She pulled it from her pocket and read it once again, Convinced it was real, and then unconvinced all over again.
She returned the note to her pocket once more and watched as David Reed started up the path from the valley below. Arlene was not with him. She felt at the scrap of paper in her pocket, lifted her head and looked around the ledge as though the truth in her pocket might be challenged by something there, but nothing came to her, and she finally accepted it as real. David reached the top and smiled as he started past her. She smiled back and her mouth opened of its own accord.
“David,” her arm reached out and pulled him close as she spoke. He smiled back nervously.
“David, if you had to guess, how many people would you think we have in The Nation? A wild guess, David... How many?”
He stared at her for a second, uncomprehending, before he found his tongue. Her hand brushed against his thigh as she dug into her pocket. He could feel her fingers now, pressure against his thigh, he backed away a step and tried the smile back on his face.
Janna seemed to realize how close he was at the same time, and tried to take a backward step and nearly tripped. David's hand shot out and caught her, brushing against one breast as he did, helping her back to her feet, aware of her body in a way he hadn't been aware of it before as he held her briefly. They both stepped apart.
“I'm, sorry, David. I,” she started, but she had nowhere to go with that thought. No finish.
“It was my fault,” David said as his face flushed bright red.
“David?” From behind them. Arlene coming out the door. They both jumped guiltily as she came to them.
Oblivious, David thought. Oblivious of what, his mind asked a second later.
“Arlene,” Janna cried. She grabbed her and pulled her close, breaking whatever spell had held them. “I had told David, what do you think the population of The Nation is tonight, right now?”
Arlene smiled and looked at David. “What did you guess?” She asked. She brushed his hair away from his eyes where it always seemed to fall of its own accord.
“Didn't have a chance,” David answered, glad the moment, whatever it had been, had passed.
“Eight hundred?” Arlene asked.
“Fifteen-hundred-sixty-two,” Janna said in a subdued voice and then broke into laughter.
“Get out,” Arlene said loudly. “That is not possible.”
“What's not possible?” James asked as he stepped through the doorway and closed it behind him.
“Our population,” David said.
James raised his eyebrows.
October 19th
Dawn was cold and overcast for the second day in a row.
Conner stood, Aaron beside him, several others scattered across the ledge, and watched the vehicles make their way through the valley below. In a few moments they would be out of site. Heading for the flat land and the forest in the far distance.
There were five vehicles. Adam and Beth in one, Billy and Pearl in another, and three other teams that would be erecting shelters at the old state park and setting up an outpost.
“It seems like things have moved so goddamn fast,” Conner said thoughtfully to Aaron.
“Really?” Aaron asked. “To me it seems like we should already have been here. It has seemed like pulling teeth every time we make a change or step forward.”
“Really?” Conner asked.
Aaron laughed. “No. It seems the same to me. Crazy fast. I hope they really know what they are up to. I really do.”
Conner nodded, the door to the main area opened and Amy and Katie walked out onto the ledge and the low stone wall where they stood.
“Can't see them,” Amy said.
“Right...” Aaron began as he lifted one hand. He laughed, his hand hanging in mid air and then he dropped it back to his side. “Well, they were right there.”
Conner laughed. “You missed them by this much.” He held his thumb and fore finger together, barely separated. His eyes scanned the distance again. They had disappeared just that quickly. He took Katie's hand. “Come on,” he said. “It's far too cold out here this morning.” He lead the four of them back inside just as small flakes of snow began to fall from the sky.
SEVEN
October 28th Year One
Watertown New York
Adam's truck rolled to a stop at the side of the roadway, and Billy and Pearl pulled in behind them. Beth levered the door open and jumped down to the ground, her machine pistol in her hand.
“This it?” Beth asked.
“I think so,” Adam answered. “Right city, anyway. We followed the maps as best we could.”
“This is it.” Pearl, as she strode forward from the truck she shared with Billy.
They had followed what was left of the interstate, turned off, found route 11 and followed it into the city. They were at the top of a long stretch of road that sloped steeply down into the small city below. They had a good view for miles, but there was very little to see. A building here or there, poking through the fall colors of the valley below them, and that was it.
“Don't look like much,” Adam said.
“Isn't,” Billy agreed.
Adam looked at him. Billy met his eyes and then turned and looked back out over the valley.
“I can't believe I lived here at one time,” Billy said.
“What can you add that might help?” Adam said?
Billy shrugged. “Nothing I can say about it. It was several years ago... A different world... I wasn't here when this started and so I have no idea what went on here. And it's been years, probably a lot of changes... It's not a place you want to remember... At least I don't,” Billy shook his head. “Pearl probably knows more than I do,” he finished.
“Even so, you could probably help us find our way around... Conner says the Army Base is out the other end of the city... Route 3.”
Billy pointed across the valley. “If we go down to the river, we can follow the river out to Route 3. That will take us to the base... I don't know from there...” He looked harder. “The problem is we have no idea what streets are gone, what roads may or may not still be there. And, I don't even see the river from here. ”
“Where should it be,” Adam asked?
Billy laughed. “Straight ahead, but I never came up here to look down at the river... So I don't know if it could be seen from here... Maybe in the winter... I think. We'll have to go down and see. But it should be straight down this hill, into the city and we can follow Route 3 right out, if its still there... There are other ways out there too...” Billy turned and looked at Adam.
“I don't know the area,” Adam told him. He shrugged and looked down at Beth and then back up at Billy where he stood with Pearl. Pearl spoke.
“A dozen ways to get in that they showed me... All from inside, I have no idea where they come out here. I do know that this base has nothing to do with the base out route 3. A separate place... Maybe there were connections I didn't know about, but on the surface they were run and maintained separately.” She looked up at Adam. “The thing is I remembered so little of it after I got out of there. After I got away from the people who... took me I hid for three days, trying to find a way out... finally just collapsed. Met some people leaving shortly after that and traveled with them. Lucky to be alive,” her voice tightened as she slowed and then stopped speaking for a moment. “The river... That is where I got out... I listened to the people I traveled with. They came from here, along the river itself, there's a cave. They spent time there. It's on a road that follows the river. The road is abandoned, or was abandoned, even then. I came out on that road myself when I got out, before the others captured me. I'm sure that I could find the way in if we can find that road... I say find that cave, then get down on the cliffs that front the river. It's going to look like a small dark cave opening from a distance, but up close you can see the jackhammer marks, at least I did when I came out of it.”She shrugged.
“I say, lead us down then, Pear
l.”
Pearl looked back at Adam, frowned, and then nodded.
~
The buildings they passed were silent, crumbling ruins. The roadway was cracked and missing huge sections in places. The low thump of the exhaust echoed off the buildings as they passed them and headed down into the city itself. Billy crawled along the road, allowing the truck to idle its way. The hill flattened out, and they began to pass areas of what had been strip malls and then passed into block after block of old houses. Tilted, some fallen, all the yards were overgrown. A few areas were devoid of anything at all.
They passed what looked to be a hospital building. At least the signs that were still legible referred to it as a hospital. The top floors were collapsed, debris scattered across the parking lots. Many of the cars were crushed under huge slabs of concrete. They could see only slices of the landscape through the gun slots in the armor that covered the windows. The monitors on their dashboards sent a clearer picture to them.
The CB radios were scratchy silence, and had been for miles. They had skirted the city of Syracuse, and the radio had jumped to life a few times as they were traveling away from it, but even then it was nothing they could understand. It might have been someone transmitting, it might have been something else, although none of them could think of what else it might have been. Whatever it was they had understood none of it. A series of pops and screeches, periods of absolute silence. It happened three times, and then stopped. The radio had reverted back to scratchy silence and stayed that way.
The roadway narrowed to not much more than a wide street, and then the taller buildings of the downtown area began to show ahead. The CB radio in Adam's truck suddenly squawked to life.
“... Hey... Hey, you guys... Two coming... Two coming... Some strange looking shit right here. Coming downtown... Hey come on back...”
Beth picked up the FM radio from the seat top. “Billy?”
“Yeah... Heard it,” Billy said. “Look at this.”
The brake lights on Billy's truck lit up as he slowed. Adam pulled slightly to the side to see why he was stopping.
The road was blocked from side to side just where it entered the downtown area. There were more than a dozen wrecked cars and trucks closing it from one side to the other. Adam pulled up even with Billy's truck, glancing around at the buildings as he did. He saw nothing at all.
“Tell him to back out of here,” Adam told Beth.
Beth nodded, picked up the radio, and that was when the first shots came, ringing against the steel armor of the trucks.
Adam floored the gas and the big truck leapt backwards, the tires screeching as it did. Billy's truck raced along backwards next to him. Together they backed at full speed out of the downtown area, and away from the roadblock.
In a few seconds they were screaming backwards down the wider street beyond the downtown area they had driven into. Billy's truck slowed beside him, the tires locking up and hopping on the pavement, and then the truck backed hard into the hospital parking lot. Flying into the air as it left the road, and disappearing from site into the lot.
Adam locked up his own brakes, swung around hard, and then floored the gas pedal and backed toward the parking lot too. Beth shot her arm out and braced herself as the truck leapt into the air when the rear tires hit the small rise from the roadway to the parking lot, and bounced high into the air. Adam locked up the brakes a split second later, barely missing Billy's truck, and slammed backwards into a car at the back of the lot before stopping. The collision did nothing to the heavily reinforced iron bumper of the truck, but sent the car spinning like a top across half of the cracked and tilted parking lot. It hit the opposite side of the lot and skittered off the side into a deep ravine.
“Jesus, Adam,” Beth said. She pushed herself backwards into her seat once more. A second later she was scanning the monitors and then squinting through the side port to the outside.
“Nobody hurt?” Billy's voice over the FM.
“Good... You?” Adam asked.
“Good... Bastards,” Billy spat.”
“Yeah,” Adam agreed. He looked down at the rear monitor again. Shadows moved in the deep black of the nearby parking garage. “Looks like dead in the parking garage,” Adam added.
“Saw that,” Billy answered. “Fuck. When it rains it pours, I guess.”
Adam laughed. “Yeah, well, I wouldn't have it any other way.” He looked over at Beth and then down at the monitor checking the lot once more. “Here's what we're gonna do...”
A few minutes later they were in the trucks and running fast down into the city. Beth drove while Adam manned the gun. Billy while Pearl ran their gun. As soon as they were in range they began to launch grenades at the surrounding buildings: The results were instantaneous. Return fire came hard and fast, but it only served as a beacon for Pearl and Adam to sight in on. Soon those strong holds were gone, the buildings where they had secreted themselves nothing but crumbled ruins scattered into the streets. Smoke and flame rose into the sky to warn others of their presence.
There had been no pin pointing of the conversations they had monitored on their way into the city. Two distinct groups, but they seemed to be in cooperation with one another. Adam didn't care what their alliances were as long as both sides got the message to leave them alone or suffer the consequences.
A few grenades cleared the cars and they made their way into the public square. Pieces of the cars burned, and wreckage lay scattered everywhere, lending a feel of war torn third world unreality to them as they slowly made their way past the wreckage and into the traffic circle. Behind them the buildings sent smoke and flame into the air, brick, glass and wood had been blasted out onto the pavement. The occasional body lay on the blacktop, or hung partway from the exploded buildings, but there was no more return fire. A half trip around the old traffic circle and they made the west side of the old public square and bore away from the city.
The streets here were buckled, virtually useless and hard to travel. The river came into view far below, past a vast area of ruins, and Adam lead them off road down a steep hill in that direction. A little slipping and sliding bought them to a road that traversed the top of the river gorge, and they turned cautiously back toward the center of the city. They hadn't traveled more than a few hundred feet when Adam rolled to a stop and his voice came over the radio in Billy and Pearl's truck.
“All wrong,” Adam said tightly. “This should be the back way into that cave Pearl told us about. Has to be. There isn't any other road below this one.”
Billy was studying the monitors hard. “She thinks it is... So?”
“So, if it is, and it is occupied, where are they? Wouldn't you protect your back door?”
“I see your point,” Billy agreed. “I would.”
“Might be booby trapped,” Beth threw in.
“In the roadway?” Pearl asked.
“Best place,” Adam agreed.
“Or it could be nothing... Maybe they didn't take the place,” Beth said quietly.
“Yeah... Yeah... I just don't buy that,” Billy said. “It's too nice down here... Cleaned up. Neat... And even the brush is cut back, or seems to be, doesn't it? Doesn't look like you could hide anywhere... No... I think they have us in sight right now... And I think the roads are booby trapped. Fuckin' lucky we didn't blow our asses up already.”
“Should leave,” Pearl added.
“No,” Beth said. “I say we should stay. If range, for them, is that brush line where things become hard to see for us, then we are out of range for anyone except a good sharp shooter with a long range rifle. They're not likely to have one. If they do, well, I guess we'll pay for it, but my point is I don't think they do, and the longer we sit here the more paranoid they'll get... Maybe we can force their hand. Watch our exit, watch that brush line... See what we can see.”
“I don't want to, but I do agree with that,” Billy said and chuckled.
“Think I'm right?” Beth asked.
“I
think you're unstoppable when you set a thing in motion. Seen it. And... it's a solid plan.”
“Yeah,” Adam agreed.
“Yeah,” Pearl threw in. “Came to have it out, may as well have it out.”
Twenty minutes of waiting saw the first movement along the brush line. Pearl spotted it.
“Gang... Gang, I think that is a cannon... Rocket launcher? I think maybe we overstayed our welcome.”
'What? No way... No... Dammit, lets go now,” Adam said quickly. “Send some grenades at them on the way out.”
The monitors would maintain targets once locked, as long as the line of sight was intact. They were tied into Dustin's weapons aiming system. As Adam and Pearl both geared up to leave, both Beth and Billy locked on the small targets at the brush line. While they were turning, the grenades were launched and began to tear up the brush line and the small rocket launcher they had been setting up. Shoulder mounted. The tube and a half dozen people spilled out of the brush line, sprawled onto the pavement. A few still moved. The aiming system disengaged as they raced back up the muddy hillside and it lost its lock.
Pearl had nearly made it to the top of the muddy hill when a huge blast rocked the truck hard, and it lurched to the right, burying its nose in to the earth. A second later it began to slide back down the hill, turning sideways as it went. Billy could hear Adam calling on the radio, but when his eyes found Pearl, wondering why she had not answered, he found she was tumbled in a heap on the floor. A minute after that the truck caught on something under the earth of the hill and went over, rolling to the bottom of the hill and crashing into the trees.
Beth watched the truck roll away down the hill, but there was little she could do. A second rocket launcher had appeared from the trees and she had watched as someone dropped a rocket in by hand and a second later, before it fully registered, the rocket was climbing a trail of fire into the air heading for Billy's truck. She watched her front monitor and the back monitor as she finished her climb. She saw the people and the rocket launcher turn to dust as Adam hit it with their own weapons, but had it been too late for Billy and Pearl?
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 120
