Mac hopped up from his bed, ran between the two seats, and immediately jumped into Connie’s chair as if he’d been patiently planning a coup. Connie’s boots were on the floorboard below him.
“What the fuck is she doing, Mac?”
For a few moments he didn’t see her, but then her red hair appeared ahead of him. She waded into the water and found the white line, then moved a few more yards forward so he could see all of her. Her sage-green knee-length dress was soaked a few inches at the bottom.
Buck rolled down his window and held his head outside. “Connie, what the hell?”
She turned around and waved. “I’ll guide you!”
“Damn, woman! Give me some warning next time,” he mumbled. He was a little perturbed at her taking matters into her own hands, but a much larger part of him had a lot of respect for her because it was a great idea. He was upset that he hadn’t thought of it.
Maybe he did need a partner. He’d made decisions without her input, so turnabout was fair play. “I will work on that,” he vowed.
After watching her walk for half a minute, he hit the gas on the big engine to catch up to her. The water soaked the fabric of her dress, but she used her hands to hike it up and keep the rest of it out of the water. For the first time he could remember, he hoped a pretty woman wouldn’t expose more of her legs—because that would mean it was getting deeper.
They’d gone about a hundred yards without her raising her dress, and he couldn’t help but enjoy the view. Small waves crested in the deeper water, and the flatness of the giant lake went for miles to the north and south. Connie looked tiny, and almost seemed to walk on the water ahead of him.
His mind wandered as they made it another hundred yards, but he came to the conclusion she was slowly raising her dress.
Connie stopped, turned halfway around, and pointed around his truck. Buck looked in the side mirror and realized he’d been so wrapped around the axle of Connie’s leadership methods he’d forgotten about the other trucks.
He gave her a thumbs-up.
The members of the convoy had stuck with him. Monsignor’s rolling firebomb was directly behind him, followed by Eve and Sparky, with Beans at the back. They were the only vehicles in the water, but they looked like a fleet of battleships to him.
Buck hopped on the CB. “Connie is leading us across. She’s almost there.”
Everyone acknowledged, but he got back to focusing on his friend. There wasn’t far to go, but anything that could go wrong…
His fully-loaded truck would probably survive still water three feet deep, which would be about up to Connie’s waist, but he wouldn’t push it beyond that. That much moving water could push him off the road, no matter how much his rig weighed. The only reason he had tried this crossing was that the lake water wasn’t flowing in either direction.
He looked at Mac when he noticed movement inside the cabin.
“What the…”
The Golden Retriever had his back feet on the passenger seat, and his front legs were on top of the dashboard. He’d gotten himself up so he could see over the top.
He’s worried about Connie.
He was impressed by his pup’s ability to look after his pack, but when he glanced ahead to the object of their shared interest, Connie was in water up to her neck.
“Shit!”
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
Phil sat on the edge of his bed, facing his peer.
“I’m Ethan Knight, by the way.”
“Phil Stanwick,” he replied.
“I came here to see this soldier.” Ethan pointed to the man in the next bed, who appeared to be sleeping.
“Is he going to be all right?”
Ethan’s face hardened. “He’s dead.”
“Fuck, man, I’m sorry. What unit was he in? Where’s he from?”
They were the same rank, but they didn’t share much else. Phil was tall and muscular, while Ethan was thin and lanky. Both cropped their hair short, but Ethan’s was a lot lighter. There was no contest between the usability of their uniforms. Phil’s BDU’s were wasted.
“Would you believe me if I said this man was from the Korean theater of operations?”
“Did the Norks finally go and cross the DMZ? Nothing else has gone right recently. After what I saw in Afghanistan, I’d believe anything could happen out there, including World War III.”
“You get some credit. The Norks did come across the line, but the DMZ didn’t exist when this man fought in Korea. He’s—”
“Wait!” Phil broke in. “I know. He’s from the 1950s.”
Ethan nodded. “How the hell did you know? He’s not wearing a uniform, and I know he hasn’t spoken since he came into this ward.”
“I ran into similar shit back at Bagram.” He thought for a few seconds about operational security, but if Knight was talking about the 1950s like it was real, he figured he could mention his own time-bending experience. “We picked up some Soviets from the 80s, and I heard British redcoats from the 1800s showed up during my last fight with the Taliban. Something is majorly fucked up out there.”
“You saw them? I mean, up close and personal?” Ethan looked at the corpse again. “I saw this man’s uniform as he crawled out of a World War II-era C-47 that crashed in Bavaria, but I didn’t get to talk to him. None of the men in that plane survived.”
“It’s just like the Malaysia flight coming back,” he replied. “People lost in the past are showing up in the present. I bet there are a lot of civilians from the past we don’t even know about.”
He thought about his mother. She had disappeared on a Nevada highway when he was a teenager. If time was wrapping itself in knots, maybe she would find a way to come through like all these others.
Ethan’s jaw clenched before he answered. “It’s only gotten worse since the red wave went around the world yesterday. That’s the big reason CENTCOM ordered a complete withdrawal of forces. If this keeps up, we’ll be fighting Nazis and the Kaiser’s shock troops again.”
“You think it’s that serious? Shouldn’t we fortify eastern France or Germany itself? Why send everyone home? I can’t imagine that could be done quickly, and it has to be prohibitively expensive. We’ve spent twenty years building up our footprint in-theater. You can’t undo that in a day.”
Ethan considered the question. “Part of it is airlift capacity. Planes are mostly grounded, except for military transports or those we commandeer, and they are flying by paper navigation charts. If things get worse and we can’t fly at all, the bosses want all of our troops on friendly soil. As for the rest, I can’t tell you, but I am interested to learn more about what you saw at Bagram. If you have experience operating with units from the past, maybe I have a job suited for you here.”
His first thought was for his men.
“I can’t. Really—”
Ethan cut in, “The active battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment are scrambling back to the States as we speak. The wounded went first. The rest dumped their gear and got the hell out of there. I promise you won’t be missing anything. Work with me now, and I’ll get you back to the States to meet up when they get there.”
He still didn’t like the idea of being away from his command, but it could take a week to find and then catch up with them. The Air Force probably had them over Australia by now, if he knew their skills. It couldn’t hurt to see what the guy wanted, especially if it got him better-informed for when he re-joined the battalion.
“I guess I’m free, for now.”
The other man smiled. “Great! I think you’ve just volunteered for the same mission as me. Have you ever been to Switzerland?”
Seven
Lewes, Delaware
Garth headed for the swinging door of the convenience mart but realized he still carried the candy bars, so he set them on a shelf full of potato chips. “Lydia, could you come here for a second?”
The pioneer girl was infatuated with a display of hair barrettes, but she begrudgingly acknowledged him once she h
eard her name. “We aren’t staying? I could shop in here all day. And the food! You have so much more to eat than hardtack.”
It might have been fun to stand around and show her all the junk they sold at gas stations, and if she wanted real food, he knew exactly what fast food place he’d take her, but all that would have to wait for another time.
“Right now, just come with me, please.”
She dutifully hung the barrettes on their proper hooks, then strode over to him at the front door. Her smile was impressive until she saw that his hands were empty.
“Aw…” She pouted. “You said we could get chocolate.”
“We will,” he replied, pulling her through the door. “But not here. We have to get back in the taxi.”
His shirt clung to his chest as he walked across the hot asphalt. They got into the car, and he had a moment to wonder how much hotter Lydia must be in her dress and bonnet, but he didn’t start it up when she slid inside. Instead, he watched the storefront.
“What are—” she began before he shushed her.
His heart beat like a racehorse sprinting for the finish line, and, at first, he didn’t know why. However, the longer he sat there and waited to see if the woman would come out looking for his ID, the more he understood what had him worried. It wasn’t just the clerk.
“Anyone could take this away from us, Lydia. They could decide I don’t deserve it because I don’t have a license.” He paused for a moment. “And I guess it isn’t really mine.”
That was what scared him. Someone owned the car, and they might be out there looking for it. All it would take was one bad incident, and someone might report him to the police.
If Sam was here, we’d have already been caught. “Under the radar” wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“We have to find another station,” he reasoned.
“As long as we can get that chocolate, I’ll be a happy girl.”
“You can get that anywhere,” he reassured her. “We can’t risk losing this vehicle. Like you said, it would be impossible to get home if we had to walk.”
“How far away do you live? I walked from Missouri to Wyoming before you found me.”
“Damn!” he blurted. “That’s amazing.”
She seemed surprised. “Don’t you ever walk? You look a little soft, but you still appear strong.”
He tried not to take offense. While he could run and jump with the best of them, there was no way he could walk as far as she did. Garth had a new appreciation for the wiry girl.
“Thanks. I’d rather not find out how far I can walk. Not while we have a perfectly good car.”
“I like riding in here, too. Let’s keep it!”
Garth had every intention of keeping the taxi, at least until he got home, but he was wary at the next two gas stations he tried. Lydia stayed in the car while he went inside to pay, and he was ready to run back to her at the first sign of trouble. However, both clerks wanted him to show identification before they’d sell him gas.
When he got back in the car after the third refusal, he started to doubt their prospects. “It must be a Delaware thing. Dad never told me I’d need identification to buy gas, although I never bought the gas, even when I was with him.”
Briefly, he thought about calling his dad and asking him what he should do. He’d no doubt have an answer, but Garth wanted to figure this out on his own.
“Sometimes the wagon would break, and Pa would have to ride to town and bring a part back to us. Is there any way you could do that with what you need for this tacks-see?”
He thought about it for a second. “There is no way to carry gas except in a container. I don’t know if they’ll ask for an ID when I buy one of those. I also don’t know where to get one.”
“Could you borrow the gas, like you did for this?” She patted the dashboard.
“You mean, steal it?” He chuckled, wondering if she saw him as a liar and thief. By all appearances, she would be right. However, he tried to head off the accusation anyway. “Did you steal where you came from?”
She lost some of her friendliness. “Well, I don’t like to talk about it, but there was that one winter where there was nothing to eat. I snuck into a farmer’s field and ate some dry corn husks, but Pa said it was okay with the Lord because I might have died from starvation.”
“No! I’m sorry. I wasn’t asking you to ‘fess up. I was only wondering…oh, forget it. It doesn’t matter. This taxi was already stolen when I got it. I’ll tell you the story sometime when we are safe. I have no intention of stealing. I have money, but I have to find someone who will take it.”
Garth began to hash through a plan. He drove them around the small town of Lewes, with its three gas stations, but soon came to the conclusion it was too small to have larger stores. Rather than admit he didn’t know what to do, he pulled into a small parking lot, turned off the car, and pretended to plan his next move.
He fiddled with his phone, hoping to get internet. That would allow him to search for a store close to his location. He tried to get his mapping app to come up, and it seemed like it was going to open a few different times, but then it paused for several minutes before saying the link failed. Minutes went by, then a half-hour.
After the frustration of technology failures, he decided a text to his dad couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t a surrender; it was using the resources at his command. If Dad had access to the internet, he could look up an address and tell him where to go.
When he punched in his message and hit Send, he got a “network is down” warning.
Eventually, Lydia got tired of waiting.
“Are we lost?” she said, cutting to the quick.
“Sort of,” he admitted. “I don’t have enough gas to drive around and look for the right store. It has to be somewhere that sells gas cans. I, uh, have no idea where to find a place that does.”
“Well,” she replied with enthusiasm for the challenge, “when Pa and I went into town, we always looked for the biggest, cleanest road. That was always the one that had the important buildings on it.”
He looked around. “There’s only one long road in this town. It goes from the ferry landing to who-knows-where in that direction.” Garth pointed into the woods beyond the small town. “I’ve been thinking about driving out there to look around since I parked here, but what if we run out of gas before we get anywhere?”
She giggled. “We walk, silly. What else would you do?”
Call AAA?
She’d dispelled his indecision. They wouldn’t get anywhere if they didn’t take a few risks, and they couldn’t be that far from the next town.
“Buckle up,” he advised. “We’re rolling.”
Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
“Connie!” Buck screamed out his open window.
He reacted on adrenaline-fueled instinct. He smashed the emergency brake down, flew out his door, and hopped down into the water.
“Connie!” he shouted again.
She was ahead, flailing in the churning water.
Buck did knee kicks to speed himself through the thigh-high water, and he arrived at the commotion expecting to dive in, but Connie’s head was already in the clear. The look on her face was pure embarrassment.
He was breathless. “Are you okay?”
“Buck, I’m sorry. I stepped into a pothole and fell, then I guess I freaked out.”
“But you are good?” In the few moments he’d lost sight of her, he had experienced a range of emotions, many of which caught him in the feels. “I thought I’d lost you.”
She stood up, unsteady at first, and he took her hand. A tan shape paddled up to her at the same instant.
“Mac! Oh, thank you.” She reached down and hugged the swimming Golden. “But I’m fine. Your daddy mistook me for a drowning woman.”
He gave Mac a wet pat on the head. Garth couldn’t have asked for a better dog.
“I should probably mention I can’t swim,” she continued. “In fact, you probably already figur
ed out I’m afraid of water.”
He laughed it off, happy to be having a conversation at all. He didn’t think it was possible for her to drown in such shallow water, but he’d heard of people drowning in bathtubs, so he didn’t take it for granted.
“Let’s get you and Mac back to the truck. You’ve gotten us far enough.”
“No!” she declared. “Let me finish the mission.”
Mac still trod water, so he wanted to make sure he was good. “Mac, go back to the truck. Go!” He pointed to his idling big rig.
The pup looked at him, then at Connie, perhaps hoping one of them would pick him up, but then he dog-paddled his way back to the truck.
She held one of his hands with both of hers. “Buck, go back with him. I need to get this done.”
His attitude softened. “You don’t have to. I’m sure I can drive in a straight line to the dry road ahead.” He gestured with an open hand to show how close they were to the other side of the new lake. “And you don’t have to prove anything to me. You’ve got a spot on the team.”
She beamed. “Thanks, really, but after all I’ve been through, I need to feel useful. I want to prove to myself that I can beat a little water.”
It was the perfect moment to lean in and kiss her, but someone in his convoy chose that moment to blow their air horn. The obnoxious noise pulled him kicking and screaming back to reality.
“I’d better get behind the wheel. I have to dry Mac off. He’s probably going to make a mess of your seat.”
Connie laughed. “He’s already in the window.”
They both looked back. His happy face smiled at them from Connie’s side, and his tail wagged furiously in the background. They couldn’t see it moving, but his head tilted from one side to the other as it did when his tail went full throttle.
“Damn, he’s fast,” he said under his breath.
“Okay, get out of here,” she advised. “The natives are restless.” She let go of his hand and turned toward the near shore.
“And all I have to do is watch out for this pothole.” She felt around with her foot, then took a big step over it.
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 52