The Pit (The Bugging Out Series Book 4) (32 page)

“You’re just going to leave?”

I thought I saw the beginning of a nod. But it never fully formed. Instead my friend gripped my arm now, and drew me close.

“Get out, Fletch,” Neil said, keeping his back very purposely to the troopers. “Find a hole and bury yourself while there’s still time.”

I puzzled obviously at my friend’s warning.

“What are you talking about?” I pressed him.

Neil chanced a glance behind and the troopers inched closer. He looked back to me, a deep, ominous worry in his eyes.

“Black is white,” he reminded me. “White is black.”

“Neil...”

He let go of my arm and eased his from my grip.

“You can’t trust anyone,” my friend said. “
Anyone
.”

My mind raced, chasing explanations as to what had happened to put my friend in this state. This state of vague warnings and some secretive plan to flee with his family, leaving all else behind. Me included.

“You don’t have much time,” he said.

I wanted to reach out and grab him again. Grab him and throw him to the ground and pummel him until some sense returned and he told me, without any crypticism, just what the hell was going on. But the firepower and muscle standing just yards away would make that a foolish act on my part. Maybe even a fatal one.

“That’s it?” I pressed my friend. “You’re just going? Leaving me here with no explanation?”

A warning horn sounded from the helicopter.

“We’ve gotta move!” one of the troopers shouted to Neil. “Now!”

My friend nodded and looked to me, a finality to the connection. As if he was severing all that we had ever been with a parting glance.

“I tried, Fletch,” Neil said. “I really did.”

“Tried what, Neil?”

All about him saddened right then. His face turned grim. Apologetic.

“To save everyone,” my friend replied. “I couldn’t.”

Save? From what? The questions were bursting in my head like blinding fireworks, popping off painfully close.

“I have to save who I can, Fletch.”

He gestured with a sideways nod toward the chopper. To Krista, and to Grace, and their unborn child.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said, his last words to me.

Then he turned away and jogged back toward the troopers, passing between them and climbing into the helicopter next to Grace and Krista. The armed duo kept their weapons low, but their eyes stayed focused on me as they backed toward the chopper, joining the others inside. The side door slid shut, leaving just a small window through which I could see inside. Neil looked out, meeting my gaze as the rotor spun up, wind blasting across the dirty field, a muffled
whop whop whop
rolling across the landscape as the chopper rose into the air, floating upward, finally banking right, its nose diving as it sped west toward the rising sun.

He was gone. My friend was gone.

And I was left to wonder why.

Part Six

Voices

M
uch happened in the following months as summer spilled into fall, and fall into winter.

The fruit trees that were waist high when we returned from Skagway now reached higher than Bandon’s tallest person, Greta Beane, a former national volleyball standout who towered gracefully over the townspeople at six feet and six inches. They sprouted fruit by Thanksgiving and, in defiance of what had been some natural seasonal order, produced even as the chill of the season took hold. Similarly, the vegetables, both root and stalk, flourished, adding to the plain and preserved foodstuffs all had become accustomed to. Grass seeds that we’d planted prior to heading north in search of our friends had sprouted and spread, carpeting the fields beyond the cemetery with a green that was natural and gorgeous and cool underfoot.

The seeds we’d brought home from Cheyenne, seeds which had been crafted through trial and error while the master of the process was slowly starving to death, had germinated and thrived at the accelerated speed we’d expected after seeing the growth in the Wyoming greenhouse, and confirmed upon our return to Bandon. There had always been that fear that, out of a controlled environment, we’d find that they would mature at a normal pace, denying us of any usable bounty for many months, if not years. Or, worse still, that no growth would happen at all. The blight, we knew, had not gone away. It surrounded us still. It infected the soil. The air.

But it had been beaten. At least here. This land, our land, was turning green again. The fields were alive, if silent. Hills once grey and barren were sprouting wildflowers and weeds from generational seeds carried on the ocean breezes, offspring of the first plants. And the cycle had begun. Life, which had been absent in this form for more than two years, had returned.

Then, a week before Christmas, the boat came.

It was large and squat and grey, approaching from the north to anchor a mile offshore. Navy was my first thought. Nearly everyone’s first thought. The real Navy.
Our
Navy.

A trio of Air Cushion Vehicles, what were commonly referred to as hovercraft, spilled out of its open stern well and ran toward the beaches south of town, dragging roostertails of sea spray behind. Most of Bandon’s residents gathered on the coast road to meet the vessels. Arms were plentiful. But no one harbored any illusions of resistance against what was charging toward land.

Then again, no one expected that this was any sort of hostile act requiring a coordinated defense. What we were witnessing, we believed, was the fulfillment of a promise.

Schiavo hadn’t been blowing smoke after all.

“LSD Forty Seven,” Doc Allen said, lowering the binoculars through which he’d been surveying the operation unfolding offshore. “Landing Ship Dock.”

“Dock Landing Ship,” Ken Petrie corrected from behind. “That’s the
Rushmore
.”

Ken had spent thirty years in the Navy and had retired to Bandon hoping to spend his best years fishing and hunting. That was a year before the blight. Now he was helping to identify the vessel that might very well be bringing us still more hope of both surviving, and thriving.

“Those are LCACs heading our way,” Ken added, adding more specificity to the identity of the watercraft. “Landing Craft Air Cushion.”

The first LCAC hit the beach and scooted across the damp sand. It slowed and stopped a dozen yards from the road, its billowing side skirts collapsing as the engines throttled down, sand blasting from beneath, the solid hull settling gently to earth. Upon it we could see vehicles. Trucks. No true uniformity to their color, but a certain beefiness to them that screamed military grade. Their engines rumbled to life, black smoke belching from vertical exhausts, diesel engines spinning up.

But before any vehicle moved toward the unfolding bow ramp, a figure descended. A familiar face.

Schiavo.

I glanced toward Martin where he stood a few yards away and saw a small, true smile build upon his face as she approached.

“Captain,” Martin said in greeting, offering his hand.

Schiavo, in a mottled grey camouflage uniform, took his hand in hers and shook it. Then she held on. Or he did. It was only for an instant longer than necessary, but that it happened made me smile.

Schiavo looked to me, and to Elaine, then let her gaze sweep slowly over the rest of the town’s residents who had come in greeting. Who had come with hope.

“We have some things for you,” Schiavo said.

Someone cheered. Then applause built. The clapping rippled through the crowd as trucks began to roll off of the LCACs and onto the sand, forming a line that drove onto the road and convoyed slowly into town.

“I recall you said you had functioning freezers,” Schiavo said.

“We do,” Martin confirmed.

“Good, because we have frozen turkey,” Schiavo said. “And chicken. And beef. Fish. Vegetables. Even some ice cream.”

The assembled crowd behind me first murmured what they were hearing between the applause. Then they shouted it to each other. Real food, not something out of a pouch or can, had been delivered. The cheer that erupted and rolled toward Schiavo upon that new reality setting in almost drown out the sound of the final trucks rolling off the last LCAC.

Then we all went silent when we saw what was borne on the backs of each of those vehicles.

“That’s a cow,” six year old Evelyn Mercer said, correctly identifying the beast contained on one of the trucks.

But it wasn’t just one cow. It was seven. Plus an equal number of steer. And there were goats. And pigs. And cages of chickens. Ducks. Some other birds and other land animals that I was too quietly giddy to identify.

“Aerial survey a month ago showed the fields around Bandon were greening up nicely,” Schiavo reported.

We’d heard an aircraft around that time, I recalled. Flying south to north just inland from the coast, at maybe ten thousand feet altitude. Its presence had startled some, and caused worry in others, but almost as soon as it had arrived, it was gone.

“They’ll support grazing soon,” the captain continued. “But we brought you some machinery that will process the blighted trees and vegetation into feed that will keep the herd and flocks viable until the fields are fully established.”

As she finished, the LCACs, empty now, buttoned up and revved their powerplants, rising up on the beach, sand billowing as they turned and rode their cushions of air back onto the water toward the
Rushmore
.

“They have another five loads each to bring in for you,” Schiavo said. “And some help. A doctor.”

Eyes angled toward Doc Allen. His aged eyes welled as his wife hugged him from the side, a warm and thankful smile building as he fixed on Schiavo.

“Does this mean my social security will start paying again?” he asked with genuine humor.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Schiavo said, focusing on the crowd again. “A small unit will also offload with the supplies. Just six strong. They’ll be staying as a sort of garrison. To help. To protect. Though I doubt they’ll be much need of that.”

“We’ve managed that pretty good ourselves,” Oren Kelly reminded her from the crowd.

“No doubt about that,” Schiavo said. “Their commanding officer will only act in consultation with your leadership.”

Then she looked to Martin. Straight at him. And again she smiled within the officiousness of what she was reporting.

“I believe you’ll all get along well with her.”

Martin’s head cocked just a bit with understanding.

“You...”

Schiavo nodded.

“And my guys,” Schiavo said. “Well, guys plus one.”

Martin soaked in the news. He’d lost so much. Given up so much. All so the town, his town, our town, could survive. If some small measure of happiness could be his with Captain Angela Schiavo putting down some semblance of roots here, that was the least he deserved.

“The plan is for resupply visits every two to three months,” Schiavo said, then she turned to me and Elaine. “Those seeds you recovered, and the process outlined in the notebook, well...”

“They replicated it,” Elaine said. “Your people did what the professor did and it worked, didn’t it?”

Schiavo breathed, relieved to be able to bring us the news directly.

“Yes,” she said. “There’s now a sustainable way to produce blight resistant seeds and plants. Anywhere we want.”

For some reason, this news struck a joyous nerve within Elaine. She turned toward me and leaned her face against my shoulder. Tears welled and she smiled.

“It’s over,” Elaine said. “The blight is over.”

“Nothing left for it to kill,” Schiavo confirmed. “Anything that grows now is immune.”

Martin almost couldn’t believe it.

“Over,” he said, the word spoken mostly with breath, as one might a quiet prayer.

Schiavo looked past me, to the crowd beyond, searching. For someone. I knew who.

“Your friend,” she said. “Where is he? And his family?”

I should have been the one to tell her. To share the tale and the details that only I knew. But it was Elaine that explained what had transpired.

“A stealth Blackhawk?” Schiavo asked, mildly incredulous.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“You saw that with your own eyes?” she pressed. “That’s what picked them up?”

I nodded. She looked away for a moment, thoughts seeming to swarm her suddenly.

“What is it?” Elaine asked.

Schiavo looked back to me, to us.

“Let’s talk after my unit hits shore.”

W
e set up tables and chairs in the meeting hall, approximating the look of a conference room. Mostly the tables were so we had a place to set our coffee cups as we settled in to listen to Captain Schiavo.

“When everything went to pieces, there was a time when no one knew who was in charge,” she said, addressing Martin, Elaine, and me.

We sat on one side of the table, Schiavo at the end, the entirety of her unit opposite us. Lorenzen, Enderson, Westin, and Hart. And a new face. Quincy. Specialist Sheryl Quincy. To look at her it was hard to imagine that she was a replacement for Acosta. He was bulk and fury in battle. This petite soldier seemed so far from that physicality that it was almost jarring.

But if Schiavo had brought her, had chosen her, I had to give credence to that, and suppress any chauvinistic impulses I had that were judging the newcomer based upon appearances alone.

“For a while there were competing governments issuing orders,” Schiavo went on, looking to Elaine and me with purpose. “Your man who had authorization to launch that missile in Wyoming...the okay came from one of the rival governments. Not the real one.”

I turned to Elaine. We said nothing, but I could sense that she was feeling exactly what I was—gratitude. A thankfulness that we’d convinced Ben, Colonel Ben Michaels, to use the nuke to save our own skins. In doing so we’d preserved the seeds and, maybe, helped save the world. But we’d also inadvertently prevented an American city, Duluth, from being vaporized.

“Over the last six months everything got folded back into place,” Schiavo said. “The factions coalesced around the president. The one who actually got the job because people voted for him. That’s where my orders come from. From the real commander in chief through his designated military commanders.”