Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 3): Escape and Evade

by Wohlrab, Jeff

  It was a regular phenomenon though. On almost every drive through the countryside and small towns, he’d see half a dozen or more homes with a staring man or woman just sitting out on the porch. It could get a little creepy sometimes. It was much more noticeable during the hot summer months, when he’d rather be inside in the air conditioning.

  People told him he’d acclimate. How, he wasn’t sure. Living in hot and humid Georgia after the dry, cool air of the Rockies was like living in a sauna. He bought extra uniforms just so he could dump his Army Combat Uniform into the washing machine at the end of each day. Even that thin material was oppressively hot when walking across the heat of a parking lot at the end of the day to go home.

  Why didn’t the Army have a southern United States uniform option? One without heavy, heat-trapping combat boots and shirts with long sleeves. Some genius high up the chain had decided the combat shirt sleeves needed to stay down. They couldn’t even be rolled up to relieve some of the heat. Something with shorts and a light, moisture-wicking T-shirt would have been nice.

  It wasn’t as though the Army saw much combat in Georgia, at least until recently. What was the point of a combat uniform outside of combat? The standard operational combat pattern worked well in the woods. Not so great at blending into the background in an office or a parking lot. Jensen sighed. He was going to have to ditch his vest at some point. The rest of his clothing was pretty standard, but that vest identified him as Army.

  He’d probably have to replace the tan boots, too. The coyote tan color was pretty distinctive. Sure, they were mostly covered in red mud at the moment, but they were pretty definitively military. They might make sense in a desert environment, but they stood out like a sore thumb in the rest of the world.

  They were also wet and starting to stink. Jensen’s boots hadn’t yet dried out from walking through the stream before the heavy rain hit. They’d been solidly damp for a couple days since they cooked inside the cockpit of the tub. Heaven knows what sort of bacteria was living in there now. When they found a place with electricity, he was going to get them clean and dry again. If he could find a boot dryer like he had at home, he’d use it. Otherwise, most homes have hair dryers.

  He was lost in thought when he heard a scrape behind him. He faded to his right and put his back against the wall as he looked in the direction of the noise. It was just Daniel coming out to check on the status of the water. “How are we looking? I need some of that coffee, and then a toothbrush. Hell, I would probably use a cat to brush my teeth right now as long as I could score some toothpaste.”

  Jensen felt his head tilt a little to the side. It wasn’t even a conscious decision, it just happened. Sometimes Daniel said things which made his brain hurt, and involuntary head movements just seemed to be the way his mind dealt with it. “What made you choose a cat?” He thought better of his question immediately. “No, wait. Forget that I asked. Water is almost ready.”

  Daniel grinned. “Oh, then we have a minute. A cat because of its tail. I certainly couldn’t fit a whole cat in my mouth, though my stomach is urging me to try.” He inhaled deeply. “I could really go for a burger right now, even if it was a cat burger.”

  The smaller man nodded as his stomach grumbled in response. “I’m not sure about cat, but I’m starving. We need to find something to eat, and soon. Right now, I’d be willing to go back into the woods to find that rattlesnake. It was big enough to feed all of us.” He was silent for a second. “And we need to keep moving. We’re too close to where Doug found us.”

  “After coffee?”

  Jensen nodded. “After coffee.”

  Chapter 30

  “No sir, I haven’t been able to locate them with the drone. A storm moved in yesterday and the cloud cover is preventing me from seeing anything on the ground.” Jim tried to explain to his new boss that aerial surveillance just didn’t work during heavy storms. “No sir, the cloud deck is so low I can’t get under it in that terrain. Some of the mountains are pushing up into the storm clouds.”

  He could tell Bobby was furious. The Senator wanted those men dead and was willing to go to just about any lengths to make that happen. Without the storm, Jim could have picked them up in a couple of hours at the most. With the storm, all he was doing was wasting fuel orbiting above their last known position. “I have to bring the drone back to refuel. I can have it back on station in a couple hours. Maybe the weather will start to clear by then.

  “I understand, sir.” Jim was staring at a blank screen. The Senator had killed the link after letting him know just how urgent the matter was to him. Luckily, Bobby had a lot more going on than just those five men. He had named himself interim Governor of the state; claiming his elected status meant he was the choice of the people. In some ways, that made sense. People had voted for him, just for a different position.

  Jim shuddered in the cool room; if they only knew what Bobby really was. The man was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world. But nobody knew. The information collapse after the attacks, the loss of news outlets, and general confusion, all played right into the Senator’s hands. Now he controlled the news, and most people truly believed he was their savior.

  He had a lot going on, which meant he didn’t have a lot time to harass Jim about the missing group. In the cold control room, which was kept at 60 degrees to keep the electronics cool, Jim tried to estimate how much time he had. Maybe forty-eight hours. If he didn’t find them within that time, he was probably going to have to leave. He’d have to get away before the Senator decided his value no longer outweighed the risk.

  Jim didn’t have a sensor operator with him in the room today. There really wasn’t any point with the heavy clouds. He could operate both positions with ease. As he maintained altitude heading south, he kept the camera scanning below. Weather forecasting was never very accurate, and now it was almost nonexistent. The National Weather Service was gone, at least the headquarters in Maryland and the office in Atlanta were gone.

  The best way to determine the weather now was to use your eyes, or in this case, multi-million-dollar optical sensors attached to a multi-million-dollar lawnmower with wings controlled from a multi-million-dollar control suite. When he noticed the clouds starting to break up, Jim looked at the aircraft’s position on his map. It was about midway between Commerce and Athens.

  As he flew further south, the cloud cover cleared. That was good news. By the time the drone was fueled and turned around, there might be enough breaks in the clouds over the mountains that he’d have a chance to locate the small group. Unless they were using something which transmitted, his only hope of finding them was visually.

  Usually, his targets made it easier for him by using some sort of communications device. Anything which emits a signal can be located. The visual aspect was typically just confirmation of the target or getting the lay of the land prior to sending in a ground team. His bird didn’t have weapons, unlike the Peregrine, so he couldn’t neutralize targets, just find them.

  Far below, just north of Athens, he saw a small convoy heading north on Highway 441. Jim zoomed in to see two Canid armored vehicles in the center of the convoy with an AWESOME scout vehicle to the front and rear. The only person with that kind of firepower was the Senator. Four heavily armed vehicles with two kill teams were heading up to the mountains.

  Jim revised his timeline. He probably only had about twenty-four hours once the kill teams were in place. He estimated they were less than ninety minutes away from the last known location of the survivors. They’d be in place before he could get back on station. Since the drone could loiter for almost twenty-four hours before hitting bingo fuel, the level at which he only had enough to return to base, he probably had only one more flight before he had to bug out himself.

  One more flight before he’d have to go on the run.

  Chapter 31

  Brent knelt under the apple tree in his backyard. Home. He slowly pulled weeds out of the soft soil where he’d buried his be
loved Rebecca. There was no grass growing there yet, only weeds. She’d been laid to rest during the winter, and the spring growth was taking over the tilled soil. It seemed disrespectful to allow weeds to grow there.

  During the height of the sickness, he hadn’t been able to bury her in a cemetery. They had purchased plots years ago, expecting to be laid to rest side by side. In all honesty, Brent had expected to go first. Statistically, he was more likely to die before she did, but statistics went out the window when the virus reared its ugly head. The old and young were more likely to die, but the virus tried to take everyone.

  Over half the population died in a matter of months. Brent should have considered himself lucky. He and Jack had beaten the odds. They had survived the virus. He didn’t consider himself lucky though. Instead, he wished they had died together. Jack was gone. Rebecca was gone. The life he knew was gone.

  Days before, men had held a gun to his head in the darkness. Something about that moment, standing in a stream in the night, had put him over the edge. Even during the morning attack, he’d been strong. In the aftermath of the nuclear attack, he’d been strong. Even when he’d been shot in the attack, he’d remained strong. But standing in the night with a gun to his head, he’d been terrified. So terrified that he’d pissed on himself.

  Only he knew, but he still felt ashamed. He wanted to be with Rebecca, who would understand. He’d had days, particularly in the early days of their business, where he’d simply had to put his head on her shoulder and hold her. When bills piled up, work felt like torture, and it felt like too much to keep moving forward. He’d always felt better when he could lean on her.

  His Rebecca always made everything better. Somehow. Life was just better with her. He should have been the one to go. The virus should have taken him, either instead of her or alongside her. Brent leaned over and laid down alongside the modest grave. His knees had taken a beating from a lifetime of construction work and kneeling quickly became painful.

  He continued to pick weeds from the plot under the shade of the apple tree. He had lovingly made a coffin for her from hickory and stained it. It seemed crude to him, but the workmanship was masterful. He padded the bottom with her favorite comforter and laid her head on her favorite pillow. Several feet below, she was still wrapped in that comforter.

  They had a gravestone picked out, his name on one side, hers on the other. She would have been laid to rest on his left. Phillips would have been spelled out in block letters at the top, Brent on the left, Rebecca on the right. But she didn’t even have a headstone now. Just an unmarked grave under an apple tree in the backyard, with weeds growing from it.

  It seemed wrong. His Becca deserved better than that. She deserved to be alive. But that was selfish of him. It was just something he wanted, for himself. His beloved wife was in heaven, and he’d be joining her soon. Brent thought back on the past few months. No, she was better off in heaven than living through this maelstrom of insanity.

  An engineered virus running rampant across the globe. A crazed madman using nuclear weapons on American soil. Rogue groups killing and trying to kidnap women. No, it was probably better that she was in heaven and not with him, but it still hurt. It still felt like part of him was missing.

  Brent laid on his back and stared up into the branches, an image of Rebecca in his mind. “I’m sorry honey, I’m so sorry I failed you.” Tears formed at the edges of his eyes. “All I had to do was take care of Jack, and I failed you.” Fat droplets rolled slowly down into his gray sideburns. “I hope you can forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

  He wished she was there so he could hold her and feel comfort. “I know Jack is with you now, and we’ll be together again soon. I love you so much.” Brent spent the afternoon talking to Rebecca under the tree, sometimes kneeling to pick weeds, sometimes simply lying on the ground to be near her. It wasn’t until the sun fell below the horizon that he got up and went inside. There were no more weeds to pick.

  In the dim light, Brent went to his recliner and sat down. He would sleep there tonight. He wouldn’t go up to the bed they’d shared. It wasn’t his anymore. This house, this house he’d built. It wasn’t his anymore. His home was with Rebecca, and there was nothing in this world that could ever be home again.

  Brent didn’t have much of a plan. He would stop drinking water and let nature take its course. As he rocked, he thought of things he still had to do. He had to mark Rebecca’s grave. She deserved that. The woman he loved wouldn’t be left in an unmarked grave. He needed to make himself more presentable. His pants were dirty and torn, and he smelled. He didn’t know how the transition worked. Would he appear in the afterlife as he’d died? Would he be a spirit with no form? Did it matter what he was wearing?

  No, he was going to be presentable. He had time, though now it seemed like less and less time. He might have a few days. Maybe a week. But he still had time. Brent rocked and remembered. Tomorrow he would take care of things. Tonight, tonight he just remembered.

  It was barely daylight when he awakened the next morning. There was an urgency in his mind which wouldn’t let him rest. He needed to mark Rebecca’s grave. He needed to prepare. How much time would he have before his organs started to fail? At his age, he might have less time remaining than he had initially anticipated.

  His list of things to do had to be accomplished quickly, just in case. Brent touched his tongue to his lips. They felt dry. That was good. It meant he was already getting dehydrated. Maybe it would go faster than he thought. That was good, but it was also bad. That meant he might have less time than he thought.

  Brent did construction, but he had no idea how to carve stone. He didn’t have the tools or a big chunk of granite to make a proper headstone. Jensen had told him about passing through a town which seemed to have a lot of headstone places. “The granite capital of the world,” Jensen had said.

  Whether that was true or not, Brent had no idea. He was familiar with the town though. He’d been through it a few times. Elberton, Georgia. The granite deposit was something like thirty-plus miles long and several miles wide. Unfortunately, that was there, not in Dahlonega. The chances of him traveling the two hours to Elberton, loading a granite slab into a car by himself, and making it back in one piece were very slim.

  It could weigh a couple hundred pounds, and in his weakened state, he was unlikely to be able to lift one even if he could locate a stone without getting shot. There was at least one funeral home in Dahlonega, but he would still be faced with the problem of transporting it back. He’d also have to steal a car, because his had been turned into dust by a nuke. No, it needed to be something else.

  Wood would rot pretty quickly in the hot and humid Georgia climate. Well, dead wood, anyway. The apple tree wouldn’t, at least not for a few decades. He would carve into the tree. To him, giving Rebecca back her name was priority number one. It wouldn’t do for her to have an unmarked grave, because when he died, nobody would ever know.

  Brent walked into his garage and flicked on the light by habit. He was surprised that all the bulbs had gone out at once before he remembered there was no power. That also meant most of his power tools would be useless. There might be some battery-powered stuff that still held a charge, but those were mostly drills and saws, nothing for what he needed.

  That’s okay, he thought to himself. He had a hammer and a couple chisels. It would be enough. The apple tree wasn’t very big, maybe twelve inches in diameter. They had planted it in the backyard about ten years before. Brent couldn’t remember what kind it was, only that it had smooth bark and the apples were delicious.

  The thin, smooth bark would be helpful for his work. Thick bark would probably chip off and cause even more harm to the tree than he intended. As it was, gouging it with a chisel probably wasn’t going to make it any healthier. Hopefully the words wouldn’t cause the tree to die. He wouldn’t be around to see it, but he’d seen other trees growing strong with initials carved into them. Hopefully this one would as well.


  It took some rummaging around in drawers to find the smaller wood chisels. They didn’t get used much. Sometimes he used them for fixing up strike plates and mortices when installing doors, but that was about it. These days, there were faster tools for just about everything. It was rare when he had to revert to manual methods to fix things.

  With the chisels and mallet in his hands, he turned back to the door, but stopped and pulled a black marker and tape measure from the workbench. Old habits die hard. He would write onto the bark before using the chisels. Measure twice, cut once. Preparation is the key to success.

  Chapter 32

  Fueled with coffee, the small group of survivors walked into North Carolina along Old Mud Creek Road. Daniel pointed at the sign. “Does this mean there’s a new mud creek around here? Did they run out of names and decide to simply re-use ‘mud creek’? I have questions.

  “Wait, now I have more questions. Huckleberry Hill Road?” Daniel looked around, “Does anyone know what a huckleberry is? Aside from Val Kilmer?” Daniel was met with blank looks. “Come on. None of you have ever seen Tombstone? Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday?”

  Jessica offered up, “Val Kilmer? Wasn’t he the first guy to play Batman in the movies?”

  “No! No, no, no, no, no. Well, he did play Batman, but he wasn’t the first. Wait, when were you born?”

  Jessica grinned, “2006.”

  Daniel groaned. “Ugh, just a baby. No wonder you don’t know. I think the movie came out about ten years before you were born. Wait a second. It came out before I was born, too. But that’s no excuse for never seeing Tombstone.”

  “Anyway, does anyone know what a huckleberry is?” Daniel asked again.

  It was Marcy’s turn. “I don’t know what it is. But it sounds like something we could eat. I’m all for something we could eat.”