Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (5 page)

Lee’s response, with Buck and Carlos adding their five cents worth, was that there was no country in a better state than any other country. The whole world was in the same predicament. Lee believed that each country was on its own, not able to help each other, and that every person in this country needed to contribute to the rebuilding effort. Lee Wang explained to the President that after thirty years of planning the destruction of the world, the Politburo would not have left out anything. They would have made sure nobody could rise up against them once they owned the United States of America.

The President and a couple of men sitting around the table discussed Lee’s suggestions openly and agreed with him. What could we do for other countries when they have nothing more than we have?

For the first time in history, the whole of the United States of America decided to forego being the world’s police force and concentrate on problems at home.

The meeting ended with the President calling for a second meeting in early March. Everybody who had taken part in the defense of the country in January had to attend. As he described it, this would be the meeting to start the rebuilding program as well as to gather information about what state the country was in and who and what were left. Buck told him that he would get the word out.

That meeting had been the day before. Captain Sally Powers was flying as usual. There was not much else she wanted to do right now, other than be with Carlos, which she was. She had heard from her parents. They were safe in her lodgings down in the Marine/Air Force base in Yuma.

Once the catastrophe had happened and it seemed certain that the power wasn’t going to come back on where her parents were currently living in Flagstaff, Arizona, they had fired up the old truck Sally used during her infrequent trips home—the only vehicle that started—and through the mess of thousands of people on the move, had driven down the highways to Yuma to be with their only daughter.

Sally’s father, Peter Powers, now retired, had a nice ranch of three acres outside Flagstaff, a city both his parents had grown up in many years earlier. It was a nice place to retire and Peter and Marcie had moved there and purchased their little piece of heaven in 2009. He dabbled in a large vegetable garden, sold or gave away much of his produce to his friendly neighbors, and always kept several five-gallon cans of gas in his work shed. The stored gas was just enough for him to drive the 320 miles to Yuma with the old and thirsty Dodge. There was no fuel at the gas stations. Without electricity nobody could pump gas.

The roads were a mass of people and the highways miles of tangled wreckage. Peter had purchased a shotgun and a .22 caliber rifle to scare the deer and vermin from his vegetable patch in 2010 and he decided to take them on the trip just in case. The Arizona weather was also cold and icy where they lived, below freezing, which was the second reason they decided to visit Sally. It would be much warmer down in Yuma.

They packed up the olive-green Dodge, which had a camouflage-painted shell over the bed of the truck that made it look like an army vehicle. They took all of their valuables, food for a couple of days, the house’s 10,000-watt generator they used as backup once the lights and heat had gone out, the old aircraft handheld radio Sally had given them so that she could talk to them if she was flying over the area, locked the house, allowed the dog into the back seat and headed out.

Many others were doing the same, the cold forcing people to the lower warmer elevations, to friends and family in the neighboring areas.

The roads were busy with people walking, or riding lawn tractors or older vehicles and farm tractors. Sometimes the mass of people looked like a movie from a bygone era. The snow was a few inches deep and the tarmac slippery in places where the sun hadn’t melted the ice.

They used the 4 x 4 going up and down steep parts of the road and many friendly folk helped to push the vehicle up the steeper parts where even the four-wheel drive on the icy parts wasn’t enough. They did not meet one unfriendly person until they reached the Interstate a couple of hours later.

They drove onto I-17 after passing through Sedona and travelling south on 79. Everywhere people were gathering and questioning what had happened and what anybody was doing about it. In Sedona, they were stopped at a roadblock by a group of soldiers from the Navajo Army Depot to the north, who were there to keep the peace and protect the town. They were asked where they were going and were allowed to proceed once they were warned about possible looters on the highways. If in trouble they were told to be patient. A couple of military vehicles were beginning to patrol the highways, making it safe for the travelers.

“Stay away from any broken vehicles on the interstates,” the corporal stated through the window to Peter. “There are many dead bodies in them and we have heard of gangs of armed looters working mostly at night. I recommend finding a safe place to park during dark hours. I see you can defend yourselves so be careful, it’s not nice out there.”

Peter thanked the man and they continued through Sedona. There were queues everywhere at every store selling something. Hundreds of people were trying to purchase whatever they could.

Interstate 17 was virtually empty of people. Here and there, there were vehicles driving slowly around broken parts of crashed cars and trucks, but a path had been formed and Peter maneuvered the Dodge onto the cleared pathway. There were no other moving vehicles on either side of the highway apart from an old black car accompanied by a tractor pulling a trailer full of belongings heading north at about twenty miles an hour.

They didn’t see any moving vehicles for the first two hours. Peter reckoned that they were averaging about twenty miles an hour and after seeing the hundredth actual dead body in a vehicle, and others moved to the side of the road by travelers before them, they began to realize the magnitude of the power outage a couple of hours before New Year’s Eve, a month ago.

“I think we should go see Bert at the Avery Shooting Facility, just before we turn onto 303,” suggested Peter to Marcie. “It has been awhile since I’ve been there but Bert will remember me and I think it could be a safe place to spend the night.” Marcie nodded. She had often been there while Peter had practiced shooting, a pastime he enjoyed.

There were about a dozen other vehicles and many lawn tractors pulling loads of bedding in a queue at the wooden gated entrance. Peter hadn’t noticed the large wooden gates before and believed them to be recently erected. A tall wire fence now surrounded the large property.

The green Dodge got into the queue and waited. It moved slowly and the person at the gate office window was not somebody Peter had met before. He asked them what they wanted. A second man stood next to the young man in the window holding a shotgun at the ready.

“We are on our way to Yuma. I’m a friend of Bert’s and used this place often. We are looking for a safe place to sleep tonight.”

“Bert is dead. He was attacked a couple of days ago while riding into Phoenix to get supplies. You are just in time, we close at dusk and we have room for only another twenty vehicles. You leave any guns at the second office and you can collect them in the morning. It is a hundred dollars per night and you can use the bathrooms. You sleep in or next to your vehicle and you will not be allowed to leave these premises until dawn. No fires except gas cookers. If you have a generator, it can be used until 10:00, then lights out. Guards have been posted around the perimeter and will shoot to kill. All vehicles are in rows and somebody will guide you into a slot.”

Peter paid him the money, drove to the next window to hand in his weapons, got a receipt and drove up to the line of vehicles being parked in areas that looked like a farmers’ market with the same types of farmers’ market tents being erected by people who had brought them. They had a small double sleeper tent and it fit perfectly next to the vehicle once it was parked on a grassy area. It was tight and he could see rows upon rows of people on the area where he used to shoot skeet. The bathrooms had “bathroom” painted on their walls in white paint, one for females and one for males. Two bathrooms for what looked like a thousand people.

Even though they were packed in, the organization worked. It still got cold as the sun dipped, but certainly not as cold as back home. They had brought all their camping gear and ate a hearty meal of thick meaty canned soup and half a loaf of fresh bread Marcie had baked before they left. The bread machine was also packed away in the back of the truck somewhere with her remaining packs of bread flour. The other half of their bread they gave to a hungry-looking family next to them who had a couple of young daughters.

They slept well and were ordered to pack up and get out of the protected gate an hour after dawn the next morning.

Now they were closer to Phoenix; Route 303 was a by-pass route around the city to I-10 which would take them to Yuma. This route had many more broken and crashed vehicles than I-17, but this time there were many people milling about the trucks, searching their insides for anything left. They must have been emptied days earlier as people, mostly kids, held their hands out like beggars as they passed slowly by. There wasn’t much to give them.

They took notice of one little boy as they came abreast of Luke Air Force Base. Here a couple of military jeeps were patrolling the route, searching and scaring the looters. Peter’s Dodge had that military look to it and the people they passed just looked. The boy, about ten, was working his way down the side of the highway in a wheelchair, his leg in a cast, straight out in front of him. He was a mess, his hair oily and dirty, his clothes bedraggled and blackened with dirt and dust.

A couple of older boys ran up to him while the Dodge was still a hundred yards behind and laughing, they pushed the boy and his wheelchair over on its side. They pulled the boy out of the chair and went through his pockets. Hearing the truck coming up behind them they looked around and immediately ran for the highway fence, climbed over it and ran towards the houses.

Peter stopped the truck several feet away, jumped out to help the boy up and noticed a bloody gash on his head. “Marcie, bring the first aid box and my shotgun, he shouted to his wife. “You OK, boy?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” the boy answered, slightly foggy from his fall.

“You live around here? Can we get you home?” Peter asked helping the lad to sit up. The boy grimaced with pain as Peter helped him upright.

“In the houses over there,” he replied, pointing to the housing estate the other two boys had run into. “I haven’t seen my mother for a week. My father and older brother were killed in a truck accident a few miles north of here on 303 on January 1st and my mom went out to look for food. There was a lot of shooting that day and I think she must be dead, or she would have come back!” he blurted out, tears rolling down his cheeks. “She promised she would be back in an hour and that was a week ago. Since then those boys have robbed everything from our house and have been beating me up. They even killed my dog, shot him when he barked at them. I’m so scared and I’m trying to get away from here.”

“What’s your name, boy?” asked Peter.

“Clint, sir, Clinton Jefferson Busch” was the reply as Peter wiped the blood away with a sanitary cloth from the first aid box.

“Do you have anybody else at home?” Marcie asked holding the young boy’s hand as Peter cleaned his face.

“No, ma’am, it was just me and Charlie my dog left. Now Charlie’s dead, there is no reason to stay. There is no food and the water stopped running a week ago. Also the nightly shooting is getting worse and worse.”

Just then a vehicle pulled up behind them and Peter and Marcie turned to see a military jeep stopping a few yards behind them with rifles pointed directly at them.

“You have a problem, son?” asked the soldier in the front seat standing up and pulling out a pistol from his waistband.

“No, sir, these people saved me from a beating and they are helping me,” Clint Busch replied, still lying on the ground beneath Peter and Marcie.

“Where are you folks heading?” was the next question out of the officer’s mouth.

“We are heading to the Air Force base in Yuma, Lieutenant,” replied Peter, standing up. “Our daughter is an Air Force F-16 pilot stationed at the Marine base there and we are going to see if she is OK.”

“A fighter pilot, hey!” the lieutenant replied. “Well, we are heading there ourselves. If you have enough fuel you may follow us. It’s a long slow trip, but we can help you get there.”

Peter mentioned that he had enough fuel and thanked the soldier asking for a minute with the young boy. He bent down and asked him what was wrong with his leg.

“I have some sort of bone problem and had an operation on my hips and lower back just before Christmas,” he began. “I haven’t walked very well for a year now and the doctors said that this operation would allow me to walk again with a cane, or crutches in a few months. I was due for a second operation in June, but it looks like that might not happen.”

“You have less than a minute before we head out and leave you here!” shouted the lieutenant from the jeep.

“You have a choice right now, Clint,” stated Peter. “You either stay here or come with us. Our dog in the back seat will be glad of some company and we could bring you back here on our return to Flagstaff, if you want. Which is it to be?” There was no hesitation in Clint’s eyes.

I’ll come with you, sir. What is your dog’s name?”

“Jock,” replied Peter asking the soldiers for help to get Clint into the Dodge’s back seat. They carefully placed the poor boy in the only room left in the rear seat and Jock seemed to accept the company by smelling the dirty boy and then looking straight into the boy’s eyes. “Guys, can you take his wheelchair? I have no room for it.”

The men gladly closed the old hospital-issue wheelchair, and placed it into the rear of the jeep. They were also heavily loaded but the flat chair was placed between the gear in the back and the rear of the two front seats.