“We didn’t mean to kill anybody. You had your chance,” Chris said.
“How many daughters did you have, woman?” Jesse asked.
“I just told you, two!”
“We caught one of them early on,” Jesse said as he put pressure on his knife wound.
Tori’s heart leaped when she heard his words. Initially she doubted the truthfulness of what he had said.
“What did you just say?”
“A little girl named Amelia was outside when we bombed the house. Plan was to use her as leverage, but the fire got out of control,” Jesse said.
“Shut up, Jesse! She’s going to kill us when she’s done with us.”
Tori quickly pointed the pistol at Chris and pulled the trigger. “I’m done with you,” she said to the lifeless body.
She pointed the gun back at Jesse and asked, “What did you do with her?”
“If I tell you, you’ll let me live?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you live. Where’s she at?”
“We traded her for three bottles of J.D.”
“To who?” she yelled.
“Some man, south of town at an old farm.”
Tori took a step closer to Jesse, and he immediately threw his hands back in the air and said, “Whoa, whoa, you said you would let me live.”
“Yes, I did.”
She pointed the gun at his knees and shot his left knee, dropping him instantly. He was writhing in pain and groping at his leg when she shot his other knee.
“Although, you’ll never walk again.”
Tori walked out of the house and headed south. Her journey took her south towards Red Bud, Illinois. There were several farms south of Belleville, and Tori wasn’t going to rest until she found Amelia.
By the time she had reached the south side of Belleville, darkness was falling. She was feeling more like predator than prey, unlike just a couple nights ago. Her inner veteran was taking over, and the skills her government had instilled in her to keep the country safe were paying off.
Tori found an old farm and searched it thoroughly. She couldn’t find anything worthy of carrying off the property.
She wanted to continue without rest until she found Amelia, but she knew she would be useless to Amelia if she was groggy from lack of sleep. She found a soft spot, using the couch in the farmhouse, and slept on it.
December 4
The country farmhouse filled with morning light, and Tori sprang to her feet in search of food from the cabinets.
They were empty.
She was leaning over the kitchen sink when she happened to see movement outside. She peered through the window and saw a man walking outside, about a half mile down the road.
Tori ran out the door and headed south, towards the place where she saw the man. By the time she had arrived, the man was gone.
The house was tall and white. A 1950s-style farmhouse. The windows were boarded from the inside.
“Hello,” she shouted. “My name is Tori. I’m looking for a little girl named Amelia. She’s my daughter.”
“Are you alone?” a grizzled male voice called out from inside the house.
She didn’t want to answer that question. It made more sense, to Tori, to avoid that question because it could escalate a crisis if the man knew she was alone. However, the motherly instinct that gave her strength also gave her weakness. She couldn’t help but answer whatever the man wanted to ask so that she could gain access to the home.
“Yes, I’m alone. Please help.”
She heard a lot of bolts and chain locks unlocking as he had made the decision to let her in.
The man was older, in his sixties, and was wearing a pair of coveralls.
“You can come in.” The man suspiciously looked around as he spoke to her.
The man stepped aside after he opened the door to her. She entered the house and was met by a foul smell of rotting flesh, body odor, and putrescence.
She slowly and cautiously moved into the interior hallway and waited for the old man.
“I don’t get many visitors these days,” he said.
“I’m looking for my daughter Amelia. I was told she came this way. Have you seen her? She’s about this tall, with black hair, wearing a blue shirt and a black coat?”
“No, I’m sorry, nobody here fits that description.”
It was that comment that made her especially wary of the old man.
“Nobody here?”
“I mean, there’s nobody here but me.”
Tori caught a glimpse of a room off to the side that was full of children’s clothes. There, in the pile, she saw Amelia’s black coat.
The old man had his back to Tori as he fiddled through the kitchen drawers. She took this moment to pull her pistol out and hide it behind her back.
When the old man turned around, he walked over toward Tori and saw that the door was open. He rushed over to it and pulled the door closed.
“Would you like something to eat?” the man asked.
“Yes, please. I’m famished.” Again, she found herself playing coy.
The old man looked at her one last time and walked towards another door that was closed.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back. All my food is downstairs.”
The man walked through the door and did not securely fasten it behind him; instead, he accidentally left it cracked.
Tori ran to the room that had the pile of children’s clothing and went through Amelia’s coat. It confirmed her fears that the man was hiding something.
She went to the cracked door and snuck down, taking care not to be seen.
What she saw was horrifying and sent more than shivers down her spine.
There were a number of game hangers attached to the ceiling of the basement. There were butcher blocks and dried blood everywhere. Tori knew what was going on, and the thought of it made her need to vomit. She quickly ran back up the stairs and slammed the door behind her. Leaning on it, she bent over and vomited on the floor.
Tori pointed the pistol at the door and waited for the old man to open it. She slowly backed up until the door handle began to turn. She sent four rounds through the door before it was even open. She heard him fall down the stairs and ran towards the door. She opened it and ran down to where he was lying. She sat on the base of the stairs, refusing to look around, just waiting for the old man to die.
When he was done moving, she searched him and found that he had a pistol in hand. It was an old Ruger 9mm. She took the pistol and went rummaging through the house. She wasn’t looking for evidence of life or death; she’d seen all she needed to see in that basement. Instead, she located some gasoline and matches.
Tori poured the gasoline all over the house until the container was empty. She stepped outside of the home and lit it on fire.
Tori walked away and began to cry hysterically at the fate of her baby girl Amelia. A new coldness washed over her spirit as she regained control.
Tori, not looking back, set her sights on a new destination. She was headed south to the place she wanted to go the moment the Flip went down. Gorham, Illinois, might have been the safe haven her and her family needed. It was too late for that now, but Tori had to think of her own self-preservation. Maybe, just maybe, Nathan, Denny, and some of the others were still alive.
HOME
March 3, 2033
Somewhere west of Knoxville, Tennessee
Tori was exchanging gunfire with a three-man group of raiders that had been stalking her from Charleston, West Virginia. She was taking cover behind a small four-foot-high brick wall that she had decided to use to make her final stand. It wasn’t much, but the old building that used to belong to this wall had crumbled years prior. The sturdy masonry had proved its worthiness.
Somebody paid good money for this thing, she thought as she pushed the magazine release button on Bubba. The magazine fell to the ground, but she had a replacement magazine already in hand with fresh ammunition. Her Remington 270 was strapped on
to her motorcycle and had more range than her 1911 .45 caliber, but she didn’t have the time to unstrap it without sacrificing her cover. Her bike was lying on its side behind the wall, but the rifle was sandwiched between the ground and bike. She would have to stand over the bike and pull upward with all of her strength to lift it. Her frame was too small to make such a hurried lift.
Bullets were bouncing off the wall, and sometimes they would catch the mortar just right that it would crumble and shoot debris out on her side of the wall. She returned fire as often as she could, but there was no way she was going to win this fight with her pistol at thirty to forty yards.
It was time to reload again. She only had one magazine left on her person. The rest were tucked away in her saddlebag. She had to make a big move, and she needed to make it fast. The men were catching on that she couldn’t take them out, so they had shifted their positions and separated to widen their angle on her. When she saw this, she prepared herself mentally to be shot or, worse, killed, and for what? A motorcycle? Her guns and ammo? Her body? All of these things were precious resources. Females were hard to come by, weapons and ammunition were not manufactured in the US anymore, and a motorcycle could travel great distances on a small amount of diminishing fuel.
No sooner than Tori stood up to establish her rights to life and property, the three men were shot multiple times by a group of about ten men.
Tori was thankful to have survived another round, but what now? Were these ten men going to take up the mantle of the first three and finish her off?
She had one pistol and two arms, so she pulled her boot knife out and kept it tightly gripped in her left hand. Bubba took up the chore of intimidating the new threat. Tori established which of the men looked the fiercest and she pointed Bubba at him. The other arm was outstretched toward whoever took a step toward her or even moved for that matter.
“Easy there, little lady,” the fierce-looking man said. “We mean you no harm. Look, you’re completely surrounded and we got the drop on you. If we wanted you dead, we could shoot now and end this standoff.
“Is that what you call this, a standoff?” Tori responded. “I could blow your head off right now and call it quits, too.”
“You’re probably right, but we’re from a town up the road that doesn’t shoot people for no reason,” the man said.
“If you’re such great people, then lower your weapons and let me leave.”
“You’ve got a point there. We’ll lower our guns, you lower yours, and we’ll talk.”
“They’ll be no talk’n. I aim to leave outta here and not look back,” she said. Tori just wanted to get back on the road and continue her course to Southern Illinois.
“We’ve got food and water. You’re welcome to stop by and visit. If you like our setup, then you’re welcome to stay. If you don’t, then you’re free to leave … with food and water. You can keep that as a symbol of our good graces,” the man said with a smile.
His beard and dirty teeth made him look fierce. He hadn’t shaved in months and it looked like he had poor hygiene, but who could argue about free food? Even his friends were unsatisfactorily maintained.
“You lower your weapons first,” she said.
The man told the others to lower their weapons. They did so, ever so slowly; each of them afraid that the woman was going to take a cheap shot at their friend.
“My name’s Tyler,” he said. He pointed at each of the others and said, “And that there’s Mike, and Tom, and Bill, Scott, Russel, David, Richard, Brad number one, and Brad number two. We got two Brads, so we just call them one and two.”
The man was trying to get Tori to smile, or at least to put her gun down.
“Please,” the man pleaded with her. “We’re not going to harm you.”
Tori slowly lowered her pistol and kept a very wary eye on the men.
“Here, we’ll help you with that,” Richard said, walking toward Tori to assist her in lifting her bike.
“I don’t need your help. I need your distance,” she said, pulling Bubba back up and pointing it into the face of the man.
All the other men raised their guns and pointed them at her again.
“Okay, okay,” Tyler said. “Everybody’s a little paranoid these days. Nobody’s going to shoot, right?” he asked his men.
Once again, they lowered their weapons and Tori followed. She returned to her motorcycle and lifted it to its wheels. She unstrapped her Remington and slung it over her shoulder.
Things hadn’t been the same for Tori since her separation from the posse. She had struggled to find her place in a cruel and violent world but had been running into dead ends no matter where her journeys took her. She missed her friends terribly, and because of the dynamics of the new world order, she found it impossible to make new ones.
Electricity had been re-established throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States, but the damage rendered by North Korea’s EMP had proven difficult for the West Coast. A viral pandemic had spread from the EMP-affected areas into the Midwest as well; Tori remained unaffected by the pandemic.
All over the United States, people were batched into large groups and trying to reorganize into civilized societies where free travel and free trade were at the forefront of the liberties they used to know. Despite the growing societal influences and common law practices, which varied from town to town, Tori was still vigilant and highly suspicious of any single person or group of people that she encountered. So naturally, when she heard of a group of good people that were rebuilding a society, she was curious but cautious.
“You guys go up ahead of me about a hundred yards. I’ll be watching from the back. If I like what I see, I’ll investigate your good graces,” she said.
“And if you don’t?” Tyler asked.
“If I don’t, then it shouldn’t matter to you. But I’ll tell you this: if I so much as think you’re pulling a fast one on me, I’ll cap you in the back of your skull with this.” Tori pulled up her Remington. “And I’m a very accurate shot,” she added.
“Well, I don’t think I like the idea of a rifle pointing at my head, but if that’s what it’s gonna take to get you to join our group, I’m in.”
Tori was happy with the arrangement. She felt like she had the upper hand so long as she had the range of her rifle.
The slow steady trip to their little society took about twenty minutes. When they arrived, Tori saw a painted sign on a gated community called The Casa.
The community had guards with long-range rifles posted on every corner. One woman was seen pumping water from a well into a small metal trough, which sat next to a washboard. There were no sounds of children playing, no toys or playsets, and nothing to indicate the existence of children. The fever had swept through the area in the past couple of months and taken a high percentage of lives from whatever was left of the already dwindling population. Children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and the elderly—all of them fell victim to the pandemic.
For years, the global government had been working behind the scenes, developing a contagion that would wipe out most of the population. There were some who had a natural immunity and others that had been immunized through governmental employment. Of those who were immunized, most of them were military veterans. By Tori’s reckoning, the survivors of the pandemic meant that only those trained for combat would make up the mass of the current population. That would make what was left of the nation dangerous by any standard.
One week later
Tori liked what she saw, for the most part. She assumed the lack of children was due to the fever, and she had taken shelter in a nearby location and watched the community carefully. It wasn’t until her food supply had emptied that she made the decision to approach the front gate. The guards were already familiar with Tori’s presence and were expecting her arrival.
Tyler walked up and met her at the gate. “It’s good to see you again.”
Tori looked at Tyler. She had not told him her name before, but
she thought they had proven themselves worthy to know her name.
“Tori, my name’s Tori,” she said.
“Open the gate,” Tyler said.
The gate opened and the guards stepped back, allowing Tori space to pass through.
“My bike’s still across the way,” she said, hoping Tyler would show concern for its care.
“We’ll take care of it,” he answered. It was the answer she was hoping to hear.
Over the next several days Tori was getting acquainted with the men and a lady named Patsy. She was quiet and reserved. She only spoke when spoken to, and that made Tori suspicious of her. Tori was more assertive and aggressive, so when she came across a female that exhibited neither of these traits, she felt more comfortable in her absence. Soon she found herself talking to the men and spending more time playing cards and drinking liquor, a rare resource that the men seemed to have in plentiful bounties.
Not long after the Flip, liquor was discovered to be a primary bargaining chip; that and ammunition. For a pint of liquor, you could purchase vehicles, weapons, or ammunition; the higher the alcohol concentration, the better the deal. Liquor made great Molotov cocktails, was used as disinfectant, cleaned flesh wounds, and drowned away the sorrows of the new world order.
Tori was finally beginning to feel purpose when she was put on the schedule for guard duties. Her responsibilities consisted of weapons maintenance, inventory, inspections, eight-hour shifts standing at the gate, and twelve-hour shifts working the gatehouse, a wooden guard post with separate windows to face in every direction. The guard post was positioned at the front gate, and it maintained a log of everybody’s comings and goings and what they were taking out and bringing in.
There came a day when Tori felt pressure to secure her weapons in the armory. She seemed to be the only person still carrying around her pistol. The only other woman, Patsy, was never seen with a firearm. At first Tori thought it was odd that anybody would make a move without protection, but she figured it might have just been the feeling of security within the gated community; the place they called the Casa, the place they called home .
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 8
