“I always have time to talk to you,” she said with a smile as bright as sunshine. “I just got other ideas about it, that’s all.”
“Well, as I see it, he’s a guy who’s all too interested in a married woman. Can’t trust a guy like that.”
Jaz shrugged. “I have too much interest in a married man, I s’pose.” She kept her face carefully cheerful. The last thing she wanted was to piss off Jed. She had better things in mind, with him.
“It’s different, Jaz. Amber’s a woman, and I’m a man. That’s just how things are in this ol’ world.”
Jaz watched his face carefully as he spoke, but he seemed calm. So far, so good. “Yeah, I get that. But you know, it seems like that world’s dying off, you know? In the old world, you were like, married with kids. But in this new one, we’re totally winging it. We’re a clan, right? Because we’re all stronger together than apart.”
She paused a moment, then continued, “So, I’m just thinking out loud here, but aren’t you tired of being with Amber? You two never were real good together. You told me. It must be totally exhausting arguing all the time. But me and you don’t argue, right? In the old world, me and you would never be a match, but here and now I think we’re pretty damn good for each other.”
Jed smirked, and winked at her. “I reckon we are. I surely have thought about ways we could be even more good together. I just don’t even think of Amber like that anymore. Too much dirty water under that rickety old bridge. But,” he said, and paused. “But, that don’t make it right for her to be buzzin’ around Ethan all day like a bee to a flower.”
Jaz nodded once, a sharp move of her head and nothing more. “For sure, Jed, but I can’t help feeling like you deserve more than a bad marriage. You really do deserve to be happy too. And so do I. And Jed? I think about how we could be more good together, too. I feel like we didn’t cross paths on accident. Maybe Ethan didn’t cross Amber’s path on accident, either. Just think about if maybe us being a whole clan and stuff is a way out for you, but you still get to keep your daughter. Kaitlyn won’t have to miss you, ‘cause she’s still got you even if you got someone besides their ol’ lady to stand by your side.”
Jaz practically beamed with joy when Jed smiled at her. He liked the idea! Now if she could just get him to let go of his stupid ego… Jaz thought Amber was pretty cool, and anyway, she probably wouldn’t mind being at someone else’s side. But, she decided not to press the issue right now. Dudes liked to think some ideas were their own, and Jaz had become pretty damn good at that game growing up. Like, she had to just survive. But now, for the first time in a long time, Jaz thought that there might be more to her life than just surviving.
“I sure do feel safe with you, Jed. You mind if I just walk with you for a while? We don’t have to talk about this stuff. I just want to feel safe for a while.”
Jed accidentally-on-purpose bumped into her as they walked, nearly knocking her over, and she stifled a laugh. They walked on in silence, and Jaz was sure he was thinking over the stuff she said. Yeah, it might be turning into a super good day.
* * *
Frank sat down with a groan, legs and back aching. He’d spent the morning’s travels watching Cassy buzz around like a bee, talking to one person after another, and whatever she said to them seemed to have worked. Tensions among the group were still high, but noticeably less than they had been. That Cassy, she was a damn good woman. A good leader too, Frank thought, and soon enough she’d be taking over the lion’s share of leading the whole clan after they got to her homestead. The thought made him smile. He had no taste for being in charge, but he’d been the only real choice. Thank God that would change soon.
He looked around as the others got settled in for lunch, except for Michael, who insisted on climbing a tree and standing guard while the others ate; he’d eat while they traveled, after lunch. A good man, that Michael.
Jed sat down next to him with an “oomph” and turned to look at him. “Howdy, Frank. I got the eggs ’n ham MRE, care to trade?”
“You don’t even know what I have, Jed,” replied Frank with a smile.
“Doesn’t much matter. Anything beats green eggs and what they call ham.”
Frank exchanged MRE packets with Jed and opened his. “You owe me one,” he smirked. Jed only nodded.
“So what did you and Cassy talk about,” Frank said, trying to sound nonchalant. “You were chatting for a good while.”
“Same ol’ thing Jaz talked to me about. And Grandma Mandy, after her. This thing with Amber and Ethan.”
Frank noticed Jed’s jaw clenching when he mentioned Ethan, but at least he wasn’t flexing his fists unconsciously anymore. A good sign. “Well, you know I’m behind you, however it ends up going. You know that, right? But, I gotta say, Cassy makes a lot of sense. She’s a good-hearted woman and has a good head on her shoulders. We lucked out clanning up with her, I think. That homestead will be the difference between living and starving, come winter.”
Jed looked at his MRE, working through some thought or another. Frank decided that was good and held to a friendly silence, to give Jed room. His reminder about the bigger picture was something Jed already knew, of course, but the stubborn semi-country boy sometimes needed a reminder. Jed had always been hot-tempered, but also a damn good friend.
Finally, Jed replied, “Well, I see that Amber and Ethan aren’t glued at the hip today. Feeling better about that. It’s a respect thing, I think. I haven’t been in love with her in years, but dammit, there’s a way to do things and a way not to do ‘em.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, that’s so. But what are you going to do about Amber and Jaz, now that you’re calm? It’s a big choice. And I think Cassy’s right about your kid being okay as part of a bigger family. I don’t think we can afford to build fences between families when it comes to the kids at least. We’re all in it together, and as far as I’m concerned, your kid’s just part of my family, same as Michael’s kids.”
Jed frowned but nodded. “Self-reliance was how I was raised, but I’m starting to think that maybe ‘group reliance’ is more important, now—the whole clan for all, and all for the clan. Not sure where I heard that before, but it rings true.”
Frank chuckled. “It was a line from a movie, Three Musketeers. All for one and one for—”
Frank stopped abruptly, and then realized he was hearing a faint roar, growing in volume. “Fuck, planes. Everyone, take cover. To the trees!”
He leapt to his feet and bolted toward a large tree, grabbing his son, Hunter, with one arm as he sped by the sitting child. One glance over his shoulder told him the others were doing the same, everyone scrambling for kids and for trees. Thank God he hadn’t built a fire for lunch… And then he was under the canopy of the tree. Crouching down low, he peered around for the source of the engine noise, but even as the roar grew louder, he couldn’t yet tell where it was coming from. The noise was bouncing around the woods and rocks too much to tell, yet.
As the noise grew into a full-fledged roar, Frank could finally tell that the plane or planes were coming from the east. Not surprising, he thought. Please, God, don’t let them see the clan, he prayed.
The planes came into view through the trees then. Next to him, Michael whispered, “Fighters. Look at the pods on the wings, those are missiles.”
“Ours?”
“Negative. It looks like a Flanker, but those don’t carry bombs. Gotta be a Fullback. A variant of the Sukhoi, and from what I’ve read they’re damn rare. But that isn’t a Russian camo. I don’t recognize it—it looks vaguely Iranian, but what does a grunt know about that?”
A lot more than me apparently, thought Frank, once again glad to have Michael’s expertise in the clan. If those planes saw his people, they could wipe out the whole clan. Wouldn’t that be goddamn ironic, so close to Lancaster they could almost taste it…
* * *
Cassy lay under a tree and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She’d struck her bad shoulder on
a large root when she slid into cover. Her daughter, Brianna, and Jaz were under the cover of her tree as well. She frantically looked for her son, Aidan, and only turned again to look at the planes after she spotted him under another tree with Mandy.
The planes were clearly fighters, though she couldn’t tell anything more about them except that there were three of them. Studying airplanes was not something she’d had time or desire to do, though at the moment it would have come in handy. She glanced at Frank, who was with Michael, and saw that he was hiding still. So, they were enemy planes. Then she thought how silly it was to have wondered that in the first place—all the planes in the air that she’d seen so far had been those of the invaders. Of course, the EMP must have grounded all the U.S. fighters, just as it had the commercial jet that she’d seen crashed in Philadelphia.
The three fighters were coming directly toward them in a tight wedge formation, one plane in front and the others slightly behind to both sides. As the planes came closer and closer a sense of panic washed over her, and she reached out with her good arm to embrace Brianna to her tightly. At least if they were going to die here, she decided, they would die together…
Just before the planes reached what Cassy imagined was a good distance to drop bombs or whatever, they veered to their right, heading more northerly now. A second later all three planes unleashed several missiles, which streaked away toward the ground. The buzzing noise of their strafing machine gun fire rose over the din of their engines, despite the fact that those engines were now pointed back toward the clan.
Multiple deep booms washed over her, and she felt like it might knock the wind out of her. As her ears rang from the sound, she saw several small mushroom-shaped clouds of black smoke and fire rise up from the ground, maybe only a hundred yards or so from where she lay. What the hell were they shooting at?
In seconds the planes were gone, engines flaring with afterburners as they tore off eastward, no doubt heading back to whatever base they came from. For the moment all was clear.
Michael was the first to stand, she saw, and he waved the “all clear” sign with his hands. The others, Cassy included, began to rise and move out toward Frank. The flock seeking their shepherd, she briefly thought, then grinned when it struck her how her mom might react to such a sentiment. ‘Only Jesus is the Shepherd, Cassy,’ she could practically hear her mom’s stern-but-level voice correcting her.
As the roar of jet engines faded to faint, rolling echoes, Cassy heard Frank telling everyone to gather around. It was hard to understand him because her ears were ringing so loudly.
When everyone was gathered, Cassy noted their expressions. The kids looked afraid, of course, and so did Jaz. Frank and Jed were calm, or appeared so. Michael was pissed off, as were Mandy and Tiffany, though Amber might have been angry too. It could be hard to tell with her, sometimes. Ethan, however, looked excited.
Frank spoke up over the hushed questions everyone seemed to be asking, and Cassy realized how silly it was to be whispering after all that noise. He said, “Those bastards were shooting at someone or something, and it wasn’t us, thank God. Michael says that they wouldn’t send so much firepower after refugees, so it has to be either a building or a U.S. military unit.”
“Hard target or friendly forces,” Michael corrected. He looked so pissed that he could barely contain himself.
Frank nodded, hands up toward Michael, appeasing. “Yes, that. And we all saw how close those missiles were. Maybe half a mile at most. Now, Michael says our duty is to go see if any soldiers survived or, if it was a building, see whether anything can be salvaged. It could be dangerous, though, so we need to be either all in or all out.”
Michael spat. “I’m going, one way or the other, Frank. If you all go on, fine—you aren’t soldiers, and you aren’t Marines, so I understand. I’ll have no problems catching up to you later.”
Ethan could no longer contain himself. “If it was soldiers, they may have working vehicles that didn’t get destroyed, or radios, or supplies. I’m going with Michael. Plus, if any soldiers survived they may need our help.”
Frank nodded as he said, “I agree. I vote we go. Anyone disagree? Speak up if you got another idea.”
Everyone looked around at the others, but no one spoke up to disagree. “Fine,” Frank said, “then we need to get going right away. We move out in five minutes, so get packed up.”
Once again, Cassy was impressed by Frank’s level-headed leadership, and his ability to get everyone moving in the same direction quickly. She thanked all the stars in heaven that she’d stumbled into these people.
- 14 -
1215 HOURS - ZERO DAY +8
CASSY STARED IN awe at the scene of destruction. It had only taken them twenty minutes or so to find the site of the air strike, but it was clear at a glance that few could have survived that attack. Two tanks and six of the military Hummers had been moving along an old logging trail, and all were blackened twists of smoking metal, now. There was also an old-style Jeep, which wasn’t burning but had numerous huge, jagged holes in it from the strafing jets. Two men inside the open-top vehicle were now mostly chunks of gore. What a jet’s guns could do to a human body was beyond terrifying.
“Mandy, take the kids back a bit, please. They don’t need to stare at this,” said Cassy. Her mother nodded and expertly herded the juveniles away with help from a limping Mary.
Michael put his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Oorah! Any survivors? Sound off like you got a pair.” Cassy loved that bark of his—both calm and super loud at the same time. If she had known how to do that, her kids would never have disobeyed her growing up…
Cassy heard a voice and jumped in surprise. “Hoo-ah! Identify yourself, soldier,” shouted a male voice she didn’t recognize.
“That’s Marine to you, Doggie,” replied Michael. “Stand down, we’re friendlies. Anyone else survive? Wounded?”
There was a rustle in the brushes nearby, scorched. Three men in cammo pushed through the brush. Two appeared to be okay, but they were both helping the third soldier, who was bleeding from his leg and had half his hair singed off. “Semper Fuckyou, Jarhead,” said the wounded soldier. He was the one who had talked to Michael, and he wore a huge grin. “So happy you aren’t OpFor, even if you are a Marine.”
Minutes later, Ethan had done what he could for first aid to the wounded soldier, and the other survivors had gone out and quickly returned. They confirmed there were no others left alive.
The wounded soldier, who said his name was Lt. Harrison, gritted his teeth from both pain and anger. “Those were all the operational vehicles we could muster, goddammit. And I lost near thirty good soldiers today. Fuck all, I can’t even write their families.”
Michael nodded. “FUBAR, sir. What were your orders, and why were you out here, of all places?”
Harrison let out a loud breath, then said, “We were under orders to head to some dink town near Philly to find a civilian and, if he was still breathing, to help him get back online. Back channel, I was told he was an important asset for the fight against the fucking invading forces. We had a lot of weird computer gear for him in the back of the Jeep.”
Ethan looked up in surprise. “Um, sir, can I ask you what was the name of the guy you were going to look for?”
Harrison stared at Ethan for a long while, clearly sizing him up, and then said, “Yeah… Could be… His asset codename was ‘Dark Ryder,’ and he might just be the only guy still alive and in the region with the knowhow and equipment to help us put up a coordinated counteroffensive.”
Cassy looked at Ethan again and gave him a hard stare. What the hell? But Ethan was just some rich conspiracy nut. A gaming freak. Wasn’t he?
“I think we need to talk more, Lieutenant,” said Ethan, voice shaking.
* * *
For the last hour, Ethan had gathered the gear from the Jeep and inspected it. One was clearly a laptop, but the other items were lost on the rest of the group. Ethan, however, knew what
they were, and grinned like a fool. “Only one piece was damaged, and I jury-rigged it with some wiring from the Jeep. No one will mind if it no longer has working turn signals.”
Frank shrugged. “Not my Jeep, not my problem. So what is this crap?”
Ethan couldn’t keep the joy out of his voice. “This ‘crap’ is some of Uncle Sam’s finest rugged, hardened asynchronous encrypted data transfer and com-link hardware. Some assembly required. But with it, I can get the hell online from anywhere in the world, just about, and get back in touch with some people I was working with after the lights went out. Well… before my bunker was compromised, I mean.”
Frank didn’t reply, no doubt trying to avoid a conflict. He was a good man, Ethan had long ago decided, but neither Frank nor the rest of the clan could understand what “Dark Ryder” had given up to save their lives. But it had been his choice, not theirs, and he held no grudge against them for what had happened because of it.
He was finally able to click the last component into place, and then connected his laptop and booted it for the first time since leaving his bunker. It whirred and pinged as the desktop came up and it saw new hardware, and it took a minute to find the right drivers from among the files on his loaded-up USB flash drives.
His effort was quickly rewarded. Once the hardware initialized, he loaded the now-familiar “AIR_RDEA” file, and a dialog box popped up along with two dozen new alerts. Ethan noted that they were evenly spaced, so they were automated. It might take a minute for his acknowledgement to be seen. Into the green box he typed,
> Dark Ryder ack. Temp online. Relocating, connection intermittent.
Dark New World (Book 2): EMP Exodus Page 9
