After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading

by Archer, Simon

  “Good driving, son,” he told me while I unlatched and opened the hood.

  “Any bullet holes near the engine?” I asked quickly.

  Bruce’s eyes went wide, and he hurried around to check. Then I heard him swear loudly.

  “What?” I asked, abandoning my check of the big diesel engine to move to join him.

  He just pointed. In addition to the dents and scraped paint from where I’d sideswiped the humvee, one of the big fuel tanks had a hole the size of my thumb in its upper third. The front tire on that side had a puckered hole in the sidewall but didn’t seem like it was nearly as flat as it should be.

  “Run flat,” he explained. “Only the best for my girl here.”

  I nodded. We had those on most of our vehicles in Afghanistan. Suddenly I paused and looked back towards the humvee. The driver door was open, but there was no sign of anyone about.

  “I think we missed one,” I said, scowling. The second gunner was sprawled forward, unmoving. “Unless that guy is still alive.”

  Bruce nodded and drew his sidearm, a classic IMI Desert Eagle, nominal star of various 80s and 90s action movies, then walked carefully towards the wrecked humvee. Since the hole in the tank was above the current fuel level, I could slap some duct tape over it until I could patch it for real.

  I pulled out my Les Baer again and followed.

  Bruce stopped about ten feet from the wreck, looked back at me, and shook his head. The double impacts had done a number on the man in the turret. His upper body rested at a very awkward angle to the rest of him, and there was a suspicious, liquid shine on his black BDUs around his middle.

  “I don’t think I want anything out of there,” I said quietly.

  “The runner probably took any radio they might have had,” Bruce said. “While I hate leaving good salvage, I suspect you’re right. Best leave this be.”

  We nodded to each other, holstered our weapons, and headed back to the big green truck.

  26

  Despite the help, changing the front passenger side wheel of a M35A2 truck was not a quick process. At least Bruce had the correct toolkit, including the 8-ton bottle jack, and he had the standard pair of spares. We still were done in about a half-hour, then I jury-rigged a patch for the fuel tank while the others went over the rest of the big truck for damage.

  We’d been lucky as hell, thanks in part to a crazy old survivalist with a Civil War weapon. I’d known he had the thing, but I hadn’t known it was both operational and carried as much punch as it did.

  “You know, Bruce,” Gene said while I finished up. “I never would have expected an old Gatling to put a hurting on modern military gear.”

  “Caliber and barrel length matter,” Bruce said. “I’ve got a rifle chambered for 45-70, and I’ve shot clean through a buffalo with it. A 7.62 by 39 will eventually punch through the armored glass on a humvee, and the 45-70 has about one-third or so more muzzle energy.”

  “That thing hits harder than a damn AK?” I asked, looking up from my project.

  Bruce gave a self-satisfied grin. “Yep,” he said. “I’ve got a .600 H&H, too, and a Barrett .50.”

  Bill just looked at the three of us as if we were speaking Greek or ancient Egyptian, or some other kind of crazy moon language. I chuckled and shook my head while Gene let out a deep-bellied guffaw that scared a crow sitting on the dividing wall nearby. It let out a caw of protest and flapped ponderously up into the sky.

  “You okay?” I asked Bill.

  He nodded. His face was still pale and had a greenish cast.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve never been shot at before.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gene offered. “You never get used to it.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” the young man made a face.

  Bruce wandered off to the driver’s side, and I heard him clambering into the truck.

  “Guess we need to get back underway,” I muttered.

  “I’m glad you guys knew what to do,” Bill added. “Do I need to learn?”

  Gene shrugged.

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” he said. “At the very least, we can help teach you how to react properly in an emergency situation.”

  “Yep,” I said as I pulled open the passenger door. “Let’s get moving before Bruce leaves us.”

  The survivalist in question eyed me through his mirrored sunglasses. He’d retrieved his cap, too. “I wouldn’t leave you three,” he said. “I think I like you.”

  “Good to know,” I said as the rest of us piled in.

  Bruce chuckled and started up the deuce-and-a-half, then slowly accelerated off away from the wreck of the humvee.

  About forty-five minutes later, we rumbled up to the entrance gates of the General Lucius D. Clay Memorial National Guard Center. The way through was blocked with concrete barricaded and spike bars that looked like they’d been there a while. Leaves had piled up in drifts against the guardhouses.

  “They certainly didn’t want to make it easy,” Gene complained from the back.

  Bill chuckled weakly. He hadn’t said much of anything since we’d left the scene of our fight back on the interstate. Hopefully, the farm would be a good place for him.

  “Well,” I said, and looked over at Bruce. “We can drag them out of the way, or go see if there’s some other vehicle or something that we can use to move them.”

  “I am not inclined to go for a long walk,” he said. “I’ll pull off to the side, and we can drag them out of the way using the winch.”

  “Works for me,” I said.

  It really wasn’t hard for us to use the big green truck’s winch to drag several of the concrete blockades out of the way while Bill and Gene cleared the way of spike bars. None of us wanted to change tires on the truck again any time soon. Once the way was clear, Bill and I walked ahead of the truck through the gate while Bruce and Gene rode. The young man carried one of Bruce’s rifles, some AR-15 variant or other, while I had my Bergara B14 6.5 in a sling on my shoulder.

  One day I’d actually get around to carrying a combat rifle on my trips, but some part of me rebelled at the notion. Taking that step seemed to indicate to me that I’d given up the last vestiges of hope for a lawful future as opposed to the might-makes-right mentality of the historical frontier.

  Since our main interest here was a helicopter and fuel, we headed straight for the hangers. Once nicely maintained foliage now ran wild. Leaves were piled thickly here and there, blown up against buildings and curbs by the winds. It was eerily quiet and dark, aside from the crunch of leaves beneath our boots and the idle of Bruce’s truck about forty feet back.

  “There weren’t barracks here,” Gene asked. “Were there?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Usually, Guard and Reserves get to live at home, so probably not.”

  “I wonder who closed things up,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

  That was a question that I suspected we’d find the answer to, and I doubted it would be a happy one.

  A few planes and helicopters sat out in the elements, which didn’t necessarily mean anything, considering most military equipment, despite jokes to the contrary, was fairly robust. The idea of mean time to failure was pretty much restricted to operating hours as opposed to sitting in the hanger hours, much like how boats used a measure of hours of operation.

  Still, I could do the maintenance and repairs on most everything I saw out there. My specialization was ground vehicles, but I’d spent hours on helicopters of various types and even C-130s and other large aircraft. You might go through MOS training with a particular focus, but you always went where you were ordered once you were in the field.

  I learned a lot. I also didn’t see a single UH-1 out on the field, but there were a couple of UH-60 Blackhawks. We also passed the fuel station and about four refueling trucks. There didn’t seem to be any transport tankers, though, but we could make do.

  As we walked, the idea of a heavier ground transport came to mind, or even an actual tank. The
thought of rolling an M1A1 all the way up to Price’s headquarters and offering him a kick in the teeth did have its appeal, but this place looked to be an aviation base.

  I pushed down a sudden surge of disappointment. We’d need to hit an actual base for a real tank, but the APD might have an armored SWAT vehicle or two. There was a thought.

  We stopped at the first hanger, and Bill and I waited for Bruce to come to a stop nearby. He opened the door and leaned out.

  “Do we want to do this carefully or just break things?” I asked. It really didn’t matter too much to me either way. There were advantages and disadvantages.

  “Well,” he said. “Can you unlock the side door and then take care of the hangar door from the inside?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think so. Pass me that toolbox I brought.”

  Gene dug around behind the seat, grunting and turning red as he did. Finally, he handed my tools out to me. I walked over to the door, opened the box, and pulled out the lock gun.

  It took me longer to figure out which of the automatic picks to attach than it did to open the hanger employee door. I packed my stuff back up, put on my headlamp, and headed into the dark interior with Bill following nervously.

  This door didn’t lead into offices or storage, rather it went straight into the hanger, and our lights shone on a treasure trove. Dimly illuminated in the hangar sat four helicopters. Two of them bore optional, stubby wings loaded with additional fuel tanks.

  A towing vehicle sat near the main doors.

  “Is this good?” Bill asked quietly. His voice echoed softly throughout the hangar, and he winced a little and shifted nervously.

  “Maybe,” I said. “We should report back, then see about getting the doors open. If we can’t move them by hand, we’ll need to get the generator started and restore power.”

  “Should I look for that?” he asked.

  “It’ll be in an outbuilding close by,” I guessed. “Probably on the backside. If you’re fine with going by yourself, go ahead.”

  He nodded, and we headed back out. Bill split off from me as I started towards the truck. Gene and Bruce watched him for a moment, then gave me a curious look as I walked up to the passenger side. The burly old man just opened the window and leaned out to gaze down at me.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” I told him.

  “Bad first,” he said. “How FUBAR are we?”

  “Well, there're no Bells in there,” I replied.

  “What’s the good news, then?”

  “There’s Sikorskies. How are you with them?” I replied.

  Gene’s eyes twinkled a bit.

  “Well,” he mused. “I ain’t as good with a Blackhawk as I am with a Huey, but I reckon I can make do, so long as I don’t crash on takeoff.”

  “I’ll make sure Bruce is standing by to catch you,” I offered.

  “Hey!” Bruce protested.

  Gene and I started laughing at that. When we sobered up, I continued, “Bill went to find the building’s generator. If I can get that started, we can open the hangar easily, and I can do a maintenance check with actual light and proper tools.”

  A few minutes later, the young man came jogging back around the large hangar. He came to a stop and reported, “It’s in the back. I think it still has fuel, too, if I read the gauge right.”

  “Cool,” I said. Bill wasn’t even breathing hard. He was in good shape, just not what we’d call combat ready. That could be fixed. “Wait here, old guys,” I teased. “If this works, we’ll be inside in a jiffy.”

  “Get off my lawn, whippersnapper,” Gene growled, smiling.

  Bill led me around the building to a rather sizeable steel shed with a couple of stacks atop it. A large steel tank sat behind it, easily twice the size of the storage tank at the propane store near the homestead.

  “We might just be lucky again today,” I said offhandedly as I checked the dials on the tank gages, then opened the unlocked door to the shed and gazed at a good-sized generator. The only problem I immediately noticed was that the battery indicator read a bit low. I looked over at Bill, shrugged, dusted my hands off, opened the gas valve, and pushed the start button.

  The starter whirred, the generator coughed a few times, then started purring like a kitten. I flashed a broad grin to Bill, who returned it. We headed back around to the door, went in, turned on the lights, and after a frantic search for a key, engaged the controls for the hanger doors and pushed the button to open them.

  With a groan and a creak, they started to open, pushing debris from the tracks in their paths. Four separate door pieces eventually slid behind a fifth and stopped. Then, bold as always, Bruce drove his big green truck right on in and stopped.

  Gene was out first, and he barely gave me a look before he picked out one of the extended range Blackhawks and began giving it a long and detailed once-over. I gave him a few minutes while I took a moment’s breather, sitting on the front bumper of Bruce’s truck.

  “So,” I asked him. “You aren’t coming out to the farm this trip?”

  He shook his head.

  “I will if you need me,” he said. “But I think that truck of yours can handle seven, can’t it?”

  “We can always just salvage another car, or a truck, or whatever,” I said. “Angie misses you, though.”

  He snorted.

  “That girl doesn’t like me any more than I like her,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.

  “Oh, she loves you,” I said, grinning over at him. “Actually, we could use your help once you’re happy with things in Atlanta.”

  “Henry,” he said. “You know almost as much about staying alive as I do. You just need to be a little more paranoid.” Bruce tapped his temple. “Trust no one.”

  “About that,” I said slowly. “I want to talk to you about the Reverend.”

  “You think…?” he jerked his head back in the rough direction of I-285.

  “Call it a gut instinct,” I replied. “I think they wanted to weaken the CDC group by taking out most of its fighters in one attack.”

  “Or,” Bruce suggested. “They wanted to disable the truck and take us alive.”

  “That’s even more terrifying,” I said. “Damn it. I don’t like this at all.”

  “We are up against a very intelligent enemy,” Bruce said matter-of-factly. “But one with as limited a force as we have. I suspect we may have taken out most of his combatants.”

  “Maybe he’ll back off, then,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Bruce glanced over to where Bill wandered among the parked helicopters. “I doubt it, though. I think we have something he wants.”

  “Oh, probably,” I said. “I mean, who wouldn’t want a nuclear reactor.”

  27

  We gathered up ear protection and tested radios with Gene in the cockpit while he went through the pre-checks. I focused on a quick mechanical evaluation, even though we found the record form of the Blackhawk’s last inspection, which was about a week before, well, the end of the world as we knew it.

  The batteries held a charge, and everything that needed to be was clean and well-oiled. The fuel tanks, though, were bone dry.

  “Bruce,” I said. “Do you think you and Bill can go and get one of the refueling trucks?”

  “Should be able to,” Bruce nodded and looked at the younger man. “Come on, son. There’s work to do.”

  Bill smiled faintly and followed him out.

  “Hey,” Gene leaned out of the cockpit and regarded me. “I need a tow.”

  “I’m on it,” I said. “Get out of there and help me get this thing hooked up.”

  He laughed and clambered out. Together we hooked up the aircraft tug, and I drove it out onto the tarmac in front of the hangar. There was plenty of room to take off from there, or so Gene said when I asked him.

  Then we disconnected the tug, and I took it back into the hangar before returning to join him. By this time, we saw one of the refueling trucks, followed by the big green truck t
rundling its way towards us.

  “Want to fill the auxiliary tanks?” I asked.

  Gene shook his head.

  “No,” he replied. “Just take the main to about half full. I want to go up, do a quick circle to feel her out, then we can top off the tanks. If she’s not airworthy once I get her off the ground, we’d have to empty the tanks or move them to one of the others.”

  “I’m pretty sure this bird is fine,” I said.

  “So am I,” he agreed. “But I don’t fully trust anything mechanical until I’ve had a chance to test it out.”

  “Confident you can fly a UH-60? I mean, you wanted a UH-1.”

  A broad grin shone behind Gene’s beard.

  “Just because I learned on the older choppers doesn’t mean I can’t fly a younger one,” he said. “I just don’t care for all the gadgets they stuck in them.”

  “Once you try it out,” I said. “I think we should make sure it’s armed and loaded with ammunition.”

  He gave me a sharp look.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “I’ll need gunners, though.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “We should be able to accommodate you there.”

  “Good,” he said. “Good.”

  I took over the refueling once the truck was there, then we cleared back to give Gene and his new toy all the room they needed. A low whine came from the engines as they started up, then black smoke blew out of the exhaust for a moment. The noise picked up, the rotors started to spin slowly, then faster and faster until they became a blur of motion. Dirt and debris kicked up and battered those of us on the ground along with the winds from the blades.

  The noise grew louder, and the Blackhawk slowly began to rise. At about twenty feet up, our radios crackled, and Gene said, “Feels good so far. I’m going to try her out.”

  “Go for it,” I replied.

  Bruce waved and gave Gene a thumbs-up. Then moments later, the helicopter rose a bit more, the nose dipped, and it accelerated, gaining altitude along with forward motion.