Breakout (Final Dawn)

by Maloney, Darrell

Frank’s new game plan was a simple one. He’d return to the buck’s tracks by the stream and spend the afternoon tracking it. Trying to find out if he’d just moved on, or if he had a second water source.

  And maybe, just maybe, his luck would change and he’d start finding the tracks of other deer as well.

  Chapter 24

  They saw Frank Woodard long before he approached the compound.

  Sami had been pulling security detail, sitting her regular four hour daily shift at the console.

  It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it was a critical one. Sitting in a chair, watching a set of monitors. Keeping a wary eye out for intruders coming close to the compound. Watching monitors 4 and 5, which were mounted atop the wind turbine and which were high enough to offer unobstructed views of Highway 83, and also Interstate 10, three miles away.

  It was also her duty to keep a tally of the number of vehicles which traversed each of the highways. At the end of her shift, she’d log it in: twelve vehicles on Highway 83, twenty seven on Interstate 10.

  Such information seemed mundane, but it helped break the monotony.

  It was also one of her duties to monitor the ham radio that was set up on the console. They never spoke on it. In fact, the microphone was still in the cabinet beneath the radio, never even installed.

  No, her job wasn’t to transmit on it. But merely to listen, and to log any pertinent information she was able to glean from the conversations of others. Like where they were calling from, and how many people were left alive in their area, and whether they were friendly or hostile.

  And all information she was able to gather would be dutifully logged in for future reference.

  But on this particular afternoon on this particular day, Sami wasn’t interested in either cars on the highways, or on the radio traffic.

  Sami’s eyes were locked on monitor 2, which showed a stranger in hunting gear, a rifle slung over his right shoulder, on the roadway leading to their compound.

  And he was coming toward them.

  Brad saw the same thing Sami did. They’d been dating for just over a year now. But they still hadn’t gotten over the honeymoon stage of their relationship. They still looked at each other with goo-goo eyes and still held hands wherever they went.

  And they couldn’t bear to be apart. So anytime Sami had security duty, and Brad wasn’t busy, he was right there keeping her company.

  John, who was the chief of security and also happened to be Sami’s father, had just sat down in the dining room for an early dinner, when Brad’s voice came crackling over the radio.

  “John, this is Brad. Please come to the control center. You’re gonna want to see this.”

  “Damnit!”

  John took a big bite of lasagna, and grabbed his French toast to go. He left his dinner on the table, hoping it wasn’t too cold when he returned.

  And then he jogged the short distance to the security center, chewing on his lasagna as he went.

  Frank had spent most of the afternoon following the tracks of the single buck. They led him a little bit of everywhere. A couple of times he had to climb trees to get a fix on his position. He was good at reading the sun, when he could see it. But in heavy woods it wasn’t always that easy.

  By mid afternoon, he was getting discouraged. He hadn’t come across another good sized set of tracks. Some smaller tracks, yes. But nothing that screamed “big buck” to him.

  It was obvious that deer had indeed survived, but not in large numbers.

  Then he came to a clearing in the woods, where the deer had crossed a roadway. It wasn’t much of a road, really. Paved but narrow. An access road to one of the ranch houses in the area, Frank guessed.

  He looked up the road and saw something off in the distance. Something very unusual. Tall and black. Like a high fence or barricade of some type.

  It piqued his curiosity.

  And he needed a break from tracking his prey anyway.

  He approached the compound wondering what in the world it was, way out here in the middle of nowhere. No ranch he’d ever seen had a twelve foot black wall built around it.

  As he drew closer, unaware he was being closely watched by surveillance cameras, he saw signs hanging every twelve feet along the fence and about head high.

  They were the signs Mark had hung just prior to Saris 7 striking the earth. He’d ordered them off the internet, in the hopes they’d keep prowlers away. They read, in English and Spanish:

  WARNING—EXTREME DANGER

  U.S. GOVERNMENT

  BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER

  INFECTIOUS DISEASES CONTAINED WITHIN

  DO NOT ENTER

  ADVERTENCIA-PELIGRO EXTREMO

  GOBIERNO DE LOS EE.UU.

  Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas

  Enfermedades infecciosas CONTENIDA EN

  NO ENTRE

  At the control center, John wasn’t the only one who came running. Mark and Bryan also heard Brad’s call on the radio and dropped what they were doing to see what he wanted John to see.

  On the monitor, they watched as Frank approached the compound’s outer wall.

  John, who was a police officer for many years, immediately took charge.

  “Bryan, you’re our best shot. Grab an AR and two clips and take position on the roof. You won’t be able to see him, he’s too close to the wall. But if he scales it, keep him in your sights.

  “Mark, you and Brad grab weapons and go to the fence. If he scales the wall, he’ll have to do it with his rifle still slung. You’ll have the drop on him. Bryan will also have a bead on him then. If he comes over, hold him until I can get there.”

  John and Sami continued to watch the monitor.

  Hannah and Sarah walked up to see what was going on.

  On the outside, Frank was wondering to himself why the federal government had built such a facility all the way out here. It was odd, and seemed extremely out of place.

  Then he heard an unmistakable sound. The sound of hard hooves against hard pavement. There was no other sound on earth like it.

  He slowly turned to see his buck, just over a hundred yards away, standing in the middle of the roadway he’d walked in on.

  Frank was fairly certain he could get into position without being seen. His woodland camouflage hunting gear was dark, and blended in well with the black wall behind him.

  His adrenaline started pumping, and he fought the urge to commit a rookie hunter’s mistake: move too quickly and catch the deer’s eye, and spook him into running.

  The buck slowly clomped to the edge of the roadway and began to graze on the tall grass on its shoulder.

  Frank very carefully, and very slowly, crouched down, then flattened himself against the roadway in a prone position.

  He very slowly propped himself up on his elbows and zeroed in on his prey with his 30.06. He got comfortable, and fingered the trigger. Once he was comfortable and had the deer in his crosshairs, he drew a deep breath, then let half of it out. He had the shot. The deer was his.

  Chapter 25

  John, watching the monitor, was relieved. As he’d suspected, the man was not an aggressor. He was merely a hunter, tracking game, who’d happened upon the compound. Now he had his deer, and they’d watch as he shot it, dressed it, and then went back for his vehicle to come and get it.

  But then the oddest thing happened.

  Even as Hannah and Sarah hid their eyes so they wouldn’t see the animal going down, John saw Frank Woodard slowly take his rifle and lay it on the pavement beside him. He saw Frank very slowly rise, and just stand there. Looking at the buck for several seconds until the buck raised his nose to the air, caught wind of Frank or something else he didn’t like, and then bolted into the woods.

  John muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned. Why didn’t he take the shot?”

  John, like Frank, was an inquisitive sort by nature. And this was too much for him to handle.

  He got on the radio and said, “Bryan, I’m going out there. Keep me co
vered.”

  He looked at Hannah and said, “Come on, dear. I need you to let me out the gate.

  The pair walked to the gate at the side of the compound.

  He called in on the radio.

  “Sami, is it clear outside the gate?”

  “All clear, Dad. Please be careful”

  John turned to Hannah.

  “Lock the gate behind me. Don’t open it unless you hear my voice, and I call you by name. I will only say your name if I am alone and if it’s safe to open the gate for me.”

  “Got it.”

  John walked to the east side of the compound, to find Frank walking down the road, away from the compound, his weapon slung over his shoulder.

  John whistled, and Frank turned. Frank hadn’t expected to see another human way out here.

  On the rooftop, Bryan didn’t know what was going on or why John was outside the compound talking to this stranger. But when Frank moved away from the wall he placed himself in Bryan’s field of fire. Bryan had Frank in his sights and his finger on the trigger guard. If Frank unslung his rifle in John’s presence he’d be dead before he could get it into firing position.

  Mark and Brad, as well, didn’t know what was going on. They dared not use the radio, and in fact had the volume turned down. For all they knew, the stranger was still on the other side of the wall from them, still reading the sign.

  John walked to Frank, his hands out to the front of him, palms out, to indicate he was no threat. On his side was a Glock handgun, but it was always there, and he didn’t expect to have to use it.

  Frank was a bit wary of the stranger approaching him. But he appeared to be alone. So Frank would keep his guard up but be friendly for the time being.

  “Hello, stranger.”

  “Hello. If this is your land, I apologize. I didn’t mean to trespass. Just hunting deer is all.”

  “No, that’s okay. I just wanted to find out… well, I was a cop for too many years not to be curious. You had a clean shot. Why didn’t you take it?”

  Frank looked around, and for the first time saw the surveillance cameras mounted on the wall and on nearby trees. He was slipping. In his younger days he’d have known he was being watched.

  “I almost did. I wanted to. But then it occurred to me that after two days of tracking, that was still the only buck I’ve found evidence of. And then I thought, maybe it’s the only one left. And if I shot it, I might doom the deer to extinction in these parts. And I just wasn’t ready to do that.”

  “I admire you for that. I don’t think many men would have given it that much thought.”

  “Well, like I said, I struggled with it. And I wanted to take the shot. But maybe it’s better to let him frolic with the ladies for another year. I can always come back and get him next year, and maybe the population will have a couple of new bucks then. Shoot, my people have lived without meat for a long time now. We can go a little longer, I reckon.”

  John got on his radio.

  “Mark, come in, this is John.”

  Mark’s volume was still turned down. But he vaguely heard his name come across the radio on his hip, as one might pick up a faint whisper in a completely still room.

  He moved away from the fence and said into the mike on a low voice, “Go ahead, John.”

  “Mark, stand down and come out here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  John turned back to Frank and held out his hand.

  “John Brown.”

  Frank shook John’s hand and said “Frank Woodard. Did you say you were a cop?”

  “Yes. Dallas PD. Twenty seven years.”

  “That’s a long time. I was San Antonio PD, then a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy for twenty two years.”

  John smiled.

  “I knew it. You had that walk about you. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Same here. The cop walk. What some civilians call the swagger. I noticed it when you walked up on me. You know, John, it’s strange. You don’t realize the little things you haven’t done in awhile. That’s the first time I’ve shook somebody’s hand in seven years.”

  “You know, I was thinking damn near the same thing.”

  Mark came jogging up and Frank asked, “Can I ask why y’all are wearing surgical masks?”

  “It’s just a precaution, in case all the decaying animals cause a plague.”

  Frank looked perplexed.

  “Damn, I never thought about that. And it’s a lot worse in the city. There are tens of thousands of people there, slowly rotting in their homes.”

  He made a mental note to discuss masks with his people when he got back.

  John introduced Mark and Frank.

  Brad stood down and returned to the control center to watch the monitors with Sami.

  Bryan held his position on the rooftop, though, his sights still trained on Frank.

  Just in case.

  Chapter 26

  It was the twilight of the day when Frank finally made it back to Buena Vista Drive.

  The end of the street had long been blocked by abandoned cars, of course, except for an opening just wide enough to drive through. That was blocked by Frank’s old Pontiac.

  Frank hit his horn three times and Mike came jogging down the street to move it.

  Tony appeared from the rows of waist-high corn that now filled his front yard.

  Several of the other occupants of the street came out as well.

  It wasn’t just that they wanted to welcome Frank home, but it was on their list of things to do. Mostly they came out hoping against hope that he’d been able to bring home a deer.

  None of them had eaten any meat in several years, and they all longed for the taste. Even those who’d never eaten venison in their life, or who didn’t particular like the taste of it before, were hoping to be able to try some.

  Jesse got his hopes up when Frank pulled into the blockaded street and he saw that the back of the pickup was riding low to the ground.

  Then, as Frank drew closer, Jesse’s jaw dropped, and he said, “Oh, for the love of God…”

  Frank stepped out of the pickup quickly, and closed the door behind him.

  Jesse told his son, “Quickly, before we all wake up from this dream. Get Mrs. Spencer out here. And Joe and his family too.”

  “Dad, it’s almost eight. Widow Spencer’s already gone to bed.”

  “Well, go get Joe and his family, then. They’re not going to believe this.”

  It wasn’t until everyone had gathered for the spectacle that Frank finally explained why the back of his truck was loaded down with bags of chicken feed and hay seed.

  And how the cab of his truck became home to six hens and one rooster.

  “I met this group of people on my trip. I can’t say where, because they swore me to secrecy. They could have shot me, but instead they took pity on me, I guess. One of them, their leader, I think, said that if I was the kind of man who let a deer go even after I had a bead on him, that I deserved some compensation for my kindness.”

  Tony was puzzled.

  “You had a shot at a deer and didn’t take it?”

  “Yes. I had the sense that there aren’t enough of them up there yet. That they need some more time to repopulate. Anyway, I was headed home empty handed when this man came out of this compound and started talking to me. Turns out he was an ex-cop too. Nice guy. His name was John.”

  “So, get to the chickens.”

  “I told them we haven’t had meat for years, and they genuinely seemed to feel bad about that. So they told me to wait, and then they came out of the compound carrying these three dog carriers full of chickens. Said they’re ours to keep. They also brought out two dozen eggs.”

  “All right! We’ll be eating good for the next few days!”

  “Hold up. These chickens aren’t for eating. At least not yet.”

  “What do you mean, Frank?”

  “I mean, I made a deal with them. We’re going to raise these birds and let them multip
ly. I made a commitment to them that we would only kill one chicken for every third chick that was born. That way the flock would get bigger, and eventually we’d be able to share a few of them with another group of people. And that we’ll get the same commitment from them.

  “If we do it that way, within a couple of years there will be small chicken coops all over San Antonio, helping out a lot of people. And that’ll be a lot better than filling our own bellies for a couple of days.”

  Eva gave her husband a forlorn look, but didn’t say anything.

  Frank read the look of disappointment in her eyes.

  “But all is not lost. Tony, open up that Coleman cooler in the back of the truck.”

  Tony did as requested and mouths instantly watered. On the top of the cooler were three large zip lock bags full of fried chicken.

  “They said if I had more time they’d have cooked some chicken up fresh for me, but I said I wanted to make it back today. So they basically cleaned out their refrigerators for me. They even apologized that it was their leftovers. I said, shoot, leftovers are heaven when you’ve been eating stale breakfast cereal and biscuits for weeks on end.”

  Tony opened a second cooler and found it full of mashed potatoes, lasagna, pot roast and fresh strawberries from Karen’s greenhouse.

  “Oh, my God!”

  “But wait, it gets better. These people have cattle too. They told me that if we can find a place to raise them, and we can protect them from poachers, that they’ll give us four head of beef. One bull and two cows for breeding, and one cow for milking.”

  Eva actually felt a bit faint at the prospect of fresh milk.

  Jesse was a bit more skeptical.

  “They’re just going to give us cattle, with no strings attached?”

  “I didn’t say that. The same stipulation that applied to the chickens will also apply to the cattle. We have to agree to only slaughter one cow for every three that are born. That way the herd will grow. We also have to agree that when our herd gets big enough, that we’ll help out another group of people by giving them some of our own cattle. And we’ll stipulate the same thing with them.”