We ran into a big roadblock north of Pocatello made up of wrecked cars and all kinds of junk. Had a big sign on it saying there was plague and worse south.
We decided to backtrack and ended up near the National Engineering Laboratory. Blake’s meter started to show radiation, not too dangerous according to a chart he had, but we decided to keep moving southwest as best we could and get away from the place. I wondered what happened there, but not enough to go looking.
Lost one of the trucks on a bad stretch of road, but we had enough room in the other vehicles for more passengers.
We ended up on highway 93 that got us to I-80 and that got us headed toward Reno. Roads were pretty clear, except for some derelict cars and some rough patches. Never saw a single person till we got near Reno, came up on some vehicles headed east. They told us the camp was not in Reno, but north of there at Pyramid Lake. They also said the place had food, shelter, and some medical care, but was crowded and it was recommended to them to head east to somewhere near Salt Lake City that was supposed to be a lot better. We were not sure if we had the fuel to get to Utah and we had a few people in our group feeling ill, including my Dad, so we decided to head west.
We made it to Pyramid Lake. There was a military checkpoint at a crossroads east of Reno where they checked everything over for radiation and disease, vehicles and people. They said we were the first people to come from the east in weeks. They said our sick folks weren’t a danger and sent us on our way. When we got to the camp, there was a sign that said PYRAMID LAKE EVACUATION and REFUGEE CENTER. The folks there did some more checks on everything and took Inez Tucker, my Dad, and one of the teenagers to the hospital. They told us we couldn’t have firearms in the camp, but they would be returned to us when we left. We parked the vehicles in a fenced-in area and got receipts for our property.
Turns out this camp started out as a federal and military camp. Still is, sort of, I suppose. They haven’t heard from any kind of government authority since just after everything went to hell when they set the place up. The numbers of refugees from the west has dwindled to almost none they say. They figure to stay here for another six months or so and then “assess the situation,” as they put it. They told us we’d be better off heading east. If we would be willing to take some refugees with us we could have all the fuel we need. We figured to take them up on it as soon as we were all healthy and rested.
Inez took a turn for the worse two days after we got here and passed away, and Dad died two days after her. Pneumonia, the doctor said. Blake Tucker took it real hard, as did Sis and the boys. I am not taking it too well either. Been thinking maybe Dad would still be with us if we’d stayed home, but we don’t know what’s happening up there.
We had to have Inez and Dad’s remains cremated. There is no room to bury any more bodies in the cemetery. I don’t think Dad would care one way or the other.
We licked our wounds and shed our tears for a couple of weeks, then decided to make for Utah. The teenagers and most of the Browns decided to stay for the time being. The Browns aren’t exactly a close family. Probably lucky they didn’t kill each other on the trip down. Andy Brown—a good guy, we hunt together every year and we played high school sports together—is going to ride in my truck, along with a couple of refugees.
Blake is still sullen, which is to be expected I think. I never heard him and Inez exchange a harsh word as long as I’ve known them. Blake has a bunch of refugees in his truck.
We were talking with the refugee folks that are going to travel with us. They haven’t had it easy, that’s for sure and for certain. They say Los Angeles is like hell on earth. These folks say LA is still burning, same as the folks we talked to back home. They say the place is crawling with mutated creatures, roving gangs, and aliens that survived the nukes. I wonder if all the big cities are like that?
Anyway, we are leaving bright and early in the morning for Utah.
. . . . .
December 1998
We left as planned, after getting our shooting iron back from the government folks. They decided to send a 2 1/2 ton truck —what they call a deuce-and-a-half— along loaded with refugees. An army captain, named Stockton, and a few soldiers were going along. They lost radio contact with Salt Lake City several months ago and wanted to see if they could help get them back on the air.
It’s five hundred miles plus from Reno to Salt Lake City. The Captain figured we’d keep our speed down and have a Humvee—each with a machine gun on top—at the front and at the back of our motorcade to make sure we didn’t lose anyone. He told us we’d stop before dark because traveling after the sun was down probably wasn’t safe. There had been some reports of bandits so he didn’t want to chance it.
We covered well over half the distance the first day. Stopped at a place near a river, the Humboldt I think. We refueled the vehicles and checked them over to make sure they’d be ready to go the next day. It was getting down below freezing at night so the soldiers set up a couple of tents with heaters for folks to sleep in. I just flipped up my collar and slept in my pickup truck. Some of us took a turn at standing watch for an hour each. A little after first light we were rolling again.
By mid afternoon we came up on the Great Salt Lake because the highway goes right near it. Not much further up the road we came up on a checkpoint manned by some locals. They told us we would need to go into a quarantine area set up in an old military base for at least a week before we could go into Salt Lake City. Captain Stockton wasn’t happy about it, but the guards said nobody gets in until they are cleared. The captain arranged for all of us to stay together in an enclosure surrounded by a six foot tall chain link fence. We pulled our vehicles in and they shut the gate, but they didn’t lock it or anything. We kept our firearms too, as long as we kept them secured.
A little while before sundown the guards brought some food and hot tea and passed out blankets. It was warmer in Utah than it was in Nevada. The soldiers set up the tents again for anyone that wanted to use them. Sis said she and the kids were going to sleep near a heater because her oldest had a sniffle. There was a row of outhouses at the opposite end of the enclosure, and the guards mentioned everybody would get a chance to bathe in a day or two.
I talked with a couple of the guards about what happened in Salt Lake City in the last war. They said they were not here then, but as they understood it, the aliens never bombed the city, but the place did get hit with a nuke. They said it was probably an air burst over the north part of the city, because there was not much left there but rubble, but there wasn’t much radioactivity now.
The quarantine areas were separated by about fifty feet of open space between them. Over in the enclosure next to us were some of the people we talked to on the highway before we got to Pyramid Lake. I yelled over to them and they remembered who I was. I asked them why they were still in quarantine, since they got to Salt Lake City a lot earlier than we did. They said they thought something odd was going on. They didn’t like it here and decided to leave and look for another place and were told they would need approval from some bigwig in the city. The guards heard us and came over and told us to stop yelling, that communication between enclosures was not allowed. I didn’t want to start a stink our first day there, but I figured I’d go over there after dark. I pointed at the guy in the other enclosure and gestured, hoping he’d figure out what I meant. He nodded and walked away.
About an hour later a large group of guards went into the neighboring enclosure and led the people out and up the road toward the city. I asked one of the guards nearest to me what was going on and he told me they had received permission to leave. Something didn’t feel right, but I wasn’t in a position to figure it out.
The next morning, the guards brought breakfast, and some pamphlets. They were pretty strange. Had things in them about ‘The Last and Final Testament of Jesus Christ’ which was called ‘The Good’. I thought the Mormons controlled Salt Lake City, but maybe the nuke put an end to that, because the stuff in
the pamphlet was not Mormonism, it was crazy and scary, read like some kind of cult bullshit.
I went and found Captain Stockton and asked if he had seen the pamphlets. He said he was aware of them but hadn’t looked at one yet, so I gave him the pamphlet I had and he read it. He told me he felt pretty much the same as I did about it—muttered something about totalitarian cultism—and thought there was something going on here. He told me about the last few messages the refugee camp had received from Salt Lake City before they stopped communicating. He said the radio operator mentioned the people were getting real serious about some odd religion. They figured he meant Mormonism and he was just unfamiliar with it. He was upset, thinking of all the folks the camp had sent west in the last few months and what might have happened to them if these folks were as crazy as their pamphlet made it seem. There were some State Police guys and Colorado National Guard—guess they got pushed west because of aliens or nukes—maintaining order here, last he heard. He decided to ask some of the guards if he could talk to one of the cops or Guardsmen, since he knew some of them by name. The guards responded that they wouldn’t be allowed near us because we were under quarantine. That didn’t make a lick of sense to me, seeing as some of the guards that took the folks from the other enclosure said they had just come out of the city and were going back in with them. I heard them with my own ears with them standing not five feet away from me outside the fence, unless chain link stops disease from spreading. That was when we knew something wasn’t right and we might be in danger.
We got everybody together to hash out what we ought to do. I was surprised that most of our group wanted to stay. They didn’t think things were as dire as those of us who wanted to leave, besides, there’s freedom of religion in this country they said. Sis told me she couldn’t go anywhere with a sick child, her oldest was worse this morning, and said she was staying so he could see a doctor. I didn’t like it, but I thought maybe I could come back later and get her and the kids. I mulled the idea of staying around a bit, but my bullshit alarm—as my Dad liked to say—was going off.
Once we got it settled where everybody stood, we went and told the guards what we wanted to do. They said they would have to get clearance from the city before they could let us leave.
Sis told them about her boy being sick and the guards said they would take her to a hospital they had set up for refugees, which they did about twenty minutes later. We said our goodbyes and I told her I’d be back and see if she wanted to leave. She told me she’d be fine and she’d be ready to go as soon as her son was better.
About mid day a guard stopped by and told us that we ought to get word about us leaving the next day and he didn’t think it would be a problem. Seemed odd we’d get to go so much faster than the folks in the other enclosure. Maybe it was nothing, but I was still suspicious.
The next morning after breakfast, the guards came by and told us that everybody who was staying should get their stuff together and be ready to leave by noon. When we asked why they were being let out of quarantine before the week was up they replied it was because we had come straight from Lake Pyramid with military folks so it was all right. To those of us who wanted to leave, that sounded very suspicious, but the people who were staying told us we were paranoid. We couldn’t convince them that something sinister was going on.
I asked the guards if I could go see my sister and nephews then, seeing as we all had a clean bill of health now. He told me she and the kids had already gone into the city. The doctor said the boy’s illness was not serious or contagious, so it was okay for them to go in. That pretty much settled it for me, something was going down, but I didn’t have a clue as to how I was going to get Sis and the boys out now.
A little after noon some guards came and took the folks who were staying in Salt Lake out of the enclosure and led them away. They were told to leave anything that was large and metallic in the enclosure until they could be checked for radiation, that included vehicles and firearms of course. The guards told the rest of us we ought to be able to leave later in the afternoon.
We were all suspicious. Captain Stockton thought we should be ready for trouble, to be ready to fight or run.
There weren’t a whole lot of us left. There were the soldiers; Captain Stockton, a sergeant, and four enlisted guys, A couple of refugees who rode in the deuce-and-a-half that I never learned their names, Blake Tucker, Andy Brown, Ted Brown who was Andy’s cousin, and me. The Captain told us to get our weapons loaded and put somewhere easy to get to, but out of sight, and do it without the guards noticing. The two refugees from the truck didn’t have any firearms of their own, so Andy gave them pump action shotguns from one of the other trucks. He showed them the basics of operating the shotgun and loaded the weapons with double-aught buckshot. I brought my trusty old Model 99 lever action —always been partial to lever guns— on the trip. It’s a .308 caliber rifle which means it can shoot military 7.62x51mm NATO ammo, since the .308 is just a slightly hotter version of the military cartridge. I figured I ought to be able to find either if I ever ran out of ammo.
About three in the afternoon, two big flatbed trucks came rolling down the road from the city toward our enclosure. They were loaded with men, most of whom appeared to be armed. The Captain told two of his soldiers to get inside the Humvees with the machine guns out of sight and be ready to pop out if things went bad. He told the rest of us to spread out and be ready. I had my rifle laying on the front seat of my truck—which was parked a ways back from the Humvees—and was leaning against the side with the door unlatched, but almost closed.
The trucks pulled up in front of the gate to the enclosure and all the guys climbed off, I’m guessing there were close to two dozen men.
A man wearing some sort of green uniform got out of the cab of the lead truck and looked at Captain Stockton. “I am Police Leader Vance. Are you the leader of this group?” he yelled.
The Captain said he was and asked why the Police Leader brought so many armed men.
“I was told you might be troublesome, and I see I was told right. All of you step away from your vehicles and come stand by the gate. Now!” The Police Leader yelled as his men began to spread out, unslinging their weapons.
“Open fire! Open fire!” the Captain yelled as he ran toward the nearest Humvee to the right of the gate entrance. As he neared it the sergeant who was crouched behind the vehicle tossed the captain an M16. The soldier hiding in the Humvee parked to the left of the gate was up and on his machine gun incredibly fast. The group of men on the opposite side of the gate opening never stood a chance as the soldier squeezed the trigger and poured fire into them from less than one hundred feet away. They were bunched up and it was a slaughter.
The men near the Police Leader were stunned at first, then started firing at the machine gunner, hitting him and silencing his fire. About that time the other gunner got into action. I don’t think he was as good as the other guy because he wasn’t doing as well, but he got the city guys scrambling and gave the folks on our side time to get our weapons and start firing back. I think maybe we were a little stunned at what happened and were a little slow to get moving, I mean we weren’t trained for this sort of thing.
I was about eighty yards back, since that was where my truck was. Probably good for me because my rifle holds six rounds max and is better suited for long range, not that eighty yards is long range. I have a top-notch German 4x(four power) scope mounted on her and I don’t miss much, and when I do it isn’t my rifle’s fault neither. I saw a guy working his way to our right drop down into a low spot, and when he came up to shoot I was ready. I aimed low because my rifle was sighted in for a much longer distance, got him through the head. It was no different than varmint hunting, except these varmints wanted us dead.
The Police Leader had gone behind one of the flatbed trucks and I could see one of his legs around the side of a tire. I thought about trying a shot through the truck, but I didn’t know what kind of penetration I might get, so I took the
clear target I had and hit him just below the knee. He went down and Captain Stockton had a shot at him and finished him.
About this time I saw Blake Tucker running toward the captain’s Humvee yelling, “Lookout, lookout!”
Captain Stockton turned toward Blake just before he took Stockton down with a tackle. Just then there was an explosion under the Humvee that killed the sergeant and wounded the gunner in the turret. I thought it killed Blake and Captain Stockton too, but the captain was still alive, under Blake’s torn-up body. Blake had seen a guy with a grenade launcher out front and saved Stockton’s life.
Another soldier had taken over the machine gun on the other Humvee and shot the guy with the grenade launcher. The idiot was just standing out there reloading another grenade.
By then things were just about done. Blake was dead, along with the sergeant, the two refugee guys and Ted Brown.
One of the city guys stood up from behind one of the trucks with his hands in the air and said, “I surrender, I’m the last one!”
Andy picked up a shotgun one of the refugee guys was using and shot the city guard in the face and muttered, “That’s for Ted.” Then he dropped the shotgun and headed back toward my truck. I understood why he did it, but I couldn’t say I agreed with it. Then again, it wasn’t my cousin that got killed either.
Captain Stockton told us we needed to pack up and move right now. I told him I was going to try and find my sister. He said it was impossible if they took her inside the city. I told him I wanted to find out if that was true or not. Andy came up and said he’d go with me. I told you he was a good guy.
Captain Stockman then said he had an idea. If we stayed and tried to find my sister and maybe the others from our group, he’d leave one of his men with us and he’d take the undamaged Humvee and head back toward Pyramid Lake with the other soldiers and see if he could get a force together and come back and try a rescue. He would leave us a backpack type radio so they could contact us when they got into radio range when they returned, so if we laid low and gathered as much information as we could they might be able to plan something.
The Blastlands Saga Page 6