The herd grew nervous when the Suburbans moved out. The cows gathered around the calves; the bulls pawed and snorted. But the three Suburbans gave them a wide berth as they passed them and continued down into the long valley.
~
She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans. The trucks had been gone for over half an hour now. She needed dry hands, she didn't want to slip coming down the tree. She wiped her hands once more, and slowly began to shimmy down the pine from limb to limb, favoring one leg as she descended.
Sticky sap stuck to her hands and clothes, but she didn't care. She made the ground and headed into the camp a short distance away. She was starved. She couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten.
A large iron pot sat at the edge of the fire. In the larger of the four tents she found a stack of plastic bowls, cups and eating utensils. She ate first.
When her belly was reasonably full, she rummaged through the clothing in one of the tents and put together some clean clothes. She found one of the V.H.F. Radios, turned it on and set it on the picnic table. If they came back, she would know. She took the clothes down to the stream to clean up.
She had a bullet wound in one leg, the fleshy part of the outer thigh, a deep crease. The bullet had furrowed a hole through the meat of her leg. It had bled a great deal, and she had always heard that if it bled it was keeping the poison out, but it was an angry red, and she knew what that meant.
She cleaned it out, grimacing at the pain as she did. She looked at it closely, decided it was as clean as she was going to get it, and then smeared a half tube of antibiotic ointment on it from a first aid kit she'd found in the same tent as she had taken the clothes from; she bandaged it.
She walked around testing the leg before she slipped the jeans on and pulled a pair of boots back on her feet. She could find the rest of what she wanted in the nearest town. She looked down at her chipped fingernails, the black polish nearly gone in places. I'll fix that too, Chloe told herself.
She retrieved the radio. She had heard them calling back and forth to each other a few times. She crossed the camp and walked down to the truck they had left.
The back of the truck was a gory mess, flies took off and landed from the blood covered floor, making loud buzzing sounds as they did. That was okay, she told herself. She'd just find another truck when she got to the next town. This one would still get her there.
She flipped her hair away from her head, her flat emotionless eyes focused on something only she could see. She laughed to herself and then climbed up into the truck.
~
She had spent the night in hiding. She had heard the others looking around all morning long, and she had known they would not find what they wanted. She had stayed silent. She had held onto the tree for all she was worth - suddenly scared all over again - kept her breathing as quiet as she could and waited.
The others had walked right past her several times this morning looking for the bodies. It was funny how people just didn't think to look up, yet thought they had looked everywhere. They had looked and then they had talked it over, and she had heard that too. And then they had left, and she had heard that conversation as well. She had only waited to make absolutely sure they were gone. Maybe they would come right back. Maybe not. So she had waited a little longer, clutching the rough pine bark.
She started the truck now, backed around and onto the park road, and then shifted into drive and wound her way out through the trees to the main road. She left the park road and turned left onto the main road, heading back to the last truck stop. There were other vehicles there, she remembered. She turned the volume dial up a little higher on the V.H.F. Radio, to get over the sound of the engine, and listened as she drove. Nothing but static. They had fallen silent, but she knew it wouldn't stay that way. She'd heard everything. She knew where they were going, and she'd catch them, she told herself. Take them by surprise. Make them pay!
She pushed at the gas pedal, and the truck surged ahead, she laughed again, adjusted the rear view mirror and pressed the gas pedal down a little farther.
~
Nothing at all had been hard to find. There had been advertisements in the front of the collapsed store area for steel barns, and in the back, by the loading doors, piles of aluminum beams and corrugated panels, boxes of nuts and bolts.
James had backed up a forty foot long flatbed truck to the rear loading dock. It was one of the big stake racks, and after they had loaded up enough steel panels, boxes of nuts and bolts, and aluminum girders and beams, using a propane powered forklift to build four or five barn like structures, they put the sides back up and began to load other items: seed, hay bales, farming implements, axes and wooden mauls, boxes of nails, screws, grain, a good selection of heavy coveralls, jeans, jackets and work boots. In no time at all the truck was packed, tarped and moved out of the way.
They pulled out late in the afternoon with three of the big trucks loaded and five fifty five gallon drums of gasoline on the back of the last truck. They drove slowly and more than two dozen horses followed them all the way back down to the state park.
They spent the last few hours before dark setting up some more grain in the back of the pickup truck and leading horses down to the stream.
~
“I thought they'd go wild. I thought it would be no time at all before they would have nothing to do with us,” James said.
“Don't look that way to me,” David said.
“No it doesn't. Of course this doesn't mean they'll stay with us or follow us. Leading them a couple miles down the road is a lot different from taking them back into the woods. There are big cats, bears... Horses spook easy. And cows, tomorrow we'll look for cows. We'll leave that truck right there, I believe the horses will stay right with it,” James said.
~
Katie walked back with Conner from further upstream where they had gone to clean up.
“I've got to find more clothes tomorrow,” Katie said. “I could've sworn Amy left me some, but I can't find them,” she told him.
“We'll just pick up some more tomorrow,” Conner agreed. He bent down and kissed her, and as he did his eyes fell on the road leading out of the park. Something, he thought...
“What,” Katie said startled. She turned quickly.
“I,” Conner started.
“Fuck. The truck is gone,” Katie said. She reached down and slipped off the leather thong that held the gun in its holster. Almost instantly one finger slid down the side of the frame and flicked off the safety lever. She knew it was off because she made herself practice flicking it off until it was second nature.
Conner called out to James and the others and they began to search.
They spread out but kept each other in sight as they searched the campground. Jake found wrappers from band aids, and a pile of dirty clothes nearby. Everyone walked over and looked.
“I guess she doesn't care if we know or not,” Katie said. She bent over and retrieved the pants, staring at the blood stain on one leg. A ragged hole in the back of the leg and a neat small circle at the front where it had gone in. “Shot,” Katie said.
“Looks like you did get her after all then, Jake,” James said. “This has to be our missing girl, when you shot down at the truck you hit her.”
Their eyes picked up the rest of the clues: the empty food bowl, the half empty tube of the antibiotic cream.
“So she just came in here... helped herself to our clothes, food, drugs... took the truck... and?” Katie said looking around.
“No telling what else,” Conner said. “Guess we're back on guard duty tonight though.”
“I think we're missing a radio too,” Aaron said. He was coming back from the direction of the tents. “All my stuff was gone through. My radio is gone.”
“Do you think she's smart enough to figure out the difference?” Jake asked.
“Absolutely. If she's everything Cindy says she is,” James answered. “Anyway we've got to assume she figured it out, th
at she's listening to everything we say. Probably already did today.”
“What is the difference?” Cindy asked, feeling foolish.
“We were monitoring you guys on C.B., but we do all of our personal talking on a marine radio. V.H.F.,” He held the radio up so she could see it. “Looks the same as a C.B., but talking on this, they couldn't hear us,” Conner explained.
“So that's how you knew we were coming. Not that I'm mad. I'm glad, the way things turned out. Will she notice? If she took the radio, she already has it figured out, don't you think?” Cindy asked. “I can't see no... any, reason she would take it otherwise. If she was here last night, maybe hiding, waiting... she probably heard you guys talking on them... saw you.”
“Had to be her.” Jake agreed.
“I don't know,” Conner said
“What's not to know?” Jake asked.
No one answered.
Katie spoke to break the silence. “Well... Who's watching when?” she asked after a short pause.
~
Katie's diary
It's not over 'til it's over, they say. We came back today to find out that one of the girls we had thought got away came back while we were gone and took off in the truck the other side left by the woods. We need one more day and we'll be gone, maybe two. So hopefully she won't be back to cause us any trouble.
I am so tired of this. Sometimes I think we should have stayed in the cave in Watertown, fought them there, let it end there. Then I look at Conner, and I love him so much that I want any chance at all at a free life. I'm glad we ran, and all this doesn't seem so bad.
I'm banged up, we all are. At least I'm not missing part of me like Aaron and David both are. A piece of finger for David, a piece of ear for Aaron. Amy is going to be so pissed!
Speaking of Amy, and everyone else, we're all worried. We can't reach them on the radios. Bob supposes that they could have gotten out of range. I guess we won't know until we're on our way. And if I don't stop writing and go to sleep...
I'm back. Conner is sleeping now and my head's a lot better. I hope we'll start out tomorrow. God help us.
~
Deep in The State Forest Lands
Janna wrote down the mileage, thirty five miles, and it had taken all day. All three vehicles were nearly empty, and the cans on the back of the trucks were dry. There were also dozens of new scrapes and dents in the bodies of the trucks. They had come through some rough country, even traveling over the relatively flat lowlands they had traveled. She was also surprised at how much gas the trucks had burned once the going got rough, and they were in four wheel drive constantly. That seemed to double the gas consumption. But the short gas rations and the dented trucks didn't matter overly much to Janna Adams anymore. They were going no further.
They had found a notch in the second mountain chain. They had driven up out of the lowlands, labored upward in four wheel drive, and they had finally slipped through the rock and gravel passage into a long, flat bottomed valley nestled between two ranges.
At the opposite end, at least several miles distance, a dark fringe of heavy woodlands had been visible in the dimming light. When they had passed through the notch, they had rolled out onto a wide stone ledge.
Another ledge, wider in places, narrowed in others, gradually dropped down to the valley floor. The main branch ran up to the rocky base of the mountain and into it about fifty feet deep, forming a large sheltered overhang. A small stream cut down one side of the pass not two hundred yards away. They had found the home that James had sent them to find. They would go no further.
Janna was positive, gradual though the shelf was, that the trucks would never make it down to the valley floor in one piece. She wouldn't try it anyway, she told herself. Maybe James or Conner, but not her.
They had started a fire under the overhang, turned the dogs loose to sniff out the darker regions of the overhang where Janna suspected there was at least one large cave going back into the rock. The dogs seemed fine, a little nervous, a little bone weary from two days of nonstop travel and being bounced around in the backs of the truck, but they all were.
They took out blankets, sleeping bags, food and left the rest for the next day. Amy took charge of the watch, and before the sun was fully down, she had the posts working on a rotating basis.
~
Amy laughed as she sat sipping coffee with Janna by the fire, waiting for the water to heat in a large iron pot for dinner.
“Funny, we left a factory, came all this way, and here we are in a cave.” she shook her head. The smile on her face stayed put. Janna answered it with one of her own.
“It feels right though, doesn't it?” Janna asked.
Amy grew sober, “It does. I can't put my finger on the feeling, but you're right. It feels like we're supposed to be here,” she agreed.
Janna nodded. She tested the water, then added a large portion of rice to the water and began to stir it occasionally.
In another pot suspended over the fire, beans simmered. Thick chunks of canned beef, fortified with some of their own dried beef, bubbled with the beans.
“You think they're okay?” Amy asked Janna quietly.
Janna met her eyes, “I don't know, Amy. I... I don't feel one way or the other about it. I... I've been praying to God. I got it from Lilly, I guess. But I'm praying, and I hope they're okay,” she said softly. Her eyes were moist, but she rubbed the back of one hand quickly across them, refusing to let the tears come.
She sighed deeply and then planted a smile back on her face.
“We'll get this straightened out tomorrow, fixed up. It's quite good, isn't it? We have water. I'm sure there's an actual cave back in there. This looks like limestone, so that would make sense. This will be home for a while I think, and we'll have it fixed up nice for them when they get here, Amy,” Janna finished.
Amy nodded, and blinked back her own tears. Things had happened so fast, she hadn't even been able to kiss Aaron or Katie goodbye. She had barely been able to say goodbye.
Janna didn't have a feeling, but Amy did, and she told her now.
“For what it's worth, Janna, I do have a feeling. I feel it's going to be all right. I truly do,” Amy leaned over and hugged Janna, and Janna hugged her back.
~
Chloe found a little town just before dark. She went from wrecked store to wrecked store gathering the things she needed. She was alone, but she wasn't afraid. She had spent almost a month as Death's woman. She was sure nothing could scare her after that.
She found a Jeep dealership on the outskirts of town. The show room was collapsed, the garage no better, but dozens of shiny Jeeps of all sorts littered the lot.
She finally found a Wrangler with the keys in the switch. The battery was a little flat, but despite that, it started right up. Getting gas was no longer as easy as it had been with several sets of willing hands, but by the time the Moon was up and the place was really starting to creep her out, she had finally filled the tank and two five gallon Jerry cans she put into the back. Her mouth tasted like gasoline, and she had to admit, she was more than a little high from inhaling fumes. But she considered that a bonus. If only the place didn't creep her out so damn much she'd stay and wait for morning, she thought, get a little sleep.
She climbed into the jeep and was about to start it up, and that was when Duffy hit her in the back of the head with a short piece of a two by four board.
~
Duffy had been drifting long before all of this had happened. This was no inconvenience to him; it was a help. Everything was free now. And there were no cops to tell him what to do. He looked down at Chloe slumped over the steering wheel. And now I have a woman, he told himself. Can things get any sweeter?
~In a Dark Place~
Chloe woke up in the pitch dark. Her head was splitting. She sat up, and stars exploded behind her eyes. She fought back the headache and sat still for a few seconds until she felt better.
Someone was snoring close by. She fought the
nausea down in her stomach and took several deep breaths to clear her head. She had no idea what it was that had happened. Obviously someone had her, had gotten her, somehow. The last thing she remembered was getting into the Jeep. Had she wrecked it? No, that made no sense.
She could smell unwashed flesh and hear the snoring. A man had taken her. Somehow a man had taken her... Was it them?
Her feet were bound, and her hands were also tied behind her back. She could feel her boot knife pressing against her ankle; it was still there if she could get to it. She worked her hands, rubbing them raw before she finally got enough slack to pull one wrist free. It was raw. She could feel the slick blood. The feet were easier, and then she was free.
She sat blinking. She could see a little now. There was a thin strip of light, like the crack under a door, off to her left, away from the snoring. She considered for a minute and then made up her mind. She stood slowly, carefully, joints screaming, and made her way very quietly across what felt like a hard-packed dirt floor.
She made her way to what turned out to be a door. She pushed it open slowly, looking back over her shoulders as it swung open. She saw the man, a great fat pig of a man. His back to her in the faint moonlight. She eased the old wooden door shut and slowly looked around.
She was in a wooden shack behind the Jeep dealership. So that was it, she thought.
She made her way around to the side of the building. The Jeep sat where it had, the keys still in the ignition. She smiled for the first time, but stopped when it caused her head to scream.
She made her way to the back of the jeep, hefted one of the five gallon Jerry cans, felt her pocket for one of the plastic disposable lighters she always carried to light the huge bomber joints that Death used to roll. She could use one of those right now, she told herself.
She walked back to the shed, upended the can and drenched the exterior of the small wooden shack, the door, and the rest she let run under the door and into the interior. She puddled a small amount of gas back away from the shed, set the can down and screwed the lid back on. Then she set it further back. She'd have to remember to refill that, she told herself. She thumbed the wheel on the cheap lighter, stretched her arm out and touched the small flame to the gasoline. It went up with a low whoosh. She felt it on her eardrums rather than heard it. The flames bit into the dry wood, and Duffy began screaming almost immediately.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 66