PFC Allen C. Fisher, Oklahoma Army National Guard, signing out.
Jack folded the letter and put it in a breast pocket. There are people named Fisher that live in Heaven, he thought. It’s some long odds, but maybe there is a connection.
The mention of the Soviet warhead impacting to the west of the facility gave Jack pause. “That’s what the rads were after. A damned atomic dud.”
Jack noticed an aluminum case in the kneewell of the console station. Jack grimaced and then sighed. I must be a magnet for aluminum cases stamped with NSN: 8145-00-121-0271, passed through his mind as he picked up the case.
Jack returned to the entry room upstairs. He took his rucksack into the room with the roster board and placed it on a table. He was running out of room in his ruck, and the newest case would have it busting at the seams. I’ll see what’s in it in the morning. Jack had an idea. He went to the skylight blast shutter crank and turned it until the shutters were partially open. He hoped the light of morning would wake him. He climbed onto the table, and using his poncho liner as a pillow, he went to sleep.
. . . . .
7
Bunkering In and Busting Out
. . . . .
The morning light did wake Jack. He sat up, yawned and stretched, then drank some water. He was on his last two-quart canteen and would need to replenish his supply of water soon. Jack ate, and then cracked open the newest addition to his aluminum case collection. It was full of secure documents detailing much of what occurred during the Calamity. Many were in folders labeled -ESI, EXTREMELY SENSITIVE INFORMATION- TRANSPORT VIA AUTHORIZED COURIERS ONLY. He grumbled knowing he had to take the case with him. The archivists would kill me if I didn’t.
He opened the blast shutters all the way to their stops. Despite the dirt and grime that had accumulated on the reinforced glass over thirty years, the illumination that came through allowed Jack to see a fair distance down both hallways.
Along the hall that led from the room where Jack had entered the building was a door with a sign over the top that read, ROOF ACCESS. He had not seen the sign the previous night.
Jack went into the room and saw a steel ladder in the corner to his left. A steel hatch with a crank wheel much like that which equipped the blast shutters protruded from the ceiling at the top of the ladder. He climbed up and found the hatch dogged tight. He released the latches, turned the wheel, and pushed the hatch over on its squeaky hinge with a bang as it hit the stops above. He switched on his flashlight and climbed into a narrow alcove. Moving to a steel door just a few steps away, he found this entry also dogged closed by six bars released by a vertical lever. He hoisted the lever up, turned the door latch, and opened the door. A concrete vestibule guarded the door from direct access, and looking at the openings at each side, Jack could see he was on the roof.
A low wall edged the roof. A great deal of dirt, grass, and leaves cluttered the corners. He crawled to the western edge of the roof and scanned the area. He could see the silhouettes of tall and distant buildings and the telltale smoky yellow of a large alien incursion cloud, but saw no people. Jack used his binoculars to look at the woods between the necro compound and his position, then the surrounding area. Still, there was no one.
Jack shifted position so he could look to the north. He saw no sign of necros nearby. To the north-northwest, a movement caught his eye, something on a high point moving eastward. It was distant, requiring him to adjust the focus on his optics, and once it was clear, he saw what at first appeared to be an alien biped, but he quickly dismissed that. This thing has a head, he thought. The creature crested the ground and he could see it was a quadruped.
He lowered his binoculars with an incredulous look and dug his notebook and pencil from his jacket. A long-legged quadruped with a human-like torso protruding from the front of a long barrel. Reminiscent of depictions of Centaurs, he wrote. Clearly defined head atop a neck. Color similar to biped. He looked again and watched the creature until it passed from sight. He quickly drew a sketch of the alien. “They’ll have me in permanent debrief after this,” he whispered to himself as he drew.
He maintained his surveillance of the surrounding area for quite a while, finally seeing a four-man patrol walking the highway to the south. He was sure it could only be necros. About thirty minutes later he saw another patrol follow the same route. Jack let out an audible breath. “I guess the heat is off,” he muttered. He walked to the eastern edge of the roof and looked down at the entryway. He saw the eroded shape of a crater just in front of the building. A great deal of dirt, large concrete fragments, and other material formed a hillock blocking the doorway. He made his way back inside, securing the door and hatch on his way back down.
Jack decided he would exit from the front entryway and would need to secure the door where he came in. He looked at the steel plates in the entry room. They were quarter inch thick stock, and he was sure one of them would cover the hole in the door. He hefted one of the plates and found it manageable. After sifting through the mess in the room, he felt he had the material to accomplish the task.
He lined the course to the room with candles and placed several more in the office. After pulling the filing cabinets and desk away, he slid one of the steel plates over the opening and found it had considerable overlap on all sides. He looked at the area around the door and decided he would drive steel plates into the seam in the concrete floor and find something solid and substantial to fill the gap between there and the door.
He carried a folded table from the roster panel room to the office and found it nearly reached the seam in the concrete floor. He brought in enough folded tables to reach the top of the steel plate and found he needed about an inch of material to fill the gap. He slid three steel plates into the space by the door and one in the gap by the seam. The fit was tight, tight enough Jack needed to pound the final piece into place with the edge of another steel plate. Feeling there was little more that he could do, he walked back to the entry room, snuffing candles along the way.
Jack looked closely at the bottom of the entryway where TC6’s mark pointed. There was a triangular patch of dirt surrounded by concrete on the bottom, steel frame on one side, and distorted door on the other. He guessed the salvager dug his way in and out, concealing the work when he or she left. “I hope I’m right, or I have a lot of steel plates and tables to move,” he said.
He took his entrenching tool from its case on his rucksack and began to dig. A few inches in, he struck wood. After scraping some of the dirt away, he found it was two pieces of pressure treated lumber. It provided a surface for backfilling the hole once outside.
As he dug, Jack found the route out followed a concrete wall edging a structure that projected out from the building, destroyed in the blast that bent and buried the doors and trapped PFC Fisher. It dawned on Jack that there were no remains inside as far as he could see. Part of the story was untold, and he suspected it would remain that way.
A steel I-beam and a slab of concrete, along with the wall, formed a tunnel about eight feet long. It was at this distance Jack’s e-tool punched a hole into daylight two hours after he started digging. A half an hour later, he was out. Escape would require him to empty his rucksack once again and make several trips in and out with the unpacked items. That completed, he closed the blast shutters, and then set to the task of backfilling the tunnel and camouflaging the disruption to the dirt he had caused.
Satisfied his presence was undetectable, he geared up and went around the building to the door where he first entered. The bullets fired by the necro the night before did little but scar the paint. He kicked and pushed at the plate that blocked the rectangular hole. It didn’t budge. Between his scrambling around in the depression by the door and the necros walking through the same space the night before, the ground was churned up and loose. Jack kicked considerable amounts against the door, piling it until it obscured much of the panel. “That’ll have to do,” he said. He circled back to the east side of the buildin
g, stopping to look back toward the necro compound, the obelisk and bone pile visible over the trees. He shook his head and went east.
As he walked through the grass, Jack could see signs of the battle mentioned in the letter, still visible despite the decades that had passed. He paused and surveyed the area: piles of dirt where sand bag walls once provided cover, ruts where trenches once ran, half-buried rusting and ruined weapons lay where they fell. Protruding from the ground were brass cartridge cases and metallic links, plastic canteens, rotting load bearing equipment, concertina wire, and a single dented field radio. Much of it was probably salvageable at one time. He concluded the proximity to the necros and their ever-growing bone pile made salvage too risky.
“You guys died hard,” Jack muttered as he surveyed the ground. He turned east and moved away from the necros compound, keeping the building between himself and those that might still seek him. Before long, he was clear. He angled south to the highway and continued east.
Jack stopped a few miles later. He could cut cross-country to the south and intersect an old rail bed. Most of the tracks and ties were gone, but the raised bed and gravel were still quite visible and still useful as a trail. If he followed that route, he would end up in Eastwood once again. If he went straight east, he could follow the old highway for much of the route and then make his way between several lakes and enter the Freelands near Checotah or Quinton. The latter route was a little shorter, but much of the area he would traverse was sparsely traveled and presented more unknowns. The former might bring him into contact with necros again and he would almost certainly cross paths with raiders who might hold a grudge for his apprehension of Buck Scuddie. After mulling it over for a minute, Jack chose the route east. Maybe I’ll come across something else out of the ordinary, he thought with a roll of his eyes.
Not far to the east, the road cut to the northeast for a few miles passing below a dam that contained a large lake. Someone had altered a sign directing travelers to the lake. The sign read Lake Dirtybird, Warning - Octopus! Its meaning was lost on Jack, but he smiled nonetheless. The road eventually resumed its east-west course, running parallel to the road he tailed the rads on during their journey west, though he was many miles north now. The area he traversed was more open, grasslands with stands of trees.
Jack walked past a fallow field to his right, tall grass between him and the empty ground. Farmland meant he was nearing population, and according to his map, the next place he would encounter was a town called Pink. Ahead, he saw a sign, its face meant for those traveling the opposite direction than Jack. He slowed as he came abreast of the sign. It read DANGER! NECROS AHEAD. Strewn across the ground near the sign were broken versions of the same sign, while others told of Gambling - Prostitutes - Drugs - Alcohol - Entertainments available in Old Norman. Jack didn’t know what to make of the collection of broken signs, but knew for certain one side was lying. He shook his head and continued east.
About a quarter of a mile down the road, two men stood up from the tall brown grass to Jack’s right, their weapons held at the ready, but not trained on him. Jack stopped, his weapon ready as well. He quickly scanned the area. A couple hundred yards to their rear was a short tower. He was sure there must be people covering him from there.
“You ain’t a necro, are you?” one of the men said.
“Can’t say that I am.”
“You don’t look like one. What are you?”
“What answer would keep me from getting shot?” Jack’s question made the second man stifle a laugh.
“What if we thought you was a necro?”
“I imagine I’d be dead already.”
The man smiled while his companion chuckled. “You ain’t no necro or rad or any of the other wackjobs we have around. Pass, friend.”
“Thanks.” Jack walked until he stood near them. “Necros come this far east?”
“Sure do. Them signs you stopped to look at? They tear down our warnings and put up their own sign to draw people out there. We keep an eye out now. Try to warn folks off going that way and stop the necros that try and tear down the sign.” He gestured with a thumb over his right shoulder. “Ol’ Mike in the tower back there pops’em off usually. Figure anyone tears down a sign warning of deaders probably is one.”
Jack nodded. “Pink have anyplace to get clean water?”
“Kelly’s. She’s a rough old gal. Lived there since before the Calamity. Good grub too. She don’t like trouble, so remember that.”
Jack touched the bill of his cap. “Thanks.” As he walked east, he waved at Ol’ Mike in his tower and the shooter in him wondered what rifle and optics he used.
Pink was a town that existed prior to the Calamity. In one form or another, it survived while other nearby cities did not. Part settlement, part salvager camp, part waypoint on the trail, it had a few hundred permanent residents and a like number of transient to semi-permanent population.
Darkness was taking hold when Jack came to Kelly’s. It was a sizable one-story building with a lot for motor vehicles, in an area where such machines were rare. To the east, he could hear music and loud voices. He guessed Kelly’s was not a place for entertainment.
He opened the door and went inside. There were tables and booths enough to seat several dozen, but only three patrons occupied the restaurant just then, eating together at a table in the corner to Jack’s right. He walked to the counter and saw a row of metal plates littered with the crumbs of piecrust.
“Anyone here?” he asked in a raised voice.
“Course there is. There’s always somebody here,” a rough-voiced woman yelled. “Keep your skirt on.”
Jack placed his ruck on the floor, and then sat on a stool to wait. The empty pie plates made him wish he’d arrived earlier. A woman stepped through a doorway that led to the back of the place. She was heavily built and he guessed her to be in her sixties. Her silver hair was kept under a red kerchief. He noticed she had a Star 9mm semiauto pistol holstered on her right hip as she wiped her hands on the apron tied about her waist.
“Coming from the east or west?” she asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“We get more business come from the east headed west than the other way around. Try to warn’em off. Folks hear there’s riches in Old Norman or OK City if they can survive, so off they go figuring they’ll be the ones to beat the odds.” She snorted. “Fools who don’t take death seriously. You coming from there?”
“Old Norman, but I wasn’t looking to get rich.”
She squinted her eyes at him for a moment. “I figure that’s your business. Get out of there alive, you’re doing okay. You eating?”
“If you have food.”
She pointed at the wood stove in the middle of the room, “Got stew and biscuits left, that’s about all. You got ammo, brass, gun parts, or knives for trade?”
“You take coin?”
“If it’s gold, real gold I mean. I hear tell there’s some idiot from Falla trying to pass off stamped aluminum coins as Freelands gold. He does that in the wrong place… he’ll get dead.”
Jack pulled a Freelands gold coin marked ‘1’ from a pouch. “Is this the wrong place?” he said as he placed the coin on the counter.
Kelly burst into laughter and picked up the coin. She bounced it once in her hand and dropped it in an apron pocket. “It just might be. Eat all you want. Any that isn’t eaten before too long gets fed to the hogs and dogs. You looking to sleep, feel free to use the bench over in the corner. Outhouse and water tank out to the left.” She went into the kitchen behind the counter.
Jack looked at the substance in the pot and came to the conclusion that what passed for stew in Pink was very different than Geneva’s take on the dish. Nonetheless, he ate and felt sorry for the hogs and dogs that would have to suffer the stew. The biscuits were dry, but edible. He went to sleep soon after.
. . . . .
He was up before first light and decided to get an early start. The few people sleeping in Kel
ly’s never stirred as he left. Stepping outside, the air was cool, nature presenting just a hint of the colder months ahead. He filled his canteens after testing the water and finding it potable. It was still dark when he took the road and a short time later, he was glad he got such an early start. The early fall morning put on a special sunrise.
He had the road to himself for quite a while. A few miles east found him walking for a short distance with a salvage team headed north to a sizable ghost town.
The day’s journey was an interesting one, with almost no stretch of the road devoid of structures. Most were abandoned, many still ghostly reminders of what they once were, while quite a few served as homes or had businesses that catered to travelers. West of Old Seminole, Jack stopped for the night at a camp situated where the highway met an old rail bed, the same rail bed turned trail that Jack had followed to get near Oldenville. He was tempted to follow the familiar trail south, but ultimately decided to continue east the following morning.
He stayed with a salvager he knew through Amanda’s parents. She told him of a place in Wetumka that served decent food and clean water six or seven hours east.
. . . . .
Jack arrived at the edge of Wetumka early in the afternoon. There were two towers with armed guards along the road into the settlement. He could see several more at other points not far away. The eatery Jack was looking for had no name, but his salvager acquaintance told him it was easy to spot: a large open air gathering of white tables with white fencing on three sides and a pair of towers overlooking the dining area. Jack wondered what they did during inclement weather.
The Blastlands Saga Page 45
