ASCENSION: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES (5 page)

He had cried a few times in the last ten years – once when his mother had passed, and once, he was embarrassed to admit, when his best dog died a few years back.  But this time he
wept
.  There was a big difference.  Even when Jeff arrived, he continued to weep like a child.  He just couldn’t hold it in any longer.  It was all too much, even for Gordon who thought himself immune to such overwhelming outpourings of emotions.  And Jeff let him, understanding – at least for a minute.

“Dad,” he said, walking over and touching his shirtless father softly on the shoulder.  “We need your help.  Barry and Ian are hurt.  I need you to help us with them.”

Gordon was in a state of shock, but he moved mechanically, knowing he had to try his best to be strong for his boys.  Sons or nephews, it didn’t matter, they were
all
his boys.  He let go of Edwin’s hand and Jeff helped his old man to his feet.

Jeff guided his father back to the road where the remains of their convoy sat smoldering.  The pickup truck that had been hauling the diesel fuel was now burning; their last hope of getting home anytime soon destroyed in one last violent and unnecessary act by their aggressors. 

With three dead, two wounded, no vehicles, no medical supplies, no radio communication, no food, no water, and hardly any ammo left, Gordon found himself wondering whether it might have been better just to have stayed put and let the armored vehicles finish them off.  But he quickly shook himself of these negative thoughts.  That sort of thinking wasn’t him.  And it was the avoidance of exactly that type of thinking that had helped him and his family survive the flu while so many around them had perished.  

Just as he and Jeff made it to the drainage ditch beside the road’s edge, they again caught the sound of approaching vehicles.

“Oh no,” said Jeff, pulling his father along faster.  “Come on dad, we’ve got to move our asses.”  But his father resisted.

“
Dad!
” Jeff urged.  “
Come on!
”

But his dad shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “Just wait.”

“But it could be
them
coming back.  They might have been waiting for us to come out so that they could finish us off.”

But his father remained unswayed.  “It’s not them.” He said the words so confidently and matter-of-factly that it worried his son. 

“
Dad!
” Jeff yelled.  “You’re going to get us
killed!
”

But his dad just shook his head, unflappable in his determination.  Instead, he pulled away from his son and walked slowly, steadily up the drainage ditch and onto the road, moving passed the smoking vehicles so that he stood, shirtless, in center of the road before them. 

“It’s going to be okay, boy,” he called back to his son.  “Just wait and see.”

Jeff had no idea whether his dad knew what he was talking about or not, and he had largely come to the conclusion that his father might be somewhat shell-shocked after the battle and the loss of his boys.  Jeff swung his rifle around in front of him moved up to the edge of the road, lying down near where the drainage ditch met with the road’s shoulder, a point at which he could cover his dad largely unnoticed by whoever was approaching.

He watched his father standing in the middle of the road, vehicles still burning or smoldering around him, waiting, staring down the road ahead of him.  He just stood there, not even pulling his handgun which was shoved securely in his rear waistband.

But Jeff pulled his and laid it on the ground beside him as he wriggled to better position his assault rifle in the crook of his shoulder.  His dad might not be thinking straight, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

* * *

I slowed our trailer-hauling pickup and pulled it gradually over onto the shoulder of the road as we watched the smoke rise ahead of us.  Its engine coughed and sputtered worryingly as I stopped, and it made me wonder just how much further the late-80’s model would take us.

We stopped about three-quarters of a mile from whatever was taking place up ahead of us.  I left Claire, Jason and pregnant Pam in the front of the truck, got out, and walked around to the rear of the vehicle where the rest of the group was riding with our supplies in the pickup’s bed and the attached farm trailer we were hauling.

“Looks like something’s going on up ahead of us,” I told the others as they piled out, stretching stiff legs and sore backs.

“It’s already gone down by the looks of it,” said Ray, nodding at the rising smoke.

“My question is, after our last few experiences, do we want any part of it?” I asked, looking around at the rest of the group.

“Might be a trap,” said my brother Will. 

“Or they might need our help,” said Ray.  “Could have been an accident.  People might be hurt.”

“You’re awfully trusting for a former FBI agent,” I said, frowning at my best friend.

“Just a lowly public servant at your service,” he grinned at me, bowing slightly.

“Bull
shit
,” I smiled tiredly back at him.  “Don’t give me that crap.  It was your job to be wary of these kinds of situations.”

“I also served in Iraq, and I know that not all people are bad people.  Sometimes it’s about how people react to situations.  Situations can make good people do bad things.  I always felt it was my duty as a soldier, as an American, to ensure that I didn’t let that happen to me.  I tried to let situations make me better and enable me to help other people to do the same before circumstances dictated their actions.”

“Wow,” Will said, sounding surprised. “I wasn’t expecting that from you.  But you forget…America’s gone now.  This is the land the Su flu left behind.”

“No,” Ray said, he tapped his head. “America is still here.”  And then he tapped his heart, “And here.  America isn’t a place or a government or a certain group of people…it’s a feeling, a way of life and living…an attitude I guess.  We love our independence, but that independence gives us the freedom of choice to help others.  Now personally, that’s just the way I feel.  But I also think that you can’t just go around being afraid all the time.  Cautious, yes…afraid, no.”

“Good point,” I nodded.  “So why don’t you go check it out?” I tilted my head towards the rising smoke.  “I’m going to take a nap.”

“Yeah, right,” said Ray.  “You’re too much like me.  You can’t just ignore this and let it go.  You’d never be able to sleep wondering if someone was cooking inside a vehicle or injured and dying on the side of the road when you might have done something to help them.”

I exhaled heavily, knowing that he was right.  I hated this kind of crap.  I had my own family to worry about, and now an extended family too.  But Ray knew me too well.  I always put myself in the other person’s shoes.  What if that was us up there?  Would I want someone to help or would I want them to turn tail and run in the other direction?  It wasn’t like we could just dial 911 on the cell phone and then casually head on our way, having done our good deed for the day. 

I looked around us, up and down the road, scanning for other vehicles.  Of course I saw none.  It was going to be up to us.

“Alright,” I breathed, looking back at Claire who sat swiveled in the cab of the pickup, watching me, a concerned look upon her face.  “Let’s get our guns and go check it out.  Dad, Will…you two stay here and stand guard with the others just in case it’s a trap.  Ray and I will go see what there is to see.”

We kissed our respective wives goodbye as everyone urged caution.  I realized that part of me was angry at myself for leaving my family, but another part of me agreed with Ray; and this particular part of me had a desire to help if help was indeed needed.

I think that the more persecuted our own group felt, the more I hoped we’d find someone who still exhibited a few of those altruistic qualities that we had known in people before the flu. 

As Ray and I walked slowly together, we could see multiple smoking vehicles littering the road ahead of us.

“What the hell happened here?” I said, looking over at Ray.

“I don’t know,” he shook his head.  “Reminds me of Iraq.”

“Huh,” I scoffed.  “Reminds me of accidents I’ve seen on I-294 back home.”

“No shit,” he nodded.  “Look…somebody’s up there.”

Ahead of us, I could see a lone figure standing in the center of the road before the trashed vehicles. 

“What the hell’s wrong with him?” I said.  “He’s just standing there.”

“Might be in shock…or hurt,” Ray said.  “Doesn’t look like he has a shirt on.”

“Might be a trap,” I said back.

“Might be,” Ray agreed.

The man – who looked to be middle-aged – just stood there, motionless, shirtless.  We stopped about 30 yards from him, our rifles ready and visible but not aimed at him directly.  We didn’t want to provoke the man unnecessarily.

Ray whispered, “I got somebody at two o’clock…see him…over near the road’s shoulder, by the ditch?”

I shifted my eyes quickly to the right without moving my head, catching the glint of a gun barrel in the sun and the top of someone’s head as they lay near the top of the drainage ditch that ran beside the road.

“You got him if shit goes down?” I asked Ray quietly.

“Yeah, I got him.  You take the shirtless guy.”

“Got it,” I whispered back.

Then I turned my attention to the man in the road.  “What happened here, friend?” I called to the shirtless man who continued to stand in the center of the road just watching us.

“We were attacked,” the man called back.

“We?” I said.  “How many of you are there?”

“There were eight.  Now there are five…but a couple are wounded.”

“Stay here,” I whispered to Ray as I began slowly walking towards the man.

“When did this happen?” I gestured to the burned out vehicles around us as I continued moving closer, scanning the edges of the road.

“’Bout twenty minutes ago,” the man said. 

Behind the man I could see a body lying on the pavement near a burned out SUV.

“Where is the rest of your group?” I asked, stopping maybe 20 feet from him.

“Most are sheltering in the overgrowth, and one’s over there,” he nodded towards the drainage ditch where Ray had noticed the concealed person with the weapon.     

“Why were you attacked?” I asked.

“We’d just picked up some diesel fuel.  Guess the people that hit us wanted it more than we did.”  He paused and then said, “Listen, I don’t expect you to trust us.  But can you help us?  I’ve got some boys who have injuries that need tending.  I don’t have time to explain everything right now.  I’ll ask for your help, not your trust; I don’t have time to build that right now.”

“I have one more question,” I said.

The man nodded, waiting anxiously, “Yeah?”

“How did you know we weren’t the people who hit you coming back to finish the job?”

He shrugged.  “Didn’t for sure.  You see that boy on the road back there?” he choked out the words, turning to look behind him at the body on the pavement.

“Yes,” I said, hearing the emotion in the man’s voice. 

“That’s my boy.” A tear trickled down his cheek.  “There’s another one dead inside that SUV back there, and I just lost a nephew a few minutes ago.” He paused for a minute, then said, “If you were the ones that did this, I was going to kill you…or at least die trying.”

His answer was enough for me.  “Come on out,” I called to the person in the ditch.  “We’re not here to hurt you.  We were just looking for a place to camp.”

The man in the ditch – a young, not bad looking man – rose and approached warily.  I couldn’t blame him for his cautiousness considering what had apparently just gone down.

“Where are your injured?” I asked the older man.

“Over there,” he nodded towards the jungle-like tangle of weeds and palms that lined the drainage ditch on the other side of the road.

Ray walked up closer to where we stood.

“You have medical supplies?  The older man asked.

“Some,” I said. 

“We’d be obliged if you could take a look at our wounded and maybe give us a lift back to the coast.”

I took a deep breath, thinking.  We had our own situation to consider and taking a lengthy detour to the coast was not on our to-do list.  “We don’t have much gas,” I said.  “We take you there, and we’ll be out completely.”

“You help us, and get me and my boys, both dead
and
alive, back home, and you can have all the gas you can carry,” the man said.

“Fair enough,” I said.  I stepped closer and held out my hand, “John Stevens,” I said. “And this here is Ray Navarro,” I nodded over to the son-to-be-papa standing next to me.

“Gordon Parks,” the man said, shaking my hand.  “This here is my oldest boy, Jeff.  And now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get my people tended to.”

“Sure,” I said.  “Let’s see what we can do.”

CHAPTER 5

It didn’t take long for Jake and Ava to realize that things in Miami were chaotic and disorganized to say the least.  There were several small gang-like factions that believed they ran things in their little neighborhoods, but as far as any sort of central structure in place for the commerce taking place within the greater Miami area, there was none.