Tread Fearless: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 4) (28 page)

“Sheriff Green said they were looking for a place to dump all the dead bodies. You don’t think this is one of the places, do you?” she asked, looking a little pale.

Mark sighed and said, “It’s possible. If the city has more dead than they can bury, there’s a good chance they’ll use quarries as mass graves. It wouldn’t be the first time such places have been used. But it’s not our worry. We’re leaving anyway . . . to find someplace a little more discrete.”

“I thought you were worried about the fallout?”

“The wind has shifted in our favor. It’s blowing from the north now, so we should be fine for at least a day or two. The weather’s also changing. I think it’ll be cold tonight, maybe in the 50’s. But we need to find a place to rest before we begin peddling through the night. Do you think you’ll be up to that . . . peddling through the night?”

“Sure. I can keep up with you. Haven’t I already proven that?” she replied.

“That you have,” said Mark.

“Are we still going to pass near Georgetown? If so, I’d like to take a look at the military operations there. I don’t want to run into General Fogg’s troops, but I would like to see what’s going on now that Hood is radioactive.”

Mark considered her request with a visible frown. He didn’t like the idea of getting anywhere close to a military operation, even one he was very familiar with, but he admitted to himself that he was a bit curious. Still, they would have to be very careful. An encounter with the wrong patrol could end their trip, and land him in the stockade, complements of Colonel-Sheriff Green.

“That will be risky,” replied Mark. “Not to mention it will take some careful planning, and delay us by a day or more. But Georgetown is still a good thirty miles north of us. Here, let me show you where we are,” said Mark, and he went to his saddle bag and removed a folded map from a large zip-lock baggie. With his finger, he traced their previous route, and showed Lauren where they were, and where they were heading.

After discussing their route, they made and then ate a quick meal, and prepared their gear for departure. A quick search of the warehouse revealed few items of survival value for such light travelers, but Lauren found a new, three-pack of disposable Bic lighters in a pair of overalls, and Mark an eighteen-hundred-foot spool of thin steel wire in a storage locker.

“What’s that for?” asked Lauren sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at Mark’s small but surprisingly heavy spool of wire. She was certain her find was the better of the two, and she was about to brag a little.

“Are you kidding me?” teased Mark in reply. “This is invaluable,” he added while holding it up for inspection. “I can build traps and snares, lay a trip wire, use it as a garrote, repair things, cook with it . . . the options are endless.”

“Cook with it?” asked Lauren, skeptically.

“Sure. I can string meat through it and hang it over a fire. You’d be surprised how many uses there are for fine steel wire like this.”

“I saw a pair of wire cutters. Want me to go grab them?” she added, capitulating to Mark’s victory.

“Already got some,” he said, while patting the Leatherman in a case on his belt.

“Well, aren’t you mister prepared,” she said, in mock sarcasm.

“Hmmm,” said Mark. Lauren watched as he removed his Leatherman, cut a length of wire from the spool, and then made a small loop. “Then you will be . . . missus prepared?” and he held out the loop as if to put it on her finger.

Mark wasn’t exactly sure how she would respond to his gesture, but he wasn’t exactly surprised when Lauren extended her ring finger for him. Without pause, Mark slipped the fine steel loop on her finger and said, “Is it a good fit?”

“Perfect,” she said. “Now make one for yourself. I’ll not be found an unwed woman in this crazy and wild world.”

“Unwed?” asked Mark, surprised at her forward but apparently innocent comment. Still, it caught him a little off guard.

With a sly but very cute smile, she replied, “You know what I mean. I think it’s better we appear to be married since we’re traveling together. Besides, who could marry us even if we wanted to make it official?”

“Official?” stammered Mark.

This time Lauren laughed aloud and said, “Just make one for yourself, tough guy. I’ll make an honest man out of you yet.”

Mark grunted and quickly made himself a ring. He paused for a moment and then handed it to her. She looked at it, smiled, and said, “You’re such a worrywart. Now hold out your finger.” Mark complied and Lauren added, “With this ring, I thee wed . . .”

He blanched and she laughed again, but this time sweetly and tenderly. “Mark Phillips,” she said, while holding a hand to his cheek, “I’m not asking you to settle down or anything. I’m not even asking you to commit to me, though I already know you have. All I’m asking for is trustworthy and loyal companionship. We’re bound together in ways I don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean we’re married. So let me put this ring on your finger so we can go.”

Mark held out his finger and she slipped on the thin steel loop. She then gave him a hug and held it long enough for him to relax in her arms. Lauren knew, more intuitively than anything, that Mark was still
struggling with the loss of his Lisa, and the last thing she wanted to do was pressure him into anything, especially another relationship. But she wasn’t Lisa, and if anything, the pretense of marriage might just save one of their lives, even if their rings were made only of steel wire.

After adding the new supplies to the bike trailer, Mark led Lauren from the warehouse. They mounted up on the paved parking lot and headed west a few hundred yards, in search of the dirt road that would take them north again. It was very tempting to stay on the paved road out of the quarry, but Mark knew better, especially during daylight hours. So, as soon as they reached the dirt road, they turned right and resumed their bumpy ride north.

On they rode, quietly, for about twenty minutes, and they began to notice the increased effort it took to manage the steadily increasing headwind. Mark guessed the headwind at near twenty miles-per-hour. It was tiring work, like riding up hill, and he wondered how Lauren was doing, but he wasn’t about to ask her for fear she would want to stop and rest. Then he corrected himself. Lauren wasn’t Lisa. Lauren was a soldier, a strong and independent woman, but he still struggled with a need to pamper her as he would have done for Lisa.

“That marriage thing, it really caught me off guard,”
thought Mark. But it was a good idea, an additional layer of cover. He realized he would also have to come up with cover names, something that would fit the two of them if they were stopped and questioned.

A gust of wind slammed into Mark and it almost brought him to a stop. He stood up on the pedals and continued grinding ever forward. The weight of the trailer was like a wheeled anchor and he longed to ride free of it, but it was a necessary burden, a survival burden, so he dug in and kept peddling, hoping Lauren was close enough behind him to use him as a wind break.

He knew a northerly wind rarely brought rain, but the weather was strange since the eruption. Add to that a nuclear explosion, and he could only guess what would come their way from above. But one thing was certain, when the cold dry wind from the north hit the hot wet air from
the south, bad weather was sure to follow. With that thought, Mark looked over his shoulder to see if the sky behind them was changing. Thankfully, the north wind dominated the weather, but it tempted Mark to get off and walk his bike.

Mark and Lauren remained on the lookout for a potential daytime refuge, but other than the line of mesquite, cedar, and other brushy shrubs to their left, there was little in terms of real cover. At least the vegetation provided concealment from the occasional vehicle that still passed by on the elevated highway less than a quarter-mile away.

As they rode along in silence, each considering the future, Mark stopped and said, “Our first obstacle.”

Lauren looked wind-blown and very happy to dismount her bike. She pushed up next to Mark and said, “At least it’s not muddy.”

Mark nodded and studied the dry creek bed. At one point, water from heavy rains had cut a deep trough across the road’s gravel bed, leaving a single metal drainage culvert exposed and bare. At the upstream mouth of the pipe, dead branches and other debris choked it closed, and obviously forced the water up and over the crossing.

“Can you carry your bike over this ditch?” Mark asked Lauren.

“Can you carry your stuff across?” she asked in reply. Her lips were pursed, but her eyes smiled despite her apparent frustration of Mark’s insistence that she needed help for such an easy crossing.

“Sorry,” replied Mark. “I’m not used to . . . never mind.” Without another word, Mark detached the trailer and carried it, and then his bike across the ditch. Lauren, he saw, easily managed her gear, and he felt the bigger fool for it.
“She’s not Lisa,”
he corrected himself, and began to reattach the trailer.

While he worked, Lauren walked ahead, pushing her bike forward to rest her sore butt for a few minutes longer. Less than ten yards up, the road turned slightly west and emerged alongside an open pasture. Lauren stopped and leaned against a tree in the shadows to wait for Mark to catch up.

Mark also pushed his bike forward, and then stopped next to Lauren to survey the pasture ahead. He admired her tactical sense, and was glad he didn’t have to say anything about her stepping from concealment and into the open. After laying down his bike, Mark removed a set of hunting binoculars from a pocket on his tactical vest, and began to scan the pasture ahead.

In the distance, some three-hundred yards away and slightly to the left, stood a farmhouse. A small place by the looks of it, not more than a few bedrooms at most. And across the driveway from it was a metal-sided hay barn many times larger. It literally dwarfed the house and the two warehouse-like buildings on either side of it. Mark had no idea about the purpose of the other buildings, but there was no mistaking the place as a cattle ranch. Of the fifty some head of cattle in the pasture between them, more than a dozen lay dead in the field. Those that still lived were gathered together near the hay barn side of the pasture, standing with their butts to the wind, and eating from a recently opened hay roll.

Mark scanned to the right and saw a school; a middle school by the looks of it because it had a track, and lacked the telltale sign of kindergarten play equipment. The school looked new, and sat on the outer edge of a large development that looked equally new, and equally unoccupied. He tried to read the name of the school, but it was too far away for his binoculars. He handed them to Lauren and turned his attention back to the map.

“Delaney Middle School,” she said, looking toward the school.

Surprised, Mark asked, “You can read the sign from here?”

“No, silly. But I remember it from my earlier briefings. It was on the FEMA interest list, but they selected Atkins High instead,” she said. After a minute long scan, she added, “I don’t see any activity . . . it looks quiet. Even the neighborhood around it.”

“I didn’t see anything either,” said Mark. “Do you see anything at the ranch house?” Lauren turned to scan the ranch while Mark slipped the map away and finished the last of his water bottle. “We need to find some water. Think that ranch has a well?”

“It’s hard to say these days, with electric pumps and all, but most properties that size have wells. The stock tank is empty, but there’s a metal water tank along the fence near the barn. What do you think killed the cows . . . no water?”

“Would a week without water kill them?” asked Mark.

“I don’t know. But they’re like people I suppose, so maybe it depends on the temperature. You know, when it’s hot you need more water. Do you think it’s safe to approach the house?” she asked.

“Let’s observe it a little while longer. If no one shows themselves in the hour, then we’ll head over and see what we can find. I’m thinking we should approach it from the barn side though. What do you think?”

“I think we should just camp right here,” she said.

“I would, but I don’t want to be caught outside if the wind shifts and carries the fallout this way. I think we should look for cover whenever possible,” replied Mark. “And this place looks like a good opportunity for that,” he added, while hitching a thumb toward the property.

“Okay. I defer all tactical and survival matters to you, mister prepared.”

“All right then, missus prepared. Let’s sit down and get comfortable. We’ll switch watch every fifteen minutes,” said Mark, as he removed a pair of hunter’s binoculars from a cargo pocket. “Who’s up first?”

Mark rigged a small, forest-patterned, camouflage panel to put them entirely in the shadows, and pulled out a mini-tripod folding chair for himself. Lauren chuckled and shook her head. Mark asked, “What?” But Lauren said nothing. She just smiled at him as he fiddled with his gear, and she cleared a spot to get comfortable on the ground after making sure there were no fire ants around.

With that thought, she asked, “Have you ever been bitten by fire ants?”