by Phil Maxey
The distant rumble of the jets engines hung in the air, and Fiona desperately looked around them as they moved further along the brown mud covered road.
“There!” she shouted, pointing to a gas station with its low hanging roof covering the pumps.
“That’ll work,” said Zach clicking on his radio and telling the others their destination.
He pulled over the grass bank and straight onto the stations forecourt finally coming to a screeching rest under the large flat metal roof. The truck and the tank did the same.
“Everyone out!” shouted Zach, while grabbing his things and opening the door. Once outside he waved to everyone else, and soon they were all running to the store part of the station.
Just as Zach ran inside the jet’s engines started to build to a crescendo. “Get inside now! He’s coming in low!”
Hayes was the last one to run inside, just the jet’s main Gatling guns started to open up. They all watched as a stream of neon sliced through the flimsy looking roof outside and tore into the back of the Humvee, exploding its tires.
“Fuck,” said Zach to himself. The jet roared overhead. He looked around at the small space they were all crammed into. “We can’t stay here, if he comes back for another run, we’re all dead.”
“The good news is it seems he’s not armed with any bombs,” said Bower.
Zach stood and looked out the side through the large glass panels to the woods beyond. He then looked back at the tank that was sitting just in front of the Humvee and had an idea. “Corporal Bell. Sergeant Bass told me you have Stinger missiles in that thing? Could they take down that jet?”
The young man looked unsure how to answer. “Err yeah, if we got a good lock, but an F15 flying that fast and low, it would be a lucky shot.”
“It’s worth a try, I’m going to need you to help me fire it,” he then turned to the others behind him. “Everyone get to the cover of the tree’s and spread out!”
Everyone apart from Bell and Bower got up and ran outside and continued into the undergrowth. Zach looked at Bower with a questioning expression. “I’m not going to let you have all the fun, I reckon the fifty caliber on the Humvee would do some damage,” said the Captain.
Zach nodded and the three men ran outside, with Zach and Bell climbing into the back of the tank and closing the door. Bower climbed into the driver’s seat of the Humvee, starting the engine and reversed out. The vehicle jumped and skipped as its rear wheels without their rubber protectors scrapped along the ground. When he was clear of the roof he stopped. He then climbed into the back and stood in the gunner’s position.
He clicked on his radio. “I’m good to go, which direction is it?”
The sound of the jet’s engines rumbled around the whole area.
Fiona ran forward from the tree line back onto the forecourt and stood with her eyes closed. The last time she had to guess which direction a jet was coming in at, was when she was in the Middle East, and her role was to protect a food convoy. She might not be a Cascader, but she had her own set of skills.
She clicked on her radio and held it to her mouth, still with her eyes closed. “Look to the southwest,” she opened her eyes and looked in that direction. Tall tree’s blocked the view. She ran forward into the street which bisected the small town and could instantly see it, a tiny sparkle of light, the sun glinting off its airframe. “Yes, here it comes, thirty seconds! Over.”
Bower swung the gun around. “Yup I see it too,” and then under his breath. “I’m going to bag me a jet fighter.”
Inside the tank Bell laid on his back, near the front of the tank, looking at the small screen of the missile mechanism. He then crawled back up and sat in the driver’s position. “Okay I’ve lined up the targeting system, I have to maneuver the tank, get us out from under this roof, and then it’s whether we are lucky for the jet to pass in front of the kill zone.”
Zach slid down to the floor of the tank where Bell was just laying. “Just get us in position.” The tank started reversing.
Outside Bower started firing. He knew the Jet was too far out, but hey it couldn’t hurt for the pilot to see some hot metal coming his way.
Fiona stood square between the lanes in the middle of the road and watched the point of light grow and take the shape of a fuselage and wings. The sound of its engine grew in proportion to what she was seeing. She knew the pilot would see her clearly soon and would be an easy target.
Yes, aim at me. She quickly looked around her at the pretty town, with it’s rural setting and smiled. It looked like a nice place to live, and maybe die.
The jets main gun opened up once again and she looked back along the road at the approaching stream of death heading her way. Tuffs of smoke and holes appeared as if by magic in the muddied concrete.
“Ha!” shouted Bower as his gun boomed in response to the jets own weapon, and bullets flew from ground to air.
Inside the tank, the armored shell Zach and Bell were in rattled. Zach concentrated on the small dark screen, waiting for a dot to appear. “Come on…” He could hear the jets shells strafing the ground coming towards them, and then it appeared. A small almost unnoticeable red dot illuminated the small screen with the words ‘Target acquired’ flashing. He squeezed the trigger and the tank shook as the missile took to the air with a whooshing noise.
“How do we know if—” Zach shouted but was interrupted by the sound of an explosion. He sat up and looked at Bell.
“You did it!” shouted Bell with a large grin on his unshaven face. Zach quickly scrambled forward throwing open the tanks rear door and jumping outside. Fiona hadn’t moved. Smoke rose up from either side of her, from darkened holes.
“Dang it, I thought I had it. Nice shooting,” said Bower getting out of the Humvee.
A few miles off a dark plume of smoke started to rise up.
Zach staggered forward and let out of breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Did you see if the pilot got out?”
“Screw the pilot, said Diaz walking up to them.”
“He didn’t make it out,” said Fiona who had walked back from the road and continued walking into the gas station.
Gregg’s emerged from the woods and ran over to them, then bent down and inspected the rear of the Humvee. “This ain’t going anywhere. We’re down to two vehicles,” she stood back up and looked about her. “Unless I can rig something from around here.”
Bower stood next to Zach as they both watched the smoke rise higher and start to dissipate. “You think he radioed back to his people about what he saw?”
“Yeah, I do.”
CHAPTER 21
The truck Abbey was sitting in the back of stopped. This time it seemed permanently.
“Finally!” said the angry young woman from the day before.
Abbey felt legs brush past her and heard the sound of the rear gate opening, then boots landing on a hard ground.
The convoy had stopped in a small town the previous night, and she had been taken inside a nondescript single story house and allowed to sleep on a small sofa for the night. On waking she was given another of those ‘yellow pills’ from a slim balding man in his fifties and then walked back to the army truck she had spent much of the past two days in.
The following five hours were a blur of flashes of color and the occasional sound of voices. But now she was awake. She still couldn’t see though as at some point they had put a blindfold on her.
“Come on, you’re getting out,” said a gruff female southern voice.
Hands pulled Abbey to her feet. “Where am I? Where are you taking me?”
“That’s not your concern young lady. Play nice and follow me.”
The hands helped her climb down from the back of the truck and her blindfold slipped on one eye flooding her vision with light. She squinted desperate to see where she was, while fighting the tears that welled up instantly.
She quickly looked around. The sun streamed down upon a downtown area. She was standing in the
middle of a wide road, which seemed to intersect an important district of this city. Large multistory buildings with large pieces missing sat around a wide open concrete space. One of the structures stood out with large broken satellite dishes idling at different angles on its roof. On its side there were four letters which ended with ‘TV’.
She also saw who was now pulling her across the street towards one of the big buildings. A heavyset woman wearing combat fatigues with dirty looking blonde hair, tied back into a ponytail pulled her forward by her tied hands. Luckily she wasn’t even looking back at her, if she did she would have realized Abbey was seeing everything.
Each time the woman did look back, Abbey hung her head or looked away so not to give away the fact that the scarf was creeping down the front of her face. Now her other eye could see as well.
The building she was now in front of was one of the more intact around her, with what looked like only a few of its glass windows missing.
They entered the lobby and the sound of voices immediately echoed around her. Abbey kept her head low, looking at countless boots that shuffled and walked urgently to destinations she couldn’t lift her head to see.
Soon they were inside a stairwell ascending. Ten minutes later they arrived on the twentieth floor. Abbey didn’t think the woman with her would make it.
“Give—me,” said the woman breathlessly while bending over. A few seconds passed. “Okay,” she said regaining he composure. All while the woman was getting her breath back, Abbey was facing away from her as much as possible.
The woman pushed the door to the top floor open, walked through and pulled Abbey with her. Unlike the ground floor lobby, there was no wall of sound this time, just silence as Abbey and the woman walked along a clean looking corridor, until they got to an open door. Inside was a large room with comfortable looking chairs and tables, and sheer glass on at least three sides which gave a view over the city. The large space looked like it had been a restaurant before the Cascade.
There were also three men inside looking out over the city like Abbey was trying to do. One of them she recognized. A tall man with a ponytail and a face you wanted to forget. She had guessed some time ago that was Clovis. There was also an older man with a black-gray beard and tattooed arm, and a younger man with the look of an accountant.
The woman pulled her into the room. “Ya’ll really need to be up here? I almost died walking up those stairs!”
The tattooed man’s expression remained static. “You can leave her and go.”
Abbey heard the woman exhale and then turn and leave. Some of Abbey’s hair fell across her face, and she hoped if she hung her head low enough, they wouldn’t notice her blindfold had slipped enough for her to see.
“Remove her blindfold,” said the older man.
A rough muscular hand grabbed her head and pulled the blindfold up over her forehead.
“Bring her over here, I want her to see.”
Abbey briefly looked up at Clovis as he pulled her across the room close to the other men. She looked down at the floor resisting the urge to look out over the city to try and get an understanding of where she was.
“It’s okay, please look out the window,” said the older man.
Abbey took a few steps forward and looked down, what she saw shocked her. She hadn’t realized on leaving the truck, but all around the building she was in, every street as far as she could see was packed with military vehicles. There were also hundreds of people.
“Good, you seem impressed. That’s important. Now, take a seat, we need to talk.”
Abbey tried not to sneer at the request, but could feel the presence of Clovis behind her. She looked at the nearby table and chairs, then slowly walked to them and sat down. The bearded man sat opposite her while the younger man sat to her left.
Abbey watched as the older man touched his beard before he started to speak.
“The man you met with before? Geneva? He is no longer in charge. The army you saw outside that window and much more besides is now under my control, and my name is Troy.”
She went to reply, but instead only rasps came out.
Troy looked over her head to the man standing behind her. “Give her some water.”
Clovis handed her a small bottle, which she drunk from enthusiastically.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” she said breathlessly.
Troy leaned forward. “You’re going to be the one to tell the camp you’re from, how they can surrender.”
Abbey gave out a brief laugh. “That is a lot of hardware I’ll grant you that, but it won’t be enough to take the camp.”
“What you see out there, is just one battalion. We have many more. And we have lots and lots of planes and helicopters each one armed to the teeth,” he leaned back. “I’m not saying there won’t be casualties. Thousands will die, maybe on both sides. But do you want to start a war without even knowing what we want?”
“I know what you want. You want to destroy or take over the camp. And that’s not going to happen.”
“That’s what the former head of our people wanted. Geneva was something of an extremist.” Troy grinned and spread his arms. “But now there’s new management, and I want something different.”
Abbey waited. “Okay?”
Troy looked at the younger man, who got to his feet and walked across the room. Picking up a rolled up piece of paper and came back, handing it to Troy. He then opened it up and spread it across the table in front of them, placing water bottles down to keep it open.
Abbey immediately recognized the map of the United States. Across it in red ink was a line, which zigzagged from northwest to southeast.
“You’re looking at the new United States. Your people get one half and we get the other.”
Abbey didn’t know what to think. Geneva was definitely insane, but she wasn’t sure if she liked this new guy any better. This man had a plan.
She wanted to say you’re crazy, but stopped herself. “Umm, okay,” was all she could think of saying.
“Good! This is your copy. As a sign of good faith I’m going to let you take it back to your camp. It will be your job to convince them to agree. If I don’t hear agreement from you within the next two days…It pains me to say this, but there will be war, and none of us want that.”
Abbey sat looking at the eyes of the man who was threatening a second American civil war.
CHAPTER 22
Zach looked at the twisted pillars and pylons of the large steel framed bridge, which covered the Mississippi river. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of a black pickup with an open back. Gregg’s said she chose it because whoever owned it previous obviously cared about it, and because despite being built in the 80s it was in good condition.
Fiona sat to his right, with Wyatt and Michael in the back. They had salvaged as much as they could from the Humvee, most of which ended up in the army truck, but the fifty caliber was in the back with Michael.
The small window between the pickups cabin and the open bed in its rear was open and Wyatt was looking through it to Zach.
“There’s a lot of E.L.F’s around he—” before he could finish there was a loud squawking and a flock of what looked like giant fruit bats swept overhead.
Zach looked back at Wyatt. “They aware of us?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Just tell me if any of them mean us harm.”
Wyatt nodded.
“I’m feeling kind of exposed out here, Zach!” shouted Michael, his legs either side of the large gun. He looked up at the dark gray forms silently gliding hundreds of feet above his head. “Be great if we could be on the move.”
Zach clicked on his radio. “I’ll go first, see if we can get across. Over,” he then revved the engine and pulled out around the tank and onto the bridge.
Smashed and abandoned cars and trucks littered both lanes, which were divided by a small concrete wall.
As Zach weaved in and out of the wreckages, Michael looke
d anxiously at the parts of the bridge where its strut’s were missing. One of the two hundred foot high central pillars was also badly damaged. He noticed Wyatt was more interested in the waters below so he sat up and looked over the side of the truck and immediately regretted his decision. A hundred feet below whale like creatures but with what looked like arms with webbed claws on them were thrashing around in the water. He sat back placing his hand on the big gun.
Wyatt looked at him and laughed. “They’re harmless.”
“They look like they could swallow this truck whole,” said Michael.
“Maybe, but they are just enjoying the sun. Now the warmth’s coming back you will see a lot more E.L.F’s.”
“Great.”
The road ahead on the bridge opened up and was clear of further obstructions. Zach told the others, and soon the small convoy was moving away from the river, heading deeper into the state of Mississippi.
After an hour of silence, Fiona spoke. The map was in her lap. “We’re heading into an area with lots of national forests and rivers. Probably a hive of E.L.F activity.”
Zach briefly looked at the back of the pickup, Wyatt’s head was only just visible through the small window. “Wyatt? You hear that.”
No response came back.
“Wyatt!”
There was a scuffling from behind them, and Wyatt’s head appeared in the small opening. “Yup, what is—”
“What?” said Zach.
“There’s a lot of E.L.F’s here.”
“Where?” said Zach trying not to sound too irritated by the fact that their early warning system was sleeping.
Wyatt squinted. “Umm, all around us. Few miles off.”
“Are they moving towards us?”
“Some are.”
Zach exhaled frustrated, then clicked on his radio. “We got a number of E.L.F’s heading towards us,” he then noticed some kind of parking lot with garages and a number of delivery vans parked outside, up ahead. The landscape to their right was fairly flat and they could see a few miles, but to their left was a wall of high thick trunks and branches, stopping any view to the west. Zach continued on the radio. “We’ll park up near the garages on the right. Over.”
