The Hearts Call-Chapter 4

It was getting late and the temperatures were brutal when Jon finally reached a point he needed to stop. He was pushing himself past his limits, trying to stay on the road as long as he was, and could see the sign telling him he was at the other rim of Umatilla. Jon knew there was a military base there. Military bases were built to withstand attacks. He hoped for some sign of civilized life there.

Interstate 82 was a disaster as Jon roared into the area. The city was spread out for twelve miles along the Columbia River. The exits leading into the area were all blocked. They left one exit, the last exit before crossing the river, open. Jon got off the interstate near the old McNary Wildlife Refuge and headed into town. The town was eerily silent, almost a ghost town.

"They're all gone," he says to himself as he turns east, heading toward to outskirts of Umatilla.

Jon went down the main strip in Umatilla, seeing the deserted business district. Some of the buildings were burned-out husks, while others were boarded up. A quaint little market, literally on a corner of Main and Warf streets, remained unscathed by the disaster. Jon pulled up alongside the front of the store, watching for activity. After sitting there, idling for five minutes, Jon turned off his engine. With the chromed 1911 in hand, the pistol he picked up in Vegas, Jon made his way to the front door, surprised to find the front door left unlocked.

With anxious trepidation, Jon made his way inside. There was a strange odor in the store, almost antiseptic. Looking at the floors there were no signs of the dust and dirt common in these old, burned-out, ghost towns up and down the western half of the country. The shelves were bare like most of the stores he encountered traveling across the divide. The store looked like half of the country on the western side of the Mississippi, decrepit and bare.

Jon walked around toward the front counter of the old mom-and-pop store. He could hear a strange humming sound. Looking behind the counter Jon found electrical lines leading toward the back of the store. He put his free hand against a freezer behind the counter. It was an ice freezer. Someone was keeping something chilled.

He walked carefully toward the back of the store, following the lines to their source. The humming grew louder the closer to the back of the store he got. Jon found himself at the backdoor of the store, staring through a screen door, seeing an old Generac unit burning through fuel. It was powering the freezer and probably the lights to the store. On the opposite side of the generator, there was an old Wrangler sitting there, surprisingly not covered by the dirt of a vehicle sitting for five years. The tracks that followed it to the spot it was parked were fresh enough they were only a few days old. Jon knew someone survived.

Going back to the counter he scavenged supplies, taking things to his ride. As he walked back into the McCall Grocery Store, Jon was caught by surprise. He was knocked to the floor, nearly unconscious, as a knee was driven into his spine. His attacker wrapped duct tape around his wrists, pinning Jon to the floor as he attempted to struggle free.

Jon was turned and sat against the front counter. He looked into the face of his attacker. The man was slight in build, with scraggly brown hair that mostly fell off the sides of his head. His teeth were gangly and dark stained. The mans' gaunt face was haunting, his eyes stained with black rings. He wouldn't be able to take Jon down. Jon kicked his feet against the floor, frustrated that he let his guard down enough the half-human in front of him could get the drop on him.

"Well now, what have we got here? A trespasser, a thief perhaps?".

Jon watched the strange hermit in front of him. He found himself at a loss, the man was so wretched and smelled of death.

"I'm just passing through," says Jon, as he sat there, trapped by the man holding a gun on him. "Maybe you let me go, I'll just be on my way."

The man stood up and walked in a circle, slapping his hand against the side of his head. He talked to himself as he paced the circle in front of Jon.

"No...no, no, no, no! We can't have that, we can't have you just running off and telling anyone we are here," says the man.

Jon wondered about the "we" that his captor referred to and started feeling around, looking for something on his belt. As he found a small tool clipped to his belt, Jon edged it off of the leather strap, revealing a small blade. He started to saw his way through the duct tape, watching the strange little man as he paced around, still incoherently rambling to himself as he attempted to wear a hole in the linoleum floor.

"Um...I'm Jon. What's your name?"

"He's Jon," says the man, "Jon, we don't like Jon, we don't like strangers coming to our town, to our store. Why is Jon here?"

Jon kept cutting, trying to break free from the duct tape. He worried about this crazed-looking lunatics' intentions. Jon struggled to make any headway getting through the tape. His adrenaline rushing through him, coursing through his veins, caused his hands to shake and his fingers to tremble. As he struggled to get his hands free a second person walked in behind them.

"Well well," a woman's voice says.

"I caught him going through the store," the man told her.

When the woman walked around the front of the counter Jon was surprised. This wasn't what he expected. She was clean, kept, and properly dressed. Her clothing indicated she was from the base.

"I'm Colonel Montgomery," she told Jon. "I'm sort of the mayor, sheriff, and," laughing, "Executioner around here."

"I'm Jon, Jon Stevens," he says to her, "Team 6 out of Virginia."

The woman smiled, showing a full set of bright teeth, telling Jon she had supplies and freshwater somewhere. She was far too neat and tidy of a woman for the environment and as she knelt down in front of him her confidence told Jon she was being honest. She wore the confident demeanor of an accomplished woman, one that could take care of herself.

"So, what brings you to Umatilla, soldier?" asks the woman.

Jon was hesitant to answer too many questions and certainly wasn't telling them about his need to reunite Lizzy with her heart-shaped locket. He knew he had to feed her something, something that would distract her from the interrogation. Looking behind at the grizzly man behind the Colonel, Jon wanted him as distracted as was possible. There was only one real play to make, one that would keep them on their toes.

"I'm on mission," he sighed. "Sent by General James."

The lie would tell him if the Umatilla Colonel had any contact with the east. Nathan was a friend and didn't run missions prior to what was the near end of the country. If she was still in the command structure she would know that he was spinning. If not, then she would have to decide what to do and play her hand in front of him. Either way, Jon would know where she stood.

"What's your objective?"

"It's a rescue operation. We've got an asset down after a chopper crash," he told her, spinning the story to fit his actual mission.

"Well, then you can go ahead and show me your hands since I'm sure you're nearly free anyway," she said, standing up.

Jon was surprised. He had just broken through the tape and his hands come apart. The Umatilla Colonel was very observant. Jon peeled the tape off his wrists and slowly raised them in front of him. The uncertainty on his face soliciting the suggestion for him to stand up, Jon climbed slowly to his feet still not sure about the strange little man that attacked him. He looked at the Colonel, unassumingly, as he tucked the tiny knife back onto his belt.

"You can fuel up at the Umatilla Station just a few blocks down. It's the only working pump for thirty miles."

Jon looked over at the freezer, tempted to ask about food supplies. As he started to step toward the freezer both the gaunt little man and the Colonel urged him away. Jon ignored their urgings.

"Colonel," the little man's voice crackled, "Don't let him in there."

"Soldier," she says, "Get your fuel and leave. I don't recommend you look any further."

Jon tensed up, his hand on the cooler door. He put his right hand on the handle of a Glock slid into his inside jacket pocket. Jon pulled the freezer door partway open before hearing the little man behind him rushing toward him. Pulling the Glock from his jacket and aiming it at the man, Jon looked at the Colonel as his target was frozen in fear. He reached back and pulled the door open, swinging it hard against the exterior. He stood there, sickened.

"This is your food storage?"

"We had to find a way to survive," Colonel Montgomery explained. "You don't understand what it was like after the catastrophe of the eruption hit here. Nearly ten thousand dead in just minutes just from the blast wave and the heat. Then came the poor air quality. It was barely breathable for three years as that dammed caldera continued to spew ash and gasses into the air."

"What about him?" Jon says, pointing at the gaunt, zombie-eyed man on the other end of his gun.

"He was my major at the base, worked right underneath me. We got stranded when the caldera went off. We were the last ones here and were wiping the computers when the blast hit two hours earlier than expected," she told Jon. "It took a year before we came out to check the environment. We came up too early."

"Chemical exposure?"

"No, the PTSD from seeing all the bodies drove him over the edge. When we ran out of food he started first..."

Jesus thought Jon. They were eating humans. The Colonel explained how the meat in the freezer was the last of the supplies.

"You'll help us get out of here, get back to civilization?" she asked.

Jon looked out at the wrangler in the back of the store. It was in much better condition than his Explorer. He could move the weapons supply from his vehicle into theirs and use it to make his way toward the crash site to track Lizzy. There was only one concern that Jon had to address.

"No," he answered.

His arm moved before either of the two had a chance to react.

"Bang, Bang, Bang!"

The gun went off repeatedly. The woman fell first and then the gangly man. Jon shot him repeatedly, his disgust from the revelation getting to him, eliciting his violent side. As he stared into the dead eyes of the monstrosity beneath him, he reconciled what he just did with the fact that these two were without their humanity. They had lost that a long time ago.

Jon tucked his gun back in his jacket and went to drive his ride around to the back of the store. He found the alleyway with no issues. Fortunately, with just the two of them in the city, the Colonel left her keys in the Wrangler.

"Well, I guess it could be worse," he said, driving the stolen Jeep.