“There’s no one manning the gates,” I tell them after arriving back. “I parked a Humvee at the gate and we can transfer the stuff from the car into it and drive that instead.”
“Do I get to drive it?” Robert asks with a not too well concealed grin.
“No, I’ll drive it and you take the Jeep,” I answer as he hangs his head in mock disappointment. Well, he pretends the mock part but I know he really does want to drive it.
“Let’s head up as before. Watch the road, there are some bodies lying on it but you can maneuver around them.”
We get back into our vehicles and proceed through the gate slowly park where I had before. “Dad, there’s other ones we can drive,” Robert says nodding over to the parked Humvees.
“What!? And leave my Jeep just sitting here. I don’t think so,” I reply and take a step toward the booths.
“But,” he starts but stops immediately as my head whips around toward him, not completing the rest of his sentence. “Okay, Dad.”
“You guys unload the stuff in the Honda into the back of the Humvee. I’ll be right back.”
Back at the booth with the corpse lying in it, I step inside. I don’t really want to go through with this and consider leaving the vest there, but it will come in handy. If this were a fighter base or I had time to find the security detachment building, I could easily find another, but you take what you can get. I bend down by the side of the body and keep my eyes focused on the vest as much as possible. This is not going to be easy to get off just by pulling the arms through so I take my folding blade out and snap it open. The upper arms are being held onto the shoulder by tendons, the muscle structure, and skin in back. I pull the left socket bone away and slice my knife through the tissue setting the arm bones away from the body. I do the same to the right side with my stomach doing flips. I undo the front clasps and lay the right vest front out on the floor, grab hold of the left side, and pull. The body rolls over to the right as I lift and pull. The head stays in place for most of the way and then starts following the body before bending backward with the back of the head almost touching the back. The body flips over and the vest comes free, the head flips forward and comes to a rest looking over the left shoulder. I scramble out and upend my breakfast behind the booth.
“Alright, fuck it,” I address the group coming back around to the front. All heads turn from loading the last of the gear. “Robert, go get the Humvee on the right. If you can manage to get it over here without hitting a building, running over any of us, or hitting any wildlife, you can drive it to the flight line.”
“Yeah!” Robert says with his eyes lighting up and he starts fast walking over to get it.
“Wait,” I say before he gets very far. “Come here. I’ll show you how to start it.” I see some confusion in his eyes trying to judge whether I am joking or not. “It’s a diesel and they start differently.”
Throwing the vest onto the passenger seat, I show him the start switch and light, explaining to him that diesels don’t have spark plugs but glow plugs and they need to heat up. “The orange light here tells you when the plug is warm and you can crank it,” I tell him finishing with the mini diesel lesson.
He walks behind the booths and disappears. I hear an engine crank up a short time later and see the rear of the Humvee emerge from behind the checkpoint as he backs up slowly. He then turns down the lane to the visitor center, through the parking lot, and catches the lanes back by the bend in the road to where we are. I sigh heavily, part of it from that he didn’t hit anything, part of it knowing that my Jeep and I will soon part company, and another from thinking that some things are just ingrained in our mind. We are going to have to all start thinking outside some of the civilization we are apparently now leaving behind.
“You could have just driven over the curb there,” I say upon his return from his extended scenic road trip and nod to where I had driven over it earlier.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess I could have.”
I can tell there is a bit of glee in his eyes that he had just driven, and was going to drive, a Humvee. Some pride and some chest puffiness as well. I see he wants Michelle to be impressed.
We finish loading the gear. I drive the Jeep to the visitor center and park it in an empty parking spot. No, I didn’t go over any curbs. This is my Jeep after all. I make sure I have my cell phone, the battery powered charger for it, and look around to see if we have everything. Ugh, I think, the kids left the tool box here so I grab it out of the back. Setting the tool box on the ground, I climb back in for a moment.
“See you later my friend,” I say softly patting the top of the dash. “I’ll be back.”
Climbing out, I grab the toolbox and put the keys in my zippered sleeve pocket. With the sun starting to warm the air, I start back to the checkpoint.
Back at the Humvees, I grab the 5.56mm magazines. “Here, you can help me load these,” I say handing each of them a magazine. Unloading the ammo can, I set it on the ground. “29 to a magazine and here’s how you do it.” They gather around and we load up the 8 magazines I found.
“Ok, let’s move out. We have a lot to do and the day is moving on. I doubt we’ll be able to get out of here today. Bri, I want…”
“Why aren’t we leaving today?” Robert interrupts.
“A couple of reasons. First, we need to plan our legs around flying and arriving during the day if at all possible. That way, we can fuel up when we get to our destination. Secondly, I want the flight to be during the day in case we have a problem and have to land. I’m not certain any airport lighting or nav aids are working so I need to be able to find the airport and land in daylight. Plus, we have to flight plan yet and I have to learn the new aircraft so I’ll have to go through the manuals and checklists, if we can find them, and take it up for a spin to get used to flying it,” I explain.
“Now, if Robert is done interrupting, Bri and Nic, you are with me. Robert and Michelle, you take the second Humvee. Follow a little behind. If we meet anyone and have to stop, you park a short distance away. Be ready to turn around and get the hell out of here if anything goes wrong. Ready?”
They all nod and we board the Humvees. Nicole is in front with me and Bri is in the back seat. We start up and head around the checkpoint. Passing by the other parked Humvees, I do my best to maneuver through the piles of bodies but unable to avoid all them, we ride over some like driving over a speed bump; only, these speed bumps have a little give to them. The bodies eventually decrease in number the farther away from the checkpoint we get until I can maneuver without running over any more “speed bumps.”
I continue driving slowly further into the base and toward the morning sun with Robert about twenty five yards behind. We pass by a golf course to our left and buildings begin to appear on either side of us. I am constantly looking around for any sign of life but am only met by the occasional bird crossing the road ahead of us or riding the air currents above us. It’s like driving through a ghost town. There are no cars on the streets or people walking the sidewalks. No one is standing outside a building taking a smoke break or running errands. The building windows stare back as if in a surrealistic dream. I take a left onto another major road knowing the flight line lies to the north end of the base. Buildings continue along the road with their large brown signs outside denoting what unit or service they housed. A three story building appears to our left, set back from the road with a large parking lot and open fields surrounding it. The signpost outside reads “McChordAFBHospital.”