by K. S. Black
He nodded. “Uhh. Yeah. Thanks for taking my plate.”
Katrina stopped next to Suzanne. “Are you finished?”
His eyes stayed on Katrina. Suzanne and the other woman handed her their plates without skipping a beat in their conversation and without a word of thanks. He watched her until she walked into the kitchen with the stack of dishes.
Leaving Tucson was a mistake. He couldn’t deny it any longer.
Another bell rang to call everyone to their morning jobs. He had compost duty and spent the next couple of hours turning and watering several large compost piles while Suzanne ran off to talk to various people. Every so often she came back and told him what he was doing wrong. He wondered if she always got away with not doing any of the dirty work outside. Sweat drenched his shirt and jeans. His leg ached, and he felt more alone than he had in a very long time.
The bell sounded for a work break. Like sheep, the Children of the New Dawn headed to the main house’s wrap around porch. Dried apple rings and assorted nuts were set out on trays for a mid-morning snack along with pitchers of water. Moon passed out wet towels and pumped hand sanitizer into outstretched hands.
Pete made his way to Kevin and handed him a pair of jeans and a couple of gray t-shirts. He thanked Pete and made small talk before excusing himself to find Katrina. She was leaning against the railing with her back to him.
“I pulled off one of the greatest acting jobs of my life. I can’t wait to hear why,” he said through his teeth and moved past her not waiting for an answer.
CHAPTER 55
June 8 –Tucson
It didn’t take long for Cooper to figure out that the black smoke in the distance was coming from the highway. The smoke had turned to thin wisps but continued to spiral upwards.
“What the hell?”
He forgot that the radio was set to hot mic. He grimaced; should have kept his mouth shut.
“Are you going to tell us?” Julie asked.
Julie and Hayley must have been waiting next to the radio.
“I know where the smoke is coming from. And you’re not going to like it.”
“Where?”
“The roadblock on the highway—the one with the wall of cars. The same one that both you and Kevin got caught up in. It looks like something happened there, and I’m going to check it out.”
“You need to turn around.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t see me.”
“You need to turn around. Now. Please.”
“You know I’m not going to.”
Julie didn’t respond.
He negotiated around the numerous wrecked and abandoned vehicles under the railroad underpass that led to the freeway on-ramp. Clear of the tangle of cars and trucks, he sped towards the roadblock.
What Kevin had told him about the roadblock was true. The wall of cars was massive—two across by two high and welded together. Sharpened spikes extended from the wall to prevent anyone from trying to ram it. More were embedded into the road.
He tried to keep a low profile as he climbed on top of the cars to get a better view of the other side, and then he positioned himself on his stomach. He spotted a dozen gangbangers around a smoking military vehicle. Debris burned around them. They pointed at two large holes in the road. Some of them were laughing. Others were stationed further away with at least a dozen technicals parked near them. Cooper wondered if the burning military vehicle was part of the reconnaissance unit sent to find him.
Kaa Pap! The impact of a bullet vibrated through the roof of the car and along the length of Cooper’s body. He quickly crawled backward trying to keep a low profile and dropped to the road trying to avoid the spikes. Bullets hit the road next to and behind him while he raced for the Humvee. Three shooters were up and over the wall of cars and shot at the Humvee as Cooper drove away.
“Cooper! What’s happening? Were those gunshots?”
“Heading home. A little busy.” He tried to slow his breathing.
“Stay on the freeway and get away from there. If you get off too soon, they’ll be waiting for you. That’s what happened to us.”
He could hear the I told you so in her voice. He passed the Speedway on-ramp as he headed east. Two military-type vehicles appeared over the crest of the Speedway overpass and blocked his way out.
“They’re after me.”
Rounds hit the asphalt in front of him and kept getting closer. The windshield absorbed one of the rounds, but a second passed through the passenger side with enough velocity to make a significant impact in the back of the Humvee. Going one hundred and ten, he angled the vehicle towards the exit. The Humvee flew off the freeway for a good twenty yards, and skimmed off the top of an abandoned car before the hitting the off ramp. He gripped the steering wheel as he slid across the frontage road onto a patch of dirt and bounced off a chain-link fence before coming to a stop. If it wasn’t for Jeff Stillson’s custom, trophy truck suspension, the Humvee would have broken apart on impact and Cooper along with it.
Driving back into the maze of wrecked cars and through the railroad underpass to get away from the aggressors behind him, Cooper began to accelerate only to see what he thought was an ambush on the road ahead of him.
He made a hard right turn to avoid the gunfire that erupted. The Humvee glided over the median and shuddered violently when he stomped on the brakes to avoid three abandoned cars. He hit one moving it several feet. The sound from the gunfire echoed off the walls of the underpass. He shifted into reverse, and the Humvee disappeared into a cloud of white smoke.
When the smoke cleared, the scene before him unfolded in slow motion. The two technicals continued to fire as bright red tracer rounds flew from the opposite side of the underpass and ripped through them. The gangbanger in the back of one of the pickups fell to the road, his arm blown off at the shoulder.
An MRAP made its way out of the underpass, the front end pockmarked with what looked like a hundred bullet holes. The windscreen had turned an opaque white from the impacts. It slammed into another technical shoving the smaller vehicle into another technical directly behind it. The collision forced the MRAP into the air. For an instant, it was perpendicular to the ground. Then it flipped, top first, onto the smaller vehicles, crushing both under twenty tons of metal and rubber before bouncing off and coming to a stop on its side.
Fire engulfed all three vehicles. Miraculously, someone had survived. His head and body on fire, he ran from the wreckage for about twenty yards before he fell.
The sound of metal on metal diverted Cooper’s attention back to the underpass. An Eastern European style military vehicle drove out of the flames and headed towards him. He maneuvered the Humvee in reverse. The vehicle passed to his left on the median, narrowly missing the abandoned cars as it glanced off one of the burning technicals.
After the vehicle cleared the flaming wreckage, a gunner popped up out of a hatch to man a Ma Duce. The soldier started shooting after the vehicle came to a stop, but Cooper realized he wasn’t the target. Bullets flew from the opposite direction and hit the tan wall in front of him. Large chunks of concrete fell to the road. The military vehicle continued forward slowly, away from him. The gunner dropped back inside but appeared again a few seconds later with a rocket launcher he placed on his shoulder. Cooper saw a flash before the explosion but didn’t see where the rocket hit.
With no clear way out, Cooper was stuck and couldn’t help but watch the bizarre gun battle happening in front of him.
“Cooper!”
He heard Julie’s voice but didn’t answer.
The gunner let loose with the Ma Deuce again. At the rate he was shooting, Cooper thought that the barrel might overheat. It was already a dull red and started to smoke.
The large vehicle drove out of the underpass leaving Cooper behind. In the distance, someone fired several rounds from a handgun. There was a pop and a brilliant flash. The explosion that followed was loud and came from behind a nearby building that blocked Cooper’s view.
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A black semi-truck, adorned with a large scoop on its grill and spewing black smoke and flames into the air, came into view from behind the building. It slammed into the military vehicle. Dust and debris flew through the air. The shock wave rattled Cooper’s teeth. His neck hit the back of his seat. Stunned, he could barely see anything through the dust cloud but heard ammo cooking off in the burning technical near him.
Even though he was less than a hundred yards from the intersection when all hell had broken loose, Cooper figured no one knew which side he was on. Everyone had left him alone, but that wouldn’t last long. Driving through the intersection was a bad idea, but he had no other choice. He needed to act fast while the shooting had stopped.
“What’s happening?” Julie asked.
“Can’t talk now.” He reached over and turned the radio off.
He passed the MRAP, its underside engulfed in fire that started to spread to the rest of the vehicle. He drove up the side of the underpass and toward the intersection to get a better view of what had happened. Large pieces of metal and rubber were strewn across the road.
Not too far from him, on the other side of the intersection, he spotted a burning Brink’s armored truck with a machine gun poking out of the passenger window. The driver’s door sported a huge hole. He passed a totaled technical, the driver pinned against the steering wheel and the gunner in pieces on the road.
He drove around the vehicle and the body to get to the black semi-truck and the large military vehicle. Positioning the Humvee eastward with the motor running, he took his shotgun and trotted over to the wreckage. Satisfied that the occupants inside the semi were dead, he moved quickly and cautiously to the passenger side of the military vehicle unsure of how stable the vehicles would be with fire burning around them. His body tingled from the adrenaline rush.
The gunner was hanging off the side of the vehicle. The impact had cut him in half, and his torso was caught up in an array of cables. Curious about what he was seeing, Cooper stepped closer and grabbed the gunner under the arms. He tried to pull him down to get a closer look, but the task was more difficult and bloody than he anticipated.
The gunner’s helmet didn’t look like anything Cooper had seen before. He undid the latches and slid it off the dead man’s head. It appeared to be in good condition even though it was covered in blood. He would take a closer look at it once he got back home. Setting the helmet on the ground, he climbed up and peered inside the passenger door.
He pulled open the heavy door and readied himself to take action. The air inside smelled like blood. Debris dusted the interior. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel. There was a large gash in his neck. Cooper poked him with the muzzle of the Tavor. He didn’t move.
Inching his way to the rear of the vehicle, Cooper found two men in tight fitting green flight suits, one on the floor and the other still strapped in his seat with the faceplate of his helmet smashed in and bloody. His head must have smacked the equipment in front of him. The helmet resembled the other one he had found. Cooper recognized only half of the electronic equipment.
As he made his way to the man on the floor, a nearby explosion rocked the vehicle. Cooper lost his footing and slipped on the blood covered deck plates. Landing in a prone position next to the dead man on the floor, blood seeped through his suit as he struggled to get on his hands and knees to pull himself up.
Ammo inside the semi-truck next to them sounded like firecrackers going off. The increasing amount of smoke inside the vehicle was making it difficult to breathe. Everything was hot to the touch. He grabbed some documents and what looked like a code book and stuffed them inside his jacket.
As he moved to the front, flames licked the windshield, and a wave of intense heat filled the forward compartment. The driver pushed back from his seat and started to scream. Shocked that the man was still alive, Cooper disconnected the driver’s seat belt and cut away his safety harness before pulling him toward the open passenger side door.
A second explosion knocked Cooper and the driver out of the vehicle. Both landed with a thud on the ground. Catching his breath, he began to drag the driver toward the Humvee. Why was he so heavy? Rounds from inside the wrecked vehicle started popping off. He picked up his pace with great effort.
With the Humvee shielding them from flying shrapnel, Cooper detached the tabs of the cracked face plate and gently pulled off the man’s bloody helmet with B2 painted on the side. A round had entered the man’s cheek and broken several teeth before it punched a gaping hole through the side of his neck. How was he still alive?
B2 grabbed Cooper’s arm. He winced, and B2 let go.
“Self-destruct.” The driver tried to say something else, but blood gurgled up from his throat and sprayed out of his mouth with each word.
“Try to relax.”
B2 loosened his grip. Cooper got up to retrieve the other helmet before the fire could destroy it. He turned the helmet over in his hands and scrutinized the man on the ground. Why was he so damn heavy? He was at least four inches shorter than Cooper and not that big.
He knelt down and unzipped the B2’s suit. He wore high-tech body armor and underneath that Cooper felt something metallic. He looked over at the gunner hanging off the side of the burning vehicle and realized that the cables he was hanging from were attached to his body from the inside.
“This is your lucky day.” With great effort, Cooper hefted the man into the passenger side of the Humvee and strapped him in before placing the helmets in the back.
The fire had moved inside of B2’s vehicle. The burned up military vehicle that he had seen earlier at the wall looked similar to B2’s but looked as if it had been blown out from the inside.
Self-destruct. He remembered B2's words.
“Shit!” Cooper put the Humvee in gear and put some distance between them and the burning vehicle before he stopped. He wanted to find out who this man was and where he came from before it was too late.
“Who are you?”
B2 opened his eyes and looked directly at Cooper. Something was wrong with his eyes. They didn’t look human.
“Leave.” Slowly B2 raised his arm and pointed to a burning technical. “Them.”
Cooper turned to look at the burning truck. “It’s okay. You guys got them all.” He hesitated for a moment. Who are you? And who sent you here?”
B2 grabbed Cooper’s arm again.
“You’re hurting me.”
B2 released him. “Go. Now. I see them. Coming.” He pointed to the sky. He coughed again and blood splattered on the dashboard.
Cooper looked up but didn’t see anything at first. A small drone with a three-foot wingspan came into view near them. Then it lifted up out of sight.
“Go. Now.”
Cooper put the Humvee in gear. They were about a hundred yards away when he first spotted the technicals driving up to the wreckage. He sped up when he saw them again in the rearview mirror even though the gangbangers didn’t seem to notice him driving away.
The explosion was much louder than Cooper thought it would be, and the concussion rattled the Humvee to its frame. He pulled over about a quarter of a mile later as B2 drifted in and out of consciousness, his breathing labored.
“Are you some kind of cyborg?”
B2 didn’t respond.
Cooper reached out and touched B2’s shoulder.
“No. Enhanced. I’m human.” He closed his eyes only to open them wide seconds later. “Turn left now!”
Cooper drove through the intersection without turning.
“We need to head east if we’re going to get you any help.”
The drone shot past the front of the Humvee.
“Too many!”
“What?” Cooper couldn’t engage the brakes fast enough and hit the first of two infected. At least fifteen more swarmed the vehicle before it came to a stop. By the time he got the Humvee into reverse, the infected slammed their heads and fists against the sides and tried to climb on top of it. Th
e sound was deafening. Hundreds more were on their way.
Blindly, Cooper put the Humvee in reverse with the horde in pursuit. A couple of infected still hung onto the door handles. They lost their grip, nails scraping the side of the Humvee before they got caught up in the wheels. Cooper drove over them like speed bumps. Braking through the intersection, he shifted into first and popped the clutch, spinning the blood-soaked tires and grinding some of the bodies into the road. Before the Humvee moved forward, Cooper had already shifted into third. The engine screamed in protest leaving a cloud of white smoke and the horde behind.
Shocked about seeing so many infected out in the street in the middle of the day, Cooper had no memory of driving the next several blocks.
“Turn. Here.” B2 sounded far away.
Cooper looked up when he heard the drone hovering near them at the intersection and turned to the east. They passed a few infected, but after another mile, the streets were empty. He felt the sensation of eyes watching him from inside the buildings.
B2 struggled to breathe and his body began to thrash in the seat. Cooper reached over to touch him but could do nothing to help. Seconds after B2 took his last breath, the drone dropped from the sky directly above them and crashed onto the hood.
Cooper hit the brakes hard and spun out but maintained the presence of mind to turn into the spin. The vehicle came to a stop in the middle of the road. After a few seconds, the world came back into focus. The drone hitting the hood was almost the last straw after everything else that had happened. Cooper couldn’t stop shaking.
B2 was dead. The drone lay broken on the hood like a giant, dead insect. After several calming breaths, he stepped out of the Humvee and secured the flying robot to the roof rack with bungee cords.
He reached down and turned the radio back on knowing he was going to catch hell from both Julie and Hayley. Before they could say anything, he said, “I’m okay and on my way back. I’ll let you know what happened after I get home and get cleaned up.”
