Thunder and Acid: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 4

  Halfway through the doors, a familiar voice caught her ear, and she froze. It was the general, his voice low and clipped.

  “…telling me they got the jump on you, Lieutenant?”

  He sounded angry. She started to back away, to go back through the doors. This didn’t sound like something she was supposed to hear. But the next words froze her in place again.

  “Our intel was inaccurate, sir.” A man’s voice she didn’t recognize. “And, sir, it came from Machert. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he set us up.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ELIZABETH

  Horse Creek Base, New United States

  Thursday, June 17th, 10:14 am EST

  Elizabeth’s legs stiffened like pillars of concrete in the middle of the hall. Stomach twisting with sudden nausea, she covered her mouth with a shaky hand. This stranger blamed Caleb for, what, ambush? Impossible. And what intel? Caleb barely left the base, and then only to repair radio equipment. Or at least, that’s what he told her.

  General Thomas’s next words eased her rising surge of terror. “Lieutenant, were you led to believe that Staff Sergeant Machert is all-knowing? Or that he has been endowed with some supernatural prescience that allows him to see the future? Has someone told you that he’s a prophet?”

  The Lieutenant stammered his response. “N-no, sir, but—sorry, sir. I just meant—“

  “You meant,” the general interrupted, “that you received intel about insurgents, acted rashly on the intel, and operated counter to what were very clear instructions regarding the nature of your mission. You were to observe, confirm, update base, and await orders, Lieutenant. Is that what you did?”

  Insurgents? Elizabeth’s brow pinched. How could there be an insurgency? There were dangerous people out there, certainly, but they were just people.

  “No, sir,” the Lieutenant admitted. “We were spotted, and it became necessary to take action immediately.”

  Blood sloshed through her ears like water through a full open faucet in the long pause that followed. Elizabeth clamped her hand tighter across her mouth, worried her labored breathing and pounding heart would draw unwanted attention. The whooshing in her ears only grew louder.

  “What’s your assessment, then, Lieutenant?” the general asked, his voice calmer. Did that mean Caleb wasn’t in trouble? That the general didn’t suspect him of being a traitor?

  The Lieutenant’s reply was more clipped now. “With the weather changing, there’s a lot more traffic, General. Now the ash is out of the air, mostly, and a few good rains have made it easier to breathe, we’re seeing more locals moving through the mountains. Sometimes in small groups, sometimes in large ones. By and large, they’re unarmed and no trouble for us, but lately we’re seeing more and more weapons. Even when it’s just a few.”

  “This group that got the drop on you?” General Thomas asked. “Composition?”

  “Primarily civilians. Three armed men, possibly family members, but not clear. Far as we can tell, they were headed our direction, but indirectly. I don’t think they had our location, but that makes the sixth group we’ve found headed our way. Someone knows we’re up here, and I think we’re seeing more armed locals—“

  “Insurgents,” the general corrected.

  “—insurgents, sir,” the lieutenant covered quickly. “I think we’re seeing more armed because they know other people have come this way and disappeared. We’re over thirty bodies, and most of those in the last six days. Best guess, they’re coming from farther and farther away, and clustering together as they make it here from the coastal areas. The ones we’ve managed to question all have pretty much the same story.”

  Elizabeth pressed her hand tighter to her mouth and swallowed down the wave of half-digested oatmeal rising in the back of her throat. Thirty bodies? They’d encountered some awful people when they fled Greensboro, but that was a good-sized city. Not the side of a mountain on the outskirts of a tiny town.

  The lieutenant continued. “We’ve been looking for people with the kind of skills we need, sir, the problem is, they usually come attached to people who don’t. So far, we’ve only recruited two who were willing to leave their people behind, and neither of those worked out. I’m not arguing with your standing orders, but if we changed tact—“

  “Let me tell you what happens if we change tactics, Lieutenant.” The general’s voice took on a hard edge. “For every ten basically worthless civilians we give shelter to, we get one solid serviceman who still has to be properly trained and broken in. That’s eleven mouths to feed and only one of them is barely pulling their weight. We can’t rebuild this country with a bunch of needy welfare-seeking civvies who are too used to being coddled and who’ve spent their entire lives looking to people like us to do the hard work. Those days are over, and they aren’t coming back.”

  “O—of course, sir,” the lieutenant stammered. “I suppose that what I mean is that it may not be an ideal strategy. As long as we’re hidden here, we’re an unknown factor. If we were able to put out a call, though—to execute a proper recruitment drive—we might have better luck bolstering our ranks.”

  The general scoffed, followed quickly by the clipped tapping of boot heels on concrete. The sound grew louder, and Elizabeth took an involuntary step back. Her shoulder nudged the recycling bin and it rocked backward before momentum carried it forward. She caught it just before the wheels struck the floor and carefully lowered it back.

  The footsteps stopped and General Thomas’s voice sounded dangerously close. “I’m not completely turned off by the idea. But it’s not something I’m willing to do lightly, either. Right now, our comms aren’t much more sophisticated than what the civilians have. That’ll change soon, though. When it does, we’ll be able to keep our operations better classified, secure the area, and keep a border. Maybe then, I’ll consider a public recruitment drive. Until then, carry on. Make everyone who seems worth it the offer. The ones who don’t—put them out of their misery. We can’t take on the dead weight, and they’ll just be a nuisance down the line.”

  “Sir.” The word was accompanied by a sharp snap of fabric and the impact of two boot heels against one another—a sound that Elizabeth heard dozens of times a day when one of the general’s men saluted.

  “Dismissed, Lieutenant,” the general said. “And keep your mistrust of Staff Sergeant Machert to yourself. I’ll have a talk with him and see for myself, but for the moment we need him. Unless you pick up another comms engineer in the wild, understood?”

  “Understood, Sir.”

  After that, the footsteps resumed in two sets—one receding, and one headed her way. Elizabeth bit her lip hard to keep from cursing, then looked frantically around her. There was no place to hide, and if she ran, she would be spotted, questioned—and she was a terrible liar.

  Instead, she rushed to the door and pulled it open before letting it swing shut as she pulled the bin ahead of her. The door closed with a heavy thud just as General Thomas turned a corner.

  He stopped when he saw her, and Elizabeth felt her face pale. Fortunately, so did most of the civilian staff when the general glowered. She dipped her head. “General Thomas. Good to see you, sir.”

  “Missus Machert,” he replied with a nod. He peered at the bin, and at the door.

  She glanced back at the bin, then lifted the lid. “Cans. Taking them to be recycled. It’s chili for lunch. We… hit critical mass with the supplies. It’ll be a nice break from MREs, I hope.”

  “A break from MREs is always welcomed,” he agreed. “Carry on. Give your girl my regards. I hear she’s got her eye on enlistment.”

  Elizabeth knew that was the case and had already tried to talk Lana out of it. Now, though, she had a sudden flash of Lana in the field, with some unit, pointing a gun at civilians. Pulling the trigger because none of them looked like they could carry their own weight.

  “Everything alright, Missus Machert?” General Thomas asked, head tipped in question.

  “Yes.” The word wobbled on her tongue, and she wiped sweat from her forehead. “Everything is… great. If you’ll excuse me, I need to empty this out and get back to the kitchen. I hate to, ah—there’s not really space to go around you, sir.”

  It was true, and fortunately so, because the general glanced around himself and then gave her a friendly smile as he stepped aside, nearly pressed against the wall. “There you go. You’ll have to forgive me—I’m not used to moving for anyone.”

  No, Elizabeth didn’t imagine he was. She slipped past him with a forced smile. “I’ll tell Lana you said hello. She’s… uh, she’s looking forward to it. To enlisting, I mean. She’d be honored. Thank you, General. I hope you enjoy the chili.”

  Stop talking, you idiot! she chided herself as she finally tore her eyes from the man and double-timed it to the recycling hub at the end of the hallway. The general didn’t call out to her, didn’t tell her to stop and explain whether she’d heard anything she shouldn’t have. Didn’t spring any of the surprises she instinctively expected from the man; or at least, men like him.

  Because she did know men like him. Men who thought like him, anyway. Men with power, or resources, or anything someone might need, who believed they had a right to decide who had sufficient value to exchange for it.

  Her mother’s parade of abusive boyfriends and hook-ups had been exactly like that. Drunk with what little power they were able to squeeze out of whoever would let them take it, grinding down everyone in sight just to make themselves feel like a king that everyone bowed and scraped for, hoping for the smallest crumb of dignity and acknowledgment.

  It never lasted though, and no amount of bowing and scraping was ever enough to make a person like that experience one second of remorse for what they’d done or to eve
n see other people as human beings at all. Any peace with a person like that was temporary.

  And when it was over, there was always bloodshed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CALEB

  Horse Creek Base, New United States

  Thursday, June 17th, 12:47 pm EST

  Something’s wrong. Caleb eyed his wife across the mess over lunch. She’d barely looked at him when he came through the mess line and accepted a bowl of chili. Her eyes flicked up at him furtively as she ladled the chow, then back down to her work. Now she ignored him completely, head down, eyes focused on the job. Unusual to say the least.

  Seeing one another, even briefly during the day, had been a moment of relief since their details had put them on mostly opposite schedules. A reminder that they would have a few hours together at night to look forward to.

  This, though—a nervous meeting of his eyes and a white-knuckle grip on the ladle, her fingers fidgeting on the edge of her apron—this was fear. But of what?

  He finished his meal, running through the possibilities over and over, before hurrying through equipment inventory reports. Before his equipment checks began on the outside of the base, he detoured to their room, imagination getting the better of him.

  Maybe the new woman assigned to help in the kitchen was mean or rude. Maybe she was disappointed with the food supply. Please let it be that. And not a version of the worries keeping him awake at night. The ones leading him down a path that would be dangerous for his family.

  He pushed the door open, and Elizabeth was already waiting for him, same as she was most days for the little half-hour window in the early afternoon. “Hey.” He kept his voice low as he closed the door behind him. “What’s going on? You looked scared half to—“

  She stood from the bed, wringing her hands as she took a nervous step toward him, her eyes on the door over his shoulder before she looked up into his troubled expression, the wide-eyed fear evident on her face. “Caleb… we can’t stay here.”

  Caleb’s mouth opened, then closed as he curbed his initial reaction, which was to say she needed to calm down. She’d always hated it when he told her that. And given what he’d had on his mind the last few days…

  “Alright,” he said after a moment. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  Elizabeth took a slow, shaky breath in before she told him about the incident in the hallway. At first, it didn’t make any sense even though he did believe her. “Why would they have this discussion in the hall?”

  “It’s out of the way,” Elizabeth explained. “I’ve never seen anyone else in it when I go to the recycling. Maybe they didn’t think anyone would be there.”

  “Or they didn’t think it needed to be a privileged conversation,” Caleb pointed out.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “You mean maybe it wasn’t all that serious and I’m blowing it out of proportion.”

  That hadn’t been his intention, but he put his hands up anyway. “I’m just getting the full picture. A mission debrief shouldn’t have been taking place in the open if it was this sensitive, that’s all. So… maybe it was urgent?”

  Liz’s jaw tightened. “They are killing people, Caleb. And the lieutenant tried to throw you under the bus.”

  That was alarming, but it sounded like the general hadn’t taken the bait. Still, it would be good to know who was trying to put Caleb in the line of fire. “You remember the lieutenant’s name?”

  She shook her head as she stepped toward the cot and dropped down to the edge of it. “Thomas just called him by his rank. I think I’ve heard his voice, but I couldn’t tell you who it belongs to.”

  There were four Lieutenants in the building. Caleb knew Lieutenant Richard Davis personally, but the other three he’d only met in passing. He wouldn’t have called Davis a friend, exactly, but he doubted he’d have blamed a failed reconnaissance mission on anyone else; he seemed like the sort of man who took responsibility for his missions. Though, maybe Caleb overestimated him. All four had a much longer relationship with the general than Caleb did, and he had no idea what the dynamics of those relationships were.

  It didn’t exactly leave anyone he could trust to find out more. “Did they mention a region? A sector, they might have said.”

  Elizabeth shook her head again. “But does it even matter? Thirty people have been killed. The general doesn’t want ‘unskilled’ civilians here, and he’s got a standing order to execute them. That’s enough for us to need to leave this place, isn’t it?”

  Caleb’s mind flashed to the people they’d encountered on the way up the mountain. Unskilled didn’t mean innocent. But I already have a bad feeling, he admitted to himself. Why am I so intent on trying to find a way to overlook Thomas’s actions?

  It was a good question, and probably the right one to be asking. But the answer was easy enough to recognize. “If we leave here, Liz,” he offered gently, “I don’t know where we’ll go.”

  “Anywhere else,” she hissed at him. “Caleb, if we stay here, how long before you’re asked to kill someone just because that man says they’re unworthy to live? How long before Lana enlists, and must make that same choice? Or before… before Thomas decides that you’re the only ‘useful’ member of this family? I’m terrified. For me, for Lana—and for you, because I know what choice you’ll make if he asks you to.”

  He was at least reassured by that. Liz knew that he’d never hurt her, or Lana. And that he’d never gun down an unarmed civilian just looking for safety. But she did have a point.

  There would be swift and likely fatal consequences for all of them if he refused an order. Caleb hadn’t seen the general order a soldier executed for disobeying orders, but there had been casualties in the field—and some of them seemed unlikely to be at the hands of civilian groups Caleb had overheard on the radio.

  “You’re right,” he admitted, finally. “We might be in danger here, even if it’s not immediate. But the best thing we can do right now, is play along, learn more, and find… I don’t know, find the right way out. If we take a wrong step here, we’ll—“

  The door opened. Caleb’s heart leaped into his throat, his body tensing as he turned reflexively to the door, hands already coming up defensively as adrenaline pumped into his system.

  He exhaled a sharp breath when he saw Lana in the doorway. His shoulders relaxed, but a different kind of tension filled his stomach when his daughter’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘way out’? What’s going on?”

  Caleb waved a hand to dismiss the question. “Nothing, honey. Nothing you have to worry about, we’re just talking.”

  That was the wrong thing to say, and he probably could have guessed as much if he’d taken the time to think before he said it. Lana’s back went rigid. “If something’s going on,” she said, her voice icy, “then I have a right to know. You’re talking about leaving, aren’t you? What did you mean by ‘wrong step’? Are we in trouble? Did you do something?”

  “Lana, no,” Caleb told her, “we’re not in trouble, we’re just… your mom and I have some things to talk about, that’s all. You’ve got too much going on to worry about our problems.”

  “Too much going on,” Lana echoed, and folded her arms over her chest as she eyed first him, then Liz, then focused a sharp look on him, meeting his eyes with an unflinching gaze. “I’m not the kid who left for college, Dad. Not anymore.”

  A look crossed her face. One that Caleb knew and had seen on her before—and on the faces of combat veterans. It was brief, as if she pushed it away; as if she’d been getting practice doing so. A look of haunted pain that unfocused her eyes and paled her cheeks. She swallowed and she was back.

  “Lana,” Caleb murmured, “honey, I know you’re not—“

  “Caleb, stop,” Elizabeth interrupted, standing from the cot to put a hand on his arm. “She needs to know.”

  Before he could slow things down, Elizabeth blurted it all out. Caleb’s chest tightened. He wanted to protect his daughter, not put her in harm’s way. If she knew about the general’s plans, she would be a liability. A security risk.

  As Elizabeth finished, she smiled a sad, conciliatory smile at their daughter. “I’m sorry. Hon. But the general is out of his mind, and this place isn’t safe for us. And even if it was… we couldn’t be a part of that. We can’t stay here.”