Cascade (Book 3): Mutant

by Phil Maxey

  Even though the words were coming out of Holston’s mouth, he knew they were Tinley’s. “And vehicles?” said Zach knowing what the answer was likely to be.

  “Again…”

  This time it was Zach that interrupted. “Yeah, I get it, just the vehicles we came with.”

  Holston stood up and held out his hand, then started to say something. Zach ignored him and left the office, returning back to the hall.

  Cal, Fiona, Bass, Rob and Abbey were sitting in a circle, eating. The early morning sun was beginning to shine through the high windows, and people were sitting up on in their bunks. Zach walked over to his friends, grabbing an apple from a long table and sat down with them.

  “Merry Christmas,” said Rob chewing some bread.

  Zach wasn’t sure what Rob was saying at first, he had completely lost track of time over the past week. “Happy Christmas everyone.”

  Unenthusiastic responses came back from those around him.

  “Look around at the people in this hall.” Everyone slowly looked around as suggested. “It’s our job to get them safely back to Bravo.”

  Everyone looked surprised. “I thought you were in command of the whole evacuation? Wasn’t that the point of us coming up here?” said Bass.

  “That’s what I was told by General Trow, but Tinley has other ideas.”

  “Fucker,” said Fiona under her breath.

  Bass shook his head and looked down, then began talking before lifting it. “We lost twenty soldiers trying to get up here, and he’s just going to shut us out?”

  “He wants to take all the credit for getting the people of this camp back to Bravo, look like the hero. He’s also happy he’s now got Raj,” replied Zach.

  “I wondered what happened to Dr. Joshi,” said Abbey.

  “What extra troops and equipment, we getting?” said Bass.

  “None.”

  Fiona swore again.

  “Does Trow know about any of this?” said Jacob joining them with Jack’s sleepily walking to the food table behind him.

  “I’m guessing, not,” Zach replied.

  As the gloom began to lift from the hall, the true state of the people inside it could be seen. Zach and the others in the small circle looked at the wretched and infirm laid out around them and each one felt most of these people wouldn’t live to see Camp Bravo.

  Zach continued. “Bass and Fiona, I’m going to need both of you to get back to our vehicles and check on the supplies we have. Rob, find Gregg’s, and go with her to see how the truck and bus are holding up.” He then looked at the people in the hall. “Abbey, and Jacob, find Mary and Morgan, we need to know what’s the medical status of everyone here, what kind of help they are going to need, and get everyone ready to move out. Cal, you and I are going to find out what’s the best way out of this place.”

  Zach sensed everyone was reluctant to move. “I know we have just got here, barely having any sleep last night, but I don’t want to be in the middle of this shit storm any longer than we have too.”

  “We going out the same way we came in?” said Rob.

  “Not if we can help it,” replied Zach.

  Bass got to his feet, followed by Fiona and then everyone else got up and set about their task.

  CHAPTER 3

  Abbey sat holding the hand of a dying man. His name was Jed, and had told her how he got ill some months back but the medical supplies weren’t there to stop his condition from deteriorating. Morgan whispered into her ear a few minutes earlier that she thought he only had a few more days to live. Jed was talking to her, but none of his words were breaking through the barriers in her mind. This made her feel guilty, the least Jed deserved was someone to hear his last thoughts and words, but she couldn’t do it, she just didn’t want to know.

  “Don’t mind Jed, he can talk the legs off a horse.” A well-built man in his early thirties with short blonde hair lay in a bed opposite her.

  Abbey looked up lost in her own thoughts, and not even really being sure what she was just asked. “Sorry?” Jed had fallen asleep, at least she hoped that’s what had happened.

  “Jed? The guy that’s been talking to you for the past twenty minutes.”

  She smiled.

  “You’re new here? I heard that you’re from the other camp?”

  “We got here last night.”

  The blonde haired man swung his body around, so he was sitting off the side of the bed. One of his legs ended just below the knee. “My names, Sam, Sam Coleman.”

  “Abbey,” she tried not to look at his missing appendage.

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about trying not to look at what’s not there anymore.”

  “The E.L.F’s?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  Abbey wasn’t sure what to say next.

  “What’s the other camp like? I hear it’s doing okay.”

  “They seem to be managing.”

  “They?”

  “We hadn’t been there long…Must have been a nightmare being here?”

  “It started bad and went downhill from there,” he smiled again but this time his eyes betrayed it.

  “The one legged player strikes again,” a large man with very short-cropped dark-brown hair, and a missing hand yelled from a bed behind Sam’s.

  “Can’t a guy have a conversation with a girl?” said Sam, throwing an empty water bottle at the large guy.

  Abbey smiled, her mind momentarily free of the weight of the last few days.

  “Name’s Isaiah, and the bunch of misfits you see around me are mostly veterans from one conflict or another,” said the large guy.

  Abbey spotted Zach and Cal had returned. “Nice to meet you,” she then walked over to Zach who was now with the others.

  “We’ve found out there’s a gate that’s hardly used on the north east wall, means we might need to go through some hostile territory just to get to it, but it’s better than going through the south gate.”

  “Especially now we don’t have Raj’s secret weapon,” said Rob “we are pretty good with supplies, even with everyone here in the hall, but those sonic weapons Raj created have all gone from the bus.”

  “I still got mine,” said Abbey, I couldn’t find it in the moment, but I looked this morning and it was inside a rolled up magazine in the bottom of my pack.

  Zach leaned in slightly. “If anyone asks if we have one of Raj’s devices we say we don’t, agreed?” everyone nodded.

  Morgan was standing against the wall with Mary and Irene, when Zach beckoned her over to the group.

  “What’s everyone’s status?” said Zach.

  “Well, we have forty-six people in this hall, including twelve children and eight people over the age of sixty-five.”

  “Are they all ready to travel?”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “Only how many you want to be alive within twenty-four hours of leaving. Three are in a critical condition and probably won’t live beyond the next few days, eleven have serious conditions, but if we can find the right medication should make it to Austin, and there’s everyone else.”

  Zach gave her a questioning look.

  “Nearly everyone here has some kind of disability, or issue.”

  “I met the vet’s,” said Abbey.

  Morgan smiled. “Actually they are what I would regard as the more capable of people here, apart from the few that have PTSD.”

  “Vet’s?” questioned Zach, while looking at Bass who gave him a knowing look back. Bass then left and walked over to Sam who was talking with Isaiah.

  Zach continued. “Is there anyone that is going to die as the result of us moving them?”

  Before Morgan could reply, the sound of vehicles could be heard outside. Zach and the others walked out into the lobby. Colonel Tinley and Captain Holston got out of a Humvee and walked proudly into the lobby.

  Tinley approached Zach with a smile. “Captain Felton,” he looked at the others behind him, “and friends,”
his last words he let hang in the air before continuing. “Today is a great day. Today we will help the good people of what used to be Portland and Seattle travel to a new home. And you and your people will be part of that!”

  Zach thought about questioning him over the briefing and that no one came to pick him up, but thought better of it. “We are glad to help…sir.”

  “Good, good. You have all you need for your journey? You met with Holston earlier?”

  “We have all we need, sir.” Zach could feel uncomfortable shuffling behind him.

  “Okay then, be at the main road near the south gate at noon,” after he finished talking he lingered. Zach wasn’t sure why at first, but then he realized and he moved his hand to his forehead and saluted best he could even though his arm felt like lead in doing so. Tinley and Holston left. Zach and the others walked back into the hall

  “Asshole,” said Fiona. “Met his kind too many times when I was on the inside, he’s…” Before she could finish Zach interrupted.

  “We’re not going to be at the south gate at noon, by then I want us long gone,” he walked up to Morgan who was talking with her sister and Irene.

  “How many in here do you think we can get onto the bus?”

  Morgan looked over the halls inhabitants, her brow tightening while she made difficult choices. “The fourteen who are either critical or serious, need to lie down. I’m not even sure it’s humane to move the three that are critical.”

  “I presume they would rather not be eaten,” said Irene.

  “They are coming with us,” said Zach ignoring Morgan’s doubts. “So if we had another vehicle for the fourteen, could we fit everyone else on the bus?”

  “It’s going to be tight, but that would leave thirty-two, yes, maybe.”

  Zach turned to Mary. “You still got the keys to the truck, you drove here?”

  She nodded and Morgan’s mouth opened to say something. Zach turned back to her.

  “Could we get the sick in Mary’s truck? Would they be comfortable?”

  Morgan sighed. “It might work. I’ll have to monitor them closely and I’ll need help from one other.”

  “I would help but the kids, need me,” said Mary.

  Zach looked across to Bass who was sitting and laughing with Sam and Isaiah. “Okay, get everyone ready to move out within the end of the next hour,” he then walked over to Bass.

  “Captain!” said Bass. “This is second lieutenant Sam Coleman of the air force, and from the marines Corporal Isaiah Wellman. Both men saluted.

  Zach went to say not to salute, but he felt these men wanted to. “How you end up here?” Zach looked to both men, and both men looked reluctant to reply.

  Isaiah spoke first. “We wanted too,” he looked around at Sam, “we all wanted to help, especially when we saw the losses that the defense forces were taking, but our commanding officer, Tinley said we would just get in the way, so here we are, sitting on our asses.” The words ‘commanding officer’ he said with gritted teeth.

  “Well, we have a whole lot of sick people, and children in this hall, and me and Bass are short of what we need in the soldiering department, so how’s about you stop sitting on your asses and help us get these people to Bravo?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Fiona walked up to the woman at the counter in the front lobby. “Hey is that the bathroom?” she pointed to the office that Zach and Holston had talked in earlier.

  The woman looked confused. “Sorry?”

  Fiona walked up to the office door. “Let me just see in here.”

  “What? No that’s not the bathroom, you’re not allowed in that room.”

  Fiona opened the door, and went to move inside, when the woman behind the counter sprung out of her seat, knocking over a small Christmas tree. Protesting she followed Fiona into the office. Once inside Fiona immediately pulled the phone cord out of the wall, breaking it off.

  “What are you doing?” said the woman, looking nonplussed.

  Fiona then raised her gun towards her. “Don’t scream, or shout, just come in here, and close the door,” the woman did as she was told. “Now sit down,” she complied again, and Fiona set about tying her up with the phone cord.

  The woman shivered. “Why are you doing this?”

  “We can’t have anyone raising alarms, in about an hour someone will come and get you.”

  Fiona finished securing the woman, then left the office. Zach, Sam, Isaiah, Cal and Jacob were already moving through the lobby to the outside.

  Sam, now sporting a prosthetic leg and Cal gave a slight nod to Zach, and they walked off, down steps at the front of the building and along one of the tree lined roads through the parking area. Rob and Gregg’s had already fueled and mended a few issues with the bus and truck, and both were now parked pointing towards the exit to the parking area. The white truck was also fueled and parked just behind.

  A sound came from behind the remaining three, and Mary appeared with Abbey. Behind them were the children from the night before well wrapped in winter clothes.

  “Everyone on the bus, quickly, three to a seat,” said Mary, hurrying the kids along.

  After them came the remaining adults and children, moving as quickly as they could onto the bus. Bass then appeared with some other soldiers, carrying some of the camp beds from the hall. They dropped them off in the back of the white truck and went back inside.

  “Let me show you the supplies and ordinance we still have,” said Zach to Isaiah leading him to the back of the supply truck.

  After a further twenty minutes, all three vehicles were full of people and supplies.

  Zach stood inside the bus, next to Rob with Bass just behind him. He then clicked on his radio. “Cal, is Sam ready?” an affirmative came back.

  Cal watched the guard sit inside the Humvee, which was parked alongside the gate. He then ran through the car park, and crouched down behind a large bush.

  Sam started walking towards the back of the Humvee, and started to shout and wave. “Ohh, my leg, I need some help,” in his hand he had an empty glass bottle.

  The soldier got out of the Humvee and looked back at Sam, not being quite sure what the problem was. Sam waved him to come over. The soldier ran towards Sam who then sat down heavily on the ground. At this moment, Cal ran and jumped in the Humvee. The keys were still in the ignition. He turned them, then pulled off stopping thirty or so feet from the gate in the road. The soldier immediately turned and ran towards the Humvee. Cal then drove the Humvee another fifty feet, waving the soldier towards him with his hand out of the window. The soldier started shouting and ran after Cal down the road, just as he got within ten feet, Cal pulled off again, this time pulling the soldier down a side road and out of site of the gate.

  Zach’s radio came to life. “Go.”

  Rob heard Cal’s voice and fired up the buses engine, the other two vehicles did the same and he moved off, pulling up to the gate and then turning right.

  After a few minutes of driving, they stopped in a tree-lined road. Cal in the Humvee was sitting waiting, parked up.

  Zach, Fiona, Mary and Michael jumped out of their vehicles and into the Humvee, with Fiona replacing Cal in the drivers seat and he moving to the front passengers seat.

  “I’m not going to miss standing up for hours,” said Michael as he sat alongside Zach, looking at the lack of gun placement in the Humvee’s roof. Fiona pulled out, leading the three other vehicles eastward along deserted roads.

  Zach clicked on his radio. “Morgan, you there? Over.”

  “I’m here. Over.”

  “How’s your patients?”

  “About as well as can be expected. Over.”

  “Abbey, come in. Over.”

  “Here, Zach. Over.”

  “How’s everyone on the bus?”

  “Anxious about leaving the camp. Over,” she said in a hushed tone.

  Zach then turned to Mary. “Once we are clear of the east gate you can join your kids on the bus.”

&
nbsp; Mary nodded. “We need to get on the 213, once we are on that it will lead us to the gate. I heard it was abandoned a few nights ago. Keep going up here, then a right.”

  She looked out of the right window of the Humvee at the broken buildings and cratered parks that she had come to call home. She knew these outreaches from the city of Portland even before the Cascade, when she had to travel down here to visit clients. She even thought about buying a place here, once she had become more established in Portland. Over the past months she had moved from property to property, accumulating the young who had come to see her as something of a mother figure. She cleared her throat to try and mask the small laugh that wanted to rise up. Mother figure? Me?

  Before the Cascade the idea of having children was something she might have got around to in a decade. She never had a problem being an older mother, or even not being a mother at all. That mantle she felt would be for her older sister, the ‘responsible’ one. But fate had other plans, when she was trying to make a go of things in a single story home that she had stumbled upon after being evacuated to this camp.

  Over the course of a few weeks of being in her new home, she kept seeing flashes of light in the house next to hers. A house which she was informed was also empty. Eventually curiosity got the better of her and she investigated to find a young girl, a girl who wouldn’t talk, her name was Addison. But Addison wasn’t alone, she was helping to look after two others, a boy of seven and a girl of six. It took some doing but Mary convinced the three youngsters to come and live with her. From that point on she would see them, the young and abandoned in places they once called homes, and would invite them back to her growing family.

  Fiona turned onto a wider road as per Mary’s instructions.

  “We stay on this road, and it will lead to the gate,” said Mary.

  A voice emanated from Zach’s radio, which numbed him.

  “Leaving by the east gate was not part of my orders, Captain Felton,” said Colonel Tinley.

  Cal, and others in the Humvee, looked at Zach. After a pause, Zach clicked his radio on. “With your convoy leaving by the south gate, I thought it would be a good idea to leave by another route, especially seeing we have so many vulnerable,” Zach made sure not to say ‘Over’ as the Colonel didn’t either. Zach also knew the Colonel was in no position to stop them from leaving as they were now passing into an area which was not guarded by his soldiers.