Barrel of Monkeys

by Tymber Dalton

  Sharon looked up at her. “Oops.”

  “Knock it off.”

  Papa and all the Drunk Monkeys crowded into the lobby moments later, some of them looking like they’d been awakened out of sound sleeps.

  She felt a little bad about that but didn’t have time to think about it, because Papa was having her tell the full story and pull up the alert on the lobby computer.

  As he read it, his gaze narrowed. “This is not good.”

  “No shit,” Alpha muttered. “Damned bad, I’d say.”

  “It’s just a stupid road closure. Why is this such a big deal?”

  The two men glared at her. “Seriously?” they parroted.

  “We might want to think about leaving immediately,” Papa said. “Their next step might be to backtrack into the valley and take out everyone as they clear territory.”

  “What?”

  Now everybody started talking at once. She leaned against the counter, wincing at the feel of her personal cell phone digging into her ass. She’d fished it out of her pocket and was trying to get everyone to shut the fark up so she could think when her the cell rang in her hand. It shocked her so much she almost dropped it.

  Fumbling it, she finally got it turned face-up so she could see who was calling.

  It was Dave. “Hello?” she said, confused that he’d be calling her now, and startled that it even had reception when she thought the towers had died.

  “Gia?” It wasn’t Dave, but a terrified and slightly familiar-sounding woman.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s…it’s Linda. I’m really scared.”

  Dark, unpleasant thoughts started swirling through Gia’s gut. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “We’re in Barstow.” The woman coughed. “Dave’s sick. I can’t find anyone to help him. I’m pregnant, three months. I think I’m sick, too.”

  Gia closed her eyes, her free hand now rubbing her temple. All she could do was offer the poor woman a little comfort. “What about the Red Cross doctors at the tent city? Can you go see them?”

  “They’re gone. They all left about an hour ago. So did most of the National Guard. They didn’t tell anyone they were leaving, they just pulled out. I heard them, but I thought it was like a shift change or something. I went to look for a doctor but they told me to go back to my tent. They said nothing was wrong, that more people would be back in the morning, but I don’t believe them. I think something really bad’s going to happen. There’s only like a couple dozen soldiers around now. And most of them look sick.”

  “Linda, where’s the bus you guys arrived in?”

  “It’s gone. The Guard said all the busses had to be disinfected, so they took them, any big trucks and vans. Said they needed them to go back to the city and move more people out tomorrow.”

  Shit. Gia suspected she knew exactly what would happen next.

  “Listen to me. Can you get any other car? Get Dave and get out of there?”

  “I looked.” Linda started crying. “They all have flat tires. It’s like someone went through and punched holes in them. Gia, what’s going on?”

  Gia sank into one of the chairs in the lobby. “Look, it’s in the middle of the night. Why don’t you go back to your tent and see how Dave and you both feel in the morning?”

  “But I don’t… Wait, what’s that?”

  Dread ratcheted up Gia’s tension. “What’s what?”

  “I… I hear something.” Gia heard a noise over the connection, like the other woman was walking. “The power’s out in Barstow, but I see lights and I hear something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like planes.”

  “Linda, you need to—”

  “They are planes. They look like they’re coming from Edwards. There’s several of them.”

  It wasn’t like Gia could tell the girl to run. Hopefully, whatever they were about to dump on them would take care of them in one fell swoop without leaving suffering survivors behind who’d have to be picked off one by one.

  In fact, Gia was pretty much counting on the US government not wanting to leave any witnesses behind.

  “Linda, you should go back to bed,” she gently said.

  “And there’s helicopters coming, too. I can see them off in the distance, over the desert. Does this mean they’re bringing in more doctors now?”

  “You should go back to your tent and sit with Dave.”

  “There’s a bunch of them. I don’t under—”

  Gia flinched as she heard the sound of a massive explosion, and then the phone went dead. She didn’t bother trying to call Linda back, either. Dropping the phone into her lap, she took a deep breath and let it out again before opening her eyes.

  Echo, Omega, and the others stood over her, concern on their faces. “What’s going on?” Omega quietly asked.

  “Just wait a minute.” Gia thought—she hoped—that they hadn’t used nukes. Hopefully they’d used thermobaric bombs that would kill everyone in the tent city instantaneously. Bombs that made the old MOAB devices of the early twenty-first century look like firecrackers.

  Nukes wouldn’t let them quickly fix the railroads out there that would be damaged by the blast. Then again, maybe that was their cover. Easy to say that a train full of propane cars went up unexpectedly. Horrible tragedy. Maybe even blame it on rioters camped out in the tent city amongst the other refugees. Or even call it a domestic terrorist action. Anything.

  The helos were likely equipped with FLIR that would easily spot any survivors running out into the desert so they could be picked off by gunners. She could already imagine them taking up a perimeter around the main target area, safely out of the initial blast radius and then easing in to keep a watchful eye from their safe perch.

  A mild tremor vibrated through their building.

  “What the hell?” Echo muttered. “Another aftershock?”

  The sick laugh burped free of Gia before she could stop it. “No. That was Barstow.”

  The men exchanged a look. “Fuck,” Omega said.

  * * * *

  Gia didn’t know what she expected to find, but she logged into the secure system database anyway, just in case. Her gut told her they wouldn’t vaporize the LA basin the way they had the tent city. The terrain would make that impossible, for starters. But she suspected there would soon be strict cordons set up around the area, and anyone trying to get out would be killed, and anyone trying to get in would be turned around.

  Or killed.

  With Omega, Echo, Papa, Alpha, and Lima in tow, Gia headed for her office and quickly logged in to the system. She was surprised to find Traverson had posted an update in the secure system a few hours earlier, just before the publicly accessible CHP order had been posted. In all caps, too, which wasn’t normal for him.

  ALL PERSONNEL ORDERED OUT OF BARSTOW EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. REPORT IN AS POSSIBLE. MILITARY PERSONNEL EMBEDDED WITH LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ARE TO REPORT TO EDWARDS AFB IF NO OTHER COMMAND UNIT IS LOCATED.

  Well, what do you know about that?

  “So it was deliberate,” Papa said. His expression looked even more grim than his tone sounded.

  “Of course it was,” she said. “They posted this order in the secure database, not the general one the public can access for status updates, like the CHP did with the road closure. All those potential carriers of Kite? No way in hell they’d let them move around the country.”

  Gia wondered how many people in Barstow had actually been exposed to Kite before they got there. How many had developed it in the cramped quarters of the refugee camp, or during transport there. And how many infected people had gotten out of the LA area and spread the disease elsewhere already?

  She damn sure wasn’t about to post an updated status about their station. The less attention she drew to them, the better. Best they think their station was out of the loop. It would give them more time to get the hell out of Dodge.

  Logging off, she hoped she hadn’t screwed up by logging
in in the first place.

  “Hey,” Lima said. “Check this out.” He held the tablet out so they could see it.

  From one of the newswire services, a “report” that a massive propane tanker train explosion had just occurred in Barstow in the vicinity of the refugee camp.

  No source was listed for the report, and no casualty estimates had yet been given, although a large and tragic loss of life was expected.

  “Here’s what’s worse.” He pulled up another page.

  “What’s that?” Gia asked.

  “DoD satellite feed.”

  “You’re connected into a secure satellite feed?”

  “Yeah,” he said as if it was normal. “Why?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Just watch.”

  He hit play, and the explosion bloomed into horrible life out of the darkness.

  “Now this view.”

  “I’d rather not,” she weakly said.

  “Yes, you do.” This was an IR feed. In this version, the tent city was plainly visible, set up surrounding the main railhead area, the tracks running through the middle of it. And there was the train, over thirty propane tank cars on it, from her best guess.

  But even worse were the oil tankers she spotted interspersed with them.

  A big boom, followed by an even bigger burn.

  Helicopters were visible swooping around the far reaches of the region when several missiles streaked in and then…

  She closed her eyes, trying not to imagine how many innocent people had just died.

  “Turn it off,” Papa quietly said.

  Gia opened her eyes as Lima shut off the feed.

  “Well, that settles it,” Papa said. “I think stopping in Castaic for a day or two to regroup is totally out of the question. We need to leave the region before they have time to shut down the roads to the north of here. If they’re willing to set up an excuse to kill a camp full of over a million innocent people without bothering to test them for Kite, they’ll start picking people off one-by-one who leave the area.” He looked at Gia. “Your thoughts?”

  “We absolutely need to get the hell out of here,” she said. “Time to pull up stakes and leave. Now.”

  “How soon can you get everyone notified?”

  She shrugged. “I only had ten deputies report for duty tonight. I can pull them in and cut them loose. I warned them at the start of their shift that this would be their last.”

  “Okay. And tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I seriously doubt that’s going to be an issue. I’ll leave a note for anyone who does bother to show up. Station’s down to less than a quarter tank of fuel for the backup genny. Once that goes, it’s pointless trying to run this place for an extended period of time on solar or wind. They can’t handle anything more than the radios, computers, security, and the well pump.”

  “Can we be out of here in two hours?”

  “I know I can.”

  “What about your friend Sharon?”

  “She’s still welcomed, right?” Gia asked.

  “Yes. I meant can she be ready?”

  “I am ready,” Sharon said from the doorway. “Been ready for a couple of days to blow this pop stand.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Then let’s call it 03:00 hours that we’ll be rolling north.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Gia awakened and gathered the National Guard kids together to let them know the change of plans.

  She didn’t tell them about Barstow’s destruction yet.

  There’d be more than enough time for that bad news once they safely left Santa Clarita. “We’re rolling out of here at 03:00.”

  “We are still going with you, right?” one of the ROTC kids asked. His worried tone chipped away at the stony outer shell encasing her heart.

  “Well, yeah. At least as far as Redding, if that’s your question.”

  They all looked at each other. “We want to take Nick back to his mom.”

  She couldn’t afford to let heartache seep in right at that moment. “I know. We will. That’s part of the plan. Part of my plan, at least.”

  “What do we do after that?” another one asked.

  “If you’re asking me what your next orders are, honestly, I can’t tell you. I would suggest reporting in at your base in Redding and go from there. Feel free to tell them I ordered you all back up there once everything went to hell here.”

  “But what about the orders to go to Edwards? I thought you said—”

  “Yeah, and you can blame it on me, okay? You were put under my command. You are following my orders. Got it?” She didn’t have the heart to send them to Edwards. No telling what level of hell they’d get dropped into if she did.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they replied.

  “Look, I know some of you are rethinking your decision to join the Guard in the first place. I don’t blame you. I probably wouldn’t be a happy camper if I was still in right now, either. But I refuse to order you guys to your deaths. That’s not my job. If some other commander wants to do that, that’s on his conscience. My intention is to get you all safely back to Redding. From that point…” She shrugged. “I wish you well, but I consider getting you back to Redding the end of my responsibilities. I’m certainly not going to be reporting anything to the military about your status or whereabouts.”

  Mike walked up behind her. “Can I come with you guys, too?”

  She turned. “Have you been at the station this whole time?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m single. No family.”

  “Okay, sure. We’ll drop you in Redding, too, if that’s where you want to go.”

  “I just want to go anywhere that’s not here, and go with a group of people so I’m not traveling alone.”

  “Smart guy. Okay, so get packed and be ready to go at 03:00 hours. We’re clearing out of here with or without you.”

  After recalling her deputies and contacting as many of the others as she could, Gia gathered the rest of her gear and stowed it in her vehicle. She’d drive her official SUV. Their thinking was, for now, it might be better to have the appearance of official blessings on their convoy. A couple of the others would bring some of the other marked SUVs, and impounded SUVs and trucks, too. The National Guard kids would follow behind and bring up the rear.

  The unit had swapped out a few of their older, less reliable vehicles and would leave them behind. Every drop of fuel that could be was drained from the other vehicles, they’d topped off all the vehicles in the convoy from the station’s tank, and they’d filled all their spare fuel cans to the brim. Now, every vehicle in the convoy was a solar hybrid, which might prove necessary later on depending on where they ended up.

  As Gia stood beside her unit, a case of the shakes hit her. She braced herself against the SUV, eyes closed, trying to breathe her way through it. Yes, she’d suspected something very bad would happen in Barstow.

  She’d hoped it wouldn’t. Somehow, she’d never accepted they would really do something that morally reprehensible and cold-hearted.

  That the military had easily incinerated a million or more people, in one fell swoop, that was…

  Inconceivable.

  She would be having a rather heated discussion with General Arliss, if she ever got to meet him face-to-face. She didn’t think he had anything to do with the orders that had been issued, but if he did, he had a knuckle sandwich coming.

  “Gia?” Echo’s soft voice startled her. She turned around to find his blue gaze intently focused on her. “You all right?”

  She started to nod, then shook her head. He enfolded her against his chest.

  She wanted to cry. Wanted to rail and scream and sob.

  All she could do was take a deep breath of him, close her eyes, and try not to think about the horrible images from the satellite view.

  “We’ll get through this one day at a time,” he whispered in her hair.

  “I’m not sure I can do it in that big of a chunk.”

  “You’ve done
good here, lady,” he said. “You handled a lot far better than most would have. You did your best.”

  “It wasn’t good enough.”

  “It damn sure was. Anyone still left in the valley, they’re not your problem.”

  Omega joined them. “I don’t feel like I did enough,” she said.

  “You did more than enough,” Omega assured her. “And we’re proud of you.”

  * * * *

  There would be one final briefing just before they loaded up and rolled out. Before they could, however, Lima waved them over to his vehicle. “Check this out.”

  They all gathered around to watch the video on the tablet, where Lima had hooked it up to a small external speaker to boost the sound. The young woman reading the news looked rattled.

  “And on top of the ongoing crisis in Los Angeles comes word now from US military intelligence sources that Russia might be planning an invasion of the US and Canada via Alaska.”

  Uncle snorted. “They can have Alaska for all I care. Frozen goddamned tundra.”

  “Amen,” Gia agreed.

  Papa shushed them.

  “Requests for comments from the Pentagon and the White House have as of yet been ignored. But the sources, more than one, corroborated each other independently. Yet one more worry for embattled president Charlotte Kennedy, who faces reelection in…”

  “Seriously?” Gia practically yelled. “People are fucking dying, the military is blowing up whole towns full of refugees, and the reporters are talking about next year’s elections? Did anyone warn them that if Kite isn’t brought under control by then that there might not be any elections next fall?”

  Echo pulled her into his arms. “Preaching to the choir, baby.”

  “It’s a distraction,” Omega said. “Chances are, that was news to Russia. The government and media conglomerates want something larger than LA to take over the top news slot for a while so people start forgetting that LA and Barstow are history. There’s still a lot of people in SoCal who are living on borrowed time before Kite, violence, or maybe even troops kill them.”

  “They’re right,” Pandora said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ve seen stuff like that happen before. Never thought anything of it, of course. Not when you’re deep inside the newsroom. But now, as an outsider, I can remember plenty of times where there would be some bad news locally, or even nationally, and then almost immediately something worse, somewhere else, took top billing and attention. I never used to be a conspiracy theorist. How naive I was.”