A Tearful Reunion

by Darrell Maloney

  “I’ve got a lot of stores hidden over there as well. I suppose I could go ahead and make the repairs and move Karen in there. Or, as I said, we could find a much larger home, one big enough for everyone, and move everything over.”

  They left the matter unresolved, for it was obviously something Dave couldn’t decide on his own. He’d have to consult with Sarah, with Karen, with the Dykes brothers.

  But it did lead to another discussion.

  What would happen to Sal.

  Beth asked the old man, “Grandpa Sal, what are you gonna do? Now that my daddy is here, I mean.”

  “What do you mean, child?”

  “I mean, you were going to take me back to Kansas, and you said you might find yourself a home there. You said you might want to live close enough to visit me sometimes. You said you wanted to go fishing with me and read books to me and let me paint your fingernails.”

  “I never said you could paint my fingernails, child.”

  She smiled mischievously.

  “I know. I just thought I’d throw that in there.

  “But really, now that my daddy is here, he can take me back. What are you going to do now?”

  She certainly didn’t intend for them to, but the words of a child are sometimes brutally frank. Her words stung just a bit.

  For they implied that old Sal was no longer needed. That his mission had been brought to an early end. It wasn’t a bad thing. His plan was to reconcile Beth with her family and that had been done. His presence was simply no longer required.

  “I don’t know, child. This was all so sudden. I expected to be on the road with you for weeks. I expected that by the time we arrived in Kansas City my mind would be made up. I just haven’t had time to think things through.”

  “But you said you didn’t like it here in the desert.”

  “That’s true. I just don’t appreciate life in the desert the way my brother does.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her and said, “Then that’s it. It’s settled. You’ll come with us and live with us and be my always grandpa.”

  “Your always grandpa?”

  “Yes.”

  And that part of the decision, it seemed, was made.

  Chapter 7

  At the Dykes family farm west of Kansas City tensions were running high.

  Mason Dykes, the oldest and arguably the most level-headed of the brothers, called a meeting of all the adults in the bunker’s tiny observation room.

  Lindsey, at sixteen the oldest of the children, was considered by all to be mature for her age, and was therefore invited.

  “We recognize that you’re more woman than child,” Mason told her. “And if those people out there bring a battle to our doorstep, it’s likely you’ll be caught up in it along with your mother and aunt. It’s only fair, therefore, that you be privy to what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on,” Jacob continued, “is that we’re under heavy surveillance. There are several men poking around in the woods. They know we’re here, and they also know we’ve mined key areas. They found that part out the hard way.

  “That’s what we know. There’s a whole lot more that we don’t know.

  “For example, we don’t know how long they’ve been out there or what their intent is.

  “We don’t know their strength… how many there are… or the type of firepower they have.”

  Karen asked, “Is it possible they’re just curious? That maybe they were out hunting and stumbled across the bunker? And that maybe they’re just trying to determine whether it’s occupied? Maybe they think it’s empty and they’re trying to figure out a way to move in.”

  Jacob continued, “The curiosity thing we ruled out early on. One of their men died while poking around our ventilation pipe. We know that because one of our cameras caught a glimpse of a body next to the pipe when the wind blew from the right direction and swept the tree’s branches out of the way.

  “If they were just curious about the bunker they’ve had plenty of time to examine it and move on. They’ve been out there for at least three days now. So we can assume they’re more than just curious.

  “As far as whether they’re thinking the place is abandoned and might be looking for a way to move in, we’ve discounted that too. We’ve locked eyes on them a couple of times. Once when Jason was watching the tree line through a set of high powered binoculars. He saw someone in the woods, also using binoculars, and they locked eyes. For several seconds they were looking directly at one another.

  “The same thing happened to me when I relieved him for night shift. I looked out of the pillbox and saw someone just beyond the tree line, looking directly at me.”

  “So they have night vision capability too?”

  “Yes. It’s hard to tell, but it appears to be the same type of night vision system we use.”

  “Well, that takes away one of our key advantages. Why don’t we just wait them out? I mean, we’ve got enough provisions in here to last for years. We don’t have to go anywhere unless we want to. If they attack, the mines will tear them to shreds.

  “It seems to me we’re in a pretty good position. If they launch an assault they’ll pay a heavy price. And if they’re waiting for us to come out, they’ll eventually figure out it ain’t happening and give up and leave.”

  “Any chance they’re friendly?”

  “Doubtful. If they were they’d have shown themselves by now to say hello. Asked if they could lay down their arms and come in to check out our place. They haven’t done that in three days or more. So we have to assume they’re up to no good.”

  “So what do we do about this?”

  “That’s why we’re all here. So we can discuss options.

  “Jacob, you take it from here. It’s your plan.”

  “Okay. Jason and I want to go out tonight, after dark. They’ll probably see us leave, but once someone in the pillbox guides us through the minefield, we can scamper into the woods fairly quickly. We know these woods pretty well. We all grew up on this place. We know where all the gullies and hills are. Which trees we can climb to give us an overview of the entire area.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “The first day, probably not much. Recon. Intelligence gathering mostly. We’ll cross the road to where they’ve made camp and determine how many of them there are.”

  “So you’re staying out more than one day?”

  “In all likelihood, yes. To this point we haven’t seen any long weapons. They’ll need rifles to assault the bunker, but the men we’ve seen moving about the forest didn’t have any.

  “That’s not to say they don’t own any. They might have left them behind because their mission was strictly reconnaissance and they didn’t need them.

  “If we can get a look at the inside of their camp, and if they’re pointing rifles in our direction, that’ll take away any possibility they’re friendly.

  “At that point they become the enemy and fair game for the second phase of our mission.”

  “Which is?”

  “Once we confirm they’re hostile we’ll use hit and run tactics to see if we can take out a few of them. If we can shoot a couple and disappear into the forest, it might scare off the rest. That would be the best case scenario.

  “Second best would be that their numbers are thinned a bit before they launch their attack.

  “Also, we’ve been wondering, if they were going to attack, why they’re waiting so long.

  “We figure they’re waiting for something. Maybe reinforcements. Maybe they sent someone to get more ammunition.

  “Whatever the case, it’s clear. If waiting is good for them, it’s probably bad for us. So we should strike while we can. Reduce their numbers before they get their additional ammo or bodies.”

  “When do you plan to return, then?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll play it by ear. We’ve got food stores hidden here and there in the forest. We’ve got ammunition buried out there too, in the event we
ever had to bug out. We can stay out there indefinitely, as long as we’re doing some good.”

  Mason took over again.

  “Here’s the thing, though. If Jason and Jacob are out there running around the woods, picking off their people one at a time, that reduces our numbers here. We’ll still have to pull duty in the pillbox, and we’ll still have to have somebody sit in the surveillance room and watch the monitors. But there will be fewer of us to do that.

  “So we’ll need everyone’s commitment to help out. It’ll mean longer hours on watch for all of us.”

  Karen and Sarah looked at one another and shrugged.

  “We’re in. Lindsey?”

  “No problem. I do have a suggestion, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why not consolidate the areas?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How hard would it be to move the monitors to the pillbox? We could still have someone dedicated to watch them. But they’d also be able to provide backup to the pillbox sentry if things got ugly.”

  “Damn, Lindsey! How hard core are you?”

  “Common sense if you think about it.”

  “It’s a great idea. We’ll do it immediately. So from here on out we’re on twelve hour shifts. Two in the pillbox, two off duty. Shift change at six and eighteen hundred. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  As it turned out, moving the monitors was a horrible idea, and one that would come back to haunt them.

  None of them knew it at the time, but not having the monitors in another part of the bunker, where a third set of eyes could watch them, would play a critical role in a disaster yet to come.

  Chapter 8

  Mason was right about pretty much everything.

  The men in the woods were indeed hostile and they were indeed waiting on something.

  But it wasn’t ammunition or reinforcements delaying their attack.

  They were waiting for vehicle parts.

  Joe “Scarface” Manson bragged to John Parker all those years they were cellies in Fort Leavenworth Prison that he could fix anything on wheels or tracks.

  When Parker went on a recon mission and found the bulldozer the Dykes had used to bury their shipping containers four years before, he saw the opportunity for his leader to put his money where his mouth was.

  Of course, the dozer hadn’t been run in a very long time. It was already overgrown with weeds. Some of its hoses and seals had suffered dry rot and could start to leak.

  In addition, the EMPs which bombarded the earth eighteen months before and destroyed nearly all unprotected vehicles did their damage to the dozer as well. Key components, like its starter and battery, were damaged beyond repair.

  “Scarface’s Savages,” as Manson liked to call his gang, had wandered around western Missouri and eastern Kansas for months before they stumbled upon the Dykes’ pillbox and buried bunker.

  Not long before they’d gone through a tiny town called Ely.

  And they did what they usually did to towns they went through. They pillaged it and took whatever they could find of value to them.

  There wasn’t much there.

  But Scarface did recall there being a farm and industrial equipment sales and repair place.

  One reason he remembered it was the Caterpillar bulldozer parked out in front of the place, wedged between a Ford tractor and an International Harvester combine.

  Scarface sent Parker and several of his men back to Ely on a shopping spree to get the parts he needed.

  They were expected back any day now.

  In the meantime, Manson and his remaining men cooled their heels in the forest south of the bunker, biding their time.

  Scarface Manson didn’t have to send Parker. Parker was his lieutenant, and by Manson’s estimation the only man in the unit worth a damn.

  He could have sent his men on their own, but he wanted to make sure they didn’t screw things up and bring back the wrong parts. Most of them were dumber than a cardboard box and tended to do things the easy way instead of the proper way.

  If the proper part was on a high shelf and another part which looked similar was easier to get to, they’d grab the easier part every time.

  With Parker as an exception, the crew he sent didn’t have more than a dozen functioning brain cells between them.

  And there was another factor too.

  The day before he’d dispatched the team a particularly stupid man named Adrian Jones blew himself to bits trying to get up close and personal with one of the bunker’s vents.

  As it turned out he did Scarface both a favor and a disservice.

  He alerted Scarface and his men that the area around the vents was covered with buried mines. That was a good thing, for it prevented somebody more important from being blown up instead.

  But he also alerted the people in the bunker there were men lurking around in the woods.

  One of the results of Jones’ stupidity was that some of Manson’s men were spooked.

  The general consensus among his troops was that they didn’t mind helping take the bunker if it was gonna be easy.

  But land mines were something they’d rather not get mixed up in.

  When Manson dispatched the team on the shopping run he took Parker aside and gave him specific instructions.

  “I’m sending you one more man than you need for a specific reason.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

  “Because they’re gutless. They’re scared of the mine field. I fully expect them to try to talk you into letting them just go through Ely and keep on walking.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “As soon as somebody mentions that possibility I want you to draw your weapon and shoot him right in the head.

  “Nobody else will mention it after that.”

  Parker took four men with him.

  And just as Manson predicted, he’d be going back with only three.

  But it wasn’t because Parker shot one in the head.

  It turned out that Parker wasn’t the sadistic dictator Manson was.

  Parker had been in combat. He knew the importance of leading men, instead of just directing them.

  After they left on their mission to Ely he had a frank discussion with his men.

  “Look,” he said. “I know you guys are worried about the mines. I don’t particularly like the idea myself. But Manson and I have worked out a plan that will allow us to get into that bunker without setting foot on the ground. Not a single step.

  “No feet on the ground equals no chance of getting blown up.

  “Once we’re in the bunker it’s ours. We’ll kill all the men and make the kids, if there are any, our servants. The women we’ll split up and make our girlfriends.

  “And once that’s done you’ll decide you love the mines. Because once the bunker is ours they’ll be our best friends. Instead of blowing us up they’ll blow up anybody stupid enough to try to take it from us. And that’ll make it a hell of a lot easier to keep it.”

  One man, Gonzalez, was just a bit leery.

  “I don’t doubt you, jefe. I’ve known you too long to doubt you. But how in the hell can you guarantee we can get into the bunker without having to walk through that mine field?”

  “I’m not giving up any details until we finalize the plan. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  The team camped for the night halfway to Ely, and in the morning Gonzalez was gone.

  Apparently he decided he didn’t trust Parker after all.

  At least not enough to risk his life.

  Chapter 9

  Gonzalez was an extra body anyway.

  His departure might slow the others down, but that was okay.

  Any man who was afraid of a little ol’ land mine couldn’t be relied upon in the heat of combat. He’d probably have deserted at the worst possible time.

  So good riddance to him.

  Parker led the other three men into Ely and past a Kroger’s store, whe
re they stole four shopping carts from the parking lot.

  In front of the store was an assortment of lawn furniture and decorative rocks and barbeque grills.

  A banner above the display announced, “Everything You Need For Your Springtime Barbeque.”

  The store had been visited a thousand times by looters looking for food and beverages.

  The only reason these items were still there was because you can’t eat a barbeque grill.

  From a large plastic bin behind the patio chairs Parker took four tiki torches and placed them in one of the carts.

  One of his smart aleck men asked, “We going to a beach party?”

  “No, stupid. But unless you’re a bat and can see in the dark, we’ll need these to find our parts.”

  Three blocks farther away was Williams Industrial and Farm Equipment.

  It was a rather macabre sight, the four of them walking up and down the aisles of the parts warehouse trying to match the numbers on boxes with Parker’s shopping list.

  Smoke rose from the torches and collected on the ceiling. With no working ventilation system to clear it out, it would drop lower and lower until it threatened to suffocate Parker and his men.

  Parker was smart enough to foresee that problem. None of the others were.

  “No slacking. We’ve got to find those parts and quickly. We need to be out of here in an hour. Two tops.”

  They found the starter first, on a top shelf where it was placed by a forklift many months before.

  But the forklifts no longer worked.

  “Damn, this thing weighs a ton!”

  “Just be careful with it. It looks like the only one they have. If you drop it and break it Scarface will have all our asses.”

  It took all four of them to get it down.

  “Why did they make it so damn heavy?”

  “Everything on a bulldozer is heavy. That’s what makes it so tough.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna be so tough when this thing breaks my back.”

  “Oh, quit your bitchin’ and lift.”