by J. L. Bourne
I felt as if I was trapped somewhere between a banana republic dictatorship and Germany in the late 1930s. While I have some serious reservations on killing Americans, even scumbag traitors like Maggie, I wouldn’t hesitate to smoke a foreign combatant on U.S. soil.
One of the Chinese troops gestured to the house, took one last puff on his cigarette before tossing it on the ground, and started walking in my direction. There was no escape. I needed to move fast and be out of the house before he got here, and that type of movement would be heard outside and then I’d be engaged by twenty PLA soldiers with AK-47s.
I slowly allowed the curtain to close and backed away from the window and into the upstairs hall. I quickly scanned for a hiding place until I saw the skinny cord dangling from the ceiling.
I yanked it, pulling the ladder down on top of me along with a few chunks of white spray-type insulation. I kicked the insulation out of sight into the adjacent bathroom and scrambled up the ladder, tossing my pack into the attic before pulling the bottom section of the ladder up with me. I eased the access closed, extinguishing my last bit of useful light up here.
Just as the access door closed, I heard the loud kick at the front door and what sounded like Chinese commands. I leaned over to the attic door, felt around, and pulled the cord into the darkness with me.
If these bastards wanted to come up here, they’d need to find a stepstool.
I lay in a thick bed of insulation crossways across the frame studs, so I wouldn’t fall through the ceiling into some Chicom’s lap. As I lay still, concentrating, I could hear the house getting tossed below. Unsure of what they were looking for, I waited, hand on the grip of my sub gun, waiting to open fire through the ceiling into whoever was doing the searching.
As my eyes adjusted, I began to see the subtle outline of the attic vent along the ridge of the roof. The silver metallic ductwork appeared when my eyes were acclimated to the gloom.
One of the soldiers was definitely upstairs now.
Doors slammed and drawers were pulled—at least that’s what it sounded like from here. Footfalls stopped somewhere, maybe the bathroom, maybe right underneath the attic door. I heard something scoot across the floor below.
I began to slowly and quietly roll over the wooden beams, farther away from the attic door, back into the recess of the slanting roof, until I was far enough away to barely conceal myself behind a small pile of insulation.
My heart nearly leapt out of my throat as the attic lit up from the light spilling from the open access door. Chillingly, the ladder creaked as the soldier extended it to the floor. I heard it strain as the man climbed. I flexed and constricted on my silenced machine gun grip so tightly that my hand was beginning to fall asleep.
A searing flashlight beam swept through the attic back and forth before suddenly going dark. I heard the soldier climb down the ladder and walk down the hallway and down the stairs.
I got moving, rolling back over to the access point. As soon as I was certain it was safe, I grabbed my pack and climbed down, following the soldier’s footsteps, except this time going through the kitchen and out the side door opposite where the convoy was stopped. The door was stuck, so I quietly opened the kitchen window and went out that way.
On the ground again, I rounded the corner of the house to get a peek. The soldiers were milling about their armored vehicles, smoking and talking. One of them had surveying tools out and seemed to be working with another man. After the last few soldiers returned to the convoy, a horn sounded, probably signaling that the convoy was about to move.
And just like that, the vehicles were gone as quickly as they arrived. When the last one departed my view, I moved to the road and watched the green armored reptile meander around a bend before stopping again.
I checked my six and pulled out my binos. The convoy had halted more than a mile down the mountain; again the soldiers got out and headed for one of the old houses. I merely observed, timing them on my stopwatch. It took them six minutes from the time the convoy stopped until I heard the faint sound of the horn again. The convoy disappeared from my sight and the engine noise faded not long after that.
It had to be pretty damn expensive to get them over here. Something had to be worth their time.
From what I could tell, the soldiers weren’t looking for supplies.
They were looking for people.
—————
I headed back to the old Avery house, but this time kept my ears open. I’m not going to lie—I was shell shocked. These scribbles are for me and my sanity, but if anyone were to read this, I can tell you that, rest assured, seeing Chinese troops in a convoy on American soil does something to you besides asking the question as to how this could have happened. It does something I can’t explain well, or convey in such a way that you might understand. What I can say is that the emotions I felt were confusion, fear, and then a metric shit-ton of fucking anger.
I tried to put the image of the convoy aside and climbed back upstairs. The closets were full of clothes that seemed to fit, so I went back and forth between bedrooms until I was able to compile what I needed. New shoes, pants, shirt, coat, glasses, and hat. The glasses sort of sucked, as they were prescription, but weak enough so I could tolerate looking through them without going cross-eyed. I consciously chose clothing that would blend into the local population.
In one of the upstairs bedrooms, I examined my ensemble in a full-length mirror. Through the natural light of the bare windows I looked the part, minus the machine gun slung across my chest. To really project the Marxist bootlicking aura, I decided to use the scissors I found in a drawer to trim my beard to a careless scruff. All I needed was a Che shirt, or perhaps some other sort of political statement. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I remember seeing a Che shirt on one of the students that was gunned down on the grassy knoll near the football stadium last year. He certainly didn’t deserve it; he was just some poor college kid finding himself and who didn’t know any better.
Armed with the right clothing and accessories, I departed the Avery house back to the cave.
The cave.
The cave.
What was I now? Still sapiens sapiens? Funny, it didn’t seem that way. Here I was, killing my fellow S2 with modern-day spears and retreating back to a bat-filled cave, where my tribe member waited in the wings for my return. I was even bringing back loot from another fallen tribe to boost our own survival. Not much has changed in 200,000 years. Saber-toothed tigers drove armored vehicles and flew drones.
I trekked back down the mountain and disappeared into the treeline right before the church. My gun remained at the ready up until then as I fully expected to see the green Chicom convoy boomerang back up the mountain at the most inopportune time. But that never happened, and my return trip to the cave was uneventful. As much as I wanted to maintain my disguise for Jim, I had to tuck it away inside my pack as to not soil it with cave clay. I couldn’t be walking around in the streets looking like I just crawled out of the ground.
Jim breathed a sigh of relief upon my return.
“A little part of me, in the back of my mind, was telling me you weren’t coming back, Max,” he said.
He didn’t use my name that often. He usually called me cousin, or boy. I knew he must have been worried.
“Don’t worry about me—you know I can take care of myself,” I said.
Jim smiled, slapped me on the shoulder, and handed me a piece of deer jerky and a half-full bottle of water.
I debriefed Jim on what I’d seen at the Avery house, especially the mystery of the Chinese troop convoy, and what I thought of the situation on the ground.
“All right, what’s the plan?” Jim asked.
“Well, I need to head into town to gather some intel and see what kind of battle space I’m going to be operating in. I haven’t been in Fayetteville in a good while, and I don’t know what it’s like right now,” I said.
“Yeah, I don’t either, but based on what I’ve been
hearing on the radio, it ain’t good.”
I grabbed Jim’s radio from the cave floor near his sleeping bag and headed back to the crawlspace.
“Let’s have a listen,” I said.
We were in the lobby, feeling the dramatic drop in temperature right before coming out onto the side of the cliffs that concealed our cave’s entrance. We rock-climbed a ten-foot face and bouldered the rest of the way to the top of the mountain, eventually finding high ground in a meadow with a pond surrounded by trees.
A startled deer bolted as soon as we came into the clearing. Jim slung his gun in front of his face and took a shot faster than I could extend my sub gun stock. It was instinct to make my weapon ready when I saw Jim move like that; I’d never take the shot on a deer with a 9mm unless I could pass for the main character on a remake of Castaway. Jim’s suppressed shot missed the deer, though, striking some nearby rocks and ricocheting off into the trees.
“Damn, that would have been stew till spring,” Jim said.
“At least we know they’re still here. Set up a stand overlooking this pond. You’ll get him next time.”
We extended the antenna on Jim’s Sony radio and began spinning through the spectrum. Many of the channels were automated weather reports. The FM channels, once brimming with music stations, were now an RF void of mostly static. We continued to slowly adjust the dial and the antenna until we reached something that sounded like news.
“. . . As a reminder, curfew remains in effect in Washington County until further notice. Any citizen on the streets after nine PM will be detained and asked for a valid work permit indicating place of employment and approved working hours. In local news, the Chinese government has graciously provided eighty-five pallets of food and medicine for the local community. Do not be alarmed at the presence of Chinese military personnel in Washington County. They are here to assist and provide security and will be patrolling the streets and back roads of Washington County to augment our strained federal police force. With the emergency ratification of the Firearms Safety Amendment, all citizens are reminded that the possession of any semiautomatic firearm is now a federal crime. Ration rewards will be given to any citizen that provides information regarding private possession of semiautomatic firearms. Text TIP479 and your message to CRIMES. When in doubt, send it out . . .”
“What channel do you usually hear the irregulars?” I asked Jim.
“The one you were just on,” Jim responded.
After a long pause, Jim broke the silence. “You’re still going after Rich, aren’t you.”
“Yeah. I am.”
—————
Clothes:
Hiking boots
Wool socks
Jeans from Avery house
Plaid shirt (hipster lumberjack) from Avery house
Puffy black winter coat from Avery house
Black glasses with lenses popped out from Avery house
Kit:
Fixed blade knife
Folding knife
G19 pistol
MP5K sub gun w/ can
300 rounds of subsonic 9mm
Night vision device
Flashlight
Hiking pack
Mess kit
Food/water for three days
Charcoal
Yaesu handheld transceiver w/ codebook
Zip ties
Pick set
Padlock shims
Pencil
Paper
—————
Before I departed the cave this morning, Jim and I worked out several comm code words. We’d only transmit one-word codes, only at midnight and only in the event it was a no-shit emergency. We’d say the code word no more than three times before going dark until the following night.
Jim wasn’t exactly excited to see me go, so I tried to reassure him that I was only headed into town to gather intel and I’d be back in a few days. Family wasn’t something you took for granted anymore; we both knew that.
At the trailhead, I pulled my knife and looked at my reflection on the stainless steel fixed blade. I think I had the look I wanted. Less operator, more defenseless beta male.
Miraculously, my bicycle was still serviceable after being hidden in the bushes for so long. I ripped it from the clutches of the sticker vines and spun the wheels a bit. It was tactical, spray-painted flat dark earth, although rust was now showing here and there. The tires were low, but okay nevertheless. I’d see about getting some air in town. The lock was still attached to the frame with the key inside. I pocketed the key, got on the bike, and began to pedal out of the woods, finding the ruts of the four-wheeler trail that had been blazed years before. My pack was a little lighter than when I made the trip to the cave from Newton County. I’d left some of my heavier kit back with Jim.
It wasn’t very long before I was on the road proper. The MP5K was hidden at the bottom of my pack, so I was relying on the concealed Glock for personal protection from the types of people that I might encounter on the way to town.
I pedaled up the mountain until it became a little too straining. Yeah, I could have pushed through it, but it was cold and I didn’t want to work up a sweat under my new hipster clothes and get a good ol’ case of hypothermia on the way to town. I decided to walk the bike up the hill, until I heard the sound of an engine. Instinctively, I rolled the bike into a nearby ditch and bailed into the woods as the engine noise grew louder.
A convoy of three vehicles approached and zoomed by. The lead vehicle was a black SUV, the middle was a van with antennas adorning the roof, and the last one was another black SUV. I knew that Jim and I had not been on the radio, so I wasn’t too worried about the sighting of a SIGINT van speeding down the mountain. Even so, I dug into my pack to make sure my Yaesu was powered off and that I wasn’t butt dialing the DHS, or worse, the ATF. With the amount of guns and ammunition I had on me, I’d probably be executed on the spot if I got rolled up on, riding dirty like this.
I broke cover, grabbed my bicycle, and started pedaling.
I soon passed the old, derelict militia building. Word was that the government tried to torch it decades ago, when all the members were warning us about these very times. As I rode past, I could still see the burn marks on the roof, a testament to a period before the collapse, when level heads vigilantly cautioned and were mocked and persecuted openly for doing so.
I pedaled until I got to the dogleg downhill corner. From there, I coasted a mile down into the next valley before I had to pedal again. I pumped my legs, bringing me to another bridge, the last before I’d be in city limits and my first contact with strangers since dealing with Maggie’s crew.
Here were two men with fishing poles.
As I made my approach, I patted the pistol to make sure it was still inside my waistband. At fifty yards, the men quickly put down their fishing poles and turned to face me, their own hands on something inside their coats.
“Hey, I’m just passing by!” I yelled out. “I don’t want any trouble, okay?!”
They didn’t answer, but kept a concentrated gaze on me. I changed lanes opposite theirs, and left my hands on the handlebars, and just kept on pedaling. I have no doubt that they both were armed, and I also have no doubt that their guns would have been tossed into the flowing river below at the first sign of the Washington County People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
The men turned with me as I passed and were still eyeballing me as I glanced back, and still stared even after I crossed the bridge a hundred yards on the other side. Only when I was nearly to the next corner did they turn and put their lines back in the rushing waters.
Tensions were already running high and I wasn’t even to the city limits sign yet.
As I cruised by the adjacent field, I couldn’t help but remember the shootout I’d had with the thugs who followed me back to Black Oak from town last year. Things were so hectic then. The collapse was just being realized and people were going batshit crazy. I still remember the death rattle fr
om one of them. There was no sign of the altercation now except the rotting hay bale I’d used for cover.
I pedaled past and crossed the border line into Fayetteville, a place I’d not set foot in since I’d received word from Rich that I was being hunted with a shoot-on-sight order. I didn’t necessarily bug out because I feared for my life; I left out of fear for everyone else’s lives. Wherever I went, whoever was with me or associated with me would end up like Rich or worse . . . my aunt and other cousin, if I stayed near them for too long.
Jim didn’t know it, and honestly I didn’t even want to admit it to myself, but I never intended this to be only a recon mission. The longer I stayed with Jim at the cave, the higher the chances I’d make a mistake and bring the heat down on him, my last surviving family member. With most of the population either starving, under the boot of an out of control government, or just plain dead, I couldn’t simply check into a hotel tonight. I’d need to think about finding shelter at some point.
I pedaled past the ruins of Southgate, noticing the rope that once suspended a grisly corpse was still swinging there from the power pole, the corpse long picked away by the birds and the elements. I continued by the gas station just before the tracks. A man sat out front on a stolen park bench and waved a bloody machete as if to say hello.
I pedaled a little faster.
At the tracks, I turned north, bouncing up the railroad ties, and noticed that the actual tracks up ahead had been removed and were stacked on the ground nearby. A government notice was posted on several trees, stating that the Transportation Security Administration had suspended all rail commerce until further notice.
First they stick their hands down your pants without a warrant or probable cause, and now they rip your damn railroad tracks out of the ground. Talk about a slippery slope, mission creep, and all that Thomas Jefferson stuff.
—————
Farther and farther up the tracks I went.
Eventually, I came to the location where I’d first found the train and met Rich. Feelings of nostalgia washed over me and I felt great sorrow for Rich and what he was no doubt enduring as I write this. My resolve was boosted by thoughts of him and I pedaled until I reached the MLK rail overpass. I pulled out my binoculars and began reconnoitering the area.