Bug Out! Part 1: Escape in a Motorhome

by Robert Boren

  “Can’t hear them up here,” Frank shouted.

  “One of the jets just made a low pass, and a bunch of fire flowed out of the bottom.”

  “Holly crap, they’re using Napalm.”

  Jane got back up to the front and sat down in the passenger seat. Lucy jumped back on her lap. She was trembling as she nuzzled against Jane, and looked up at her face.

  “It’s OK, girl,” said Jane, her voice wavering. She petted Lucy and looked over at Frank.

  “You alright, honey?” Frank asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  “We’re almost to Williams,” Frank said. “Wonder if I should take I-40 to Route 64, or take city streets?”

  Suddenly a Jeep Wrangler pulled up in front of him. It was Lewis and Ken; the top was down on the jeep and Frank could see them. Lewis turned around from the passenger seat, and pointed to the I-40 east bound onramp, and then they drove in that direction. Frank followed.

  “Well, that answers your question,” Jane said. “Didn’t we need some gas?”

  “We’re fine…we’ve got over three quarters of a tank. I was worried about it earlier because I thought we would be boondocking for a while back there, and running the generator a lot.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Frank merged onto I-40. The road was nearly empty. He sped up, trying to keep up with the jeep in front of him.

  “Lucy is still pretty shook up,” Jane said, petting her on the back and trying to calm her.

  “She doesn’t like the noise. She can also tell when we’re scared.”

  “Yes, dogs are pretty well wired to humans,” Jane said. “It’s ok, girl.”

  “We’re coming up to the turnoff to Route 64,” Frank said. “Wonder how long we will be driving tonight? It’s getting late. We’ll lose sunlight before too long.”

  “There are quite a few campgrounds on this road,” Jane said. “We are getting close to the Grand Canyon now.”

  “Wonder how much we’ll have to slow down once we get on Route 64?”

  “Good question. There it is, Frank,” Jane said, pointing. The Jeep Wrangler took the off-ramp, and Frank followed, along with the other coaches. At the bottom of the ramp, they took a left turn onto Route 64.

  “Well, this doesn’t look too bad,” Frank said. Soon they were up to about 55 mph. The road was long and straight, and the trees were gone now, giving way to small bushes and flat desert.

  “This makes me nervous,” Jane said. “There aren’t any trees to hide behind.”

  “Yeah, you do feel a little exposed out here,” Frank said. “And it’s almost dusk. I hope Dave and his crew have a good place to stop before it gets too late.”

  They were quiet for a while, each thinking of all that had happened. Jane looked like she was on the verge of tears again. Frank gripped the steering wheel tightly, going over the day’s events in his mind. He kept coming back to the look on Officer Simmons’s face when he was shot. He shot a police officer, he thought to himself. Life will never be the same.

  It finally got dark, and Frank put on his headlights. He saw the headlights of the other coaches going on in his mirror.

  “Look, Frank, there’s a town up there.”

  “Probably Valle. I saw it on the map this morning. It is the only town around for quite a ways.”

  “The sign says ‘Bedrock City’ – look,” Jane said.

  “There’s an airfield over to the left. Ken and Lewis are pulling in over there.”

  The Jeep pulled over to a large flat area just on the other side of the airfield, and motioned for Frank to pull over there. Then the other coaches followed, lining up in a large row. Jane counted 23.

  “Wow, there’s more than I thought. Wonder how many were at the campground, and how many joined us along the way?”

  “Don’t know,” Frank said. He shut off the engine, and got out of his seat. He stuffed the pistol in his belt. “Let’s go see what’s up.”

  “I’ll take Lucy out, she’s got to need it by now,” Jane said. She put the leash on Lucy and headed towards the door behind Frank. As Frank opened the door, they could hear the sound of a jet coming in. He saw one land on the runway ahead of them, then another, then a third. He put his hands over his ears. Lucy barked.

  After the noise died down, Frank got out, and helped Jane. She had a worried look on her face. Ken and Lewis came walking over.

  “Is that who I think it is?” asked Frank. Dave walked up as he was talking.

  “Yup,” Dave said. “The Texans have assets positioned in several places to the east. This is one of the smaller bases. There’s only the three planes here, plus support vehicles and personnel and armaments. There are others further east, and north.”

  “Why doesn’t the US Air force take these out?” asked Frank. “They look like sitting ducks to me.”

  “The US Air Force is grounded,” Dave said. “The high command refused to attack civilians. They took over all of the Air Force bases. They are watching, to make sure no other country takes advantage and attacks us. Oh, and they pretty much destroyed Venezuela.”

  “What about those helicopters?”

  “Part of the army is still serving the Feds, and they have some of the choppers. The rest belong to the invaders from south of the border. We still have drones to worry about, although the Air Force took out a lot of command and control for those.”

  “Cruise missiles?”

  “I don’t know the status of the Navy at this point, but I suspect they aren’t playing ball with the Feds, or else we’d be seeing Tomahawk Missile attacks. The Air Force has the other cruise missiles.”

  Hank came walking over.

  “Hi, guys, what’s up?” he asked.

  “I think we should camp out here tonight, and then head north in the morning,” Dave said. “Thoughts?”

  “Well, I’m for it,” Jane said, walking up with Lucy on the leash. “I think we’re all worn out. Is it safe enough?”

  “Should be, as long as no drones get through,” Dave said. “And even if they did, we wouldn’t be the main target. They’d go after the planes and support vehicles first.”

  “Can we shoot down the drones if they show up?” asked Hank.

  “Possibly,” Dave said. “If our planes were in the air, we could, but they aren’t in the air all the time.”

  “Can we go talk to the pilots? Maybe they know some things that we haven’t heard,” Jane said.

  Dave got a funny look on his face.

  “We aren’t allowed on that airfield,” Dave said. “This is about as close as they will let us get.”

  Jane looked into his eyes. Something wasn’t right.

  “Frank, let’s go inside and eat, and then get to sleep,” Jane said. “I’m tired. We’ve been going all day.”

  “Alright, honey,” Frank said. They got back into their coach.

  “Feed the animals while I get some dinner going?” asked Jane.

  “Sure.” Frank got the cat and dog food out of the fridge and started filling the pet dishes. Mr. Wonderful sauntered out and rubbed against the back of Frank’s legs. “Well, look who showed up.”

  “I can’t believe that cat. Nothing scares him.”

  “Seriously,” Frank said. “He’s probably too dumb to know he should be scared.” He laughed.

  “Now be nice,” Jane said. She was heating up some canned chili on the stove.

  “That smells good, Jane. I’ll get out the hot sauce.”

  Frank put the cat food and dog food down on the floor. Both animals came running over and started eating. Jane brought two bowls of chili and a bag of rolls over to the dinette. Frank grabbed some spoons and napkins. They both sat down to eat.

  “Frank, we need to talk. And you need to have an open mind. Can you?”

  Frank sighed. “Alright, tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I was going through the things that have happened, trying to piece together where we’ve gotten
the info that points to this Federal takeover story. Frank, it’s all hearsay from people we don’t know at all. Every bit of it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We get comments from Sean about the Feds being in league with radical Muslims. He gets picked up on the road, and we jump to the conclusion that his story is correct.”

  “Alright.”

  “Then we meet up with Hank. He tells us a bunch of stuff about San Diego that could be true if the Feds are doing a false flag attack or not.”

  “Go on.”

  “Then there’s Dave. He’s telling us a lot of stuff too, none of which we can verify. It’s very possible that the Texas Air National Guard is helping the Feds to keep the bad guys from coming up the eastern flank.”

  Frank was silent for a moment, thinking.

  “Alright, Jane, you’ve got my attention. And frankly, I didn’t like the response Dave gave when you suggested we talk to the folks at the airfield.”

  “Exactly. You know what I want to ask them, correct?”

  “Well, if it were me, I’d ask them if they are fighting the Federal Government.”

  “I think we should risk using the cellphone to call Robbie,” Jane said. “I’d like to know if he’s heard anything about middle class folks teaming up with the gangs to fight the Feds.”

  “Agreed. Call him.”

  “OK, I’m turning on my iPHONE. Hopefully there’s some cell towers around here.”

  “Alright. You done eating?”

  “Yes, Frank, thanks,” Jane said as Frank picked up the spoons and bowls and put them on the counter.

  “You going to lower the jacks and put out the slides?”

  “No, if you don’t mind. I want to be able to get out of here in a hurry. I’m going to leave the Jeep hooked up too. We can pull straight out of here if we need to.”

  “No problem. Oh, the phone is ready. We have bars. I’ll call.” She dialed up the phone, and listened to it ringing.

  “Mom?” asked Robbie.

  “Hi, son. How are you doing?”

  “Good. How are you guys? Hope you aren’t in southern Arizona.”

  “No, we are up in the middle part of that state, but heading further north soon. How are things there?”

  “Quite a bit better, actually. The Martial Law is working. The looting is just about stopped here. I can’t believe how fast they were able to lock things down.”

  “Really? That’s great!”

  “Yeah, they divided the area into grids. You have to go through check points now, and if you can’t prove that you either live in an area or have business there, they won’t let you through. A lot of people protested, but that got over quick.”

  “How big are the areas?”

  “Well, your condo is close to one of the borders. It runs along Inglewood Ave, and north to Imperial Hwy. If you are east of Inglewood or north of Imperial, you can’t get in without a reason. That cut out virtually all of the troublemakers.”

  “Have you heard anything about middle class folks and gangs getting together to fight the Feds?”

  “That’s a phony story that popped up yesterday,” Robbie said. “It’s all over the internet, but only on the nutcase sites. You know, the truther sites and the militia sites and the prepper sites. At first some of the more legit outlets picked up the stories because nobody knew what was going on. They retracted them this morning.”

  “So it’s safe there?”

  “I think so, but you guys shouldn’t come back yet, because there’s a big mess to the south and to the east. It would be dangerous to get through all of that.”

  “Are you still at the condo?”

  “Yes. My building got burned down. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “You stay there as long as you want, Robbie. Here, I’ll let you say hello to dad.”

  Jane handed the phone to Frank.

  “Hi, son, how are you?”

  “Doing good, dad, how are you?”

  “Alright. Pretty wild times here. We drove through an air battle to get here.”

  “Really? You guys need to get north. There’s a lot of fighting going on in southern Arizona.”

  “Have you heard anything about the enemy capturing US helicopters?”

  “Yes, they overran a base right outside of Yuma, and got their hands on some Apache attack helicopters. We got the base back, but they still have some of the choppers. Apparently the base got infiltrated by some nutcase militia group. That’s the only reason the enemy was able to take it over.”

  “Where did you hear all of this?”

  “It’s all over the cable news…..CNN, MSNBC, and Fox are all covering it.”

  “Did you hear anything about Escondido?”

  “Yeah, that was quite a deal.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “The place got invaded by the enemy. The townspeople fought them, and won. That was the best advertisement for the NRA that I’ve ever seen.”

  “Interesting. You won’t believe the kind of stories we’ve heard about that.”

  “More garbage from the nutcase internet sites. You probably heard the pig blood story.”

  “Yes, and that the Army helped the enemy kill a bunch of citizens.”

  “Our Army?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a load of BS, dad. If somebody is telling you that, they are probably part of one of those militias. Some of them are trying to take advantage of the situation. If you are hearing that kind of crap from anybody, get away from them.”

  “Good advice. You take care, Robbie. We are gonna get going.”

  “Alright, dad, love you.”

  “Love you too, son. I’ll give you back to mom.”

  Frank handed the phone back to Jane.

  “Say goodbye. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Jane gave him a funny look, and then put the phone to her ear.

  “Goodbye, Robbie. I love you.”

  “Bye mom. Love you two.” The phone clicked as Robbie hung up.

  Frank fired up the engine and turned on the lights. He was slowly pulling out when he saw Dave running over with Hank.

  “Where are you going, Frank?” shouted Dave.

  “My daughter is in trouble. She’s up in Oregon. We’re heading that way now.”

  “That isn’t advisable,” Dave said. “You’ll get blown off the road.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “We could make you stay,” Hank said.

  Frank pointed the pistol at him.

  “Go ahead and try,” Frank said. “We’re out of here.”

  Suddenly Frank heard some of the other coaches start their engines. They started to drive up, getting ready to follow Frank. Hank and Dave backed away, and went running, trying to talk to the people in the first couple of coaches.

  “Go go go,” said Jane. Frank drove to the highway, and got on. Just as he was pulling away, he heard a shotgun blast. He looked in his mirror and saw Hank stagger back and fall away from one of the coaches.

  “I suspect that some of the folks in our party listened to their radios,” Frank said.

  “Probably,” Jane said. “Or they called family members.”

  “I’m so lucky to be married to such a smart woman,” Frank said, choking up. I was ready to believe those creeps.”

  “I know,” Jane said. “So was I. Wonder what they were planning to do?”

  Frank started to cry. Jane looked over at him.

  “What is it, Frank?”

  “I killed a cop,” Frank said, tears running down his cheeks.

  “Frank, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. He was a bad guy. He was trying to hold us at that campground as the enemy was heading that way. Think about it.”

  “Oh, crap,” Frank said, looking into his mirror. “Headlights to the left. Looks like that jeep. Grab the shotgun.”

  Jane looked at Frank with horror, and then got out of her chair and picked up the shotgun from behind Frank’s seat. She pumped it once, cha
mbering a shell.

  The jeep pulled up alongside Frank. Dave was driving, and Ken was in the passenger seat, holding a rifle.

  “Pull over now, Frank,” shouted Dave.

  Chapter 10 - Let’s Play Chicken

  “Shoot his tire,” Dave shouted.

  Ken sat silently as the jeep and the RV careened down the road, speed increasing.

  “C’mon, kid, take out his tire,” shouted Dave.

  “At this speed? Are you nuts?” Ken shouted back.

  Frank looked over at them, listening to the argument, as he coaxed the big V-10 to go faster.

  “Get back in your seat and belt yourself in, honey,” he shouted to Jane. “Keep the shotgun on your lap.”

  Jane moved over and strapped into her seat.

  “What are you planning to do?” Jane asked.

  “See those lights coming at us in the other lane? Semi. Let’s see if this idiot wants to play chicken with an 24,000 pound RV.”

  “Oh, Crap,” Jane said, looking down the road. “That truck is coming at us fast.”

  Frank looked in his rear view mirror.

  “Ha ha, the guy behind me knows what’s up. He’s pulling up close. Dave isn’t going to have a place to get out of the way other than the ditch on the left side of the road.”

  “Boss, look,” cried Ken. Dave looked forward and his eyes got wide. He sped up. Frank did too.

  “Can we outrun that jeep?” asked Jane.

  “On a smooth flat surface, probably. I’m watching the tach. We still have some room, and we’re going almost 80.”

  “Dave! Look out!” shouted Ken.

  “I can’t outrun that V-10,” Dave shouted. He started slowing down. Then he saw that the coach behind Frank was pulled up nice and tight. He slowed down more. Same thing with the next coach.

  “Boss, there’s nowhere to move right,” shouted Ken. The semi-truck was coming up fast, and it began to honk its horn.

  “Put your hand out, and make that one move back,” Dave shouted.

  Ken turned around in his seat and motioned to the coach to move back and let him in. The old man driving the coach flipped him off, and kept up his speed.

  “They aren’t going to let us in, Boss. They’re on to us.”

  “Hold on,” cried Dave. He turned the jeep off the road, hitting the soft shoulder. They were going too fast. The front wheels dug into the sand, and the jeep cartwheeled into the desert floor and rolled several times. The semi-truck flew by them, still honking it’s horn.