Bug Out! Part 8

RV Park Terror

Robert G Boren

Contents

Previously - From Bugout! Part 7

Chapter 1 – The Long Straight Road

Chapter 2 – Kansas Border Stop

Chapter 3 – Ruins

Chapter 4 – The Big Barn

Chapter 5 – The Bunker

Chapter 6 – Building the Nest

Chapter 7 - Computing Power

Chapter 8 – The Lounge

Chapter 9 – Nighthawk Road

Chapter 10 – Metaphysical Romance/a>

Chapter 11 – A History of Violence

Chapter 12 – Polaroid Horror

Chapter 13 – App Upgrades

Chapter 14 – The Lake

Chapter 15 – Truck Fire

Chapter 16 – Wild Turkey

Chapter 17 – Summit Park

Copyright - About the Author

Previously - From Bugout! Part 7

Frank and Jane continue their adventures with their band of friends. They settled at Gabe’s RV Park in Colorado, but weren’t able to relax for long. The enemy figured out where they were quickly. Some new people joined the group – Dobie, a guard dog trainer with his four Dobermans, and Jake, owner of an electronics store in town. Jake has a daughter. Sparks flew between her and Terry. A large scale attack started in Denver, and the enemy began to get the upper hand. Why can’t the US Army take them down? The enemy started a series of attacks on the park, but it was well fortified, and they fail to defeat our friends. Eventually a large enemy force is sent towards the park, but thanks to Frank’s new applications, they couldn’t hide their movements. The group was forced to flee to the east again, blowing a bridge between the enemy and their escape route just in time. They got on the road to Kansas, but saw a group of enemy fighters coming down from Denver to intercept them. Will they make it to safety?

Chapter 1 – The Long Straight Road

“Finally,” Jane said, looking at the sign for Colorado Springs.

“Once we get past the city, we ought to be able to fly,” Frank said. “Where are the cretins?”

“Still on route 87, but they’ve just barely made it past Castle Rock. The traffic must be horrendous.”

“People from Denver are on the run,” Frank said. “Thought they’d mostly be going east, but the roads might not be able to handle it.”

“We have to transition onto I-25 for a few miles, unless we want to be on surface streets through town.”

“Who’s leading now?”

“Gabe,” Jane said.

“Good, he probably knows the area better than anybody else. If he leads us off the highway, I’ll trust him.”

Jane’s phone rang. It was Hilda.

“Jane?”

“Hi, Hilda, how’s it going?”

“Fine. You saw bad guys on route 87?”

“Yep, but they’re stuck in traffic. We’ll beat them through by a good margin.”

“Take a look at the traffic app. We’re going to be sitting in bumper to bumper traffic too, at least until we get onto route 94, and that’s even starting to load up.”

“Exodus. I’m not surprised. Maybe Gabe knows a shortcut.”

“Maybe. One other thing. Remember what General Hogan said about the Midwest states, back when he visited Gabe’s place?”

“Oh, Crap. Yeah. He said some of those states were open to residents only.”

Frank heard her say that and looked over, worried, for a second. Then he calmed down. Jane could see it.

“Just a sec, Hilda,” Jane said. She looked over at Frank. “What?”

“I remember General Hogan making that comment…but he’s also the person who told me to go to Kansas…remember?”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. She put the phone back to her ear. “Hilda, Frank just reminded me that General Hogan told him to go to Kansas.”

“He did?”

“Yes…in code. ‘There’s no place like home’…remember?”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. That makes me feel a little better.”

“Good,” Jane said. “We’ll be alright, one way or another.”

“Hope so. Thanks, Jane.”

Jane put her phone back in her shirt pocket.

“She’s worried?”

“She sees a big traffic jam. People heading through Colorado Springs. I’m not surprised, given the traffic on route 87.”

“Wonder if they’re going east like we are, or if they’re going down south?”

“Good question. Pueblo is south. After that, the next big thing is the New Mexico border, and we know that’s a bad area. Maybe it’s not so bad now, though.”

“I don’t think I’d be going there,” Frank said.

“People could go further south and slip into Oklahoma, or the Texas panhandle. Amarillo isn’t that far.”

“Here we are…city limits.”

“Looks like Gabe is getting off the highway,” Jane said. “Pike’s Peak Ave.”

“Traffic isn’t too bad here,” Frank said.

“I see what he’s doing. We can take this to Academy Blvd., then make a left. Then a right on Platte Ave. That will take us onto route 24, which runs into route 94 right past the airport.”

“Good,” Frank said.

Jane’s phone rang. She answered it.

“Hi, Jane, it’s Gabe.”

“Hi, Gabe.”

“A couple of our travelers need a bathroom break, so I’m going to pull over at this big park coming up. There ought to be enough room for all of us to stop for a few minutes. Mind sharing your bathroom?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Jane put her phone back in her pocket.

“We’re pulling over, I take it,” Frank said.

“Yeah, by the park that’s coming up. Some people need to go to the bathroom.”

“I could use that myself,” Frank said.

“Okay. I told Gabe we’d share.”

They pulled to a stop along the curb. The park was on the right side of the road. It was empty…plenty of room for everybody to park. Frank got out of his seat and stretched his back. Lucy jumped up and down, excited to go out.

“I’ll take her,” Jane said.

“Okay,” Frank said, heading for the bathroom.

Jane and Lucy left the coach. People were out stretching their legs. Jane saw Dobie taking all four of his dogs out for a walk. Trish and Terry were walking towards the Sheriff’s rig.

Frank came out and saw Jerry, so he walked over. “How you holding up?” he asked.

“Good, but I’m going to let Jasmine drive now. The road looks pretty easy for a while.”

“We’re going to hit traffic, I think. Been watching the cretins?”

“Yeah, they’re stuck way up on route 87. I was wondering if we’d see any of them around here, given all the traffic. I haven’t seen any at all.”

“Good, me neither.”

“You think we’ll have any problem getting over the border into Kansas?”

“I hope not. I’d forgotten that General Hogan said some of the Midwest states were closing their borders.”

“You don’t look too worried, Frank.”

“He told us to go to Kansas, remember?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jerry said, while he was scanning the area. “I hope he knew what he was talking about.”

“I know, me too.”

“How far is the border from here?”

“Two and a half to three hours, give or take,” Frank said.

“Not too bad, then. Know where we’re going yet?”

“No, not exactly. We should meet when we get to the first sizeable town. We’ll probably be needing gas by that time anyway.”

Charlie and Kurt walked up.

“How you guys doing?” Charlie asked.

“Fine,” Frank said. “Good to see you walking around, Kurt. How do you feel?”

“Sore, but as long as I don’t bend over too much, I’m good,” he said.

“Have any ideas on a good place to stop?” Jerry asked.

“My suggestion is to stop in Sharon Springs,” Kurt said. “There might be an RV Park nearby…somebody that Hilda and I knew. We aren’t sure it’s open anymore, though.”

“Sounds interesting,” Frank said.

“There’s a big truck stop in that town, too,” Kurt said. “Owned by another person I know. If we’re tired and want to keep going deeper into Kansas, we could always overnight there. It’s a lot like that last place we stayed. Plenty of room to park.”

“Good idea,” Jerry said.

“Looks like we’re getting ready to pull out,” Charlie said. “Talk to you guys later.”

Frank and Jerry nodded, and started back to their rigs. Jane was on her way back with Lucy too. She’d been talking to Jasmine. Gabe trotted over to Frank.

“Mind if I use your bathroom, Frank?”

“Not at all,” Frank said. He opened the coach door and motioned for Gabe to climb in.

“Thanks,” he said.

“How’d she do?” Frank asked Jane as she and Lucy came over.

“Good,” she said. “Got some big news from Jasmine.”

“Tell me when we’re on the road. Gabe’s using our bathroom.”

“Okay,” she said.

Gabe came out of the bathroom and walked back to the door. “This is a nice rig. I want to pick one up when we get out of the battle zone.”

“Good idea,” Frank said. “It’ll take a good sized rig to pull that Suburban of yours, though.”

“Gabe, you want a Diet Coke for the road?” Jane asked.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, taking it out of Jane’s hand. “I’ll see you guys in Sharon springs, unless we run into trouble on the way.”

“Okay,” Frank said. Gabe walked back up to his SUV, taking a big swig out of the soda can.

“Let’s go,” Jane said. They got into the coach, Jane going to the driver’s seat this time, with the other two sodas. Frank took one and got into the passenger seat. They followed the line of vehicles back onto the road.

“Where is everybody?” Jane asked, looking around the quiet streets. “There should be more traffic by now. It’s almost 9:00.”

“I saw more cars towards the north a few streets,” Frank said. “There are people around, but they’re keeping a low profile. You can’t blame them, after what happened back in Utah.”

“What?”

“Remember when the bad guys were going into towns along the highway and hijacking cars and trucks? I’m sure these folks heard about that. Good time to hunker down.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Jane said. “Heck, they were stealing supplies, too. And kidnapping women.”

“Exactly. There’s the next street.”

They followed the line of coaches through the left turn.

“Lot’s more cars on this road,” Jane said. “Look, there’s a line waiting to turn right up ahead. That’s probably our street.”

Frank looked at his phone’s map app. “Yeah, that’s Platte. The highway is going to be lousy, I suspect.”

Lucy looked up at Frank and whined.

“She wants up already,” Jane said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “No problem. C’mon, girl.” She jumped onto his lap, facing forward, watching the traffic out the front window.

“Here comes the turn,” Jane said, turning onto a big right turn chute. “This is nice…I was afraid we’d have a tight right turn to make. Look at all the people waiting to turn left over there, though.”

“Yeah. The highway is only about half a mile up. Looks like this road just turns into route 24. Easy peasy.”

“Anything on the long range app?” Jane asked.

“Nope, nothing.”

“Hope it’s working.”

Frank looked at his phone. He moved the map up to route 87, and the icons showed up again.

“It’s working,” he said. “I can see the bad guys on route 87. They’re still coming our way, but it’s slow going for them.”

“Traffic is our friend today, I guess,” she said.

“You might not be saying that if we’re stuck in it for a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point there.”

“What’s the big news with Jasmine?”

“She’s pregnant. Don’t tell Jerry I told you - and don’t tell anybody else yet.”

“Okay. I was hoping. I’m so happy for Jerry. I’m almost a little jealous.”

“I know, me too. Isn’t that weird?”

“A little, I guess. There’s the highway. It doesn’t look as bad as I expected.”

They drove onto the road. It was crowded, but it was moving at about 45 mph…about the same speed as Platte Ave. was running. Frank and Jane settled in for a long drive. The miles went by slowly, but after a while, the traffic started to thin out a little bit. Frank dozed off, until his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, but didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Robbie, how are you?”

“I’m good. How are you guys?”

“On the run again, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t tell me where you’re going.”

“I won’t, son. How’s the army treating you?”

“Pretty good, but they’re working us hard. We’re just about through basic. Then we’re going to Denver.”

“You be careful there. Lots of enemy troops building up.”

“Yeah, that’s what the scuttlebutt’s been. You heard that California is back to normal, right?”

“Yes, we heard. I’m glad.”

“Heard from Sarah?”

“No, not for a while. I should try to call her. We’ve been to hell and back since the last time we talked.”

“Anybody get hurt?”

“One of our people got shot in the stomach, but he’s recovering nicely. Other than that, we’ve come through alright.”

“We got briefed on a civilian recruitment program. One of the groups they were talking about sounded a whole lot like you guys.”

“They mention who was running it?”

“It was General Walker, but he got killed.”

“He was our friend,” Frank said.

“Oh. It was you.”

“Don’t let people around you know. There’s still a lot of bad guys in the service. Any chance you can tell me where you are, approximately?”

“Next state over, name of town same as a town nearby home…and a big street.”

“Ok, I’ll find it.”

“Have they said anything about chips in the enemy?”

“RFID…yeah. They said we haven’t been able to break the code to use them.”

Frank laughed.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” He paused.

“Oh. Figures. I gotta go, dad. Take care. Say hi to mom.”

“Love you,” Frank said.

“Love you too, dad. Bye.”

Frank put his phone back into his pocket.

“How’s he doing?” Jane asked.

“He sounded good. He’s almost through basic. Then he’s going to Denver.”

“I was afraid of that. Could he tell you where he is?”

“He said next state over, town same name as a town and big street by us. I’m looking it up now.”

“Good.”

Frank started laughing. “Hawthorne, Nevada. Big base there.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Jane said. “What did he say about the chips?”

“They’ve been briefed about them. He said they haven’t figured them out yet. He also said they got briefed on the citizen recruitment program, run by General Walker.”

“No, really?”

“Yeah, really. He said one of the groups they described sounded a whole lot like us.”

“Glad you told him not to spread that around.” She looked over at Frank. He had a worried look on his face. “What now?”

“I was just checking for cretins in that town. I’m getting hits at Robbie’s military base.”

“Crap. Can we warn him?”

“Not over an open phone line, sweetie. I can’t contact him, either. I’ll have to wait for him to contact us again.”

“How many do you see?”

“Not that many. Looks like about twenty.”

“Maybe we should contact General Hogan.”

“Now there’s an idea. Later, though. I want to try to get Sarah. It’s been a while.”

“Good idea,” Jane said.

Frank dialed her number. It rang, then she picked up.

“Daddy!” she said. “Where are you?”

“Hi-tailing it to the east, sweet pea. How are you?”

“Working my way through morning sickness.”

“You’re pregnant?” Jane looked over, surprised. Then she smiled. Frank nodded at her.

“Yes, daddy,” Sarah said.

“Really! That’s great, sweetheart. You still where you were, up in potato country?”

“Yes. Things have gotten back to normal around here. It’s nice. We’ve been setting up the nursery.”

“Here, I’ll give the phone to your mother,” Frank said, handing the phone over. Jane took it.

“Hi, Sarah. So, you’re pregnant?”

“Yes. I’m so excited. So happy.”

“That’s great. It sounds like you’re safe where you are.”

“Yes, the bad people left, and the Canadian border isn’t as bad as it was. We’re in a good place.”

“I’m so glad to hear that.”

“Are you and dad in danger?”

“No, not really. We’re moving further away from the action, though.”

“Dad said you were going east.”

“Yes, we’ll be in the Midwest. We’ll let you know where when we can.”

“Have you heard from Robbie?”

“Yes, just now. He’s almost through basic training.”

“I’m worried about him. There’s still a lot of fighting going on.”

“Me too, Sarah, but try not to let it bother you. Too much stress in a pregnancy isn’t good, especially at the beginning.”

“I know, our OB told us that.”

“Okay, honey, I’d better get off the phone. Traffic is getting kinda heavy again.”

“Wow, you’re driving?”

“Sure am. It’s not as scary as I thought it would be.”

“Well, good for you, mom. I’ll talk to you soon. Be careful. Love you both.”

“Love you too, honey. Bye.”

Jane handed the phone back to Frank. Traffic slowed to about 30 mph.

“Well, that was quite a call,” Frank said. “Nice job in candy coating our situation. She doesn’t need the stress right now.”

“That’s what I was thinking. She sounded so happy.”

“Yes, she did,” Frank said.

“Wonder what caused the traffic to slow so much?”

“I’m on it,” Frank said. He was staring at his phone, using his fingers to move things around. “Oh, it’s just highway 94. That’s coming up fast. It’s a smaller road than 24. We’ve probably got people on the southbound 24 dumping onto the 94 too.”

“Crap. It’s liable to be a long slog, then.”

“Could be. It’s really hard to say. Route 24 goes off to the north east and links up with I-70. That’s a better road if you want to go east in a hurry. A lot of folks might be getting on this road to go that direction.”

“Any enemy fighters on that stretch of I-70?” Jane asked.

Frank took a look. “Not a one. I think something happened to the guys who were coming down 87, too. They haven’t moved for a while. I doubt that the traffic is that bad.”

“Check the traffic app.”

“Doing that now. Yep, the traffic isn’t that bad. It’s moving at 30 mph or so. I’ll bet the army nailed those guys.”

“I hope so,” Jane said. “There’s a sign for route 94.”

“Good. About right, there’s the airport.”

They followed the line of coaches onto the transition road. As Frank was hoping, most of the people were heading northeast. Route 94 was crowded, but it was moving at about 60 mph. Frank and Jane looked at each other, relieved. They watched silently as the farm land went by on either side of them. Frank dozed off, and Lucy with him, curled up on his lap. Jane drove for about an hour. She saw the signs for Route 40 coming up, and followed the group onto that road. It was wider, and they were traveling along at almost 70 mph after a few minutes. The added speed woke Frank up with a start.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We just got onto route 40,” she said. “This is a much faster road.”

“What’s that town?” he asked, pointing.

“I saw a sign for Kit Carson just before you woke up, so I’m assuming that’s it.”

“Oh,” Frank said. He pushed on Lucy, and she jumped off his lap and got into her bed.

“How far from Kit Carson to Sharon Springs?” Jane asked.

“I was just going to check that out,” Frank said, getting his phone out of his pocket. He fiddled with if for a few minutes. “Yes! Only about an hour.”

“Really? That’s great.”

“I’d better check out the long range app.”

“Yeah, it’s been over an hour. I’m surprised you slept so long.”

“Me too,” he said, as he stared at the phone. “Crap.”

“What?”

“Those cretins aren’t stuck anymore. They’re getting onto route 94 right now.”

“They’re coming after us,” Jane said, a horrified look on her face.

Chapter 2 – Kansas Border Stop

Frank and Jane followed the line of coaches down Route 40, heading for Sharon Springs, Kansas. Traffic was moving along at a good clip now, and the farmland rolled by on either side of the road.

“The Kansas border isn’t that far,” Frank said, looking at his phone. “We’ll go through Cheyenne Wells first.”

“Just saw a sign for that. We’re about five miles out. Not many towns out here.”

“You holding up alright?” Frank asked.

“Sure, this has been an easy drive,” Jane said. “How about the cretins?”

“Been keeping a close eye on them. They’re still on highway 94, but it looks like they stopped.”

“How far?”

“Not very. There’s an air force base right by there. Hope they aren’t planning something.”

“What kind of base, Frank?”

“Looking that up now,” he said, looking at his phone. “Crap. Space warfare. That’s one of the bases that they use for our Satellite systems.”

“Maybe you’d better try to get General Hogan.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” He dialed, heard ringing.

“Hello?”

“General, it’s Frank.”

“Frank, how are you? Make it across yet?”

“Close. You seeing the cretins on highway 94?”

“Yeah, we’ve been watching them, thanks to you.”

“They’re getting close to Schriever Air Force base.”

“Roger that, we’re ready for them.”

“Good…that’s all I wanted to know.”

“By the way, thanks,” the General said.

“For what?”

“For making sure my boys were ok, and for giving them that Oldsmobile.”

“Oh, almost forgot about that. Seems like so long ago. The Oldsmobile belonged to Gabe. They made it to you okay?”

“Yep, they did.”

“Good, General. Glad to hear it. They said a lot of nice things about you.”

“We had a tight little Boy Scout unit,” he said, chuckling. “Better times than these. I gotta go Frank. Don’t worry, I don’t see anybody else anywhere near where you’re going.”

“Me neither. Take care of yourself, General.”

“You too. Call me when you get settled.”

“Will do.” Frank put the phone back in his pocket.

“We’re okay, I take it?” Jane asked.

“Sounds like they’re setting a trap for the bad guys at the air force base. We should be fine. They aren’t after us.”

“Good, I’m relieved,” Jane said. “There’s Cheyenne Springs. Bigger than I expected.”

The line of coaches slowed as they drove through the outskirts of town.

“Wow, two big parks, and fairgrounds,” Frank said. Then he cracked up.

“What?”

“My map shows a ‘Waterin hole’…with a Martini glass icon. First time I’ve ever seen that. Wonder if Rosie and Jeb will stop off.”

Jane laughed. “In better times, yeah, I’m sure they would.”

They got past the town in just a couple of minutes, and sped back up. There was only a short drive left before they hit the border.

“Uh oh, there’s a roadblock up there,” Jane said, looking.

“Border. I expected that,” Frank said. “Keep calm, sweetie.”

They rolled to a stop, and watched as Gabe talked with the officer. Gabe pulled out his phone, and then Frank’s phone rang.

“Gabe,” Frank said. He answered the phone.

“Frank, can you come up here?” The officer wants to chat.”

“With me?” Frank asked. He got a twinge that he hadn’t felt since Officer Simmons was still around. “Be right there.”

“They want to talk to you?” Jane asked, looking scared.

“Yeah,” he said, getting out of his seat. Lucy jumped up and down. “Not now, girl. I’ll be right back. Don’t worry, Jane. There aren’t any cretins around.”

“Okay, be careful.”

Frank stepped out of the coach and shut the door. He walked up to the front of the line, where Gabe was standing, talking to the officer.

“Thanks, Frank,” Gabe said.

“No problem. What’s up, officer?”

“Your name is Frank Johnson?” he asked, in a businesslike manner.

“Yes,” Frank said.

“Can I see some ID?”

“Of course,” Frank said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He took out his driver’s license and handed it to the officer.

“Okay, very good,” he said. “All of these people are with you?”

“Yes, they are, officer,” Frank said. “Somebody cleared the way for us?”

“Yes, the regional army commander told us you’d be coming through. The border is closed to most people.”

Frank felt relieved.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Gabe said, chuckling. “Thank you General Hogan.”

“Don’t use that name around here,” the officer said. “We’re still at war, remember.”

“Got it. Sorry, officer.”

“Okay, you folks are free to go. Take care of yourselves.”

“Thanks, officer,” Frank said. “Talk to you in Sharon Springs, Gabe.”

He walked back to the coach.

“Everything okay?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, General Hogan notified them about us. Good thing…the border is closed.”

“Well, this is a relief in more ways than one.”

“Yeah, we can get through, but the cretins will get stopped.”

“Exactly,” Jane said. “Should only be about half an hour to Sharon Springs.”

They got going again, and rolled along on the empty road, looking at the flat farmland on either side that seemed to go on forever.

“It’s a good thing this farm land is still producing,” Frank said.

“Maybe we’ll be safe enough here to spend the night in Sharon Springs.”

“Maybe. It’s still early, though, and I can drive for a while after we stop.”

“I know, I’m not worried about us. Think about the folks that can’t hand off the drive to somebody else. The Sheriff, and Mary, and Jackson, and Earl, and Jeb. They’ve got to be beat.”

“Oh,” Frank said. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll suggest that we hang out, then, if the truck stop that Kurt was talking about looks safe.”

The rest of the miles went by quickly. Frank and Jane were quiet, until they saw the signs for the town.

“There it is,” Jane said. “Three miles.”

Frank nodded. They were there in no time.

“This isn’t much of a town,” Jane said.

“Nope, big truck stop, though. See it?”

“Yeah, there goes Gabe. Looks like we have the place all to ourselves.”

“There are a couple of big rigs in the back,” Frank said. “See them?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jane said. She followed the line of vehicles onto the lot, and pulled up to the gasoline pumps.

“How we doing?” Frank asked.

“We’ve got about a third of a tank. This fill up is going to cost a little more than the last few.”

“I’ll gas us up. Why don’t you take the girl out?”

Jane nodded and got out of her seat, handing the keys to Frank. Then she took Lucy outside. Frank got out, went over to the pump and got the gasoline flowing. Earl had just pulled in on the other side of the pump.

“Frank, how you doin?” Earl asked as he put the pump nozzle into his rig.

“Probably better than you,” he replied. “Must be tough having to do all the driving yourself.”

“Oh, it’s not bad. This is a nice rig. I’m hoping Kurt will sell it to me eventually.”

“There’s Jackson,” Frank said, pointing, as he pulled up behind.

“We gonna stay here tonight?” Earl asked.

“Hopefully,” Frank said.

Jackson walked up. “Gentlemen,” he said. “How are you?”

“Gentlemen? Who you talking to?” Earl asked, busting up. “Good to see you, brother.”

“I got pretty damn nervous at the border,” Jackson said. “What’d they ask you?”

“They wanted to see my ID,” Frank said. “General Hogan told them we’d be coming. The border is closed for most people, like we heard.”

“Yeah, I was listening to the radio,” Earl said. “Residents only. They have to protect this farm land at all costs.”

Charlie walked over. “Hi guys,” he said.

“Hey, Charlie,” Jackson said. “How’s the diesel?”

“Fast pumps,” Charlie said. “Glad to have the place to ourselves. I’m thinking we ought to spend the night here.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Jackson said. “I’m beat. Long ass drive.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said. “Why don’t you guys pull into the back, like we did at the last place?”

“Will do,” Frank said. The pump handle clicked. “Good, I’m done. See you guys back there.”

“Okay, Frank,” Jackson said, as he walked back to his rig. He moved up to the pump as Frank drove out.

Jane was still walking around, chatting with Jasmine, Mary, and Hilda. Frank slid his side window open. “Jane, I’m going to pull around the back.”

“Okay, be there in a few minutes,” she said.

Gabe and Dobie had finished gassing up, and they were already back in the lot behind the store. Dobie was getting his dogs out for a walk. Jake pulled the bobtail up next to them, and got out of the driver’s seat. Terry and Trish got out of the passenger seat and made a b-line for the store.

“They’re in a hurry,” Gabe said.

“We don’t have a bathroom,” Jake said, laughing. “It’s fun to watch those two together. Makes me feel young again.”

“Want a hand with the dogs again, Dobie?” Gabe asked.

“Sure,” he said, handing a couple of leashes to him. They started walking around, exploring the back area.

“This place is deserted,” Gabe said, looking at the flat dusty parking lot. “Haven’t been here for years. When I was a kid, this place was bustling.”

“What happened?” Dobie asked.

“I-70. Most people take that road to go east these days. I’m surprised this truck stop is still here, actually.”

“When was I-70 built?”

“Mid 1950s. This road does run into it, eventually. I suspect that’s when we’ll change over.”

“Where?”

“Right by a little town called Oakley,” Gabe said, as they walked towards the perimeter fence of the lot. “I hope we don’t have to keep going east, though. At least not for a while.”

“You and me both,” Dobie said. “I’d like to settle down for a while. It was nice at your place while it lasted.”

Gabe laughed. “Well, yes and no. How many times did we get attacked, again?”

“I know, that part kinda sucked,” Dobie chuckled.

“Sure did.”

“Here come the others,” Dobie said, pointing. Frank and Earl had just pulled in. Charlie and Jeb were just pulling up, too, and Kurt and Mary were behind them. The Sheriff’s rig pulled up, then Jackson, and finally Jerry and Jasmine’s rig.

“We lost a few along the way, didn’t we?” Gabe asked. “I only see the core group with us now.”

“I’ll bet some of them went elsewhere after we got across the Kansas border. We still have a target on our backs, and they know it. Probably a good time to cut and run.”

“Yeah, Dobie, you’re probably right. I see eight motorhomes now, plus my truck, Jake’s bobtail, and your SUV.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Wonder if anybody’s selling motorhomes around here?” Gabe asked. “I’d love to find one.”

“Kinda expensive, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said, “but I’ve got plenty of money in the bank, and I’m homeless at the moment, too.”

“I guess I’m in the same boat there, and so is Jake,” Dobie said.

“Maybe we could share one.”

“Yeah, maybe. Look, Charlie is trying to round everybody up. Let’s get these dogs tied up to my truck and then go over there.”

Dobie got the dogs tied up and fed, and then trotted over to the group with Gabe. Jake joined them on the way. Trish and Terry came strolling over too, both with sodas in their hands.

“Okay, looks like we’re all here,” Charlie said. “Anybody object to staying here tonight?”

Nobody spoke up. They decided who’d bunk in with the RV’ers.

“Okay, great,” Charlie said. “There was an RV Park not too far away…Kurt and Hilda both knew the owner, but we aren’t sure if it’s still there. We still have some light, so maybe we can take a toad or two over there.

“Hell, my Suburban isn’t hooked up to anything, and she’s full of gas,” Gabe said.

“Ah, good idea,” Charlie said. “Thanks.”

“Why don’t we go into the store and ask around,” Kurt said. “I used to know the guy who owned this joint. If he’s still there, he could probably tell us about that park.”

“Good idea,” Jerry said.

“There’s an old guy in there, at the counter,” Trish said. “Maybe it’s him.”

“Maybe,” Kurt said. “I hope so. Haven’t seen Howard in forever.”

“Alright, let’s go over there,” Charlie said. “I guess we can have some time to relax, too. That roadblock should keep anybody unsavory from joining the party.”

“We’d see them coming with Frank’s app, anyway,” Jerry said. “They haven’t moved from where they were for almost an hour. I suspect they’re trying to mess with that air force base.”

“I talked to the General about them,” Frank said. “He said they’re watching and ready.”

“Good,” Jeb said. “Wish I could go help them.”

“No, you stay. We fight another day,” Rosie said, leaning against him.

Charlie, Hilda, Kurt, and Mary started walking over to the store, leaving the rest of the group behind.

“When’s the last time you saw this guy?” Charlie asked.

“Hell, probably the mid - 1990s,” Kurt said, chuckling. “He had a firecracker of a wife. I think she passed on, though.”

They got to the front of the store. It looked fairly modern, with a glass front that was in good shape, and glass double doors in the middle. The four of them went through, and walked back to the counter.

“Hey, Howard,” Kurt said. The white haired old man was crouched over, looking at a newspaper. He turned around slowly, and got a big grin on his face.

“Kurt, you old son of a bitch, how the hell are you?”

“I’m alright,” he said, extending his hand over the counter. “How are you?”

“I’m great. That isn’t Hilda, is it?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Yes, it’s me, Howie. Good to see you.”

“I hope you brought Ger along,” he said.

“He passed years ago,” she said.

“Oh, that’s a damn shame,” Howard said. “So sorry to hear that.”

“He died happy,” she said. “This is Charlie. We got hitched a while back.”

“Don’t I know you?” Howard asked.

“You might. I went on a lot of hunting trips with Ger. Maybe we were on one together at some point.”

“This is my wife, Mary,” Kurt said.

“Ah, nice to meet you,” Howard said.

Mary smiled and nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“What’re you guys doing in this hell hole, anyway?” he asked. “There’s nothing interesting around here for miles and miles.”

“We had to leave Colorado in a hurry,” Kurt said. “Things got bad quickly.”

“Oh,” he said. “You around Denver? Lots of fighting going on there. The news isn’t good. Not enough army up there.”

“No, we were outside of Eagle,” Hilda said. “Before that we were at my place in Utah, but it got overrun by the enemy right after we took off.”

“What about your place, Kurt?”

“We had to leave that too,” he said. “We’re hoping that Kansas will be safe, for a while at least.”

“Sorry to hear about all this.”

“Before we got with Hilda, we were at my place,” Charlie said.

“Where was that?” Howard asked.

“Near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.”

“Oh,” Howard said, looking concerned. “That area is still hot. Controlled by the enemy.”

“Does the RV Park here still exist?” Kurt asked.

“You mean Chet’s old place?”

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “I figure he passed, but we were hoping it’s still open.”

Howard got a grim look on his face.

“What?” Hilda asked.

“Chet passed the place down to his son Scott,” Howard said quietly. “He hated running the place, and it was dying anyway…not much he could have done about that. All that kind of trade moved up closer to I-70 by the mid-60s. There were a bunch of long term old folks living there for quite a few years, but they started dying off. Then a bad element started moving in…cooking meth, doing other bad stuff. Scott was able to get them kicked out, and he also got the remaining old folks out of there too. Then he just locked the gate and walked away. He didn’t even try to unload the rigs that were left there.”

“There’re rigs there?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah, most of the old people who were there toward the end didn’t have next of kin… that cared, anyway. Those coaches are just sitting there rotting.”

“Motorhomes?”

“No, they’re mostly travel trailers. Maybe a fifth wheel or two.”

“What happened to Scott?” Kurt asked.

“That’s the saddest part of all. He got a good job back east. Real Estate investment on Wall Street. Made himself a fortune.”

“That doesn’t sound sad,” Hilda said.

“He was in New Jersey when the bomb went off. He didn’t make it…and his whole family went with him. Kids and all.”

“Oh, no,” Kurt said. “I remember him. He was a nice boy.”

“So what happened to the RV Park?” Charlie asked.

“It’s still just sitting there, as far as I know. Scott didn’t have any next of kin. I think the local sheriff has to chase the druggies out of there every so often, but as far as I know, the place is still standing.”

“Maybe we should drive out there and take a look,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, might as well,” Howard said. “If you want to stay there for a while, I’ll call the sheriff and let him know who you are. As long as he knows you aren’t cooking meth, he’ll be fine with it. Heck, since so many of you folks ran RV Parks before, you could probably get the place up and running again. There’s a good spring out there, so at least you got water.”

“That’s a good idea,” Charlie said. “Let’s go check it out.”

“I’d make sure you do it during daylight, though,” Howard said. “You’ve only got a couple of hours left today. Why don’t you hang out here overnight, and then go check it out in the morning? I’ve got plenty of room back there, and you guys could use my showers and bathrooms. It’d be nice to have you around to catch up with.”

“I think we’ll take you up on that,” Kurt said. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks, Howard,” Hilda said.

They walked out of the store and around to their rigs.

“I can’t believe our luck,” Charlie said quietly.

“Well, don’t count your chickens yet,” Kurt said. “The place might be really trashed.”

“True, but like Howard said, we’ve all got experience. We could get it fixed up in no time, I suspect. Hell, we even have a backhoe with us.”

When they got into the back parking lot, they saw the whole group, sitting in their folding chairs. A few of the rigs had their awnings out, and everybody was chatting and laughing and enjoying what was left of the day.

“There’s our family,” Hilda said. Charlie put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close as they joined them.

Chapter 3 – Ruins

“What’d you find out?” Frank asked, as Kurt and Mary walked up with Charlie and Hilda.

“It was my old friend Howard,” Kurt said. “Nice to see him. He said we could stay here, and use his bathrooms and showers.”

“Excellent,” Jackson said.

“What about that RV Park?” Jerry asked.

“Long story…but bottom line, it’s just sitting out there empty, except for a few abandoned trailers and 5th wheels. The son just locked the gates and walked away. Then he got killed in the New York harbor bombing.”

“Oh no,” Jane said.

“We takin a ride out there?” Jeb asked.

“In the morning, if that’s alright.” Kurt replied.

“Wonder if I can pull one of the trailers with my SUV?” Gabe asked.

“Maybe,” Charlie said. “I’m pretty sure they’ll at least need new tires, though, if they’ve been sitting out there for years. They might need a lot of other types of work, too. Apparently there’ve been lowlifes out there cooking meth a few times over the years.”

“Yuk,” Jasmine said.

“When we go tomorrow, we go armed,” Jeb said. “Just in case.”

“Yeah, I agree, Jeb,” Kurt said.

“You aren’t going,” Mary said. “You don’t need to be running around in no gun battle. At least not yet.”

“I know, sweetie, I’ll let the able bodied folks take this one on,” he said, looking at her and smiling.

“Your friend have any cold beer in his store?” Jeb asked.

“Probably,” Kurt said. “I’m sure he’d appreciate the trade. If any of you need supplies, it’d be a good place to buy them.”

“Okay, I think we ought to commence relaxing a little bit,” Charlie said, smiling.

“You right,” Rosie said. “Who’s got mobile bar?”

“I’m sure we could set something up from my rig,” Jeb said. “I don’t think I have all the ingredients for Weng-Wengs, though.”

“You get beer,” Rosie said. “Also buy cookies.”

Jeb smiled at her. “Anything you want, sweetie, but I’m going to get my jeep unhitched before I start drinking. I want to take it along tomorrow.”

Jake walked over to Gabe and Dobie.

“This sound’s promising,” Jake said.

“Yeah, it does,” Dobie said. “I can remove the kennels on my truck…could probably use it to tow a 5th wheel, if I can get the hitch hardware.”

“Hell, my bobtail has a trailer hitch on it,” Jake replied. “You know these things are gonna be trashed, though, right?”

“Probably,” Dobie said. “Hopefully we can get them nice enough inside to be able to live in them for a while, though. Wonder if Howard has propane?”

“There’s a sign for it out front,” Gabe said. “I’m also wondering if the park has generators. See that diesel truck over there? I’ll bet this guy delivers.”

“Probably,” Dobie said. He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and started messing with it.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“Just checking to see what’s going on back on highway 94.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gabe said. “I hope the General whacks those creeps good.”

“I’m still seeing the icons. They haven’t moved for a while,” Dobie said, his brow furrowing.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Jake said.

“Wouldn’t we be seeing the icons disappear if these guys are dead?” he asked.

“Think about it,” Gabe said. “If they defeat them and then burn the bodies or remove the chips, isn’t the enemy going to figure out that we’re onto them?”

“You don’t think they already know?” Dobie said.

“They might, since the General was burning the bodies early on,” Gabe said, “but then again, burning the bodies does take care of the smell, and in the field it’s easier than trying to bury them. Cooking the corpses might not look as suspicious as you think to the enemy.”

“Gross,” Trish said, walking up with Terry.

“Hi, sweetie,” Jake said. “You need some money for the store?”

“No, dad, we’re good, thanks,” she said. “You mind if I spend the night in the Sheriff’s rig again?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “You don’t have to ask me, you know. You’re too old to have to worry about that anymore.”

“I know,” she said. “It just makes things feel a little more normal.”

“I know what you mean,” Terry said. “It’s a little weird being the only people here below their mid-30s.”

“Mid 30s?” Dobie said, cracking up. “Most of the people here are at least in their 50s.”

“Jackson’s 35. I think Earl is about 40,” Gabe said. “The rest are codgers like us, though.” He snickered. “I guess that would bother me a tad too, if I were you two.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Terry said.

“Maybe not at the moment,” Jake said. “Hopefully you two can fix up one of those trailers for yourselves.”

“Dad!” Trish said. She looked embarrassed.

“Oh, settle down, honey,” Jake said. “I’m still a minister, you know. I could marry you two if you need that to be happy.”

Dobie and Gabe looked at each other and cracked up. “Told you,” Gabe said.

“What?” Jake asked.

“Oh, some of us figured you might be one of those mail-order ministers,” Gabe said. “Lots of folks who tended towards the hippies went down that road in the 60s and 70s.”

“You’re not a real minister, dad,” Trish said. Terry stood next to her with a sheepish grin, not sure what to say.

“Sure I am,” Jake said. “I’ve got the papers to prove it, too. I made sure they made it into the truck, just in case.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Terry, let’s take a walk. He’s going to keep teasing me.”

Terry shot a glance over to Jake and smiled. Then he shrugged his shoulders as they walked off. Trish didn’t notice.

“You know he’s just pulling your chain,” Terry said, grabbing her hand as they walked along. “He’s really a charming guy.”

“I know, but he likes to embarrass me too much. It gets old.”

“So he’s always done that?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “Especially after mom died. He feels awkward, being a single dad for a girl. I think all the joking around makes him feel more comfortable. He’s always afraid of doing something wrong, so he makes a joke out of everything.”

“What was your mom like?”

“She was the responsible one,” Trish said. “She kept everything together. When they met, they were both hippies. They even went to Woodstock.”

“No, really?”

“Yeah,” Trish said. “Somewhere along the line, she grew up. Dad only kinda grew up. When she died, he was so lost.”

“Oh,” Terry said. “How old were you when your mom passed?”

“Thirteen,” she said. “What about your parents?”

“They both died, but not until I was about nineteen.”

“Both of them?”

“Yeah, they were on vacation in Mexico, and took one of those helicopter tours. They crashed.”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“It was horrible,” Terry said. “My uncle was there for me, though. He still is.”

“I can see how close you two are,” Trish said. “We don’t know that much about each other, do we?”

“Not yet,” Terry said. “Maybe it would be good to have our own place.”

She looked at him and smirked. “Really, now. Why?”

“All the reasons you’re thinking,” he said, smiling. “I know what you’re getting at, but that part is up to you, and I won’t push. I want to talk to you for hours and hours, when nobody else is around.”

“Oh,” she said. “We’ll see, then. No promises.”

“What’s over there?” Terry asked, pointing by the tanker truck they were approaching. He led her over there and got her behind it, out of view of the others. Then he got her into his arms and kissed her gently. She backed away slightly, his arms still around her waist.

“Tricky, aren’t you,” she said, with a shy smile, looking into his eyes.

“I’ve been waiting for this all day,” Terry said. He went in for another kiss, and she melted into him.

Back with the group, Jeb walked up with a case of cold beer from the store. He put it on a folding table next to his rig. “Who want’s beer?” he asked. Some of the people in the group came over.

“You aren’t drinking?” Jane asked Frank, as he was walking towards the door of their rig.

“I want to check the laptop,” he said as he climbed the steps. “The battery is probably about done…we might need to run the generator for a while.”

“Oh,” she said, “I’ll come with you. She got up, took hold of Lucy’s leash, and led her inside.

The group partied for a little while, but everybody was tired, and they were done just after the sun went down. A quiet settled over the parking lot, and lights in coaches started going out.

Frank woke up to the sound of one of the big rigs starting up and leaving the parking lot. He looked at his phone. Only 6:30. He was wide awake, and decided to get up. Jane was still sleeping, but she was starting to stir. He tried to be quiet as he walked out of the bedroom. Lucy was ready to go, so he put on her leash and took her outside. He saw Dobie out by the edge of the fence, walking all four dogs. He waved, and Frank waved back, but he went in the opposite direction. He wasn’t ready to talk yet. He wanted to think. The encryption algorithm was slow going on the laptop. Not enough power, especially when it was on battery. It was beginning to dawn on him that it might take years to crack it, at the rate the program was going. He needed to try hacking into the enemy computers, but now they were going to a park that almost certainly didn’t have an internet connection. There were a couple of non-core folks who had satellite internet…at least it looked like it due to the kind of dishes they had, but they were all gone now. What to do? Maybe there was something left of a system at this RV Park that he could fix. He was going to have to do something. Time was running out…the auto publish for the apps was coming up. He had just under two weeks.

Charlie got out of his coach, and saw Frank. He walked over.

“Morning, Frank,” he said.

“Morning to you, Charlie. What time are you guys going to the RV Park?”

“In about an hour,” he said. “Why, you interested in tagging along?”

“Yeah, if there’s room.”

“You’ll have to bring your sidearm,” he said. “We should have room, though. We’re taking both Gabe’s SUV and Jeb’s jeep.”

“Good, I’ll be ready,” he said.

“Why do you want to go?”

“I want to see if there is any remnant of an internet system there,” Frank said. “My encryption algorithm isn’t cutting it, I’m afraid. We’re going to run out of time. I need to do some hacking.”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, that makes sense. Jake brought a lot of stuff, so maybe you could put something together. Isn’t Jasmine good with that kind of stuff?”

“Yeah, so is Jerry,” Frank said. “Worth a try.”

“Good, be out by Gabe’s Suburban in an hour, and we’ll saddle up.”

“Thanks,” Frank said. “Guess I’d better go eat breakfast and get some coffee in me.”

“There’s hot coffee in the store, you know, and some breakfast stuff too.”

“Ah, good idea,” he said. “I’ll take Lucy back to the coach and then go on over.”

“Okay, Frank, see you in a little while.”

Frank took Lucy back to the coach. Jane was just getting up. Mr. Wonderful sauntered over, rubbing against his leg. “I’ll feed you in a minute, big boy.”

“Hi, Honey,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Want to run the genny for the coffee maker, or should we fire up the French Press again?”

“Neither,” Frank said. “I’m going to go get a cup at the store, and maybe something to eat. You up for it?”

“Sounds like you have plans.”

“I’m going to go with Charlie and the guys, out to the RV Park.”

“Oh. How come?”

“I want to see if there’s any chance we can get some internet access going out there,” he said.

“Are you coming back here after the store?”

“Yeah, we aren’t leaving for an hour.”

“Good,” she said. “Pick me up a coffee too? And maybe a Danish?”

“Sure, honey,” Frank said. “Be back in a few minutes. Can you feed the critters?”

“I’ll take care of it,” she said.

Frank left the coach and went to the store. The old white haired man was at the counter.

“You must be Howard,” he said. “I’m Frank.”

“Ah, good to meet you, Frank. Kurt told me a lot about you.” They shook hands. “Here for some breakfast?”

“Yeah, I’m going with the guys over to that RV Park…need a little something.”

“Coffee’s over there, and we have some fresh pastries.”

“Excellent, thanks.” He got himself two cups of coffee and a couple of Danish, paid, and went back to the coach.

“That was quick,” Jane said, watching Frank come in. He set the coffees down on the dinette table, and put a brown paper bag next to it. She looked in and pulled out a Danish, taking a bite right away. “Oh, this is tasty. I was hungry.”

“Yeah, we didn’t eat much last night,” Frank said, grabbing a Danish for himself. He took a sip of the coffee. “Pretty burned. Typical gas station coffee, but it’ll wake me up anyway.”

“Charlie’s out there, looking at our coach. I think they’re getting ready to go already,” Jane said.

“Oh, really? Gotta go get my gun.” He got up and went into the bedroom, coming out with his holster, and strapping it on as he walked. He picked up his coffee and Danish and went for the door.

“Taking Lucy?” Jane asked.

“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” he said, looking out the window. “Oh, wait, Duchess is going.”

“Okay, you be safe out there.”

“Will do,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “Bye.”

Frank left the coach and walked over to the SUV.

“Maybe you ought to ride with Jeb,” Charlie said. “I didn’t think about the dog.”

“No problem,” Frank said. Jeb pulled up next to them. Frank got in, and Terry got in the back. Charlie, Gabe, Jerry, and Dobie got into the SUV, all of them carrying their guns. Duchess was in the back.

“That’s a hell of a hog leg you got there, Frank,” Jeb said, cracking up.

“I’m never going to live this thing down. We can thank it for one thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Terry asked.

“I used it to shoot Officer Simmons. That’s how we got out of the Williams area, remember?”

“That the only time you’ve had to use it?” Jeb asked.

“I’d have to think about that. Probably. I’m a better shot with the Winchester.”

Gabe drove off, and Jeb followed.

“Gabe knows where he’s going, hopefully,” Frank said.

“He went into the store with Charlie this morning and got directions from Howard,” Jeb said. “He told me too, in case we get separated.”

“We could use our phone GPS,” Terry said.

“I don’t have the address,” Frank said.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s simple,” Jeb said. “There’s only four turns, and a lot of long straight road. This is farm country, remember.”

They settled in for the drive. They went south east, getting out of town in no time, and into the green flatlands, with stands of wind break trees here and there.

“They have twisters here, don’t they?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, they sure do,” Jeb said. “We’re in the heart of tornado alley, my friends.”

“Should we be worried?” Terry asked.

“Naw, we’re not in Tornado season. It won’t start up again until November, and we’re past the early season.”

“There’s two?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, May to June is the first one.”

“Wonderful. I think we want to get out of here before November,” Terry said.

“It’ll be too cold here by that time anyway,” Jeb said. “For most of our coaches, that is.”

“Man, there’s just nobody around, is there?” Terry asked.

“It’s not unusual for this part of the year,” Jeb said. “Another month and it’ll be harvest time. Then this place is going to go crazy. Wonder how much the problems in Mexico are going to impact that?”

“Right turn coming up,” Frank said, watching the Suburban make the turn ahead of them.

“How many miles is it?” Terry asked.

“About thirty, according to Charlie and Gabe,” Jeb said. “Fast roads, though.”

“Yeah, Colorado was getting a little old,” Frank said. “If I never see another switchback it’ll be too soon.”

“Lightweight,” Jeb said, chuckling. “I love the high country.”

“Farms are starting to thin out,” Frank said, as they continued down the long straight road.

“I’ll bet our place is in that big stand of trees down there,” Jeb said. “See it?”

“Yeah, looks like about the right size,” Frank said.

“Maybe those trees would be good to set up watch towers…like those blinds we had at Hilda’s place.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing,” Jeb said. “There’s a water tower in there.”

“I see a few buildings towards the front too,” Frank said.

As they approached, the park came more and more into view. Gabe pulled up in front of the gate. It was a large tube steel gate, which swung open from hinges on either side. It was painted white, but rust spots were coming through. It was chained together in the middle and padlocked. Everybody got out of the car, and Dobie got Duchess out of the back. Jeb pulled up behind them.

“Don’t stomp around yet!” Jeb shouted. “Let’s check for tracks.”

The men all froze, except Jerry, who started looking at the ground around the gate. Jeb walked up and down the road, and then joined Jerry by the gate, looking closely at the ground in front and behind it.

“Nobody’s been here for a long time,” Jeb said. “Agree, Jerry?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We bring bolt cutters?”

“Sure did, in the back,” Gabe said. “It’s under the tarp, where the rest of my tools are.” He walked to the back of his SUV, and returned with them. “Here goes nothing.”

He struggled with the cutters, but they got through the padlock. He carried the bolt cutters back to the SUV while Jeb and Jerry unwrapped the chain and pushed both sides of the gate open. They drove in. The place was a mess. It was overgrown, and there was trash here and there, sitting in large clumps. The windows in the front office were broken out. Behind that was a courtyard, and then the clubhouse. It had broken windows too, and the doors hung open. Gabe pulled over to the side of the clubhouse, and Jeb pulled down a little ways, across the road, next to the building by the swimming pool area. There was evidence of fire at that building, with black soot marks flowing out of the tops of the windows. Jeb got out and grabbed his rifle. Frank got out too, and then Terry.

“That pool has seen better days,” Jeb said, laughing.

“This place is a dump,” Terry said.

“True, but it’s fixable,” Frank said. “Wonder what’s in that big building back there?” He pointed to a barn-like structure behind the clubhouse, not far from the water tower.

“If we’re lucky, there are generators,” Jeb said. “But there’s also city electric. Look at the wires.” He pointed to the poles, with wires going into the barn.

They walked over to meet Charlie and Gabe and the others. Duchess was walking around, sniffing and looking.

“Kind of a mess,” Charlie said. “But fixable. These are all cinder block buildings, except for that barn back there.”

“It’s nice in here with all these trees,” Jerry said.

They walked into the clubhouse. It was fairly bright because of all of the windows. There was broken glass all over the floor. The tables inside looked okay. Same with the chairs. There was a big fireplace on one side of the room, and a stage on the other. There were doors on either side of the stage. They walked over to the door on the right side and pushed it. It opened up into a kitchen that was mostly intact…the windows weren’t broken, and the elements hadn’t gotten a foothold. Gabe turned the faucet. Water flowed out.

“Wow, the water still works,” he said.

“Well, until we run out in the water tower,” Jeb said. “Unless we can get the pump working.”

“Howard said this place has a spring,” Charlie said. “Wonder if he’s got enough pressure to get up into that tower on its own?”

“No way,” Jerry said. “I think he’s probably pumping it from a reservoir someplace on the property.”

“That’s a big tank. If it was pretty full when the pump was shut off, we may have enough water up there to last quite a while.

“I’m going to go look outside,” Gabe said.

“I’ll go too,” Dobie said, bringing Duchess along.

“Me too,” Terry said. They walked out and headed back into the area where the coach sites were. The first trailer they saw was burned out. You couldn’t even tell if it was a travel trailer or a 5th wheel anymore. Terry’s heart sank. “Shoot, that’s not good.”

Then they got around the back of the barn. There were five more trailers back there, and they all looked reasonably intact. No broken windows. They were dirty, and there was a lot of debris that had collected around them. The three men approached them.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gabe said. “These look like they can be saved.”

“Yep, they sure do,” Dobie said. “We need to clear the crap away from them, though. Looks like a big fire hazard to me.

“You look awful happy, kid,” Gabe said, chuckling. “Hoping for a little love nest here, are you?”

Terry just smiled sheepishly at them.

“Wow! Look at this!” shouted Charlie. His voice was coming from the barn.

Chapter 4 – The Big Barn

The men all trotted over to the barn where Charlie and Jerry were standing, looking inside. Jerry had Gabe’s bolt cutters in his hand, and both he and Charlie were still breathing hard. The large chain and padlock were hanging down from one side of the door.

“How’d you guys cut through a lock that size with those bolt cutters?” Gabe asked.

“It took both of us,” Jerry said, still a little out of breath, “and we cut the chain, not the lock. That lock is way too big for these cutters.”

“I thought this was just a ramshackle old wood barn,” Dobie said. “Look at it. It’s steel. It just needs paint.”

The men pulled the other side of the door open to let in some light.

“Oh, I see what you were yelling about,” Dobie said. There were two diesel generators in on the left hand side, sectioned off by a chain link cage, with yet another chain and padlock on it. There was a large fuel tank in the cage too, along with a water pump and a water purification system.

“Yeah, there’s the generators, but look at the rest of this stuff,” Charlie said.

In the middle of the barn was a diesel tow truck, and then a couple of snowmobiles and a riding lawnmower. On the right wall was a large workshop area, with a huge workbench and lots of power tools…drill press, lathe, vertical mill, air compressor, arc welder, and some sheet metal tools.

“Holy crap,” Gabe said. “Why didn’t the tweakers ever bust into this place?”

“Probably too stupid,” Dobie said. “Besides, except for the snowmobiles, this kind of stuff is almost impossible to fence.”

“That was a pretty damn big lock on the door, too, and there aren’t windows to break into,” Jeb said. “Probably too much effort. They were making reliable money cooking meth.”

Frank was staring off into the corner, next to the workbench area. There was a large metal cabinet over there, with cables coming out of the top and going out to the roof. He started to trot over there.

“What, Frank?” Jerry asked, trotting to catch up to him.

“That might be a Wi-Fi set up,” he said. “Look at the wires coming out of the top. You see a dish anywhere around here?”

“Nope, not yet. This place is big, though. There’s going to be a lot of exploring to do.”

“Hey guys, I’m going to go walk the fence,” Jeb said.

“I’ll go with you,” Dobie said, walking Duchess over. “We might need to mend some fencing…might as well find it now.” They walked off together.

“Well, what do you think, Jeb?” Dobie asked as they walked to the section of fence that was behind the barn.

“I don’t know,” Jeb said. “Lots of exploring left to do, and if we can’t get power to our rigs, this’ll be a short stay. None of us can boondock for that long.”

“We’ll have to make some supply runs, I suspect. Batteries, fuel, and so on. Wonder if we can get the power company to turn us back on.”

“Good question. We don’t own this, but I’m not sure that matters, as long as somebody’s around to send a bill to.”

There were trees all the way around the property, just inside of the fence. They were old trees, with large trunks.

“There’s our first place to mend,” Dobie said, pointing.

“That’s a big enough hole to drive through,” Jeb said, rubbing his beard with his fingers. “Look, there’s tracks there.” He walked over and squatted down to get a closer look.

“How old?”

“Real old,” Jeb said. “It was probably muddy when they left. I think these tracks have been through more than one winter.”

“Wonder if we can find a fence stretcher in town,” Dobie said. “We could probably re-fasten it if we can get it stretched back out.”

“Hell, if we can find a fence stretcher, we can probably find a gate that’ll fit here. It’d be nice to have a back way out.”

“Good point,” Dobie said.

“We’ll have to do some work out front for the dogs, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dobie said. “That vehicle gate ain’t gonna cut it.”

“Hey,” Jeb said. “Look over there. That’s a pond.”

They walked up to it. It was in the far right hand corner of the property. It was obviously man made, because it was almost square.

“That’s big enough to have fish in it,” Jeb said, smiling. “Excellent.”

“Think that’s fed by the spring?”

“Yep. You see that water purification stuff? It’s cleaning the water from this pond before it gets pumped up into the tank. Somebody spent a lot of money on that.”

“Wonder if it was the kid or the dad?” Dobie asked.

“I’m guessing the dad. That purification stuff is old. It might be a little difficult to get parts if something breaks.”

“Look, there’s a small brook that’s coming out of that pond,” Dobie said, pointing.

“Yep, if it’s fed by a spring, the water has to go someplace,” Jeb said. He stood on his tiptoes and looked. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said. “There’s a small lake over there. Wonder if it belongs to this property? See it? About three hundred yards over there.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Why hasn’t anybody bothered this place?”

“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” Jeb said. “Not enough people have found it. If this was on the outskirts of a big town like Phoenix or Denver or even Colorado Springs, it’d be gone by now. Hell, the county governments around those towns probably would have foreclosed. The land is worth too much.”

They walked to the left now, along the back fence. There were ruins of a horseshoe game and a volleyball court back there, also a few broken picnic tables and old iron barbeques. Over further to the left, almost to the far corner of the park, there was a broken down children’s jungle gym set, and some swings. It was eerie back there, like a ghost town. The fence was intact around it.

“Wonder how many RV spaces there are here?” Dobie asked.

“I was trying to count earlier. Just under 200, I think. It’s sizable. Probably was a good business before I-70 came along and mucked it up.”

They turned left again, and walked along that side of the park. The only thing close by that side were RV spaces, until the front third of the park. Then there was the swimming pool area. In front of that was a large clearing, which looked like it had grass on it before the sprinklers got turned off. They got all the way up to the front corner of the park. No problems with the fence on that stretch.

“Too bad that pool is so messed up,” Jeb said.

“It might be fixable.”

“Maybe,” Jeb said. “I don’t know that we should become too attached to this place, though.”

“Why?” Dobie asked.

“Because it’s not even a little bit defensible. The enemy could surround us on all sides from a long way off and just move right in. They could also bring tanks in here and just pound us from a mile away.”

“True,” Dobie said. “Our safety here completely depends on the safety of this state. We all knew that going in.”

“I know, I know. I just feel like my butt is flapping in the breeze. Doesn’t matter - we’ll end up here anyway. We have a lot of smart folks with us, and they’ll get this place running again in no time. I can feel it.”

“We’ve only got until winter, though, right?” Dobie asked. “It’ll be tough to stay here after that.”

“Oh, I don’t know. There were old folks living here year around. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be as bad as I was thinking. Some rigs would do better than others. Mine’s set up for winter use…it’s got tank heaters and insulated plumbing and dual furnaces. There’s things we can do with the other rigs too, especially if we can get the city power up and running. Ceramic heaters, for instance, to supplement the propane.”

“Let’s take a look at the front area and see what we could do about fencing,” Dobie said. Jeb nodded, and they walked over there.

Back in the barn, Charlie, Terry, and Gabe struggled with the lock on the chain link cage. They got through it, but it took two of them pushing on the bolt cutters to do it. The gate creaked open.

The first thing Charlie checked was the fuel tank. “It’s about 2/3rds full, from the look of it,” he said.

“How long is that?” Terry asked.

“Depends on how much we run it. Could be weeks if we only run it every so often to charge up coach batteries,” Charlie said.

“Can we get these things started?” Terry asked.

“Yeah, we can,” Gabe said. “These things are pretty simple. The starting batteries are probably shot, though.”

“Any chance we can jump them?”

“Maybe. Might be worth a try, but even if we can get it started, the batteries might not hold any charge.”

“Maybe Howard sells them,” Terry said. He took out his iPhone and took pictures of the batteries.

“Before we go trying to start these things, I think we’d better go looking around for switches that are on…especially in those trailers out there. We don’t need any fires.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Gabe said.

“I’ll go shut off all of the breakers on the power masts,” Terry said. He turned and walked out of the barn.

“I’ll take a look at the fuel system on the first generator and see if it’s messed up,” Gabe said.

“I’ll work the other one,” Charlie said. “I know quite a bit about these things too.”

“Comes with the territory, I guess,” Gabe said, laughing. “We are the best people around to fix up a place like this. Howard was right about that.”

Jerry and Frank were on the other side of the barn, looking at the metal cabinet in the corner. It had a hasp and lock on it. Jerry saw a crowbar leaning up against the work bench. He used it to break the hasp, and then Frank opened the double doors.

“Satellite,” Frank said. “Probably both modem and TV here. We need to find the dish.”

“Do these have much bandwidth?”

“Not great,” Frank said. “This thing is from about 2006. Maybe Jake has something better. A lot depends on the dish. This is a heavy duty unit, so he was probably feeding some Wi-Fi antennas, but I’ll bet it’s slower than molasses in winter time.”

“Let’s go out around the back of the building. The dish is probably on the roof.”

Frank nodded, and then went out the front door and around to the back side of the barn.

“You see any Wi-Fi antennas around when we drove in?”

“Nope, but I wasn’t looking,” Jerry said. “There were light poles here and there…he might have them there. He might have only had internet in the office and clubhouse too, you know.”

“Yeah, that’s possible. It’d be okay if he did.”

“You check the LTE out here, Frank?”

“No, not yet.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “A little weak, but it’s there.”

“Good,” Jerry said. “If worse comes to worse, at least we have some coverage.”

“Oh, I’m pretty confident that with you, me, Jasmine, and Jake’s supplies, we’ll cobble something together.”

“Shoot, can’t see on the roof,” Jerry said. “We’ll have to go up there.”

“I saw a ladder attached to the wall inside, in the middle section by the snowmobiles, which went all the way up. There might be a trap door.”

“Hope it doesn’t have a padlock on it. Working with a crow bar that high up doesn’t sound like fun.”

“You afraid of heights?” Frank asked.

“A little. Never used to be. Must come with age.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a little bit afraid too. I don’t know if I’ll be able to function up there or not,” Frank said.

“Maybe Terry could help. He’s still young, and Jasmine’s pretty good with heights too. A lot better than I am.”

“Maybe,” Frank said.

“I’m okay to climb up the ladder inside, though,” he said. “If the dish is close enough to the trap door, I can probably get to it. It’s not a steep roof.”

“Alright, let’s do it,” Frank said. They walked back into the barn and over to the middle back wall.

“Wish I had some gloves,” Jerry said, looking up at the ladder.

“I saw some over on the work bench,” Frank said. “They’re probably a little dusty.”

“I can take dusty. I just don’t want to cut my hands on that metal ladder.” He trotted over to the workbench, found the gloves, and came back over. “These are perfect, nice thick leather.”

He started up the ladder, with Frank watching from below. It was a long climb. He got to the top and looked at the trap door.

“Locked?” Frank asked.

“Nope,” Jerry said. “It’s just got a latch on it. Might be a little tight. He reached over and tried to turn it. “Yeah, it’s tight. I need some channel locks or something like that.”

“I’ll go find some,” Frank said. He went over to the workbench and started looking in the drawers below the work surface. He found channel locks and pliers in the third drawer he looked in. He brought one of each over. Jerry had come off the ladder, and was waiting at the bottom.

“Perfect,” he said. He put the fliers in one pocket, and the channel locks in the other, and climbed back up. He brought out the pliers and tried that. It worked, and he got the latch open and pushed the trap door open on its hinge. “This isn’t so bad,” Jerry said. “There’s a climb rail outside the trap door, and the roof isn’t that steep. The dish is a ways away from the edge, too.” He climbed all the way up, and then Frank could hear him walking on the thick metal of the roof.

“What the hell,” Frank said. He started up the ladder. His heart started to pound as he got about half-way up, and he looked down. Mistake! He started to tremble, but then forced himself under control. He went the rest of the way up, and poked his head through the trap door.

“Frank, you made it,” Jerry said, chuckling. “Need to change your drawers?”

Frank shook his head no, and got himself up on the roof. He walked over, hoping that the breeze wouldn’t come up. He was okay without any wind.

“Well, what do you think? Is this thing going to do us any good?” Jerry asked.

“It’s usable,” Frank said. “If we can get something a little more up to date, it would be better, of course. We’ll have to chat a little with Howard about what’s available in this town.”

“You don’t think Jake has what we need?”

“I didn’t see any satellite dishes in his truck,” Frank said. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one, though. In any event, we could limp along with a combination of this and LTE if we have to.”

“So the key is getting the power on, then,” Jerry said.

“As far as I’m concerned, yes,” Frank said. “Assuming we don’t find big problems with other critical systems like the water supply or the electrical delivery, we should be okay. Let’s get off of this roof. It’s making me nervous.”

“I know, me too.” He took photos of the dish with his phone, and then followed Frank back to the trap door.

They got down the ladder in a few minutes, and walked over to the generators just as Terry was walking back in.

“I got all of the power mast breakers turned off,” he said. “What else?”

“We need to find the park lights, and also check the buildings,” Gabe said. “I’ll go with you…I can probably find that stuff pretty fast. I want to bring my Suburban back here anyway. We’re going to try to jump start the generators.”

“Cool,” Terry said. They walked off together.

“How are they lookin?” Jerry asked.

“Promising,” Charlie said. “Top notch stuff. We’ll need new batteries, though, I’m sure of that. Gabe’s SUV might not have enough amps to crank these suckers. One of them looks like the fuel has turned to gel, but that’s easy enough to fix.”

“Where’s Jeb and Dobie?” Jerry asked.

“They went out to walk the perimeter of the place,” Charlie said. “They ought to be getting back in a couple minutes.”

Gabe drove his SUV into the barn and close to the generators. He pulled the hood latch and got out. Terry got out of the passenger side, and got jumper cables out of the back. They hooked them up, and Gabe got back behind the wheel and started the engine. He revved it up, and then gave a thumbs up to Charlie.

“Here goes nothing,” he said. He pushed the starter button. The starter motor turned, but not fast enough. Charlie put his hand up in a ‘stop’ motion. “Not enough amps.”

“Crap,” Gabe said. He shut down his engine and got out.

“Well, what now?” Charlie asked.

“We know what kind of batteries we need. Maybe we just go buy some,” Terry said. “I took pictures.”

“Hey,” Jerry said. “How about this diesel rig? You might have enough amps to start that, and that big diesel might put out a lot more amps once it’s running. These things were made to jump start other vehicles.”

“That’s a damn good idea,” Gabe said. “Let’s try that. Keys in it?”

Jerry opened the cab door and climbed up. The keys were hanging in the ignition. “Yep, the keys are here.”

“Okay, I’ll bring this thing over,” Gabe said. He got back behind the wheel as Terry pulled the jumper cables off and shut the hood. He drove over to the rig, nose to nose, and shut off the engine. Terry came over, pulled the hood open, and put the jumper cables on. Jerry pulled the hood release in the diesel rig, and Terry opened that. He found the battery, and put the jumper cables on it.

“Okay,” Terry said. “This thing got fuel in it?”

“Can’t tell,” Jerry said. “Hope so. Go ahead and start the SUV.”

Gabe fired up his engine, and revved it up. Jerry turned the starter on the diesel rig, and the starter motor spun. He cranked it for almost a minute. Nothing. Gabe let his engine idle.

“Let it sit for a minute, and try it again,” Charlie said. “You probably don’t have enough pressure behind the injectors yet. It might take a few tries.”

They waited, and then Jerry gave Gabe the thumbs up. He revved the engine, and Jerry hit the starter. It cranked for about twenty seconds, and then the engine started, spewing black smoke out of the exhaust pipes.

“Phew,” Terry said, laughing.

“Should have left that trap door open,” Jerry shouted over the noise, grinning.

“Hey, this thing has a jumper socket on the front bumper…look,” Gabe said as he got out of his SUV. “Look in the back of that rig…there’s probably a big jumper cable in there.”

Terry set Gabe’s jumper cables on the hood of the SUV and went back there. He found the large cable in a box along the passenger side of the truck bed.

“Here it is,” Terry said, smiling.

“Excellent,” Gabe said. He tossed his jumper cables in the back of his SUV, and backed it away from the diesel.

“Hope the tires on this diesel hold on the way over there,” Jerry said, out the window to Frank.

“It’ll probably be okay,” Frank said. “It’s been sitting here in the dark the whole time. They’re a little low on air, but I see a compressor over in the workshop area.”

Jerry put the truck into gear and drove it over by the generators. Then Terry brought up the jumper cable and plugged it into the receptacle on the bumper. Gabe picked up the other end of the cables and put them on the generator battery. Charlie pushed the generator button. The starting motor ran full speed this time. The generator started after about 20 seconds of grinding.

“Yahoooo! Gabe shouted. He unhooked the cables from the generator battery and then pulled it out of the bumper socket. “Hey Jerry, why don’t you move that truck outside and let it idle for a while. Maybe the battery is still good enough to charge up.”

“Yeah, sounds good. He slowly backed up, and then drove out of the barn and down the road about fifteen yards.

“Let’s see if the lights work,” Frank said. He walked over to the switch by the door and hit it. Several rows of fluorescent lights turned on.

“What about the other generator?” Jerry asked as he walked back in.

“The fuel system needs to be gone through on that one. There’s gel. I suspect that was the backup generator, and it didn’t get run very often. Might have been sitting there for years before the park closed.”

“Hey, guys!” Jeb shouted. He was standing where the tow truck was, looking down at the floor. “Take a look at this.”

The men ran over and looked. There was a large trap door in the floor, with a flush handle.

“Should I?” Jeb asked, squatting down.

“What do you mean ‘should I’? Pull that sucker open,” Gabe said, laughing.

Jeb pulled on the handle and the door opened up. He laid it all the way back. There was a light switch on the side of the door frame. He turned it on, and a glow came out the opening.

“Holy shit,” Gabe said. The others just stood there looking in.

Chapter 5 – The Bunker

Frank walked out of the barn and took his phone out of his pocket. He dialed.

“Jane?”

“Hi, Honey. How is it?”

“Needs lots of work, but it’s got everything that we need. You feel up to driving the rig out here?”

“You want to stay there?”

“Yeah, sweetie. Since we’ve cut all the locks, we want some folks to guard the place…we can also clear the mess away from the RV sites while you guys are on your way.”

“Any switchbacks or anything?”

“No, Jane, it’s all flat and straight. It’s an easy drive.”

“Who’s going to stay there with you?”

“Terry and Gabe. Everybody else has to go back to drive their vehicles over.”

“You guys got guns, right?”

“Yes, all of us do. We’ll be fine.”

“When are the others going to be back here?”

“Less than an hour. If we need any supplies, you might want to go to the store about now.”

“Okay, Frank, will do. You be careful out there.”

“I will. You be careful on the road, sweetie. Love you.”

“Love you too, honey. Bye.”

Frank put his phone back in his pocket. Gabe and Terry walked out with rakes.

“Should we clear the closest spaces, or go back a ways?” Gabe asked.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have the rigs right on top of each other,” Frank said. “Might as well give ourselves a little bit of privacy.”

“Not a bad idea,” Gabe said.

“You guys should pick out trailers, too.”

“I know, we will,” Terry said. “Dobie already asked for the 5th wheel. He thinks he can tow it with his truck.”

“Can he?” Frank asked. “He needs one of those 5th wheel hitches installed, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, and he’s not going anywhere without new tires and who knows what else,” Gabe said, chuckling. “All of these rigs are gonna need tires, probably batteries too.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need quite a few batteries,” Terry said. “A couple for the generators, one for that tow truck, and at least one for each of the trailers that we’re going to use.”

“You picked one out yet, Terry?”

“Naw, haven’t even been in them yet. I’ll let Trish decide.”

“Ah, so you two are moving into one together, huh,” Gabe said, chuckling.

“Don’t start messing with us about it,” Terry said. “I don’t mind, but it drives Trish crazy.”

“Okay, Terry,” Gabe said. “I’ll only tease you about it when she’s not around.”

Terry nodded. They started raking out the first row of sites.

“What are we going to do with all of this stuff?” Frank asked as he helped.

“Let’s rake it into piles and burn it,” Gabe said.

They worked silently for a while, and got the first row of sites cleaned out, making a good sized pile. They went on to the next row.

“What do you guys make of that place under the barn?” Terry asked. “You think the owner was some kind of survivalist?”

“Yep, a certified nutcase,” Gabe said.

Frank looked at him and chuckled. “I don’t know, Gabe. Maybe those guys got the last laugh on all of us. This is the world they talked about all the time.”

“All that re-loading equipment down there is going to come in handy,” Terry said. “I saw dies for everything except the AK’s, and we could probably get those in town.”

“Plenty of canned food down there too,” Frank said. “We need to finish exploring that place when we have some time. There’s three bedrooms and a kitchen behind the second door. That place must have a footprint as big as the whole damn barn.”

“Good place to go during a twister,” Gabe said.

“You think that’s why he put it there?” Terry asked.

“Maybe in the beginning, but that place was set up to live in…for a long time,” Frank said.

They had the second row cleaned off, and moved on to the third.

“I’m thirsty,” Gabe said. “Getting a little warm out here.”

“Hey, Terry, why don’t you go over and start getting that stuff away from the trailers?” Frank said. “Might as well make them look half way decent for your woman.”

Terry nodded and walked over there.

Back at the truck stop, Charlie parked Gabe’s SUV next to his rig. He got out with Jerry and Dobie. Jeb pulled his jeep behind his rig, right up to the back so he could get it hooked up.

The sheriff walked up to Charlie. “Terry called. Sounds like we hit the mother lode.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Charlie said. “But it’s going to take quite a bit of elbow grease to get things cleaned up.

Hilda came over and hugged Charlie. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said.

“You weren’t worried, were you? It’s pretty safe around here.”

“I’m worried whenever you’re out of my sight,” she said.

Where is everybody?

“Kurt, Mary, Jake, Trish, and Earl went into the store to grab supplies.”

“I need to go over there too,” Charlie said. “I want to chat with Howard.” They started walking towards the store, Hilda taking Charlie’s hand. They rounded the front of the building and went in the door.

“Hey,” Charlie said, seeing Kurt and Mary at the counter. They were chatting happily with Howard.

“Charlie! How was it out there?” Howard said.

“A mess, but fixable.”

“Good,” he replied, “I already called the local Sheriff and told him you’d be moving in there.”

“Great,” Charlie said. “We’re going to need quite a bit of stuff. Batteries, for one thing.”

“I have quite a few on hand…can order them if I don’t have what you need.”

“Well, we need too large ones for the generators. Here’s a picture.” He showed his phone to Howard. He had the picture that Terry took on there.

“Yep, that’s a special order for sure,” Howard said. “They’re pricey, too. About three hundred each. What else?”

“There’s a big diesel tow truck out there,” Charlie said.

Howard’s mouth dropped open. “That tow truck is still there?”

“Sure is,” Charlie said. “It runs, too. We used it to jump start the generators.”

“How’d you get it started?”

“Jumped it from Gabe’s SUV,” Charlie said.

“Oh. Yeah, I’ve got a battery for that…no problem. What else?”

“There’s four travel trailers and a 5th wheel out there that look salvageable. They’ll probably need batteries, but I don’t know what kind yet. Since we got the generator running, we’ll have power to the trailers, anyway.”

“Is there a department store around here?” Hilda asked. “Maybe we should go get some bedding. You know that’s going to be gone.”

“Yeah, there’s one down this road about half a mile,” Howard said.

“Good,” she said. “Honey, why don’t I take Trish and Mary and go shopping?”

“Sounds good. I’m going too, though. We can take Gabe’s SUV.”

“Okay, I’ll round them up. You said four trailers and a 5th wheel. Maybe two or three sets for each?”

“Yeah, that would be good,” Charlie said. “I can think of some other household wares we should buy…I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”

Hilda walked off, meeting Mary by the front of the door and then looking for Trish.

“What else you gonna need, Charlie?” Howard asked.

“Do you deliver diesel?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. Lots of folks out here have generators.”

“Good. We’ve got about two thirds of a tank out there. I have no idea how long it will last.”

“How big is the tank?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He pulled out his phone again. “Here’s a picture.”

“Oh, yeah,” Howard said. “I remember this setup. I’ve delivered out there before. That thing is huge. It’ll hold several hundred gallons.”

“How long will that last?”

“A few weeks if you don’t run it full time,” he said. “You really need to get the city power turned back on, though. I can call them for you, and I’ll let the mayor know what’s going on too, just in case. It’ll probably cost you, though.”

“Yeah, I know…taxes.”

“They’re going to want something. How you folks set for money?”

“Most of us are retired. Some of us have more money than others. You sure there’s no next of kin? If not, maybe we could get the county to deed the place over to us. Then at least we could sell off the stuff when we’re done there.”

“Good question, but I know who I can ask. As long as you agree to pay the taxes, I’m pretty sure they’ll turn on the power. That would cost a lot less than running that diesel generator all the time. Trust me.”

“Yeah, I believe it. We’re going to need other stuff, of course.”

“What else?”

“Glass. Somebody broke out most of the windows in the Clubhouse and Office,” Charlie said.

“Damn tweakers,” Howard frowned. “Sure, no problem. We have a contractor that’ll come out to the site. Just call me when you know the sizes, and I’ll get them out there. Anything else?”

“Was Chet a survivalist?” Charlie asked, lowering his voice.

“He used to talk about that all the damn time. Why, what did you find?”

“We found a trap door in the floor of the barn. There’s a friggin bomb shelter in there. Fully stocked, with several bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bunch of food and supplies.”

“No! You’re kidding,” Howard said.

“There’s a lot of valuable stuff at this place too,” Charlie said. “Why didn’t the kid sell it?”

“Just between you and me, this kid was pretty strange. He might have figured he’d come back eventually. Who knows?”

“He didn’t like the business, from what I heard.”

“True, but his dad had him interested in this survivalist nonsense,” Howard said. “Most of the old folks living out there were into that nonsense too. They all got old and died waiting for the apocalypse.”

“Well, they only missed it by about five years,” Charlie said, laughing. Howard cracked up.

“Well, we haven’t had the apocalypse here yet, but you do have a point. I’ll get the batteries on order for you, and make those calls. You want the power turned on right away?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “We’ll figure out the dollars when we get together out there. I’ll call up Frank and let him know. Does he need to turn off the generators?”

“Naw, that’s a backup system. When the juice comes in over the wires, she’ll turn off. If the power goes off, she’ll turn back on too, if there’s a good battery.”

“Why’d he have those, anyway? Seems like overkill for a survivalist…it’s hard to get fuel deliveries during the apocalypse.” Both men chuckled.

“Winter. If the city power goes down, those generators come in real handy. He had to use them more than once.”

“Winters pretty bad around here, eh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Howard said. “You guys think you’ll be here that long?”

“Maybe,” Charlie said.

Hilda was back, along with Mary and Trish. “We’re ready whenever you are,” she said.

Earl was behind them with a push cart full of supplies. “Guess we’d better ring this stuff up,” he said, smiling.

Howard nodded, smiling. “Wait a minute,” he said. He went into the back and brought out a big battery. “For the tow truck.” He rang that up, and put it on the push cart, and then started ringing the rest of the stuff up.

Back at the RV Park, the men made three large piles of debris. Gabe lit them up, and the men watched them burn for a few minutes. Luckily there wasn’t wind, and the fires burned lazily. Terry turned and walked back to where the trailers were. They looked a whole lot better on the outside after he raked up the mess under and around them. He went into the first of the travel trailers with a box of plastic bags he found in the clubhouse and started pulling trash out. Then he went on to the next one, then the next. He got done with all of them in about an hour. None of the trailers were in terrible shape…they were dusty and dirty, but that’s about it. It would have been worse a few years ago, before the food in them completely rotted away to dust. He got all of the windows open to air them out.

Frank and Gabe were in the barn, looking through things and puttering. The generator purred away quietly. The tow truck battery wouldn’t charge, so they drove it back into the barn and shut it off. Frank’s phone rang. He answered it.

“Frank?”

“Charlie, what’s up?”

“The city power is getting turned on in a little while. When it does, the generator should go off on its own. It’s set up as a backup generator.”

“Howard’s getting us set up?”

“Yeah, but we’ll have to take up a collection. The country and city will let us have this place if we pay the taxes.”

“The back taxes?”

“Naw, just going forward,” he said, “but it’ll still be a little pricey.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Frank said. “I’ve got a lot of money. I don’t mind spending a chunk of it.”

“Yeah, me too, but a lot of us don’t.”

“When are you guys coming over?”

“We’re leaving in about half an hour,” Charlie said. “I just got back from the Department store with the women. They picked up new bedding for the trailers and some other household stuff. How are they looking?”

“I haven’t been in them. Terry’s been cleaning them out. They look good from the outside, now that we’ve cleaned up the ground around them. We’ve got plenty of spaces for our rigs cleaned out, too.”

“Excellent,” Charlie said. “I told Howard about the other stuff we need, like glass. He’s helping me set that up. Oh, and I got a battery for that tow truck, and we put in an order for the generator batteries.”

“Good, things are falling into place.”

“Been on your app lately?”

“Yeah, Charlie. No movement of the cretins.”

“They’re dead, ten to one.”

“Hopefully. See you in a little while, Charlie.”

“Okay, take care.”

Frank put his phone back in his pocket.

“What’s the deal?” Gabe asked, walking up.

“Charlie and Howard are getting the power turned back on. When you hear the generator stop, we should have it.”

“Oh, fail over system, eh?”

“Yeah. You pick out a trailer yet?”

“I was just about to go over there,” Gabe replied. “I saw Terry bring quite a few trash bags out and throw them on the fire. What are you doing?”

“I’m getting ready to start messing with the internet set up,” Frank said. “But I think I’ll wait on that until after the city power comes on to try it. Don’t need a surge screwing the electronics up.”

Gabe nodded, and started walking out towards the trailers.

“I’ll go measure for the windows,” Frank said. He picked up a dusty pad of paper that was sitting on the work bench, and the measuring tape that he found in one of the drawers. He left the barn, heading for the clubhouse.

“Hey, Terry,” Gabe said, walking up. “How do they look?”

Terry turned around and smiled, a damp rag in his hand that was covered with dirt. “Surprising good. We need some stuff though. Bedding especially. I trashed all of it.”

“Know which one you want?”

“Any of the four travel trailers would be fine,” Terry said. “The nicest one is the 5th wheel of course, but I’m fine with letting Dobie have that one.”

“At least they all look level, thanks to the jacks,” Gabe said. “These suckers probably haven’t been moved for more than ten years.”

“So who all needs trailers again?” Terry asked.

“Jake, Dobie, me, and you,” he said. “We’ll have one left over.”

“Well, go ahead and pick one, then,” Terry said. “I’ll be able to let Trish pick between a couple of them, at least.”

“There much difference?”

“All but one of them are about twenty six feet. The little guy over there is only about twenty. It’s old, but it’s got a lot of class.”

“Okay,” Gabe said. “Any of them you’re partial too?”

“I like this one the best,” he said, pointing to the one right behind him. “But any of the larger ones would work. I don’t think I want to deal with the small one...it’s a one person unit, for sure.”

“Oh, that’s right, you won’t be alone, will you?” Gabe said, chuckling.

Terry just shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Who knows? She might change her mind and take the little one for herself.”

“I doubt that.”

The generator shut off.

“Uh oh,” Terry said. “That thing crapped out already?”

“No, it’s probably the city power. Frank got a call.”

“Well, one way to find out,” Terry said. He walked to the trailer that was his favorite, and flipped the breaker on the power mast. Then he went in the door and flipped the light switch. The lights came on. “Yes!” he said. He walked over to the fridge and turned it on. The light inside came on. He shut the door.

“Good?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah, good,” Terry said. “I’m going to go check the others, and turn on the refrigerators.”

“You got the fridges cleaned out already?”

“Yeah, that was the last thing I did,” Terry said, holding up the dirty rag.

Over by the clubhouse, Frank was just finishing up the window measuring. He heard the generator shut down, so he turned on the lights. The floor still had the broken glass all over it. He walked over to the barn and found a big push broom. He brought it back to the clubhouse with him and started sweeping up. That was a big job…it took him close to an hour, because he had to move tables and chairs. He couldn’t believe how much better the place looked when he was done. He came out on the front porch and leaned the broom against the wall. Then he sat down on the bench against the wall, in the shade, and stared out over the park. It was still a mess, but they made a lot of progress. Gabe walked up.

“Pick out a trailer?” Frank asked.

“Yeah,” Gabe said, sitting down, looking exhausted. “I took some of those beers we found in the bunker and put them into my trailer’s fridge, but those things take a long ass time to get cold.”

“Check the propane levels yet?”

“Nope, still need to do that, but my unit has a ceramic heater in it. Nice job on the cleanup in there.”

“We need to go check out that walk-in.”

“Later,” Gabe said. “I’m used to cleaning those, and so are Hilda and Kurt and Charlie. We’ll get it cleaned up and running in no time.”

There was the sound of approaching vehicles. Frank stood up and looked, getting out to the far end of the porch. He held his hand to his forehead to shade it from the sun. There they were. A long line of RVs, following Gabe’s Suburban. Jake’s bobtail was bringing up the rear.

“Here they come,” Frank said.

“Yes, here they come. Looks like Charlie’s driving the SUV.”

They watched as Terry sprinted to the gate and pulled both sides all the way open. He was grinning ear to ear.

Chapter 6 – Building the Nest

Charlie drove through the front gate of the RV Park, in Gabe’s Suburban. The rest of the vehicles followed…eight motorhomes, Dobie’s truck, and Jake’s bobtail. They parked on the access road in front of the barn and clubhouse. There was just enough room. Everybody got out and met in front of the clubhouse, joining Frank, Gabe, and Terry.

“Wow, this place dump,” Rosie said. “Who fix windows?”

“Don’t worry, Rosie, I already have somebody lined up for that,” Charlie said. “We just need to send the measurements to Howard.”

“I already have them,” Frank said. He handed a slip of paper to Charlie. Jane rushed over and hugged him.

“Where do we park our rigs?” asked the Sheriff.

“We cleaned out the first several rows of spaces,” Terry said. “Go straight ahead on this access road. They’re past that barn over there.” Trish walked up to him and smiled. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. She settled against him and laid her head on his chest for a moment.

“Electrical working?” Kurt asked.

“The city power got turned on a while ago, but we haven’t tested all the power masts,” Gabe said. “Any of you not have surge protectors?”

Nobody raised their hands.

“Good, then I say we just hook up and hope for the best,” Gabe said. “There are about two hundred spaces in this joint, so we should be able to find eight good ones. I’d try the power before doing everything else, though”

“The power works on all of the trailers,” Terry said. “I checked them out, and turned on the refrigerators.”

“How many?” Trish whispered.

“A 5th wheel and four travel trailers,” he replied quietly. “Dobie’s taking the 5th wheel. Gabe already picked his trailer out. There’s three left...one will be extra, assuming you want to move in with me.”

“We’ll see,” she said, with a sly grin on her face. She kissed him lightly, just a peck on the lips. “Let’s go look at them.”

The coaches started to move out as Terry and Trish walked towards the trailers. Jake trotted over and caught up with them.

“Oh, cool, I know which one I want,” Jake said, as they walked up. He was looking at the classic older coach.

“That one is classy, but it’s a little small,” Terry said.

“It’s just gonna be me, so no problem there. I’ll pull the bobtail right next to it…it’ll make a nice storage unit.” He trotted over to it and went in the door.

“That leaves these two,” Terry said, pointing. They were standing in front of the one he liked the best.

“Well, let’s take a look,” Trish said.

Terry opened the door and held it for her as she walked inside. She silently looked it over, looking in cabinets, sitting at the dinette and the couch, then checking the bathroom. She opened the fridge and cold air flowed out over her. Then she looked at the bedroom.

“Well?” Terry asked.

“Let’s go check the other one,” she said in a business-like manner.

“Okay,” Terry said. They left the trailer and walked over to the other one. It was much closer to Jake’s trailer. Jake came out and saw them.

“Hey, honey, I’m going to move the bobtail over here and start stocking up my trailer. I’ll back it up to whatever one you choose after I’m done.”

“Okay, dad,” she said. “That’s is a classy looking trailer.”

“Yeah, I’ve always liked the look of these. It’s a mid-60s model, but somebody gave it a lot of TLC over the years. It’s got solid wood cabinets. Beautiful.”

Terry opened the door on the second coach. Trish walked past him, and went through the same routine she did in the first one, silently looking it over. Terry just sat and watched her.

“What do you think?” Terry asked her. He was nervous, and it showed.

“They’re both suitable,” she said, still in her business-like manner. “Let’s go look in the other one again.”

Terry nodded, and followed her over there. They got inside.

“The air conditioning work?” she asked.

“Sure does,” Terry said proudly. “Want to see?”

“Yes, turn it on,” Trish said. As he turned it on she shut the door, and walked over behind him. When he turned, she was right there. She looked up at him and smiled.

“See, told you,” he said, as the cold air flowed around them. “Which one to you like the best?”

“I could live in either, but I like this one the most.”

“Why?” Terry asked.

“Because it’s further from my dad’s trailer, and I think we’ll need the privacy,” she said, watching his face. She smiled and pulled him in for a kiss. It wasn’t just a peck.

The motorhomes were all parked in spaces. Only one had a bad power mast, the one that the Sheriff picked. He moved to the next spot, and it was fine. Everybody was busy setting up their households for the next couple of hours. It was a warm day, and you could hear air conditioners starting up.

Frank finished his hookups and came inside the coach. Jane was puttering in the kitchen.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Sure, I could eat,” Frank said.

Mr. Wonderful crept out of the corner he was hiding in, and jumped up on the dashboard, scanning the area. Lucy noticed him from her bed, raising her head and cocking it. Then she put her head back down on the edge of her bed and sighed.

“She’s glad we’re settling,” Frank said.

“I know,” Jane replied. “Mr. Wonderful has been hiding most of the time since we left Gabe’s place. I think he can sense when we’re nervous.”

“You nervous now?” Frank asked.

“Not as bad as I was. I feel safe here so far, with the state being closed up. Plus we have your apps to tell us if the bad guys are coming. You checked it lately?”

“Oh, yeah, I check it about every twenty minutes,” he said. “Nobody anywhere near us. That group of icons is still sitting at the base, but I think those guys are all dead. They would have moved by now.”

“What’s your plan for the rest of the day?”

“Try to get the internet running,” Frank said.

“Is there Wi-Fi?”

“I doubt it,” Frank said. “I’ve been checking all of the usual places for antennas. I haven’t seen any yet. I doubt that the satellite system here is going to have a lot of bandwidth, anyway. Maybe we can fix that, though. Jake probably has a lot of equipment we can use in that bobtail of his.”

“Hopefully,” Jane said. “If not, there are a few places in town. It’s larger than I expected. They have a big Walmart. We went there before we left.”

“Really? What for?”

“Household stuff, mainly,” Jane said. “Bedding for the trailers, for instance.” She got a sly smile on her face.

“What?”

“Trish. Talk about a woman in full nesting mode. She bought all kinds of stuff for her trailer. We asked her if she decided to move in with Terry. You should have seen the look on her face. She’s really got a case for that boy. Then she told us that she hadn’t agreed to that yet, and that she was going to be very coy. She’s loving this.”

“Yeah, well Terry worships the ground she walks on, I can tell you that,” Frank said. “He spent a lot of time getting those trailers ready. You should have seen him run to the gate when the group was coming down the road.”

They both laughed.

Charlie and Hilda were finished getting their rig set up. They walked over to the clubhouse together. Hilda looked around.

“Pretty messed up,” she said.

“You should have seen it when we first got here. Somebody swept it up and put the furniture back where it belongs. There was broken glass all over the floor, and the elements were starting to get a foothold near the window openings.”

“The place probably went through a few winters with no windows,” Hilda said. “Actually, considering that, it doesn’t look too bad. How’s the kitchen?”

“No broken windows in there, so it’s in better shape,” Charlie said. “I’ll show you.” They walked over to the swinging door and pushed in.

“Oh, wow, this isn’t bad at all,” she said. “I like this more than the kitchen in my place, in some ways.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice. We have running water. I’ll have to find the water heater.”

“Is it electric or gas?”

“Good question,” Charlie said. “I need to spend more time looking around. I assume this place is on propane, but I haven’t found any big tanks around yet.”

Hilda opened the door of the walk-in fridge. “Phew!” she said, shutting the door quickly.

“Yeah, I know, we have some cleanup to do in there. I didn’t turn it on, because I figured we’d want it warm when we’re in there cleaning.”

“Maybe we ought to leave the door blocked open to air it out,” Hilda said.

“Good idea,” Charlie said. He took hold of a step stool over by the counter and used it to block the door open.

“Where’s the pantry?” Hilda asked.

“Don’t know. There’s a door on the other side of the stage, but that wouldn’t make sense as a pantry. Too far away.”

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the floor. There was another trap door, but it was covered with the linoleum flooring, so it didn’t stand out.

“Wow, I didn’t see that before,” Charlie said. He pulled up on the door and laid it back. There was a stairway leading down.

“Maybe this is the light switch,” Hilda said, pointing to one on the wall next to the trap door. She switched it on, and the lights came on below.

“There you go,” Charlie said, getting onto the stairway.

“Lot of underground stuff here,” Hilda said, as she watched Charlie climb down the stairs. “Be careful down there.”

“Wow, check this out,” Charlie said. Hilda climbed down.

The room was large, with shelves all around, and a big table in the middle. It was fully stocked with canned and dry goods, along with cleaning supplies and other household stuff, in industrial sized containers.

“Well, we won’t have to buy food for a while,” Hilda said.

“We’d better check the dates on this stuff. Some of it might be too old.”

“Maybe,” she said. “What’s behind that door?” She pointed to the far end of the room.

“Let’s check,” Charlie said, walking over there. He opened the door and hit the light switch. “Holy crap, this is connected to the bunker under the barn.”

They walked down the long hallway, and into the main part of the bunker, where the barn trap door was. Charlie hit the light switch.

“This is a workshop,” Hilda said. “What’s all that stuff?”

“Reloading equipment, and gunsmith tools,” Charlie said.

“Oh,” Hilda said. “What’s behind those doors?”

“Living quarters,” Charlie said. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

Charlie opened the door to the left, and hit the light switch. There was a short hallway with several doors on one side. Hilda followed him in.

“Why isn’t it musty down here?” Hilda said. “The air smells fresh.”

“There’s got to be some vents somewhere,” Charlie said. He opened the first door. There was a bed, a dresser, and a closet there.

“Somebody was living in here,” Hilda said.

“Looks like it, huh?” he said. They went into the next room, which was another bedroom just like the first. The door after that was a bathroom, and the final door was a laundry room, with dusty old machines and a big sink.

“Where’s the kitchen?”

“Other door,” Charlie said. “C’mon.” He led her out of there and back into the workshop area. Then he opened the other door and hit the light switch.

“Wow,” she said. The right side of the room was a normal looking residential kitchen, with all of the appliances you’d expect, and a phony window over the sink with frilly curtains. On the other side of the room was a large living room, with two couches, a couple of recliners, and an electric fireplace. An ancient 25 inch TV sat against the side wall. On the back wall was a good sized bar, with six stools.

“Ah, I wanted to check out the bar,” Charlie said, grinning. “Didn’t have time earlier.”

“Figures,” she said. “Ger would have been in hog heaven down here.”

“I’m going to call this the lounge,” Charlie said, chuckling. He got behind the bar and rubbed his finger on its surface. “Dusty as hell.”

“Big surprise,” Hilda said. She pulled out one of the bar stools, dusted it off with her hands, and sat down, feeling the padded elbow rest that went around the outside.

“The mother lode!” Charlie said, laughing. “This is fully stocked. There’s a little fridge under the bar, too.”

“Well, now I know where to find Jeb and Rosie,” Hilda said, grinning.

“Whoever built this was one paranoid son of a gun, you know,” Charlie said.

“Obviously. We can use this place, though. You know twister season starts up in November.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “I wonder how long we’ll be able to stay here.”

“I’m wondering the same thing, but let’s not worry about it now. Let’s just enjoy this place while we can.”

“We need to get a meeting together,” Charlie said. “Lots to talk about.”

“Wonder how people will take the money part?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Charlie said. “Several of us are well off enough to handle the bulk of the taxes, and we can split the utilities. It’ll be cheaper than paying for spaces somewhere else.”

“True,” Hilda said. “Let’s go back up.”

They turned off the lights and headed back down the hallway to the clubhouse kitchen.

Frank and Jane finished eating. Frank took off for the barn, while Jane took Lucy out for a walk. Jerry caught up to Frank on the way.

“Going to mess with the internet setup?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Power should be stable enough now. I was a little reluctant to turn it on with the generator.”

“Okay, you go ahead and mess with that. I’ll trace the wires and find out where the line outlets are.”

“Cool,” Frank said. He was in the barn now, and walked over to the satellite equipment cabinet. He looked inside for the power button, and pushed it. The equipment lit up. Frank saw where the outlet was, and then trotted out to his rig to fetch his laptop.

“Done so soon?” Jane asked as he dashed by. Lucy gave him a look.

“I want to plug the laptop into the satellite receiver,” he said. He went into the coach, picked up the laptop, and trotted back over to the workshop.

Jerry was coming back over from the clubhouse. “Well, I found an internet outlet in the far corner, and also the space where the TV was,” he said. “I guess the tweakers took the TV…they should have been able to sell that.”

Frank had his laptop set up on the work bench next to the cabinet. He plugged in the power cord, and turned it on.

“I suspect whatever service this park had has been turned off for a long time,” Jerry said.

“Probably,” Frank said. “Wonder if we’ll get a message with a phone number?”

“Well, on my system at home, those came over the TV, not through the computer. Will that table display TV? It’s got an HDMI port.”

“Yeah, but this satellite system is pre-HDMI, and I can’t plug in RCA cables,” Frank said. “Hey, remember that TV that Jeb let us use? Think he grabbed it before we had to high tail it?”

“Oh, yeah, forgot about that. I’ll go ask him. Maybe we could set it up in the clubhouse.” Jerry left, headed for Jeb’s rig.

The laptop was booted up, so Frank logged in, and then plugged the internet cable in. Nothing…no internet connection.

“Crap,” Frank said. He walked out of the barn just in time to see Jeb and Jerry carrying the flat screen TV into the clubhouse. “Excellent, you did still have it.”

“Yeah,” Jeb said. “I couldn’t see leaving it. It fit in my storage bay with no problem.”

The two men wrestled the big TV through the door, and set it on the cabinet where the cable outlets were. Jerry plugged in the cable, and then the TV. Jeb pointed the remote at it and turned it on.

“Invalid account,” Jerry read off of the screen. “There’s the phone number.”

Frank pulled out his phone and called. An operator answered.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I’d like to re-start service at my RV Park.”

“What is the serial number on the box?” the operator asked.

“Shoot, I’ve got to go look,” Frank said. “I’m walking over to it now.” He walked quickly to the barn, followed by Jeb and Jerry. Frank pulled the receiver out far enough to see the number. He read it off to the operator.

“One moment, please,” she said.

“Sir, that is a really old box. If you want high definition service, you’ll need to order a new one.”

“Is this usable for non-HD TV and internet connection?”

“Yes, but we will be discontinuing service to that type of equipment in the near future.”

“How soon is the near future?” Frank asked.

“Six to eight months,” the operator said.

“Not a problem, we’ll get a new one before then. What options are there for internet on this box?”

“You said you’re at an RV Park, correct?” she asked.

“Yes,” Frank said.

“Then you want the high-bandwidth commercial service, I suspect.”

“How much is it?”

“We have a plan for six hundred dollars a month.”

“How soon could you get it turned on?”

“As soon as you pay for it, sir.”

Frank pulled his wallet out of his pocket, and took out a credit card.

“MasterCard okay?” Frank asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Number, please.”

Frank read off the number to her, smiling and giving the thumbs up to Jeb and Jerry.

“Okay, Sir, you’re access is turned on. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“Not at this time,” Frank said. “Thanks, and goodbye.”

Frank put his phone back in his pocket, and looked at his laptop. He selected the network, then fired up his browser. He was connected.

“Yay!” Jerry said, grinning. “How much?”

“You don’t want to know,” Frank said.

“C’mon,” Jerry said.

“Six hundred bucks a month, but it’s a commercial plan. I think we can probably put a few Wi-Fi antennas around with this service. It’s worth it to me.”

“Well, I hear we have to take up a collection for taxes anyway,” Jerry said.

“I’m gonna go see what’s on TV,” Jeb said. He left the barn.

“What kind of TV package did we get?” Jerry asked.

Frank shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Whatever the commercial package is.”

“Wonder if this system is hooked up to the cable outlets at the RV spaces?”

“Worth a try,” Frank said. “But right now, I’m going to do some hacking. The clock is running on release of the apps. If we still want a chance to nail the enemy leaders, I need to crack these chips.”

“Hey!” shouted Jeb from the clubhouse. “Better come check what’s on TV!”

Chapter 7 – Computing Power

Frank and Jerry ran over to the clubhouse after Jeb yelled at them. He was sitting on one of the dusty chairs, staring at the TV screen. It was a helicopter shot of west Denver.

“What happened?” Jerry asked. Jeb looked at him, intense anger on his face.

“The cretins used nerve gas,” Jeb said. His eyes were tearing up.

“Oh, no,” Frank said. “How bad is it?”

“It didn’t hurt the army that much…they couldn’t get it close enough to where they were,” Jeb said. “They mostly killed civilians.”

“This was a terror attack,” Jerry said. “They want to scare the civilians out of joining the fight.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I’m going back to work on the encryption.” He clenched his jaw in grim resolve.

Jerry nodded. “Let me know about anything you might need…otherwise I’m going to leave you alone.”

“Thanks,” Frank said. He left the clubhouse.

“This won’t stand,” Jeb said, face red with anger.

The announcer came on.

“For those of you just tuning in, the western suburbs of Denver were hit with nerve gas about one hour ago. It was delivered by artillery. No official word on casualties yet, but it will be significant. The army is working closely with local authorities to root out the enemy forces that participated in the attack.”

“Gee, ya think?” Jeb said sarcastically. “I’ll bet the army hasn’t even shut down I-70 yet.”

“I wonder if General Hogan is sharing the chips with anybody outside of his group yet.” Jerry asked.

“Good question,” Jeb said. “I hope he gives us enough time to crack them. I want to stick my knife into Saladin and watch him bleed.”

“Crap, look at that,” Jerry said, pointing at the screen. It showed a school, with dead children laying on the playground.

“Son of a bitch,” Jeb said, face getting redder.

“This is video of a middle school that was in the area of the gas attack. There was no warning. No time to get people out. Normally we would see parents lined up along the perimeter, waiting to hear about their children. In this case, most of the parents were also victims.”

Charlie walked into the clubhouse with the Sheriff and Kurt.

“Got the TV working, I see,” Charlie said. “Guess I don’t need to tell you what happened.”

“How’d you hear about it?” Jerry asked.

“Radio in my rig. Those bastards.”

“What are we gonna do?” Kurt asked.

“We’re gonna do everything we can to keep Frank working on cracking the chips,” Jerry said. “He’s on it right now.”

The Sheriff pulled out his phone and looked at the long range app.

“Wonder what’s going on at the air force base on highway 94?” he asked. “I still see the icons clustered around there. No movement.”

“That’s why I had the radio on,” Charlie said. “I was hoping they’d say something. So far, not a word.”

“You don’t think they’ve taken over that base, do you?” Kurt asked.

“General Hogan knew about them coming, so I’d be surprised,” Charlie said.

“At least I don’t see any hits in Kansas. Not even one,” the Sheriff said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

“Yeah, we seem to be safe for now,” Jerry said.

Frank walked back into the clubhouse.

“Hey, Kurt, you still have that fast PC we were using at your place?”

“Yeah, it’s in my storage compartment. Why?”

“I was thinking that maybe we ought to fire it up in here, and use it to continue running the encryption program,” Frank said. “It’s a lot faster than the laptop, and then I could use the laptop to concentrate on hacking.”

“Gotcha,” Kurt said. “I’ll go get it.”

“I’ll help,” Jerry said.

The two of them left the clubhouse.

“Anything else on the attack?” Frank asked.

“Not really,” Jeb said. “Just some really nasty pictures of dead kids.”

Jerry and Kurt came back in with the PC. They took it over to a small table next to the network outlet, in the far corner of the room. Frank followed them over.

“Glad there aren’t windows right by this,” Frank said.

“It doesn’t matter much,” Charlie said. “The glass guy will be out here in less than an hour.”

“Good,” Kurt said.

Jerry got the PC plugged in and put together.

“How are you going to get your program over here?” Jerry asked.

“I emailed everything to myself,” Frank said. “I’ll pick it up that way.”

The PC monitor showed the windows login screen. There was an icon with Frank’s name on it.

“Oh, yeah, I remember when you set this up,” Frank said. “Seems like a long time ago.” He pulled one of the chairs over and logged on. The internet connected without any problem. Frank opened the browser and went to his e-mail. The message was there, so he opened it and downloaded the attachments. It took him about three minutes to get the program running again.

“Looking good?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, this sucker is fast,” Frank said. “I’ll probably still get to it by hacking faster than this, but you never know. Thanks, guys.”

“Go get ‘em,” Jeb said.

“That’s the plan,” Frank said as he left the clubhouse for the barn.

Hilda and Mary walked out towards the trailers, carrying large plastic bags. Trish saw them coming out the window, and left the trailer, running towards them.

“My stuff!” she said happily. “You should have let me know. I could’ve come over and gotten it.”

Terry came out and watched.

“We were coming out anyway,” Mary said. She handed Trish two of the large bags. Terry came over and took them from Trish.

“Dobie!” Hilda called. He emerged from his 5th wheel, a damp rag in his hand.

“Hi, ladies,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Here’s some bedding for you,” Mary said, holding up the bag.

“Oh, wow, thanks!” he said. “This is what you guys got at Walmart?”

“Among other things,” Mary said.

“What do I owe you?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about that now,” Hilda said. “We’ve got some financial stuff to discuss. Charlie’s planning on having a meeting later this afternoon, after the glass contractors are done.”

“Sounds good. Thanks!” he said, as he carried the bag back to his trailer.

Mary walked over to Jake’s trailer with a bag, and Hilda walked over to Gabe’s trailer with one as well. Then they walked back towards the clubhouse.

Terry put the two bags on the dinette table, and went back to dusting out cabinets and wiping down everything. Trish started pulling things out of the bags. There was two sets of bedding, pillows, bath towels, hand towels, kitchen towels, and bathroom supplies.

“Wow, you got a lot of stuff,” Terry said.

“Mary and Hilda were teasing me about it at the store,” Trish said, smiling. “They said I was nesting.”

“Well, we kinda are,” Terry said. He watched her reaction. Her face turned red, but she looked at him and smiled.

“Maybe,” she said quietly.

“You knew we’d be moving in together while you were in the store, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, quietly again.

“But you wanted to tease me, didn’t you,” Terry said, shaking his head, smiling.

“You seem to be happy,” she said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, walking over to her. He hugged her again, and they started to kiss, getting more and more passionate. Terry’s heart was pounding in his chest. She finally broke the kiss.

“Down boy,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “C’mon, help me make the bed. We still have a lot of work to do here.”

He nodded and followed her into the bedroom.

Back in the clubhouse, Charlie, Jerry, and Kurt were all glued to the TV, when Mary and Hilda walked in.

“Uh oh, what happened?” Mary asked.

“The cretins used nerve gas in West Denver,” Kurt said.

“Oh, no,” Hilda said. “Those poor people. How many dead?”

“Lots,” Jerry said grimly.

“I hear somebody coming,” Jeb said. He got up and rushed to the window opening. “Hey, Charlie, the glass contractors are here. They brought two trucks.”

“Good,” Charlie said, getting up. They walked out to meet them.

In the barn, Frank was trying to find his way into the enemy system. He attempted to log onto the system at Hilda’s place. No dice…when they destroyed the hard drive, it brought the system down…or the bad guys simply turned it off. YouTube! Maybe the cretins still had their propaganda up. He went over there. Yep, there were the two videos. The one with the heads, and the other one showing all of the group’s faces at Kurt’s place. Maybe I can get to an IP address from here.

“Hi, Frank,” Jane said, walking into the barn with Lucy. “Need anything?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, not looking away from the screen.

“Oh,” she said, seeing the still of the video on the YouTube page.

“Yeah, you don’t want to look over my shoulder,” Frank said.

“What’re you doing?”

“Trying to get to the IP address that this was posted from,” Frank said. “Tricky, but doable. I’m hoping that they set this up from their system, not from some random place.”

“Well, I think I’ll leave you alone, then. Good luck, honey,” she said, walking away.

“Thanks,” Frank said, still looking at the screen.

Dobie was walking his four dogs. Gabe saw him and went over to help, taking a couple of leashes.

“Thanks, Gabe,” Dobie said.

“How’s your 5th wheel coming along?”

“Surprisingly well,” he said. “How about your place?”

“It’s clean enough to sleep in now,” Gabe said. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“I want to take a look at the front of the park,” he said. “There’s no chain link up there by the front gate. I need to figure something out so I can put the dogs on patrol.”

“We could dig another moat, I suppose,” Gabe said, chuckling.

“I don’t think you brought any of that steel for a bridge,” Dobie said, grinning.

“Jeb told me there’s a section of fence gone back behind the barn, too,” Gabe said. “Big enough to drive through.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dobie said. “Charlie was going to see about getting a gate, so we have a back way out of here. Maybe we could put a gate in front too.”

“That’d be good,” Gabe said. “But if the bad guys get past the Kansas border, we’re cooked. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. Been watching those icons at the air force base. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“I know,” Gabe said. “What if General Hogan gave the apps to somebody that we can’t trust?”

“Yep, that’s what I’m afraid of. What if those guys figured out what we know, and removed the chips?” They might be sitting in a ditch by that base, and they might be on their way here right now.”

“I don’t know, Dobie. I was thinking that through, over and over, and getting all worked up, but then I remembered something.”

“What?”

“I can still see all the icons around Denver, and along I-70. If the bad guys were on to us, I think they’d have removed them by now. I still see movement all over the place, too. The icons aren’t just sitting up there.”

“Oh,” Dobie said. “Good point. That’s something we should watch for. If the icons around Denver freeze on us, we’ve probably got a problem.”

“Well, there’s the gate,” Gabe said as they walked up. “The span isn’t really that wide. I’ve seen sliding gates that are long enough to close this up.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Dobie said. “We could close it against that registration building. I suspect we’ll have to beef up the other side, though. That chain link section doesn’t look strong enough to support a big gate.”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “What are you gonna do with the dogs before we get this closed up?”

“Chain them up around my rig,” Dobie said. “I’ll probably let Princess sleep in the trailer with me, though.”

“Would they actually run away without the fence closed up?”

“No, but they might attack somebody walking by,” Dobie said. “I don’t want them to hurt somebody who’s not the enemy.”

“Oh. Not a lot of people around here,” Gabe said.

“True, but I’m not willing to risk it. Remember that little lake behind us. That might draw some fishermen.”

They made their way back to the spaces. When they got there, Dobie went to his truck and pulled out a big plastic bin. It had chains inside. He set them up around his trailer, and hooked the dogs up.

“Might want to see if that awning still works,” Gabe said, pointing to it on Dobie’s trailer. “It’s going to get too hot for the dogs this afternoon without some shade. That awning’s a hand cranker, so I’ll bet it’s still good, if it isn’t rotted out.”

“Ah, yes,” Dobie said. “I saw the crank handle inside.” He ducked into his trailer and came out with it.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Gabe said. He watched as Dobie engaged the handle and turned it. The awning made a cracking noise, and then broke loose and started to open up. It took almost a minute for Dobie to crank it all the way out.

“Wow, not bad,” Gabe said. “You’ve got a little fraying on that side over there, but it’s not torn. Doesn’t look rotted, either.”

“Yeah, this is nice,” Dobie said. “Makes me want to sit down and crack a beer.”

“I’ve got a few in my fridge…want one?”

“Hell, yes,” Dobie sad. “Don’t have any chairs, though.”

“No matter,” Gabe said, as he walked back to his trailer. He saw Jake standing by his bobtail as Trish and Terry carried things into their rig. “Hey, Jake, want a beer?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Jake said. He walked over to Gabe’s rig, and then followed him back over to Dobie’s with the beer.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” Dobie asked as he opened it.

“From the bunker,” Gabe replied. “There’s a ton of it in there.”

“Not bad,” Jake said, taking a first sip.

Charlie and Hilda walked over.

“How’s it going, guys?” Charlie asked.

“We’re just about set up,” Dobie said. “You have a line on some chain link, I hear.”

“Yeah, there’s a contractor in town. Know what we need?”

“We need a standard sized gate for the opening back behind the barn, and a large sliding gate for the front. We’ll need some post and cement work, too.”

“Okay, let’s talk about that when we have our meeting,” Charlie said.

“Oh, we’re meeting? When?” Jake asked.

“As soon as the window guys are done. It’ll be a couple of hours yet…so about 2:00.”

“We’ll be there,” Dobie said.

“Want beer?” Gabe asked. “I still have a couple in my fridge.”

“That the stuff from the bunker?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “Decent, not great.”

“Maybe later. See you guys in a while.” Charlie and Hilda walked slowly back to the clubhouse.

“We’ll probably get the bill for all this in the meeting,” Gabe said, chuckling. “Still a bargain over paying for spaces, though, I expect.”

“Hope so,” Dobie said.

“Hey, dad, we’re done unloading,” Trish said. “You can move the truck back now.”

“Okay, honey. The keys are in her. Why don’t you have Terry drive her back over next to my trailer?”

“Okay,” she said. Terry walked out in a couple of minutes, nodded to the men, and got into the bobtail. He drove back over next to Jake’s trailer, where it was before, then walked over to Jake and handed him the keys.

“How’s it looking in there?” Jake asked.

“Good,” Terry said. “Trish certainly knows how she likes things.”

“Oh, yeah she does,” Jake said, chuckling. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Terry walked back over and joined Trish in the trailer.

“Think Terry’s going to be strong enough to handle her?” Dobie asked.

“Yeah, they’ll be fine,” Jake said. “She’s a lot like her mother, God rest her. She’s a take-charge kind of woman, but that’s not all bad. Not by a longshot.”

“You miss Kate, don’t you?” Gabe asked.

“Every day,” Jake said, staring into space. “Every day.”

Back at the clubhouse, the window replacement was almost done. Charlie paid the contractor when they finished, and they loaded their trucks up and drove away.

“Well, there’s a good job done,” he said. “Took less time than I expected.”

Jerry cracked up. “Yeah, in California, they probably would have forced us to replace the whole shebang with low-e dual pane windows. That’d be more like a couple of days for this place, big bucks too.”

“If I thought we were going to stay here the winter, I might have sprung for that,” Charlie said.

“You don’t think we’ll last here that long?” Mary asked.

“Well, the army better start bringing their A game against the enemy in Denver, or they’re going to spread in this direction,” Charlie said. “Wonder why there’s been no news on that air force base?”

“Cretins still there?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, just checked a couple minutes ago,” Jeb said.

“Something doesn’t smell right,” Kurt said.

Suddenly the PC started to beep. Jerry got up and ran over to it.

“Somebody go get Frank. This thing just cracked the encryption!”

Chapter 8 – The Lounge

Charlie bolted out of the clubhouse, running for the barn.

“Frank!” he yelled.

Frank looked up from his laptop screen, and turned to see Charlie running in. “The encryption program says it’s done,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

“Really? Wow, that was fast,” Frank said. The two men hurried back to the clubhouse, and Frank rushed over to the PC.

“Well?” Jerry asked.

Frank looked up at him and grinned. “Looking good. I’ll need to add some code to the apps to take advantage. Maybe I’ll just work on that here.”

“Excellent,” Jerry said.

“Will it bother you if there’s a meeting going on?” Charlie asked.

“No, not at all. I don’t have a lot of deep thinking to do on this part of the job,” Frank said. “I’ve already got most of the programming done. If it bothers me, I’ll just email everything to the laptop and finish up out there.”

“How long?” Jeb asked.

“It’ll take some time…I’ll probably have it done in a couple of days. This breaks me into the payload, but I’ll need to write code to translate the content, and to present it in the apps in a way that can be read,” Frank said.

“Okay,” Charlie said. “I was just about to call everybody in.”

“Go for it,” Frank said.

Charlie and Hilda walked out of the clubhouse together. Jeb picked up the remote and turned off the TV. “Enough of that,” he said grimly.

“Hey, Jeb, you want to go fetch Rosie?” Jerry asked.

“Was on my way,” he said, getting up. “Want me to get Jasmine?”

“I’m going out there anyway,” Jerry said. “I’ll join you.”

The two men walked out together, leaving Frank at the PC, and Kurt, the Sheriff, and Mary chatting softly on the far side of the room.

People started to trickle in. Jane came in with Lucy, and walked over to Frank.

“I hear your program made a breakthrough,” she said. Frank turned up to her and smiled.

“Yeah, it broke the encryption. Now I have to code the apps to un-encrypt and display the info.”

“How long will that take?”

“A day or two,” Frank said.

“Good,” she said. “You going to be able to break a few minutes for this meeting?”

“Yeah, for the gist. Then I’ll get back on this and just listen.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll save you a seat.” She took Lucy and walked over to one of the long tables, joining Jasmine and Jerry, who had just come in.

Soon everybody was there, chatting softly. Charlie and Hilda got up in the front.

“Everybody hear me alright?” Charlie asked.

People hushed and looked at him, nodding and murmuring yes. Frank saw that, and came over, sitting down next to Jane.

“Thanks for coming, everybody,” Hilda said. Then she looked over at Charlie.

“Well, what do you think of our new home?” he asked.

There was a smattering of applause.

“Still needs a might bit of cleaning up,” Gabe said, laughing.

“Sure does,” Jeb said. “I like it, but it’s not defensible. If the cretins get past the border, we’ll find ourselves in a straight up battle that we probably can’t win.”

“I agree,” Charlie said. “If Kansas stays safe, we’ll be fine. We do have Frank’s apps to give us early warning, at least.”

“I heard that Frank break code,” Rosie said. “Is going to work?”

Frank stood up. “The encryption program figured out how to translate the payload data. I still have some work to do, in order to implement that capability in the apps. It’ll take me a day or two to get it done.”

“What’ll that buy us?” Mary asked.

“That all depends on what’s in the payload of these chips,” Frank said. “I’m hoping it has info on who the person is. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to continue on with the hacking I was doing out in the barn, and see if I can link chip serial numbers to names from their database. Keep your fingers crossed. We aren’t done yet.”

“Thanks, Frank,” Charlie said. “You let us know if you need help, otherwise we’ll try to leave you alone to get the job done.”

Frank nodded.

“We have some financial stuff to talk about,” Hilda said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Here’s the deal. Chet, the owner of this RV Park, passed away about six years ago. His son took it over for a while. Since this place is off the beaten path, there wasn’t much business coming through. It probably did pretty well before I-70, but after that, it would have been rough.”

“Looks to me like it was a full timer retirement place,” Gabe said. “Found evidence of that in the trailers.”

“That’s what Howard told me,” Kurt said.

“Right,” Charlie replied. “So, to make a long story short, the son ran the place until the remaining residents were too old to live here anymore. Then he padlocked the place and left. He was in New Jersey when the bomb went off in New York Harbor, and he was killed, along with his family. He was the last of Chet’s relatives, so there was nobody to hand this place off to.”

“Why didn’t the county just take it over?” Dobie asked.

“It wasn’t worth anything to them, and this is a small county. They don’t have a lot of resources. It was cheaper for them to just leave it here.”

“So what are they planning on doing now that we’re here?” Gabe asked.

“Here’s the deal they’re offering us. We pay the taxes, they deed the place over to us.”

“We talkin five years of back taxes?” Jeb asked.

“No, just going forward…it’s about 1500 per month. That’s roughly 140 bucks per coach. I know some of us have deeper pockets than others, so we can work out something between us. We also have some work that needs to be paid for. The windows and the fence, and maybe the water system if it needs attention. Also the electric bill.”

“We’ve got quite a bit of money,” Frank said. “I had a good retirement. I’ll spring for some of the repairs.”

“Me too,” Kurt said, looking over at Mary. She shook her head yes.

“Hilda and I can help out there, too,” Charlie said. “When we’re done, we can sell off the valuable assets and divide it amongst us to try to even things out a little…or if somebody wants to stay on afterwards, they could buy the rest of us out.”

“Why would somebody want to stay on here?” the Sheriff asked. “There’s no big highway close by.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Gabe said. “You could set this place up as a retirement community and probably make ends meet pretty well. I know people who’ve done that.”

“Me too,” Charlie said, “but no sense in worrying about that now. Is anybody opposed to the plan?”

Nobody spoke up.

“Alright, then a hundred and forty bucks per month doable for everybody?”

“Cheaper than staying in somebody else’s park,” Jeb said. “I’m in.”

“Me too,” Gabe said. “Hell, we’re getting shelter too. Can’t beat that anywhere.”

Jake and Dobie nodded in agreement.

“Nobody objects?” Charlie asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Jeb said.

“Alright, then it’s settled.”

Frank stood up. “Hey, Jake, you got any Wi-Fi stuff in that bobtail of yours?”

“Yeah, sure do,” he replied. “Was going to bring that up. We got enough bandwidth?”

“I think so,” Frank said. “The satellite company would like to upgrade us to better equipment, but I think we ought to try it out first. If it worked at all with almost 200 spaces, it ought to be excellent with the 11 spaces we’re using.”

“I’ll help set that up,” Jasmine said.

“Me too,” Jerry said.

“That would be great, guys,” Charlie said.

“By the way, the cable TV works at the spaces,” Jackson said. “I connected it this morning just to check it out.”

“Ah, good, I was wondering about that,” Frank said. “We’ve got the commercial package – the same one that the original owners had. I didn’t bother to check the details. Hope there’s some decent stuff on there.”

“It’s not bad,” Jackson said. “Basically what you see at any RV Park.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“I hear there bar in bunker,” Rosie said. “We use?”

Hilda laughed. “Charlie’s already named that room,” she said, shaking her head.

“What name?” Rosie asked.

“The Lounge,” Hilda said, rolling her eyes. “We could use a better TV down there. It’s got an old 25 inch console. I don’t know if it works at all. The bar’s nice, though, with good bar stools and quite a bit of stock. There are a couple of couches and a couple of recliners down there, too, and a kitchen off to one side.”

“We’ll have to give you folks the underground grand tour,” Charlie said. “Those of you who haven’t seen it yet, that is.”

“We need to keep that accessible if we’re here past early November,” Hilda said. “Twisters.”

“Yeah, was thinking the same thing,” Gabe said.

“We need to figure out an easy way to get you up and down, sweetie,” Jeb said to Rosie. “There’re stairs, and they’re a little steep.”

“Can you help me?” she asked.

“Of course,” Jeb replied, “but you won’t be able to do it by yourself.”

“Okay, everybody, that’s all I had,” Charlie said. “Anything else we need to talk about?”

“Anybody try to check out the water pump and purification system yet?” Mary asked.

“Not yet,” Charlie said. “We need to add that to our list of things to do, for sure. We need to send somebody up on the water tower to take a look, too.”

“I’ll do that,” Terry said.

“Good, thanks, Terry,” Charlie said. “Most of us old codgers are a little scared of heights now.”

“Seriously,” Frank said, chuckling.

“Jackson and I could help, too,” Earl said.

“Alright, anything else?”

Nobody spoke up.

“Okay, meeting adjourned,” Charlie said. “Anybody want to go check out the bunker? We can get into it from here.”

“Really”? Gabe asked. “Must be bigger than I thought. That’s cool. Lead the way.”

About half the group followed Charlie and Hilda into the kitchen, to the trap door in there. Dobie and Gabe walked back out to their trailers, and Frank went over to the PC and got back to work.

Terry looked at Trish. “You want to go down there?” he asked.

“Later,” she said. “We still have some work to do. C’mon.”

He nodded, and followed her out the door.

Jane walked over to Frank. “I think I’ll go check the bunker out, too. You been down there yet?”

“Only the part under the barn, and just for a minute.”

“What is it? Just a storm cellar?”

“No, that’s a bomb shelter,” Frank said. “It’s set up to live in for a long time. We probably had some crazy folks living here.”

“Really,” she said. “Now I’m intrigued. Mind if I leave Lucy in here?”

“Sure, no problem. She’ll just hang out.”

“Okay, Frank, be back in a little while.” She walked off towards the kitchen. Jeb was still there, helping Rosie down the stairs.

Terry and Trish got back to their trailer, and went inside.

“Well, what’s left to do?” Terry asked.

“Help me pull the dinnerware out of the cupboards,” she said. “They might need washing.”

Terry stood up and opened the top cupboards over the kitchen counter. He started bringing down the plates, bowls, and cups, putting them on the counter next to the sink. Trish was standing next to him, pulling out all of the utensils from the drawers below.

“These are just a little dusty, Trish,” Terry said. “We can either dust them or wash them.”

“We’re hooked up to the water, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if the water heater’s working. I’ll go check. I think I know where it is.”

He left the coach, going first over to the propane tanks. He lifted the first one…it felt like it was full. The one next to it felt like it was about half full. He turned the valve to open on the second one. He heard a hiss as it filled the lines. Then he opened a compartment on the side of the trailer, where he thought the water heater controls were. He was right. This model was a gas/electric combo. He switched on the electric, and heard the water start to heat.

“Find it?” Trish asked as he came back in.

“Yep. It can use electricity, so I turned it on. You should have hot water in about five minutes. These tanks are small.”

“How small?”

“You ever heard of a navy shower?” he asked, chuckling.

“No, what’s that?” she asked.

“You get in, rinse quickly, shut off the water, soap up, then turn the water back on and rinse the soap off.”

“Oh,” she said. “I guess I can get used to that.”

“We could shower together, you know,” Terry said, a twinkle in his eye.

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she said, giving him a sly grin. She got serious again right away. “I heard you messing with the propane. Maybe you should check the stove.”

“Was just gonna do that,” he said, lifting the black metal cover off of the burners and folding it back.

“Wow, that’s cleaner than I expected,” Trish said, looking at it.

“This is one of the things I cleaned before you got here. It was a greasy mess.”

“Oh,” Trish said. “You’re a real sweetheart. You know that?”

He just shrugged, smiling. Then he turned on the front burner and turned the sparking knob. Blue flame spread around the round edge of the burner.

“Yes!” he said.

“Very nice,” Trish said, looking at it. “We should check the oven, too.”

“I need to get one of those long lighters,” he said, “or some matches.”

“Well, don’t worry about that now,” she said. “We might find some around here somewhere anyway. Still a lot of nooks and crannies to search through.”

Terry nodded, and turned off the burner. Trish turned on the hot water side of the kitchen faucet. It sputtered for a few seconds, and then ran. She put her finger under it.

“Wow, it’s already pretty warm,” she said. “Wonder if there’s any dish soap in here.”

“Saw some under the sink,” Terry said. She opened the cabinet and saw it there. “Here we go. Why don’t you sit down and relax a little while? I’ll wash these.”

“Okay,” Terry said. He sat down and watched her as she filled the sink with warm water, and put the plates and utensils in. He loved the sight of her, watching her every move as she worked on the dishes, her back to him. Her light brown hair hung around her neck and shoulders. He was beside himself after a few minutes. He got up behind her and slid his arms around her, pulling her close. She sighed.

“How am I supposed to get the dishes done with you like this?” she said softly, but her pulse was quickening. She pushed back at him and sighed again.

“I’m not worried about that,” he said, turning her around to face him.

“I guess the dishes could soak for a little while,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.

Jeb got Rosie down the stairs into the bunker and they looked around the pantry area. Jane joined them.

“Wow, look at all these supplies,” Jane said.

“Yes, this good,” Rosie said, looking around. “Food for rainy day.”

“Seriously,” Jeb said. “This bunker is huge. Wait till you see the part under the barn. It’s even bigger than this.”

They made their way down the long hallway, and could hear some of the others in the workshop area, talking and laughing.

“Wow, look at this,” Rosie said. “That gun reloading stuff. I remember from war.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Jeb said, opening the door on the left and helping her through. Rosie looked around the room, over at the kitchen area, where Hilda and Mary were standing, and then at the couches, the chairs, and the bar.

“I just find favorite place,” Rosie said, laughing. “I see why Charlie call lounge.”

“Yep,” Jeb said, grinning. “It’s post time.” He took her over to one of the bar stools and helped her up.

“Pretty wood on bar. Somebody just clean?” Rosie asked.

“Yes, we just wiped it down,” Hilda said, from the kitchen. She put a bottle of cleaner under the sink, and walked over with Mary. “Isn’t this grand?”

“Yes, this nice,” Rosie said. “Bar stocked, too, I bet.”

“Sure is,” Charlie said, as he entered the room. “Might even have enough stuff for those Weng things of yours.”

Everybody in earshot laughed. Jeb walked behind the bar and took a look underneath, pulling up a bottle of bourbon.

“I’m a man of simple tastes,” he said, putting a couple shot glasses on the bar and filling them. “You want one, sweetie?”

“Yes, I like,” she said, taking the shot glass in her hands.

“Here’s to you,” Jeb said. They both downed their shots and put them down on the bar, shuddering slightly. “Who’s next? Belly up.”

Charlie came over and sat down next to Rosie, and the Sheriff came over and took a stool on the other side. Jackson, Earl, and Kurt walked over too.

“Now don’t get too carried away, you guys,” Hilda said. “We’ve still got a lot to do this afternoon.”

“Aw, just a couple,” the Sheriff said. “We can handle that.”

“Men,” she said. “Alright, you better pour me one too, but only one. Jane, Mary?”

“Sure, why the hell not,” Mary said. Jane reluctantly shook her head yes. Jeb found more shot glasses underneath and lined them up, filling them all. It made a good dent in the bottle.

“This is going to be a fun place to hang out,” Earl said.

“Sure is, but it makes me a little nervous,” Jackson said quietly. “No way to see what’s going on up top.”

The Sheriff heard what they were talking about, and got off his stool. He walked over to them. “Wonder if Gabe has any surveillance stuff in his truck?”

“We ought to ask him,” Earl said. “That’d be one way to keep track of what’s going on.”

“What’s with that window in the kitchen?” the Sheriff asked. He walked over in that direction, and then stopped. He tapped the floor with his shoe. “This feels loose, even under this rug. Give me a hand. Let’s roll it back.” Jackson and Earl came over, moved the furniture away where the Sheriff was standing, and started rolling the carpet back.

“Son of a bitch, look at that,” Jackson said. He said it loud enough that everybody at the bar heard, and turned in that direction.

Chapter 9 – Nighthawk Road

The Sheriff, Earl, and Jackson stared down at the floor. Yet another trap door. This one had a recess for the handle, and it was padlocked shut.

“Think Gabe’s bolt cutters will get through that lock?” Jackson asked.

“Might take a couple of us, but probably,” Earl said.

“Be right back,” Jackson said. He went back over to the pantry area, and out through the kitchen.

The other folks came over, standing over the trap door, looking down. Rosie stayed on the bar stool, craning her neck to see.

“I have bad feeling,” she said.

Jeb walked back over to her. “Another shot, honey?”

“Sure, why not. Then we enjoy the show.”

Jeb poured two more, and handed one to her. He clinked glasses with her. “Here’s to young love for oldsters.”

“You love me?” she asked.

“Yeah, you know I do.”

“Good. Me too,” she said. Jeb stood next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

Jackson opened the trap door in the barn, and came down the stairs with Gabe and the bolt cutters. They walked into the lounge. Gabe took a look at the lock.

“I suggest a couple of you younger guys get on this,” Gabe said. “It’s going to take some effort to get through that lock.”

“I’ll help,” Earl said, looking at Jackson. They got the bolt cutters in place, and both of them struggled with the handles for a good half a minute. Then there was a cracking sound, and they broke through.

“Wow, I was beginning to think we wouldn’t get through that sucker,” Jackson said, trying to catch his breath.

Earl nodded, and squatted down, pulling the lock out of the hasp. He tried to pull up on the trap door. It wasn’t coming up. “Jackson, give he a hand.”

They both pulled on the door, and it started to give, a seal breaking round the door. There was a thick rubber gasket all the way around which had gotten sticky with age.

“Somebody roll that carpet back a little further,” Jackson said, as he and Earl lifted the heavy trap door.

“It stink down there,” Rosie said. “Smell like death.”

The smell was bad. The Sheriff got over the hole with his cellphone, and turned on the flashlight app. He didn’t see a light switch, but he saw a rough ladder descending into the darkness. He got onto the ladder and climbed down carefully, shinning the cellphone around. It smelled terrible. The ceiling was low, making him feel claustrophobic. He saw a chain hanging from a light fixture, and pulled it. The dirty hanging light bulb lit the room in an eerie glow. Jackson started down the ladder.

“Jackson, stop,” he said. “Send Charlie over here. This is a crime scene. He knows how to be in here.”

“Okay,” Jackson said. “Hey, Charlie, the Sheriff wants you down there.”

“Uh oh,” Charlie said, walking over. He climbed down the ladder, seeing a grim look on the Sheriff’s face. Then he started to look around.

There were two jail cells over against the left hand side…home-made, with iron bars. They both had toilets, and cots with dirty sheets sitting on them. Over to the right, there were several sets of hand cuffs hanging from chains on the wall. In the middle of the room was a table, dusty, with dried blood in the channel going around the outside.

“That looks like an embalmer’s table,” Charlie said, looking at the Sheriff. On the opposite wall was a workbench with a lot of drawers, and medical tools sitting on top. There were bone saws of several different sizes, also dental tools lined up, and drills, and several hatchets. Behind the workbench, on a large bulletin board, were pictures of young women. Charlie walked over to there and pulled the string hanging down, which started up the fluorescent lights overhead. It looked like the pictures ranged from the early 1960s to about the late 1990s. There were news clippings next to many of the pictures.

“Hey, look over here,” The Sheriff said. He was next to a large patch of open dirt in the far corner, taking up more than half the floor space. “I’ll bet there’s a lot of body parts buried in there.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

“This place didn’t add up to me. Why anybody would just padlock this place and walk away? Now I know why.”

“I went hunting with this guy and Kurt,” Charlie said. “I slept next to him.” He started opening drawers in the work bench. One of them had a collection of teeth. Charlie shut it quickly, shaking his head. He opened a drawer next to it. There were a bunch of driver’s licenses in there, rubber banded together. He pulled that out. “Sheriff, take a look at this.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said when he saw it. Charlie carefully pulled the rotting rubber band off. There were licenses from the 60s all the way to the early 2000s. All young, pretty women.

“We’ve got a big problem,” the Sheriff said.

“I know, Sheriff. If we get the authorities in here, this place is going to get on the news, probably all over the country. The enemy will see it.”

“So what do we do?”

“Well, we know this guy is deader than a doornail,” Charlie said. “Nobody’s in danger anymore.”

“Chet didn’t do this by himself,” the Sheriff said. “Think about it. He was too old by the 2000s to have pulled this kind of stuff off himself.”

“The son?” Charlie asked.

“I’d bet money on it. Wonder if they found his body, or if they just assume he was home when the bomb went off.”

“Chet could’ve teamed up with somebody else, maybe even somebody who still lives in the town today.”

“Doubtful,” the Sheriff said. “Somebody into this kind of thing to the degree we see here doesn’t just stop and lead a normal life.”

“We’re going to have to tell the others about this,” Charlie said. “I think we need to make a case that it’s in our best interest to withhold this information until after the war.”

“That could land some of us in jail, you know,” the Sheriff said.

“Yeah, I know,” Charlie replied.

“What if there’re people rotting in jail right now for the killing of some of these women?” the Sheriff asked. “If we don’t say anything, they’ll continue to rot there.”

“I know, Sheriff, this is a hard decision,” Charlie said. “I think we need to discuss it with the group.”

“Let’s get out of here,” the Sheriff said. “This place is getting to me.”

The Sheriff climbed up the ladder as Charlie turned out the light over the workbench. He switched off the other light, and climbed out.

“Well?” Jackson asked. The Sheriff just looked at him, and walked over to the bar. He picked up the bottle and filled a shot glass, downing the drink. Charlie joined him there, and had one too. They looked at each other.

Earl started to climb down. The Sheriff saw him.

“Earl, don’t go down there,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Earl stopped, and came back up.

“Shut that thing, will you?” Charlie said.

“Okay,” Earl said, a puzzled look on his face. Jackson helped him lower the heavy door, and then they rolled the rug back over it. The two of them walked over to the bar, next to Charlie and the Sheriff, and the others gathered around too.

“What down there?” Rosie asked. Jeb was still standing next to her, arm around her shoulders.

“It’s a dungeon,” Charlie said. Hilda got a horrified look on her face.

“I know bad down there,” Rosie said. “I feel it.”

“What exactly do you mean, Charlie?” Mary asked. Kurt walked over next to her.

“Chet was a serial killer,” the Sheriff said. “He killed people and carved up bodies down there.”

“Oh, no,” Hilda said.

“Chet? No way,” Kurt said.

“Show them, Charlie,” the Sheriff said. Charlie pulled the stack of driver’s licenses out of his pocket and put them on the bar. Kurt picked them up, his eyes tearing up.

“I was wondering why this place just got padlocked with all the stuff in it,” Jeb said. “That’s been bugging me since we got here.”

“I know, me too,” the Sheriff said. “Obviously the son at least knew about this.”

“At least?” Kurt asked.

“Look at those licenses,” Charlie said. “From the 60s to the early 2000s. How’s an elderly man going to pull that off by himself? This guy was in his mid-seventies by the 2000s.”

“You’re right, he was,” Kurt said, grim look on his face.

“So what now?” Mary asked. “Do we call the cops?”

“Do we?” Charlie said. “If we do, we’re going to have the media all over this place. The whole country is going to see it on TV, including certain cretins that would love to know where we are.”

“Charlie’s right,” Jeb said. “We need to consider waiting on this.”

“What if there’re people in jail for the killings of some of these women?” Mary asked.

“I know,” the Sheriff said. “Charlie and I already realized that. We were talking about it down there. I don’t have a good answer for that. One thing we have to remember, though. We have to include our own survival as part of the criteria in making our decision on how to go forward.”

“Let’s think about this before we do anything rash,” Jane said. “We have to wait. We don’t have a choice. But we don’t have to wait years. We only have to wait a few weeks, assuming that Frank gets the info we need from those chips.”

“Yep,” Charlie said. “We only need a little time. If somebody was convicted falsely for one of these murders, and they’re still alive, both of which situations are remote at best, another few weeks isn’t going to make much difference. Meanwhile Frank’s work might turn the tide of this war.”

“Okay, I see your point,” Mary said. “As long as we hold to that.”

Jane sat at the bar, laid out the licenses, and started taking pictures of them with her iPhone. There were twenty two.

“What’re you doing?” Hilda asked.

“I’m going to do a little research on these names,” Jane said.

“Good idea,” the Sheriff said. “Don’t forget Chet and his son.”

“We need to have another meeting and tell the others,” Charlie said. “We need consensus.”

“Yeah, we do,” Mary said. Kurt shook his head yes, as did several of the others.

“We also need to keep our focus on the task at hand,” Jeb said. “Find the cretin leaders and kill them. That’s job one. After that, we tackle this.”

“I think I’ll have another drink,” Hilda said.

“Me too,” Mary said.

Jeb lined up the shot glasses again and filled them all.

Outside, the sun was starting to get lower in the sky, and a chill started to slowly settle. Frank felt it in the clubhouse, and got up to close the double doors. I’m glad we have windows in this place now, he thought to himself. He stared at the computer screen. He was able to see the payload now. It wasn’t going to be quite as simple as he hoped. There were no names. There were some labels with numeric codes. ‘Date’ was the only one that was obvious. There was ‘country’, but no country name, just a number. Several of the chips from Islamist fighters had the same number. He figured out pretty quickly that number one equaled the United States, because all of the militia folks and the lead Islamist from Kurt’s place had country number one - the lead Islamist was from Dearborn. There was a label for ‘Rank’ as well. This was probably going to be the most important number other than the serial number that he had early on. Simon Orr was a three. The lead Islamist was a ten. The militia men were all thirteen, and the foreign Islamists were all fifteens. He got a chilling thought. Major Donaldson. Nobody thought to check him for a chip. Crap. Was that why we continued getting attacked at Gabe’s place?

Back in Terry and Trish’s trailer, they were still making out, leaning against the kitchen counter. Their passion was building, their kisses and caresses more and more wanton. Trish finally broke the kiss, panting, pushing Terry back.

“The dishwater’s cold,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Terry said, trying to catch his breath. He reached for her again, but she backed away.

“My dad is about fifty yards away, and Gabe and Dobie are about twenty yards away. We can’t, not in broad daylight with them around,” she said. She hugged him. “Don’t worry, there’s always the night time. When they’re asleep.”

Terry nodded, trying to get himself to settle down. “Sorry,” he said, caressing her back.

“I’m not sorry,” she said. “I needed that. I’m anxious too, you know.” She kissed him again, gently but with passion. “Now, you go back and sit down, and let me finish this.”

He nodded, and sat down at the dinette, watching her. Looking at her was still getting to him.

“Maybe you should go outside for a while,” she said. “I feel you looking at me.”

“Does it bother you?” Terry asked.

“No, I actually like it,” she said. “I just don’t want you to get frustrated, that’s all.”

“I’m the happiest man alive. You know that, right?”

She turned and looked at him. “Really?”

“I’m head over heels for you,” he said. “Completely. Can’t you tell?”

“It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?” she said, looking at him with misty eyes.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m totally head over heels for you too, silly,” she said, smiling.

“Good,” Terry said. He felt the warmth of their connection while he watched her finish up. After a while she dried her hands with a towel and turned to him. “They can drip dry. Want to go for a walk or something?”

“Yeah, let’s go. I’ll show you around. I got a good look at the place before everybody got here.”

They left the trailer.

“Wow, it’s getting a little chilly out here,” Terry said. “Maybe I ought to shut down the air conditioner and open windows. The place could still use some airing out.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” she said. They got done with that in a few minutes, and then walked away from their home, hand in hand, towards the back of the park. Jake saw them and stepped out of his trailer.

“How’re you two doing?” he asked.

“Fine, dad,” Trish said. “We’re just about done setting up. How’s your place coming?”

“Pretty well,” he replied. “Just got the water heater fired up, and tried the heater. It’s gonna get cold tonight. I’m a little low on propane, though…need to make a run to Howard’s place in the next week or two.”

“Shoot, that’s what I didn’t try…the heater,” Terry said.

“Later,” Trish said. “Let’s go for our walk.”

“Okay,” he said. “See you later, Jake.”

“Bye, now,” Jake said, smiling. He went back into his trailer as the couple walked away.

“Don’t worry about the heater,” Trish said. “I’ll keep you warm tonight.”

Terry put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

Back at the clubhouse, Frank heard steps coming up from the kitchen. It was Jane. She walked over to him. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s going,” Frank said. “It’s not quite as easy as I expected.” He showed her what he found, running through the examples.

“You’re still going to have to try hacking their system, then,” she said after he finished showing her.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “What went on downstairs? You look a little disturbed. Somebody get into an argument or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “Worse.”

“What?”

“There was another trap door in the lounge, underneath the rug.”

“No, really?”

“Yeah, Frank, really,” she said. “There was a dungeon down there.”

He laughed. “Oh, Chet was into S&M, huh? Gotta watch these old timers.”

“No, Frank, you don’t get it. The guy was a serial killer,” she said.

“What makes you think that?” Frank asked, looking shocked. Jane took her phone out of her pocket, and went to the pictures app. She held it up to his face and scrolled through the pictures of the driver’s licenses.

“Holy crap,” Frank said.

“He was all set up down there to hold people, torture them, and dismember the bodies,” she said.

“You went down there?”

“No, just the Sheriff and Charlie,” she said. “Pretty horrible stuff.”

“We can’t tell the authorities yet,” Frank said. “This place will turn into a circus, and the bad guys will find us.”

“I know,” she said. “We’re going to have a meeting in a little while to discuss this, but bottom line is that we’ll keep quiet about this for at least a few weeks, to give us time to take advantage of your work.”

“And after that?” Frank asked.

“We’ll have to tell the authorities, Frank. What if there are people in jail right now for these murders?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point. Kinda takes the luster off of this place. I was hoping we’d be able to stick around.”

“I know,” she said. “You going to be using the laptop this afternoon?”

“No, this PC is working better for me. Why?”

“I want to go research these names,” she said. “Mind?”

“Not at all. Knock yourself out. You’ll have to do it out in the barn, though. We’ve only got one internet outlet here.”

“Okay. I’ll take Lucy along.”

“Alright, honey, have fun.” He focused on the screen again as she left the clubhouse. She thought about using the tunnel to get over there, but decided that she didn’t want to go underground again. The thought made her shudder. I’m not going back down there alone.

The barn was deserted. It was starting to get a little bit chilly out there. She sat at the work bench and logged onto the laptop, then started looking up each name, bringing up what information she could find, then saving the good links into a file. The early ones were like going back in time…there were pictures of the town, with investigation reports. She recognized a young Howard in a couple of the shots. All of the victims were young women, snatched from their cars. Whoa, most of the time they were waiting for a tow truck when they disappeared. They didn’t figure that out until the late 90s, when more people had cell phones. Several of the later victims called family members, saying they were waiting for a tow. The bodies weren’t found right away, but their cars were usually found the next morning, open, by the side of Nighthawk Road, just southeast of town. She turned, looked at the tow truck behind her, and shuddered. It was an early 2000s model. The son.

Late that night, in Marina Del Rey, California, a black man sat in the dark, the glow of a computer screen lighting his face. His eyes got wider. He made some notes, and drilled deeper. Then he pulled out his cellphone and dialed.

“George.” he said.

“Malcom? Geez, don’t you know what time it is?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I got an alarm.”

“Which?”

“Nighthawk Road Killer.”

“That’s not exactly recent, Malcom.”

“The search activity is coming from nearby the scene, George. I traced the IP address through the satellite provider. Brand new service, at an RV Park south of Sharon Springs.”

“They found something.”

“Think you can use your connections to get us across the border, George? With our rigs?”

“It’s still dangerous out there, Malcom. We’d have to go way north and then drop down into Kansas. Long trip.”

“I don’t care. A good long motorhome trip would do us good.”

“One or both of the rigs?”

“Depends. Think Heidi wants to come?”

“Maybe. I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

“Bye, George.”

“Later, Malcom.”

Chapter 10 – Metaphysical Romance

The sun was out. It was a bright morning, and a ray of light came through the open skylight above the bed. Terry was warm under the covers, naked against Trish. He pulled back the covers and was about to step out when he felt how cold it was. He covered back up in a hurry and snuggled. Trish woke up, stretched, and looked at him.

“Happy?” she asked sleepily. She had a soft smile on her face.

Terry kissed her forehead. “Yes,” he said. The night had been bliss. Everything he hoped for and more. He stared deep into her eyes. “I want to spend the rest of my days with you.”

“You might get tired of me,” Trish said. “Boys usually do.”

“Why do you think that? Are you afraid you’ll get tired of me?”

“No,” she said, touching his face, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’ve never felt like this with anybody before.”

“Same here,” Terry said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever really been in love before. This is different.”

“I’m bossy,” she said. “Like my dad always says, I’m hell on wheels. You might get tired of that.”

“He told me that you’re a lot like your mom in that regard. He worshipped the ground she walked on. You know how lost he feels without her? I can see it in his eyes when he talks about her. I can take bossy. It doesn’t bother us as much as you think.”

“Well, let’s just see how this develops,” Trish said.

“No,” Terry said.

“No?”

“No,” Terry said firmly. “I can be bossy too. You’re my woman. We aren’t trying this out. We’re already in it. You know that.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for, but I’m nervous,” she whispered. His eyes softened, and he kissed her.

“The time for playing hard to get is over, sweetheart. I want us to get married. Soon. We can have your dad do it, or we can go to the courthouse in town, or we can have a big wedding out here. It’s up to you.”

Her eyes got wider, and she smiled. “Yes,” she said.

“You’ll marry me?”

“You just put me over the edge,” she said, caressing his cheek. “I need somebody that will put up with me, and have a firm hand too. I just saw what I needed to see.”

“How do you want to do it?”

“Can we have my dad do it now, and then have a big ceremony when things settle down?” she asked.

“Of course,” Terry said. “When?”

“Today,” she said.

Jane was still lying in bed, looking at the ceiling, her mind reeling over the discovery they’d made yesterday. Frank had already left the coach, and was back in the clubhouse, working on the PC. She looked out the window and saw Jasmine come out of her coach, bending over with her hands on her knees. She didn’t look good. Jerry walked down and touched her shoulder, and she motioned for him to get away.

“Maybe she needs a woman to talk to,” Jane said to herself. She got up, threw on some clothes, and went out into the salon. Lucy was already out…probably sitting in the clubhouse next to Frank. Mr. Wonderful walked up and bumped against her, but Jane saw the pet food dishes on the floor. “Sorry, Charlie, you’ve already been fed,” she said as she left the coach and walked over to Jasmine.

“You alright?” she asked.

“Morning sickness,” Jasmine said. “This is worse than I expected.”

“Oh, I should have guessed. It’s not fun, but it doesn’t last forever.”

“Thank God for that,” she said, spitting.

Jane laughed. “That was dainty,” she said.

Jasmine looked up at her and laughed too. “I have a feeling getting pregnant is more fun than being pregnant.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You aren’t to the fun parts yet.”

“What went on in the lounge yesterday? My mom was upset. I talked to her for a moment before her and Jeb went in for the night, but she wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“We’ll have a meeting about it later, but I’ll clue you in. We found another trap door, under the rug in the lounge.”

“Really? What was in it?”

“A dungeon.”

“What?” Jasmine asked, straightening up. She spit one more time.

“A dungeon. The person who owned this park was a serial killer. He kept women captive down there, then killed them, and probably dismembered them.”

“No way,” Jasmine said. She started thinking it through. Jane could see it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jane said. “That’s why we’re having a meeting. We’re going to propose that we sit on this info at least until we get our chance at the enemy leadership. That’s only a couple of weeks.”

“We’ll have to leave here when we tell the authorities. They’ll put this on TV. The bad guys will figure out where we are.”

“I know, that’s what we’re worried about.”

“I’m going to smack Jerry. He had a chat with Jeb before he came in last night. I could tell something was bothering him, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

“Ah, don’t be too hard on him,” Jane said. “He’s probably afraid to stress you out, with the baby and all.”

Jasmines look softened. “Okay, I guess you’re right. It still annoys me. I’m a true crime nut and he knows it. This is going to be interesting. How much have you found out?”

“I did searches on all of the victims,” she said. “This was a local big deal and even made the national news a few times, although the frequency in the last ten years or so was lower than what it was in the 60s and 70s.”

“Does the killer have a name?” Jasmine asked.

“Yeah, the Nighthawk Road Killer. You know that tow truck in the barn?”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said.

“I can almost guarantee you that it was used for at least the last couple of murders.”

“Wow. Anybody searched the cab yet?”

“Not that I know of,” Jane said. “Didn’t Jerry drive it, when they were jump starting the generators?”

“Yeah, but I doubt he looked around. He said the keys were in the ignition, so he didn’t have to look for them.”

“Interesting. Feel up to checking around it later?”

“Hell yes,” Jasmine said. Then she started to look a little green behind the gills. “Shoot, I’m going to barf again.” She covered her mouth and ran behind the coach.

Jane chuckled to herself, and then walked towards the clubhouse to see how Frank was doing. She smelled coffee as she came through the door, and the heater had been running. It was nice and cozy inside.

“Morning, honey,” she said, approaching Frank at the PC.

“Hi, sweetie,” Frank said. “There’s some coffee in the kitchen. Hilda found the big coffee pot and cleaned it out. She’s in the walk-in with Mary and Charlie, cleaning it out.”

“They’re still wanting to restore this place after what we found yesterday, huh? I’m a little surprised.”

“Well, me too, a little, but this is a good base for us. Charlie’s going to call a meeting in a couple of hours, although I think most of the group knows about it already.”

“Jasmine didn’t,” Jane said. “Jerry probably knows, but he didn’t tell her.”

“Why not?”

“The baby,” Jane said. “By the way, she had a pretty bad bout of morning sickness this morning.”

“So it begins,” Frank said, chuckling. “Still jealous?”

“Yeah,” Jane said. “I know, weird, isn’t it?”

“No, not really. What’re you going to do today?”

“Well, anything you need help with, that’s always the top priority. After that, I’m going to start digging into this serial killer thing. Doing the research last night really got my mind spinning. I love this stuff.”

“Yes, I remember,” Frank said, smiling at her. “Okay, fair enough. If you want access to the dungeon, you’ll have to convince the Sheriff. He padlocked it.”

“Okay,” she said. “I was going to take a look in the tow truck first.”

“You really think they used that for the last few murders?”

“I’m almost certain they did, based on the reports. There were cell phone calls for the last several victims about waiting for a tow.”

“Well, you might want to grab some of the rubber gloves I have in the coach before you start touching things. Some if it will end up being evidence. I’d take a lot of photos before you touch anything, too.”

“I know, already been planning on that. You want more coffee?”

“No thanks, honey,” Frank said. “I’m good.” He turned back to the PC screen as she walked to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, in Marina Del Rey, Malcolm was in his office, looking at a huge map of the United States, which took up almost the whole wall. It had pins stuck in it here and there, and red yarn going between some of the pins. He was focused on Kansas, up on his tiptoes, looking closely at cluster of pins stuck in the southwestern part of the state. Malcom was trim, about six feet tall, in his early 60s. He had an athletic look to him. His smile was warm, almost playful. He heard the front door of his office suite open.

“Malcolm?”

“George, I’m back here,” he said, turning towards the door. George appeared. He was in his early fifties, looking rather buff for his age, with hard chiseled features and a weathered face. He walked into the door, and a pretty blonde woman followed him in. She was in her mid to late thirties, but only just starting to lose the twenty-something blush. Her blonde hair was long and straight, hanging down to the middle of her back. She grinned at Malcolm.

“Heidi, how are you?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh, alright, I guess,” she said. “What kind of crazy escapade do you have planned for my Georgie this time?”

“Road trip to Kansas,” he said. “You know…there’s no place like home.”

George laughed. “Oh, please. You planning the route?”

“Yeah, but it’s gonna be tough. We can’t go through Utah or Colorado. Both of them have too much enemy action still going on.”

“I was afraid of that. It took some convincing to get us a pass to leave California. I had to call in some favors.”

“I figured,” Malcolm said. He turned and pointed to the map. “Okay, up into Nevada on I-80. We’ll have to cut up into Idaho on route 93 to avoid Utah, and then go through Wyoming and Nebraska. Then we take route 83 south into Kansas. It’s going to be a long ass drive, that’s for sure, man.”

“Why don’t you guys just wait until things settle down a little bit?” Heidi asked. “This war isn’t going to go on forever. I hear we’re starting to get the upper hand in Denver. They said that on the news this morning.”

“I’m going stir crazy,” Malcolm said. “That martial law crap really got me depressed. Now that we have a good reason to hit the road, I’m feeling much better. It’s time to move.”

“I know,” George said. “This is a gift.”

“Well, alright, but I’m coming along,” Heidi said.

“Why?” George asked. “I thought you hated our hunting trips.”

“Maybe I can help to lower the body count,” she said, smirking.

George and Malcolm looked at each other. They both had wicked grins on their faces. Heidi shook her head when she saw it. Not this again.

“Let’s leave this afternoon,” Malcolm said. George nodded yes.

Back in Kansas, Charlie was getting ready to hold his meeting. He’d already spread the word around the Park, and people were filing into the clubhouse, getting coffee, chatting, and finding seats. Charlie and Hilda went up to the front of the room.

“Thanks for coming, everybody,” Hilda said. The crowd quieted down. Hilda looked over at Charlie.

“How many of you don’t know about the new trap door we found yesterday?”

Only Jake, Gabe, Dobie, Trish, and Terry raised their hands.

“Okay, I’ll fill you guys in,” Charlie said, “and then we can chat about what to do.”

“Uh oh,” Gabe said. “Sounds like we missed something big.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. He got a grim look on his face. “Here goes. Yesterday, the Sheriff found another trap door. It was under the rug in the lounge area.”

“Really?” Dobie asked.

“Yeah, really,” Charlie continued. “There was a dungeon down there, complete with two cells, and hand cuffs chained to the wall next to them.”

“Wow,” Gabe said, chuckling. “The former owner was into S&M, eh?”

“No, Gabe,” Charlie said. “There was also an embalmer’s table, a bunch of bone saws and other medical tools, a drawer full of teeth, and a drawer full of driver’s licenses. We had a serial killer working out of here.”

“Oh, crap,” Gabe said. Trish looked up at Terry, horrified, and held onto his arm.

“Those guys aren’t coming back, are they?” Trish asked.

“Well, we know for sure that the original guy is dead,” Charlie said. “It was Chet. He’s been dead for years. It’s pretty obvious that he had help late in his career, though. We’re thinking it’s the son, and rumor has it that he died in the New York Harbor bombing, as we told you guys yesterday. So chances are good that both of these men are gone.”

“That info about the son came from Howard over at the truck stop, right?” Dobie asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

“Any reason not to believe him?” Dobie asked.

“Not that I know of,” Charlie said. “Hey, Kurt and Hilda, what do you two think? You’ve known him longer than any of us.”

“I don’t really know him that well,” Hilda said. “I didn’t go on hunting trips with Ger. I only saw him a couple of times a year, at meetings for the RV Park Association.”

“I know him pretty well,” Kurt said. “My gut is that he’s honest, but that means nothing. I was also friends with Chet…I’m still having a hard time believing that he would be involved with this sort of thing.”

“I know, Kurt, me too,” Charlie said. “So I guess we have a big fat we don’t know for that question, Trish. Sorry.”

“We aren’t thinking of telling the cops about this right away, I hope,” Jake said.

“That’s the main reason for this meeting,” Charlie said. “We discussed it yesterday afternoon while we were in the lounge, and we have a proposal.”

“Go on,” Dobie said.

“We know the most important thing right now is to allow Frank to finish his work, before the wide distribution of the apps kicks itself off. We need to get a bead on the enemy leadership and either kill them or expose them to the good guys.”

“Agreed,” Gabe said. Several other people shook their heads yes.

“Our proposal is to keep this secret for the few weeks that we’ll be active doing that job. Afterwards, we tell the local authorities. If we’ve been successful with the apps, the war should start winding down quickly. That will allow us to move to a safer location before the media circus starts up here.”

“We need to get our trailers ready to roll sooner rather than later, then,” Gabe said.

“Yep, if you want to take them, that’s what I’d suggest,” Charlie said. “We’re going to need one more tow vehicle, too. We’ve got one for Dobie’s 5th wheel, and one for Gabe’s trailer, and one for Jake’s trailer, but none for Terry and Trish’s trailer.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jeb said. “Most of our toads are capable of towing Jake’s little trailer. Then we can use Jake’s bobtail to tow Terry and Trish’s love nest.” He chuckled. Trish looked embarrassed. Terry just grinned and shook his head.

“Okay, anybody have a problem with this?” Charlie asked. “If so, please speak up now.”

“We should keep quiet about this with Howard,” Kurt said. “Just in case. Everybody agree?”

There was silence. Most people nodded yes. Nobody objected.

“Alright, I think we have consensus. That’s all I had, folks.”

The group started to chat quietly, and some started heading for the door. Trish made eye contact with her dad, and motioned him over.

“What?” Jake asked as he got next to her and Terry.

“We want you to marry us,” Terry said. “So I guess I’m asking for your daughter’s hand.”

A wide smile came over his face. “Why sure, I can do that. When?”

“Today, daddy,” Trish said, a shy smile on her face. “If that’s okay.”

“Hold it, everybody!” Jake said. The people who were leaving stopped in their tracks, and turned around, looking at him.

“What’s up?” Earl asked.

“We need you to stick around for just a few minutes. I’m going to marry Terry and Trish.”

The group started clapping. Trish looked over at Terry, embarrassed. Terry grinned, and pulled her close.

“I’ll just go get my book and stuff,” Jake said. He trotted outside.

“Congratulations, you two!” Hilda said, beaming. Others repeated that. Jake came back with a black book, wearing a white robe with a rope tie around the waist, which hung down almost to his feet.

There was an old podium off to the side of the stage area. Jake pulled it over, and put his book on top. Then he motioned for Terry and Trish to join him.

“Gather around, everybody,” Jake said.

People walked over, forming a semi-circle around the young couple and the podium.

Jake cleared his throat.

“Love and togetherness is the glue that binds the physical and the metaphysical, and makes human kind one with the universe…”

Trish rolled her eyes. “C’mon, dad, just do the traditional one, okay?”

Dobie and Gabe looked at each other and snickered.

“Okay, sweetie,” Jake said. He closed the book and looked out at everybody.

“We are gathered here today to join two people in Holy Matrimony. Trish Carlson and Terry. Shoot. Hey Terry, what is your last name, anyway?”

Several people in the group started to chuckle.

“Brown,” Terry said.

“Thanks, son. Trish Carlson and Terry Brown.”

Trish looked up at her dad, then over at Terry, misty eyed. Jake continued.

“Do you, Terry Brown, take Trish Carlson to be your wife, to have and to hold, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Terry said, smiling.

“Do you, Trish Carlson, take Terry Brown to be your husband, to have and to hold, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Trish said, smiling through tears.

“Then by the power vested in me by the Church of the Metaphysical Realm, I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Dobie and Gabe snickered again.

“Dad!” Trish said.

“Oh yeah, you may kiss your bride, Terry,” Jake said.

The couple embraced and kissed. The group broke into applause.

“I now introduce Mr. and Mrs. Terry Brown!” Jake said, smiling, eyes teary.

Jane leaned up against Frank, then looked up at his face and kissed his cheek. He looked down at her, seeing the tears welling up.

“You okay, sweetie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m happy. Life goes on. The good parts of life. It’s making me feel like this is all worth it.”

Jerry and Jasmine walked up.

“So, Jasmine said you two are gonna check out that tow truck,” Jerry said. “Maybe we should invite the Sheriff and Charlie. They know a lot about handling evidence. They might just keep you out of trouble.”

Dobie overhead that.

“I’m trained in criminal investigation too,” he said. “Never used it, because I got sucked into the K-9 thing, but I’d love to be in on this.”

“Okay, then we’ll meet in the barn in a few minutes,” Jane said. “Let’s go catch the Sheriff and Charlie. They’re in the kitchen.” Jane and Jasmine walked over there. Jerry sat down next to Frank.

“How’s it coming with the encryption?”

“Slow, but it’s going. There’s labels in the payload with numbers. Some of them I can figure out. Others are a little tough. There aren’t names, though.”

“Shoot, so you’ll have to supplement with some hacking, won’t you?”

“If we want names, that’s the only way I’ll get them,” Frank said. “There’s a label for rank. That one was interesting. Looks like it goes from 1 down to 15.”

“So I’m guessing 1 is the highest rank,” Jerry said.

“Probably. Simon Orr was a 3. The lead pajama boy was a 10. The militia guys were 13s, and the foreign pajama boys were 15s.”

“Interesting. Any other codes you understand?”

“Country,” Frank said. “All of the people that were from this country had number 1 in that slot. Most of the Islamists had number 8.”

“Well, the rank number might be enough, if there’s only a few with number 1.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Frank said. “I’d like better info than that.”

“Here come the girls with the Sheriff and Charlie,” Jerry said, looking over.

“You two coming along on this?” Charlie asked.

“Sure, I’ll go,” Jerry said.

“I think I’d better keep working,” Frank said. “I’m sure I’ll hear all about it from Nancy Drew there.” He looked at Jane and grinned. She smiled and shook her head. They walked towards the door.

Dobie joined them as they were walking up to the tow truck. It looked really ominous to Jane now…like a wheeled monster. Kurt was walking past the barn on the way to the clubhouse, and saw the group gathered around. He walked over.

“What’re you guys doing?” he asked.

“We thought we’d check around for evidence…just curious,” Jane said.

“Take a look at the registration,” Kurt said. “I’d like to know what name is on there.”

“Good idea,” the Sheriff said. He walked over to the passenger side door, opened it, and climbed up.

“Check the glove box,” Jasmine said. The Sheriff nodded and opened it. The registration was in there. He held it up, and climbed out of the cab. The group walked over to the workbench, next to where the laptop was, and Jane turned on the light.

“What’s the name on there?” Kurt asked.

“Earl Wilson,” he said.

Kurt got a shocked look on his face.

“That’s not Chet’s son, is it?” Charlie asked.

“No, it’s not,” Kurt said. Jane took a picture of the registration with her iPhone.

Chapter 11 – A History of Violence

“Earl Wilson,” Jasmine said. “That name rings a bell, but I can’t quite place it.”

“I know, me too,” Jane said. “I’ll search on it, but let’s take a look in the cab now, so the Sheriff and Charlie can get back to what they were doing.”

The group walked back over to the tow truck, and Jane stood in the open door, pulling on rubber gloves, and looking in. She turned on the iPhone flashlight and started looking on the floor in front of the seat. It was dirty…twigs and dried mud, but nothing else. She shined the light under the passenger seat. Something shined back at her. She pulled the phone to her face, started the camera app, and took a picture. Then she reached for the shiny object, barely able to get her hands in deep enough. She brought it out.

“An earring,” she said, holding it up. The Sheriff put on rubber gloves, opened his palm, and she dropped it in. Then she went back to looking, this time in the crack between the seat and the door. Something else shiny was down there. She took a picture again, but couldn’t get her hand deep enough to grab it.

“Maybe there’re some tweezers in with the other tools at the workbench,” Charlie said. He trotted over there as Jane showed the picture to the others huddled around her.

“That’s a ring,” Jasmine said. “It looks kinda messed up.”

Charlie was back with a big pair of tweezers. He used them to grab the ring. The Sheriff held out his hand again, and Charlie dropped it into his palm. Jane and Jasmine both looked at it closely, and Jane snapped another picture.

“That’s a high school promise ring,” Jasmine said, in hushed tone. “With blood on it.”

“Aren’t those usually worn on the ring finger?” Dobie asked. “Left hand?”

“Most of the time,” Jasmine said.

“That means that she took it off and dropped it there on purpose, more than likely,” Dobie said. “It should have been on her left side, not her right.”

“Yeah, I’d agree,” the Sheriff said. “I need to bag these and label them.”

“There’s some Ziploc bags over on the workbench,” Charlie said. “I’ll bring a few over.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” the Sheriff said. Jane climbed further into the cab now, and started looking around between the back rest and the seat.

“Is that dried blood?” Jasmine asked, pointing to the seat where it met the back, in the middle of the passenger side.

“Could just be mud,” the Sheriff said. “We need a black light. I didn’t think to bring mine. It’s still at my office back in Utah.”

“Maybe we could find one in town,” Jasmine said.

“Well, whatever you do, don’t ask Howard where to find one,” Charlie said. “He might know about this. He might even be in on it.”

“I can’t image either of them being into this,” Kurt said, “but Howard and Chet were really close.”

“I wouldn’t say anything to him, but I doubt that he knows about this,” Dobie said.

“Why?” asked Jasmine.

“Because if he was in on it, no way would he have sent us here. He’d have known that we’d stumble on that trap door sooner or later.”

Everybody was quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Dobie’s right,” Kurt said. “I don’t think he knows. Chet hid this from me. Why should we doubt that he could hide it from Howard?”

“I suggest we see if Walmart carries black light bulbs,” Dobie said. “That place is pretty anonymous.”

“Good idea,” Charlie said. “We’ll need to be going into town pretty soon anyway. We need trailer tires, towing hardware, and other stuff like that. I say we lock this cab up for now.”

“Agreed, and I’ll put this evidence somewhere safe,” The Sheriff said.

“What if we need to tow something?” asked Kurt. “It’s got a good battery now.”

“Jerry already sat in the driver’s seat and got his hands all over the steering wheel,” Jasmine said. “As long as nobody sits in the passenger side, what difference does it make?”

“Yeah, she’s got a point, I guess,” Charlie said.

“What would we need it for?” the Sheriff asked.

“We might need it to break those trailers loose,” Charlie replied. “Too bad this is evidence. It would have made a good tow vehicle. The agreement we made with the city includes the contents of the park, so it is ours.”

Malcolm was checking the air in the tires of his big Diesel Pusher. He heard a rumble coming towards him, and looked over just in time to see George and Heidi’s Tiffin motorhome roll up.

“When are you going to upgrade?” Malcolm said, walking up to George and Heidi as they came around the front of their rig.

“Pretty soon, hopefully,” George said, extending his hand to Malcolm. They shook. “This baby is still in pretty good shape, though. Had her over five years already. Hard to believe.”

“We’ve got some nasty grades to climb. That gasser’s going to be noisy,” Malcolm said.

“Hell, how old is your coach?” George asked.

“Seven years,” Malcolm said, “but diesels last a lot longer.”

“That’s what my dad always used to say,” Heidi said. “We have to go over the Rockies, don’t we? How bad is that going to be?”

“Eastern Idaho and a good chunk of Wyoming’s going to be real fun for you guys,” Malcolm said, chuckling. “Don’t worry, it won’t be that bad. You’ll just have to stop talking some of the time.”

“What are you bringing?” asked George.

“Ah, the usual. Rifles, pistols, sawed off, and my bow. You?”

“I thought the OICW might come in handy, in case I need to shoot around any corners.”

“You still got rounds for that thing?”

“Yeah. Enough,” George said. “I’m bringing the M107, too. We are going into a war zone, after all.”

“Whoa, really? You think you’ll be needing a .50 cal sniper rifle? What if it gets confiscated?”

“What’s the use of having it if I don’t use it, Malcolm?” George asked, chuckling.

“Well, alright, if we run into a situation where we can set it up, I guess we’ll be glad we have it.”

“I hope this isn’t going to be another bloodbath,” Heidi said. “I mean, really. How many times do you guys think you’re going to get away with that crap?”

“Oh, if they were going to lock us up, it would have happened by now,” Malcolm said. “We are doing a service to society, you know. Certain people get it.”

Heidi sighed. She walked back around the front of the rig.

“Why does she stay with you?” Malcolm asked. “Haven’t been able to figure that out since the Sadie Evans thing. That got her real upset.”

“She keeps thinking I’ll quit this for good,” George said, softly. “I wish I could. I do love her, you know. More and more as time goes on. I wish she wasn’t coming along on this one, though.”

“Why?”

“We’re going into a war zone. I might get a little crazy. You know there’s a good chance I’ll run into some folks who I need to settle a score with.”

“From your special forces days?” Malcolm asked.

“Yeah, and the CIA days.”

“Well, then I’d say that you and Uncle Sam might be on the same side, regardless of our methods. Actually, I’m intrigued now. I’d be willing to make a few detours from the Nighthawk trail, to cause a little mayhem for God and Country.”

“I don’t know, Malcolm,” George said, a worried look on his face. “You know I’ve got a lot of baggage because of these guys. All of that PTSD stuff I had to work through. I might put us in danger. I don’t know how I’ll react if I run into certain folks.”

Malcolm laughed. “Are you serious? You don’t think you had baggage on the Sadie Evans case? Geez, you were married to her for all those years.”

George shrugged his shoulders and got a sheepish look on his face. “Remember that you almost died on that one. Twice.”

“But I didn’t die,” Malcolm said. “If you start worrying about that happening, it’s more likely that it will. Careful gets you killed in our line of work.”

“I know, I know,” George said. “Let’s go get ‘em.”

George went back to his coach and pulled up out of the way. Malcolm backed out and drove behind them, parking long enough to get his Jeep connected. Then they were off.

Back in Kansas, Terry and Trish were walking slowly back to their trailer, running the gauntlet of people wanting to congratulate them. Jake, Gabe and Dobie were sitting together under Dobie’s awning, on some chairs that he found hidden in his 5th Wheel’s storage compartment. They were having a beer. Jake looked happy but tired. He still had his minister’s robe on, making the beer in his hand look a little out of place.

“Hey, guys, let’s go find something to do elsewhere, and give the newlyweds some privacy,” Jake said. The other two nodded, and they got up and started towards the clubhouse. They smiled at Terry and Trish as they walked past them.

“They’re giving us some privacy,” Terry whispered.

“I know,” Trish said, holding onto Terry’s arm. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

“You’ll get over it,” Terry said, smiling at her. They climbed into the trailer and shut the door behind them.

“We need to turn on the air conditioner,” Trish said. Terry nodded and turned it on while she shut the windows.

“Well, do you feel married, Mrs. Brown?” Terry asked, coming behind her and putting his arms around her waist. She turned to him and smiled. Then they kissed, growing more and more passionate.

“Wasn’t last night enough for a while?” she asked, smiling, looking into his eyes. “You want me again already?”

“Oh, yeah, I do,” Terry said softly, brushing her hair away from her pretty face. “I’m the happiest man alive right now.”

“I’m glad they went somewhere else,” she whispered. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom.

Jane was still in the barn, working on the laptop. Jasmine moved another stool over to the work bench, sat down, and watched as Jane searched. She put in Earl Wilson’s name. “Holy crap,” she said, as a full page of links came up.

“This guy was major, wasn’t he?” Jasmine asked.

“Remember Red Dagger?” Jane asked.

“Yes, I do. He was a pretty frightening guy.”

“Earl Wilson was his cousin. They worked together, until Red Dagger got killed.”

“Wasn’t Red Dagger the one that got killed in that phony police shootout?” Jasmine asked.

“Allegedly phony police shootout,” Jane said, snickering. She looked over at Jasmine with a grin on her face. “I know, that was a frigging ambush. Malcolm Davis. Did you ever see the interviews with that guy?”

“Yeah, he was a trip,” Jasmine said.

“Why do you say was?” Jane asked. “He’s still very much alive.”

“Oh,” Jasmine said. “You’re right.”

Jane’s eyes got wider as she clicked on the next link.

“What?” asked Jasmine.

Jane was still reading, and put her hand up to stop the question. It took her a minute to get through it.

“You need to read this, but here’s the gist. Earl Wilson is dead. He was killed about five years ago, in the same gun battle that took out Jason Beckler.”

“Jason Beckler. That’s why Earl Wilson’s name rang a bell. I had nightmares about him.”

“Here’s the good part. Malcolm Davis took them out too, in a shootout that also took out Sadie Evans.”

“Whoa,” Jasmine said. “Sadie Evans. Another psychopath. She killed all those kids, and several cops, remember? Did Malcolm do them all by himself?”

“That’s what he says,” Jane said, “but the rumor on this forum has it that he was with some ex-Special Forces guy, who he just happens to have partnered with afterwards. They have a consulting business together, not far from where I live in Southern California.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. George Franklin.”

“Yeah, that’s what it says. How’d you know?”

“My friends and I considered Malcolm to be kind of a rock star back in the day,” Jasmine said. “He didn’t do much to shut down that kind of image, either, as I remember. George was starting to get attention as his partner in crime…and then the stories just dried up.”

“I know, I remember all of that. Jason Beckler was a big deal.”

“Didn’t Malcolm get indicted for that?” Jasmine asked. “I don’t remember how that turned out.”

“Yeah, he got indicted, but he beat the rap,” Jane said. “He basically said he was acting as a bounty hunter, and there was still money out on Earl Wilson’s head. Same with Sadie Evans. You don’t kill a bunch of cops without getting a bounty put on you.”

“Not Beckler? He was the worst of the bunch.”

“No, most law enforcement folks thought Jason Beckler was dead after the last job he did with Sadie, about twelve years ago,” Jane said. “In fact, the folks on this forum think that Beckler and Wilson got themselves into that last mess because they were trying to settle the score with Sadie. She kinda set them up, and then disappeared. You don’t do something like that to Jason Beckler.”

“This is ringing all kinds of bells,” Jasmine said. “There’s a good book out on it, but the author got discredited. Some people are thinking that Sadie Evans was actually married to George Franklin at one point. And don’t forget that Malcolm Davis killed Red Dagger, somebody very close to Earl Wilson. There’s connections all over this thing.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jane said.

“So what’s the tie between Chet and Earl Wilson?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “This is going to take more digging, and since Chet never got caught, we can’t really go from that direction. I’ll bet there’s nothing out there on him.”

“I wouldn’t start with Chet,” Jasmine said. “I’d start looking at the son.”

“His name wasn’t on the registration for the truck,” Jane said. “Why should we be looking at him?”

“He padlocked this place and walked away for a reason,” Jasmine said. “Wonder if there’s been similar activity in New Jersey over the past five years or so?”

“Okay, you’ve got a point,” Jane said. “What was his name again?”

“Scott Williams.”

Jake, Dobie, and Gabe were in the clubhouse talking.

“Well, Jake, this is a big day for you,” Gabe said.

“Yes, it is,” Jake said. “It’s not every day that you give up your daughter.”

“She’s getting a good man,” Dobie said.

“I know,” Jake said. “I figured that out on the ride out to Gabe’s place.”

“I heard he started out kinda rough,” Dobie said. “He froze up in a gun battle early on, but he caught on quick.”

“Yeah, Jeb said he’d count on him now,” Gabe said. “That’s enough for me.”

“I wish Trish’s mom was here to see this,” Jake said. “They were so much alike. Terry will be better with Trish than I was with Kate, I think. He’s got a little stronger hand.”

Dobie laughed. “Trish has that boy tied around her little finger. It took her about ten minutes.”

All three of the men snickered.

“Okay, you’re right,” Jake said.

“Any of you guys looked at the app lately?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah, I checked it out when I was walking back to my trailer, after the wedding,” Dobie said. “No change at the base. The icons are still just sitting there. The big news is Denver. The enemy is completely bogged down. I think a lot of them are dead, too. But that’s not the best thing.”

“What’s the best thing?” Jake asked.

“The icons that are still on I-70 aren’t moving anymore.”

“Good,” Gabe said. “About time.”

“Wonder how much General Hogan had to do with that?” Gabe asked.

“I want to know how much Frank’s apps had to do with that,” Dobie said. “He’s still working away over there. Look at him. Amazing guy.”

“Seriously,” Gabe said. “I want a drink. Something stronger than this beer. Let’s go down to the lounge.”

“You really want to hang out down there?” Dobie asked. “After what they found?”

“Sure, why not?” Gabe asked. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

“I do,” Jake said, “but I’m okay with going down there. Should only be good spirits there. Chet and his son aren’t there.”

Dobie and Gabe looked at each other and cracked up.

“Open your minds, fellas,” Jake said, a silly grin on his face. Then he started laughing too. “I know, I get a little ridiculous sometimes, I’ll admit it. C’mon, let’s go. That whiskey is calling me…we can toast the newlyweds, too.”

The three men got up quietly and walked into the barn. Jane and Jasmine watched as they opened the trap door.

“Going to go have some whiskey,” Jake said to them, grinning.

“Ewww, you guys are gonna go drink down there?” Jasmine asked.

“Sure, why not?” Jake said.

The Sheriff, Charlie, Jerry, and Kurt saw them open the trap door from where they were talking, over by the burned out trailer. They walked over as the three men started down the steps.

“I padlocked the dungeon, if that’s what you want to see,” the Sheriff said. “I’ll take you in if you’re curious.”

“Naw, that’d be a buzz kill on my daughter’s wedding day,” Jake said. “We wanted something to wet our whistle…maybe drink a toast or two.”

“Mind if we join you?” Jerry asked.

“I’d love it,” Jake said. “C’mon down.”

The rest of the men went down the ladder too, and they all sat at the bar, except Jake, who got behind it.

“You guys like Jameson?”

“Hell yeah,” Charlie said, smiling. “There’s probably ice in the fridge over there now. We turned it on yesterday.”

“Excellent,” Jake said. “I’d rather have it on the rocks than out of a shot glass. Savor the flavor.”

“Hand me that ice bucket under there,” Charlie said. Jake looked under the bar and found it. He handed it to Charlie.

“May have to dust it off a bit,” Jake said. Charlie nodded and took it over to the sink.

“So, how does it feel to have a son-in-law?” Jerry asked, smiling.

“I’m right proud of her choice, I’ll say that,” Jake said.

“Yes, I’d be proud to have Terry as a son-in-law too,” Kurt said, smiling. “He’s good people.”

“Thanks for that,” the Sheriff said. “I wish his folks were alive to see this.”

“What happened to them?” Jerry asked.

“They got killed in a helicopter crash, while they were on vacation,” he replied, looking a little choked up. “I took Terry in after that. We don’t have any other family left.”

“That’s tough,” Charlie said, walking up with the bucket full of ice.

Jake lined up the glasses, put ice in them, and then poured the whiskey. He raised his glass. “To Trish and Terry…may they have many happy years together.”

“With lots of babies!” Jerry said. The men all had a sip.

“Oh, man, does that taste good,” Kurt said.

“Hey, Dobie!” Jasmine called down from the door.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he replied.

“Princess is looking for you, I think. She’s right here.”

“Princess!” he called. She poked her head into the trap door, turning her head to the side, looking at the men. “C’mon, girl.”

She slowly came down the steps, tail wagging, and then trotted over to Dobie, nuzzling him.

“Hi, girl, how are you?” Dobie said, squatting down and petting her head.

“I thought you had the dogs tied up,” Kurt said.

“I let Princess be on patrol. She knows not to run off or go attacking anybody outside,” Dobie said. “Wouldn’t do that with the others.”

“What a beautiful dog,” Jake said.

Princess sat down next to Dobie as he had another sip of his drink, but she looked around nervously. She got up and started walking around the room, sniffing. She ended up over on the rug, where she stopped, growled softly, and stared down at the floor. The men noticed, and watched silently.

“That where the other trap door is?” Dobie asked.

“Yep,” the Sheriff replied.

“Maybe there are bad spirits down there,” Jake said.

Chapter 12 – Polaroid Horror

“Think Princess smells body parts down there?” Charlie asked Dobie, as he was walking over next to the dog.

“Well, she’s not trained as a cadaver dog,” Dobie said. “Her best talent is sensing evil intent in humans…but there’s no humans down there.”

“Spirits,” Jake said, feeling the Jameson now.

Jasmine and Jane came down the stairs.

“I can’t believe you guys are partying down here,” Jasmine said. She noticed Princess’s interest in the floor.

“Yeah, she found it right away,” Dobie said to her.

“Can we go down there and take a look?” Jane asked. “I need some clues. Not having any luck linking Chet to the person on the tow truck registration.”

“The name wasn’t Chet or his son?” Dobie asked, taking a good sip of his whiskey.

“No, it was Earl Wilson,” Jane said. Dobie almost spit out his whiskey, and started coughing.

“Bingo,” Jake said, laughing.

“What’s wrong?” Jasmine asked.

“Earl Wilson. Do you guys know who he was?” Dobie asked, wiping his mouth, as he was walking back to the bar. “Better pour me another, Jake.”

“Coming right up,” Jake said, starting to slur a little. Dobie looked over at Gabe.

“He’s had a couple in between,” Gabe said, quietly. “It’s his daughter’s wedding day. I’ll watch out for him.”

Jake poured one for everybody, including Jasmine and Jane.

“Get over here, girls,” Jake said. “A toast!”

Jane and Jasmine looked at each other and smiled.

“Oh, what the hell,” Jasmine said. “C’mon, Jane.”

They walked over and picked up their glasses. Everybody held them up.

“To grandkids, which I hope Trish and Terry are working on as we speak!” Jake slurred, smiling, tears in his eyes.

Everybody took a drink.

“He misses his wife,” Dobie whispered to Jane and Jasmine. They nodded to him.

“I can let you in there,” the Sheriff said quietly, “but it’s pretty grim. I’d keep your hands at your side, or put gloves on.”

Jane pulled a wad of rubber gloves out of her pocket far enough for the Sheriff to see them.

“Okay, you two, let’s go,” the Sheriff said. “Somebody want to give me a hand with this trap door?” It’s heavy.”

“I’m on it,” Jerry said.

“Me too,” Dobie said. “I’d actually like to check it out.”

The Sheriff rolled back the carpet, and unlocked the padlock. Then he pulled up the door, with the help of Dobie and Jerry.

“Phew, that stinks,” Gabe said. “Something died down there.”

“Not something. Somebody,” Charlie said, a solemn look on his face. “Actually, quite a few somebodies. People’s daughters.”

The three men got the trap door open, and the Sheriff climbed down and pulled the light chain. He came back up.

“There’s some more lights over that workbench. Good place to look for clues, I’d imagine. There’s pictures and newspaper clippings on the bulletin board over there.”

“You’re not staying down there?” Jasmine asked.

“No, honey,” the Sheriff said. “I’ve seen enough of this crap over the years. It sticks with me too long.”

Jasmine went slowly down the steps, followed by Jane and Dobie. They walked over to the workbench. Jane saw the chain for the light, and pulled it. The faces came into view. So many of them. Some had things pinned next to them…newspaper clippings, jewelry, scraps of clothing, locks of hair.

“This is a trophy case,” Jane said, looking closely. She put her iPhone up in front of her face and started taking pictures. It took quite a few to cover everything.

“Why’d you react so strongly when you heard about Earl Wilson being on the tow truck registration?” Jasmine asked.

Dobie looked at her, thinking things through, formulating how he was going to respond. Just then he heard Princess whine from up above. He turned towards the trap door. “Don’t worry, Princess, I’ll be up soon.”

“Talk about timing,” Jane said.

“Princess is very sensitive,” Dobie said. “She’s imprinted to me. When I get emotional, she gets worried.”

“So what’s the deal?” Jasmine asked.

“There’s a whole sub-culture of these monsters,” Dobie said. “Earl was a pivotal character. He bridged a couple of factions…the folks that surrounded Red Dagger, and the folks that surrounded Jason Beckler. You heard of those guys?”

“Yeah, we were talking about it earlier,” Jane said, “and it’s all over the searches we did.”

“A lot of these guys are still around,” Dobie said. “They’d be very interested in this find.”

“You think some of them might come here and mess with us?” Jasmine asked, looking concerned all of a sudden.

“After we tell the authorities about this, we want to be gone,” Dobie said. “There’re some people who hunt these creeps that we need to worry about too.”

“Like Malcom Davis?” Jane asked. She watched Dobie’s reaction. He looked scared. “Yeah, like Malcolm Davis and his sidekick.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Jane asked.

“The police Chief that I was working with before I moved back home,” Dobie said. “He was into all of this stuff big time. Malcolm Davis was his hero, but he said he wouldn’t trust him in a dark alley.”

“He is a good guy, though, right?” Jasmine asked, “and besides, he’s nowhere near this place. He’s in California. He probably can’t even get out of there.”

“You girls been doing a lot of internet searches on this stuff?” Dobie asked.

“Yeah, all morning,” Jane said. “Why?”

“If he’s paying attention, he might have noticed,” Dobie said. “If he did, he’ll get here somehow to check it out.”

Jane looked white as a sheet. “We should be scared, then?”

“I don’t know,” Dobie said. “Probably. Maybe. People around this guy seem to turn up dead pretty often, even innocent bystanders. In some ways I like this guy, though. He takes out the trash.”

“You think he’d kill us? Why?” Jasmine asked.

“No, I doubt if he’d have any interest in that,” Dobie said. “I’m more worried about the folks that are interested in him. Red Dagger had other friends. So did Jason Beckler.”

Back on the road from California, Malcolm and George were making good time. George’s connections got them out of California. They went over the border in the Tahoe area.

“There aren’t very good roads to the north,” Heidi said, looking at her iPhone. “You sure we can’t just go through Utah? We’d be up near Salt Lake City. All the problems seem to be way south of there.”

“We’ve got to stop off for gas pretty soon,” George said. “Let’s chat with Malcolm about it.”

“Okay,” she replied. “Got pretty noisy climbing the Sierras. Maybe Malcolm’s right about the upgrade.”

“Let’s check that out after we finish this trip,” George said, looking over at her and smiling.

“When you look at me like that, I still feel like everything’s going to be okay, George.”

“I’m sorry about all of this.”

“What?” she asked.

“The world I’ve pulled you into,” he said. “I know you don’t like it.”

She looked back at him and sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. If I could get away from this, I would, but I don’t think I could leave you. At least we aren’t doing it that often.”

“True,” George said. “I’ll be too old in a few years, you know.”

“I’m counting on it,” she said. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying this one. You look scared.”

“Do I?” he asked. “Didn’t know it showed.”

“Why? What’s bothering you?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to run into some of the characters from my service days,” George said. “I’m still a little messed up over that.”

“Are you afraid of them?”

“No, I’m afraid of myself,” George said. “When I let emotion get into my work, I become a danger. That’s why I tried to talk you into staying home.”

“I figured that,” Heidi said. “Didn’t it ever dawn on you that I’m coming because of that?”

He looked over at her silently. She had tears coming down her cheeks. He felt choked up.

“Look what I’ve done to you,” he said.

“You didn’t do anything to me,” Heidi said, forcing a smile through. “Remember how we started? You had no intention of dragging me into this, or getting back into it yourself, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“When you became yourself again, you saved me,” she said. “We both know there are things I don’t like about our life. Don’t dwell only on that. I could have left, you know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You know,” she said, smiling through her tears.

George’s phone rang. He picked it up. It was Malcolm.

“What’s up, Malcolm?”

“Just heard back from Ted Crowley, George. He checked out the new owners of that RV Park for me.”

“Really. That was fast. What’re we looking at?” asked George.

“These guys aren’t part of the community,” Malcolm said. “We need to be very careful.”

“We don’t have to kill a bunch of folks there, I hope.”

“No, no, it’s not that at all,” Malcolm said. “These guys are part of the resistance. They’ve given the enemy a lot of trouble. We can’t hurt these guys. Period. If anything, we should help them if we can.”

“Really? What if others join the party?”

“Then we protect these folks,” Malcolm said. “Ted couldn’t find out why they’re in the system. They must either have some capability or some knowledge that the army wants to protect. He had a hard time getting this info, and it’s just surface stuff. There’s no indication of where these guys are out there. If it wasn’t for their Nighthawk find and those internet searches, we wouldn’t know anything about them.”

“So what you’re telling me is that the enemy won’t have any idea where these folks are, but people in the community might?”

“Yeah,” Malcolm said.

“Who?”

“The son.”

Back in Kansas, Frank was pushing himself. There weren’t any easy holes to walk through on the enemy system, but at least he’d found it. The clock was ticking, and he was getting really nervous, so he turned to getting the apps ready to include the new data, even though he didn’t have the name links yet. He was just finishing the re-programming when Jerry came in.

“How’s it going, Frank?” Jerry asked.

Frank looked up at him. “Been drinking?”

“Yeah, we were having toasts with Jake down in the lounge.”

“Jane down there?”

“Yeah, and Jasmine too, and several of the others. Jane, Jasmine, and Dobie are all in the dungeon.”

“Oh,” Frank said. He felt a little concern about that, and it showed.

“What’s wrong?” Jerry asked.

“I just don’t want Jane to see too much bad stuff, that’s all. It bothers her a lot.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. The girls did a lot of research. You wouldn’t believe what they found.”

“Serial killer stuff, I suspect.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it later,” Jerry said. “You get into the enemy system?”

“No, they’ve got layers and layers of protection. My Belgian friend’s stamp is all over this.”

“So what’re you doing?”

“Oh, I’ll keep at it, but I decided to go ahead and get the app programming work done, so we can take advantage of what we do know.”

“Like that rank number, and the country code?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “That might get us close enough to what we need to know. We need to take out as many folks ranked 1 and 2 as we can, before these apps get released.”

“When will you be done with the programming?”

“I was just finishing it when you came in. It needs to be debugged. That’ll take me an hour or so. I’ll call you, if you want, and we’ll test the PC version. Then I’ll side load it onto a couple of phones and test.”

“Sounds good. Just let me know, and I’ll come running,” Jerry said. “I won’t drink anymore, but I think I’ll go back to the lounge.”

Trish and Terry were in their trailer, laying on their backs, next to each other, still breathing hard, coming down.

“Oh, my God,” Trish said, sounding short of breath. She looked over at Terry and giggled. “I think I picked the right guy.”

Terry just looked over at her and smiled, then reached for her, turning on his side. He kissed her cheek lightly. He pushed her hair out of her eyes, and looked at her, feeling the comfort of her love flow over him.

“You aren’t going to say anything?” Trish asked him.

“Do I need to?” he asked softly. “I’ve never felt like this with a woman, ever. Not even close.”

“Really?” she asked, focused on his eyes. “I’ve never been like that before.”

“Like what,” he asked, teasing her. She got an embarrassed look on her face.

“Don’t make me talk about it.”

“Why not?” Terry asked, pulling her closer to himself, kissing the side of her face more. He caressed her, and she sighed.

“I was out of control,” she whispered. “There was only you and me.”

He moved against her closer, caressing her softly, kissing his way to her mouth. Her brow furrowed, and her breath quickened.

“You’re not done yet, are you?” she asked.

He didn’t answer her.

Back in the dungeon, Jane, Jasmine, and Dobie continued to carefully look around by the work bench. They found the drawer full of teeth, which nearly caused Jasmine to vomit. The drawer below that was empty, but they already knew that the driver’s licenses were in there. The next drawer had a collection of small plastic bags with locks of hair. There were more than twenty two of them. The real prize was in the bottom drawer. There was an illustrated diary, starting all the way back in the early 1960s. There were descriptions of each victim, how the abduction was done, what torture was used, and how the victim died. Most of the entries had crude drawings. Some of them also had names and addresses of other family members. They were printed on small strips of paper and taped in the margins, or under the entries. Jane looked closely at these.

“See these,” Jane said to Jasmine and Dobie, pointing at one of the slips. “That looks like an ink jet printer. Somebody was doing this recently, even for the early killings.”

“Ink jet printers didn’t get popular until the late 90s,” Dobie said. “Was this person planning on going after the relatives of the victims, or are these just another kind of trophy?”

“Good question,” Jane said. “I didn’t see anything in my research that said other family members became victims.”

“Any mention of Scott or Earl in that book?” Jasmine asked.

“Nope, everything is either ‘I’ or ‘we’,” Jane said, “at least so far. It’ll take hours to go through this book completely, though.”

“There’s more drawers over on this end,” Dobie said, pointing. He pulled the top one open. “Oh, crap.”

“What?” Jasmine asked, walking over. She looked into the drawer, then put her hand over her mouth, ran over to the side of the room with open dirt, and threw up.

“What’s in there?” Jane asked.

“Pictures of victims,” Dobie said. “They’re pretty bad. Polaroid shots…real early ones, in black and white, and a bunch of faded color snapshots from the later front-eject Polaroid cameras.” He looked closer. “Oh, and some SD cards, too.”

Jasmine walked back over to where Jane was. “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have looked at those.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jane said. “Could have been caused by your current condition somewhat too, you know.”

“Yeah, maybe. I wouldn’t look at those if I were you, though.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Jane said. “Let’s go look in those cells. Maybe there’s some graffiti.”

“Good idea,” Jasmine said. They walked over to the first cell and opened the door. It creaked.

Dobie opened another drawer. “VHS tapes,” he said. “Wonder if anybody has a VCR?”

Jane and Jasmine looked at each other, and almost in unison, said “Hope not.” Dobie shrugged his shoulders, and opened the next drawer.

“Oh, gross,” he said. He shut the drawer quickly.

“What was in there?” Jane asked.

“Don’t ask,” he said

“C’mon, how worse can it be than this other stuff,” Jane said.

“Used condoms, labeled,” Dobie said.

“Ewwww,” Jasmine said. “What kind of a freak would save stuff like that?”

“What kind of a freak would torture women and kill them? Let’s keep this in perspective.” Dobie said.

“He’s got a point,” Jane said. She pulled out her cellphone and turned on the flashlight app. She very slowly went over the wall, inch by inch. It was made of red brick, un-painted.

“Maybe I should go do the other cell,” Jasmin said. “This is going to take a while.” Jane nodded, and Jasmine went to the other cell and pulled the door open. She started doing the same thing as Jane.

Dobie walked over to the embalmer’s table and started looking closely. There were cabinets under it. He opened the first one. There was a black bag in there. He pulled it out carefully and looked inside. It was a video camera. “Here’s the VHS camera,” he said, “and more tapes. Also some Super 8 film reels.

“Well, if we can get it working, we could watch the VHS tapes,” Jane said.

“Not we,” Jasmine said. “No way am I looking at those.”

“Here’s something,” Dobie said, after he opened the next cabinet door. He brought up a plastic bin.

“What’s in there?” Jasmine asked.

“Jewelry, hair clips, and several cell phones,” he said, “and other assorted details. There’s a few employee badges, too. One for a hospital, and a couple for the grocery store. One from a coffee shop…oh, gross.”

“Uh oh, what now?” Jasmine asked.

“Fingernails. Bloody. Pulled out.” He had a grim look on his face. “I think I need to get out of here now. This is getting to me.” He put the bin back in the cabinet and climbed the ladder.

“You seeing anything?” Jasmine asked.

“Not yet…almost done. I need to get out of here pretty soon, too. The vibe in here is really bad, and the smell is starting to get to me.”

“I know, me too,” Jasmine replied. “Maybe we can come back to this later.”

“Wonder if these beds move?” Jane asked. She pulled, and the metal legs of the bed scraped across the floor. She shined her light on the wall where the bed was. “Bingo!”

“What? What did you find?” Jasmine asked, next to Jane now, looking over her shoulder.

“Message scratched in, see,” Jane said, pointing. Jasmine got close.

“Scotty did it,” Jasmine read. “There it is.”

Chapter 13 – App Upgrades

Jasmine and Jane climbed out of the trap door, and walked over to the bar.

“Well?” Kurt asked.

“There’s a treasure trove of evidence down there,” Jane said.

“Yeah, Dobie told us what he found,” Kurt said. “Find the connections you were looking for?”

“Well, we got a start,” Jasmine said. “Somebody scratched a message in the brick wall behind the bed in the first cell.”

“What’d it say?” Kurt asked.

“Scotty did it,” Jane said.

Dobie was sitting at the couch, with Princess sitting next to him. He didn’t look good. Jane noticed.

“You okay over there, Dobie?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright, but I’m worried. What if the son is still alive?”

“Didn’t Howard say he was killed in the New York Harbor attack?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “The question is-was he just assuming that because of where he may have been living?”

“Wonder if it’s possible to find out?” Charlie asked. “I mean, was his whole neighborhood incinerated, or were there bodies?”

“Not sure how we can find that out,” Kurt said.

“I’ll give it a try,” Jasmine said. “There might be confirmed death rolls published by now.”

“Probably going to be a lot of ‘presumed dead’ entries,” Dobie said.

“We’ll see,” Jane said.

Jerry came down the steps and walked over to Jasmine. “Are you doing okay?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked, seeing the concern on his face.

“You’ve been down in the dungeon,” he said.

“Oh, that,” she said. “I finally had to get out of there. I ended up barfing after I saw some pictures in one of the drawers. It was a little embarrassing.”

“You don’t look upset,” he said.

“I think I’m okay, but I wouldn’t want to go through the pictures or the VHS tapes we found down there.”

“There were tapes too?” Jerry asked. He shook his head in disgust. “Did you find out what you needed to?”

“Yeah, the son was in on it,” she replied. “There was graffiti in one of the cells with his name. It was well hidden, but Jane found it.”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “And we don’t know for sure if he’s dead or alive, is that it?”

“Yep. I’ll see if I can find some info on the net that lists out the confirmed dead from the New York Harbor attack. That’s my next step.”

“How about you, Jane?” he asked.

“I’m going to start scouring the net for similar crimes in the New York/New Jersey area,” Jane said.

“No, I meant how are you doing?” Jerry said.

“Oh,” Jane said, smiling at him. “I’m alright. Thanks for asking.”

He nodded.

“How’s Frank doing?” Jane asked. “I assume you’ve been up there with him.”

“He’s debugging app updates now, which will show label data. Rank and country number.”

“No names yet?” she asked.

“Not yet. The enemy system has layers of protection. He’s still working on that, but he’s thinking that rank might actually be enough.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s something. I hope he gets done pretty quickly. We’re going run out of time.”

“I know, and he’s worried about it,” Jerry said. “He’s going to call me when the debugging is done, and then I’ll go help with testing and loading devices.”

Terry and Trish sat at the dinette table in their trailer, looking at each other, smiling.

“How about kids?” Terry asked.

“You want kids, right?” she asked. “I hope so.”

“Yes,” Terry said. “Why?”

“Because I’m not on birth control, silly,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, grinning at her. “So you want to let nature take its course, then? You aren’t worried about being pregnant in this crazy world?”

“It’s not going to be crazy forever,” she said. “It just feels right. I can’t really explain it – but we should still spend some time thinking about it, and talking about it. I won’t be in my most fertile time for a while yet.”

“Jasmine’s pregnant, you know,” Terry said.

“I heard,” Trish said. “She’s up against the biological clock.”

“Yeah, but you’re not,” Terry said, smiling.

“Nope. I should be able to pop them out one after another for quite a few years,” she said.

Terry laughed. “Sounds like we’re going to be busy.”

“I just hope we survive this,” she said. “If so, growing old with our children gathered around us is a nice thought.”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “I’d probably better get busy.”

“The trailer’s pretty much done. What else do you have to do?”

“We’re going to have to get these trailers road-worthy,” Terry said. “You know we’ll have to move after we let the authorities know about the dungeon.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “You’re right. How much is it going to need?”

“New tires, maybe new bearings, and probably some other maintenance. I don’t think this thing has been moved in a mighty long time.”

“Same with the other trailers,” she said.

“Yeah,” Terry said. “Gabe asked me to come up with tire sizes and some other stuff.”

“Okay, husband, you’d better go do that, then.”

Terry nodded, kissed her forehead, and went outside to record the info.

Back in the clubhouse, Frank was finishing up with the debugging. He picked up his phone and called Jerry, asking him to come over, then put it down, and got ready to load the updates onto it.

Jerry walked in a couple of minutes later, with Jane and Jasmine.

“Hi, honey,” Jane said, walking up. “You doing alright?” Hungry?”

“No, I’m good,” Frank said. “We’re about ready test the new PC app. Then the phone apps. I’m loading my phone now.”

“I heard you don’t have names yet,” she said.

“Nope, not yet, but we do have rank and country code. That might be enough. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any level 1 or 2 folks around.”

“You ready, Frank?” Jerry asked.

“In a sec, my phone is almost done loading. Then I’ll disconnect it and try the PC app. Gather round.”

Jerry and Jasmine got next to Jane, and they all looked over Frank’s shoulder at the monitor. The app load finished, so Frank unplugged the phones USB cord, and slid his phone over a little ways. Then he clicked on the PC app, and waited for it to load.

“Okay, let’s take a look at Denver,” Frank said. He navigated the map to Denver. Many icons showed up on the western side of town. He zoomed in far enough to see individual icons. They were on top of each other in the areas of heavy population, but you could click through them.

“Looks like mostly level 15,” Jerry said. “Garden variety Islamist jerk weeds.”

“Watch this,” Frank said. He made an adjustment to the settings near the top of the screen. He filtered to rank 10. The number of icons went way down, but there were still a lot of them on the screen. There were a few with country code 1, but most were 11s and 14s.

“Country code 1 is the USA, correct?” Jane asked.

“Yeah,” Frank said.

“Filter to a higher rank,” Jerry said. Frank changed the filter to 5. Now there were only about 10 icons left on the screen. Most of them were country code 1.

“Damn traitors,” Jerry said vindictively. Jasmine put her hand on his shoulder.

“How about rank 1?” Jane asked.

Frank adjusted the filter. All of the icons disappeared.

“Interesting,” Frank said. “None of the top guys are there.”

“Go up rank by rank, and let’s see who’s running things,” Jane said. Frank nodded.

“Here’s rank 2,” Frank said. He made the change. Still no icons.

“No dice,” Jerry said.

“Alright, then rank 3, same as Simon Orr,” Frank said. He made the change. One icon popped up on the screen, to the extreme west end of the Denver area.

“Figures. He’s way back there,” Jerry said, laughing.

“Let’s see how many have rank 4, while we’re here,” Frank said. He changed the filter, and only four icons showed up, spaced in roughly the four corners of where the large group of icons had been.

“They’re using the chips for placement, that’s for sure,” Jerry said. “Look at that. Classic.”

“Just as we figured,” Frank said.

“Why don’t you zoom way back with level 3…let’s see where the Simon Orr level folks are,” Jane said. “Can we do that?”

“Of course,” Frank said. He zoomed out far enough to see the entire southwest portion of the USA. There were clusters of level three icons in several places…the major cities of Arizona, around the Grand Canyon, western New Mexico, and southern Utah. The biggest clump was in Capitol Reef.

“Look, we were right about where headquarters is,” Jerry said, chuckling. “Still Capitol Reef.”

“Yeah, looks like the militia is still hanging out by the Grand Canyon, too,” Frank said. “Most of those icons have country code 1.”

“Dial it back to 2,” Jane said.

“Just what I was thinking,” Frank said. He made the adjustment, and most of the icons dropped off. There were two around the Grand Canyon, one in Flagstaff, and four in the Capitol Reef area.

“Might as well go down to rank 1 and see where those guys are,” Jerry said. Frank nodded and made the adjustment. All but one icon dropped off, and it was at Capitol Reef.

“Only one?” I expected at least three,” Frank said. “At least we know there’s a high level person at the hideout we know about.”

“Yeah, and look at the country code,” Jerry said. “It’s the same one that most of the Islamists have. That’s probably Saladin.”

“Probably,” Frank said.

“Where are the others?” Jane asked.

“Oh, I think there are several possibilities,” Frank said.

“What are they?” Jasmine asked.

“Well, they could be in an area with no cell coverage. Remember that we can’t see those with the long range app, because it depends on cell coverage.”

“Okay,” Jane said.

“We also might not understand their structure well enough,” Frank continued. “Maybe Saladin is the only level 1, and the other people we think are leaders could be rank 2.”

“Good point, but I’d be surprised if there are as many as we saw,” Jerry said.

“There’s also another possibility,” Jane said. “You’re only on the southwest. You need to move it around. They might be in western Colorado, for example, or further south in that state. They also might be in DC, or in Mexico, or along the Canadian Border.”

“Or they might have removed their chips,” Frank said.

“Hope not,” Jerry said.

“I’ll check the parts of Colorado we can’t see here, and then get started at upgrading everybody’s apps,” Frank said. He moved the map over.

“Crap,” Jerry said. “Look. There’s a 1 and a 2 at that air force base we’ve been watching for a while.”

“These are the ones that have been sitting in exactly the same place for quite a few days,” Jasmine said. “Maybe they’re dead.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Frank said. “They might have removed their chips, or they might have infiltrated or even taken over that base.”

“Look,” Jasmine said. “Both of them have country code 1.”

“We need to get ahold of General Hogan,” Jerry said.

Meanwhile, in Elko, Nevada, Malcolm, George, and Heidi were pulling off the road to fuel up and talk.

“How you holding up, Malcolm?” George asked as he walked up.

“Great,” Malcolm said. “So glad to be on the road again. Where should we stop for the night? It’s getting late.”

“Well, we wanted to talk about that a little,” George said. “Heidi ran to the store. She’ll be back in a minute.”

“Your coach working well?”

“Yeah, but it’s a little noisy on the grades, as usual. I think Heidi’s antsy to get a new rig.”

“Well, I wouldn’t wait too long. This Tiffin of yours still has good value. Another few years, not so much for a gasser.”

“Hi, Malcolm,” Heidi said, walking up with a small bag of stuff.

“Enjoying the trip?” he asked.

“Yeah, I am, actually,” she said. “Did George ask you about the route?”

“I was waiting for you, sweetie,” George said. “We’re wondering if we shouldn’t just stay on I-80 instead of going up on those smaller roads in Idaho.”

Malcolm thought about it for a minute. “You know, it might be okay. I haven’t heard about any enemy activity in northern Utah. It would be an easier, faster drive.”

“That’s what we were thinking,” Heidi said.

“Well, I’m willing,” Malcolm said. “Where do you want to stop for the night?”

“Could you go for another hour?” Heidi asked. “Wells isn’t too far off…we can probably get there by dark. Map shows 48 minutes.”

“You guys want to boondock, or do you need hookups?” Malcolm asked.

“We can spend the night at a Wally World if you want to,” George said.

“Or even a truck stop,” Malcolm asked. “I like Heidi’s suggestion. Let’s go to Wells.”

“Okay, it’s settled,” Heidi said. “Want me to drive for the rest of the day, honey?”

“Sure, that’d be great,” George replied.

“Now that’s what I need,” Malcolm said. “A relief driver.”

“I’m going back inside,” Heidi said. She walked back around the front of the coach.

“Anything more from Ted?” George asked.

“No, not so far. We’ll have to figure out how we approach this group without getting into a battle.”

“I think we need to make contact before we get there,” George said.

“Any idea how we do that?”

“No, Malcolm, not yet. Let’s both think on it.”

Back in Kansas, Frank was finished with his testing on the phone apps, and a line formed up to the PC table. He was installing the upgrades on everybody’s devices.

“This is great,” Jeb said, smiling, looking at his new app.

“Let’s see,” Rosie said. Jeb showed it to her, and took her through the steps to run it.

Charlie and Kurt were leaning up against the door by the kitchen, watching and chatting. Terry and Trish walked up, with Gabe and Dobie.

“We got the info for the trailers all together,” Gabe said. Dobie and Terry nodded in agreement.

“What about Jake?” Kurt asked.

“Oh, we have his stuff. He needed a nap,” Gabe said, grinning. “He drank a little too much earlier.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet he got all sentimental, didn’t he?”

“A bit,” Dobie said, smiling. “It’s okay, it’s not every day that you marry off a daughter.”

“I guess,” Trish said.

“Ready to get your new apps?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “We’ve got Jake’s phone too. Looks like the line’s thinning out.”

The group walked over to Frank. Charlie and Kurt stayed where they were.

“When should we go into town?” Charlie asked.

“I think it ought to be tomorrow,” Kurt said. “Now that we have the new app, I’m expecting things to move quickly. Frank get ahold of General Hogan yet?”

“No, he wanted to get us all loaded up first.”

“You think we have any chance of taking out the leaders by ourselves?” Kurt asked.

“We have some good capability,” Charlie said, “but this’ll be more difficult than anything we’ve tried before. Some of us probably won’t live through it.”

“I know, that’s in the back of my mind all the time,” Kurt said.

Hilda walked over with Mary, smiling.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked.

“That walk in fridge and freezer is in good shape,” Hilda said. “We’ve had it running for a couple hours now. Wonder if Jeb’s been scoping out the area for game?”

“Good question,” Charlie said. “Hey, Jeb!”

Jeb looked over, and started towards them, helping Rosie along.

“What’s up, Charlie?” he asked.

“Had a chance to check around for game? We got the walk-in freezer working.”

“No, not yet,” he said. “Want a little venison, do you?”

“It’d be nice,” Charlie said.

“Yes, I like too,” Rosie said.

“Want some company when you check around?” Kurt asked. “I’d like to tag along. Got the itch.”

“Bow or rifle?” Jeb asked.

“Let’s start with bows,” Kurt said.

“Ah, man after my own heart,” Jeb said, grinning.

“Looks like Frank’s done with the upgrades,” Mary said, watching him. “Genius…hope the enemy doesn’t get wise before we get the top guys.”

“Seriously,” Charlie said. “The clock’s running.”

“I know,” Hilda said. “I’m scared to death.”

Frank watched as the last person walked away with their upgraded devices. Jerry held out his hand to him, and they shook.

“Job well done, my friend,” Jerry said. “What’s next?”

“General Hogan,” Frank said. “I already loaded the new version up to the distribution points, but we’ll need to make a special distribution for him and his men.”

“How’re you going to do it?”

“Network transfer,” Frank said. “They should be able to download it from this PC if we get it set up right.”

“Good,” Jerry said. “Gonna call him?”

“Yep, now’s as good a time as any,” Frank said. He found the General’s private number in his contacts list and punched it. It rang and rang. No answer. Frank got a worried look on his face.

“He’s not there?” Jerry asked.

“Well, he’s not answering,” Frank said. “I’ll try him again in a few minutes.”

“What if we can’t get him?” Jerry asked.

“Then we do the best we can by ourselves,” he replied. “Wonder how much time we’ll have to hit the leadership once the apps make the light of day?”

“Good question, Jerry said. “For the rank and file, it’ll be a turkey shoot on that day, I suspect, but the leadership might all get away if we don’t nail them beforehand. That wouldn’t be good.”

“I’ll try again,” Frank said. He hit the contact again. It rang several times, and then clicked.

“Hello?” said the voice on the other end. It wasn’t General Hogan. It was a much younger-sounding man.

“Who is this, please?” Frank asked.

There was a long pause.

“You still there?” Frank asked.

“Frank?” the voice asked.

“Who is this?” Frank said. He shot Jerry a concerned look.

“Irwin Road. The General is held at Irwin Road,” the voice said. Then there was a click.

Frank looked at his phone, then up at Jerry.

“What’d he say?” Jerry asked.

“The General is held at Irwin Road,” Frank said.

“Recognize the voice?”

“I’m trying to place it,” Frank said, “but yes, I think I do.”

“Maybe one of the kids?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, think it was the General’s son,” Frank said.

“Let’s do a search on Irwin Road,” Jerry said. Frank nodded and did it on the PC.

“Uh oh,” Frank said.

“Son of a bitch, that’s Schriever Air Force Base,” Jerry said. “Maybe the cretins back there aren’t dead after all.”

Chapter 14 – The Lake

Jerry and Frank looked at each other, shocked at what just happened.

“What’s wrong?” Jane asked.

“Sounds like General Hogan is being held captive at that air force base,” Frank said.

“Oh, no.”

“You know this could be a trap, right?” Jerry said. “Hogan might be dead, and the enemy has his phone.”

“I hope not, because that would mean they have the apps,” Frank said. “I don’t think so, though. It sounded like the son to me.”

“Maybe they’re holding the son captive,” Jerry said.

“Hope not,” Frank said.

“So what do we do?” Jane asked.

“Let’s call everybody together,” Jerry said. “We need to brainstorm this one.” He got up, along with Frank and Jane, and they left to gather the group. Everybody gathered around the area where the PC was. Frank took his seat back in front of the monitor, and Jane sat down beside him.

“Everybody here?” Frank asked.

“Everybody but Jake,” Gabe said. “I’ll brief him when he wakes up.”

“Good,” Frank said. “Here’s the situation. I just attempted to call General Hogan. First time I tried, there was no answer. Then I tried again, and a young man answered. He said my name, so he knew who was calling.”

“Was it one of the kids that we helped after the General left?” Jeb asked.

“Could have been. The voice reminded me a lot of the General’s son.”

“What’d he say?” asked Charlie.

“He said the General was being held at Irwin Road.”’

“Where the hell is that?” Jackson asked.

“I searched on it,” Jerry said. “It’s that damn air force base, where we have a bunch of icons that have been sitting for a while.”

“So maybe those guys aren’t dead, then,” Kurt said. “Maybe they took over the base.”

“Maybe,” Jeb said. “Or maybe the enemy captured the phone.”

“That’s a possibility, Jeb,” Frank said.

“What’s the base look like?” Earl asked.

“Good question,” Frank said. “I’ll pull it up on Google Earth.” He loaded the program as the group huddled behind him, where they could see the screen.

“Schriever Air Force Base,” Frank said as he typed it into the search window.

“Shit, that’s flat as a pancake,” Kurt said. “Look at it. It’s going to be hard to assault.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sprawled out, too,” Jeb said.

“There’s some high value targets at that base,” Jerry said. “A level 1 and a level 2. Both from the USA.”

“You know what,” Jackson said. “Something’s fishy. There aren’t enough icons there to take over a base that size. No friggin way.”

“Yeah, that’s been bothering me too,” Jerry said. “They aren’t moving around a lot, either. They might be holed up in one building, and the rest of the base might not even know they’re there. All it would take would be a few traitors around to keep watch.”

“Can the app pinpoint the exact building they’re in?” Jeb asked.

“The short range app can,” Frank said. “But we’d have to be really close. Too close, if the whole base has been taken over.

“Shoot,” Jasmine said. “Too bad, because if we could figure out the building, we might be able to tip off the others at the base.”

“Assuming that the enemy doesn’t control the whole place,” Earl said.

“I see that mind of yours working, Frank,” Jane said, watching him. “You’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t make the long range app sensitive enough to get down to a few feet because it took too much processing power, and I wanted it to work in smart phones. This PC is fast, though. I’ll see if I can make a new version for PCs that’ll get us that close. It’ll take a few days.”

“We could just send a few people on a road trip to use the short range app,” Jeb said.

“True, we could,” Jerry said. “But it would be a lot better to be able to do it from here.”

“I’ll work on it,” Frank said.

“Well, don’t work on it too hard tonight, Frank,” Jane said, putting her hand on her shoulder. “It’s getting late, and you’ve been hitting it really hard for the last couple of days. You need some rest.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “Seriously.”

“I say we break out some of that food down in the pantry, and relax for a while with some dinner,” Hilda said.

“Good idea,” Charlie said. “What do you think, folks?”

“I could eat a horse,” Gabe said.

“Okay,” Hilda said. “I saw some huge cans of spaghetti sauce and a bunch of pasta down there. We’ll whip something up. She looked over at Jane and Mary. They nodded back to her.

“I’ll help too,” Trish said.

The women walked off, with Charlie and Kurt following.

“You two going to help?” Mary asked. “Too many chefs, you know.”

“You really want to carry all those big cans up the stairs?”

“Oh,” Mary said. “I get it. Yes, that’d be nice.”

The next morning, in Wells, Nevada, George and Heidi were waking up to bright sunshine.

“Want some coffee, honey?” Heidi asked.

“Do you even need to ask?” he said, chuckling. “Maybe we should just go get some from the Truck Stop store, though. That way we can get on the road faster.”

“I’m good with that, if you are,” she said. “They probably have donuts or something too.”

“I’ll check to see if Malcolm’s up, first,” George said, sitting up and pulling his pajamas off. He got dressed quickly, watching Heidi as she got dressed next to him. He took a moment to take her in.

“I’ve seen that look,” Heidi said. “I don’t think we have time, Georgie.”

“Oh, I know, but I like looking at you,” he said, as he walked out of the bedroom.

“I’m glad,” she said. “I won’t be a hot young blonde forever, you know.”

George looked at her and laughed. “You’ll always be younger than me.” He opened the door and squinted in the sun. Malcolm was already up, standing out in the sunshine next to the door of his rig.

“Going be a hot one out here today,” Malcolm said. “Get enough sleep?”

“Yeah, slept like a rock. You?”

“I tossed and turned a little bit, but it’s cool. I had a brainstorm last night about getting in touch with the folks at the RV Park.”

“Really?” George asked. “What are you thinking?”

“E-mail. I looked at the searches that set off the alarm for Nighthawk, and was able to figure out an email address. I sent one to them this morning at about 5:00am.”

“Good,” George said. “Hopefully they’ll send something back.”

“Yeah, that’s the beauty of these smartphones. If it hits while we’re on the road, I’ll get it.” George smiled and nodded.

“How about we get coffee and a bite to eat at the store,” George asked. “Then we can take off in a hurry.”

“Fine by me,” Malcolm said. “I’ve been looking at the map.”

“How far do you think we can get?” George asked, as Heidi joined them.

“Think we can do about six and a half hours?” Malcolm asked.

“I’m game, but I have a relief driver. You sure about that?”

“If we can stop and relax for an hour or so in the middle, I’ll be fine,” Malcolm said. “This pusher is pretty relaxing to drive.”

“Where do you want to spend the night?” Heidi asked, pulling out her phone.

“Wyoming, a little town named Rawlins.”

Heidi put it into her iPhone’s map application. “Well, it’s 469 miles. My phone’s saying six and a half hours, but don’t we have to go through the Rockies? Sure we’re going to be able to go that fast?”

“Well, if it’s too much, we could always stop somewhere closer,” George said.

“How about Wamsutter?” she asked. “It’s a whole hour less driving.”

“That would work, too,” Malcolm said. “Even if we stopped there, we should still be able to get to Sharon Springs the following day. I’m showing six and a half hours from Wamsutter to Sharon Springs, and that’s mostly flat lands, not mountains. I like your suggestion.”

“Okay, Wamsutter it is,” George said. “Let’s go get some grub, and take off.”

They walked off together.

Back in Kansas, Jeb and Kurt met in front of the clubhouse. They had their bows with them, and were wearing their side arms.

“Morning, Jeb,” Kurt said.

“Morning. Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Which way?”

“There’s that hole in the fence back behind the barn,” Jeb said. “Let’s go through there and check out the little lake. That may be a good watering hole for game.”

Kurt nodded, and they started walking.

“How’s the injury?” Jeb asked.

“I’m pretty well healed up now,” Kurt said, “thanks to Mary and Rosie.”

“Yeah, they make a good team,” Jeb said. “There’s the lake.”

“Oh, wow,” Kurt said. “That looks like it’s big enough to have fish in it.”

“Well, if we can’t find any deer, maybe we ought to try our hands,” Jeb said, chuckling.

“You don’t think they’re going to need us for chores today?” Kurt asked.

“I doubt it,” Jeb said. “The focus today is going to be getting those trailers back to road worthy.”

“What about this hole in the fence,” Kurt asked as they walked through it.

“I’m thinking that park upgrades have become lower priority, since we found that damn dungeon,” Jeb said. “Shame. I wanted to stick around for a while.”

“Maybe we can get the authorities to keep their mouths shut.”

“I’ll bet they’d agree to try,” Jeb said, “but think about it. Most of the victims were locals. Their families will have to be told, and they aren’t gonna care about us. They’ll blab to the media.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Kurt said. “Dammit.”

As the two approached the lake, several ducks got spooked and took off. The lake was bigger than it looked from the park. It was big enough to put fishing boats on.

“Well, there’s another possibility,” Jeb said. “Love me some ducks. I’ll bet they’re easy pickins.”

“When’s duck season around here?” Kurt asked.

“Don’t know, it probably starts around mid-October.”

“Shoot, we’ll probably be out of here by then,” Kurt said. “How about deer season?”

“Well, I’ve been playing a little fast and loose with the dates on that lately,” Jeb said, laughing. “We’re probably good right now for bow hunting, and it matters more here, since we’re back in a civilized area. I wasn’t so worried about poaching in a war zone.”

“We’re supposed to have tags, though, right?”

“Yeah, we might want to go into town and take care of that,” Jeb said.

“Whoa,” Kurt said. “See that fish jump?”

“Yeah. Walleye, maybe?”

“Don’t know,” Kurt said. “Should be bass around here.”

“Hope so,” Jeb said. He saw something on the ground, and squatted to take a closer look. Then he turned back towards Kurt and grinned.

“Deer tracks?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah,” Jeb said, standing back up. Then he saw something else, and walked over to the right, looking at the ground. “Droppings. This is a watering hole.”

“There’s no cover,” Kurt said. “Maybe we need to make ourselves a blind.”

“Maybe,” Jeb said. “Why don’t we go get the fishing gear?”

“Fine by me,” Kurt said. They turned and walked back to the park.

Gabe, Terry, Dobie, and Jake were standing between their trailers, talking.

“How you feeling, Jake?” Gabe asked, snickering.

“My head’s pounding,” he said sheepishly. “Thanks a lot for bringing it up.”

The men laughed.

“So, what should we take into town?” Dobie asked.

“Well, let’s see. We need 14 trailer tires, and a fifth wheel hitch for your truck,” Gabe said. “I think we need two vehicles.”

“How about my bobtail and your Suburban?” Jake asked. “If Terry doesn’t mind driving it, that is. I’m still a little under the weather.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gabe said. “We know what all we need?”

“Think so,” Terry said. “Wonder if the trailer lights work?”

“Good question,” Gabe said.

“Well, I’ve got gobs of wire and quite a few light bulbs,” Jake said. “Why don’t you guys look at your connectors? I know I don’t have those trailer connectors.”

“Good idea,” Dobie said. “I’m going to need the tow vehicle side of the wiring for my truck, too.”

The men took off and did their checks.

Trish came out when Terry was looking at their trailer.

“Getting ready to go to town, honey?”

“Yeah,” Terry said, smiling at her. “Rather stick around here with you, though.”

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Yeah, I bet you would.” She smiled. “What’re you doing?”

“Oh, just checking the wire harness and connector for the trailer lights, so we know if we need to buy them.”

“Oh,” she said. “Makes sense. How long do you think you guys will be?”

“Don’t know,” Terry said. “Hopefully not too long. Maybe a couple hours.”

“Okay,” she said. She came out and gave him a hug and kiss. “I’m so glad we got married, honey.”

“I know, me too,” Terry said.

Terry walked back over to the others, who were finishing up. Terry and Jake started over to the bobtail, and the rest of the men piled into the Suburban. Then they were off.

Jane and Jasmine were back in the barn, on the laptop, searching for similar murders in the New Jersey area.

“There’s so much going on in this area,” Jane said. “Too many murders. It’s not like around here.”

“I had a feeling it was going to be more difficult,” Jasmine said. “Look for un-solved, and then maybe we can filter out the gang stuff somehow.”

Jane nodded, and got back to work. Jerry walked over, carrying a laptop case and some other stuff.

“Hi, girls,” he said.

“What’s that?” Jasmine asked.

“I figured I’d plug a network hub into that line, and we can have more than one PC plugged in here,” Jerry said, smiling.

“I should’ve thought of that,” Jasmine said.

“Hold up for a minute, Jane,” Jerry said. She got out of the way, while he unplugged the network cable from her laptop and plugged it into the hub. Then he plugged two cables into it, and plugged one back into Jane’s laptop. “There, try that out.”

Jane got back on. “Looks good, Jerry. Thanks!”

“No problem,” he said. He pulled Jasmine’s laptop out of the case and put it on the work bench, while Jasmine took the power supply out and got it plugged in. Soon that laptop was connected and ready to go.

“Thanks, sweetie,” Jasmine said. “This’ll help a lot. What are you going to do now?”

“Help Frank,” he said. “He’ll need me to help him test in a little while.”

“He’ll be done that fast?” Jane asked. “He told me that the job was going to take a few days.”

“It will, but it’s modular, so I can help with testing one module while Frank works on the next. That’ll speed things up a little bit, at least.”

“Oh,” Jasmine said. “Good.”

He walked back out outside, just in time to see Jeb and Kurt picking up their fishing gear.

“Going over to that little lake?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jeb said. “Might be a little late in the day now, but we thought we’d try. Want to join us?”

“Not now, Frank’s going to need me in a little while. Love to fish for a while, though. Maybe later.”

“Alright, Jerry, have fun,” Jeb said. Kurt nodded and they walked off.

In the clubhouse, Frank was making good progress. He got the initial part of the program working on the PC, and then tried it out. He was able to zero in on the icons within a few feet. All of the icons at the base were in one building. Jerry walked in just as he was doing that.

“You got the first module done?” Jerry asked.

“Close,” he replied. “Look, they’re in that building right there.”

“How many of them?”

“All of them, Jerry,” Frank said.

“Good. Want me to test?”

“I had a better idea. Why don’t you try to find out if the base is still open? It would be helpful to know if the bad guys took the whole thing over.”

“I can do that,” Jerry said. “I’ll have to go get the other laptop out of our rig, but I can plug it into the hub I just put out in the barn for the girls.”

“There you go,” Frank said.

“Talk to you later, Frank,” he said as he walked away.

Jerry got his other laptop out of the rig, and picked up an extra network cable. Then he went into the barn with it.

“Hey, honey, going to join us?” Jasmine asked.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” he said, putting the laptop down on the workbench next to where Jasmine was sitting. He pulled another stool over, and got the laptop connected and running.

“Testing Frank’s modules out here?” Jane asked.

“No, he’s testing those himself. He got the first module up and running in test mode, and was able to pinpoint the bad guys at the base to one building, as we suspected. Looks like a warehouse building, and it’s way on the east side of the base.”

“So what does he want you to do?” Jasmine asked.

“Try to figure out if the whole base has been taken over, or just that building,” Jerry said. “Makes sense. How’re you two coming?”

“It’s tough,” Jane said. “Lots of mayhem goes on in the New York/New Jersey area.”

“I was afraid of that,” Jerry said.

“I’m trying a different strategy,” Jasmine said. “I’m looking for anywhere there were suspected serial killings from five years ago to now. I’m seeing evidence of somebody moving slowly from Kansas to Jersey. Looks like abductions, torture, killing, dismembering. Timing looks right, too.”

“They have any idea who?” asked Jerry.

“Oh, everybody and his brother had an idea,” she replied. “I even saw one person bring up the Nighthawk Road killer.”

“Only one?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, and from what I’ve seen so far, most of the other experts think this guy’s a crackpot.”

“Whoa! Hey, Jasmine,” Jane said, leaning back a little ways from her laptop screen, as if she expected it to slap her.

“What?”

“I got an e-mail,” she said, fear written across her face.

“From who?” she asked.

“Malcolm Davis.”

Chapter 15 – Truck Fire

“Open it,” Jerry said, coming around to look over Jane’s shoulder. Jasmine moved over closer too.

“You sure?” Jane asked.

“Yes,” Jasmine said. “It won’t hurt to read it.”

Jane opened the e-mail.

Dear Fellow RVers,

My partner and I are very interested in the Nighthawk Road Killer. I have alarms set to go off when somebody does a large number of searches on that case. The alarm went off a couple of days ago because of your searches. We are especially interested because you are in the area where the killer was active for many years. We believe there is a good chance that the person who committed many of these murders is still active in another area, closer to the eastern seaboard. We are on our way to Kansas in our RVs to do a survey of the area. We would very much like to meet with you and your group on this matter. Would this be acceptable to you? Please reply. Thank You.

Best regards,

Malcolm Davis, Davis and Franklin Investigations

“Wow,” Jerry said.

“How did they get my e-mail address?” Jane asked.

“Probably wasn’t hard, if he can get to the search requests,” Jasmine said. “What now?”

“Looks like we need another meeting,” Jerry said. “Don’t respond to the e-mail yet.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jane said, looking very scared. “How dangerous is this guy?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much yet,” Jerry said. “They aren’t after us. They’re after the serial killer.”

“Wonder what makes them think he’s still alive?” Jane asked.

“I can see evidence of somebody doing a string of these type of killings, on the way east,” Jasmine said. “I’m just an amateur, but Malcolm? He’s a pro. He’s probably got this guy pegged within a 50-mile radius.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t know his name, though,” Jerry said, grinning. “We shouldn’t reveal anything to these guys until they get here.”

“Why?” Jasmine asked.

“Because we’ve got a tactical problem,” Jerry said. “We’ve got high level enemy leaders in our crosshairs, plus a General who may have been captured. Don’t you think two experienced people like these guys might be good to have with us? Remember, George is a Special Forces guy, and Malcolm is no slouch himself. They might come in handy.”

“You think they’d want to help us?” Jane asked.

“I’d bet money on it,” Jerry said.

“You might have something there,” Jasmine said. “We’ll have to wait a little while to meet with the group, though. We’ve got several people in town buying trailer stuff right now.”

“That’s right,” Jane said.

“We don’t have to respond to the e-mail right this second,” Jerry said. “Just go back to what you were doing. I won’t tell Frank yet either. Let’s keep him focused until our friends get back from town.”

“Agreed,” Jane said.

On I-80, George, Heidi, and Malcolm were making good time, blasting through Nevada.

“How far is Salt Lake City?” George asked. Heidi was in the passenger seat. She looked at her iPhone.

“About two hours.”

“I think we should pull over for gas when we see a good place,” George said. “We’re going to stop again in Salt Lake City to top up before the Rockies, but a short break would be good for Malcolm.”

“Want me to call and let him know we need to gas up?”

“Yeah, please,” George said.

Heidi dialed Malcolm.

“What’s up, sugar plum?”

Heidi giggled. “Oh, brother. Listen, George wants to get gas at the next place we see.”

“Good, I could use a break too,” he said. “I’ll keep my eyes open for the next truck stop.”

“Thanks, Malcolm. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

“Okay, George, he’s ready to stop too. He’ll look for a place.”

“Good,” George said. “Maybe you could drive for a while after that.”

“Love to,” she said.

She continued to look at her phone.

“See anything?” George asked.

“You know, there’s really not much here. I didn’t know that Utah was so desolate.”

“Yep, the northern part is kind of a wasteland,” George said.

“The only place I see coming up that might have some services is Bonneville.”

“Really? Always wanted to see that. Too bad we don’t have time to stick around for a few hours.”

“Maybe on the way home,” Heidi said. “We’re only about fifteen minutes from there.”

“Good,” George said.

They sat silently for a while, taking in the scenery.

“Could you imagine coming through this country in a covered wagon?” Heidi asked. “That must have been pretty wild.”

“The Oregon Trail is north of us a ways, goes through southern Idaho as I remember.”

Heidi looked it up on her iPhone. “Yep, you’re right, but we’ll be almost right on it when we’re in Wyoming and Nebraska.”

“Wonder if we’ll see markers?” George said.

“Probably. I wonder how many artifacts are still sitting along that trail?”

“Where people can get to it easily, it’s probably been picked over pretty good,” George said. “It’d be fun to take the Jeep back a ways and look around.”

“Around 400,000 people made the trip,” Heidi said. “So you know there’s lots of artifacts there. I’ll bet they’re protected, though.”

“Probably,” George said. “Look, a sign for Bonneville. It’s coming up in a few miles.”

“Good,” Heidi said.

The two watched as more cars started to appear on the road. Then Malcolm turned on his right turn blinker and started to slow down.

“Oh, the town is called Wendover,” George said. He followed Malcolm off of the interstate. There was a truck stop nearby, and they both pulled in to fuel up. George got the fuel flowing into his rig, and then walked over to Malcolm, while Heidi went over to the store to get coffee.

“How you holding up, Malcolm?” George asked.

“I’m good,” he replied,” but I needed a break.”

“We should stop again in Salt Lake City,” George said.

“I know. Maybe that’s where we’ll take a lunch break. It’s right before we start heading up into the Rockies.”

“Yeah,” George said. “That’s why I’m going to have Heidi drive for a while. I know she’s not going to want to deal with that, so I’ll rest up for it.”

“Here she comes,” Malcolm said. Heidi was carrying a paper tray with three coffees, and a bag sitting in the middle.

“Hope you wanted coffee, Malcolm,” she said, pulling one of the cups out of the hole in the paper tray and handing it to him. “You take it black, right?”

“Yes,” Malcolm said, smiling. “Thanks so much.”

“Want a donut?” she asked. She held the tray up towards him so he could look inside the bag.

“Ah, police food,” he said, chuckling. “Sure, I’ll have one.” He took one out of the bag, and grabbed one of the napkins.

“We’re going to stop for a little longer in Salt Lake City,” George said. “Maybe have some lunch before we start the big climb.”

“Good, that makes sense,” Heidi said.

The gas pump shut off with a clunk. “There’s ours,” George said. He took out the nozzle and put it back on the pump.

“Mine’s almost done too,” Malcolm said. “Want me to stay in the lead?”

“Yeah,” George said.

“Okay,” Malcolm said. His pump stopped with a clunk, and he got finished, as George and Heidi started towards the door of their rig.

“See you two in Salt Lake,” Malcolm said.

“Drive safe,” Heidi said. She felt kind of dumb after saying that. George saw it and chuckled as they climbed in the door.

Malcolm drove off the lot. Heidi fired up the Tiffin and started rolling up behind him. George noticed two pickup trucks, both with redneck looking young men in the back. They were watching.

“Uh oh,” he said. “We’re going to have company. Follow Malcolm. I’m going to bring one of the guns up here.” He unbuckled and got out of his seat.

“Shit,” Heidi said. “Should we call Malcolm?”

“I’m going to, as soon as I get back up here.”

“I see them in the mirror. They’re behind us,” Heidi said, her voice trembling. She drove back onto the interstate, and the two trucks followed.

George grabbed an assault rifle from the bedroom closet, and came back up. He noticed that one of the pickup trucks was passing them on the left, heading towards Malcolm at high speed. The other one was hanging back, but he could see them. He pulled out his phone and hit Malcolm’s contact icon.

“Malcolm, we got company.”

“Pickup truck full of inbreeds, right?”

“Yeah, you see them?”

“Yep, they’re coming up on my left side. I think I’ll make a lane change. Later.”

“Wow!” Heidi cried. “Malcolm just did a quick lane change, and almost took that pickup truck out! Now they’re trying to get to the right of him.”

“Keep it steady,” George said. “I’m going to take out these idiots on our left.” He slid open the window by the dinette, and pointed the assault rifle at the truck. It was pulling up alongside quickly now. “Go to hell!” he shouted, and sprayed the cab with gunfire, hitting both the driver and the passenger. The truck went out of control and careened into the ditch on the left side of the road, hitting the soft dirt and cartwheeling. “Scratch one truckload of inbreeds.” George laughed. “How’s Malcolm doing?”

“They’re trying to force him off the road,” Heidi said. “Those idiots think they’re going to move a 44 foot diesel with a pickup truck!”

George laughed. “Yeah, that’ll be interesting. That’s a 50 thousand pound rig.”

“Whoa, he just lunged at them, and they almost came off the road,” she cried. George got back up in the passenger seat, gun still in his hands.

“Malcolm’s just playing with him, but he’d better be careful,” George said. “They might shoot out his tires.”

“I don’t think they want to do that,” Heidi said. “They want the vehicle.”

“You’re right. They probably think there’s some old retired couple in there,” George said, chuckling.

“Uh oh,” Heidi said. “They’re alongside the front passenger side, and one of the guys in the back is pointing a gun in the window at Malcolm.”

“I see it. That won’t go over well,” George said, watching, his heart pounding. Malcolm’s coach lurched hard to the right, sweeping the pickup truck off of the road. It hit the shoulder and rolled several times. Malcolm slammed on the brakes and parked by the side of the road. Heidi pulled up a little ways behind him, and George leaped out of his seat, just as Malcolm was walking out, pistol in hand.

“Stay in the coach, Heidi, and take the pistol out of the side map holder just in case. Keep your eyes open.” She nodded and grabbed the gun, checking the clip to make sure it was loaded.

“What’re you guys going to do?” she asked, sounding out of breath.

“Those are enemy combatants. What do you think?”

“Don’t get shot,” she said.

George met Malcolm on the side of the road. They started walking towards the truck, which was laying upside down, smoke billowing out of the engine compartment. Two men got to their feet from behind it and ran.

“Pull!” Malcolm shouted, laughing. Then he fired his rifle and hit the first militia man, sending him sprawling on the ground. George shook his head, laughing, and shot the other one with the assault rifle. They walked closer.

“How many were in this thing again?” Malcolm asked. “Hard to see from where I was.”

“Two in the cab, three in the back,” George said.

“Help me,” a voice said, coming out from the cab. “It’s going to blow. Please get me out of here.”

George and Malcolm looked at each other, then got closer. Malcolm looked in the cab.

“Well, hello there, inbreed,” Malcolm said. “What was that you wanted?”

“Get me out, please,” he croaked.

“Hey, Malcolm, the other guy from the back is dead,” George said. “Looks like his head almost got pulled off. He’s over there.”

“Well, that’s really too bad. The driver’s deader than a doornail too. So tragic,” he said, with semi-serious tone. “What’s that over there?”

“Jerry can,” George said. “Must have been in the back. Surprised it isn’t further away from the truck.”

“Got anything in it?”

George picked it up and shook it. “Aw, maybe a third full or so.”

“Good, bring it over here,” Malcolm said.

“Get me out, please. I don’t want to burn up,” croaked the voice from the cab.

“Thanks, George,” Malcolm said, taking the can. He leaned his gun up against his leg and opened the can. “Smells like gas alright.” He turned the can sideways and shook some gasoline into the cab, causing the militia man to scream. Then he walked slowly away from the truck, pouring a long trail.

“You’re a sick puppy,” George said.

“Hey, this is an enemy combatant. You know they would have raped Heidi and then killed all three of us if we wouldn’t have won.”

“You know something? You’re right,” George said, a wicked grin on his face. “Got a match?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Haven’t been able to give up those damn cigars yet. Gonna be the death of me.” He pulled out a match, lit it, and dropped it onto the gasoline trail. The line of flame moved quickly to the truck, and the cab became an inferno in a noisy rush. The militia man screamed.

“Ah, shut up, inbreed,” Malcolm shouted.

“We’d better get out of here,” George said.

“Yeah, I guess. Those creeps scratched up my rig.”

“It road worthy?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Malcolm said, taking a last look at the burning vehicle. The militia man had stopped screaming. Malcolm got a grin on his face. “I’m gonna enjoy this trip. Onward.” He walked back into his coach.

George entered his rig, and slid into the passenger seat again. He looked over at Heidi. “Ready to go?”

“Did you guys really have to do that?” she asked, a disgusted look on his face. “I knew you guys were going to kill him, but did you have to burn him alive?”

“Yeah,” George said, “and I hope the enemy sees what we did.”

“Why, so they’ll come after us?”

“No, so they’ll fear us,” George said. He didn’t look at her.

Back in Kansas, the Suburban and the bobtail pulled into Howard’s truck stop. The men all piled out, and headed for the store.

“Hey, guys, how you doing?” Howard asked, smiling at them from behind the counter.

“The place is coming along great,” Gabe said, smiling. “We need a few things.”

“Okay, what?” Howard asked. Gabe slid a piece of paper across the counter to him. “Hmmmm, I’ve got all the tires. Also got the batteries and the trailer light connectors. You guys know I have the propane, so bring the bottles over by the tank out front. I don’t have any fifth wheel hitches, but I know somebody who sells those. I suggest that you bring the truck that needs that in, rather than try to install it yourself, though. Is it with you?”

“No,” Dobie said. “But I’ll bring it back.”

“Okay,” Howard said. He pulled a business card out from below the counter and handed it to him. “Here’s the card for the guy I know. He’ll do a good job for you.”

Dobie looked at it. “Chuck’s RV Warehouse, huh?” he said. “Thanks.”

“By the way, I do deliver propane, so if you end up needing refills down the road, just give me a call.”

“We’ll probably take you up on that,” Gabe said.

“How’d the glass company do?” Howard asked.

“Great, thanks. I couldn’t believe how quick they were,” Dobie said. “We might need some chain link work done. We’ll be needing a couple of gates put in, and some cement and post work.”

“Well, surprisingly enough, I know somebody who does that too,” Howard said, chuckling. “Don’t have a card for him, though. Just call me when you’re ready, and I’ll put you in touch for a quote.”

“Good,” Gabe said.

“Think you’re going to stick it out there during the winter?”

“I don’t know, Howard. Hopefully,” Dobie said. “How bad does it get here? Will we be totally stuck out there?”

“At times,” he said. “The plows don’t get all the way out there that often. You get the power back on alright?”

“Yeah, they turned that on after a phone conversation. Same with the satellite system,” Dobie said.

“Well, that’s half the battle. I’d suggest all of you guys get ceramic heaters for your rigs. That way you can save on the propane. I’d also make sure that the diesel tanks are full up before winter sets in. That way if you lose power you’ll have a backup.”

“You have ceramic heaters?” Dobie asked.

“Nah, I can’t compete with Walmart on those. You should swing by there on your way out.”

“Okay,” Gabe said.

“You guys find the bar that Chet had out there?” he asked, grinning.

The men looked at each other.

“Yeah, we did,” Gabe said. His heart was starting to race. “Nice find. Not sure the women folk are that happy about it.”

“I’ve got a sizable hangover because of that place,” Jake said, laughing.

“Well, Hilda probably isn’t happy to see it,” Howard said, chuckling. “Ger used to tell me about that. He said she made him take his booze out to the deer blind. Wish I’d been able to see that. He said he turned it into a man cave.”

Terry started laughing. “I was in that thing. Lots of booze out there, plus a good stash of girly magazines.”

Howard started cracking up. “Yep, that sounds like Ger. I used to wonder how he and Hilda stayed married so long.”

“Wish I would’ve seen Hilda’s park,” Gabe said. “Hopefully the cretins didn’t completely ruin it.”

“Yeah,” Howard said. “Where do you want me to load the tires?”

“I’ve got all of the wheels in the back of my bobtail. You guys can mount and balance, correct?”

“Of course, just back it up by the bays over on the far side of this building,” he said, pointing.

“Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll go bring ‘er around.”

The men walked out the door. Jake and Terry went around the back to get the bobtail, while Gabe and Dobie stood outside, soaking up the sun in front of the store. Dobie elbowed Gabe.

“What?”

“Check out those rednecks over there,” Dobie said. He nodded towards the gas pumps. There was a dirty old pickup truck fueling up. The truck had four militia-looking men in the back.

“Cretins?” Gabe whispered “My phone didn’t go off.”

“Mine neither,” Dobie said.

Chapter 16 – Wild Turkey

Dobie and Gabe looked at the rednecks in the truck at the gas pumps.

“They might just be hunters, you know,” Dobie said.

“I know,” Gabe said. “How can we tell?”

“The guy gassing up is wearing a tank top. If they pulled chips out of their arms recently, he’ll have a scar…maybe even a bandage. I’m going to walk over there and take a look.”

“Alright, Dobie. Be careful,” Gabe said.

He nodded and walked over to the far side of the gas pumps, close to the truck. The men in the back were joking around. It sounded like they had a wild time at a bar last night. The guy pumping gas saw Dobie checking them out.

“Want something, Friend?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, no, sorry,” Dobie said. “I lost my fuel cap key. It might be in that stall next to you.”

“Oh,” the man said. He smiled and nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, man,” Dobie said, smiling back at him. He could see his triceps clearly. No scar. No bandage.

“So, did you nail her?” asked one of the guys in the back of the truck, laughing.

“Naw, she said she was married,” said another.

“Horseshit,” said the third.

Dobie pretended to look around on the ground next to the pumps.

“Dammit,” Dobie said. “Not here.” He started back.

“That sucks,” the gas pumper said. “Sorry, man.”

Dobie nodded and smiled at him as he walked away. He got next to Gabe again. “No scars, no bandages. Those guys are alright.”

“Whew,” Gabe said. “Had me worried.”

“Me too. Jake get the truck pulled around?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “You wanting to go to Walmart today for those heaters?”

“No, I think we ought to get back,” Dobie said. “Then I need to bring my truck back here for the fifth wheel hitch. If the shit hits the fan, we’ll need to get outta dodge in a hurry. I want to be ready.”

“Okay,” Gabe said.

It took about two hours to get the tires mounted and the propane tanks filled up. When men had everything loaded up and ready to go, Gabe walked back into the store to pay up and say goodbye to Howard.

“Hey, Howard, everything’s done,” he said, pulling out his credit card. Howard took it and got busy ringing it up.

“Gonna go to Walmart?” he asked.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Gabe said. “We’ll see. Dobie will be back pretty quick to get that fifth wheel hitch installed.”

“Today?”

“I’m guessing early tomorrow,” Gabe said. “We’ll see how the day goes.”

“You guys seem pretty anxious to be able to high-tail it out of there,” Howard said.

“Well, yeah,” Gabe said. “This group’s had to leave in a hurry more than once. If bad folks start getting past the Kansas border, we’re gone. The park is nice, but it’s not even a little bit defendable.”

“Oh,” Howard said. “Makes sense, I guess. That area is flatter than a pancake.” He handed the card back to Gabe, with a receipt.

“Okay, thanks, Howard,” Gabe said, shaking hands with him.

“Good luck,” Howard said. “I hope you get to stick around. Nice having you guys here.”

Gabe nodded on the way out.

The drive back to the park was uneventful. They got through the gate, and drove back by the trailers. Terry got out of the cab of the bobtail, and was walking towards his trailer. Trish saw him, and came running, jumping on him, hugging and kissing, her legs wrapped around.

“You weren’t worried about me the whole time, I hope,” Terry said, grinning.

“I’m going to worry about you whenever you’re out of my sight, so get used to it,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“It was a safe trip,” Terry said. “The cretins aren’t around.”

“Hopefully,” she said warily. “I’m still nervous. You guys get everything you needed?”

“Everything except for the fifth wheel hitch for Dobie. He’ll have to take his truck in for that. He’ll probably do it tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said. “Here comes Jerry and Jasmine.” Terry turned and saw them coming. They had concerned looks on their faces.

“Hey, everybody,” Jerry said. “We need to have another meeting. Could you come to the clubhouse?”

“Sure,” Terry said. Gabe turned and nodded yes.

“Everything okay?” Dobie asked.

“We got an email from Malcolm Davis,” Jerry said.

“Holy shit,” Dobie said. “Let’s go.”

They all followed Jerry and Jasmine back towards the clubhouse.

“Hey, Jane, it’s starting,” Jasmine yelled as they passed by the barn. Jane came out and met them, carrying the laptop, open. Charlie, Hilda, Kurt, and Jackson were all on their way in. Jeb and Rosie were already inside, having coffee with Earl and Mary.

“Okay, I think we’re all here,” Jerry said. “Frank, we need you to break away for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Frank said, walking over. “What’s going on?”

“Jane got an email very early this morning.”

“From who?” Frank asked. “General Hogan?”

“Malcolm Davis,” Jane said. There was a murmur amongst the group.

“No way,” Mary said. “What’d it say?”

“Gather around. I have it up on my laptop,” Jane said. Everybody got close as they could and read. It took a few minutes, because not everybody could get close enough at once.

“You haven’t replied to this yet, have you?” Frank asked.

“No, of course not,” Jane said. “We wanted to discuss it before we do anything.”

“They know where we are, so they’re showing up whether we like it or not,” Jeb said. “In reference to us, are these good guys or bad guys?”

“Well, that’s the real question,” Jerry said. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is a gift.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“We know where most of the enemy leadership is, and we’re pretty sure that General Hogan is being held captive as well. We think we know where.”

“Go on,” Charlie said.

“George and Malcolm are very experienced fighters. Hell, George is Special Forces. Don’t you think they might come in handy when we’re trying to take out the leadership, and rescue the General?”

“How do you know they’d go along with that?” Kurt asked.

“Well, I don’t know, for sure,” Jerry said. “But it’s worth talking to them about.”

“What if they just show up, get the info they need from the dungeon, and then kill all of us?” Hilda asked.

“Why would they do that?” Jasmine asked. “I’ve been doing research on these guys since we got the email, and I already knew a fair amount about Malcolm. They don’t tend to kill innocents. They kill the bad guys and all their friends. Okay, maybe they do too much without due process, but there aren’t any cases where they’ve shot up folks like us.”

“One other thing to keep in mind,” Trish said. “If Scott is still alive, he’ll eventually come back here. Wouldn’t it be better if we helped these guys take him out?”

“She’s got a good point,” Jasmine said. “We don’t want that guy around. He’s somebody who would kill all of us if he had the chance, and he doesn’t have a chip in him. He could sneak up on us.”

“So I take it you’re saying that we should invite these folks over,” Earl said.

“Yep,” Jerry said. “I say we tell them that we have evidence, and invite them to come stay a while. Oh, and by the way, they’re both in RVs.”

There was a chuckle from the group.

“Well, spaces we have,” Gabe said, grinning. “I say we try to strike a deal with these guys, but part of the deal has to be no premature notification of law enforcement about the dungeon. We can tell them why.”

“I agree,” Frank said. “We could use these guys, and I bet they’ll play ball.”

“Yep, Kurt said. “I agree. Anybody opposed?”

Nobody said anything.

“Oh, one thing I forgot to mention,” Jasmine said. “I found evidence of murders similar to what we had here moving slowly to the east. Malcolm’s onto something. Scott kept going after he left. Still can’t tell if he’s really dead or not.”

“Okay, I’ll take the laptop back out to the barn and send a reply,” Jane said. “I’ll tell him that we’ve found evidence, and that they’re welcome to come stay with us for a while, but they must not notify the authorities, due to our issues with the enemy.”

“Sounds good,” Charlie said. “Anybody object? Last chance.”

“I say we go for it,” Jeb said.

“Okay, thanks, everybody,” Jane said. She picked her laptop up and walked back out to the barn. Jerry stayed behind and followed Frank over to the PC.

“How’s it coming?” he asked. Frank looked over at him and smiled.

“Decided not to tell me about that right away, huh?” Frank said. Jerry looked uncomfortable.

“We knew we couldn’t meet until the guys got back from town, so we decided to leave you alone.”

“Don’t worry, you did the right thing,” Frank said, smiling.

“How’s it going?”

“Slow,” Frank said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get better than test mode with the app. Not a problem, except then not everybody can run it themselves. I’ll teach you to run it, though.”

“What’s the difficulty?”

“Getting the program to make fine adjustments by itself,” Frank said. “That’s pretty tough.”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “You have any reservations about George and Malcolm?”

“No, I think you got the situation pegged. It’s a gift.”

“It’ll probably mean that more of us survive,” Jerry said.

“Exactly,” Frank said.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. Let me know if you need anything.”

Frank nodded as Jerry left the clubhouse.

In Salt Lake City, George, Heidi, and Malcolm were sitting down to eat lunch, at a large truck stop on the east side of town. George and Heidi were on one side of the booth, and Malcolm was on the other.

“Good to have a little rest,” Malcolm said. “I’m getting tired a little faster than I used to.”

“You want to hang here for the rest of the day and take off tomorrow morning?” Heidi asked.

“Naw, I’d rather hit it,” Malcolm said. “But I’m glad you came up with the closer alternative for tonight.”

“Okay, Malcolm,” George said, “but don’t push yourself too hard. We don’t need you going off any cliffs. We can spend the night somewhere in the Rockies if we have to.”

Malcolm smiled back at them. Then a bell tone came from his phone. His smile broadened, as he pulled it out of his pocket.

“Our friends?” George asked.

“Yep,” Malcolm said. “We’ve been invited to come visit them, and stay a while at their RV Park.”

“Really?” George asked. “I’m surprised. Those people have been run ragged for a while now. I didn’t expect them to be so trusting.”

“You aren’t going to hurt these people, right?” Heidi asked.

“No way,” Malcolm said. “I’ve been following them now that I know about them. They’re part of the resistance. Like I said earlier, if anything, we’ll help them.”

“They put any condition on our visit?” George asked.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said. “They ask that we don’t go to the local police or the press with what they show us…at least not right away.”

“Why?” asked Heidi.

“The enemy wants to know where they are,” Malcolm said. “If what they found makes the news, it wouldn’t be good for them.”

“Oh,” Heidi said. “I get it.”

The waitress brought their food. They dug in quickly.

“Wonder if the news has picked up on our handiwork from earlier?” Malcolm said.

“We haven’t had the radio on,” Heidi said. “You think the authorities might come after us?”

“Naw,” Malcolm said. “They’d probably buy us all a beer. These guys were worse than criminals.”

“Seriously,” George said. “How would you like it if your parents were traveling in their motorhome and ran into folks like that?”

“I know, I know,” Heidi said.

“She a little upset about the bonfire?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh, just a little,” George said. “I told her why we did it.”

“Why do you think we did it, George?” asked Malcolm.

“To instill fear in the enemy, of course,” he replied.

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Oh, brother, here it comes,” Heidi said, getting a weary look on her face.

“Well?” George asked.

“I did it for the fun, mostly,” Malcolm said. “Although the fear part, and just taking out some inbreed trash are also part of the reward.”

“Alright, I get it,” George said. “Just be careful, man. You played games during the Beckler case, and it almost got you killed.”

“Don’t worry,” Malcolm said. “I’ll behave when the chips are down.”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “Just make sure we all get back home in one piece, okay? As for the enemy, don’t think I care about them for one minute. I’ll even help you guys kill them. I didn’t do so bad in the Sailor Boy case, remember?”

“Hell, you did pretty well in the Beckler case too,” Malcolm said. “I remember what you did with the queen bee. That was brilliant, and you saved an innocent in the process. You have my respect, Heidi, and that’s the truth.”

“Jill,” Heidi said, a faraway look in her eye. “Hadn’t thought about her for a long time.”

“Well, enough reminiscing,” George said. “I want that assault rifle up front all the time while we’re up in the Rockies. Think you can handle that thing while I’m driving?”

“I do okay with it at the range,” Heidi said. “It’s not my favorite, but I can hit the target with it. I’d rather use my 20 gauge.”

“You have to be too close with that, but if you’d feel better, we can put that up front too.”

“I’d like that, George,” Heidi said. “Wish Malcolm had somebody with him.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Let’s keep me in the lead, though. That way you two can watch my tail.”

“Yeah, that worked pretty well before,” George said.

“You going to reply to that email?” Heidi asked.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said, “as soon as I’m done with this burger, and get a chance to clean my hands. It’s messy, but good.”

Back at the Kansas RV Park, Terry was putting the wheels back on the trailer. Trish came out the door with a glass of ice water.

“Have a drink, honey,” she said, handing him the glass. He smiled and drank it down quickly.

“Thanks, sweetie. Getting pretty hot out here,” he said.

“Having any trouble?”

“No, this is easy,” he said. “It was harder getting them off.”

“What’re we going to use to tow this?”

“You’re dad said we could use the bobtail,” Terry said.

“What’s he gonna use?”

“Sounds like Kurt’s toad,” Terry said. “His trailer is so light, that he could use several of the vehicles. One of Kurt’s rental coaches could pull it too.”

“Oh, the ones that Earl and Jackson are in?”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “Of course one of them is being used to tow that backhoe.”

“What else do you have to do after the wheels?”

“Not too much. Put in the new battery, put the full propane tank back on the trailer, and replace the light harness connector. I’ll get all of it but the connector done before it gets dark.”

“That’s not so bad,” she said. “I wish we didn’t have to leave.”

“Well, maybe we won’t, at least for a while,” Terry said. “You know it’s possible that we’ll be successful taking out the leadership. If they’re gone and the enemy forces get defeated, we won’t have a big target on our backs anymore.”

“Well, it’s something to hope for,” she said.

Terry lifted the second wheel up onto the lugs and started putting the nuts on with his fingers.

“You know, this place isn’t going to be a good business,” Terry said. “If the world gets back to normal, we’ll have to make a living eventually. This place is too far from the interstate to do well.”

“My dad had a good electronics business going,” Trish said. “If he can open that back up again, maybe you could come in as a partner.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Terry said. “I don’t see myself getting back into the law enforcement business. Not really my thing.”

“Good, I don’t want to worry about you all the time,” she said.

Terry tightened the lug nuts. “Time to go on the other side of the trailer,” he said. “Two more wheels to go.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. Let me know if you need help.”

He nodded, picked up the other two wheels, and carried them around to the other side.

Jeb, Kurt, and Charlie were sitting down in the lounge. Rosie approached the trap door in the barn.

“You down there, Jeb?” she shouted.

“Yeah, honey,” Jeb said. “Want to come down?”

“Yes, I like. Time for cocktails,” she said.

Jeb looked sheepishly over at the others, and went over to help her down the stairs. She made it down pretty easily.

“Couch or bar?” Jeb asked.

“Put stool behind bar. I tend,” she said. “Fill ice bucket, please?”

“Sure, honey. I guess it’s time to wet our whistles.”

He got her set up back there, filled the ice bucket, and filled the pitcher with water, too.

“Who want drink?” she called.

“Well, I guess it’s post time,” Kurt said, laughing. “It’s after five o clock. Just don’t let me get too trashed, or Mary will be upset with me.” He walked over to the bar with Charlie, and they got on stools. Jeb joined them.

Rosie got a mischievous look on her face.

“Look out,” Jeb said. “She’s going to say something naughty.”

“No I not!” Rosie said, snickering. “Maybe Kurt needs Weng Weng.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Kurt said. “I heard about those suckers. Just pour me a Jameson on the rocks.”

“Scaredy cat,” she said, laughing. “Okay, customer always right.”

“So what do you think of the guests we got coming?” Jeb asked. “Make you guys nervous?”

“I don’t know much about them,” Charlie said. “Hilda told me a few things. They just sound like bounty hunters to me, but they take the Dead or Alive part more seriously than most do in this century.”

“Hey, you guys starting without me?” said a voice at the trap door. It was the Sheriff. He came down and took the last bar stool.

“Hi, Sheriff,” Rosie said. “Want drink?”

“Any Wild Turkey down there?”

Rosie looked, and got a grin on her face. She picked up the bottle and put it on the bar. “There is. You want ice?”

“Naw, just get out the shot glasses,” he said.

“That sounds good to me, too, Rosie,” Jeb said. Charlie nodded at her, so she got out shot glasses for them and herself, lining them up and filling them. Everybody took theirs and held them.

“Here’s to us,” the Sheriff said, raising his. Then they all drank them fast and put them down on the bar.

“Whew, that stuff is raspy,” Charlie said, shuddering.

“Don’t be light weight,” Rosie said. “Another?”

“Sure,” he said. Rosie poured.

“Sheriff, we were just talking about the guests we got coming,” Charlie said. “What do you think about them?”

“I don’t know much about George, but there’s been a lot of discussion about Malcolm in law enforcement circles. You know he was forced off of the LAPD, right?”

“You mean he was fired?” Jeb asked.

“No, they didn’t fire him,” the Sheriff said. “They gave him crap work. Mostly interviews. He was too much of a liability to the department. He got the message eventually, and took early retirement.”

“Oh,” Charlie said.

“Was he a good cop?” Kurt asked.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be his boss,” the Sheriff said.

“Why?” Jeb asked. “He got results, right?”

“Well, yeah, he cracked several big cases,” the Sheriff said. “He didn’t handle the success with grace, though. He wanted attention. He liked the limelight too much. But that wasn’t the big problem.”

“What was the big problem?” Kurt asked.

“He was judge, jury, and executioner more than once,” the Sheriff said. “There’s a word for that.”

“Which is?” Jeb asked.

“Murder.”

Chapter 17 – Summit Park

George and Heidi were going slowly up the long grade. The V-10 was pulling about five thousand rpm, filling the cockpit with engine noise, enough that the two couldn’t talk. Heidi was working her iPhone, but then she put it down, frustrated.

“No service,” she shouted. George looked over at her and nodded. He was getting tired. They were into the Rockies about an hour now. His eyes were dried out, his right leg was starting to ache, and his arms were tired from the switchbacks. He gave up trying to keep his speed above fifty. They were climbing along at about forty.

“Maybe we need to trade this sucker in on the way home,” Heidi shouted.

“Yeah, maybe,” George shouted back. He settled into his own head for a while. He was glad to be on the road, but he was nervous. Some of the bad guys that he’d fought in the Middle East were going to be involved. He could feel it more and more as they traveled. His mind kept going back to the dark period, after Sadie left him. He was wracked with PTSD then. Depressed, paranoid, retreating into his own mind. Heidi helped bring him out of that then. Would that work again? Maybe she was too tired. Maybe it would finally sink their relationship. Could he power through it himself? When the invasions first hit the news in California, he had that old feeling again, and worked hard to push it back. The Martial Law helped; it made him angry, and that helped him to get through the anxiety. Working with Malcolm helped, too, in a strange way. Malcolm had originally been his therapist for a couple of sessions. Now they were partners, but they were together constantly, and talked all the time. Malcolm was very sensitive to where his head was at. Some of their recent conversations were very reminiscent of the therapy days.

The road leveled out, and that helped with the noise. The rpm came down to about three grand as the engine shifted, and they got back up to about sixty mph.

“Finally,” Heidi said. “We hit the peak yet?”

“No, I don’t think so. Better enjoy it while we can.”

“How’re you holding up, honey? Want me to take over?”

“No, I’m still okay,” George said.

“You don’t look okay,” Heidi said. “I saw your brow furrowing. What’re you worried about?”

“Same old,” he said. “Running into demons from my past, real and imagined.”

“It’ll be alright,” she said, looking intensely at him. “Trust me. I’ll be here for you too, you know.”

“That’s part of what scares me,” George says. “You’re going to get tired of this.”

“Oh, please,” Heidi said. “If I could have walked, I would have done it after the Jason Beckler case. I was really upset over that, but I was more in love with you than I was upset with you. It’s still the same…” She took a long pause.

“What?”

“No, it’s not the same,” Heidi said. “I’m more in love with you now than I was before. You’re my life.”

“What if I have problems with PTSD again?” George asked.

“I figured that was part of what you were worried about,” she said. “Between Malcolm and me, we’ll keep you centered. You can go to another therapist too, you know. You don’t have that kind of relationship with Malcolm anymore.”

“I know,” George said. His phone rang. “Guess we have service again.” He pulled it out and answered.

“Hi, Malcolm, what’s up?”

“I’m going to need another break. There’s a place coming up called Summit Park. Let’s stop there.”

“Good idea, I could use a short break too, Malcolm. I’ll follow you off.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

George put his phone back in his pocket.

“Where does he want to stop?” Heidi asked.

“Summit Park. I’m glad. I could use a stretch myself.”

“Hopefully the name means that it’ll be downhill from there.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” George said. He looked over at her. “I love you more than I did in the old days, too. I don’t think I could live without you.”

She smiled back at him, her eyes misting.

They rode along silently for a few minutes, and then Malcolm turned on his right blinker and headed for the off ramp. George followed. They pulled into a truck stop.

“You need gas already?” Heidi asked.

“I could top it off,” George said. “Might as well, since we’re here.”

He got out, and Heidi followed him. “Want a snack or some coffee from the store?”

“How about both,” George said.

“What?”

“Surprise me, honey,” he said as he started fueling. Malcolm walked over.

“Good to get away from the driver’s seat for a few minutes,” he said.

“You need gas?”

“Just topping off,” Malcolm said.

“Any news?”

“Not really,” Malcolm said. “Ted called, and told me that Colorado was hot, especially around Denver, but we already knew that.”

“Why’s the army messing around with these creeps?” George asked.

“Too many of our troops are still in Mexico, I suspect,” Malcolm said. “Haven’t seen anything at all about our incident back there.”

“Really? I’m surprised. Maybe it made the local news back there, at least.”

“Probably,” Malcolm replied. “We still good to make it to Wamsutter?”

“Well, I should be asking you that question,” George said. “I’ve got a relief driver, remember?”

“Don’t rub it in,” he said, chuckling. “I’m okay, though. I’m actually loving every minute of this, and that pusher is like driving my easy chair.”

“Now you’re rubbing it in,” George said, laughing. “Heidi wanted to know if this place really is the summit.”

“Tired of those grades, I take it.”

“You guessed it.” George said.

“Well, it’s mostly downhill from here, but there are a few grades here and there as we navigate the topography. You can tell her that we’re past the worst of it, though.”

“You guys talking about me?” Heidi asked, walking up with a bag.

“I was just asking Malcolm if we were past the worst of the grade yet.”

“Well?” she asked.

“Mostly,” Malcolm said. “The worst is behind us now, sugar plum.”

“Good,” Heidi said.

“No coffee?” George asked.

“It smelled burned and nasty,” Heidi said, “so I got us cokes instead. Okay?”

“Sure,” George said.

“I got one for Malcolm too,” she said, pulling one out of the bag and handing it to him.

“Ah, thanks,” Malcolm said. “This’ll hit the spot.”

“We ought to be going,” George said. “We’ve got a ways to go yet.”

“Okay, I’ll see you two in Wyoming,” Malcolm said.

“See you later,” George said. He put his hand on Heidi’s shoulder, and they walked back to their rig as Malcolm took the fuel nozzle out of his coach.

“Sugar plum?” Heidi said, laughing as she sat back down in the passenger seat.

“He’s got a lot of affection for you,” George said. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I like him a lot too. I’m not so sure that the worst is behind us, though.”

“I know,” George said. “Me neither.” He fired up the engine, and they followed Malcolm back towards the highway.

Back in Kansas, Frank was still struggling with his programming. Jane came in and saw how frustrated he was. She sat down next to him.

“You okay, Frank?” she asked, stroking her hand through his hair.

“Oh, I guess,” he said. “Just frustrated.”

“Don’t wear yourself out too much,” she said. “You’ve already got enough done to get us through.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I just hate problems I can’t solve. I’m stuck with both the PC version of the long range view, and the hacking to get the cross reference for the names.”

“Well, you and Jerry could man two laptops out in the field for the close-in view, you know,” Jane said. “It won’t be that bad.”

“I know, but Jerry’s an important tactical guy,” Frank said. “I’d probably better be training you and Jasmine to work this.”

“What’s so hard about it?” Jane asked.

“You’ll have to use the programming environment, and you’ll have to understand enough about the program to be able to fine tune it on the fly.”

“It can’t be that hard,” Jane said.

“It’s not if you have at least a little programming background.”

“Which I don’t have, of course,” Jane said. “How about the names?”

“Daan Mertens,” Frank said. “He’s my equal in just about every way. He’s got his system protected six ways from Sunday.”

“Well, that was colorful. How late are you working tonight?” she asked.

“Oh, maybe just a little while after dinner,” he replied. “Why?”

“I just wanted a little us time, that’s all.”

“You don’t know how good that sounds,” Frank said, leaning back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. “What’s everybody else doing?”

“Gabe, Terry, Jake, and Dobie are getting their trailers ready to leave,” she said. “I think they’re just about done with that, although Dobie’s going to have to take his truck to town in the morning for the fifth wheel hitch set up.”

“It makes me nervous every time one of us goes into town,” Frank said.

“Why? It’s not bad there, thanks to the border being sealed up.”

“I know, but it still makes me nervous,” Frank said. “I hope they’re keeping to themselves when they’re there.”

“Dobie saw some rednecks in a truck at Howard’s place, and got pretty nervous. The local app didn’t go off.”

“Uh oh,” Frank said, looking concerned.

“Don’t worry,” Jane said. “He got close to them and checked them out. One of them had a tank top on. No scars or bandages on the triceps.”

“Good,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Jane said. “He said they were just hunters, and nice guys too.”

“Alright. I’m probably worrying too much.”

“No you’re not,” Jane said. “And by the way, our new trailer owners are in a panic to get their rigs ready for the road.”

“They’ve been listening to Jeb and Kurt,” Frank said. “This place has no cover at all. If we get found, the only thing we can do is run, unless it’s a small force that we can defeat.”

Jerry came in with Jasmine.

“You just about ready to knock off, Frank?” Jerry asked. “Getting close to dark.”

“That’s why I’m in here bugging him,” Jane said. “He’s tired.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Frank said, chuckling.

“I made some chili,” Jasmine said. “Care to join us?”

“Yes, we’d love to,” Jane said, looking over at Frank.

“Alright, alright,” Frank said, locking the screen on the PC. “I have to come back after dinner for a few minutes, though. I’ve got something compiling.”

“Only for a few minutes though, right?” Jane asked.

“Right.”

They left for Jerry and Jasmine’s rig.

Terry was finished up with the trailer. He joined Trish inside. She was dozing on the couch, a book opened face down on her chest. She stirred when Terry closed the door.

“Sorry, was trying to be quiet,” Terry said, sitting down at her feet.

“I wanted to get up anyway,” she said, stretching. The book started to slide off of her, and Terry caught it before it reached the floor. He noticed that there was a bullet hole in it, going through the top right hand side. He laughed.

“So you have to guess at some of the words, I see,” he said, chuckling.

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “Pretty close to the margins. Some of the other books aren’t usable anymore.”

Good thing those books were back there…they probably stopped the bullets from getting through to the cab of the bobtail.”

“I know,” she said, sitting up. She leaned against him. “Want to go raid the pantry for some food?”

“Sure,” Terry said. “Let’s go.”

The couple left the coach and went to the clubhouse. Hilda was just leaving the kitchen as they walked in.

“You two looking for some food?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Trish said. “Down there, right?”

“Yes, but watch your step,” Hilda said. “Those stairs are really steep. Close the trap door when you’re done, okay?”

“Of course,” Trish said. “We wouldn’t want anybody falling in at night.”

“That’s for sure,” Hilda said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Trish said. Terry opened the trap door, and she went down the steps. He followed her, hitting the light switch on the way down. They could hear voices down the long hallway.

“Jeb and Rosie, probably a few others,” Terry said. “Having a drink or two.”

“Or three,” Trish said, giggling. “My dad got pretty trashed down there yesterday.”

“I know,” Terry said, grinning sheepishly. “It’s okay. It was his daughter’s wedding day.” He pulled Trish close and kissed her.

“Later,” she said, smiling. “What do you want to eat?”

“Something easy,” he said.

“How about corned beef hash?” Trish asked, looking at the can.

“That’s a big can,” he said.

“They’re all big…we probably should be eating as a group. We’d waste less.”

“We have a freezer,” Terry said. “We could probably get three meals out of that can. It’ll keep. What should we have with it?”

“Green beans alright?”

“Sure, and how about some mashed potatoes?” he asked, pointing to the large box on the shelf.

“No, there’s starch in the hash, and besides, I’d want to take a good look at those potato flakes. There might be bugs.”

“Added protein,” Terry said, laughing. Trish socked him on the arm.

“Eewww.” Laughter erupted down the hall. “You want to go down there and say hi?” she asked.

“Naw, let them have their fun,” Terry said. “Besides, it kinda gives me the creeps down there now.”

“Okay, then let’s go back to the trailer,” she replied. They climbed the stairs and headed out into the dusk.

At Jerry and Jasmine’s rig, dinner was over. Frank and Jane were sitting across the dinette from Jerry, as Jasmine was putting dirty bowls in the sink.

“You’re thinking that we ought to plan out our attacks sooner rather than later?” Jerry asked. “You think there’s no chance you’re going to get the names added to the apps?”

“Not if I can’t crack the enemy system,” Frank said. “Damn Belgian.”

“Let’s be real,” Jerry said. “I can probably guess who the number ones are that we can see, just by the country codes. Saladin is sitting out in Capitol Reef, and either Phil or Daan are at the air force base.”

“I know that,” Frank said. “I was hoping to be able to show names to help General Hogan, mainly. I was thinking about the icons we have wandering around in DC.”

“Oh, I get it,” Jerry said. “You’re still having trouble with that long range close-in view, too, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Frank said, “but we can work around that. I’ll teach you and the girls how to run it in test mode. I’ll have to load the programming environment on a couple more laptops. Does Jasmine have programming experience?”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jasmine said. “Yes, I do have some background.”

“Good, then I’ll teach you and Jerry first, and then you could help Jane while I keep trying to hack the enemy system.”

“Sounds like a good plan, as long as it starts tomorrow morning,” Jane said.

“So we’re looking at a couple more days of prep, then,” Jerry said.

“When did our guests say they were going to arrive?” Frank asked.

“Probably late tomorrow, or the following morning.”

“Well, then I think that’s the most important time factor right now,” Frank said. “We’re going to have to spend a little time prepping to show them everything.”

“They’re going to be most interested in the dungeon, aren’t they?” Jasmine said.

“Probably, but we need to get their interest onto the enemy as quickly as we can,” Frank said.

“You’re going to tell them everything, aren’t you?” Jane asked.

“Yeah.”

“Sure that’s a good idea, honey?” Jane asked, looking nervous.

“I do,” Frank said.

“I’m a little apprehensive about that,” Jerry said, “but Jasmine’s been selling me on the idea, and she knows more about these folks than I do.”

“I’d better go check that compiler,” Frank said. “I might have to make a quick tweak and run it again.”

“Okay, Frank, I’ll go over there with you,” Jerry said. “What are you trying to compile?”

“My last attempt at getting the long range close-in view to work,” Frank said. “If this attempt doesn’t do it, we’ll be doing the training I was just talking about.”

“You don’t sound very confident,” he said.

“I’m not. Let’s go.”

Frank and Jerry left Jane and Jasmine behind, and walked out into the night.

“Peaceful here,” Jerry said, as they walked. Most of the coaches had lights on now.

“It makes me nervous now,” Frank said. “Knowing what used to go on in that dungeon. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Yeah, but past is past, and I don’t believe in ghosts,” Jerry said. “I think it bothers Jasmine a little bit. She’s got kind of a hero worship thing going for Malcolm, though. She’d be more freaked if he wasn’t coming.”

“Why?”

“Because she thinks that Scott is still alive,” Jerry said. “I hope she’s wrong.”

They entered the clubhouse, and turned on the lights. It was deserted. Frank slid onto the chair in front of the PC and unlocked the screen.

“Shit!” he said. He pulled the network cable out of the PC.

“What?” Jerry asked.

“Somebody was on there, searching through files.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jerry said. “Can’t tell who, I suppose. Shoot, what about the laptops out in the barn?”

“Jane took ours into the coach before we came over, and I saw both of yours on the driver’s seat in your coach,” Frank said.

“Oh, good, Jasmine picked them up,” he said. “Whew. Now what?”

“I need to stick a firewall program on all of these machines,” Frank said. “Tomorrow. I’m beat.”

“Me too,” Jerry said. “Let’s go.”

The two left the clubhouse.

In Columbus, Ohio, the man sitting in front of the PC slammed his fists down on the messy desk, screaming with rage, as the message told him he was disconnected. There was a whimper behind him, coming from the cage against the wall. A dim single light bulb lit the dirty basement room.

“Shut up,” the man shouted at her. The girl tried to sink into the stone wall behind the cot she was laying on. She was trembling, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a silent scream.

The man looked over at her and snickered. “It’s going to be a long night for you, bitch. Time to tie up my loose ends here.”

Continued in Bugout! Part 9, available now!

Copyright

Bugout! Part 8 copyright © 2015 by Robert G Boren. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Thanks to Laura Thomas for editing this book!

About the Author

Robert G Boren is a writer from the South Bay section of Southern California. He writes Short Stories, Novels, and Serialized Fiction. Most of his work is about people from the South Bay.

Other Books by Robert Boren

Never A Loose End - The Franklin and Davis Files Book One

Serial Killers. Maniac Ex-cops. CIA Assassins. White Slavers. Strippers

In "Never A Loose End", they all come together, racing towards their frightening destiny.

This is the story that started it all for George Franklin and Malcolm Davis. Some of you know them from the later episodes of the Bug Out! series, set seven years later. This is the story of how they met, and the battle that forged them into a formidable team.

George and Malcolm are both targets, marked for death, but why?

A clan of Serial Killers is active again, after hiding for years. What has brought them out?

Follow George and Malcolm as they dash through the Southwest in their Motorhomes.

Murder, gun battles, bombings, and general mayhem reign in "Never A Loose End"

Who will survive? Will the hunted be brought down, or will they become the hunters instead?

Find out in "Never A Loose End - The Franklin and Davis Files Book One"

Note: This full length novel carries a hard R rating, unlike the PG-13 Bug-Out! series. "Never A Loose End" contains graphic violence and sex. Discretion is advised.