Read Online Call of the Wild by Lucy Kelly - Free Book Online Page B

seat nearby.
    However, he didn’t take the seat his sister indicated; instead, he walked around the long table and took a seat next to Marsha.
    It didn’t take long for everyone to find their places. A few gave questioning glances to Aaron, but no one said anything.
    “All right, let’s get started. If you look at screen one, you can see a map of the area around Marlinton, West Virginia. Marlinton and the surrounding towns of Woodrow to the west and Harter to the east have heavy shifter populations. Then up along the Greenbrier River, are two towns that are entirely populated by shifters, Clover Lick and Stony Bottom. They are surrounded by wildlife areas and state forestland on three sides, it’s been ideal for us.
    “Our latest intelligence is that The Society has been aware our National headquarters has been based in Marlinton for at least five years. They’ve spent those years watching and learning about us. Unfortunately, they haven’t had much of an internet presence, so it’s taken this long to figure out what they’ve been doing.
    “After checking the utility and phone records, we generated a list of all new residents and we looked into all of them. More than half turned out to be Society members. The towns of Edray and Campbeltown are also heavily populated with Society members.”
    Laura paused as many of the people around the room exclaimed and made angry noises. She knew there would be worse coming. She let them run down and brought up more maps.
    “In less than a month, they will be executing their big plan to take down our leadership, and kill as many shifters as they can.”
    There were no exclamations this time, only dead quiet. “Planned road accidents are marked in blue. They will tie up resources and block exits through town.”
    “We can escape into the forests,” pointed out Marc Hunter.
    “The Society is hoping we try. They’re planning fires on all three sides to trap our people and kill as many as possible. Everything east of highway one-fifty will be burned all the way to highway twenty eight in the east, sixty six in the north and thirty nine in the south. Genocide will be easier for them to get away with if most of the bodies are in animal form and burned. All of the roads will be blocked or congested with people attempting to evacuate. It won’t be difficult for them to cut us off from all possible outside help. Knock a few cell towers down, take down phone lines, and there’s only one main utility line. Blow up the substation, we’re surrounded, and they expect to pick us off fairly easily,” she concluded.
    “There are also other, West Union and Warwick, to name two, that will be burned out as collateral damage if The Society succeeds,” added Alex. He had been living in this area of West Virginia for the last ten years. He was horrified when he saw what Laura had uncovered. “Stopping them here is our number one priority right now.”
    As Laura so calmly explained the planned mass murder of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, Aaron was slowly becoming angrier and angrier. His worst fears were coming true. Suddenly, he was right back in the woods trying to keep Kylie alive while he watched her brother get killed. No way would he let that happen again !
    “So we know what they have planned. How do we get our people out of there without alerting The Society? Do we have a count on how many families will need to be moved?” asked Marsha.
    “Moved? You’re not going to stay and fight?” asked Aaron.
    “If we stay and fight, we’ll be running on their plan and their timetable. We have to get our non-combatants out of the area before we can put any counter-offensive in place. There are innocent humans in those towns and likely campers and hikers throughout the parks. The Society considers them collateral damage. We can’t do that; we hold every life as sacred. No, we’ll have to preempt them, somehow,” she said.
    “We also need to come up with a cover