Chapter 12

It was the next evening when we decided to start doing our first scouting trip. While driving the darkness normally wouldn’t help us for movement - headlights definitely needed now with street lights out afterall - we did have an advantage with our night vision gear. Knowing that with this trip that extra eyes and extra weapons could make a big difference we decided this would be a 3 person trip. Gonzo, Lindsey, and I would make up the team leaving Brandi back for support. Each of us had a sat phone but also a walkie talkie for each of the three of us. That way we could communicate if we got separated.

We each loaded up with body armor, rifle, pistol and accompanying ammo for each. Gonzo and I each brought a sniper rifle along just in case we ended up wanting to reach out and touch someone from a greater distance. My initial thought was it was a good idea, but I didn’t think we would be able to identify potential friend vs foe in the dark through infrared. I also thought of the old adage: better to have and not need than need and not have.

Starting out, we used my pickup, it had the armor mounted after all. Driving by IR while trying to actively look for heat signatures we decided to start out moving along the I-14 corridor through Killeen. It made for a quick way to get around should we need to punch the speed while also giving a higher vantage point than just regular street level. I had to curse this area of Texas for being too flat: there were no landmarks and line of sight wasn’t very far with all the small rolling hills.

We had Gonzo driving while Lindsey and I took different sides of the freeway to observe. The speed was kept at a slow roughly 40 miles an hour to make spotting easier. It was a depressing thought for me. A Friday night at 10 pm and the roads were empty, no one was about. While Kileen didn’t have the best nightlife, there would still be people out and enjoying themselves. Just one of a myriad of changes with the end of the world.

We slowed to a stop when I alerted Gonzo to heat signatures along the roof of the hotel off W.S. Young, one of the busier streets running perpendicular to the freeway. Rolling my window down I looked out and could see two figures at different corners of the roof. Zooming in showed bulky figures pacing back and forth. It wasn’t the disciplined moves of a sentry marching a post, I could almost see the grumbling attitude of “Why am I the one stuck out here doing this shit? My bed is downstairs and comfy.” A full sweep of the roof showed two more at the far corners of the building, one of whom was sitting down.

“I’ve got eyes on four sentries, rifles of some kind for each. Sticking mostly to their corners. Thankfully for us not the most disciplined by the look. But if they’ve got four up, figure three or four shifts if they want twenty-four hour coverage.” I thought about it for a minute, going over the logistics of guarding a building like that. “They’ve probably got one entrance accessible, another guard at the main door. I figure at least thirty people if they can afford this many for a rooftop overwatch. No women amongst the guards so far. So does that mean they don’t have any, or don’t use them as guards?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Lindsey before she spoke. “That guy in the front left. Hard to tell for sure, but his movements look familiar. Tall and lanky, limps on his left leg.”

“Definitely going to flag these guys as potential or probably baddies. I’d consider a shot from here if we could be sure, we’re just over a quarter mile away is all and they’ve got numbers on us. We’ll have to plan for neutralizing that if we go on the offensive. Maybe see how we can draw them out. But if we want to be sure, we could drop something with a radio and a frequency locked in somewhere they’d be likely to find it. I don’t see them with any night vision gear, just the rifles.” I consider it a moment, cycling between watching each person on the roof. “On a good note for us they’re not the most disciplined of people. So hopefully that means not military, or at least not serious.”

Gonzo spoke up now. “You never know, we both know discipline can get bad quick. ‘Specially on something you view as a shit detail. But I like the idea of a radio drop. Then we talk over that and see what we get from them. So far we have a possible recognition and a bad vibe in general. Not a good start, but not a death warrant either.”

I nodded my head in agreement, eyes still focused on the roof. “Could probably sneak in and out, drop a note on say the back door window if one of us is quick and sneaky. They’re probably running on generator power, so not all of the exterior lights are working. Between that and the guard attitude, I think we can make it work. We’ve got paper and pen in here with the notebook. Write a message with the frequencies, sneak in close to a side door. Then to make sure the note gets their attention, wrap it around a rock and throw it through the glass. They can’t miss it that way.”

Lindsey actually let out a giggle before answering. “Plus we can hope it’ll panic them. Not to mention making a mess. We can head off the freeway and circle back. That frontage road on the side of the hotel gives us a quick exit route.”

I looked between the two before nodding my head in agreement with the plan. “Let’s hold off on that for a little while. Do some more scouting first. We can drop our message to them around four am or so. Hit that wee hours of the morning when they’ll be either asleep or the guards who are on will be so groggy they won’t be able to come after us effectively.”

We kept going from there, still sticking to the freeway for our initial drive. We decided we would go from the last Ft Hood exit to as far away as the far side of Harker Heights. In theory it would give us a decent starting point for figuring out where people may be. We could then double back coming along another of the main roads that ran parallel to the freeway and look for the same things. We would have to be more cautious there as we wouldn’t have the elevation difference of the freeway coupled with how it was a natural barrier.

Coming back through that way we made quicker time stopping as we saw things of interest. Small apartment sections that had a heat source indicating some type of heater or generator running as well as a couple houses along the way that had heat radiating. Mostly for these we looked for any type of guard and made note where there was or wasn’t.

Coming back towards the initial hotel we saw things had changed and it looked like our idea of returning was paying off. This time knowing our target already, we stopped further away to check the guards on the roof. “I’ve got 3 asleep in chairs looks like. Only one visible moving. He’s even the one facing away from us right now. Let’s head down along the frontage road but take it slow, Gonzo. Keep the engine noise low that way.”

“Geeze, Jensen you’re back to overexplaining like I’m fresh out of boot, gimme some credit here.” Lindsey chuckled at the interplay between the two of us as Gonzo started moving into position.

“Just get us close off the frontage and I’ll bail out.” Suiting words to action once we were within a quarter mile we killed the interior lights so they wouldn’t come on with the door opening and I quickly bailed out. Keeping an eye on the path in front of me I trusted Gonzo and Lindsey to let me know if any sentry woke up or switched and approached this side of the building. Luck paid off though and no one did. Finding a rock the size of a baseball I wrapped the paper around it with a section of paracord. Crouched behind a parked vehicle I rose up from my position and hurled the rock as hard as I could at the door. From about a dozen feet away I watched it punch through the glass and roll into the hallway before bolting for the truck.

As we had originally planned for this part we pulled out quickly now. Quickly getting on the next underpass below the freeway and heading away from the hotel. Knowing the point was to establish radio contact, we didn’t go further, instead pulling off into a side street that was out of the way.

The hotel

Craig had been nodding off for a while now. He had the midnight to 8 am shift. The darkness and lack of exterior lights made it hard to see anything, so he was just expected to stay at the desk as if it were a still operating hotel. The other ground floor doors were closed and locked, so there was no issue from them - or so he thought.

He grumbled to himself, left hand wiping at his eyes as he struggled to stay awake. “Fucking end of the world and we don’t even have Netflix anymore. At least I kept some music on my phone.” Indeed, that was about all his phone was good for anymore. Currently it was playing some Def Leppard. There was something odd though. He knew the song well enough to know it didn’t end in a crash of broken glass. That meant that part of it was something local to him. Scrambling to shut the music off, he drew his pistol and moved out from behind the desk, left hand seeking out his radio and keying the mic. “Lobby to roof, I’ve got a glass break at the end of the hallway, you assholes see anything?”