Catalyst (Book 3): Ghost Country

by Franks, JK

  Again, caution and instinct made him check his surroundings, then he walked the bike in the direction of the arrow. Scott fully realized this could be a trap, everything these days seemed that way, but he had changed in the years since the CME. No longer was he the loner, hiding away brooding over a friend’s betrayal and his failed marriage. Finally, he felt he knew his place, and much of it came from helping others.

  He found the woman and the girl near a small stream. A tattered tent was pitched nearby. They watched him as he approached but didn’t get up. The girl was chewing on a piece of the jerky he’d left.

  “Thank you, Scott,” the woman said softly. “I apologize, but…” she trailed off. “Wasn’t expecting any kindness from you. Nor anyone else really.”

  He noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the thin face even more pronounced than he realized. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

  She just shrugged, “Names don’t matter anymore.” Her obvious sadness felt like a hollow echo.

  “I guess you didn’t find your friend?” She pointed to the bike, “Still riding.”

  He shook his head, “Need to do a radio check soon, see if he might finally check in.” He eyed the campsite. If this was all they had, he wasn’t sure how they were surviving. “Ma’am are you guys ok? Do you need help?” He reached into his small pack to see what was left. “Did you eat anything?” He was looking at the woman but saw the girl give the briefest shake of her head.

  He held out the last of his rations for the day to the woman. “Please, eat this―you need the calories.” She hungrily eyed the MRE in his outstretched hand but turned away. These two were starving to death, he could see that now, but the woman seemed to refuse to take any help from him—for herself at least.

  “Are you her daughter?”

  The young girl nodded, “Yes.” She paused before adding, “Sir.”

  “Ma’am, your daughter has eaten, she will be ok for a while. Now it’s your turn.” She shook her head.

  He unwrapped the meal and set it in front of her. “Don’t be stubborn, I have more for myself, and I’ve been eating pretty well."

  She stared at it, seemingly unsure of what to make of it. She dipped a finger into what was supposed to be marinara and then sucked the red sauce from her finger. Her eyes closed in a look of pained delight.

  “I can help you?”

  The woman took another tentative bite then looked at him questioningly. “Not sure we are willing to pay the price for anyone’s help.“

  He had no idea the story of these two, but over the next several hours he pulled it out of them. One sad fact after another. Surprisingly, he learned the woman had been a deputy sheriff over in Port Gibson when the blackout happened. Her husband worked security at the airport in Jackson.

  “When the power went off, neither of our cars would start. Radios wouldn’t work. We waited for days for help to come. I assumed my department would send someone out when we didn’t show, but they never did.” With some of her strength regained, the woman had been much more forthcoming.

  “So, you didn’t know the blackout was everywhere?”

  She shook her head, “We like it way out here, you know, away from everyone. Both of us grew up on farms, wanted to raise our daughter the same way. Problem is, you don’t always know what is going on. Two weeks later, a van showed up at our front door. Bunch of guys in black uniforms telling my husband he had failed to check in. They took him, and we were on our own.”

  “What kind of security work did he do?”

  “He was with the TSA.”

  Scott knew what that meant. If he was still alive, he was now part of the NSF. “So, you never heard from him?”

  She shook her head no. “We made do for a while, then things got bad. Really bad. Some people took over our house one day when we were out looking for food. Others came, some on motorcycles. They killed the first people that took our house, but then they just burned it down. We were mostly out of food anyway. We’d been living mostly on eggs from the chickens at that point, but then, those were gone, too. That’s when we started living out here, hiding, watching the road.”

  Scott knew there was more to the story, much more. “Yesterday, when we met, you’d been crying.”

  She looked down, her toughness all but gone. “We were just so hungry. I couldn’t…” she sobbed. “I couldn’t just keep watching her waste away.”

  “You were going to…” He knew the rest. Sadly, it did not shock or even surprise him. Nor would it be the first ‘merciful killing’ he’d come across. There was a limit to what people could endure, and it was even harder watching a child suffer so much. She’d still not told him either of their names. That was ok with him, he didn’t pry. Names did mean something, though, sometimes they were all you had left to call your own.

  “Listen to me, please. I can help you both. We have a growing community down at the coast. I can get you and your daughter there.”

  “On that?” she said with a tiny smile.

  “No, not on the bike, we have a few cars and fuel.”

  “No.” She shook her head again. “No, we…”

  He knew she had no real reasons, it was simply fear. Anyone still alive had to be brutal. Out here she could at least somewhat protect her daughter. She had no idea the dangers out in the world, she still had no idea what had even happened. “Ma’am, it isn’t going to be safe out here for too much longer. My group is made up of good people, friends. We work together. We have food and we trade with other communities. No one there will hurt you or your child.” He looked over and saw the girl was sleeping soundly.

  “Scott, why do you care? Why would you want to save us?”

  He thought of many answers; as they rattled through his head, most seemed trite or placating. “Because every life matters now.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  There was a crispness to the pre-dawn air. The magenta sky was painted with streaks of pinks and purple. Scott Montgomery stopped pedaling and coasted, just enjoying the moment, the beauty, the near perfect stillness. As he coasted, the ticking of the rear wheel of the almost silent racing bike was the only sound in the stillness of the morning. He adored Gia, appreciated his friends and had finally accepted his fate as a leader, but this…this was where he was home. Speeding through near darkness at crazy speeds just to turn around in a few hours and do it all in reverse. It wasn’t something that most people got, not something easily explained. To him, though, it was simply…just perfection.

  The momentary glimpse of beauty passed as the sun began to rise, and the painted sky began to fade to blues and yellows. The series of faint blinking lights in the sky were back and closer this time. The drones were moving farther south, toward him. The fatigue and sickness he’d been enduring the past few weeks were gone—in fact, he felt great. According to his Garmin cyclometer, he’d ridden over 1100 miles in the last eight days. He guessed his body had finally acclimated to the new routine. How much longer could he keep it up, though? He’d left more food for the woman and her daughter, promising he would check on them again. Their story tore at his heart, but he had to handle one thing at a time.

  If only the damn NSF would leave, he could radio Skybox to come up with a crew, and they could go search for Bartos and transport the woman to safety. Of course, the enemy would likely only pull out when they had captured or killed Bartos—how would he even know? He wouldn’t, but as long as they were still looking, he had to believe that he lived. Scott would stay on patrol until his body quit. He owed that to his friend.

  Just as the sun peeked over the trees, he heard a sound that defied logic. It was as out of place now as seeing a dragon or a spaceship in the middle of the road might be. The hair on his arms was standing up, and tiny goosebumps were beginning to show. The excitement continued as he pulled the bike to a stop and gazed up in disbelief as two fighter jets streaked silently past just over the treetops, ‘US Navy’ painted on the sides. “Hot damn!” Commander Garret had finally gott
en over his issues with the use of military force on American soil. The actual sound of the jets arrived several seconds later chasing to catch the sleek war machines now almost out of sight in the distance. Scott knew where they were heading.

  He jumped back on the pedals with a renewed vigor. Maybe this would give the NSF bastards something else to focus on. In the far distance, he saw more jets and what appeared to be a heavy lift prop plane also heading to the northeast. The president’s force stationed at the internment camp was about to have a wake-up call to remember.

  Todd looked at Tahir in amazement. “So, you are telling me it works?” The Navy engineers and mechanics in the room were all smiles.

  Tahir nodded, “Mostly, yes, ship’s navigation is back online. I rewired the weather radar back into the ship's systems. Helm control still has a few issues to work out, but yes, the system is functional. Finally having external electricity allowed us to work on everything.”

  “Hot damn!” he hugged the man and danced awkwardly.

  “There is still much for us to do, Captain Todd,” Tahir offered in vain, but they both knew that they had cleared a major hurdle. The Aquatic Goddess still had life in her.

  DeVonte poked his head into the engineering section. “Hey, guys, it’s begun. Skybox and the lieutenant are in the comms room if you want to come see what’s happening.” “Hey, kid,” Todd yelled over with a grin. “She’s working, she’s a ship again.”

  “That true? Man, that’s awesome.” The boy was all smiles.

  Tahir dampened the enthusiasm but only slightly. He talked as they climbed the stairs. Still seemed like a lot more things to get fixed, but at least the ship could move…theoretically. As they neared the next landing, Todd asked, “Could you work on the elevators next? Yeah…that’d be great…really great.”

  The communications room was a beehive of activity. Bobby was manning one set of earphones while Garret and Skybox hovered over a map with handheld radios in hand. They occasionally marked areas, presumably where the attacks were happening. Skybox moved a pushpin, “That would be Scott,” Todd said. Above Scott was a question mark in pink marker. The presumed location of Bartos.

  “Okay, BikerBoi, find a place to shelter. No idea what this will do to those guys hunting Gopher.”

  Lt. Garret was motioning for DeVonte. “Hey, man, can you go find Rollins? He should still be on-board here. Tell him to get up here to the conference room on the double and bring his drone link.”

  DeVonte had no idea what all that meant but went to find the man. Kaylie was in the corridor holding onto a very unsteady Gia. “What’s happening, DeVonte?”

  “Can’t talk, girl, the attack is what’s happening. They are freeing dem peeps up near Jackson.”

  “Dr. Colton, maybe I should get you back to bed, you don’t look too good.”

  “No, I need to talk to Scott, honey. Sky said I could talk to him next time he checked in. What did that boy mean by the attack?”

  “The internment camp, according to DeVonte, I think the Navy is attempting to free the people being held there.”

  “Idiots.”

  “Who’s an idiot?” Kaylie was worried about Gia. She’d been talking crazy all morning. She’d even called DJ over to see if he could come take a look at her. Unfortunately, all non-essential traffic from the Bataan was canceled while they were in active mission status.

  Gia sighed, “Attacking an aid camp with fighter jets.” She sucked in a breath. “That proves the term ‘military intelligence’ is an oxymoron. They just better not let Scott get caught in the crossfire.”

  Kaylie led her into the conference room just across the hall from comms. Several minutes later, Rollins and DeVonte showed up. The Navy man began setting up his viewing screens. Tahir came in with a laptop. It had an active link into the Bataan air wing command channel. Rollins nodded and hooked his system into a port on the computer. The screens flickered and came to life as data and then video signals began feeding across.

  Lieutenant Garret and Skybox came in. Skybox gave the handheld to Gia who smiled gratefully.

  Garret stood in front of the drone monitors now showing live feeds from the battlefront relayed through the Navy tactical ops center. “Yes, watching it now. Correct, we are estimating up to 30,000 friendlies being held there.”

  He paused and looked around the room. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” He motioned to Rollins. “Pull up this one on the main screen.” An IR image replaced the aerial camera view. They could make out guards as bright, whitish green figures around the perimeter. By their posture, some were obviously fighting with ground troops. Occasionally, one would fall backward, and the heat signature would begin to fade.

  Kaylie glanced at Gia, but the woman was smiling, happy to be able to speak with her fiancé. She was ignoring the other activity entirely. That’s good, Kaylie thought. Just focus on him and the baby. Todd had let her in on the news a few days earlier and asked her to keep a check on Gia while Scott was gone.

  “Yes, there, that was where we saw the prisoners last time,” Garret said. The drone began a slow orbit of the compound. “What do you mean no sign of the prisoners? They were there a week ago.“

  “Shit,” Bobby said, “we’re too late.”

  “Wait,” Rollins said. He adjusted something on the drone link system. “Forgot these are not my drones,” he said to Garret. “Ask the Flight Ops operator on that bird to decrease sensitivity so colder objects will show up.”

  Garret passed the message along, and in a few minutes, new images began to show, the faint blobs of light that resembled herds of cows they had seen earlier. “Whew,” Bobby said, “I was getting worried.”

  The look on Garret’s and Skybox’s faces said he should have been worried. “They're dead or dying. All of ‘em.” Rollins said. “Those bodies are reading just over the ambient temperature. We were too late.”

  “Hold on—some of those are moving, shit, all of ‘em are!”

  The voice of Gia Colton cut through the chaos, “Get your troops out of there and into quarantine. That camp has been poisoned with the pathogen. I suggest a fuel-air or MOAB drop on that base before they get out. Those people in there are lost.” She leaned heavily on the table before looking up. “Sky, please go get Scott, now!”

  He looked at the pale woman bewildered at how in the hell she knew anything about the biggest conventional weapon in the US arsenal. He nodded his head; it was time to get Scott, with or without Bartos.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Internment Camp, Jackson, Mississippi

  The smell of night jasmine and honeysuckle drifted through the slight breeze of the evening. This was one of those times that even the old world couldn’t compete with. No need for phones, TV or Facebook. The night would have, in fact, been nearly perfect if he could have just wrapped it up in the palm of his hand and held onto it for a moment longer. Tremaine Simpson looked down at his empty hands. He thought about his brother, Wilson, dead and buried, and what of his Aunt Mahalia? He guessed he would never know if she survived or not.

  His face rested against the fence post holding up the plastic tarp. Tre had no idea exactly where he was but assumed it was somewhere near Jackson. He was unconscious when they had dragged his bleeding body out from under the old shack. He was unaware of the kicking, cursing and spitting from the men who had discovered the scene inside. When several of them began to piss on him, he had roused briefly, then was out again. He’d ignored the pain and the humiliation. His brief thoughts had been of his family, and he wanted his old Bible, neither of which he would likely ever see again.

  That had been months ago, he wasn’t sure how long. When he didn’t die from the gunshot wound, they had brought him here. They hadn’t treated him, but instead, questioned him for hours on where his family was, what other weapons did they have and other things he hadn’t even comprehended. Eventually, the questioning turned to torture. At some point, after several weeks of the agonizing treatment, he realized they were
n’t after information. They knew he’d lived a simple life off the grid and had no real value. It was simply punishment for him fighting back. They wanted to keep him alive, just so they could keep punishing him.

  Every so often one of them would treat his wounds with some type of ointment and give him just enough of the pasty cornmeal mush to eat so he didn’t starve. They might even lay off the beatings for a day, then it would start up again. He had started dreading that day, the one they didn’t come for him. That was the day his body seemed to forget some of the pain. His mind began to spark a little hope, and then, the following day it started over again. He breathed in the heavenly scent once more and began to pray. He began the way he always did now, Please, Lord, just let me die.

  The night smells faded as a new day broke over the prison camp. Cooking fires and the smell of feces lost out to the stronger odors of death and rot. Tre awoke expecting to be dragged away to the dark place where he was tortured, since yesterday had been his day off. He tried to grin through broken teeth and swollen lips. A day off. What a strange way of thinking. Now, they were giving him another day of relative peace? He felt sure he would pay for the privilege later.

  He forced himself to his knees and then to his feet. He shuffled out from under the tarp. A light rain was falling, he held his mouth open to catch water, then used the blue tarp itself to funnel a few more drops down his parched throat. He had not been restrained since being brought here. They didn’t bother as they could always find him. He had no idea how many people were in this camp but guessed several thousand in the compound he was in. You could see other compounds stretching to the distance. He assumed the people were divided up according to the jobs they did. Those who farmed corn were grouped near those fields, those who helped with other crops, probably the same.

  In the few times he had tried to walk the compound where he was confined, he couldn’t see what job this one was for. In his condition, he hadn’t been forced to work, but no work meant no food. He only ate what his torturers gave him. His shuffling walk stuttered to a stop as he saw the guards, the ones who normally came for him. They were questioning a young Hispanic girl. She could only be in her teens but was holding an infant to one of her tiny breasts. The baby was naked and lighter skinned than the mother. Tre knew little about babies but thought this one could only be a few days old.