Them-2 Chapter 43

Chapter Forty Three – Near Greenbriar State Forest, West Virginia

The group around Theopolis was nervous. They had made it to the rendezvous point marked on the map only to wait for hours for nothing. No one showed up and no radio messages were received even though they monitored the frequency listed on the note for hours. Either the individual had changed his mind about making contact, or some other factor was involved.
Jackie had set three observation posts out for three and five miles at Route 60/32 coming straight down from White Sulfur Springs, on Route 50 through Tuckahoe, and South on Harts Run Road. There had been no movement noted at any of the sites. A night reconnaissance towards White Sulfur Springs was all the proof they needed that the loonies had grown to incredible numbers, literally thousands of people were spotted in and around the small town.
“Roving patrol reported earlier that hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles were heading West from White Sulfur Springs,” Dennis stated. He was monitoring the master set linked to the radios used at each site. “Think the loonies are moving out?”
“That would be nice.” Gunny took a sip of the scalding black coffee fresh off the fire. “After we kicked their butts maybe they decided to leave us alone.”
“Doubt that,” Floyd replied. “There was some real nuts mixed up in that group that hit us.”
Dennis suddenly raised his hand for silence. “Observation Post down south reports a large concentration of vehicles heading up Route 60/32.”
Theopolis glanced at the puzzled faces around him. There was no need for the loonies to have circled that far south. With their overwhelming numbers they could have hit the commune straight on, either from the north or the east or from both directions at the same time.
“Tell Tater and Marty to set tight and get a good look at them,” Gunny ordered. “Could be a different group allied with the loonies or someone else entirely.”
For fifteen or twenty minutes they sat pensively waiting for the report from the south. It was so quiet around the fire they could hear the coffee hissing in the pot on the coals and a low squeaking fart that Floyd tried to hide. Angel wrapped her arm around Theopolis’ slim waist and leaned against his shoulder. She could feel the steady rhythmic beating of his heart and smell the wood smoke in his hair.
A loud shout came over the radio speaker. “They’re our guys!”
“What do you mean, our guys?” Dennis barked into the radio.
“The United States military. They stopped in the road not twenty feet below us. Guy in charge said they came across Jones Mountain Road and angled up this way. They want us to show them to your location.”
“You sure about this?” Dennis sounded skeptical. “Thought all the military was killed by the ants or still hiding out in their safe bunkers and such.”
“Let me talk to their commander.” Gunny reached for the mike. “This is Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Marvin Gilbert, he stated. “Who am I talking with?”
“Uh. This is Tater, Gunny.”
“Dammit Tater, put their leader on the radio!”
“This is Commander Huck La Roche, with a detachment of mixed military personnel from the Pikeville, Kentucky area. We were sent here by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hyram McKensey to assist you.”
Gunny smiled and identified himself. “You that Navy Commander La Roche who commands a Navy SEAL Team?”
“At one time,” Huck replied. “FBI Agent now. Long story.”
“Come straight north on the road you’re on and we’ll meet you,” Gunny continued. “Tell those two civilian pukes to head back with you. Don’t reckon there’s any loonies south of us if you came up that way.”
“Hot Dam!” Gunny yelled as he handed the radio to Dennis. “The good old US Cavalry to the rescue!”
Half an hour later over a dozen old M113 Personnel Carriers and several new Bradleys started pouring into the campsite. Theopolis and the group walked over to the lead vehicle, which they assumed was the one with the leader in it. An imposing man dressed in Battle Dress Uniform walked down the ramp and headed in their direction. He was well over six feet tall, easily topped two hundred pounds, with short sandy hair and stark blue eyes. He was followed by a giant of a man nearly seven feet tall and built accordingly, and an attractive red headed woman.
Huck looked around the campsite. Hundreds of people were watching as he descended the ramp of the Bradley. A tall, well-built man accompanied by a honey blond woman and a gaggle of people approached him. The man carried himself with confidence but Huck instinctively knew it wasn’t Gunnery Sergeant Gilbert. The man did not radiate a military style persona.
“Huck La Roche.” He stuck out his hand.
“Asklepios Theophylapos, call me Theopolis. Never thought I’d be jumping with joy to see the friggin military. Don’t like guns, man.”
“To be honest, neither do I,” Huck grinned. “Unfortunately, they do have a way of coming in handy at times.”
“Gunny says the government sent you guys here to help us against the loonies? We got hit the other day and had a close call, man. Without Gunny Gilbert, it would have been much worse.” Theopolis introduced Gunny and several people surrounding him.
Huck hesitated at the slang but quickly caught its meaning. “Unfortunately there’s less than five hundred of us. It is my understanding that the loonies, as you call them, may have nearly ten thousand.”
“Bad news, man. We knew there were lots of those creeps, but ten thousand. Woah! That’s a lot, man.”
“Their leader, a con-artist by the name of Albert Byron Decker, who calls himself Abraham Moses or Father Moses, recently made a deal with us to move into a bunker complex near Pikeville. He mentioned five hundred people, so we don’t know exactly how many he may divert to attack you, or if he still intends to do so.”
“He’ll hit us again,” Gunny Gilbert spoke up. “Just as Theopolis mentioned, we made him look bad in the eyes of his followers, so he’ll hit us just to save face. Plus, he’s got one nasty scum-bag of a man working as his lieutenant and I’m certain he want’s to get even.”
“Burt!” Huck smiled. “We got a message from Burt. Real nice peace loving, church going self proclaimed executive officer.”
“Why’d you give up such a safe place to those scum bags?” Angel asked.
“Long story, but the gist of it is, three of our people were abducted by one of his cohorts and that was the deal to get them back. One of them is the President’s teenage daughter the other two are nine and ten year old children. One of the children is Kayle’s daughter.” Huck nodded towards Kayle. “That Burt character said that the children have since escaped and we are extremely concerned about their welfare.”
“Concerned hell! Scared to death,” Kayle added.
“Haven’t seen them, man. That’s bad news. Still got some of those ugly ants creeping around once in a while.”
“We’ve found a way to get rid of the ants,” Huck stated. “Doctor Schmitt and Doctor Gallagher are working on it now.”
Everyone perked up at this bit of good news for a change.
“If you don’t mind I would like to send out several armored personnel carriers to monitor the activity of Moses’ people and at the same time send small patrols to look for the missing children. This is the second day of their escape and they must be starving and possibly in danger.”
“Go right ahead, man,” Theopolis stated. “We have a few people from around this area who know these mountains. We’ll send them with your search parties.”
Huck went back to the Bradley to confer with First Sergeant Brett then hurried back to the small group heading toward the main campfire. Brett would initiate tactical security conditions until their plans were decided on.
An hour later, after walking the perimeter of the campsite and checking the capabilities and weapons of the commune, Huck was not surprised. “You’re in a very good location; high ground, sloping fields of fire, and you’ve established good observation posts. The only thing I don’t like is the forest being so close to the campsite, but there’s not much we can do about that now. I’ll position my armored vehicles about a mile out of camp in a three-sixty defense on three sides. That eastern approach going up the mountain will have to depend on over lapping automatic weapons fire. I assume that most of your people have had no military or infantry training, especially in an armored support role?”
“Just Gunny and a few others who filtered in after the ants took over,” Theopolis replied. “We’re basically peace lovers, what everyone called, hippies back in the sixties, man. Moved out here to get away from the government and crime and guns and such. All we want is to be left in peace. Don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“It’s fantastic how you managed to fight off the ants,” Kayle stated. “I mean, crossbows, Molitov cocktails, bolas, utterly awesome.”
Gunny grinned. “Came in pretty handy against the loonies too, along with the pungi stakes and booby traps that old Jackie spread around the camp. They also tried fire bombs against us but our sharpshooters lit them up, literally. Jackie’s a veritable wizard with those old Vietnam War traps.”
Huck shrugged and placed his hand on Gunny’s shoulder. “Would you be willing to work with First Sergeant Brett on camp and tactical security? I know it’s my job but until we know Moses’ intentions, or the loonies as you call them, there’s not much I can do. I desperately need to get those search parties out looking for the children and I want to be with them.”
“No problem, Commander. Be proud to work under you. I’m still on active duty after all. Got lots of back pay coming to me.” They both laughed at the irony, knowing full well that pay no longer existed as a commodity.
Huck spread a map of the area across a picnic table in the center of camp. “By determining the maximum distance of travel over the past two days from their escape point, we can hopefully narrow down the search area for the children. Problem is, we don’t know which direction they took when they escaped.”
“You don’t think maybe the loonies recaptured the kids?” Angel asked Kayle.
“If Burt or Moses has them we would know about it. Neither one is the type to miss an opportunity to gloat. No, they’re out there somewhere and we’ve got to find them.”
“These hills can be pretty rugged in places.” Floyd pointed a dirty finger at a few spots on the map. “Kids would have to stay close to the road in certain areas. As scared as they may be are, they probably stuck to the woods. If I was a kid and knew some bad dudes were looking for me, I’d stay just far enough from the road without being seen but close enough to see the road was still there so I wouldn’t get lost.”
“As an expert in this terrain, how far do you think the children could have traveled in the past thirty hours or so?” Huck asked.
Floyd and Dennis and Jackie and several others mumbled as they pointed to different areas on the map. Finally, Floyd came up with an answer. “Reckon if they left White Sulfur Springs and headed south, the farthest they could have reached is down around Kates Mountain. If they stayed on the roads, maybe a little bit further. Kids have a tendency to take a lot of rest breaks and they get easily distracted by one thing or another.”
Kayle looked at the men. “Which direction do you think they headed?”
“Depends a lot on what information they may have picked up while they were captive,” Theopolis surmised. “If they somehow got knowledge of us being down here, odds are they would head this way seeking friendly people. Otherwise, it’s a complete toss up. However, with the high rate of traffic heading west I would think they’d keep away from that direction.”
“We’ve only got two humvees’ with us,” Huck stated. “We need to move fast so we’ll send one to search north of us around Kates Mountain and the other to the east. We’ll carry two search parties to each vehicle and hope for the best.”
“How are we going to let the children know we’re in the area?” Jackie asked. “We could drive right past them and them not see us or vice versa.”
“We’ll have to stop and fire a round every couple hundred meters,” Huck stated. “Fire and wait, fire and wait.”
“Won’t that let the loonies know we’re in the area and give them the opportunity to ambush us?”
Huck looked exasperated. “To hell with the loonies. If they try to stop us, we’ll light them up. We’ll just have to take our chances. If they’re looking for a fight let them come. Any more questions?”
“Them thar humvees ant proof?” Floyd grinned.