I just smiled and said nothing.
Actually, my father had one but I kept that part to myself. Dad had some friends still in the Corps when he retired, and one of them must have supplied the rifle my father kept buried in a metal tube out behind the back fence. It was a full length M16A3 with select fire capability rather than the three round burst setting as seen on the M16A2.
Of course, my father did not explain this, but Wikipedia is a wonderful learning tool. Was, I reminded myself. Now we were back to printed reference material. Crap.
Then I laughed and got weird looks from everybody in the truck cab, as usual.
“What were you thinking about?” Ruth asked, almost like she was scared of my answer.
“Just thinking that now I am going to have to do all my school research papers using actual paper reference sources. Instead of the internet.”
“What? Who’s going back to school? Luke, school’s out forever…” Amy sang that last little bit, echoing an Oldies rock song I could barely recall.
Ignoring Amy’s comment, Ruth asked the question I had been quietly dreading.
“Luke, what was it about the rest stop that had you so, well, tense?”
“Sorry about that. My paranoia sometimes gets the best of me,” I replied sincerely. I worried about that at times, now mainly late at night after Amy fell asleep. If the world ever somehow got back to normal, what would I do? Finish high school and go off to college? Study engineering like I planned?
I couldn’t sleep through the night without nightmares and I woke up every few hours to check the perimeter. I literally slept with a gun in my hand, and if the lights came back on tomorrow, what would I do then? My paranoid mind was fully engaged, and I worried about ever being able to normal. Living like an animal can do that to you.
“What happened, Luke?” Amy voice, soft and caring, suddenly broke though my dark thoughts.
“Alright, I guess it is story time. But everybody needs to keep their watch up, since we will be getting close to Berryville pretty soon. Eyes out. That includes you, Sophia.”
From the soft gurgle I heard, the baby was awake now, too. Hopefully she would not understand the words coming next. I sighed, but figured they needed to hear this story.
“About two weeks after I left Chicago, I was out of food again and nearly out of water as well. I’d been scavenging what I could find along the way but pickings were real slim because everybody else was doing the same thing.
“I think it was around Quincy, Illinois but I’m not really sure. The little road I was on had some foot traffic and I was real wary of some of the folks I was traveling with. But we were all headed the same way, so I tried to be polite and just kept my distance. Those with families were the most dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Why was that?” Amy asked cautiously, as if unwilling to offend our newly minted friends.
“They had the most left to lose, I guess. Anyway, we are all just about out of water when someone noticed the sign for a rest stop ahead. There were five or six of us walking close together at that point, not together but, you know, we just happened to be near each other was all. I’d learned earlier that some of the older rest stops still had hand pumps, so we could at least fill up our water bottles if this one did.”
“Of course, the place was already occupied by what looked like maybe thirty squatters, mostly men. The two women who were walking with us immediately took note of this and veered off back to the road. As we got closer, one of the squatters, an older man in an absolutely filthy black suit coat, said they were out of food but the water in the restrooms still worked and we were welcome to fill up our bottles.”
I stopped talking for a moment, my head on a swivel as I tracked the terrain around our truck. We were passing through a wide field, rows of corn swaying in the late afternoon breeze. No people visible, but a few cars dead on the shoulder of the road. That was a sign in some areas I had traveled that these vehicles had already been scavenged.
The others took note of my heightened sense of concern and conducted their own visual sweeps of the surrounding area. While that was being done I looked at the map in my lap and tried to calculate time and distance in my head.
“So Ruth, your parents have their farm between Siloam Spring and Gentry, right?” I asked, looking up from the map to look out the window once again.
“Yes, other side of Gentry, though. Between Gentry and Davenport, but nobody knows where those little towns are located so I just say ‘outside Siloam Springs’ when talking about the farm.”
I nodded to myself. We did the same thing back home.
“Well, I don’t think we are going to make it before nightfall after all. Too many distractions slowed us down.”
“Distractions? You figure people trying to kill you are distractions now?” Ruth replied, giving me a look like I had a second head growing out of my neck.
“So what happened next?” Amy prompted, anxious to hear the rest of the story.
“Ruth, those guys trying to run us down were a sideshow, really. They were chasing us without a blocking force in front and didn’t take into account that we’d already killed four of their men and took the truck. Idiots. But I’m worried about approaching that Bentonville Fayetteville corridor ahead. How do we cross over and reach Gentry without getting robbed or killed. Any suggestions?”
“Well,” Stan said finally, “we were planning on taking a dirt road that skirts Hobbs State Park and then shoot through on a side route between Springdale and Lowell. That was the plan on foot and I don’t see why we can’t try in by vehicle.”
I looked at the map closely and agreed. I felt like a fool for not spending more time earlier discussing the route. At the time, I was acting more from instinct that thought when I went along with the internal combustion plan over using our “leather personnel carriers”. Yeah, that was another zinger from my Dad. Then I realized neither Stan nor Ruth had time to think out the best way to go either and were playing it by ear.
“I agree, Stan. How bout we take some time this afternoon and really pour over our options, though. You two guys are our experts on the area, so why don’t we find somewhere to hole up, and get an early start tomorrow?”
From their enthusiastic responses, I figured out Ruth and Stan were as exhausted as I was. I hadn’t gotten all the details of their trip to Harrison yet, but I knew it didn’t involve a lot of mornings spent sleeping in a nice comfy hotel room or lying by the pool.
“Alright, I know a place where we can spend the night, just south of Berryville,” Ruth volunteered, and Amy gave a laugh from the back seat.
“Is it another graveyard, Ruth? And I am only agreeing to stop if Luke promises to finish telling his story.”
“Nope, not a graveyard. But I’ll bet the place is as quiet as a graveyard when we get there.”
CHAPTER TEN
Ruth was right. The location she had in mind was a computer repair center and it looked untouched since the day the lights went out.
The prefab, white metal building looked more like a barn than a computer repair store, but the sign up front on the two lane county road proclaims this to be “Sid’s Computer Stand”. No cars in the gravel lot and iron burglar bars covered the windows in the front. I saw a few buildings nearby but they looked to be farm storage for equipment and such, not homes or other businesses. Corn fields surrounded the store on three sides and I wondered if anybody was lurking out there in the fields. Ruth drove like she knew her way around as she guided the Ford pickup around back and parked in a spot near the metal door. I clocked the metal roll up garage door next to the personnel entryway and started thinking about our security.
“Sid’s my uncle. Well, he’s married to my mom’s sister. Nice guy, anyway,” Ruth explained as she killed the engine. After the near constant rumble of the big diesel engine, my ears seemed stunned by the absence of noise. No car horns, no dogs barking; nothing sounded in the still air. This was the country, but still, the silence of the w
orld sometimes made me wonder if I was going deaf.
Stan’s voice broke the spell.
“Well, let me get the key and we can go inside,” he said, and proceeded to do just that. The hide-a-key box was located under the metal brace of the small canopy shielding the back door. Before he cracked the door, though, he waited for me to complete a circuit around the outside of the structure. When I saw no signs of forced entry, I gave the ‘go ahead’ and Stan proceeded to unlock the heavy deadbolt securing the door.
Despite my earlier check of the outside, Stan knelt to the side, favoring his bad ankle, when he unlocked the door. If someone was hiding inside, he sure didn’t want to present too easy of a target. With the girls sticking by the truck, I stood behind Stan until the metal fire door swung open and waited a beat before rounding into the room.
I moved carefully, “slicing the pie” as my dad called it. With the fading sunlight, visibility was low inside and the jumble of computer monitors and assorted parts, boxes, and shelving along each wall made the job more difficult. In addition to the piles of supplies and such, the large room featured three computer work stations and what looked like a small repair cubby with soldering irons and voltage meters. That told me they did more than sling software here, anyway.
“Wish I had a grenade,” I said barely above a whisper, and I saw Stan stiffen in the corner of my eye as I completed my visual inspection of the back room. The Glock 21 in my hand traced my line of sight and I stepped fully into the room once I decided nothing was going to jump out at me.
“Clear,” I said and waved Stan in behind me. We paused for a brief consultation and he informed me the only other rooms in the building were the store front and a unisex bathroom.
“Why did you wish for a grenade? And don’t blame it on the Boy Scouts,” Stan said, stealing my line.
“It was just a joke. My dad always complained about all the dangers inherent in clearing rooms. From the fatal funnel of the doorway to all the little crawlspaces and hidey holes, going into buildings is always a good way to get shot. If I had a grenade, I could just toss it in and wait outside for the dust to clear. My dad said they almost never did that though, since it violated their Rules of Engagement.”
“That’s cold, but I see what you mean,” Stan agreed, and he turned to wave the ladies into to join them. “You want some help clearing the other two rooms?”
“Nah, I got this. Something I’ve had a lot of experience doing in the last few months.”
I did the job right and took my time, using the small flashlight to search as my pistol followed my sight line through the spaces. My Dad taught me the rudiments of room clearing as a game, playing paint ball of all things, but I hadn’t exaggerated about my recent experience. Every single time you entered a home, or office, or retail business, you either checked for other predators or you got eaten.
Judging from the dust, though, no one had been in this building since shortly after the lights went out.
“Place looks a little jumbled but not looted,” I reported to Ruth and Stan, joining them at a quartet of seats arranged in the back room. Sophia claimed place of honor in her carrier on one of the tall tables, being entertained by Stan as Ruth went around the room making sure the few windows would be adequately covered by the heavy curtains already in place. Amy, I was proud to see, had waited just to the side of the inner doorway, pistol in hand as she served as my backup.
“Yes, Sid and my Aunt Martha live next door and I am sure they hauled everything they could gather up over to my folks’ place. We kind of had a plan, in case of emergency.” Ruth spoke with her head down and seemed to avoid making eye contact with anyone else in the room.
“Okay. I figured they were preppers, too.”
Ruth gave me an owl-eyed stare but Stan just chuckled at my offhand response.
“What?” I said in mock protest. “You didn’t think I could figure that out? Those cryptic comments about your family’s farm and having plenty of provisions? I imagine your father and mine belonged to some of the same discussion groups online.”
Amy just looked from face to face trying to track what was going on around her. Not that the girl wasn’t sharp, but this was a bit murky for her.
“Amy, you remember how I told you my folks have our place set up to weather a bad situation?”
“Yesssss…”
“Well, Ruth is concerned because I managed to put the pieces together and guessed her mother and father are like my parents.”
“Oh. Is that all? I thought it was something serious. We gonna sleep in here?”
Amy, now she was assured that everything was okay for the short term, was ready to nest for the night. I couldn’t blame her in that regard.
I glanced at the Schecters, and Stan gave a nod, trying to keep the smirk off his face. Finally he just had to speak.
“Luke, when did you figure it out? Not that we were keeping it a secret,” he said, giving his wife a full blown grin, “since we invited you two to join us, but Ruth’s dad in particular wanted us to be careful about saying too much.”
“He’s right. The idea is called Opsec, or Operational Security, though the military uses that term for something else, I think. I think the first clue was when you said Ruth convinced you to cache some gear and food in the woods out behind your house. That’s the kind of thing a prepper would do.
“Plus, the way Ruth reacted when I started showing you how to use the AK clone. She didn’t bat an eyelash at that, and by then she knew I was only sixteen. Just little things like that, I guess. Ruth, it really is no big deal. I won’t say anything to anybody. My word on that.”
I said the last bit with as much gravity as I could muster, and I think Ruth got what I meant. She blushed a bit when she replied.
“It’s no big deal, Luke, really. I just worry because Daddy says I don’t always think before I speak. As for Amy’s question, I think we would all sleep a little better if we could pull the truck in here and park in that bay next to us.”
That got a chorus of “amen’s” and we quickly got rigged up for nightfall even though we still had a few hours. I liked the way we worked together and no one tried to either be bossy or shirk the work. The truck fit perfectly in what amounted to an open loading bay but none of us intended to try to sleep on those patched and threadbare fabric seats.
We created little cocoons on the concrete floor, using a pair of area rugs as a base and laying out our blankets on top for more cushion. The men we’d killed earlier, both groups, had some sleeping bags I’d liberated but none of us, not even me, felt like sleeping in them. Maybe if the nights were cooler. Maybe. For me, it felt like sleeping in a dead man’s bed.
Anyway, without much conversation, we heated and ate a quick, thrown together meal of scavenged canned vegetables and a diced up can of Spam. Delicious, I thought, after a hard day of travel and mayhem.
The four of us decided on a watch schedule, with me volunteering to take the three hour shift from midnight to three a.m. Amy and I seldom set watches with just the two of us, but the idea of being able to sleep without one eye open was an unexpected luxury.
Most of all, I was glad nobody remembered to get me to tell the rest of my story from that rest stop in Illinois. I still had nightmares about that place, and I darn sure didn’t want to talk about it right before bed.
Using the little bathroom off the main showroom, I brushed my teeth at the sink and took a quick sponge bath, using as little water as possible but wiping down my face, arms and neck. I still reeked of body odor, but the absence of stale sweat and oil from my exposed skin felt nice. Bath time usually entailed wading into a creek and scrubbing with sand until my skin felt raw but I’d only managed those breaks once every week or so.
While Amy took her own clean up time in the bathroom, I sat by the one open window we left and slowly broke down and checked the CETME rifle by the light of the fading sun. Using a small bottle of brake fluid, I cleaned the barrel and swabbed the chamber, trying to remov
e any build up of gunk. I didn’t care if the rifle looked pretty or not as long as the action functioned properly.
Watching me work, Stan quickly began to copy my efforts, first cleaning the Savage and then the AK I’d loaned him. When I explained about how the brake fluid worked as a substitute for cleaning solution, he mentioned reading that piece of information somewhere and promptly forgetting it.
When Amy joined me later on our little pallet, she curled up at my back and complained that I stank. Ruth, sitting first watch, overheard the comment and tried to stifle a giggle. The sound made me grin in the dark.
“Sorry dear. I think we all need a bath,” I tried to reply diplomatically.
“Not that silly. The brake fluid. I can still smell it on your hands. One of my science teachers at school said that stuff can cause cancer, you know.”
I grunted in agreement, but I figured cancer would not be much of a concern. Heck, I was sort of amazed I’d lasted this long. I rolled over, gave Amy a hug and drifted off to sleep. Amy whispered something but I was too tired to catch the words. At least, that was what I told myself.
Love you too, I thought as my mind drifted off into a troubled slumber.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So, what happened next?”
Amy’s question from the back seat caught me off guard. We were twenty minutes into our drive, and so far conversation in the truck cab had been surprisingly quiet over the loud purr of the engine. All four of us adults had gotten some much needed rest by stopping early the day before, and despite my sleep being split by the three hour watch I was feeling pretty darned good.
We’d risen before dawn; more due to little Sophia’s fussing than any eagerness on our part, and made a quick check of the store for any usable items. I felt a bit uncomfortable rifling the shelves and cabinets since this business was owned by Ruth’s family. Awkward, but Ruth insisted that her Uncle Sid and Aunt Joan would want us to take anything we needed or could use.
Walking in the Rain (Book 1): Surviving the Fall Page 8
