Well? Jason Persisted, Sounding More Than a Little Impatient

PART I:

THE DAM

1-COLLISION

“Well?” Jason persisted, sounding more than a little impatient.

“Shut up, Jason!” Antonio snapped. He did not take his eyes from the binoculars and continued to stare at the Hoover Dam Visitor Center and the young man who remained there. Just a second before, the young man’s companion and the Dalmatian had retreated into the building.Antonio could tell the pair looked agitated.

“What is it?” David asked in a whisper as he crept up alongside of Antonio and Jason.

“Already occupied,” Jason replied gazing over at the middle aged father of now one.His stomach rumbled angrily.With no food to ingest, he unscrewed the top of his last bottle of water; a lucky remnant from a night not long ago that he wanted desperately to remember and could not, and took a small sip.He cocked an eyebrow in a suggestive way and said, “You know, I could just… pick them up and move them.Or Coral could…”

“No!” David and Antonio half shouted in unison.

Antonio finally pulled the binoculars from his eyes and glared at Jason.In spite of the fact that Antonio’s sister, Michelle, insisted Jason was a good man, Antonio found it unnerving how easily his would-be brother-in-law could slip into cunning, cold, and calculating thought processes.From over his shoulder, Antonio heard the man who was eight years his senior orate what Antonio was thinking.

“My daughter will not be used to commit violence against innocent people,” David stated firmly, looking at Jason.“She has been through enough.”David thought about Gina, his wife and Coral’s mother.Then Luke, his first born child and only son.And finally Nate, the man they had all briefly travelled with until recently.David’s heart hurt at the thought of each of them but for entirely different reasons.

“Okay.Okay.I’m sorry,” Jason said sincerely and held up his hands.

Antonio put the binoculars back up to his eyes. The young man at the Visitor Center moved a bit closer and now stood fifteen hundred and eight feet away.Antonio still couldn’t grasp how his mind was able to measure distances at a glance, but he was pleased that it worked even when he looked through the binoculars.He’d only needed to know what magnification he was using and his brain did the rest automatically.

David looked behind them at the remaining three party members where they squatted in the sunshine.His eyes landed on Shannon Bailey, a young woman he barely knew who was coping with loss and who had very probably saved all of their lives, and many potential other lives as well, if there were that many left to save.Next, his gaze moved to his faithful and trusted German shepherd, Max, who had recovered from the mental injuries he sustained outside of Eager, Arizona only to be dropping weight in the desert heat and sun beneath his heavy coat.The canine had not once complained about his circumstances. And finally, his view shifted to his sixteen year old daughter, Coral Summers.She was all the family he had left in this world that had fractured around them and he was desperate not to lose her.Both young women were dusty, their skin tan in places and red on higher spots like their cheeks, noses, and foreheads. Both pairs of eyes showed experience well beyond their young years.Max’s coat was looking disheveled and there were burrs stuck to him around the paws of all four legs.His tongue lolled lazily while he looked at Coral.David surveyed the men and the other animal with them; Bella, the cat sat by Antonio’s knees with her tail flat on the ground and curled into a J-bend.Her white fur was lightly coated with desert dust and with her calico markings, David thought she looked like a cat wearing desert camouflage.The former mayor of Miami, Antonio Perez, still wore his damaged designer trousers that now showed green underwear beneath that David knew had left Miami with the man along with his sister and her fiancée.The fiancée, Jason Asher, who David looked at again, was also covered in splotches of dust mixed with sweat.He wore a dirty T-shirt that allowed small portions of his newest scars to show and a pair of cargo shorts that stopped just above his knees.His eyes were starting to take on a hollow appearance.His face was dusted in scruff and his hair was getting too long.And as if to echo that, David took stock of himself as he brushed hair away from his own brow.He was nearly two weeks overdue for a haircut and hadn’t had hair this long since he was a teenager in the mid-eighties.He touched his beard-stubbled face and the perfectly healed spot where he had nicked himself back at Clearwater Lake when he discovered he could do something remarkable.As he thought more about his new talent, he wondered what would happen to his healing body if it continued to starve.

“What if we just wait until nightfall then?” Jason suggested.“Wait ‘til they’re asleep, one or two of us sneak in, grab some stuff, and get out.”

Antonio and David chewed on that for a moment but it was Bella who spoke next.

“They have the lights.”She looked up into Antonio’s eyes.

“They do?” Antonio questioned.

“Those three do,” Bella meowed in confirmation.“They’re special ones.They’re like us.”

“Or like Lynch,” Jason said, almost cringing. “Or Nate.”He didn’t know which name made him feel worse.He took comfort in knowing that he’d seen each man’s corpse with his own two eyes.“Maybe Coral could just reach out?Give them a little check.”

“No!” Bella contradicted this time with a sharp meow. Antonio and Jason, understood her meow as if it was English and David understood her through her inflection alone.“If any of them are like Nate, there’s no telling what they might do to her.”She thought about what she and Coral had seen when they’d been inside Antonio’s mind.

“I… I don’t think any of them are like… Nate,” Antonio said, still peering through the binoculars.

“What makes you say that?” Jason asked.

“If they were like Nate, we’d have been caught by now.” A reminder pinged in Antonio’s mind.“Remember how he took hold of you,” he added in an almost programmed recitation.“And, they know we’re here.”

“What?” David said sounding alarmed.“How?”

“I don’t know how,” Antonio answered.“But if I didn’t know better, I’d say that guy is looking me right in the eyes.”

The man at the Hoover Dam Visitor Center wasn’t actually looking the former mayor of the city of Miami directly in the eyes.

But Jack Voight knew he was there nonetheless.And he knew the man was not alone.

After what happened to them when they arrived at the dam from Minnesota, Jack asserted that he would never again let his guard down.He was their primary line of defense.Unless one of the sisters had the good fortune to have their foresight provide them with some advanced warning; and while they were working on their own skills, they hadn’t been able to do that as of yet.Jack’s own enhanced senses of smell and hearing had helped the Minnesota group before and although he didn’t possess enhanced sight, he didn’tneed it to see light glinting off glass in the distance. The newcomers’ scents proceeded them and Blaze asserted he smelled them as well.When Ian Turner confirmed he’d seen the shining glass, perhaps a pair of sunglasses or binoculars, Jack sent his best friend and Blaze to get the others.

Whoever was hiding in the distance reeked of distress, not unlike Karen Thomas and her sister Amanda Breck had those few weeks back when they’d run onto the property Jack, Ian, Brian Stevens, Dr. Simon Shepherd, and River the cat had taken refuge in to avoid the heart of the city after the day of the eclipse that started the end of the world as they knew it.Jack smelled their desperation.

He heard footsteps approach from behind him as well as toe nails lightly clicking against the concrete.Jack did not take his eyes off the spot where he had seen the reflecting light.

“Ian says we may have trouble,” Karen said as she approached and stopped beside Jack.She wore a form fitting T-shirt with a picture of Las Vegas on it and a pair of jeans.Her auburn hair was pulled back into a simple pony tail.Flecks of silver were making themselves visible in the roots around her temples since she’d stopped visiting the local salon along with so many other women across the land.In her left hand at her hip, she held a Walther. The handgunonce belonged to Jack, the young man beside her; the young man she’d come to know as a son, but the weapon was now a possession that belonged to all of them.The gun felt comfortable in Karen’s hand despite having never handled a gun prior to this October. Blaze, the loyal Dalmatian who had bonded with Karen stood beside her.

“We could,” Jack said forebodingly.He shifted slightly in his stance.

“How many of them are there, Jack?” River, the tortoiseshell feline who had mysteriously appeared in Minneapolis and then found Jack and his friends, mewed in question from where she stood beside him. She’d come out with Karen and Blaze.She held her tail straight out behind her and kept it still. Her fifth appendagehadn’t fully recovered yet from her battle with a psychopath and Jack guessed she had two fractured, if not broken, bones and would need to go easy on it.Her new skill granted her an exceptional memory, which continued to remind her of things.

“I’m not sure yet,” Jack answered his feline companion.“Blaze?”

“I can’t tell either, Jack,” Blaze woofed softly.Karen translated for him.“At least three humans… no wait.Four.”He cocked his ears forward and his nostrils quivered.“And a dog!”

They were all quiet for a few seconds.

“Maybe they’re friendly,” Karen posited.

“Maybe they’re hostile,” Jack countered.“Remember that asshole?What he did to Amanda?To Brian?I’m not taking any chances.Are the others getting ready?”

“Yes, Jack,” Karen said quietly.“Jesus, I’m not sure I’m ready for another armed combat.My ribs have barely started healing and still hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Just do the best you can.Those people, they’re dirty.Hungry.Desperate. Unpredictable,” Jack began.“Hopefully with a display of our firepower… maybe a few warning shots… we can scare them on their way.”

“Okay, Jack.Ian and Amanda went up to the roof,” Karen reported.“Simon is working his way over there.”She subtly nodded in the direction of a wall that bordered a sidewalk.

“It’s as good as we’ve practiced in such a short time,” Jack said and sighed.

“And the four of us?” Karen asked.

“Well,” Jack started.“We wait for them to make the first move.”

“She has a light too,” Bella said as she peered over a new rock.The group had cautiously and quietly made their way one hundred and fifty yards closer to the Visitor Center.“So does the cat and that other woman on the roof of the building… the one with the man who was outside at first.”

Antonio peered over the same rock.He didn’t need the binoculars to see that there were now four people and two animals visible outside.They still looked in the direction of where Antonio and his group had first been.

“They look like they’ve taken up a defensive position,” Antonio said.

“The best defense is a good offense,” David whispered.He stifled a laugh when they all gaped at him.“Sorry.Old military adage.I just mean if we can see all of them, there are probably more.”

“Dad, just let me take a peek,” Coral said and looked in the direction of the others.

“Coral!No!Don’t!” David gasped and reached for his daughter.But he was too late.Coral went still and concentration crossed her face.

A few seconds later, she inhaled deeply and moved her hands to her brow.

“Master Coral,” Max softly chuffed and began licking the girl’s fingers.

“Honey?” David said and took a hold of her shoulders. He watched her eyes swim into focus.

“I’m fine, Dad,” Coral said.“They’re prepared to drive us away.Which really sucks cuz they have more than enough for all of us.”

“How many, Coral?” Shannon asked.

“Just one more than the six we see,” she answered.

“I have an idea,” David said.

“What?” Jason asked.

“Coral?” David said and looked at the teenage girl.“Think you can do it?”

Coral read her father’s thoughts.“I’ll do my best, Dad.”

David looked proudly at his daughter.A tear leaked out of his eye and he held her and kissed the top of her head.“Shannon, you’ll go with her?Keep your senses up.A sudden change in their heartbeat could save you milliseconds.”

Shannon nodded.She took hold of Coral’s shoulders as David released her.

“Try not to worry, Dad,” Coral assured.“I really don’t think they’re going to hurt us.”

“Good luck,” Jason said as Shannon, Coral, and Max slipped away from them.When they were out of earshot, he added, “I thought you didn’t want to use your daughter like that, David.”

“Coral said they only mean to drive us away.They don’t want violence. Neither do we,” David replied.“They’re going in there to talk.And it’s better that the two young women of our group make the approach than three slightly armed grown men, don’t you think?”

“Makes sense,” Jason said as if that should have been obvious to him all along.

Antonio nodded then smiled.“And we do have luck on our side after all,” he said.

“How’s that, Antonio?” Bella mewed.

“I’ve got my lucky green underwear on today,” Antonio supplied.

The three men exchanged a look and broke out in a muffled chuckle and Bella’s tail flicked in the air.

When the laughter subsided, they looked back to the Visitor Center.

“Holy shit!Did you feel that, Jack?” Karen said and moved her unarmed hand to her left temple.

Blaze yelped and backed away and Jack looked away from the distance and up toward Ian and Amanda who both showed signs of reaction to what had just happened.

“Yeah, I felt it,” Jack said.

“What the hell was that?” he heard Amanda say from the roof.

Karen looked expectantly at Jack who, like River, had not reacted as severely as the rest of them.

“Some kind of mental energy.Right, River?” Jack said, looking down at the cat.

“Yes, Jack,” River meowed.“But not like we’ve felt before.Not like Brian’s.”

“You’re right.Brian was getting better before he…”Jack gulped.“But he wasn’t to that level yet.”

“Are we in more trouble than we thought, Jack-o-lantern?” Ian called down.

Jack looked up to where Ian was and shrugged.He sighed and pulled his Mossberg off his shoulder.

“Jack?” Karen hesitantly asked and touched his arm.“What?”

“Relax, Karen.”Jack cocked his shot gun and held it ready but not aimed at anything.“Not sure why I did that.I don’t think we could stop them even if we wanted to.”

A few seconds later, Karen saw them.She raised the Walther shakily in her hand struggling against the protest from her ribs and pointed it in the direction of the approaching figures.A girl of sixteen or seventeen neared them flanked by a young woman and a German shepherd.Karen saw the hungered look in all their faces and her heart went out to them.She lowered her gun.They were dirty, disheveled, and darkened by sun.

“Jack,” Karen said this time.“Put the gun down.”

When they were about ten feet away, the trio stopped.

Blaze’s haunches trembled in excitement at the sight of the other dog and his tail began to move ever so slightly.