March 21st, 2013
1
This was going to have to be close enough.
Adrian waited for Kenn to finish updating the newest Eagle who was about to take over his post for the 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift. Jeremy was on Neil's team, Level Three status, and the right to have point had only been earned last night.
Adrian sighed, tired and worried as the camp got ready to head out for another day of hard travel. They were on the edge of the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, just off 387, and while he was glad to be east of 25, pictures had verified that Casper and Buffalo were ghost towns.
It made his stomach burn. One was buried, the other submerged. His warning hadn't been heard, hadn't mattered. They hadn't picked up a single survivor since the dust storm, which made these people in Cheyenne all the more important.
Sighing again, he turned his eyes to the mountains that surrounded them. Would the evergreens up there have the mold that the fir and pine trees down here did? Would it smell like smoke and unburied dead? Were there bodies of deer, moose, and people? He was almost sure they would find out for themselves. People were talking about it.
"You're the Man on this one, Marine. You ready?" Adrian asked as the Marine came to his side, sharp tone of a drill instructor replacing the calm demeanor the camp always saw. The Slavers' rampage had moved up Interstate 25 faster than they had estimated, and Cheyenne had called again.
"Locked and Loaded. Kyle's team is stowing the beans, bags, and bullets."
"They're good to go, eager to prove themselves. What about you, Jarhead? How do you feel?"
Kenn's smile was hard as his eyes took in Adrian's dusty jeans and wrinkled camouflage shirt. He'd been up all night, again. "Good, ready."
"In and out, Marine, just like with the old lady but if not, if something goes wrong and you have to fight?"
Kenn's eyes were intent. "Then we'll kill as many as we can."
It may have been wrong in the old world, but it was all that was left to them now, and Adrian preached it, made them believe in it by doing it when he thought the man's crimes (it was almost always men who committed the big transgressions now) warranted it. This definitely did.
The Slavers were a growing threat he felt duty-bound to challenge, to eliminate. Yet he couldn't, at this point, not against 150 well-armed men who had become good at conquering large groups of survivors. The terrible stories of the refugees who escaped, town after town, neighborhood after neighborhood (life after life!) made him burn to do something.