Forsaken World:Coming of Age (21 page)

Ian looked over at him then pointed at the screen. “Look, Lance, all the places marked with a silver pin are in choke points. There’s nothing there or nearby.”

“Choke points,” Lance mumbled and turned to the monitor. “Maybe that’s why they’re marked.”

Tossing the notebook on the desk, Ian shook his head. “Where are you taking us this time? We’ve both been wrong the last dozen trips.”

Grabbing the mouse, Lance zoomed out, and Jennifer saw he had put colored markers that coincided with the colored pins. “Ian, look where the silver pins are. They form a circle. Granted, it’s big as hell, but it forms a circle with Pineville at the center. What if that’s where they are watching the roads, making sure their area is secured?”

Ian shook his head vehemently. “Lance, those are small back roads. None of them are on any main road.”

“Right, those are packed with stinkers.” Lance grinned. “Those might be ambush points.”

“You’re grasping again,” Ian said, grabbing his notebook. “Even if they are, there are still several other small roads into the area. I don’t care how big that gang is; they can’t cover all of them.”

“Exactly,” Lance said, slapping the desk. “You watch the ones most likely to be used—the bigger back roads, not the tiny dirt roads and logging trails. Anyone with a brain is going to know to stay away from the main roads and big towns. The only ways to travel are the back roads.”

“I still think you’re grasping,” Ian said. “So do you have another thought on what the blue pins are marking?”

“No,” Lance sighed. “They don’t have a rhyme or reason that I can see.”

“Um,” Jennifer said timidly. “I think Lance has a point. On all those DVDs we train with, they talk about ‘fatal funnels,’ and all the silver pins are in areas like that.”

Looking at the screen hard, Ian finally nodded. “Okay, he might be right.”

“Oh, she agrees, and suddenly, I might be right,” Lance said, throwing up his hands.

“Your first thought was they were fishing spots, Lance,” Ian droned.

“Fishing spots?” Jennifer asked, turning to Lance.

“Well yeah, most are near a bridge,” Lance said, waving at the screen.

“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Jennifer mumbled.

“I almost agreed with him, but it didn’t make sense why they would fish,” Ian shrugged.

The group sat around, and they couldn’t even come up with a theory about what the blue pins represented but made plans to visit the closest silver pin to the northeast. Giving up, Lance said it was time to take a break. As the ladybugs ran out, Jennifer grabbed the boys’ arms, stopping them. “Guys,” she said sheepishly. “I’m sorry about how I acted with your deeds.”

“You think we went too far?” Ian asked, watching her face.

Shaking her head, Jennifer looked up. “No, I don’t feel sorry for them if that’s what you mean.”

“If you don’t mind, will you tell us?” Lance asked.

“I’ll never be able to do deeds like that, guys. You had that demonic toilet set up in ten minutes. The diarrhea house was done in thirty, and that warehouse you had done in three hours. I’m worthless helping you in those,” she said, looking down at the floor.

“Hey,” Ian said, lifting her chin. “We have the deeds covered. You just need to learn how to fight and survive so we have backup.”

Giving a weak smile, Jennifer nodded. Lance moved over and put an arm over her shoulder. “It took us a long time to do deeds like that, and you really don’t need to devote the energy to learning them; we have that covered. Like Ian said, we need you to fight beside us.”

“I can do that,” Jennifer said, finally smiling. 

Before supper, everyone watched a movie upstairs just to relax. The only condition was it couldn’t be the snowman, and with everyone on the sectional, they watched other cartoons.

Chapter Sixteen

It was the first week in May as Ian and Lance crept through the dark woods, closing in on a stinker that had tripped the motion detectors off. “Want to wait on him?” Ian whispered, looking around with his night vision. They were working on their fear of moving around at night but still hated it with a passion. Several weeks before, they had even stayed out all night. Neither slept by a long shot, but they did scout. The entire night, neither of their heart rates dropped to normal levels.

“Hell no, I hope we can get him before he trips any traps,” Lance shot back. “That last one set off nine, and it took an hour to reset them, and it was daylight then.”

“Well, that deadfall broke his back,” Ian grinned.

“Yeah, and that’s what took the longest to reset.” Lance nodded. “Let’s go.”

They moved up the draw and soon found the stinker impaled on spears on the other side of the creek. “Glad we didn’t wait,” Ian said, lifting his goggles then raising his bow. He could see the stinker’s outline clearly and released the arrow. When it struck, the stinker stopped struggling. It never occurred to Ian that he was thirty yards away and barely smelled the stinker.

“You were right to use bows when we can,” Lance said, looking at the rushing stream. Like Ian, Lance didn’t connect the dots; they saw the stinker before they smelled it.

“It’s still a challenge to use a bow in the dark with night vision, and we only have so many bullets.” Ian shrugged, looking over at Dino, who had sat down and was panting. “I know we have almost a million .22, but let’s save what bullets we can.”

“Ian, this stream has never been this high,” Lance said, waving at the rushing water. “I know it’s May, but you can’t even call it a stream anymore.”

Ian looked at the rushing water and agreed with Lance. The stream that they used to jump over except a few wide areas was now a roaring creek. “It’s like the pump house; water is steadily flowing out the overflow pipe.”

Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, Lance pointed toward the valley below them. “The creek this flows into is now a small river,” he said. “We have had rain but nowhere near enough for this.”

“We can think about this another day. Let’s cross and burn our guest before his BO brings friends,” Ian said, stepping into the cold water.

They waded across a narrow area that had no traps in the water and pulled the stinker off, torching him. “Stinker down,” Ian called over the radio, putting the arrow he used back in his quiver. That was another reason he liked the bow; he just had to pull his ammo out and could use it again if it wasn’t broken.

“Copy, see you,” Jennifer called back.

Glancing around, Lance stepped back as the stinker’s fire took hold, giving off that blue flame with much more hints of orange. “I don’t like to start my days off burning stinkers, especially before breakfast,” Lance said, putting his zippo up. After he turned away from the fire, he lowered his goggles back over his eyes.

“Hey, it was your idea to sneak out here before breakfast. I was willing to wait till you left on patrol and let you and Jennifer take care of it. She needs to get used to moving and fighting with the night vision.”

Sucking in a breath, Lance waded back in the cold water. “I don’t like it when they bring friends,” Lance said, cringing from the chill. “Those nine last Tuesday almost made it through the outer ring. You still need to lead the ladybugs on the morning DVD training. Go over that first one you and I did.” Ian nodded, carefully following Lance and making sure Lance didn’t hit one of their traps. With so many out now, that was becoming a chore. 

With the area around the cabin booby trapped a thousand yards in any direction from the fence, Ian and Lance had to move slowly back to the buggy. They had several trails for the buggy to move around, but even those were booby trapped, just not close together. One of them would have to get out and disarm the trap as the other drove through. It really made their sweeps around the cabin heart pumping.

Jennifer had started joining them on the sweeps while one of the boys stayed back with the ladybugs. If the boys thought walking through the woods they had loaded with booby traps and roaming stinkers was heart pumping, Jennifer’s heart fluttered in shock. As terrified as she was, not once did she ever say anything and copied every move of whomever she went with.

In the last week, Jennifer had graduated to area patrols with one of them. That way, one of them could always rest and not get burnt out. The videos and books they were learning from talked about it a lot. None of them could figure out how someone could become complacent when shit around you was trying to kill you. Especially when some of that shit would eat you as it killed you.

When Jennifer started the area patrols, Ian and Lance started taking the ladybugs out on sweeps around the fence. They had hunted and were actually better at moving quietly through the woods than Jennifer, and because of their small size, they could move through brush better than the boys.

Back at the cabin, Jennifer watched the boys climb back on the buggy. “I’m going to finish the laundry. Let me know if anything happens,” she said as she walked out.

“Okay,” Carrie said, staring at the monitors as Allie studied material on her tablet. 

Jennifer grabbed the basket with folded clothes and carried it upstairs. Walking in the “men’s” bedroom, she set the basket on Ian’s bed. Carrying an armful to Ian’s dresser, she opened the top drawer and shook her head at the neatly laid out garments. She put them away then grabbed Lance’s and put them up. Closing the drawer, she pulled out the top one again. “What the hell do they do to their underwear?” she huffed, seeing the underwear in Lance’s top drawer were neatly folded up. “I haven’t washed any, so how are they cleaning them?” she huffed, holding one up to verify it was clean.

Folding them up, Jennifer walked over to Lance’s nightstand, opened the top drawer and pulled out a calendar. A red X filled the box for that day. Knowing Lance was marking days until his parents should be home, Jennifer put the calendar back and grabbed the laundry basket.

When she stepped out of the bedroom, Allie came running toward her. “They’re almost here. Ready to open the gates?” she asked with a smile.

Dropping the basket, Jennifer nodded. “Yeah, I’m hungry.” They ran out the front door to the gates, getting them open just as the boys came barreling up the rise. After Ian sped through, they closed the gates then hopped on, getting a ride to the back of the cabin.

When they got off, Jennifer hit Ian on the arm. “I could’ve gone, Ian. I’m going on patrol with Lance, and we could’ve done what you two do: Kill it and head out,” she said with a grin.

“You’ll get to kill some today,” Ian chuckled as Allie dug out her key and opened the back door. “I just wanted to get out before you two left.”

“You don’t have to stay beside the ladybugs; they do great watching the monitors and studying,” she told him as they walked in.

Ian reached over, patting Allie. “I know they do a good job. I just wanted to get outside today.” As Ian went to the stove to start breakfast, Allie called Carrie up to help. “Lance kicked my ass the last two times out stinker hunting.”

“Shit, if I reach double digits before missing three times, I feel great,” Jennifer said, walking over to the living area to check her gear that was laid out. “Now that we use bows, I think I’ll be looking for a lot of arrows that miss my target.”

“Use the crossbow,” Ian said over his shoulder.

“I did that last time and had trouble cocking the damn thing fast enough if there was more than one stinker,” she said, picking up her AR.

Nodding as he started the eggs, Ian grinned. “Yeah, that does suck, but you’re getting better with the bow.”

“I better be, practicing for an hour a day,” Jennifer said, putting her AR down. “Where’s Lance?”

“He said he wanted to work on that remote camera he wants to put out,” Ian said as Allie pushed him out of the way and took over cooking. “About your shooting, you’ve come a long way with pistol, rifle, and bow.”

Satisfied with her gear, Jennifer turned around with a grin. “Maybe, but I’m nowhere near you two yet.”

“Shit, you should’ve seen Uncle Doug shoot. He made everyone look incompetent,” Ian laughed and started setting the table.

Walking over beside Ian, Jennifer looked at the stairwell to the basement and whispered, “Is Lance positive this camera can’t be traced back to here if we put it out?”

“Yes, I made him go over it several times,” Ian said with a straight face. “The camera is going near that cell tower on Highway 25. Many of the cell towers around here have solar and battery backup and are still transmitting. Lance is just going to broadcast the image out. In truth, anyone with the know-how to monitor frequencies will be able to see it as well. It will just broadcast an image; we won’t signal it here with any type of radio wave.”

Jennifer looked at Ian. “Why didn’t he explain it to me like that? I understood that.”

“Because you didn’t threaten to take away his man card,” Ian laughed.

Grabbing utensils, Jennifer started placing them around the table. “You really have a ‘Man Card?’”

Ian reached in his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, took out what looked like a credit card, and passed it over. Taking it, Jennifer read across the top, “Official Man Card.” Then it said Ian was a holder in good standing with the date of issue. “Don’t mess with the card,” Ian said, taking it back when she was done reading it.

“I feel kind of cheated,” Jennifer mumbled, finishing the utensils.

With the table set, they yelled for Lance and he came running up the stairs. “We should be able to put out the camera in a few days,” he said, taking off his vest and hanging it on the back of his chair.

Everyone sat down to eat, and Jennifer glanced over at Lance. “Are we bringing back anything this time out?” Over the last few weeks while on patrol, they would investigate some houses and a few of the sites the gang had marked for supplies and take some items. The first things they brought back were six high-end office chairs for the four desks they had made that sat between the kitchen and living area. The other two chairs went to the big control center desk.

They had brought back electric motors, half a dozen game platforms with a hundred games, any ammunition they found in houses, and other stuff from the few gang supply spots. They had all talked about going to Bones’ house and getting stuff since the gang now avoided it like the plague, but when Ian and Lance went to check on it, the area was covered with stinkers.

It wasn’t until Jennifer brought it up that they realized they would have to wear closed breathing systems inside the house since it was closed up with stinkers inside. That scared the boys because they wanted that stuff, and the house was being turned into a virtual time bomb with the stinkers pumping out flammable gas. If any spark happened in the house, it was gone. They knew the gang had disabled all traps as soon as they got there, but they were worried about pilot lights or just plain heat.

Lance gave a shrug. “Don’t plan on bringing anything back, but we didn’t plan on much of the shit we have brought back. We saw it and thought we might need it.”

“Lance, starting Friday, we are working on the heavy equipment. I don’t care if your camera has to be postponed until next week; we need to get the greenhouse started,” Ian said, getting up and grabbing the coffee pot. He filled up everyone’s cup before sitting down.

“Yeah, we’ve put that off long enough.” Lance nodded, sipping his coffee.

Grabbing her glass of juice, Allie looked around the table. “Are Carrie and I still going to patrol with you tomorrow?”

“Yep,” Lance said, putting his cup down. “You will go in the morning with me and Carrie in the afternoon with Ian.” Allie gave a serious nod that seemed out of place with her young pixie face.

“I understand, but you don’t have to act like you are looking forward to it,” Jennifer said, getting up.

“Watching those shows and copying them with the guns is good, but I want to know I can kick something’s ass,” Allie popped off, making Lance and Ian cringe, but they had learned not to say anything about her language or she kept on, and it got worse. “All this training Carrie and I are doing, we want to know if it works.”

Thinking that was sound reasoning, Jennifer nodded impressed. “You have a good point.”

Ian got up and started gathering the dishes. “Allie, you and Carrie are doing great, and each of you have shot stinkers, but don’t get too excited about going out,” he said, heading to the sink. “You’re looking at it the right way. ‘I’m going out to make sure what I have learned works and what could work better.’”

“I do, bubba.” Allie grinned at him.

“Maybe we should get them to think of why all the water is rising,” Lance said, getting up.

Pulling on her gear, Jennifer looked over at him, confused. “Huh?”

“All the water levels around us are rising, and we haven’t had that much rain, and Ian and I can’t figure out why,” Lance said, walking over.

“Duh, Lance,” Jennifer droned, making him stop. Then in a normal voice, Jennifer explained as she dressed, “Look how many people have died. Nobody’s drinking water, flushing toilets, watering fields, or using it in factories. It’s not being pulled out, so the only thing it can do it stay in nature.”