by Jay Morris
“John, would you go let them know it’s going to take a bit so maybe the drivers can get some rest”.
“Sure” I said and I started to head back when he added “When you see me start to move those crates, get them going okay?”
“Sure” I said again then I started to jog back across the dam.
It took about 40 minutes until we saw the fork lift shuffling crates and 55 gallon drums from the barricade. By the time we got to the barricade there was enough room for us to squeeze by. Tucker got out of the fork lift and came over to the driver’s side of the Humvee first, he said something to them, and Karen got out and came back to the pickup, She spoke to the Doc then joined me in the back,
“Tucker asked Amy to wait for him on the other side of the dam, we are supposed to go on to the Kroger”.
“What for?”
“No clue but he seemed pretty excited about something”
“Just Great.” I said.
The Humvee pulled into the parking lot while we went on to the grocery store. I looked back at the dam, Tucker was back on the fork lift,
“What is he up to?” I wondered aloud.
I looked over at Karen, she just shrugged and we settled in next to each other for a private moment. I don’t remember what we said, but I do remember how intoxicating she was, when I was with Karen, the rest of the world was swept away like water down a drain leaving only her and that was enough for me.
We pulled up to the front of the store, some of the big plate glass windows were broken, the shards sparkling, gleaming like a million stars on the black asphalt of night. The girls and the underling were still sleeping so Karen said she would stay with them and wake them when the place was checked out. We had just entered the store front when the Humvee pulled up sans Tucker, Amy stormed over to us her rifle in hand,
“Where is Tucker?” Doc Mary asked.
Amy growled and responded with “He will be here in a few minutes.”
The words were spat as if they had made a bad taste on her tongue. Mary raised her hands in mock surrender then drew her pistol and racked the slide on it. Amy went left, I went right, the Doc stayed center by the door. A lot was gone but there was still a fair amount still on the shelves. When Amy and I met on the far side we walked up the middle and we told the Doc it was clear. By the time we had found carts for ourselves the place was crawling with underling, the girls were running around and throwing things into a cart as well, only Chase was not playing, he was on Amy’s hip, his face on her shoulder.
There was plenty of canned goods, bottled juices like V-8 and plastic wrapped dry goods like some pastas and even a dozen of those cereal assortments in the single serve boxes. Some boxes had been eaten through by rodents and we had to toss those aside. I had to laugh when I saw a rush of underling heading for the carts, each one hurriedly swaying back and forth like penguins on a race track, each one with three or four large plastic jars of Tang held tightly to their chests.
While some of the shelves had been picked over we were able to find supplies of toilet paper, tooth brushes and tooth paste, mouth wash and deodorant and lots of things we had got used to doing without, the carts started to pile up outside and I was beginning to wonder exactly how we were going to take all of it. I shouldn’t have worried because at that moment Tucker pulled up in one of the huge Army trucks. He got out and walked up to me,
“What do think John? I was even able to siphon the fuel from the other to top this one’s tank off!”
“Well, it’s big” I said.
Tucker laughed and started wheeling carts to the tail gate of the thing so I started to do the same. When he pulled the tarp back I saw a number of drums in the back.
“Aren’t those fuel oil?” I asked.
He nodded, “Yep, we are going to make a big surprise for our tall white friends.”
He said. He was wearing that same grin that always meant violence and death.
Soon after we were back on the road, Karen was with the Doc in the Hummer, followed by Amy driving the pickup, I was in the back with all the little ones, and Tucker last in the big green Army truck. However, we had only gone a few hundred yards when the Humvee quickly came to a stop. I stood up and liked over the cab but it was too dark, Karen had gotten out and was pointing her rifle at someone, I could hear them talking but couldn’t make them out. Doc Mary was still in the driver’s seat. Another minute or so and Karen stepped out from behind the open door and started forward. I told everyone to stay where they were, hopped down and started forward. Tucker appeared beside me,
“Keep your eyes on the right John, I’ll do the same left.”
I nodded, a little embarrassed that ambush hadn’t crossed my mind. So, he moved to the left shoulder, I went to the right. All the vehicles were off and the quiet was upsetting. When we reached Karen, the Doc had joined her, the weapons were in hand but pointing at the ground. The Doc was using a flashlight to illuminate the face of a young, bearded man, probably no more than 21 or 22 years old. He was unarmed except for a hunting knife in a sheath on his belt. He looked physically healthy, but his eyes darted around so much he reminded me of one of those finches we used to see in the pet store. He said his name was Ethan Tanner and he was living in a farm house up ahead with his wife. He kept saying how glad he was to see us, that he hadn’t seen any other human beings for almost a month. He said that they had been heading to Sutton and that a few people had joined up in the old Flatwoods Creek Church but before they could get there the place was swarmed by monsters. There was nothing they could do so they hid out till the swarm was finished. They had been alone, living off the Kroger store ever since. He said they had watched three identical alien vehicles flatten Sutton proper three days before but before they got to this side of the Elk they sped off, “just like that” and he snapped his fingers to emphasize the point.
Tucker was still circling, watching the distant rise and the houses beyond, then back to the tree line that runs alongside the river. I left him to it and returned to the man.
“So, Krista was just up using the john and she saw you guys leaving the store. She woke me up and here I am”
Again he snapped his fingers and for some reason that habit bothered me. Doc Mary asked
“So why didn’t she come too?”
“Krista? Heck she can hardly walk down the hall.”
He kept glancing around, watch Tucker on patrol.
“Is she injured?” Mary continued.
“Who? Oh Krista? Hell no, she’s fine, great even it’s just that she’s about to have a baby. I mean we are having a baby. She’s pregnant you understand?”
Mary smirked “Yeah Ethan, I think I got it.”
That’s when Tucker finally walked over to the rest of us,
“We should get going, we are on a schedule you know.” He said.
I looked to Karen and she shrugged no more aware of a schedule as I had been, she mouthed “Amy” to me and she walked back towards the truck.
“Wait a minute, “the man said, “why don’t you guy come up to the house we have plenty of food and all, you can meet Krista.” Mary said “I would like to check her out if she is as far along as Ethan says.”
“Are you a nurse?” Ethan was surprised.
“A surgeon”, she held out her hand to shake his
“Lt. Commander Mary Young Deer, U.S. Navy.”
“Oh that’s, incredible that is just amazing, just wonderful, a miracle, you understand?”
She smiled gently
“Yeah, I think I got it”
All the while he kept pumping her hand up and down.
The excitement was evident on his face and it made me smile a little. Ethan shook my hand then reached for Tuckers.
“I’m sorry, we can’t stay” he said.
He did not take the offered hand.
“But..” he stammered.
“We don’t have the time.” Tucker said in that deep gravelly voice he used when he was really, really serious instead
of the deep gravelly voice he normally used for everyone else except Lucy and Gina when it somehow changed into a friendly baritone.
“Don’t have the time for what?” Amy asked as she walked up to us.
Tucker didn’t break his stare from Ethan who seemed transfixed like a bunny in someone’s headlights.
“We don’t have time to visit, we are meeting someone.”
Amy put her hands on her hips, shifted her weight to the left, leaned forward and asked incredulously
“A meeting with who?”
Tucker finally snapped his eyes from Ethan to stare at Amy. Ethan was free from the viper’s gaze and he looked to Mary. Tucker spoke softly but there was threat dripping from each word and they were spoken one at a time as if each was a sentence all unto itself,
“We. Don’t. Have. Time.”
Amy stared at him then barked a laugh in his face
“Whoa, old man, you are not my father, you don’t get to tell me what to do or when to do it.”
Mary interrupted the standoff when she said
“I’ll get my bag.”
She turned and started back towards the Humvee, Amy started to speak in that tumble down waterfall way I had began to expect from her
“Alright, thank you, that’s amazing, that’s wonderful...”
His voice stopped in mid-sentence as his words were punctuated by a quietly thunderous ‘CLICK’. Tucker was pointing a huge revolver in the man’s face.
“Are you freaking crazy?” Amy demanded.
I rolled my eyes at that, wondering if she had just figured that out. Tucker didn’t answer her so she stepped to Tucker’s side and slowly put her hand on Tuckers and gently pressed the revolver down until it was pointing at the ground. Tucker was clenching his teeth. Ethan surprised everyone by attempting to placate Tucker,
“If you don’t have time, that’s cool, just come up to the house and we will go with you.”
Amy grinned and looked up at Tucker with a “see?” expression but Tucker was unfazed. “
We can’t take you.”
“What?” Amy was going ballistic.
That was when Mary appeared, I had expected her to carry one of those black Doctor’s bags but of course it was the same green CLS bag she had always used.
“Come on Ethan let’s go check on your wife.”
They hadn’t gone five yards when Tucker caught up to her, he tugged gently at her arm, not wanting to come across as if he was trying to use force. They stepped away from Ethan and they talked quietly if not so calmly for a moment. Mary was a tough woman, she didn’t back away but it was a real discussion, each having their hushed say. Mary angrily stepped past Tucker, slamming her shoulder in to him as she did “Good for you Mary” I heard Amy say.
But that was short lived, after Mary said something to Ethan she turned and walked back towards us, she was really angry I could tell, when she got near us she snapped
“We can’t stay” and she walked right by us towards the Humvee.
“Wait! You can’t be serious!” Amy exclaimed.
Mary didn’t say anything, she was too furious. I looked back to Ethan who looked like someone had just hit him between the eyes, in shock and about to cry. Tucker started back to us and Amy intercepted him
“Who do you think you are? I don’t know what you said to Mary, but this is wrong!”
Tucker stopped and looked at her, Amy continued with her verbal assault
“You don’t control us, you go on, fight your damn war, but the kids and I are going to stay and help these people.”
Tucker sighed deeply then said in a voice that I would have thought gentle if it had come from anyone else
“Amy. I wish you could I really do. Hell I wish I could. But I need the underling, and therefore I need Lucy and Gina. I need all of you.”
Amy was confused, I could see it in her eyes but before she could say anything he went on,
“I promise, in the morning I will explain all of it to you, to all of you. I promise, you have to trust me, please, Amy. I’m begging you.”
There was silence then she asked “And this is necessary?”
He nodded “Very, and so is the reason we can’t take them with us.”
She stared at him for a full thirty seconds then quietly said
“Fine. But if this is bullshit I’m taking the kids and coming back to get that man and his wife.”
“That’s fair, Tucker said, relief on his face.
To tell the truth I didn’t know what to think much less say. Amy kept saying that she was sorry and that we would try to come back when we finished whatever it was we have to do. Ethan chased after Tucker and he reached for Tuckers arm and spun the larger man to face him.
“How can you do this? Why are you doing this? We are living people and you are abandoning us! Don’t you understand?”
Tucker took hold of the man’s arm and led him to the side of the road, he spoke to him so quietly I could not make out a single thing. When the man lowered his gaze to the ground Tucker reached behind him and took out an M-9 that I hadn’t even known was there. My pulse began to race I was sure he was going to shoot the guy, but instead he handed it to him and then reaching into the left pocket of his field jacket he handed him a spare magazine and a box of ammo. Mary would not make eye contact with me and Tucker didn’t even try for it, and Amy sat slumped behind the steering wheel of the Ford, ashamed and confused that we were leaving two people behind.
I jogged past the bed of the truck where Karen was on guard over the sleeping kids and their underling companions. I told her I would ride with Tucker and find out what was up if I could. She nodded, I saw her eyes were dark as if she was trying not to cry, she hated leaving Ethan and his pregnant wife behind as much as I did.
Tucker was surprised when I climbed into the cab of that huge army truck but before he said anything I took the initiative
“Alright ‘Gampa’, spill it, what did you say to them?”
Tucker fired up the turbocharged engine and said
“John, I told him the truth”
“Which is?”
“That we are attacking a major alien strong point, attempting to cut the head off of a monster and that there was a better than even chance none of us was going to live through it.”
He was staring at me, waiting to see how I would respond. In my most eloquent and adult voice I said “Oh.” He nodded and put the truck into gear and we followed the other two vehicles. As we went past Ethan on the side of the road he held up a hand as if to say
“Good luck and good bye.”
Day 43, Vehicle 1-2, 3:30 A.M.
“Query-Broadcast-Indirect Locative-Status-Data-Record (Pod-1 (Planetary-Rotation-(Previous)))”
The lead equipment technician spoke aloud even though he was alone in the tech-development vehicle. He was exhausted, the Supreme Director’s Protocols and production deadlines wore heavily on all of the technicians but he felt it his duty to shield the technicians from the political fallout, especially in lieu of the execution of the lead Bio-Tech. Half of them felt the Supreme Director must have been justified in his actions but there were whispers, and those whispers claimed he had lost his way, that he was no longer Da-Nah.
He picked up the report and checked the totals, as he thought, they were off. He was missing two laser cutters, both modified for defensive applications. He pinched the flesh between his eyes, he could barely keep them open. He told himself that he would figure this out after he rested. He laid the digital pad on the table and headed off to his sleeping quarters.
Day 43, Sunrise
We had made great time once we got onto highway 60, then after that 64 but we pulled off the highway just shy of Charlottesville, Virginia. With the vehicles hidden in the shadows of a county road overpass we met in the shade of grove of ancient oaks. While the kids played and stretched their legs nearby and the underling grazed we gathered around Tucker. True to his word he laid out the plan, and I didn’t like it one bit
.
Like every other single plan Tucker had come up with, this one was overly complex, depended on too many independent actions, and put too many people at risk. To be fair he had not excluded himself from that. I almost ,made a nasty comment about the ambush that had taken my sister Elaine’s life and then I remember how angry, shamed and hurt he had been when he had been excluded from the action so I let that slip, besides there was plenty more things to take him apart over.
So we gathered around Tucker and he unrolled a map of Virginia and we had our great strategy meeting. While faster and more confusing, the discussion sounded a bit like this:
“Who is going to meet the underling?” “John, Doc Mary, Amy, the kids and our underling.” “And just how are we supposed to find it?” “The school has a huge white chapel spire, it is the only Benedictine Prep-Military School in Richmond, South on 288, till you see the spire. If you reach the James River, turn around” “And what are we doing?” “Karen, you and I are here on Bethlehem Road, at a farm supply co-op” “And then we join up?” “No, Amy and the kids and all the underling except George wait with the truck at the Chapel, Doc you and John take the Humvee and take positions around here, George will make adjustments as necessary as the pods get closer.” “Who is George?” “George! Raise your paw, errr..hand please.” “An underling? Why do you call him George?” “It’s from a cartoon about two dogs, ‘which way did he go George?’ It doesn’t matter.” “What are we doing again?” “You and I are filling the barrels with Ammonium Nitrate, fertilizer actually, with 6% fuel oil from those barrels on the deuce.” “And then we join up?” “Then we do what?” “You guys wait for the pods then you light up the engine compartment of one of the Equipment vehicles and get the hell out of there.” “And no, not yet.” “What kind of vehicle?” “What’s a deuce?” “Lord, give me strength, the deuce is our truck. Not the biggest vehicle, those are family units, the next biggest, they carry the defenders.” “Why didn’t you just say ‘our truck’?” “Why are we doing that?” “Because they are two and a half ton trucks so, never mind, it doesn’t matter.” “What?” “We want the defenders from the target to come out and fight the new comers.” “Why would they do that?” “They are already on their way to do that, the underling, forget it, we are just using the attackers to get the defenders out of the base.” “Aren’t they going to be pissed? How are we going to get away?” “And THEN what do we do?” “There, those are cliffs, well steep bluffs anyway, you are firing the lasers down at them. Their vehicles can’t actually fly, only hover, they have to go all the way to here reach you. By the time they do, you will be long gone.” “And then we join up?” “You wait outside the camp with a scoped M4, I have a dozen incendiary rounds in case.” “Yes, but not everyone.” “What about us?” “You stay low till Mary and John join up with you. Hopefully there will be one of those big family vehicles show up with something like 24 more underling.” “In case of what.” “I have a head ache, in case I screw it up and the truck doesn’t go boom.” “What is a deuce again?” “Forget the deuce, look, you guys get lasers from an underling at the chapel, then you use them to pick a fight, then you go back to the chapel, meet up with Amy and the kids, wait for the underling to join you, then you guys head off to pick us up.” “How will we find you?” “Follow the smoke, if it works at least 8 vehicles are going up along with about three tons of explosives. You will be able to see it for miles” “If we don’t see the smoke?” “Then Karen and I are probably dead, you guys take off and don’t look back. “Where are we supposed to go?” “You head to Galveston, the underling are in contact with some other survivors there.” “What is a deuce again?” “Oh my God” “Look, I’m sorry I don’t know all that army terminology” “Can’t we start at the beginning again?” “Yeah.” “Yeah, let’s do that!”