Then again, no man left behind. Oorah!
“Coordinates for the crash are about twenty clicks west of here.”
“Twelve and a half miles. Damn, we got in close,” Martin told me, grinning.
“Yeah, that’s what pisses me off. The chopper went down close to a named bump in the road. You’d think SAR personnel would have spent more time.”
“I hear that there’s some kind of deal going on with the local warlord. They claim they don’t have James or his men.”
“They’re probably the bastards who shot down the chopper. I don’t believe them,” I told him, my words cold.
“For what it’s worth, it’s a rumor, but I don’t believe it either.”
“Think we will run into them?” I asked.
“I almost hope so,” Martin said, picking up his SAW.
“I still can’t believe you want to hump that thing in,” I told him, patting my M4.
“Somebody’s got to bring the firepower.”
I nodded, and we set off.
The kilometers melted as the day wore on. Normally I’d be operating from dusk to dawn so I didn’t overheat or run out of water, but time was of the essence. James had been with me and Mike in basic, and even though he’d turned into a flyboy, he was one of ours. Mike’s team had been tasked somewhere else, but I’d catch up to him soon. He would have been here on this mission with me. Hell, if he’d known, he’d probably be doing the same thing I was: beg, borrow, steal. We were brothers three.
Towards the evening, standing on a high point, Martin pointed out the charred remains of the chopper. After the electronics had been stripped, the extraction team had blown up what was left, to keep it from being useful to the enemy. I understood that, but out here, everything was precious. I could already tell that some folks had been around, just by looking through the binoculars. Drag marks of what was probably chunks of metal and pieces of the chopper dotted the landscape.
“Shit,” Martin said. “This is already infested with people. Should we set up a hide and follow them back to wherever they’re taking this shit?”
“You think they’re the local warlord’s people?”
“Well yeah,” Martin said.
“How about we follow the smoke?” I asked, pointing towards a fading stream of smoke.
“Oh, good eyes,” he said, lowering his own binos.
“How far do you think?” I asked him.
He looked again and then sat down.
“Sock change?” I asked.
“Sock change,” he agreed. “And I’m guessing about four clicks at the most.”
Taking care of your feet was one of the most important things a soldier could do for personal hygiene. Blisters developed fast. Foot fungus developed quickly in leather boots. Any small injury could become infected or reduce your running speed or balance as you were carrying a brother back out across your back. You took care of your damned feet.
“We should be able to reach it by midnight,” I told him, standing and taking a pull from my camelback.
I would have to fill it soon. I’d gone through a lot of water, and I still had about a gallon left. I knew by topo maps that there was a stream somewhere ahead, and I’d filter and refill there.
“Want to take another rest, or just do it?”
“Like the fucking commercials,” I said.
Martin nodded, adjusted the strap on his SAW, and we headed out. The night fell almost all at once. It went from dusk to full dark in a blink, and without the illumination of electric lights, starlight and moonlight were all we had. I hadn’t brought NVGs with us; I’d figured those would have us getting found out quicker than just taking my weekend off, buying a truck, and heading out to the desert.
Now I was kicking myself. Still, we’d gotten close enough that we could make out a flicker of light when we’d walked across a tall hillside. We were close.
“How many you see?” Martin asked me a few minutes later.
We’d stopped, and I was trying to glass the area. I could make out the fire, and four forms laying out around it. One looked hideously wounded, a leg missing, an arm gone. Outside of the firelight, I couldn’t see anything. What was more telling was the fact that they were wearing the uniforms of the U.S. of A.
“I make it four. Our missing four,” I said, smiling as I saw a figure get up and move towards the fire, poking at it with something.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s take it slow, in case they’re jumpy. Damn, I hope the busted up one isn’t James.”
“I can’t make that out from here,” I told him.
“Me neither. Ten-four on the going slow,” he said.
We made our way down the hill or mountain or whatever, and approached the camp slowly. I’d been careful to not stare into the fire on our approach so I didn’t ruin my night vision, and as far as I could tell, we were alone.
“Something’s wrong,” Martin whispered.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Only one figure is moving. I don’t see the others breathing.”
My heart fell at hearing that. I looked, ruining my night vision, and waited for the telltale signs of a chest rising and falling. The one with the missing limbs, no movement. He was closest to the fire, next to someone who was kneeling down in front of the fire, all but obscuring him from my view. The next two were just as motionless, though they were cloaked in the dancing shadows of being near the fire. It was hard to tell.
“I don’t know,” I told Martin. “I hope to hell they’re ok. Got the GPS fix in?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, looking at his watch and then writing the numbers on a small notepad.
His wife had given him a GPS-enabled watch. She could log in anywhere there was internet and see where he was at. I thought it was a great way for her to see if he was getting in any trouble with the ladies, but he’d assured me that it wasn’t anything like that. She just liked to follow his journey and would worry if his GPS coordinates didn’t move when he was off base. I knew it was breaking all kinds of regulations, but it also came in handy, for times like now when I didn’t want to lug another piece of equipment.
“Let’s go see who’s left,” I said with a heavy heart.
The figure rose, pulling a sidearm as we approached. I’d kicked a loose rock that skittered across the hard pack.
“Easy,” I said, my gun held at the low ready position.
“Mike?” the figure asked and stepped closer to the fire, his voice a little strange.
Shadows kept most of his face in the dark, but I could make out enough to know it was him. He wiped one arm across his mouth. Must have interrupted his dinner. It was James. I felt a ton of relief flood over me.
“Martin’s with me,” I said, letting him come out of the shadows.
“Thank God. I had to hide out. Roving patrols are all through here in the early parts of the day. I missed the SAR folks because the insurgents were crawling over the area.”
That made sense.
“Good deal. Are the others…?” I let the words go unsaid.
He nodded.
“We can call in the location to pick up the bodies, our truck is—”
“We might as well call it in,” I interrupted. “The truck is down, and I don’t want to hump it out of here if I don’t have to.”
“Sure thing,” James said. “Do either of you have water? I’m all set for food, but I ran out earlier.”
“Yeah sure,” I said, watching as Martin lifted the radio to his lips. “Here you go.”
I handed it to him, and with horror, realized what he’d been snacking on. A leg had been hung over one side of the fire with a stick. The leg that was missing from the dead marine… I looked up and saw James grinning at me. His teeth were filed to points—
“Dick, wake up,” Mel said, shoving my shoulder harder.
I rolled over and dry-heaved. My eyes were burning as if I had grit rubbed into them, or like when I had to sit in the CS tear gas training room again. When
I finally burped, my stomach settled, and I spit out the foul taste in my mouth.
“Sorry,” I told her.
“Nightmare?” Jamie asked, sitting on the mat next to me and rubbing my back.
“One of the worst,” I told them.
Courtney and Luis were looking at me, but they were nodding. No pity in their eyes, no concern. Just understanding.
“Was it about the creeps?” Jamie asked.
“It was… It’s slipping away from me. It was part memory, part nightmare.”
“You started getting loud. I had to wake you up,” Mel told me. “Sorry for shoving you so hard.”
“It’s ok, kid. I needed it. Thanks.”
“Courtney found some water nearby. It’s a wet spot in the middle of the corn. Looks like a spring or something.”
“How the hell did you find that?” I asked her.
“Luis needed to stretch, and I stood in the bed of the truck to keep an eye on him and see if… you know…” She cut her eyes to Mel. “Make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.”
“That still isn’t funny,” Mel said, almost pouting.
“Malaki,” Jamie whispered in a gravelly voice.
“Mom, please,” she pleaded and I grinned.
Both of them were rubbing their eyes as well and had probably fallen asleep. I knew Jamie was half out of it when I was out cold.
“Ok, no more Children of the Corn digs,” she promised.
“Thanks,” Mel said sulkily. “I really want more of that cornbread.”
“Me too, kiddo. Me too. I just had the two boxes of Jiffy, though.”
“That sucks,” she said, standing and stretching. “I hope dad has a ton of it left.”
“I hope so too. Maybe everyone can stay for a meal or ten and heal up before their next journey,” Jamie told her daughter.
“We’ll have to see when we get there,” Courtney said, yawning.
“You good to keep watch?” Luis asked me.
“Yeah, thanks for taking first watch guys.”
“No problem. You might not have a hole in your side still, but you’re healing up. It’s going to sap you quicker than the kid here.”
“Oh yeah? Then what’s her excuse?” I asked.
“Girls like their sleep,” Courtney said, pulling on Luis’s arm. “And some girls aren’t afraid of going back in the rows of corn. Come on Lu,” she said slyly.
I chuckled, and they vacated the small clearing where we had been sitting. On the edge of the row, I saw half a dozen ears of corn that’d been eaten and discarded, probably by them. Before we left, I wanted to pick more. Just in case. Besides, fresh produce was at a premium, and I didn’t know how much of it I’d be eating after today.
“What’s the plan now?” Jamie said, walking over as I dug into my pack in the bed of the truck.
“I want to see where we are,” I told her, pulling the atlas out and flipping it open to Iowa’s page.
“I don’t know exactly,” Jamie told me. “But we passed Ottumwa a little before the creeps attacked us.”
“Creeps, huh? You believe in that stuff?” I asked her.
“Well, you’ve said yourself that you’ve run across cannibalism before. They certainly seemed to fit the mold.”
I shivered despite the warm temperatures.
“Yeah, it’s the one thing that always creeps me out,” I admitted.
“So creeps it is,” Mel said, joining us as I was laying the atlas across the roof of the truck.
“So we’re here roughly?” I asked Jamie, pointing.
“More like here,” she said, moving my finger.
Her touch sent a jolt through me, but I tried not to let it show.
“Ok, so let’s see,” I said, ignoring my increased heart rate. “So it looks like we’re about two hundred and fifty miles off. Another day or two of travel to Lincoln.”
“We’re just outside of the city actually,” Mel said. “In the ass crack middle of nowhere.”
“Language,” Jamie said sharply, and Mel quickly apologized.
“The bugout location is near Ulysses, west of Lincoln. It’s between Seward and David City if you can find those on the map.”
I looked hard and didn’t see it.
“What road?” I asked her.
“Near where 66 turns into 12,” Jamie told me.
She was standing too close, and I shuffled my feet a little bit before folding up the atlas. I made a move to put the atlas back in my bag as Mel stepped in the way.
“Do you think we can try the radio again?” she asked me.
“Well…” I didn’t mind, but there was corn everywhere, and I had no idea if the six-foot stalks were tall enough.
Maybe if I strung it out in a far line?
“Let’s try,” I told her, reaching in and popping the hood release.
Raising the hood, I saw the jury-rigged battery had survived the ride, but I wasn’t for sure if my ad hoc charging system actually worked. I disconnected everything from the main battery and touched the two ends with exposed wires together, making a large spark jump. It startled Mel, who almost fell over backwards. I grinned and pulled the tape off, and then pulled the battery off.
“I was just checking to see if it worked,” I told her, trying to explain.
“Startled me,” she said.
Courtney’s soft laugh came out of the corn somewhere, and we all turned to look, not really wanting to see.
“They’re in love,” Jamie said.
“I know. I’m glad to see Courtney heal so well, considering what she went through.”
“Yeah,” Mel said. “I think talking with Danielle really helped her. They were close for a while.”
I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn’t forgotten my kids back in Chicago, but surviving had been first and foremost on my mind. Plus, things had been a little busy.
“I wonder if her and Jeremy are hitched yet,” I said out of the side of my mouth as I put the battery down on the bed of the truck and dug into my pack for the radio.
Finding it, I hooked up the wires to the terminals and went fishing for the antenna wire.
“Probably making babies of their own,” Mel said, poking her mom in the side.
Her mom let out a startled squeak and turned to face her daughter, one fingernail pointing at her with a frown on her face.
“Don’t,” Jamie told her, but Mel was sticking her tongue out.
I found the antenna wire and threw it out, much of it lying across the top of the corn stalks, and plugged it in. Firing it up, we caught a transmission immediately, one that chilled me to the bone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I come here tonight, as your president and as a human being, to talk to the citizens of our great nation.
“I’d like to first and foremost,” he paused for a moment, “talk about the attack. There have been several points of misinformation that have been circulating. We were not attacked by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria, despite what others have reported. They do not have the information that I do. It is true the nuclear talks were going bad, but it wasn’t a single country that did this to us.
“Elements of ISIS and North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon over the United States of America in the guise of a satellite launch using a mobile sea platform. The resulting EMP has destroyed key critical infrastructure throughout most of the continental United States, sparing regions of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Our Canadian friends have suffered as well in regions of Ontario and Quebec.
“The regions of Mexico that have been touched by the EMP have already been experiencing destabilization from cartel violence, but they have not seen the losses that we Americans have. It’s brutal, it’s horrible, and the reason you are not seeing the United States Military take more action within the country is because we are now fighting a war on two fronts.
“First, our war with North Korea has begun once again, as the Korean Armistice Agreement has been nullified. They’ve launched attacks against Washington DC,
Maryland, and other parts of the Eastern Seaboard. Even now, their subs try to sneak through our defensive networks. As we recall our military from around the globe to help in the naval battles, our actual country is being attacked from within.
“There were elements in several cities, Dearborn and Ann Arbor, Michigan for example, where there were radical religious factions that acted with the knowledge of the coming attack and destabilized the region. Those citizens and immigrants are being dealt with by a large force that has come down from Camp Grayling, and from all over the Midwest. Acts of violence, terrorism, and hate crimes are running rampant throughout the country. The racial violence in the states is staggering, and if there was ever a time for America to pull together, now is the time. Remember, neither race nor religion is a good enough reason to take up arms against your fellow humans.
“There are, of course, more militant factions within the country, those who are born with radical conservative views who have openly refused orders and even attacked government agents and their leadership.
“These factions will be stamped out, and their leadership brought to justice. We will not tolerate former members of our armed services to openly mock and attack the government in their own homes and cities.” He paused for a moment before going on.
“As some of you may have already realized or heard, each governor of the state has had the National Guard activated. All current and former service members are required to report for duty or evaluation, if you are between the ages of eighteen through sixty-five, at the nearest National Guard outpost. Now, I have heard about units going rogue and how things were settled, as the intelligence comes in to me slowly… but it will not be tolerated. Military members will report for duty, or be prosecuted per executive order. Those men and women who betrayed their oaths… you will be dealt with as well.
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 33
