Buck was tempted to call Garth, but he was so close to the Nebraska border, he decided to wait. Soon they’d be at the Sidney truck stop, and he could make all the calls he wanted without fear of running off the road.
“If it’s true, it could be awesome for us because we’re so close. If it’s fake, it could give a lot of people false hope. They’ll do crazy things to get there. That would be bad for us.”
Connie rubbed Mac for a minute before finally replying, “Tonight, you and I should take some time to really talk through our options. I’ve always drawn strength from a higher power. First, with Philip and the war. Then, when we almost died at the hands of those bikers. Now, we’re faced with what looks like an even bigger challenge.”
He sensed the weight of the radio broadcast and her words, but when he looked over, she had a fiery sparkle in her eyes again.
“But,” she went on, “I also draw strength from being with you and your lovable dog. I feel like I can take on the world sitting up here in your big truck. Whatever we do, we’re going into it together, okay? I don’t care what that guy says, we’ve got to get your son first. Whatever happens afterward, at least you two will be together.”
Buck wanted to stop the truck and swoop her into his arms for saying what she had, but it wasn’t the right time.
“You get me,” he said. “Not many people do, Connie.”
“Nah, you aren’t so complicated.” She smirked. “You’re a man’s man. You aren’t going to stop before you have your son, except when you pull a bonehead move like stopping to see the secret convoy. And you need me to tell you to cut the crap.”
“I do,” he admitted. “But now I know they’re hiding something from us.”
“And?” She paused for dramatic effect. “How does that bring you closer to your son?”
“You get me,” he repeated.
“In more ways than you admit.” She smiled. “And you’ll get me, too. When the time is right.”
“I’m at a severe disadvantage in my relationship jousting.” He stared straight ahead, the truck speeding up as he wished it to get to the truck stop more quickly.
“Want me to give Garth a call?”
CHAPTER 28
Richmond, Virginia
“We’re finally making good time,” Garth said to Lydia over the endless wind noise.
“I can’t believe the size of your cities. Richmond went on forever,” she exclaimed.
“Pshaw! You think Richmond was big, you should see what New York City looks like. It never ends.”
“I’d like to see it someday. Do you think we’ll ever go back to your home?”
He heard the dreariness in her voice. Once her sugar high wore off, she had crashed hard. That had started on the other side of Richmond, but miles later, she still wasn’t out of it.
“Oh, hell yeah. Once we get to my dad, I’m sure things will settle back down to normal. We’ll go home together.”
“And what will happen to me?”
He’d already established he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight, but her tiredness brought out the question once again.
“Lydia, you don’t have to worry about a thing. I’m glad you and I ended up together. It’s been fun, actually.”
“Really?” She maneuvered her leg under herself again to face him. “You’re not just saying that?”
He shook his head. “Well, some things I’d pass on doing again, but showing you the Big Mac was awesome. I can’t wait to show you other things too, like my video games. At the same time, I’ve been fighting the urge to, um, kind of ask you…”
“Yes, Garth?” She exuded excitement.
“Well, I’ve listened to you talk about your time. About how girls marry at sixteen and whatever, and I…”
It became difficult to look at her, so he watched the road.
“I really like you,” he admitted, “but my dad would never let me get married.”
She stared at him for a few seconds as if interpreting his words, then laughed in a good-natured way.
“Garth, whatever makes you think I would want to get married right now?”
He rubbed his head behind his ear. “I thought that was how you did things in your time? A boy and a girl pair up and they get married. I mean, I want to someday, I guess, but—”
She giggled. “You are such a strange boy. And sweet. But I am in your time, not the other way around. How do you behave around girls normally?”
Awkwardly.
“Well, we do have girlfriends and boyfriends…”
“So do we!” she exclaimed. “Though I never had the chance on the wagon train. I was sad for many weeks after my pa was gone. I guess it never occurred to me to have a boyfriend—not until I met you.”
Garth was uncomfortable with the compliment.
“Thanks. I’m glad I met you, too, but we have to figure out where this highway is taking us before we can let our hair down, you know?”
“My hair is already down,” she expressed happily. “See?”
The sun had nearly set, but a lone beam came in through the front windshield and caught her blonde hair and green eyes at the perfect angle. For a brief instant, she was so attractive he would have considered marrying her on the spot.
Then the car moved, and the beam shifted elsewhere.
“Yeah, I see,” he remarked like it was no big deal. “Without my phone, I don’t know how in the hell I’m going to find him.”
She clapped. “Oh, another challenge. That’s what I love about your world, Garth. There are so many puzzles to figure out.”
“Yeah, well, it isn’t always like this. We usually spend our time playing games on our phones. Me and Sam play these strategy games, which are…sort of puzzles.”
He cracked himself up.
“I guess we do have a lot of brainteasers, but this is a complex world. Still, I’m sure we can think of a way to get hold of my dad. We just have to think of who else has my dad’s phone number, and we can call him on a different telephone.”
“You don’t have his number? Didn’t you talk to him all the time?”
“Yes,” he admitted, “but all I did was tap or speak his name, and the phone dialed the number. I didn’t have to memorize it. Funny, huh?”
“Another quirk of your time I will never understand. Who else has his number, then? Does the phone maker have it?”
He thought about it for a minute as he drove through the shadowy pine forest of central Virginia. The maker of the phone was some company in China, but the people who ran his cell phone plan would almost certainly have it.
“Lydia, you’re a genius! I know exactly how we can get hold of my dad. First thing in the morning, I’ll show you.”
“Oh, goodie!” she exclaimed.
“Tonight, though, we’re going to make some time. I’m not stopping until we have to get the next tank of gas.” The needle was only a quarter of the way toward empty, and the digital readout said they had three hundred and seventy-five miles until empty. After the long delays of the day, he was adamant on impressing his dad by driving off a lot of miles now that he had the gas.
“If you had asked, my pa would have given his approval, Garth. He would be proud of you for taking such good care of me when you didn’t have to.”
It never occurred to him what her father would think of him, but her words touched him deeply. Somehow, the suggestion of doing right by both their fathers made him feel like an honorable young man.
He gripped the steering wheel and peered ahead. They had made it through another day. Whatever was ahead, he could handle it.
“Thanks. My dad is going to love you, too.”
Unknown location
Phil woke up on the ground in the shadows of tall trees in a forest. He’d fallen sometime in the morning, and now he was outside, and it was the evening. Perhaps five or six at night. He imagined he’d been out for the better part of a day. Had he been drugged and tossed out of CERN? Had the Swiss police dumped him in the fore
st to send a message?
“Colonel Knight?” he called. “You there? I think those scientists fucked us over.”
His hands pressed against pine needles as he struggled to his knees and looked around. He groped for and found his weapon still strapped to his back.
“They left me with my rifle?” he whispered. If someone was going to dump him in the woods, why would they let him keep his firearm? He could walk out of the woods and go right back to CERN armed—and a lot angrier.
Phil got up and made sure he was solid. The dizziness was gone, and the fresh air seemed to do him good.
“Colonel? Anyone?” He dared not yell, but he wanted to be heard. The large trunks and tall, thin trees with pine boughs at the top gave him no clue where he was. There wasn’t a lot of groundcover, either, which offered him a good look at the hilly terrain. Not steep like the side of a mountain, but close.
He chose to walk downhill. The Alps surrounded Geneva, and he had no interest in going higher in elevation toward the snow-capped peaks. Civilization would be in the valley.
After about fifteen minutes, he found a small dirt path with two dusty tracks side-by-side. It was big enough for a four-wheeler, or two bicycles next to each other. It was the type of thing he expected in a Swiss resort during the summertime.
The path went over a small rise, then around a bend.
“Someone is going to fucking pay for this,” he muttered quietly. If nothing else, the scientists had stopped him and Task Force Blue 7 from doing their job. They’d shut down the power, but had never confirmed their success with headquarters. He was pissed, and Ethan would undoubtedly be chewing nails by now.
Phil was thinking about whether he was going to walk back into CERN with his weapon out as a show of force when he came around a sharp curve next to a rocky hillside. He looked up to find three soldiers sitting on a fallen log.
“Hey, guys! I found you!” he said, thinking they were his men.
An instant too late, he realized they were American, but not his unit. He froze in place.
He expected them to challenge his approach or whip out their weapons, but the Air Force airmen continued to sit there.
One of them invited him over. “Did those crazy fuckers threaten you with a bomb, too?”
Phil stood fifty feet away, unsure what to make of them.
“No. I was in the offices of CERN talking to a scientist, then I zonked out and woke up here in the woods. How did you get here?”
“We were guarding the CERN links. We were jumped by a guy with a backpack of C-4. Said we had a minute to clear out before he was going to blow himself up. We couldn’t fight him, so we ran. Now we’re trying to get back to SNAKE headquarters through these woods.”
“SNAKE?” he said sarcastically. “I was at CERN. In Switzerland.”
The three airmen laughed. “You must have hit your head. It happens, guy.”
He stepped closer. “No. Really. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Phil Stanwick. Two days ago, I fought at Bagram Air Base until I was medevacked to Ramstein. Then I was recruited to go to the CERN scientific lab in Geneva, Switzerland. I blacked out…”
He touched his temple, wondering for a second if he was under hypnosis. Here he was giving away operational intelligence.
“Oh, sorry, sir.” The men stood up and saluted. One of them continued. “Well, however you got here, welcome back to America, Colonel. You’ve made it to Red Mesa, Colorado. We’re somewhere at the edge of the ring of the SNAKE supercollider. We’re trying to get back to the main offices before dark. Stick with us, and when we get there, you’ll see where you are.”
Phil strode up and sat on the log close to the three others.
“I think those scientists broke my brain. I don’t see how we’re going to get back if we’re sitting on a log.”
Sidney, Nebraska
Buck and Connie caught up with the rest of the convoy, and they all stopped at the Love’s truck stop in Sidney, Nebraska, as planned. They shared a few minutes of conversation and wolfed down junk food from the convenience store, but Buck was anxious to get some rest, so he and Connie left the others.
Ten minutes later, it was lights out in his cabin.
“You’re thinking about Garth, aren’t you?” Connie said from her side of the sleeper bed. He fully intended to spend the night in his captain’s chair, but Connie insisted he should get comfortable and lay in the bed with her and Big Mac.
“I don’t know why he isn’t answering his phone. I think communications are getting worse. Everything is breaking down.”
She chuckled. “No shit, and the price of diesel has gone up, to boot. The pumps here showed $5.49 a gallon!”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “The world is going to shit, and that means it’s harder to get fuel deliveries. It’s a good thing we gassed up in Wyoming, because fuel isn’t going to get any cheaper from here on out. We should have enough in the tank to link up with Garth if we can talk to him and find out where he’s going to be.”
“You told him to drive west on I-64, right? That’s where he’ll be.”
The thought gave him no sense of comfort. Even if they knew for sure he was on a particular interstate, it would be a miracle if they saw him passing in the other lanes. They had to talk in real time.
“I’m sure things will look better in the morning,” she reasoned.
Mac flopped around in the gap between Buck and Connie. The small bed was at capacity, and Mac seemed to have trouble getting comfortable between his two humans.
“Whoa, boy,” Buck said in a quiet voice as he rubbed the Golden. His hand met Connie’s as she also tried to comfort the pup.
“Listen to your daddy,” she whispered.
Mac settled down, but Connie kept her hand over his.
“Do you think that man was telling the truth?” she asked in the darkness. “Do we really have one chance? One safe place?”
Buck didn’t say anything right away, but he was happy to already have a safe harbor in the chaos. The sleeper cab was an isolation chamber protecting the three of them from whatever was out there. His bubble of safety was what he had to hold onto if he wanted to have any hope of sleeping and recovering tonight, which is what he desperately needed—so he could do it again the next day.
“It’s like you said,” he replied through a dreary fog. “It’ll look better tomorrow.”
His hand relaxed Mac, and Connie’s, in turn, calmed him.
Tomorrow’s the day I see Garth.
Buck fell asleep under the warmth of her touch.
To Be Continued in End Days, Book 4
If you like this book, please leave a review. This is a new series, so the only way I can decide whether to commit more time to it is by getting feedback from you, the readers. Your opinion matters to me. Continue or not? I have only so much time to craft new stories. Help me invest that time wisely. Plus, reviews buoy my spirits and stoke the fires of creativity.
Don’t stop now! Keep turning the pages since there’s a little more insight and such from the authors.
This book is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
End Days (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds)
are Copyright (c) 2019 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Version 1.0
Cover by Heather Senter
Editing by Lynne Stiegler
Formatting by James Osiris Baldwin – jamesosiris.com
Author Notes – E.E. Isherwood
Written February 27, 2019
End Days is flying off the shelves because of your support. Please keep the great review
s coming as they are the life-blood of independent authors. We can’t thank you enough for them.
I love science fiction, but I also love science fact. As a young teen, I spent many hours watching the PBS series Cosmos, with Carl Sagan. If you haven’t seen it, go get it. The original, not the new one. I recently went back and re-watched the whole 13-part series and it is still wonderfully entertaining and informative. Sagan had a way of simplifying the science so the rest of us could understand it. I still think of his imaginary spaceship plying the stars as he showed the scale of our universe. And, of course, he mentioned time travel…
I happen to believe time travel in reverse is impossible, but not because of any scientific formula. I base it on circumstantial evidence. If mankind somehow figures it out a million years in the future, human nature would ensure those noble people would go back and try to improve the past. The ethics would go out the window, even if every futuristic child was taught how a time change could make them not exist. They’d still try to go back. Bank on it.
Hitler would be like the bug zapper on my back patio, always attracting time traveler mosquitoes, intent on righting a massive injustice in our timeline. And, as was said in this book, if you get a chance to kill Hitler, you always take it. His survival, and innumerable other despots throughout history, tells me we do not gain the power to go back in time and correct our mistakes.
It would be nice if I could slow down time, however. I’d love to have more weeks of writing to make these books a lot longer. There are so many places in the story where I want to delve into the details of the shifts taking place in this broken world, but I’d risk bogging the plot in endless minutia.
Thank you again for reading End Days. We’ve got more adventure coming.
Broad America: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (End Days Book 3) Page 22