by Warren Ray
“Finally. Now, aren’t you glad we picked up this bad boy yesterday?” asked Meeks with a slight grin.
“Nice to see you’re enjoying yourself,” said Scar shaking his head.
The car hugged a curve without as much as a tire squeal. They came to a turn off to the left. Meeks slowed down and took it. Trees canopied the road as he eased ahead. He looked to the left at a small path leading into the woods. He stopped the car.
“What are you doing?” asked Scar.
“Hiding. Better than trying to lose them. No telling if there’s anyone ahead of us.”
He turned the car and drove it onto a small trail running through more trees. It was bumpy as he guided the car further up the path, which wound to the left out of sight of the road.
They both got out and stuck close to the trees as they ran back down the path. After reaching the end, they hid in the trees and waited.
They heard vehicles in the distance.
Both stood silently.
Moments later, a truck and a car sped by them.
“Suckers,” smiled Meeks.
“We better wait a bit.”
Within minutes another truck passed.
Thirty minutes passed before they felt safe to move out. They both double timed it back to the Mustang and slid into the supple, black leather seats. Meeks turned the key and revved the engine. He put the car in reverse and began backing it up. As he got to the end of the path, a car passed by and came to an abrupt halt.
Chapter 2
St. Paul Minnesota
In St. Paul, Minnesota, Harry Olson slumped on a bar stool sipping a vodka tonic with no ice. He kept his ball cap tilted back on his gray head. The place had the usual neon beer signs hanging on the walls, but to save on power, the owner kept them all off. The late afternoon light poured through the big windows by the entrance.
Olson had been the first one there when the bar opened at noon. A few others filtered in over the next couple of hours. He hadn’t had a drink in many weeks, having only recently gotten back from Canada with the Shadow Patriots. He had been hesitant in getting involved, but his old friend, Bill Taylor, insisted it was his duty. After being chased up into Canada and fighting in Detroit Lakes, he was worn out and needed to come home to St. Paul to see what remained of his family.
A stranger came up next to him and offered to buy him a drink.
“You say you were with the Shadow Patriots?” asked the man with an east coast accent.
“Yeah, I was with them. Traveled with them all the way to Canada and back.”
“So where are they now?”
“I don’t know. I left them over a week ago.”
“Well, how can I meet up with them?”
“Hell if I know,” he said, annoyed with the stranger.
“You must have some idea where their camp is?”
“I just told you, I’ve no idea. Hell, for all I know they’ve disbanded.”
“Disbanded? You can’t be serious.”
“A lot of us left. Why do you want to know all this anyhow?” asked Olson.
“I want to join up with them,” responded the man.
“You do, huh?” Olson eyed him cautiously.
“Yep, want to join in on all the fun.”
“Fun, eh?” It was a rhetorical question. “You think it’d be all fun and games.”
The stranger didn’t respond. He wondered if the man might not be as drunk as he thought. He didn’t want to arouse any suspicions and decided to back off a little bit. He gave Olson a rousing patriotic line.
“Hey, anytime I can kill off some government pukes, then yeah, I’d say that’s some fun,” he said, trying to sound sincere.
“You ain’t from around here, are ya?”
“From Chicago.”
“That’s a funny accent you got for being from Chicago. Sounds like you’re from the East Coast.”
The stranger hadn’t thought about what he sounded like. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I spent quite a bit of time working back east. I pick up accents easily.”
Olson didn’t respond. He signaled the bartender for another round.
“I got this round. Make it two shots. Jack, if you’ve got it.”
The bartender came back setting the shot glasses down.
They picked up their drinks.
“To better times in the good ole USA.”
Olson nodded, tilted his head back and swallowed the whiskey.
“So, if I find these guys who should I ask for? Who’s in charge?”
“Cole Winters, a good man.”
“Cole Winters, huh? Where’s he from?”
“Somewhere in Iowa, I think. I didn’t really get to know him all that well.”
The stranger finished his drink, slapped him on the back, and turned around to leave the bar.
Chapter 3
South Bend Indiana
Winters walked up to Elliott asking if Scar and Meeks were back yet. The two of them had gone to check the last of the Patriot Centers. Since the death of Colonel Nunn, the capture of Commandant Boxer, and the elimination of the terrorists, the Shadow Patriots had very little to do. In fact, in the past couple of weeks, more than half of their members had left the group for various reasons. Some were bored with the lack of action. Others wanted to see their families to safety and some were just plain afraid of being caught.
Elliott had also gone back to Iowa to check on his wife, Amy, and their two daughters. Knowing what was really happening, he wanted to move his family south before he continued with the Shadow Patriots. Like most folks from small towns, he had extended family living in the area. After relaying the news about what was going on, most everyone, including his mother who was in her seventies, decided to pack up and move to Oklahoma where they had relatives.
For Elliott it had been a good trip home, knowing his family would be safe, but at the same time, sad. His daughters didn’t want him to leave and tried to convince him to stay. It had been a tearful farewell for him and he was still in the process of getting over it, having been back for only a few days.
With most everyone else going their own way, Winters had reservations for the future of their group. He would have liked to go south and looked for his nineteen-year-old daughter, Cara, who had run off with her boyfriend. He had a cousin in Florida and thought that perhaps she had sought out his assistance. For now, though, he would put that on hold until he knew all the Centers were closed down.
Winters and Nate had led a small group down to Illinois and into Indiana, while Scar and Meeks went to investigate one in Ohio and another in Michigan.
Their operators had abandoned both the Illinois and Indiana Centers. They probably heard what happened with the others and decided to skip town.
They were all to meet back in South Bend, Indiana, at the closed down Catholic University. The once majestic campus with its golden dome was overgrown with grass and looked like an abandoned movie lot. Like all the schools in the Midwest, it had closed once the power grid failed and winter set in. The student population had already thinned with most joining the war effort, and the rest going back to their families.
Winters looked down at the sitting Elliott. “They’re running late.”
“Oh, they probably ran into some good ole boys and are goofing off with them.”
“I’ll feel a lot better when I see them back here.”
“You think them centers are closed down?” asked Elliott.
“If they aren’t, I’m sure they’ll take it upon themselves to shut em down.”
Elliott chuckled. “Yeah, no doubt about that. Question is, what are we going to do next?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what else we can do. Most everyone is gone anyway.”
“Yeah, but we still have more than we started out with. Remember that day, when you came out of the train station shooting at those drivers. Heck, we all thought you were a crazy man.”
“For a while, I wondered about that myself. I kept wondering if I w
as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of guy. You know a little on the bi-polar side.”
“Did you really?”
“Oh, yeah. I had done things I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams. I was really worried about myself.”
“I had no idea, Cole.”
“I was the Captain. Who was I supposed to confide in? I mean I had to keep up the appearance of strength.”
“Well, you had me fooled.”
“Don’t mean to freak you out or anything. It’s just kind of nice to get this off my chest. I’m much more confident about things now, but boy, at the beginning I was pretty scared and really unsure of myself.”
“We all were, Cole. I gotta tell ya though, you put on a good front, cause we all looked up to you, for having done what you did at the train station.”
“I’ll tell you a secret, just as long as you don’t tell the others.”
Elliott nodded.
“I puked my guts out after I killed those men. Before that, in the woods, when they came looking for me, my legs were like rubber and I was literally crawling on my hands and knees.”
Elliott started laughing.
“Some tough guy, huh,” said Winters chuckling.
“Well, I about peed my pants when we went back to the first Patriot Center.”
“I remember you shaking like a leaf. Oh, how jaded we’ve become.”
“I suppose we can get back to a little normalcy if there’s nothing left for us to do. What will you do?”
Winters didn’t hesitate for a minute. “I’m going to go look for my kid.”
“Where?”
“Start in Florida. We’ve got some distant family there. I’m thinking she might have reached out to them.”
“How old is she again?”
“She’s nineteen now and headstrong. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. Actually, we almost never agreed on anything. She rebelled big time in high school. It was all I could do to get her to even graduate. Once she did, off she went with her boy friend. Haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“Must have been hard on your wife,” said Elliott in a concerned tone.
“Worried Ellie to no end. It consumed her, especially when everything went to Hell. It didn’t help when she got diagnosed with cancer. The one thing she wanted before she died was to see her daughter again. I think she died more of a broken heart than cancer. I’m certain, it sped up the process.”
“So, she doesn’t even know her mom is dead?”
Winters shook his head.
“What are you going to say to her?”
“Ask her to forgive me. I was probably a little too hard on her. With everything that’s gone on, the things we’ve done here have given me a different perspective.”
“Yeah, I know just whatcha mean.”
“I was really angry at her for not being there for her mom. I was very resentful, but now, not so much. I feel sorry for her, knowing she missed out on saying her goodbyes.”
“Yeah, that is sad.”
“Well, chances are, I might never see her again.”
“You’ll find her Cole, don’t ever give up. Family is all that matters.”
Winters nodded in agreement.
“Hey, if you want some company, I’ll be more than happy to go with you.”
“You’d do that?”
“You betcha.”
“What about your family?”
“They’re mostly in Oklahoma now. I’ve got some cousins who decided to stay put, but other than them, everyone’s safe.”
“Couldn’t have been easy to leave them again?”
“No, it wasn’t. My two girls, bless their hearts, didn’t want me to go. I sat them down and reminded them how important it was for us to be fighting.”
“How’d they take it?”
“They understood, but you know, it’s hard knowing your daddy is putting himself in harm’s way.”
“What about your wife?”
“Amy puts up a good front, but she’d rather have me here, with you, than out West.”
“I take it you didn’t tell her everything we’ve gone through.”
Elliott looked at Winters with a slight smile. “Oh, hell no, you know I didn’t.”
“Who’d believe it.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Winters was glad to have Elliott as his friend. He missed his old friends a lot but was comforted to know he had gained the friendships of Elliott and the others. They had all gone through a lot and their experiences bonded them together like nothing else could.
Chapter 4
Decatur Michigan
Meeks backed the car down the pathway but stopped when he spotted a compact car blocking the exit. The two occupants were pointing at them.
He turned to Scar. “Hang on brother.”
Meeks punched the gas. The car zoomed backward, bounced up onto the road, and plowed into the compact. Scar jumped out first, followed by Meeks, each grabbing their pistols and firing as they stormed the car.
Bullets ripped through the open windows. The two men inside tried desperately to escape. Scar stopped firing and pulled open the passenger door to see a dead Middle Eastern man.
“Looks like we got ourselves a Jiji here.”
Jiji was a nickname Scar had come up with for Jihadis.
Meeks looked inside and saw the driver slumped in his seat. He was a white man in his late twenties.
Scar started digging around, looking for anything that might tell them who these two were. He found a map and unfolded it.
“Whatcha got?” asked Meeks.
“A map.”
Meeks came around to the passenger side.
They both looked down at the map of Michigan, which had several towns circled. Some of them, including Decatur, had an “X” through the circle.
“What do you think those markings mean?” asked Meeks.
“Not sure, but it doesn’t look good.”
“It’s got a lot of towns circled.”
“We need to get out of here, don’t want any of their friends showing up. You think this dream car of yours will make it?”
Meeks walked around it. “It doesn’t look too bad. I think ole Betsey is good.”
“Betsey huh?”
“Every hot car needs a name.”
Meeks cranked the engine on. He pulled the damaged car forward and turned onto the pavement. He got out, walked around to the rear and inspected it.
“I think we’re good. Such a shame, ruining this beauty.”
Scar grabbed the two dead men’s weapons and hustled back over to the Mustang.
Meeks stepped on the gas. Despite a scraping noise coming from the back, it was running fine. He forced a couple of turns of the steering wheel just to make sure.
Scar pulled out the map. “We should go check out some of these towns that are crossed off.”
“Whatcha thinking?”
“I have a bad feeling about this, but if they’re anything like this last town.”
“We got ourselves more bad guys.”
“Yep.”
“Where to?”
“Paw Paw is not too far north of here,” said Scar as he looked down at the map.
Scott Scarborough studied the map with the mindset of a Marine. He had spent four years in the Corps and had seen action in Grenada. It wasn’t a long engagement, but the experience of combat had changed him. He came away with a different perspective on life. No longer did he view the world through a boy’s eyes, but with the eyes of a mature man.
He had joined right out of high school, not knowing what to do in life. He enjoyed the experience and made lifelong friends. Once he received his honorable discharge, he went back home and married his high school sweetheart, Tera, who was two years younger than him. He got a job in construction and learned how to build houses. This skill prepared him to start his own company and with his wife’s business savvy, they were able to prosper and grow into a successful firm. He took pride in b
uilding their first and only home, and he built it big enough for a large family. Unfortunately, after several miscarriages, they were only able to have one child, whom they named Scott, after him.
The boy took after his father, growing into a tall broad-shouldered man with the same sense of humor. Scar was proud when his son joined the Corps three years ago and qualified for fixed wing flight training. He was worried about him though because he was flying EA-6B Prowlers in the war. This aircraft pinpointed and neutralized the enemy’s fire control radar, which meant, he was in the thick of it. He hadn’t heard from him in some time. When he did, Scott insisted he was safe. As a former Marine, he knew this was a lie fabricated to not worry the parents. He had done the same thing for his parents.
Scar’s parents were both still alive and once Scar made the decision to join the war effort, they had taken Tera and her parents to Texas to his parent’s summer home on the Gulf. This comforted him, knowing this was probably the safest place in the country.
Chapter 5
Paw Paw Michigan
Before Meeks and Scar reached the town of Paw Paw, they could smell the burnt embers. They passed farmhouses, which hadn’t been touched, but as soon as they rounded the curve into the town, they could see every structure had been set on fire.
It looked like it had been a couple of days ago. Some of the homes were still smoldering, but most were not. It had the same weird feeling as Decatur had when they passed through there. Dead silence, no one around, not even a corpse.
“Where in the hell could everyone be?” asked Meeks.
Scar shook his head. “This is the strangest thing, it’s just like the last town.”
“At least we know what the X’s mean.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. Look at how many there are.”
Meeks slowed to a stop and took another look at the map.
Scar pointed at it. “From Cheboygan, all the way down the west side of the state is crossed off.”
“Notice Detroit isn’t circled,” said Meeks.
“Well, it’s right next to Canada.”