The Borrowed World (Book 3): Legion of Despair

by Franklin Horton

  “My daughter is getting the same way,” Jim said. “Maybe she can get together with your girls one day and visit.”

  “That would be great,” Thomas said. “When should I expect the new neighbors?”

  “Any day now,” Jim said. “Then we’re going to gate off this valley and hope we can keep things calm until the lights come back on and the fuel starts flowing.”

  Thomas had one last question. “How many of us are left back here, Jim?”

  “About a fourth of what lived here before,” Jim replied. “Maybe less.”

  “How many people is that?” Thomas asked.

  “About seventy.”

  Thomas grinned. “How many of those are Wimmers?”

  “At least fifty,” Jim said.

  Jim shared the information about the radio frequency that they could all use to keep in touch on the family band radios, asked if Thomas had any of the radios, and was pleased to learn that he did.

  “If you can, leave one on,” Jim said. “It’s the closest thing we’ve got to 9-1-1 for now.”

  Chapter 15

  Gary’s House

  Richlands, VA

  The mood was somber as Gary and his family packed up. No one thought they were going to be able to fit everything into the cars. Although Gary tried to assure his family that they could come back for more stuff if fuel was available, even he didn’t believe it. They all felt like the moment they left their house there would be wolves descending from the hills and the house would either be looted or someone would move in. Gary had seen it on his way home. Abandoned property became community property. Regardless of the care or attention paid to a home over the years by its rightful owners, in their absence it simply became a roof under which a traveler could take shelter. Any room could serve as a bathroom. Any corner a receptacle for garbage. It was heartbreaking.

  Gary had every intention of coming back as soon as he could to check on things but he wondered if it was even worth it. He couldn’t defend his home from fifteen or twenty miles away. Even if he could come up here and try to drive folks out, was it worth the expenditure of fuel or ammunition and the risk of death? As soon as he drove out squatters, more would probably come. It would be an endless cycle.

  Debra had all the children gathered in the living room. Gary had hooked up a portable DVD player to an inverter and a deep-cycle marine battery. The kids were all watching a movie while the adults tried their best to reduce their lives to a carload. They were using every trick in the book to maximize what they could carry. They gassed up their largest vehicles with the most interior space. They chose vehicles with luggage racks on top so they could tie as many things as possible to the top. Debra even managed to find two of those zippered car-top carriers made of weatherproof canvas that they could stuff full and strap to the tops of vehicles. Gary also had one of those luggage carriers that slipped into a receiver hitch. He used it for carrying coolers to the beach so they didn’t leak all over the car. He put it on Charlotte and Dave’s minivan and it gave them just a little more space.

  Based on criteria known only to him, Gary assigned vehicles. He would drive the box truck with Alice riding with him. Gary wanted someone in there with him to literally ride shotgun. Will was going to drive Debra’s SUV and pull Gary’s utility trailer behind it. Gary had made that decision because Will had hauled trailers before and wasn’t likely to forget it was back there or run a tire off into the ditch. Charlotte was going to drive her minivan while Dave drove his Subaru Forester. Gary had intended to limit each family to a single vehicle but the Subaru had the gas for the trip so why not use it? Sara also had a minivan and was going to be driving it. That left Debra driving Gary’s beat-up old Nissan Pathfinder with Karen riding with her.

  Once they had figured out who was driving what, Gary was surprised to see just how many vehicles they had in their fleet. He drained the gas from the vehicles they weren’t taking and from all the gas-operated equipment he owned. He really didn’t want to dig into the gas cans he’d taken from the maintenance shop at work yet because he hoped he could use those for the generator when they got settled. Not for entertainment, air conditioning, and microwave popcorn, but for operating tools and lights when needed. Through careful fueling, he managed to get a quarter tank in each vehicle and he thought that would be enough to get them to their destination as long as nothing crazy happened. If something crazy did happen, he had the backup cans.

  The loading itself was dizzying. Everyone felt the sense of urgency and worked quickly. Gary convinced them that the use of soft-sided luggage and stuffable bags would allow them to get more in the cars. Outside his house, Dave stood by their vehicles, a rifle close at hand, and Charlotte threw stuff out the windows and door to him. He mercilessly crammed the items into every nook and cranny of both vehicles. As the cars filled up, he began strapping luggage, duffel bags, and garbage bags onto the roof rack and into the zippered carrier. When he was done, he laced two hundred-foot ropes over the entire mass of luggage and strapped it all down. It looked like the Beverly Hillbillies moving cross-country. Gary hoped that it all stayed on when they started driving because he had no intention of stopping on the side of the road.

  The rest used similar methods, filling large spaces with bigger items and cramming clothes into every miniscule space within the vehicle. This was not packing for vacation, so little care was given how things would look when unpacked. The primary concern was just trying to find room for the things they really wanted to take.

  Alice helped Gary since Debra was watching the kids. They loaded the emergency preparations first – dozens of totes, ammo cans, five-gallon buckets, and cardboard boxes. They loaded solar gear, tools, vacuum-sealed containers of heirloom seeds, cases of canning jars, and a pressure cooker. They loaded tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, camping stoves, cans of Coleman fuel, and a half-dozen unopened tarps. There were the diapers that Gary had mentioned, as well as unopened cases of toilet paper, tampons, paper plates, and garbage bags. They loaded hanks of rope, spools of wire, a tote of fishing and trapping supplies, and several types of water filtration. The food alone took up about thirty percent of the truck.

  Gary intentionally delayed loading the weapons and ammunition. He’d been working on a plan for distributing them throughout vehicles. He wanted the majority of them to be in the truck with him, but he also wanted a few in each vehicle just in case they lost the truck. He couldn’t stand the thought of it, but he knew it could happen and that it would be a good idea to make contingencies just in case. Every vehicle would have a shotgun, a pistol, and a rifle, with ammunition appropriate to them.

  The day was exhausting for everyone, a combination of nerves and frustration. When everything but the guns was loaded, Gary began to work on those. Alice helped him. Her husband hunted but he did not buy the kind of guns that Gary bought. As a matter of fact, she had not even seen guns like the ones Gary had except in the movies. Her husband’s guns had wooden stocks and blued barrels and these guns were nothing like that. They were black, with different attachments and handles on them. She did not have any idea how you fired something that looked like that.

  As a non-hunter, Gary preferred tactical and defensive weapons. Over the years, he’d bought a lot of them. So many, in fact, that he had hidden dozens of them from his wife. She wasn’t bothered by his interest in weapons and she would never have said anything to him about them, it was his own guilt about spending money on what seemed like an extravagance. His most recent acquisition, motivated by an interest in precision shooting, had been a Savage 110 in .338 Lapua Magnum. He’d fitted the rifle with an MDT Tac21 chassis. With the correct loads, he could hit at two thousand yards, using a Schmidt Bender scope he’d purchased for nearly twice the price of the rifle. Altogether, with the rifle, stock, scope, Atlas bipod, and a supply of ammunition, he had nearly ten thousand dollars in the rifle. His most expensive weapon.

  Gary sat on an upturned bucket beside the massive pile of weapons, drinking a warm Gato
rade, when his family filed into the garage. They stood around him, their clothes sweat-soaked and a general cloud of weariness hovering over them.

  “You all done?” he asked, trying to force his voice to sound cheerful.

  “Not yet,” Debra said. “I have to add a few things to the truck.”

  Gary groaned. “It’s nearly full,” he said, losing some of his cheer. “Most of what space is left is for the guns. I’m not sure you can get anything else in there.”

  When Debra didn’t respond, he turned to look at her and saw that she was carrying stacks of photo albums. Every memory, from dating to their wedding to the birth of their children and grandchildren, was in those books. She looked heartbroken and fragile. He knew what had happened. She had gone to move the albums and had opened them. Once you did that, your entire life flashed before your eyes.

  “We’ve got room,” he said.

  He stood and helped Debra find a safe spot for the albums, then leaned back against the truck, taking another swallow of his drink. His damp shirt was sticking to the aluminum truck body behind him.

  Alice popped up from her own bucket. “Darn, I’ve got to go again,” she said, walking off briskly. “How long before this medicine fixes this?”

  “Soon,” Gary called after her.

  “What did you give her?” Debra asked.

  “Metronidazole,” Gary said. “At least the fish version. And some Imodium.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be helping,” Karen said. “Are you sure those fish antibiotics are safe?”

  “They’re safe, it just takes time,” Gary said. “You have to stick with the medicines and stay hydrated. Take it seriously, though. Diarrhea kills over a million people worldwide every year. A hundred years ago it was one of the leading causes of death and could easily become so again.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Charlotte moaned.

  Karen took a seat on Alice’s bucket. “What time is it?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”

  Debra looked at her watch. “A little after six p.m.”

  “How about we eat dinner and call it an early night,” Gary said. “Let everyone get some rest.”

  “Now that I’m packed, I’d just about prefer to go tonight,” Sara said.

  Charlotte nodded in agreement. “Me too. Let’s get this over with. It’s just too sad looking at our empty houses.”

  “I would agree under other circumstances,” Gary said. “However, I don’t want to have an emergency and get stuck on the road in the dark. I also don’t want to have to find our way to a strange house in the dark. The whole thing is just too risky. It’s best to try and get an early start tomorrow. I’m going to try and radio Jim tonight and let him know we’re coming and then I want to get out of here first thing in the morning. Like sunup. We get up, gather our stuff, and go.”

  “Do you have to go back up on the ridge or are you going to try and radio him from here?” Debra asked. “I worry about you being away from us again.”

  “I’m going to try the radio from here and see what happens,” Gary said. “And I guess I should get on it. Sitting here isn’t getting anything done.”

  As Gary stood, Alice quickly walked around the corner of the house. “I think I saw something,” she said.

  Everyone immediately went on high alert.

  “What?” Gary asked. “What did you see?”

  “A flash back at the edge of the woods,” she said. “I thought it was nothing at first, but it moved. Then it went away.”

  “Someone is watching us,” Will said. “She probably saw binoculars or a spotting scope.”

  “Dave, you stay here with everyone. You girls keep a weapon close. Close this door and lock yourselves in the house,” Gary said.

  “Where are you all going?” Debra asked, apprehension in her voice.

  “We need to see what’s out there,” Gary said, grabbing his Bushmaster and a sling pouch with spare mags. He kissed Debra. “It will be okay.”

  “Be careful,” Alice warned.

  Gary nodded, then he and Will stepped out of the garage.

  *

  It took them at least five minutes to approach the location where Alice said she’d seen the flash. Despite having worked in the open all day, they now felt exposed and did their best to stick to the cover available. Whoever had been there was long gone, although there was a clear indication that someone had been there. The weeds were flattened in a manner suggesting someone had been there for a long time, someone watching what they had been doing.

  Had this someone seen them loading the trucks? The idea that someone may know their plans filled Gary with anxiety.

  When they returned to the house and relayed their findings to the family, the anxious feeling spread through the group. As if the exhaustion and stress of the day weren’t enough, they now had this to deal with.

  “This is simply confirmation of why we’re leaving,” Gary reminded everyone. “We knew that we were not safe here. I’ve been telling you that. We knew we could not secure this location.”

  Gary could tell that they were hearing his words but not experiencing the reassurance that he hoped his words would give them. They all needed to stay on high alert until they got off this hill and out of this town. He hoped that the confrontation with that Molloy kid the other day would scare them off, but it obviously hadn’t. This was becoming personal.

  Gary would have to reconsider his thoughts on when it was justifiable to kill someone. Jim had told him that you didn’t leave people alive to deal with later, when you might be less prepared for the encounter. Better to finish them off when you had the upper hand. While Gary was not completely convinced, he was beginning to see the logic of it. If he killed someone in cold blood like that, then it became his individual problem. All he had to deal with was his conscience and any guilt he felt. If he failed to kill someone and they came back and hurt his family, then it became a group problem and everyone had to deal with it. It was a lot to wrestle with.

  “I want you all to go ahead and fix dinner. If you need to cook, do it in the garage with a window open. Go ahead and set up a portable toilet in one of the bathrooms. Consider yourselves on lockdown. I don’t want anyone going out again this evening,” Gary said.

  “Will,” Gary said, turning toward his son-in-law. “I want you and Dave to pull every vehicle over here as close to the house as you can get them. One of you drives, the other maintains watch. After they’re all here, I want you to keep watch until dinner is ready,” Gary said. “We’ll eat in shifts. We do not leave these vehicles unguarded. That’s our life and our future out there.”

  “Got it,” Will said.

  “I’m going to go make that radio call right now, before it gets any later,” Gary said. “Then I’ll be back and we’ll come up with a watch plan for tonight.”

  Gary grabbed the radio from his pack. It was part of the set that he, Jim, and Randi had taken from the ranger station on Mount Rogers. He went upstairs and stood in the window of the bedroom, hoping that it would give him just enough reach. The hilltop upon which his home sat was in a bowl-shaped dip atop the hill. Not only did the signal have to climb out of that bowl, it had to clear a significant ridge, then go fifteen miles beyond that to reach Jim.

  Gary brought the radio up to his mouth, embarrassed that he, Jim, and Randi had not taken the time to establish some type of radio protocol. They’d been on the move then, and even establishing this means of contact was kind of an afterthought. They’d not had time to establish any codes or anything like that. As a result, they were on an open channel discussing their activities. He could only hope that that they were vague enough that nothing too critical hit the wrong ears.

  “Jim?” he said. “You read me, Jim?”

  Gary waited a moment and stared out the window, his eyes scanning the tree line.

  “Jim?” he repeated. “You read me, Jim? It’s Gary.”

  There was a crackle of static and then a voice. “Gary, it’s Jim. Good to hear
your voice, old buddy.”

  Gary breathed a sigh of relief. “Transmitting from home this time, Jim. I wasn’t sure if I’d get you or not.”

  “Not as loud as the last time,” Jim said. “But I can hear you. What’s going on up there?”

  “We’re bugging out.” Gary paused a moment, almost unable to believe that the words were coming from his mouth. “We just can’t hold this position. Too risky, and it keeps getting worse. I want to do what we talked about last time.”

  “Everything on my end is done,” Jim said. “I won’t go into the details on here, but when you get to my house it’s taken care of.”

  While this had been the plan, he’d had no assurance until this moment that everything he and Jim had talked about had been arranged. There was a home on a farm and they could work with Jim and his family to make the best of things. Gary felt a wave of emotion despite the distance they still had to go. It was the most hope he’d felt in days.

  “When should we expect you?”

  “I hope to be out of here first thing in the morning if there’s no trouble. Give us an hour to get there. So, hopefully by 8 or 9 a.m.”

  “We’ll be watching for you, Gary,” Jim said. “I’ll have the radio with me just in case you get in a jam. If that happens, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Anything going on over that way that we need to be worried about?” Gary asked. “Any hazards or highwaymen?”

  “I don’t know about any hazards on your end of the road,” Jim said. “There’s a roadblock at the Route 19 and Route 80 intersection near here. A couple of days ago, it was manned by a trooper named Travis I went to high school with. I don’t know if he’s still there or not. The road between my house and there was clear when I took Randi home but I can’t make any promises. Use caution and we’ll be ready to come help you on the road if you need us.”

  “Appreciate it, Jim,” Gary said. “You’ve got no idea how much.”