ELE Series | Book 5 | Escape

by Jones, K. J.

  Good times.

  Mazy walked past the café and the store. Things appeared so normal despite no windows. Returning salutes to subordinates. Giving salutes to superiors. Her thoughts a million miles away. She passed offices that looked like any offices on any base in the world. Nothing to indicate what a catastrophe they were in. A pretend world under the mountain. What was it all for?

  She reached the five-foot thick steel blast hatch that led to the tunnel and outside. Still wide open.

  Then again, Mazy thought, the government had always planned on their survival without any consideration for its people. Raven Rock and Mount Weather were built in the Cold War for the continuation of government if there was a nuclear war. The people outside of the prestigious few would suffer the full enormity of a radiation dripping environment, for those who survived the death wave explosions. The effects on the ecosystem on which they depended for survival was another. What of the land and animals on which they would depend for continued existence? And the water they must drink?

  “Ma’am, the truck?” a guard said to her.

  Mazy realized she heard a beep, beep, beep of a truck reversing. Looking around, the truck was reversing at her. She scurried out of the way.

  Instead of going outside, she decided to follow it.

  The truck went in and stopped at a large open space. Soldiers appeared from the sidelines with small vehicles equipped with flatbed backends. As she watched, she realized they were unloading food. The soldiers stacked huge amounts of food pallets onto the smaller vehicles. They were prepping for the long haul inside the giant bunkers.

  “Crap.”

  The guards checked her ID, logged her exit, and let her out. The cool, fresh air felt good to her lungs. Something about being inside a mountain, closed up, under so much tonnage of rock with machine circulated air, made her feel confined. Perhaps three months in the Zone made her an outdoor animal, more like Ben.

  Walking away from the base entrance into the dense forest made up of trees barely sprouting leaf buds, once clear enough, Mazy hugged a tree, feeling its course bark against her cheek. Others would laugh at her. It felt right. Grounding. Reminding her of what was most important.

  Day 5

  Chapter One

  1.

  They had lost a day due to the tiger. Fortunately, it lounged atop the SUV on the opposite side of the door, so they could sneak out to get what they needed. It watched them, uninterested, when they moved beyond the visual blockage of the long RV. Felines were lazy at heart, requiring an exorbitant amount of sleep, just like Dock Cat.

  When the tiger found itself peckish, it jumped down and went to the dead elk to snack. Everyone hurried inside like scared mice running into their hole.

  “Well,” said Peter. “This sucks. We’re trapped in an RV by a tiger, who’d a thunk it?”

  “We could shoot it,” said Kevin.

  “No. Didn’t work out too well with the zom-bear.”

  “This ain’t a zom-tiger.”

  Pez said, “We don’t have enough bullets if it goes wrong.”

  “You can’t get a shot on its head, sniper?” asked Kevin.

  Pez sighed. “I really don’t want to shoot a tiger, anyway, okay?”

  “So we stay in here until it wants to leave?”

  “Guess so.” Pez sat down as if to emphasize his no-go stance.

  “It’s got food. It won’t want to leave.”

  Just as Kevin said this, the tiger began to pull the carcass.

  “What is it doing?” asked Jayce.

  “Moving house,” said Chris. “Ain’t it too dang cold for it? Is for me.”

  After a while, the tiger left the elk carcass at the shoulder and trodden off, the dragging took too long.

  “We should go now,” said Kevin.

  “It’s almost sunset,” said Pez. “We’ll be caught without shelter.”

  Kevin sighed in frustration. “It could come back.”

  “I think it’s looking for a house.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “It would look for shelter, too,” said Pez. “Like Higgins said, it’s too cold for it. But it’ll be back for its food if it doesn’t find another kill once hungry.”

  “What the fuck are you, Pez?” Kevin demanded. “Fucking Animal Planet?”

  Peter said, “Let’s use this time to check around for food.” He tried to get up off the couch, using his cane and inadvertently groaned.

  “You stay here,” said Pez. “We’ll take care of it, Staff.”

  Peter nodded and let himself back down.

  “Can I go?” asked Tyler.

  “No,” Pez answered.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve caught you’re not the best at obeying orders. If the tiger or something else shows up while we’re out there, I need men who’ll obey without question.”

  “Oh,” said Kevin. “So the tiger could come back. What happened to it getting a house?”

  “That goes for you, too, Sergeant. Stow the lip. Or stay in here. The rest of you people ready?”

  Chris, Matt, and Brandon finished pulling on their outside gear.

  Kevin eyed Peter and Phebe. “You’re in charge, Gunny.” As if he wanted to inform Peter where he stood in the pecking order.

  Peter glared at him.

  Tyler pleaded, “Let me go out there, Pez, please? I’ll obey, I promise.”

  Pez sighed. “Fine. But one sign of disobedience, you go right in.” He looked at Jayce. “What about you?”

  “No,” answered the teenager, lounging on the bed above the cab. “I’m good here.”

  2.

  They returned within ninety minutes, cold and pink-cheeked. The sun had fully set. They spilled their loot out on the table. Emily attacked wrapped chocolate bars. Ripping one open, she chomped and made pleasure moans as she chewed.

  “That good, huh?” asked Pez, smiling. He took off his layers of outdoor gear.

  “So good.”

  “You, Phebe?”

  “She’s feeling nauseous again,” said Peter.

  Phebe lay on her side, her head on his lap.

  “There’s mints,” Pez said.

  “Toss ‘em over, bro.”

  There were no more frozen sandwiches, but with the tiger having vacated, Matt executed his plan to get elk steaks, or less choice parts the tiger left on the frozen carcass. He and Pez butchered the animal, but Pez remained skeptical of the meat.

  He asked, “You sure we can’t get infected from the meat?”

  “No,” answered Matt. “Well … don’t eat the brain. The viral cells won’t live long after the host dies. And we’ll be cooking it, so that’ll kill them, too.”

  “How come other things can live through cooking and shit? Salmonella and shit like that or whatever.”

  “Bacteria are different.”

  “I’m trusting you, Gleason. We get infected, turn into zoms, I’m holding you responsible.”

  “How you gonna do that?” Chris asked. “You gonna be zombified. Not caring about shit like that.”

  “I’ll find a way. Don’t you worry about that.” Pez smirked.

  Inside, they cooked the meat in pans on the stove. There was enough for everyone to have some.

  Chapter Two

  1.

  Mackey experienced bad altitude sickness. Since his new platoon hadn’t been assembled, he got rack time to recover. The others used what little downtime they had to conduct recon for the escape plan. Wandering around, pretending to be idiot recruits who got lost, they discovered where the armory and the motor pool were located. Kanesha did the best, using her pretty face and charming smile to disarm soldiers when she told them she was lost. They even told her more than they should have.

  “Use what you got,” Kanesha told the others when presenting her hand-drawn map.

  “I ain’t mad at that,” said Dre, smiling too big at Kanesha. Vi elbowed him in the ribs. “Okay, pointy elbows.”

  “Stay f
ocused. The map, Dre.”

  Studying the map, Jerome said, “This could actually work.”

  “How you figure?” asked Dre.

  “They’re slack on guards.”

  “They probably all sent in to die in the war.”

  “Better for us.”

  Kanesha said, “One of the guys in the motor pool told me they don’t got enough drivers for all the Humvees anymore. There ain’t a lot of zoms here in Colorado, so they ain’t too worried. Mostly being used as a supply and recruit depot type dealio.”

  “Yeah,” said Jerome, still staring at her map. “Depot for cannon fodder like us.”

  Jerome’s new drive to get away from the Army and rescue people had maintained since yesterday. He seemed more determined than ever.

  “But,” said Vi, “how do we get off the base? Run these gates here?” She pointed to her map, which covered more of the perimeter.

  “They’re just arms over the road,” said Jerome.

  “Yeah,” Vi said. “No fences in those areas.”

  “They’ll fire on us.”

  “As long as those Humvees got armor plating, we should be good. But they gonna be firing at us before then, I imagine.”

  “Can we get you on a rooftop, Viola?” asked Jerome.

  “I need something more than an M4 to do what I think you’re talking about me doing.”

  “Hmm. A SASS. Are they in the armory?”

  Kanesha shrugged. “I didn’t get that far.”

  “Are there men in charge of it?”

  “You want me to use my womanly charms?”

  “They’ll show off for a pretty girl some more.”

  “To the point of showing me the inside of the armory?”

  “You’d be amazed the stupidity of men for a pretty girl.”

  Kanesha smiled. “I’ll remember that for future usage.”

  Jerome chuckled. “As if you didn’t already know it.”

  “If they don’t like me, maybe they’d like Dre.”

  “What?” Dre asked in surprise.

  “We gotta use what we got, son.”

  “You talking foolish, woman.”

  Jerome asked Mullen and Eric, “Any inputs?”

  “Seems like a good plan so far,” said Mullen.

  “It’ll work,” said Eric, resolve in his eyes.

  “Or get us all killed.”

  “Mul, we have that risk every day.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn when we’re dead.” Mullen smirked.

  “You work on alarms, Wong,” ordered Jerome.

  A voice startled them. “Whatever y’all are doing, we want in.”

  They turned to see Alden the Younger.

  “I don’t think the mission would appeal to you,” said Jerome.

  “I just want us outta here. Think I’m gonna trust this communist government?”

  Dre scowled in confusion. “Commu –”

  “Let it go,” Jerome said under his breath. To Alden the Younger, “You just want out of the base and go AWOL?”

  “Damn right. My brother’s out there.”

  “He was nuked.”

  “Or not. But I’m not gonna find out and look for him.”

  Jerome thought it through. “We’d need to get a second Humvee. You go your own way after we’re outta here.”

  “Agreed,” said Alden the Younger. “Divide the guns and ammo.”

  “Agreed.”

  They shook on it.

  As an afterthought, Jerome looked to his group. Not everyone looked so sure of this alliance.

  2.

  “Oh, hell no,” Mackey roared. “You gonna trust them Nazis to not shoot us in the back.”

  “The more fighters, the better our chances,” Jerome said.

  “These motherfuckers would bring back slavery if they got half a chance. You know that, right?”

  “We will be armed, too. We will have two turtlebacks with mounted fifty-cals in mind.”

  “Turtle-what? Look, son, I don’t know what you’re saying, but I do know those white people ain’t to be trusted.”

  “We got a white man, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Mullen.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, he is.”

  “I’m not worried about Mullen. He’s my nigga. He can go with us in this dumb ass crusade to save people. But I believe you putting enemies at our backs.”

  “They share the motivation.”

  “Not to go save some Mexicans.”

  “To get out of here is what I’m saying.” Irritation rose in Jerome’s voice. Mackey always irritated him.

  “Yeah? Then they shoot us all once we passed this place.”

  “You gotta have some faith, Mack.”

  “No, dawg. I do not. Not faith in men. I seen what men are like. All my life, seen it.”

  “And what would that life entail?” Jerome cocked a brow, arms crossing over his chest and chin rising.

  “Hush up.”

  Chapter Three

  1 Vice President

  2 Speaker of the House of Representatives

  3 President pro tempore of the Senate

  4 Secretary of State

  5 Secretary of the Treasury

  6 Secretary of Defense

  7 Attorney General

  8 Secretary of the Interior

  9 Secretary of Agriculture

  10 Secretary of Commerce

  11 Secretary of Labor

  12 Secretary of Health and Human Services

  13 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

  — Or Secretary of Transportation

  14 Secretary of Energy

  15 Secretary of Education

  16 Secretary of Veterans Affairs

  — Or Secretary of Homeland Security

  Mazy studied the brief on the United States presidential line of succession, wondering why the President Pro Tempore of the Senate was crossed out. He was the guy who took the place of the Vice President in the Senate. Pro tempore being Latin for temporary because Latin sounded more sophisticated than English. She read the names of the people who filled the rest of the posts.

  “Wait. Who’s the SecDef?”

  Lt. Kite sat beside her at the Cafe. “We call him The Texan.”

  “I thought he was a black guy. I mean, we can come from Texas, too. But … um?”

  “No, that SecDef was exposed. Ya know, the exposure rule. If within one degree of someone with the virus within your household, can’t come into the emergency centers.”

  Mazy’s eyes narrowed. All the Zoners were within that one degree, one way or another, but this went under Need-to-Know, and non-Zoners did not need to know.

  “I suspect the rule applies politically,” Kite said. “Probably everyone is within one degree here.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “So … what’s up with The Texan? How’d he get the position?”

  “Under the Speaker when she was POTUS.”

  “The Speaker who was thrown down the stairs at Mount Weather?”

  “Allegedly. There’s no proof.”

  “How does an acting POTUS get the opportunity to fall down a flight of stairs at Mount Weather, Lieutenant Kite? Think about it.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of a question on everyone’s mind.” He spooned green Jell-o into his mouth.

  “Who’s The Texan?”

  “I have no idea how he got the position. Maybe they wanted someone more aggressive. The guy is a walking stereotype of Texas. Not that everyone from Texas acts that way, but you know –”

  “Okay,” Mazy cut off his disclaimer. “Got it. My late boyfriend was from East Texas, God rest him. He wasn’t a quote-unquote stereotypical Texan. But he sure as hell came from them.”

  Mazy cringed, remembering Jimbo Conway’s born-again, bible-beating mother who proclaimed Mazy would be damned to eternal hellfire for being a Catholic and following the ‘devil’ Pope – all done by Ms. Conway with a smile as if talking about the weather
. Not that Mazy followed the Pope but it was still her religion and heritage. Some polite respect would have been nice since she didn’t call Jimbo’s mother a dumbass backwoods ignorant bigot – just be polite. Ms. Conway also said derogatory things about the French, and how ‘un-American’ New Orleans was. It was the last one that offended Mazy, truth be told. She could handle being called a ‘colored gal.’ Disrespecting New Orleans was fighting words.

  Mazy wondered if The Texan was as closed-minded as Ms. Conway was. Texas was a huge state, able to fit two European nations within its borders, and it held a great deal of diversity. There was a national stereotype about it, though. She mulled this over. Guns. Lots of guns. And everything super-sized. Bravado and boasting. Men with huge cowboy hats and expensive cowboy boots that never got dirty. The oil tycoons. What else? Hated Mexicans?

  Jimbo was from East Texas, and that geographically large area was like a state unto itself. Swamps and Gulf Coast. Hunters and fishermen. It neighbored south Louisiana and had a lot in common between them. The Dallas crew, though, had produced a lot of the memorable stereotypes, she reckoned.

  She opened her mouth to ask Lt. Kite about this SecDef when a memo alert flashed on her military tablet. They no longer used paper or people to deliver messages, including orders and reassignments. Everything came via their tablets. They were required to constantly carry them.

  Reading it, Mazy had been summoned to Mount Weather. A time tomorrow morning and place to meet her helicopter and what to pack – this was all the info she was given. Such was the way orders worked. Nothing on why she was going.

  “Crap.”

  “What’s wrong?” Lt. Kite asked. Finishing his green Jell-o, his spoon scraping the bottom.

  “I gotta go to Weather.”

  He cringed in sympathy. “Sorry.”

  “Got any snake repellent?”

  “You’ll need a lot.”

  Day 6

  Chapter One

  1.

  Without the tiger’s presence, at sun up the carrion birds found the elk body on the highway shoulder. Vultures picked at it, pulling frozen strips off. A fox snuck in, and though the vultures tried to flap their wings and peck at it, the fox grabbed some breakfast.