by Rob Lopez
“Kowalski! Move it.”
Kowalski moved it.
Running bent double, the group dashed across the street, bullets still skipping across the hot tarmac. Running through the swirling tendrils of smoke, they made it to the alley where Scott and Leroy traded fire with gunmen advancing from cover to cover, attempting to overrun their position.
“This ain’t a good place to stay,” said Scott, pulling his head back as rounds chipped at the corner bricks.
“Who are we fighting against?” asked Rick. “Is this the SDF or the FSA?”
“I don’t know, but they ain’t friendly.”
“I don’t care what letters of the alphabet they are,” said Leroy, “this is Dodge, and we gotta get out.”
Rick took one look out to assess the situation and nearly got his head shot off. Pulling back hastily, he concurred with Leroy. “Gentlemen, it’s time to go.” The street was crawling with gunmen.
Flynn was already posted at the other end of the alley, and by the time the team got there, he too was flinching from the heavy return fire. “They’re trying to flank us,” he said.
Across the street was a row of flat roofed houses. “Jamie,” said Rick. “Get into one of them houses. We’ll cover you.”
Sprinting out to an abandoned car, Rick took up position behind it, firing to suppress the gunmen. Jamie ran past him, across the street, and barreled into a wooden door, smashing it open. Disappearing inside for a moment, he re-emerged, firing towards the gunmen.
“Go, go, go!” said Rick to the rest of the team.
With Kowalski supporting Walt, Leroy and Scott moved with them, jogging sideways and firing bursts until they reached the house. When they were safely inside, Rick called to Flynn, who remained at the alley. “Move,” he said.
Flynn fired off his last shots, then turned to run. Too late, Rick saw an RPG rocket streaking towards him. Shouting a warning, he ducked down. The rocket slammed into the wall by the alley and detonated, sending out a blast wave that rocked the car Rick was sheltering behind, showering him in debris. When he looked up he saw Flynn lying sprawled in the dust, his arm blown off and his helmet rolling on the ground. Rick ran to him immediately and was hit by a bullet that flipped him round and knocked him off his feet.
Gasping for breath, Rick lay on the ground. He’d been shot in the back, and the pain was spreading. Bullets zipped by him as the gunmen tried to finish him off, and Rick started to crawl, disoriented. He found himself face to face with Flynn. The dead eyes staring back at him eliminated any doubt about the condition of his friend.
Leroy and Scott appeared on either side of him and after checking Flynn, they grabbed Rick’s arms and began dragging him at a run, still under fire. Rick recovered his balance halfway across and ran with them until he was through the doorway and inside the house.
Breathing heavily, Rick leaned against the wall. “I’ve been hit,” he said. “Check the damage.”
He dreaded what they’d find, thinking he’d end up like Walt. Or worse. But after checking his back, Leroy announced, “There’s nothing there.” Producing a squashed bullet head, he added, “Found this in your body armor, though. Went right through the Kevlar and was sticking out the other side. You’ve got a bruise, but nothing else.”
Rick laughed grimly, then stopped when he remembered Flynn.
It didn’t seem right, leaving him there, but the rest of the team was still in danger. They weren’t in any position to retrieve the body.
In the dim recess of the house, Rick saw a woman and two little girls huddled in the corner, apprehensive at the sight of foreign soldiers in their home. He also saw a back door.
“We need to keep moving. Scott, take point.”
Rick didn’t bother explaining anything to the woman. As soon as Scott pronounced the rear exit as clear, the team fled out into the street and took off down another alleyway.
The image of the mother with her children remained with Rick, however, and he began to think of Lauren.
19
Riding the turnpike down through New Jersey, Lauren felt she was on a giant zipper, and she was the slider that pulled it open, revealing elements that had previously been hidden under civilization’s skin. As the miles rolled on, she encountered the occasional looter. Someone was also trying to siphon fuel, for reasons that were not immediately apparent to her. A guy waving a club yelled at a distant group dancing on the roof of a bus, and a bunch of kids from a nearby suburb dashed between the vehicles on their skateboards, perhaps fulfilling some long held fantasy.
Apart from chance encounters, however, the tollway was deserted, with a couple of burned out wrecks in between the stalled early morning traffic flows. Birds perched on roofs fluttered off as she rode by, sweating in the heat that rose from the asphalt and emanated from the sheet metal car bodies. The backpack chafed her shoulders, and her butt still hurt, but her legs felt stronger, and she watched her shadow gradually flip from one side to the other as the sun moved overhead, passing signs that indicated exits to Trenton in the morning, then Philadelphia in the afternoon. She was eating up the miles, but unfortunately she was eating through her food supplies too. It wasn’t long before she was consuming the last cookie-flavored toasted cheese sandwich, and she still felt hungry.
The majority of the vehicles on the tollway were trucks, making night time deliveries to the stores for the morning. Lauren realized that, with the store shelves being rapidly emptied in the cities, most of the food available was actually here on the highway. She couldn’t have picked a better route home. It would take a while for most people to realize that, but until then, she had a free hand.
With her mind set on getting home, she hadn’t wanted to delay her journey by scavenging, which was time consuming. On the other hand, once she calculated that her journey could take over a week – and maybe more – she castigated herself for not thinking long term. If things were going to be as bad as she thought, she needed more than just food. She needed a complete range of survival supplies, which included the ability to light a fire. She didn’t even have a box of matches on her.
She’d learned a few survival techniques in basic training in the army, but because she hadn’t gone on to the advanced infantry course, she hadn’t picked up much more. And basic training was such a blur, she’d forgotten it all anyway.
It was going to be a pain in the ass to learn all that shit again.
Coasting to a halt, she picked her first vehicle to loot: a white van that appeared to have been targeted already. The rear doors were half open, and cardboard lay on the road, but as it was clearly unlocked, she thought it worth a look.
The lug wrench she’d picked up stuck out of the top of her backpack, strategically placed so she could reach back and bring it out in one swing. Doing so, she approached the van, listening out for any lingering occupants. Gingerly, she swung the doors open. When she saw what was inside, she uttered a mirthless laugh.
The van was full of bicycles, folded up and packaged in plastic and cardboard. After arguing the toss with Mr Schwinn, she now had more bikes than she could shake a stick at. Hell, this might even be a shipment for his shop.
For a brief moment, Lauren considered replacing her own bike with one of the newer ones on display. It was evident from the discarded packaging that the van driver, finding himself stranded, had assembled one of the bikes and ridden off on it.
Slightly deflated, Lauren decided to stick with the bike she already had. It had proven itself so far, and she was growing attached to it. She was on the verge of walking away when she realized that she needed spare parts more than she needed a bike. Delving back inside, she found a box filled with tire repair kits and tools. She also found something she hadn’t considered: panniers and racks.
She spent the next few minutes fitting a rack to the back of her bike and filling the panniers with everything she thought she needed for a long-distance trip. She even found a pair of padded lady’s cycling pants – not the most flattering of t
hings, but her ass was crying out for a solution to its woes.
Suitably attired and feeling smug, she pedaled away, glorying in the improved comfort.
As deserted as the tollway looked, she was surprised to see some truckers had remained in their cabs. She thought perhaps they were owner operators reluctant to abandon their vehicles. Maybe they didn’t want to leave what they saw as their homes. Or maybe they harbored some faith that the company would come to rescue them – or feared they’d be fired and made liable for the lost goods. She considered asking them politely if she could look in their trailers, but there was no way that was going to come out sounding right.
She cycled for a couple of miles before she found an abandoned rig that looked like it might contain what she wanted. Unhooking the back doors, she found pallets stacked high with supermarket products and wound with plastic wrap. Without a forklift truck, however, she had trouble getting to the pallets deeper inside and conducting a proper search. Crawling over piled pet food, toiletries and cleaning products, she struggled to reach down for canned food and soda. What she really wanted to find was bottled water and energy bars. After sweating for half an hour, she gave up and settled for canned fruit, dog biscuits and soda pop.
She was anxious about being caught by other looters, preferring to stay on the move, so she filled her panniers and set off, feeling the extra weight as she pedaled up a long incline. After a mile she reached the summit and freewheeled down the other side. She was enjoying the breeze in her hair when she pulled her brakes on and halted, startled by an odd sight.
A large RV sat in the middle lane, bikes strapped to the rear fender. The side awning had been pulled out and under its shade, a couple sat at a picnic table while their two children played ball nearby. A dog leashed to the camper noticed Lauren and barked. The couple turned to look, unperturbed by the appearance of a stranger.
Lauren coasted down towards them and stopped at a respectful distance. “Howdy,” she said.
“Hi,” said the man, looking her over. “Can we help you?”
The dog continued to bark, and Lauren felt she was intruding. The couple were tanned and about her age, and they looked completely relaxed about where they were, like it was Lauren who was weird for cycling on the freeway. The children continued to play.
“Kind of,” she replied. “I’m looking for water. Do you have any you can trade for a couple of bottles of soda? For the kids?”
The man glanced at his children. “I don’t like them drinking that junk. Just makes them thirsty.”
“I’ve got canned peaches and dog biscuits, if any of that interests you.”
The man looked to his wife, who gave a languid nod. “Okay,” said the man. “I can fill a bottle for a couple of cans.”
Lauren guessed the RV probably had a storage tank for potable water. Delving into her panniers for bottle and two cans, she took out an additional can for herself. “Do you have a can opener?” she said.
The man, looking bemused, said, “I think we can find one of those round here somewhere. Why don’t you take a seat?”
Lauren glanced at the barking dog, an angry looking German Shepherd. “I don’t think he wants me to.”
The woman dismissed her fears with a wave. “Don’t worry about him. If we’re okay with you, he’ll be okay too.”
The man stood up, and Lauren noticed for the first time the revolver in his waist band. The sanguine coldness of the two worried her for a moment, and she realized this wasn’t a good time to be trusting people, especially if the vibes weren’t right.
“Actually, forget it,” she said. “I don’t want to bother you, and I have to be going.”
“Bother us?” laughed the man, spreading his arms and looking around. “There’s nothing here, and nothing to do.”
“But we can play,” said one of the children, a tousle haired boy who ran to the dog and gave him a hug. “Shush, boy.”
The dog ceased barking and licked the child’s face.
The image in Lauren’s mind of the creepy family that might be ready to abduct or murder lonely hitchhikers melted away, and she realized she was still paranoid after the guy tried to steal her bike that morning.
The man entered the RV and emerged with a folding P-38 can opener, which he tossed on the table. “Here, you can keep that one. We’ve got others. No point having a bag of cans and no can opener, is there?”
Lauren took a seat while the man went to fill her bottle. With her stomach rumbling, she opened her peaches and began eating them with her fingers, dribbling juice on her chin. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m just so hungry.”
The woman handed Lauren a tissue and shouted back into the RV, “Larry! Bring out a fork.”
Duly equipped, Lauren attacked the rest of the can, then drank the sweet syrup left in the bottom. The whole family watched her, even the dog, and Lauren knew she was being rude, but she couldn’t help herself. As soon as she tasted the first peach, she just had to consume the rest without pause.
Larry placed the cans she’d given him back on the table. “Looks like you need these more than we do,” he said.
“If you’d come by earlier, I’d have cooked you something,” said the woman. “We’ve still got propane in the tanks. I’m Mary, by the way.”
“Lauren,” said Lauren, opening another can. “I’ve got some dog biscuits in the pannier if you want to get some.”
“Nah,” said Mary, “He’s eaten, and he’ll only get fat. How far have you come?”
“New York. Heading to North Carolina.”
“That’s a ways,” said Larry, settling back into his chair. “But we’ve got you beat. We were heading to Georgia.”
“How are you going to get home?”
“This is home. We park up the RV for a couple of months at a time, then move on. I run an online website design company, and Mary runs a YouTube channel. We home-school the boys, and do pretty much what we want. Or we did. I made the mistake of bugging out from the last campsite on the night of the storm. If we’d have stayed where we were, we’d have a better view, a lake and some woods. At least we stocked up on food before we left, and there’s a creek over yonder behind the trees. And we can siphon gas for the generator. We’ll be okay for a while.”
“We never wanted to stay in one place,” explained Mary. “Before the boys came, Larry and I traveled about, offering work on farms.”
“Might be time to do that again,” said Larry. “Must be a farm hereabouts where we can trade labor for eggs.”
It sounded a little too idyllic to Lauren, but for all she knew, they might have been right. “There’s a truck about a mile that way, full of food and stuff. If you use your bikes, you might be able to get some before looters clean it out.”
“Might be an idea. Hey guys, wanna go for a ride?” said Larry to the boys.
The two boys, neither older than ten, looked excited. Lauren thought that, to them, this must be one big adventure. Maybe it was better to look at it like that.
“I’d better get moving,” said Lauren. “Thanks for the water.”
“No problem. Good luck out there.”
Lauren cycled away, feeling thoughtful. She wasn’t sure whether Mary and Larry were deluded, or just very, very smart. They had a plan, if it could be called that. Or maybe it was an old fashioned sense of being able to weather everything as a family. At least they were together, and had lived closely for a long time. It shone a spotlight on Lauren’s own family.
Rick’s long absences had come to feel routine, and her own absences a hectic necessity. Which seemed fine when transportation and communication systems were working. Not so, now.
Or maybe it wasn’t, even then. And deep down she’d always known it. She had no desire to pack her family into an RV, but right now, if she and Rick were at home with the kids, and the storm had gone down, it wouldn’t have been as big an issue. Together, they too would have weathered the consequences. With everyone that she loved close to her, nothing else mat
tered. The career and the financial security was just chaff in the breeze. Regime change in some far off land was simply a waste of time. The storm made all that stuff completely irrelevant.
She rode until nightfall, and made her bed in the trees at the side off the highway, preferring to be hidden rather than in a vehicle. She was still wary of scavengers. In the gloom she felt profoundly depressed. Aching and exhausted, she wasn’t sure what was right any more. The gloom deepened as she tried to get comfortable, feeling cold now. Too tired to think, she drifted off, shivering.
When she woke to dawn’s light filtering through the trees, she hardly felt she’d slept at all. Tree roots on the uneven ground made her body hurt even more than the day before, and the thought of cycling another mile made her groan. The bright sunlight, however, banished the dark mood of the night before, and once she got moving, her optimism returned.
Within an hour she was cycling over a suspension bridge across the Delaware River. In the sparkling waters below, a police launch puttered along, towing a string of rowing boats, each laden with boxes. Other small boats with simple engines cruised the same route, all carrying supplies to the city of Wilmington, its charred towers still smoking.
People were getting organized, and Lauren wondered if the worst was over.
20
Rick was surrounded by food. Dangling from the branches above were succulent peaches. The orchard was full of them. Reaching up to pluck one, however, was a hazardous activity. Machine gun bullets zipped through the trees, angrier than the wasps that hovered and fed over the fallen fruit. From the edge of the orchard, stretching towards an ancient ruin of pillars and collapsed walls, lay a field of cotton, the soft white bundles looking like freshly fallen snow.
They’d escaped Manbij and shaken off their pursuers in the night, but they were in a dense agricultural area, surrounded by villages and farms, and it wasn’t long before they were spotted again. In the distance, Rick saw an old pickup pull up and drop off a group of militants in an attempt to cut off their retreat before driving off to pick up some more. As the militants entered the cotton field, the machine gun ceased firing so as not to hit their own men. Rick adjusted his sights and fired a series of shots towards the militants, forcing them to hit the dirt and disappear among the cotton balls. Shortly after, the machine gun began firing again, probing the trees.