The Myriad Resistance (31 page)

“Hey, wake up!” I said. “Where the hell did you get a phone?”

We were forbidden to carry any personal cell or satellite phones due to the distinct possibility that they would be tracked. However, I knew Danny communicated somehow with the other camps in the region. The phone stopped ringing by the time Burt shook himself awake.

“What?” he said with groggy eyes.

“The phone,” I said, getting impatient. “You have a phone on you. It was ringing. Where did you get it?”

His eyes suddenly lit up with recognition and he began to dig in his pockets.

“I bought a disposable phone last night and so did Derek … we agreed we wouldn't use it unless it was an emergency.”

He finally located the phone and jerked it out of his pocket as it began ringing again. He answered it.

“Hello?”

Burt's face melted like a wax figure near a flame as he listened to the caller. When he finally hung up, he did not say a word. He absently dropped the phone in the seat beside him. His face was ashen white as if every drop of blood drained from his body. He turned to me with a haggard and drawn face.

“It … it's the military … they raided our camp last night.”

CHAPTER 28

THE LOSS

“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.

God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!”

~Bram Stoker

I felt like my insides froze solid in an instant and then rapidly thawed, leaving only an empty void inside of me. It seemed as though I was living in a dream, some bizarre hellish nightmare from which I hoped I would soon wake. I was exhausted … yes, that's it, we were exhausted from our all-night mission and I was dreaming. We were sitting at the rest area right now catching a quick nap before heading back to our families.

I attempted to wake myself when a passing truck did it for me. His horn blared as I veered into his lane. It was not a dream. We were on the road and Burt was still staring straight ahead with the same gaunt countenance. He did not even notice the truck.

I suddenly felt adrenaline kick in and my heart began to race. Inhaling the last vestiges of liquid from my water bottle, I pitched the empty container into the back seat. Then I began to accelerate. After several minutes of exceeding the speed limit, Burt reached down and picked up the phone on the seat.

“It's not going to make a difference you know,” he said.

“What?” I snapped. My focus was on little else than getting back to the base as quick as we could.

“It's not going to make a difference,” he said, a little louder.

I gave him a traitorous glare. I felt as if he turned his back on everyone. At that moment, that is exactly what I believed. Burt rubbed his face with the back of his good hand and stared at an unseen point on the dashboards. Finally, he took a deep breath and continued.

“I mean it does us no good to go storming in there. Everyone there has been rounded up in one form or another,” he said.

I felt a sick burning in the pit of my stomach. I knew what he was inferring. If anyone was killed, their Impal was captured and taken to the Tesla Gate. As crazed as I was with rage and terror, the logic of what Burt was saying started to sink in, albeit not fast enough.

“Call Derek back!” I yelled, grabbing Burt's wrist, almost making him drop the phone. “Call him back and find out EVERYTHING he knows, we need information dammit!”

Burt winced with pain as he pulled his wrist free. Anger and fear burned in his eyes, making me feel guilty. In all the years we have known each other; I have never put my hands on him, not like this. Part of me wanted to apologize, however the family protector side of my brain dominated everything now. I stared straight ahead with my jaw locked and my foot on the gas. If he didn't make the call soon, I was liable to backhand him. I was glad when he began to punch numbers in the phone.

Derek answered on the first ring and I spent the next five minutes hearing only one side of the conversation. I didn't like what I was hearing. When he hung up the phone, his expression did not make me feel any better.

“When they were going up the highway to the camp this morning, they met several military trucks coming out of the trail leading to our camp. The trucks were covered so they could not see anyone in the backs. They were pretty sure that one of the Humvees escorting the trucks … well, they are pretty sure they saw your father riding in the passenger seat.”

A sickening mixture of horror and hope ran through me at the same moment. I was horrified that my father saw fit to personally supervise this raid. The thing that troubled me the most was whether or not he would allow Barbara and the girls to be harmed. Being taken into custody by him was the lesser of two evils. At least they would be alive.

“Have they been able to get close to the camp?” I asked.

“No,” Burt said. “They parked about a mile up the road and tried to sneak through the woods. There were patrols searching around the lake. There were several more soldiers at the cabins and mess hall.”

“They're waiting,” I croaked, wishing for another bottle of water.

“For what?” Burt asked.

“For night … they are waiting for night.”

“So they can spot any Impals,” Burt said in a quiet voice.

“Yes. They are also waiting for us to come back.”

We were still about an hour away from the camp, so I pulled off at the next exit and parked in a convenience store lot to collect my thoughts. I got out and walked around for a minute, racking my brain for what we could do. If Barbara and the girls were taken, there was nothing I could do, aside from doing exactly what my father wanted by turning myself in. I considered the plan for a few minutes until I thought about it rationally. We would be incarcerated and, more than likely, separated. I could do them little good if I was locked up as well.

Burt joined me outside after a while and leaned against the vehicle. In the bright sunlight of the ultraviolet sky, he seemed to have aged twenty years since we left the grocery store parking lot.

“You got any money left?” I asked.

He reached in his pocket and retrieved a wad of bills. “This is all I have,” he said, handing me the lump of money.

“Thanks,” I said as I stuffed it in my pocket. “I'm really thirsty; do you want me to get you something?”

“Gatorade,” Burt said, “a big ass, cold Gatorade.”

I was thinking of water until the mention of the thirst-quenching drink made me change my mind. I went in, purchased two-quart size bottles from the cooler, and then we were back on the road a few minutes later.

“I gave Barbara instructions,” I said after taking a long drink and then propping my Gatorade on the seat beside me. It was too big for the cup holder. “I gave her a map before we left.”

“What kind of instructions?” Burt asked.

“I told her that if something happens, she needs to take the girls and hide nearby where I would meet them.”

“How on God's green Earth did you know something was going to happen?” Burt asked.

“I didn't; I just wanted to be prepared. The damn camp has made me uncomfortable ever since we have been there. There's only one road in or out … I always felt trapped.”

“Well, you must be a damn psychic,” Burt muttered. “I wish you shared some of your insight with me … maybe I could have given Sally a plan to get out.”

I glanced at Burt and noticed a tear forming at the corner of his eye. He took a deep shuddering breath. That is when I decided to lie to him.

“I told Barbara to get to Sally and take her with them,” I fibbed. I felt terrible for him and I guess I assumed he took precautions of his own.

My heart lifted a little when a spark of hope appeared in his eyes. “Really?” he asked.

I didn't answer. I guess a part of me believed it wasn't a real lie if I didn't say it again. It bothered me to lie to my friend. Nevertheless, it didn't bother me as much as the worry eating away inside me like a malignant cancer. The chances of Barbara and the girls making it out were slim, especially if the soldiers arrived in the middle of the night. Even if they did manage to sneak away, navigating through the woods in the middle of the night would be problematic at best.

We rode in relative silence for the remainder of the drive, each of us sharing a common horror and struggling with it in our own private way. I wanted to cry, I wanted to curse, and I wanted to rage at the heavens … I wanted to kill my father. I somehow managed to keep my emotions in check. My adrenaline surge now faded back into a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. The only thing keeping my eyes open and the vehicle on the road was the desire to get to my wife and daughters. There was hope, however small.

Shortly before noon, we passed the Martian Burgers Steff and I visited. The small town was empty as usual with the exception of a dozen cars parked outside the restaurant for lunch. A minute later, we turned onto the highway leading out to our camp.

We scanned the bushes and the trees for any signs of the military. We took every corner on the winding road with gut wrenching anticipation. The only other sign of life we saw was a stray dog chasing a squirrel. I couldn't tell for sure in the noon sun. The dog seemed to have the shimmering luminescence of Impals. I knew it was possible because Thomas Pendleton told me about his son, Seth, finding and befriending an Impal dog. I had never seen any type of animal Impal. He disappeared into a thicket and never reappeared.

Ten minutes later, we approached the turnoff to the single road leading to the mine. It not only rained on me in the Chesapeake Bay last night, it rained here as well. Large tire tracks of heavy vehicles gouged the muddy road. The muddy streaks of tires smeared across the highway like a bad omen. The tracks suggested that all of the vehicles headed back the way we had just come. There were no signs of life anywhere, not even at the general store across the road. It seemed odd to see a single set of Hummer tracks coming out of the dirt parking lot of the old grocery store and gas station.

“What the hell are they doing pulling in over there?” I mumbled.

Maybe they were been officers and used the parking lot as an observation point to watch the troops coming and going. A sickening feeling burned my stomach when I guessed one of the occupants of the Hummer was probably my father.

“I think the coast is clear,” Burt said.

“No, it's not. They're in there … waiting,” I said.

I tried to drive by as casually as possible. Whether I succeeded or not; I didn't know. A minute later, we rounded a corner and passed out of sight of the road. Heading for the designated rendezvous point, I scanned the woods for any sign of Barbara and the girls. It was a fruitless endeavor and I began to sink deeper into despair with each passing second. We reached the place I mapped for Barbara, and then pulled off into the small clearing.

It was the same place where Steff and I turned around on our outing to Martian Burgers. The clearing was only about fifteen feet wide from the edge of the road to the woods and was full of knee-high switch grass. Two very large rhododendrons bordered the road, a few feet from the shoulder. This gave us the perfect place to pull in and remain hidden in a nook of foliage. I could imagine this would be the perfect hiding place for a police speed trap and hoped none showed up today. Anyone would be a fool to speed on this windy and treacherous mountain road.

I backed the vehicle into place, pulling as close to the rhododendrons as possible. I then cranked down the windows and shut off the ignition. This location was well-shaded and a refreshing mountain breeze blew through the vehicle.

“Do you want to get some sleep?” I asked. “I'll take first watch.”

Burt grimaced with disbelief. I realized immediately the stupidity of my question. There was no way either of us could sleep. Not now, not until we found our families or our bodies finally reached their limit and forced us to sleep. I turned my attention out the window. A large white rhododendron bloom swayed inches from my face. It emitted a heavy sweet smell that reminded me of Barbara's perfume, something she didn't wear often. I must admit, I sometimes found it a bit overpowering on those rare occasions. Today, I would give anything to smell that overwhelming fragrance again while kissing the nape of her neck. Images of Barbara and the girls flashed through my mind. These images filled me with great joy and then hollowed me out with a feeling of profound loss. I clutched my fist to my chest as it burned with the anguish of a father and a husband.

We sat in silence for a long time listening to the wind, the rustle of the leaves, the chirping of birds and the distant sound of an airplane. We listened and heard everything except for what we wanted to hear … some sign that our family members were nearby. I jumped when I felt a sudden poke in my ribs.

I sat up and realized I had been sleeping. The shadows of the trees were now much longer. Burt was watching me with an amused grin.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“A couple of hours,” Burt said. “I would have let you sleep, but a cop just drove past.”

“Did he see us?” I asked, craning my neck out the window.

“I don't think so. I wanted to make sure you were alert in case he came back.”

A question covered my face, a question that was on both of our minds. He shook his head.

“No, no sign yet,” he whispered.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the midst of a constant battle between my body and my heart. My body wanted sleep, it wanted it bad. My heart wanted my family more. I had no intention of giving in and fought my fatigue with every fiber of my being. When dusk fell, I realized I couldn't sit there anymore, not without my ally of sunlight to keep me awake. I got out of the vehicle to walk around and clear my head. I also had not taken a restroom break in hours. I walked into the tree line on the far side of the clearing and relieved myself. As I walked back toward the truck, something caught my eye in the woods on the far side of the road.