Authors: L. Douglas Hogan
As if on cue, the door to the Oval Office cracked open. Adalyn looked toward the door and saw an envelope and a small pistol being scooted into the room. She walked over to them and picked up the envelope.
She opened the envelope and read the letter. She began to cry. Her eyes swelled with tears and her cheeks and ears flushed. Her nose ran uncontrollably as she dropped the envelope and picked up the gun.
She didn’t know too much about guns, but knew where the safety switch and trigger were located. It was a small .22 with a design of a phoenix with an R in the center of it. Adalyn didn’t know that she was looking at a Ruger pocket-sized .22 revolver. She only knew it was a revolver with a single bullet in the cylinder.
She held tightly to the letter and took a long look at the pistol as she sat on a chair in front of the Resolute Desk. She stood up and walked over to the window behind the desk. What she saw was UN soldier formations and vehicles parked on the White House lawn.
Still crying uncontrollably, she looked back down at the gun one last time then put it to the side of her head. The first time she pulled the trigger, she flinched and it just clicked. The second time she pulled the trigger, she flinched a little less, but it too, was a click.
Adalyn Baker walked over to the Resolute Desk and sat down in the chair behind the desk. She sat the letter on the desk, face up, and gave one last attempt at putting the gun to her head.
The crackle of a .22 went off inside the Oval Office and Adalyn Baker fell forward onto the letter that sat on the desk.
The letter, now stained in blood, read:
“Dear Madam President, we regret to inform you that your husband, son, and daughter contracted an unknown viral strand. They were relocated and isolated, but they did not survive. Our deepest condolences, FEMA”
Somewhere west of Opal, Virginia
John, Belt, Joshwa, Zamora, Aaron, Gideon, and Michael had awoken early in the morning and hit the road just before first light. It was still to be determined which was safer, driving during the day or driving during the night. John felt better knowing the bus had quite a bit of gasoline strapped to its interior. He used to think preppers were paranoid, but now, as it turned out, it seemed wise to have done so.
The prepper bus they were in was camouflaged, obviously not professionally done. The armor was impressive, though. It was made of quarter-inch steel panels, which were bolted and spot-welded into place. Inside were a gun rack and ammo cans. All of it was fastened to the floor in the rear of the bus, over against the side of the emergency exit door.
When the preppers were discussing the design of the bus, originally they were going to weld the emergency exit shut. They didn’t like the idea of a possible enemy attack with two points of entry on the bus. They opted out of the idea of closing it off for the same reason: they would have a secondary exit in the event of an attack.
The bus’s windows had three-inch vertical and horizontal crosses cut into them for the ability to point, aim, and shoot from the inside out. The only glass window in the bus was the windshield, which cost them a small fortune to replace with bulletproof glass. It was tinted and impossible to see inside after sunset.
Virtually everybody on the bus felt safe that they wouldn’t catch a bullet, but they also felt trapped. To John, it was reminiscent of being stuck in an ACV, amphibious combat vehicle. To Belt, it was like being in a SSN, nuclear-class submarine. Either way, it was buttoned up tight and offered little in the way of rapid deployment.
John constantly feared the possibility of being ambushed. With these untrained civilians, they may not exit in the same direction if by chance they had to use both exits simultaneously.
John had the idea of pulling over and running some deployment drills, but just as the thought came to mind, Michael yelled out, “There’s a roadblock up ahead.”
Everybody stood up and ran for the front of the bus to get the first visual of the new complication.
“Sit back down,” John yelled at them. “You guys are a danger to yourselves, running up like that.”
Michael brought the bus to a stop.
“Binos?” John said.
“Back in the utility cabinet, top right.”
John walked to the back and opened the cabinet door. He saw several items hanging from a Peg-Board with the items’ outlines traced onto the board.
“A shadow board?” John asked himself. He saw a compass, binos, medical kit, 550 paracord, e-tool, crank radio, chem lights, and many more items.
John grabbed the binoculars and looked forward. He could see at least three men moving around in street clothes behind a roadblock made up of logs. The bus would never be able to blow through it without sustaining damage.
The men had rifles and they were pointing them in the direction of the bus. It was obviously a standoff, with both parties refusing to budge from a place of security. Sitting still made John and Belt nervous, but they had already been spotted and there wasn’t much left to do but make a hasty retreat.
“They don’t seem to be moving,” John said. “But that could be because they’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Who knows, they might have heard the bus coming a mile away. I would have. This thing sounds like a jet engine.”
“When we built it, we were thinking about catching bullets while retreating, not stealth,” Michael said.
“Well, who wants to go out there and see if they’re friendly?” Belt asked.
Nobody volunteered.
John surveyed the environment. They were on a bend in the road, which was surrounded by forest and heavy vegetation.
There must be a community they’re protecting around the bend
, he thought.
“Okay, here’s my plan…” John said. “Every one of us files out the back door with a rifle. We hit the forest in two teams. Team one goes north and team two goes south. Both teams head west through the woods until we can flank the men at the roadblock.”
“I like it,” Aaron said as he looked at his brother, Gideon.
“Me too,” Gideon said.
John and Belt looked at the others and waited for a response.
“I’m down,” Michael said.
They turned their attention to Joshwa and Zamora.
“I don’t shoot,” Joshwa said, pulling his wife in closer.
“Then you stay here and guard the bus,” John said, handing them rifles. “If anybody comes through those doors, you pull that trigger,” John said, pointing towards the trigger and trigger guard.
“Michael and I will go south,” John said, pointing to himself and Michael, and then he pointed at Belt, Aaron, and Gideon, saying, “Belt will lead you two north. Got it?”
Everybody nodded and grabbed their rifles, making sure rounds were chambered. Belt was closest to the back door, so he opened the exit and the two teams deployed from the bus and into the woods.
Shots were being fired from the roadblock, but none of them made their mark.
The vegetation was heavy and cumbersome to move through. Everybody was thinking the same thing: “By the time we get there, they’ll be reinforced or gone.”
The teams were trying to move both quickly and quietly, but the terrain offered them little for either possibility.
Belt’s team arrived first to find four men hunkered down in kneeling positions behind the makeshift roadblock of logs.
The element of surprise was not with them, thanks to the loud bus that had alerted the armed strangers.
Without waiting for John and Michael to be in place, Aaron and Gideon jumped out of the woods and ran up on the strangers, yelling, “Drop your guns or we’ll shoot.”
“There goes any hope of negotiations,” Belt said under his breath.
John and Michael heard the yelling and knew that they had run out prematurely, headlong into trouble. They hastened their speed and came out on the other side of the roadblock to see four men pointing rifles at Aaron and Gideon. Belt had not exited the forest yet. John knew that Belt had remained concealed and had not yet revealed his presence.
We may still yet have an element of surprise
, John thought.
“Put your rifles down! You’re outnumbered,” one of the strangers told Aaron and Gideon.
“Uh hum,” John coughed from behind, revealing himself to the four strangers.
“So what! We’re even!” the other stranger said.
“Says who?” Belt said, stepping out of the woods.
Now seeing that they were outnumbered and outgunned, the men lowered their weapons and leaned them against the wall of clumsily stacked logs.
“Why are you here?” one of the strangers asked.
“We’re just passing through, and it seems you have taken it as your duty in life to hamper our progress,” John said.
“We’re protecting our homes,” one of them said.
“Shut up, dude, you talk too much,” the other one said.
John could tell they were not schooled in social etiquette. All four men were wearing flannel shirts and holey jeans.
“We’re not interested in your homes; we just want to pass through,” Belt said.
“Even if you do get through here, you won’t get through the next town,” one of them said.
“Why not?” Gideon probed.
“Because they steal, kill, and destroy. That’s why we have these barriers up. So they don’t come through.”
“How many of you are there?” John asked.
“About two hundred and dwindling,” one answered.
“We have farms that we have to protect.”
“Dude, I said shut up!”
“Come here, son,” John said, motioning to the man that was revealing so much. John figured if he was going to get any information from them, it would have to be by getting this one alone. He liked to talk and didn’t seem to have an option for discretion.
John took him a bit up the road and probed him for answers. He learned that the town used to be a town of seven hundred before the Flip. Most of the people had left for the cities with their families. They were never heard from or seen again. Others banded together and formed survival groups. Those that were left were the unprepared and those who made sustenance from the earth.
John also learned that the group up the road were brigands and killers. They would kill passersby and take their property. The man was unsure what they did with the corpses, because he never saw their bodies again.
John knew he didn’t have much to work with, but turning back seemed just as hazardous as moving forward. All the fuel they had spent to get to where they were would be in vain if they headed back.
“Who’s the leader of this outfit?” John asked.
“Arnie,” the man said.
“My name is John James. What’s yours?”
“Alex. And those guys are Sebastian, Ethan, and Bailey.”
“Thanks. Now tell me about this Arnie.”
“He’s our mayor. He used to have kids and stuff, but they disappeared with a few of the church people that used to live here.”
“Is Arnie nice?” John asked.
“Yeah, he’s cool. He lives in the old mint-green-colored house on Second Street.”
“Thanks, Alex. Have your friends ever killed anybody?”
“No. We’re just guards. We take turns on guard duty to keep the Pack from coming into our town.”
“The Pack?”
“Yeah, they live down the road in the next town. They run things down there and they’re bad people.”
John had heard just about everything he needed to make some rational short-term decisions. He walked back to the roadblock with Alex.
“Admiral Belt McKanty, I’d like you to meet Alex, Sebastian, Ethan, and Bailey,” John said.
“Admiral?” Sebastian questioned.
“Yes, he’s admiral of the United States Navy, and I’m General John James, commandant of the United States Marine Corps. This is Aaron, Gideon, and Michael,” he said, pointing to each of them.
“We were making our way west until we ran into this roadblock,” Belt said.
“If your plan is to keep heading west, you’re going to wish you hadn’t crossed our roadblock,” Ethan said.
“We’ll deal with that later. I need you guys to take us to your mayor.”
John walked over to the men’s rifles and handed them back. “We’re not here to hurt any of you. We can help each other, but only if you’re willing to let us pass.” he added.
The four men looked at each other and chose to send Bailey with them as escort.
“We have to stay here and watch the road. That’s our duty,” Alex said. “There’s another roadblock on the other side of town.”
Bailey led all five men through town and straight up to Arnie’s house. It was an older 1950s-style, two-story house that was mint green with paint chipping off the wood siding. The yard was grown over and unkept and had a peeling white picket fence around the property. In the backyard was a tall, unkept, wooden barn reminiscent of an old-style cattle barn, with an upper loft for storing straw.
Arnie walked out with a shotgun pointed at the tallest of the men, which happened to be Aaron, and said, “Bailey, is everyone okay?”
“Yes, these guys are important people and they need to pass through. They asked to meet you.”
“Important people, huh? How important?” Arnie asked.
“I’m John James, commandant of the Marine Corps, and this is Belt McKanty, admiral of the Navy.”
“There is no US military. Try again!” Arnie barked.
“Would you calm down and lower that shotgun?” Aaron interrupted.
Arnie slightly lowered the shotgun, but started to probe them with questions. “If there’s no military, how is it I have the commandant and the admiral on my lawn?”
“You’re right, sir. We were formerly military commanders. That is, before we escaped the District.”
Arnie was in the Navy, so he thought he would check the validity of the claims that Belt was an admiral by testing his terminology.
“What’s old salt?” Arnie asked, looking at Belt.
“I’m an old salt. I’ve been in service for twenty-five years,” he answered.
“What’s a knee-knocker?”
Admiral McKanty reached down and raised his pant legs to reveal several scars on his shins. “I got every one of these at ports where I drank too much of the local brew.”
“C’mon in,” Arnie said. “It’s okay, Bailey; they’re my guests now.”