"Except of course, they’re hoarding all the gas they find. Aren't they?" Marty asked.
Elizabeth nodded. "I slipped out and talked with our neighbor the night before we left. She told me how she'd heard from somebody else ours wasn't the first neighborhood these guys had taken down. They were organized—they knew what they were doing. How could things have gotten so bad so quickly? It hasn’t even been two weeks since the tsunami hit?"
“We’re only three meals from anarchy, people. Nobody keeps extra stuff on hand for emergencies. Why bother, when you can just jump in the car and drive down to the local Walmart? So, when all that dries up, and there’s no more stuff on the shelves in the stores, you’re gonna see the worst in human nature. It's gonna get medieval," Marty said.
"Did you see any cops or National Guard…anybody?" Cami asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. "A couple days after the tsunami hit, and then again right after the power went out, I saw a cop car drive through our neighborhood. But the first time the cop wasn’t even looking—he just drove through and left. The second time, he was taking in everything and drove real slow. He almost looked like he was memorizing the layout of the neighborhood—I didn't like it at all. The look in his eyes…they were empty, Cami."
"Did you notice any bullet holes or damage on the cop car the second time?" asked Marty.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and thought for a moment. "Yes…I don't remember any bullet holes, but the windshield was cracked, and the front end was messed up a little bit. There was a big dent on the driver’s door, and I remembered the word ‘Police’ had been mostly scratched off. Like he’d been in an accident."
Marty nodded. “Might not have been a cop. Might've been a scout for this group that showed up later." He looked at Cami and nodded. "That's something to think about."
Cami leaned back in her chair. "Yeah, with the sheriff pulling out…most people are liable to go running right up to the first cop car that comes rolling to the neighborhood. Let’s get the word out for people to stay alert."
"I sure hope that what happened at your neighborhood doesn't happen here…” Amber muttered.
"If it does, we’ll be ready for it. We didn't have any way of fighting back at home—the pistols we had wouldn’t have done squat against those guys with the rifles. But here?" Mitch asked. "Besides the little armory that you have, Cami-san, half the people in this neighborhood are hunters. I saw what went down when those guys attacked your place the day before we left. Y'all ain’t going down without a fight."
Cami looked at Elizabeth and Gary as they touch their heads together and whispered to each other. "No, we certainly aren't going down without a fight."
Where are you Reese?
Chapter 10
Camp Echo
Port Jefferson, New York
Reese slowly opened his eyes and woke. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was. Then the rough sheets he lay on—nowhere near as soft as a luxurious bamboo sheets Cami put on their bed at home—scratched his skin and the memories flooded back. He lay stretched out on an army-issued cot, covered in a rough wool blanket. He remembered a chill in the air the night before as he lay down, his stomach full after a hot meal.
The heat of the day had already kicked in—if it was so hot in the morning, he cringed to think how humid it might be in the afternoon. Reese kicked the blanket off and sat up as the air cooled his heated skin. The movement caused an unexpected groan to escape his lips. Every muscle in his body was sorer than he'd ever known. His shoulder, the wound still sporting a fresh pink scar, was stiff as a board. He rotated his arm and stretched the deltoids with the exercises Jo had taught him. Her work had been checked out and approved by the Army medic who'd insisted on inspecting his injury before he allowed Reese to get some shuteye.
His morning routine completed, Reese stood from the cot, and pulled on his army issue overalls. Reese preferred to wear them as pants, and let the shoulder straps hang down his legs, then put on the standard issue white crew neck shirt. The last bit for his ensemble was the green lanyard with the simple plastic ID card that listed him not by name, but a long number.
Reese looked down at the card idly, and a scary thought occurred to him. The card wasn't much different from a prisoner identification number. Reese looked up from the card and swallowed. That wasn't the case—it couldn't be. They were in a US Army camp on Long Island, for crying out loud. He'd seen no prisoners…
Reese paused at the entrance to the tent. He looked to his right and saw a group of people that wore clothes very similar to his own outside the security perimeter the night before…could very well have been prisoners.
Reese swallowed, threw back the tent flap, and stepped out to greet the morning.
Reese squinted in the bright midday sun. “What the…?” He glanced down at his watch and tapped the dial to make sure the displayed time was correct. One hand up to shield his eyes, he glanced at the sky. Crystal clear, with a few white cumulonimbus clouds that scuttled across the eastern horizon.
A soldier walked by, casually nodded in greeting at Reese, then glanced up at the sky before he looked back at Reese with a frown. “Everything okay?”
“Uh…yeah. Fine.” Reese cleared his throat and lowered his hand under the suspicious look the soldier had given him, then turned in the opposite direction and headed for the mess hall tent. His stomach rumbled fiercely as he walked down the slight hill past row after row of large tents, just like the one he’d left.
When he found the mess hall—an enormous version of the barracks tents—he stepped through into a raucous environment, filled with a dozen different conversations, laughter, and over in the corner, someone read aloud from a book. Reese stood in the entrance for a moment and took in everything.
The man in the corner—dressed in civilian garb, held a large book in front of him, and gestured with one hand as he spoke to a group of six men and women, all in collapsible camp chairs, who watched him with rapt attention.
"There you are," Jo exclaimed, suddenly at his side. He turned and blinked at her, as she stood in the same outfit he wore, only with the suspenders up and a tray of steaming food in her hands.
Reese looked over the food Jo brought back from the chow line: what looked like a passable Salisbury steak, cafeteria mashed potatoes, green beans, sliced carrots, Jell-O, a large chocolate chip cookie in a plastic bag, and two boxes of milk.
"That looks…amazing," Reese said.
"And you look like you could eat the tray that it's sitting on. Go on over there and get in line. I’ll get us some seats. I ran into Tony outside—he said he'd meet us here."
Reese waived an acknowledgment over his shoulder as he hurried to get in line. A few dozen people stood along the counter where at least where six soldiers in cook’s uniforms doled out exact proportions of every food as people moved further down the line. It was all Reese could do to avoid sticking his fingers into the mashed potatoes and scooping them into his mouth.
By the time he got to the end of the line and his tray was full of steaming, fresh food, he worried that drool might leak from his lips before he made it to the table. He snatched a packet of silverware at the end of the line and hurried across the crowded dining hall to find Jo. She waved one thick arm at the end of a table and urged him over. Reese put his tray carefully down on the table and sat. "This looks like the best meal I've had all year," he said with a smile.
"You should've seen breakfast," Jo said as she tucked into her own tray.
"I can't believe I slept right through it…” Reese muttered as he used his fork to cut off a chunk of the soft Salisbury steak. He swirled the meat into its generic gravy sauce and picked up a shriveled item that might've been a mushroom in another life, but Reese considered it ambrosia. He shoved it all in his mouth and chewed, then closed his eyes in bliss as he groaned. "Oh, my God…”
A tray slapped down on the table nearby and he opened his eyes, surprised to see Tony drop onto the bench next to him. Instead of
grabbing a fork in diving in like he and Jo had, Tony rested his elbows on the table and stared down at the tray.
Reese took two more mouthfuls of steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans, then washed it all down with half a box of milk before he exhaled and looked at Tony. "You gonna eat that? Seriously, it's pretty darn good. Best thing I've had since the tsunami...“
"This is probably the worst steak I've ever had, but he ain't lyin’—best thing I've had in the last two weeks," Jo replied with an equally wide grin.
Tony stared down at his plate and didn't say a word.
Reese speared another chunk of Salisbury steak, slathered it in gravy, but didn't put it in his mouth. "Tony?" He popped the food into his mouth and glanced at Jo. She raised an eyebrow as she chewed her own food but said nothing.
After Reese swallowed, he picked up the milk carton and nudged Tony on the arm. "What's up, man? You okay?"
Tony looked at Reese. "I don't know what's worse, the fact that I've lost my appetite, or the fact that I know what's really going on here? I'm so hungry I could eat one of our boats out in the harbor." He looked down at his plate. "And they didn't even let me have breakfast…”
Reese looked at Tony. "What do you mean they didn’t let you have breakfast?"
Tony cut a piece of steak as he talked. "I mean, that lieutenant we met last night—“
“Hendricks?” asked Reese.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “He pulled me aside and took me to some captain somebody or other—they started to tell me things…at first I didn't know what they were doing, then I realized they were trying to recruit me. They gave me a couple days to think about it."
“Recruit you for what?" asked Jo around a mouthful of mashed potatoes and green beans.
"They want me to join this…whatever it is here." Tony shoved the forkful of meat and gravy into his mouth. "This isn't bad, you know?"
"Right?" agreed Reese. "Keep going."
"Well," Tony said as he chewed, "here's the thing. According to this captain, the country is totally screwed. He’s saying that all the powers out on the East Coast—“
“Yeah, we knew that…” Jo replied. She emptied one of her milk cartons and dropped the empty container on the table. "That's nothin’ new."
"What is new,” Tony say as he pointed his fork at Jo, “is the power outages have spread all the way across the country. There's a few spots out in California and Texas that still have power—and the captain said there's other spots, mostly near nuclear power plants, that might still have juice." He shrugged. "For the most part, the whole country’s dark. Parts of Canada and most of Mexico, too. It's a hot mess."
Reese sat back in his chair as he chewed his food. He sighed. "This isn’t good…not good at all."
"I'll say," Tony replied. He speared some green beans and dredged them through the gravy. "The thing of it is, the National Guard was sent in to resupply and establish security for the people of Long Island. The mayor of New York specifically requested that Long Island become kind of like…how’d he put it? A safe zone?"
"What, they were planning on flying survivors from the coast…here?" asked Reese.
Tony swallowed a bite of food. "I guess that made more sense to them than trying to transport people further inland, since they have to go like 10 or 15 miles or something to get to clear areas…and with all the power out, everything is falling apart anyway. At least here, they didn't have to deal with too much wreckage…well, the captain says the southern half of the island is totally messed up, but up here, it's a little higher and the waves didn't quite reach."
"Well, that meshes with what we saw as we came into the port," Reese observed. He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and lowered his voice so only Jo and Tony could hear. "Did you guys see the lack of debris along the shore? This is the first place we've seen since we left Maine that didn't have piles of debris along the coast 20 feet high. The back half of Long Island definitely didn't suffer as bad as everywhere else."
Jo nodded and pointed her fork at Tony. "What else did this captain of yours say?"
Tony shrugged, stabbed some more steak onto his fork and put it in his mouth. He chewed for a moment thoughtfully, then replied. "I was willing to accept everything that he said to that point…then things started getting weird."
"Weird how?" asked Reese.
"For starters, they wanted me to join the National Guard—not as a soldier, just as like…a civilian contractor, I guess. They just need extra help around the base, but they don't want to trust any of the locals."
Reese put his fork down. "Why don't they trust the locals?"
"According to the captain, some of ‘em tried to steal supplies in the beginning—these guys were given a certain amount of supplies to bring over from the mainland. In the beginning, I guess everything was well organized and they were handing out food and water and everybody was happy. Then rumors get started that the Guard wasn’t going to be getting any more water, and everything was being diverted to New York City."
"Despite what you just said about Long Island being relatively untouched compared to everywhere else?" asked Jo.
Tony nodded. "That's what the captain said. The commanding officer, some colonel, decided to do exactly what he was ordered to do and shipped most of the supplies they had here back to New York City. When the civilians got word of it, they rioted and stole a bunch of stuff. There was a big firefight, I guess," Tony said with a shrug. He shoveled some more food into his mouth. "Couple people got killed on both sides, and the colonel was called to New York City to speak with the area commander.”
“So where is he now?” asked Reese.
Tony swallowed. “He never came back. So Major Robertson was left in command—he still is. And he decided he wasn't shipping squat back to New York City. They came here to rescue Long Island, and he decided that anyone staying with him was going to continue that mission."
Reese leaned forward. “They letting people leave if they want to?"
Tony nodded. "Well, they did. The captain told me they lost about half their men the first couple days after the major took over. They just grabbed their gear, up and left—took any sailboat, speedboat, fishing boat, or barge they could—even a couple ferries, and went to the mainland. Then they lost all contact with them."
“Wait—what?" asked Jo. “I’ve seen them radios they got here—what do you mean they lost contact?”
Tony shrugged. "That's what I said. I mean, they got huge radios here, right? And not just the stuff that you can buy at Walmart—you should see some of the crap these guys got in the command tent—it's like state-of-the-art gear! They took me on a tour and showed me the stuff that I’d be working with if I joined up. Once they found out that I was on one of the sailboats, and knew how to run a radio, they really wanted me to stay."
"This just gets weirder and weirder," Reese said.
"You're telling me," Tony muttered as he put the last of his Salisbury steak on his fork. He looked at it for a moment, turned it this way and that, then popped it into his mouth. "You think they're going to allow seconds?"
"Based on what you're telling us, I'm surprised they're giving us any food at all," Reese replied sourly. "Sounds like they're not getting any more resupplies.”
Tony shook his head. "They're not, that's why as the civilians are getting more and more feisty, the National Guard guys here are having to be more and more…what did he say? Oh yeah, proactive, about keeping their supplies safe."
"I wonder if that had anything to do with the people I saw last night under guard outside the fencing?"
Tony shrugged. "I don't know anything about that, all I know is that they don't trust the locals. Anybody that happens to show up on the island, the captain says they give the same spiel and try to get them to join."
"Anybody take him up on their offer?" asked Jo.
"A few," Tony admitted.
"What about you?" asked Reese.
"It's tempting, man…they’re offering shelter, sa
fety, and food. I gotta admit, being on the side of the guys with all the guns has its advantages, am I right?"
Reese crossed his arms and stared at the half-eaten food on his plate. His appetite had evaporated with Tony's news. "All depends on what advantages you're talking about."
"Yeah…” Tony said as he put finally put his fork down. "I talked with a few of the guys, just to get a sense of what the captain was saying—it's like they're all on the same team. These are the ones that stayed behind voluntarily—they’re still on mission. They want to deliver food and supplies to the civilians, but…” Tony shrugged.
Jo frowned. “If they don't get any more supplies, what are they going give to the civilians?"
"Trouble," Reese said bitterly. He shook his head. "Guys, I don't like this at all. This Major Robertson might be trying to do the right thing and finish the job, but I don't like what I saw last night with those soldiers and the civilians doing all the work. None of it makes sense, I got a bad feeling where this is going to lead when they run out of supplies."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing…” Tony said as he nudged his empty tray toward the center of the table and leaned on his elbows. "You can already see how they’re eyeing houses in town. When the supplies run out here, I wouldn't be surprised if his soldiers started to…borrow from anybody who still has stuff."
“Does the major have any news about other areas of the country? Other than the power outages?"
"Nah, he didn't have much,” Tony said with sympathy in his voice. “He said they don't have reliable communication networks set up with anybody right now—even the military's kind of all over the place. People got conflicting orders when Washington was wiped out, so now everybody's kind of scrambling to find who's in charge and there's no real leadership." Tony sighed. "He did say that Israel and Iran are fighting—the whole Middle East is on fire, from what he told me. US military units all over the world are trying to get home, it's a total nightmare."
Broken Tide | Book 3 | Maelstrom Page 11
