Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 (8 page)

Eric wondered if his father was joking, but before he could ask, Joe turned and moved off into the night at a low, fast crouch.

Eric hung the sunglasses around his neck and followed his father over the fence. As soon as his feet touched the deep green of the knee-high grass in the upper pasture, Eric's jittery nerves settled. He counted the steps between each breath in and each breath out, forcing his breathing and his heart beat into a rhythm the same way he had when he'd run cross country years ago.

Joe lead the way in a wide arc that took them far to the right and through almost half of the open pasture. The three young men were still facing the house, though the towering inferno had been reduced to the size of a small bonfire. The glow was bright in the distance, and Eric tried not to look at it after a few hand signals flashed from his father. Instead, he focused on Joe's back and ignored the rest of night around him.

Finally, Joe held up his left hand in a closed fist. He opened the fist slowly and laid it flat down. Eric followed his father's lead and knelt in the tall grass. For a few moments, neither of them moved as something beyond Eric's field of focus happened and Joe waited. Joe raised his hand and motioned forward before beginning a much slower and more controlled advance. After another thirty yards, Joe knelt and motioned Eric up to him.

When Eric got there, Joe pointed at the shades, then his eyes. Eric put the sunglasses on and Joe counted with his fingers slowly.

One
....

Two
......

Three
........

Joe stood, and Eric followed him over the barbed wire fence and into the Thompson's yard.

The three young men stared at the smoldering pile of rubble that had been the Thompson's house as if transfixed by it. Eric was beginning to think that his father would be able to walk up behind the nearest one and tap him on the shoulder before they were noticed, and then the stranger turned around. His eyes went wide in shock, and he made a sound in his throat that may have been an attempted warning, but came out a strangled gurgle of surprise.

"Hands!"  Joe bellowed, leveling his M4 at the young man. "Let me see your hands! 
NOW!
"  One of the three started for the tent, but Joe drew down on him and growled, "Don't make me shoot you, dumbass. Whatever is in the tent ain't gonna help you now."

The young man stopped, and his shoulders sagged in defeat. All three of them seemed about Eric's height and build. They were shirtless and covered from the waist up in a grimy mixture of sweat, dirt, and soot. The young man nearest the burning house wore a full and ragged beard and he squinted at Eric in an odd way. Eric frowned back as something tickled the back of his memory. "Brant?"  he asked, hesitantly.

The bearded young man frowned deeper and after a brief hesitation, said, "Eric?"

Ch.11

Three Days

Eric dropped the muzzle of his rifle and started forward, but Joe stepped between him and Brant.

"Just a minute," Joe said calmly. "Eric, you go check that tent and take any weapons you find in there to the fence line and set 'em down."

"Now hold on," one of the two strangers said, his voice heated. "That's our stuff. You can't just go through our stuff."

Joe leveled a finger at the young man without letting his rifle drop. "Most days, you'd be right, kid. But I don't know you. I know Brant here, and he's a good kid. But I just don't know you and your friend, and I don't know how you three ended up here together with his house in flames. So today, you ain't right. I'm gonna make sure you have to take a good jog to get to anything that cuts or goes bang."

Brant stepped forward and put his hand on his friend's arm. "It's okay, Oscar. I've known these guys forever."

Oscar glared at Joe, his defeat evident, and turned his back on the rest of the group. Eric shouldered his rifle, walked over to the tent, and started unzipping the flap. It didn't feel right putting his head into something that was not his own. Eric felt somewhat dirty as he turned over sleeping bags, but his father's suspicions were well founded. Eric pulled two shotguns, a hunting rifle, a revolver, and a large hunting knife from the tent.

Joe watched Eric bring the guns out one by one until he finally backed out of the tent empty handed, and then he turned to Brant. "Where's the rest of them?"

Brant nodded toward the shed farthest from the house. "We stacked them in there with the canned food and bottled water."

Joe fixed all three men with a serious stare. "None of you move toward that shed unless I say it's okay. If I think you're going for a gun, I'll put you down. Things ain't the way they were, but I think you probably know that."  Joe glanced meaningfully at the burning house. "Brant, what happened, son?"

Brant swallowed hard and turned to look at the last flames rising from the burnt foundation that had been his home. "I couldn't pull them out. I tried, I swear to God, I tried. I wanted to bury them under the tree with the swing. I just couldn't take it."

"Were your parents in there?"  Eric asked, "Jesus, Brant, I'm sorry."

Brant shook his head. "You don't get it. They were already dead when I got here. My mom had diabetes bad, and she needed four shots a day. When the Blackout hit all of her medicine went bad. She just went to sleep, slipped into a coma, and didn't wake up again."

Tears were streaming down his face now, but Brant didn't bother to wipe them away. "They were married thirty five years this past March. I guess Dad just didn't know what to do without her anymore. He swallowed a month's worth of blood pressure medication, crawled into bed with her, and I guess he went into a coma too. They were both laying like that when we got here yesterday."

Eric started to step forward again, but Joe gently shook his head. Brant wiped his face with the back of his hand, leaving a long smudge of soot across his face. He took a deep, shaky breath, then turned back to Joe, his eyes clear again.

"I tried to move them, but I couldn't take the smell. Oscar and his little brother Justin are friends from college. They went in and got the stuff out that we need so I wouldn't have to. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving them up there, but I didn't want to move them, either. It just didn't seem right to disturb that. Besides, I knew I could never sleep in that house again. Not after smelling that and seeing them. So I burned it."

Eric could barely breath. He couldn't imagine finally reaching home from whatever Brant had gone through in the days after the blackout, only to find his parents dead. Eric closed his eyes and said a quick prayer for his friend in the moment of stunned silence that followed his story. Joe lowered the muzzle of his rifle and relaxed visibly. A tension that had been hanging in the air suddenly evaporated, and Eric walked over and put an arm around Brant's shoulders.

Joe broke the reverent silence carefully. "Brant, you know our door is always open to you," and he turned to the other two young men. "Your friends, too, for that matter. You men did a hard thing for him when he couldn't. Thank you for that."  Joe said as he shook Oscar's and Justin's hands. "You're all welcome with us if you need a place to stay."

Brant looked down at his feet, and Eric stepped over by his father again. Brant shrugged slightly and shook his head. "I'm not ready to leave yet. I know I should, but I need to see this through to the end of it."

Joe took a deep breath and looked at the fire for a long time before he spoke. "This will still be smoking tomorrow at midday. It'll be two days before it cools enough to walk through. I know you've seen a lot, son, but I'm telling you, it's going to get a lot worse."

After another long silence, Joe turned back from the fire and looked Brant in the eye. "You've got three days. Be at our farm by first light on the fourth day, or you'll have to wait until it's over."

"Until what's over?"  Brant asked.

"You got trash bags and sheet plastic in that shed?"  Joe replied.

Brant frowned, the sudden question taking him off guard. "Yes sir, I think so," he answered.

Joe put a sympathetic hand on Brant's shoulder. "I helped your Dad put in three of his four gun cabinets, so I know the weight of hardware you have in that barn, Brant. It's way too much to carry if things get ugly for some reason and you have to leave in a rush. Other than your three hundred head of cattle, those guns are the most valuable thing you have in this world. I'll take your friends and weather proof them so we can bury them in the wood line down the hill toward the river. That way if you have to get out, you can circle back and get them later when you're clear."

"Eric, what does your dad do?"  Brant asked.

Eric tried to think of a tactful way to tell his lifelong friend he couldn't answer that question when Joe chuckled softly and patted Brant's shoulder.

"This, Brant," Joe said with a serious tone, "I do this. I manage the worst situations you can possibly imagine, and I do so with the lowest loss of life possible. It's what I did for most of my adult life."  Joe firmly shook Brant's hand again. "Remember, you have three days at most before things are going to be very bad. Don't trust anyone you don't know. Don't let your guard down, no matter what. Another three days, even people you know will be desperate, and desperate people are dangerous."

Joe motioned to the rest of the small group. "C'mon, fellas. Let's give Brant a minute alone."

Joe turned and walked away with Oscar and Justin. Eric lingered a moment and tried to think of something to say. Unable to find the words, he shook Brant's hand and left his friend staring into the dying flames of his home. Lightning lit up the sky to the west, and a faint rumble of thunder rolled on the breeze.

Another storm was brewing.

Ch.12

The Way Back

Marcus looked down at the dark Tennessee Air National Guard base and ground his teeth. They'd tried three times to raise them on the radio with no response. Finally, he shrugged. "We can't make it all the way back to Utah on one tank, no matter how much we want to. We've got to set down and get fuel."

The pilot nodded and started flipping switches on the control panel. The chopper descended slowly onto the helipad at his careful control. As soon as the runners were down, Marcus stepped out with his rifle raised. He clicked on the flashlight and scanned the open courtyard but found himself alone. The pilot throttled down the engines but kept them in a warming cycle. He disengaged the rotors to make it safe to move about and then climbed down from the cockpit to stretch his legs and back.

Suddenly, the courtyard was full of lights and yelling. Marcus froze, as did the pilot, but neither dropped their guns. After a flurry of hectic action, a lone figure stepped out of the shadows and clicked on a flashlight. Captain Withers' dirt and soot-stained face was grim.

"Mr. Attledge," Captain Withers said, "I didn't expect you back so soon.  You picked a hell of a time to drop in for another little chat."

"Captain," Marcus said with a nod, and the men around him relaxed a touch. "What's going on? Why the overwhelming force? And why didn't you answer our hails on the radio?"

"Radio's trashed," Captain Withers replied with a wry chuckle. "We've been hit three times today by rednecks and mountain men who've apparently decided they've got nothing left to lose. They actually breached the gates at one point and set fire to the main building. Radio went up with the break room and most of our food and water."

Marcus breathed a heavy sigh but didn't say anything right away. He was having no luck trying to think up a kind way to tell the Captain that he needed another favor. Withers saved him the trouble, though. "Well, I'm guessing you didn't come back for a chat. What do you need?"

"Fuel," Marcus replied simply. "We've got to make it back to Utah, and we're going to need fuel to do it. Your chopper out there is out of commission anyway. Do you have a burning need for the external fuel tanks attached to it?"

The captain thought for a moment but shook his head. "Not that I can think of, and they're already full. But you've got a tank under each wing already. Where are you gonna put two more?"

"In the crew compartment," Marcus said and Captain Withers arched an eyebrow. "Look, when you take the seats out, the bolt holes line up perfectly for the rack bolts that hold the tanks on the transport cart. If you and your men are willing to help, we can bolt them down, fill them to the brim, and pipe them into the internal tanks. It's dangerous, but thankfully neither the pilot nor I smoke, so I think we'll be safe."

Captain Withers snorted a short laugh. "I have no doubt you will be, but what about my men? We can't hold out here forever, especially now that most of our supplies are gone."

Marcus had but one response and found himself repeating words he'd heard from Terry Price only a few days before. "I wish I could help you, Captain," he said, and he meant every word. "You hold as long as you can, and then you do what you have to to survive. Keep as many of your men alive and together as you can. When we can get help to you, we will."

Marcus reached into a zippered pocket on his vest and pulled out a coin. It was about the size of a fifty cent piece and had the finish of brushed brass around the edge. The center was glossy and enameled with a logo of two green footprints and a yellow lightning bolt. The obverse side was inscribed
24th STS First There That Others May Live.

"My father served for twenty four years," Marcus said as he pointed to the coin in the Captain's hand. "That was his unit. He gave it to me when I graduated from college and went to work for the government."

Impressed, Captain Withers looked at the coin and then tried to hand it back, but Marcus shook his head and refused. "You hold onto it for now," he said and shook the Captain's hand firmly. "I'll be back for it. You keep yourself whole, Captain."

Captain Withers nodded and passed orders among his men to get the work done. In less than an hour, the Blackhawk was flight ready. The two men shook hands again, but neither had any words that seemed to fit the moment. The pilot cranked the engines and throttled up the rotors, and in a matter of moments, they were airborne, headed west.