Cascade Collection

by Phil Maxey

  “What are you doing?” said the woman, looking nonplussed.

  Fiona then raised her gun towards her. “Don’t scream, or shout, just come in here, and close the door,” the woman did as she was told. “Now sit down,” she complied again, and Fiona set about tying her up with the phone cord.

  The woman shivered. “Why are you doing this?”

  “We can’t have anyone raising alarms, in about an hour someone will come and get you.”

  Fiona finished securing the woman, then left the office. Zach, Sam, Isaiah, Cal and Jacob were already moving through the lobby to the outside.

  Sam, now sporting a prosthetic leg and Cal gave a slight nod to Zach, and they walked off, down steps at the front of the building and along one of the tree lined roads through the parking area. Rob and Greggs had already fueled and mended a few issues with the bus and truck, and both were now parked pointing towards the exit to the parking area. The white truck was also fueled and parked just behind.

  A sound came from behind the remaining three, and Mary appeared with Abbey. Behind them were the children from the night before well wrapped in winter clothes.

  “Everyone on the bus, quickly, three to a seat,” said Mary, hurrying the kids along.

  After them came the remaining adults and children, moving as quickly as they could onto the bus. Bass then appeared with some other soldiers, carrying some of the camp beds from the hall. They dropped them off in the back of the white truck and went back inside.

  “Let me show you the supplies and ordinance we still have,” said Zach to Isaiah leading him to the back of the supply truck.

  After a further twenty minutes, all three vehicles were full of people and supplies.

  Zach stood inside the bus, next to Rob with Bass just behind him. He then clicked on his radio. “Cal, is Sam ready?” an affirmative came back.

  Cal watched the guard sit inside the Humvee, which was parked alongside the gate. He then ran through the parking lot, and crouched down behind a large bush.

  Sam started walking towards the back of the Humvee, and started to shout and wave. “Ohh, my leg, I need some help,” in his hand he had an empty glass bottle.

  The soldier got out of the Humvee and looked back at Sam, not being quite sure what the problem was. Sam waved him to come over. The soldier ran towards Sam who then sat down heavily on the ground. At this moment, Cal ran and jumped in the Humvee. The keys were still in the ignition. He turned them, then pulled off stopping thirty or so feet from the gate in the road. The soldier immediately turned and ran towards the Humvee. Cal then drove the Humvee another fifty feet, waving the soldier towards him with his hand out of the window. The soldier started shouting and ran after Cal down the road, just as he got within ten feet, Cal pulled off again, this time pulling the soldier down a side road and out of site of the gate.

  Zach’s radio came to life. “Go.”

  Rob heard Cal’s voice and fired up the bus’s engine, the other two vehicles did the same and he moved off, pulling up to the gate and then turning right.

  After a few minutes of driving, they stopped in a tree-lined road. Cal in the Humvee was sitting waiting, parked up.

  Zach, Fiona, Mary and Michael jumped out of their vehicles and into the Humvee, with Fiona replacing Cal in the driver’s seat and he moving to the front passenger’s seat.

  “I’m not going to miss standing up for hours,” said Michael as he sat alongside Zach, looking at the lack of gun placement in the Humvee’s roof. Fiona pulled out, leading the three other vehicles eastward along deserted roads.

  Zach clicked on his radio. “Morgan, you there? Over.”

  “I’m here. Over.”

  “How’s your patients?”

  “About as well as can be expected. Over.”

  “Abbey, come in. Over.”

  “Here, Zach. Over.”

  “How’s everyone on the bus?”

  “Anxious about leaving the camp. Over,” she said in a hushed tone.

  Zach then turned to Mary. “Once we are clear of the east gate you can join your kids on the bus.”

  Mary nodded. “We need to get on the 213, once we are on that it will lead us to the gate. I heard it was abandoned a few nights ago. Keep going up here, then a right.”

  She looked out of the right window of the Humvee at the broken buildings and cratered parks that she had come to call home. She knew these outreaches from the city of Portland even before the Cascade, when she had to travel down here to visit clients. She even thought about buying a place here, once she had become more established in Portland. Over the past months she had moved from property to property, accumulating the young who had come to see her as something of a mother figure. She cleared her throat to try and mask the small laugh that wanted to rise up. Mother figure? Me?

  Before the Cascade the idea of having children was something she might have got around to in a decade. She never had a problem being an older mother, or even not being a mother at all. That mantle she felt would be for her older sister, the ‘responsible’ one. But fate had other plans, when she was trying to make a go of things in a single story home that she had stumbled upon after being evacuated to this camp.

  Over the course of a few weeks of being in her new home, she kept seeing flashes of light in the house next to hers. A house which she was informed was also empty. Eventually curiosity got the better of her and she investigated to find a young girl, a girl who wouldn’t talk, her name was Addison. But Addison wasn’t alone, she was helping to look after two others, a boy of seven and a girl of six. It took some doing but Mary convinced the three youngsters to come and live with her. From that point on she would see them, the young and abandoned in places they once called homes, and would invite them back to her growing family.

  Fiona turned onto a wider road as per Mary’s instructions.

  “We stay on this road, and it will lead to the gate,” said Mary.

  A voice emanated from Zach’s radio, which numbed him.

  “Leaving by the east gate was not part of my orders, Captain Felton,” said Colonel Tinley.

  Cal, and others in the Humvee, looked at Zach. After a pause, Zach clicked his radio on. “With your convoy leaving by the south gate, I thought it would be a good idea to leave by another route, especially seeing we have so many vulnerable,” Zach made sure not to say ‘Over’ as the Colonel didn’t either. Zach also knew the Colonel was in no position to stop them from leaving as they were now passing into an area which was not guarded by his soldiers.

  There was a long pause before the Colonel replied. “Safe journey, Captain.”

  “Like he gives a shit,” said Fiona.

  “At least now we don’t have to be looking over our shoulders for his people, just the creatures,” said Michael.

  “And we got this Humvee,” said Fiona.

  As they traveled further along the main road, homes partially constructed sat waiting with building materials.

  “This place is a whole lot different to the other camp,” said Michael to Mary. She looked at him questioningly. “Bravo, is like this mega city heading for the skies.”

  “That was the same plan for here, but we never got the chance, almost every day the wall was attacked. Most days some kind of thing got over it, and killed people. The defense force didn’t have the manpower to protect everyone. When Halsted was killed it got worse. Tinley stabilized the situation by giving up on the rest of the camp and just trying to protect the few of us that were left.”

  Zach listened to Mary’s description of Tinley and felt a distant rage, which he needed all his strength to suppress. There was one thing though he was sure of, Tinley couldn’t be allowed to reach Bravo.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Raj sat in the back of the Humvee. Next to him was the man that he had come to dislike, despite only having spent a matter of hours with him. Earlier after Colonel Tinley had talked to Zach, his knuckles became so white as he gripped his radio that Raj thought it was going to break.
>
  Tinley turned to Raj. “I’ll be right back, doctor,” and opened the rear door of the vehicle. The cold December air fought its way in, and Raj braced himself, watching the Colonel leave and walk away.

  This was one of the few times Tinley had let him out of his sight, and he took this opportunity to try and retrace the steps that had led him to be in this situation.

  He arrived in the ‘Factory’ as everyone else did the night before, but shortly after finding a bunk, a soldier approached him. The request seemed polite enough. “The Colonel is impressed by your gadgets. He understands you must be very tired, but time is of the essence and can you accompany me back to headquarters for a debriefing,” the soldier went to assure Raj that the whole procedure wouldn’t take long. So Raj grabbed his backpack, and left with the soldier. He hadn’t thought to tell any of the others who were already falling asleep because he would be back soon enough.

  After a few minutes driving through the backstreets and checkpoints, they arrived at an impressive art deco building that he was later told was the Oregon state capital building. The soldier hurried Raj inside, up numerous flights of stairs and into a large hall. A cacophony of sound hit Raj on entering. Multiple desks were manned by people with stressed expressions, most of whom were frantically talking to the people next to them or running from one end of the hall to the other. At the end of the hall was a large desk, with five people sitting at it. In the center was a man in uniform, in his late fifties with short cropped graying hair. What struck Raj as strange was that he was the only one of the five that wasn’t talking, or moving or seemingly doing anything. Instead he just sat there, in the middle of the hive, but equally removed from it. He instantly saw the soldier and Raj and beckoned them both over.

  “Dr. Joshi. Sir,” the soldier said, then saluted and walked away.

  It was then that Raj noticed his sonic devices sitting on the desk in front of the Colonel.

  Tinley picked up one. “Most impressive these devices of yours, doctor, most impressive.”

  Raj wasn’t sure how to respond. “Umm thank you, I didn’t actually…”

  “I’m going to hand them over to some of my top people, let them figure out how they tick,” Tinley dwelt on the final word while examining the black plastic casing.

  “Actually I’m going to need them back, well, at least most of them, you’re welcome…”

  Tinley continued as if Raj had not started to talk. “I’m also going to need you to come with me tomorrow. Your Captain, will be taking a different route.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “The private here will, take you to your quarters. I’m sure you will find them comfortable.”

  It was then Raj realized the soldier that had brought him from the school hall hadn’t walked away that far and was now standing just a few feet behind him.

  “No, I would prefer to return to the hall. Although I’m happy to advise you tomorrow on how best to deal with any E.L.F’s you may encounter.”

  Tinley grinned. “That will be all doctor.”

  Raj went to say something, but felt an arm lock around his, which pivoted him around to face away from the Colonel.

  “Please come with me, sir,” said the soldier.

  The stress of the past few hours was weighing on Raj, and he hadn’t the energy to argue or even understand what had just happened. He just wanted a bed and sleep, he will deal with whatever Tinley wants tomorrow.

  The sleep he did have was so deep and enveloping that when the powerful knock came on the door of his room he woke not truly believing he had slept. After being only allowed a few minutes to wash and get ready he was taken in a Humvee, towards the south gate. It was there he saw the convoy, waiting with the wall ahead of them in the distance.

  Looking more like a traffic jam, buses, coaches, motorhomes and an assortment of other vehicles all stuffed with people stretched for mile after mile. What made no sense to Raj was how it looked as if all these vehicles were part of one large convoy and not smaller more manageable ones like he, Zach and Fiona had discussed.

  Raj leaned forward in the Humvee to get closer to the soldier driving. “Excuse me, sir? I need to talk to Captain Felton, can you take me to the school where my group arrived, last night, I think you call it the factory?”

  “Don’t know any Captain Felton, my orders are to bring you to the Colonel.”

  Raj sat back in his seat. Reaching inside his backpack he searched for his radio, but couldn’t find it. This bothered him more than the idea of seeing the Colonel again as he was sure he had put the radio in his backpack before he had fallen asleep.

  Vehicle after vehicle flashed by, some looking like they wouldn’t make it to the gate let alone beyond it. About two-thirds of the way along the convoy the Humvee stopped with a jolt, and the soldier got out, opening the rear door.

  “Follow me.”

  Raj gripped his backpack and climbed out into the late morning, winter sun. The air was brisk, and the sky a brilliant blue. The soldier led him to another Humvee. The Colonel was in the back, with the door open talking to another officer. This time the soldier didn’t announce who Raj was, he just walked him close to the Colonels Humvee, turned and left.

  “Ah, doctor. I hope you got a good nights rest, today we make history. On Christmas day no less.”

  Tinley’s words were warm and welcoming and it was at this point that Raj realized the Colonel could switch between two states, one which you felt you had to watch your back with and another which made you feel he actually liked you.

  “It was fine, so where is Captain Felton? General Trow said he would be in charge of the evacuation, that was part of the reason we risked our lives coming up here.” The final words came out more emotional than Raj had planned.

  All the time Raj was talking, Tinley watched with fading blue eyes and smiled, nodding his head with perfect timing.

  “It’s been decided that the Captain will be in charge of a smaller group of vehicles. I don’t feel this larger mission is really right for him, especially considering his past.”

  Raj nodded, but his eyes looked around him for an escape. Something about this situation felt off to him, and he didn’t want to be around, when that became obvious to everyone else.

  Tinley then got out and started to walk along the edge of the Humvee, towards the vehicles ahead. “Walk with me.” It sounded like a friendly request but Raj also felt he had no choice.

  “We have rigged the devices you brought with you, to a number of our military vehicles, and boosted their output with amplifiers. You can probably already hear the creatures beyond the wall just waiting for us to open the gate.”

  Raj hadn’t noticed until Tinley had mentioned it, but when he stood still and strained his ears, he could hear scratching and tearing. Nothing he could pin down to a particular direction, but a sound that mixed into the winter breeze.

  “It’s all the meat, just waiting on this side of the wall, they can sense it, smell it.”

  Raj noticed when Tinley talked about the creatures he did so in a fashion that was closer to a parent talking about an errant child.

  “You sound like you admire them?” the words dripped from Raj’s mouth before he realized he said them.

  Tinley stopped and looked at him with surprise. “You have a keen eye, perhaps you know people as well as these things. But, yes, I do in a way, they are what nature is at its best, unbridled ferocity. These creatures live to conquer, as a military man I can respect that,” for a moment Tinley seemed somewhere else. “Anyway, I just wanted to show you the equipment we have at our dispersal, I’m sure we can handle most that comes our way.”

  Ahead of them were the two battle tanks, that Bass had mentioned before, as well as an assortment of Humvees. This was the head of the spear, and it was impressive. Raj then remembered the creature they had come across on the road near the lake, the creature that was actually just a small part of a bigger whole. All the tanks in the world would be useless against that thing.
He thought about telling the Colonel, but what use would it serve? Hopefully the Colonel will listen to his advice to avoid large bodies of water.

  Raj saw Tinley walking back to the Humvee, and his attention snapped back from an hour before.

  He climbed in alongside Raj, and slammed the door closed. A helicopter roared overhead.

  “Today will be written about in history books, doctor,” he then clicked on his radio. “Open the gate.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A far away shriek echoed around the landscape, just loud enough to be heard over the supply truck’s engine. Fiona, who was now driving it, stretched her neck to see into the sky. Dark crucifix like shadows drifting across their path.

  She then focused her view back on the frost-covered road in front of her. “They seem to be traveling back towards the camp.”

  “It belongs to them now,” Cal said solemnly sitting alongside.

  “I thought you were the upbeat one between us.”

  Cal looked at Fiona. “Have you ever wondered why it happened?”

  “I did for a while after we left New Mexico but events changed so fast, and by time I did have time to think about it, I didn’t care. It’s done.”

  Cal rubbed his forehead. “I just have this feeling we are missing something important.”

  Fiona glanced across, and didn’t like what she saw. Dark circles hung below his eyes. He looked like a man that was visibly aging. “You get any sleep last night?”

  For a few seconds, Cal’s lips quivered as if he was answering somebody else. “Yes, I think so, not sure.”

  “Why don’t you put your head back now? I’m sure you will hear, if things go bad.”

  He turned and smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

  The journey to and from the northeast gate had passed off without incident, and the small convoy of four vehicles was now heading into more forested areas, even though they were actually moving closer to the city of Portland. Just after passing the gate, Fiona and Cal had moved to the supply truck and Mary had switched places with Abbey in the bus.