Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Read online

  “Yeah, Kat, I know it. So how big of a camp?”

  “Just a few dozen in our particular spot, but there’s several groups set up there along the creek. Everybody kind of worked together for mutual protection. Up until tonight, we’d been lucky. Hadn’t been raided in weeks, anyway.”

  She broke down then, as the cascading emotions overwhelmed her defenses.

  “And how many came tonight?” Scott asked softly.

  Sobs covered her words, and Scott was unsure if he’d heard her right at first.

  “Hundreds,” she whispered. “I didn’t get any kind of count, but it was more than a hundred, easy, and they all had guns. When the shooting started, I knew the Guard here was their only hope, so I jumped on my bike and just rode as fast as I could.”

  Hundreds? Oh, man, the old Marine thought, there’s no way. The National Guard post up the road only numbered twenty-three soldiers. Even with the community’s self-defense force, Scott knew they could never match those numbers.

  Well, not my problem, Scott thought darkly. This wasn’t the first time that raiders found easy prey amongst the survivors, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lieutenant Nathan Conners looked younger than his twenty-seven years, with thick, black glasses that Scott remembered being called “birth control glasses” back when he was in the Marines about a thousand years ago. Every time he saw the slender officer he wanted to grin at the intense young man, but Scott knew the kid was solid in a fight and the men in his command respected his good sense and fighting spirit. Heck, folks still talked about his stand at the South Bentonville High School, where he and two other men held off dozens of slavers while the rest of his platoon rode to the rescue.

  Another of those men, Sergeant Barden, was right there as well when Scott escorted the young woman into the ready room. The sergeant was young for his stripes, but the months of fighting and desperation meant the surviving military moved up quickly through the ranks. Young recruits, and some not-so-young, had bolstered those numbers a bit early on, but the Guard was no longer in a position to take in any new men. Or more accurately, was not in a position to feed them.

  Scott claimed a section of the rough-cut log wall and stayed silent as Conners politely but thoroughly interrogated the woman. Kat. Trying not to think about her family’s likely fate, the older game warden occupied himself by trying to formulate a plan to sneak a quick peek at the site of the camp. Not like he had any desire to see more murdered campers or sift through the burned-out tents, but a force that size set him to wondering. Was this the extent of the danger, a few hundred armed and mobile raiders? Or merely the tip of the iceberg?

  He’d rather have returned to his tree stand, but the Lieutenant had instead asked Barden to send someone to cover that area for the rest of the night. Conners is probably thinking the same thing I was, Scott mused, as Katrina finished answering the lieutenant’s questions.

  “Sir, I’ve told you everything I know. So when can you get your men on the way? People might be dying while we waste time here,” Kat demanded, her tone telling the tale of her desperation. That was her family out there, and nothing was going to stop her from getting them the help they needed. Except, of course, the reality of the situation.

  “Ma’am, I want to,” Conners began, and then held up a hand when Katrina began to speak, forestalling her words. “But we are over twenty miles from that camp site, and there’s no telling how many ambush points we will face between here and there traveling in the dark. Actually, I am amazed you made it this far without getting captured, or worse.”

  The “or worse” meant more than rape and murder, these days. Over four months into this disaster, those still alive found themselves desperate for food and willing to do anything to fill an empty belly. Anything.

  The pets went first. After the stores emptied, people sought to find other ways to put food on the table. Any animal would do, as the hills and valleys were hunted nearly empty of game. Cattlemen found their herds subject to constant poaching, of course, and these attacks often left poorly butchered carcasses littering the fields. That resulted in the ranchers shooting poachers and more bodies left to rot in the long grass.

  As the animals became either too scarce or too well-protected, the thinning hordes of survivors turned on each other yet again as fresh raids ripped through the more obvious camps or less well-armed groups. This time, though, when the shooting stopped, there were no bodies left behind as the raiders made their escape.

  “But…that’s my family out there!” The woman’s painful wail filled the tight space of the small, poorly lit chamber. This was the ready room for the soldiers stationed here on this end of the community, a squad of ten men. Augmented by the civilian defense force, they held the gate and the fences blocking the narrow road into the string of farms, rapidly becoming known as “Kellerville”. Like most members of the family, Scott didn’t care for the title, but he knew it had already stuck so he just shrugged when he heard the place’s new name used.

  “Ma’am, I wish I could do something, but getting all my men killed rolling out in the dark won’t save your family. Come daylight, we will dispatch a team to check the camp. That’s all I can do right now. In the meantime, we need to get you into quarantine for the next forty-eight hours. Hopefully, by the time that is up, we will know more.”

  If there were really hundreds of marauders in the attacking force, then Kat’s family was as good as dead. Everyone, including Kat, realized this fact, but the reality hit the poor woman like a physical blow. She slumped in the unpadded wooden chair and Sergeant Barden nearly carried her unresponsive form from the room.

  Quarantine was new, but something Scott’s sister-in-law, Cassie, insisted on given the recent word of once-banished diseases now making a comeback. And this new influenza strain was said to be one of the worst in decades. Every newcomer had to submit, or be turned away. Or shot.

  In the silence that followed, Scott and the young officer regarded each other levelly in the dim illumination of the wind-up lanterns. They had generators to run lights in the blockhouse, but kept that capability in reserve for when the soldiers really needed to see. So, in the meantime, they made do.

  Finally, Conners cleared his throat to speak.

  “Can you lead a team in the morning? Take a few of your civvy scouts out and nose around?”

  Scott nodded before answering.

  “I’ve already got a few boys in mind. You think this is it? The Free Shit Army we been hearing about?”

  Conners chuckled lowly at the reference, but didn’t correct the big former Marine.

  “Don’t know, but the timing is awfully suspect. I’ll get on the horn and see what I can find out, but you know we’ve been losing contacts up north steadily. Posts are either bugging out under pressure or going dark from Bella Vista all the way down to Bentonville. The Captain is getting antsy. Hell, we all are.”

  Yes, Scott knew the story. Something big and ugly was headed their way. For weeks now, they’d heard rumblings and rumors from civilian and military sources alike. Something horrible was headed their way out of Missouri, and nobody could get a good grasp on the source of this terror. Whatever, or whoever, it was, didn’t leave many survivors behind to tell tales.

  “Can we get any support, Lieutenant? Any chance of Fort Chaffee sending more men or material our way?”

  “Hell, Scott, anything is possible. Latest word from Captain Devayne is, he heard things are dying down around the fort. Well, the dying is dying down is probably a better way of putting it. That last round of cholera seems to have taken out a big chunk of the forces besieging our troops there.”

  While terrible in a way that was hard to imagine before the lights went out, the fact that the siege might be lifting around Fort Chaffee was welcome news. The ten thousand or so military and dependent personnel holding the old military base had been facing ten times their number at one point as the starving, crazed survivors of Fort Smith a
nd surrounding area repeatedly stormed the fences. It was awful bloody business, but what choice did they have?

  Trying to save everybody in this kind of situation meant sometimes nobody survived. Scott knew the score as well as Conners. The lifeboat was already full and taking on water fast. Camp Robinson had tried, and failed, to feed and house the civilians from Little Rock, and within a week the ragged columns of surviving military were punching their way out of the growing orgy of violence overtaking their base.

  Word was, the governor and the adjutant general were both dead. Whether killed by the rioters or a DHS strike team, no one could say. Scott and Conners both knew, though, that the insidious reach of the Reclamation Committee and their Homeland troops aided and abetted the gathering of protestors and rioters outside the gates of Robinson.

  Many, Scott included, thought the same forces were supplying weapons to the angry masses attacking at Fort Chaffee. Where else were they getting brand new M4s and pristine medium machine guns? Some of them were like French Army rifles, never fired and only dropped once.

  “Well, Lieutenant, whatever is going on, we won’t come back until we have some information to share.”

  “You going to wake ‘Bella up before you go?”

  Scott shook his head this time.

  “No sense. She’ll be with Ruthie and they will know where I’ve gone. I’ll leave a note with Nick in case something happens. You know the drill.”

  “Yeah, I do. Just be sure and come back safe. That little girl needs her daddy, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. Once I have these kids dialed in, I’ll be free to sit around the farm on my ass again. That is some incentive.”

  Conners looked off for a moment before he replied.

  “Sure wish Luke was still here. That skinny little fucker was handy to have when it came time for killing.”

  Scott allowed himself a little chuckle. In their scant few weeks together, the young man’s determination and sheer bloody-mindedness had impressed the old Marine.

  “I know, but having him around was starting to wear me out. Always trying to sneak up on me and all. He was like Kato from those old Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther movies.” Scott admitted, and chuckled again.

  “Well, wherever he is, he’s likely somebody else’s problem now,” Conners admitted with a trace of sadness. He’d liked the kid, too. Even if he was a bit of a Tasmanian devil at times.

  “Think he made it home?” Scott asked, more than a little curious.

  Conners paused, really thinking about the question for a moment before answering.

  “Maybe. He got as far as McAlester, last I heard. Don’t like his odds, though. The kid was a magnet for trouble.”

  Scott grunted his agreement. The kid was good, but nobody was that good, all the time. And sooner or later, your luck would turn sour. Hell, the state of the world was a prime example of just how bad your luck could turn.

  “Alright. If you can have your drivers get a pair of HMMWVs ready to drop us off at Line Tango,” Scott said, again all business as he thumbed a point on the map, “we will hoof it from there. Looks like we can get within ten miles of the campers if we take that dirt road in. Say, two days to evaluate and then we’ll extract.”

  Conners eyed the map closely before replying, tapping a finger on another point highlighted on the clear acetate overlay. “I’ll get Barden to plan a daybreak pick up for your team at the old logging camp over at Ivy. Get with him for the details and then get some sleep before you get rolling.”

  Scott glanced at his watch in the gloom and gave a low chuckle. “I’ll sleep in the truck. Gotta get the gear and the men ready first.”

  “That’ll work. Be safe out there, old man.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Safety first,” Scott said sarcastically, remembering similar admonishments when going out to scout a suspected pot field, or a meth lab set up on State Park lands. Being a game warden in Arkansas in the days before the lights went out meant officers had to wear a bunch of different hats. Most of them had a big fat target painted on them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Well, that is some shit,” Scott whispered to himself, carefully holding the binoculars to avoid giving off a flash.

  “What’s that, boss?”

  Slightly embarrassed by his outburst, Scott panned across the scene in the little valley one more time before slipping back down the slight rise and coolly regarding the two camouflaged forms sprawled out near enough to touch the older man. In their Ghillie suits, the two scouts neatly blended into the greens, reds, and browns of the fall colors all around. Ben and Keith were good boys, good men, and fit the criteria set by Nick and Scott himself for the fledgling scout program. The fourth member of their little squad, Mike, was laid out a few paces away, covering their back trail, but close enough to hear Scott’s words.

  “The camp site is still occupied by some folks. There’s tents still up, but there are signs of a battle, too. Bullet holes in some of the tents, for one thing, and what looks like bodies piled up over by those tree stumps by the road. Maybe the people who camped here won the battle. I dunno, guys. Somebody is grilling a late lunch over a campfire. Weird.”

  “What we gonna do, Scott?”

  “Take a closer look, boys, and see what there is to see. Mike, you maintain overwatch here and keep an eye on our packs. Ben, you and Keith circle around to the sides and I’ll move up the middle. Just like we’ve practiced. Set your watches and make sure you have your books. We’ll move in to observe, and then hunker down. Take your time and find good spots for observation. We stay onsite until midnight, then each one of us will move back ‘til we meet up here again before sunrise.”

  The young men nodded solemnly and all four checked their watches, setting them to the same time.

  “The challenge is Dead, Mike,” Scott continued. “The counter is Stop. The duress code is Pool. Don’t fuck it up, boys. There will be a test later. And don’t get caught, or you fail.”

  That got a few nervous chuckles, and then they were easing into the brush and snaking into position. Their rally point was four hundred yards from the edge of the camp, and each man was expected to take their time in reaching a safe place to lay up. The Ghillie suits made the sneak possible, as well as the trained patience of each man on this mission.

  Scott was the old man of the team, as well as being the team leader. He’d worked with his nephew, Nick, in selecting candidates with a hunting and outdoorsman background as well as being in topnotch physical condition. All three of these young men fit the criteria, and like Perkins, Mike Evans, and Ben Wilson, had been part of the group that made it out of Branson. Survivors, in other words, and already acclimated to this nightmare world.

  Keith Wilkins, on the other hand, was the nephew of Bruce Collins, Darwin’s right-hand, and Scott had known the teenager for most of his life. Seeing the eighteen-year-old work so hard to learn in their abbreviated boot camp gave the older man flashbacks to his own time at the MCRD in San Diego. Well, the recent high school graduate had mentioned an interest in joining the Marine Corps.

  The time passed slowly as Scott crept carefully through the long grass, pausing at irregular intervals to rest his padded knees and elbows. This was a mental as well as a physical challenge, and Scott forced himself to maintain a gradual pace. Someone watching carefully from the camp might only see an occasional disturbance in the seed-heavy grass heads, but that was the only sign of his passage.

  As he grew closer, Scott could hear the occasional snippet of conversation, but not until he was only a bare hundred feet from the edge of the camp could he make out any of what was being said. The smell of roasting pork became more pronounced at that point, and Scott prayed the men had bagged a wild hog. Scott knew a few of the wily creatures remained, seeing sign from time to time as he’d scouted the woods around the newly established community borders.

  When he finally came to rest behind an old fallen tree trunk, twisted limbs stretching up like gnarled claws in the September su
n, Scott figured this for a good place to fully observe the camp. Still moving at a snail’s pace, he removed his binoculars from the padded pouch on his chest and slowly glassed the scene in front of him.

  The count was thirty-two, he decided, marking down a final tally. They were filthy and stank even at this distance, their clothes dark with accumulated mud and what could only be blood splatter. Scott saw open sores on several of the men, and they all appeared to be male, as well as crudely bandaged limbs. Signs of a recent battle, Scott thought. Their weapons were an odd mix of old and barely serviceable shotguns and hunting rifles intermingled with what looked like fairly new carbines in the familiar AR configuration.

  From the slurred words and atrocious slang, Scott managed to pick up a few oft-repeated phrases and he dutifully jotted down what he could decipher, along with several question marks. The males, for they were no longer men in Scott’s estimation, represented a true Rainbow Coalition of whites, browns, and blacks, with a few so dirty that the experienced game warden couldn’t determine their race. What they all had in common, though, was an utter indifference to the slaughtered campers they’d dragged aside when they’d completed the massacre.

  They also had a look in their eyes that told Scott these creatures cared not how many more they killed as long as their bellies were filled, and none appeared picky about how this was achieved. And that was no hog they were grilling over that open fire. Not unless they started coming in a two-legged variety.

  Cold, bitter hatred burned in Scott’s belly as he watched as what had once been a child roasting on a spit over the flames. Trying to ignore this image, Scott noted down the details of each raider he saw, cataloging the weapons, number of spare magazines, and anything distinctive such as tattoos or scars on each member of the crew he could see. Everything he saw was noted in the Book, his scout notebook that accompanied him when in the field. The only time he looked away came when the meal was pronounced “done” and the males descended on the fire-darkened shape with rusty knives and growls for fresh meat.