by A. R. Shaw
Aware of a piercing scream coming from the truck behind him, he pulled his pistol out of his holster and his knife from its sheath and stood ready for whatever came at him next.
He turned to see the girl leaning out of the truck window and screaming while Elsa and Frank barked their heads off in the cab. He sheathed the knife again and held up one hand, fisting it for the dogs to see. They cut their barking, but the girl still screamed relentlessly.
“Hey, knock it off all right? Do you want more to come?” he yelled in frustration. He then added, “I’m running out of ammo here, for crying out loud.” He shook his head skyward and muttered, “Now she chooses to talk,”
“I didn’t . . . I . . . I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Dutch rolled his eyes, but he knew she was scared out of her wits. They’d been on the road too long, and he probably would be scared too if he’d had watched the entire grizzly scene. He took a deep breath and kicked off the dead weight of the wild dog that had landed partway on the wagon. As he climbed down, he stepped over the pile of would-be assassins. At least they were beasts and not human, but at any rate, the danger and lessons were the same: be vigilant or die.
“It’s all right, Miss. You did the right thing by keeping the dogs inside the cab and keeping yourself safe.” As he looked up at the young lady, he was reminded why, on some level, he appreciated her: even though she was terrified, she had done what he’d told her to do. No matter what happens, stay in the goddamn cab. Let me handle things. You’ll only get in my way and get us both killed if you act.
Perhaps she’d seen too much in her recent past. Perhaps she was a quick learner and was adjusting to this new way of life, like the rest of them. Whatever the case might be, it was a sign that she was beginning to trust him. He had known many men in war with less aptitude to keep their heads and do as they were told. Had she let Elsa and Frank go, he would surely have lost at least one of them. Had she left the cab, the wild dogs would have gone for her, and he would have lost his advantage.
Dutch looked around into the darkness once again and decided it was as good a time as any to make camp; they could explore more in the morning. If anyone had heard the shots, they would find Dutch and the girl soon, and that was his plan. He figured the people he had heard on the radio had to be ex-military, and they’d scout out the source of the gunfire if they heard it. If his hunch was correct, it was best to make it clear he was no danger to them. Camping for the night in the open and then exploring in the morning was their best option.
“Let’s go ahead and make camp here tonight,” Dutch said; he opened the cab door and signaled the dogs to come out of the truck. They both made a beeline to sniff out the offenders. Dutch held his hand out to help the young woman step down, but she refused his offer and he turned away frustrated again. Then he thought better of it and decided to get it off his chest. “I’m not trying to seduce you or anything, you know. You do understand that, right? I’m old enough to be your father.”
“I know,” she yelled at his abrupt openness. “I’m not saying you are. But I don’t want you to think I’m weak; I can do things for myself.”
“Hey, I get that, but you could at least trust me enough to handle your name. Calling you lady is getting a little old, and I need to be able to get your attention quick if there’s a problem. At least trust me that much.”
She nodded her head and looked over at the carnage as the two Belgian shepherds sniffed out the beasts. She was terrified most of the time, and watching the wild dogs attack Dutch reminded her how impossible it was for a person to survive alone in this world. It took more strength than she contained within herself.
She didn’t want to need anyone, but she knew she needed Dutch. Seeing the attack and hearing the savagery before the blasts shed further light on how easily she could be left to survive on her own once again. It brought her back to the violence she’d barely escaped by another beast before she’d run into Dutch that fateful night four days ago. She didn’t want it to happen again. She’d killed the man, but not before he nearly killed her.
She’d been lucky enough to get to his gun, shoot him, and run like hell, still bearing the splatter of his blood upon her skin. Because of this, trust in any man would never come to her easily again. She knew Dutch was as good a guy as they came in life, but she’d never give another man her true name again; a fake one might suffice for now. A strong name . . . not a sissy-girl name.
“Liza,” she said to him.
Her green-flecked eyes shot at him, and he knew right away. “You’re lyin’, but that’ll do enough for now. Let’s make camp,” he said and left her standing shocked while he checked the horses.
Chapter 5 Shots Fired
That evening, Rick checked the video feeds once again and called Macy at Graham’s camp. “Faint shots fired. What’s up, kid? You guys have some furry fangs your way? Over.”
“That did not come from us, Rick. Over,” Macy confirmed with a hint of fear and dread in her voice.
Dalton stood next to Rick, overhearing the conversation as he buckled the holster around his middle. Rick watched Dalton as he checked his magazine and ensured there was one extra in the chamber before holstering the weapon.
“The shots were pretty far away, Dalton. Do you really think you need to go out there now?”
“They were close enough to check out. I’ll take Steven. Tell Graham to stand ready.”
Rick keyed the microphone. “Have Graham stand ready. Over.”
“Too late, our team is already on recon. Over,” Macy said.
“Hey, you guys are supposed to consult with us before you act. Over,” Rick said.
“Says who? You’re not the boss of us here. Besides, I was just calling you when you beeped me. Over.”
Rick shook his head. “It’s not beeped, Macy. It’s called. Over.”
“Oh, forgive me for forgetting your radio protocol,” Macy said sarcastically.
“When I get a hold of you, kid . . .”
“You’ll have to catch me first. And you forgot over. Over.”
“Out!” Rick yelled.
“That kid!” Rick swore to Dalton, who only chuckled.
“She outwitted you, Rick. You’ve finally met your match. Get used to it.” Dalton zipped up his jacket, donned his camo knit hat, and grabbed and checked the radio Rick handed to him.
“Key in three clicks for all is clear.”
“Gotcha.”
Just as Dalton turned for the door, Steven arrived geared up. “Ready?” Steven asked.
Both men hustled out of camp into the dark cover to investigate the shots fired nearby. These little missions worried Rick the most; with all the dangerous assignments they’d headed out to in the past, it was the little, unexpected ones that took out your buddy. Something like this—unexpected and quick—made wives into widows and children into orphans. They knew the ever-present danger more than anyone there did, but the reality was that the risk couldn’t be helped. Rick reminded himself that Dalton was already a widower and his boys were without a mother. Steven was just Steven in Rick’s mind . . . more like a brother and uncle to his own family. Steven was a permanent fixture, and Rick couldn’t imagine life without him.
Rick rechecked the monitors and scanned for radio signals through the local channels. Before long, Dalton keyed in three times by using the microphone receiver’s push to talk button, the PTT, to let Rick know that all was clear. Rick expected the noise to repeat every few minutes until they returned. The method allowed Dalton to relay information back to Rick without speaking their position aloud to anyone who might overhear them.
Rick leaned back in his chair, listening to the rhythmic sounds of static from the receiver as it went through the automatic scanning procedure. He drummed his fingers on his balding head, thinking of how far they’d come and trying to anticipate the dangers awaiting them in the future.
So far he’d taken on Macy to mentor for technology. She showed the most interest and
aptitude, even though she seemed reluctant to enjoy her position these days. He expected the loss of Ennis to be difficult for her, though she’d get over his death in time. She was a tough girl with a deep heart, and he could see she meant to guard it. Being set up for pain by caring too much for others was something he could see she tried to control. At first he was a little worried, in a fatherly type of way, that McCann might try to have a relationship with the girl too soon. But she had flat-out rejected him after Ennis passed. He knew the young man cared for her, but he was going to have to bide his time before Macy was ready for any kind of romance. She wasn’t like her sister, Marcy, at all. For twins, they couldn’t be more different in personality.
With such a limited postpandemic society, pairing up the young seemed to be something the older adults had on their minds lately. His wife openly wondered who would be the best mate for their daughter Bethany. She was way too young still—at least nine years away from even thinking seriously about boys. In the old world, Rick would never in a million years have wanted to start considering who would marry his daughter. The suitors were everywhere, but now, in this life, with an extreme lack of inventory of young males, matchmaking had come to be something of a pastime to wager on. None of them is good enough for Bethany. Rick’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard the scanner suddenly catch on a station broadcasting faint dits and dahs.
“What the hell?” He jumped forward in his chair and hand-tuned the potentiometer knob up for better signal strength while he grabbed a pen and a pad of paper to decipher what he identified immediately as Morse code. His hands started shaking, and a rising sense of dread filled him the farther he got into the message.
-.-. .-.. --. / .-. .. -.-. -.- / . -- .-. --. / -.- .. .-.. .-.. / ... .. --. / .... . .- -.. .... ..- -. - . .-. ... / .- - / ..- .-. / -.... / .---- ..... .---- / -.- .-.. .. -.-. -.- ... / -.. . / -.. ..- - -.-. .... / .. .. / -.- .. .-.. .-.. / ... .. --. / -.-. ..- .-.. / ---.. ---..
CLG RICK EMRG KILL SIG HEADHUNTERS AT UR 6 151 KLICKS DE DUTCH II KILL SIG CUL 88
“Holy hell,” Rick said after he laboriously deciphered the signal. Before it repeated, he grabbed for the local microphone. He hit the PTT once. He couldn’t risk transmitting and exposing the team’s position, but if it didn’t work, he’d have no choice. They might be walking into their own deaths. The implications of the message churned in his mind.
Headhunters here? Goddamn them!
He bypassed the click warning and pressed the PTT button again. “Dalton, stop. Abort mission. I repeat, abort mission. Return to base. Do you copy? Over.”
“Copy, Rick. Return to base. Out.” Dalton answered with a bit of confusion in his voice, but thankfully he sounded compliant.
Rick began to put down the radio and then thought of Graham walking into a possible trap. “Shit,” he said and called in to Macy.
“Twin two, over?”
He knew he sounded hurried but this was an emergency. Who knew where Graham and his team were at this point? Soon he heard Macy pick up with, “Twin two here, over.”
“Call Graham, Macy. Have him return to base. Then stay off the radio completely. Don’t let anyone use them, even the walkies. Over.”
“Why, what’s going on? Over.”
“Just do it, Mace. It’s urgent. No questions. Out.”
As soon as he cut off the signal, he reached for the kill switch to the automatic transmitter beacon that he used to broadcast the “welcome survivors” message. He’d set it up to repeat the same phrase every hour of the day, every day. Now that he thought about it, it made him sick to know he might be responsible for leading attackers to his own people. Next he checked the wall map for what 151 klicks south of their position might be.
“Seattle,” he said, dragging his finger on the map. He waited while the Morse code warning started its repeat. The melodic dits and dahs rang out and sent Rick into a worried trance until he heard Dalton and Steven’s heavy footsteps in the doorway.
“What the hell, Rick? What happened?” Dalton asked.
“Listen.”
“Yeah?” Steven asked.
“It’s Morse. It’s a warning for us. It’s coming from a local station,” Rick explained.
“What’s the warning?” Dalton asked.
Rick read from his notes again, deciphering the military terms into layman’s terms as he went. Calling Rick. Emergency. Kill signal. Headhunters south of your location, 152 kilometers. This is Dutch. I repeat. Kill signal. See you later. Love and kisses.”
Nothing but silence ensued as the other two men digested the news.
“Where . . .” Steven began to ask.
“Seattle.”
“The shots earlier?”
“Dunno.”
“You call Graham?” Dalton asked.
“Yeah. He should be back by now, I would think.”
Dalton’s concerned expression turned to confusion and now looked nothing less than ominous.
Steven cleared his throat, and Rick knew that he too could feel the waves of hate emanating from Dalton. “Do you think it’s a trick?”
After an uncomfortable silence, Dalton said, “It damn well better be. The shots earlier might be from this guy, Dutch, letting us know he’s in the area. Though, I’ve never known anyone to shoot like that as a warning.”
“He knows Morse. Probably former military,” Rick said.
“What scares the shit out of me is what this guy is warning us about. Headhunters. If it’s true, that can only mean one thing, Steven said, remembering the term slapped onto the extreme jihadists after their favored barbaric execution style. After al-Qaeda became meek in the shadow of the Islamic Nation, they’d been nicknamed the Headhunters. The common term among the military meant they were nothing more than unredeemable savages.
“Yeah—that terrorists have invaded us.” Dalton finished for him and then exploded. “How the fuck are they even still alive?”
Rick jumped, then saw that he wasn’t alone; Steven also stepped back. To piss off Dalton was to bring about the bad side of God, and no one wanted to see that.
Dalton stood with his hands on his hips, breathing fumes as the implications of the warning took hold.
“You turned off that damn beacon?” Dalton shot off at Rick.
“Yeah; right away,” Rick confirmed and took a deep breath as his heart pounded within his chest. “So, you think this guy is right, and the terrorist Headhunters are south of us in Seattle? Which means, they’ve crawled out from the slime-covered rocks they hid beneath and have come here?”
“Rick, you idiot; it means the virus was weaponized . . . by them,” Dalton said. He stood back and tried to stem his anger by lacing his hands behind his head as he looked toward the tent ceiling. “We’ve been so naive. It means they must have had a vaccine all along and they just committed vast genocide . . . the worst ever perpetrated by man. And now they’re here to finish the job.”
“What the hell do we do?” Steven said.
“We wait. Stay off the damn airwaves and wait until we hear from this Dutch guy,” Dalton said.
Rick nodded. Then something occurred to him. “The message came on the HF band. He’s close by, within fifteen miles. So he must have been farther away when he heard my beacon message. That means he came here to set up this warning. He came within range because he didn’t want them to hear him if they were monitoring the waves. That’s the only thing that makes sense. I used the Near Vertical Incident Skywave antenna to send the low-powered Morse code over the eighty-meter band on a repeat. It’s not easily traceable.”
“How did he know our location?” Dalton asked.
Rick looked sheepish. “Because our beacon transmission contained our coordinates and I signed it ‘Rick’,” he replied.
“Okay, make sure everything is turned off for now. My guess is this guy is our shooter, and we’ll hear from him soon. Let’s put everyone on high alert. He might be a scout for the Headhunters. We can’t trust him until we know more.”
>
“How are we going to warn Graham if we can’t use the radios?” Steven said.
Dalton checked his watch. “It’s late. They already know to stay off the waves. I think we’re safe for tonight. I’ll ride over in the morning.”
“Should we tell the others?” Steven said.
“No, not yet; this could be a hoax. I have a feeling it’s not, but let’s not go there yet. We may have to send a scout team to make sure what this guy says is true. We’ll talk with Graham tomorrow and try to make contact with the guy. Keep watch on the monitors. I’ll relieve you at two.”
Rick acknowledged the order and waved at his two comrades as they vacated the media tent before turning back to his equipment. He began to check everything and set to work making sure there were no other residual signals broadcast over the waves. He kept all the monitoring equipment on and even made notes to enhance views where dark shadows lay in the night.
Chapter 6 Speak Easy
Graham remained still as he sat astride the horse that McCann found wandering loose through town one day and had trained especially for him. The mount had become his steady land legs since his injury, which had left him with a limp. McCann had called the beast Rocket, but Graham soon changed it to Mosey to match his own speed. The horse was especially beneficial this evening since he and the boys—Mark and McCann—spotted a lone campfire at a distance through the forest.
“What do you want to do?” McCann whispered.
Graham looked around through the night. “I think we should at least check it out at a safe distance and find out how many there are.”
McCann agreed, and Mark turned his horse in that direction.
“Wait, Mark. I think you should stay here and keep watch.”
Mark’s shoulders visibly sunk an inch, but he obeyed Graham’s command. McCann picked up on the disappointment.
