We will find you…
The only thing he heard was the whisper of a breeze.
Still, Dolan gripped the assault rifle more tightly as he made his way slowly back toward the cabin, his eyes scanning the perimeter looking for any signs of trouble.
Everything appeared normal. Bev, Max and Grace remained unmoving in their beds.
Tom Dolan opened the cabin door and slipped soundlessly back inside and locked it behind him. He placed the AK-47 back against the wall and removed his boots, the recent unease he had felt outside quickly dissipating.
Halfway back to his bed, Dolan paused and then inhaled.
What’s that smell?
A hint of something metallic seemed to permeate inside the silent cabin. Tom took another deep breath only to find the smell suddenly vanished, leaving him to wonder if it had been there at all.
He completed the short journey back to his bed and sat down upon the mattress and then froze, feeling something slightly sticky and moist under his right foot.
What the hell?
Dolan’s eyes peered down at the floor making out a portion of the aged wood floor that was somehow darker than the surrounding area. He lifted his foot and then reached down with his left hand to wipe at whatever he had stepped in.
Tom brought his fingers toward his face while slowly rubbing them together, while realizing the earlier smell had returned, though this time much stronger.
Blood.
Dolan stood up and then felt his knees buckle as an icy cold shiver ran down his spine like a multitude of daggers that had been plunged into his back. He turned to face Bev and found her exactly as he had left her – though this time there was no sound of soft breathing.
We will find you…
Tom pulled back the bed sheets and rolled his wife over. His mouth fell open but no sound emerged. She had been shot both in the face and the chest. Her blood had soaked through the mattress beneath her and then collected in a pool underneath the bed.
The former Marion Chief of Police stood up with a shaking and bloodied hand covering his mouth as he turned around slowly to look back at the still silent forms of his son and daughter.
God no…
Though the distance to the beds of his teenaged children was no more than a few steps across a small room, it left Tom Dolan exhausted. He didn’t want to see what was left in those beds. He didn’t want to believe such a thing was possible.
His bare feet shuffled slowly across the floor like two great weights nearly incapable of movement. He paused to hear their breathing but only silence answered him. Tom shook his head from side to side and then whimpered. His right hand trembled violently as he grasped the blanket that lay over his son and then pulled it back to reveal Max had been killed just as his mother had – two shots to the face and chest.
That left fifteen-year-old Grace.
Tom paused, his shoulders shaking as his mouth continued to open and close while he sobbed silently. He already knew what he would find. His daughter was dead as well, executed as her mother and brother had been.
We will find you…
Tom Dolan’s hands covered his ears as he closed his eyes as tightly as possible and demanded he wake up from the worst nightmare of his life. He repeated that process over and over again until finally night gave way to morning and a new day emerged.
And still his family lay in their beds dead.
Tom stared at the AK-47 where he had left it leaning against the wall.
I failed them. I was supposed to keep them safe. All of this preparation…all of it for NOTHING!
Dolan remained standing in the middle of the cabin until night came once again. He made no sound. His eyes stayed closed while his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.
Only when daylight pushed back the darkness for the second time since his family’s murder did Tom’s eyes open once again. They were no longer the eyes of his former life. The man he had so recently been was no more. That person was as dead as the three bodies that still lay inside the confines of the cabin. All that remained within Tom Dolan was an all-consuming desire for revenge.
Tom’s head snapped up at the sound of fallen leaves stirring from just outside the cabin. His mouth cracked across his face into a grotesque impression of a smile as his eyes widened in anticipation of the hunt.
We will find you…
Tom Dolan clenched his fists even tighter and then hissed a one word reply to the implied threat that continued to repeat in his mind.
“GOOD.”
------------------------
EPISODE TEN:
Forty-five year old Sabina Markson had been watching the city she once called home burn itself to the ground for nearly two weeks from her vantage point on a small, secluded beach across the water some three miles west of Bellingham Harbor.
Each morning she awoke shortly after dawn, crawled out from the pup tent set up underneath a canopy of pine trees, checked on her two kids who were most often still sleeping in their own tents, and then made the short walk down to the beach that offered her a clear view of the Bellingham cityscape.
Smoke still billowed from burning buildings, though the size of the great, dark smoke clouds had lessened in recent days. The sound of emergency sirens had stopped too. Sabina doubted that meant the situation had improved though. In fact, she was certain it was proof the entire city had fallen completely into chaos to the point there was no more law enforcement to try and stop it.
The world of yesterday, a time of order, rules, and basic human decency had all but vanished. People were now monsters seemingly capable of every kind of violence imaginable. The recent widow and mother of two wondered if there were other places in the country that had not yet suffered the madness that that had so recently taken Bellingham. She knew that eventually they would be required to find out. The small island they currently inhabited lacked proper shelter and soon the temperatures would grow colder, the torrential rains would come, and then perhaps even ice and snow as well.
There was also the matter of food and water. They had nearly depleted the cans of beans and corn Sabina had taken from their boat that remained tied in place on the beach. The tiny island had a few rabbits running around it, but they were almost impossible to catch and she worried shooting at them with the hunting rifle they had taken with them might alert others to their presence – namely the groups of Luttia Indians she would watch slowly pass by the island in their own small watercraft. She had not seen one of those boats in three days though, and wondered if fuel was becoming an issue. If delivery trucks were no longer making their way to the Bellingham area that meant fuel tanks would have gone empty. That was good news for keeping their place on the island a secret, but bad news for their own hopes of using their boat to escape to a place that offered them shelter, food and water. Their own boat had less than a third of a tank of diesel left.
Bosco, the family’s Golden Retriever, lay down next to where Sabina stood. She recalled the terror of returning to their house to get the dog following the altercation with the mob at the high school. Bosco seemed to sense something was terribly wrong at the time. He jumped into the back of the pick-up truck and then simply lay down as Sabina drove as fast as the truck could manage down the various Bellingham side streets on her way back their boat in the marina.
“Good morning, Bosco! How are you feeling?”
The dog’s tail slowly wagged from side to side, brushing over the dark sand of the beach as he did so. Sabina watched as Bosco’s ears suddenly perked upward and he rose to his feet. A moment later she too heard what had caught the dog’s attention.
It was the sound of a motor.
Coming from the east…Luttia Island.
Sabina moved as quickly as she could off of the beach and toward the small hill above where the tents were located. From there she would be able to locate the source of the engine noise, and more importantly, if it was headed their way.
Bosco followed close behind as Jackson and Mika
stuck their heads out of their respective tents.
“What’s going on?”
Sabina glanced at her sixteen-year old son and then motioned behind her with her right thumb.
“Something’s coming, time to get up.”
Seconds later and both Sabina’s children scrambled to follow her up the hill. Soon they were looking out at the glistening blue waters of the San Juan Islands trying to find where the engine noise was coming from.
“There!”
It was Mika who first spotted the small tribal fishing boat approaching their island from no more than four hundred yards away. Sabina’s eyes narrowed as she tried to determine how many were on board.
“There looks to be at least two of them.”
Jack shook his head and then pointed at the dark blue vessel.
“No, there are three. One guy is standing at the very back. And…he’s holding a rifle.”
Jackson was right, and Sabina knew if that one man was armed, it was most likely all three of them were.
“Mom, are they going to hurt us?”
Sabina looked at her daughter and then back out at the approaching fishing boat.
“They might try, Mika. I need you to be brave, ok?”
Just a few weeks earlier fourteen-year old Mika would have been visibly annoyed by her mother’s insistence she need do something. Now though, Sabina’s teenaged daughter merely shook her head in agreement without a hint of complaint.
“You two stay here. Let me know when the boat gets within a hundred yards of shore. Keep Bosco here with you and make sure he doesn’t bark.”
Sabina jogged back down to the tents and grabbed the hunting rifle and box of shells. The ammo had been given to them by old Walt just prior to their leaving Bellingham marina right before dark. Sabina urged the old man to come with them but he refused, declaring he would only slow them down.
“Anyone try and give you or your kids trouble, you shoot to kill, understand?”
Sabina had nodded back at the old man and then hugged Walt tight right before boarding her dead husband’s old fishing boat with her children. Though she and her kids never said it out loud as they made the short journey across the water to the small, uninhabited island, their collective desire that Jack was still alive to help them was palpable. He had always carried with him a quiet, assured strength that Sabina would have given anything to have around them once again.
But you up and died on us, didn’t you Jack? Now it’s up to me to keep us all safe…
Sabina rubbed the old Saint Christopher medallion between her fingers that she had taken from their boat and put around her neck when they had arrived at the island two weeks earlier.
“Mom, they’re coming straight for the beach!”
The cove where their boat had been beached was almost completely hidden from view by boats casually passing by. Jack had discovered its location when he was shrimping with his father and many years later brought Sabina and the kids there for an afternoon picnic. It now appeared they weren’t the only ones who knew of its location. That meant the visitors would discover the boat, and then if they meant to do harm, go looking for the people who were obviously hiding somewhere on the island.
Sabina cursed softly under her breath and took a position behind one of the larger pine trees that marked the narrow path down to the beach. The position would allow her full view of anyone approaching from below.
Anyone try and give you or your kids trouble, you shoot to kill, understand?
It seemed so surreal to the mother of two that she might very well have to put Walt’s advice into action. Sabina prayed to God she wouldn’t be required to kill another human being while knowing within minutes she might find herself doing just that.
The fishing vessel rounded the sharp corner that protected the cove and came into full view. It was definitely from the Luttia fishing fleet. Its dark blue paint was flaking off in several places, the old diesel engine belching out a swirling mass of dark smoke behind it as it slowly crept toward the beach.
The hull pushed into the light gravel where water met beach and then pushed several feet further upward before coming to a stop. Seconds later the engine went silent and three long-haired younger male members of the Luttia Tribe jumped down onto the beach. They were dressed casually in khaki shorts and t-shirts. One pointed toward Sabina’s boat while another of the three men nodded his head in agreement. Then all three looked up toward the hillside, seemingly at the very tree behind which Sabina found herself hiding.
Oh, god…
“Mrs. Markson, are you here?”
Sabina didn’t recognize the voice, or the man who spoke her name, so she remained silent with the loaded rifle tightly held in each of her hands.
“Mrs. Markson, my name is Peter. My father was a friend of your husband. They fished in the same area often. I’m not here to hurt you. In fact, I’m here to warn you to leave as quickly as possible. There are others coming – soon.”
Sabina aimed the hunting rifle at the tribal member who called out her name. He appeared to be no more than thirty years of age. Her husband did work with many of the Indian fishermen so it was possible the man’s father had known Jack.
But how would he have known I was on this island?
Sabina’s trigger finger prepared to fire at the slightest hint of trouble.
“Go away or I’ll shoot!”
The man calling himself Peter held up both hands in front of him.
“We aren’t here to hurt you, Mrs. Markson! I spoke to Walt. He told me you left the marina. My father said you might be hiding out here. He knew of the cove. Your husband showed it to him once. Please, Mrs. Markson, you don’t have much time!”
The widow and mother of two continued to aim the rifle at Peter as she contemplated whether or not she was being told the truth, or being set up with a lie.
“Why do you care about helping me?”
Peter paused for a moment before answering. When he did, his voice had lowered slightly, tinged with what sounded to Sabina like genuine regret.
“Because what my people have done, what some of them continue to do is wrong. My father is a tribal elder and he feels nothing but terrible shame for what has happened. The white people are getting ready to fight back. There is going to be a lot of bloodshed on both sides. My father told me to come here and see that you and your children get away from this place. You are not safe here, Mrs. Markson.”
“Why didn’t you come alone?”
Peter glanced at the two other tribal members who stood behind him and then looked back up toward where Sabina still hid behind the tree.
“For my own safety. The tribe is divided between those of us who want the violence to stop, and those who want it to continue. That is why I am here, Mrs. Markson. Some of those others are coming here today. They know your family is here. My father discovered their intentions and sent me here to warn you.”
Sabina partially lowered the rifle.
“You can come up here, but just you! The other two stay on the beach!”
Peter nodded his head and then began the ascent up the narrow hillside path toward where Sabina stood with the rifle at the ready. He was actually younger than Sabina first thought – no more than a few years older than Jackson. He was of average height and build, with shoulder length black hair tied behind him in a pony tail and remarkably smooth skin common to those of the Luttia Tribe.
“Stop there.”
Peter did as Sabina told him while once again raising his hands up in front of him.
“I’m unarmed, Mrs. Markson. We don’t have much time, likely no more than an hour. Do have somewhere you can go, friends or family who live away from here?”
Sabina had been contemplating taking the boat across the waters into Canada. The border was no more than ten miles from the small island they had been hiding out on.
“What about Canada?”
Peter shook his head.
“No, don’t go north. Some of my people are
all over those waters, attacking those trying to escape. Even if you were to manage avoiding them, the Canadian authorities are not allowing anyone from the states to enter their country. I’ve been told they’ve even opened fire on people trying to do so. The entire border has been locked down. They don’t want the violent disease that’s infected this country to spread into theirs. It would be best to avoid the urban areas too. I am told Seattle is even worse than Bellingham and places like Spokane as well. Thousands have been killed.”
Sabina pointed the rifle at Peter’s chest.
“Ok, we’ll leave, but you and your friends go first.”
Peter stared into Sabina’s eyes trying to confirm that she was telling him the truth.
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 11
