“But aren’t the roads blocked?”
“Cats are tracked vehicles. If anything can push through it’s one of those babies. Now, there’s only four spots. He and I and maybe you two. I’m gonna see what I can do, no promises.”
Holly clenched her hands as if in prayer. “Oh, Doug, I can’t thank you enough.”
He suddenly became serious. “Don’t thank me just yet.”
That had been two days ago. True to Doug’s prediction, on day five, the food rations the remaining airport staff were handing out had been cut in half. And this morning, they hadn’t come by at all. Shortly after first light, Holly had seen the agitation building in those around her at Gate C-25 and all along the concourse. Hunger had a funny way of doing that to people. Even the gentlest of dispositions could be transformed by the gnawing pain of an empty belly. What made things worse was that there were no more stores to loot, no secret stockpile to swarm.
Here she was, six days and counting since the lights had gone out, waiting in line to use a cesspool of a washroom. Holly shifted from one leg to another, trying to ignore the older woman in front of her, intent on further polluting the space about them with a never-ending litany of complaints. She was telling anyone who would listen that her husband was a high-powered lawyer and how he was going to sue the pants off the airport and every airline within it. Holly couldn’t help but roll her eyes and do what she could to tune the woman out. The way Holly saw it, this woman should just be thankful she was still alive, a state of being she had largely taken for granted.
The shriek that came at them from down the corridor immediately snapped everyone’s attention in that direction. Then other voices joined in as two figures emerged from Gate C-25 scuffling. One was an older man in a blue tracksuit holding something in his hand and the other was smaller, younger. A boy. The man hit the boy, throwing him to the ground. That was when Holly saw who it was.
“Dillon!” she cried, breaking from the line and running toward them. Weak with hunger, her muscles were fueled by anger and adrenaline. She fumbled the keys from her pocket and stuck the largest through her two middle fingers. The man in the blue tracksuit was hovering over Dillon, his right leg pulling back to kick her son, who lay on the ground. Possessed with the rage of a mama bear, Holly lunged at the man from the side, striking him in the face with the serrated key. He recoiled, a puncture wound in his cheek which quickly began oozing blood. But rather than stop, Holly kept swinging, shouting at him to leave her son alone. The man tried to block her incoming blows, but not before his face looked like it had been dragged down the side of a cheese grater. He wound up and kicked at her, striking Holly in the stomach. She felt the wind snap out of her lungs. At last, others standing nearby finally intervened, pulling the two of them apart, the man still trying to get in a few final licks. His face bloodied, he broke free and swore at them before running away.
Holly went at once to Dillon, who was only now starting to stir. His cheek was red from where the man had hit him. She searched him for any other visible wounds. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head, even though his cheek was already starting to swell. “I want my muffin back.”
Dillon had saved some of what Doug had brought them two days before. When he was alone, some sick predator had tried to steal his food. She hugged him, relieved it hadn’t been worse. People were being killed every day for access to food and water. Others were doing what they could to bribe or threaten the airport officials in charge of doling it out. That only meant the little there was had often been diverted to those with the best bribes. Thankfully a man like Doug had taken pity on them, a woman and her young son who had little to their names other than the suitcases they’d arrived with.
She brought Dillon back to their spot, more aware than ever that the clock was now ticking. Counting down the hours, maybe even the minutes before any semblance of civility at the Chicago O’Hare airport gave way to wholesale murder and mayhem.
Chapter 4
Back on the trail, Nate and Dakota soon found themselves in a whiteout. The blowing snow had reduced their visibility to but a few feet past Wayne’s bobbing head. The severe conditions not only slowed their pace, it was also making it difficult to navigate.
According to Dakota, her uncle Roger’s cabin was ten miles outside of Rockford nestled along the banks of South Kinnikinnick Creek. In the good old days of internal combustion engines, a trip like this would have taken no more than fifteen minutes. But much like the trek from Byron to Rockford, ten miles in wintery hell could take the better part of a day.
They would push on until three o’clock. If they hadn’t reached their destination by then, they would peel off from Highway 76 and make camp.
Seated behind him, Dakota had her arms wound tightly around his waist, her head pressed against his back to shield herself from the merciless gale. He was grateful for it in a way, since every little bit of contact helped keep in the warmth. A tiny outcropping of snow had collected along the horse’s crest and Nate began batting it away with one hand. He was sure there was something metaphorical in what he was doing. If you stopped long enough, you were likely to be buried alive. It gave a whole new meaning to ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss.’
Gradually, the blowing snow began to ease up, revealing more of the landscape they were passing through. Mostly it was made up of flat farmland dotted with small stands of trees. In the summer it was beautiful. Nate remembered as much the few times he’d driven through the area. But what had once been green, vibrant and filled with life had since been interred beneath a thick blanket of white death. The trees, rising from the frozen ground, looked more like skeletal fingers than anything living. That they were barren of leaves only helped to magnify the rather macabre impression.
It was approaching three in the afternoon when they turned onto a side road. The good news was that the number of abandoned vehicles trapped along Highway 76 was less than five. Dakota had reasoned it was probably due to the fact that 76 ran north-south, unlike Interstate 90 and Highway 14, which both ran east-west between Rockford and Chicago. Nate saw she had a point. Most of the folks trying to escape from Chicago would not be coming this way. Which meant they were currently travelling through a triangle of tranquility.
“This was a big reason why he chose this area,” Dakota had informed him, referring to Roger’s decision to buy land right outside the city. “It had to be close enough that he could hike here if need be and at the same time far enough away from the main urban arteries. At least, that was how he explained it to me.”
That did make sense, since the range of disasters Nate had spent his adult life preparing for demanded it. He’d read once that if you were going to invest in a country home―especially if you were at all into prepping―your best bet was to get something you could reach on foot in the advent of an emergency.
Already the light was beginning to fade. Now that the snow had eased, Nate was able to scan the horizon, searching for any sign of shelter. Three hundred meters to the southeast, he caught sight of a solitary structure. From here it looked like an old, rather derelict barn. So old, in fact, that wooden struts had been pressed up against the sagging walls on one side to keep it from collapsing. A heavy layer of snow was piled on the sloped roof. Nate motioned to the barn.
“It looks dangerous,” Dakota said, her nose running from the cold. She sniffed and wiped the excess off onto her glove. “But it sure beats making a new quinzhee.”
When Dakota had first reintroduced him to the Native-inspired snow hut, Nate had been incredibly impressed, but it wasn’t without its downsides. Among them was the time and energy it took to build. Not to mention the risk that the snow you spent hours piling up could fail to properly bind.
“Barn it is,” he said, steering Wayne across the open field and in that direction. There didn’t appear to be a farmhouse anywhere in the vicinity. That lowered the chances they’d be accosted by an irate farmer determined to chase them off.
As
they drew closer, Nate’s confidence only began to grow. A realtor’s sign on the side of the structure indicated the land was for sale.
“Hopefully that means no one will bother us,” Dakota said. “Plus, Wayne won’t need to spend the night outside.”
But things weren’t nearly as rosy as they first anticipated. Upon reaching the barn, they realized it wasn’t a barn at all, but more of a glorified shed. Not only that, but the main door had been sealed shut by several feet of snow, requiring over thirty minutes of shoveling to get inside.
The sky had gone from light grey to charcoal by the time they were settled in.
“Give me the ax,” Dakota said, sizing up a large round log she’d found pressed against the wall.
Smaller pieces of wood were stacked nearby. “Why are you messing with that big old thing?” Nate asked her, confused. “There are smaller pieces right over there.”
“You’ll see,” she said, holding out a hand and waiting for Nate to fill it with the hatchet. The moment he did so, she got to work, splitting the top of the round log into several sections, careful to keep the bottom intact. A stone nearby probably used to hold the door open in summer became a handy hammer, helping to drive the hatchet’s blade deeper.
Nate looked on, still not grasping what the girl was up to. When she was done, Dakota found three feet of chicken wire and wrapped it around the split log. She then scooped up a number of tiny wood shavings and fed them into the opening at the top. From an inside jacket pocket, she then produced a handful of lint and continued the process.
“Where’d you get the lint?”
“From the clothes dryer at Sanchez’s place,” she told him. “The fuzz you get from dryer traps makes excellent fire starters.” When she was all done, Dakota used the flame from her lighter to ignite the lint. Smoke along with a deep red glow began to emanate from inside the split log, thin tendrils trickling out through the sides. Little by little, she continued to feed slivers of wood into the opening at the top.
Already Nate could feel the heat. He peeled off his gloves and held out his hands, relishing the tingle as the warmth danced over the lengths of his fingers.
“That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” he admitted, ashamed for having doubted her.
“Roger called it a Swedish fire log, but I’m sure it goes by many names. You can even set a pot on the top and use it to cook. This particular log should burn nicely for anywhere from three to five hours.”
Nate laced his warmed fingers behind his head and laughed.
She looked over at him. “The heck’s so funny?”
“I always thought I knew a thing or two about survival,” he started to explain. “Sure, I can shoot a gun and handle myself in a fight, but what good is all that if you’re out in the cold freezing to death? When we first set out, I could see you were a young little thing, figured you had a lot to learn and that if we were lucky I’d be able to show you a thing or two before we parted ways. What a joke that turned out to be.”
“I’ve learned more from you than you know,” she replied. Then before he could say another word, she clapped her hands together. “What do you say we start dinner?”
Nate nodded. He knew when to let something go. He also had an idea what she meant by having learned a lot from him. And he suspected it hadn’t only been about how to pull a trigger or when to take someone’s life. He had met a girl with a gaping hole in her heart, born from the belief that she wasn’t any good. That she wasn’t worth loving. Nate could see how after being shunned by her parents and shipped between an endless number of foster homes she might have drawn that conclusion.
But right from the get-go, he had seen value in her and hadn’t hesitated to let her know. Nate himself hadn’t come from a particularly soft background, but he’d learned long ago the power of a kind word well placed.
Dakota removed a small pot from her knapsack―yet another gift from Sanchez’s kitchen―as well as a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli.
Nate sat up straight, grinning. “Geez, I haven’t had those since I was a kid.”
She stirred it with a metal spoon. “I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for the B-man. When you’re my age and living on your own, you don’t exactly eat kale.”
Nate made a mock barfing sound. “Lettuce is fine, but I don’t do rabbit food.”
“Amen,” Dakota replied, scooping him out a portion into a metal cup and handing him a fork to go along with it. “I know you’re anxious to get to Chicago,” she began. “To save your wife and the rest of your family. I just want you to know I appreciate you going out of your way like this.”
Nate shook his head. “It’s not really much of a detour. Besides, it wouldn’t have been right to just walk away.”
“Never stopped my parents,” came the rather sharp reply.
Nate knew better than to step into that particular minefield. “Besides, I’m not convinced they’re there yet. The old man we found at the shelter claimed they’d left for Chicago and maybe they’ve arrived, but it’s just as likely they got held up somewhere along the way.”
Dakota finished eating and set her cup down. “I still don’t understand why you left in the first place.”
“Where? Byron?”
“No, Chicago. You said you were a cop there and you left. What did you see there that made you wanna leave?”
Nate scoffed. “How long do you have?”
She glanced around. “I’m a captive audience.”
“As my mother always said, ‘Be careful what you ask for.’ To be honest, looking back, I can see now my life’s been guided by a series of terrible events. My sister Marie’s disappearance”—and likely her death, he thought, but didn’t bother saying—“was probably the first. And I suppose the cyber-attack on the country’s power grid and the meltdowns of local nuclear power plants are only the latest in a long chain of bad mojo. But they aren’t the only ones. You might say those are the bookends, sandwiching other things that helped to make me into the person seated before you.
“After I got my degree in computer sciences and cyber-security, I realized I wasn’t built to spend my life strapped to a desk. It became part of the reason why I joined the Chicago PD. But the longer I’ve stared into life’s rearview mirror, the more I’ve begun to realize the real reason I signed up. That part of me that hoped Marie was alive never wanted to give up looking for her. Being a cop would provide me with the investigative tools and opportunity to do just that. But tempering my optimism, there was also a more realistic side, one that knew my sister was probably long dead and wanted to do everything in my power to prevent anything like this from happening to someone else’s sister, someone else’s mother, someone else’s daughter. I was still a beat cop, don’t forget, not a detective. And it meant that by day I’d make my rounds through some of Chicago’s nastier neighborhoods. Then afterward, I would scan through cold cases, missing persons and a half-dozen other resources.”
“Looking for Marie?” Dakota asked, the soft light of the fire twinkling in her eyes.
Nate tilted his head to one side in an expression of uncertainty. “Back then, I’m not sure I fully understood what I was looking for. It wasn’t like I was expecting for her picture to pop up. After it happened, the police had done everything they could. It had even been on the national news. And yet, soon enough, Marie had become a statistic, one of thousands every year who simply slipped through the cracks. My biggest fear was that she’d been kidnapped and forced into some kind of child prostitution ring.”
The suggestion made Dakota’s face squish up.
“It was a terrible thing to contemplate, I know, but that’s where I was back then. Once her case had gone cold, I started using my tech background to scour the dark web.”
“Dark web?”
“Let’s just say it’s the nastiest neighborhood you’ve ever heard of, except it only exists online. That’s where people go to buy things so illegal they can’t be mentioned in polite society. It wasn’t lon
g before I found a site auctioning off young girls. People would sign in and bid on kids as young as eleven and as old as sixteen. There was this one particular handle I saw every night. Untouchable_JJE. Like clockwork, Untouchable would come on at ten P.M., throw out a series of high bids and then sign off. Boom, boom, boom. Real fast, like they knew what they were after and didn’t want to waste any time getting it. Once in the chat room between auctions, they described their preference for fourteen-year-olds with long, straight, dark hair and pale skin. Boasted that he’d been with many just like that. I pulled in a ton of favors getting access to the software that could put a name to Untouchable_JJE. Took nearly a week, but eventually a name popped up.”
Dakota was sitting forward, her elbows perched on the tops of her knees.
“Terrance J. Eldridge,” Nate said, as though that would mean something to her.
“He sounds old. Who was he?”
Nate crossed his arms. “Only the District Attorney for Cook County, Illinois, which I don’t need to tell you includes the city of Chicago.”
Dakota’s mouth hung open. “No way.”
Nate was nodding. “Way. Trust me, I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t feel my legs. And even more so when I figured out what JJE stood for. Judge, jury and executioner.”
“Did you tell your boss?”
“The chief of police?” Nate asked. “Sure, least I tried to. But he didn’t wanna hear anything about it. Turns out neither did anyone else.”
“How’s that possible?” Now Dakota’s shock was turning to anger.
Shaking his head, Nate said: “You take a shot at a man that powerful and you better make sure it takes him out. Otherwise they’ll drag you through so much mud you’ll start thinking you’re a worm.”
“So you’re saying they did nothing about it?”
“Well, not exactly nothing,” Nate said. “It was a lot easier to make my life hell—send me to patrol the worst areas, wear me down—than it was to challenge someone near the top. Turns out old Terrance was right. He was untouchable. After that whole mess I’d had more than enough. Decided maybe riding a desk wasn’t such a bad thing after all.”
America Offline (Book 2): America Offline [System Failure] Page 3