Escaping Vegas

by Dennis Elder

  “Looks like our boys are getting ready to move again,” said Jacob.

  “Let me see,” said Jake, and Jacob gave the rifle back to his mentor.

  Jake looked through the scope. Both convicts were up now getting their backpacks on. Twenty seconds later they started riding North again.

  Jacob rolled over on his back and put his hand behind his head.

  “How long you think it will take those two to reach the next ridge?” asked Jake, looking for any opportunity to test Jacob’s powers of observation.

  Jake thought for moment before replying. He knew Jake was testing him.

  “Between 30 and 40 minutes,” replied Jacob.

  “Good estimate,” responded Jake.

  The seasoned Special Forces veteran continued watching Ralphy and Squeaky pedal up the long stretch of road.

  “Your turn to nap,” said Jake, as he adjusted the focus on the scope. “I’ll wake you when they approach the ridge.”

  Both men had been up late the night before and had very little sleep. But Jacob was so excited he didn’t want to go to sleep. He loved to listen to Jake’s stories and tracking these two guys was the most rewarding thing he’d done since they left La Habra. But the young man obeyed and put this head back on the warm sand and closed his eyes. He was sound asleep in less than a minute.

  Chapter 89: The Universityites

  All over America there were small groups of people who had lived through the Gamma ray storm and were trying to find ways to survive. The profile was generally the same. Most people started out by themselves. The rest of their family had died during the Solar flare. And while there was no shortage of theories, only a handful of people really knew what had happened. For every normal survivor there were about three hundred HBs, roaming lethargically in packs, and suddenly dangerous whenever they sensed available food. In Salt Lake City the surviving demographics were a little different. There, a large number of young adults had survived - young men and women in their early twenties.

  Salt Lake City is home to the University of Utah, tucked up against the North East corner of the valley, in the foothills of the nearby Wasatch Mountains. It had always been a commuter school with a large number of its students living with their Salt Lake City parents. Nearly every home in Utah has a basement, and most families finish their basements with at lEast one bedroom and bathroom. Traditionally the oldest sibling gets their choice of the basement bedroom. And they usually take it because it offers highly sought after privacy from the rest of the family. A lot of those young men and women were sound asleep in their basement bedrooms when the gamma radiation struck the earth’s surface. So quite naturally the combination of basement bedrooms and sleeping students contributed to the abnormally large number of surviving young adults around in Salt Lake City. Over four hundred of these young people survived the radiation in whole. Initially there were several groups of survivors spread all over the valley. The largest concentration now made the University of Utah their base camp.

  Slowly the Utah survivors had found each other. Friendships were formed. People soon realized they were better off in groups. Especially when a large number of HBs came calling. Everyone was armed now. They had learned about the walking people the hard way. Those still alive knew it was best to avoid the walking people, and when necessary, shoot them in the head. The Universityites, as they called themselves, had drawn together in hopes of establishing some kind of safe zone in and around the University grounds. At first they occupied a few of the homes closest to the University itself. When they needed food, they would venture down toward the closest grocery stores. But after a few days some of the people who went looking for food suddenly stopped coming back. Armed scouting parties were sent to look for them but no one ever found a thing. One afternoon a young boy of 12 years came running back to the group screaming about how a gang of men had killed the men he was with and took the women away. He said the gang men had shot at him but missed. From a distance the young boy watched the gang men beat and tie up the women before dragging them off. They left the dead men in the streets. The walking people came soon after they gang men left. The young boy didn’t know what else to do so he ran back toward the University as fast as he could.

  The next day a group of 20 young Universityite men decided to confront the gang of men. They were angry and swore they would kill the gang men and bring back the surviving women. They were well armed and determined. After about an hour the Universities who stayed back in their homes began hearing gunfire down in the valley. It lasted for over 30 minutes. None of the young and determined young men were ever seen again.

  The next day the people living in the homes close to the university left and moved back up in into the larger University buildings. They were afraid and thought the larger stone buildings would provide additional protection.

  Unfortunately, the university’s stone exteriors did little to protect them. A few days later several gang men were seen roaming through the university grounds. Whenever they saw a man or boy they immediately shot at them. Whenever they found a woman or little girl they would kidnap them and drag them away. This had been going on for two weeks now. Two days ago, a few bold Universityites set traps for the gang men and killed several of them. But the next day the gang men came back – this time with over a hundred guns. Luckily the Universityites saw the gang men coming and sounded the alarm. Most everyone was able to hide in the deep university basements and connecting underground passages. A few unlucky people were captured. The women were tied up as usual and led off. The two men they captured were tied to a pole in the middle of the university plaza. They were tortured for over an hour. Most of the surviving Universityites could hear the young men’s screams. Finally, the torturing stopped. Then a man stood up on a bench and spoke into a bullhorn.

  “You people, you people who killed several of my men!” shouted the man.

  He was Hispanic, wore a T-shirt, a light jacket and a red bandana on his head. All the other gang men with him wore red bandanas on their heads too.

  “These two men here,” said the Hispanic man as he gestured toward their tied up and bleeding bodies. “These two are getting what I’m planning for all of you, for what you did to my men!” shouted the man with the bullhorn again.

  The Hispanic man waited for a moment to let his words sink in.

  “But I also believe in mercy. So, I will give you a chance,” said the Hispanic man. “I will let each of your men live… who are 17 years and older, if…” He paused again for affect.

  “If you turn over all your women, and your boys who are 16 or younger to us,” he continued. “You send them all down the main street there down to our camps by tomorrow night. You do that and I’ll forgive your crimes and I’ll let the rest of you live.”

  A few of the other gang men around the Hispanic man laughed. They knew they would kill all the men sooner or later. But maybe their leader’s idea would save them some work.

  “You hear me?” shouted the Hispanic man again. “By tomorrow night!” he yelled. “Or we’ll do to all of you what we did here to your amigos.”

  The Hispanic man jumped down off the bench and turned off the bullhorn. A huge man stepped forward and gestured toward the two bleeding hostages tied to the poles.

  “Want me to waist um both,” the big man asked?

  The smaller Hispanic man thought for a minute before responding. “Leave one alive to send a message, kill the other,” he said as he turned and walked away from the university plaza circle.

  The large armed gang all followed the Hispanic man as he walked away. Only the larger man stayed behind.

  From deep within the administration’s basement a forty five year old pharmacist sat in the dark with a group of about 20 people huddled around him. They had all heard the muffled threats from the Hispanic man’s bullhorn. And they all jumped suddenly when a single shot rang out from the student plaza.

  The larger man standing on the student plaza was Hector Munoz, one of the 200
escaped convicts who now controlled the Salt Lake City streets below. He holstered his 45 automatic pistol and turned to follow the others from his gang.

  The Hispanic man walking at the front of the accompanying gang was none other than Victor Sanchez, the gang’s leader. He smiled slightly as he walked, listening to the echoes of the pistol shot reverberating in and around the walls of the university buildings.

  Chapter 90: What to do?

  It was after one o’clock on the morning when the meeting finally came to order. About 300 people were jammed into one of the University of Utah’s largest lecture halls. All the seats were taken plus fifty or so people stood at the back of the hall. About half were men and the other half women. A few children were spread around the room. Several people were on watch, peaking out of ground level windows, ready to sound the alarm if any of the gang men decided to come back early and make good on their threats. The floor of the lecture hall sloped steeply downward. There were a few candles spread around the room. A small Coleman lantern sputtered on the lectern and gave off a weird yellow glow. Five people sat in chairs next to the lecture. The pharmacist stood at the lectern and raised his hands to bring the meeting to order.

  “My friends, we’re going to have to speak quietly tonight,” said the Pharmacist. “Just in case any of the gang men are snooping around.”

  “Yea,” said a man half way up the row. “What if they come back?”

  That brought out immediate talking from the group. Nearly everyone said a little something and the Pharmacist immediately raised his hands to quiet the crowd down.

  “Keep it down,” said the Pharmacist. “That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re going to talk about. Now, nobody is going to do any more talking unless I recognize them and call on them to speak. That’s the rules.”

  Hands shot up everywhere in the room. The Pharmacist recognized a woman he knew to be fairly levelheaded. Her name was Selma. She was in her late thirties and had been a nursing student. The last thing he wanted was a crazy question or comment to start the discussion. He pointed to her and she slowly rose to her feet.

  “This afternoon, when those gang men came up and took the women, I was pretty close and saw everything they did,” began Selma. She tried to be brave, but tears soon filled her eyes. She wiped them against her shirtsleeve.

  “They cut those men and laughed about it. I could hear them,” she continued. “They pealed back the skin of those two men. What kind of person could do that and laugh.”

  A big man next to her shot to his feet and shouted, “Right and what are we gonna do about it?” The floor erupted in chatter again. The Pharmacist raised his hand again and brought the meeting back under control.

  “Go ahead and finish, Selma,” said the Pharmacist.

  “Thankfully, I don’t think we have the same kind of men with us here,” began Selma again. “I mean, I’m grateful we have decent hard-working men with us. We’re lucky.”

  There were lots of nods in the group, but it remained quiet.

  “What I mean to say,” she continued. “Is that even with all our guns, even with all our men and women, I don’t think we can stand up to those kinds of hardened brutes. I think our best chance is to run or hide.”

  That wasn’t exactly what the Pharmacist hoped to hear, and the crowd immediately began twenty different and muffled arguments around the room.

  The Pharmacist raised his hands again and the crowd settled down. Meeting rules demanded that the group had to settle down whenever the leader raised both hands into the air. It was a good rule and it usually worked.

  By now Selma had sat back down. A large man who was sitting in one of the five chairs had his hand raised. The man’s name was Charlie. He was older and had become one of the group’s five resident leaders. The Pharmacist recognized Charlie’s hand and pointed at him. Charlie stood up.

  “My father taught me to hunt when I was small. I killed my first deer when I was only 10. Never served in the army. Don’t know what it’s like to be in combat. Oh, I’m sure I could sight in one of these killers on my scoped Winchester. But I’m not so sure I could pull the trigger.”

  Charlie sat down. His words had a chilling effect. No one spoke for a few seconds. Finally, another hand went up, from someone in the back.

  The Pharmacists pointed at the man.

  “Why can’t we just hide every time they come up here? There are thousands of good hiding places all over the university. If we had a good warning system in place we could just put our heads down each time, until they left,” suggested the man.

  That got a few nodding heads but the looks on most of the people’s faces suggested they weren’t so sure. A young twenty something woman raised her hand and the Pharmacist pointed at her. The crown died down.

  “Maybe we could talk to them or something. Find out what they really want,” said the girl.

  “Maybe you could talk to ‘um,” said a man standing in the back row. “There’s no way I’m going down there.”

  That got everyone riled up. Shouts erupted and about twenty hands went up. The Pharmacist pointed to an older woman sitting down close to the front. She didn’t stand up.

  “I’d be interested in what our Spiritual leader has to say about this,” suggested the older woman. “What do you think we should do, Father,” she asked.

  The room got quiet again. One of the five sitting at the bottom of the room, who were facing the crowd, slowly stood up. He was an elderly gentleman. He wore black slacks; a dark purple blazer and he had a dingy looking white collar around his neck. His white shirt was equally dingy.

  The old man swallowed deeply before saying anything.

  “We’ve all lived through a great tragedy,” began the priest. “I know many of you now doubt your faith in God.”

  The old man looked down at the ground. He seemed to have his own doubts. But then he rose up to his full height and spoke with his best Church voice.

  “But we’ve been sparred for a reason,” said the old man. “God almighty has separated us out, made us clean from the sins of this generation.”

  A few of the crowd sensed this was going to turn into a call for repentance and there began a low growl from the audience. The old man stopped as the audience reacted.

  The Pharmacist raised his hands to silence the crowd and spoke. “We all have opinions here. But we’ve always respected is each man’s and woman’s right to finish what they have to say. It’s a right we all agreed too.”

  That silenced the crowd. Everyone, including the old priest was watching the Pharmacist.

  “Finish what you’ve got to say, Father,” said the Pharmacist.

  “Thank you, Gary,” said the priest as he slowly turned back to the crowd.

  “The men in the valley, the gang men,” began the Priest. “They are the devil incarnate. We are the Lord’s chosen people. We survived for one reason. The reason is to make sure those kinds of men are exterminated, wiped clean from the face of the earth. That is the Lord’s plan and I’m sure of it. If we put our faith in God and turn our combined strength against the Philistines of the valley I have every confidence we will prevail,” shouted the old Priest.

  No one spoke after the Father finished. Finally, the old priest sat down. A young man in the fifth row looked around the room for a second or two. Then he shook his head before speaking.

  “Well thanks for the sermon, Father. But as for me and mine I think we’ll take our chances in the mountains,” said the young man. Then he stood up and headed up the aisle toward the exit. Two young women and another young boy left their seats and followed him.

  The meeting went on for another hour and a half. But nothing was ever settled. Half the people wanted to hide while other groups wanted to fight or run. The only thing that everyone agreed to was the gang men would be back. Especially when they realized the Universityites would not be turning over their women and children.

  Chapter 91: Keeping watch

  It was about 45 miles fro
m Baker to Nipton. It took Squeaky and Ralphy two days to get there. The two ex-convicts were hungry when they rode into the town around 3 pm on the second day. They didn’t even stop at the convenience store. They’d cleared out all the remaining food when they were traveling in the other direction. So, they went from house to house until they found some canned goods in the basement of an older home. But the real treat was sleeping in a real bed. Squeaky felt asleep in less than a minute. Ralphy was in the main bedroom and was sprawled out on the larger bed. Once he was sure Squeaky was sleeping, he pulled out a wrapped cigar from the nightstand next to the bed. He’d found the single cigar when they were searching for food in the homes’ basement. He’d kept it for himself and lit the big stogie up. Ralphy drew in the heavy smoke and let it out slowly.

  “Nice,” he whispered to himself.

  He took a couple more generous puffs on the cigar and then laid it in the ashtray on the nightstand. Then he rolled back onto the bed and puffed up the pillow behind his head. He was tired but he needed to think a bit about how he’d report to his boss, Ivan.