Takedown anw-7 Read online

  “Okay then, easy on the controls. Nothing has changed. It’s only another landing but just watch how much reverse thrust you use.”

  Our wheels touch the runway — touch being a relative term. As much as slamming your toe into a bed post can be called caressing against it. Okay, it isn’t that bad. In fact, it is a relatively soft landing considering that our runway isn’t exactly an even surface. Robert holds the nose of the 130 off the ground as long as he can as our main wheels bounce across the uneven drifts. The nose lowers and we transition to four-wheel drive plowing across a dry creek bed. I feel our wheels catch on the piles of sand causing us to lurch in one direction and then the other. Robert corrects and holds us steady across the once smooth, concrete runway. He applies reverse thrust and billows of sand are thrown out in front, accompanying the increased roar of the engines. Adjusting the reversers, he slows us to a taxi speed without completely blinding us.

  “Nicely done,” I say as the momentum of the 130 carries us past the wall of dust that accompanied our landing rollout.

  “Thanks. Where do you want to park?” he asks.

  “Let’s pull over to the main ramp.”

  We taxi in and leave the engines running. I want us ready to leave quickly in case someone unpleasant shows up and takes offense at our arrival. The dust from our landing hangs in the air over the runway and along our taxi route. Minutes tick by without a reception committee and we shut down. By the time I make my way to the cargo compartment, Greg already has the Stryker unlashed and the 130 ramp open. Even though it’s sunny out, there is a definite chill to the air that seeps in through the open door.

  “What did you do? Land us on top of parked cars?” Greg asks amid the metallic clangs of the Stryker hatch opening.

  “You know, you don’t have to ride with us. I’m sure there’s a train station somewhere nearby,” I respond.

  “I’m sure of that. I think you landed on the tracks.”

  “Enjoy the walk from South Dakota, my friend. I’ll send someone out to get you when I get home…if I remember,” I state.

  The noise from the Stryker starting ends our conversation right where it should, with me having the last word. The vehicle lurches as it is put into gear and backed out of the aircraft –again managing to emerge without damaging our ride home.

  Walking out of the aircraft into the chilly yet sunny day, I notice mare’s tails sweeping across the blue sky, indicative of a front moving in and a possible change in the weather. I long for the days when I had access to forecasts and long-range radar. At least at altitude I can see weather forming at a distance and adapt accordingly — provided I’m not actually in it. Fall is a tricky time of year and almost anything can form. It can change quickly and often. Although we can fly in any weather, we don’t have the navigation facilities necessary to fly in it and be able to shoot approaches with any degree of accuracy. We have been relegated to fair weather flying.

  I watch as the team members, including Robert and Bri, begin to gather their gear. The manner with which they go about it shows that they are tired as we prepare to embark on yet another mission. This constantly being ‘on the road’ and moving about is beginning to take its toll. Although wanting to find each of their families, I am feeling much the same and am not overly eager to start another road march. This is only our third stop with seven more to go. We’ll have to take a day soon to rest up. I know when we get home it will be busy as we prepare for the coming winter. A day or two of rest will do us good.

  “How do you want to handle this? Two teams or one?” Greg asks as we adjust our vests and check our equipment.

  “I’d like to take both teams but I’m not sure about leaving the others here without some of us here. For one, we don’t really know them and two, will they be able to take care of themselves,” I reply.

  “Are you worried about them taking your precious airplane?” Greg asks, facetiously.

  “No. But we have a certain responsibility toward them and well, you never know.”

  Carl, the leader of the survivor group we found in the town of Belt, apparently overheard our conversation. “You know, we’d be happy to keep a watch on things here,” he says. “We’ve managed to stay alive this long and we promise not to press any buttons.”

  I feel a little embarrassed at being overhead making disparaging remarks which brings a chuckle from Greg. He then shrugs saying it’s up to me.

  “Thanks, Carl, I appreciate that. It’s not a great feeling being out with only a few,” I say.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he replies, thinking back to when his small group was cornered by a band of marauders.

  We open a map of the area and begin to plot our route to Sturgis. The interstate goes through the north end of Rapid City and I mention that I’m not all that fond of heading through a city. None of us are really fans of proceeding through previously populated areas having had run-ins, in one fashion or another, within almost every one we’ve gone through. The soldier whose family we have come to find stands behind me, Greg, Robert, and Bri as we kneel around the map.

  “Sir,” he says after a moment, “there are back roads that lead directly into Sturgis without passing through any towns.”

  I ask him to show us the roads. He points to a few that twist and turn through the barren countryside, eventually leading into the town from the northeast. We mark the route, fold the map, finish readying our gear, and climb inside of the Stryker with the mare’s tails above slowly gaining headway across the sky.

  Dead Lands

  The night is filled with uneasiness and tension that can be physically felt. People flinch with each building creak. Every noise causes all eyes to dart to the entrances expecting a renewal of the night runner assault. The stench of the night runners dead on the floor below mingles with the lingering smell of gunpowder. Everyone waits with bated breath for the sun’s arrival. The evening passes with little or no rest.

  With each minute seeming like an hour, the glow of dawn finally bleaches the eastern sky. A collective sigh passes through the survivors huddled within the sanctuary — although the term sanctuary feels like a misnomer at this point. The shrieks that inundated the interior just a few hours ago seem like a hellish nightmare and the fact that they are still alive seems rather surreal. Snapshots of the evening’s events flash through every mind as they relive the horror of the night.

  With the first rays of dawn streaming upon the scared group of survivors, Drescoll begins the cleanup operations. He directs the teams to clear the bodies, load them into transports, and take them to a nearby field where they are burned. He wants to get the command group together to organize their efforts for the day but feels a pressing need to be out with the first light to search for Lynn. Every minute they wait is another minute the trail will get cold. It’s been a few hours already and he wants to be searching for his friend. He notifies Bannerman and Frank that he’s taking Green Team out and leaves the tasks to them for the time being.

  Gathering his team together, they pile into a couple of Humvees and head to the main gate. That was the last place he saw her on the video feeds so he will start from there. From the gate, it’s not hard to find the path of the night runners. The thousands of them that left the compound trampled the grass leaving a clear trail. Drescoll jumps out of his vehicle and walks the wide swath with the Humvees creeping alongside. He scrutinizes the churned up ground for any clue. Filled with dread, he half-expects to find Lynn’s body left behind in the wake of the night runner exodus.

  The path leads towards the rubble of the demolished buildings. Dirt clods from the thousands of passing feet litter the roadway for a distance before fading out. The sides of the road show signs of passage and he follows the trail with only the sound of the idling Humvees, drifting along behind him, keeping him company. He feels a little relieved that he hasn’t found any sign of Lynn, but this also adds to his apprehension. That means she could be anywhere. He’ll have teams search the area with more thoroughness if i
t ends up that he can’t find any sign of her.

  It’s slow walking the entire distance, but he doesn’t want to miss anything — a dropped piece of clothing, her watch, anything. At least he knows that, with the daylight, the large pack he is following won’t get any farther away. His concern is that he will lose the trail once he reaches the rubble and city streets. He calls back to base to have Roger, the pilot they picked up from Sam’s group, get aloft and see if he can pick up any sign.

  The trail fades quickly as Drescoll crosses over the bridge passing over the interstate. He has now stepped into the concrete and asphalt jungle of the city. Mounds of rubble and debris litter where buildings once stood. He is still able to discern the path the night runners took by several blood trails — large splotches here and there mixed with a splattering of droplets. These are fairly numerous in places, but elsewhere, they appear far apart from each other. He comes across a few bodies of night runners who finally succumbed to their wounds, their cloudy eyes staring at the light of day that they feared so much. The light streaming down has already made its mark on their exposed skin in the form of redness looking much like a severe sunburn. There are times when he loses the trail and has to move about in a search pattern to find the next sign.

  At the edge of the rubble-strewn streets, he loses the trail completely. Filled with fear, he crisscrosses the many streets searching — looking for anything that would indicate the passage of the pack. Going back to the last sign, he starts in an ever-widening circle looking for something he missed. Nothing. Climbing into one of the Humvees, he directs his team to patrol the streets in a search for something…anything.

  After a fruitless search, Roger calls informing Drescoll that he is overhead. The shadow of the single engine aircraft flashes across the hood of the Humvee. Driving back to the last know sign of the night runner trail, Drescoll has Roger begin an aerial search for any sign. Minutes pass. The radio call Drescoll was dreading arrives, telling him that Roger can’t see anything that would indicate where the night runners went.

  Drescoll splits his team and has Roger expand his search. Directing the other Humvee to head east, he goes south. He’ll search the entire town if he has to. There must be something that would indicate the passage of a pack of the size that attacked the sanctuary. The streets begin to look the same as he crosses back and forth, going ever farther from where the trail petered out. Although there are signs everywhere of night runner activity — dead animals lying on the sidewalks and in streets, their flesh stripped clean — there is nothing that clearly points to the specific path that the pack took. The fact that he hasn’t found a trace of Lynn fills him with anxiety yet gives him hope at the same time. As long as her body isn’t found, hope that she’s still alive remains. With the sun fading into late afternoon, Drescoll takes a last look down a tree-lined neighborhood street and, feeling low, calls off the search.

  The sun sits above the treetops as Drescoll pulls back into the compound. In the distance, seen above the walls, a column of smoke from the burning night runner bodies drifts lazily upward in the calm, chilly air. Crews work on the walls and towers with a renewed energy, eager to get them up as soon as possible. The presence of another barrier against the night runners will go a long ways towards their feeling safe once again. He watches as several workers eye the lowering sun, dreading the time of its setting. They were feeling safe for a little while but last night’s attack brought the fear of darkness back. It’s not really the darkness they fear so much as what it means — darkness means night runners. No one wants a repeat of last night and the sanctuary of Cabela’s doesn’t hold the feeling of security it did less than twenty-four hours ago.

  Gathering the command group together, Drescoll briefs them on his search. Although he kept in radio contact, he wants to make sure everyone is up to speed. The discussion turns to why the night runners departed after capturing Lynn. Theories abound within the group and there is a lot of conjecturing but, in the end, no one can come up with an explanation that sounds even remotely plausible.

  “I hate to bring this up, but I think we need to voice it. What do you think the chances of Lynn surviving the night are?” Bannerman asks.

  With a heavy sigh, Drescoll answers, “I’m not sure. We haven’t found her body, so there is that hope at least. We’ll have a team designated to search every day until we find something.”

  “Again, this may not be the right time to bring this up, but what about a memorial service?” Bannerman says. An awkward silence descends upon the group.

  “No, I think it’s too soon. We need to wait until we know for sure…or until a longer period of time has elapsed,” Drescoll says, finally breaking the silence.

  “I agree,” Taylor states adamantly.

  “How long should we wait?” Bannerman asks.

  “How in the fuck would I know?!” Drescoll replies heatedly, standing.

  Another moment of awkward silence follows. Drescoll remains standing with his hands on his hips, glaring at each group member in turn.

  His glare vanishes and his face falls. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just worried about her,” Drescoll says, sitting once again.

  “That’s perfectly understandable. We know you were her friend. We all were,” Frank says. Drescoll looks up sharply at the last statement.

  “I mean, we all are,” Frank continues.

  Drescoll’s expression changes once again to sorrow. “I know, and thank you. This is just…hard.”

  “It is, and we’ll send out search teams each day. We’ll also have them broadcast over speakers for Lynn saying that we will find her. I think it’s important that we keep on with the projects we currently have in order to restore a semblance of normalcy,” Frank states.

  “Agreed. We need to keep clearing the rubble and trees away from the compound along with completing the inner wall and towers. Mullins, will you take over the training for the Phase One students? I’ll take over Phase Two,” Drescoll says.

  “Be happy to,” Mullins responds.

  “I think we should keep on with the nightly curfew. We’ll need to pick up additional cameras for the inner doors and outside of the building,” Frank says.

  “That means a trip to Bangor. It’s the only place I can think of that would have additional thermal cameras,” Bannerman comments.

  “That should be a priority, so let’s arrange a trip when we can spare teams for security,” Drescoll says.

  With that, the group breaks and readies to continue with the established projects the next day.

  * * *

  With the sun casting its early morning rays across the deserted base, long shadows reaching from the tall hangars to the west, we depart the ramp on yet another adventure. We skirt by the operations building and several large hangars before entering the base proper. Huge drifts of sand are piled up against their sides and almost completely cover the roads. If it weren’t for the higher drifts along the edges of the streets, it would be difficult to tell them from the surrounding brown fields.

  The base itself is only a few blocks long, but the roads are confusing nonetheless. Most of the core of the base is made up of nearly empty, dirt-covered parking lots feeding smaller buildings. I know we have entered a very arid land as there is not the usual greenery that beautifies a majority of bases. Before long, and only having to turn around once, we make it to and through a gate serving the installation. A very tattered flag hangs limply from a flag pole near the visitor’s center.

  We find the road indicated by the soldier and, after passing a few housing developments and a school, we emerge into an area of flat brown fields. They stretch far into the distance to the point that I can almost discern the curvature of the earth. There is not much in sight that breaks up the nearly unlimited view. I don’t see a single tree. There are only fences with sand piled up against the posts. Making a turn to the north, we pass a few farm houses and outlying buildings which are soon lost behind. We then enter an even more sparsely populated area. Th
e only greenery, as noted by our assessment from the air, is along the small streams we pass.

  As we continue along this lonely stretch, I don’t see any animals. There weren’t people other places we have driven along, but the lack of structures makes it seem lonelier. I ponder the food sources for other survivors and night runners. There isn’t much out this way to feed much of anything. There are some places where water flows but they are far and few between. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t sense any night runners in the base and only a few in the city itself — there just are not enough food sources to sustain them. I wonder how long that will last in the city itself and whether they will migrate to the surrounding hills when it runs out.

  We pass through terrain that is a little more rugged with draws and ravines that extend outward from the Black Hills to the east. A series of tree-lined hills lie amongst these earth fractures and it’s there that I think some food may be found. If there is any, it wouldn’t support too many people or night runners. No, the only place really to survive around here is within the Black Hills themselves. The town of Sturgis lies right at the foot of them so there’s hope that we can find some survivors there and the higher hope that we will find the soldier’s family.

  * * *

  Bri jostles to the side as the Stryker navigates one of the many bumps in the road. Looking around, she sees the other soldiers sitting shoulder to shoulder in the cramped quarters, all moving in unison with the bounces. She pays a little attention to the hoses that run through the compartment and the display hanging down just prior to the small entrance of the driver’s compartment. She smells a certain electrical odor mixed in with the aroma of diesel and oil. It’s a tight squeeze for all of them and the seats aren’t comfortable but she doesn’t mind all that much. She’s here with her team and family and that’s all that really matters.

  She looks over to Robert sitting across the way with his hands wrapped around the M-4 situated, like hers, between his legs. He is slumped forward staring at the floor lost in his thought. Everyone is sitting in various positions — some with their heads forward like Robert’s and others leaning back — but all have that far away stare of being lost in their own minds.