“Come on, Owl; this is insanity. This mission is gonna be tough enough as it is. Do we really need to put ourselves in harm’s way even more?”
“I’m not just talking about physical supplies,” Owl said. “I’m looking for intelligence supplies.” They both looked confused and motioned that he should continue explaining himself. He did. “We’re only two hours away from the abandoned mental hospital in Milledgeville that’s the base for this terrorist organization. We’re going in virtually blind.” Dawson started to speak, but Owl interrupted him. “I know you think you’ve provided me with enough information to deal with these guys. I know you’ve all been through a lot. But in reality, you’re only scratching the surface. You don’t really know what they’re up to. At least at the higher levels, you don’t know. You’ve been attacked by the plebes, the minions. We’re going after the big fish now; it’s gonna take more than anecdotal evidence to understand what’s been happening. I’m hoping that we can glean some information in the big city about what it is we’re getting ourselves into. What it is I’ve let you people get me into.”
“We’re over two hours away from the hospital, and Atlanta is a huge city. There could be nothing going on here to give us any information about what these groups have been up to.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Owl said as he looked to the Atlanta skyline. “Can you see what I see?”
“He might be right,” Dawson said grudgingly. “Something is going on in the city. And it looks a whole lot worse than anything we had to deal with in Big Springs. We just might find some valuable information there.” He gave Owl a distressed look. “I’m not sure we’ll find what it is you’re looking for, but we’ll find something. Probably something far worse.”
“You need to develop a little more faith, my friend,” Owl said, and left it at that.
They all got back into the vehicles and resumed the drive towards Atlanta. For better or for worse, they were going into the big city. The suburbs looked like a war zone. Dawson felt like he’d been deported back to Iraq. Homes were either burned down or spray-painted with apocalyptic messages of Stay Away and Death to Marauders and No Trespassers and the like. Driving through the city streets was ominous. There were no other moving vehicles, and it was hard to tell if any of the homes were occupied at all. Dawson thought a few times that he’d seen shutters closing as they drove by but couldn’t be sure. What they didn’t notice was the gangs following them. A half dozen street kids tailed them, staying just outside their line of sight. Even Owl didn’t see them. The first indication they had of others was when they drove past a strip mall. Gunshots rang out from all around them, and bullets bounced off every vehicle in the convoy.
Chapter 29 ~ Unlikely
After just a couple of minutes, the gunshots subsided, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. No one moved from the vehicles for several reasons. The first reason was that they didn’t know why the gunshots had stopped. They tried returning fire, but they were shooting blind. The shooters kept moving locations amongst the plaza buildings. They never stayed put for very long. Just as the shooting stopped from one direction, it started up again from another, and then stopped again suddenly only to resume from a completely different building.
But for whatever reason, the shooting stopped. Owl ordered them all to cease fire to conserve bullets instead of shooting at shadows. Then, two people started walking towards them down the middle of the street. Right in plain view. Dawson’s first instinct was to open fire on them, but Jake, who had a better view, told him not to.
“They don’t look armed,” Jake ordered up to Dawson, who was behind the turret of the Humvee. “They look elderly.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Tobin said from the back seat. “They were shooting at us, and now they’re sending in these two decoys. They’ve probably got suicide bombs strapped to their chests.”
“Shut up, Tobin,” Dawson ordered him. “Just because you spent your entire life sitting on a couch in your parents’ basement playing video games, doesn’t mean you know what a suicide bomber looks like.”
“Oh yeah, old man? And I suppose you do.”
“As a matter of fact he does,” Jake said, pushing Tobin back into his seat with his glare. “That man served this country in more ways then you ever will.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that,” Dawson said, and lowered himself into the main compartment of the Humvee. “Given our final destination, who knows what chores we can come up with for our friend Tobin here.”
“Final destination?” Tobin spat the words out.
“Thought we were dropping these punks off in Atlanta,” Jake said.
“Have you seen Atlanta?” Dawson said. “Something tells me that Captain Bravery back here isn’t going to want anything to do with the city of Atlanta given the way it looks today. And this is just the edges. I can’t even begin to imagine what the city center will look like if Owl is still crazy enough to drag us there.”
Jake motioned towards the couple walking towards them. They looked as if they were out for a Sunday stroll in the neighborhood.
“See what I mean?” Jake said. “They look harmless, right?”
“Something tells me that our definition of the word harmless is going to need a serious reworking after all of this. That is, of course, if anyone survives long enough to worry about it.”
Now the couple was waving to them, as if they were saying howdy to friends they’d hung out with at last Sunday’s church barbecue.
“They can’t be the shooters, can they?” Jake said, looking confused. “They look like my Uncle Marvin and Aunt Mildred from when I was a kid. Course, those two were a little strange to begin with.” Dawson gave him a perplexed look. “That’s a story for another day.” Jake shrugged.
“Maybe they’re the masterminds,” Tobin said from the back, undeterred by the chastising Jake had given him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dawson said.
Tobin sat forward a little bit, feeling more confident. “The shooters just stopped for no reason, right? We couldn’t see them, and as far as we know you guys and your lousy aim didn’t hit any of them. Maybe these two told the shooters to stop. Maybe these two were the ones giving the shooters orders from the beginning.” He shook his head aggressively back and forth. “I really don’t think you can trust them. Nope. Not at all.”
“Hello there,” the old couple called out from a short distance. It was a man and a woman, looking to be in their early 60s. The elderly couple gave the appearance of cozy neighbors, but Dawson sensed there was more to these two than met the eye. They both had gray hair, but the woman looked slim, and the man appeared muscular for a person of his age. They obviously took good care of themselves. They continued speaking. “We couldn’t help but notice that you folks seem to be having some trouble with the locals.”
Jake, Dawson, and Tobin all looked at each other and didn’t know what to say. They just stared out the front windshield of the Humvee at these overly friendly old folks who seemed out of place in the middle of the devastated suburb and the gunfire they’d just been through.
This time the woman called out to them. “We were thinking that you folks probably haven’t had a nice hot home-cooked meal in a long time. Especially after your long trip.”
“See,” Tobin said. “Masterminds. How else would they know we’ve been on a long trip?”
“Maybe the fact that we’re driving a bunch of beat-up military vehicles and some hippie van from the 60s, and we’re in the middle of some damn apocalypse,” Dawson argued back. “Stop the crazy talk; we don’t need your advice right now.” Tobin just shook his head and muttered something under his breath about told you so, and you’ll see, you’ll see.
“I just made a whole big batch of cookies.” The woman continued with her welcoming grandma-talk. “It’s really no trouble at all. We don’t mind. It’s been so long since we’ve had some company.”
Before Dawson and Jake could even begin to formulate a response, Owl walked up to the old couple, offering to shake hands.
“Now what the hell is he up to?” Dawson said, looking at Owl’s approach. Before he knew it, Jake was jumping out of the Humvee as well. “Where the hell are you—”
Maggie was following Owl, and Jake jumped out to stop her. He couldn’t tell what Maggie was up to, but if they were all getting out, then so was he. Dawson proceeded to get out of his door as Tobin started muttering to himself, “I told him. I told him not to do it. It’s a trap, it’s all a trap. Now they’ve left me back here all alone, and I’m going to have to save them all.”
Chapter 30 ~ The Big Smoking Peach
The devastation that had befallen the small towns they’d visited paled in comparison to the scene that greeted them in Atlanta. At least in towns like Big Springs and Taos, the population tried to save what they had, in the hopes of returning order to the chaos. Amidst exploding schools, gas stations, airports and toppling water towers, the people did what they could to save their homes. For many, the only home they’d ever known. It was worth saving. It needed saving. Long ago, most of them had dismissed the thought of living in nightmarish big cities. The big city had too many people who couldn’t care less for one another. Too many people caught up in the turmoil of just trying to survive in a sprawl that had a mind of its own. A city that chewed up people as quickly as it poisoned its air and waterways. A city with an appetite larger than any population could sustain. A city that considered its citizenry as nothing more than insects to be exterminated.
And now, with the city of Atlanta on the brink of collapse, it’s people turned their backs on it … and rightfully so. They were afraid of the city. They knew what it was capable of, and they remembered what it had done to them. The city thought they had forgotten, but when faced with a real life and death situation the people remembered. It’s surprising how much the threat of death can sharpen your clarity. A moment of clarity can wipe away years of confusion. Confusion that obscured what was truly important in life disappears in a puff.
All of a sudden, materialism no longer mattered. Not when your children were crying from hunger in the middle of the night. Upgrading the lease on your corporate automobile, was no longer worth burning the candle at both ends for a job you hated. Not when your wife was terrified of the neighbors and what they might do for that half-case of clean water in your pantry. Now, that oversized house with more bathrooms than inhabitants made you an even bigger target in the eyes of roving marauders stalking wealthy neighborhoods. Neighborhoods painted with the façade of wealth. In reality, those marauders hadn’t learned the hard lessons that the owners of those palatial homes already knew. Real wealth was having the basic essentials. Clean water, food, heat, security, and shelter. A fancy house could tick the last of those boxes, but couldn’t guarantee the rest any better than a simple shack on the wrong side of town. Especially, when the lifeblood of the city was shutting down and the veins that supplied power, heat, and water were fatally crippled. They had been for weeks now. People were being forced to find what they could amongst the rubble or flee across the state in hopes of something better.
Most chose to flee. They deserted the big city, much like the city deserted them all those years ago when it consumed them to feed its insatiable need for expansion. The selfishness of the city was now surpassed by the people that had deserted it in droves.
The countryside was becoming a land infested with refugees. Everyone believed that things had to be better elsewhere. Maybe the next town or the next state had repelled the disaster. Nothing could be as bad as the hell they were living in. It was a deadly case of the grass-is-greener somewhere else. The people owed no allegiance to the big city, and quickly the big city learned, that it was nothing without its people.
* * *
Tobin and Charlie fled the convoy the first opportunity they got. They wanted nothing to do with what they had seen so far of the city of Atlanta. Dawson and Jake didn’t know if it was by choice or fear of what lay ahead. The rest of them were beginning to feel like they should do the same. They couldn’t wait to leave the big city behind. The kindly old couple on the outskirts of town had warned them to stay away from the center of the city, and they had. Margaret and Fred were their names. Margaret had been more than happy to provide them with food for the trip but declined to join them on their journey. Fred started to talk about joining them, but a sad glance from Margaret quickly ended his enthusiasm. They had a solemn understanding of the situation that they kept to themselves. There were things they didn’t want to say, horrors that weren’t worth repeating. It was like they didn’t want to throw any more gloom on the whole affair than there already was.
The main streets in the middle of town were like a shopping mall parking lot at Christmas. The few cars that still worked were trapped by hundreds that didn’t. Most of the owners of those cars had left on foot to parts unknown. Those that had unwisely chosen to stay with their vehicle had paid the ultimate price.
Somehow, they managed to work their way through the smaller city side streets, till they eventually came out the other end of the dying city. Atlanta was no longer a place for civilized people. They were all relieved to put it in their rear-view mirrors. It wasn’t much of a relief though. It was more like realizing you’d gotten your life jacket on just before the ship sank only to realize that you were now in shark infested waters, and miles from shore. They knew their final destination wouldn’t be any more welcoming.
Chapter 31 ~ Final Conflict
The first sight that met their eyes was discouraging to say the least. All their hopes and dreams had come to this, and they seemed smashed by the inconceivable odds that were against them. As bad as Atlanta had been, the town of Milledgeville was seriously worse. What mattered now was what they were going to do about the situation. They decided to bypass Atlanta, based on advice from the friendly old couple they’d met. After that, they’d begun to believe that things couldn’t possibly be much worse in Milledgeville. They couldn’t be more wrong. It wasn’t that the city was burning, or the suburbs were on fire, or there was shooting in the streets. From what they could tell, the townsfolk spent their time going about their regular daily activities as if nothing was wrong. Problems in every other city were nonexistent here in Milledgeville.
Milledgeville was a model of civil obedience compared to the rest of the country. At least the parts of the country which Dawson had seen. Big Springs, Taos, and Atlanta looked nothing like this. Milledgeville wasn’t a model for serenity because its citizens were well-prepared for such a disaster of their own free will.
It was a model of order because of the invading forces that patrolled the streets. Those same forces enforced curfews, civil obedience, and strict adherence to the might of the military. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it wasn’t the US military that was enforcing order. This was the nerve center of the terrorist forces invading the southern states. Their base of operations had no tolerance for disobedience. They allowed the citizens to remain and live their mostly normal lives, but the reasons for this tolerance were still unclear. None of the locals seemed to understand it either. Many of the citizens had already left, sneaking out in the middle of the night, looking for other towns to live in. Some had escaped, but most hadn’t. They’d been shot in the night or taken prisoner in the old mental hospital that was the center of the terrorist activity. An old mental hospital seemed appropriate to Dawson, considering the insanity of the entire situation. But what was really insane was the number of reinforcements the terrorist groups had around the mental hospital. American military tanks and light armored vehicles patrolled the perimeter on a regular basis. There were lookouts and newly erected watchtowers also circling the perimeter. Whoever these guys were, they were serious and had absolutely no intentions of leaving anytime soon. They’d set up camp, and they were here to stay.
After everything they’d all been through, including leaving th
eir home, surviving the terrorist attacks, and deciding to avenge the country, this was incredibly disheartening. None of them came here with delusions that it would be an easy task, but neither did they expect such a strong show of force by the enemy. They talked of quitting and just heading back home to Big Springs to cope as best they could. It wasn’t a comfortable conversation. They were divided as to what should happen. Strangely, within the group, Owl was more motivated than ever to complete the task at hand. Dawson too. He was the one that had initially pushed to get them here. Jake, Maggie, Beth and her husband didn’t feel quite the same way. They didn’t see it as a fight that they could win. It seemed so insurmountable. Jake, of course, was still very attached to his bunker back in Big Springs. He’d spent a long time, a lot of years, money, blood, and sweat to build it. Right now, he felt this would be a suicide mission.
When they pressed Owl on his plans for dealing with the terrorists, something he hadn’t shared with anyone before their arrival, all he would say was, “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Brief as ever, all he managed to do was frustrate the rest of them.
The only reason they hadn’t just left was that Lewis had gone missing shortly after they’d arrived in Milledgeville. It had been a few days since the handyman had disappeared. They didn’t know if he’d been taken, or just gone into hiding of his own volition. Either way, none of them wanted to leave a man behind. What they didn’t know was that Lewis had plans of his own that would affect them in ways they couldn’t begin to imagine.
Chapter 32 ~ Lights Out
It has been almost half a week now since they’d landed in the town of Milledgeville. They’d managed to find themselves a deserted old farmhouse just outside the border of the city. None of the terrorist military or patrols seemed to bother coming out quite this far. At least not yet. Owl was sure that expansion was on their minds, and eventually the patrols would discover the farmhouse. They couldn’t stay here forever.
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