Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 Page 10

  Mike’s face had paled as he looked back toward the neighborhood. “I was a rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard for about six years,” he said quietly. “Saw a lot of things I’ll never forget during those six years, but the worst of it was my last active assignment. I was part of the crews that responded to the Katrina aftermath in Louisiana and Mississippi. I’ve smelled that smell before.”

  Mike’s voice trailed off, and when he didn’t continue Alyssa asked, “Well, what is it?”

  “Death,” Mike answered in a whisper, “And lots of it.”

  Ch.19

  Peace Offering

  The sun sat nearly halfway to the horizon in the western sky when Joe heard his wife's footsteps through the leaf litter beneath the trees. He whistled to Chris, who stopped and leaned back against the trunk of a broad oak tree. They were at the upper edge of the woods that skirted the vineyard now, and Eric should be no more than a hundred and fifty yards ahead of them through the trees. Chris let the hammer slip from his fingers, and he sank to the ground beneath the shade of the tree, his shirt dripping sweat.

  Beth brought them a basket with three jars of cool well water and a small Ziploc bag of peanut butter and cracker snacks. Joe took two of the jars of water and handed one of them to Chris, who nodded in thanks. Joe drank three large gulps and munched a few crackers for energy, then gave the rest to Chris.

  After he was a bit refreshed, Beth jerked her head for Joe to follow her a little ways down the fence. When they were safely out of ear shot, Beth turned and planted her hands on her hips. "We need to see how the other families on the Run are doing, Joe. We haven't heard from anybody since Aunt Betsy came down the road, and she didn't exactly bring good news."

  "Well, that's probably a good sign," Joe said, but he held up a hand when Beth started to huff. "I'm not sayin we don't need to talk to people. We do, and I think it'd be best to talk to everyone at once so we know everyone hears the same thing at the same time. But, before we started bringin a whole crowd of people down here, I wanted to get a few things set. This fence being one of them." Joe tugged on the first line of fence they'd put up. "Now that this is getting done, I think it needs to be tomorrow."

  Beth was already nodding her head before Joe had finished talking. "We'll do a late lunch. Get everyone down here just after the heat of the day to eat and talk; that way they can get back home before dinner."

  "Now wait a minute," Joe said. "I didn't mean we were going to feed everyone."

  "Now Joe," Beth said, shaking her head and wagging a finger at him, "you can't expect people to just show up and go off hungry. That ain't right. We'll ask them all to bring a little something, and we'll cook some things, and it'll all work out fine, honey." Joe opened his mouth with a reply, but Beth just patted him on the arm, kissed his cheek, and turned to go. "Don't you worry about a thing. Me and the girls will take care of all the arrangements." Beth called over her shoulder at him.

  Beth was almost gone through the trees before Joe could process what she'd meant. "Hey, wait, you're not going out by yourself, are you?"

  "What?" Beth called from the edge of the vineyard, her voice faint but clear. "I can't hear you!" Then she was gone.

  Joe cursed under his breath. He turned back to the fence, and Chris was doing a passable job of pretending he hadn't heard what they'd been saying. Joe just looked at him, heaved a heavy sigh, and shook his head. "Let's get to it, Chris. If we keep this pace, we might be able to get the third run finished this evening."

  Chris nodded and picked up his hammer and the pouch of U-shaped brackets. "You got it, Captain," he replied without even a trace of sarcasm.

  The two wrapped their jars of water in their newspaper shells and stuffed them back into the bags and then put the plastic bundles back in the basket Beth had left them. They left the refreshments for the next time they passed them and set off once again. Within a few minutes, they reached Eric and tied the two strands of fencing together.

  "Well, it's starting to look like a real fence," Joe said with a smile and squeezed Eric's shoulder. "How are you holding up, son?"

  Eric shrugged slightly. "Tired, sore, and scratched up," he replied, "Other than that, I'm good."

  Joe nodded. "Well, let's get the third run done and call it a day, then, shall we?"

  Since they had met between post trees, Eric and Joe simply tied their strands together where they were, and they started the return trip. They each had two extra spools with them, and before they could use all of those, Henderson would have them both re-supplied with wire. Eric wrapped his end of the strand around the post tree nearest to him, and Tom tacked it up. This last strand was chest high and would make the fence tough to navigate around once it was secure. Eric and Tom waived and then disappeared among the trunks, headed back toward the road.

  Joe turned and went his own way with Chris tacking the fence to the trees behind him. With the three levels of barbed wire, the perimeter fence was relatively secure, but Joe would have felt better if they'd had concertina wire to weave in among the barbed wire strands to discourage tampering. It took a brave soul to try and hand snip concertina wire, and even with great skill it usually meant stitches. Joe had a pretty good idea where to get some, but it would take time to set up and execute that kind of plan, and for now they needed something to provide security.

  The men worked in silence for a while before Chris asked, "So how long did you give the kid?"

  "Three days," Joe replied. He and Eric had told the rest of the group nothing more than Brant's home had burned, but that he was okay and had been offered shelter with them. "I told him that if he wasn't here by sunrise on the fourth day, well, the door might not be open anymore."

  Chris didn't say anything for several moments as Joe wrapped the fencing around the marked trees so Chris could hammer up the brackets. From his expression, though, Joe could tell he was brooding about something. "You really going to turn him away?" Chris asked after a moment. "Are you going to tell this kid you've known for his whole life that you can't help him and that he's on his own? Doesn't sound like you, Captain."

  "I told you when I retired to stop calling me that," Joe growled. "Look, we can't just take everybody in the world in and provide for them. This farm ain't big enough. Eventually we've got to draw a line."

  "What about his cows? We might end up needing them." Chris said softly.

  Joe snorted a brief chuckle. "You know Chris, Levy has a saying..... you should hoe the row you in and forget about the one next to you."

  Chris frowned. "I didn't grow up on a farm, Captain. What does that mean?"

  "We've got plenty to worry about in front of us right now. We'll worry about Brant Thompson and his cows if we need to and not until then."

  "You really did sound like a wise old man there, Capt. Good job," Chris said with a grin and a wink for Henderson who came jogging up with two new bundles of barbed wire slung on his back.

  "I've got your old man right here," Joe grumbled. "I think what you're really trying to say is that I'm not going fast enough for you and that's why you have so much breath for questions. Well, if that's the case, young buck, I can fix that. Let's see if you can keep up."

  "Well, if you want to keep up with the other team, you'd better hurry," Henderson said. "They'd already finished out the one spool and were halfway through their last one when I got to them headed back the other direction."

  Henderson turned and jogged back through the trees toward the old pack barn where Joe had stored this stock of barbed wire rolls. Cutting straight across the fields was a lot easier than making a circuit of the acres of forest and fields they were fencing. Even though he'd made multiple trips, Henderson was barely winded.

  "I'll have to take the next two trips to Eric," Henderson called. "You'll probably be low when I get back, but I won't let you run out, sir."

  Joe looked at Chris and shook his head slowly. "No way we can let Eric beat us back to the road. He'll never let us live that down."

  Chri
s nodded. "Questions can wait. Let's get moving."

  Joe set a hard pace moving through the trees. The forest floor was uneven and made things even more difficult than the dense underbrush. The first two runs of fencing had broken the path along its length fairly well, so Joe was able to move much quicker this time. Chris kept pace with him, though neither man had enough spare breath to speak. By the time Joe and Chris passed along the back wall of the pack barn, the sun was low in the western sky, its lower limb almost touching the tops of the trees in the distance.

  "Who's ahead?" Joe called to Henderson as they passed the barn.

  Henderson stood with his hands on his knees, breathing hard and soaked with sweat as well. Both teams had picked up their pace, and the result had been even harder on Henderson as he tried to keep them supplied with wire spools. "It's close, sir, but I think you got'em by a nose." Henderson panted.

  Joe nodded and pushed on, his arms and legs burning. He was bruised in several places and had taken a nasty fall against a holly tree that resulted in a decent gash across his left forearm. Neither he nor Chris were moving nearly as fast anymore, but they were moving as fast as they could. The fence was tight behind them and felt strong each time Joe stopped to pull on it. They had pushed hard for a while and were now doing everything they could just to keep a strong steady pace.

  Joe and Chris covered the last hundred and fifty yards to the road in a daze. They were both exhausted, but Joe was happy to see they had reached the road first. He smiled broadly and turned to congratulate Chris, but he pulled up short at the sour expression his partner wore. Chris pointed silently across the white sand driveway, and Joe's eyes followed his finger to a spool of barbed wire set neatly by the base of one of the two towering pine trees that served to mark the end of the yard. The fence was connected still to the top of the three layers of fence, so there was no mistaking what it meant. Eric and Tom had finished first after all.

  Joe could only shake his head. "Worth a shot, I guess."

  "His run was shorter than ours that last leg," Chris said with a wink.

  "Yeah," Joe gasped, holding his side, "we'll go with that."

  "You want to tie off the road?" Chris asked.

  Joe shook his head and straightened. He pointed to the deep soft sand that formed the dike standing between the two towering pines. "There's Eric and Tom's tracks going back toward the house," Joe said, and then he pointed to another set of tracks. "But these are smaller, and there's more of them. Five, maybe six different sets of shoes, and they're all headed away from the house."

  "Okay," Chris said slowly. "Who left?"

  Joe barked a short chuckle. "I'm pretty sure I know," he said as he leaned his rifle against the pine tree on their side of the road. "And I'm pretty sure I'm going to have words with her when she gets back."

  CH.20

  Up To Speed

  Marcus closed the folder and slid it back across the desk to Commander Price. For a long moment, he sat with his hands resting on his knees, staring at the desktop, his thoughts racing through his head too fast to track. So many questions crowded his thoughts at once that he couldn't sort through them all.

  "You're certain?" Marcus asked finally, shaking his head slightly. It wasn't that he doubted Commander Price and his analysis, but more that he was hoping somehow that it wasn't so.

  Commander Price picked up the file and held it for a moment, a deep frown creasing his forehead and face. "No," he responded at last, "I'm not certain. If I was, I would have put a bullet in his head the last time he came to my office in his slick suit and oily smile. It's just a very strong suspicion at this point."

  "A suspicion that looks like it's backed up with a lot of hard evidence sir," Marcus replied. After a moment, he pressed his palms on the desk and leaned slightly forward in his seat. "So what do we do to stop it? How do we even begin? This guy's in the system. He's what, second in command once Cogcon 0 is in effect? Third? I mean, technically this guy is your boss, right?"

  Commander Price took a long deep breath and let it out slowly. "You know how the Revolutionary War started, Lt. Commander?"

  Marcus frowned and had to think a moment before answering. "Um...I think it was Lexington and Concord, right?"

  Commander Price nodded slowly. "Seventy four men. That's what it was at first. Seventy four men went out and stood to face the British. Seven hundred red coats and seventy four colonials. With the ones that said 'yes' to our invitation, we've got somewhere between four hundred and fifty, four hundred and sixty five?

  "Something around there, yes," Marcus answered. "A third of them are systems maintenance and service, though."

  "Well," Commander Price said with a shrug, "it's a start. We're only outnumbered about a thousand to one, after all."

  Marcus couldn't help but chuckle. "What do you need me to do, Commander Price?"

  Commander Price tossed the file into the bottom right drawer of his desk and locked it. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers on his chest. "There's a sealed briefing packet in your quarters, Lt. Commander. I placed it there myself this afternoon. Read it and study it tonight. Be at my office at 0800 tomorrow and we'll get started." Marcus nodded and stood to go. "And Lt. Commander, wear your uniform. You'll find it in your quarters as well."

  Marcus nodded again and closed the door behind him.

  Ch.21

  Unexpected Company

  Mike stopped and put the small pair of binoculars to his eyes again. He scanned the collection of buildings but still saw no movement. The sun was low on the western sky now and would be fully set in less than an hour. Alyssa knelt behind him, straining to see the buildings in the distance with only her eyes. Mike lowered the binoculars and then handed them to her.

  "Nothing's moving," Mike said softly, "but things have changed since I was here." He pointed to the main road leading into the complex. "The trailers that are there blocking the road were over by the main building and loaded with boats. The windows on the first floor weren't boarded up."

  "Do you think someone's inside?" Alyssa asked, handing the field glasses back.

  "Could be," Mike answered with a shrug. "You wouldn't put that kind of trouble into a place if you didn't plan to stay, right? I'm more worried about whether we can get a boat down to the river without whoever's down there finding out about it."

  "Why not just ask if we can have one?" Alyssa said, puzzled.

  "Look, we don't know who's down there," Mike replied. "Those neighborhoods we passed, someone went through door to door killing people. We don't know if that someone is down there, or if people who survived that are down there. Either way, they're probably not too interested in meeting a couple of strangers with guns, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not too interested in meeting them. We've got our own stuff to worry about and that's more than enough at the moment. If I can find a way to get a boat without talking to anyone, that's what I'm going to do."

  "Okay," Alyssa said, putting her hands up, "I get it. You're right. I just don’t like the idea of stealing.”

  Mike stood and shouldered his rifle. “Neither do I, but we don’t have much choice. If we get in the woods and circle around, there’s a maintenance shed where they keep boats that need work and some of the staff boats. We should be able to find something we can use there and we stay out of sight along the way.”

  “How do you know so much about the grounds? Did you work here?” Alyssa asked.

  “Remember that friend I told you about?” When Alyssa nodded, Mike continued, “Well, I used to come up here during the summer, and he’d sneak me into the park for free. On his lunch break, we’d slip around to the back of that shed and burn a joint or two.”

  Alyssa frowned and shook her head slowly. “Why’d you stop? Get caught?”

  Mike chuckled. “Nah, I guess we just got older and grew out of it,” he answered with a slight shrug. “You reach a certain age when all of a sudden, getting stoned isn’t worth a job and jail time. Anyway, we’d better get moving.
It’ll be dark before we get to the shed as it is.”

  Mike crossed to the far side of the power line cut through before Alyssa could say anything else. The woman could find a reason to argue with a stone, and he was halfway sure she'd win the argument. He kept a good twenty or thirty yards of trees between himself and the cleared buffer zone around the grounds of the whitewater center. The course was large, and it was nearly a four thousand foot circuit around the outside of the park.

  The shadows beneath the trees were long and dark, which made it more difficult to pick out a good path. Mike moved as quickly as he could, but the woods weren't familiar to him so it was slow progress. At one point, the line of trees between the artificial water course and the river narrowed to less than forty yards total, and Mike picked up his pace. Once they were across the narrow strip of trees and sand, Mike dropped to one knee and rested for a moment. Alyssa hit the ground behind him badly out of breath.

  "How far do we have left?" Alyssa asked after a moment.

  Mike shrugged slightly and handed her a bottle of water from his pack. "Hard to say, but with how close the river just got, I'd say we're about half-way around the course."

  Alyssa took a long drink from her bottle then nodded. "Good," she said, "I don't think I could take much more than that. My legs feel like they're ready to fall off, and it's getting so dark I can barely see."

  Mike thought about it for a moment, then pointed to the edge of the tree line. "C'mon. Let's see if anyone is moving back toward the buildings. The sun's gone now, and if we're careful we should be able to get a clear view without being seen."

  Mike pulled the small binoculars from his pack and moved slowly and carefully through the trees. As the trunks thinned out, he dropped to a crouch and then crawled through the dense pine needles and leaf litter of the forest floor. When he reached the last two tall pine trees before the open grassy area that lead up to the whitewater center's fenced off perimeter, Mike rose to one knee. He braced the binoculars against a tree trunk and scanned the backs of the buildings that faced them.