THE TRIBE 1 (GENETIC APOCALYPSE - THE TRIBE)

by Boyd Craven Jr.

  “Then we should help prevent them from taking it,” I say.

  “How do you suggest that we do that?” Donald asks.

  “We can go back and talk to the hybrid kids, and see what we see at least,” Sarah Mae says.

  “That’s a good idea,” Maya agrees. “Wanna go now? We should probably all go this time, loaded for bear.”

  “We probably should, before Matson’s people come looking for their friends. That’s what I’m most worried about,” I say. “This time, let’s all take rifles, and a good bit of ammo.”

  We all gear up and head out the drive. I suggest that two of us walk on either side of the road, just in case we meet with trouble. I look us over, as we turned east on 41. We look every bit as old as the Latino men we’d killed earlier. I have to agree now with what Dad had said that night when Adam and I hid at the top of the stairs, listening to him and Mom argue. We are different than heirlooms. We are superior! And, when we get together with a few of our own kind, like this, we are as dangerous as hell!

  6

  Sarah Mae:

  “Hello the house?” I yell. “We are friendly. We are the ones who helped you out earlier today.” I had made the others stay back twenty yards, in case this didn’t go as planned. I don’t want to have to worry about anyone but me if they start shooting again. I notice that the dead Latinos’ truck is backed up to the building. Strange.

  “Come closer, so we can see you. We won’t shoot if you are who you say you are,” calls a young hybrid boy’s voice.

  I motion for the others to follow, but to stay back the same distance, as Adrian had said they would. As we near, two hybrid boys about Donald’s size come out onto the deck above the stairs holding rifles, pointed at the sky.

  “Ok, I recognize you from earlier. Thank-you for helping us! Why did you run away after?”

  “I dunno,” I tell him. “We didn’t want to get trapped out here. When we got back home and talked it over, we decided that we’d better come check on you, and make sure that The Island doesn’t send more men looking for their friends. Two more of us came this time.” The two boys come down the stairs, and I motion for the others with me to move up here to me. We walk towards the two boys, slinging our weapons over our shoulders, pointed down.

  “Yeah, I recognize you too,” one of them says to Adrian. “You’re the biggest one of us I’ve ever seen! How old are you?”

  “Just turned seven yesterday,” Adrian tells him. “My name is Adrian, this is Sarah Mae, this is Donald, and Maya.”

  “I’m Steve, and this is Tom,” Steve says. “Thanks again you guys. I thought we were dead meat until you came along. They caught us by surprise, and they shot Jeff and his mom. Not too badly, but still…”

  “What are you doing with the stuff in their truck,” I ask.

  “I’m packing what I need, taking their truck, and getting the hell out of here,” came a voice from behind them. She was carrying garbage bags of clothes that were tied up, and stowed them in the bed of the truck. “I’m Sonja, Jeff’s mother. Steve and Tom here have been staying with us, helping out around here for room and board. I can’t risk those bastards coming back gain and maybe killing my son or me. We’re heading to my sister’s place up north. My husband built this business our whole marriage, but with him dead and no customers, we can’t make it here any longer.”

  “How’s your arm doing?” Maya asked her.

  “It’s nothing. A bullet just grazed it. Once I got the bleeding stopped, I figured I’d better get to loading before it starts to stiffen up on me.”

  “Can we do anything to help?” Adrian asks.

  “Sure, you can run this stuff down the stairs for me if you would. Jeff got hit in the leg, and he ain’t able to. Steve? Will you show these nice kids the pile of stuff I have ready at the top?” she says.

  “For sure Ms. Sonja,” Steve replies. “Come on you guys, let’s bang this out!”

  With all of us helping, Jeff being look-out with the binoculars for The Island’s guys to come back, it went rather quickly.

  “You boys sure you won’t come go with us?” Sonja asked Steve and Tom.

  “No ma’am,” they both answered at once. “We came down here to get away from people. Reckon that’s what we’ll keep doing,” Tom said.

  “What about your place here Sonja,” I ask her. “You gonna just let them assholes take it over?”

  “Little missy, there ain’t nothing I can possibly do to prevent that. Tell you what, if’n you think you can, you and that big boy that saved our asses earlier can have it! I’ll never know though, because I ain’t coming back, so y’all be careful! If you decide to, I’d appreciate it if’n y’all would let Steve and Tom stay on for as long as they want to. They’re good kids, but I hate leavin’ them alone.”

  “Oh Ms. Sonja, you know we’ll be ok. We might be a little slow, but we ain’t stupid,” Tom says.

  “Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” Jeff called down from the deck. All of us got a good laugh at that.

  “Well, whichever one of you is the smartest, go help Jeff down the steps, ‘cause it’s time for us to go, before they come around looking for this truck,” she says, laughing. “It’s a helluva lot better than mine.”

  “What’s in all them storage units over there,” Donald asks Sonja.

  She says, “I don’t rightly know. People rent those to keep vacation stuff in, so they don’t have to haul it back and forth every time. I seriously doubt that there’s anything out there that people are going to risk their lives over, coming back here to get. I’d say whatever there is, is probably yours too, if’n you can keep those bastards’ dirty hands off’n it. The keys to the locks are all hanging on the pegboard, inside the cabinet, behind the desk up there. It’s up to you what you wanna do with it.”

  With that, she fired up the truck, and off they went. “Well hell! What you guys think?” Steve asks. “Can we keep them off this, or should we move on?”

  “We can’t let them take this place,” Adrian tells him. “They have bad plans for it. We’ll have to figure out a way to convince them that it isn’t something worth dying for.”

  “Do you boys know where there’s a chain, and a lock for that front gate right off?” I ask.

  “Um, yeah. I do,” Tom says. There’s one chaining the two airboats together. It’s kinda long, but there’s two more chaining each boat to a dock that’s shorter. Which do you want?”

  “Shorter I think.”

  “I’ll get one,” he says, running up the stairs, into the office and going down the stairs on the other side with a bundle of keys on a ring.

  “Donald, can you cover him from right here? Maya, would you watch the road from right here? Yell like hell if you see anyone coming. Steve? How about you show Sarah Mae and me around for a minute. We’ve gotta come up with an idea to make life hard for them, if they try to come back,” Adrian says.

  I don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into, but I agree with Adrian, we can’t let them take this for the purpose they want it for. We at least have to give it a try.

  “Ok, follow me,” Steve says. “This is the office. From here you can see the docks and all of the boats. This is where I got that one in the boat from earlier. Right out this window.” There are lots of bullet holes through the wall, and most of the windows are shot out. He opens it up and shows us that every one is the same. At least the screens aren’t too bad, but they too have bullet holes through them. “Over there is the bathroom. Through this door are the living quarters. Three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room.”

  “Yeah? Skip that for now. How do we get downstairs?” I ask.

  “Through this door, and down these stairs,” he shows us, and leads the way. He flips on the lights.

  LIGHTS! Haha! Electricity! The stairs are metal grates, with rough anti-slip edges. There’s a lot of stairs. The downstairs is a huge workshop, with a really high ceiling. There’s a roll-up door on the west end. Just inside it is a
n old pickup truck with the hood up. Along the back wall are tool benches with an odd assortment of tools lying around on them. Probably stuff for working on boats. I know nothing about that. Archery gear, fishing gear, canoe paddles, life jackets, camouflage tents… “Wait! Are these ground blinds? Like for hunting?”

  “Yeah,” Steve says. “Jeff’s dad and uncle used to hunt deer with them.”

  “That’s it! We need both of them. We’ll put up a blind on either side of the end of the driveway, and one of us will hide in each one with a gun. If they get out of their vehicle to cut the lock and chain again, we shoot them,” I say. I look at Adrian. He shakes his head yes.

  “That’s a great idea Sara Mae. Let’s take them out the side door here and get them down there right away!” Adrian says.

  Out we go, quickly. I look up at Donald and Maya. “Everything good?”

  “Yep. No sign of anyone,” Maya says. “What’re those?”

  “Ground blinds,” I say, while hurrying after the boys. “We’re setting up an ambush at the end of the driveway.”

  “Cool. Do you want us to stay here Adrian?” Donald calls.

  “Yeah. Keep watching,” he hollers back.

  This darn driveway must be as long as a football field. You can’t see the house from the end of it, but it’s a straight line to the parking lot. We find a good place for each blind, about twenty five giant steps away from the gate. One on either side. The blinds are nothing more than a long piece of camouflage netting, with stakes sewn in every few feet to pound into the ground. There’s a slight hump of dirt on the inside edge of the ditch, probably from when it was dug. We put them both up, just behind the top of that, shaped like a ‘C’ so we have a clear shot through the gun slots at the three bar gates, that’ll be chained together with the chain and lock. The backs are open, so we can sneak down the backside of the hump to run away, if we need to. Looks like a good plan.

  Right then, Tom came hustling down the driveway with a really heavy chain and a lock on one end. “This damn thing is heavy!” he complains.

  Adrian takes it from him. “Perfect Tom! Thanks.” He closes both gates, wraps the chain around and around them, and locks the lock, holding the ends of the chain together.

  I go to the blind on the right. “You guys go back, and send Maya right back down. We’re the best shots,” I tell them.

  “Ok, but be really careful,” Adrian says.

  I can tell that he hates that idea, but neither him nor Donald are very good shots with a rifle. I’ve hunted deer from a ground blind before, and I remember Maya saying she has too.

  I start cleaning the leaves and stuff out of the floor, so I don’t make noise moving around. Just as I get settled, I see two trucks coming down the road! Shit! Maya’s not back yet. I start to panic for a second. The first one pulls right into the end of the driveway, the second one right behind it. There are four men in uniforms in the back of each one, and two in the cab of each. I won’t stand a chance against that many men. The passenger gets out and comes up to the gate with bolt cutters.

  “It is locked, Mr. Matson,” he calls back to the driver. Matson! That’s him! The first man is fiddling around with the lock, trying to get it turned so he can cut it. The driver, Matson, steps out of the cab, and lights a cigar.

  “Just cut the damn thing already, will ya?” Matson says. I have my crosshairs right on his forehead, and squeeze… BAM! He flew back into the doorjamb of the truck. Brains splatter the guys in the back. Matson is down in a pile on the ground! The bolt cutter guy runs back into the passenger door yelling something in Spanish. He slid over to the driver’s side, threw it in reverse and backed right over Matson, following the other truck as they take off, back the way they came, everybody getting as low as they can. I didn’t shoot at them, and they didn’t shoot at me.

  The boys came running down both sides of the driveway, guns up. “You okay Sarah Mae?” Adrian yells, his voice full of panic.

  “Yes. I’m fine,” I lie. I start shaking so bad it scares me, and suddenly, just as they get to me, I puke all over the floor of the blind. Adrian lifts me up, out of the blind and hugs me tight. “I got Matson. It’s over,” I tell him. “The other guys ran once their boss was dead. That arrogant bastard got out of the truck to light a cigar while his man was cutting the lock, so I shot him in the face!” Then I puked again.

  “Eww… Gross!” Adrian cried. “You puked on me!” Everyone else arrived just in time to see that show, and all started laughing. Even Adrian and I eventually joined them in laughing, while he stood there holding me like a baby in his arms, with puke running all down the front of him, and a dead man, with his brains blown out, lying on the ground behind us…

  7

  Adrian:

  I can’t believe she got away with that. Had Sarah Mae not thought to take out Matson with the first shot, she would be dead for sure. No way could she take on twelve men while we ran the length of the drive, under fire. It should have been a complete disaster. We got lucky, once again. We’re gonna have to stop pushing our luck so much. I need to plan better. “We need to get this body out of here,” I say.

  “I’ll go get the yard wagon,” Tom says. “Where we gonna put him?”

  “Are there ‘gators in the waterway here?” I ask.

  “Hell yeah!” Steve laughs. “Too many. The water’s all muddy and full of silt. Man-made channel ya know. Not many fish like to come up it, but the water birds like it, and the gators like them.”

  “Then that’s where they go. Gator food. We’ve had this problem to deal with before, and that’s what we did then. It worked out just fine,” I tell him.

  “Alright, that sounds like a good idea. There’s a twenty foot Jon-boat that we use to keep the channel clear, or we did. We haven’t done much of anything this fall. We can load them in that and take them a ways up the channel,” Steve suggests.

  “Cool. Good plan. Let’s get ‘em down to that boat, and we’ll strip ‘em down to their underwear, so the gators can’t resist ‘em. I think we should load them up, cover them up with something, and wait until dark to do it though. I don’t think anyone from The Island is gonna bother us anymore, but I’d hate to get caught out there with nowhere to run if they did.”

  I set Sara Mae down on her feet. She seems like she’s calmed down now. “Is there a water hose outside that works?” I ask. “I gotta get this present from Sarah Mae rinsed off of me!”

  “Yep, right beside the door we came out from downstairs,” Tom says, returning with a big yard wagon with balloon tires.”

  ~

  Later, at dusk, Steve and Tom offer to take the bodies down the channel, since they know it and the boat so well. While they are gone, the rest of us sat on the bench, on the deck outside the office. Donald asks, “What are we gonna do with two places Adrian?”

  “ I just haven’t got that far in my head yet Donald. They both have their advantages, but they are like exact opposites from each other. The fact that this place has power, at least for now, is awesome. We’re gonna have to look it all over real good tomorrow and see what’s here before we really make any kind of decisions. I know one thing, we’re taking some of these big, dark green kayaks back to the homestead! Our little bright colored ones can come back over here. It’s not like it matters here. Once we get settled in our minds what we’re doing, two of us can carry one down the road at night. I don’t think we should be walking the road during daylight for quite a while.”

  “That sounds like a good idea Adrian,” Sarah Mae says.

  “In fact, I think for tonight, we should have people at both places, just in case, so when Steve and Tom get back, we should split up and get ready to keep watch tonight. Donald, how do you feel about you and Maya taking Steve with you and going back to the homestead? He seems like a pretty good guy.”

  “Sure Adrian. You’re the leader. Whatever you think is best,” he says.

  The End

  A note from Boyd:

  Thanks for reading
The Tribe 1.

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