The Pit (The Bugging Out Series Book 4)

by Noah Mann

  Ken had spent thirty years in the Navy and had retired to Bandon hoping to spend his best years fishing and hunting. That was a year before the blight. Now he was helping to identify the vessel that might very well be bringing us still more hope of both surviving, and thriving.

  “Those are LCACs heading our way,” Ken added, adding more specificity to the identity of the watercraft. “Landing Craft Air Cushion.”

  The first LCAC hit the beach and scooted across the damp sand. It slowed and stopped a dozen yards from the road, its billowing side skirts collapsing as the engines throttled down, sand blasting from beneath, the solid hull settling gently to earth. Upon it we could see vehicles. Trucks. No true uniformity to their color, but a certain beefiness to them that screamed military grade. Their engines rumbled to life, black smoke belching from vertical exhausts, diesel engines spinning up.

  But before any vehicle moved toward the unfolding bow ramp, a figure descended. A familiar face.

  Schiavo.

  I glanced toward Martin where he stood a few yards away and saw a small, true smile build upon his face as she approached.

  “Captain,” Martin said in greeting, offering his hand.

  Schiavo, in a mottled grey camouflage uniform, took his hand in hers and shook it. Then she held on. Or he did. It was only for an instant longer than necessary, but that it happened made me smile.

  Schiavo looked to me, and to Elaine, then let her gaze sweep slowly over the rest of the town’s residents who had come in greeting. Who had come with hope.

  “We have some things for you,” Schiavo said.

  Someone cheered. Then applause built. The clapping rippled through the crowd as trucks began to roll off of the LCACs and onto the sand, forming a line that drove onto the road and convoyed slowly into town.

  “I recall you said you had functioning freezers,” Schiavo said.

  “We do,” Martin confirmed.

  “Good, because we have frozen turkey,” Schiavo said. “And chicken. And beef. Fish. Vegetables. Even some ice cream.”

  The assembled crowd behind me first murmured what they were hearing between the applause. Then they shouted it to each other. Real food, not something out of a pouch or can, had been delivered. The cheer that erupted and rolled toward Schiavo upon that new reality setting in almost drown out the sound of the final trucks rolling off the last LCAC.

  Then we all went silent when we saw what was borne on the backs of each of those vehicles.

  “That’s a cow,” six year old Evelyn Mercer said, correctly identifying the beast contained on one of the trucks.

  But it wasn’t just one cow. It was seven. Plus an equal number of steer. And there were goats. And pigs. And cages of chickens. Ducks. Some other birds and other land animals that I was too quietly giddy to identify.

  “Aerial survey a month ago showed the fields around Bandon were greening up nicely,” Schiavo reported.

  We’d heard an aircraft around that time, I recalled. Flying south to north just inland from the coast, at maybe ten thousand feet altitude. Its presence had startled some, and caused worry in others, but almost as soon as it had arrived, it was gone.

  “They’ll support grazing soon,” the captain continued. “But we brought you some machinery that will process the blighted trees and vegetation into feed that will keep the herd and flocks viable until the fields are fully established.”

  As she finished, the LCACs, empty now, buttoned up and revved their powerplants, rising up on the beach, sand billowing as they turned and rode their cushions of air back onto the water toward the Rushmore.

  “They have another five loads each to bring in for you,” Schiavo said. “And some help. A doctor.”

  Eyes angled toward Doc Allen. His aged eyes welled as his wife hugged him from the side, a warm and thankful smile building as he fixed on Schiavo.

  “Does this mean my social security will start paying again?” he asked with genuine humor.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Schiavo said, focusing on the crowd again. “A small unit will also offload with the supplies. Just six strong. They’ll be staying as a sort of garrison. To help. To protect. Though I doubt they’ll be much need of that.”

  “We’ve managed that pretty good ourselves,” Oren Kelly reminded her from the crowd.

  “No doubt about that,” Schiavo said. “Their commanding officer will only act in consultation with your leadership.”

  Then she looked to Martin. Straight at him. And again she smiled within the officiousness of what she was reporting.

  “I believe you’ll all get along well with her.”

  Martin’s head cocked just a bit with understanding.

  “You...”

  Schiavo nodded.

  “And my guys,” Schiavo said. “Well, guys plus one.”

  Martin soaked in the news. He’d lost so much. Given up so much. All so the town, his town, our town, could survive. If some small measure of happiness could be his with Captain Angela Schiavo putting down some semblance of roots here, that was the least he deserved.

  “The plan is for resupply visits every two to three months,” Schiavo said, then she turned to me and Elaine. “Those seeds you recovered, and the process outlined in the notebook, well...”

  “They replicated it,” Elaine said. “Your people did what the professor did and it worked, didn’t it?”

  Schiavo breathed, relieved to be able to bring us the news directly.

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s now a sustainable way to produce blight resistant seeds and plants. Anywhere we want.”

  For some reason, this news struck a joyous nerve within Elaine. She turned toward me and leaned her face against my shoulder. Tears welled and she smiled.

  “It’s over,” Elaine said. “The blight is over.”

  “Nothing left for it to kill,” Schiavo confirmed. “Anything that grows now is immune.”

  Martin almost couldn’t believe it.

  “Over,” he said, the word spoken mostly with breath, as one might a quiet prayer.

  Schiavo looked past me, to the crowd beyond, searching. For someone. I knew who.

  “Your friend,” she said. “Where is he? And his family?”

  I should have been the one to tell her. To share the tale and the details that only I knew. But it was Elaine that explained what had transpired.

  “A stealth Blackhawk?” Schiavo asked, mildly incredulous.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed.

  “You saw that with your own eyes?” she pressed. “That’s what picked them up?”

  I nodded. She looked away for a moment, thoughts seeming to swarm her suddenly.

  “What is it?” Elaine asked.

  Schiavo looked back to me, to us.

  “Let’s talk after my unit hits shore.”

  Fifty Seven

  We set up tables and chairs in the meeting hall, approximating the look of a conference room. Mostly the tables were so we had a place to set our coffee cups as we settled in to listen to Captain Schiavo.

  “When everything went to pieces, there was a time when no one knew who was in charge,” she said, addressing Martin, Elaine, and me.

  We sat on one side of the table, Schiavo at the end, the entirety of her unit opposite us. Lorenzen, Enderson, Westin, and Hart. And a new face. Quincy. Specialist Sheryl Quincy. To look at her it was hard to imagine that she was a replacement for Acosta. He was bulk and fury in battle. This petite soldier seemed so far from that physicality that it was almost jarring.

  But if Schiavo had brought her, had chosen her, I had to give credence to that, and suppress any chauvinistic impulses I had that were judging the newcomer based upon appearances alone.

  “For a while there were competing governments issuing orders,” Schiavo went on, looking to Elaine and me with purpose. “Your man who had authorization to launch that missile in Wyoming...the okay came from one of the rival governments. Not the real one.”

  I turned to Elaine. We said nothing, but I co
uld sense that she was feeling exactly what I was—gratitude. A thankfulness that we’d convinced Ben, Colonel Ben Michaels, to use the nuke to save our own skins. In doing so we’d preserved the seeds and, maybe, helped save the world. But we’d also inadvertently prevented an American city, Duluth, from being vaporized.

  “Over the last six months everything got folded back into place,” Schiavo said. “The factions coalesced around the president. The one who actually got the job because people voted for him. That’s where my orders come from. From the real commander in chief through his designated military commanders.”

  She paused there. Not nervous, but almost on edge. Maybe even angry to the slightest degree.

  “Eric, what you described, the troops and the bird you saw, that was not authorized by the president,” Schiavo said. “Or anyone in his government.”

  She didn’t say outright what she was conveying. But it was plain enough.

  “There’s still another faction operating,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “One that’s well equipped, according to what you saw. Gear and transport like that isn’t just left around for the taking.”

  “That means entire units have gone over to this faction,” Elaine said.

  Schiavo nodded.

  “We were wondering why the White Signal was still broadcasting,” Schiavo said.

  “This other faction,” Elaine said. “They have the satellite, don’t they?”

  Schiavo nodded, just a hint of grim concern in the admission.

  “I already passed on what you told me through a burst transmission. If there are any orders because of that situation, I’ll let you know. Right away. Fair enough?”

  I nodded. So did Elaine. Martin, though, gave no indication of reply. He’d said not a word since we’d sat down with our coffee to hear the captain out.

  “Martin...”

  I spoke his name to draw his attention. But he did not look to me when he finally spoke. It was to Schiavo that he set his gaze.

  “Captain, you should know,” he began, “that I don’t intend...”

  He hesitated there. Elaine glanced my way, concerned.

  “Martin, what is it?” I asked.

  Now he turned, facing me from where he sat, Elaine between us.

  “No one ever elected me to anything,” he said. “I just fell into this role because of Micah. There’s no reason I should be sitting at this table any more than anyone else in this town. Certainly not more than you.”

  I wasn’t sure where he was going with this stream of spoken consciousness. That he’d been Bandon’s leader, elected or otherwise, was something all had accepted. Because of Micah, or not, he’d nonetheless exhibited a way with the reins of power. Sometimes he had wielded it with force through subordinates, as when we’d first landed in Bandon in search of an enigmatic locale we knew only through equally cryptic radio broadcasts. But he’d also shown a depth of understanding on that very same night. In the hours that followed our arrival when he introduced us to his son. To the savant who was, for all intents and purposes, the Eagle One we’d been searching for.

  Bandon was Martin’s home. But Micah was his life. His reason for being. For surviving. When the boy, his boy, died peacefully in his sleep, I’d sensed that a large part of who Martin Jay was evaporated into the ether. His position as the de facto leader of the four hundred plus people who called Bandon home had been predicated mostly on what the child had provided for the community, and in the short span between Micah’s passing and our departure for Wyoming, Martin’s sense of purpose had seemed to dim. Now, as he spoke to us in the meeting hall where hundreds had once gathered to hear him discuss town business, only a few hung on his words. To him, I thought, it was the few who mattered most.

  “I’m done,” Martin said. “I’m not in charge anymore.”

  “Martin...”

  Elaine was quietly surprised. Maybe shocked to a degree. I suspected any of Bandon’s residents who heard what we just had would react similarly.

  “I never wanted this,” he said. “I’ve been proud to do what I have, and I’ve tried to do what I thought was best, but now...”

  He didn’t finish. His gaze simply shifted toward the one who’d called us all to this meeting.

  Schiavo met his look. Her eyes glistened slightly. Martin smiled and slid his chair back, standing for a moment. Not moving. He cleared his throat, some emotion threatening to overwhelm.

  Then, he left us. Walked out of the meeting house, just Martin Jay, citizen of Bandon, Oregon.

  Elaine stared at the table for a moment before looking up.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  From the end of the table an answer came. A suggestion that was the most logical way forward.

  “Sounds like an election is in order,” Specialist Sheryl Quincy said.

  Schiavo let the flourish of emotion she’d allowed fade, then looked to the newest member of her unit. Quincy immediately feared she’d stepped out of line by expressing a course of action before her commander could weigh in.

  “My thoughts exactly, Specialist,” Schiavo said.

  Fifty Eight

  An odd normalcy began to settle over the town of Bandon following the Rushmore’s arrival and departure.

  For Christmas we had ham. Thawed and smoked by an eager group of men from the street bordering the park. Those who wanted to were invited to a community dinner in the meeting hall. Those who desired a more traditional feast with those closest to them came and picked up plentiful portions, along with the vegetable and potato side dishes, and returned to their homes to celebrate in a more intimate fashion.

  More came together to ring in the New Year. Someone had found an old supply of fireworks and we rang in the stroke of midnight watching rockets burst over the Pacific, drizzling blue and red and green sparkles upon the black water.

  One of the town’s children, Lexi Overstreet, a girl of eight, proclaimed loudly over the staccato noise of the celebration that this was the best New Years ever!

  For some reason that appraisal buoyed me. It was simple and joyous and unsullied by what she, and everyone, had been through over the past months and years.

  The fields beyond town had been fenced to contain the cows, and cattle, and sheep, and myriad of other livestock the Rushmore had delivered. Residents with ranching experience stepped up to the plate and tended to the herds. Chickens, which had numbered in the low hundreds when brought ashore, had more than doubled in number. Eggs were plentiful, and, when the hen population was stabilized, fresh fowl would be available to all on an ongoing basis.

  An election had been held, not long after Martin announced, to us first and to the entire town the next day, that he was ceding any authority that had been granted him. He’d simply said that he wanted to attempt having some sort of normal life. There were worries that he could not be replaced. But, in the end, when the town coalesced around a single candidate, unanimity replaced any concern.

  Everett Allen had been chosen for the position of Bandon’s new Mayor. Doc Allen. He’d accepted the responsibility, joking that he needed something to do now that there was a Navy doctor to handle the majority of the town’s medical needs. His wife, he’d also explained, couldn’t stand him under foot all the time at home, so keeping busy with the business of Bandon was his only way to keep from scuttling a fifty year marriage.

  The person most happy, though, about Doc Allen taking the municipal reins was Martin Jay.

  I’d feared that in the absence of some structure to his existence he would be forced to face the loss he’d suffered without distraction. Without the buffer of responsibility to focus his thoughts and actions elsewhere.

  That did not happen.

  What I’d first noticed hints of in Skagway, some nascent connection between Martin and Captain Schiavo, had developed even further on the voyage back home aboard the Northwest Majesty. Once he’d distanced himself from the day to day leadership of the town, I began to see them together more and more.
He always maintained a respectful distance from her when she was on duty, but in those times when she switched from urban camo to blue jeans and a blouse, they seemed to enjoy each other’s company more and more. It seemed clear to me, and to Elaine, to everyone who spent any time around them, in fact, that a relationship was blossoming.

  That was confirmed to me on a rainy day in January when Martin knocked on my door. On our door.

  “Martin,” Elaine said, opening the door to find our friend standing in the shelter of our porch.

  Our porch...

  Elaine had moved in with me. In the new world, even one that seemed to be creeping toward a normalcy that bore small resemblances to the old world, moving in required little more than shifting several duffels of clothing and personal items, along with a few favored pieces of furniture, from her house to mine. At first it had felt odd, sharing this space, my space, with another. And it still did, though the reasoning behind it had changed.

  Neil and Grace had sealed their union. They’d been married, in a ceremony before those that cared for them. Those that knew them. Even with my friend’s absence weighing heavy still, and an anger toward him that I could not yet process away, the path he had chosen had always seemed the right one. The proper one.

  Elaine, though, was hesitant. When I’d broached the subject of marriage, a construct that, even in this most tumultuous time, was based upon ideals I held dear, she’d seemed only mildly tolerant of the possibility someday.

  I loved her. And I knew she loved me. But I also knew I could not force the issue with her. She’d suffered loss in the unknowns surrounding her brother’s fate. And, as odd as it seemed, what my friend had warned me about—not putting myself in a position to witness something terrible happening to Elaine—might be at least part of what was influencing her reluctance to make our relationship permanent in a traditional sense.

  So when Martin came to our house dripping from the downpour, I had no idea that the request he was about to make would change my life. And Elaine’s.

  “I’m going to ask Angela to marry me,” Martin said as he sat in the living room with Elaine and me.