Surge Protection (The Sheffield Chronicles Book 1)

by Nate Castle

  7 NO WAY OUT

  ..................

  BOOM!!!!

  “What was that?” Shelby yelled to Noel.

  They were passing by Cleveland, Ohio. Noel, who was driving the Dodge truck looked in her rearview mirror and could see a ball of fire behind them, like an explosion had just occurred.

  “Something just exploded in the road back there,” Noel said. Her voice sounded nervous.

  They were driving in the right lane of the two lane highway doing about 80 mph. Suddenly, a car appeared in Noel’s rearview and caught up to them fairly quickly, eventually passing them in the left lane. It was Porsche Carrera, so reaching speeds of 100+ Mph probably didn’t put a lot of strain on the motor.

  “Wow they are in a hurry,” Shelby said.

  Noel nodded, but Shelby could tell she was still shaken up from the explosion. Three minutes later, Noel slowed the truck down due to a fire blocking the road about 200 yards ahead. When they were about 20 yards away, they looked at each other in disbelief.

  “That’s the Porsche that passed us a few minute ago,” Shelby said.

  The Porsche was covered in flames and there was no reason to believe that the driver and/or passenger had escaped. The flames had engulfed the whole car, so there was no chance one of the girls to provide assistance.

  “Do you think that explosion we saw back there and this fire are related or a coincidence?” Noel said.

  “Definitely related. I don’t think this started as a fire either.” Shelby said.

  “What do you mean?” Noel said.

  “These were both explosions, but the second one resulted in a fire because an object (the Porsche was in its path), “Shelby said.

  “You mean like those grenades that they put into the ground in movies and when someone crosses that spot either on foot or in a vehicle, the grenade explodes?” Noel said.

  “Yes Noel, the correct term for what you described is a landmine.” Shelby said.

  “So if we’ve seen two underground grenade explosions so far, there are bound to be more on this route. We better get off the highway.” Noel said.

  Noel refused to call it a landmine, just to piss off Shelby.

  “God damnit Noel, now is not the time for us to get in an argument.”

  “Relax girl, I’ll call them landmines if you prefer,” Noel chuckled.

  Noel got the truck in motion again and made a hard right turn to take an exit off the highway.

  “I need some food in my system before I can think properly.” Noel said.

  “There’s a Chipotle to the left about an eighth of a mile down.” Shelby said.

  Noel turned left as instructed, but instead of straightening it out to stay in the proper lane, she veered towards the sidewalk

  “What in God’s name….” Shelby said, but couldn’t finish her sentence before Noel interrupted.

  “There’s a greater chance of there being landmines on the road versus on the sidewalk, so we’re going to drive on the sidewalk instead,” Noel said.

  Noel could act dumb, especially when it came to getting the attention of guys at the bars they used to go to, but she was actually quite intelligent, especially in the ‘street smarts’ category. Noel stopped the pickup on the sidewalk just before they reached the driveway entrance to the Chipotle parking lot. Upon exiting the truck, Noel put her hand up, making the universal signal for ‘stop’.

  “Jump,” Noel said as she hurdled the driveway, landing on the continuation of sidewalk.

  Shelby followed suit. Noel picked up a few small rocks from the landscaping surrounding the Chipotle restaurant and started overhand throwing the rocks at random spots on the road.

  Shelby didn’t need Noel to explain this time, she knew immediately what was happening.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  One of Noel’s rocks had hit a spot where there was a landmine buried in the road, triggering an explosion, similar to the two explosions they had previously witnessed.

  “C’mon,” Noel said as she turned towards the Chipotle restaurant and reached for the door. “I think I just saved our lives.”

  There was steam coming off of the buffet trays of rice, beans and meat set behind the ordering counter of the Chipotle restaurant. Also, the trimmings including sour cream, cheese, lettuce, salsa, and guacamole were all placed in the appropriate locations, as they would be displayed, had the restaurant been open for customers.

  “Someone must have got the same idea as us, to come in here and make some burritos,” Shelby said to Noel.

  “Yeah, it was nice of them to cook everything already so that we don’t have to do it ourselves.” Noel said.

  They proceeded to each make their own burrito and they ate their meal in silence. It hit the spot, but given the traumatic events they had just experienced with the landmines, they were still a bit shaken up.

  Noel finished her burrito and was the first one to speak, “I have an idea. We need to find one of those fancy metal detectors that has X-Ray vision or whatever you wanna call it.”

  “You mean one with an LCD screen on it that shows you an image of what it detects up to 25 feet away?” Shelby said.

  “Exactly. Then we can avoid the landmines because we will see them on the screen before we hit them. Do you think JackShack Electronics will have one of those?” Noel said.

  “I think JackShack will only have a basic metal detector, the type that I used to see people use at the beach to locate spare change in the sand. I think a military surplus store might be a better bet.” Shelby said.

  “What are the chances of us finding a military surplus store, using no GPS and also being able to avoid the landmines without the metal detector?” Noel said.

  “Good point. Here’s what we’ll do. I believe we got a BB gun when we made that Wal-Mart run back in Kansas City. While I drive, you will be in the bed of the truck, shooting the BB gun at random spots on the road. Hopefully the impact will be enough to blow up the landmines to clear our path. I saw a Bass Pro Shops about 5 miles back. They should have the type of metal detector we are looking for, and then we can go from there. Sound good?” Shelby said.

  “Sounds like a flawless plan, nothing can go wrong” Noel said with a little bit of sarcasm.

  They bused their trays into the trash can. Shelby took an empty fountain drink cup and filled it with water from the soda machine. When they got back to the pickup, Shelby let down the tailgate, called Milo over and tilted the cup so that Milo could drink the water.

  “Thank God you remembered, I forgot all about the dog.” Noel said.

  Shelby drove the truck on the sidewalk once again instead of the frontage road to avoid possible landmines. Once she got back to the interstate on ramp she said to Noel, who was now positioned in the bed of the truck with the BB gun, “Aim each shot in the middle of the driving lane. I’m going to drive extremely slow. Be careful about firing too many shots or else we will run out of BB’s.”

  Noel did as instructed and fired the BB gun at a spot on ground about 20 yards ahead. Nothing happened. She fired again at a new spot because Shelby had now driven the truck about 30 feet further ahead. Nothing. Starting to get a bit irritated, Noel now fired 3 shots, spreading them out a few feet apart.

  BOOM!

  Bingo, she nailed a landmine about 25 yards ahead.

  Shelby drove the truck past the spot where the explosion just occurred, having to swerve onto the grassy area next to the center median to avoid the huge pothole that the explosion had just created.

  “Stop,” Noel yelled to Shelby from the bed of the truck.

  “What is it?” Shelby replied.

  “Why don’t we just drive on the grassy area the whole time and stay away from the paved road. Whoever planted these landmines is targeting drivers, and drivers usually drive on the road, so I doubt they have any landmines near the center divide.” Noel said.

  “That’s a good temporary solution. I do know there are stretches of this highway where it narrows and there is
no way to get past without driving on the paved road, so we’ll definitely still need the metal detector. But let’s try to make it to Bass Pro Shops by avoiding the road.” Shelby said.

  Noel knew that she got a lucky shot off with the BB Gun and that it probably wouldn’t happen again, so she was relieved that they now didn’t have to rely on that method. They made it to the Bass Pro Shops without further incident and walked inside. They split up, Shelby went right and Noel went left.

  “I found something,” Shelby yelled across the store to Noel. Noel hustled towards the sound of Shelby’s voice and found her holding a device called the SureFind XP80.

  “That’ll do the trick,” Noel said.

  Shelby ripped the packaging off the metal detector and tried turning it on.

  “Dangit, the batteries need to be charged,” Shelby said.

  “I wouldn’t mind taking a nap for a few hours while the batteries charge on that thing,” Noel said.

  Bass Pro Shops was a comfortable place to nap. In the camping section, they found a model tent that had been set up, complete with all the sleeping amenities necessary. They were out cold within a matter of minutes. After all, they had not gotten any legitimate sleep since the initial attack.

  8 KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER

  ..................

  “GOOD LORD!” LOGAN SAID TO the others as he saw a mushroom cloud of smoke develop off in the distance.

  He couldn’t tell what it because they were too far away from it.

  “Sal, drive closer to that cloud of smoke, but be careful getting too close,” Garrett chimed in.

  They were now in Nebraska. Hank, the bicyclist that they had picked up was in the sleeper bed at the rear of the cab taking a power nap.

  “Hank you’re gonna want to see this,” Logan said, as he reached his right arm behind him to nudge Hank in the event that Hank wasn’t a light sleeper.

  Hank woke up no problem, and sat up on the bed.

  “Looks like a car just exploded, let’s put ‘er in park right here.” Hank said.

  They were now about 100 feet from the scene. Sal put the truck in park and got out to begin inspecting the scene. The others followed suit.

  “Grab the fire extinguisher from the chrome box below the trailer,” Sal said to Logan.

  Logan did as instructed and the four men cautiously walked towards the fire. Logan aimed at a spot on the car and was able to extinguish the fire without breaking a sweat. Hank was quick to walk up to the car, it was a blue Volvo station wagon.

  “Two casualties, one male one female.” Hank said.

  He opened the driver’s side door and reached for a lever under the steering wheel that popped the hood.

  “What are you doing?” Garret said.

  Hank didn’t respond and proceeded to open the hood and latch it in the upright position.

  “The fire didn’t originate on the engine block.” Hank said about a minute later.

  “What does that mean?” Logan said.

  “It means that the explosion was caused by something else. Help me push this car out of the way, so we can check underneath.” Hank said.

  Hank put the car in neutral and using the driver’s side door as leverage, began pushing. The others spread out on the back bumper and pushed the car forward about 10 yards.

  “That’s good. Now be extremely careful touching anything on the ground, it will most likely give you a nasty burn.” Hank said.

  “What are we looking for?” Sal said.

  “Anything that resembles metal that is not a part of the the car,” Hank said.

  Just like the other explosions, this one had originated from underneath the asphalt and had created a large sinkhole as a result.

  “I think I found something,” Garret said, and pointed at the ground but didn’t dare pick up his discovery.

  The others walked over to the spot where Garrett was standing. Hank walked back to the car carrier truck, retrieved a long metal bar, its most common use being a lug nut wrench, and used the tool to pull the metal piece that Garrett discovered toward him without getting burned by the molten metal.The piece was forest green and appeared to be a chunk of a larger piece, that if put back together would form a saucer shape, perhaps the casing of the landmine.

  “This is U.S. Government issued,” Hank said after getting on one knee to examine the piece more closely.

  “How do you know?” Sal said.

  “I can make out the letters RAP2028,” Hank said. “Responsive Attack Provision, in the year 2028. Former President Newman passed a law allowing the use of landmines again in war zones, but they have to be marked with RAP2028 for identification purposes and to take accountability measures if they are improperly used.”

  “And you know all of this how?” Sal said.

  “Retired Air Force, 32 years of service.” Hank said.

  “Jesus Christ, our own country is trying to kill us.” Logan said.

  “Right now it appears that way,” Hank said.

  “How hard would it be for a foreign country or terrorist organization to obtain our landmines and use them against us, making it look like the US was exterminating its own people?” Garrett said.

  “Very difficult because only a small handful of people know the storage location of the mines, and each one of those people has a passcode that must be combined with the unique passcode from the others to unlock the location,”Hank said. “The President also has the codes.”

  “So what do we do now?” Garrett said.

  “We’re not going to make it very far traveling on the road. It’s safe to assume that there are landmines lining the road every mile or so.

  Eppley Airfield is just a few miles back in Omaha. I say we go there, grab a plane and fly it to Canada, somewhere off the grid where we can’t be easily tracked.” Hank said.

  “Sounds good to me. How will we get to the airfield?” Sal said.

  “We’ll have to go on foot, cutting through the cornfields, to avoid triggering another landmine.” Hank said.

  “That plan’s not going to work, I hate to say it,” Logan said.

  Garrett looked at Logan and knew immediately what he was going to say next.

  “We need to get Sal to a doctor or else he is going to die,”Logan said. “Before we met you Hank, Sal had a heart attack and to make a long story short, a doctor injected Sal with an experimental drug that prolongs life by 72 hours. The problem is, once that 72 hours is up, Sal’s heart will stop again. The drug was just a temporary solution. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you this before Sal.”

  “How many hours do I have left?” Sal said.

  “About 18,”Garrett said.

  “Ok, we have two options, both involve going to the airfield and getting a plane first though. Option 1 is we fly the plane to DC and hope the President was truthful when stating that the US has been attacked by an outside entity. Option 2 is we fly to Denver. I have a group of friends there who are a part of this Healing Cult. One of them used to be a doctor in the Army, he should be able to help Sal.”

  “What if they are not there? What if they left Denver and headed to DC as instructed by the President? Or what if they died from the initial cell phone attack.” Logan said.

  “If they are alive, they will be there. These people are antigovernment, they don’t trust them. My friend Kip got dishonorably discharged from the Army because he helped save the life of an enemy’s child. They live out of cell phone range, so they most likely weren’t victims of the attack,” Hank said.

  “Option 3, you guys leave me behind and head to Canada. By helping me out, you’ll all be putting your lives on the line. I’d rather save three lives and lose one, than risk losing all four of us.” Sal said.

  “Not an option Sal so don’t mention it again,” Logan said.

  “Anyone opposed to going to Denver?” Hank said.

  “No,” Garrett and Logan said in unison.

  “Ok grab anything from the truck that you can fit on your back and we’ll
head out.” Hank said.

  It took about forty-five minutes of walking, with Hank navigating, before they could see flashing red lights in the distance; lights positioned on tall poles so that incoming planes could locate the airport at nighttime.

  “Almost to the finish line boys,” Logan said.

  Fifteen minutes later they were on the runway making their way towards a hangar of privately owned planes.

  “Look for something with at least ten seats. I’m not gonna be flying something smaller than that, too dangerous,” Hank said to the group.

  They split up each covering a section of the 500 yards of hangar space. All of the cabin doors were unlocked and most of the planes had keys in the ignition.

  “I guess people aren’t too worried about getting their planes stolen. There’s probably only a handful of people in Omaha who know how to fly one,” Logan said.

  Hank was the first to find a plane that met his criteria. It had the words, ‘The Chick Magnet’ painted in fancy gold-flaked cursive lettering across the right side.

  “All aboard the Chick Magnet,” Hank yelled to the others.

  They all couldn’t help but laugh at the name of the plane. Hank got the engine running on the first try; it was a fairly new plane which made everyone a little less worried about the chance of engine failure.

  About five minutes later they were picking up speed heading down the runway. Hank had chosen Sal to be the co-pilot because he had that look of a kid in a candy store, when he first got on the plane and was looking at the control panel.

  “Flick that switch up and hold it in the up position when I tell you to,” Hank said to Sal.

  “Now!” Hank said.

  A few moments later, Hank pull down on the main joystick, making the front end of the plane lift off the ground.

  It was as smooth of a takeoff as could be.

  “Man this guy wasn’t lying, he knows his shit,” Garrett said to Logan.

  They were in reclining chairs about twenty feet back from the cockpit of the plane.

  “Yeah it’s a good thing too, because even if we hadn’t run across the landmines, I doubt we would’ve made it to DC before Sal’s 18-hour clock expired. It would have been a crapshoot finding a doctor between Nebraska and there. At least now we have a fighting chance,” Logan said.