To his amusement and relief, Captain Sanchez had graciously thrown in some meals ready to eat, or MREs. Jake was familiar with them after purchasing a few thousand of them for his and Sara’s own supply at home. He chose the beef goulash meal, opened the pack, and started putting the meal together as he read the map.
The last expressway sign he’d seen was Suffern, where the convoy had been attacked. His eyes followed the expressway around to where he’d exited the ramp and then down into a city called Mahwah. From there, he’d traveled down State Route 17 until getting lost in the back streets of the town. Jake had roamed for around two hours before finally giving up. How far could he have gotten in that amount of time?
“Shoot, I may have driven all the way down to Hackensack,” Jake mused before he shoveled some of the goulash into his mouth. “Or, somewhere between Hackensack and Paterson. Either way, there are plenty of routes to the expressway from there.”
Jake’s heart lifted as his eyes roamed the highways, seeing them far more clearly in the morning light than he had the previous night when he was panicked and tired.
He committed the routes to memory so he’d have an idea of his general direction once he found a main road. There were probably six or seven different state routes that converged on the area he suspected he was in, including I-80.
“Maybe I’m not as lost as I think I am.”
Jake wadded up his garbage, stuffed it into the MRE bag, and tossed it into the back seat. Belly full, and something akin to well-rested, he placed his gun in his lap and put the Explorer into drive. Then he pulled to the end of the driveway.
Almost immediately, a car zipped by, quickly followed by another one doing at least fifty miles per hour. Jake slammed the brakes and watched them go, neither adhering to common laws of speed or safety.
Shaking his head, Jake decided to go in the opposite direction, turning left and driving slowly down the street. Unlike Boston, this street was almost completely devoid of clutter aside from the windblown leaves that seemed to be growing more numerous by the hour, and the occasional parked car.
Jake wasn’t concerned with street signs at that point. Rather, he looked for a clear indication of some state route or highway he could take advantage of. At the end of the street, he took a right, driving past a liquor store with the front door busted in before passing a delicatessen with a front-door sign flipped to “Closed.”
“I’d be closed, too,” Jake murmured as he took another left and cruised slowly up a main thoroughfare, where he passed an old-style strip mall placed right up next to the road. There was another deli and pizza place, a bridal studio with the front glass busted in and several of the lacy dresses pulled out and shredded on the broken glass still in the windowpane.
Shadowy groups of people stood on both street corners at the end of the block, and Jake accelerated past them without looking to either side. He immediately plunged into a nice residential neighborhood where every home looked different than the next. Most were pristinely kept, white picket fence-style homes with wood-framed fronts and old-style shutters. They were beige and brown and immaculate white, their overgrown yards the only indication that life wasn’t as peachy as it used to be.
That, and the warnings written across garage doors in red spray paint.
The end is nigh. Repent!
Your foot in my yard gets you a hole in the head!
Stay away or die!
There were many others, although Jake tried to avoid looking side to side for too long. The repetitive directions played in his mind; connect to a main route south and keep making connections until he got home.
“Make the connections,” he repeated to himself, tapping on the steering wheel with something that resembled good humor. “Get home.”
He was about to flip the radio on to see if he could catch some news when Jake caught sight of a car in his rearview mirror as it pulled out from a side street and got behind him. It was a blue Toyota sedan, banged up like it had been in some trouble, but the driver was just a shadow behind the glass. Jake kept his eyes on the vehicle, only glancing forward a time or two to ensure he stayed on the road, and he kept his speed at a steady thirty mile per hour.
The driver seemed to come to a decision and pulled the Toyota into a tailgating position, bumper to bumper with Jake’s Explorer. They seemed to be testing Jake to see what he would do, and Jake was happy to let them know. He glanced down at his M4 carbine laying on the passenger seat beneath the map before deciding on a simpler display of power.
He held up his Ruger and shook it so the driver could see it, then he quickly slammed on the brakes, causing the Toyota to tap the back of Jake’s truck with its bumper before the driver hit their own brakes and backed off.
“See all those bullet holes in my truck?” Jake grunted the question through clenched teeth, even though the driver couldn’t hear him. “I survived that. So, anything you have to throw at me, I can take.” Jake stared hard into the rearview mirror. “Come on, buddy. Try me.”
The Toyota backed off even further before giving a lurch forward and switching into the left lane to pass Jake. Jake pointed the barrel of his Ruger out his window and waited for the car to come abreast, his heart pounding like a hammer as a shot of adrenaline was released into his bloodstream.
He was sure the driver would pull up next to him and start shooting, but then the car drove on by, its puttering engine sounding like it was on its last legs. The driver, a middle-aged man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair, didn’t spare a single glance at Jake as he drove on by.
Jake watched the Toyota pull farther ahead until the vehicle made another left several blocks down. With a sigh, Jake placed the Ruger back in his lap and focused on the road signs. Sweat beaded his forehead and his skin crawled with heat, but he was on his way home, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter 5
Sara, Gatlinburg, Tennessee | 1:17 p.m., Saturday
After a steaming hot shower, a fresh cup of coffee, and some dry clothes, Sara felt like a new woman. She sat at the kitchen table in her quiet, nearly empty cabin as her daughter lay napping on the couch with the dogs.
She felt several degrees safer after getting the gate entrance in place to discourage curious people, raiders, or black-clad soldier-types like the woman she’d shot at the lodge from reaching the Aerie. And with Todd, Barb, Dion, and Natasha helping to guard the gate with rifles, they were becoming a formidable defense force.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Sara picked up her two-way radio and lifted it to her mouth. “Aerie to Squirrel’s Nest. Come in Squirrel’s Nest.”
There was a minute’s pause before the reply came. It was Barb. “Hello, Aerie. This is Squirrel’s Nest.”
“You all settled in down there?”
“Just about. We’re checking to see how we can heat the place since none of these cabins have electricity or generators. Might be a good idea to try and find one on our next trip out.”
A chill ran down Sara’s spine at the thought of descending from Pine Bluff Mountain down into the valley. Their last trip had been fruitful, but they’d also nearly gotten killed by two mysterious women at the lodge, one of them wearing some kind of black military-style outfit.
Sara’s eyes slid to the case that rested on the table by Jake’s recliner. The ominous-looking computer with its many compartments and antennae. What had the black-clad figures been using it for?
“Missus Walton? Are you there?”
“I’m here, Barbara,” Sara said, snapping out of it. “That sounds like a great idea. I have to meet with Natasha tonight to start working on a long-term plan for crops, but you and I will head out tomorrow. Can you survive with the kerosene heater for the night?”
“Easily,” Barbara replied. “I’ll put it down on the bottom floor so the heat rises and keeps the upper floors cozy.”
“Great. I’ll talk to you soon. Call me immediately if anyone approaches the gate.”
“Roger that, Missus Walton. Bye.�
��
Sara put the radio down and then pulled her laptop closer. It had been days since she’d tried to get a connection to the internet through Cosmic Link, and at the time the service had been down. She clicked on the connection link and sat back, fully expecting the tiny connection status circle to keep spinning until it finally timed out.
To Sara’s surprise, the circle stopped spinning, and a green up arrow appeared down in the bottom right corner of her screen next to her clock, indicating the service was up and running.
“All right!” Sara exclaimed quietly to herself, then she immediately pulled up her email account to see if Mike, from the Mike Report, had responded to the last message she’d sent him. It was right after Todd had left the cabin to join up with the Good Folk on one of their operations. The message had included Sara’s plea to Mike to let her know as soon as he got word about Todd’s whereabouts.
Of course, a lot had happened since that time, so anything Mike had written was already outdated. Still, she was pleased when she saw several unread messages from Mike in her email inbox.
Starting with the oldest one, Sara went down the line, reading them all.
Hello, Sara:
Sorry to hear about your son leaving the cabin and joining up with the Good Folk. Of course, I counted on you being the only person able to access your email and didn’t think of Todd getting to it. I wanted you to have the final say in any decisions regarding your family.
I’ll be sure to let you know about Todd as soon as I hear something. Keep your thoughts positive. Your son is in good company.
Yours,
Mike
Sara moved on to the next one.
Hello, Sara:
Word reached me about the raid on Trailmarker’s Urgent Care carried out by you and one of the Good Folk. While I understand it was to get your son back, your bravery helped reopen the facility to a lot of folks in that area that needed help. And I understand you’ve offered the use of some of the cabins on Pine Bluff Mountain in the event the wounded need a place to rest. That’s a great thing, Sara. And I’m glad to hear Todd is okay except for a shot to the ribs. He’s a brave kid, and we’ll need more folks like that in the upcoming fight.
If you’re not caught up on current events—I assume your internet is down since you didn’t reply to my last message—I’ve posted several videos. After taking a punch to the jaw, the good old US of A is giving it back in big helpings.
Good luck, Sara. Please respond when you are able.
Yours,
Mike
“You’re welcome, Mike.” Sara whispered her reply to the text on her screen, her voice tinged with a hint of darkly sad humor. “I just want you to know I didn’t enjoy shooting those people. My life was in danger, and so was my son’s. I didn’t have a choice.” Then she shook her head. “And the cabins up here aren’t mine to give. We’re just borrowing them.”
Before she could tear up beneath the overwhelming weight of what she’d done, Sara moved on to Mike’s last message, dated this morning.
Hello, Sara:
I hope things are going well. I assume your internet is still down, as it is across most of the nation. But some service is being restored, especially across the Midwest, as things stabilize at the southern border and on the coasts. I still have not heard word about your husband, Jake, but they are receiving thousands of refugees into the Providence and Worcester FEMA camps just outside of Boston. If Jake made it out, he’ll be there. FEMA is expected to release the full database listing refugees in two days with the expected restoration of at least fifty percent of the country’s internet services. Of course, that excludes places where the infrastructure no longer exists to support such services. I’ll include the link below.
Bless you and your family. Please stay safe.
Yours,
Mike
Sara looked up at the ceiling, into the cozy, wooden rafters of the cabin, taking some solace in Mike’s words. Soon there would be an online database where she could check to see if Jake had gotten out of Boston. That was a good thing, but the next two days would be a nightmare while she worried about him.
She still had faith that Jake had made it out alive, but Sara had seen what things were like here in Tennessee. She had been forced to put herself in life-or-death situations and had been shot at more than once. Todd, even more than she. At the end of the day, she had the cabin to come home to and allies who made her feel safe.
What did Jake have?
“You just make sure this mountain is battened down when he gets home,” Sara said out loud, nodding to herself. “Make sure your husband has a place to come home to.”
Sara clicked the “Reply” button and started to answer Mike. She confirmed his suspicions about her internet being down and the events that had happened at Trailmarker’s Urgent Care. She left out the part about shooting several people through the front door and the mess of blood she’d left.
She mentioned that they were taking measures to protect the mountain, but they hadn’t heard anything from the Good Folk in a couple of days, although one of them was here on site helping them secure the cabins. After a moment’s pause, Sara related the story about finding the lodge and the woman dressed in black military-style garb she and Barbara had shot. She asked Mike if he thought the woman might have had anything to do with the foreign forces he’d mentioned multiple times before in his videos and personal messages to Sara.
While Sara was sure there was a correlation, especially after having retrieved the black computer, she wanted Mike to tell her in his own words what it meant and perhaps give his theory about what these people had been doing at the lodge in the backwoods of Tennessee.
She hit “Send” and then leaned back in her seat, taking a deep breath as she looked around at the snug cabin as the events of the past several weeks spun around in her head like tossed confetti.
Sara thought about checking the local news now that she had her internet back, but it seemed more important to think about what they were going to do next to protect the mountain against dangers.
Part of that was keeping tabs on the weather. Sara opened the Weather Channel website to see what the forecast was going to be like over the next few days. The storms they’d been seeing were dissipating as pressure systems from the north pushed back in response to the East Coast storms, and that seemed to jibe with what Natasha had been hearing on their small transistor radio.
High winds and dropping temperatures were going to be the bane of their existence.
Barbara was right. They needed to get back out there and gather more food stocks, gasoline, tools, and a generator if they could score one. And all in the face of local thugs and a dark, mysterious danger that could be lurking around any corner.
Were there more of the black-clad military people around? And, more importantly, were they looking for the black computer?
Sara didn’t know, and she hoped she didn’t have to find out.
Chapter 6
Yi, Somewhere in Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Wind screamed up the side of the mountain, bending saplings and shoving the crowns of trees around in a chorus of gnashing leaves and branches. Yi stood at the edge of a lane halfway up a twisting, curving mountain road, moisture dripping from his forehead and running down his cheeks. The advanced combat helmets they wore did nothing to stave off the cold, wet weather or fully shield them from Mother Nature’s howling cries.
For the past two days, Yi, Ivan, Katrya, and the rest of the assault team had been up and down several mountains, looking for the Box.
The locator Katrya had boasted would lead them straight to the Box was far less effective than they’d hoped. While it could tell them the relative distance between them and the valuable piece of equipment they sought, the signal seemed to be confused by the layers of mountains and hills that surrounded them. Too many times, the device had beeped incessantly, indicating the Box was near, only to lead them into some gully or up the side of a heavily forested hill to a
dead end.
The red Subaru they’d watched drive away from the lodge was nowhere to be found, and the two women who had killed Jiao and Alina and stolen their equipment had disappeared like ghosts.
Yi had watched the surveillance video multiple times to see if there was anything remarkable about the two women who’d come to the lodge that day. But after several viewings, Yi had come to the conclusion that they were just two regular people out scavenging, who’d stumbled upon the lodge and the tortured girl. And rather than run away, they’d entered the lodge—Yi had to give them credit for courage—taken out a trained operative in Alina, and stolen a piece of equipment that had crippled Yi and Katrya’s operation in the region.
The big Russian, Ivan, came to stand next to Yi, and together they looked down from the mountain into the surrounding valley.
“Another dead end,” Ivan said, making a blustering, scoffing noise.
Yi glanced up at the wide-chested man where he stood cradling his rifle in his arms. He had acquired multiple injuries, the first one being the gunshot to the shoulder he’d sustained in Maryville. It had been early on in their operation, when Ivan had dressed up as a local police officer, driving around and fomenting fear into the hearts of citizens while effectively cutting off all official resistance.
“The situation has grown more complicated,” Yi nodded. He’d wanted to say that Katrya’s incompetence was behind their current troubles, but he did not want to sow dissent.
“You know, one of the women who raided our lodge—one of them in the surveillance video—looked familiar to me,” Ivan said.
Yi’s right eyebrow raised. “How?”
Ivan touched the wound on his shoulder, the one Yi had just been thinking about. “When I was dressed as a police officer in the Maryville town, I stopped a woman in her vehicle. She had at least two children with her. And a dog.”
Weathering The Storm (Book 5): Downburst Page 4