ready in the cab of his truck. As they got closer, he could see that the men’s faces were dotted with the remnants of dried scabs. They must be survivors of the Superpox-99 virus. He stood a little straighter, letting his hand hang ready by his Supergrade.
    The group consisted of an old man and his two grown sons, both of whom strongly resembled their father. All of them squinted, trying to protect their eyes from the daylight. As they got closer, Mason saw that the men’s eyes were almost completely black, their pupils expanded to their natural limits. The edges of their eyelids were also stained, as if they had been caught in the rain after putting on a heavy coat of mascara.
    Mason nodded to them, watching their hands for any sudden movement.
    Detecting