“It’s also fast so if she hits trouble, her best shot is to run for it.” He paused for a moment. “I like it.”
“Me too. I bet the keys are hanging from a hook right inside the house.”
The two men approached the front door and Sarge covered Stryker as he gently swung it open. They entered with weapons at the low ready and cleared each room. The keys were where Sarge predicted and they went back to the car, popped the hood, and examined the engine. It was dusty, but there were no obvious oil leaks.
“Think it will start?” Stryker asked.
“No.”
Stryker got into the car, turned the key, and nothing happened. Sarge connected the jumper cables and Stryker tried again. The starter groaned, and then the engine caught and chugged for the first minute before settling into a throaty growl. “Maybe we should keep this one,” he joked.
“Not my style.”
“Okay, follow me back to the house.”
They pulled into the driveway a few minutes later and stopped the vehicles in front of the porch. Stryker put the camp stove and a skillet and pot into the trunk. Mia stood beside him with a bag of spare clothing. “You know how to use the stove?” he asked, handing her a disposable lighter. Sarge approached and stood to one side, listening, after placing spare mags for the Glock and AR on the passenger’s seat.
“Yes, I used to camp with my parents.”
“How about the siphon?”
“You stick the hose into the gas tank and pump with your foot, right?”
“Yes.”
“Here are all the maps you need,” he said, handing her the road atlas. “Sarge and I went over them and we think the best route is the one we highlighted. We don’t know for sure, but it looks like the best way, and it’s mostly freeway so you can go fast. If you’re comfortable driving at high speeds, you’ll be a lot less likely to be a good target; this baby can get you away from trouble fast. Try to avoid trouble if you can, and just get away. No matter what you do, don’t stop for anything unless you need gas, a potty break, or to eat and sleep. Park before nightfall on some backroad, activate the car alarm, and sleep about 100 meters from the car. You got all that?”
“Yes.” Stryker could see she was having doubts. Her expression was one of concern and hesitation.
“You can still come with us,” he said quietly. “There’s no shame in doing the smart thing.”
“No, but thanks.”
“Sarge?”
“Never take your pistol off, not even at night when you sleep, and never leave the car without the AR.” She nodded. “You have a full tank of gas, and I checked the oil. The battery is charged and working fine. You should be good.” She nodded again.
“I’ll load the trunk with enough food and water for the trip,” Stryker said. He carried four cases of water to the car and placed three in the truck and one in the rear seat. He then loaded two large boxes of canned and dried food, a can opener, a coffee pot and cup, and some napkins, paper plates, and forks.
The ladies gathered, tears rolling down their cheeks, and embraced in a group hug. Sarge and Stryker stood to the side and let them say their farewells. Mia came over and kissed Sarge on the cheek. “Thank you.”
She moved to Stryker and did the same after he leaned down so she could reach his cheek. “Thank you, too.” She got into the car and started down the driveway.
“Good luck,” Stryker whispered, and turned to finish loading the Jeep with the rest of the supplies. He came out of the house in time to see the rear of the Camaro turn out of the driveway and onto the road.
“I think we’re loaded, Sarge,” Stryker said. “Who sits where?”
“I’ll take Erin in the pickup and you take the rest in the Jeep. I know Erin won’t twist my ear off and I am about out of patience with all the yacking. We need one M-4 per vehicle, front seat passenger side, and you and I will have our pistols.”
“That works. You want to take the same route?”
“Don’t see why not. We got about thirty gallons of gas in the back of the truck and I think that will get us both there.”
“Okay, I’ll take the lead for the first leg and we can switch off. I got the PRC turned on and in the Jeep. You do the same. Lead car calls the shots.”
“Okay.” They loaded up the young women and pulled out of the driveway and onto the highway. Stryker kicked the Jeep up to eighty miles an hour and said, “Anybody sees any movement around us, please let me know.”
Haley rolled up her window and set the M-4 barrel against her shoulder. They drove in silence for a few minutes, the women watching Stryker’s eyes click from left to ahead to right to rear view mirror every minute or so. Sarge kept the pace, staying around 300 meters off the first car’s rear bumper. After another few minutes of silence, Jenna decided to speak.
“What’s it like living out here? We were locked in a dorm for close to two years and I don’t have any idea what to think about the world now.”
“Well, there aren’t a lot of people left. I was in Camp Pendleton, just north of San Diego, when it started. The last estimate we got was around ninety-seven percent dead after the plague hit.” He stopped when he heard the gasps from the back seat. Silence followed for a few minutes while they struggled to comprehend what that meant. His eyes continued to click to the four points of the compass as he waited for the next question.
“What do you do with your time?” Elle asked.
“I’m a scavenger. I find things that other people want, take them to the trading post I told you about when I gave Mia a meeting place last night, and swap for what I need.” He glanced in the mirror and saw that Jenna looked confused. “The only occupation now is doing what you need to do to get by. There’s no job market or places of employment. There’s no internet, TV, or radio. We effectively live in a world that’s a 100 years in the past, maybe more.”
“We lost our internet about a year ago. TV went out before that and we didn’t listen to the radio. I guess we thought, when we came out of the dorm, things would get back to normal.”
“Not anytime soon.”
“So what are we going to do at the ranch?”
“I’m not really sure,” Stryker replied. “I hope one of you is a gardener so we can have some fresh food. My grandma was an avid gardener and the garden is still there. I just haven’t planted it because I’ve been trading for fresh food.”
“My mother taught me organic gardening,” Elle replied.
“Well, there you go. Life is looking up,” he replied with a cheery note; but his eyes continued clicking back and forth, watchful and focused.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Haley said. “I’m just glad to have clothes on, be clean, and not in a cage anymore. At least we’re going somewhere that has water and power. I hate those men that took us. I’m glad they’re all dead and that Mary might be safe now. We should all just be grateful to be alive.”
Stryker glanced over at her, saw a grim determination on her face, and decided she would be fine; she would be a valuable addition to their group. He was less sure about Jenna, but she was going to San Antonio anyway and may or may not be back with the group. Elle was the wild card. He had no idea what to make of her or what she was thinking. Elle and Jenna started chatting in the back seat and Stryker and Haley remained silent. The miles rolled by; after a few hours, they stopped for water and a pee break at a rest stop just short of the bridge that crossed the border with Texas.
Sarge and Stryker got out of the vehicles and met between them. “Keep them inside the trucks until I clear the buildings,” Stryker said.
“Got it.” Stryker moved off toward the rest rooms and stopped at the door of the female bathroom, knocked politely, then burst into the room with his weapon up. He opened every door on every stall, then emerged from the building and flashed the thumbs-up signal to Sarge.
The women tumbled out of the vehicles and rushed to the bathrooms. Stryker got water bottles from the rear of the Jeep and set them on the
picnic tables on the side of the building. He took a seat, opened one, handed it to Sarge, and opened another. The two men examined the rest stop, sweeping their eyes over the buildings, and neither observed a threat. Stryker looked across the interstate and saw an old farmhouse, dilapidated and with a sagging roof. In front of the house a power line swept across the terrain, and the wires also drooped down more than he thought was usual. The sun was high and bright in the sky.
Erin stared at Stryker’s back as the two men sat chatting. She thought about the way he cleared buildings for the rest of the group, taking the risk by himself. She remembered her grandfather once telling her that there were only three types of people in the world: the sheep, the wolves, and the sheepdogs. Stryker was definitely in the latter category. She felt safe with him, but also felt a mild resentment at the idea that she needed to be protected. She felt that she had proven herself repeatedly, and that bothered her. She pushed the thought away and entered the rest room.
“What do you suppose the ladies did in the dorm after the power went out?” Stryker asked.
“Erin told me they raided all the cafeterias and lived on bottled water and sodas. There was no shortage of food as the campus had four eating facilities and they were all filled with prepared foods. I guess they went to the library to get books. They also played board games and used the gym. She said that after the first year, they used the entire campus as a resource and they got water for bathing from the indoor swimming pool. The cafeteria had gas stoves, so cooking was no problem.”
“I don’t think I could live like that for two years.”
“Me either. It was hard enough to do it in my neighborhood in my own house. I thought about leaving all the time, but had no idea where to go.”
“Why didn’t you come to Pendleton?”
“I was pretty much trying to avoid contact with other people. It occurred to me several times, but I didn’t see what was to gain by going there.” The men sat in silence for a moment.
“What the hell are we going to do with the women?” Stryker asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve both been alone for years, and now we have four women to look after, and absolutely nothing for them to do.”
“I have thought about that,” Sarge replied. Then he shrugged helplessly.
“Seriously, think about it. They’re all in their early twenties. There are no men around their age that I know of, there’s no internet, television, or cell phones. What the hell are they going to do?”
“I have no idea. Not a clue.”
“Maybe we should talk to them about it. They might have something figured out already. They did live on that campus by themselves with no power or water.”
“Let’s do that when we get back to the ranch.”
The rest of the drive was uneventful, and they changed drivers every two hours. Stryker took the last shift and drove up to his house, told the ladies to stay in the vehicle, went inside, and cleared the building. He waved for everyone to come in, and they divided the five bedrooms. Stryker and Sarge each took a room on opposite ends of the house, Haley and Erin each had their own room, and Jenna and Elle shared the last bedroom. After eating a dinner of ramen with canned chicken, they all went to bed.
Stryker woke up and glanced around. It was still dark and he rose and looked out the window. The moon was still ascendant and he wondered what woke him. He put on a pair of gym shorts, grabbed the XD from its holster, and walked on tiptoes through the living room. He opened the front door and stepped outside. He heard the yip of a distant coyote, then the buzzing sound of crickets. He walked to both ends of the porch and glanced around the corners, seeing nothing. He moved to a chair and sat down, puzzled at why he woke up. His eyes wandered to the east, where the highway passed his house around a mile away. A humming sound reached his ears, first growing louder, then fading. The sound was familiar but he was unable to identify it.
He thought about his wife and child. Then he thought of Erin. He couldn’t deny he felt an attraction, and knew they would have to have “the conversation” before long, but had no idea what he intended to say. Sarge complicated things. His own feelings did the same. Their age difference didn’t make things easier, and the fact that they would all have to live together and get along made the consequences of a failed relationship more daunting. It was not as if one of them could move to a different town or not see each other day in and day out.
He remembered when he was separated from his watchful grandparents as a child. He was around four years old and walked out of the grocery store where they shopped and into an unfamiliar town street. He wandered for what seemed like hours, fascinated by the new sights and smells, but terrified at the idea of being lost and alone. That was exactly how he felt sitting on the porch. He fell into a half sleep, neither asleep nor fully awake.
CHAPTER FIVE
DIE OFF MINUS THREE DAYS
Stryker approached the San Onofre Gate of Camp Pendleton on Highway 5. He had finished his rehabilitation session at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego and was on the way to pick up his wife, Jill. They would go to the day care facility and pick up their two-year-old daughter, Emma, and then he would lie down and rest his aching back before dinner. The staff at the rehab center drove him mercilessly and he encouraged it. He had his first back surgery following his deployment to Iraq. It had been a long road back but he had thought he was at full strength when he reinjured it in a training accident two months prior. It was going slower this time and his final evaluation was in two weeks. At the rate he was going, he would not pass muster and be forced to make some impossible choices. To a Recon Marine there were two types of men in the world: Recon Marines and shoe salesmen. He was afraid he might be changing categories soon. He did his best to hide it, but not much got past Jill.
After passing through the gate, he turned east on Basilone Road, passed the base elementary school, the car wash and YMCA, and parked at the medical center. Jill, as usual, was running late. She worked as a physician’s assistant at the center and her hours were somewhat unpredictable. They had a half hour before they had to pick up Emma, so he got out of his Jeep, checked his phone, and walked around the parking lot.
The base was a huge facility covering 125,000 square miles and containing everything you would find in a medium-sized town. There were swimming pools and gyms, dry cleaners and fast food joints, and a theater. The base had been built in 1941 to provide more training facilities as the nation prepared for war. It had been a renovation project ever since. The hospital was one of the few new construction projects in years. It was four stories tall, made of steel and glass, and was the only contemporary-looking building on the base. The remainder of the base was comprised of 1940s structures, well maintained but showing their age. Stryker and Jill were lucky enough to get base housing after Emma was born and while the three-bedroom, bungalow-style home was anything but deluxe, the convenience of living near Jill’s work and Emma’s day care made up for the lack of luxury.
During working hours, the base ballooned to a population of 70,000. At night, 38,000 remained on base in government-provided housing. It was a bustling beehive of activity in daylight. At night, it was more like a quiet, sleepy suburb. It was totally self-sufficient, with its own system of wells and pumps, power generation and distribution systems, as well as sewage plants and a water recycling facility. Stryker always presumed it was designed that way so that the camp could continue to function no matter what occurred outside its gates.
When he looked up from checking his watch, Jill was walking toward him with that “I’m in a hurry” stride. Like many large men, he had married a tiny woman. She was just under five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. As she approached him, she wore her usual expression, smiling broadly with merriment dancing in her deep blue eyes. She stopped, held her arms like a child that wants to be picked up, and Stryker plucked her from her feet, hugged and kissed her, and gently set her back on the concrete.
“About the usual,” he said, shrugging once. “How about yours?”
“Outstanding!” she boomed in a falsely deep voice. Then she giggled and added, “Let’s go get Emma.” They got in the car and drove to the day care center where they both hugged their daughter. On the drive across the base to their house, Stryker thought of how they met. He was in the first rehab program and she was given his case to manage. To say it was love at first sight would only be partially true. It was for him, but she approached a relationship with a Recon Marine with yellow warning lights going off in her head. She was close enough to the Corps to know that the constant deployments and training cycles were usually hell on marriages. But Stryker hung on like a bulldog with a chew toy; in the end, as usually is the case, the heart trumps the mind. Stryker promised her he would return to normal duty after four years. At the end of three, it was staring him in face.
When they arrived home, Jill bustled around the house cleaning and getting dinner ready. She reminded Stryker of Speedy Gonzales. Jill was a bundle of energy. She went to yoga classes, dragged Stryker to free lectures at the community center, and was constantly talking with friends on the phone. Weekends consisted of marathon-like shopping trips to consignment stores with friends, movies, and free outdoor concerts. Though it all, Emma was always with her, usually dangling from a baby pouch, always facing away from Jill so she could see things.
They sat at the small dinner table wolfing down Jill’s chicken Marsala and chatting idly.
“Anything interesting happen today?” Emma asked, code for “do you want to talk about it now.”
“Not really. How about you?”
“Well, we had two Marines come in today with the worst vomiting and diarrhea I’ve ever seen. They were both running fevers and are from the same unit. So we could have a virus breaking out.”
“Geeze. Really? At the dinner table?”
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