“Do we have ammo?” Meechum asked, always practical, liberating a couple of knives.
“Yeah, I was going back to grab it.”
It took all of them to collect the heavy boxes of ammunition. Each shipping carton said there were five hundred rounds inside, and though each box was only about the size of a toaster, they weighed twenty pounds, making them unwieldy to carry more than a couple. Meech grabbed two under her good arm, so he was compelled to match her. Emily and Kyla each took one.
“Do we need more than this?” Kyla asked when they had the first load in the truck.
“You can never have too much ammo,” Meechum replied, already headed back inside.
He shrugged and followed her. “We have the room in the back of the truck. We might as well take it all.” While he was inside, he snagged the man’s cleaning supplies, a couple of large rifle cases, earplugs and safety glasses, as well as a box filled with leather and nylon pistol holsters. The man truly had it all.
“Now we’ve got everything,” he said in a satisfied voice, closing the rear door of the truck. “Let’s get out of here.”
The four of them piled into the stolen SUV. He started it up, scanning his instruments. A GPS had been mounted on the dashboard, but it flashed an error code about no signal. His intention was to spend the day navigating old school. The sun would be their guide.
A buzzing sound came in on the wind, catching the attention of all three of them.
“Is that—” Emily began, holding her breath.
“A drone,” Kyla said with disappointment.
“We’re going west,” he exclaimed, hitting the accelerator. “I’m sure the drone is coming from Minot. They must be widening their search.” He could barely contain his anxiety at being spotted.
The women looked to the sky as if expecting a missile to come down on them, but he kept his eyes forward. Their only chance to avoid detection was to get out of the machine’s field of view before it could acquire them. He didn’t go easy on the gas pedal.
They had tree cover for a few hundred yards getting away from the houses, but the landscape soon opened up to treeless, grassy plains. Grain silos and farmhouses dotted the horizon; those would be the only places to hide. As it was, he sped over a small rise putting a bit of a barrier between them and the town of Westby. It wouldn’t save them from the eyes of the drone, if it was looking to the west of the town, but it would prevent them from being spotted by anyone on the ground back there. He assumed search parties were everywhere.
“How did they find us?” Emily asked, still craning her neck to the rear.
“Maybe they’re following a pattern,” Kyla suggested. “If they’re automated, like everything else, it would make sense for them to be on pre-planned routes.”
That settled his mind enough for him to suck in a calming breath. His heartbeat was dangerously fast, and he’d begun to think who would use which of the new rifles for a last stand if they’d been spotted.
Minutes later, with the truck’s speedometer up around one-ten, he figured they might be in the clear. “Nothing’s up there?”
The women scanned everywhere, searching for eyes in the sky. “I don’t see any, Unk. I think we made it.” Kyla sat in the back seat directly behind him. He saw her smile in his rearview mirror.
Emily exhaled with relief.
Only Meechum seemed unconvinced they’d gotten away. She had her window open and hung out like a puppy dog, always watching behind them.
Ted gripped the wheel, wishing he had the black Camaro he and Emily abused while getting into New York City. Without a speed limit, or police anywhere along the route, he was certain he could cross the state of Montana in record time.
A low roar reverberated in his lungs. He and Emily shared a confused look.
“Damn!” Meechum exclaimed. “Look back there.”
Emily bumped her head on the window trying to see behind them. “My God. They blew up the whole town…”
Ted slowed a tiny bit, so it was safe for him to look over his shoulder. Ten miles back, on the smooth plains of Montana, a black plume of smoke rose as if a nuke had wiped out the city of Westby. Given the small size of the town, a nuke wasn’t even necessary. It was more likely a heavy gravity bomb dropped from some enemy bomber in the stratosphere.
The three women alternately cussed or spoke in awe of the rising cloud, but he could only speed up and keep them on the road. He wanted to believe Kyla’s theory about automated search patterns and luck, but he thought things through with an eye toward the new style of warfare surrounding them. If the enemy was smart, and he always assumed they were, maybe they tapped into the computer systems of the water company this morning. Since the entire nation was gone, any unusual water consumption would stand out on their computer screens. Their showers might have tipped off the enemy as to where they’d spent the night.
He’d need to be a lot more cautious going forward. They would jump in a lake to get clean, if necessary.
“Belt in everyone. We’re not dropping below a hundred until this thing is out of gas…”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
“Tabitha, I’m sorry I couldn’t get you before lunchtime. As you can imagine, I’m very busy with the invasion of the old America.”
“I bet,” she snarked.
David took her from the cell but stopped at the door of the crazy man. “Hey, I have a special delivery coming for you. A present that’s going to blow your
