by A. R. Shaw
“Where the hell are we planning to go?”
“A really big underground bunker in Deer Trail, Colorado. But we have to take it first.”
As they walked on through the lobby, several residents glanced at Bishop with expectant looks of fragility. Knowing their days were numbered, they were eager for news about a possible evacuation. They’d already lessened the rations a few times. Everyone was on the apocalypse weight-loss plan, and no one was happy about it. The fear in their eyes mirrored those of the Chinese residents he’d seen living in squalor and caught up in war. The despair threw him back in the depths of those days and ones he never wanted to relive ever. Yet tragedies have a way of returning and reminding you of your past, as if in an attempt to detect a pattern and thus find a solution to the woes of the day. The problem was, he never did find a solution to that problem…only the killing. And now, he needed to do the saving, except that it would take more killing this time.
“Of course…nothing is ever easy,” Jax said.
“You know, I was a little concerned I’d have to come and find you. In fact, I was out hunting and intended to swing by to see if you were at the camp when I heard the Osprey. What made you show up all of a sudden?”
“Nothing draws your attention like a bird in the air when you’ve been thrust back into the Stone Age for weeks. First silence and then suddenly all hell breaks loose.”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed we were in the Stone Age, Jax.”
He mumbled, “A man notices things…when they’re not there. And so did the folks of Rockford Bay. You think I want all those damn people in my woods? What is a hermit if no one is on the outskirts to notice? Is he a hermit at all then?”
Bishop lifted his eyebrow at him and thought about those words…he was right in a way he had never considered. But at the moment his attention was on the said bird now sitting on the ice, stone cold, and the coming snowmobiles from across the lake…the Rockford Bay settlement had taken notice. And he’d be forever grateful.
“How were things left with the sheriff of Rockford Bay?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Jax replied, “After all the excitement was over, he just sort of shook hands with us and went on their way. They took a few of the weapons and wanted to know what your plans are—with the Osprey, of course—but they didn’t seem to have any demands for their services.”
“Yeah, thinking about how it went down, I don’t think we would have won without them. We outnumbered the private soldiers, but we were out-trained and out-armed. It could have easily gone the other way.”
“Just be thankful it didn’t. The sheriff said to radio him when you recovered.”
As Bishop limped along, his leg throbbing with each step, he thought he was about as recovered as he was going to get for a long while. “Like that’s ever going to happen. I’ll head back and call in to him now,” Bishop said and turned back toward the conference room as Jax headed out. He noticed Jax had to take breaks often from the people. Sort of like a guy who smoked often, had to walk away every once in a while. Instead of a vice, it was a coping mechanism with Jax.
Once inside the conference room they used as a radio room, Bishop called the sheriff in Rockford Bay. “Rockford Bay, come in, over.”
“This is Rockford Bay, over.”
He recognized the sheriff’s voice right away.
“This is Bishop, over.”
“How are you feeling? I heard you fainted, over.”
Bishop detected a slight chuckle, and he wasn’t amused.
“I’m fine, thanks. I wanted to thank you for helping out today. We’ve secured the Osprey, and I’ve talked with the pilot. The information is promising. It seems we’re headed to Deer Trail, Colorado. I think this is a combined effort. I’ll need men on the first flight. You’ve got that Yeager guy with the nifty tricks. Can you spare him and a few others? Over.”
“Some kind of sanctuary? Over.”
“Yes, an underground one. We need to check it out to make further plans. What do you say? Over.”
“Hell, we’re in, and by the way, keep a lookout for two young girls. We’re missing a five- and a six-year-old. Fearing the worst. Over.”
Chapter Fifteen
The engines whirred as Bishop strapped Ben in the jump seat next to his mother. On the other side was Louna, looking frail and scared to death. There was nothing he could really do except offer the girl a reassuring smile. She couldn’t hear his softly spoken words over the tremendous din. Maeve continued to pat her as Louna buried her head into Maeve’s side. Bishop cinched her straps again and patted the girl on her slight legs. Maeve pulled her boots underneath her and piled a blanket over the three of them, tucking in the edges.
Looking about the cabin, she noticed that the other men were strapped in as well. All sufficiently armed, it had taken only a few days to pull together the best crew possible from the locals available, including a few vets from Rockford Bay.
They knew what the stakes were. Looking out the windows before he stopped in the cabin, Bishop waved at Austin and Jax as they waited before the hotel. Their forms looked frozen like statues in the light-blue landscape. Oh, how he wished to feel the sun’s rays upon his face and see the green blades of grass again. Not that the season was right, but just knowing those conditions would not happen for a very long time made him miss them that much more. Not for years, he feared. And then what? How many will they be by then? Will the wars be settled? Will an apocalypse be enough to end man’s hungry appetite for war and destruction by then? There was nothing like a natural disaster to make man see the error of his ways. What might have seemed like a good reason for bombing suddenly became trivial after something like this.
Certainly in the aftermath of such a catastrophe causing millions to die, man would not return to his old ways. Right?
The question didn’t matter quite yet. This wasn’t over. The death and dying wasn’t done. Far from it, actually. No, the death was just beginning in many ways and would continue when the food supply ran out. Mothers would lose their children to starvation—one of the worst fates he could imagine for a parent.
A chill ran over him, not from the cold but from what he knew was coming. It was going to be a massive fight, something he had to save Maeve and the children from. Cannibalism was never far from a starving man’s thoughts…it only took time and an empty stomach, and some would reason the possibility sooner than others. He had no doubt that in remote locations this was already happening.
He tapped Walt on the shoulder and spun his finger in the air. “Ready?”
Walt nodded and began flipping switches.
Bishop climbed into the copilot’s seat and strapped in. He always kept his rifle nearby and maneuvered it alongside his seat.
Walt looked to him again.
“Let’s go,” Bishop said.
Walt nodded, and they began to take off.
Knowing the trip would take at least five hours depending on the wind, he hoped Walt was confident in his own abilities. If not, he would have no idea how to fly the Osprey, neither did he know of anyone who did. Walt had flown the others there, which was all he knew. The pilot seemed to know what he was doing, so in time once they were set on course, Bishop relaxed, as did the rest of the crew when he peeked back through the cockpit door. Even Maeve and the children were settled down. Before long, when he looked back, it seemed everyone was asleep in the cabin. The loud noise prevented conversations, and with the lulling drone, everyone seemed to turn in to themselves. One guy read a paperback novel, while a few others put in earphones. Maeve leaned her head back while holding on to the two children and shut her eyes. He didn’t think there was anything else to do. He didn’t want to check out like the others or fall asleep just in case there was something Walt needed.
Over the past few days, he’d gotten to know the guy. He found him to be sympathetic to their cause, but, truly, Walt was concerned about his own family for a good reason. The private soldiers stormed into his home on
e night a few weeks ago and took them away with the promise that if Walt performed as a pilot they’d take care of his family. Walt was conflicted because he didn’t trust Geller, but what choice did he have? Saying no to a man surrounded by private military, without rules, didn’t really seem like a viable option at the time. He’d told him they’d just as easily would have killed him there and his family as well.
Now, it seemed instead of being someone’s pilot, Bishop counted him as an individual. Someone with skills…that made him an asset in these times, not an employee.
Bishop didn’t like the odds, though. If their plan didn’t work, it was likely Walt’s family would die, and there was nothing Bishop could do about that. His objective was to secure the safety of his own newfound family, and if that was at the cost of Walt’s well-being, that was just the way it was going to be. Absolutely nothing would stand in his way to find security for those he loved now. He’d give anything, he’d take anything.
Peeking around the corner of the cabin again, he assured himself the three of them were fine. Louna’s socked foot dangled out of the covers now. Her boot slipped to the floor. He knew she was probably freezing, but he couldn’t just run over there and fix the situation. Eventually she’d pull it up and tuck her leg beside her as she’d done many times before, he hoped.
Eventually, he noticed a shadow pass by in his peripheral vision. When he looked behind him again, one of the men had noticed the same thing and gently knelt down next to Louna and tucked her leg up under the blanket. Maeve had awakened then, and she smiled lazily at the man, which sent pangs of jealously through Bishop. Mine.
She must have detected his stare, because when the man went back to his seat, she looked directly at him and blew a silent kiss. He growled below his breath. No one heard him, but she knew instantly how he felt by the look on her face. There were no worries there, only reassurances.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Walt suddenly yelled over the din to Bishop, catching his attention away from the back. “It’s going to take at least five hours, if we’re lucky.”
“Don’t you need me to stay awake with you?”
Walt shook his head. “Crash now…keep me awake later.”
Bishop nodded, knowing that was probably a good idea. It was better to get rest now rather than when the pilot might be tired himself, even though they made sure Walt had sufficient sleep the night before.
He looked back at Maeve and the children once more and then settled down in his chair, resting his chin on his chest. Before long he was fast out, but the pleasant dreams he was hoping to find never came. Perhaps it was riding on the Osprey again…the hum of the engine where he’d found himself in the past on his way to war as a young man and then again on his way home after he no longer felt human.
Chapter Sixteen
The Osprey lifted and flew away in the distance like a wayward drone, except there were people on this one, people he’d come to care about. Jax listened as the whirring sounds were soon too distant, and the vehicle certainly wasn’t visible through the snow any longer. In fact, he judged the vehicle well beyond the tree line over the lake by now. The people just south in Rockford Bay could probably still hear the whirring noise, but they could not.
“Jax?”
Nearly forgetting the kid stood next to him, he glanced over at the young man. “What?”
“I’ll need your help. Do you think we could get along?” Austin asked him.
Jax snorted. “Kid, I get along with no one. Just stay out of my way, and don’t bother me.” Jax turned with a rush as his fur coat twirled around his legs, flinging off ice crystals that had landed on him before, leaving the kid standing there by himself.
As Jax headed back inside the hotel, he saw Cook there by the lobby door; he glared at her on his way to the parking garage. He’d counted ten people already. All of them looked to him with questions. He never wanted this. What in the hell do they want from me? Take care of your own damn selves…effing babies.
Pushing open the parking-garage door, Jax heard rushing steps behind him. Already he knew it was that kid Austin again.
“Jax, where are you going? I’ve got a room set up for you. Or you can choose one for yourself.”
Annoyed, Jax said, “I’m not stayin’ here.” He threw the first layer of a horse blanket over his pale-white mare.
The entire time he saddled her, Austin did his best to convince him to stay but to no avail.
Once he finished, he also put a lead on Jake and tethered him to his own horse.
“But you can’t just leave us,” Austin said desperately.
Yelling now and out of sheer will of patience, Jax said, “Look, kid, I’m not your goddamned babysitter! I’ll find a place close by and keep an eye on things. I’ll be watching. That’s the best I can do. Now, leave me the hell alone.”
Mounting his horse, Jax left through the drive, ambling slowly, the guards tipping their hats to him on their way out.
Jax turned once to look behind him. The skinny kid remained where he left him, standing utterly useless there in the desolate parking-garage that they transformed into a stable.
Roaming the abandoned streets, Jax first ambled east to Fourth Street, since it was the one clearest of ice-covered obstacles; even then, the paths were narrow and treacherous. No one had bothered to keep the roads clear, and in all honesty, he couldn’t blame them. His goal was to find somewhere to stay close by and with a decent lookout over the helpless ones. It pained him, but he had promised Bishop he wouldn’t just leave the incapables on their own…as tempting as it was.
No, he had to remain close by. A block east, he ran by an old sporting goods store in an old brown building. The windows were busted out long ago. Snow and relative icebergs remained inside where they should not be. He’d been in that store once in the past long ago on a sunny day as he recalled now. Had known the owner at one time. They mostly sold their wares to tourists during all seasons. It didn’t matter now. He’d not seen the owners and assumed the worst.
So that location would not do as a shelter. However, on the left was an old coffee shop. The Vault was the name of the place, though he didn’t know why it was called such. It made no sense to him unless the place had at once been a bank. At least the windows were intact, though the entrance was blocked by several layers of hardened ice.
Jax dismounted and tied his horse to a nearby street lamp. He took out his hatchet from the saddle, something he never left without. With the street so quiet with the falling snow and no one around to witness the act, he slammed the hatchet down over and over. The horses jumped with each sharp sound, their hides quivering, ears tossed back. Over and over they jumped out of the way of flecks of flying ice until Jax finally stopped.
“Settle down, you damn babies,” he mumbled.
Finally clearing the doorway, he pulled on the handle, not really expecting it to open at will but perhaps hoping. It didn’t. Stepping back, Jax checked out the relative ease of breaking into the building without too much damage. His objective was to keep as much warm air inside as possible. With the light windows on each side of the building’s main entrance door, he realized his way in was relatively easy. He could have spent an hour or more fishing a hooked wire underneath the coffee-shop door and fish it up to turn the metal deadbolt inside in an attempt to turn the knob once or twice, but it was cold out and getting colder. Instead, he used the flat hammer of his hatchet to pound repeatedly at the same level as the door’s lock on the right-side light window. It took repeated poundings on the tempered glass. First the glass spidered and then turned white with further abuse at his entry point, and then finally a small hole emerged. He pounded around that to make the hole wider, enough to fit his gloved hand through and simply twisted the lock open from the inside. To keep what warm air there was inside the empty space, he quickly led the horses by the lead in after him onto the rough hardwood floor. Then he relocked the door and looked around for something to stuff in the fist-size hole he lef
t in the window. It was easy enough, since there was a stack of outdated newspapers on a nearby shelf. He crumpled them up and stuffed them inside the hole like a plug.
It was barely light out, and the side windows of the vaulted ceiling of the old place let in dim light, enough to see around with by nightfall; he’d need to make a fire somewhere. There was no escaping this weather without a flame any longer. It wasn’t survivable long term, even for someone like him, and he knew that now, not that he’d admit it to anyone, if asked. In fact, without what dim light there was now, only a death sentence awaited beyond the light. He’d seen it happen to horses, deer, elk, and even a man he had stumbled upon before he came back to town that day when he heard the warring on the ice. Now Bishop was counting on him to carry the others through till the damn aircraft came back to get them. Beyond the weather, it was the people themselves who worried him more. They were turning, turning in a way he’d imagined they would in time, and he only hoped that Bishop made it back soon. Man’s desperation was fleeting, and then the animal awaits within.
Chapter Seventeen
He heard a voice in the distance. “This is Walt, over. We need the LSO…I mean Ted, over.”
“Hi, Walt…not so formal. Go, over.”
“ETA in ten minutes. How’s the LZ? Over.”
“Um…what’s the LZ? Over.”
“Landing zone…what are the conditions? Over.”
“Brief skirmish early this morning…some downed locals. Landing zone is clear. Over.”
Maeve woke when the sound of the engine began to wane as she felt their decent.