Radioactive Omnibus- A Prepper Survival Story (12 page)

“Matt, what are you doing?” she gasped.

“Now, Samantha!” Matt shouted.

She stepped over the bodies and moved behind Matt with Annie close.

“Move, Jim,” Matt said.

Jim complied.

“Matt, what’s happening?” Samantha asked.

“It’s fine, Sammy. Just do what he tells you.” Jim said. “Annie, you take care of Tigs for me, okay?”

She nodded and held the cat close.

“I’ll see you guys real soon,” Jim said.

“No, you won’t,” Matt said.

He brought the handle of the pistol across Jim’s face, knocking him on the ground. Samantha screamed and, as a result, Annie began to cry while Tigs meowed incessantly.

Matt peaked out of the door. Men were scattered around from the sound of the sirens still blazing in the background. He grabbed Samantha’s hand and rushed out the door.

A jeep sat idled next to the fuel truck and Matt climbed into it. Samantha stood motionless and afraid.

“Get in!” Matt shouted.

Samantha clutched Annie in her arms. Matt crawled across the seat and held her face in his hands gently.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

Matt flung the door open and Samantha climbed in with Annie and Tigs.

***

Brett and Twink burst through the door of the room to find Jim lying on the ground as Brett put his finger on his neck to check for a pulse.

“Jim,” Brett said. Brett slapped Jim hard across the face.

“Wake up!” Brett said.

Jim jolted up. He felt the trickle of blood fall onto his lips from the cut across his face. He slowly got up with Brett’s help.

“What the hell happened?” Brett asked.

Jim’s hand slowly rose to his temple as he tried to gather the thoughts of what had just happened. The words felt foreign as they slipped out of his mouth.

“It was Matt,” he said.

“What?” Brett asked.

Jim glanced over to the computer.

“The files,” Jim said rushing to the monitors where Matt had been working. There was an upload bar spread across the screen. It was at sixty-seven percent.

“I’m guessing this is bad,” Brett said.

Jim tried to hit a few key strokes, but the keyboard was locked. He couldn’t move anything, not even the mouse. Anytime he tried, an encryption code popped up on the screen.

“It’s an algorithm,” Twink said.

He pushed Jim out of the way and dropped into the chair.

“He put an algorithm encryption so we can’t stop the files from being sent,” Twink explained.

“Can’t we cut the hard lines?” Brett asked.

Twink shook his head. “No, the connection is coming from the location where the files are being sent. Even if we cut it, they’d still get the info,” Twink said.

“This whole camp is going to be leveled if you don’t stop that file from being sent. If you can’t shut it down before it gets to ninety-five percent get the hell out of here.”

***

There was a trail of dust heading towards the gate. Jim could see Annie’s hair bobbing in the back seat of the jeep. He took off at a sprint and jumped into another jeep parked in the yard.

Matt drove wildly through the camp as soldiers screamed profanities back at him after being nearly hit. Samantha gathered her reserve to argue back with her husband.

“What the hell is going on, Matthew?” she demanded.

“Jim lied to you, Sam. He wasn’t on a mission to help me. He was on a mission to kill me.”

“What? Matt, that doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

Jim’s jeep roared down the road as he tried to gain on Matt. He was closer now. He shifted gears and cut through a narrow path between a pair of tents on the side and started to head towards the perimeter.

***

The loading bar inched up to eighty-five percent as Twink tried different combos of numbers into the encryption bar. He had pulled out a laptop and connected it to the tower that Matt had used. Twink opened a program and started typing code, which fed into the other monitors.

“I don’t think it’s working, Twink,” Brett said as the loading bar inched up to eighty-six percent.

***

Matt turned the last corner of the road and saw the gate up ahead.

“Almost free,” Matt whispered.

Jim’s jeep came roaring past one of the tents right next to Matt’s jeep almost running him off the road. Matt retaliated and rammed the side of his jeep into Jim’s. Matt reached for his pistol and fired a few shots. Jim slammed on the brakes and got right behind him.  Dust flew up in the air as the jeeps raced for the gate, which was down, but Matt’s speed was increasing.

The guards at the gate shouted for him to stop and fired a spray of bullets at Matt, but he kept his foot on the pedal. They all ducked behind the dash as the jeep burst through the wooden gate, shredding it to splinters.

***

Sweat started to run down Twink’s forehead as the bar moved up to ninety-four percent.

“It’s no use, Twink. We’ve got to go,” Brett said.

“I think I’ve almost got it,” Twink answered.

The bar moved up to ninety-five percent.

“You get out of here,” Twink said.

“Yeah, like I’d ever let you tell me what to do,” Brett said.

The bar crawled up to ninety-six percent.

“My mother always said it would be my stubborn pride that’d kill me.”

The encryption code was almost cracked as Twink made the second to last number fall into place.

“God, I always hated that woman,” Brett said.

“Well, I hate to prove your mother wrong, but it looks like that stubborn pride won’t kill you today,” Twink said.

Twink hit the enter button and the bar stopped frozen at ninety-eight percent.

***

The two jeeps raced towards the highway as the ashes of Phoenix smoldered in the distance. Jim pulled out his pistol and aimed for the tires. He fired two shots and blew out the left rear tire. The jeep swerved as Matt tried to keep his careening jeep under control. He pulled out his gun and fired back at Jim. A few bullets went through Jim’s windshield, shattering portions of the glass. Another bullet ricocheted off the hood as Jim ducked behind the console. Jim came back up and aimed the pistol at the other rear tire and fired. It blew out and the jeep swerved in a circle as Matt was unable to keep control of the wheel.

Dust and sand settled around the jeep as Jim pulled right up to it before slamming on the brakes. He squinted through the dust, but couldn’t see the girls.

“Sammy! Annie!” Jim yelled.

He got to the jeep, and when he looked inside it, Samantha was unconscious and bleeding from the forehead. She stirred a bit when he said her name and her eyes opened.

“Jim?” Samantha asked.

“Get away from my wife, Jim,” Matt said.

Jim slowly turned around to see Matt’s silhouette in the dust. As it cleared he saw Matt’s arm around Annie covering her mouth and shielding the front of his body.

“Don’t do this, Matt. Whatever it is you got yourself into I can help get you out,” Jim pleaded.

“I don’t need your help. We don’t need your fucking help!” Matt screamed.

Annie’s eyes were red with tears as her muffled cries came through her father’s hands.

“Let her go,” Jim said.

Samantha watched in horror as her husband held her daughter’s mouth shut while pointing a gun at her brother. She tried to get up, but kept falling back down into her seat.

“You think I’m going to hurt my family, Jim? No, the only person I’m going to hurt is you,” Matt said.

Matt’s finger moved to the trigger, when suddenly Tigs leapt from under the jeep, landing on Matt’s leg. She dug her claws into Matt’s thigh, clinging on as he shook her. Annie fell to the ground as Matt fired his pistol into the side of the jeep, narrowly missing Jim.

Jim sprinted towards Matt and sent him flying into the sand. The two men wrestled as Matt clawed for the pistol just beyond his reach. Jim had him in a head lock, but Matt flew his head back and knocked Jim’s jaw causing him to lose his grip.  Matt scrambled for the gun and grabbed it. As he whipped himself around, Jim grabbed Matt’s arm with the pistol in it and slammed him to the ground. They both rolled over on top of each other again and again, trying to use the momentum they’d gain to pin the other man down.

They finally came to a halt on their sides. Both men had their hands wrapped around the pistol, attempting to point it at the other man. The barrel of the gun tilted back-and-forth slightly between Jim and Matt.

Jim gritted his teeth, struggling to gain control of the pistol. Matt’s eyes were wild with rage and both men’s faces were turning red from the strain.

Then the gun went off. Both of them jolted from the sound of the gunshot; each man gasping for air. The color from their faces began to fade. Jim glanced down at the pistol still smoking in his hand.

Blood dripped from Matt’s stomach as he held a hand over his gut, squeezing against the wound in panic. Matt flopped onto his back as Jim rose to his knees, hovering over him. Matt shook and convulsed on the ground. He looked up at Jim with his fading eyes.

“You won’t be able to stop it. Just keep them safe,” Matt said.

The words were barely audible when they left his lips. Matt’s eyes stared up into the sky. Both his arms went limp and dropped to the ground.

Samantha screamed from the jeep as she crawled over the seats to get out. She hit the ground hard and stumbled over to Matt’s side, holding his face in her hands. Annie sat huddled in a ball in the sand with Tigs curled right up next to her. Jim’s eyes rose from the scene in front of him to the charred skyscrapers of Phoenix in the backdrop while his sister’s cries filled the desert air.

It took a while for everyone to get debriefed after what happened. Locke himself had flown out once he’d been radioed.  It wasn’t until his arrival that Jim was finally released. The sand, ash, and blood were still caked onto his sunburnt face as Jim found himself in a tent with Locke, a vacant chair, and another file. Locke motioned over to his assistant, Chris, who came closer.

“Get us some water,” Locke said.

“Whiskey,” Jim said.

Locke nodded and the boy left the tent. Jim stared blankly into the space in front of him. Locke didn’t want to press him for details on what happened, so he honored the silence with him.

“Did you know?” Jim asked.

“Know what?” Locke responded.

“That Matt was the mole.” Jim said.

“No, but I had a thought that it could be. I needed to know for sure. I thought that if I sent someone he trusted he—”

“Wouldn’t try and kill them,” Jim said.

“Yes.”

Chris returned with a bottle and two glasses, and placed them on the table between the two men. Locke reached for the glass, while Jim reached for the bottle. He twisted the cap off and pressed the opening to his chapped lips and took a long swig.

“Jim, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, son.”

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to kill your sister’s husband in front of her and your niece? You don’t know what it’s like to have them look at you after it’s done?”

“No, I don’t.”

Jim jumped to his feet with the bottle in his hand. He pointed his other free hand at Locke and started screaming.

“No! You don’t fucking know! You don’t fucking know because you’ve never fucking done it! You could have told me the information you had! You could’ve told me what he might do, what he was a part of, but no, you had to be mysterious with your orders, no matter the fucking cost!”
 

The last words hung in the air the loudest. Jim’s face was beet red and his breathing was labored. He walked to the corner of the tent and kept his back to Locke who sat silent and motionless.

Finally, the old general drummed his fingers on his leg and rose out of the chair. He folded his hands behind his back as he spoke.

“Your father knew the cost to follow orders. The official report was correct when it said that over twenty of his men died, but what the report didn’t mention were the ten thousand people he helped saved in the small city where they were stationed,” Locke said.

Jim’s grip on the bottle loosened as it hung limp between his fingers.

“It was a classified mission in an area where we weren’t supposed to be. The boys back home had to cover their asses and mark him as a deserter to stop a war from happening,” Locke explained.

“Why are you telling me this? So I’ll understand why you didn’t tell me what was really going on?” Jim asked.

“No, I told you because I thought you should know that your father wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t afraid of what needed to be done.”

“We can’t stop it. That’s what Matt told me when he was holding his guts in.”

“Stop what?” Locke asked.

Jim walked over and slid the whiskey bottle back on the table.

“He didn’t say, but it has something to do with the file that Twink stopped from being uploaded,” Jim said.

“That’s a good place to start looking then,” Locke said.

“Whatever you find out I want in on it. I want to find the bastards that are behind this.”

“The United States military owes you a great debt.”

“There isn’t anything you can give me to undo what I did.”

Twink and Brett were outside waiting for Jim. Brett embraced him in a hug, then Twink. Coyle stumbled out of the adjacent tent sporting a black eye as he rubbed his shoulder.

“Just a little piece of advice for you boys. Don’t pretend to shoot military personnel, they don’t like it much,” Coyle said.

Jim saw Samantha and Annie in the distance next to a jeep. He stood for a moment, then decided to walk over. Samantha saw him coming and she met him halfway. Jim looked back into the jeep and saw Annie staring blankly into Tigs as she rested in Annie’s lap.

“How’s she doing?” Jim asked.

“Not good,” Samantha answered.

The words came out icy, cold. Samantha stood there with her arms crossed, bits of caked mud on her face and a shirt stained with her husband’s blood.

“I know why you did it. I’ll be able to forgive you one day. Just not now,” Samantha said.

Jim simply nodded without response. Samantha turned and went back to her daughter. As Jim watched her walk away, he’d thought about all he’d lost. He lost his home in San Diego. He lost his family in the desert. He’d been shot at and beaten bloody by people who wanted to hurt him. Now he had only one thing left. He only had one thought on his mind. He was going to find the people behind this. He would hunt them down and make sure they’d pay. He was going to make them feel what he felt and God help anyone that got in his way.