“I know it was. I don’t think I would have. I know it didn’t look like I was in control, but it didn’t feel like that for me. I would have stopped. I was in control; I just needed to vent. Release some tension.”
“You released it alright.” Dawson looked back and smiled for real this time.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
The bike came around the corner of the old farmhouse and eased down the laneway. It wasn’t a dirt bike, but a fully loaded cruising motorcycle. It was a two-seater with saddle bags on each side. It looked like it was equipped for distance riding. The rider stopped the bike halfway between the farmhouse and the main house and dismounted. As he got his feet on the ground, he almost dropped the bike on its side. Struggling hard, he managed to right it and settle it on its kickstand. He still had a helmet on, but lifted the visor, making his face partially visible.
“Can you see his face?” Chase asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t recognize him.”
The rider looked towards the old farmhouse and the main house. He didn’t seem to know which one to approach first. Instead, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out,
“Hello. Anyone here? Hello?” Dawson and Chase looked at each other, perplexed.
“What is he doing?” Dawson said.
“I have no idea.”
Then the rider pulled his helmet off. “Dawson, Chase, are you here?” the rider called out.
“Is that …?” Chase started to say, but then stopped.
“It’s me, Lewis … from Taos … the EarthShip community,” the rider said.
“Yes, it certainly is,” Dawson answered. They both stood up, no longer feeling a need to stay hidden from view.
The could both see Jake come off the front porch with the gun they’d taken off the biker in his hand. He had it leveled at Lewis.
Dawson threw open the window. “Jake, stop. It’s alright. It’s just Lewis. Lower your weapon.”
Lewis looked up at the bedroom windows and waved. Chase and Dawson waved back at him. Jake kept his gun up as he took a closer look at Lewis. Then he looked back up at Dawson, who was gesturing him to relax. Jake lowered the gun.
“Dawson, Chase. Hi!” Lewis called up, then smiled at Jake. “Guys, we need your help. We’re in a lot of trouble.”
Jake and Rick were already talking with Lewis by the time Chase and Dawson made it to the front yard. Lewis shook everyone’s hand rather enthusiastically and gave a pat on the back to Chase. There were smiles all around. They’d shared quite an adventure back in Taos. It was Lewis that came up with the brilliant scheme to disable the terrorist vehicles in such a way that it wouldn’t be noticed till too late. Ultimately, that turned out to be a key factor in being able to defeat them and rescue the EarthShip children.
“What are you doing here?” Chase asked. “Shouldn’t you be back in Taos tinkering in your workshop? I thought you never left that place except to eat and sleep.”
“Actually,” Lewis said, shrugging, “I don’t usually leave the shop to eat, and I have been known to occasionally sleep there. Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only person back home that knew how to ride a motorcycle. Difficult to believe, I know, but true. You’d think that out of an entire community of renegade hippie nature freaks there’d be at least a few that could ride a hawg.” Lewis shook his head in disbelief. “Turns out there isn’t, and the biker gang hasn’t returned to reclaim their vehicles, so I borrowed one.”
“How the heck did you find us?” Rick asked.
“Dawson mentioned to Faith back home where he was from, so it was easy enough to find Big Springs.” Lewis paused a moment, looking behind him. “It was relatively easy. I’m a pretty resourceful guy and tracking down the only Humvee between here and Taos wasn’t that hard. As long as you didn’t stop long enough to take in the sights, or talk to anyone along the way. A few folks tried to flag me down, but the looks of them sent creepies up and down my spine. I figured it was best just to keep moving. I did have to stop a few times to siphon gas and take a leak, but that was about it.”
“That’s great and all, Lewis,” Dawson said, “but you still haven’t explained why you’re here. Is something wrong?”
“No, no … well, at least not yet. At least we’re hoping there isn’t.” Lewis looked up at the sky and scratched the stubble on his chin. Lewis was usually well groomed and shaved every day. His clothes said absent-minded professor, but the rest of him looked normal. “I wouldn’t have come on my own, but Pritis insisted. You know what she can be like.” All four of them nodded their heads in unison, remembering the tough-as-nails hippie leader of the EarthShip community. It was hard to forget a lady that chomped cigars and wore muumuu dresses.
Lewis paused uncomfortably, seemingly at a loss for words.
“Go ahead and just say it, Lewis,” Chase said. “Just get it out. Believe me, with everything we’ve seen, you’re not going to shock us in the least.”
“Fine. Fine,” Lewis said, drawing a deep breath. “People have going missing. Remember how there were very few people around to see you off? It wasn’t because you were being ignored, it was because they’d totally disappeared.” He pursed his lips. “I told Pritis people take off all the time, that she shouldn’t get upset. We’re a community of modern-day gypsies. We’re not known for putting down roots. She should understand that more than anyone there. She’s spent her entire life bouncing from one disaster to another.”
“How many people, Lewis?” Rick said, but Lewis just bit his lip and looked behind his shoulder. “Lewis, how many?” Rick repeated adamantly.
“Eight … maybe nine,” he stammered.
“Kids?” Jake asked.
“No. All adults. Their kids are still there, they—”
“Wait a sec,” Rick interrupted. “Are you saying the parents have disappeared, but they left their kids behind?”
“Yep.” Lewis crossed his arms defensively and gazed upwards.
“Guys, this is serious,” Jake said. “People don’t just go on walkabout into the desert and leave their kids behind. There’s something seriously wrong there. Someone has to help.”
Chapter 7 ~ Road Trip
Rick had the pedal of the Humvee to the floor, running it at its maximum speed down the deserted country road on the way to Bert Williams’ farm. No one knew for sure exactly what they’d find there. A cloud of uncertainty hung over the four of them, thicker than the plume of dust the Humvee kicked up behind it. None of them were happy with the situation of being pulled in multiple directions at the same time. There was a constant tapping coming from the rear passenger side of the Humvee … probably just the vehicle’s way of complaining about being pushed too hard for too long, but to everyone inside the vehicle, it sounded like the steady tick-tock of either a bomb or a clock marking the passage of time. Time they didn’t have, and time the people that needed their help didn’t have.
“We need help,” Jake said, to no one in particular. At first, no one answered. They’d all been pretty silent during the trip from the bunker to here. They were all lost in thought, and mostly thinking the same thing that Jake said. “We can’t be in three places at once. We can’t.” Rick remained stoic, with his eyes focused on the road ahead, but Jake thought he noticed a nod of agreement from Dawson. “We either need to figure out a way to be in all those places at once or …” Jake’s voice trailed off.
No one wanted to consider the alternatives. No one wanted to say that they may have already condemned people to an uncertain future, possibly death, but they had. They’d decided to rescue the people that mattered most. Veronica, Maggie, Beth and Kyle. Beth and Kyle were Jake and Maggie’s daughter and son-in-law. They lived in Houston, but when the blackout hit, they had the smarts to get out as quick as they could. Beth had learned well from her prepper dad. She had one of the few working vehicles in the city … once again courtesy of her prepper dad. They made it to the bunker in Big Springs as quickly as they could when the power grid went down.
“We need to figure out how to kill two birds with one stone,” Chase said.
There was no disagreement from the group, but no suggestions either as to how they would do that. They were already taking a long shot in hoping that their families would be at the Williams farm. They had no definite proof that they would be there. Dawson’s hunch told him otherwise, but it was still just a hunch. If they weren’t there, then in all likelihood, they never left the bunker of their own accord. And, if they hadn’t left of their own accord, then there was a good chance that they’d never be found. That wasn’t an option that anyone wanted to talk about.
“One step at a time,” Rick had suggested before they left for the farm. Rick had been the one least in favor of this rescue mission, but he understood why they had to do it. There’d be no way he could convince them otherwise. This was family. Right now, Rick was more worried about the state of the nation. The terrorist cell that was wreaking havoc throughout the state was where he’d prefer to strike first. To do that, however, he’d need help. He was hoping that help was in the Humvee with him. He knew that as long as they were worrying about their families, there was no way they’d be able to help him. Rick remembered what it was like to have a family.
The Humvee was running at top speed, but not fast enough for Chase. Chase felt like they were slogging through molasses. Everything moved too slow … except for their problems, of course. They were piling up faster than they could deal with. Suffocating in molasses is more like it, he thought. Not only will we not get there fast enough, but we also have no idea what it is that we’re heading into. Maybe it doesn’t matter. If there’s no one there at Bert’s, then what’s the point of all this? Two birds with one stone? More like we need to hit a half dozen birds with one stone. Like one of his favorite games, ‘double headshot’ proclaimed Bonus points galore. There were no bonus points to be found here, not in the world of reality. Just more problems, one after the other.
Chase worried about Rick. Rick is convinced that it is the terrorists that are the main problem, but he never tried to stop us from going to Bert’s farm. Why? If the terrorists are the problem, the root of all this, then shouldn’t we be going after them? The thing of it was, they weren’t the root. The power grid was the root, but nobody had a solution for that. The terrorists were just people. People that didn’t belong. They were trying to assume control of what was not rightfully theirs, and at the moment were making it impossible for good people to restore the country.
Jake interrupted Chase’s daydream. “What was it that Lewis said about the people that had gone missing? That they’d all gone during the night?”
“Yes,” Dawson added. “They’d all gone missing during the night, and the next morning they found notes in the houses written in Arabic.”
“Doesn’t that sound more than a little strange? Why write notes in Arabic? What’s the point of that? If they wanted to communicate with them by leaving a note, why not just write them in English? That would make more sense.”
“Maybe they weren’t trying to communicate,” Chase said. “Maybe they were just trying to scare them. Throw them off the trail. Rick said the notes Lewis showed them made no sense. They were just gibberish.”
“I didn’t say gibberish,” Rick chimed in. “What I said was that my written Arabic wasn’t nearly as good as my spoken and that I couldn’t be sure what they said. I couldn’t decide if they were gibberish or just words I didn’t understand. There’s a big difference.”
“Either way, it doesn’t help,” Jake said. “I’d just as soon wish they were gibberish. For all the good it’s going to do for us, they may as well be.”
“Are you sure that they were Arabic?” Dawson asked Rick.
“Yes, that I’m sure of. It’s just that the combination of letters didn’t seem to make any sense. They were definitely Arabic letters; they just didn’t spell real words.”
“Harish is still alive,” Dawson said. “He’s the one leaving the notes.”
“Maybe it’s code,” Chase said. “Maybe he’s trying to get the word out to others about something he’s not supposed to be saying. He’s trying to hide the message.”
“A message about what?” Jake said.
“I don’t know. I’m not a terrorist that was left for dead in the desert. Maybe a cry for help? Instructions to find his location? How to find the secret rebel base and prevent them from destroying the Galactic Empire?”
Everyone laughed, except for Jake. He just looked confused. “What? Why is that so funny?”
“Not a Star Wars fan?” Chase chuckled.
“Sorry, I’m not really a movie kind of guy.”
“No need to apologize,” Rick said. “Having your head focused in the real world is a better place to be these days.”
“I don’t think it matters what he’s trying to say,” Dawson said. “I think what is important is that he’s trying to say something, and we know it’s Harish.”
“We don’t know for sure it’s Harish,” Rick said. “We just know that it’s someone who understands Arabic and is trying to reach out. We don’t know who he’s trying to reach out to, and maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he just wants someone to know that he’s still around. That he’s not dead.”
“That’s got to be the leaders of the terrorist cell. His Imam.”
“That would be my bet. He’s trying to pass along some coded information and get rescued from whomever or whatever has him.”
“Why the abductions, though? Why take people from the EarthShip community?”
“Well, that’s likely a better question for the people controlling him. For the moment, though, it’s enough for us to know that he’s still alive. I don’t quite know how we could use that information, but we need to figure that out … and soon.”
Chapter 8 ~ Along the Watchtower
As they passed through the gates into Bert’s farm, it was like an entire crowd of people were holding their breath. Time moved slower, and every detail was magnified. Dawson took in the tall family gate they passed under on the way in that read Williams Farm. Still looking as decrepit as ever. He remembered offering to fix it for Bert, but he’d insisted there was no need. It’d been there for generations, and likely would be standing long after they were gone. At least that’s what Bert believed. Dawson always thought Bert was a bit superstitious about things that were older than he was. He didn’t like to mess with his childhood memories. His great-great-grandfather had erected the sign. There was no power grid way back then, Dawson thought. They managed to survive … thrive actually, and build a real life for the generations that followed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Bert kept the old things in place here the way that he did.
Maybe all this talk of bunkers and EarthShip communities was missing the point. There’s something to be said about the old way of living. Relying on the land and resources that are naturally available. The way Mother Nature meant for things to be. The problem is that we’ve bastardized things so much with all our modern technology, and jammed so many people into our borders, that we can’t go back. Can’t stem the tide. There are too many of us. That’s the real problem. Too many people. There’s no going back to our high-tech world for who knows how long now. Probably a few years at least … more likely decades. In the meantime, we’ve got to figure out how to survive with just the resources at hand. Who lives? Who dies?
Dawson also knew that this wasn’t just a game of resources and mouths to feed. It was a question of surviving above everyone else who was trying to do the same. It truly was a dog-eat-dog world. More than ever. Climbing a corporate ladder at the expense of your colleagues had nothing over the brutal decisions people would be facing in the weeks and months ahead. Who would have the guts to take food from their neighbor’s family to feed their own? Knowing full well that in doing so you were sentencing them to starvation and death. Who wouldn’t do it? When it comes to pushing and shoving, we’re all capable of doing whatever it takes. We all have a darker side that we l
ike to keep under wraps. Usually, we hide it from the world with a thin veneer of civility. When the world changes in the most brutal of ways, we’re forced to come to terms with that darker side. Either come to grips with it or face our inevitable demise.
The silence was both deafening and disappointing to everyone in the vehicle. They hadn’t expected a welcoming parade with marching bands and floats, but it would have been a huge relief to see Maggie and Veronica playing on the front porch and sipping lemonade. That wasn’t going to happen today.
As they all stepped solemnly out of the vehicle onto the hard-packed Texas dirt, all hell broke loose. The first bullet caught the edge of the Humvee door and narrowly missed Dawson. Out in the open, there was no protection. Rick was the first one back into the vehicle, and the rest of them followed suit. Jake was slow at first, but Rick grabbed his arm and pulled him into the passenger seat, while simultaneously starting the engine. Shots were flying in the dust around them and ricocheting off the reinforced metal plating. The windows of the Humvee were small targets for good reason.
Rick wasted no time in heading for cover. He knew instantly that the shots were all coming from the north side of the property, so they headed for the far south side of the barn. It only took seconds for the Humvee to be maneuvered around the side of the barn, and at least for the moment, the shooting relented.
“What the hell!” Chase said.
“Did you see anyone?” Rick asked. “Where were the shooters?”
Dawson answered, “Shots were coming from inside the farmhouse, and some from the wooded areas just beyond the trees. I counted four shooters in total coming from those areas.”
“That seemed like a lot more than just four shooters, considering the number of bullets that were whizzing around,” Jake said.
“Sorry, but it’s been a while since I had to count shooters while under fire.”
America's Sunset: Final Days: A Post Apocalyptic Fight For Survival Page 4
