“Can I get you any dessert, today sweetie? We have freshly baked peach pie with some whipped cream that just to die for,” the waitress told her. Naomi couldn’t tell if the waitress was one of those genuinely happy people, or if her perky demeanor was the result of the overly generous tips that Naomi left—a habit she had picked up from her time in the city.

“No thank you, lunch was delicious and too filling already,” Naomi said as she settled her bill with a prepaid—and hopefully untraceable—credit card. Before she left Washington DC for the cabin, she had taken the time to empty her bank accounts, not that there was all that much in them, and use some of the cash to purchase prepaid credit cards. Using the cards gave her an added layer of security and anonymity when she made the small trips into town for supplies.

The town of Lavelle’s Landing and was one of those rundown little slices of nowhere found all too often in rural areas. The town survived on a small summer crowd of tourists that would arrive for the fishing, which was also the reason her family had purchased the out of the way cabin so many years ago. The diner she ate in was chosen for the modest crowd it always held and its lack of security cameras.

She considered the two fast-food chains in town, which had larger crowds to blend more anonymously but were also equipped with several cameras. It would only take a single good look at her face on one of those cameras to have facial recognition software tag her and notify the various government agencies of her location.

Naomi unlocked the old mountain bike that she had chained to a small bench that sat in front of the restaurant. She had found the bike in the cabin and with a little work, had gotten it into rideable shape. The cabin was about twelve miles from town, a couple of hours ride on the bike but a long slog on foot. Her bike also allowed Naomi to carry more supplies back to the cabin, resulting in fewer trips to town and fewer chances at begin discovered.

The town itself consisted of the main street that connected to the interstate and a series of shops that were housed in the run-down strip malls lining the road. Along with the ubiquitous pair of fast-food places found at every offramp on nearly every interstate in America, the town had one Walmart and a smaller independent grocery store.

The next stop for Naomi was the local library. The librarian there had given her a library card without even asking for identification, just accepting the fake name Naomi had given her. That was another perk of hiding out near a small town, people wouldn’t ask for things if you seemed nice enough.

Sitting down at one of the three computers in the library, Naomi began to search the internet for any news on the president’s death. Several weeks had passed since that fateful day and her subsequent flight from the White House bunker. The news reports had been vague, telling the public that the president had been killed in an assassination attempt and pinning the attack on a small hate group opposed to the president.

The assassination story was a bad one for Naomi. That meant the president's political party was still running things and making a play at covering up the president’s actions. The fact that they said the assassin was a rogue secret service agent affiliated with some random hate group was more bad news. The worst news was that they said the rogue agent had been killed in the ensuing gunfight. That meant they were covering up the fact she was out there, and that they meant to eliminate her as soon as she was found. Her being alive was a risk to their cover story.

The story of the president’s death had dropped from the headlines and Naomi’s searches today revealed nothing new, save for some skepticism from the president’s political opponents. Naomi would have to think about a way to push the skepticism, but how to do so without revealing her location?

She could, of course, send out a notice to the papers, but most of them were fans of the president and she couldn’t be sure they weren’t willing participants in the cover-up. No, she would have to find someone to tell her story to that wasn’t connected to the president or her political party. Several reporters had been critical of the president and her policies, but how to get in touch with them and have them believe her story?

Naomi left the library and headed out to gather more supplies. She was rapidly losing hope that the world would uncover the true story of that day and feared for what would happen when her money finally ran out. Once her funds ran out, she couldn’t survive on the few fish she caught in the stream by the cabin. She would have to take more drastic and risky measures that would eventually lead her enemies to her. The only hope—and a rapidly fading one—was for the truth to come out, but how to get her story out there and have someone believe it?

Putting those thoughts aside, she rode down the street toward the small grocery store, this being the riskiest part of her journey and required her total concentration. Worries about the future could wait, there were dangers to avoid right now. The store was an acceptable risk as it had cameras, but since the place was a small local shop, there was a good chance they only recorded on-site and were not shared out to a corporate data center like Walmart would use.

While she could fish for some of her food, there were other things that she couldn’t find in the woods. Perhaps if she were some crazy hard-core survivalist, she would be fine, but Naomi had few outdoor skills other than catching and cleaning a fish.

The shopping trip was precisely calculated. She would get what she needed and nothing more. Everything she bought had to be hauled on her bike twelve miles to the cabin, which limited the amount she could purchase. Naoimi had found that she could carry six bags on her bike without too many problems if they weren’t too heavy. The musty smelling store was a small affair, having only five aisles and a minimal variety of goods. The lone checkout clerk was a harsh looking older woman that appeared mad at the world for her lot in life.

There were a few other shoppers in the store, mostly elderly folks that looked like locals, preferring to shop with the neighborhood store over the big chains. A couple of young kids perusing the candy aisle were also running about, the final shopper was a middle-aged man frantically looking for some item. The cashier just shrugging when he asked her a question, no doubt trying to find something his wife told him to pick up on his way home.

Naomi finished up her shopping and loaded the bags onto the handlebars of her bike before peddling away from town and toward the small dirt trail leading toward the cabin. She had gathered enough supplies to last her for several weeks if she supplemented her food supplies with the fish she caught. Naomi was rapidly coming to despise fish and once this was all over, she vowed to never visit a seafood restaurant again.

***

“We have a positive ID on suspect 4027. The notes say to contact you directly sir, what are your orders,” FBI technician Adams said to agent Danbury on the phone.

“Send me the file, then purge the data from your systems. Well done Adams, and I’ll make sure your assistance on this gets mentioned in your next review,” Danbury replied.

“We’re not supposed to delete any files sir, but I can take care of it for you this time,” the agent on the other end replied before hanging up. Danbury would have someone on his team verify the data was deleted, and then that Adams was deleted. There couldn’t be any loose ends on this operation.

“Well, well, well, agent Naomi Cartwright, we meet at last,” Danbury said to himself, watching the short four-second video clip sent over by Adams.

The video was from some kid in a grocery store recording another kid stuffing a candy bar down his throat. In the corner of the picture, the vague image of Naomi Cartwright could be seen pushing a shopping cart. She had done well so far to keep herself hidden, but it was always the things you couldn’t plan for that got you. In this case, facial recognition software that poured through the millions of social media posts that were created each day.

He waited as more and more data came in. This time the data came from his analysts, not a random FBI tech sitting at a desk reviewing Facebook posts to find criminals or terrorists. These were agents that worked for him specifically and were loyal to the party. Danbury now knew where she was, the analysts putting the story together quickly once they knew where to look. He picked up his phone and dialed another number.

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“We’ve got her Mr. President. How would you like me to proceed, sir?” Danbury asked.

“How did you find her?” the president replied.

“Photo in a grocery store that was posted to social media, the software picked her out from the background. Our latest info shows a family member is the owner of a small cabin in the podunk town of Lavelle’s Landing. I can have a team onsite in a few hours,” Danbury advised.

“Well done Danbury, her escape has been…problematic for the party. We can’t risk her story getting out, see that the problem is taken care of. I want you personally on-site to handle this, Danbury, don’t trust it to another lackey, do it yourself,” the president ordered.

“I’ll make it happen, sir, our problems will be over by tomorrow morning,” Danbury replied.

He enjoyed going out in the field on occasion and had kept in fighting shape despite pushing the fifty-year-old mark. An hour later, he and a team of four other agents hit the road to Lavelle’s Landing. The agents never exchanged names, and all wore masks to hide their identity.

If the operation went south—and he was there to make sure it didn’t—and one of the men was compromised, he could in no way rat out the others if he didn’t know who they were. Danbury was only known to these others as One, the others, of course, being Two through Five.

As evening turned to night, the team reached the small trail leading toward the cabin Naomi Cartwright was hiding in. They ditched the van a couple of miles from the road and geared up. The five of them looked identical for the operation, all wearing sanitized tactical gear but without any markings to identify who they were or where they were from.

Danbury slammed a magazine into his MP-5 submachinegun. It wasn’t his weapon of choice, but it was the only thing he had been able to check out of the arsenal at the time without leaving a trail. At least each weapon was suppressed for both sound and flash. He had a Sig Sauer P320 pistol on his waist as a backup weapon should he need it. All the weapons fired the very common 9mm round, a further step to hide who was at work this night.

Danbury waved the others forward toward their objective, flipping down his night vision goggles as he went. The forest was thick in this area, but there were enough animal trails that they made swift progress toward the cabin without having to resort to using the road itself, which his target undoubtedly kept an eye on. Within an hour, the lights of the cabin were seen. His quarry was confident enough in her hiding place to not worry about light discipline. She had no idea they were coming.

“Two, cover the back. Everyone else observe and report,” Danbury ordered. Two moved out deeper into the forest to make his approach unnoticed toward the rear of the house. Danbury gave him five minutes to get into place.

“I’ve got her sitting in the living room reading a book,” Three reported.

“Two, you have eyes on the back door yet?” Danbury asked after five minutes had passed. The target seemed content to read her book and sip a cup of coffee or tea, oblivious to the threat waiting just outside.

“Two, report in,” Danbury called again.

“Four, work your way around and see if you can find Two, possible comms issue,” Danbury ordered. Losing contact with Two was serious but most likely a comms issue, which was more common than most people would realize. Four was the closest to Two and should make it there the quickest.

“Contact! Two is down with something—” Four said before cutting out. Deeper in the forest, muzzle flashes were seen in the direction that Two and Four had gone. The muffled sound and half-glimpsed flashes of light indicated the firing was coming from their suppressed weapons. Unlike the movies, a suppressed weapon makes noise, just not as much as an unsuppressed one.

“Three, Five, on me,” Danbury ordered. He could see the greenish images of his two other agents in his night vision as they stepped to either side of him before they carefully moved toward where the firing had occurred. Looking back at the cabin, he could see their target hadn’t moved from her position. The sounds of the forest insects and the thick logs of the cabin blocking out the muffled sounds of the suppressed sounds of gunfire.

“What is that?” Three said in shock as they came to a small clearing.

Two and Four were lying face down, covered in…something. Moving about their bodies were creatures that looked like the combination of a bat and a mosquito. The things had a good foot and a half wingspan and an eight-inch-long proboscis that were thrust into the unarmored parts of his men. Two looked dead and Four was moaning softly as the half dozen things on him slowly drained his life. Five drew a combat knife and moved forward to pry the things off Four as the Upgrade displayed some information in Danburry’s interface.

Danbury had invested some of his hard-earned skill points into identification skills, wanting to know of the threats this new world had spawned. The things showed as something called a Stirge which meant nothing to him, he didn’t have time to read descriptions right now as he switched his weapon from safe to semi-auto and placed the red target dot on a stirge. He couldn’t get a good shot without hitting his own man and instead drew his knife. He felt Three slap him on the shoulder to signal he was ready to move.

Danbury was having trouble drawing his blade, his hand didn’t want to grab it for some reason. He looked over as Three slapped him on the shoulder again. Danbury tried to tell him he was having trouble, wasn’t he…hard to think straight. It was funny, Three kept tapping him all over his body but how did Three do it when he was over there ten feet away covered by the mosquito bat stirge things. Danbury hit the ground and decided he needed a rest and now was as good a time as any to read up on these things attacking his men.

Stirge: These creatures are the horrifying blend of a bat and a mosquito. They attach to their enemies, injecting a venom that sedates the victim and keeps their blood from coagulating. Stirges travel in swarms and avoid any bright lights.

Danbury thought that the stirge walking on his chest looked funny. It didn’t even hurt when it jabbed into his eye and began feeding. They were almost cute up close…kind of fuzzy…

***

Naomi jumped as the lights in the cabin went out. The cabin had solar and a battery backup that should have lasted for days even if for some reason the sun stopped shining. Naomi was running a load of laundry and the dishwasher at the same time so that might have tripped the circuit breakers. She fumbled her way toward the cellar entrance where the circuit box was housed, cursing as she slammed her shin into the edge of the coffee table.

She didn’t know much about electronics but did know enough to flip a breaker from off to on again. Before doing that, she stopped by the dishwasher and flailed about until she found the door latch, opening it so that it wouldn’t power back on when she hit the breaker switch. She did the same at the clothes washer and stumbled her way down the steps toward the basement.

Her eyes were becoming a bit more accustomed to the dark, the light coming through the window from the moon and stars was enough to see large objects and avoid any more lurking coffee tables. It took her a few minutes to locate the breaker box and open it.

She felt down the row of switches, searching for the one that was in a different position than the rest. There it was, the one at the bottom, the master breaker switch. Strange that it was the only one tripped, didn’t that only trip if some other circuit had overloaded first?

“Uhhhh!” Naomi grunted as the air left her lungs and a powerful blow hit her in the lower back. A moment later the pain hit, dropping her to the floor as several more blows landed in the same area. If felt like someone was tearing her insides out, she couldn’t catch a breath as the pain from what she instinctively knew was a serious wound crippled her. A dark shape loomed over her as she collapsed onto her back, new waves of pain flaring as she landed on her wounds.

The sound of broken glass and flapping wings was heard as she again struggled to breathe. The figure stopped its attack and frantically began to feel around the breaker box. With a click the lights turned back on inside the house, the single bulb in the ceiling of the basement leaving a weak circle of light. The flapping sound receded along with angry screeches as soon as the lights came back on. The man above her stared down at Naomi, his face devoid of expression as he knelt and reversed the grip on a bloody butcher’s knife.

Why was the man from the store earlier stabbing her? Was Naomi’s last thought as the knife descended one final time.

***

There you have it folks, the last moments of Naomi Cartwright. I’m glad her story could be told, and the history records set straight. As for Agent Danbury, his desiccated carcass and those of his fellow agents were found months later when a group of hunters taking care of the stirge infestation came across them.

The dead were never identified, and authorities eventually chalked their deaths and the death of the unidentified body found in the house as the work of the Upgrade creatures. Danbury's task wouldn’t have even mattered in the end as news of what really happened with the president was leaked online that very morning.

A hacker group had found partial footage of the Secretary of Defense and his Marines trying to stop the megalomaniacal president before she could destroy most of the world. The video was posted all over and soon authenticated by several respectable tech experts. The clip only showed the first twenty seconds or so of the shootout and missed Naomi’s part in the whole thing.

That portion of Naomi’s heroic action had been successfully purged by the new president, even if her “experts” had botched erasing the piece that the hackers had discovered. The coverup attempt by the president’s party was revealed and the entire party is now only a minor player in American politics. Their previous voters streamed out of the party to form new parties or to join other existing ones.

What’s that you ask? Who was the shopper that killed Naomi? Well, you’ll just have to read on to the next chapter in order to find that out…