Tread Fearless: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 4) (24 page)

The images, the mental pictures of the maps, were firmly planted in his mind, and he knew enough of the route to get them safely to Georgetown. But the problem wasn’t peddling, or even the route, it was other people. The two highwaymen he ran into the other day concerned him. He didn’t know what to expect of people after the ambush, but running into Ed, and then finding Lauren, gave him new hope.

As for Green, he was a different kind of threat. He only let Mark live because he wanted to use him. Though Green didn’t say as much, he knew the old Sheriff considered him an expendable asset. Mark could read the intent on the Sheriff’s face. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if the Sheriff planned to turn him in once the package was delivered.

“You’re awful quiet,” puffed Lauren, as she peddled to catch up with Mark.

When she was abreast of him, Mark said, “We’re almost there.”

“I thought you said we were staying on paved roads?”

“We were, but I need to take care of a few things . . . and the first is to make sure we’re not being followed,” said Mark.

“Ed wouldn’t follow us. He has his orders.”

“I’m not worried about Ed,” answered Mark. “I’m worried about the people who were watching us from the trees in the park.”

“What? Someone was watching us from the park? I didn’t see anyone.”

“I did. But it doesn’t matter now.”

“I was wondering why you were peddling so hard.”

“There’s a quarry up ahead,” said Mark, as he looked to the eastern horizon. The sun was hidden behind gray clouds, and Mark wasn’t sure if they were filled with rain or ash. Either way, he wanted to reset their schedule to night travel, and to do that they needed a safe place to hole-up for the day.

The dirt road widened and smoothed out, and their peddling became easier. The heavy tires of their mountain bikes kicked up
powdery dust, but not enough to give away their movement. Mark extended his senses, reaching out with feelings, sensing for something, anything ahead. Perhaps a threat. Feeling nothing, he continued to follow the road as it rounded a bend. At the end, before the road dropped down into the quarry pit, he stopped and stood. They looked into a gravel pit more than a hundred feet deep, and scanned the area for any possible threats.

The pit was relatively open to the east, but elevated and lined with trees and brush around all but a few feet. Across the pit stood a warehouse and several smaller out buildings, probably a foreman’s office, or something similar. As far as Mark was concerned, it was the perfect place to stop for the day. He turned to look at Lauren and her face lit up as if a flashbulb had just gone off. She lifted her glasses and Mark yelled, “Hurry! Follow me.”

“Why? What was that!” shouted Lauren to his back as she watched him mount his bike and quickly push away.

“Now!” yelled Mark, as he began to descend the quarry road into the pit. He didn’t even bother looking back to see if Lauren was following him, which he was sure would bother her. He just hoped she’d follow.

When he reached the bottom, he moved to the center of the quarry and laid his gear on the ground. Lauren followed, breaking hard near Mark, and jumped off her bike shouting, “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

Mark grabbed her and forced her down, their heads pointing east and away from the direction of the flash. “Mark!” shouted Lauren. “What are you doing?” The ground shook beneath them, but much less than Mark had anticipated. He didn’t know the range, but knew what it meant. “It was a nuclear detonation,” he said. “Farther away than I thought it was.” He sat up and watched her do the same. “Didn’t you see the flash? The direction?”

“No,” replied Lauren. “I was looking at you. How do you know it was a nuclear explosion?”

“The sun was behind you. And it was a different kind of light on your face. It was like the flash of a camera.” Mark stood and helped Lauren to her feet.

“Why’d you move to the middle of the pit?”

“Didn’t want the sides dropping in on us. Austin wasn’t the target. I’m thinking Hood then.”

“Fort Hood?” gasped Lauren.

“It’s a guess, Lauren. We won’t know for sure, but the blast was a long ways off . . . at least seventy miles, and that’s the only target I can think of in that range and direction,” said Mark, as he began to walk toward the steep road leading up and out of the pit. “But I won’t know more until I can have a look around.”

“You’re not going up there?”

“I am. Come with me if you want. It’s safe enough for now. I want to see which way the wind’s blowing. We may have to take shelter.”

“A fallout shelter?”

“Something like that,” paused Mark. “Are you coming?”

“Aren’t you afraid another one might blow up in Austin?” she asked, as she jogged to catch up with him.

“Not really. If it was an attack from a foreign power, well . . . there’s no strategic purpose for destroying Austin. I think that might have been different if Bergstrom was still an active airbase, but it’s long gone. Fort Hood, on the other hand, is an active and viable military target. I’d bet money that it was the target,” replied Mark.

Lauren was silent as they climbed the road to the top. Mark was pleased to note that the wind was blowing out of the south, which was very favorable to their survival. He looked in the direction of Fort Hood, to see if he could spot any sign of a mushroom cloud. There were swirling clouds, but nothing that looked distinctly nuclear in nature. Disturbed, yes, but the atmosphere has been disturbed for several weeks now. Lauren must have felt the same and asked, “Are you sure it was a nuclear bomb?”

“You felt the earth shake too.”

Lauren turned and began walking back down to the floor of the pit. “I need a drink of water,” was all she offered as she left. Mark watched her go, sensitive to her concerns about the future, but unsure of what to say to comfort her. He didn’t like the idea that nukes were added to the disaster scenario, but it wasn’t like he was surprised. Besides, he had no desire to go to Hood. He could easily give that area a wide birth and still reach Pete’s place safely, as long as the wind continued to blow north or south. Belton was twenty miles from Hood, and if Pete was home, he was probably fine. John, being much farther north, was even better off.

Mark watched the swirling eddies of gray above him. Through a break in the clouds, he thought he saw a towering, massive column of gray reaching high into the sky. But it looked more like a super-cell than a mushroom cloud. Still, he was convinced it was a nuclear blast. “
That will change things for the delivery
,” thought Mark, and then he remembered the note Ed had given him.

He reached into his pocket and removed the scrap of paper. After carefully unfolding it, he read the lines quickly, “Use extreme caution with Fogg. Green means to have you arrested.” Mark crumpled the paper, and was about to toss it away when he realized Lauren needed to see it.

Mark descended into the quarry and, when he reached his bike, he opened a saddlebag and withdrew the letter Green had given him that morning. “What’s that? A letter from Green?” asked Lauren, as she took another sip of water and opened a granola bar.

“Yeah. He asked me to deliver it to Fogg.” Mark pulled out a four-inch folding knife and flipped it open with his thumb.

“You’re not going to open that?”

“Of course I’m going to open it. Here, read this,” he said, as he tossed her the wad of paper from his pocket. She grabbed the paper, unraveled it, and read while Mark slit the envelope open along the short seam and dumped the letter into his hand. He unfolded it and began to read.

“Oh!” exclaimed Lauren, when she finished the note. She sat quietly while Mark read the letter. When he finished, he walked over and handed it to her. Lauren offered two additional “oh’s” as she read the letter.

Mark, following her earlier lead, rummaged around in his pack for a snack, and then plopped down across from her on the ground. He chewed on his energy bar and waited for Lauren to digest the words of the letter. He knew it would be much more shocking for her, for it talked about Mark’s arrest and execution, and Laruen’s immediate movement to Fort Hood, and then transfer to her father’s location as soon as possible. “That asshole!” exclaimed Lauren, as she crumpled the letter and tossed it aside with force. It sailed a good distance and settled against a rock some twenty feet away.

Mark went and picked it up. “We’ll need this for fire starting material,” he said.

“You mean, kindling?” teased Lauren, in an effort to lighten Mark’s troubled mood.

“Yeah. I mean, kindling,” replied Mark, as he took another bit of the energy bar and dropped back to the ground near here. He remained lost in his thoughts, and completely missed Lauren’s attempt to distract him from a potentially dark mood.

When Mark looked up at the sky, Lauren followed his lead. As she took in the gray, swirling sky above, she wondered what troubled him the most: the dishonorable actions of Green, or the nuclear explosion to the west. She really didn’t care about either. For her, the freedom of being away, of traveling with Mark, was worth any risk or trouble, be it immediate or in the future.

She already trusted him completely, loved him even without knowing why. Lauren also didn’t know where they’d end up, but she was happy to be with Mark, and she felt the importance of keeping him focused and on track - happy even. Deep down, she knew that her happiness was directly connected to his. They were a team, now, and they needed each other; of that she was absolutely convinced.

CHAPTER 10

LIGHT

J
ohn woke with a start and sat up in his sleeping bag. He didn’t know what caused him to wake up, he had no memory of his dreams, but it was complete nonetheless. He turned his neck left and right to release a kink, and then unzipped his bag to climb out. Jenna was asleep next to him, lying in her own sleeping bag on the bed in the master bedroom. Mary, the woman they rescued from the barn, preferred sleeping in the other room now that her husband was gone.

John watched Jenna as he slipped on his boots. He was glad she was too tired to notice him coming awake and dressing. Strangely, the entire bedroom scene flashed him back home. In the years past, he had often startled her awake with his words and movements from dreams. At one point it got so bad that she encouraged him to seek counselling. And he actually thought about it.

He wondered if maybe counseling would help him understand what was going on, but when she encouraged him to take it to the VA, he flatly refused. When asked why, he said, “The VA will put me on their PTSD roles, and then I’ll risk losing my guns.”

“You won’t lose your guns,” she said. But John knew better. And he was justified with his concerns when the President later passed into law a set of strict limitations for all personnel who sought mental-health counseling through the Veteran’s Administration. It didn’t matter if the need was military related or not, anyone with a history of mental health counseling was no longer allowed to purchase or own firearms. Of course, with the change, that law no longer applied. Still, it bothered him.

John quietly opened the bedroom door and slipped into the hall. When he reached the front door, Corbin looked up from his book and said, “Everything alright Mr. A?”

“Yeah. Thanks Corbin. Everything’s fine. I just need to pee. And I want to talk with Pete. He’s on duty now, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you need to pee also?” asked John.

“I’m good for now. But thanks, Mr. A,” replied Corbin, as he returned to his book.

John saw that he was reading by flashlight, and he almost asked him to turn it off and save the batteries, but then thought better of it. Besides, he really didn’t care about the batteries at the moment, and he was glad Corbin was awake and ready to act.

John also found Pete reading. His friend was sitting on a hay bale near the barn door, and deep into a Stephen King novel when John walked in. Pete looked up from the book, said, “Hey boss. Everything OK?” and turned his eyes back to the book as he dogged a corner before closing it.

“King. Which one?”

“The Stand,” replied Pete, as he stood and slipped the book into a cargo pocket of his military pants.

“That’s a good one,” said John. “Read it myself a couple of times. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“No interruption. I prefer talking with you to reading a book, any day,” replied Pete with a smile.

“Do you think we’re like that . . . like The Stand? You know, the end of the world, a good versus evil sort of thing?” asked John.

Pete nodded and studied John’s face. He knew something was troubling him and wondered if he was ready to talk about it. One thing Pete knew about John, if he wasn’t ready to talk about something, he wouldn’t talk about it. And it didn’t matter how important the topic was to everyone around him. If John wasn’t at terms with what troubled him, then
no amount of coaxing could get him to talk. Pete dropped back onto the bale and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . well, there’s more to this mess than meets the eye.”

“Yeah. I got that. But can you elaborate for me, my friend?”