Across the bed and cab of the truck lay three sturdy metal ladders attached to the top. The entire south side of the fence was crushed and the truck made a perfect bridge over it and right into the perimeter of the camp.
Rising over the noise of the engine they could hear another sound that quickly drowned it out. Along the east and south sides they could now see them, a large group of attackers rapidly approaching through the fields, the air filled with their feral screams and shouts.
Rob turned to see a large army charging the house, the drone of the mob now completely obliterating the engine’s roar. For the first time ever, panic could be heard in Rob’s voice, “There’s got to be sixty or seventy of them! Everybody keep firing! Kill them all!”
The horde rapidly advanced on the south fence line, running, shooting, and screaming like savages.
The men did as ordered, concentrating on the group now scaling the ladders. They continued to pour rifle fire into the mob, but for every enemy soldier they cut down, another two kept coming.
Martinelli and D’Cruz retreated from their positions, heading back for the house. As they did, the first few attackers cleared the collapsed fence and dropped to the ground on the inside.
Both men were in the house and by now nearly a dozen of the enemy were inside the perimeter, firing and advancing without hesitation.
Rob was at a loss for new words, or ideas, “Everybody keep firing! KILL THEM ALL!”
So Alton decisively took command, “Everybody out the north gate! Grab your bug out bags and go! You know your lines of retreat, get out of here! Check your maps! We’ll rendezvous at point Echo at twelve hundred hours tomorrow! GO!”
Alton grabbed Nicky by his arm and lifted up the terrified boy, who was screaming, prone on the floor. “Nicky, grab your stuff! GO ON!” Then he turned to James lying there looking up at him in a stupor, “You heard what I said, grab your stuff and follow me!”
Both boys had their bags and were following right behind Alton as he paused and turned back to Rob, Martinelli, and D’Cruz still firing from the front window. “We’ve got to go!”
Rob turned, a little more in control than he was a minute before. “I heard you, we’ll hold them here, give you and the boys a little head start. We’ll meet you at point Echo at twelve hundred tomorrow. Good luck.”
The three rushed out the north door, the rest of the men were waiting for them there. All four were watching for trouble as that awful sound from the other side of the house continued to grow.
There was no time for a discussion so Alton went right to the plan, “Cornwell, you’re with me. McCain, you take Peavey and Rudd, use the second escape route on your map, we’re taking the first one. We will rendezvous at point Echo on your map at twelve hundred hours tomorrow.”
McCain took aim with his rifle as the horrible noise only grew louder, “All right, you guys go first, we’ll cover you.”
“Thanks, remember, point Echo, tomorrow at twelve hundred, good luck.” Alton, Cornwell, and the boys made a mad dash out the gate. As they did, they could hear the sound of their own men firing on the approaching mob.
Then in the distance they could hear more shots being fired. Another group of enemy soldiers was rapidly advancing on them from the field to the north.
They ran west across the grassy meadow towards a thick patch of forest, the sound of bullets coming closer by the moment.
When they made their way to the cover of the woods, Alton stopped them again behind a stout old walnut tree. “James, I want you to take Nicky and keep going, me and Cornwell are staying here. We’ll take out any that follow us.”
The older boy protested, “I don’t want to go without you guys ...”
But Alton still had no time for talking as the sounds of gunfire and the fanatic mob were only growing by the second, “Shut up! Stop your crying! James, you have to get going. You’ll have to look after yourself and Nicky too. I’m counting on you. Here,” he took his map and thrust it into James’s hand, “follow this line, see it,” as he traced with his finger. “There’s a drainage ditch just past these trees. Follow it west until you can see an old silo. It’s easy to find, wait for us there. But if we don’t show up in an hour, both of you continue moving,” he put his compass on top of the crumpled map in the boy’s now shaking hand, “Follow the compass at two hundred ninety-five degrees from that silo. Can you remember that? Two hundred ninety-five degrees and approximately four miles of walking, will bring you to our rendezvous point. It’s an old country grocery store all by itself next to the road. You wait for us there. We’ll all meet up there tomorrow at twelve hundred hours.”
The boy still objected as that horrible noise continued to grow louder, “But ... what if ...”
“There’s no time left for talking. James, I know you’re afraid, but you have to ignore it. The two of you have to go now! GO!”
James seized Nicky by his hand and they both took off running. As they hurriedly made their way through the trees, wet leaves, and thick underbrush, they ran for a clearing they could see on the far side.
From behind them came the sound of Alton’s and Cornwell’s rifles. They were on full auto and the boys could hear the bark of their short, controlled bursts ring through the trees as they engaged the enemy at point-blank range.
The boy thought of the friends he was leaving behind, maybe forever, and knew that John Alton was right. There was nothing he could do for them, his first duty was to get Nicky out of there and save himself too.
As the two boys walked out past the last tree and into the bright sunshine, they stopped to catch their breath. In the distance the muted sound of automatic fire continued to echo in the forest behind them.
Moving once more, James spotted the ditch Alton told him about. They began following it and with a few minutes of running it was all quiet again, the world they just left behind feeling like a bad dream, not the nightmare that was all too real.
With nearly a mile of walking, the two found the silo and took a well-deserved rest under a tall buckeye.
They waited in silence and James started thinking of what he would do if Alton or Cornwell never came. He tried to recall the instructions he was given, was it 295 degrees or 290, he just couldn’t remember after all the excitement of the day. He sat there unsure of anything, except that if his and Nicky’s survival was in his hands, they were both in real trouble.
After over an hour of sitting in the quiet shade of that tree, Nicky finally had something to say. He turned to his friend, “James, what if ... what if John and Cornwell are dead? What if they’re all dead? What are we going to do then?”
James remained silent as he didn’t have any answer for the boy. Fortunately, he was saved from admitting it when he saw Cornwell and Alton fast approaching from across a bit of pasture land off on the horizon.
The four had their short reunion with Nicky excitedly hugging both men. James thought the boy was never going to let John Alton go. The boys got the PG version of what happened from Alton as he took his compass and map back, folding the map into its original crisp square shape again. After another brief rest to catch their breath and have some water, they were all on their way carrying everything they owned on their backs, along with huge smiles on both the boys’ faces.
With about a mile of marching and thinking, James once more had the weight of the world on his back, and finally it broke. “I should have never joined you guys. I should have stayed on my own.”
Alton was understanding, as much as he could be considering all the facts he didn’t know. “James, I know what happened scared you, and you have a right to be scared, but this is how the world is now. You have to accept that. You have to accept the good and the bad. At least you’ve got us, you’ve got your friends ...”
“Some friends I’ve got.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Rob told me what you guys wanted. He told me what you would do to me, too, if I ran away.”
“What are you
talking about? What would we do to you if you ran away?”
“He told me you would track me down and kill me. He told me about the new job you had for me too.”
Alton stopped and turned to Cornwell with a bewildered look on his face, “Have you heard any of this? Have you heard anyone say they were going to hurt James if he tried to leave?”
Cornwell seemed just as confused, “Nope, this is the first I’m hearing of it.”
James went on in his mournful tone. “Rob told me what you would do. He said you guys would come looking to kill me, if I ran away, but only after you hurt me real bad.”
Alton shook his head, completely disbelieving, “He said we would all come looking to kill you?”
“Not all of you, he said ‘some of the guys’ and I never knew exactly which of you guys he meant.”
“You must’ve misunderstood Rob. We’re not holding you against your will, James. You’re free to go any time. We wouldn’t want you here if you didn’t want to be here. You understand if you do go you can’t take the equipment with you. That belongs to the group. But otherwise you can go anytime you want to. No one’s going to stop you.”
“What about our oath?”
“That oath was Rob’s idea. It meant much more to him than the rest of us. Right, Cornwell?”
Cornwell nodded.
“Besides, where in the oath did it say you couldn’t leave the group if you wanted to?”
James paused and considered the question.
Alton turned and started marching again, Cornwell and the boys were following right behind. “I just don’t understand this ... how you could get this idea?”
James caught up with Alton and went on with his sad story, the boy now looking like he wanted to cry, “He told me about the job you had for me too. I thought you were my friends ... I thought you liked me.”
“We do like you. What is this job you keep talking about?”
“Since I didn’t want to learn about guns, Rob said I couldn’t be a soldier. He said I could keep the camp running though ... wash the clothes, stuff like that.”
“Yes, that was discussed. What’s wrong with that? James, you’ve made it quite clear since you’ve been here you didn’t want to have anything to do with guns. We were just trying to find some job you could do.”
The boy laughed and wiped a tear from his eye, “Yeah, like my other duties?”
“What other duties?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know. What duties?”
James stopped and looked at Nicky, who was staring at him, utterly confused. “Rob said ... he said I would have to ‘service’ you guys, anytime you wanted me to. You know what I mean ... when I say service?” He eyes shifted back to Nicky who still didn’t have a clue to what the two were talking about.
From the look on Alton’s face he had now heard it all. “I don’t know what to say, James. I think there has been some kind of mix-up. I think maybe Rob was teasing you ... or maybe playing some kind of joke. No one wants to do that to you. You’re our friend and we wouldn’t ask you to do that, any of us, well ...” He stopped and brushed his short hair down with his hand, “I don’t think I’ve told you about Rudd, have I?”
“No, what about Rudd?”
“Nicky has known for a while now, I guess we just forgot to tell you.”
“Tell me what? What about Rudd?”
“You don’t ever want to go anywhere alone with Rudd, especially if he’s been drinking. You understand what I mean? Do you understand what might happen to you if you and Rudd are alone together? So don’t take that chance. Don’t go anywhere with him by yourself.”
Suddenly Nicky was in on the conversation, “Oh ... that’s what you were talking about.”
Alton ignored Nicky and continued to address James, “Do you understand me, James, I mean about Rudd?”
“Yes ... okay.”
“As for your ‘job offer,’ I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding. No one would expect that of you. The next time we see Rob we’ll get this all straightened out.” He bent down, patting James on his head, “Do you feel better, now you’ve got this off your back?”
“Yes ... I guess I do.” The boy had another laugh and wiped his eyes again. Maybe it was simply a misunderstanding after all.
The sun was setting as they arrived at point Echo, and by now the temperature dropped some and it began to snow, the first one of the season.
They were the first group to arrive and quickly set up camp inside the derelict structure. It had no glass in the windows and the doors were gone, but the roof did keep the snow off of them. There were no trees nearby so they tore the wood studs out of a wall to start a small fire right there on the cement floor. Without their sleeping bags and blankets, it was a long, cold night as the winds blew through the hollow structure. They huddled together under the light of the fire, trying to stay warm and get some rest if they could.
Early the next morning, Alton was on guard duty and woke them as two figures approached.
It was McCain and Rudd plodding along in the snow covered road, both were covered with numerous small cuts and abrasions and Peavey was nowhere to be seen.
Alton came out and met them halfway. “Where’s Peavey?”
Both of them gave him awkward looks and finally McCain spoke, “Peavey didn’t make it.”
“Peavey is dead?”
“Probably ... yeah, he’s dead.”
“You don’t sound very sure. Is he dead or not?”
Rudd spoke up, “We’re not sure. We think he’s dead.”
Alton couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, “So, you really don’t have any idea whether he’s dead or not?”
Both of them answered this time, “No.”
Alton was getting angrier by the second, “McCain, you were in charge, explain it to me. Explain to me how you don’t know if one of your men is dead or not.”
“He couldn’t keep up, and as we were running we got cut off from the planned escape route. We had to improvise and Peavey just wasn’t fast enough.”
“So they caught him?”
“Yes, I assume they killed him when he was captured.”
“But you don’t know.”
“No.”
Alton walked away, sure if he stayed in this conversation any longer he would be throwing punches in mere moments.
Rudd and McCain both said, “We’re sorry” as he was walking away.
At about 09:00 hours, Rob, Martinelli, and D’Cruz were spotted coming over a hill. D’Cruz had his forearm bound up resting in a crude sling made out his shirt. Rob and Martinelli were helping him along and Rob had a limp of his own.
Alton was waiting at the front door of the structure, “Has D’Cruz been shot?”
Rob was the last to come in out of the cold. “No, one of those maniacs tried to take his arm off with a machete. It was buried so deep it was stuck in the bone. Me and Martinelli didn’t think we would ever get it out.”
“Is he going to lose that arm?”
It was obvious Rob didn’t have a clue, “Martinelli?”
From the look on his face, Martinelli didn’t know much more than the boss. “Maybe. It’s a pretty bad cut, it took forever to stop the bleeding, like Rob said he was cut right down to the bone. If he doesn’t get an infection he’ll keep the arm, might even get back some use of it. Will he get it all back? Well, we’ll have to wait and see.”
The three of them laid D’Cruz out on the cleanest bit of floor they could find and tried to make him comfortable. Alton started questioning Rob again. “How bad are you hurt?”
“Not bad at all, actually I was real lucky. One of them shot me but hit my radio instead. I’ve got a good-sized bruise on my hip, the radio is totaled though. Did you bring the other two radios?”
“Yeah, we’ve got them.”
“Please tell me you got the charger, too, I didn’t see it on the mantle when I was leaving.”
“Yeah, that was
the last thing I grabbed before we went out the door.”
“Good. I want to do an immediate inventory of our supplies and equipment.”
“I already did ours.”
“And?”
“We’ve got the two radios and the charger. Four rifles ...”
“Four?” Rob turned and thoroughly scanned the room, “Where’s Peavey?”
“He was captured.”
“I hope they killed him quick.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You didn’t get a good, up close look at these monsters; I did. I’ve never seen anything like them. They were out of their minds. I don’t know what they were on but it must have been something. They were even killing their own men ...”
“Their own men?”
“Yeah, when they were charging the house, there were several of them that got hurt and were slowing the others down. They got gunned downed or clubbed, and stepped over. Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like that. What else you got?”
“Let’s see, I have the Beretta nine millimeter and three full mags, forty-five rounds of ammo. Between us we have the four rifles and seventeen magazines, most nearly full, four hundred ninety-one rounds to be exact. We all have five days’ supply of food on us, and one canteen each. We’ve got some medical supplies and a few other odd items. What’ve you got?”
“We have three more M4s, twenty-four mags with exactly six hundred ninety-nine rounds. I have the Python and two boxes of ammo, one hundred rounds. Martinelli managed to save the Remington but we’ve only got one box of ammunition for it, twenty rounds. And we’ve got five days’ supply of food too.”
Alton tried to laugh, but couldn’t, “Not much, is it?”
“No, not much.”
Martinelli interrupted, “I need to change D’Cruz’s dressing. I hope somebody has some more medical supplies.”
Cornwell handed him a bag off the floor while Alton let him know, “That bag is all we’ve got, only use what you have to.” Then he went back to his and Rob’s conversation. “What’s your plan?”
“My plan is to get the hell out here. I think we should head west ...”
Joshua (Book 2): Traveler Page 10