Excerpt from Troughton Company Chapter Four

            “Birmingham’s gone, sir.” Major Crumbley never sugar-coated anything. Glynn admired that in her, but she’d never make colonel if she didn’t learn to soften her blows.

            “Last intel we had said mechmons and city-eaters pretty much ignored Alabama.”

            “It wasn’t mechmons. Birmingham burnt to the ground, three weeks back.”

            “Survivors?”

            “Scattered across the countryside, foraging as best they can.”

            “Atlanta is still rife with cholera, right?” Glynn was counting on taking 20 from Augusta through Atlanta and on to Birmingham. The civies could travel the three hundred miles safely without having to deal with the mountains.

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Crap almighty!” With Birmingham burnt to the ground, he’d lost shelter for the winter. Two thousand civilians plus six hundred soldiers, starving, freezing come winter. Glynn poured over his maps for alternatives. “If we take 78 north to Athens and follow 129 northwest into Gainesville and then 53 west to 75, we could take 75 north through Dalton and into Chattanooga. That’s what? Two hundred sixty miles? Divided by twenty miles a day marching, plus two days’ rest for every three marched.”

            The major rolled her shoulders, “There’s a Wal-Mart about ten miles out.  I sent Yarborough and his team to take anything not tied down.”

            “Have him give the requisitions officer – Dilts -  a copy of the script,” Colonel popped his neck and pulled out his maps. “Original –“

            “I know the fruiting routine. Original gets posted on the door.”

            “Excuse me?” Glynn sat back and stared at Crumbley. “Insolence will not be tolerated in the 74^th, Major.”

            “My apologies, sir.” She saluted and left.

            “Colonel,” his valet Private Matthews set a tray of stew in front of him. “The major had a brother and his family who lived in Birmingham.”

            Glynn glanced up in remorse. He nodded and pushed the stew away. “I hear Rodrigues’ team just picked up five orphans. Take the stew to them.”

            “Begging your pardon, sir, but the orphans are fine. Eat the damn stew.” Matthews picked up a load of laundry and headed out of the tent. Glynn had the maps open, the stew forgotten.

            “Eat it before it gets cold, ‘cause God knows what it will taste like then.”

            Glynn shook his head but picked up the bowl. No spoons, he sipped the greasy broth and used his fingers to pick up what few chunks of vegetables and meat there were.  He tried not to think about the taste – something between dishwater and barbeque, with some chunks soft and squishy while others were so hard they like to break his teeth. But he ate it.

            What he needed were self-sufficient groups, instead of these dependent, helpless whiny civies. What he needed were people like the Troughtons. “Shit, I forgot about Mickey.” Glynn shouted to his corporal outside the tent. “Johnson! Find a way to get word to Sgt. Michelson. Tell him to forget the rendezvous at Brimingham. Tell him,” he perused the map. “Tell him we’ll meet up at Nashville and head toward St. Louis for the winter.  And tell him we need the Troughtons. No holds barred.”

            “I’ll send Yolanski and Edwards in the morning.”

            ‘No. Tonight. Mickey’s got one more week with the Troughtons and rumor has it they’re traveling toward Montana. So,” Glynn used a pencil and ruler on the map. “Tell Yolanski to head south along 75 with due haste.”

            “Yes, sir.

            That night, as his stomach churned on the greasy sorry-excuse-for–stew, his mind raced along map lines and boundaries: mechmon territory, chewed up landscapes, bombed and burning cities, and open terrain. Highways invited mechmons, but there was no way to transport that many people through woods and mountain passes without losing too many to death and injury. Highways were easier to travel, strenuous paths demanded more calories to burn which meant more food and supplies like boots, socks and medicines.

            Glynn rolled over on the thin cot and grunted. He couldn’t sleep; hadn’t slept, had to sleep. He had to move his people as far away from the east coast as possible before it was too late. He sat up and bowed his head. “God, don’t let them nuke the world. OK? Just – help us find a way without that. Amen.”

            He lay back down and didn’t sleep.

 

            “Hell, Mickey, if I’d known you’d go domestic on us, I would have brought you an apron.” Yolanski’s words were tempered by a huge grin. The three members of the 74^th hugged each other.

            Edwards clung to him and whispered, “I have some laundry you could wash.”

            Mickey stepped back quickly, jostling the tub of hot water.

            “We need to speak to Troughton, ASAP, Sergeant.” Yolanski gently put his arm on Edward’s elbow.

            She looked at him and shrugged, “Nothing ventured.”

            “I’ve been telling you for months, Edwards, Yolanski would be happy to wash behind your ears.”

”Who says he hasn’t been?”

            Yolanski blinked and his mouth popped open.

            “See that man over there?” Mickey pointed. “He’s Preacher. Don’t play poker with him, cause you can’t bluff worth a shit.”

”Welcome to Troughtonville, Mr. Yolanski, Miss Edwards.” Jerry walked to the three, flanked as always by Chrissy and Hunter.

            “Sir,” Yolanski saluted. “We need to talk. Is there someplace private?
            “No.”

            Yolanski blinked again.

            “Smartboard, ring the bell for an all-call.” To the Seventy-fourthers, he explained, “Anyone not on duty will come to the fire. We’ll hear what you have to say together.”

            Andrews brought up two bowls of gumbo and handed them to the soldiers. Edwards took hers with a gruff grunt; Yolanski smiled gratefully at Andrews. Their fingers brushed under the bowl and both men blushed.  

The Troughtons assembled quickly.

            “The floor is yours, Mr. Yolanski,” Chrissy held out her hand.

            “Colonel Glynn sends his regards and asks that you rendezvous with the 74^th at Nashville.”

            “I thought the 74^th was going to winter at Birmingham. You can’t get to Birmingham from Nashville, can you?” Sally asked.

            “Birmingham burned to the ground about a month ago,” Edwards stated.

Excerpt from

Troughton Company

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.

Excerpt from Troughton Company Chapter Three

            “I don’t understand why the women-folk don’t want Belly and the rest of us to know.” Jerry stretched out in his tent, speaking to his wife. She was seated on the ground beside him.

            “What is this women-folk crap? Ever since WWII, we have been people first, equals! Now suddenly, once we have come back to building fires and sleeping under the stars – living off the land – we’re women-folk. Like we’re separate species.”

            “What you just told me is exactly why we men are going to treat you women differently than just one of the guys. You are vulnerable in a way men will never be.”

            Chrissy tried to respond with a logical argument.  Jerry let her think her way to a calmer plateau.

            “Is anyone else pregnant?”

            “There are only the three of us that are actively sexual – that I know of. It’s not like we babysit the bachelorettes. Peggy, Jeanie and I are married. Peggy’s got a stash of condemns, though.”

            “Yeah, I’m amazed that’s lasted that long.” Jerry mused. “Preacher mentioned he and Smartboard are considering going bear-hunting.”

            “And then there’s Angel and Jailbird.”

            “He’s a man of honor; they’re still celibate.”

            “She’s got to be at least seventeen and this winter’s going to be a cold one.”

            Jerry grimaced. “Well, that was less than romantic.”

            “There’s nothing romantic about bear-hunting in the piney woods, love.” She smirked and then lay down beside him. “But those wild roses you picked for me last time were very sweet.”

            “Are you ever sorry that I can’t get you pregnant?”

            She nuzzled against him. “Right now, I’m grateful that we can’t get pregnant. I can’t imagine going through a pregnancy out here. The closest thing to an OB-GYN is Peggy who took an on line midwifery course.”

            “Do you suppose the 74^th has doctors?”

            “That’s not enough of a reason to join them.”

            “Hum,” he slipped his hand under her shirt.  “If we’re real quiet, do you suppose we could go bear-hunting right now?”

            She grinned and kissed him.

            “Jerry!” Preacher yelled from outside of the tent. “We found a bee hive. Pizzaboy thinks he‘s got an idea. Come on!”

 

 

            “We’ll start you with the jeans. That’s why we announced at breakfast today’s jeans day. Anyone with dirty jeans will start piling them there.”

            “Beside the pile of white or whitish clothes?” Mickey asked Sally.

            “Yeah, well, we’re a little behind in the laundry. I’ll take care of the whites, you do the jeans.”

            “So, announce the flavor of the day, wait for the clothes to pile up. I think I’m getting a hang of this living off the land mojo.”

            “Put twelve jeans at a time in that tub there. Shake them first, to make sure there’s no bugs. Check the pockets – carefully.”

            “Bugs?”

            “Or worse. Especially Timmy Hicks. Smallest jeans. That child finds every squishy critter interesting and collects them – in his pockets.”

            Mickey made a face but assured her (and himself), “I can do this.”

            “Use one cup of laundry detergent and fill the tub with water from the stream.”

            “Don’t I have to boil it or something?”

            “Not yet.”

            “Oh, two words that offer such promise.”

            Sally pointed.

            “What?”

            “Get the stick.”

            He did so, and held it vertically between them.

            She placed her hand caressingly at the top of the stick, placed her other hand on the shaft and then used it to demonstrate her words. “You know how, in an engine, when the pistons go up and down, up and down, and up and down, faster and faster until the engine just screams with heat?”

            “Yeah? Oh yeah. Up and down.”

            “Once the tub is full, you and the stick – to the clothes in the tub. Like a hot engine.”

            “Screaming hot.”

            “Can you guess what happens next?”

            He leaned in toward her, “Not yet.”

            “You let them soak while you fill that second tub with boiling water.”

            “Steaming. Hot. In a tub.”

            “Use a cup of laundry soap.”

            “I like bubbles.”

            “Take the clothes out of the first tub and put them in the shopping cart to drain. Then dump the tub that way.”

            “Toward the little ditch in the dirt?”

            “It leads away from the river towards the latrines.”

            “So you don’t foul the river.”

            “We have a chance at a new start here. Jerry says we need to treat the earth like grown-ups, not like the generations before us.”

            “The president has an environmental policy.”

            “Yes, Sergeant Mickelson, he does.” She crossed her arms.

            He licked his lips, recognizing how much ground he’d just lost. “So I dump the dirty water while the first load drains. Then put them in the hot water bucket, piston them for a while and what?”

            “Fill up the first tub again for the next load. While it’s soaking, use the shopping cart to drain the hot load. Dump that tub. Put the water on to boil again and while you’re filling the second tub, dump three buckets of cold water over the load in the shopping cart, let them drip a bit and then hang them on the line. Use the cart to drain the cold tub, put them in the hot tub. Dump, fill, repeat.”

            “The line’s going to get full, looking at that load of jeans.”

            “Jeans take two days to dry in this humidity. When the clothes are dry, fold them on that table. We each mark our clothes, so everyone will come and get them before dinner tomorrow.”

            “What you need is two shopping carts.”

            “What we need is new underwear.”

            “Oh, baby, I love the thought of you in a new, fresh out of the lingerie store, thong.”

            “Oh, now that was just a cheesy line.”

            “Hey, cut me some slack here, I’ve been out of practice this past year.”

            She handed him a bucket and took one herself. “So, how many wives and girlfriends did you leave behind?”

            “None that belonged to me.”

Excerpt from

Troughton Company

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.

excerpt from Troughton Company Chapter Two

            “In 197 BCE, a Macedonian Phalanx was being opposed by a Roman Legion. They had twenty-foot spikes which served to kill when held parallel to the ground, and could deflect air-born projectiles when held at forty-five degrees.  However, the soldiers wielding them could not change directions unless the spikes were held straight up. So Flaminius changed the rules of battle, and attached the Macedonians from the rear.”

            The Troughtons looked down over the overpass of the intersection of 25 (Gordon Highway) and 56 (Doug Barnyard Parkway) onto the colonel and the 74^th Cavalry below. The colonel stood head and shoulders above the rest of his soldiers but wasn’t on any type of platform. His broad shoulders and tight ass were made prominent by his khaki uniform. Muscular thighs and arms – the kind that came from hard work, not just nights at the gym – put him at about two-hundred twenty pounds.

            “Where are their horses?” Pizzaboy asked.

            Jailbird pointed, “Bikes. Two Harleys, an Indian, a Kawasaki, and a couple of custom jobs by the look of them.”

            “Mechmon fodder,” Smartboard growled.

            The colonel tilted his head and listened to a messenger, who spoke excitedly and pointed onto the overpass where the Troughtons had gathered. The colonel shook his head. “We regroup, get behind this CE, find its weakest patch.”

            Jerry kissed his wife and hugged Hunter.  “Let’s go sting them where it hurts.”

Chrissy cupped her hands over her mouth and bellowed, “Hey, History Channel, watch this!”

            They began running and chanting, “Troughton Company is here. Mechmons best be a’feared!”

The colonel held up his hand and his troops watched in trepidation as ten civilians ran toward the city-eater. They climbed onto the front left corner unmolested.

            The pairs worked with speed and agility, calling out to each other encouragements and accomplishments.

            “One-Left, done!” Jailbird shouted. He and Angel ran to the back corner.

            “Two-Left, done!” Jerry grabbed Chrissy and dashed to the backside.

            It continued with precise timing. A line became a chevron, then a Y and finally a massive X began to appear on top of the CE.

            “Twelve-Right, done!” was shouted at the same time as “Six-Right, done.”

            The four pairs were scrambling down the east side of the CE just as Jailbird shouted, “One-Right, done!”

            They ran, out-pacing the slow creature and jumped back on top of the overpass just as the CE chugged.  It shivered and the Troughtons cheered. It began flailing its nozzles about and the individual mechmons gleaning its path returned to its side. The 74^th rose in a frenzy of cheers.

            The CE stopped. It didn’t die, but it couldn’t move.

            “Private,” the colonel called the messenger over. “Go to Troughton Company and give them my compliments. Ask them to parley.”

            Colonel Peter Glynn watched as the Troughtons kissed and hugged each other. Two of them – a fat, pot-bellied man in his fifties and a chubby man in his thirties mooned the disabled CE. Some members of the 74^th did the same. He observed the private deliver his message to the bearded man holding onto the red-haired woman and blond teen. Jerry Troughton – Glynn presumed – a legend in these parts – noted for guerilla attacks on mechmons – successful ones – shook his head and raised his hand. His company stilled and listened to him. He pointed northwest, toward the middle CE.

            A plump woman in her forties and three children pulled the tarp off a shopping cart they had brought with them. Glynn watched as the Troughtons grabbed five stakes and a satchel and a funnel.

            The private arrived out of breath. “Troughton Company sends their regards, Colonel. They respectfully decline your invitation but counter with an offer of their own.”

            “What offer?”

            “They request ten of us to join them in the next assault.”

            Another messenger – a corporal interrupted. “The middle CE stopped dead and has begun moving southeast, straight at the disabled CE.”

            “Straight at us.”

            “Yes, sir. Should be here in three hours or less.”

            “Major Crumbley!”

            The tall woman saluted.

            “Gather eight of your best men. Make damn sure Mickey’s one of them. Mount up! We’ve been invited to repeat what we’ve just seen done.”

            “Yes, sir!” She quickly assembled her team. They rode up onto the overpass within fifteen minutes; two hours and forty five minutes to spare.

            Jerry met the colonel with a handshake. “Welcome, Colonel. We thought you might like to go with us on the next volley. Depending on how well you do on the second, we might just let you take the third one out yourselves.”

            “The third one is twenty-four miles away.” Major countered. “Six hours at best but going due south.”

            “Mechmons are attracted to the biggest mass of metal. Right now,” Hunter pointed at the CE. “That’s it.”

            Chrissy handed Hunter a bottle of water. “When we take out the second one, the third one will head this way, too. They’ll have to stop and go directly  east and then stop again and trace their first one’s path.”

            “They can’t shift diagonally,” Hunter added.

            “We are quite aware of how CEs move,” the major growled.

            Jeannie stepped up. “There’s enough metal in those bikes to attract the feeder mechs. Get them out of here.”

            Glynn glared.

            Jerry supported Mrs. Hicks. “We have children here. We know what we’re doing. Trust me. Take the bikes away. If you’re to do this, you can’t have any metal on you. No zippers, no steel-toed boots, no braces even. We can crawl all over these mechmons, roadsters, and City-eaters without raising their alarm – but only as long as we have no metal.”

            “Empty your pockets, too.” Chrissy added. “You’ve heard loose lips sink ships? Well, loose change, lose your hips.”

            “That’s a little harsh,” Jerry whispered to his wife.

            Glynn nodded at the major, “Make it so.” He bent down and unlaced his boots.

            “I’m sorry, colonel,” Chrissy spoke gently. “You’ll have to take off your wedding ring, too.”

            He looked down at her five foot three frame from his six foot four height and deep sorrow forced its way into his rugged features. He shoved the emotion back and away and yanked off his ring.

Excerpt from

Troughton Company

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.

Excerpt from Troughton Company Chapter One

            The boy slept fitfully beside Chrissy and Jerry.  None of them slept well.  She wasn’t sure how he had come to be with them.  They were all walking north out of Florida and he just sort of took up with them and they with him.  He had quite an arsenal in his backpack – mace, strings he used for snares, a small hatchet, two knives, a fold-up and expandable fishing rod, reel, line and hooks, a compass and a first aide kit.  Strapped to the bag was an array of water bottles, sunscreen and mosquito spray.

To balance the boy’s supplies, the Troughtons had food – dehydrated vegetables and fruit, jerky, teabags, sugar and bouillon cubes.  Jerry carried the kettle and the pot.

            The road they traveled beside, Highway 301, hadn’t been scoured by city-eaters.  That’s what the invaders were called – city-eaters.  They were alien machines made up of one-hundred and forty four mechanical monsters in a twelve by twelve linked grid.  It did exactly what its name implied – it ate entire cities, one forty-eight foot swatch at a time.  The Troughtons had to watch out for individual mechmon (mechanical monsters became mechmonsters became mechmons over the six months since they arrived) but mechmons were easily evaded because the metal aliens made so much noise and traveled in packs of three.  As long as humans didn’t congregate too much metal together, they were pretty much ignored.

The highways were empty.  When the mechmons first landed (actually, they were dropped off along the arctic tree line by the mother ship in thousands of bunches of one gross – like a factory spewing out one-hundred-forty-four four foot by four foot sized cubes at a time), humans stood and gaped in amazement. They went viral on the net, and people looked on them as harbingers of hope and a new alliance with whatever was “out there”.  The mechmons, however, totally ignored their adoring fans and opened their mandibles, unfurled their appendages, and began to eat. Humans watched in disbelief as their world changed. The mechmons joined together into twelve by twelve masses – the city-eaters, and the ones left over joined into groups of three by three – the roadsters, or just stayed single. The mechmons were the scouts and moved in triplets, dashing around the countryside with their three appendages: the concave-shaped one hunting for metal, the spatula-shaped one communicating with each other, and the net-shaped one – the horrible net-shaped grabby-thing absorbing and infiltrating anything it came in contact with -- eating. Roadsters also moved in triplets; as scavengers attacking anything larger than a mechmon could handle in less than an hour – which actually and mind-numbingly  – was a great deal of metal. The roadsters traveled from the mechmons to the city-eaters and back again, like secret agents couriering the where-abouts of precious metals.  Once the mechmons discovered roads, to be specific – cars on roads, the roadsters dashed back and communicated the information to the city-eaters, and humanity watched as the bulks moved at a slow pace to the roads, which led to small towns, which led to highways, which led to major cities.  Humans were resistant to the idea that they were not, in fact, masters of the roads, and continued to use them as pathways of escape, clogging them with trucks, cars, motorcycles, busses and vans.  Each city-eater would plod along the highway, scooping up every vehicle in its path.  Cars disappeared inside it whether there were people in them or not.  People disappeared inside the machines and were spewed out along with rubber and plastic and cloth and glass as great globs of gelatinous machine-generated excrement.  The stench of a fresh pile was horrific for up to four months. Ants and roaches flourished, scouring sustenance from the minutia.

If the people got out of the vehicles and ran off the road, they were generally left alone.  Occasionally, an alien – a four-foot by four-foot cube with black tentacles – would bear down on a flock of survivors, confiscating metal coins, jewelry and glasses and any body parts that might still be attached to them.

Chrissy shuddered and rolled over, refusing to think about the poor soul yesterday.  The old woman had had a metal replacement hip and thigh bone: surgical steel – too rich for a mechmon to ignore.

The boy sat up, looking around first in terror and then in resignation.

“It’s almost dawn, Doug,” Chrissy commented.

“I’ll go check my snares.”

“Would you teach me how to do that?”

Doug shrugged and then smiled, “Sure, Chrissy.”

In Doug’s four snares were a rabbit and a rat; the other two had been yanked away from their anchors. “I guess in time, we might need to think of rats as food, but not yet. Right?”

She nodded.

“You can make a snare out of any type of string or wire. But, I don’t use any type of metal. I started out using shoe strings, but then you had that yarn. And you could use any type of string or rope, too. I read about snares made from grass woven together into a rope.”

“That makes sense, since grass fibers were the first kind of yarn.”

“You make a loop, like a slipknot on one end. Then feed the other end through the loop. Tie the noose a little above the ground and anchor it to a branch or shrub.  Sometimes you need to hold the noose open with two little twigs. The noose has to be small enough for the head but not too big for the shoulders. See, the animal goes through the noose head first and gets caught. It struggles and strangles.”

Chrissy tried not to show how squeamish she felt. Hunger took priority to the thoughts of cute little bunnies. So she nodded again.

Excerpt from

Troughton Company

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.