Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (26 page)

***

Pegged
knew that Beth had
gone
farther
into the woods, but he was not of the mind to follow her in
there
,
in case
she
had
set another trap. He slowly trodded on the highway, confident that she would have to come out eventually
and then the chase would begin again in earnest. Thirst scorched his throat and hunger gnawed at his stomach, but hatred spurred him on. He was confident that he could ride the hate out until the end.

CHAPTER FO
R
TY

Frank was at the observation room when he noticed the three enemy transports pull into the
super market
parking lot.

“Oh
shit
,”
w
as all he could manage as he slammed his cup of coffee down on the desk in front of him.
He depressed the silent alarm and all the lights in the complex went to a red glow.

Paul was in the room almost before Frank had the chance to pull his hand off of the alarm. His face drawn, his skin a little pale
,
although in th
e present
light it was difficult to tell.

“Something must have
gone
wrong with the scouting party
,”
Frank stated
,
never looking away fr
om the screen as dozens of well-
armed troops began streaming from the cargo holds of the transports.
“Either
the gunney
or Dennis have given our whereabouts away
,” Frank said
,
running his hand through his hair.

“No
,
it’s not that
,”
Paul stated. “It’s something different.”

“How can you be so sure?” Frank asked. “Dennis and
the gunney
don’t come back
,
but the enemy does.”

“If Dennis or
the gunney
had been tortured enough to finally give our
position away
,
why would they give them that point of attack? If they had been broken they would have gave up everything
. No,
this is something different. Look how they’re standing around waiting for direction
—
they know we’re around here but they don’t exactly know where.”

Frank wasn’t so sure, but now was not the time
to argue.
T
hey were here and they weren’t going to leave without some convincing.

“Should I send some troops out to greet them?” Frank asked.

“No
,”
Paul answered flatly.

“No? If they breach The Hill we’ll be like fish in a barrel
,”
Frank answered with a little too much vehemence.

“No,
Frank
,” Paul said
as he finally pulled his gaze from the screens and looked Frank dead in the eye. “They don’t know exactly where we are. They may or may not wait for us to show ourselves.
Y
ou can bet that if we engage them in a firefight, we’ll have half the alien nation down here for a tailgating party.”

“We can’t just sit here waiting for them to decide the next course of action
,”
Frank stated, understanding Paul’s words but not liking them any more now that he understood.

“We’ll let them sit for a while, let them stew in their own juices for a bit
,” Paul said
as he walked away.

“I’m sitting here stewing in my own damn juices
,” Frank said
to Paul’s back.

CHAPTER FO
R
TY-ONE

“Well,
I guess ice is out of the question
,” Beth said
as she stepped through the shattered door and into the lightless kitchen of a quaint
Victorian
style house
,
now reduced in grandeur by
graffiti
stating
this was the end.

Pretty prophetic,
Beth thought to herself.
Her
heart picked up a beat or two as she noticed the kitchen sink and the still existent faucet although the majority of the cabinets and a good portion of the countertop were gone. She felt her heart might break if she lifted the handle and nothing happened. She was almost ready to resign herself to the luck that had been following he
r for the last
couple of
year
s
of her life.
S
o sure she was of a dry rattle coming from the hidden piping that she began to turn back to the door, not ready to have another disappointment heaped on her
plate. Thirst won
out, she half-
ran
,
half-leaped to the faucet
,
fearful that it might be some kind of illusion like in the old desert war movies that her father used to watch. A pang of
remorse crossed through her mid
riff
,
more likely it was the beginnings of deh
ydration. She lifted the handle—
nothing happened and then like an awakening monster she heard creaks and pinging from below and then cool cool water came out, although no color of water she had seen.
She half shrieked as the blood-
red water spewed forth from the faucet. Beth couldn’t help but picture a reservoir full of dead bodies releasing the last drops of their
life
’s
blood into the now tainted water supply. Slowly
,
but surely
,
the water began to clear up
.
Beth’s heart
, in proportion,
began to slow when she realized it had only been rust churned up from the bottom of unused pipes. Beth bent her head under the spigot and drank heavily from the near clear water. The metallic taste somehow comforting as the cool liquid course
d down her throat and spread it
s goodness into her stomach. The water was almost a shock to her body which had been getting used to a steady diet of dust.

When she had her fill
,
Beth stood up,
water
sloshing
in
her belly
,
and turned the faucet off, it looked like she had more on the floor than she had drank. Now Beth was ready to investigate her surroundings. Her thirst slaked, the edge of her hunger
dulled for a moment from the mineral rich water. Rifle raised, safety off
,
and hopefully live ammunition in the chamber, Beth stepped over the dismantled cabinet into the living room and into a nightmare.

CHAPTER FOR
T
Y-TWO
- Mike Journal Entry 13

“Damn it
,”
I whispered, as I
put my binoculars down.
I hadn’t really needed them to see what was going on, it was more by habit after cross
ing
in
to Walpole
.
I had decided
we should stick to backstreets and cut through yards as opposed to waltzing down
Main Street
. It panged me more than I care
d
to admit that not one barking dog or irate neighbor came out to yell at us for tearing up their azaleas. But even if anybody had been watching us from their darkened windows, nobody wanted to give a heavily armed column the slightest bit of lip. Danger was all around
,
whether from an invading alien race or bands of marauders de
s
perate to keep themselves alive in the dark days. And 911 wasn’t an option
;
there was no
one on the other end of the line to pick up even if the phone lines still worked. Occasionally
, we would see a half-
starved near feral dog slink away from our advance but nothing more.

“They can’t all be dead
,” I said
to Tracy.

“They’re not. I‘ve seen a few window shades rustle as we go by
,” she answered
. “
Y
ou can’t blame them, they have no idea which side of the line we fall on. Right now everyone looks like the enemy.” Echoing my thoughts.

“Great minds think alike. Unfortunately
,”
I answered.

She looked at me to gauge what exactly
my
response meant, then shrugged her shoulders and moved up the column to give some additional orders to ou
r
point man. Who knows, maybe she was telling him to be less mean
-
looking so some old lady
might
come out and offer us some lemonade. When we finally arrived at the street I grew up on
,
I couldn’t help but feel like the
returning
prodigal son. It wasn’t justified, but I felt it all
the same. And then my already rock bottom heart dug a little deeper. My house was gone, not so much as
a
wall stood,
it
was
just gone. In the twilight
,
it was difficult to tell what had happened, whether my neighbors who felt I had brought this upon them needed to strike out at something that belonged to me or the aliens had made sure I could never go home again I couldn’t tell. I
walked over to the
devastation with
steely determination, lucky for me that
my
emotion
s did not
ma
k
e it to the forefront or I would have begun to cry like an infant. Tracy kept the column moving past as I was rooted to the spot, maybe for some much needed privacy or to give me
incentive to get my
ass moving.