by Bobby Akart
“My name’s Hunter. I’ll be coming back through here soon enough. I want you to tell your friends I’m reasonable and can be an ally. Trust me. You don’t want me as an enemy.”
“That ain’t up to me,” the man replied, nodding back over his shoulder at the men starting to trot up the hill.
“You can sell it,” said Hunter, staring back at the man as he closed the truck’s door. Mac started to pull away as Hunter finished. “I see it in your eyes.”
Chapter 21
Day Eighty-Five
Fairplay, Colorado
Every small town across the country had its claim to fame. If you’d envisioned an old west mining town with wooden porches overhanging the fronts of stores and businesses, or a grizzled old guy leading a burro down the street, then it might’ve been called Fairplay. As Hunter approached the outskirts of town and a welcoming committee, which included two Park County sheriff’s deputies with their weapons raised, he wondered if he’d been thrown back into the late nineteenth century. Beyond the roadblock, a dust-covered street was devoid of vehicular traffic but was bustling with pedestrians and burros.
“Hunter, what year is it?” Mac asked facetiously.
“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Hunter replied as he eased to a stop. The windows of the Defender were rolled down and he quickly put his hands in clear view of the deputies.
“State your business, friend!” shouted an older deputy, who pointed his rifle directly at Hunter. The younger, thinner version of the old guy left himself open more than the older deputy. Their facial features were very similar. Probably father and son, Hunter surmised. He stuck his head out the window so the men could hear him twenty-five yards away. If they got trigger-happy, this distance was beyond the accuracy range for most shooters.
“We’re just passin’ through, but I’d like to say hello to Mayor Weigel and Sheriff Williams if they’re around.”
“Gimme a name!” the deputy shouted back.
“Tell him my name’s Hunter, a friend of Terry, um, I mean Sheriff Andrews.” Hunter purposefully stammered over Sheriff Andrews’s name to imply that he was on a personal, first-name basis with the man. Although he’d never informally addressed the sheriff as Terry, he could have if he wanted to. Hunter always preferred to show respect to those in law enforcement by using their formal title unless they insisted otherwise. “I met the mayor and your boss up at Quandary Peak.”
The two men looked at each other and the younger man slowly backed away and jogged toward town. After a few minutes, Mayor Weigel appeared wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. He looked exhausted.
“Mayor, my name is Hunter. Do you remember? We met when you and the sheriff came up to Quandary Peak.”
“Yes, absolutely!” exclaimed the mayor. “Fellas, let ’em pass. This fellow might know somethin’ about my daughters.”
Hunter and Mac were welcomed into the center of town, where several of the locals gathered around to look at the Defender. The truck was beefed-up with grille guards and tires designed to climb mountains. The roof rack gave it a safari wagon appearance. It was a far cry from the burros and horses that appeared to be the new mode of transportation in Park County, Colorado.
Hunter introduced Mac to Mayor Weigel and they got caught up to speed on the search for his missing twin daughters—Karen and Terri. The mayor was distraught, as could be expected. They’d disappeared over three weeks ago and the daily searches had been called off.
He admitted the roadblocks were primarily for asking folks questions about the girls’ whereabouts and secondarily to protect the town from thieves or looters. As he put it, there wasn’t much left to steal.
As the three of them finished their conversation, Sheriff Williams pulled up and rolled down his window. Mac was introduced and then the sheriff pressed them about why they were headed for Colorado Springs. Mac lied and told the sheriff they were going to the Air Force base to retrieve her cousin although they weren’t quite sure the sheriff bought it.
Hunter also told him about the two encounters with the Vagos MC bikers. One of those unholy truces that both the sheriffs of Park and Summit counties seemed to enjoy making was created with the Vagos gang as well. Hunter said he wasn’t sure it would last, but for now the bikers seem content to remain in Timber Ridge.
Sheriff Williams offered Hunter assistance in getting to the outskirts of Colorado Springs. “You’re gonna encounter roadblocks all the way to Woodland Park. They’re manned by local law enforcement as well as the ranchers along Highway 24. I’ve gotta tell ya, it may just be sixty-some miles, but it’ll take you more than a day to talk your way through them all, seein’ as how you’re not locals.”
“Do you have any suggestions, Sheriff?” asked Hunter.
“I have better than that, but it will require a favor in return,” replied Sheriff Williams, who glanced over at the mayor. “I’ll send a deputy with you as an escort clear down to West Colorado Springs. We’ll be a little out of our jurisdiction at that point but not within the chaos of the city.”
“Chaos? I assumed with the military presence, Colorado Springs would be relatively benign compared to Denver,” said Hunter.
“Logic would tell ya that, but as they secured Olympic City, folks fled Denver, seeking refuge. A lot of the bad element came along with them.” Olympic City was the nickname adopted by Colorado Springs because the U.S. Olympic Committee and a major Olympic training center were located there.
“How bad is it?” asked Mac.
“Transients everywhere. Infected and used-to-be infected, as in dead bodies, too. If you survive the desperate people looking for food or drugs, you might rub shoulders with a carrier of the plague.”
“Wow, okay,” said Hunter, who was genuinely surprised at this revelation.
The sheriff continued. “Listen, I don’t mean to scare you folks off from retrieving your cousin, ma’am. I just wanted to warn you that the areas outside of the military-secured areas are very unsafe.”
Hunter shook his head and looked over to Mac. She raised her chin and showed her resolve. Despite the risks, they had no choice. Hunter only wished he could trust somebody with lots of firepower to escort them to the front of Cheyenne Mountain. Unfortunately, they probably possessed the most valuable commodity on the planet and he couldn’t trust his fellow man to do the right thing.
“You offered to help in return for a favor. What is it?” asked Hunter.
“Okay, and I haven’t even told Johnny this information yet,” said the sheriff as he glanced over to the mayor, who immediately came closer to listen. “I’ve been up Boreas Pass, nosin’ around this morning. Now, Johnny, I have nothing but one old farmer’s story, but I believe the twins might be up there.”
“Well, we gotta go get ’em,” said the mayor.
“Johnny, I’ve got three deputies and a bunch of broken-down old codgers that can barely walk to the bathroom. Rulon Snow has a small army up on that mountain. We’re gonna need Terry’s help and this fella here.”
“Let’s do it right now!” said the mayor.
Now Hunter was in a pickle. They had to stick to their plan. He somehow had to hold the mayor off.
“Okay, Mayor, I understand that you’re anxious,” started Hunter. “I don’t blame you. But we could get your girls killed if we go in there outgunned. Her cousin is in the military and we can bring some soldiers back with us.”
“I see,” said the dejected mayor.
“Sheriff,” Hunter said, directing his attention to the older law enforcement officer, “if you can get us to the outskirts of Colorado Springs, I can take it from there. Try to get a message to Sheriff Andrews and compare notes. He knows this Snow person pretty well. When I get back, we’ll pay the man a visit. Fair enough?”
“Deal,” said the sheriff with a nod. “Stay here and I’ll round you up an escort and a letter on my stationery vouching for your character, which should help you get safely through any military checkpoints.
“Thank you, sir!” said
Hunter. He rolled up the windows and spoke to Mac.
“How many lies have we told today?” she asked with a noticeable chuckle.
“Enough to get us closer to Cheyenne Mountain. Somehow, I think we’ll need the practice to get to the powers that be.”
Chapter 22
Day Eighty-Five
Highway 24
West of Colorado Springs
It had been five weeks since they’d left the outskirts of Denver for the presumably safer confines of the Breckenridge area and Quandary Peak. With the collapse of society, the massive death toll, and then the power grid shutting down, Mac and Hunter could only speculate as to what the world looked like outside their bubble.
They caught their first glimpse of death, raw and open, when they passed through the small town of Woodland Park, fifteen minutes west of Colorado Springs. Nestled in the midst of thick stands of aspen, pine, and spruce trees, the community used to thrive as one of the gateways to the unspoiled wilderness of the Pike National Forest at the base of Pike’s Peak.
They had been driving nearly eighty miles an hour during the last stretch of highway before they entered the town. The deputy turned on his emergency lights and slowed abruptly as they arrived in town.
Hunter remained on alert, studying the old-west-style storefronts built to resemble the downtown of Tombstone, Arizona. There was no movement. No curious onlookers. No stray dogs or cats. Nothing.
Only death. Bodies were strewn about in various stages of decay. Some were partially covered with sheets, while others were half in and half out of doorways or windows. Buzzards picked at the remains of a rotting corpse in the middle of the highway. The deputy rolled down his window and slapped the side of his patrol car, startling the voracious birds for a moment. As soon as Hunter slowly inched past the body, the buzzards were back for their meal.
“Hunter, this is bizarre,” started Mac. “The town is just, um, dead. I think everyone is dead.”
Hunter let the reality set in. A community of maybe five to seven thousand residents, family, and friends, all succumbed to the plague.
“Maybe the survivors are hiding, Mac,” he added. “If they were smart, they wouldn’t approach the corpses. They’re filled with the disease for a period of time after death. Frankly, if you don’t have the security capabilities to defend your town, I can’t think of a better way to deter looters than to leave diseased-ridden bodies out in the open. I wouldn’t want to step foot out of the car in this place, would you?”
“Nope. It’s surreal. You’d think there would be somebody around.”
“What’s happened across the planet is unimaginable to me,” said Hunter. “I don’t know what to expect when we hit a city the size of Colorado Springs.”
“If it’s like this, I might freak out,” said Mac.
The deputy in front of them rolled up his window and began to pick up speed as they cleared the last of the abandoned businesses at the end of town, including a gas station that looked like it had been hit with a bomb. It had been completely leveled, and the rusted, charred remains of a dozen vehicles stood nose to tail where the fuel pumps once stood.
“Just do the math,” Hunter began as he did the calculations aloud. “Colorado Springs is a fairly large metropolitan area of probably half a million to three-quarters of a million people. You and Janie ran the numbers. What did you call it?”
“An epi curve. We plotted the incidents over a certain time frame and it helped us form a hypothesis as to the death toll based on the transmission of the plague.”
Mac paused for a moment as the deputy slowed to a stop ahead of them. An accident was blocking the highway, leaving a serpentine path through the abandoned cars. Hunter steered with his left hand and slowly dropped his hand behind the armrest to reach for his rifle.
The deputy cleared the crash site and picked up speed again as they wound their way through ridges on both sides of the highway.
“Okay,” said Hunter as he pulled his arm back and breathed a sigh of relief. “What was the number at this point, eighty-some days into the pandemic?”
“One percent or less,” replied Mac.
“A big city like Colorado Springs has probably gone from seven hundred fifty thousand to seventy-five hundred.”
“Many of whom could be sick and dying,” mumbled Mac as she leaned against the window and watched the sun peek over the tall canyon walls. “It’s hard to fathom small towns like this one being that hard hit.”
“Denver, Atlanta, New York, and Chicago would be much worse,” added Hunter. “The smaller communities, like Breckenridge, which sealed itself off from the world, are the new population centers.”
“When you think about it, a small group of a few dozen people could move into a town like Woodland Park when this is all over and own the whole—”
BOOM !
The sound of a high-powered rifle reverberated off the canyon walls, followed by several more gunshots. The sheriff’s car ahead of them swerved left, then right as the deputy began to lose control.
“Hold on, Mac!”
Hunter jammed on the brakes as the patrol car turned sideways in front of them until the wheels grabbed the pavement and sent it rolling over and over until it landed on its side and slid down the steady downward slope of the highway.
The gunfire sounded like thunder rolling through the valley as bullets struck the hood of the Defender and ricocheted off the roof rack. Hunter jerked the wheel to the left to avoid hitting the patrol car and bounced off the concrete divider separating the narrow east- and westbound lanes of the highway. He was almost clear of the wrecked patrol car when he ran out of room.
A stalled car stopped his progress and they were trapped between the guardrail, the patrol car, and the stalled sedan. Hunter threw the Defender into reverse and mashed the gas pedal in an attempt to extricate themselves from the trap.
The shooters were too fast. They shot out the rear window of the Defender and the right rear tire.
Mac shrieked as broken glass pelted her from behind. Hunter reacted quickly, putting the truck back in forward, and pulled back to the overturned patrol car. He created a wedge by positioning the passenger side of the truck to where the shots were coming from.
He pushed open his door and rolled out of the truck.
“Mac, quickly! Crawl out this way!”
Mac inched across the center console on her belly, dragging her rifle with her. They both fell to the asphalt and rolled under the edge of the Defender for cover.
Several more rounds came their way, blowing out the glass on the passenger side of the truck and tearing up the back of the small sedan across from them.
Hunter assessed the situation. Based upon the initial shots fired, the trajectory was coming from above them on both sides of the road. The impact of the most recent rounds indicated the shooters were behind them. He’d positioned the Defender to create a barrier between the shooters and their position.
He quickly looked up at the canyon walls to the south and the lower-lying slopes to the north. Then he took in the scene on the ground. There were several stalled cars along this stretch of highway. They weren’t parked because they were out of gas. They had been disabled by gunfire. Tires were flattened. Fluids had leaked from engine blocks. A body lay facedown in the middle of the highway just below their location. The woman had been shot in the back.
“Mac, this is just the beginning. They’ll be coming for us next.”
Chapter 23
Day Eighty-Five
Highway 24
Cavern Gulch
West of Colorado Springs
Hunter maneuvered himself so he could open the passenger door to the backseat. He was able to grab their backpacks and his rifle before several rounds peppered the roof of the Defender, two of which imbedded in the back of the driver’s seat.
“They’re using green tips,” Hunter surmised, referring to the steel-piercing rounds used in AR-15s and AR-10s. The lack of rapid fire told him they were usi
ng hunting rifles rather than a semiautomatic rifle like the AR-15. If they were part of a group, Hunter decided, the battle-ready firepower would be coming their way soon.
“This is an ambush, Mac. Disabling the vehicles from above is just the first step.”
Mac rose into a crouch and hid behind the front wheel and the engine block. She’d pulled the charging handle on her AR-15 and was looking from side to side for movement.
“They didn’t hesitate to shoot a cop car either,” added Mac.
Hunter slid her backpack along the ground to her and she quickly put it on. He rummaged through his pack and pulled out a six-inch fixed blade in a sheath and strapped it to his right leg. He also retrieved a shoulder holster and removed the paddle holster from his khakis and reinserted his sidearm under his left armpit. Finally, he retrieved an olive-drab, military-style ammo belt, which he stretched around his waist. He didn’t have a full chest rig, but the molle belt allowed him to insert several magazines for his AR-10, Mac’s AR-15, and his handgun.
Mac didn’t have the same gear as Hunter, so they’d have to work in close proximity to each other in case he needed to provide her a resupply of ammo. He didn’t plan on leaving her side anyway, but he chastised himself for not acquiring additional gear for her use.
“Hunter, what about the deputy?”
Hunter looked in both directions and ran in a low crouch toward the roof of the patrol car, which was crushed inward. His movement went unnoticed, which confirmed his suspicions that the snipers were above and behind the car pileup.
A portion of the shattered windshield had peeled away from the patrol car’s frame. Hunter avoided the broken glass and stuck his head inside to check on the deputy. The young man had been killed by a single bullet to the head. Hunter dropped his chin to his chest and pulled away from the car.