On the fifth day they were in the Bellevue neighborhood. They had not found much, small stuff, but nothing major, with one exception. They found an unopened case of toilet paper in a storage area above the women’s restroom at a convenience store on Greenup Street. The men only spoke out loud when they were inside their truck.
“If they’re still coming this way, this’ll be the day they should show up,” True said. “Depending on how fast or slow they’re travelling.”
“Yeah, ten to twelve miles a day. I doubt they could walk any faster and I haven’t seen any wild horses they could ride,” Melvin said.
“Do they have horses in China?” True asked.
“Yes, they do,” Melvin replied. “I suppose they could’ve found some horses to ride.”
“Doubtful though.”
“Yeah, doubtful. Let’s unhook the fuel trailer and ride the route,” Melvin suggested.
They put the fuel trailer in between two dumpsters behind a restaurant, but situated where they could hook it up quickly, if needed. As an afterthought, Melvin topped off the tank to the truck before they left. The discovery of the toilet paper had them in high spirits, but after two hours, they were growing frustrated.
“This is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Melvin grumbled.
“Like searching for a black man at a Klan rally,” True countered.
Melvin chuckled. “Like searching for a black man in a coal mine.”
True chuckled now. “Good one. You think we really going to spot ‘em?”
“Hell, I don’t know. They’re somewhere around here. The question is, where? At least we got some halfway decent scavenging in.”
“We still going to wait two more days?” True asked, although he already knew the answer. They had already decided to stay a full week and if there was no contact, they’d head back. Although they’d killed a couple of rabbits to supplement their rations, they did not have enough food to sustain them longer.
“Yeah, we might rethink that one. I think – wait a minute,” Melvin said.
He stopped the truck and killed the engine. Squinting out the window, he stuck a finger out in front of him. “Tell me what I’m seeing. Is that smoke or what?”
True stared out. “Smoke,” he said after a moment.
Melvin turned off a side street, turned it around so it was pointed in the direction that it needed to be in case they needed to make a hasty escape and parked it. Without having to talk it out, the men loaded up their rucksacks, checked their weapons, and began tactically walking toward the smoke. After walking two miles, they’d pinpointed the source of the smoke to a hotel that was located near I-70 at exit 66.
There were a dozen people milling around four trash cans that had fire in them. As they watched, two men smashed up a coffee table and added the broken wood to the cans, adding to the fire and the smoke.
“I think we found them,” Melvin whispered.
Their facial features indicated they were Asian. They were all wearing similar uniforms with a mottled gray pattern and they were all armed with Chinese assault rifles commonly known as type Ninety-Fives.
After watching them for five minutes, Melvin and True moved backward in a crouching duck walk until they had maneuvered behind a building. They walked into a recess that was dark and sat. True rubbed his knees while Melvin stared out. He pointed ambiguously and whispered.
“There’s a convenience store across the road and down a little bit. It’s a good distance away but it has a good line of sight to the hotel. If we get in there, we can watch them from a safe distance, maybe get an idea of what they’re doing.”
They agreed and waited until dusk before moving to the back of the convenience store. Thankfully, the back door was already standing open. They silently entered with their knives drawn, cleared it of the possibility of any zeds hiding inside.
With the exception of some barren counters that used to hold merchandise, the place was empty. There was little vandalism, the tempered glass of the front windows was shattered, and the years of neglect caused the place to accumulate grime and maybe a few rodents had lived there at one time, but otherwise there was nothing.
Melvin gave True a nod and they surreptitiously set up their observation post. They’d put down some old blankets on the floor behind a counter, deep in the shadows, several feet away from the window opening. True got the binoculars and scanned them over.
“They’re rough looking, and they ain’t too disciplined,” he said.
“Yeah, and they’re gaunt. They haven’t been eating too well. Kind of makes you wonder what the hell they’re doing here,” Melvin whispered back. “Think of how far they’ve travelled just to get here and how much further they’re supposed to go to reach their objective. What the hell is their mission?”
True had no answers for his friend. So, he remained silent. They watched the soldiers well into the night. Several of them had little pots they held over the fires with pieces of pipe and cooked their rice. They did not observe any other kind of food product, which probably explained why they looked so gaunt. Melvin knew better than to underestimate them though. He had once read a book that was all about Dien Bien Phu. It memorialized how an underfed, bedraggled force of Viet Minh revolutionaries had decimated a French unit of hardened soldiers. Soon, there were only four of them standing guard.
“I’m a little puzzled as to why they’re outside. If they were inside, they’d be better protected.”
“Sorry leadership or they’re being punished,” Melvin surmised. “Most of them are inside.”
“Yeah, maybe. They don’t sense nothing’s wrong. They ain’t paranoid like us,” True remarked.
“Poor leadership maybe, but we shouldn’t underestimate them,” Melvin
