He had wondered briefly if he would be able to send them, at least when he had first sat down before the terminal anyway. But the terminal had accepted his codes. It had allowed him access, so that must mean he would be able to put in the last section of code and send them, right, he asked himself.
"Of course, of course," he muttered aloud, "just one more small line of code, and Kaboom!" he yelled aloud in the small room.
He had no real doubt that they would launch, and no doubt that they would end his problems for him. Nothing like a good old nuclear bomb to set things right, he told himself, as he grinned at the computer screen with its flashing message.
~ 4 ~
Two miles away at the grating that covered the fresh air venting, that Willie had ordered cut away in order to reach the outside; several small vine tentacles slowly crept inward toward the interior of the ducting. The water level which had still been several feet below the opening just the day before, was now lapping at the iron grating.
~ 5 ~
Several miles to the west, just outside of North Platte Nebraska, Becky and Joe had given up trying to decide what to do about the conviction they both held, that thing's had already started, and that they may be too late to help, or finish their part. They were not even sure what their part was. Joe was only sure that Becky figured into it somehow, and because he was so sure of that, Becky had also become convinced of it.
As darkness closed in, they had both turned quiet. Becky had begun a small dinner over the coals in the fireplace, they had hastily thrown together earlier that morning when they had arrived, and Joe had walked over to the truck and occupied himself with checking the mechanics, making sure that nothing had been damaged the night before as he had driven.
Several times he had driven over debris in the road, but in his haste to put miles between them, and whoever might or might not have been back in Kimball, he had ignored it. He had also become convinced during the night as he drove, that they were being followed. He had kept glancing into the mirrors, sure that he would see glowing headlights closing in on them from behind. It had not happened though; the road behind them had remained empty all night as he had driven.
He had another thought as he stood looking over the truck. What if they had done something to this truck? He wondered. He knew it was irrational, there had to have been over a hundred trucks on that lot, and...How would they have known to choose this one? And if they had, wouldn't something already have happened?
In spite of how ridiculous it seemed, he checked the truck over anyway. There was one small gouge in the front passenger fenders paint, probably due to some of the debris flying up and hitting it. But other than that the truck seemed fine, and none the worse for the hurried trip of the night before. He pushed it from his mind as he walked away from the truck, and back to the fire.
Becky was stirring a stew like mixture, to keep it from burning on the hot coals.
"I think it's ready," she said as he approached the fire, and squatted down beside her. "Hungry?" she gave him a small spoonful to taste.
"Oh yeah," he responded, and rubbed his stomach with one hand to show her it was true. He sat down close to the fire, and turned his thoughts away from the truck. Instead he thought of Becky. Funny, he realized, just a few seconds ago I was down, and all she had to do was talk to me and I feel better.
"You know I love you, right?" Joe asked, staring into her eyes.
"Yep," She said, and kissed him lightly, yet fully on the lips.
"Hey," Joe said, looking serious, "better cut that out unless you want that stuff to burn."
She scooped some of the stew into two tin bowls before she answered him.
"Better eat first, babe, you'll probably need all the strength you can muster!"
Joe smiled as he took the bowl, and arched his eyebrows suggestively. Becky sat down next to him, and they began to eat as the last traces of light seeped from the sky.
SEVEN
~ 1 ~
Becky awoke a few hours before dawn and sat just outside the small tent, lost in thought. The feeling that they had missed the start of something of great importance was still unshakable. It was echoed over and over again in her head, followed closely by another thought that had begun to assert itself just after she had awakened. They know. The message seemed to be a warning of some sort, and kept repeating along with the other message as she sat and tried to think.
They know. Be careful. The battle has begun. Over and over the whispers flowed through her tired mind. She didn't question whether or not the messages were real or only imposed upon her by her own fears. She knew they were real, just as she knew that she should heed the warnings.
They know, be careful, the battle has begun, over and over the messages repeated.
She finally managed to push the messages to the back of her mind, and thought instead about the trip that still lay ahead. Although pushed to the background, the messages continued to color her thoughts with dread and fear of what lay ahead.
Joe had mentioned the day before, that it was probably not safe to use the main road any longer. She knew now that he was right. At first she had thought that his reasoning had been influenced by the previous attack they had experienced, but now she was not so sure. Now she was convinced that he had already known, that he had somehow seen what was ahead, and knew that the only way for them to travel safely was via the back roads.
As she sat in the darkness waiting for the sunrise, she realized that she too had known. She had only to recall their conversation of the previous night. But, unlike the worry she'd had that they were too late, she was now slowly becoming convinced that they were not. That they had been meant from the first, to arrive after the start of the battle. That their place in the battle was still to come, that they had not missed it at all, and that maybe they had an entirely different battle of their own to fight, long before they found Frank Morgan. She sat and tried to make sense of all of the thoughts that seemed to be running loose in her mind.
She slowly became aware that the sky was beginning to color with the first rays of sunrise. The silent, night-black forest surrounding them began to awaken. Birds began to whistle in the pre-dawn air. Their whistled conversations flew back and forth, and were soon joined by the chatter of a multitude of squirrels who also called the forest home. The symphony created by the forest inhabitants began to break apart her troubled thoughts as she listened, and the black mood that had begun to descend upon her finally lifted as the first brilliant rays of sunlight began to stream down through the thick pines of the forest.
She rose slowly and began to re-kindle the fire. When Joe awoke a few minutes later, she had coffee heating, and had already prepared a small breakfast from the left over dinner of the night before.
Lazy curls from the wood fire drifted slowly up through the trees into the morning air, the smoky scent hung in the air, and invoked nothing but good feelings in her. When Joe crawled out of the tent, the black mood that had threatened to envelop her was completely gone, and had been replaced with a deep feeling of peace that calmed and soothed her soul. She knew they would have to be careful on their trek east, but she was no longer overpowered by the sense of foreboding that had washed over her earlier.
"Morning, babe," Joe said, as he sat down next to her and took the steaming cup of coffee she offered, "Sleep okay?"
She considered her answer only briefly, "No," she replied, "I woke up a couple of hours ago and couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking about things, Joe. Like what's ahead for us, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we have to be careful, but that we do have an important part to play. It’s sort of like; I just know that we didn't miss anything. Not really, we just haven't gotten to where we need to be yet... to our part," she looked into his eyes as she finished speaking.
"I know how you feel, Hon, I feel the same way," Joe said, "I spent a long time thinking about it last night before I could finally get to sleep. I guess I just don't care anymore. Not about the battle, but
what our part in it is. We could drive ourselves crazy trying to reason it...whatever happens, happens, I guess, and we'll just face it when we get there," he paused for a second. "I think truthfully that we'll be okay, I really do. If I didn't I would say so. We'll just keep going...and Becky, I don't want to die again, I really don't, but if I have to I will. I know now what's beyond death, or what I used to think of as death. It's not bad, not lonely, not any of the things I thought it was. I can face it now, and I intend to, wholeheartedly."
Joe finished speaking, and when he did he pulled Becky to him and held her.
"Are you afraid, honey," he asked her.
"No," she replied, "not afraid of death anyhow, maybe just afraid of losing us, or not being together anymore, of being apart for a long time, I don't want that, Joe, I really don't," she began to cry as she finished, and Joe held her, comforting her as best he could. I don't want to be apart from you either, he thought, not at all.
Aloud he said, "Becky?" he waited until she looked up at him. "I don't believe we will be apart, I really don't. I think that we just have to be careful so that doesn't happen, you know, like if we just went ahead with no thought to what we were doing, we could find ourselves in a bad situation, or we might not be able to think quickly enough if something happened, and that might cause us to lose each other. But, I don't, and can't believe that we will. Not if we're careful, Becky, and that's probably what we're being made to see."
The symphony around them continued as the rays of sunlight fought their way deeper into the forest to awaken its inhabitants; they held each other and allowed the calls and whistles of bird-talk to dispel their fears. Its calming effect soon overcame the fear and apprehension thinking of the trip had heaped upon them.
Joe raised his head and looked into the eyes of a small gray ground squirrel that sat watching them on a gnarled limb of an older nearby pine. Its tiny hand-like limbs were clasped together across its white belly, and to Joe it seemed as though the squirrel were an old and wise man, sitting and watching them from his pine perch. The squirrel chattered briefly, adding its voice to the bird-talk of the forest, and then scampered across the limb, into the upper reaches of the pine, out of sight.
Becky pulled away from Joe and brushed at her eyes before she spoke. "Well, Hon, I guess we should get moving if we're going to." Joe nodded his head in agreement, and said. "We need to go into the next city or town and get a map, Becky."
"I was wondering about that," she answered, "Wouldn’t the park office have maps?"
"I didn't think about that, but yeah they should. We can check on the way out, and if they do it'll save us having to travel the main road into the next city, we'll still need a state map eventually though."
"Right," she replied, "but at least it would get us heading in the right direction, and that feeling I had, that we should be careful, makes me feel like we shouldn't take anymore main roads, Joe."
"If that's the way you feel, then we'll stay off them, even if we don't find a map. We can get ourselves pointed in the right direction anyway, and eventually we'll have to come to some sort of a small town, or village, and then we'll get a map, okay?" he asked.
"Just so long as you don't think I'm being stupid, or foolish," she said, "I just don't want to not listen when it feels like I should, it really feels as though God put those thoughts into my heart, and it would feel like I was ignoring him if I didn't listen."
"You don't have to explain it to me, Hon, I know. I feel it too, and I have no intention of not listening," Joe stated calmly. "In fact I intend to listen to whatever either of us feels. I think it’s probably the only way to make sure we stay together..." He paused briefly, and then changed the subject. "We do need to pick up ammunition though, you need it for that machine pistol of yours, and I think I'll pick up some for that machine gun I took from that guy. It seems a lot better to have that in my hands than the Remington..." he shrugged his shoulders, "You think?"
"Yeah, I do, if I hadn't had the machine pistol, I think we would've been in deep trouble. That Remington is nice, but... it just can't match that machine gun, no way, and I really think we'll need it before we get... Well, wherever it is we have to get," she finished lamely.
With that they both got up and began to break camp. Together they loaded the Suburban. Joe drowned the small fire and they edged the truck through the trees and out of the camp site, to the accompaniment of the bird-talk and the chatter of the squirrels.
When they reached the small park office, just before the main road, they stopped the truck and went into the rustic log building to search for a map. They had only hoped for a simple map of the region surrounding the state park, but were instead rewarded with a complete state map.
Joe found the next large city, North Platte, and was surprised by how far they had traveled during the night. When they were back in the truck, Joe checked the gas tanks. One was full, but the other was barely above a quarter. He switched to the full tank, and said, "We'll have to get gas soon, does the map show any small towns?" Becky studied the map before her as Joe drove slowly out of the park to the main road.
She traced out a route on the map with one finger as she spoke. "Take the next right, Joe. That should bring us to route 30. That runs alongside of 80 for a long way," she paused briefly as she continued to trace the route. "Maxwell sits just the other side of North Platte. We should be able to get gas and ammunition there, I think. That'll also get us around North Platte too; do you think 30 will be okay?"
"Well, it’s not a small route, but it is smaller, and hopefully less traveled than 80," he said, "and that's a help, I guess."
Route 30 was not clogged with stalled traffic they found, when they reached it a few minutes later. But just before they had turned off 80, it had started to clog up with stalled traffic in both lanes, coming and going to North Platte, and they had been half afraid that they would find 30 in the same condition. They were relieved when they found it mainly clear.
Less than an hour of driving took them around North Platte, and into Maxwell, it was not as large as North Platte, but, Joe reasoned, it should fill their needs.
They had both decided that it would be unwise to split up for any purpose at all, and so when Joe eased the Suburban into a paved area in front of a sporting goods store, they locked the truck, and taking their weapons with them, headed in the direction of the store together. Joe had reasoned locking the truck up simply enough, if someone did try to get into it, they would have to break the glass, and hopefully they would hear that from inside the store. He would have liked to park closer, and not risk leaving the truck in the lot, or being so far away from it, but all of the spaces in the front of the store were full.
As they left the truck and began to walk across the asphalt, Becky suddenly stopped short. When she did, Joe automatically raised his rifle.
"What?" he asked in a near whisper.
Instead of answering she pointed with the machine pistol, she had also raised, toward one of the vehicles in front of the store. Joe hadn't noticed when they had exited the truck, but the low rumble of the trucks idle suddenly came to him in the clear morning air. Stupid! I should have been paying attention. Before he could take the thought any further, a tall gray-haired older man stepped from the store, and, after seeing them frozen in position in the parking lot, quickly ducked back inside.
The sight of the man broke the paralysis that had held them, and they both quickly took cover behind an old station wagon parked in the lot. Joe continued to mentally berate himself for not hearing the sound of the running truck when he had gotten out of the Suburban. Stupid-Stupid-Stupid! He thought as he dropped to the ground and tried to crawl under the old car.
He couldn't get all the way under it, but he did get under it far enough to be able to look into the open doorway of the sporting goods store. What he could see of it was empty, and he could not see far enough into the gloom of the interior to see whether or not there was just the old man, or others waiting with him in the
shadowy store.
"Hey!" a young sounding male voice called from within the store. "Don't shoot, okay? We don't want any trouble with you."
The voice let Joe and Becky know that there were at least two people in the store, and a few seconds later, they could hear the soft weeping of a woman coming from the store as well.
"We don't want trouble either," Joe called.
From under the car he could see a jeans-clad pair of legs separate from the shadows, and cautiously walk toward the open doorway. "What do you think, Becky," Joe whispered, "you believe 'em?"
"Only one way to find out," she replied, as she backed out from under the car and slowly stood.
A young man stood framed in the doorway, a shotgun resting in his hands. He saw her rise from behind the car, quickly followed by Joe. His shotgun remained in his hands, but he did not turn it in their direction. Instead he seemed to be purposely holding it away from them, and they could both see that he was frightened.
Joe and Becky both kept their guns turned away, but still they were on guard, as Becky spoke into the silence that had descended on the parking lot.
"Look, we really don't want any trouble either. We only stopped because we saw the truck running," she lied. She thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let them know they had stopped for ammunition. "We haven't seen any... many," she corrected herself, "people. We'll leave, if it’s what you want," she finished.
The young man’s grip on the shotgun seemed to loosen as she had spoken, and he seemed to be not as fearful as he had been.
"We haven't seen any good people," the young man said, "but we have seen a lot of bad ones." He seemed to be asking them which group they belonged to.
Becky and Joe both relaxed a small amount, and Joe spoke. "We've run into some of the bad ones ourselves," he said. He considered for a moment, and then moved from behind the old station wagon, and out into the open. "Can we talk?" he asked. He was careful to keep the machine gun pointed down as he had moved from behind the car, and he forced himself to keep it pointed at the pavement as the young man seemed to consider what he had said.
The Nation Chronicles: Book Two (The Nation Chronicles Trilogy 2) Page 14