The day after: An apocalyptic morning (73 page)

              "Yes," Barnes agreed, "that would be best for all concerned. Especially since they are using their women as soldiers. It would be a shame to have to kill good females just to take the town."

              "And I think that this man the convicts told us about, this man who probably coordinated the defense, would be a valuable asset to us as well. If he could be convinced to join our side he may eventually rise to command a platoon or a company in the militia."

              "Oh, I think we could convince him," Barnes said. "A man like that would understand power, and we are the power in this region. And when he considers the alternative to joining, why wouldn't he?"

              Bracken gave a doubtful look. "He might be like those men in Colfax and Georgetown." At those two towns, after their surrenders, a handful of the men had chosen death rather than the militia way of life. Though it was common for the women to protest their new reality at first, the fact that men would do so was perplexing to many of the militiamen. Wasn't it the ideal world they were being offered? A world in which men were the kings and women were the property?

              "If he's like them," Barnes said coldly, "then we'll just have to do without him. If he doesn't realize the opportunity we represent, then we're better off without him anyway."

              "Yes, sir," Bracken agreed.

              "Okay," Barnes said, cracking his knuckles. "We have 2nd and 4th platoons out hitting Grass Valley right now. They left three days ago so we can probably expect them to return in about two weeks. As soon as they get back and get rested up, I'll assign them to you, add 1st platoon, and put you in charge of the Garden Hill operation. I'd like to see detailed plans by day after tomorrow for your assault on the town if such a thing becomes necessary."

              "I'll have them to you by tomorrow," Bracken said. "With those pitiful defenses they have, its no more than a Micker of pouring fire on their guard positions with one platoon while the rest breach the wall."

              The lean-to's had been built and the light was rapidly fading from the sky. Skip, Paula, Jack, and Mick had just finished their dinner of canned pork and beans and were sitting in the relative dryness of the shelters they had constructed. Their weapons were within easy reach and their flashlights had just been energized with fresh batteries. It was their eighth night in the wilderness, twenty days since the bloody attack on Garden Hill by the hunters.

              "So you think we'll get there tomorrow?" Mick asked hopefully as he puffed on a cigar. He, like Skip, had developed a considerable growth of beard since their departure. Unlike Skip however, it made him look disturbingly Manson-like.

              "If I'm reading these maps right," Skip answered, "and if we keep up the pace we're maintaining, we'll get there by late morning or early afternoon."

              "Thank God for that," Paula said a little sourly. She was not enjoying her little adventure outside the walls of Garden Hill.

              The "there" they were referring to was the town of Cameron Park, or specifically, the Cameron Park airport. It was there, Paul had told Skip on that fateful night, that the California Highway Patrol had kept and maintained H-22, the patrol and medivac helicopter assigned to the northern mountain division. Though H-22 had not been the primary helicopter that CDF fire station 2417 had used to air-lift patients, nor had it been the closest, Skip had chosen to make the effort to recover it instead of the closer Cal-Star bird that had been based in Auburn.

              The reasoning behind this was twofold. First and foremost was the fact that Cal-Star was not very likely to be intact or recoverable. The Auburn Airport, where the chopper was based, had been located right next to the Auburn town reservoir according to the maps. It seemed almost a given that the airport would now be under no less than six feet of floodwaters. By contrast the Cameron Park airport was located atop a plateau that stood nearly two hundred feet above the town itself. Though Cameron Park was probably buried under tons of mud and water, there was a better than even chance that its airport was still standing. In addition to the likelihood of H-22 still being there, it was also a more desirable chopper to have. Though the Cal-Star bird was bigger, that was not necessarily an advantage. Helicopters were very high maintenance machines and there were no helicopter mechanics in Garden Hill; Skip, who was not the most mechanically inclined person in the world, would have to do it himself. As such, he would be much more likely to be able to keep the single engine on the CHP helicopter running for any length of time than he would the two engines on the Cal-Star helicopter.

              Skip, upon hearing about the possibility that there might be a running helicopter within reach of Garden Hill, had been very anxious to set out and find it. With a helicopter at their disposal, gathering food, hunting, and defense would all became much less of a challenge. Only the pressing need to boost up the town's defensive plan while public opinion had been in his favor had kept him from setting off the very next morning.

              As it was, he was glad he had taken the time to do so. It made him much more comfortable leaving town with a squad of his best warriors. In the twelve days between the attack and his departure, he had run sixteen volunteers through his two-day training program and had another sixteen scheduled to go through upon his return. Though, due to shortages, they had not been able to expend as much training ammunition as he would have liked, his first group had shown considerable promise and a willingness to learn that had been unheard of prior to the attack. There was nothing like the shock of an armed invasion to jolt people into action. Seeing the grisly display of burying the bodies of their dead had added an additional jolt, particularly the corpses of Missy, Jeff, and Lenny. Not only were the townspeople more eager to sign up for guard duties now, they were considerably more alert during them, even on the night shift.

              The static defenses had also been greatly improved prior to his departure. While it was true that there were still quite a few things that needed to be done, the basic upgrades had been constructed and were in full operation. On the hills overlooking the town, four large emplacements had been dug and surrounded by sandbags full of dirt and then covered with mud and pine branches to camouflage them. Each emplacement was strong enough to withstand a close mortar round hit and was capable of housing six people, their weapons, and their ammunition, although typical staffing was only two at a time. Carefully constructed ports in the sandbags were used both for lookout positions and to fire through without danger of being struck by return fire. Each position was equipped with a radio, one of the automatic weapons (except for the bridge approach, it was only given an AR-15) and two hundred rounds of ammunition. This was in addition to the standard issue of a scoped hunting rifle for long-range shots.

              So far, with sixteen more people trained up, he was able to keep at least one in each guard position at all hours. In addition, those of his trained force who were off duty at any particular time were given both a rifle and a pistol to keep in their houses. They would be a fast-action team, their instructions to report quickly to the community center for deployment in the event of another attack. Their call to arms would be the wailing of the fire engine's siren, the sound of which all sixteen lived in range of. From the community center they could be moved to wherever they were needed, either as reinforcements for the guard positions or as a mobile force to block a penetration attempt. Skip thought the town would now easily be able to handle an attack up to twice the size of the one that had already hit them without allowing the attackers inside the wall.

              Jessica, during all of this frantic digging and building activity, had been strangely quiet with everyone, not trying to regain the favor she had lost, not trying to reestablish her place in the town. The investigation into her activities had been put on hold for the time being so that more important things could be taken care of, and she remained on suspension from the town council, but she did not protest this either officially or in a gossip circle. She had been assigned to digging detail both for the bodies of the dead and for the defenses and she had done these jobs unprotestingly and well, not quite being a part of the camaraderie that developed between the other workers, but not being a nuisance either. Skip, as well as several others, found themselves vaguely uncomfortable with this new Jessica. It was too out of character for her. The general consensus was that she was up to something, although no one could hazard a guess as to just what that might be.

              He supposed it was possible that the attack had had the same effect on her that it seemed to have on everyone else. Anything was possible. If the other women could go from demanding Skip's or Stacy's exile one day for corrupting minors to demanding the public hanging of the captured prisoner the next, why couldn't Jessica? If the other women could go from disdaining any work in which they might break a fingernail to enthusiastically digging trenches in the side of hills or crawling around on their bellies in the mud as part of Skip's training, couldn't Jessica make a similar transformation? Was she completely beyond redemption? Skip didn't know. Neither did anyone else. He vowed however, to keep an eye on her as time went by. She might be playing nice now, but he didn't trust her.

              As had been the case during their previous trek through the woods, Jack was the first to undress and climb into his sleeping bag. Before complete darkness could envelop them, he was snoring away contentedly, his AR-15 next to him. Paula and Mick watched this with envy. They were both having considerable trouble sleeping at night, unaccustomed as they were to the hard ground and the cold, damp air.

              "It's amazing how fast he can fall asleep," Mick said, shaking his head a little. "And he sleeps like that all night long. I know, because I hear him snoring while I'm laying awake."

              "Little bastard," Paula said jokingly. "If I can get two broken hours a night, I consider myself lucky."

              Skip, who did not have a lot of trouble sleeping outside, kept mute. He yawned and stretched a little, shifting the AK-47 on his lap. Another thing that the attack on the town and his follow-up speech had accomplished was to take the pressure off of Jack and Stacy. They had been living together in apparent harmony, sharing the same bedroom, walking hand in hand on the streets in daylight, and nobody said a thing about it, not publicly, or even, as far as Skip had heard, privately either. Not only was he left alone to pursue happiness, as it were, he was treated with considerably more respect. Most of the townspeople had ceased treating him as a child to be coddled, protected, and sheltered from the unpleasantness of the world. They stopped calling him "hon" and "sweetheart" and "little dude" and started calling him by his name. He had even told Skip that his guard duty partners - all of them men much older than he (for the time being, the same sex on guard detail rule remained in effect) - were even asking him serious questions about tactics and deployment. With a woman in his life and newfound respect from those around him, Jack seemed to be quite happy these days. The only sour part in his life had been the extended fight he had had with Stacy about coming on the helicopter acquisition mission. He had been the first to volunteer and he had done so without consulting his better half first - a common mistake made by those new to intimate relationships. For three days prior to the departure it seemed that two lovers were not speaking to each other much. But things seemed to have worked out in the end. As they had assembled on the bridge to begin their trip eight days ago, Stacy had been there right alongside Christine and Maureen, Mick's official woman, tears in her eyes. She had given him a big hug and a kiss, telling him to be careful and to come back safe. He had promised that he would.

              "I really hope we find that friggin' chopper when we get there," Mick said, his hand massaging the part of his shoulder where his heavy pack bit into it. "I'm not too keen on marching back another eight days."

              "Actually, it would be more like twelve days," Skip felt compelled to point out. "Remember, we've been going downhill. Gravity has been working for us. On the way back, it would work against us."

              "Well you're just Mr. Silver Lining, aren't you?" Paula asked with a groan.

              "Sorry," Skip said, anything but.

              "I just feel so far from home out here," she told him. "And some of the things we saw." She shook her head, trying to keep the images from taking her away. "I can't believe how lightly we took the thought of exiling someone before. I can see why you said it was a fate worse than death."

              Yes, there had been some very disturbing sights seen on their eight-day trek through the woods, things that had the power to rob sleep. Unlike when Skip, Jack, and Christine had been out before, there were now dead human bodies littered throughout their path. These bodies were found singly, in pairs, once in a group of five. They were in various stages of decomposition, some relatively fresh, some more than a month into the process. Not all of them were the victims of starvation either. The group of five had been particularly upsetting. It appeared that they had all died from a single gunshot to the back of the head. They had been dead maybe a week, maybe more. It was hard to tell because their bodies had been neatly skinned and stripped of muscle tissue, leaving little more than skeletons. It was not the sort of stripping of meat that animals would have done. The cuts were too even, too smooth to have been made by anything other than a knife. The thought that there was a group of survivors subsisting by organized cannibalism made everyone, including Skip, shudder.