Free The Flu 2: Healing by Jacqueline Druga Page A

I am to see you.”
     
    * * *
     
    Mick took a second, because that was pretty much all he could spare. He took that second to acknowledge the pain in his gut and the feeling of being a complete failure.
    All of his good intentions had gone right out the window. This was supposed to be a simple trip; a week, maybe more. The happy go lucky camp had seemed perfect after they stumbled upon it, and Mick hadn’t given a thought to marauders rampaging through the camp. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. How stupid was he?
    He was responsible for the kids; he had promised Dylan he would take care of the boys, and now they were gone.
    Were they hurt? Scared? Or had they been taken by those men? Mick couldn’t figure out what the hell they’d want with the kids. He didn’t trust that their intentions were good considering they had blasted through the defenseless campsite.
    The car battery in his SUV was gone. In fact, any means of transportation had been dismantled or rendered useless.
    There was still generator power to Ethan’s trailer and while Mick scoured the camp for goods, he used that time to charge his phone. Not that he expected to make a call, but who knew if the phones would come back up? Mick was actually surprised they had gone down, especially since the struggling government was using them to communicate with Henry in Lodi.
    Chris had his phone, he’d track that. Family GPS. Dylan had called that dumb, considering the boys never left Lodi. But Mick had called it a precaution in case their dad took off with them.
    It was a cheaper phone, fewer bells and whistles, and therefore it kept the charge longer. For that Mick was grateful.
    And Chris did have his phone. Mick checked the camper. Their coats and hats were gone, and so was the notebook Chris always wrote in.
    Mick scoured the camp for clues as to what happened. It appeared the attackers had hit the gate to knock it open, and then shot a person right away, twice. A double tap.
    They moved fast, in and out. They took commodities like gas, tires, things for cars. There didn’t seem to be any dry goods left. And the box of deer jerky that Ethan told Mick about was gone.
    More than anything, Mick looked for clues about the boys. If the people who raided the camp took the boys, surely they wouldn’t have given them time to grab their things?
    That indicate to Mick that likely they ran. Hopefully had run and gotten out of danger. The boys were smart, but there was a lot Mick never got a chance to teach them. Why would he? They lived in Lodi and he would always be there to protect them.
    This time he wasn’t able to, and he had to make up for that.
    A few items were left behind. Mick wanted to travel light. He grabbed two bottles of water and a couple of small food items that were ‘dropped’ on the floor, probably as the men absconded with their supplies.
    He had to figure out which direction they went. He ruled out the front gate, they were smarter than that. Logic dictated that they took off from the camper. Probably into the woods behind there. He focused on that direction until he crossed over the play area where he found Denny Dynamite.
    Denny Dynamite was a cartoon and an action toy, and Tigger had cried for weeks to get those Denny Dynamite tennis shoes. They were close to a hundred dollars a pair, and Mick had gotten them and lied to Dylan about the price. The tennis shoe soles had Denny on them, and in the dirt before him now were repeated imprints of Denny.
    Tigger had been was playing here. Was it from there that they had run? A wooded area was just a few feet from the play area. He followed Tigger’s Denny shoe imprints. They moved, they stopped, they … skidded.
    Maybe Mick was looking a little more into it, he didn’t know. But he moved to the wooded area. It was flat for a few feet, then there was a small grade.
    And slide marks. Someone had slid down that hill.
    Mick followed the sliding trail to where it ended behind a fallen tree. What he