The Last Layover (16 page)

He then ran to the third man, who had dropped to his knees with his arms in the air in fear that Jason and Evan, who had now both drawn on them, would shoot. Jim rammed the shovel into his gut and kicked him in the face, knocking him backwards onto the floor.

He approached the man by the Maule, who was now lying, facedown, with his hands spread. Jim grabbed him by the back of the head and started smashing his face into the dirt over and over, saying, “I swear to God almighty, if you or any of your looting scumbag friends ever come back here again, I will chop your arms and legs off, grind them up in a meat grinder, and force-feed them to you. I will kill you in the most horribly slow and disgusting manner that my war-torn, twisted mind can come up with. Do you understand me?”

The man couldn't answer because of the pummeling. Evan and Jason looked at each other in shock from seeing Jim snap like that, but they understood what Charlie and Clara meant to him, so they were not about to judge his defensiveness. He then took a five gallon jug of motor oil and poured it all over the three men while they lay there on the ground, cowering in pain. After he had exhausted the oil, he poured a can of paint thinner on them, then stood back and lit a cigarette.

At this point, Evan and Jason were about to intervene, when Jim said, “Now you two pick up your buddy there, and drag his worthless ass off of this property as fast as you can. If you’re not moving fast enough, I will light your asses on fire and laugh while I watch you burn to death. And you make sure you tell all of your scumbag friends they will not get the nice treatment you got. It will be much worse the next time I catch someone here. The two oil-covered men got up and struggled over to their unconscious accomplice, each grabbing an arm, and began dragging him away. Jim followed them for a while, puffing on the lit cigarette to keep the fear of being burned alive fresh and real in their minds. After he was confident they wouldn't be stopping or turning around, he stopped following them but occasionally fired a shot at the ground just behind them to keep them motivated and moving.

He then walked back up to the barn with a look of disgust on his face and said, “Charlie wouldn't have been as polite and neighborly as I was.”

“Damn, Jim,” Jason said, “I sure would hate to be on your bad side.”

“I take my loved ones seriously,” he replied as he put the cigarette out on the wall.

Just then, Charlie and Carl came roaring up on one of Charlie's tractors. They slammed it to a stop and jumped off; Charlie, with his old side-by-side double barrel twelve-gauge shotgun, and Carl with his AK-74S. “What the hell was the shots for?” Charlie asked.

“There were a couple of thieves in the barn,” Jim replied. “I guess they heard the generator running from a distance and decided to come and take it and see what else they could get.”

Jason said, “Jim gave them a pretty good beat down and put the fear of God in them though, so I doubt they will be back.”

“They may not be, but others from the cities will eventually,” Jim replied.

“I'll just make a game out of them then,” Charlie said. “It will help me pass the time. We old guys have to keep busy or we get bored.”

“Well, let's get everything secured here and get you guys to bed. You have an eventful day ahead of you tomorrow,” Jim said.

Having learned their lesson not to leave their gear unattended, Evan and Jason loaded all of their stuff back into Jim's truck to take back to the house with them for the night. They locked the barn back up with the chain on the door and drove up to the farm house.

Once the men came back into the house, the ladies asked them what all the commotion was about and Charlie said, “Oh, Jim just saw a coyote. He hates those things.”

Judith and Peggy were relieved to think it was nothing, but Clara looked at Charlie with the stink eye, as she knew he wasn't being honest. He returned the look, and she understood. “Well, let's all get some sleep then,” she said as they retired for the night.

Early the next morning, they were awakened to the smell of a fresh cooked breakfast coming from Clara's kitchen. She had made fried eggs that were freshly laid by their chickens, homemade biscuits, and steak medallions from the same cow they had enjoyed for dinner the previous night. Once everyone was up and about, she gathered everyone in the dining room and asked them to stand for a special prayer before the meal. Everyone joined hands and bowed their heads as Charlie said a profound prayer that brought tears to many of their eyes.

He said, “Dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, thank you for the abundance of this meal that we are about to eat. Thank you for granting us the fortune of growing up in a time and a place where we could learn the skills and the work ethic that it takes to provide for one's self and one's family in such abundance, while so many are scared and hungry and without the means or the knowledge to provide for themselves. Lord, please have mercy on those who have become dependent on society for their sustenance in this modern age, who have recently found themselves without a hand to feed them. Please help them and guide them in what you need them to do, in order to carry on in these uncertain and difficult times.

“Also, Lord, please help our new-found friends who have faced many difficult challenges, and who have found themselves joined together in this journey. Lord, we know the twists of fate that put them together had to be guided by your hand, and the events that brought them to Damon, and for Damon to help guide them to us. We know that their journey is part of a greater plan of yours, so please be with them and keep them safe. We thank you again, Lord, for our blessings and our friendships and family. In your name we pray, Amen.”

Everyone in the room felt connected and somehow drawn together. When this whole chain of horrific events began, Evan, Jason, and Peggy were merely co-workers spending another day on the job together. Along the way, their lives had become intertwined with the Rutherford family, Judith, and now Charlie and Clara. Evan stood there in awe and reflected on their great fortune. To have somehow managed to be surrounded and helped by so many wonderful people throughout their perilous journey home staggered him. Humanity wasn’t lost, not yet.

“Okay, everyone, let’s eat,” said Clara with a smile. And with that, they all sat down and enjoyed their wonderful breakfast and their beloved company.

After breakfast, Evan said, “Thank you all so much for the hospitality, but we had better get going. We've got a long way to go to get to Zanesville, and then on to Cincinnati and Tennessee.”

They said their goodbyes to Charlie and Clara, and all loaded up in Jim's truck for the drive over to the barn. Once at the barn, Jim fired up the old Ford tractor and pulled it out of the way. They loaded their stuff into the back of the plane and then they all helped to push it out of the barn.

Peggy and Judith gave Jim and Carl a big hug. Judith said, “I'll say a little prayer each day that the
Little Angel
keeps you and your family safe.”

Evan and Jason shook Jim and Carl's hand and thanked them for everything. “Maybe we will see you guys again someday. Here is a map of where we will be. If the islands don't work out, feel free to come looking for us. You'll always have a place to go in Tennessee,” said Evan as he handed them the map.

With that, they climbed into the Maule for the next phase of their journey. Excitement and anxiety overwhelmed them as they prepared to, yet again, venture off into the unknown.

Chapter 15: By the Air

“Well, here goes,” said Evan. “Do you have the VFR sectional chart out so we can navigate via physical landmarks and terrain? That's all we will have to go on since all of the ground-based navaids, like VORs, are down without the electrical grid.”

“Yep, I highlighted the route I think we should take. I'll keep my eyes on the ground and on the map, you just try to not hit anything staying low,” Jason replied.

“What’s a VOR?” asked Peggy from the back seat.

Evan turned around and said, “Oh, that stands for ‘Very High Frequency Omni-Directional Ranging’. It’s a ground-based radio transmitter, the size of a small house that transmits a radio beam for each of the degrees on a compass rose. Combined with DME, or Distance Measuring Equipment, which most VORs have collocated with them, you can ascertain your exact position by determining the radial, or radio beam, you’re on and the distance from the transmitter from the DME. Without DME, you can use intersecting radials from two different VOR transmitters, but it’s just easier with DME. Our national airspace system of airways and intersections is basically made up by connecting the dots, going from one VOR transmitter to the next tracking their radials as airways. GPS has been taking over, but the problem with that is with a flip of a government switch, the entire world’s GPS satellite network goes down. With VORs, theoretically they can be run individually from the ground if need be. Hopefully, they get that sort of thing straightened out soon.”

With Peggy being satisfied by his answer, Evan got back to the business of getting the Maule up and running. He pumped the carburetor primer three good times, then turned the start switch. The prop swooped around three times with no hits from the ignition. Evan gave the primer another two shots and turned the key again. On the second swing of the prop, the old Maule shook itself to life. After a moment of shuddering and shaking, it smoothed out and eventually purred like a big kitten. As soon as all of the operating temperatures and pressures were in range, Evan released the brake and taxied the plane across the grass field towards the strip. The strip hadn't been mowed or maintained for a while, but since it was late fall, the grass hadn't had much more growth since the last time it was cut. They could feel the resistance from the taller-than-normal grass during the taxi, but the Maule had ample power to overcome it.

“I hope that grass doesn't keep us on the ground too long, being heavy and all,” Jason said.

Evan concurred and put in a notch of flaps to give them a little more slow speed lift. As he entered the runway strip, he took the turn under power and had the engine at full throttle by the time he lined up on the center line and the Maule immediately began the roll. He held the yoke full forward, trying to get the tail off of the ground as soon as possible to reduce the drag from the grass to only the front two main wheels. In only a few hundred feet, the tail came off of the ground, leaving only the main wheels in the grass. He held the yoke with a little forward pressure to keep the plane glued and tracking straight, while they continued to accelerate. At about three-quarters of the way down the grass runway, he felt like the plane was ready to fly. He snapped the nose off of the ground and pitched up for a max performance climb, and quickly cleared the surrounding trees with ease. As soon as they got over the tree line safely, he leveled off and rocked the wings as a final wave goodbye to their friends down below.

He pulled the power back for a more efficient cruise, looked at Jason, and said, “Lead the way, Jason.”

“Roger Roger,” Jason responded with a renewed vigor in his voice.

Jason oriented their position to where they were on the chart and gave Evan suggested headings to get them going on the right track. With no electronic or radio navigation, it would be simple dead reckoning and pilotage with a lot of looking out the window and cross-referencing landmarks. Jason suggested a route which followed power lines that ran roughly in the direction of Zanesville for a while. Power line access roads generally have the trees cleared on both sides of the lines, providing a clear path for them to fly extremely low while avoiding the trees.

They soon realized that the tree line access roads had become lines of drift for terrain-conscious travelers who were trying to get some mileage in while avoiding the main roads. “That's pretty dang smart,” said Jason. “It's like a dirt highway.”

“Yeah, and you can ditch into the woods in a hurry, like those people,” Evan said, pointing at a campsite of about ten people who were scurrying into the trees to hide from them as they flew overhead. “They probably think we are authorities of some sort, scouting for people not complying with the new government mandates.”

“Yep, just be glad they aren't shooting at us... yet,” Jason said with his familiar crooked smile.

Peggy from the back seat said, “Yet? Shooting at us yet?”

“Relax, I'm just kidding… sort of,” he replied with the same crooked smile.

“Whoa,” Evan said as he dodged an antenna tower to the left. “Gotta remember those things don't have blinking lights on them right now. Where were you on that one, Mr. Navigator?”

“Sorry, captain. I was busy harassing the flight attendants. By the way, where is my coffee?” Jason said with a laugh as he turned and looked to the back seat.

“Ha, ha, ha,” replied Peggy sarcastically.

They each settled into their thoughts for the next hour or so. They could see that so much of the America they loved was clearly in distress. They saw burned buildings and homes that were still smoldering on occasion. Evan wondered if they were set ablaze, or if they were accidentally burned down by people trying to use alternative methods of heating. It had been getting pretty cold at night, being this late in the year. There were cars abandoned virtually everywhere. Several gas stations had cars abandoned all around them. It was like people made it that far, desperately in search gas, only to find that there was none to be had. They saw a burned and destroyed police car with several bodies on the ground around it. They couldn't tell whether they were civilians or police officers, but considering the car was still there and burned, they figured it didn't end well for the police. At their low altitude, though, their view of things was limited as they would be passing over a scene by the time they even saw it.

“Okay, I think that is Lake Redman,” Jason said, pointing out the window. “If that is the case, we are directly south of York, PA. That's about as far north as we want to go. If you stay on this heading, or maybe come about ten degrees left, we should hit the Pine Grove Furnace State Park soon. That will be an easy to recognize geographical feature. Then we will go from there, but I think we are doing good this way. Not far after that, we will be over the mountains of West Virginia, and then it is an easy hop over the mountains to Zanesville.”

“Speaking of Zanesville,” Evan said, “I think if we land this thing at the airport, we are putting ourselves at risk of arrest. We are heavily armed, with stolen government AR-15s I might add, and are flying against the presidential orders from the state of emergency. Considering that airports are the perfect secured staging ground for forward operating bases or any sort of government support activities, we should probably avoid them.”

“Good point,” said Jason. “Well, where do you want to put this thing down?”

“I think we need to consider this airplane as an asset that we don't want to give away as soon as we get out of it, and if we land at an airport or randomly on someone's property, that is basically what we will be doing. Does Ed still have that property east of Columbus?” Evan asked.

“Ed Savio?” Jason replied. “Yes, I believe he does.”

“Could you identify it from the air?” Evan asked.

“Oh hell yeah. I used to shoot there all the time with him. He has a range set up on his property and built a berm with a small bulldozer he rented. I'll be able to pick it out easy.”

“Good, let's make that plan A unless we think of something else between here and there.”

“Roger Roger,” Jason replied sharply.

It didn't seem like much time passed before they identified the Pine Grove Furnace Park. Jason consulted the charts and they adjusted their heading accordingly to head generally towards Wheeling, West Virginia. They found that hugging the terrain over the mountains of West Virginia proved to be a little more challenging than they thought. Ducking below the hills sometimes meant a max performance climb in the overloaded Maule to get over the next rise or peak, giving Peggy and Judith a few scares they could have gladly done without. The airflow over the mountains that close to the terrain, created quite a bit of uncomfortable turbulence for them as well. At one point, Judith had to be the first to utilize a sick sack. The sight and smell of it caused Peggy to do the same. The ladies weren't looking very well at all due to the rough ride.

Once they identified the Wheeling area, they were in the home stretch. Jason looked on the chart as to where he thought Ed's place would be. Using the Muskingum River as a reference, he pointed out the window and said, “I've got it! I know where his place is now. As soon as we get to the Muskingum River, turn north and we can parallel it to Ed's place,” he said.

As they neared Zanesville, Jason's heart was racing with excitement. He was almost home. He hoped things were still okay there. “Okay, turn north now. You see that road off to your left?”

“Yep,” Evan replied.

“Parallel that. The road will lead us to his place; I just don't think we should fly right up the middle of the road. Okay, now turn about thirty degrees to the left. Okay, go ahead and dirty up. We don't want to buzz around that place and draw attention. We need to drop right in over the tree line and put it down and shut it down on the spot the first time.”

“Roger that,” said Evan as he pulled the power back and began to slow to flap configuration speed. He fed in each notch of flaps on speed, then slowed for the next.

“Okay, that's the tree line there. Right on the other side of that is his property. His shooting berm is to the left, so try and hug the right side up against what looks like a fence line to the right. You're gonna have to dangle your wheels in those trees to get down quick enough.”

“Are there any obstacles other than the berm I should know about?” asked Evan.

“Not that I can remember,” Jason replied.

Evan slowed to about sixty knots and now had full flaps deployed. He pulled out the carburetor heat knob, double-checked everything, and said, “Okay, first landing in this thing and it's in someone's back yard at somewhere I've never been. Perfect.”

Jason grinned as Evan lowered the airplane right to the tree line and said, “Dang, that's close.”

Just as they passed the tree line, Evan chopped the power, kicked the rudder and put in opposite aileron to get the airplane into a forward slip, and dove for the ground. At just about the point of touchdown, he took the slip out, flared, and the aircraft firmly planted itself on all three wheels, then bounced once, and came back down to contact the ground right where some sort of hole had been dug. The right main gear dropped into the hole and bounced back out sending the airplane spinning around sideways. They slid across the wet morning grass, sideways, for about thirty feet. Finally, the opposite rudder input that Evan was holding brought the tail back around. The momentum swung the tail back around the other way as they slid to a stop, nearly ninety degrees sideways.

“And ladies and gentleman, we know you have a choice in air travel, and we hope you choose U.S. Scareways again for your next apocalyptic travel needs,” Evan said in his best captain voice as Peggy swatted him in the back of the head.

Still laughing, Evan and Jason popped the doors open and began to climb out as a camouflaged ATV came roaring around the corner with a rifle laid across the handlebars. Evan and Jason could tell it was Ed frantically trying to see who had just performed an airborne invasion of his property.

As Ed slid to a stop he said, “Oh my God! What in the world are you guys doing? Where the heck did you get a plane, and where did you come from? And why here?”

“Relax, man, we'll explain,” Jason said, trying to calm him down. “Let's just get the ladies and our stuff out and hide this bird first.”

“Of course,” replied Ed quickly, formulating a plan.

Ed used his ATV to tow the Maule backwards by tying a rope on to the tail wheel and dragging the airplane through the wet grass. They pushed it into his hay barn and closed the doors to hide the plane from view. Ed then threw their bags on the racks of his ATV and drove their stuff to his house while they all followed behind on foot. Once they got inside, they caught him up on everything that had happened and how their amazing journey by land, by sea, and by air had gotten them this far. They asked him what he knew, and being sort of a connected fellow, he caught them up on things the best he could. 

He said, “Well, in addition to what you already seem to know, there are a lot of reports that someone from the inside, here in the U.S., was providing the attackers/terrorists/whatever you want to call them, with the weapons, logistics, and the support they needed to carry out such a simultaneous, widespread attack. All of it right under the noses of the federal government, without being detected. A few high-ranking officials that called things into question were shortly thereafter charged with crimes themselves and arrested. Some of the Border States that reported activity related to the border, have had swarms of federal agents on scene.