After considerable deliberation, about two weeks of planning, and an exhaustive debate, it turned out Lance knew how to get out of KC all along but was uncomfortable explaining it to us out of fear the group would reject his idea. In all actuality, it was the only idea that wasn’t executed extremely poorly or completely foolish.

“So Lance, I just want to make sure I have this all put together. You know a guy, and he knows a sewer system, and that leads out of Kansas City, and he wants to help us. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And he isn’t going to shoot me on sight for some sort of reward.”

"Uh…”

“Well ‘uhh’ is not the answer I am looking for Lance. Is there any chance this guy is going to kill me?”

“Can we just shoot him first?” Lance asked.

“Yes, but I don’t think he’ll help us if we do that,” I said.

“Ah yea, shit. Alright, uhhh….I think it’s cool then.” Lance said.

I was pretty sure this was going to go badly, but everything else did and I had no other plan. “No time like the present boys. Lance, it’s your show. Lead the way.”

The four of us left the arcade around dawn. It was the least busy time, after most of the night traffic had slowed down but before the crazies woke back up. We marched more or less single file, Lance in the front, myself in the rear, rifles at the ready. Lance was a crackshot, Kyle was usually too high to hit anything, but was always ready to shoot, and Hank held his gun as if it was a timebomb ready to go off any second. If I had to guess, any actual conflict would result in Hank shooting himself, Kyle shooting Lance, me shooting Kyle for shooting Lance and whoever found us shooting me. Obviously I was trying to avoid conflict. Fortunately, we arrived alive without any hint of danger.

Lance’s friend was a good dude. He was another Oklahoma boy who had just sort of missed out on modern society. He and Lance were obviously closer than Lance let on as our arrival was heralded by excessive levels of noise and back clapping between the two. His name was Harlan and he had little to say other than he backed the message. The sternness in his voice and his demeanor actually left me concerned that whatever he was thought he was supporting I not only wasn’t involved in, but didn’t want to be involved in. Harlan put out KKK vibes which obviously rubbed me the wrong way, so we made our way into the sewer based exit system post-haste. Lance was emphatic that Harlan could help, but I explained mission parameters mandated a four-person crew. Harlan seemed to approve inherently of anything that involved ‘mission parameters’ and dropped the issue. I will say the one thing I sincerely appreciated is that he left an unmarked vehicle on the other. He flipped Lance the keys as we dove into the tunnel. “Lance, just so you know, there’s folks live in there. They’ll be ok though. Just tell ‘em who your with and they’ll know to let you through.”

“Harlan, thanks.” I said.

Harlan grunted at me.

“Will do.” I said.

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Sewers smell pretty awful. It wasn’t like this was active sewer lines, but the smell hadn’t improved any in the years since it went unused.

A heretofore unmentioned part of this whole ordeal. No power, no running water. Did I smell great myself? Certainly not. The real problem? No toilets either. It was back to shitting in the dirt. Those were the moments I missed regular society the most.

Trudging through the sewers, we found Harlan was right. Families, homeless and not, young men, old women, Preachers, Satanists and everything in between. It was an underground railroad for the confused, the sick, the mentally ill, those who were forgotten by society when they needed society most. Drug abuse was rampant, alcohol even more so. Some of them had clearly been there for years. Since before the disaster? Seemed likely. Old faces and moss-covered tents lined the walls. This was here before everything went bad and had only now become a place people knew about.

Whispers were abound as we went by. There he is and there he goes and who is with him and so on and so forth. A few salutes, a few middle fingers, a few confused and sad people begging me to die or leave or just go away forever, a few even more confused and sad people begging me to save them. Harlan was right though, no one stopped us. Not really, not physically. Most of them couldn’t due to heroin or poor health, and the remaining ones were just there to score and die in peace.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

On the other side of the festival of misery was an older van, pretty non-descript. It was a bit too rape-van-y for me, but it was better than walking. We stunk so bad that we could hardly be in the van due to the smell of one another. Harlan had remembered to gas it up, but he hadn’t remembered to put clothes in it for us. There wasn’t any way in hell we could enter any building, or really even exit the vehicle without attracting a ton of attention. Worse yet, I wasn’t going to be able to get within 100 yards of a security camera without a level 10 APB calling in every single law enforcement agency on the planet. That meant I stayed in the van, which smelled badly of human shit at all times. This meant we were on a leash of sorts, needed to get everything done in one go. I wasn’t sure if that was possible or even if any of it was possible, so it was time to get cracking.

“He left the phones, right? And all the shit I asked for? We can’t go inside a store like this.” I asked no one in particular.

Lance flipped me one of the four burner phones. “He said its wired for 5 gigs of data. Price was on the house. Everything else looks good.”

“That’s good news at least, seeing as how I can’t pay him.” I said.

Fat Kyle stuck his finger to his nose and ejected a farmer’s spit tinged with red. He had taken a copious amount of cocaine with him and was into the bag almost constantly. Frankly, even with the large amount he brought, it seemed unlikely the bag would survive the trip. If the law enforcement didn’t kill us, a drug-less Fat Kyle was more than likely to complete the job. “Johnny, you never told us where we goin’.”

“I said I’m workin on it.” We set in the van, stinking of shit, for about 15 minutes while I tapped on the phone. The crew was nervous. Lots of shaky knees and tapping feet. “Son of a god damn bitch. John Brunsen you lucky motherfucker. HA! This might work after all.”

“What is it John?” Hank asked.

“I got an address. Two addresses actually. I can’t imagine we keep getting this lucky, but we’ll play it by ear from here. Lance takes us there. Not there actually, but somewhere close.”

Lance looked at the phone. “You sure John? In this?”

“Yep. Fat Kyle, you remember what we talked about?” I said.

“Ya I remember Johnny. Lord works in mysterious ways.” Kyle said.

“Then off we go.”

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We arrived in southwestern Omaha in a few hours. It was the closest metropolitan area to Kansas City and had grown immensely with all those looking to get away from the disaster site. I dropped Kyle off a few blocks away.

“Fat Kyle, you know that this is a one-way street right? There isn’t any coming back from this if you get caught? Hell, there isn’t coming back from this period.”

“I got your back Johnny. True blue that’s your old boy Fat Kyle.”

“Text me when you’re ready. Nothing other than the code. No names, no dates, no locations. Just yes or no.”

“Will do good buddy.”

I pulled Kyle close to me and whispered in his ear before he left. I needed to make sure he understood. He clapped me on the back and ran off. Kyle walked over to another non-descript van. Lance was swapping the plates for the ones left in the van while Kyle jumped out, pulled the slim jim out of the back of his pants, popped the lock, rigged the starter, and off he went. It was nice knowing criminals who actually knew how to commit crime. It was almost an hour to Silver City, IA though and Kyle had to move fast which meant we needed to move faster.

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“We’re here.” Lance said. Suburban Omaha looked like suburban everywhere else. Mowed lawns, nice houses, late model cars, bicycles, children, cul-de-sacs. All the classic Americana bullshit.

“Any cars in the driveway?” I asked.

"Nope.” Lance said.

“Any lights on?” I asked.

“Kitchen it looks like.” Lance said.

“Good enough, no time to waste.”

“What’s the plan?” asked Hank.

“This is a very bad man we are going after guys. Very bad. I don’t know what will be in there. I don’t know if he’s armed. All I know is that this guy is part of the problem, and he can help us solve it. I can’t promise we all walk out of here alive or that this whole thing doesn’t go tits up 20 seconds in. Now is the time to leave. No one knows who you are and if you ask me, I will drive you somewhere more remote and you can walk away now.”

No one moved.

Except for our new guest, the man in the back of the car. He was hooded and it was taped closed. He could breathe, I hoped. He spit his gag out and screamed for help.

“John, what do I do?” Hank asked.

I jumped into the back and punched the guy in the mouth. I always forgot how bad hitting people hurts. I shoved the gag back in his mouth through the hood and closed a piece of masking tape over it.

“We’ll bring him. We go inside, we control the scene, we get everything tamed down and then we pull the van in the garage. Hank, we can’t risk him getting away. You stay with him. Kill him if you have to, but try and avoid it. Lance and I will go inside.”

All nodded in agreement. I pulled a hat down low over my face. Lance and I hopped out of the van and went to the front door. Lance rang the doorbell.

A voice from inside called “One second.” I could hear a small dog barking in the background. I knew that dog. I’d seen its picture.

I turned around and put my back to the door. If he saw me, this was over.

Lance said what I told him to say. “Yea, it’s the city Sewage Department, we’ve had some problems in the area. Need to talk with you about your sewer line.”

The door opened and I turned as I heard it. “Hello.”

I turned as I heard his voice. His lights lit up immediately. “Hey Jeff. Long time no see motherfucker.” I stuck him hard in gut with the taser Harlan had procured for us as I said the last word.