by Shows, Greg
Fifteen minutes later Sadie sat facing the fire. Heat was radiating into her tent, and though her back—from her left shoulder blade to her left hip—was a throbbing mass of misery, the last five tablets of her Ibuprofen stash had already begun to dull the pain down to a tolerable level.
The half ounce shot of ethanol from her chemistry bag hadn’t hurt either, so she had another half ounce shot to speed along the relief. Then she began slicing the tops off four shotgun shells with the sharpest blade on her multi-tool.
When the shells were all cut open, Sadie poured the BBs from each one into a small metal bowl from her pack. She dropped half a candlestick in and shoved it right up against the fire. The wax quickly melted and she swirled it over the BBs.
Sadie used the spoon from her Swiss Army knife to ladle the paraffin and BBs into the shotgun shells, until she’d filled them all to the rims.
When the shells were full she stood them on the ground away from her fire to cool. She wiped the paraffin residue out of her bowl with a scrap of dusty cloth she cut out of the back of the dead cop’s shirt and put it back in her pack.
Despite the heat from the burning wood, she was shivering. The cold wind was beginning to gust, and dust was swirling up into the air, darkening the sky even more.
As she fought off the shivers with her fire, Sadie packed everything but the Geiger counter into her pack. She’d forgotten about it overnight, but now that she’d seen it again she figured she’d better try to use it.
She pulled it out of the box and removed its protective case and turned it on. The readout showed no sign of radiation, and the single chirp and silence that followed was a welcome sound.
After putting away the Geiger counter, Sadie retrieved the cop’s .357 and loaded it with the shells he had in his ammo pouch. She tossed it into her left side saddlebag. Then she used her rifle scope to sight along the highway she’d been on the night before.
It was awkward trying to use the scope with her respirator on, so she pulled it off and looked for any movement or a sign that someone was out there watching her. She had no idea where the cop had come from, but she knew she didn’t want to meet his friends—Jim and Bryce—or any other friends he might be travelling with.
She saw nothing through the scope. The highway looked as dead and quiet as J. Franklin, cannibal cop. So after forcing down a few drinks of water, she put her respirator back on, took down the old camo tarp, and folded it up.
She rolled up her thermal blanket and packed everything she wanted to take with her. This included the cop club and Taser gun, which appeared to have no charge left but might be useful at some point—just as the acid from the battery had proven useful.
After loading her sawed-off shotgun with two newly cooled shells, Sadie rolled the dead man over and unbuckled his belt. She jerked at the buckle, but it barely moved until she rolled him back onto his belly. Then she could work the leather out of the belt loops and pull it free.
The first thing Sadie did with the belt was clip a foot off it. Then she threaded it through her own belt loops and poked a hole in the leather so that it would cinch up tight enough to stay on her hips—which, she noted—were much too narrow compared to what they’d been nine months ago.
Once she was satisfied with the fit of the belt, she went to work on the Taser holster.
The holster was black and boxy, made of leather and plastic. Sadie stuck the shotgun barrels down in the holster to estimate how wide a hole she’d need to make in the bottom, and used her multi-tool to modify the rig.
When she was finished, she slid the shotgun down into the holster and let it rest there, at the place where the barrels and stock widened enough to keep it from falling through.
To make the rig safer, Sadie cut a piece metal wire off the spool and threaded it through holes she cut in the sides of the rig. Then she hooked the wire over the butt of the shotgun so it wouldn’t accidently fall out if she fell or was tackled.
Her back pain had eased a little by then, and she was beginning to think she’d be all right. Another half ounce of ethanol further suppressed the pain and boosted her confidence, and soon she was almost in a riding mood.
With a groan, she climbed astride the Honda, turned the key, and pushed the starter button. The bike’s engine turned over and caught, rumbling low and steady.
Damn good machine,” Sadie said, and patted the gas tank. Then she clicked the bike into gear, let out the clutch, and cruised slowly back to the highway.
She went slow at first, watching for any sign of the cop’s friends. That was how she found his bike—a BMW police bike parked half a mile away from where she’d left the road.
She was tempted to trade bikes, but she hadn’t found the keys when she searched the cop. Now she didn’t want to waste time going back.
Instead she took the gas can stored in the cargo space at the back of the BMW and poured it into her own gas tank. She checked the BMW’s air filter to see if it could replace her own, but they weren’t compatible.
After a quick search found only a spare air filter, a Bit of Honey candy bar, and a box of .357 shells—which she tossed into the Honda’s saddlebag with the pistol—she climbed back onto her own bike.
Funny how I already think of it as mine.
Out on the road the wind came at her like an abuser, punching at her chest and guts with chilly fists, slapping at her head with icy palms—and she hadn’t yet accelerated up to a fast pace.
When she saw the black wall of dust and rain coming her way, she cursed. Darting in and out among the swirling sheets of rain were silvery streaks of lightning.
She was going to run into the worst weather of her months-long trip today. Much worse than the sludgy weather she’d encountered in the national parks in New York two months earlier.
Off to her right Sadie heard the crack of a rifle over the Honda’s engine. A puff of dust exploded three feet in front of her front tire. Then there was another crack and a bullet slammed into the fender of a Ford F-150 truck not a foot from her.
Sadie opened the throttle and leaned forward to get low on the bike.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been shot at. Getting shot at in the new world wasn’t uncommon.
Scared people hiding out in their houses were likely to mow you down just for coming within a hundred yards of them.
She could relate, though she’d never shot at anyone back in Boston.
She’d done her best to just remain quiet and unobtrusive and hidden, only going outside at night to retrieve the water she needed from the toilet tanks or water heaters inside abandoned houses—or the houses with murdered or suicided families inside them.
“People must be getting hungry,” she said.
The bullets stopped coming a few seconds later, and as far as she could tell she didn’t get shot at again.
She continued to cruise the center stripe of the highway, keeping her speed down in case she needed to stop suddenly.
“Going to need an air filter soon,” she told herself, and opened the throttle a little more, wincing as the wind whipped into her chest.
After a few more minutes, she settled into the saddle of her new machine and started looking for a secure and solid place to hide from the coming storm.
Chapter 3
“What the hell are we doing out here?” Duck asked, and jerked the steering wheel hard to his right.
He swerved around a burned out Mazda and spun the steering wheel back to the left, shooting the Humvee through the gap between the two battered pick-up trucks blocking most of the road.
He made a too-fast S turn around a Ford Focus and an old Chevy Cutlass someone had put into place to make anyone coming in slow down. The swerve through his passengers around so violently they cursed or moaned in response.
After the zig-zag security maneuver, Duck pulled the Humvee onto a dust-covered road that curved through a stand of trees and disappeared around to their right.
The gray dawn gave off a weak light that was b
locked by the dusty forest they’d entered.
Duck was forced to slow down and peer ahead to keep a clear idea of where the road was.
Dust and ash floated in the air, like the white floating plastic inside a snow globe. There was so much dust kicking up from the wind and so much dust on the ground that if he wasn’t careful he’d drive them off into a stand of gray trees and get them stuck.
“Where the hell is here, exactly?” Hider asked.
“Ravenna Arsenal,” Blakely said.
“And why are at Ravenna Arsenal,” Duck asked.
“Because we were ordered here,” Blakely said. “That’s all you need to know. Try to remember you’re in the goddamned army, will you?”
“Yes sir,” Duck quacked. Behind him, Hider, Meadowlark, and Sparks snickered, and Blakely rolled his eyes.
They’d been driving five hours straight, after camping inside an abandoned warehouse with a partially collapsed roof. They’d found the building just outside Youngstown when the trail of the unfriendlies from their firefight had gotten too hard to follow.
None of them—except Titman—had slept more than four hours. They’d all had to stand watch, so when Titman emerged from his Humvee at five in the morning and gave the command to move, there was more than a little grumbling.
The reservists, not used to going on short sleep, were not exactly in an alert and ready frame of mind. The fact that they’d taken five hours to travel thirty miles wasn’t helping.
The road ahead continued to curve through the woods, which looked impenetrable despite the fact that everything was dead and covered in dust. The underbrush had been thick and tall when the dust started falling, and now the dead bushes, shrubs, and vines that stretched beneath the dead trees looked a lot like tank traps and coils of razor wire.
The Humvee convoy followed the road, which turned right, then left, and back again, getting deeper and deeper into the woods.
After the snaky road had taken them deep into the dead forest they broke out of trees. Ahead, the road straightened and widened to two lanes.
“Finally an easy drive,” Duck said.
Blakely wasn’t so sure.
“Not if you’re an enemy.”
Someone had constructed berms on either side of the road, both running parallel to the road.
At ten feet high, the berms gave whoever might be atop them a nice firing platform. Gray cinder block pill boxes were staggered along the tops of the berms. The sides opposite roads were steep and covered in dusty overgrowth that looked like dead sticker vines and thorn bushes.
“Whoa,” Blakely said, “Slow down.”
He knew a choke point kill zone when he saw one.
Duck halted the Humvee a few feet short of the kill zone entrance.
Blakely looked through binoculars to get a closer look at the sharp right hand turn fifty meters inside the kill zone.
The turn would force the convoy to slow to a crawl. They’d be vulnerable to an ambush or and IED. He scanned the top of the berm to check for snipers but saw nothing.
“Hider and Meadowlark,” Blakely said. “Get up there and make sure no one’s going to open up on us. Sparks, get on the .50.”
“Yes sir,” they said, and pulled their respirators up to cover their faces.
Sparks flipped the hatch open and climbed into the gunner’s sling.
When Meadowlark and Hider opened the doors they went out at double time, then sprinted up the berm with their weapons at the ready.
“What about me?” Jake Smith asked. It was the first words he’d spoken since Titman had executed Navarro the day before.
“Be ready,” Blakely said without looking back at Smith. He was too busy watching Hider and Meadowlark climb and scout the berm.
“Looks clear,” Hider said through his radio.
“Keep going,” Blakely said. “And if you see a threat take it out.”
“Sergeant Blakely,” General Titman’s voice came through Blakely’s ear buds .
“Yes sir,” Blakely responded.
“Quit fucking around up there. We’re on a deadline and we got people waiting on us.
“Yes sir,” Blakely said, shaking his head.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Once again General Titman was being careless.
“All right, kids. You heard the man. Get back here.”
Half a minute later the men were back in the Humvee.
The .50 cal was unmanned, the hatch closed, and Duck was taking them down the short road between the berms.
When they reached the curve in the road Blakely glanced up to his right. Several men in respirators and gray camo uniforms were watching them from atop the berm, assault rifles at the ready.
As soon as Duck got them around the turn they found that the berms ended, tapering down into a widened road. A narrow wooden bridge acted as another choke point before yet another left-hand turn.
“They got a minotaur living out here?” Blakely asked, but his men, unsure what he was asking, remained silent.
The convoy rolled across the one-lane bridge, which clattered beneath their tires. It was obviously old, built over the twenty-foot-wide creek long before the water turned into a thick charcoal sludge.
After they made the left turn, they discovered they’d reached the end of the road. Duck slid them to a halt in a clearing carved out of the gray forest.
Right in front of them were six full-sized field tents. To the left of the tents, eight Humvees were lined up side by side, with enough space between them to allow simultaneous loading.
All eight Humvees were pointed toward the bottleneck bridge, as if they expected to have to move out at any moment.
Beyond the Humvees was another field tent, and next to it was a small rectangular area with three men in gray camo working on launching a white, six-bladed helicopter drone.
The rectangular launch area looked like it had seen heavy use. The dust was packed down hard and tight.
“Damn,” Duck said, “Look at that.”
But Blakely was already looking.
To the right of the two field tents was an open space, with several bonfires burning. Men in gray camo and respirators stood around the fires, or patrolled around the perimeter of the clearing.
Beyond the fires, a gently sloping hill rose up like a dome, not nearly as steep as the berms they’d driven through, but four times as tall at the top. Dead, dust-covered trees covered the domed hill, and a dark tunnel mouth had been carved about halfway up the hill, at least forty feet off the ground.
The tunnel mouth entrance was lined and supported with concrete abutments, and a wooden scaffold supporting stairs allowed people below to ascend to the entrance.
Blakely would have bet money the scaffolding was wired to blow. In an emergency, the hill would instantly become a formidable fortress.
Blakely scanned the clearing again, noticing the little gray camo tents scattered at various points, all of them near .50 caliber machine gun emplacements.
“What is this place?” Duck asked.
“It’s not likely you’re ever going to know,” Blakely said, “so you might as well not worry about it.”
Blakely looked around some more and spotted two hidden fifty caliber machine gun emplacements covering the bridge, and he’d have bet money the bridge was as wired to blow as the hill’s scaffolding.
“Do me a favor, fellas,” Blakely said, “Don’t make any sudden movements.
“Yes sir,” the men in the back seat responded.
Titman’s voice came over the radio. “Blakely, get over here. Have your men re-supply. Tell Corporal Williams to talk to Sergeant Cheeks.”
“Yes sir,” Blakely said and looked at Duck. “You heard the man.”
Duck pulled his wireless headset off and held his hand over the mike.
“Why didn’t he just tell me. He knows we’re all wired.”
Blakely shrugged, not wanting to pull off his wireless rig or talk shit about the general. He was fai
rly sure his men were all loyal to him, but you never knew.
Titman was the kind of guy you couldn’t trust. He’d do his best to recruit a spy or two in any outfit he was running. Holding shit over people’s heads was about the only way he could get people to obey him. He certainly couldn’t inspire their respect.
“You notice the uniforms?” Duck asked as Blakely opened the door.
“Of course.”
“What about them?” Jake Smith asked from the back seat, and Blakely felt relief. The kid was coming around. Blakely had made sure he rode in his Humvee so he wouldn’t be tempted to take out Titman.
Blakely didn’t want to have to kill the kid for trying to do what he should have already done himself.
“No flags,” Blakely said. “No unit patches. No ID period. They’re not U.S. military.”
“What’s going on?” Hider asked.
“Who are they?” Duck asked.
“Duck, you take Smith and go find this Sergeant Cheeks and get us resupplied,” Blakely said. He turned to Hider and Meadowlark. “You two stay together. No one goes anywhere alone. You shit and jack off in pairs while we’re here.”
“You want us to get started on the shitting and jacking off right now?” Williams asked, and Blakely had to suppress a smile as his men snickered and guffawed.
“Just pass it along to everyone,” Blakely growled. “Stay together. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” the kids in the back seat said, and for once, they seemed appropriately scared.
“I got a bad feeling about this place” Duck said.
“Good.” Blakely said as he stepped out of the Humvee. “Hang on to it.”
Titman was grumpy when Blakely climbed into his Humvee.
“Morning, Sir,” Blakely said, trying hard to sound respectful, but knowing he was only partially succeeding. “May I ask what you’d like us to do today?”
“What you’re told,” Titman said. An unlit cigar dangled from his mouth. He was studying a map. “We’re here to resupply and get intel. We’re getting some reinforcements, too. Seems like the enemy is swinging a bigger dick up here than we thought.”
