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This is Maggie, and you already know who Chloe is,” she said with a smile.
    Jess nodded her head and smiled. “What made you come here?”
    â€œIt just got too hard to stay at home. There was no food, no water and raiders were coming through. It was really horrible. What made you come?” Maggie said.
    â€œFor me it was simple: Gainesville was not the place to be.” Mary paused and looked at her plate. “You can’t imagine,” she added in a quiet voice.
    â€œYou poor thing, I’m so sorry. People can be horrible. No one wants to help anyone; they’re just out for themselves,” Donna said, shaking her head.
    Mary looked up. “They weren’t just out for themselves, they were out to take advantage of the situation. Someone not helping me was the least of my worries. You couldn’t trust anyone. It’s like everyone turned into a predator.”
    Jess sat there for a moment trying to decide just how far to take this. “I met some good people; they helped me get home. I guess some people were prepared for this kind of thing.”
    â€œYeah, we know some that were prepared,” Donna said, looking at Maggie with an eye roll.
    â€œYeah, they were prepared but wouldn’t help anybody. They were just selfish,” Maggie said.
    â€œThat’s a shame. Did they stick it out at home, then?” Jess asked. She was hungry for information.
    Before the conversation could go any further, one of the camp staff stepped into the tent. “Breakfast is over. Assemble in your work groups. Your team leader has your assignments for the day.”
    They got up and moved along. Jess had a crazy feeling in her gut—she just knew it was Morgan and the guys that Donna and Maggie were talking about so dismissively. As they went through the line turning in their trays, Jess whispered in Mary’s ear, “I want to find out if they know where Morgan is. If he and Thad are nearby, we can go there.”
    Mary cocked her head to the side. “
If
we can get out of here.”
    â€œOh, I’ll find a way,” Jess said, with a devious look on her face.

Chapter 6
    T he next morning I was up early. Mel got up with me and prepared a breakfast of egg-and-sausage burritos. I was sitting at the table eating, sipping on some coffee when I thought about the tortilla press that had made this breakfast possible. We’d bought it at a thrift store. It was a novelty at the time, but those five dollars were really paying off now. It’s funny how we’d come to appreciate these little luxuries. Finishing my burritos, I filled my coffee once more and went to wake the girls. They were going to help today as well.
    While they had their breakfast I went out and started the old Suburban, giving it some time to warm up. I was going to take it to Danny’s house and connect his trailer. He had a lot of material we were going to take; the logistics of this were more than I could keep track of. Thankfully Danny has a head for this kind of thing. By the time I went back in the girls were done eating and were getting some coffee. I told them to hurry up—today was going to be a busy day.
    Danny already had the gate open and the trailer ready by the time we pulled up. He was on his knees fussing about the location of the light plug on the truck, griping that the pigtail from the trailer wouldn’t be long enough.
    I laughed at him. “Don’t worry, dude, I don’t think the troopers are gonna be out in force.”
    He smiled. “Guess you’re right.”
    This first trip was going to be basic material: pipe, lumber, hardware, plastic sheeting and tools. We would be moving some food supplies as well because two guys were going to be staying there after today—we couldn’t leave everything unguarded. Ted came by to help, but even with him and the girls helping, it took a couple of hours to load everything that was selected for this