“You can’t even imagine,” the sergeant said.
“Try me,” Mr. Wheeler said, and then wiped his mouth and beard with a hand.
“It’s about politics,” Mr. Hansel said, rubbing his big mechanic’s hands together.
“Yeah, that, and Stabenow’s trolling for information.” Sergeant Ford shook his head, and said, “No matter what’s going on, or how bad things get, the maneuvering never stops. I should’ve got you going sooner.”
“So, something shadowy is still going on.” Mr. Wheeler rose, taking up his tray.
“Leave the trays,” Corporal Welles said.
Sergeant Fort looked at me as I got up and said, “You did well facing up to Stabenow.”
“I don’t know.” I grinned, but awkwardly, recalling Stabenow’s venomous look.
“No, you did fine. You told him nothing.” His tone was grave and his gaze firm. “And keep it that way.”
I nodded; trying to comprehend the weight of what he was saying, the world he lived in and the other people in it like Stabenow, Mallory and Colonel Dorrance. The pushing, the pulling and the intrigue.
“Okay, come on, guys.” The sergeant waved a finger as if beckoning to friends.
I stepped right with him, aiming for the double doors. Fort pushed a door and strode quickly into the hall. Stabenow and his people weren’t in sight.
“We’ve got to get you on your way as soon as possible,” Sergeant Fort said, once we reached the exit door to the stairs leading up.
“What’s going on? You sound a little urgent,” Mr. Wheeler said. “So, is this Stabenow character going to be a problem?”
Our footfalls echoed on the metal stairs.
Speaking over his shoulder, Fort said, “What’s going on is this: Mr. Stabenow is a Congressional Liaison Officer for Demarcation Zone Security, which means, he may get it into his mind to have you detained longer than the colonel wants. Now, the way things are breaking down . . .” Fort reached the first floor door, turned and looking down from the landing. “I can’t say what he might be up to.”
“You can’t?” Uncle Ray set his arm on the stair railing.
“No, and I don’t think the colonel can either.” The sergeant gave the door a big push. “So, let’s go.”
***
The faint tang of exhaust fumes filtered through the air as we entered the motor pool. A gusting wind pushed through an open bay door at the other end of the warehouse. A man on one side of the bay door tugged, hand over hand, on a looped chain, lowering the door, until it rattled to a close.
“Great. A nice blast of cold air,” Mr. Hansel said, zippering his jacket and pulling on his gloves.
I did the same as I kept pace with Sergeant Fort, who brought us up to the same panel truck we’d arrived in. Fort rapped on one of the doors, which swung open.
“Greetings, Sergeant Fort,” Corporal Deeds said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you, again.”
“Well, you were wrong,” Fort said. “And you also have to go back out.”
“But we’re not ready.” Deeds put up his hands. “Reynolds and Quint, and the rest of the guys are about to call it a day.”
“Well, they were wrong just like you. They just don’t know it, yet. The colonel wants these people back where you got them from.”
The exchange between the two was fast, almost furious, and a heart-pounding realization gripped me. Our whole arrival at the military base was being played in reversed, and was now, an escape.
The thirty minutes preparation to notify the patrol members and fuel the vehicles seemed stretched out, long and tense. A Humvee was warmed up next to the panel truck. A soldier inspected the mounted machine gun.
I shook Corporal Welles’s hand, and the sergeant’s. I said, “Take care.”
“You do the same.” He touched the bill of his cap.
I stepped into the rear of the truck and took a seat in the same spot on the bench as the first time around. The familiarity of the rear compartment brought a certain comfort.
The hinges squealed as the door swung shut.
“Coffee, anyone?” Deeds grinned.
“That sounds familiar,” Dan Hansel said. “It’ll be the last one for some time.”
The grumbling rev of the Humvee outside grew and moved forward to the front of the panel truck and then we were off.
I glanced through the small window at the front of the compartment, between the heads of the driver and front seat passenger. The view was narrow and all I could see through the window shield was falling snow.
“A storm?” I look at Deeds.
“Yep,” he said, resting the back of his head against the bulkhead. “And it’s just started.”
Chapter 29
The wind buffeted the exterior of the compartment and pushed against the walls like giant hands causing the panel truck to sway. The storm slowed the progress of the return trip, bringing it to a crawl. Corporal Deeds even tried to apologize.
“What do you have to do with it?” Uncle Ray grinned and leaned his head back.
I shifted back and forth with the weaving of the truck, bumping shoulders with my uncle. I closed my eyes a few times thinking I could get some sleep, but there was not point. Nothing about this ride encouraged sleep or even dozing off. So many thoughts careened around in my head and crashed into each other. The faces, the uniforms, the fatigue and the military base which couldn’t keep its clocks running or replace burnt out lights bulbs. From Colonel Dorrance, I learned so much more about what was going on, but when I sifted through every word, I only realized that the people the government had tried to save were faced with dangers greater than the raiders ever were to us.
I brooded over a concern for people I hardly knew. Corporal Deeds had done more than test me for plague. He’d offered coffee and friendly conversation. A resemblance to my brother showed in his face, his brown hair and long chin. I saw my brother sitting there with his eyes closed, rocking with the motion of the truck. In those few details he was somebody I could and did care about. One of those instant friends like Robert, so many months ago, with his guitar. And then there was Sergeant Fort and Welles and even Sergeant Latimer sitting professionally at her desk. But no matter how deep my concern was I knew that I had as much control as they did, and that was none.
I traveled from one side of the Demarcation Zone to the other, and now, I couldn’t get back fast enough, even as the storm conspired against our return. In the valley, I could cut wood, build a fire, get my own food, and Sara . . . she’d be with me, sitting by that same fire. But now, forces I couldn’t see or touch frightened me more.
A buzzer sounded, jerking me from my thoughts.
Deeds pulled the handset loose and answered the intercom. “Okay, I’ll let them know.” He snapped the receiver back into place. “Another twenty minutes, we’ll be there.” He pointed to my uncle and Mr. Wheeler. “Would you undo that catch under the bench you’re sitting on?”
They reached underneath the bench and turned the latches on the long narrow door running the length of the bench. The cabinet door flopped open, banging on the compartment floor.
“Pull out the bag.” Corporal Deeds helped remove and arrange the long, canvas bag in the space between the benches. Unzipping the bag, he carefully removed our weapons and returned them. “Please, don’t load your firearms while in the vehicle.”
“No, problem.” Mr. Hansel took his bolt action rifle, patted the stock, saying, “I missed you,” while Mr. Wheeler shook his head.
“I appreciate this, thanks,” I said, strapping on the revolver immediately, but taking my time with the bow, stringing it and carefully drawing on the bowstring.
“You’re welcome,” the corporal said, and then retrieved a number of small boxes from the cabinet under his bench. “Sergeant Fort wanted me to pass these along with the colonel’s complements. It’s not much, but some antibiotics are better than none.”
“Wow,” Uncle Ray said and packed the five small boxes into his b
ackpack. “Is he sure about this?”
“You have them, so he has to be. It’s not like we have a growing population.” The seriousness with which Corporal Deeds spoke was tainted with resignation. A haunted voice, again, reminded me of my brother, and the corporal’s half-smile, one side of his mouth a little higher than the other, like Johnny. Apparently Deeds smiled even when he was sad, too.
For the last minutes of the ride, all was quiet, but an anxiety rippled through me. I knew I was headed back to my side of the Zone, but some good people would be left behind.
The intercom buzzed. Corporal Deeds answered and then announced that we were to be dropped off at the same spot where the road led up to the abandoned mini-mart and gas station at the top of the hill.
The panel truck slowed and jerked to a halt. Deeds put his goggles on and pulled up his parka hood. I tugged my stocking cap down over the top of my ears and turned up my jacket collar.
Deeds pushed open the rear door and a freezing wind rushed in, bringing a thick wave of heavy snow out of the storm blackened sky. The cold sucked the warmth from exposed skin, and penetrated our clothes and went right to the bone.
Our arrival was at dusk but the bruising storm and heavy snow intensified the coming darkness, and the driving wind brought slashing waves of snowy cold.
I gritted my teeth and followed Deeds out into a layer of snow which was up to my ankle. Every muscle tensed against the cold. I hugged myself, tucking my fists in under my arms and squinted as thick flakes stuck to my eyelashes.
Deeds patted me on the shoulder and said to everyone, “You stay in this, you will get frost bit.”
“We’ll spend the night at the mini-mart at the top of the hill,” Uncle Ray called over a gusting wind. “And start back in the morning.”
The corporal nodded vigorously. “Good, and take care.”
“You, too,” I called as he waved a gloved hand and stepped back in the panel truck. He tugged on the door, fighting the wind for a moment and then the door clanged shut.
“Let’s go,” Uncle said, and we started up the road.
The headlights of the Humvee and the truck slashed across us as they made broad turns, heading back under the bridges, being swallowed up by the swirling darkness.
The wind coursed down the sloping road, bringing curl after curl of surging snow which blasted the landscape white. The trees swayed, bent and creaked. Branches rattled against each other chattering like bones. The mini-mart and the gasoline pump island stood dark as ancient monuments in a forgotten city.
Each step went deeper and deeper into snow. At the top of the hill, we stood in a tight knot, the bludgeoning wind driving into us. Every painful breath I took froze me from the inside out.
“Come on,” Dan Hansel called, moving ahead of us in a sluggish jog through the snow. I followed, moving in his tracks across the mini-mart parking lot, and the carcass of the deer he’d shot hours before lay under a bulging layer of snow.
At the store entrance, Mr. Hansel held the door open. I rushed in with a gusting wind at my back. Uncle Ray and Mr. Wheeler were right behind. In the dark, I slapped the accumulated snow from my shoulders and pulled off the snow covered stocking cap. Some of the flakes dropped from my jacket collar, melted on my neck and rolled down my shivering back.
After the gusting of wind through the front door, a dusty smell still lingered and something else, something almost fragrant like a scent from another room.
A moaning wind pushed in around the front door, and banged its way over the roof like an unquiet spirit. The darkness grew thicker further away from the front windows, being impenetrable at the rear of the store. Outside the wide plate-glass windows, the snow streaked diagonally to the ground like micrometeors.
“I’m surprised the windows weren’t broken by this time,” Mr. Wheeler said.
“I agree with that,” spoke a familiar and unsettling voice.
It was Stabenow.
I crouched, reaching for my revolver, peering into the blackness at the rear of the store.
A stark white light flashed from the back of the room, blinding us.
“Now, everyone let’s think, before someone gets killed.” Stabenow, a disembodied voice, spoke from beyond the searing glare of the light. “Set your weapons on the floor.”
Utterly disarmed by the intensity of beams, I sighed, knowing I didn’t want to die shooting into a blinding light. With my thumb and forefinger, I pulled my revolver from the holster and eased it to the floor. My fingertips touched a thin layer of snow blown in by the storm.
Portable flood lights, resting on top of the deli counter and on a general display shelf, dimmed. Stabenow stood between the two lights. He wore a white parka, his arms crossed. The two men and the woman from the cafeteria were with him, one man was to the right of Stabenow, and the others to his left. Off to the right, directly behind a portable light, stood one more figure, a woman of slight build, still obscured by the glare of the flood light. All wore parkas similar to Stabenow’s, which were white with a gray-white fur trimming the hood, and they held handguns. If they wanted to kill us, they could have, and easily, while the lights blinded us, and that possibility hadn’t changed.
“What? You here to take us back?” Uncle Ray held his hands open in front of him.
“Hardly,” Stabenow said, and spoke to the woman behind the light, conferring in whispers.
“Well, what do we do now?” Mr. Wheeler asked, turning to Dan Hansel, who stared back and then returned a shrug.
“What I want, and expect, is for you to remain silent,” Stabenow said.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Ken Wheeler retorted.
My heart, which thumped in my chest when the lights flashed on, leaped into my throat. I stood stone still and cold as marble.
Stabenow let go of a low chuckle. “Who are you?”
Mr. Wheeler sighed and said, “An old man, who’s cold and tired.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I don’t like you, either.”
“Ken,” Uncle Ray said. “Ease off.”
“A very good suggestion.” Stabenow lowered his crossed arms, revealing the pistol he held. Light glinted off the black metal.
Seeing so many guns, fear just about made me piss my pants, but the overwhelming urge nearly sent me to the floor for my revolver.
“No, don’t, Stan,” Uncle Ray said and took the risk of putting a hand on my arm.
I couldn’t say a word. I wanted to grab the gun and argue later, but I wouldn’t be fast enough. I took a breath and raised my hands.
“Very good,” Stabenow said. “Now, Koenig, Stack and Colberg go, search them.”
The trio moved around the deli counter, across the store past fallen shelves and scattered pieces of glass from a shattered display case. Moving around, inspecting us, they kicked our weapons aside and pushed us into a rough line, me, then my uncle, Dan Hansel and Mr. Wheeler.
“What do you want?” I asked. My hands trembled.
“To put it simply,” our captor said, “I want information.”
Every cautionary word Sergeant Fort said rushed back, his grave warning, not to tell Stabenow anything. Still, something was going on I didn’t understand, but it had nothing to do with Stabenow taking us anywhere.
Koenig, the woman, walked directly to me, threw back her hood; black hair fell around her shoulder as she peered at me with dark piercing eyes.
I stared back.
She held my gaze for a moment then knocked the bow from my hand, and pressed her automatic against my chest.
“Information,” Uncle said. “What information? We don’t know anything?”
Stack positioned himself off to the side as Colberg, a broad shouldered man with a short haircut and square face, moved up to my uncle and pulled his pack from his shoulder. He tore the zipper open and began pawing through it and then dumped empty bags and the box of antibiotics onto the floor.
Information . . . information, the word had a power, but w
hat did we know?
Koenig pulled a knife from her pocket with her free hand and cut the straps of my backpack and quiver. Arrows clattered at my feet. She looked into my eyes again. I wasn’t sure what she expected. To frighten me? Maybe, but I was past that. The cold already bit deep into my fingers, but tension fired in every nerve.
What did we know? I realized we only knew one thing.
“We’re not going to tell you where we’re from,” I said, because I knew who—what these people were. Scavengers. Hunting the wayward down. As what was left of their world crumbled around them, they were preparing to move on. That’s all they were, scavengers. “I don’t know how many of you people there are or how you really found out about us, but we’re not going to tell you a damn thing!”
“What?” Uncle Ray asked, turning to me, but Colberg jerked him back around by the collar, drew his automatic and pressed the muzzle under my uncle’s chin.
“You are an astute young man,” Stabenow said, stepped out from behind the counter and leaned back against it. He clasped the wrist of his pistol hand, the automatic resting against his thigh.
“So, what’s going on here?” Uncle Ray asked, glancing at me.
“Shit,” I heard Mr. Wheeler curse for the first time, and he continued, “No, we’re not taking you back with us. All of you can go to hell.” He had become more than funny lines. He was more than that man at the bridge, wondering about me having a bow and arrow.
“Stack, give him a little instruction,” Stabenow said.
A man, taller than my uncle, well over six feet, stepped in front of Mr. Wheeler and slapped the barrel of a pistol across my friend’s face. He staggered, but didn’t fall. Slowly righting himself, he looked his attacker in the eye.
Stack nodded, pursed his lips and brought the weapon up again.
“Here,” Koenig said, rising from a kneeling position.
“Stack, hold it,” Stabenow said. “What did you find?”
While seeing the attack on Mr. Wheeler, I hadn’t noticed the woman rummaging through my backpack. But I knew what was in her hand, and the whole world collapsed in an instant.
Dark Land: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 20