The regional gun show was held in an old livestock pavilion thirty miles west of the county line, right where the highway met the pine flats.
It was Friday morning, day eighty-six of the countdown. The sky was a pale, sickly gray, the sun hidden behind a low haze of smog and dust that had been blowing down from the northern manufacturing corridors for three days. The air smelled like burnt oil, old canvas, and the sharp, metallic tang of cheap gunpowder.
The parking lot was packed with hundreds of pickup trucks and old sedans, their bumpers covered in red clay dust. There were no state troopers directing traffic today; the main entrance gate was guarded by three local men wearing matching orange hunting vests and carrying semi-automatic shotguns over their shoulders. They didn't check tickets; they just looked into the cabs of the incoming vehicles, checking the faces of the drivers before waving them through with tight, unsmiling nods.
Marcus drove the black pickup truck into the grass lot, coming to a stop near the back
fence line. Elias sat in the passenger seat, his white hair hidden beneath a greasy ball cap, his dark eyes moving constantly across the crowd of men walking between the rows of
vehicles.
"The panic hasn't hit the bottom yet," Elias said, spitting his lollipop stick out the window into the dry weeds. "Look at them. They're still carrying their hunting rifles in cloth cases. They think they're here to buy extra deer ammunition for the winter."
"They're here because they know the stores in town are empty," Marcus said, pulling the key from the ignition. His voice was cold, pragmatic, and businesslike. He reached into his
jacket pocket, checking the fat stack of hundred-dollar bills resting against his ribs. "The cash is still good for another forty-eight hours. We use it all today. Every dollar."
They walked into the pavilion. The interior was massive, the concrete floor covered in sawdust that did little to hide the smell of old cow manure from the previous month's
auctions. Dozens of long folding tables were lined up under the dim yellow rafters, each one piled high with rifles, handguns, rusted bayonets, and metal ammo cans.
The crowd was dense, moving through the aisles in a quiet, shuffling mass that felt more
like a funeral procession than a trade show. People didn't talk loud. They hovered over the tables, their faces tight as they checked the prices of the ammunition boxes, which had tripled since Monday morning.
Marcus walked straight to a table near the back wall, where an older, thick-necked man with a gray mustache was sorting through a crate of military-surplus rifles. The sign on the table read S&W Security Logistics—Private Dispersals.
"You the guy selling the bulk lots?" Marcus asked, leaning his heavy forearms against the table frame.
The dealer looked up, his eyes scanning Marcus's white hair and broad shoulders before settling on the dark, quiet kid standing a step behind him. He smelled like tobacco and gun oil. "Depends on what you're looking to secure, mister. I got hunting gear here, and I got some old state guard trade-ins if you got the right credentials."
"I have cash," Marcus said simply. He didn't reach for his pocket—not yet. He just looked at the crate of rifles behind the dealer's chair. They were Ruger Mini-14s—semi-automatic, chambered in .223, with simple wooden stocks that didn't look like military weapons to the untrained eye, but they were reliable, easy to clean, and shared the same ammunition as the standard issue rifles. "I want the whole crate. Twelve rifles. And every magazine you have in the back that fits them."
The dealer's eyebrows went up, a short whistle escaping his teeth. He looked around the aisle to ensure no one else was hovering too close. "Twelve? That's a corporate security order, son. The federal paperwork on that many serial numbers takes three weeks to clear the district office."
"No paperwork," Marcus said, his voice dropping into that deep, heavy rumble that left no room for argument. He took a single step closer, his tall frame cutting off the light from the row aisle lamps. He pulled the manila envelope from his coat, opening the flap just enough for the dealer to see the thick, green stack of hundred-dollar bills inside. "Private sale.
Intrastate transfer between collectors. You sign the bill of sale with whatever name you like, and the cash stays in your boot when you drive home tonight."
The dealer stared at the money. He knew the story. He knew the banks were restricting withdrawals to five hundred dollars a day starting Monday, and he knew his supplier in Atlanta hadn't answered the phone since Thursday afternoon. Paper money was going to be trash soon, but right now, a stack this thick could buy him a three-ton generator and a pallet of propane from the warehouse down by the river.
"Step behind the curtain," the dealer muttered, wiping his sweaty palms on his apron. "Let's count the count before my boy closes the back ramp."
Marcus and Elias followed him into the small storage space behind the canvas backdrop. The space was packed with heavy wooden crates and metal lockers. Within ten minutes,
the transaction was finished. No names were exchanged. The dealer counted the fifteen thousand dollars in cash twice, his fingers trembling slightly as the paper rustled in the dim light, before he helped Elias lift the heavy wooden crate of Ruger rifles onto a hand truck.
"I got four cases of military-surplus green-tip 5.56 in the back," the dealer said, his voice a low whisper as he pocketed the bills. "A thousand rounds to a case. Sixty-two grain. It'll
punch through a car door if you need it to. You want them?" "How much?" Marcus asked.
"Two grand for the lot," the dealer said. "Cash down." Marcus nodded once to Elias.
Elias didn't wait. He wrapped his thick hands around the handles of the heavy ammunition cases, each one weighing easily eighty pounds, and lifted them off the floor two at a time
like they were boxes of crackers. He stacked them on top of the rifle crate, his breathing perfectly steady, his jaw moving slowly as he chewed his candy.
The dealer watched Elias lift the weight, his mouth falling open slightly. "Lord, kid. You got some iron in those arms. You look like you could carry a mule."
"We work construction," Elias said, his voice raspy as he pushed the hand truck out toward the back exit ramp where the black pickup was waiting.
Once they reached the truck, parked behind the screen of scrub pine near the edge of the pavilion grass, Marcus closed the tailgate. He looked around to ensure the other buyers were busy looking at the entrance gates before he reached out with his mind.
With a silent, rhythmic sequence of interface shifts, the heavy wooden crate of Mini-14s vanished from the truck bed, entering his personal interdimensional storage space
alongside the four thousand rounds of green-tip ammunition and the twelve cases of steel magazines they'd purchased. The truck suspension rose back to its normal height with a soft creak of the leaf springs.
"That's twenty-four long guns total between my inventory and yours," Elias said, checking the small smudged notebook in his hand. "And twelve thousand rounds of rifle stock.
Sam's got the shotguns and the handguns stashed in his town apartment."
"It's enough for the perimeter," Marcus said, sliding into the driver's seat and turning the key. The engine roared to life with a clean, deep rumble. "But weapons don't mean anything if we don't have the bodies to hold them. Sam texted while we were inside. Kate Mercer's
uncle never made it back from Macon."
Elias looked out the window as they pulled out of the grass lot, his dark eyes watching the orange-vested guards close the heavy iron wire of the entrance gate. "The uncle's dead then. Or stuck."
"He's stuck," Marcus said, turning the truck back toward the ridge road. "Which means Sam's bringing Kate to the house tonight. She's the first one inside the shield who isn't a Greene. Elias... when she gets to the clearing, you keep your distance. She's already
spooked from the town closing down. She doesn't need to see you looking at her like she's a target."
Elias reached into his shirt pocket, his fingers wrapping around a fresh lemon-flavored lollipop. He popped it into his mouth, his dark eyes reflecting the gray, smoky light of the Georgia sky as the truck accelerated down the highway.
"She's not my target, Marcus," Elias muttered, his jaw moving rhythmically. "The blonde one is. And the blonde one's already on the farm, just waiting for the lights to go out."
Marcus didn't answer. He kept his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead, his hands steady on the wheel as the first few drops of a cold, greasy rain began to smear across the
windshield—the first true signature of the winter that was coming for them all, eighty-six days after they'd first woken up with dirt in their mouths and the world still green around them.