Winds of Fate Read online

  How long was it anyway? A day, or was it a day and a half? You are in the desert, but what desert? What state? I got a bad feeling about this. Those boys may not have been geniuses when it comes to killing skinny assed girls, but they weren’t t stupid enough to leave your body to be found by some hiker out for a walk. The way I see it, you ain’t near any place a hiker might find you. Looks to me like you are screwed, regardless of how you might feel about it. You just think you were screwed before. Believe me, what has yet to come is the big squishy, and you are in it up to your eyeballs, baby cakes.

  She wanted to argue but didn’t. The voice, regardless of how annoying, was right on. She tried to close her mind to it, but today nothing was working in her favor.

  While we are at it, babes, let’s not forget the monkey. Eventually it is going to come looking for its treat, and when you don’t have it, it’s going to be on your back, big-time. That monkey already wants its treat, and sooner or later — likely sooner — it’s going to start insisting. You got something for your monkey? No? I didn’t think so. You think you’re hurting now? Just wait a while baby cakes. No food, no clothes, no water and no candy for the monkey!”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Just shut the hell up!

  The voice in her head went quiet again and she began to look around. Just what in hell was she supposed to do? Okay, girl scouts 101!

  Naaa girl, don’t go there. What do you know about girl scouts? The closest you have been to being a girl scout was when you did that trick for the old guy down on Second Street. Remember him? Now there was one messed up dude!

  She tried again to ignore the voice as she studied her surroundings. What was it she could remember about following the river? Follow the river down stream and it will lead to civilization. She turned and looked downstream then paused, looked upstream and said. “I came from there! That’s where they threw me in the river.”

  “There you go girl! Just go on and trot your skinny, bruised-ass on back up there. Then they can finish the job they started.”

  “But they might be gone now. If they are, I can look for my clothes. I need my shoes, because without them I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You got that right honey.”

  “So, Ill just work my way back up the river until I get close enough to see if anyone’s around. I have to have my shoes!”

  “Yeah baby! Go get them shoes, and maybe they left a little candy for your monkey, too. Get going, girl. That monkey ain’t gonna wait all day!

  Cautiously, she made her way up the river, picking her way through thorns and sharp rocks, staying to the trees and underbrush to hide from the view of anyone who might still be interested in finding her.

  The ever-increasing heat of the sun was baking her skin to a medium rare. No more than fifty yards from where she had been tossed into the river, she spotted something yellow. Half way down the bank on the opposite side of the riverbed was her shirt! Further down was one of her tennis shoes, the other hung from its string on a scrubby bush that clung to the bank’s wall. In her excitement at finding her shoes, she almost burst from the underbrush and went charging across the river after them. Then she heard the voices; men laughing; someone saying something she didn’t quite understand, but wished that she could.

  An empty beer bottle went sailing out into the riverbed, shattering into a million pieces on a mound of jagged rock. She looked down and saw hundreds of broken bottles. Most were beer bottles, mixed in with a few liquor bottles.

  It was going to be tricky getting across there without cutting her feet to shreds. Nevertheless, she needed her shoes and clothes if she could find them. She moved back into the underbrush and planned on waiting until dark to go across to get her shoes. She found a spot that was as comfortable as it was likely to get, and began the long wait for nightfall. She should be hungry by now but she wasn’t, and she thought she might have a fever.

  Well, I don’t know why you should have a fever. It isn’t like the man picked his teeth with that pig sticker before he stuck it in you. Probably never used it for anything but stabbing skinny, white, crack head girls. Ain’t no need to worry about a fever now, is there? You’re dead anyway, all you’re doing is just playing the game until it is time to give it up one last time — for good.

  “Okay, you’re right! I’m dead. But until I roll over and stay dead, I am going to play the game, right up to the bitter end. Okay?”

  It’s your game, baby. You play it anyway you want to.

  “I plan to!”

  She maneuvered herself further up the river until she had a good view of the camp sight where the men were. She was surprised to see it was much more than just a camp. There was one main building and several smaller outbuildings with camouflage netting and two vehicles parked under it. One of them she recognized as the automobile she had gotten into in Bakersfield. She also recognized the man that had been driving, the one with a promise of lots of nose candy and a good time.

  Yep, baby cakes, they sure enough showed you one hell of a real good time.

  From a distance, someone bellowed out orders and Jodie recognized the man coming out of the main building as the one who had stabbed her.

  “You ass holes get moving! I don’t plan on staying here all day. Get that fire out and the rest of the gear in the truck!” He pointed to the buildings to his left and said, “And make damn sure those buildings are shut tight this time.”

  One of the men picked up her jeans and flung them over the bank. She watched as they fluttered to the bottom where they settled next to her shirt. He was holding her panties to his face and making a groaning noise, his hips grinding as he did so, saying “Oh you lovely thing.”

  One of the other men laughed, “What in hell are you talking about? That cunt was the ugliest, most messed up piece of ass we ever brought up here.”

  The man held out the panties then said. “At least you got a piece of it. Jake, over there, stuck her and tossed her in the river before I even got a chance to find out.”

  Jake spat a stream of brown juice toward the man and then retorted. “Quit your pissing around and get busy. There are more where she came from. This place needs locked up tight and secure before we leave. Three months is a long time to be leaving things open to the wilds, so just you be damned sure it’s done proper or someone is going to be joining that bitch at the bottom of the river.”

  She waited and watched as they loaded up the vehicles, put out the campfires and locked things up. The man named Jake, went to the edge of the river with a pair of field glasses and scanned the surrounding area, then walked to the opposite side of the camp and scanned the desert, below. He let the binoculars drop and said, “Okay, let’s get to hell out of here.” They started up the vehicles and drove away slowly leaving very little dust in their wake as they went.

  Jodie sat still until she no longer heard the trucks. She waited another few minutes before making her way down the side of the river; from there she picked her way across the slippery rocks and on to where her shoes waited. Once they were on her feet, she was able to move faster with less concern for the sharp rocks and broken glass.

  After gathering the rest of her clothes, she climbed the steep bank, and then entered the compound. The place reminded her of a military camp rather than a regular campsite. The men had been wearing uniforms, BDU pants, olive green shirts, and sported short, military-style haircuts.

  Whenever Jake spoke, his manner was that of a drill sergeant or some high-ranking official. However, her better sense told her that these guys were not military.

  What was it her ex-boyfriend called people like that? Military nuts? Militia and Wannabe war heroes? They reminded her of Timothy McVeigh, the Branch Dividians, or that guy the FBI and ATF went after in the mountains several years back.

  Jodie went to the door of the main cabin and found it locked, then on to the out buildings and found large padlocks on them as well. Looking around she found a huge rock and then walked over to the door of the main Cabi
n. With one lucky, well-placed whack, the lock opened and Jodie cautiously stepped inside.

  The first room consisted of a kitchen and a bathroom. The second had bunk beds that lined both sides of the wall and a large table with benches. One wall had a huge map of the United States and smaller maps of California, Nevada, and Arizona. Folding chairs sat facing the maps, and a podium stood directly in front of them. The opposite wall contained storage lockers that went from floor to ceiling and corner-to-corner. The only one left unlocked had a first aid kit and twelve cases of MREs. (Meals ready to eat) She pulled the first aid kit out, placed it on the floor and unzipped it. Once that it was unfolded, she found gauze, bandages, splints, surgical tubing, prep blades, hypodermics needles and enough drugs to start a pharmacy.

  She sifted through the drugs, not knowing the identity of most. The sulfur powder, alcohol, and antibiotic’s instructions were easy to read and understand, but first she would need to clean the wounds. The shower in the bathroom was just what her doctor would have ordered.

  Even though the water heater had been turned off, the water was still hot. When she stepped under the shower, the hot water stung her skin in countless places from cuts and abrasions she had not known about. The stab wound hurt like hell but it needed cleaned as much as possible. Once she had used up all the hot water, she went to the first aid kit and used the sulfur powder, sprinkling it generously over the wound, and then she took two antibiotic tablets. According to the instructions, she would need to take two pills every four hours for the next seven days.

  Jodie went to the kitchen and searched the pantries and cupboards. They were completely empty, not so much as a jar of peanut butter. Still, there were the MREs. She wasn’t hungry but she had not eaten in over twenty-four hours and needed food. Jodie forced the food into her mouth and chewed without tasting it. She swallowed and then ate more. Her fever was getting worse and her skin felt as though she was on fire.

  While dressing the major wound, she noticed it was an angry red and ringed with a purplish black hue. Red lines radiated away from it like road maps. She went to one of the cots and lay down thinking that if she could just get a few hours sleep she would feel better.

  Jodie suffered through a series of nightmarish dreams, periods of half wakefulness, and series of cold sweats with tremors when she was either freezing or burning up. Following that, she spent half an hour vomiting up the rations she had eaten. At one time, she dreamed that she had ransacked the cabin. She had gone about bashing locks from doors and ripping doors from hinges in a frantic search for drugs that were not there. She took the antibiotics, but didn’t recall if she should take them every four hours or once every hour, and then she questioned whether she had taken them at all. In a dazed and confused nightmare, she found an alarm clock and set it to go off in four hours. Whenever the alarm sounded she would take the pills, reset the clock and go back to sleep. Jodie went through a coughing spell at one point that reopened her wound causing her to spit up blood. She had sloppily poured the sulfur powder over the wound and redressed it, then passed out again.

  Days turned into weeks with her mind clearing slowly. One month after entering the cabin, she finally woke up with a clear head. She was still weak, but she could live with that. The wound had healed, and had become an ugly, red-pucker of a crescent below her left breast.

  She knew she had to get out of the camp, and soon. But where to? Which way should she go? Should she try following the road that her would-be killers had taken, and risk meeting them along the way, or simply follow the river until she reached civilization? There was no telling how far in the desert she was. The road may or may not afford her water, but the river would be a constant supply and would also provide shade and protection from the elements because of the shrubs and trees. Jodie decided on the river.

  The cabin was completely trashed. At first, the sight of its destruction had frightened her, thinking that someone had done it while she slept. Then she recalled the search for drugs during one of her many nightmares, and knew who was responsible for the chaos.

  While searching the hurricane scatter of bottles, guns, ammo, cleaning kits, sleeping cots, gas mask, duffel bags and other such items, she came across a large backpack. Jodie took it over to the locker and packed it as full as possible with items she might need, and then added the MREs and six bottles of water. She had enough supplies to last for twenty-four days, after that she would be without food. Could she find her way out of the desert by then? Was she that far out in the wilderness?

  Looking around again she found a .9 mm automatic pistol, and six clips, a web belt, holster, and clip holders, a machete and a Swiss army knife. Then she went to the first aid kit and found a smaller kit inside of the larger one. She traded her clothing for BDUs and military boots. When she looked at her reflection in the mirror, it reminded her of a skinny, dishwater-blond version of Rambo.

  Ramba would work much better on you darling.

  Jodie found three cans of white gas in one of the lockers. She opened one and poured it liberally over the floor, the cot and lockers. With the second, she made a trail to the front door and out onto the front porch, and then opened the third can and used it to douse the out buildings. Jodie tossed road flares on the gas trail leading to the front door and two more on the out buildings. Everything went up in a blaze of roaring hell and stifling, rancid smelling smoke.

  The wood framework of the buildings eagerly received the flames. Jodie shouldered the backpack, adjusted the web belt, and carefully moved down the bank of the river, and up the other side. When she reached the area where she had washed free of the tangle, she looked down and saw something she had previously missed, three bodies lay in varying degrees of decay. She could tell that two of them were women, but the third was so decomposed that it was impossible to distinguish whether it was male or female. However, when she noticed the red ribbon tied around the wrist, there was no longer any doubt, she knew that it was also a woman.

  “Well, baby cakes. Looks like you ain’t the only one who got invited to the ball.”

  She stood looking at the decaying bodies and a raging anger hit her like a bolt from the blue; even her hair had suddenly become electrified.

  “What kind of animals were these assholes anyway? She stood for the longest time. She avoided looking at the dead bodies while she continued to formulate the plan she had subconsciously been working on for weeks. Her plan was to set forth on a road of vengeance, and vowed that she would make it her only goal. Her life had been worthless in the past, and there was no end in sight if she continued on the road she had been traveling. For the first time in conscious memory, Jodie was fairly clear headed after failing to find food for her monkey in the dismal camp. Now that she had decided upon a course of action to rectify some of her past mistakes, she was glad to be free of her monkey.

  She suddenly looked up as the first explosions from the camp reached her.

  Time to get going. Someone is going to see that fire and come looking.

  “Good!” She said. “Then I can get the hell out of this place. All I have to do is wait until someone comes to investigate and then I will have my ticket out of this hell-hole.”

  Uh huh. That’s right, babes. And who do you think will be coming to investigate the explosion?

  She cursed under her breath, and then said. “It doesn’t have to be them does it?”

  In the make believe world? No, it doesn’t. Nevertheless, in the real world those that come will not be looking to save your ass, but finish what they started. You can take that chance if you want. Might be that some ranger or quail hunter will see the smoke and come to investigate. But baby, this is the real world where those that have things they want to keep under wraps have people to keep watch over their possessions. Those that show up here won’t be lending a hand, except one that helps to dig your grave.

  She knew that she could not risk it. Jodie adjusted the heavy backpack, stepped into the shallow water and continued downstream. Walking
in water with the weight of the backpack, and in her weakened condition, would slow her down, but it would also erase any signs that she had ever been here.

  She made less than two miles before yielding to total exhaustion. She stepped ashore and looked back. She could see the jagged boulders behind where the cabin and other buildings once sat. A thin tendril of smoke still rose from the spot. Then without warning, the earth suddenly heaved upward in a gigantic cloud of dust, rocks and trees.

  Now there is something you don’t see every day.

  “What was under that cabin? Explosives?”

  Enough to blow the hell out of a small mountain! That’s for sure!

  Girl you need to get moving.

  “I can’t! I am done in. I couldn’t take another step if my life depended on it.”

  Your life does depend on it, babe. So get your ass in gear and move!

  Jodie managed another three miles before collapsing in a heap. After sitting a spell, she maneuvered the backpack off her shoulders and set it on the ground. She lifted her shirt to look at the scar under her breast. It was red and angry where one of the straps had irritated it, and it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t swollen, and there was no sign that she had done any permanent damage. Her left lung hurt, and during her trek downstream she was forced to stop due to a coughing spell. She had hacked up a lot of rust colored phlegm, but no blood.