Into the Yellow Zone Read online

  Maybe the cat is smarter than I am, thought Luke.

  “See the land on the other side?” asked Dr. Rosario.

  Luke brought his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the strong sun. He squinted into the distance. “Aye, Captain.”

  “It’s not particularly high on that side – that’s the windward side, Luke. The wind changes direction as it comes off the land, so we should be able to lay straight through. Much easier than beating to windward.”

  “Whatever you say, Captain.” Luke understood about half of everything that came out of the old man’s mouth. Still, he smiled. He was having a great time and was thrilled to be on the water. He would never have imagined someday he would be sailing. Never in his wildest dreams! The morning trek had been fast and comfortable and other than almost falling off, he was doing pretty well. Sailing was exhilarating! As a plus, his chest no longer ached, and even his arm felt better.

  Now if he could just spot some sign of Isabella, his day would be perfect.

  * * *

  Isabella

  The sound reached them before the sight. Long, low and rumbling over the water like thunder rolling over the horizon; four high-speed boats converged from opposing directions. They were sleek, fast and agile, turning and changing direction toward them in quick but controlled bursts. Motors spit rooster tails of foamy water as they rushed to surround the small rowboat.

  Malcolm began to pull his bow from its place on the floor of the boat, but Isabella stayed his hand. “Wait. They may be friendly.”

  A warning command issued from a bullhorn aboard the closest speedboat as it reached them, louder than any human voice had a right to be. “Attention aboard the rowboat! By order of the United States Joint Military Forces, stop your vessel now. Drop your weapons. We are coming alongside. Any suspicious movements will be treated as a threat and you will be shot. Put your hands in the air to indicate you have understood these orders.” The sound slammed into the hills on the east side and echoed back, doubling the terrifying sound.

  “Or not,” whispered Isabella, raising her arms, the others in the rowboat following her example.

  One of the motorboats pulled alongside them. It looked like it was made of plastic, but Isabella assumed it could withstand a barrage of bullets. There were gun mounts on both ends. The three other boats moved in closer but kept back far enough that their turbulent wakes would not capsize the small rowboat.

  The bullhorn no longer necessary, the soldier on the tan colored speedboat now merely shouted his command. “Drop your weapons, mutants!” The air mask of the NBC suit distorted his voice, but they had no trouble hearing or understanding him.

  No one moved on the little rowboat.

  The soldier pointed a gloved finger at Malcolm. “You, Strawhead. Hands in the air.”

  Malcolm’s already-raised arms shot stick-straight into the sky.

  “Good. Now slowly come aboard.”

  Malcolm, hands still high, carefully maneuvered from his seat on the rowboat toward the motorboat, balancing his legs as their little boat rocked under him. He grabbed the speedboat’s ladder and climbed up the rungs. When he reached the deck, two soldiers suddenly stepped forward, grabbed Malcolm, and pulled him onto their boat.

  “Ooof,” he grunted.

  One soldier forced him to a standing position, while the other pulled his arms behind his back and clamped them together with a plastic bracelet he had pulled off his utility belt.

  “Hey, don’t hurt him!” shouted Isabella. “We haven’t done anything!”

  “The little lady speaks.” The one in command laughed. “You next, then. Any aggressive actions and your leader gets killed, little girl.” He waved his rifle at Malcolm.

  Shia and Andra both screamed and cried almost in unison, “Don’t hurt Papa!”

  Isabella stared dumbfounded. She knew what guns were. All the books she had read about history related their story: the story of weapons and how man used them for war; how man used them against other men to kill; how man used them against other nations to conquer. She knew this man would use them to kill her husband and her family if she did not obey him.

  She rose to her feet and reluctantly climbed the ladder to the military boat. One by one, Kalla, Andra, Shia, and finally Clay followed her. Clay had to help Shia onto the bottom rung of the ladder because of her one short leg. Soldiers restrained their hands like Malcolm’s, and then forced them down to the deck of the motorboat. Gun-wielding guards made sure they did not move. Their little rowboat was set adrift with all their food stores and personal belongings. Isabella watched it drift away, drawn by the downstream current. Everything she owned was on board.

  Their captor’s boat began to move, slowly at first, then gaining speed as they raced northward, up the Hudson River. It was very stable even in the rough river water. Now Isabella knew why no one ever returned once they ventured past Stony Point.

  With her hands secured behind her back, and nothing to hold on to on the deck of the boat, she struggled to remain sitting upright as the fast-moving boat took them farther up the river. To what end, Isabella did not know.

  Whatever awaited them, she knew it would not be good.

  Her tenacity had finally landed them in a perilous situation she could not get them out of. She kicked herself mentally and swore under her breathe as the boat rocked sideways and she toppled into Malcolm. He held her up with his strong body.

  She had never really thought travelling up the river to unknown tribes would be dangerous. Malcolm had assured her that mutant tribes were peaceful, and based on everyone they had met, she had seen that he was right. They did not fight among themselves, or with other tribes. The mutants they had met had never been any danger to them.

  These soldiers were a different story.

  They rounded a bend and spotted the first building and then a second building on the right side came into view.

  Isabella drew in a sharp breath.

  She recognized those structures.

  “Malcolm…” she started to say, whispering into his ear.

  “SHUT UP!” The nearest guard shouted and shoved the rifle into her face. Isabella shrank back. She shivered involuntarily, but not from the wind.

  Growing up in her family shelter, her grandmother had tutored them all their lives, and her education had been extensive. Isabella was a good student, with an uncanny memory. She knew exactly what those buildings were.

  As the double domes of the old nuclear plant filled the world ahead of them, Isabella knew that she and her family had unwittingly fallen into the hands of the government they were trying to warn the mutant tribes against.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Luke

  The wind picked up to seven knots and the Globe, as they had come to call their appropriated yacht, tacked through the gusts, gaining speed and distance throughout the day.

  Luke kept his eyes, ears, and nose alert for any signs of his sib, but no luck so far. At one point, he thought he smelled a cook fire but he could not be sure. Then the wind changed and it was gone. Perhaps he had imagined it. At least this time he avoided any mishaps as the sails changed direction.

  By the end of the day, they reached a small spit of land that protruded into the river. Large white buildings dotted the peninsula. Decrepit boats moored at its dock had all been swamped by tides and drowned long ago. The docks themselves were rotted and falling into the river.

  “Condos,” said Dr. Rosario. “Funny. When I was a kid, my parents used to say that cheap mass-produced condos would be the death of society.” The old man laughed in his almost lunatic manner.

  “Imagine that,” muttered Luke, staring at the buildings gleaming in the sunset. He had no idea what a condo was.

  The old sailor surveyed the spit of land. “I’m heading to the far side of the peninsula. I don’t trust the docks on this side.”

  Half an hour later, Dr. Rosario maneuvered their sailboat in toward the empty docks on the up-river side of the land. �
��Help me lower the sails, Luke.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Together they dropped the spinnaker, then the auxiliary sail – the jib – behind the mainsail. With only the mainsail remaining, they coasted toward the marina. Just before reaching it, Dr. Rosario dropped the mainsail as well, and while Luke stowed it, he let the Globe glide along the wooden dock.

  “Condos,” noted Luke, finally understanding as he got a good look at the tall buildings. Not quite as sinister as chemical bombs or nukes. “How could condos kill society?”

  “Not literally, boy. Figuratively. Haven’t you studied economics?”

  “No, not really. I know what money was and that you had to have it to get things.”

  “You had to earn it to have it. No matter. I suppose economic theory wouldn’t do you much good in a shelter,” grumbled the old man, throwing a line toward the dock. “Jump out there and secure us, boy.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Luke was having fun with the sailing lingo. He threw the bumpers out and nimbly jumped onto the dock, grabbing the bowline the captain had tossed onto the dock. He secured it to a cleat before grabbing the boat rail to keep the back of the Globe from drifting away from the slip. Two turns of the stern line around another cleat completed the docking and Luke was finally able to look around for any indication that Isabella had been there.

  “What’s that?” asked Dr. Rosario, stepping from the deck of the Globe. He pointed toward the tall apartments buildings. Luke’s gaze swept the vista and he saw what the old man was looking at. A circle of rocks surrounded ashes and partially burned wood.

  “A campfire. Well, the remnants of one anyway,” said Luke, and then took off at a sprint over the overgrown grass area in front of the nearest building. “This can’t be more than a few days old,” he shouted back to the old man, who had not followed him at quite the same speed. Luke circled the fire pit examining the ashes. “I think the wind would have blown away more ash if it was. I don’t know if it was Isabella, but I’m willing to bet it was. I think they were here.”

  “Perhaps you are right, boy, or perhaps not.” The old man arrived at the pit, winded, but showing no other signs of health issues. Between his fifty years of forced confinement, his advanced age and seemingly frail body, not to mention the last day’s exertions aboard ship, Luke was surprised the old man was holding up as well as he was. Still, best not to push him.

  “Doc, why don’t you look around here for their signs and I’ll go take a look around these buildings. If you see anything, anything at all, you shout for me and I’ll be here in a jiff.”

  “Be careful Luke. Anyone could have made that fire – and they could still be here. They may not be friendly.”

  Luke nodded and hurried off.

  The apartments were a marvel. It must be fifteen floors to the top. He entered the nearest building by a door on the side that led to a stairwell. It was dark in the stairwell – there were no windows – and Luke could see from the light coming through the door he had left open that the dust on the floor had remained undisturbed. Luke did not see any other footprints in the dust. Turning around, he saw only his own.

  Luke went into the building’s lobby and saw elevators, but again no footprints in the dust. The elevators had stopped functioning decades ago. If Isabella and her group had stopped here, they had not investigated this building. He looked into the lobbies of the other buildings as well. More dust on the floors; but no footprints.

  Luke returned to daylight and Dr. Rosario.

  “You didn’t find anything, did you?” asked the doctor.

  Luke shook his head. “No one has been in those buildings for quite some time. If her group was here, they’ve gone now.”

  “Well, of course, they are gone, boy. Would you stay in an empty town?” The old man laughed. He seemed to be able to assess any situation much quicker than Luke could. The experience of age, or the intelligence of the old man – Luke was not sure which; he just knew that he could never out-think Dr. Rosario.

  “I guess not. So they stopped, made a fire, and judging by the thin, discarded bones, they grilled some fish.” Luke considered the situation as if acting out a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Those had been interesting books in his grandmother’s library, although he preferred the 1980’s survivalist novels in his grandfather’s collection. “Whatever boat they arrived in is not here now. Clearly, they could not be here. I’m sorry I wasted time looking around for them.”

  “No worries, my boy. It is logical to assume they continued north on the river. As I still need to get to West Point to deliver my discovery, it serves me quite well to take you along for the ride.”

  “Gee, thanks, doc, I thought you’d never ask. You were planning on dumping me if we found them?”

  “Of course. That is your goal, is it not? To find Isabella and deliver your message and medicine to her and her family? As soon as we found her, I assumed you would be leaving me. As long as your goal and mine are compatible, I see no reason not to continue traveling together. After all, you have been helpful on the sailboat. While the Globe was meant to be sailed single-handed, my hands are old, child.”

  Though Luke’s body was still healing from the tiger’s attack, he was stronger and more physically fit than he was sure the 72-year-old scientist had been in decades. Luke returned what passed for a compliment from the old man with a smile.

  “Let’s get back to the Globe, Luke. The safest place to spend the night will be on board, anchored out in the middle of the river,” said the scientist.

  Pumpkin beat them to the sailboat, sprinting ahead of them with a two-tailed squirrel hanging from his maw.

  * * *

  Isabella

  Dark, cold, hard. Ridged. The floor was ridged and rough.

  Isabella rubbed the crusted sleep from her eyes and reluctantly came fully awake.

  Dusty. The cold floor made her entire body ache and she sneezed from the dust. Wherever she was, it was completely and utterly devoid of light.

  The dark room revealed her sleeping companions by their sounds alone but would divulge no other secrets.

  Their prison had a metal floor and metal walls unbroken by windows or even bars. A heavy steel door hung on hinges that squeaked their protest when the soldiers slammed it behind them yesterday.

  It was difficult to follow the progress of time in the dark cell, but they had slept for what seemed long enough to have been a whole night. Isabella’s stomach growled, the long and low pitched sound loud in the quiet cell, but not loud enough to wake the others. Andra’s small head lay in her lap; Isabella’s hand rested gently on Shia’s head, where she slept in her father’s lap. Malcolm was slumped against the wall beside Isabella, his shoulder leaning against hers. Though she could not see them, she knew Clay and Kalla were curled up together. She heard their steady breathing just a few feet away.

  Click, bang. The cell door sprang open and three soldiers marched into the room, their heavy boots clunking on the metal floor. Light shone from the hallway outside the door illuminating the men. The tall one from the boat poked Malcolm in the ribs with his rifle. “Wake up, Strawhead.”

  Malcolm was already awake. Ignoring the light that should have blinded him, he grabbed the weapon with lightning speed and pulled it from the soldier’s grasp. Before he could do anything with it, the other two heavily armed men aimed their guns at Isabella, Shia, and Andra. “Try that again and your girls die.”

  The tall soldier took his rifle back from Malcolm and slammed the butt end of it into Malcolm’s head, the thud echoing off the metal walls. Malcolm fell to the floor in a heap.

  He moaned, and then slumped back against the cold wall.

  Andra and Shia screamed.

  Isabella slid to Malcolm’s side and felt the blood that oozed from a wide gash in his forehead, the deep red color blending into the midnight black of his skin. The little girls clung to their father on either side, both crying.

  “You bastards!” screamed Isabella. She could feel
her neck muscles knot as her anger increased. “Why are you doing this to us?” She jumped to her feet and stormed to the nearest guard.

  “What have we done to deserve this?” She stared him in the face, never losing eye contact, but the soldier did not respond. Not a single word. He just stood there, towering above her. Isabella screamed her unfiltered rage, and then began pounding her fists into his chest, while tears of rage flowed down her cheeks. The soldier pealed her off and tossed her to the ground.

  Her blows had no effect on the large man and he ignored her, letting her hit him until she exhausted herself. She was just a petite little girl and as effective as a mosquito biting an elephant. She sank back to the floor next to Malcolm and their daughters.

  “You’re mutants. You exist. That’s enough,” growled the soldier towering above the group on the floor.

  Two soldiers, including the tall one who had hit Malcolm with his rifle butt, aimed their angry weapons at their captives. A third left the cell and returned in a moment with a tray of food, which he placed in the center of the floor, then turned his back to the room and sauntered out the door. The two remaining guards backed out, keeping their guns aimed squarely on Isabella and the children, and then slammed the door. The lock clicked into place and total darkness enveloped them once again.

  “Oh, Malcolm,” she said, removing her shirt in the dark cell and putting it on his forehead to staunch the flow of blood. “What have I brought us to? What will they do to us?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luke

  Morning sunshine streamed through the porthole and Luke woke with the cat on his chest and the river swaying beneath him. The boat’s cabin smelled musty and moldy, a smell that he had thankfully never had the pleasure of in his shelter. Time to get going, he thought. He pulled on his pants, made a quick visit to the “head,” and finally pushed the cabin door open. It was only two steps up to the deck.

  Dr. Rosario was predictably awake and already above deck preparing to depart. “Morning, Luke. Give me a hand with the anchor. I’m not as young as I once was.”