First Wave (The Travis Combs Post-Apocalypse Thrillers) (14 page)

The last time Travis was in this area, was six years
earlier to attend a firearms training school that specialized in high-risk,
hostage recovery. He, and two of his fellow unit members, had flown into
Phoenix and then hopped on a small passenger plane with one of the instructors,
who had offered to show them the sights. The small airport was a regional
training facility that provided extensive courses in celestial and land
navigation, for civilian and military groups, along with students from the
nearby aeronautical institute.
If ever there was a good bet for pinpointing
the cryptic coordinates left behind by Jim, it was at the Ernest Love airfield,
thought Travis.

With Nora’s familiarity of the region, they made their
way quickly on the mountain bikes along the desert trails that skirted around
the isolated, northern edge of the city. They stuck to the fringe of wilderness
bordering the suburbs, until they were on the cusp of the aviation field.

The four stopped at the fence line, bordering the runway,
and scanned the buildings, flight tower, and entrance road. There was a faint
odor of ammonia in the night air, but they couldn’t see any creatures moving
around and figured the smell was emanating from the downtown regions of Chino
and Prescott, where the undead were still clustered.

No planes were to be found on the ground or in the
open hangars. There was a fuel truck parked near the hangar, and a few cars
were strewn about the blacktop runway, their doors flung open like the
occupants had raced to the planes. The flight tower jutted up, its wraparound
windows illuminated under the faint crescent moon, while tumbleweeds rolled
through the parking lot below.

“Looks like we missed the pre-flight party here,”
Travis said.

“Why are stopping at this place? I thought were
going for supplies near town?” asked Rachel.

“This’ll just be a quick detour. Small airports like
these often have maps of the area, and other intel, that the general public is
unaware of,” he said, hoping he didn’t have to go into any more detail than
that. “Besides that lookout tower will be a good place to scan the surrounding region
and see if we can make out any settlements that we should avoid.”

“Let’s make our way around to the right and cut
across the runway, going from car to car, until we get to the terminal building
next to the tower. Remember to put your trays in an upright position and fasten
your seatbelts.” He made his way alongside the weeds choking the fence, with
the women following in single-file.

At the edge of the parking lot, they moved two at a
time, bounding towards each vehicle while the other pair provided overwatch.
Travis could see that the steel entrance door to the terminal had its window
busted out. After listening for any movement from around the two-story operations
building, he ran in a low-squat to the entrance. He swung open the door and
panned down the hallway with his rifle.

As he entered, Katy bolted up and took a position
behind him, followed by Nora and Rachel. The hallway had tinted windows on the
left and four doors on the right, ending in a staircase opposite his position.
Travis threw open the first door and peered inside. It was a lounge with
overturned couches, a fridge, and cabinets lining the walls.

The other two rooms after that were offices, but the
last room contained large tables with rulers, compasses, and protractors, along
with orderly rows of cabinets with narrow drawers. “You three sweep the
upstairs. I’m going to take a look around in here,” he said.

As the women crept to the second level, Travis
walked into the room, putting his rifle on the table then flicked on his
headlamp, and proceeded pulling out drawers to study the map names. The fourth
drawer down revealed maps from Colorado with UTM coordinates close to what Jim
had left behind. The numbers were seared in his mind, but he pulled out the
piece of laminated paper and compared it to the maps he was sifting through, flipping
past the Navajo Reservation, past the Four-Corners region, and the small towns
in southwest Colorado. His mind was racing as he thumbed through the voluminous
stack of topographic maps, until he paused near Durango, Colorado.  He yanked a
map out from the pile and glided it over to the table. He scanned the UTM grid
lines on the sides, running his index finger down and across, his eyes racing
over the contour lines and geographic formations.

His breathing quickened, as he pinpointed the
coordinates and found the location. It was a non-descript spot with a black
square, indicating a cabin or residence nestled between two small hills, at an
elevation of 8200 feet. Not far from the coordinates were parallel rows of
dashed lines, representing a jeep trail that came in from the two-lane highway.
The town of Durango was twelve miles to the northeast.
Aspen and Douglas Fir
country, with lots of snow for the next six months,
he thought. He folded
up the map and shoved it into his BDU pocket.

As he went to reach for his rifle, he heard a woman’s
raspy voice behind him. “Ah, ah….stay where you are. Turn your headlamp off and
then turn around. Don’t even think of making a move or your head gets split in
two.” He turned slowly, keeping his hands in the air.

The woman before him was dressed in black, with brunette
hair in a long ponytail. She held a XD pistol inches from his face. “We’ve been
following you for a while.…you and your three lady friends. Do you often
vacation in the Prescott area, or just passing through sightseeing?” she said,
placing her hands up to a handheld radio, talking to a man on the other end,
“I’ve got him. The others are upstairs. Get them and tell ‘em we have their
friend. I don’t want any shooting.”

Travis heard the sound of other people coming down
the hallway and saw several figures move towards the stairs. Then he riveted
his attention back on the woman, whose brown eyes he could barely make out in
the faint glow of moonlight stabbing in through the windows.

“You’re good lady. You’re very good to have gotten
that close to me. The only problem is- you’re too close,” he said, swiftly
sidestepping to his left, while sweeping his right hand down on her pistol and
twisting it with force towards the woman. Her wrist and trigger finger folded
and she shrieked in pain, recoiling down on a knee. With his hand on the
pistol, he turned it upon her as she stood in a half-squat, holding her injured
hand. 

“A few days and that finger will heal. If you live
that long.” He heard the sound of footsteps clanking down the stairs. He yanked
the woman up and shoved her towards the back of the room, grabbing her hair and
standing behind her with the pistol pointed at her head.

Two men dressed in camouflage fatigues, carrying
assorted assault rifles, entered the map room while one stayed out in the
hallway with Katy, Nora, and Rachel. One of them looked to be in his twenties and
bore a resemblance to the woman. The second man was older, in his early sixties,
but had a face like driftwood and icy, blue eyes.

Travis addressed him, “Looks like we each have
something the other wants, so here’s how this is going to play out. You’re
going to release my friends. After that, we’ll have a nice chit-chat, and I may
let this little huntress go.” He clenched the woman’s hair slightly and bared
his teeth, “And so you don’t feel a need to banter back and forth, let me tell
you that this wouldn’t be the first time having a hostage’s head splattered on
the wall.”

The older man stepped forward. “That’s a helluva way
to say thanks to someone who saved your lives back in the meadow.”

Travis eased his grip on the woman and tilted his
head, studying the man. “You punched the holes in those goons back there, eh?”

“They were going for the two girls, and it looked
like you had your hands full. Though, I’d sure like to know what you did to the
rest of those fellows who were strewn around the firepit all morning.” The man
motioned to his men to lower their weapons and release the women in the hall.

Travis had his hand on the woman’s ponytail and
tightened his grip. “Not so fast sister. You want to tell me what the hell you were
doing sneakin’ up on me, and why you’re tracking us?”

The man stood with his arms crossed and moved up
towards Travis, to where they could see each other’s eyes better. “Name’s Crawford.
I’m the leader of the Verde Valley Alliance out of Jerome. My scouts, north of
here, had heard chatter about a growing threat of bikers from Flagstaff that
were creepin’ down in these parts. I came to assess the situation myself, and
that’s when we got on your trail. We were gathering intel on that group in the
meadow, when we came across the four of you.”

Hmm, a leader who goes out on the front
lines. I like this guy already.
Travis stared hard
into his eyes and released his clench on the woman’s hair. She turned abruptly,
shrugging her head and giving Travis a sideways glance, then continued rubbing
her hand.

Katy, Rachel, and Nora came into the room with their
rifles slung and stood by Travis. He pulled up a tipped over chair and motioned
to the older man to do the same. “My friends and I have been living in the
wilds hunting and scavenging for close to two months. We figured it was time to
see what had come of the world and gather up some supplies. This is the first
large city we’ve been in since things went to hell.”

The older man sat down and ran a hand over his grey
peppered beard. “Looks like you’ve been doin’ OK for yourselves. Not an easy
thing, wresting a living from nature’s pantry,” he said, leaning forward. “So,
you don’t know about what happened in Phoenix and the battles that have
unfolded around the Southwest?”

“We’ve had a few skirmishes with thugs, here and
there,” glancing back at the sisters, “but we’ve spent most of our time in the
backcountry, far from established roads and towns.”

“What happened in Phoenix?” said Rachel.

The rest of his group moved up and sat down, as Crawford
continued. “After the blood virus hit, casualties exceeded what the big cities
could handle and, with the National Guard numbers diminishing, Mexican drug
cartels swept up from the south. They were thicker than generals in the Air
Force,” he said. “A well-equipped army- having strengthened their numbers with
convicts freed from the state penitentiary. The hordes of undead in the large
cities forced the cartels to concentrate their efforts on smaller towns and,
with nothing to standing in their way, they decimated everything from Phoenix
to Flagstaff over the next month,” he said, rocking back in his chair. “They
are headquartered up in Flagstaff now. It’s believed that the higher elevations
make it more difficult for the virus to gain a foothold, but no one knows for
sure if that’s science or BS.”

“How is it you made it through?” asked Katy.

“We’re from around here- from the town of Jerome,
and know the canyons and mesas better than our enemies,” replied the woman.

“This is my wife Clara,” said Crawford, pointing to
his group, “and my sons Clint and Jake.” Then he took over and continued, “when
things went to hell, we retreated up to the mountainside town of Jerome, which
provides a defensible, high-elevation position on three sides, miles of old
mining tunnels to hide in, if necessary, and an excellent lookout of the Verde
Valley below,” he said, repositioning a tan boonie- hat over his head. “There
are a few hundred of us there and in outlying strongholds. We’ve spent the last
few weeks slowly eradicating the RAMs in the nearby towns, but there’s only so
much ammo. So far, we’ve managed to hold our own against the cartel, but they are
a growing menace. Just in the past two weeks, they’ve shown an increase in military
strategy.”

Travis crossed his fingers together and pondered what
the man said for a moment. “What the hell’s a
RAM
?”

“’RAMs’ are Reanimated Mutants,” said Clara. “That’s
what the folks out of Phoenix were calling ‘em.”

“So, this brings me back to my original question,”
said Travis, “why were you following us?”

“My scouts intercepted two bikers about a week ago,”
Crawford said. “When they were done interrogating them, they found they were
searching for a man about your age and build who traveled with a small group that
used guerilla warfare tactics. We figured you might be that guy, especially
after I witnessed your performance in the meadow. Unfortunately, after I sniped
those fellas, we had to take off north to attend to
other business,
and
it took us a few days to catch up with you.”

The shadows cast by the moonlight in the room were
lengthening. Travis removed a water bottle out of his pack and took a long
swig. “Well, I’m sure glad we had this little talk, but we should be shoving on
now.”

“I don’t suppose you wanna tell me why those bikers are
pursuin’ you?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure myself. We came across a
piece of paper on a goon in the meadow that had my face on it. Looks like
someone has taken an interest in my handiwork, maybe some bikers we dispatched
earlier in the game.”

Crawford ruffled his forehead and rubbed his chin. “Hmm,
yeah, maybe,” he said looking down at the ground in disbelief. Just then a
voice came over the man’s radio, “Bulldog One, do you copy?”

“This is Bulldog One, go ahead,” he said, standing
up and walking towards the door.