The Unraveling: Book 1 of the Bound to Survive Series

by Charley Hogwood

  At that moment, Tempest turned as if she knew something was afoot. She looked at Charlotte and then at the girls.

  “Momma’s going to go bye-bye for a little while. Gimme a kiss.”

  Tempest launched into one of her little tyrant speeches that no one understood, but there was a lot of hand waving and various expressions that seemed to indicate a wrong had been done somewhere on the planet. Seemingly repeating herself and waving her hands, the girls thought it was the cutest thing. Lord help the little boy out there somewhere who had yet to understand the trouble he would be in with her someday.

  Tempest ran over and air kissed her mom and just as quickly dismissed her mom with a wave as she ran breathlessly to Amber to steal the pen once again.

  Charlotte took the clean exit and quickly stepped out the side door with purse in hand.

  Cal’s garage/workshop had plenty of room at roughly thirty feet by forty feet and was high enough for an enclosed loft-style office that was pretty comfortable.

  This morning, Cal and Tim were out tinkering in the shop, running a new circuit for the additional refrigeration that Tim was bringing over today. They had wire and conduit spread all over the shop floor and were sipping coffee, staring at the open electrical panel as if it were a TV, when Charlotte walked in.

  “I see you two are busy,” Charlotte said, sarcastically.

  Holding his coffee to his lips, Cal replied dryly, “This is delicate work, lady. We need to bond with the panel before we do the dangerous part.”

  Tim was mid-sip in his own mug and unintentionally shot coffee out of his nose at Cal’s electrical joke, which in turn caused Cal to snort in his own cup at Tim’s misfortune.

  Charlotte just stood there looking at the two men with feigned pity.

  “I’m going to leave you two idiots to whatever it is you are doing,” she said, while haphazardly waving her pointer finger at the mess they were making.

  “Try not to electrocute yourselves until I get back with Glendora.” She turned and walked away shaking her head muttering to herself. “… and how is it a man’s world?”

  Charlotte drove her SUV to Glendora’s country market, about fifteen minutes away. As she arrived, Charlotte noticed that Glendora had a small trailer already hitched up to her SUV around the far side entrance of the little store and was beginning to stage boxes on the ground.

  Charlotte backed in along the trailer and stepped out. She saw only one employee in the store today–normally there were three or four.

  “Where is everyone?” Charlotte asked Glendora as she walked in the store.

  “This is it, Billy and Seth quit and I sent Misty home because she looked ill. All I have left is Sam over there.”

  She pointed at a young man who was packing food back into boxes. Normally he was stocking shelves, but today he was clearing shelves and carrying boxes out of the side door to the trailer.

  “I think this is it. I am going to let Sam go later on. There is no sense in keeping the store open much longer.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Charlotte said. “Once the community gets back to normal, maybe you can get things opened up again.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.” Glendora lamented. The ladies looked at each other, both wondering if things would ever return to normal.

  Sam was inside packing another box when a Ford Ranger pickup truck rolled into the small parking lot in a cloud of dust. Two men climbed out and looked around, trying to not look suspicious. They failed miserably. Both men had dark fishing-style sunglasses, baseball caps, and were dressed in dirty jeans and t-shirts. After satisfying themselves that no one was watching, they shuffled up to the store and entered. Charlotte and Glendora were still arranging boxes on the trailer and did not see the men arrive. Only Sam was inside, but he was preoccupied with the packing.

  The men walked in looking around and only saw Sam. They both pulled handguns from their pants and pointed them at Sam. Startled, Sam raised his arms in surrender fashion.

  “Where’s the money?” one of the men gruffly ordered. “Get it now!”

  “We don’t have any money today, no one has been in to buy anything,” Sam replied.

  “You got money, don’t bullshit me. Go get it.”

  The women were just walking into the back room from outside when they heard the commotion. Glendora stopped Charlotte at the sound of yelling from the other room. “Call 911 and hide outside.”

  Charlotte dialed her cell phone on the way out of the side door.

  Glendora had other plans; she was not going to allow Sam to go through this alone. Two more vehicles arrived outside–a full size Chevy Silverado and a beat-up Honda Civic hatchback.

  At first, Glendora thought help had arrived, but it turned out that the two new guys were friends of the first crew. She walked out from the back room armed with nothing but charm.

  “How can I help y’all?” she asked in her best debutante voice.

  The two men swung around waving their pistols and started yelling at her.

  “Give us the money!”

  “Alright, no need to terrify the young man,” she said, nodding to Sam, who looked like he was about to wet his pants.

  Glendora walked over and opened the register. There wasn’t much inside but she gave it to them.

  “Here you go, this is it. Been quiet today.”

  The man on the right snatched it from her as the other two men came in.

  “What do we have here?” the Silverado driver drawled out.

  “Looks like stock boy has been preparing for our arrival.” Sam had packed up several aisles of merchandise and had it stacked around the store in piles. He waved at a couple of the men and said, “Load these boxes into the trucks. We are shopping today. Take it all.”

  “How about you get behind that counter and pack up some of the good stuff,” the man ordered Sam. He was referring to the several shelves of liquor behind the counter.

  “Go help him, old lady!” he added, referring to Glendora. She did not take too kindly to being called an old lady, but she went behind the counter to help.

  Charlotte was out the side door and had made her way behind some trees next to the building for cover. She was trying to reach 911, but the line was busily playing an official message on a loop that said something about all lines are busy, please only call if there is a life or death emergency, and made reference to another number to call for medical support or body pick up.

  After multiple tries she was frustrated. “This is an emergency! Why is it that every time I’m in a hurry there is a cop right there to give me a ticket but now they won’t even answer the damn phone when I really need them!” she angrily muttered to herself.

  Switching gears, she decided to call Cal. She rang his number several times and got no answer.

  “What the hell!” she cursed, almost too loudly. “I’ll call Tim.” She began to look for his number and realized she did not have it saved in her phone. “So much for being prepared.”

  She was cursing herself for not having the number. As she was trying to come up with a plan, she saw a couple of guys carrying boxes out the front door.

  After about five minutes of hurriedly loading the trucks, one of the men came back in and said the trucks were full.

  “Go ahead and take the stuff back to the farm. We’ll catch up,” the leader said to the truck driver. Then, looking at the dorky loser kid who arrived in the Civic, he shouted “Hey shitbird, go stand outside and watch the door for a few minutes. I don’t want any surprises to come walking in.”

  After the two new guys stepped out, there were only two men still in the store. The leader stepped over and grabbed a Slim Jim from a rack and struggled to open the wrapper.

  “So much for just ‘snap into a Slim Jim’,” he said, mocking the TV commercials.

  The other guy also had the munchies and grabbed a beer from the cooler along with a burrito to put in the microwave.

  Glendora saw her chance. She eased down and grab
bed the old Winchester pump action 12 gauge from under the counter quietly, as if she was still packing boxes. Sam saw what she was doing and got ahead of her. He palmed a box cutter and walked around the counter toward one of the men while carrying a box of liquor.

  Sam did not do a good job of playing it off. He looked nervously at the man as he walked up.

  “What the hell you looking at, dick weed? You feeling froggy?” the man said, as he bowed up on Sam.

  The man was not threatened at all and was too busy balancing a beer, a hot burrito, and an old Hi-Point pistol.

  Sam was not the brightest crayon in the box but he did not like being called names. He half-tossed the box of liquor at the man and took a swipe with the box cutter, catching the man’s cheek with the sharp blade.

  “Motherfuc…” The man started to yell as he stumbled backwards, trying to figure out if he should drop the liquor and shoot the stock boy or save the liquor.

  The other guy, with the Slim Jim, had no problem with that decision and raised his pistol.

  Just as he squeezed off a round at Sam, Glendora squeezed off a volley of 00 buck from behind the counter. The buck did not have enough distance to spread out in the six feet between the muzzle and Mr. Slim Jim; it caught the man in the elbow and blew his arm clean off. His pistol and forearm spun wildly to the floor, but not before his bullet impacted Sam, nearly center mass. Sam’s stock apron was of little ballistic value and did nothing to stop the projectile. Sam fell back under the inertia of the .45 caliber slug and his arms and legs went stiff, like a dead cat, as he fell.

  The other crook was still holding the liquor box when it all went down. He had a mouth full of burrito and turned in shock to see Glendora swing the large bore in his direction as she worked to pump another round into the chamber. He dropped the box, allowing the liquor to smash on the floor. His intention was to run away but a blast of buckshot peppered his upper body from about fifteen feet away. The buckshot hit like a lead wall and knocked him off his feet. He fell backwards onto the box of broken liquor bottles. At that distance, the buckshot was probably survivable–the neck wound he received when he fell on a shattered tequila bottle was not. The man violently flopped around, spreading blood all over the floor. He began shaking like a sprayed roach for a long minute, then twitched to an open-eyed calmness.

  Slim Jim was also on the floor, bleeding and holding the nub that was his left arm. He felt that his only chance was to fight back and he reached his bloody remaining hand to the pistol he dropped. But he was a lefty and his bloody right hand could not get a good grip on the pistol. He rushed it and aimed at Glendora as she was moving toward Sam from behind the counter. He tried to take a shot but the impact of the gun falling to the floor knocked it out of battery and it wouldn’t fire. With his left arm spurting arterial blood, he had a choice to make: try to rack the slide with one hand or drop the weapon and put pressure on the bleeder before he passed out.

  The adrenaline made the wrong choice for him and he kept trying to rack the slide by jamming it down the side of his jeans like he saw in a movie once. Slim Jim passed out once and for all, while still hopelessly sliding the weapon on his leg.

  Glendora barely noticed the pitiful sight as she ran to Sam, but there was no life left in him. The shot dropped him cold.

  Moments before the shooting, Charlotte was standing behind the tree with her phone; she saw one truck leave and the loser kid reach into his car for a pair of wireless headphones. The kid shambled over to the corner of the building near where Charlotte was hiding. He leaned back in a shady spot with his foot on the wall behind him and proceeded to play on his cell phone with his headphones on.

  Charlotte began to worry he would see her only a few feet away and looked around for anything useful. She spied a three foot piece of thick, rusty rebar near the tree and eased down quietly to pick it up. Just then, her phone rang out loud and she rushed to answer before it caught loser’s attention. She was sure the kid heard it, but luckily he was still vibing to his music.

  “Cal, where have you been!” she loudly whispered. “We are working over here and I did not hear my phone, what’s up?” he said, half-defensively and half-pestered.

  “I’m at the store and there are men inside with guns. Glendora is inside. The police won’t answer and we need help!” she rattled off.

  “One of the men is outside and he might see me.”

  Cal’s attention focused instantly.

  “We’ll be right there. Stay out of sight and keep quiet. I love you. Just hold on.”

  Charlotte heard Cal holler at Tim to get in the truck as the line disconnected. She felt a sense of relief: at least someone knew what was happening.

  The feeling was short-lived, as loser boy began to squirm and it became obvious he needed to pee. He looked toward the trees and half fondled himself as he absentmindedly walked toward Charlotte. He was the worst lookout guy ever–he hardly looked up from his phone the whole time as he walked the few steps to Charlotte’s tree.

  As he reached the tree she tried to slip around it, out of sight with the rebar in hand.

  The kid tucked his phone in a pocket and unzipped his jeans, fumbling around to get in position. He began to relieve himself on the ground when he caught a slight movement on the other side of the tree. Charlotte had stepped back when the guy almost peed on her foot and gave herself away.

  The guy, still holding himself, leaned forward to look around the tree and was startled to see Charlotte standing only two feet away. His eyes went wide and he instinctively stopped mid-flow and turned.

  Charlotte had no idea what he would do next and she instinctively hoisted the thick rebar from down low to up at his head with all of her might. The arc took the rusty steel bar in a path straight up and into the right side of his lower jaw. The clacking sound his teeth made as his jaw slammed shut from half-open indicated that she made the money shot. The rebar impacted right in the lights-out button. Still holding his willy, his rigid body fell straight back and hit the ground in solid plank style. He never knew what hit him. The unconscious impact on the ground allowed his muscles to relax–as well as his bladder. To add insult to his injury, he peed straight up in the air and all over himself while his limp body settled into the dirt.

  Now it was Charlotte’s turn to stand there, wide-eyed at what just happened.

  Sounds of gunfire from inside the store startled her back to reality.

  Charlotte ran over to the side entrance and peeked back inside. She saw Glendora on the floor with Sam and one of the men shaking violently on the floor in a pool of blood. She ran inside to Glendora.

  “Cal and Tim are on the way. I can’t reach the police. Are you ok?” Charlotte asked, while she looked Glendora over for signs of injury.

  “Sam’s dead,” Glendora lamented. Looking at the young boy’s paling body, Charlotte felt a great sadness and hugged Glendora, whose adrenaline was ebbing into a heavy cry.

  There were sirens in the distance. But they would not stop at the store; similar scenes were playing out in more places than law enforcement could handle that day. In fact, the women did not know it yet, but no one would ever come to investigate. The sirens reminded Charlotte that she should let Cal know that they were ok so he would know what to expect.

  A few minutes later the girls heard a heavy rumble followed by a skid into the dirt parking lot. For a brief moment they worried that more bad guys had arrived. But Cal came plowing through the front door with his AR-15 in the ready position, just in case. Tim was close behind holding an old Colt .45, ready to take care of business.

  Cal scanned the bloody room and kicked the jammed pistol away from the armless guy laying on the floor as he made his way to the women.

  “Oh my God, what happened? Is anyone hurt?” Cal asked, as he looked the women over.

  “Just them,” Charlotte began, until she remembered the guy outside.

  “Outside! There is another one outside by a tree. I knocked him out with a steel bar!”r />
  Cal’s eyes couldn’t seem to decide if they should squint in confusion or go wide in amazement.

  “You did what?”

  Charlotte started to recant the story and the peeing until Cal stopped her, deciding to see for himself.

  He raised his AR and moved to the side door as if expecting an attacker to rush in. He stopped short of the door and did a ‘slice the pie’ maneuver to clear the area visually before he stepped out, barrel first. Tim was right behind him, with Charlotte–too close–in tow.

  “Over there,” she pointed.

  Cal and Tim spread out and worked their way over to the tree while scanning the wood line for movement. When they got to the tree there was no body. Comfortable that no one was near, Cal tried to verify the tree spot.

  “Are you sure it was this tree?”

  “Yes, positive.” She pointed at the ground where the guy had been lying. Cal looked down and saw a faint watery outline in the sand and a handful of white teeth in a bloody puddle near some headphones.

  “Holy crap girl, you must have straight up dusted him,” Cal said proudly. “Are you sure you are ok?”

  “I am now,” she said as they hugged.

  Tim shook his head admiringly and headed back to the door where Glendora was now standing.

  “You had a rough morning,” he said, as they instinctively hugged.

  Glendora realized she had been single too long and had so many emotions she couldn’t even speak. She appreciated that Tim didn’t push or try to fix anything at the moment. All she needed was some love.

  Back in the store, Cal found some camping table cloths on a shelf and covered up the bodies. After a while, they realized the police would not be coming anytime soon, so they set back to work loading what was left of the food. They kept a keen eye out for anyone coming back for revenge, since there was a new denture candidate running around out there somewhere. His car was still in the lot so if he was still alive he might be near.

  In fact, he was near. The young loser had managed to drag himself through the woods and was trying to call his buddy’s cell phone, but when it came time to talk, all he could do was grunt and moan since his jaw was shattered and his tongue was bitten in half. He tried texting but his phone screen was now smeared in blood and he could only spell gibberish. He was about as close to an authentic zombie as one could be, short of craving brains.