Seven Days To Brooklyn: A Sara Robinson Adventure (11 page)

Sara makes her way around the rock outcropping and climbs another 200 feet up to the top of the bluff to get a bird’s-eye view of the valley. The sun continues to blaze overhead as the temperature climbs above eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, adding to the trio’s misery. On top of the bluff, she turns 360 degrees surveying the area around her. The desolation of the New Mexico desert is endless, and even more so with the lack of inhabitants from people leaving the area after the demise of civilization. Removing her backpack, and unslinging the rifle, Sara lies down in the prone position and opens the bipod leg attachment on the rifle to prop up the barrel. Looking through the scope, she scans the valley floor and roadway to the north of them. The heat radiates off the asphalt and gives way to a mirage of water far off in the distance. Scanning to the west and left side of the road, she carefully, slowly, and methodically checks every rock, cactus, and piece of dirt for signs of life. The minutes give way to hours as the afternoon sun begins to set in the west. With no luck on the afternoon hunt, Sara gives up, throwing her backpack on her back and slinging the rifle across her chest in front of her. Scrambling back down the scree-filled slope, she slides most of the way back to where she left Mac and Ava.

“Did you see anything?” Mac says as he sees Sara walking up to him.
 

“Nothing! There’s nothing out here. Looks like we will have to go into town to find something to eat.”

Ava is looking better and is finishing off the last bit of water.
 

“I’m ready to go as soon as you guys are. Can’t stay out here another day without shade or food.” Her raspy voice trails off as she speaks.
 

A low rumble hits their ears as they are standing up. “Get down.” Sara unslings the rifle and looks up the road to the south.

Looking through the scope, she sees a motorcycle with a single rider on it. The motorcycle and rider grow larger and larger as it gets closer. At less than 500 feet away, Sara recognizes their new friend who just relieved them of their transportation. Her right finger gently squeezes the trigger of the rifle, sending a cloud of dust up in front of the barrel. The rider is knocked off the bike before the sound of the rifle shot gets to him, the bike skidding across the pavement before landing in the opposite ditch.
 

“Now we got wheels. Go ahead, Mac, grab the bike. We’ll be right down.”
 

She ejects the spent shell casing, with a grin coming across her lips. Sara looks at Ava, who is just staring at her, a defeated look on her face.
 

“C’mon, let’s hit it; we will be eating out on the town before the sun goes down.”
 

Ava struggles to get up, eventually regaining enough strength to stand up and stumble out to the roadway. Mac is ready and waiting on the bike as Sara climbs onto the front of the bike between him and the fuel tank. Ava stumbles over and straddles the seat behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest, head buried in his back. The little Triumph strains under the weight of three passengers as Mac adds some throttle to get them going. A bit wobbly at first, he leaves his legs off the pedals and close to the ground until they get up to speed. In no time at all, the outskirts of Roswell present themselves in front of the trio as more houses and businesses materialize on both sides of the road. Just to the left of them, the international airport passes by, but they decide to continue into town, opting for a location that could have a restaurant and place to stay the night. Mac slows the bike down to twenty miles an hour as they pass by the local cemetery.

“Don’t think that’s been used for a while.” Mac drives the bike into the center of town. Up ahead, Sara spots the UFO museum and starts pointing. Knowing that’s his cue to pull over, Mac eases the bike up to the sidewalk and just under the marquee of the museum. Looking up, Sara stares into the large eyes of an alien that is the display for the museum.
 

“We got to go inside. This is it! This is it!”
 

She jumps off the bike and runs up to the doors, finally noticing a Closed for Business sign on the front door. Placing her face up against the glass door, she peers inside at the oddities that are in the lobby. She shakes the door, and it is locked. “No worries; got this.”
 

Pulling out the lock picks, she has the door open in less than a minute. Looking over her shoulder at Mac, she motions for him and Ava to follow, before disappearing inside the building.
 

“Well, I guess we are taking a tour,” he says as he steps off the bike.
 

“Yes, aren’t we lucky to have such a distinguished colleague such as Sara?” Ava chokes out before putting her arm around Mac’s shoulder. Mac helps her inside the building and sets her down on a staircase just inside. The museum looks as though it could have been an old theater, but now is oddly decorated with alien information from the 1940s and up. On display are things you would likely find in a state that is steeped in alien mystery after the cover-up in the late ’40s of the alien spacecraft crash and the refusal of the US government to acknowledge aliens.
 

Posted on a display board on a far wall is a poster: “Dulce Base—Fact or Fiction? The true alien base in Northern New Mexico.”
 

Sara has searched the whole building looking for anyone who could pose a problem later. Rounding a corner back into the main lobby, she comes out and startles Mac.

“Don’t do that.” Mac’s heart races. “Check that sign out Sara.”

Sara gives it a quick glance before turning back to face him. “That’s where we are headed.”
 

Sara pulls out the notebook, turning it to a page that has Dulce printed across the top of the page. “Here, look, my dad put this in here. It must be important, or he wouldn’t have put it in here.” Mac walks over and looks over the page. Just under the word Dulce is a set of GPS coordinates:
 

N36˚ 58’47.24 W106˚ 58’.

“Okay. So there is a secret base that nobody but your dad knows about, except for half of the world and most of Roswell, New Mexico, and he has most of the coordinates for said base entrance?”
 

“Hey, dip shit, the alien story is just a cover, a cover for a secret base where military medical experiments are conducted.” Sara is a bit ticked but presses on with her explanation. “Medical experiments that my dad uncovered when he was working with the CDC in Washington, DC. He wrote about it in his journal. It’s all in here. I think it has something to do with what is going on in the world right now with the Ebola virus.”
 

She finishes off her statement as she walks past the duo and up to the glass doors, staring outside and across the street. “I’m getting hungry; I need to find something to eat.”
 

“Wait a minute,” Mac pipes up. “You mean to tell me that coming here was planned all along?”

“Yep.” The only reply he gets out of Sara before she swings the door open and steps out into the street. Armed with only the pistol and bowie knife, Sara scans the deserted street left and right before spotting a café sign two blocks to the south. Stepping back inside the building while still partially holding the door open, she yells to Mac and Ava. “There’s a café just down the block.”

 
“Probably no food there, but worth a try,” Mac says to Ava.
 

“Let’s go; kids got to eat, and I’m hungry, too.” Ava replies.

They exit and follow Sara, who has already crossed the street, a block ahead of them. They watch as Sara enters the café.
 

A few minutes later, Mac and Ava are at the front door of the café. They swing the door open, and a bell attached to the top of the doorjamb rings. The 1950s diner seats are tattered and worn but in relatively good shape for a restaurant that has been open for more than half a century. From behind the counter, they hear the small hands rummaging around in the kitchen. Pots and pans are clattering as Sara looks through the pantries and freezers. Mac helps Ava get seated at a booth and then heads into the kitchen. Swinging the door open, he sees Sara with two large, one-gallon-size cans of food. The labels have been torn off, but they still look as if they may contain some food.
 

“May be something good. May not,” Sara says.

Mac looks at her, then searches for a can opener. “Here, the can opener is over there.” He points to the end of a stainless prep table where the industrial can opener with a large spinner knob is still attached to the table. Handing him the can, Sara stands off to one side as he slides the can opener up and then down on the top of the can. Rotating the device around the edge of the can slices the lid open in fewer than ten turns of the handle. The smell of tomatoes instantly hits their noses. Mac pulls the top of the can off to reveal a tomatoey surprise of spaghetti and meatballs. Sara looks down at it as though it is a delicacy, the likes of what would be served in one of the finest restaurants in New York City.
 

Mac lifts the can up and over to the stove. “Let’s see if this thing still works,” he says as he twists a dial on the front of the stove to the ‘Light’ position. It clicks a few times as the hiss of propane gas hits their nostrils before igniting. A yellowish-red flame quickly turns to blue.
 

“There you go. Got a pot to put this stuff in?”

She’s one step ahead of him and is already grabbing a large saucepan, placing it on the open flame. Mac turns the can upside down, dumping the slop into the pan. Grabbing a stool at the end of the counter, Sara places it in front of the stove, steps up, and begins stirring the spaghetti. Within minutes, it begins bubbling as the steam wafts its way out of the kitchen and into the café. Mac grabs three bowls, placing them on the counter next to the stove. Grabbing a ladle that is hanging above the stove, he puts scoop after scoop into each bowl, emptying the saucepan.
 

“
Wa-la
. Dinner is served. Think Ava will like it?”
 

“Hope so,” Sara says. They grab the three bowls and walk out of the kitchen into the café, where they see Ava slumped over in the booth where Mac left her.
 

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Mac says as he approaches with two bowls of spaghetti. Ava doesn’t move. Setting down the bowls, Mac leans over Ava and shakes her shoulder.
 

“Ava, time to eat.” She still doesn’t move, and it’s then that he realizes she has passed away, probably because of the beating and the dehydration from the previous day of traveling.
 

“Is she? Dead?”

“I’m afraid so. I think her heart just couldn’t handle all the stress,” Mac says.

Sara steps backward; a single tear rolls down her cheek. Turning around, she walks to the end of the café, before sitting down in a far booth. With her back to Mac and Ava, she looks down into the spaghetti bowl, unaware that Mac has joined her across the booth in the opposite seat.

“It’s okay to cry, Sara.”

Lifting her spoon up, Sara’s hand starts to tremble as she looks over at Mac.
 

“Why does everyone need to die?” she squeaks out. Mac looks over at her with compassion.
 

“There is a time for everyone, especially now, during these troubled days; guess it was her time.” Sara starts eating her spaghetti, and the pair continue their meal, finishing it without another word spoken.
 

Leaving the café at nightfall, Mac and Sara make their way outside into the darkened streets. There are no street lamps illuminated, but a full moon has lit up the town, leaving dark, shadowy alleys and storefronts. Cautiously walking up the street, Sara strains her ears, trying to see whether she can hear anyone or anything stirring around them as she turns her head left and right. The silence of the night engulfs them as they continue walking back to the museum. Stepping into the museum and off the street, Mac turns around, locking the door behind them.
 

“We better get some sleep if we are going to go to Dulce tomorrow. We have a long day ahead of us; we need our rest.”
 

Mac checks on Sara to see whether she is okay. Sara is still in shock after losing her friend, the first female she has ever had as a friend in a screwed up world. This is a world that a twelve-year-old should never have to experience in her lifetime.
 

“I’m tired,” she says as she lies down, placing her head against her backpack. Looking over at Mac, she starts to say something but closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.
 

2:00 a.m.

ROSWELL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Overhead, the whir of large turboprop engines breaks the silence of the night sky. From the cockpit of a USAF C-130 airplane, two pilots work the controls, setting the airplane up in landing configuration before circling the runway. As the captain lines the plane up on runway three, his voice comes across the airplane address system to the crew behind.
 

“We will be down in thirty seconds, men; prepare for landing.”
 

In the back of the plane, a crack commando unit is standing by, ready to launch two specialized dune buggies. Each one is equipped with a single M60 machine gunner position and four extra seats for the team members. The machine gunners are already climbing into position as the ramp at the rear of the aircraft slowly starts to open. They are all dressed in black, with night vision goggles attached to their helmets, and the leader of the squad signals the men to mount up and prepare for a moving departure. The squeal of the tires and a quick jolt tells them they are down and it is time to move out. At the back of the plane, an airman signals for them to go. The drivers of the buggies launch out the rear of the aircraft and slide to a stop as the plane continues down the runway, then back into the air. Ten commandos leave the runway, out of the airport and onto Highway 285 to Roswell.
 

In town, the smell of death has filled the night air, coaxing the infected into investigating the source of the stench. One by one, numbering in the hundreds, the horde of feeders move to the café, lumbering along back and forth down the alleys and streets, spurred on by their keen sense of smell.