Age of Survival Series | Book 2 | Age of Panic

by Holden, J. J.

  Peter nodded. “Let’s look and see if there’s a good place to garage this up there. It might be a better way for us to get the dirt bikes onto the road, too.” The route they’d already identified stayed completely on the Meier property, and got them out onto the road closer to town than the original driveway did. He mentally kicked himself for focusing completely on those two factors, and not thinking more expansively about the options he had available.

  Chuck motioned to his go-kart. “Well, let’s get this thing fired up and see what we can do.”

  Chuck hopped right in and showed the other two how to get the engine started. Larry hopped on the back for the ride down, and Peter jogged after. At the soybean field, it didn’t take long for them to find an old brush pile. Between that and the dull, slightly rusty finish on most of the kart, it was completely invisible from the road. “Getting an old tarp over it still wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Chuck said. “I built it to be pretty durable, but a little protection from the elements would make sure it’ll go when we need it to.”

  For the first time, Peter took a real good look at the vehicle. There was a linkage between the engine and rear axle that looked like somebody had copied a three-speed bicycle derailleur and recreated it at motorcycle chain and sprocket scale. All the welds on the body seemed sturdy and reasonably well done, as far as he could assess such things. “You design this yourself?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I figured out how to make the gear shift work and had my uncle do all the welding on it. There’s enough torque going on there that I wanted somebody that knew what they’re doing to handle it. He helped me with the rest of the body work, but mostly left it up to me.”

  “This is tight,” Larry said.

  “Thanks.”

  Peter had to agree with Larry’s assessment. If Chuck was being honest, he’d done a seriously bang-up job. Immediately, his mind went to other things around the homestead where he could buddy up Chuck and Bill. “What say we look for a place we can run the dirt bikes down from the house.”

  It was a moderately steep rise, maybe climbing thirty feet, from the soybean field up to where the slope eased up some and ran maybe a hundred and fifty yards to the mowed yard around the house, all of it wooded.

  Those first thirty feet would have been passable in a straight line by motorcycle if they were paved, but not as light woods. Even when Peter walked the slope, he’d zig-zag up or down.

  “Here to that tree,” Larry said, standing right at the last row of beans, pointing diagonally up the hill. “It’s wide enough and I don’t see any obnoxious roots or rocks in it.”

  Peter walked the line with Chuck. When he got to the tree Larry had indicated, he stomped around the ground lightly, testing how firm it was. “There’s another good line from here almost up to the top of the slope, but not enough room here to make the switchback.”

  “What size bikes?” Chuck asked.

  “Old Kawasaki Trail Bosses. Maybe two hundred pounds wet,” Peter said.

  “Would be a bear to dismount and try to manually turn them,” Chuck said. “Looks like the field makes a gentle rise toward the back. Think we’d have better luck?”

  That turned out to be a solid idea. They found a place where there were only twenty feet to cover vertically, with a single hillside scramble.

  Chuck said, “Probably be scary as hell the first couple times you take it, but doable. Even with a bit of mud. Rehearse with bicycle before you try it with something bigger.”

  “There’s two spots,” Peter said from the top of the rise, pointing down the trail, “that look like they’d get real slick pretty easily. Think a couple wheelbarrows of the gravel we broke up from the driveway would help?”

  Larry walked down the route, hopping slightly at the spots Peter had pointed out, twisting his feet in some places. “I’ve helped my mom do natural steps before. We got some extra branches from yesterday. We could use some of those to buttress the gravel on the downslope side when we drop it in.”

  “I think we’ve got a plan,” Peter said. He looked at his watch. “About ninety minutes before I have to go on patrol. What say the three of us get started, see how much we can get done.”

  A half hour into cutting branches to length and wedging them into place, Peter wiped sweat from his brow. Larry and Chuck were still hard at work when the rumbling of an engine sounded off in the distance. Both stopped their tasks and joined Peter in listening to the engine.

  Irene came running up to them. “Vehicle,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Peter said. “Sounds like one of the military trucks.”

  Peter sucked in a quick breath, steeling himself. The work they’d done so far in camouflaging the driveway would soon be put to the test.

  Peter and Larry grabbed their rifles from where they’d leaned them against a tree and led Irene and Chuck as they ran along the bottom edge of the hill toward the road. As the four of them approached, the throaty growl of the old diesel engine drifted toward them.

  “I think they’re on our road, not down on the highway,” Peter said. He looked to Larry and Irene. “You two stand fast here, get hidden, stay still unless it looks like any of us have been spotted. If so, let’s fight it out instead of bringing their attention to the house. Chuck, follow me.” He went thirty feet closer to the road and found a clump of brush to duck behind.

  “We’re going to do the same,” Peter told Chuck. “If they keep moving, fine. If they pull in the drive, we’re going to keep out of sight unless it looks like they’ve put eyes on any of us. If so, we’re going to make a stand here, take them down if we can, fighting retreat back to the house as a last resort.”

  Chuck nodded, wide eyed, looking at Peter’s rifle. Not twelve hours earlier, Peter had made the decision that Chuck wasn’t going to carry, but conditions had changed. “You a decent shot with a handgun or no?”

  “Never fired one,” Chuck said.

  “Handgun or gun in general?”

  “Never shot a gun.”

  Peter cocked his head to try and locate the oncoming truck. He switched the selector on his SKS to semi-auto. “Don’t touch this lever,” he said, then pulled back the charging lever to chamber a round. “You get one shot every time you pull the trigger. Aim the crosshairs at the middle of the body, best chance of hitting. Since you’re not practiced, honestly, I’ll be relying on you mostly to provide distraction. Don’t be the first one to fire, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Chuck said.

  Peter reached behind him and drew his Glock, chambering a round in it as well. He didn’t hear any noticeable change in the sound of the truck engine as it continued up the way, no sign that it had slowed near the driveway to the house. The noise grew louder as the vehicle got closer to them, and he heard the squeak of old brakes engaging. “Remember, stay hidden. Don’t move, don’t shoot unless we’ve been spotted or we’re in danger of being surrounded,” Peter said, loud enough that Larry and Irene could hear him as well.

  “Got it,” Larry said.

  “You had to do this already?” Chuck asked. “Sounds like this isn’t totally new to you guys.”

  “Later…” Peter said, as the truck ground to a halt at the cut through the tree line from the field to the road. He could barely make out the shape of the driver craning his head from the cab, trying to see into the field. The person in the vehicle’s passenger seat leaned out the window and looked over the cab, and the canvas cover over the bed lifted up at the bottom edge so an unknown number of others could check things out as well.

  “Let’s just hope we didn’t leave any visible tracks when we pulled your go-kart in,” Peter said quietly.

  “It’s light with wide tires,” Chuck whispered.

  “Take your finger off the trigger and look through the scope at the truck. What can you tell me?”

  Peter heard Chuck’s breath coming rough and ragged. A glance showed he’d at least listened to the instruction to clear away from the weapon’s trigger. “Two guys in the bed of the truck,
maybe? The guys up front are talking.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Peter said. “Anybody doing anything with weapons?”

  “Guys in back have them pointed outward, driver has both hands on the wheel. Can’t tell what his passenger is doing.”

  “Okay. Anybody pointing at us?”

  A quiver came into Chuck’s breathing. “Scanning, I think, not really aiming at anything.”

  “All right,” Peter said. “Let me know if you see any change in behavior.”

  A couple more tense seconds passed, and Peter saw the passenger of the truck start to sink back into the cab, and the engine started to rev. The truck slowly moved forward, and kept moving out of sight.

  “I’ll take that,” Peter said, holding his arm out for his rifle. He handed his canteen over to Chuck. “Here. Have a piece of jerky, too. It’ll help settle you after the adrenaline rush.” Larry and Irene slowly moved up to his position.

  Peter looked out over the soybean field. “I say we suspend work out here for at least a few hours. I want to get up top, see what the folks there observed, and then hold tight with extra guard in case they did note something they want to come back and look at later.”

  Chuck asked, “Should we at least get my kart hidden better, since it’s so close to the road, and we know they stopped at the driveway?”

  Peter looked around, assessing the soybean field and its immediate environs. “Tell you what. Let’s see if you’ve left any tracks yet. I think our best bet may be to park it out at the back of the field, as far from the road as we can. I don’t think they’d come out and walk through the whole field, but they might dismount and look a few yards in for signs of traffic or use.”

  “I agree,” Irene said. “Can we move it without running the engine, though? I’d rather not make that kind of noise right now.”

  “The four of us could haul it,” Chuck said. “We’d have a burden of seventy pounds each, maybe?”

  “Not yet,” Larry said. “If they know there’s occupied land up here, like you did, they might turn around and come back again. I’d hate to be caught carrying this thing or have to drop it in the open and run for cover.”

  Peter turned to Larry. “Good point. How about if we hide out again and wait a few.”

  “I’ll hop up to the house and let them know,” Irene put in. “I’ll be back in ten if we don’t hear the truck come through before then.”

  As Larry had predicted, the truck came rolling up the road after they’d barely gotten themselves tucked back into the brush and trees at the base of the slope. It slowed again as it passed the drive, but didn’t stop or turn to pull in.

  Holding their position a little longer, they heard the rumble of the truck’s engine down on the main highway again, moving away from Bowman. Irene came back down shortly after to report that the truck hadn’t even slowed when passing the house’s old driveway in either direction.

  “Think it’s worth the risk to move the kart now?” Peter asked.

  “Let’s do it,” Irene said.

  The four of them each took a corner of the frame and hefted it up. The slog across the edge of the field wasn’t as bad as Peter initially expected it would be. Then again, he considered that he and Larry were football players, Irene was a landscaper, and Chuck was just a big, powerfully built guy, which was why so many people on the football team had been so intimidated by him. “Keep to the left as much as possible,” Peter said. After the heavy rain the day before, the ground by the soybean field was still soft and muddy. If they stepped into cultivated area, they’d leave clear footprints. The scrubby, wild grass between the beans and the woods would absorb their trail a lot better.

  It was with a tremendous sense of relief that Peter finally set the kart down at the far end of the field. They’d taken a break halfway across, to switch sides as everybody’s arms started fatiguing. Despite the relative ease with which they’d started the task, the uneven, soft ground that gradually gained elevation had worked against their progress.

  They got the kart tucked in as well as they could, then all went back up to the house. Irene, Larry, and Chuck went back down with a tarp while Peter had a quick check-in with his mother and the Roths.

  He was surprised when his mother suggested he lead a quick run-down to look in on the town again.

  “You’re the last person I’d expect to send me down at a time like this,” he told her.

  “Being blind up here is really getting to me,” Nancy replied. “When that truck came by, I couldn’t help but wonder if there are even more troops down in town, so they could spare a patrol to come up this way. And why did they come up our road? Is it just a routine trip up to check out the surrounding properties, or do they have some information that tells them we’re up here?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable going into town far enough to find that last bit out.”

  “I know. I don’t expect you to. I just want a little more knowledge than what we’ve got right now. If you got down to the highway, then took Barker Road, you’d be up on that ridge that overlooks the town from the south.”

  “You want to take the run with me?” Peter asked. Barker was a brutal road, an old gravel track that used to lead to a fire watchtower.

  “Not at all,” Nancy said. “This is a young man’s mission.”

  As he thought about riding a bicycle up that road, he became acutely aware of all his sore muscles and joints. The amount of physical labor he’d been putting into the homestead made him feel a lot older than he was. “Do you think Larry and I should run it alone or take Chuck?”

  “How’s he been doing today?” Nancy asked.

  “Working his ass off with us.”

  “Taking him along on something like this that’s important to our security and not just grunt work could be a good boost for him. Think he’s earned it, and that it’s worth the risk to bring him with?”

  Peter considered this. Chuck had held his own with the work that needed to be done, and had accepted his authority when the soldiers came past the land. “I do.”

  “Be careful, Peter. I know there’s some risk to sending you guys out with at least one vehicle patrolling out there. Don’t add on any unnecessary risks.”

  “Of course.”

  Peter strode away from his mother. Soon, he’d be making the quick run to scope out the town. Right now, getting more intel was more urgent than ever.

  Peter hurried to the garage to get three bicycles ready. When Chuck and Larry got up from hiding the kart, he gave them a few minutes to rest up and get some water and a bit of food. “Try out the new egress?” Larry asked as they mounted up.

  “Not yet,” Peter said. “We’ve got part of it kind of torn up, and I think we’ve disturbed the ground in the field enough today. Just in case the truck comes by for another pass, we should let things down there recover a bit.”

  It had been at least a couple of years since Peter and Larry had taken bikes up Barker Road, and it was just as hard as they remembered. Peter felt worse for Chuck, who’d had no sense going in of how hard the ride was. In the time since they’d been up the road last, its condition had degraded, and the previous day’s rain had left muddy puddles where their tires simply couldn’t get purchase. Halfway up, they decided to abandon them and continue on foot.

  They hit the curve that gave them the best vantage point over Bowman. All three pulled out binoculars and started scanning. Larry and Chuck both found their old homes first and reported what they saw. Peter immediately put eyes on the town center, where only one truck was visible. “I count armed pairs on both ends of the block by the town hall. Seems to be an armed presence on the kids’ wing of the school as well.” The Bowman school had two long hallways that led out from the center portion where the theater, gym, and cafeteria were. To the east were the classrooms for kindergarten through sixth grade. The middle and high school classrooms had a longer wing that extended out to the west.

  “Think they’ve turned the kids’ classrooms into ja
il cells?” Larry asked.

  “They’d been detaining people in the basement of the town hall before,” Chuck said. “If they arrested more people than just my parents, they’d need a lot more room. Whatever you’re planning, rescuing my parents is part of it, right?”

  Peter met Chuck’s wishful gaze. “I don’t know that we’ve got any plans yet. First, we need to figure out what we’re up against.”

  Check let out a sharp breath. “I came to you guys for help, not just to hide out while my mom and dad are locked up.”

  “We understand,” Larry said. “There’s only seven of us, though, counting you. They’ve got numbers, so we need a plan. Unfortunately, that means we need to take our time and think some things through.”

  Peter looked over at Larry. He hadn’t expected his friend to be as supportive of Chuck, considering their long and unpleasant history together.

  “Well, we need to do something soon,” Chuck said. The worry was now clear on his face. “I don’t trust those guys down there, not the way I saw them going busting heads when they took my parents and other folks.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter put his binoculars down and looked over at Chuck.

  “They were a lot rougher with people than they needed to be. I’m surprised they didn’t just go into some places shooting. Some of these guys, the way they went about it…”

  “You kind of know the type?” Peter asked, carefully.

  “Yeah. I kind of do.”

  “You’re one of us right now, so that makes your family our family,” Peter said. “We’ll do what we can to get them out as soon as possible, but we’ve got to be smart about it.”

  “Getting our eyes back on the prize would help that a lot.” Larry pointed toward the town and brought his binoculars back up. “What do we have?”

  “I see eight armed men out in the open on the main block,” Peter said. His two partners reported a couple more pairs on patrol.

  “We could confirm four on the truck that passed?” Peter asked.