John O'Brien: Takedown

“How do you want to handle this? Two teams or one?” Greg asks as we adjust our vests and check our equipment.

“I’d like to take both teams but I’m not sure about leaving the others here without some of us here. For one, we don’t really know them and two, will they be able to take care of themselves,” I reply.

“Are you worried about them taking your precious airplane?” Greg asks, facetiously.

“No. But we have a certain responsibility toward them and well, you never know.”

Carl, the leader of the survivor group we found in the town of Belt, apparently overheard our conversation. “You know, we’d be happy to keep a watch on things here,” he says. “We’ve managed to stay alive this long and we promise not to press any buttons.”

I feel a little embarrassed at being overhead making disparaging remarks which brings a chuckle from Greg. He then shrugs saying it’s up to me.

“Thanks, Carl, I appreciate that. It’s not a great feeling being out with only a few,” I say.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he replies, thinking back to when his small group was cornered by a band of marauders.

We open a map of the area and begin to plot our route to Sturgis. The interstate goes through the north end of Rapid City and I mention that I’m not all that fond of heading through a city. None of us are really fans of proceeding through previously populated areas having had run-ins, in one fashion or another, within almost every one we’ve gone through. The soldier whose family we have come to find stands behind me, Greg, Robert, and Bri as we kneel around the map.

“Sir,” he says after a moment, “there are back roads that lead directly into Sturgis without passing through any towns.”

I ask him to show us the roads. He points to a few that twist and turn through the barren countryside, eventually leading into the town from the northeast. We mark the route, fold the map, finish readying our gear, and climb inside of the Stryker with the mare’s tails above slowly gaining headway across the sky.

The night is filled with uneasiness and tension that can be physically felt. People flinch with each building creak. Every noise causes all eyes to dart to the entrances expecting a renewal of the night runner assault. The stench of the night runners dead on the floor below mingles with the lingering smell of gunpowder. Everyone waits with bated breath for the sun’s arrival. The evening passes with little or no rest.

With each minute seeming like an hour, the glow of dawn finally bleaches the eastern sky. A collective sigh passes through the survivors huddled within the sanctuary — although the term sanctuary feels like a misnomer at this point. The shrieks that inundated the interior just a few hours ago seem like a hellish nightmare and the fact that they are still alive seems rather surreal. Snapshots of the evening’s events flash through every mind as they relive the horror of the night.

With the first rays of dawn streaming upon the scared group of survivors, Drescoll begins the cleanup operations. He directs the teams to clear the bodies, load them into transports, and take them to a nearby field where they are burned. He wants to get the command group together to organize their efforts for the day but feels a pressing need to be out with the first light to search for Lynn. Every minute they wait is another minute the trail will get cold. It’s been a few hours already and he wants to be searching for his friend. He notifies Bannerman and Frank that he’s taking Green Team out and leaves the tasks to them for the time being.

Gathering his team together, they pile into a couple of Humvees and head to the main gate. That was the last place he saw her on the video feeds so he will start from there. From the gate, it’s not hard to find the path of the night runners. The thousands of them that left the compound trampled the grass leaving a clear trail. Drescoll jumps out of his vehicle and walks the wide swath with the Humvees creeping alongside. He scrutinizes the churned up ground for any clue. Filled with dread, he half-expects to find Lynn’s body left behind in the wake of the night runner exodus.

The path leads towards the rubble of the demolished buildings. Dirt clods from the thousands of passing feet litter the roadway for a distance before fading out. The sides of the road show signs of passage and he follows the trail with only the sound of the idling Humvees, drifting along behind him, keeping him company. He feels a little relieved that he hasn’t found any sign of Lynn, but this also adds to his apprehension. That means she could be anywhere. He’ll have teams search the area with more thoroughness if it ends up that he can’t find any sign of her.

It’s slow walking the entire distance, but he doesn’t want to miss anything — a dropped piece of clothing, her watch, anything. At least he knows that, with the daylight, the large pack he is following won’t get any farther away. His concern is that he will lose the trail once he reaches the rubble and city streets. He calls back to base to have Roger, the pilot they picked up from Sam’s group, get aloft and see if he can pick up any sign.

The trail fades quickly as Drescoll crosses over the bridge passing over the interstate. He has now stepped into the concrete and asphalt jungle of the city. Mounds of rubble and debris litter where buildings once stood. He is still able to discern the path the night runners took by several blood trails — large splotches here and there mixed with a splattering of droplets. These are fairly numerous in places, but elsewhere, they appear far apart from each other. He comes across a few bodies of night runners who finally succumbed to their wounds, their cloudy eyes staring at the light of day that they feared so much. The light streaming down has already made its mark on their exposed skin in the form of redness looking much like a severe sunburn. There are times when he loses the trail and has to move about in a search pattern to find the next sign.

At the edge of the rubble-strewn streets, he loses the trail completely. Filled with fear, he crisscrosses the many streets searching — looking for anything that would indicate the passage of the pack. Going back to the last sign, he starts in an ever-widening circle looking for something he missed. Nothing. Climbing into one of the Humvees, he directs his team to patrol the streets in a search for something…anything.

After a fruitless search, Roger calls informing Drescoll that he is overhead. The shadow of the single engine aircraft flashes across the hood of the Humvee. Driving back to the last know sign of the night runner trail, Drescoll has Roger begin an aerial search for any sign. Minutes pass. The radio call Drescoll was dreading arrives, telling him that Roger can’t see anything that would indicate where the night runners went.

Drescoll splits his team and has Roger expand his search. Directing the other Humvee to head east, he goes south. He’ll search the entire town if he has to. There must be something that would indicate the passage of a pack of the size that attacked the sanctuary. The streets begin to look the same as he crosses back and forth, going ever farther from where the trail petered out. Although there are signs everywhere of night runner activity — dead animals lying on the sidewalks and in streets, their flesh stripped clean — there is nothing that clearly points to the specific path that the pack took. The fact that he hasn’t found a trace of Lynn fills him with anxiety yet gives him hope at the same time. As long as her body isn’t found, hope that she’s still alive remains. With the sun fading into late afternoon, Drescoll takes a last look down a tree-lined neighborhood street and, feeling low, calls off the search.