“How many of you are there?” The man asked.
“Three others beside me,” Charlie said. “I suggest you put that weapon down. There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt, is there? Listen, you don’t look well. Why don’t you let us go about our business and I’ll leave you something to help.”
One of the young girls looked up then, her dirty face hiding a pretty personality. Her blonde hair was matted and covered with twigs and debris. They looked as though they’d been living in the ground. Which made no real sense given the number of dwellings and buildings they could choose, but then he’d known people like this before, people who would refuse to go back into the cities and preferred to stay outside with nature. There was something comforting about being around trees, animals and bugs.
It reminded people they were still on earth. Day by day things were getting more and more removed from the earth they used to know, but it was slow enough that most people didn’t really notice, like a slow growing cancer tumor.
“What’s your name?” Charlie asked the man, making sure he didn’t look at the girls for too long. He didn’t want to give the old guy any reason to shoot.
“Jan,” he said. “I used to work here before… well, before everything. They’ve left us to die out, they don’t care.”
“Who?”
“The croatoans. For a while we thought they’d help us, take us to their colonies.”
“They’re not colonies,” Charlie said. “They’re farms. You don’t want to go there, unless you have something you can offer them.”
Jan looked to his girls and back to Charlie. “I know. It’s why we stay out here. You said you could help?”
“We can if you put the weapon down.”
Jan hesitated for a moment before eventually lowering his gun. Charlie thought it was more likely through exhaustion than anything else. The old guy slumped to an old wooden crate he was using as a seat.
Charlie turned to the trees and beckoned the others out. Denver kept his rifle pointing to the ground so as not to spook them. Ethan and Maria came through carrying Charlie’s pack between them. From that pack Charlie took three days’ worth of dried ration packs—foil wrapped, just-add-water, soups that he had recovered from the army base. They’d last a century apparently.
In addition to the rations he took out his supply of root, contained within an old tin and cut off a third.
“Here, for your daughters.” Charlie handed him the root and the ration packs. “It’s not a lot, but they look like they need it. It’ll give them something to get them by for a while until you can find something more substantial.”
Tears welled up in Jan’s eyes as he took them. He bowed. “Thank you so much, I don’t know what to say… I…”
“Don’t say anything,” Charlie said. “Just have yourselves a meal and share the root. It’ll give you enough energy to move. Go north, upstate, away from the trouble.”
“What trouble?” Jan asked.
“The trouble I’m going to be giving to the alien scum. Trust me, go north.”
With that, Charlie motioned goodbye to them. The two girls coyly smiled and thanked him with quiet, whispering voices. They headed through the camp and came out onto a road that hadn’t quite succumbed to the encroaching forest.
Here, humanity, in the form of concrete and steel and glass remained defiantly. Charlie navigated his way through the ghost town of Manhattan until he came to the Quaternary headquarters. Though the building was charred on the outside and pitted from various munitions, it remained standing.
But it wasn’t the upper floors he wanted.
He led his group through a pile of debris, a maze of corrugated metal doors, and wooden obstructions until a dark hole greeted him. At the end of the tunnel was a metal door with a heavy lock. He took a key from his pocket and opened it.
Bright white light flooded out.
“Go on, inside,” Charlie said, pushing the others inside while he watched behind him to make sure no one else was watching him. Once Ethan had gone through, Charlie followed inside, closing and locking the door behind him.
A basement room greeted him. Lights strung across the ceiling with looping wires illuminated the room. All around the wide-open space were desks, parts littering every surface. Wires and batteries, mechanical parts, anything and everything that could be salvaged.
Ethan and Maria turned around taking it all in, their eyes wide with wonder.
A shadow came from behind a screen, then a bright red and blue sweater around a thickset man with a beard that reached to his chest.
“Charlie, Denver, strange new people! You made it. So great to see you.” The man opened his arms wide as he approached Charlie, embracing him with a bear hug. Releasing him, but gripping his arms, the man smiled.
“Mike,” Charlie said.
“Charlie.”
“How’s the weapon coming along?”
“Huh! All business as usual. That can wait. Come the fuck in and grab some coffee first eh? You’re not a damned savage and you have shiny new people to introduce to me.”
Charlie smiled, enjoying his old colleague’s unflappable personality. But behind the joviality was a keen mind, the very mind that Charlie needed to bring down the croatoans. But before they got to that, he would do as he suggested. A cup of coffee was always welcomed before the destruction of an invading force.
Chapter 24
TEN YEARS of cat and mouse would finally be ended in the next few hours. The thought of it made Gregor smile. He checked the working parts of his gun. There would be no mistake with Charlie Jackson, if he were close to the shelter.
Ben told him that Charlie planned to move to another location. He might still be there. So could his supplies.
Marek loaded six grenades into a small backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Ready to do this?”
“Get three hover-bikes ready,” Gregor said. “I’m going to pay Igor a visit.”
Marek left the office. Ben shuffled after him.
Gregor slid a magazine into his pistol grip, put a round in the chamber and followed. He left the other two heading for the square, turning by the side of his office and striding over to the moldy shed.
The moody morning sky would no doubt soon give the croatoans a treat. A shuttle approached, its noise grew louder.
He looked through the cobwebbed window. Empty.
The shed gently shook as warm air blasted downwards.
Layla’s trailer door rattled open. Her head appeared around it. “What are you—?”
The descending shuttle, arriving for a morning supply collection, quickly drowned her out. It smoothly dropped toward the landing area, obscured by trees. Gregor pointed toward his ear, shrugged and headed off to the square.
Marek and Ben were already waiting on two bikes. Igor stood next to them. He licked the edge of a cigarette paper and rolled it in his fingers.
“Still smoking that shit?” Gregor said.
“Morning, Gregor. How are you?”
Gregor grunted. “Shouldn’t you be helping Alex feed the livestock?”
Igor rubbed his hands together. “Just come to wave goodbye. I hear you’re hunting a wasp.”
Wave goodbye. Like Igor ever did that. His time was coming. Not here though. Too many croatoans around. He was priority number two today.
Gregor swung his leg over the hover-bike and tapped the alien on the shoulder. He turned to Igor. “Have a good day, my friend.”
“You too, my friend.”