by C. G. Cooper
He paused for a moment, searching our faces to make sure he had our attention.
“Yes, we are the men and women of The Tennessee Zone, but we will always be Americans.”
There were murmurs from the crowd, but Gregor ignored them. I didn’t know much about what went on outside of Franklin, Tennessee, but I did know that to call us Americans had become taboo in some circles. Many people thought that the leaders of our once great country, “America,” had let us down and left us to fend for ourselves after The Collapse. I didn’t have an opinion either way, but I understood how they felt.
Jane and I had talked about it on many nights, when the kids were sleeping, or at least pretending to. We’d talked into the wee hours while crickets chirped and frogs croaked their songs. We’d discussed what it would be like to go back, to reclaim the life that had been taken from us. There’d been good times for sure, but as I sat there listening to Gregor talk about the new world order, I couldn’t help but think about the devastation I’d seen, the heartbreak every survivor still felt. We could never go back.
Gregor disclosed how The Tennessee Zone was poised to capitalize on the weaknesses and instability of the rest of the Zones. I couldn’t help but think that The Collapse, although providing obstacles and despair, had provided a silver lining as well. I’d lived a simpler life, for sure, but my time was spent with the ones I loved, without interference from anyone. I’d become a better husband and an attentive father. We’d made do, and from the look of the rest of the recruits, our family had done much better than most.
“You’ll begin with basic training,” Gregor was saying. “Based on your scores, your instructors and I will place you in the job we feel is best suited for your skills and personality. Some of you will go on to join the Security force at Headquarters. Others will fill personnel protection details for our leadership. And still others, and this will be the tiny minority, will join The Squads.” His gaze rested on me for a long moment, and I thought I caught of hint of amusement there. Then he shifted his gaze on to the next man and he continued his lecture.
Those first days were the hardest for me. My body, while fine-tuned for hunting and ranging miles from home, was ill-suited for the strain placed on it by our daily runs and calisthenics, at least in its current form. It didn’t help that my body was no longer that of an eighteen-year-old baby-face boot, but my body flexed and dealt with the pain in the way a body does.
I’d learned years before that the human body could withstand much more pain than we could ever fathom. Take childbirth. What person in their right mind would endure that kind of pain on purpose? But it happens, and although I couldn’t speak from personal experience, I’d been the one to deliver all three of my children. I had been shot before, which seemed wholly insignificant after seeing the pain my wife endured during the birthing process.
So as hours bled into days, and days morphed into one week, and then two, my body hardened, as did my resolve. The familiarity returned, and every morning when I popped out of bed to the yells of our instructors, the cadence of military life seeped into my veins, like a long-missed drug made available again.
To my surprise, our instructors were fair, and only leveled punishment when necessary, or when a lesson was needed. There was the time when the youngest of our group, a pimply-faced kid named Hover, decided it would be funny to wave his wooden weapon (designed to look roughly like a rifle) in the general direction of the rest of the recruits. Not only was Hover sent on laps around the camp with the fake rifle over his head, but the rest of the class was put to work building coffins out of the wood gathered from the surrounding area. It might sound macabre, but when those ten coffins were laid in front of the flag pole, and ten recruits were told to lie inside them, it was clear that such an offense would never happen again.
Mixed in with the physical training were lessons on basic tactics. They were designed to educate the men and women who had never experienced military service. Yes, we did have a handful of females in attendance. We were instructed on how to move as a tactical unit, how to use hand signals, and how to do basic land navigation. These all came naturally to me, as they had the first time around; I became an extra set of hands that the instructors could call upon to help the others. I didn’t ask for it; it just happened.
Through it all, Gregor never said another word to me unless he was addressing the group in its entirety. To his credit, he was professional and seemed to be running a tight operation. I was impressed by the caliber of the instructors and how they’d converted a remote encampment, with all the glamour and upgrades of a 1940s detention camp, into a place of learning and effective training.
I don’t know why it surprised me, but one day I realized that, unlike my previous trip through boot camp, in this iteration the retention of recruits after two weeks was almost one hundred percent. Then it dawned on me. Due to a limited supply of manpower, they couldn’t afford to fail people who would have been tossed out in an earlier time.
So, as the basics of soldiering turned to marksmanship and long jaunts into the wilderness beyond Camp Cumberland, we lost very few from our ranks. The only exceptions seemed to be the hard cases (ones who would never accept orders from anyone other than themselves) and the sick. (It turned out that despite whatever medical advancements our Zone had, there were limits to the developing powers.) There were also the recruits who were borderline head cases. Whether from the years of survival, breeding or just plain different wiring, it was impossible to teach them anything.
The marksmanship training kept our interest the most. The yelling subsided as the instructors focused on safety, proper sight picture, trigger pull, and breathing. It felt good to get behind a rifle again. I’d become so accustomed to having some kind of firepower on my body that much of my first week at Camp Cumberland I woke up each night reaching for my nonexistent pistol.
Behind those iron sights, I felt like myself again. I plugged away, happy to be with my old friend, the almighty gun. The weapons themselves were slightly modified from my time in the service. There were no frills, but they were simple, easy to take apart and easy to clean. To my surprise, someone had been smart enough to change the material into some polymetallic substance that fended off rust and corrosion and could allow us to simply wash the weapons under a tap. I say could because the instructors were not going to let us get away with that. Just like in the old days, we wiped away residue with rags and polished them until not a speck of dust littered their gleaming shells.
I didn’t mind it. It gave me time to think of Jane and the kids, imagining what they were doing and what I would say when I saw them again. Weapon cleaning time was my chance to zone out, to daydream, to imagine what life might be like after training. A cushy job on HQ Security didn’t sound so bad. From what the instructors said, there was a rotation for outbound patrols that lasted a week at a time, but the rest of the time you lived and worked at HQ. Being away from the family that often would be difficult, but it could work. Strangely, they never did really explain what the patrols were for.
O’Mack touched my shoulder and I was instantly awake.
“You’re up,” he said, already making his way to his assigned bunk. He’d mellowed since arriving, and I’d come to appreciate his physical prowess. I was the best shot of the bunch, but O’Mack could climb a rope without using his legs and cut across a flowing river like a shark; he easily took the top honor as our physical #1.
I slipped from under the sheets, carefully tucking the wool blanket back into military-precise right angles, and then put on my watch uniform. While the instructors wore black, we dressed in gray replicas of our soon-to-be peers’ outfits. They were roomy in the right places and much better than the tan garb I’d been given at HQ.
Once I was dressed, I grabbed the luminescent flashlight that looked like a glow stick. However, this one actually brightened depending on how hard you squeezed the handle. It was a dim green now, and the handle was still warm from O’Mack’s hands after his th
ree-hour shift.
I did a slowdown and backed into the squad bay. My boots marked dull thuds on the concrete floor. There were the sounds of snoring and the occasional creaks from the bunks, but no one stirred as I passed. One of the responsibilities of night watch was to report to the regular watch who patrolled the perimeter and interior of Camp Cumberland. I made my way outside, extinguishing the light stick that was heavy enough to double as a weapon.
I found a black-clad patrol team checking the fence line, and I gave them my report.
They nodded, bored, and sent me on a walk around the barracks.
I was halfway through my thorough inspection of each cinderblock composing the outer walls of the barracks building when I stopped. Something. What was it? What…?
My body shivered with that same excitement, that familiar rush and flow of blood and tingling nerve endings. I went to my belt holster on instinct and cursed myself when I realized I didn’t have it. It was locked away at HQ.
I jogged back into the barracks and went straight for O’Mack’s bunk. Sure it was a risk, and O’Mack was a notoriously pissed off morning person, but I had to do it.
His eyes flashed open when I nudged him.
“What?” he hissed.
“Get up and get dressed. I need you to take watch for a few minutes.”
He glared at me, but he must have seen that I wasn’t pulling his leg or trying to shirk my duties. I nodded my thanks and ran from the squad bay.
Gregor’s quarters were easy to find, but when I got there two guards demanded to know why I was away from the barracks.
“I need to see Gregor,” I said, as patiently as I could. Now that I was standing there, I felt like I might’ve made a mistake. Maybe the lack of sleep was getting to me.
“Get back to the barracks, Ryker,” one of them said.
“Sir, I need to speak with Gregor.”
“Who is that?” came Gregor’s voice from inside the hut.
“Shit,” said the first guard. He cracked open the door and said, “It’s Ryker. He says he needs to see you.”
A light switched on inside, and Gregor said, “Let him in.”
The guard huffed his frustration but ushered me to the door.
“Close the door, Ryker,” Gregor said.
I did, and I watched as his huge form rose from the simple cot. If anything, his room looked more spartan than our squad bay. Not a single personal item hung on the log walls or adorned the desk or side table.
“What do you need, Ryker?”
Again, I hesitated. I was taking a huge chance. Then again, what could they do to me, send me back to Franklin?
“Something’s wrong.”
Gregor stretched his arms over his head, his chiseled form bulging as he moved.
“Like what kind of something?” he asked.
“I was on duty at the barracks, doing my perimeter sweep when I felt it.”
I had his attention now.
“Inside or outside the camp?”
“Outside.” Then I realized what I’d felt. “The sounds were absent over on the barracks side of Camp.” That’s what it was. The bugs and animals weren’t calling, weren’t serenading their companions with their nightly song.
Gregor opened the door, surprising both of the guards. “Get everyone up.”
“But…”
“Just do it. And I want them armed. Double all floodlights outside the perimeter, check our sensors and extinguish the lights inside the camp.”
That rustled the guards from their stupor, and they both ran off to do Gregor’s bidding.
“You’re sure about this?” Gregor asked me while he lifted the mattress from his bed, displaying a wide array of weaponry.
I didn’t have to answer, because a moment later a thundering explosion rocked the camp.
Chapter 13
The guards must have gotten to the lights, or whoever was attacking the camp had taken them out, because suddenly the camp was enveloped in darkness. I received my answer a moment later, when I looked toward the layers of fencing that lined the perimeter, and I saw the floodlights flash into blazing brightness.
“Here,” Gregor said, handing me a rifle and a handful of magazines. “You check on the recruits, and I’ll go get the guard. Meet me back here.”
I didn’t hesitate and sprinted from the hut as energy blasts rained in from the tree line. Another explosion tore through a watchtower, debris flying in every direction. I tumbled to the ground, rolling to absorb most of the fall, and I came up in a run, weapon ready.
When I got back to the barracks, half of the building was rubble. The first explosion, which must have been some type of mortar, or maybe a mini missile, must have taken it out. I heard moaning, and I made my way inside, stepping over bodies that lay half buried in eternal sleep.
“Who’s left?” I called out through the smoke.
“I’ve got some over here,” answered O’Mack from somewhere deep inside. I searched the squad bay, but I couldn’t find him. That’s when I realized he had called from inside the bathroom. When I went in, he was standing just inside the door, the only one fully dressed. Twenty or so more men were huddled by the showers.
“Follow me,” I told them, moving before anyone could respond.
“How did you know?” O’Mack asked, taking a position next to me as we ran.
“Just lucky, I guess.”
O’Mack actually laughed, but it was one of those crazy laughs like, “Here we fucking go again!”
I couldn’t help but laugh too, but it was cut off when something dark and ominous scorched by overhead.
“They’ve got attack aircraft,” O’Mack observed, his mirth gone.
The surviving recruits made it back to Gregor’s hut without incident. Gregor was still shirtless, barking orders to his troops. When he saw me, he beckoned me over.
“Ryker, I want you to take a squad outside the wire.”
“But Gregor…!” complained the lead marksmanship coach, an instructor.
“He’s the best man we’ve got,” Gregor said flatly. Then he looked to the recruits. “There’s a bunker under the chow hall. You can either hunker down there or grab a weapon. Your choice. I won’t have anyone on the line who won’t fight.”
I didn’t see who raised their hands, but I did see a handful of shadows dart towards the relative safety of the bunker at the wave of Gregor’s hand.
“Can I go with Ryker?” O’Mack asked, grabbing a rifle from the stack the others had just dumped on the ground next to the hut.
Gregor looked to me, and I nodded. “Fine, but listen to what he says. Ryker, you pick who you want, no more than a short squad, and see what you can do to keep the heat off my boys.”
I nodded grimly. It was a task I was well-suited for. I was the impossible mission’s guy, and Gregor knew it. We had no idea what we were up against. There hadn’t been any troop movement yet; there were the mortar/artillery explosions that peppered the camp at regular intervals.
But it felt like they were holding back, like the tidal wave was coming soon, that the enemy was just prepping the battlefield. As I took my pick from the wary instructors, and loaded up on ammunition, I wondered if this would be it. Would this be the last time I’d be sent to find the enemy? Jane and the kids flashed into my mind, but I had to push them away. There was no time for that now. It was time to slip into a familiar role, like donning a cape I thought I’d left hanging in a dusty closet in some long-forgotten storage room.
With a final nod to Gregor, I motioned to the men now under my command, and we went off to hunt down the enemy.
+++
Gregor watched the squad leave. The news from his men wasn’t good. All perimeter sensors had been hacked or destroyed. There was simply no video feed coming in, and the security systems only provided error signals asking the user to reboot.
Rebooting would take too long, and time was not a luxury he and his charges could afford. They could survive for a time, and it was always po
ssible that HQ could send a quick reaction force, but it was unlikely they would arrive in time.
Their only hope was Ryker, the warrior who’d somehow been thrust into Gregor’s care. But now, the roles were reversed, back to the way they had been years ago, and Gregor found himself hoping that Ryker hadn’t lost too much of his old self.
Chapter 14
It was feather quiet in the woods compared to the incoming shell shock inside the camp. We moved without saying a word. One of the instructors had tried to cut in and offer his opinion of where we should cut through the fence, but I shut him down with a piercing glare.
When we reached a distance that I thought was safe enough, I ordered half the team to stay in place.
“If I don’t come back, find Gregor and tell him I’m gone,” I said.
You might think it’s better to have more firepower, especially against an enemy with unknown capabilities and troop strength, but I didn’t know these instructors. I’d been under their tutelage at Camp Cumberland, but I had no idea how they’d respond under fire. At least with O’Mack, I knew he could keep up, shoot, and wasn’t afraid of anything.
Our eight-man squad was now cut down to four as we cut deeper into the night. It was possible that the enemy had outposts. Hell, they could have roving drones or tiny robots that scoured the area for anything with a gun, but I couldn’t think about that. My focus was the location of the enemy. From the sound of fire, the bad guys were thinking the same thing. Either they wanted to capture the camp or destroy it, and that’s where their attention remained. I sensed it like a hunter senses the sudden movement of a fleeing deer and takes his shot a split second before the big ten-point disappears.
We were getting closer. Every fiber of my being pinged the woods: searching, hunting, homing in.