“I want to turn around.”
“No. Keep going. Just go slow. If that’s Jim ... and I think it is ... then there’s no danger.”
“No danger? What are they doing blocking the street like that? With rifles? They aren’t cops.”
“No, they’re not. But men with guns aren’t necessarily bad.”
“I know that, but...”
“Here. Pull up so that I can talk to them.”
Meg held her breath as she pulled up. She angled the truck so that her dad’s window was facing the men.
She saw them now, her headlights glancing off their faces. Their expressions were stony. They looked like they’d never smiled in their lives.
She didn’t recognize them. But, then again, even if they were her dad’s neighbors, she’d been away for so long in New Mexico that she wasn’t sure if she’d recognize them or not.
Her dad rolled his window down.
“Careful,” she muttered to him in a low voice.
“What’s happening, fellas?” said her dad in the cheerful voice she’d heard him use before in certain situations. He’d always said it was better not to cower in the face of potential danger. He’d always said it was better never to let any potential enemy know that you knew you might be in trouble. Better to play the happy fool, if necessary.
The man didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t move his face at all, except to peer relentlessly at Meg’s father.
“Name?” said the man.
“John. John Williams. Don’t you remember me?”
“Williams...”
“I live right over there. Hey, aren’t you Jim? It’s been a while.... I don’t get out as much as I used to, not since the wife passed.”
The man, who had held his gun in a menacing way, lowered it slightly. He leaned back, and conferred with the other men in whispers for a few moments, before leaning forward again, and saying. “All right, you can pass.”
Meg knew that her dad didn’t like this situation. She knew that he didn’t like being told practically at gunpoint whether he could enter his own neighborhood or not. But she also knew he was pretending, in a way, and hiding his true feelings.
“What’s going on, Jim, buddy? What’s all the commotion? What’s with all the guns?”
“We’ve had some trouble,” said Jim. He was still stony-faced and deadly serious.
Meg was combing the recesses of her mind, trying to locate Jim’s face somewhere in some childhood memory. But nothing came up.
“What kind of trouble, ol’ Jim?”
Her dad never talked like that normally. He was intentionally being overfamiliar.
“Communications are down. The power’s out.”
“I heard as much.”
“Something’s going on. We don’t know what. Mrs. McPherson had someone break into her house.”
McPherson was a name that Meg knew well from her childhood. She’d already been quite an elderly woman back in the day, almost two decades ago, when Meg had been a girl.
“Mrs. McPherson’s getting up there, isn’t she?” said her dad, his voice loud, friendly, and booming, its tone contrasting with Jim’s guarded one. “Hope she’s okay. What happened to her? They didn’t hurt her, did they?”
“Nope,” said Jim. “She shot the intruder.”
Meg’s dad gave a little chuckle. “She really knows how to take care of herself, right?”
Jim nodded stiffly. “They chose the wrong house.”
“He’s still alive? Who was he?”
“Just some young man. He’s dead now. Bullet to the head. McPherson’s a good shot, apparently. Some sort of drifter. Drug addict. The lights went out and he figured he’d use the opportunity to take what he thought should be his ... like I said, he picked the wrong house.”
“So that’s why you formed this little roadblock, eh?”
“It’s not the only reason. We also had someone going door to door, claiming that it was the ‘End Times,’ and that we needed to repent or he’d repent for us ... apparently in the form of some sort of physical torture.... we had to deal with him in a very physical way, if you catch my drift.”
“What in the world?”
“No idea. There are a lot of nutjobs out there. And they’re coming out of the woodwork now. Whatever is going on, we’re trying to keep the neighborhood safe.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Meg’s dad. “Hell, I’d be out here with you if it wasn’t for my health.”
With that, and a couple of stiff nods typical to the region, the men began moving their vehicles out of the way, just enough to allow Meg to squeeze her Toyota through the gap.
“This is crazy,” said Meg, pulling once again into her dad’s driveway.
“It is,” he said. “Now, we don’t have much time. Here’s the plan...”
“What do you mean? We don’t have much time? What are you talking about?”
“We’ve got to get in and get out. Now you go for the food. I know where the weapons and other gear are ... I’ll grab those. I think we can get it all done in an hour.... simply grab everything you can.... you can fit a lot in this extended cab and the camper shell.”
“What are you talking about? You want to leave? We just got home.”
“Look,” said her dad, his voice stony and serious, the complete opposite of what it was when talking to the armed men. “You heard what Jim said. Two attacks since the power went out.... it’s all going to come collapsing down around us if we stay here.”
“But Jim is out there with the other men of the neighborhood. Doesn’t that give you any comfort?”
Her dad gave a hollow sort of laugh. “There are other ways into the neighborhood than just the street. And what’s more, standing there with guns and big trucks is like advertising that they have what others might want.”
“You mean people might attack them just for their trucks?”
“Or their guns. After all, the very tool that can save you can also make you a target.”
Meg didn’t quite know what to think. On one hand, her dad had a good point. The fact that there were neighbors out there with guns, trying to defend the neighborhood really didn’t make her feel any safer, if she was being honest with herself.
But, on the other hand, where else could they go? It wasn’t like her apartment would be any more secure.
“Come on,” said her dad energetically and seriously, clapping his hands together. “We’ve got an hour. Let’s get to work!”
And with that, he was off, winding swiftly through the cold and crowded house.
Meg found it easier to go along with the plan than to stand there and do nothing. After all, did she really want to just stay at her dad’s house? No, she didn’t. She had this innate sense deep within her that something was terribly, terribly wrong with this situation. After all, the power had gone off many times before. But this was different. And people were behaving differently. Everything seemed different, as if there were this metallic edge of danger that surrounded them at all times.
She worked quickly and diligently, finding that the more she worked, the more her mind felt at ease, the less she worried about what was going on, about what it all meant.
She tried not to think about the immediate future. After all, her dad’s plan of breaking into some rich person’s house just didn’t make any sense at all.
How could he seriously think that was an option? It seemed not only impractical and dangerous, but also seriously wrong.
Well, maybe he’d realize how wrongheaded a plan it was once they got up into the Berkshires.
But, while the idea of taking over someone’s house wasn’t appealing, the idea of bugging out of the area for a while did appeal to Meg.
The more she gathered food from the kitchen, sorting through perishable and nonperishable items, storing everything neatly in plastic tubs that she found in the back of the kitchen closet, the clearer her head felt and the less worried she became.
Things definitely were strange aroun
d here. Something was going on. It was a perfect time to get away from it all, a perfect time to get to a less populated area. The Berkshires were up in the mountains a bit. She didn’t know the exact elevation, but she knew that the weather was harsher even than Western Mass. Well, that was fine. She could deal with harsh weather, even when she didn’t like it. Her dad had taught her to be tough like that. “You don’t have to like it,” he’d always said to her, when she was a little girl and a teen and had to do things that were unpleasant but, in the end, beneficial.
It took about a solid hour of organizing and searching before Meg felt like she had the food situation sorted out. She gazed down at the results of her hard work and she felt, in a sense, useful.
It was nice to feel useful. It was a feeling that, in the modern world at least, was difficult to come by. How many dumb jobs had she had back in New Mexico, where she’d just feel useless, where she’d felt like everything she did was pointless? A lot. She’d lost track years ago.
“Ready?” barked her dad, marching suddenly into the kitchen.
He was wearing a large camping backpack, the straps tight around both shoulders. There were all sorts of things strapped to the pack with cord, as well as several carabiners hanging off, carrying various things like water bottles, camp stoves, and axes.
He had two more straps that crossed his chest like bandoliers. They held two humongous duffel bags that hung on either side of his body.
Meg laughed in spite of herself. “You look ridiculous,” she said.
Her dad grunted some gruff response. “Ready?” he repeated, looking stern and annoyed.
“Just about,” she said. “Can you give me a hand with this?”
“Got my hands full,” he grunted. “Meet me in the truck.” And with that, he turned around and was lost from view again.
“So nice to have the happy-go-lucky dad back,” she muttered under her breath, crouching down, trying to get into the stance required to lift up one of the tubs heavy with canned food.
It was a good thing her dad insisted on being so tight with money, because he tended to go on buying binges during sale periods, purchasing many more cans of food than he could possibly eat.
That food might come in handy now. And even if it didn’t, at least they had it. Better safe than sorry.
It took Meg what felt like forever just to navigate her way through the house, trudging along with the heavy tubs of food.
Her dad, after unloading his gear, returned to help her, and it took several more trips before the truck was packed.
The gear and food fit easily into the truck. After all, she had an extended cab, as well as her camper shell with the extra headspace toward the tailgate.
“I wish I had more of my camping gear,” she said, as she put the truck in gear and began pulling out of the driveway. “I felt like I needed to make it look more presentable or something.”
She had been pretty big into camping back in New Mexico and over the years she’d managed to acquire a good bit of decent gear, usually buying it secondhand from friends in the outdoor groups she’d belonged to, or getting lucky on Craigslist or, better yet, at yard sales. Yard sales were where the really good stuff was. And the best prices.
“Don’t worry,” said her dad. “We’ve got everything we need. Now, here, you’d better take this now. And I don’t want to hear any excuses.”
Before Meg knew it, the heavy handgun he’d presented to her earlier was in her hands.
She looked down at it. The safety was engaged.
It had a nice weight to it.
It looked new.
“And before you say anything else,” continued her dad. “This isn’t the time to worry about the legality. I’ve always done things by the book when possible and I respect that you’ve done the same. I’ve taught you well. But you’ve seen what’s happening. There’s a time and a place for doing things by the book. And this isn’t one of those times.”
She looked up at him. She saw the seriousness in his face.
She recognized the danger herself.
She knew that he was right.
He handed her a holster.
It wasn’t leather. It wasn’t fancy. It was made out of some type of hard, synthetic material. Nothing ornamental about it at all. Really it just looked like black plastic and not much more.
But that was fine.
The gun fit into the holster snugly, sliding in smoothly.
“Now put that where you can get to it easily. We’ll work out your carry options later. It’ll take some time and we don’t have that right now.”
The gun was significantly heavier than the one she had in New Mexico and her dad was right, she’d have to find a new strategy for concealed carry.
Meg was glad that she’d decided to wear casual clothes tonight. In fact, she was wearing what she jokingly called her “anti-men” clothes. She had plenty of very feminine clothes, which she wore most of the time. But, always a practical person, she lamented the lack of pockets in women’s clothing.
So her solution? Buy men’s clothing. It was less expensive, and the pants and shirts often had pockets, which were immeasurably valuable for the outdoor activities and camping she enjoyed in New Mexico. After all, how could a woman be expected to hike in the types of clothing they seemed to want women to wear? Skin-tight leggings may look nice, especially to the male eye, but there wasn’t any room for carrying a compass, or a knife, let alone a place to stuff a handgun.
“Looks like the posse is still out in force,” muttered her dad. “Let’s hope they’ll let us through.”
He said it more or less as a joke. It was one of his sort of jokes, which meant, by definition, that it didn’t necessarily have to be funny.
Meg wasn’t too worried about being let through. After all, it had been only about an hour.
And what reason would they have not to move?
But as Meg pulled up slowly, she caught a glimpse once again of the steely stares that the men had.
This time, it wasn’t Jim that approached them as she rolled her window down.
It was someone new.
Someone she didn’t recognize.
He was a short man. Squarely built. Broad shoulders. Looked like he probably worked out.
“Howdy, partner,” called out her dad, once again using his joking sort of jovial voice. “How ’bout letting a couple of cowboys through the gates?”
In any other situation, Meg would have rolled her eyes. She didn’t now, only because she was just focused on getting through and getting out of here.
She’d felt safe in the house. But out here on the open road? She didn’t like the feeling of it. The dark and the cold were oppressive.
The short man didn’t speak. He didn’t look Meg in the eye, or her dad in the eye. A trait that her dad had always despised.
The silence was long.
And awkward.
“Well, partner,” said her dad, quite noticeably forcing out a chuckle, continuing the gag. “What’ll it be? What do you reckon?”
“We’re not letting anyone out of the neighborhood.”
“Not letting anyone out? We just came in!” protested Meg.
“Those are the rules.” Glancing up at her, he gave her a dismissive look. His accent was purely Western Mass. His intonation and cadence were purely Western Mass.
Meg felt the fury rising up inside her. She’d forgotten it all. She’d forgotten how mad she could get at the people in Western Mass.
All sorts of memories from her childhood came flooding back ... times she’d been screwed over by jerks with exactly the same sort of way of talking and looking at you ... it was that dismissive attitude that got her, as if she didn’t matter, as if...
“Look here,” said her dad, butting in.
“There’s nothing I can do,” the man was saying.
“Where’s Jim? We go way back. We just talked to him.”
“He’s gone home.”
“Who’s making the decisions?
”
“I am.
“But I don’t even know you.”
The conversation between her dad and the man was going nowhere.
The other men, tall and stern, were gathering around. They carried their long guns. Not necessarily in threatening ways, but certainly the guns were very visible. The threat was implicit.
Meg couldn’t help herself.
She knew the danger.
She knew they had guns.
She knew this wasn’t a smart move.
But she also knew that talking wasn’t getting them anywhere.
She knew they had to get out of there, especially when their neighbors were acting like this.
What right did they have to seal off the neighborhood? What right did they have to say whether Meg and her father could leave?
None.
No right.
There wasn’t any point in using words.
Force was implied. Force would be used to keep them in the neighborhood.
It was time to act.
Slowly and surreptitiously, Meg moved her hand over to the door handle. She pulled it back, almost to the point where the mechanism engaged.
She held it there for just a moment. A long pause.
Her dad was arguing with the man, who was only grunting in response.
The short man was right next to Meg’s door.
She pulled the handle. The mechanism engaged.
Her seatbelt wasn’t on. She had good maneuverability. She slammed her left shoulder against the door, twisting her body, throwing all her weight against the door.
The door slammed into the short man.
He grunted in pain.
He dad shouted something. She didn’t hear it.
The tall menacing men were suddenly jumping into action, their long guns leveling, parallel with the road. Hands went to handguns and clubs. Knives were pulled from under shirts and from inside pockets.
Meg’s own hand was already wrapped around her new gun. She felt its weight as she pulled it up.
But surely she wouldn’t use it.
Right?
These were neighbors.
In other situations, they might have been friends.
They weren’t bad guys.
Someone was grabbing her. A rough, strong hand, reached through the open doorway.
Constant Danger (Book 1): Fight The Darkness Page 10
