As soon as I unkeyed the microphone, Amy’s voice came back. It
was almost professional sounding, like she had been a 911 dispatcher in a
former life.
“10-4, repeating back. First victim is a white female about twenty
with a serious wound in her lower right abdomen. Unresponsive. Second victim is
Doc’s granddaughter Emily, wounded in upper right shoulder, responsive ten
minutes ago but has since passed out. Third victim is your uncle. No vitals
other than breathing but unresponsive ten minutes ago. All injuries caused by
gunshots only. Is this correct?”
I noticed that she slowed down her speech and emphasized the
question about “gunshots only.”
“Yes,”
I replied,
“gunshots only. I’ll
be on the pavement in twenty seconds. I’m five minutes away . . . where am I
taking them?”
Without skipping a beat she answered.
“Bring them straight
up to the house, they’re already getting a space prepared. What are you
driving?”
Huh???? I didn’t understand her question. What the hell did
it matter what I was driving? My confusion and anger must have shown through
in my answer.
“I’m driving my pickup . . . the green Dodge four by four . . .
WHY?”
“10-4, green Dodge four wheel drive pickup, I’ll tell the
gate not to shoot at you.”
Her answer echoed in my head as I turned on to the blacktop
and dropped the hammer.
I was in triple digits most of the way, finally slowing down
only when I turned past the gas pumps and went around the back of the marina. I
cut around the large workshop on my way to Walter’s driveway, but had to hit
the brakes momentarily as several bright flashlights shined through the
windshield. Three or four figures were waving me through a makeshift gate at
the bottom of the driveway. It was already open, so I tore up the narrow,
twisting road—instantly inundated with memories of the last time I did the same
thing. Slowing down only enough to negotiate the switchbacks, I finally pulled
into Walter’s yard. His house is a split-level modernized log cabin, and one of
the double garage doors was lifting as I coasted to a stop. As soon as I bailed
out of the truck, I was met with a flood of faces. Some were vaguely familiar
to me, others I didn’t have the time or inclination to study. A half dozen
people wearing HAZMAT suits swarmed around the truck bed. It looked like they
were carrying improvised stretchers made of mop handles and bed sheets. I
vaguely recall Michelle passing in front of me, draped heavily with blankets
and being led inside by someone. The flurry of activity in conjunction with my
adrenaline rush left me momentarily speechless and confused until I heard an
explosive snarl followed by several deep barks. The sea of HAZMAT suits turned
into a rapidly expanding circle as Max anchored himself over top of Uncle Andy,
hackles raised and ears laid back. I shook my head, snapping myself back to
reality as I went over to the truck and called Max. He whined briefly, giving
Uncle Andy a final nudge with his nose before hopping down and standing by my
side. Realizing that nobody was going to move as long as I was standing there
with Max, I clicked my tongue and said his name, and we walked down the
driveway about thirty feet before sitting down. The evening air was chilly, hovering
just north of freezing, and I sat there with one hand around my buddy and the
other one supporting my forehead. I hadn’t been there very long when I caught a
whiff of cherry-apple pipe smoke. Walter was standing about ten feet away. He
had his pipe suspended loosely between his lips and hand, and he was looking me
over with a mixture of relief and sorrow.
“You hungry?” Walter asked.
I shook my head no.
A small flashlight appeared in his hand, and he ran the beam
over me, head to toe.
“Are you hurt?
I looked down at myself, comprehension dawning that I was
covered in partially dried blood. Most of it was probably from when I carried Samantha,
but I was sure there was also a mix of Emily’s, Michelle’s, Uncle Andy’s and
the cowboy’s, as well as a smattering of mine. Walter repeated his question.
“No, just some scrapes and bruises,” I answered.
“Mmm-OK . . . what say we get you cleaned up and warm.”
“Not until I find out how they are.”
“Eric my boy, the look on your face could knock a sick
buzzard off a shit wagon at a hundred paces, and I’m sure you’ll get around to
telling me why. But right now I want you to listen to me. A lot of things have
happened here as well. Bad things. And as much as I’d like to tell ya’ that you
can spend the next week on the beach in Jamaica, I’m almost certain that we’re
going to need your ‘A’ game in the near future. Besides, Doc ain’t going to
know anything for awhile, so let’s get you cleaned up and fed while we’re
waiting.”
I looked up at Walter, but his face was unreadable. Or maybe
it was just me. With a sigh I stood up. “OK,” I said, “but I’ve got to find a
place for Max to sleep first. And he needs fed before I do,” I added.
Walter nodded, saying, “We’ll make it happen.”
*click*
And so that’s it. I’m still sitting on the deck, waiting for
the news. Michelle and Max are sleeping in the bedroom I was in a few nights
ago. I’ve seen several people that I remembered from the campground. Crowbar
Mike is here. So is preacher Dave. His wife Rebecca is the nurse that’s been
talking to me. And Amy . . . she was the first one to come up and offer to add
her prayers to mine. I’ll take ‘em. I’m so tired. So emotionally drained and
yet, at the same time, kind of wired. It’s like that fuzzy headed feeling you
get right at the point where you know you’re catching the flu. Or maybe it’s
from the blood I donated. Or lost. My uncle and I are the same type, and the
first thing they did after I got a shower was hit me up for a contribution. I
hope it helps. I pray it helps. It’s got to be almost 5:00 AM by now. I’m
starting to hear the scattered calls of birds, and the faint predawn light is
peeking up in the southeast. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, standing as I
did. My ankle is still raw. I had cut off the duct tape and rewrapped it with
gauze after my shower, but new stitches would have to wait. It took several
stiff limps before my leg loosened up enough for me to walk without being in
imminent danger of falling over. I went inside, momentarily lost in my
tiredness as I tried to remember where I was heading. After another moment’s
indecision, I turned down the hallway and went through the second door on the
right. A lamp on the nightstand was still on, and Michelle’s eyes were open—emerald
green and focusing on me as I entered. She was lying on her side in the double
bed, and lifted the sheets in invitation as I shut the door. Max looked up fleetingly
before resting his head back between his paws. I stripped down to my underwear
and slid under the covers. Michelle and I touched our foreheads together,
sharing a brief glimpse into the depths of each other’s soul as our eyes met. She
smiled. It was a tired, but honest smile. Then she closed her eyes and
stretched her arms out, pulling me close and burying her head in my chest. I
reached around and embraced her, holding her tight as my mind started shutting
down. Somewhere in the distance, the faint cry of a Red-Winged Blackbird sounded.
It was the last thing I remember before I drifted off.
Walter sat down in one of the wicker chairs that surrounded
the oval breakfast table. It was 9:15 AM, and he’d just finished talking to Sam
Ironfeather. As of right now, Sam was in charge of coordinating, well, almost
everything. The main thing was trying to keep everybody calm until they figured
out a course of action. Things had happened, and were still happening at a rate
that outpaced their ability to effectively deal with them. And then there was
Andy, Doc’s granddaughter, and that other girl that Eric had brought in. Doc
had finished his meatball surgery just a few hours ago, and had collapsed from
exhaustion shortly after that himself. Rebecca, the preacher’s wife and nurse,
was somehow still on her feet and checking vitals every fifteen minutes. As if
the thought of Rebecca somehow summoned her, she materialized at the door to
the basement stairs. Walter looked up at the rail thin figure wearing a shower
cap, dust mask and baggy nylon “one size fits most” painter’s suit. She stood
there immobile as their eyes met. A deliberate, silent shake of her head told
Walter the bad news.
“Who?” he asked softly.
…to be continued in book two, Darkness Ascending
Read on for a glimpse at book two in the Fade to Grey series,
Darkness Ascending
Rapidly approaching boot steps distracted Estes from the
bursts of distant gunfire. He leaned over the scarred and chipped rectangular
conference table in the teachers’ lounge, and took another look at the map of
the school. It wasn’t good. They had too few capable bodies to adequately guard
too many points of ingress. With no centralized command structure in place, the
situation had swiftly devolved into the semi-organized chaos of its current
state. Colonel Jordan’s timely removal at the hands of, well, whoever they
were, had at least allowed Estes to temporarily get a grip on the downward
spiral of their circumstances here at the school. But night was also
approaching as fast as the boot steps that he hoped were bringing good news. A
sharp rap on the open door signaled the entry of Sergeant Alex Keene.
“Captain.”
The internal smile at his new pseudo-rank had quickly worn
off with the exponential increase in the demands and responsibilities required
of him. And it had been less than thirty hours since his “promotion.”
Keene was a career NCO; a short, wiry Arizona to New York
transplant with a prematurely leathery face adorned by the standard issue
TBUG’s—thick, black, ugly glasses that the military saw fit to provide at no
cost. Well, no cost besides your pride.
“Sergeant, what did you find out?”
Keene shook his head as he withdrew from his pocket a
partially crumpled, but as of yet untouched by flame, cigar. “You mind?”
Estes grinned. “I think most schools have some kind of no
smoking policy, don’t they?”
“When you hear my news, I think you’ll agree that it ain’t
going to be cancer that either of us is going to die from.”
His grin slowly modifying to a sigh, Estes replied, “In that
case, I hope you brought two.”
A broad smile was accompanied by a second trip to the pocket,
and a few moments later a wispy, translucent haze began to rise towards the
ceiling panels. An upward glance from Estes revealed the presence of a smoke
detector above the door frame. Sergeant Keene followed his glance, and then
slightly shook his head. “Smoke alarms are all cut off. It was one of the first
things I had my guys do.”
Estes understood, and acknowledged with a nod. Most smoke
alarm systems are tied together, and when one went off, they all did. That was
unacceptable in their current situation, especially considering the extreme
likelihood that they may have to fire their weapons inside the school
buildings. And weapon fire creates a lot of smoke. The last thing they needed
was an additional source of noise like an insanely loud fire alarm to draw in
the . . . things.
Turning back to the map, Estes took another drag from the
surprisingly mellow stogie before asking, “What have you got for me?”
“The school’s main generator is down. It ain’t likely going
to come back up either. It took a couple hits in the control panel from some
screwball who wasn’t watching his field of fire this afternoon. Some of the
guys have managed to scrounge a few portable generators from somewhere, and
right now they’re running cords into the end of the northwest wing by medical.”
Keene tapped the end of a hallway displayed on the map they were looking at.
“How much power is that going to give us?”
The sergeant shook his head in a wide, slow arc as he
replied, “Not near enough. Even with the big diesel generator running, we still
had to cut a lot of nonessential systems out of the loop. What’s really going
to suck is that we’re not going to be able to power the athletic field lights.
You’re going to have a lot of kids shooting in the dark, Captain.”
The portable radio clipped to Estes’s belt chatted in stereo
with the one coiling across the sergeant’s shoulder. Three different squads
were reporting in as all clear after the last incursion. No casualties to
friendly forces.
“Well at least there’s some good news today,” Estes noted.
Turning back to the map, he pointed to the northwest hallway and said,
“Sergeant, check my logic on this. Here’s what I’m thinking. This school,” he
indicated with a sweep of his hand over the map, “is basically in the shape of
a giant letter ‘H’. You’ve got two hallways heading north off the main
building, and two hallways heading south. The northwest side is also where the
athletic fields are, and coincidentally, most of our vehicles and supplies. I
think we need to get all of the civilians, hell, everybody that we can, into
the northwest wing. There are fire doors that connect each wing to the main
building, and we can secure those somehow. That is going to greatly reduce the
area we’ll have to cover, as well as giving us quick access to medical and
resupply. I also want every transport vehicle we have gassed up and ready to go
in case we have to bug out. We can put a squad up on the roof at the end of
every wing, and that should give us full circle coverage. How many pairs of
night vision goggles do we have?”
“We had seven, but four of them went down—mechanical issues,
accidents, or just bad luck—I don’t know. Anyhow, that leaves us three.”
“Double check them for function, make sure they’ve got extra
batteries, and then give them to the squads on the roof of every wing except
where we’ll be.”
Keene squinted slightly as he replied, “You don’t want any
for the fire team on the roof of the northwest wing?”
“No,” Estes replied, “one of the Hummers out there has a
thermal imaging camera that we can use.”
“It doesn’t work, sir.”
“Specialist Perkins, one of the guys in my squad, is a whiz
with all of that tech stuff. As of about twenty minutes ago, he had it
operational, at least when the Hummer is running. For some reason it’s not
working on battery power. And, there seems to be an issue with it continuing to
function for longer than a few minutes before it shuts off again.”
“If we can get that into play, it would just be the shit. As
hot as those gray bastards are, they should positively glow in the thermal
scope,” Keene replied.
“That’s what I’m thinking. What other good news do you have
for me sergeant?”
“Ammo’s running low. We’re not out, but we need to watch our
usage.”
Estes nodded as he replied, “Noted. All right then, rest time
is over . . . let’s get everybody moved to the northwest wing.” With a final
puff, he ground out the glowing ember of his cigar tip on the corner of the
conference table.
It was almost midnight when Estes finally had a moment to sit
down. The consolidation of civilians and military personnel had gone fairly
smoothly. There were a few speed bumps, of course, like when they moved Colonel
Jordan and his goon squad from the athletic cage into an empty science lab
close to medical. Weaver had tried to incite a rebellion with anybody who would
listen, at least until the guys on the transport team had threatened to all
piss on a dirty sock and stuff it into his mouth if he didn’t shut up. For a
few moments Estes closed his eyes, rubbing his temples as he did. His brief respite
was disturbed when the requested attendees to the midnight meeting arrived. The
room they had chosen was set up for high school geology, and various samples of
rocks and minerals were scattered on almost every horizontal surface. Sergeant
Keene was first through the door, followed immediately by Corporal Henry. Major
Jeffery Sullivan, the soft-spoken doctor in charge of the medical unit brought
up the rear. Estes stood and saluted as the major entered the room.
“Captain, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Twenty-seven days ago
I was comfortably lounging in my civilian practice making six figures, high six
figures, every year. My biggest worries were my golf handicap and my wife’s
infidelities with whatever boy-toy she hired that week to mow the lawn. Then
Uncle Sam decides to enact a classified recall for previously serving military
physicians, and my rosy world came tumbling down. I never much cared for the
military attitude when I was in, and that hasn’t changed in the seventeen years
since I’ve been out. With all due respect, stop saluting me and acting like I’m
in charge, because I’m not. Until this Major Larrabee gets here, as far as I’m
concerned, you’re the man with the plan.”
“Yes, sir,” Estes stifled a yawn before continuing, “I think
we all need to get some sleep, but before that happens, there’s a couple things
we need to go over. Just so we’re all on the same page, OK?”
Nods of agreement accompanied the weary expressions of the
other three men. Estes turned towards Corporal Henry first. “Where are we at
with numbers, Bones?”
Bones stood and stretched before answering. “Good news and
bad news there. Like you ordered, we gave all of the civilians an option to
exit the school if they wanted. Most of them took us up on the offer, and we
were able to transport them in the APC’s to their houses. It took us most of
the afternoon to make enough trips, and we had several encounters with
hostiles, but it’s done and they’re now in charge of their own fate. I think
most of them were just happy to be out of here. Anyhow, we’re down to
thirty-one civilians. Check that, that’s thirty-one locals. We’ve got other
civilian contractors who have been assigned to various units, mostly medical,
but I’ll get to them in a minute. Anyhow, that’s the good news; that our civilian
numbers are down from almost two hundred to thirty-one. Now, the bad news part
one. The civilians that chose to stay are mostly elderly or infirm, or both.
And now, the bad news part two. As best as I can figure, including us, we’ve
got forty-nine fieldable swinging dicks, although eleven of those don’t have .
. . um, dicks.”
Estes suppressed a grin at the remark, but Sergeant Keene and
Major Sullivan both rolled their eyes skyward.
“Bones, those eleven women, I know at least some of them have
served in a combat role, and all of them have gone through the same basic
training you have, so don’t differentiate them.”
“Yes sir,” Bones replied. “So we’ve got those forty-nine who
are basically combat ready. We’ve got fifteen non-combatant civilian contractors,
again, most of those in some way connected to the medical team. In addition to
that, we’ve got another baker’s dozen of support and logistic personnel. I
can’t give you an accurate number without pulling everybody from everywhere
into a central location and physically checking them off of a list. Most of
those support people are going to be like the good doctor here; people that
have been called up out of the blue or pressed into service somehow—medical,
mechanical, maintenance—that sort of thing. On top of that, we’ve got four
people that I’ve lumped into the ‘specialist’ category. Two of them are the
pilots for that Black Hawk outside, and one of them is an aviation maintenance
crew chief, also with the Black Hawk.”
Keene said, “That’s three, who’s the last one?”
“I can’t say for sure. I found him handcuffed to a pipe down
in the boiler room about an hour ago. Specialist Oakley from the 10
th
Mountain Division out of Fort Drum. He looks like a staff weenie to me, but all
he’ll say is that he’s waiting for Major Larrabee.”
Keene frowned as he replied, “Great, another mystery we don’t
have time for.”
Estes raised his eyebrows in question toward Keene. “What do
you mean ‘another’ mystery?”
Sergeant Keene looked up at the still standing Corporal
Henry, who shrugged his shoulders as he sat down. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Estes nodded and then looked toward the sergeant, who removed
his thick, black framed glasses, rubbed his leathery face with calloused hands
and sighed before speaking.
“The Bradley APC’s that we used to move the civilians out of
the school and back to their houses, well, after the last trip they didn’t come
back.”
“What?”
“They never came back after dropping off the last load of
civilians. Remember though, at least one of the crews were those guys that
fired on the guardsmen, and I’m guessing both of the crews were in the
colonel’s circle. So yeah, we’ve lost a lot of firepower and protection, but
maybe in the process we got rid of a few snakes. We still have the old M113 APC
out there, but my guys say something is wrong with the engine. It’ll start and
idle, but won’t go over five miles per hour.”
“Anything else?”
Keene nodded as he answered, “We’ve got exactly five of the
M35A3’s fueled up, lined up and ready to go if needed. Each one has a small load-out
of ammo and supplies. In a perfect world we could have everybody at the school
on those trucks and heading out of the fence in about eight to ten minutes. It
would be crowded, but we could do it. With that said, we had to park them
pretty close to one another to fit them all inside the fence with all of our
other crap, so our actual ‘get and go’ time is going to be more. On the bright
side, we’ve found enough ammo to provide full combat loads to everybody, plus
another three reloads for most of them. Still, that’s not very much.”
Estes looked toward the slightly balding physician. “Major?”
Electing to stay seated, Major Sullivan yawned, and then
cracked his knuckles before speaking. “I imagine this conversation is way
overdue. How much do you know, do you
really
know, about what’s been
going on?”