A Tearful Reunion Read online

  ALONE

  Book 8:

  A Tearful Reunion

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright 2017 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to:

  Allison Chandler

  The greatest granddaughter an old man could ever have.

  I love you Sweetie.

  The Story Thus Far…

  Beth was seven that fateful day when she stepped aboard a Southwest Airlines 737.

  She’d only flown once before, but she’d been a baby.

  So that didn’t count. Her mom said she was still considered a rookie, and the flight attendant gave her a set of plastic wings to prove it.

  Her eyes filled with wonder and she squeezed her mom’s arm so tightly at takeoff she left a bruise.

  She saw her house, off in the distance, through the window of the airliner.

  Actually all she saw was about a zillion tiny houses which all looked alike. But her mommy said their house was down there, and she should know. She was a mommy, after all, and mommies know everything.

  Daddies think they do, but mommies really do.

  Her daddy was down there, somewhere, mixed in with those zillion tiny houses.

  Beth would miss him, and wished he’d been able to go with them to her aunt’s farm in Kansas City. But he hadn’t been able to get off work.

  “Don’t worry, little Peanut,” he’d said as he kissed her on the head at the airport. “It’s only a week. It’ll fly by and we’ll see each other again in no time at all.”

  “Do you promise, Daddy?”

  “Of course I do, Peanut.”

  It was the only promise he’d ever broken to her.

  They landed without incident, fighting their way through a crowded airport on their way to baggage claim when the lights went out.

  As is typical with most modern airports, Kansas City International had more than enough windows overlooking the tarmac, and more than enough skylights. It was dim but not dark, and it slowed the crowd down but didn’t stop it.

  When the lights didn’t come back on after a couple of minutes, Beth’s mom Sarah commented, “This is odd. You’d think their generators would have kicked on by now.”

  But they didn’t. Not then, not ever again.

  They didn’t know it at the time, but the world had been bombarded by electromagnetic pulses from a massive storm on the sun. Virtually everything which ran on electricity or which had electronic components was shorted out.

  The ironic thing was, Sarah Anna and Dave Speer were preppers. They’d planned for such an event.

  But they didn’t plan to be separated by a thousand miles when it happened.

  Sarah’s sister Karen and her husband Tommy made it to the airport. They were able to connect with Sarah and her girls.

  But the brand new Honda SUV Tommy wanted to show off would never run again.

  The group began a grueling twenty four mile walk to Karen’s farm, made just a bit easier by the luggage carts they stole. The girls took turns pushing each other, a mile at a time.

  Sarah wasn’t worried about Dave. He was a former Marine and the toughest man she knew.

  Dave, on the other hand, was in anguish. For he had no way of knowing if the big airliner landed safely or dropped out of the sky.

  He should have set out immediately, but instead he closely followed the script they’d so carefully crafted. He made their suburban home into a mini-fortress. He made it appear vacant to make it less attractive to looters. He put in an irrigation system and security system. He planted crops. He didn’t know when he’d see his family again, or if indeed he ever would. But he’d prepare their home to make it safe and semi-comfortable for the day when they were reunited.

  By the time he decided to go after them, it was too late in the season. He’d have to fight a brutal winter on the road to get to them.

  He’d committed to staying on the home front for too long. Now he’d have to set out in the spring.

  The winter was unforgiving. Far worse than he’d expected. But it gave him a chance to replace some key components on his Ford Explorer. And against all odds he was able to get it running again.

  When the thaw finally came he set out, but he had to use an abundance of caution. He had the wheels everyone else would want. And traveling would be dangerous on highways that were littered with abandoned vehicles.

  Still, things went relatively well until he tried to pilfer a spare battery from a shuttered auto parts store in the tiny town of Blanco, Texas.

  He was caught red-handed and beaten to within an inch of his life. He met a woman named Red who saved him and nursed him back to health.

  They became fast friends but nothing more, and to repay her for her kindness he gave her a ride north. For she had her own journey, her own mission to complete.

  Dave made it to Karen and Tommy’s farm to find it had been overrun by a band of brutal escaped convicts. Their leader, a man named Swain, ruled with an iron fist. He’d ordered Tommy and the other men executed, finding it easier to kill them than to guard them.

  The children were turned into servants, the women into slaves and unwilling mistresses.

  Swain took a particular liking to Sarah.

  When Dave overtook the camp he killed all of Swain’s men but granted Sarah’s request to let her take care of Swain herself. It was the one and only time in her life she killed a man. But she felt vindicated.

  The reunion was short-lived, for Dave was told Beth wasn’t there.

  She’d been sold to an old couple driving a stripped down pickup truck pulled by two horses.

  There was no question Dave would go after her. He had no choice. In a newly harsh world, life had become uncertain, almost cheap by old standards.

  But blood still mattered. Family still mattered. And, at least to Dave, things like honor and trust still mattered as well.

  He’d made a promise to little Beth to see her again. And he’d fulfill that promise, no matter how many missions he had to go on; how many times he had to rescue her.

  He had but one clue: a vague reference to Albuquerque.

  His best tracking tool, as it turned out, was the odd vehicle Beth’s captors were using. Modifying an old pickup truck to turn it into a horse-drawn wagon was a unique idea. No one else had done it, and that made the “rig,” as Sal Ambrosio called it, something people tended to remember.

  Dave stayed on the right track by asking highway nomads whether they’d seen the contraption, and followed it all the way to Albuquerque.

  The once vibrant city had been taken over by street gangs and divided into sectors.

  The decent citizens had been murdered or forced from the city. Most struck out for Santa Fe, to the northeast, or west to Flagstaff.

  Some lived in refugee camps outside the city, hoping to go home someday but having no clue how to make it happen.

  The gangs were brutal and fighting constant wars with one another. Going in was dangerous. Coming back out again was not a guarantee.

  Dave hooked up with a man he’d never have associated with before the blackout. A drug dealer named Tony, who was given safe passage throughout the city because he was neutral and because he had something all the gangs wanted.

  Together they visited every sector which fronted Interstate 40, save one. The turf of Dalton’s Raiders, who had the reputation of being the most vile of all the gangs.

  “I need to go in there alone,” Tony told him.

  “But why? We’re a team. Together we’re stronger.”

  “You don’t understand, Dave. This gang is crazy. They kill for sport. I
t’s always been the only territory that made me nervous. If they see an unfamiliar face, they’re likely to shoot first and never bother with the questions. Trust me on this.”

  Dave gave way and Tony went in alone.

  He never came out again.

  The pair had become friends during their incursions. Dave saw a side of Tony he’d never have expected. Tony was a family man who got into the drug trade when in desperate times, and an opportunity fell at his feet. He was a good man who’d only gotten into the game temporarily to better his lot.

  Then the blackout happened and everything changed.

  Now he, like Dave, was separated from his family and trying to find a way to reconcile. If dealing drugs was a means to that end then so be it.

  He was, as Dave put it, the ultimate in contradictions: a dealer with a heart.

  Dave had been a United States Marine and had survived combat in Iraq. He’d seen friends die. Had even held one in his arms as he drew his last breath.

  He was not about to leave a man behind.

  What he found in the Dalton’s Raiders compound infuriated him. He found Tony, tortured and burned nearly to death. Tony had hung on long enough to give Dave the information he vitally needed. And to give him a warning as well.

  “Beth never made it into Albuquerque,” he said. “They were laughed at and turned away. They were last seen headed west from the city toward Arizona. Don’t avenge me, Dave. You’ll never do it. There are too many of them and they don’t fight like normal men. They’re all crazy, every last one of them. Get out of here and go find your daughter. She needs you more than I do.”

  A more level-headed man might have taken Tony’s advice.

  But Dave had never been accused of using his head for anything other than a hat rack. His friend died getting information for him. He could not let Tony’s death go unpunished.

  He used guerilla tactics he’d learned in the Corps, as well as some he’d developed on his own.

  The following night he infiltrated the Daltons’ camp again, this time taking out the gang’s men one by one.

  His final assault came on the gang’s hideout, and he had help from a totally unexpected source: a rival gang upset that the Daltons had taken out the only dope dealer with the guts to come into the city.

  The Dalton gang was annihilated and Dave made his way back to the highway and out of Albuquerque.

  He made it over the mountains of Flagstaff and through the desert of western Arizona; crossed the Colorado River and found himself in Needles, in southern California.

  He made good progress until he hit Barstow.

  Two cowardly men crept up behind him and hit him hard with the butt of a rifle, then stole his pride and joy: the Ford Explorer that gave him an advantage over the other night travelers.

  He’d been gaining ground on Beth’s kidnappers by covering more miles each night than the horse-drawn pickup truck.

  Now he was afoot, and the gap between them was widening for the first time.

  Dave’s journey was like a roller coaster ride from the beginning. Two steps forward and one step back.

  He broke into the back of a semi-trailer destined for a hardware store, in the hopes he might find water on board.

  He found no water, but he found a bicycle. And at thirty nine years of age it took a monumental effort, but he had the upper hand again. It was wearing him out, but he was doing twenty miles a day.

  Things were looking up again until he was dealt a crushing blow.

  He queried some eastbound travelers and found they’d seen the red pickup. Yes, it was driven by an old man and he was accompanied by an old woman and a precocious little girl.

  “Did they say where they were headed?” Dave asked.

  The answer broke his heart.

  “Atlanta.”

  But Atlanta made no sense. It was on the opposite end of the country.

  Now, still riding through southern California in the desperate hope the travelers were mistaken, Dave was an emotional wreck. Had he made a mistake from the beginning by traveling at night and tracking someone who was traveling by day? Had they gone to California to pick up something or someone, and then headed east toward Atlanta? Had Dave unknowingly passed them by as they camped for the night just off the highway?

  Had Dave squandered the only chance he had of finding his daughter and getting her back?

  And now… the 8th installment ofAlone…

  A Tearful Reunion…

  Chapter 1

  A lonely man riding a bicycle through the high desert of southern California has a lot of time to think.

  Dave wondered about the odd trees, their pained and twisted trunks supporting what appeared to be the tops of the yucca plants he sometimes saw in and around San Antonio.

  These weren’t yuccas on steroids, but rather Joshua trees, native to only the more barren parts of the country. Some were more than a thousand years old, it was said. They defied all odds by thriving in such a dry and desolate place.

  He pondered the rabbits which shot across the highway in front of him occasionally. Wondered how they found enough vegetation to survive such a place.

  Vegetation, heck. How about water? Where’d they get their water?

  He’d seen other creatures as well. A roadrunner that, true to his name, ran down the road ahead of Dave for a time. At one point he stopped and looked directly at Dave from a hundred yards away, as though asking him what was taking him so long.

  He’d swerved a couple of times to take out scorpions crossing the roadway, figuring no one or nothing else would miss the little buggers.

  The only thing he hadn’t seen were rattlesnakes, though he knew they were out there.

  In the evening hours, when the light began to dim and he started to search for a place to sleep he was extra cautious. For he’d heard stories of such snakes climbing onto the abandoned tractor trailer rigs which dotted the landscape and provided refuge for the highway nomads. He’d heard of at least one occasion where they’d gained access to the sleeper cabs that Dave and the others slept in at night.

  He didn’t take the rattlers lightly because in Dave’s mind they were the only real threat. The coyotes and gray foxes typically didn’t bother humans unless they were rabid. As far as he knew there were no bears or wolves in this part of the country. He suspected there were mountain lions out and about, but hoped they stuck to the mountain regions where the sun wasn’t so unrelenting.

  He could wince and grit his teeth and laugh off a scorpion sting. He’d never experienced one personally but heard they weren’t much worse than that of a hornet.

  But a rattlesnake bite… that would likely induce a heart attack unless he was given antivenin and Ringer’s lactate quickly.

  And quickly didn’t happen anymore. Not these days. Not in the new world.

  It wasn’t that the rattler’s deadly bite scared Dave. For Dave was pretty much fearless. His wife told him more than once over the years he was too dumb to be afraid.

  And though she said it in jest, it was largely true. Things and circumstances which scared other men didn’t bother Dave. A case in point was his going into “Crazy Town” to avenge Tony’s death, though he was outgunned and outnumbered.

  Truth be told, Dave wasn’t wary of the rattler’s deadly bite for his own sake. He wasn’t afraid of death.

  But if he died, any chance of Beth being rescued and reunited with her family would die with him.

  He would try his best to avoid the creature not for his own preservation, but for hers.

  And since we’re dealing in truth, it should be said that Dave didn’t give a tinker’s damn about the Joshua trees, the coyotes or the snakes.

  He was mostly concerned with watching his surroundings and pondering things he saw to keep his mind occupied. Because it was imperative, to keep him from going insane, that he not have to worry whether he’d blundered.

  Uncertainty has killed many a successful mission. It was one of the things he’d learned in the
Corps.

  In battle, there are frequently elements of vital information one simply does not know. Enemy strength, perhaps, or their exact location.

  Frequently circumstances require a plan be made anyway.

  Perhaps not the best plan. But the best plan under the circumstances. The best plan possible with the information available.

  Despite having to go to battle with an imperfect plan, Marines must have confidence. They cannot afford to hesitate or to second-guess themselves.

  Second guessing leads to hesitation. Which almost always leads to disaster.

  Dave had been given information he was headed in the wrong direction. That his prey had changed course and was heading back to Atlanta.

  The intel made no sense to him. Why would they head all the way to California, just to turn around and go in the exact opposite direction?

  If true, it meant they’d actually crossed paths at some point. Probably while the people who had Beth had stopped to camp for the night and Dave unknowingly passed them by.

  The easy thing would have been for him to come to a screeching halt and to reverse direction.

  But there were other factors to consider.

  One of them was instinct.

  Dave had a hunch the intel was flawed. As sincere as the travelers were, they had to have made some type of mistake.

  They just had to.

  He also considered the logic factor. Suddenly changing course and going back the other direction simply didn’t pass the logic test.

  His course of action was simple, and once he’d decided upon it he jumped head first into it.

  He was already committed to his present course, at least until he got close to Los Angeles. Other intel from a totally different source told him they hadn’t made it that far.

  He was about four days from L.A. If he made it that far with so signs of the horse-drawn truck he’d turn around.

  If that happened, he’d add several more days to the gap between himself and his daughter, sure.