by K. S. Black
Kevin couldn’t remember if he had driven through downtown Bisbee to get to the West Wind Community compound and wasn’t sure if he missed the exit. He had only been there once before. The exit should’ve been easy enough to spot.
Navigating the streets of Bisbee proved to be difficult in the Behemoth. Besides, driving up in a S.W.A.T. tank might upset the Junipers, and he wanted to make a good impression. He passed an old art deco-style building with Gymnasium painted in bold letters across the top. After a quick left down a narrow alley, he found a place to stash the truck. A less obtrusive vehicle was in order.
Armed and prepared for encountering infected or the dead, he set off on foot and bypassed the houses without cars. He turned the corner and found a white Ford pickup in the driveway of a small but well-maintained house. He stepped onto the porch and looked through the windows. He rattled the front door. No infected came running.
Using the butt of the XM8, he broke a window and climbed inside. He put on his respirator mask but not before inhaling the odor of death that permeated the house.
The owners had been tidy. A quick look around revealed a set of the keys hanging on a hook by the front door. He grabbed them without stopping to look for anything else.
The truck was only a couple of years old and started without any hesitation. The fuel tank registered just over half a tank. He drove to the Behemoth and grabbed a few changes of clothes and some personal hygiene supplies and put them in one of his leather bags.
After he stripped off his protective gear, he put on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt. He secured his belongings inside the Behemoth and locked all the doors. He put the keys inside a large flowerpot next to a green door before getting in the truck. He left his XM8 but put his Smith & Wesson on the passenger seat next to him as he headed back to the highway.
On Route 80, he spotted a sign for Tombstone Canyon Road and exited. After another five miles, he saw a sign for Juniper Road that he’d been looking for. The radio frequency for the compound was in his pocket. He would contact them before he arrived to give them a heads up that he was coming.
He turned on the portable ham radio. After several minutes of trying to reach someone, his enthusiasm began to wane. He didn’t want a repeat of St. David and considered returning to Tucson, but a moment later, a young woman’s voice came over the radio. He hit the brakes in his excitement.
“Can anyone hear me?” He waited for a few seconds.
“Hello! I can hear you. Who is this?”
“Kevin Moore. I’m looking for friends at the West Wind Community.” There was silence for several seconds.
“Kevin Moore from Cali?” It was a man’s voice this time. “The dude with the bud? I remember you. We haven’t seen you in almost a year.”
“One and the same. I’ve been looking for the compound but I can’t find the road. I came here to see if you all would take me in. I have product to trade.”
“Hold for a sec, Kevin.” A minute or more went by. “I’ll meet you at the Copper Queen Hotel. It’s safe this time of day. Do you know how to get there? This is Pete Turner, by the way.”
“Yeah, Pete. I remember you. I’ll meet you there.”
* * *
Kevin sat a table outside the Copper Queen restaurant that overlooked the road. He puffed on a sweet smelling cigar and sipped brandy from a large snifter. Everything was falling into place.
A blue Toyota Tacoma stopped a few yards from where he sat. The driver stepped out. The gray hair at his temples sparkled in the sunlight.
“Well stranger, what does it take to get you to visit us? The end of the world?” Pete let out a husky laugh.
Kevin smiled with the cigar clenched between his teeth.
The passenger door opened and Suzanne Parris got out, more stunning than he remembered. Her blonde hair fell halfway down her back. He couldn’t help but notice her tan legs and how her tiny black shorts hugged the curves of her body. She had been away on Community business the last time he visited. He wondered if she remembered the sex-filled nights they had spent together a couple of years before. After a quick wave, she got into the driver’s seat. Someone else was sitting in the back seat, but he couldn’t tell who it was.
“It’s good to see you, Kevin,” Suzanne poked her head out the window and waved at him. “We’ll be back to pick you boys up in an hour.”
He waved and tried to appear nonchalant instead of excited to see her. Pete walked over and extended his hand. He hadn’t changed much except for the AR-15 that hung at his side. Kevin was a little taken aback at the sight of the rifle. The Community had been extremely anti-gun. But he figured that the Junipers realized it was a very different world now.
“Want a drink?” Kevin held up a bottle of brandy.
“It’s barely noon.”
Kevin smiled and took a large swallow. “New world. New rules.”
“You’ve got that right.” Pete pulled up a chair and sat down.
Kevin placed a snifter in front of his old acquaintance and tipped it sideways before pouring the brandy.
Pete threw back his head and swallowed the drink in one gulp. “Here’s to new rules!”
Kevin raised his glass and downed the rest of his.
“What brings you here?” the older man asked.
“I’m looking for a place to settle. I couldn’t think of a place I’d rather be than with the Junipers at West Wind.”
“The Community has changed quite a bit, but the family is hanging in there. Soldiers came over from Fort Huachuca and evacuated everyone in town who wasn’t sick. They gunned down anyone who tried to run or refused to come with them. They bypassed the compound. Not sure why. Daniel thinks it was divine intervention.”
“I heard the same thing happened in Cali.” Kevin paused for a couple of seconds. “Phoenix and Tucson look like war zones. St. David got hit hard too. I stopped at the farmer’s market and went inside the compound.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. We figured that our people would have come back here if they could, but no one came.”
Kevin puffed on his cigar. Smoke swirled around his head.
“We lost a lot of good people,” Pete said. “There were ninety-four Junipers when it all started. There’s seventeen of us left—five kids, nine women, and three men. Four men counting you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You’re welcome to stay. Daniel and I both think we could use another man around here. We’re not getting any younger.” Pete reached for the brandy.
“I’m glad to hear that Daniel is still around. He’s a good man.”
“He’s the best.” Pete poured himself another drink. “We’ve had to make a few tweaks. We’re calling ourselves the Children of the New Dawn now. Like you said—this is a new world with new rules. We’re asking everyone to stay inside the compound as much as possible for now. You know, for safety reasons. We have to be extra careful. We still have supplies and don’t want anyone to take them from us. So far, we haven’t had much trouble.”
“I understand that you want to keep everyone safe. I’m willing to do all I can to pitch in and earn my keep. I’ve brought along a nice supply of product. It’s medical grade, really good shit.”
“I have no doubts. You never let us down before.” The corners of Pete’s eyes wrinkled as he smiled. The sun had baked his skin a golden brown and the contrast made his eyes look like twin pieces of turquoise. “I guess with your help we can start growing the stuff here.”
* * *
An hour later, Suzanne parked the Tacoma in front of the Copper Queen. She stayed behind the wheel as the two men got in. The truck bed was filled with supplies she and her other passenger must have collected while he and Pete got reacquainted. “You boys smell like you’ve been having a good time.”
Pete sat up front, and Kevin settled in the back next to a teenage girl with straight dark hair parted down the middle.
“Kevin, this is Moon. She’s lived at West Wind for her enti
re life. She turned seventeen last month. So don’t get any ideas.” The tone of Suzanne’s voice was serious.
Moon smiled shyly at him. She bent her arm at the elbow and gave him a small wave of greeting. “Hi.”
“Nice to meet you, Moon. I’m not as bad as Suzanne seems to think I am.”
* * *
The trip to the main compound was a short one. Kevin made sure he paid attention to how they got there. He was right about Tombstone Canyon and Juniper Road, but he hadn’t gone far enough. The truck stopped at a gate that Kevin didn’t remember seeing the last time he had visited. Suzanne got out and unlocked the padlock.
Pete turned in his seat to talk to him. “Daniel would prefer it if you gave me your gun for safe keeping. Just for now. He thinks it’s best until we get to know you a little better.”
Relieved to have made it to West Wind, he ignored his instincts and pulled the gun out of his waistband and handed it over to Pete. “No problem.”
“You ready to talk to the old man? He’s excited to see you.”
CHAPTER 52
June 8 –Tucson
McGrath watched the monitor as the first of the two CSDCU vehicles and their escort arrived in Tucson just after 7 a.m. They came in from the northwest, on I-10, with orders to position themselves near the airport. The second team was still on its way and would be arriving from the southeast. They had stopped outside of Tucson. From these two reconnaissance positions, they planned to pinpoint their target.
The first unit neared the city. They encountered the stacked rows of abandoned cars that spanned the width of the highway ahead of them. The MRAP escort stopped. Immediately, its turret, armed with a .50 caliber machine gun, swept both the left and right sides of the highway. The vehicle crept forward followed by the CSDCU’s Tatrapan. The team concluded that the roadblock must have been erected by one of the military units when the city was being sealed off weeks before. A technician inside the Tatrapan launched a Quad Rotor Drone, one of eight onboard, to get a better view of the highway.
McGrath keyed his mic. “Head north and take the first clear exit off the highway.”
The MRAP made a U-turn and weaved in and out of several abandoned vehicles parked in the road. Because of its size, the Tatrapan needed to execute a three-point turn. After bisecting two lanes of highway and maneuvering around the first abandoned vehicle, the Tatrapan slowed to a stop. Four armored pickup trucks with mounted machine guns blocked the highway one hundred yards ahead. They had been lured into an ambush.
The soldier in the MRAP’s turret yelled, “Technicals ahead!”
McGrath screamed into the mic. “Fire!”
The crew member in the front passenger seat of the Tatrapan opened the hatch above him and manned the machine gun in the turret. Both teams realized too late that the abandoned cars were loaded with IEDs.
Huge craters pocked the road where the vehicles had sat. The MRAP took the brunt of the explosions. Metal debris flew in every direction and came to rest on the highway. The Tatrapan took numerous shrapnel hits but most of the damage came from the blast waves. The vehicle lay crumpled on its side like a dying animal.
McGrath switched one of the monitors to an interior view. The lone survivor inside the back of the Tatrapan used his arms to pull himself over a dead crewmate and the high tech communications equipment to get to the front of the vehicle. The driver was still strapped into his seat with the steering wheel pressed against his chest. His head hung to one side. The technician tried to push himself forward with his legs. He felt for them, but they were gone.
On another monitor, he could see that the machine gunner was gone, but the leg portion of his TALOS suit swung from the mangled machine gun base. He watched a group of civilians get out of their vehicles and walk towards the Tatrapan. Two of the men from the pickups started beating on the badly damaged driver’s door with tire irons.
McGrath turned to the interior view again. The driver’s door opened above the technician who grasped a handle on the dash and turned it until it clicked. Someone reached in and grabbed his wrist and tried to pry his hand from the handle. But his grip held tight. The technician’s one good eye peered out from a large crack in his bloodied and broken visor.
There were voices.
“I’ll blow your fucking head off if you don’t let go.”
“Do it.”
The explosion, while not as deadly as the ones before it, gutted the Tatrapan and killed everyone within fifteen feet of the vehicle.
CHAPTER 53
June 8 –Tucson
The windows inside the house rattled. Julie set her backpack on the floor next to the rest of her things. “What was that?”
“I’m going up to the roof to take a look.” Cooper ran outside followed by Hayley and Julie. He rummaged through the back of the Humvee for his binoculars while Julie and Hayley brought the ladder from the garage and set it against the house. With the binoculars hanging from his neck, he climbed the ladder and stepped out onto the clay roof tiles carefully avoiding the solar panels.
“What do you see?” Hayley asked.
“There’s black smoke rising from the west. Could have been a bomb. There’s no way to tell from here. I’m going to drive out there and see if I can find out what’s going on. I want you two to make sure we didn’t forget anything. We’ll load the animals into the trailer as soon as I get back.” He saw another smaller plume of black smoke rising into the air.
“How is that a good idea?”
“Julie’s right. Dad, don’t go.”
“I’ll keep the radio on hot mic.” Cooper climbed down from the roof and ran back to the Humvee.
CHAPTER 54
June 8—Bisbee
Kevin woke at the start of a desert sunrise that painted the sky with broad strokes of red and orange. Sunrises and sunsets in Arizona were beyond compare. His hand reached behind him and felt only sheets. Where’d she go?
Suzanne had crawled into his bed in the middle of the night, but it was just as well that she wasn’t there. The sex wasn’t as good as he had remembered, especially with Pete snoring a few feet away. For security reasons, everyone slept in the main house, two or three to a room, except for Daniel.
Something felt off about Suzanne. And the name change of the community from West Wind to The Children of the New Dawn. What the hell kind of name was that? It sounded like a cult. And something felt especially off about Daniel. He looked exactly the same as he did the last time Kevin saw him, but his easy going demeanor seemed like a sham, especially now that he carried a sidearm.
He spoke to Daniel briefly when he arrived, but they hadn’t spoken directly since Daniel told him he needed to turn over his weapon for safe keeping if he wanted to stay. He could have it back when the others felt more comfortable around him.
As far as he could tell, only four people carried weapons. It didn’t feel right, but the excitement of finally becoming a part of this community outweighed any of the negative thoughts he was having.
The breakfast bell rang at 6:00 a.m. He joined the others in the dining room. Two women carried in large platters of boiled eggs and a variety of sautéed greens. Baskets of bread sat in the middle of the table, along with four large pitchers of water.
Conversation flowed freely but everyone spoke quietly. Suzanne sat next to him and touched his thigh with her fingertips. More startled than aroused, he smiled and put his hand over the top of hers to prevent her from sliding it any further up his leg. Taking the hint, she took her hand away and began eating.
He finally had an opportunity to get more than just a glimpse of Katrina Taylor. Her large, green eyes had caught his attention when they were introduced the day before. She sat next to Moon, the teenage girl he met on his ride into the compound. Katrina wore her hair in braids which made her look only slightly older than Moon, but she had to be at least ten years older. Pete said that she had a Master’s degree from the University of Arizona in Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering and had been wit
h the community for almost two years but was kind of a loner.
Although Katrina appeared comfortable with the communal lifestyle, she seemed different than everyone else. He wanted to get to know her better and hoped that he would get to work with her, but the elders assigned him to work with Suzanne.
Trying not to stare from across the table, he waited for Katrina to look up. Suzanne was talking with the woman next to her. When Katrina noticed him looking at her, she gave him a half-hearted smile and turned her attention to Moon.
Pete got up from the other end of the table. “You getting settled in? Suzanne showing you the ropes?” He nudged Kevin’s arm with his elbow.
“Yeah, it’s all good, dude. But if it’s not too much of a hassle, can someone take me back into Bisbee so I get into my truck and get more of my stuff. I should have thought to bring more clothes and a few other things, but I didn’t know I’d have to leave my truck there.”
“If it were up to me, I’d take you there right now, but it’s not. We don’t leave the compound unless we need to make supply runs, and we just made one when we picked you up.”
“Can you make an exception?”
“I’ll have Becky or Shane ask Daniel. That’s all I can do for you right now. I’ll get back to you later.” Pete slung his AR-15 over his shoulder and left the dining room.
The hair on the back of Kevin’s neck stood up while everyone around him continued eating and talking. His mind raced with all the thoughts he had tried to push away earlier.
“Can I take your plate?”
“What?” Katrina had startled him when she spoke.
“Your plate. Can I take it for you?”
It took another couple of seconds for her words to process before he understood.
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
Suzanne was still engrossed in conversation with the woman next to her. Katrina leaned over to take his plate and whispered in his ear. “I overheard you and Pete. They’re not going to let you leave, but you need to act like you’re okay with it. Don’t push. Understand?”
