by Steven Bird
I placed my hand on Mark to thank him one more time, but he was already gone. He must have died from internal injuries while in the landing flare. He may have very well been dead before the tires even touched the ground.
Once again, Tamara and I had been delivered to safety by a patriotic American hero who had given everything he had for us and for our cause. We were racking up a debt we felt we could never repay.
“Godspeed, Mark,” I whispered as I turned and followed Tamara into the woods.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Running as fast as we could through the trees, we heard several attack drones make high-speed, low-altitude passes, strafing the P-51, eventually igniting its remaining stores of avgas, causing it to burst into flames.
Once the P-51 had been completely destroyed, the drones preformed a circling climb, spiraling up directly over the wreckage, loitering at several thousand feet.
“I wish those bastards would get the hell out of here,” Tamara grumbled.
“They probably have orders to observe for a while,” I guessed. “I’d imagine they want to see if anyone comes to the pilot’s aid.”
“Do you think they knew it was us?” she asked.
“That’s hard to say. I guess it depends on how early after takeoff they received reports of a low-flying aircraft. They may simply be practicing airspace dominance since non-official air travel is strictly forbidden and assumed to be resistance-related operations.”
“Either way,” she added. “We’re likely to have company soon, so we’d better move on.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I concurred.
Looking around, I said, “This tree line seems to follow that overgrown farmer’s field. That field more than likely bumps up to a road at some point as there wasn’t a way into it from the road we landed on.”
“Good point,” Tamara replied. “Let’s follow the trees and see where they lead. Once we get to the road, maybe we’ll be able to figure out where we are and form a plan.”
Smiling, I said, “My thoughts exactly.”
After working our way through the trees, hand-railing the field for what seemed like a half mile or so, we came across a rural road labeled, MO-50, Loose Creek Hwy.
“Loose Creek Hwy,” I read aloud. “Hmmm, I wonder if that means there’s a town named Loose Creek?”
“That or a creek named Loose Creek,” she quipped.
“More than likely, both,” I replied.
Noting the position of the sun in the sky, we oriented ourselves and began walking west, which would at least be in the direction of Whiteman Air Force Base, if nothing else.
As we entered what once was a quaint little rural town, we saw large red X’s spray-painted on most of the houses. They all looked hastily abandoned and in disarray. The area looked like it had been hit hard once the virus swept the nation.
“Is that a gas station?” Tamara asked, pointing down the road to the west.
“Looks like it,” I replied. “Let’s check it out,” I said as I visually scanned the sky for signs of drone activity. It was a beautiful clear day without a cloud in the sky, and with the relatively level terrain throughout the region, a clear view of the sky was easy to obtain.
“Let’s go,” I said as we began walking further west toward what we assumed to be a gas station.
“I could sure use a Snickers bar,” Tamara joked. “What’s the odds there is a Snickers bar on the shelf?”
“Slim to none,” I replied. I noted Tamara’s attempt at humor as being uncharacteristic of her. She was as all business as they come. Was she simply becoming closer to me and showing her true self, or had the stress of everything she’d endured over the past few weeks started getting to her, requiring some sort of off-topic behavior to balance it all out?
“If there is a Snickers bar, you have to half it with me,” I said, looking at her out of the corner of my eye to gauge her reaction.
Glancing over at me and catching me looking for her reaction, she punched me in the arm and said, “Not if I get there first!” Catching me completely off-guard, she took off running as fast as she could toward what we could now clearly see was, in fact, a gas station.
Against my better judgment, still paranoid about potential drone activity in the area, I took off running after her, yelling, “But I called halves!”
I scanned the area as I ran. I wanted to cut loose and have a few moments of fun with her, but I knew all too well how quickly smiles can be extinguished by the unexpected in this world. This town looked utterly abandoned, however, so I convinced myself to just let go and enjoy the moment.
Beating me to the gas station that had clearly been abandoned long ago, she jerked the door open and ran inside. A chill ran up my spine as I saw her disappear into the building, urging me to pick up my pace and run even harder as the Symbex pack, only loosely tossed across my shoulder, bounced off my back with every stride.
Entering the gas station, I saw Tamara standing at the empty candy aisle. Turning to face me, she smiled and said, “There was one left, but I ate it as fast as I could.”
Looking around the store, we could see that everything of use had been taken. The refrigerated section, as well as the dry goods, had been cleaned out. Well, except for one package of very aged sushi. I guess even in the apocalypse, people weren’t willing to trust gas station sushi.
The automotive aisle had been cleared as well. Not one quart of motor oil was left. The display that would have ordinarily carried all of the cheesy knives, you know the ones, the ones with dragons engraved on them with wickedly shaped, cookie-cutter cast Chinese blades, was empty as well. Who bought those things, anyway? I mean, seriously.
I walked over to the ice cream cooler, knowing full well that if anything had been left it would have been melted long ago when the power grid failed, but something caught my eye.
I knelt down, looking underneath, and saw a pocket road map of the state of Missouri underneath the left front leg. Evidently, it had been used to level the cooler to compensate for an uneven floor or something.
Looking over to Tamara, seeing her looking around the room, I said, “Give me a hand.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’re not gonna believe it.”
“What?” she again asked, losing her patience with me.
“They leveled the ice cream cooler with a road map,” I said, pointing at the floor. “When I lift the cooler, pull it out.”
Getting into position, she said, “Okay, go ahead.”
Grunting and straining, I coughed, and said, “Damn. This thing is heavy. Give me a hand. Maybe if we lift it, we can kick it out.”
With the two of us both in position, I said, “Okay, one…two…”
And then from behind us, we heard a strange man’s voice say, “Three.”
Chills instantly ran up my spine as we both spun around to see a filthy, wretched-looking man standing before us with a hungry look in his eyes and a pump shotgun in his hands. Calling the man disheveled would be doing a disservice to all disheveled people around the world. He was far from that. He was putrid. I’m not sure how we hadn’t smelled him coming from the looks of him.
“Whatchoo lookin’ for?” he asked, leaving his mouth open and rubbing his tongue across his front teeth—well, what was left of his front teeth.
“Oh, um, we were just gonna try to get that map,” I said, pointing at the base of the cooler. I’d have given anything to have had that Sig 556 at that moment, or heck, any gun, but Mark was right, there just wasn’t room in the tiny cockpit of the P-51 that was initially designed for a single crewmember.
The shotgun was pointed straight at me, and his eyes were looking straight at Tamara. “You sure gotchoo a pretty little thang, there,” he said, still raking his tongue across his filthy teeth. Licking his teeth seemed to be his favorite hobby because brushing them certainly wasn’t.
“We were just passing through,” I said. “We’ll be on our way now.”
“No, you won
’t,” he replied, still smiling. “Whatchoo got in that bag?” he asked, pointing the gun at the Symbex pack.
“Tampons,” Tamara blurted out. “I have issues, and we were hoping some may have been left on the shelves here.”
Good one, I thought, proud of her quick thinking.
“If that’s all you got, I guess I’ll take’m. But I don’t want you to have to do without your lady stuff, so I guess I’ll have to take you, too,” he said, waving the gun around, covering us both in a circular pattern.
Based on my years as a police officer, I’d say this guy was two things: first, he wasn’t all there, and second, he’s wasn’t a first-time offender. No, I’d venture to guess he was one of the ones that enjoyed this new world like a pig loved rolling in slop. How he’d not managed to die from the Symbex virus, though, was beyond me.
Had he simply hidden out, awaiting the die off so he could reemerge in the world and wreak his havoc?
“Look,” I said, “If you own this gas station, we apologize. We didn’t mean to trespass on your property. Like I said, we’ll just be on our way and leave you to your store.”
“Are you try’n to be slick, boy?” he muttered, spitting as he pronounced the ‘s’ in slick.
“No, sir. I just don’t want to cause you any more trouble.”
“Oh, she’s not causing me any trouble,” he replied, taking a step toward Tamara. “It’s you who’s the problem. Now, why don’t you just hand over the pack like I asked? I ain’t gonna ask again.”
“Okay, no problem,” I said, hoping Tamara would see my fidgeting with the pack as a window of opportunity to make a move. If there was one thing I knew for sure about Tamara, she could hold her own in a fight. She didn’t need me protecting her, as much as I wished I could do that for her right there at that moment.
As I pretended that the pack was snagged on my clothing, Tamara made her move, grabbing the end of the barrel and shoving it upward as the shotgun discharged, blasting a hole in the dropped ceiling, causing bits of insulated ceiling tile to rain down like cancer-causing snow.
I immediately turned and leaped on the man as he kicked Tamara hard in the stomach, knocking her backward against the ice cream cooler.
I felt the shotgun jerk in my hands as he racked another round in the chamber. I ran as hard as I could toward him, pushing against the gun and forcing him back against the empty candy bar shelf behind him, knocking it over in a loud crash.
With the two of us now wrestling on the floor, Tamara stood over him and drove a fire extinguisher straight into his face, causing the shotgun to discharge as his hand flinched in one last attempt to save himself. I felt a sting and the sensation of a blunt impact as I stumbled, trying to get off the man whose life had just been extinguished by Tamara’s fatal blow.
I fell backward, then stood up. I could see the look of shock and fear on her face. She was looking at me. She was looking at my side. I felt around and winced in pain. I pulled up my shirt, and there were but a few small, bloody holes. The man was apparently using clay target loads or something similar.
But how had I felt the impact and concussion of the blast like I had, if only a few stray pieces of shot had hit their mark? I then looked to the Symbex pack hanging over my shoulder, and to my horror, I saw that it taken the brunt of the blast and was riddled with holes.
I dropped to my knees and frantically began inspecting the contents. To my horror, only four doses remained; the rest had been destroyed by the shot, as was our portable air injector.
I sat back on the floor and placed my head in the palms of my hands. Tamara gently placed the bloody fire extinguisher to the side and sat down beside me.
We both knew what this meant. We were due for a dose, but none would be received. The last four remaining vials would be delivered to Whiteman Air Force Base if it killed us, and we both knew it most likely would.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sitting silently on the floor, leaning against one another, I shook out of the fog in my mind and said, “We’d better get moving. If there is anyone else around, they’ll have heard those shots.”
I stood up and then held my hand out to Tamara, offering to help, but she simply sat there. I could see depression setting in. I had to get her mind back on track. We still had a mission to complete—a mission that too many others had already died for, or would eventually die for, due to their involvement and support. We couldn’t just sit down and wait to die now. We had to press on.
I knelt down in front of her, placed my hand on hers, looked her in the eyes, and whispered, “It ain’t over, ‘til it’s over.”
Taking my hand, she stood, dusted herself off, and said, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Those same thoughts went through my mind,” I assured her.
I picked up the shotgun and looked it over. It was a pre-ban era Mossberg 590 Special Purpose. It had the long magazine tube, and spring-loaded extra shell storage slots in each side of the stock. With nine rounds in the tube, one in the chamber, and four in the stock, fourteen rounds could be carried on and within the gun itself. The four in the stock, of course, had to be loaded by hand once the tube ran dry, but it was at least an expedited method of reloading compared to fumbling around in one’s pockets for more.
I searched Mr. Creepy and found six more shells on his person. I cycled the pump action, ejecting a shell with each stroke until the magazine tube had run dry. Six shells had remained in the tube, and with the six on his person, that gave us twelve total.
The shells were a very random mix of loads, from squirrel and bird loads, to clays, to double-ought buckshot, oh, and one random slug. I cycled one round of double-ought buckshot into the chamber, then topped off the magazine tube with nine more. The remaining two I placed in the stock, putting the slug on the left and a shotshell on the right. That way, if a situation called for a slug, it would be easily accessible to hand load into the chamber.
Once we had finally retrieved the map from under the ice cream cooler, we saw that the sun was almost completely over the horizon, and the light was failing fast. We worked our way through the building and out the back door.
Once we were outside, the sun had finally set on our long, eventful day, and it was time for Tamara and me to find a suitable place to spend the night.
We could feel the chill coming on. It was going to be a cold night in Missouri—that was for sure. “Where do you want to sleep?” I asked. “Inside or out?”
“I’d prefer inside tonight if you don’t mind,” she answered.
“I was hoping you would say that,” I said with a smile.
We decided to put a little distance between ourselves and the gas station for good measure, so we walked nearly into town. On the outskirts of town, there was an upper-middle-class home set back in the woods, a quarter-mile from the main road. Behind the house, there was a large garage, an outbuilding for storage, and a greenhouse.
Looking at Tamara, I asked, “What do you think?”
“I’d prefer not to spend the night in someone’s house. I don’t want to stumble across a scene like you said you and Ronnie did. Any roof over my head will do,” she countered.
“How about the garage, then?” I said, pointing behind the house.
“That’s fine with me,” she said, fighting off a yawn.
“My sentiments exactly,” I said as I blinked my eyes to focus. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep in the woods last night. Your snoring kept me awake.”
“I don’t snore,” she growled, punching me in the arm.
“Hey, all I know is it wasn’t a bear.”
“Very funny, mister,” she said, seeing through my ruse.
I think we had both started appreciating each other’s cheesy attempts at humor. If felt good to… well… feel. It felt good to feel something other than stress, sadness, and duty. It felt good just to feel like you were in the middle of a light-hearted conversation with someone you cared about, and not just
another daily struggle for survival.
With it being completely dark in the garage, we felt around until we found a spot of a suitable size, clear of vehicles or other stored items. We then laid out our thermal barrier and settled in for the night. I placed the Symbex pack off to the side, leaned the shotgun up against it, and wished Tamara a good night.
~~~~
When I awoke early the next morning, I felt something draped across my body. It was Tamara’s arm. She had evidently snuggled up next to me and wrapped her arm around me at some point during the night. Maybe she was just cold, I wondered.
I gently lifted her arm and placed it off to the side. I stood quietly, trying not to wake her. Feeling dizzy, I leaned against a car covered by a canvas car cover and regained my balance.
What was wrong with me? I didn’t feel like myself. I felt my forehead, and noticed that I had the cold sweats, and come to think of it, my joints did feel a bit achy the evening before. I guess I had chalked it up as fatigue, or the impact from our crash landing. But maybe it was more than that.
I started thinking about the virus. We had only been taking half doses recently, which was not based on science or medical advice, but on the idea that if it worked, we could stretch our supply out a little longer. After, we had no idea how long our journey would take. And now we had missed a day altogether. Was the Sembé virus starting to rear its ugly head already? Having been inside the belly of the beast from the beginning, I had been shielded from feeling the effects, always having the OWA’s health service within reach in exchange for my servitude.
I knelt down beside Tamara and placed my hand gently on her head. She felt a little warm, but maybe I was just being paranoid. With the morning rays of the sun now shining through the garage windows, I unfolded the map we had obtained from the gas station and began to nail down our position. We knew we had been on MO-50, called Loose Creek Hwy, and according to the map, it led into the sleepy little town of—you guessed it—Loose Creek. That was verified by the presence of MO-50BYP, a bypass around downtown, which would be the road we landed on.