I bite my lip in worry but there’s no other way to get this done and it’s imperative that they play their part if this is going to work so I just launched into the instructions.
“Tomorrow evening, five minutes after your rations are delivered and the guards have cleared out I need you all ready to go. If all goes according to plan, the ten soldiers in the yard that will be guarding the tents and the gate will be disarmed and their weapons stacked in the center of the clearing. As soon as that’s accomplished the communicator will vibrate once again and I will say the words, “Go now”. If for some reason something goes wrong, I will say the word, “Abort”. So far everything’s on track and we should be good to go but better to be prepared for either outcome. If I say “Go now”, I need you to gather everything you need from the tents including those bags you packed from your quarters, Skylar, and leave the tent - making your way to the door into your old quarters. You will not be returning to the tents so it’s important to take everyone and everything that you want. As soon as you reach the door, AIRIA will let you in and you need to go into the back cavern. There will be an empty cargo truck parked in your garage area waiting for you as well as the livestock trailer. You need to get the cow and the chickens loaded as quickly as possible and the trailer hooked on to the truck. Besides that, you should strip your garden as much as possible. Bring the trays and pots and harvest what can’t be moved. Go through the pantry and freezers and load as much as you can. You will have at most, twenty-five minutes to a half an hour to accomplish as much as you can before we will have to leave. I’m sure your friends have told you about the supplies that they took over in three runs today. They managed to accomplish a lot and tomorrow I’m hoping they’ll be able to do two more runs but we were so far unable to touch any of the things that would alert the General. Other than the livestock, the most important thing you need to get is every weapon and bullet in your Armory. Those guns will be the only ones that we can take and they could make all the difference between us surviving on the outside and dying within the first few months. I will handle everything else on this side of things and meet you in the garage when it’s time to go. There won’t be a lot of time for questions at that point so anything you need to ask, do it now.”
I wait for the flood of questions that I know is coming but instead all I get is silence. It goes on for so long that I’m about to ask if they received my instructions when Skylar’s voice comes through again.
“Are we going to have to worry about them firing on us when we leave or chasing us?”
“No one will be coming after us and no one will be firing on us. I currently have complete control over AIRIA so she won’t be a concern when we leave. The only thing you have to worry about is moving quickly out of the tents once I tell you to go and then gathering everything you can from the cavern and getting it loaded. I promise to answer all your questions once we’ve reached the summer camp and explain everything that’s happened. I know it’s a lot for me to ask you to trust me with, but I promise you I’m getting you out of here and I’m doing everything possible to make sure we’ve got a fighting chance in our new home.”
A new voice comes through that I haven’t heard before and I assume it’s Lance.
“What about the rest of the people out here in the tents? Are they going to be left to deal with the fall out of this?” he asks.
I consider what to say to that and go for the brutal truth and hope they don’t argue with me. “Everyone else outside will be free to leave. You should tell them to run once I give you the signal to go but not before then. It’s imperative that we don’t tip our hand so you must keep this just amongst yourselves until I say go. The only people I can guarantee safety to are the ones in your group. We may have an opportunity to recruit some of those people later on but for tomorrow night we have to just let them go and hope they can survive on their own. If you feel strongly about it, you could give a select few a rally point to meet at in a few days but keep in mind that if they are recaptured by any of the soldiers they may be forced to give up that information, putting us all at risk.” I let out a sigh, wishing I could do more but knowing it’s just not possible and continue. “I would love to say we could take everyone and help everyone out there but it’s just not possible at this time, I’m sorry.”
Lance’s voice comes through. “We’re in agreement. We’ll look at saving the rest of the world later, right now, let’s just save ourselves. We’re on board with anything you need us to do Joslin and you have our gratitude. We will wait for your signal. Lance and Skylar, out.”
I let the tension slide out of me for a few minutes as one more box gets checked on my list of things to do and let the one thing that I’m worried about the most flood back in, Jackson.
I don’t know how he’s going to react to what’s going to happen tomorrow night. He deserves so much more then what his father has given him and I wish that he had chosen to come with us from the start. The only thing I can do is let this play out and pray that he comes with me in the end, even if our friendship is destroyed in the process. I push my tablet out of the way and lay my head on the desk for a few moments. I’ve barely slept since arriving here and the lack of sleep and stress are starting to catch up with me.
AIRIA’s voice in my ear has me startling awake and I can tell from the sore stiffness in my back and neck that I’ve been sleeping in this position for a while. I blink a few times to clear the sleep from my eyes and look up at the clock to see that it’s morning, early morning. It takes me a minute to process what AIRIA had said to me and I realized she was warning me that there were people in the hallway. I bring my tablet to life and tap in a quick command to end that notification and bring up a map that shows me the location of my main players in the bunker.
When I see Jackson and the General are still in Skylar’s quarters I breathe out a sigh of relief. I jump to my feet and rush over to the shelves where all the download bars on every device are completed and start powering them down and stacking them in a crate that I have in the corner of my office. Once the last one is packed up I close the lid and have to heave it onto the small hand cart that I had brought in earlier yesterday. I take a minute to straighten my clothing and run my fingers through my messy hair before grabbing a clipboard from my desk as well as my tablet and wheeling the cart out the door. It’s still quite early and there are not many people moving around yet. I only passed one sleepy soldier on my way to the doors to the tunnel that connect the bunker to Skylar’s cavern.
I push the cart to the back of her cavern and leave it in the garage area, reminding myself to tell Jackson that it needs to go in one of the loads today and then head back towards the door to the living quarters. A quick glance at my watch shows me that I have a few minutes to kill before I can go in and see the General, so I stop at the animal pens and spend a minute looking them over.
The single cow in the pen makes its way over to me with its tail whooshing back and forth, almost like a dog’s. It looks at me expectantly with its big round eyes and nods its head up and down like it’s waiting for me to do something. I’m a little intimidated because I’ve never been around animals in my life but it seems friendly enough so I reach out and gently touch the soft spot between its eyes and give a small rub. I have to muffle the laugh that wants to burst out of me when it nods its head against my hand repeatedly like it wants me to rub harder. I kill time for a few minutes stroking the animal and wondering how it will feel once it’s out in the sun able to walk freely over grass probably for the first time in its life. I know that Dr. Craven has inseminated it with some of the sperm stored in the clinic’s coolers. Having a baby cow one day will be fun if it’s as docile as this one. Standing there is very soothing and I find myself feeling more relaxed and confident in what’s going to happen on this day. I give its head one last pat before turning and starting over to the door that goes into the living quarters and knocking.
The door slides open and I step through holding my tablet an
d clipboard as I’ve done every morning for the past few days to give the General an update on the current conditions of his troops and schedule.
The General is standing at the kitchen island drinking a cup of coffee. He nods his head at me and lifts his cup in salute.
“Good morning, Joslin. What do you have for me this morning?”
I return his nod and launched into my report. “Sir, no incidents to report outside or inside from last night. It seems like it was a quiet evening for everyone. The secondary barracks are on schedule with all the tents up, cots, bedding and rations in place. The latrines and storage buildings will be completed by the end of the day. We will be able to split and relocate the civilian workers as well as the troops to the secondary location tomorrow morning.”
The General drains the last of his coffee and sets the cup in the sink before responding. “Excellent! We are on schedule and everything is going to plan.”
“Yes sir, we are. Sir? Permission to speak freely?” He gives me his full attention with a nod of his head. “Sir, I’d like to speak to you about morale. It was a very long journey getting here and although the troops are happy with their new accommodations and better food, there are some rumblings about the pace that we are moving.” When he just arches an eyebrow, I continue. “Sir, today is the last day that we will have all the soldiers in one place before moving a good portion of them down to the fields. I think this evening’s meal would be the perfect opportunity to boost morale by holding a special dinner event to congratulate them on their hard work before we start on our next phase. I think it would go a long way towards their state of mind if you gave them this small reward and encouragement in what we’re doing.”
He looks at me shrewdly and taps his fingers against his chin. “Interesting. Jackson mentioned something similar yesterday about me never letting up. What do you suggest Miss Frost?”
“Sir, I suggest a special meal this evening once all of our people are back from the fields. I think it would do morale a world of good if you sat and ate with our people, engaging them in conversation. After dinner, I would suggest you give a motivational speech and then allow them to watch one of the many movies that AIRIA has in her database. There is a large retractable screen at one end of the barracks that we can lower. It’s a small reward but one that I think would do a world of good before we get back to the hard work tomorrow.” He studies me for a moment and then slowly nods his head in agreement.
“I think you’re right Miss Frost. A little bit of a reward like that should boost everyone’s spirits. Make it happen!”
“Yes sir, I will organize everything. Leave it to me, I’ll make sure it will be a night to remember.”
Chapter Fifteen … Skylar
Every minute of this day feels like an hour as it drags on and on. I spend most of the day trying to distract Ben and Matty to give Belle a bit of a break from them, but my patience is paper thin. There are so many things that I don’t know about this plan and what Joslin is planning to do that it’s eating me alive inside and I can’t keep my focus on the boys like I should. Rex finally takes pity on me and draws the two boys in with the continuation of a story he had started telling them about a galaxy far, far, away. I’m glad he stayed here today and let Lance take his place helping Marsh and Jackson with the supply runs. Lance wanted to get a feel for not only Jackson but also the location we will be going to as he will be in charge of most of our defenses once we get there. He also wanted to show Jackson where my dad’s truck was hidden so that when we make our escape we can stop and pick it up along the way. Working vehicles aren’t easy to come by and we can’t afford to just leave it there to rust away or even worse - be found by someone else who can use it against us in the future.
There’s a lot of things that I’ve had to let go control of since I opened the barracks to Rex and his people and even more once Uncle Bill showed up. As crazy in anticipation as I’m feeling today, I’m actually kind of surprised at myself by the way I’m handling the loss of control. I guess that means I’ve healed from the partly insane girl who used to live alone in a bunker with just a small boy. I’m still scared out of my mind for what might happen to Ben but putting my faith in others to watch out for him has eased the crazy that tends to live in my head some days. I look over at Belle, who’s talking quietly with Sasha, and gnaw on one of my fingernails in concern.
I still think Sasha is a wild-card that could jeopardize everything if we’re not careful but Belle has assured us that she’s calmed down and fully on board with the plan. I think the hard day of labor they put us through and then being harassed by that soldier has finally made her realize that our only course of action is to escape this place. But no matter what Belle says, I’ll be keeping my eye on her and making sure she doesn’t do anything stupid that will ruin it for all of us.
By the time Lance and Marsh come back to the tent in the late afternoon, I’ve chewed off most of my fingernails to the quick. I want nothing more than to shoot to my feet and race towards them to find out all the details of what they learned today but there are too many eyes in this tent on me. I have to try really hard not to be filled with contempt towards all these people. The way they keep looking in my direction like I’m somehow going to save them all drives me crazy. Me, an almost eighteen-year-old girl is supposed to fix all their problems for them because I let them into the bunker at one point.
I can’t believe that not one of them has stepped up to either fight, object, or plan something to get themselves out of this. I don’t feel great about leaving them all here to face the fallout from our escape but at some point, people need to take some personal responsibility and do what needs to be done to survive on their own. I like Joslin’s idea of trying to meet up with a few of them to bring them to the camp but from what I’ve seen of them so far over the last month or so, there’s maybe five of them that would be good contributors to our group. Once we are away from here and safe, we will have to have a group meeting and decide who, if anyone, we should invite to join us.
Marsh heads over to join Rex and the boys but Lance comes down and sits on the cot across from me and leans over with his elbows on his knees.
“It’s good Skylar. I couldn’t have picked a better spot myself. There’s a fort style log wall that goes all the way around the perimeter of the camp with multiple cabins and a central building that has a glass atrium. We’ll be able to use it to grow plants in the winter if we can keep it heated well enough. There’s a working well for water and a small stream that runs just outside the walls for more water. There’s even enough open green space for us to put in a very large garden.”
Some of the tension that’s filled me today eases at his words but it doesn’t completely go away.
“Do you truly believe we’ll be able to survive there? I mean, who knows how long this season will last before the skies cloud up again and we get hit with winter. Will we be able to survive a winter there?”
He reaches across the narrow aisle and takes my hand and gives it a small squeeze before letting go.
“I wish I could give you a guarantee Skylar, but there are no guarantees anymore in this life. We can defend the place, there’s good solid shelters to protect us from the elements and it’s surrounded by forest so we won’t run out of wood to burn to stay warm once the cold comes again. It’s going to take a lot of work though, and we’re going to need every single one of us going flat out to prepare for winter if we want to survive it. That being said, there are a lot of supplies there. I was extremely surprised to see just how much they managed to haul there yesterday and then with what we brought today, it’s a lot. All I can tell you is that for the last seven years while we were out here, we had a lot less to work with and we managed to live.”
Before I have a chance to ask him any more questions, Marsh throws himself down beside me on my cot causing me to bounce a few inches. “It’s all good Skies! You need to have a little faith because the Jay’s have got it going on. They totally hooked us
up.”
Deciphering some of the words that come out of Marsh’s mouth is extremely entertaining for me but this time I have no clue. “The Jay’s?”
He gives me his cocky grin and elbows me in my ribs with a bony elbow. “Yeah, you know, Jackson, Joslin…the Jay’s? Seriously though, Dad is right. We’re going to be living in the lap of luxury compared to what we had before you moved us into your digs.” He lowers his voice and tilts his head closer to mine and whispers in awe, “TV’s, man. She had us pack TV’s!”
I stifle a laugh at his total kookiness and sigh instead. “Honestly Marsh, you got a good vibe from them? Do you think we can trust them?”
His expression turns serious as he slowly nods. “I can’t really tell you my take on Joslin, cuz I haven’t really chatted her up much but she is putting together a hell of a plan to get us out of here, so that’s saying something. As for Jackson, he seems like a decent dude with a really, really, crappy ass-hat of a father. I feel kind of bad for him that he’s not going to come with us. The blowback on this is going to be fierce and he’s going to be feeling the pain from it for a while. Just take a deep breath and soldier on till go time, sister.”
I lean my head against his shoulder and relax a bit. Marsh, Rex, and the others had survived for seven long years outside so I have to take their word on it. I tilt my head up towards him and grin. “Did you pack a generator to run those TV’s?”
His face freezes in fear for a second before he shoves me away with a laugh. “Not one but two of them!”
And just like that, time speeds up. The flaps are pushed aside and in come the soldiers with the cases of MRE’s and water bottles for our evening ration. My stomach is filled with rocks and my hands ache from clenching them. I had removed the bandages from them earlier in the day to let the air at the healing blisters so they would harden up. Painful or not, I need my hands-free for whatever might happen tonight. We wait for the first group of people to head to the front tables to collect their evening meal before pulling out the backpacks I had brought out with me when the General kicked me out of my quarters. Lance, Ethan and I are all armed with the handguns that I had brought out in the bags. We have them concealed underneath our untucked shirts. We don’t know exactly what’s about to go down but we want to be prepared for anything.
Endless Winter Box Set: Books 1 - 4 Page 50