“Fuck,” Ethan said with exasperation. “How did this guy make it into the military? Such a baby.”
That got the guard’s attention. “I only want to live; can’t you see? If you leave the property of this base, you are going to cease to exist when the experiment is over. That was what they told us back at HQ. That’s why we can’t let anyone inside, even assholes like you who claim to be US military.”
“Hold up,” Phil said, amused. “If we walk outside the supercollider under our feet, we’re going to disappear?” After teleporting across the planet, he was open to the idea of it, but they were in pristine woodlands, not surrounded by modern equipment like they had been when they’d disappeared from CERN. How could it possibly work in a forest?
The guard nodded. “That’s what they told us. They also said there were no other units within five hundred miles, so you can’t be who you say you are.”
“No units?” Phil mumbled. That part might be true. The remnants of Task Force Blue 7 weren’t even on the right continent. He gave another look at the man’s unit patch, suddenly realizing it wasn’t anything he recognized.
“I told you I was with the 75th Rangers. Care to tell me what unit you’re with?” He pointed to the circular blue patch on the guard’s shoulder. It looked like a lizard or a snake with a small pair of wings.
The guard warily looked him over, then sighed. “If I tell you, do you promise to not put me outside the ring? You can shut me up or torture me if you must, but please don’t make me disappear from existence.”
Phil raised his eyebrows. “Sure. We’ll go a different direction and keep you inside the ring.”
“Keep us all in the ring,” the guard emphasized. “I’m saving your lives.”
“So you keep telling us,” Ethan replied skeptically.
“Are we good?” Phil asked.
“Yes, thank God, and thank you,” the guard replied with a satisfying sigh. “I’m with the 130th Infantry Division.”
Phil and Ethan passed the same doubtful look to each other. It confirmed in Phil’s mind what he already knew from seeing the unusual shoulder patch.
There was no such unit in the US Army.
I-80, Nebraska
Buck took the phone from Connie. “This is Buck.”
“Dad! I can’t believe it’s really you. Me and Lydia had to look up your cell phone number in this mall. We saw a lady get shot. A nuke was dropped in Las Vegas! We—” Garth rambled on for another half a minute faster than Buck had ever heard his son speak in the past. He had a ton to say. However, it took Buck about that long to register that the voice on the other end was real.
“Garth! You’re alive!” Buck glanced at Connie; her tears now made sense.
“Yeah, of course,” Garth answered in a slower cadence. “Why would you think I was dead?”
“I talked to a couple of men who have your phone. They said they killed you during a robbery.”
“Oh, yeah.” Garth laughed. “You’ll never believe what happened to me. I was filling up the car and went in to pay, and then—” He rambled almost as fast as a cattle auctioneer as he described another part of their adventure.
Satisfied he was talking to his living, breathing son, Buck almost broke into tears again. His need to see the lines of the road ahead was the only reason he didn’t.
“Garth, I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear your voice. This is the best day of my life.”
His son laughed as if totally unaware of the emotional wasteland Buck had come through. “Glad I could bring you such joy. We—” Another voice interrupted Garth on his end. The sound became muffled before getting back to normal. “Dad, I have to go. I’m borrowing this nice lady’s phone, and her husband is pulling his truck up to us. The mall is like a war zone.”
Panic rose in Buck’s chest. It was a real possibility he’d never hear his son’s voice again. “Garth, listen. We’re still coming to you. Where are you?”
“Louisville, Kentucky. At a mall. I saw the name, but I don’t remember it.”
Buck pressed the phone against his ear as if he were adamant that his son listen to him.
“That’s not important. You are on Interstate 64 like we discussed. Good job. Keep going west. We’re still on I-80, but we’re heading south to get on the 64. I don’t have a map in front of me, but I think we’ll meet somewhere between Kansas City and St. Louis.”
Connie pulled out the road atlas, but he didn’t think they’d have time for that.
Shouting came from Garth’s end.
“Dad, I have to go! I’ll meet you at Kansas City.” There was obviously a scuffle going on.
“Meet at the Blue Springs McTruckStop! Blue Springs.” They both shared a love of the Golden Arches, and there were giant billboards advertising the place for a hundred miles on either side of it. No one could miss the location.
Several voices came through the phone line at the same time.
“Garth?” he shouted.
The confused jumble of noises continued, but his son’s voice broke through. “Blue Springs McDonald’s, Dad. I heard you! I’m Oscar Mike!”
The line went dead.
Eleven
Louisville, KY
“I’m Oscar Mike!” Garth shouted to his dad a second before the phone was snatched from his fingers. His dad would be proud of him for remembering the Marine slang for “on the move,” and he was glad he’d had the time to say it.
“Get your ass over here, Margaret!” a man screamed from a truck parked at the curb.
“I told you I have to go!” the woman shrieked. “My husband made it!”
Tornado sirens screamed in the distance, which seemed to mainline fear into the woman.
“I’m sorry,” Garth answered. “I had to tell my dad where we are going to meet.” He wasn’t sorry he had done it. Not really. The woman was only being unreasonable because her husband had arrived to pick her up.
She clutched her baby in one arm and the phone in the other, but in her rush to stand up and get out of there, the infant fell out of her arms.
“No!” the woman screamed.
Garth reacted with cat-like reflexes crafted over years of video gaming. He dove sideways and slid under the tumbling tot. A microsecond before the bundle of joy smacked the concrete walkway, he got his hands under it for the save.
“Gotcha!” He huffed after the tremendous explosion of energy.
Despite the grab, the baby weighed a lot more than he’d expected, and he scraped his forearms on the ground during the catch. They lit up like brushfires once he realized what he’d done.
“What the hell! Leave her alone!” the man in the truck yelled through the open window.
“I’ve got her baby,” Garth replied half-heartedly. His excitement at saving a child seeped away when he got a look at the baby’s face. “I think…”
There was no kid. The wrapped blankets held a treasure trove of allergy medication and packets of razor blades.
“What the hell?” On his knees, he still held the bundle as if it were a living thing. “Where’s your baby?”
The woman turned ugly. “There is no baby, you idiot. We’re taking this shit. Give it back!” She snatched the contraband from Garth’s arms. He let it go because he wasn’t sure what had happened.
He finally noticed Lydia tugging at his arm to get him to stand.
“Garth, let’s continue to your tack-see.” She glanced over her shoulder at the nearby truck.
It made more sense when he stood up and watched the woman open the door of her escape vehicle. She tossed the swaddled treasure onto the floorboard and hopped in after it.
“Oh,” he said like he’d been missing a practical joke until that moment.
The woman looked his way as her husband put the truck in gear. “You two should get while the getting’s good. The world is falling apart.” She signed off by flipping them the bird as the truck sped away.
“That was unnecessary. I tried to help.” Garth didn’t take
it personally, but it bothered him he’d endangered himself to help someone so undeserving.
Lydia got him moving. “Come on, let’s go. I thought you did great, Garth. If it had been a real baby, you would be a hero.”
“I guess we can’t trust anyone out here. Not really.”
“You trust me, don’t you?” she asked as they jogged farther around the perimeter of the mall.
He had to speak up, because another tornado siren began its wail, this time a lot closer than the others. “You are the only person I trust, so yeah.”
She seemed satisfied with his answer. “If you tell me what to look for, I can help keep watch for bad guys. I helped Pa by looking out for coyotes and foxes back on the wagon train, although the truth of it is there wasn’t much else to do most days.”
“Watch for everyone,” he replied darkly. “Anyone can be a bad guy, I guess. That faker proved it.”
“I’ll try,” she said like she meant it.
After another minute of jogging, he saw the taxi out on the lot. Its horrible paint job made it stand out from a hundred yards away. Most of the cars had already abandoned the parking area, so it sat alone.
“That way!” he commanded.
They left the sidewalk and made their way into the parking spaces of the huge lot. While they ran, he tried to think of what his dad would say to Lydia. What was the best way to tap into her skillset while running and driving through cities filled with women willing to fake holding babies so they could steal razor blades?
They got to the taxi without any interference. Cars and trucks piled up at the exits and jostled around each other with horns blaring, but they were far across the lot from his car.
“You need a gun, Garth. If we were traveling in the wild back home, my pa would insist on it.”
Because you can’t carry a cop with you. It was one of his dad’s jokes.
He reappraised her. “Your dad and mine would have been good friends. I’m sure of that. My dad would be pissed if I was out here with no weapon, and by the way, he taught me to never call them guns. It was advice from his Marine days, I think. Anyway, do you think I should carry the rifle around with me?”
Garth patted the trunk because the lone rifle case was in there.
“I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip. “Maybe keep it out when we are on the highway? Out there, we won’t have the protection of those lawmen we saw inside your mall.”
After checking that there was no one lurking close by, he opened the trunk and pulled out one of his dad’s AR-15s. He slammed the trunk, then rushed the black rifle around the side of the car and tossed it on the backseat.
“Okay, get in. We’re out of here!” Garth slid into the driver’s seat a second after Lydia shut her door.
It took twenty minutes to get out of the parking lot. He maneuvered the car toward the others at the nearest exit, but he kept a good distance between him and the main pack of anxious horn-blowers. It meant he was delayed getting out, but he didn’t want to risk riding someone’s bumper and getting into an argument. If things got bad, he was ready to reach into the back seat and get the gun, but he wanted to avoid trouble, not find it.
Once he was back on I-64, he released some of the tension in the knot around his stomach, but the danger was far from over, and he was already worn out. “Hey, Lydia, I have two jobs for you.”
She pulled her leg onto the seat as she turned to him. “I’m ready for anything.”
He smiled. “Yeah, that’s good. Be ready. I also want you to talk to me. Tell me about your days back on the wagon train. Talk to me about your home. Anything to keep me chatting back, so I don’t fall asleep.”
“I can do that. What else?”
“If we do run into trouble on the highway, I won’t be able to drive and get the gun at the same time. You’re going to have to reach back there and get it for me. Maybe…well, you might have to shoot it.” He couldn’t imagine things getting so desperate, but if he had learned nothing else from his always-prepared father, he knew to assume things were going to be the worst.
“I said I’m ready, Garth. I mean it. My life wasn’t very exciting until I met you, but let me think of what to talk about …”
He listened to her attentively but kept his eyes on the rearview mirror, and he didn’t fully exhale until the tornado sirens of Louisville were far behind. It had helped a lot to hear his dad’s voice and have a plan of action for where to meet, but it wasn’t enough.
One more check in the mirror—still no mushroom cloud over the city.
Garth took his left hand off the steering wheel for a moment. It shook like a leaf on a windy day, and it wasn’t because of the air blowing in through the broken window. There was nothing concrete to fear at that instant, but it seemed like there was an underlying tension and fear he couldn’t quite shake.
Be strong for Lydia.
He casually put his hand back on the wheel, then glanced at his pioneer friend to determine if she’d seen it. Thankfully, she was busy keeping watch and talking about her life like they were sitting around a campfire.
She seemed unaffected by all they’d gone through.
In his mind, he believed he was pulling Lydia through the collapse of his modern world. He’d made decisions that had saved their lives and gotten them out of some sticky situations. However, her stalwart resolve and lack of fear made him realize she was equally important in their two-person team. He didn’t want to let her down. Ever.
Be strong with Lydia.
I-80, Nebraska
Buck drove along the straightest stretch of interstate in America, which had endless flat fields on each side, but he took it in like he was on the most scenic, curve-ridden, interesting highway in all of North America.
Garth is alive.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Each mile was one additional hurdle that brought him closer to his son. His natural love of driving blossomed as he feathered the wheel, and even the threat of blacking out again couldn’t dampen his spirits. He hummed a few bars of The Marines’ Hymn for good measure.
“I’m so happy for you, Buck.” Connie shared his enthusiasm, but he knew there was one remaining thorn in her side.
“Yeah, life is great right now. And don’t worry. We’ve got luck on our side. Garth is okay , and we’re going to find your son too. I just know it!”
He really did feel like he could take on the world.
“I know it too,” she replied. “But we still have other problems out there. The radio hasn’t said anything more about those bombs. What do you make of that?”
They’d been driving east for an hour since Garth had called, and the whole time they’d been listening to the radio for news about nuclear war. However, reports were still unclear about where the bombs had hit, and they said nothing about who’d dropped them. If he’d had time to think it over, he would have directed Garth to meet him somewhere less populated than Kansas City, but he had done the best he could under the circumstances.
Garth is alive. That’s all that matters.
“As long as the war stays in the Southwest, we have a chance.” Of all the states it could have been, he hated that hers was targeted, but for the moment, it worked in their favor.
“I’m sure everything is going to work out. No one is really dumb enough to start a war when the rest of the planet is having all these …problems.” She stopped talking when a black shape caught their attention up ahead.
“Bring it on!” he declared. “I’m ready for anything.”
Connie laughed a little. “Don’t tempt fate, Buck. I’m sure God or fate or Mother Nature can dish out more than we can take.”
“I know I shouldn’t overdo it, but I can’t stop shouting to the rooftops about Garth. You’ll know the feeling soon enough, I promise.”
It was his turn to reach over and touch her arm. “Are you good?” he asked softly.
She brightened back to her old self. “I will be. We only have to get past whatever is about to com
e our way.”
The highway didn’t have a kink in it, so they stared down the four lanes of pavement to the growing mass of flying creatures. Unlike the spreading darkness associated with the wayward aircraft carrier, this new threat rose and fell like waves. As they closed the distance, he was able to make some guesses about what they were.
“Starlings.” He pointed ahead. The gyrations of the swarm were exactly like the flocks of birds he’d often see while driving. The only difference was the size. These birds filled the sky to the east with inky, fast-moving blotches.
“I’ve never seen that many in one place,” Connie replied.
Big Mac, as was his way when tension rose inside the cab, started to whine.
Connie reached under the dashboard to pet him. “It’s okay, little guy. Buck and I will keep you safe. It’s just a bunch of birds.”
In the grassy median, a dozen or so lanky antelope hoofed it away from the approaching mass. The deer-like animals seemed unaware of the vehicles passing on each side of them.
“They seem frightened,” Connie remarked.
The cab became quiet as they peered ahead at the freak of nature, but after a few more miles, Buck began to doubt his first guess.
Small insects pelted the windshield, forcing him to use the wipers to remove the goopy messes they left. When it happened a few more times, he made the connection.
“Those aren’t birds…”
Connie picked up on it right away. “They’re locusts.”
“Oh, shit,” Buck exclaimed. He’d driven through any number of small swarms of bugs over the years, sometimes requiring the time-consuming cleaning of his radiator grille. However, he’d never seen anything like what was up ahead.
“There are some birds,” Connie remarked as she pointed out her window. “They’re going the wrong way, though.”
Hundreds of birds flew west, away from the arriving swarm of insects. A hawk crossed in front of him as he watched, nearly striking his windshield.
“Those birds are scared shitless.”
Connie still looked out her window. “Should we follow their lead? I know we have to go east, then south. Maybe we should go south, then east?”
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