by John O'Brien
“Noooooo!” I scream. My scream, enhanced by the terror and sudden grief, the emotion that was riding below the threshold erupts, and rises far above the shrieks and sounds of firing already filling the interior of the building.
I look up towards the entrance door and see the faint outline of light radiating in that direction. My vision centers on that small piece of light. The edge of my vision darkens, forming a tunnel with the faint light centered within. I feel myself being pulled and stretched towards the light. I swoop towards the entrance as if being pulled through a tunnel; the light growing brighter as I draw closer.
I’m suddenly standing outside feeling a slightly dizzy. Fear, panic, and grief consume me. I’m shaking my head as if to clear the dizziness. I look around and see the members from Alpha and Red Teams standing around me as if waiting for instructions. Most importantly, there is Robert standing beside me. I notice the clarity in the definition of the things around and the aspect of it seeming to be overly bright is gone. I feel confused but then realize everything that just happened was in my mind. It feels like waking from a nightmare and finding everything is as it should be.
“Are you okay, sir?” Watkins asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say shaking my head once again. “We’re going to find some other place to shop.”
I don’t know if this was a clairvoyant vision or a product of my own imagination but there’s no way in hell I’m going inside this store, especially with Robert. The grief still sits inside me but is overshadowed by an overwhelming relief that he’s still okay. It could be that our senses are no longer flooded with a barrage of messages or external sensations and our minds now allow for more subliminal aspects to filter in. We don’t have to filter out so much “noise” and that perhaps allows our minds to “see” better. Whatever it is, what I saw and felt was real to me and we are not going inside.
“Whatever you say, sir,” Watkins replies. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll call Frank and see what stop-and-robs haven’t been searched. We’ll hit a few of them,” I answer.
I would mark this place as off-limits but the vision, if you can call it that, may be limited to this space and time and only with the associated people involved. We turn and head back to the Humvees, radioing Frank and gathering additional places to go. No one says anything nor do I see weird looks. Anyone who has known combat or trained understands and appreciates those second-sight senses; respects them. We always listened to those perceptions and they merely became another sense while we were out on a mission.
We spend the day hopping from small market to small market and fill the transport vehicle in the process. The stores we venture into are free from any night runner signs and, staying cautious and alert, we don’t encounter any within. The clouds thicken as the day goes on until the sun is merely a brighter spot in the sky. It looks like the front has won out after all. It’s not cloudy or dim enough to worry much about the night runners yet but, regardless, we make a call out for the teams to be on their toes. I’m not too happy about the soldiers driving the trucks to be by themselves but our limited manpower gives us no other option.
Smoke billows in the distance throughout the day as the burn teams tackle another area. At times when stepping out of the Humvee close to the large, rising column of dark smoke, I hear the sound of someone calling over a loudspeaker. The individual words can’t be heard but the sound is unmistakable. It’s the teams calling out ahead of the burns to see if there are any survivors in the area. Only once do I hear the actual announcement.
“This area is scheduled for a burn. If there’s anyone alive, we can provide shelter and food. If you need assistance, let us know in some way. Again, this area is scheduled for a burn….” The voice then drifts off as whoever it is turns, gets farther away, or something comes between us blocking the rest.
We return to our sanctuary with the light beginning to fade from the day. The smoke from the fires is lending a yellowish-brown cast to the clouds and light. Two of the trucks, loaded with concrete partitions, pull in ahead of us and park by one of the cranes to offload. The teams with the wall have made tremendous progress and the wall now stretches several hundred feet from where they started this morning. If we can continue to make this kind of effort, we’ll be finished long before the summer and good weather leaves. More importantly, we’ll be finished when we still have longer days in which to get the rest of our place in order to prepare for the winter months.
The priority is still with the wall, but I see our next will be keeping enough fuel on hand for the generator and to prepare for the eventuality for when we won’t be able to use it. I still feel we’re under the gun somewhat but looking at the partially built wall, stretching across the now torn up and dusty field, gives me a sense of satisfaction. The feeling and experience I had earlier in the day still sits inside and I’m thankful for it. I’m reminded that there’s a fine line between the satisfied feeling I have now and the total, mind-shattering grief it could have been.
The next day is mostly a repeat of the last with the exception that the mission is centered on short-term fuel gathering and storage. Bannerman mentions the vast amount of diesel we are running through. The semi’s and cranes suck down a tremendous amount. We rig a fuse panel insert onto the towed generator that we can hook into a main building bus panel and travel around to a few gas stations; some we visited yesterday. There are many fire stations in the area and we pick up a couple of tenders (trucks designed to carry a large amount of water), empty them, and pump the diesel into them. We denote “diesel” on the side so, if we decide to opt for this solution for other fuels, we won’t mix them up. I decide on using the fire trucks as opposed to tanker trucks as they have the ability to both pump and siphon.
The wall stretches further by about the same amount as the day before when we arrive after the end of the day. Robert, Bri, and the other civilians we picked up start their training the next day. Bannerman found Lynn her bulldozer somewhere and a long row of dirt lines one end of the field forming a berm wall. She has her shooting range. The neighborhood burn teams have located and brought in four additional survivors. They were holed up in a barricaded house at the end of a cul-de-sac. They mentioned they were running low on both food and water and were hesitant to venture forth to find any with their low numbers. This gives hope that there are others and we’ll continue to look for them as best we can.
We open the doors the following morning to a cloudy and drizzly day. There is a hesitance on keeping the doors open as I don’t know how the cloud cover will affect the night runners. There aren’t any in sight but we delay the start to our day, sending patrols out to verify that the streets and areas are indeed still ours. They come back and report that there are no runners in sight so our day proceeds. Robert, Bri, and the others begin their training under Lynn with some help as needed by the standby team, which happens to be Red Team today.
We discussed, during last night’s meeting, that we should start thinking towards our long-term energy needs so the supply teams are off to find solar panels today. If they can locate them early enough in the day and have time, then they’ll also start cutting back the trees from the wall and its intended route. They’ll use the numerous blocks of C-4 we pulled from the armories to blast out the stumps. The teams gathering the concrete partitions actually found another pile driver at a construction site and are driving it back. That should make the wall progress even further as that is the most time consuming part of building it. I talk to Bannerman about putting video cameras up around the perimeter so we can see what’s going on outside prior to opening the doors, even at night if we need to. I mention we could use the security cameras from the bases as they have infrared capabilities. He said he’ll put that on his list of items for the teams to gather.
Bri asks about freeing the zoo animals at one point during our evening on the roof together. I think about that for a moment and bring it up at the nightly meeting which we now hold after dinner.
My thought is that the animals would be dead after this long but the discussion goes that we should look into it, perhaps sending a supply team up the next day to look and see what they can do.
At one point during the nightly discussion, Frank talked about setting up the motion cameras, which are quite prevalent in the store, around to track night runner activity. They flash and take a picture if something moves in front of its sensor. They’re meant to indicate trail movement of animals for hunters but it will serve our purpose. He wants to see what their activity is at night and track it. The exposure records time and date. Frank said he may be able to put together a picture of their nightly movements and see if there is any pattern. Lynn brings up that, if we can discern a pattern or busier places, we can set up traps and the like; tripwires with claymores being the most likely. We agree to have supply teams set up the cameras when they are out at places designated by Frank. They will check them and replace the digital storage every couple of days and move the cameras at the discretion of Frank.
One additional detail mentioned is our water supply. With the generators, it’s a no brainer to power the pump and provide for our needs. However, when the fuel is no longer viable to run the generator, then we’ll have to figure out how to draw the water. Although we have hopefully a year of fuel before it breaks down, that is short time when compared with the magnitude of the problem. I mean, we can haul water up from a river or creek with a horse or horses pulling a wagon with a water tank on it, but it will be easier if we can engineer a solution with the well already in place. Windmills, such as the wind generators that are in abundance in the Columbia Gorge, seem to fit the bill. Engineering them to work with the pump and transport them up will be the challenge but it is a long-term, viable solution.
The days pass as we settle into a rhythm of sorts. The wall extends a great deal daily until it is almost beyond our line of sight. I notice the night runner’s nightly attacks drop off to a degree but they are persistent little buggers. I wonder if it is different packs each night or if they are the same ones hitting us periodically through the night. Another reason might be that they are either dying off or moving out of the area. Frank continues to look at the pictures brought in and recognizes several packs by their clothing. It seems they might have an area they cover but that doesn’t hold true all of the time as some pictures, from multiple cameras spread throughout, show the same packs roaming large areas. His guess is their food supply has dwindled. Some pictures show a new pack arriving or a pack showing up only once. Traps are set in places that Frank indicates as high movement areas. The teams are briefed extensively of the trap locations. We also set traps outside some of the larger building entrances, where there are indications of night runners inside, in order to clear the building out some prior to entering for supplies. Some have to be replaced when the teams are out and note that the traps have been triggered. Night runner bodies lie in the streets where they have been activated. Our doors hold up and we check on the structural integrity daily.
Solar panels are built on the roof, wired into a room we set aside as for batteries, and wired into the main electrical panel. This gives us a respite from the generators that run almost continually during the days and requires us to fill them with fuel on a regular basis. The generators are reset back into their original capacity, to supply power in the event the batteries get low. The backup system is now measured by battery charge rather than a supply through the old commercial lines. Robert, Bri, and I continue to meet on the roof in the late afternoons just before our nightly training sessions.
The training sessions themselves span a variety of subjects. I teach a two day course on indoor search and rescue techniques. Others teach what they know about horses, growing vegetables, fixing engines, building cabinets, anything and everything with more each night. The daily burns continue and we find other people who trickle into our group and find their place; after first being introduced to Lynn and her training. The first training class with Robert, Bri and the original group still progresses with Lynn becoming a little worried about Bri’s intensity in the training.
“She’s become, well, quite enthusiastic,” Lynn reports during one of our meetings.
“Well, that’s a good thing isn’t it?” I ask but I know Lynn wouldn’t mention it if she wasn’t a little worried.
“Enthusiasm is great and she has a lot but there’s an intensity and zeal to it. She’s becoming a little harder inside,” she says.
“Well, I think we all need all little of that but we’ll keep an eye on her,” I reply.
I have noticed the changes in Bri myself. She is still ready with a smile but there is an intensity and hardness in her eyes. I’ve noticed a slight change in Robert as well. The simple fact is I’ve grown a little harder as well. This new world has changed us all but losing Nic has put a small, tougher place in the three of us. I wish it wasn’t true as Nic wouldn’t have wanted it to be that way but it is there nonetheless.
I take some time during our days to visit Nic’s place of rest and have a quiet moment with her. Talking with her and letting her know what we’ve been doing. I get the same flash of movement behind me as before when I drive out of the area and have that uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Stopping and backtracking, I still don’t find anything out of the ordinary or what caused the movement in my rear view. A search of the entire area doesn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. It’s almost too bad the roads are blacktop as I can’t look for tracks.
I also spend a bit of time during the evenings with Robert and Bri going over the helicopter manuals; studying the systems. Time is spent during the days when Red Team is on standby learning to fly the helicopter and operate the systems onboard; the top-mounted camera and equipment. I become efficient at maneuvering and using the systems but not to the advanced degree I’d like. I feel comfortable down low now and nap of the earth flying.
We send the supply teams up one day when we’re are pretty well-stocked to see if there is something that can be done for the animals at a zoo not far away. Since Bri mentioned this, it has been weighing on my mind. I feel bad for not thinking about it myself but the stresses of our situation drove anything else from my mind. I brief the teams not to take any risks entering darkened buildings but to do the best they can. If there’s anything left alive that is. It’s been a long while for the poor, trapped animals without someone to feed them so my hopes aren’t great that many, if any, have made it. I also suggest they free the prey animals first if any are left to give them a chance. Freeing the predators first, or in combination, will not be very helpful for the prey animals. I mean, it isn’t really helping a gazelle if you free it only for it to be brought down seconds later by a lion or pack of wolves freed earlier. I feel this mission is an important one as we are caretakers of the world and have a responsibility towards all life. Yes, I would feel this way for the night runners if they weren’t constantly trying to eat us.
The teams return from the zoo mission to report that many of the animals were already dead in their cages or enclosures. In many instances, there was evidence of night runners gaining entry and killing them for food. There were a few left alive and the teams did the best they could for them. The birds were the largest in number left alive and they merely cut the netting over the enclosures. There was nothing they could do for any of the aquatic animals but most of them were already dead. The thought of these animals trapped and starving to death or confronted with night runners weighs heavily on me. The absolute unfairness of it. The one thing of note is there were several night runners lying in one of the bear enclosures and the team engineered a solution for it to escape and then they beat cheeks out of there.
The days turn into weeks and we are blessed with good weather and long days for the most part. Several days pass with rain showers which slows the progress of the wall to an extent. We take breaks on days of heavy rain, of which there are only thankfully very few, as we don’t want any sicknesses to break out. Being sick in this
new world takes on a different connotation as opposed to merely calling into work and laying back taking meds. We have some meds from our excursions but try to limit exposing ourselves to risk. The longest day of the year is behind us but our days are marked by the progress of the wall which grows larger with each passing day. We make the mile adjacent to the Interstate and turn the wall to the west.
We bring in and erect fuel storage tanks in a section of the fields close to the edge of the far parking lot to allow vehicles to refuel. The tanks are located as far from the main building as possible in case of an accident. We make sure to ground them in the event that lightning, rare in this area, decides it would like to pay the tanks a visit.
The long, blessed summer continues. We find other survivors trickling in from both our forages for supplies and our drive through the areas for the burns. Our numbers swell to almost a hundred by the time the wall nears completion. The burns have taken out large tracts of land and have left an overhang of smoke in the area. We eventually clear out most of the city neighborhoods in our proximity. We are fortunate with the layout of the cities in that we don’t have our fires run away from us into the areas where we want to scavenge supplies. The teams allocated for burns are put on a search of outlying areas for survivors bringing in several more; some days finding a few and some none at all. The upper story of our sanctuary begins to get a touch crowded but it’s good to see there are others who have survived. Additional trips to the armories are conducted and supplies, arms and additional vehicles are brought in.