Dystopia: The Long Road (14 page)

“True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow, that’s what courage is.”

-Norman Schwarzkopf

John pulled in behind the veterinary clinic just north of town.  As they made their way along they noted that the entire town was completely deserted.  Osceola Mills was not a large city, but was big enough to have a Walmart and its own high school.

              Dickie asked, “Where is everyone?”

              Ray responded, “This is not good, there is a camp here somewhere.  We need to get what we need and get out quick.”

              John looked at Ray and asked, “A camp?”

              Ray responded, “Yea, they call them refugee camps but they are really like prison camps.  We need to be quick here.”

              The rear door was locked so Ray grabbed a crow bar from the jeep and pried it open.  Once inside they could see that it had been ransacked.  Fortunately, it seemed it was most likely junkies or someone not knowing what they were looking for.

              They began to collect the bottles of medicine when Dickie called out to John, “What are we looking for?”

              Ray said, “Grab everything you can, we will sort it out later now let’s double time this and evacuate the area pronto.”

              John found a whole cabinet full of dressings, tools and gauze, grabbing a trash bag he emptied the whole thing of its contents.  The meds were strewn all over the floor and Dickie was tossing them haphazardly into a tote he found.

              John remembered Amy had requested injectable antibiotics and began looking for needles or any bottles and vials.  Coming across a locked cabinet that was as yet untouched, he motioned for Ray to pry it open.

Once open they could see they hit pay dirt.  Inside was all the meds and equipment they could need for this.  John carefully put it all into a box he emptied of dog treats and they quickly exited the building and made their way out of town.

At a crossroad headed toward the area of town where many of the stores were located, John looked at Ray and asked, “Should we check out the Walmart?”

Ray said, “It is highly unlikely that there is anything left and anything that is wouldn’t be worth the risk.  I think we need to get these meds back to Amy.”

Dickie agreed and said, “We need to look over the maps and find a way around this place anyway.”

John agreed and continued back to where the others were camped.  They had to take many little side roads and at one point became lost.  Cursing Dickie hung his head out the window and looked around.

Pointing to a street going left, he said, “It’s that way.”

John scowled at him, “How would you know?”

Dickie smirked, saying, “Cause the cell tower is right there.”

Shaking his head, John turned up the road that would eventually bring them to the dirt access road leading them to the tower.

Pulling into the campsite Mark hurried over asking, “Did you find anything?”

Ray responded, “Better than we expected.”

“Well, come on over and help us with Danny then.” Mark said.

As they approached the tented area they noticed Amy was trying to sharpen a knife.  John smiled, handing her the bag of tools and dressings, somewhere in there would be the things she needed all sterile in packages.

Amy looked into the bag and immediately began unpacking the items, seeing gauze, tape and latex gloves she was thrilled, but when she found a scalpel she hugged John and began to get organized.

They showed her the box with the vials in it and she quickly looked over the options saying, “Some of this we will need to get information on but I do know that lidocaine will dull the pain.  Let’s get him numbed up and get started.”

Amy applied the hot compresses to the infected area and washed the area around the wound.  She carefully took the scalpel and opened his wound, allowing the infection to ooze from it. They began to clean and scrub the wound while she probed the inside of it for any pockets of abscess.

Once they felt the puss had been mostly removed, she left it unstitched and packed the wound with sterile gauze to help the drainage.  Giving him a shot of Penicillin and some Motrin to lower the fever, she instructed Laurie to keep an eye on him and come get her if his fever went up or there were any issues.

She approached the guys; who were discussing the camp and said, “Can we hold off on leaving at least for a day or two?  He’s in pretty bad shape.”

Ray replied, “Whatever we need to do will be fine, I’d like to do some recon on that camp anyway.”

Ray went with Roger to the cell tower to have a look at the camp.  It was starting to get dark and they thought it would be good to observe what goes on in the evenings.  After some time on the tower Ray told Roger to keep watch and he would send relief soon.

When he reached the bottom of the tower Matty stood pencil and paper in hand and said, “Reporting for duty sir.”

Ray looked at him with warm eyes and asked, “What has been your duty today soldier?”

Matty replied, “Writing sir, I write down what Roger tells me, sir.” He then stood tall and straight.

Ray looked up at Roger and said to Matty, “Carry on soldier.”

Back at camp Ray talked with John and Dickie and asked that they set up a watch schedule for the camp.  He wanted to know what was going on in there.

Pulling Dickie aside, he said, “We need to do some up close recon.”

Dickie nodded and said, “I’ll get my stuff.”

Ray told John that they would be out doing recon on the camp and asked that he set up a watch schedule for the tower.  They all thought it was a good idea to have camp only partially together in case of the need to move fast.

John asked Mark to see to it that all unnecessary items were kept put away and that it be a cold camp this evening.  No fires were to be lit and everyone would have to sleep either in a vehicle or in the one large tent that was set up.

Dickie said to John, “If the watch should see a blaze kick up out of nowhere, know it is time to pack up.”  He reached into his pack and pulled out a jar of liquid John assumed was gas or something else flammable.

The two left and John allowed Mandy to take the next watch, telling her what Dickie had said they should do if she saw fire.  Mark was next up on the tower followed by John, who hoped that Ray and Dickie would return before then.  He didn’t like hanging around so close to one of those camps.

The night was cool without any fires, but there was no frost so the brisk morning was somewhat bearable. After the lookouts watched the camp all night, John said they could start a fire, but to keep the smoke to a minimum.  They could see and smell small fires in the woods surrounding them all night long; apparently not all the residents of Osceola Mills were interned in the camp.

Shortly after the coffee was done Mandy brought a cup with her to relieve Roger at the tower and told him John wanted to talk to him. Matty followed her and began to turn and follow Roger once he came down.

Roger returned to him and said, “Soldier I need you to record what Miss Mandy sees today.  Can you handle this mission?”

Mandy looked at him like he was crazy, but Matty stood stiff and tall in salute.  Roger sent him to get his pad and pencil instructing he was to bring a snack with him.

When he left Mandy asked, “What was that all about?”

Roger said, “He seems to be acting out, I think it is because he felt so weak watching what happened to Kevin and then after telling his mom about it that he couldn’t protect her.  I don’t think there is any harm in it, just a way of coping for him.”

Mandy nodded, saying, “I figured it was something like that.”

Matty returned with his pad and pencil along with a satchel full of snacks and some water for them and started climbing the rungs on the tower.  Mandy climbed up behind him and got settled in for the shift.

In camp Danny was already noticeably better and taking in fluids, Laurie was fastidiously watching over him and making sure he got the oral antibiotics Amy said he should take.

Renee and Kimmie were yelling at Jenny about something to do with, her inability to understand something they refused to discuss when Roger approached to see what was going on.

Jenny looked up at him from the rock she was sitting on, tears in her eyes.  This infuriated Roger, he liked Jenny’s quiet manner and felt all along the brash and crudeness of Kimmie and Renee did not seem to fit with this family, but more into the kind attitudes that he’d seen Morgan exhibit. Scowling at them, he lifted Jenny by her arm and asked her to come help him clean up the breakfast area.

Jenny liked Roger and enjoyed chatting with him about almost anything.  Kimmie flirted with him shamelessly even pretending to need his help to undo her bra one day.  Roger unceremoniously brushed her off telling her, “Get your mom to help you.”

As they walked to the area the food had been prepared in Kimmie glared at her calling out, “She’s not worth the effort soldier boy.”

Roger now angry retorted, “Correction, it takes no effort to enjoy the company of one so lovely.  Yet is agony to even tolerate the presence of someone like you.”

Kimmie snorted and huffed back into the tent where she angrily tossed all Jenny’s things out the door grumbling about how she is useless and worthless.  Jenny started back for the tent to gather her things when roger stopped her.

“Hold on girl, that is just what they want you to do.”

He turned to Laurie and asked, “Laurie will you be so kind as to go and gather up this young lady’s items and bring them over here?” 

Laurie brushed her hand down Jenny’s long blonde hair in a motherly fashion saying, “It would be my pleasure.”

Roger said, “There will be new riding assignments, effective immediately.”

Looking at John he nodded and John nodded back saying, “Will you take care of setting them up?”

Roger nodded and taking Jenny’s arm headed to clean up the breakfast mess.  Reassuring her things would be ok, he asked, “What is wrong with them to treat you like that?”

Obvious that she knew something, but, she hung her head and said, “It's best I just leave it alone, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to anyone else.”

Roger glared in the direction of Renee and Kimmie saying to no one particular, “If I find out….” Trailing off, he didn’t finish the sentence but continued to glare at them as he thought about it.

Ray and Dickie returned to camp and asked that Mandy be relieved on the tower.  John asked Mark to relieve her and he would brief him afterwards.  He thought it strange that nothing seemed out of the ordinary at the camp.  Walking over to Ray and Dickie he remarked to Roger,

“Maybe it is just a refugee camp or aide station.”

Ray overheard him and said, “It is by no means ordinary.” Then he looked to Mandy and asked,

“Are you familiar with the warehouse section of town right next to the camp?”

Mandy shook her head yes and said, “I know it well, what do you need to know?”

Ray said, “The train tracks next to it? Do you know if they are ever used?”

Mandy said, “I have never seen a train on them.  I know they were not exempt from when I drove the school bus, we tried to get them declared exempt because we had to stop at them and they are not in use.  The town refused to because they said they had some purpose to the government.”

Ray said, “Well, they are in use now.  We saw refrigerated cars parked on them.  They never moved, but the refer units were running.  They are heavily guarded and we saw nothing going on with them.”

Mandy said, “I saw someone putting packages on them last night, maybe fifteen or more.”

Dickie looked at her saying, “Can you describe those packages?”

She replied, “Well, it was sort of hard to see, but they were black and were brought out on carts.  It took two men to lift them into the rail cars.”

Roger and Ray both looked at one another and giving a nod, Ray said, “Great job Mandy, did you see anything else?  As a matter of fact did anyone see anything else?”

John told them about the small fires all around them during the night. While Roger produced the map he drew the day before.  Dickie and Ray began to add things to the map that they discovered on their recon trip.

There were guard towers that Roger already had shown, but added to it, guard shacks on the ground.  Also noted that the fence was a double row of fencing with barbed wire on both inner and outer runs of fence line.

While they watched the camp, they had the chance to peer inside some of the tents.  A few had people walking around inside while others had multiple lines of cots inside.  That one appeared to be a kind of infirmary with the workers suited up in Biohazard suits.

One was clearly a latrine, another a mess hall and one tent housed only children.  The thing that they found curious was that there were armed guards all around; and the inhabitants appeared to be in a sort of prison, even being escorted to the latrine.

After watching the camp for the past twenty-four hours they all agreed it would be best to get around the city at night.  Ray and Dickie would recon the area for the best way around later this night and they would leave the next.