Highway: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival

by John Q. Prepper

  Frank tried to pretend that he wasn’t astonished that Farook knew his name.

  “Surprised that I know your name?” Frank couldn’t see his features; it was still too bright for his eyes. “Well, don’t be. We know much about you. For instance, we know you and your friends attacked Ft. Rucker and killed several of my men, but then we killed all of your people. If you’re wondering, the woman was killed at the gate and we got your other man who burned the boat, although I’m not sure what the purpose in that was. Anyway, we will be executing both of you at noon.”

  Farook seemed to wait, perhaps wanting to see his reaction to the news.

  When Frank volunteered nothing, Farook tossed two long items in his direction. They clanged and jingled before coming to rest, directly outside his cage. When he made out what they were, he looked back up at Farook.

  “One of those instruments will take your head. It is up to you to choose which one.”

  Frank looked back down at the scimitar with a curved blade, covered with dried splotches of brown. The other was an old rusty steak knife. He shot a look of understanding and shock back up to Farook.

  “Yes, you get it don’t you? I will make you a promise. If you tell me some more details about what your mission plan was, I’ll make sure that your execution is conducted with the tool meant for this and you will not feel a thing.

  “However, if you don’t answer my questions, we’ll make you watch your man suffer under the steak knife before we then execute you in the same way. It could take minutes for you to die, very painfully.

  “I see by your tattoo, that you served, so my guess is that you know we mean business. So what will it be?”

  Abdul waited for an answer, but Frank said nothing.

  “So be it.”

  Abdul left with one of his guards; the other picked up the knife and scimitar and raced out. Another man walked in with a box of what Frank suspected were his tools of torture.

  He was ready.

  Chapter 35

  Frank and Abdul

  The first strike of the metal-studded whip to his back brought it all back clearly.

  The memory of his first torture was haunting enough but after a body is subjected to enough pain, parts of the brain start to shut down, and memories become foggy. His first Iraqi torturer had brought out virtually the same box of tools as this one and had flogged him with the same device and in the same way.

  And so it was here, in a makeshift prison on US soil, that he realized that this torturer was equipped with the same tools and techniques as the Iraqi torturer many years earlier. And like then, he would make it through the flogging until the next part of the torture. And when the torturer attempted to reposition his re-secured hands and start the next round, he would strike. He still had hope.

  When he was trained to prepare for torture techniques, the first thing he learned was to just give his captors whatever intel they sought. After all, most systems and personnel were changed the moment you were captured. The key was to live to see another day. Another day alive meant another step toward release or escape. The exception to this would be when your team is not yet able to get out of harm’s way, like in this case. Then the best thing to do was to lie. Make up a half-truth that appears to be right, but know that they will probably torture you anyway, and when they do, you will eventually break. Everyone does.

  When he was captured on the border of Iraq and Iran, he gave up whatever they asked and they tortured him anyway. Within minutes, he was crying like a baby. He wasn't proud of it, but it happened, and he survived.

  This time, he told a lie. And based on what Abdul described, he could craft the lie to better fit what he knew they knew. Also, he suspected that his people were still alive. Wallace probably wasn't killed or Abdul would have said how and he doubted Porter would be caught because he would have swum to safety.

  “How many of you are there?” the Dr. Mengele-wannabe demanded. He was a scrawny wisp of a man with gaunt features, his nose so thin it barely held up his thick wired-rimmed glasses.

  “Only two of them, plus me. They had escaped the drones in another vehicle and once they had found the camp, they dumped me because they thought I was too old and feeble to be any use to them. I figured they had escaped, but seeing as they were dead or going to be … good riddance to them. I'm just an innocent—”

  Thunk. The metal nuts attached to the torturer's flogging stick struck, bruising more muscle in his back. I’m way too old for this shit.

  “Why were you attacking the camp?”

  “We just wanted to kill as many of you ragheads as we could.” That part was true.

  The torturer struck again.

  “You're Army?”

  Frank puffed hard, the last one took his breath away, “Retired… I mean, yes… But, retired. I just found the others and we …” Frank waited for the next blow. But it didn’t come. How many was that? Ten? Fifteen? Dammit, he'd lost count. He was already feeling dizzy.

  He watched the man walk around him and felt him unlatch his hands.

  It was time.

  ~~~

  The camp's new loud speakers blared out the call to prayer. “Allahu akbar” (Allah is the greatest).

  Lexi shot up in her cot, as if she woke from a nightmare.

  “Ash-hadu an-la laha illa Allah” (I acknowledge there is no deity but God).

  But, it was a nightmare—one in which she currently lived. She already knew that this was called the Adhan, or call to prayer, and it would happen every day, five times per day, for as long as she was alive and chose to do nothing to change her situation. It blared so loud that she couldn't even hear herself think. She couldn't imagine what it would be like outside. She'd be deaf inside of a week. At least she didn't have to go into this while they taught her the basics.

  The grisly images of what she witnessed yesterday came flooding back to her. So much blood, so much acceptance of murder as part of the enforcement of rules. And women like her had far fewer rights than someone like Leo.

  As she waited for the Adhan to be repeated once again, telling believers to line up for the prayer, a thought occurred to her. This might be the time to escape.

  She bolted to the door and peered out of the single window that looked out to the main yard and to the Apalachicola. One man after another rushed past her window, quietly hurrying in the same direction, to a building she hadn't been in, near the cafeteria. She suspected that that was what they used for a mosque now.

  Leo passed by her window, making her jump. He too was racing to get to the mosque. He held his stump up to his chest, with his only hand. His face looked somewhat paler, and his otherwise expressive eyes were blank as if he were in a trance. In fact, each man looked to be in a trance, like the Eloi who marched to their doom down to the cannibalistic Morlocks’ cave in The Time Machine.

  She remembered the call to prayer the very few times her family went to mosque in Tucson. But the people didn't look like this, and it wasn't so damned loud.

  The call blared out again.

  Lexi pressed her palms against her ears and decided now was the best time. She could get out before they would notice her, while they were praying. She'd collect Travis, who also wasn't yet allowed to go to prayer. She'd grab her bug-out bag from the locker (she figured that she'd be able to jimmy that pretty easily), and then the lock on her door, and then she’d be gone.

  She looked once more at the window and fell backward. Yusuf's face was right there in the single pane, glaring at her.

  He threw open the door as she arose. His hand came around and caught her right in the cheek, sending her back down to the floor. “You will mind what you're told, or your time here will be a lot more unpleasant.”

  She rubbed her face, which felt fiery and hot, and glared hatred at him.

  “You were told to read your Quran, not stare out the window. When it is your time, you will go to prayer with the other women. Until then, you stay here as you're told. And do not cast your eyes upon me a
s you do. You will treat me with respect.” He held his hand up and leaned toward her as if he was preparing to strike again.

  Lexi cowered back and cast her eyes downward. She so wanted to kill him.

  “Good. Now we understand each other.” Yusuf left, locking the door behind him.

  She looked up and waited to see his shadow pass. Jumping up, she only slightly peeled back the curtain and glanced outside. While she did this, her right hand found her knife, beneath her garment. She flicked it open and backed away from the door.

  It was time.

  ~~~

  Frank rarely felt satisfied when it came to killing another man, but this was the exception.

  When the wiry torturer attempted to readjust his cuff so that he could better position Frank for the next round, Frank struck. His paperclips were turned so that the tips were coming out of the knuckles of his free clenched fist. Frank surprised the man with several jabs to his neck; one of them caught his carotid and a geyser of blood flowed. In a panic, the man tried to move away, but Frank hung on as the man flailed, trying to stem the flow. Frank quickly positioned himself so that he could hold the man's mouth, muffling his screams, and he wrapped his good leg around him and held on. When the man finally collapsed, the loudspeakers outside thundered with a call to prayer.

  Perfect timing.

  He found the guard’s keys and undid his cuffs—much easier than with the paperclips.

  He yanked the man's pants and shirt off him and slipped them on himself. Even though they didn't fit and they reeked of body odor, they were better than going naked—at his age, and with all his injuries, he was bound to scare little children. Don’t want to do that.

  Frank stumbled a little to the back corner of the room. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but after snatching it from the floor, he could not believe his luck. It was the only thing of his they’d saved and the only thing of his that he needed; his knee brace.

  After snapping it on, he moved to the torturer's worktable where several tools had been carefully laid out. He selected a big knife and a little one—he imagined this was for filleting skin, intended for him next no doubt—and slowly stepped to the locked door. His body hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but it was surprisingly functional. And with his friend adrenaline, he might have enough energy to do this.

  Finding the correct key from the dead torturer’s keyring, he quietly slipped it in the lock, although he didn't have to be too quiet with the call to prayer still blaring. With any luck there would be no guards, but just in case, he was prepared.

  He banged on the door and doing his best impression of skinny-torturer-asshole he yelled, “Guard open up, Cartwright has my knife. Hurry!”

  He heard a noise by the door and a rumble of keys. At the same time the guard clanged metal keys to door lock, Frank unlocked it from his side and pulled, dragging the unsuspecting guard into him as he drove the large blade into the guard's neck.

  Like a sack of potatoes, the guard went down.

  Now Frank had a gun.

  Chapter 36

  Lexis and Travis

  Lexi had this.

  Her knife easily slipped in between the door frame and the door, in an attempt to unclasp the lock. She didn't need a prepper book for this; she had gotten out of many locked doors at home—lessons self-taught during the multiple detentions imposed upon her by her beleaguered aunt and uncle.

  She knew how to open this one.

  Like a skilled locksmith. Click and the lock came free.

  She slowly opened the door, her pack already snugly around her shoulders, and stuck her head out to see if the coast was clear.

  Almost as if on cue, a gunshot echoed.

  She ducked back.

  She considered the sound of the shot for a moment. What she heard was a good mile away, certainly not aimed at her.

  Although anxious, she felt steady as she eased her head outside once again, this time looking toward the sound of the gunshot, where she was about to run.

  She looked the other way, toward the ad hoc mosque, then to the dock.

  Nothing. It was quiet and there didn't appear to be anyone around.

  Then another shot: this one from a different direction, followed by another. Then, multiple shots, from every direction.

  What the heck was going on?

  She looked back at the mosque and shuddered.

  There was Yusuf, the hook-nosed man, yelling at men streaming out of the mosque, pointing them in different directions. He seemed as surprised as she about the gunfire.

  When he pointed in her direction, he stopped talking and glared at Lexi.

  Like a gazelle, she dashed out her door and ran in the other direction, straight for the cabin where she believed she would find Travis: the same one Abdul had originally put both of them in yesterday.

  She ran stooped over and hugged each building as gunfire was everywhere, although most of it was concentrated by the front gate.

  A quick glance confirmed Yusuf had turned away from her, and was jogging with some of his men to the south, toward the training grounds where she had first seen him with Leo—Leo lost his own hand for this.

  A rifle’s report blasting only feet away startled her. It was one of their men firing at the tree line, in the direction she had been running; it wasn’t aimed at her.

  There was movement in the trees, just past the clearing. Someone was there.

  More gunfire, just behind her, aimed at one of their buildings. She hugged the ground but held her head up to see. Someone from one of their buildings was firing back at their own man.

  ~~~

  Frank checked his weapon, satisfied that the magazine was full. He pulled back the charging handle and cycled in a round. He was just about to slip out the door, when he heard gunfire. He tried to get a bead on where it was coming from, when more shots rang out, but from a different direction. And then more from other positions.

  But none of this was concentrated at him. Maybe it was Wallace and Porter. Regardless, he was done waiting.

  Holding the rifle in front of him, he carefully stepped out of the building.

  A spray of bullets washed passed his feet and up the wall of the building, just missing him by a few inches.

  Slipping back inside, he fired several rounds back at the gunman’s direction.

  He quickly glanced out the door in the same direction; the same man who had fired upon him was inching forward toward his position. But before he could return fire, shots exploded the doorframe at head level from a different direction.

  He stuck his rifle out, keeping the rest of him behind the heavily timbered structure, which appeared to resist the 7.62 round, shot a quick burst in each direction, and then withdrew.

  Multiple shots from multiple directions now, all aimed at him.

  Dammit! He was pinned down.

  ~~~

  No time to wait.

  The grounds were flooded with Abdul’s men, running frantically in every direction, some passing her but paying her almost no attention. They had larger concerns, and so did she.

  Ignoring the gunfire, which seemed to be coming from nearly every place around her except the river, Lexi made her final dash in between the building she had been hunkered down against and the cabin that she believed Travis to be in.

  The five to ten feet between them was filled with the loudest gunfire and she could see even more commotion in that direction, with Abdul’s men firing at green shapes appearing out of the woods.

  A bullet ricocheted off the cabin she was running toward and she smiled at her luck: if she had left two seconds earlier, she’d have been hit.

  At the door of the cabin, she thumped loudly. “Travis, it’s me. Can you open the door?”

  A soft voice behind the door said something unrecognizable.

  It didn’t matter. She knew it was her brother.

  She slipped her knife—she had been holding it the whole time—between the door and jamb, popping it open without much effor
t.

  She was a master!

  Lexi grabbed his hand from the darkness, glad he was clutching his bag already, and they ran for the northern edge of the property, one hand clutching Travis’ arm, the other slipping her knife behind her back, under clothes, but ready to grab it when it was needed.

  At first, she thought she might try the trucks, but with all the gunfire by the gate, she didn’t think she’d be able to make it out in that direction. So she planned for them to just slip away into the woods. They’d walk to Tucson, if they had to, or find someplace else to live. It didn’t matter; she had her brother, now she just wanted their freedom.

  She glanced over to her brother. He looked a little dazed, but didn’t look very scared. She was proud of him and would tell him so as soon as they were free.

  They were coming up to the building with the large antenna, about to dash past, when the door opened, blocking their access. They both froze, as Abdul stepped out of the door directly in front of them.

  She let go of Travis and put herself between them, her right hand reaching for the knife.

  “Stop!” he demanded. “I don’t want you to get hurt. They are attacking us everywhere. Run to the boat at the end of the dock. There are keys in it. No one else will be there. I want to know you two will be safe.”

  Lexi’s hand remained still, her fingertips on the knife’s edges just beneath her clothes. It would be easy now, but she didn’t pull it out. She gazed for just a moment at this terrorist, this murderer of her mother and her father, and was somewhat dumbfounded. “What?” she said.

  “Go! Quickly, I want both of you to escape. Run now!” He yelled.

  She grabbed her brother once again and they ran away, headed at a diagonal, right for the dock.

  She glanced back and Abdul had already turned away from them and gone back into the building. He wasn’t going to chase them.

  One of Abdul’s men ran past them, but didn’t even hesitate; neither did they.

  They just ran and ran, until they were there, at the boat at the end of the dock. And no one else was there, just like he’d said.