“And the cold? Was that also sent to punish us?”
Buzz sighed. “This isn’t a Biblical flood, Otis. This was caused by man.”
He didn’t confess his part in the catastrophe, but as he looked at this little family, with their ragged clothes, dirty bodies and bony faces—not to mention their stench—he saw a vision of how all humanity would be in just a few months if he failed. As he looked on them he saw the end of mankind as truly as H.G. Wells’ time traveler.
Chapter 4
Wendover
Bobby glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Relax. We have lost them,” Yuri said.
Bobby grunted. They’d been driving for a couple of hours after turning onto Route 93. To begin with, he’d been sure they’d be caught by the soldiers clearing the collision. He’d immediately abandoned the tractor and had shivered in the passenger seat as Yuri tried to put as much distance between them and their pursuers as possible before the Humvee emerged.
They’d made slow progress, and Bobby expected at any moment to see the military vehicle burst through the snow drifts, but they saw nothing. And then, in the space of a mile or two, the snow on the highway had begun to peter out, and, quite suddenly, they’d emerged onto nothing more than a light dusting.
It had been like coming out of a storm front into bright light and blue skies, horizon to horizon. They swapped over and, since then, Bobby had been driving, pedal to the metal. Ahead lay the city of West Wendover. If they could get there, then they could possibly hide and take stock before carrying on. He hated the feeling that there was someone behind them, an invisible hand on their shoulders. He wanted to know where they were so he could avoid them. And Wendover was the place to hide.
“I think it is dry air,” Yuri said, breaking the silence. “Snow is solid water. No water in air, no snow.”
“It’s as good a theory as any.”
“No, it is hypothesis. We need data.”
“We need to get to Denver.”
“Da. That also.”
The Russian said nothing for a few seconds, but Bobby could tell he was rolling something around in his mind. “What is it?”
“Why they not follow? This highway is very long, very straight. We would see them if they were behind us. Maybe they radio ahead. Maybe we have welcoming committee.”
“Another hypothesis?”
Yuri chuckled. “Perhaps.”
“But I think you’re right. I’m hoping we can turn onto a smaller road before we get there. We stick out like a sore thumb at the moment. They could just watch the highway and wait for us to walk into a trap.”
West Wendover was visible in the distance, framed against a row of mountain peaks, and they’d passed a sign to the local airport when Bobby risked turning onto a track running across the rocky scrubland toward a line of distant buildings running parallel to the highway.
“Hey, Bobby!” Yuri called out as he grabbed the hand strap. “My hand is not better, you know!”
“Sorry,” Bobby said, his eyes darting from navigating the barely detectable track to left and right, expecting at any moment to see telltale plumes of dust as the trap was sprung.
They emerged behind a self-storage unit, driving onto the blue painted concrete before making it to a road that headed into the city.
“What do we do now?”
“Over there,” Bobby said.
“Trailer park?”
Bobby nodded, turning into the intersection. “No better place to hide a truck. We’ll find an abandoned or empty plot and go explore. I need to know what the situation is here before we try heading for I-80. If they’re looking out for us, that’s where they’ll be.”
“People live here? In these little boxes?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said.
“You are sure? I see nobody.”
He was right. Snow drifts had piled up against cars, homes and the platforms they stood on. Nothing like in Hope, but it looked as though the snow had fallen the day before and yet it remained there, uncleared. The place seemed deserted.
Bobby parked next to a well-kept home with a long porch accessed from a ramp. They got out, wincing as a freezing blast of air hit them.
“Be careful,” Yuri said as he followed Bobby up the ramp. “Some people shoot first, ask questions later. You know?”
Bobby nodded, keeping his hand around the grip of his pistol as he reached the door. It was locked and there was no answer when he banged on the door. “I think they’ve all gone. Evacuated, maybe?”
“Why?”
Bobby shrugged. “Maybe to conserve fuel. These trailers aren’t going to be well insulated, so maybe they’ve all been gathered together somewhere. A school, I’d guess.”
“What now?”
“Now we break in. We need somewhere to stay tonight and I, for one, don’t like the idea of sleeping in the truck with you.”
Yuri chuckled. “It is too soon in our relationship?” He watched as Bobby jumped down from the ramp and found a heavy stone before approaching the door again. Two blows and the glass shattered. “Subtle, no?”
Bobby ignored him, reached inside and unlocked the door before pushing it open. He’d barely stepped inside when an ear-splitting alarm fractured the air.
“Let’s get out of here!” Bobby called over the noise.
Yuri was already making his slow way down the ramp. By the time he’d clambered into the passenger seat, Bobby had the truck running. “Come on!”
He put the truck in reverse and spun it back onto the road that ran around the mobile park. They’d surely been right that no one lived here now because there was no response at all, and Bobby’s heart began to settle down. He stopped a block away from the alarm, which had now ceased.
“We try again? Maybe find one with no alarm?”
Bobby shook his head. “No, this was a stupid idea. We’ll find somewhere out of the way and park up.”
“So, we get to spoon after all?”
Bobby headed for the park entrance. “If you’re lucky.”
“Watch out!”
Just as he’d reached the main road, a shadow fell across the truck. He slammed his foot on the brake and yelled in fear as he looked around to see the way was blocked by a Humvee.
He put the shift in reverse, but soldiers had already poured out of the vehicle and were surrounding the truck, assault rifles raised.
Bobby let out a roar of rage and frustration that was suddenly cut off as a figure passed, limping between the soldiers and came to stand beside the window.
“Carl!”
The door was wrenched open and hands grabbed Bobby, pulling him back out into the cold. His pistol was taken, he was thrown against the car and searched. Through the window, he could see Yuri being treated the same way.
“Be careful!” Carl called out. “The commander wants him safe and sound until he’s wrung what he needs out of him. As for you,” he spat at Bobby, “oh, he don’t mind if you’re damaged goods. My orders are to bring you back alive and I intend to obey them to the letter.”
He pulled on Bobby’s jacket to twist him around. “You left me for dead, Bobby boy. Now, I can’t return the favor—not for now, anyways—but I can give you a taste of the pain I’ve been through the past days. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of this moment. You are gonna hurt, my friend. You’re gonna hurt real bad.”
#
“How the hell…?”
“…did I survive? Is that what you was gonna ask, Bobby boy? Well, Chen and—whatever the other guy’s name was—they died when your Ruskie friend drove into the motel. But Wang dug me out. By God, I wished I was dead right then, but he dug me out and got me back to base. Barely speaks a word of ’merican, but he did it.”
Bobby was sitting, his hands tied behind his back, in the living room of the trailer he’d tried to break into. The alarm had been disabled and Yuri was, as far as Bobby knew, in the back of the Humvee. Just as soon as Carl had finished “playing” with his vic
tim, they’d leave.
“So, you are working with the Chinese?”
Carl shrugged. “We find our friends where we can.”
Bobby felt sick to his stomach. It wasn’t just his terror at what was going to happen to him, or even the betrayal of his country to its enemy. No, it was the ruin of a man that Carl had become. He’d had little to do with him back in Ragtown before their mission, and wouldn’t have thought him any different from the other soldiers. And yet now, he stood before him, his mouth twisted into a manic grin by the stitches across his cheek. The hair on one side of his head had been replaced by red, raw skin crisscrossed by forming scar tissue. He held his left hand tight against the chest of his fatigues, plainly unable to move it, and walked with a pathetic limp. He was more like the deformed servant of a mad scientist than a regular human being. Carl should have been in a hospital bed, but instead he was here, and he held a knife in his good hand.
“Now then, Bobby, you’re gonna squeal.” Carl leaned forward, his sneer threatening to tear his stitches. “You see, I ain’t got no orders to extract what you know, but I reckon I’ll give it a go. Gotta have a reason to hurt you, ain’t I? What’s wrong, Bobby boy? Look like you’ve seen a ghost. Funny. You’re gonna be one pretty soon.”
Bobby simply sat there, struggling against the rope tying his hands together, looking into the ravaged face of his tormentor and seeing death there. Sooner or later. Probably sooner.
“Now, why don’t you tell me where you got that car from? Steal it, did you?”
Bobby nodded.
“So, you’re a thief too! Know what they do to thieves around here? Lynch ’em, that’s what. Where did you steal it, then?”
“I don’t know. Some town.”
Carl’s eyes narrowed and he came even closer, causing Bobby to try to force his head back. Then he saw the knife, raised to eye level. “Don’t you lie to me, you scum!”
Bobby howled as he felt a sharp pain under his eye. Warm liquid flowed down his cheek as the pain moved upward. “Never seen a eyeball pop out. Guess it’s gonna be pretty gross. Let’s find out, shall we?”
“No!” Bobby strained backwards against the chintz cushions, eyes wide as the knife edged closer and closer. As it nicked the skin, he flung himself sideways and Carl landed on top of him, the knife slicing into his arm as he yelled in pain.
Carl wriggled upright, pushing down with his one working arm, and stumbling backward. “Why, you son of a… I’ll slash you till you’re a-squealing like a pig!”
He kicked Bobby on the shins and then kneed him, and Bobby felt the dagger pinch his neck. He froze, waiting for the fatal insertion.
Gunshots reverberated outside.
“What the…?”
Carl hauled himself upright and turned to look through the window. Bobby saw his one chance and took it, launching himself at his attacker, using his head and momentum as a weapon. Propelled by sheer terror, he knocked the wind out of Carl and sent him sprawling.
But Carl still had hold of the knife, and he brought it round in a wide arc, wrist just glancing off Bobby’s head as he tried to twist out of reach. He rolled onto his back, just in time to see metal flash above him. He stuck his shoulder out in a vain attempt to protect himself…
…and then Carl was gone.
Bobby kicked away with his legs, trying to butt-surf his way across the carpet as a man in uniform wrestled with Carl, ending the bout with a massive blow to the head.
Then another figure appeared in the doorway.
“There! Is him!”
“Yuri!”
The Russian stepped aside to allow a man in a military cap and camouflage jacket into the trailer home. “Stanis, report.”
The man on the floor had now pinned down Carl. He looked up and saluted with his spare hand. “Neutralized, sir.”
“Then clean out the garbage.”
Bobby watched with his mouth agape as his rescuer hauled Carl to his feet. “Who the hell are you? We’re on an official mission!”
The man in the military cap ignored Carl entirely. “If he speaks again except when instructed, you have my permission to use any and all actions to silence him.”
Bobby could see the big man’s face widen from behind. “Yessir.”
And then they were gone, and Yuri limped across to kneel beside Bobby. “You are hurt, my friend!” he said, pulling at the tear in Bobby’s jacket.
“Medic!” the man in the military cap yelled through the door.
Bobby looked down at his blood-soaked arm, then felt the small puncture wound under his eye. “It’s not so bad. Who is this?” He gestured with his head at the doorway.
“He got me out of Humvee. Makes him good guy.”
“Name’s Major Eugene Sullivan, formerly of the 991st Multi-Functional Brigade, Nevada National Guard,” the man said. “On the bounce, Ferguson! Man could have bled out by the time you get here.”
A compact woman emerged into the trailer and came to kneel beside Bobby as Yuri moved away to sit on the sofa. She began examining the wounds as Bobby looked up.
“What do you mean, formerly?” Bobby asked, suspicion returning. Every experience he’d had so far with a military unit had been complicated and he didn’t know yet whether he’d been rescued or merely captured for another purpose.
Sullivan took off his cap and sighed. He was a well-built man in late middle age with close-cropped hair that was silver on the sides and black on top. He looked every bit the career soldier. “I mean that I was removed from command of my battalion.”
“Why?”
“I swore an oath of allegiance to the President of the United States, and I was being asked to break that oath. This, I would not do. I left the Army and some of my soldiers, and some from other battalions, joined me. We have been providing security where needed ever since.”
Bobby winced as the medic rubbed antiseptic on his wounds and then dabbed on anesthetic.
“So, we were lucky you came along, no? But wait. You knew my name,” Yuri said.
Sullivan glanced at Yuri and nodded. “We knew you were in the area and that you were being followed. I know enough about you, Colonel, to understand the importance of your mission. We will help you all we can, but right now, we have to evacuate the area. We have a safe house a short distance north of here.”
Bobby looked up at Yuri. “Colonel?”
The Russian shrugged. “Pilot-Cosmonaut now, but I was colonel in Soviet Air Force. Big cheese. But do not worry, my friend, I do not expect salute.”
Ferguson, the medic, helped Bobby to his feet. “Thank you,” he said.
“You were lucky. A nice clean cut, but it only nicked a vein. An inch to the left and you’d be dead. The wound under your eye is superficial.”
Chapter 5
Edwards
Ellie hugged herself as she walked quickly around the exercise area, trying to catch up with Jodi. This was the third day of their detention and she’d barely spoken with her friend since they’d been put into separate dormitories.
She’d managed to accidentally/on purpose cause a fellow inmate to drop her tray in the cafeteria the previous day, and slipped in alongside Jodi, but the young woman was still fuming. “Keep away from me!” she’d said, and Ellie had been so shocked at the venom in her words, she couldn’t think of anything to say and hadn’t bothered to follow her to her table.
Today, however, she was determined to apologize.
“Jodi,” she hissed, keeping her eyes forward so the guards wouldn’t intervene.
Jodi’s response was a single, angry syllable. “What?”
“Look, I’m really sorry. You were right, I should have been more careful. I thought that sergeant was a meat-head.”
“You’re the meat-head.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
Jodi ignored her.
“Jode, please. I…I need you. I need a friend.”
Ellie saw the young woman’s shoulders relax a little. “Can’t you jus
t let me be pissed with you for a while?”
“If I think you’ll forgive me.”
“Hey! Stop talking! Move apart!”
A female guard stomped across the gritty asphalt and gripped Ellie’s shoulder, forcing her to stop while simultaneously shoving Jodi in the back. Jodi turned as if to protest, but her eyes locked with Ellie’s and she gave a little nod.
“You’re not to consort with your co-defendant,” the guard said. “Exercise privileges revoked for twenty-four hours.”
Ellie muttered an apology and allowed herself to be guided back inside and into her dormitory. “I’d watch it if I was in your position. We haven’t had a trial like yours for a while. Might end up in front of a firing squad. Take my advice: keep your nose clean. If not for your own sake, then think about that pretty friend of yours.”
Slumping onto the bed, Ellie watched the guard depart. She’d seen the desire in the woman’s eyes as she mentioned Jodi and wondered how much power the guards had to influence the outcome of her hearing. None, she imagined. But they could make her life hell while she was in here. She’d have to somehow tell Jodi to watch out for that woman.
She laid down on her side, burying her head in the damp-smelling pillow. What a fool she’d been. She hadn’t admitted to being a spy, but that was about the only positive thing to come out of their interrogation. Tomorrow, they would sit in front of a tribunal which would decide their fate. If they were lucky, they’d be kicked out of Edwards, sent to walk east. Maybe they’d find Mr. Lee again so they could tell him he’d been right.
But it seemed more likely that the tribunal would decide they were at the very least undesirables and possibly dangerous. They might be given long sentences, or they might, conceivably, be deported. But if the guard was right, they could find themselves shot as traitors. Because, from a certain point of view, that’s exactly what they were.
Mercifully, Ellie wasn’t left on her own for long, as the exercise period was now over, and the other inmates were filing in.
“Hey. You sure know how to make yourself popular, don’t ya?”
Lost: Deluge Book 5: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story) Page 4