by John O'Brien
And then there’s Bri. She really likes Bri and thinks of her as another sister; although her feeling goes beyond that. Gonzalez feels a strong bond between them. Taking Bri under her wing was a natural thing to do. Perhaps it’s because Bri reminds her of herself at an earlier age. There is an inner toughness and she is always watching and learning. Gonzalez can see that there isn’t much that gets by Bri. Gonzalez relishes in teaching her and wants to pass on what others have taught her — teach her to be a soldier…to be tough yet keep her femininity intact…be strong yet supple enough to react…be flexible to a changing environment…teach her that she can be tough yet retain her humanity. Too often the toughness that soldiers in combat attain brings a coldness that they deem necessary in order to survive mentally. That means a repression of their humanity. Gonzalez knows now, through many trials by fire, that both can be achieved. The most important thing is to keep your humor and know what things to let slide off and what things to keep inside. Bri is a tough little warrior and Gonzalez intends to impart what knowledge she has to Bri.
Rays of natural light flood into the compartment as the ramp is lowered and hits the ground with a clang. There is the shuffle of feet as soldiers rise to empty out into the daylight.
“After you, little warrior,” Gonzalez says to Bri when it’s their turn to exit.
Bri smiles in return and runs down the ramp. Gonzalez follows and slides to her knee next to Bri on the sandy soil. Robert slides down a short distance away as the team forms a perimeter around the Stryker.
* * *
The remote, barren plains pass by. It’s apparent that the area was once a great basin for agriculture. The fenced-in fields are indicative of that, as is the farming equipment sitting abandoned in several of the fields. Heading west toward Sturgis, we pass an airport with a runway that looks long enough for the 130. It has a small ramp and looks like it serves the town. I imagine the airport is busy when the motorcycle rally comes to town, but I seriously doubt the runway itself will handle the weight of our aircraft.
The road begins a gentle climb. We pass a complex of buildings which the faded signs by the side of the road indicate to be Fort Meade. Just beyond the fort, we drive along the base of tree-lined hills, the only greenery for miles around. Rounding a corner in the highway, the area opens up and the town of Sturgis comes into view. Still on a significant rise, most of the town spreads out before us. I have the Stryker halted so we can get a better look before proceeding.
The ramp is lowered and the sound of boots pound down the metal surface, breaking the stillness of the area. The two teams quickly form a small perimeter at the edges of the road around the Stryker. I marvel at how tight we have become in just a few months. No shouts of command are necessary. Everyone knows what has to be done and does it like a well-oiled machine. That’s what we need if we are going to survive. The major hesitation I had when encountering Captain Leonard was that the inclusion of another command might disrupt the tightness we have. That is always a possibility as we include more and more people into our group but, for now, we are running smoothly.
The other thing that worries me is the constant stress. At some point, that will come to a head and we will see this smoothness falter. We’re going to have to begin incorporating some downtime for the teams into the schedule. We have been going full bore since we began setting up our sanctuary and that pace can’t continue. When we get more people through the training and see an increase in the number of teams, we’ll be able to put aside time to relax. Right now, though, we barely have enough to keep up with what we have going.
With binoculars in hand, I climb onto the Stryker. The air is still and only the sound of the idling Stryker can be heard. I feel the vibrations under my feet and have to sit in order to see clearly, steadying the glasses on my knees. It really doesn’t help that much though. Looking through the field glasses, a magnified view of the city unfolds. Directly below us is a cemetery.
I hope that doesn’t bode ill.
Several partially dug graves lie on once well-tended lawns, now brown and overgrown. Looking farther into town, the main highway transits the north end. The central part of ‘downtown’ is a block south of the main highway. It looks like most other small towns — a wide street with commercial type buildings situated along the main thoroughfare. The main residential areas stretch to the south, east, and west sides. Most of the roads are covered in brown dirt with only a little light-colored gray asphalt or concrete showing through in places.
As with the base, drifts of sand and debris are piled up against the buildings, houses, fences, and cars. As I look over the rest of the town, I don’t see any signs that someone is around. It looks like one of the old west ghost towns. The only thing missing are tumbleweeds blowing down the streets and barroom doors swinging in the wind.
Without seeing an indication that anything has been there in some time, we pile back in the vehicle and make our way down. We drive over the sand-blown roads into the heart of the town. The central area is only four or five blocks long. Along Main Street are several banks, restaurants, gift shops, bars, real estate offices, a laundry, a center for the arts, a casino, and a small building named ‘Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame’.
Stopping along the street and disembarking the teams, I see firsthand what I saw from afar. Sand covers the roads and is piled in deep drifts in the storefront doorways. Several parked cars along the street are almost covered with it. I had expected Sturgis to actually be filled with Harleys but nary a one is in sight. I don’t see any tracks in the sand-covered streets or sidewalks. That is both a good and bad sign. Good in that there aren’t likely any night runners inhabiting the buildings and bad in that no one else has been here either.
I open up to see if I can sense any night runners about. Nothing. Any sense of them is as quiet as the town. I notice Gonzalez looking at me quizzically as if asking if I felt anything. I shake my head negatively. She nods and trots off with the rest of Red Team as they take a position at the corners at one end of the block. With Greg remaining with me, the members of his team heads off in the other direction to establish themselves at the other corners.
Seeing Robert and Bri heading off with the rest of Red Team, I call them to my side noting the look of disappointment on their faces. I know they want to be with their team and think I’m calling them back because I’m being ‘parental’ and want them close. While I still have that quandary every moment we trek through unknown territory, this time I called them because I want them to watch and learn.
As they gather with Greg and me, I take a closer look at our surroundings. Most of the shop windows are broken. Overturned tables and chairs lie within and the floors are covered with grit and debris. A skeletal arm sticks out from one of the drifts piled up against a vehicle nearby. Walking over, I kick some of the sand away. The flesh has been picked clean. There’s not a shred of tissue left.
Keeping my M-4 at the ready, I head over to one of the shops to get a closer look inside. The restaurant has been ransacked and it looks like a tornado swept through. Scattered among the dirt are broken plates and a large overturned coffee urn. Several unopened water bottles lie amongst the wreckage. A few more skeletal remains lie on the floor of the café. There are dark stains where the floor shows through the sand, in spray patterns on the walls and counters, and on the broken windows beneath the grime. The only tracks in the deep dust are those of smaller creatures — I’m guessing the rat population still thrives. The other shops tell the same story; one of being ransacked or of last stands. If anything other than rats is here, it hasn’t been recently — within weeks I’d say at first glance. Sturgis, at least this part of it, is a dead city.
“What’s your first impression here?” I ask Robert and Bri.
“There’s no one here. It’s dead,” Bri answers.
“Why do you say that?”
“It just feels that way,” she replies.
“Okay, I’ll take that, but you have to be carefu
l about relying on feelings alone,” I state. “Robert, what about you?”
He glances around, staring for moments at one place and then another. The gears turn and he tilts his head to the side quizzically. Knowing him as I do, I recognize that he sees something but can’t quite put a finger to it. Then, a light enters his eyes.
“There aren’t any tracks. The sand is smooth without any tracks in them. That means there aren’t any night runners in this area. They would leave tracks if they laired or hunted here,” he says.
“What else?”
“Well…” he starts off, looking to the other buildings, “this is where supplies would be. If there were survivors nearby, you’d think they would be looking for provisions here. So, no tracks, no survivors nearby.”
“Good. Does that really mean no survivors, though? What if they already plundered this area and are using other places for their supplies?” I ask.
“They could be, I guess,” he responds. “If they became self-sufficient, they wouldn’t need to scavenge.”
“Dad? But wouldn’t someone grab those water bottles?” Bri asks, pointing to the several unopened ones scattered across the gritty floor.
“That’s the kind of detail to look for. The lack of tracks in the area and supplies that could be readily had but aren’t. Although not a surety, it at least gives a pretty good indication that there isn’t anyone around. At least not nearby anyway. But, I’ll leave you with this. Be careful about relying entirely on guesses and indications like this. There could be a very plausible reason for some other explanation, and our conclusions could be wrong. Look for indications, but be ready for anything. Don’t ever let assumptions allow you to relax your guard,” I reply.
“What do you think happened here?” Bri asks.
“That’s hard to say. I guess there are several ways that it could have gone down. People could have been out looking for supplies at the outset and been caught by others or by an initial wave of night runners. They could have tried holding out in the stores initially, staking claims to supply places, and then been overrun. I’m guessing that those we see here were taken down by night runners,” I answer. “Whatever occurred here happened quickly and a while ago.”
“Why do you say that?” Robert asks.
“Well. For one, the spray patterns inside the buildings indicate being torn apart rather than shot. The large amount of blood is also more than I would expect from gunshots. The remains outside are under the drifts indicating that it happened before it began piling up.”
“What happened to the night runners then?” Bri asks.
“I would say that they moved on or starved when their food supply ran out. These bodies have been eaten to the bone.”
“Wouldn’t the rats do that?” Robert asks.
“Possibly, but look here,” I say, kneeling by one of the bodies. “If it was rats, there would be tiny gnaw marks on the bone.” Pointing at the exposed arm bones, I continue, “Here you can see larger drag marks along the bone which are consistent with a much larger animal.”
“Could it have been dogs?” Bri asks.
“No, wrong pattern. Look how the marks are more flat. A dog’s would dig in and the mark would be more furrowed,” I answer.
“So, essentially you’re saying that there were survivors here that were taken down by night runners. The night runners fed on their remains and whatever else they could find, and then starved,” Roberts states.
“Or moved on somewhere else, but that’s about the gist of it. At least from what I can tell,” I reply.
“That must have been a scary time for whoever was here,” Bri says, staring at the remains on the floor.
“I can’t imagine it was very fun.”
Looking at the scene along Main Street, I can picture the tension and fear that must have been rampant. If night runners were involved, it must have happened at night. The survivors holed up in the stores, trapped and not truly aware of what was going on. The outside perhaps only lit by the occasional street light and emergency lights inside casting faint glows over the doorways. People caught up by the speed of everything happening so quickly…the sicknesses and deaths. Small groups or families huddled together in the darkness listening to the shrieks of night runners outside, the screams of fear from those that were found echoing down the dark streets, their cries changing from terror to agony as they were torn apart.
The sheer horror felt by those hiding, just waiting to be found and knowing that they most likely would be. Some huddled and trembling in fear, trying to be quiet yet the sound of whimpering escaping as the screeches of night runners resound off of the walls as they race down the streets searching for prey. Seeing shadows running by the windows throughout the night and, amidst the screaming, the fear of being found. Pale faces suddenly appearing, shrieking outside…pounding on the windows, the glow from their eyes penetrating inside. The alarm felt at the cracking sound of the pane glass windows fracturing under the night runner onslaught. The tinkling of the glass on the floor as it shatters, the shrieks suddenly escalated as they are directly exposed. Heart beats increasing and the sheer terror as they watch the night runners pour in through the opening, leaping through the broken glass. Then, the absolute horror of watching their loved ones torn apart in front of them. Yeah, that must have been a nightmare. I can’t even imagine the terror that must have prevailed in their final moments.
* * *
There’s no way anyone could ever be prepared for this shit, McCafferty thinks as she looks inside of the shops at the wreckage.
Waiting for Gonzalez and the rest of Red Team, she glances over at Jack standing with Greg. Jack, shading his eyes from the sun’s glare off the broken windows, stares at the buildings in a trance-like way. She’s seen him do that a lot and knows what it means. He recovers with a shake of his head. Gonzalez is looking at him questioningly. McCafferty knows what that question is — are there any night runners about? Jack gives Gonzalez a shake of his head replying in the negative.
Good, she thinks as Gonzalez catches up and they deploy to a street corner. I can’t friggin’ stand night runners.
She doesn’t know if she can handle any more of them. Like everyone else, dark buildings scare the shit out of her. She really wishes she had Gonzalez’ courage. Nothing ever seems to faze her. No matter what happens, she always has a ready smile and a joke. They’ve drawn closer over the past few weeks and shared a lot of their feelings and thoughts. That’s helped some. As glad as she is about finding her dad, the loss of her mom still sits heavy within her.
Growing up just outside of Lubbock wasn’t exactly conducive to her being prepared for this situation. Sure, it was Texas, so she was used to guns and started shooting at an early age. However, nothing much happened out her way nor was she really introduced to much. It’s not that her parents were overly protective, it’s just that there weren’t as many opportunities as there were in the city. She mostly hung with her parents and was content to do so. She did ride her bike, and later drove, to her friends and hung out with them, but her life was sedate for the most part. However, she did have her wild moments.
Her life growing up was like any other teen girl. There was the interest in boys and getting together with her friends. She had her crushes through school, but they came and went like the thunderstorms that rolled through. It wasn’t easier or harder than anyone else’s life. The hardest part for her was her height. She was diminutive and grew to a whopping five feet, four inches which always made her shorter than her friends and classmates. She had the weight to match her height. As her friends always teased when the strong winds gusted across the plains, she frequently felt as if she’d blow away.
The crossroads for her came toward the end of her senior year in high school. She ran cross-country through high school. She placed third in the state cross-country meet that year and had a running scholarship to the University of Texas. The problem was that she didn’t want to run anymore. Not competitively at any rate. The training
wore her out and she was simply tired. She knew she would run for the rest of her life; but not competitively. Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to college and the scholarship was her only ticket. Running at the collegiate level was more competitive and therefore the training would be more intensive. She wasn’t one to shy away from hard work, but she just didn’t want to work at that anymore.
That left limited options. She could go to the junior college and transfer later but there wasn’t any guarantee that she could afford it in two years. It’s not like some magical money tree was going to spring up. That left a job in the city, vocational school, and, heaven forbid, marrying one of the high school boys. It’s not that they were bad, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. That’s when the Army recruiter showed up at her school. It was like a veil was lifted and she saw her chance. She could get out of this place and earn money for college. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. However, as time and deployments went on, she discovered that she had found a second home. She enjoyed the camaraderie, and it was people like Gonzalez that made her stay.
Lately, she also had a little something extra to live for. She and Drescoll recently began to hit it off. It started with little talks here and there. They found they had a lot in common and had many of the same interests. Of course, it’s not like they could partake in a lot of those interests now. There just wasn’t any time in the daylight hours nowadays to go kayaking or hiking in the wilderness. Perhaps later but for now, they just share stories of their adventures. They’ve kept it quiet so far and she’s only told Gonzalez about it. It’s not that they are ashamed or even worried but more that they are both private about their personal lives. She’s sure it will become obvious to everyone at some point. She just hopes that it isn’t the stress that is bringing them together as she really does like him. She’s seen a lot of the battlefield romances occur that drifted apart when they were deployed back stateside. Of course, it isn’t like they are going to be relieved of stress anytime soon from what she can see. Looking into the abandoned buildings as she passes them on the way to her position attests to that.
