The Living Saga (Book 2): Enduring

by McFall, Jaron

  Cedric felt raindrops starting to fall on him. “Do you need me?” he asked.

  “You planning on running off?” Steph asked.

  “I’m just going to go get the solar panel from the turret we took already. The one in that house,” Cedric said. “Five minutes. I want to get it before the storm fully comes in.”

  “You aren’t supposed to go alone, HQ rules,” she teased.

  “I’m a council member,” Cedric said starting the truck back up. “I, Cedric Donahue, hereby grant an exception.”

  Steph watched as Cedric drove the truck toward the burnt-out house. “Yeah, Karli would kill him if she knew. She’d kill me if she knew, too. So, Jace, buddy, don’t tell anyone, k?”

  Warner just laughed as he bent down to the console of the first helicopter. His laughter fizzled off quickly. Steph saw the confusion starting on his face.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “The radio is gone,” he said pulling a flashlight from his toolbox.

  “So, maybe it got dislodged in the crash. Not a big deal,” Steph replied.

  “No,” Warner said slowly as he examined the console. “See here?” he asked pointing at small gouges in the metal where the radio used to be. “Someone’s prised it out.”

  Lightning cracked overhead and Steph said, “We really need to hurry. Check the other chopper.”

  Steph grabbed the toolbox as Warner jogged the ten yards to the other helicopter.

  “It's gone too,” he said when Steph sat the toolbox down. “But, hey, they left us some warm coffee,” he added jokingly.

  “What did you say?” Steph asked.

  “They left us warm coffee?” Warner asked unsurely.

  “Like, it's still warm?” She asked feeling the cup.

  “Oh crap,” Warner said, the blood draining from his face.

  “We need to run to the truck,” Steph said backing out of the helicopter.

  Warner stopped to pick up the toolbox but Steph shouted, “Leave it! Run!”

  Warner dropped the box and it crashed to the ground, spilling out. The rain began to pick up its pace as they ran, making the grass slippery. After a few minutes of running, the truck came into view.

  “Cedric!” Steph shouted as she ran. “Get in the truck!”

  She could see the top of Cedric’s head peaking over the burnt wall in the attic of the house. “He can’t hear me over the truck and rain,” she said as she ran.

  “Check your seven!” Warner shouted back. He knew she had training and would know what he meant.

  Steph turned her head over her left shoulder as she ran. She swore when she saw the beat-up looking delivery truck barreling through the field.

  “Close the gap!” she shouted as she pulled one of her pistols from its holster. She fired three shots in the air.

  She saw Cedric jump to a window and look out. The next second, he was gone. By the time Steph and Warner reach the truck, Cedric was in the driver’s seat, ready to go.

  Cedric had the truck in drive and slammed the gas pedal the moment that both of his companions were in the truck. “Who the frick?” he asked as the cage roller barreled in the opposite direction of the oncoming truck.

  “They took the radios from the helicopters. We barely had any warning,” Warner said.

  Cedric kept the engine gunned as he drove through the field. Within a minute, he had their truck back on the road and was headed for home.

  Cedric never noticed it. He wasn’t a trained soldier. Warner had never seen real combat before. But Steph never had time to shout her concern. By the time she registered the backpack on the side of the road, it was too late.

  Cedric tried to push himself up from the cold floor but his muscles were stiff and weak. All he could manage to do was roll over on his side. When he did, he began to cough.

  He wiped his mouth. It was sticky and wet. Cedric pulled his hand away to see the red glint of blood. He felt his heart rate increase and the short burst of adrenaline reawakened his muscles. He was standing, ready to fight, before he realized it.

  He instinctively reached for his pipes, but his belt was gone. He looked around the room in the dim lighting but didn’t see it. All he could see was emptiness. He could tell he was barefoot on a carpeted floor, but he did not recognize it.

  Cedric felt his way around the walls and finally found the door. He tried to twist the knob, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Where am I?” He muttered to himself.

  He pushed the palms of his hands hard on his eyes trying to think. The last thing I remember was talking over my plan with Eric.

  Cedric ran through the memory step by step in his head.

  I went inside. Eric was waiting at my desk. We planned to take the airman and Steph to the crash site. After that, I left to get dinner.

  “What did I do then?” Cedric said out loud.

  He was straining to remember. He raised his hand to his head and began to rub his scalp but it started to sting like rugburn.

  “What the Hell happened to me?” Cedric said.

  “The same thing that happened to me,” a voice said from the other side of the room.

  Cedric jumped in surprise. It took his eyes another minute to finish adjusting, but he finally saw Warner laying on the floor on the other side of the room. “How long have we been here?” he asked.

  “Just overnight, I think,” Warner said. “We’ve got morning light coming in. But, I don’t know if it’s the next morning after we left. I just woke up about six hours ago.”

  “Any way out?” Cedric asked.

  “None.”

  “What happened?”

  Warner paused before speaking. “What’s the last thing you actually remember. Keep thinking. Do you remember driving us to the fields?”

  Cedric closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. “Yes. I remember that. Then, driving through the fields collecting the turrets. Then, I went to get the last solar panel because I didn’t want to be in the open attic while it was raining.”

  “Do you remember leaving the attic?” Warner asked.

  “Nope,” Cedric said.

  “That’s probably a good thing,” he replied. “A little bit of amnesia. Wish I had that.”

  “Wish I didn’t,” Cedric said sitting against the wall. “Where’s Steph?”

  “That’s why it's better that you have amnesia, brother,” Warner said sitting up.

  “Where is Steph?” Cedric asked again a bit sterner. “What happened?”

  “You were driving down the road pretty fast,” Warner said. “It was raining, hard to see. All of a sudden, Steph screamed that she saw an IED. Then, boom.” Warner mimed an explosion with his hands.

  “We were blown up?” Cedric asked.

  “Nah,” Warner said. “The bomb was pretty lame, actually. The truck is very heavy. But, the road was wet. It pushed us into the ditch. You really don’t remember?”

  Cedric tried to think, but his head was throbbing. “None of this,” he said.

  Warner sighed. “Well, we were stuck. The ditch was too slick. And, well, the truck was heavy. We bailed. We took to the tree line. Steph was in front.”

  Cedric closed his eyes as a brief flash of memory stirred. “We were running through the trees,” he stated flatly.

  “That’s what I said,” Warner replied.

  “No,” Cedric said. “I kind of remember running.” Cedric kept replaying that memory over and over in head. Each time, it was a bit clearer.

  “Man,” Warner said. “Steph…”

  Cedric ignored what Warner was saying while he thought. The memory was almost there. Cedric swayed as he strained his thoughts. Before he realized it, he was standing. His fists clenched. Sweat beaded across his entire body as he shivered.

  Down! He heard himself shout in his head. He could see the light coming through the leaves in the woods. It had a green filter to it.

  Pop, pop, pop! The memory of the gunfire rang again.

  He watched Steph fall. He co
uld see the blood gathering on her chest.

  No! Cedric shouted.

  Then, the memory was done. Cedric vomited.

  “Steph,” he said. “What happened after that?”

  “They came for us. We were trying to stop the bleeding, but they showed up.” Warner explained. “You tried to fight, but they had you down quick. I don’t know what they used. I couldn’t find any bullet holes on you.”

  “They shot me?” Cedric asked patting himself on the chest.

  “I thought they did. I mean, they had a gun. But, I didn’t hear any shots at first. Then you got back up.” Warner explained.

  Cedric sat for a few seconds letting this soak in before he asked, “What were you doing?”

  “Putting pressure on the wound,” he responded. “Until they shot me.”

  “Oh, crap,” Cedric said kneeling down, “where at?”

  “The head, same as you.” Warner turned to show the spread of minor abrasions on his scalp.

  “What?” Cedric asked.

  “Rock salt,” a voice said from the other side of the room. Neither Cedric nor Warner had heard the door open. “Do we need to cuff you, or will you cooperate?”

  “Where’s Steph,” Cedric asked the newcomer.

  “She’s being treated,” the man said.

  Cedric could only see his vague outline, but he knew in his current state, he couldn’t take him. He was big and bulky. Maybe even bigger than Eric, he thought.

  Cedric and Warner followed the man out of the room and into a hallway. There was a small group of people holding guns, ready just in case.

  “Where are we,” Cedric asked.

  “Not my place to tell you,” the man said. His voice was a lot lighter than would be expected for a man of his size.

  “Who are you?” Cedric persisted.

  “Not my place,” the man said again.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing,” the man said.

  Cedric was about to ask another question when the man said, “Just shut up and follow me. Make it easy. If we were going to kill you, we would have already.”

  “Unless you wanted information,” Warner said. “Then you could try to sweet talk it out of us. Then kill us. And if we didn’t cooperate, you’d torture us and kill us.”

  “Do you always think this way?” The big man asked.

  Cedric began to take stock of the hallway. That’s a lot of doors. He thought. Hotel. What hotels are in Morristown?

  “With the room stripped, I didn’t recognize this as the Holiday Inn,” he said.

  The big man just shook his head as he kept walking.

  “I guess if I left here, I could just keep going East and I’d get back to the spot we were kidnapped at,” he said.

  “You’re really not that subtle,” the big man said. “Your boy here doesn’t need to know which way to run if you try to give him a chance to escape. Just follow me.”

  Cedric didn’t try to talk again. He just kept following the man. He wanted to see Steph and make sure she was alright.

  A few minutes later, after a climb up a flight of stairs and multiple turns, they were led into a room with hospital-style beds. Cedric saw Steph lying on one of the beds, unconscious, and raced past the big man to her side.

  He immediately felt for a pulse in her neck. Her skin was warm. He searched for a few seconds until he felt the slight thump under his fingertips.

  “She seems to be hanging in,” a man said from the corner.

  Cedric turned to see a smaller man sitting in an armchair. He had been reading a book but was now putting it down on a coffee table.

  “Where was she shot at?” Cedric asked.

  “He likes to ask questions, Hermon,” the big man said.

  Well, there’s one name, Cedric thought.

  “That’s fine,” Hermon said. “She took two bullets. One in the arm, one in the chest, near the shoulder. She’s lucky. It missed her lungs. But, she’s lost a lot of blood. We don’t exactly have the best medical supplies here.”

  “Why did you shoot her to begin with?” Cedric blurted out.

  “We didn’t,” Hermon said. “A drone did. And that was by accident. Why were you in the field stealing our drones?”

  “Because they shot at us,” Cedric shot back. “And they shot down military helicopters. Why did you put automatic turrets in a field to shoot people?”

  “That was…” Hermon started. He stopped to clean his glasses. “A very unfortunate mistake. A very unfortunate oversight. And I am very sorry about that.”

  “A mistake?” Warner said angrily. Cedric could see how Warner’s entire body language was different than he’d seen him thus far. “An oversight? If they weren’t designed to shoot people, what were they designed for?”

  “They were designed to shoot deer and other game,” Hermon said.

  Warner backed up and sat down on an empty bed. “You’re telling me that I almost died, my flight partner died, our mission compromised, and Steph was shot, all because you didn’t want to hunt?”

  “As I said…” Hermon began.

  “I swear to God, if you say the words mistake or oversight again, I’ll drop you before beefcake can save you,” Warner spat out in a fury standing back up.

  “Cool it,” the beefcake said.

  Warner turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Nobody stopped him, but three men with guns did follow close behind.

  Cedric sat down on the foot of Steph’s bed. “So, what’s with the ambush in the woods, then?”

  “I’m afraid to respond,” Hermon said coolly. “Will you respond as Jace Warner did?”

  Cedric thought about the man’s words for a moment before asking, “How do you know his name?”

  Hermon walked the few feet to a dresser and removed a set of dog-tags from the top drawer. “He’s a soldier.”

  Cedric nodded and then answered Hermon’s question, “Are you going to say that was a mistake, too? An oversight?” Cedric had put the word ‘oversight’ in air quotes.

  “No,” Hermon said. “I would say a miscommunication.”

  “Wasn’t a lot of communication on your part,” Cedric said.

  “Yours either,” Hermon rebuffed. “But, we should have waved a white flag or something. Maybe shouted. We haven’t had much contact with the outside world in a few months. We are kind of at a loss at how to proceed.”

  “So, you’re saying that you had no ill intent when you put the IED on the side of the road? When your boys shot us with…” Cedric paused and looked at the big man, “what was it again? Rock salt?”

  “IED?” the big man said. “That was a flashbang. It was to try to get you to stop. It didn’t have any real explosives in it.”

  “Warner said it blew us off the side of the road,” Cedric said.

  “Hah,” the big man said with a chuckle. “You swerved into that ditch, big guy.”

  “Mark, please,” Hermon said.

  Two names, Cedric thought.

  “Okay, the rock salt?” he asked.

  “You came at us,” Hermon said. “We hit you with non-lethal weapons, at least.”

  “You shot me in the head with rock salt,” Cedric said. “And Warner said you shot me with something else before that.”

  “You don’t remember?” Hermon asked.

  “The guard outside of their room said the boy’s got amnesia,” Mark said.

  “Interesting,” Hermon said looking at Cedric.

  “So, what do you say about that, doc?” Cedric asked.

  “Oh, no,” Hermon said. “I’m no doctor. We actually don’t have a doctor.”

  “So, who treated Steph?” Cedric asked.

  “I stopped the bleeding,” Hermon said walking to her side. “We chatted, she’s doing fine.”

  “Okay, Hermon,” Cedric said getting up. “If we are chalking all of this up to a misunderstanding, how about we just let bygones be bygones and we leave?”

  “You’re wanting to get her back t
o your doctor?” Hermon asked.

  “Who said we’ve got one. It's just the three of us,” Cedric said.

  “You suck at lying, kid,” Mark said.

  “We said we already talked with Steph, Cedric,” Hermon said going back to his armchair. He grabbed his coffee and took a few sips.

  “Am I a prisoner?” Cedric asked.

  “No.”

  “Are we free to leave?” he followed up.

  “Yes,” Hermon answered.

  “Where’s our stuff?”

  Hermon pointed to the dresser he’d pulled the dog-tags from. Cedric walked to it while Hermon said, “Second drawer for you, Cedric.”

  He pulled the knobs and saw his weapon’s belt and armor. Cedric tacked on the armor first and immediately slung the belt overtop of it.

  “How do you plan on moving her?” Hermon asked. “We’ve given her a sedative. She’s in a lot of pain.”

  “Where’s our truck?” Cedric asked in response.

  “I imagine it’s still in the ditch,” Mark said. “We’ve got exactly one vehicle. It can’t pull that truck from the ditch, so we left it.”

  “Can we borrow your truck?” Cedric asked.

  “Like I said,” Mark responded. “We’ve got exactly one vehicle.”

  Cedric huffed as he began to pull Steph’s clothes, armor, and weapons out of her drawer. For the first time, he noticed her clothes had been changed. She was wearing baggy sweats.

  “Don’t worry,” Hermon said. “She changed clothes herself.”

  Cedric nodded. Without asking permission, he dropped all of Steph’s belongings on the bed next to her and began wrapping them in the bedsheet. He could almost hear Hermon’s disgust.

  “I’m going to get a car. I’ll be back within an hour. I’d like Warner to stay in here with Steph,” Cedric said. He didn’t leave room for any dispute. “And you need to remove those freaking menace turrets before they kill someone else.”

  “They’ve been shut down. We are going to rethink our tactics. We didn’t know anyone else was alive out there,” Hermon said. Then he added, “Steph will be fine, but please take Warner with you.”

  Cedric paused when he got to the door. “How many people are here?”

  “Thirty,” Hermon said. “We stayed shut up until our food started to run out. Then, we just started building what we could.”