“Cancun,” Sue answered, straightening up to eat without shoveling.
“Cancun? I’m looking forward to hearing about that, but for now, let’s enjoy our meals like good little humans,” she said in a low voice, meant only for their ears.
Terry snickered as he cut far too large pieces from his steak and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing slowly.
Leave it to Claire to give them the choicest cut from the fatted calf. He never asked for it, didn’t think he deserved it, but he appreciated it.
Terry stood up and ran to the old woman, picking her up in a hug and spinning her around in a circle. He put her down and hurried back to his steak before either Clyde or Timmons could get it.
“Eat, my pretties, because tonight, we’ll be working our asses off and I really don’t care how far you’ve run today. There’s work to be done, and you are going to help us do it,” Char told them.
“After being able to eat like this? I’m good with anything,” Adams said. Ted nodded in agreement, while watching Clyde break his bone apart.
The others nodded. Both Terry and Char watched the group dynamic intensely. Terry had never been associated with a pack, he didn’t know how they would act, but they seemed to have all fallen in line. Although Timmons was trying to pee a little higher on the fencepost than the others, he was appropriately cowed.
Terry locked eyes with Timmons, but the Werewolf looked away first. He ate without comment. Terry had eaten a great deal, but had almost half his steak remaining. He sliced off a hunk and slapped it onto Timmons’s plate once it was empty.
The beta looked at him questioningly, but then accepted it with a nod and dug in.
“Steak…” he said, savoring his first bite. “I can’t remember the last steak I ate.”
“We have cattle and buffalo here. I think you’ll be good for a treat every now and then, but we count on deer and elk for the majority of our meat. And of late, bear, too.”
Meat that they didn’t have to hunt and kill themselves. They liked the hunting, but not day in, day out. That was surviving, not living.
“What’s the work that you need us for?” Merrit asked.
“The power plant is running hot. The engineer needs to take it offline, pull the generator apart to service the turbine, the brushes, all of it. We’ll need to check and clean some valves and piping. And then we need to bring it back online in short order because it powers all the freezers and even a few water pumps. We need all of that running because we can’t afford to lose the stuff we’ve stocked for winter.”
“The Ants and the Grasshopper,” Shonna said, staring into space after devouring everything she’d taken, leaving not a speck on either plate. “Natural gas fired, boilers, ten thousand rpm turbine, something like that?”
“Something like that,” Terry answered. He couldn’t remember if the engineer had told him how fast the turbine spun.
The crowd moved away from Terry, Char, and the pack. A few tables were relocated to the side. Out of sight down the road, Terry heard the unmistakable command.
“Platoon, A-ten-HUT!” A short delay. “Ri—ght Face! For—ward, ‘arch!” Mark called a couple steps of cadence as he marched the platoon down the road toward the gathering. The townsfolk watched with wide eyes as the group marched in lock-step. They halted smartly in the road and faced left.
“Hand, salute!” Mark called. The group snapped their fingertips to their eyebrows. Terry jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over. Char was not far behind. She felt stupid standing barefoot at attention in a cocktail-length wedding dress. They both saluted the platoon.
Terry called the command in a whisper, “Ready, Two.” They dropped their salutes at the same time. The pack watched, wondering. Ted had served in the United States Navy a long time ago. That was where he first learned about nuclear power. He appreciated the crisp actions of a well-drilled military.
Mark bellowed the command, “Or—der, arms!” The platoon snapped their arms to their sides. Mark turned the platoon and marched them toward the power plant.
There was a minor scuffle near the food table.
“Jezebel!” Claire called as she chased Clyde out of the vegetables. He ran off with green beans hanging out of his dog mouth.
“Time to go,” Terry told them. They stood as a group, but Claire and Felicity had other ideas.
“You need to cut the cake and throw the bouquet,” Felicity advised. Terry rolled his eyes, earning him a sunspot bright glare from both Felicity and Char. At least no one punched him.
Not yet anyway.
Terry smiled pleasantly as he followed Char to the food table where the younger Weathers’ kids were trying to block Clyde from helping himself to anything else.
Margie Rose stood next to Claire, beaming with pride as the newlyweds did as they were supposed to. Tears ran down the old lady’s cheeks as she remembered how long it had been since the last real wedding. Too long. She wanted more of this, more celebration of life, a return to the normalcy of what they had before.
Char stepped away from Terry to hug Margie Rose. The two whispered back and forth. She ended with, “Yes, Margie Rose, we’ll have children and you will be their grandmother.”
They hadn’t talked specifically about kids, but if they came, Terry promised that he wouldn’t be absent this time. He sat down quickly. The memories filled his mind before he could hold them off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What the fuck do you mean, come with you?” Terry yelled at the man dressed in camouflage standing on the doorstep of Terry’s home. He hated it when people showed up uninvited.
They’d lost power the previous day. He’d seen the missile trails crisscrossing the skies. He knew it was the end of days and didn’t want to leave his wife. Melissa stood behind him holding their daughter.
“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “We’re not going anywhere. Just leave the .45 and the Bushmaster.”
The machine gunner on the HMMWV tactical military vehicle squeezed off a few rounds down the street.
“THE FUCK!” Terry screamed at the man. “This is my neighborhood so I recommend you stop shooting, for your own personal health.” The man gave Terry the finger and then squeezed off a few more rounds. Terry made to run to the man and shove that finger up his ass, but the man at the doorway held him back.
“We need you to help us secure the compound. We’re setting things up for a survivors’ camp. We’ll take care of our own, capiche?” the man said, looking around to make sure no one was creeping up on them. He had his pistol out, but his finger was along the frame and not on the trigger as he exercised sound trigger discipline.
Melissa waved him off. “You built this place into a fortress. I’ll be fine, TH,” she said.
He leaned down and kissed her goodbye, then raced out the door. She shut it behind him, locked it, bolted it, and threw the bar across. The windows were caged and the back door was also barred. They didn’t have sliding glass doors or anything that would give a determined enemy easy access.
Terry climbed in the back of the military vehicle. The machine gunner stood between the back seats, leaning into the turret that rotated on top. He manned the M60 machinegun, mounted between the V of an armor plate. Using his forearm as a club, Terry hit the man behind his knees, dropping him to where Terry could grab his throat and twist his head backwards.
“I don’t like people giving me the finger, fuckstick. How about I break all your dick skinners and throw you to the wolves? I can man that machinegun just as easily as you could.” Terry pulled the man’s tactical goggles as far away from his face as he could, then let them snap back.
“Don’t piss me off again,” Terry warned the soldier.
The driver laughed as he waited for the first man to get in, then they drove away. Terry looked back at his home, seeing Melissa behind the bars that covered the windows, waving their baby’s small hand at him.
Why are you leaving? You don’t owe these cockwads anything, but if we can ha
ve a compound, I won’t have to fight off the starving masses by myself, Terry thought, the jumble of emotions digging at him.
They’re just people who didn’t believe anything like this could happen. Then they were stuck. And they’re still people, but now they’re desperate. Desperate people will do anything.
“Turn around!” Terry ordered.
“No can do, chief,” the driver yelled out the side of his mouth as the engine revved toward the red line. To the untrained eye, it would have looked like the HMMWV was careening recklessly down the road. Terry hung on with both hands, but recognized the driver’s mastery.
The other man in the front simply hung on.
The machine gunner leaned into the turret, sometimes scrambling with his feet to keep from falling. He fired rounds every now and then to deter those who might seek refuge on or within the vehicle.
It never slowed. Through town they skidded and sped into the countryside. Terry wondered how far they were going. After an hour, they pulled onto a dirt road and ran through a forest and up a hillside. The road looked little used, but the compound at the end was mature with a bustle of activity.
“Welcome to your new home, Terry Henry Walton. My employer specifically requested your services, suggesting that you were critical to the long term viability of Firebase Gloria.
“Firebase Gloria didn’t turn out too well for the defenders, if I remember correctly,” Terry said coldly.
“This is a different Gloria,” the man sneered as he and the others walked away. Terry found himself alone with the vehicle.
“Fuck your employer.” Terry ran around the HMMWV and hopped in the driver’s seat. He spun the tires as he backed down the road and raced away. The gas gauge was already toward empty so he kept the RPMs down on the diesel engine in order to milk the miles.
The vehicle only made it halfway back before it ran out of gas. He coasted as far as it would go before parking it along the side of the road.
He pulled the machinegun off the mount and started jogging. Since getting special treatment from Bethany Anne herself, he was stronger than ever. Carrying the machinegun and a canister of ammunition was nothing to him. He set off at a quick pace, running easily but eating up the miles.
When he entered the city, he encountered all manner of people, drunks and those who’d already surrendered. He ran into gangs of people who thought the apocalypse was a license to kill and destroy. He ended the lives of a number of those scumbags. The rest had no stomach to fight a man carrying a machinegun.
It was dark and he’d been running for hours. Even juiced as he was, it was wearing on him.
The pillar of flames and smoke was his first hint that there was a problem. He turned onto his street and saw a mob gathered around his house, hooting and hollering.
He ignored them and headed into the alley out back. The gate to his fenced yard had been torn down. He ran through the space and to the back door. The roof had already caved in and flames licked through the broken glass of the windows.
Terry knew that he couldn’t force his way inside. He’d built the house to prevent that. He ran from window to window, looking past the flames. He called until his voice was hoarse. “Melissa!”
At the front, the door was cracked open. The barrel of his Bushmaster stuck out. He kicked the door open and was thrown back by a burst of flame. He crawled inside, lay over his wife and baby and dragged them outside.
The burns on Melissa’s legs were horrendous. She wasn’t breathing. The baby was blue, but still warm.
He tried CPR, switching back and forth between the two, but they were gone. Being outside, away from the heat of the fire, the bodies started to cool.
The crowd of punks watched emotionlessly. A number of their fellows were dead at their feet. Terry walked back to the doorway and grabbed his Bushmaster. The bolt was locked to the rear on an empty magazine. His pistol was nowhere to be seen.
With all his strength, he threw the rifle into the conflagration that had been his home, had been his life.
He zeroed in on the punk who seemed to be in charge. As Terry walked toward the young man, he waved his friends into a half-circle. Ten against one, or something like that, Terry thought. You don’t stand a fucking chance.
When Terry entered the human gauntlet, he sprinted at the leader. A knife appeared in the young man’s hand. Terry dodged it easily, broke the man’s arm, and twisted his head to break the man’s neck. The snap shocked the others to freeze where they were. Terry threw the man to the ground and twisted his head until his skin began to tear. He strained with the effort to physically rip the man’s head off. With one last surge, he tore the head free, holding it by the hair for the others to look at.
He dropped the head to the ground, then picked up the man’s knife and its twin that was still in his belt. With a knife in each hand, he caught the closest punk and sliced him through his midsection, nearly cutting the man in half. The man tumbled to the ground, still conscious as he watched his own guts spill out.
The others started to run and Terry ran them down, one by one, over the course of the next three days. He killed them in horrible ways, then he tucked the knives into his belt and walked to the mountains, away from humanity because he hadn’t been there to protect his family. He wasn’t fit to live among the decent people of the Earth, or even the worst that America had.
Terry wasn’t even that good.
“TERRY!” a voice screamed. He opened his eyes and looked up. Beautiful purple eyes looked at him, concern on a perfect face. He reached out a hand to cup her cheek.
The air was still hot as the sun topped the mountains to the west. People were everywhere, but no one moved.
Margie Rose stepped forward and with a quick slash rapped him on the knuckles with her wooden spoon.
“Don’t you scare us like that, Terry Henry Walton!” she yelled. “I do believe those two will be the death of me.”
Terry smirked and rubbed his temples. It had been a long time since his last flashback. He thought he was past them.
Maybe not.
Maybe not ever. He pulled Char to him and kissed her. It was rare that people got a do-over. Terry had honored his wife’s and daughter’s memory for a long, long time. This was his opportunity to get things right.
Children, and he’d be there for them or he’d take them with him.
He could abide no other option.
***
Lacy stood in front of the formation in the large doorway that led into the plant. It was too loud inside to carry on a conversation without having to yell. “Every single one of you is a helper. You’ll do exactly as the engineer or the mechanic ask. Who has worked on mechanical equipment before?” A few people raised hands.
“James, you are with the engineer as his assistant. I’m with the mechanic. We’ll split everyone else equally between those two. When a request is made, an order given, there can be no hesitation. This generator must come back online. The future of New Boulder depends on us fixing this equipment, not breaking it. To do that, we have to listen closely to what we’re told to do and then do it to the best of our ability. Any questions?” Lacy was more afraid of the shutdown than the people in the platoon were.
They didn’t know what they didn’t know. She did. Getting the system started again was going to be a challenge, even if everything went well. It only took one switch out of place, breaking a bushing, or over-torqueing a bolt.
Members of the Force de Guerre were good with following orders and good with giving one hundred percent effort, but she was afraid that some of them may be overzealous in accomplishing their tasks and end up breaking fragile, irreplaceable equipment.
The engineer and mechanic watched the proceedings along with the other six people who worked at the plant. They wanted to deliver the plan to everyone at the same time, but they were obligated to wait for Terry and Char. So the mechanic ran through basic mechanics.
“Righty tighty, lefty loosey,” he told them, demonstrating w
ith a nut and bolt, making sure to show them how a wrench was supposed to fit on a bolt head. Many had never tightened a bolt before. The mechanic surrendered and suggested that everyone pair up with someone who had done it before.
No one worked alone.
The engineer looked at his sheets of paper that detailed the shutdown plan. His project plan was set up understanding the limitation that there were only two people to double check each step as it was undertaken. Shut a valve, bleed a system, shut four more valves, bleed the system one more time, crack the fittings, open the system, and so on.
To anyone other than an engineer or project manager, the steps would have been mind-numbing.
It wasn’t long before Terry and Char arrived with the newcomers. The engineer had managed a few minutes with Timmons, but the big man seemed out of sorts at the time. The engineer had no idea what Timmons knew. He was impressed with the level of knowledge that Shonna displayed. He hadn’t talked with any of the others.
“I believe you’ve already met Timmons and Shonna, the engineers?” Terry started. The engineer nodded.
“They call me the engineer, but my name is Roman, and I’ve been here from the start. We’ve had some challenges and when you see some of the fixes that I’ve had to make, please don’t think unkindly of me,” the engineer told the group, anxiously shuffling his papers.
“Is that your project plan?” Shonna asked. He nodded and handed the pages to her. She pored over it with Timmons and pointed to a number of items.
“Pencil,” Timmons demanded. Roman hesitantly handed it over. They started making notes and then walked into the plant. The engineer and mechanic followed.
When the group returned, the engineer didn’t look happy. Char grabbed Timmons by the collar. “What did you do?”
Terry took the pages from him and looked at the scribblings on the page. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He passed the pages to the engineer. Roman held out his hand. Timmons gave him the pencil.
Nomad Unleashed: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 3) Page 12
