A New World: Conspiracy (35 page)

They continue striking west and enter the
barren landscape of the southern end of Fort Carson. Greg has
slowed the vehicle to a crawl in order to minimize any dust trail.
It’s evident there are survivors of some sort around and he doesn’t
want to announce their arrival.

The area is covered with small ravines,
ridgelines, and countless dirt tracks branching off the dirt road
they are following. The trails they leave behind are easy to spot
and follow but, from all indications, no one has made it out this
way in some time.

The hills in the near distance to the west
rise sharply off the plain, their sides dotted with evergreens and
patches of green shrubs. Any natural greenery remains green and
those plants that required water to be brought by humankind have
browned for lack of nourishment. The land is returning to its
natural state.

Passing by an isolated firing range, they
come to a two-laned highway – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Highway. This road runs along the base of the hills for a short
distance before heading into the center of Colorado Springs. Greg
follows this thoroughfare until they are immediately adjacent to
Fort Carson. At this juncture, the hills and the highway say
farewell to each other and Greg turns into several residential
developments on the very fringe of the city. The houses themselves
run right up to hills rising off the upper plateau of Colorado.
It’s the best they can do without traversing into the
mountains.

Working their way through the twists and
turns of the neighborhoods, and sticking to the ones nearest the
hills, they eventually clear the urban areas. At an intersection
where Gold Camp Road and High Road come together, Greg halts the
team to figure out their best route.

“Sir, I know this area,” one of the soldiers
says. “Growing up here, I ran and hiked most of the trails in the
area.”

He is the one whose family they are
currently searching for.

“Okay. What do you recommend?” Greg asks,
moving away from the map to make room.

“This road…Gold Camp Road…continues across
the intersection. It intersects a trail that the Stryker can
negotiate. I think the trail’s name is Lion Trail, but I can’t be
positive about that. There’s a ridge that several trails parallel
and we can follow that to the highway between the two springs,” the
soldier answers. Greg looks on in confusion.

“That’s Colorado Springs and Manitou
Springs,” the soldier clarifies.

“And that’ll keep us hidden?”

“Yes, sir. They’re dirt so we’d have to keep
our speed down, but there’s no one there, especially if we take the
west side. The ridge will block us from view to the east, and there
are several other smaller ridges that will block us from the west.
It’s the best way I know.”

“Alright, you stay here with me and guide
the turns. Show me where we need to go and the best way to get
there,” Greg says.

The soldier points to a small neighborhood
that extends partway into a valley on the southwestern side of
Manitou Springs.

Of course it would be on the other side
of the town
, Greg thinks.

As if reading his mind, the soldier replies,
“Not to worry, sir. I can get us there easily enough.”

“Not to seem crass, but how many are we
looking for? Greg asks.

It’s been one of the things on his mind
since they began. If they do find loved ones intact, how are they
going to transport them? Especially if they find very many of them.
His plan was to find other vehicles which they can use, and he
supposes that will have to do. It may not be easy finding ones they
can get started, since the batteries will have drained long ago,
but he’ll deal with that when he comes to it.

“Well, sir, there’s my younger sister and
brother and my mom. My dad moved to New York a while ago,” the
soldier answers.

“I’m sorry,” Greg says, referring to the
fact that the young man’s dad is out of reach.

“Not to worry, sir. We didn’t exactly get
along.”

Guided by the soldier, they find the trail
and proceed up a series of switchbacks as they climb the lone,
north-south ridge. Greg opts to travel on the western side as the
soldier indicated it will allow for them to be better hidden. That
of course means they won’t be able to see trouble coming
either.

They cross over the long ridgeline and
descend along more switchbacks. Meeting up with another trail which
leads through a deep ravine, they continue their northbound travel
to the freeway ahead. Small trail signs along the way indicate they
are proceeding along the Red Rock Canyon Trail. The path is at the
base of a steep hill. In places, Greg can see the rocky top of the
larger ridge which the soldier identifies as Hogback Ridge. The
path is narrow and the vehicle’s wheels roll on either side,
flattening scrub brush that grows alongside. Looking behind, Greg
is satisfied with their speed as dust rises no higher than the top
of the Stryker.

The trail ends at an empty dirt parking lot.
Ahead, Greg can make out the east-west line of the highway they’ve
been striving to reach. So far, they have been lucky and haven’t
encountered anyone. The hogback ridge ends abruptly at the edge of
the freeway. He stops and pulls out his binoculars.

Across the road, he makes out the side of a
large department store. Trees adjacent the highway block any
further view of the area, but he gets the impression that a
residential neighborhood lies beyond the foliage. The two cities
have almost grown together.

He focuses his view on something on the
highway itself. He can’t make it out from his vantage point, but it
doesn’t look right – it’s not part of the road system. It gives the
appearance of a road block with stakes pointing outward. It almost
looks like triangular anti-armor stakes.

That doesn’t bode well
, he thinks,
trying to ascertain exactly what they truly are.
If there are
anti-armor stakes, that means there’s armor in the area. And,
obstacles like that are meaningless without supporting arms to take
advantage of the blockage.

He takes a long sweep of the surrounding
terrain looking for any sign of dug-in emplacements or anything to
indicate that someone is lying in wait. He doesn’t see or hear
anything other than the whine of the Stryker idling and a few birds
circling. He orders the Stryker to advance slowly. As he draws
nearer, he sees that he was totally wrong about the items in the
road.

It’s a series of crosses placed in a
semi-circle next to the multi-lane freeway. They are constructed of
heavy timber and driven into the ground. The shadows from each
cross stretch long to the east. It’s taken them almost all day to
reach this point. Greg removes the field glasses and rubs his eyes,
trying to erase the tired and gritty feeling in them. He’s strained
to focus on objects for most of the day and he’s beginning to tire.
Looking again, he turns the knob to sharpen the focus. The scene
that jumps into view is horrifying.

In the magnified view, Greg sees that
someone is tied or otherwise attached to one of the crosses. The
figure hangs limply with its head down, chin almost touching the
chest. Long black hair drapes lifelessly down and obscures any
features. A light-colored shirt over jeans appears heavily stained.
The person isn’t moving and, to all appearances, doesn’t appear to
be alive.

Suspecting a trap, Greg methodically scans
the terrain, but he still can’t see anything that might indicate
someone else is around. All things human-made give tell-tale
indications, no matter how slight. It’s just a matter of looking
for those things that seem slightly out of place or the color seems
wrong. He scans the area with thermal-imaging but sees nothing
except the figure on the cross. The fact that they show up on
thermals indicates that they are still alive.

Greg informs the team of what he sees and
has the Stryker slow its advance. When they are about to emerge
from the ravine and into the open, Greg has the team disembark.
Although they will be slower and more exposed, the team afoot will
create a lower profile. The Stryker will remain at the edge of the
deep gully and provide support should they need it. He keeps two at
the Stryker and takes five with him.

They advance across the open ground, their
boots stirring up dust with each step across the rock and dirt. The
lowering sun casts their dark outlines across the terrain, their
shadows undulating as they cross rocks and small hillocks. Birds
circle high overhead searching for food. Greg imagines the roar
that rush hour traffic along the highway must have created at one
time. Today, the quiet is pervasive. He can hear the crunch of
their boots as they cross the sandy soil…hear the breathing of the
nearest teammate behind him.

With caution, carrying his carbine at the
ready, Greg walks ever closer to the figure on the cross. He hears
the low whine of the Stryker behind as it shifts into a better
position from which to cover them. At the sound, the figure on the
cross ahead lifts its head a touch and tilts it in their direction.
It then drops back to stare downward. The brief look doesn’t give
an indication if it is male or female, but with the long hair, he’s
guessing it’s a woman.

A rank scent begins to suffuse the area as
he closes in on the figure – the smell of something rotten. Greg
has run across this smell a number of times in the past. His
wariness increases.

Greg crosses a low, barb-wire fence and
startles a flock of crows that were settled near the crosses. They
take flight with the sound of flapping wings and cries of disdain.
Shaken loose from the sudden surge, several black feathers float
gently to earth. Greg has one soldier follow him across the fence
and tells the others to remain and provide cover.

Pausing to study the area before proceeding,
Greg notes a significant amount of litter strewn around the
crosses. Looking closer, he realizes that it isn’t litter at all,
but rather pieces of darkly stained clothing. With the rank odor
and the clothing, he knows that something very wrong has happened
here. The smell of rotten meat, crows feasting, and articles of
clothing scattered about. And that’s aside from some woman tied to
a cross. From several meters away, he sees that what he took to be
crosses constructed of dark wood is actually lighter colored wood
that’s been deeply stained, the stain darkening closer to the
ground.

“Oh. My. God…Diane?” the soldier beside him
calls loudly.

The figure slowly looks up at the sound of
the voice. With the lifting of the head, Greg makes out the
features of a battered young woman. She squints as if trying to
peer through a fog.

“Ky…” the woman begins and tries to swallow
to gain some moisture for words. “Kyle,” she says through lips that
have split from their swelling. “Is that really you?” She gives a
dry cough from the effort of speech and her head droops again as if
the energy required to hold it up is too much.

“Sir…sir, that’s my sister,” he says,
starting forward.

Greg swings his arm to the side, catching
the soldier across the chest to halt him.

“We don’t know what’s going on here. It
could a trap,” Greg says, eyeing the surrounding environment.

“Sir, she needs help,” the soldier
implores.

“I’m aware of that, but she’ll live a moment
longer,” Greg counters.

The soldier subsides, but his body language
carries his anxiety. Greg once again scans the landscape. They are
all in the open, which isn’t the most enviable position. They are
far away from any help and would be outnumbered in almost any
situation. The horror of the scene in front of him shocks Greg to
his very core. He stands for more than a few moments, waiting for
something to happen. Nothing does.

“Okay, cut her down and give her some
water,” Greg says “But then we’re moving her back to the vehicle,
whether she can walk or not, and getting out of here.”

Greg wants nothing more than to leave this
horrific scene. The smell is a physical presence that seems to blur
anything observed through it. He calls up another teammate to help.
As the two soldiers cut the woman’s ties, Greg holds his hand over
his mouth and nose.

Not wanting to, but driven by a perverse
desire, he looks over the immediate area closer. Shredded clothing,
all covered by differing depths of dirt, lie scattered throughout.
A large number of bones are entwined with the clothing, some with
dried sinew attached and others looking fresh. Mutilated bodies lie
everywhere he looks, and the odor almost becomes too much to
bear.

The ground between the crosses has been
unable to soak in all of the blood spilled and is darkly stained.
Greg feels like he is stepping into a sandy tar pit. With each
step, he feels the mush under his boots and globules of
blood-saturated sand sticks to his soles. Gagging at the sight, he
fights down an urge to flee – just get away from this place of sick
horror. The drone from hundreds of flies fills the putrid air. From
the site, a trail of blood, clothing, and remnants of bodies
stretch to the east.

This is obviously the work of night
runners
, Greg thinks, looking over the dismembered forms that
used to be living people,
and some very sick people
.

The soldiers struggle with the stench and
the sight of mutilated bodies. One bends over to throw up, adding
to the mess. But they persevere and work at the bonds holding the
woman. As her bonds are cut, the woman sags into the arms of her
brother. He knows he doesn’t need to hear the woman’s story. The
bodies tell their own story of what is going on and the deliberate
nature of which these people were tied for the night runners to
feed on. It doesn’t sit at all well with him.

He can imagine the terror the victims must
have felt being tied in the open with the sun sinking below the
mountains to the west. The intense fear at hearing the first of the
shrieks call out into the night. Panic filling their souls at the
pad of running footsteps as the night runners made their way
closer. The sheer agony of being ripped apart.