A New World: Takedown

by O'Brien, John

  “If they’re still alive, they must be doing okay,” Greg says.

  “I do sense a medium-sized pack of night runners to the southeast so they must have some way of dealing with that,” I say. “I’m just throwing that out there.”

  “We could remain here. It’s obvious they come to the station and we could wait for them,” Robert says.

  “That’s an option as well. We have some time before we have to head back,” I say.

  “I’ll be honest with you. I’m kind of curious as to what is smoldering down in that pit and what’s up with this place,” Greg says.

  “But you don’t want to go down in it. So, what you’re effectively saying is that you want me to go down and tell you what’s there,” I reply.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Do you want me to get you a Twinkie while I’m at it?” I ask.

  “Ooooh…Twinkies,” McCafferty says and runs toward the Stryker.

  “What the hell is that about?” I ask, watching McCafferty race for the vehicle as if a pack of night runners were on her heels.

  Greg shrugs with a raised eyebrow. I look to Gonzalez to see if I can glean an answer for McCafferty’s sudden departure. She just shrugs but is wearing a shit-eating grin. McCafferty returns, walking this time, with every eye watching her. With a flourish, she withdraws a box from her vest.

  “Voila,” she says, brandishing a box of Twinkies.

  “As if this day couldn’t get any stranger. Where in the hell did you get those?” I ask.

  “Magic, sir,” she answers with a grin. “The only problem is that there are only twelve of them and fourteen of us.”

  “I’ll split one with Robert,” I say.

  “What the hell. Split your own,” he replies.

  “I’ll split one with you, Dad,” Bri says.

  “Denton and I will split the other,” Henderson states.

  So here we stand, in the middle of small town with ‘Golddigger’ graffiti on the wall of a radio station, chasing down a strange situation in the middle of an apocalypse, eating a Twinkie. You just can’t make shit like this up…but here we are nonetheless. And yet, somehow it seems perfectly normal. And, oddly enough, it eases the tension.

  We take our time eating the cream-filled cakes, savoring each bite. It’s a little bit of our past, when things were ‘normal’, coming to us. We are all smiles and, somehow, this moment we’re sharing bonds us even tighter.

  “I really don’t want to know where you got these from, do I?” I ask McCafferty, to which she shakes her head.

  “Well, thanks,” I add.

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  Finishing, we stick the wrappers in our pockets and brush the crumbs from our fingers on our pants. Hating to ruin the moment, I return our attention to the situation.

  “Well, it seems the general consensus is to push on so let’s mount up and see where the path leads. If we find some four-wheel vehicles, we’ll stop and see if we can start them up,” I say.

  “What about the post office?” Robert asks. “Don’t they normally drive Jeeps to deliver the mail?”

  Most in the group exhibit that ‘duh’ face when something obvious that we missed is presented – mine included. We backtrack to the post office and, sure enough, there are a few older Jeeps parked in a lot surrounded by a chain link fence. The Stryker makes short work of getting inside. The keys to the vehicles are on the visors and the first ones we try give the clicking sound of an almost dead battery. There’s a little juice left, but not enough to turn the motor over. And thus, we use the push-to-start method. I would use the Stryker if it wouldn’t absolutely cave in the vehicles while trying to push them and setting the Jeeps up to tow would take longer than just pushing them.

  Red Team gathers around the Jeep and pushes while Greg’s team keeps a watch and we manage to get both of them started. The fuel tanks are both about three-quarters full. I don’t imagine we’ll be going that far in them, so it should be enough. We now have a Stryker and two white Jeeps. What a sight we must be. Most of Red Team piles into the Jeeps and follows behind the Stryker as we set out once again.

  The path through town is an easy one to follow. We pass stores, churches, banks, government buildings, and several more hotels/resorts. The occasional building has the same spray-painted ‘Golddiggers’ on them. The graffiti gives the appearance of some gang marking its territory. Some of the places have broken windows while others hide what’s inside behind grime-covered glass. It really looks much the same as Sturgis with the exception that there isn’t as much dust and, well, signs of habitation.

  The road we’re on intersects another main road. Tracks lead in both directions but the majority of them lead to the right and out of town. We decide to follow the larger set. I notice another set of tracks cutting across the road and halt our little convoy. On closer inspection, the other set turns out to be foot prints and from the distance between each individual print, it appears that whoever made them was running. On the side of the road, where the prints deepen, I confirm this by the fact that the toes are dug in deeper than the heel. The prints are larger than the ones found at the station and are mostly bare ones. It’s apparent that night runners crossed here recently.

  Climbing back onboard the Stryker, we leave the town behind. The transition between the town and the surrounding countryside is abrupt. The road circumvents the mine and we soon find ourselves on the other side. Trees line the road making it impossible to see the actual mine or the town. The tracks branch off the highway and onto a dirt road.

  Taking the exit, we begin a steep descent along a winding dirt path that is surrounded by trees on both sides. Even though we proceed slowly, we still kick up a small cloud of dust which adds to that already covering the trees alongside us. Eventually, we make our way down and emerge from the trees onto a larger plain. The road begins to level off. The beginning of the mine opens up and the central pit, which we observed from town, is ahead. To the left lies a previously hidden, terraced valley.

  The mesa we observed rises from the plateau to the right. From this vantage point, the steep, nearly impossible to climb sides only encompass three sides. On the western side, a tree-covered slope rises gently from the floor.

  We edge down the road toward the rise, passing a derelict aluminum-sided building with old machinery rusting in a dirt lot. Here, the dirt road splits with one path heading upward toward the western side of the butte while the other descends toward the deep pit. Tracks show on both paths. We halt.

  “What do you think? Up or down?” Greg asks as we gather.

  “You’re really not my type,” I reply.

  “You know the saying, once you’ve gone—”

  “Please don’t finish that,” I interrupt.

  After swallowing the half of a Twinkie for a second time from the image Greg was about to paint, I look through the binoculars toward the mesa. I can’t see the top, but I don’t observe anything that would indicate that something is up there.

  “Well, we might as well visit this pit you’re so interested in. Maybe the smoldering pile will give us a clue as to what we’re dealing with,” I say, glassing over the rest of the area and finding no sign of inhabitants – human ones that is.

  Saddling up once again, we proceed around the base of the hill, driving between two large ponds before coming to another fork. We turn right, following the tracks, and begin a descent into the pit. The “road” is more of a washout at this point and it seems more like we are traveling along a runoff area – the rocky debris takes the Jeeps to their limit. The Stryker, however, takes it in stride.

  The road leads along the side of a tiered hill and follows a deep, wide, and torn up valley that leads to the mine proper. Large rock slides sweep down into the gorge from the steep walls across the valley. The wall beside us rises steeply upward as we continue our descent into to the pit. The road is marginally passable until we arrive at a point where the deep cut gorge reaches the mouth of the open pit. Here
, the path narrows and descends at a steeper angle. We halt and exit.

  From this vantage point, being partially in the pit itself, both its ugliness and its marvel is revealed to a greater extent. The slides and oozing seepage become more apparent from this closer viewpoint. The narrow road, if it can even be called that, is filled with cuts and debris. It’s really more of a path at this point. This is as far as the Stryker will go. Its weight might bring the entire road crashing down into the depths. While it may get us to the bottom quicker, it’s not the best way to get there. Getting out would be fun as well.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Greg asks.

  “No,” I answer, looking downward through the binoculars. “There’s something in the pile, but I can’t quite see what it is from here.”

  “We could just bug out and call it good,” he says.

  “Eh. We’re here and might as well try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I reply.

  “What happened to the not wanting to die?”

  “Oh, there’s still that…and I don’t plan on it today.”

  “You know that if you get stuck on that road, you won’t be able to turn around,” Greg says.

  “Yeah. I guess if that happens it will be a long walk back,” I reply, looking at the time. “We still have plenty of time before dark to make it back.”

  “You’re pretty determined to go down.”

  “Seems so. I’ll take most of Red Team leaving Henderson and Denton here with their long guns. We’ll be back shortly,” I say.

  With me driving one of the Jeeps and Gonzalez the second one, we begin our descent into the pit. It appears in some places that the road was purposely cratered and filled to prevent anyone from coming down. We bump and slide as we navigate our way over the rubble. I’ve never been fond of driving next to steep gullies and this is no exception. Each skid or bump makes it feel like we’re going to slip over the edge. After a couple of switchbacks, we arrive at the bottom, most of which is filled with a murky lake.

  Near the edge of the water is the ash pile we observed from above. It’s much larger than it looked before, standing nearly as tall as I am and close to twenty feet in diameter. Plumes of whitish-gray smoke drift lazily upward. A little distance away from the smoldering pile and circling it, skulls are set on top of sticks. The objects within the heap that I couldn’t identify from higher up are, in fact, human skeletal remains. Yeah, this gives me a comfy feeling.

  “What in the fuck?” Robert says from the passenger seat.

  “Yeah, right?!” I respond.

  We get out for a closer look. An acrid smell fills the pit bottom and the damp soil is filled with foot prints of the same size I saw at the station – some fresh and others older. I look for any larger prints but don’t find a single one. Investigating the remains, I notice that some have obvious injuries while others are seemingly whole. The most disturbing part is that some of the skulls have wounds that are clearly gunshots to the back of the head. This whole scene is not a promising one to say the least.

  “Do you think these could be night runners?” Gonzalez asks, regarding the charred remains.

  “I suppose they could be,” I answer, still trying to find some sanity with this day.

  I would feel better about this find if it weren’t for the skulls circling the ash pile and the fact that some of those here were shot in the head from behind. I can’t think of many instances where night runners would be shot from behind – at least not in these numbers. Most of the times when I’ve encountered them, they were coming right at me. It’s kind of hard to get a shot to the back of the head in that situation. All in all, this has the feel of something ritualistic. It may just be a bias based on the day’s continued strangeness but I can visualize a roaring fire with bodies being fed into the flames.

  “Dad, do you think they burned the bodies because they think it’s a virus or something?” Bri asks.

  “That could be one answer,” I reply. “I’m hoping that’s the case anyway. It doesn’t explain the shots to the back of the head, though.”

  “Maybe they thought someone was infected and killed them,” she says.

  “To be honest, I don’t really know what the fuck is going on here. I’ve seen a lot of things in my time and can usually figure things out from the signs, but, this…I don’t know. There could be a hundred plausible explanations – some good and some bad – but I really don’t have a clue as to what’s actually going on here,” I state.

  “I’m leaning toward the dark side on this one. It looks like they have some sort of ritual thing going on,” Robert says.

  “It certainly doesn’t look pretty,” I reply. “Okay. We’re not accomplishing anything else here. Let’s mount up and head back.”

  Starting up the Jeep, I radio back our findings to Greg. “That’s not good,” he responds.

  “No. No it’s not.”

  The climb back up is almost worse that the drive down but we eventually make it back to the Stryker and proceed back to the first road junction near the mesa. Taking the ascending road and hoping for better results, we edge around to the base of the gentle upward rising slope. The tree line begins abruptly at the base of the hill and I notice a single path leading through the trees. The tracks we’ve been following all veer off the road, aiming for the path.

  We idle for a while watching the tree line for movement. There’s no sudden flurry of a birds leaving the trees. While that isn’t and indicator that no one is around, seeing a flock of them take flight certainly would be.

  “Okay, I’m taking Gonzalez and McCafferty. We’ll trek to the path leading in and make a further decision based on what we see there. Same rules apply. If we’re engaged, we’re out of here. Greg, provide covering fire if you have clear line of sight. We’ll be coming back at a run so watch for us,” I say.

  “What about me?” Robert asks.

  “And me?” Bri chimes in.

  This quandary about them participating goes back and forth. Perhaps it’s just the strangeness of this situation – like anything lately has been normal – that is causing me to launch into the protective mode. We have people, short ones at that, who want to remain hidden and potentially have ritualistic burnings. No, they’re not going with me this time. Why I feel better about them going into night runner-infested lairs but not up a dirt trail is beyond my comprehension. Of course, why I’m about to go is a good question as well and may not be one of my brighter ideas. This whole thing is just creepy.

  “No. You two are staying here,” I answer.

  Gonzalez, McCafferty, and I gather our gear. We spread out over the rocky terrain and make our way cautiously to the path’s entrance. I know Greg, Henderson, and Denton are keeping the tree line under observation and will call if they see anything. This kind of reminds me of the memory I had on waking this morning. Approaching the single path leading upward, I notice several quads and dirt bikes hidden just within the trees. An effort was made to camouflage them with branches but they are visible nonetheless – a sure sign that someone is here.

  We gather beside the entrance to the trail. A multitude of footprints mar the surface, again the same size that we found at the radio station. I pause, listening. The area is dead silent. There’s not a sound of bird chirping or a squirrel irritated with our presence. I don’t know the area so this could be normal but, under usual circumstances, this would be a sign that something predatory is in the area.

  “Just so you know, sir, I’m with you on not bringing Robert and Bri. This whole situation has the feel of being in Wonderland,” Gonzalez quietly says, crouching and looking up the trail and off through the trees. McCafferty nods in agreement.

  “Yeah, no kidding. I keep expecting the Mad Hatter to come bouncing along any minute,” I reply.

  “Just as long as we don’t find the Red Queen,” Gonzalez replies.

  “I’m with you on that,” McCafferty whispers.

  I radio my findings and tell Greg that we are proceeding up the
path.

  “We’re going in. Slow and steady and keep your intervals. You know the drill. If we take fire from the front, the point empties a mag and leap frogs back. Continue until we’re disengaged and beat cheeks back to the Stryker. If we’re fired on from the side, empty one mag and disengage. Let’s not get caught up in a firefight,” I say.

  “Hooah, sir.”

  “You’ve been saving that, haven’t you?”

  Gonzalez and McCafferty grin. “I don’t possibly know what you mean, sir.”

  “Let’s move before I decide to put you on point…smartass.”

  Rising, we step onto the trail and slowly begin making our way up the hard-packed surface. The dense forest closes in on either side. I’m not a big fan of being on a trail but the underbrush in the woods to either side isn’t exactly penetrable – at least at this point. I keep to the side as much as possible, pausing every few feet to observe and listen. The silence seems even more complete with the trees closed around us. The path itself is lit by the overcast day but shadows under the trees make it hard to see anything in their depths. An occasional patch is lit as daylight manages to filter through.

  I feel my heart rate increase as we edge farther up the path. The eeriness of the day adds to the level of tension. My senses become more alert. I take in steady, calming breaths. My thumb caresses the selector switch, comforting me even further. This is a habit pattern I developed, and I have no idea why it is so calming. Back in the day, everyone had their own thing and this was mine. My brain registers that I’m on ‘auto’ which may be part of the comfort. I can unleash a torrent of fire at a moment’s notice.

  I crouch next to a tree where the trail curves. Gonzalez and McCafferty crouch to their knees behind me, watching to either side. The only sound is the occasional swish of the breeze blowing across the tops of the trees. If anyone was up on top of the hill, I would expect to hear something of their movements but there’s nothing. Of course, they may have gone to ground upon hearing or seeing us arrive. This thought doesn’t bring a warm, happy feeling.