Rainy lay on her bed and turned to Karla. “Ray says you don’t have normal feelings.”
Karla snorted. “He’s slept with half the women on the planet and wonders why I don’t go all weak and wobbly in his presence.”
Rainy laughed. “He meant about killing.”
“He’s no different. Stood right beside me today with the men. He killed a man once who broke into my house, tied him up and shot him.”
“He says you survived half a dozen firefights before even Craig.”
“So did he. I watched him kill four men on my lawn after they took his guns.”
“He’s been shot, more than once. No one’s got you like that.”
Karla shook her head. “It’s not a contest. I’ve been shot. I should have been dead. My body armor held up to hand guns and off angles.”
“Are you going to sleep with him again tonight?”
Karla considered her one night in the barn beside Ray. “I think I’ll pass on my turn. You go ahead.”
“He and Lamar are the only real men we have.”
“If you count Lamar a man. I had my eye on Henry.”
Rainy laughed. “You did not. He’s younger than me.”
“He has less baggage and less opportunity to sleep around.”
“He’s hot for Brittany.”
“They all are. I wonder what it’s like.”
“Ray kissed me. I thought he was going to, you know . . . .”
“Jessie used to sleep with him in the barn. I’ve seen Brittany snuggle to him at night, too.”
“And we both know why. You like it as much as I do.”
“Yeah. I just wish he did.”
“You’re okay to share him?”
“Half of what I got doesn’t leave you much.”
* * *
In the morning, Karla put a blindfold on prisoner Sean and walked him from his confinement in the cellar of building one.
“My turn?” he asked.
“You’re going home.”
Outside, Karla removed the blindfold but left on the handcuffs. She led him to her truck and held open the door. He climbed in front. Rainy sat in back with a handgun. Karla drove northeast. They crossed the Mississippi at Dubuque. East of Stockton, Illinois she stopped on US 20 and let Sean out.
“This is it?”
Karla undid the cuffs. “Rockford is fifty miles straight down this road. I’ll leave transportation to your ingenuity.” She handed him a bottle of water and a plastic bag of jerky. “Your friends are all dead. The Rock Island base has been destroyed. You tell them in Rockford to stay clear of us and we’ll leave you alone, there.”
“Why don’t you bring me closer? They’ll think you’re afraid.”
“I don’t care what they think. I could have let you walk from Iowa. This is pure kindness.”
Karla turned for the truck. Rainy climbed into the passenger seat.
“You’re awful cocky,” Sean said.
“Just tell them to stay away, and we’ll all live to see tomorrow.”
Chapter 104
Karla’s recruiting brought fifty-four people to the farm over several months. She built two new additions north of the original house. Each had sleeping quarters for thirty, set eight feet below ground. The buildings were connected underground to the older additions and had a heavy walled conical tower on each end—equipped with machine gun nests and mortar stands.
For the massive project, Karla took over a concrete plant and rehabilitated three cement trucks. She ranged as far as Des Moines for building materials. A new camera network went out a mile. Observation towers sprouted. The settlement was now resistant to mortar attack and a hard target for artillery. Drones could see only the tip of the iceberg.
Five scattered windmills provided electricity. Fueling the many vehicles and farm equipment was more problematic. Gasoline had lost much of its volatility and diesel became the fuel of choice, though what they pumped was frequently contaminated with water and mold. Karla filtered it and used additives. She hoped scavengers lacked an understanding of the process, limiting their ability to bring violence.
Karla and Ray were prepared if someone tried. Around the property they had four Howitzers, twenty-five mortars, eight machine guns—two heavy. They had M4s, M14s, and M16s in abundance as well as several specialty weapons. And enough ammunition to train.
Karla built her new quarters, deep beneath the high ground beside the barn. She had the time and inclination to make it the most elaborate of her creations. As was her habit, she worked all day and half the night, Rainy providing off duty assistance.
When she finished the projects, she rejoined security, and resumed scrounging, then lay in bed at night empty and alone. Karla thought often of Jessie, buried on a cold mountain, far from the one who mourned her. She began work on a new project, adding a spreadable solar array to a diesel/electric hybrid Volkswagen Golf TDI.
Chapter 105
Karla packed the Golf with food, fuel, and weapons. She locked the multiple, high security doors setting of her quarters from the remainder of the complex. She said goodbye to Brittany, Rainy, and Lamar.
Ray stood by the car. “It serves no purpose.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Soldiers have left the fallen on forlorn and faraway fields from time immemorial.”
“Touching. But Jessie was not a soldier. I let her die. I have to bring her home. I need her with me. I just do.”
“She’s a bigger weakness than this farm. Don’t let her kill you.”
Karla shrugged. “There is no rational reason for me to be alive. Maybe we were meant to lie together.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I have done what I can here. I will get her and be back.”
“I never got my rain check.”
“How many women had to die to put you in front of me?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Cheryls and Caitlins get men like you. Women like me get Rogers.”
“Besides being not near as capable, determined, or tough, how are they so different?”
“Other than the physical aspects, you covered it pretty well.”
“The only reason either of them had anything to do with me was because they’d be dead if they didn’t.”
Karla bit her lip and slid into the car. “Ten days, max. See you then.”
“Don’t forget to write.” Ray bent and kissed her.
Ray was still in the drive half an hour later when he heard the drone of a propeller aircraft. He ducked to the edge of the old addition as the plane overflew the farm then made a turn to the west.
Chapter 106
Karla cruised west on US 20, reversing the route that had taken her to Iowa two years before. Her view was of tall grass, abandoned and often looted buildings, years without maintenance showing first on faded wooden structures. Trees sprouted from sidewalks, driveways, and sometimes from cracks in the road. She passed not a single plowed field, though stocks of corn hugged more than a few fence lines and scattered dense stands of it stood tall among the grasses.
West of Fort Dodge, she slung an M16, climbed a radio tower, and scanned with binoculars fifty miles in all directions. Not a vehicle moved. Not a puff of smoke or trail of dust. Nothing to say any ground nearby had been tilled. Impossible to tell at a distance. Karla believed people were out there in the vastness. Small groups, well hidden, and remote.
Cities were uninhabitable without a ring of farms to support them. A few such relationships probably functioned in some manner. Better than the former Tri-State government, she hoped. Though it, too, still existed in reduced scale. Just not in Karla’s region.
Her fear of cities had not totally subsided, and she crossed the Missouri south of Sioux City as before. She camped at dusk in trees on a side road south of Bassett, Nebraska. She slept away from the car with a rifle handy as was her custom.
At dawn Karla a
te cornbread and deer jerky and prepared to move on. An engine wound up close by. Karla dropped behind a tree and raised a rifle. The engine revved and held steady: an aircraft engine—the secondary whine the propeller. She hugged the trees and moved west. The plane taxied down a single runway and went airborne. It climbed, straight at her, passed overhead and banked east, holding that line as it faded from sight.
From a tree, Karla stared at the buildings beside the runway. She saw no one about, though it was unlikely the pilot operated without support. Her curiosity would have sent her over were she not alone. A plane that flew meant fresh supplies of fuel, possibly access to a refinery. If one was in operation, she’d like to know where it was and who controlled it. Vehicles were abundant. Fuel, especially gas, much less so. Roving groups of predators needed a plentiful supply.
Karla drove from camp in electric mode. She joined US 183 and turned south. She deployed her solar array, watched the battery depletion lessen, and her speed increase. Fully extended, the solar array on Karla’s Golf was eleven feet wide and equally long. It could power the car to twenty-five on a bright day. On pure electric, she could cruise at fifty for several hours before depleting the batteries, and needing to slow or kick in the diesel.
She had enough clean fuel to make Colorado and back with a few gallons to spare on unexpected route changes. Her plan was to boost the range by operating for hundreds of miles on all electric. That was much slower, but fuel was saved for when it might be needed more desperately.
The drawback to the extended solar panels was the decreased visibility. Karla could not see above her except through a modified backup camera pointed skyward. That helped but she was still vulnerable from the sides. The presence of a plane at a remote airport made her feel more so. People who flew them had so far not been friendly.
Karla trimmed the panels and burned diesel, pushing her speed to ninety. She didn’t know at what distance the pilot could spot movement, but figured a fifty mile buffer would be good. He would loop north or south for his return and without auxiliary fuel tanks, would likely stay within a 150 mile circle from the airport—unless he was flying point to point utilizing a network of airstrips.
South of Ansley, Karla slowed and redeployed the solar panels. Above seventy, the lift with them extended made the car unstable. She crossed I-80 an hour later, then the Kansas line. Toward two o’clock, she saw smoke to the southeast. She angled toward it and climbed a cell tower.
The smoke grew thicker, but miles away. Sporadic gunfire sounded. Multiple weapons. Some automatic. She turned east and held up in woods south of Larned. She was venturing closer but only to see the enemy, not engage it.
From a barn roof at a former feed lot, Karla saw flames leap from a two-floor farmhouse. Humvees and trucks sat in the road nearby. The shooting had stopped. Men scoured the outbuildings.
She debated for long minutes setting up the TAC 50. The world could use less men like these. But it was already a lost cause. The house was gone. The owners dead or captured. She could not help them. She could only exact worthless revenge and get herself killed. She climbed down.
Karla considered the men coming upon her somewhere on the road. She removed the rifle from its compartment and hefted it to the roof. She knew the vehicles well and shot at engines and transmissions from a thousand meters. Rifles cracked at the farm but no bullets flew her way. She returned to the car and drove south, confident that convoy would not be on the road soon.
She sought cover for the night near the Colorado line, this time well off the main roads. In the morning, Karla crossed the border on US 160 and left that road at Trinidad to bypass the interstate. She met 160 again and zigzagged north and south of it until she passed Del Norte. A few miles west, three burned out vehicles and the disabled Humvee sat beside the road where she, Ray, and Brittany had set upon them the night they left.
The county road had washed in a few places and heaved in others. The padlock on the fire road gate had been removed by the first wave of the Pueblo men. She hadn’t replaced it on the way out. She studied the road for recent activity, saw none, and started up.
That road, too, had washed. The Golf didn’t have the ground clearance of the trucks, and she had to shovel-fill several ruts. She turned up the bike trail and was thankful the vehicle was much narrower than the trucks. Trees and bushes crowded the path again where Ray had trimmed them years before. She scraped by, anxious to make the top and finish what she came for. If her luck held, and she burned diesel, she’d be home in two more days.
She kept moving as light faded, winching the car up the path to the meadow—this time using an electric winch for the much lighter car with the much more powerful batteries. She reached the top in full dark and made camp. She dreamed of the frigid day she arrived with Jessie, of stepping into the warm cave, cornbread and deer roast overpowering her senses. Life in the meadow could have been perfect if the men had just left them alone.
Dawn was cold. Breakfast was quick. The same every morning: cornbread and deer jerky. She secured her gear and zipped her jacket, then walked along the east side of the meadow with an M16 and a shovel. She stepped out to where the garden had been, only now realizing the problem in finding the unmarked grave in the overgrown meadow. She felt the ground for their work, jabbed the shovel in the dirt where she expected to find Jessie. A volunteer tomato grew a foot away.
Karla turned to the house. The Pueblo men hadn’t knocked it down in spite. She guessed they knew that the occupants would not return. She felt a need to see Jessie’s room, and in the pristine environment, perhaps even catch her scent on clothes or bedding.
She moved past the blown outer door and pushed open the inner steel one, the lock long ago defeated by invaders. She left the door open for light and stepped across to Jessie’s door. She opened it slowly and took a breath of sour air. Then Karla felt the impact to her gut as the deafening report of a rifle echoed off hard walls.
A second bullet staggered her back. She twisted and hit the floor as a third bullet whizzed past and smacked the concrete wall. A young boy stepped through Jessie’s door holding a rifle.
He stood almost on top of Karla. “You’re not dead.”
He moved the barrel toward her face. Karla grabbed the rifle with one hand and flipped his legs from under him with the other. The rifle fired as he fell and he let it go. Karla pulled the rifle to her. The boy stood slowly. She remained on the floor.
“Why did you shoot me?” Karla asked. And knew the answer before the words reached him. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.” She winced as she spoke. Her chest, her stomach: the boy had done real damage.
“Then give me my rifle.”
“Who else is here?”
“Me.” A shadow crossed her face. A man cleared the doorway and pointed a scoped rifle at her head.
Chapter 107
Karla lay on the bed in what had been her room. Her hands and feet were bound. Her top had been removed and the body armor. The man touched the wound in her abdomen and ran a hand over her ribs. Her eyes went wide. She bit her lip and let out a moan.
“The bullet’s not deep. Your rib is busted.”
“Will you take it out?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“Give me the forceps. I’ll do it.”
He stared at her.
“In the first aid kit.”
He reached into the box he had brought from the bathroom and came up with the instrument. “This?”
“Pour on alcohol. The wound and the tool. Then reach in and hook on the bullet.”
He applied the alcohol: Karla jumped at the sting. He touched her with the forceps: She tensed, strained, and gritted her teeth. He probed the wound and did the job. Karla screamed. Joshua, the boy, held his ears and left the room. The man tossed aside the bloody bullet, slapped on a bandage, and followed his son.
* * *
The man returned later and dripped water into Karla’s mouth.
“What do you want here?” He bit into a piece of jerky.
“Can I have a blanket?”
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here first? There might not be any need.”
Karla thought if killing her was in his immediate plans, he wouldn’t have bothered with the bullet. It was the chance she took asking him to remove it.
“I came for my daughter. She’s buried in the field.”
“You planned to dig her up and go?”
“I want to take her home. I left a shovel over her grave before I came to the house.”
“Where?”
“A couple hundred feet straight out.”
“Joshua, have a look.”
“How’d you plan to take her anywhere?”
“I have a car.” Karla saw no point in hiding that. The story made no sense without transportation.
“Here?”
“On the northeast ridge.”
He took another bite of jerky. “I’ll check that out.”
Another hour. The room grew colder. Karla shivered without her top and jacket. The man returned.
“Did you find it?”
He nodded. “Quite a rig. How’d you get it there?”
“There are paths from the county road. Could I have that blanket?”
He pulled it from the shelf and covered her. She had filled the house with all manner of supplies while she lived there. Far more than she’d had room for in the truck when she fled.
“I’m Karla.”
“Karla, you travel well armed for a grave robber. An assault rifle and a pistol in your belt. Another rifle and pistol in the car. That seems like a lot of weapons.”
“It’s the way of the world now. You don’t go unarmed. Neither does Joshua.”
“You’re a woman.”
“People still shoot at me.”
“There’s no one out there. Joshua dug beneath the shovel.”
“She might be a few feet one way or the other. We couldn’t put up a marker.”
Times What They Are Page 41