by Geo Dell
Billy shrugged. “Nothing I can say about it. It was several years ago... A different world... I wasn't here when this started and so I have no idea what went on here. And it's been years, probably a lot of changes... It's not a place you want to remember... At least I don't,” Billy shook his head. “Pearl probably knows more than I do,” he finished.
“Even so, you could probably help us find our way around... Mike says the Army Base is out the other end of the city... Route 3.”
Billy pointed across the valley. “If we go down to the river, we can follow the river out to Route 3. That will take us to the base... I don't know from there...” He looked harder. “The problem is we have no idea what streets are gone, what roads may or may not still be there. And, I don't even see the river from here. ”
“Where should it be,” Bear asked?
Billy laughed. “Straight ahead, but I never came up here to look down at the river... So I don't know if it could be seen from here... Maybe in the winter... I think. We'll have to go down and see. But it should be straight down this hill, into the city and we can follow Route 3 right out, if its still there... There are other ways out there too...” Billy turned and looked at Bear.
“I don't know the area,” Bear told him. He shrugged and looked down at Beth and then back up at Billy where he stood with Pearl. Pearl spoke.
“A dozen ways to get in that they showed me... All from inside, I have no idea where they come out here. I do know that this base has nothing to do with the base out route 3. A separate place... Maybe there were connections I didn't know about, but on the surface they were run and maintained separately.” She looked up at Bear. “The thing is I remembered so little of it after I got out of there. After I got away from the people who... took me I hid for three days, trying to find a way out... finally just collapsed. Met some people leaving shortly after that and traveled with them. Lucky to be alive,” her voice tightened as she slowed and then stopped speaking for a moment. “The river... That is where I got out... I listened to the people I traveled with. They came from here, along the river itself, there's a cave. They spent time there. It's on a road that follows the river. The road is abandoned, or was abandoned, even then. I came out on that road myself when I got out, before the others captured me. I'm sure that I could find the way in if we can find that road... I say find that cave, then get down on the cliffs that front the river. It's going to look like a small dark cave opening from a distance, but up close you can see the jackhammer marks, at least I did when I came out of it.”She shrugged.
“I say, lead us down then, Pearl.”
Pearl looked back at Bear, frowned, and then nodded.
~
The buildings they passed were silent, crumbling ruins. The roadway was cracked and missing huge sections in places. The low thump of the exhaust echoed off the buildings as they passed them and headed down into the city itself. Billy crawled along the road, allowing the truck to idle its way. The hill flattened out, and they began to pass areas of what had been strip malls and then passed into block after block of old houses. Tilted, some fallen, all the yards were overgrown. A few areas were devoid of anything at all.
They passed what looked to be a hospital building. At least the signs that were still legible referred to it as a hospital. The top floors were collapsed, debris scattered across the parking lots. Many of the cars were crushed under huge slabs of concrete. They could see only slices of the landscape through the gun slots in the armor that covered the windows. The monitors on their dashboards sent a clearer picture to them.
The CB radios were scratchy silence, and had been for miles. They had skirted the city of Syracuse, and the radio had jumped to life a few times as they were traveling away from it, but even then it was nothing they could understand. It might have been someone transmitting, it might have been something else, although none of them could think of what else it might have been. Whatever it was they had understood none of it. A series of pops and screeches, periods of absolute silence. It happened three times, and then stopped. The radio had reverted back to scratchy silence and stayed that way.
The roadway narrowed to not much more than a wide street, and then the taller buildings of the downtown area began to show ahead. The CB radio in Bear's truck suddenly squawked to life.
“... Hey... Hey, you guys... Two coming... Two coming... Some strange looking shit right here. Coming downtown... Hey come on back...”
Beth picked up the FM radio from the seat top. “Billy?”
“Yeah... Heard it,” Billy said. “Look at this.”
The brake lights on Billy's truck lit up as he slowed. Bear pulled slightly to the side to see why he was stopping.
The road was blocked from side to side just where it entered the downtown area. There were more than a dozen wrecked cars and trucks closing it from one side to the other. Bear pulled up even with Billy's truck, glancing around at the buildings as he did. He saw nothing at all.
“Tell him to back out of here,” Bear told Beth.
Beth nodded, picked up the radio, and that was when the first shots came, ringing against the steel armor of the trucks.
Bear floored the gas and the big truck leapt backwards, the tires screeching as it did. Billy's truck raced along backwards next to him. Together they backed at full speed out of the downtown area, and away from the roadblock.
In a few seconds they were screaming backwards down the wider street beyond the downtown area they had driven into. Billy's truck slowed beside him, the tires locking up and hopping on the pavement, and then the truck backed hard into the hospital parking lot. Flying into the air as it left the road, and disappearing from site into the lot.
Bear locked up his own brakes, swung around hard, and then floored the gas pedal and backed toward the parking lot too. Beth shot her arm out and braced herself as the truck leapt into the air when the rear tires hit the small rise from the roadway to the parking lot, and bounced high into the air. Bear locked up the brakes a split second later, barely missing Billy's truck, and slammed backwards into a car at the back of the lot before stopping. The collision did nothing to the heavily reinforced iron bumper of the truck, but sent the car spinning like a top across half of the cracked and tilted parking lot. It hit the opposite side of the lot and skittered off the side into a deep ravine.
“Jesus, Bear,” Beth said. She pushed herself backwards into her seat once more. A second later she was scanning the monitors and then squinting through the side port to the outside.
“Nobody hurt?” Billy's voice over the FM.
“Good... You?” Bear asked.
“Good... Bastards,” Billy spat.”
“Yeah,” Bear agreed. He looked down at the rear monitor again. Shadows moved in the deep black of the nearby parking garage. “Looks like dead in the parking garage,” Bear added.
“Saw that,” Billy answered. “Fuck. When it rains it pours, I guess.”
Bear laughed. “Yeah, well, I wouldn't have it any other way.” He looked over at Beth and then down at the monitor checking the lot once more. “Here's what we're gonna do...”
A few minutes later they were in the trucks and running fast down into the city. Beth drove while Bear manned the gun. Billy while Pearl ran their gun. As soon as they were in range they began to launch grenades at the surrounding buildings: The results were instantaneous. Return fire came hard and fast, but it only served as a beacon for Pearl and Bear to sight in on. Soon those strong holds were gone, the buildings where they had secreted themselves nothing but crumbled ruins scattered into the streets. Smoke and flame rose into the sky to warn others of their presence.
There had been no pin pointing of the conversations they had monitored on their way into the city. Two distinct groups, but they seemed to be in cooperation with one another. Bear didn't care what their alliances were as long as both sides got the message to leave them alone or suffer the consequences.
A few grenades cleared the cars and they made their way into the publ
ic square. Pieces of the cars burned, and wreckage lay scattered everywhere, lending a feel of war torn third world unreality to them as they slowly made their way past the wreckage and into the traffic circle. Behind them the buildings sent smoke and flame into the air, brick, glass and wood had been blasted out onto the pavement. The occasional body lay on the blacktop, or hung partway from the exploded buildings, but there was no more return fire. A half trip around the old traffic circle and they made the west side of the old public square and bore away from the city.
The streets here were buckled, virtually useless and hard to travel. The river came into view far below, past a vast area of ruins, and Bear lead them off road down a steep hill in that direction. A little slipping and sliding bought them to a road that traversed the top of the river gorge, and they turned cautiously back toward the center of the city. They hadn't traveled more than a few hundred feet when Bear rolled to a stop and his voice came over the radio in Billy and Pearl's truck.
“All wrong,” Bear said tightly. “This should be the back way into that cave Pearl told us about. Has to be. There isn't any other road below this one.”
Billy was studying the monitors hard. “She thinks it is... So?”
“So, if it is, and it is occupied, where are they? Wouldn't you protect your back door?”
“I see your point,” Billy agreed. “I would.”
“Might be booby trapped,” Beth threw in.
“In the roadway?” Pearl asked.
“Best place,” Bear agreed.
“Or it could be nothing... Maybe they didn't take the place,” Beth said quietly.
“Yeah... Yeah... I just don't buy that,” Billy said. “It's too nice down here... Cleaned up. Neat... And even the brush is cut back, or seems to be, doesn't it? Doesn't look like you could hide anywhere... No... I think they have us in sight right now... And I think the roads are booby trapped. Fuckin' lucky we didn't blow our asses up already.”
“Should leave,” Pearl added.
“No,” Beth said. “I say we should stay. If range, for them, is that brush line where things become hard to see for us, then we are out of range for anyone except a good sharp shooter with a long range rifle. They're not likely to have one. If they do, well, I guess we'll pay for it, but my point is I don't think they do, and the longer we sit here the more paranoid they'll get... Maybe we can force their hand. Watch our exit, watch that brush line... See what we can see.”
“I don't want to, but I do agree with that,” Billy said and chuckled.
“Think I'm right?” Beth asked.
“I think you're unstoppable when you set a thing in motion. Seen it. And... it's a solid plan.”
“Yeah,” Bear agreed.
“Yeah,” Pearl threw in. “Came to have it out, may as well have it out.”
Twenty minutes of waiting saw the first movement along the brush line. Pearl spotted it.
“Gang... Gang, I think that is a cannon... Rocket launcher? I think maybe we overstayed our welcome.”
'What? No way... No... Dammit, lets go now,” Bear said quickly. “Send some grenades at them on the way out.”
The monitors would maintain targets once locked, as long as the line of sight was intact. They were tied into Tim's weapons aiming system. As Bear and Pearl both geared up to leave, both Beth and Billy locked on the small targets at the brush line. While they were turning, the grenades were launched and began to tear up the brush line and the small rocket launcher they had been setting up. Shoulder mounted. The tube and a half dozen people spilled out of the brush line, sprawled onto the pavement. A few still moved. The aiming system disengaged as they raced back up the muddy hillside and it lost its lock.
Pearl had nearly made it to the top of the muddy hill when a huge blast rocked the truck hard, and it lurched to the right, burying its nose in to the earth. A second later it began to slide back down the hill, turning sideways as it went. Billy could hear Bear calling on the radio, but when his eyes found Pearl, wondering why she had not answered, he found she was tumbled in a heap on the floor. A minute after that the truck caught on something under the earth of the hill and went over, rolling to the bottom of the hill and crashing into the trees.
Beth watched the truck roll away down the hill, but there was little she could do. A second rocket launcher had appeared from the trees and she had watched as someone dropped a rocket in by hand and a second later, before it fully registered, the rocket was climbing a trail of fire into the air heading for Billy's truck. She watched her front monitor and the back monitor as she finished her climb. She saw the people and the rocket launcher turn to dust as Bear hit it with their own weapons, but had it been too late for Billy and Pearl?
“We have to get somewhere safe and figure this out,” Bear yelled above the whine of the engine.
“Billy and Pearl?” Beth yelled back.
“Don't know. The rocket missed their truck. Hit in front of it. They rolled down the hill,” Bear yelled.
The radio suddenly erupted in a spate of rushed words. “Don't stop... We'll get out. I'll be in touch.” Billy's voice screamed into the microphone. Nothing else but static.
Beth punched the gas hard and maneuvered the truck into an open field. She matted the pedal and a second later they were tearing along the tree line looking for safety. Beth followed a trail into the trees, slowed to stay on the narrow trail, and a handful of minutes later they coasted to a stop near an old barn. The doors yawned wide in the afternoon sunlight. Beth turned the truck slowly so as not to tear up the ground and then backed into the yawning chasm. She shifted the truck into neutral and listened to the rumble of the motor.
“They made it out,” Bear said.
“I heard him,” Beth agreed.
“No, I mean I saw them scramble out, Billy and Pearl.”
The ran out?” Beth asked.
Bear frowned, wishing he had not said what he had. “Billy got out. I think he was carrying Pearl... Over his shoulder.”
“How can you not be sure of that?” Beth asked. “You sound like you don't know.”
“No... I mean, yes. I know. I just didn't want to upset you, Beth. Billy had her over his shoulder.”
Beth stared for a second, locking her eyes on Bear's. “Bear, just to keep things on the level. Don't sugar coat shit, just give it to me. Don't assume I can't handle it, I can...” She frowned deeply, but kept her eyes on his own.
Bear nodded. “I don't know why I did that... Billy said they were fine, so maybe they are.”
“Yeah, well, Billy tends to coddle me too, so he would never say if she was good or not.”
“What do you think we should do,” Bear asked. “Dusk in a few hours.”
“Yeah,” Beth nodded. “No sense in looking today. We aren't equipped. They have a strong hold there. Tomorrow we can start fresh... We have to go in, Bear. Billy, whether he's okay or not, would want us to go on... Finish this... That means going in. We should go in tomorrow.” She held his eyes.
“We'll go, but tonight... Better to bring it fast and get it over with. They'll think they drove us off. Sneak back under cover of darkness... Make sense?”
“Unfortunately it does,” Beth agreed. “We should go on foot. Leave the truck here. Their truck is likely shot. We have to have one able to get us out of here and back home.” She switched off the truck and slipped the key into her pocket.
Ten minutes later Bear was easing the big barn doors shut to hide the truck. They started off down the trail at a fast trot trying to make it back to the river and the caves before nightfall so they could plan their attack.
Watertown New York
Billy and Pearl
The river road ran away in both directions. Pearl had come to as he had begun to run. She could not run fast, but she could run and that made their chances of getting away rise significantly Billy thought. He had eased them into the tree line and they had faded into the darkness there, traveling toward the outskirts of the city as quietly as they could.
A kid, Billy saw. Or at least not much more than a kid. The kid spoke quietly into a hand held radio and Billy's heart sank. The words had been lost on him, but he heard a motor turn over and catch not far away. The motor settled into a low grumble and then revved slightly, growing louder as it neared them from the west, the end of River road that lead out of the city. Away from where the fight had been. Billy wondered if that meant there might be others coming at them from behind. He no sooner had the thought than the nose of a Ford pickup eased around the bend in River road a quarter mile away and coasted down to them. The truck shut off and two more kids stepped down to the asphalt in the silence that ensued. The three moved forward as a group.
Pearl raised her rifle and pointed it at the lead kid. “That's it then.” She said.
She didn't scream it, softly spoke it, Billy thought later, but the kid stopped in his tracks.
“What's with the fuckin' guns?” The kid asked.
“It's a rough world. We weren't looking for a fight, you bought it to us: As for the guns you had yours on us from the first we saw you. It only makes sense that we're going to put ours on you,” Billy said. He hoped he sounded as cool as Pearl had.
'Bullshit,” one of the other kids said. “You had it in your hands when I looked at you. That's why I got mine ready. And you're the ones that was shooting us up a while ago, right?”
“I don't want to kill anyone today,” Pearl said.
“Oh, you don't want to kill anyone today. La dee dah. Big fucking deal,” The third kid said, imitating her accent. His eyes were blood shot. His face was lacerated, probably from the ambush. He kept rubbing at his cheek, Pearl saw.