The Search For Home

by C A Bird

  “Captain, I’m picking up a significant amount of air born radiation, however, I’m not getting any reading in the water yet.”

  “Don’t get any closer. Change course to 350 degrees until it’s clean.”

  Continuing in this manner they circumnavigated the island chain, staying just beyond the limit of the radiation. The captain believed the most likely directions would be west, toward their original destination, or east with the intention of returning to China. They didn’t detect any vessels in either direction.

  Dombrowski, Finney and Communications Officer Crane sat in the Officer’s Mess, finishing dinner and discussing their next move. “Gentlemen, I’m considering heading to China, to see if we can find out if they’re sending any more fleets to other countries or even to the United States.”

  Lieutenant Commander Crane nodded his head. “We’re unable to get through to the States, so I think we need to use our judgment on this one. We’ve come this far, and I for one would feel a lot more secure if we knew there were no more coming.”

  Even Finney had to agree. “Without regular maintenance, this boat will not be operational forever. Now may be the time to ensure the safety of the country.”

  “We’re only a third of the way across the Pacific. Do we have enough supplies to make it there and back? We won’t be able to resupply at Pearl.”

  “Yes Captain. I’m sure the Philippines are not an option.”

  “Okay, let’s go get this boat pointed toward China.”

  25

  Every time Jon went out to scout, he found sentries blocking his path. There was now a guard at the railroad bridge and he had no idea how he and his family would get to their escape vehicle. The gang had spread out, and were systematically searching stores and houses in the town.

  It had been a week, and with Jon unable to hunt, they had gone through their meager supply of food. They had two stuffed chairs in the basement facing each other and Jon and Mary were having a conversation, trying to decide what to do… when he heard a door slam loudly.

  “Stay here.” He grabbed his rifle and ran up the stairs. He quickly determined no one was in the house, so he went to the window, standing alongside it to keep from being spotted from outside. Peeking around the window jamb, he could see a man and woman enter a house across the street and two doors down. On his side of the street he saw two men cross the lawn and enter the house next door. He jumped up and ran back to Mary and the boys.

  “We have to hide. Hurry, they’re coming.” He stuck his finger in a small hole in the wall and pulled away the drywall that covered a small, hidey hole, maybe six-feet wide and four-feet deep. He motioned the kids into the hidden space. Mary grabbed the lamp and the backpacks, pushing them into the back of the space, while Jon raced to the windows and pulled down the plastic. They threw sheets, they had set aside for that purpose, over the two chairs, in an attempt to make it look as though they were in storage. He looked around and picked up a few small items off the floor, and a small table, and thrust them into Mary’s arms. She threw them into a back corner behind an old washing machine. Flipping the children’s mattress onto its side, Jon leaned it against the wall. He folded Mary’s cot and shoved it under the stairs. Stepping over the bottom stud, Jon pushed back into the space with Mary and the boys, pulling the drywall into place. He barely had room to hold the rifle horizontally. They held their breath and waited.

  Someone was coming down the stairs. Jon held his breath and prayed the boys wouldn’t cry out in the dark. He felt Mary shift her position behind him. One of the boys made a tiny whimpering sound and Jon held his breath, praying that whoever was in their basement hadn’t heard the faint whine.

  But no such luck.

  Light flashed in Jon’s eyes, as the cover of their hiding place was thrown aside. Jon couldn’t see, and didn’t think… he just leveled the rifle and pulled the trigger. There was a grunt and the sound of a body falling as Jon leaped forward from the cramped hole in the wall. A man lay on the floor in the middle of the basement. Jon started toward the basement stairs when he heard the sound of footsteps running across the floor upstairs. The front door slammed.

  Realizing they’d been discovered he motioned for Mary to follow him. She tossed him one of the packs and grabbed Josh’s hand. Jason followed them, he and Josh’s eyes wide, as they stared at the body splayed out on the floor. Jon held out his hand, palm forward to have them wait, and crept to the top of the staircase. Mary and the boys waited until he returned from a quick check of the house and quickly gestured for them to come up the stairs. They went through the house and out the back door. Jon glanced over his shoulder at the little garden in the corner and wondered if he would ever see his home again.

  Following Jon’s well-worn path through the adjacent backyards and down to the river, they made their way to the railroad bridge. Signing to Mary, Jon gave her instructions. He left Mary and the boys in a clump of flowering bushes, one hundred yards from the bridge, as he sneaked toward the guards. He got as close to them as he dared. Two motorcycles were parked on a grassy swale next to a drop off to the Las Animas River.

  Jon jumped to his feet and sprinted fifteen yards across open space to the gleaming Harley. The owners of the two bikes shouted, and leaped in his direction, trying to intercept him. He grabbed the bike by a handlebar and the seat, and heaved with all his might, watching with satisfaction as the bike rolled forward, over the edge and plummeted down the embankment to the river. Reaching out with his foot, he shoved the Honda, which was right next to the edge, and watched as it tumbled after the Harley. Without so much as a glance at the bikers charging down on him, he turned and headed south as fast as he could go, the enraged bike owners trying to catch up to him.

  Now was the time. Once the bikers had passed her position, Mary grabbed the two packs, and telling the little boys to follow her, ran to the bridge. She slung one of the packs onto her back and dropped the other to the ground. Taking each boy’s hand, they slowly and gingerly stepped from railroad tie to railroad tie, making their way across the bridge as fast as they could go without getting injured. Following John’s instructions, she hurried away from the tracks and made her way to a line of retail stores that lined the Boulevard to the west. Being deaf, Mary had never strayed too far from home, even before the war, and she wasn’t familiar with the West side of town. Jon had told her to find a hiding place and wait for him.

  Within a few minutes she peeked around the corner of the building to see Jon running back toward the bridge with the two bikers in hot pursuit. He had easily outdistanced them. As Jon reached the bridge, he grabbed the backpack off the ground, and high-stepping as fast as he could, spanned the bridge.

  Mary couldn’t help but smile as the bikers stopped on the south side of the bridge. One of the men leaned over and puked on the ground and the other stood gulping in air. Knowing they would never catch Jon, they gave up and walked to the edge of the embankment looking down at the motorcycles. One of the men picked up rocks, flinging them at the tangled mass of steel below. She watched them flinging rocks and kicking dirt over the edge as she waited for Jon to make his way back to her.

  Mary felt a hand on her shoulder and swung around to find Jon beckoning to her. He’d circled the line of stores where he approached her position from behind. Not wanting to carry the boys, they had to slowly make their way across town, heading for the car.

  Nutts and Snake, were terrified to tell Chase they’d lost their bikes. They headed to the Parker Hotel and sought out Bing. “Hey Bing,” Nutts told him, “we’ve found the guy we been lookin’ for. He has a bitch and two kids with him. Can you tell Chase?”

  Bing grinned, knowing the men were so afraid of Chase that they didn’t even want to bring him good news. “Get the guys together. Chase is gonna to want to find that guy.” He entered the hotel, finding Chase snorting a line at the registration desk.

  “Chase, I have good news.” He waited for Chase to respond, but only received silence. “Cutter s
ays he saw the guy we’ve been looking for just across the river. His old lady and kids are with him.”

  Chase swung to face him, and in his rusty voice said, “Get the Horde moving. That fucker’s not getting away. Send a couple guys upstairs to finish off those assholes. Wait… let me do the woman one more time and then everyone meet in the parking lot. You got ten minutes.”

  The gang quickly assembled in the parking lot, ready to get revenge for Jon escaping from them. Bing heard shots coming from the upper floors of the hotel.

  “Damn,” he told Nutts, “we could have taken the chick with us.”

  With Mary and the kids, and having to try and stay hidden from the bikers, it was taking them a forever to make their way to the car. They had to hide twice while choppers cruised past slowly.

  “I hope it takes a while for those guys to get back to the hotel, since their bikes seem to have fallen into the river,” Jon signed.

  “Yes, that was very unfortunate,” she chuckled. “How far is it to the car? Do you think they’ll try and follow us?”

  “Their leader looked insane. I think he’ll pursue us to the ends of the earth. We need to get out of town and hope he doesn’t know which direction we went.”

  It took them another half an hour to locate the car. Jon and Mary quickly buckled the boys into the back seat and Jon started it up. He made a U-turn and headed south.

  As they passed one of the river crossings they were spotted. Driving with the window down, Jon heard shouts and the sound of motorcycle engines firing up. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, knowing he probably wasn’t going to be able to lose the bikers. It looked like the entire gang was mounted up and ready to pursue them.

  Jon slowed the car and reached for the rifle. Across the river he saw a huge rider on a Harley who was directing the other riders.

  Mary tugged at his sleeve. “What are you doing?”

  “If I can take down the leader, maybe they won’t follow us.”

  “That’s crazy. You’ll just make them mad.”

  He stuck the rifle out the window, took aim and fired. The bullet hit the seat just behind the big man’s butt, ripping through the leather. The giant’s head jerked up and his eyes narrowed. Even from this distance Jon could see the man was infuriated.

  Shit, Mary was right.

  Jon stomped on the gas and sped away.

  ***

  Blood pressure rising, and his face beginning to flush, Chase turned an evil countenance to Bing. “Let’s go. I’m going after that prick and you had all better be able to keep up with me. Nobody shoots at me or hits my bike without signing his death warrant.” He shoved it in gear and the rumble of the 1500 cc engine was deafening, as he shot off toward the car heading south.

  Bing swung his chopper around in a tight circle. “Cutter,” he shouted, “We’re leaving town, NOW. Chase says we need to keep up or we’re fucked.” He sped off after the devil incarnate, trying to keep up as he heard the growl of sixty choppers following him.

  26

  The sun climbed higher into the sky, as everyone carried their breakfast dishes to the Chuck wagon. Some of the folks had chosen to spend a few nights in a Ramada Inn by the bridge that crossed over the Las Animas River. Mark and Lori had always thought their bed in the wagon was pretty comfortable, so they had chosen to stay with the wagons. Mark had a raging headache and was hung over for the first time in many years. He climbed into Chris’s wagon and rummaged through the first aid kit until he found some aspirin. Stumbling down to the river, he pushed through the brush and knelt by the rocks at the river’s edge, where he vomited until he trembled. Sitting back on his haunches he buried his head in his arms until his stomach settled down, and then washed his face and choked down three aspirin.

  Back at the wagon, Lori took one look at him, smiled, and said cheerfully, “Hi Honey, you don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine, but I think you’re right. I won’t be doing any partying tonight.”

  “Let’s go look up the local government. I’d love to hear what’s happened in this town since the war,” she said, as she hooked her arm through his.

  They walked north through town, asking directions to the Civic Center.

  Farmington was beginning to show signs of deterioration, despite the fact that the residents had made an effort to maintain it. It was just too big for the number of survivors. They found the Civic Center and climbed the short set of steps to the front doors.

  Jeff Hunt sat on a desk in the main office, legs crossed Indian style. He was around six-feet tall, with broad shoulders and light, brown hair neatly trimmed. Three others in the room were all well-dressed and groomed. None of them had the long hair or beards that Mark’s group wore.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” Mark told him as they shook hands. “This is my wife Lori. I hear you’re the man that saved this town.”

  Jeff nodded over at Lori. “I don’t know about that. I just got a few guys together to stop the bloodshed. There are a lot of good people in this town and they’ve come together to try and bring back a little civilization.” Mark was pleasantly surprised. Jeff seemed like an easy going guy rather than someone with ambitions of power.

  “Some of our people are passing through town, and a few have decided to go back to Willsburg. I like what you’ve done here and if we didn’t have other places to go, I think this would be a good place to live.”

  Jeff unfolded his legs and swung them over the edge of the desk, leaning on his hands. “I think so. This area sits over a huge reservoir of natural gas and oil. We’re hoping we can get the power plant going and start back up the wells.”

  “Do you know how to do it?”

  “Well, a lot of the guys who knew how to run the plant were killed in the fighting, but we’ve found that there’s enough men left with specialized knowledge that we’re hoping we can get the power back on real soon. There’s a refinery in Bloomfield. We’ve spent the last year getting guys trained.”

  One of the other men, who had introduced himself as Liam Jensen, said, “The plan is to use the fuel that was stored at the plant to get the power back on. When we have the power going we can get the wells and the refinery up and running. We’re almost ready to give it a try.”

  Jeff added, “A couple of guys came through here about a month ago from up north, somewhere in Idaho, and they said there are a bunch of communities up that way. I guess Utah and Idaho were places that a lot of people moved to, in anticipation of a war or societal collapse. They’re pretty self-sufficient and we’re thinking we can set up trade with them when we get our refineries going. We’re getting more cars repaired every day and they’re all going to need gas.”

  “You may be able to trade with the New Mexico Colony as well.” Mark said. “Have you heard anything about California? Has anybody come through here from there?”

  Jeff said, “No one’s come through here from California, but the guy from Idaho said they had received a message from someone in the northern part of the state. There’s a group of people living in southern Oregon as well. Once we get more cars working we can send out people to make contact with others. Communications have been really bad since the war but we’ve received a couple of messages in the past week so were thinking that the atmosphere is finally settling down.”

  “We’re on our way to California. I came from Newport Beach and we just want to find out what happened there. I’m also a little bit worried about the Chinese. I used to work for an aeronautics company and we had a meeting with the President of the United States just before the war.”

  “You knew the President? That’s pretty impressive. Do you think he survived?”

  “Maybe. They had special bunkers for him and the rest of the government, so I don’t know. Anyway, the Secretary of Defense said the Chinese had two types of bombs, regular hydrogen bombs and a new type of bomb called a neutron bomb. The latter has a substance called Red Mercury as part of the payload, and instead of regular radiation, it creates a v
ery intense neutron radiation that destroys life but doesn’t harm infrastructure. The intent seemed to be to leave cities unharmed, but devoid of life.”

  Jeff understood the implications immediately. “Whoa, that sounds like they wanted to be able to use our cities after the war. Do you think they’re planning to invade?”

  “I think it’s something we have to worry about. That’s another reason I want to get to California. I need to know if my home survived, and I need to find out if there’s anybody left that can fight against a Chinese attack.”

  “Oh man,” Liam said, “we’re just sitting here in our little corner of the world planning on rebuilding civilization and China might be on its way?”

  “I don’t think you should live in fear, but you need to be prepared.”

  A radio, sitting on a desk in front of Liam, came to life with a burst of static. “Civic Center, are you there?”

  Liam reached out and grabbed the radio. “This is the Civic Center. This is Liam. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Liam. This is Zabriskie up at the Aztec post. I just had a car go through here doing about eighty like he was being chased by the devil himself. He’s coming your way, so keep your eyes peeled for… Oh shit! It really is the devil himself! There must be a hundred motorcycles on this guy’s tail. They’re only about a quarter of a mile behind him. At the speed they’re going, they’re going to hit Farmington in about five minutes. You better get a bunch of armed guys out to the barrier.”

  Jeff and the other three men jumped to their feet and ran for the door. “Come on. I think were gonna need all the guns we can get.” Mark and Lori chased after the four men as they headed out to the parking lot and jumped into an old pickup truck. They let Lori take the passenger seat with Jeff driving and the others hanging on for dear life in the bed of the truck.