Bug Out! Part 8: RV Park Terror (10 page)

“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!”

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.”