The Tsunami

by Marshall Miller

  This may look like hell, but it still works.”

  “Thanks, Doc. What did you put in it?”

  Doc opened it up. “Here, take a look.” Torbin looked in and saw a couple of beef sandwiches, a couple of egg and sausage breakfast sandwiches, a bunch of various chicken pieces, apples, carrots, some of Abigail’s birthday cake, and several bottles of what looked like beer. Torbin pulled out one of the bottles. “Conch Republic near beer? How in the hell did you get that from Key West up to here?”

  Doc Stubbs chortled. “We have what would be called peddlers or traveling salesmen who travel all over the former U.S.A and bring stuff back. They also bring intelligence and info back. The Conch Republicans are quite friendly with anyone who wants to trade. Right now, we pack frozen buffalo meat into coolers and run it down. Somebody in the Florida Keys has developed a taste for it.”

  Torbin shook his head. The human desire for trade and profit seemed to eventually conquer all barriers. “Well, thanks for the spread, Doc. Abigail and I will enjoy it on the trip. Want to say goodbye to her?”

  “Nah. I’m lousy at goodbyes. Just wish her luck.” He stuck his hand out. “Come back soon, Skipper, you hear? I’ll always save a seat for you at my table.” Torbin returned the firm handshake. He hoped he would make it back here to see Doc. He was another example of a former Marine who done well.

  “Keep your powder dry, as they say Doc.”

  “Will do, Skipper. Will do.”

  Torbin carried the cooler out and set it on the back seat. He opened it, and grabbed the two egg and sausage sandwiches. They were still warm, fresh off the grill. He took them out, located a bottle of water he had brought along and got back into the front seat.

  “Breakfast time, Abigail, compliments of Doc Stubbs. He wishes you luck.”

  She smiled and took a sandwich from Torbin. “He reminds me of an uncle—always there with a treat for his nieces and nephews.” She unwrapped it and began to eat. They sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, neither speaking, enjoying the early morning quiet.

  Finally, she spoke between bites. “Even though I had no real family here, other than the Twenty, I have a bit of fear and sadness, leaving this place behind. It has been a ‘home’ of a sort for over six years.”

  “I’ve been the proverbial rolling stone for years, Abigail. Now, all of a sudden, I have a wife and soon a child. Malmstrom is home for me. Consider this an invitation to my home. Stay as long as you like. I’ll help you get home anytime you want.”

  Abigail smiled. “Thank you, Torbin. I’m glad you are my friend. You make things a lot easier for me.”

  “That, my dear, is what friends are for. Now, I think it is time to make like sheep and get the flock out of here.” Once again, he got Abigail laughing.

  CHAPTER 2

  WYOMING

  It was about seventy miles to the Deseret/Wyoming border. Evanston, Wyoming, on Interstate 80, was about ten miles further still. The former police cruiser purred along, the somewhat beat-up exterior belying the smooth operating V-8 engine under its hood. Not noted for its gas economy, Abigail had arranged for two ten gallon jerry cans stored in the trunk.

  Prior to Abigail picking him up, Torbin had the Charge of Quarters at his dormitory try to get another telephone line to Security Control in Malmstrom. Wonder of wonders, he managed to get another microwave connection from Salt Lake City to Malmstrom. Torbin now realized that Prophet and President Smith had probably been arranging for contact with the Unoccupied States telephone system for just such a situation. Much like everyone else who was tapping into the new Tschaaa reconstituted internet, the Leader of Deseret had found a way to connect to the microwave tower-based telephone system in Montana and the surrounding states. He shook his head. He should have realized that Deseret had pre-arranged communication links when Director Lloyd so matter of fact told him that he had already arranged to hand him off to the independent nation state. The Tschaaa seemed to have been ignoring Deseret as much as they had been ignoring the Unoccupied States, to their detriment.

  He started to talk to the Senior Controller, but before he could say much, the NCO on the telephone said, “Sir, I have been instructed to tell you that your backup Response Team is already on the road. Just stay on the major interstates, please. You know where the operational telephone booths are if you need to contact us. General Reed wants you safe and secure as soon as possible. He has a couple of choppers on standby if necessary.”

  “Well, Sergeant, consider me as on the road with one other person. I’ll check in as I can. Thanks for the assistance.”

  “No, thank you Sir. Without mentioning details, we know of the touchdown you scored. Everyone wants to buy you a drink.”

  Damn. He could tell that life would never be the same. What was next, World War II-like bond drives?

  “Well, send my love to my wife and my best regards to General Reed. Is Lt. Yamamoto back yet?”

  “Also en route, Sir. He hit the road yesterday. May take a while.”

  Ichiro and company were farther away, near enemy territory with no assistance like the Mormons. So, they would try to make it home, staying away from the Florida Coasts, maybe slugging it through the Everglades. The B-25 transport sat on a widened area of the Tamiami Trail. Maybe someday it would be recovered.

  At least they were alive, which was better than the eight men under his command who were now Squid food. That is, unless the Director had come through and given them military burials like he said they would.

  “Okay. Consider me gone and moving. Please contact my wife…”

  A feminine voice suddenly cut in. “Already done Sir. Called her as soon as you were on the line. She said to not screw around or dally, to get back now.”

  Torbin laughed. “Now, my good NCOs, you know who really wears the pants in my family. Tell her I am motivating in her direction. And, of course, tell General Reed.”

  “Already have, Sir. He said quote ‘Tell him to get back in one piece with the new Liaison Officer or expect to lose a piece of your ass,’ end quote, Sir.”

  Torbin smiled. At least that hadn’t changed. “Alright. I’m gone. Tell the rest of the Duty Staff that when I get back, the drinks are on me.”

  They approached the Wyoming/Deseret Border. Torbin saw the continuous twelve foot high chain link fence cyborg Andrew had mentioned. Along the fence top was a triangle of three circular strings of concertina wire. Anyone or anything would have trouble getting through this interlocking barrier of nasty barbed wire.

  “Got a lot of wire on top of your barrier fence, Abigail.”

  “Yes. We added two sets of concertina wire as it seems too complicated for the demons to figure a way over or through it. Now, they try to dig under the fence, but are rarely successful.” They approached the large rolling gate in the fence. Abigail tapped the car horn, and a man with graying hair came out of two story building that was too large to be called a guard shack. Torbin noticed the man had what appeared to be a .45 automatic in a shoulder holster. He also caught a glimpse of a second figure that looked like woman holding a pump shotgun.

  “They are husband and wife, Torbin, past the age of reproduction. They live on the second story of this building, and man the gate year around, except for an occasional trip to Salt Lake City. All their needs are provided for, in return for them living here. We have several couples like this one working the border of Deseret. They have a mission that helps Deseret and serves the Lord, as do I.”

  The man recognized Abigail and approached the car, smiling. “How are you, Abigail Young? We heard you were coming through. I guess you’ll be gone for a while.”

  “Yes, Mr. White. This man next to me is Captain Torbin Bender, who is going to introduce me to the officials in the Unoccupied States of America.”

  “Captain Bender? You’re that soldier who bombed the Squids in Florida.” Mr. White called to his wife. “Anne. Come out. This is the man that we saw on the news.”

  A woman the same age as her hu
sband, her partially gray hair done up in a bun, came out smiling.

  “Pleased to meet you. Take care of our Abigail while she is abroad with heathens. She’s special to us.”

  Torbin smiled. “Yes Ma’am. I’ll make sure she comes back for regular visits. She’s special to me too.”

  Mr. White came around to Torbin’s side of the car, so he rolled down the window. The man stuck his hand out to Torbin. “It would be an honor to shake the hand of someone who struck back at the Evil Ones and killed so many. I just wish I was young enough to go along when the Deseret forces go to punish these invaders.”

  Torbin tried not to wince. Maybe if he changed his name and started wearing a fake beard and glasses he would be able to blend back in to normal society. This hero business made him uncomfortable. He just wanted to get back to being a normal grunt Marine.

  “Thank you, Sir. But you have an important job here, being on the border.”

  “Well, my wife and I have shot a couple of demons, chased off a heathen or two. I just wish I was young enough to invade Key West. But, since I’m not young, I do what I can.”

  He looked over to Abigail. “Keep in touch, young lady. You will always be a Daughter of Deseret.”

  Abigail blushed a bit, and smiled. “I will, Sir. Now, Captain Bender and I must continue on our trip. Please open the gate and close it as soon as we are through. There should be no one else on the road.”

  “Here goes, young lady. You be careful, now.”

  Mr. White hit the switch, and the gate rolled open. Abigail waved at them after they were through, and the gate closed behind them. She began to accelerate up the highway, heading to nearby Evanston, Wyoming.

  “When we get to Evanston, I’ll have you pull over where there is an operational telephone booth. Some technical teams have crisscrossed the Unoccupied States and managed to get some old telephone booths up and running, using old landlines and the re-done microwave towers so we have telephone coverage without having to depend on satellites. We occasionally still bounce signals off of communication satellites as the Squids saved as many as possible so they could use them. They make no attempt to jam us, go figure.”

  “They underestimate us, Torbin. They think that because they defeated our governments, that we, the people accepted defeat. Now, they are discovering that many of us didn’t.”

  “You’ll get no disagreement from me.”

  They travelled a couple of miles further and were approaching a bend in the road near the Harrison Drive and Overthrust Road exit into Evanston. They started to complete the turn, when Abigail suddenly frowned. “Something isn’t right.”

  The spike strip was suddenly across the lane in front of them. Abigail swerved the large sedan around the end of the destructive strip, showing lightning reflexes.

  Someone hiding behind the brush that had grown up alongside the Interstate threw a stop stick under the moving tires. This Abigail could not dodge. The right front tire exploded as the stop stick shredded it. Remains of the stick also punctured the right rear tire. The sedan, traveling near sixty miles an hour, pulled hard to the right on the two punctured tires. Try as she might, Abigail could not avoid the approaching drainage ditch. The former police cruiser wound up tilting toward its right side in the water.

  “Abigail. You okay?” The air bags had not deployed, telling Torbin they had been removed ages ago.

  “Yes. Just shaken a bit, and mad that I could not avoid that stick.”

  “Come on. We need to un-ass this car. Out your door. Mine’s blocked.” They popped their seat belts and began to scramble out the driver’s side door. Abigail kicked it open and tried to climb out.

  “Stop right there. One more move and you’ll be eatin’ buckshot.” Abigail looked up into the two sawed off barrels of a 12 gauge shotgun.

  Torbin did an instant survey of the situation. He could pull and fire his .44 pistol around Abigail, but odds were that she would wind up being shredded by a blast from the shotgun as the man holding it died. Not to mention there must be others around that he could not see. Not good. They were still alive, so that meant there would be other chances, other opportunities to turn the situation around.

  “Alright, assholes. I want to see your hands. Try something funny and you’ll be eating lead.”

  “Hey, genius. We need to use our hands to pull ourselves out of this car.” Torbin responded. “If I could levitate, I’d be out of here already.”

  The gunman paused. “Just keep your hands away from your pistols. Or you’ll be picking lead from your teeth.”

  As Abigail and Torbin slowly pulled themselves out of the askew car, Torbin could not help but respond again. “Did you memorize every cliché about shooting someone from every bad Western ever made, or does it just come naturally?”

  “Shut up. Hey guys, I could use some help here.”

  As they climbed out of the sedan, Torbin got a good look at the gunman. Torbin named him Grizzly in his mind due to his grizzled appearance. His spotty beard needed to be shaved. Badly. When Abigail exited the sedan and stood up, hands open, two men grabbed her, pinning her arms. They dragged her out of the shotgun’s line of fire.

  “Hey, no need to get rough with the young lady. We gave up, remember?”

  “Shut up. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Well looky here. A nice Glock. Let me just take off your gun belt.” Scarman, named by Torbin due to a scarred face, roughly undid Abigail’s gun belt as his partner, Big Ears, pinned her arms behind her.

  Torbin named everyone in his mind so that he could count them and keep track of where they were. When the killing started, he would need to ensure everyone was accounted for. He promised himself that the killing would start just as soon as he saw an opening. One that would not get Abigail hurt or himself killed.

  “Well, well, well. What have we here? Captain Bender, I presume.” Torbin stood outside the sedan, hands up, as he looked at this speaker. The face looked familiar, like someone he had seen once in a mugshot.

  “John Talbot, President and Leader of the Krakens Motorcycle Club, at your service. You and your friend here are right on time.” Torbin now recognized the leader of the original Krakens motorcycle gang and flying squad from an intelligence photo they had on file at Malmstrom. One of the original Fifth Column members and saboteurs who had helped grease the Tschaaa’s success, his name was infamous.

  “Well, you know my name, Talbot, and I know yours. Since I’m your target, what say you let the young lady go. She’s just my chauffeur.”

  Talbot laughed as two other men appeared and pinned Torbin’s arms as they divested him of his Ka-Bar and his .44.

  “What, and let a nice piece of Mormon ass like that go untapped? I don’t think so.”

  “I guess the Director isn’t a man of his word,” Tobin growled.

  “Director Lloyd has nothing to do with this. He lets you go after you shot up one of my cousins? He’s an asshole.”

  “So, Lord Neptune wants me.”

  “No. A bunch of us humans are running this. Times are changing. Squids are bugging out on their big ships. The Church of Kraken is taking charge. Humans need to understand what it really means to be the top of the food chain. Natural Selection is in play. We white folks are taking over now that the dark folks are locked up where they belong.”

  Torbin could see a Helter Skelter look in Talbot’s eyes. Intel said he was an avowed racist, which is why he helped the Invasion in the first place. Now, it seemed that something, maybe some drug abuse, was beginning to push him into the world of fanaticism. He could not keep his mouth shut.

  “Millions of Tschaaa are just going to let you walk in and take over?” Talbot waved Torbin away.

  “They lost it over a few young being killed. They couldn’t control themselves. All we have to do is wait until the Director is taken out, which will be soon. His guys killed a bunch of Squids, and the Lords blame him for the loss of all those young. Lord Neptune thought Lloyd was handling you
Rebels, and keeping you in line. That nuke squashed that idea.”

  Talbot laughed. “We step in, start running the humans, keep feeding dark meat to the Squids. Then, when they are even fatter and dumber than they are now, we step in and grab control of the Crèches. Plant a few nukes around, threaten to set them off, and watch the Squids cave.”

  It was a plan, but a plan based on the idea that the Tschaaa would give up if their young were threatened. It might work if all Squids were on Earth in one area, but there was still a substantial number on Base One and Platform One, with at least a few breeders. If there were enough nukes to go around, if the Tschaaa called their bluff and these ‘Kraken’ managed to detonate them, then another Nuclear Long Winter would result, knocking what was left of human civilization back to the Stone Age. A pyrrhic victory.

  “Hey, toss that pistol you took off of him over here.” Big and Fat, holding his right arm, threw the .44 he had taken from Torbin. Skinny, on his left arm, still had his Ka-Bar. Talbot caught the pistol, then examined it. “A nice Smith .44 Magnum. This will help make up for all the guns and stuff we’re not getting from Director Lloyd. Stupid sucker gave us a pistol and about a hundred rounds of mixed/matched ammo last month. That’s it. He said he had to build up his ‘regular forces’, that lying bastard.”

  Torbin noticed that as soon as Talbot had the pistol in his hand, Grizzly lowered his shotgun. He stepped over to the motorbike he had ridden, hung the shotgun by the strap on the handle bars, and began to sidle toward Abigail and her two captors. It looked like Grizzly had taken to heart the comment about ‘Mormon piece of ass.’ A large SUV a few yards from the bike had a scoped rifle and an AK-47 sitting on the hood, each apparently belonging to one of the pair of Krakens restraining the prisoners.

  Big Ears was pinning Abigail’s arms behind her as Scarman stood in front of her. “Man, you’re a good-looking young thing.” He reached out and began to fondle and squeeze her left breast. “Oh doggies, like my grandpap used to say. Nice and firm. It feels like at least a 35C cup— and I know my cup sizes.” That elicited a laugh from all of the Krakens, even Talbot.