Otherwise, the rest was easy. Everyone made a contribution in whatever way they could. Contact with anyone outside the group was forbidden except for missions such as this one, which only a select few engaged in. And then there was the primary directive: Do Not Be Seen.
They had camps and enclaves underground, in caves, and in canopied forests. Victor assured them that life wasn’t spent entirely in artificial light in dark places. They were slowly building cabins under tree canopies, and they swam in lakes, rode sleds in the snow, played in the forest, and so on, but at all times, they were vigilant. During outdoor activities, there were always a few people assigned to guard duty. If they gave a signal, everyone instantly obeyed no matter what.
“If you’re in the middle of takin’ a piss in the sun and you hear a particular bird call, you take cover, even if that means pissing all over the place while you run.”
Deron and Michelle laughed. Some of the men smiled. One said, “It’s happened.”
Victor continued. “It’s funny, but it’s also dead serious. The penalty for disobedience that could result in the discovery of any residential group is dire.”
“Is that penalty the same one Jacey will have if she was working for the government?” Deron asked.
“It is,” Victor replied. “We don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s for the survival of every one of us – you included, if you agree to the rules.”
Charlie looked at Deron and Michelle. They nodded. He turned back to Victor.
“We’re in. Thank you for having us.”
“Welcome to the underground, Charlie, Deron, and Michelle. We’re glad to have you among us.”
The men got up, came over to them, introduced themselves and shook their hands. As they did so, each of them removed their hoods so their faces could be seen more clearly. One of the men turned out to be a woman. Michelle smiled when she saw her long blonde hair in a ponytail when the hood came off.
Fifty-four
They all rode out of the river tunnel on two rafts back into the moonlight. Some of the men connected the rafts to ropes that were part of a pulley system so they could be pulled back to the other end of the tunnel.
“From here we walk,” Victor said.
“About how far?” Charlie asked.
“It’s about a mile back to the road, then we’ll cross it, go over the guard rail and rappel down to a tunnel that goes in about a half mile before it opens up into a cavern.”
“Like the one you questioned us in?” Deron asked.
Victor and several of the other men laughed.
“This one’s more like Grand Central Station.”
Deron and Michelle had no idea what that meant. Charlie couldn’t believe it was true, but he knew they had no reason to lie, and they’d definitely been living somewhere unnoticed all these years.
The walk through the mountain forest went slowly and it was still dark when they reached the highway. Victor looked both ways through binoculars, then held up one hand signaling for the others to wait. He crossed the highway quickly by himself first, then on the other side standing in front of the guardrail he pulled his binoculars out again to scan from his new vantage point. He gave the All Clear signal for the others to join him then part of his head flew off and he toppled backwards over the guardrail and down a few hundred feet into a ravine.
Someone yelled, “Down!” and most of them hit the ground, rolled and came up with their pistols drawn. Charlie, Deron and Michelle ran back to the woods they’d just emerged from. The team on the ground had no targets and didn’t know where the shot that killed Victor had come from.
They started to sniper crawl backwards toward cover when one of them men cried out. “I’m hit!” Several of the men saw the suppressed muzzle flash and began shooting into the trees to the west. Two men grabbed the man who was hit and carried him to the woods where Charlie was standing in the open.
“Where’s your gun?” Charlie asked.
“In the street,” the wounded man replied.
Charlie ran for the street. Deron yelled for him to come back. Charlie ran behind the men who were now backing into the cover of trees, still firing to the west as they did so. He dropped when he reached the asphalt and shots were fired at him. He rolled a few times before coming to a stop on his side with a pistol in his hand and one leg sticking out at an odd angle.
Deron screamed, “Nooo!” and a hand clamped over his mouth.
“You’re giving us away, kid!” a man hissed at him from behind, then pulled him deeper into the woods, following the rest of the retreating team.
McMannis had been grazed by a shot that scraped the top of his head. Blood was steadily rolling into his eyes and down his face.
“Goddamn this stings like a motherfucker.”
“You should try this,” Adams said, holding one hand over a wound high on his chest near his shoulder.
“At least we got the old fucker. And I bet a few of them freezoners are hurtin’ too.”
“I’ve always heard what badasses they’re supposed to be, but they all just turned rabbit against two little old cops.”
“Let’s roll that bastard out of the street. If someone runs him over, we might have trouble proving that the roadkill was our fugitive. Then let’s get us a fucking ambulance so we can go home and be heroes, all blood-covered and everything.”
“Fuck you, I’m really wounded. Look at this,” Adams said as he started unbuttoning his shirt to get a better look at his wound. McMannis stopped to look and that was the moment Charlie had been waiting for. Neither man was looking at him as he fired six shots in three seconds. Two to each man’s chest, and one to their heads.
Charlie got up, ran over to them and grabbed their guns, ammo, and communicators then ran toward the woods to catch up with the others.
Epilogue
Fourteen months later, Michelle had a baby. There were no drugs or medicines, but the midwife knew methods that made birthing easier than it typically was in hospitals. She named her baby girl Novata Young and couldn’t wait to dress her in clothes that she had learned to make for her.
Charlie worked at various jobs in multiple camps in California and Nevada. He wasn’t present for the birth of Novata as he was currently on an assignment near Lake Tahoe and wasn’t expected back for months. His skills in hand-to-hand combat and wilderness survival were in high demand and he hadn’t felt so productive or valued in a long time.
Kathleen suspected that Deron, Charlie and Michelle were together, but she couldn’t imagine how such a thing was possible. When she first saw the news reports of Charlie being wanted for murder, she didn’t believe it. Charlie was bad, but not that kind of bad. It made no sense. Why would Charlie kill someone at Michelle’s house?
Eric stopped calling her, saying it was a conflict of interest and new agents came to her house weekly, asking if she’d seen or heard from Deron. They believed her when she said she hadn’t, and stopped coming after a few months. She missed her son, but resigned herself to the fact that he was like her father, and was probably happy with him, wherever they were.
Stanley and Barbara Kolnick returned from France immediately upon being informed of their daughter’s disappearance. However, as far as their friends and associates could tell, they were far more obsessed with the fact that a man was killed inside their home than with their missing daughter. They were constantly expressing their fear that someone must’ve been targeting them and said they feared for their safety. Such fears did not however put a damper on their social schedule. They rarely mentioned Michelle, to each other, or anyone else.
Jacey’s GPS tracker was removed and embedded in a small chunk of ground venison which was fed to a crow which was then shot at with a BB gun sending it off in panicked flight.
When the police captain found out from E.D. what Adams had done, he called the surveillance officer who was monitoring Jacey’s whereabouts and asked for an update.
“She was last seen flying over the San Bernardi
no National Forest, possibly heading toward San Diego, sir.”
After an extensive interview with Jacey, she was told she was free to go. When she left the men who had held her, she began making her way further east, not knowing where she was going. Another team three miles away encountered her and granted her admission to the community, convinced that she was not working for the government. She later became a hair stylist, eventually learning how to dye hair naturally. She also formed a close friendship with Deron and Michelle who forgave her for her coerced betrayal.
Emile came through the mountains two years later driving a small moving van. He had parked it as deep into the woods as he could, then made his way back to the road and walked for a day before he was taken at night. When he awoke in the cave by the river and gained Alex’s trust and thus admission to the free zone, he told them where his truck was, and what was in it. He’d been hoarding supplies for years. Among them were alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, chocolate bars, firearms with thousands of rounds of homemade ammo for each type, batteries, kerosene, stick matches, and the list went on.
Alex wondered if it was a trap, but he felt that Emile was telling the truth. He gave himself the job of scouting the area and looking inside the back of the truck. He wouldn’t delegate the risk to anyone else. When he returned the following day, he instructed as many men as he could to retrieve the supplies. It was like Christmas for the free zone.
Deron became a teacher, responsible for teaching children how to read and write. The free zone community had very few traditional books, but their library was growing slowly with homemade books with ink and parchment they had learned to make. The production of materials was slow, and each time Deron obtained more, he wrote in a journal that he planned to add to the group’s library one day. He also wrote stories based on books he had read, with as much detail as he could recall.
He was in love with the rustic life he lived with his beautiful wife Michelle, and now he was thrilled that he had a family of his own. He missed his mother at times, but he missed Charlie even more and couldn’t wait for him to come back and meet his great-granddaughter.
As for his old life in Westminster, he only missed the abundance of books he’d had at his disposal, and he missed Feenix. A couple who had recently joined the community had come with a pregnant Shetland Sheepdog and had promised Deron and Michelle one of the puppies in exchange for a small book and some clothing which the two of them would make by hand.
Deron and Michelle didn’t know how well a dog would do living in underground caverns and caves with occasional time in the woods, but they agreed it would be the perfect addition to their new family.
Charlie named the puppy Liberty.
The End
Also by Edward M Wolfe
In The End
Reaching Kendra
To purchase these titles, please visit the author’s Amazon page at: http://amazon.com/author/edwolfe
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About the author
Edward M Wolfe was a low-paid field reporter for one of the first independent news websites in the late 90's, and also as a city beat reporter on the Oregon coast.
He now enjoys poverty as an author living in Tulsa with two human children and two canine children. All of them write stories, play musical instruments, and compose music. Except for the dogs.
2043 A.D. Page 25
