Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 2): Fractured Paradise Page 7

  Brent laughed, “We don’t need the mounts, just the panels. Watch.”

  Brent pulled a couple of wrenches from his pocket and tried them on a bolt near the base of the panel. The second one fit and it was only moments before he had moved on to a second one, then a third. When he was finished, he popped a clear panel off and set it to the side. Then he reached down, rolled up the solar panel, and unplugged it from a feed that was wired through the mount.

  He held up the rolled panel. “This is all we need. The rest is just to protect it from weather events.” He tapped on the clear panel he had set to the side, “This baby is rated up to 4” hail.” He then held up the rolled solar panel. “This isn’t.” He looked around at the rest of the mounts on the roof. “Let’s get the rest of them.”

  Working quickly, the men had the first half of the panels removed in less than thirty minutes. Then Brent asked Jensen to keep working while he went to retrieve the controllers and power banks. Jensen was thankful for the break. He had been running the rolled-up panels through a hatch in the ceiling, down a ladder, and out into the covered trailer. The change meant he could catch his breath between trips as he removed the bolts and covers from the panels. It was slower, but he didn’t feel like he was about to die either.

  During one of his trips, he saw Daniel helping Brent to carry a heavy-looking power bank out to the second trailer. “Shouldn’t you be in the tub?”

  Daniel looked abashed. “I got out to take a piss and Brent recruited me for some manual labor.”

  Jensen looked around worriedly. He didn’t like not having the guns on the armored vehicles manned. “Tell you what, I’ll post up while you move that shit, but hurry up. I don’t like not having anyone in the tubs.”

  Daniel looked over at him. “What about Sheila?”

  Jensen shook his head. “I didn’t show her how to operate them.”

  The big man looked surprised, “Oh … then what did you do on the way down here?” He gave a suggestive grin and wiggled his eyebrows.

  Jensen sighed, “Not that, asshole. I swear, you’re 12.” He dropped down to one knee at the front corner of the multicam tub and watched the road leading into Dahlonega.

  Jensen didn’t expect to see anyone. Brent had told them about their group coming together and heading east for safety on the other side of the rivers that flowed north to south through eastern Georgia. There were probably some people still around, but not that many. By the sounds of it, the fires had gotten pretty close to this area. He could still see smoke in the air as the remnants smoldered away.

  He was surprised by the smoke; Jensen had expected the smoke to clear after the heavy rains. In his mind, the storm should have put out the raging fires, but maybe it had only stopped their progress. Something was clearly still burning. Behind him he could see the other two men continue to carry large polymer-cased batteries, along with some other things he suspected were probably control units. It took about twenty minutes for them to finish and for Daniel to tap him on the shoulder. “I’ve got it, you can go after the rest of the solar panels now.”

  During that time, Jensen had seen absolutely nothing moving. He didn’t even hear the sound of birds calling out to each other. There was a good chance the animals had left the area as well. The fire wasn’t stealthy, and animals sometimes seemed to have a sense about those kinds of things. It left him feeling a little unnerved though. He liked quiet, but this kind of silence was eerie.

  It was quiet enough that he could hear Brent once again on the rooftop. The soft clang of the metal wrench against the metal casings carried across the still air between them. He turned slowly, still not at ease, and returned to the rooftop to retrieve more of the valuable rolls of solar cells. Once on the roof, he checked the back of the bank, his eyes searching the back of the parking lot and the narrow field that led into the trees. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Maybe it was walking through the now dark bank which had been warmly lit only about an hour previously, before they had torn out the nerve system that gave it life. Maybe it was just spending too much time in one place. Whatever the reason, he was getting jumpy. “Hey Brent, how many of these do you think we need?”

  As his eyes scanned from close to far in sectors, Jensen heard the older man tell him, “We’ve got plenty already. I figured we might as well have some backups in case we lose some.” After a pause, “Why? Is something wrong?” He had noticed Jensen’s poised body language as he looked toward their unprotected rear.

  Jensen replied, “Maybe, I’m not sure yet.”

  The former cavalry officer had learned to trust his instincts, but he was starting to doubt them now. There was something nagging at his subconscious, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then out of the left corner of his eye, he saw what had been bothering him. There was a light on in one of the houses several hundred yards away. He looked directly at it, thinking maybe it was just sunlight reflecting off a windowpane, but no, it was definitely a light.

  He must have seen it when he was carrying the rolled solar cells down from the roof. He would have been looking in the right direction. Jensen crouched down by one of the solar cell mounts, scanning the area in that direction. He heard Brent climb down the ladder, swearing softly, as he tried to bring two of the bulky rolls of cells down at once.

  At the same time, he heard a branch snap off in the woods. Jensen settled into a prone position, facing that way. It reminded him of another rooftop on Dahlonega, not long ago, when he had almost been shot by a kid because he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. He wouldn’t let something like that happen again.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Jensen tried to recall specifically if he had heard a branch snap or not. Could he have imagined it? He wanted to keep his eyes directed toward the sound, but he began to imagine other forces moving in from their flanks or from across the road. He scanned left again, noting that the light he’d seen before was out. Someone was there, or at least they had been moments before. When he heard a step on the ladder behind him, he called out, “Go get back in the tub. We have to leave.”

  Bent called out from inside the bank, “Leaving.” Jensen back slowly away from the ledge, still prone. He looked at the remaining rolled up solar panel and thought with regret he would have to leave it. They had enough, and if there truly was someone coming their way, he didn’t want to risk getting holes in any of their valuable salvage.

  He dropped down the ladder quickly and hurried out to his tub. As he moved, he noted with satisfaction that Brent was already in the second tub and that the equipment on the open trailer had been lashed down. He hoped the solar cells inside the enclosed trailer would be okay; he didn’t want them to be damaged by too much bouncing around in the trailer. It had only the tires for suspension, nothing mechanical.

  As quickly as he could, he opened the hatch and climbed into the cockpit, cringing as he did so. His shoulder was still healing from getting shot as he did the same action not far away in Helen, when a couple of what he’d been referring to as ‘mountain folk’ had chosen to try to take revenge. He’d killed two of them, with good reason; they had slaughtered five members of his group. He dropped inside and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Jensen keyed the microphone. “Let’s roll. Time to go.”

  He watched with appreciation as the multicam tub started to move before he even heard the reply, “Roger. Moving out.”

  He started to breathe a little bit easier as the first tub gained the road and started rolling toward their mountain retreat. He was only a few meters behind. As he turned left on the roadway, he saw a clean shaved man wearing camouflage at the edge of the bank, watching as they departed.

  The man was wearing military gear and holding a large rifle on a modular chassis. The barrel was pointing down and to the left, held in the crook of the man’s arm. His eyes were shielded by dark glasses. He didn’t make any motion to engage them or threaten them, but J
ensen found it unnerving.

  This was another man like him, and the fact that he’d managed to travel from wherever he was in the woods to the corner of the bank while Jensen was getting into his tub and started to move meant he was much closer than he’d realized. Certainly he’d been close enough to engage him with the big rifle if he’d wanted. The scope on top of the bolt action rifle was huge, probably a 50mm objective.

  If the man had as much skill as Jensen, he could have fired from hundreds of yards away easily. The fact that he hadn’t made Jensen wonder. He slowed to a stop, maybe 50 yards away from the man. He didn’t see anything in his monitors, just the one possible threat. Jensen didn’t know why, but he raised his hand in a silent wave through the narrow window of his canopy. The man raised one hand from the grip of his rifle. He acknowledged the partial wave with one of his own before he turned and walked away.

  Jensen started forward again and closed the gap with the other vehicle. He watched the monitors for several minutes to be sure nobody was following them. They were alone again, rolling toward home.

  Chapter 10

  They were back at the mountaintop refuge. It had already grown dark as they checked in on the radio and silently pulled the trailers up the hill through the mud. Now they were sitting around inside the cabin, which smelled slightly of unwashed bodies and still held the faint odor of smoke.

  Brent was talking to Jensen. “Who was it?” Jensen could only shrug; he had no idea. “Sheila said you stopped and waved at him while you were leaving.”

  Jensen nodded, “I did.”

  The older man continued. “Why? If you didn’t know him?”

  It was tough to explain. Jensen had sensed they were similar when he looked at the man, who had appeared almost silently. There was something there he couldn’t explain, like they had shared a bond of some sort. Instead, he simply answered, “He could have killed me. He didn’t. That seemed pretty neighborly.”

  Daniel interjected, “How did you even know he was there? None of us had any idea. You just got weird all of a sudden and we had to go.”

  Jensen struggled with this answer as well. “I didn’t realize at first, but there was a light on in a house a few hundred yards away. I must have noticed it before I came down and took watch by your tub. I didn’t know what was wrong, but something was off.” It was the best he could do. “But that man wasn’t alone. There was at least one more there. He was already in position before that light switched off.”

  When Brent asked, he described the house he’d seen, white with green shutters and a dark roof. “That’s the bakery. No wonder they had lights, I installed solar panels there a few years ago.” He looked over at Jensen. “The owner was a retired special forces guy.”

  A lot of things snapped into place for Jensen with that comment. He understood why the man had seemed so familiar; he was a brother of sorts. Jensen had worked with SOF before, and he now knew without a doubt he’d be dead if the man had wanted to kill him. It made sense the man had moved to a small town when he retired. It felt safer.

  Most retirees tended to either stick around the base they’d retired from or go back to where they’d grown up. They sought out the familiar after a long career of uncertainty and danger. Going back home held allure for some folks. They could go back to a time before their involvement in the systematic killing of others, or at least pretend to. The ones that stayed near their final base were either tired of moving, had nothing to go home to, or had simply accepted that place as home. Some did the same jobs they’d done in the military, but without all the bullshit and for higher pay.

  Jensen surmised that either this man had grown up near Dahlonega or had escaped there to seek peace. It was easier to notice danger when you could learn the faces of most of the residents and learned the landscape. Bustling cities always made him cringe. The sheer amount of sensory data coming in made him almost numb.

  It was strange to think a trained killer would find satisfaction baking bread and doughnuts, but it made sense to him. There was a joy in creating, made only sweeter by the memories of a lifetime of destruction. Maybe Jensen was reading too much into this—he probably was—but it was how he made sense of the encounter.

  The former Army man realized that’s what he was doing here, trying to create. He wasn’t so unlike the baker in camouflage. He’d also escaped toward the quiet of the mountains, where the sensory data made sense to him. It might not be peace he’d found, but it sure beat fear. That’s one thing he’d learned from the psychologists; what he considered peace and safety were simply other words for the diminishment of fear. He was trying to create a safe place for them all.

  Dinner that night was Spam and rice. He really wished for eggs or potatoes to go with them, but they didn’t have those things. Chicken, steak, venison, pizza, cheeseburgers … the list of foods he wanted seemed endless. Jensen was trim to begin with, but the unappealing food choices they possessed had stripped even more weight off him. It was hard to get excited about MREs, freeze dried, or canned food when that’s all he’d been eating for what seemed like forever.

  Once they had power, he was going to find some damned cows and pigs. Living through the apocalypse was a hollow victory if he couldn’t have a fucking cheeseburger. No decent food, no gas, no hot showers—it was overwhelming. It was like being deployed again, but worse. At least while he was deployed, he could dream about coming back home.

  It took three days before they managed to install the solar panels and the associated equipment. It took some inventive thinking on Brent’s part to make it work. When they stripped the equipment, they hadn’t pulled all of the wiring. Brent had to pull from the cabin’s wiring to make everything work. They had electricity in all but the two smaller bedrooms though. It was amazing.

  Although the improvised creek behind the cabin had begun to clear up, Jensen didn’t care anymore. With the addition of electricity, the pump in the well had started providing clean, fresh water. The water heater functioned. They could turn on the lights. They could take hot showers. Best of all, they could do laundry.

  The men and women on the hill had done their best to clean their clothing, but living mostly outdoors over the course of weeks took its toll on their attire. Even after a good washing, they still retained the faint odors of sweat and mildew. They had a line to dry clothes, but it seemed to take forever to get them mostly dry. Jensen had noticed Daniel becoming more and more unhappy with the state of his socks. It was a weird hang-up, but Jensen didn’t question it. It was just one more thing he could chalk up to being intel.

  Jensen’s first priority was to clean and refill all of the empty water bottles. Sure, they had clean running water at the moment, but he had no idea if the power would last or how dependable that pump really was. He felt it was better to be prepared than it was to trust in luck. He simply didn’t trust in luck. He felt much better staring at the rows and rows of filled water bottles on the kitchen counter. Worst case scenario, they’d have plenty of clean water to drink if the pump failed.

  He was also excited at the chance to shower and clean his plate carrier. The extended wear over the past few weeks had caused it to become noticeably foul. The scent was ever present when he was wearing it. They had others, but this one had protected him, and he felt some weird sort of loyalty to it, almost as though it were a living thing with feelings instead of just a fabric vest that held ceramic plates.

  The water heater in the cabin was small, just enough for a couple of people to take showers before the water went cold and they had to wait a few more hours for it to heat up again. Jensen felt a touch of resentment toward Abby. The young lady had spent so long in the shower, she used up the entire supply, causing him to have to wait a few hours longer before he could clean himself. Then he’d had to listen to the sound of a blow dryer for what seemed like hours as the young woman prettied herself up. Where had they even gotten a hair dryer?

  He understood, though, when she pranced lightly out of the tiny bathroom look
ing like she’d just stepped off a Paris runway. He had to admit that she looked wonderful, and Dylan looked absolutely stunned. Jensen had to admit, her high cheekbones and big eyes, framed by rivulets of hair hanging down from her temples was a sight to behold. It was enough to send Dylan dashing into the bathroom for his own shower, despite the lack of hot water. He emerged about ten minutes later, freshly washed and smelling of some sort of aftershave or body spray. Where the fuck had they gotten body spray?

  Despite the too-strong application, Jensen didn’t mind the scent. It definitely improved the odor inside the cabin. He looked across the room at Brent, who was watching the scene unfold with a twinkle in his eye. When their eyes met, Brent grinned and held up his hands, as though to say, “What can you do?”

  Jensen grinned and headed for the door. He grabbed his pungent plate carrier on the way and slipped it on. Might as well get another patrol in before he got himself and his armor cleaned up. He had plenty of time while the small water heater labored to replace what Abby had used up. He just inclined his head at Brent on his way out, indicating which direction he planned to go, and waited for the older man to nod.

  There was nothing official, but they all sort of looked to Brent as the leader now. It had been his idea to get the solar panels and he had performed nothing short of a miracle by getting everything wired and working properly. It was something none of them would have been able to accomplish without him. Jensen realized it was probably sexist and ageist, but he felt most comfortable deferring to the older man for long term planning and daily tasks. He was most comfortable providing security. It was something he did well.

  This time, Jensen started north. He walked behind the cabin and started toward the stream, armed as he always was these days. He noted with detachment the stream, which they had only dug out as far as the cabin, was starting to dig a new path through the leaves as it flowed down the hill toward the original stream bed. In the mud, he saw the tracks of several animals. They appeared to be deer and raccoons mostly.