Once they were close enough Dallas lowered his rifle and pulled the girl out of the bushes. The girl kept her hands up and refused to look at the men.
“You think next time you could warn us you have other people with you? Almost killed your friend,” one of the Rangers said to the boys.
Dallas slung his rifle over his shoulder and looked at the frightened girl. The makeup and uniforms the men wore were serving their purpose, he only wished they had worked this well on the Chinese these past five years. Dallas gently grabbed the girl’s wrist and turned her towards him.
“Hey it’s ok, we are the good guys.” Dallas tried to calm her down.
“How do I know?” Kate replied.
“Did we shoot you?” one of the Rangers answered.
“Enough,” Dallas cut the conversation short. “Go back to the rest of the group and get the equipment off the beach.”
Dallas turned back to the girl.
“Looks like Sarge has a crush.” One of the Rangers commented as they walked back to the rest of the men.
The Chinese, for all they knew, were not coming back. This was one of many ships that had been stranded on the beach after the EMP went off. Of course they didn’t know who had set off the device or why. Could the Chinese have been trying to take out the resistance not realizing they would only destroy their own army? They could not be that stupid. The U.S. had an ally in the world, he wasn’t sure who it was, but the result of their attack had saved the Rangers from being overrun and maybe saved the country.
When Dallas pulled the girl from the woods a thought came to mind. Maybe their priorities could change. They hadn’t been in a firefight for months and their job had consisted of clearing the beach of these abandoned ships. Supplies were collected and the Rangers now had a respectable stockpile of weapons and ammo that would carry them through years if they rationed the supplies. After years of war, it appeared their mission might be over.
The girl, Kate, on further observation was young, possibly in her early twenties. The boys were around the same age. Had things been different for them they might have been in college or enlisting in the military. Seeing how the guys were a bunch of goof-offs, Dallas suspected they were more likely to have been labor in a kitchen or bagging groceries at a supermarket until they got their acts together. In any case, a young girl stood before him in fear and he didn’t like that.
“Kate,” Dallas said. “Your name is Kate, right?”
Kate nodded and looked at the man with the painted face standing before her.
“Do you want to come with us?” Dallas asked, lowering himself. He realized he was towering over her and that was intimidating. Once he didn’t appear big and scary she didn’t have as hard of a time looking at him, and he looked kind of funny with the face paint and goofy looking boonie hat. It reminded her of her grandfather’s hat when he would go fly fishing. The only difference was that instead of fishing lures stuck into the band there were bullets and a flat black pin showing rank.
“Do I have a choice?” Kate asked, watching the three boys she had been with carrying crates off the beach and disappearing into the woods.
“I suppose not.” Dallas replied. “Do you have a home, or a place you have been staying?”
“I was staying with them.” Kate said, looking at the spot where the boys had been walking. “We don’t have a home. We just walk around looking for a place that looks nice for a while. Fish for food and build a shelter at night. We just don’t want to be found by the Chinese. They killed our parents.”
The girl started to cry and Dallas for the first time in a long time felt something other than hate.
“Hey,” Dallas gently touched her wrist again. “It’s ok, the Chinese are gone. They are not coming back.”
“You promise?” Kate asked. “How do you know?”
Dallas didn’t want to lie to her. To say anything other than what he already told her would have been a disappointment and crush her spirit.
“See that boat?” Dallas pointed to the ship with the smoking hole in the side. “That is the Chinese trying to get here now. They can’t cross the sea anymore. We are safe now. They are not coming back.”
“But what if they do?” Kate was eager to know the answer.
“Then I’ll kill them.” Dallas was back; the Dallas that had been fighting for the past five years. This was the Dallas she needed to see and the one that made her smile. The protector she had been seeking was now standing before her and she would follow him anywhere with that promise. The tears stopped and she gripped his hand. Her hands were rough like his. She knew hard times and he didn’t have to worry about her thinking their accommodations were inadequate.
As they walked away Dallas looked the girl over. He might be ten years older than her and on second appearances he noticed she wasn’t a girl, but a woman who needed three meals a day and bath. Her blue eyes were bright like his and her long hair was thick and in need of a brush. Her clothes were in tatters and her shoes had old phone book pages slipped inside to cover the hole in the sole.
“When we get to camp you’ll be able to bathe and clean up. Maybe we can get you some new clothes,” Dallas said.
“I would like that,” Kate said, still holding his hand.
This was the first woman Dallas had talked to in a long time and he was out of practice. He wondered if he would ever see Sophie again and decided if she wanted to see him she would have appeared by now. Accepting that part of his life was over, Dallas looked at Kate.
“So I have to ask,” Dallas paused for a second. “You have a boyfriend?”
Chapter 57
The ride to the border was different than before. Taking the dirt bike, Budd made good time riding the highways to the border crossing. In less than a day Budd saw the post set up and slowly approached, worried they might take him for a Chinese national.
One of the guards stepped out and put his hand up for Budd to stop.
“Who might you be?” the Canadian guard asked.
“United States Army Ranger,” Budd replied. “I have ID.”
The Guard looked over the card that Budd presented. Shooting the same shit-eating grin on his face that was on the card, Budd wondered what the holdup was.
“Are you going to call your boss or what?” Budd asked.
“Can’t,” the guard replied. “Radios are down.”
“Due to the EMP you guys detonated over the area,” the second guard added.
“We did that?” Budd sounded surprised in and all honesty he was.
“You don’t think we did it, do you?” the first guard replied.
“That’s why I’m here. To talk to your boss. I’m supposed to find out what the hell happened.”
The guards looked over at one another. Budd was dreading that he didn’t go to the hole in the fence like before. Without a working radio there was no way to tell the Canadians he was on his way.
“Can I see your boss or not?”
Driving down the street on the dirt bike, Budd received a lot of curious looks from people who were obviously upset that their vehicles were no longer working. He pulled up to the police station that he had visited a few times before and was greeted at the door.
“I see you still have something that works,” one of the police officers said.
“Your cars aren’t working?” Budd asked. He turned around to see the half dozen cruisers sitting in the parking lot.
“We have to order parts to replace the electronics,” the officer explained. “They say after that they should be good to go.”
“So you ordered parts?” Budd was wondering how to get things going again for his own homeland.
“Of course not,” the officer replied. “Communications are down and we have no power. We have to wait for transformers to be shipped from the EU before we can get things up and running. When you guys detonated that EMP you really screwed us over as well.”
“I need to know more about this bomb that was detonated.”
Budd was directed to an office that had some answers. He drove the dirt bike to City Hall and asked to speak to the local officials. He was greeted by a Canadian Army Officer who took him into an office.
“Have a seat,” the Captain said, pointing to the chair.
“Could somebody tell me what the hell happened?” Budd sat in the chair and removed a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket.
The captain pulled a file from the desk and tossed it over to Budd. Flipping the cover open, Budd looked over a series of aerial pictures that had to have been taken by satellite. The Mississippi River came into view with a trail of rocket exhaust traveling into the sky.
“What is this?” Budd asked.
“There have been a lot of events that have taken place over the past five years involving your military. The Base in Okinawa was overrun by the locals not long after the Day. Embassies and compounds in foreign countries like the Middle East no longer exist. What you are seeing is one of the last submarines in your Navy that we know about. From what we can tell, the crew was able to navigate its way up the Mississippi River until they came to the St. Louis area. There they fired off their supply of nuclear warheads, aiming for the west coast and Pacific Ocean. Our guess is that they were trying to get rid of the ordinance before it could fall into less savory hands.”
“This is our guys?” Budd asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” the Captain replied. “We almost fired on you. The trajectory was over our airspace for a few seconds and we wondered who exactly was in control of the missiles. When the warheads detonated we lost contact with our satellites and had our answer.” The Captain took his own cigar out of a humidor and lit the end. He tossed the light across the table and Budd lit his cigarette. “How are things going with the Chinese?”
“They are gone,” Budd replied. “Well, at least in Seattle. We don’t know about further south. At the moment your border is secure.”
“Good,” The Captain took a long drag from the cigar. “That’s what I like to hear.”
The two men sat in the office enjoying their smokes and for once feeling a sensation of relief they had not experienced in years.
When they were finished Budd snuffed out the cigarette butt and picked up the file.
“Mind if I take this?” Budd asked.
“Sure. We have copies,” the Captain said.
Budd stuffed the folder in his bag and walked out the door.
Kick starting the dirt bike, Budd placed his helmet on and rode down the street back to Seattle. Things were starting to look better every day.
Year Six
Chapter 58
Following the battle with the Chinese forces and watching the POWs sent out to sea, Sophie helped take care of the stragglers that were left in the city. The task didn’t take long. Winter came and this time she did something she knew she should have done years ago. Carrying her rifle on her back and packing enough MREs to get her through a few days, she started her trip back to Montana.
Careful to take her time, Sophie followed the roads left behind by a previous civilization. For the most part much of it was still in good condition. In areas around the mountain region, landslides had started to reclaim the land. She tried to refrain from using the MREs as much as she could. When she came across a water source she would fish if the weather was good. When she came across game she would take it down and dry out all the meat she could carry.
After building a set of snowshoes the travel became easier and she was well on her way to her home.
The spring months became more apparent as she moved into the lower elevations. The temperature rose and she was shedding clothes as she started to recognize the area. May of the following year she was home.
The dirt road leading to her parent’s ranch home looked maintained, with few weeds growing on the trail. Next to the house a quarter of a mile away she could see clothes hanging on a line to dry in the sun. From behind the wall of fabric a woman appeared. While she was smaller and her hair was long again, Sophie could tell it was her mother. The woman stopped hanging the clothes and stood watching Sophie from two hundred yards away. Sophie was too tired to walk any faster. The woman ran into the house yelling inside. On the porch her father appeared. Thin as always and appearing older than she remembered, he ran out into the yard and over the field. Sophie dropped her backpack and set her rifle on the ground before they reached her. They hugged and cried until their tears had dried up. It was only then they invited her inside.
That night they had a home-cooked meal of stew and spring greens from the garden Sophie’s mother had started years before.
“We were afraid we lost you,” her mother said. She shifted her hand across the table and Sophie took it into her palm.
They finished their meal and Sophie went upstairs to find her former bedroom still in the same condition it was in when she left.
That night the nightmares of the war came back. The pink mist of men she had killed were as vivid as the days they happened. The months she was locked away in the cabin on the ship returned. She woke up screaming and found her father sitting on the side of the bed holding her.
“It’s ok,” he said. “It’s ok, you’re home.”
She tried to let go of the past five years, but no matter how hard she cried or what she did around the house, the memories flooded back.
The summer came and went. The fall months were upon them.
“Hunting season is coming up,” her father stated. “We need to build up supplies before the big snowfall. Care to go elk hunting again? I noticed that .308 you carried back with you.”
“Hunting?” she thought about it for a second. “Ya, sure. I’ll go.”
This time they weren’t able to travel as far as they would have liked. Without the four wheelers, which ran out of gas years ago, they were stuck on foot. They hiked a few miles out, knowing they could only quarter the animal and smoke it where it fell.
On the third day they saw their game come into sight. Sophie didn’t wait for her father’s permission to take down the male in the herd. The shot landed with pinpoint accuracy and he said nothing afterwards. He placed his hand on her shoulder and wore a smile of pride.
The two of them hiked down into the field and started to clean the elk. Four days later they were back at the ranch house and stored away the food they had preserved. With the meat dried out the weight of the animal was reduced to a fraction of its former size. The snow was still two months away and Sophie was still having trouble sleeping. The last night of good sleep she could recall was after shooting the elk. She stayed up late thinking about the fighting that was still happening in L.A. and San Francisco, wondering how many more women were going through what she had gone through. How many more were dead?
The next day she loaded her backpack with supplies and cleaned the rifle. She didn’t tell her parents what she was doing. She waited for the next night and left a note on the mantle of the fireplace. She noticed her father always stoked the fire again for breakfast in the early hours.
After she closed the door she walked off the porch and out into the early morning hours of the day.
Hearing the creaking of the wood and footsteps in the house, Sophie’s father awoke to check the house. He found the living room empty and grabbed the poker from the stand. He stoked the fire and when he was finished noticed the note on the mantel. He didn’t have to read it to know what it said. His daughter had changed over the years. She was no longer the girl that had left home. There was something inside her that would not let her rest for a long time to come.
Picking up the note, he sat down to read it:
Mom and Dad,
As you probably noticed things aren’t how they used to be, with me. I haven’t talked about the time that I have been away and overall I think it’s best you don’t know. The world turned into a cruel place and there are people out there who are hurting. I can’t sit back and rest while others are being hurt like I was. I didn’t want to hurt you again, but no
w you know that I am alright and thanks to Dad I can take care of myself. I was thankful to find that both of you survived when so many people didn’t. I don’t know if I will be home again. What I do know is that I have to do some good while I can. I love you both.
Your Daughter,
Sophie
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