by Dirk Patton
“They’ve gotta have night vision,” Long said over the radio. “No way they saw us otherwise.”
“Sound,” Sam countered. “These engines were making a lot of noise climbing the hill. Besides, if they had night vision, they’d probably have radios, too, and wouldn’t be using a light to signal.”
The SEAL had a good point. But just because they might be short on technology didn’t mean they were short on weapons. Our Hummers might be up-armored, but that hardly meant they couldn’t be disabled by some well-placed shots. The armor was intended to protect the occupants, not the vehicle. A few high velocity rifle slugs and we’d be driving on flat tires that would eventually shred off until only steel rims remained.
And that was if we weren’t facing a truly devastating weapon, such as a .50 caliber rifle. With the right ammo, our armor wouldn’t be enough to keep us safe.
“Think these are the same guys that were flashing the light right after we left Groom Lake?” Rachel asked.
“Doubt it. That’s a long way away, and there’s no way they could have gotten here ahead of us and set up a trap. Hell, we didn’t even know we were coming this way until a few minutes ago.”
“What’s on the other side of the mountains?”
“Nothing,” I said, thinking about the map. “Just more desert.”
“Long,” I called over the radio. “Send Igor up the slope with the rifle. Tell him to use the thermal scope and see if he can tell what’s waiting for us. Rest of us dismount, but stay by your vehicles.”
I shut off the engine and stepped out into the night. The air had been cool down near the city, but it was downright cold at this higher elevation. A steady breeze was blowing, making it feel even colder.
Rachel and Dog joined me near the rear bumper of our Hummer. I turned a slow circle, carefully looking over our surroundings with the night vision. Igor was silently scrambling over rocks to gain some elevation, finally finding a spot he was happy with and placing the rifle on top of a small boulder.
Checking on Sam and Long, I was happy to see they had their rifles up, scanning the area. Dog, standing next to me, lifted his muzzle and sampled the breeze. His nose twitched for a long time, his head turning slightly as he caught the scent of something. But he didn’t growl or seem concerned over what he’d detected. Lowering his head, he sniffed the ground, then followed the trail of something to the edge of the pavement where he lifted his leg and marked a struggling bush.
“At least no infected in the area,” Rachel said, watching him.
“Not upwind, anyway,” I said, turning to look at Igor when I heard his broken English in my ear.
“Seven people,” he said. “Two thousand meters. They not move. Maybe infected. Not tell.”
“Vehicles?” I asked.
“Nyet.”
The breeze was coming from the direction of the unknown people, and Dog had taken a good snootful of the night air. These weren’t infected. I trusted his nose.
“Can you see any weapons?” I asked Igor.
“Da,” he answered immediately. “All have rifles.”
Seven people with rifles didn’t cause me undue concern. What did was what might be waiting for us that Igor couldn’t see. More people concealed in caves. Heavy weapons. Vehicles on the other side of the pass that could block the road.
“Do we go back?” Rachel asked. “Work our way around the city?”
I didn’t have to give it much thought. There were other ways to go without having to risk the unknown waiting for us at the top of the mountain. Nodding, I was opening my mouth to call Igor back down when Sam’s voice sounded over the radio.
“Contact! Nine o’clock. Thirty degrees up-slope.”
I spun to face the hill looming over the left side of the road, snapping my rifle up and searching the area Sam had identified. It only took a second for me to find the target and I paused in surprise. A young woman, no more than 18 or 19, was peering around a boulder with a rifle in her hands.
19
“Hold your fire!”
I spoke quickly over the radio before someone put a round in the girl’s head. Other than having surprised us, she wasn’t doing anything threatening. Yes, she had a rifle in her hands, but it wasn’t aimed at us. She was just holding it, the muzzle nowhere near pointed in our direction.
“Igor, check the rest of the slope,” I said, keeping the girl’s face centered in my rifle’s scope.
“Clear,” he said after a long pause.
“Copy. Keep an eye on the pass.”
“Da.”
“Come down!” I called to the girl. “Nice and slow and keep the muzzle of that weapon pointed away from us.”
After hesitating, she slowly stood and began picking her way down the slope. I told Sam and Long to keep checking the area around us without taking my attention off the girl.
She was wearing jeans and hiking boots with a couple of jackets layered over a flannel shirt. Long hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her face was filthy with streaks of dirt. Moving easily, she descended to the edge of the road. Reaching level ground, she paused and looked us over before stepping closer.
“Are you the real military?”
“Yes, we are,” I said, lowering my rifle’s muzzle but keeping the stock to my shoulder. “The people ahead. At the pass. They yours?”
She stared at me for several beats before nodding.
“OK,” I said after watching her eyes. “If you’ve got some way to communicate with them, tell them to relax. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re just passing through.”
Her eyes tightened slightly as she peered at me in the darkness. Finally, they slid to the side to look at Rachel and Dog, then farther back at Long and Sam, who had their rifles up, scanning the surrounding slopes. Slowly, she reached into a jacket pocket. I tensed but didn’t raise my rifle.
“Just a flashlight,” she said, correctly reading my body language.
With exaggerated caution, she brought her hand out, and I could see the small light gripped in her fist. Aiming the lens up the road, towards the pass, she began flashing out a message. I thought it was Morse code but couldn’t understand the language.
When she finished, there was a long pause, then a series of flashes answered. She started to send another message.
“Hold on,” I said, taking a step closer to her. “Let’s not get carried away with the conversation. What did you say to them?”
“Your military and you don’t know Morse?” She asked.
“I know Morse,” I said, “But I don’t know the language you were using.”
She looked at me for a moment before laughing.
“Texting,” she said, looking at me expectantly.
“Excuse me?”
“Texting.” She smiled, waiting, then sighed when I didn’t get it. “Just like tapping out a text message, it’s faster and easier to signal without spelling out every word.”
I thought about what she was saying for a moment, then smiled in surprise. She was right. If you could send a message with less than half the characters, and it could be understood, why bother to tap out all the extra letters?
“Maybe you’d better tell me your name, and exactly what your friends up top have in mind.”
“I’m Chelsea,” she said, glancing up the slope as she spoke.
“Movement. Come our way. Two people,” Igor spoke over the radio.
“Who’s coming, Chelsea? Not a good idea to try and surprise us,” I said, hoping the warning was clear in my voice.
“I’m just a lookout,” she said after a pause. “My brother’s coming. No surprises.”
I nodded and told Igor to keep an eye on the people approaching, but not to engage unless they did something threatening. He acknowledged, and I motioned for the girl to move farther up the road so I could watch for the new arrivals and still keep an eye on her.
“What are you doing out here?” Rachel asked the girl.
Chelsea looked at her for
a beat, then shook her head.
“My brother will tell you if he wants to,” she said.
We stood there, no one speaking, for what felt like a long time. When I finally detected movement on the road with my NVGs, I mumbled to Rachel, telling her to keep a close eye on the girl. She stepped several yards away from me, rifle held tight in front of her body. Dog, picking up on the elevating tension, took up station between us.
The two figures quickly resolved into a male and a female, each carrying a rifle. When they approached to within thirty yards, I called out for them to stop. Neither had night vision, and both were startled when they heard my voice. They stood in the middle of the road, looking around.
“Come forward slowly. Keep your rifles pointed at the ground,” I yelled to them.
“Chels? You OK?” The male shouted without moving.
“I’m fine,” the girl said. “Just do what they say. There’s a sniper on the slope, watching you.”
I could see their heads turn to look at the hill where Igor was sitting. After a long pause, they cautiously stepped forward and approached the front of the lead Humvee.
“Close enough,” I said, moving forward to meet them.
The boy, well, man, was about 20. He was tall and thin and held the rifle like he was familiar, but not quite comfortable with it. His right arm was heavily bandaged and in a sling. The girl next to him was much shorter, barely five feet tall, with a figure that showed even through the warm clothing she was wearing.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Major Chase. US Army.”
I wasn’t getting a bad vibe from these kids. If anything, I was a little concerned that they had so casually just walked up to us, apparently trusting us without a second thought. I watched them, watching me, rocking sideways when Dog moved leaned against my leg. The two kids looked down at him briefly, then back at me.
“You’re really Army? Not that militia?” The boy asked.
“Yes. We’ve seen the militia. They look like bad news. What did you have ready for us at the pass?”
I could see an embarrassed grin spread across his face before he spoke.
“We thought you were some of those militia assholes. Got some rocks ready to drop down on any vehicles that try to come through.”
I nodded, staying silent so he would keep speaking.
“I’m Caleb. This is Tiffany,” he gestured at the shorter girl standing next to him.”
“What are you doing out here, Caleb? Any adults with you?”
He bristled slightly but held his tongue when I asked the question.
“Sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t a slight against you. Is there anyone older than you?”
“I’m the leader if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, clearly offended.
“Leader of what?”
“Don’t really know,” he finally said. “Us, I guess. We’re just trying to survive and stay clear of the militia, so they don’t take anyone else.”
I paused when I heard that little tidbit. A moment later, Rachel stepped up next to me, no longer watching Chelsea. If I wasn’t confident Igor was keeping an eye on things from above, I would have warned her to stay focused.
“What do you mean, take anyone else?” Rachel asked.
Caleb sighed and looked over at his sister. She met his eyes and after a few seconds, nodded.
“They took six of us.”
“Just girls?” I asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah, but I was the only guy to start with,” he said.
I looked around to make sure Sam and Long were still scanning the area. They were doing their jobs. I checked with Igor, who reported that other than the five people still at the top of the hill, we were alone.
“OK, Caleb,” I said, lowering my rifle to hang on its sling. “You’d better tell me what’s going on.”
20
A few minutes later we were seated on several large boulders at the side of the road. Dog had decided that Tiffany was his new friend and sat at her feet with his chin in her lap as she ruffled his ears and talked baby talk to him. He has this uncanny ability to spot a dog person immediately and uses it to his full advantage.
“The girls are all part of a softball team,” Caleb began speaking.
Chelsea was squeezed close to her brother on the same boulder.
“Are you from Vegas?” Rachel asked.
“No ma’am. Thousand Oaks. Right outside of LA. Anyway, our Dad is the coach. We were at this big tournament in Albuquerque when the attacks happened.”
“Where’s your dad?” I asked.
“Wasn’t with us. He came down with the flu the night before they were leaving and couldn’t make the trip. I’ve been helping him coach for years, so when he got sick, he asked me to drive the van and coach the girls during the tournament.”
“How many girls?” Rachel asked.
“Eleven,” Chelsea spoke up.
Caleb looked at her and nodded.
“Eleven girls on the team, plus me. And two little sisters tagged along to help with the equipment, water during the games, stuff like that.”
“Fourteen of you?” I asked.
Caleb and Chelsea both nodded.
“Tell me about the six that are missing.”
“We were on our way home from New Mexico after the attacks. Things were going crazy in Albuquerque. Fortunately, I’d filled up the van the day before when I made a run for water and snacks. We got the hell out of there, but heard that southern California had been attacked.”
“How’d you wind up here?” I asked. “Vegas is kind of out of the way if you were on I-40.”
He nodded.
“We made it to Kingman, Arizona, a little before the state line. The police had closed the freeway and were forcing everyone off. They said that the military was at the border to stop infected from coming out of California. We tried to get a motel room in Kingman, but they were all full, so we just found a place on the edge of town. All of us slept in the van that night.
“The next day, we went into town for some food. There were mobs at every store, looting the shelves. The cops weren’t anywhere around. Don’t know if they left, or were all at the roadblock, or what. People were shooting other people, setting buildings on fire and we saw a couple of women get dragged away by groups of men.
“I figured it was a good idea to get the girls someplace safer. Saw a road sign for Vegas and thought a big city would be better off. You know. More cops. So we headed north. Rolled into town on fumes and it was worse than Kingman. The strip was burning. People were going crazy. I had to run down a guy that was trying to take the van. We made it out of town and up into the hills, then ran out of gas.”
“How have you survived?” Rachel asked.
“We didn’t eat for almost a week. I’d just bought a bunch of water for the tournament, and it was still in the van, so we had that. When we couldn’t stand it anymore, we walked down to town one night. There were still fires burning in the distance, but there’s a sub-division at the bottom of the first hill.
“There were lots of empty houses. We broke in and stole food. Took as much as we could carry. We go back when we start running low, or if we need more water. There’s still some gas stations with bottled water. Just gotta be careful an infected doesn’t get you while you’re gathering supplies.”
“So how did the girls get taken?” I asked.
“A few months after we started hiding in the hills, we headed into town for supplies. By this time there was nothing left but infected, and we’d figured out how to get around them. The males are easy. The women? They’re dangerous as hell if you’re not really careful.”
I nodded in agreement, encouraging him to continue.
“So we were in a new neighborhood. The one we’d been raiding was picked clean. No food, or anything worth taking, was left. Anyway, we’d split up into a couple of groups so we could go through the houses faster. There were six girls that were kind of their own little group
inside the team, if you know what I mean.
“They were trying to break into one house while the rest of us were going through the kitchen in a little restaurant. First, we heard a bunch of vehicles coming. We tried to get to our teammates, but there were at least twenty men, and they all had guns. They rounded up the girls and loaded them in their trucks.
“I could hear them talking. Bragging on a radio about having captured a bunch of women. They were kind of dressed like soldiers, and one of the trucks was flying a big, black flag that said they were the Nevada Militia. Had a snake on it. There was nothing we could do other than watch them drive off with the girls.”
The pain and anger in Caleb’s voice were clear to hear. I didn’t blame him and was regretting not having put a bullet in the heads of the militia members we’d captured.
“You didn’t have the rifles then?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “We hadn’t even thought about finding guns. But after that, we found a police station. Didn’t even have to break in. The doors were unlocked. Found plenty of guns and ammunition. Took us a while to figure out how to load and use them, but we’ve got it down, now.”
“What’s with the flashlights?” I asked.
“We took radios from the police station, but the batteries died pretty quick, and we didn’t have any way to charge them. So Chelsea came up with the idea of the lights. Use Morse code to talk to each other.”
I looked at Chelsea, and she smiled in embarrassment.
“Where’d you learn Morse code?”
“I’m kind of a geek,” she said, shrugging and looking down. “I’m a math major. I saw a movie a few years ago where they were using it and looked it up on the internet. Learned it in an afternoon. Remembered it, and taught it to the others.”
“You learned Morse code in an afternoon?” I asked, more than a little surprised.
No, Morse code isn’t rocket science. But to look it up and learn it on your own, in a single afternoon, is pretty damn impressive.
“She’s a genius,” Caleb said when she didn’t answer. “Without her ideas, we’d either be dead or captured by now.”