by Tom Germann
They didn’t have to go far before they came to a house with the front door torn off its hinges and the front bay window smashed from the inside.
Vajjer looked at Tocker with a frown. “You could have mentioned this was here, you know?”
Tocker shrugged and answered quietly,. “Sorry, Corporal, but I was with Sergeant Caisson and there was enough creepy stuff going on. I wasn’t looking for broken windows. I was looking for monsters.”
Susie stopped before getting to the door, but didn’t say anything.
Wagner looked at her and Tocker. “You two stay outside over by that hedge and keep an eye out please. Me and Vajjer’ll go in. There could be something left, but I doubt it and I want people paying attention out here just in case.”
The two nodded and quickly moved to the side, squatting down so they were partially concealed behind the hedge.
When the two men walked up to the front door, Vajjer readied his fire extinguisher while Wagner pulled out a hammer.
“Hmm, sir, do you think those two could use some backup?” Vajjer shrugged when Wagner glanced at him. “It was worth asking.”
Without another word, they went inside slowly, ever so slowly, waiting for something to come out of the shadows.
After a few minutes, they came back to the front door and gestured for Susie and Tocker to join them. They quickly went over what they had found while they stood in the front hall, keeping an eye out for movement outside.
The little that they could see of the inside was enough after the first glimpse to have Susie and Tocker looking out the front door.
There had been a fight, and it looked like four different people or more had been involved. The warrant officer and corporal had gone through quickly and found a rotary phone off the hook in a bedroom and a pool of blood. There were signs of a struggle throughout the house with the biggest fight in the living room. The guess, and that was all it was, was that a spouse had turned and attacked the other spouse, who had been calling for help. At least four people had arrived to help. At least one of which had been a soldier, given the cap they had found.
The people who had come had broken down the front door and moved to the bedroom, where the attacker had been. Judging from the blood spray someone had been bitten in the hallway by the bedroom and then the fight had come into the living room. With all the blood, at least two people had been fatally injured. It looked like someone had jumped through the bay window to get away. There were also some shell casings. Someone had used a forty-five and fired at least twice.
Like everywhere else, there were no bodies. And aside from a lot of blood, no other evidence that anything had happened that was serious. There weren’t even tracks on the front lawn, so the vehicle or vehicles that had shown up had stopped on the road. It had been long enough and the road was in bad enough shape that it wasn’t possible to tell if whoever had run had peeled out or just run away and come back for the vehicles later.
What exactly had happened here was unknown and all four agreed that maybe it was better if they never found out the specifics. To know that something had happened that took lives was one thing. To understand the horrors that the individuals had faced was too much.
The four turned back and quickly walked back to the service centre. They didn’t talk but moved from cover to cover. At one point they stopped and everyone strained to hear when a distant noise was faintly heard by them all. All four waited for it to be repeated, but after thirty seconds without further noise, they moved on.
When they got back to the service centre so much faster than they had travelled away from it, they were surprised to see how long they had been gone.
The vehicles were just being finished and were judged ready to roll after a quick inspection in the morning to make sure that everything had held. The vehicles were loaded and dinner was being prepared.
Everyone that had stayed behind was desperate for news and quickly took the little bit of information, starting to come up with different scenarios. Everyone had their own take on it.
Janice was convinced that there had been some sort of violent outbreak caused by something which could even have been toxic water sources and everyone had been evacuated. She felt strongly about heading for the town centre and seeing if there were notices up for evacuees and what rescue station they should head for.
Sergeant Caisson felt that there may have been some sort of orchestrated terror attack in the area. Small cells coming together to do damage in the region. Perhaps they had dropped something into the local water supply as well.
Jimmy put forward the idea of a tanker spill of toxic chemicals resulting in the evacuation of the area and the local damage being done by looters.
The discussion went on until everyone ran out of steam. Everyone felt as they did before. They needed to leave.
The Night Shift On Sentry
The front doors had been locked and sleeping areas set up while there was still plenty of daylight. It was NOT a comfortable setup, but it was better than being outside. The stockroom with its small, high windows was secure and the three women had been given that to sleep in. The boxes had been rearranged and some blankets laid out for padding. The door was open for airflow but at least there was a semblance of privacy, so they could strip down if they wanted.
The room was really quite stuffy, but better than some of the other options.
Richard and Sal were going to sleep in the office. Richard could recline his chair and put his feet up on a well scuffed corner of his desk. He would be asleep in seconds, a professional of the sitting-sleeping position. Sal would sleep on the floor in front of the desk on a rolled-up, mouldy carpet.
As soon as the work was finished, Caisson had headed into the garage. He climbed into the back of the station wagon and after shifting some boxes, started snoring. Everyone else had realized that this was a grand idea and joined him in taking a nap. Everyone was exhausted from a long day of strangeness and too much work. The bench seats in every vehicle were not the comfiest, but they were long enough for someone to scrunch up on and it was softer than concrete or sleeping on some tables put together. The privates, Vajjer, Jimmy, and Sam had gone in and claimed benches. Jimmy was in the truck as he said, “My old, tiny bladder is going to need emptying sooner rather than later.” Tocker and Andries were in the station wagon with the sergeant. Weibe and Sam were each in a car on their own.
That only left Steven and Wagner. They both elected to stay in the main room and set up the stretchers that no one else had used, along with a large number of blankets that the Wagner told Steven to put down because, “You think it’ll be okay to sleep on now, but when you wake up in the morning, you won’t be able to move until you work the kinks out. Trust me!”
The nap idea only lasted for a few minutes, but in that time, everyone had figured out where they would try to sleep that night and they had set themselves up.
After dinner had been finished off and the gas stove shut down, there had been a general meeting. A quick review of what had happened over the day. The recce patrol, collecting the cars, making sure that the cars were good to go with checks and how the batteries had been hooked up to chargers and fluids topped up. The car with the fins was not expected to make it over fifty miles but the extra items could be cross-loaded to the trucks, and the vehicles were so big they would have no problem carrying everyone. The last of the loads needed to be packed up in the morning and the building would be secured by a chain through the front door handles when they left.
There was general agreement that the best way to provide access in case someone came along after they left was the rooftop access hatch. How anyone other than those there would recognize that they didn’t know, but it was the best they could do.
Then they came to problems still to be dealt with. Jimmy stood up. “All right, we have some good vehicles there, but there are two things. First, we did not start any of them
up and won’t until we are ready to roll out of here, so we may still have some problems starting them. Second, those of us with mechanical knowledge agree, those are some mighty messed up vehicles. Their engines are inefficient and really they don’t look too well made. The other strange part is that everything is made in the US and there is little plastic involved anywhere. It’s like there’s a car plant somewhere in the States that is making old style cars like it was the nineteen fifties or sixties again.”
Jimmy sat down and Janice stood up, looking around angrily. “What do you mean ‘there may be problems starting them’? You all spent all that time working on them today and pumping gas! You didn’t even test them to make sure that they work?!”
Wagner stood up and looked at her. “Mrs. Lagrange, I made the decision not to test the vehicles after talking to the mechanics, your husband, and Sergeant Caisson. If we had fired them up, we would know they work, but sound carries and anyone for miles could hear the engines and come looking for us. Something bad happened here and maybe there are still bad people here. The other part is everything on the vehicles looks mechanically sound but the batteries. They have been sitting dormant for a while. So they were hooked up to chargers for the last few hours. When we wake up, we fire up the generator again and plug them in again. When we load the vehicles, we push them outside and when we fire them up, if one isn’t working, we’ll boost it off of one that is. Jimmy said how tough the truck is, so we’ll likely use that.”
Janice sat back down, looking daggers at him and everyone else.
There was an awkward silence after Steven tried to talk to her and she yelled, “Just leave me alone, you idiot!” Then she stomped off to the storage room.
Richard stood up and looked around. “I understand keeping an eye out is important and we should always keep sentries going. I made up a list where there were two people on every shift and that shift is for an hour and half each. The ladies will go first and then it works around to the guys. I wrote it out and figure we’ll put it up somewhere.” He held up a piece of paper. “We start the official sentries at nine, which is coming up.”
Wagner nodded. “Good job, Richard. I had completely forgotten to organize that. You’re putting it up on the notice board by your office?”
“Yes, that would be a good spot for it.”
Vajjer spoke up, “Everyone make sure you know when you are on shift, who is waking you, and who you are waking along with where they are. I don’t want to be woken every shift.”
Everyone laughed at that, but he just frowned. “No, I’m serious! Haven’t you ever been on social media and see the pic of the flashlight in the soldier’s face with the caption, ‘it’s 3 am and you’re on picket’?”
Wagner chuckled. “It IS a good point. It’s going to be hard enough to sleep, so make sure you know where your replacement is sleeping and wake them ten minutes before shift. That means ONE person wakes them while the other stays on watch.” He looked around and everyone, except for Sal and Andries, seemed to get it. “Any more questions before it gets fully dark and we are shut down?”
Sal waved. When he saw that the he had been noticed, he started speaking rapidly. “Maybe tomorrow we shouldn’t drive off but go to the city centre. I mean, if there is any relief effort, wouldn’t the government be there? Or maybe some note on where everyone went? It would only take a minute.”
Sal stopped, out of breath and nervously looking around at everyone. It was the most he had said since the morning.
Wagner sat down at the same table as Sal and nodded at him. “That’s a good idea, Sal. I think tomorrow morning, we are going to get up and eat. Pack the last few items into the vehicles, start them up, seal this place up, and then we are going to drive down that track and pick up the stuff that was left at the houses. We tarp it down, which will take all of ten minutes, then we are going to drive up to the town hall. I hope you are right. That if the area was evacuated, they left some sort of note or indication where people should go to. If we do find such? Then we are saved. If we don’t? Then we drive out like planned. It should only take maybe an hour of our time. Thanks for bringing that up, Sal, and I want you to remind me and Steven tomorrow morning when we have the vehicles outside started, okay?”
Sal nodded as his face flushed, then he got up and ran to the bathroom.
Richard stood as well and looked at Wagner. “That was a good job. I’m worried about him and he hasn’t talked to anybody very much today. It looks like you made him feel better.” Richard headed to his office and everyone could hear his chair creak as he settled into it.
Everyone else took that as the signal to head off and they all did, slowly stretching and yawning. Everyone milled around the notice board and talked to each other quietly, letting replacements know where they were sleeping. Several headed off to the washrooms and shortly, the only light was from the small, cheap flashlights that had been handed out earlier.
Steven was sitting on the stretcher with freshly brushed teeth, feeling a bit better. He looked up as Wagner sat across for him and started pulling his boots off,. sighing as he removed the boots one after the other. “Ah, you have no idea how good that feels after a long day in these bad boys.” He then peeled off his socks and flipped them over a nearby chair.
Steven looked closely at him in the poor light and saw how truly tired the man was. “Is this what you signed up for when you joined the military?”
The warrant officer’s expression was startled, his answer quiet. “Sort of. I have always believed in upholding Canada’s existence as a sovereign nation. If that was going to war or a domestic operation where I have to help trapped civvies or even just deliver food? I do it.” He sighed as he stretched out and put his hands behind his short, greying hair. “This? No problem, generally. My problem is we don’t seem to have a higher command and we are doing things that rest on my head, commandeering weapons and vehicles. The civilian side doesn’t like it when we do that, and they shouldn’t. We represent the civilians and are supposed to be something everyone aspires to. Some of this feels…wrong.”
Steven settled himself on the stretcher. He considered the darkness of the ceiling above him as the security lights had never come back on. “I think you are all doing a great job. We get trapped here and you’ve kept us together, we have a way to travel, we have some weapons now if they are really needed, we have food. Tomorrow, we drive out and hopefully find that this is all just a localized incident of some sort and people panicked. Really, as long as I can see the stars, I think we’re doing great. Now if only I could get Janice to calm down and come back to reality.” Steven stopped as he realized what he had said. He waited for the other man to say something.
All he heard was quiet snoring. It had been a big day and the soldiers had done a great deal of work.
A thought flashed in his mind as he was drifting off. Before they left tomorrow morning, they should grab brooms and sweep out the building. In only a day, they had trekked a great deal of dust and dirt in.
Steven’s eyes closed and he drifted off into an exhausted sleep.
Throughout the service centre, everyone drifted off to an exhausted sleep while a few drifted off content that they would do the right thing soon.
Outside, no wolves howled and no other large animals moved in the woods. The subdivision was dark and without movement. Further off, through the heart of the subdivision, was the town centre. A large shopping plaza with government buildings on one side sat in darkness except for some of the large stores. Dim lighting came on for a time, flashing on and off as if the power was intermittent or there was a short somewhere in the electrical system that was not serious enough to cause the building to burn down. There were several vehicles parked and large tents set up. A soldier walked around the tents slowly, casting back and forth on the ground as if looking for something.
Through the dirty windows in the large stores, shapes could be seen moving
within. Staggering, they seemed attracted to the lights flashing in the ceiling. Further past those buildings, another subdivision stretched away into the distance.
Across endless miles of countryside, sitting behind fences and looking through observation slits, nervous eyes watched the darkness and blinked rapidly when sounds were heard in the distance. Doors were locked and barricaded, and morning was prayed for.
Night Shift
As the night slowly passed, the rotating sentry worked well, with the replacements being woken up ten minutes early and everyone actually staying awake.
In fact, everything was working perfectly until 4:30, when someone crept down the ladder and went around the building, finding and shaking people quietly.
There were quiet whispers and shuffling sounds. No one heard the quiet clack of the front door being unlocked or opened and carefully closed.
The human body can only take so much. It had been a busy day and with all the fear and stress everyone had been through, their bodies demanded rest. The sleepers in the building were so exhausted that they would have slept through almost anything.
But Jimmy stirred in his sleep. He had gone to the washroom before heading for the cab of the truck, but a lifetime of experience getting up early to prepare loads and how much he had drunk the day before brought him swiftly out of a deep, sound sleep. He sat up in the truck cab and grunted as he stretched and started working some of the kinks in his back from sleeping on a very hard bench seat. He slipped his feet into his work boots and carefully stepped down to the floor on the passenger side. He was the closest to the door connecting the shop to the main service centre and seeing the stairs was no problem. Tracy had found some kids’ glo-sticks, the type that went around a wrist, and they had cracked them to give enough light for people to figure out where they were. He stepped up and into the main building while trying to tiptoe.
He didn’t want to knock over a display stand and wake everyone up. Everyone needed the sleep. Jimmy wanted to be back to sleep, but the bathroom was a higher priority for the moment.
