by Lorch, Jeff
Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes, and I squeezed my injured hand into a fist, letting the pain wash through me, distracting me.
“Self-important prick,” I growled to myself between clenched teeth.
He had refused to consider us leaving on our own, or to make an exception to what he saw as ‘his duty to protect us, to save us from ourselves,’ and when he saw I wasn’t going to be dissuaded, he had thought to dismiss me like I was one of his soldiers. When that didn’t work, he instructed his men to remove me from the room physically.
In hindsight, punching him in the face hadn’t been the best idea, but at that point I had been in a rage. Not my finest hour.
I had been sitting here for a couple of hours and had watched the light from the window across the hall fade to full dark. The room I was in had four cells along one wall, and a hallway running the length of the other wall leading to a door to an outer office. The other cells were unoccupied.
The door at the end of the hallway opened, and Private Reed walked in carrying a tray with a sandwich and a bowl of soup. He unlocked the cell door and came in, setting the tray on the cot beside me.
He sat down on the toilet, his elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor. Then he glanced up at me sideways and started to laugh quietly.
After a moment, I joined him.
“Is his nose broken?” I asked him after a moment.
He laughed harder at that and nodded his head.
“Oh yeah, you got him square on the beak,” he laughed. “Tomorrow he’s going to look like a racoon with two black eyes.”
My stomach growled at the smell of the food on the tray, so I picked up the sandwich and took a bite, chewing quietly.
The laughter gone, Reed looked up at me.
“I know why Lt Col. Dumont is insisting on keeping you here,” he said. “He seems like a pretty decent guy, it’s just that things are bad out there, really bad, and he takes his responsibilities seriously. I’ve talked to some of the guys stationed here, and they’ve seen some bad shit out on patrol. Not from the infected, either.”
He went on to tell me that the word around the base was the protocol established by the federal government in the event of a national or international crisis like we were currently in, in the event that the Corrections administrators felt they would be unable to continue to provide ongoing incarceration with the required standards of care, they were to release all provincial and federal inmates for humanitarian reasons.
I stared at him, dumfounded. It didn’t take me long to put the dots together.
“Let me guess,” I said, “Brandon has a prison doesn’t it.”
“It did,” he replied, nodding. “And word is that instead of leaving the prisoners in their cells to maybe starve to death, they opened the doors and let them all loose. From what the guys here have been able to gather from their patrols, most of the prisoners are still in town; it looks like they’re settling in for the long-haul.”
I had misjudged this young man, I thought to myself. He was a bit crass, sure, but maybe that was a touch of gallows humour, a way to keep the horror of the last week at bay.
This news made it even more critical that I get home; Regina was home to a prison too. It wasn’t maximum security or anything, but I was pretty sure most of the people in there weren’t leaders of their church choirs, either.
I put my sandwich down and leaned forward, grasping his hands in mine, and looked in his eyes.
“Private Reed, I need to get home. I need to know, one way or the other, what’s happening to my children, to my family.”
He met my gaze for a moment, and finally nodded.
“I know,” he said, his voice quiet. “That’s why I’m going to help you guys get out of here.”
♦♦♦
Private Reed told me his plan to get us out and on our way home, and it sounded good to me. He left me with my supper and went to make some arrangements. After finishing my meal, I lay down and tried to get some sleep; I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.
Just before midnight he returned, this time with a small backpack.
“I forgot to ask Jamie and Alex what you had for provisions in your vehicle, so I packed you some food and water,” he said, handing me the pack. “Plus, the special present I told you about is in there.”
I was touched by his thoughtfulness, and I thanked him for it. He looked at my feet, as if trying to figure out how to say something.
“Corporal Kelley was a good man,” he said, his voice quiet. “He was sort of like a big brother to some of us FNGs, you know?” He realized I didn’t know what an FNG was. HE blushed as he said quietly, “that means Fucking New Guy.” I didn’t say anything, I just nodded. He looked up at me. “I know he wanted you guys to get home. That’s why I’m doing this.”
“Private Reed, are you going to get in trouble?” I asked, sincerely concerned, but knowing I would take the help he was giving us regardless.
He shrugged, a gesture that reminded me of Alex and Jamie, and I realized this man in front of me was likely about the same age as the twins.
“You might as well call me Glen,” he said with a cocky grin. “If we’re going to commit a federal offense together, I think we can be on a first name basis. And hey, I’m already a Private; what are they gonna do, demote me?”
♦♦♦
He walked us out of the jail area, straight past a soldier who sat at his desk, reading, ignoring us as if we weren’t even there. Once outside, he ushered me into a waiting jeep parked in the darkness near the building. I opened the door to climb into the passenger seat and was overjoyed to see Alex and Jamie smiling at me from the back seat.
“Hey Stephanie, glad you could make it!” said Alex with a grin, his brother beside him giving me a double thumbs-up.
Gleefully, I tossed the backpack of food to them and hopped into the front seat while Private Reed, Glen, trotted around the other side and climbed behind the steering wheel.
“Okay, so Jerry back there owed me a favour so he was happy to ‘fall asleep’ while on duty,” he said as he drove, referring to the soldier that let us walk out of the jail area, “but I don’t know the guys at the gate so this is where things might go fubar on us.” I said I didn’t know what fubar meant, and Jamie laughed from the back seat and told me. I nodded, it was a good word to know, I thought to myself.
“I’m going to let you out at the corner up ahead, from there it’s a straight shot to the gate so you’ll have to walk to your SUV. Keep to the shadows if you can, there’s yard lighting but it’s pretty spread out so you should be fine.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me the keys to our vehicle.
At the corner he came to a stop. He turned in his seat to look at us.
“Just remember: be quick and don’t hesitate. They’re not going to fire on you, you’re not dangerous criminals. Just make sure you don’t stop no matter what. Once you’re clear of the gate, keep going for a way, but not too far. When you’re away from the base, find somewhere to hole up until daybreak, you don’t want to be driving at night.” He didn’t have to remind us, the attack early this morning on the convoy was still fresh in my mind.
“Alright, time to go. But make sure you give me at least five or ten minutes before you pull the trigger okay? I need to get myself scarce, so I have plausible deniability,” he said with a smile.
I thanked him again and leaned over to give him a hug. He returned it warmly, then gave a fist-bump to each of the twins as they climbed out behind me. We waited in the darkness and watched him drive back the way we came.
Everything was very quiet suddenly, as we stood in the darkness listening to the sound of the jeep’s engine fading. I walked close to the building at the corner and peeked around toward the gate. I could see a few hundred yards away the gate was well lighted, the two soldiers on post sitting in the small booth. I couldn’t see from this distance, but it looked like they were playing cards.
About fifty yards
closer to us, parked where we had left it, sitting bathed in the glow of a bright streetlight, was our SUV. I ducked back behind the corner.
“Dammit, the truck is sitting right under a light,” I said to them. “But at least Glen was right, the lights are pretty spread out, so I think we should be able to get close to it without being seen if we stick to the shadows.”
We waited another few minutes, just to make sure Glen was somewhere visible, then we turned the corner and headed north, sticking close to the shadows of the buildings.
As we slowly walked along, I kept my eyes on the guard shack. Every minute or so one of the guards would look up and give the area a quick scan. When he looked up, we froze in our tracks, not wanting our movement to give us away.
Finally, we were on the edge of the parking area; our next steps would take us into the light and make us visible. I waited until I saw the guard look up, look around, and look back down to their card game, then I motioned to the boys and we casually walked towards our vehicle, like we had every right to be there, like Glen had suggested.
I was coming around the side of the truck to the driver’s door when the guard looked straight at me and sat up in alarm.
“Go, go, go!” I whispered to the boys. I unlocked the truck with the fob, which flashed the parking lights on and off, and jumped inside.
I started the engine and backed out of the parking stall, facing the gate ahead of us.
One of the guards was on his radio in the booth while the other had grabbed his rifle and had run out to stand in the road in front of the gate, his other hand in the air signaling for us to stop.
Gritting my teeth, I put the truck in gear and jumped forward, the guard pinned in my headlights. As I raced forwards, I saw him pull his rifle to his shoulder, I saw his mouth moving yelling at us to stop but we couldn’t hear him over the roar of the engine. At the last moment he dove off to the side to safety as we flew past him, crashing into and through the chain link gate. Our windshield shattered as part of the gate smashed into it, but the safety glass held, and the twisted frame of the gate rolled off to the side.
We were out!
I looked behind us and saw the guard with the rifle stand up and dust himself off, and like that we were out. We accelerated north, back the way we had come in, and raced through the streets of Sprucewoods.
“Should we turn off here?” asked Jamie. I shook my head, we were only one or two kilometres from the base, and in this small town there were only so many places to hide; they would find us for sure.
“It’s too close. We need to get some space between us before they get any vehicles out here after us.”
For the last part of the plan Glen had come up with for us, I slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, and I nodded to Alex and Jamie. They grabbed their guns from where we had left them on the floor and climbed out of the SUV while I grabbed the pack Glen had given me, pulling out his ‘special present’.
While the boys smashed out the tail lights and headlights with the butts of their guns, I turned on the night vision goggles and put them on, looking around. The night landscape was a wash of shades of green, and in the pitch darkness I could see the road as if it were broad daylight.
When the boys opened the doors to climb back into the vehicle, I had to squeeze my eyes shut as the interior lights came on and washed everything through the goggles bright white. When the doors closed, I opened my eyes and could see again.
I put the truck in gear, and we raced off into the darkness.
♦♦♦
Glen had warned us that they would likely send out a couple of trucks to try to chase us down, but it wasn’t likely that they would take the time to grab any night vision or thermal imaging gear; they were just chasing down some misbehaving civilians, not going on a mission. So after driving for another five minutes or so, we drove through the small town of Cottonwood and then turned west onto a gravel road, finally picking a spot where we slowly coasted down into the ditch behind a bunch of trees and waited.
Sure enough, less than a minute later we saw headlights cutting the darkness up the road leading back to the base. Two of the trucks continued north towards the highway where we had come in that morning, and the third truck slowed and turned off into Cottonwood. It slowed to a crawl and a spotlight snapped on, illuminating driveways and yards. We waited until they had turned a corner further into town, then drove back out of the ditch and headed west towards Brandon. I whispered a heartfelt thanks to Private Glen Reed; thanks to him, we had made it out!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Day 9
We spent the night in a farmyard parked behind a grain bin, sleeping in the truck, taking turns watching for soldiers.
Last night, once we were clear of immediate pursuit, Jamie had pulled out his flashlight and looked on the map to see where we needed to go to get past Brandon and back on the TransCanada highway heading west to Regina.
It wasn’t good news. There was another river running through Brandon that looked like it could only be crossed in a couple of places, all of which were in the direction the two army trucks had raced off to last night. Obviously, they knew the area, so I thought it was very likely they would set posts at those bridges knowing we were likely to come to them sooner or later. I guess it depended on how badly they wanted to catch us.
I thought about Dumont sitting in his office nursing his broken nose and his bruised ego, and I thought he might really want to catch us.
We finally decided on a route that would take us north around Brandon to an aptly-named town called Rivers, Manitoba, where it looked like we could cross the river, then drive the backroads working our way south and west until we re-joined the highway near Virden, Manitoba. It would take extra time, but we would be avoiding the city of Brandon, which, based on what Glen had told us last night, seemed like an imperative. Plus, this way we were pretty-much guaranteed to not run into our soldier friends.
Once we were all awake, before the sky started to lighten, we set off from the farmyard and headed north. We wanted to be across the highway before it got light. We drove north through Douglas, and crossed the TransCanada highway without seeing anyone, and we all breathed a bit easier. Once we were across the highway, we followed gravel grid roads west and north to the town of Rivers, the rising sun behind us slowly brightening the landscape until soon we were able to turn off the night vision goggles. Jamie took the unit and plugged it into the SUV’s 12v charger so it would be fully charged when we needed it again.
In less than an hour, we came through a small valley and crossed the river, slowing as we came into town, looking for signs of life.
The town had been devastated.
Any cars we saw along the side of the road had been wrecked, windows smashed, and many were burned out, resting on the ground on blackened hubs, rubber tires melted away.
Several of the buildings too had been razed to the ground, and all the storefronts we saw had been smashed open, doors torn from their hinges.
“Jesus,” I whispered, stunned by the destruction. This wasn’t from the infected; someone had done this intentionally, looting the buildings for whatever goods they might have and burning the rest.
Who could do this? What possible reason could there be for this? Breaking into a place to get what you need to survive was one thing, something I still felt guilty about; but this wanton ravaging of a town was something else completely.
Whoever had done this, I was pretty sure they had enjoyed it.
We drove slowly past the ruined town. When we came to the bodies lying in the road, I turned my eyes away, wishing I could protect Alex and Jamie from seeing this.
This was the fate Dumont had been trying to protect us from. Whatever kind of animals were out here doing this, these were the people he had been trying to warn me about.
I suddenly felt a little bit bad for breaking his nose, but it still wouldn’t have changed my decision. If anything, seeing this carnage just reinforced my need to get home.
>
From Rivers, we worked our way west and south, driving for almost an hour until we came to the town of Virden. We followed the road to a stop sign, finally meeting up with the TransCanada. I stopped at the intersection and looked at the gas gauge. It was getting low, we were under a quarter of a tank.
“We’re going to need to find a gas station pretty soon,” I said to the boys in the back seat, “or we’re going to be walking within an hour or so.”
“A gas station won’t do it,” said Jamie, thoughtfully, from the back seat, looking out his window.
As soon as he said it, I realized he was right. Gas stations needed electricity to pump the gas up from the underground tanks. I felt stupid for not thinking of it before.
We still had the plastic fuel tanks we had grabbed from the store in Barrie, but they were now empty, and any of the cars we had seen on the roads had been either stripped or burned.
“I’m guessing some of those will have gas in them,” said Jamie, pointing out his window to my right. “We still have the siphon hose and the plastic jugs, we can likely fill the SUV and the jugs; that should be more than enough to get us back to Regina.”
On the corner of the highway right beside us was a boat dealership, and the yard had dozens of small sport-boats lined up side by side.
I brightened and told Jamie he was a genius. As I backed up our SUV looking for the entrance to the dealership, I heard Alex congratulate his brother for his quick thinking, and then punch him in the shoulder and remind him that he, Alex, was the older brother, by a whole six minutes, and not to be a smartass. I was shaking my head, grinning, as we pulled into the boatyard.
Thirty minutes later, we were on the highway headed west, our gas gauge at full and four plastic jugs full of gas strapped to our roof rack, less than three hundred kilometres from home.