by W. J. Lundy
After the flash, a blinding cloud of debris crashed and overtook the vehicles. They were now driving through a thick fog of dust, the headlights barely illuminating the way ahead. Blinded, James was forced to slow down while Rogers moved the truck forward, staying in view of the lead vehicle’s taillights.
“What was that… a nuke?” Laura asked, her voice trembling. Katy was still in her arms, sobbing.
Rogers shook his head, both hands clutching the wheel tight. “I don’t think so; we’d be dead if it were. Maybe kinetic… electrical? A rail gun firing straight down, fuck… something unknown?”
Jacob looked back behind them, trying to focus on anything in the cloud of thick dust through the rear window. “I think they hit the airfield.”
Rogers nodded his head. “Most likely.”
“You think anyone got out?” Laura asked.
Rogers clenched his jaw and narrowly shook his head, not taking his eyes off the Blazer in front of him. “There were three of them in our area; the globes probably placed themselves so they would have overlapping blast radiuses. We were five… maybe ten miles away when they hit. You felt the blast and shockwaves yourself. What can you imagine happened closer?”
Suddenly, the truck ahead stopped, the taillights growing bright. Rogers slapped the truck into park. The girls got very quiet as a spotlight hit the windshield, cutting through the haze. Neither Rogers nor Jacob spoke as a group of men with flashlights patrolled up both sides of the road, rifles aimed at the cab. Rogers lowered his window and leaned out. “Slow your roll, heroes, and get those damn rifles out of my face; I got a kid in here.”
The lead soldier put up a hand, waving the others off, then approached the driver’s window. He saw the rank on Rogers’ collar. “Sorry, Sergeant, we’re all on edge. What the hell happened?”
Rogers’ own eyes showed alarm. He looked across at Jacob then back at the soldier. “I don’t know. Do you have contact with the other stations, other gates?”
“No, Sergeant, the radio fuzzed out just before those things turned red… then the blast… You all are the first vehicle we’ve seen. Are there any more behind you?”
“I don’t think so. We were already on the road when they attacked. Listen, secure this gate, do what you can to lock it up then get your people out of here. Whatever they did back there, I’d say this position is no longer worth defending.”
The soldier’s eyes went wide as he looked past the truck and down the road toward the main base. “But, Sergeant, I can’t just abandon the post; I—I’ve got orders,” the soldier said.
“Look, I can’t make you leave, but I would highly recommend you do what I say. Find a place to hole up, someplace hidden back in the trees to watch the base from cover if you want. Try to stay on the radio, but just get the hell out of the open, okay?”
Rogers pointed ahead as the Blazer began to ease forward, showing James’ eagerness to leave. “We’ve got to go. There is a mission staging area not far from here, do you know it?”
“Yes, Sergeant. O.P. Thunder.”
“That’s right. If you can, try to get there,” Rogers said.
Rogers placed the truck into gear and rolled ahead after the lead vehicle. As the truck trekked forward, Jacob spied through the windows, making eye contact with the frightened and dirt-covered faces of the guard force. He wondered if they saw the same fear in his own eyes. The truck trudged over a rise in the road and snaked around concrete barriers before moving out onto the open roadway.
***
The fallout settled, and the sun burned off the heavy condensation, clearing the air. Jacob searched the sky but couldn’t find any of the globes. They rounded a corner and traveled north at a fork in the road. Laura was asleep next to him with Katy still in her lap. Off to the right, Jacob saw plumes of black smoke in the sky. He pointed at it silently, Rogers catching the signal.
“That over there is probably the closest thing to a big city around here,” Rogers said. “It’s a small village, maybe a hundred homes, some small shops.”
“You think they bombed it too?” Jacob asked.
“Maybe… or the residents are panicking, nearby refugees looting what’s left. Most of these areas up north were unscathed by the Deltas. The local military did a great job cordoning off the bigger towns and villages.
“But what we saw last night. That’s a game changer. I’m sure there are a lot of scared people this morning.”
Laura turned her head and opened her eyes. With a groggy expression, she glanced at Jacob then down at Katy. “How much longer?”
Following the Blazer, they turned onto another dirt road entering a sparse forest. “We’ll be there soon,” Jacob said.
Katy wiggled awake and scrambled, trying to sit up. She reached out for Jacob, who raised her back onto his lap. “Are we going home, Daddy?”
Jacob grinned. “Not yet, but we’re going to a cabin in the woods, just like when we went camping.”
She smiled and pressed her head against the window, watching as the trees passed by. Laura dug through a small bag at her feet and retrieved a bottle of water. Opening it, she took a sip before placing it in Katy’s hands then watched the road ahead of them as the thick tree cover blocked out the light. The road narrowed, becoming barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass.
The sides of the road banked up steeply. They occasionally passed a house or small hunting cabins with boarded up windows. Rogers explained that there were very few homes in the area; most of the places there were seasonal, and empty now. If people were living in them, they did a fine job of making the places look vacant. Most people from the towns and large cites didn’t have interest in the harsh backwoods. Even refugees traveling long distances from the camps tended to avoid the rough terrain. The forest isn’t inviting like a farm or small village, where people imagined they could easily take animals or food from the fields. The woods required skill, and could be very unforgiving to the untrained.
Rogers pointed to an abandoned vehicle on the roadside with the doors and trunk open. “City folks like to imagine they can survive out here deep in the woods, like they’ll live off berries and mushrooms. A rabbit in every pot, shit like that. In the months after the fall, I buried a lot of their kind.”
They rode silent for a few minutes before Laura spoke again. “Are the others here?” she asked. “Those… things?”
“The others? You mean the Deltas?” Rogers answered.
“Yeah. They were at the fences yesterday. Where did they go?”
Rogers scowled. “Those were on the south walls; the north side of the base was clear. We’re traveling through what we called the western corridor. It’s a heavily patrolled, small tract of land barely five miles wide and flanked by some very tough terrain. This is the only route we had from the base back to the ports, and to reach the States.”
“The only route?”
“Except by air, of course.”
“So this place, the cabin, it’s in the corridor? It’s protected?”
The truck slowed as the Blazer in front came to a complete stop, and then edged forward onto a narrow driveway almost entirely concealed by heavy vegetation. The gravel road became an unmaintained rutted trail leaving the forest road behind. At first the driveway appeared invisible. The soldiers who stayed here covered it with large swaths of pine needles and dry leaves then left a zigzagging stretch of brush piles to conceal the entrance. The truck bounced and the shocks squeaked in protest. Katy let out a giggle as she was rocked up and down on Jacob’s lap.
“Yes,” Rogers said, continuing, “this is still in the defense corridor, but I don’t know the state of it after the attacks. We’re secluded enough; in fact, we are about as far away from things as we can get. That should buy us some time.”
She turned and looked to Jacob with concern, then back to Rogers. “How much time?”
Rogers maneuvered the truck into the yard of the cabin and killed the engine. He let out a loud frustrated sigh. “I don’t know; t
hat depends on what else those pumpkins brought us.”
Chapter 3
“Well, it’s not much to look at,” Laura said, holding a bag with Katy next to her. Jacob stood beside them, his rifle slung over his shoulder, and Laura’s rifle in his free hand. James moved up with Duke, the dog running to Katy and pressing against her, begging for more attention. At the top of the grassy hill they were standing on stood the one-room cabin named O.P. Thunder. A tall barn was just behind it.
James pointed at a small trail that ran to the barn then curved off behind it. “What you see is only the main house. Used to be some sort of vacation place up here. This was a reception place, lobby, or something. There are several smaller cabins off that trail. Each is connected to the main house by a sound-powered telephone. Take it far enough, you’ll find a lake and hunting lodge.
“The lodge is surrounded by open prairie; that’s where they keep a couple helicopters and a drunk-ass—” James paused, looked down at Katy, and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, our pilot likes to stay up there. Keep going all the way to the top of the hill, there’s a radio tower, and on the far side is a small town. Same one we saw on our way here.”
Laura followed his hand then looked back at the larger cabin. “Where are we staying?”
Jacob’s head came up and he raised a hand toward the main building. “Best if we all stay up here for now.”
As a group, they proceeded up to the main house, Jacob observing the grounds while the rest gathered. The last time he was here, it was dark and gloomy from a downpour. The constant falling of the rain and the pending mission had given him tunnel vision; he hardly recognized the place in the bright sunlight. They stepped onto the covered front porch and entered the cabin.
The space smelled of hickory and wood smoke even though the fireplace was cold. Cast iron pots and kettles were neatly stacked on a shelf near the mantle. While the others selected the far wall, Rogers pointed to a corner of the cabin where the only bed was located, and told Laura she could occupy that space with Katy. Looking at Jacob, she started to protest. Rogers smiled and said they wouldn’t be getting much sleep anyhow, so it wasn’t worth the discussion. After they all agreed, he showed them where they could keep their weapons and how to access the pantry and fresh water stores.
Jesse stumbled through the open room and sat heavily in a wooden rocking chair, still out of it, while Rogers led Jacob and James outside. They went to work unloading the gear from the trucks and storing it in the barn. The place was larger than Jacob remembered. Having only been inside the front door of the hay barn on his previous visit, he could now see that behind a large set of wooden doors it went back a depth of at least sixty feet, and had high shelving on both sides. The shelves were stocked with cases of MREs and boxes with brand names he recognized from grocery stores. The back wall was completely filled with cases of water.
“The people on base were being rationed. Why is there so much here?” Jacob asked, carrying the last box of goods from the truck. He moved to a shelf and dropped the box on the straw-covered floor.
“This is just the Quartermaster's stash,” Rogers said. “It’s for units going down range. You didn’t complain when we loaded your pack full of it last time.”
“Where did it all come from?”
“We brought most of it with us when we withdrew from the States. The rest, we stocked up on during supply runs. There’s more too; we have a weapons and ordnance cache in a cave at the top of the hill by a radio tower.”
Jacob passed the long rows of shelves then turned, looking at the full rucksacks lined up against a wall—obviously loaded for missions down range. “Why aren’t there more people here?” he asked.
Rogers stopped and stared at the same row of packs. “Been asking myself the same question. They sent two platoons west after the dioxin. Maybe the rest were sent to defend the camp. Or the town over the ridge. Usually aren’t more than a few teams here at a time, but I was still expecting to see a friendly face or two.”
James crossed through the double doors and moved past them to a row of canned goods. He stopped and leaned against the shelving. “I think we need to patrol up the trail, make sure the birds are still there. Then… we should leave.”
“I know,” Rogers said. He exhaled and edged to a stack of empty pallets sitting on their edge. “We’ll go, but we need to be suited up; I have a feeling those globes brought more than just bombs.”
***
James led them out after lunch, patrolling up the hill. Jacob stepped in front of Rogers, watching James further ahead of him, with Duke leading the way with his nose. He felt bad about leaving Katy and Laura alone with Jesse, but she understood. They were blind out here all alone, and she wanted to know the state of things just as bad as the rest of them did. Seeing the rifle slung over Laura’s shoulder as she hugged him goodbye, Jacob was amazed at how their lives had changed—from hiding in a bedroom, to him going on patrols while she protected the camp.
The patrol’s first objective was to check out the helicopter pad; then Rogers wanted to visit the radio tower overlook at the top of the ridge. He wanted to gather intel on the neighboring village; he needed to find out if it was really bombed, and if not, why it was burning. The men still hadn’t seen a globe since they left the base, and he was growing concerned the things may have landed. If they landed, he wanted to know what they brought with them. They were all thinking it was an invasion, yet none of them would say the words out loud.
Jacob patrolled forward, watching every step as he navigated the well-worn trail that was married to a ridge line. He could see the place was heavily used by tourists at some point; the sides of the trail were marked by posts indicating popular hiking paths that jutted off the main trail. At one open spot there were several wooden benches with names carved into it. Farther up, was a picnic area with tables and permanent barbecue pits. Jacob looked to the front and watched Duke trotting along with a relaxed posture, only occasionally stopping to stand point at a squirrel or sniff a raccoon track.
The team passed several identical small cabins, each of them rustic with a small covered porch and a single window in the front. The patrol checked the first two, stopping to peek inside and seeing the empty beds and cold wood stove. They were not only empty, but also bore no signs of people, or any clue they’d been used recently.
Just below the ridge line, the trail broke off to the south. A post in the ground indicated it would lead to an athletic field. James made the turn following the path and guided them onto a trail that doubled in width as it rounded a bend. Jacob could see bright sunlight breaking through the trees, indicating that the clearing was ahead. The point man put up a flat hand, then stepped off into the tall vegetation on the side of the trail. Jacob followed the guide’s lead, and knelt to the side as Rogers brushed past him to creep close to James.
Jacob adjusted his position so he could watch the back trail while the others planned. A breeze gently moved the trees and, lifting his face, Jacob smelled tobacco smoke. He turned his head as Rogers crept up beside him. Rogers held fingers to his lips, mimicking a cigarette, and pointed in the direction of the clearing. James looked back and waved them forward as he stepped up and led the way.
They moved into the clearing together, more relaxed knowing that the Deltas didn’t smoke, but still on alert for strangers. The field was a bit larger than a double football field. A Blackhawk helicopter was at one end, its blades staked down and a cover tossed over much of the body of the aircraft. On the far side of the bird was a small block building and a covered picnic area. The building had a stone chimney climbing to the top and small patio in front of a covered open porch. To the right of the porch sat a man leaning back in a wooden chair. He had a vintage western cowboy hat resting low over his eyes, and his feet were up on a loose stack of split firewood.
As Jacob moved closer, he could see a cigarette in his right hand with a long smoldering ash.
“So what’s his story?” Jacob whispered as t
hey crept closer.
James turned his head, scanning before looking back ahead. “You mean Buck? He’s a good cat. A Nam’er … retired in the early ’90s. Guess he was on a beach down in Florida, and somehow found his way up here driving a crash hawk after things went to shit. Don’t get me wrong, Buck is a good catch. He knows his stuff, but he’s a bit of a lush when it comes to the sauce.”
The man in the cowboy hat shifted in his seat and let out a hacking cough, somehow startling Duke and causing the normally quiet dog to release a loud string of barks. The man kicked back with his boots and fell over in the chair. Rolling and scrambling to his feet, he fought against the straps of a holstered sidearm.
Jumping ahead with his hands up, Rogers announced, “Calm down, Buck, it’s just us.”
The silver-haired man relaxed, falling exhausted against the building, taking deep breaths while holding a hand over his heart and wiping sweat off his forehead with the other. “Dang, guys, I nearly killed all of ya. Ya can’t go sneaking up on me like that.”
“Wasn’t much sneaking up. What the hell are you doing sleeping out here in the open, you old fool?” Rogers said.
The old man fanned his face with the hat. “Shoot, ain’t nothing going on up here.”
“You don’t know about the attack, do you?” Rogers asked.
“What, on the fences? That’s old news—”
“No, you old fool, the bomb drop. They bombed the base, blew it to hell.”
Buck’s arms went slack as his eyes focused on Rogers. “You mean,” —he stopped and shook his head— “No… I heard an explosion last night; hell, it shook the cabin. But… no, that was just the zoomies on a run… it couldn’t have come from that far away. Would have to be a nuke to feel a bomb’s blast from that far away.”
“Buck, something hit us. The globes—or whatever they are—they dropped something on the base. Something big.” Rogers paused to look back at Jacob. “We barely escaped the blasts ourselves.”