by J. L. Bourne
This is the power under which my friend Rich was made to disappear. Little did the bastards realize that I knew where he was being held.
Jim recounted the transmission he intercepted on the night of 14 November. A distress call was sent from the train. Someone had blown a section of the track, forcing the train to stop. The same crew cut the power to the rear half of the train and boarded Rich’s car in the darkness of night. They captured him, but not without a fight. The radio reported that Rich had gut shot one of the hit squad thugs that came for him.
Jim said that he’d heard dogs and engines in the valley below the cave entrance and that he’d been holed up inside with only brief visits to the surface. He looked like shit and needed a shower. Hell, so did I.
After getting the full intel dump from Jim, I took advantage of the cave’s warmth and relative security and made preparations to take a long sleep. I tried not to think of all the bad things I was going to enjoy doing as I began to mentally plan Rich’s rescue.
—————
07 Dec
Day of Infamy
I awoke this morning to the smell of bacon. The small fire seemed to vent up into a crack in the top of the cavern, as the place wasn’t filling with smoke. Jim passed me an old rag and placed the blistering hot can of bacon in my hand.
“Rest is yours, cousin,” he said, chewing.
I sat there enjoying breakfast when he handed me a steaming canteen cup of instant coffee.
“No freaking way, man!” I said.
“I didn’t drink that much of it after you left. Ain’t no fun when you’re alone,” said Jim.
“I know. It was lonely in Newton County, too.”
I proceeded to tell him the story of what happened to me up in the mountains, of me fighting that big cat and playing a game of spy versus spy against Maggie and her dumb partner. I ended the story with me hijacking the helicopter that brought me most of the way back to Black Oak by way of Elkins High School, a chicken house, and a barn loft.
“Damn, cuz. How big was the cat?”
I, of course, exaggerated a little.
After breakfast, we left Jim’s kit behind, except for my MP5 and his M4, and we crawled back through the crawlspace. I let him go first. About halfway through, I growled and yanked on his feet, and he screamed and crawled with a vengeance I hadn’t seen in decades. That felt good.
Back in the lobby of the old cave, I received a pretty good sock on the arm in retaliation for my old cave prank, and we then headed up the walkway through the cave lobby. The temperature dropped like a rock as we approached the opening. We crawled out of the earth’s womb covered with clay and grime and into a cold Arkansas morning.
“Think we can make it back to the shelter?” I asked.
“Why in the hell would we risk that?” Jim said.
“The solar shower is still hanging in the tree and we could both use one,” I said.
Jim thought about it for a few moments, tugging on his beard.
“All right, but we get the hell back here if we hear or see anything, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, lying my ass off.
—————
The sharp pain of bright morning light caused my eyes to water. As they adjusted, I checked that my own kit was where I left it before taking a few things out for our trip back down the mountain to the buried shelter. There was a pretty good overcast developing, so that meant no killer drones dropping hate and discontent on us from above. I let Jim take point, as he was more familiar with troop movements in the area than me. Jim hunted a helluva lot more than I did during our childhood and his ability to move quietly through the woods was uncanny.
It was strange seeing him stalk with the M4; I was used to him wielding a gun with a decorated wooden stock, not a collapsible made of polymer. The sawed-off 12 gauge slung across his back was more Jim’s speed, but I’d hate to meet him in the dark woods carrying either blaster. After a few minutes, we were down the cliffs and at the bank of one of the many small creeks between the cave and the shelter. Jim held his hand up, stopping me in my tracks. I instinctively got low when he did.
After examining the ground for a few seconds, he leaned back and whispered, “Dogs.”
“How old?” I whispered back.
“Hours, maybe.”
I slung my sub gun’s stock out with a click and made sure I had one in the hole before stepping through the stream in the direction of the shelter. Jim moved like a specter through the trees. His feet deftly avoided the dry leaves and twigs in front of him while mine seemed to find all the sticks and branches that sounded like bubble wrap. The ground was cold and wet and the trip seemed to take forever.
By the time we arrived on-site, I had mud up to my knees. The solar shower was full of water, so I let Jim go first. He definitely needed it more than I did. I stood watch atop the banks of the crater pond and listened for anything that didn’t sound like someone enjoying their first shower in over a month.
Jim signaled with a low whistle that he was done and I came down the bank. Jim was dressed by the time I got down the hill. I pulled the half-dissolved bar of soap from my pack and stripped down. Jim left me a couple gallons of cold but not freezing water and I was happy to have it. I was starting to grow things in places that hadn’t seen soap and water in a while. Shivering, I quickly washed, not wanting to get into a naked gunfight or have anything bitten off by one of those German attack dogs.
After putting on my dirty clothes (hey, at least I was clean before I put them back on), I slung the MP5K back over my shoulder and looked around for Jim. He was nowhere to be found, so I started up the trail for a ways.
I smelled smoke. Bringing the sub gun up to my cheek, I moved forward, one foot in front of the other, controlling muzzle bounce as I moved. I broke out into a small clearing where Jim sat around a circle of rocks poking a small fire.
“Time for lunch,” he said.
“That a good idea?”
“Well, we’re a quarter mile from the shelter and three miles from the cave and the wind is blowing good enough to spread the smoke. Also, I have this,” Jim said as he removed the cans from his pack.
Soup.
He pulled three cans out, opened them, and dumped them into the aluminum pan that normally housed his cooking utensils, salt container, and a small camp stove with fuel. He then broke out something really special—a can of Vienna sausages. He dumped them whole into the pan with the soup, mixing a lovely potion of near-pure-sodium-infused processed meat and broth. As our lunch cooked, my stomach grumbled. While we waited, Jim pulled the Buck 110 from his pocket and began to shave away at the unruly beard on his face.
Shaving with a pocket knife in the middle of the woods still earned a “hardcore” from me.
Jim nodded in acknowledgment as I began to recognize the face hidden underneath. After he was done, he pulled off his belt, wrapped it around his legs, and began to strop his Buck back to a razor’s edge.
“Your turn?” he asked.
“Naw, I think I’ll wait for the barber shop to open.”
The soup was beginning to boil over the small fire Jim had quickly started.
Rich had that skill, too. I hoped he was okay, and I felt a sharp sucker punch of guilt hit my gut. I’d been in situations like his before; every minute in captivity is worse than a hundred years out here.
I had to do something. I had actionable intel, but the longer I waited, the higher the chance that they’d move him—perhaps somewhere out of my reach.
“They’ve got Rich in Bentonville. I’ve gotta go get him,” I said to Jim out of the blue while he sipped on the lunch.
Jim didn’t say anything for a long while. We both finished our meal and Jim then stood up, heading back to the shelter. I pissed on the small fire, grabbed Jim’s pan, and scrubbed it in the paramecium-rich pond on the way back.
“It’s too dangerous to travel that far, but I don’t think you’ll listen to any type of logic,” Jim said.
/>
“Drones?”
“No, they won’t fly the big drones here. The NAI saw to that.”
“Who?”
“NAI, Northwest Arkansas Irregulars.”
I raised an eyebrow and offered a look of skepticism before Jim cut off what I was about to say. “Don’t judge. You know a few of those guys. Ghosts.”
“I saw one of them, cooked inside his MRAP back near Sulphur City. Buried him,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack.
“Which one?” Jim asked, in shock.
“Blinky.”
We both began to gather our things and take the long arcing approach back to the cave.
“How’d the NAI put a stop to the drones?” I asked as we walked.
“They came across a shit-ton of shoulder fired missiles. Took down one of the drones a while back. Those government bastards learned from their mistakes and began guarding the airfields pretty good after you said you shot that one on the ramp, so the timeline matches. They were getting pretty bold, dropping bombs on NAI pretty regularly until the missiles arrived. Now they’ll only fly small drones with no heat signature. They know that whatever they put in the sky short of a stealth bomber is fair game to the NAI.”
“How do I find them?”
Jim looked at me and shook his head, “You don’t. They’re using the cell structure. Only groups of three with no regular communications aside from passive radio signals and dead drops.”
“Damn, Jim, you sound like a bona fide spy talking like that.”
“From what I hear, cuz, you’re one to talk.”
We spent the last mile and a half in silence as we made our approach to the cave.
Crossing the last small stream, Jim swung his M4 around fast. I instinctively shouldered my submachine gun, ready to blast just as soon as I knew what Jim was shooting at. He squeezed the trigger, letting out a suppressed shot that impacted a squirrel near the base of a great oak. The tree rat’s head flew apart and it spun in the air, smacking hard against the trunk. Jim ran over and began to gut the thing. He had it strung up and hanging from his web belt in minutes.
“Something different for tonight’s stew,” he said, grinning. “Usually don’t get too many out foraging this time of year.”
We disappeared into the cave, slithering deep underground like night things.
PART TWO
* * *
KINETICS
15 Dec
I’ve been planning and gathering intel for a week. This is what I know.
After my encounter with the drone and the two feds on my way out here, I knew that these woods were pretty thick with opposing forces, all looking for little ol’ me. They weren’t very good and the animals they were using were mostly hunting dogs. I’m sure they treed a few skinny squirrels and maybe found a rabbit or two but, based on the men out here searching for me, it appeared that the government didn’t have the resources to take it so seriously. If they did, I’d probably be in a cell next to Rich and bathed in bright lights right now. There was no helicopter or any other air support out here, probably because of the threat of the NAI’s Stinger missiles.
My first order of business before I started my reconnaissance mission was to change my appearance. Jim informed me that Rich said over the radio (before he was captured) that my photo was on wanted posters all over local bulletin boards spread throughout Fayetteville. They had the photo on file from my Agency common access card. I needed something to blur my lines, so to speak. Some new clothes, hat, and some glasses. My old house was blown to bits a long time ago, with only the wreck of an MRAP and a blackened piece of ground to mark where it once stood, so I had to keep moving to the Averys’ place, who were the nearest neighbors and a good clip up the mountain.
Without the threat of Reaper RPAs orbiting overhead, my trip to the Avery house wasn’t as stressful. I left Jim behind with instructions to listen to his radio at the bottom of every hour. I wouldn’t be transmitting unless it was absolutely necessary, and he shouldn’t transmit for any reason unless he was in serious trouble at the cave. Jim returned the kit I’d left behind. Among the zip ties, ammo, rifles, and spare explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) was a pistol silencer I’d left him but he’d never got around to using. The can was engraved on the side, the words filled in with anodizing. The small letters indicated that it was manufactured by a company called Rugged, and I hoped it would be just that. It added a little weight to the end of the small 9mm machine gun, but it was worth the cost.
I took a different route than the one Jim and I used to get to the shelter. There was no sign of any living thing out here in these woods, not even deer. Most of them had been hunted nearly to extinction last winter. These woods were just too close to Fayetteville and every good old boy with a 7mm mag rifle took to the forest to harvest game after the shit hit the fan.
I stalked through the forest, trying to sound like Jim. Although we were both a good bit Cherokee, I think he got the useful genetic skills. I broke cover out onto the road just after noon, but stayed in the ditch as I walked up the hill to the Averys’ place. The gate had once been locked, but someone already worked it over with a chain and truck, pulling it open, bending the metal gateposts. The rust forming where the posts had been forcefully bent indicated that the looting had been a while ago.
I jumped the downed gate, careful not to twist an ankle on the old cattle guard. I approached the house low, gun to cheek. About twenty meters out, I stopped and listened for a long while, hearing nothing but the winter breeze and the chattering of my own teeth. Satisfied, I approached.
The front door was cracked, the jamb splintered from whoever owned the black boot print stamped on the door.
I pushed with my gloved hand.
The door creaked; the sound seemed to echo throughout the empty house. I continued inside, closing the door behind me. The smell of mold and old books hit me. A house that was recently full of life and laughter now was no better than any other dilapidated house rotting in some city on Main Street, U.S.A. Saloon doors separated the ravaged living room from the kitchen. Whoever had been here had flipped over couches, checking every nook and cranny, probably for food. Even the crumbs in the couch were probably fought over and eaten feverishly.
I felt like I was in a Western as I approached the oak saloon doors. I swung them open and immediately changed genres, walking into a murder mystery. The smell wasn’t bad, as the body had long ago rotted flat. The corpse was a woman, at least based on the long hair and clothes, but hey, these were strange times and I could be wrong. The way the clothes were laying there as if purposely arranged reminded me of the cult classic movie Night of the Comet, except this time there was a mostly rotted human corpse still inside the clothes instead of red dust. I walked over to the body and knelt down. The jeans appeared to be pulled halfway down. Blood covered the denim. Holes dotted the white blouse. They could have been stab marks or bullet holes, but I couldn’t tell. I didn’t see any sign of gunfire or empty shell casings laying around, so it was a safe bet that the woman was sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death . . . or maybe even stabbed to death first. God. The tongue sticking out of her mouth was odd-shaped, but it was probably the decomposition. Old man Avery lived here alone, so I took comfort that this wasn’t his wife, and really hoped it wasn’t any kin, even though that wouldn’t make it any less horrible.
I searched the kitchen for supplies and, big surprise, found nothing edible. Whoever turned over the house had taken everything down to the breath mints. I opened the empty oven, seeing the crude scrape marks on the bottom. Either someone used a pry bar to clean it or someone had actually scraped the burnt food from the bottom to eat. I said a few words for the dead woman and hoped that whoever did this would someday pay for it.
I headed upstairs. Every hundred-year-old board on the steps creaked as I climbed. As I reached the landing, I saw something that made me tense up again. Bloody handprints were smeared along the rail as well as the walls all around the landing. I brus
hed the trigger with my finger before pulling it away, maintaining discipline until I decided to storm into the guest bath.
Another corpse lay clothed and covered in blood in the dry bathtub. It was a little more preserved; the leather jacket with motorcycle club patches all over caused my heart to race a little. The run-ins I’ve had since all this went down seemed to go south when I came across people dressed like this. This corpse’s hands were cupped over its bloody crotch and a look of unholy agony was frozen on what was left of its face.
Jesus. I don’t think that was a tongue in that woman’s mouth in the kitchen below.
Near instant karma, though. This fucker got what he deserved, bleeding out dickless in a bathtub. There was some toilet paper left on the dispenser, so I took the roll and closed the door behind me. What a shitty way to go.
—————
I was checking the rooms for anything useful when I heard the roar of engines coming down the mountain. I raced down the stairs and nearly bolted out the front door when I saw a large convoy roll past before stopping on the side of the road. There must have been a dozen or so armored vehicles and I didn’t realize what I was seeing at first. Red stars and a Chinese flag adorned the side doors of them. I ducked back inside the house when the doors of the vehicles flew open and the soldiers began to spill out onto the road. I quickly climbed back up the stairs. After reaching inside the top of my pack for my binos, I looked out one of the bedroom windows that overlooked the road.
The first two soldiers I surveilled were carrying AK-47s and appeared to be Asian. I swept the binos down the convoy line seeing the markings of the Chinese military convoy on every vehicle down the line—deep inside the sovereign borders of United States.
That was the moment I realized that I was no longer inside the United States. I was in some lawless facsimile of my great country. Why were they here? What’s the real motivation to transport Chinese troops thousands of miles to the United States? Their grid couldn’t possibly be up, or could it?