American Blackout (Book 2): Slaves Beneath The Stars Read online

  “Hank, I need your Cessna.”

  “You got it.”

  “Lawrence, I’ll be back in a few hours for Ann’s burial. But I have to go now.”

  “What did you learn?” Lawrence asked cryptically, as if he knew about her travel and discovery.

  “Call it intuition, or maybe it’s just a lot of crazy bullcrap, which I hope it is. Otherwise, expect another wave of attackers.”

  “The jihadists?” Hank asked.

  “Not sure.”

  She was out the door jogging to the western pasture. Fritz would be back sometime in the afternoon. Sister Marie emerged from the small barn after feeding the cows.

  “Dear, where are you headed?”

  “Flying.”

  Ethan walked out with an empty water bucket.

  “Can I go?”

  “Sure, I’ll only be gone an hour. Another set of eyes would be great. Check with your dad. I’ll preflight and wait for you.”

  “Ethan,” Sister Marie said, “there will be services today for your mom, and you may want to keep an eye on your brother.”

  “He left a while ago with Doctor Claw. My dad thought it was a good idea. Caleb cried a lot last night. I want to fight, Sister, for what they did to my mom.”

  “I understand. Just remember to be attentive to your dad and brother once you’re back here.” Ethan ran off to the house to check with his father. Sister placed a hand on Cricket’s arm and asked before she galloped off, “What did you see?”

  “A town, not far from here, utterly destroyed.”

  “Keep that boy safe. Lawrence has suffered plenty.”

  “Going to make a pilot out of him, too. He shows promise.” Cricket turned to run and then said, “I love you, Sister Marie.”

  “Love you always. God bless.”

  47

  “They’re Killing Everybody”

  After a quick preflight, Cricket and Ethan were soon airborne in the Cessna 180, coming up on the Ohio River. Ethan’s first few questions were ignored by Cricket, who was totally “outside” the plane looking for trouble.

  “Ethan, this isn’t going to be much of a flight lesson today.”

  “I know. I’m looking, too.”

  She swooped down from altitude to five hundred feet above the water, mimicking her out-of-body travel. She was in a fast canoe, a member of the 1803 Lewis and Clark expedition, marveling at the sights.

  The first engine cough had Cricket check the mixture, throttle, and carb heat. Ethan stared at her. She started climbing, and by two thousand feet above the ground and a few coughs later, the engine quit.

  “Ethan, I need a road about a half a mile long. Help me out here.”

  She banked left and then right as Ethan pressed his head against the window, searching for a safe place to land. Cricket attempted to start the engine: the first time with the mixture in, the next with it out. No luck. Next, she nailed the best glide speed of eighty miles per hour.

  At seven hundred feet above the ground she had under two minutes to find a safe place to land. Soon, she’d be on final approach of their newly designated landing strip.

  “Cricket! Right below us!” Ethan shouted, and quickly added that he was sorry for yelling.

  “What is it?”

  “A road. Real straight. Looks like a runway.”

  She banked away forty-five degrees, and ten seconds later returned to a modified landing pattern. “Can you see it, Ethan?”

  “Yes. But you haven’t checked it out.”

  “I trust you. Is it clear as far as you can see?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Does it parallel the river?”

  “It does. You’ll be landing east.”

  “We may float. Wind is westerly but light.”

  “Turn now,” Ethan said.

  She finally saw the road. It looked good. She was at four hundred feet and side-slipped the aircraft to the right—left rudder opposing the lowered right wing, awkwardly pulling the plane in two different directions and thereby creating drag and increasing the rate of descent. She viewed the landing strip and surrounding terrain. Power lines ran parallel to the river but didn’t cross the road.

  “Ethan, listen up. Before we touch down, crack open your door.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it.”

  The cockpit remained quiet and was flooded by the midmorning sun. Near the first bend in the road, Cricket spotted a vehicle blocking most of the road. On final approach she added full flaps and retrimmed the plane nose down and stayed on speed. Long steel pipes and blocks of concrete littered a stretch of road that she easily flared over. Just above the road, she heard Ethan open his door and she cracked hers. Clear of the debris, she stuck the main wheels on the surface, which was smooth, and pressed the brakes. She was faster than she had expected and kept a steady brake pressure.

  As the tail came down, she saw broken glass covering the road ahead. She had no choice but to keep straight and run over the glass and whatever else lay in her path. To swerve at a slow speed might send the plane into a ground loop, bend a wing, and hit something more damaging off the road. They briefly crunched glass and came to a stop. Ethan had one foot out of the cockpit.

  “Watch it, Ethan. We’re not on fire; we didn’t crash. Take a quick look around.”

  “You told me to open the door.”

  “If we crashed, the door might have jammed. Take a deep breath. Look front and back as you exit. I’ll do the same.”

  Outside the Cessna it was quiet. Cricket could see people walking aimlessly along the river and on the road, far enough away that she was unable to call to them. The tree-covered hill behind a restaurant was their refuge, steep and a quarter mile distant.

  “Let’s push it off the road.”

  No place was safe from marauders and scavengers. Their only hope was to get back soon and send the mechanics out ASAP to fix the bird and fly it home. They pushed the Cessna off the road, behind a stand of trees that lined the street in front of a family restaurant with broken windows and a caved-in roof due to fire.

  “Check your firearm,” Cricket told Ethan. “How many extra magazines?”

  “Two.”

  “Good, we’re going to have company soon.”

  The people approaching were all on foot. No cars and no one was scavenging. More kept coming, and Cricket finally said, “A lot” when Ethan asked how many people were headed their way.

  She planned on attempting to start it again. But there was no time. As the people drew close she heard them yelling, waving their arms, telling her and Ethan to run. “Get moving!” they heard more than once. Some jogged, a few rode bikes, but mostly they lumbered along.

  “You think they’ll hurt us?” Ethan asked.

  “You never know.”

  “Should I hide my gun?”

  “No point. Can’t kill them all anyway.”

  Cricket and Ethan stayed alongside a stand of maples as the first people flew by, yelling at them to run.

  “Leave—they’re killing everybody!”

  One woman was crying and screaming: “My house—my beautiful house!”

  Cricket looked about and decided to go for altitude. She motioned and Ethan followed. Behind the burned-out restaurant they found a path up the steep hill. She looked back at the plane and people were starting to swarm it, rocking its wings in desperation like they could make it fly.

  “What a shame,” Cricket said. “Hank’s plane is a goner. My fault. The mechanics weren’t done with the inspection.”

  They were deep in the woods, and a collective moan of despair streamed below, unseen. Sometimes the path grew so steep, they had to pull themselves up by grabbing small trees and bushes to help them make the climb. The woods had swallowed them. Cricket slipped once and knocked Ethan flat.

  “I bet you’re glad you decided to come with me?” Cricket said laughing.

  “I sure am. This is great!”

  “Ethan, I need to get you back for your
mom’s funeral.”

  “She’d understand.” His voice shook mentioning his mom. “Besides, she’s with God and we have a lot to accomplish.”

  The kid’s right about everything.

  They were separated by only eight years, but it was an enormous time with him at fourteen and her at twenty-two. She could feel his attraction to her all mixed up with his boy’s attitude of ongoing adventure, laughing at death, climbing a hill with no plan, a surprise around every corner. Right now, there were no surprises back at the farm, only the reality of his mom’s death and his father’s unbearable sadness. Ethan’s infatuation had kept Lily from coming into focus. Cricket needed to get the two more acquainted. Lily was calm and bright, and he was fearless and bright. A good match, she reasoned.

  Cricket saw a clearing off to their left, ground level. She pointed, and Ethan said, “Cool.” The last few feet were a struggle using the slender branches of a bush for their footing. Ethan scrambled quickly to the top, where he extended a hand to Cricket, who smiled at his well-planned chivalry. The grassy clearing opened onto a residential street below, where they witnessed several earthmovers crushing homes. Following the monster machines were a dozen men with weapons.

  “That’s incredible.” Ethan took a step forward, and Cricket pulled him back.

  “We’ve got to get back for a whole lot of reasons. Let’s go.”

  Ethan couldn’t turn away from the destruction. “We’ve got to help them.”

  “We don’t have the firepower.” Or manpower, she almost said.

  “If we got close enough, I could take out those guys on the left and you definitely could handle the rest on the right.”

  “Ethan, I’m counting almost two dozen. Most of them with rifles.”

  “I’ve got a total of twenty-four bullets.”

  “Every shot of ours would have to be perfect. And they’d be firing back with high-powered rifles.” Cricket stopped talking as an earthmover crashed into a house and momentarily disappeared, only to reappear seconds later with most of the house, the shattered roof and sides, briefly clinging to it—a modular home from hell. Cricket turned away from the carnage and scouted for a path to lead them back to the Hilltop. “We’ve got about a two-hour hike. Keep up with me.”

  Again the woods swallowed them. The trees and bushes were bare, and the ground was thick with leaves. Scanning the tangle of bare trees, Cricket counted on having several seconds to take cover if an attack came. She glanced back at Ethan, who was imitating her technique for scanning the woods ahead.

  “Ethan, if you need to use your gun, think, don’t rush, and don’t shoot me.”

  “No way, I’d never do that.”

  “Didn’t think you would. But folks new to firearms have a habit when they’re scared of pulling the trigger as they pull the gun from the holster, shooting themselves or someone else, which would be bad. And shooting me would be really bad. You might not make it back to the farm.”

  Another check on Ethan found him grim, staring at the ground.

  Cricket knew she didn’t have to be so blunt and also knew she liked busting his chops. Maybe an old teen habit of smacking around the boys whom she really liked. But she had grown up, especially in the last few months, and she wanted Ethan not only to survive but to have a full life, a good life. She wanted that for everyone at the Holaday farm.

  A gunshot came ahead. Large-caliber, like her Colt. Thunderous, not the boom of a shotgun or the sonic crack of a high-powered rifle.

  “Hey, Ethan, slowly pull your gun out, and keep it aimed at the ground.”

  “Done.”

  The confidence and brevity of Ethan’s response reminded Cricket of her sidekick Tony, who had been killed by a savage with a crossbow three months earlier. She really wanted to slug Tony the first few days after meeting him, but came to respect and love both him and his buddy Ron. Unlike Tony’s “Hobbit” lineage—short, hairy, and true blue—Ethan was a handsome kid, honest, ambitious, tall at fourteen, and full of wonder. All-American. She wondered if people still used that phrase.

  Ahead, Cricket saw a group running through the forest, angling away from her and Ethan, with hushed, excited voices.

  “If someone has been shot, they’ll be to our left. Still, check every direction. And let’s keep awake in case our friends on their cross-country run decide to return to the scene of the crime.”

  “You think they shot somebody?”

  “A single gunshot and they’re hoofing it through the woods? You bet they did.”

  Cricket had Ethan on her right and they both walked slowly, careful not to announce their approach. When Ethan went to say something, Cricket put a finger to her mouth. She expected the worst, someone dead or wounded and likely to shoot before asking a single question. She stopped and so did Ethan. From the small backpack she pulled out Sister Marie’s birdwatching binoculars and glassed the forest. The runners were headed toward the river, and the woods were quiet except for a blue jay, annoyed and probably chasing a crow away from its nest.

  Wisely, Ethan turned a full 180 degrees, having Cricket’s back as she scouted for problems ahead. The weak sunlight became weaker by the time it made it through the dense forest, yet it touched everything with clarity. Cricket had a strange thought that the world was showing itself for what it was.

  At twelve o’clock she spotted a body lying at the base of a large tree. Red backpack, dark clothes. She gently touched Ethan’s shoulder, and he jumped and swung quickly around, bringing the gun almost on her.

  Quietly, she said, “Let’s spread out, ten feet apart. If it’s an ambush, he’ll lose time trying to figure who to shoot first.” He started to say something, and Cricket the “crossing guard” raised her hand: “No more questions. Follow my lead.”

  48

  A Fire’s Warmth

  Without the binoculars the body disappeared. Cricket glassed the area where the single shot had been fired, looking for signs of trouble. She knew by Ethan craning his neck, bobbing his head left and right, that he couldn’t yet make out the person Cricket had spotted. She stopped frequently, and only once had to get Ethan’s attention to stop by softly clearing her throat.

  Every time she brought the binoculars up, she saw more detail: blue tennis shoes, black cargo pants, and close-cropped dark hair. Cricket memorized the position of the body at each glassing. The person hadn’t moved. The woods were quiet.

  It was at half the distance, maybe fifty feet away, when Ethan saw the body. She scoured the forest for any attackers, as did Ethan. Cricket employed the binoculars for one circuit and then eyeballed the forest before placing the birdwatching binoculars back inside the backpack. She held the Colt with both hands, and Ethan imitated her.

  A young black male, slight of build, wearing a hoodie, no blood evident, was crumpled against the base of a beech tree. Cricket still expected him to roll over and fire away. Closer, she signaled Ethan to stop, while she circled the teen and kept her distance, gun trained on the boy. She heard shallow breaths. In a fetal position, the boy held his stomach. The ground on either side of him was damp with blood. Before kneeling alongside the kid, she again carefully scanned the woods and signaled to Ethan to do the same.

  The boy’s eyes were cast down but open. He was a few years older than Ethan. She heard wheezing behind the breaths and smelled the kid’s waste.

  Ethan took a step toward the teen, and Cricket stopped him with an outstretched arm. She gestured for vigilance, circling her hand to keep scanning in all directions. Holstering the .45, bending over the boy, she touched his blood-soaked hands. No weapon.

  “Ethan, come here,” Cricket said, and she knew she sounded like a different person, perhaps her own mother, clear-eyed, like the forest light, both sad and wise. Ethan heard it, too, and holstered his weapon.

  “Can we help him?” Ethan kneeled at the boy’s feet. “I have water.”

  “Do you have a clean cloth?”

  “I have an extra T-shirt in my backpack.”
/>   “Good. Soak the T-shirt with water and see if he can drink a little that way.” She leaned close to the wounded teen. “We’re not going to hurt you. If there’s any way you can communicate with us, make a sign. We’ll do all we can for you.”

  There was no movement with his eyes or mouth, and his hands stayed tight against the wound, a gut shot, probably a .45-caliber like Cricket’s Colt.

  Ethan brought the soaked T-shirt to the boy’s lips, and he slightly pressed his mouth to the cloth. Cricket rested her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Ethan, squeeze a little water into his mouth. He might not be able to swallow.”

  Cricket saw the young man’s fear, the incomprehensible look of someone newly arrived having to leave. She took off her sweatshirt and folded it, and made a pillow for the fatally wounded kid. A few feet from the shot teenager, she used her boots to kick away the leaves. Ethan collected kindling, and the fire started easily. And though she and Ethan were plenty warm from all the activity, the day was chilly and the young man was starting to shiver.

  She sat next to the boy, and soon his shivering ceased.

  “Cricket, I have a knife, more water. I even have bandages. What do we do next? Are we going to build a litter and carry him out?”

  Cricket stared at the fire. “He needs the warmth of the fire. It’s helping. Keep moistening his lips and mouth with your T-shirt.”

  She calculated by the distant sun, its sunlight working its way through the trees, that it was nearly one o’clock. After placing more wood on the fire, she glanced at the young man who was also there for the fire, warming himself, contemplating a whole bunch of things, something easy to do with a campfire in the woods.

  “Hi, I’m Ethan.” The boy had also noticed the change in the young man. “This is Cricket. She’s awesome and wants to help. We both do.”

  The teen’s eyes never shifted from the fire. He gazed with intensity and grimaced frequently, holding his gut even tighter, a low moan escaping with a painful exhale.