“That’s insane,” Colton said. “We can’t start executing criminals.”
“I’ll do it if you won’t,” Don said.
“Are you sure they helped kill Officer Nelson?” Gail asked.
“Not a doubt in my mind,” Colton said. “They would have killed me, Lindsey, and Raven in the forest off Devils Gulch, too.”
Gail bowed her head and massaged her wrinkled forehead. When she looked up, she gave an order Colton wasn’t sure he could follow.
“Execute them, Chief. We have to be strong. We have to show everyone that Estes Park will not be broken by violence and fear.”
“Damn straight,” Don said, his black eyes gleaming.
If Colton didn’t know better, he’d think the sergeant was excited about the notion.
What the hell was happening to the people of his town?
Sandra was exhausted, but she made herself put on a clean set of scrubs. It was her last pair, so she’d need to figure out the best way to wash her laundry soon.
Teddy was first on her rounds when she got to the hospital for another fourteen-hour shift. She stopped at her station and put on gown, gloves, facemask, and goggles, all necessary for extra protection while checking his wounds. Necrotizing fasciitis was a complex condition. It required constant monitoring and lots of antibiotics. If Teddy didn’t heal soon, they would have to venture out of Estes Park to find him the meds, or else they’d have to cut off any newly infected tissue. Hyperbaric oxygen chambers and other high-tech treatments were not an option with the power off.
Teddy was sleeping on his back, blond hair matted to his head. She checked his vitals with care, trying not to wake him. His pulse, blood pressure, and respiration were normal, but she could tell he was running a slight fever by the sweat on his forehead. She checked it with an old-school thermometer and watched the mercury rise to one hundred and one degrees.
Teddy blinked several times when she dabbed his forehead with a cold cloth. When he finally focused on her, a smile dimpled his cheeks.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m kinda hot.” He craned his neck to look around. “Is my mom here?”
“No, she’s looking after my Allie right now.”
Teddy raised his stump and examined the bandage. “It hurts this morning.”
“I’m going to check it in a second, okay?”
He nodded and rested his head back on the pillow, his smile gone. Over the past few days, Sandra had seen his mood slipping. It was beginning to sink in that his arm was gone. He always looked away when she checked the dressing, as she was doing now. He’d been in the hospital for weeks now after being rushed here with gangrene-like symptoms. At that point he had already been suffering from the flesh-eating bacteria, and it had been too late to save his forearm.
She slowly rotated his arm in her gloved hands to examine the site of the amputation for inflammation. It all seemed to be healing nicely, until she saw the red, swollen patch of skin.
“Am I okay?” he asked.
Sandra hesitated, wondering if she should call Doctor Duffy over right away. She bandaged his arm back up and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Okay,” Teddy said. He positioned himself on his side, hugging a stuffed bear against his chest.
Sandra walked back into the main area to look for Doctor Duffy. He was standing outside the isolation room where they were keeping Martha.
Duffy looked up from a clipboard as she approached. “Sandra, good morning. How’s our youngest patient?”
“Teddy has some inflamed skin around his elbow.”
“I’ll go take a look,” Duffy said. He cursed under his breath. “We’re running low on antibiotics.”
“I know,” Sandra said.
“Martha’s in pretty rough shape, too,” Duffy said. “She still hasn’t said a single word since Colton and Don dropped her off. Colton asked me to try and figure out what happened out there. I’d like to see if you can get her to talk when she wakes up.”
Sandra looked through the glass panel into Martha’s room. She was sleeping, her chest slowly moving up and down. Duffy arched his bushy brown eyebrows and held the door open for Sandra.
“Check her vitals,” he said. “I’ll go check on Teddy.”
Sandra nodded.
Duffy stepped back into the other room and Sandra prepared to check Martha’s vitals. Just as the door clicked shut, Martha’s eyelids fluttered open.
“Doctor Duffy,” Sandra cried out. “She’s awake!”
Footsteps pounded the tile floor outside, and Duffy opened the door a second later. He joined Sandra at the bedside.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” Duffy asked.
Martha struggled to raise her eyelids. Half open, her eyes flitted from Duffy to Sandra.
“I’m Doctor Duffy and this is Nurse Spears.”
The woman looked at Sandra with frightened eyes. “The children,” she mumbled through cracked lips. Her voice broke, and she brought a hand up and pointed to her mouth.
“Water,” Sandra said. “She needs water.”
Duffy returned with a bottle and helped position the straw at Martha’s mouth.
She took several long gulps, then jerked her head away from the straw.
“The children,” she said again. She was breathing faster, lungs wheezing. “You have to find the children.”
Duffy looked at Sandra, then back at Martha.
“What children?” he asked.
“The soldiers...they took the children on the road. Have to find them.” Martha gasped for air. You have to—” Her voice cracked again, and her eyes rolled up into her skull as she lost consciousness.
Raven put another blackened rock on top of the pile covering the fresh grave. Hundreds of years ago, his ancestors had buried their dead like this, but Raven never thought he would be doing the same thing on the side of a highway.
“He was a hero,” Nathan said.
“There wasn’t anything else you could do for him,” Raven said.
They had spent the night trying to save Lieutenant Dupree’s life while the fires raged around them. Four hours before sunrise, the Marine had succumbed to his wounds.
Raven stood beside the grave in the gray morning haze and looked out over the smoldering valley below, shaking his head. Dupree hadn’t been able to tell them much before he died—and what he had said left Raven wondering if the lieutenant had gone crazy. He’d been ranting about castles and birds and Nazis.
“You follow any of what he was saying?” Raven asked.
Nathan nodded thoughtfully. “Ty’s code word is ‘falcon.’ Not sure about the castle, but it sounds like some kind of Aryan Brotherhood, white supremacist types are behind the kidnapping.”
“So you think we’re looking for a bunch of skinheads?” Raven asked.
“Yeah, and I think we should get moving,” Nathan said. His boots sank into the mud as he walked back to the Jeep. The rains had finally suffocated the fires and turned the charcoaled terrain into a soggy mixture of mud and ash. Their CBRN suits were smeared with the black residue.
Nathan held the Geiger counter toward the sky. The chirp of the counter sounded, rising into a steady tick.
“I’ll be damned,” Nathan said. “The radiation readings have gone down. Makes sense, I guess. Last night’s storm must have further precipitated the radiation.”
“Precipitated?” Raven asked.
“Yes,” Nathan said confidently. “We should be good to take our suits off.”
Raven didn’t hesitate in removing his helmet. He pulled it off and took in a breath of steamy air that carried the overwhelming scent of smoke.
“Come on,” Nathan said. “I want to cover as much ground as possible today.”
He glanced down at Dupree’s grave one last time and then patted Raven on the shoulder.
“We’re going to avenge him, and we’re going to find Ty,” Nathan said.
&nbs
p; Raven pulled his ponytail behind his head and tied it in a knot on the way back to the Jeep. He wasn’t overly optimistic, and he was beyond exhausted. He shook away the fog of war, something he hadn’t experienced since North Korea.
Raven went to open the Jeep door but stopped when something strange caught his eye. He stared at the blackened carcass of an animal resting by a boulder on the side of the road. Bending down, he pulled out a quill from the dead porcupine. He held it in his fingers, a chill going through his fatigued body. He set the quill on the dashboard and grabbed a cloth from his backpack. He dabbed it in water and then wiped his forehead clean.
“Shit. This is the end of the world, Major. No doubt about that now,” Raven said. “I thought maybe we could come back from this, but I think this is the end of the line for the human race.”
Nathan swallowed a piece of granola and tilted his head to one side. “What?”
“I said the same thing to Colton the other night. The signs are all around us.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. He dumped water onto a cloth to scrub his face. “North Korea did nuke us. I’m not sure if the country is going to bounce back for a while, but I don’t exactly think this is the end of our species.”
“It is,” Raven said with confidence. For some reason, the revelation didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.
“Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow,” he said, “but this is the end of civilization as we know it. The old Sioux woman has finally finished her quilt.”
“Huh?” Nathan said.
Raven started the engine and began driving down the hill. “There’s a Sioux story that tells of a place where the prairie meets the badlands—a place with a hidden cave.”
“You’re starting to sound a bit crazy, man.”
“Just listen,” Raven said. He paused and rolled his window down slightly. “Inside the cave lives a woman. She’s been there for thousands of years working on a blanket strip of her buffalo robe. Beside her sits Shunka Sapa, a massive black dog. He watches her while she flattens the porcupine quills with her teeth for the quilt. A large fire burns in a pit. This fire has been going for thousands of years inside this cave, and over the fire burns a pot of Wojapi, or berry soup.”
“Does this story have a point?” Nathan asked.
Raven steered around a vehicle and kept talking. “Every once in a while the woman gets up to stir the soup, and the big black dog pulls the quills from her blanket strip.”
“So what?”
Raven shook his head as they approached the Humvee on the bridge. “This is where that ambush happened,” he said.
White ash surrounded the deflated tires. Every window had broken, and the paint was burned away. An explosion had blown the top open like a turtle shell that had detonated from the inside.
“I have a feeling some of these skinhead bastards are also soldiers. Not just this General Fenix asshole that Dupree mentioned,” Nathan said. “Who else could get a drop on Dupree’s unit?”
Raven slowly drove over the bridge, a gray mist rising around the vehicle. He’d had the same suspicions about their chases. From here on out, Raven had to keep an eye on every bluff to ensure they didn’t end up like the lieutenant and his team.
Nathan had the same idea. He gripped his carbine in both hands.
“You going to finish your story or what?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Raven said. “The Sioux legend says that when the woman finishes her blanket strip, the world will come to an end.”
Raven scooped the porcupine quill off the dashboard. “I found this on the side of the road back there.”
“It’s just a coincidence.”
“No,” Raven said. “It’s not.”
He eased off the gas when he saw bodies on the road ahead. He brought the Jeep to a stop. The nearest corpse was so badly disfigured from the flames that Raven couldn’t see the features. He stepped out onto the street and bent down to read the nametag on what was left of the man’s uniform. Raven put his sleeve over his nose to keep out the scent of burned flesh.
“Looks like this guy was with the Colorado National Guard,” Raven said. “Last name was S-something. Shit, I can’t make it out.”
“Let me see,” Nathan said. He hustled around the Jeep to take a look.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” Nathan said. “Why would the Marine team have been ambushed with a Colorado National Guard unit?”
“You think the guard unit were in on it?”
Nathan was already moving back to the truck. “No idea, man, but we don’t have time to sit around and investigate.”
“We’re just going to leave these bodies out here?” Raven called out after him. “You don’t even want to drag them off the road?”
Raven already knew what Nathan’s answer would be. They didn’t have time to bury these soldiers like they had Dupree. He jumped back in the vehicle, feeling like he was betraying the ghost of every Marine that had ever died by leaving Dupree’s men and the guard unit on the road. He didn’t like to admit he was sentimental, but leaving a man behind, even a dead one, threatened to bring him to tears.
I will come back, Raven promised. He eyed the quill on the dashboard again, hoping Nathan was right about the Sioux story only being a coincidence.
“I HAVE A plan,” Ty said quietly.
Micah sat up in the bed across the small room. Emma was next to him, sleeping.
“A plan for what?” Micah whispered.
“To get us out of here, but I need your help,” Ty replied.
Using his hands, he picked up his legs and moved them over the side of his bed. He paused to listen for footsteps in the hallway outside. Hearing none, he reached over for the handles of his wheelchair and positioned it in front of his bed. He was skinny, but his lean arm muscles and lots of experience allowed him to move into the chair with ease.
“Where are we going to go?” Micah asked.
“Anywhere but here. These men want to use us for something bad,” Ty said.
Emma stirred and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t feel good.” She scratched at a sore on her face.
Footfalls cut Micah off before he could reply. They rapped down the hall and stopped outside the door. There was a click, and then the metal door shrieked open.
Carson stepped into the room and pulled off his baseball cap to run a hand over his shiny scalp.
“Get up,” he said, snickering. “Those of you that can.”
Ty clenched his jaw. He really, really didn’t like Carson.
“I need to go to the potty,” Emma said shyly.
“Great, just my fucking luck,” Carson muttered. Body odor drifted into the room with him as he walked over to her bedside.
“Watch your language around the kids,” came a second voice.
Standing in the entrance was Dr. Rollins. Ty still didn’t know how to feel about the doctor. Was he a good man? If so, why was he helping General Fenix? All Ty knew was that he had to get out of here before the General could use him.
“How are you feeling, Ty?” Dr. Rollins asked.
“I’m fine, but I have to go to the bathroom, too.”
The doctor walked over to Ty’s bed and crouched down in front of him. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a piece of licorice. “Go ahead,” Dr. Rollins said, holding out his hand.
Ty narrowed his eyes at the candy. He was hungry, but he didn’t want anything from these men. “Give it to Micah or Emma.”
Emma licked her lips and held out her hand, but Dr. Rollins frowned, hesitating. He tossed the candy to the girl and turned back to Ty.
“General Fenix wants you healthy, and it’s my job to make sure you stay that way,” he said. “Come on, help me with them, Carson.”
Dr. Rollins grabbed the handles of Ty’s chair and wheeled him into the hallway.
“You stink, mister,” Emma said.
Ty couldn’t help but chuckle at her serious tone.
“Shut up,” Carson replied.
Dr. Rollins pushed Ty around the corner into a hallway with crates of supplies. The other kids were being held in a room in this passage. He had already mentally mapped out where the rooms were in relation to the hospital, but he wasn’t sure how to get back to the big storeroom where he’d first arrived. There had to be a way out from there, if only he could find it again.
Carson walked ahead and pushed open the door to the medical center. Inside, there were three beds, two of them occupied. Tommy, his arm in a sling, tried to sit up. He winced and then smiled when he saw Ty.
“How you doing, buddy?”
Ty waved but didn’t say anything. He’d thought Tommy was nice, but now he wasn’t even sure of that.
Dr. Rollins rolled the chair past the operating room. An elevated metal table was centered in the small room. Off to the side was a trashcan overflowing with bloody rags. They moved into a third room where there were open showers and several toilets partitioned off with wood walls. Carson and Dr. Rollins helped Ty out of his chair and onto the toilet seat. He hated needing their help, but he was also used to relying on other people to get around and do certain things.
When Ty had finished, Dr. Rollins pushed him into the main room near Tommy’s bed.
“I’ll be right back,” the doctor said.
“Hey,” Tommy said quietly. He ran a hand over his shaved head and looked to see if anyone was listening. “You want to get out of here?”
Ty perked up. “Can you help me? Won’t you get in trouble?”
“Not if we don’t get caught. Don’t tell anybody, okay? Gotta keep this a secret.”
“Let’s go, you little shits,” Carson called out from the door of the bathroom.
Tommy winked at Ty. “I’ll come for you later. You just wait.”
Dr. Rollins returned with more pills and a bottle of water for Ty. Once he’d taken the medicine, the doctor wheeled his chair out of the med ward. Ty lifted a hand to wave goodbye to Tommy, but the young man shook his head subtly.
Right, Ty thought. It’s a secret.
Trackers 2: The Hunted (A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller) Page 16