Avalon: The Retreat

by

L. Michael Rusin

Kamel Press, LLC

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www.AvalonTheRetreat.com
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Copyright 2012 by L. Michael Rusin. All rights reserved.

The Avalon “A” logo designed by Kermit Jones, Jr., created by Meredith Sump, and is a trademark of Kamel Press, LLC.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the author.

ISBN-13:

978-1-62487-001-9 - Paperback

978-1-62487-011-8 - Hardcover

978-1-62487-021-7 - eBook (Kindle)

Library of Congress Control Number: 201295008

Published in the USA.

Chapter 1 The Balloon Pops

The sirens wailed in the distance, making a mournful sound that pierced the air. It was a sound that was impossible for anyone to ignore, a sound that resonated through the house, reminiscent of a fifties low grade, end-of-the-world movie.

Except this was real.

Dogs yelped in mournful synchronization. Birds in large flocks took flight and were gone. The local news station said there was a terrorist attack on the East Coast of the United States. Most of the stations gave the same message and implored everyone to remain calm and stay at home.

The radio on the kitchen counter was tuned to a soft rock station when the emergency broadcast signal started to blare. It was a man’s voice.

A message has been handed to me by the station director. It’s my sad duty to inform you that a nuclear device was detonated in Atlanta, Georgia a few moments ago. Casualties are running high, but details are sketchy. Stay tuned for further developments.

Mike knew exactly what he was going to do. It was the same thing the rest of the members of his retreat were probably doing right now. He prepared to leave, packing up his “bug out” essentials so that he could head for the retreat. He and members of his group kept several crucial items handy in backpacks and a few nylon bags that they would take with them if anything like this ever happened.

It was happening now!

Mike and the members of his group had planned for a contingency such as this one years ago, but none of them believed it would actually happen in their lifetime. Those sirens were telling him a different story, and he had to get going as soon as possible. The radio came to life again.

Fellow Americans, we are being asked to please stay home and off the streets in order to allow emergency personnel and officials to get to the areas where they are needed. We will inform you of any current and updated information as it comes into the studio. Please remain calm and, again, please stay at home.

“Stay home? No way; I’m outta here!”

He said it aloud as he switched off the radio, his voice momentarily echoing off the walls.

Mike turned on his hand-held-radio, recognizing the familiar sound of a message being sent. The key word “Firestorm” was said five times audibly, and then there was a slow but precise rhythm in standard Morse code of a coded message being transmitted. He and members of his group used The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, paperback version, as a code reference. Mike made his way over to the writing table, opened his copy of the book, and began writing.

Chapter six, page thirty-five, third paragraph, twenty-third word, third letter (w).

Chapter six, page thirty-five, second word, fourth letter (e).

Break.

Chapter six, page thirty six, fourth word, second letter (a).

Chapter six, page thirty-six, seventh word, third letter (r).

Chapter six, page thirty-six, first word, fifth letter (e).

Break.

Chapter six, page thirty nine, first paragraph, second word, fifth letter (a).

Chapter six, page thirty-nine, second paragraph, second word, second letter (l).

Chapter six, page thirty-nine, second paragraph, seventh word, fifth letter (l).

Break…

When he had copied all the letters it read,

We are all leaving now. Cache first. See you there. Luck.

The code continued repeating itself, but he knew why; since it was still early, others in the group might not have gotten the message. It would transmit this way for the next twenty-four hours so everyone could receive it.

So it finally happened?

His thoughts were automatic as he reflected on what the blaring sirens were telling him. Installed decades ago, they hadn’t seen actual use aside from infrequent testing since their installation in most American cities in the early 1950’s when the Civil Defense ran occasional drills. All members of his survival group, however, had completed numerous practice drills using this same system.

Security was paramount in any group, and they knew that secrecy in this matter was no different. When transmitted over the airwaves, or even by phone, anyone could intercept a message, and they desperately needed a balance between security and usability. A group as small as theirs couldn’t afford large losses of life or casualties. They attempted to mitigate the danger with proper planning, execution, and clear communication that could only be understood by their own people.

Mike knew that history held many lessons. One example came from World War II, during which only two types of code were never successfully broken. The first was centered on languages spoken by Native American code talkers; the second, however, didn’t require learning a new language.

It entailed all members of a group having the same edition of a book that they could all refer to as a key to both encode and decode a message, much like a Rosetta Stone. The information was then sent out in standard Morse code. This was the system he and his group had decided on and though it was somewhat tedious, it was also absolutely foolproof and unbreakable. In place of a sophisticated coding machine or mechanism, it always worked.

The message usually started with a classifying signal word or phrase that was repeated several times and at a predetermined time. Examples were Forest Fire, Yellow, Red, Green, or the phrase “The River Meanders.” Those signals told the receiver of the message both its level of urgency and whether it was a drill or an actual emergency. The signal words and phrases were short and memorized by all members of the group.

The word “Firestorm” Mike had recorded marked this message as extremely urgent and not a drill; copy the coded message and comply. It was the message all of them hoped to never receive, but here it was. It was real and the truth was simple, life for all of them would likely forever change from this day forward.

He was in a hurry, but not overly so. Out of necessity, he was careful and methodical about what he gathered, knowing deep down that he probably wasn’t coming back. Mike picked up the military issued aluminum-framed Alice Pack backpack that sat in the corner, tossed it on the bed, and began to execute a carefully scripted and practiced checklist. He walked over to the closet, opened the door, and grabbed his web belt, setting it aside momentarily while he laced up his boots.

Without giving it much thought, his shirt came off, leaving him with only a T-shirt on his torso. Stepping into the closet, he removed the loose panel in the back and took hold of the secret lockbox that had carefully been placed there. Entering the combination, he removed the custom shoulder holster rig. It was fitted with two holsters… one for his .44 Magnum Smith and Wesson six inch barrel and the other for a Colt .45 1911 A1. Both were in the lockbox, hidden away safely from any thieves that might have broken in during his absence.

The holster rig was specially made for him by a friend who had been a Parachute Rigger in the Navy. He specialized in custom modifications, and Mike’s setup was tailor made. It fit like a glove under the loose, dark denim, button-up shirt he selected earlier.

It was a balancing act of risk versus practicality. Mike didn’t want anyone to notice he was armed as he headed for the retreat, but it would be foolish to ignore the fact that with law enforcement overwhelmed, the time was likely coming when “might would make right.” He wasn’t going to take the chance of being on the wrong side of that logic because he knew that being a good guy was no defense against an armed bad guy with something to prove. Preparedness was a nebulous affair, at best, and full of uncertainties.

He reached out and grabbed the U.S. Marine Corps KA-BAR knife and duct-taped it to his calf. It had an eight-inch blade, and this particular one was Vietnam issue. The muscles in his forearms rippled as he twisted his wrist and rolled his pants leg back down to hide it. He made a quick check out the window with a scan from left to right and then right to left. It was just about that time; he was almost ready to leave.

The Smith and Wesson .44 came out with a rehearsed move. He pushed on the release, flipped his wrist so the cylinder opened, and looked at the loads. They were all hollow point. Satisfied that it was loaded and ready, he settled it back in the holster and pulled out the .45.

Again rehearsed, he ejected the magazine, catching it with his other hand and took a quick glance at it. Having verified it was full, as well, Mike slipped the 1911 back in place in the holster. He’d done this a hundred times and, at this point, it was automatic. The Alice Pack went on a few minutes later, just before he headed out.

As he entered the garage, the large Yamaha waited for him in silence. It sparkled as the dim light, catching on the chrome and perfect paint job, gave off momentary little flashes as he moved toward the machine. His reflection moved on the surface as he readied it.

A street legal Yamaha 250 X dirt bike with enough power to climb serious hills, it could easily throw a person off when power was rolled on if they weren’t ready for it. There was no doubt that this was a real man’s bike, a no nonsense mean machine.

He first strapped on the extra gas can that waited in the corner. Next came a couple of essential goodies that he kept in a nylon bag, always ready for this eventuality. He cranked up the bike and pressed the remote control button on the garage door. It slowly opened, sounding metallic as the rollers turned in subtle, jerking movements that lifted the door up with a clatter and grinding sound, allowing the fading daylight to spill in.

The noise in the garage was deafening from the bike’s powerful engine. Blue smoke quickly filled the small space, but it immediately began to drift out the open door. He took a last look at his Corvette with a twinge of remorse; he would never have use of it after today. He thought of how much he loved his car, particularly its raw, unbridled power.

The wave of nostalgia passed. What was most important at this moment was the need to live as the world began to swirl into mayhem and insecurity. He didn’t know yet how bad things were, but it wasn’t hard to guess about how far and fast they would degenerate.

Mike quickly slung the pack onto his back, clicking the buckled straps into place. Satisfied after a final check, he eased the bike out the door and hit the button on the remote. As the garage door slowly closed, he shoved the remote into the side pocket of the backpack just as the door reached the bottom and creakily settled shut.

He knew it was only a temporary stopgap; looters would probably strip the place bare sooner or later in the coming days. A little foresight had urged him to remove all the non-essentials long ago, leaving only the basics. Reaching over, he unbuttoned the top half of his shirt front, allowing him access to one or both handguns under each arm.

The next intended stop would be the first rendezvous at the initial cache he and the others in the group had painstakingly established months ago. Once there, they would become better armed, away from prying eyes and without drawing attention. His planning was thorough, and he knew the initial cache was precisely seventy-five miles away from his driveway.

The planned route would take him through the dwindling suburbia of his neighborhood, out and away from home, along country roads and open fields, and eventually off the beaten path. Another part of the journey would have him riding through a creek bed, which remained dry in all but the wettest months. It would be dry this time of the year; not a drop of rain had fallen anywhere around here in weeks.

It was cloudy today, with cooler temperatures than there had been all week. Some of the trip much farther down the road would take into consideration an abandoned railroad right-of-way, but there were no railroad tracks. Decades ago, they were deemed unnecessary and were removed by the railroad and installed elsewhere.

He knew this would be a fairly safe course and it was unlikely that he would meet anyone as the miles slipped by. If he did, he had decided a long time ago to essentially ignore them, if possible, and continue on. At this very moment, getting to the cache, and then the retreat, were the first two items on his agenda.

As he considered the current time frame, he felt grateful it was still daylight. Traveling by dirt bike had one major drawback… it was noisy and could be heard coming for a mile or more. That meant he had to be careful where he traveled and not set himself up for an ambush. The overwhelming benefit was that it could eat up the miles rapidly. Even seventy-five miles traveling cross country would pass by in under an hour and a half, with a little luck.

These thoughts, along with so many others, flowed through his mind in an endless stream as he made his way out of his semi-suburban neighborhood.

A few blocks before he was clear, he rounded a corner to find a band of gang bangers plundering an abandoned car. They were easily recognizable from their distinctive mode of dress. He knew this was the first of many civil disorders and it would only get worse in the upcoming days. The bad guys would come out of the woodwork as society began to break down.

He stopped well away from them, surveying the scene with his small binoculars. They were busy and didn’t notice him watching. He saw a man lying in the road with a pool of blood growing around his head that spread out like a fan and glistened as the light reflected off it. The man’s skin color convinced Mike he was dead or nearly dead from the massive wound, and there was no perceptible breathing. Given the massive blood loss, the outcome was clear. He’d seen enough death to have a good idea what it looked like. He was still a little distant from the scene in front of him, but he was confident his deduction was correct.

Three of the gang members held a woman on the hood; one was on top of her while two others held her down. She appeared to be unconscious as she lay there limp, not putting up a fight. They had ripped her clothing to shreds and the front of her body was exposed.

His sense of morality and justice urged him to act, but he knew there were people depending on him to show at the first rendezvous. Every minute he delayed potentially put them in danger. Ammunition wasn’t a problem although he knew he should conserve it, just in case.

He only vacillated for a split second before he decided to act. He might not have the ability to correct other unjust situations, but he knew he could act on this one. So he did.

The bike lurched as he quickly moved close to the scene within pistol range. A quiet rage filled him as he drew closer, but he quickly pushed it aside, knowing it would only cloud his judgment at a time when he needed it most.

Stopping the forward momentum of the dirt bike, Mike turned his body slightly as he removed his 1911 A1. He took careful aim and squeezed off three rounds. Three of the gang bangers lurched and fell to the ground. Those who went down didn’t make any effort to get up, and one of them twitched as his nerves caused him to convulse. The others ran around the car and attempted to hide.

The woman fell from the car onto the street, clearly lifeless. Her face hit the pavement and some of her teeth broke off and skittered past her chin. He realized there was no point in taking further risk, so he put the .45 away and shoved off as they stared at him from their hiding place. A couple of them turned and ran away, while two others stood their ground. He could see the hatred burning in their eyes and he heard the word “Gringo” shouted toward him.

He knew he couldn’t save the world; the stark reality was there was going to be a lot more of this as the days went by. The people to which he had made a pledge were the most important priority to him right now and he knew he needed to make the meeting.

The scene quickly slipped away as Mike entered a creek bed in which he traveled for a few minutes before pulling out. He then crossed a field of clover and noticed there were a few cows that grazed leisurely. He stopped and cut the barbed wire, and once through, he mended the fence with the extra wire he had placed there long ago, wrapping it around the post during his planning of this route.

It was simply one more detail that had become part of his plan. He wasn’t a vandal, after all, and he wasn’t going to leave an opening for the farm animals to escape. If they did later, it wouldn’t be because of anything he had done. Perhaps it seemed a petty thing to do but in his mind, it was the right thing to do. He made good time and soon noticed a stand of thick woods ahead. As he thought about it, he decided it could be a dangerous area, perhaps the ideal place for an ambush by unfriendly people.

It was early, he knew; the proverbial balloon had just popped in which Middle Eastern extremists had set off a small suitcase-type nuclear bomb in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia. Not that any type of nuclear bomb was actually small. Another was detonated only minutes later in Washington, D.C. He didn’t know it yet, but the death toll was soaring. It climbed as quickly as the mushroom clouds that had already begun to swirl up into the heavens on the East Coast.

The deaths of 9/11 paled in comparison to what had just happened and the loss of American lives in a matter of days would eventually exceed the casualties of the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Vietnam, Korea, and World Wars I and II combined. The overwhelming carnage and casualties swamped police and hospitals, essentially rendering them ineffective during the initial onslaught. Thousands of accidents on the freeways and highways added to the ensuing massacre.

People panicked and ran in every direction, not really knowing where to go or what to do. Their instinctive fight or flight mechanism had been activated and since they could see nothing to fight, they ran.

Mike continued toward the woods, but just before entering, he decided to turn and go around the thick clump of trees. He understood the cost of losing even a little time. Going around the woods might add an extra fifteen minutes to the trip, but his gut told him it was the best choice, so he gave the area a wide berth.

As he passed the particular section of trees that had concerned him most, people came out. They had rocks and clubs in their hands and though he was armed, he likely would not have been able to defend against the lot of them. He knew his instincts were good and had likely just saved his life.

He ate up the countryside on the 250X and left the people on the outskirts of the wooded area jumping up and down and shaking their fists at him. In another moment, they were gone from view. He was grateful he had trusted his intuition and listened to the inner voice that had saved him again, just as it had in Bosnia.

The miles were devoured as he rode, and he knew it was only a few more minutes until he would turn to the left and approach the first cache. He stopped a short distance away and took out the binoculars. As he scanned the area, it appeared safe enough, but he saw there were two other dirt bikes there. They were hidden, tucked into the brush and partially obscured, but not from his trained eyes.

He recognized the bikes, knowing their riders, and they knew his too. At first glance, they remained hidden, but they showed themselves as he approached. They had already started digging, and had stopped when they heard him coming.

Mike parked his bike with the others and took off his backpack in order to help them dig. The one who had most recently dug assumed the guard. It was Caroline, an ER registered nurse, and an important member of the unit. She was also beautiful.

Mike and she were close.

Chapter 2 The Cache

The events that were transpiring came as no surprise to Mike and his survival group. To them, it was not as much a matter of if it would happen, but when. They had decided early on that having a stocked cache en route to their carefully built retreat was a good idea, principally because several items such as automatic long guns and hand grenades were better left securely buried. Some were even considered illegal to own in various states, but having them available when the need arose served the group’s purpose once society was on the verge of a major collapse.

It was also discussed and agreed upon that well-stocked caches of essentials such as food, weapons, ammo, and medical supplies would be a pivotal part of their getaway. In a dire situation, it could have been possible that some of them might not be home or they might have been forced to abandon whatever they had in their bug out bags, those pre-packed essentials for times such as this. It meant they could be forced to flee unarmed or possibly wounded… or they could be killed.

The tubes were made of 8-inch PVC plastic pipe with an end cap cemented at one end and a threaded, screwed on cap on the other. The threaded cap had a heavy duty rubber gasket on the inside that made it waterproof. They were not buried deep in the ground, and they contained food, medicine, bandages, ammo, long guns, and magazines for each team member, plus a few others.

The caches were insurance for all of them, and they made certain each of them had the opportunity to be well armed with supplies that would prolong and ensure their safety, regardless of what the current situation dictated. Part of that safety was to not draw attention to themselves as they made their way out of the city. Resources would be sought after quickly and the leaner they appeared while around decaying civilization, the better.

The initial concealment of the caches had been carefully and painstakingly planned. In order to reduce the chance of someone discovering them, they had buried the tubes vertically with a set of post-hole diggers. The tops of the tubes were placed about two to three feet beneath the surface and then covered with another foot of dirt from there to the surface. They had scattered rusty nails, bottle caps, and other junk metal over a wider area in the unlikely event that someone with a metal detector stumbled across it.

The trick had been to place the caches in locations that were remote enough to evade the normal traffic pattern, but easy enough to remember. They didn’t bury them in dry creek beds because those might not always be dry, and they chose areas quite a distance from roads to avoid construction or expansion. It was more difficult to find and use lasting landmarks for triangulation than they initially thought it would be.

They ended up using large boulders that weren’t likely to be moved and a few old stumps from the early days of old growth logging. Those had been there for over a century and would likely be there for another one to come. As a backup, they marked geodesic Forest Service maps, but even those markers placed the caches 100 feet due west of their actual locations in the unlikely event the maps fell in the wrong hands. The misleading information would keep those who were aware of the decoy secret a safe distance from unfriendlies who might come searching.

They pulled out various straps with magazine pouches sewed onto them. A few practical tools were in there, as well, to include an ax, a hatchet, a South American homemade Bolo, a folding saw, several machetes, some fishing odds and ends, a large camouflage net, and a few rolled up nylon bags to carry it all. The last items they dug up were two three-gallon gasoline cans that were only a month old, having been changed out during their most recent refreshing of supplies. They included a piece of chamois to strain the gas through in case water had intruded into them through condensation.

They reburied the empty PVC pipes quickly, not being quite as meticulous as before, but instead covering up the area with tree limbs and debris from the surrounding area. They were now equipped with rifles and had only 150 miles left to travel. Most importantly, Mike’s group had grown from one to four. They left a predetermined signal the others would recognize if they showed after this group was gone. It essentially meant “do not dig… all was uncovered and removed.”

They waited an extra hour and, when no one else came along, they left for the next cache and rendezvous spot that lay another seventy-five miles ahead. With only a couple of hours of daylight left, they had to move quickly to avoid getting get caught out after dark.

The trip moved along without complication. The group passed several burning houses as they traveled, but soon their small band had to deviate a little. Up ahead, they would need to enter and travel the state highway for a short distance. It was the best and fastest route, but it was dangerous and would leave them completely exposed. It was for that reason they tried to limit these trips to the shortest durations possible and only when absolutely necessary.

Just ahead on this road was a railroad trestle that passed over a large river, which they needed to cross to get away from the road. They would cross the river there first because it skirted the highway for another several miles. After crossing on the trestle, they would be able to move back down off the beaten path. Mike scanned the surrounding area to ensure there was no ambush, and the small group moved as quickly as possible to the other side.

Not long after they crossed, they came to a car with the doors wide open and stopped for a moment to investigate. They saw a man and woman slumped in the front seat, obviously looters. The car was jammed full of multiple personal and household items and the backseat and trunk were packed full, as well, with silverware, canned food, and various other goods. Someone had turned their pockets inside out… probably their killer.

Nobody spoke, but they were all thinking the same thing. Someone had caught up to them and ended their looting binge. Caroline checked their pulses and knew from their fairly cool body temperatures that they were dead. Rigor mortis had not set in yet, which meant they had not been dead for more than a few hours. The bad guys had been at it in short order, especially since it had not been that long since the sirens had begun to blare.

Someone had delivered them to Heaven or Hell with a single shot to the head and one to the chest. Double tapping was the sign of someone who knew what they were doing. Mike knew about that; he was an ex-Navy SEAL and that was one of several ways it was done. Professionals always made certain their enemies couldn’t follow them later at an inopportune moment.

Greg kept watch while the others searched for weapons and ammo, but there were none. The gas tank was siphoned dry and whoever did this had taken almost everything of practical value. Mike and his group took the rest of the food and loaded it on their bikes but left the items that were monetary in value and, thus, worthless to the group. There wouldn’t be much use for anything that couldn’t be eaten or used for defense if things continued to deteriorate more than they had already.

They checked their own tanks and topped them off with the spare gas each of them carried. Greg checked his wristwatch and mentioned that without any further delays, they still had about another thirty minutes to go before reaching the next cache. After taking a moment to scrutinize their loads for balance, they were satisfied with the cursory check and were off again, moving down into a semi-wooded valley off to the left.

Several minutes later, they saw smoke over toward the highway and Mike told the group he wanted to investigate the cause. He parked his bike and made his way up to the crest of the hill a couple of hundred yards away. He could see from this vantage point that the action was on the opposite side of the river, which kept them out of danger.

He noted there were about fifty of them and they were armed with rifles and shotguns. Old tires were stacked up along either side of the road, burning fiercely and sending black smoke billowing into the cloudy sky. Highway flares glared on both sides of the road, out and away for about three hundred feet. It was a barricade, with several pickups obstructing the highway. Two of the cars were police cruisers with their emergency lights flashing and Mike guessed they were collecting a toll from anyone wanting to pass.

Three cars were stopped, and there was an argument going on between the driver from the first car and a large burly man who was probably in charge of the roadblock gang. When the big man suddenly butt-stroked the argumentative driver with his rifle, the screamer went down in a heap and his body stopped moving.

The other drivers saw what happened and quickly decided to cooperate. They walked meekly to the rear of their cars, removed various items from the trunks, and handed the goods over to the mob. There were so many brigands blocking the road, they wisely decided not to resist.

As Mike watched with interest, several of the mob members carried the stolen items over to a large truck and loaded them inside the cargo bay. The urge to go down and kill those taking advantage of the situation gripped him with fury, but he forced himself to calm down and control his feelings.

Those people were just trying to escape with their lives and a few meager possessions and those wolves were preying on the escaping flocks. The river likely saved the bullies from certain death because Mike hated people like these “Toll Collectors” who took advantage of others in desperate situations. He had seen it happen numerous times in Bosnia, Africa, and elsewhere, and he knew he couldn’t save everyone.

It startled him when Caroline crawled up next to him. He had been preoccupied watching the action below with avid intensity and her unexpected touch made him jump.

She laughed and said, “We need to be moving on, Michael, it’s getting late.”

She was right of course, so he nodded and wiggled backward to clear the brim of the ridge before the two of them stood up and walked to their bikes. Greg stood guard with his 9mm Uzi at the ready and tucked in the crook of his arm. Mike noticed there was an oversized magazine in it with probably a hundred rounds of ammo. It was one of the weapons cached at the last stop.

Mike was armed with an automatic of his own, an H&K MP3 9mm that had been stashed in one of the PVC goody pipes at the last cache. Caroline was armed with an H&K 91 loaded with a thirty-round mag strapped to her bike and a 9mm Ingram Mac-11 slung over her shoulder. Mike thought it was the sexiest thing he had seen in quite a while.

They mounted their bikes and were on their way once again. These nonessential stops ate up quite a bit of time, but the overwhelming curiosity to pause and see what was happening was too compelling not to take an occasional look, especially since they knew it might be quite some time before any of them ventured this way again, if ever. They were surprised to see how quickly society was eroding.

Twenty minutes later, the sky clouded over and they could smell the rain coming. They pinpointed the second cache and began to dig. There were several more tubes here and one had an end cap that was painted red. They all knew the red cap meant the tube contained vitamin and mineral supplements and medical supplies, including sedatives, morphine, other pain killers, and disposable syringes. There was a battlefield suture kit, a few I.V.‘s, some powdered veterinarian grade antibiotics, small bags of sulfur, and many more necessities that would be added to the retreat’s clinic when they arrived. Everything was packed inside the tube and the triple plastic garbage bags were individually sealed at the top.

One of the tubes contained Kevlar bulletproof vests and fresh clothing. Greg stood watch while Mike mounted the medical tube on his bike and the other tubes onto Caroline and Greg’s bikes, making a very tight fit. Suddenly, two other members of their group appeared and without discussion, loads quickly shifted to the new rides while they armed themselves with long guns from the last cache and donned bulletproof vests.

They topped off the tanks again from their portables and took a GPS reading while scrutinizing the map. An additional half hour passed as they waited to see if one or more of the others would show up.

No one came.

There were six of them now instead of four, and there was enough ammo among them to hold off a small army. It was a comforting thought.

About three miles into the ride of this leg, they were forced to stop because a large fire raged just ahead and the smoke was extensive. Mike wanted them to scout it out first since the fire was directly in their path and there was no convenient way around it. Mike, Greg, and Sam, who was a former Mike Force Team leader in ‘Nam, decided to go on foot to within visual distance, which was about one mile from the billowing black smoke. The remainder of the group stayed behind to safeguard the bikes and supplies.

It took a few minutes to jog the distance and once they were within visual range of the large fire, they saw the charred farmhouse, which had previously been part of a large dairy farm complex. The burning structure was surrounded by other small outbuildings, all of which were completely engulfed in the furiously burning fire.

The glow from the flames was spooky as they approached the tragic scene. Shadows danced and changed shape as the fire flickered and popped; dead bodies were all over the ground. What appeared to be the main house was still burning ferociously and was hot enough to make the three of them flinch from the heat, even though they weren’t all that close to it.

Mike guessed, by the colored bandannas over their heads, that they were Crips from the city. Now they were dead Crips. There were thirty-four dead bodies in all, not counting the farmer and his wife, whose dead bodies around the side of the house were still cooking because of their nearness to the fire when they fell. It was impossible to tell which was male and which was female because they both appeared to be lumps of charcoal. Mike merely guessed they had been a man and wife.

There were no firearms in sight, not even those the gang members normally would have carried. Someone had picked the area clean, probably some survivors, and they were long gone. Spent brass lay everywhere indicating an intense battle, and the men wondered how long it had lasted. If there were others in the family, they were nowhere to be seen and they probably would have been taken by those human vultures or scurried off to find safety.

Mike, Greg, and Sam headed back to the group and their bikes. When Caroline saw their faces, she didn’t ask what had happened. Her only comment was,

“Nasty?”

They just stared at her without answering.

The drizzle caught up to them about seventy miles from the next stop, but they all agreed they needed to push on and rest once they got to the next cache. There would be plenty of room there for all of them, including their motors and equipment.

When they had been scouting for cache spots earlier, they found a large cave with a small opening toward the back. It was perfect for expelling a campfire’s smoke, a natural chimney. It had been a shelter for ancient people at one time and long forgotten until Mike’s group found it again by accident.

When they had originally discovered it, the entrance was overgrown by bushes and not at all obvious. Inside were remnants of an old fire pit on the floor and some old Indian pictographs were painted on the walls.

The opening was surprisingly large, but once they narrowed it with large rocks and camouflage, it was actually concealed better than it had been with the natural vegetation growing in front of it. They had rebuilt the fire pit and stocked the interior with kindling and firewood to provide protection and comfort from the elements.

And there sure was a need today!

They wanted a fire to dry out; that would go a long way toward boosting their morale. From here they only had to travel another twenty miles to the old abandoned railroad track bed… the last leg to the retreat.

Mike took out several generous chunks of pemmican, a paste of dried and pounded meat mixed with melted fat and other ingredients, and each person helped themselves. With the timing of current events dinner was out of the question, so the pemmican would have to do. They knew they would have a chance to eat at the hideout but that thought didn’t stop their stomachs from rumbling.

The pemmican was a little difficult to swallow but extremely nourishing and loaded with protein. One of the group members made it earlier in the year with a one-to-one weight ratio of dried venison and suet and 5 percent dried blackberries to take the edge off the taste of the tallow. The secret was to ensure the animal was grass-fed and the meat was never cooked above 120 degrees. Missing either of those critical points destroyed the nutritional value. Early settlers and explorers had proven they could live on it for months at a time with no ill effects.

With a swig from their canteens, the pemmican went down easily enough and even though it wasn’t quite delectable, it filled their stomachs and their need for energy.

Chapter 3 Sanctuary

Mike made another GPS reading and told the group they would be heading north and east from their current position. This particular route to the retreat was not the everyday path most of them took. It was longer and more complex, but it was the safest means of travel and it kept the group out and away from watchful eyes.

They had all traveled this route before, but it had been quite some time, and today, after what they had seen, taking the normal route would have been a mistake.

Mike took the lead, and the others fell in line single file and remained separated from each other by at least a couple of hundred feet. It was the most secure plan available considering the circumstances, and their reaction time in an emergency could be crucial to their survival.

The group made a calculated decision to choose bikes as opposed to other means of transport. The motorcycles were noisy and could be heard coming from a long way off, so all element of surprise was lost. However, the one persuasive argument to using them was their speed. Dirt bikes could climb, dodge, and carry a heavy load in addition to the rider’s body weight. In general, the bikes could get riders where they needed to go and get them there quickly.

In a quarter of an hour, after they left the small valley in which they had been traveling, the group came to another stretch near the state highway, where they took a welcomed break. Well before they reached the crest where they could see the crowd below, they heard loud voices in the distance.

Many cars were stopped in the road, gridlocked, and hundreds of people were milling around the massive traffic jam that trapped them. Horns honked, people yelled, children chased one another as they played, and several arguments were well underway.

A man and his family had apparently broken down and instead of making an effort to move onto the shoulder, he had just stopped in the middle of the roadway. Someone else left the road to pass and was stuck fast on the high shoulder, which caused other vehicles to pile up. Another car was mired in the soft dirt on the opposite shoulder and that made getting past impossible, and on and on it went. It was stupidity in action on a grand scale and anger was escalating as tempers flared!

One person yelled at another, and suddenly one man’s dog jumped out of the family car, ran over, and bit the other guy on the leg. A handgun came out and with a flash and loud pop, the dog was dead. The dog’s owner, horrified by this incredible cruelty, jumped the man and so did the dog owner’s wife. A few seconds later, they both were shot and lay dead in the road with their dog.

Most of the crowd stood there and watched as the shooter pointed his handgun ominously at them, walked over to his 4x4 pickup, slid into the driver’s side, started the engine, and in one swift movement, shifted and floored it with a roar. The oversized truck rammed cars out of the way and eventually made a hole through the traffic. But as the driver moved around the cars blocking the highway, he too was stopped. The truck was stuck in place when he high-ended it in the dirt, merely tilting it back and forth because the vehicle had no traction.

That’s when the crowd moved in.

Some had guns in their hands and the driver of the 4x4 was dead in a handful of seconds. Bullets flew at him from seemingly every direction, and when it was obvious the deed was completed and they had satisfied their mob revenge, people began to yell and cheer as if it was some grand sporting event. It was a stark reminder that mob reactions were often spontaneous and sometimes deadly.

Mike and his crew moved on.

A few miles further down the road, they came to a narrow bridge where they found cars stopped in front, on, and well beyond it. The jam must have been there for quite some time and the vehicles continued to stack up. The group had to find a way around it, which forced them to ford the river because the bridge was too dangerous.

There was a small town named Fitch another twenty miles ahead, so they turned at the green mileage indicator and circled back and away from the road to take an alternate route that paralleled the arterial road toward the northeast. They would need to cross the river ahead and in this particular spot, the water was deep and swift.

Water fell from the mountains in the near distance, gathering rapidly with streams and the momentum of the fast-moving water grew with each foot of travel. There wasn’t much chance of getting over from this spot, so they grabbed a right at the river’s edge and moved through the brush until a crossing spot came into view another five miles downstream of the bridge.

It took a few minutes of searching for the small group of survivalists to spot an area that was suitable for crossing. They poked at it with sticks to get an idea of the depth of the water and it appeared to be shallow enough to cross. Including the high water area on both sides, the river was about a hundred fifty feet wide here, but Mike recognized eddies and swirls toward the middle that would help them maneuver the bikes and supplies across to the other side.

The sandbar had grown through the years as the sediment washed down from the river and wedged together, one piece after another, forming this crossing. Without the sandbar, the width of the river and the swiftness of the water would have made it impassable. They could easily drown or lose all they carried with just one slip.

Mike went first. The water came up to his chain and he was traveling fast. In a couple of places the bike sank further, wetting him up past his knees. Once he made it to the sandbar, he motioned for them to stay back. He wanted to try to get all the way across before any of them followed to ensure the others could make it safely.

Because he was an experienced swimmer, Mike felt that if he went down he would survive the accident whereas some of the others might not. That was one tragedy he was determined to prevent. His bike slid on the loose stones and he almost lost it once, but finally made it. He unstrapped the shooter from across his back and set his bike against a tree, then chambered a round and made sure the safety was off.

He held one finger up and motioned for them to come across one at a time, emulating a police officer directing traffic. He put a hand to his forehead, just above his eyes, as if to shade them from the sun, and he moved his head from left to right. All the time, he pointed his other hand out in front of him with his index finger extended.

The signal meant to keep a good lookout for “unfriendlies” because the group was vulnerable here. An ambush could go down at any moment without warning and they had already witnessed a great deal of senseless violence. One-by-one they started to cross.

The going was difficult, as all of them were packing a load and the bikes were a little off balance. When Caroline was across the river, she did the same as Mike by putting her sub-machine gun, or SMG, at the ready. She was guarding the area ahead of them and assumed a position with her back to Mike’s, each of them watching the other’s rear. Those still on the other side of the river watched in every direction as well.

Everyone understood that if Mike fired, they were to drop immediately. He wouldn’t miss, but it was better to give him as much room to fire as possible. Sam was next to cross and he guarded west while Greg watched east. Once they were all on the other side, they took a bearing before continuing on in order to pinpoint their position.

The surroundings in which they found themselves were largely overgrown and covered in blackberry bushes, making the going slow. They knew they needed to travel through the thicket because the riverbank was simply too narrow and steep, and it would expose them to potential unfriendlies.

Mike and Sam cut a path through with two of the machetes they had recovered at the last cache. Some of the bushes were ten feet tall, very thick, and they could lay a person open with some nasty cuts.

The disagreeable job lasted about a half hour, but they were soon on their way again and past the onerous bushes. The turnoff to the cave was the next waypoint on Mike’s GPS, so he stopped to see how everyone was doing. They had been riding long enough for his butt to go numb and he thought theirs might be too.

The short rest brought out idle conversations; it always did. They talked about what they had seen in their travels thus far while they absentmindedly finished off the last of the pemmican. The drizzle continued and everyone looked forward to arriving at the cave and getting a good fire going. There were enough of them now to post a guard so the rest could sleep safely.

The group decided to spend the night at the cave and continue on to the next cache the following day. It was important to get off the trail, get out of the drizzle, dry out, and eat. Mike led the way. Twenty more minutes of riding found them at the turn off and he sent all but one of them ahead. He cut a few branches from a large bush and covered the bike tracks as best he could while Greg stood lookout. Satisfied with the concealment effort, they mounted up and followed the group. It was getting dark.

The bushes that hid the cave entrance were much taller than the last time Mike had seen them months ago. He grimaced when he saw the tracks the others had left and covered the ground leading to the entrance.

He surveyed the layout of the approaches to the cave with his back to the entrance and surmised that placing Claymores in a sweeping arc in the direction where he looked would block any surprises during the night. Walking out a hundred feet on the left, he placed one in the ground and away from there about twenty feet; he set another by gently pushing the spikes into the ground.

Having set four more that completed the large arch, he strung and attached a trip wire to each of them and began the tedious task of removing the safety pins. He placed the pins in a small pocket on his vest to use again later; he didn’t want to lose those babies.

When his defensive perimeter was complete, he walked over to his bike and pushed it behind the bushes that hid the entry to the cave. As he stepped into the “Roach Hotel,” as they fondly referred to it, he let the guard know not to shoot him.

“Friendly One”

“Pass through, brother,” came the reply.

He was home for the night.

Inside, the light from the new fire was bright and flickering. It burned fiercely from its dry and seasoned wood, and Mike saw there were three more group members added to their numbers. They had arrived earlier and waited, as planned. He noticed the fire was being drawn to the rear of the cave and up the “chimney” as he predicted it would when they first stumbled onto the hideout.

Chad, Linda, and Penny were already here. Not everyone had made it on schedule, however, and there were still members missing. Caroline approached Mike and began to clean a few scratches he had received from chopping the blackberry bushes. They stung but once she put a dab or two of antibiotic ointment on them, the stinging stopped. Mike took some of the food she offered and gobbled it down quickly. He had forgotten how hungry he was. Pemmican, regardless of its sustaining qualities, couldn’t compare with a hot meal.

“The coffee’s boiling,” Caroline mentioned. “Anyone want some?”

“I do, thank you,” Mike said, and he noticed she was smiling at him when she spoke. “Incidentally, everyone, I have Claymores out there,” Mike said, “So if anyone needs to go to the bathroom, don’t go straight or left; go right and no more than five feet.”

A couple of the women grumbled, but everyone relaxed as they ate the simple meal before them. Conversations flowed back and forth, and in a few minutes they drew straws to see who would stand the first watch while the others slept and dried out.

Someone had chopped down a few saplings, limbed them, and put up a drying line for everyone’s wet clothes. They arranged them in a tripod position on each end and tied them together at the top of the three poles with some parachute cord, or paracord for short. It was lightweight and surprisingly strong. Mike was impressed at how far they had advanced from when he had started training them a few years ago. All that training was paying off in a big way because he no longer had to do it all himself.

Once they set the watch, they could strip down to the essentials and dry out. They placed everything away from the fire and near a wall that prevented the dripping from interfering with the sleep area. The cave was large and everything fit nicely without being crowded, including the motorcycles. Mikes was the exception; his was staged outside in case it was needed on short notice.

Greg and Sam drew the first watch, which was planned for four hours. One stood at the entry to the cave, while the other was positioned in a small stand of bushes a little farther out. Both of them were well-hidden but had a good view of all approaches to the cave and away from the Claymores.

The cooking and cleanup was done, all the coffee was consumed, and now it was time to shed some clothes for drying. Mike began to set up the sleeping area. With a stiff branch, he gently swept the floor of the cave.

It would be uneasy sleeping if one of them was lying on a rock or twig all night long. He placed a piece of 20 mil plastic sheeting down on the dirt floor as a moisture barrier to prevent the sleeping bags from getting wet and making it a more comfortable night’s sleep. It also eliminated the need to hang the sleeping bags out to dry the next day, since they were in a hurry and waiting for them to dry wasn’t an option.

Some members preferred a small isolation mat that added a half-inch cushion and provided further insulation. They were similar to a mattress, but not as thick or heavy and often referred to as “trail beds.” They were more comfortable but bulkier to carry.

Regardless, the group was prepared and the constant interaction with one another these past years had adequately readied each of them for almost anything. Everyone stripped the articles of clothing they wanted to dry, hung them up, and crawled into their bags.

It made Mike laugh as he thought about it. Years ago when he first practiced this situation with these people, they were out in the open and a squall came through and soaked everyone. He showed them how to set up a shelter and a drying line for the wet clothes and how to get a fire going in quick succession.

When he started stripping off his clothes, however, they all stood there watching him. He didn’t even take notice that they weren’t doing the same. It suddenly dawned on him what the problem was and he uttered hastily, “Look people, when stripping down to your underwear, you aren’t naked, you still have on clothing. You wear bathing suits don’t ya? Besides, sitting around in wet clothes will get you sick!”

They stripped down as he had done and that was the last time anyone ever hesitated. Now here they were years later with everyone working effectively as a team. They had gotten the necessary things done smoothly and even stood watch without question.

Thinking about it, Mike knew the next watch standers would suffer once awakened from a sound sleep and he was glad it wasn’t going to be him. His mind raced with the events of the day but he used an old trick of relaxation he had learned many years ago, and in thirty seconds he departed into a delicious dream that included Caroline.

Man, Mike’s subconscious focused on her, she had great legs!

An explosion brought everyone awake and Mike was the first out the door, clenching his shooter. Outside and barely visible, Greg was holding his SMG to his chest and pointed away from himself. Mike went out further and there was Sam, looking bewildered. He shrugged his shoulders in an “I don’t know what it was” gesture.

Mike had an idea and he cautiously worked his way toward some bushes that were on fire… right where he had planted a Claymore.

Chapter 4 Wayward Victim

Mike approached the burned area with caution. Something flopped around on the ground and his thumb flipped the selector from semi-automatic to full rock-and-roll. The light of the burning vegetation was fizzling out because of the rain and smell of burnt flesh, and the exploded gunpowder hung thickly in the air. It was still dark, and as Mike closed the distance, he saw a deer lying on the ground.

“Crap!”

What a waste of a good Claymore. He shot the deer once in the head, putting it out of its misery and dragged it back toward the cave. The others waited in anticipation for him to come back and they were all relieved when they saw he was not dragging a person.

Mike busied himself gutting the animal and someone else cut and set in place a couple of sturdy poles with a cross piece tied to the top to hang the carcass until the morning. Truth be told, Mike was anxious to get back into his sleeping bag. He knew tomorrow was going to be a long day.

A quickie clean up with the assistance of Caroline and it was sack time again. The adrenaline still coursed through his system and he knew getting back to sleep wouldn’t be easy. He closed his eyes and counted backward, again using a system he had learned years ago. “Ten, I am relaxing…, nine, I am getting sleepy…” and soon he was fast asleep. It was dawn when he woke up again.

They decided to stash the empty gas cans in the cave once the bikes were topped off; they then gathered and placed the trash toward the back of the cave, as well. Mike applied a little chain lube to his bike chain and did the same to Caroline’s. Breakfast was started.

Mike went to work on the deer and soon had it cut up into nice manageable pieces. It would make great pemmican, but the meat had to age first. Ordinarily, he would not have done the butchering so soon and would have preferred to let it hang, but there was no opportunity at times like these. It would have been difficult to haul the whole carcass on just one bike and he wasn’t about to let the meat go to waste. They carefully wrapped the useable meat in a garbage bag.

Mike knew that in the grand scheme, things had just begun and that wildlife would be heading for the high country just as they were. If anyone expected to live off the land when the balloon went up, they would be in for a hungry surprise. Animals were not as stupid as some people might think; they would also be in survival mode once humans started coming for them. This one had simply stumbled into its death.

Chad and Linda did the cooking, which was a benefit to all since they were both professional chefs. His specialty was meats; hers was pastries. She had graduated from a school just outside of Paris about ten years back and he attended and graduated from a school in Naples Italy around the same time. The cave filled with mouth-watering smells, despite their limited resources. Mike was hungry and so were the rest of them.

In selecting group members, however, simply being a chef wouldn’t have been enough, so it was helpful that Chad was a national Pistol Shot Champion and Linda was an archery shooter of some note. She had competed in the Olympics and did well, and even though she didn’t win any medals, she was selected to be a judge at another Olympic Games a few years later.

The two of them first met at a chili cook off and their quick wit, great looks, and personalities had them dating for a couple of years. When asked what brought them together, Linda always attributed it to their love of and expertise in cooking. Chad always told his close friends it was her smile and perfect legs that did it for him.

They were amazing to watch. When someone knows what they’re doing, they make it look effortless and this time was no different; everyone was eating in short order. Mike suggested the guards stay put until a relief could take their place. These were unpredictable times so they couldn’t let their guard down for one minute.

Chad had actually brought a small cooler loaded with meats and Linda had other foodstuffs in the one she was carrying, along with several normal accoutrements. Chad joked that the apparent end of the world didn’t mean he had to act uncivilized by wasting the filet mignon he had bought earlier that day. He had thrown a few loaded clips of ammo on the top of it, along with his personal set of knives. Linda’s bow, a sixty-pound compound, was always at the ready and Mike was fairly certain she could easily take out a sentry from three hundred feet in near silence.

One of the decisions they had made years ago, when these people met and formed the initial members, was that everyone would have at least two side arms… either 9mm or .45 ACP in order to reduce confusion. Their battle rifles would be the standard .308/7.62 NATO, with a backup of something in a .223 caliber. The decision was based on the billions of rounds available in those calibers worldwide. Other weapons in their stockpile consisted of 12 gauge shotguns. The pistols and rifles they used for practice were .22 rimfire because the ammo was cheaper to shoot than standard center-fire cartridges and easily transported in bricks of 500.

The group agreed that each person would purchase and bring to the retreat 10,000 rounds of each caliber to ensure there was adequate ammo to go around. Some of them opted to bring additional weapons, and that wasn’t discouraged, but by adopting a standard, they were able to buy the reloading components in large lots, which saved them money.

They had several hunting rifles amply fitted with scopes for more accurate shooting. Each rifle had the see-through-type scope mounts installed on them, which meant the shooter had the use of iron sights in addition to the scope. Flip over scope mounts were discouraged because it was hard to keep a scope properly sighted-in every time there was a need to flip the scope over to one side.

The scope made for more accurate shots each and every time. Waste not, want not, or so it went. There were also a couple of .458 Winchesters, which were referred to as the “car stoppers.” One shot in the motor with one of those cannons and a vehicle was not going anywhere ever again.

Every person in the group had copies of the Ingram MAC-11 sub-machine gun in 9 mm. It had been a favorite of the Green Berets and Navy SEALS “way back when” and was still a formidable and robust assault weapon. This baby was perfect for patrolling and working in close quarters such as in a house-to-house search, and for what was often referred to as “up close and personal” type work.

Over a period of months, a reliable machinist had copied these weapons piece-by-piece and made all the proper heat treatments to factory perfection. One other nice thing about these arms, other than their superb functionality, was that they were as sterile as it got; there were absolutely no stampings anywhere. The group found these weapons to be very reliable and acquired enough handmade spare parts to last quite some time.

When they were all done, a few had been stashed in the caches and many more in the armory at the retreat. Other goodies were acquired in a similar manner, having been fabricated from the originals. Once in a great while, the real McCoy was sought and found but that always ended up being a chancy business. Every transaction was extremely dangerous.

With everyone well-fed and the clean-up done, they took time to make the cave secure again. Several of the men stacked rocks against the cave entrance, giving the appearance of a rockslide, while others cut branches to stack near it to hide the access. Mike had replaced the safety pins in the Claymores, put them away, and carefully wrapped up the trip wire.

They all worked together to hide the tracks that led up to the cave’s opening, including the deer’s last stand. It was unlikely that someone would stumble upon it unless they already knew where to look, but they wanted to be certain.

The venison was divided up among several people for transport and Mike took a minute to outline the travel rules they would follow. They would ride single file, with spacing of at least two hundred foot intervals. No chatter, and no one was to stop unless they all stopped together. If the last person in line didn’t show up after two minutes, they were to assume a battle ready position. Their next stop would be at the last cache, which was about forty more miles down the trail. As he talked, Mike’s breath appeared and dissipated; it was chilly and they were steadily going up in elevation.

“Everybody ready?”

They all nodded and rolled on the power, following the leader with a roar.

Chapter 5 Forgotten Trail

They traveled cross-country for fifteen uneventful minutes through off-road areas before they arrived at what they knew to be an old railroad bed. It no longer looked like one, however, and had taken on the appearance of an old animal trail. There were lots of overgrown bushes and other weeds, but the path didn’t appear to go anywhere.

Large portions of it were covered by landslides from years ago and most people who came this way didn’t bother to go any farther because of the difficulty required in getting past them. The old railroad bed was bordered by a steep mountain face on one side and on the other by a sheer drop off to the valley below, which got progressively higher as the path ascended the mountain.

At first glance, it looked like the end of the road but they knew there was a way around it. They had to find it and that wasn’t easy because members of the group had hidden it years ago. They had to clear it now, just as on every trip up, before they could go any further.

They dismounted and worked in a chain to clear the obstacles that prevented access to the small opening through the huge pile of rocks and dirt. Once it was unblocked, they all went through and painstakingly blocked it again so no one would know they had passed through.

The railroad company had come through decades ago and removed the ties and tracks, long before any of the group discovered this place. The firmly-packed rock bed still existed and provided a steady, but gradual, upward grade that was a perfect weed infested trail used only by animals and the group. It was long ago forgotten by all and simply sat there, year after year, unnoticed and unused. As they climbed, the bed switched back and forth as it went up the grade in a long, winding pattern that hugged the side of the mountain.

There was no longer any industry in this area; there hadn’t been any for nearly a century. The railroad, in previous years, hauled out coal, cattle, and lumber. That was during the heyday when coal mines were king in these parts; now they weren’t even a flickering memory. The last coal and lumber taken out of these mountains was in 1918 and had remained bereft of activity since.

That is, until Mike and his best friend Daniel discovered this access several years ago while out riding. Over the years, it had become increasingly difficult to find good places to ride and this area was a great find. It was remote enough to serve their needs, yet close enough to access during a weekend outing if they wanted to camp out.

Mike took out his GPS and read the waypoint he had saved months ago. The way to the retreat was firmly planted in his memory, but he liked to extract the GPS or a compass so that his companions would see repeatedly how it worked. If they ever found themselves alone it might be necessary to do this themselves, even though he was fairly confident that all of them knew the way by heart after all these years. Still, all of them had the same make and model GPS unit in order to assure that everyone was doing the same thing. He noted that they were less than halfway to the next stop and still a bit farther from the retreat itself.

They topped off their bikes during the break and headed for the final cache and then their ultimate destination, the retreat. It would be home sweet home for all of them now and none of them knew for how long. As they got closer, the rising excitement in the group could be felt. Mike wasn’t the only one who liked where they were headed.

Travel on the old railroad bed was bumpy, but no more so than any other off-road ride on unimproved trails. They were making good time but when Mike noticed more large rocks lying on the old bed, it suddenly made him wonder why those boulders were there. The first time they came down this path years ago, Mike and Dan were riding together and there weren’t that many slides. There had only been the occasional slide and those were minor. He concluded that they were a result of some of the earthquakes that had occasionally happened.

They rounded a bend in the rail bed where they could look down to where the main highway turned to the east. From there, it winded out of sight through more interlocked mountains far off in the distance.

The vista here was awesome, making it easy for each of them to stare off into the valley below and get lost in their own imagination. The sky had begun to clear, but many cumulus clouds continued to roll by and surround the tops of the distant mountains; they appeared to be staked to the peaks as a collar on a coat.

Higher up were the long, spreading clouds that were referred to as “Mare’s Tails,” or stratus clouds in the proper nomenclature. They stretched across the blue sky for miles and Mike guessed the winds up there were strong, given the span. Where they were on the ledge, the breeze was slight… just enough to stir the hair of the women that accompanied his group.

Mike made a mental note that this would be an excellent place for a “Look-out Station.”

They continued to climb for quite some time. The dirt bikes had more than enough power, but the terrain and cliff face warranted a respectful and cautious speed. It was a long way down to the valley floor from their vantage point. The river could be seen as it paralleled the road but it was still too far for any serious recognizable details.

There were large campfires down there that sent smoke into the clear mountain air. He counted twenty-five or thirty of them altogether. It wasn’t possible to see what the people who made them were doing, just that they were there, their fires giving them away. The vehicles appeared smaller than grains of salt from where Mike and his companions had stopped; people didn’t register in their vision.

It was clear that something was going on below and it sparked his imagination as to what it might be. It had stopped drizzling a half hour before and the sun was already out. A glint from one of the windshields occasionally sparkled as the sun’s position moved ever so slowly from east to west, or when a vehicle moved and caught the sun’s rays.

Linda had a Grundig transistor Satellite Radio and tuned it to a man saying,

Casualties are rising by the hour, FEMA estimates more than three hundred thousand are dead or horribly burned in and around each of the two cities struck by the Terrorists. Others are getting sick from the radiation and accidents are happening by the hundreds, adding to the staggering numbers of casualties.

Hospitals, emergency services, and authorities have been overwhelmed. Atlanta is devastated, as is Washington, D.C., and there are widespread reports of huge, blackened holes at the two ground zero areas. Helicopter flights are not possible because of the nuclear clouds hovering over those areas and we have been told that the entire area is being evacuated. As I speak; the traffic jams are monstrous.

All surviving members of Congress and the Supreme Court were relocated early this morning to a secure location for their safety and there were surprisingly few casualties among them. Several members are still unaccounted for, but authorities are searching for them to protect them from what is being called the worst attack on the United States in the entire history of our great nation.

The President and his Cabinet, along with their general staff, have been relocated to an undisclosed location, as well. Government officials have assured us that the President will address the nation this evening at six o’clock, Eastern Standard Time. It is believed that he will, at that time, ask Congress to declare unconditional war on…

Static…

The message cut out for a moment before squelching back …again, that will be about twelve hours from now. Fires are raging everywhere.

Suddenly the radio station went silent again. They waited, but it didn’t come back.

Linda moved the dial and almost instantly found another station that had someone with an Arab accent speaking …that you evil Americans have felt the wrath of Allah, the magnificent, and it is not done. We will kill all of you infidels…

She turned the radio off and said, “Well, I guess we know who did this, don’t we?” She had taken her helmet off earlier to hear the radio better and her blonde hair was swaying in the slight breeze.

“Any comments before we shove off?” Mike asked. He wanted to get the show on the road. They were not in any danger here and the chance of anyone else being in this place was extremely remote. Nonetheless, he cautioned them to stay alert anyway, having told them often enough.

“Expect the unexpected, and you can count on it happening. If you anticipate something will happen, it won’t catch you by surprise.”

They put their helmets back on and cranked up their bikes. In less than a minute, they were single filing it down the old right of way. As the long, winding turn developed it swung them to the left and then came to an abrupt halt. In the middle of the bed was another landslide.

It would take a bit of an effort, but they could easily get over it by removing some of the larger debris and rocks. Mike parked his bike and asked someone to set up a guard behind them while two others went over the top on foot to watch in that direction.

He took note that the sheer drop to the east was now at least three thousand feet straight down to the river valley below. The small looking ribbon of water sparkled in the sunshine and gave off small, bluish hued, brilliant flashes that looked like diamonds for just an instant when they caught his eye at the right angle.

To the west was a sheer cliff that had been carved from the side of the mountain more than a century past. Above the granite rock were evergreen trees that grew defiantly in profusion and topped the crest of the sheer rock face all along this side of the mountain.

They began by removing a few of the medium sized rocks and then moved the large ones back and forth until those, too, were out of the way. One by one the smaller debris that surrounded them came loose and fell off the edge, down to the valley below.

As he worked, Mike accidentally bumped into Caroline’s chest and it was not lost on him that it felt soft. He quickly said that he was sorry but she paused, looked into his eyes, and said,

“Why?”

He worked a little faster on the next rock.

In fifteen minutes, a path was cleared and Mike caught the glimpse of something off in the distance coming up through the valley. He noticed the familiar shine of it well before he heard it.

He grabbed his machete and began hacking at some of the various bushes growing randomly along the bed. He yelled for them to bring their bikes over and when they did, he began stacking the cut brush over them. It went fast, luckily for them.

The whine and clacking of the rotors was turning toward them. They scurried under an end of the brush and waited. The chopper veered off and circled back toward the river valley again and Mike didn’t think anyone had seen them. Why would someone think that anyone was way up here?

He thought it in silence; why cause alarm in the others?

One by one, they went over the slide area and waited on the other side for the last person to complete the group. When they were together again, Mike changed the standard travel orders to maintain better control.

“The distance separating each of us needs to be closer, so make it fifty feet. Follow my lead. Everyone ready?”

They nodded their heads, and as he rolled on the power, each one fell in behind the other at the proper intervals as they eased their clutches to engage the gears. They rode single file for another ten minutes and came to yet another slide area.

They had a system now so they simply did the same as before, and when it was adequately cleared, they were off again. These slides were new; there had been a 5.5 earthquake only two weeks before and that must have caused them. The good news was if anyone found this old railroad bed, these slides would make things more difficult for them and would likely discourage any further exploration.

After a fifty-minute bumpy ride, they came to the remains of what had once been an old railroad shack that had seen better days. What was left of it sat off to one side of the track area, and it was evident that a large boulder had tumbled down from the huge rock overhang that towered above it. When it hit the little shack, it simply exploded into debris. The area was fairly wide and the shack originally sat at the bottom of a very steep grade. The rock that had caused the damage must have kept rolling along and disappeared over the cliff. It was nowhere to be seen.

The wide table-top plateau sported huge sand traps designed to stop a runaway train. The engineer would sound the warning with his whistle as he sped down to this spot, and the switch man would pivot the large lever that turned the tracks to divert the train off to the sand pits to stop it. There were no longer any such switches in place to do this, but the layout was still indelibly clear. Those switches had been removed along with the tracks.

The plateau also had a place for switching the engine and caboose for the return trip down the mountain. The area was large enough for the entire train to be sidetracked and unhooked, and the engine was moved to another area. From there, it was switched to a different set of tracks that sent it in a wide arch to the newly designated front of the cars.

An old railroad loading platform sat to one side with its depot building in semi-disrepair. Here, the shipments of goods being delivered to the ranch occurred and passengers were loaded or disembarked.

Off to one side, a huge corral and loading platform eased the cattle on to the cattle cars. Just beyond that they had buried a very large cache of essential goods for the retreat. It also served as a backup of indispensable supplies in case the retreat was unavailable, for whatever reason.

Looking around, Mike noticed this had also been the place where the men camped and cut thousands of trees for the railway’s construction. Throughout the new growth were huge stumps that resembled tombstones revealing the size of the trees removed more than a century past. Some of those trees had been ten feet across and remained as silent reminders of a time when things were still relatively untouched.

A little ahead and off to the right of where the tracks once sat, an old water tower stood to the side for the steam locomotives’ water supply. It still stood as a silent sentry, yet another testament of times past. A small stream swept by this area and had been the water source to resupply the tower. It went under the tracks and fell from the side of the mountain in a small, but spectacular, waterfall. There was an impressive rainbow that was perpetually off to one side, hovering above the spiraling cascade of water whenever the sun was out.

Off to the right of a large stand of Douglas firs was a dirt road that disappeared from view. At the end of that road, hidden in the trees, was their retreat. Once a lonely derelict, it was now a beacon of hope and security that would serve as a refuge for them and several others.

In the old days, around the turn of the century, it had transformed through more than one design. What had begun as a pioneer cattle ranch was later converted into a prosperous and posh dude ranch. Later, it was simply forgotten and sat derelict and devoid of any human activity for more than eighty-five years.

There was a time when the railroad brought trainloads of people and visitors to this place. They also hauled in supplies, animals, vehicles, and spare parts that were eagerly awaited, at times for months, by the full-time inhabitants of the ranch. As time marched steadily onward, the owners eventually died off through the steady progression of years and the property sat in the state archives as an abandoned trust.

Mike and Dan found it, paid the back taxes after a brief but brisk round of negotiations with the state, and became the owners of what some might consider a ghost town; less the mineral rights, which the state retained for itself. It had everything a group such as theirs could need in preparation of an undetermined long haul. This was that time and no one knew or could even guess how long it would last.

Mike pulled out his GPS and found the coordinates that led them to the last cache. It had been designated a “last ditch” backup, which meant it was large and would take quite a few people to dig up and transport to the retreat. They eventually decided to skip it and wait for a larger body of the members to get that job done. They were tired and wanted to relax now that their journey was virtually complete.

The original purpose of this cache was two-fold and had shifted as they prepared over the years. Originally, it was the primary long-term cache that protected their resources before they established a rotation of groundskeepers at the retreat. Later, they had decided it would make a good fall-back supply in case something like a major fire rendered the retreat inaccessible.

It had taken a lot of bodies and a few trips to move it all here. It was going to take an equal amount to get it all to the retreat, which was another fifteen miles down the dirt road past the stand of firs.

Mike stared at them for a moment and took in the splendor of the huge trees, which was always a humbling experience. A single tree provided enough lumber to nearly complete a three bedroom house.

“Through those trees is our new, and possibly permanent, home.” He continued to no one in particular, “We all thought today might come, but none of us could say when that day would arrive, if ever. It’s come to pass, though, and we’ll be safe here. We’ll raise families and do more than just survive… we’ll thrive.”

The conviction could be heard in his tone.

“It may be hard to believe but down there, where we just came from, there will be millions that will not. They will die, and many of them will die in the most brutal and painful ways. Whatever man can dream up will be done in terms of man’s inhumanity to other men. We will survive because we had the foresight to prepare for this day, to make ready for an event that was foretold by many, even though no one knew exactly when it would occur.”

He paused and took a breath.

“We will live, we will prosper, and we will have the opportunity to teach those who are not yet born what it is to be a truly patriotic and God-fearing people. We will instill in them the values that once made our country the greatest country man was ever able to conceive in all of recorded history. Hoooraah. Hoooraah!”

The small group understood his words and the important message they conveyed. Each had their own motivation for why they were here and most of them, possibly all of them, felt the same sentiment Mike had just expressed. That was why they had made the original commitment to the group and to themselves.

They were here.

They were alive.

And they would begin a new life in this place.

Chapter 6 Crowning Glory

Avalon was originally founded as a cattle ranch in 1878. Its mainstay was the beef market, and it reached key profitability when the railroad was installed to access three big moneymakers of that period… cattle, coal, and lumber. Prior to then, it was a long and dangerous drive to get the cattle to the nearest railroad junction, and the coal and lumber were simply inaccessible. The Elyria and Sacramento Railroad came at just the right time, and profits boomed as beef trade blossomed.

Eli Cameron, the man who founded Avalon, ended up shipping all the cattle east to the slaughter houses in Chicago, and the lumber industry began in earnest right around the same time the railroad’s need drastically increased. Large timber was required for both laying track and building railroad bridges through the jagged canyons that joined one mountain to the next with the long wooden trestles.

Coal was discovered in the mountains during that time and that one commodity, alone, was all the railroad barons needed to make it worth the expenses incurred from carving out a path through the mountains surrounding Avalon. Profits surged as everyone needed coal, including the railroads.

In short order, one rail car after another piled high and loaded with all three moneymakers began leaving the mountains. Eli built Avalon at a time when men who had vision and the guts to stick it out made massive fortunes. A few of those immense fortunes still stood a century later. Weyerhaeuser was one of them and there were many others, but Avalon was no longer among them.

Eli was born in 1838 in Kentucky where he grew into manhood. In 1861, at the age of twenty-three, he saw the “Great Trial” of the nation come. It came to a head when, after years of economic hardship imposed on the southern states by northern politicians, laws were passed that made the price of southern cotton nearly worthless.

The South seceded from the Union at that time and some would argue that was really the beginning of the war. But the reality is there was talk of formal separation from the American alliance for fifteen years before it actually happened. That was one of many reasons for what is often referred to as the American Civil War.

One such cause was that there were many more people who could vote in the North than in the South. The larger population in the South was negated by the fact that four million of those people were slaves and had no vote. The result of this lopsided population disparity was that the Northern states had more representatives in the House of Representatives and could get laws passed that favored the industrialist economy.

In order to reduce the asking price of the Southern grower’s cotton crops, for instance, the Northern industrialists had laws passed that imposed a tax on slaves. They then reduced the tax on imported cotton from England and increased the tax on cotton from the southern states. Ironically, Lincoln was a much hated President well before his assassination because many in the South considered him to be against slavery. They feared he would end slavery, which would impose a terrible economic burden on the growers.

In December of 1860, South Carolina led the way for the South by voting to break away from the Union when it became too much for the southern states to bear. On that fateful day of April 12, 1861, General Pierre Beauregard gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter and the misnamed “Civil War” began. It was also known as “The War Between the States,” “The War of the Rebellion,” and the “War of Northern Aggression.”

The irony in terming it a “civil war” is that it technically wasn’t; the Southern States actually had the right to secede. The North, recognizing the future financial potential of the South, simply refused. As a result of this well-debated point and many others, the young men of the day sat in groups, expressed their bravado, and yearned to get the war started. Both sides were initially convinced that the war would be short lived, a few months at the outside. No one believed the war would be as devastating as it turned out to be in the end.

Brother against brother, idealists against realists, and in the course of a few years, a generation of men were removed from the population of the United States. They died on battlefields, mowed down by rifle salvos and the terrible effectiveness of the cannon and its grapeshot, which rendered flesh worthless in a moment of stark terror for those Soldiers who were exposed to it. Legs and arms were seen stacked up in front of the surgeon’s tent as amputations were carried out endlessly.

In the end, the South was mortally wounded and left to dig itself out of a financial hardship formerly unknown to any of them and it took a hundred years to come full circle financially. Regardless, more than 600,000 men died from both sides by the time it ended on April 9, 1865 when General Lee surrendered his sword at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

In the beginning, young men like Eli jumped at the opportunity to “teach those damn Yankees a lesson!” As the war dragged on and hundreds of thousands were laid in their graves, or left where they fell, it became apparent that the might of the industrialized North would prevail against the predominately agrarian South.

Eli came through the war broken in spirit but with one burning resolve. He was going to move from the ravaged South and go West to where the opportunities didn’t include the unscrupulous tactics of a Union bent on punishing the South for its sins of the war.

He was especially wary of the insidious northern outsiders who often appeared out of seemingly nowhere to exploit anyone by whatever means possible. With questionable objectives, and unscrupulous tactics, they often meddled in local politics, manipulating and controlling former Confederate States for their own financial and power gains. Given the name “Carpetbaggers,” which reflected the material from which their luggage was crafted, they often bought up plantations at fire-sale prices and lined their own pockets at the expense of many people Eli knew personally.

Eli was also consumed with a dream of striking it rich.

Wandering from the gold mining areas of California, he eventually saw the large cattle enterprises of Montana and Wyoming. After spending a short time in Alaska, he came back to California with a small stake in his poke. He met a meek and ugly little woman by the name of Eldora Avalon Spears and married her during his late wandering years.

One day, as a prospector in search of a rich claim that had him drifting through those hills for many months, he came upon the area that would become his ranch. Eldora was with child and so he stopped and built a home. The two of them planted their roots and the base for a cattle empire grew that would, in the coming years, make him a very rich man.

In August 1902, while taking down a big fir at the age of sixty four, Eli died when the big tree split up the middle and the shards shot out in every direction, killing both him and his son Jeremiah instantly. Eldora was left to run the ranch, but the death of her son and husband at the same time was too much for her to bear. Being a frail Southern woman and not accustomed to those business decisions usually reserved for men, she wandered off naked one night from the house and was found a few days later dead, propped against the crook of a tree, stiff as a board. The wolves had eaten a large part of her.

Soon thereafter, a relative from back east took over the ranch but he was a gambling man and the ranch quickly became mired in hopeless debt. That was when Slim Rankin came into the picture. He was legally named Aloysius, but no one had the guts to address him as such so they just called him Slim.

When he found out about the old cattle ranch, Slim decided it could be immediately maintained as a working cattle ranch and later as a resort. It was also a wonderful place to raise his two sons away from the city life, so he made the commitment to buy the place at first sight. His wife had died while giving birth to his youngest son and he wanted to honor her memory by raising their children in this wonderful place. It didn’t hurt that the potential was enormous for making a profit, and he was generous with his money in such a way that the sale went forward. He paid off the huge debt of Eli’s relative and gave the gambler more than he deserved.

Cattle in that time fetched tremendous prices from the Eastern city slickers and there was good money to be had selling beef to them. There was also profit in selling coal. Those were the days when mineral rights transferred as a matter of process. He made most of the money back in two years that he had spent on the purchase of Avalon.

Slim was a big man of six foot, six inches in his bare feet and weighed in at three hundred pounds. His parents were from Wales and it was said that when his face got as red as his hair, it was time for a fellow to look out. He was often described as “meaner than a two-headed rattler” when he got riled.

Having struck it rich in Nevada a few years previously, he had money to burn. He had struck gold and silver on his claim just outside of Silver City and he was known to have killed several claim jumpers before the mine began to pay off in a big way. Although Slim could handle darn near anyone, it was always understood that he never killed anyone who didn’t merit killing… he simply accommodated the scurvy skunk.

He was so wealthy, even in those early days, that people who knew him joked that when the government needed money, they came to Slim to get it. The money was simply a means to an end for him, and he eventually tired of the mine and sold it for a healthy profit. He was ready for a change and one day, as the good fortune of a word here or there passes between men, he heard about Avalon and bought it.

Slim was a masterful businessman and with the help of his two sons, his coal, lumber, and beef industry continued to thrive. One son became a silent movie star. He was blessed with good looks and a ready smile and women of the era loved his panache. He was successful in the movie business and lived in a small southern California town called Hollywood, which was nestled among thousands of orange trees and dry canyons.

Slim had sent him away to the university at Stanford to get an education, but his good looks soon had him socializing with a different cut of people who frequented the new Hollywood sets. Slim didn’t find out about it until later, however, and since his boy was doing well for himself, he decided to let it ride and see how it turned out.

The efflorescence industry was beginning to make celebrities from the recent invention of creative genius Thomas Edison, which he called a “moving pictures camera.” While working in Hollywood on pictures, Slim’s good looking son talked up the frontier spirit of his father’s ranch that was located high up in the mountains. Many of his fellow silent movie stars begged to go there to ride horses and just get down to the basics of how their pioneering ancestors had lived. It was all the rage.

Big names like Henry Ford and George Eastman were doing it, as well as old Tom Edison, himself. They all came to the ranch by train, either in groups or as individuals. But they came, and the ranch expanded like never before.

It wasn’t only the stars who were going to Avalon by the trainload, film producers often did, as well, with some young starlet or another under their arm to do a “casting couch” screen test. They were essentially hidden in the mountains, unmolested and out of sight of the newspaper people. They were able to be tucked away in luxurious splendor and out of the main stream media for several days. It was ideal for everyone and the staff at Avalon served their every beckoning need.

Word spread about the Hollywood celebrities who went to Avalon and, before long, politicians, businessmen, and star-struck wannabes flocked to the ranch, as well. An all-out effort was begun to make the place as luxurious and comfortable as possible for these high-rolling guests.

The main lodge was already accommodating, but Slim poured hundreds of thousands of his coal, lumber, and cattle dollars into making improvements to the complex. Every train that came up the mountain brought with it some new machinery to develop the ranch and, of course, accommodate more guests in ever-increasing luxury.

In a year and a half, the main building grew until it stretched out for over four hundred feet from end to end, and it incorporated just about anything the rich and pampered guests could ever need or even conceive. Log cabins came shortly thereafter, spreading out in both directions and eventually giving more important guests their own choice personalizations. These accommodations were eventually named after the various regulars who frequented the premises. Most of the cabins were rented out a year in advance, and Avalon was always abuzz, with each of the seasons bringing its own individual delight to enjoy.

Many of the cast of characters that arrived were wealthy and although some were connected to the new movie industry, not all were. Some simply wanted to rub elbows with that particular crowd and they had the money to spend, which opened that door. They were known as socialites.

Business boomed for about twenty years and Slim even ran for Congress, but lost and never tried again. The back-biting that such an endeavor entailed had Slim in a fury. He was often heard to say,

“In the old days, if a man said that about you, you could shoot the skunk and everyone would understand why you did it.”

Slim’s political days never extended beyond the borders of the world of the Avalon he had created.

One day, and rather suddenly, the coal gave out in the quantities needed to support a commercial venture and the railroad abruptly decided to take out the tracks and ties and use them elsewhere. The only two remaining commodities were lumber and cattle and they were available in other places and were cheaper to bring to market than having to chug way up the steep grades of Avalon’s mountain. Slim and his crew were no longer cut out for arduous cattle drives and the like.

Once the railroad stopped making runs up the mountain, business ended overnight. The tourists stopped coming because there was no easy way to get there without the railroad.

By the time it all happened, Slim was getting on in years and any hope he had to continue Avalon died during the Great War in 1917 against the Germans. His oldest son was killed while leading a charge against the murderous machine guns across the stark battle field on that day against the “Hun.” Slim, embittered and crushed by the loss, refused to leave his cabin. His son’s body was buried somewhere “over there” and that, in itself, was another terribly debilitating blow.

Slim was an “Isolationist” and he didn’t believe the U.S. should be meddling in European affairs. As far as he was concerned, “They started the mess, let them finish it.” He said it often enough, which may have influenced his failed attempt at a political career. There was no doubt as to what he thought; he wrote numerous letters about his feelings to wealthy industrialists and politicians, as well as the many friends and acquaintances he had made over the years. Slim died in 1919, an unrecognized blessing in that he didn’t witness first-hand what happened to his beloved Avalon.

His last remaining son tried, in vain, to sell the place and eventually gave up. He was a movie producer of some note by that time, unimaginably wealthy and no longer acting in films. He certainly didn’t feel like spending his own money to maintain something that was evidently a lost cause and not generating a dime.

Avalon had been his Dad’s dream, not his. It annoyed him greatly that it cost him money to pay the land taxes to the state every year. He wanted to unload it in the worst way but there were no takers, so he formed a trust to reduce the taxes and it simply sat empty and waiting.

As the years passed, the memories of Avalon receded in people’s minds and since there was no revenue being produced, its fate was sealed. Slim’s last son, the movie producer, died of heart failure in 1940 and was given a gala funeral by his peers. With him died all remaining memory of Avalon and it was truly forgotten. Its trust eventually defaulted to the State.

Nearly nine decades later, Mike and Dan went out riding to explore some potential locations to build a retreat. They were keen on the general area because of its ideal location and placement relative to major cities. It was remote enough that it would take a fair amount of time before what was left of civilization found them, if at all, yet they could get to the city in a reasonable amount of time. Prevailing winds blew in such a way that major fallout from any West Coast cities likely wouldn’t affect them and there were no real government targets to speak of for hundreds of miles.

They stumbled upon the old abandoned track bed and eventually rode it out until it expanded at the sand pits where they found the little shack, the depot, the water tower, and the rest of it. They climbed the old tower and, to their amazement, it was full of water. They both stripped, jumped in, and swam around in the cold water on that hot August day as if they were two teenage boys.

There were no signs, but the depot’s existence revealed to them that something of note must be nearby, so they continued to explore the area, eventually coming upon Avalon, mostly by accident. Feeling refreshed from their swim, they were just about ready to turn around on the ash covered road that went on and on without seeming to go anywhere and return to the old abandoned track bed when they came into the clearing.

It stood there like something out of a fictional novel, a fairy tale. This was a place where time had simply stopped its entropic march. As they emerged from the trees it was just sitting there, quietly waiting for someone to come along and enjoy the grandeur of what was Avalon.

Chapter 7 Coming Home

Mike and Dan were rendered speechless the moment they first caught sight of the magnificent structure and complex. About five hundred feet after they exited the dirt road, they came out of the big trees and saw a four-foot wide, freestanding post that was separated by a space of about fifty feet where another one was in the ground.

The two poles stood over thirty-feet high and were connected by a top piece that was horizontal and three feet in diameter. Hanging from four-inch thick wrought iron hooks, was a thirty-two by ten foot hand carved sign that read, “AVALON.” It’s interior gold lettering was chipped and faded, but still clear. It was held together by a rod that went from the hooks through the bottom with large bolts and accented on the outside of each pole with large iron wagon wheels that touched tangentially at both the top and inside.

To either side of the sign, a rail fence had been installed that joined each vertical post and stretched out for about one hundred fifty feet in a tapered fashion. This was the magnificent entry to the ranch, with a facade fence that had originally been put there to impress anyone who saw it.

Nearly a century later, its effect had not been diminished.

The resort was set back from the road about a half-mile at the edge of what was a natural clearing with an exquisite flower and grass covered mountain meadow. The two men stood there captured by the sight of the awesome structure in the distance while the perfume of the wildflowers caressed their sense of smell.

They paced the width of the main building at over four hundred feet and its construction was log cabin style. They could see that the logs had been peeled and varnished, each meticulously fitted to the next by hand and obviously done by master craftsmen. The cracks were filled with what appeared to be oakum, a product used by shipbuilders to waterproof the cracks on ships in an era long gone.

Off to either side were smaller cabins, also made of logs, that went in a straight line, jutting out in a wing-like fashion from the main building. Each was clearly separate from the others and different in their own unique way, as if they had been customized to fit various distinct personalities of their long-past occupants.

From a bird’s eye view, the cabins formed a large “V” swooping toward the back pastures of the property. There were twenty-five cabins to a side and between all the cabins was, at one time, a grassy park-like area. Overgrown and weed infested now, Mike and Dan knew it could be restored to its former motif with a bit of elbow grease.

To one side of the main hotel and restaurant, a massive swimming pool sprawled out, which in days long gone had a cascading waterfall reminiscent of some exotic Amazonian jungle scene. There was a dance floor that, along with much of the cement walkways, was covered in green fungus growing in profusion. Even in disarray, the dance floor was obviously built to be used both inside and outside, joined together as it meandered in every direction.

An ivy plant nearly covered a portion of the front of the main building, and a couple of the smaller cabins were severely damaged from a large tree that had fallen on them at one time, crushing a corner of each one. They could be repaired and made to be livable again with a little work, but it would require lumber and building supplies to be brought up the long haul. For their purpose of long-term planning, it would be worth the trouble.

They explored the main building; its front entry consisted of two large double doors that were hand carved and appeared to be heavy. Made from oak planks, each was about four inches thick and the hinges, door fasteners, and other hardware were massive. They appeared to be hand forged and beaten, made specifically for these doors in a blacksmith forge. On the inside was a large cradle that held a wooden beam about ten feet long and designed to span the back side of the two entry doors to secure them from the inside, in effect bracing them from entry. The beam had gone missing.

Once inside the lobby, Mike and Dan let their eyes adjust as they scanned the interior. To the left were several doors that led to hallways and rooms with numbers assigned to them, and they saw a large counter about twenty feet long situated about twice that distance directly in front of the door. It was obviously where the guests had registered.

They could see from this vantage point the place was not only fully equipped, but detailed in such a way as to flaunt itself to the observer. The overly richness of construction, with its fine details, was designed to strike the observer as their eyes took in each amenity. To Mike and Dan, it was a dream come true, with unlimited potential for their desired purposes.

The entire counter was hand-carved and a work of art, accented with an intricately carved “Avalon” title in the wood across its front. Behind it was a standup secretary, complete with numerous pigeonholes, and there were still keys in each. They assumed that the keys opened the cabins, but there were clearly more keys than cabins. They didn’t know it right then, but a great many additional rooms existed off to the left of the main building.

The floor of the registration lobby was a magnificent, hand-laid affair of rich oak parquet. The master craftsmen who installed it had constructed an inlaid design of the world, a huge map of California, scenes of cattle, miners, and the railroad finishing the intricate designs. Mike and Dan walked from one place to another, marveling at this incredible find. On one wall were his and her bathrooms, each large enough to accommodate over a dozen clientele at a time. Both had areas for two or three people to receive a massage and the ladies’ bathroom had a beauty makeup area, while the men’s housed a three-seat shoeshine stand.

To the left of the registration desk was a large living room area replete with leather furniture and a huge fireplace on one wall. Back against the far wall, above the fireplace, was a life-sized daguerreotype, or first generation photograph, of a man, a woman, and a young boy. The fireplace was so large that Mike and Dan were actually able to stand in it, laughing as they soaked in the opulent magnitude of the entire scene. On the floor of the fire pit was a permanently attached log holder that was made from five-foot sections of railroad tracks.

There was a mantle built to go past the width of the fireplace opening. It was over a foot thick, two feet deep, and about fifteen feet long and obviously made from a single tree. On both sides of the fireplace, rock work made up the wall and located at a height of about eight feet from the floor were large stained glass windows depicting deer and bison grazing in what appeared to be a large, tree covered meadow.

The outside hearth was Italian marble and there were bookshelves on one wall that stretched out about fifty feet, still full of old books. Aged magazines stacked on a few of the tables gathered the dust of nearly a century absent of human activity. In one corner was a six-foot globe of the world on a rotating azimuth mounted to a stand and a heavy floor platform. Mike was surprised that he could still spin it with a light touch of his finger, even after all these years. But it was covered with a layer of dust that sent both he and Dan on a coughing fit as they moved on to explore another area.

To one side of the fireplace was a stack of logs waiting to be burned, sitting in a log holder made from old railroad tracks that matched the log rack in the fire pit. Pedestal ashtrays, the cylindrical kind with sand traps on their tops, were distributed throughout the place. One wall was made of natural rough-hewn rock and each stone had been meticulously fitted and cemented into place. It appeared to be granite rock from where the railroad workers had carved out a path from the side of the mountain for the train.

Four large, overstuffed leather chairs were near this wall with a table beside each, and on the top of the tables were Aladdin oil lamps with large, blown glass mantles that diffused the bright light. Wrought iron fixtures hung from the ceiling with a profusion of more oil lamps and each could be lowered or pulled in place by ropes that were fastened to hooks on the walls in several key locations.

There were also nine large couches and twelve chairs mixed and matched throughout the room; each made of deep burgundy or dark coffee brown leather and companioned by a table off to one side. Surprisingly, there was still more than ample room to move around.

The rest of the walls had window openings cut away from the logs, and the glass was the old fashioned type and appeared to have wavy places throughout the vitreous material. Some of the floor area was marble, cut from quarries in Italy, and it perfectly matched to the fireplace hearth. Tucked back in a corner stood a larger-than-life-size statue of a Roman Goddess. It was also crafted from marble and appeared to be an authentic sculpture from the ancients in Europe.

On the outside of each window, the large shutters were designed to protect from the elements but not completely blackout the place. They were made from wood and each was about two inches thick and fastened in place with old hand beaten, formed iron hinges, also from a blacksmith’s shop. The hinges were massive and designed to be fastened shut from the inside. Even so, there was enough light coming through to make the room bright and airy. The date on the magazines scattered throughout this eighty by eighty foot lounge area was October 1921.

Past the main counter was a wall that ran from left to right, dividing the lounge area and registration desk from the entry to the restaurant and dance floor. It terminated on the left after traveling about sixty feet and past it was a huge hallway that made an immediate right through oversized, stained glass double doors that opened in both directions. After another twenty feet, it took a hard turn ninety degrees to the left and continued straight to yet another set of double doors with hardware made of heavy brass.

Through those doors and at the end of the hall was another spacious room with large bookcases, leather chairs, and several old-fashioned slate pool tables with leather pockets. On one wall were several huge cue stick racks and more racks lined the walls, interspersed between the bookshelves so as to accommodate each table. Each rack held three complete sets of balls made from ivory and above each table was a wire with beads on it, designed to keep score. A mirror encrusted cover hung from brass chains, which helped players see better with their inbuilt lanterns. Perhaps not the most useful for Dan and Mike’s future plans, but it would help break the monotony and boredom.

There was a small, well-stocked bar in one corner with mostly full bottles covered in a thick layer of dust. One wall exhibited stuffed lion, tiger, and leopard heads, and there was a snake skin that was over thirty feet long on another wall. The corner held a stuffed crocodile that was nearly thirty feet long and rested patiently, watching everything in the room with those glass eyes.

Past the wall that divided the reception area from the dance floor was a huge open area with tables and chairs, a restaurant, and a parquet inlaid dance floor covering an area about one hundred feet long by seventy five feet wide. The restaurant had seventy-five tables, each with four chairs, arranged in alternating rows of five and three tables wide, allowing plenty of room for guests to move about without feeling cramped. The chairs, over three hundred in total, had leather covered seats and padded backs that were fastened to the wood with brass button-headed nails. The tables were inlaid with the word Avalon and the backs of the chairs had the same carving on them.

At the end of this eating area was a stage that could easily seat a full orchestra and was replete with moldy curtains that appeared to be velvet. Across the front of the stage, and tucked behind a cover, was a mirror-lined trench that had Aladdin lamps hidden in small pockets to light up the stage. “Stage Right” housed a grand piano and bench.

Another doorway led to the large hallway that accessed the remaining comfortable hotel rooms stretching down the rest of the two hundred fifty feet. Two more rooms were located near the restaurant, but they were void of furniture. At the far right of the restaurant were two sets of double doors that led to the kitchen, each set opening in opposite directions so the serving staff could flow in distinct directions in and out.

The kitchen held several industrial sized sinks, stoves, and ovens. To the rear of them was a huge set of six steel and wooden doors that led to what had at one time been a state-of-the-art commercial ice box, but was now old and dated. Meat hooks hung from the ceiling and metal racks were against the walls in all six rooms. Two of the rooms included freezers and four additional refrigerators. Another corner of the kitchen held a set of double doors that led to an area containing cutting tables, steel racks, and more steel hooks hanging from the ceiling. This was the butchering room, complete with a concrete floor with several drains.

As they walked around in awe, they saw more animals mounted on the walls in a menagerie of bears, deer, elk, exotic birds, buffalo heads, and several extinct passenger pigeons. There were old wagon wheels, rusty old pioneer era traps, a corrugated washing board, a scythe, American Indian relics, war clubs, bows and arrows, and tomahawks… the list went on and on. There were hundreds of items mounted on display, impressive in their day and now considered museum worthy. Most of them were covered in a century’s worth of intricate spider webs.

One entire wall held a collection of photographs of famous people. Dan and Mike didn’t recognize most of them, but Teddy Roosevelt’s picture was unmistakable, as were the photographs of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks were there, accompanying the rich and famous personalities of their day, and each and every photograph was signed in faded fountain pen ink, depicting the flowing hand style of their era but still legible.

There was also “A Collage of Memories” that contained many more age-tinted photographs arranged in an orderly fashion meant to impress and spanning an area nearly six feet by ten feet. Only the most famous had their own individual spaces; the rest were arranged in a montage of so many pictures that it was impossible to count them all. The atmosphere was as if people simply up and walked away one day, leaving everything because they planned to return shortly, and someone apparently just forgot to dust the place.

Mike and Dan found hundreds of old oil lamps either mounted on the walls or arranged in wagon wheels raised and lowered from ropes to the ceilings. They were exact replicas of the first lamps the two men had seen in the registration lobby. The two men saw painfully little in the way of wiring for electricity; all of the lighting was either oil lamps or candles.

The one exception was a small private space behind the main area where they found an office equipped with wooden filing cabinets, bookshelves, a large desk and chair, and off in one corner, a very old Ham Radio set. There was cloth-covered, dual mounted, wiring for electricity that led to an old battery, completely corroded and unserviceable. Mike and Dan could replace the battery and were hopeful that the radio would still work, even after all these years. The simple fact was that things built in old times were often far more robust and reliable than those recently made in China.

Off to the immediate right of the reception desk was a bar that came off a large and wide hallway. There were ceramic pots that once held plants, an occasional table and chair, and pictures hanging on the walls, as well as more oil lamps and candle holders. Many a deal had been finalized over a glass of cognac, bourbon, scotch or whiskey throughout this area.

As the two men came into the bar, Mike walked up to one of the bar stools and motioned with a wave of his hand for Dan to join him.

“Have a seat Doc,” his voice almost a whisper. Being here made them feel as if they were in the presence of something great and awe inspiring. It gave them the sense that they had just stepped into a wondrous cathedral or some other such structure from the past. Avalon did that to people. Even after all these years, it continued to make its visitors feel they were in a special and magical place.

Mike got up and went around to the working side of the bar, reached up, selected two glasses sitting just below the bar top, and after providing an obligatory spit, polished one glass on his shirt front, leaving a hazy dust streak behind. Holding the glass up to the light, he appeared satisfied and set it on the bar in front of Dan. After repeating the ritual with the second glass, he turned and found a bottle of unopened Brandy and blew the dust from it toward the floor, which made him sneeze.

With his eyes watering, he opened the bottle and said to Dan, “This stuff better be good.” He wiped his eyes with a sleeve and poured the amber liquid into each glass, making sure it was a generous portion. Setting the bottle down on the bar, he reached over and picked up one of the glasses and raised it to eye level.

“Dan,” he said to his friend, “I think we just hit the Mother Load.” His lips curled on either side into a smile, “If there’s even a ghost of a chance, we gotta buy this place.”

Dan smiled at his friend as they clinked their glasses together and took a drink. After the dry ride up the mountain, he shook a bit involuntarily as the liquid hit the bottom of his stomach, ending with a small tremor and shutter as he made a face. It was a powerful beverage but surprisingly smooth and followed instantly with a warming sensation.

Mike said, “Drink up Dan, there’s more where that came from,” and the both of them broke out into a laughing fest that lasted for many minutes. Neither could believe what they had stumbled on to. Once the two men were able to compose themselves, they continued to explore the place as prospective purchasers and not just explorers.

This main bar was still equipped with every imaginable type of liquor, and, much like the billiards room, virtually all of the bottles were still full. They still sat on glass shelves behind the bar, backed by elaborate large mirrors that swept past the counter from one side to another. Like the other areas they had explored, everything was covered in age-old dust. The room was designed to be lit in the evenings with the multitude of Aladdin oil lamps hanging from the walls and ceiling.

Nearly every table was equipped with a candle holder, each containing a candle that was dried out, wilted, and encrusted with dirt. A few of the liquor bottles were open and bone dry. Down a set of steps behind the main bar was a door that led to a large wine cellar where they found thousands of bottles of wine and other spirits collecting grime and spider webs. The bar had stools for about fifteen people and chairs and tables were placed throughout the rest of the floor area, which was large enough to accommodate about seventy-five people comfortably.

There was a small area that was used at one time as a dance floor. A grand piano sat to one side and close by was a small alcove leading to another set of his and hers guest bathrooms. There was a fireplace opposite the bar that was significantly smaller than the huge fireplace in the lounge area, and a zebra skin hung on the wall to the right. The opposite side presented a lion’s head, while a set of elephant ivory tusks crossed like swords across the mantle. It had all been simply left behind after the railroad stopped coming up the mountain, and it was their good fortune to find this back-in-time treasure. There were only three ways left to get here once the railroad pulled tracks and went away… plane, horseback, or walking. Mike and Dan loved the seclusion and were grateful that they would have the option to travel by motorcycle, which would make their transit far more bearable.

Satisfied with their initial inspection of the main building, they walked out to the cabins and discovered them all furnished. Although the rugs on the floors were moldy, the bedding was, for the most part, still intact. They eventually walked out past the swimming pool and directly to the barn where they found stalls for fifty horses and all the tack to match… saddles, reins, wagons, buckboards, and even a stagecoach.

Outside and off to one end was a building that sat alone, and inside was a complete farrier and blacksmith shop with double forges, anvils, handmade tools, and everything needed to keep the ranch operating. There was another shop that looked like a saddle stitchery shop, with half a dozen restaurant chairs in various stages of repair. Beyond the blacksmithery was a second, smaller barn; inside were more stalls for various animals such as sheep, goats, and milk cows. There were hitching posts all around the place, though most were rotten or in various stages of disrepair.

They were in total amazement at everything Avalon had to offer. They had even discovered a large commercial laundry with steam presses, a cobbler shop, and a barber shop complete with a shoeshine stand. It simply went on and on. They found the bunk house, once used for the cowboys who worked the ranch, and there was still clothing hanging in some of the closets. It was set apart from the barn and had beds for fifty hands. Several more buildings existed that once housed the large staff that worked Avalon twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in various shifts, throughout the years.

There was more, much more, and the exploring continued each and every time they went there to stay and camp. In another area were several smaller buildings, each with a specific purpose. One was a candle shop, another a basket making shop, a wheelwright, and the list went on. The ranch was very much self-sustaining.

The plans to buy the place went into effect immediately. Dan had an attorney friend with whom he wanted to discuss the details. Brad was a good guy and could be very valuable with this acquisition. If there was any chance they could swing the deal, it had to be done. Brad’s expertise with negotiating deals was well known in the business community, and he was, to coin a term, the perfect man for the job. Both Mike and Dan possessed lines of credit that were impressive, and Brad felt there wasn’t going to be a problem once they were done negotiating with the state.

Many improvements had come to pass in the six years since they had initially discovered Avalon. They cleaned it up, removed the weeds, and had moved someone from their group there to live twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year, for the past five years.

The kitchen had been painstakingly renovated over the years by bringing various parts and pieces of parts by motorcycle. An artisan water supply was discovered early on, and they cleaned it up and sent the water off to a lab, along with the water from all of the wells on the property. It all tested as pure as one could hope for. Eventually, all of the sanitary services were cleaned, painted, and restored as well, much to the pleasure of the women of the group.

The swimming pool was eventually repaired and sealed with a water-proofing compound said to last for years, and they made plans to fill it once they were all here permanently. They estimated it would take about four days to fill, and they were prepared to channel the artisan water supply that flowed from the back meadow all the way to the front and down to the rail bed where some of it was used to fill the water tank for the old locomotives. The setup allowed them to channel the water to flow through the pool’s waterfall and from there into the pool itself by installing a valve at the supply end just behind the waterfall of the pool.

A spillway was also installed at the far end of the pool, having been designed to empty the excess water into a cement-lined canal that traveled down to a large pond. The pond had its own spillway and emptied water into another ditch that meandered away from the main complex with a steady course that joined the natural creek flowing continuously down the middle of the property.

Though exotically cold, the water flowing constantly through the pool meant they didn’t need an electric filtration system and had enough black hose to build a solar heater. The three-acre pond was an excellent place to stock the fish they brought in two at a time in special little plastic containers. The fish were Tilapias, a hearty breed, and caution was taken to introduce vegetation conducive as fish food to ensure their survival.

The pool and pond were both good supplies for water if the need for firefighting arose, as they were both located close enough to the main structure to serve in that capacity. A day spent at a swap meet had produced over a thousand feet of fire hose, various valves, and pipe fittings and, when connected to a pump they had acquired, would yield an abundant firefighting outfit.

One last and very important item was found in the old main barn… a boiler-fired tractor made by Allison Iron Works in Saint Louis, Missouri. Meticulously, and with a great deal of patience, it was disassembled, cleaned up, and repaired to working order. They fired it up one day after a coal fire was burning fiercely and the water was topped off.

It ran like a charm and could easily be used in the huge meadow out back for all sorts of things. One salient feature was that it had a power takeoff that could, like the large main boiler, be used to run additional machinery. The best advantage was that it was portable and could be moved to wherever it was needed. It sounded like a steam powered locomotive, albeit a little quieter, and it was a very convenient power supply in lieu of anything powered by gas, diesel, or electricity.

Mike and the group came through the trees and stopped to take in the view of Avalon. Each and every time he saw the magnificent structure, it nearly knocked him over. It was like stepping out of those huge trees into an imaginary world… a place where time seemed to stop. He loved this place and had no misgivings about living here permanently. He didn’t care how long it took to get the world back together; as far as he was concerned, this was it for him from now on. He took out his small transceiver and spoke into it,

“Birds coming home to roost.”

The radio crackled and a voice came back at him,

“I had you in my scope… did ya feel it?”

He raised an arm over his head, looked over his shoulder and said to his friends,

“Welcome to home and to heaven.”

Everyone smiled at each other, but Mike was only looking at Caroline.

She was smiling back at him.

Chapter 8 Safe and Sound

Moving forward together, every person in the group was anxious and it was all each of them could do to not roll on the power and make a dash for the huge log building straight ahead. They were loaded down and despite the remoteness of their location, security was still of concern.

They cautiously arrived a few minutes later, following a leisurely pace, and there were people already gathered on the massive porch just behind the covered area where wagons and stage coaches once delivered people years ago. Beyond them was the main entry, the large double oak doors.

Dozens upon dozens of large stone chimneys jutted out of the roof line, their appearance both regal and inviting. They made everyone feel that to cuddle up with a good book in front of one of the matching fireplaces must be a special delight.

Stopping at the entry in a cloud of blue smoke and dust that quickly dissipated, they parked their bikes in a line near obsolete hitching posts, looking much like modern day horses. They would put them away, in a while, over at a place they all referred to as the “Motor Pool”… a recently converted mechanic’s shop on the other side of the large horse barn. For now, they only wanted to sit and chat and let the adrenaline subside.

A bit to their surprise, there were eight more people here; there was only supposed to be four. One of them was Dan, who nonchalantly leaned against one of the four large stone columns that made up part of the massive porch.

Mike was curious and asked, “How did you beat us here? We made good time.”

There was laughter and Silvia chimed in, “We had actually headed up here just to relax for a few extra days; of course that was before the bombs went off.” She adopted a more serious tone when she asked, “Was there any trouble while you were en-route getting here?”

Caroline said, “A little, but the boys got us around it safely.” She looked at Mike and her face filled with respect and admiration for him. The others understood; Mike was that kind of guy.

Just then, Susan Riley came out with a large jumbo pitcher of fresh-squeezed, ice cold orange juice and a dozen or so glasses. She had made the juice using oranges from the trees in the greenhouse. The reefers were working and provided them with ice and the ability to freeze food, in addition to canning.

Off to his right, Mike could see the stack of the old boiler sticking up above the roofline. With the coal fire burning full time now, there was no smoke to be seen, only the haze of heat, which quickly dissipated in the brisk mountain air. Some of the group was concerned that the constant fumes would give away their location, but they quickly discovered that coal fires normally only smoke when they are coming up to normal burning temperature or if there are lots of impurities in the coal, itself.

“Anyone thirsty for fresh squeezed OJ?” Susan asked to no one in particular. The orange trees had been a debate since they took up a fair amount of space in the greenhouse. In the end, however, everyone decided that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, even if it was simply for the sake of a having a taste of “normalcy” in their out-of-the-way retreat.

Everyone filled their glasses and chugged down the juice. It was so fresh and full of pulp, it was nearly like eating an orange. No one said anything until a second glass was filled and emptied and the pitcher sat with only a few dredges in the bottom. Susan turned on her heels to return the pitcher and see about making some more.

Dan was there, and he asked the question they were all thinking, “Okay Mike, just how bad was it?”

Mike began to recount the things he had seen and once in a while someone else jumped in and added bits and pieces to the story until Dan understood in detail what had happened.

Everyone had a good laugh about the poor deer and the waste of a good Claymore, but Mike wasn’t laughing. He had done a lot of bartering to get the few he had and ended up paying about a thousand dollars for the twenty-four he ultimately bought, which was already down to twenty-three.

When he first started dealing with the man, he mentioned to those in his survival group that he actually thought the guy was an ATF Agent. It forced him to decide early on that, if necessary, he was prepared to kill the guy. He wasn’t going to prison for acquiring and possessing something he knew he was Constitutionally entitled to, especially since Claymores had only recently been banned by a government that existed for its own designs and not the needs of honest citizens.

Later, he bought a case of “old style” Fragmentation Grenades from the guy, referred to as “Pineapples” because of the deep serrations where they would come apart upon exploding. They were loaded with TNT and if exploded in a house, there would be nothing in the place that would still be functional.

To be safe, Mike followed the man around a few days and discovered he worked at an Army Ammo Depot. He was stealing the stuff and selling it; apparently, he had been doing it for months. Mike felt better about the man then, but he still preserved the tape recordings he had made of the transactions in case he needed them later to prove he had not stolen the stuff, himself. He read in an article about six months later that Army Intelligence had busted the man and he had dropped dead from the stress shortly thereafter.

Mike was curious as to how the others had managed to get by the slide areas that had happened weeks before and found out they had done the same thing Mike and his group had done… they removed debris and then put it all back. He admitted that he was impressed, since it didn’t appear to him as if anything had been touched.

He looked around and saw that there were actually others here, as well, and there were still some yet to arrive. They would wait a few more hours, overnight at most, before making a search for the missing members by backtracking to the cave and farther out, if necessary.

They all knew that if there was a problem and any of them were out there trying to make it to the cave or here, someone would be along shortly. Right now, they had to rest up and stow their gear. Mike wanted a shower in the worst way.

Long ago, each of them had selected the cabins they wanted to make into their little homes. Mike excused himself and headed for number seven but instead of wheeling his bike over to the shop, he simply took it with him to his cabin. Caroline walked toward cabin number eight.

The others also began to make way to their cabins, but when Susan came out on the big porch with more orange juice, some of them stayed and had more. Mike was more interested in getting comfortable and taking a shower.

It had taken a bit of doing to discover and repair the water system, but Avalon now had hot and cold running water. The hot water was provided by the large boiler, which was fired by coal. It worked wonderfully and was monitored twenty-four hours a day.

Years ago, one of the priorities for Mike and Dan was to put that boiler in excellent working order to provide Avalon members all the comforts of home. Each cabin was plumbed with hot water radiators as well as hot tap water to bathe; it had been part of the big remodel Slim had undertaken. Mike was grateful because he wanted to shower and change clothes as soon as possible. The hot water would charge up his batteries.

Wheeling his bike through the door, he parked it over in a corner and out of the way, making sure there was a piece of plastic under it to catch any dripping fluids that might fall. He stowed his backpack and other items from the caches in another corner and it was then that he remembered the venison. With a resigned sigh, he hauled the meat out of the cabin and went back to the main lodge.

There were a number of people still talking and Mike rolled his eyes at them and said, “I have to get this in the walk-in and hang it. I was so glad to get here that I almost forgot.” Several of them also had pieces, so they retrieved theirs and followed him to hang their pieces of deer.

Mike went back to his cabin.

“Now for that shower,” he muttered to himself as he closed the door.

His clothes came off in a series of rapid movements, and he opened the shower door and stepped in. The water came on ice cold, but not for long. As he was adjusting the handles, the shower door opened and Mike immediately brought his left arm up with a clenched fist to his upper chest and the right hand, clenched as well, drew back to his side; it was his standard fighting stance.

Caroline, who was standing there with a towel wrapped around her cooed, “Want me to wash your back, Sailor?”

He instantly relaxed his stance as her towel dropped to the floor and she stepped in.

Later, Mike contemplated the incident and decided if he had to rate it, it was up there as just about the best shower he ever had.

Chapter 9 Societal Decay

Mike owned a Grundig Satellite 6001 Transistor radio that he inherited. His uncle had used it years past to get time checks from the Greenwich Mean Time Observatory while he was sailing his Ketch in the South Pacific. An old school sailor, he used the HO 214 Navigation System, which required “to the second” accuracy of time when taking a series of noon sights. He always reset his watches at Greenwich Noon, wherever he was sailing.

Mike liked it because, with the copper wire connected to the antenna jacks and having strung it to a tall pole he had planted for the antenna wire, the reception was fantastic up here in the mountains. He was able to listen to stations all over the world with it.

Dan, on the other hand, boasted a Zenith Transoceanic and the two of them tried at times to brag the other into admitting theirs was the best. It was late evening but the solar panels were charged, so he listened to music as Caroline snuggled close. Her long blond hair kept tickling his nose and he found himself blowing it away from his face only to have it return and tickle again.

The sentimental melody was abruptly interrupted with an urgent news report…

The President just announced that Iran was bombed a few hours ago with several Nuclear Warheads launched by an OHIO class, ballistic missile submarine patrolling south of the Persian Gulf. Satellite imagery tells an alarming story of mass destruction all over that country. Other reports say that another U.S. nuclear submarine launched a separate strike on North Korea. Little more is known at this time. We do know, however, that fires are burning all over the country and can even be seen from space… one moment please.

A pause ensued and with a crackling of static, the man spoke again,

Ladies and gentleman, I am saddened to tell you that a fuel storage facility located in Long Beach, California has been ignited by an as-yet-to-be-determined powerful explosion. Deaths are incredibly high from the secondary blast of the natural gas tanks nearby.

It is not known who set off this explosion or how its safety features were overridden, but the flames are remarkable. Firefighters are doing what they can to contain the fires, but the recent drought has limited the water available. Firefighting helicopters are being rushed to the scene, and it is hoped the same fire retardants used in forest fires will be useful in bringing this inferno under control.

In other news, swarms of Texans wielding assault rifles have averted a hostage situation at a small University located in Fort Worth. All of the homegrown terrorists involved, apparently of Iranian descent, were cut down without mercy. Similarly, an attempt to detonate a highly explosive device in Miami was thwarted by a group of armed citizens who happened upon the scene. One eye witness who saw what happened said,

“They all appeared to be from the Middle East, and, during the confrontation, several men and one woman tried to run from the scene but were mowed down with an incredible volley of gunfire. There were no survivors from the terrorist group.”

Nancy Jones, the Democratic Senator from New York State, is deploring the violence and said at a Town Meeting of her constituents, “No matter what these people have done to us, they feel justified and once again, I will ask the Senate, when we are back in session, to back me in an all-out ban of all weapons of this kind. These guns should not be available to the American people and this violence must end forthwith.”

After the comments, the Senator was booed and objects were thrown at her as she was rushed away from the conference room by armed guards who were concerned for her safety. In another…

Caroline reached over, turned the knob, and selected a station playing music. The voice of Cher, silken and sultry, moaned her plight as she told about her mother dancing for the money the men threw. Caroline snuggled up closer and there was a knock at the door.

Mike got up and put a towel over himself while Caroline scooted under the covers. He opened the door to find Dan standing there.

“Have you been listening to the news?” Dan asked in a calm, but somewhat incredulous tone.

Mike nodded, and Dan continued,

“There have been riots all over the place. A few Congressmen and several judges were at a luncheon when a mob stormed the house and lynched all of them. More bombs have gone off, and China’s apparently getting ready to make an invasion on the U.S. Get this… they’ve allied with Russia and several other countries are joining them as well.”

“Mexico’s already declared their allegiance to the Chinese, but they’re evidently holding out for a monetary package before they allow the Chinese to use them as a staging ground to launch attacks on our southern border. Some are speculating that the U.S. will nuke Mexico the moment they agree to allow the Chinese to enter, declaring it to be an act of war. Mexico’s expressed doubt that it would actually happen, and the President neither confirms nor denies the allegations.

“Canada is vacillating as to whether to allow Russia to come in through their territory to enter the U.S. northern borders. Nobody knows yet what will happen there.”

He looked at Mike, who seemed to be immune to the news, and asked, “Are you hearing me?”

Mike answered, “Look Dan, there isn’t much we can do about any of that right now. We just have to make sure all our people are here and safe. I’ll put a team together in the morning and we’ll go look for those who don’t show up by then. Now chill out, my friend. Have a drink or get laid, but stop worrying. We’re safe here for now; we just need to put into action all the things we agreed on a long time ago. Incidentally, are you posting and relieving the watches?”

Dan acknowledged he was. Mike muttered in a low voice, “No offense my friend, but I’m sort of busy right now.”

He swung the door a bit, and Dan could see Caroline lying in the bed. With recognition of understanding, he turned and walked away without saying another word.

The sky was pink from the rising sun, which was still partially hidden, and dew covered everything. Mike stretched as he yawned. It would begin to heat up soon. He walked into the bathroom and emptied his bladder. When he broke wind, Caroline spoke up, sounding indignant,

“I heard that!”

“I heard it too,” Mike responded defensively. “Must’ve been one of those famous mountain barking spiders we hear about now and then.” He was smiling with his next comment, “Man, they sure have bad breath.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Caroline quipped back, “Can’t blame the spider or anything else on that one, Sailor.”

“You mean, you don’t believe meeeeeeeeeeee?” his voice rising to a moderate squeal.

They both laughed.

Mike jumped in the shower and, after drying off, brought out a complete change of clothing. Most of what he owned was here in this cabin, having brought much of it up months ago. He went to the door after dressing and said,

“I’m going for coffee. Want some?”

“Go ahead. I’m gonna shower and change next door. I’ll meet you there.”

By this time, the sun was beginning to show itself over the tips of the trees and the pinks and yellows were spectacular as they merged, one with the other. He walked to the main building while a multitude of birds chirped; it was breakfast time for them too. When he entered the reception area, several people were standing around chatting. Most of them had been up all night with Dan, listening to the National and International news.

It was grim worldwide. Holland reported multiple attacks by their own Muslim residents, along with France, Germany, and Italy. Turkey had declared war on Iran at some point during the night and was hit, within an hour of the announcement, by a nuclear strike on Istanbul.

Israel, in the meantime, was seemingly busy bombing everyone around them with nuclear devices. Every country in the Middle East was petitioning the United Nations to make them stop, and the Israelis sent this message to the U.N.,

“Kiss our asses!”

Taiwan rebelled in an attempt to re-emerge as its own republic and immediately declared war on China. Shortly thereafter, Taiwan was bombed with several high-altitude burst electromagnetic pulse nukes, or EMPs, instantly pummeling the entire island into a blackout. The Chinese flag now flew over what was left of Taiwan and Chinese troops were on the island as occupation forces.

France, along with several other European Union countries, pleaded with the United Nations, and in particular, the United States, for help. America’s response was, “You’re on your own, so deal with it. We will offer you nothing in terms of aid or support or anything else, not today or any other day in the foreseeable future.”

A high ranking Naval Officer was overheard at a gathering of diplomats in Paris saying, “France can kiss our asses.” In an official announcement, the U.S. denied making the comment. In the meantime an attaché in Paris, Admiral Stewart Davis, was reassigned to the Naval Staff in Holland.

France offered to ally itself with Russia and China but was rebuffed. Apparently, no one wanted to help France with anything and the French were wringing their hands, begging anyone and everyone for help. Their pleas were met with silence, thus far.

Mike walked over to a table to wait for Caroline, but, before sitting down, he continued over to the coffee urns sitting on a corner near the coal fired stove and helped himself. He then walked back to the table and sat in one of the chairs. He liked his coffee strong, black, and hot and considered anything else “fru fru.”

The events of what had occurred seemed surreal in as much he and the others had always talked about what these times would be like, should they ever happen. Most of the group, although realizing they needed to have a place to escape for safety, probably couldn’t believe the brutality of people against people when it was predicated by desperation. The very worst came out and displayed itself, and sometimes in the ugliest of ways.

The farmer and his wife, if that was what they really had been, were the classic example. Sadly, they were somebody at one time. They appeared to have put up a tremendous fight, but in the end they died because they were outnumbered by a superior force and were not ready. Preparation was the key to preserving people and things most important in life. His thoughts carried him away and he found himself thinking about Caroline.

She was thirty one, about five feet six inches, and 36-24-36; but that was a guess since he had never asked. The clarity and blueness of her beautiful eyes made him feel that she could see into his soul. Those eyes were unlike any he’d ever seen before. She was a serious person, he knew, and she was also someone with empathy, which is why she became a nurse.

What he liked best about her features was her hair, which was nearly white in places. The mixture of so many different colors of yellow, white, and shaded streaks scattered throughout her head were unusual and extremely attractive. She always wore it straight down her back or in a ponytail. Mike found there were times when he couldn’t take his eyes off her, and she always smiled at him as if she knew that.

She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever known!

She once told him that some time back she’d nearly married, but she caught the guy cheating and dropped him like a hot rock.

Between going to school and taking extra courses to be an effective and competent Emergency Room and Operating Room Nurse, her schedule didn’t leave much time for anything else. They met during the preliminary “getting acquainted time” that all group members went through.

And as years passed, they had grown much closer than either intended.

His thoughts were interrupted when Caroline sat down next to him. He immediately got her a cup of coffee without being asked. He came back with it and sat down beside her.

She leaned over and said in a husky voice, low and inquisitive, “Are you going after the others today?”

Mike answered while staring absentmindedly into his cup. “I haven’t heard yet. Maybe.” He hesitated. “Probably will.”

Dan came over and by the look on his face, Mike had his answer.

“How you two feeling this morning?”

“Great Dan, how about you?”

He shrugged his shoulders and seemed to be thinking, so Mike waited. Caroline watched both of them, always intrigued at their relationship and how they seemed to simply understand each other without either speaking.

“We haven’t heard a word from the others,” Dan finally said in a way that made them feel as if he was thinking about something else. “And we expected to see them within a few hours after you arrived yesterday. Truth be told, I’m worried sick and I think we need to at least see what’s happened. Maybe it’s nothing, but there’s only one way to be sure. How would you feel about taking a party of three or four with you to find out?”

“That’s my job, so that’s what I’ll do.” Mike said matter-of-factly. “I’ll take Roger, Danny, and Sam with me; we all have radios and we’ll take plenty of ammo. We should be back in no more than two days. I’ll let them know in a bit, and we’ll start filling our water supply and getting some food to take with us. I think we should take a couple of empty gas cans to see if we can score a little gas while we’re out, but we’ll take one full five-gallon can just in case we don’t find anything.”

Crystal came out of the office from behind the registration desk and said, “China and Russia have just nuked LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland!”

It was a miserable piece of news that made them almost want to cry for their country and their people.

Chapter 10 Rescue Party

Mike stood in front of Roger, Sam, and Danny. When he spoke, it was loud enough for everyone who had gathered to see them off to hear.

“We all know if it was any of us out there, someone would come to help out. It’s part of what this group is all about and part of the reason we all signed on. We take care of our own!”

There was certain finality in what he said and there would be no discussion about his words, just action. Each of them knew they had the same type of commitment to the group and that was strengthened by the fact that most of them had known each other for at least five years. It wasn’t a matter of if they were going to help, simply when.

Sam half raised a finger, signaling he had a question, and Mike nodded to him.

“Has there been any radio contact at all?”

“None.” Mike gave a slight pause before continuing. “Does everyone have plenty of ammo, water, and food? Who has the First Aid kit?”

Roger stuck an arm up in acknowledgment, which was logical given that he was a Paramedic and had served as a Medic in the Army during Desert Storm. At about five eight and two hundred pounds, he wasn’t fat; he just had a short and stocky build.

He and Mike worked out at the same gym and both of them were pumping iron regularly. There was a friendly little competition between the two of them and Mike always said that if they could lift their own body weight plus a little more, it would be no problem getting up a rope or a tree or anything else without breaking a sweat. Both of them were bench pressing right at two forty.

They both believed in being able to run a very long way, if need be. Double-timing it could be that one element necessary to save a life or even the entire group. As a result, both of them did five hundred pound squats and ran up and down the beach on a regular basis. They were both pushing for a ten-mile steady run, but neither had done it yet because every time they began, someone’s cell went off and they had to terminate it. Five mile runs were most often the case.

A natural blonde like Caroline, except darker, Roger Tully always wore his hair in a fifties style flattop. He was tanned, quiet-spoken, and not much for idle conversation. But when he did speak, he always had something constructive and pertinent to say. Everybody liked Roger. He was pushing forty-two and married to one of the women at the retreat who was standing there with the others, watching from the huge porch. The look on her face was tense and when he smiled at her, she turned and walked into the big building. She was obviously worried sick and couldn’t watch him leave.

Next to Roger and ready to go was Sam Wolchak. He was tall, with a deep voice and looked and talked just like Sam Elliot, the movie star… so he capitalized on it and cultivated the persona. His thick, wide mustache made him look like an 1880’s cowboy and on the phone, if he was ever inclined to tell someone he was, in fact, the actual Sam Elliot, they would be hard pressed to not believe it.

Topping out at six feet four inches and weighing in at about two twenty, he played to his size and wore cowboy boots that put him up there at six-six. He was rarely found without the triple X Stetson he dearly loved and when he had it on, which was all the time, he appeared taller yet. His hair was nearly white because of his age of sixty-four and he wore it long and sticking out from under that hat.

Sam’s hero was William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his look was a tip of the hat to him, as well. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy when it came to business, but was very magnanimous in all that he did. His interactions with others were always kind, particularly with those of the opposite gender.

After a four year enlistment with the Marines, he joined the Army for sixteen years as a Green Beret before retiring as a Sergeant First Class. While in “Group,” a term for “Special Forces Group,” he had become “Q” qualified, which was another way of saying that he wasn’t the type of guy a fellow would want to tangle with. Most of his Army pension was currently diverted to an ex-wife who lived somewhere in Virginia and his only real passion, besides his job as a first class machinist and mechanic, was women.

The simple fact of the matter was that he dearly loved each and every one of them. Someone once heard him say, “I don’t care if a woman is skinny or fat, tall or short, ugly or pretty; God knows I love ‘em all the same. I guess you could sum it up by saying, I just love women.”

He did, too, and they loved him.

That said, there was no better man to cover someone’s back when it was needed, which is how he and Mike met originally. He had clothes-lined a guy in a bar who was getting ready to take Mike down with a pool cue from behind, and the would-be assailant ended up being carried away by paramedics. To say he was tough was an understatement and yet it gave him a quiet, reserved confidence that drew others to him. Everyone loved him like an older brother and the kids in the group adored him.

The third member of their small rescue party was Danny Croft. At only thirty, he was junior to most but he had served six years in the Marine Corps and was trained as a Scout Sniper… and then some. If there was a school on how to kill or survive, or do both simultaneously, he had graduated from it, every time at the top of his class. In high school, he had been an all-star football player, a wide receiver who was fast and could take the hits.

Danny was one of the few people who, because of his unique skill set, deviated from the standard .308/7.62 NATO battle rifle. Instead, he sported a converted Mossberg bolt action fifty caliber single shot with a fifty power variable scope, custom made and designed specifically to his own preferred specs and a sterile Mac-11, 9mm alley sweeper. He also favored the U.S. Army pre-1970, Colt Automatic .45 Model 1911 and wore two of them in special custom shoulder holsters that looked a lot like Mike’s own version.

At close to five foot ten inches and weighing in at one eighty, his brown hair always seemed to fall past his forehead and into his eyes. He had thick eyelashes the girls loved and a certain boyish charm highlighted by his shyness. Caroline liked to say, “He’s just cuter than a button!” But the comment clearly affected him to the point that even she didn’t say it in front of him very often.

Now a gunsmith by trade, he did most of the reloading for the group. There were few things he wasn’t good at when he decided to do them. For the most part he kept to himself, but there was one particular woman in the group who was obviously trying to get him to notice her, and he kept his distance. Like most snipers, he stayed to himself and remained quiet most of the time.

He had confided in Mike that quite a few years ago he had been madly in love with a girl he often referred to as his high school sweetheart, but she had sent him a “Dear John” letter while he was away at Boot Camp. The entire ordeal made him wary of women, in general, and the only apparent thing he seemed to be afraid of was having his heart broken again.

The final member of their rescue party was Mike Reynolds, one of the original founders and planners of the group and the person who was ultimately in charge of security and defense. It was for that reason this operation was his responsibility. He knew he could have assembled a team and sent them out under the guise of needing to finish securing the retreat, but that wasn’t like him. He was a hands-on kind of guy and cared about those who hadn’t shown as much as anyone. Leaning over a bit, he lubed his chain and offered the tube to anyone who wanted to use it; Sam accepted.

A former Navy SEAL, Mike had been on the fast track to twenty but found that even though he was good at what he did, he wanted to try something else. He got out as a Lieutenant Commander after a ten-year stint as Platoon Leader Gold. SEAL Teams were divided into two teams, Silver and Gold, each with an Officer and/or a leading Chief Petty Officer in charge. The Executive Officer, or XO, was the second-in-command of a Team and the next in line to become the Commanding Officer. Mike had been the XO of SEAL Team Six and was primed to be promoted to full Commander before he decided to get out.

As an Annapolis graduate, his career had been assured and he left with extensive combat experience. SEAL Team Six was the Navy’s version of Delta Force; a Counter-Terrorist military unit often dispatched all over the world to “put out little fires.” As a result, he had seen clandestine action all over the globe and attended many of the finest specialty schools offered only to members of the elite. It was at one such school that he met a young rising star by the name of Danny Croft who earned Mike’s respect to the point of tracking him down a few years later to invite him into the group.

When Mike initially got out, he went to work at an American Embassy as a security consultant but quit after only one year. It bored him to tears and the pecking order was vicious and full of ring knockers, the Masonic kind. He didn’t care for that sort of fraternal action. He wore his Annapolis class ring and that was sufficient for him. It was more prestigious because of the honor and loyalty that was instilled on him during four years “together by the Bay” with his Shipmates.

His next year as a Deputy Sheriff left him dissatisfied, as well, and he wondered if it was a mistake to get out of the Navy. That’s when the offer came to run a security school to train executives and their bodyguards on how to conduct themselves when they were sent on overseas contracts. It was a good job, held his interest, and made him feel he was finally doing something positive. The money was excellent and that helped keep him equipped with the goodies he wanted to have. In short order, he became the Executive Manager in charge of training. Not many people knew he was a licensed Mechanical Engineer, primarily because he never made use of his chosen profession due to the circumstances in which he always found himself.

Mike was five foot ten with a square jaw and a slight dimple at the base of his chin, and when he smiled, more dimples appeared on both cheeks. His hair was coal black, and he wore it long and combed straight back. He grew a mustache about a year ago and liked it, so it stayed put. At two hundred twenty pounds, he was in peak of condition because of his daily workouts. He could run further and faster now than when he was a SEAL. He did a lot of shooting on the course where the bodyguards trained, and he was a dead shot. It would be hard to find a better tactics and operations planner, which is why he became the principal security man and trainer of the Avalon group.

Mike turned thirty-five the previous August and had been married once but she left him because of the Navy. Every time there was a mission, his beeper went off and away he went. He couldn’t tell her where he was going, what he was going to do, or when he would be back. After a few years, she became fed up by her own insecurities and he came home one day to find her and everything in the house gone.

He moved on base in the Bachelor Officer Quarters, which turned out to be more convenient in a lot of ways. He was served divorce papers that he signed without contest. She was a corporate lawyer with an annual six-figure income and was being considered for partner at her firm. There were no kids, so there was nothing to be disbursed in terms of money; she simply went her way while he went his. She got everything; Mike got his freedom.

There were a few women here and there after that, but nothing he considered worth hanging onto… until he met Caroline. Most women liked him because he was good looking, had a good physique, was smart, articulate, and though his buddies referred to him as “a smooth swordsman,” was always a gentleman. Caroline was the first woman to make him feel like a relationship might be worth the trouble.

They were ready. Dan Crowley, Mike’s first partner at Avalon and his only equal in the retreat in terms of shares and influence, came forward and wished them luck. Dan was a Medical Doctor… a General Practitioner and surgeon. He was a serious man who depended on Mike for his take on certain situations and he didn’t want anything to happen to him, especially now.

“You be careful and if you need any extra help, you be sure and let us know. May the Saints protect you, Michael.”

He and Caroline were the only two who called him Michael. It reminded him of his late mother when she was angry about something he had done.

“Not to worry. Look for us in a couple of days and nights. If we have to, we’ll back track as far as town and each individual’s home, but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.”

With that, he looked over his shoulder and said to the others, “Let’s do this!”

They rolled on the power and away they went toward the dirt road in the big firs. Dust whipped up and smoke jetted out from behind the bikes. Next stop, only God knew!

Chapter 11 The Rescue

Getting down the mountain was much quicker than when they had headed toward Avalon the day before. The ancient dirt road, painstakingly carved out of the middle of these magnificent trees so many years ago by Eli to move his cattle to the new railhead, was ample in its width and ran for a good fifteen miles through the fir trees straight as an arrow.

Throughout the years, the ash from hundreds of coal-fired stoves, and later the big boiler, came down the road loaded on horse-drawn wagons to be dumped here. It was gray in appearance, and one major benefit of the coal ash was that barely a weed grew here. It’s smooth surface offered an easy ride.

The trees on both sides of the road, now grown back, were at an impressive size again, having been disregarded by men and their axes. The clear cutting had stopped more than eighty years ago, and because the woodsman’s axe fell silent for these many years, the trees did what they always did when left alone… they grew. In this case, eighty years of growth had yielded magnificently towering giants. Clear of lower branches for the first fifteen feet, most of these trees were at least four feet in diameter, and their tops reached a towering a hundred feet or more.

The search party and their motorcycles were dwarfed in size as they moved together in unison.

After a few minutes, the old rail bed clearing came into view, and Mike signaled for them to stop at the edge of the woods while they were still on the ash road. He parked and walked out to the clearing, taking his binoculars out for a better look. It wasn’t likely there were any “unfriendlies” out there, but he wanted to make certain. The watch at the hidden bunker had not yet been posted when Mike got on the radio and pushed the transmit button.

“Base, this is Leader One.”

He waited and the radio crackled when Dan’s voice came back to him.

“What’s up?”

“Set the watch out here as soon as possible.”

“Roger that.”

Sam accompanied Mike as he edged closer to the clearing, and Mike swept the area from side to side several times, stopping frequently to look for any subtle movements. His military training taught him that most people would absentmindedly slap a bug away from their faces or turn their heads, and those small movements were discernible to a skilled observer. Wild animals would notice it too, which is why they paid heed to the sounds and movements of birds and other wildlife. In a few minutes Sam and Mike made their way back to their bikes and hopped on.

They continued slowly toward the clearing, stopping at the tree line for one final sweep with the binos before rolling through. There was nothing out there; it was early, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. They made their way past the sand traps and, in short order, were on the old rail bed headed toward the river and the state highway that wound its way through the lower mountains far below them. Mike halted at the first landslide and motioned for Sam and the others to stay behind.

“When Dan and I reach the next slide area, I’ll give you a radio check and let you know if it’s clear. If there are any bad guys coming this way, we may have to make a fight on that ledge; there’s nowhere else to go, especially if they happen to be above us. A few grenades and we’re toast! There’s no reason to lose everyone, and you two can make a run for Avalon and at least get ready for whatever got us.”

He wasn’t being melodramatic; they were all combat veterans and understood it was just the way it was. The other two nodded, and Mike and Dan went up and over the slide and motored to the next slide area. Once they arrived, Mike scrambled to the top of the debris and took out his binoculars again. There was nothing ahead or above them.

Down in the valley, there was a great deal of smoke coming from the highway. Even with his binoculars, he still couldn’t make out much, except that something was going on or had just happened down there. He keyed the radio button and spoke. “Clear.”

Sam responded. “Roger that.”

They did the same “leap frogging” again. When on foot, the last man moves up and slaps the first man on the shoulder as he passes, which is the signal that that person is now to begin the move forward. That last person, now in the lead, usually goes into a kneeling position with his weapon at the ready, straight ahead, and swinging left to right. The man behind him covers left and the third man covers right. The man at the rear covers the rear until he leaps to take the lead. Today, they were traveling by bike and could forego the slapping and the kneeling, but the concept was the same, and they used the landslides as points of reference.

When Mike and Dan arrived, the radio crackled again, and in a few minutes they were all together and past the last slide. They continued their journey with a fairly wide spacing until they reached the turnoff that would take them to the Roach Hotel. Mike took out his GPS; although he knew the route by memory, he wanted to verify. He knew that when lives were on the line he couldn’t assume anything, and two minutes to check was far better than any amount of backtracking due to a wrong turn.

To everyone’s relief, it was so far, so good. They would be approaching the area near the cave soon, so they stopped to sync-up. Not having an absolute plan was no reason to mindlessly barrel into a potentially bad situation and make it worse.

“Keep your eyes peeled. We’re only a few miles from the cave, so we have to be extra alert. Until we’re back at Avalon, there are no more ‘friendlies’ except our own, wherever they happen to be. I suggest we make it another two and a half miles, walk the last bit, and then stash our rides. I don’t want the noise getting the wrong people’s attention focused on us. Roger, you stay with the bikes for cover and backup.”

They rode on to a specific place that Mike knew of, including its exact distance to the cave. They dismounted, pushed their bikes another mile, stopped, and parked them in a semi-hidden stand of trees. Roger cut brush to hide the bikes while Mike, Sam, and Dan headed on foot toward the Roach Hotel. It was straight ahead, up and over a ridge and down slightly to the right.

“Maybe two more miles,” Sam offered a guess.

It was getting hotter as the day went on, and they all started to sweat as they climbed the ridge. A few feet from the top, they stopped; this was a vantage point where they could see just about everything down near the opening to the cave. Mike took out his binoculars and could see people milling around. The cave was covered, but the job of concealing it had been hastily done, at best. If someone got close enough, they would probably find the opening and those inside would have no place to escape.

Thinking about it, Mike spoke to his two companions in low tones.

“I think our people are in the cave, and those ‘unfriendlies’ are wandering around looking for them. We need to even the odds. Sam you go left and work your way toward the cave by coming out through the woods there.” He pointed to where he meant, and Sam nodded.

“I’ll go right and circle around toward the back side of the cave. Dan, you cover us with your fifty down the middle. Wait fifteen minutes and move straight on toward the entrance from here; when it starts, open fire at any target of opportunity. Everyone stay low and be careful.”

The ground ahead of them was soft from the previous rains, making the motorcycle tracks visible. There were other tracks, too.

Mike said to Sam and Dan, “I make it to be about twenty-five to thirty of them based on what I see there,” pointing at the tracks. “They’re all in a group, bunched together and close. How nice,” he smiled, “one grenade could take most of them out, even though that would take the fun out of it.”

Mike took out his magazine, ejected the round in the pipe, and he then inserted another magazine that was painted blue and looked to be about a seventy-five round capacity. They were special loads of 9mm that wouldn’t break the sound barrier when fired because they reduced the noise coming from the firearm by nearly half. Dan had loaded the sub-sonic, special ammo carefully to ensure that each explosion would be no louder than a handclap.

He extracted the famous SIONICS Suppressor out of his pocket and screwed it on the end of the gun barrel. Sam was doing the same thing and so was Dan with the backup Mac-11 he kept slung over his shoulder. He likely wouldn’t get close enough to use it, but if one of the ‘unfriendlies’ ran toward him, he’d have it standing by.

Mike asked, “Everyone ready?”

They nodded and Sam smiled wide, making his big mustache wiggle. Mike continued in a low voice.

“You boys be careful; I don’t want to give Roger any practice patching someone up, although God knows, he probably needs it. Let’s do what we have to do. If we can get them all, that’d be great. I got nothing against these bikers, but it’s obvious they are not friendlies. If they were, they wouldn’t have our people trapped.”

Sam smiled and Dan’s face was tense. Mike switched channels on his radio, “Nineteen.”

Roger and Sam switched theirs, as well, and Mike spoke into the radio.

“Rats in the trap, this is Mike.”

He waited, the radio crackled, and a voice said,

“Where have you guys been, Sugar?”

It was Crystal Sneed.

“We had to have supper and then breakfast, Sugar Pie!” Mike answered with a humorous amount of sarcasm.

Crystal responded quickly.

“We aren’t sure, but we think there’s about a dozen out there. Thank God they haven’t found the cave entrance! We came onto them over near the river, and they engaged us in a running gunfight. We’ve been here a few hours.”

She sounded like she was out of breath. Mike said, “We make it thirty or so, but we’re going to do a quickie clean up; stay calm and wait. The password will be page fifteen, for affirmative, and page twenty for negative and that you’re on your own.”

“Darn you, Michael! Why did you have to trash my illusions by saying that? There will be no negative! Do you read me? Just let us know when the coast is clear.”

She hesitated and said, “Mike, we’re really scared.”

Mike looked at Dan and Sam and pointed a finger ahead of them and said, “Hoooraaah boys, fifteen minutes from… now!”

Everyone did a time check and confirmed, one by one.

“Fifteen minutes.”

They moved out and Sam was on the backside of the small patch of woods within eight minutes. Dan was on his stomach with the sling wrapped around one arm, steadying himself on an elbow. His legs were spread wide apart, and he took aim at one guy who was busy yelling at everyone. He waited; when the fifteen minute mark came, he would fire.

He stole a final glance at his watch, noting that he had ten more seconds. One thousand one…, one thousand two…, one thousand three… He looked through the scope again, took a relaxing breath and slowly let it go… One thousand ten… held that one and then slowly squeezed the trigger to the point that it was almost a surprise when the gun went off.

The guy’s head evaporated into a cloud of pink mist.

It was as if someone had just popped a balloon filled with red Kool-Aid. Sam was coming out of the woods at that moment, reloading another clip. Dan swung left and took out another bad guy who was leveling a handgun at Sam. The bad guy crumpled like someone dropped a wet rag on the ground.

Dan swung right and saw another bad guy coming from behind the rock cropping that was the back and roof of the cave. He was picking his feet up and laying them down as if the hounds of hell were after him. Before Dan could fire, Mike dropped him with a three round burst; the guy crumbled and rolled and didn’t move. The entire fire fight lasted about two minutes, and at its conclusion, there were thirty-two ‘unfriendlies’ sprawled on the ground and dead.

Dead amateurs, Mike thought but didn’t say.

He pushed the radio button, and was smiling when he said,

“Okay, Sweetheart, the bad guys are all dead. You can come on out and play.”

The people in the cave came bursting out, led by Crystal. She ran straight to Mike, grabbed him, and kissed him hard on the mouth; it was a lingering kiss. There had been eight of them in the cave, which made it a full count. Everyone was excited, but Mike made the “Time” signal by placing a finger in his palm; they all went quiet.

“Sam, you and Dan look around for anyone who might be hiding and take them out. See what they have on them while you’re at it.”

“Anyone hurt?” He asked while looking over the cave dwellers.

Crystal blurted out, “Only my feelings if you tell me you and Caroline are still a number. And if you aren’t, boy are you going to get lucky tonight.”

Mike smiled. Crystal was a handful for any man, and he was sure she was going to latch on to someone eventually. He keyed his radio and said, “Roger, is everything alright; where you are?”

Roger came back and said, “Affirmative. Is it over?”

“Affirmative that,” Mike spoke into the radio. “We’ll be coming over to you in a few. We’ll latch on to a ride with one of the others that were in the cave. Be there shortly.”

In about ten minutes they joined Roger and formed a convoy. Mike led the way back to Avalon with the ride home passing uneventfully. Everyone in their survival group was finally present and accounted for, forming the latest community to reside at Avalon. It was unlikely that Eli would have ever envisioned his ranch would one day become a bastion of survival for those escaping the onslaught of a world war.

Chapter 12 Together at Avalon

The total count at Avalon was now thirty-two adults and eight children, including those who were hiding in the cave. They were all completely dedicated to the retreat and to each other… ‘all for one and one for all,’ despite the cliché

As the early days passed, Dan, Roger, and Caroline organized and opened their clinic, which was on par with any small hospital. Sam helped Greg make sure the blacksmith shop was in order and could be put into operation at a moment’s notice. Since they had an unlimited supply of coal to burn, a small fire was kept lit at all times, nearly airtight and smoldering.

Coal may have run out in large quantities for the railroad, but there was an adequate amount to keep their retreat in full supply for centuries. Each person had an area they were responsible for, and now that they were settling down, they were pretty much prepared for the long haul.

They had put in order and stocked the retreat for over six years now. On different occasions, a pair of them would bring in an animal or two, usually babies. One day Mike and Dan connected a sidecar to Dan’s bike and after some modification, managed to get a calf in it to bring to Avalon. A different time, they brought out another calf, and they repeated the process until they had six females and two bull calves from different herds.

Chickens were brought in by stuffing them in backpacks, and sheep came later in both packs and the sidecar. At one point they decided to make a weekend, plus a couple of days, of it and rode horses in. They did it again and again until they had four draft horses and ten saddle horses, all of good stock and able to breed.

The transportation problem to and from Avalon was solved with a couple of trips whereby four riders came in on four bikes and went back out doubled up. Eventually several good bikes were left at the retreat.

As problems and challenges arose, the logistics were worked out and planned, much like a military operation. In the course of six years, the retreat was stocked generously with a renewable supply of food and non-gas burning transportation, and they were able to manufacture spare parts galore. Most importantly, they had found and cultivated good, sincere people to be a part of their group.

It took them ten outings to fence in the Mountain Meadow behind the main building, but it was a crucial task. The main building housed what they fondly referred to as, “The General Store.” In its heyday, it indeed had been a store, and the former residents stocked many of the little things the one-time guests desired such as sanitary napkins, chewing gum, bags of tobacco and rolling papers. There were newfangled cigarettes not widely marketed, magazines, books, clothing, hats, and things of that nature, all to keep the guests from being either inconvenienced or bored.

The newest residents of Avalon used the old store as a library. Most of them brought books with them over the years, eventually stocking it with a large variety of reading and reference material. The subjects varied, but a lot of the focus was on novels, history, first aid, college-level textbooks, as well as elementary through high school curricula. The list continued on to books about construction, “how to” manuals, games, and so forth; so many different books, in fact, that it was exceptional. Only Penny knew all that was there.

Penny Rolls was the retreat Librarian. With a degree in Library Science, she had their library looking professional quickly after she took it over. She cataloged and organized the books in no time, since that was her primary job. Everybody contributed books they felt were important, and there were about twenty thousand books on hand by the time the crap had hit the fan.

The Armory and Gun shop had come together in similar fashion, as well as the rest of the small shops and modern conveniences. Harlan Herrera and Dennis Chambers had taken on that task, and they organized and cataloged all the spare parts. Occasionally they relied on Sam to do a bit of complicated machine work and consulted Dan, from time to time; but for the most part, there were plenty of extra screws, springs, barrels, and reloading equipment, which were all Dillon Progressive.

They also stocked the necessary dies to reload everything from .222 to .50 caliber rifles, and from .25 all the way up to .50 caliber pistols. Of course they possessed everything in between, as well as shotguns. They had the husks for 10, 12, 16, 20 and .410 gauges and the dies to match. They even had a small carbide cannon that could be loaded with a charge of nuts, bolts, glass, and even rocks, in a pinch; it would be excruciating to be on the receiving end of that bad boy.

Of course, they stored a wide assortment of powders, primers, brass, and wads… and the list went on and on, including a scale with which to weigh their charges. There was very little they could not reload or fix, especially with tools like the small lathe-like machine that could trim the brass if it became too long after repeated re-loadings. A primer pocket swage was used for military brass, and a brush was used to clean out the primer pockets. Added to that was a vibrating machine that looked like a flying saucer with an opening at the top, and with its crushed walnut shells inside, and jeweler’s rouge, the brass came out looking factory new.

Chad and Linda Sienna, both being world class Chefs, staffed the kitchen, and they were two of only a few who didn’t stand watch. The meals they whipped up for the retreat’s group of people were nothing short of phenomenal. They baked and cooked everything imaginable under the sun, and most of the time, they did it using only six basic ingredients: flour, honey, salt, pepper, soybean, and powdered milk.

They were often able to spice things up by adding vegetables, eggs, chicken, and rabbit; occasionally, they would even slaughter a calf or an older cow that that had gone dry. The superb job they did in feeding the whole group was nearly impossible to describe. Suffice to say, it was an incredible feat in every way… they not only did the cooking, but also the butchering, as needed. There were always people offering to help, and sometimes Susan Riley assisted, along with Claudia Paulson, both of whom were single and considered easy on the eyes.

Perry Stone and Sally Zeller, a couple with two of the group’s children, had lived at Avalon full time for the past three years. They were never officially married, other than by common law, but were as in love as anyone could be; they were going on seventeen years together and counting. The couple, both in their mid-forties, had become the official caretakers of Avalon once they became members. The day they came out to see the old resort, they were in love with it at first sight and never wanted to leave the place. They moved there within a month after they were accepted into the group, and Dan had collected their fee for their share of the ownership.

Prior to them moving to the ranch, and even after, everyone in the group took turns staying there at least four days every month for a total of six weeks a year. That ensured things were secure and provided an opportunity to work on projects as well as feed and water the animals that were slowly accumulating at the ranch. Sally home schooled the kids, and every time someone went up or came back out, they would take or deliver letters, along with whatever they needed as a list of “must haves.”

Perry was an excellent carpenter, plumber, electrician, and overall Master Builder. He had been a General Contractor with his own company before closing its doors and moving to Avalon. Sally was a Master Gardener, and she had worked with her husband by doing the landscaping of the homes they built. She had a green thumb, and it was said she could grow rocks if she had the right ingredients. Her garden had grown from one acre to four in the three years of her residence. Once the retreat was occupied year ‘round, any of the members who could get away came up during the summer to help her with the harvest.

She had also accumulated shelf after shelf of canned goods, put away for when needed, and her very large root cellar was bursting at the seam; it contained potatoes in bins, as well as squash, pumpkins, apples, corn, and onions, and she was even growing tobacco, among other things, in her garden. She put away seeds after every harvest in order to do it again the next spring and had collected bag after bag of seeds. None of them were of the hybrid variety that couldn’t reproduce, but instead were considered heirloom.

Behind Avalon was a natural mountain meadow that stretched out toward the North and encompassed an area of about four hundred acres. It provided enough room to graze animals, grow their feed, plant orchards of fruit and nut trees, and also allowed space for their ample garden that would keep everyone well-fed and healthy. Now that those areas were separated by the cross fencing, it was easy to grow food and allow the animals to graze at the same time.

In the three years they had been there, Perry and Sally had succeeded in doing a remarkable job by coordinating a lot of help from the others. The creek that flowed down the middle of the meadow irrigated everything with branch-outs for keeping the stock watered, and it was also the source of water for the swimming pool.

High up above them was an artisan spring that spurted out of the ground and began the descent to carry the water down to Avalon and beyond. There were also five wells at Avalon, should the need arise. Perry had built loafing sheds for the animals near the creek; they were covered areas made from logs in which the animals could get under to hide from the sun, or the rain and rain squalls that came through in the spring and fall.

School started once the entire group arrived, and the children went to school every day and had the weekends off. Susan Riley was a teacher with a Masters in Education; she had primarily taught middle school, but had also taught at the elementary and high school levels at different times during her career. She was one of the single women of the group, a flaming redhead with skin so white her blue veins could be faintly seen throughout.

Another of the single women was Crystal, who worked in the kitchen, or more specifically, cleaned the eating and serving areas. She was the kind of person who liked people, so she staffed the bar in the evening hours “just so she could visit.” She wasn’t unattractive, though perhaps considered a little earthy, and was often heard to say, “When I finally find the right guy, he will never hear me say no. When he wants me, I’ll be ready.” Some weren’t so sure it wasn’t an invitation as much as an advertisement.

Dennis and Charlene Post worked in the fields or wherever they were needed. They were both dairy farmers from Pennsylvania in a small area known as Sullivan County. It was exactly forty-five miles from Wilkes-Barre and the same distance from Williamsport, where the Little Leagues went for their World Series every year.

They eventually moved out west to get away from the taxes and what they considered the insufferable laws that were coming down from the liberals, as the area was historically economically depressed from the lack of industry. Just like Avalon, when the coal ran out in Sullivan County, the railroad moved out as well.

Dennis was the one who really liked farm animals and growing things. He was a skillful hand milker who knew how to separate cream from the gallons of milk they got twice a day from the cows. He could make butter and whipping cream, and he knew how to make the best mouthwatering cheeses they could hope to eat. They were both happy here and had moved to Avalon once the group approved them and received their payment for their share of ownership.

The watches were posted full time now that everyone was on location. All watches were six hour shifts and advanced every day by one hour at noon to prevent monotony and complacency; it also kept onlookers from easily identifying the schedule. The locations were rotated, as well, to keep a watch stander from being stuck in the same place all the time and there was an advantage of becoming intimately familiar with each location over time.

The railroad bunker was located at the entry to the road leading to Avalon and resembled a pile of logs stacked to weather. If ‘unfriendlies’ didn’t know to look for it, they would easily pass it by. There were slits between the logs to peer out and would be difficult to see a person in the bunker standing watch.

It took a lot of work to build and disguise, but was worth it in the end, as it provided plenty of warning, via radio, to those at the retreat from the approach attackers would most likely take. There was also a battery inside the bunker that could be used to set the charges to fell some of the big firs across the road, making it nearly impassable. Two people manned the bunker at nights and during inclement weather.

In addition to the bunker out by the railroad bed, there was also a tower in the back meadow; an additional sentry roved the main building front to back from dusk to dawn. It was a good system, and it would be difficult for anyone to surprise even the tower watchers because the rover of the main building could see it clear as day, and there were booby traps all over the place, as well. Some were designed to simply make noise, while others would seriously hurt anyone sneaking up on the area unaware. There were even several solar-charged, wireless motion detectors that would either light up the area or notify the watch standers.

Chapter 13 Life at Avalon

Two months passed swiftly, and it felt odd to many of them that they didn’t have to leave the retreat anymore. Before the chain of events brought about by the bombings, they each relished the moments when they were able to escape to here, if only for a short time. Now it was their home, and it looked as if it would be for a very long time to come.

Everyone kept busy with either their primary duties or by finding something productive to accomplish. Sam and Greg undertook the project of restoring the old wagon the old timers used to haul the ashes out to the road. It sat in a corner rusting and in need of major repairs, but with all the able bodies pitching in, it was as good as new in a week or two. Sam commented that the dump door in the bed was working smoother than the trap door on a gallows.

A large pile of ashes with unburned coal nuggets mixed in had already accumulated and would have to be redistributed elsewhere. Aside from the fact that it was unsightly, every small breeze caused the dust to swirl around and eventually get into the main building or cabins.

The ash wagon was finished in record time, and just when it was needed, as it turned out, even if not for its intended purpose. Sam wanted to hitch a couple of horses to it and start dumping the ashes on the outer road right away since his cabin was closest to the pile, and he was getting tired of dusting all the time.

While in the midst of hitching up the team, a call came in over the radio from the lookouts at the end of the road near the rail beds; they were in a strange panic. Mike decided to go out on his bike and see what was going on and took Sam as backup. It was a long distance, but at almost full throttle they got there fast enough.

Well before they reached the clearing at the end of the firs, they stashed their bikes and hiked to within view of the area where the bunker lay hidden. Sam went right and Mike went left into the thick fir trees, and they worked their way toward the sand traps at the end of the road. Both men carefully avoided the booby traps that were positioned throughout both sides of the road, set to go off. Mike hadn’t heard the radio message, so he wasn’t sure what to expect, only that the watch was in some sort of trouble.

As Mike approached the clearing, he heard her; she was angry and sounded fierce. There in front of them was a female grizzly and her cub, and she was raking the top of the bunker with her huge paws trying to dig down to the occupants. It looked like she was tiring when the cub saw Mike and ran at him at a playful trot. Mama saw him too and came at Mike with the grace of a thousand pound wild dog. The saliva flowed out of her mouth like a silver stream covering her front legs and chest, and she was instantly in a full run and moving toward him quickly.

There wasn’t much he could do at the moment, so he raised his 9mm, selected a three shot burst, and as he started to squeeze the trigger, an explosion from behind him rang out and caused him to jump. It was Dayna. With a single shot, she dropped the mama bear from nearly three hundred yards with her .308 Remington pump action Game Master. The bear dropped to the ground and was dead before her head hit the road; it was a great shot and earned Dayna another notch of respect. She quickly jumped back on her bike and was on her way to assist.

The cub started moaning and raking at his mother with his paws, not seeming to understand what was happening. He was so young he would most likely die without her milk and watchful eye. Mike, Sam, and Dayna went back to the retreat, leaving both bears there, and came back with the ash wagon a few hours later. It had nearly been hitched before the call came over the radio, and they completed the job to retrieve the dead bear in short order.

Dayna pitched in to help, having decided that she was going to keep the cub alive since she felt a twinge responsible for having been the one who shot the mother. She asked several of the men to help get the bear loaded on the wagon, and they all jumped on as it lurched and headed down the ash road. Repairs to the bunker would be needed due to the damage the mama bear had done to the top of it, but that would have to wait until tomorrow since it was getting so late.

The little cub was nursing on his dead mother when Dayna picked him up, and he began licking her face and was a handful for all the wriggling he was doing. He was heavy too and as she walked over, Sam helped her get into the wagon. She scratched the cub’s stomach and in a moment, he was fast asleep in her lap. The others began the difficult task of lifting the dead bear into the wagon, and although it took some time, they got her in there. It was getting late, and the trip back was going to take awhile.

Back at the retreat, the others had eaten hours before, so Sam suggested Dayna put the cub in the tool shed for safe keeping, commenting that they would deal with the mother later. They all went inside to eat, but Dayna decided to tend to the cub instead. She knew the cub needed to eat and Dan, with the help of Caroline, made a rather large bottle for him by putting part of a rubber glove over the end to serve as a nipple. She warmed the milk in the kitchen and went out to feed her seventy pound baby while the rest of them went in to the dining area to eat.

The cub came out of the tool shed and was bawling and running around to the point that Dayna had to set the bottle down and chase him. When she caught up with him, she couldn’t let loose to go get the bottle and Sam, who was done eating, was standing there watching the comedic chase. She appealed to him with a look, and he walked over and retrieved the bottle for her. With bottle in hand, the cub settled down to a drinking fest and soon fell asleep in her arms.

Sam disappeared to get Dayna some food and a drink, and he ended up hand feeding her while she held the cub. The two of them took the cub to her cabin, laying him on the floor, and then decided it was safe to have a cup of coffee before Dayna settled in for the night. She kept the bottle in case she needed to feed the bear cub later.

The next day began the job of gutting out and skinning the mama bear and several people hauled it up by its front paws out by the main barn. The entrails were fed to the small family of pigs that they kept way out behind the big barn, situated well away from the predominant wind.

One of the things that had carefully been brought to the retreat was a set of eight-inch paper wheels that were mounted on a trundle type apparatus by way of an axle. Perry had built it from plans he found in an old Mechanic’s Illustrated magazine. Operators could sit at the apparatus and work the trundle with their feet, facing the wheels. One wheel was for sharpening and the other was for polishing; together, they would put an edge on anything used for cutting. It took a bit of a knack to get the hang of it, but once mastered it would yield sharpness that could shave anyone. An added bonus was that the paper wheels didn’t heat the blade, which prolonged the edge.

Perry used the machine several times to get the big bear skinned and gutted and took the carcass into the barn area and left it to hang for the next two and a half weeks to age. Aging the meat would make it tender, and it was easy given that there were seldom any flies this time of year. There was little waste at the retreat, and the mama bear was going to yield some tasty steaks, a real treat for everyone when the time came. Dressed out and skinned, she tipped the scales at eight hundred pounds of mostly meat.

The next step was to stretch the large hide fur side down and begin the job of staking the raw hide, stretching it as they went. In stretching hides, the rule of thumb was always the tauter, the better. A pair of house paint scrapers was used to scrape the hide to remove any traces of meat, and when they were satisfied with the job, the brain of the animal was extracted and the process of rubbing the brain matter into the hide was begun.

Many cultures, including Native Americans, observed that all animals have enough tannic acid in their brain to tan their own hide to perfection. After the initial rubbing in of the brain matter, the remainder was saved for a second application until it was gone and totally used up.

Beverly and Stan Doyle wanted to give the technique a try, but Beverly threw up when the smell reached her and she was done. Stan, on the other hand, proved to have a hardier stomach, so he helped quite a bit. It was finally completed and simply a matter of waiting for the hide to dry out. Then they would wash it and allow it to dry once again before they began the hard job of softening it.

“Dayna,” Sam asked innocently, “Do you know how the Indian squaws made leather soft?”

She admitted she didn’t know, especially given the brain matter had been used. Sam, in an effort to get a rise from her simply stated, “They chewed it until it was soft.”

“Disgusting!”

Her disgust was Sam’s delight, and he laughed at the thought of it all.

The hide was later washed in a tub that was set up to tumble, operating off the big power takeoff of the main boiler. It was washed for several days in a watered-down solution of diluted sulfuric acid and lime. After being re-scraped and allowed to dry, it was fairly soft and its fur was preserved.

Dayna made no bones about the hide; it was hers and she was going to use it for wall to wall carpeting in her cabin in spite of the fact that the hide was too large to fit properly. It would just have to go up the walls a bit. She wasn’t going to chew it, either, but rather decided to soften it further by taking different parts and kneading and rubbing them together after the washing and drying was done. It was a big job, but the more she worked the skin, the softer it got.

Her one bedroom cabin was like all of the others, except for the five special ones that were multiple room affairs. All of the cabins were equipped with a few lamp tables that had the old fashioned Aladdin oil lamps sitting on them. Most of them had glass shades sitting on a three rest cradle that was attached to the lamp, itself. There were three lamps on the walls and three on the tables, as well as one lamp attached to the bathroom wall, which helped light up that particular area after dark.

One problem with the oil lamps was the heat they gave off, which was a tradeoff for the fact that each was comparable to a 100 watt light bulb when fully lit. The group was growing soybeans in the back field that yielded oil for the lamps, and there was a fair amount of kerosene that had been stocked as well.

Each cabin consisted of a twelve by fifteen foot box, plus a ten by eight foot bathroom, both of which were heated via hot water radiators. Each had six windows, one on each side of the entry door, one near the bed, and two more on the opposite wall of the bed, and the bathroom had a small window above the toilet.

The larger cabins were two bedroom builds and included a small kitchen area, bathroom, and living room with chairs, and they had both a side door and a main entry. Each had a large stone fireplace, as well as a radiator in each room, including the bathrooms. Nearly twice the size of the smaller cabins, they were twenty by thirty feet.

Doctor Dan had one of the larger cabins, and Mike had one he didn’t use; he liked number seven better because it was cozier. Perry and Sally occupied one, and Dennis and Charlene Post had another. The others were left empty but kept clean by Charlene. The rest of the group members occupied their smaller cabins, and everyone was, if not outright happy, content with their situation. They had no need for the guest rooms in the main building, but they were placed on a rotation to be cleaned every few weeks for no other reason than safety and maintenance.

One thing that was important for the group was the conservation of resources and taking care of chores together. That meant everything from cleaning up their own plates to only taking the food they planned to eat. Lamps in the cabins were not left burning unattended and Dayna made candles, which were encouraged for use since they were an easily replaced and an inexpensive resource. They seldom saw any cabin with multiple Aladdin’s lit unless there was a meeting going on, and those usually took place in the main building in either the restaurant, the lounge, or sometimes in the bar.

They had regular meetings that all members attended, usually after the evening meals, and if there was anything to talk about, it was normally discussed at that time. The meetings included the level of supplies and resources on hand and any particular point someone wanted to discuss.

The busiest place was normally the bar. Aside from relaxing with an occasional drink, there were tables to eat at, and several people were involved in ongoing chess and checker games. Some games were played over the course of days or even weeks, as each opponent would simply walk through, make their move, and continue on. It was a good place to go talk and have a good time. Many lively conversations ensued there.

Between the two formal bars, the small selections left in several of the cabins, and the reserves in the wine cellar, there was enough liquor and wine to last them for years to come. There was a desire, however, to “save the good stuff,” coupled with a deep-seated need to fulfill a somewhat rebellious streak. Sam and Greg, with the help of Dennis, took it upon themselves to make a large alcohol still, and they were brewing several forms of their own alcohol. The requisite welding was done the old fashioned blacksmith way by using a bellows and anthracite coal for the correct temperatures. Whereas wood fires couldn’t get hot enough to weld metal, coal, with the aid of a bellows, would.

Aside from bragging rights, they were producing enough ethanol to mix and/or subsidize the gasoline they had on hand in order to stretch their supplies, which they anticipated would last a very long time, especially considering they had already added a fuel preservative to all the storage tanks. The preservative kept the ethanol from breaking down and gave a shelf life of a few years. Once the mix they had on hand was used up, they would be able to rely primarily on the ethanol. Sam was prepared to adjust all the carburetors to be compatible with the alcohol when the time came.

The next issue in the motorized department was the need for oil. There were many gallons of it in stock, but Randy, their resident chemist, was experimenting with various vegetable oils as a long term replacement. It was a study in patience. He was also experimenting with replacing all of the combustibles with vegetable oils.

Doing so was a straight and easy process with any Diesel engine since the inventor, Rudolf Diesel, actually demonstrated his first engine while running it with pure peanut oil. The trick was with other types of engines, and Randy was hopeful that an ethanol-vegetable oil mix would substitute for gasoline, altogether.

Randy and Ginger Keys were accepted into the group for several reasons; one being that he was a Chemical Engineer with a knack for thinking outside the box. His first suggestion was that the group gather certain chemicals, essentially hoarding them for later… if there was a later.

As it turned out, here they were right in the mix of it, and God only knew how many people were still alive down below their mountaintop retreat. They only knew the suffering was likely horrible for many by now, since the radio broadcasts were getting bleaker as time went by.

Earlier on and with the help of the entire group, Randy began buying certain chemicals that he could later turn into nearly anything they needed. Of note, he acquired an out of print book called Henley’s Twentieth Century Book of Ten Thousand Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets. With its last printing in 1977 by Publishers Agency, Inc., Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, it was designed to be used in laboratories, workshops, and the home. Only sold by collectors, it had cost the group nearly a thousand dollars to procure.

Henley’s included formulas for hundreds of productions to include dyes, inks, waterproofing, perfumes, cement, plating, glass, dentifrices, varnishes, soaps, glues, paints, adhesives, enameling, hairdressings, cosmetics, oils, and literally thousands of other useful products for people who needed to make their own. Much of it was hard to decipher because it contained a lot of older jargon and ingredients that had different names and was from a different era, but there were few resources of greater value in the library.

To make the book worthwhile, they had collected several pounds each of iron oxide red, sodium fluoride, calcium chloride, iron filings, powdered charcoal, aluminum powder, dextrin, calcium oxide, sulfuric acid, calcium oxide, barium peroxide, potassium permanganate, black antimony sulphide, potassium carbonate, potassium chlorate, and sodium peroxide. They also had quite a bit of potassium cyanide, powdered magnesium, and red phosphorous on hand.

The list, itself, was courtesy of Kurt Saxon’s book, The Poor Man’s James Bond. All of the mixing of chemicals was left to Perry, since he was a trained professional, and the others in the group never touched them for fear of hurting themselves or someone else. It was this reason that Perry’s lab was one of the few truly restricted areas within the entire Avalon complex.

Chapter 14 A World at War

The week was winding down, and everyone looked forward to the Saturday night dance and potluck because it provided an opportunity to see everyone together, catch up, and enjoy some fellowship. Several people played instruments, jamming when they had nothing else to do.

This week had been particularly busy.

The bear cub, which Dayna named “Buddy”, made it into the kitchen by following the great smells from the huge kettle of soup that was bubbling on the coal-fired stove. He managed to get up on one of the counters and knock everything off onto the floor, including a bag of flour that scattered all over the place.

He was just being a bear cub, and it was clear that he was having a great time… until Chad caught him and carried him back to Dayna for safekeeping. Chad said, as he turned away to return to his duties, “If you don’t want bear cub stew, keep Buddy out of my kitchen.”

But it didn’t end there.

Buddy got into the chicken pens and managed to break several dozen eggs before he was caught again. Shortly thereafter, he broke into the big barn and scattered the contents of a bin full of oats on the floor.

Something had to be done about the cub, and Dan asked Mike to talk to Dayna. Mike didn’t hesitate to refuse, and with a twinkle in his eye, said, “You do it. There’s no way on God’s green earth that I’m going to get between her and that little animal. She is the mama bear!”

As fate would have it, Dan was walking toward the small shop Dayna had put together to make candles when the bear cub flew out the door, lumbering past him. He and Dayna collided as she ran after the cub, and before he could say anything, she started to laugh. It was so infectious that he too burst into laughter, and they sat there cackling like children.

Later that same day, during the changing of the watch at the hidden bunker out by the locomotive sand traps, Buddy followed the men like a little puppy. While they were changing watch, they caught a glimpse of the little guy tumbling off the cliff. They heard him bawling as he fell.

That was the end of Buddy, and it was up to Dan to break the news to Dayna. He did it reluctantly and with a remorse that could only come from knowing the pain she would feel. As he broke the news to her, she slid into his arms and wept.

That night Dan and Dayna danced a few times and not long after, disappeared for the night. For a while now, they had tried to pretend nothing was going on between them, but one thing led to another and of course everyone knew they were a couple. It wasn’t long before people got used to it, and there were few times anyone mentioned it.

Sunday night Dan tuned on his Zenith shortwave, and they all sat around listening to the news. It had been awhile, and everyone wanted to know about the situation down below.

A man was talking,

War with China and Russia continues since the original attacks on the West Coast, when both countries launched nuclear bombs in addition to landing troops with the intent to invade. The Chinese landed on the Baja Peninsula with the expectation to come up the West Coast and attack California. Intel shows that they intended to drop troops further south and then swing north to come through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Russia was in the process of landing troops East of Anchorage, Alaska, on Canadian soil per their agreement with China. The first Chinese invaders were bombed with tactical nuclear warheads after three days of troops being unloaded and countless warnings from the U.S. The bombs killed upwards of five hundred thousand troops.

A bit further south, Mexico City was hit with warheads as well, and the death toll was around ten million people. The same scenario befell the Russian troops, ending any further invasions. Mexico pleaded for peace three days after Mexico City went up in a column of ashes.

A woman spoke seamlessly,

The Middle East lies in ash and ruin and, for all intensive purposes, is practically glowing in the dark. Oil wells are on fire in every country in which they existed, and no one is making any attempt to put out the fires. Germany signed a cease-fire when they saw what was happening to the Middle East and that China, Russia, and Mexico were on the run; they wanted no part of it.

An unidentified submarine made it to within fifty miles of the East Coast and launched a series of missiles from somewhere near Cuba. Within an hour, Jacksonville, Norfolk, and Baltimore evaporated, with Philadelphia and New York City following. The island of Cuba was consequently melted to the water line of the Caribbean by several nuclear warheads that struck in quick succession.

In Asia, North Korea was nuked repeatedly over several days, essentially reducing the entire nation to a Stone Age culture, probably for the next two or three hundred years. Although China and Russia wanted to call a truce shortly after their troops were bombed, U.S. nuclear submarines launched all missiles in our inventory, and they joined North Korea in their manner of living. The U.S. Government then demanded and received unconditional surrender from China and Russia.

The man spoke again in an emotionless monotone,

Reports are coming in that many parts of what remains of the United States are being overrun by motorcycle gangs in the process of setting up Feudalistic Systems, particularly in California and Arizona. Other reports tell of similar gangs in Southern Florida, Western Georgia, and Western Virginia.

The Mid-West is the only area still functioning, albeit at a reduced rate, and what is now known as the “Mississippi Corridor” appears to be the primary vestige of American civilization. Armed citizen soldiers are on guard and patrolling all borders that connect with any state close to those who have, in effect, broken away from the United States proper.

Starvation runs rampant, and crime and looting continue unchecked by a law enforcement that no longer exists. People in prisons, nursing homes, and mental institutions are starving to death in their rooms and cells, abandoned by those in charge of their care.

In some areas, all non-whites are being hunted down and executed by hate groups, and Politicians are being lynched by mobs. It is, without a doubt, the lowest point in our country, the world, and humanity itself; might apparently makes right, and those in the minority are being killed in wholesale numbers everywhere. Many are fleeing for the borders but are being shot on sight; those who make it past the armed hoards are dying from radiation exposure…

Dan, stunned into speechlessness, clicked the radio off.

Everyone in the large room was quiet except for a few who were crying or blowing their noses. Claudia moaned and shook from the convulsions of her crying. They all had friends or family down there, loved ones who were probably dead by now. It was a moment of clarity, and the realization of what was happening came crashing down on them.

They were sheltered here at Avalon, and they hadn’t been forced to accept what was really happening down below their mountain; but on this night, it impacted each of them and they all felt it deeply and thoroughly to the bone. What they had known in the rest of the world was gone forever.

This was their world now!

Most of them had an idea all along that this was what it was going to be like, but the reality of it all was difficult to accept. They were being forced to recognize the certainty of it all now.

Mike came in with Caroline. They had been standing at the entry to the big room, listening, and he recognized what they were feeling and what they feared. He felt it too. Stopping, he said in a booming voice,

“What’s the matter with you people?” he paused as they looked up. “Did you think while you were bringing all those items up here and preparing all these years that it was some kind of game? Did you think it would last a week, maybe a month? This is as serious as it gets, people, and it isn’t a game. You struggled, saved, and stockpiled. You did without so that you could live. This is our home now, and make no mistake… they will come up this mountain and do the same thing to us if we let our guard down, if we become complacent the way America did for years. Look what it cost them… what it cost us… what it cost our country.”

His voice rose in volume and the oil lamps fitted to the big wagon wheels above their heads rattled.

“This is our home, and I’ll be damned if they’re gonna come up here and do the same thing to me, to us, to our little town! I’ll die first defending it! God Bless Avalon!”

He raised a clenched fist over his head and yelled the SEAL battle cry, “Hooorahhhhh! Hooorahhhhh! Hooorahhhhh!”

Later that night, the Australian Cattle Dog, Pretty Girl, had puppies. Mike got drunk and Caroline washed his back again.

Well… sorta’.

Chapter 15 Fire from Below

Three months prior to the bombs…

Eric Bell stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother Chris as the minister said his offering about their mom, who was an orphan and the last of their family, except for the two of them. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” he droned on in an effort to give some means of solace to the two brothers and a few of their Mother’s friends who stood there in the slight drizzle. Their dad had passed a decade ago, so they were alone in the world now.

They had no cousins or other family to speak of, and the only other people here were a few co-workers who came out of obligation or perhaps because it was an excuse to miss work.

Neither of the brothers were yet married or had children and both were military, choosing to follow the career path of their late father who was lost at sea when his jet flamed out over the Atlantic and crashed into the choppy waters that marked the beginning of a hurricane.

They were alone now.

Eric, the younger at age twenty-one, was a Force Recon Marine. He recently finished his SERE training and was attached to Twenty-Nine Palms in California. The Navy’s Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion course was brutal, and he was glad it was behind him. Now he was looking forward to getting on to his new detachment and getting to know his squad personnel.

As a unit, most of them had become very close. He was a Sergeant, and before SERE, he had attended a series of other courses, each one more deadly than the one before, beginning with sniper school. He had broken more than a few of the records there and had ranked out as one of the top five in the Marine Corps and top ten throughout the Department of Defense. His future as a respected and highly trained Marine was assured. He only had the opportunity to deploy on several surgical strikes thus far, but as a Marine, he knew long term deployments were inevitable.

It sure was great to see his brother again, even under these circumstances.

More than a year passed since their last get together and he missed Chris. Although they were separated by two years in age, they grew up together as best buds. Today was a happy and yet sad day for both of them. Mom was dead; the cancer she had stubbornly fought finally won. He suppressed the overwhelming urge to cry. It was tearing at his insides, but he wouldn’t allow it to spill forth. He fought it hard, but his Adam’s apple seemed to have a mind of its own as it moved involuntarily.

He regretted not having the time nor the opportunity to see her one more time, especially since the cancer struck. But the simple fact was that the military seized every minute of his time; it was just part of the job.

The rain continued as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Not really knowing what to do, he reached down to throw some dirt on it like he had often seen others do. But he only grabbed a handful of mud and immediately regretted it. Chris put an arm around his brother’s shoulder and squeezed him.

Chris was a Lieutenant Junior Grade and the Ordinance Officer aboard the USS CALIFORNIA, an OHIO Class Nuclear Submarine. Technically, he was the Assistant Weapons Officer, but his job was to keep in good order and account for the entire ordinance in his sub’s arsenal. He would be returning to his sub after the funeral was over because they were scheduled to deploy for a cruise in another week.

Thinking about the death of his mother, he felt relieved that she no longer suffered from the disease that had ravaged her body. It was amazing how quickly she degraded from normal and healthy to the empty shell of a woman that lay in that coffin; four months was all it had taken. He watched the lowering casket and felt his younger brother’s shoulders against his arm. He could sense that Eric was taking it extremely hard, especially since he hadn’t been able to be by her side.

This was a gloomy affair made worse by the constant rain. He knew he’d feel better once the service was over, especially since Mom could now rest in peace. Her worries were over, and she most certainly was having a wonderful reunion with Dad right about now. That brought a momentary smile to his lips because she had missed him terribly and said so many times. She would often hold Chris in front of her, look into his eyes, and tell him he could have been his father’s twin. She loved her husband, and he loved her too.

There were about a dozen people at the funeral and when the graveside service was over, they all walked toward their waiting cars. There would be a reception at Mom’s house so everyone could gather and talk and reminisce over food and drinks.

The brothers rode in silence during the short ride home.

In the modest living room, they all helped themselves to the food and refreshments. Eric went to the bathroom and washed the cemetery mud from his hands and when he came out, his brother offered him a sandwich. There was the usual small talk about things Margaret had done at such and such a time. The gathering lasted a couple of hours and then, one by one or two by two, they all left.

Eric and Chris were alone at last.

“It just won’t be the same without her, Chris,” Eric said in a soft voice. He was looking at his brother and, as hard as he tried not to let it happen, a tear slipped past his defenses followed by another until he was a little boy again. He put his head against his brother’s chest and Chris was there to comfort and protect him. His shoulders shook with the grief he was holding back and unknown to Eric, Chris was shedding a few of his own.

It took some time for both of them to let their grief subside. Chris finally asked Eric, “What are your plans, little brother?”

“Nothing much.” Eric composed himself enough to answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “I’ll just go back to the unit and continue doing what I’ve been trained to do. I haven’t made any plans… how ‘bout you?”

“We’re getting ready to deploy for six months on patrol,” Chris was glad to be talking about something normal for a change. “I suppose that’s all I have in terms of the future for right now.”

“I’ve missed you.” Eric said it with the strange sense of feeling that people get when they feel like a little kid again, not a six foot two Marine Sergeant Sniper from Force Recon. “Your letters have been good for the ego. I’ve wanted to thank you, but I don’t recall saying it before now.”

“You’re my little brother and I swear to you we will always stay in touch no matter what happens.” Chris said it with a determination that caused Eric to turn and look him in the eye and study him, knowing they were words of truth. “I will always be there for you, Shrimp,” which was the nickname Chris had used when Eric was younger. He stopped using it when he was ten, saving it only for times of close discussion or to make a sincere point.

Days later, both brothers returned to their duty stations with plans to get together when Chris returned from deployment and Eric, hopefully, had Christmas stand-down.

They both knew it might be a long time before they saw each other again, and they wrapped their arms around each other for a moment and said good-bye.

“You be careful, little brother!” Chris yelled as Eric was getting into a taxi cab.

“See you later, alligator.” Eric yelled over his shoulder, just before shutting the door.

“After while, crocodile,” he said it softly to the back of the cab as it pulled away from the curb.

Soon they were both gone and, in a very short time, World War Three began when China launched nuclear tipped missiles at the West Coast. Reports surfaced that one of those had struck the Marine base at Twenty-Nine Palms, the training location his brother, Eric, was at. The base, like every city during the attack, was caught unaware and obliterated.

LTjg Chris Bell was at sea, on patrol, but the message traffic was clear; Twenty-Nine Palms no longer existed.

Present day…

The SONAR speaker was on, providing a myriad of background noises, including the sound of whales in the distance. Using Target Motion Analysis, or TMA, they had ruled out potential contact as an enemy submarine and were slowly coming DIW, or dead in the water.

Word had already spread throughout the entire crew and emotions ran high in Combat Information Center. Here the Captain could get a clear picture of everything he needed to know before executing his orders to launch their entire inventory of twenty-four Trident ballistic missiles.

The Executive Officer hovered over charts spread out on the table, intently studying a portion of one. Satisfied with his verification of the Navigator’s report, he looked up from the chart to his Commanding Officer.

“Captain, we are in position.”

The Captain said, “Very well. Stand by.”

Twenty hours earlier, the Captain, an Annapolis graduate and career Naval Officer, had the miserable job of announcing to his crew that their homeland had been rained on with Chinese nuclear missiles and most of their families and loved ones living on the West Coast were assumed dead. He was lost for a few hours after hearing the news and contemplated what that meant to him as an individual and a man with a family that had been erased from the world of the living in an instant.

He discovered the news by answering his stateroom door when the messenger from Radio delivered the flash traffic in a red folder. All that he loved more than life itself was gone, and he was powerless to do anything about it… until now.

The Captain looked up from the chart that was spread out on the other table and walked the short distance separating him from his Executive Officer, who pointed a finger on the chart. The Captain nodded his head in acknowledgment, reached up and grasped a microphone that was hanging above his head, and pulled it to his mouth as he spoke into 1MC, the ship-wide speaker system.

“This is the Captain speaking. We all know why we’re here and what we will do to those who destroyed our homes, our country, and our families. Most of you know my family resided in Silverdale, just down the road from our homeport in Bangor. Reports tell us that it was hit by multiple nuclear bombs several hours ago. I would like to believe…”

His voice faltered as he struggled to maintain his composure. The Exec reached over and squeezed his shoulder. They looked at each other, and it was enough for him to get a grip on himself. He cleared his throat and continued, “I would like to believe my wife and children survived, but realistically, I don’t hold hope for them simply because I understand the missiles were direct hits and there are probably no survivors in the entire area.”

He paused and said, “I know most of you… probably all of you, have lost as much or more. We are here today to make sure the people who attacked us in this unprovoked manner will never be able to do it again… ever! Our job has been to protect our country, our homes, and our loved ones through deterrence. That mission failed to prevent what has happened, but we’re going to make up for that shortcoming here and now, with God as our witness!”

There was silence throughout the crew; and the Captain stared into the faces of each man and woman.

“We cannot undo what has happened,” he continued, “But we will take our revenge for what they have done to our families, to our nation, to us!”

As his voice rose with emotion, the crew shouted, cheered, and high fived each other. Some cried and simply stood there, but the message still sank in; they were here to do their jobs and make sure their enemy could never again do what they had just done.

The Captain stood there allowing the hooting and hollering for a few moments, and when it subsided a little, he proceeded in his matter-of-fact voice, “XO, make ready to launch the missiles.”

“Aye Aye, Captain,” came the reply from the XO. “Making ready the missiles, preparing the boat for launch Captain.”

He crossed himself, an automatic response from his Catholic upbringing, oblivious of anyone watching. Moments later after having received all necessary intelligence, he reported back, “The boat is ready for launch, Captain.”

The Captain said, “Very well.”

His voice took on an edge of firmness and professionalism of the consummate career Naval Officer. There was a hardness that came into it as he began with conviction,

“My fellow shipmates, we have arrived one thousand miles east of Beijing, in the Yellow Sea. In a few minutes, we will launch our entire payload onto Chinese and North Korean soil. There are a hundred more of our sister subs aligning themselves in position in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Japan, the Bering Sea, and the Caribbean. Both the South and North Pacific are covered with our boats, as well. As the U.S. Naval Fleet, we have vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Bering Sea, and off the East and West Coast of Africa and throughout the Atlantic.” He paused for a moment, swallowing before he continued.

“Each ship has orders to launch everything they have at specific cities and manufacturing areas in at least twenty countries throughout the world. We have had to sit back and take insults from our enemies for years. We have paid them all handsomely to be our friends through aid in technologies, as well as our money. We have tried to educate them and spent vast resources to help build their countries to be self-sufficient, and they turned around, in many cases, and insulted us. Now some of them have committed this terrible act of cowardly war against America, and if they weren’t involved directly, they aided and abetted those who would bring harm to America, to our families, to us. Today, the worm turns!”

Once again the crew went wild with hoots, ear piercing whistles, clapping, and shouts. The Captain allowed it once again, and after a few minutes he said, “Make no mistake, people… what we are about to do will kill hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. It will cause suffering on a scale never before accomplished by man against other men and on such a monumental scale, but we are just in our cause, and we will stay our course. God Bless America, God bless you all!” He turned to the XO, “Run your check list for immediate launch of all missiles.”

The XO nodded and said, “Aye aye, Captain, running tests for immediate launch of all missiles.” Minutes later, he continued, “Check list accomplished and all missiles ready, Captain. The boat is secured and ready for launch.”

The Captain looked around one last time, paused for only a brief moment and said, “Very well.” This was a moment he would remember until he died. He read from an envelope he had retrieved just a moment ago from his state room, “The launch codes are, one, one, zero, tango, whiskey, alpha, eight, two, zero, one, alpha zulu, three.”

The Executive Officer repeated the launch code in the exact manner. The Captain said, “I am inserting my key into the launch code box.” The Executive Officer said, “Aye Aye Captain, I am also inserting my key into the launch code box.”

“Engage your key.”

Both keys were turned, and the Captain looked into the eyes of his Executive Officer and stared for a brief moment. His family flashed before his mind and he was having a difficult time believing his they were gone; he would never see any of them again. He knew these men had wives, children, parents, and friends, and they too were never going to see any of their loved one again. His fists clenched and the veins on his forehead were visible. His look was stern but not angry; it was a look of intense concentration, and he said calmly, “Launch all missiles.”

The XO said, “Aye aye, Captain, missiles away.”

Men trained to do this job went into action pushing a myriad of buttons. Lights on numerous panels lit up and some winked on and off in a pulsing fashion. Supervising the Fire Control Petty Officer was LTjg Chris Bell, standing by and verifying each portion of the launch sequence for which he was responsible.

Remembering his brother Eric, he anticipated this moment with a certain degree of vengeance. The Fire Control First Class Petty Officer sitting the station executed his sequence with precision, until the time came for the final push of the red button. Chris, in a moment of satisfactory revenge, placed his hand on the young Sailor’s shoulder.

“FC1, I’ve got this.” He reached forward and pressed the button with a certain sense of satisfaction, fully justified by the death of his brother days earlier.

The submarine shuddered, and foot and body vibrations were felt for sometime as the huge doors blossomed opened and the missiles began to launch from inside the missile bay. Alarms sounded and whistles screeched. Machinery throughout the boat whirred and activated as the Trident II D-5, Mk 4 and 5 missiles were prepared to fire and with a roar, launched!

Ejected by compressed gases, they whooshed from their tubes; each one was equipped with eight nuclear Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs). Each MIRV was rated at 100 or 475 kilotons, or roughly five to twenty-five times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WWII. Once they cleared the surface of the sea, their engines ignited in fiery blasts and roars, muffled fifty meters below the surface to those onboard. The Russian version of these submarines were aptly named “Planet Busters.”

All over the world similar incidents were happening as other Captains of other submarines gave their orders in a synchronized manner as the United States retaliated in kind, from a brutal attack on its soil by avowed enemies. In less than one half of an hour, nuclear devices began impacting targets all over the world, and the carnage of the second half of an all-out nuclear war began in a devastating counter attack.

Whole cities, military bases, manufacturing sites, power generating plants, hospitals, schools, and heavily populated areas cleanly evaporated. Simply put, they were blown into the heavens as radiated dust, only to rain back down on all of the lands at a later time. The radiated particles rode the prevailing winds and eventually, somewhere far away from the explosions that generated them and where gravity decided to turn them loose, they drifted to earth and began killing anew with a residual and secondary effect called fallout.

Countries such as Yemen, Iran, Beirut, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Korea, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and many others ceased to be a threat to anyone, ever again, for many lifetimes to come. Cities and countries turned into radiated ashes.

Meanwhile on the old cattle ranch and former 19th century Avalon Resort, the people of Avalon were saved from the death and destruction that was going on down below their mountain perch and nearly everywhere else in the world.

They survived the destruction and relied on one another to live in relative peace. Some found love and a new life as they looked to one another to fulfill their dreams of surviving in a world devoid of its senses.

Chapter 16 Turmoil and Peace

It was getting cooler in the evenings and downright cold in the early mornings, but the radiators in the cabins kept everything cozy. An added benefit of using the steam system was that it didn’t dry everything out like other forms of heating. Many in the group said that they woke up with a more relaxed and natural breathing than when they had lived in the city.

The harvest was full in swing, and Sally Zeller employed quite a bit of help in harvesting a bumper crop of everything from pumpkins and squash to potatoes and radishes. There was cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, green and snap beans, peas, carrots, and numerous other crops that would carry them through the winter. They had already gathered in the asparagus, onions, beets, lettuce, and tomatoes and had started either canning or drying them for later use.

With so many hands to help, the haying was done in record time, maxing out the big barn’s hayloft with alfalfa. The bins were full of oats, as well, and the two smaller barns were being used for some of the loose excess, such as straw that would later be used as bedding for the cows and other larger animals.

One of the smaller sheds housed a small amount of barley, hops, and malt that Sam had planted earlier in hopes of experimenting with making his own beer. Given their situation, he needed a bit more time to execute his dream than simply a weekend here and there. It was on the agenda for later, once things reached a lull in activity.

Most of the trees in the orchard were of fruit bearing age when they were in season, so they had gathered plenty of peaches, apples, almonds, walnuts, and apricots. The plum trees were struggling with mold, and the fate of the cherry trees didn’t look too promising, either. Perry had taken to dusting them with pure sulfur and it seemed to be helping, but with the cold weather coming, they likely wouldn’t know for certain until spring. The grape vines were developing a different, black sooty mold, and Perry hoped the sulfur would help them too. Pruning had gotten rid of most of the affected areas, but it was going to be a wait and watch process.

Thankfully the bees had multiplied quite a bit and several stories had to be added to the hives; Perry referred to them as supers because of their height. There were now nine four-foot hives in all, and although part of the honey had been harvested, Sally felt it might be a good idea to leave about a third of it with the bees to overwinter with. That would eliminate the need to feed them sugar water.

The small spice and herb garden yielded so many different spices and other seemingly exotic ingredients that only Chad, Linda, and Sally knew what they were each for. The coffee plants showed a great deal of promise, but the tea was debatable, and the medicinal plants were primarily kept in the green house and seemingly doing well.

All of the different homegrown foodstuffs combined with the harvest of corn, wheat, soybean and the literal tons of food they had laboriously hauled up here over the years amounted to a sizable amount of stores. They weren’t in danger of starving anytime soon.

In fact, a couple of the women were starting to put on weight and some suspected they were pregnant.

Dennis and Perry built a structure for the silage they would use for the cows and when it was completed, they built a second greenhouse for tables and racks and wood bins that were filled with rich soil to be used for starter plants. It would allow for year-round growing of some plants as well as faster crops since they could have seedlings grown in a fraction of the time it would normally take outdoors.

They divided specific areas of the greenhouse into zones so they could pass between tables and still have as much space as possible to work. They built a potting table, complete with a sink, and they installed several windows that opened with hinges made of leather. The watering would be done by hand for the time being, until someone could come up with a gravity-feed device. Sam was already talking about building a hydraulic ram pump that would use the creek’s own water flow and pressure to deliver water to a tank on a stand.

For added heat, they re-purposed a small coal-burning pot belly stove that Sam and Harlan installed with a large pot on top to keep the humidity high. They also installed a metal wall behind it by using several pieces of scrap metal they scrounged up in order to reflect heat out into the greenhouse. They didn’t need the little stove yet, but they would when the strawberries and tomatoes started to bloom; winter was coming fast, and it was going to get very cold outside.

The manure piles continued to grow and had to be moved weekly to another location. The compost bin was maxed out and yielding methane daily; they had plans to build another so they could maintain methane productivity when they added or turned over each pile. Someone wanted to move it by the kitchen for convenience, but the idea was nixed in a hurry.

Occasionally a calf or pig would get butchered to put fresh meat on the table, but they were conservative, even though all of the animals were multiplying nicely. They had chicken, eggs, pork, bear, calf and cow beef, mutton, and occasionally a deer, but that was rare.

They also had rabbit from the small coop they kept behind the barn. In addition to their reproductive speed, rabbit meat was the lowest calorie conversion from grain/hay they had and was consistently lean. The rabbits multiplied lightning fast, at the rate of several pounds of meat a week, so there was always rabbit stew or rabbit gravy.

At Dan’s suggestion, they only listened to the world news once a week. It lowered everyone’s morale for nearly a day or two after each broadcast, and the news worsened each time they listened.

They discovered that the area between Chicago in the North and Biloxi in the South, essentially those areas surrounding the Mississippi River, was managing to keep its head above water, but no one was making an effort to rock the boat either. Anytime raids happened in that territory, hundreds of citizens rushed to the scene and killed every perpetrator they could find. There were no exceptions; the battle cry became, “If you come in here looking for trouble, you will die.”

Nationalism was getting a new life, and people began praying and asking, not only for help, but for forgiveness. Things seemed to be turning around slowly.

Until it happened!

The plague, mankind’s most unmerciful killer, swept through the human population and annihilated people everywhere. As best anyone could tell, it started in Europe and spread like a forest fire, crossing oceans in quick succession.

One hundred million died in Europe the first month, and the plague quickly crossed the Dardanelle Straights into Asia, where another hundred million perished in bone wracking misery. It didn’t stop there, however, and it quickly swept across what was left of China and Russia, making its way through the former “fertile crescent” and down into Africa.

Human skeletons were everywhere, the flesh rotting off where people had fallen in agony.

Not a single continent was spared the wrath of the wholesale killer, which left a huge scar on the human race, killing nearly six billion people in its aftermath. Later written by survivors for hundreds of years thereafter, it would go down in the journals of history as the “Big Sorrow.”

Bodies floated in the waterways and stacked up in towns and villages. Abandoned houses and vehicles were left to rot or rust where they had each stopped for the last time. Buildings in the large cities became ghost towns because not many brave souls ventured into them.

In the upcoming years, weeds and trees would grow up and begin to reclaim their lost territory. Forest fires would burn themselves out, leaving nothing more than blackened stumps in fields that resembled a lonely and abandoned battleground.

People wandered the land like nomads, armed with whatever weapons they could find to protect themselves from wild beasts. Many were once-domesticated dogs and cats and some were zoo animals that now roamed freely. They were starving and ferocious and would tear to shreds any living thing that would serve as food.

Worst of all were those people who had abandoned their own humanity and begun preying on their fellow man.

Much of society had shifted, almost overnight. Slavery came back into being, and women were reduced to either sex slaves or used to do whatever dirty work the new warlords required of them… and there were many dirty jobs that needed to be done.

There was no equality… a sharp tone from the mouth of a woman, enslaved man, or child usually meant a severe beating, mutilation, or even death. In some areas, skin color was redefined as either white or non-white, and those non-whites who were able to escape death were caught and enslaved. In other areas, the line was simply drawn between the strong and the weak and the “might makes right”.

Most Mexicans attempted to make their way back to Mexico but, without knowing of the nuclear attacks on the Russian forces there, were killed either by the radiation or they starved to death. Some were murdered as a misguided sense of retribution for Mexico allowing the Russians to land there and those who survived were enslaved.

The slave trade quickly became a brisk industry and spread throughout the remaining uncivilized populations.

By the time the “Great Sorrow” had run its course, there was snow on the ground at Avalon and the big fireplaces in the main building burned most of the time, as did the various coal stoves situated here and there. Mike and Caroline eventually moved into one of the bigger cabins.

The entire Avalon community continued to train, and each season brought its own different set of circumstances and challenges. The sentries wore white, made from old sheets, over their winter clothing when there was snow on the ground. The ash dumping was spread over the various sidewalks and then out toward the road, creating a near concrete finish.

Most of the animals were in the barn full time; two colts had been born to the saddle horses and one filly from the draft horses. As challenges unfolded, regardless of the circumstances, the people at Avalon came together as a team and made it happen. Big jobs or small, they all worked in unison to do was required of them.

The kids had a wonderful time celebrating Halloween; the group did their best to preserve the old traditions that kept everyone connected to another life and another time. They had recently observed Thanksgiving, and it was a time of earnest appreciation for all they had. They had eaten a huge meal, and most of them made speeches about how much they cared about the others and how thankful they were to be at Avalon. Now Christmas was fast approaching, and everybody was involved in making presents for everyone else.

Mike, somewhat under duress and to the obvious amusement of the group, brought home a tree that Caroline made him go out and chop down in the back meadow. Sam assisted, snickering as he went, but his mirth was cut short when he had to backtrack to get one for Crystal; she had visited Sam’s cabin quite a bit lately. When the other women saw them coming back with Christmas trees in tow, the other men got their orders until almost everyone had a tree to decorate.

Mike ended up having the last laugh.

The big dance and potluck they had planned was going to be the biggest party since they began stockpiling nearly seven years ago. Anticipation was high, and it was the only thing anyone talked about when they weren’t listening to outside news. Feelings ran in high gear, with a mood of happiness and togetherness they all felt for each other and for their community.

Each flip of the button on the shortwave radio only brought more depressing news, and although there were some small highlights, it was pretty much always bad throughout the rest of the world.

Crystal said it best by summing it up in a single word, “Bummer!”

One particular night, the radio was tuned in on shortwave and a man was describing a savage attack by one of the Feudal Gangs in Southern California.

Reports are in that gang members apparently made a sweep of Fresno to gather children and women so they could sell or trade the older women and replenish their “stock” with the younger, fresher supply. Something went horribly wrong, however, and all the children and women were slaughtered. Rumors are circulating that the gang members gathered the dead women and children and took them back to their camp where they cooked and ate them. It’s difficult to confirm, but eyewitnesses say the story is true.

Everyone had gathered around, and someone flipped off the switch. There was complete silence in the big room.

Sam yelled out, breaking the eeriness everyone felt and grabbed Bobby, Sally’s twelve year old, spinning him around as he said,

“I’m gonna show you a trick. Are you ready?”

Bobby nodded his head, and Sam stuck out his hand and said to Bobby,

“Pull my finger.”

Everyone ran for the big double doors laughing and squealing.

Chapter 17 Cabin Fever

Some group members were beginning to suffer from boredom and what amounted to cabin fever. The snow was light, but it was cold outside so many just spent their time in the library, one of the cabins, or the great lounge of the main building where it was warm.

The truth was that some of them simply didn’t exercise, and other than having to stand the guard duty, there was little to do. Of course there were chores, and everyone chipped in, but there was always that feeling of nothing to do. Boredom led to crankiness, which, in turn, led to arguments.

Occasionally the harshness of the moment carried over into the next day and resentment was building among some of the group members. Mike called a meeting, and except those on guard duty, everyone attended after supper and cleanup.

They normally conducted their meetings in the restaurant of the main building because there were tables and enough chairs to accommodate everyone. The small talk was buzzing, and everyone wondered what it was all about.

“He looks pissed, Caroline,” Susan said while leaning over from another table.

“What’s going on?” It was Crystal, also in a hushed voice.

Caroline replied to both of them with a look of mystery on her face, “I think we’re all in for a lecture in human behavior.”

Crystal smiled, but it was with a look of not understanding what she had just heard. Curiosity better described the look on her face.

Mike was standing at the front of the tables, his back to the stage; he said with aloud finality, “Quitcherbellyakin!”

Most of them didn’t get it because it was delivered quickly and they weren’t really paying attention to him at that particular moment.

“What was that?” It was Penny and Crystal, in unison. They both laughed.

They had their arms up in the air trying to be noticed, as were others in the room. Mike just glared at them, appearing stern and annoyed. He began to talk when the mumbling and moving around stopped; all got quiet. He paced back and forth and had a hand to his chin as if he were in deep thought about something important. He stopped and turned to face them and said in a voice they could all hear well,

“How many of you are happy being here in the safety of Avalon and not down below? Show of hands, c’mon.”

The hands went up to the very last person. He stared at them again.

“Okay. So you think you’re happy… good… that’s a start, but I think some of you are lying to me. There’s a lot of petty dissension going on here, and we need to nip it in the bud! And that, my friends, is the purpose of this meeting. We can’t continue under duress from within because Greg didn’t get laid or Linda is having her period. Your spouses will put up with that crap, but I won’t, and I’m telling you that it ends here and now!”

It was quiet. Someone coughed and a chair scraped the floor, but no one said a word. Mike continued, with a more benevolent tone of voice this time, “Now, let’s hear the reasons for all this strife.”

He pointed to Crystal, “You first!”

It caught her completely off guard, and her face flushed at being singled out. Her mouth opened but there were no words. Finally, in a meek but firm manner and with her voice wavering a bit, she said,

“I’m not getting enough exercise and I’ve been getting a little bored, but it’s so damn cold out there. I mean, who wants to be out there freezing your butt off?”

“How come you aren’t exercising in your cabin?” Mike asked, “Do you not have adequate room?”

“I can’t get motivated to do it,” Crystal replied. “It’s so boring! I guess I don’t have the will power to stay with it once I start and then one thing leads to another. And I get pissed at the small stuff.”

“I think that’s it in a nutshell,” Ginger offered. “We just can’t get motivated and stay that way because we are bored to tears. Sure, we’re safe up here, but there isn’t anything to keep us entertained either. No TV, no movies, you know… zip?”

Most of the women agreed, and some of the men did, as well. The consensus was that the boredom and enclosed atmosphere the winter months presented was getting everyone down, and it wasn’t something they were able to easily overcome.

“Here take these,” Mike began as he offered his solution. “I wrote it many years ago for some students of mine who were having a similar problem and what I am giving you applies to any situation. It’s laid out for menstrual pains or for the lack of exercising… whatever.” He handed the stack in his hand to Caroline, who already knew what to do.

“Put simply, it’s a way for you to control your inner most switches. Study, practice, and learn. Tomorrow, we’ll organize a workout program for the males and another for the females.”

Caroline passed out the handwritten sheets of paper to each one of them, and Mike read what was written on the sheets.

“At times you may need a little help to develop the discipline and the ‘stick-to-it’ necessary to get things done. Sometimes you face little challenges that are difficult to accomplish, and working them to a conclusion can be tough. If you are the sort of person who needs that little something extra, the following system will help. I have taught this to many people, and they were able to persevere when all else failed by using the simple method outlined here.

This is a way to train yourself. If you’re sincere about what you want to know or get done, it can be as simple as strengthening your personal resolve; just do the following every night and keep practicing. The more you do it, the easier it will become. It’s simply a matter of repeating it over and over until it connects. It may take some follow through, but it will come if you keep at it. This system can even be used to slow down your heart rate and diminish pain. It really works once you master it. People have undergone surgery without anesthesia by doing what’s on these sheets of paper.

This is how and why it works.

You are two beings in one body, with one level your sub-conscious and the other your conscious. When you’re awake, you work in the conscious level, and when you’re asleep, you work in the sub-conscious. It is difficult for the conscious level to communicate with the sub-conscious level without getting into a relaxed but self-aware state.

You can connect to your inner being, or sub-conscious, by simply talking to yourself once you’re relaxed and comfortable. To do that and connect, you have to be in a frame of mind whereby your sub-conscious and conscious thoughts are connected, and only then will your sub-conscious get the message.

It works best when you’re comfortable, relaxed, and in an atmosphere that’s calm and quiet. You can best achieve this just as you are preparing to go to sleep. Make yourself comfortable and relaxed by clearing your mind and telling yourself this is what you are going to do. Be specific when you tell yourself what it is that you want your sub-conscious to do. Never make statements such as…

One of these days I’m going to…

Your sub-conscious is lazy and will answer you in the way it performs something along these lines,

Oh great, you don’t really want me to do it now so I won’t do anything at all.

When you make statements such as ‘One of these days’ it’s not specific enough, so your sub-conscious will simply ignore it.

It’s as simple as that. You have to be specific as to what you expect the sub-conscious to do, and it will start working on that particular problem right away. If you’re nebulous about what it is you want it to do, it will not do it at all.

Remember, you’re in control of your own mind, and your mind and its thoughts are the messenger to your brain. Think in terms of your thought processes as being the ‘keyboard’ and your thoughts as being the ‘send button’ to the computer hard drive, which is your brain. You make the connection by telling yourself this is what you want. Part of what you are going to do is send commands to your inner self via the outer self or the conscious level.

Once you’re comfortable, lie down, make sure your clothes are loose, and block out noise by closing the door and darkening the surrounding area. Tell your conscious level that you will relax and release all the stress of the day as you count backward from ten to one.

Take five big deep breaths, hold each to the count of ten, exhale long and slow, and empty your lungs. The conversation you have now between your conscious self and your sub-conscious could go something like this,

Ten…

I am very comfortable and will block out all distractions, but be alert to any emergency or danger. I feel good and comfortable.

Nine…

All the stress and worry is going to ease out of my body, and as I inhale, I will feel even more comfortable. Each breath I exhale will take the stress and worry out and away from my body. I feel good and comfortable.

Eight…

As I count down to the last number, I am getting comfortable, more comfortable than I have ever felt before. My breathing is helping me reach this level of comfort and total relaxation. Noises and distractions are blocked from interfering with what I am doing here.

As I exhale, the worry is going away, and the stress is disappearing. I feel comfortable; I feel very relaxed. I feel as if I’m getting lighter as the stress and worry leave my body. I feel good and in control of myself. I can accomplish whatever I want. I am very comfortable and content with how I feel. Each and every breath will make me more comfortable and remove the worry and stress from my body. I feel good.

Seven…

I have no stress and no worry. It is all insignificant. The worry is escaping from me with my breathing, which is setting an easy rhythm. I am comfortable and feel good. On the next number, I will give myself a set of instructions for my sub-conscious. They are easy instructions and as soon as my sub-conscious receives them, it will begin to find a solution.

I feel good and I am relaxed and comfortable, more relaxed and comfortable than I have ever been. I am breathing deeper and deeper, and each breath takes me deeper into a comfortable state of being.

Six…

I’m very comfortable; I feel good and very relaxed. In the next forty-eight hours I will (put in something important here that is something you have always wanted to do, e.g., quit smoking or stop biting your nails). It could be something like this;

I will be energized by a work out program. I will no longer be bored with my exercise regime; instead I will look forward to the next work out. I am getting healthier and better because of it. I believe it. I feel good and I am comfortable. I am not worried about anything.

Five…

I will concentrate on my conscious being talking to my sub-conscious being, and my sub-conscious will understand and find solutions to what I ask of it. I am slipping into a very relaxing state and aware of everything around me. I am not worried about anything; I know I can do anything. I feel good and I am comfortable.

Four…

My exercise program is going to start, and I will continue with it every day. I will not only love doing it, but I will look forward to it. I am getting healthier and I have more energy because I am exercising regularly. I feel good. I am comfortable. I am relaxed.

Three…

My conscious level is talking to my sub-conscious level and they both understand what each wants and needs. Tomorrow I will turn my life around and everything pertaining to my life in general. My sub-conscious level will begin immediately to find a solution.

In this segment, you will want to set a time limit that is reasonable, perhaps ten days from today, and don’t suggest stupid things for instance; I’m going to win the Lotto, or something similar.

It has to be reasonable, direct to the point, given in a distinct manner, and as positive as you can be about it. My sub-conscious is already working on finding a solution to the problem(s). It understands my needs. I am comfortable and I feel relaxed.

Two…

I feel I am in a very deep, comfortable, and relaxing state. I feel good and I am less restrained because my sub-conscious is working on my problem for a solution, and it will have an answer for me in ten days or less, beginning as soon as I wake up in the morning. But it is working on the solution now and will continue to work on the problem until a resolution is reached. I feel confident that my sub-conscious is finding the solution I seek. I am comfortable and I am confident.

One…

I know my sub-conscious is working on the solution to my boredom and exercise problem and I am confident that in ten days from tomorrow or less. I will know how to fix this problem. I am completely relaxed and comfortable.

As I count to three, I will come out of this state of total relaxation and feel better than I have felt in a long time. (You can choose to go to sleep at this point, or)

I will count to three and awake refreshed and totally energized.

One…

I feel good and I am waking up with renewed energy.

Two…

I am waking up and I feel good and totally energized.

Three…

I am awake and I feel great, completely confident, and energized. I feel that my burdens have been lifted. I feel well-rested and have lots of energy.

Please remember this because it’s very important - if you really want something, you can channel your thoughts to make it happen. A very central factor to always remember is that, once the sub-conscious does go to work and finds the solutions you seek to your problems, you must reward yourself by getting yourself something special. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or elaborate, just something you have wanted for a long time. Once you get it, the sub-conscious will react by doing something such as…

WOW! If I get this for me for only having done that, what will I get for something better or more difficult?

Never ask your sub-conscious to work on any problem that is nebulous or totally out of the question. It must be possible, realistic, and within an achievable time frame. This exercise will work to help you stop smoking, drinking, or biting your finger nails, lose weight, exercise more, improve your memory, and the list is endless.

Always start your morning just as you wake up with these words, and your life will change for the better. I guarantee it.

“Each and every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”

The group was excused, and several people stood around talking; some of them hugged each other, and there were many apologies given and accepted. The next day the classes started, and things began to return to normal at Avalon. Everyone seemed happier and more upbeat than the days leading up to what they referred to as, ‘the talk.’ It was snowing again, and Sam was busy spreading ashes on the walkways between the cabins and the main entry.

The puppies grew and as Christmas fast approached, Caroline knew what she was going to have under their tree. She counted seven puppies, and the other pregnant dog was going to whelp in another week.

The group decided months ago that they wanted Australian Cattle Dogs for the retreat. The two males and three females they found were loyal to a fault, and they were intelligent and had boundless energy. Rounding up the sheep, cattle, and horses would be a perfect job for them.

Sam and Roger decided to get the still for the beer started and misjudged something… nobody knows for sure what went wrong… but it blew up, sending mash and goo everywhere.

Not one for failure, Sam said, “Well Partner, I guess we have to start all over.” He wiped some off the wall with his finger and tasted it, cringing, “Man was I looking forward to some home brew!”

“I was thinking about it the other day,” Roger replied, “And I thought just how good a brew would go down at the moment. We were shoveling cow manure out of the barn, and I got mighty thirsty and dry.”

He paused for a second, “In fact, it was so dry I started fartin’ dust.”

He laughed and so did Sam. That home brew was going to be mighty tasty alright, if they could find out what went wrong with that first batch.

Chapter 18 The Beginning

People sometimes run into a person they immediately like, and a lifelong friendship is born; it was like that between Doctor Dan Crowley and Mike Reynolds. They each prepared to pay their tab at a restaurant where they had just finished a superb meal. It was a fare with almost anything imaginable served on the buffet. The huge variety of food extended down a long line of steam tables; it was laid out for big eaters and included something for everyone.

Mike frequented the eatery often and as it turned out, so did Dan. It was a bachelor’s gourmet delight; the cooking was very nearly like Mom used to make. Mike knew the owners on a friendly but casual basis, and he liked and respected both of them. As Mike and Dan waited in line to pay the cashier that afternoon, two young hoods muscled their way up to the front to the cash register… and guns came out from under their coats.

Mike’s instincts kicked in and in a flash, his arm lashed out and chopped the throat of one of them, who fell to the floor gurgling and grabbing at his esophagus, unable to breathe. Dan went down on a knee and began tending to the injured man. From hundreds of hours of split-second responses such as this one, the young doctor didn’t have to think about it; he just did what had to be done to save the man’s life.

Mike grabbed the other hood in a wrist lock, shoved the shotgun up toward the ceiling with his other hand, and grabbed the young man’s wrist. He came back on the wrist hard and heard it snap, and the crook let out a scream that could be heard outside the restaurant. Mike reached over and grabbed a handful of hair with one hand and the man’s crotch with the other and squeezed hard.

This was the bad guy’s initiation to the “hearts and mind technique” of street fighting. That is, wherever your balls go, your heart and mind will follow close behind. The miscreant went out the main door of the restaurant in a quick walk, guided by Mike and bent over at the waist as he was exited out onto the sidewalk. Once outside Mike began to royally beat the crap out of the worm.

The young robber was crying like a baby and begging Mike to stop, but Mike wanted to give the punk an attitude adjustment that he would reflect on for a long time. He grabbed handfuls of the guy’s skin and twisted his wrist about a hundred twenty degrees in one vicious pinch after another. He stomped his instep and all of the little bones in the foot were smashed into jelly. He grabbed the other wrist and bent it backward until the tendons stretched and became useless. Just as he was getting ready to poke both eyes out with a knife thrust using his stiffened fingers, Dan stepped up to him, reached out and grasped his arm, and asked him to stop.

Dan’s voice was calm and caught Mike off guard. He looked at Dan for a moment and he didn’t know why, but he stopped and let go of the miserable little scumbag. The young “bad ass” collapsed to the sidewalk and Mike reached over and pulled his nose ring out; it ripped away from the meat, leaving a nostril bleeding and a flap of ragged skin dangling on the end of his nose. The entire incident lasted a minute and a half at most.

Mike heard sirens coming down the street heading their way. Dan, said again in that calm voice,

“I’ve got the other guy breathing through a piece of a ball point pen housing that I inserted in a hole in his esophagus, and I’m going to have to do something for this one. If you don’t mind moving aside, he’s in shock and may die. They both need to get to a hospital. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“I’ll be over in the park across the street,” Mike said rather casually and with a grin. “When you’re done with these pieces of crap, we’ll talk.”

Mike turned and walked over to the park and Dan went to work on the moaning and pleading man on the sidewalk. The owner came out and Dan asked him to bring out some ice. The man turned away and went back inside but didn’t return with the ice.

The police showed up and an ambulance soon followed. They loaded the two bad guys in the emergency vehicle and took them away en-route to the hospital.

Dan came across the street where Mike was sitting on a bench, watching him walk his way. The doctor sat down and placed the little bag he was carrying next to his feet. He turned to face Mike who was sitting on the edge of the bench with his legs and feet stretched out in front of him rather indifferently.

“They wanted to know who did that to those two.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“I said it was just some customer who was standing in line waiting to pay his bill like the rest of us when those two came barging in. When he was done with them he left the scene.”

“It sounds to me like you told them the truth.”

Dan looked at this man with a sense of awe and admiration for what he just did to those two and how quickly he laid them out and rendered them a couple of piles of squirming, begging, and whimpering lumps of mutilated flesh. He was also a little afraid. This guy was dangerous.

“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. It was amazing; you had them both down so quickly I could hardly believe it. You also pretty much ruined them; they’ll never be the same. The one outside will have to go through intensive therapy to learn how to walk again, the very least that will happen is a series of intense and complicated orthopedic surgeries to mend his wrists and foot, and the other fellow with the crushed windpipe may not live. It’s certain he will need reconstructive surgery at best and intensive physical therapy just to be able to talk when it’s all done.”

He stared at Mike who was just staring off into the nothingness that was the other side of the street past the park. Dan waited and Mike finally spoke, slowly and calmly.

“I hate people who prey on others. They opened the door to what just happened to them when they decided to take up guns and steal from people. I don’t care if they live or die. I intensely dislike anyone who threatens innocent people with guns, whether they intend to use them or not. I especially hate to have to resort to heavy exercise just after a good meal. To answer your question, I was in the Navy for ten years and I learned a thing or two about self-defense while I was serving my country. My name is Mike Reynolds.”

He stuck out his hand, and Dan took it in a warm shake. It was firm and belied great strength. Dan said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Reynolds, my name is Dan Crowley. I’m a Medical Doctor, and if there is anything I can ever do for you, just let me know.”

He took out a card and handed it to Mike, who took one of his own out and gave it to Dan. It read, Mike Reynolds, Deputy Sheriff, and it had Mike’s phone and beeper numbers on it. He said, “You never know, Doc, I may be able to do something for you some day.”

Dan looked at him for a moment and said as sincerely as he could, “You just did. You may well have saved my life.”

In a few days they met again and started riding together. The Survival topic didn’t come up for awhile, but they shared a love of dirt biking off the beaten path and camping out. One day Dan asked Mike what he thought about the situation with the U.S., the economy, and the constant wars America was getting involved in, and Mike was honest about his answer when he replied,

“Dan, just between you, me, and the fencepost, we are in for some serious happenings down the road and I think it’s going to get ugly. I’ve been thinking lately about finding a piece of land, something out and away toward the mountains to make myself a retreat. Maybe a place to stock some food, guns, and ammo and build a bunker to hole up in if the proverbial top blows off the powder keg.”

“I can attest to the fact that you sure know how to handle yourself in a fight,” Dan said. “You never did tell me where it was that you learned how to fight like that.”

Mike smiled and said, “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you later. Hoooraaah!”

He was laughing, but the outburst startled Dan and he flinched.

In the weeks that followed, they both stayed busy with their jobs and Dan began his Residency at the County Hospital. Mike took a job at the Defensive Training School and was appointed managing Director of the Curriculum. Four months later, they were riding in new territory, found Avalon, and formed a partnership that endured as well as their friendship.

It appeared to be an assumed deal that they were going to be grouped up together right from the start. Both men trusted the other implicitly, and they had an immediate and tremendous respect for each other. As the search began for partners in the retreat, they began hauling goodies up to Avalon.

Chapter 19 Silent Sentinels

They were always cautious about ensuring they were never followed, and Mike had set up indicators right from the start that would identify if anyone came up there while they were gone. He placed small threads that could be broken by someone walking or riding their route. When they came back sometimes a few of them were broken, but it was invariably done by animals.

There were occasional tracks at or near the spot, but there were never threads broken where a person had walked in a continuous line, which would have been a strong indicator that Avalon was visited by someone other than them. Mike showed Dan how to find the small details that would verify if intruders had encroached the area.

The first member accepted into the group was Bobby Larson. He was not a degreed Civil Engineer but was as competent as any might be. He had worked on large construction projects from the time he left high school. Dams, roads, bridges, and parking lots were some of his accomplishments. At first he “drove a shovel” as he referred to it, which meant that he worked with a pick and shovel as a laborer, and then he progressed to driving a backhoe and later a bulldozer. He eventually became a surveyor’s helper and took some classes at a community college in the evenings. A few intense math classes later, he took over the surveying with a small crew of his own.

As the years progressed, Bobby kept moving up and doing what he needed to do, and he became a valuable addition to every construction crew he ever worked with. Mike and Dan met him at a competitive shooting meet one weekend and they talked. After doing a background check on Bobby, Mike invited him to go riding with them and camp out at Avalon.

Bobby was overcome with amazement, as was everyone who first saw the ranch. They offered him a membership and cabin at the going price of $50,000, plus $100 a month for the many on-going expenses to run the retreat, and he immediately accepted. A short time later they signed the articles and Bobby was officially a member.

Bobby was married once when he was a young man, but it didn’t last and he never remarried He did have a girlfriend that he was very close to, but after he joined the Avalon group she broke up with him, saying that the group was a bunch of wackos and probably homosexuals since it was only guys. Bobby was down about it for awhile but eventually got over it.

Mike and Dan strung piano wire throughout the surrounding woods on all sides of the retreat where there were bare spots in the forest that could allow motorcycles to get through unhampered. They set the wire at throat height when sitting on a standard dirt bike to help keep trespassers away. They mapped out a lot of booby traps on either side of the wires, set them up, and kept a state and Geodesic map with the positions plotted with GPS readings.

Each trap was flagged on the map with a code. PS was pungi stakes. P designated pit filled with impaling poles. DF meant dead fall and so forth. None of the traps were active in that there were covers over the foot holes where the pungi stakes were; the large tiger pits were also covered and none of the snares and whips were loaded with triggers.

There were two reasons they did not activate the traps. First, if a hunter or some other person was up in the woods and was impaled by a spiked trap, an investigation would ensue and they didn’t need that. Second, there was no reason to have them active until the rocket was launched. They were built and mapped and could be fully set in a few days.

Avalon looked like an irregular and large cross from the air. The top was the large meadow area surrounded by trees and mountains. From tree line to tree line, the upper meadow was about two miles wide by four miles long. Coming back from the meadow toward the main building and the cabins, it jutted out at a ninety degree angle left and right, which was an open area of about eight thousand feet long by a mile wide. The bottom post of the cross was the long road that traveled through the fir trees to the abandoned railhead. It was nearly as straight as an arrow and a hundred fifty feet wide.

Throughout those areas, to the left and right, above and below, and in the thick trees, were booby traps with some mechanism that would incapacitate the bad guys. It took months to get them ready and now that the breakdown of society and civilization had come about, Roger, Mike, and Sam had set all the traps and man killers. As they were working on them, Harlan Herrera helped plant and or build them.

There was a plan in place to take down eight tall firs to fall across the road out toward the old rail bed. They were ringed with Det Cord, had shaped charges in a notch specifically cut for the TNT, and made for a homemade “shaped charge” fastened in place. The shaped charges were made from old champagne bottle bottoms with a concave area in them. Those hollows were filled with a homemade TNT, rigged with a detonator, and would be fired by the motorcycle battery kept in the hidden bunker. Once ignited, the explosions would bring the trees down to block the road to any vehicles except motorcycles that might get around them or people could walk through and over. But it would be easier to go around the blocked road by sidestepping the big trees or come in by horseback.

If the bad guys moved off the road to the right or left, they would find that it was heavily booby trapped. There were all sorts of niceties that would either take off a foot because some of them were old fashioned bear traps, some were smaller traps, and some were devices that would sit down inside a hole and, when a foot and leg came down on them, would collapse down into the hole where spikes waited for the foot. The force of the foot going down would close the two sides on either side of the legs with a jaw-like apparatus imbedding twenty penny nails into a leg. Getting it off would take some doing because they were staked to the ground and had short cables attached to them.

The road in and out made access to the retreat and its members very convenient, but they could easily block it if the need arose. The first defense was the hidden bunker by the road near the sand traps, which is where the sentries would probably be attacked first, but they should be able to at least warn the others before they fell.

The large meadow in front of the main building was a bit of a problem. The group was reluctant to take the trees down or actually close the road because the meadow was long and wide enough to allow a good-sized plane in to land. After much discussion, they decided to mine the meadow with homemade anti-personnel mines, but the trouble with mining the meadow was that it could not be used as a pasture for animals later.

Everything was a compromise.

The mines consisted of 12 gauge shotgun shells mounted on a cardboard tube, the charge or shot side pointing up. If someone stepped on it, it would be driven down into a small piece of wood as the cardboard support collapsed, and the small piece of wood had a roofing tack sticking up so the shell casing would come down, hitting the primer on the nail. BOOM!! No foot. Without a foot a combatant would no longer be a threat. They were very simple and easy to make, so they planted lots of them out there in the field, all marked on a map and plotted by GPS bearings. One day a calf wandered out there and was injured badly, so into the stew pot he went.

They set another trap down the rail bed about a mile and a half. They rolled a number of large boulders into place and set them above the rail bed at a downhill slant. Once activated, they could be rolled toward the old track bed through the force of gravity. Braced by a log wall that could be triggered to fall by releasing the catch, the boulders would come tumbling down in a large and destructive mass on top of anything coming.

A mile farther down was another one set and ready to fall, but the danger with using them was that the rail bed could possibly be taken off the side of the mountain, but that was unlikely. The main concern was that it would block access and make it difficult for the group to come and go as they pleased later. These were “last resort tactics.”

They made sure they had backups for backups. Water was flowing in several areas, not just one. Food was distributed out and away from other food storage areas, not in just one place. Several weapons were stored in caches around the ranch with GPS locations recorded.

Behind the main building about a hundred yards and exactly thirty degrees to the right on a compass course and then another half mile straight ahead was an old cemetery tucked back in the woods. Eli, his son, and his wife were buried there along with some unknown souls whose old wood markers were rendered unreadable.

A large marble, and somewhat ostentatious, tombstone marked the grave of Slim Rankin. Off to the right another fifteen hundred feet was another huge meadow and in it stood the original homestead that Eli had built. It sat there in silence, keeping the dead company.

Some members of the group decided to draw straws for the old place, and Chad and Linda won but changed their minds later and gave it to Sam and Crystal, who took it with great delight. They began the clean-up and remodel right away when they were not busy with their regular jobs. One of the things that kept Sam and a few others busy was a modification to the ash wagon.

The manure piles were growing bigger every day and the intent was to use it out on the various fields as a natural fertilizer. They used the wagon to get the manure out there and then had to come up with a plan as to how they were going to distribute it evenly once it was there. Nobody was looking forward to doing it by hand so Perry came up with the answer.

They designed a series of tines bolted onto two angle iron pieces that were also bolted together and fitted into the full width of the wagon bed from one side to the other. They made four, connected them to a geared mechanism below the wagon, and made them fast between the axles. As the wagon moved forward, drawn by the draft horses or the old tractor, the fixed gears moved to turn the shafts above and the four shafts rotated inside the wagon bed. Once engaged, the device rotated and threw the manure high into the air, distributing it evenly in a wide area. By disengaging the device, they could transport a wagon load out to the field before distributing the manure.

They built side rails from an old dilapidated shed that was out behind the barn. A good sized load would cover a couple of acres each time it was used. The whole assembly could be taken off when not needed, and the flat-bed wagon could be used to haul just about anything from a load of lumber to a wagon full of food or alfalfa or whatever else was being worked on at the time. When they weren’t working on the wagon or fabricating iron parts in the blacksmith shop, Sam and Crystal worked on their new home.

Everyone in the group had more than enough to do in terms of manual labor. Except for the weekends and sometimes then, they kept busy. If they weren’t preparing food to be cooked, cooking or baking, cleaning up, sweeping, dusting, or mending something, they were standing watch. There were cows to be milked twice a day and someone had to feed and water all the animals.

Sentry standing was an important duty and everyone, except a very few, stood the watch. The Chefs didn’t have to stand watch because they cooked about twelve hours every day. Dan didn’t, Mike didn’t, Perry and Sally didn’t, and Dennis and Charlene didn’t, but the rest of the members did.

The children worked as well, but on a lesser intensity than the adults. Some of the women were pregnant and their workload was reduced appropriately. Dan stayed busy doing medical chores and Mike patrolled the woods on horseback more or less on a daily basis to check for signs of intruder activity.

The motorcycles were relegated to quick runs such as changing the watch out by the end of the road in the hidden bunker. Although they had enough gas in their stockpile, there was always backup of ethanol for combustible engines.

Chapter 20 Lessons Learned

The group attended a mandatory training session every other weekend. Mike wanted them to stay sharp. They participated in exercises, ran obstacle courses, honed their shooting skills, and applied a new twist each time to the hand-to-hand combat techniques that Mike had taught them.

They practiced taking out a sentry with a knife by attacking vital spots to kill the enemy, which made Dan cringe. One such technique was to sneak up behind the enemy combatant and shove the knife blade down into the body by way of the shoulder area next to the neck. The attacker would hold the victim in a headlock and move the blade back and forth, severing the axillary arteries that run down the arm. This would allow them to take out a sentry without making a big mess. The bad guy would bleed out internally and keep the surrounding area clean.

They viewed pictures of where that main artery is located by looking at a diagram in the Gray’s Anatomy and the Merck Manual. Dayna was an excellent artist and she made a few posters from paper grocery bags that they hung around for everyone to see. They also practiced patrolling, tracking, and moving by groups.

They worked together in pairs and in groups of four to practice the team work and problem solving exercises, which were taken from the S.S. Nazi training exercises of World War II. For example, a team would approach a wide and long hole in the ground and use a board that was shorter than the crossing to get to the other side. The group was timed and had to determine how to get across the obstacle using just the board and their imagination. The U.S. Marine Corps had also actively used this training for decades at their Leadership Reaction Course at the Officer Candidates School in Quantico, VA.

Some classes focused on getting across a fast moving body of water as an individual and as a part of a group. One class taught them how to build Monkey Bridges and another instructed on building a three rope bridge. There was an area out by the track bed that they used for rappelling fundamentals and rock climbing. In yet another class, they trained in the art of camouflaging both themselves and their equipment. All in all, the entire group stayed skilled and ready.

Mike was preparing them for war and teaching them to protect not only their retreat but also each other. The most important element he taught them was teamwork.

Dan, Roger, and Caroline taught classes on emergency war surgery and emergency medicine. They showed the group how to set up an I.V. and control the drip sequences. Everyone learned how to sew up wounds, and, on the larger wounds, how and why to leave a small “Irish Pennant,” referred by some as a drip, to allow the wound to trickle a little and heal from the inside out, as with penetrating wounds from a gunshot. Broken bone mending was emphasized and, more importantly, they were taught the art of stopping blood flow and dealing with a severed artery.

It was emphasized in no uncertain terms that when and if they had to apply a tourniquet, it could be the first step in the amputation of that limb. It would be better to lose a limb than to die from bleeding out, which could take place in as little as three minutes. When heavy bleeding occurs, the pressure in the veins is reduced and when the veins collapse, they stick together like two pieces of tape. Once that happens, nothing else can be done to save the limb or the life.

Christmas was coming the next week and the spirit among the group was high not only in anticipation of the holiday, but they were happy that all the bickering had stopped. The camaraderie within the group was as good if not better than any group of non-related people that any of them could remember. They considered each other as family and were there to watch each others’ backs and survive the tragedy that was happening to the rest of the world. The group was also about to get larger because there were births that would happen soon.

Dan and Caroline, assisted by Roger, made the hospital larger and organized it as well as any small town hospital they had ever seen. It was smaller, of course, but as effective and operational as any other. The operating room had mirrors on the ceiling to direct the light from the cluster of Aladdin lamps that hung in the center; they lit the area up as well as any electrified Operating Room. They also had a couple of generators stored away, but they preferred to manage without them.

More often than not, they used solar panels to charge up batteries and used the generators as backup. They fired the generators up once in awhile just to make sure they were working, but other than that, they lived without them. The way things were happening out there in the world, there wasn’t much need for them anyway. There was no TV and the radio stations were all shortwave.

The U.S. was trying to restart the government but it wasn’t going well. Most people had a huge distrust of politicians because of the former corruption, which had led to the current state of world affairs. Some felt they needed others to deal with what was going on around their own feet, so the parasites were at it again.

Much of the military abandoned their posts and no one cared, or at least no one was left in charge that cared. Submarine sailors abandoned and scuttled their boats and left them to rust while some crews stayed with their crafts and continued to cruise the waters. Most of the subs were self-sufficient and many not only made their own water but hydroponically grew much of their own food. They were scattered all over the world in waterways that accepted their drafts. Occasionally, one sub made contact with another, or was heard from, but as the time passed, they became just another part of the old story.

Someone in the group suggested starting a church. Those who wanted or needed to go to a church service agreed and they used the restaurant as the service area. They eventually shifted over to one of the private rooms off the main restaurant and turned it into a permanent church.

The worship services were well-attended and, surprisingly, Stan Doyle, Beverly’s husband, was an ordained minister and he stepped up to officiate the services. Soon after, he was called on to pray over the body of one of their own… Bobby Larson, who was only forty nine years old. He died at his post out in the large tower behind the main building and was found when his watch ended. Bobby was a quiet man with the unique skills of a civil engineer. Dan attributed the death to heart failure.

They prepared his body the way it was done in the pioneer days. No embalming, just a quick clean up. They displayed his remains in the small chapel and said words about this nice and gentle man whom everyone liked enormously. The next day, they transported his body by travois, and they said a final goodbye to their friend in Eli’s old family cemetery.

Rest in Peace, Bobby!

Chapter 21 First Christmas

People walked around humming Christmas carols and the mood was festive. The women and children stayed busy decorating the main lounge with homemade everything. Preparations for the grand Christmas dinner and dance progressed smoothly. They connected a small stereo to a converter that would change the stereo from twelve-volt direct current to one hundred twenty-volt alternating current.

Several people had brought Christmas music on CD’s to the retreat and there was enough music to keep the party going for days. Chad and Linda made taffy and some other treats that sat around in bowls or plates for anyone who was inclined to help themselves. The food was all sugar-free; they used natural honey from their bee colony to sweeten the delicacies.

The fireplace in the lounge blazed, creating a warming and cheery atmosphere. Many of the people at Avalon went there to read or converse. Today there was a beautiful baby fir tucked off to one side that was decorated with trinkets, ribbons, and all sorts of ornaments.

The only thing missing were the lights, and if one didn’t know it, they would never guess the rest of the world was in collapse and crawling in slime just to get by. Ice formed outside on the building and around the edges of all the windows. It was about eighteen degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the residents of Avalon were warm and comfortable.

They slept under sheets in real beds at night and there was an ample supply of anything they needed. That stocking up of supplies that had gone on for many years was paying off with interest. If they needed to use the bathroom they could use the outside services but there were bathrooms in every corner of the retreat.

The toilet paper went away quickly however, and they were down to a wet cloth to wipe with and another cloth to dry off. People were seen carrying their small bucket with fresh water and two cloths once in awhile or they used the facilities in their cabins, which was more private. If not having toilet paper was the worst of their inconveniences, it was nothing at all in the grand scope of things.

The activities in the kitchen were frantic, as usual, but the two Chefs were so organized they had one system on top of another that made the processes go as smoothly as cold cream on a doorknob. There were always several people who turned out to help.

Chad and Linda had developed a routine that had one of them working while the other was off, and the following day they reversed the routine. It worked out well and gave them ample free time to do what they needed to do for themselves. On the weekends others filled in and Chad and Linda were off.

The duo cooked foodstuffs ahead of time and put them in one of the walk-ins. If something went awry with both of them, almost anyone could get a few meals prepared and organized on their own. The stoves were permanently burning so if someone was hungry, all they had to do was pull the pot out and set it on the stove to warm up their food.

Many people commented that the food was sometimes better that way because the spices and herbs had ample time to sit in the food and permeate it appreciably. There was always food available for the watch standers once they were relieved.

Roger was being trained as backup medical doctor under the tutelage of Dan and Caroline, who was moving beyond the requirements of a nurse; she was becoming a medical doctor in her own right.

Likewise, Mike was training several people in his arts just in case something happened to him. Backups of all critical trades and occupations were essential in making the retreat more than just a home. It was in fact, under the surface, a domesticated tranquil veneer. In reality it was an armed military camp of trained soldiers.

Everyone was developing fighting forms, which allowed them to stay in good physical shape and learn how to do the jobs normally performed by someone else. It was not only interesting for the people being trained, but it was a vital necessity for all of them.

The theory of everyone being trained in all jobs came from the U.S. Navy’s system of cross training each crew member of a submarine to know and understand not only their own job, but those of their buddy on the left and on the right. Time moved forward, the training became a way of life, and people couldn’t get bored because there was no time for boredom. There never came a day when someone would hear, “I don’t know how to do that,” or “That isn’t my job.”

If they didn’t know, they learned… and that was the end of it.

The flat-bottom wagon was hitched to a team of draft horses for a trip to the coal outcropping located out beyond the back meadow where a small access was carved out of the giant fir trees a few years past. They burned coal in the main boiler that supplied steam to all the radiators in the cabins and in the main building itself.

The barn had a few radiators to keep the cows content, the stables had several, and the old bunk house had some as well. The small house that Sam and Crystal were remodeling had a couple of stoves, and a cooking stove and heating stove were both in the parlor. It was winter, so all the stoves were fired up and burning twenty-four hours a day. Two teenage boys were designated as the “Fire Box Tenders.”

The big consumer of the coal supply was the main boiler, which had taken a considerable amount of time to completely overhaul and get in working order. It needed constant monitoring and attention to be on the safe side. Not only did it have multiple relief valves incorporated on it, it also had a firebox dump under the firebox grates operated from a large handle that could be engaged by a single person.

Once the coals were dumped into a large steel box, the red hot nuggets could be extracted from below the boiler, stopping the heat from continuing to heat the water. The dump box was mounted on wheels and could be pulled out from under the fire pit inside the stove by one person, to shut the system down in a matter of minutes, long before it could get hot enough to blow up. No fire, no danger.

The main boiler was huge… about fifteen feet high and eight feet across… and it had a stack that towered another twenty feet above that. It was round and had massive rivets that held the plates together. It was a major chore to get the parts and materials to the retreat when it was overhauled but was well worth it in the end.

A few of the men worked on it until they had incorporated a flushing system that washed down the stack internally and diverted the sludge to a holding pond that had another and then another so when one filled, the next would take on the debris and then overflow into the next. This caused the smoke coming out of the smoke stack to look no more ominous than steam emanating from it. That same clean up system was adopted for the kitchen smoke stacks as well.

The large vent hoods over the cooking areas were fitted to a similar devise later and had a water spray system that, when activated, cleaned the stacks and the filters with hot water, thus removing any buildup of grease and creosote. The kitchen also had a spray system that could flood a particular area if there was a galley fire. A large tank made from wood and lined with plastic, looking much like a large laundry cart, was rolled over to the stove area, pushed under the hoods, and then used to rinse one vent at a time of any grease. Once cleaned, the stacks were serviceable for a couple of months and the process was repeated, all without electricity.

The large main boiler had a label fastened to the door of the firebox that read, Hudson Boiler Works, Chicago, Ill, 1901. Pat. 14608 U.S. Pat off. It also had a gear network that, when engaged, turned a shaft and drove several other pulleys and geared works. The shaft had horsehide belts that were twelve inches wide, and some of them were forty feet long when doubled in the middle.

From this series of drives, they were able to rig a system to drive and power anything in the small machine shop such as drill presses or grinders. The main job was to supply pressure to the water pump to keep the water circulating throughout the compound.

The water entered the large water tank located behind the main building first and then another pump drove the pressure to keep the water at an even demand wherever it was needed. That was crucial for the convenience of a pressurized water supply. They had showers, toilets that flushed, and radiators that re-circulated constantly when in use.

The other most critical task performed by the boiler was to power a belt that ran a compressor pump to cool the big walk-in refrigerators and freezers. A mechanical timer was set near the boiler each time it was turned on for twenty minutes. The pump was disengaged and then activated in another hour by repeating this process. It kept the temperatures in the reefers constant. The main boiler needed water added to it regularly.

A group came up for a four-day camp out several years ago and dug up the huge septic tanks. Guided by the expertise of Bobby Larson, they found three tanks in line. It took some doing to find them but once they did, they cleaned them out; it was a terrible and disagreeable job. They emptied the dried out muck that was inside, did some patching here and there, and fixed a few of the broken leeching pipes that were crushed and non-functional.

The septic system that was in place would now last many years before the nasty job would have to be done again. Perhaps, it would be a job for the next generation that was growing in the wombs of some of the women.

They cleaned out the water tank, also a nasty job, and the residents were now enjoying the fruits of that labor and more importantly, were enjoying them in a trouble-free environment. Everyone liked having a pressurized water system because the pump was reliable and they could rebuild it an unlimited number of times.

What they didn’t have in replacement parts could be made from scratch in the machine shop and Dayna was reading about how to cast for later use. One of the best components they had was coal, which they could use to cast or weld.

The Christmas party was a work of art. People started coming to the main building singularly, in pairs, and in larger groups to eat the food and goodies laid out buffet-style on the tables. Plates, silverware, glasses, bowls, cups and saucers, and a paper tag with each of their names sat at the end of the table.

The decorations were aglow and music emanated throughout the lounge and the dining area, delighting both children and adults alike. They each deposited their name tags in a large basket for later.

It was a time to be grateful.

They were at the retreat and not out in the terrible, suffering world, perhaps starving, without access to real medical care, and enduring insufferable deprivations. A prayer was offered and the music was turned off. People bowed their heads, and every single one of them was sincere as they thanked the Lord for all they had and all they were.

They thanked Dan and Mike for having met them and for having had the foresight to buy into what was, for some, an incredibly expensive venture based on nothing more than faith. There were many people over the last twenty years running all over the world making vast fortunes selling the gloom and doom of “The End of the World” type stories to anyone who would buy into it. Mike and Dan did not do that.

If anything, they were very selective who they offered the “carrot” of Avalon to. As it turned out, the choice made by all of them was the correct choice for them; they were living, breathing proof of that. The “Amen” was then offered by all, given in the justifiable humility of the moment.

The gathering lifted the spirits of everyone and broke up the routine of classwork. If you weren’t studying this or studying that you were working out in a martial arts class or you were working at your assigned job. The work at Avalon was never-ending, but it was worthwhile, because everyone benefited from every improvement, and the skills that were being developed made the confidence level in everyone soar like an arrow shot up into the air.

They ate the food, danced, and sang carols; some of the adults played games with the children and the children were delighted from both the attention and the games. Different people gathered in small groups of two or three and one was composed of six. The drinks flowed and some of them were getting a little tipsy. Mike offered up his own prayer to himself.

“Please God; don’t let anything bad happen tonight.”

The basket was brought out on a large cart after everyone had finished eating and dancing, and the name tags were drawn from the basket one at a time. The cart was loaded with presents wrapped in butcher paper from the kitchen that they normally used to wrap meat. Most of the paper was decorated with drawings of Santa Claus, reindeer pulling a sled, stars, snowflakes, and snowmen, each with a hand-written name tag.

The adults got a couple of gifts each; the children were recipients of quite a few more. They got toys and clothing and the adults received handmade clothing; a jacket to one, a pair of mittens for another, and a woolen watch cap for someone else. All were handmade and appreciated by the recipients for the labor of love behind each gift. When Caroline gave a present to Mike, she stepped up on her tip toes and whispered into his ear,

“The other present from me to you is waiting for you once we get back to the cabin.”

He feigned a surprised look, put both hands to his cheeks, and rocked his head from side to side and said,

“What in the world could that be?”

She socked him in the stomach slightly and said,

“Boy, are you dumb!”

He couldn’t help himself and laughed. He turned to face her as he slipped his arms around her waist and lifted her toward him. He kissed her on the mouth for a brief second and then broke away and said,

“Merry Christmas my love! I don’t know much, but there is one thing I am absolutely positive of… I love you more than life itself.”

Then he resumed the kiss that lasted a lot longer than the first little peck. People ignored them; they were too busy doing their own thing to be bothered by watching them.

The party began to wind down at about ten o’clock that evening. Some of the children were getting cranky and several adults were feeling the drain of the day’s work ebb away and fell asleep in the large comfortable leather chairs in the lounge. To be certain the alcohol was a contributor to the tiredness, but they all worked at something and they had worked hard to make sure the small community of Avalon remained a viable and well run machine.

Several people left and others remained until after midnight talking, laughing, and just enjoying themselves. The music was shut off at eleven o’clock, but no one seemed to notice. Several had to leave to relieve the watch, and when the members of the watch came to the main building, they ate, had a few drinks, and joined in the conversations as if they had been there the whole time. In the morning it was going to be a lax time because of the holiday.

Mike and Caroline retired to their cabin and she stopped him at the door. She put a finger to her lips and said,

“Shhhhh, you’ll wake him up.”

They entered the cabin and over in a corner near the bathroom door was his “other present” fast asleep. Occasionally the pup would twitch and cry out softly as the dream he was involved in wrapped itself around his little mind. She said to Mike,

“Merry Christmas, my love. What will you call him?”

Mike reached down and picked the puppy up in his hands and admired him as he held him up at eye level.

“How does Champion sound? Champ for short.”

“Champ it is then!”

Chapter 22 Hanging by a Thread

The area in California just north of Bishop, West to the Pacific Ocean, East to the Great Sierras, continuing on down to the Tehachapi’s, and extending into The Imperial Valley that joins Baja, was a completely dry, hot, and dust-laden wasteland now nearly devoid of life. There was some life down in the great valleys; an area once considered by many as the “Bread Basket of America”.

It was now an area of blowing dust filled with roaming, armed thugs on motorcycles. Some of the areas had been poisoned by radiation fallout and these days scarcely a Mojave Green slithered across the sands. It was dry, inhospitable, and a nearly unforgivable wasteland.

Some people had made it to the hundreds of old gold mine diggings and stayed in the tunnels to escape the burning heat. Most of the irrigation canals went dry and they too became lifeless. Those people living in each surrounding area slowly starved to death one day at a time. Hundreds of thousands had already died in just the last two months alone and their bodies could be found lying where they fell when the life escaped the confines of their mortal body. In some areas, the dead were eaten.

The living went in search of food but found little or none at all. There was food to be had in the cities along the coast, but those areas were death traps of starving roaming bands of people half mad from deprivation and lack of food, and the Slavers were working there too.

To say this was a dangerous place to be was to say sky diving without a parachute might be dangerous. Women, in particular, were stalked and used and then killed rather than be left alive to remain in competition for the precious little food that was hidden in basements, on boats still tied to the moorings in the marinas, or in motor homes parked here and there.

Food could be found, but it was a difficult search with fierce competition, and most times deadly. The restaurants, grocery stores, and warehouses were cleaned out months ago. The children, without someone to protect them, died quickly. They were defenseless creatures from the start of the conflagration and many died soon after.

The slave merchants were actively searching out anyone strong enough or pretty enough to be bought by those who still had money, which these days was in the form of food, booze, cigarettes, and anything fit to drink. A candy bar could get you the use of a pretty woman for the night.

Many areas were oozing with deadly and unseen radiation. A foray into those areas brought death to the visitor in as little as a day, and some places were more deadly than others. Los Angeles was extremely irradiated and so was Long Beach, with a bit of a separation between those places struck by the bombs until reaching San Diego where the poison was potent once again. It was all a crap shoot. People could dart in and back out if they were quick, but most died in spite of their swiftness. The unseen, odorless poison ate away at all human organs, bones, tissue, and blood.

A young woman named Beth Kelly was one of those people caught here, but in an area that sheltered her. She made her way to a shelter once the warnings were sounded and waited it out until she believed it was safe enough to get away. She then made her way quickly to the San Fernando Valley where little radiation was affecting the surrounding terrain.

Smart and athletic, although the lack of food was detracting from her natural good looks, she was still a very desirable woman. She was hunted and pursued by the Slavers and managed to get away each time… so far. She was being driven north in incremental pushes to trap her by various groups in search of plunder and slaves.

She found herself in a small area in the High Desert called Jaw Bone Canyon after having crossed the valley. The area is just north and west of the small outcropping designated as a town named California City. It is a rock-strewn area full of snakes, scorpions, spiders, Gila Monsters, coyotes, and now, as of late, feral cats and dogs that once were household pets. She hid in the rocks and watched and waited as the bad guys, armed with all manner of rifles and shotguns, passed no farther than a hundred feet from where she hid. They had large dogs on leashes and the dogs howled and carried on like possessed beasts. Her heart was beating fast and she could feel the pulse in her forehead and neck. There was a little water left in her canteen, so she screwed the cap off and drank from the spout. In a few minutes they passed and headed toward the east away from her.

She leaned against the rock heavily as relief swept through her and she was thankful they were gone. She waited in spite of them passing, just in case there were any stragglers still approaching.

She needed to get out of the sun and started looking around for anything that offered shade. She guessed she was about a hundred or so miles from Death Valley and another fifty beyond that to Bishop. She wasn’t sure but was hoping that was about how far she still had to go and she longed for a map. She was in Tehachapi earlier, but it was crawling with people from Bakersfield, Fresno, and Los Angeles. As she hid from one group, she heard them talking and later, when it was dark, she made her way into the camp, filled her canteen with water, and left without making a sound. She thought if she could stay west of the rocky hills she was traveling in she could avoid the desert and keep going north for the final destination of her quest up in the mountains.

As a small girl her dad took her to this place he called an old abandoned ranch way up in the mountains and she was going to go there unless something stopped her first, either Slavers or death. She remembered the large and impressive sign that hung across the two large trees set in the ground at the entry, and it was like something out of a fairy tale. She was convinced that she would be safe there.

She had a little food, a compass, a canteen almost full of water, warm clothes for the evenings, and some odds and ends she thought were important as she made her way north. She had a sheath knife with a six-inch blade and a stainless steel .357 magnum with a three inch barrel on her belt. She had used it twice, so far. She had a box full of bullets and a few matches in the pouch at her waist.

If anyone came close, she was prepared to use that gun again because she saw what happened to people who weren’t prepared to fight. She watched three grown men rape a little girl about eight or nine years old about a week ago, and when they later decided to sleep for the night, she slit the throat of two of them and shot the third in the forehead, right between the eyes as he woke up. The little girl was dead and they had thrown her aside like a bag of garbage once they were done.

Beth was smart to stay holed up because there were three more bad guys passing her now, laughing about something and they had a boy with them of about nine or ten years old. He was bound at the wrist, and there was a rope around his neck like a dog. She eased out from behind the rock that hid her and stepped in line behind the three Slavers. She stabbed one of them in the kidney with a rapid thrust and it hurt so bad that he couldn’t call out; he just dropped to the ground. She made it in three steps to the next guy and did the same to him, burying the knife deep. The third guy was so busy laughing at his own joke that he didn’t realize what was happening until the knife entered his side. By then it didn’t make any difference.

She searched the bodies in quick time and took what they had. The boy was cowering away from her, but she reassured him that she wasn’t going to hurt him and not to cry out. She untied him and took the rope from around his neck. It was a nice rope, the kind they use for roping cattle, so she coiled it up and kept it. One of them had a bag on his waist that was full of rings and other jewelry, so she kept that too. All three had canteens that were full of water. That was good luck! She said to the boy,

“My name is Beth and we need to get away from here before these guys are missed and their buddies return to find them here. They’ll be looking for whoever did this to them, so let’s go!”

She grabbed him by the hand to emphasize the need for speed and he ran after her. They ran for at least a mile and finally had to slow down and then stop. The boy was weaker than her so she offered him water, which he chugged down and spit out when he started to choke. Good thing she caught the canteen or it may have spilled on the ground. They couldn’t afford that.

“You okay, pal?”

He was still trying to recover as he nodded.

“Take it easy,” she said, “Take small sips and try not to spit any of it out, okay?”

The boy sipped a little more of the water and it seemed to rejuvenate him some. He said,

“Matt…”

She looked into his face and said,

“Wh… what was that?”

“Matthew,” the boy said, “My name is Matthew.”

She smiled at him and reached over and gave him a hug and said,

“Nice to meet you Matthew. Where are your parents?”

Matthew shrugged his shoulders and hung his head down, “Everyone is dead.”

It was very matter-of-fact in the delivery of the statement. Those were the times they were living in.

“I’m sorry, Matthew! We’re going to head north. There’s a place I know about and we will be safe there. Please be quiet when I ask you to, okay? Stay close and try to keep up. We have a long way to go. Think you can do all of that?”

“Do you have any food?” He blurted it out suddenly.

She reached into her small bag and pulled out a Baby Ruth and handed it to him. He tore the wrapping off and devoured it with a single shove of the whole thing into his mouth by breaking it in half and chewing on it a very long time. His eyes rolled up so the whites were visible and he seemed to be staring at something in the sky. He was smiling and rocking back and forth on his feet, first a little forward on his toes and then back onto his heels and he appeared as if he was going to swoon. Finally she saw his Adam’s apple bobbing several times as the boy swallowed the treat.

It was getting close to dusk and they needed to find a place to hide for the night; they would begin the trek north again in the morning. She selected a spot near a rock outcropping and crawled into a corner like a dog. The boy lay down next to her and they slept.

Morning came and she ventured out for a look around. There was nothing but her and Matthew as they began walking and she took out her compass to verify the course. Even though she had honed the skill at Quantico, her dad was the one who had taught her how to use a compass when she was a little girl. He taught her about camping too and those were some of her favorite memories.

Matthew didn’t say anything except, “Wait.”

She stopped and he ran behind a rock and emptied his bladder. When he came back out from behind the rock he said,

“I’m ready now.”

They began walking again and Beth calculated they might have two more weeks of hard hiking ahead of them to get to that old ranch. She hoped it was still there.

Two more incidents occurred where they saw people coming and hid. None of the people appeared to be anything other than refugees but Beth wasn’t going to take any chances. On the fifth day they passed a small house at the end of a field sitting in the shade of a stand of cottonwood trees. There was a cement-lined irrigation canal that passed by it, so she and Matthew climbed down into the canal and began to walk. It seemed like a better thing to do because they were hidden from view down here.

They came upon several skeletons in the canal a little further down; most were human, but she saw a few animal skeletons, as well. They still had some flesh on their bones and hair on their heads and they also had clothes on. One was dressed in jeans, a shirt, and boots and the other had on a dress. She wondered what happened here. The skulls displayed neat little holes in them and they looked like bullet holes; then she found a few shell casings lying on the sand-covered floor of the canal. This was a place of an execution and it gave her the creeps.

She wondered if Slavers had done this. Matthew stared at them and pushed against her tightly as they went by the bones. Ants and birds were everywhere and flies buzzed around the bones and made lots of noise. The birds were emboldened and did not move far from their feasting. The smell was stifling. The boy was scared.

They walked a little while longer and when they were adjacent to the little house, they got out and walked over to it. You could see for a mile or more in every direction and there was nothing in sight but weeds and hard-packed, sun-baked dirt.

The screen door hung by one hinge and banged occasionally against the jamb as the slight breeze coming out of the west pushed it gently back and forth. The sky was cloudless and baby blue. They walked into the little house that appeared to be abandoned and in disarray. Someone had been here and turned tables and chairs over and broke a few windows, but it could be livable again with just a little work. They turned on the spigot in the sink and nothing came out.

There was a noise in another room and Beth pulled the revolver from its holster, pointing it at the ceiling as her elbow bent at the joint with the movement. Her dad always told her to never point at anything you weren’t going to shoot. She put a hand to Matthew’s lips and walked toward the sound.

She went through the door and cocked the .357 at the same instant. A little girl was standing there near the entrance of a hidden closet with a can of peaches she had just dropped still rolling on the floor. She saw Matthew and Beth and instantly began to pee, it ran down her leg, and she stood in a puddle in her bare feet. She was dirty and Beth guessed she was about four or five. Her hair was straggly and dirty and she was shaking as if she was very cold. She trembled from head to foot.

Beth put the revolver in the holster and stretched her arms out to the little girl and went down on one knee. She wiggled her fingers to the girl beckoning her. The girl had her fingers from one hand in her mouth and tears were dripping down her cheeks. Beth inched her way toward her, scooted along and said in a gentle voice,

“Come here honey, no one is going to hurt you. My name is Beth. Come on, don’t be afraid, come on…”

The little girl ran over to Beth and threw her arms around her neck and was crying and saying something that neither Beth nor Matthew understood. They remained in that position until Beth began to feel it in her knees. So she straightened up and picked the girl up who promptly wrapped her wet legs around Beth’s sides, hugged her neck, and wouldn’t let go. It took awhile but the little girl finally said,

“My name is Glory and I’m five already. Some bad men came and took my daddy and mommy away and they never came back. I was eating the stuff in there and waitin’ for them to come back.”

She was referring to the canned food that was stored in the little storage room.

“I hid in there for a long time,” she pointed to the closet. “When the bad men came into the house, my mommy put me in there.” She hesitated, apparently remembering the scene in her mind. “Then she closed the door and put a chair in front of it. I heard screaming and yelling and then the voices got smaller. Later, I heard loud popping noises. I was quiet when the people came back and throwed things around and then they left. I opened canned stuff and ate it.”

Beth looked in the closet. There were three five-gallon water bottles in there and Glory had managed to get one open. She was drinking water from an empty can that was sitting on the floor next to the water bottle. There were still a lot of canned goods in there as well and they started looking for something to carry them in. She found a large water canteen and filled it up. A search of the house revealed a few pillow cases and she tore a few pieces off to make a harness so they could carry the water bottles on their backs.

Chapter 23 The New Flag

It was the day before New Years. It was cold outside and the retreat was in what Mike referred to as “The Holiday Routine.” The normal jobs were getting done and the people stood their watches, but a new year was coming and people were painfully aware that it was a different world they were living in. What was in the past was now a poignant part of history, and it was time to begin recording what happened in the world and where things were headed.

Many of them felt that they should adopt a new flag because there wasn’t much left of the U.S. anymore. They decided to put the word out to the group and have people enter a contest by submitting designs as to how it should look. At another meeting, someone proposed adding a different banner to the American flag, one of their own designs that would represent them as a group and reflect the new country they were in the process of building. They agreed that everyone would submit their own rendition of what the new flag should look like.

They worked on it tirelessly. There were some very innovative designs and each was labeled with the designer’s name; the distinctive designs grew rapidly. Some submitted different conceptions and others seemed to be very creative and proposed various innovations regularly. No decision was made and after awhile the zeal to submit began to ebb away until there were no more being submitted and then they all forgot about it.

It was at one of those after dinner meetings that a proposal was put forward to begin writing a history of Avalon and its people. There would be births and deaths, much would happen, and changes were bound to become their own history as time went by. It needed to be recorded for the generations that would follow. Those children not yet born would deserve to know what it was like during the war and what happened to every person at Avalon as the progress of time ebbed away. There were also those who wanted the history of not only the United States to be preserved but the history of the rest of the world as well. Nothing should ever be intentionally left out of the story.

“If there are no objections,” Linda, the resident Chef, said after raising her hand and being recognized, “I recommend that Penny Rolls be the person to do that.”

She paused, and everyone concurred. Penny smiled a little self-consciously for being put on the spot but didn’t object.

“How do you feel about this important responsibility, Penny?” Mike asked her in a direct way, making eye contact. He waited and she answered by saying,

“It would be an honor to document the happenings and preserve what transpires here. In fact, I have been doing just that since I became a member of the group. I have been writing down most everything in my personal diary. Now, I can make it official to you all.”

She paused to take a deep breath and continue, but Sam raised his hand to be recognized.

“Yes, Sam,” she was somewhat glad to take the spotlight off of herself. “What is it?”

“Penny,” Sam got a wide grin on his face as he spoke, “Does that mean we will all be able to read what you have written in your diary?”

“Not all of it, Sam,” she smiled, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “There are certain parts I will keep for myself.”

Sam replied a little too quickly, “Does that mean all that stuff about you and Harlan is going to remain a secret?”

Crystal could not believe he said it and she punched him in the ribs; everybody laughed. Sam feigned being hurt. “A doctor,” he yelled, “I need a doctor. Anybody know where I can find a doctor?”

The laughter was contagious and the place was alive with laughter and more than a few comments. Harlan Herrera stepped over to Penny’s side and put an arm around her waist and was smiling from ear to ear. Everyone knew what was going on between them and it was sanctioned by one and all, not that they needed approval.

Penny became the historian of the group. Years ago, she brought with her cases of blank, bound books, and added them to the library. She also hoarded reams of paper that she brought up those many times and every day she wrote in precise penmanship the happenings at Avalon. She posted them at the entry to the doorway of the huge lounge in the main building where everyone could read it each and every day from that day forward. It was named the Avalon Reporter.

That night the dining area was still set up as it was for the Christmas party the week before. Chad and Linda laid everything out on joined tables buffet-style and the food was spectacular as usual, except for one difference. This was a special moment for all of them. They were beginning a new year at Avalon and it was the beginning of a new life for each of them.

Nothing would ever be as it was; every one of them knew they had lost friends and loved ones due to the war and the keenly distressing problems the war caused. They were grateful for Avalon and to Mike and Dan because through them, they were here. They followed the progress of the war and the ravages it caused from the radio broadcasts and they learned there were people all over the planet suffering incredible hardships and even death.

They were thriving here. They lived, they laughed, and they worked side-by-side. These were people whom they chose to be with until they died. It was their choice… they made it when they had the freedom to decide for themselves and did not have those decisions passed down to them by some obscure edict dreamed up by some bureaucrat. The children were growing up with a value system that would carry them through all of their adult lives with a sense of dignity and self worth. A lot could be attributed to Avalon, but this place was only a shell or the body of something much larger. It was the people who made the soul of Avalon.

The people came one by one and some came together to this New Year celebration. They came laughing and chattering and some held hands while others locked arms. Happiness fell on the place like a comforter full of warmth. The watch standers were the only people left out of the festivities, but at a different time, such a vacancy would be rectified.

People were enjoying themselves thoroughly now as the festivities began. A prayer was offered and everyone bowed their heads. Each person listened but also said a silent prayer of their own to give thanks for the blessings of Avalon and the people residing here. With a closing “Amen,” they were ready to eat.

They headed for the plates, piled on the food, and then sat down and ate a wonderful and filling meal. The small calf they had slaughtered was the main course and the mashed potatoes and beef chunky gravy topped it off. There were green peas and sweet potatoes scooped out on most of the plates followed by tender and succulent squash smothered in melted butter. The desserts were apple pie, peach cobbler, and fruit cake loaded with nuts, wild blueberries, and candied fruits. The group talked and had coffee with either real cream or milk. Some preferred water but whatever they had, it was refreshing and they were thankful to be here together to celebrate a year of freedom and safety.

Later, when the clean-up was done and the majority of the food was put away, games for the children began. They played musical chairs… the music plays and all the kids marched around the chairs; when the music stopped everyone sat in a chair quickly. The one left standing without a chair was out. When they tired of that game, they had a Maypole set up and played that for awhile until it was time to move on to something else.

The next game was a form of horse shoes, but this game was with two posts mounted on a piece of wood weighted down with heavy weights to keep it upright. The kids tossed round pieces of rope formed in a loop and tried to lasso one of the posts. Each post had a different value and the points began to mount up until there was a winner. There were others games and the kids played on in absolute glee at the competition.

Some of the people migrated to the pool room and shot pool. Sometimes they bet millions of dollars on a single shot. Listening to them making the wagers seemed it was as serious as a heart attack. Sometimes they lost and other times they won but it really didn’t matter because it was all in fun.

People sat at the tables and talked either in pairs or in groups. The discussion came up about Penny becoming the new recorder for the group and the conversations escalated a bit more. Some slowly eased over to the comfortable furniture of the large lounge and the choice seats that were near the blazing fireplace. Others went into the bar and Crystal was there to serve them and tip a couple with them. Some people sat at the bar and others sat near the fireplace. The laughter and camaraderie were felt deeply everywhere. They partied on and the hours slipped by.

As it was approaching midnight, a couple of people left the bar and returned moments later with the rest of the group. The countdown began shortly and as they counted down the seconds, a cheer went up among them. “Happy New Year!” was sounded out in unison and everyone was either shaking someone’s hand or hugging them. Others were locked into some serious kissing. The festive moment lasted until Chad and Linda went to the bar and turned to face the group. Chad said,

“I’m not much for speeches, but Linda and I want to say a few words as we offer a toast. Our first toast is to all of you. May God bless you and protect you! I also want to include Avalon in these words because without Avalon we might not be alive right now. We, like you, were fortunate we met Mike and Dan and listened to them when they proposed our joining this group. There has not been a day or a moment, quite frankly, when I don’t find myself thanking them and the Almighty for us being here. We are safe and we are thriving. My wish to all of you is Happy New Year and thank you for being who you are right now and in the coming New Year.”

He ended his speech and the cheers and clapping were deafening. Linda waited and when things quieted down a bit she began,

“First of all, there isn’t much I can add to what my husband just said to you all. You know us Italians, we like to talk, and I concur with every word he said. It amazes me that the circumstances that brought us together are so similar in so many ways.”

She cleared her throat and continued, “Chad and I had a very successful business, and many of you know that because you were customers at one time or another. I talked to my mother after we came here the first time and she thought I was crazy when I asked her to talk to Mike and Dan. We saw things as we listened to the two of them and there was so much truth and common sense in what they said that I believed immediately that what they were saying was a viable project and only needed people to make it come together. Look at us here. We wanted to be a part of it and here we are.”

Again she hesitated and appeared to be overcome with emotion but composed herself and continued. “Can you really believe that the end of the world is nearly on us? Can you believe the numbers we have heard on the radio about how many people are dead or nearly dead? We love Avalon and we love you all with as much love as we have to give. Happy New Year everyone! I sure hope we’re going to have a lot more of them together. We never get to choose our family members; we just get what we get. Here at Avalon we had that unique opportunity to choose our families and we chose you and this place. I love you all with all my heart.”

She was starting to cry and Chad wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in close.

Again the clapping and cheers went up and the noise was incredible. Everyone ordered another round of drinks. There was plenty of Scotch; Sam had made a batch by putting pure grain alcohol and water together to cut it down somewhat and added a little iodine from the clinic to give it that authentic flavor… and it flowed. Mike jumped behind the bar to help and so did Caroline to speed up the serving process.

Penny came to the bar and raised her drink into the air above her head. Crystal took a spoon and started tapping a glass with it to get everyone’s attention. When the crowd settled down Penny said,

“There have been a couple of toasts to us and to Avalon, but I think we have left a significant person out and I would like to propose a toast to Eli Cameron, the founder of this place and someone we should always keep in our prayers. Because if it wasn’t for him, none of us would be here; this place would not exist without his efforts. I salute Mister Eli Cameron because of his pioneering spirit and his intestinal fortitude to carve out a home in the wilderness and raise cattle on it. It took him months to drive his cattle to the nearest railhead in those days. How many of you could have done that? How many of you could have braved the wild Indians and the grizzly bears that dominated this area? I know it would have been a low priority for me living in those days to do any of it.”

She paused and sipped her water. People were clapping and offering encouragement for what she was saying.

“The second part of my toast is for you, for all of us here, and for this place called Avalon. I am eternally grateful for what I have found here living among you fine people. I was one of those people who existed, but scarcely anyone knew I did. I was shy and dedicated to my work; it was nothing more and nothing less. Here I stand in front of people I admire and respect and I can hardly believe that I’m here. This was not my style and it wasn’t who I was until I met some of you and began to get together with you at some of your functions. I have to tell you that seeing the beauty of this place for the first time was what really sold me. But more than that it was you, the people who are a part of this group; you are what really sold me. I salute you and I am ever grateful that I am here with you. Happy New Year everyone and may the Saints bless you all.”

Harlan Herrera came up to where she stood and put an arm around her tiny waist and her shyness caused her to look down at the floor. Harlan reached a hand over to her chin and with an index finger and his thumb he guided her lips to his own. They kissed and he said something that was lost in the roar of the shouts. They finally broke loose and smiled together as a happy couple.

Dan stood toward the rear smiling at the festivity. Several people kept prodding him to go to the bar and to say a few words; the chant from the crowd was,

“Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!”

He came to the bar as several people pushed him from behind and he was maneuvered in place where he turned to face them. He was smiling and everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. The cheering was still going on so he waited; then it got quiet and he said,

“My brothers and sisters, we are gathered here to… No! No! No! Different speech!”

He was laughing and so were they. He was a little high from the homemade scotch. He began again.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to make light of the occasion but I just couldn’t help myself in the moment, Okay, here goes.”

He was laughing at his own joke.

They all helped make a dent in that large two-gallon bottle of homemade Scotch, so he wasn’t the only person feeling pretty good. He said when he was able to compose himself,

“There was a time when I was so jealous of this place I didn’t want to share it with anyone, but I was counseled and changed my mind. We are here because we had the foresight to do something for ourselves and that is usually the case; we have to make the decision to do what is right for us.”

He paused and took a breath and appeared to be thinking about his next words and finally said,

“As you all know, I was a successful medical doctor down below and studied for years to achieve that pinnacle I strove for, to be called a doctor of medicine. I studied and went without sleep and at times felt as if I was being required to memorize almost everything in that medical dictionary and the anatomy books. But one day there I was, a physician finally, and I was proud of myself and all that I did. But there was one problem; I had been too busy to pay attention to the people I was enmeshed with. They were greedy and money hungry and you the people had to suffer from their mistakes. While they went along their merry way playing golf, sailing on their luxury sailboats, and enjoying the good life, many of you slowly but surely began to lose the quality you expected but were not always getting from my peers or myself. You paid exorbitant prices until, little by little, many of you could no longer afford competent professional medical care. We, the medical profession, became the place where incompetence was protected by all of us together as a group and you, the public, suffered. I suddenly felt shame. I was looked on as a healer and I was becoming just like them, a money machine, and my patients began to suffer from that greed and the need to make more to buy something else. It soon became a matter of what was important for me and the patients be damned!”

“One day as I was riding with my friend Michael, we came across this place and it was that day my perspective for life and what I was meant for came into sharp focus. I was a doctor. That was what I always wanted to be. I only needed enough money to get by and take care of my needs. I was one of those people who found early on what they wanted to be and here I was wasting it chasing the dollar into a never-ending loop that had no end. God Bless Avalon, and God Bless you all for saving me to do what I always wanted to do!”

People were howling and clapping, but the doctor wasn’t done so they quieted down and he began anew by saying,

“We are here under the protection of each other. We are here because we chose to be in this place and we are here because we had the courage to be different from everyone else. We need each other and no one here is any more or any less important than anyone else. We are in this place most of all because we believed in what we were doing and, take a look around you, we are comfortable. There is plenty of food to go around; we sleep in real beds off the ground; and we sleep between clean sheets. I’d like to think you’re getting proper medical attention…”

That made them go off again and the clapping and hooting and hollering and cheers went up several notches. They settled down again and he continued by saying,

“Happy New Year to you all, and I hope with all that I am or ever will be that it comes true and we will all be here in another year, safe, secure, and blessed because of your individual sacrifices and efforts. You had a vision and you made it come true for all of us. I thank you for what I have and what you returned to me by allowing me to be your physician in this place and for allowing me to have my dignity returned to me as well. Lastly, I thank whatever makes the universe revolve that I have the love of a good woman. Happy New Year!”

He turned to Dayna and smiled at her.

The cheering went up louder yet and everyone was clapping. Everyone felt so grateful for being here. Dayna came over to him and the kissing and embracing began.

Now the group started yelling at Mike; he was behind the bar and facing them. He looked at them and tried to look into the eyes of all of them one at a time as he began to speak.

“Thank you for honoring me in this way. It is I who owe my thanks to all of you for what we have here and I am only a small part of it. I have gained one thing here at Avalon that I have missed in my life for a very long time and that can be summed up in a single word, Freedom. I didn’t have freedom for many years and now I do.”

“We worked hard through these many years, first with the clean up, then the repairs, and the constant coming up here packing something we would need later, but we did it all. We have animals to help us work, to get us where we need to go, and to share our happiness and companionship. We have food that we’ve harvested in abundance and have enjoyed time and again just like we did a little while ago. Don’t ever forget those who are dead and dying right now, those who don’t have a fraction of what you have every minute of every day. Some of those people we knew. There is no way to describe the suffering that has happened and continues to happen, but we are here in Avalon and we are safe for the time being. We have the individual choice to love who we want and to laugh if for no reason than to do it without any fear of repercussions.”

“Here we fear little, but we are vigilant and guard what we have from those who would take it from us, even by force if we didn’t give it up.”

“Look around you; look into the faces of your neighbors; these are your true friends. Could you bear to know they were dead, even one of them, because of their philosophy or what they own or believe?”

“I make you a solemn promise here and now. I love Avalon and what it represents to me. There are no limits as to what I will do to protect it or you from harm. Without reservation, I pledge my life to Avalon and to you. I will gladly give up whatever I have to ensure the endurance of this place.”

“I am a free man and the yoke of the slavery I had on my shoulders supporting the designs and corruption of a government that was out of control down there has been lifted from my shoulders and it will not be my burden to carry again. The results of that same government are a legacy of death, destruction, and suffering. It is nearly the end of the world down there, but here we thrive. Here we are truly united, here we have love, we have companionship, we have togetherness, and we have happiness,” his voice was going up in volume and with conviction, and he continued more forcefully by saying, “And we have each other, there is safety here and most importantly we have FREEDOM!”

The crowd went wild, and when Caroline pushed her way to the bar, he lifted her over it to his side and she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a splendid kiss. As she pushed against him, he felt a little as if he was going to melt and there was a weakness in his knees. They would be excusing themselves from the festivities soon. They had to check on the puppy he got for Christmas, one of Pretty Girl’s pups and a delight to him. He imagined that was as good an excuse as any other.

The flag came up again at the next meeting a few days later, and the committee Dan formed made a decision from among the many designs submitted. Dayna won and was given a letter of appreciation and three watches she could skip as a reward.

Her design was thus;

It was the standard rectangle as the American flag, but different. At the top from left to right was a dark blue background. This area encompassed a third of the flag from the top down. In the middle of the blue rectangle was a drawing of the main building and on both sides of the building was a fir tree. Directly above the building and centered was a single white star. Just below the main building was an arch with the word Avalon going from left to right and there was a quarter moon sitting on its back with the two points straight up. Under that were crossed swords. From the blue rectangle there were stripes that came down from the bottom of the rectangle emanating out in every direction toward the sides and to the bottom of the flag. There were ten stripes, five white and five red.

At the award ceremony Dayna was asked to describe the meaning of the symbols and she said,

“The dark blue rectangle represents the sky above us and the rest of the world. The building represents Avalon, our home and where we all come to do things together, where we live. The white star represents us as a territory or possibly a new state and it could also represent us as a country unto our own. To one side and the other there are two fir trees. They represent what we are surrounded by. Below the arch are the crossed swords. That means we will take up arms to defend our home against anyone or any threat. The stripes represent many things but I’ll start with the colors first, the white represents peace, for we are a peaceful group of people, and the red represents our lifeblood, which we are willing to sacrifice to preserve our home, our territory and each other if need be. The number of stripes represents first Eli Cameron who began this ranch; second is for the coal. The next is for the trees, and the fourth is for the cattle Eli brought and raised here. The fifth is to remember the railroad, and the sixth stripe represents us as a group of people. The seventh represents sacrifice; the eighth reminds us of the war below; the ninth represents our determination; and the tenth and last stripe represents Freedom.”

Chapter 24 Dangerous Journey

Beth crept up the side of the large rock that was slanted and sticking out of the ground at a thirty degree angle. It was huge; below was a natural shelter with half of its bulk buried in the ground and the rest was what she was crawling on.

She heard dogs howling far away and wanted to see if she could see anything from the top of the rock. Off in the distance, coming through an opening of an outcropping of rocks like the one she was perched on, she saw them.

Slavers were coming around and meandering in between the huge rocks. They had people roped at the neck, each in front of the other in a long line. Their hands were tied behind their backs and about half of them were children and the other half were half-starved teens.

They appeared to be coming her way and if she timed it right, the trail they followed would pass below her prominent view point. The dogs incessantly howled and bayed at nothing. It was if they were out for a casual walk and enjoying themselves. She had to be careful; the dogs had great noses.

Her plan was to kill the Slaver at the end of the line and then the guy in front, if she could get to him quickly enough. They were both armed and carrying long guns casually over their shoulders. As she scooted down from the rock, she guessed they were about five minutes out so she had to get ready. She went below the rock and crouched down; waiting for her was Matthew and Glory.

“I want you both to get down in that corner over there and hide and stay put until I come back for you,” she said in a hushed tone. “There’s something I have to do. Whatever you do, don’t move and don’t go anywhere until I come back. Okay?”

She pointed to where she wanted them to hide and they nodded their heads. As she turned to take care of business, Glory grabbed her arm and began to whimper. She had become much attached to Beth and had separation anxiety every time she moved out of her sight.

“Glory,” Beth said as she put a hand on the girl’s shoulders and stooped to talk to her face-to-face, “Listen to me. It’s important that you do exactly what I tell you.” She considered her next words carefully, deciding that reality was a better teacher than drama. “Those men coming this way are bad men like the ones that came in your house and took your mommy and daddy away from you. You have to be quiet and do what I tell you and don’t make any noise because if they find us, they will hurt us. All of us!”

She turned her by the shoulders and with a gentle push, headed her toward the hiding place.

“Don’t make any noise, Glory,” she reminded. “Matthew, make sure the two of you don’t move from this spot until I get back.”

She grabbed Matthew and whispered in his ear, “If I don’t come back…”

He flinched and pulled away from her and looked at her with a look of absolute terror on his face.

“Matthew,” she said quickly, “I’ll be back. It’s just that in these uncertain times, we have to have a backup plan just in case, okay?”

She pressed her fingers to his lips and said, “Take care of Glory, Matthew. I love you both.”

She gave him a hug and turned and walked toward her spot to prepare for the ambush. She bent over at the waist and moved swiftly. They came, oblivious of the danger ahead. The two dogs were in the front of the procession, which was a break for Beth. If they were in the rear she would never get this opportunity. Her thoughts raced and her breathing was coming in fast gulps of air. She was afraid, but her hatred for the Slavers drove her forward.

She stepped behind the last Slaver, her knife came out of the sheath; and she drove it forward hard, but she hit a military-style web belt and all her knife did was wound the man. He let out a yell in pain and as he turned to face her, she slit his throat, turning the scream into a gurgling sound. She thrust again and the knife went into his chest. She left it there and pulled out her .357 Magnum, taking aim at the guy in the front as he struggled to get his gun off his shoulder.

“Down, on the ground now!” she screamed at the chain of slaves, “All of you… NOW!”

They dropped and she fired. She got the guy in the neck as his shotgun came to his shoulder, which caused him to drop the weapon and grab his throat. The dogs were howling and barking and took off running, dragging their leashes behind. She went back to the first guy, retrieved her knife, and wiped the blade off on his pant leg. She looked in his face and his eyes were dilated and stared at nothing; he was dead… she could tell by looking at his eyes.

The blood was bubbling out of his chest where the knife had finished him off and the whole of his chest was glinting from the shiny blood spewing from his throat. He reeked from the sweet smell of fresh blood and sweat. She had the urge to vomit but suppressed it. Beth turned and cut the rope binding the last kid in line and handed him the knife.

“Hurry,” she said, “We don’t have a lot of time. Make sure they’re all freed and search those two for whatever they have on them… food, water, guns, ammo. Understand? Take it all, and hurry!”

It didn’t take long before she was walking toward the slanted rock buried in the ground. The Slavers had some food, canteens that were almost full, a sawed off twelve gauge pump, two pistols, a double-barrel shotgun, a 30.06 rifle, sheath knives, and wrist watches. The long guns all had slings, which made them easier to carry. One of the Slavers had a leather bag that was full of old silver quarters, maybe fifty dollars or so in actual cash value Beth guessed. Then she saw that one boy had collected three handguns and handed them to her. She looked them with a critical eye.

“Do any of you have any firearm training?” she asked. “Don’t lie to me, it’s important that I know.”

One boy who looked to be about eleven raised his hand and said he was a member of the NRA and did a lot of shooting with his dad before the war. Others had their hands raised as well. She selected the older boys and made sure they were armed. She explained,

“I’m Beth and since we’re now a team, I will observe you and we’ll turn this group into a semi-military unit. Everyone understand that?”

They all murmured something and nodded their heads. It was time to get back to Matthew and Glory.

“I have a couple of more kids behind that rock,” she said absently. “Once we get them, we need to be making tracks out of here because there may be more Slavers coming this way.” Taking further stock of her surroundings, she continued, “It looks to me this is a well-worn path and someone may have heard the shot I fired.”

She did an about face and approached Matthew and Glory, who hadn’t moved from the spot she put them in. At first they were intimidated when they saw all the others, but it didn’t last long. Everyone was thirsty, so they took a good drink and shoved off in single file a few minutes later.

They traveled a bit off the trail that appeared to be very used and worked their way toward the tree line off to the right. The two five-gallon water bottles that Beth and Matthew had been carrying on their backs were now carried by two of the older boys.

It was rugged terrain with sticker bushes everywhere and it was still desert here so they had to be especially aware of where they walked and where they put their hands and feet. They looked and didn’t see any snakes, but they saw an occasional jack rabbit darting off away from their approach, a centipede crawling on a rock, and a dog that stared at them from a distance, but quickly darted out of sight. They found themselves climbing a little at a time as they walked.

In a few hours they stopped in an area that had shelter and posted a couple of lookouts. One guarded the rear and the other watched ahead. Beth made everyone understand the dangers of the situation by saying,

“Keep a sharp eye peeled for bad guys because we don’t need a firefight with anyone. We are poorly armed and would probably all wind up dead or slaves when the fight was over, so make sure you pay attention. Don’t stand out in the open either; hide behind something. Do you need any water before you go?”

The two that would be standing guard drank a little water and walked off toward their assigned areas. Beth wanted to take a few minutes to do an inventory of what they had, which amounted to fifty rounds of loose pistol ammo, fifteen rounds of shotgun shells, ten rounds of 30.06, four sheath knives, a folding Buck, a cowboy lariat, three pistols, a couple of wrist watches, several canteens, some silver coins, and minimal food.

The two bad guys had several packets of MREs, a few candy bars, three packs of cigarettes, Marlboro Reds, a Cuban Cigar, about a hundred strike anywhere matches, several cans of Campbell’s Soup, and a quart of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. She unscrewed the cap and took a sip. It burned all the way down and continued to burn until a rosy feeling enveloped her for a couple of minutes and then passed.

She decided to wait to feed the kids and concentrated on keeping everyone hydrated. After about an hour of rest, she sent two boys to tell the sentries that they were moving out and for them to re-join the group.

Chapter 25 Cabin in the Woods

After two grueling hours of climbing over loose rock and hard pan, they came to a ridge. On the other side was a cliff that was nearly, but not totally, a sheer drop-off straight down to the valley floor. In the distance, although she couldn’t see it, Beth knew Bakersfield was there, though she had no idea its current condition.

Off to her right was a very old cabin that looked to be abandoned and sat on a shelf near the cliff. She motioned for all of them to get down, and she put her fingers to her lips and looked at them. They got the message as she crawled forward, ran a few yards hunched over at the waist, and then crawled some more until she arrived at the side of the old cabin.

It was the color of rust with black streaks running with the grain, mixed with a few scatterings of dark brown stains. It was weathered and definitely old, and the roof was made of tin sheeting. She wasn’t surprised to see there was no glass in the windows, just old shutters. One hung there by a single nail and would not open or close.

She eased toward the opening, crouching down as she moved and reached down to pick up a few pebbles. When she got to the door, she threw them inside and they clattered on the floor. Three birds burst out the door and away from the cabin, flapping their wings and squawking as they departed. The abruptness nearly caused her to pee her pants.

Once she had taken a few deep breaths, she eased her head around the doorsill and looked in. On the floor in one corner was a human skeleton, and another was lying on the old bed next to it. She nearly laughed as she considered that she had almost emptied her revolver in a moment of panic. What would the children have thought if she had shot at a bunch of birds or a human carcass?

The fleeting thought passed, but she giggled as it went through her mind and she quickly regained her composure, chastising herself for thinking such frivolous thoughts. “Those kids out there were looking for guidance and leadership, not some silly school girl joke.” She reminded herself that she had to stay focused.

As she looked inside, she saw an old pot-bellied wood stove on the opposite side of the cabin with its chimney still intact. She moved inside with caution, her pistol pointing up and both hands on the cocked weapon. There was a makeshift cupboard against one wall covered with old burlap bags tacked in place. On the floor next to the stove was a pile of sticks, “kindling”, she suspected, for the stove. She lifted the burlap away from the cupboard and there were about fifty cans of food stacked in neat little rows on the shelves.

There was a old, reusable tin with a screw-on lid full of coffee and several cans of evaporated milk. None of the staples looked very old. On the wall, hung by rusty nails, were skillets and a few pots and there was a makeshift sink and counter top made from old wooden boxes. A few books were lying on the floor near the old bed.

Against the wall were three rifles, several boxes of shells, and jeans and shirts on each of the skeletons. Around their waist was a pistol belt and revolver. The skeletons both had watches on their wrists and it was apparent that no one had been by here and found this treasure trove. Up above the bed was a large nest the size of a football, and the wasps inhabiting it were busily coming and going and meandering on the outside. She kept an eye on them as she moved around.

She walked out of the cabin, stood by the doorway, and motioned for the children to come to her. They all approached quietly, not as ordinary kids, but like little robots devoid of happiness, stoic and displaying no emotion.

She stood leaning against the doorway, watching them come toward her and she thought about them more in that moment than at any other time prior to this very second. It seemed she was too busy trying to keep things together to be bothered with talking or interacting with any of them for fear she might forget one little detail that would cause one or all of them to be killed.

Here she was a twenty-six year old woman with a degree in accounting from the University of California at Los Angeles and about to finish her third year as a Federal Special Field Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and she was suddenly out in the mountains bordering the High Desert with twelve children. She found this almost bizarre beyond belief! When they reached her, she raised her palm up for them to stop and they did.

“Is there anyone among you afraid of dead people?” she asked.

Almost all of them raised their hands. She studied them and saw that two boys appeared to be serious and didn’t have their hand ups; they were both a bit older than the rest of the children.

“You, and you,” she pointed to them, “Come here in the cabin with me.”

Almost through the door, she turned and called over her shoulder as an afterthought,

“The rest of you stay there and don’t move; we’ll be back out in a minute. And stay away from the edge of that cliff!”

Once inside, she pointed to the dead bodies, studying the faces of the two boys as she spoke,

“We need to get rid of these bodies, but we need to search them first and find out what’s on them. Then we need to bundle them up in something and get the bones out of here so the others won’t be scared, understand? Watch out for the wasps, don’t piss them off.”

They both nodded in clear understanding.

“What’s your name?” she asked, speaking to the boy closest to the door. “Let’s start with you first.”

“I’m David Driscoll, but my friends call me Davey.”

She looked at the other boy and he said,

“I’m Tom Wyatt.”

“Are your parents still alive?”

They both moved their heads from side to side.

“I’m sorry, boys,” she said sincerely.

“Let’s get this done so we can eat; there’s enough food here to feed everyone.” She felt a deep sadness for these children. They had lost everyone they loved and trusted.

They moved quickly to take everything that was serviceable from the dead and put the bones in an old sack over by the cupboard. The two boys carried the sack outside and Beth guided them around the back of the cabin to place the sack on the ground. She handed one gun belt and pistol to Tom and the other pistol and belt to Davey. She said in a soft voice,

“These are yours from now on. Look around for the bullets when we search the cabin later.”

She went outside and found the children patiently standing there waiting. “Anyone hungry?”

The smiles brightened up their faces like turning on a light switch in a dark room. The children suddenly became children and were excitedly talking and crowding to get in the door. She had to tell them not to crowd and as they went in, each and every one of them looked around and pushed forward. Beth shouted above the noise they were making in order to be heard.

“This is Tom Wyatt and this boy is David Driscol; they are our helpers. This young man is Matthew Dempsey and he’s my personal assistant. We must work together as a group and as a team; does everyone understand? Also, don’t do anything that will make the wasps up there angry, okay? If we leave them alone, maybe they’ll leave us alone, but I don’t trust them.”

Everyone nodded and smiled and one boy said, “Where’s the food?”

She went to the cupboard and pulled the fourteen cans of baked beans off the shelves. She examined them and none appeared rusted or were swollen, so she took the small Swiss knife she had in her pocket and flicked out the can opener tool. She took down one of the pans hanging on a nail and poured the beans into it. Six cans later it was nearly full and she reached for another pot, opened the nine cans of Spam, chopped the meat into small pieces, and added it to the beans. They dug in with their fingers and ate ravenously.

There were also fifteen cans of peaches, so they each got one can and kept the other two for later. They tipped the contents into their mouths and ate slovenly; those peaches tasted mighty fine. Beth looked at Glory just as she finished her peaches, and the little girl let out a huge belch. Everyone laughed about it, including Glory.

They sat with their backs to the rough walls of the cabin and were content. That was the most food any of them had eaten in a week. The three boys, Davey, Tom, and Matt walked out the back of the cabin. Beth surmised they were showing off the bones of the bodies and she was lost in a day dream when the boys came back.

She was suddenly tired and it wasn’t because of her period, she hadn’t had one of those in a couple of months. She knew she wasn’t pregnant, that it was just the lack of nutrition and water and, of course, the added stress had done a number on her. Matthew touched her on the shoulder and made her jump. It scared him because he had seen her in action and he was slightly afraid of her; he knew she was nobody to fool with.

“What is it Matthew?”

“We found something.”

It was difficult getting up, but she managed and wearily walked out of the cabin after the boy. He didn’t say anything as he walked straight away. A few hundred feet behind the cabin was a large cave in the side of the mountain. It’s opening came into view as she approached, but because of the way it was positioned, she was certain it could not be spotted with a telescope or any other viewing aid. She saw that Tom and David were already inside the old mine.

“Look around,” she said as she got closer, “and see if you can find anything to light our way.”

“There’s a lamp in the cabin,” Davey chimed up.

She nodded and he ran to fetch it and soon returned with the lamp. She dug down in her pack and got out a single match from her pack and carefully put the rest of them away. She set the lamp down, took the glass mantle off, and raised the wick.

“Here goes nothing.”

She struck the match and quickly cupped the flame with both hands, brought it to the wick, and watched the lamp come to life. She turned the wick down and put the mantle back on the lamp. The mantle was loose so she had to be careful not to drop it as she walked. The four of them eased into the mine slowly and carefully. She knew these old mines had open areas that fell straight down hundreds of feet and there would be no surviving that kind of fall. Slowly their eyes became accustomed to the dim interior and as they walked, it occurred to her that leaving those children unaccompanied wasn’t a good idea, so she said to Davey,

“Go back and make sure the children are safe. We shouldn’t leave them unattended.”

His facial features were a little difficult to see clearly but she heard the disappointment in his voice,

“Aw gee, do I hafta?”

“Yep. You know it’s best; I don’t want one of them falling off the cliff or wandering off and getting lost; scoot mister.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was gone and they continued inching into the mine. The mantle was warm enough now not to smoke so she turned the wick up for more light. She thumped up against something hard and bending down, she saw that it was a metal box with an open padlock, and the lid was open as well. There was something else next to the box, another skeleton that was fully dressed. The shirt had a large blood stain on the front and there was a revolver lying on the ground next to one of the boney hands.

She looked down in the box and found fifteen leather bags. One was lying on the ground next to the dead man and the glittering gold dust sparkled in the dim light. She picked the bag up and spilled a little of the gold, so she quickly closed the bag with the draw string. It was heavy maybe five or six pounds, possibly more; it was hard to tell.

Her training led her to conclude that when the bombs went off, the three men decided to terminate their partnership and they ended up killing each other in the process. She wondered how they knew about what had happened from way up here unless one of them had just returned with groceries from down below and brought the news back, as well. No one would ever know the full story, but one thing she did know… there was a fortune in gold here. Regardless of what had happened here, the gold was real enough.

They picked the leather bags out of the box and carried them, two at a time, to the entry of the mine and then returned to retrieve the box. Beth guessed wrong, it wasn’t fifteen bags; it was actually thirty bags of gold stacked one on top of the other. She did a quickie calculation in her head at sixteen ounces to a pound times about five or so pounds to a bag and maybe, depending on the market of gold, about five hundred dollars an ounce and that came to about forty-eight thousand dollars a bag times thirty. There was a whopping one million, two hundred thousand dollars sitting at their feet.

In a real world that might mean something, but with everything in such a chaotic state she wasn’t certain if the gold was of any value at all. She figured they should take three of the bags with them and bury the rest here. If there were ever a need, she could always come back because she didn’t know if or when a bag or two might buy them out of an unpleasant situation.

They searched the other body and stripped everything from it as well… another pistol and belt, a jack knife, matches, a wrist watch, and a great cowboy hat for someone. After they buried the box and noted the position via triangulation and using her compass and pacing off the distances, she carefully noted the places on her map and made herself a few notes; she knew she could find this place again. She decided to call it a night. She still wasn’t through exploring that old mine but they walked back to the cabin for now because everyone was tired. Some of the children were already asleep when they got there. The buzzing of the wasps was all she heard, but soon she sat down with her back to a wall and fell asleep too.

The morning came quickly; it seemed they only went to sleep a little while ago. Beth had the boys and a couple of the girls help prepare their breakfast of green beans, stewed tomatoes, okra, and fruit cocktail, followed by ample water. She decided to go back into the mine and this time, because she was thinking a little clearer, she posted sentries with rifles from where they had come.

She stepped out of the cabin into the blazing sunshine and saw it was already hot. Staring off into the distance at the blue sky, she saw a few white puffy clouds drifting toward the East and a hawk looking for its breakfast. She had to pee, so she went toward the mine and turned right into the trees. That’s when she saw it. A burrow that was still tied to a tree, and it had died right there. The poor thing probably simply starved to death. Now it was little more than a pile of bones with some of the hide still covering its skeleton. She felt sad. This place was a tragic tale told in death and misery over riches, and, for this little burrow, neglect.

It was the same old story she had seen many times at the Bureau; it was always about money or sex or both. She was hardened by the life she led but she was good at what she did. She heard the nasty little comments by some of the other agents when she was in training and vowed to best them all; she finished at the top of her class. She body slammed one guy in particular during a Judo class, hurting him and putting his attitude about her in proper perspective. She smiled as she recalled the incident.

In the morning when everyone was fresh and had a good night’s sleep, they would move on. She found a good place to pull her jeans down and empty her bladder. It felt good and when she was done she got herself presentable and walked away. She wanted to check out the mine a little bit during daylight hours. Back at the cabin, she laid down the rules about wandering off and going over toward the cliff. The boys were placed on guard and she, Matt, and Davey went to the mine.

They walked about fifty feet past where they found the skeleton and the box full of gold and found another box with two smaller boxes next to it. Inside the large box was dynamite labeled fifty percent. She knew that signified the sticks were fifty percent nitro-glycerin.

Good stuff.

The smaller box contained dynamite caps, the non-electric type. They almost didn’t see another box that contained fuses, the burning kind that can be lit with a match. She examined the dynamite carefully and it didn’t appear to have any nitro leaking out of it anywhere. It was customary to turn the box 180 degrees periodically to prevent leakage.

They dragged the boxes out of the cave and decided they were keepers. She loaded about twenty sticks with the caps and fuses by making a hole in the stick of dynamite on one end in the center, placing a twelve inch fuse in the cap, crimping the fuse with a pair of crimping pliers that were in the box with the fuses, and then burying it down into the stick.

The twelve-inch fuse had about a thirty-second delay. To be sure, they took a piece off the roll and lit it to see how long it would take and thirty-seconds was adequate for their purposes. Beth measured it from her index finger to her elbow, just a little more than twelve inches, but good enough. The critical point was the second hand on her watch and although it didn’t have to be exact, she needed it to be fairly accurate. It was a measurement her dad used to say was a “just about” since it needed to be “just about so long.”

After they had supper, the children got re-energized and went outside to play. As darkness settled in on them they turned in for the night, only this time they posted sentries. In the morning they would continue pushing forward toward that big ranch up there in those mountains. She said a small prayer that it was still there when they arrived!

Chapter 26 The Children’s Brigade

Beth’s small group moved away from the cabin and mine with reluctance. They did the charitable thing and buried the three sets of bones before leaving with the picks and shovel they found at the excavation site. Beth split the loads of gold, dynamite, and food between all the children before they moved out in single file.

The going was somewhat cooler though still difficult due to the terrain. It was rocky but in the shade from the tall ponderosa pines it was less of a challenge. They stopped frequently so the smaller children, like Glory, could remove the load they carried and rest. The fierce and persistent gnats and biting flies buzzing around their faces tormented them all.

After the brief rest, they pushed on. Beth frequently took out her small pocket compass, which guided them due north. Traveling a compass course wasn’t like putting the needle on north and walking. The changes were frequent and had to be adjusted in order to stay on track.

After three hours of walking, broken up by fifteen minute rests every hour, they came out of the thinning trees and arrived on an old dirt road that ran both north and south. It was tempting to follow it north but she knew that was a foolish move. Traveling on an open road provided little protection. In fact, it would expose them to anything or anyone coming or going, and since her group consisted mostly of children, she couldn’t risk the contact.

The rocky outcroppings were long behind them and the trees were getting fewer, making the group vulnerable here. She needed to move them to an area with more places to hide or somewhere that offered more protection. She heard them coming well before they reached her and her group.

“Run toward the trees,” she screamed at the children. “Run!”

They ran deeper into the trees and she yelled, “Stop! Quick, lay down on the ground!”

Everyone went down on their stomachs, hugging the dirt. Seconds later the Slavers cruised by on dirt bikes, oblivious to the small mounds off to one side. They passed, leaving a large dust cloud hovering in some places and swirling in others. She decided it was going to be a better plan to go back into the trees than to stay out here exposed like they were. That was close.

“They’re gone. Everyone move back toward the trees.” Beth said in a loud voice after reconsidering her strategy, “Quickly!”

The small group trudged back into the sparse trees and turned north. As they walked the trees became separated by larger distances, stretching off into long rolling yellow grass-covered hills. She saw a few rock outcroppings here and there but no wide profusion of them. The trees stood alone or in small groups separated by as much as several hundred feet before coming to another.

The road was down and away from them as they traveled this high prominence, and it was unlikely they would be seen unless they remained here for a long time. Several children whined about wanting to rest but she drove them on. They had to find another place with more cover away from this highly exposed area where they found themselves.

In another hour they were on higher ground and there were thickets of trees again. Here, under the pines and the scatterings of golden Madrona trees, they found a level spot that was under a heavy accumulation of pines, peeled off their loads, and sat or laid down in the shade. Beth asked the boys carrying the water to go among the others and make sure they drank some of it.

It would have been easy to close her eyes and fall off to sleep. She was nodding as her mind raced off into a distant time and she was at Quantico, Virginia on the firing line. The command to stop firing was given and the students stopped shooting. She knew she did well; her dad taught her early on how to shoot and she was good at it. The targets were reeled in and her instructor eyed her grouping and grunted but smiled at her and moved to the next target and student. Her hits were all in the center, a nice grouping sitting inside a space the size of an apple; the guy would be dead if it had actually been a man. The student next to her was admiring her grouping.

“Nice group, little lady. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

A tugging at her arm caused the dream to evaporate. It was one of the smaller girls from the group and she was holding something in her hand. It wriggled and squirmed and the girl said,

“Look at the big worm I found.”

Beth looked at it and suddenly found herself backing away as she scooted on her butt. She slapped the girls arm and the baby rattler fell to the ground, then she shoved the girl away from it and the child fell to the ground, rolled, and began to cry. Beth stomped the small snake repeatedly until she was satisfied it was dead and said,

“Where’d you find that thing?” she asked in a loud voice, trying not to scare the child any further. “Where?”

The girl pointed and there were other children dancing around the small snakes that were coming out of a small hole in the ground. As Beth screamed, they turned and looked at her like little robots.

“Get away from those things!”

The children understood there was danger in Beth’s voice and as they moved away from the snakes, she ran over to them and stomped the snakes to death. When she was satisfied they were all dead she asked,

“Was anyone bitten by those things?”

They didn’t speak; they were too afraid. She examined the children and checked their arms, hands, and legs for any tell-tale signs of bites and was satisfied that they had gotten lucky this time. There were no obvious bites, so she raised her head to the blue sky above and said under her breath.

“Thank you, God, for sparing these children one more time.” She regained her composure before addressing the group with a finality in her voice.

“Let’s go; we’re moving away from this spot.”

The kids picked up their packs and loads and moved out. They walked slowly away toward the north grumbling and complaining. Beth absentmindedly took out her compass and looked at it. Satisfied with what she saw, she walked to the front of the children and took the lead.

In another hour they were all tired so she decided it was a good place for a break.

“Look around,” she instructed, not wanting to risk another bad decision. “Make sure there’re no more worms or ant hills and be careful where you sit down.”

“There are bees coming out of the ground over here,” Jimmy yelled.

They moved again and this time there was no danger to the children when they all sat down and removed the loads they carried.

Beth looked around and saw they were on the side of a large sweeping hill that was laid out in a rolling undulating panorama of one yellow hill merging into the next, and it was that way as far as she could see. Once again they were in an exposed situation only this time they couldn’t move on; they were going to be here for awhile. There was no way they could adjust their position but on second look, she saw, way down below the hills, what appeared to be a winding valley.

It might be an old creek or river bed that snaked its way through the hills. The cottonwood trees appeared to follow some sort of path, and where there are green trees there is water, she surmised, and the walk was only a couple of miles. If she was wrong, the climb back up here on this prominent place was going to be grueling. No matter where they went from here, other than down to those trees, it was going to be uphill all the way. She decided to go for it once everyone was rested. She was tired and knew they were as well.

In an hour they headed down toward the small valley below. It was a steep walk and she worried the whole time that someone would fall and roll down that long hill like a bouncing ball. In a couple of hours they were under a clump of cottonwood trees and no one was any worse for the trek, other than being tired. The children talked and laughed, and Beth thought they were beginning to sound more like normal children again, especially considering how meek and scared they were when she first met them.

She decided to get some food out so they all could eat a little. She had a dozen cans of applesauce to top off their meal of canned spaghetti and mini meatballs. One water container from Glory’s hidden closet was empty and they left it there. What remained were the full canteens and the other five gallon bottle. She decided to split it between the full bottle and the empty one but there was no lid or stopper and it would probably slosh around if she did that.

Changing her mind, she decided against that plan; they couldn’t afford to lose a single drop. There was no water here in this place but she did have a plan. When they finished eating she had them bury the trash; it was best to leave this place as unnoticeable as they could in case anyone came along behind them. They kept several of the empty cans for later.

After a few of hours of walking along the old creek bed, they came to an area that displayed a large outcropping of enormous rocks jutting out of the ground and camped below one of them for the night. It was a cold night, so the children slept together in a group like puppies to keep warm.

Beth dug a hole in the middle of the creek bed, cut some vegetation from the plants growing at random, and lined the hole with the green vegetation. She set one of the applesauce cans down in the hole, spread a piece of plastic sheeting over the hole, and put rocks around the edges of the plastic to hold it in place. Then she cut a small hole in the middle of the plastic and placed a small rock in the middle of the sheet and it stretched it downward to make it look a bit like a crater.

In the morning, hopefully, there would be some water in the applesauce can from the humidity of the ground and the vegetation. She turned in for the night after she set up another couple of the older kids with rifles to stand guard.

In the morning they finished the last of the food, thankful that everyone was sufficiently full. The water was going fast so she went over to her homemade water still and saw that the can was half full. She tried it and it tasted like applesauce so she drank it all, dismantled the still, and put everything in her pack.

It was almost time to move out. She gathered the boys with rifles and pistols and drew a picture of a circle on the ground with a stick.

“This circle is your target,” she looked up at the boys to make sure they understood her.

Then she drew the letter “U” just below the circle and said,

“This is the rear sight on the pistols and rifles.” All eyes were on her. “Can everyone see that?”

Then she drew a double line inside of the “U” and connected the two vertical lines with a small bar at the top of them.

“This represents the front sight on the weapons; notice that the distance between the two sides is the same and the circle sits on top of the sights. When you sight in on a target take a breath, hold it, and place the sights on the target just like this drawing. Squeeze the trigger slowly and when your weapon fires it should be a surprise. If you squeeze it quickly, you will jerk the rifle and miss what you’re aiming at; any questions?”

Many of them nodded to show they understood.

“To help you shoot straight, steady your rifle on the ground, against a tree, or resting on anything that’s solid. It will help keep it from weaving around. You must have the sights on your target if you expect to hit it.”

She had little to validate that they “got it” other than to have them repeat it all back to her. “Okay Tom, go over what I said.”

They listened to him as he gave it back nearly word for word.

“Very good, now you do the same.” They all repeated what she said until she was satisfied that they understood. It was imperative that they did because their lives, and hers it seemed, could very well depend on it.

“Okay boys, one last thing. We don’t have tons of bullets so every shot must be a good one; if you miss it could be the cause of one or all of us dying. If you do it the way I just showed you, you’re going to do just fine. We have to make every shot fired count, understand?”

She looked over at the youngster, who was an NRA member and asked him directly, “What was your best shot?”

“Excuse me?” he asked, a bit surprised that his score would matter at this point and not fully understanding where she was coming from.

“How far was the best shot you ever fired?” She reworded the question.

A look of understanding came on his face and he said without hesitation, “Three hundred yards.”

“You aren’t lying to me, are you?” Beth had to be sure. “This isn’t the time for showing off.”

“No Ma’am,” he replied, with eyes annoyed at the thought of being doubted. “I got a trophy and everything.”

“Okay, you will be the group’s sniper. Are you afraid to kill someone?”

“If it’s a Slaver,” he nearly spat it out, “I have no problem.”

“What’s your name?” Beth asked, realizing that “sniper” probably wasn’t a valid name.

“Jasper, ma’am,” he said in a very polite manner, extending his neck a bit as his name rolled out, “Jasper Smith.”

She believed he had made the shot because he said it with a conviction that was unmistakable. She turned to the others, looked each one in the eye, and asked them the same question… and they all had a hard look as they nodded their heads.

“You have to be sure boys” This was a time that called for unadulterated honesty. “This isn’t a game; it is all about whether any of us will live or die after the dust settles.”

She looked at them and was satisfied they would be able to shoot if necessary. They would be tested for real if and when the time came.

She knew an agent who was a boastful kind of guy and always talked about if and when the time came to face off with a bad guy, and to listen to him tell the story, he was all heroes rolled up into one man. He was shot in the head during the first firefight because he hesitated, even though he had the advantage of the draw.

So much for the big mouth hero.

They didn’t have long to wait to test their skills. As they continued through the small valley following the old creek, they came to an opening and dead ahead was a camp of Slavers with tents set up and motorcycles parked all over the place. Some of them were riding in circles and shooting guns into the air. Dust was spreading into the air resembling an explosion.

They were screaming and yelling and just having a great time. Off to one side below some small trees were captives tied to a rope that stretched between two of the sturdier trees. They looked pitiful, gaunt, dirty, and listless, as if the energy inside of each of them was gone. There were three men and four women. There were no children in sight.

Beth backed away a few hundred yards and the group waited until it was dark and until she had discussed the plan with the older, armed boys. They would sneak in and see what they could do for the captives and retrieve the food, if there was any. They were to be sharp; no talking and no noise. Each boy not only had a sidearm, but also a rifle or shotgun and a sheath knife. In addition, she gave each boy three sticks of dynamite and several matches out of her precious little stockpile. The younger children were sent further back and away from harm. On her command the boys moved slowly toward the camp, crouched over. She placed Jasper in the middle and behind her.

The camp was well lit with flares tied to poles and burning with an evil-looking, malevolent red glow. The whole camp flickered with red shadows and the smell of sulfur. Three boys went right, three went left, and Beth would come from straight on. She looked to see where her boys were and was satisfied with their positions. Jasper lay on the ground and spread his legs apart wide as he was taught to do and steadied himself for the first shot.

She lit the fuse of one stick and counted to ten by saying one thousand, two thousand… and tossed the first stick next to the largest of the tents. It went off with a deafening explosion. It even surprised her how loud it was and dirt rained down over her. There were several Slavers standing by one of the campfires and they were thrown up into the air and then back down to the ground. Others heard the first shots and as the Slavers stood up they fell right back down.

Several came out of the other tents and a second stick was thrown close by. Another huge explosion threw them into the air and Beth wasn’t sure, but it looked like a lot of pieces of them were flying around. The explosion and the subsequent shock wave hit her and it felt as if someone had slammed her with a hard pillow. She discovered her nose was bleeding and thought she might have a concussion from the blast.

Shots were being fired but she couldn’t tell from where they were coming, then she saw the shooter. He was off to the side of the camp with a shotgun and was firing wildly at shadows. She took careful aim and squeezed the trigger; he went down. Another Slaver was shooting wildly at anything that seemed to move and she took aim but before she could fire, a shot rang out and he spun around and went down.

It was Jasper taking care of business. She felt so proud of those boys, she could hardly stand it. They were good shooters after all and true to their word about being able to kill when necessary. A Slaver came up behind her without her being aware and grabbed her; she tried to get to her knife but could not reach it. A shot rang out and he went down in a crumpled pile. It was Tom Wyatt and he waved at her. Several more Slavers jumped on their dirt bikes, kick-started them, and took off. She fired at one and it looked like she got him, but he didn’t fall and instead rode off leaving behind a trail of dust.

Beth went over to the rope tether and let the hostages go. They were so undernourished they hardly knew they were free. One man thanked her and said,

“Come here, I want to show you something.”

She followed him and off to one side of the camp was a pile of bones. All small bones of children, more than thirty of them. It was too much for her and she bent over and vomited. The boys came to her side and one of them rubbed her back. Just when she thought it was over, she convulsed and retched some more.

The entire camp was on fire and dead bodies were lying all over the ground. Many of the Slavers had limbs blown off and they had lots of side arms on them. Once Beth recovered, she had the boys go around and collect all the food, weapons, and water.

“If you see any clothing and blankets or anything else of value, take those too.”

Beth picked up a shotgun that was lying on the ground and checked to see if it was still loaded. In the eerie red light from the torches all around the camp, she saw a Slaver laying there with a leg blown off. As he begged her for mercy, she blew his head off with a blast of the shotgun. The boys cut the throats of those who appeared to still be alive and left them there for the bugs and birds to pick their bones.

Chapter 27 The Trek Continues

During a search of the Slavers, Beth found a map and spread it out on the rock before her so she could study it in detail. As best she could determine, Bishop was off to the right about fifteen miles from this spot, which is how she had planned it. Approaching Bishop to the left was safer than coming at it head on.

She saw a road that led from Bishop over to the coast, but it bore straight into a small town by the name of Fitch. The road continued toward the west, bypassing Fitch and then split in three directions according to what she could see.

Another stretch of the highway went south toward Chico and one more bore right and headed north toward Mount Shasta. It was an interesting intersection. There must have been a reason for Fitch being located there. As far as she could tell, it was a small town of no particular significance. As in her approach to Bishop, she wanted to side-step this little town, if at all possible. If her memory served her correctly, the old railroad track bed was somewhere over to the left of Fitch but did not show up on the map.

There was plenty of food from the ambush, and the children and captives were eating as she came over to them and sat down. Glory offered her a tin can full of pork and beans and she accepted, realizing just how hungry she was. Tom Wyatt strolled over to her carrying a pair of binoculars in his hand. He stopped in front of her, handed her the field glasses, and smiled. She took them and examined them for a moment.

They were great glasses… 8x50 zoom with “wide vision,” whatever that meant! They looked new, hardly used at all. She put them up to her eyes to try them out, and off in the distance, she saw a tree standing alone. As she focused the lenses, first one and then the small slider that brought the two sides together into sharp focus, she shifted the zoom slider and everything came toward her.

“These are going to come in handy.”

She spoke the words to no one in particular, just a comment of admiration… and then she saw the movement. It was subtle but he was there, a man on a dirt bike near a rock. He had a pair of binoculars and was looking at her group. He let the glasses rest against his chest and the bike began to move toward Bishop. The man was studying her and the children and that could mean trouble. They needed to get moving before he could come back with reinforcements. They were no match for armed men. They were just children after all.

“Everybody!” She was talking in a loud voice, but not screaming. “Listen to me!”

They all looked at her and when she thought they were paying attention, Beth continued, “We may be in for company. I want everyone to gather up their things and form a group over there.” She pointed to the place where she wanted them to gather. “We’ll be leaving this place in a little while.”

They stirred at her request to move, though some still ran in play, not fully aware of their circumstances. One of the captives came toward her and she studied him as he walked. She remained seated as he approached.

“Hi, I guess I should introduce myself, I’m Doctor Len Stroud.”

“Are you a medical doctor?”

“No, I’m a dentist. That is, I was before the war.”

“You’re still a dentist, Doctor Stroud.”

“Please, it’s Len.”

“Okay, Len it is. I’m Beth Kelly; it’s nice to meet you.”

He smiled and she saw that his teeth were perfect. She guessed it was one of the perks of being a dentist. Regardless, the man had a nice smile and he was tall and slender and not bad to look at. He seemed nice enough and when they shook hands, she noticed he had a firm grip.

“What’s your plan?” he asked. As he waited for an answer, she thought for a brief time and responded casually,

“Just a minute ago when I was testing out these new field glasses, I saw a man on a dirt bike. I’m positive Slavers are watching us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t try an attack, especially once they realize we’re mostly children.”

He looked to where she had indicated with the movement of her head and squinted his eyes but didn’t see anything.

“He’s gone,” she surmised. “He moved out just after I saw him. Do you have any military training?”

He smiled at her, showing those perfect teeth again, and said,

“Sergeant Leonard Stroud at your service, ma’am. U.S. Army Airborne.”

That was a stroke of luck. He saw the question in her eyes and followed up by saying,

“G.I. Bill.”

“What was that?”

“I got out after six years and went to dental school at U.C.L.A. using the G.I. Bill. I’m a Bruin, but don’t hold that against me.”

She was laughing and he wasn’t sure why; she saw the look and explained,

“I’m a Bruin also, Accounting.”

Now he was smiling.

“Do you have any objection to my grabbing one of those street sweepers over there? I’m sure I can do a better job with it than that kid.”

“Help yourself,” she answered, her voice betraying a slight annoyance, “But don’t ever underestimate those boys; they follow orders and they can shoot. They also have a lot more guts than some men I’ve met in my days.”

He smiled at her and asked, “Incidentally, are you ex-military as well?”

“Special Agent Beth Kelly,” she straightened up in an effort to mirror his formal Army introduction, “Federal Bureau of Investigation, at your service.” The temporary humor over she relaxed again, not having the energy to continue the charade. “I’ve been trying to evade those Slavers since right after the nukes began to fall. I hate those sickos more than anything I’ve ever hated in my life… all twenty-six years of it. How’d they get you?”

“Kind of an embarrassing story really; I was asleep under a tree when they came along, and the rest you know. I was with them for about ten days. I think that woman over there might be a little gone upstairs.” He was nodding toward a particular woman in ragged clothes. “I think they not only raped her, but ate her child in front of her.”

Beth looked over at the woman sitting on the ground, staring at nothing, and rocking back and forth. She looked devoid of any feeling or emotion whatsoever. She hadn’t eaten, from what Beth had seen, and it seemed she may have given up completely.

“Beth,” Matthew interrupted her train of thought, “I think those are motorcycles over there.”

He pointed, and when she looked she could see them sitting on their bikes looking at her little group from on top of the hill. It would take a few minutes for them to get to her people once they started down that hill.

“Everybody over here,” she immediately screamed at the kids as she jumped up. “Get behind those rocks over there, now!”

The children, hearing the edge in her voice, stopped playing and ran for cover. The woman who was staring at the ground just sat there.

“Tom and Davey; bring me some of that dynamite,” she directed. “Be quick!”

She started digging in her pack and found the Blue Tips in the plastic sandwich bag. She distributed the matches by giving five to Tom, five to David, and five to Len. Each of them took three sticks.

“Toss them when they get close enough to you to nearly be able to hit them with it,” her instructions were hurried. “Light it, count to ten, and throw!”

“These are thirty second fuses,” she said, turning to Len. “We test-burned a piece of one way back, so wait ten seconds before you throw. They work pretty well, but be careful. We have some decent fire power now between us. I wouldn’t trust anything longer than ten seconds. Now get movin’!”

“Children!” she yelled, looking around at all of them, “Stay hidden. Boys, make sure you keep each one of those creeps on the “O” before you fire!”

The bikes were moving toward them now, by twos and threes. She counted about thirty in total.

“Don’t fire until I tell you and make sure you’re behind some cover.” She was a bit quieter, speaking mainly to those in her immediate group. “Here they come, so get ready.”

As they watched the Slavers approach, they could see only hand guns. It made sense that they would only bring their handguns to this fight, as long guns would have been a little difficult to use while they were riding. They were headed straight for her little group.

“Get ready,” she hollered. “Get a good bead on them… steady now… not yet… not yet… NOW!”

Four of the Slavers went down in the yellow grass at the first volley and their motorcycles either fell or kept going and then fell. A loud boom went off and ten or more of them went flying through the air along with their dirt bikes. One bike landed on another biker and crushed him instantly. One more man blew into pieces and several bikes caught on fire.

A new loud boom went off and more of the scumbags went flying through the air. Five of them stopped, turned around, and headed toward the crest of the hill, back to where they had come. Her boys fired several more shots and several more bikers fell into the dirt. Another stick went off and at least a dozen bikers flew through the air.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” she yelled as a few more shots went off. “Cease firing!”

Suddenly everything was quiet. The yellow grass was burning fiercely and the blaze was moving away from them.

“Tom, Wyatt, everybody get over there and stomp out those fires or the whole place will go up in flames, hurry! Len, go around and check out those bikers and make sure they’re all dead. No survivors and no prisoners. We’ve all seen how they work and they don’t deserve any mercy… damn them!”

Len walked around and surveyed the dead and mutilated bikers. Some Slavers were still alive. He tapped one man with his foot and David ran over and slashed the man’s throat. Beth watched Len and saw that he was appalled.

“Hey Doctor,” Beth yelled, “Come over here.”

He walked toward her with his sub-machine gun hanging limp and pointing down at the ground from his grip on the handle. Before he reached her she said, her voice low and coming from deep inside her throat as if it was a growl, hoarse and hissing, “Let’s get something straight right now Mister. When I give you an order, you either do it or you can pack it up and get the hell out of here right now! We are not going to leave anyone who can come after us from behind if there is anything we can do to prevent it. Dead men don’t tell tales and I don’t want anyone giving anyone else any information about us. Those people are scum and none of them deserve mercy or any human charity from anybody. You got that Mister!?”

He stood there towering over her five foot-five stature. The man must have been close to six foot seven.

“We are not animals,” he said finally. “I am not an animal and I refuse to do that.”

She pulled the slide back on her sub-machine gun, made sure a round was chambered, stepped back about three feet, pointed the weapon toward his head, and screamed at him,

“Then you best be moving along partner, ‘cause you don’t belong with us anymore! Thanks for your help in the fight but we don’t want you with us any longer!”

She shouted at Tom and Davey,

“Make sure they’re all dead and then escort Doctor Len here out and away from us! If any of you ever see him again after today, shoot to kill! For now, give him food and water and make sure he leaves us!”

Several of the children were screaming and crying and scared witless. The woman, who was staring at the ground got up and went to them and motioned for them as she went down on her knees, encouraging them to come to her. She wrapped her arms around those who were crying and comforted them. One little girl was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm and the woman stroked her hair and they put their heads together.

“I’m waiting, Mister, and I suggest you don’t mess with me. I’ll off you so fast you won’t know you’re dead for a hundred years; I said git!”

“Is it too late to offer an apology?” His voice was soft and non-threatening. “Of course you’re right.”

She glared at him for a long moment, trembling with rage. No one knew what she was going to do until she dropped her weapon’s working end to the ground and slid the safety in place with her thumb. She said in a low voice as she made eye contact with the man when she spoke,

“Don’t ever challenge me again. The next time, I will shoot you dead and there will be no more conversations like this. The only reason I’m doing this is because I believe we may need your expertise later where we’re going. But you will obey me and I will not tolerate any insubordination, period. We are at war and I can’t afford to watch my back because I can’t trust someone. I offer no apologies; the only reason we’ve made it this far is because we have worked as a team. You can be a vital part of that team but you are not that important until you have proven yourself. Look at those boys over there; they aren’t boys anymore, they are men in mind if not in body and they are good soldiers; they do what they’re told. So it’s settled; we will talk no more of it.”

“Everybody,” she said, turning toward her small soldiers, “Let’s go through all these bodies, check them out, and see what they have on them. Gather up all the firearms and put them in the cart we picked up at the last Slaver’s Camp. Take it all… watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains around their necks, bullets, everything… don’t leave anything that can be used. Check out the bikes too; if you find anything on them, take it. None of these guys will be needing anything from now on. Burn the bikes in a pile.”

She turned to her three little warriors,

“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.” She had made up her mind. “We’re going to a place called Fitch.”

Chapter 28 Fitch

It was a good haul from the dead Slavers. Beth’s group had lots of arms and ammunition, an assortment of gold neck chains, bracelets, watches, rings, canteens full of water, pistols, sheath knives, folders, and some good clothing. It would all come in handy.

She decided to split some of the blankets in quarters, making squares out of them and then put a slit in the middle of each with her sheath knife. One of those over the heads of the children made for great makeshift coats, covering them down to their hip area. With a piece of rope or cloth tied around the middle, it stayed out of their way. If their arms got cold all they had to do was put them inside the blanket.

Most of the bikers had hats and she distributed them among the children and adults. They counted thirty-one dead Slavers lying on the ground that would feed birds, insects, and probably a few coyotes.

They stopped several times because the children needed to rest, eat, and drink some water. There was quite a bit of food on the bikes and that added to their stock, but every stop depleted it that much more. They would run out of food completely in another few days, at the latest. She was nibbling on a piece of dried fruit when the quiet woman who stared off into space all the time came walking toward her. Beth waited as she approached and stopped in front of her.

“If no one cares,” she asked emotionless, “could I have something to eat?”

Beth blinked and was caught without anything to say, but recovered quickly,

“Someone bring this woman something to eat.”

One of the younger boys ran over with a can full of pears and handed it to the woman. “Thank you very much,” she said in a soft voice that was barely audible.

She turned and walked back toward the children and sat down among several of them. They seemed to like her and sat close. She began to eat the fruit quietly.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Len asked as he walked up beside her.

Suspicious at the comment, she studied his face to see if there was any sarcasm in the remark. Not noticing any, she relaxed. She smoothed the map out and picked up a small branch that was laying off to one side of her foot.

“As best I can determine,” she said, pointing to an area on the map with the twig, “We are here.”

“If we continue our compass course in this direction we’ll be on the southern outskirts of Fitch, that’s this little town. I expect with the speed we’re traveling, we should make it there in another three or four days with lots of rest in between and stops to eat. The place I’m taking everyone to is over here, approximately. When I was a kid, I went there with my father and we camped out along the way. There is an old railroad track bed that skirts the side of the mountain and it will take us right to it. It is a large ranch house as I recall. I can’t remember that much about it but I remember it was very large, abandoned, and well equipped.”

Len reached over and picked up the map and studied it. He looked at it for a couple of minutes and traced his finger over an imaginary line he drew on it.

“Do you think it’s still there?” he asked. “I don’t see anything on this map that indicates anything’s there.”

“God, I hope it is,” she replied, making eye contact with him. “There’s no place else for us to go. In a few days, we’ll be out of food and I don’t think many of them will make it without food. I don’t even know what we’ll do when we get there if there’s nothing to hunt, but we have to focus on one problem at a time.”

She looked over at the woman and some of the smaller kids around her, and Len just nodded. She was right of course; few of them would make it. It was amazing to him they had made it this far.

In a half hour they were packed and ready to walk some more. There was no more trouble except for one small inconvenience. While they were walking toward Fitch, one of the children was playing with a kitty cat, except it wasn’t a kitty at all. It was a skunk and it seemed happy to be trotting along with the group and especially the children. She smelled it but didn’t realize it was actually traveling with them until she saw it.

One of the boys eventually enticed the smelly creature away with some canned meat and as it ate, they moved away in double time, putting distance between themselves and the smelly little animal.

They walked until nearly all of them were exhausted and needed to rest. The skies were clear and sunny and she prayed it didn’t snow or anything else to make their journey harder. In another hour, when everyone was complaining loudly, they found a spot to camp. There was a small stream dancing and playing on the rocks as it hurried away to some far off destination.

She saw a fish jump and thought they sure could use some fresh fish. It would do them a lot of good if they could catch a few and eat them. When she looked closer, there were several of them slowly swimming along unconcerned that they were about to become food.

“I learned an old Indian trick in survival school,” Len said, as he approached her side. “I think I can catch a few. Want me to try?”

She nodded so he went about making a fish trap in the stream bed by piling rocks up on two sides with an opening that was nearly as large as it was wide. It narrowed and made a couple of 90 degree turns and then opened into a large area again where he elevated the rocks, which made an enclosed pool that was higher than the water level. They stood back and watched the fish swim into the trap.

First it was one, then two, and then five; the kids were squealing with delight and made a game of it. Fifteen fish swam into the trap in twenty or so minutes and the kids began to catch them with their hands, which brought on another series of howls and laughter.

Beth decided that they would chance it and build a smokeless fire. They gathered stones, brought them to a spot where the fire would be, and placed them in a circle. The children gathered small dried sticks that would burn rapidly and wouldn’t make smoke. They got the fire burning fiercely and several children continued to gather and add more sticks to the fire.

They built a small inverted “U” brace with sticks to hold the fish. Then they found two branches, limbed them, and sharpened the bottoms. One of the children brought an empty tin can and as one person poured water on one side of the fire pit onto the ground, another rammed one of the pointed sticks up and down in the wet spot, burying it until it was down in the dirt about a foot and a half.

They did the other side the same way until that branch was buried as well, and they piled several rocks around the base of each branch to support them. A brace was formed off each one, coming down at a forty-five degree angle opposite the direction where the weight was going to be placed against the top piece. It was finished off with a cross piece from one fork to the other that made a brace across the top.

They gutted the fish and stuck them on a sharpened stick laid against the top brace at an angle near enough to the fire but not right over it. The fish began to cook and in fifteen minutes they were dripping juices while everyone gathered around the fire and stared at them.

No one said anything, but the smell nearly had some of them drooling as they thought about how good the fish was going to taste. In the meantime there were more fish in the trap, which took care of the problem of having enough to go around. Everybody was hungry, and Beth was happy there was going to be enough fish to go around. She felt like she could eat five or six of them herself.

They posted watch from the four cardinal positions on a clock, one at twelve o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock, and nine o’clock out and away from the camp, which left plenty of space for the rest of them to defend themselves, if necessary.

When the meal was done, most of the children gathered around the silent woman and fell fast asleep. Beth nodded off and in her dream she was talking to her dad. He was saying,

“You’re a smart girl Beth, just like your mom, and if she was still alive, she would be so proud of you for what you’ve done with your life. You are what makes a man proud. You made my life complete and you filled the emptiness that was there after your mom died. You will make some man a lifelong companion someday and he will be as proud of you as I am. I hope you choose well and support him when that time comes. I hope I am alive to see it when it happens.”

He would not be.

He died when she was sixteen and left her determined to be all that she could be; she was still working on doing that.

She only had a couple of serious relationships over the years. Most of the men she had met and liked were flawed in some way but with serious introspection she decided it wasn’t just them, it was her too. She wanted a career.

The baby thing might be in the cards later, but right now she was building a life for herself that suited her and there was little that got in the way of that. In reality, she didn’t have the time required to build a relationship, so she stayed focused and solo. There was talk that she was a Lesbian and she scoffed at those little digs, but only to herself. She liked men almost too much, but she remained in control.

Occasionally, when the need was there, she could always get one for the night. “If there’s an itch,” she often said to herself, “Scratch it.”

It was a pleasant enough morning but cold, colder than usual. Looking off into the distance, she saw the mountain tops had snow on them. After all it was December something or other, so they were lucky it wasn’t colder. All of them had warm clothing now thanks to the dead Slavers and the weather seemed to be in some sort of a high with incredibly mild days lately. The evenings were cold and so were the mornings, but the days were great. She hoped the weather held together for another week.

They finished eating and began to walk after she checked her compass again. They were on the correct bearing to get to the southern end of Fitch, probably tomorrow afternoon. There were no signs of the Slavers so far and she felt grateful for that.

The food was getting low.

They had several fish packed away that they could nibble on between meals. She had left the bulk of the distribution of the food for the children. They walked and stopped and did it again until the last campout before they reached Fitch. It might be possible that they could do a little exploring and come away with some food. It was hard to tell what was what anymore.

They never knew if someone was going to take a potshot at them or not. There was that time before she headed toward the High Desert. She was approaching a motor home sitting in what looked to be a vacant RV Park and out of nowhere someone started shooting at her for no reason. She yelled at the shooter, “Federal Agent, put your weapon down!” and was met with, “Blow it out your ass, Federal Agent!”

It was the times they lived in. Maybe they would get lucky at Fitch and be welcomed. They would know the answer very soon.

“Let’s camp here for the night and set the watch!”

Tomorrow, they would walk a little longer. She wanted to go into Fitch and check it out.

Chapter 29 The Smell of Death

The walk was grueling. On the third hour of the march toward the big ranch, on this day and less than four or five days from the refuge, the quiet, simple woman fell over dead. They never knew her name or where she was from. They knew nothing at all about a human being who lived, loved, and suffered horribly and then died.

No one was sure of the date, but she had mourners and that was fitting; they laid her to rest in a shallow grave and stacked rocks on her final resting place. The only thing any of them knew was that she suffered at the hands of the Slavers and was never able to put it out of her mind or whatever was left of it. Many of the children had become attached to her in a way that children bond with certain people. Glory cried the rest of the day.

When the ceremony was over, they had to leave the dead behind and push on toward Fitch. Glory wanted to stay, but Beth explained to her that it was impossible to leave her because none of them were coming back this way, maybe ever. That did it and she fell into line with the others.

The funeral put them behind an hour and as they pushed on, it began to grind away on Beth. The final legs began to eat at her with indecision. She kept asking herself the “what ifs.” What if the ranch was no longer there? What if it was already taken over by Slavers? What if this and what if that; it nearly caused her to lose her resolve.

“It will be there,” she stopped herself, “And we will be safe.”

That solved the issue for her and she hurried a bit to catch up with the others. About another hour from Fitch, they stopped and ate one last time. They topped off the water and there was plenty for a week or so, but the food was gone with this meal. She didn’t say anything but some of them knew. When everyone had rested and eaten, they began to march again.

In another forty minutes, a large fly landed on her face and as she went to shoo it off, it stayed there and she had to physically remove it. Then another one landed and that one was swiped off her cheek. She noticed the others were shooing flies away from their faces and that was when she heard it… a low hum. The flies were getting thicker as they traveled toward Fitch. Once they rose to the top of a small hill and came out of the thick fir trees, she saw the fires. Half the town was on fire and the hum was louder from the flies. There were big shiny green flies, big shiny blue ones, and others; they were everywhere.

“Put something over your mouth and face,” she yelled to the others.

A fly flew into her mouth, and she spit it out and nearly puked. It was only with a massive effort that she didn’t lose her stomach contents. The flies were trying to get into everyone’s mouths, eyes, and ears. The children were screaming and everyone ran back into the woods and collapsed in a group pile for about fifteen minutes. They were all breathing hard from the effort. Beth felt like she hit a brick wall; what were they going to do now?

“What’s the matter, Mike?” Dan was standing in front of him, talking to him as he sat there, lost in thought. “You look bothered about something.”

“Wha… what was that?” Mike was caught off guard. “Sorry ‘bout that. What’d you say, Dan?”

“You looked like you were in a pretty deep thought. You look a little worried, too. What’s up?”

Mike stared off into the nothingness, although he looked as if he was looking at something specific.

“Dan,” he said, “When we were coming back from the Roach Hotel with the rest of the group, as I was coming to that really great vista of the valley below, you know the one where it is nearly straight down and curves around the mountain and the river looks like a silver ribbon…?”

“Yes,” Dan nodded in recognition. It had nearly taken his breath away every time he passed the area. “I know the place.”

“I saw something strange that day,” Mike was still staring at nothing, yet appeared to be looking at the scene he described. “There were an awful lot of fires down there, but it was so far away that I couldn’t tell what was going on and I am curious enough that I want to go back down and check it out again. Even at that distance, it’s close enough that it could one day affect us if we don’t have situational awareness of it.”

“You really think it matters?”

“It does to me.”

“Who will you take with you?”

Mike thought about it for a moment. “I’ll have to ask,” he finally responded, “But I think Roger will go, maybe Sam or Gregg, I’m not sure.”

“When? You got a time line?”

“As soon as possible. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling about something that I can’t put my finger on and the only way to know is to go down there and check it out. It’s more than just curiosity killing me. It just feels like something I have to do.”

“You still don’t know, do you? Caroline’s going to have a baby and she won’t like you going.”

“A baby? Caroline? I’m going to be a… me and Caroline?”

“That’s right my friend, you’re going to be a dad and I’m going to be in trouble for not keeping my big mouth shut. But I think you need to know before you go running off on some wild goose chase.”

Mike leaped to his feet and was out the door and headed for the clinic.

She was looking down the throat of a child when he came in, grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her into the air as the lozenge went flying across the room. She started to laugh and he stopped her with a kiss.

“What in the world has gotten in to you Michael?” she asked, breaking for air.

He kissed her again and she pressed against him a little, but then pushed him away and said, “Michael?”

“I just found out,” he said, the sound of slight disbelief still in his voice. “I’m gonna have a baby.”

“Now that’s going to be some trick Michael.”

“No, no, I mean you’re going to, we’re going to, you know what I mean.”

She was laughing and he had a look on his face of total non-understanding, and she laughed some more.

Special Agent Beth Kelly, Doctor Len, Davey, and Tom were on their stomachs crawling toward the small crest of the hill. From here, they were able to look into the town of Fitch with the field glasses.

They stopped, arms propped up on elbows and Beth swept the main street with the glasses. There were no lights on in any of the buildings, but the glow from various fires lit the place up. There didn’t appear to be anything moving down there, and the fires looked to be in their last stages.

There was a car in the street with the hood up and a bicycle lying on the sidewalk. Fire reflected in the window of a small shop and she could see the window was broken in a corner and glass was lying on the sidewalk; the pieces flickered as they reflected the fire in unison. It was a ghost town of sorts.

“We have to go down there,” she finally said, handing the glasses to Len and turning to Davey, “Go get Jasper and have him come back here with a rifle and tell him to bring lots of bullets.”

The boy took off running back to the others.

“It looks like something radical happened down there Len; what do you think?”

“Uh huh,” he was looking through the glasses. “Sure does.”

He handed the glasses back to her while motioning, “Look at the passenger side of that car.”

She looked and saw it too; someone was sitting there slumped against the window but low, almost slumped all the way down in the seat. The head was tilted up and turned away from them. All you could see was a dark shadow instead of hair. It was a person alright.

She swept the area several more times and could not see anything in the shadows. The flickering fires were almost all they could see from here. Jasper laid down next to her.

“Jasper,” she turned to look at him as she spoke, “We’re all going to go down there and have a look around. When we get there, I want you to climb up to a spot where you can cover us. If you need some help to climb up, someone will give you a boost. We need you to watch our backs; so keep your eyes moving from left to right all the time. Understand?”

“Uh huh.”

They moved out toward the town.

“Mike, about twenty years ago a small town by the name of Fitch was situated down there in that little valley.” Doctor Dan was speaking in a low voice as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear, “It only had about five or six hundred people living there. It was settled a little before Eli started the ranch. They had an assayer’s office to determine the value of a claim and a claims office where people could file a claim on their stake in the mountains and hills all around here. It was important to make a legal claim to the land in case they struck it rich. There was a jail and a public gallows, and they also had a doctor down there. There was a lawyer, three or four houses, a saloon, and a whorehouse. Later, the town grew to about five hundred and stayed that way until about twenty years ago.”

“People who grew tired of the rat race in the big cities moved there about then and then another family came, and so on. One man built a factory that made computer chips and then a gas station went in followed by a school and a few more houses. Word got out about the clean mountain air and water and the town swelled to about fifteen thousand in five years. The main highway from Bishop went right down the middle of the town, which made the land values skyrocket and all that property along the highway was like gold.”

“They were sheltered down there until the war started. After that there was no word coming out of there and the rest of the world more or less lost touch with the residents. It could still be there in one piece, but the bikers started moving this way so who knows what happened to the town or the people. You boys be careful down there. To be honest, I wish you weren’t going!”

Mike chewed over what Dan said before he spoke, “Let’s each take a radio, a sub-machine gun, and a couple of hand guns. Sam, do you want one of my grenades?” He said it as if he were preparing for a picnic. “I expect the trip there and back to be two days, tops. I want to take some extra food, too.”

Mike looked at Dan and said matter-of-factly, “You know Doc, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

“The problem with that thinking,” Dan retorted, “is you’re no ordinary man.”

Mike smiled and winked at Caroline. She was trembling as a tear slipped down her cheek and fell away.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Mike gave his best smile of comfort, “I’ll be back soon enough and you’ll get so tired of me, you’ll want me to leave again for a few days.”

Her hands went to her face and she began to cry, her shoulders shaking. Mike reached over, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her forehead and then her lips before gently pulling away.

“Stop that, wench,” he said softly. “If you keep this up, I won’t go.”

They all laughed except Caroline. The men went outside, cranked up their dirt bikes, and drove away through the big firs headed toward the hidden bunker. Caroline watched them go, rubbing her stomach absentmindedly as she watched them until they were out of sight.

Beth and Len were at the edge of Fitch’s main street and the smell of open sewage was everywhere. It was so powerful that she had a tough time breathing without the urge to vomit. It was worse than bad. She walked up to the car she had seen from the hill and saw a dead woman inside and a dead man slumped down on the seat with his head nearly on the woman’s lap.

There were hundreds of thousands of flies on the overhead of the car, and maggots were crawling all over the bodies. They all had to hold their hands over their faces because the smell was beyond nauseating. She saw Jasper crawl up a fire escape ladder and with a boost from Davey, scramble up to the roof. She suggested they split up; she would take this side of the street, Len the other, and Davey could walk behind her next to the walls of the buildings. Tom was on the other side behind Len.

They walked down the street and on Beth’s side was a restaurant. She looked inside and saw dead people everywhere. They moved on to a grocery store and there were dead bodies lying on the floor. They walked for an hour and it was the same everywhere; the whole town had been ransacked and looted and all of the people were dead, but there were no children anywhere.

Her gut told her that the Slavers had been here and done this terrible slaughter.

Chapter 30 Desperation

Beth was in a quandary; this was going to be more of a challenge than she thought. Her ultimate goal was to get to the old ranch, but if they got there in the dead of winter, she knew they wouldn’t survive and she had no illusions about how cold it was going to be near the top of that mountain. They would probably either freeze or starve, so she didn’t think it would make a whole lot of difference if they died here or there.

But for some unknown reason, the quest to make it to the ranch was overpowering. It was that single goal that kept her focused and driven throughout this entire journey and it seemed now, looking back on it all, that they were at it for months rather than days. She had counted on finding food here at Fitch.

In fact, she was hoping it would be the problem solver she desperately needed and the answer to her fervent prayers. She suppressed the urge to scream out her disappointment after seeing what was left of Fitch. This was no more than a place reeking with the stench of the dead and full of flies that tormented them nearly to the point of insanity.

Beth was at her wits’ end, so she decided to get everyone involved in the decision on this one. She called all seventeen of them together in a group. There were two men, three older teens, four younger teens… like Matt… three women including her, and the rest of them were younger children. She asked individually and they all said more or less the same thing; they wanted to stay right here until the flies died off and then go into town and stay. Nobody had an answer for the food situation except Len.

“Look,” he suggested, “we’ve only scouted a small portion of the town so far. Why don’t we go back tomorrow, in the late afternoon before it gets dark, and search along the perimeters? Maybe we’ll find something, but I say we don’t give up.”

It was as good as anything else, so they would go in tomorrow evening and see what they could discover. Right now they would go to bed hungry. Several of the children were crying because they wanted something to eat and it tore at her heart to hear them. She tried to sleep but it was fitful, and then it was morning. They had to wait until dusk to go into town so the flies wouldn’t drive them crazy. It was a long day and the children constantly complained about wanting food. Finally it was dusk and they prepared to walk into town again.

They went down the street but there was no food to be found; just about all the shops that carried food had been ransacked. Len did see one place that he wanted to explore, a dental office. He went inside and found what he wanted… tooth scrapers and picks, various supplies for filling cavities, drills, filling ingredients, epoxies, small mirrors, and more toothpicks. He found a medical bag in a supply cabinet and filled it with the things he needed, including vials of anti-biotic, Novocain, and mini-sutures. He also found excellent grade stainless steel hypodermic syringes.

There were other odds and ends, pliers, small stainless inserts that could make a dental dam, and various pieces used to build dental braces. If only he could find some pure gold for some bridging and reconstruction of the bridging, but that was a little too much to hope for. He took what he needed, at least as much as he could carry. It was a good haul and with what he had, he could do almost anything. The bag was heavy.

Back out on the street, Beth and the boys stood guard and waited for him.

“I was beginning to worry” she commented, “You took your sweet time.”

“I found almost everything I need to fix someone’s teeth,” he said excitedly. “I can do nearly any job with this stuff and believe me, when you need my services, you need them.”

She knew that was true. There were a couple of times that she had needed a dentist and, although the treatment was tedious and uncomfortable, the visits were worth it in the end.

“We need to go a little further,” she was talking to all of them now, “It’s critical that we find some food to take back with us.”

They traveled slowly and with care. The main road stretched out in a straight line for a couple of miles. There were restaurants, clothing stores, a sporting goods store, and other shops and places of commercial enterprise that followed the road down both sides of the street in an unbroken line interrupted only by the fires. The smell of rotting flesh was almost more than they could bear.

The sporting goods store was worthy of a visit so she went inside like she was trained to do, back to the wall, covering fire to both sides, and as point, she whipped around the corner quickly and stepped inside with her revolver pointing straight ahead. With a two-hand stance, her back was against the wall and she went into a crouch. It was dark and hard to see, but although it had been ransacked, there were many items of value left behind.

There was a display cabinet with the glass intact, and she saw several different kinds of binoculars on the shelf. She signaled for the boys to come over and help themselves. A display of sheath knives and pocket knives were mounted on a rack with a clear plastic cover. They opened it and took them all. To one side were baseball gloves, bats, and balls. She wanted those bats. Over on one side of the store was a wall full of archery equipment. They took all of those, as well.

In a few more minutes, they could carry no more. It was time to leave and go back to the group and the children, but they still had no food. Davey wanted to know how they were going to carry all the stuff, so she sent him back down the street to get that bicycle they had seen lying on the sidewalk. She sent Tom into the sporting goods store and told him to get the large table cloth that was in the main window used as a prop for the display. Tom returned in a few minutes, and Davey wasn’t long coming back with the bike.

“Lay the sheet on the ground and spread it out. Okay, that’s good, now pile the things in the middle of the sheet. All right, now fold the four corners toward the middle and tie them in a knot. Perfect, now each of you get on one side, lift the bundle and put it on the bike seat. That’s great! Now get on either side of the bike to steady the load, and let’s push it back to where the rest of the group is waiting.”

As they headed toward the outskirts of the wooded area where the rest of them waited, they passed Jasper; she whistled for him and he poked his head over the top of the roof.

“Come on down, Jasper,” she called to him. “We’re heading back.”

He scrambled down the fire escape and jumped the last few feet to the pavement with a thud.

As they made their way back to where the others waited, she felt hollow inside. She knew they would be expecting food, not hardware. They needed to meld into the trees, set up camp, and come back after dusk the following evening to avoid the flies and do more exploring. When they arrived, most of the children were asleep. The lookout challenged them as they approached and it made her feel proud that they had learned so quickly.

“It’s Beth and the others, Ricky!”

“Okay, Miss Beth, c’mon in.”

She laid her head down and tried to ignore the hunger pangs in her stomach. Her mind was going from one thing to another and she couldn’t get to sleep. She was really worried. Without food, they were all dead in another month, some of the young ones sooner. This was bad; she had counted on there being some food here. Instead it was a ghost town full of dead people, an awful stink, smoldering fires, and those terrible flies. Just thinking about the flies brought to mind the one that flew into her mouth and it made her shiver involuntarily.

They passed the day waiting for night to come again. It wasn’t easy because they were so hungry and even Beth felt less energetic than she had in some time. Food, although not a lot of it, had kept her spirits and stamina at least in some slight balance. The sounds her stomach was making amazed her. It was a symphony of squeaks, groans, and gurgles.

The next evening they headed back to Fitch again. Only this time they went around the town to the west, walking down a small asphalt-covered strip that ran a couple of blocks away from and paralleled the main street. Cars were stopped haphazardly as if they suddenly ran out of gas and were abandoned in place.

There were houses, a car wash, and farther on, an auto repair shop. Beyond that were more fires burning, except these looked different than the fires burning in the other part of town. These were smaller and there was a different odor, one of meat cooking. It was slight but it was unmistakable, there was meat over a fire somewhere.

They turned down an alley that went behind the businesses and homes. They couldn’t see anything, but they heard noises ahead. It was difficult to make out what it was because they were still too far away from the source. She had them separate, like before, a few to the left and a few to the right. They walked slowly, and the smell of cooking meat increased in intensity.

After another ten minutes of walking, they could see the flickering flames of at least a couple dozen fires. They continued to edge forward and the scene became clear in another ten minutes. It was a main encampment of Slavers and they were roasting dead children on wooden spits over the fires! She stood there taking in the scene with her binoculars and was mesmerized by the absolute unbelievable sight in front of her eyes. She came to her senses and motioned for them to fall back.

They had to have a plan, and it better be a good one. She did a very sketchy count, and there were probably two or three hundred of them camped over there, maybe more. It was a formidable force to deal with. They didn’t see any captives, but Beth was sure they were there somewhere. She decided to fall back and cross over to the other side of town; they had to get away from these Slavers!

They knelt in a circle like football players in a huddle and told them what she thought they should do. No one argued; it sounded like a good plan to them. They fell back about three blocks, cut over another five, and came to a large building with a parking lot all around it. It looked abandoned, but it was buttoned up tight when they got to it. They walked all the way around it and it seemed like it was a few acres in size.

There were several cars in the parking lot, but all appeared to be abandoned. She sent Davey and Tom back to the auto parts store and asked them to find and bring back a crow bar. Beth, Len, and Jasper walked around the building again for another look, and it appeared to be untouched. Apparently the bikers were concentrating on the west side of town and were ignoring this area altogether. There must be a reason… and there was. A large sliding door suddenly opened in front of them.

“If you move a muscle you’re all dead.” It was a man’s voice, somewhat gruff and scraggly. “Put your weapons on the ground!”

They did as they were told.

“I’m Sheriff Bob Waters,” the voice said, “And you can all consider yourselves under arrest. If you do anything you’ll be shot. Put your hands over your head and walk toward me. Chris,” his voice got a bit louder, “Can you cover them!?”

“We got ‘em covered, Sheriff,” came a voice from the roof.

“If you’ll allow me…” Beth tried to reason with them.

“Shut up,” the Sheriff said, “You’ll get a chance to talk inside. Step this way… now!”

They walked forward and the door closed as they stepped through the threshold. There was a light on inside; they must have had a generator running somewhere. It was a home improvement store, one of those warehouse types with huge shelves of everything imaginable. She saw lawn mowers, shovels, and food on the big shelving units; lots and lots of food!

“Okay, Missy,” the Sheriff was talking as he came forward, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Can we lower our hands?”

“No,” the man barked, “And answer my question, damn you!”

“My name is Beth Kelly,” she spoke slowly and deliberately, “I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; my credentials are in my pocket.”

He reached over and felt for them through her clothing. When he found her badge and identification, he relaxed his attitude.

“Okay Miss Kelly,” the relief could be heard in his voice, “You and your people can lower your hands.”

“Sheriff,” another man interrupted, “The kids that were with her are back.”

“Let ‘em in, Ralph.”

The boys were startled when the door opened and they stood there blinking in the light.

“Sheriff, this is David Driscol and Tom Wyatt.” Beth introduced her group. “This is Doctor Len Stroud and this boy is Jasper Smith, our resident sniper… and he’s a good one!”

It took awhile, but Beth told them about the trek with the children, about the High Desert, and about how they had gotten this far. It was an incredible story and the people in the warehouse gathered around to hear. There were maybe fifty of them and the Sheriff explained how the Slavers came out of nowhere, overwhelmed them, and began killing the townspeople. The Slavers were all armed and the townspeople weren’t, so it wasn’t much of a battle. They quickly rounded up all the women and children they could find and headed out of town.

“They didn’t go far, Sheriff,” Beth spoke up. “They are over on the west side a few miles from here eating your babies.” A woman shrieked, and they all turned to look at her.

“Look, Sheriff,” Beth continued, “I have some half-starved kids just outside of town toward the south. I could sure use some food to take back to them if you could be so generous.”

“You damn sure better Sheriff!” It was the woman who had screamed. “I demand you do it!”

The Sheriff agreed, and within a half hour, they prepared to leave.

“I’ll be back with the kids,” Beth stopped on her way out, “And then we have to figure out a way to go after those animals. We’ll need to kill every last one of them, Sheriff.” She said it with a certain tone of finality. “When we return, can we give you a password or something to get in?”

“Don’t worry, Miss Kelly,” the Sheriff replied, “We’ll know it’s you.”

Chapter 31 The Slaver’s Camp

Mike and his group came down off the mountain in an easy ride. It didn’t take long to get to the base of the mountain and then swing toward the east to cross into the small valley. In another hour he expected to arrive on the western outskirts of Fitch. He signaled to his companions to pull over under a stand of Madrona trees.

Off toward the east Mike saw that the sky was a bit hazy, but the weather was still warm. The sun was trying to burn through and it looked like a big yellow ball he could actually look at, but not for long. There was no breeze and only the evergreens had leaves on the branches. He was looking forward to spring and caught himself laughing.

“We’re always wishing our lives away. We always want something different than what we have.”

A woodpecker landed on a tree trunk and was busy searching out bugs.

“Want something to munch on, Mike?”

It was Sam offering a piece of jerky made from the Claymore deer. Without saying anything, Mike reached over, took a piece, and chewed on it for awhile until it was soft enough to swallow. Each of them drank some water from the canteens and rested. Mike opened the cap on his gas tank and the rest followed suit and opened theirs. He moved the bike with his knees to shake it a bit and put the kickstand down. It was time to put a little gas in there to top it off. It was always best to take care of the boring stuff when there was nothing exciting going on. Sam and the others waited and when Mike finished filling his tank, he handed the can to Sam.

“I make it an hour’s ride to Fitch. We should park the bikes a couple of miles from the main highway and go in by foot to reconnoiter the place. What do you think Sam?”

Sam looked up from his pouring,

“Good idea. There’s no telling the source of those fires. Could be friendlies or it could be the bad guys. Either way, there’s no sense in letting them know we’re coming. That would be my plan, sneak up on ‘em, check out the situation, and decide what we’re going to do.”

Mike looked over to Roger and Gregg, and they simply nodded.

“Then we’re all in agreement; we’ll swing in from this direction.” He pointed toward the east with his arm extended. “Find a spot to stash the bikes and go in the rest of the way by foot. Everybody rested and topped off? Let’s do this. I need to get back to Caroline. I already miss the wench!”

Twisting their throttles, they engaged the clutches and were off. In another hour or so they would be where they wanted to be.

The terrain was tall grass, lots of sandy soil, and gravel. There was an ancient river bed carved out by the receding glaciers about twelve thousand years ago. The tall mountains towered over and surrounded them on all sides. Above the mountains, the sky was hazy and separated by patches of blue sky. Looking off into the distance they could see the firs growing wild and in profusion. Mike liked this country. They traveled easterly for another forty-five minutes and then it was time to stash the bikes. This time Roger would be with them. If they needed his expertise, there was no sense in leaving him behind. It wasn’t that far of a hike back to Avalon if the bikes were lost for whatever reason. They were all busy cutting branches to cover the motorcycles and when the job was done to their satisfaction, they headed east again. Mike checked his Mac-11 and pulled the magazine out, checked it, and re-inserted it into the housing. The others did the same.

“Better put them on safe, boys,” he winked at Sam, “I don’t want anyone shooting their own feet off.”

They walked for another forty-five minutes until they saw the smoke in the distance. Mike thought those were the same campfires he saw way back when he was heading up the mountain. It had to be campers; there is no way that many fires could be maintained without constant replenishment. The highway must be over in that direction.

They heard voices and went down to the ground in a crouch. There was a group going past on one side, about ten women and a couple of teenage girls. They were dirty, their clothes were rags, and a Slaver prodded them along with a stick. He had a sawed-off shotgun with a sling over his chest and one shoulder that hung down, pointing at the ground.

The guy whacked one of the women with the stick and she cried out. They were gathering wood for their fires. Further over to one side was another Slaver watching and apparently unaware of Mike and his men. None of this wood-gathering group knew there was anyone other than them here. Mike looked at Sam and rocked his head toward one of them, and Sam smiled. They took their knives out simultaneously.

“How many kids are they cookin’ up for dinner tonight?” One of the Slavers said to another in a loud voice.

“I hear there’s gonna be about ten of them,” came the reply, “And a few hogs and some chickens, to boot. They already prepped the kids this morning.”

“They’re cooking children to eat for supper?” Mike whispered to Sam in disbelief.

Sam frowned and put his finger up to his throat and slid it across from left to right. Mike nodded.

These guys needed to be killed.

Sam crouched and worked his way over to one Slaver, and Mike went after the other. Roger and Gregg watched and covered them. Mike went up behind the one with the stick and Sam faced the other by stepping out from in front of a bush. Sam thrust his knife and buried it in the Slaver’s throat in a classic fencing move. The man’s face took on a surprised look as he buckled at the knees.

Mike came around behind the other and one of the women screamed and gave away the surprise. But Mike quickly stepped in close and, with an elbow slam to his chin, the Slaver went down and backward. Mike leaped on the man and cut his throat savagely, nearly decapitating him. His head sort of flopped over onto his shoulder. One of the women started to run but Mike grabbed her by an arm.

“Take it easy, lady,” he urged in very loud whisper. “We aren’t gonna harm you!”

His words made her relax and the others stood there, cowering in front of the men.

“Thank God someone has come,” one of them said in disbelief.

“We’re only four,” Mike said, “But we’re here to help. With your assistance, we’ll see what we can do.”

The woman looked at Mike and had a look on her face of total defeat and she said,

“What can we do? We are a bunch of women who have had the life nearly kicked out of us, and our children were eaten by those animals over there.”

Mike took her hands in his, held them, and faced her. “We need information. You can tell us the lay of the camp, how many Slavers are there, how many guns they have, and who is the leader… that’s how you can help! I want you to know right now that you and the rest of these women are safe. We will protect you from them with our own lives.”

Her shoulders drooped and her head fell to her chest as she began to cry, and so did the others. The woman shook as the happiness of this news enveloped her, and she wept uncontrollably. Mike and the others just stood there waiting for them to get it out of their system and, after awhile, he said to all of them,

“Listen to me ladies, my name is Mike and this is Sam, that’s Gregg and this guy is called Roger. We need to know everything you can tell us about those men over there. Is anyone hungry?”

They all stepped up to him. The men offered them water, and they drank greedily from the canteens. In less than ten minutes Mike decided to contact Avalon; this was too big for only four of them. The last thing they wanted to do was to get killed or to have any of these hostages killed by wild shooting from a firefight. He stepped off to one side and took his radio out of the pocket on his pack. He turned it on and it crackled,

“Mike calling base…”

He waited.

“Mike calling Base…”

He waited again.

“This is Mike calling base…”

“Nice to hear from you, Michael; you aren’t in any trouble, are you?”

Static from the radio followed the transmission and Mike said,

“Switch to eleven, now.”

He waited, and the radio static came on and Dan said,

“Ready.”

The conversation took place between switching channels every thirty seconds with a system they had worked out a very long time ago, inserting certain key words along the way. They exchanged instructions and set everything into motion.

Roger started walking the captives back from where they came down the mountain toward the abandoned railroad bed. Mike, Sam, and Gregg moved forward toward the Slaver’s camp. They had a good idea as to the approach and were on their way to take care of business. They swung south and followed an old creek bed. It was desolate here and the walking on the gravel made then unsure of each step. Rocks would roll away from under their feet and down they would go.

After twenty minutes of walking they had covered the distance of ten football fields, a little over a half mile. It was slow going and Mike wished they were covering this distance on dirt bikes, but that’s the way it goes. They continued walking and crossed the creek bed under the highway in another hour. There was a low bridge, and they scooted under it to the other side. They looked left and could see the campfires plainly from here.

The plan was to circle the Slaver’s camp coming in from the east and working toward the west. They wanted to catch them by surprise, go in, kill several and get back out before anyone saw what was happening. If they continued doing this they might get fifty or more of them. Strike fast, hard, and silent and then melt away, come back and do it again. The psychology of this tactic would unnerve anyone suffering casualties, and when they are pissing in their pants, they can’t think.

First, they were going to take out the Slaver’s camp sentries. They screwed on the SIONICS Suppressor copies and changed the ammo. Mike directed the men; one would come straight on following the highway by following the creek; another would come from his right, and the third would cross back over the creek and come in from the left of the center man. They were going to stay within viewing distance of each other. Mike marked the time and said,

“In ten minutes from… now!”

They all moved out toward their designated positions and made note of the time. There would not be any noise, only a surgical and methodical removal of the obstacles blocking the way or sounding the alarm and turning a difficult problem into a major shootout. The first man was leaning against a rock with the piece on his shoulder hanging by the sling. He was smoking a cigarette and casually talking to another Slaver standing next to him.

Mike crept up to the guy leaning on the rock and put a bullet through the back of his neck and turned off the computer. He swung the small sub-machine gun over and did the same to the talker. He grabbed one by the collar and dragged him away into the bushes behind him, went back and got the other guy, and dragged him back and laid him next to his pal. Two down.

Gregg moved down the creek and came to a man and woman. She was talking to the guy and had her arms wrapped around his neck, their noses almost touching. He took the man out with a round to the head and just as she started to scream, he cut off her cry with a bullet between her eyes. The round sort of caved in her forehead, squeezing her eyes together in a comical look and she collapsed on top of the man. Gregg dragged first one and then the other back down into the dry creek bed and continued to move slowly forward.

Sam saw a group standing together having a BS fest, and the one who was supposed to be on watch was laughing about something. He aimed and took out the one on the left, moved slightly and the next man caught a deadly projectile in the throat. They all turned and looked his way, and then his gun jammed. Before he could draw his side arm, the other four fell into a crumpled a pile, one after the other before any of them could think.

Gregg and Mike had covered his behind! He looked over and gave them a thumbs-up. Sam worked on the round, freed the mechanism, chambered a couple of rounds, and saw the firearm was working again. He bent over and picked up the special loads and, after ejecting his mag, inserted them in it again.

Mike said, “Reload your weapons.”

“That’s eleven down and only two hundred fifty left to go.”

They all laughed, but it was really wasn’t a joke at all. The odds of them pulling this off were remote at best, but it was just like the old saying,

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”

It was time to work their way over to the northeast and come at them from that direction before someone discovered those dead guys were no longer at their posts. They swung wide toward the northeast and then moved by crawling, crouching, running, and hugging the ground again. In twenty minutes they were ready again… same positions, same plan, but different terrain. Gregg moved toward a group of three, and each went down with a subdued clapping sound. Mike moved on two more and took them out quickly; Sam approached three of them sitting on the ground under a tree and his three went down.

They spent a few minutes dragging the dead out and away from view of the camp. As he was moving one, Gregg bumped against another Slaver walking toward him, zipping up his fly. Gregg turned in a flash and cut the man’s throat. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat, and blood spurted out from between his fingers, some of it landing on his front and his face. They finished with the bodies and moved back another hundred feet behind some bushes.

“Reload,” Mike said quietly. Looking at Gregg, he smirked, “I see you got a little close to your work.”

“What’s that?” Greg asked.

Mike pointed to his face where the blood had splattered. Gregg put a hand to his face and wiped, smearing it across in a wide swath. He looked at his hand and rubbed it on his pant leg. Sam poked him in the ribs and said,

“Nice work, son.”

Gregg had a look on his face of disgust, but said nothing.

“You know what the SEALs call that, Gregg?” Mike asked.

“What?”

“Getting wet all over. You usually hold them long enough and look in their eyes until they dilate and then you know you’ve sent them to hell. While you’re holding them, it squirts all over you.”

“Nice.” Gregg said with a slight huff. “You know, Mike, I’m used to doing my work at a distance. We snipers don’t like to get dirty.”

Mike said, “Let’s work our way toward the north now and come down on them from that direction. I think if we go this way, there’s enough cover to get us over there without being seen. Once we’re done, we should go toward the north. See those trees over there by that small hill all by itself?”

They nodded.

“That’s where we’ll meet when we’re done. We’ll need to come off this adrenaline rush and we can do it there. Check your magazines; we don’t want to go into this thing without being ready. When we’re done, we should work our way back to the old railroad bed and wait for the reinforcements that Roger will bring from Avalon. A few of those who are coming will escort those women that Roger is taking back up the mountain. The rest will be coming this way; I think we should meet them and lead them back here so as not to cause any confusion.”

They swung south first to make a wide swath and then they planned to swing toward the northeast and then northwest. They wanted to take out anyone on the perimeters in the northern sector of the camp to demoralize the whole bunch of them and scare them into making stupid mistakes. As they swung south, Mike saw them first and Sam stopped dead in his tracks; he saw them too. It looked like a woman with some kids and they were packing a load of boxes and other things. Sam went left and Mike went right. When they passed by, Mike stood up and said,

“Stop and don’t do anything stupid or you’re dead.”

He could feel the frantic vibes as they froze in their tracks. Sam popped up behind them and said,

“It would behoove you to listen to the man. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will if we have to.”

“Drop what you have in your hands,” it was Gregg, “And make sure all those weapons go into the dirt as well. I want to see all your hands up on top of your heads, and lock your fingers together. Do it now!”

Feeling surrounded and completely caught off guard, the small group complied. Boxes went to the ground and so did the weapons.

“Who’s in charge?” Mike asked.

“I am,” Beth responded.

“And who might you be?”

“I’m Beth Kelly, Special Agent Beth Kelly of the FBI.”

“Well kiss my ass…”

“Cut it out, Sam!” Mike interrupted. They were exposed, and this was no time for jokes. “You have anything to prove that, ma’am?”

“In my pocket.”

“Do it slow, lady. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you do anything stupid; believe it!”

She carefully took out her I.D., handed it to him, and stepped back. He read the I.D. card inside the badge case and saw that she was who she said she was. He handed it back and said,

“Relax guys, she’s legit. You can lower your hands Miss… Kelly. I’m Mike Reynolds, the smart mouth over there is our resident comedian, Sam, and that’s Gregg. What’re you doing out here? Don’t you know there’s a large camp of Slavers right over there?”

“You boys are pretty smooth,” Beth ignored the question. “Are you ex-military?”

“Mike here’s one of the Navy’s finest,” Sam never missed a chance to brag, “an ex-SEAL. I’m ex-Green Beret, and Gregg over there is an ex-Marine Sniper. We’re going to work on those fellows over there a little and we’re going to make sure they stop what they are doing here and now. When the rest of our people get here, we’re going to wipe them out, every last breathing one of ‘em.”

“You have re-enforcements?” she asked, somewhat incredulously.

“We have a few,” Sam smiled. He was looking at her chest. “How many do you have besides these boys?”

“Mister, don’t underestimate these boys.” She said it a bit protectively. “That little one over there is our Sniper and he’s good. These two boys are my lieutenants, and they aren’t afraid of anything. We’ve come a long way together and I have bet my life on them more than once.”

“No disrespect, ma’am,” Sam smiled at her. “I was just making an observation. They are boys, but I believe it if you say they’re good soldiers.”

He turned and addressed them directly. “Sorry, boys, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

The boys just smiled. They weren’t insulted in any way, only Beth.

Mike’s curiosity got the best of him, “Where were you headed with all those boxes?”

“Over that way another mile,” Beth replied. “Want to go for a walk?”

“Any minute now they’re going to find out we off’ed a bunch of their troopers,” Mike summarized, “And they’ll be out in force looking for us; let’s go with them, Sam.”

He turned to Beth,

“Lead the way ma’am and we’ll cover your backs.”

Chapter 32 The Bee’s Nest

The Slavers were camped out on the west side of Fitch. They rode in strong and took the town by surprise. It was easy, and the pickings were like taking apples off a tree. As they came into town, people stared at them from the sidewalks and store windows. Nobody suspected what was to come, but they found out in short order.

One of the local Sheriff’s Deputies was standing next to his cruiser when they hit town. They came in an endless stream, riding their bikes up on the sidewalks and into stores. The roar of three hundred plus was deafening. The motorcycle fumes had people choking and coughing.

Randy watched them come riding into town. He stood there and stared as they passed one after another, and there was nothing he could do but watch. Using the radio was useless because no one could hear over the roar of that many motorcycles coming into town. The ground literally shook as they passed by.

One man stopped next to him, a giant of a man. Sitting on his motorcycle, he was even taller than Randy. He had big arms and was wearing a leather jacket that turned into a vest when the sleeves were removed. He said something to Randy, but Randy couldn’t hear above the roar. The motorcyclist smiled at Randy and showed yellow teeth.

Randy saw they were all heavily armed with shotguns and rifles. Almost all of them had pistols on their waists and sported large daggers. Some of the blades were strapped to their waists while others were strapped to their calves, and many of them had what appeared to be full auto sub-machine guns. There were short guns and long guns, such as AK-47’s, in addition to smaller carbines. There wasn’t much he could do at the moment, so he did the prudent thing… nothing. He just stood there and watched them come from the east out toward Bishop. The big man sped away and Randy felt better about that. He watched as they just kept coming.

In fifteen minutes they passed through and appeared to be headed toward the park on the edge of town. When he could finally use the radio, he called the office,

“Unit five calling the Sheriff.”

Static crackled as he waited. He thought Marci, the dispatcher, was probably using the bathroom. He waited some more. When he heard a shot fired off down the street, he keyed the button again,

“Unit five, I just heard a shot fired down in the direction of Flynn’s Firestone Store.”

Static…

He tried again,

“Is there anyone listening?”

Static…

Randy was thirty one and engaged to marry Janet Rawlins in another month. She was pregnant, but no one mentioned it and she wasn’t showing just yet. They were high school sweethearts and had been going together for years. They split up while he was serving in Bosnia, but when he returned home, they got back together again. The Sheriff offered him a job and he accepted. Being a deputy and a Marine were the only two jobs he ever had, unless you counted the time he was a bag boy at Phillip’s grocery store during high school. He tried the radio again,

Static…

Randy took his night stick off and laid it on the seat next to him, got in, and started the car. He switched on the emergency lights, put it in gear, backed away from the curb, and headed toward the Firestone Store. As he drove down the street, a motorcycle raced by, passing in front of his car. He had to slam on his brakes to keep from hitting the man and the motorcycle was gone in an instant. Randy put the car in park, got out, and looked around.

There was a commotion further down the road and he saw people forming a crowd on the sidewalk, spilling out into the street. It was then that he heard more gunfire. He took the mike from the cradle and said,

“Marci, there’s a major disturbance down by the Firestone Store; send back up now!”

Static…

Just then, three bikers jumped him from behind and another came around the car and started beating him with wooden bats. The first blow broke his collar bone and the second broke his neck. Randy no longer felt anything or was aware of anything, but the beating continued until there was scarcely anything recognizable of what once was a young man. He was a piece of raw bloody meat dressed in a Deputy Sheriff’s uniform, laying in the gutter next to the open door of his cruiser. That was the beginning of things to come in the town of Fitch. His radio came to life and Marci said,

“Randy, can you repeat that message?”

Static…

Bob Waters had been the Sheriff in Fitch for fifteen years. He had lived there all his life and was from a pioneer family, which was a status symbol in town these days. So many people had moved to the small town in such a short time that it was now a town full of strangers. Those who knew each other from childhood were in control of everything and they jealously guarded their pecking order.

The Mayor was an old classmate of Bob’s from Kindergarten on, and he depended on the Sheriff for nearly everything. In fact there were those who said Bob Waters was, in reality, the Mayor. But when Bob heard those rumors, he just scoffed at them. He was perfectly satisfied being Sheriff because it allowed him everything he ever needed or wanted in life.

Being Mayor wasn’t part of what he needed or wanted. Speaking of the Sheriff’s position, now that was something; and he liked it. If anything happened in Fitch, he always heard about it. Everyone who was anyone came to him first. He always had a new pickup and the best of everything, including Marci.

He was attending a conference in Sacramento when the Bikers rolled into Fitch. His Chief Deputy, the Under Sheriff Kjell Svenson, was in charge. Kjell, pronounced “chell,” was at a shooting meet at the range behind the Armory the day they charged into town. There was talk all over the state about what some were calling insurrection and lawlessness, but few believed or thought it would happen in Fitch… until the town was taken over, that is. By then it was too late to do anything about it. Seventy five of the townspeople went to the Randall Brothers’ Wholesale Store and holed up inside.

There were several reasons they holed up there… first, it had TV cameras everywhere on the inside and the outside of the building; second, it was made out of cement, which made it almost fireproof. Third, people could go to the roof from inside the building and defend themselves from the raiders with high powered rifles. The fourth reason was the abundant supply of brand new rifles and ammo in the sporting goods department.

This was a big hunting area and the store always stocked lots of bullets for the upcoming season. They had enough food to feed every one of them for many months and, most importantly, the building had its own diesel generator on the roof . There was a diesel tank buried in the ground that was full with over five thousand gallons of fuel, which would last quite some time if used sparingly.

When the bikers raided the town, the Randalls were on vacation doing a European swing that started in the Greek Islands. They planned to visit the entire coastal areas from there through Spain, Italy, and France, and finally ending in Copenhagen before returning home, but the war caught them in mid-stride. The store manager was running things and opened it up to the townspeople when the bikers showed up and settled in.

Most of them stayed in the book section or over in the furniture department where the plush furniture was on display. Others watched videos from the hundreds of selections available in electronics. They had hot and cold running water and ample bathroom facilities, with hundreds of boxes of real toilet paper. They didn’t know it, but they would be the envy of everyone around the area later.

The bikers made a couple of attempts to get to the people inside, but they gave up after awhile; it cost them nearly fifty men in the process. They tried raiding the Armory, which was also a losing adventure. Several men and women made it to the Armory and were inside the big building with all the firepower necessary to defend themselves, but not much food. They gave up on raiding that place also.

Slowly one or two men left the Armory late at night and were able to get over to Randall’s, where they traded food for high powered machine guns and ammo. These two places were the only safe places in all of Fitch. When the Sheriff came back to town, he was met by Kjell and escorted over to Randall’s.

Mike, Sam, Gregg, and Beth made it back to the children, who were waiting in the small clearing at the edge of the thick woods just south of Fitch. The children were excited to see Beth but when they saw Mike and his people, they were scared and ran behind her for protection. She reassured them it was okay and announced,

“Anybody hungry?”

They shouted and screamed like excited children do, and there was no subduing them. Everyone crowded up toward the front and there was fortunately enough food for all of them. Mike and his men ate some as well and then said,

“We have to head back now; some of our people are coming toward Fitch and we need to make sure they run into us and not that hornet’s nest over there. I’m sure by now that gang knows they were hit. You stay put, and we’ll come for you later.”

She started to protest, and he said in a gentle voice,

“You’ve done a remarkable job getting this far with all those kids, and I know they will love Avalon once they get there…”

She interrupted him, “Avalon?”

“Yes,” he responded curiously, “It’s a big ranch up on top of a mountain over in that direction…”

She interrupted him excitedly, “Are you talking about a great big log construction at the end of an old railroad track bed that goes through this long road and through those great big trees?”

“That’s the same place,” he answered. “Do you know it?”

“When I was a little girl,” she was almost laughing as she began, “I was up there with my dad before he died of cancer and that’s where we were heading. Avalon… I remember that name; isn’t there a big sign just as you come out of the trees that says that?”

“That’s the place,” Mike answered.

“I remember it was pretty rundown when I was there last, maybe fifteen years ago. Lots of room though.”

“You’re in for a quite a surprise, then.” Mike tried to play down his voice. “It’s changed a little.”

“Is there food there?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, I like the sound of that,” Beth was intrigued. “You boys hurry back, you hear?”

Mike and his people turned and walked back toward Fitch. Fifteen minutes later, he prepped them all, “Let’s get one in the pipe, and make sure your safeties are on.”

The metallic sound of slides moving back and then into place again was a crescendo of clicking as they all complied. The plan was to head toward Fitch from here and then turn left toward the west. The predominant wind was directly in their faces and picking up a little, bringing with it the stench and smell of wood fires with just a hint of roasting meat.

They turned west in another ten minutes and continued walking. None of them talked; all were on the alert for Slavers who were probably looking for them at this very moment. Mike guessed the Slavers probably headed north by the trail of dead bodies his group had left behind to indicate they were moving off in that direction.

They walked for another hour and found their dirt bikes right where they had left them. They cranked them up and headed toward the old rail bed.

Chapter 33 Bone Breaker

Bone Breaker was troubled by what he was being told. Whoever took out all those men were good, too good; so he posted a double guard around the perimeter of the camp. He figured they would be here another month, then move toward the coast and turn south. It was too cold to stay here anyway because it snowed on a regular basis, but this was strange weather they were having. It was amazing how warm it was for this time of year and he expected that wouldn’t last.

They would be out of here before the first big snow.

The bodies were stripped; no weapons, no personal possessions of any value, watches, rings, wristwatches, all gone. Whoever they were, they were damn good. Why didn’t he or anyone else hear anything?

They found 9mm spent brass and by the markings, they were fired by an automatic of some sort. But no noise? He understood the knife slashes; they’re a no-sound action, but 9mm? The knife kills were good; he admired almost as much as he hated the guys who did this. He had his men gather around as he stood on a motorcycle with a trunk on the back, a three wheeler. In a booming voice he said,

“I want you to listen to me, people. There is someone out there somewhere, and they are pickin’ us off one-by-one and by twos and threes. I don’t know if it’s the town people doin’ it or someone else, but it really doesn’t matter who they are; they’re good. They came in here sometime earlier and killed a bunch of our people. Look sharp, be sharp, and don’t let your guard down from now on unless you want to join your pals laying here in puddles of their own blood.”

“I want twenty men to go west,” he continued, “Twenty go to the east, another twenty to the south, and I’ll take a group north. If you find him or them, I want the leader for myself. Everybody understand that? The rest of you make sure you guard the camp and the goodies. I am sure we have superior numbers, and we have good fire power. Let’s do what we do and find ‘em!” He was smiling.

It was an evil smile, not one of mirth.

A cheer erupted from the hundreds of Slavers. The groups of twenty gathered and began to move out to their designated courses. Bone Breaker headed north, confident that his group would find those who had killed his men. He lumbered along at a quick pace. There was a small hill ahead with a clump of trees near it. They would go at least that far, maybe a couple of more miles. He yelled at his guys,

“Spread out; don’t walk too close together; we can cover more area that way. Split up, damn you, and quit talking like a bunch of old ladies at a sewing bee!”

Bone Breaker’s group spread out and the others headed in their designated directions, walking along with their weapons off safety and looking at everything. One group walked toward Beth and the children but her lookouts saw them coming way before they knew they were being watched.

She ordered Jasper on a small mound and told him to hold his fire until he was sure of the first shot. The others were all armed, including the other man who was released the same day as Len. Len found a place, laid on the ground, and spread his legs wide. Beth crawled back and forth between her people, coaching them.

“Steady; take nice easy breaths; don’t allow yourself to hyperventilate; calm and steady; we’re the better soldiers; steady and calm.”

She had seven sticks of the dynamite with fuses ready to go and she reached into her shirt pocket to reassure herself that the blue tip matches were still there.

“Steady boys… be certain of your target. I count about eighteen or so bad guys; that’s nothing, we can take them easily. Everyone pick a target, focus on him, squeeze the trigger ever so gently, and after you fire, move right! That way, we can get them all… easy now… boys… easy, just a little farther and we should be able to get half of them or more. Easy… not yet… easy… NOW!… FIRE!”

The first volley took out twelve bad guys and their cronies ran for cover behind a large boulder. Beth took out a match and lit the fuse on one of the sticks; one thousand, two thousand…

“Jasper, Tom, Len, cover me!”

Beth stood up and threw the stick. It sailed over the top of the rock and exploded in mid air above them. The explosion threw rocks and dirt into the air and fractured the big rock. The bikers pushed their faces into the dirt. One of the men behind the rock came out with an arm missing and blood spurting everywhere, like a torn water hose. He fell over in a worthless heap.

Beth ran over to the rock and looked behind it; there were five more dead guys laying there shredded by the blast. She turned and looked around and saw nothing but dead Slavers lying like cord wood that fell off a truck. Her nose was bleeding again, and she said to no one,

“I gotta throw those things a little farther.”

Her face felt just the way it did the day she was playing basketball and someone threw the ball and hit her directly in the face. It burned and stung fiercely, but would get numb soon. She ordered Len and a couple of the others to make sure the Slavers were all dead and strip the bodies. Several of the children were shrieking hysterically, so she walked over and went down on one knee in front of them. They rushed her and she fell over backward.

Two of the Slavers escaped and ran for their lives; it was a slaughter. They headed toward the camp for all they were worth to tell Bone Breaker; there must have been a hundred of them, just waiting and hiding. They were like sitting ducks in a rain barrel. They must have been military or something like that. They rehearsed the story in their minds as they ran toward the camp. They had grenades and everything. The further they ran, the wilder and more elaborate the story became.

“How many did you count?” Beth was talking to Len perhaps a bit louder than usual since her ears were still ringing.

“I counted eighteen of them.”

“That was about what I counted; I think we got them all. Davey, you and Tom look around in case there’s one hiding down there somewhere. Look hard; we don’t want one of them sneaking up here while we aren’t expecting it.”

Bone Breaker heard the loud boom as they echoed off the surrounding mountains in a drum roll effect toward the end of the long narrow valley, and then it stopped. He looked south but could see nothing. It wasn’t good, a sound like that. Mike and his people heard it too, but were unsure of whether they had heard something or not because the bikes made so much noise. They stopped to listen, but their helmets muffled the echoes that rolled through the valley. They drank some water and headed out again.

The other groups also heard the booms and they didn’t like it. Most of them headed back to camp where, they thought, there was safety in numbers. Bone Breaker and his group made it to the small knoll and spent about fifteen minutes looking for anything suspicious. When they found nothing, they also headed back to their camp.

In about an hour Bone Breaker and his men were back, minus eighteen of them. He called the two who were left of the south group and wanted to know what happened and where the other eighteen were. Reefer spoke first, with his raspy voice and bad cough from all the weed he had smoked in his youth. He was skinny and had hair sticking out of his shirt that grew in profusion on his boney chest. His arms were hairy, too. He said,

“We went south and there’s a small incline that goes up to a small opening in front of a dense stand of trees. They were waiting for us. I think it was the main force, professional soldiers they were. They cut us down with an M-60 mounted on a tripod. We never had a chance! They had grenades and threw one of ‘em at us; that took out half of us. The explosion knocked me and Rick off our feet backward and we rolled down the incline. Lucky for us too, or we’d of died up there with the rest of those boys. There was nothing we could do, so we came back to camp; we figured you’d want to know what happened.”

He began to cough, and Rick just stood there.

“Is that how it happened, Rick?” Bone Break turned his gaze to the other man.

“That’s it… like he said… we never had a chance.”

“Fine,” Bone Breaker realized he wasn’t going to get any more information from them. “Go over and get yourself a woman from the slave tent and have a good night.”

They both turned and walked toward the slave tent that was located in the middle of the camp, surrounded by other smaller tents set up randomly. They approached the tent and the guard looked over at Bone Breaker, who nodded his head in the affirmative. Rick and Reefer went inside.

Bone Breaker was satisfied. Sure he had lost some men, but he knew where the enemy was now and he was going after them shortly. The flies had dispersed some in the last two days; it was strange. He didn’t like this valley anymore and was looking forward to getting out of here.

Beth was discussing the situation with Len and her main boys; she said in a low voice,

“I think we need to move away from here before morning. Sooner or later those eighteen dead down there are going to be missed and if their pals come looking for them, we shouldn’t be here waiting dumb and sassy, know what I mean?”

Everyone agreed.

Len asked, “How soon do you want to move out?”

“Right now,” she answered. “We should circle to the west and head toward that old railroad track bed over that way. That’s where we’re going anyway, so why put it off? The sooner I can get these children to proper food on a regular basis, the better off they’re going to be.” Standing up, she addressed them all. “Okay everybody; let’s get ready to leave this place.”

Bone Breaker longed for the old days when he was a professional wrestler. He was a star and he had money, nice cars, clothes, and his choice of women. He had it all before the bombs fell. He got hungry quickly, as big men do; he was seven feet four inches and weighed five hundred fifty pounds. He got on his Harley and headed through the San Fernando Valley; that was when he ran into the first of them. They were all bikers, a few of the lowest of the low. The others were just lazy bums who would rather steal, do dope, get drunk, and fight than hold down any real job, even before the nuclear attack.

Most were motorcycle mechanics and welders, some were construction workers, roofers, carpenters, cement workers, and landscapers, but most of them were low-life thieves and cutthroats who would rather steal from people than anything else. His first altercation was with a guy who called himself Sonny. He seemed to be the leader and wanted Bone Breaker’s ride. Bone Breaker put down the kick stand, faced the man, and challenged him,

“Take it if you’ve got the balls.”

Sonny immediately went for his knife so Bone Breaker lashed out like a cobra and hit the man in the throat. That was the end of the fight. Bone Breaker reached down and grabbed the man’s neck and snapped it like a dry twig. He had followers in that moment and as they traveled, they gathered in more. Each new challenge made for new recruits to join in the fun of plundering, raping, and pillaging. Then one night the scenario became even more twisted.

He was hungry, like everyone else, and caught one of his men eating some fresh meat. He took it away from the man and ate it himself, not realizing that it was a child he was eating… until later. By then he figured what the hell; it was easier than hunting deer up in those mountains. One thing led to another and they ate child after child throughout their travels.

That was the beginning.

It wasn’t a bad life for Bone Breaker. He still had the fame, the power, and his choice of women. But most of the women these days were skinny as hell. His followers now numbered around three hundred fifty or more men. But those soldiers in the hills to the south had cut a swath right down the middle of his camp and they were going to pay for that.

Chapter 34 United

Beth and her group circled to the west to meet Mike and whomever he was bringing to the fight. Meanwhile, she sent a runner to Sheriff Waters and asked him to get the people at the Armory to unite and move on the Slaver’s flank from the east of her. She also wanted him to know that her group would attack from the west after they joined Mike and his people.

If Mike’s group joined the attack with a flanking move just north of where she would be, it could well be a very rewarding battle. By the moves she contemplated, the Slavers only had one option and that was to attack her head-on in force. They could possibly overwhelm her and the kids but if Beth and Mike were lucky, they would win the battle and drive the Slavers toward the north. There was no other option so they moved right away toward the west.

Mike, Sam, Roger, and Greg made it to the old rail bed and met Dan Crowley, Doug Nielsen, Harlan Herrera, Ken Foxx, Dennis Post, Chad, and Stan Doyle That made eleven able-bodied men to attack the bad guys, and they were well-armed. Sam and Harlan brought some interesting goodies with them, the homemade variety. They all had dirt bikes and moved toward the Slaver’s camp fast and with a deadly purpose.

Not long after everyone moved toward their respective objectives, Mike and Beth came together. Mike suggested they attack in spurts of five, moving in on the perimeters, taking out the stragglers, and then falling way back. Others would come around and attack from the north, do the same, and fall back. In the meantime, the runner Beth sent to the Sheriff circled around and heard the Slavers coming. He fell down on his stomach and watched the Slavers move toward the area where he and Beth had attacked them earlier that morning.

The Slavers moved as a rowdy, disorganized mob toward the small patch of woods with the slight incline. Tom Wyatt laid there and watched them pass, the dust they left behind nearly choking him. It amazed him how many men there were and he started counting as best he could because he knew Beth would ask how many. In fifteen minutes, a straggler seemed to be having problems with his bike and had stopped to fix it. While still sitting on the machine, he bent over at the waist looking at something on the motor.

Tom moved rapidly toward the man but suddenly the Slaver looked up, and Tom drove his knife into the man’s chest, killing him instantly. Tom moved toward the west and looked back frequently as he moved away. He was afraid, but he was a valiant young man. He had learned, during these past days with Beth, to always stay alert, watch your back, and never hesitate during an attack.

Mike and the men of Avalon parked their bikes, camouflaged them with some odd cuttings, and posted a sentry off behind them. The sentry promptly scurried up a tree and the others went in quietly. They saw about a dozen men guarding the camp on the outskirts. Most of the Slavers were already gone. There was a big tent in the middle of the camp with one guard at the front and another at the back. Mike instructed the men in a small huddle; each man would take out one guard on his signal.

“Change of plans; we need to do things differently; gather around. Beth you and the kids move over there and stay there as backup if something goes wrong.”

They would start from the one o’clock position and work their way around the clock to the twelve. He checked his watch and said,

“I’ll take the skinny guy on the left by that rock and Sam, you take the next one to his left. Harlan, you take that one over there and each of you take one. Sam and I will take out the extra leftovers after we fire. Everyone stay in a line and we will fire in… one more minute from… now.”

Each man laid down in the dirt and took aim.

“In ten… “Mike spoke and paused… “Three… two… one… FIRE!” It sounded almost as if a single rifle went off and the sentries doubled over and fell to the ground. Mike jumped up, ran toward the camp, and encountered a skinny Slaver with lots of hair on his chest running out of the big tent. Mike cut him down with a three-shot burst to the chest, then ran to the tent and rushed in. He was stunned by the sight of nearly fifty women. Most of them looked haggard and dirty, and the clothes they wore were torn and ripped.

“We aren’t going to hurt you.” Mike said in a hushed manner. “Where are you all from?”

“Just about all of us are from Fitch,” responded a woman who came forward. “The Slavers were going to take us to the coast and sell us to some men there. I heard them talking about it. My name is Mary Donley.”

She stuck out a dirty hand and Mike took it in his own.

“Nice to meet you Mary; you’ll be home in a few more hours.”

A few more shots rang out; it was Sam cleaning up the extras.

“Let’s take these women toward the northeast and get them home. We can come into town from the north but first we need to scout out the area for any stragglers. Check the bodies and make sure they’re all dead. Sam, come over here; leave none of them alive.”

He looked at Sam, “We need to get these women back to Fitch. Find the Armory if you can and drop them off; while you’re there, see if you can bring some sort of an equalizer back with you.”

He winked and gave Sam a big smile. Sam understood.

“The rest of us are going toward the south because I am sure they went that way. Hey Beth,” he turned toward her, “Can you come over here, please?”

“Did you tell me earlier that you had a bit of a fight with some Slavers not long ago?”

She spoke with conviction and said, “We did, and we killed eighteen of them.”

“I think a few of them got away and came back here to let their leader know what happened,” he sounded as if he were piecing it together as he spoke. “I think they’re looking for you over where you were earlier. Look around! Everyone is gone and so are their motorcycles. It’s just a guess, but why else would they leave the camp totally empty? Those boys will be coming home when they don’t find you and those kids. I strongly suspect they went south in force and will be coming back here soon. Beth, if you will, go with Sam. Once the women are dropped off, I want Sam to circle back from the east and head west to Fitch.”

His plan was coming together, “We will meet the Slavers as they head this way and see what kind of damage we can do to them. When they show up, my friends and I will probably get very busy, so a flank attack would be very helpful.”

Beth came over to Mike and unzipped her backpack. Reaching inside, she pulled out a dozen sticks of dynamite with the caps and fuses already inserted in each stick and handed them to him. She said with authority in her voice,

“Those are thirty second fuses and they pack a wallop. Throw them as far as you can or they’ll bite you. We’ll see you boys in a couple of hours.”

She turned and walked away with Sam, the women and, of course, all of her kids. It made Mike smile; she reminded him of a mother hen with her chicks going wherever mama went.

He turned and addressed his troops in a forceful voice. He wanted them to all hear what he said.

“Okay people, let’s get ready to move. I want to find some shelter because they’ll be on their bikes when they come and we want to take out as many of them as we can on the first pass.”

Mike told two men to go over by the small trees to his immediate left and cut a few branches about the size of a cue stick in diameter. They went over and immediately had several branches and brought them back to him.

“I’ll need something to tie these with; cut the para-cord off those two tents.”

When Harlan brought the cord, Mike was finished limbing the branches. He cut them and tied each of the sticks of dynamite to the ends of the two-foot sections.

Mike’s team walked south and looked over briefly to see Beth, Sam, and the kids disappear over a small knoll. In a half-hour Mike heard the Slavers coming so he found an old dry creek bed that ran east to west and was about five feet deep, just deep enough to stand in and fire over the rim. It would have to do because there just wasn’t much cover in this place. They saw a huge cloud of dust off into the distance and a young boy fell in next to Mike and said,

“I’m Tom Wyatt. Beth sent me over to talk to the Sheriff and I was on my way back when I saw those guys headed for our old camp. I got one of ‘em and counted the rest.”

“You counted them… all of them?”

“Yes Sir… I think so. There was a lot of dust but I think there are three hundred ten of them. The guy in the front is a giant.”

“Well, we’re going to reduce that number significantly pretty soon. Everybody get ready and keep your heads down; this is going to get ugly. We’ll be hearing from Sam soon, I hope.”

He laid the dynamite attached to the sticks down next to him and noticed there was a small plastic bag of strike anywhere matches with the extra sticks not tied to a branch. He made sure they would be ready to use when he needed them. He could hear the rumble of the bikes now and the dust cloud was getting closer. The grass in front of the creek bed stretched out and away from them and Mike got an idea. The predominant wind was toward the south and that’s the direction they were coming from, maybe. He struck a match and touched it to the tall yellow grass and it caught fire immediately. In a half minute, the fire was burning hard, gathering momentum, and heading directly toward the bikers. In another minute, it was a firestorm and its own heat drove it forward. Mike was wondering how close they were getting, when one of the Slavers broke through the fire and came straight at them. The guy was on fire and fell over thrashing and writhing on the ground. There were large burn blisters all over him and his bike exploded when the fire reached the gas tank. This was going to get interesting. Another bike came through and that guy was on fire too. Mike yelled at his troops,

“Hold your fire!”

The noise of the motorcycles’ roaring stopped momentarily and once the fire went past a certain point, they could see burned Slavers lying on the blackened ground. All of them were on fire and smoking, and so were their bikes. Most were thrashing as if they were fish plucked out of the water. The roar of the bikes went up again, moving away from them. Several of the motorcycles in front of them exploded, sending sparks everywhere and various bits and pieces of debris rained down on them. The burning bikers were twisting and writhing on the ground. Everyone ignored them.

“We’re going to have a lull for a little while,” Mike yelled to his people. “Once the fire burns out or passes them, they’ll be back in force and they’re going to be pissed! Hold your positions and make certain each shot takes one of them out. Check your pieces and make sure you have it on semi-fire mode; we won’t be getting any ammo drops and none of us will be finding a store around here either. If you can’t do the job with single fire, we’re all going to be dead. Tom says there are a little over three hundred of them.”

He counted the downed and burned bikers and there were fifty of them.

“Maybe two hundred fifty or so,” he said as he reconsidered his count. “A cake walk, boys.”

Sam and Beth arrived at the National Guard Armory in an hour and as they approached, a man with a bullhorn said,

“Okay people, that’s far enough. State your business.”

It was a loud command and several of the children started to cry. Beth looked at the front of the building and did not see anyone, so she addressed the front wall as she spoke,

“I’m Beth Kelly, Federal Agent with the FBI, and I have to put these children and women that we rescued from the Slavers somewhere safe. I also need some fire-power from this Armory because we’re heading back to battle the bikers. There are others over there and they’re in need of a little help. There are only ten of them against several hundred Slavers. What can you do for us?”

Silence…

Beth hollered again, repeated herself, dug out her credentials, and thrust her arm out with them in her hand for display.

Silence…

They waited for at least five minutes and she was getting angrier by the second.

“Look, you SOBs,” she said with an edge to her voice, “open this door now! Sheriff Waters knows who I am, and he told me about you. Open up NOW!”

The front steel doors slid open slowly. It was actuated by chains and someone was yanking them from inside, causing the doors to open. It opened four feet and stopped. A man bent over and stepped out with a woman who rushed to the children. The man was tall and husky and looked like an ex-football player or a professional weight lifter. He was tall and probably weighed three hundred fifty pounds. He had gray hair, and she guessed him to be about fifty or so. He stepped in front of Beth and said,

“We talked to the Sheriff just now and he confirms what you said. Sorry it took so long; the Sheriff was using the bathroom when I called him on the radio. I apologize for the delay; we just can’t be too careful these days. Step this way and watch your head.”

They all went inside the Armory and behind them, the guy operating the chains closed the big door. The big man said,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m called Randal Stone; I was the senior sergeant here while we were still a country. I don’t know what we are anymore, but I’m at your service. What can I do to help?”

“I need to feed these children and women,” she responded. “Do you have any food?”

“We sure do,” he replied, “and if you’ll follow me, we have a kitchen off to this side.”

They went down a large hallway and turned through two large double-doors to find a dining hall and a large kitchen. Several people were there and they all smiled as Beth and her entourage came in. Several of the women from Beth’s group ran over to the people who sat at tables and hugged them. Randal said,

“We will have them all fed in about fifteen minutes.”

Beth replied to what he said and the impatience was unmistakable in her voice,

“Mister Stone… Sergeant, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because I am very grateful, but there are people out there who are about to be overwhelmed by hundreds of thugs. I want to get back as soon as I can to help!”

Just then a man came in and addressed the Sergeant,

“It’s all ready to go, Sarge.”

Randal nodded and turned to Beth, “Come this way, Miss Kelly. We anticipated your needs.”

Sam followed as they went into another large room, the main Armory.

“Do you think any of this will do you any good?”

“It’s makin’ my mouth water,” Sam replied, “And I swear I’m gettin’ a hard-on… oops, sorry, Beth.”

“Okay,” Randal spoke with authority, “Let’s load it up.”

Several of the men began to move to a Humvee that was parked adjacent to the Armory door.

In ten minutes Sam, Beth, and four soldiers from the Armory were on their way to the battle… in style. She was driving so Sam kicked back in his seat and enjoyed the ride. Beth looked over at him and said,

“We’ll go back to the camp and swing south from there; I want to be able to find them.”

“Just follow the shootin’ noise, ma’am,” Sam replied, “And we’ll find ‘em.”

As Beth headed toward what she hoped would be her final battle for quite some time, she thought of the children. They had come a long way together, and, after meeting Mike and his group from Avalon and the good people from Fitch, she knew the children would be safe now.

And that place upon the mountain… that place called Avalon… that place her father had taken her to so many years before, it really existed. She had traveled so far to reach it, uncertain if it was still there, uncertain whether it was a place of refuge or a place of danger. Avalon, she knew now, would be the safe haven where she could make a new life for herself, away from a world that had gone mad!

Sheriff Waters and a number of his people waited outside the large store in the parking lot where several deuces and a half and sixes by six sat. Men came out of the store and loaded into the back of the vehicles. The men from the Armory wore uniforms and were equipped with full battle dress, packs, weapons, grenades, and lots of ammo.

There were M-16s in the back of one of the trucks and they would be used by the Sheriff’s men. It was important that they all use the same ammo. Once they were all loaded, they started for the end of town toward the north where the highway began a swing to the west near the river. They heard a large boom and knew that it was the sound of dynamite.

Chapter 35 The Firefight

The Slavers had been stopped for a little while, but once they had a chance to re-group, they would be ready to attack again. Bone Breaker was guessing, but he estimated that he had lost about thirty or forty men. They couldn’t get away from the flames in time, and many of them got blocked in completely and couldn’t escape. The smell of burnt grass and flesh was heavy in the air, but the breeze was, thankfully, moving it away from them.

The smell was putrid.

The only saving grace was that the fire ran out of grass and burned itself out. It was rocky and sandy here, which created a natural fire break. The terrain was devoid of thick grass, with only a few clumps scattered around the area. It looked to be an old prehistoric river bed.

Bone Breaker stood on the seat of his bike, and his booming voice came out strong, so most of them heard what he had to say,

“Okay we had a little set back, but the battle has yet to really start. We will charge straight on in a frontal attack and overwhelm them by sheer numbers. We are strong and we are used to killing. But just to cover our bases, I want one group to swing wide left and another to swing wide right. If we charge their flanks, there is no way they will be able to survive unless they are an army, and I don’t believe they are. I think there are a dozen of them at best. Kill ‘em all, but save the leader for me!”

“You,” he pointed to one group, “Go right!”

“You,” he pointed to another group, “Go left. The rest of you go straight on. Hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em quick. Let’s go boys; do it now!”

The motorcycles roared as they started up and the men revved them, making a cacophonous crescendo of almost one huge explosion of motor noises. No one could hear anything but they could all feel the noise, and the exhaust smell was overpowering.

Bone Breaker and several of his top lieutenants went back to the small hill that led up to the woods where Beth and the children had been camped out. He would observe the battle from there with his top people. The motorcycles closed in on Mike and his nine men.

“Keep your heads low,” Mike yelled at them, “And make every shot count!”

The Slavers drew closer and the noise from the motorcycles was deafening. The fumes were thick in the air but blew away from Mike and his people. Mike took one stick with the dynamite attached, lit the fuse, and lobbed it nearly the length of a baseball field. It laid there with smoke pouring from the fuse. He lit another and threw it off to the left and another went off to the right. They sailed through the air and landed.

He was counting mentally, five thousand, six thousand; in twenty nine seconds the first one blew right beside fifty or more bikers. In a few seconds, the second went off and more bikers were thrown into the air… and then the third went off. It rained motorcycles and riders. Many of the Slavers were missing arms or legs and a few heads, and some were on fire. The rest of the bikers laid down their bikes and started shooting at Mike and his people.

Bullets ricocheted off the rocky soil and whizzed away with a zinging sound that lasted for just a split second, flying like angry hornets coming from a nest someone had just swatted with a stick. All Mike and his people could do was keep their heads down. The cover of the creek bed was protecting them but they couldn’t shoot back for the hail of bullets coming their way. Suddenly there was firing coming at them from both the right and the left.

This was really bad!

Mike passed the word to keep low and move with the creek bed toward the east, which helped a little. Now instead of being nearly surrounded, they only had fire coming from the front and one side. The attack from their left suddenly stopped for some reason.

The firefight lasted for another thirty minutes and, incredibly, nobody on Mike’s side was hurt or wounded. Mike lit another stick of dynamite and threw it as hard as he could toward his front and quickly threw himself to the ground. As many as fifty or sixty bullets struck the ground but he was sheltered from them. The dynamite went off and killed at least another ten bad guys, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It looked grim and the good guys weren’t going to win this battle if they couldn’t fire back.

Then he heard it.

It was the unmistakable sound of an M-60 firing off toward the east that raked the landscape with murderous fire. Whoever it was, they knew how to handle that weapon. They heard the sound of motorcycles starting and moving away. The M-60 kept firing and they heard yet another M-60 along with small arms fire. The battle ground was getting lively and Mike noticed there were no more rounds striking the ground around him. He poked his head up and could see the army trucks parked to his left. Sam was frantically firing the M-60; his mustache making him look like a wild man.

The firing continued for at least another ten minutes and smoke was heavy everywhere; it was as if a fog unexpectedly descended into the small pocket of the battlefield. Several of the men’s faces were blackened by gun smoke and burned cordite. The breeze that had moved the wildfire slowly dissipated the heavy smoke. Several soldiers from one of the army trucks got up from their firing positions and walked the areas where so many of the Slavers lay. Some were smoking from the fire and others were torn to pieces from the hammering of the M-60. When the final count was in, they totaled two hundred thirty bodies. Only two were still alive and they were both dispatched with a single shot to the head.

Bone Breaker scanned the killing field with binoculars, studying the area with an intense scrutiny.

“Well boys” Bone Breaker said in a perfectly normal voice, “We need to head for the coast. I feel snow in the air.”

They cranked their bikes up and swung well south and west… for now… but they would not be beaten… they would be back later on with more men to finish this fight!

Back at the Armory, Sam saw a corporal open a large storage area and come up with the largest pair of binoculars he had ever seen. When he inquired about them Sergeant Randall said,

“Those came off a Heavy Cruiser that was being decommissioned, the U.S.S. Des Moines in fact. They were given to the Colonel who was in charge back in the mid-sixties because his dad was the last skipper on it. The Colonel died and the binoculars remained here. There’s a stand for them in another room that, when mounted, swivels 360 degrees in any direction. Why do you ask?”

“I have a spot up on our mountain where we could mount them.” Sam replied, “We could mount them up there and cover the entire road in to Fitch through the valley. It would give us all an early warning if anyone were to attack from any of those directions.”

“Well, from one Sergeant to another,” Sergeant Randall said, “Consider them yours.”

After returning to Avalon, Mike’s group began an all-out effort to build what was referred to as “Eagle’s Nest.” They mounted the oversized binoculars in a tower with a roof over it and manned them every day from first light to just before dark.

The glasses were extremely powerful and viewers were able to see the road coming in from Bishop to the East, all of Fitch, down into the valley toward the river south, and over to the road that headed away from Fitch toward the Coast. They could even see the old Slaver campgrounds clearer than grains of sand.

Chapter 36 Regroup: Slaver Faceoff

The radio message came into the Armory, breaking the silence. Corporal Linden answered, acknowledging receipt, and he jumped up and ran down the hall to where Sergeant Randal Stone kept himself busy. He burst into the office without knocking and put the message down on the Sergeant’s desk in front of him, who was a bit miffed at the intrusion until he read the message.

“Assemble every available troop,” he said while looking up. “I want all the trucks ready to roll and a Humvee for me. Load an M-60 on the Humvee and throw on a couple of cases of ammo. I want all the men in battle dress and combat ready. We’re going to finish this once and for all. And bring out the little surprise we’ve been preparing; we’ll place it on the west end of town. Make sure it has plenty of ammo.”

“I’ll get right on it, sergeant,” the corporal said as he headed out the door.

The alarm was heard throughout the building about sixty seconds later, an intermittent sharp buzz that everyone knew meant trouble. In fifteen minutes they were ready and heading west on the main road that trekked through the center of the town.

Sheriff Waters looked at his watch and it had been twenty minutes since the message came down from Avalon. That would put the Slavers just about here and he made a note to himself as he looked at the big map on the wall before him. He pushed the intercom and Marci came back to him,

“Yes, Sheriff?”

“Marci, how many citizens do we have deputized?”

“Counting me, six.”

“Send a car out with a PA system on it. Tell the deputy to say, ‘All able-bodied men assemble at the Sheriff’s Office immediately. A Slaver attack is imminent.’ You got that?”

“Got it, Sheriff!”

In five minutes the car was going up and down the street broadcasting the alert. People ran down the street toward the Sheriff’s office, all armed with M-16s and ammo bandoliers with clips full of NATO .223 Ball. They all had side arms and bayonets, and some had pockets on their vests with a grenade on each side. In five more minutes, eight trucks, mostly pickups, pulled up in front of the Sheriff’s office and the men climbed in… three men plus the driver in the cab and the rest in the back.

The Sheriff took his radio out of the pouch, “Marci, shut that siren off now.”

“Okay, Sheriff.”

In thirty seconds, just as the Sheriff was getting ready to call her again, the sirens wound down into a progressive deeper and deeper groan and finally stopped.

“Let’s go get them,” the Sheriff said to the men. “No prisoners. No mercy. If any of them gets away, it won’t be because we didn’t try to kill ‘em all. Let’s go to the west of town!”

Mike and the rest of the men rode their dirt bikes down the old track bed and in thirty minutes, they were at the base of the mountain. The Slavers had already gone past them, but it was their intention to cut them off and allow the attack to come in simultaneously on the Slavers from both the front and rear. They all had radios and were able to keep in contact with one another.

Mike had searched for Bone Breaker’s body after the last attack but he never found it… he knew the Slavers would return eventually…and that time was now.

Bone Breaker rode along in front of his four hundred bikers. It had taken a couple of months to gather that large a number for a payback visit to Fitch, and this was going to be his big day. He was going to either kill all of them or enslave and sell them back on the coast. The clear blue sky was an omen that all would go well.

He relished this moment; it nearly gave him a hard-on just thinking about the cries for mercy and the blood that was going to flow… and knowing that the bloodshed today would not be that of his troops. He was confident and eager for battle, which made his ride toward Fitch tedious and filled him with impatience.

The Avalon sentry at Eagle’s Nest, now armed with those large binoculars, had spotted the Slavers going down the highway headed for Fitch. He got on his handheld radio and alerted Mike at the main building and Mike and Sam, in turn, alerted the main battle group at Avalon to prepare for combat. They jumped on their bikes and headed out to the large binocular site to talk to the sentry about what he had seen.

Dan was on the Ham set with Fitch. “Sheriff,” he said, “They’re on their way. From what Mike just told me on the handheld, it looks about like three or four hundred of them coming at you fast.”

The air raid sirens sounded and people converged on the Sheriff’s office once again, just as they had two months earlier. The Sheriff stood in front of his office with his hands on his hips and said in a voice they could all hear,

“They’re coming. Mike says maybe three or four hundred of them. We need to go west and meet them. Randall, is the tank ready?”

Randall stuck up a hand with his thumb straight up.

“Let’s roll and this time, let’s put an end to every one of them.”

The pickups, deuce and a half, and Humvee rolled out of town toward the west with the tank lurching behind. The group stopped and waited as the old Bradley continued toward the Bikers at thirty miles an hour. Blue smoke came out of the exhaust pipe as it rattled and clanked at high speed.

The Slavers rounded the large curve that skirted the river just before crossing the bridge that led to the main road running through the middle of town. A movement caught Bone Breaker’s eye and one of his riders, a tough lieutenant and trusted adviser, slumped on his bike, veered off the road, and went into the river. Another rider fell and several others ran over the lieutenant or hit him, lost control of their bikes, and crashed. Thirty or so riders crashed before those coming behind them could veer off and avoid the conflagration.

Bone Breaker signaled and one after the other pulled over, but not before more of them slumped at the controls of their bikes and showed a profusion of blood where a round had penetrated their chest or head. One man had an arm just hanging at what was left of his elbow. They were sitting ducks; sharpshooters were picking them off one-by-one. He saw rounds hitting the road and tearing chunks out of it. “Turn back!” he yelled to his fellow Slavers, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

In a moment they were turning and going west toward the coast again. More men went down on the road as round after round found one or more of them and tore holes through their bodies. In a moment they were out of range, but never saw who fired at them. Bone Breaker couldn’t believe there were enough of them left alive to put up this kind of resistance, and then he remembered the big cement walled store and the Armory. There must have been more of them left than he thought and they were putting up a good fight.

At thirty miles per hour, the Bradley came down the road heading directly toward the Slavers. The big gun was locked and loaded, and the gunner had strong instructions,

“Don’t ruin the road with that gun; we need it.”

The fifty caliber machine gun mounted in the turret was manned and hot. A few rounds already sent into the group had found their mark several times. The turret gunner was to shoot if the bikers headed off the road; at that point, they were his. They barreled down the road and the gap separating them was quickly closed as the big machine quickly ate up the distance. A large group separated and went north away from the river, and the turret man yelled to the gunner,

“They’re splitting off ahead to the right! Do you see them?”

The gun moved right and detonated; fire and smoke came out of the muzzle and the explosion was enormous. A huge ball of fire erupted where the bikers were and they were all torn to bits. The fire ignited the landscape.

“Great shot,” the turret man congratulated in glee, “You smoked the whole bunch!”

Bone Breaker saw it happen and could hardly believe his eyes.

“A tank?…” he said in disbelief. “They have a tank?…” he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Freakin’ bloody ashes! Everybody head west if you don’t want to die; we can’t fight a freakin’ tank!”

As they turned, the fifty calibers started chewing holes in them. Panic set in and it became every man for himself. Every time some of them headed off the road, the big gun barked and that group ceased to exist. Ma Deuce, a fifty caliber machine gun did its job grinding the Slavers into hamburger. The bikers had to cover a lot of territory in a hurry to get out of range, so they rolled on the power.

Pickups loaded with Sheriff Waters’ men sped past the tank at about eighty mph and caught up to some of the Slavers. The men in back of the truck shot at the bikers with shotguns and M-16s and the bikers went down, one after another. It was a rout and they were killing the Slavers ten and twenty at a time. The huge group was quickly pared down to a manageable number.

The Sheriff and his men were not done yet, though, and they kept at it. More bikers went down and another pickup full of men came along, stopped at the bodies along the road, and shot each one in the head, whether they were alive or not. One man lost his whole family to these scum and he was making sure he got his fair share of them.

Some of the wounded bikers begged for mercy and he shot those twice, once in the knee and then in the head… not too quickly so they had plenty of time to suffer. He was in no hurry; he had all day.

A large group of bikers managed to get far enough ahead of the others, roll on the power, and get away from those deranged farmers… but the scumbag bikers would be in for a big surprise in a few more minutes. Dead ahead and coming at them at eighty plus were Mike and his boys. In about ten more minutes they split into two groups. A radio message from the Sheriff made them stop. One group of Mike’s men placed themselves in position on each side of the road and Mike gave them strict orders,

“Do you all see that big tree over there? Everyone stop firing until they get over to that large rock. Does everyone see those two objects?”

His men were acknowledging that they understood.

“We don’t want to get ourselves into a crossfire situation,” Mike continued. “Take your time, make your shots count, and kill as many of them as you can. Good luck; I think I hear them coming. Get ready. Hoooraaah!”

The bikers rode into the trap and Sam, who kept the M-60 he “borrowed” from the Armory, opened fire well beyond the tree Mike had pointed out to his men. The bikes went down on the road and sparks flew much like a Chinese New Year celebration. The asphalt ground down machine and gas tanks as the bikes slid more than a hundred feet and blew up when sparks ignited the gas.

Bikes and men were blown into the air by the explosions like a string of firecrackers lit and going off, one after the other in a rapid staccato of shrieks and balls of fire.

Bone Breaker and several of his lieutenants saw it happen. Since they had stayed safely near the middle of the group, they were able to veer left and head south out of danger. They weaved back and forth and made it to the river where there was a small area they had to cross. Once on the other side, the weaving began anew as they tried to stay away from the big gun on the tank. The tank didn’t fire at them because the gunner didn’t see them. They were now out of range and away from the racing group of bikes.

After a few minutes, Bone Breaker stopped on a hill near a small patch of trees to the rear of all the action. He took out his binoculars and surveyed the area before him. Out of over four hundred fellow pillagers, only he and his seven trusted Lieutenants were left alive.

As he scanned the area, he could see smoke rolling up into the blue sky like black ribbons curling upward. Hundreds of bikes burned fiercely and, although he could barely make them out, his men lay everywhere, dead. Several townspeople were going from one man to the next, finishing them off.

“They nearly killed us all,” there was a mix of disbelief and anger in his voice. “I’ll be back, Fitch,” he said with determination. “You can count on it. You only won a couple of battles, but this war ain’t over!”

Chapter 37 Rebuilding with Hope

The townspeople of Fitch, under the leadership of Sheriff Waters, began to rebuild their town’s infrastructure, especially the businesses and the moving of goods and vital materials from one place to another. Doctor Dan Crowley and Caroline came down and helped the citizens of Fitch put their small hospital back in working order. The Fire Department was overhauled to the best of their abilities and the Sheriff deputized more people.

All of the citizens emulated the Swiss where every able-bodied person had a fully operational battle rifle in their closet and plenty of ammo for each weapon. Every person carried a sidearm and there was no talk of anyone banning guns since the last speech or utterance was made just prior to the start of World War Three. Little by little, the citizens of Fitch prospered. Surplus food was moved from Avalon to Fitch and in return, whatever Avalon needed to fix or install at the retreat, Fitch made available.

Proper medical care was administered to the people of Fitch because of Dan’s efforts and when he couldn’t be there, Caroline or Roger stood in. They were both becoming competent Medical Doctors in their own right under Dan’s tutelage. The hospital had everything Dan needed from X-rays, to mending broken bones, to the comprehensive operating room.

When anyone from Avalon came off the mountain to spend time at Fitch, they were provided a house to live in during their stay. Many of the residents were killed in the first raid of the Slavers and sadly, there were many empty houses replete with everything a visitor might need during an extended stay.

Mike and Sam came down and were each offered a house. They trained the townspeople in military tactics; setting sentries, patrolling, small squad tactics, firearms handling, marksmanship, and battlefield medicine. The people were eager to learn and most of them became citizen soldiers. While Mike and Sam were in Fitch, they developed a rotation between them… one week off for one of them and one week on for the other, reversing until the job was done.

The Ham set system first deployed by the Avalon group was very effective, especially with the “Eagle’s Nest” sentry post operating with the huge binoculars. There was a push to set up something similar by which the Fitch people would cover all approaches coming from the Bishop area. They located a spot and permanently manned it 24/7.

Most of the children that came with Beth were adopted by the townspeople of Fitch as they rebuilt their families, showing that love and compassion could overcome all odds. Beth, along with Davey and a few of her key leaders, moved permanently to Avalon and formed a family of their own.

There were only two land accesses to Fitch, by the highway from Bishop and from the coast; there was no direct route north or south. Protecting the access to Fitch was important and the citizens vowed to give their lives, if necessary, to prevent a recurrence of what happened with the Slavers.

Both Fitch and Avalon took turns reaching out by shortwave radio to those outside of their immediate areas. They heard from a group in Biloxi, Mississippi, another from Elyria, Ohio, and another from Springfield, Illinois. They continued to make contact with others and agreed to talk every night at seven o’clock Pacific Standard Time. They learned what was happening in other parts of what was left of the United States of America. There were frequent problems with the radio and the signal faded all too often. Sometimes only a part of a message was either sent or received; they needed an antenna.

They discovered, either by short wave radio messages or with the Ham set, that there were many others who had survived the radiation poisoning, the plague, and the hoards of gangs who decided to subjugate people. In some areas they were successful and a terrible bit of common information was that slavery and cannibalism was rampant throughout from these groups of thugs. Mike and Sheriff Waters explained in detail what measures they took to stop the criminals. They were surprised to discover how hungry people were for information and they shared it freely.

One of the most notable contributions from Avalon to Fitch was the growing seeds that Sally had hoarded away. With her seeds more food would be available not only in Fitch, but also in Avalon. Prior to the war, Fitch was a farming community that became over-run by Wall Street types and computer technology.

The valley was well on its way to becoming productive and prosperous again. Everyone helped anyone who needed it and there was a spirit of camaraderie and sharing not only in the way people acted toward one another, but in the way they thought about others. It was obvious that everyone played an important role in making up the common population, which was, at last count, three hundred people.

“I’ll be going down to Fitch tomorrow on the buckboard,” Caroline sounded tired as she said it.

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” Mike was concerned.

“Uh huh.“Her answer wasn’t very encouraging.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Caroline? You sound a little tired. Are you okay… really okay?”

“Well to be honest,” she confessed with a sense of resignation, “Those trips down that damn mountain and back up here are starting to get me down. I’m not complaining, you understand, but it’s a long trip. I know those people down there need us and you would not believe how many of those women are pregnant too. I wish I had wings.”

He slipped around behind her, put his arms around her stomach, and rubbed gently with his hands. She put her head back on his shoulder, and they rocked back and forth to an imaginary tune in each of their heads.

“I can’t imagine,” he said in a soft voice, “Why all those women just all of a sudden got pregnant. It must have been something in the air.”

She broke away and turned to face him, “It was that long, cold winter that did it, Michael.”

There she goes again, he thought, calling me Michael!

But he didn’t say a word. He had a plan formulating and would work on it tomorrow.

Both Fitch and Avalon monitored their Ham sets for any word about anything that could be of interest to any of them. Penny Rolls posted everything that was eventful and everyone at Avalon read every word. Eventually, the Avalon Reporter circulated down into Fitch and was widely read by everyone there as well.

The two towns became good neighbors and everyone wanted to know what was happening in both places. There was a newspaper office at Fitch but no one knew how to operate the presses, so it remained closed.

Mike remembered talking to one of the Fitch residents and the mention of an airport sort of whizzed by in the conversation, but it was something he had filed away for future reference. He knew that once the booby traps were deactivated out in the large front meadow at the entrance to Avalon, a good old fashioned airport could be put in place.

He went into action with some of the other men and quickly deactivated the anti-personnel devices. They filled the holes and cut the grass by allowing the cattle and horses to graze the area, coupled with some good, old fashioned hand cutting.

When it was finished, Mike went to Fitch.

As a SEAL, he had gone to a number of schools and one of those was a private pilot course where he learned to fly a single engine airplane. Sheriff Waters was in his office when Mike stopped by and the Sheriff looked up and smiled,

“Come on in my friend!”

Mike walked in and greeted the man warmly. “How have you been, Sheriff?” “Couldn’t be better, Michael,” he said warmly, extending his hand. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Sheriff,” Mike responded, “I need a single engine airplane to go from here to Avalon with Caroline. Since she’s expecting, I’d like to eliminate that long drive in a buckboard. It’s getting to her. Know of anything?”

The Sheriff tapped his forehead with a finger and a smile came over his lips, “I’ve got just the thing for you, my boy,” he said grabbing the keys off his desk, “Come with me.”

They went out to the street, got into the Sheriff’s car, and headed out of town.

After about fifteen minutes on the road, the bright orange windsock was visible ahead. The grass, normally well maintained, had grown as high as a man’s knees and weeds here and there were beginning to look out of control. Dandelions were scattered throughout the grass in profusion. The Sheriff pulled into what was once the airport and continued over to the large hangar off to the left of the office, which had a large sign over the top of it saying “Flight Instructions.”

The Sheriff was chatting about something and Michael grunted now and then. But he was checking the layout of the airport in reference to what was off in the distance. He would have to find his way back here once he left Avalon. The Sheriff finally stopped, recognizing the look on Mike’s face.

“This is it lad, come with me.”

The Sheriff fished out a key and opened the large padlock and they walked inside the large hanger. There were twelve aircraft parked inside. Some of them were new, but most were older models.

“Pick the one you like and if it suits you, consider it a gift from the City of Fitch to the Town of Avalon with our compliments. The owners are all dead now.”

“Is there any gas available for these babies?” Mike asked, knowing that birds with no juice wouldn’t help.

“Right over there behind the hanger. We hid the tanker truck from the bikers and it’s still sitting there full. I believe all of the birds are full as well. Who you gonna get to fly it?”

“Yours truly, Sheriff!” Mike said with a slight amount of satisfaction based on the look that came on the Sheriff’s face. “Let’s push this out and I’ll pre-flight it and shoot a few take offs and landings. Then I’ll be on my way back to Avalon. You mind driving by yourself back to town?”

“Not a problem. Is there anything you can’t do?”

Mike just smiled. The Sheriff was right; the plane was full of gas. Only one small problem put a damper on things, the battery was dead.

“Damn shame, son, I suppose we can jump it or something later on.”

“No need,” Mike replied, “Just do what I tell you to do, and we’ll crank it by hand.”

The Sheriff climbed into the chosen plane while Mike set the brakes, primed it, turned on the switch to the mags and pumped the throttle a few times after draining all the water out of the wing tanks and the carburetor. He rummaged around until he found an old mason jar and emptied the gas drain tubes into that. It looked pretty good.

“You ready, Sheriff?”

“Let’s do it.”

Mike cranked the prop and the old Cessna sputtered and popped, and winded to a jerky stop.

“One more time,” he yelled to the cockpit, “Except this time, start pumping the throttle back and forth and see if it’ll start as I hand crank the prop.”

“Fire away!”

This time the engine sputtered and a cloud of smoke came out of the exhaust as the Sheriff was rapidly pumping the throttle; then it came to life with a sudden roar. The engine was solid and running smoothly so Mike ran around to the cockpit, “I’ll take it from here, Sheriff, thanks.“

The Sheriff got out and Mike jumped in, released the brake, and slowly taxied out to the strip. He put on the brakes, conducted an engine run-up to check the mags at eighteen hundred rpms, and moved all the controls. When he was satisfied it would fly, he slowly pushed on the power, rolled down the runway, and went in with full power and ten degrees of flaps.

In another minute he was at seventy mph so he slowly eased back on the yoke and the aircraft gently lifted off the pavement; he was airborne. He lowered the nose a bit and released the flaps, and when the airspeed increased, he pulled back gently on the yoke, and the plane climbed straight ahead. Mike stayed in the same “touch and go” pattern for about fifteen minutes, taking off and landing repeatedly. When he felt comfortable, he went over to where the highway left town toward the coast and followed it until he saw the old railway bed that inched up the mountain. He flew above that and followed it up to the top where the big stand of firs and the road Eli built were visible through the trees.

On the other side of the trees was the big meadow. He eased back on the power, dropped in ten degrees of flaps, and pulled on the carburetor heat. The airplane began to slow so he cranked in another ten degrees of flaps. It slowed more and, when he felt his approach on final was a good one, he put on full flaps. The plane settled down smoothly toward the grass. In another minute, the wheels touched down and he let it roll out until it came to a stop.

Chapter 38 We the People

Mike pushed the power on, gave it rudder, and rolled the plane toward the big log building. People came out and watched him taxi toward them.

Mike got out and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Where’s my woman?”

“I’m here,” Caroline responded, stepping out of the dispensary, making herself visible to him. ‘

“Look what I brought you!” he yelled. “Now you can ride down the mountain in style.”

Everybody was laughing and clapping as Caroline smiled extensively.

That night after supper, most of the residents gathered around the radio that Mike had set up and turned on. At first there was static and then some obscure station could be heard, but suddenly a man’s voice came over the speaker.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Carl Richards and I am the new President of these United States of America. First, I want to tell you something about me. I was a farmer. I grew corn, alfalfa, and wheat and I had dairy cows that I milked twice a day. I grew up on my Dad’s farm as he had grown up on his Dad’s farm and so on, going back before the Revolutionary war. I went to college and studied accounting and farm management practices. I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never studied law.

I stand here this day to bring you up-to-date on the current state of our nation. Sadly, our great country was attacked by Middle Eastern terrorists with satchel nuclear devises that they purchased from the Russians. They detonated one of those destructive weapons in Washington, D.C. and the other, a short time later, in a large portion of Atlanta, Georgia… and that was the beginning of a terrible nuclear war throughout the world.

While we were in a crippled state of affairs, our enemies attacked us and declared war on our people! We responded to these atrocities and various countries in the Middle East and elsewhere were reduced to nearly a Stone Age existence with the help of our friends and allies, the Israelis.

An accounting of what countries were attacked is as follows:

Russia, China, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, Iran, Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and Bosnia Herzegovina. Most of these countries no longer have an infrastructure and their industries have been reduced to virtually nothing.

We answered the attacks on our nation through the efforts of the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command and the United States Navy’s Nuclear Submarine Forces using most of our nuclear arsenal against those perpetrators who would make war on the United States of America.

Our message to those countries that would make unprovoked war on the United States of America is this; we did not seek a world war, but we ended it the only feasible way available to us, multiple nuclear strikes on those who had attacked us!

If there are others out there planning more destruction, we are prepared to strike again or reduce our weapons into the proverbial plow shares.

The United States of America has always been the first country to step up and offer aid and assistance to any nation on this planet that was in need of help. That is over! We will no longer offer food, money, medical, or intellectual help to any other country. Our benevolence is at an end and the free handouts are over.

These new guidelines not only apply to the countries that used to be recipients of our benevolence, but to our own citizens as well. We are going back to the philosophies of our ancestors… if you want to eat, you will have to have some sort of job or you will starve. To our allies, we are still your friend but our resources must and will be directed to our own people first and foremost.

Those areas struck by either Russian or Chinese bombs are… On our East Coast – New London, Connecticut, New York City, Norfolk, Virginia, Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and Jacksonville, Florida. On our West Coast – Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, California, Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, and Long Beach, California.

On the East Coast of our great Nation, from those cities struck by nuclear bombs inland to about seventy five miles, the radiation is strongest and most critical… but it diminishes somewhat after the first ten miles.

Those citizens still in or having to travel inside those areas should reduce their time in those perimeters to less than seventy two hours.

After the initial ten miles, the danger subsides considerably but still poses a threat for exposures of longer than seventy two hours. Beyond those distances of the initial ten miles and seventy two hours, the radiation levels are halved in intensity and duration. Our top scientists say that moving farther than twenty miles diminishes the radiation further yet to allow ninety six hours in duration.

If you do not have an immediate need to be closer than twenty or thirty miles from the coast, stay away!

We have little news about the West Coast. The majority of the population was within the greater Los Angeles area north to San Francisco, which was hit with multiple nuclear weapons.

The information coming out of there is sketchy at best. Stay away from Los Angeles and San Francisco! Satellite photos show us that most of the fires are out but the radiation poisoning will affect everyone from San Francisco south.

The oil fields in Bakersfield and Long Beach are still burning. We are in constant contact with new pockets of people who survived the conflagrations and we will report to you as we find them and learn a little about their situations.

My Fellow Americans, these are difficult times and the death and destruction is so massive and widespread that simple words or descriptions would fail even the best of narrators. Please allow me to be one of the first to offer my condolences to you for what you have lost.

These are not meant to be hollow words; they are my most profound, humblest, and sincerest. My heart aches for you and for our country. I lost my entire family and everything I hold dear, and I can attest to the pain that we all are feeling at this time.

We estimate that more than five billion worldwide have died from nuclear bombs, radiation aftermath, the plague, and the lack of so many life-sustaining necessities such as potable water and food. We might be down right now, but we are certainly not out!

There are estimates that it’s going to take a thousand years for the world to repair itself from the destruction we have thrust on our own planet. But there are enough of us left to rebuild the world and repair some of the destruction. Your government is here to help in any way it can!

There were those who took God out of Government, out of our schools, and out of ordinary public and private living. I would like to be remembered as the President who put God back not only for your sake, but for my sake and for our country’s sake.

I want to take us back to the roots of the founding of this great nation and erase those things that evil men and women have done to America and Americans.

Starting now, the United States Senators will be elected the way the founding fathers intended and the way they laid the process out for us… by State Legislatures.

In agreement with the new Congress, we hereby abolish the 12th Amendment and your President and Vice President will be elected by the people and by popular vote of the citizens of the United States. The Electoral College will no longer exist.

No elected official will be permitted to hold any office for longer than a second term, regardless of the office that person seeks.

The U.S. Income tax is hereby abolished forever more.

The coining and control of U.S. currency will revert to a standard that is backed by something tangible. In this case, it will be backed by gold. The U.S. Government will print and coin its own money… and that money will be backed by gold. The Federal Reserve is hereby revoked.

Congress will no longer restrict inter-state commerce or trade.

Hereafter, there will be no more law by edict. All previous Executive Orders are immediately suspended or revoked.

A license will no longer be necessary to practice any trade or profession in the United States as long as that person has sufficient training and can go before a group of their peers and show satisfactory knowledge and training to practice that trade or profession.

A license or permit will no longer be required to do ordinary tasks or jobs as long as the task is done in accordance with common sense and acceptable standards.

The profession of lawyer is hereby revoked and all cases of dispute will be done by Arbitration. Those decisions will be final.

No one who ever practiced law in any form will ever be able to hold public office for the remainder of their natural lives.

All Capital Cases will be sent to a committee for review, which will hand down the verdict to the attending judge. Once the review is completed, execution of the sentence will be carried out within thirty days from the final decision.

All executions will be in public view.

The following crimes will be considered Capital Crimes and the ultimate penalty will be death by public hanging in the town squares. Those crimes are:

Rape, child molestation of any type, arson, sodomy, crimes made on the public by any elected official, crimes perpetrated on the public by any law enforcement official, or fraud against any agency that is serving the needs of the needy or the causes of any elderly or infirmed person(s).

Crimes committed by any person or group of persons more than three times in the natural life of the perpetrator, regardless of the description of those crimes, and perjury has also been added to this list.

And a warning to all who would hold public office… death to anyone who would hold public office and attempt to enrich themselves at the public’s expense and those who would attempt to introduce or create any law that is in direct violation to the Constitution of these United States!

It is with a heavy heart and the deepest humility that I make this vow to you. I will maintain this office to the highest and most ethical standards possible.

I pledge my life to my country and to you as a public servant. I love my country and all that it stands for, and I promise to do my best to bring peace and freedom to all of us.

Good night. God Bless each of you, and God Bless America!”

A stunned silence fell over the group, and they slowly left the big room and retired to their cabins. It was the final dialogue that put everything into perspective, and it was the finality of it all that made them realize the situation was what it was. They all knew they were on their own.

They were coping just fine together as a community, but there was sadness because it made them realize that there would be no more guessing about what had happened and what was happening. They understood that they could no longer depend on anyone except themselves and each other.

Chapter 39 The East Coast

Those who heard the President’s speech were caught up in the emotion of his words and most of them had little to say, but they all concurred that it was a good speech.

The following night as they were tuning in the shortwave band, they heard a man broadcasting from a radio station in upper New York State. He was unemotional, the characteristic of a seasoned veteran broadcaster, and his commentary of the happenings along the Eastern Seaboard was compelling;

Millions have perished… from New London, Connecticut to New York City, and south from there all the way down to Jacksonville, Florida, the death and destruction is beyond imagination. First it was the bombs and that destruction was beyond belief.

Then we saw the radiation sickness set in and, literally overnight, hundreds of thousands died in the streets, in their homes, sitting in their cars, at school, in factories, at airport terminals, and in area hospitals as they were being tended to by medical staff. The radiation killed most people in seventy two hours or less.

Some of the people who died manned the public utilities and, as a result, garbage piled up, telephones and power ceased to function, water systems shut down, and sewage systems stopped working shortly after the power companies quit sending out electricity to homes, factories, and cities. Soon there was no food, and those still alive became sick and disoriented. Some became pathological and killed others out of despair or out of revenge toward everyone for the suffering they were enduring. The madness escalated and within ninety days most people on the East Coast were dead.

In and near the areas nuked, people died as the invisible radiation penetrated their bodies, their drinking water, and their food. Dead fish and marine life by the millions floated on the top of rivers and lakes. They washed ashore along the beaches of the Atlantic from Maine all the way down to Key West.

Millions floated on top of the water in the South Atlantic and the Caribbean from the nuclear bombs that literally melted the Island of Cuba to the waterline. People in Haiti, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Brazil are dead or suffering from the fallout of the deadly radiation.

Stench swept over the land from the putrid, rotting bodies that were never buried because there was no one left to bury them. Rats and mice seemed to thrive for awhile, but they soon died as well. The flies were akin to the Biblical Plagues of the Old Testament. Scarcely a living creature has gone untouched. This land has become a stretch of eighteen hundred miles by seventy five miles of death, destruction, and wasteland devoid of life.

The only inhabitants that have seemed to thrive are insects… in particular, cockroaches. In fact they are dining on the cornucopia of so much dead and dying food that they’re getting bigger as each new generation hatches.

The United States, although badly damaged from the nuclear conflagration caused by the terrorists and the war, has emerged with a new President, Carl Richards, who vows to reorganize the states into a viable and cohesive union. But there are those who express doubts about the future. Most of the elected politicians were killed by one deadly means or another.

Only a handful of Congressmen and Senators are still alive and, by all accounts, are hiding out somewhere at places undisclosed. There has been no word about the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and it is assumed they are all dead. Almost nothing on the East Coast is alive or productive. It is a dead wasteland.

Hundreds of notables of movie and television fame boarded their private jets and left the U.S. for hideaways in Europe at the onset of the initial terrorist bombings. It isn’t known with any certainty thus far, but according to shortwave broadcasts, most if not all of them were caught up in the plague outbreak that swept through Europe and are presumed dead. Few escaped the invisible bugs of the age-old harvester of human lives. It would appear that Liberalism in America has ended. The rich, effete, influential, and outspoken members of that infestation are dead.

Small bands of people located all over the U.S. are coming on the air; we hear from them daily. We have heard from no one on the West Coast or on the Atlantic Seaboard as of yet, but it is hoped that some of them made it through the terrible events that has cost America and the world so much in such a small time period.

Canada made it through relatively unscathed regarding the bombs, but the plague cut its numbers down to a fraction of what they once were. It is estimated that Canada lost four fifths of its population to the plague, but there were other factors that caused a great deal of additional casualties.

Canada’s strict gun control laws curtailed the number of weapons at the disposal of its citizens and mobs raided across the unprotected and almost unguarded border. The Canadian’s were overwhelmed and overtaken by the well-armed hordes. People came from Connecticut, Maine, Upper New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, areas north of Washington State, Montana, and further east to the Great Lakes… and the Canadians didn’t stand a chance.

There were two reasons for this happening… first, Canada negotiated with the Russians to use their sovereign soil as a staging ground to invade America and that enraged many Americans… and second, the Canadians did not have the capability to stop the Americans from invading. Canadians are actively fighting the invaders but, without arms, it has been an uphill battle for them with a now greatly reduced population.

There are pockets of groups away from the seaboards who are holed-up in enclaves that are completely independent of everyone, and they do not hesitate to kill anyone on site. These people were initially friendly to the hundreds of thousands that began to pass through their area, but the mobs stripped the areas clean like a horde of army ants and left little for the residents to survive on. Those who did survive became distrustful and no longer tolerate random passersby to enter or to traverse their territory.

The war came to Middle America and it was an ugly and thankless battle of territorialism. Soon there were no more trespassers and the people, although on guard from that day forward, returned to the task of growing food to survive. Those who passed through kept moving and some of them made it to the Ohio Valley.

We know the following states are all that is left of the United States…

New Mexico, Iowa, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and South Florida. We have heard nothing from Alaska, California, Washington, Oregon, or Hawaii so far.

We do know that roving patrols are shooting everyone on site who penetrates those territories. The wide belt that cuts down the center of the United States is now the United States. President Richards has declared Chicago to be the Nation’s new Capital.

We also know that industry and manufacturing is proceeding better than expected, with minor exceptions. Farmers are promising a bumper harvest, which is a miracle considering the weather has been cloudy and overcast since the bombs dropped.

We are hoping to hear from all areas outside of the central areas of the U.S. We do get messages now and then, but only a few have been confirmed and consistent.

Armed gangs have terrorized many of the hard-hit areas. We hear stories of slavery and cannibalism but so far we have not been able to confirm those allegations. To say that this is all a picture of horror is an understatement. We know full well the hardships the entire country has had to endure and we need to know the truth about these stories, one way or the other.

Static…

The station was gone. They waited but failed to get it back. Once again people walked away without saying much. In the morning they would have a healthy round of discussion about this latest broadcast.

Chapter 40 The Rest of the Story

Dan and Roger asked if they could fly down the mountainside to Fitch with Caroline and Mike. The little Cessna 182 was a Turbo; so whatever they could cram into it, the little craft would fly effortlessly.

Gas was becoming a problem but Mike had an idea, and he was going to put it into action a few days later. He waited until he was certain that no one else needed a ride and asked Sam to accompany him.

“Sam, we need to find some gas for this bird and other vehicles. I know that in a pinch, when all else fails, we have the Ethyl Alcohol but surely there is some gas out there somewhere.”

Sam thought it was a good idea so they loaded a few necessities in the plane and after a few goodbyes, they were airborne and heading toward Fitch. Mike called the Sheriff’s Office on the radio and a voice acknowledged their call,

“This is the Sheriff’s Office, over.”

“Is the Sheriff in?”

“Not yet, but he’s on his way.”

“This is Mike Reynolds. Can you ask him to come out to the County Airport when he gets a chance?”

“I’ll do it right now; he has a radio in his car and probably heard you but just in case he didn’t, I’ll call him now,”

“Thank you; Mike out.”

In a moment the Sheriff was on the horn and said, “What’s up Mike?”

“I need to find some Av-gas somewhere in the Valley. You have any ideas where some might be stashed?”

Fitch came into view on the horizon as they waited for his response, and the radio finally came back to life. “Mike I may be able to come up with something; I’ll meet you at the airport; Out.”

Mike clicked the button on his mike a couple of times to acknowledge the message.

It was a clear sunny day with only a slight wind, not enough to move the windsock in this small and sheltered valley. Mike turned on final approach and set the last notch of flaps, pulled back, and reduced power a little more. The plane slowed at eighty and the tires screeched as they came in contact with the runway. As he put the flaps back up to zero degrees, he reached down and opened the cowl flaps and let the momentum of the airplane slow itself down.

When they taxied over to the hangar, they saw the Sheriff pulling into the airport; he stopped in front of the office. Mike taxied over and shut the plane down by pulling the fuel mixture to full lean. The engine sputtered and then jerked to a standstill.

Mike and Sam got out of the cockpit and walked toward the office where the Sheriff was already rummaging around. When they walked in, the Sheriff turned and said,

“They kept their maps here somewhere, but I just can’t remember where that is off the top of my head.”

Mike walked over to a file cabinet and pulled the steel drawer open labeled “Sectional Charts.”

“Well, butter my butt and call me biscuit,” the Sheriff joked in a thick country twang, “how’d you know they’d be in there?”

“In aviation,” Mike said, smiling as he pulled one out and unfolded it, “like the Navy, they aren’t maps… they’re charts.”

After a few more tries, they found a chart showing Fitch and a few other small towns sprinkled here and there; each just a name and a dot. They walked over to a table and the three of them hunched over the aviation chart and studied it.

“This might be a good place to stop and check out,” the Sheriff said, placing his finger on a particular spot. “I know there was a crop dusting outfit there, just outside of this town called Ruston. Over here is a small strip that belonged to the farmer named… named… I can’t remember now, but we could go down to The County Building and look him up.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mike said. “Sam and I are going to top this bird off with some of the gas stored over there in the tanker that you keep locked up in the hangar, and then we’ll head out that way. Ruston looks to be about a fifteen minute ride from here.”

“You boys ain’t going without me,” the Sheriff said, smiling.

They gassed up the 182 and in a few minutes, they were headed to Ruston.

The short flight lasted seventeen minutes and the strip was about a mile from the main farm house. When the airplane stopped, they taxied as close as they could, shut the bird down, and began to walk. All three men were each armed with an M-16 that Sheriff Waters kept in his trunk.

As they walked, the tall grass came up to their knees in places and they stopped several times to remove burrs from their socks that had lodged in their ankles. The farmhouse was big, and off to the right of it was a very large barn. The house was big too, although it could easily fit inside the barn. It was painted white with dark green trim. The barn was painted a reddish color that was weathered and appeared to be light rust. It was at least three stories tall.

“I don’t know a lot about this guy,” Sheriff Waters talked as they stepped into the last field, “But I understand that he had more money than some countries. I had actually forgotten about him. He owned an airplane that he used to go to the coast and if I’m not mistaken, it was a twin engine job. I’m almost positive that he will have some gas stored away somewhere, probably over there behind the barn.”

They closed the last few hundred yards, arrived at the house, knocked on the door, and waited. There was a small windmill off to one side of the house and, as the wind blew, the tin man with a hatchet moved, chopping incessantly away, up and down and up and down. It made a clacking noise. But no noise came from the house, so the Sheriff reached over and twisted the doorknob and pushed. The big door opened with a squeak.

“This is Sheriff Waters from Fitch,” he said it loud enough to be heard throughout the house. “Is anyone in here?”

Silence…

The house smelled bad; at first it was subtle, but became stronger as they moved toward the center. The Sheriff yelled this time,

“Sheriff Waters from Fitch, is there anybody here!?”

Silence…

They moved to the kitchen where everything was neat and orderly; nothing appeared to be touched. The refrigerator was obviously not running, and when the Sheriff opened the door, a disgusting odor came out. All the food in there was rotten. He immediately closed the door.

“I sure wish I hadn’t of done that!” he said, trying to keep down his lunch.

It made Mike and Sam laugh.

They moved through the house and everything was so neat, so perfect. At the top of the stairs was a large landing and there was a hallway that went left and another that went right. Mike went right and Sam and the Sheriff went left.

There were six rooms down the hall that Mike had chosen. The doors were all white enamel and looked as if they had just been painted. The door hardware was rich and obviously expensive. He tried the door knob and the door opened toward the inside of the room. It was a gigantic bedroom fitted with a large wardrobe, several chairs, a table, and a couch. Off to one side was a door that led into a huge bathroom complete with all the fixtures.

Mike went back out and over to the other door and opened it. It was a large walk-in closet packed full of women’s clothing. Mike left the room and went down the hall toward the next room. In the hall, he saw the Sheriff and Sam beckoning to him, so he turned and walked toward them on the plush carpeted floor.

“What’s up, guys?”

“Take a look at this,” the Sheriff said it in a hushed, almost reverent voice.

Mike went inside and found four bodies lying next to each other on the huge bed. A man was on one side, two younger women were in the middle, and another woman was on the far side… she appeared older, like the man.

On a table located on the other side of the room was a hand written note.

“Read it, son,” the Sheriff urged, nodding toward the note.

“To Whom It May Concern,” Mike cleared his throat, “I Thomas Daltry, I Doris Daltry, I Janet Daltry, and I Margaret Daltry, are hereby committing our souls to God for safekeeping. We understand that taking our own life is a mortal sin, but we hope and we pray the Lord will forgive us. We can no longer bear what is happening in the world and the news of the war leaves us no hope. If anyone finds us, please see to it that we have a Christian burial. May God Bless and keep you if you honor this last request from the Daltry’s. Signed… “

The signatures were neatly applied to the bottom of the letter.

“I suppose we need to honor this request, my friends,” Mike said matter-of-factly. “Let’s wrap them up individually and take them out behind the house.”

They found fresh sheets in a hallway closet and took out four, wrapped each body up in a sheet, took them all outside behind the house and carefully laid them down on the ground. They dug shallow graves for each of the bodies and placed them in the ground, side by side. Then Mike went inside and searched the massive room that was the library and found a Bible. He came back and opened it to Romans, Chapter 6, verses 4 and 5.

“We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”

He then flipped over and read the 23rd Psalm and finished with a small benediction.

“Rest in Peace, this family, Thomas, Doris, Janet and Margaret Daltry. May the Lord have mercy on you that you might receive the everlasting light from God. Amen.”

The Sheriff and Sam uttered their ending to the prayer together.

Mike turned and looked at them and said, “What say we look around for some gas?”

They found a huge tanker truck that Daltry used to fill up his plane and not only was it full of aviation gas, but the diesel tank on the truck was full as well. They also found a five thousand gallon tank full of automobile gas and a fifteen hundred gallon tank of diesel.

It would all have to be transported back to Fitch for later use. The twin engine Cessna King Air was in the large barn and looked pristine other than collecting some dust. They made arrangements to bring some people back in the Cessna and drop them off so they could transport all the gas back to Fitch within a few days.

Sam and Mike went back home to Avalon after the ferrying operation was complete and Sheriff Waters coordinated the salvage operation of the fuel. It was a productive trip and they now had plenty of fuel to last awhile, especially Av-gas for the plane.

That little plane sure was coming in handy these days.

When evening came to Avalon, and after a sumptuous dinner, Dan clicked on the radio and a man was talking,

…The President assures us that it is in the process of being implanted as I speak. Last night, we reported on the East Coast of the United States; tonight we will give you pertinent information that will help you see a picture of the West Coast and the remainder of the United States. We are confident that you will have a better understanding when we finish this broadcast.

The President has still had no communications from anyone out west and in particular, the Great State of California. No one seems to have any hard evidence as to the status of the people and the territory. The President has satellite photos of the strike zones, but little else is known.

We are all hoping that someone will get on a radio and enlighten us… and soon. It is a terrible situation not to know. I can share with you here and now what we do know. Satellite images reveal that Seattle, Washington was hit with multiple bombs.

The bombs took out the Boeing plants in Everett and Seattle, which greatly reduced the military capabilities of McCord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis, located south of Seattle near an area known as Puyallup, Washington. The President is in communication with the military installations but no word as to their status is forthcoming so far.

Moving south, Portland, Oregon was nuked by a single bomb and nothing is coming out of that area.

Farther south from there, San Francisco, California was struck with three bombs. The devastation is tremendous and the City by the Bay no longer exists as it once did. Satellite photos show the Bay Bridge is damaged, but still stands. The rest of the city burned for about two weeks and there is no detectable life anywhere.

We know little about Los Angeles because there are no radio transmissions coming out of that area. As I stated earlier, there are rumors about Motorcycle Gangs that have formed mobile armies and are looting and pillaging the area.

An expert in nuclear fallout, Dr. Duane Adams from the University of Chicago, tells us that in all probability, the activity in those areas is reduced due to radiation poisoning, which probably moved from West to East and was blocked by the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, The Great Rocky Mountains, and the Tehachapi’s.

That would explain the lack of any information coming out of there. It could well be that almost, if not all, of the residents from San Francisco and south are dead, but we are still holding out hope for some survivors.

Aircraft from what is left of the Air Force have flown over the area and taken readings. The President released that information a month ago, but it is being updated by additional flights as I speak. As soon as we have that information, we will let you know.

We know the area in and around San Diego was hit multiple times, presumably to take out the Navy, Marines, and other military installations located there.

It is predicted that much of California will remain contaminated for at least a century. The oil wells that are burning out of control near Los Angeles and down in the valley near what was once Bakersfield will probably burn for a number of years. No one can get to them because of the deadly radiation and the resources to bring them under control are non-existent at this time anyway.

Food shortages will be averted from the new food bowl located in the middle of America where food crops are actively being cultivated. The twenty six states encompassing what is left of the United States are beginning to work hard and industry is starting to recover, with little exceptions.

People all over America are experiencing a renewed surge of patriotism and pride in this country. Just outside of Austin, Texas a group began to protest some remote happening by burning an American flag. They were all shot and killed by a Texas mob waving American flags and sporting fully automatic weapons. The President commented about the incident today by saying,

“Although we abhor violence in any form, anyone who would burn a U.S. flag or condemn these United States of America should be well-advised to do so at their own peril. Feelings are running high right now, and the American population has a low threshold toward anyone who would condemn or utter anything derogatory toward this country. I understand how they feel, but I do implore them to not take the law into their own hands. We are a country of laws and we are a land where justice will prevail.”

In other news, the President and his cabinet are re-instituting the gold standard. Gold has risen to ten thousand dollars an ounce, which makes America’s reserves a precious commodity.

Someone turned off the radio and Beth stood up and said to the group.

“Since you all have been so gracious as to allow me and my children to live here at Avalon, I’d like to present a gift to this community and to all the citizens living here.”

She asked Tom Wyatt, David Driscol, and Matt to come forward and they did, carrying small leather pouches. They sat them down on a table near Beth and she said,

“Here in these bags are about twenty one pounds of pure gold. I make that to be a little over three and a quarter million dollars.” The boys were beaming as she spoke, and Beth couldn’t help but smile too.

“And there are lots more where this came from.”

Life was going to be good again… and they all knew it.

Chapter 41 Epilogue

The day following the news broadcast, the radio crackled with a message,

“This is Sheriff Waters calling Avalon, over. Do you read, over?”

Crystal was monitoring the circuits and she responded as soon as she got to the bench.

“This is Avalon; I read you loud and clear Sheriff. Send your traffic, over.”

“Can you ask Mike if he’d fly down here to pick me and one other person up and take us back to Avalon? I’ll stand by and wait for his answer. Tell him it’s important. Out.”

Crystal got on one of the handhelds from the bench.

“Mike, the Sheriff is calling for you; he needs you to fly down and get him plus one; he says it’s important.”

“Tell him I’m on my way,” came the reply.

Mike went out to the plane and did a pre-flight before taking off. Sam noticed and came over midway through, curiosity getting the best of him since it wasn’t one of their normally scheduled times.

“Trouble?”

“I don’t think so,” Mike was wiggling a flap and didn’t bother looking at Sam. “Evidently, I’m going down to get the Sheriff and someone else and bring them back here.”

“Don’t know why, eh?”

“Nope,” he said, “But definitely interesting. Sheriff’s never been up here… he never asked.”

Mike finished the pre-flight while Sam watched. He drained the water from the wing tanks and then climbed in to the cockpit and prepared to start the airplane. He said bye to Sam and then yelled the customary signal, “Prop Clear!” while Sam backed up, giving room. The engine cranked up and started right away.

He taxied down the field, turned the little airplane, did a run-up, recycled his prop, checked the mags, released the brakes, and headed down the runway, gaining speed for lift. It didn’t take long and before he knew it, he was landing at the county airport just outside of Fitch. He saw the Sheriff’s car waiting for him and taxied up near it.

“What’s up, Sheriff?” He yelled from the cockpit. “Hi Randal! Jump on in. Randal you sit up front,” he said while handing back a pair of headphones, “You weigh a lot more than the Sheriff.”

In a moment, the airplane was speeding down the runway and Mike turned the craft toward Avalon. In less than twenty minutes, they landed and taxied up near the big porch where several people watched. He pulled the mixture control and the engine sputtered to a stop.

They all walked around the grounds and Randal and the Sheriff were nearly speechless at what they saw. As usual, most people were in awe with what they saw at Avalon. They took the royal tour with Dan as their tour guide. They were offered a bowl of beef stew and ate it heartily.

“This is just about the best stew I’ve ever eaten,” the Sheriff commented.

Caroline brought Chad and Linda from the kitchen to meet the Sheriff and Sergeant Randal. When they finished eating, the tour resumed and, after a couple of hours of walking around the retreat, they returned to the main building where Dan invited them to the bar for a drink.

Dumbfounded, the Sheriff stared in disbelief. “A Bar?”

“Go big, or go home, Sheriff. That’s what I always say.” Mike commented as they all laughed, leading the Sergeant and the Sheriff to the main bar.

“What’s your pleasure?” Crystal asked as she tied on an apron.

They stayed in the bar talking until it was time for supper, and they all had a fabulous meal of spare ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet buttered corn, and for dessert, apple pie and coffee. As seven o’clock approached, the Sheriff kept checking his watch and asked that they retire to the radio room.

Dan turned on the primary shortwave radio set to let it warm up; it was a different set than what they normally used for communications with Fitch. In a few minutes, it came alive with a warm buzz and the new President of the United States was speaking.

“This is the President calling Avalon, over.”

Dan was the closest, so he keyed the microphone. “This is Dan Crowley of Avalon speaking. How can we help you, Mr. President?”

“Is this Doctor Daniel Crowley?” the President asked, clearly emphasizing Dan’s professional title.

“Yes it is Mister President,” Dan responded, “At your service.”

“Good! I understand from my advisors after they visited Fitch and heard about your community at Avalon that you were one of co-founders and a primary member to the group. Barring any objections, you are now Governor Daniel Crowley. I am appointing you the new Governor of the State of California. In a few weeks we will dispatch an aircraft to your airport with some pertinent information and a few things you will need as the new governor, including the official certificate for your office.”

“Thank you sir,” Dan responded in disbelief. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything, Governor… and Good luck! To be clear, my Cabinet, the new Congress, and I have made this decision along with several others in order to provide an interim working government. Normal American Constitutional Law will begin immediately, but clear leadership needs to be appointed to provide guidance until elections can resume. Sheriff Waters, are you there?”

The Sheriff picked up the microphone and spoke into it with hesitation. “This is the Sheriff, Mr. President. What can I do for you?”

“Sheriff,” there was clarity in the President’s voice; “I’ve heard what has been happening in your town of Fitch and the leadership that you have provided. You are the kind of man I admire and I’m appointing you as Lieutenant Governor of California. You may remain Sheriff as well, if you like.”

“Lieutenant Governor?” the Sheriff murmured. “Me?”

“That’s right. You are now just under the Governor, and may God help you make all the right decisions! I want to address Lieutenant Commander Michael Reynolds now. Is he there as well?”

Mike reached over and took his turn at the microphone, “This is Mike Reynolds, Mr. President.”

Mike felt like he should be saluting or something, but resisted the urge. Still, he found himself straightening his back a bit more than usual.

“Michael Reynolds, you are now Admiral Michael Reynolds. That’s four stars son… and you can choose to be my adviser or you can go on active duty and assume your station there… that decision is yours alone. Congratulations, Admiral! The appropriate paperwork will be sent along with the same credentials I’m sending to the Governor.” Mike was speechless as he pulled his hand away from the microphone.

“Is Special Agent Elizabeth Kelly there?”

Edging to the microphone, Beth was nervous and felt like a recruit back at Quantico. “This is Elizabeth Kelly, Mr. President.”

“Good, good, you’re there too,” the President seemed quite pleased. “I want to inform you that you are now the Agent in charge of the entire west coast, and that includes Alaska and Hawaii and all Pacific Territories that we have left. You will take orders from me, the Attorney General, or the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and no one else. Congratulations! Your new credentials will be on the same airplane.”

After a pause, the President continued. “Is Sergeant Randal Stone there?”

Randal walked over and put the microphone up to his mouth and spoke into it with his utmost military bearing, “I am present, sir. Sergeant Randall Stone at your service.”

“Glad to hear it, Sergeant. You are now promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and you will be in charge of all of the National Guard in California. Congratulations, General! One moment please.” The radio went silent, and everyone in the room was quiet. Each of them was stunned at what they had just heard.

The squelch of a microphone being keyed brought them back to reality, “I want to congratulate all of you for serving your country in this time of need and to inform you of the value that I believe each of you has for this new government and for your country. I had planned to spend a bit more time with you on the radio, but it seems a matter of urgency has arisen that requires my immediate attention. Good night; we will speak again soon!”

When the initial shock wore off, the Sheriff stepped over to Mike, “I was saving this,” he said in a low tone, “But it doesn’t seem fitting anymore… an Admiral. Wow! An Admiral!”

Mike stepped over to the Sheriff, interrupting to get himself out of the limelight, and put an arm around his shoulders, saying,

“Sheriff, I’d like to take the opportunity to express my most profound thanks to you and to the General for your help. Without it, I likely wouldn’t be here today. We’ve accomplished great things together and under extremely difficult conditions. So thank you. Now,” he paused to take a breath, “What was it you were saving?”

“It no longer seems significant, Admiral,” the Sheriff said as he pulled a wallet out of his pants pocket and presented it to Mike, “But I thought I’d give this to you as a token of my appreciation of all that you’ve done for me and for the entire town of Fitch.”

Mike opened the old leather case, and inside it was gold badge. On the badge were the words

Clallam County

Under Sheriff

Badge No. 2

California

The Sheriff seemed embarrassed as he handed it to him, but Mike spoke sincerely. “Thank you, Sheriff. I will always treasure this!”

In another area of California, a group of men gathered around a radio listening to the conversation between the President and the members of Avalon and Fitch.

The massively large man stood up and kicked the woman who was sitting at his feet, likely breaking a few ribs with his steel toed, studded boot.

“Enjoy it Sheriff, Admiral, General, Governor,” Bone Breaker nearly spat out each title.

“I think in another year or so,” he continued with a sneer, “There’ll be a few succulent and tender babies to eat, and I’m gonna enjoy that!”

He turned, facing north toward Avalon and Fitch and shook his fist in the air. “I’ll be back,” his voice rose as he spoke into the night air, “And this time, you won’t get away so easily! I’ll make you ALL pay!”

Around him hundreds of Slavers, his newest army, rose to their feet, yelling with hoots and hollers, their fists raised arrogantly into the air!

To be continued…

Get a sneak peek…

L. Michael Rusin’s anticipated sequel…

Coming in the

Fall of 2013

1. Scavengers

Randy Stewart licked his cracked and dehydrated lips as he studied the bikers down below him in a small secluded valley that was surrounded by rock strewn rolling hills. Trees were scattered sufficiently in meandering patterns. It was so cold that his breath was visible.

Shirley, his wife, bumped up so close to him that he had to refocus on the Slavers he was studying intently through his binoculars.

“What are they doing?” She asked him softly as she studied the small dots moving about as if they were ants and not people.

“Not much,” he responded without emotion as he continued to watch the gang. “I think they’re going to be moving on by the looks of things.”

In a few more minutes one of them got up on a large rock and was talking to the rest of them. He looked big. Randy couldn’t hear what was being said, but the guy was animated as he spoke and moved around repeatedly, his arms flailing about in irate gestures. The talk lasted for about ten minutes and the big man got off the rock and walked over to a motorcycle, started it up, and jetted away toward the northeast.

The rest of the bikers fell in line by threes, fives, and as many as eight… all riding close together. The man in front was joined by eight other riders, four on each side of and slightly behind him, and the rest made a line on both sides of the lead figure.

They were all heavily armed. Each of them had a handgun, or two, and Randy saw a number of rifles that appeared to be AK-47s or M-16s, but he couldn’t be sure because of the distance. One appeared to have an old Thompson sub-machine gun over his shoulder that hung from an olive green strap. It was just far enough away that he couldn’t be sure, but that was what he supposed.

There were knives and side arms, and a few fellows had LAW rockets on their backs. Most of them had bandoliers of ammo over their shoulders and chests that sparkled when the sun glinted off the brass.

He also saw what he assumed were grenades strapped to their vests. These guys were well-armed and on their way to places unknown. Coming up from behind the lead motorcycles were several pickups with canopies on them.

“We’ll follow them and see where they’re going.” Still no emotion. It was a matter of fact statement said without any reply expected. “We have to find some food soon.” His voice trailed as if he were thinking aloud about what to do next.

“If there’s that many men,” he said, turning to his wife, his son, and his daughter, “And I saw a lot of women with them too… there has to be some food. Probably a great deal of it by the size of that gang. I make them out to be more than three or four hundred. I can’t be exact ‘cause they were all moving around or were bunched together, but I’m sure there are at least that many, maybe more.” He said it in a stoic manner that didn’t warrant any discussion.

“Do you think that’s a good idea to approach them?” Shirley said with conviction. He sensed the caution and fear in her voice. “They could be big trouble for us.” Her voice was melodic and he always loved to hear her speak, even when it was this serious.

He looked into her eyes, pausing to formulate a response. Slumping his shoulders a bit, he finally spoke, “We don’t have much choice, Shirl,” her eyes were a beautiful gray, “We need food… and the last time I looked, there weren’t many grocery stores open for business.” He started moving toward the small pile of essentials that they had managed to scrape together.

She sensed the sarcasm in his voice but let it slide. They were all on edge and hungry. He wasn’t a mean man and she knew he wasn’t trying to scold her. He was simply stating a fact.

“Let’s gather up our things and head east,” he was looking at his compass as he talked.

Shirley had the children working with hand signals and body movements as they prepared to move. They all knew what they had to do. They had relocated a number of times in as many days, following these bikers from nearby Crescent City on the Coast.

“We’ll stay a few hours behind them,” Randy said as he swung his pack onto his shoulders. “If they do the same things they’ve been doing, we should catch up to them just before dark or early in the morning.”

She merely shrugged her shoulders and went about getting ready to move out. She was tired… they all were… and the lack of food was draining the energy out of each of them. She wasn’t looking forward to the hike, which could possibly be another thirty or more miles. She was tired of walking and foraging around in the garbage the Slavers were leaving behind. She felt like a dog as she was doing it. The food was plentiful in the scraps that were left behind and she liked the fact that when they were able to forage and find food, it kept them alive. But just the thought of what they were doing filled her with revulsion.

“Shirl,” she knew what was coming, “Before we move out, let’s do what we’ve been doing and go over to their camp and see if we can scrounge up some of the food they left behind.”

Her thoughts evaporated at his words and she joined her husband and two children as they walked toward the abandoned camp. She thought it but didn’t say anything, Woof woof, master.

The four of them moved toward the abandoned Slaver’s camp and began to scavenge in the trash that was left behind. Some remnants of edible food were tossed here and there. The area covered about a couple of acres of ground and it took awhile for the family to pick through that which was left so they could eat.

Once they were all satisfied and they had salvaged enough to keep them going for a little longer, they moved out toward the large trail left by the bikers.

It was dark now, and Randy watched the moon rise over the horizon. He carried a flashlight he had found at one of the other camp sites the Slavers had stopped at earlier. It was a military flashlight with a gooseneck that looked like an inverted “L.” It was still fairly bright, but he used the batteries sparingly.

Their greatest find was a rechargeable light that people had used awhile back to light up a pathway in their garden or patio area. It was convenient and the batteries were recharged every day with a built-in solar cell on the side of the light fixture. They could use the two lights intermittently, and he simply pulled the battery from the pathway light to keep it from shining needlessly.

Tonight was a full moon, which alone would be enough light to help them see the trail they were following. He was grateful because that would help save their batteries.

He also had a small hand-held compass that had radium-covered dials and principal points of the compass, giving them an eerie glow in any darkness. They were heading toward the North and East. It would take them most of the night to catch up to the large group of Slavers and they had to be careful they didn’t accidentally catch up with any other stragglers, which would invariably result in a shootout.

They traveled for hours, stopping now and then to rest, until it was obvious they all needed to get some sleep. They set up a sleeping area by gathering leaves to lay on, which acted as an insulating barrier between them and the ground. They then spread their meager blankets and spare clothing over the leaves to form make-shift mattresses.

Randy remained awake while his family slept… he could catch cat naps later. His main preoccupation was to make sure his family was safe. He was grateful it wasn’t raining or worse, snowing.

He remembered last winter when they were on the western side of Mount Shasta. It was cold then too… freezing as a matter of fact. They had gathered firewood, then dug a pit, and built a fire that had burned for a few hours. Slowly, they gathered rocks the size of a cantaloupe and placed them in the pit with the fire. Over the course of a few hours, the hole was covered with enough dirt to smother the fire, but the rocks stayed warm all night long. Then they built a small lean-to over the covered pit and the four of them slept near the hot rocks comfortably. It had snowed that night, but they were snug and warm.

Tonight the stars were overhead, and it was dry. There was no need for a lean-to tonight. In an effort to stay awake, he concentrated on his plan.

They would follow the slavers in the morning, which was difficult, at best, because the slavers were driving vehicles and Randy and his family were on foot. Even though he didn’t believe any of the large group would come back their way, he always made sure they set their sleeping camp well off the traveled trail… just in case.

If they could ever find themselves in a place where there was plenty of food and adequate shelter, he would take the time to make safety provisions such as building booby-traps for perimeter protection. But since the war, they had not found any place that he felt would support them long-term, just an occasional area that had enough food to keep them going for a couple of weeks at most.

Instead, they simply did what the Native American tribes of old had done; they lived off the land as long as they could and then moved on. Lately, they were following this large gang and were surviving off the scraps the bikers left behind. Randy knew his wife wasn’t too crazy about doing this, but they were eating on a fairly regular basis. He knew it took a lot of energy and a lot of luck to find food in the wild these days.

He wanted to get close enough to take a couple of the Slavers out in order to acquire some much-needed items from them, such as another weapon, or two, and a lot more bullets. He was down to about a dozen for his 30.06 Mauser and Shirley only had a few rounds for her Auger 9mm pistol.

The kids had nothing except a hunting knife each and he had been teaching them some hand-to-hand fighting techniques, as best he could anyway. He wanted to get a few canteens, more blankets, and of course more firearms.

Perhaps tomorrow they would get lucky.

Morning came and Randy felt very tired. He woke Shirley up first. “Honey, it’s time.”

She rose without saying anything and immediately started to prepare something to eat from some of the scraps the bikers left behind last night. Randy lay down next to the kids and tried to rest, but couldn’t. The best he could do was nod off a bit. He remained in a twilight stage without actually sleeping.

When the food was ready, Shirley woke the kids and they ate, gathered up their meager belongings, and headed down the trail once again.

He would try to sleep the next time they stopped to rest.

It was going to be a long and hungry day!

As they followed the large and prominent trail left by the outlaw gang, they found a .357 Magnum Revolver laying on the ground, loaded. Someone must have dropped it when they hit the pothole in the road nearby.

Perhaps their luck would hold today.

Several hours later, they reached the Slaver’s encampment. They hadn’t posted any guards or patrols yet; not that they bothered half the time, anyways.

Randy crawled forward on his belly until he could get a good look with his binoculars.

He didn’t notice the mounds in the field below him and to the right… or the fact that they moved.

2. Down & Dirty

Two weeks prior to the bombs…

Eric Bell returned to his unit at Twenty-Nine Palms, California after his mother’s funeral to find orders to go to an Army Mountain Climbing School at Camp David Briscol near Mount Rainier in the state of Washington. The Camp was named after a World War Two recipient of the Medal of Honor. As a Marine Corps Sniper, Eric was often sent to a number of different training camps.

He had attended and graduated from SERE, (Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion), Jungle Training, Desert Environment, Cold-Weather Operations, and a few others over the last two years. This time it would be Mountain Climbing. He enjoyed the different schools, the challenges each one posed, and the opportunity to meet and interact with other specialists.

The Marine Corps arranged his transportation and after a couple of days to recoup from his Mother’s demise, he packed his duffel bag and headed to the airstrip at Twenty-Nine Palms. The flight to McCord Air Force Base, just south of Seattle, Washington, was an overnight layover and then he rode with a military convoy to the school near Mount Rainier the following morning. The trip would have been quite boring but a comedian by the name of Joe Smith made the trip in the Humvee a lot shorter with his barrage of one joke after another. Eric found it absolutely amazing that anyone could have that many jokes committed to memory.

Before he knew it, the Humvee took a turn down a long mountain road and terminated at a guarded gate manned by U.S. Army Military Police. After presenting their I. D.s, they were allowed to proceed to an office area where he could present his orders. This took about a half hour and a Corporal was directed to show Sergeant Bell to his quarters.

The billeting was a Quonset hut… barracks-style on the interior with a wooden floor. There were sixteen cots in a straight line on one side of the hut and the other side of the structure was identical in layout. At the foot end of each cot sat a steel foot locker for personal belongings. There was a diesel burning stove on one end with a chimney that went up and through the roof of the hut.

It must get pretty cold here, Eric thought.

The Camp was, after all, very near Mount Rainier… a towering dormant volcano covered with snow and ice year-round. Eric stowed his gear and walked over to the Non-Commissioned Officer’s Club, accompanied by his spotter, to see what it had to offer.

This camp was remote and a bit isolated from nearly everything. He guessed the recreational facility would be a decent place to break the monotony of the camp. It was his experience from other training facilities that the more remote, the better the entertainment facilities.

He wasn’t disappointed.

There was a large TV viewing area for movies and a couple of other big screens to watch sporting events. One area housed a couple of pool tables and another section sported an ample bar. There was a small grill area to order hamburgers and cokes. It wasn’t bad considering the remoteness of the camp. Eric met some interesting people and before long, it was time to turn in.

Tomorrow would be a long day.

Reveille came early the next morning and the camp came to life with trucks moving about and people getting ready for the day.

The first week of training was grueling and physically draining. All of the participants were young Soldiers and all of them were in as a good shape physically as any young Soldier should be. They climbed sheer cliffs that went up vertically several hundred feet and terminated on a small ledge, only to continue up several hundred more feet and terminated on another ledge that was ample for all of the climbers.

Eric learned how to tie the number of climbing knots and how to use pitons and other climbing paraphernalia. As tough as it was, it was extremely interesting. The first 10 days went effortlessly in terms of climbing, reaching the objectives, and rappelling from the top… or as some experienced people might say, “rope down” to the next successive ledge below, rig for the next one, and do it all again until they were all safely at the bottom.

This training readied them for the rest of the course.

In weeks two and three, there were two injuries; one Soldier fell and broke an arm and another washed out through his inability to adapt and follow orders. This was a “washout” course. If for any reason some Soldiers couldn’t cut it, they were simply sent back to camp, issued new orders, and sent to a new duty station doing a different job than what they did prior to coming to the course

It was what was referred to as “Down and Dirty.” These training programs were reserved for the elite. Among them were Green Berets, Rangers, Force Recon Marines, and Navy SEALs. They were normally selected by a Senior Enlisted Advisor and approved by a Company Commander in order to be here in the first place. Few were selected to attend and most who were selected completed it to the regulated standards.

Eric loved the Sniper phase of the course. It was innovative, interesting, and moved along smoothly. Some of what was required of Snipers and their Spotters was fairly routine and Eric had done much of it many times before. There were, however, some new innovations that he found not only interesting, but also stimulating.

The climbing techniques that made up the training exercise were interesting enough, but they were simply a means of getting Snipers and Spotters where they needed to be. Once there, they had to take into consideration the distance, wind, bullet drop data, temperature, and humidity before they took the shot. If a Sniper missed that first shot, they may never have the opportunity for a second shot. That’s why Eric was among the top 10 Snipers in all of the military.

He simply never missed his target!

The chances were pretty good that as each year passed by, he would be considered among the top two or three in the world. Perhaps, even, number one.

Tomorrow was the day that Eric and his Spotter were to be graded and shipped back to Twenty-nine Palms. The training was over and everyone was relaxed and enjoying themselves without having to worry about tomorrow and another training session. They were done. They could afford to relax, have a few beers, and enjoy each other’s company as they talked about some of the frustrating moments of the course.

The only exception was talk about the news of the two terrorist attacks in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.. One of the Army Ranger’s family lived in Northern Virginia and he requested to drop the course at the end of the second week to go take care of them.

No one questioned his decision and he headed East.

On the evening of the attacks, everyone had been given “Admin Time” to call and check on their family members. The only family Eric had left was his brother Chris, but he was out to Sea on patrol. So instead, he listened to the news that evening, and he could still hear the radio interruption in his head, …you evil Americans have felt the wrath of Allah, the magnificent, and it is not done. We will kill all of you infidels…

The thought of it pissed him off, but tonight he could ignore that issue with another beer.

As usual, there was small talk about the way that some of the instructors handled some students. But mostly it was sheer relief knowing the course was behind them and the confidence each possessed now that the training was finished. Eric wasn’t the least bit worried about whether he passed or not; little comments he heard from observers pretty much assured him that he was as good as people said he was.

He was going for another beer when a Soldier burst into the NCO Club with a piece of paper in his hand. He was the Company Clerk, the same Soldier who had taken his orders when he first arrived at the Camp.

The young Soldier hurried to the front of the club. “Listen up,” he said in a loud voice, “As most of you know, two nuclear devices were detonated on the East Coast a couple of weeks ago. Today the United States of America officially declared war a few minutes ago. China has aligned itself with Russia and has nuked both the West and East Coast of the United States and they are invading us from Canada and Mexico.”

People started to murmur to each other as he continued, “All leave and special liberty requests are canceled. We are at war, Troopers, and the death toll is climbing quickly! Further word about this situation will be relayed to you as the commanding officer of this post gets it. No letters, no telephone calls, no radio messages will be come into or out of this post by order of the commanding officer Major Gregory Fields U.S. Army. That is all for now!”

He abruptly left the club.

Eric was stunned, as was everyone else in the club. Some of them held their heads low, some took a seat if they were standing, and some stood who had been seated. Many of the Soldiers began shouting questions at the First Sergeant who was sitting at the bar.

“Right now,” he held up his hand as he spoke, “I don’t know anything more than you do. I promise I will let you know what I’m told as soon as I have information that I can pass on to all of you.”

He paused, knowing they expected something more from him. “Look, we all have families and loved ones beyond the gates of this post and I know exactly how you feel right now about this news. I’ve also got family about an hour north of here on Highway 410 in Greenwater, Washington. The Army will be getting everything ready in order to protect the civilian population here and throughout the rest of the country.”

“It is our job to protect the United States of America from attacks,” his voice got a bit stronger as his words started to take hold. “This attack was premeditated and carried out without any warning whatsoever. I can assure you that those of us who are career military will get our revenge fairly quickly. As I said before, I don’t know any more than you do right now but I promise you this… I will keep you informed of the latest news as soon as I get it.”

And with that, the First Sergeant briskly walked toward the door and made his exit. The next day, he was gone without a trace.

Two weeks went by and more than half the camp’s personnel went Absent Without Leave. AWOL was a serious transgression, especially in a time of war. But few gave it a second thought, just as the First Sergeant did that first night before he disappeared.

Camp David Briscol was rapidly becoming a ghost town.

No one had received any pertinent information from anyone in ten days. Everyone assumed that perhaps an EMP, or electric magnetic pulse, was the culprit. All it would take is a nuclear device to be detonated around 10,000 feet above the ground, it would destroy most electrical apparatus. The radio men were certain their equipment was in working order, but there were no forthcoming messages. Men began sneaking off in the night, taking their weapons and equipment with them.

Most of the Soldiers posted at the Camp on a permanent basis had family about 60 miles north in mostly rented apartments and houses. The powerful feelings of fear for their families’ safety overtook them, and they eventually deserted the base and the military to find their loved ones, and nobody really seemed to care. A number of them who still remained at the Camp were transient and far removed from where they lived and their permanent duty stations.

A group of 45 Soldiers would leave the camp and head west toward Seattle, Washington to assess the damage. They were not deserters; they were Soldiers in search of answers.

It was a sanctioned Military Operation.

The group decided to head out the following morning. The group was led by First Lieutenant William Everett, an Army veteran with recent combat experience. He assigned his second-in-command to be Lieutenant Stephen Donnelly and although Donnelly did not have any actual combat experience, he had attended all the right schools and was a West Point Academy graduate. Both men were good leaders noted for evaluating situations before acting on them. They also weren’t exactly the 100 percent by the book officer types, either. They were well-liked and well-respected by the Troopers selected to go on this mission with them.

The Commanding Officer of the post went AWOL two days prior and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. Nobody made an effort to go after any of the deserters because too many people were abandoning their posts these days and there weren’t enough Soldiers left to go after them. Soldier needed to know what was happening with their friends and families, and the breakdown with the communications systems directly resulted in the breakdown of the military structure. Everyone needed to know the situation beyond the fence of this Camp. Food was running low, which was another cause for Soldiers to run off.

Bright and early the next morning, the 45 men gathered in formation and heard the plan from Lieutenant Everett.

“As most of you already know,” he said in an even and calm voice. “We are heading toward Seattle, Washington and with a little luck, we should be there in a few hours. We will maintain a convoy formation and follow the highway until just before it splits to go into Seattle from the north, and then we’ll continue west to Fort Lewis. We have no idea what we will come across on the way, but we are all professional Soldiers and Marines and will act accordingly. Keep your eyes open and be prepared for anything and everything!”

Buckling his Kevlar helmet into place, he placed his hand on the door handle, “Okay troops,” his voice had a confidence of reverberation, “mount up!”

With that said, the Soldiers engaged the starters on their trucks and other vehicles, and the engines sprang to life.

As they traveled west, there was only one incident of significance. After traveling about an hour and a half on the highway heading west, a group of civilians tried to overpower the convoy, and that was a big mistake. Lieutenant Donnelly tried to warn them to unblock the highway, but the people shot at the Soldiers and they responded in kind.

Several civilians were killed, and, as others dragged their companions away, the Lieutenant called for a cease-fire. One of the convoy medics did what he could do for the wounded but it was a hopeless situation for most of them. They needed immediate surgery to survive their wounds and that wasn’t going to happen here and now.

The convoy continued after a few moments and just before arriving at Greenwater, where many of the Camp’s dependents lived, they saw numerous dead people lying alongside the road. Most had been dead for some time and birds and insects were already feeding on the carcasses. The convoy stopped several times along the way to look for survivors.

They were all dead.

None of them had anything of value in their possession. They had simply been shot and left there to rot. The Soldiers continued on and were stunned into silence as they passed so many houses that were burned to the ground. A few still smoldering and smoking, but the fires appeared to be old… probably older than just a few days. Cars were abandoned and many of the stores had been looted. Windows were broken out and glass was scattered all over the sidewalks and streets. Items of clothing and other miscellaneous things were lying about, obviously dropped as the looters scurried away.

There were no living beings anywhere, except for the Soldiers of the convoy. It took a little while before Lieutenant Everett gave the order to leave Greenwater. When they arrived at the junction where the highway split to go north to Seattle and west to Enumclaw, the convoy continued west. There was a brief conversation about exploring Seattle, but that would have to be at another time, not right now. They continued toward Fort Lewis, where they could determine what they would do next.

The further west they traveled, the more corpses they encountered. Most vehicles were abandoned, but occasionally a driver could be seen dead in the driver’s seat. Lieutenant Donnelly had a Geiger counter and tested for radiation poisoning at random. At this point, there was no evidence of radiation in the area. These people had simply been murdered. They all knew that these were indiscriminate acts of violence.

Eric tried to focus on the task at hand, which was moving safely to Fort Lewis. But his mind kept wandering to his brother Chris, who was Assistant Weapons Officer onboard the USS CALIFORNIA, an OHIO Class Nuclear Submarine. “Run silent, run deep” was their motto, and they were there for strategic deterrence. It kept the bad guys from shooting because the retaliation would simply be too high a price.

But deterrence was out the window now, and if they had fired their missiles, it would have made them an instant target and hard to miss. Their chance of survival, at that moment, went down drastically.

Still, he wondered about Chris.

What was he up to?

Where was he?

Was he safe?

To be continued…

About the Author

L. Michael Rusin is a masterful storyteller who incorporates real survivalist skills to captivate his readers. He uses the pseudonym L. Michael Rusin to honor his Father, who died in 1953, while serving as a Chief in the U.S. Navy.

Currently living in Costa Rica, Central America, with his wife, Nancy, Rusin enjoys writing, archery, flying, drawing, and target shooting. A native Californian, he joined the U.S. Navy after college and spent eight years serving his country before starting his own general contracting business.

He has been a practicing Survivalist since 1966, and he has conducted numerous survival training sessions as a retreat planner for more than thirty years. Rusin remains active in preparing for those unspeakable tragedies that we may all face in the not-too-distant future.

A licensed Commercial Airplane Pilot, Instrument and Multi-Engine Rated, he flew as a Bush Pilot in Alaska, a Freight Transport Pilot in Africa and Central America, and a Crop Duster Pilot in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, before going into business for himself. He is also an accomplished scuba diver and parachutist who made his first parachute jump in 1961.

Rusin is currently working to complete his next bookin the Avalon series, Avalon: Beyond the Retreat. The story follows Mike and the rest of his survivalist group as they fight to rebuild a world torn apart and gain control of a humanity lost in desperation, suffering, and hopelessness. Their nemesis, Bone Breaker, returns with a vengeance and puts the group once more in jeopardy. Can they triumph over this latest battle against an almost un-human tribe out to win at all costs?

Visit

www.AvalonTheRetreat.com

for details!

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my two best friends, my loving wife Nancy and my friend Jasper Smith.

Nancy always read this work “one more time,” not because she wanted to, but because I begged sufficiently. She encouraged me to continue on when I was tired and wanted to quit. I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend, and I have now spent almost forty years with her. I can truly say I have never loved anyone more or as deeply as I love her.

Jasper was a father, a veteran, a husband, and a man with a great sense of humor; but most of all, he was my friend and a true Patriot. I hope he is somewhere at this very moment passing around his boundless goodness to others as he did while he still lived among us. I miss my friend and always will. I miss him because he was the kind of a friend that, if we’re lucky, we find once in our lifetimes.

My enduring thanks to both of them for their friendship and for the good luck that I have had for knowing both of them. I only wish everyone could have such good friends as Nancy and Jasper.

L. Michael Rusin

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the efforts of the team of men and women who worked so hard to make changes to Avalon: The Retreat, in order to make this final result, presented for your reading pleasure.

My grateful thanks goes out to the following: Kamel Press, and the team there, because it’s where the magic happens! Kermit Jones, Jr., for having the vision to see Avalon’s potential and the dedication to see it through. Joseph Gueary, for jumping on board and driving a project (and Kermit) with nothing more than an invitation. Deanie Deitterick, a phenomenal Senior Editor who has much wisdom to offer, and who (thankfully) sticks to her guns. Rhonda Jones, for ensuring clarity and follow-through. Meredith Sump, a magician of digital media and graphics. Kari Jones, for having a degree of patience, support, and belief few can comprehend. Jennifer Latigue, for her great attention to detail.

My gratitude to you all cannot be measured. Thank you very much.

L. Michael Rusin