Gone to Ground (6 page)

He looked at her, his face and body under iron control, even if his eyes betrayed him.

“There are a lot of things we are going to have to discuss, though not now. Needless to say, as an Enforcer, I was introduced to a number of things that I didn’t want to see, and that I’m not proud of participating in. I know you have questions, and you’ll get the answers, though you may not like them. The only thing I can assure you now, though, is that I’m no danger to you and your boy. I may be the one thing that will keep you from dying in the next few months. And, the secrets I hold do not require immediate attention. Our first goal should be to get this place set for survival. I can tell you that it will probably be a very long time, if ever, before you get the chance to go home again.”

Nodding her head slowly, and ruthlessly squashing all the questions that her journalistic instincts threw up in her mind, Maggie turned back toward the barn and the waiting horse, then turning her head, looked at O’Reilly and simply said, “Okay, come on. I’ve got two more feet to finish.”

8

There was a sharp rap on the outside of the office door, followed by an equally sharp “enter” from the dark haired man sitting behind the large wooden desk covered with papers and maps.

The door swung open with a bang, admitting a sandy haired young deputy. He came to a stop in front of the desk, snapping the large, barrel chested man sitting there a sa
lute.

Great,
thought Captain Seth Rickards,
it’s one of the military ones
, his expression sour. With the recent devastation of the country’s population, the government had been forced to cobble together a new type of law enforcement agency from the remnants of the many different military and law enforcement agencies in place before everything went to hell. Because the members of this new agency came from so many diverse backgrounds, the ranks had become intermingled, as had the rituals and procedures.

Rickards had served the Laughlin Police Department for the past thirty years, since joining the force at twenty-five upon his graduation from the academy. Now he found himself in the position of having to integrate and streamline this branch of the newly formed, quasi military group aptly named the Enforcers. He took his job seriously, and worked hard to bring his team together, but he still hated dealing with the salutes and sirs that the military group brought to the table.

Fixing the deputy with an intense stare, designed to turn a subordinate’s bowels to water, Rickards snapped, “What’s the report?”

Deputy Knox seemed oblivious to the intensity being directed at him from the brown eyes. “Sir, the northwest annihilation team reports the areas of Preston, Lund and Hiko have been erased.”

Rickards cringed inwardly at the matter of fact way that Knox reported the eradication of hundreds of homes and businesses. Most of the owners of these buildings were dead; some in the fire storms that had ravaged the Southwest for the past ten years, but many more from the disease that put the exclamation point to the end of an era. A few of these places, however, still had owners who where housed here in the Laughlin APZ, or in the Elko APZ to the north. Owners who came here expecting their properties to be waiting for them when they were allowed to return. In spite of his belief that what he and the other Enforcers had done was necessary for the community’s good, he still felt a wave a guilt over the wanton destruction, and over the lies that had been told to the people they were sworn to protect.

The government gave a plausible excuse for the destruction. First they said there were so many buildings that had been damaged during the last few years of monster wild fires and violent weather, that they needed to be removed to prevent danger to the people when they returned.

In addition, the government line was that many of these buildings were incubators for the disease. The authorities said that bedding and other belongings harbored the virus, and just as in the middle ages up through the 19
th
century it was accepted practice to burn the belongings of plague victims, the government now had to make similar decisions to prevent any more deaths from the influenza..

Maybe
, thought Rickards. His wife had been a nurse, and while he’d learned from her that animals could frequently become reservoirs for disease for long periods of time, and in fact the common held belief was that birds had been the original purveyors of this virus that had so devastated the world’s population, he couldn’t remember her ever telling him about viruses that lived for longer than a few weeks or months on inanimate objects. Maybe the authorities meant that there was a possibility that animals would get into the buildings and become infected and thereby become reservoirs, but somehow he doubted it. The Enforcers weren’t the only ones twisting the truth to make it more appetizing.

Finally, the government claimed that these abandoned buildings provided the perfect hiding place for ghosts, those people who had avoided concentration, refused the authority of the restructured government, and were now considered dead for all intents and purposes.

Rickards felt a wave of nausea roil through his stomach at the thought of these cutesy little names that were being handed out right, left and center. This post apocalypse era seemed to be filled with new meanings for old terms: ghost, exorcism, concentration, APZ.
Why the hell do we always have to try and pretty things up?
Rickards thought.
It’s not as if it makes the situation any more palatable. We’re still destroying buildings, lives and changing futures, even if it is for the people’s own good.

As much as it disgusted him, though, he knew these acronyms and other forms of shortened terms had been around for probably as long as there had been governments and other bureaucratic agencies. He didn’t have to like it, though.

The problem of ghosts plagued him every day. The government considered these malcontents to be nothing short of terrorists, committing treason by refusing the concentration order, avoiding the APZs, and stealing from the communities’ already short supplies in order to survive. The governmental stance on ghosts was simple. Concentrate those possible of being converted to the community way of mind, and exorcize, or eradicate, those groups too entrenched and violent to be converted.

Fortunately for him, and for the other Enforcers, the majority of people were so demoralized by the devastation wrought by the virulent disease that they were more than willing to let anyone who acted as though he knew what he was doing take charge. The concentration of the population of southern Nevada and the adjoining areas of California and  northwestern Arizona had gone much easier than Rickards had ever imagined possible. Nevertheless, a few holdouts remained and now he asked impatiently for the deputy’s report on the most recent excursion of the exorcism team.

“Team A surprised a small group of ghosts northwest of here about ten miles,” Knox reported. “They were well armed, with weapons apparently taken from abandoned homes and businesses in the area. There were five adult males and two adult females, as well as three children, two of them infants.”

Knox paused. “What was the result?” Rickards rapped out.

“The adults put up a fight, and all seven were terminated. The three young children were brought in and taken to the Nursery. After the fight it was discovered that this was the group that intercepted the supply shipment from the Elko APZ two weeks ago. They had the truck with all the food hidden in a large barn on the property. It has been recovered and brought in.”

“Good,” said Rickards
.
That was the worst thing about the ghosts. Until the government was able to get the farms and factories back up and into production with a limited task force, APZs were forced to be extremely careful with the food and other goods that had been on the shelves prior to the climax of the disease when all production and importation halted. These ghosts had probably stolen enough food to last them six months to a year, while others here in the APZ went without
.

Deputy Knox stood at attention, waiting for a dismissal from the captain.

“One last thing before you go, Knox,” said Rickards, “Has there been any word of O’Reilly?”

“From what we can tell, O’Reilly made it out of the APZ, probably through the northwest entrance. We think from there he headed north, but it’s not certain.” A slight note of amazement crept into the deputy’s voice. “He’s done an impressive job of hiding his tracks, sir. He just seems to have disappeared into the back country. There have been no suspicious sightings on the seekers, nor have any of the patrols caught wind of him.”

Rickards’ stomach soured again at the thought of O’Reilly, gone without a trace. With the information the man possessed, he was a danger that the authorities could not afford to leave at liberty. The odds were, with his taciturn nature, O’Reilly might easily head somewhere remote by himself and never encounter another human. However, recently he’d seemed different, less the self contained hermit, although he didn’t interact any more with his fellow Enforcers. But there was that girl in isolation at the nursery. He left her there, though, when he disappeared.
He couldn’t have been that invested
, Rickards thought.

It had always been hard to understand what was revolving in O’Reilly’s mind. There were rumors of a tragedy not long ago in his past that changed him. Hard to say if those rumors were true, since no one here knew him before the creation of the Enforcers and the concentration.

Hell,
he thought,
no one knew anyone here before the concentration. Survivors were too few and far between for it to be anything more than chance that someone might know another person in his unit.

Considering his options, Rickards said, “Have someone see if they can do some research into O’Reilly’s past. There might be something in the personnel file that would help us understand him and where he’s headed. Go back as far as possible. There’s got to be some clue about where he would go.”

Deputy Knox nodded and, saluting again, turned to leave.

“Knox, tell them to make this a priority. We have to find him and either bring him back in for questioning, or eliminate him all together. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Knox stated, standing again at attention. “I will relay the message,” and he turned swiftly and left the room.

Rickards rose from his desk and began to pace the room, finally coming to a stop before the window looking out toward the Colorado River.
He’s got to be found
.
O’Reilly’s got to be found and removed before he spreads dissension, before he causes an upheaval that will break down this whole shaky new system of doing things.

9

Maggie was ripped out of a deep sleep to find herself lying on the lu
mpy, thin mattress that was her bed, drenched in an adrenaline induced sweat, heart beating so hard it felt as though it was going to burst from her chest..

She lay there, staring at the ceiling, or where the ceiling would be if she could see it. These back rooms, built snugly into the overhanging cliff, received no light from outside unless the door was open. Most people, brought up to take the electronic glow of the alarm clock and other electronic indicators for granted, had never experienced the utter darkness that can occur when those things were no longer available. In the past few weeks, however, Maggie had grown to appreciate the soft, quiet darkness that fell with night.

Now, however, as she lay there wondering what had woken her so abruptly, the darkness took on a menacing quality, as though monsters crouched in the corners, ready to spring at her slightest movement.

Then she heard it again. The hoarse shout, indecipherable, from somewhere else in the stone house. Rising from her bed, she fumbled for the flashlight that she kept within reach at night, shook it a few times to regenerate the batteries and turned it on. Following its soft yellow glow, she walked out into the main room of the house and paused. Everything was as she’d left it when she went to bed that night, exhausted from a day spent learning those things that O’Reilly felt necessary to their survival.
Damned slave driver
.

Again she heard the voice, clearer this time, though no more intelligible, and she moved toward the other two rooms. She paused briefly at Mark’s door, turned the knob and listened at the crack, hearing nothing but his soft breathing, slow and deep.
That kid could sleep through a
tornado
, she thought, smiling to herself. Hearing the voice raised again in anger she quietly closed Mark’s door and moved on toward the third room, which O’Reilly had taken as his.

Halting outside the door, she could hear clearly the voice from inside.

“No, no, no. Stop! Stop I said! It isn’t right! You can’t! NO, STOP!
” The soul crushing pain that permeated the words froze her to the spot, her hand outstretched for the door knob, but unable to turn it. Then the voice retreated from its roar, to an agitated murmur and she found the courage to knock lightly, then turned the knob and pushed the door ajar.

Playing the beam from the flashlight around the interior of the room, it illuminated one of the bunks, blankets tangled at the foot. O’Reilly, apparently waking when she knocked, pushed himself up on one elbow, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I heard some yelling. Actually it woke me,” Maggie answered, taking in his dark, sweat soaked hair, his dampened arms and torso and the knotted blankets

“You must have been dreaming,” he growled, looking up at her and squinting in the beam of the flashlight. “Everything’s fine in here. Go back to sleep.” He threw himself down onto his side, facing away from the door, giving her a view of nothing but his muscular back.

Fine, just damned fine,
Maggie thought as she pulled back through the door, angry at the brusk way he’d brushed off her concern.
Just keep your nightmares to yourself from now on.

Closing the door, she made her way back down to her room and returned to her bed.

She lay awake for a long time thinking, however. Wondering what James O’Reilly, ex-cowboy, ex-enforcer, and current ghost, had gone through to cause such a well of pain to exist. And what would that mental torment mean to all of them in the upcoming months.