“Take smalls sips, Olivia,” Barb said holding the canteen for the woman.
“How is she?”
“Olivia? She’s more responsive than when she first awakened.” Barb pointed at Reagan’s scratched leg. “I found a first aid kit. Would you like for me to doctor you, dear?”
“I’ll be alright. But I will change these ripped jeans before we get too far.” Reagan motioned for Barb to follow her into the next room. “What more can you tell me about the Merry Men.”
“I wish I knew more, but I wasn’t around for the full story. Robin and your guy Jon were hired by a man named Nottingham. For what purpose, we’re not sure. They were part of a larger crew. Tom and Robin killed the man who shot Gus. Robin said the man, Gilbert Whitehead, was their leader.”
“What’s their mission? Do they know what’s happened to us?” Reagan changed into the khaki shorts she stashed in her pack and rolled the sleeves of her blue plaid shirt.
“Robin said she wasn’t privy to their true mission.”
“And you believed her?”
“Yes, Reagan we did. We weeded through her initial cover story and she eventually proved herself.”
“I want to confront Jon, but I’m hesitant.”
“Are you worried about what he might do?”
“Yes. But like Robin and your group, he’s been with us since the sky turned green. I don’t trust the man, but he’s had plenty of opportunities to turn on us and hasn’t.”
“But he hasn’t been upfront with what he knows.”
Reagan adjusted her French braid and reapplied her Stetson. “We’re too exposed here. Let’s bail on this train station before we confront the Jon Little situation.” Reagan opened the door and she and Barb rejoined the others. “It isn’t safe for us to travel in the dark. At first light, we’ll find transportation.”
“What if the shooter returns?” Annabeth asked.
“It’s not ideal, but I suggest we post two guards at the entrance while the rest of us try to sleep,” Reagan said.
“I don’t like this.” Jasper jostled his curly mane.
“I don’t either.” Reagan answered with a shrug of her arms. “But we aren’t in any position to leave. The area is unfamiliar and we are short a tracker without Travis Wayne.”
“We’ve all had a long day,” Barb said
“The best thing to do is to rest and start fresh in the morning.”
Dawn applied antibacterial to her hands. “I agree with Barb. Meredith needs his rest and so does everyone else. Call it jetlag, or whatever, but I’m beaten.”
Chapter 6 – Blowup the Clown
Tom
In the frosty morning chill, the scavenger group crested a hill outside of a town square shopping center and Tom peered across an expansive parking lot to the Bass Pro Shop. The log cabin design blended with the mountains behind the storefront. A dozen boats docked outside buried in snow. His eyes rotated from one area to another in a deliberate way as his mind calculated an ambush spot. Without words, Travis Wayne and Robin did the same.
“No footprints,” Travis Wayne said after three minutes. “No drag marks around the doors.”
“But the front door is wedged open,” Robin said.
“Safe to assume someone has been here,” Tom said. “Does this seem like a likely place where those thugs with the snowmobiles came from?”
Travis Wayne crossed his arms. “There were two or three other places closer. No tracks by the door. Blowing snow would take a while to cover tracks.”
“If someone is inside, they’ve been there a while. Let’s be careful.” Inside the front door and through a lobby with a fireplace and a turnstile, Tom led them to a row of cash registers. “Let’s do a sweep of the entire place. Stay shoulder to shoulder and don’t shoot unless you are sure of what you’re shooting at. The open door gives me a bad feeling.”
Leading the way, Tom trudged through the center of the store, passing the men’s clothing and a giant stuffed grizzly bear. His steps echoed in eerie silence. Robin’s feet clicked too but Travis Wayne stalked in silence. A polar bear at the end of the aisle pointed them to the boats, ATVs, and other outdoor vehicles; the group circled through the area, checking each row. He directed them to the shoes and boots and through the women’s clothes. They looped by the motherlode of a gun nut’s dream with rows of rifles and shotguns and display cases filled with handguns. The last phase of the sweep voyaged through the camping section.
With a deep breath, Tom relaxed his foot on a bench and studied the high beamed ceilings. “Doesn’t look like anyone has been in here. If they were, they didn’t leave a sign.”
“I see a ton of stuff we can use, but hauling it isn’t gonna be easy.” Robin leaned on a large log overlooking the indoor stream. Without electricity, the water pump did not run. They navigated using flashlights and natural light from the windows and open ceilings.
“We’re gonna try Travis Wayne’s inflatable boat idea.” Tom motioned to him. “Find one the three of us can drag. I’ll try to start one of those ATVs or snowmobiles.” He let out a deep breath toward Robin. “Not to put you on women’s duty, but could you do the clothes?” He handed her a list of sizes and requests. “We can meet in the middle here before tackling the guns and ammo.”
As he figured, none of the mechanical vehicles started. Less than an hour later, the inflated boat sat outside of the door loaded with new winter clothes, boots, guns, ammo, and lightweight camping equipment. Tom dressed in slate gray winter hunting fatigues with a cross stitch pattern of lines and zippers in the jacket and pants. He swept the store, searching for anything useful or signs of an intruder. Outside, the icy air bothered him much less than a short two hours earlier. Opting for several layers of lightweight, warm clothing and a toasty toboggan hat did the trick. The cement gray, waterproof boots proved a Godsend, even though they felt new and stiff, as he prowled to the edge of the raft and shoved it along the sidewalk.
Travis Wayne and Robin each with a rope, posted at the front, while he steered from the rear and kept the parakeet yellow, inflated raft on course. All the while Tom readied an AR-15, trained his eyes, and bobbed his head like a hawk searching the surrounding area. The lack of sound bugged him as he locked eyes on the half-dozen pine trees in the parking lot swaying in the gentle breeze. The parking lot housed a couple of dozen vehicles, mostly pickups with oversized tires. Snow layered the tops of the smaller cars. Thinking about circuits and an EMP attack, he tried to locate a vehicle from before 1990.
One lone blackbird fluttered wings, breaking the silence. The bird released an awful shriek crash landing onto the Bass Pro roof. Robin snickered, “Well, the kamikaze bird was weird.”
“I’m on the lookout for, say a 1980s era car or truck.” Tom continued the scan.
“Reagan shared the same theory. I didn’t have any luck. Probably a dead end,” Travis Wayne said. A whizzing sound and a far-away pop signaled an attack. “Take cover.” Travis Wayne dressed like a SWAT team member in riot gear. His semi-automatic pumped in the rat-a-tat-tat pattern as the clip fed through the chamber toward the Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant where the first shot originated.
Tom joined in with the AR-15 and Robin used a scope on a bolt action rifle to scan and peel off shots. “These two are suicidal,” she noted. “We’re going to blast them to shreds.”
With the occasional peppering of shots Tom, Robin, and Travis Wayne concealed into shooting positions. They unloaded into the Jack-in-the-Box, shattering the stupid clown head into thousands of pieces, knocking out the glass windows and sending the bald Stutley and the tomboy Elaine to cover.
“Why are these two on us again?” Tom shouted to Robin, on his right.
“Stutley is crazy as an outhouse rat. He’s the brains – she does what he says. He can hold a grudge. My guess is he’s mad about the assault gone bad at the train station.” Robin narrowed her eyes on the scope and squeezed the trigger. “Just missed. I’ll give him credit, he listened during our
training. He knows how to stay out of the line of fire. Though, I’m at a loss for words for why he picked a bright red jacket.”
On Tom’s left, Travis Wayne chose a methodical approach in blasting the building. Using several clips, he disintegrated and collapsed the front of the structure. As dust and debris flew into the air, the shooting stopped as the sky blackened. Preparing for another apocalyptic weather-event, Tom instead noted the birds. Hundreds, maybe thousands, turning day to night, blotting out what little sunlight seeped through the haze. Birds like the single kamikaze pilot earlier.
“I expected old testament locusts,” Tom spat. “Those birds are lowering toward us.”
Travis Wayne switched from his rifle to a twelve-gage field shotgun. He tossed one of the stashed weapons to Robin. She relayed it to Tom and caught another one from Travis Wayne. He lobbed shell boxes to each of them. With the three blasting, birds fell. “Cackles,” Travis Wayne said. “Keep shooting.”
With each passing second, the massive swarm of birds loomed closer. The shotgun blasts dropped dozens to the ground but as the birds swooped lower, dead ones rained. A nauseating smell of gun smoke blended with a metallic, singed smell, not the flesh, feathers, and guts of dead birds. Across the way, on the roof of the slanted building, Stutley and Elaine also fired shots and staved off the fowl attack.
Pumping the shotgun, but keeping an eye to the other danger, Tom aimed. “Travis Wayne, switch to the semi. You’re bound to hit a bunch even without the shotgun.”
Stutley covered his bald head and sprayed wild shots into the air with his handgun. He squealed, rolled and popped to his knees with a grenade. It exploded feathers into the air. Elaine threw one as well.
The rat-a-tat-tat of rounds feeding and the smoke from the rifle covered the stench for a few seconds. More birds fell, burying the raft and all the supplies. Using a gloved hand, Tom swiped away a spot to rest as he reloaded shotgun shells. Dozens fell with each shot. Robin drained her shotgun, sending spent shells. She loaded with trained precision. She cursed at one of the birds plummeting near her head.
As suddenly as the birds arrived, they left. They didn’t fly away but vanished. Tom examined one of the dead birds, then another. A third one looked identical to the other two. “All of these birds are the same size and I don’t see any distinguishing features. And there should be blood.”
“Clones,” Robin muttered. “Or some sort of, I don’t know, robotics maybe.”
As Tom flipped open his knife to cut into one, his new sidekick made a grunting noise. Travis Wayne pointed his chin toward the duo on the Jack-in-the-Box.
Stutley held a pistol to his side and saluted. “Truce?”
“Live to fight another day.” Tom backpedaled. “Keep watch on them, John Wayne, while me and Maid Marian evaluate our supplies.”
Elaine and Stutley jumped from the roof as Robin seethed. “I want to shoot them.”
“Let ‘em go for now,” Tom said. “I wonder if the gunshots drew those cloned cackles? Another part of this experiment, maybe?”
Robin tore her focus from the pair of thugs, dusted dead birds, and held her nose. As she removed her Isotone gloves, her ashen hands touched a few of the birds. “The jerky and trail mix are still in the package, and I don’t see blood or guts. Just these weird plastic-like feathers.”
“We’re lucky those birds aren’t real. Our crew needs clothes, cold weather gear, and something to eat.” Tom tugged his hunting gloves and used his knife on a dead bird. Inside, he cut through fleshy material like meat on the bone, but he didn’t draw blood. “I’ll pack a few of these birds for Doc to examine.”
“We can head back.” Travis Wayne kept eyes trained on the enemy.
“I don’t like them getting away.” Robin steadied her leg on the side of the raft and her sharpshooter rifle on a parking post. She ditched the sloppy jeans and a windbreaker and refreshed her appearance with a thigh-length white and black ski camo jacket with a fur-lined collar, a gray vest with black lines, and a black mock turtleneck. The pants were the thermal running variety and she wore tall, thin boots to her knees. Accompanied by large sunglasses, she topped her head with a black wool cap to warm her ears.
A queasiness landed in Tom’s gut as she sighted in the rifle. Stutley called for a truce, but even his partner called him a liar. And this was the second attack. “Take a shot if you have it.”
“I don’t have one. He’s too slippery. Wait. No, I saw the red coat for, like, a millisecond.”
“Do either of them shoot like you?” Tom whispered to avoid disturbing her concentration.
“Neither of these two yahoos, but keep alert all the same.”
“We’re downhill most of the way,” Travis Wayne grunted. “Raft’s momentum will work for us. We guide her down the street on ice.” He did not change at the store but remained in cold-weather gear, muted gray pants, undershirt, and a jacket with a bunch of pockets. Inside the store, he added an Elmer Fudd hunting cap with ear flaps buttoned under his chin.
Before Robin stood, she fired from her rifle and it echoed around the otherwise silent street. “That’s to let ‘em know we aren’t exactly bosom buddies just because of the mutual moment with the birds.”
Weary about the noise, Tom watched the sky for the birds as the raft glided into a groove on the slick street. The raft made time on the return trip. Halfway there, Travis Wayne motioned to the valley. The group left the suburb mall and the surrounding Burger King, Mattress Giant, the destroyed Jack-in-the-Box, and a dozen other retail establishments and traveled a winding hill overlooking a park.
“What do you see, Hondo?” Tom settled on the new John Wayne nickname – he liked this one.
“The hill behind the tall trees.”
“Okay, I see it.”
With a motion of his arm, Travis Wayne pointed. “A golf course. A clubhouse. A nice perch to keep watch.”
“Oh yeah, I see something we can use for a lookout tower in the middle of the fancy clubhouse,” Robin said.
Tom crossed his arms and studied the terrain. “Not sure if we could see anything with all these trees.”
“I played golf there once. Not well but I do recall the view from the clubhouse. I could see for days.” Travis Wayne stomped ice from his boots. “It’s a good home base.”
Adjusting his eyes to the bright snow, Tom pondered. “I’ve been thinking along those lines myself of a safe base for most of our group while a few of us go hunting.”
Robin patted her Smith and Wesson Sig, holstered at her hip. “Hunting sounds like a damn fine idea. First Gilbert went off the rails and now Stutley and Elaine.” Anger raged in her eyes.
Tom would channel the anger when the time came, but for now, he kept it in check. “Stay steady, calm, and patient. From what I’ve seen with Stutley, he’ll likely make a foolish mistake. We’ll take advantage when the time comes.”
Chapter 7 – I Hear the Train A-Coming
Reagan
The intermingled troop spent the night at the station without incident. At first light, they went to work on a plan. Barb wielded superpowers to gain Jasper’s cooperation and they fixed breakfast using the provisions on hand.
“Did you hear that?” Annabeth asked from the other side of the station. She ditched the camo jacket and wore her pink Real Tree undershirt with cuffed black pants.
“What?” Reagan asked rushing to her side. The others joined.
“A train whistle.” Annabeth raised a finger to her mouth.
The faint sound hummed through the hot morning air. Scotty broke first, springing the length of the platform with Mickey barking at his heels. “I hear the train a-comin’.”
“It’s rollin’ round the bend.” Kelly shielded her eyes from the sunshine and bounced on her tiptoes. “I don’t see anything.”
“The whistle is too faint,” Jasper said. “It’s probably a few miles away. Maybe more with this wind.” All eyes landed on Jasper. “I like trains.”
“I guess there’s no
point in racing after it then if it’s a few miles out.” Scotty kicked a stone on the platform.
“At least we have our direction.” Reagan pointed westward.
Jasper rubbed his belly. “I need a stretcher to carry Meredith.”
Reagan bit her bottom lip. “Kell, how can we attach a rig the horses can pull down the tracks?”
“Let me think.” She clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “Any theories, Tucker?”
Granddad tapped his cane. “I wish Travis Wayne were here. He’d have something rigged in a snap.”
“That might work.” Kelly’s fingers tapped an old photograph hanging on the wall. “A horse-drawn railroad cart. People used them in the late 1800s as early streetcars. They looked like a covered wagon when carrying people. This one is more rustic and loaded with supplies.”
“How are we supposed to rig that?” Jasper asked.
“Jasper, would you mind helping me grab supplies while the kids work out the particulars?” Barb placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Fine. I don’t want any part of this harebrained scheme.”
“I like her,” Granddad whispered. “Anyone who can get Jasper to cooperate is A-Okay in my book.”
After an hour of exploring the station, Kelly found a railroad handcar and two mining cars. The fit would be tight, but they could transport their people and supplies in the makeshift train. “We can chain these three cars together with the handcar in the middle. The draft horses should be capable of pulling the cars.”
“I got the chains you needed,” Scotty said dropping the bundle on the platform with a clank. He stuck with his wranglers and scrunched the sleeves of his light blue Henley.
“Awesome blossom,” Kelly said snapping her fingers. “We’ll have this sucker ready in a jiffy.”
Reagan paced inside to get everyone ready. Jon intercepted her at the door. “How much do you know about Barb?”
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