“If only I could call them,” he said matter-of-factly.
She rolled her eyes.
“Your crew guys told me the SHF bosses took your radios.”
He nodded grimly.
“Probably should have put your foot down on that one,” she snarked.
“Destiny, please,” Zandre pleaded. “The captain has a lot to deal with.”
“Yeah, politics,” she quipped. “And like every other politician, you’ve stuck us with the bill.”
“That really isn’t—” Zandre started.
“No, she’s right,” the captain said as he came into the shade of the sign. “It’s my fault. I only wanted to hop ashore and confirm what was in our way. I had my sat phone, so I thought I was covered. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider what I’d do if there were no more satellites.”
He pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to her. “See? No signal at all. I should have checked it before leaving the ship, but it has never failed me in the past. I even tried it up at the top as soon as you said the boat was leaving us.”
She couldn’t really blame him for not knowing the satellite link was gone. It wasn’t obvious how much the world had changed until they came ashore and learned their problems were much larger than simply getting lost. They were in uncharted lands.
“They probably figured they’d need less food if the four of us were left behind in this shuffled-up mistake of an island.” She wasn’t normally a glass-half-empty woman, but she was in a mood after climbing up and racing down the dangerous pile of debris.
Both men looked at her sideways.
“I’m sorry. There has to be a better reason than that. As much as I hate the Sydney people right now, and I think they’ve got cotton for brains for taking those radios, I don’t think they would actively harm us.”
“So, what do we do?” Zandre asked.
“This is a nice spot to set up a base camp,” Barlow suggested.
Destiny took a look around. “I don’t see food or water. Maybe we’ll find something in all this junk, but maybe not. The boat was heading off in that direction.” She pointed down the beach toward the foggy end. “Maybe we should follow it?”
The two sailors stood at the water’s edge, waving and jumping in a futile attempt to get the attention of the boat. In her mind, the gesture was destined for failure since the boat hadn’t forgotten they were on the beach. For whatever reason, they’d made the decision to abandon them. She really wanted to know why.
“It might be better to stay here and wait in case the boat comes back,” Barlow said, not sounding as confident as before.
“It’s not coming back,” she declared. “They’ve left us for a reason and gone walkabout. If we stay here and wait for them, we’ll instantly lose track of their location. I feel like if we don’t pursue while we can, we’ll probably die here from the waiting. Do you think we can catch them in the inflatable?”
“Not bloody likely,” the captain answered. “The small motor is only designed for short shore runs in calm harbors. The surf here isn’t too bad, so I know we can get past the breakers fast enough, but if the Majestic wants to put distance between us, we’d never catch her.”
She ran her fingers through her hair as she listened.
“So, if we got out there and the Majestic was farther away, we’d be stuck.” She turned to the sea, sure the tiny gray dot was moving away as she watched.
“We have enough fuel for several runs between the ship and shore, of course, but we could burn a lot of fuel in a chase. If we ran her dry, we’d be in a real sorry state.”
“We don’t want to run out of gas,” she agreed. “But it wouldn’t hurt to take our boat down the coast, would it?”
“You still want to follow them?” Zandre asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But we’ll go slow along the bank. We’ll put a big arrow in the sand here where we first landed, then jump in your little dinghy and hug the shoreline as we go in the direction they went. We’ll only stop if the Majestic comes back toward shore, or if we see something interesting on the beach—”
“Like a radio,” the captain interrupted with enthusiasm.
“Bloody oath. If we see anything that can help us contact the boat, we’ll be all over it like stink on shit.”
“Lovely,” Zandre said to her in a fatherly tone.
She grinned.
“Let’s get moving.” She peeked out of the shade. “The heat of the day is going to catch up to us fast.”
Thirteen
Colorado Springs Fringe
“Should we head left toward downtown and the edge of the sea, go right up the canyon toward Pike’s Peak, or drive straight toward those nearby subdivisions at the city limits?” Buck had loaded the question to get the answer he preferred, which was the nearby subdivisions, but he was willing to listen to alternatives if people felt strongly about it. After what they’d seen with the cow, however, he doubted anyone would choose to go near that water again.
Eve, Monsignor, Sparky, and Haley stood close to him, looking at the road ahead. Connie and Big Mac remained inside his cabin. The Army guys hadn’t bothered to come up, but he didn’t feel compelled to go back to them, either. If they didn’t want to know what he was doing, so much the better.
“I’d vote we go to whatever is closest,” Eve responded. “Downtown has to be what, five miles away? These subdivisions start at the base of this hill we’re on. Besides, it doesn’t really matter where we go as long as we find some people.”
“I still don’t see anyone moving around,” Haley added. “But I do see a little smoke over there. At least, I think it’s smoke.” She pointed at a clump of trees most of the way down the hill at the entrance to one of the first big subdivisions.
“Could be a cook fire,” he guessed.
“Or a house fire,” Connie called down. “I can see a good amount of smoke, but the trees are blocking its source.”
“I guess we’ll check it out.” He shrugged. “Unless anyone has any objections?”
No one raised their hand.
“Good. Mount up. Follow me.” He turned serious. “We’re entering a populated area, so stay sharp. We could be swamped with survivors looking for answers or escape. Imagine how you’d be if you woke one morning to find an ocean outside your front door. All these people are going to be scared shitless.”
“More scared than we were yesterday, boss?” Monsignor asked.
“You were scared?” Buck joked.
“Shitless, just like you said.” Mel cracked up.
“Me too,” Buck admitted. Anyone would be scared if strange blue fire changed the modern world into a prehistoric ocean. The difference in his mind was that he wasn’t willing to run down arriving trucks and attack the drivers to get inside. That was the level of panic he was trying to prepare them for.
Once back in the rig and rolling again, he found Mac had taken a seat between him and Connie. The dog looked forward into the dashboard as if he had a little window to the road ahead. It was something he did from time to time, but this time he also tilted his head from one side to the other like a little radar dish, which drew Buck’s attention.
“What do you hear, boy?” he asked.
Mac continued his ritual.
“You think he hears something?” Connie wondered.
“Oh, I know he does. That’s his listening pose. I wonder what he hears besides the growl of our motor?”
“It must be pretty loud,” she said.
“Or really deep,” he countered.
“That too,” she agreed.
Mac held his pose for about twenty seconds, then seemed to forget what he was doing. He stopped looking forward, waited a few extra seconds to see if Buck or Connie had any head scratches on offer, then turned and hopped back on the bed.
“That was weird.” Connie followed Mac with her eyes.
“This whole thing is weird,” he allowed. “We have to keep it together. Here’s that turnoff with the smoke.”
Buck turned into the subdivision doing five miles per hour tops. Almost instantly, he found the source of the smoke.
“I’m stopping,” he said on the CB.
The five of them regrouped on the passenger side of Buck’s truck since he’d parked next to their point of interest. Unlike before, the Humvee rolled along the side of the line of tractor rigs, but none of the soldiers got out.
Buck waved to acknowledge them.
Varriss waved back.
For once, he was glad to have someone with serious firepower at his side, though he wouldn’t bet his life they would help him if he got into trouble. That was why he carried his trusty Storm pistol in his waistband under his Hawaiian shirt.
“I can see it,” Eve exclaimed as she pointed at the shaded area. “It’s a crashed vehicle.”
A small car had plowed into the shrubs and hit a pine tree behind them. It was difficult to see the car except for the smoke from under the hood because the bushes had partially stood back up to hide the wreck.
When he got past the bushes, he recognized it as the blue car from the evening before. It still had its lights on and everything.
“This is the one we saw driving away last night. I really hoped to meet the driver since he or she inspired me to come down here.”
“Well,” Eve stated, “he did make it here.” She paused. “We just have to find him.”
They all moved past the bushes to get a better look at the vehicle.
“Oh, shit,” he blurted.
“It’s been destroyed,” Mel said.
The little car wasn’t only wrecked against the tree. All four tires had been popped and shredded, and there were missing paint splotches up and down both sides. The roof wasn’t fully crushed, but it had been dented halfway in, and all the window glass was broken out.
“Totaled,” he whispered.
“What happened to it?” Haley said as she looked into the back seat.
“It looks like an animal used it as a scratching post,” Mel put in. “I’ve seen bears shred the hell out of tree bark as they rubbed against it.”
Haley’s head popped up from the far side of the car. “There’s bears here?”
“There’s always been bears in this area.” He chuckled. “The real question is what new animals are prowling around out there?”
“I’d rather not find out,” Connie said as she grabbed for Mac to haul him back to Lorraine.
“Me either,” he agreed. “Let’s get into this subdivision and find out what the hell’s been going on here. I’ve got a boy to get back to.”
Above him, the sun continued its trek across the sky.
Always a little closer to sunset.
Above Alpha Site
“You don’t look so good, Garth.”
He cocked his head toward the cute frontier girl. “I just found out the Holocaust didn’t happen, and I’m not sure how to process the news. I mean, I’m glad all those people got saved, but this means history isn’t set in stone. It means we might all be from different times and different versions of Earth.”
He looked around, wondering what stories the strangers could tell him about how things had gone differently in their timelines. His big problem, ironically, came back to his less-than-stellar performance in history classes over the years. It ranked near the bottom of his interest level, so he’d paid little attention. Certainly not enough to be able to compare stories and pick out the differences.
For all practical purposes, knowing there were different versions and doing something about it were on opposite ends of the universe for him.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Lydia replied, “but I’ll help in any way I can.”
There was nothing for her to do. There was nothing for him to do about the past, but he had growing concerns about his future.
“What I really want to know is where they’ve been taking those people.” He pointed at another five or six refugees who’d been separated from the main group and walked into the woods by the guards. It might have scared him to see them go into the unknown, but he reminded himself multiple times that Phil was right there in case things got dangerous. “Have you seen anyone come back?”
She looked around with her lip curled in a pose he now recognized as her way of working something out in her head.
“No,” she finally said. “We had twenty-eight members of our group when we woke up this morning, and there have been five departing groups. The first group took five. The next one took seven. The one leaving now has another five. I count nine of us left, which means the fourth group was only four people.”
“Wow, you’re really good at math,” he said with open appreciation.
“Aren’t you? I believe education would have gotten a lot better in one hundred and seventy years.”
“Uh, yeah. You would think so, but that’s not really how things worked out.” His dad railed against the school system bureaucracy all the time, so he was well aware of the problems in the education system. Buck’s biggest regret about Garth’s education was that he couldn’t homeschool him but had to rely on the public school system since he was always gone in his truck. Until the present discussion, Garth had been glad to go to school each day so he could see his friends, hang out, meet girls, pull pranks with Sam, and do whatever, but he was embarrassed to admit he’d never gone to school intending to learn anything. That was something he did not want to share with Lydia. “But we can talk about that another time.”
“I would like to compare, yes,” she said.
“That should be fun.” He chuckled and stood up. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get any answers.”
He held her hand as she got up and continued to hold it as they walked past the remaining time nomads until they reached the place from which the groups had been departing. To his surprise, Phil was nowhere to be seen.
“Can you tell me what’s going on here?” he asked one of the last guards. Since there were so few of the refugees left, most of the guards had gone somewhere else. Now there were two guards close to where he stood, and another three spread out in a wide circle around those who were still in his bunch.
“No talk,” the man said immediately.
“But I want to know when we can expect to leave. And where will we be taken?”
“No talk,” the guard repeated and indicated the rifle on his hip. “No talk.”
“Geeze, I get it,” he snarked.
“Careful, kid,” a woman replied. “These boys aren’t playing around.”
Garth paid attention to her. She was kind of plain-looking, wearing a dark red skirt that went down to her boots and a heavy white fabric top with long sleeves. He strained to imagine what era she might be from, but all he could say for sure was that she wasn’t from modern times.
“Do you mind if I ask what year you think this is?”
“Twenty-first century if I believe the rumor swirling around.”
“No, I mean, what year did you come from?”
She squinted at him. “So you believe this is actually the twenty-first?”
He nodded grimly.
“Then you won’t be surprised to know I started out on a ship called the Lusitania in 1914. Left out of New York and was on my way to family in Ireland. I was plucked right off the deck. Thought a rogue wave had come up and snatched me away, but then I woke up in a field of grass not far from here.” She gestured over her back, but he had no idea what was in that direction.
“So, you arrived at this place instead of having to be brought here in a car? That’s interesting.”
“Correct. A few others had the same experience. Those I’ve talked to, anyway. I’d introduce you, but most of my friends have been marched down that path, and they haven’t come back.”
He became distracted by a grating bird call in the distance. It wasn’t any sound he’d ever heard before. More like a pterodactyl in the movies rather than a real bird. How would the movies know what it sounded like since there was no way to l
isten to one? He stood there lost in his thoughts for a few moments…
Garth finally turned back to the woman.
“I’m sorry about your friends. My friend is out there, too.”
He didn’t tell her his friend was the one with a gun.
Fourteen
Above Alpha Site
“I’m not afraid of you,” Faith said, trying to convince herself the words were true.
The closest pair of birds shrieked at her and were answered by their friends back at the buffet area, which used to be three human beings. However, she had no intention of showing fear. It was a trick Destiny had taught her during their limited outings in the wilderness.
She stepped in reverse to back away from the complaining animals.
Dez had never given her lessons about how to manage birds. It had never even come up since no bird she knew would try to stare her down. These birds were obviously not from her time.
Judging she’d gone far enough, she slowly turned around with the intention of heading for her original destination, which was the second exit tunnel. However, as soon as she aimed her flats for the deep woods, another of those huge birds landed on a high branch of a ponderosa pine nearby.
“I’ve seen enough.” She didn’t know squat about animals, but even a pencil pusher like her could make the connection between the protective birds and their fresh kills.
She took off at a jog.
The latest arrivals let out cries that were a combination of fingernails-on-chalkboard screeching and unhappy seabird. She interpreted the attached message as “Get off my land, mate.”
A growing number of calls were returned from deeper in the woods.
Two more giant specimens appeared in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere. One was much larger than the other, making her imagine a mother and her chick eying the day’s lunch.
More arrivals landed in the trees to her left. High up, yes, but she got the distinct impression the whole flock was zeroing in on her.
“I don’t need this right now!” she yelled. Buck was counting on her to discover what had happened to his son, and she’d done a miserable job of getting that answer.
End of Days | Book 5 | Beyond Alpha Page 11