Dark Crossing

by Thomas A. Watson

  “Ours will too,” Lori said, looking at Denny.

  “Well, his momma ain’t here,” Lance chided, bobbing his head. “What is done here, stays here.”

  Denny looked at Lance and grinned. “Well, I’m sorry. I understand.”

  “Don’t feel bad, they only let us go sometimes,” Carrie sighed.

  “Ladybugs, the reason you don’t go out more is because we need muscle,” Lance said, pulling out his key. “Both of you are good enough on the gun.”

  Stomping her foot, “I’m trying to get muscles really hard,” Allie whined.

  “And you have gone out when you could do what was needed,” Lance replied, opening the door.

  Thinking about that, Allie cheered up and went inside as Lance held the door open. “So, what do we do while you’re gone?” Denny asked.

  “You can sit in on the ladybugs’ lessons,” Lance said, grabbing Denny as he moved to the table. “Wash up first.”

  With that one comment, Denny would start copying whatever Lance and Ian did.

  After lunch, Ian, Lance, Lilly, and Jennifer dressed in combat gear. “Lance,” Lilly started.

  “No, we wear the 3D scent suit,” Lance said, walking down the stairs.

  “I tried when we were working on the greenhouse, and Ian wouldn’t even talk about it,” Jennifer said, pulling on her vest.

  When they got downstairs, they heard Lance talking on the phone. After hanging up, he looked over at Denny, Lori, and Jodi, sitting at the desks with Carrie. “Glad they aren’t at my desk,” Lance mumbled, opening the back door. “Denny, Lori, Jodi, your parents will take you home after we’re done tonight.”

  “Can we stay another night?” Jodi asked, and Carrie stood up and Lance held up both hands.

  “I’ll ask,” Lance said and walked out.

  Loading the bots onto trailers, they drove them over the ridge to the build house and unhooked one trailer. Everyone loaded up on one UTV and rode back. Loving the automatic gates so much, Jennifer continued driving them around to the back.

  Lilly climbed out, looking over at Lance. “I want to take George with us,” she said, moving to the track steer.

  Looking over at Dino sitting down and panting from the run, Lance nodded. “Okay,” Lance said.

  Loading the huge battery and the dish, Lilly climbed out of the track steer, heading inside for George. After they’d strapped down the load, Lance looked at Ian. “Are you sure the electric buggy can’t handle this?”

  “I’m tired of replacing or rebuilding electric motors when we can just drive a gas-powered UTV and a diesel UTV. They can take this weight better than the electrics,” Ian snapped. “Why don’t we use the Hummer?”

  “NO!” Lance cried out and looked over at the black, gleaming H1 Alpha. With the exceptions of a few minor scratches, it looked like it had rolled off a showroom floor. Lance had cleaned every nook and cranny. The only reason he had stopped waxing and detailing it, was Ian told him to.

  “I rest my case,” Ian said, climbing in the front seat beside Jennifer.

  “He loves that thing just a little too much,” Jennifer mumbled as Lilly came out with George.

  Because of her mask, Ian didn’t hear her. “What?” he asked, and Jennifer turned and repeated it. “Ya think?” Ian scoffed. “He wanted to rebuild the engine a few weeks ago, and I laughed at him. The engine only has, like, seventy thousand miles on it. Those things are good for a quarter of a million miles.”

  “Maybe Lilly is jealous of the wrong thing,” Jennifer mumbled to herself and Ian asked her to repeat it, but Jennifer shook her head when Lilly and Lance climbed back in.

  With Dino and George running beside them, Jennifer drove them back over the ravine. Pulling up beside the diesel UTV and trailer they’d left, Jennifer turned off the UTV. “I don’t like driving the diesel buggy,” she stated, climbing out. “It handles like a pregnant whale.”

  “We will only use it to haul heavy stuff, I promise,” Ian told her as he and the others climbed out. “We made it just as quiet.”

  “But it doesn’t go as fast,” Jennifer said, cradling her AR. “Can’t you find another gas one?”

  “We need more diesel ones, Jennifer,” Ian told her, grabbing his bow in case stinkers showed up. “It took Lance and me a long time to find that one.”

  Moving beside Ian, Jennifer leaned her head on his arm. “I like your diesel buggy, it will haul ass,” she chuckled.

  The four stood guard around the three trailers and two side by sides, waiting in the June heat. “Lance, what if I make us ghillie suits?” Lilly offered. “We can go back to wearing the fatigue tops.”

  “Lance, with as much as we are sweating, there is no way it helps block our scent,” Jennifer added.

  Glancing at Ian, Lance saw Ian give a hesitant shrug. “We have a ton of shit to do and you want us to stop and make ghillie suits?” Lance asked, turning to Lilly.

  “No, I’ll make them. I remade everyone’s gloves, didn’t I?” Lilly asked.

  Holding up his hand and looking at the glove Lilly had made to fit, Lance nodded. “Best damn gloves I’ve ever worn,” Lance admitted. “Okay, but if we see they don’t work, we go back to 3D.”

  “We start on them tonight,” Jennifer told Lilly, and she pumped her hand in celebration.

  Hearing George give a growl, everyone turned to see where he was looking. Turning to the driveway, “Dino didn’t growl, this should be Heath and them,” Ian said, but set the bow down on the hood of the UTV.

  A large side by side rode up the driveway, followed by Dwain’s large four-wheeler. The first thing Lance noticed when they got closer, was everyone had a look of fear on their faces. When Heath stopped, Lance moved over with the others. “What’s wrong?” Lance asked.

  Looking up at Lance, Heath shook his head. “Lance, you’re not going to believe this, but there is a pride of lions down there in the valley,” Heath almost shouted while his wife, Robin climbed out with Dwain’s wife, Kathy.

  “They aren’t scared of people, that’s for sure,” Robin said, and Kathy nodded.

  “How many?” Lilly asked.

  “Nine big ones without manes, and two big mothers with black manes,” Heath answered with wide eyes. “There were four smaller ones that looked young, but I’m basing that on what I’ve seen on TV.”

  Dwain climbed off the four-wheeler and Rhonda, who was sitting behind him, got off too. “TV don’t do them justice,” Dwain said. “I’ve seen lions at the zoo, but they seem much bigger when there are no bars in the way.”

  “Shit, try tigers,” Lance chuckled, and Ian kicked the tire of the UTV.

  “What the fuck are so many big pussies doing around here?!” Ian shouted. “I hate big pussy. Why can’t we have small, tame pussy? The kind that won’t eat your ass!”

  Everyone stared at Ian as he ranted and when he finished, Lance nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “Well, they were eating three stinkers,” Rhonda said, walking over.

  Everyone looked over at Ian. “Okay, big pussy can do some good stuff,” Ian admitted.

  Heath looked at the bots and other gear, “Can you explain, why two?” he asked.

  “Yeah, the Battle Bot out now is being pushed past its limit. With two in one spot working twelve-hour shifts, we shouldn’t get the wear on them. Plus, we’ve made upgrades on these,” Lance explained as the wives moved over, looking at the machines.

  “They look heavy,” Kathy said, looking at the rows of shredders with a shiver.

  “Just over a ton each,” Ian said, finally calm.

  “What about making the area they operate in bigger?” Dwain asked.

  “Oh, so they have to cover more ground, running their batteries down faster?” Lance asked, turning around.

  “Okay, that was a stupid question,” Dwain sighed.

  “Lance, why don’t we set it up on the road, then?” Heath asked. “They could keep the area cleaner.”

  “And wear their tracks out
really fast,” Ian told him.

  Robin looked at Heath, “Okay, you’re right. They know more than we will ever know,” she said, turning back to the trailers.

  “How are we doing this?” Heath asked.

  “Glad you asked because we are going to rehearse it a few times,” Lance said, and they looked at the three trailers in shock. “We aren’t setting them up, just practicing and walking through it.”

  The five sighed with relief as Ian and Lance moved everyone away from the trailers and started walking them through it. After an hour, Lance and Ian nodded. “Let’s set this shit up,” Ian grinned, and fist-bumped Lance.

  Hooking up Heath’s side by side to the other trailer, and putting the dogs in the backseats, Lilly led them off. When they reached the valley below, they saw the lions lying beside the road. Driving past the lions, “Stay,” Lance commanded as Dino and George growled behind them.

  The lions looked at them with indifference as they rode past. Not liking it, Lilly stayed on the road driving toward Hinkle. Neither Lance nor Ian wanted to risk moving the heavy trailers through the woods. Lilly understood, with the uneven ground they rode over, but understanding and liking it were two different things.

  “Stop,” Lance told her and when Lilly slowed, Lance stepped out and raised his rifle up. Lilly just looked ahead at the six stinkers. In quick succession, the six dropped and Lance climbed back in.

  “Thank you for not using the bow,” Lilly told him as she took off.

  “Are you kidding?” Lance huffed. “The lions could still see us, I wanted those fuckers down. I don’t like big pussy any more than Ian.”

  Turning north before they reached Hinkle, the stinkers started getting thicker. Lilly had to stop every hundred yards and Lance was shooting seven or eight at a time. When a figure ran past her, Lilly jumped and grabbed her AR to see Rhonda’s red hair move in front of the buggy beside Lance.

  The two had the group to the front down and Rhonda stepped back to Lilly. “Can I ride with you? Kathy is riding with Dwain,” Rhonda asked.

  “Have to ride with the puppies,” Lilly told her, jerking her head to the backseat.

  Rhonda climbed in beside George as Lilly moved up the road to reach the outer ring of the three-mile patrol area. Lilly only had to slow now, never really stopping as Rhonda and Lance stepped out, gunning down the stinkers.

  Seeing the field ahead, Lilly sighed when Lance and Rhonda jumped back in. “The bots are going to get a workout,” Lilly said, rounding the curve and pulling into the field. From the houses around the field, she could see stinkers starting to move toward them.

  Like they’d rehearsed, Lilly stopped while Lance grabbed his laptop and ran to the trailer. As Lance started unstrapping his bot, Ian was behind him, unstrapping the other bot. Everyone else spread out and started dropping stinkers.

  When his bot was unstrapped, Lance opened the laptop and tapped the keyboard, and Lilly felt the buggy lurch forward when the bot drove off the trailer. When it was off, she moved up as Kathy and Robin moved over, pulling the perimeter boxes off that were connected with wire and wrapped in metal flex tubing.

  Laying the boxes out in a line until they’d emptied the trailer, Lilly stopped and ran back, unhooking the trailer. Looking back at the one-hundred-foot-long line of boxes, Lilly kicked the trailer off while Robin and Kathy spread the boxes and cable out, forming a ten-thousand-square-foot box.

  Moving to the front of the trailer, Lilly turned on a generator as Dino and George jumped out. “George!” Lilly snapped, and George moved beside her while Lilly pulled out an extension cord. Around her, suppressed shots rang out and Lilly risked a look around, but didn’t see any stinker closer than a hundred yards.

  Lance watched the two bots drive toward the boxes that Kathy and Robin had spread out. When they crossed the cables, Lance tapped the keyboard and closed his laptop. It was then, Lance noticed nobody was acting terrified of the bots and aiming weapons at them. Granted, stinkers were around, but that hadn’t stopped them before.

  When Jennifer pulled up, Lance put his laptop beside her. Heath ran over as he and Lance grabbed one of the recharging stations and grunted, lifting it out of the trailer. Carrying it over to the back right corner, they set it down inside the box perimeter while Ian and Dwain carried the other one, putting it in the back left corner.

  Hearing the fire slack off, Lance looked around and saw the only area that had stinkers still coming was the road to the west, leading to Girdler a mile away. The road cut between two spurs and that was why Lance had wanted the bots here.

  Dwain ran back to his four-wheeler and pulled behind the box perimeter before he ran to the trailer he and Lilly had pulled. Grabbing the two-handed drill, Rhonda grabbed an armful of one-foot-long screws. Lance moved around the boxes, driving the screws through a hole in each box after pulling the slack out.

  When he ran out of screws, Rhonda would run back. Waiting on screws, Lance turned to see Ian and Heath pulling the battery out of Dwain’s trailer, using Heath’s side by side with a rope tied to it and the battery. Rhonda pushed a screw in his hand and Lance continued down the line.

  Seeing no stinkers to the north, Lilly moved her aim to the east to help Jennifer. “Hope those bots are ready for a workout,” Jennifer huffed, shooting the stinkers two hundred yards away. She was only missing every third shot and was happy with that.

  “Every time we’ve patrolled around here, it’s been full of stinkers,” Lilly said, squeezing the trigger.

  “Hell, Bones’ burnt ass house is just behind us up that draw,” Jennifer said, and Lilly glanced back to see Lance was almost done.

  “Rhonda’s coming,” Lilly said, moving to the buggy. Cranking it up, she turned it around. Keeping the wire centered, Lilly drove over to a box while Lance moved to the back and drove the cable digger into the ground. When Lilly neared a box, he would pull up the spike while Kathy and Robin followed shoving the cable in the trench, using their boots to kick the dirt over the cable.

  “This is much better than shovels,” Lance noted as Lilly made the first turn. Looking up, he saw Ian and them standing the dish up and saw the winch connected to the top of the pole the parabolic was mounted to. As the winch reeled in, they walked the dish up and extended the legs like an umbrella.

  “Smart,” Lance said, lifting the rod out of the dirt. They weren’t worried about fire melting the wire. Stinkers dragged their feet enough and could pull the boxes up, and the bots would shut down.

  When he was done, Lilly stopped and backed up to each recharging station, then drove toward the battery digging a trench. Before they were done with the second one, Ian was laying cable in the first trench to the recharging station.

  “Get your laptop and talk to your bots,” Lilly shouted when they reached the battery.

  “I have to help hook the trailer back up,” Lance said, turning to her.

  “Lance, I’ve hooked that trailer up a hundred times by myself,” Lilly reminded him, and Lance took off.

  Grabbing his laptop, Lance saw Kathy and Robin with Jennifer stemming the tide, but the stinkers had closed the distance to a hundred yards. Carrying his laptop to the closest bot, he tapped the keyboard and the bot turned around and followed him to the right charging station.

  “Lights up,” Heath said, walking over and Lance looked back to the light pole with Ian hooking the cables up.

  When the cables were hooked up, Lance grinned when his laptop told him the system was live. “Load up,” Lance shouted, and he handed his laptop to Heath. Heath watched the bot back up to the recharging station and the box at the recharging station opened up, and Heath blinked his eyes when the biggest plug he had ever seen extended out.

  Before it touched the plug, a box opened on the bot as it backed into the plug, plugging itself in. Lance opened a hatch and reached in, pulling out a large plastic key and Heath gave a startle. “Number two is armed!” Heath yelled out, and Lance took off running to the other bot.

  Heath
looked off to the east and saw the stinkers entering the field eighty yards away while the others loaded up and stopped shooting. Dropping his eyes back to the screen when Lance opened the bot and pulled out another plastic key, “Number one is armed!” Heath shouted, and Lance locked the lid and ran toward Heath.

  Heath held out the laptop as the vehicles pulled up to them. Lance grabbed his laptop, jumping in beside Lilly as Heath jumped in with Robin. They followed Jennifer as she drove to the tree-covered hill at the back of the field.

  “Okay, stop,” Lance said, grinning. When Lilly stopped, Lance got out and calmly walked around to the front of the buggy and stopped beside Lilly. “Step out,” Lance said, and Lilly could tell he was smiling.

  Sitting in the back with the dogs, Rhonda thought they were crazy, but climbed out as Lance held the open laptop in front of Lilly. “Press enter,” Lance said.

  Reaching up, Lilly tapped the enter key and the screen blinked active. Police lights mounted on the top of Bot One started flashing. Everyone heard the change in moans grow in intensity as the stinkers trotted toward the bot. Then, loud music started playing and Rhonda laughed.

  “Appropriate,” Rhonda said, turning to Lance. “We will rock you.”

  Chapter 15

  Pulling to the top of hill, they stopped and looked back down at the field as Queen ended. From three hundred yards away, they watched the bot move around, munching on stinkers until the stinkers had it surrounded. “Is that Family Guy?” Robin asked, looking over at Lance.

  “Yeah, they seem to react to people talking. I just wanted to kick off this site with some music,” Lance said, looking at the screen.

  Kathy gave a shiver at the steady drone of the shredder working and the gore that shot out the sides. “They don’t seem to care for the police lights,” she noted.

  “Ian wanted those for this batch,” Lance said, looking at the screen of his laptop.

  “They have serious wood for lights,” Ian nodded. “Not even one tried to follow us.”

  Leaning close to Robin’s ear, “You see what I mean? We will patrol, if we can get them to make more stuff like this,” Heath whispered in her ear. “This is pure genius.”