by Mark Tufo
“Do you think she’ll be okay? I mean, do you think she will get better?” Her questions say that she already knows the possibility of who it was.
“I don’t know, Bri. I just don’t know.”
“Should we go back and see if we can help her?”
“No, I’m not sure what we could do.”
A tear forms in her eye. As she turns back to the window, the tear slowly trails down her cheek. Silence descends again as I drive along the mostly empty highway. My thought turns to Lynn hoping she is okay. I don’t think even the sands of Kuwait would be spared from the kind of pandemic we are looking at. I mean, the military ensures that its members get the vaccines first and, if memory serves me right, requires flu vaccines for everyone; so this must have erupted everywhere.
We both enjoy zombie books and the genre in general. Well, she actually introduced me to it, but I became taken with it. We would cover scenarios, stories, and ‘how-tos’ in case such an event happened. Not seriously thinking anything would actually happen, just an amusement between us with what we would do. We were more interested in applying our survival skills than seriously thinking it could happen. We both had to apply those skills in our military careers, so that was a natural progression for us to take. We had an agreement in our stories that I would fly to pick her up. Now, I feel unsure as to what I should do.
What if she is okay and waiting? Should I follow through with what we talked about even though it was more play-acting than reality?
My heart is sick with worry, as I truly love this woman.
I stare out of the windshield at the sun shining on the trees, grass, and houses as we pass.
Should I do what we agreed even though we were only telling a story? Is she is okay? Should I just focus on creating a safe environment here for my kids?
I haven’t had any contact with Lynn for the past two days. She hasn’t been online and there haven’t been any phone calls, either. I called and left a message but have not heard anything back. No great revelation comes. No light bulb suddenly flares in my mind. We continue to pass by the trees that are unaware of our situation and without a care to my quandary.
Both thoughts and questions continue to rattle back and forth. We pass the movie drive-in with “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” on the signboard. Oh, the fun times the kids and I had there on summer nights. Bri always wanting to watch from the back of the pickup and me wanting to be inside because I couldn’t hear the speakers very well. Her falling asleep during the second movie, and me having to wake her when we arrived back home. Both her and Nic just appreciating our being together; loving the moment more than the event.
Or the times where it was just Robert and me. Popcorn, drinks, and a multitude of snacks from the service station nearby. The movie 300 on the screen in front, and us proclaiming this was the best film ever. Those times are over now, and this is just one of the many changes that have occurred in this new world we find ourselves in.
Turning off the highway heading home, my heart is light because my kids are safely with me, but heavy with thoughts of Lynn. My stomach is in knots. A decision clicks into place. I have to find her. I have to go to Kuwait. The guilt and shame of not trying would be too much. I love Lynn and can’t…no, won’t do anything less. My decision is made, as if there were truly any other. My thoughts now turn to the when and how.
Chapter 120
A Trip to the Store
Pulling into the driveway, I turn off the engine and we climb out of the Jeep. Carrying the shotgun, Robert gingerly steps across the gravel and walks toward my little cottage. Nic and Bri are right behind. Normally, my little Bri would be making some noise about walking on the gravel barefoot, but she doesn’t say a word.
“No, we’re going into Mom’s house,” I tell Robert, and he switches direction in mid-stride.
The front door opens and Mom steps onto the porch. “Thank goodness you’re alright,” she sighs and comes forward to give them all hugs.
We walk into the house, a little darker now than when I left, but the window shades are open giving a little light.
“I see the power has gone out,” I mention as I walk through the kitchen that opens from the entryway.
“It happened right after you left,” Mom responds.
The kitchen opens into a sitting room with a glass door that lets in a lot of light and leads to a small deck outside. Her computer desk sits against a half wall to the left, and ceiling-high bookcases fill the right one. To the left, the living room is illuminated by two windows with a wood stove sitting in an alcove between them. A large, Persian-style rug adorns the floor.
“Set the shotgun there,” I tell Robert, pointing to the corner of the desk. “I’ll be right back.”
I head out to my cottage sitting in a small copse of cedar and firs to get some clothes for the kids. It’s a single room with my bed, two couches, a large screen TV for movies, and the Xbox. It’s small, but it suits me and I like it.
Birds chirping in the trees fill the air, but I pay little attention to them as my mind goes through various aspects of my upcoming adventure. There are several items I will need to take: food, water, warm clothes, weapons, and first aid. Other thoughts filter in: The absence of weather reports, maps I will need, going on the assumption of no navigational aids, my route, the hope that GPS still works, what I will face, contact, fuel stops, oh, and yeah, the little fact that I will have to learn to fly a different aircraft.
Hopefully I’ll be able to find a checklist and manuals on board.
I gather what I need for the kids. I look at the boots I bought for Robert for our hiking trips up the creek to the falls.
I guess we can still do that, I think briefly while piling their stuff in my arms. Or maybe not.
I have no idea what the future may hold or what the world looks like. Outside, the early afternoon sun greets me as if nothing has changed.
Coming back into Mom’s house, I hand the clothing to Robert, Nicole, and Brianna. Bri takes hers and disappears into the bathroom, Nic into one of the bedrooms.
“Thanks,” Robert says and leans forward, stretching thick, white socks over his feet and then, puts on his boots.
Mom has cases of bottled water. We live in the country and loss of power, which makes getting water from the well difficult, is no stranger, so she stockpiles it. I gather several bottles, hand them out, and plop into the other chair beside Robert. Nic and Bri enter and sit next to Mom on the couch.
Silence fills the room as we are all wrapped in our own thoughts. I have a vague idea of my route, plan, and items I need. My quandary is about the kids. Half of me wants to bring them, have them in sight and therefore safe, not wanting to leave them. The other half says to leave them here and not bring them into an unknown and potentially dangerous situation. Not only the danger of what awaits out in the world, but of the unknown aspects of my now-planned flight: Fuel, engine malfunctions, my not being familiar with the type of aircraft I plan to take, weather - all of those things and more I am sure I haven’t thought of.
My basic plan runs along these lines. I will need an aircraft capable of long-range flight, meaning some form of transport. My preference is military as that is the type I am used to. It has the radio equipment I will likely need when I get there, is a little more reliably maintained, and has cargo capacity in case I want or need it. Plus, being geared for combat scenarios, they are a more structurally sound and have better short- and soft-field takeoff and landing capabilities. The only drawback is their need for JP-4 fuel, which requires a need for military fields for refueling. Normal civilian, turbine-powered aircraft use Jet-A fuel that can be found at any airfield.
I think about using a long-range business jet. They have a longer range than military transports, are faster, and have a higher ceiling, meaning I can climb over weather should the need arise.
Why am I not taking one? I ask myself before the unknown elements come back into mind. I may not have the luxury of a long runway and may hav
e to set down in some unimproved area. Much better to have the flexibility and capabilities that military transports afford.
Back to the basic plan. McChord AFB is primarily a transport base flying C-17s. I am not exactly sure of the range, but I believe it to be around three thousand nautical miles. That should be sufficient for what I need. Head over to the East Coast and land at a military base to refuel. From there to the Azores for another refueling stop. I may not be able to make the jump from there all of the way to the desert as that would be pushing the range.
Possibly a stop in Italy.
That will depend on the range from the charts I hope to find. I’ll make calls on guard, the emergency frequency, along the way to see if anyone is still about and then, call around a hundred miles out from Kuwait.
No, this was not all thought out in the scant moments of the drive back to the house, nor during the walk from my place back to mom’s. In our scenario talks, Lynn and I covered a lot of these aspects about linking up. I would be calling on guard and our positions relayed. She mentioned she needed to find a radio specialist to have along. One assumption was that she would not be on a base but on the move. I told her I needed some firm ground to land but not a lot of it. We covered wingtip clearances and the need for level ground clear of obstructions, thus, my desire for the military transport capabilities.
There are several assumptions I have to work with and, without them being true, they could throw a serious flaw in my planning. The first is that the military is neither a viable force any longer, nor hunkered down in their bases. They are not just going to let me cruise in and borrow one of their aircraft. I am pretty sure they would frown mightily over that. Another is, whatever transformations these things have gone through, that they do not like the light. This was somewhat and only vaguely verified when I was getting the kids. I am pretty sure that whatever was in there would have had no qualms about coming down and introducing itself if it were not for the light. If this is indeed true, then that will give me time and space to refuel, although I will have to plan the legs of the flight in order to land and refuel in the daylight. I won’t be able to fly all of the way over in one day or in one continuous series; we will have to rest some. I mean, it is almost an eight thousand mile flight. That is close to sixteen hours of flying assuming an airspeed of five hundred knots. So, I figure two days of flying to get there. During our discussions, we mentioned three or four days so she would have to hold out for at least that long.
“I got a text from Michelle,” Robert says, breaking the silence.
“What?” I ask, my mind coming back to the present, and look over at Robert. “When?”
“This morning before you arrived,” he responds, leaning forward with his head down. All eyes focus on him.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you ask her?”
“I didn’t text her back.”
Confused, I ask him why not. He raises his head and looks over at me. “Because my phone makes noise when I press the buttons regardless of what my phone is set on.”
Michelle and Robert have only recently become an item, his first real girlfriend. He has had several dates before, but nothing like this, and I can tell he is truly worried about her.
“Well, what about trying now?”
He pulls out his phone. There are several moments of alternating between texting and reading. Apparently, she is either still around or he is texting himself.
“Well?” I inquire. “This day and time is already suspenseful and tense enough without you adding to it. Is she okay? Where is she?”
“She’s at home,” he replies.
“Where exactly is home?” I ask, thinking about the next twenty-three questions I want to ask and things I want to know.
“Olympia. By Capital High School. Over by where you used to live,” he answers.
“Is anyone else there with her? Her parents? Where are they?” I ask, bringing the number of questions on my mind down to twenty-two. Yes, that was only one question.
“I don’t know,” he replies, turning his attention back to his cell, fingers speedily working their way across the buttons.
“Robert,” I say to get his attention.
Yeah, that didn’t work. His mind is focused on the next letters in his text. “Robert!” I say a little louder. He looks over at me in mid-text. “Ask her if she can talk and just call her.”
His fingers start hammering on the keys again. I look over to the couch. Bri is resting her head against my mom’s shoulder with her arm around Bri. Nicole is sitting with her hands in her lap watching Robert. Robert rises and walks over to the kitchen area punching buttons and bringing his phone to his ear. Some things must just be genetically coded. He likes privacy when talking on the phone, just like me. It doesn’t matter who it happens to be, both he and I will walk away to be alone to talk on the phone. Not really sure why, it just is.
As he looks out of the back window, I see his lips moving as he starts speaking. I can’t hear anything, but that is not uncommon. My hearing has declined from years of jet engine noise in the Air Force. We wore earplugs while in the jet, but not on the ramp, and at any one time there were many aircraft with their engines either starting up or already running. The cumulative effect has been an overall hearing loss. Others refer to it as selective hearing, but I beg to differ.
I walk over to Robert and stop a few feet behind
“What is she saying?” I ask, trying to get my number of questions down into at least the single digits.
“She’s alone in the house,” he replies, covering the microphone.
“Where are her parents?” I ask.
“She doesn’t know,” he answers.
“Okay. Tell her we’ll be there within the hour to pick her up,” I say.
Relief flashes through his eyes, and he relays this to her. I can tell he is about to end the conversation and ready to hang up. “Wait,” I say.
“Tell her to gather up some changes of clothes, some warm stuff like coats and sweatshirts, shoes, a sleeping bag if she has one, and whatever toiletries she thinks she needs. Oh, and tell her we’ll call just prior to getting there.”
He relays everything before closing the cell phone and heads toward the back door thinking we are leaving right away to get Michelle.
“Wait one,” I say. “I want to talk about something first.”
A quick look of annoyance and frustration crosses his face as he turns to look at me. Another genetic aspect I guess.
Robert walks back and sits down, leaning over with his elbows on his knees. I sit beside him in a similar fashion and look over at Nic, Bri, and mom, water bottle in my hand, and tell them, “I’m going to get Lynn. Or at least try.”
Through my peripheral, I see Robert raise an eyebrow and look sideways at me. “I’m going with,” he says like there is no other possibility. “Isn’t she in Kuwait though?”
“Yeah, she is. We’ll have to fly over.”
“Dad,” Bri says, the first sounds uttered by her since asking about her mom, “you can’t go without me.”
“Or me,” Nic chimes in.
I realize they don’t know where their mom is, where the rest of their family is, with the exception of my mom, or their friends. I am the only one left for them. I realize and understand that my kids are coming with me.
“Mom?” I ask with the rest of the question left unsaid.
“I think I’m staying here,” she responds, understanding the unasked question and not attempting to talk me out of my decision or the reason that the kids should stay as well. She fully understands this is something I have to do and that I want my kids with me.
“I can’t very well leave you here alone,” I say.
“I am not without my own resources and abilities,” she responds.
“Okay, we’re leaving in the morning and may be gone for up to ten days. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to maintain contact. Robert, let’s go ge
t Michelle.”
Robert rises and heads toward the door. I start to follow him but turn quickly back to mom and the girls on the couch, “You should probably grab blankets and nails while we’re gone. We should think about covering up the windows at the very least. Maybe bring those pallets up from the shed so we can put some form of barricade up on the windows.”
“You two go. We’ll dig some things up around here,” Mom says, giving both Nic and Bri reassuring hugs.
Robert picks up the shotgun and continues toward the door. I pick up the Beretta and follow him.
Outside, on a day where we would normally be gearing up for a hike along the river or on our mountain bikes tearing up and exploring some new trail, I instead tell Robert to put the shotgun in the Jeep and then meet me. He looks at me in askance, but heads off to do it anyway. I walk around to the side of the front porch, really just a small deck, and cut off three sections of garden hose approximately five feet long. Robert is back by the time I finish.
“Go down to the lower shed. There should be two or three metal gas cans in there, the tall ones. Bring those back up here. Oh, and that big, long-necked funnel on the shelf,” I tell him.
As he heads to the shed, I walk over to my place. I grab two TAC-II Gerber knives. These are six-and-a-half-inch double-edged knives with serrations. Robert lugs the two metal five-gallon gas cans and funnel up the path, and we meet by the hoses.
“Are they empty?” I ask, handing him one of the knives.
He lifts first one can and then the other, shaking them. I hear liquid sloshing around in both. Picking one up, I walk to the road as Robert picks up the other and follows. Whatever is in there may be old or have condensation, so I do not trust the contents. Unscrewing the cap, I dump mine on the gravel road. Robert does the same. I do not feel overly guilty, I have the feeling mankind’s carbon footprint is now going to be drastically reduced.
Securing the equipment in the back of the Jeep, we start up and head down the road. “Don’t worry,” I tell him once we get up to speed, “we’ll get her and she’ll be just fine.”
