The Survivors Ch. 05

She let out a hiss as the medic began stitching her wound.

“Becky tried to stop them from killing the kids, and one of the men laughed and stabbed her, then jerked up on the knife, ripping her open,” she continued when she could breath again.

“Just relax,” I told her. “They are either dead or captured.”

Melissa grabbed my sleeve and pulled me closer. “They knew your name and mine,” she said urgently. “I heard them talking before Vicki showed up.”

“I know,” I told her. “The one down by the check-point knew my name and said that his orders were to bring me in.”

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We take the war to them,” I said.

The medic gave her a shot then and she was soon out cold.

I supervised the evacuation of the wounded and the dead, and then I went back to the cabin.

We had some prisoners, and I wanted information.

I won’t go into details about the questioning of the prisoners, it is enough that they talked.

After we had wrung all useful intelligence from them, I turned them over to the women whose children had been butchered in the cave.

What was left of them afterwards we hung by the road as a warning to others with similar ideas.

Melissa healed slowly. And I was by her side as much as possible.

I used the time to train a couple of others how to fly the DC3. Then we went looking for a bigger aircraft.

At an Air Force base in Idaho we found a C-130 and promptly appropriated it.

There was a flat stretch of highway not too far from home where I could safely land the big aircraft, and we made arrangements to evacuate Carltown.

Vicki and I made several scouting trips in the DC3 looking for a place to relocate. Our needs were simple enough in theory. The place had to be defensible and would have to be someplace where we could become self-sufficient.

Easier said than done however.

On one of the trips, we found another DC3 at a small rural airport.

Vicki flew our DC3 home while I brought the new one in.

Vicki and Jack took over the recon flights soon enough so that I could spend more time with Melissa and my sons.

The concept of being a father was still new to me, and I wasn’t at all sure that I had what it took.

But the boys seemed to be happy with me and Cindy was a terrific older sister to them.

Melissa and I grew even closer over the next few weeks as I could now devote more time to her and our children.

Then came the good news, Vicki and Jack had found and scouted a place for us to relocate to.

Melissa went with me to see the place for ourselves, and indeed it seemed to fill all of our needs adequately. The place was out in Western Nebraska, about 50 miles from the nearest town.

Plenty of farmland and empty houses to renovate and move into.

We came back full of optimism.

With three aircraft to haul people and belongings, the move went smoothly.

I made three trips with the C130 before fuel became an issue, but that was enough to haul all of our heavy gear and even some of the vehicles.

I took a while for us to get everyone settled and clear out the few Changelings that were out in such a rural area. But we didn’t lose anyone and we still had part of the summer and all of the fall to gather supplies for the winter.

On a flight back to check out the situation at Billings, we saw smoke coming from the site of Carltown.

We overflew the area twice, but there was no mistake.

Someone had come along and burned us out.

I made a decision that night as I lay with Melissa in my arms.

Whoever wanted me that badly was going to get me.

But it was going to be on my terms, not theirs.

And they were about to find out what it meant to piss off a Ghost.