Turbulent: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Days of Want Series Book 1)

by T. L. Payne

  Tears welled in his eyes. He was happiest there. Happiness was hard to come by after his mother had taken him and Carl to stay in the endless string of gross motels, roach-infested apartments, and trailer homes where they lived with whatever boyfriend his mother was shacking up with at the time.

  He had never missed his grandmother more. He looked back at his grandfather, who was staring at the blank television screen as if he were watching Jeopardy or something.

  “I’ll see you, Gramps,” Kelly said, shutting the door behind him.

  Chapter 18

  I & M Canal Trail

  Grundy County, Illinois

  Event + 2 days

  As Carl sped around the side of the old farm house, he looked back at his kid brother.

  Twenty minutes, my ass. It’ll take him that long just to chop the firewood.

  Kelly was soft. He had rarely stood up to Carl. Carl could see that the world going to shit was getting to his brother. He’d give him time to be a do-gooder and take care of the old man. He knew his brother would need to harden up if he was going to make it through this mess—and Carl was determined to make that happen for the good of his new drug-and-whore enterprise. Kelly wasn’t built for this new world, but Carl was made for it.

  Carl barreled down the Illinois-Michigan Canal trail as fast as the ATV would go. He wanted to stash the four-wheeler in the woods behind Taylor’s Boat Shop before dark. He’d need to turn it off and push the machine for quite a long way to avoid anyone hearing the motor. He wouldn’t want to have to fight anyone who might try to steal it from him.

  As he slowed for a bend in the trail, he saw a black boy helping a tall girl onto a small trailer connected to an ATV. Carl turned off the key and coasted to a stop.

  The girl appeared to be out cold as the boy lifted her onto the trailer. A younger red-haired girl jumped in with her.

  If they had heard him drive up, they didn’t acknowledge it. The tall girl in the trailer had nice long, lean legs and blonde hair. He waited, curious as to where the boy was taking her. After the boy started his four-wheeler, Carl started his ATV. Making sure he didn’t follow to close, Carl kept his distance. They exited the trail, crossed a road, and sped down a gravel drive. The boy pushed the machine to full throttle, throwing gravel as he accelerated down the driveway to an old yellow farmhouse.

  An older woman raced from the front of the house. The smaller girl jumped from the back of the trailer. She helped the boy and the woman get the blonde girl inside. Carl knew he should leave--he had things to do and girls to snatch--but this situation piqued his interest, and he didn’t know why.

  Carl pulled his ATV into the bushes along the trail, well away from the farm. He didn’t hide it well, but maybe if someone didn’t look hard, he thought they’d pass it by without seeing it. He walked along the tree line next to a fence running up to the side of the house. When he reached the back of the house, he crept over and peaked through a window. Seeing nothing, he moved to the back of the house and peered through another window. The woman was wiping what looked to be blood from the girl's hands and arms.

  Carl couldn’t see the girl’s face, but her body was perfect. He briefly considered what had happened to cause her injuries, but dismissed that line of thinking. He didn’t have time for idle speculation. He needed to find his brother and get a girl over to Minooka as his first shipment to the boss. He didn’t have time to waste. Jimmy was looking for him, and that made moving around town more difficult.

  After he made some quick cash selling a few girls to the boss, he planned on relocating somewhere out of Jimmy’s reach. He had plans—big plans. He had the smarts to start his own operation. With the money he would make from the boss, he could hire a crew and start his own business running drugs and girls. He’d been in enough outfits to know how to run a successful crew. He wouldn’t tolerate the skimming he’d seen from Jimmy and the boss’s crews. Hell, no. He’d shut that shit down hard. Maybe he’d grow large enough to take over the boss’s territory. His mind raced. The possibilities were endless—if the lights stayed out, that is.

  Carl waited at the reconstructed Nettle Creek Aqueduct bridge for over an hour before Kelly arrived.

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  “I forgot they’d finished the bridge and reopened the trail. It has been closed so many years that I am just used to taking the road now.”

  “I almost just left your ass to walk back to town. Now, get on and let’s get going. We got shit to do.”

  Carl and Kelly drove back to town and stashed the four-wheeler in the woods behind a boat repair shop. It was nearing dusk and Carl was feeling sick from withdrawals. Needing somewhere to get high and crash for a while, Carl decided to wait until after dark to venture back into town and continue his search for girls.

  The pair walked behind the garage to a boarded-up trailer home. Carl used a pry bar he had brought from his grandfather’s barn to dislodge the 2x4s nailed across the front door. Inside, Carl flopped on the sofa while Kelly pulled a twin mattress from a bed into the living room. Carl lay back onto the couch while Kelly curled up on the mattress, and the two men slept.

  “What the fuck, man. It is daylight already. You fell asleep, didn’t you? I told you to wake me up in two hours so we could hit the streets. Mother fuck! Jimmy could have shown up here last night wanting his money,” Carl ranted as he pulled on the doorknob.

  Kelly jumped to his feet and followed his brother out the door and down the street toward the commercial district.

  Carl selected the stretch that housed the real estate company, a bail bondsman, and a liquor store. On the opposite side of the street there was a bar, a hair salon, and a dry cleaners. It did not appear that the shops on that side had been touched, but the liquor store was trashed. Nothing much was happening on that end of town, so the pair headed toward the Big Saver grocery store.

  The pair stalked their prey like lions on the savanna. Person after person entered and exited the store. Finally, Carl sees what they were waiting for and he motioned to Kelly to follow him.

  This girl was a little older than the girl at the convenience store yesterday, and not quite as pretty, but she would do. The girl turned down the alley between the floral shop and Sammie’s Pastry shop, and that’s when Carl made his move. He took off at a sprint and ran past the floral shop and disappeared down the next with Kelly in tow, struggling to keep up. Carl stopped at the end of the alley with his back against the wall. Kelly followed Carl’s lead and took his place next to his brother and they waited to make their move.

  As soon as the girl’s foot appeared, Carl lurched from his position and grabbed her from behind as she took another step. He slipped his hand over her mouth as she dropped the food she had been carrying and reached for his hand.

  “Grab her legs Kelly,” Carl yelled to his brother.

  The two men carried the struggling girl down the alley and through a side yard. She was getting quite heavy and her flailing caused Kelly to lose his grip a few times as they made their way to where they had stashed the ATV. After tossing the struggling girl onto the trailer, Carl held her down, and Kelly mounted the ATV and fired-up its engine. When Kelly twisted the throttle, Carl and the girl quickly became more preoccupied with keeping themselves inside the bouncing, clattering trailer than maintaining their roles as captor and captive. They raced toward Jefferson Street hitting every pothole as the wheeler threw gravel and mud at its passengers.

  Boss’s guy was pleased with the muddy gift. He examined her like she was a luxury car. The girl cried and swatted away his hand as he groped her.

  “She’ll do. Boss said he’d pay you two hundred dollars per trip for you to haul them up to Chicago. There will be trips south to Missouri, but he has to get in contact with his buyer down there to see if he is still in business now that the trucks won’t run,” T-Man said.

  Carl counted out the money as they walked back to the ATV.

  “How are we supposed to get those girls to
Chicago and St. Louis?” Kelly asked. “The cars don’t work and the roads are a mess even if they did.”

  “Grandpa Goff’s boat stupid. We can travel the canals and river all the way, back and forth. His old trolling motor should work since the ATV does. We just have to throw the boat on the trailer and head off to the canal.”

  “What about the locks?”

  “The boat is light enough we can portage around them as we do when the water gets low on the river.”

  With his gift delivered, Carl set out to find more merchandise to pay his debt to Jimmy. It didn’t take long. It appeared that the whole town was out shopping since everything was free. When Carl spotted twin girls together, he pumped his fist up and down in the air.

  “BOGO sale,” Carl said, nudging Kelly with his elbow, flashing a yellow, toothy grin.

  “What the hell is BOGO?”

  “Buy one, get one free, stupid.”

  The twins proved a bit more difficult for the brothers to handle. They put up quite the fight until Carl pressed his pocket knife against the neck of one of the twins and told the other he’d kill her sister if she didn’t stop. The other one gave up all struggle and did as she was told her. He had been afraid of nicking the merchandise, but he found he did not need to press that hard to get his point across.

  There was just something about a shiny sharp object that struck fear into the hearts of most people—at least in his experience. He thought this likely scared most people more than even a gun. Not that he’d had much experience with pulling guns on people. No. He just preferred a knife over a gun. Carl liked the feel of a knife in his hand. He felt it was much more personal to be up close to his prey. He had more control that way and it typically worked like a charm.

  After delivering the twins, collecting his cash, and sending Kelly to pay Jimmy, Carl was in the mood to celebrate. Only, he didn’t have anything to celebrate with. He stuck around after Jimmy and his crew went inside to borrow some from Jimmy’s stash. He would likely have a few hours of being back in Jimmy’s good graces before he had to run from him again. Jimmy may not even connect him to the theft, again. If he was lucky anyway. Luck might just be coming his way, for a change.

  As he lay on the sofa in the trailer home behind the garage coming down from the rush, Carl thought about the girl in the yellow farmhouse. He knew she would bring good money—and it might get a little hot for him when Jimmy discovered all the drugs in his tackle box missing again. He could grab the girl in the farmhouse, sell her to the boss and then move over to Shorewood because the way things were unfolding, Jimmy would not know where Carl went. If things didn’t improve with the electric and all, he could set up his own little kingdom in Shorewood or somewhere else.

  Hell, yeah—that sounds like a plan!

  “Kelly, get up. We are going back to that farmhouse.”

  “But it isn’t even daylight yet.”

  “We have to get guns first. We can hit them first light.”

  “Where are we gonna get guns from at this time of night?”

  “Uncle Mark’s, of course.”

  “You can’t just go up in there and ask him to give you guns. He’ll shoot your ass, and you know it.” Kelly said, a narrow frown forming.

  “I ain’t walking up in nowhere. I am going to start a diversion, and you are going to do it.”

  “Oh, hell no, brother. You want to get me killed. Ain’t no freakin way I am walking in Mark’s house and stealing from the man. You know well as I do he will hunt us down and shoot us in the street. No, with no law round, ain’t nothing to stop him.”

  “That is why I’m gonna created a diversion. He won’t know who stole his guns.”

  At Mark’s barn, Carl pried-off the entire swivel hasp and padlock securing the door to the jam. The dirt muffled the clanging metal contraption after it and its rusty screws were freed from the weathered barn wood.

  The boys found a gas can, some rags, and some old bottles and got to work. They filled the bottles with gas and Carl sent Kelly out to get in place for his mission. Carl ripped strips from the rags, shoved them into the mouth of each bottle, and pulled his lighter from the pocket of his jeans.

  “Okay Kelly, you better be in place. Don’t let me down, bro.” Carl said out loud to himself.

  One after the other, Carl lit each rag, tossed the burning cocktail onto a pile of hay, and ran out of the barn. He dove into the bushes that lined the driveway just as the screen door slammed into the side of the house announcing the arrival of his aunt and uncle. They burst from the doorway and shot onto the lawn in harried excitement.

  Their screaming aunt was running in circles, arms flailing, and Mark was stopped in the middle of the yard with his hands on his head, yelling for her to get the garden hose.

  Carl saw Kelly scamper from the bushes and dart across the driveway. He sat, regaled by the pandemonium, and nervously picked at scabs on his arms while he waited for his brother to return.

  In less than five minutes, Kelly hustled back across the driveway and made his way behind the row of bushes, gasping for air.

  A broad smile cross Carl’s face.

  My plan worked perfectly!

  Chapter 19

  Grundy County, Illinois

  Event + 2 days

  Maddie came-to with a pounding headache. She opened her eyes. She was in bed, but not her bed. She turned her head and surveyed the room. Moving her head made her feel dizzy. The walls of the dimly lit room were a pale yellow. Photographs of flowers hung on the walls. A mirror hung on the back of the door. The light coming from the open window revealed framed photos standing on a six-drawer dresser. She looked down at her body. She was covered with a yellow-and-blue quilt. She tried to sit up but her head swam. She felt nauseous. She lay her head back onto the fluffy pillow and took some deep breaths.

  The door opened, and the face of a middle-aged woman appeared in the crack, followed by Emma crawling under the woman’s arm and rushing to Maddie’s side.

  “You’re awake,” the woman said, opening the door wider. “How you feeling? You feel up to something to eat or drink?”

  Maddie tried again to sit up, moving a little slower this time. Emma helped her pull back the covers. Maddie threw her leg over the side of the bed. Emma pulled on Maddie’s arm, but she was still unable to get to her feet. The woman rushed in and reached for Maddie’s other arm to assist her into an upholstered chair in the corner of the room. The room spun, and Maddie felt nauseous again. Bending over in the chair, she put her head between her knees.

  “You feeling sick?” the woman asked, as she placed a small metal trash can in front of Maddie.

  “Where am I?” Maddie croaked, her voice hoarse.

  “Grundy County—just outside of Inola. My boy found you unconscious on the trail. You must have fallen and hit your head. Your hands and face are pretty scuffed up. I cleaned them best I could.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You should try to drink some water. You might have passed out from dehydration. It is pretty warm out today. I’m Darlene, by the way.”

  “I’m Maddie.”

  Darlene picked up a glass of water from the bedside table and held it out in front of Maddie. Taking the glass, Maddie drank a sip and placed it on the table beside the chair.

  “Do you know what is going on out there?” Darlene asked.

  “Yes. Emma and I came from the airport. It is bad out there.”

  “With the electric out we haven’t heard any news. Even our battery-operated radios don’t work.”

  “We were at O’Hare when the lights went out. When planes started colliding above the airport and crashing onto the runway, I knew I needed to get as far from there as possible.”

  Maddie sat up, picked up the glass of water from a side table, and took a sip. She looked at the woman. She was older than Maddie’s mom, in her late forties or early fifties. Her brown hair was graying and crow’s feet framed her kind eyes.

  “Do you know what happened? Is it t
errorists?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything like bombing or anything. I saw a lot of looting and people doing really awful things. We saw the National Guard heading into the city.”

  Maddie ran a hand through her hair. It was like a rat’s nest caked with dried blood. She touched her face and winced. She did not even want to look at how bad it was. She had seen lots of runners do face plants. She knew how bad it could be. It hurt like hell, but she did not think she had broken any bones. She looked down at the palms of her hands. They were bandaged with gauze and tape.

  “I cleaned them up best I could. There might still be some sand and tiny gravel in them. A couple of the gashes were pretty deep. Your elbows were pretty bad too. Looks like you tried to catch yourself with your hands.”

  “Thank you for bandaging them.”

  Maddie could not help herself. She pulled up a corner of the bandage on her left hand to take a peak. It was as bad as she expected. They would swell. She’d had this happen before.

  “You feel up to coming down for some dinner?” Darlene asked.

  “I think so.”

  Darlene took hold of Maddie's forearm, trying not to touch her hands or elbows. Emma took the other. As Maddie stood, Darlene steadied her until she caught her balance.

  “Now take it easy. A concussion is nothing to mess with. My boy, Ray Junior, he has had a couple of concussions and we learned that you have to take it slow or you’ll pay the price.”

  Darlene warmed homemade soup on a Coleman stove in the back yard and poured some into a mug for Maddie. Across the long farm table from her was a boy of maybe twelve or thirteen. He looked nothing like Darlene. His skin and hair were dark.

  “This here is my boy, Ray Junior. He’s the one who found you on the trail.”