Turmoil was sweeping the mess hall.
The number of ailing Soldiers doubled.
Stepping onto the table, Ryan shouted, “Stop eating! Those motherfuckers poisoned our food!”
( ( ( 24% Complete ) ) )
( ( ( DAY 6 ) ) )
Wednesday, February 19th
42
“GEORGE, I’VE GOT SERIOUS reservations about this,” Kyle said, standing at the threshold of the Levins’ front door.
“There’s no sense letting supplies go to waste. Charles doesn’t need them anymore.” George presented Kyle with two empty plastic bins. “Come on. I’ll start with the refrigerator. You check the pantry.”
“How is this not looting?”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Picture Jessie and Abby going hungry. That’ll help you get over it.”
He was right.
“Besides, your wife kept vigil over Charles. I’m sure he would want to repay that kindness.”
Doubting that, Kyle entered the kitchen and revolved gradually as if creating a panoramic picture. “I don’t see a pantry.”
“Try the laundry room.”
He whispered, “Right.”
Beside a stacked washer and dryer, a white cabinet linked floor and ceiling. Tugging on the handles, his eyes widened. Groceries denuded of commercial packaging were labeled and arranged alphabetically, displayed in glass jars, linen-wrapped boxes, and fabric-lined wicker baskets. Even the cereal was neurotically stored in clear containers; and Kyle shook his head, thinking it looked more like a lingerie closet than a pantry.
The bottom shelf belonged in a different house. A dozen cans of soup and mixed vegetables were heaped haphazardly atop a box of rice and two bags of pinto beans.
Either the Levins’ suffered from multiple personality disorder, Kyle thought, or this stuff’s been planted.
He transferred the food into the plastic bin and carried it to the kitchen.
“Not much in the refrigerator,” George told him. “Shriveled sprouts and a fleet of unidentified festering objects.”
Questions propagated through Kyle’s mind. If George planted the food, where did he get it? Why share it in such a surreptitious manner?
Have I done something to make him distrust me?
Kyle scolded himself, knowing he should be grateful that his family wouldn’t go hungry. If George wanted to remain anonymous—whatever the reason—he should respect that; and someday, when the world returned to normal, Kyle would ensure that the General would never want for anything.
As he set the plastic bin on the kitchen counter, George said, “Grab that empty container and let’s check the master bathroom.”
Bathroom? Kyle thought. Who would store food in a bathroom?
George opened the linen closet, then soap, shampoo, and toothpaste sailed into the makeshift shopping basket. “Might need this over at your house,” he said, flinging a package of feminine products.
Yet another problem Kyle had failed to anticipate. Disconcerted, he looked away. After nearly two decades indulging his wife and daughter, he wasn’t sure if he was savvy enough to take care of them, and it terrified him.
“Jackpot,” George said with a clap of his hands. “Toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues.”
Kyle watched him sift through the medicine cabinet.
“Zoloft and Prozac—happy couple.” George lobbed a bottle of Tylenol into the bin. “Did you get the bleach and detergent from the laundry room?”
Kyle shook his head. That hadn’t occurred to him either.
He retrieved the items then returned to the kitchen.
“Have fun carting it all back to your house,” George told him. “I’m too old for that.”
“But I can’t keep all of this—”
“Son, I keep telling you. The good Lord always provides ... but He won’t schlep it for you. So, get busy.”
43
“YOU HAVE TO GO INTO town,” Heather shouted. “Billy’s wound is infected. And it’s your fault, Will.”
Guilt was an invisible hand constricting his airway as he grabbed his shotgun from the closet’s top shelf.
“And while you’re there,” Heather said, following him down the stairs. “Pick up diapers. We’re almost out.”
Eli was lounging on a hammock stretched between two oak trees.
“Hey, Eli, want to take a ride into town?” Will asked, hopeful that his brother-in-law would ride shotgun—literally.
“Naw, I got plans.”
Muttering to himself, Will climbed into the truck, laying his shotgun across the bench seat. The town of Montville was a five-mile drive along a heavily wooded, narrow road with plenty of foliage to conceal an ambush and no room for evasive maneuvers. His watchful eyes skimmed for threats until the general store came into view.
The dilapidated wood-frame building had a sagging roof; and a picnic table—populated by four intimidating men—barricaded its entryway. Shotguns and rifles sloped against either end of the warped, splintering table, which floated amidst a sea of blue beer cans.
Menacing little smiles played over the men’s faces as Will parked the truck. He considered leaving, but Heather’s words weighed on him. Billy’s wound is infected. And it’s your fault.
Leaning his head out the driver’s window, Will shouted, “Is the store open?”
“You ain’t from round here, are-ya?” a man asked, prompting laughter from the others. “Name’s Ernest. Whatcha need, City Boy?”
“Antibiotic ointment,” Will told him. “My son has an infection.”
“That ain’t good.” Ernest nodded to one of his men. “See if we can help City Boy.”
Under their unrelenting scrutiny, Will fidgeted, a hand resting on his shotgun.
A few torturous minutes later, the man returned waving a small box, shouting, “I got-chur ointment.”
“How much?” Will asked, worried that their price gouging would exceed his means.
All four men sprouted sinister grins.
“Yer truck,” Ernest told him. “A small price for a kid’s life, don’t-cha think?”
Shit, Will thought, watching the goon squad rise to their feet.
“Truck’s not mine.” He shifted into reverse and hit the gas.
Guns rising, the men charged him.
Will yanked the steering wheel. Tires squealed against the roadway. The vehicle spun.
He shifted into drive, but two shotguns overhung the truck’s hood. A few feet to his left, two rifles zeroed on his head.
“Never mind about the ointment,” Will said, his voice quavering.
“Don’t think ya understand, City Boy. Truck’s ours. Only question is whether ya live or die.”
What would happen to Billy and Suzanne with no father?
Tremors coursed through Will as he shifted the truck into park.
Ernest jerked open the driver’s door, clasped a beefy hand around Will’s neck, and hurled him onto the street. “This here truck comes with a shotgun!”
One man returned to the picnic table. Will watched the others pile into his truck, two in the cab, one in the bed.
“Time ta make some house calls,” Ernest shouted. “Nothin’ better than shoppin’ with a double-barrel discount.”
As they drove off, one of the men tossed the box and shouted, “Here ya go, City Boy!”
Will scrambled after it like a fetching dog.
His stomach sank. He sat there defeated, heartbroken, holding a travel-sized tube of toothpaste.
44
ABBY TRAIPSED THROUGH the woods behind Bradley, her unloaded rifle slung over her shoulder, fingers combing her long blonde hair into a ponytail. She removed an elastic band from her wrist and secured it around her hair.
They walked for an hour in abject silence, the landscape unchanging until they came to an overgrown puddle ringed with muck from its glory days as a pond. Beyond it, there was a clearing where years earlier a fire had burned away underbrush and branches, leaving dozens of blackened tru
nks standing like gnarled spires. A copse of kelly-green pine saplings, ranging from two to four feet, had sprung up between fallen, charred, and rotting trunks; and patches of ashen gray soil were sprinkled with tufts of yellowish grass.
“I’m gonna watch the clearing,” Bradley said, pointing as he spoke. “Your mission is to cross it—undetected. If you make it to the other side, find three out-of-place items and memorize details about each site.”
“Any time limit?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “No, but you have to go through the clearing. Don’t go out of bounds.”
She watched him walk off then drew her knife. Abby sliced a dozen branches from nearby saplings and stuffed them into her backpack. Hurriedly, she cut a ring into the dirt surrounding two clumps of yellow grass, plunged the blade diagonally beneath each plant, and applied leverage, uprooting them along with a clinging ball of gray soil. Lastly, she braced a foot atop the tapered end of a scorched tree trunk and snapped off a chunk of the rotting wood.
Hearing the sound, Bradley wheeled around and shook his head, then he continued walking. Abby darted back to the overgrown puddle, gathered handfuls of muck, and filmed her left arm, face, and hair; then she powdered them with a grass root ball, giving them a gray pallor. She arranged the pine branches beneath her ponytail band, fastening them to the top of her head. With her knife, she scraped the burnt chunk of wood like a piece of toast, removing black carbon; and after dousing her right arm with muck, she dusted on the black shavings so that it would appear like a tapered chunk of wood. The final touch for her improvised camouflage was a clump of grass attached to each shoulder, wedged beneath her bra straps.
Abby entered the clearing, lying prone and edging sideways between saplings to minimize the profile exposed to Bradley. Due to the slope of the land, he could only see her well-camouflaged arms, the crown of her head, and the tops of her shoulders.
She moved with wind gusts that stirred the small pines, creating enough movement to disguise her motion.
Damn it. Bradley was reaching for his binoculars. Did I move too quickly?
Head down, eyes directed upward, she watched him scan an area twenty yards oblique left.
Go, go, go, shouted a voice inside her. He’s got a restricted field of view. Take advantage.
After nearly an hour and two nerve-racking close calls, she infiltrated the relative safety of the woods. The objects, an orange Nerf football, a blue Frisbee, and a baseball, were easy to find.
Too easy, she thought. What’s the catch?
Memorizing details, she noted a glint of sunlight reflecting off the forest floor. Abby rolled her head sideways to recreate the flash and pinpoint its origin. Half buried beneath pine needles, she spotted a brass casing.
There’s the catch, she thought, plucking it from the ground, but it wasn’t a spent shell. It was a live .308 caliber round. She pocketed it, and after an extensive search, she located two more cleverly hidden bullets, one at each site. Satisfied, Abby rose to her feet.
With a finger wave, Bradley beckoned her; and as she entered the clearing, his head bobbed forward; his mouth dropped open. Abby curtseyed and bowed, flaunting her camouflage.
His head tilted, taking in every detail. With his right hand, he brushed the yellow grass on her shoulder. “Bra straps? Really?”
“Tactical advantage.” Abby removed the grass and patted her face with the root ball. “Makes a great powder puff ... Don’t be so shocked. Makeup, control-top pantyhose, pushup bras—camouflage is the essence of being a woman.”
Chuckling, Bradley shook his head.
“I found a Nerf football, a blue Frisbee, and a baseball,” she told him, wiping her face with her T-shirt.
“Okay, stay right here and don’t turn around.”
Abby acknowledged him with a shrug and continued flaking dried muck from her face until he had moved off; then she reached into her pocket and removed the three bullets—waiting.
“Hey, Squirt? Did you move anything?”
Cringing at the nickname, she displayed the rounds above her head. “Finders, keepers,” she shouted, wishing she could see his facial reaction.
A few minutes later, he summoned her to the site of the football. “All right, Squirt, tell me what—if anything—has changed.”
Abby perused the scene. “You moved the water bottle, added that paper, and a bullet is missing,” she said, unable to stifle her smirk.
They visited the other sites, and she nailed every detail except one. Abby had missed a small piece of camouflage fabric snagged shoulder high on a tree branch.
I was too focused on the ground, she thought. Next time, I’d better look up.
“Pretty good,” Bradley told her. “You picked up a lot of details. And you can definitely evade an enemy in the woods.”
His last syllable merged with the pained yelp of an animal. He appeared deep in thought then motioned for her to follow.
At the crest of a hill, Abby crouched beside Bradley, looking down into the backyard of an isolated house. Her jaw began to quiver; and feeling Bradley’s gaze, she wrestled to regain her composure.
Two men were skinning an animal. They had cut along its neck, leaving intact the furry face of a black Labrador retriever.
45
RYAN HAD BEEN GRINDING his teeth so long his jaw ached. His day had started with an 0300 hours flight across the state of Georgia with an empty seat beside him, a harsh reminder that a team member and good friend had been lost. Sergeant First Class Dannel Thews had died yesterday, along with seventeen other Soldiers.
Throughout nearly two decades in the Army, Ryan had mourned friends killed in combat and witnessed debilitating injuries, but dying in battle was not the same as dying from a forkful of mashed potatoes. Dannel had lived every day as a hero and died a victim, cheated, as if the enemy had dumped indignity atop his death.
Grapevine chatter attributed the attack to sodium fluoroacetate, a water-soluble powder with no smell or taste, suspected to have poisoned drinking water during World War II. For Ryan, details didn’t matter much. The type of poison did not change the facts. He couldn’t bring Dannel back, and he couldn’t trust mess hall food.
Their current operation, providing overwatch for critical railroad repairs, was adding to his frustration. At the time of the electromagnetic pulse, a switch failure had caused a train derailment north of Savannah, Georgia, tearing up a mile of track and shutting down a strategic corridor. While the Army Corps of Engineers cleared the wreckage, FEMA and the Defense Department had commandeered pre-computer-era locomotives to expedite the movement of military and civilian relief supplies.
When track repairs began, work crews were pelted by AK-47 rounds in hit-and-run assaults referred to as “ghost attacks” because the gunmen materialized and vanished so quickly. Within forty-eight hours, nine had been killed and thirteen injured, but since the Rangers’ arrival eleven hours ago, all had been quiet.
It’s like the assholes know we’re waiting for them, Ryan thought.
As darkness fell, they escorted the workers to a vacant three-story hotel, guarded by a half dozen grunts fresh out of boot camp. Ryan made his way to the roof, his team behind him.
Without electricity, night seemed blacker; the stars, larger, brighter, and more plentiful than he remembered.
One beautiful consolation hovering above a world of hellish consequences.
Sighing, he dropped his gear, sat down on the asphalt roof, and tore open an MRE, his safest food option for the foreseeable future.
Exhausted, there was no conversation, and with every mouthful of beef stew, Ryan thought of Dannel. A pervasive sadness and resentment was spreading through him.
Twenty-one shot by Allahu Akbar, eighteen poisoned, and nine killed by ghost gunmen—terrorists have declared war on the Army, Ryan thought.
Glancing toward the east, he noticed four flickers of light, like an earthbound constellation of sparks, burning and withering within seconds. Lost in thought, h
e watched a second and third cluster illuminate before he realized what he was looking at.
“Muzzle flashes,” Ryan said. “Could be our ghost gunmen.”
Marcos and Mike were already donning their gear.
DJ peered above his laminated pouch of lasagna. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Let’s go,” Ryan told him. “Get your ass moving.”
Within a half hour, they located the source of the gunfire, and a foreboding sense of déjà vu sent Ryan’s aching jaw muscles into spasms. Through the surreal hue of night vision, he saw another middle-class neighborhood, lawns littered with executed Americans. A band of five armed men moved house to house, shooting through front doors—just like the Sanctuary at Glen Acres, two hundred miles away.
“Is this happening all over Georgia?” Marcos asked. “Or all over the country?”
One by one, Ryan polled his teammates; Marcos and Mike nodded; DJ shook his head.
Tough shit, he thought, you’re outvoted.
After selecting a house in the path of the gunmen, Ryan led the team to the back door and kicked it in. “U.S. Army Rangers,” he shouted to prevent armed homeowners from firing on them.
While clearing each room of threats, Ryan found a family of four huddled inside a closet. Too frightened to scream, bodies shaking, they stared at him.
He identified himself, adding, “I need you to cover your kids’ ears. It’s going to get loud.” Turning to DJ, he said, “Stay with them,” then Marcos, Mike, and Ryan took up positions.
Minutes later, a bullet fractured the lock on the front door.
In Ryan’s estimation, he had been fired upon.
And he intended to defend himself.
( ( ( 27% Complete ) ) )
( ( ( DAY 7 ) ) )
Thursday, February 20th
46
BRADLEY PACED GRAMPS’ kitchen, arms folded, as the emergency broadcast pulsed above crackling radio static. For six days, the message had been stagnant—shelter in place, we are mobilizing—until this morning.
“Residents within one hundred miles of nuclear power plants are under mandatory evacuation orders, including Turkey Point Power Stations Three and Four in the greater Miami area and Hutchinson Island Power Station near West Palm Beach. Further instructions will follow.”
Powerless- America Unplugged Page 10