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himself. San Angelo was holding on for now, but the fact that they were traveling more than seventy-five miles to raid a facility that might have food was indicative of the long term problem that the city faced. It was a simple fact that he returned to often. There were too many people living there.
    It was a problem that didn’t have an easy fix or workaround. Every one of the residents of the city deserved the opportunity to live. How would anyone ever make that sort of choice, anyways? They prided themselves on the fact that they were humane in their treatment of everyone, once they were inside the walls. He was glad that he wasn’t the mayor; he wouldn’t be the one forced to make the call when they were eventually forced to cull the population.
    *****
    The time—and miles—passed quickly. When they made it to the mile marker indicating that they were five miles from Sterling City, Aeric had his forces go to one hundred percent watch. His Gatherers and the Shooters all readied their weapons, pointing them out from the interior of the truck towards the wastes.
    They entered the town minutes later. The road went right down the main drag of Sterling City, which, thankfully, wasn’t that large. The road was wide and open, the few buildings set far enough off the street to allow them a clear view of the surrounding area. It looked abandoned. No roadblocks could be seen in front of them along the route and there didn’t appear to be any junked cars sitting dead where they’d been when the EMP struck. Everyone relaxed slightly and breathed a collective sigh of relief. They’d been worried about the townspeople trying to stop the trucks, which didn’t seem to be the case.
    Then they took their first casualty.
    They passed a red brick building with a sign on the side proclaiming that the squat, two story structure had been a hotel when the world exploded in gunfire. People had been waiting in the alley between the hotel and a rock-faced building. The rounds peppered the trucks, hitting several of the men and women in the back.
    “Go! Go! Go!” Aeric screamed at the driver, who pressed the pedal all the way to the floor.
    He looked in the side view mirror to make sure that Tyler, who was in the second truck, followed their lead as they sped through the engagement area. The noise of rifles and pistols firing in rapid succession made it impossible to determine if the San Angelians were returning fire or if they’d hunkered down to take whatever the ambush threw at them.
    They were out of the kill zone in seconds. From his vantage point in the mirror, Aeric saw the barrels of several weapons appear around the corner of the stone building to fire blindly in their direction. That told him that the people in the alley were unwilling to follow them out into the street. He saw a few muzzle flashes from the back of Tyler’s truck, so he knew his men were shooting back at the assholes who’d tried to ambush them.
    They cleared the town with no further incidents. Aeric called a halt several miles outside of town to see if everyone was okay. Two of the Shooters in his truck had minor injuries. One of them was shot through the shoulder, the other had a broken wrist from when he dove to the floor of the truck. The second truck didn’t fare as well. The townspeople had been able to fire into the cargo area as they drove away.
    The most serious injury was to one of his Gatherers. The man had been sitting in the rearmost seat of Tyler’s truck. He’d been shot through the side twice and once in the neck. By the time they stopped, Russ was dead. Several others had been hit as well. Thankfully, none of the other injuries were life-threatening.
    Aeric was furious. They all knew that the town was likely going to be a dangerous place. It became real when they’d been shot at, not some imagined scenario during a rehearsal back at the Provisions Warehouse. Although about half of their missions to the various food storage points had