Seven Days To Brooklyn: A Sara Robinson Adventure

by Christopher Westley

  “Hear that?” Sara says to Mac.

  “Yes, gunfire, now nothing.”

  Mac steps up to the motorcycle and swings a leg over it.

  “Get on; we’re getting out of here now.”

  Sara jumps on right after he starts it. Kickstand up, Mac lets the clutch out while adding a healthy dose of throttle. The front tire jumps off the ground six inches as they are propelled north on their way out of town.

  Part II

  ESCAPE & EVADE

  10

  RIDING OUT OF town, Sara hangs on to Mac as he pushes the bike as fast as it will go. The early morning dawn is still hours away, and he knows they are better off taking their chances in the darkness than they are staying in Roswell. Twenty minutes later, the sky to the south of them lights up extremely bright; minutes later, the explosion coming from Roswell fills their ears, confirming what has just happened. Mac pulls the bike off the road and looks back in time to see the mushroom cloud building off in the distance, lightning silhouetting the cloud. “Nuclear, that’s got to be nuclear.”

  Fifty thousand feet above the desert, a B2 Stealth Bomber slowly turns away from the blast on its return run to a remote base in Nevada. “Whew, she’s a beauty isn’t she?” the copilot says to the captain.

  “Sure is. That is one less city to worry about trying to disinfect.”

  Over the radio, they get a transmission from command. “Spectator, this is Watchman; what’s the damage? Over.”

  “Watchman, this is Spectator, one hundred percent contained. Out.” The plane continues its return trip to Nevada.

  “Good copy. Watchman out.”

  Mac kicks the starter hard with his foot, bringing the bike to life once again. Knowing it will be daylight soon brings some relief to the stress he is feeling but does nothing to forestall the onset of extreme fatigue from another night short on sleep. Once again pushing the bike forward, Mac rides onto the road from the sandy shoulder. Many parts of the highway are already being overtaken by time and sandstorms in the desert and will eventually disappear totally with the absence of man’s preservation.

  Hanging on tight around Mac’s stomach, Sara is more concerned with the rumbling of an empty stomach than the carnage that was unleashed twenty miles or so behind them.

  “I’m hungry. How far until the next town?”

  “I’m not sure. What does your dad’s journal have wrote down in it?”

  Sara loosens her grip and reaches into the left front pocket of her jacket. Opening the journal and keeping it protected from the wind behind his back, she thumbs through the pages while tightening her grip on the motorcycle with her legs. Page after page she flips through until she finds the next map past Roswell. She looks down at the mileage on the map between the two cities.

  “It says ninety-eight miles. How far have we gone since Roswell?”

  Mac turns his head sideways so she can hear him over the wind. “About twenty-five miles or so.”

  She looks at the page again, applying some mental math. “That would put us about sixty miles away from Vaughn. There is a note here saying, ‘Not much here’.”

  She closes the book and puts it back into her coat pocket. The next sixty miles click off rapidly, and the town materializes at the end of a wide left turn. The early morning dawn has given way to another spectacular, reddish blue sunrise, casting long shadows and eerily painting the buildings in town. Mac slows the bike as he enters town and looks for a place to pull over. The town of Vaughn is very tiny, or so it would appear, but the pair are still on heightened alert for anything or anyone that could slow their progress north.

  Most of the town is defunct. Burned-out cars line the highway, houses are collapsing due to neglect and vandalism, and the same lack of civilization has started to overtake the small town, with large drifts of sand piles around town and into the storefronts. Directly in front of them, Mac sees a very large sign with the word Sands on a marquee that once held neon below it. Just off the road behind the sign sits a greasy spoon café and motel.

  As he points to it with his left hand, Sara gives him a tap on the shoulder. “Looks good.”

  Mac steers off the road and parks the bike directly in front of the café. The café is a throwback to the age of the 1950s motel and the early Detroit automobiles that plied the state routes before interstate highways were built. The Sands Motel has seen its better days but looks relatively good for a building that is still standing after the apocalyptic events of the last year. Mac and Sara step off the bike and stretch their arms above their heads, shaking the bike off them. The wind is a steady twenty knots all the time in Vaughn, and today is no different, sending the occasional tumbleweed rolling past them. Mac steps up to the café window and looks inside. The café is relatively clean and appears to be untouched. To his right, the front door swings back and forth in the wind, open sign dangling from one side diagonally, still attached to the inside handle. Holding out his left hand, he gestures for Sara to go first.

  “After you, young lady.”

  She steps around him and pushes the door open, stepping inside. A long counter lined with silver and red stools plays out to the end of the restaurant, followed by rows of red vinyl booths. Sara walks over to the counter and removes her backpack, placing it on a stool next to her. She swings her frame up on the stool, then looks back over her shoulder at Mac.

  “Waiter, can I have a menu?”

  Mac looks at her less than enthused but decides to play along.

  “Why sure, madam, coming right up.”

  He steps around the counter and finds a stack of menus on a shelf. Grabbing a menu, he places it in front of Sara.

  “So, young lady, where are you headed on a fine day like today?”

  Sara grabs the menu and starts flipping the pages. There are no pictures, like at the fancy restaurants, just printed words: Breakfast $4.95, includes two eggs, hash browns, toast, and a glass of milk or orange juice. The lunch section is just as sparse.

  “Going to Brooklyn and will take a hearty breakfast, to get me there.”

  Mac looks at her and takes the menu in his hands, turning it around to read what breakfast includes.

  “I think we can handle that order. Be right back.”

  He steps into the kitchen, and the stainless door swings in and out a few times before stopping. Sara can hear the sound of rattling and cupboard doors opening and closing. Inside the kitchen, out of habit, Mac flips the light switch on. To his astonishment, the lights start to flicker as the fluorescent tubes come to life. Looking around the kitchen, he is even more surprised to see cans of food along the shelves and sacks of flour, rice, and various other miscellaneous items stacked neatly as well. Walking over to a large walk-in freezer, Mac grabs the door handle and realizes that it is cold to the touch. He is about to swing it open but pauses as he stares at the thermometer for the interior temperature. It reads thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Tugging on the handle, it releases its grip on the frame and slowly opens, with a loud squeak coming from the hinges. The cold air hits him, immediately taking his breath away. The freezer is still stocked with meats, vegetables, and sacks of potatoes. Grabbing what he can, he exits the freezer, taking his bounty out to the stove. Clicking the stove handle for a top burner, he expects it to light as the other stove did the previous day. No odor of gas hits him nor does the stove light. Trying it two more times, he gives up before noticing an industrial-grade microwave sitting at the far end of the kitchen. Grabbing a plastic bowl, he chops up the potatoes, meat, and vegetables, combining them together in the bowl. The microwave lights up as he opens it and is radiating the concoction within seconds after he pushes the buttons adding twelve minutes to the timer. Walking back out of the kitchen, Mac breaks the bad news to Sara that there are no eggs for breakfast, but they will be having meat and potatoes. Sara is thoroughly engrossed in a metal frenzy blazing away at her ears and does not hear Mac talking to her. Nodding along to her songs, she stares blankly at him and mouths a one-word an
swer.

  “Okay.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Sara and Mac are finishing off the morning meal. A lick of her lips tells Mac that the breakfast was tasty and hit the spot.

  “Let’s check out the motel; there has to be a room or two available,” Mac says as he watches Sara gulp down the last piece of meat off her plate. She wipes her mouth with her right sleeve and belches. “Ahh, nothing like a fine meal to help ya sleep.”

  Mac looks at her and tries to let out a laugh but is too fatigued to attempt even a short one.

  “Come on; let’s see if a room is unlocked and catch some shuteye before you get hungry again.”

  Sara is very tired, ready to pass out for a few hours before continuing their journey. The pair exit the café and head for the rows of motel room doors they saw on the way in. Walking up to the rooms, they can see a few of the rooms partially open and already filling up with sand. A few more feet further, they come to a closed door. Mac checks the handle, but it seems to be locked. Pushing hard with his shoulder, he is able to get the door opened. The room is fitted with two double beds, still relatively clean and inviting. They both plant themselves on the beds and are quickly sawing logs. The afternoon comes and passes, giving way to early evening dusk before Mac and Sara even stir a muscle. The tall motel sign in front of the business casts a long shadow across the highway. The darkened motel room silence is broken by a big yawn, and the stretching of short arms gives way to a thrown pillow on top of Mac’s face.

  “Get up. Let’s go.”

  Mac slowly unleashes his unconscious grip on his dream state, opening one eye after the other, then finally swinging his legs sideways over the side of the bed. Rubbing his eyes, he strains to see Sara sitting at the end of the bed two feet away in the pre-dusk darkness. Walking over to the door, Sara slowly turns the knob and pulls the door open a few inches to look through the crack for any hazardous occupants. The parking lot is eerily quiet and barren. Looking over her shoulder before she opens the door the whole way, she gives Mac a nod that it is time to move on. He halfheartedly raises a hand and waves her off. Sara steps out of the room with Mac following a few steps behind as they walk around the motel, back to the motorcycle in front of the diner.

  Checking the fuel in the bike, Mac wiggles it back and forth to see how much fuel is left inside. The fuel sloshes up from the bottom of the tank but quickly disappears back to the sump. Turning his head around to look down the darkened street, he can see a few cars sitting abandoned.

  “I’m going to see if I can get some fuel from those cars over there.”

  Walking in silence, the only sound Mac hears is the tap, tap, tap of his shoes on the ground and his steady heartbeat thumping in his chest. Walking up to the first car, Mac kneels down, crawling under the trunk of the car, and taps on the tank. A hollow sound reverberates on the metal tank. Going over to the next car, he repeats the process with no luck. On his third try, the tank gives a dull thud with no echo. He taps it again and is sure that it has some fuel left in it. Taking a screwdriver out of his pocket, he places the sharpened end against the tank and hits it hard a couple of times, driving it into the tank. Fuel starts dripping down the screwdriver shaft and onto the ground below. Sliding the fuel container underneath the leaking tank, Mac positions the filler neck just below the screwdriver before pulling it out. The pungent odor of gasoline fills Mac’s nose, and he is elated to be successful and find this bounty. The flow of gasoline stops with a few last drips. Mac measures the contents in the jug by picking it up and tipping it forward to get a few drops to spill out. With nearly two gallons of gasoline in hand, Mac slides out from under the car and returns to Sara, who is still standing next to the motorcycle. The jug quickly empties into the tank, and he stores it on the rack, tying it down with a few worn out bungee cords. Sara is studying the journal once again and measures the distance from where they are, up to the next city.

  “Santa Fe is ninety-six miles away, and it is night,” she says.

  “Yeah, we should stop outside of town a few miles and wait for daylight.” Mac quickly steers the bike in and out of the streets of Vaughn, New Mexico, and is flying out of town minutes later. With the town disappearing behind them, Highway 285 lies out ahead of them in the darkness, Santa Fe an easy ride ahead.

  11

  TWENTY-FIVE MILES north of the main blast zone above Roswell, the C-130 orbits surveying the blast. Looking over at his co-pilot, the captain wonders how long it would take to be vaporized by a nuclear blast.

  “Relay the last transmission to ops from the commandos on the roof; then we will head back.”

  “Roger that, Captain.”

  Keying up the microphone, the copilot relays what the commando said just before the blast hit them.

  “Watchman, this is Lancer, over.”

  “Go ahead, Lancer.”

  “Watchman, last transmission from ground ops as follows: Two survivors to the north of our position. One juvenile female and one adult male; they appear heavily armed and uninfected.”

  “We copy your transmission; return to base. Watchman out.”

  “Lancer out.” The copilot manipulates the flight director system, using the telephone style keypad.

  “Plotting three four zero degrees, direct to home base.”

  “Good copy, three forty on the heading,” the captain replies.

  Turning the aircraft on a northbound heading, the C-130 rumbles overhead as Sara and Mac ride toward the next town.

  SOAC HQ, COLORADO OPS

  Location: Secret installation west of the town of Colorado Springs.

  Deep inside a mountain complex, a team full of military operation personnel stares at a bank of large display screens on a far wall in front of them. The operations chief, coffee in hand, looks at the center screen. The image displayed is the infrared outline of Mac and Sara standing on the rooftop.

  “Can you zoom that in more?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m on it.”

  The image gets larger and nearly fills the entire screen but is low resolution.

  “Too fuzzy to get a positive identification on them, but it may be possible that we are close to retrieving her.” General Edwards looks intently at the screen, then asks the computer operator to fast forward the video feed. The images disappear, and then reappear on the street level. Following them out of town, the satellite loses its grip on them due to the curvature of the earth. “How long before the satellite comes back into position?”

  “Ninety minutes, sir, but we could switch to an unsecured feed on a higher orbit.” Switching the screen in front of him, the operator clicks the mouse a few times bringing up another satellite page with civilian satellites displayed. “Here, sir, we have a news satellite that is in geosynchronous orbit, probably pick up a feed instantly, but it will leave us open to hackers.”

  Edwards rubs his chin, between sips of coffee.

  “Do it; we need to see where they are headed, until we get a team in place to intercept them.”

  The operator starts the uplink, and a feed from the satellite comes into view. Inputting the last known coordinates into the computer, the image changes to the last position of the museum. The ground around the museum is laid in utter waste. No trace of the buildings is left within a thirty-block radius of the center of the blast zone. “I’m panning ahead, up the highway to see if we can pick them up. That is, if they made it, sir.” The video feed on the large screen moves from the front of the museum, panning up the road and north out of Roswell. “Nothing yet, sir.” The operator toggles the mouse on the computer, relaying to the satellite overhead to reposition the large lens for a high-resolution feed.

  “Keep scanning north; let me know if you find her. I’ll be in the hangar, briefing the team.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  General Kenneth Edwards is the operations chief of the Strategic Acquisition Operations Command (SOAC) that was recently formed after the apocalypse and pandemic, following the influx and outbreak of the mutated form of
the Ebola 27x virus. The Ebola 27x virus, although not as lethal as the original virus that initially started in West Africa during the 1970s, destroys most cognitive brain functions and replaces the thought process of the infected individual with a ravenous appetite for human flesh. As the virus established itself in the United States with the return of humanitarian workers from western Africa, most medical professionals were unknowingly re-infecting citizens after they had undergone treatment and quarantine and had negative findings for the original virus on their subsequent blood work tests. The mutated form of the virus, Ebola 27x, was undetectable for a minimum of forty days to six months, giving these aid workers a false sense of security. By the time the Centers for Disease Control was aware of what was happening, it was too late. The disease hit Dallas, Texas, the hardest with original estimates of 75,000 citizens infected within the first four months. As more and more citizens fell victim to the virus, the infrastructure and systems broke down within the city. Pandemonium and chaos followed, the disease and incubation shortened from over forty days to less than three days. In an effort to control the outbreak, the US government mobilized the regular army, air force, and marine corps into a containment role, isolating the city of Dallas initially by encircling the town with air cover, ground troops, tanks, and artillery. Major roads and highways were blocked off, bridges destroyed, and communication lines into the city severed. As the epidemic grew within the city, the last vestige and holdout was a tower with restaurant inside and a 360-degree view of the city. At 561 feet, it was the obvious spot to place a team of commandos from SOAC. The team of eight, with satellite communications, kept the government informed of the descending chaos. Two months after their placement in the tower, the first commando exhibited symptoms of infection. Twenty-two days later, communications with the group went unanswered. Twenty-four hours later, the US Government called in an airstrike, and the first nuclear bomb was delivered on a U.S. city. Unfortunately, the containment was not 100 percent successful. Infected survivors just outside the initial blast zone were able to leave the city and travel. City after city in Texas would fall victim to the same fate and outcome. Houston was next, followed by San Antonio, Austin, and then Roswell, New Mexico, in an attempt to crush the disease. Most rural residents fared well due to their early prepping and harboring in place.