by A. R. Shaw
“Don’t you dare stop now,” came his husky breath to her ear.
She smiled down at him, overjoyed that he had come back to her. With tears dropping to his chest, she whispered, “I never stop what I’ve started. You know that about me.”
Chapter 36 Tent City
Tala woke up on her side in their temporary accommodations, Graham spooning behind her, his arm draped over her swollen belly. The baby kicked and turned within her.
“He wants to play,” Graham said sleepily into the back of her head.
“You mean she don’t you?” Tala said as he smoothed his hand over her creamy bare skin where her tank top rode up. Then she felt his hand travel to her hip.
“Tala,” he said, nuzzling in closer.
“Nope,” she said and pointed to the other side of the tent where a little boy snored soundly, but not soundly enough. She put her finger to her lips and smiled teasingly up at Graham. “Shhh.”
He dropped his head in defeat. “Okay, I’ve got to go to help out anyway,” he said and swung his legs over the side of their cot.
“Me, too. I’ve got kitchen duty this morning.”
“Take it easy, please,” Graham said, tugging on his jeans.
Tala propped herself up on her elbows to watch him dress. “Did you make sure the boys were in the boys’ tent and the girls were in the girls’ tent last night?”
“Yes, I did, at around three this morning when I got off guard duty, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sheriff was with Macy though,” he said, leaving the tent for the showers.
“Have a nice day at work, Graham.” Tala tormented him again with a wicked smile and a raised eyebrow, and he shot her a devilish look that said Enough, or you’ll be sorry. She lay back down after he left, curling up where his warmth and smell still lingered on the bed. It frightened her that they couldn’t feel safe in their own cabin, alone—just Tala, Graham, and the children she’d come to love and call her own.
Now the twins were in the tent set up next to theirs, and the boys were on the other side, all in a row like the rest of the preppers. There was no more making Graham coffee at dawn, or the little things that made up their morning routine. Even the kids, only on their second day at the prepper camp, were still adjusting, though they all knew it was for the best and they had to make it work for now.
“Are we going to work in the garden today?”
Tala rolled over to see Bang peeking back out at her. A blush threatened her face. She hoped he hadn’t been awake long and had picked up on their playful banter. “Yes, I think so; after breakfast,” she said.
Tala sat up, pulled her sweater on over her cotton tank top, and said, “Time to start the day.”
Bang smiled at her. “I have to take care of the chickens. They don’t like it here. They think they’re lost,” he said.
“Hmm,” Tala said, knowing he was talking about more than the chickens. “Are you giving them the same feed?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Are you spending time with them like you used to?”
“Yeah,” he said nodding.
“Well,” she said and brushed his hair out of his eyes, “try talking to them and letting them know this is only temporary. It’s safer here and nothing will happen to them while we have more people to guard them. Let them know that as soon as danger has passed, we will return to the cabin, but for now we have to adapt to our new circumstances.”
“Are the bad men that killed Steven coming here?” Bang asked in a dropped whisper with eyes wide in fright.
Tala closed her lips in a thin line, thinking of what was best to reveal and what he didn’t need to know at his age. She finally pulled his small frame to her side and said in all honesty, “We don’t know yet, Bang, but we will keep you safe no matter what.” That seemed to be all he was asking for, just that much reassurance. He leaned into her and she hugged him with her heart on edge.
When she left the tent with Bang, he headed off in the opposite direction toward the animal section and waved as if he was going off to school and she to work. She’d never realized how much the prepper camp was like a little city, all within the confines of a gated enclosure—except for Clarisse’s quarantine lab, which was not simply a lab.
She’d hoped to hear word about Dalton’s condition, and as she neared the mess hall she ran into Marcy already hard at work taking orders from Olivia. She hugged Marcy and said, “Good morning, dear.”
“Good morning, Tala,” Olivia said. “You didn’t have to come in this early in your condition. You should sleep as much as you can. When the baby’s born, forget that luxury.”
“Oh, I know; it’s already waking me up early, though. It’s okay. I want to help out as much as I can now. Have you heard anything about Dalton?” she asked while putting on an apron.
Olivia bent over a vat of steaming oatmeal, stirring while Marcy spilled a couple handfuls of raisins into the pot. “Yes! He’s awake and doing well. Rick came in last night, said Clarisse stopped by the media tent on her way in to tell him that Dalton was up and looking good. He’s already out of bed. I haven’t seen him yet, but Rick said Clarisse won’t let him do too much yet. His shoulder’s bandaged, and he’s in a lot of pain, but she’s taking care of him. He’ll be fine.”
“That’s great news. We all needed that,” said Tala. Then she stacked paper bowls and set up plastic spoons near the oatmeal station. Marcy was filling the large commercial coffee maker with water, and Tala set out the sugar, faux sugar packets, and stir sticks. She then looked for the powdered creamer but there was none.
“Olivia, is there more creamer somewhere?”
“Ah . . . nooo,” she said with a dismayed look on her face. “We are all out of the powdered creamer, and Dalton is going to start a revolution when he finds out. I’ve been slipping canned evaporated milk into his coffee, which Rick came in for earlier, but we don’t have much of that left either. It’s black from now on, if anyone asks—until we run out of coffee itself, that is.”
“God help us all when that happens,” Tala said, thinking of how grumpy Graham was without his coffee.
Marcy laughed. “That’s just too bad. They both need to get off caffeine anyway. It’s bad for you.”
Olivia stirred brown sugar into the oatmeal and tapped the large metal spoon on the side of the pot when she was through. She smiled and laughed at a memory, “Honey, you don’t want to be around Rick or St—” she shuddered, stopped, and the smile dropped from her face utterly.
Tala looked at her, saddened by her obvious heartache.
“I’m sorry. It’s so hard to accept he’s gone,” Olivia said.
Before Tala could comment, people started filtering in for breakfast. Olivia put on a bright smile through her watery eyes and welcomed them while Tala looked at Marcy, who now appeared in painful remorse too. These things couldn’t be helped; they had their own sadness at Ennis’s passing—even now—and they both knew that grief took time.
Chapter 37 Man Traps
“I had no idea you were so devious,” McCann said to Sam as they carried out the traps and lethally sharpened spears in two quivers. The knee-high sword ferns gleamed a brilliant green all around them.
“It’s survival, that’s all,” Sam explained, setting the first trap. He then pointed out into the forest. “You see how the deer have created this natural highway through the woods? The invaders will follow this opening to avoid making unnecessary noise. We need to set up bow traps along this perimeter and camouflage them under the natural brush along the path.
“Watch how I set one of these up, and then you can help me with the rest.” Sam began pounding several sticks into the ground, which he then laid a bow across. He extended the string behind the bow at full pull and pounded several more sticks into the ground at that position. Then he took a stick tied to a string and pounded it into the ground across the deer path. “This is the tripwire,” he said, pounding in a few more sticks into the ground, around which he looped the str
ing. He tied the other end of the tripwire to a tiny stick, then pulled the bowstring back, setting it behind the fulcrum stick and securing everything with the tripwire stick.
Sam leaned backward on his knees and held his hands up in warning.
“Okay, pay attention. This thing is lethal once you place the spear inside of the device. It’s under a lot of pressure. The arrow will lean upward at a slight angle. There’s a notch here at the end of the spear, see?” He showed McCann where the bowstring would slide smoothly inside the crevice. “Do not walk in front of the trap—for any reason—after loading the spear. We’ll set these up after Rick finishes the final touches on his reapers.”
McCann thought these bow traps were damned impressive alone, but he had no idea of what Rick had planned. “What the heck is a reaper?” he asked, and Sam did something McCann never expected to hear from him. It scared him.
Sam giggled low and devious, then said, “You think I’ve got tricks up my sleeve—Rick’s a twisted, freaky fucker. He’s designed this thing—I can’t tell you; I’ll have him explain it to you. This thing is something you have to see for yourself. Anyway, no one ventures this direction, unless of course they have a death wish to be impaled or shot—or both.”
McCann cleared his dry throat. “Yeah. That’s for sure.”
They made their way through the forest to where Rick was perched atop their Jeep. He had hooked something over a branch and pushed it back to conceal it under the evergreen brush.
“That should do it. Last one,” Rick said to them as they approached. The temperature was warm enough to cause Rick to break a sweat work, and McCann thought Rick looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. His army T-shirt was drenched through as he finished the final touches on his equipment while McCann surveyed the contraption to try to figure out what it was.
“Explain to McCann how these damn things work, Rick,” Sam said.
“Sure, just a second.” Rick wiped the sweat from his eyes with his forearm. “The scheme really isn’t that hard if you just put a few different concepts together into one project. It helped that I used to be an RC—remote control—airplane enthusiast and a gun nut.
“For the remote control functions of the gun, I used a 2.4 gigahertz RC radio system consisting of a transmitter and a receiver. The new 2.4 systems lock on to a single transmitter/receiver like a cell phone. That helps keep other radio transmissions from interfering and makes it just a little harder for the system to be hijacked. The transmitter is the controller you would fly the RC airplane with, and the receiver would normally be mounted on an airplane. The receiver takes the signals from the controller, then sends the commands to each of the servos that operate the different control surfaces of the airplane.
“I made a mounting bracket that attaches to a tree branch and hangs from underneath. The mount for the gun hangs underneath on an aluminum dual-axis mount to allow it to move on the yaw and pitch control axes. That gives the operator full range of motion of the gun with a simple joystick on a controller. There are two servos connected to the mounting bracket—one for each axis, and each axis uses the control arms that would normally move the flight control surfaces to move the gun mount underneath.
“When the operator pulls back with the controller, the barrel goes up; when he pushes forward, it goes down, left and it goes left, right and it goes right. I had to use the beefiest servos available to get it stout enough to move the way I wanted it to and to be reliable under stress, but it was worth the search.
“The weapon mounted underneath the contraption is a stripped-down M4 carbine that uses the flat-top rail on the upper receiver to mount to the control mechanism where there would normally be a sight, optic, or the old school carry handle–sight combo mounted. In the interest of saving weight, I stripped it of its stock and only have the buffer tube in place on the rear, removed the forward hand guards, and sawed the triangular front sight off, leaving only the gas block, gas tube, and a lightweight pencil profile barrel out front—no muzzle device. I also mounted a solenoid from an RC airplane alongside the magazine well to actuate the trigger that also receives input from the transmitter via the receiver. This particular M4 just happens to have a class three lower receiver with the full autofire control group installed, and is loaded with a hundred-round Beta Mag dual drum setup. I figured a hundred rounds would be plenty, since by that point this thing is liable to have shaken itself apart from the pounding of the recoil action.
“For aiming, the primary system is a camera mounted on the gun mount that transmits live video feeds to a monitor colocated with the RC transmitter. Since the camera can’t actually sight in the exact path of the bullets, the Beta Mag is loaded every third round with a tracer so that the path of the bullets can actually be seen by the camera and adjusted accordingly. The tracers also work as a backup aiming system in the event of camera failure; as long as the RC transmitter operator has his eyes on the gun, he can direct the fire visually with the tracers.
“The whole setup is powered by an onsite battery pack, trickle charged via a small solar panel mounted near the top of the tree. The way I see it, the hundred rounds of ammo will be expended long before the battery, so the trickle charger is really to keep the battery topped off and ready for use—not for replenishment of a drained battery.”
McCann consumed every detail, and imagined the invaders running for cover in all directions from these things. After a dead second of quiet, in awe, McCann said, “You are both tricky dudes.”
“Damn straight. It’s something I’m proud of,” Rick said, smiling.
“The two of you scare the hell out of me. You’re a crazy team,” McCann said. He’s always known these two guys had skills, but now he was impressed in a scared-shitless kind of way. “I think I know more now than I should,” McCann admitted, brushing down the bristling hairs on the back of his neck.
Rick laughed. “Yes, this is a bit above your pay grade, I’m afraid.”
There was a sudden rustling in the woods about sixty feet from their position to the south, and McCann nearly pissed his pants. He drew his Colt automatically, but the sudden jerk affected his shoulder wound and had him crouching in pain. Sam was down to the ground, bow ready, and Rick had jumped down from the Jeep to hide behind the tree he’d been working on earlier. He held his M1A pressed firmly against his cheek while looking through the Leupold scope. “Deer,” Rick whispered after a moment.
“Christ, that scared the hell out of me,” McCann admitted.
Sam stood cautiously and whispered, “Can’t be too careful. Now it’s time to turn the hunters into the hunted.”
Chapter 38 A Trick
“It’s not as easy as you think,” Dutch tried to explain in a soft encouraging voice to Lucy, Macy, Bang, and some of the prepper children. Macy didn’t think he was aware of her and Bang’s level of skill, but they would show him soon enough, and even so, maybe Dutch had something to teach them. Lucy, Hunter, Kade, Bethany, and Addy stood beside them, listening intently to the instructions.
Dutch’s dogs and Sheriff hung out nearby; Elsa lolled in the sparse growth of the forest floor, while Frank and Sheriff panted at their sides, acting as if they too were a part of the instructions.
“You have to launch the arrow a bit higher to account for wind and drop,” he continued. “It curves as it hits the target. See? Watch, let me demonstrate it for you.”
He aimed for one of the targets thirty yards away, set opposite the fence line, and began to instruct through his motions. “Elbow straight back along your line of sight, straight and level. Don’t let it slop down. Bowstring just to the right of your lip center. Aim, breathe out, hold, and release.” He let the arrow fly. Macy watched the red tail wiggle about in the first few milliseconds as the arrow took flight and struck the target on the ring edge, left of center.
“Now you try,” he instructed them. Macy and Bang both lifted their bows fluidly, with expert skill, and sent their arrows straight into the gold center. Lucy and the others had
yet to get their bows into position as the two arrows landed with soft thunks one a split second after the other. Dutch stopped in his tracks. “I think I’ve just been had!” he said, and both Macy and Bang giggled. “Why didn’t you say so? Hell, you teach them; I’ve got other stuff to do,” Macy raised her eyebrows at Lucy with a smirk as Dutch headed back to camp.
“He’s not really grouchy,” Lucy explained, waving Dutch off. “Now, can you show me how to do that?”
“Sure, but he’s the one who taught me,” Macy said, pointing at Bang.
“Seriously?” Lucy asked, surprised. “That’s awesome.”
Chapter 39 The Meeting
“Okay, traps and surveillance are set. Our location is secure, for now,” Dalton said to them after Rick had explained the situation.
Clarisse handed him a pain pill and a cup of water to chase it down with. He wasn’t exactly mobile, but sitting up in bed, he’d called the meeting in his room. If he walked more than ten feet he’d become lightheaded, nauseated, and have to sit down again, so it worked better to have them come to him. They were all scattered around, gawking at his wounds, standing or sitting.
“We’ve worked out a few different contingency escape routes, just in case,” Dutch said.
The men looked to Dalton for orders. They depended on him and he wasn’t fit for battle. Not like this. It scared the hell out of him that he was so weak and at such a critical time. The only thing he could do was talk them through things. For now, at least, that would have to do.
“Any signals?” he asked Rick, who looked like hell himself, dark circles around his eyes. The man was pale, and Dalton had seen that look on his face before. It was a look of suppressed rage just below the surface.
Years ago in the desert, they’d lost one of their own in the worst of ways. He was a lousy soldier, but he was their lousy soldier and he’d gotten himself captured, the dumbass. After torturing him, the enemy had finally beheaded him, and they sent a horrific video of the entire ghastly ordeal to them.
