Tomorrow War

by J. L. Bourne

  We rode for an hour until we finally reached the last observation post controlled by the Shire. The guard flashed IR and gestured a friendly wave from his hidden spot. And then, just like leaving earth’s orbit, we were in the chaotic by-product of a grid down world.

  The ice and snow wasn’t falling, but the cutting wind forced us to go slower than the horses wanted to as we made our path east. We had Springdale to cross through and then we’d take one of the lesser traveled roads that skirted Huntsville. Before Huntsville, we’d need to make a stop to pick up the NAI explosives cache. Reports suggested that we’d see few people on the road between there and the eastern border of Arkansas, and I was just fine with that.

  Molly was loaded down heavy with dehydrated food, maybe enough to last a month if we stayed on horseback and let the animals burn the calories. Could be a tough prospect if we couldn’t find enough grazing for the horses along the way.

  Midnight came and went, and the road just came. Maggie’s horse, Elvis, was eyeballing a nearby pond and began to snort and pull in the direction of the water. We took a horse break and I drank deeply from my canteen and immediately broke some of the edge ice to filter and replace. Best stay in the habit to keep the canteens full.

  I saw lights and in a flash we were on horseback galloping to a nearby line of trees. An old pickup truck with only the parking lights illuminated stuttered past the field and kept going.

  We made it through Springdale without incident. The city collapsed a year ago, its population mostly gone. Springdale was in an unfortunate position; it was a forgotten city, stuck between the federally controlled Bentonville, and civil war stricken Fayetteville. Although we didn’t go right through the middle of the city, we saw no lights flickering in the windows as we skirted along the outside of what was once a beautiful southern town with the only passenger train depot in the area.

  With Springdale behind us, the road narrowed and the first mountains guarding the distance between here and eastern Arkansas stood like dark sentinels up ahead. We’d be back in Newton County in another night or two.

  At about three in the morning, we rode past something that caught my eye. I wouldn’t have noticed it, but I saw the IR reflection from my NVD coming from the edge of a field. At first I thought it was a sign or maybe a tractor reflector, but after riding in a bit closer I could see the very top of a large RV positioned behind shrubbery about three or four hundred yards across a field off the road. The fence was damaged and large black skid marks were clearly rubbed into the road pointing to the downed fence.

  I cautiously approached and Maggie followed. When close enough, I dismounted and handed the reins to Maggie and moved in for some recon. The door was open on the side, telling me that the RV was probably abandoned. No one would sleep with the door open in this weather. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the rear tires were flat and noticed a series of bullet holes all across the back end, penetrating the spare tire and at least ten other places.

  I knocked on the side of the RV and called out, with no answer. At the door, I opened it a bit more and took a look inside, expecting to see bodies. Although I saw a fair amount of dried blood, there were no corpses or people inside slumbering. The RV was just another story told via visual cues. Skid marks, damaged fence, bullet holes, blood. Whoever was inside this thing didn’t make it. Probably a victim of the raiders or bikers I’d seen dominating the roads in the beginning.

  I whistled to Maggie that it was clear and continued my inspection of the inside, if only out of morbid curiosity. Anything useful was gone from the RV, from hand soap to food and water. There was a roll of duct tape sitting on the counter, which was a pretty good find, considering I didn’t bring any.

  The place was a mess, but the bullet holes were only in the walls, not the roof of the RV, meaning we could at least stay dry until tomorrow night, when we’d head out again. I’ve decided to only move at night until we get deeper into rural Arkansas. Turning, I saw Maggie standing silently in the doorway. She hadn’t said ten words since we departed the Shire, and I suppose I can understand why. I’m not going to push it, and to be honest, I’m not sure I care. Yeah, she’d been through a lot and seen her whole life ripped from her. She’s not the only one, though, and she knowingly had a hand in all this. Can’t forgive or forget so easily. In some ways, I hate her. I was naive in Syria. I trusted the Agency and all it stood for.

  I stepped aside and Maggie walked in, rolled out her bag on the bed in the far corner, and crawled inside.

  “I guess you’re not taking the first watch?” I asked. No response.

  I checked on the horses and grabbed my compressed sleeping bag, tossing it inside the RV onto the other bed. The trees covered all but the top third of the RV from view of the two-lane road. Without NVDs, I’d never have seen the RV at night and I doubted it was much easier to see during the day, unless you were looking and noticed the road and fence. With the inside of the abandoned RV secured, I surveilled the immediate area, making sure that we weren’t right next door to another fusion center or rival road gang. Satisfied we were truly remote, I went back to the RV, checking the outside cargo areas. Within the first compartment, I found a wakeboard and a bunch of folding chairs. Not helpful.

  The next compartment contained the RVs generator, and my God, it had fuel inside!

  I messed around with it for twenty minutes before I got it to turn over and start. Loud static boomed from the RV, and I heard Maggie rustle out of her bag to turn it off. Lights were on inside. I rushed around to the door and saw Maggie in the cab of the RV, frantically flipping switches to get the static to stop. I reached past her and turned off the CB radio, killing the static. Overhead, I could feel the cool air coming from the air conditioner. I selected the heating mode and the cold air turned much warmer, which was the reason I’d powered on the generator in the first place.

  I took the roll of duct tape and went outside, placing strips over the bullet holes to catch all the light that spilled from them. I then went up to the road to see if I could see or hear the RV. If I concentrated, I could barely make out a hum, but the way the hill was situated, it was difficult to tell where the noise was coming from.

  Satisfied, I made way back down the hill through the field to the RV. Elvis met me about half way so I decided to ride the rest of the way back. I hid my kit in the woods, as I didn’t want the explosives coordinates compromised, and headed back to the RV for some sleep. Yeah, we should probably have kept one of us awake, but I was too damn tired.

  —————

  The small generator ran out of gas at about 0700, which was fine, as the sun was already peeking over the tops of the trees. The heater had kept the interior of the RV warm until it stopped working. In a way, I was happy, as the noise was gone and there’d be little chance of anyone wandering around on the nearby road to find us sleeping out here. After getting used to the lack of generator humming, I fell back asleep and woke up a little after noon.

  Grabbing my rifle, I stepped outside into another damned snowstorm, watered a nearby bush, and went looking for Molly and Elvis. I found them standing close to each other next to a tree, so I decided to build a fire. I dragged several downed branches into a pile and dipped an old rag down into the generator tank to soak up the last ounces of fuel that couldn’t make it into the carburetor. After breaking my kindling and arranging everything, I started the fire in a flash, burning through the small stuff and using that energy to ignite the larger pieces of fallen branches that I’d piled up. The horses moved over to the fire and began to snort and swish their tails in approval. I could’ve sworn I saw Elvis smile, but I think he was just positioning himself to nip my tricep.

  The snow was coming down pretty good, but I had a four-leg drive vehicle that didn’t care too much about snow and ice, so I wasn’t too worried about it. Rounding the corner of the RV, I caught a glimpse of movement in the tree above. A squirrel jumped from branch to branch, probably on its way to its home inside one of the trees. I qu
ickly ran back into the RV, grabbed my Ruger .22LR pistol, and checked the can for tightness before I barreled outside again. I raised the gun up, simultaneously twisting the red dot switch to the on position. I took a shot but pulled it, knocking off a chunk of branch the tree rat was occupying. The second suppressed shot hit the animal in the side of its chest, dropping it from the high branch with a tragically soft thud on the snow-covered ground. I ran over with my knife and quickly made sure the creature wasn’t suffering before I immediately began to field dress the small animal. It wasn’t a lot, but the meat would complement a small handful of dried food, water, and bouillon cubes to make a pretty damn good stew. My mouth watered as I sliced every good bit of meat from the animal, tossing it in one of the pots that remained unscavenged inside the RV.

  I emptied my canteen into the pot along with some snow I’d scooped from the ground. I mixed in some dehydrated noodles and two bouillon cubes and covered the food, placing it in the fire, eventually bringing it to a nice boil. I allowed it to boil multiple times, dropping in handfuls of snow before it began to boil over. I repeated this for ten minutes until I was sure that whatever nasty diseases that squirrel might be carrying were dead, dead, dead. Satisfied I wasn’t going to die from a parasite, I sipped some of the stew. It was damn good considering our current situation.

  I didn’t need to shake Maggie to wake her up. All I had to do was bring the food inside the RV and wait thirty seconds. As soon as the smell hit her nostrils, her eyes sprung open and locked onto the steaming pot of squirrel stew.

  After eating our fill, we looked over the maps, deciding the best way east, eventually agreeing on 412 due to the lack of traffic and general activity we’d seen on the road since we’d stopped at the RV. Secretly, I steered us on this road so that I could make a pickup at the easternmost boundary of the NAI’s border. I remained torn, conflicted on what I’d be doing with the explosives.

  I bagged another squirrel after a few hours of hunting—tomorrow’s meal. With only a few hours until dark, it was time for a nap. Had to stay frosty.

  —————

  Night fell and Maggie and I continued east. She was quiet. Too quiet. I still thought I might have been a little crazy for letting her have a gun and allowing myself to sleep within her proximity, but I had an unexplainable feeling about her. The leverage that controlled her before made her crazy. She’d have killed me and then worn my skin if it meant saving her child, and I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t pretend to know what that was like, to have kids you’d die for. But, with that leverage now gone forever, she was transformed. I was just her guide east, to a place where she could let loose the rage buried inside, just below the surface of her failing sanity.

  Hours went by and we stopped just outside of Huntsville, Arkansas, at a sawmill marked on the NAI map I was given by Inky. The mill had the unfortunate name Love Logs, Inc., and was massive in scope, covering at least five acres. It looked as if it had been in operation before the economy collapsed, based on the condition of the equipment and the piles of good lumber still sitting banded up in stacks beside the mill’s green chain. The cache was hidden here after passing through several hands from the defunct government arsenal it used to call home. The exact location wasn’t marked; that information was given in secrecy to me by Inky’s NAI head of intelligence. All in all, they’d revealed that the NAI controlled at least half a dozen well-stocked explosive caches stolen from government custody when the shit hit the fan and the guards all went home to keep their own families from being raped and murdered by the bands of thugs roaming the cities and countryside.

  “Maggie, wait here and watch the horses. You hear shots, meet me here.” I said, pointing to a cafe downtown I’d circled earlier, before we’d left the RV.

  Two green dots nodded up and down, indicating that she acknowledged. It was nice not having her question what I was about to do.

  I dismounted and brought my suppressed carbine to the high ready before moving deeper into the sawmill. Mammoth piles of sawdust and scrap lumber were spaced evenly under machinery designed to turn hundred-year-old living organisms into homes, furniture, and paper. I moved to the pile that sat underneath a great red piece of equipment with the words RED EASY stenciled on a steel beam ten feet across. Grabbing a scrap two-by-four, I began to search, confident that Maggie would watch my back as I did so.

  The pile was larger than a two-story house, but my instructions were clear: find the black toolbox and dig underneath. I scraped my silencer over the pile of sawdust and debris until I heard the loud clank of metal two-thirds from the top of the inverted cone, where a large rusted blade sat like a sentinel in the darkness, waiting to cut more trees to shape, to boost our GDP through production of what people used to demand before government intervention had its way via the naive actions of one agent who shall remain nameless.

  As I began to dig into the sawdust, I heard the far off sounds of barking and howling. At first I thought it was coyotes, but I’d spent many a night in Newton County, and that wasn’t it. I needed to hurry it up here.

  Found it. Unearthing the toolbox, I opened it up. A simple handwritten note sat inside with a few words written in black ink.

  REMEMBER WACO, RUBY RIDGE, FAYETTEVILLE

  I took the note and put it in my vest pocket before tossing the toolbox to the base of the sawdust pile. The barking and howling was louder and closer. Now I heard the sounds of small bells, and chains being dragged across concrete just before the piston sounds of suppressed gunfire and horses crying out.

  Maggie was engaging whatever they were. Molly ran past the dirt pile with something chasing her. I drew down on it and took a shot, hitting it in the gut.

  It was a dog, once domesticated.

  The dog struggled to yelp as I ran down off the pile to put it out of its misery. Spooked, Molly kept running into the mill, making scared horse noises. I pulled my sidearm and put a .22 round into the wild dog’s skull. Even as I pulled the trigger, I felt sorry for the thing; it had to do what it needed to survive.

  But so did I.

  Forgetting Molly for the moment, I ran back to where I’d left Maggie and Elvis. Maggie was dismounted, her gun held high as she kept circling around Elvis in a protective posture. Her green electric eyes and black gun made her look sinister and lethal, which she absolutely was. I knew from experience.

  “Any injuries?”

  Her green eyes swung back and forth horizontally. I went back into the mill to look for Molly, as she was kind of a big deal if I wanted to reach the East Coast before I was eligible for social security.

  I went back into the mills, underneath the metal building that housed some of the planar machinery and other rain sensitive and expensive equipment. Looking at the steel beams above, I saw white pinpricks of light. Bats, hanging by their feet. Most of them didn’t even bother to look back at me, but some of them did, craning their heads to follow me as I searched for my trusty steed.

  I found her huffing and puffing next to the pallet-making machine. I approached the scared animal slowly and carefully with my open hands out, calling her name in a soothing voice. This seemed to calm her a bit, which enabled me to get a hand on her nose, rubbing her face until she relaxed.

  “That’s a good girl,” I said to her, adjusting her saddle and guiding her out of the sawmill.

  Outside, I regrouped with Maggie, who was still gun up, watching for more wild dogs. She’d stacked a few up on the ground near where we were, one of them wearing a short chain attached to its dirty leather collar. Sad. These animals had no chance without their master, but still somehow survived, only to be ended here, now. They’d have eaten us and our horses if we hadn’t fought back. Having said that, I wasn’t very impressed with Molly’s response to nearby gunfire. I filed that little factoid away before returning to the X on the NAI map to finish my digging.

  Going deeper, I finally came to a plastic case wrapped in a thick contractor quality trash bag. Tugging, I managed to get the case out f
rom under the damp sawdust and down the side of the mound. I took the instructions from their protective plastic in my cargo pocket and pulled the case out of the trash bag.

  The case itself was Pelican style, weighing about thirty pounds, mostly explosives with some det cord and other items. It would need to ride on Elvis, as Molly was already tapped out with all my kit and a Stinger missile. I estimated Maggie weighed a hundred pounds less than me, if my ability to guess such things was still accurate.

  Clicking open the clasps on the composite case, I raised the lid, revealing neat stacks of plastic-wrapped, white cakelike explosives. I pushed the dense explosives aside, taking inventory of the other items in the box.

  I closed the clamshell on the explosives and placed a thick zip tie through the metal tabs where a padlock should go. I didn’t want the case flying open if we had to haul ass, but I was pretty sure the explosives would be just fine being transported a thousand miles on horseback over mountainous and unforgiving terrain.

  I returned to Maggie with the black case, strapping it to her horse, nicely counterbalancing the weight that hung from the other side. Elvis was a brute and probably wouldn’t even notice the extra thirty pounds. There was still a lot of night left and I didn’t want to spend it in the creepy, bat-infested, wild dog hunting ground that was this old sawmill.

  We mounted up, got back on the road, and kept moving east until we reached the small, one-intersection empty town of Osage. We took sanctuary for the night a good distance away from 412 in an abandoned home.

  Although Maggie wasn’t talking, neither of us were used to the chilling silence we’d experienced ever since leaving NAI territory. I just wanted to hear another human talk for a while, and wished I’d brought something to listen to, a book on tape, perhaps, anything to get my mind off the crushing quiet. I’d even settle for killer dogs, something. The winter cold even silenced the bug symphony that could be heard outside in these parts during the warmer months.

  The very walls of the abandoned home we found ourselves in seemed to close in with the tragic memories of those who lived here when society collapsed. From the empty cupboards to the half-eaten leather belt I found, all told the same story. Famine, desperation, and death. Bullet holes riddled the front and back doors, possibly indicating coordinated and simultaneous forced entry. A stuffed bear lay on the floor with scattered crayons and a shattered jewelry box. Some poor children had to watch their parents get torn apart by machine gun fire, or worse.