by Dave Conifer
“Are either of you Christie Moon?” he blurted out.
“No,” Screamer answered. “Why?” she answered. “What do you want with Christie?”
Nick held his hands up defensively. “Nothing. I just know she lives here. Or used to. Do you know her?”
“How do you know Christie?” the other woman asked.
“Later. Look, the point is that we’re here to help you,” Nick said. “We’re not whoever you thought we were. I think you need to get the kids out of this basement. How about if Dewey and I go back outside? You can at least get them back upstairs. Then maybe one of you can come out and talk with us when you’re ready. We can explain the whole thing to you. But the kids shouldn’t be down here.”
They didn’t have any choice. There were so many children howling or sobbing with fear behind her now that he knew she’d agree to his plan. “Come on, Dewey.” They were at the top of the stairs when he turned and went back down. “Wait, one more thing. Why are there bodies down here? Are we in danger?”
“There’s always danger,” Screamer said. “This is the Sanderson’s house, and those are the Sandersons back there. And whoever else was with them that day. There’s somebody upstairs, too.”
“What day was that?” Nick asked.
“The first day we got raided. They got chased into their own basement,” she explained.
“And killed?” Nick asked. “Chased by who?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. No wonder they were scared. “We’ll get to the bottom of this when you come out. If you’re hungry, we have food and water.” They turned and walked upstairs and out the front door. As he looked at the pathetic array of leaves and grass around the baskets, he knew the offer of decent food was too good for them to turn down, no matter how scared they might be.
Back outside, John was a few doors away, poking around behind the barrel of his rifle. He rushed over when he saw Nick and Dewey. “What’s going on?”
“We found them,” Nick said. “They’re really scared. They’ve got real problems in this town. Apparently somebody’s dropped by a few times and shot the place up. There are bodies down in the basement.”
“Were they all in there?” John asked.
“I think so,” Nick said. “It was dark down there. These people are no danger to us. It’s just what we thought. Two moms and a bunch of kids. They’re coming out after they collect themselves. How about everybody backs off for a few minutes while Dewey and I tell them why we’re here? They’re pretty shook up.”
“Well, okay, but we’re not going far,” John replied.
“Maybe somebody could go back to the van and get some food and water,” Dewey suggested. “We kinda’ told them we’d feed them.”
“Or better yet, just drive the van over here,” Nick said. “I mean, if you think it’s okay,” he added quickly. “I think our cover is blown, anyway.”
Sixteen
Robert, Albert, Gygax and Kelly, the elder half of the Medford Kids, ambled down the dirt road toward the lake one morning, a few minutes after picking their way through a breakfast of dried cranberries and water. So far all they’d talked about were Albert’s ideas on shifting their fishing time to later in the day, the only problem being that it would prevent them from eating dinner with the other campers. It would be worth it, they all agreed. Fishing at dusk would be more productive than at midday. They were sure of it.
They hadn’t brought in much of a haul so far. Hopefully the change would help. Otherwise, they all feared, there was a risk that the lake would be declared unfishable and they’d be transferred to more mundane jobs. Of course, with winter coming fast, their days on the lake were numbered anyway. It probably didn’t matter much what they did.
“What are we planning on doing about Allie, guys?” Kelly asked. She was referring, of course, to the younger sister of their friend, Ethan, who’d been killed during the escape from Medford. After being at Tabernacle for over a month, she still would not speak. Kelly’s question was a futile one, they all knew. The reality was that there was nothing to be done except coddle her and shower her with attention and affection, things which they were already doing. Sometimes it made Kelly feel better just to pay it some lip service.
“She’ll come around,” Robert said. “She’ll start talking. What else is she gonna’ do? Never talk again?”
It was what he always said, and Kelly didn’t like it. Robert’s take on Allie’s situation lacked compassion and empathy, but nobody else had a better idea. Gygax never said anything at all when it came up, probably because it reminded him of the best friend that he’d lost when Allie’s older brother was shot to death in the woods that day. Being responsible for the well-being of a younger sibling, a burden they all carried now, was a heavy load for teenagers who’d already lost parents and friends. Coming up with a cure for Allie was too much to ask of them.
“Hey, where’s Carly?” Albert asked when they’d reached the Transportation Garage by the lake and found it closed up. On most days Carly could be found under the hood or beneath the front-end of one of the vehicles, be it inside the Garage or out. But not today.
“Man!” Robert said. “I never knew they had so many trucks!” They were staring at what looked like a parking lot in the field behind the Garage. There were two tractor trailers, a U-Haul truck, nine or ten vans, and two boxy sedans that none of them could remember seeing on the road. All of them looked older than the Medford Kids themselves were.
“We,” corrected Kelly. “We’re part of this now.”
“Do these all run?” Robert asked incredulously.
“I know at least some of them do,” Kelly answered. “Anyway, what about Carly?”
“I saw her father last night in the Outhouse,” Gygax said. “She’s gone for the day. She’s busy on some kind of secret project. Secret enough that her own father didn’t even know exactly what it was, anyway.”
“Look at the steam rising off the lake,” Kelly said. “That means the water’s warmer than the air, right?”
“Yeah,” Albert said. “It got cold all of a sudden. I think winter started last night.”
“Hey, is this a new boat?” Gygax asked, pointing at an aluminum canoe that had been dragged onto the tiny dirt beach near the dock.
“I’ve never seen it before,” Kelly said. “Carly must have found it. Looks like she took it for a test drive,” she added, noting the paddles on the ground a few feet from it.
“I love canoes,” Gygax said. “I think I’ll take the new one out for a spin later. I wonder where it came from. I swear we looked everywhere the first day.”
“Sure are a lot of secrets around here,” Albert said. “Let’s just go fishing. Who’s going out first?”
Once they’d determined it was Albert and Gygax’s turn out in the boat, they all bustled through their pre-fishing tasks. Although they hadn’t been doing this at Tabernacle for long, they’d been fishing together every day since July. It wasn’t long before the rowboat, loaded with bait and equipment, shoved off from the dock with Gygax and Albert aboard. Robert and Kelly, meanwhile, prepared the next round of bait and pulled out the coolers for any fish that were caught. Neither expected much of a catch, but then again, they had very little experience fishing this late in the year. Maybe they’d be surprised.
~~~
“Hey, you sure there wasn’t anybody in the Garage?” Albert asked Gygax when they were a hundred yards out, lines cast and bobbers sitting quietly on the water. “I swear I keep seeing someone in there. Look through them little windows along the side. You’ll see it.”
“If anybody’s in there, it isn’t Carly,” Gygax said.
“Row it around so you can look for yourself,” Albert told him. “You’ll see what I mean.”
For a few minutes there was no sound except the gentle lapping of water at the side of the boat, and the ratcheting of plastic gears with each cast. Then Gygax spoke. “Yeah, I saw something. But it looks like flames.”
“That’s not
what I saw,” Albert answered. “If it was burning down, we’d know it by now. Keep watching.”
“I think we should go back,” Gygax said. “We’re not getting anything done out here, anyway.” When Albert didn’t protest he grabbed the oars and start rowing back to the dock.
They were still thirty feet out, with Robert and Kelly staring quizzically at them from the dock because they were coming in too early, when Albert pointed at a tendril of smoke trailing out from the side of the Garage. He shouted a warning to his brother and Kelly, who turned and saw the smoke. Both ran toward the Garage. Just as they reached it, the two huge front doors of the Garage flew open. Robert instinctively flattened himself against the exterior wall, out of view, and Kelly followed suit.
As Gygax and Albert watched in horror, a man with a pistol emerged through the Garage doors. When he saw Robert and Kelly, who were still hugging the wall, the pistol arm swung toward them. Quick as a cat Robert lunged at him, knocking his shooting hand off-line. Fresh rounds from his pistol tore harmlessly into the roof of the Garage. Robert slammed the man’s chin with a powerful cross that knocked him back into the wall, followed by an uppercut, before wrestling the pistol away. The gunman, stunned by the blows, sank helplessly to his knees in a daze.
As Robert and Kelly backed away and looked for cover, they heard engines inside the Garage turn over and come to life. They were already confused, but the situation was about to get more complicated. Trying to simplify, Robert pointed the gun at the injured man and pulled the trigger. The man was already throwing his hands up when the shots ripped into his torso. He flopped to the ground like a rag doll and didn’t move.
Two Sec Force vans shot out from the Garage like rockets. One barreled past without slowing down, its wheels kicking up dirt and dust as it headed up the road toward the center of camp. The other lurched to a stop. Shots were fired backwards at a severe angle from the driver’s window, but Robert and Kelly were still pressed so tightly against the wall that there was little chance of being hit. When the shooting paused, they ran to safety behind the Garage.
Rifle barrels jutting from the open back door of the van glowed momentarily with orange muzzle fire, aimed more at the rowboat than at the Garage. Albert and Gygax plunged over the side and into the lake, where they bobbed safely behind the boat. Suddenly without targets, the second van sped away along the same path as the first without firing any more shots, apparently giving up their colleague for dead.
It had all happened so fast. None of them even had time to be scared. But now they did, and they were. “What do we do now?” Gygax asked after they’d come together near the Garage, each doing their best not to look at the body.
By then the smoke was pouring out through the open front doors, but no flames were visible yet from the dock. “Man!” Albert yelled. “We forgot about the fire!”
“Let’s see if we can put it out!” Kelly yelled. They ran into the Garage and saw immediately that they were too late. Flames were already licking two of the four walls, each made of old, dry lumber that was igniting at the first touch of fire. There were clearly a lot of flammable materials in the Garage, and that was helping the fire to spread quickly.
“No way!” Albert yelled. He grabbed Robert’s arm and pointed to some barrels in the corner with gas pump handles on top. “Those will blow up as soon as the flames get to them.”
“Yeah, it’s hopeless!” agreed Gygax. “I’m just glad Carly wasn’t around! Let’s get out of here and tell somebody what happened!”
“I think they know by now!” Robert yelled back over the roar of the fire, which was growing louder as it sucked in oxygen and rose into the rafters of the Garage. They retreated through the front doors and were gulping in the cool, smoke-free air outside. “Them two vans—“
He stopped in mid-sentence as four Sec Forces appeared out of nowhere. They’d come from the center of camp and were running toward the Garage. Robert stepped forward with his arms up before they got to close, to make sure they knew he and the others in the doorway were not the enemy.
“What in the world happened here?” one of the Sec Forces asked. “Who did this?” Another ran into the Garage and poked around, while two more circled the building looking for more trouble. The kids quickly explained what they’d seen. “We’re lucky Carly isn’t here today, so nobody was in there to get burned up,” Kelly said.
“Maybe we’re not so lucky,” the Sec Force who’d just come from inside the Garage said. “Come on back and tell me who this is, before this place comes down.”
All four kids filed in, ignoring the searing heat of the flames. Kelly covered her open mouth with her hand before she turning away, her hands on her knees. The rest gawked silently at the sight of Hal, lying prone on the floor behind a stack of tires, covered with dried blood which had oozed from his chest. He’d been dead long before the fire had started. Kelly wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
A rafter snapped and a corner of the Garage collapsed in a fiery mass, sparks spraying dangerously close to all of them. The barrels of fuel were fewer than ten feet from the flames. “You gotta’ get out of there!” one of the Sec Forces shouted from the front of the Garage, where he’d suddenly appeared. The rest of the Forces didn’t need to be told twice.
The Sec Force who’d spotted Hal grabbed Robert’s arm to pull him to the door, but Robert shook it off angrily. “We’re not leaving him in here!” he told him. Albert picked Hal up by his legs, Robert took his arms, and they carried him through the smoke and out into the sunlight. “Keep going!” Robert yelled. They were still close enough to feel the heat of the blast when the Garage exploded in a sickly, barn-sized ball of orange flame and black, oily smoke.
Their faces smudged with soot, Robert and Albert’s hands stained brown with old blood, all they could do was watch the Garage burn to the ground. The Sec Forces conferred long enough to determine that there was nothing more they could do there. After needlessly reminding the kids to stay away from the fire, they left to return to the center of camp. The remaining Medford Kids sat quietly in the dirt as if they were in shock, trying to understand what had just happened.
“I’m glad I wasted that dude,” Robert said angrily. “Those dudes woulda’ killed me without even thinking twice about it. Same for all of us. I’m sick of being scared of dudes like that. Tomorrow I’m going in and signing up to join the army guys.”
~~~
“Let’s have it, Carlo,” Grover said, obviously agitated. “You had a chance to investigate. How did this happen?” The emergency meeting, attended only by Grover, Carlo, Roethke and Quigley, was being held in the back of the Food Distribution Center at about ten o’clock at night, just a few hours after the Garage had been burned down and two vans were stolen. The camp had gone on lockdown as soon as the shooting down by the lake was heard, but it hadn’t mattered. Before anything could be done about it, the two vans had crashed through the front gate from the inside and disappeared on Route 206. Now Grover wanted answers.
“We think they came into the camp by boat,” Carlo began. “We found a canoe that nobody had ever seen before down by the dock. It was probably overnight. We have people in the woods along the camp borders everywhere, including down by the lake. But of course once it’s dark, we can’t see much. And there’s no way to guard the lake itself in the dark. They were probably hidden safely in the Garage before the sun came up.”
“The lake isn’t defendable, then,” Grover said. “Noted. We’ll have to do something about that.”
“And the rest is obvious, right?” Quigley asked. “They ambushed the mechanic when he came in, grabbed everything they could, and stormed out of here. It was a pretty slick operation, actually. They’d clearly watched the place carefully before they planned this.”
“At least we can be thankful they didn’t get as much as they could have,” Carlo said. “Most of the vehicles were parked outside in the open. They must not have felt comfortable messing with them in full view.”
“There were only three of them,” Grover said. “They weren’t here to take all our vehicles. And yet they burned the Garage down. I think they were here to wreck our camp and send a signal to us. Stealing a couple of our vans was just icing on the cake. They needed some getaway cars, that’s all. And if I’m right,” he concluded, “We have a serious problem.”
“Luckily all the vans had been stripped for maintenance, including the ones they got,” Carlo said. “So at least they didn’t get any of our weapons. The guns were all moved to the Armory last week.”
“Noted,” Grover said again. “But it doesn’t sound like they’re short of firepower, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Carlo agreed. “And that really jacks my wire.”
Roethke coughed. “Come again? Is that good or bad?”
“It worries me,” Carlo said. “Where are all these well-armed people coming from? And how many more armies are out there?”
“It’s definitely food for thought,” Grover said. “Do you think they were the same people who’ve attacked us before?”
“Funny you should mention that,” Carlo said. “No, we don’t think so. We had a good look at the man they left behind by the lake. Definitely a different breed, or whatever.”
“How so?” Grover asked.
“He was clean and well-fed, for one thing. His hair and beard were trimmed. And his weapon was recently cleaned, and regularly maintained. He had plenty of fresh ammo on him. No, he’s a part of something entirely different than what we’ve seen before. And that scares me.”
“Their tactics were better, too,” Grover commented. “These weren’t barbarians at the gate. I wonder what their long-game is?”
“That’s the scary part,” Carlo agreed. “And now they have two fine sets of wheels to work with.”
“So, what have we learned?” Roethke asked. “The cost of this episode was our number one mechanic and two precious vans. Tell me we’ve at least learned something here. Please.”
