by Steven Bird
Placing his journal back into his pack, Jessie fished around inside and removed a cloth drawstring bag containing herbal tea. Placing a pinch of tea into his stainless steel, reusable tea infuser, Jessie dropped it into his stainless steel camping mug. Using his folding, portable rocket stove, he warmed the mug, now filled with water from his canteen, with the infuser inside. Almost immediately, the soothing scents produced by the simmering herbs began to waft up around him from the small, well-contained fire.
Taking a deep breath, Jessie thought to himself, It’s the little things, these days. Thank God for the little things.
As he watched the last moments of the sun as it passed over the western horizon, Jessie took a sip of his hot, fresh tea. His moment of peace and serenity was soon disrupted as the sounds of multiple gunshots began to echo from the distance to the east. Lowering his cup, Jessie tuned his ears to the sounds, counting the shots, and noting the differences in sound. Someone is returning fire, he thought.
Looking back at the setting sun and then checking the time on his wind-up watch that he kept set to his own time based on the daily high noon position of the sun, Jessie thought, it will be dark long before I could get anywhere near the source of the fighting. God, be with the innocents... if there are any.
After a few moments, as the distant sounds began to fade, Jessie looked off to the west as the sun dipped below the horizon, and murmured to himself, “Well, it’s over,” as he lowered his head in respect for the dead. He knew all too well the inevitable outcome of any armed conflict. No one ever gets away unscathed.
Chapter Three
As Russell and Leina looked to each other from a distance, both pinned down behind their vehicles, they heard a vehicle approaching from behind them on their exposed side, appearing out of nowhere from behind the rolling terrain. Russell placed his rifle on the ground and put his hands on his head, nodding for Leina to do the same. He knew there was no way out, and not knowing what their intentions were, he felt the best thing they could do for the children was to comply, even if for no other reason than to buy them some time.
As the vehicle drew near, they could see it was a Ford pickup truck with several armed individuals standing in the bed, weapons trained on them. Stopping just short of them, a man in the back of the truck shouted, “Lay face down on the ground, all of you! Hands and feet spread apart!”
Russell acquiesced to their demands, positioning himself in a way to keep his eyes on Leina and the children. He could see Leina trying to coax the children to comply, and could hear the sorrowful cries of Gavin’s children as they yelled, “Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy? Daddy! Come get us, Daddy!”
Covered in their father’s blood, Russell’s heart was broken at the thought of the emotional hell the children were enduring, as well as the potential horrors that awaited them all.
His thoughts were quickly interrupted as the man who had given the previous order, said to the other two men in the bed of the truck, “Get on it.”
Get on what? Russell thought as the men climbed down and began walking toward them with their rifles trained on both him and Leina.
Walking toward them were two men in their early to mid-thirties with athletic builds. They were both wearing black tactical web gear, body armor, and police-style tactical Kevlar helmets with identity-hiding face wraps. The men were well armed with AR-15 rifles, adorned with high-end optics, targeting lasers, and tactical lights. Watching as the men searched the dead and took their weapons, Russell could tell this was no simple misunderstanding or case of mistaken identity. These men were well-equipped and trained marauders—the type that carved out their niche in this chaotic and dangerous world, preying on the weaknesses of others.
Sifting through the contents of the vehicles, one of the men turned to the apparent leader, still standing in the back of the truck, and shouted, “It’s clear, and we got a good one this time.”
Jumping down from the back of the truck, the man who seemed to be in charge of the group looked into the cab of the truck as he walked by and said, “Call the others in.” Proceeding to walk over to his cohort who had called clear, he said, “What do we have?”
“The big score is the woman and the kids, of course, but they were also pretty heavily armed, so their ammo and weapons will carry some value. They also had at least a two-week supply of food.”
“Outstanding,” the authoritarian figure said. “Put the women and the children in the Suburban,” he said pointing to several vehicles that were approaching from in front of the group’s bullet-riddled trucks and minivan. “Put the food and anything else of value in the Jeep. Let’s wrap this up quick and get back. I’m getting hungry,” he said, pausing to look at Leina. “And I’m anxious to get to know the woman better,” he added with a devious, crooked smile.
“Sure thing, Chief,” one of the men said, as he immediately turned toward Leina and the children. Pausing, the man then asked, “What about him?” he said, gesturing toward Russell.
“What about him?” the one they called Chief replied sarcastically and with an annoyed tone in his voice.
“Yeah, right,” the man quickly responded, as he realized the answer to the question was self-evident.
His heart pounding, unsure of what was about to transpire, Russell watched the man turn toward him, as what appeared to be a Chevrolet Suburban equipped with police lights, a brush guard, and multiple radio antennae arrived, with a Jeep Wrangler following several car-lengths behind. Both the Suburban and the Jeep had been painted a flat desert tan color with splotches of brown, in what appeared to be an attempt to blend in with the surrounding terrain.
The men in the Suburban exited the vehicle and began talking with the man referred to as Chief. Unable to hear their quiet conversation from his position, Russell saw the Chief point at Leina and the children as the men turned and began to walk toward them.
His attentions now back on the man who had been directed to deal with him, Russell’s thoughts flashed back to his previous life. His mind raced as he wondered how he could have gone from an upper-middle-class American life as an aspiring pianist and composer, to being on the run in a collapsing world, his friends lying dead all around him, and his fate now in the hands of those who had killed them.
As the man walked toward him, grasping his sidearm, still in its holster, the Chief yelled, “Don’t waste ammo.”
Stopping and nodding to acknowledge the order, the man proceeded toward Russell, his right hand now shifting from his sidearm to a large knife worn on his police-style duty belt.
His heart pounding in his chest, Russell began to sweat profusely as he saw the blade being drawn from its sheath. No! No! No! he thought as he looked to Leina, who was being taken away with the children and led in the direction of the Suburban.
Looking back to Russell, Leina silently mouthed the words, “Fight! Fight!” as one of the men nudged her in the back with his rifle, forcing her forward.
Focusing on the knife in the man’s hand, Russell cringed at the thought of the horribly painful death that awaited him. He couldn’t help but think of the burning sensation he would feel as the knife sliced into his flesh. I’m not going out like this! he thought as he immediately lunged forward to his feet, letting out a primal scream as he ran full-speed toward his would-be assailant.
Feeling the knife slash through his left shoulder as the man tried to thwart his attack, Russell pushed through the pain, grabbing the man’s Glock 17 from its holster. With another slash of the blade across his face, his vision now going blurry, Russell pulled the trigger repeatedly as the man tried to block the weapon with his free hand.
Falling to the ground on top of his assailant, everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion around him. Gunfire erupted from all directions. Feeling impacts all throughout his body, but no pain, Russell said a silent prayer for Leina and the children as he slipped off into darkness, leaving behind the hellish confines of what had become his life on Earth.
Chapter Fou
r
As Jessie approached what appeared to be an abandoned town, he carefully scanned the area for any signs of movement or potential threats. He worked his way forward, from building to building, pausing to listen and observe as he went.
Approaching what appeared to be a former middle school, he looked at the empty swings and merry-go-rounds on the playground that would have once been filled with the sounds of children, laughing and playing on such a beautiful day as this.
Suddenly, the silence was broken as he heard the screams of a young girl as she ran out from behind the school, followed by the sounds of barking, as what appeared to be a pack of feral dogs viciously pursued her. Immediately bringing his rifle to bear, Jessie flipped off the safety, took aim at the lead dog, pulled the trigger, and… click. Nothing. Hand-cycling the rifle’s charging handle, ejecting the failed round and chambering the next one in the magazine, Jessie pulled the trigger only to once again hear the sound of the hammer falling forward onto the firing pin, followed by silence.
“Damn it!” he yelled as he dropped the rifle and took off running toward the girl, the dogs now leaping on top of her, tearing at her clothes and biting into her flesh as her screams filled the air.
Awakened by the sounds of a bird screeching overhead as it glided gently on the morning breeze in search of its first meal of the day, Jessie squinted as the sun sent its first rays of light over the eastern horizon. Jessie awoke to only the sounds of flourishing life all around him and the feel of the cool morning air. No dogs, no desperate screams of a young girl. With birds chirping all around him, Jessie said aloud, “Crap!” as his heart rate began to slow down, realizing it had only been a dream.
Sitting up and getting a good look at his surroundings, Jessie stretched and yawned as he shuffled his hand through his pack, thinking, what a way to start the day. Oh, what I would do for a cup of coffee.
As he laced up his boots and put his arms through the straps on his pack, Jessie couldn’t help but think of the sounds of gunfire he had heard the evening before. With an intent to parallel Highway 60 from the north side as he traveled east, Jessie looked over the hill and thought, I’d better stay on my toes. It seemed like the shots came from that direction. I’ll know soon enough, I guess.
~~~~
After a half hour of carefully moving toward the east, pausing regularly to glass the surrounding area with his rifle-scope, Jessie saw several vehicles up ahead. With his scope on its maximum zoom, Jessie counted three vehicles, but they were still at too great a distance for him to make out any specific details.
Working his way toward the vehicles, Jessie thought, I haven’t seen them move yet, and I don’t believe that they would have just camped out for the night in the middle of the road.
Carefully working his way closer, using the terrain as cover, Jessie looked through his scope once again, only now he could clearly see the scene. Two pickup trucks… a van on its side… damn it, he thought, as he began to count the bodies strewn about the vehicles. Bodies… of course, there would be bodies.
After remaining in place for another hour to observe for movement, Jessie scanned the area off in the distance, looking for any glint of light reflecting off an optic, or any other signs that the area was being surveyed from afar. Once he felt it was safe to move about, having not seen or heard anything outside of nature, Jessie moved from his position of cover, which was just northwest of the vehicles, to an area to the northeast.
Jessie again sat patiently, watching and listening for any signs of trouble. He then moved in a southerly direction toward Highway 60. Once he reached the edge of the road, he left cover and sprinted across Highway 60 to the southern side of the road, where he worked his way from east to west, positioning himself to the southwest of the vehicles.
Having worked his way all around the area, Jessie was finally satisfied that the vehicles were not being watched. Standing up, exposing himself above the terrain, Jessie slowly and methodically worked his way toward the ambush site, keeping a keen eye out for trouble. The last thing he needed was to end up joining the poor souls lying on the ground in front of him.
Reaching the overturned F-150 that had come to rest on its passenger side door, Jessie looked inside to see the body of a man in his thirties hanging from his seatbelt, a thick, coagulated puddle of blood on the passenger side door beneath him. Judging from these handprints and smears of blood, someone got out through the busted windshield, he thought, as he tried to piece together the grizzly scene.
Lying just fifteen yards from the truck, Jessie found two dead men. A fair-skinned man in his late twenties with reddish hair, and another man, dressed in tactical gear, lying together in a pool of drying blood. Gently rolling the man in regular clothes off to the side, Jessie looked at the slashes across his face and cringed, noticing that one of his eyes had become dislodged during the apparent struggle.
Searching the man in tactical gear, Jessie found that he had been stripped of anything useful. No weapons or ammunition could be found, which seemed to indicate that there were survivors. Which side those survivors are on, of course, remained in question. My guess is either the other guy’s buddies or the attackers stripped this one clean before they left, he thought.
Jessie then began searching the other vehicles, as well as the other bodies that remained at the scene. He found two other adult men and a woman. Damn, he thought, shaking his head in disgust. Sifting through the remaining contents of the minivan, Jessie noticed several children’s toys, coloring books, and clothing. The coloring books, along with their associated crayons, were scattered around the back seat area as if they had been recently in use. In addition, a small pair of slip-on shoes, belonging to what Jessie assumed was a child aged six or seven were lying in the floor area of the backseat, with a pair of pink socks balled up neatly next to them.
Upon this discovery, Jessie knew in his heart that there had been children in this convoy, and they had been taken. His heart began pounding in his chest at the thought of what the children might be going through at that very moment. The fact that the children had not been killed at the scene with the adults told him that the perpetrators of the ambush had plans for them, which might keep them safe for now. Your average roadside bandit would not want to take on the job of caring for and feeding young children. Not for long, at least. No, there was more to this, and he wanted to know what.
Noticing that the fuel caps had been removed and left dangling from the vehicles’ fuel tanks, Jessie said aloud to himself, “Looks like they took the gas. Except for the truck on its side,” he noted, since the fuel cap was on the driver’s side of the vehicle, just out of reach.
Walking around to the exposed underside of the truck, Jessie rapped on the vehicle’s plastic fuel tank with his knuckles noting the deep thud instead of the empty hollow sound that he had expected to hear if the tank had been drained. “Here we go,” he said.
Looking at the three vehicles, observing the bullet-riddled hood of both the minivan and the severe damage done to the Ford during the rollover, Jessie inspected the Toyota and thought, this one might do it.
Jessie then opened the driver’s side door and brushed the bits of broken glass and other debris from the preceding battle onto the floor. He climbed inside, put the truck’s five-speed manual transmission in neutral, and said aloud to himself, “Here goes,” as he turned the ignition key.
Instantly coming to life, Jessie put the truck into first gear and began to ease out on the clutch to test the function of the vehicle as it shuttered to a stop, out of fuel. “Yep, they siphoned every last drop,” he said as he scanned the instrument panel.
Quickly putting a plan together, Jessie searched the truck’s bed to find a small, folding shovel amongst the now-deceased occupant’s belongings. “Oh, yeah, this will work.”
Unfolding the shovel and locking the blade into place, he walked over to the Ford and started digging holes underneath both of the passenger side tires that rested hub down and on their sides. Di
gging out all of the loose dirt around both tires, creating a hole where the tread of the tire would rest if the truck were to be upright, Jessie stood back to go over everything in his mind and said, “Yep, that should do it,” as he tossed the shovel aside.
Next, taking a rope from the bed of the Toyota, Jessie tied the rope to the driver’s side frame rail of the Ford. He pulled it through the roll bar mounted in the bed of the Toyota, and said, “Here goes,” as he began to pull on the rope as hard as he could, bearing into the ground with both of his legs churning with all his might. Using the smooth, round tubular roll bar as a makeshift pulley, Jessie gained enough mechanical advantage to tip the Ford toward the holes he had dug underneath the wheels, causing it to fall back to the ground and land on all four tires.
As the Ford slammed its driver’s side tires to the ground, the dead occupant’s severely injured head smashed violently into the side window, splattering blood and body fluids on the glass. “Ahhh, jeeezzz,” Jessie said as he surveyed the mess.
“Okay, I’ve got one running vehicle with no gas, and one non-running vehicle with gas.” Jessie stared at the two vehicles and the remaining items left behind by those who had ambushed them, trying to come up with a way to move the fuel from one vehicle to the other without a container to carry it in.
After a few moments of pondering while scratching his chin, Jessie came up with a plan. With the Toyota’s transmission still in neutral, he turned the steering wheel to the right, in the direction of the Ford. With the door open and his left hand on the driver’s side window pillar and his right hand on the back of the cab, he pushed the truck, getting it to roll toward the other vehicle. Once he got the Toyota within a few feet of the Ford, he opened the hood of the Ford and popped the fuel line loose at the inlet for the fuel-injection system. Next, using his knife, Jessie scavenged several pieces of vacuum line from the truck and minivan’s engines, piecing it together with splices he made from two-inch-long pieces of metal tubing scavenged from various systems. With approximately four feet of line, he squeezed the vacuum line onto the fuel line that he had removed from the Ford’s fuel injection system and ran his makeshift fuel-transfer hose into the fuel-filler inlet of the Toyota.
