Isolation , Jones, Nathan [top 20 books to read TXT] 📗

who opted to call in, confirming that the town's representatives all intended to participate by radio. Which complicated things for everyone else, but was something they'd gotten used to by this point.

Stanberry's residents had been quick to close off their borders when the pandemic began, and in many cases even refused to leave their homes if they could avoid it. Their leaders were similarly reluctant to leave the safety of their closed off community, even to visit the quarantine camp just to the southeast.

That reluctance had, understandably, become full blown paranoia when Jay and his vengeful Wensbrook mob began terrorizing Stanberry. Especially after Nick and the other Zolos survivors began patrolling around the town to protect it, at which point anyone who left the safety of its borders risked contamination by the virus.

Even so, it felt weird to be talking over the radio to the people in Stanberry who'd lived nearby and fled to the town for safety. It meant Chet and Ben had to impersonally give their friends and neighbors the news that the houses they'd fled had potentially been ransacked and vandalized, just like the McCleeses' had been.

Nick could hear the pain in the voices of those poor people as they pressed for answers about the state of their homes, but unfortunately his patrols and the others watching the other approaches to town hadn't had a chance to visit many of the other outlying houses, so they just couldn't say whether any of them had suffered the same fate.

Denny had to patiently explain that into the radio, for the fourth or fifth time as he tried to be heard over the frantic babble of townspeople and the leaders trying to shout them down and restore order.

Having the town's leaders chime in over the radio would've been difficult at the best of times, but with the news about Jay ransacking homes it seemed like every single person in Stanberry who had a radio were all trying to talk over each other. It was the most chaotic Nick had ever seen it.

Finally Darrel spent a good full minute cursing a blue streak until everyone finally shut up.

“Can you check all the other houses in the area?” Darby asked once his cousin was done. “Make sure they're okay?”

There was a wary pause as Denny exchanged glances with Nick and the other volunteers standing along the patrol route. Thankfully Starr, in the main camp, fielded the question. “You really should be talking about this with us in person,” he growled. “The hills have ears.”

He was referring to the recent unpleasant revelation that Jay and his goons were listening on the radios, overhearing everything said over them. They'd been forced to take precautions since then to make sure they didn't reveal anything sensitive, but in the heat of the moment Darby must've forgotten.

“Oh,” the Mayor said, too dignified to be sheepish but definitely sounding a bit abashed. He had to know that if Jay had even the slightest inkling the survivor patrols might be going somewhere, it would be easy to set up an ambush for them.

And considering that Nick and a few others on patrol had recently shot and killed one of Jay's men, and nearly captured the bald psycho himself, there was little doubt that the Wensbrook leader would jump at the chance for some payback.

Which meant that by asking them to check the abandoned houses so Jay could hear, Darby had basically guaranteed that they could no longer safely do so. In fact, by publicly talking about what the Wensbrook survivors had done to Chet and Ben's house, and the shock and rage it had fomented, they might actually guarantee that Jay's thugs would trash more of them.

“Radios off,” Nick said to the people around him, stepping back farther from Ellie's camp.

Denny frowned about him giving orders to the group, but nodded his assent and was one of the first to turn off his radio. “What's this about?” he asked once the others had done the same.

“We might've just tipped Jay off to the fact that he's really getting to us by hitting the outlying houses,” Nick replied. “If he didn't already know. And if he thinks we're going to be checking them out he might try to ambush us.”

“Yeah thanks, I already got all that,” the volunteer leader said, biting back a sigh.

Nick shook his head grimly. “Well, just because we didn't mean to let that all slip over the radio, it doesn't mean we can't use it to our advantage now.”

Denny canted his head slightly, interested. “What've you got in mind?”

Nick glanced at Chet and Ben, who were looking back eagerly; they obviously wanted payback, and while he didn't want things to turn any uglier than they had been, that didn't mean they could just sit around while Jay did whatever he wanted until he was finally satisfied with his vengeance.

Assuming the man ever could be satisfied, no matter how much destruction he wreaked.

“Well if the enemy knows where you are, that can also tell you where the enemy might go,” he replied. “We don't want to try to go to those houses or we'll probably get ambushed, but we also know Jay's probably going to go to them. This could be another chance to try to capture him, if we can find a good choke point on the way to one of the houses that's a likely target for them and do some ambushing of our own.”

“The drive to the Drewsburys' place, not far from our place,” Ben suggested.

Denny frowned. “Remember, I'm not from around here. What's the setup look like?”

“It runs down a gulch between two hills, with a stream and woods on one side and the Drewsburys' orchard on the other,” the young man replied. “If the house hasn't been hit yet, we can set up on both hills by following the road leading to our place and the Drewsburys' orchard road, then wait for Jay to show up.”

Denny nodded thoughtfully. “That might work. If