by David Nees
“You think we can go?” Billy asked. There was a hopeful tone in his voice.
“I do.”
“But they’ll be more killing in the meantime.”
“Probably.”
“It’s hard,” Billy said finally with some sadness.
“It is. It doesn’t do one much good, but it’s necessary in these times,” Rodney said. “Don’t give Jason too hard a time. He’s a warrior, a defender. I’ve seen such men. They run to danger when others need help. Maybe this was a mistake. I don’t think so, but maybe it was. Right now, it doesn’t matter. We’re set on a path and that means having to defend ourselves against the Chairman.”
“And we better be good at it,” Clayton added.
Chapter 31
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C
layton awoke before dawn. He stirred the other men.
“We best get moving. Sky’s getting lighter, enough to see by. Better walking when it’s cooler and we got a lot of ground to cover.”
The men slowly got up and stretched their sore, cramped muscles.
“Sleep okay?” Jason asked Rodney
“Like a baby.”
“Liar,” Jason replied with a grin on his face. He turned to Billy. “You okay about last night?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. This ain’t your fault. You just doing what you can to help. And I am thankful for getting out of that jail, even if it means more fighting.”
“Good. Hopefully we can get back to Hillsboro without any more confrontations. We’ve got a good chance of avoiding the rest of the General’s men.”
They checked their campfire and then set out across the stream, hiking south.
“We could avoid I40 altogether,” Jason said when they had stopped mid-morning. “We just hike to the south of the highway and come up on Hillsboro from the south. Use the state route when we can. They’ll be watching the interstate.”
“Good idea as any,” Rodney said.
“Any towns we got to be careful of?” Clayton asked.
“There’s a few,” Jason said, “Chandler, Mill Creek, Bentonville. They probably have people in them and they’ll be suspicious of strangers. It shouldn’t be hard to go around them if things don’t look right.”
The men hiked on, now buoyed by the thought of avoiding more shooting.
By the end of the day they were past the point where the interstate highway turned east and headed towards Hillsboro, passing north of the town. They camped while still in the woods. The next day they would be out in farming country.
“We’ll reach the state road tomorrow and follow it. If there’s no problems, we can be in Hillsboro in two more days,” Jason said.
He could sense everyone’s eagerness to be done with the trek. He and Clayton had been camping for nearly two weeks and, for the most part, living on the rations they had brought with them. They were nearly out of food now and would finish the trip on empty stomachs. It didn’t worry Jason. They had their weapons, ammunition and water. They could go for days without food if necessary. Tomorrow they would start eating up the miles.
The General moved his troops down the interstate. He figured the place he had the best chance to intercept the fugitives was where the highway turned east, although he held out little hope they would actually encounter the men. There were just too many places they could go around his position. He guessed they would be too smart to just walk blindly along the interstate. They had already shown themselves to be more clever than that. Maybe the trackers had been successful and his men had caught them.
With that thought in mind, General McKenzie and seven militia troops departed the larger group in two Humvees to drive back north. Hopefully he would find the trackers. If not, he’d go on to Knoxville. He needed to be a part of the planning for whatever the Chairman had in mind for Hillsboro.
McKenzie did not intersect with the trackers on his way back to Knoxville. When he arrived, he went straight to Chairman Horner’s office. It was nearly evening. The Chairman was talking with his assistant, Phillip Cordell, when the General came in.
“Did you catch them?” Horner asked.
The General plopped down on a chair and opened his jacket.
“No. We caught up with them at a farm along I40. They killed six of my men and then fled into the woods, heading south. I got two dogs and trackers and sent them in pursuit along with ten of my men. I haven’t heard back from them.”
“Do you think they’ll be successful?” Cordell asked.
“The dogs were on the scent, so it’s just a matter of catching up with them. Those guys are good fighters, good shots.” McKenzie paused thinking about how easily they had shot six of his men. The militia never saw them and never got off a good shot at them. “They’re woodsmen and know how to move fast in the mountains. It could be days before my team catches up to them.” He shrugged. “So, we won’t know for a while.”
“What about the rest of your men?” Horner asked.
“I sent them further down I40. The fugitives have to go east at some point, so they’re going to set up where the interstate turns towards Hillsboro. Still it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. These guys are savvy enough to just hike around any ambush we set up.” He shook his head. “I don’t hold out much hope for catching them.”
Horner slammed his fist down on the table. “Damn it! We can’t just let them get away. We’ll look incompetent. Others will think they don’t have to obey. Then where will we be?”
McKenzie hunched forward in his chair. “I’ve been thinking about that. We were planning on a campaign against Johnson City. Maybe we should shift our focus to Hillsboro. It’s a richer target and we send a message that they can’t get away with what they did.”
“We were hoping to get them to just go along with us. I wanted to get them under our influence without having an all-out fight.”
“I agree. Their giving in to our ransom demands would have been a good signal. But they didn’t to do that. And not only that, they came here, into this office, and took you prisoner. That action has to be answered.”
Cordell spoke up. “So, we should go to war with them? That could be costly. You didn’t hear what that guy said, the leader, to Tom. They have the whole population armed and defenses set up. He said it was the Swiss model.”
“Maybe if we do this right, we won’t have to engage them in battle,” Tom said.
Cordell and McKenzie looked at him.
“What do you have in mind?” Cordell asked.
“How many men do we have signed up in the militia?”
“Five hundred and fifty, give or take a few.”
“How would it look to show up at Hillsboro’s door, figuratively speaking, with, maybe three or four hundred armed men, and some artillery. Then we give them a chance to talk to us. Negotiate the recapture of that guy, Jason. The one who taped the shotgun to my neck—”
“And make them pay reparations for what they did, kidnaping you and killing our men,” Phillip added. “That just might work. We could show others we won’t stand for such treatment, intimidate Hillsboro, and never have to fire a shot.”
“What do you think, Mike?” Tom asked the General.
McKenzie sat quietly, turning the idea over in his head. “We’d have to be ready to fight…to back up the threat. It can’t be a bluff.”
“Okay,” Tom said.
“We have to go ready to do battle, the whole nine yards,” McKenzie said.
“That wouldn’t be a good thing, if it happened,” Phillip said.
“If we’re not ready to go that far, then I say we don’t go. We find some other way to respond,” McKenzie said with a firm voice.
“That son of a bitch manhandled me. Taped me to a shotgun, then he lectured me as we drove away, and left me tied and blindfolded on the side of the road.” Tom was standing now, pacing back and forth behind his desk. “He can’t get away with it. He has to pay.” His eyes were shining with anger.
“Maybe we do this in stages,” Phillip said. He always looked for a middle ground, sometimes between what the Chairman wanted to do and what the General recommended. “We send another emissary and demand the return of this Jason to stand trial for what he did.”
“We haven’t got our last emissary back,” McKenzie said.
“I know, but this time a crime has been committed. We can frame it as the kidnapping of the Chairman and breaking two men out of jail who were arrested for breaking our laws.”
“What law did they break, exactly?” the General asked Phillip.
“Make one up. Trespassing, violating our security by not getting a pass to travel through town, not registering when they tried to walk around our security perimeter. You can find something. Let’s recast the ransom into a fine to be paid to release them. Then this guy comes and attacks our Chairman and breaks more of our laws.”
“We’d be seen as being civil about this, treating this as a civil matter,” Tom said. “It just might work.”
“I can get some arrest warrants drawn up. We have a judge who’ll do it. I can go there and present the warrants,” Cordell said.
“We can try, but it won’t work,” Mike said. He heaved a sigh. It had been a tiring excursion, chasing the fugitives, with nothing to show for it. This scheme would not be successful, but he could see the Chairman’s buy in.
“If it doesn’t, we go to the next level. The one you propose,” Tom said. “The fact that we come peacefully first to settle the issue legally, as a civil, matter might sow discord in the city and cause them to negotiate rather than fight.”
Phillip added, “We might not get them to turn over Jason, but they could pay reparations. We make a point, we get some loot, and we put Hillsboro on notice not to mess with us. All good things.”
The conversation continued well into the night.
Chapter 32
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T he next day the men broke camp early. There was renewed energy in the group fueled by their eagerness to get back to Hillsboro. An hour’s hike brought them out of the forest and into farm country.
The forest was timeless. While you were in it, you would never know the power had gone out and civilization in the U.S. had collapsed. Maybe, if you were very observant, you would look up and wonder why there were no contrails in the sky, tracers left by high-flying jets on their way to New Orleans, Houston, or some other major city. The sky remained empty of such signs of civilization and commerce.
Now hiking in inhabited country, one could see the devastation: abandoned fields, abandoned farmhouses, cars left on the roadsides. The signs of loss would only increase as they drew closer to more urban areas. The signs of loss dampened everyone’s spirits which had been buoyed by nearing the end of their trek.
They came to a local road heading southeast.
“There’s a good chance this will intersect a state route going east,” Jason said.
“We’re going by dead reckoning now?” Rodney asked.
“I have the map, but I’m not sure where we are on it. So, yeah, pretty much,” Jason said.
At a rise in the road they could see a cluster of houses gathered around a crossroads. It looked like there was a gas station with what had been a convenience store and a dozen or more houses along both roads. Jason studied the scene through his binoculars and then handed them off to Rodney.
“You see any activity?” Clayton asked.
Jason shook his head. “It all looks abandoned.”
There seemed to be no enthusiasm to take the time to hike a couple of extra miles in order to detour around the village. The urge to get home was growing.
“I agree,” Rodney said. “Looks empty.”
“Let’s go,” Billy said. “I’m tired of all this walking.”
Jason looked around. Rodney and Clayton weren’t disagreeing.
“All right, but keep a careful eye out. Be ready to respond if you see any danger.”
They walked towards the houses, about a mile and a half away. Twenty minutes later they were approaching the crossroads. They walked in two-by-two fashion, Jason and Rodney ahead with Clayton and Billy behind. At Rodney’s insistence, they kept a space of about ten yards between the two pairs.
There was no talking now. The empty houses stared out on the streets. Some with their doors open and windows broken, evidence of their violation. A few looked like they hadn’t been raided and might still be habitable, if only someone were around to live in them.
Suddenly Billy stopped and swung his head to the right.
“You see something?” Clayton asked in a low voice.
The two men in front stopped and turned to look back at Billy.
“I thought I saw something moving, to my right. Something or someone disappeared around the corner over there,” he pointed to a house they had just passed.
“Think we should investigate?” Clayton asked.
“Let’s just keep going,” Jason said. “But keep alert.”
The men began to walk again. This time they all heard it. A crunching sound, off to the right.
“Steps?” Clayton asked.
They could see nothing. When they started walking again, Billy turned and walked backwards. His back tingled when he turned away from the sound they all had heard. He could imagine a bullet slamming into him, right between the shoulder blades.
“Feels kind of creepy,” he said.
“You gonna trip and fall on your ass, walking like that,” Clayton said.
They walked a short distance further with Billy shuffling backwards.
“What’s that?” Billy said with a sharp voice.
The others stopped and turned.
“What’d you see?” Jason asked.
“Something. A shadow? Something came out from the corner and ducked out of sight. It went behind that car, the one at the curb.”
“You’re sure you saw something hide behind the car?”
“No, but I think I did.”
Rodney called out. “If you’re hiding behind the car, come out with your hands in the air. We mean you no harm. We’re just passing through, but we don’t want to get shot in the back.”
Nothing.
The men spread out across the road
“Come out now and you won’t get hurt,” Jason said.
The four started walking forward with their rifles at ready. A high, thin voice called out from behind the car, “Don’t hurt me.”
The men stopped.
“We won’t, but come out so we can see you,” Jason called out.
“No shooting? No hurting?”
“That’s right. Just come out.”
A gaunt figure slowly arose from behind the car. A man dressed in rags. His hair was long and matted. His shirt and pants in tatters and his shoes were broken down boots now tied up with rags to keep them together.
“Did you see them? Did you talk to them?” The figure asked.
The men lowered their rifles seeing this apparition was obviously unarmed and looked to pose no threat.
“Are you alone?” Rodney asked.
The figure hesitated. A thoughtful look on his face. “Just me and some friends. Everyone else run off or were taken. I’m taking care of things until they get back. Somebody has to do it.”
“Where are your friends?” Rodney asked.
The man’s face brightened. He broke out in a twisted smile, showing missing and broken teeth.
“Follow me,” he said and turned towards the gas station and store.
The four men followed, now back on high alert.
The apparition entered the store and turned to smile at the men.
“Where are they?” Jason asked.
The man just kept smiling and then swung his hand around. Behind him were life-sized cardboard figures hawking different products; a NASCAR driver holding up a soda bottle, a tennis star holding a sports drink, someone in a Carolina Panthers uniform holding another power sports drink. In addition to t
he figures, a wall near the checkout counter was full of NFL backdrop posters touting the football league and some light beer.
“We’re keeping things together while everyone’s gone,” the man said. He looked down at the floor. “’Course I don’t know when they’re coming back.” He looked back up at the four men, his eyes flickering with anticipation. “You see them?”
“See who? The people from this village?”
The man shook his head.
“Then who,” Jason asked.
The figure looked around, past the men, through the windows. Then he spoke in a whisper. “The visitors. The aliens.” He looked around again and leaned towards the men. “They took everyone away. Those that wouldn’t go, they put to sleep, somehow, and they never woke up. I hid in a cave. Didn’t come out for weeks, till I was sure they was gone. You see them?”
Jason shook his head.
“Well you better hide when they come. They take you for sure.”
“The aliens?” Rodney asked.
The man nodded with his lips pressed firm.
“We talk about why they came here, why they shut off the power and put people to sleep. Why they took people away. They’re from a dying race, near as we can guess. They need something from us. They experiment on us, take our body fluids to help them figure out how to make new aliens.”
The four men stared in wonder at this skinny figure in his tattered clothes. His feet wouldn’t be still, shuffling and tapping on the floor. His arms waved around haphazardly as he talked.
“We hear them sometimes. They come at night. They still looking for people, but we stay hidden.” He looked over his shoulder at the figures. “Me and my friends. We’re keeping this place open until the others come back.”
“You hear them?” Jason asked.
The man nodded his head up and down furiously. “We can see their lights, but we stay hidden. Can’t let them catch us.”
“How do you live?” Clayton asked. “What do you eat?”
