The Search For Home

by C A Bird

  That night, standing in front of the fire, Mark told Matthew, “We need you and Einstein to sneak up on their flanks, to make sure they aren’t pulling any funny business.” He gestured toward the town. “Do you think you guys can go out before daylight?”

  The two men nodded. “We’ll make sure they don’t send out anyone to try and take Terry from behind. They saw Terry’s Jeep. They’re going to want it pretty bad.” Einstein threw the last of his coffee into the fire. “I’m going to hit the sack. What do you think Matthew? 0400?”

  Matthew, never one for much conversation, nodded and walked over to the horses. He scratched Chief on the poll and patted his neck while Chief nuzzled against Matthew’s chest and shoulder. “Ready for some action tomorrow, my friend?” The horses were tethered to the line and Matthew’s belongings were stacked up a few yards away, covered by a tarp against the possibility of rain. Pulling out his bedroll and a wool blanket, he stretched out on the ground, wrapped the blanket around him and fell instantly asleep.

  4

  Las Vegas, Nevada stood shimmering in the heat, surrounded by the desolation of the Mojave Desert. “The Entertainment Capital of the World,” hadn’t been spared in the Great War, the once famous casinos along the glamorous Strip falling, as the blast wave from the thermonuclear device had swept down from the Nevada test site, traveling at tremendous speed. The distance had been great enough, however, to mitigate much of the damage from the one bomb that had hit the area. For some reason Nellis Air Force Base hadn’t been targeted.

  Smaller structures had survived and hardy men and women came up out of the basements and found provisions to get them through the next eighteen months. Aided by moderate weather, many thousands had been spared… until the second die off.

  Vegas was a large city, with almost two million people in the metropolitan area. In the beginning, even food was plentiful. But Sin City was cut off from civilization in all directions, and there was one thing they needed desperately, but didn’t have… water.

  Incorporated in 1911, Vegas remained fairly small until Hoover Dam was completed in 1935, forming Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. When full, the lake was 112 miles long, had 759 miles of shoreline and was 532 feet deep. Fed by the Colorado River, it hadn’t been filled to capacity since 1983 due to increasing drought conditions

  Even though most of the major hotels used water from their own aquifers, ninety percent of Las Vegas’ water supply came from Lake Mead. It was transported through 30 miles of pipeline from the two intake pipes or straws. The pumping stations required electricity, and they had stopped working when the bombs created electro-magnetic pulses that knocked out the power. Prior to the war the lake was as much as 80 feet below its normal level and would soon have been below the level of one of the intake pipes. A monumental engineering feat had been underway to build a third intake at the bottom of the lake. It was a race to finish it before the first intake would be lost when the lake reached 1050 feet above sea level. The war stopped that effort.

  Without water from Lake Mead there would be no Las Vegas.

  Gravity fed systems continued to supply water from water towers for a few weeks after the war, since the population was so decimated, but people began to panic when water stopped coming out of the taps. Fortunately, hundreds of stores had bottled water which lasted well over a year. It seemed like an inexhaustible supply and the survivors didn’t bother to conserve. A year after the Great War, the summer was hotter than usual and the supply of bottled water diminished. When they started drinking water from swimming pools, much of it contaminated, hundreds died.

  The population had fractured into numerous factions, with one of the groups hanging out in the smaller, local casinos downtown. A large community to the west, around Summerlin, died off as the water disappeared, as did several groups in the newer areas around Green Valley. Over two thousand people living in Henderson, realizing the water wouldn’t last, stuffed their belongings in backpacks and trekked along Highway 564 over thirty miles to Las Vegas Bay on Lake Mead. There they had built mud huts and planted crops the first summer. But they had started late and cold weather prevented them from growing enough to sustain them all.

  Going into the second summer they were becoming more self-sufficient but their lack of knowledge, and the learning curve, had cost them more than half their population.

  To the east of I-15, in a seedier part of town, the motorcycle gang, Satan’s Horde, had taken up residence in a commercial area, attempting to repair scores of motorcycles they had previously owned, or they had found in dealerships and garages all over town.

  “We’ve got another one running, Chase.” Bing strolled through the open door and plopped down in a chair, its Naugahyde cover ripped, exposing the stuffing within. “It’s a Honda, but it’s 900 cc so it’s got a little power.” He was dressed in Jeans and a denim shirt with a red bandanna holding back his straw colored hair that fell to his shoulders. His coarse, three day-old stubble was shot through with gray.

  Chase sat staring at Bing, never blinking or acknowledging that the man had spoken. He was six-feet, four-inches tall and had shaggy, brown hair with curly locks that hung in front of his eyes. The whites of his eyes were visible all around the pupils, and madness lurked behind his staring countenance. Although his clothes were dirty, his hands were creamy white, his nails perfectly manicured. He washed them at least once an hour and had a huge supply of anti-bacterial hand rub to armor him against the ever present danger of the germs that hid everywhere, waiting for an opportunity to infect and kill him.

  “That makes fifty-two working bikes and two trucks. We need another twenty or so and we can split. The guys are bringing in more every day and we’ve found parts in five more shops. Three new guys showed up today to join us.” Bing was becoming uncomfortable under the scrutiny, squirming and looking around the room. It was the waiting room of a Quick Lube, containing a few chairs and a useless T.V.

  “How long?” The voice was like sandpaper against a rusty pipe.

  “I don’t know, maybe a week or two.”

  Several motorcycles: Harleys, Hondas, Suzukis, Ducatis and Yamahas, were torn apart in the bays of the lube shop, waiting for one of the men to replace their electronic parts.

  “Who are the new guys?”

  “Came from North Vegas. They all have bikes.”

  “Get them out looking for parts and water. And put ‘em through initiation.”

  “Sure Chase. Well, I’ll ah, just get out there and give em’ a hand.” Bing rose and slipped through the door, throwing a backward glance at the leader of Satan’s Horde. As he left, with Chase’s eyes following him, a tiny smile ticked up the corner of Chase’s mouth. As crazy as he was, he kept a firm control over the Horde.

  The men were scared to death of him.

  Bing went to the far side of the shop and squatted down beside a mechanic in greasy coveralls. “New guys need to prove themselves. Chase wants them out getting supplies but they need to bring us some new, young tail.”

  “It’s getting harder to do with the Westsiders dying off and the Henderson group leaving town. What happens if they can’t find anyone?” Cutter asked.

  “He’ll probably kill ‘em. They have nice bikes, two BMW 1000s and a Honda CBR 1000. We’ll give ‘em to Nutts, Johnny and Rod.”

  “Yeah, well remember, if they find anyone, it’s my turn after Chase finishes with her.”

  “You might have to fight off Clancy. He wants a piece of every chick we bring in.”

  “When are we gonna blow this place?” He rubbed his greasy hand across his forehead and through his jet black, short-cropped hair, leaving a black streak.

  “Couple of weeks I’d say. Water’s running out and we need to find a place to hold up before all our supplies are gone. Chase thinks the world is ours for the taking. If everyone else that’s left is like the pansies in Vegas, he’s right. There must be plenty of cities left that didn’t get bombed and we can just move in and tak
e over. Cities with rivers.”

  “I used to live in Indianapolis. We could be fucking kings.”

  “Yeah, well let me know when you get another one running. We can’t take over our kingly duties ‘til we get the fuck out of this desert hellhole.”

  For the first year they had spent all of their time partying and drinking. There was enough booze in Vegas to last for a decade but no one thought about the water. It seemed with so few survivors that the food and water would last forever, but after the first hot summer it became obvious that water was going to be the problem. They looted every store and casino in the downtown area, and using one of the old pickup trucks one of the men had repaired, they brought thousands of bottles of water back to the shop. The horde had one hundred and seven men, and a half-dozen women, and other people were showing up every day wanting to join the gang. Most were looking for protection, realizing there was safety in numbers and wanting to be on the side of might.

  Chase walked into the back office to get a bottle of water and saw that there were only two or three hundred bottles left. “We fucking need to blow this town,” he said in his raspy voice. Caused by a throat infection when he was six years old, he had endured teasing his entire life when the kids had called him Andy, for Andy Devine the old cowboy star that was a regular on Roy Rogers. He was in a constant battle to ensure he would never be infected again.

  Bing went next door to the auto repair shop where the three new guys were waiting. “Chase says you’re in if you can pass our initiation.”

  Carswell, skinny and mean looking, with wild, bushy eyebrows and deep-set eyes, looked suspicious, and glancing over at his brother Keenon, said, “Yeah? What do we need to do?”

  “Kidnap a girl from one of the colonies, maybe out by Green Valley. Should be far enough away they can’t trace her back to us if they don’t have vehicles. And gotta be younger than sixteen.”

  “Fuck, man. That might be really hard to do. Most of them have died off or moved out. How about we just kill someone?”

  “You want in, that’s your job. Take it or leave it. We’re leaving town in a couple weeks, before it starts getting too hot. We’re going east to find a town to take over. You can come with us or stay here and die of thirst.”

  Keenon snickered, “Won’t die of thirst. We’ll just drink booze until we die.”

  “Shut up, Asshole. I’m not staying in this town. There’s bad shit gonna happen when there’s no water,” Carswell said. “Why don’t we go west? It’s closer.”

  “Chase says L.A.’s probably been wiped off the map. And all the other cities, too. Radiation or something. So what’s it gonna be?”

  “We’ll get your girl.”

  “Make sure you don’t mess with her. Chase wants her pure.”

  Carswell hit his electric starter and the others stood on their kick starters. The bikes roared to life and they accelerated out through the parking lot and disappeared up the street heading for Green Valley.

  5

  It was after midnight. The angry young man threw his shoulder against the door. “Tell me where my children are. Where’s my wife? We haven’t done anything wrong!” He slid to the floor and sobbed, “Why are you keeping me here?” Jumping back to his feet, he pounded on the door with renewed energy. “Where are my children?” he screamed.

  “Shut up, Roger. You better shut up or we’re screwed,” the other prisoner in his room said through clenched teeth. “You’ve only been here one day so you don’t know the ropes, but if they hear you, they will beat us both, or give us extra duty. So shut your mouth.” The other, larger man swung his feet over the edge of his cot and moved over toward Roger. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back to the center of the room.

  “Get back in your bed and get some sleep. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” He shoved Roger down on his cot. “Just stay there.”

  Roger started to get up but, glancing at the huge, black man decided against it. Roger was five-eleven and lean, with muscle built up by physical labor, but his roommate was way bigger. “But why are we here? I didn’t do anything wrong. Me and my wife and kids were living on our farm, taking care of ourselves. We were doing great. Why did they bring me here?”

  “Shh, keep your voice down. It doesn’t matter to them whether you were thriving or starving, they’re rounding up people for work parties. To hear them tell, nobody’s doing okay. They say everybody needs their help or nobody will survive.”

  “Well, it’s not true. In Marshall, we were doing great on our own. All the neighbors had gotten together and were helping each other out. One of the guys had a working tractor and he went around and plowed everybody’s fields. Bartered his work for produce and eggs. We all had something we were good at and we traded labor. Then these jack-booted guys came rolling into town in a couple of trucks, dressed in fatigues, with full riot gear and carrying military rifles. Said they were going to help us… but we didn’t need any help.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what happened in my town as well. A bunch of armed guys resisted and were shot down in the street.”

  The big, dark-skinned man lay back on his cot and put his hands behind his head. “They’re rounding people up and throwing them into these camps. They’re putting all the men on work details, repairing roads, and building stuff and making the women do household chores.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I agree. So, what did you do before the war?”

  “My wife and I owned a flower shop in Marshall. We lived on a ten acre farm that’s been in my wife’s family for generations. Had a couple mules and some other domestic animals, but they took them all. They separated us and threw us in the back of trucks. After they took my animals, they raided the root cellar and the basement. Everything we’d stocked up is gone. Their commander said an executive order allowed them to confiscate people’s food for the good of the majority, whatever the hell that means. How about you? What did you do?”

  “I was a high school principal, in Danville, Virginia. Not really used to all this physical labor. I’ll bet I’ve lost 50 pounds.”

  He sat up on the edge of his cot. “Believe me, they don’t give a shit about you. They’re rounding up anybody that can work for them. We just need to keep quiet and do our work, and who knows, maybe we’ll get out of here someday.”

  “Really? How soon?”

  “Not for a while. I’ve spent the last two months with a group of guys working on the train tracks leading into Charleston. They have an old steam engine from a railroad museum. It’s running between here and Parkersburg up north. One of the guards said they’re restoring the whole West Virginia area to establish government control.”

  “We’re in West Virginia? I couldn’t see outside the truck so I had no idea where they were taking me. I live in North Carolina.”

  “Not anymore, you don’t. They brought my whole work crew down from Parkersburg for a new job. We’ll find out what it is tomorrow. Or today, now that it’s so late. Now shut up and go to sleep or we’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

  Roger lay back on his cot. “What will happen to my family?”

  “Your kids will be educated, or indoctrinated, whatever you want to call it. Your wife will work with the other women, cooking, laundry, that kind of thing. Just keep your mouth shut and do your own work. Otherwise it will go hard with you.”

  ***

  Only a few hours later, the slamming of doors and the bellowing of the guards woke Roger and his large roommate, Ashe. Six-foot, three-inches tall, and dark as mahogany, he looked like he could break Roger in half.

  “Damn,” Ashe muttered, half asleep, “you kept us awake half the night.”

  A guard dressed in military fatigues, going door-to-door and unlocking them, stopped in front of theirs and turned the key in the lock. He shoved it open and leaned around it.

  “You guys should be ready. If you don’t have your boots on in fifteen seconds, you’ll get a taste of the baton. So get your asses moving.” He tugged on
the door and, as it swung shut, he continued down the hallway to the next room.

  “Come on Roger. He wasn’t kidding. If we don’t fall out real quick, you’ll get a taste of that baton and I can tell you from experience it hurts like hell.”

  The two men quickly slipped on their boots and hustled out into the hallway. They joined others similarly dressed in denim overalls and filed out the door into a large, open, grassy area. Roger saw the men lining up like a military platoon and fell in line with Ashe to his left. There were three groups of men, each having about fifty individuals. Across the field on the other side of the street he could see another group of three formations. Surrounding each formation were at least four soldiers with assault rifles.

  The rifles were held ready to fire.

  He heard a cadence, and a platoon of soldiers marched down the street between his platoon and the ones across the street. The marching soldiers were followed by a truck carrying a 50mm full-auto machine gun in the bed. Roger recognized it from one of his old favorite TV shows.

  “You stragglers get into line or we’ll make you sorry,” said one of the soldiers behind the formation.

  “Hey Ashe,” Roger whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “who the hell are these guys?”

  He felt something hard across his hamstrings and yelled out as he fell to the ground. The pain was excruciating. Writhing on the ground and rubbing the back of his legs, he looked over his shoulder and saw a uniformed soldier standing behind him with a wicked looking baton.

  “What the hell, man. What did you hit me for?” He tried to get to his feet and the man hit him again. Due to the angle, the blow fell on the side of his thigh and he slumped back to the ground.

  “You don’t talk when you’re in formation, bucko. So open your mouth again and you’ll get this baton across your face. You got that?” The man, whose name on his uniform was Mitchum, stood slapping the baton into his left hand. Mitchum was career military, and enjoyed the fact that he was no longer constrained by the old rules of military discipline. His current superiors only cared that he got the job done. He had steel grey eyes and a military buzz cut.