by J D Stone
“Hey,” Danna said, throwing little boxing punches in the air. “We’re gonna do this.”
“I know.” Ben’s muscles tightened, and he pushed away his doubts. “I know,” he repeated resolutely.
Cameron popped his head around the corner of the hallway. “You guys ready? We’re in the armory.”
Danna looked at Ben.
He nodded his head.
Cameron and the Stranger were waiting for them in the armory.
“Let’s get to it,” Cameron said, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. “We’re gonna rough it in the woods as long as possible. Stay away from the city as much as possible.”
“So extreme camping?” Danna asked.
“No, more like bushcraft,” Cameron replied. “There’s really one fundamental principle: you can camp anywhere and in any weather if you got the 'five C’s.’”
“The five what?”
Cameron planted his feet in a wide stance and feigned shock that she wouldn’t know such sacred terms. “The five C’s: cutters, cover, combustion, container, and cord!”
“It’s an old bushcraft saying,” the Stranger explained to Danna. “Cutters, knives or some other blade; cover, like a tent or blanket; combustion, that’s fire; containers for water and food; and cord, like rope.”
“How do you know that?” Cameron asked quizzically.
The Stranger gave a sly grin. “Spoilers.”
“Can you believe this guy?” Cameron asked Ben and Danna. He shook his head and chuckled. “Anyway, the five C’s form the core of what you to need to pack when you’re in the wild.”
“But it’s not exactly like we’re going into the wilderness,” Danna said. “It’s less than a three-day hike to your old house.”
“Well, you need — or we all need — to look at this like we’re gonna be in the wilderness. We have to plan like we’re not gonna find any food, water, shelter, or safety. If we let our guard down one bit, it’s over. Got it?”
Ben and Danna nodded. Both of them, of course, grew up learning how to camp in the outdoors; but Ben knew that keeping Cameron in a good mood was essential for this trip to work, so he advised Danna to play dummy.
“Okay, folks,” Cameron said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s go shopping.”
Cameron led them into a small supply room attached to the armory, which was lined on three sides with shelves stocked with a vast assortment of gear. Rucksacks and backpacks, heavy-duty outdoor clothing, military fatigues, body armor, helmets, belts, tents, sleeping bags, bivvies, blankets, tarps, pots and pans of various sizes, packaged food rations, hatchets, machetes, and fishing rods.
Under each shelf were dozens of drawers filled neatly with an assortment of knives, compasses, lighters, tactical gloves, candles, cord, repair kits for tools, fishing tackle, and various other gear and supplies.
“Impressive,” the Stranger remarked, glancing at Cameron.
“This room is in case we ever need to bolt outta here,” Cameron said as he pulled a large Bowie knife out of a drawer. He handed the knife to Danna. “Let’s get started.”
“Actually,” Danna began, handing the knife back to Cameron, “my Ka-Bar is better than this one.”
“Debatable,” Cameron replied, putting the knife back into the drawer.
“So where do we begin?” the Stranger asked.
“We all need to be outfitted with the same gear; that way, our supplies won’t be affected if something happens to one of us.”
Ben winced.
Cameron handed them each a USMC ILBE military pack and a wool blanket. “I’d keep extra supplies in here like this.”
He knelt down and unrolled a wool blanket until it was folded in half lengthwise, then he laid it on the floor. Next, he unfurled a small blue tarp and placed it on top of the blanket, then he said: “You can put extra clothes, another blanket, and even some spare tools in here, then you roll it back up and tie with some cord.”
“And most importantly?” Ben asked, shooting a quick wink at Danna.
“Socks,” his brother replied gravely. “Always pack extra socks.”
Cameron opened the drawers. “So, we’re each gonna pack a knife, compass, light, magnesium fire rods, tarp, ax, candles, repair kits for the blades, sewing stuff, Israeli military first aid kits, and a cooking pot.”
“Each one of us has to carry a cooking pot?” Danna asked, skeptically.
Cameron nodded eagerly. “Definitely. This one famous bushmaster (can’t remember his name) once said he could survive an entire winter out in the wilderness with nothing but a cooking pot. No knife, no tent, nada. Couldn’t do it without a pot though.”
“A pot it is for each of us!”
“I presume we’ll all be wearing the same military fatigues?” the Stranger asked, eyeing the stacks of clothing.
“Yeah, we all need to match in case we’re ever separated. And black: it’s the color the vagabonds are least attracted to, at least that’s what Ben says. Should be sizes for all of us.”
Cameron stood there for a moment scanning the shelves, mentally checking off the essential items. He crossed his arms and gave a small nod. “Okay, let’s get packed up; it’ll be dark before we know it.”
The garage door opened and Ben stepped outside into the night. It was very dark. He could barely make out the towering cliffs, but he could see the blue haze of the atmosphere on the horizon, pushing back against the eerie glow of the moon rising behind the mountain.
He closed his eyes and inhaled the night air through his nostrils as he listened to the familiar sounds of his last four hundred nights: the whistling wind etching new lines of music into the sandstone and the branches of withered trees rubbing against each other like wooden boats grinding against a battered dock. He exhaled.
“Okay,” Cameron said, coming up beside him; “we’re packed.”
“So, we’re set with the route?” Ben asked, looking out across the basin.
“Yep,” his brother replied, running his hand through his hair. “We’re heading ninety miles north to the San Jacinto gap. Tomás will drive us to the old mission, thirty miles from here. We’re going by foot the rest of the way.”
“Why so far north?”
“It’s the only mountain gap into the city that doesn’t have a freeway running through it. We need to avoid major roads at all costs. After that, depending on how things look, we’ll either work our way back down the foothill range or head for the coast and go down from there.”
“You sure the coast isn’t dangerous?”
“The Stranger came down that way; he said it’s pretty low key. But I’m thinking we need to stay in the hills as much as possible.”
Ben nodded as he kicked at a few bits of gravel. “Looks like this it.”
Behind them, the station wagon fired up, sending a bluish-grey puff of exhaust into the garage. It was an older model Volvo, faded white, with a roof rack presently tied down with extra gear for the journey. Danna, Tomás, and the Stranger were already in the car.
Cameron grabbed the back of Ben’s neck and shook him playfully. “I’m glad we’re doing this together, bro,” he said with a big smile.
Ben cringed and stepped away, not before swatting at Cameron’s hand. “You’re actually pumped up about this, aren’t you?”
“Heck, yeah,” his brother replied in mocking disbelief. “Now that I got the railgun, I don’t have to bolt at the first sign of a vagabond.”
“Yeah, well, I have a feeling things aren’t gonna be as peachy as you think.”
“I’m not saying everything’s gonna be peachy,” Cameron replied. “But we’ll make it through. That’s how Dad raised us: we’re survivors.”
Ben wanted to scoff at him. Not all of us, he thought. Mom and Dad didn’t survive.
He took one last glance around the garage in an absent-minded check for anything they'd missed. Nobody was there to say goodbye; everybody was asleep, having said their farewells hours ago. His eyes settled on HUL
C, leaned up against the wall by the workshop. Take care, buddy. He followed Cameron to the car and squeezed into the backseat next to the Stranger and Tomás.
Danna, who was sitting in the front seat, turned around and glanced back at him. She smiled. Ben returned a half-smile and looked out the window. Cameron backed the wagon out of the garage, shifted into drive, and then they were off.
Up above in the OPs, Marcelo and Naomi watched the wagon rumble across the basin and pass into the oak grove like a midnight wraith.
PART TWO
World on Fire
CHAPTER TEN
Into the Wild
THEY WERE AMBUSHED within thirty minutes.
After twenty-one quiet miles down the old county highway, Cameron rounded a sharp curve and came upon an uprooted eucalyptus tree that had fallen across the road. He came to a slow stop and shut off the headlights. “Now what?” he asked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Can’t we just take the other way?” Ben groaned, rubbing his eyes. He had dozed off.
“It’s too dangerous,” the Stranger replied. “Brings us too close to the city.”
“So, we’re just stuck then?”
Cameron shifted in his seat and glanced out the window. “A little ways back there’s an old logging road that I’m pretty sure twists up into national forest land before meeting up with the highway.”
Tomás unfolded his paper map and traced his finger along the county road. “The logging road is just a tiny squiggly line,” he said, holding the map close to his face and squinting. “But, yeah, it seems like we’d be on it about twelve miles or so before it reconnects with this one.”
Cameron nodded crisply. “Sounds good to me. Everyone else?” There were no objections. With a whistle, he shifted the car into reverse.
They found the logging road a mile back, nearly hidden between two craggy boulders. It immediately climbed into a chill gray mist, and towering, pale pines loomed above.
“Ugh,” Danna muttered, biting her lip.
The road was nothing more than a rutted, potholed track that clung to the mountainside in a series of switchbacks with intermittent turns into the forest. It seemed to have been used more than once recently, which assured Cameron that it eventually wound up connecting with the county road.
After a bone-shaking quarter mile, the road condition suddenly improved, and Cameron accelerated to take advantage of the smoother surface.
Up ahead was a particularly tight bend, and as soon as Cameron maneuvered it, they suddenly came upon two pickup trucks blocking the road.
“Watch out!” Danna cried, putting her hands on the dashboard.
Cursing under his breath, Cameron slammed on the brakes. He fought the skid and nearly lost control as the car swerved toward the precarious edge. With a hard jerk, he yanked back the parking brake and the car came to a sliding stop just inches from the brink.
In an instant, loud whooping cries fell upon them from above, and dozens of torches engulfed the car.
Danna shrieked as a blue and white painted face pressed against the glass. Then another. And another. Hands splattered all over the car windows and began rocking the car back and forth.
As the cries grew to a feverous pitch, Ben leaned his head back and groaned in dismay.
Shadowy shapes barely illuminated by the torches circled the car in a continuous motion as if in a mad sacrificial trance.
One of the savages, clothed only in tattered pinstriped dress pants, clambered on the hood and began to beat his chest so violently that Ben thought that he was going to break open his rib cage.
“Any ideas?” Danna shouted, unbuckling her seat belt. “Someone? Anyone?”
The Stranger cocked his pistol and said coolly: “Lock and load.”
“Wait!”
Tomás held up his hand then reached into his pack and pulled out an EG18X military smoke grenade.
He cracked the window open an inch. Dozens of pale, grimy fingers rammed into the gap like writhing maggots.
“What are you doing!?” Cameron roared.
Tomás opened the window another inch, pulled the pin ring with his teeth, and dropped the grenade alongside the car.
“Roll it up, roll it up!”
With a flash, a billowing cloud of blue smoke erupted and enveloped the car. The fingers pulled out of the window amid terrible fits of coughing. They heard the crumpling of the hood as the chest-beating savage jumped off.
“Go!” Ben cried.
“I can’t see a thing!” Cameron said, shifting the car into reverse.
Tomás leaned forward, grabbing the front headrests with each hand. “Pull forward until you bump into the trucks, and back up from there so you have a bearing.”
“Forget this,” Danna said. “Cover your ears!” Cocking her pistol, she rolled down her window and fired off five quick rounds into the blue haze.
Ben’s head exploded with the high piercing whine of his eardrums protesting the sound of the gunshots. He closed his eyes and clutched his face, but the Stranger gave him a quick elbow, and he jerked back to alertness.
Cameron pulled forward until he could make out the shapes of the trucks then shifted into reverse, then forward again, and the car was turned around. Shifting into drive again, he plowed into cloud and crowd.
A torch-bearing brute immediately rolled over the windshield, snapping like a matchstick. The bumper hit another savage low and hard, launching the body across the hood and off the edge to whatever murky depths lay below. The front right tire hit a large mass, bones crunched, and the right side of the car lurched upwards.
One last crack on the rear windshield and suddenly they were through the smoke and pealing down the gravel road.
Ben clenched his fists. Is this how this ‘mission’ is going to be? Why are we doing this? What difference does it make? His head swirled, and his ears felt like they were bleeding.
“What’s that?”
Ben snapped his head up.
Not fifty feet ahead a half-dozen barbarians stood in the middle of the road; all of them clutched spiked baseball bats except for one — he was swinging a medieval mace.
“They’re the cut-off group,” the Stranger said calmly. “I got this.”
Bracing himself, he rolled down the window and lifted himself through it until he sat on the edge. With one arm holding on to the driver’s headrest, he aimed his Glock 9 mm and fired seven rounds, dropping five.
“The other one should jump out of the way,” he said as he slid back into his seat.
Ben and Tomás gaped at the Stranger, then at each other in wide-eyed, “Did you just see that!?” amazement.
The savage, however, a skeletal long-haired boy of about sixteen, stood his ground. As the car bore down on him, he began to spring up and down frenetically, gnashing his teeth and pounding his hollow, rib-lined chest.
“He’s not gonna move,” Danna said, leaning back in her seat and bracing for impact.
“C’mon, dude, move,” Cameron muttered under his breath.
The cadaverous boy didn’t budge.
Cameron waited a half-second then stepped on the accelerator.
The car struck the boy head on, and he flipped up and landed on the windshield, causing a shattering spider web of cracks. Cameron yanked sharply on the steering wheel, and the boy rolled to the right and tumbled off the edge of the road.
Ben glanced up at Danna; her face was ghostly pale. She had pulled in her legs and sat curled up in her seat. Next to her was Cameron, who was white-knuckling the steering wheel and glancing compulsively at the rear-view mirror.
“They put that tree across the road,” the Stranger said, leaning forward. “We walked right into it.”
“Drove, rather,” Tomás said flatly.
Ben laughed bitterly. “This is insane,” he said hotly. “We’re not going to last one day out here. Not one.”
“Relax,” Cameron said. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Maybe for one
person. But all of us?” Ben turned to the Stranger. “Even you said your friends couldn’t make it. How do you expect us to live?”
“Because we will,” the Stranger replied calmly, ignoring Ben’s callous remark. “Because we have to.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Ben muttered. “Sorry for being afraid of getting my head ripped off by a mace.”
“Did you think that was actually going to happen?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m saying this is crazy. I mean, look at Danna right now. And, Tomás, no offense, but you look like you’re going to throw up.”
Tomás swallowed, took a quick breath, and waved his finger at Ben. “Fear’s not a bad thing, you know.”
“You’re right, Tomás,” the Stranger said. “In fact, it can be a good thing. It makes us careful; keeps us from making stupid decisions.”
“If that’s the case,” Ben said spitefully, “then we should’ve been afraid of turning onto that road.”
Cameron slammed on the brakes and came to a stop. He whipped around, and his eyes blazed at his younger brother. “You wanna go back to the retreat, Ben?” he snapped. “You really wanna go back?”
Ben crossed his arms and stared blankly out the window.
“Then shut up.” Cameron glared at his brother in the rear view mirror a final time before shifting into drive. “Seriously.”
A long period of silence followed, broken by the scraping sound of the right bumper, which had been partially torn off and was now dragging alongside the front tire. But the car soon hit another large pothole, and the bumper snapped and fell to the side of the road to sit there for all eternity.
Five bumpy minutes later, they reached the county road, and Cameron pulled off to the side. He unbuckled his seatbelt, and after cocking his pistol, he opened the door and stepped out. He looked around, then slid back into the driver’s seat.
“Look,” he began, waving away the lingering smoke in the car. “We need to go on foot from here.”
