Terry’s features were set. He thought he knew why they ran, and vowed that one day, people wouldn’t be afraid of strangers. The Force would protect them, keep them safe from the enemies they feared.
They didn’t stop to find out what the people were afraid of. That would be later. When the group walked this way, they would have more time to talk with survivors who lived in the area. A large group of people would look less threatening than a well-armed small group.
Terry understood the logic of it. Next time, we’ll stop and say hello, he thought.
Minneapolis was desolate. The great city stood as a monument to the past. They didn’t see any people or any life at all, although Char said she sensed humans and some larger animals. They hurried through the city as quickly as they could, although Kiwi wanted to stop and explore because she’d never seen anything like it. Bismarck and Fargo were sprawling cities, but the vertical presence of Minneapolis was different.
And different was what called to her.
“Chicago, Kiwi. When you see Chicago you’ll understand why we don’t stop here. This is small compared to a truly big city. I hope that we get to a place where you can see it all, appreciate it, and then understand that our mission is to make sure that when we rebuild, it’s for a humanity that will flourish.”
To Wisconsin and southeast they traveled. They passed through areas that looked like they had working farms, with people and livestock.
Civilization, but they didn’t stop. Infrastructure wouldn’t rebuild itself. The world needed people willing to work, farmers to metal workers, electricians to ditch diggers. There was a role for everyone willing to get their hands dirty.
Power called to them. Industry demanded its presence to restart the machines. To send raw materials to the factories. To jump start the world toward the twenty-second century.
Riding through the countryside toward Milwaukee, Terry knew where he was. “You know, GaryCon isn’t very far from here, at least where they used to hold it. We could stop and see the convention site, the statue in town? What do you say?”
“What are you talking about?” Char asked.
“GaryCon, the premier old school role-playing game convention, named and run in honor of Gary Gygax, you know, Dungeons and Dragons,” Terry said, wiggling his eyebrows at his wife.
“No,” she said and spurred her horse forward.
They passed Milwaukee late in the day. They’d been riding through the urban sprawl for most of the afternoon. In the country, the destruction wasn’t as obvious. The cities bore the brunt of civilization’s demise. Too many buildings had been burned, whether by accident or on purpose. It was like the people agreed that life had come to an end.
So they helped.
The group traveled without talking. They kept their rifles aimed into the ruins, thinking that at any moment someone would jump out and come at them.
The Werewolves sensed the people, but they were scattered and possibly even feral.
“What did we do?” Terry lamented.
“We traveled two thousand miles to bring this place back to life, that’s what we did. We didn’t have anything to do with what caused this, but we sure as hell are the only ones who can do something about it now.”
“Damn skippy, woman!” Terry blurted out. Char leaned sideways in her saddle so she could backhand him across his chest.
Ten days from when Char said it would only be ten more days, they rode into the outskirts of Waukegan, located north of Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan.
“Inverted V, I have left flank, the major on the right, James, Lacy, then Ted. Keep the wolves in the middle of the V if you would, Ted. Gerry and Timmons bring up the rear. Stay sharp, people. If we run across anyone, this time, we’re not going to pass them by.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Terry was making a beeline for the power plant located on the lake shore. A couple factories and an industrial park were located nearby. The geography of the area was promising as there was open land to the west, a number of forest preserves at least establishing a foundation for nature in the middle of the urban area. There were a couple golf courses nearby, too.
Terry had played a few times and enjoyed the game, but that kind of land would make for a good pasture. Golf wasn’t coming back any time soon.
Char pointed to her eyes and then pointed to both sides of the road, holding up one or two fingers.
They kept riding. Ted worked hard to keep the wolf pack between the horses. They wanted to run. They smelled game nearby.
They passed the small airport. A few airplanes parked on the tarmac looked unspoiled, as if they could spin up and fly away at any moment. Metal clanged against metal, bangs, the droning of something vibrating in the wind, the squeal of metal sliding across metal. The sounds of humanity lost.
It was unsettling and despite passing through numerous cities on their trip, this was the worst. Many of the houses looked to be intact, although they’d all been broken into at some point. Windows were shattered and doors were off their hinges.
Glass seemed to be the least survivable building material. Maybe the post WWDE rampages had seen gangs ravage the land. Char continued to point and hold up fingers. There were people out there, but they were isolated and hiding.
They rode through the town, having to bunch up on the city streets, far closer than Terry was comfortable with, so he changed the formation into a column of twos where people rode side by side. Terry and Char up front, then Ted and Timmons, the wolf pack behind them, then Gerry and Kiwi, and James and Lacy bringing up the rear.
They passed out of the unease of the residential housing and into the open area closer to the lake. The power plant sat on the shore across the highway. A sewage plant was next door and a water treatment plant was only a little farther down the shoreline.
“Well, let’s see what we’ve got,” Terry said as he focused on the buildings ahead, the transfer station, and the power transmission lines. Real infrastructure.
An odd banging sound came from behind them. It repeated for a brief time, then stopped.
“Company!” Timmons yelled.
“Form up across the road, line abreast facing six o’clock!” Terry yelled and spurred his horse into a short gallop. He stopped on the other side of the road, using its elevation as a berm behind which he could fight an incoming enemy.
The others joined him. “Kiwi, take the horses and stay down!” Gerry pointed to the ditch behind them as he ran to the road, took a knee, and aimed toward the houses. Timmons stood on the road and watched. If they had firearms, he was a prime target.
Maybe he wanted it that way, but Terry did not. “Get down!” he yelled at the Werewolf.
Char crouched next to Terry. He aimed his AK-47, while she held a Glock in each hand. Everyone waited, spread out twenty or thirty feet apart, looking over the barrels of their weapons toward the housing area they’d just passed through.
The Force was arrayed to bring maximum firepower against an unknown enemy approaching from a known direction.
When it finally came, what they heard sounded inhuman, screeches and cries. What they saw confirmed it: people, painted, wild hair, odd bits for clothes, brandishing rudimentary weapons.
Terry couldn’t tell the ages of the people. Their skin was dyed or painted. Their hair was a variety of colors as if they’d found a beauty shop and experimented with the dyes. The first man who ran at them carried a two-by-four with an old sheet metal fan blade attached. He didn’t slow down, even after Terry stood and fired a shot in the air. Terry quickly took aim.
His second shot hit the man in the middle of his chest. The rest of the locals charged in, carrying clubs and sharpened sticks. Terry shot another one. He thought it was a woman, but couldn’t be sure.
“Fire!” he ordered, feeling sick to his stomach. Char holstered her pistols while the Force’s rifle fire was withering. The wolf pack disappeared somewhere behind them.
Mechanically, James, Lacy, and Gerry aimed. Sing
le shots, avoiding the automatic setting on their rifles. They maintained their separate fields of fire, counting on their squad-mates on either side to keep their own sectors clear. Efficiently and deadly, they fired. Timmons stood behind them and watched. Ted had run after the pack.
A scream came from where Kiwi had taken the horses. Char slapped Terry on the shoulder as she bolted that way, accelerating to Werewolf speed on her way down the embankment.
Two of the locals had passed under the road using a large culvert. Kiwi was crouched with her hands up to defend herself, even though one arm bled from a ragged cut. She jumped and twisted, whipping her leg out to catch her attacker in the face.
When she landed, she dashed away, running in an arc as she became the attacker. She feinted. He swung a baseball bat with nails sticking out. She dodged it easily and lunged forward, bringing her foot into the man’s groin. He crumpled and she was on him.
She pulled his bat from underneath him and swung it. When it hit his head, it stuck and she couldn’t pull it free. She left it and looked for the other weapon. The man she’d kicked in the head was up, making a figure eight in front of himself with a flat piece of metal with a leather wrapped handle, making it look like a sword.
Char casually shot him in the head, ran past, and looked into the pipe through which they’d crawled. She aimed, fired twice more, and holstered her pistol. She looked at the slice on Kiwi’s arm.
“I’ll need to sew this up,” she said quickly. “Get a flask and clean it out best you can. I’ll be right back.”
When Char made it back to the road, the firing had stopped. Terry hung his head. There was no celebration from the FDG. The attackers hadn’t stood a chance.
Maybe they weren’t people. That was how Terry comforted himself. They’d descended into madness, and now they were free.
“Look for survivors, in pairs. No one searches alone.”
Char put a hand on Terry’s arm and shook her head.
“What happened to Kiwi?” he asked in a panic.
“No, not her. She needs a few stitches, that’s all. I was talking about them.” She used her chin to point toward the bodies. “There are no survivors. There’s no one left anywhere near here.”
Timmons walked through the bodies, picking up tools that had been used as clubs. He hoisted a massive crescent wrench and held it over his shoulder.
Ted took the wolf pack up the road to where an overgrown area north of the plant suggested there may be good hunting.
Terry looked at the members of the Force. They’d acquitted themselves well, but they weren’t happy about it. He pulled them together.
“Rally up,” he called in a soft voice. He’d seen it before. A battle that had to be fought that no one wanted to fight, an enemy like children. “It was my call. If we didn’t fire, what would have happened? They would have killed us. Kiwi is going to have a nice scar as a reminder.”
Gerry looked as if he was going to run away. “Discipline,” Terry told him, then turned to James and Lacy. “Could we have lived in harmony with them? Did they give us a chance to talk? None of that. We’re going to take that power plant and bring it back to life, because power is life. We’re going to move three hundred and fifty decent human beings here and start building a new community. If those people had wanted to come along for the ride, they were more than welcome.”
Terry looked around, those who would look back, he look in the eye, “There’s no room in this world for savages.”
James and Lacy looked at each other and then she raised a hand. Terry nodded to her. “It still sucks,” she said simply.
“Yeah. It sucks a whole lot. The challenge for those with power is to use it as the last resort. We have the power. You are well-trained and disciplined. We made every shot count. But we didn’t come through here shooting first. That’s what tyrants and dictators do. That isn’t us. It will never be us, because it’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen. We talk first, but we will defend ourselves. Do you see the difference?”
The three nodded, their expressions set. “If this bothers you, talk to me, talk to the major. Letting it fester won’t do any of us any good. I hate this and it’s all on me. Now, we have work to do. Corporal, I want a count of ammo used and then police these bodies. Build a funeral pyre. We’ll burn them or we’ll have a plague right on our doorstep.”
Terry pulled his magazine. He had started with twenty rounds in four different magazines and had changed once, swapping out during a lull in the action, not when he ran out. There were three rounds left in the first magazine and thirteen in the second. “Twenty-four shots fired,” he told James, then turned and walked off.
He found Char sewing up Kiwi’s arm. The young girl’s mouth was set as each stitch was put in place. There was no anesthesia of any type. This was the new world where pain was a constant reminder of what it took to survive.
Terry looked at her closely and she squinted at him, pursing her lips. “What are you looking at?” she asked with a curled lip as Char plunged the needle into her skin.
Terry smiled. “I’m looking at a warrior.”
***
Timmons walked through the plant, using his wrench to tap on things. There was some damage, even a little coal remained, and a nearly endless amount of work to bring it back online.
Ted called from below, and Timmons yelled back from a catwalk. The wolves were running free where nature was trying to reclaim its own. North of the plant was heavily overgrown, having found ways to cross roads and spread farther to the west. It was an oasis within the urban sprawl. There were deer, but they were small. The wolf pack would clear them out in a matter of days, then they would have to find a new hunting ground.
Ted joined Timmons on the catwalk and the two men continued their tour of the plant. It was a massive beast.
“We’ll isolate a single system, cut off the right pipes within that spaghetti mess, and bring one of these turbines online. We’ll have to control the grid. Yes, so much to do, and frankly, I need a hand,” Timmons said.
Ted cocked his head. “Timmons, did you just make a joke?” Timmons winked at his friend.
“We’ll get it back online, however long it takes,” Ted replied.
***
Terry watched the greasy black smoke from the burning bodies. He stayed downwind as the smell of burning humans wasn’t something he wanted in his clothes. Char stood at his side, holding his hand and watching.
Gerry and Kiwi were brushing the horses while they grazed the heavy grass of the road’s ditches.
James and Lacy had gathered tools which the dead seemed to like carrying on their person, putting them onto an old tarp and dragging the mass toward the power plant.
“What next, TH?” Char asked.
“We need to make sure of our food source here, that the water is good, and that the power plant is salvageable. If those things are good, then we return to New Boulder. Get our people.”
That had been the plan all along.
“Well then, we better get to it, don’t you think?” Char’s purple eyes sparkled as she smiled at her husband. She caressed his face. He ran a finger down the almost invisible scar on her cheek.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I thank God every day, or Bethany Anne, whoever has kept me alive to be here.”
“Will she like me?” Char asked.
“Bethany Anne? I don’t see why not…”
***
After three days, the group came together to report what they’d found.
“This is a total fucking abomination! It’s like they shut it off and walked away, not bothering to bleed the systems or do anything in case they needed to bring it back up. We’ll be scraping scale and crust for the rest of our lives!” Timmons complained.
“But you can bring it back up, right? Focus on the boilers because coal is a non-starter. We’ll need a tie-in since our future is nuclear,” Terry told him. Ted’s ears perked up. “I think I know where there’s at lea
st one Mini Cooper nuke. I hope I know, but then all we’d need is the boiler, condensers, and turbine, right?”
“That’s all we need?” Timmons exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s ninety percent of a power plant!”
“But we don’t have to go work a coal mine, so we eliminate one link in the logistics chain. You can bring it back to life, can’t you?”
“We’ll cannibalize a few parts and pieces, then yes. We can give you electricity,” Timmons admitted, confidence in his voice.
The future of mankind was based on the engineering ability of a one-handed Werewolf.
“Sounds good,” Terry said, answering Timmons as well as his own thoughts.
“North from here is some pretty fertile territory. I think we have farmers up there, but they never let us get close. They have hidey holes everywhere,” James reported.
“They’ll be fine once they realize that the crazies aren’t around. Maybe we can post fliers that civilization is coming and we’d love to trade with them, meat for vegetables, that kind of thing.” Terry looked at James, who was holding Lacy’s hand.
His units were always tight, but he never expected that married couples would be the foundation of his Force de Guerre. If it worked, don’t mess with it. He surrendered himself to the situation, not trying to control what he couldn’t.
“Maybe take a trip up there every couple days to desensitize them to your presence and convince them you’re not a threat. Take them a gift to get the talks started. Good. How about water?”
“Plenty of streams in the area. A couple look nasty, too much trash rotting and rusting upstream, but there are others which seem fine. The horses drink from them. The big lake’s waters are okay, but I don’t think I’d drink it unless we boiled it first,” James suggested.
“Food?” Terry asked.
“Plenty of small game throughout the area,” Ted said. The wolf pack was with them inside an area of the power plant, but close to the large door that stood open. They wouldn’t tolerate being closed in. “We went west maybe twenty miles and found signs of bigger game, deer, and maybe even wild cattle.”
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