The man looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he finally asked.
“It means I’m going to come back this way in a few days, and I’ll give you another box when I cross back over. How about that? No one needs to die, and neither of us have to waste precious ammo convincing the other person how serious we are. How about that?”
“How ‘bout ya give me the box, plus five loose rounds?”
“Fair enough,” I said, wanting to be on my way. “Move the barrier, and I’ll set the ammo down right here.”
“How do we know ya won’t try to run the barricade since ya have your bulletproof car?”
“If I do, it will be awfully hard to come back across when I get back now, won’t it?”
“I reckon it would,” he said after considering it for a few moments. “Done.”
He went back to the barricade and they moved the vehicles back far enough for me to pass through. I opened the door and set the ammo on the ground, along with an extra one and a note that said, “Thanks for your honesty,” hoping they didn’t try something as I went through.
They waved as I went through the barricade, and I waved back as I drove off, happy that I hadn’t had to resort to violence. It was rather refreshing. Sure, they were extorting money from passersby, but at least they were honest about it.
And sometimes everything is as it seems in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My good luck lasted about four hours longer. I’d been shot at a couple of times along the way—that I knew of, anyway; there may have been more—including one marksman who took a divot out of the window next to my face when I slowed for the crossroads in Elsanor, Alabama. I suspect he was on the roof of the convenience store, where he had a view of both the major roads that crossed there, but I never saw him and didn’t stick around to look. If he was that good, I needed to be somewhere else.
The other time I was shot at was when I stopped for gas at the intersection of Highway 47 and I-65. I had stopped along the way to hide the food and ammo on the back seat, and what to my wondering eyes should appear in the trunk, but a rifle that Brown had stashed there for me. The note along with it read, “In case you need to reach out and touch someone. I hear you know how to use it.” It appeared to be the one I had used to kill the kidnapper, or one that looked just like it.
When someone began firing at me with a pistol from a small copse of trees across the street, I ran to the trunk, pulled out the rifle, and ended the threat. It looked like the sights had gone a little up and right—the shot that should have been a near-immediate kill only resulted in a gut shot. He was going to die, but it would take a while for it to occur. He screamed a lot as he dropped into the undergrowth, but I wasn’t going to go wandering in there after him. I quickly finished pumping the gas and drove off. Somewhere during that time, he stopped screaming, although I didn’t know if he were dead or just trying to draw me in.
If it were the latter, I didn’t give him the satisfaction—I just drove off, got onto I-65 and headed north.
* * *
Montgomery hadn’t been spared the nuclear hammer, and my Geiger counter began clicking upward as I approached the city. I was surprised at how close I got to the city without running into any roadblocks; the high level of radiation might have had something to do with that. Luckily, Montgomery was a spider web of roads, so I cut over to Selma and up onto Highway 22, avoiding the rad-filled city.
I had just passed through the little town of Maplesville, Alabama and was going around a curve in the road when I came upon a roadblock thrown up across Highway 22 along a stretch that ran through a wooded area. It was manned by at least three men, and, before I could spin around and head back the way I’d come, a second group of at least four men drove a long truck across the road behind me, blocking it. The truck was a lowboy-style equipment carrier—a long, flat platform used to move heavy equipment like dump trucks or bulldozers.
The men had modified it to hold a series of big cages on the front of the truck bed and what looked like a .50 caliber machine gun on the back. A witticism flashed through my head—Ma Deuce is your friend—but at that particular moment she was far from being friendly to me as the gunner chambered a round. There was no way through the blockade in front of me, the woods blocked both sides of the road, and the machine gun behind me was about to fire. Although the glass in the car had proven capable of withstanding rounds from smaller rifles, I doubted it was enough to stop the M2’s rounds, so I did the only thing I could—I grabbed my rifle and my pack off the seat next to me and ran into the woods.
The machine gun fired a few rounds as I scampered into the trees, drawing some yells from the roadblock—apparently, it had never dawned on them that if they actually had to fire the M2, the rounds were going to go by and through their target…and into their compatriots. That had the unintended benefit of slowing the pursuit a little as they dove for cover. Then it was off to the races.
After a couple of minutes, I stopped to look back and could see flashes through the trees; armed men were in pursuit of me. Most appeared to have rifles, which was hardly surprising in this part of the country as most of the men—and a decent part of the women—would be hunters.
I fired twice at the closest men, hitting one of them, then turned and ran. A couple of them returned fire, and I heard a bullet crack! past me. That gave me the adrenaline to sprint faster, and I left the men behind. I suspected that if I could break contact with them, they would have to slow down as they would have to worry about me stopping to ambush them.
I ran as far as I could, then slowed and turned east, walking as fast as I could. I was wrong about them slowing; however, and soon heard several of them crashing through the forest. I threw myself behind a fallen log and watched them go past. Although they may have hunted previously, it didn’t appear any of them had any tracking skills; they just blundered on past, and I let them go. Once they were out of earshot, I got up and loped as best I could to the east. After a few minutes, I came across a small dirt road that ran perpendicular to my course, and I took it back to the south.
As I approached Highway 22 again, my senses screamed that I was being watched from a cluster of storage buildings to the right, but I never saw anyone so I continued on. As I reached the pavement of 22, I realized that I hadn’t gone as far as I thought I had in the woods—the roadblock was no more than a quarter of a mile to the right, and I could easily see several men walking around near it.
I tried to melt back into the forest beside the road, but then a male voice said, “That’ll be far enough.”
I froze, and all my senses went to high alert.
“Set the gun down, then put your hands up and turn around.”
Not knowing anything about the man—or men—behind me, I complied and turned around to find a man dressed in camouflage holding a shotgun on me from about fifteen feet away. Too far for me to do anything about, and—depending on what he had loaded—too close for me to escape.
“Are you with ‘em or against ‘em?” he asked.
“Who?” I asked.
“The men down at the roadblock.”
“Considering they just shot at me and stole my car, I would definitely have to say I am ‘against’ them.”
“Really? You had a car? With gas? Ain’t many of them around no more.”
I shrugged. “I came from down south. There’s still some gas there.”
“How do I know that was you they was shootin’ at, and that you’re not one of them that just got lost?”
“Do I either look or sound like I’m from around here?”
“Nope. That’s for sure.” He looked at me for a few seconds, studying me. “Okay, I guess I’ll take you to the boss.”
“But I thought you believed me. Why are you taking me to the boss?”
“Well, I don’t know you, and my orders are to shoot you if I think you’re one of them, or take y
ou to the boss if you’re not.”
I smiled. “Well, that’s a good choice then! Let’s go see the boss.”
He motioned with the gun. “Get walking,” he said.
“What about my rifle?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll get it.” The man chuckled. “It’s too valuable to be leaving it in the woods.”
Nothing gets left behind in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We passed a barricade across the road about a half mile later, manned by the sentry’s people. The sentry—whose name was Tim—and the rest of his people all called the other group, “Them,” as if they had no names. The barricade faced “Them” and was manned by five men with long rifles and another M2. Although the barricade workers looked relatively relaxed, there was always someone alert and scanning the road behind us.
We walked at least an hour east along Highway 22 toward the town of Clanton. It looked like some of the cities I had passed through to the west, in that everything seemed at first glance to still be functional, with one exception—there was a complete lack of motorized vehicles, except for one tractor I saw working a field.
“No access to gas?” I asked over my shoulder as we walked. He’d allowed me to put my hands down after the people at the barricade had searched me and removed my pistols, but he still made me walk in front of him and watched me carefully as we walked.
“Not my business to tell you or give you any intel,” Tim said. “You can ask the boss when you see her, and she’ll tell you…if she wants to.”
He had responded similarly to other questions about the town’s capabilities and how many people were in Clanton, so I hadn’t really expected an answer, but I was bored and had wondered. The sun was setting as we reached the outskirts of the city, and I was feeling a lot like the city—I was pretty much out of gas, too.
“So,” I said as we finally reached the town proper. “A little food, nap, and shower might be better for me than going straight to a meeting with the boss.”
“Not gonna’ happen,” the man said.
“Why’s that?”
“We ain’t got enough food to waste on you if you’re going to be killed or exiled, nor the manpower to babysit you while you sleep.”
“How about a jail cell somewhere, then?” I asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to watch me.”
“Funny you should say that,” Tim replied as we approached a large two-story building. “We’re here.”
I looked at the front of the building as we came around the corner and saw that it said, “Chilton County Courthouse.”
“The boss is in here,” Tim said, motioning with his gun for me to enter.
We walked inside. There were lights on in the building—one of the few I had noticed with them, but the metal detector didn’t appear to be working, so an armed man searched us while a second one stood nearby with a shotgun in his arms.
The guards held onto our weapons and called a third armed guard to escort us to the boss’ office. The boss turned out to be Mayor Stephanie Gould, who met me in one of the courtrooms. I was brought in and seated at the Defense table, while she waited in the seat where the judge normally would have sat. If I’d had any intentions of harming her, I would have been quickly dissuaded—an armed guard stood to either side of her.
“So, who is this?” she asked.
“He says he doesn’t know who he is, ma’am,” Tim said. “Calls himself Ishmael, although he said other people sometimes call him Fred.”
“You don’t know who you are, eh?” the mayor asked.
“No ma’am, I don’t,” I replied. This didn’t seem the time to be a smartass.
“Convenient,” she replied. “I’m sure there are many people who have used this period to try to wipe away some of their previous sins and start over.”
“No ma’am; it’s nothing like that. Apparently, I worked for one of the companies, and they slicked my memories right before the bombs started falling. I don’t exactly know what they did, but those memories haven’t come back yet.”
“That seems like even better proof that you were doing something objectionable. Perhaps you were someone antisocial, and they were trying to adjust your personality to something less objectionable.”
“No ma’am. I was an employee of the company—a special forces operative or something like that—and they were going to give me some specialized training that I never got.”
“Uh huh,” the mayor said, obviously not buying the story. “So, what exactly are you doing in my town?”
“Just passing through. I am trying to track down one of the company officers who went by here some time shortly after the bombs fell. He has the answers to who I am and possibly how to make me whole once again.”
“He went by here that long ago, eh? And he hasn’t been seen or heard from since?”
“That’s correct. He was headed to Chattanooga, probably up I-65 just east of here.”
“Well, in that case, you might as well turn around and head back home. We have cannibals living to the west and north of us. If he passed through here and hasn’t returned, then he isn’t returning. He probably got caught and eaten.”
“With all due respect, I don’t think so, ma’am. He had an armed guard that would have been able to take on most people or groups that tried to stop him. He was corporate management; the people he had with him were the best.”
“Well, that may be so; communications from here to the north are nonexistent.” She shrugged, then she looked at me strangely, peering down her nose at me. “Did you say you were a special forces operative?” she finally asked.
“I said that they say I was an operative, but I don’t remember being one.” It was my turn to shrug. “I have some of the skills through physical muscle memory, but I don’t remember actually being one.”
“But you do have some skills…”
“Yes ma’am, I do.”
She nodded. “Every week, several of our people go missing, and they are never heard from again. We suspect—hell, we know—that it’s the cannibal groups that are taking them. They sneak in, grab them, and go back to their safe areas. What’s worse is that one of the groups controls the area that has our hospital in it. Not having the hospital puts our medical teams at a disadvantage. The time has come to end the predations of the cannibals living near us, and we’re putting together a group to attack them. I would like you to join the team.”
“I see.” I looked at her for a moment, then cocked my head. “I’m sorry to sound mercenary, ma’am, but what’s in it for me?”
“I guess I could be crass and say that we’d kill you if you didn’t, but then you might cut and run when the opportunity presented itself, leaving my people in the lurch. I don’t think you would just put your life on the line for our people, though, simply out of the goodness of your heart. As such, how about if I appeal to your desire to complete your quest? My men tell me the cannibals captured your car. If you help us, we will try to recover it during the attack on the cannibals to the west of here, and you can have it.”
I noticed she hadn’t said they wouldn’t kill me if I didn’t go along with the plan…only that she hadn’t said it. Still, getting the car back would greatly improve my chances of making it to Chattanooga—especially if all the supplies I had were still in it—and if I let the locals lead the attack, I could probably survive it and be on my way. Boudreaux had left months before me…another day or two probably wouldn’t make a difference on whether I found him or not.
“Does getting my car back include all of the supplies I had in it, even if they’ve been pulled out and redistributed?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” the mayor said with a small smile. She could obviously see she had won and was feeling magnanimous. After all, she was only giving me something she didn’t have, and there was only a small chance it would even be found. She also probably figured there would probably be an equally small chance I would still be alive at the end to collect.
“I’m in,” I said. She didn’t know me very well.
But then again, who do you really know in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next couple of days passed quickly as I was integrated into the planning process for the attacks on the two groups of cannibals. The ones currently holding my car belonged to the smaller group that was based out of Maplesville and had slowly been expanding toward Clanton. Although Maplesville was about 15 miles away, apparently they were aggressive enough—or hungry enough—to be raiding into the environs of Clanton. Fifteen miles was a long way to go in a world without cars…but hunger will make you do those kinds of things.
The other group had occupied the intersection of I-65 and Highway 145 about three miles north of town. As I would have had to go through there on my journey north, helping them wipe out that nest of cannibals would actually be a benefit to my future travels. Between getting my car back and removing a hindrance to my journey, the attacks—assuming they were done well—would set me up to proceed. As long as I wasn’t dead.
The first attack was to go against the cannibals to the north, who we actually had some intel on. A couple of weeks ago, they had taken a girl, but her father had freed her. He’d snuck in and released her, but he’d been taken in the attempt as he fought a delaying action to get her away. He was probably dead now, but she had made it back to town and had told us about what she’d seen. There were a couple of auto dealerships on the east side of I-65 that were being used by the cannibals. One was their living space and headquarters; the other was their larder.
Don't Call Me Ishmael Page 15
