by Rob Buckman
“This is just a house call, Decker. I came to check on your wound.” Doc Mason whispered in his ear. “We don’t want it getting infected.” Decker's head spun, as she was the last person he would have thought would do something like this.
“I… I…” He coughed to clear his suddenly dry throat.
“Shut up, Decker. I have to take care of all my patient's needs, and in your case, I’d call this a medical emergency.”
Decker shut up and gave in to the inevitable. Neither of them disappointed the other, and for an hour, they made love in silence until spent and satisfied, he lay back with a contented sigh. Without a word, she slipped out of bed, picked up the towel and softly closed the door behind her as she left. Decker smiled, understanding why the doctor did it. Pass the childbearing age, she could safely take care of his needs without the fear of pregnancy. With that much pheromones floating in the air from so many women, he couldn’t help relieve the sexual tension by other means, but he suspected this was a onetime thing, and it was enough. For the first time in many weeks, he slept like the dead until Grace Lowery came in with a big mug of coffee.
“Rise and shine, boss man. Time to get your ass in gear, sir!” She added with a smile.
“What makes you so chipper this morning, Grace?”
“I don’t know. The birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, and everything is right with the world.”
“Like hell it is.”
“Well, from my point of view it is. The girls are shaking down into fine soldiers. They’ve been blooded and held up better than I could have ever imagined.”
“Yeah, there is that. Anything else to report?”
“Yes, sir. The girls knocked together a couple of hand carts and two teams took off on a scavenger hunt for bicycle wheels and the other items on your list.”
“Sounds great.” He murmured, sipping coffee. “Any discipline problems I should know about?”
“None that the team leaders haven’t taken care of. Oh yes, we did lose two of the new girls. They took off during the night. They didn’t take much, just a couple of AKs, food and ammo.”
“Good luck to them. I hope they survive.”
“Can’t blame them really after what was done to them. Maybe they thought we’d be just as bad.” Just then, there was a knock at the door and one of the new girls came in with his clean clothes.
“Thanks. I was wondering where they’d gone.”
“I took them earlier, sir.”
“Thanks again. What's your name?”
“I’m… its Janet, Janet Mosby, sir.”
“You want to go with us when we leave?”
“Yes, please, sir.” She smiled shyly.
“Good, the Sergeant Major will assign you to someone for training.”
“Training?”
“Yeah. Everyone in the pack fights, understand?”
“Yes, sir.” She replied, not sounding too sure.
“That means you have to train on our weapons and learn a lot of shi… stuff they didn’t teach you in school.”
“So… this is a pack… like in a Wolf pack?”
“You’ve got it girl. We’re the meanest Wolf Pack around and anyone that fucks with us is going to get hurt.” The girl shivered, and a tear ran down her sweet face.
“No one is going to make me a slave again?”
“No, not ever, girl. You’re going to be a wolf, just like the rest of us. Let’s go and get you sorted out and find you decent clothes to wear.” For the Sergeant Major that meant military clothing. Grace took off with the girl and Decker got dressed, smiling as he remembered last night. The Doctor was at the breakfast table but other than a ‘good morning’, she gave no sign that anything had happened between them. Decker smiled and ate his bacon and egg sandwich, feeling that everything was right with the world this morning. What the rest of the day would bring was unknown.
Using the two-by-fours available in the workshop, Decker laid out several possible designs for the carts before settling on one he liked. The cart had to be sturdy enough to travel over rough country and carry about a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds of gear. That was a decent amount for one or two people to pull all day. With the addition of eyebolts at each corner, people could hook ropes on and help pull the cart over difficult terrain. He made the bed long enough so they could lay and transport injured team members, adding low side rails to help keep the equipment in place. A search of the workshop brought to light several boxes of long bolts, so they could bolt the cart together instead of screws or nails. That made for a stronger cart, which they’d need once they got into the mountains or crossing rough ground.
In all it took them three days to get everything ready and for the first test. By now, they knew the regular patrol schedule of the alien destroyers, and a half hour before, Decker and ten volunteers herded a group of sheep out onto the highway. Of course, the stupid sheep wanted to go wandering off, but between them and the two dogs, they managed to keep them herded together in the center, and moved slowly down the road as the destroyer flew over. With the sheepskin covered carts in tow, and the Ghillie suits painted white, they kept moving, Decker anticipating the worst. The destroyer did slow as it got closer, but quickly sped up once the UFMs had a good look at them. Decker let out a silence sigh of relief, and headed back to the farmhouse. He’d been right and there shouldn’t be any reason the UFMs would look twice at any size herd, group, or team moving up the road as long as they looked like sheep and not two legged humans. It became something of an inside joke as the Wolf Pack was now pretending to be sheep looking for other wolves to kill if necessary.
“Whew! That was a little scary, just watching you. I nearly had a heart attack when that thing slowed.” June said, shaking her head.
“At least we proved the UFMs can’t tell the difference between animals and humans. We’ll just have to take care and squat down when they fly over.”
Even with all the things the scavenger teams brought back, they still had to go out and find a few more axle rods and bolts. Decker took one more day to make sure the team leaders instructed their people what to do when the destroyer came over. His mental checklist included making sure all the extra weapons were stripped cleaned reloaded, test fired, so that nearly everyone had a weapon, and knew how to use them. The even had a couple of 7.62 mm Russian, Dragunov Sniper rifles still in good condition. These were first introduced around 1950, but in the hands of a good marksman, they were still deadly. The Scout Team got these, as it gave them extra long-range optics to work with. The farm was stripped of usable food, ammo, and tools in case the carts needed repairs. One cart he took special interest in, to make sure everything was working properly, was the one carrying Wendy Henderson as she wouldn’t be able to walk properly for any distance for a while, due to her leg wound. Even so, it was going to be a rough ride for her as the cart didn’t have any springs, but several layers of foam from one of the farmhouse mattresses gave her a soft cushion to lay on.
On the fourth day, an hour before dawn they were on the move, with the scouts out in front by half an hour, and the point ten minutes behind them. He waited ten minutes after they left before signaling for the Pack to move out, and much to his pleasure, they moved into their assigned positions quickly, with little fuss, and were soon moving down the road between the burned out cars and trucks at a good clip. The town of Canebrake, if it could be called that, was as silent as the grave, and the pre-dawn darkness hid any desiccated and half-eaten bodies lying about. Not that the team gave much thought about it now, after seeing so many. Now they were just part of the new landscape of destruction and desolation around them.
Apart from a few flat tires and a couple of breakdowns, they made good time the first day, covering 15 miles up Walker Pass before Decker called a halt. They bivouacked in the scrubby brush and trees beside the road, and rested for the night, high fiving each other about how well their new cammo worked when the alien destroyer flew over. Not once did they slow, or show an
y interest in the pack, even though they’d been caught flatfooted when one of them came over the hill instead of up the road like the others. Even so, it hadn’t slowed or shown any undue interest in the pack, for which Decker was thankful. Out in the open they were sitting ducks with no defense. Tomorrow was going to be tough, as it was a stiff climb to the top of the pass, and he didn’t expect to make as much distance. But then again this was a Marathon, not a sprint, so slow and easy was the order of the day. The more toughening up they got the better it would be once they started up I-14 and headed north. Decker did his rounds, checking in with Grace Lowery and June first, and then each of the team leaders. There only concern was for the smaller children, but the only solution was for them to ride the carts when they got tired. This would put a strain on the two pullers, and meant they have to change more often, but no one seemed to have a problem with that. Decker smiled, wondering how much mother instinct kicked in. All the older ladies had lost children so it was no wonder they went out of their way to take care of the youngest.
Jackie started to be a bit of a problem, until Grace took her aside and had a few words, the fact she came back rubbing her butt told Decker all he needed to know. The days of political correctness and modern parenting went out the window the day the aliens dropped the hammer on planet earth. The human race had been kicked back a hundred years, and none of the women here were about to take any guff from a no nothing kid, even if she was 18 years old and thought she was a hot shot. Jackie got the point, shape up or get out and don’t come back. It was a cold, hard world out there now and no one to run to and scream child abuse. Decker said nothing, letting the Sergeant Major and the team leaders sort out problems their own way. In many ways, he was only nominally the leader, as they all knew he could take off at any moment and leave them to their own devices. As he said, he was going to teach them how to save themselves and not do it for them, and they’d taken that to heart.
The slog over Walker Pass for people on foot carrying fifty to sixty pounds of gear on their backs, especially in this heat was brutal, but it was water that Decker worried about the most, as a group this size drank a lot of it. His map-pad wasn’t any help, for as far as he could see there was nothing on the other side of the pass until they reached I-14, and then only a couple of houses between the junction and Indian Wells. The distance between Walker Pass and the junction with I-14 was 19 miles, but as it was all downhill, he thought they could make it in a day if they started early. He thought it better to wait out the heat, and start down at dusk and try to make it before dawn or just after while it was still cool. What he’d do then was a guess at best, as there were no trees or bushes to hide behind or make camp until they reached I-14, and any shade they’d have to make for themselves. His only choice was to send out the scouts and the point team to bring back as much water as they could, using one or two of the carts. Without rucksacks and just weapons and ammo, they should be able to make it there and back to Indian Wells in a day, barring any trouble. Decker checked his map-pad and zoomed in on a building a couple of hundred yards off I-178 along Los Angeles Aqueduct Road. The aqueduct itself was as dry as a bone so there was no help there, but the building might have water available. It was worth a try, and be able to sit in the shade while they waited out the heat. What he didn’t expect as he crested the rise at the top was the alien city, or whatever it was the UFMs were building out in the desert, and the growing dust cloud the giant processing machines were kicking up.
“Code red - down!” Someone yelled over the all-hands frequency, and like the rest, Decker switched on his active cammo and dropped to the ground next to a cluster of rocks.
The destroyer slowed as it flew over the scattered team, but didn’t stop or start firing at anything, so he had to assume their camouflage was holding up. The machine flew off towards the distant structure and vanished into the growing dust storm, but even so, everyone waited, probably more from exhaustion than necessity. Judging by his own exhaustion the rest of the pack was in a bad way, so he let them pick their own pace. By the time the lead staggered the last few hundred yards to the junction, most were taking three steps and resting before taking three more. The woolies were staggering as well, bleating pitifully as Decker waved the team off the road towards the building up Los Angeles Aqueduct Road, dragging the reluctant beasts behind them. While he waited for the stragglers, he sat on the guardrail post and tried to suck just a few more drops of water out of the camel bladder, with little success. The scouts and point team had simply dumped their rucksacks and the contents of the carts beside the road before taking off to Indian Wells. To add to their misery, a furnace hot wind blew more fine dust into the air, making their eyes gritty and sore. The talcum powder fine dust worked its way down their collars and into the clothing, turning necks red from the sandpaper effect of rough cloth against tender skin.
The one silver lining in all this was that by midday, a huge dust cloud hid them from aerial observation as another destroyer flew over without stopping, even though many of the team were standing, too tired to react or even see the machine before it arrived. Decker waited for an hour after the last group walked by, just in case there were more stragglers before he moved to the now unseen buildings. The sound of the bleating animals led him the last few yards through the yellow brown dust cloud, and he gratefully dumped his Bergen and sank down against a wall out of the wind for a few moments rest. With the dust storm obscuring everything, it took him a few minutes to realize the building he expected were nothing more than bombed out ruins. For whatever reason the aliens had blown this place sky high. The only thing remaining were a few walls and the grove of tree surrounding it. Even so, the team had managed to scavenge several plastic bottles of water, offering him one. Decker shook his head.
“Give it to the kids.” He told an unrecognizable dusty gray lady with her scarf wrapped over her mouth and nose. She nodded and gave him a thumbs up before vanishing back into the dust. As the day faded into night, so did the dust storm and the team started sorting themselves out. The first priority was cleaning weapons, now automatic for those that had them.
“How they doing Sergeant Major?” Decker asked, rousing himself and getting to his feet.
“Sorry to report, sir. We lost five people. I did send out a search party but they are nowhere to be found.”
“Damn it!”
“I figure they got lost in the dust storm, but if they are close, they should be able to join back up with the Pack tomorrow.”
“Let’s hope so. Search, but don’t waste a lot of time searching for them, not this close to that alien base, or whatever it is.” It saddened him to lose anyone, but he’d been half expecting a few to drop by the wayside by this time. What he was asking them to do must seem impossible, and it wouldn’t surprise him to have others leave, or just vanish one dark night.
“I understand, sir.”
As they chatted, they moved through the Pack, nodding to one or two as they walked by. Decker knew from experience that a good commander should be seen by his people as much as possible. It instilled a sense of confidence, real or imaginary that he cared. In this case, Decker did care deeply about his people, not that he’d ever admit it to them openly. They had to do this themselves if they wanted to survive, inoculating them against the day he might not be here. He knew he wasn’t immortal or invincible and could die as so many others had already. If that happened, they’d be able to carry on without him and get to Soda Springs. What they’d do when they got there he had no idea, but he did make it clear they were to go to ‘Norden’ with the package and hoped someone there knew what to do with it. Three hours later, the water team arrived back with enough water to keep them and the woolies going until they reached Indian Wells. Decker kept them on the Los Angeles Aqueduct Road rather then I-14, as the alien base and the air traffic was just a little too close for comfort, but they made it to Indian Wells without incident, and settled in among the buildings, out of sight. Decker and Grace spread a soft warn
ing about cooking fires, to keep them well hidden and move around as little as possible. Several people smiled as if to say that he shouldn’t try to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. Settling down in his own chosen corner, Decker was about to open an MRE when Kim Drummond showed up with two plates of lamb stew, which he gratefully accepted. Instead of walking away as she usually did, she slipped to the ground across from him and started eating.
“How you holding up?” He asked.
“Better than I thought I would.” Decker smiled.
“Comes from all that soft living you lawyers do.”
“Soft! I worked out at the gym four times a week, but God! Nothing like this. I think I’ve lost at least twenty pounds.”
“From what I can see it looks good on you.” She smiled at him.
“You know, before everything went to s… hell I would have said that was a sexist remark full of improper innuendos and probably threaten to sue your ass for sexual harassment.”
“I wouldn’t have given a shit if you had… and now?”
“Seeing as I can’t… thank you. A woman likes to know that her efforts are appreciated.” She chuckled.
“All that political correctness BS nonsense went out the window the day the aliens arrived. I say it like it is. If it offends you, find another pack you like better and go for it.”