Cascade (Book 4): Conflict

by Phil Maxey

  “Oh, I got no problem keeping my distance. Although it is kinda cool you have a flying monkey.”

  “How’s he going to travel with us?” said Fiona.

  “We have been letting him off his rope more frequently over the past few weeks. He’s not flown off yet. He usually sits on the roof, and then at night returns to the shack Zach built him. I’m hoping he just flies above us as we travel, but yeah there’s always a chance he will go.”

  Fiona looked around the group. “Okay, like I was saying, we treat this as any other rescue mission. If we run across E.L.F’s, Abbey and Cal will take point, and hopefully we won’t have to engage. We still haven’t heard anything from Roswell, so we have to expect anything. Could be E.L.F caused, could be human. We got a six hour ride ahead of us, meaning we should get there before nightfall. Let’s saddle up.”

  Fiona and Cal got into the front of the first Humvee, with Michael getting in the back with Trow. Bass, Sam and Isaiah got into the second Humvee. Zach and Abbey hugged once more.

  “I’ll be checking in every hour for as long as I can reach you,” said Zach.

  Abbey smiled and briefly kissed him. “I know.”

  CHAPTER 35

  As they left the west gate, the small convoy had to negotiate around mounds of carcasses which despite being frozen, still caused them all to close their windows due to the stench. Both Abbey and Cal felt the same sadness seeing the slaughter around them, and both felt a sense of guilt for it.

  Soon they were on highway seventy-one heading northwest. Abbey soon lost sight of Mo who took to the skies as soon as they left the camp, but just as she was beginning to fear that her new friend had gone back to wherever he had come from, she would see him spiralling high above.

  “So with the er…E.L.F following us, are you able to still sense other creatures nearby?” Bass said over his shoulder to Abbey while driving.

  “Yeah, each species sound different to me. I know the pitch from Mo so much so, that now I hardly notice it. Don’t worry if anything else makes an appearance I’ll know.”

  “So, what does he eat…?”

  Abbey giggled. “He’s not going to eat you Sam.”

  “Yeah but maybe he wants too? All the creatures we have seen, seem to be happy to live off humans.”

  “He seems to be fond of chocolate cookies, I’m sure he could eat the camp out of it’s dwindling supply.”

  “Yeah, he’s going to have to fight me for the remaining cookies,” said Isaiah.

  In the other vehicle Fiona looked out onto the largely flat landscape, while driving. She looked in the rear mirror at the retired General. “So General, did you get much chance to get out of the camp before?”

  “Please call me Elizabeth. Not since the early days, been too busy.”

  Fiona nodded. “You see some places that are completely devastated, mainly large towns and cities, and then you find other places look like they haven’t been touched…like the world never changed.”

  “And all the time you have to watch for the crazy creatures…but now we got Cal and Abbey, so at least we won’t be taken by surprise anymore,” said Michael.

  Trow smiled. “I’m not bothered about being out there. It will be good for me to see beyond the walls, who knows when I’ll get another chance.”

  “You knew Brad from years back?” said Fiona.

  “I was friends with him and his wife. After she passed away we kept in touch. He was the reason I was prepared for what happened. His prompting pushed me to push the high command to start building the walls near Austin.”

  “Yeah, how did those walls go up?” said Cal.

  “Many, many people lost their lives building those walls and defending those who were doing the building. The walls you see there now, were not the first ones to go up. They are probably the fourth iteration of what we first built.”

  “Maybe one day someone will make a film, and you will be the hero!” said Michael.

  “Ha, I hope not! Although, now I have time on my hands I should really start writing down what happened. Ant will find that interesting when he’s older.”

  “How is he?” said Cal.

  “Everything considered, he’s doing ok. Thank you for helping look after him.”

  “It was more Abbey than I, but we all pulled together in there.”

  Soon they were passing through a medium size town, and driving past a long chain linked fence. Trow was paying the area behind it particular attention.

  “See anything?” said Fiona.

  “This was an airforce base that we brought some supplies in from. We were attacked numerous times on those airfields.”

  “Do you want to check it out?”

  “No need, nothing but memories there now.”

  Fiona then noticed Cal had his hand to his temple. “You sense something?”

  “Up ahead….three E.L.F’s heading…south.”

  “Ha, next he’ll be telling us what types they are!” said Michael half joking.

  The forgotten motels and car dealerships were soon behind them and they were back out onto open road once more.

  An hour later they were passing “Scottsfield Hospital” and Abbeys mind returned to when they were there two months previously and the soldier Martinez who later died.

  “Feels like years ago we were last here,” said Abbey looking at the large pale building.

  “We’re at the halfway point,” said Bass. “Anyone need to take a break?”

  “Not unless we need to refuel.”

  “Nah, we’re good.”

  Dusty frosted plains and small deserted towns flew past until after roughly six hours the sun started to set and they were approaching the outskirts of Roswell.

  Bass clicked on his radio. “This is Sergeant Bass from Camp Bravo, for Brad Crenshaw in Roswell. Come in. Over.”

  As they drove onto Main Street, the office building they lived in previously loomed high on the horizon a few miles off.

  Bass tried again, but still no with response.

  “Look!” said Abbey, pointing into the sky. Smoke and embers were floating up into the low clouds. A feeling of numbness and panic started to invade her thoughts as the trail of rising smoke became more and more aligned with where Brad’s home should be. She could also feel them. E.L.F’s in the city around her, but seemingly keeping their distance.

  As they pulled into the long road which ran up to their destination, orange and red flickers could be seen leaping upwards.

  “Guns, and everything else at the ready, everyone. Over,” said Bass as they approached the once impressive three story building which was engulfed in flame and smoke.

  The boards on the windows were now empty holes which allowed a view into a fiery hell.

  The convoy stopped, and Abbey jumped out, “Brad!” she ran forward onto the lawn, but pulled back as the heat was too intense to get any closer.

  The rest got out as well. Bass and Michael joined Abbey at the front of the lawn.

  “Around the side,” shouted Bass as the three of them ran to the right of the building. The stairs were uncovered and the secure steel door was open. Smoke drifted upwards from the gloom beyond. “Abbey stay here, keep trying him on the radio. Me and Michael are going to go into the basement and see if we can see anything.”

  “Be careful!” she shouted anxiously after them.

  Bass descended the steps carefully, with Michael closely behind. He coughed as smoke passed him. Turning on his flashlight, he walked to the entrance and looked at the steel door. Undamaged. He then swept the beam around the room inside. Shelves and desks were overturned, with metal boxes and protruding wires scattered in-between. Masses of papers, and newspaper articles lay on the floor. They both stepped inside. Small puffs of smoke whispered down from the ceiling as the floorboards above them creaked. For a moment Bass thought perhaps an E.L.F had gotten inside somehow, but then he turned the flashlights beam around onto the wall where Brad pinned all of his research, and scrawled in red was t
he word ‘Geneva’.

  Bass wasn’t sure if the red was blood or paint, and wasn’t hanging around to find out. Taking one last look around the room, to make sure Brad wasn’t underneath any of the fallen furniture, he moved to the door to the ground floor. He put his hand on the wood, it felt warm. Above them, noises of heavy things collapsing vibrated through the building.

  “I’m going to try looking upstairs, if I’m not back within a few minutes, I might need rescuing! Stay on the radio.”

  Michael looked unsure but nodded, then stood back as Bass put his hand on the handle.

  He pulled the door open, and even though a rush of warm air hit him, no flames did. Shining the flashlight upwards, he ascended. Soon he was emerging into what was left of the main lobby. All around were walls that were either black and smouldering or slightly lighter and burning. Smoke and soot permeated the air. He immediately crouched as low as he could, and half crawled forward looking into the living room. “Brad!” he then turned, and moved to the bottom of the stairs, but they were all ablaze from the second half upwards. He quickly moved down the side of the stairs into the kitchen area and that’s where he saw the legs of a body sticking out from behind the counter.

  With his heart beating, and his lungs filling with smoke, he ran to the back of the kitchen and saw the man in his forties, wearing a denim jacket with large dark red patches on his chest. Not Brad. Sweeping his flashlight around, he then noticed another two bodies in the seating area, also with gunshot wounds. “Brad!” he shouted as the noise and fury around him continued.

  His radio then came alive with Michaels voice. “Anything? Over.”

  He crouched low to the ground. “Can’t find him, I’m coming out. Over.”

  Bass coughed and staggered back to the basement staircase descending as fast as he could. He quickly closed the door behind him. Michael, Abbey and Fiona were there. “There’s three bodies in the kitchen, none are Brad.”

  Abbey seemed transfixed by the red markings on the wall. Fiona was looking through some of the paperwork on the floor.

  Bass walked to her. “Abbey, we need to go.”

  Tears ran down her face.

  “Abbey!”

  “Yes, okay.”

  They all ran out and into the early evening air. Bass bent over and coughed. Trow stood near the Humvee with her hand over her mouth. Isaiah and Sam looked down the sites of their guns at the darkening buildings around them.

  “Are you sure he wasn’t there?” said Abbey.

  “I couldn’t get into the other rooms, or the upstairs, I don’t know he might be in there.”

  “Least we know who did this,” said Micheal.

  Cal ran up to them, before he could open his mouth, Abbey spoke. “I feel them too.”

  “Feel what?” said Fiona.

  “We need to leave,” said Cal.

  CHAPTER 36

  Rather then stay in Roswell they decided to risk the night time journey back to the camp, after refuelling on the outskirts of the city. For the first few hours on the way back to the Camp no one spoke, Bass broke the silence.

  “Half way point again, another three hours and we’ll be home. Another hour and we should almost be in radio range.”

  “I’m choosing to believe he’s still alive,” said Abbey.

  “If this Geneva killed him, he would have wanted us to know,” replied Bass.

  “With all this shit people got to deal with, there’s always got to be one crazy ass fool making things worse,” said Isaiah.

  “Did you see this Geneva when you were in Atlanta?” said Sam.

  “I’m not sure…maybe. There were a lot of people that came in and out of the large room just outside where I was kept. He might had been one of them and I wouldn’t of known. Tinley seemed to be in charge of everyone there,” she closed her eyes and opened them. “We need to stop for a bit, there’s a group of E.L.F’s passing the highway ahead of us.”

  Everyone but Abbey strained their eyes to see beyond the low beams of the Humvee but couldn’t see anything.

  Cal’s voice came on the radio, repeating what Abbey just said. They pulled over. In the still of the night, strange calls and the sound of heavy hoofs drifted on the snow that was falling around them.

  A clunk came from the roof of Abbey’s vehicle, followed by a light scraping.

  “What the hell is that!” shouted Sam, who raised his gun upwards.

  “It’s okay, it’s Mo, when he get’s tired he rides on the roof, usually we don’t hear him.”

  Sam sighed. “I’m not sure if that makes me feel any better.”

  “Don’t worry he hasn’t got a problem with anyone here. He’s just a bit anxious about the creatures up ahead.”

  Sam kept looking up. “Right…”

  Hours passed and they came within radio range of the camp. Bass clicked on his radio. “This is Sergeant Bass from the Roswell squad, we are just checking in. Over.”

  There was a short pause and then an anxious voice replied. “This is central operations, we have been under attack. Over.”

  Disbelief rippled around the cabin.

  “Under attack from what? Over.”

  “Not, a what, a who. We think two jet fighters, and at least three helicopters attacked a few hours ago. Some of the manufacturing plants in the north quadrants have been destroyed, as well as some planes on the ground. Over.”

  “Bass, tell him to get Zach,” said Abbey.

  “Where is Major Felton? Over.”

  “The major is out in the field inspecting the damage. Over.”

  “Is the attack still ongoing? Over.“

  “Appears to be over. We downed two of the helicopters. Over.”

  “Casualties? Over.”

  “Most of the civilians in the factories were killed. They took us by surprise. What is the status of your mission? Over.”

  “Brad’s outpost has been destroyed. We don’t know if he was killed. He could have been captured. The Hell Fire gang looks like the cause. Over.”

  * * * * *

  Zach sat on a desk in central operations, holding a badly printed piece of paper.

  “Citizens of the so called Camp Bravo. What you have witnessed tonight, is just a brief taste of what lies in your future. You thought you were safe behind those walls, when infact you were just delaying the inevitable. You may have wondered why your ‘outposts’ are being destroyed. This is because you do not control this continent, we do. The Army of Hell Fire.”

  Zach handed the paper to Amanda Holland who was standing. “This crap was dropped from one of their helicopters, before they started firing off missiles.”

  “I thought you was in charge of our defenses? Where were they?”

  “By the time the soldiers on the walls realized they were hostile, it was too late. They had the right call signs, so nobody fired on them.”

  “How did they have them?”

  “The same way they got into the dam, the night the E.L.F’s attacked, the same way our food stores keep being set alight. They have people inside the walls. We have over twelve million people inside the camp, only a few belong to the gang, but that’s enough.”

  “Death by a thousand cuts,” said Garland, sitting near the desk.

  “Can’t we just increase the numbers on guard?”

  “I’ve already done that, but we only have a limited number of people to play a lot of roles.”

  Holland looked pensive. “Maybe it’s time for martial law.”

  “If we do that, we are playing right into the Hell fire army or whatever they call themselves, hands.”

  “Then we put together a force and wipe them out. We still have Apaches, correct? Can they cover the distance to Atlanta?”

  “They would have to refuel on route otherwise it would be a one way trip. But as you know, putting anything in the air is risky, even with the Cascaders. The attackers tonight probably started out with more helicopters than made it across our walls.”

  “That’s what he w
ants us to do,” a voice came from the back of the large room that Zach immediately recognised.

  “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I brought Elijah in some weeks back to advise on the Hell fire gang situation.”

  “You can’t trust him! How do you know he’s not a spy?” shouted Zach.

  “I can assure you, he’s not.”

  “Yes, but…”

  Elijah sat relaxed on a seat nearby. “And this?” he did a circular motion with his fingers. “This little party we are throwing now? This is what Geneva wants. Us arguing while he implements his next move. He wants us to divide our forces, that’s what each move he has made so far is designed to do.”

  Zach stood up. “This is not a game Elijah, people died tonight, real actual people.”

  “If you been doing this as long as I have, it’s all a game. No offence.”

  Jennifer Grove, Hollands political advisor, rushed in and whispered into Hollands ear.

  She looked angrily at Zach and Elijah. “Both of you put your shit behind you, and work out what we are going to do,” she then left.

  Zach and Elijah looked at each other.

  “Well if he wants us to come at him hard, we can’t do that,” said Garland.

  Zach sighed. “No. But we need to do something, if we wait, we might not be organised enough to withstand any next attack.”

  “What advantage do we have, that we presume he hasn’t?” said Elijah already knowing the answer.

  “Cascaders?” replied Garland.

  “Yes. We have individuals that can control those creatures out there.”

  “We send a small force of Cascaders, backed up by a squad. And the Cascaders bring the E.L.F’s to Atlanta,” said Zach.

  Elijah smiled. “Then someone slips in and cuts the head of the snake.”

  All three nodded in agreement.

  “It’s been a long night, I’m heading home, I’ll be back in early to make this possible,” said Zach.

  On the road back to his house near the lake, Zach radioed Fiona and Cal to meet him there. By the time he arrived, their car was parked on the frost covered muddy grass out front, and shadows moved behind the living room curtains.