Going Home (39 page)

He was able to speed down the road. Most of the cars had been pushed to the side of the road.
Awfully
considerate
of
’em
, he thought. It wasn’t until he got to the plaza where the Publix and Kmart were that he encountered people. From what he could see, they were lining up for food. There was every mode of conveyance known to man in the parking lot: horses, bikes, cars, trucks, and ATVs, even a wagon pulled by a couple of mules. He slowed as he came by, just looking at the scene below. There were enough other vehicles around that he really didn’t draw any looks.

From the looks of things, they were either feeding right there or distributing food, maybe a combination of both. Not being interested in anything they had, he pressed on and made the south side of town without incident. Just south of Inverness was a park called Fort Cooper. The Withlacoochee State Trail runs parallel to the highway and fronts the park. Across the street was the Inverness Municipal Airport. As with all local airports, it’s out of town a bit, so there would be fewer people around. Thad seriously doubted anyone would be having a picnic at the park right now.

Finding a place he could cross the trail and enter the park, Thad pulled the truck across the paved walkway and into the park. Thad had been here before, on a Sunday drive with his wife and son. Pulling into the park brought memories of little Tony climbing the old oaks. He started to drive back toward the campsites without even thinking about it. Realizing what he was doing, he pulled the truck off the path into the woods. Heading for the campground was not a good idea under the current circumstances.

Winding his way through the trees, he finally came to a small bay head. The area was thick with tall pines and large, spreading oaks. “This oughta do,” he said as he shut the truck off. Climbing out, he stretched and walked around, taking a look at the area. He couldn’t see or hear anyone, but he could smell a campfire, and that concerned him a bit. Going to the rear of the truck, he quietly lowered the tailgate, hanging the little loop of cord to hold it up. Taking a seat, he pulled the pack over and fished around until he found an MRE and pulled it out and then went back in after a heater. He wanted some hot food this morning.

Pouring a little water in the pouch and stuffing the beef stew in, he set it aside to warm up. A hot drink would be nice; he went into the pack and found the canteen cup stove and a pack of hexamine tabs. Using the canteen, he filled the cup and set the stove on the ground. Putting a tab under the stove, he lit it with a BIC lighter and then set the cup of water on it. Once the water was heating, he went back into the pack to find the pouch of cocoa he saw earlier.

With his breakfast warming, Thad went to the cab and pulled the captured weapons out. He looked the SKS over, getting a feel for how it operated. He never owned a rifle; this would be his first. Looking at the pistols, one was a Ruger P89 and the other was a Hi-Point C9. He didn’t really like the Hi-Point but thought the Ruger was a pretty good piece. He mentally marked the C9 as a barter gun if it came to it. Thad sat on the tailgate of the truck and ate, enjoying the hot food. He let the water heat until the tab burned out and then dumped the cocoa in and stirred it up. While he was drinking his cocoa, he cleaned up the dinner, throwing the empty pouches in the bed of the truck.

Pulling out his sleeping bag, he laid it out on the front seat of the truck. He laid the pack on the floorboard and crawled into the bag. As he was getting settled into the bag, he thought about cracking the windows to prevent condensation. Looking up at the huge hole in the glass where the cab met the windshield and then back to the hole in the rear glass, he thought it was pointless. Thad tried to get comfortable on the bench seat; he had his shotgun lying on the bench in front of him and the Glock in his bag with him. He stuck the Ruger into the door handle by his head and tried to go to sleep.

A noise woke him up. He opened his eyes and gripped the shotgun. The noise was coming from the rear of the truck. There was definitely someone in the bed of the truck. He heard them going through the junk scattered there. He lay there cursing himself in his mind for sleeping. Here he was wrapped up in a damn bag and someone had snuck up on him.

He lay there for another minute, weighing his options. Certainly they knew he was there, but maybe they thought he was asleep. With his head against the passenger door, he partially saw out the driver’s window and most of the windshield. Only, from this angle, Shaq could be standing in front of the truck, and he wouldn’t be able to see him. Turning his head slightly, he looked up at the hole in the rear window. There were some cracks radiating from it. He settled on a plan; he would sit up as fast as he could and shove the barrel of the shotgun through the glass and fire at whoever was out there.

The noise grew louder, and Thad steeled his nerves and, with a guttural scream, bolted upright. He shoved the shotgun through the glass with such force that the knuckles on his left hand wrapped around the fore end went through the glass. The scream, combined with the sound of the shotgun tearing through the glass, caused the three raccoons in the bed of the truck to jump straight up. One of the poor critters was in line with the barrel when Thad pulled the trigger, turning it into a red mist of goo that flew over the tailgate. The other two made for the brush, making more noise than the Confederate army marching onto the Dade Battlefield.

I looked over at Roy. “You guys got any comms?”

He looked at me and replied, “We have some. Power is the biggest issue, especially with portable radios.”

I took that to mean they either had CBs or hams. CB would be bad for long-range comms, but maybe they weren’t worried about it. We were all standing around; I wasn’t planning on leaving until after dark. I didn’t know what these guys were planning.

“What are you guys gonna do?” I asked them as a group.

They all looked around at one another. Norm finally spoke up. “We’re headed over to the range. Since you’re headed that way, why don’t you come with us?”

Here was the conundrum—I didn’t know these guys, but there was safety in numbers. These guys looked pretty well equipped and hadn’t done anything to threaten me; if they wanted to, they could have killed me. Just a couple more questions to make me feel better about it.

“What are you guys going to do when you get there?” I asked the group again.

Again, Norman answered me, “We’re just going to look around. See what’s going on over there—if anything is going on over there.”

“You guys mentioned helicopters. Have you seen any?” I asked.

“No, we’ve heard them and been told by others, but we haven’t seen any,” Norman replied.

“What if you do see one?” This was what I was really curious about.

“Shoot it down,” Frank replied.

Norman shot him a look. “He’s kidding. We just want to have a look.”

“Well, I’m not ready to take on the military yet. I have seen their helicopters and don’t want any part of them,” I replied.

This statement brought raised eyebrows from them. They looked around at one another again. I went on to explain about seeing the Kiowa. I didn’t tell them about seeing it right after I used the radio. I still hadn’t told them about having it yet. There was quite the conversation about why no one had seen any others, and why I saw a Kiowa and not an Apache or other gunship. These guys were full of theories. I just wanted to get home. Listening to enough of their banter, I finally asked when they planned to leave.

“We’re ready anytime,” Norman answered.

“You guys move during the day?” I asked. This surprised me.

“Yeah, like I said, we haven’t seen any helicopters and have a pretty good idea where they are, so moving during the day isn’t an issue to us,” Norman replied.

I shouldered my pack, and we started out. Daniel was in the lead, then Norm, Roy, me, and Frank, who was bringing up the rear. We started out heading southeast, walking single file and as quietly as we could. We hit a paved road in less than half a mile. When the road came into view, Daniel held up a fist and slowly started to drop to one knee. The others all did likewise. Seeing the hand signal, I was reacting as well. Frank put a hand on my shoulder, applying a little pressure. That kind of bugged me. I turned my head slightly to one side.

“I know. You don’t have to worry about me.” Frank pulled his hand away without saying anything. Daniel approached the road, slowly, very cautiously. Slipping up to the road, he took a long look. We probably sat there for fifteen minutes.

Daniel finally started to rise. We all followed him. Moving up to where he was, everyone took up a position where we could provide over-watch. Daniel went first, in a rush. He provided cover for the rest of us, each taking a position of cover on the opposite side of the road. All this seemed a little ridiculous to me. We aren’t in combat, after all. We had to execute the same procedure on another road. This one happened exactly like the previous, with the exception that Frank didn’t grab my shoulder.

Late afternoon in the piney woods was nice. This area was nothing but pines. There was some underbrush, palmettos, and cleared chops. The palmetto flats were a little rough to try to push through. As we were bulling our way through one particularly rough patch, I suddenly had a horrible thought. Ticks. I could only imagine how many ticks I would have on me. I hadn’t worried about bugs in some time—no skeeters and no bugs. But this place was without a doubt overrun with ticks. Note to self, strip down and do a body check.

As we walked along, I pulled the notebook out and consulted the codes for today. The way the code was written, it was a simple revolving system, with an offset. So each day I just went to the next page, simple and effective. The offset in time from our radio encounter puts me calling about five o’clock. It was almost that time. I was nervous about letting these guys in on the fact that I had a radio, but I was going to call in to Sarge and hang out a bit and call home.

“Hey, guys, I need to hold up,” I said in a low voice.

They all turned around and looked at me. “I need to do something.” They still just stood there, looking sort of expectantly at me. Dropping my pack, I took out the antenna and the slick line and looked for a suitable tree; the choices were endless. Picking one out, I tossed the line up and pulled up the antenna. Roy looked over at me. “You got a radio?”

I was attaching the antenna when he asked. “Yeah, a little one,” I replied.

Roy walked over, the others taking up a defensive perimeter. He looked down at the Yaesu. “Yeah, it’s little, but that’s one hell of a radio,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Where did you get that?”

“From a friend of mine. Do you guys have hams?” I asked him without looking up.

“We have one that we use to listen with. You aren’t going to transmit with that thing, are you?” His brow was furrowed; his eyes were kinda squinted.

“Maybe, I’m checking to see if someone is on the air,” I replied. Finished hooking up the antenna, I looked up at him.

Roy looked over at Norman. “No wonder he’s seen a Kiowa. They’re tracking his signal.”

Norman looked over at me. “When was the last time you transmitted? Where were you?”

“It’s been a while, and I was far away from here. Long before I ever got to the bridge,” I answered.

“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t transmit right now, least not while we’re here,” Roy said.

“I know what you guys are worried about, but I don’t think they—whoever they are—has the ability to triangulate. Each time I saw the birds, they were always searching around; only once did it ever fly right over me. Even then, it didn’t see me,” I said as I was plugging the headset in. I flipped the power switch and started to sift through the frequencies. I knew what freq Sarge would be on but didn’t go straight to it. The radio traffic was picking up. Slowing on one freq, I caught a ham near DC. He said the city was absolute chaos. You couldn’t go outside, and even if you stayed inside and someone noticed you were there, you ran the risk of being overrun. I never heard who he was talking to. The guy must have breathed through his ears, as he never let up. What came next on the station shocked the shit out of us.

In a very clear transmission came, “Transmitting station, you are in violation of executive order 10995. Under the rules of martial law, you are ordered to cease all transmissions and disable your transmitter immediately. Any further transmissions will result in severe consequences.”

The transmission was repeated. As it began to repeat, I motioned for Roy and Norman to come over. Each of them put one side of the headset to an ear and listened. Their eyes grew wide, both of them looking at me. I simply nodded my head. When the transmission was done, they handed the headset back. I cupped one earpiece to my head in time to hear the guy near DC come back over the air.

“What the fuck are you doing? We need help, and you’re telling me to get off the radio! Send me fucking help before these animals kill us all!” he screeched into the radio.

I looked over at Norman. “This guy is screaming back at them.”