Running Away - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

hiding behind his back.
    “Roll down your window… slowly,” Patchy said looking into the window carefully as he sized us up. He shifted his eye back towards Penn, “No funny business now, you hear?”
    “Right. No funny business,” Penn said, but I knew that was only true if his group of pirates didn’t do anything to piss Penn off. Although, we were drastically out-numbered. Penn also wouldn’t do anything stupid.
    He leaned down and looked inside the window, the same way a cop might. Patchy was extremely apprehensive. I wondered how many times he had done this same exact thing to other travelers. How many times had a traveler pulled a gun on him? Maybe that was how he had lost an eye. Or a knife to the eye? I didn’t want to know.
    “If you do as I say, this will go smoothly,” Patchy said with his eye staring wide at Penn, and then he shifted it in my direction. I watched, waiting for him to blink, but he didn’t.
    “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that,” I mumbled.
    “What’s that little lady?” Patchy asked even though I was pretty sure he had heard me.
    “Nothing, sir,” I said in a way that one might respond to a police officer in the old days. I just wanted him to know I had him figured out. But if he got the message from my tone, he ignored it.
    “Alright then, what you got in the back there?” he said speaking a bit slower. I noticed when he dragged out his words he had a bit of a Southern accent.
    Penn turned his head and I could tell he didn’t like where this was going. “ Our stuff is back there.”
    “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to confiscate that stuff,” Patchy said with a smirk.
    “Of course you are,” Penn said, as he looked over towards the surrounding men and women carefully. He was probably trying to figure out if there was any way for us to get out of here with our stuff… and our lives.
    Patchy nodded to his men and four of them gathered at the back of our car. I pressed my hands against my face and slid them back into my hair. It was almost as if I was trying to wipe away my disbelief. We had been good on supplies, maybe we would have even had enough to make it all the way to Michigan, but now we would soon have nothing.
    “Open the hatch,” Patchy said knocking on the side of the car.
    “Come… on!” Dean shouted hitting the back of Penn’s seat with his palms. Patchy instantly reacted and raised his gun up cop-style. He pointed it at Dean as if he thought he was going to do something foolish.
    Dean’s hands flew up to show Patchy he was unarmed. Everyone in the area became very still as they watched Patchy. It was as if we were all posing for some kind of old-time hold-up photo.
    Everyone was on edge. Some of the pirate-looking guys stared as they waited to see what Patchy was going to do. I wondered, in these situations, how often Patchy shot first and asked questions later. He probably didn’t even bother to ask questions at all.
    I briefly considered pulling my gun in case he was going to do something to Dean. They wouldn’t at all be prepared for me to pull out a gun and start firing at Patchy. But, thankfully Patchy lowered his gun, so I didn’t have to worry about turning into Calamity Jane.
    “Open it,” he said refusing to take his eye off of Dean.
    Penn reached down to the keys hanging from the ignition and clicked the button that would pop the hatch open. He pressed his fingertips into his forehead and let out a big sigh.
    “Yeah, sorry man. Times are bad for all of us you know,” Patchy said, as if he felt guilty about taking our things. But if he did, that didn’t stop him and his men from emptying the back of our car.
    The guys walked past the car carrying all of our things. Not a single one of them looked at us. Patchy leaned over and looked into the car as he gestured at one of his people. A slender man carrying a hose and a gas can walked towards the car.
    “Just one more thing… then you can be on your way,” Patchy