“Jo ...”
Jolene didn’t let him finish. She turned her body toward his and wrapped her arms around him. He drew her close, and kissed her, deep and long. They broke for air, gasping, then came together again, lips finding each other. Brian took off his shirt and tore at Jo’s nightshirt. She didn’t stop him.
She wanted a drink so damn bad she would have killed him if the Devil himself asked her to. To feel the fire and flame of alcohol racing through her veins, making her feel both electrically alive and completely, utterly obliterated from the pain of existence. The crazy dichotomy of using, of addiction. She craved it so badly.
Without a word, Brian moved on top of her, then inside her, and as she wrapped her arms and legs around his muscled body, she knew it was wrong, but she let it happen anyway. The fear, the anxiety, the confusion, the frustration, the sheer overwhelming of emotion over the last few days unleashed as something that could only be quenched by losing herself. If she couldn’t lose herself in a bottle, she could in the arms of a man who loved her. Even if she didn’t love him back the same way.
She closed her eyes and dissolved into everything and nothing.
They could be dead tomorrow.
Gordon popped his head in the bedroom as Jolene packed up her things. “Leaving in fifteen, guys, finish packing and yacking.”
Jolene zipped up her bag. “I feel like a nomad. I just want to go home.”
Mags sat on the edge of the bed, waiting.
Brian came in and sat next to Mags, avoiding eye contact with Jolene. The previous night’s encounter had ended only an hour before dawn.
“I do, too. I want to go to Gordon’s barbecue and get buzzed and stuffed on burgers and fries,” Brian said. “I want things back to normal. Back to working too hard for too little, getting into fights over who shot JKF, bugging the shit out of you at Home Shed, and waiting for my winning Big Pick ticket to show up.”
Jolene grinned. “Yeah. Hopefully soon. You still need to fill me in on this Crow thing. We never seem to get the chance –”
“Jo, we should talk about last night, too.”
“Not now, Brian. Later,” Jolene said, motioning to Mags.
Brian sighed and got up. He took Jolene’s big bag and carried it out of the room for her.
“Come on, Mags,” Jolene said. “On to the next adventure.”
They moved through the woods, staying close to the road. Gordon pegged it as Route 18, which cut through the bottom corner of the state and paralleled the river. They were moving in the right direction, and it was only an hour before they found the next crow.
“Hold up!” Gary held up his shotgun, motioning to a large rock sitting between two tree trunks.
“Check it out,” Gary said, pointing to the rock face, upon which someone had spray-painted the outline of a large crow, its beak pointing distinctly to the southeast. “Wow. Why the hell didn’t we notice them before?”
Brian shrugged. “Whoever left them assumed someone would walk directly by the rocks, and we may have been just a few dozen yards away, but they were there.”
Jolene crouched down and looked at the image. “Pretty clever. Nothing a drone would pick up on. Dull matte spray paint. Shit, we sell this stuff for five bucks at Home Shed.” She looked up at the rest of the group.
“We keep moving as the crow tells us,” she said, standing and stretching her lean frame. “Unless it’s a big trap, in which case we will be voluntarily walking right into it.”
She moved on, leaving the others staring after her.
Brian rushed up beside her. “It’s not a trap, Jo.”
“I am just putting it out there,” Jolene said.
Mags scampered up to Jolene and grabbed her hand. “Will the crow help us find my mom?” Her blue eyes were still filled with innocence.
“Maybe,” Jolene answered. “Maybe it will help us find the rest of our neighborhood.” She squeezed Mags’ hand.
“There!” Janey pointed at a large rock sticking out of the brush.
“Hidden in plain sight. I’ll be damned,” Gordon said, bending closer to observe another black spray-painted outline of a crow. “So, I’ll assume the beak is what tells us which way to go.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yep. We actually were going in the right direction all along, we just must have missed them,” Brian said.
“I imagine it’s because we weren’t looking for them,” Janey said. “Now we won’t be able to miss them. Once you see, you can’t unsee.”
Jolene walked over to the rock and bent down. “There’s something written under here,” she said, pushing away some leaves. “Look. ‘Defy and persist.’ Did you see that on the others?” She looked up at Brian, shielding her eyes from the sun peeking through the trees behind him.
“No. Well, I never noticed,” he said, looking to Alex, who shrugged and shook his head.
“Defy and persist,” Jolene repeated. “Defy who and persist at what?”
“I imagine we’ll find out when we get there. Since we are seeing more now, maybe that means we are close,” Janey said.
“Then we follow the beak.” Jolene moved forward in the direction of the crow’s beak, leaves and twigs crackling noisily under her feet.
Ten minutes later, through dense woods, they reached a creek. The water was fairly still, so they found a place to cross where rocks riddled the surface. Gary and Alex had a harder time getting the wagons across, but the water was barely a foot deep, so it didn’t matter. Both men had the good sense to take off their shoes. Nothing got wet in the process and Mags was thrilled for the ride across, waving her hand in the water and splashing with delight.
They stopped on the other side long enough for Gary and Alex to change their socks, draping the wet ones over the sides of the wagon to dry in the dappled sunlight.
Gordon coughed harshly. Jolene and Janey both looked up at him at the same time, with the same concern. He ignored them.
“We should be hitting more suburban hoods then,” Alex said. “Which means, people and news and Internet and hot food.” Jolene noticed his voice didn’t sound so nasally. Thank God, it had only been allergies.
“We’ll either hit the city first or find this Crow fella. Either way, there’s bound to be news,” Gordon said, folding up his map and shoving it back into his pocket.
Jolene sighed. News would be good, as long as it was good news. A chill ran up her spine. Somewhere beyond the woods, there was the distinct sound of a train whistle.
Brian jumped. “Shit, scared the crap out of me. At least, the trains are running. That has to mean we’re close to civilization.”
They moved on, Jolene in the lead, not because she thought of herself as a leader, but because she didn’t feel like holding back and speaking to anyone. If the trains were running, where were they coming from, and where were they going? Someone had to be on those trains, operating them.
She pushed the thoughts out of her head and focused on the terrain, watching for crows and strange words written in black upon a rock.
“Isn’t it kind of strange that we haven’t run into anyone else? I mean, didn’t anyone who survived whatever this was decide to hide out at home? Or at least be traveling near enough in the woods for us to see them?” Siri’s questions were innocent enough, but Jolene wanted to slap her for asking them in front of Mags. The little girl listened intently from her wagon perch behind Alex, who walked only a few paces behind Jolene.
“Do you have to bring this up now?” Jolene snapped.
Siri flinched but shook her head defiantly. “Can you tell me a better time?”
Jolene stopped dead and turned to face Siri. Her face was red with anger. “Shut the fuck up. Mags is right there.”
Siri backed up a step, but then moved forward and held her ground. “I don’t give a flying fuck who is where, Jolene. You’re not in charge here.”
Gordon stepped up and put up his hand. “You two, calm down. This gets us nowhere. Siri has legitim
ate questions, even if her timing is a little sour. Maybe we need a sit down for a bit. We’ve walked about three miles already. I, for one, wouldn’t mind a break.”
Gordon sat down on the ground near Mags and the supply wagons. Jolene snorted and walked away, sitting down alone near a clump of bushes. Brian joined her as the others found their own spots.
“Hey, it’s getting to everybody, Jo. We just need to keep going. I figure we have to be close.”
Jolene nodded. They had seen another crow, this time its beak veering them a bit more to the southwest. Now and then they could hear the train whistle from just about a mile or so beyond. They didn’t dare get closer to the tracks just in case the drones were hovering around.
“Did you stop to ask yourself where the trains are coming from? There’s a station just outside of Morris, and then beyond that, I’d say near the Indiana state line. Whoever is operating the trains, they have to know they’re going through abandoned neighborhoods ... they have to see there aren’t any people around.”
“Haven’t seen a drone for miles now,” Brian said. “Maybe that means we are finally outside of the danger zone.”
Behind them, Gordon coughed loudly, his lungs full of phlegm. Jolene exchanged a worried look with Brian, then stared down at the ground. A beetle crawled over her right shoe. Instinctively, she tapped her foot to shake it off, then realized it wasn’t a threat, and let it be.
Jolene turned to Brian. “You never did tell me what you and Gordon were fighting about at the diner before all this happened.”
Brian smiled sheepishly. “The usual shit. Some news story came on about a potential terrorist threat and he and his Marine cronies were going on and on about the peace protestors being domestic terrorists. Said they should be locked up. I reminded him that was how fascism started in the first place.”
“Well, they did bomb Seattle a few months ago, Brian. I can see how any threat should be taken seriously.”
“Did they, Jo? Or is that just what you were told by the media? Because five eyewitnesses said they saw men dressed in military camouflage running around with machine guns right before it all went down ... only that got cut out of all the future news broadcasts, didn’t it? I saw it. I even recorded it. But nobody seems to care because it doesn’t play into their accepted roles of who the terrorists are.”
“So, who do you think blew up the capitol building?” Jolene had recalled the initial news reports including those five eyewitness testimonies.
“The same motherfuckers who did this. Our own government. And it’s all a part of a series of false flag attacks to make us believe we are under threat of foreign extremists.”
“Why? Why cause turmoil that doesn’t exist?”
“Come on, Jo, you aren’t that ignorant. To control us. The war machine is up and running, and somehow, I know in my gut, what happened to Morris, Indiana is a part of the whole fucking corrupt lie.”
Gordon coughed uncontrollably now.
Jolene rushed to his side.
Janey was making him drink water.
Gordon waved them both off. “You ladies are like bats, hovering over me. I’m fine, it’s just a cough is all.”
Jolene could hear the slight trembling in his voice as he spoke.
“We need to get on our asses and move. Been sitting long enough.”
Without any argument, they ended their break. Jolene chose to walk with Gordon and Janey, leaving Brian to take the lead alone. She was grateful Gordon hadn’t heard their conversation. He would have ripped Brian a new asshole for what he’d said. Still, Jolene felt a gnawing sensation in her gut she couldn’t ignore. What if Brian was partially right, at least about the government being involved in the plane spraying? Maybe they were testing some kind of defensive weapon to use on the terrorists?
“There!” Brian spotted it. They had walked another three or four miles through the woods and were about to take a breather.
“On that rock, beneath the tree, see it?” He pointed, and the others dropped their packs to investigate.
“Have you noticed they’re getting bigger? I wonder if it means we’re getting closer?” Janey said, moving towards the rock to examine the black image. “God help us, I hope this isn’t some kind of joke ... or worse.”
Beneath the crow were the same words they’d seen before. DEFY AND PERSIST. Only now they were in very large black letters.
“How are we supposed to know when we’ve arrived? There’s nothing around here but trees and rocks and creeks. Not even a cabin where people could hide out,” Janey said.
Jolene moved closer to the rock. “Wait a second ... didn’t any of you notice?”
Gordon coughed, then spoke. “Noticed what, Jo?”
“I see it,” Siri said. “It has no beak!”
Jolene smiled and nodded in agreement. “Must mean we’re close.”
“Or the stupid fool forgot to spray the beak,” Alex said.
“On your knees! Arms raised to the sky!”
A man’s deep, booming voice startled them. Jolene turned to see six large camouflage-dressed men with very big guns pointed at their little group. The men wore black ski masks.
They were trapped.
11
“Don’t make a move for your weapons. We are all expert shots,” the man said. One of the other guards chuckled.
Jolene looked at Brian, who was pale as a sheet as he slowly got to his knees. Everyone raised their arms and dropped to their knees. Mags screamed and Jolene ran to her, grabbing her out of the wagon as one of the gun-toting goons rushed her, almost knocking her off her feet.
“It’s a little girl, you fucking idiot,” Jolene yelled in his masked face, immediately regretting it. The man backed off a few steps, but never lowered his gun.
“Get down on your knees, arms up, lady. The kid, too.” The guard growled more than he spoke.
Jolene did as told, and whispered to Mags to put her arms up and wave at the sky.
“You were following the crows?” The first guard asked.
“Yes, we were,” Jolene answered. “Why?”
The man took a two-way radio from his belt and keyed it. “We picked up a group.”
A staticky response came back. “Roger that. Ask if one of them is KI6YES.”
“Any of you KI6YES?” the burly guard asked. Jolene waved her arm.
“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking with fear. “I am.”
Another man came from behind the circle and walked toward them. He wore all black, and his face was hidden behind a ski mask. He broke through the guard circle and approached Jolene, motioning for her to stand up. He took off his mask and long, dark hair tumbled around his swarthy but youthful face. He looked Native-American. He smiled, and Jolene couldn’t help but notice how white his teeth looked against tanned skin. He held out his free hand.
“Pleased to meet you, KI6YES. I’m CROW.”
It took her a minute to gather what was left of her composure, but Jolene smiled and took his hand, shaking it, albeit hesitantly. She noticed a tattoo on the inside of his arm. The same crow, in flight, they had seen on the rocks.
“Let’s get you out of these woods. There are spies in the skies,” Crow said, nodding to his men. They helped gather up the packs and wagons and motioned for Jolene and her group to follow.
“I guess I don’t have to explain to you about Crow now. He can tell you himself. This is pretty ingenious,” Brian said. They entered a large open pipe that led to a chamber beneath the ground.
“I remember reading about this place. It was a storage facility for weapons and shit during the Second World War, right?” Alex was in total awe.
Crow nodded and led the way as they entered several sets of double doors into a large open area.
Jolene gasped, as did the others when they saw television screens along one entire wall, and computers up and running. Several people turned to watch curiously as they were led into another room, where Crow motioned for them to sit.
�
�Everyone who comes here has to surrender their weapons until we figure out who you are and if you can be trusted,” he said. His dark eyes flashed at Jolene, but his smile was all charm. “We will give them back once we know you aren’t part of whatever is going on out there.”
“And what is going on out there?” Gordon asked, his voice steady. Jolene could sense the anger in it. “I’m a former United States Marine and I don’t give up my weapon to anyone, kid.”
Crow nodded, smiling. He moved closer to Gordon. “I appreciate your service and all, but unless you want to go back outside and fend for yourself, I suggest you play nice.”
The burly camo men took their weapons, searched their sacks and bags and the wagons.
“And by the way, nobody is forcing anyone to stay here. You’re free to take your weapon and one of the guards will escort you back into the woods. Just say the word. But I hope you all stay because we need you.” Crow looked from one member of the group to another, his eyes sincere.
A young man with dark skin and large brown eyes came up behind Crow and whispered something in his ear. Crow nodded and turned to the group.
“Fill out the ID information on the table, and if you have a driver’s license, we’ll need to see it. I have people here who can find out anything about you. Not trying to invade your privacy, but we gotta make sure you’re all on the up and up.”
Gordon lunged at Crow, his face red. A guard stood between them and put a hand on Gordon’s chest, gently but firmly pushing him back.
“Who the fuck are you? You’re some punk who is trying to take our guns, our ID? What next? Our food and water?” Gordon towered over Crow.
“Actually,” Crow said, “I was going to say you can go into the food room and we have plenty of grub and water while we look over your information. It’s through those red double doors. You can relax and use the bathrooms. Yes, we have running water here.”
Black Mariah: Morris, Indiana (Black Mariah Series, Season 1) Page 9
