Families First: A Post-Apocalyptic Next-World Series Volume 6 Battle Grounds by Lance Ewing (ereader for comics .txt) 📕

* * * *

Our side slowly gathered on the main road by the Ranch.

Vlad pulled up in Bert, with a smile he couldn’t shake, at least not yet. A minute talking with me was all it took, and I felt bad that I took his victory lap away from him so abruptly. He told me we would be okay and always remember the group’s sacrifice as we traveled…and today.

* * * *

The Colonel sent word that it was done, and a full week later I would find out from Vlad what held up the Colonel at the start. The aircraft we saw was a small cross-section of what was parked near Masonville. Had the Colonel and his soldiers not taken them out first, the Valley would have been lost.

Ronna was interviewing what was left of Baker’s front-line men and women to determine if any were salvageable for his group.

The women and children would be taken to the nearest FEMA camp in Fort Collins for processing, and no doubt a better life than they had been living recently.

* * * *

Baker himself was an entirely different matter. Nobody had seen him since it started, and he was missing once again. Only Sergio and Mike had an answer.

An hour before the whole thing started, Baker sat quietly inside his new house, at least until tomorrow or maybe the next day. He wanted to give his men enough time to clear his new valley of anything that may be unpleasant, alive or dead.

He sipped tea alone, with his radio sitting next to him and a smile only he could know, pulling off a cross-country migration numbering more than he could count, but surely it was over a thousand by now.

How could a small-time country preacher only two months ago lead an Army of regular folks across the country, all while working closely with at least part of the Military and in direct contact with Beijing? 

He smiled, knowing nobody else but him could have pulled this off. Soon he would be in his forever home, carefully planning his next steps. As an orphan, a forever home was all he ever wanted, just like the rest of them in his 33-bunk orphanage. He would never see that, getting out at age 18 and bouncing around from one church to another as a usually part-time pastor. But now, at age 69, he was days…or maybe even hours…from his dream—however it came to pass.

“I told you, don’t bother me!” he said, hearing a knock at the front door. Ten seconds passed and he heard it again, softer but distinct nonetheless.

“Whatever it is, take care of it!” he yelled across the room. Ten more seconds and the knock came again, once more infuriating the man most called “Colonel Baker.”

“Incompetent sons of...” he spat, standing and glaring at the door.

He heard the unmistakable click of the back door closing…and started to panic. He knew all the doors were locked; he had checked them several times.

“Hey there, not-so-much a Colonel,” said Mike in a casual, almost friendly tone.

“How did you get in here?” Baker asked, looking around frantically for someone or something to defend himself with.

“The back door, wouldn’t you know it. The darn thing just popped right open,” he said, holding up a crowbar.

“Where’s that other traitor you hang out with?” asked Baker, sounding a bit cocky to Mike.

“I don’t know anyone like that—except, of course, for you, sir, betraying your country when she needed us all the most.”

“I mean Sergio, you idiot!” Baker spat.

Mike, of course, was unfazed. He had been called much worse by men he did respect.

“Ah, Sergio,” replied Mike. “Good fella, don’t you think? One heck of a chap, if you ask me,” he continued in his best British accent. “I know the women like him. Not the ones you keep like slaves, of course, but the others—the ones with minds of their own and a free will, women like that. I’ve saved more than a few of those from you and your cowardly men already.”

“What are you talking about?” Baker retorted.

“Back on Raton Pass, I saved a girl named Katie, who watched your men torture innocent women and children. I even saved a little girl named Darly, but her mom called her Darling. You remember her, don’t you?”

Baker was silent but seething.

“She’s the one…sweet little Darly,” Mike continued, “that your men put out on the front line right before we kicked your asses.”

“That was you?” he asked gruffly.

“Yep, you’re looking at him. Now back to Sergio for just a minute, if I may. He’s a little embarrassed about the brand you put on him.”

“I didn’t do it!” responded Baker defiantly.

“Of course not…your guys did. You would never consider getting your own hands dirty, would you? Mine looks like crap too, don’t you think?” asked Mike, pulling back part of his shirt to display the crude marking.

“Hurts like hell, the first hour or so, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? Don’t have one, do you? Have a seat until it’s ready,” said Mike, getting deadly serious and walking toward him until he nearly fell backward into an easy chair.

“You want me to sit here until this fight for the Valley is over? Is that it?”

“No. Sit until it’s ready,” Mike restated.

Sergio burst through the front door with a red-hot poker and the letters TPKP glowing bright orange under the flame of a medium-sized log.

“No! No! Now wait just a minute!” cried Baker. “Getting that thing was your choice; you didn’t have to do it!”

Mike was ready to hold him down and expose his shoulder for the event.

Baker, a coward, sank deeper into the chair, refusing to offer his shoulder at Sergio’s