End of Days | Book 5 | Beyond Alpha

by Isherwood, E. E.

  The radio.

  She pulled the handheld from its latch on her belt loop. Maybe someone was close by and could lend a hand.

  “Hello? Buck, are you out there?”

  A breeze washed over her face.

  Something big was close by. Big and with wings.

  She decided it wasn’t the time for the radio.

  “Run,” she said to herself.

  She went from a jog to a sprint with measured breathing.

  The smell of pine sap was strong in the air. Her shoes struck the soft floor of pine needles, which made it easy to cross the flattened terrain in the forest. The sun shone almost directly down on her since it was now the middle of the day.

  A shadow passed below the sun, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Nice birdies,” she joked, breathing hard.

  Ahead, there was nowhere obvious where she could take refuge. She wasn’t a shrinking violet as ladies went, so she was willing to turn and fight, but she had no weapons, and she was on the top of a ridge with nothing in the way of hiding spots she could defend.

  A chorus of birds cawed viciously behind her. The screeches were nonstop, creating a solid wave of chalkboard-scratching that burrowed into her brain and made her want to rip her ears off. More of their friends got the message to join the fun, which only added to the mishmash of sound. She could now imagine three men getting taken down by a whole flock of them.

  “I’m sure Dez would love to study your behavior,” she called.

  She might be able to climb a tree, but that wouldn’t get her anything. Not with those birds coming down from branch to branch.

  Faith looked back.

  There were dozens of wings flapping high and low.

  They were coming for her.

  The emergency exit was nowhere to be seen.

  Help was nowhere.

  No one had called back on the radio.

  She broke into a dead run.

  That made the birds angry. Their cries rose with her speed.

  “She’s getting away!” they seemed to say.

  Her first instinct was to hide behind one of the big trunks of the towering pines, but she fought the urge since it wasn’t much more protection than if she kept moving. If all those birds grouped together, there was no tree big enough to hide behind.

  Faith looked back as she ran but slowed down to ensure she didn’t trip like women did in every movie ever made. The giant birds had indeed ganged up on her, and there were at least ten within a stone’s throw. A much larger number flew around and cackled up in the trees.

  She scoured the nearby forest, searching for anything that could help her. Most of the trees stood alone or with a companion, with little in the way of brush between them. The forests of Colorado were mostly rocky with little undergrowth. But she did spot something…

  A tightly packed thicket of saplings.

  She slid to a stop as her flats tried to grip the dry needles under her feet.

  “Whoa!” A fall could doom her to those beaks.

  Faith didn’t want to head away from where the next exit bunker was located, but it was necessary to save her bacon. She sprinted for the thick grove of seedlings and young pine trees. It was an unusual grouping that reminded her of a Christmas tree farm.

  Without consciously picking an entrance, she stormed into the thick needles and made her way twenty or thirty feet into the grove. As she hoped, the trees were small enough she could wrap her hands around the bases, and they were bushy enough to hide her from the birds.

  She knew the birds wouldn’t give up. They’d arrived a few seconds after her, and they cried and complained in a way that would put a battalion of toddlers to shame. A few of the adventurous ones hopped on the tops of the trees, but they couldn’t stand on them because the weak branches fell over under the weight. Several birds spotted her as they hovered above, but repeated attempts to drop onto her resulted in failure since their wings were far too large to allow them to squeeze into what little open space was available.

  She’d found their weakness.

  “Score one for the good guys,” she said into their noisy cries.

  Faith caught her breath and tried to relax in the protective pine grove, but the birds refused to leave her. They walked the perimeter or took turns flying above her as if to confirm she was still there.

  They were smarter than the average bird.

  It took an hour for the birds to stop poking at her hiding spot and another hour before their cries told her they’d moved away, so it was well after noon when she decided she could wait no longer. She had to get inside SNAKE and find Garth before the sun went down.

  When she got a clear view outside, she was shocked to see the tiny block of concrete about five hundred yards deeper in the forest. She’d been a little off in her estimate.

  One of the birds pecked at the base of a large tree not far in front of her. Its wings were folded under it, like an eagle or hawk standing around, and it didn’t appear to be actively searching for her, but it was on her path to the door.

  On the bright side, her wait under the trees seemed to have chased away most of the other birds.

  She resolved that if she survived her day in the woods, she’d spend more time at the SNAKE gymnasium, a place she’d never visited.

  “Let’s get it on,” she whispered.

  The bird whipped its head around and looked directly at her.

  Then it screeched louder than a fire alarm.

  “Shit,” she complained.

  There would be no more waiting. She sprang out of the trees and ran for it.

  Too many calls responded to the first one.

  “Don’t look back,” she said to herself.

  Faith bet it all she would find the entrance before those birds could get those giant teeth in her flesh.

  Above Alpha Site

  Phil tried to ignore the bird cries coming from deep in the woods. They’d been making a racket in the forest for the past hour, and it had become so annoying and constant he’d become immune to it. However, the cries suddenly got a whole lot louder, which made him and everyone else look over their shoulders.

  “It sounds like a dog kennel but for birds,” the lieutenant quipped.

  He and three silent guards were tasked with keeping watch over the small group of people they’d taken from the larger one. Over the course of the day, he’d been there when five different groups were culled from the main party, but he’d been forced to do as he was told by the two lieutenants rather than explore on his own or protect Garth. Both were more important than what he’d been forced to do, which was babysit strangers in the big truck parking lot.

  “Is there such a thing as a bird kennel?” the second leader asked.

  “Don’t know,” the man answered.

  Phil saw his opening.

  “Sir, you want me to go over and see if they need more people?” Phil had caught on to the process. He and the guards brought the time nomads in batches down to the parking lot, but once they reached the tents, the guards made him stand watch over the empty parking area rather than let him see what the civilians were doing behind the canvas flaps.

  He’d heard crying, cussing, and a gunshot, but he hadn’t been asked to help. Now was his chance to walk to the other side of the tents and see it for himself. All the people were gone, and they were waiting for the all-clear to leave and, he assumed, get some more refugees from the small group back in the woods. Garth’s group.

  “No need, soldier.” The man sized him up. “Hey, tell me. Who are you the son of?”

  Phil had been expecting the question ever since he’d talked to the specialist when she’d scouted where to bring the MREs. She’d suggested everyone in the Alpha Site was there because they knew someone important in the government. Senators. Congresspeople. Judges.

  He knew a few things about subterfuge from his time working with warlords in Afghanistan. He didn’t want to tell the truth, but he also didn’t want to tell an easily resea
rched lie. He needed something in the middle—a mostly true lie.

  “My mom helped design this place.” He stomped on the ground to signify what he was talking about. “She didn’t take any money but instead got me onto the security detail here. I wish she was more famous, of course, because she kind of gets forgotten, but at least we’re here.” Belatedly, he added, “Sir.”

  Phil doubted anyone would care enough to look up a lower-tier architect to see if his story matched. If he’d said he was the son of a famous politician, he was certain someone would look it up to fluff their credentials with a potential new ally. He’d seen similar behavior in the Army since forever.

  “Well, Sergeant Baker, I’ll tell you when I need you to go in there. For now, we’ll—”

  The lieutenant yanked out his cell phone, which apparently still worked.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, sir,” he snapped into the handset after listening for three seconds.

  Once he hung up, the guy looked at him and the other guards. “Time’s up, you guys. Let’s go get another batch. The general is anxious to get them all processed in there.”

  “In where?” he asked, aware it was out of line. “What’s going on here?”

  “You ask too many questions, Sergeant.” He spat before making a pointed gesture toward the camp. “Keep your mouth shut and go get some more of them. Hell, bring them all. I’m ready to get back underground where there are showers and women.”

  The two officers chuckled, then high-fived. The other guards remained stoic, probably because they didn’t understand English.

  Phil knew none of them were professionals.

  But they did have guns.

  Whatever was going on, he was not going to bring Garth near the scheme those two goons were in charge of. The crushed trucks and blue beam were behind those big white canopies, but the two officers had worked hard to make sure he didn’t learn the fate of the previous time nomads. It was time to make his move.

  “Yes, sir.” He saluted.

  Colorado Springs Fringe

  Buck drove into the sprawling subdivision with high hopes of finding someone. As he slowly wheeled through the development, he figured there had to be over a hundred homes lining both sides of the oval-shaped main roadway. The development was built on a gentle upward slope, making it easier to see all the wealthy homes on its single street.

  The place seemed fine, with cars parked in garages and on driveways in front of the giant McMansions. A few fences had been knocked down, and a small tree tipped over here and there, but the entire world had shifted, so it wasn’t beyond reason to expect some damage from that. The bow in the land that had bent the downtown into the ocean wasn’t as prominent in the subdivision, as there were no big cracks or fissures.

  What didn’t add up was why no one was outside to greet them.

  As they drove on, it became eerie. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced since that abandoned park service roadblock on the road through Yosemite National Park. All the people had seemingly disappeared there, walked away from their cars, and he’d never figured out where they’d gone. Had that incident been a sneak peek of the problems that had followed?

  They’d gone halfway down the righthand street before his CB lit up.

  “Maybe we should blow our horns?” Eve asked.

  It should have been an easy answer, but he’d been experiencing misgivings about what they’d found on the crashed car sitting at the subdivision entrance. A big animal had caused most of that damage, and the same animal might explain why there was no one inside the vehicle. If he blew a horn like he had on the highway, it might bring that thing running toward them to see who’d rung the dinner triangle.

  “In a minute,” he counseled.

  He let his foot off the gas, willing the motor to get quiet.

  “What’s wrong?” Connie asked immediately.

  “I’m spooking myself.” He chuckled. “I’m thinking about that giant herd of bison we saw in Wyoming. What if they or other herd animals are close by and blowing the horn brings them to us? A group that big would smash through every house on this street, and we’d lose a great place to live.”

  She chewed on the information. “You think there’s dangerous animals out there?”

  “Look around,” he whispered. “Either these people are hiding from us, or they’ve all up and left because of an infestation.”

  “I think they’re just scared, is all. Maybe they think we’re the bad guys.”

  “How can truckers be the bad guys?” Buck asked with a defensive scoff.

  “Do you remember a certain cute little innocent VW Bug? That was the car of the bad guys for a while, wasn’t it?”

  “Touché,” he said with a brief smile.

  “If there’s one thing you’ve taught me,” Connie said, “it’s to go for the win. We could sneak around all afternoon and not find a soul, or we could blow the horns and find out right quick who’s alive. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you we have to get back by sundown.”

  “No, you do not.”

  He stopped the truck.

  “What’s up, boss?” Monsignor asked on the CB.

  “I’m shutting down,” he answered. “I’m going to test something.”

  All three trucks pulled close and shut down. As usual, the Humvee lagged in the back and didn’t participate.

  “Okay, here goes nothing,” he said warily.

  He blasted the horn for three seconds, then let off.

  Total silence.

  Buck let go with another burst, let off, then did one more.

  He cracked the door to listen outside. There were no shouts from neighbors. No horns blaring back at them. No one rushing to the sound of rescue. Not even a dog barking. All bad signs.

  “Let’s try this.”

  He blasted the horn three times in a row.

  “That’s the international sign for ‘I need help.’ Three whistles, horn-blows, or even shouts. If someone knows that, they should be checking us out.”

  They both looked around, but still there was nothing.

  “This is a tough crowd,” he joked.

  He was glad the giant herd of bison didn’t materialize, but the silence was killing him.

  He didn’t want all those people to be gone.

  Fifteen

  Above Alpha Site

  Garth had learned something world-changing, but he didn’t know how to parse the revelation. Explaining multiple versions of reality to a woman from 1914, a man from a different 1939, or his close personal friend from Oregon Trail days would make his head implode. He needed to tell someone who could take action, like a scientist or someone at the newspaper. He figured it might put him in line to win one of those Nobel prizes, though he’d once overheard his dad talking to Sam’s dad about how they were rigged.

  Adults talked about the weirdest things.

  He woke from his daydream when the guards came back up the path. Garth knew they had come to collect some or all of the remaining time nomads, including him.

  Phil was with them.

  “Lydia.” He pulled her out of earshot of the woman in the red skirt. “I have a bad feeling about all this. Why won’t they tell us where those people went? Why won’t they talk to us?”

  “You don’t trust anyone, do you?” she asked.

  At first, he thought she was being accusatory, but she followed it up a moment later.

  “It seems to be a skill that we need in this place. I’m sure I have no idea what this is all about or what’s going on with all these people and where they came from, but I trust you with my life, Garth. I’ll do whatever you recommend.”

  “I trust you with mine, too.” He beamed.

  As he approached, the leader waved in the soldiers who’d been standing in the woods around their group. It meant they were all going somewhere.

  “Listen up!” the officer with the funny accent yelled to them. “We have almost got you all taken care of. The others have been processed and
are resting comfortably. If you will just follow me down to the tents, you will finally get food and water and, I am told, a nice hot shower.”

  “Can we see the others?” the woman in the red skirt asked. “I made a bet with one of the ladies you took away already, and I’d like to collect.”

  Garth tugged at Lydia’s arm. “We’re going to make a run for it when I say, okay?”

  They were at the back of the group, and the guards had shuffled over to the soldiers flanking the officer standing on the trail. That gave them an opening to disappear behind some of the big trees.

  The leader argued with the Lusitania woman, which provided the perfect distraction.

  In his head, he was ninety-nine percent certain those guards wouldn’t shoot them if they tried to escape. Most of the guys with guns pointed them to the outside as if the threat were out there rather than to the inside.

  He was about to test his educated guess.

  “Step back slowly,” he whispered.

  They both took a few steps in reverse.

  “Come on!” the officer barked, finished with the woman. “Move out!”

  It was now or never.

  “Go for it,” he urged.

  They hadn’t taken two steps before someone appeared behind them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Phil asked.

  “Bring those two!” the man at the front called to Phil.

  “Roger,” he replied over Garth’s head.

  Quieter, Phil spoke to Garth. “Not here. They’re watching you too closely.”

  “We were going to hide behind a tree. We would have made it.”

  “No,” Phil said in a stern tone. “They know exactly how many of you are left. You would have been discovered in about two seconds. But don’t worry about it; I’m going to get you away from them before we reach the tents.”

  “The tents?” he asked.

  “Yeah. They’ve been putting everyone in tents near where we saw that blue light last night.”

  “You saw a blue light last night?” Lydia asked in surprise.

  Oops.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said in a sheepish voice. “Last night, I tried to scout a way out. I ran into him, and we both saw a blue light again.”