Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) (21 page)

Griswolt was sitting near the officer in charge, and overheard that the
NOV had just now captured another large LERN group traveling in a
convoy. This time they found fifty-three LERN members, all stocked up
with survival supplies. They were presently interrogating them, but had
no significant information yet. Griswolt’s group was ordered to head
down to the city cemetery, because they were not far from it, and some
activity had been reported there.
“OK, let’s move!” the officer called out to his convoy, and they headed down there with increased urgency.
After they reached the cemetery, the officer in charge sent eleven
troopers and three deputies out to scout ahead and report back as the
remainder policed the streets in the area. Griswolt was among those who
went scouting.
As Griswolt’s group crept quietly into the cemetery, they began to
hear noises coming from the southwest. They crouched, and continued
until they saw the outlines of people in small groups in the distance.
“There are at least one hundred of them,” Griswolt said to the lead
sergeant.
The sergeant was looking through binoculars. “They don’t look
armed.”
They slowly made their way forward, hidden by the dark, but not for
long. The clouds were giving way again, exposing the full larger moon
and its little sister. They had some tombstones to hide behind.
More gunfire was picked up north of their position, behind them.
They immediately heard some frightened voices coming from their right,
much closer than expected.
That sounded just like Rebecca,
Griswolt thought to himself, and then
shook it off as nonsense.
The sergeant had no choice. The moon was lighting things up, and the
people they could hear were so close, he knew his group would be spotted
at any moment. He motioned to everyone to head slowly in the direction
of the voices.
As they came closer, they could hear the voices more clearly. The
sergeant signaled to stop. They all stopped and listened for an instant,
using more tombstones for cover.
“He’s not supposed to arrive for another ten minutes,” one of the
people said.
Martha? It can’t be!
Griswolt was in shock. It couldn’t be Martha’s
voice.
It —
“We’ve got to wait, they’ve got the wildlands vaccines,” a different
voice said.
Griswolt and company were mesmerized for a minute by the conversation that was taking place. The idea, the thought, of an escape of lovelovers into the wildlands with vaccines was unimaginable. Griswolt was
still in disbelief when the last cloud passed, and the full light of the moon
revealed the group they were hearing in the night, only about fifty feet
away. The troopers were still hiding behind various tombstones.
There she is! Martha! A love-lover! How could I —
Griswolt was
stunned, he could not reconcile what was about to happen. He looked at
Martha with what seemed like tunnel vision.
She always wanted freedom.
Martha, don’t leave me. Don’t go, I love you.
He then said to himself lowly, “I love you?” with a surprised, bewildered look on his face. Then with a flash of recognition and inspiration,
screamed, “I love you!” He didn’t care. What was life in this fucking
world without her? The troopers around him were looking at him as if he
was crazy.
Martha and her group, startled, looked into the direction of Griswolt’s
voice, and saw the shadows of the troopers moving about the tombstones.
The lead sergeant called out, “Attack!” and immediately headed to
Griswolt to check him out while the others started moving and shooting in
the direction of Martha’s group.
Griswolt screamed, “Martha! Run!” and immediately emptied a number of bullets into the lead sergeant’s gut, dropping him. Then he started
gunning down the other troopers ahead who were unaware of what had
just happened, given the gunfire going off now. One by one, Griswolt was
able to shoot all eleven of them with his automatic weapon, disabling or
killing them all.
Martha did not run with the others. It might have been guilt over
abandoning Griswolt, but she was sure she had heard his voice. Rebecca
and Rachel stayed behind with her, hiding behind a big gravestone. She
saw Griswolt start to run towards them after the shooting was over. She
heard him shouting the words she had never, ever expected, “I love you!”
Martha started out to meet him, but Rebecca grabbed her, and with
Rachel’s help, they held her back. “I love you Griswolt!” she screamed.
It was then that the gunfire resumed. The officer in charge of the
group had arrived with his troops. Martha’s sudden hope was crushed as
she watched Griswolt fall to his knees. He was only twenty feet away, and
started crawling towards Martha. Their eyes finally caught in the now
bright moonlight. “Martha, I love you,” she could hear him gasping, still
crawling. One more shot. Griswolt dropped, blood trickling and glistening
from above his right eye in the moonlight.
“Noooooooooo! No, Griswolt! Griswolt!” Martha cried out, frantically trying to get away from Rebecca and Rachel to get to Griswolt. She
had no strength. She knew it was over, but she couldn’t leave him. Not
now.
They pulled her away, hard. A group of armed LERN members came
running up from behind them, and started shooting into the area of the
troopers. “Get out of here now! The boats must be released now or never.
Go! Now!”
Rachel grabbed Martha and looked her hard in the eyes. “We are
going to die here too! Do you want that?” She shook Martha’s body
roughly, and then shoved her in the direction of river and screamed,
“RUN!”
I have to run,
Martha sobbed to herself,
I have to stay alive — for
Jan,
and she started running, harder than she had in years. They were all
carrying luggage and boxes, which did not help.
When is Jan going to get
here?
Her thoughts were running as fast as her feet.
Oh my God
—
Griswolt.
The river was less than a three-minute run away. When Martha and
the girls got there, over half of the boats had already left, and the rest
were being released. The explosion at the vaccine lab had the NOV on
their highest alert, and they were covering everything. The NOV had not
yet come to understand what was happening, but was getting information
fast.
Rebecca exclaimed, “Look over there! There’s Buz! What’s he doing
here?” They all turned to see.
Then Rachel said, “Oh, that’s it. Look at who he’s watching! It’s
Tama! He must have followed her here.”
Martha was in no condition to care. With her timing distorted now,
she asked, “When is Jan going to get here?”
Before anyone could answer, the ones organizing the departure came
up and said, “What are you doing? The troopers are coming! Get on the
boats
now
!”
Martha and the girls ran down and boarded one of the cargo boats,
carrying what they had with them. The ones in charge were cutting the
last of the boats loose. The armed ones who went to fight suddenly
appeared, running back from the cemetery screaming, “Let’s go! Let’s go!
Let’s go!”
With everyone boarded on most of the boats, Jan’s group had not yet
arrived. The able bodied went down below to help with the rowing to
speed things up. They were holding up the last cargo boat for the vaccine
lab equipment. Any other empty boats were cut loose to float downstream
so the NOV could not follow. Gunfire was coming their way, and the
armed LERN members returned the fire.
“We can’t wait for the vaccines! We’ve got to go now!” one of them
said to Raspar, the one in charge now.
Raspar, the one who took over after Winoni’s valuable boat had departed, now said, shaking his head, “Well, at least we won’t give
them
the
satisfaction of killing us.” He gave the signal, and the last boat was
released.
Jan and company were only minutes away.
These people should have been on their way to freedom, but now
found themselves on their way to a poisonous death. The word spread
quickly among the boats. The river current was in their favor to distance
themselves from the dock. The first NOV troopers on the scene were
firing their weapons, but they did not have anything that would sink a
boat from any kind of distance. The escapee’s on top of the boats could
not resist, and they all start screaming, “Fuck you!” at the NOV troopers,
along with other choice epithets.
Jan and his companions had been able to move quickly once they
were outside of the city limits. Their relief was short lived however.
“Look! There are more police!” said Dom, twisting around to read
Jan’s reaction. Jan was still sitting behind Dom, on the big metal box that
was bolted onto the top of the stagecoach.
Jan had been noticing the same thing. “They should be thinning out
this way,” he said to Dom, wondering about it.
They heard multiple cracks of gunfire in the distance in front of them.
“Shit!” said a frightened Dom, “Did you hear that? That’s where we’re
going! Shit!”
“It should be coming up anytime now.” Jan was referring to the road
to the river. Once they were past the cemetery it would be only a couple
more minutes to reach the river. “There it is!” he said, pointing ahead to
the cemetery on the left. They slowly realized that there were a large
number of police wagons there, and then Dom exclaimed in a horrified
voice, “Do you see that?”
Jan’s attention was riveted on them. His slowing heart rate immediately reversed itself. “Just keep going, slow down a bit when you pass
them. There are other people on the road here too. We don’t look like
love-lovers.”
“Like what?” Dom was stiff as a board. Sitting at attention, he drove
the stagecoach past the troopers. The few troopers there were standing
and talking, waiting for their next orders. A couple of the troopers stared
at the stagecoach as Jan and Dom passed. They both gave a sigh of relief
as they passed without a problem. Once they were past the troopers, Lep
yelled from down below, “What was that all about?”
“Pipe down,” Jan said towards his feet. He looked at the police wagons lined up, with few police or troopers. “Where are the troopers for all
these vehicles?” he asked himself. They heard more gunfire. This time, he
was sure it was from behind the cemetery, towards the river.
“Hey you!” called a voice from behind, and it was one of the troopers.
“Stop!”
“Shit — we’re gonna die!” squeaked Dom, who was frozen again. He
stopped the contisses.
Jan made his way to the back of the stagecoach’s cargo top, and heard
much more gunfire now, still coming from behind the graveyard.
Two troopers came up, hands on their guns. “What are you boys
doing out here tonight?”
“Oh,” said Jan, “We’re moving our stuff to a new apartment.” He
paused. “Why were all those guns going off?”
“You mean you haven’t heard about the vaccine lab?” the other trooper queried.
Jan looked at him, and said, “What — no! What happened?”
The trooper looked like he did not believe Jan. Lep was not making a
peep inside. Dom was still frozen, looking straight ahead.
“What do you have here?” the first trooper asked, walking slowly
along the side of the stagecoach now. He bent over, and looked at the
unusual undercarriage. “Strange,” he commented, reaching out his hand to
touch it. They were relaxing because these kids were obviously going to
be no trouble, especially if they were love-lovers. The other trooper
walked along the other side, and since the windows were sealed and
blinded, could not see anything inside.
Jan followed them along the top as they slowly walked up to the front
of the stagecoach.
Oh God, they’re going to talk to Dom.
“What’s your name?” the trooper on the left side of the stagecoach
asked Dom.
Dom opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He looked as
if someone just shoved a huge snowball down his pants, and simply stared
at the trooper with his mouth open.
All of a sudden, there was a sound to the rear of the stagecoach. The
vaccine module was releasing some pressure inside the interior cargo
space.
Both troopers went back to see what it was, and Dom found his voice.
“Yah! Yah! Yah!” he bellowed at the contisses, cracking his whip, and
Jan blurted, “Fuck!” and ducked, because he knew what was coming next.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! The guns went off, and one of the troopers ran back to get a wagon.
Dom was over half speed within thirty seconds, driving the contisses
hard. The first police wagon had taken off after them, with others to
follow.
The stagecoach was bouncing now, and Jan abruptly shouted, “Turn
left!” Dom cried “Whoa!” and the contisses were able to slow down
enough to barely make the turn, tilting on the right two wheels, and
bouncing it’s right rear off of the parked police wagon stationed at the
corner.
Two officers jumped out of it, then back in again, and started after
them.
“Yah! Yah!” cried Dom again, cracking the whip, and they were
headed full steam ahead for the river.
The sky was staying clear now, and they could see as they headed
down to the dock that there were more police wagons ahead. Dom had the
contisses running on full steam, and couldn’t turn back even if he wanted
to.
“Where are the boats?” Jan yelled, as they saw nothing sitting by the
docks on the river.
“They must have had to leave already,” Dom shouted back.
“The boats are gone?” Lep shrieked from underneath. “What the
hell’s going on out there?”
“What are you going to do?” Jan yelled to Dom. The road was becoming rougher and everything on the stagecoach was rattling or banging.
“There’s a road up ahead, if we can make it past them,” Dom hollered
back.
Two police wagons were closing in behind them now, with more
following. They were smaller, and they only had two contisses each. The
bumpy road made their weapons useless as they fired. They would have
to get closer.
Jan saw them, and said, “Can we go any faster?”
Dom yelled, “Not once we start uphill!”
The troopers already at the dock were not yet aware of the stagecoach
coming their way — they were busy firing down the river at the escaping
boats.
Dom bore to the right as they approached the river water. They sped
past the police wagons at the dock, and in seconds, the troopers down
there saw them, and were firing upon the boys as well. Jan saw an old
gravel road to the right of the dock, going up along the edge of the hill it
followed and said, “Oh no.”