No Road Out

by M. J. Konkel

  The Displaced

  Book 1: No Road Out

  M.J. Konkel

  No Road Out

  Book 1 of The Displaced

  by M.J. Konkel

  Copyright © 2018 M.J. Konkel

  Book Cover by Sanja Gombar/www.bookcoverforyou.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form – electronic, mechanical, manual or any other form developed in the future - without the written permission of the author, except for excerpts used for reviews or articles as allowed by law.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the characters in this work to real people is purely coincidental, apart from cultural figures used for context.

  This book is dedicated to my wife and children who love me despite my crazy obsessions.

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  There are a few items I wish to bring up before you read this book.

  The first is that I am an indie author, and this is my first book. I need to give a very special thanks to my wife for editing this book. I have put great effort into eliminating errors, but with 85,000 words, it is possible I might have missed a few. If you find one, feel free to enlighten me. But please don’t hold my toes to the fire.

  An important note is that some of the characters in this book use some foul language that comes naturally to them. Most of them can’t help it. The words just come out before they even realize it. If this were a movie, it would most likely be rated R for language. If you’re uncomfortable with such, you might want to refrain from reading further.

  My last note has to do with the naming of dinosaurs. Dinosaur names are only capitalized (and italicized) if the full genus name (or an abbreviation of the full genus name) is given. Apatosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex (or T. rex) are capitalized, but apatosaur and tyrannosaur are not. I’ve done my best to stick to these rules, but if you think I messed up somewhere with this … Well, please just keep it to yourself.

  If you enjoy reading this book, I would be grateful if you tell your friends about it and leave a review.

  As they would say in the stone age, rock on. Translation: read the darn book!

  “With living, it is not how many breaths you take before you die, but rather how many times living takes your breath away.”

  Anonymous

  Chapter 1

  Joe tossed and turned in his unsuccessful struggle to get to sleep after the thunderstorm. He was worried, deeply worried. His wife, Karen, was still not home from her evening shift. He got up to wait instead, though he usually did not possess a great deal of patience. He slipped on a pair of jeans and a dirty sweatshirt that he wore during the day. The last storm that had passed over was very strange, not at all like the one from a few hours earlier. The rapid rise in temperature before the last one hit, accompanied by a faint green sky, was unlike anything he had ever seen. A blanketing fog had rolled through before the storm. But it didn't stay. It was more like a ground-hugging cloud just blowing past. When the storm hit, the lightning flashes were continuous, and thunderclaps were earsplitting. The storm was at war with the town. It left a trail of downed tree branches and scattered trash cans. And after the storm was gone, so was the power.

  Tapping his fingers against his knee, Joe impatiently waited. His cell phone was not getting a signal. He tried the cable phone, but that was not working either. He swore under his breath he would get rid of it since they only had it for emergencies and in an emergency, it wasn't working. He fumbled around in a clutter-filled closet until he found a flashlight and then a small portable radio. Turning on the radio, he sought to hear news about the storm but only got steady static, even after he found some new batteries in the closet. He twisted the knob, scanning up and down both the FM and AM bands several times – nothing. He cursed the strange electrical storm for causing all the problems and then stood up his six foot-one frame. He felt a little lightheaded which he blamed on a lack of sleep. After clearing his mind, he went to the fridge in search of a cold beer. It was dark in the fridge with no electricity, but he found a bottle of Wisconsin’s Western Shore in there with the aid of the flashlight. Then an opener in one of the drawers next to the fridge, and he popped the top off the beer. It was produced by a local brewery in Wisconsin that promised old style flavor and the old style included the tops that didn't twist off. He carried the bottle to the front steps of his house, sat with it clutched between his legs and scratched the short stubble on his chin. As he slowly swigged the beer, he waited. It was totally black with all the street lights and house lights out and cloud cover overhead. The whole town was dark so when a car came slowly cruising up the street, the lights were blindingly bright. It was not Karen's car though – the headlights were too far apart, the vehicle too large. As it got closer Joe recognized it as the sheriff's car, so he set his half-empty bottle down on the steps and ran out to the street, waving the sheriff down with his flashlight.

  “Hi Joe. Is there a problem?” the sheriff inquired, getting out of the car. He stood a towering six foot-five with strong broad shoulders, but also with a bit of extra weight on his belly (and elsewhere) – the result of being the sheriff in a small quiet town where hardly anything ever happened, except for late night donuts at the convenience store. Most of the town's folks liked and respected Sheriff Judd Burser and kept voting him back each election and, besides, nobody else really wanted the job.

  “It's Karen. She was working the evening shift tonight, but she should have been home two hours ago. With tonight’s storm, I am worried about her.”

  “Karen is still at St. Drew's in La Crosse?” St. Drew's is what everybody called St. Andrew's Medical Center.

  “Yeah, that's right.”

  Sheriff Burser leaned on the car door. The light from inside of the car was the only light other than the car's headlights visible from the street. “My radio is not working so I can't reach the station up in La Crosse.”

  “Jeez! Nothing is working – power, radio, cell. I can't even call out on my cable phone. Have any idea what is going on? How could one storm, even one as bad as tonight's, possibly cause all this?”

  “I don't know any more than you about those problems, but it sure packed a wallop all right. I've been running across all kinds of crap here in town because of it. Don’t worry though. Karen has a good head on her shoulders and wouldn't have continued to drive through if that storm made the conditions too dangerous for driving.”

  “Anything could have happened while she was out there on the road. She could have had a car accident with another driver. She could have hit a deer.” A hundred other possibilities were running through Joe’s head. “I’m worried she’s off the road somew
here and needs help.”

  “Maybe the storm blew a tree or two across the road and she can't get through. You know with this storm, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was needed longer up at St. Drews.”

  “Yeah you're probably right. But damn it! What is driving me mad is that I can't get through to her. But the phones are all flippin’ worthless. I would just like to know that she is safe. Not hurt somewhere between here and La Crosse.”

  The sheriff scratched his head. “I'll tell you what. I'll take a ride up towards La Crosse and keep an eye out for her car. It's possible others are having problems too, so I should cruise up that way and check it out anyway. She drives a green Midori if I remember right.”

  “Yeah, that's right.”

  Joe thanked Judd as he left. Then Joe went inside and sipped his beer while waiting on his big old recliner. He was surprised that the kids slept through the storm. He shut his eyes and nodded off briefly a couple of times, but each time he jerked his head up with the realization that Karen was still gone. His stomach ached from muscle tension. He didn't get any worthwhile sleep that night.

  Joe jerked his head up once again to discover that a little light was starting to peek through the windows, although the sun had not yet risen. The half empty bottle of beer was sitting on a stand next to him. Karen was still not back, and the sheriff had not returned either. Joe wondered what was going on. It was like living in the twilight zone. People go out of town, but they don't come back. The power still had not come back and a glance at his cell phone told him that it still was not receiving a signal. He cursed. He could not wait any longer – he had no patience for just sitting and waiting.

  He went upstairs to wake up the kids. James was five and Robbie was six. Both had his brown curly hair and his long thin nose, but they had Karen's blue eyes instead of his hazel and greens. James was the most like him while Robbie had more of his mother's personality, her calm rational approach to problems. She would sit back and weigh her options until she was sure that she had thought of all the angles. Joe was rational too, but he was more likely to jump into action as soon as he had what he thought was a good plan, not waiting for an alternative or back-up plan. He hated waiting and he hated just sitting back and watching. Sometimes she accused him of being impulsive, leaping before he looked. He sometimes accused her of being indecisive and lacking an ability to act. In truth, they usually were best when they worked together, balancing each other. But she was missing, and he had to find her.

  It was Friday and if it had been the latest 'normal routine' Joe would have been off in about an hour and a half to the high school where he taught shop to the juniors and seniors and driving lessons to the sophomores. Karen would be taking care of the kids until they left for school. Then she would have been off to bed to sleep till mid-afternoon. But this was certainly not a normal Friday and with the electricity being out, there would be no school. Besides, he had to know that Karen was safe and that was priority number one. His plan was to drop the kids off at his parent's house and then drive up to La Crosse, looking for her car on the way. If the phone service worked there or came up later, he or his parents could call the school and let them know that he was not going to be coming in.

  When Joe went to wake the boys, they rubbed their eyes and asked what time it was. Then they whined about being tired and wanting to go back to sleep. Joe had to dress them himself as they refused to even get out of bed. After he got them into their jackets, he sent them out the back door of their century-old large red brick house which sat on the western edge of town – many of the other houses around there were as old as theirs. The back door opened to a large fenced-in yard with toys scattered all over the yard and a garden on the right that still had not been cleared of all the dead plants from the previous year's growth. The kids trudged forward in front of Joe along a stone-covered path that crossed the lawn, leading to their garage that opened to the alley road that cut across the block. There were some light patches of frost on the grass, surprising to Joe considering how it had warmed up so much in the latter part of the previous evening right after the storm. But then it was still early spring. Joe could see his breath. He almost tripped over a soccer ball that was left out, kicking it instead. It banged off the side of the garage with a loud reverberation. He was about to yell at the boys for leaving out their balls and toys. He had a temper that sometimes released itself in a quick outburst – sometimes at his family, sometimes at the players that he coached. But out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of movement up the alley and he instinctively turned to look. No words came out. Over the fence and half-way up the alley, three strange creatures froze too, except for slowly swishing tails. Their beady eyes were staring straight back at him and his two young boys. They looked like raptorsaurs that had jumped right out of the movie screen from that old classic Jurassic Park or from the more recent flick, The Day They Returned. Joe forgot about the ball and for a moment, he was frozen too in a surreal situation. What his eyes were telling his brain didn't seem possible, but his wits returned an instant later. The house was on the other side of the yard. It was too far away to make a run for it, especially with two young kids, if those things could run anything like in the movies and Joe thought that they probably could.

  “Get into the garage now!” he forcefully urged in a hushed tone. He opened the door to the garage. Luckily, they usually left the door unlocked since burglaries were quite rare in the small quiet town. He put his hands on James' and Robbie's backs and hustled them into the garage. On the few steps to the garage, he lost sight of the creatures and took a quick glance back up the alley from the doorway – he couldn't see them anymore. It was even more unnerving not knowing where they were or what they were up to. He slid inside and locked the door.

  “Slide under the truck – quick!”

  “Why are you whispering, Daddy? Aren't we going to school?” asked Robbie.

  “It is dark in here and I don't want to go under the truck,” whined James.

  Joe felt the urge to yell at them for not listening at such a critical time, but he managed to keep his cool. “Just do as I say,” he whispered. “There is some type of monster out there so don't come out until I say it's safe. I need for both of you to listen to me right now.”

  Robbie opened his mouth to protest, but a loud thumping sound from the side of the garage sent him and James scurrying under the truck.

  “Get as close as you can to the center of the truck. Don't move and don't make a sound no matter what,” Joe whispered.

  “What's out there, Daddy?”

  “Hush! No more talking.”

  Joe tiptoed as quickly and as quietly as he could to where his compound bow was set on a stand against the far side next to the back wall, right where he had left it the previous autumn after the end of the deer hunting season. He silently cursed. All the arrows in the quiver were practice arrows. He had forgotten that he had planned on going out to a practice range for a little target shooting after the deer season was over and had replaced the broadheads with practice tips for that trip. He did not actually go on that trip, but he was left with arrows that he doubted would stop any of the raptors that he just saw. The only light in the garage came from two small windows set up high and above the loft. As his eyes started to adjust to the dark interior of the garage, he spotted some broadhead tips on the bench top next to the bow stand. He had to replace the practice tips if they were to have any chance. He unscrewed the first tiny practice tip and silently placed it on the bench top as he heard the raptors scuttling about outside, their claws scratching and clicking on the stone walk next to the garage. His fingers fumbled with the arrowhead, nicking his thumb on its razor-sharp edge and almost dropping it before he recovered and got the blade screwed onto the shaft. He could hear a raptor's long sharp deadly claws scratching on the sidewalk just outside of the door and he hoped that they would all just leave, but he could see from the wavering light coming from under the door that at least one was poking around
by the door. Probably sniffing his and the boy’s scents. He unscrewed the practice tip off a second arrow, but a loud hard bang on the door forced him to abort preparing a second arrow. He loaded the arrow with the broadhead onto the bow and drew back. A drop of blood ran down his thumb. He wondered whether the raptors would be able to smell his blood. The bow had a 70-pound pull to it, but once he pulled it back to full draw the pull weight dropped off to just 14 pounds as the pulleys and cam on the bow leveraged the weight. Another bang and the door popped open and the morning's light came streaming back into the garage. Joe could feel his heart thumping as he silently reminded himself that this would be a very close shot and that he must aim low –the sights would be useless at such close range. He had only one arrow with a broadhead tip, so he would have to make the shot count. But there were at least three of them outside. After what seemed like an indeterminately long time, but was only a couple of seconds, an alien-looking head popped through the doorway opening. Just the head. Steam was flowing out from nostrils backlit by the dim morning sun. He tried to hold himself completely motionless, but his trigger hand was quivering. He had held the draw longer before while deer hunting, but this was different – he and his children were the prey this time. He was on the defensive. Clenching his jaws, he steeled himself. With the dark interior of the garage, the raptor failed to see him motionless in the corner. James screamed, sending shivers up Joe's back. The raptor stepped into the garage and bobbed down its head just as Joe let the arrow fly. The arrow's intended target was not the head though, as the blade burrowed deep into the shoulder of the raptor, felling it in the doorway. It did not stay down. Picking itself back up, it disappeared out the door. A few seconds later, he heard the two raptors running off, the soft thuds of them landing on the other side of the fence they hurtled. He had notched another arrow by then, but it was just a practice arrow. It would hurt, but was unlikely to drop another raptor if he had to use it. He hoped they were gone. He crept quickly to the door and poked his head around to look out. The raptor he shot was lying about ten feet away. He craned his neck further out the door and looked both left and right, but didn't see the others. He grabbed a long-handled ax hanging from a couple of nails on the wall and carried it with him.