Families First: A Post-Apocalyptic Next-World Series Volume 6 Battle Grounds Read online

  “Sergio will say I stole it from Dr. Baker while she was showering, and I slipped out of camp in the middle of the night. Hopefully, I’ll have a good few hours head start on my bike before they even think to look for me. I went over maps extensively with my old friend and police partner before I met you, and I have at least two alternate routes to get to the Valley. I’ll just be an early arrival and try not to get shot entering Saddle Ranch. It’s our only chance to help my friends and their families. I know you don’t know them, but you would be helping me out, and I never forget a deed, good or bad.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it for you,” replied Max. “I still aim to kill him, you know, and get justice for my father. Things around here are just a little more complicated now is all.”

  “I get it,” replied Mike. “Just don’t forget what they did. She may not be a part of it, but he is still family to her. Watch your step, my friend, and I hope to see you on the other side.”

  Max made sure he would see her tonight, keeping the secret she told him soon after speaking with Mike.

  “We leave in the next day or two,” she told him. “Once in the Valley, we will live in peace, and maybe we could even raise a family.”

  “Are there people already living there?” he asked, knowing full well there were.

  “Baker said only a small group of undesirables.”

  “And children?” asked Max.

  “No, none of those, or women either—just cold-hearted men that will never know God. Our guards with air support will take them out before we are even on the soil, and we will never even see a thing. We only want peace—at least I do,” she said.

  “I believe you do,” said Max. “You have taken a vow to do no harm.”

  * * * *

  Mike was handed the key taken off her necklace right after dinner. He and Sergio met inside the medic tent for only a minute.

  “At 9:40 this night, they sound the alarm,” said Sergio. “Don’t ask me how I know—just be right up on the south side of the tent when it happens.”

  He showed Mike where the Indian motorcycle was, under the guise of helping him walk around.

  “You have the keys and a full tank of gas; don’t wait around to see what happens. Push the bike as far as you can before starting her up. Once they see the head- or taillight, the perimeter guards will start firing…and don’t look back before Saddle Ranch.”

  * * * *

  Mike was in position before 9 p.m., with an excuse if he was spotted. He waited twenty yards from the tent’s south side, watching the guards’ faces flicker in and out of the lit torches surrounding the tent on all sides. Many of the residents were winding down or already asleep. Sergio was inside the tent, talking with Baker and his guards. He would stay with them during the entire drill, ensuring he was accounted for at all times.

  This is it! Mike thought, not expecting to leave the camp so soon but happy to have a chance—if he could pull it off—of getting the information he sought and going home to Sheila and Javi.

  He thought about what Sergio had proposed to him, working for the Colonel. It didn’t sound bad and was right up his alley if he was single again. I’m not married, but maybe it’s time, he thought. He missed his opportunity with his last girlfriend, Kelly, and it was one of the few things in his life he felt bad about. He hoped she was okay and found happiness somewhere in the Texas countryside.

  Waahh! Waahh! the sirens wailed—right on time and down to the minute. He focused on blocking everything else out of his mind.

  “Get the book! Get the bike! Get the book! Get the bike!” he said so only he could hear…“and get out of Dodge!”

  Five minutes seems like forever when you’re a kid in time-out, but when you sneak into a heavily fortified compound it’ll feel like seconds. Figures poured out from the other side of the tent, and Mike couldn’t distinguish one from another in the darkness that was only lit by tiki torches along the main pathways through camp. The tent’s inside was illuminated, and he could see only shadows of inanimate objects—couches, tables and chairs.

  I hope Baker and his guards are all out, he thought, heading towards the back opening.

  Peering inside, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Looking down at his watch, he had four minutes left.

  Where would he keep it? he thought, heading straight towards the spot where the box was the last time he had been inside.

  “Come on, come on. Where is it?” he said quietly.

  “Where is what?” came a voice from another room—a female voice.

  Mike stopped dead in his tracks, freezing for a few seconds without uttering a word.

  “Where’s what, good lookin’?” came the voice again.

  “I just forgot something, is all,” he said, as she rounded the corner.

  “You forgot this?” she said, holding up the locked box Mike had seen before and now had only two keys.

  “Maybe,” he whispered. “Who are you, and why aren’t you outside?”

  “I am a lonely woman, with a 70-year-old man always trying to touch me, and my name is not important. I’m here because I don’t buy into the crap going on around here. Do you want the box, or should I scream out in three…two…one?”

  “No—wait,” said Mike, not panicked but feeling a sort of anxiety he hadn’t felt in a long time. “I want the box,” he told her, as he looked down at his watch. Two minutes left, and he knew this was cutting it close.

  “It’s easy. I give you the box for a kiss,” she said.

  “What about Baker?” he asked.

  “That short blimp of a man couldn’t excite the last woman on earth. But you, you’re the real deal, and I’m pretty sure your time is running out.”

  “Set the box down, and if the book is inside, you have a deal.”

  “How do I know you’re not playing me?” she asked.

  “You don’t, but I have one minute.”

  She set the box on the table, and Mike quickly opened it, retrieving the book and locking it shut before handing it back.

  “Sorry, Sheila,” he said, embracing her for a Hollywood kiss like the old movies before the man is sent off to war, never to be heard from again.

  “Twenty seconds” read his watch as he broke away.

  “All good?” he asked.

  She only smiled, waving for him to leave the tent. He exited the south side just as the alarm sounded, ending the test.

  * * * *

  Mike made his way through camp, taking advantage of people walking around, and headed towards the vehicle yard. Strobe lights he assumed were generator operated shone back and forth across the yard. Getting his bearings, he remembered the location Sergio had pointed out where his Indian Motorcycle was fully gassed up. The lights crossed the bike every minute, maybe two, in the same pattern seen in every prison-break movie ever made. He remembered watching them as a kid, thinking the kid’s video game called Frogger, where the frog tries to avoid cars and logs to get across busy highways, could help in a prison break.

  It’s just timing, he thought, like a kid skipping rope. Moving in close and out of the light’s path, he saw the bike ten yards out.

  I’ll just move it in the dark and watch the path of the light moving out, he thought.

  Sirens wailed from the camp, but not the same as before. He ducked back behind a truck as the floodlights illuminated the entire fleet of vehicles.

  “No! No! No!” he said, seeing his bike in full light. Even in good shape, minus the gut shot that had him hobbling around like an old man, he still couldn’t outrun the guards’ rifle rounds.

  Was it a fool’s errand, and would he be killed before delivery? he wondered—not afraid to die but not like this, when it meant everything for him to stay alive.

  Men called out behind him, and the sirens never stopped. He ducked behind the truck, wishing he had a different set of keys as the spotlight illuminated him. Crack! Crack! Boom! he heard from rifles he couldn’t see, putting holes into the truck, one after another. The men behi
nd him were yelling to each other. “Spread out, he’s here somewhere!”

  He was reminded of his favorite movie, Rambo: First Blood, when John Rambo takes the 1982 Yamaha XT 250 into the mountains to escape his would-be captors.

  I have to get to it, he thought. I’m not going down without a fight, not now.

  Looking to his left, he heard a revved engine and saw a large utility truck, the Army kind that hauls gear for the troops. “Get in,” he heard, as it pulled up beside him, slowing but not stopping.

  In the chaos, he wasn’t sure who was behind the wheel, but his options were few, if any, and before he could think about it, he ran. It took everything he had in him to run through the pain, and he felt his abdominal stitch tear from bottom to top, like opening a Ziplock® bag. Grabbing on to the tailgate, he climbed in, collapsing inside the back, laying still as possible as the rounds ricocheted through the bed of the truck. Five minutes later, the truck stopped, with the driver getting out of the cab.

  Mike wished he had a weapon, not knowing who he would meet. One of Baker’s men? It seemed likely, but why try to save him when he was already trapped?

  “Max, you came for me,” Mike said aloud, laughing. Of course—who else?

  “I’m not Max,” said a familiar voice.

  “Well, now that makes more sense,” said Mike, seeing Sergio’s face as he opened the green tarp on the back of the truck. And even now, he didn’t fully believe it.

  “Young love is hard to part from, even someone with a goal like Max’s. He’s in the truck up front,” said Sergio, “and so is she.”

  “I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting that. Next, you will tell me my Indian bike is in another truck right behind us, right?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say that’s where it ends. The next time you see that bike, its rider will be out for blood, gunning for your head.”

  “Then I’ll aim high, just over the handlebars. I took the last owner off it with an arrow as he was riding away.”

  “Is that so?” said Sergio, thinking of ways he could get Mike on his team full time. “I don’t think they will send out a search party for us, but we need to get going. Happy reading, and let me know what’s in the book.”

  Mike laid back, using a moving blanket for a pillow and touching his stomach just to feel for blood or other fluids. “It will have to hold, for now,” he said aloud, opening the book.

  Mike laughed out loud at the first sentence, embarrassed that it surprised him. He read it out loud several times over.

  “Duplicate Copy, Sucker!”

  Flipping through the blank pages, he read the last.

  “Nothing More to See Hear!” it read. “It’s spelled h-e-r-e, you idiot!” he said aloud.

  While not being a Colonel, Baker is smart…smart enough, thought Mike, as he wondered if there was even a second copy at all.

  * * * * * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Saddle Ranch

  Loveland, Colorado

  Vlad and Sheila worked all day in the auto shop, fitting right in with the others.

  “It’s a steady job,” she told Vlad, “with no sign of layoffs.”

  Dinner was early tonight, at 5 instead of the usual 6.

  “Be careful under there. I’ll be back in a few,” said Vlad, heading out the shop door.

  Vlad grabbed a meal for himself and Sheila, who was finishing up on an old school bus, the short kind transformed into a Ranch uber-type vehicle but for free. He returned twenty minutes later with two dinner bags slung over one crutch.

  * * * *

  “Hi, Sheila. I’ve got meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and it’s still hot. Get washed up, and I’ll fix the plates,” he said, rounding the corner inside.

  He stopped for a minute, noticing the bus was on the floor and off the lift at an odd angle. The cassette player on the corner shelf belted out her favorite tunes. Johnny Cash sang a song Vlad had never heard before, something about a boy named Sue.

  He called out her name, “Sheila? Sheila! Are you okay?” as the music continued.

  He hurried towards the bus, tripping over his crutch and falling face-first to the floor. Looking up from a sprawled position, Vlad could see clearly underneath, staring straight into the scared eyes of his work partner between the bus and lift.

  “Oh no, Sheila! Oh no!” he called out, reaching for her outstretched hand. “Help us! Somebody help us!” he called out.

  The other mechanics left the shop more than two hours ago, and most residents were eating supper in the Pavilion.

  “Hold on,” he told her. “I’ll get help.”

  “No,” she said, sounding like a whisper over the music.

  “Let me at least turn that off,” said Vlad, letting go of her hand for a moment.

  “No, Vlad, leave it on; it’s comforting. Stay with me. I need your ear. I’m not in pain, and I am thinking clearly,” she said, slurring her words and a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, and it doesn’t matter. What does is Javi. I don’t want him to see me like this, and I’m not sure if Mike will ever make it back.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “When they lift this bus off of me, I’ll be gone in minutes—I can feel it. There’s no putting me back together again, like that old children’s rhyme.”

  “I should never have left you, Sheila. I’m so sorry.”

  “No, Vlad. We’re not going there. I spent days alone under vehicles before the day, sometimes entire weekends all by myself. This was an accident, and that is all. Listen to me closely,” she added, coughing but not flinching. “I want you to look after Javi like your very own. If things work out with you and Anna, and I hope they do, then you can start a new family right away.”

  “What about when Mike comes back? I can’t just take his child from him.”

  “If Mike comes back, he’s not the one to raise Javi by himself. He would do it because it’s the right thing, but this place is not for him and we both know that. He won’t be tied down, can’t be, and he will take Javi deep into the mountains and away from all this. That’s no place for a young child who has a large family here and is already starting to fit in. You need to be his father, Vlad.

  “If you see Mike, tell him exactly what I just said, after giving him the code.”

  “What code?” asked Vlad.

  “A boy named Sue. It was our secret phrase if we ever were compromised or captured, to know the truth would come next. Speak the phrase and tell him exactly what I said. Don’t leave anything out. Tell them both I love them dearly, and I’ll be watching over them from above. Give Javi a hug for me and tell him I love my Snuggle Bug. Will you do that for me, Vlad?”

  “Yes, Sheila. I’ll do all of it.”

  “Now go find help,” she told him, “but leave the music on.”

  * * * *

  Vlad scrambled to get to his crutches and fumbled out the door, yelling, “Help! Please help us!”

  Sheila closed her eyes and sang along with the last words she would ever hear.

  Vlad made it halfway to the Pavilion, running into one of Mac’s security team, who radioed Mac and Dr. Melton first before informing others who needed to know right away. Joy and I found out somewhere in the middle. We had Javi with us, picking him up from daycare so Sheila could work late. Vlad returned to the shop with Mac and Cory, leaving their dinners half-eaten. Dr. Melton arrived shortly after, with Samuel driving, and did the final check and announcement of Sheila’s death. It would be another hour before the bus was lifted and her body was properly cared for.

  We kept Javi for the night, talking quietly with a distraught Vlad in another room about what he had promised to do.

  “Joy and I will tell Javi in the morning,” I said to Vlad.

  “No. No, thank you, but it needs to be me. I’ve made a promise, and part of that is delivering a message from his mother. I’ll be back over at breakfast,” said a te
ary-eyed Vlad.

  * * * *

  The funeral was set for 3 p.m. the following day, at the cemetery everyone agreed had taken in more guests than ever before in one month.

  The next morning a confident Vlad showed up, waiting patiently for Javi to finish breakfast. Javi had asked where his mom was last night, but Joy told him she was out for the night, but we would talk tomorrow.

  “What exactly do you tell a young boy who has lost his second mother in so many months?” Joy asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “I just don’t know.”