Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (50 page)

“Let me check with Bernie and I’ll get back to you.”

“10-4.”

I punched in the code for the private channel and
waited. It didn’t take long.

“You on board yet?”
Walter’s gruff voice came through.

“Yeah, we’re both here—still at the cabin.”

“Still planning your little vacation to the lake?”

“Actually, that’s why I called. I’ve got a question
about something that my uncle might have, and I’m hoping you might know the
answer.”

“Ask him yourself. The old buzzard has been talking
nonstop since he discovered he wasn’t dead. And I’m sorry to add that although
his chatterbox has been reactivated, he’s still dumber than a bag of hammers,
and uglier than a five gallon bucket of smashed assholes with all the best ones
picked out.”

Michelle groaned and buried her face in her hands at
the insult. I couldn’t help but laugh.

The sound of my uncle’s voice came through a moment
later. It was chuckling weakly along with me.
“Eric my boy, I’m sorry to
hear you recently joined the family business of getting shot at.”

“At least I haven’t mastered the art of actually
getting hit by a bullet . . . yet,”
I
added.

“Don’t . . . it’s highly overrated, and your nurse
ends up being a mean Asian man who doesn’t have the sense to know that a cold
beer cures almost everything.”

In the background I heard Doc Collins chiding my
uncle. When it faded, my uncle came back.
“What do you want to know?”

“I need to know if you have any form of night vision
equipment here.”

“Did Walter tell you how to get into the room beneath
the outbuilding?”

“Yeah.”

“Go down there and look at the wall rack. You’ll see
several guns. There are three of them—two 5.56’s . . . the other is a 7.62—that
have
ATN ARES 2-3P night vision scopes mounted.”

“Are they
sighted in?”

“The 5.56’s
are sighted in with Lake City XM855 ammunition. You’ll find some of it there on
a pallet. The 7.62 hasn’t been zeroed in yet.”

“Can I
borrow them?”

“Don’t ask
questions that you already know the answer to.”
His voice softened and he
added,
“Am I going to get to see you before you leave?”

“Yeah,
we’ll be back tonight.”

“Good
enough.”

I switched back from the private channel and turned to
Michelle. “Let’s go see this mysterious ‘down under’ room.”

We walked over to the new storage building and went
in. The inside was set up with multiple workbenches against the walls—the walls
themselves alternated between sheets of plywood and sheets of peg board. About
a million odds and ends hung from various hooks in the peg board, and the floor
was littered with overturned tubs and boxes, the contents of which reflected a
thorough ransacking. Even though we had cleared the building yesterday, both of
us had entered with hands on our guns. There was nothing, alive or otherwise,
inside.

I walked over to the back left corner and reached
behind a mounted vice. A metal barrel bolt was cleverly hidden in a covered
recess that had been routed out of the bench top, and I flipped the cover up
and slid the bolt. An eight foot section of workbench was now free to swing on
concealed hinges toward me, and it brought with it the corner four foot wide
plywood sheet. Behind it, a wide set of stairs angled downwards to the right.

“Pretty clever. Unless you measured the outside wall,
you’d probably never notice that you were missing three feet of depth from the
inside,” I volunteered.

“Remember,” Michelle pointed out immediately, “we
haven’t been down here yet. They might have.” She cocked her head in the
general direction of the garden.

We went down the stairs, flashlights blazing and guns
ready, but found nothing infected. “Holy crap,” Michelle exclaimed as our
lights circled the basement, “somebody has been a very busy beaver.”

She wasn’t kidding. The basement was filled with
shelves stacked floor to ceiling with plastic tubs, five gallon buckets, and
various other containers. All of it was labeled in my uncle’s precise script
with itemize lists of contents. A rapid glance at the back wall showed
everything from freeze dried meals to rice, water, medical supplies, sanitation
equipment, and spare parts. Other shelves were similarly piled high with
additional supplies of every description. The wall underneath the stairs was
built into a computer workstation, and several monitors, radio frequency
scanners, and other electronic whatnots were neatly organized on top of it.
Behind the computers, a plywood sheet was attached to the wall and had various
cables, wires, and antenna leads neatly coiled and labeled for their supposed
connections. None were currently attached. The wall next to the desk was built
into a two-tier gun rack, and each slot held a weapon. There had to be at least
forty long guns right front of me. Most of the top section was made up of AR-15’s,
although there were at least a half dozen AK47’s as well. The bottom section
had more of the same, although I could see a lot of shotguns, deer rifles, and
.22’s mixed in also. The far corner had two entire pallets worth of ammunition
encircled in shrink wrap. More was stacked and piled on the shelves.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know about this,” Michelle
gawked as she turned slowly around the room.

“I knew he was a pack rat, but I’m not complaining.”

“Yeah, me either. Not now, anyway.”

I nodded, “Let’s get what we came for, and anything
else you see that might come in handy, and then get back topside.”

“Are you planning on us taking the 5.56’s when we go,
or are you leaning toward the 7.62—or both?”

“We need to double up so were both shooting the same
ammunition, at least in our rifles. The 5.56 is what I had in mind for our run,
but I’m also going to take the big gun back to the marina for them. I honestly
wouldn’t mind having the extra firepower with us, but I don’t want the extra
weight. Fast, light, and sneaky is what I have in mind for Devils Lake.”

“It seems like I heard that same slogan before the
massive firefight you dropped us in at the campground.” Her smile betrayed her
words.

“If you remember, Officer Owens, I wasn’t the one that
fired the first shot and stirred up the hornets’ nest.”

“Good point.”

Thirty minutes later we were back in the cabin with the
night vision scoped rifles, ammunition, MRE’s, and a few other supplies for our
journey. While we still had daylight, we made sure the AR’s—both the 5.56’s and
the big 7.62—were sighted in. I also took the time to switch out the barrels on
my 10-22. Unfortunately, the mount for my weapon light wouldn’t transition
without drilling new attachment holes, so I had to leave it off. The threaded
silencer from Walter, however, fit like a glove. Using it in combination with
the heavy subsonic ammunition made the Ruger run quiet and smooth. I
cannibalized a reflex sight from one of the rifles in the gun safe and put 300
rounds down range from various shooting positions and angles. After that, both
of us ran several magazines worth of ammunition through our pistols. We went
back inside and spent the next forty five minutes cleaning the weapons. After
we finished, Michelle began to plan our route while I packed. Just before dark,
Max returned with a bloody muzzle and a big smile. I closed my eyes and said a
quick prayer that our hunt would be as successful as his.

*click*

I feel good. Did you get that . . . whoever’s
listening to this recording? It’s probably a statement you haven’t heard
frequently from me. But it’s true. Oh, where to begin this time? Well I guess
that kind of answers it . . . ‘where’ to begin. I’m on the wooded slope
northwest of Walter’s house . . . probably about 400 yards from his tractor
shed. It’s almost 5:00 AM, and I’ve been here for the last hour or so, just
letting my senses open up. There’s nothing quite like being alone in the dark
forest to heighten your awareness. I have a feeling that I’m going to need all
of my senses working overtime today. Anyway, I heard the passage of several
deer about thirty minutes ago, and the scattering yips of a pair or three
coyotes not long after. There’s also some type of FWC—furry woodland
creature—pushing up leaves about eight feet to the right of where I’m leaning
against the trunk of a thick aspen. It’s probably a mole. Other than that, the
occasional call of an owl, or slight rise in the breeze are the only sounds.
The cloud cover overhead, combining with the drop in temperature and the heavy
scent of moisture in the air is signifying impending rain. Or maybe even snow.
Lovely. But I feel good. Michelle is still sleeping—I hope, anyway—on the “hay
bed” I made. Max is in the tractor shed with her. She was up later than I was,
planning our route and printing out copies of the map using my laptop and
Walters’s printer. They, meaning her and my uncle the techno-nerd, also found a
way to save the satellite mapping images from our planned route to Michelle’s
iPad. And, did I mention there’s good news? Actually, a lot of good news. The
first thing is that Michelle is fairly certain that she’s narrowed down the
stretch of shoreline where her dad’s cabin is located. Unfortunately, that
still leaves us with about two dozen possibilities. Still, it’s better than
where we were. The second thing . . . and I’m not mentioning these in any
particular order—just as they come to me—is that my uncle was up and walking
around. Not fast, and not long, but enough to show the prospect of a full
recovery. Doc seems to think that’s a real possibility. Lots of prayers
answered with that one. Oh . . . I forgot to tell . . . OK, hold up the minute.
Let me backtrack. Michelle and I left the cabin just a little after dark. I let
her drive my truck, and I drove my uncle’s. We made it back to the marina with
no problems, and just in time to eat a supper of pasta, rice, mashed potatoes,
and reheated macaroni and cheese. It was carb heaven. After that, Walter took
me down to see my uncle. He stood and we traded manly hugs, you know the
ones—specifically designed to minimize the possibility that any spectator could
see an emotional commitment. After some small talk, Walter unfolded a few
chairs.

“Sit down for a minute, Eric.”

“What’s up?” I asked as I sat on the curved seat of
the metal chair.

He nodded toward the curtain wall. “Emily . . . Doc’s
granddaughter,” he clarified unnecessarily, “is in a room upstairs.” My face
must have reacted to the potential of incoming bad news, but Walter immediately
shook his head. “No, she’s fine. We just moved her to a more comfortable
location.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as he continued, “But that
also means that right now we’re alone, and there’s something we’d like your
opinion on.”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember way back when . . . that first night
that we sat in the living room upstairs and kinda-sorta made some preliminary
plans based on what we knew, or thought, at that time?”

“That was the first night when there was the rush at
the campground . . . and the stoner guy in the red van by the gas pumps?”

My uncle nodded, “Yep, the same night that Bernice had
to shoot that nekkid girl on the deck.”

“I remember . . . why?”

“One of the things that we talked about,” Walter began
as he pulled his pipe out of the top pocket on his flannel vest, “was that we
all needed to be included . . . in everything.” I said nothing, but bobbed my
head in understanding.

Uncle Andy cleared his throat, “We need to remake that
decision. What we’re saying is that we’ve more than tripled our numbers, but
only five of us—you, me, Michelle, Walter, and Bernice—really know everything.”

I thought back to the room underneath his outbuilding
and laughed, “Yeah, except that I apparently missed the meeting where your
secret identity as a doomsday survivalist squirrel was revealed.”

“Don’t confuse having a healthy respect for life, and
the strong desire to keep that life no matter what goes on in the world around
you, with being a nutjob. They aren’t mutually inclusive. Besides,” my uncle
continued with a grin, “I was going to give you the tour during your vacation.
Sorry you got it under these circumstances.”

“On the contrary,” Walter chimed in, “can you think of
a better time to find out that someone you know has a basement full of
supplies?”

Walter lit his pipe, sending several puffs scurrying
towards the floor before heat changed their course upward “Anyhow,” he said,
“we’re going to have a difficult time trying to keep secrets. And the harder we
try, the more likely it is that someone is going to catch on. So really,” he
glanced towards my uncle, “we’d like your opinion on giving everybody full
disclosure.”

“Everything?”

“All of it. The gasoline, propane, the cabin and
supplies . . . everything.”

I sat in the chair and thought about the various
implications of telling vs. not telling. To be honest, my brain was classifying
the subject as something that needed a lot more thought before I answered, but
I could tell that an unlimited time frame to think was not on the table, so I
went with my gut. “In my opinion, the grief we may inherit down the road from
not telling would probably end up hurting us as a group a lot more. So tell
them.”

They both nodded their heads, “We came to the same
conclusion.”

“Although,” I added, “maybe we should keep the exact
location of the cabin a little vague until we’re one hundred percent sure about
everybody.”

“I agree,” Walter said. It was echoed by my uncle
seconds later.

I spent a little more time talking to them, and then
Michelle came downstairs. She was holding Samantha’s laptop. She offered it to
my uncle. “Do you feel up to decrypting a computer?”

“Why, did you forget your password?”

Michelle shook her head slowly, “It’s not mine . . .
it was Samantha’s.”

I watched my uncle’s face darken with grief as he
accepted the offering. He didn’t open it.

The room was still and quiet for almost a minute, and
then Walter spoke. “Well, you get to that when you feel like it, Andy. In the
meantime, you two,” he indicated Michelle and I, “need to finish getting
ready.” He got up and walked out the door, shutting it softly behind him.

I heard Uncle Andy sigh deeply, and then he began to
open the laptop.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “before you get into that . .
.”

His hands paused on the computer shell and he looked
up at me.

“You can tell her.”

His eyes narrowed, “Tell who . . . what?”

“Tell Michelle . . . the story about the fox.”

His countenance immediately changed from a sulking
grimness to renewed relief. “It’s about freakin’ time,” he said.

To my surprise, Michelle cut in with, “But not now . .
. wait until we get back.”

Uncle Andy turned towards me, and then dipped his nose
immediately at Michelle. “Done and done.”

Michelle led the way upstairs, and I followed closely
behind. The sight of her tight jeans at eye level on the stairwell brought an
abundance of recent memories, and I let my mind spin momentarily with the
vision of her body arched above mine in the tent. She opened the door at the
top of the stairs and we walked into the kitchen. A solitary string of diffuse,
frosted white LED Christmas lights were suspended from the ceiling. They had
been plugged into an extension cord that was in turn plugged in to a homemade
rheostat dimmer switch. All the windows had been covered with multiple layers
of black plastic, even the large bay window that looked out over the lake. Walters’s
house sat on the top of a low hill next to the lake, and any light issuing from
the house would be like a beacon for miles. With the windows covered and lights
dimmed, the house sat dark and invisible. Footsteps in the hall turned our
attention to the figure of Mr. Lee approaching.

“Walter wants to know if you have time to stop in the
sewing room.”

“Sure,” I replied, “what’s up?”

“We’ve been a little busy here at the marina since you
two disappeared, and I think he wants to show off our new toy.”

“Lead the way.” He turned and strode down the hall,
and I gestured for Michelle to follow him. I knew it would only be about a
dozen steps until we got to the sewing room, but I was still having vivid flashes
of last night and this morning when Michelle showed me just how incredibly limber
she really was. I closed my eyes and thought about soccer as I trailed behind.

The door to the sewing room was open, and several
chairs were gathered around an eight foot long folding table. On top of the
table were two flat screen monitors—each lit with black and white images. After
a moment, the images changed. Bernice and Walter were sitting in front of the
monitors, and Amy, CJ and Nancy Jasinski, and Bucky crowded behind their chairs
for a view.

“How’s this?”
It was Crowbar Mike’s voice that echoed over the GMRS radio on the table.

Walter keyed back,
“A little bit higher, not much
though."

The image on the left hand monitor bobbled and then
stabilized.
“That’s good right there,”
Walter said,
“tighten her down
and come on back in.”

He swiveled in his chair and looked my way. “I took
your advice. While you two were gone, we took down some of the cameras from the
marina and mounted them on the house . . . well, mostly on the house.” He
turned back to the computer screens and pointed to the one on the right.
Bernice made several clicks with the mouse underneath her hand, and the screen
divided into four separate squares, each a live feed looking down the walls on
all sides of the house.

“Those give us a 360 view of our immediate
surroundings at ground level.” He turned toward the monitor on the left and
pointed. “This one gives us a choice between looking across the deck and down
the stairs, or . . .” he waited while Bernice clicked again, “down the first switchback
on the driveway.”

The image changed to the one that was displayed when I
first walked in. It was relatively grainy, but I could make out enough details
to place the position of the camera.

Walter continued, “The driveway camera isn’t as clear
as the other ones because we had to bootleg two runs of A/V cable to reach that
point, so we’re getting some signal loss. However, if Mr. Lee’s idea will work,
we may at some point be able to have monitor sites from here out to the road.”

“Which idea is that?” Michelle asked.

“It’s really a no brainer,” Mr. Lee replied, “but
we’re missing some critical hardware.”

“Tell them what you need so they can pick it up that
next time they go shopping,” CJ said with a chuckle.

“It’s simple really,” he held up two fingers in a “V”
display, “we only need two things to make it work. We need wireless cameras—the
kind that a lot of places use for their security systems, and we need some more
wireless routers. Walter already has an abundance of deep cycle batteries available,
and he’s got enough power inverters to make the system operational. All we’d
really have to do is come up with a method for continually replacing the power
source—in this case, a block of deep cycle batteries wired together. Once we
figured that out, we can set up a string of monitor points, each with a camera
or two, and a wireless router. From there you’re really just creating your own
LAN . . . a local area network.”