The Scourge (Book 1): Unprepared

by Abrahams, Tom

  Mike’s heart was racing. The adrenaline coursed through him, empowering him.

  Talk about the opposite of conflict avoidant, he thought.

  He imagined his father would have been proud and disgusted. The drill sergeant would have been proud that his son took initiative. He would have praised him for his situational awareness, for having his head on a swivel, for assessing the target’s strengths and weaknesses. Exploiting those weaknesses and mitigating the strengths would lead to victory, his father would have opined.

  Mike saw the opening. When Bruno told him they were changing out the barricades, that would be his chance. The soldiers’ guard would be down, their focus distracted if even for a moment. Luck played a big part in the timing and the execution. But it worked.

  His father would have been disgusted by Mike’s disrespect of men in uniform. He’d always told Mike that while rank was important in any profession, authority mattered more.

  “Never confuse rank with authority,” he’d said too many times to count. “Authority always wins.”

  Mike never much cared for either but always acquiesced to both. He’d shaken that bond, if only for a moment, and it felt good.

  “You’re a moron!” Miriam shouted above the road noise. “You could have gotten us killed!”

  Her eyes were open now. Her face still red, she seethed.

  Mike darted his eyes toward her and then back to the road.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she said. “You had no right—”

  “Save it,” said Brice. His color was returning to normal. “We’re alive. We made it.”

  Miriam undid her seatbelt and swung around, glaring at Brice. “Made it? They’re not letting us go. Are you kidding? We rammed our way through a government roadblock. We almost ran over soldiers. They’re coming for us. This isn’t over.”

  “They’re not coming for us,” said Brice. “They’ve got bigger fish to fry. All we did was make it harder for everyone else. They’ll be super—”

  Miriam held up a hand. “Wait. Do you hear that?”

  Brice frowned. “Hear what?”

  She was peering through the front windshield, looking skyward.

  It was the whoop of rotors, loud enough for Mike to hear the familiar rhythmic air displacement somewhere above them. But this was louder than the chopper that crashed. This was an angry, determined whoop.

  It wasn’t just the rotors. Mike heard the engine. It was loud. He craned his neck, trying to locate the chopper. He couldn’t, not until it flew in front of them, low to the ground, and swung tightly to the right before heading back toward them. It was five hundred yards away and it was coming for them.

  “That’s a military chopper,” said Brice. “An Apache, I think.”

  He was right. Mike recognized the tall, angular shape of the beast. It was dark green and mean looking. There were guns mounted under its belly and at its sides.

  “I told you,” Miriam said. “I told you.”

  The chopper was only one hundred feet off the ground. It was moving straight toward them, like it was playing chicken.

  There was palpable fear in Miriam’s voice. The derision gave way to nerves. “What do we do?” she asked rhetorically. “What do we do? What do we do?”

  Mike didn’t have time to think. He tightened his grip on the wheel and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The Jeep surged. The chopper was bearing down on them. For a moment, Mike thought it might land right in front of them. If it did, there was nothing he could do. There was a wall of traffic to his left and no shoulder to the right. The road dipped into a deep ravine. If he navigated off the road, the Jeep would tip into that ravine.

  The chopper stayed low but didn’t land. It zipped past them, low enough for its wash to rattle the Jeep. Although the vehicle shuddered as if it might come apart, Mike stayed the course.

  Miriam was cursing, a litany of words Mike had never heard strung together before. Even in this moment, there was something enchanting about it. Miriam was a woman who could make a sailor blush, or go to the dictionary in search of definitions. He liked that.

  “What’s happening, Brice? Can you see out the back?”

  Mike checked the passenger’s side mirror, but he couldn’t see the chopper. The glass was off-kilter and all he saw was the reflection of thick palmetto bordering the opposite edge of the ravine.

  Brice unbuckled and spun around in his seat. “I can’t see. Our stuff is in the way. Though I think we lost a bag.”

  “Lost a bag?” asked Mike.

  “Yeah,” said Brice. “When they shot out the window. There’s less stuff back here. But I can’t see much. There’s a lot of glass back here too and—wait.”

  “What?”

  “I see it,” said Brice. “It’s coming.”

  “The Apache?”

  “Yes,” said Brice. “I think there’s a Humvee too.”

  Mike’s stomach twisted. He was a moron. “A Humvee? Following us?”

  “At least one,” Brice said. “I can’t tell for sure. But that chopper is gaining again.”

  “How was it on us so fast?” Miriam asked.

  “It was in the area,” said Brice. “Remember? When we first pulled up to the blockade? It was flying toward the beach. Then it flew over us again at the checkpoint.”

  Miriam cursed again and buckled her seatbelt.

  “Can you adjust the mirror?” Mike asked her. “I can’t see.”

  Miriam rolled down her window and moved the glass. She adjusted it until Mike told her she’d found the sweet spot.

  To the left, on the other side of the stalled westbound traffic, was a golf course. To the right were dense thickets of trees and brush or farmland.

  They passed a sign for I-95. It was up ahead beyond a Walmart, a fire station, and a couple of gas stations. In the distance, red and blue lights strobed.

  “I think there’s another roadblock up ahead,” Brice said. He was sitting in the middle of the back seat, his hands on the backs of both front seats.

  Mike saw it. There was a roadblock stopping them from entering or going under I-95. They were so close.

  In the passenger side-view mirror, the Humvee was larger. The Apache was above it, flying low. Its wash was evident in the trees next to the eastbound lanes as it buzzed past.

  “We’re trapped,” said Miriam. “They got us boxed in and—”

  “Hang on.”

  Mike issued the warning an instant before braking hard and swinging the Jeep to the right. Brice jerked forward and to the left, his body pressing hard into Mike’s. Miriam’s body swung to the left too, and she braced herself against the hard plastic dash.

  The Jeep drifted, its tires sliding on dirt and gravel, until they found purchase on their new path, heading south on an unmarked dirt road. It was a farm access road, ruddy and unkempt. The heavy tires and suspension absorbed most of the uneven ride, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless. Mike’s teeth chattered. His body shook and bounced in his seat as he navigated the narrow drive. They whipped past trees planted in rows and at various stages of growth, a rectangular retention pond, and offshoots of dirt road even narrower than the one on which they traveled south.

  He didn’t know where he was going. There was no plan except to avoid getting caught. He held his foot down on the gas pedal. The Jeep bounced and shook with the accelerating speed. Miriam squealed and cursed again. Brice sat back in his seat. He buckled in and had both his hands on the back of Miriam’s seat back. There was a fine haze of dust in the cabin, spilling in from the broken rear window. It gave everything a sepia hue, making the circumstances even more surreal.

  “They’re going to kill us,” Brice said. “If they catch us, they’re going to shoot us.”

  He was probably right. Mike knew he’d taken a risk. He’d made a unilateral executive decision to put all three of them in danger. But was this danger any worse than the plague? No. It wasn’t. At least he saw this threat. He could make choices.

 
Behind him, in the side view mirror, he saw the wake of dirt pluming from the sides and rear of the Humvee giving chase. He didn’t see the Apache, but he heard it. Its whoomping rotors were loud and filled the cabin of the Jeep.

  Mike reached a four way intersection and swung left. He didn’t warn his passengers, and Miriam unleashed a barrage of creative lewdness when everyone’s bodies swung violently.

  This road was dirt too. A heavy canopy of older trees rooted on either side of it gave it cover and blocked much of the sunlight. He hoped this made it more difficult for the Apache to see them.

  The path was winding, as if it had been carved as an afterthought or not intended as an official path through the expanse of farmland. The dusty air in the cabin was cooler.

  Mike jammed his foot hard on the pedal. His neck and shoulders hurt from the tension. His hands gripped the sweaty wheel, and perspiration ran down his back. It was damp under his arms and the space between his eyes and nose. The initial burst of adrenaline was gone, but bursts of fear-laced energy pulsed through him in waves. His focus was sharp. He saw everything at once as if scrolling through a collection of photographs on a screen.

  He weaved the Jeep along the path, between thick trunks and over the overgrown fronds of low growth palmettos. Rocks kicked up from the tires and clacked against the undercarriage. He swung the wheel to the left and right. Overhead, on the other side of the canopy, he heard the Apache. It knew where they were. It was tracking them.

  “We’re done,” said Brice. “Give up, Mike. We can’t outrun them.”

  Mike ignored him. He pushed forward. There was no giving up. He’d made his decision. When he reached a fork in the road, he made another. Instead of heading south, he punched the brake and swung the wheel to the left again.

  “Why are we going north?” asked Miriam. “That’s backtracking.”

  “More trees,” Mike said.

  He glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Miriam was right. They were headed north. He checked the side view again, momentarily disoriented by whipping past planted rows of trees. It reminded him of long road trips as a child, his father listening to big band music, his mother sleeping. And he, with his forehead pressed against the window, watched the rows of cotton or corn slip by in some mathematical other dimension, his eyes trying to make sense of each individual line of crops. It was like speed reading without noticing the individual letters for the sake of seeing a sentence.

  He blinked past the nostalgia and found he was in a small circular clearing, some wide intersection without any cover. There was a path to the right, at a forty-five degree angle, and he took it. It was his only choice. Miriam had her window down. She leaned outside, glaring up into the sky.

  “They’re above us,” she said. “They see us!”

  An instant later they were under cover again, rushing through a much narrower path. This was not a road, and the roots from older, unharvested trees were like speed bumps under the tires.

  The Jeep rattled. Mike had trouble controlling its direction but hung on. He sped through the brush, low limbs thwacking against the sides of the jeep and scratching across the hood and roof. They flicked rivulets of water onto the windshield, distorting Mike’s view.

  There was no space on either side. Miriam pressed her hands into the seat at her sides. She had her elbows locked as if trying to lift herself in a sitting position.

  A loud thunk and crash frightened her and she jerked toward Mike. Something flew in front of the Jeep’s hood and bounced from it. He felt the crunch under the tire. The side-view mirror was gone.

  “Can you see out the back?” he asked Brice. “Are they behind us?”

  The path wound through dense foliage and there was virtually no daylight. The automatic headlamps were on, casting a whitish yellow cone of light in front of the Jeep. It was claustrophobic, like the walls of trees were closing in on them as Mike darted the vehicle north again.

  “Nothing,” said Brice. “I can’t see anything but the cloud of dirt.”

  Mike tasted the dirt in his mouth. It was in his nostrils and on his tongue. He swiped the sweat from his brow with a forearm and felt the residual grit of dust exfoliate his skin.

  The path carved through the jungle-like foliage and shifted east. They hit a hole and the Jeep sank before it bounced into the air. They landed and Mike lost his grip on the wheel. He tried to recover and overcorrected. The world slowed and he was sure they were doomed. The Jeep glanced off one tree and then another. He slammed on the brake and swung the wheel the opposite way. The Jeep tipped and rocked, its tires spinning in the dirt, trying to gain traction. Images from Mike’s life flickered in his mind. He told himself he’d made a bad decision in running through the barricade. But he was powerless to speak.

  Miriam screamed. Brice did too. Mike braced himself, thinking for a moment they’d tip onto their side. Instead, the rear end of the vehicle’s passenger’s side slammed into a tree, whipping the front around like a slingshot. The front passenger side connected with another heavy trunk. The sound of crunching metal was deafening. Mike’s body was jerked violently into the collision. The seatbelt dug into his shoulder. His head hit the side of Miriam’s seat. Glass shattered. And then it was silent.

  Mike was dazed but okay. Miriam had a cut on her arm from the shattered window next to her seat. Brice was okay in the back, strapped in and wide-eyed. There was no time to take stock. Mike shifted the Jeep into reverse and pressed the gas. It didn’t respond. He tried again. Then he pushed the ignition. The Jeep was dead. They needed to run.

  “C’mon,” he said. “We’ve probably got a couple of minutes. If the Humvee guessed right or if that helicopter knows where we are, they’ll find us. We’ve got to go.”

  He unsnapped Miriam’s seatbelt and pulled on her good arm. She was transfixed by her wound, staring at the blood that ran in streams along her arm. But she followed and scooted across the front seat to join him outside the Jeep.

  Goose bumps traveled across his arms from the salty cool air. It was easily ten or twenty degrees below the temperature in direct sunlight. It smelled like damp earth and the intense odor of plant material that reminded Mike of the inside of a greenhouse.

  After Brice climbed out, the three of them lumbered to the back of the Jeep. Mike popped the back open and they each grabbed a bag. Miriam’s arm was still bleeding.

  “Hang on,” Mike said. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

  He found the hydrogen peroxide and poured some of it on the wound. He took an alcohol-soaked wipe and cleaned it, then found a large enough bandage to cover the gash. Within a few minutes, they were on their feet and ready to go.

  They took what they could carry and moved off the path and into the damp floor of the woods. The chopper thumped overhead and moved past them, not hovering or swinging back. Through the canopy, it glided above. He didn’t think it could see them.

  One hundred feet in, when Mike couldn’t see his Jeep anymore through the dense fans of palm fronds and tree trunks, he stopped. He held a suitcase at his side and, with his free hand, held a finger to his lips. The others stopped in confusion.

  He closed his eyes and listened. A gnat buzzed near his ear and he swatted at it. Beyond the chirping cacophony of bugs, he heard the distant thump of the military helicopter. There was the echo of a revving engine, which he imagined came from a Humvee. Neither was close. They were good for now.

  Mike motioned with a hand to keep moving. He pointed straight again and took his first step. The ground was soft under his shoes. The heavy bag rubbed against his leg.

  Breathing heavily, Brice and Miriam kept pace, stepping over branches and thick piles of decomposing leaves and needles under the dim light.

  “You think,” said Miriam between breaths, “we’re clear?”

  “They don’t know where we are,” Mike answered. “At least I don’t think so. But when they find the Jeep, they’ll be close.”

  “They’ve got heat-seeking radar on those things,” said
Brice. “They can see our body heat.”

  “You mean FLIR?” asked Mike. He’d seen a story about it on the History Channel years earlier. It stuck with him. “Infrared?”

  “Maybe,” said Brice. “I just know they can find us even if they can’t see us.”

  Brice was squinting and his steps were uneven. Mike edged toward him and reached for the suitcase his friend carried. “Gimme that.”

  Brice hesitated. “I’m good.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Mike. “Let me take it. For a little bit. It’ll balance me out if I carry something in both arms.”

  Brice relented and let Mike take the suitcase. “Thank you.”

  They walked as quietly as possible for another five minutes before Miriam stopped them. She took a couple of quick steps ahead, leaping over a fallen branch with excitement. “Do you hear that? I think it’s the freeway. I think we circled back to I-95.”

  Mike listened. She was right. He heard the whoosh of traffic on the Interstate. It surprised him because he didn’t think any traffic could move with any semblance of speed. But there it was.

  “We’re close,” she said. “My cousin isn’t far from the Interstate. He’s on the Intracoastal. I remember that.”

  “So we have to cross the Interstate and get to the other side,” said Brice, “without anyone seeing us.”

  “Could be,” said Mike. “But unless that chopper and Humvee see us come out of the woods, they won’t put two and two together.”

  “We’ll be on foot with suitcases,” said Miriam. “We can do this. I can’t believe it. But we can do this.”

  Another five minutes and they were at the edge of the woods. In front of them were the southbound lanes of I-95. Traffic was sporadic. Heavy trucks and cars zipped by at dizzying speeds. Beyond the southbound lanes was a grassy median and then the northbound lanes. They were at a standstill.

  The three of them stood under the cover of the dense tree line, hiding from view.

  “I think there’s a neighborhood on the other side of the Interstate,” said Miriam. “Doesn’t that look like a neighborhood?”