by David Peters
“Be fair now. She is more than pulling her weight around here. I have it from a good source that she was up pretty late working on a farming growth plan with some of the share croppers. Guess there is a lot of concern about having to go too far up into the hills.”
“I know, I know. I just wish she could still be a kid sometimes. Let a woman dream, will ya?”
Dylan kissed her on the cheek and made his way to the small back bedroom on the first floor. He poked his head into the darkened room, “Erica, sweetie, breakfast is almost ready.”
A groggy voice answered from the darkness, “Be right there Dad.” Erica pulled the blanket over her head and rolled away from the light pouring in through her open door.
Dylan smiled and closed the door behind him as he walked back out to the small dining room. Niccole walked out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee and they sat down to breakfast.
He picked up a piece of the thick bacon, “Erica had been staying up late working for most of the last two weeks. It was bound to catch up with her at some point.”
Niccole added, “She is a natural at so much of the management stuff. I can’t believe how well she has organized the supply sheets. I don’t think I have come up with a single thing I have needed that she hasn’t been able to tell me exactly what shed it is in. She has noticed quite a few things have gone missing but she isn’t sure if it is just bad accounting or someone is hording supplies somewhere.”
“It’s got to be bad accounting, I just can’t picture anyone stealing from the supply sheds. I don’t want to have to post guards on those. That is a road I’m not ready to go down. Everyone inside these walls has to be on the same team. The minute we start losing trust in our own…” He let the sentence trail off as he shrugged his shoulders.
Niccole quickly lightened up the conversation, “So how was your ride this morning?”
Dylan smiled, “You really should come with me one more time before the snow is completely gone. These mountains are amazingly beautiful. When that sun comes up over the town you’d think God just let loose with the light of Heaven.”
“Any way you can arrange the morning to start three hours later? At this point I’m pretty sure the sun is using you as an alarm clock.”
“I don’t know about that…”
Behind them a voice crackled on the CB radio.
“Paradise Falls, Paradise Falls. This is Delta Guard. Come in Paradise Falls, over.” said an authoritative distant voice.
Dylan and Niccole looked at each other in astonishment then fell over themselves racing to the radio.
Niccole reached it first, “This is Paradise Falls. We read you loud and clear Delta Guard, over.”
“Paradise Falls, this is…” There was some scuffling heard over the radio and another voice in the background, “Give me the damn mic numb nuts, they know who we are already.”
There was a brief silence then the voice that had been in the background came back stronger, “Paradise Falls, this is Captain Caperson. Am I talking to Niccole Murphy?”
“The one and only sir. Sure is great to hear your voice Cap-Cap.”
“Likewise, listen, we could really use some assistance here. Do you have any working rigs?”
“Negative on the trucks. We have extremely limited fuel and use horses for pretty much all the heavy lifting around here now.”
“Damn.” The radio went silent for a minute, “Listen, we lost our lead truck to a washout on Route Three. We don’t have enough fuel to go around and too much heavy gear to try and pack it up this mountain on foot. You got any way to help us?”
Dylan nodded to Niccole, “I’ll round up some help and start saddling every horse we have. Get some numbers and weights if you can.”
Niccole nodded and turned back to the radio, “Dylan is putting the horses together now. What kind of numbers are we talking about? What kind of gear? How heavy? Where on Route Three are you? What mile marker?” Niccole looked at the map pinned to the wall over the radio and walked her finger down the highway.
Cap-Cap answered back sounding almost pained, “We are down to three deuce-and-a-halves with twenty-six troops including myself. We have all three trucks loaded to the gills with food, clothing and weapons. A few pieces are several hundred pounds though so we can’t just pack them through the woods. We are about twelve miles as the crow flies, give or take. I am literally sitting in front of mile marker forty-two.”
Niccole’s shoulders slumped. The last time she had spoken to Chris Caperson (Captain Caperson, or simply Cap-Cap for short), they were involved with a massive coordinated attack that would hit the Santa Fe hive from three different directions. They had never heard how the attack went. Judging by his numbers now, it hadn’t gone quite the way they had planned it to.
“All right Cap-Cap, sit tight and we will work out the details on our side. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, out.” Niccole cradled the mic and grabbed her coat as she headed out the door to meet Dylan.
Dylan was talking with Jonathan as Niccole approached, “I’ll have a better idea on numbers in a few but for now let’s get as many done as we can. I want every pack saddle we have put on, don’t forget to throw the extra webbing in there too. I’ll start on the hitches for the sled rigs.”
“Got it Boss.” Jonathan tipped his hat towards Niccole and jogged back into the large barn. Dylan and Jonathan both had an admiration for tractors and big rigs and had become fairly close friends in the past few months. He had shown up out of the blue on the CB one day. He was completely clueless to the fact that the world had collapsed. He had been a long haul truck driver with a string of girlfriends across the country. Dylan had originally been a little apprehensive of the man and his lifestyle but found him to be a warm, open and incredibly honest man.
Dylan was tightening the cinch on a saddle when he saw Niccole walking up, “Hey Coco. What’s the word?”
“Not good. There are only twenty-six of them down there,” she watched Dylan pause as the numbers sank in. When they had last met Cap-Cap in the mountains south-east of Pendleton he had more than one hundred people under his command. They had spent one brief night in their mobile compound but had grown close to many of the soldiers there. “They can walk the distance but trying to pack their gear at the same time just isn’t possible. It sounds like they have some pretty heavy gear.”
“We have two working sleds that we can use but I haven’t ever moved much beyond feed or firewood on them. I guess we’ll find out how much they can carry before the tie-ins shear off.”
It took another forty-five minutes before all of the horses were ready to move out. The Delta Guards current location was less than a mile below one of their well-traveled scout paths so there wouldn’t be any problem reaching them from the back side of the mountain. The town had a total of nineteen horses now. Travis had been able to devise sleds that would allow the horses to pull large loads over the snow as long as it wasn’t too deep.
Niccole came out of the cabin and tossed an empty backpack up to Dylan. As the two began leading the team to the path Doc jogged up waving, “Dylan! Dylan! First thing when you get back you have to see me.” Doc was out of breath as he spoke.
“Everything ok Doc?” Dylan said with concern.
“I think I might be on to something big. I’m not sure. Just come see me!” Doc had the look of a man that had just won the lottery.
Dylan smiled at the geneticist turned small town doctor, “I look forward to hearing what you have found Doc. If all goes well we should be back before dark.”
“Great!” Doc turned and walked quickly back towards his office.
The town doctor had been slaving for some sort of weapon to use against the Corrupted with little in the way of success. Even with the few attacks they had prior to the first hard freeze, it had been extremely difficult for them to get Doc any Corrupted corpses he could look at. The bastards always found and took their dead and injured or the Sappers burned what there was to nothing but drifting ashes.
--7--
The team passed the two hour trip in relative silence. The sound of the hoof steps through the snow and the mud was almost hypnotic. Dylan noticed several heads rolling and snapping back to attention as the riders tried to stay awake. No one was particularly concerned about seeing any Hunters on a day this cold, but no one wanted to be out after dark to verify they didn’t come out at all either. In the winter time the Corrupted may not own the night, but the fear of their presence still did.
Dylan had figured they were getting close when they broke through the heavy underbrush and into a wide open clearing. On the far side of the open space a lone green bush sat conspicuously out in the open. He spoke loud enough for his voice to carry to the ‘bush’, “Must be one hell of a shrub to be floating on top of a foot and a half of snow. Wouldn’t you agree Niccole?”
“That must be one of them New Super Hover Bushes we have been hearing about.”
The bush laughed, “We don’t have much in the way of snow gear, give a sniper a break, will ya?” The heavily camouflaged soldier stood up, “Good to see you folks. Especially nice to see you and Niccole again. I’m sure glad you folks made it to safety. The whole team was rooting for you when you rode out of camp.”
“That you Whitey?” Dylan said with a broadening smile as he rode up to the soldier.
“In the frozen flesh sir,” Whitey lazily saluted the two. “Rest of the team is at the bottom of this gulley. You can say howdy Grossman, you proved your point.”
What was a mound of snow seconds before stood up and waved, “Afternoon folks? Notice he said we didn’t have much in the way of snow gear, not that we didn’t have any.” Grossman proudly tipped his snow camouflaged hat at Niccole and lay down in his prepared position again.
It was several months ago that Dylan and Niccole had met these same two on picket duty. They were hidden like they were now just outside of the National Guard camp south of the burned out town of Pendleton.
Niccole leaned closer to Dylan and said quietly “What is it that these guys keep doing that gets them stuck this far away from everyone?”
“I heard that. You have to ask the captain. Pretty sure that old man has absolutely no sense of humor. At all.” said a muffled yet bitter voice from the mound of snow.
Whitey grumbled under his breath and Dylan laughed to himself as the procession made its way down the hill.
After another hundred yards they broke out onto the snow covered highway. Off to their right they could see three very large desert tan military trucks and a smaller Humvee stopped in the middle of the road. They could see quite a few uniformed people gathered around the back of one of the large trucks. As they came into the clearing Cap-Cap waved them over to the second vehicle in line.
The Captain held out his hand to Dylan, “Good to see you folks. Wish we could have just driven through the front gate.” He pointed over his back with his thumb, “The Hummer went over the washout and made it almost all the way across before it gave way. When the deuce-and-a-half tried the road just gave way. If it wasn’t for the snow we would have hit that going much faster. As it is, no injuries beyond some bruised body parts and a busted helmet.” The large truck was far enough into the sink hole that the rear tires weren’t touching the ground and the crushed front end was resting against the pile of pavement that filled the bottom of the washout. Several soldiers were struggling to hand gear and boxes of supplies down to the soldiers waiting below the tailgate. With the nose buried so deep the inside of the truck was extremely steep and made for a lot of manual labor to get everything to the back
Dylan finally noticed that the Humvee sitting on the pavement on the other side of the washout was sitting at an odd angle and he moved to get a better look, “Looks like you might have torn the rear axle off of it.”
“Yep, sheared clean through right at the transfer case. It will drive with just the front wheels but it sounds like someone put nuts and bolts into a coffee grinder. Otherwise we would have taken it up solo.”
Niccole looked at the wrecked truck, “It’s probably for the better to be honest. This road would take you right through the middle of town before you could hit our service road. Glad nobody was really hurt. Looks like it could have been nasty.”
“Got that right. Couple of the guys in the back got pretty shook up but thankfully the heaviest gear was up against the cab. If it had been over the axles it would have slid forward and crushed the lot of ‘em.” Cap-Cap watched the gear get offloaded from the wounded truck as he spoke over his shoulder. There was a large crash and the sound of a heavy steal box sliding down the angled bed of the truck before slamming into the cab. “Damn! What was that? Please tell me it wasn’t what I think it was.”
There were several loud yet creative curses from the back of the truck, “I don’t see why we can’t just take the damn things out of the case sir! This damn box weighs a freakin’ ton!”
“Just be careful.” Cap-Cap sighed and pulled a cigar out of his chest pocket and carefully snipped the end off with a bright silver cutter. “I should probably start conserving these, shouldn’t I?”
“Our shipments have been slowed considerably, so ya, you probably should,” Dylan said with a smile. He watched as soldiers on the far side of the wash out were throwing boxes from the Humvee to soldiers standing on his side of the washout. They were forming a large pile of goods next to the destroyed truck.
Niccole was standing on her tip toes in order to try and see into the back of the stranded truck, “Sounds like whatever that is might be too heavy for the sleds and there is no way we could put it on a single mule.”
Cap-Cap took a long pull of the cigar and watched as the heavy case appeared at the end of the truck. Four soldiers stood below as the two above handed the container down.
“Cap-Cap, what the hell is that. Is that what I think it is?” Dylan’s’ eyes opened wide as he watched the box get handed down. It was about six feet long with what appeared to be water and weather proof latches. The latches each had a key lock along with a large padlock in the center of the case. On the top was a large round decal that had the universally known warning sign of a nuclear package. “Should I be concerned?”
The Captain motioned them over as he used a key from around his neck to open the two latches and finally the heavy padlock. He then slid a small panel down on the front of the case revealing a standard numeric touch pad with a small digital readout above it. He pulled a small flip book from one of the large pockets in his combat fatigues and turned several pages before nodding. Running his finger midway down the page he found the code that he wanted and punched in a long string of characters into the panel. A small green LED lit up and inside the case a lock released with an audible click. After depressing a black button in the top of the lid a small rush of air filled the case and he was able to lift up the heavy lid. He locked the lid open and removed a large foam cover to reveal a very normal looking olive green backpack.
“This is what we jokingly call a Party Pack.” Cap-Cap lowered the lid and placed the heavy pack on top of it. “It weighs around sixty five pounds and is the equivalent of a hair over a thousand tons of dynamite.”
“Do I want to know why you have this little Pack-O-Doom?” Dylan said quietly. He hadn’t decided if he should be overjoyed or terrified yet. Niccole looked to be leaning towards the latter as she took a few cautious steps backwards.
The captain opened a zipper on the side and looked at a small readout, “You might be mildly curious as to why we have one of these. You would be seriously interested to know why we have two,” he said with a devilish smile.
“What exactly do you plan to do with these?” Dylan’s voice was picking up an air of concern.
“Not a single thing right now. In the long run I would like to turn a bunch of Corrupted into ash and a hive or two into black glass parking lots. It just isn’t as easy as one would think.” Cap-Cap saw the look of concern on Niccole’s face, “Don’t be too worried. It isn’t ar
med at the moment. We need the case to do that. Notice the LED was green when the lid was opened. That means it is safe to remove. If I punched in a second code, the light would have been yellow, that means the pack still needs a code but the first stage is armed. If is red and not blinking it is waiting for the detonation signal. Red and blinking means it set up to detonate in one of several ways.”
Dylan glanced down at the light again to verify it was still green.
“We used one in Boulder. Strapped it to a bomb squad ‘bot and drove it in the front door of the hive there. That little robot made it about thirty feet into the hive before it had too many Workers on it to move so we popped it. We turned the top of that hive into a flat wasteland and pushed a mushroom cloud about twelve thousand feet into the sky. It was simply amazing.”
Dylan interrupted, “Top? The top of the hive? What does that mean?”
