Dark Titan Journey: Finally Home

by Thomas A. Watson

  “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said in a while,” Nathan chastised himself, kneeling back down to look at it. Unlike the other doors, this door was lower to the floor, so only the first inch was shoved under the door. “If it’s a bomb it doesn’t have a lot of room for explosive,” Nathan said.

  “So you’re a fucking bomb expert now,” Nathan chided himself as he pulled out his switchblade. Since Nathan had lived alone for so long he talked and answered himself often. It was only in the last month that he had stopped. The time he had spent with his group was the longest he had ever been with anyone. Tim and Sherry lived on his land but they lived in the guest house. But even when they had moved in, Nathan’s habit of talking and answering himself had decreased.

  Kneeling over the doorstop, Nathan eased the tip of his knife under the edge of the rubber strip. The strip covered the face of the wedge so it wouldn’t slide on the floor and the door couldn’t move off it. Gently lifting the rubber up, Nathan saw it was glued on. Nathan peeled it back to expose the face and saw a rectangle outline about half an inch wide in the center of the face of the wedge, running down under the rubber he hadn’t lifted.

  “Daddy doesn’t like that,” Nathan said, and gently pushed down on the rectangle outline. He felt and saw the rectangle move down slightly. “It’s a button,” Nathan declared.

  “Yeah but to do what?” Nathan asked, sitting up and looking at his watch. “I need to start heading back.”

  Nathan stood up and looked back, picking up his head harness. Putting it on, Nathan spotted a cordless phone lying on the coffee table. Nathan picked it up and moved over to the door. He looked at the phone, then the doorstop. “It’s a phone, I’m willing to bet anything.” Dropping the cordless, Nathan walked over to Smoke, who was chowing down on the lawn. There were two gym bags hanging on the saddle and another on the ground next to the bag of dog food.

  In a feat of engineering, Nathan climbed up with the bag of dog food and gym bag. When he sat in the saddle, Smoke looked back at him, giving a snort. “It’s not far,” Nathan snapped, and turned Smoke around. The sun was just coming up as they entered the stand of trees.

  Nathan was relieved to see everyone waiting on him. Amanda said to the group, “He didn’t go for supplies, but Nathan never passes up stuff he can use.”

  John nodded. “Yeah, I’ve noticed the same thing. He’s got a point.”

  Nathan stopped beside them. “I heard that. Just for that, you don’t get what I found for you.”

  Amanda stomped her foot. “Forget that! What was so important you had to go look at empty houses?”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes at her. He knew they hadn’t followed him. His tracks were the only ones through the field. Suddenly, Nathan grinned. “Oooo, look who’s the smarty pants.”

  “Nathan!” Amanda barked.

  The grin fell off his face. “How about you get this shit off me so I can get down and tell you what I found, or I’m starting on people with a belt.” They all grabbed stuff. “Don’t open the bags,” Nathan said, climbing off Smoke.

  The others dropped the stuff and spun around. Jasmine moved in front of him. “I’ll get the belt. What the hell was that important?”

  “First, I’m the boss of this camping trip. I didn’t have time to explain. You will find that a lot in life-or-death situations. Remember when all of you joined this Cub Scout pack you agreed to do what I say. I don’t like the attitude directed at me right now from all of you. I’ve busted my ass making sure you are taken care of and I’m doing my damnedest to make sure you learn how to take care of yourself. To be honest, I feel really unappreciated right now. The best thing we can all do now is for y’all to go sit under the tarp,” Nathan said in a tense, low voice. His face said he was pissed. Then he bellowed, “I’m going to let Smoke eat!”

  Everyone jumped back at the bellow and Emma latched onto Amanda’s leg as Nathan spun around and took off Smoke’s saddle. Without another word, Nathan led Smoke to the north.

  They looked at each other and moved to the shelter. Tom and John grabbed Nathan’s saddle and tack, carrying it over to the shelter and placing it beside his pack. Jasmine looked at each person. “Were we that bad?”

  “Yes,” John said, moving over to his sleeping bag.

  “We weren’t that bad,” Amanda piped in.

  “Oh, we weren’t. Y’all were,” John said, taking off his boots. Tom sat beside John on his sleeping bag.

  “Y’all?” Jasmine asked.

  “I’m going to ask a question. Do you think Nathan knows what he’s doing?” John asked. Jasmine and the others nodded. “Then why in the hell do you question what he does?”

  “He could get hurt for nothing,” Amanda said and Jasmine agreed.

  John shook his head. “You really think Nathan is going to risk himself for nothing? If you do, you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Think: He has plans on top of plans and still finds time to take care and teach us. I know each of us would be dead right now if it weren’t for him. Y’all don’t see that. He said watch him and listen. I never heard him say question every move he makes. You can’t help him when he goes off alone, none of us can. But I will say this, I’m training hard, so maybe one day he will ask me to come. He doesn’t take us with him to protect us; he knows we can’t yet.”

  Jasmine stepped toward him. “We’ve killed protecting this group.”

  John shook his head. “You still don’t see it. Jasmine, he sat on that creek bank, offering himself as a target, just to see if we would kill to survive. He could’ve killed them before they got close to us. Shit, ask Amanda about the nineteen he shot. He went out and brought back prisoners. He didn’t need us; he wanted to see if we would fight. Think, like he’s been saying all this time. He told us to hide and spread us out. If you can’t see that, I’m sorry I’ve wasted my breath.”

  Jasmine looked at Amanda, who had tears running down her face. Jasmine pulled Amanda to her chest. “I just don’t want him to get hurt!” Amanda wailed.

  “I know, me too,” Jasmine said, rubbing the back of Amanda’s head.

  “Then quit getting mad at him when he’s doing what he knows is best, because that makes him mad. You have already seen when Nathan’s mad he doesn’t think straight,” John said behind them.

  Amanda looked up at Jasmine. “You think he would be mad if I went and said I’m sorry?”

  “No, Amanda,” John said. “He said wait here till he got back.”

  Jasmine looked at Amanda. “John’s right, we wait.”

  They all sat down except Emma, who kept walking around calling out, “Nafan.”

  It was an hour later that Nathan led Smoke back and tied him with the rest of the horses. Emma informed everyone she didn’t need permission as she ran over to Nathan, squealing with glee. Nathan bent down and picked her up. “Hey, doodle bug.” Emma gave him her open mouth kiss, drooling over his cheek. “I really wish you would learn how to kiss.”

  Carrying a blabbering Emma, Nathan walked over to the others. He sat Emma down, which she promptly informed him was unacceptable. Dropping his vest and taking off his rifle, Nathan turned and opened his messenger bag, taking something out. Turning around, he picked up Emma, who immediately stopped bitching.

  Nathan walked over to John and stopped at the foot of his sleeping bag. “Big John,” Nathan said, motioning with his head for John to stand. John jumped up, looking a little worried. “When I was fourteen my dad took me camping and we went rock climbing. We climbed up a vertical cliff and found a ledge halfway up. My dad told me to stay there and I did. I never asked why, I just sat down as he continued to climb up. About an hour later he came rappelling back down to me. Handing me the rope, he told me to rappel down and I did. I was disappointed, but I knew he knew more than I did.

  “When were at the bottom my dad told me he never should’ve taken me on that climb. It was a class five, one of the toughest. It was just a cliff we found, but after we started he knew it was above my level. B
ut he saw how well I was doing so he let me continue to the ledge. He went ahead to see if I could make it. He told me on the bottom he didn’t want to risk me getting hurt climbing a rock wall, and the top was much worse. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me I listened like a man and didn’t act like a boy. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a Buck knife his dad gave him when he was a boy, the day his dad said he became a man.

  “My dad told me the day we act on what we know and follow what others know is the day we are an adult. He said sure I could’ve tried to make the climb and maybe even made it, but I would’ve been trusting to luck and not skill, which is what a boy does, not a man.”

  Nathan held out a Buck knife. “Today I pass this to you, the same knife he gave to me. Today you are a man.”

  John stared down at the knife then looked up at Nathan with tears on his face. “I—I…”

  “I give it freely but ask you to pass it on the day you see a boy become a man,” Nathan said.

  John took the knife then wrapped his arms around Nathan as he tried not to cry. “I wish I wouldn’t cry,” he said in a broken voice.

  Wrapping his arm around John, Nathan laughed. “When my dad gave that to me, I cried. That’s when my dad said, ‘A man can cry for joy or remorse in front of friends, but pain is to be hidden at all times.’”

  John let Nathan go and stepped back, wiping his face and looking at the knife. “Thank you.”

  “It’s not a gift; it was earned,” Nathan said, turning around. He stopped and grabbed a plate. “Did Emma eat?”

  “A little, but she really wouldn’t,” Jasmine said, wiping tears from her face, as were the others. Nathan sat down and started the ‘airplane,’ flying it to Emma. “So you heard?”

  “Ya think? Shit, y’all were loud enough I didn’t need the hunter’s ear,” Nathan said, filling up the ‘plane’ again.

  Jasmine sat down in front of him. “I’m sorry, I just don’t like the thought of you getting hurt.”

  As the ‘plane’ flew into Emma’s mouth, Nathan turned to Jasmine. “I’m not overly fond of that myself.”

  Amanda stepped on his woobie, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Nathan patted her back as Emma started yelling at him: The ‘plane’ was in that hand. Nathan let Amanda go, got another spoonful, and flew the ‘plane’ to the waiting Emma. “Sit back and I’ll tell you what I found out.”

  It took some time but after he told them what he saw they sat there wide-eyed. “So one at a time, what do you think?” he asked.

  “Let’s get in that truck and get home. We can be there tonight,” Amanda said.

  Shaking his head, Nathan looked at her. “Think, don’t react. You only react instead of thinking in a fight because you’ve already thought.”

  Amanda slumped her shoulders. “We won’t make it. Cars can be heard a long way away and we lose the ability to study an area before we can move in it.”

  “Very good,” Nathan said. “What if we take the back roads like we’ve been doing?”

  “We lose the advantage of speed the car has,” Amanda said in a low voice.

  Nathan smiled. “That’s thinking. Now what else?”

  “This area was emptied on the day it happened,” she said, not really thinking.

  Nathan pulled her to his chest. “Amanda, I’m not mad at you. Disappointed, but not mad. I’m going to tell you something: You and this group are truly the first people I’ve really cared for. I love my friends and if they got hurt I would be sad. But if any of you got hurt, I don’t know what I would do. Just the thought of something happening to any of you hurts my heart.”

  Looking around and seeing everyone looking at him, Nathan smiled. “I let you guys in. I don’t know how you got in my heart, but you did.”

  Jasmine sat beside him. “Will you just tell us why you went and what you think? I’m emotionally spent.”

  “That would be appropriate,” Nathan said, adjusting Emma in his lap. “I wanted to get a timeline to see if they were actively taking now. If that were the case, that means we would have to either move away, rethinking our route, or try to sneak through. I needed to see how dangerous the area was for us. This area was taken on the first day. I don’t know why, but someone thought it was important. Next, we know this is part of a plan because of the doorstops. They would literally have had millions made. I know FEMA had camps pre-positioned, so that means they knew they would round up people. We know the EMP here wasn’t as bad.

  “We know they took people here the first day, so we shouldn’t run across groups driving around looking for people. They don’t care about stuff that was left behind, so they think the area is secure. Instead of crossing the interstate west of Ogallala we will cross to the west of North Platte. The dirt road out there heads straight north. We will move to it tonight, cross the interstate, and continue north for thirty miles.”

  “What about groups looking around up there?” Amanda asked.

  “The area north of the interstate makes the areas we’ve been through look like a metropolis. That is where houses start getting few and far between. That’s cattle country, so it will be a lot of cross-country moving,” Nathan said.

  “Did you see any of those doorstops in Kansas?” Jasmine asked.

  “No, but I wasn’t looking. I mean, who looks to see if a doorstop is holding the door?” Nathan asked.

  “Ah I did,” John said. “At that house where we stayed in the barn and Nathan left that day to check the area ahead of us. I was walking around outside and noticed it. I didn’t go in the house because you said not to, but I could see it holding the door open. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  Nathan thought about that. “I’m glad you spotted it. I was having trouble believing they just started that.”

  “You think it tells them when someone closes the door?” Natalie asked.

  “Yes, and sends a signal where it’s at. It doesn’t have to have the address; it sends out its GPS coordinates” Nathan said.

  “Why not a bomb?” John asked.

  “There’s not that much room for explosive. At best it would wound. They want to find people. That’s why I think it’s a locator,” Nathan explained.

  “We need to sleep if we are making a dash,” Jasmine said.

  “True, but we don’t leave till well after dark,” Nathan said. “Amanda, let me read what you wrote.” Amanda handed over her notebook and Nathan opened it. “I’ll take first watch, get some sleep.” After what had happened earlier, nobody said a word and lay down.

  Chapter 15

  Day 48

  Sitting up and watching the sun touch the horizon, Nathan looked at the group sleeping. They had made the dash to cross I-80 last night and were camped thirty-three miles north of the interstate. The trip turned out to be very anticlimactic compared to what they were expecting. They did have to hide in a draw waiting on a military convoy heading west.

  As they crossed the interstate they looked east toward North Platte and saw something they didn’t think they would see for a long time: a lit-up city on the horizon. It looked like a jewel sitting on a black satin cloth. Every house they passed had the front door open. Once they crossed the interstate and made some distance, Nathan checked on a house just to confirm it had a doorstop, and it did.

  Nathan had scoured Amanda’s notes from the radio yesterday and today and nobody had mentioned it. He had read the military reports and they all talked about rounding up people spotted. One radio report he kept looking at was an operator calling out coordinates and for spot report. Nathan looked it up on his map and found the location. It was a house just outside of Yuma, Colorado.

  An hour later someone called out a negative spot report but positive action. Then an hour later a spot repot was called out six miles away of four moving on bikes. Was this someone who moved a doorstop? And if they did, how the hell did they find them six miles away? He couldn’t think of a way you could scan a hu
ndred-plus square miles in an hour.

  As he was thinking, Emma ran over and jumped in his lap. “You like beating on me, don’t you?” Nathan asked.

  Emma pointed up. “Sky.”

  “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that,” Nathan said, pulling her up into his lap. When they had made camp last night, he slept first letting the others cover six hours, then he woke at noon, letting the group sleep. He looked up and saw Chip squatting down beside him. “Want to join her?”

  Chip smiled and climbed in his lap. Nathan hadn’t hand out the presents he had collected from the houses yesterday; he wasn’t in the mood. But today he laid them out for everyone. He had found crayons and coloring books for Chip. When Nathan got up he gave them to him. Chip opened the coloring book to a blank page and started drawing.

  Nathan’s experience with Casey’s drawings let him know he was by no means an expert, but what Chip drew was a little worrying. Nathan swore it was dead bodies, and someone was chopping heads off. He would show Jasmine after he woke her up, and if that didn’t work he would have Casey interpret the drawings.

  “Hey guys let’s get the others up so we can eat,” Nathan offered. The two jumped out of his lap and took off to the group. Seeing the kids waking up the others, Ares and Athena ran over to help. The group woke up unhappily.

  Nathan spit out his dip as Amanda sat up, rubbing her eyes. She looked at him and smiled. “Morning, firecracker,” Nathan smiled.

  “Morning,” she said as she yawned. She looked down at her feet and saw a plastic package. Picking it up, she let out a squeal that got the others moving real fast. Amanda jumped up, running at Nathan full-bore. She leapt at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank you so much!” she cried, kissing his face all over.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan said as she climbed off.

  Amanda held up the package. “These,” she declared.