Yay! I posted a chapter!
I’ve had a number of things going on in my personal life lately and haven’t been able to write as much as I’d like. Sorry about that.
Special thanks go out to darcknyt. I finally went through all of the typos and corrections he’s suggested over the past seven chapters or so. You’re awesome, Dane.
(After all the work I went through to make the plugin, I might as well use it…)
For those of you who haven’t read any of the Journey Of St. Laurent before: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1: Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.
Chapter 39: The Fallen
The camp had gone from Swiss army to Swiss cheese all in one fell swoop. The thick black smoke of burning plastic and other synthetics tapered off. The fires burned hot and fast, but there wasn’t a lot of flammables in the tents, so they burned themselves out pretty quick. Noticeably still raging were a a couple of cars and an RV.
I noticed a pink diaper bag tossed aside the main aisle where we walked. The thought of an infant suffering in the attack made me sick to my stomach.
Two men threw their supplies in the the back of a pickup truck. An SUV nearly ran us over on its way to the gate. A woman with a bleeding arm knelt and wept over a body. A small group scrambled with their gear over the fence at the edge of the field and into the trees beyond.
Yes, a UFO had been taken down, but as the dust settled it was clear that the general spirit of the camp had been broken. To add insult to injury, the leader of this ragtag bunch was seriously injured, and if Rhett’s demeanor was any indication, he was hurt pretty bad.
As we neared the command tent I saw an awful lot of blood around the entrance and on the zippered door.
Rhett pulled open the tent flap, revealing Alan Jex sprawled out face down in a mess of blood.
Crap.
I jumped around him, squatted down, and put a couple of fingers on his neck. No pulse. No breathing. No movement. Nothing.
London looked in from the entrance. “Corbin, is he…”
I nodded and took a look for the injury that had taken Jex’s life.
It was easy enough to pick out where he had been hit- the inside of his right thigh. The wound itself was obscured by Jex’s pants, but the blood had pooled with that spot in the center. One of the searing alien projectiles must have shattered his femoral artery.
I stood and faced Rhett. “I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do.”
“I know.” Rhett cracked his knuckles. I didn’t think big guys like him got nervous. “I, uh, knew he was going to… I just needed to be sure you… What I really want to know is this. Can we save any of that?”
He extended an arm and pointed at Jex’s hand.
I stepped around and crouched back down.
Jex’s hand was in a tiny pool of… something. It looked vaguely familiar. It was reddish brown and a bit darker than fresh blood, although there was definitely some blood, too. I lifted his hand by the forearm. The motion revealed some shards of glass, as well as the cap and bottom pieces of a glass vial.
I didn’t have to pull out the vial in my cargo pocket to know they had once looked exactly the same.
The virus.
I checked for a pulse on his neck again. Nothing. It probably sounds a little callused, but I was a little relieved. I was pretty sure that the virus couldn’t take over a person who was all ready dead. At least I hoped it couldn’t.
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then pivoted so I could look back at Rhett. I didn’t want to go blabbing about the vial in my pocket if he was just going to try to take it like Jex. “And what would you do with it if I could save some of it?”
“Same thing Jex was going to do.” He glanced outside the tent then nodded in the direction the UFO had come from. “Take the fight to them. The alien base used to be a mine. Jex found an old map of the shafts in the town’s historical records.”
London nudged past Rhett. “So he really was going to use it.”
“Probably. And definitely from the moment he saw the UFO.”
London shifted her eyes from left to right and back again. Her nostrils flared. Something was obviously bugging her. “That long ago, huh? So you stole it just in case?”
I didn’t give Rhett time to respond to the accusation. No time to fight about it. “How old is the map?”
“He wasn’t really sure.”
“Do you think it will still be helpful?”
“Probably not inside, but it does show two other entrances.” He shook his head. “But it’s all kind of pointless unless we can get at some of that virus.”
“Just let me be sure I understand that correctly. If you get some of the virus, are you willing to attempt to infect the alien base?”
The muscles in Rhett’s face hardened up and a grim determination set in his eyes. “If it’s the last thing I do.”
“Well, I don’t think I can get enough from that puddle.”
Rhett lowered his head and cursed.
“However…” I looked at London and shrugged.
She pursed her thin lips, thought a moment, then nodded.
She doesn’t look happy. “However, we still have a vial.”
Rhett’s head snapped back up. “Do you have it with you?”
London jammed a finger on his chest. I’m not sure he even felt it. “Sure do, no thanks to you guys.”
“Then we’ve got to go now, before anything else happens.”
London put her hands on her hips. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why should we trust you now?”
Rhett looked genuinely hurt. “Look, I didn’t take your… Because we don’t have a choice anymore. We have to act now and trust each other if we even want half a chance.”
“Yeah, but why do Corbin and I need you?”
“I have supplies.”
“What, supplies you stole from someone else?”
We so don’t have time for this. I stepped back around Jex’s body. “Do you know if either of the entrances are still useable?”
London shot me an icy look for derailing the guilt train I’m sure she was about to unleash at the big man.
Rhett straightened himself. “We’re sure of one of them. The team we sent to check out the other one this morning wasn’t back before all hell broke loose.”
For some reason, my brain immediately assumed they had been caught by the aliens. My imagination took that thought and instantly created a host of grisly things that could have happened to them.
Rhett stole a nervous glance at London. “We should go now, before they come again, or anyone here recognizes I’m gone.”
The spunky redhead narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “Fine.”
“Okay.” Rhett half turned. “We’ve got a couple of bug out bags in Jex’s trailer.”
“Wait.” I raised my hand and closed my eyes. “We can’t leave him like this.”
Rhett shook his head. “Look, I know it doesn’t seem right to abandon-”
“That’s not what I mean. The area around him in the tent is contaminated. If anyone else finds him then we could have an outbreak.” I stared at the tent. “We have to burn it.”
Rhett clenched his strong jaw and gave a tiny nod.
London’s face went pale for a moment, then she nodded, too.
We kicked out a couple of the poles to make sure everything that needed torching got burned. Rhett dumped something flammable over the mess and flicked a lighter. No one around even seemed to notice.
The fire quickly spread over the big canvas tent.
Not much of a funeral. I felt a tinge of sadness swirled with a hint of regret as the smoke stretched up into the air. He was an ass, but he deserved better than that.
We turned and followed Rhett toward a covered trailer. It was only a couple of spaces down and it had somehow avoided being damaged by the UFO.
The big man opened the back of the trailer and rummaged around a bit.
My thoughts wandered to what I, no, what we were about to attempt. It was ridiculous, really, to think that we were going to be successful. Every tiny success so far had come at an extreme price. The aliens had weaknesses to be sure, but we were just three people. Three people who were going into a mine entrance that probably wasn’t safe and may or may not even lead to the underground base. And who knows what we were going to find if we did get into the base? Most likely hovering robot laser death guards and a world of pain. And yet, what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t take my journey just to give up on the alien’s doorstep.
I have to try, even if it kills me.
At some point in my musings, Rhett asked me a question or two. I have no idea what they were or what my responses were.
It took a few minutes before I really started to notice what was going on around me again. By that time I had a pack on my back and a 1911 style colt 45 in a paddle holster on my hip.
London had no pack but carried a short-barreled shotgun with an extended magazine and a sling that held an extra twenty or thirty shells. It was kind of hot.
Rhett looked like he had just parachuted from a special-forces helicopter into enemy territory. He wore a sleek black backpack and had night vision goggles pushed up his forehead. He also had enough tactical gear strapped to his belt to make Batman jealous. To top it off, over his chest he wore a vest chock full of extra clips for the wicked AR-15 that he slung over his shoulder.
He made a motion for us to follow him again.
The camp around us was continuing to break down and get out of town. Nobody thought twice about our tiny squad heading for the fence.
About the time we hit the trees, a couple of Army Hummers rounded the hill. One of them had a bullhorn or something and was alternating a siren with commands. I couldn’t readily understand what was being said, and it didn’t matter anyhow. Within a couple of minutes, we had lost sight of camp.
We walked through sparse trees and around another of the foothills for about twenty minutes before we heard the echoing of gunfire.
Keep Reading! Chapter 40 is here!
