Officer Of The Watch: Blackout Volume 1 (15 page)

The bearded man raised a bottle of whiskey to his mouth with one hand, and a .45 pistol with the other.  He began shooting, the flashes from the muzzle of the pistol clear and unmistakable.  There was a loud pop as one of the rounds impacted the windshield of the Humvee.  The bullet left a round scar on the glass, but failed to penetrate.  Tom flinched instinctively as another round hit directly in front of his face.

Joe pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the Humvee surged forward.

The small group of loyal supporters suddenly lost their faith and scurried out of the road like squirrels.  The bearded man, however, stood and continued firing shots at the approaching Humvee.  Too late, his eyes went wide with fear.  The bottle and the pistol slipped from his hands, and he started to turn to his left.  There was a sickening wet thunk as the Humvee struck the man, and he crumpled under the impact and the right side of the truck bounced roughly once.

Joe never took his foot off the gas.

Ch. 31

The Dogs Of War

The dirt and gravel road was rougher than Eric remembered.  The leaf springs in Mr.  Sheickles' old Bronco hadn't been upgraded to modern shock absorbers, and he could feel every stone and rut the tires hit.  Mike rode next to him, trying not to lose the cold lunch they'd shared at Eric's house.  The Bronco hit an especially hard bump that shook Eric so bad he briefly lost sight of the road ahead of him. 

When the Bronco settled, Bill was standing in the road about twenty yards away, his revolver in his good hand and leveled at the Bronco. 

"Put it in park!" Bill called loudly.  "Or I start shootin!"

Eric slammed on the brakes and threw the Bronco out of gear.  Just to be on the safe side, he switched the engine off too.  There was no way that Bill could see clearly into the cab at that distance, and Eric wasn't interested in testing his marksmanship. 

"Hands out the window, both of ya!" Bill called, and when Eric and Mike complied, Bill started forward.

"Bill!" Eric called when the ex-Ranger had cut the distance between them in half.  "Bill, it's me, Eric, and Mike! Don't shoot us, all right"

Bill didn't say a word, but he kept the revolver trained on them until he was able to come up even with Eric's window.  Bill stayed a good ten feet back, but once he saw who was inside the truck, and that they were alone, he dropped the revolver and relaxed.

"Jesus H," Bill gasped.  "I damn near shot you boys.  Where'd you get a set like this?"

"His neighbor," Mike said, jerking his head towards Eric, "Mr. Sheickles."

Bill shook his head.  "Must have been a heck of a nice guy."

Eric said, "Yes," at the same time Mike said, "Not really."

Bill looked confused but chose not to ask.  Instead, he said, "It's good you're back finally.  There's something you need to see."

"Yeah, you too," Eric said, and he reached in his back pocket and pulled out the flier he'd kept.  "Two C-130's came over dropping these things by the thousands over my neighborhood."

He handed the folded paper over to Bill.  Bill read the pamphlet, shook his head, then read it again. 

"I don't get it," Bill said.  "This thing happened what, a day and a half ago? When have you ever seen the federal government mobilize that quickly on anything?"

"What do you mean?" Mike asked.

Bill handed the pamphlet back to Eric.  "Well, do you really think they've just got cargo planes sitting around with these things loaded on them, fueled an ready to go all the time, just in case something like this would happen?"

Eric nodded his head.  "I see what you mean," he said slowly.  "It'd take the government days just to unpack and ship the flyers, much less load them and coordinate a mass air drop.  They had to start that..."

Bill finished the thought for him.  "Weeks ago," he whispered.

Eric felt the blood drain from his face.  If what Bill was saying was true, it meant that the airplanes they'd watched and likely the ones that had bombed the bridges the night before were all part of the same group that had launched the attack in the first place.  The invasion wasn't coming, it was already under way.

Bill swallowed hard.  "I know," he said.  "And it gets worse.  Did y'all see the tanks?"

Ch. 32

A Helping Hand

Joe drove down Highway 17S along the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.  On the right shoulder of the road trees and brush grew thick and heavy, coming almost up to the edge of the pavement.  On the other side of the hedgerow were a narrow, but deep canal, and then the swamp itself.  To the left, wide open fields planted with soybeans and peanuts stretched to a thin dark line of trees that had to be at least a couple of miles distant. 

The shadows cast by the trees on the right side of the road were beginning to stretch in the late afternoon sun, and Joe was looking hard for a place to stop for the night.  He had only driven this route to Norfolk a handful of times, and never in the dark.  Most of the turns and side roads were familiar to him, but he wasn't sure how he'd manage in the pitch black night.  Plus, a moving set of headlights on a dark and deserted highway would stand out to anyone close enough to see them.

Joe snapped quickly out of his brooding thoughts as a small figure stepped out into the road a half mile ahead and started frantically waiving around a white piece of fabric.  Joe slowed down, and as they got closer he could see that the figure was a young boy of ten or eleven waiving a white T-shirt much bigger than himself.  The boy didn't budge from the middle of the road, forcing Joe to come to a complete stop or hit him.

The boy ran up to Joe's door as he rolled the window down.  "Mister!" he called, breathless.  "Mister you gotta come help! He's hurt bad, and you gotta come help!"

Joe frowned.  "Hold on, son," he said.  "Who's hurt bad?"

"My little brother," the boy panted.  "He fell this morning and his arm's hurt bad.  Momma said come and stop the first people I seen, an you was them."

Before Joe could say anything else, the little boy turned and sprinted down a gravel drive towards an old colonial farm house.  The house was set in a semicircle of towering oaks about a quarter mile from the highway.  Behind the main house was a large cattle barn and three smaller side barns and out buildings.  The boy stopped about halfway to the house and started waving his shirt again. 

Joe looked over at Tom who shrugged and said, "Your call, man, but Chris was a PJ and I bet he could help."

Joe nodded and turned the Humvee off the highway and drove down the dirt driveway after the boy.  When he saw the truck was following, the boy turned around and took off running again, glancing back every few yards to make sure Joe was still behind him.  The boy bounded up the steps of the wrap-around porch and through the front door when he reached the house.  Joe pulled the Humvee in a wide arc in the flat yard of the house and positioned the vehicle so it was facing out the driveway they'd just come down in case they needed a rapid escape.

As Joe parked the Humvee, an older man in faded denim coveralls and a flannel button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows came out of the farmhouse.  He carried a double barrel shotgun in one hand and a massive Browning automatic rifle in the other.  The old farmer set the shot gun down against one of the porch columns, but he held the BAR with the ease and comfort that only comes with an intimate knowledge of a weapon system.

"Tom, you stay put," Joe said, "and be ready to jump in the driver's seat and take off if that guy tries to shoot me."

Joe got out of the Humvee slowly, leaving his M-4 behind.  He walked around the back of the vehicle and smiled reassuringly at Henderson and the rest of his passengers.  As he came around the rear of the truck, the farmer focused on him and nodded.  He didn't raise his gun, which Joe decided to take as a good sign, whether it was one or not.

"Your boy said someone was hurt," Joe called.  "I've got a trained Air Force combat medic with me.  He might be able to help."

The old farmer leaned casually over the waist high railing that went around the porch and spat thick purple tobacco juice into the azalea bushes. 

"I seen you eyeing Betsy here," the farmer said, as he patted the butt of the BAR in his hands.  "I carried her from Normandy all the way to Berlin.  Marched through six different countries and the damned Ardennes.  This ol'BAR put more Krauts in the dirt than the plague.  So if things get sideways, I want you to know what's comin."

"I understand," Joe said carefully.  "We don't want any trouble, Mister.  Just want to help if we can and be on our way."

The old farmer nodded.  "Much obliged for the help.  The boys are inside.  You and the medic can come in; the rest of 'em stays out here."

Joe nodded and Chris hopped out of the back of the Humvee.  They both left their side arms in the truck also, just to be on the safe side.  Chris brought the small med kit from the back of the Humvee, and the farmer led them inside and up a narrow set of stairs to a bedroom on the second floor.  The boy from the road was sitting on the floor next to an old wood-frame bed along with a pretty middle-aged woman that looked like the mother.  An elderly woman rocked slowly in a weathered wooden rocking chair in one corner of the room.  In the bed was a small boy with his right arm propped on a stack of pillows and quilts.  The boy's face was pale and sweaty, and his arm was swollen and turned at an impossible angle roughly halfway between his wrist and elbow. 

Joe and Chris stepped into the room first, followed by the old farmer and "Betsy." The elderly woman looked up from a bundle of yarn she was crocheting, and her face twisted into a sour frown.  "Gilbert, why are you carryin around that damned ol' rifle? You can't see good enough to hit the toilet half the time.  God help us you decide to start shootin."

"Maimey, you hush up now," Gilbert growled back.  "I can still see good 'nough to knock a walnut out the top of the tree on a windy day.  'Sides, these boys looks like they got trouble followin them 'round like flies on a dog turd.  If'n you can't see that, then you's blinder than I am, old woman."

Maimey snorted hard through her nose and shook her head to show what she thought about that.  Gilbert sullenly set the BAR in a corner of the room.  He leaned against the nearest wall, his arms folded across a barrel chest, frowning and rolling a ball of chewing tobacco around in his mouth and grumbling under his breath.

"Don't mind them," the younger woman said from the bedside.  "They bicker like that all the time, but they're harmless.  Can you help my boy?"

Chris knelt by the bed.  "Ma'am, my name is Chris, and I'm an Air Force medic.  I'll do everything I can for him, okay?"

The woman trembled a little and unshed tears filled her eyes.  "Thank you," she whispered, patting the young boy's hand.  "Thank you so much!"

Chris nodded and began examining the boy's arm carefully.  He gently lifted the boy's thin wrist, careful to support the weight of his hand.  The boy winced sharply but didn't cry out and didn't shed a tear.  After a moment, Chris laid the boy's hand carefully back on the pillows.

"His arm's broken," Chris said, "but it seems to be broken cleanly.  I'll need to set the bones and splint the arm.  I don't have plaster to make a cast, but a splint should hold it as long as he stays still and doesn't try to use the arm."

The woman tensed, the tears streaming down her face now.  The older boy patted his mother's back, trying to hide his own tears.

"What's the boy's name?" Chris asked.

"Steven," the mother said through her tears.

"Okay," Chris said, "I know you're scared, but I need your help, Ma'am.  I'm going to need strips of cloth, linen if you can manage it, to wrap the splint.  I'll need four pieces of board about two inches by two inches and maybe sixteen inches long or so.  And I'll need a wood spoon.  As big as you can find, okay?"

The woman nodded and left with the older boy in tow to collect the supplies.  Maimey rose slowly and laboriously from her rocking chair, her crocheting project tucked under one arm.  She went to the boy and patted his hand.

"Don't worry, baby," Maimey said.  "The Doctor here's gonna take good care of my baby boy."

Gilbert leaned down and grabbed his BAR.  "I'll get the wood you need," he said gruffly. 

The old farmer reached down and pinched the boy's toes through the blankets on the bed, and the little one smiled wanly at him.  Maimey sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing Steven's hand and singing softly to him.  After a few moments, the boy's eyes drifted closed and his breathing deepened as he drifted into a shallow sleep.

Maimey stood and fixed Chris with a hard glare.  "You fix him up, you hear?" she demanded.  Chris nodded, and Maimey seemed satisfied.  She made her way back to her rocking chair and settled herself back in her seat.  She rocked slowly as she crocheted, singing softly to herself.

CH. 33

A Fork In The Road

The shade of the ancient oak trees surrounding the broken farmhouse ruins gave some relief from the late afternoon heat, but not much.  The air was thick with gnats, mosquitoes, and the sour smell of people who desperately needed a shower.  Without the slight breeze to cool the sweat on Eric's face, it would have been nearly unbearable.  Even with the breeze, though, uncomfortable barely described the way he felt and the expression on every face around him.  The group was tired, nearly exhausted, but they were still together.

Eric sipped slowly on his bottle of purified water.  With the supplies he and Mike had been able to salvage from his house, the group had enough food for several weeks, if they were very careful about rationing.  The water was a different story altogether.  Even if they were careful and used the water only to drink and not for food preparation, they had at best a three day's supply. 

Eric stood and leaned against the Bronco, facing the rest of the group.  "We've got to make some decisions," he began, and every pair of eyes turned towards him expectantly.  Eric shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the attention and the expectations.  He continued, "We have enough food for a while, but our water won't last more than a few days.  Besides, with all of the military hardware moving around in this area, I don't think it's going to be a safe place for much longer."