Chapter 11: What’s The Plan?
“Stop the car! Now!”
Eli shouted to Julie the instant he recognized the situation in Lancaster. She reflexively slammed on the breaks when she heard his urgent tone, a layer of loose sand on the highway causing their car to slide a few meters downhill. The rapid deceleration made them lean forward, then snap back into their seats when they finally came to a stop in the middle of the road. Julie spun around to face him, fury burning in her eyes.
“Why are we stopping?! We need to get down there! My baby girl needs me! Vivi needs us!” She screamed, her eyes wild, nostrils flaring, and breathing heavily. She was more than a little hysterical, and Eli couldn’t blame her for it, he was struggling to control his own raging emotions, and Julie had a history of irrational behavior when her children were in danger.
“I know! We’ll do something, I promise, but we need to be smart about it. Now get us back up the hill, quickly, before they see us. Please.”
Julie’s wide eyes darted back and forth between Eli’s face and the massacre in town. She was frantic, infuriated, panicking, and fearing for her daughter’s safety. A few indecisive seconds later, her eyelids lowered to their normal position and her breathing began to even out. Without saying a word, she spun the steering wheel and started driving back up the hill.
“Good. Thanks, mom. Take us just beyond the hilltop, then go offroad to the left, drive about a half mile, then we’ll park and do some recon.” The only acknowledgement he received was a single head nod and an accompanying ‘mm’, she didn’t even look in his direction.
After they crested the hill, Julie turned left as instructed, plowing into the ankle-deep sand, the car’s oversized tires and lifted suspension making light work of the offroad drive. Eli twisted around to grab their newly acquired bolt-action rifle from the back while Julie drove. After returning to his seat, he pulled the lens covers off the scope to check for damage. The lenses were smeared with greasy fingerprints, but, thankfully, free of scratches or defects. Using a combination of the shirt he was wearing and his own spit, he quickly wiped the lenses clean enough for the scope to be useable.
Julie stopped at the place he previously indicated, threw the shifter into parking gear, switched the motor off, then turned to face her son.
“Well? What now?” Though still a little frantic, she seemed to have mostly regained her composure.
“Now grab the radio and follow me.” He threw the door open, grabbed the scoped rifle and the canvas backpack from the floor by his feet, then hopped out of the car, closing the door behind him. Trudging through the sand, ignoring the feeling of it getting worked into his boots and socks, he stomped around the front of the car and up the hill. He heard the sound of Julie opening and closing the driver’s door behind him, then the sounds of her boots being dragged through the red sand.
At the top of the hill, Eli tossed the canvas pack down, where it landed with a soft ‘thump’ in the sand. He then laid down on his chest, rested the barrel of the gun on his pack, and brought the rifle’s stock to his shoulder. Shifting his head into position, he looked through the scope, adjusting the focus knob with his left hand to get a clear view of the settlement. He then spoke to Julie while fine-tuning the focus.
“Keep trying radio contact, but don’t give out any information if someone responds. Ask them questions, but don’t answer theirs. And count the number of hostile vehicles, give me the number when you’re done….please.”
“Right. Okay. I’m on it.” She answered and knelt down beside him, extending the radio’s antennae and twisting the knob to turn it on. Eli, looking through the scope, was busy tracking down the invaders and searching for survivors.
Twenty-three by the corpse pile, armed……nine by the militia HQ building, heavily armed…..eight by the entry gate, heavily armed……three groups of six patrolling the main street, armed…….at least fifteen roaming between the houses, armed; and no fucking civilians anywhere! Motherfucker! Where the hell are the survivors?!
“Any count on those vehicles yet?” He asked, still scanning for survivors.
“Umm, yeah. There’s seventeen rollers, six on the move; and eleven large caravans parked to the east, just outside the settlement, but inside the wall.”
Shit, how many attackers is that? If the cars held five people each, and the caravans held roughly ten each, there could be……..two hundred?…..maybe more? Dammit, including the drivers of the six moving vehicles, and possible passengers, that means only about eighty are accounted for…..and I still don’t see any signs of survivors!
“Okay…..keep trying the radio.” He continued to desperately sweep his sights around the settlement, hoping to find anything that would indicate the location of the survivors, or if there even were any survivors.
“Yeah, alright….hey, do you have a plan? Do you see your sister anywhere?” Julie’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke, showing the unease and anxiety she was feeling.
“No. And no. I’m looking for her, for anyone from town, but all I can find are hostiles and corpses…and no, none of the bodies look like Vivi.” He didn’t want to tell her that most of the bodies were hidden inside the huge pile of corpses, and he definitely wouldn’t say that Vivi’s remains could be in there. The thought was painful enough for him, he didn’t dare voice it. It could destroy Julie, and he worried she might rage-out and rush into a firefight she can’t win.
Eli continued to monitor the area in silent concentration while Julie made repeated calls over the radio. She was getting louder with each new attempt, eventually yelling at the radio in her hand. Since her shouting was breaking his concentration, and because she needed something to help bring her emotions back down, he decided to distract her with something else.
“Hey, mom. You can probably stop yelling at that thing for a while. Leave the receiver turned on though, just in case someone tries to call out from HQ. Take a good look down there, tell me what’s strange about the invaders.” He said.
Julie lowered the radio to her side and squinted her eyes, straining to see across the distance between them and Lancaster.
“Shit, you probably can’t tell from here, huh? Well, they’re wearing the same khaki pants and green shirts as the corpses we found earlier. Those Ferals were part of this group.”
“What?” She stood up to try getting a better view, “Well, it doesn’t matter who they are, they’re going to die for this.”
“Agreed. But first, we find Vivi. And I think I know where she is.”
Through the scope, Eli saw two women, both wearing khakis and green shirts, dragging a brunette Lancaster woman through the streets. The brunette was hanging between her captors, held up by her arms. The captive woman jerked around and screamed in pain as her leg was dragged across the dirt. Only her left leg touched the ground though, the right leg was a bloody stump, hacked off just below the knee, with a belt tied above the mangled amputation to slow the bleeding. Eli watched as she was dragged into the mine’s entrance tunnel, through the wide metal door leading to it’s depths, and out of sight.
“It looks like the survivors are being kept in the mines. The rest of those assholes are probably in there too. This could be good for us, though. Hmm, what do you think?” He looked away from the scope to look at Julie.
“I think we cut the power to the mines, trap them in the dark, get your sister, and hunt them down like the filthy rats they are on our way out.” A sadist smile spread across her face, a murderous glint in her eye, she looked breathtakingly wicked.
Fuck, why do I find her so damn sexy right now?
*Ahem* “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Go inside, cut the power, look for Vivi, and kill any green-shirts we come across. But we should wait until midnight, when most of them are asleep, and use the darkness to our advantage. We need to do this quietly, this mission is search and rescue, the extermination can happen later.”
“Sounds good…. but… are you sure you’re ready for this? Killing humans isn’t like killing Ferals. It’s more…visceral, more traumatic. With Ferals, you’re killing something that’s already dead, but with humans, you’re actually taking a life. You’ve never had to kill anyone before, right? Are you sure you won’t freeze-up when it matters? I don’t want you doing this if you’re not ready.”
“Haaaah.” Eli let out a long sigh as he contemplated her questions, “Yeah. Don’t worry, I can do this. Killing humans isn’t something I want to do, but those assholes…”, he pointed to the town below, “…gave up their humanity. They slaughtered hundreds of innocent people, and they’ve probably done this before. They’re no different than Ferals, as far as I’m concerned. And besides, I’ll kill as many people as necessary to find Vivi. No one fucks with our family and gets away with it, right?”
Julie looked deep into his eyes, studying his face, judging his resolution. Her narrowed eyes and stern expression were just starting to make Eli feel uncomfortable when she, apparently, determined his resolve was sufficient. Her expression softened, just a bit, and she gave a small nod of approval.
“That’s right. Okay, I believe you. But listen, baby. If we get down there, and you start feeling like you can’t do it after all, just run away. Don’t stay where you could be killed, just run. Mama won’t be upset, or disappointed, or anything like that, so you just do whatever you have to do to stay alive.”
“Mm. Thanks, mom. But I promise, I can do this.” He stood up, leaving the rifle in place on the ground, and brushed the sand off his body. “You mind watching things for a wile? I’m going to check our gear and get everything ready.”
“Sure, baby. I’ve got this covered.”
Eli walked down the sandy incline to their parked vehicle, kicking red sand into the air with each step. Reaching the car, he looked up to check the sun’s position, gauging how much time they had before the operation would begin.
Maybe an hour ’till sunset, seven hours until we go in. Seven hours until I have to kill women in a post-apocalyptic bunker built into a defunct diamond mining facility…..this shit’s crazy. It would be easier if most of them were men, but I didn’t see a single man with them. Well, I knew it would be that way, but it still feels bad. Shit, you can do this Eli, just remember what the old man said, ‘there’s no men or women in war, only allies and enemies’. Those words hit a lot harder now than when I was fourteen….uh, the first time I was fourteen, when he said it to my friend Ronnie after learning she wanted to join the Navy.
Opening the car’s back door, Eli got to work organizing the weapons they would use. Taking stock of their ammunition, he consolidated the bullets from two almost-empty pistol magazines, leaving a total of four-and-a-third mags of pistol ammo, just over half their initial supply. He inspected the shotgun they picked up from the corpse-filled house, ensuring it was in functional condition. Satisfied that it would function properly, and safely, he confirmed that the remaining assault rifle magazine still contained all thirty rounds.
Dammit. This isn’t nearly enough to deal with a small army of heavily armed raiders. If things go sideways tonight, we’re fucked…..
Eli laid the guns out on the seat, then reached into the cargo area to rummage through their supply cases. He grabbed a blanket, the whetstone knife sharpener, two aluminum bottles of clean water, two packaged meals, and two of the flimsy metal spoons that were included in the standard supply loadout. Before closing the car door, he also picked up the hunting knife and machete.
Arms full, he marched up to their lookout, where Julie was still observing the town through the scope. He took a moment to appreciate the way her back arched while lying on her stomach, pushing out her firm, round ass. After briefly struggling to lay out the blanket on the sand beside her without dropping anything, he sat down cross-legged atop the blanket. Sharpening stone in hand, he spoke to Julie.
“Hey mom. Can you pass me the knives from that pack? The hatchet too, please.”
“Mhm. There was movement while you were gone.” She said, sitting up to lift the rifle off the canvas pack. “They were bringing all the weapons out of militia headquarters. Someone must have given up the armory entry codes.”
She opened the pack and withdrew the blades, then passed them to her son.
“Son of a bitch!….they already had way more firepower than the entire Lancaster militia, and now they have even more…. and our people have nothing. *sigh* Even if we somehow released all the captives, I don’t see how we could possibly take back the settlement…..”
Eli picked up one of the tactical knives Julie gave him and began the process of sharpening all the edged weapons they recently acquired.
“I don’t give a fuck about Lancaster, it can burn to the ground for all I care. I only care about finding my baby girl, and killing as many of those filthy bitches as possible on the way out.” Julie said as she laid down to continue observing the situation.
“Um, mom? You should be prepared for…well, for the possibility that Vivi is-“
“I know! I know. If that’s what we find, then….the plan stays the same. I won’t risk losing both my children by doing something stupid. But if that happens, I’ll come back and kill every single one of those worthless fuckers, somehow, someday, even if it takes years.” Her shoulders shook with vengeful rage at the possibilities.
Eli chose to not respond, not knowing what to say, but completely agreeing with his mother’s declaration. If they killed Vivi, the rowdy older sister he loved just as much as his previous life’s family, he would hunt down every single one of them, no matter how long it takes.
While doing his sharpening work, he ate an unheated meal of under-seasoned vegetable stew, then dropped the empty packaging onto the sand, and watched the wind carry it away, unconcerned about saving it for recycling. By the time he finished his task, the sun had gone down, enveloping the wasteland in darkness. The thin crescent moon’s pale light was obstructed by the lingering, smoky haze in the sky.
All color faded from Eli’s vision when the day transitioned to night. His post-human trait, the ‘Sight’ as his family called it, gave him perfect black-and-white night vision. The first time he experienced the Sight, he suffered an extremely painful cluster headache from the contraction of ocular muscles that had never before been used. That first night, the experience was so intense that the darkness was literally blindingly bright, making the whole event more painful than exciting. It took the younger Eli a full week to get used to the sensation of his eyes shifting when exposed to darkness, and the stinging pain that happened when moving from dark areas to well-lit areas. But now, after living with the Sight for three years, the visual shifts had become as natural and painless as breathing.
“Come on, mom. Trade places with me. You need to eat something and get some rest, we move out in five hours.”
His mother didn’t give any argument, she simply got up from the sand and took Eli’s place on the blanket to eat her own bland, tasteless, unsatisfying field rations. Laying on the ground, looking through the scope once more, Eli took deep breaths, trying to keep his anxieties in check, and not think about the gruesome fates to which Vivi might have succumbed.
She’s alive. She has to be alive. I can’t handle losing more family. I won’t lose her. We’ll find her…..she’s alive…….please be alive……
