Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) (8 page)

Kyle walked in the single-file line they had made following his Dad’s lead, through the pouring rain, up the highway toward where he hoped his mother and sister were. Through the rain he could see Erica walking close to Adam, and could see just how oblivious Adam was to Erica’s advances. He was typical of many of his Dad’s friends. He was honest, straight-forward, hyper-capable and completely clueless to interpersonal relationships. Adam was the youngest of his Dad’s friends and Kyle had always been fond of him. A man in his mid-thirties, accomplished combat veteran, who was as kind as the day is long.
Jesus, Adam,
he thought,
Does the girl have to throw herself at you?
Kyle smiled to himself and shook his head.

Kyle, on the other hand, was not clueless where the opposite sex was concerned. He knew Jessica had liked him, even before all of this happened. He thought she was exceedingly beautiful, but was not yet over his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Mary, his high school sweetheart. She had gone off to school in Portland, and they had chosen not to stay together. It was hard, even though he knew it was right for both of them. The idea of starting anew with another girl was just not in his interests at the moment, even if she did walk as close to him as Erica was walking to Adam. His family had never liked Mary, always saying that she played games with him. Kyle didn’t see it that way.

Kyle had chosen to bring up the rear of the group, and Jess had dropped back to walk with him. The night before, she had conveniently made her sleeping spot right next to his. His Dad had given him a big knowing grin at that, it was one of the bad things about having someone with Calvin Ward’s gifts as a father, nothing was ever secret.

They didn’t really have far to go before their next stop, just up ahead about a mile and a little to the east. The difficulty was this damn rain. It was hard to see through. The mud, and run-off made you feel like you were walking through quicksand and made your clothes very heavy. The wet clothes were also not doing wonder to his underwear, he was chafing something fierce. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Jess tried to make conversation with him.

“Your dad,” she said, “He is pretty smart, huh?”

Kyle nodded, “smartest man I have ever known. He may be one of the smartest anyone has ever known, I don’t know. People have always put a lot of stock in what he says.”

“Do you think he is right about it taking a long time before the power comes back on?” She looked at her feet, she didn’t sound that disappointed.

“He is usually right. He really will explain it when we get to where we are going, he doesn’t promise unless he can deliver.” Kyle wasn’t just saying that. His father only made commitments when his plan was to ensure them. He believed his word meant something, it was something you didn’t see that often any more. “You can count on him telling us why he thinks what he thinks. Then he will let you decide if you believe it. He will never judge you for not believing it.”

“Wow,” she said, a big smile crossing her face, “you really like him.”

“Well, he is my Dad.” Kyle said with a grin.

He could just barely hear Erica and Adam talking to each other up ahead, this rain was both a loud noise, and it muffled any sounds one might otherwise hear. They trudged on through the rain and wind and he could see the school, or at least an outline of the school, up ahead. Ellen, the server from Adam’s job, was out in front of the group. She had a great attitude and always seemed to have a smile or an uplifting word. Kyle had liked her immediately. As he stared up through the haze caused by the rain, Kyle saw Ellen start to cross over a little part of the road where the water was running pretty heavily into a drain. Involuntarily, he started to move forward and could see his Dad doing the same. She must know that wasn’t safe.

Kyle ran past Adam, right on his Dad’s heels. They were both shouting out to Ellen not to cross the water without help. She turned to look at them, the water was up to her knees now. She smiled and was about to shout something back, when she went down into the water. People who weren’t used to streams and rivers always underestimated the power of that water. Rain runoff in the street was essentially a fast-moving stream and was more powerful than a human. As he and Cal ran up to the edge of the water, Ellen tried to raise herself up. He knew what she was thinking, the water wasn’t even two feet deep, she should be fine. But she wasn’t fine, and the Wards knew it.

Ellen steadied herself a bit and began to walk slowly toward them, fighting against the current. Cal was reaching into the pack on his back for climbing rope, when she went down again, this time the water tumbling her over and over. She was on all fours, the water rushing over and against her. Kyle could tell she was strong and working hard to get up, but the first attempt probably took all of her energy. Cal had finished tying the rope around himself and Kyle had wrapped the other side of the rope twice around his body to stabilize himself when he felt Adam grab him around the waist to anchor him. Cal started to inch out into the water toward her, and she rolled over, disappearing from sight. They all stood there looking for her and Cal pointed to the drainage pipe, where all of this water was headed. All five of her companions rushed down to where the pipe was, there was a way to cross the water there. They couldn’t see her, the water was dark and full of mud and debris. Having the safety rope around his waist, Cal waded out into the water which at this point was up to near his crotch. The pull on the rope was incredible, it began to cut into Kyle’s skin.

There was no sign of her. Somewhere in this twenty yards of rushing water, their companion was under the water, being rolled over in it, unable to see through it, unable to breathe. It was a terrifying thought.

Adam shouted out, “Cal, get out of the water. You won’t find her in there.”

Cal began to wade back to the edge of the street, almost falling himself three times, until his son reached out and pulled him to safety. They both sat on the ground as the rain washed over them. Adam, Erica and Jessica ran up and down the water, looking for any sign of Ellen. Four or five minutes later, Erica sank to her knees and cried out, “No!”

They all ran to where Erica was kneeling. There, in the water, sort of floating, but clearly stuck on something was the body of Erica’s friend. She was face down, and no longer struggling. With a sad look on his face, Cal stood and waded into the water there, while Adam braced himself as the anchor on the shore. Cal pulled Ellen’s foot out of something it was caught on and dragged her limp body to the side. After Cal and Ellen were on shore, Adam began mouth to mouth and CPR. It was to no avail. Adam felt for a pulse one more time and then called it. Ellen died in two feet of rainwater. She was vibrant, happy and beautiful. Now, she was dead, and it brought a clarity to how precarious their situation really was.

They all kneeled by her body, oblivious of the rain still pouring down around their heads. They sat there for more than ten minutes before anyone spoke. Erica and Jessica both sobbed.

“What are we going to do with her?” Erica said quietly.

No one said anything. Kyle felt certain his dad had an answer, but for some reason wasn’t saying it.

“You just want to leave her here, don’t you? Leave her in the middle of the road?” Erica was looking right at his Dad. Calvin Ward kept silent, his head bowed and his eyes closed.

“Erica, what else are we going to do?” It was Adam who spoke up in answer. “How are we going to carry her? If we could have got a cart back there, maybe we could put her in it and push her to the school.”

“Cross, that is enough.” Cal opened his eyes, with tears welling up, he looked right at Erica. “I never have, and never would, leave a soldier behind. Ellen was a soldier to me, you all are. We either find a place to bury her, to give her rest, or we carry her with us.”

Kyle thought this was crazy. “Dad we can’t,” he interjected, “We don’t have the strength. What would we do with her at the school? Wouldn’t it be best to leave her for anyone coming along?”

“Sarge,” Adam started, “I am with Kyle here, we can’t take her with us.”

“Okay, Adam. You decide. What do we do?” Cal’s words were a shock to Adam, but Kyle had sort of seen it coming. Cal put it back on Adam, so Erica could see it as a good thing to do. She had conflicting emotions, her admiration of Adam and her feeling of helplessness about her friend. The truth is there were no good answers, and Cal knew it.

Adam looked down and then reached out for Erica’s hand, “I think we should bury her in the soft dirt up here, but we have no way to mark it. How do you think she would want to be honored?”

Erica laughed, surprising even his Dad, who turned and looked at her like she might have lost her mind. But Erica was smiling as she said, “We actually talked about that. Isn’t that weird? A few weeks ago, we had both watched a Zombie show on TV and we talked about what we wanted to be done to us if we died. She told me she wanted to be left for the animals. She said it was, umm, “the circle of life” or something like that.” Erica wiped away the tears in her eyes, even though her eyes were still filled with rain seconds later. “We leave her here; it is what she wanted. She would have liked that. I am sorry for being difficult.”

Cal walked up and put his hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to ever apologize for standing up for your friends. I hope to count myself as one of them someday.”

Erica smiled, as she and Adam folded Ellen’s arms across her chest as they did to people who have passed. Erica ran her fingers across Ellen’s hair. “Bye, girl. Hope to see you on the other side.” Erica sniffled and Adam put his arm around her to comfort her.

Kyle looked at the two of them. It wasn’t a romantic gesture from Adam, he knew that, but he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be romantic for long. Adam’s care for her was enough to sway any woman, and Erica was already head over heels for him. The five remaining members of the group walked on.

Ironically, it only took about fifteen minutes to get to the school. The light was fading fast as they came up to the front doors. There was an overhang, but it wasn’t any better than Target’s had been.

Erica pulled on the doors and they rattled, the sound echoed inside the building. “I went to school here.” She said.

“Me too,” Kyle offered, “weird way to come back.”

Erica thought for a moment and looked at Kyle. “When you were here, did you ever break into the tech entrance to the theater?” Kyle shook his head. “Do you know where it is? Around the side?”

“Yeah.” Kyle had heard of people doing that. “I don’t know if they fixed it since I left a couple of years ago, but you could still hit that door hard and the lock would pop back then. Wait here.”

Kyle ran over around the side and up to the stage entrance in the back of the building, near the baseball diamond. Kyle had been told about this when he was a freshman at the school, but he had never taken advantage of it. It was mostly something the stoners did, which gave him a new view of his new friend Erica. As he had been told years ago, he lowered his shoulder and rammed it against the door in an upward fashion. The door just popped open. He wasn’t sure how to get through the building in the dark, so he ran back around to get the group and led them back to the door. They all went inside. It was dark, but it was warm and dry. The door was even three steps up, so no water was flooding the room.

Erica had apparently been involved in drama eight years ago when she graduated, so she still had a decent memory of the layout. A few bruised shins later, she had opened the costume closet. It was nearly impossible to see, but they were able to find enough clothing to lie on the floor and make that comfortable. They spread almost all pieces of soft clothing they could find and lie together on the floor of the backstage at the high school. The dark and the quiet were ideal for how tired the whole group was. It had taken them hours to travel maybe three or four miles. They secured the door on Cal’s orders and settled in for the night. In the absolute blackness of that night, he felt Jessica put her hand in his. He fell asleep with that comfort.

Eric stood for a while in deep thought. He was at his private dojo in the downtown area of Colorado Springs, but would need to make it back to base at some point in the next 24 hours. He could explain his absence in the short term by making something up about helping the townsfolk, but at some point, the Old Man would lose his shit if Major Fine wasn’t there to take care of things. He looked back to where his students were wrangling a family into the area that Eric had set up for them. He really needed to get this under control. In a strange way, the Middle East had been easier than this. He had been a part of a conquering force, the people knew to listen, to do what they were told. When the people did not, he sometimes had to take harsh measures to deal with it. But whatever was happening here, in his town, was different. This was partly due to the fact that they were all Americans, and partly due to the fact that Eric Fine was not officially in charge, and not in a position commanding troops with guns. What these people didn’t realize was that he was protecting them, they all looked at him the way villagers always looked at the man in charge, like he was some sort of oppressor.

In the cool light of peace and freedom, it is sometimes hard to see what needs to be done in war, or conflict, or stress. He had made a career out of taking charge, and smoothing out the situation, no matter the necessary action. Eric was quick to decide, trained by the U.S. Army and deadly combat, to control his surroundings. This was for the safety of all, but he needed to figure out how to convey this to the people he was rounding up. There was safety in numbers, anyone who could help would be added to the ranks. Anyone who could hurt, would be confined. Eric knew the power wouldn’t be on today, it was already almost completely dark. But he still had hope for tomorrow. If it didn’t come on tomorrow, then a new set of decisions would have to be made.

One of the students from his dojo called out, “Soldiers approaching!”

Eric ran over to the barricade he had his men make out of the cars on the road. It wasn’t too hard to create a barrier at each end of the street. This sort of power outage brought lawlessness, looting and bad actions. Eric had determined to keep this street safe, and he would not let anyone interfere.

He saw the men coming up, armed with rifles. The rifles had bayonets attached. He hadn’t seen that in years. As they came close, he was certain he recognized the man leading them. He called out.

“Lt. Rodriguez? Is that you?” He waved and told his men to move one of the cars out of the way and they began pushing.

“Major?” the Lieutenant saluted, then slung his rifle over his shoulder, “Well, holy shit!” A big grin crossed the man’s face. “There anywhere to get my men out of this rain?”

Eric smiled good-naturedly, but he also kept reminding himself internally that these soldiers were not his men, they might have a different purpose. He needed some info, so he invited them in. “What do you got? Ten, twelve? Yeah we got room in the dojo. No light though.”

“Yeah,” Rodriguez responded, “ain’t no light anywhere, Major.”

They all walked back to the dojo and Eric began to work a plan in his head to get info, not give much, and then get these guys on their way. Walking through the double-glass door of the dojo, Eric pointed to two of his students to guard the door and keep watch on both sides of the street. He looked across to where that hot, young yoga gal was holed up. He didn’t want to scare her, but he needed to know why she wasn’t coming to the door, he needed to categorize her as a friendly, or unfriendly. He had other needs at the moment.

“Your men here have good discipline,” Rodriguez started the conversation.

“Ah, some of them are ex-grunts is all. They are my students now, not my men.” Eric lied, every man here was practically sworn to him, he knew he could count on them. The ones he wasn’t sure about; he had pressured to check on their families. There was one problem case he had tied up on another floor with some rabble rousers from down the street. This was something he didn’t want getting back to General Stone, who they all called “the Old Man.”

“Well, I am not surprised they fall in line when under stress. Man, Major, it is good to see you. We could really use your leadership right now.” Rodriguez was holding something back.

“What’s up, Rodriguez?” Eric comforted the officer with a hand on his shoulder.

The Lieutenant walked away from ear shot to talk to him in a low voice, “The men don’t know about this. I would guess most officers don’t. Not sure why Colonel Mann sent me out, as most people who knew about it were kept in the command hut on base. Maybe they didn’t catch that I was on duty this morning.” Eric stood close to the Lieutenant, he wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to hear what he was about to hear. “About 0700 this morning, comms went out in India. The Mountain was tracking this massive outage as it moved across the planet and we lost one station after another. We weren’t sure what it was, solar flare, nuclear, whatever at first. Not my area, so I still don’t know. But the bases had time to prepare, between six and seven hours. As it spread in a clean line around the earth, like the whole planet was slowly falling into a pit of darkness and silence, they closed the gates at the Academy, Carson, Petersen and shut the big door up at the Mountain. We knew that comms would be down and we could track the loss of power for a bit, but the satellites were going out in the same fashion as the rest of the planet. This is some kind of event, some kind of serious shit. I saw the panic on the civilian contractors faces, I mean the scientists. Before I had to move on to other duties, I heard one of them say he didn’t know if it was ever going to end.” Eric Fine was surprised for the first time in a long time. He knew this was a big deal, but had no idea. The whole world had changed, and in that moment, so had his priorities.

Eric leaned in close to Rodriguez, “You and your men can stay if you want. Remain for the night, longer maybe. Having soldiers around is always a good thing, keep things safe here.”

Rodriguez just shook his head, “We are just resting, it will take us much of the night to get back in this shit.” He pointed out to the rain. “Don’t worry Major, I will let them know you are here. General Stone is going to declare Martial Law; we could use a man like you to settle him down. We are just bringing recon back to the base.”

Eric nodded, “Sounds good. Did you guys find anyone else? Anything else that I need to know?”

“Just this: The medicine doesn’t work. People at hospitals are dying in droves. The south-side is in chaos, looting, and criminal activity, just what you would expect in an area more densely populated. Food and supplies are going to be a problem, but it seems people are just reacting to this right now, they haven’t figured out that what is there is all that is going to be there for a while. And these?” Rodrigues pointed to his weapon, “Useless. If the shit comes down, it will be tooth and nail, clubs and knives. The guns don’t work at all.” Rodriguez leaned against the wall.

“Well, I am glad we met up then. I think we can help each other. Are there more out there, more squads patrolling?” Eric looked genuinely concerned.

Rodriguez shook his head. “Most are just trying to protect the base. A bunch of enlisted ran off, wanted to find their family. The Old Man shut down the gates, said to shoot anyone who tried to leave. But like I said, Major, the guns don’t work anymore than the medicine. Our job was to get to the Academy, tell them that Stone was in charge and we were going to act in concert. They told us to go fuck ourselves. The Commandant came out himself to the gate and told us to tell Stone to go fuck himself. It wasn’t great, and the Old Man isn’t going to be happy.”

Eric nodded again, and turned to one of his men and made a little motion behind the Lieutenant’s back. “Okay, here is the deal. We are telling you to fuck yourselves too.” He looked up at the officer and saw the shock on his face. “Now, I need to know, are you going to stay and join up this downtown group, bolster our defenses? Or, are you headed back to base to give Stone doubly bad news?”

The man turned to tell his men to rise, but Eric reached out, pulled Rodriguez’ chin with four fingers and pushed against the back of his head with the palm of his hand, snapping the younger officer’s neck. Rodriguez fell dead where he was. Men reached for their rifles, just realizing that the students had already grabbed ahold of them. “Men, men, I am sorry you had to see that. What the LT just told me is something you need to hear. The world has changed, and we aren’t going to get orders from Washington, ever. Now, as I see it, you have two options. One, you can join us, I will train you in expert hand-to-hand and close quarter combat, and you can bolster our ranks. Option two is we confine you. If anyone tries to escape, we will track you down and kill you. This shit is real. The Old Man is looking to seize a little kingdom here, and I can’t let that happen.”

One of the men, an overweight sergeant in his early forties, rose up. “He is right. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, but I overheard what Loo was saying to the guards at the Academy gate. This is the new thing, Stone ordered martial law and told the academy they had to comply. The academy told him to go fuck himself. I heard it.” The pudgy non-com turned toward Eric, “The name is Meyer. I, for one, will join you.” Eric saw what Meyer was doing. There were no men in the unit who knew they had served together, so there was no way for them to know they were being played. Meyer was showing his loyalty to his old commander.

Eric walked over and shook the man’s hand. The rest of the men agreed also. Suddenly Eric’s group had gone from sixteen to twenty-seven. He walked to the front of the room, the last dim light of dusk escaping. “Form ranks. Help the new men find their place. Men, this is a new existence. Something serious has happened, and there is no longer a civil or military authority. We will create our own. You all know your rifles don’t work, I just found out that medicine doesn’t work. It is imperative you learn to protect yourself. We are the beginnings of a new order, a new life. There are few of us and we control this block. Tomorrow we begin to build, to train, to gather resources and to take more area. Welcome to the new order.”

The men responded with “Hua!” in unison. He looked into the eyes of what of the students, a man recently drummed out of the Army named Miles Damiano. He had been an unfit soldier, but he had his value. Eric knew that he was the one man in the room who knew that Meyer had served with him before, because they had all served together in the sand. Eric would have a talk with him, and motioned him toward the back. But at that moment, Eric saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The men at the door turned toward him, and past them, he saw the yoga girl dart out of the door of her studio and sprint up the street. “Go get her,” he said and the two of them ran in the direction she had just run.

Eric walked off to a private training room in the back. Damiano followed. In the doorway, he made it clear to the man what the situation was. “You know who that is?” He said, pointing at Meyer.

“Of course, sir.” Damiano replied.

“No, you don’t. This is the first time you have ever seen him.” Eric said, staring hard at the man’s eyes.

A moment’s pause was all it took, then the reply from Damiano, “I misspoke, sir. That is what I meant, I have never seen that man before.”

Eric smiled, “Good man. Why don’t you take charge of our original group? Acclimate the new men to their surroundings. And, Miles...” Damiano looked up, “We are in a predicament, do not hesitate to use force if anyone gets out of hand.” Miles smiled, and bowed in the martial arts way, before turning and acting on his new authority.

Eric walked into the private training room and pulled the door shut to where only a centimeter of the door was still open. It was hot, and pitch black in the room. But he knew its size and he knelt to begin his own training. His meditation, katas and sets gave him strength, focus and calm. He would need all of these to do what needed to be done.