Cloverdale (Book 4): Confrontation

by Miller, Bruno

  He cringed at the rooster’s second call while he slipped on his boots and kept an eye on Mary, expecting her to wake up any second. But she didn’t move, and he was able to grab his pistol and an ibuprofen off the nightstand and slip outside unnoticed.

  Standing still for a minute just outside the door, he took in the early morning and the relative coolness of the air with a deep breath. It wouldn’t last, and by the looks of the mostly cloudless sky, it was going to be another scorcher. That fact made him enjoy the moment even more.

  John was in the truck already, and Vince smelled the cigarette smoke before he saw it. The morning was dead calm, and sinuous trails of white smoke rose from the black Ford’s open driver’s side window. Vince could make out John’s silhouette against the rising sun as he approached the truck from behind.

  “Mornin’.” John had seen him coming in the rearview mirror.

  “Hey there, how’s it going?”

  “Quiet.” John pulled hard on his cigarette and exhaled two thick streams of smoke from his nostrils. Vince made a point to stand back from the truck a bit to stay out of the toxic fumes. He wasn’t a fan of the smell, and it always made his stomach turn, especially early in the morning.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.” Vince started heading for the motel kitchen. “I’m going to make some fresh coffee. Can I bring you some when it’s ready?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great.” John held up his insulated mug and shook it.

  Vince nodded and headed toward the motel. He didn’t mind talking to John, but maybe by the time he was done making coffee, John would be done smoking. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but for the first time in a week, Vince felt reasonably clean, and he didn’t want to ruin it just yet with stale cigarette smoke.

  The motel was quiet and dark, as it should be, but Vince was surprised to find that he was the only one up. Then again, they had worked pretty hard yesterday and put in a lot of hours in the heat. Vince pushed open the swinging door that led to the kitchen and saw the oatmeal packets lined up on the counter. They had decided last night to lay out breakfast before bed and that everyone would be responsible for making their own when they wanted it.

  He made his way around the kitchen with purpose, and within a couple of minutes, he had a pot of coffee percolating over the gas-fired camp stove. In hindsight, he should have just gone over to the garage, turned the power on for a few minutes, and made a pot in the coffee maker. Maybe after he took John his coffee, he’d do just that. Well, only if there was enough power left after last night’s heavy usage.

  After he’d filled his own cup, Vince filled a thermos with what was left of the coffee and headed back out to the truck. John must have lit another cigarette and was still smoking. Vince handed over the coffee and dismissed himself to the garage to get some “stuff done,” as he put it to John.

  John handed over the spare radio and suggested that Vince take it with him since everybody else was at the motel. It wasn’t a bad idea, and Vince holstered the two-way next to his .45. He was planning on hanging around and chatting with John a bit, but the smoke was a turnoff. Vince had breathed in enough ash and smoke over the last week to last a lifetime as far as he was concerned, and he didn’t need any more. His throat was just starting to feel normal again, so he threw John a half-hearted salute and headed off.

  He thought about his friend as he walked over to the garage. It wasn’t that the smoking bothered him so much as what he thought it meant. He was there when John quit smoking, and it wasn’t easy for him; he knew for a fact that it was one of the hardest things his friend had ever done, because John had told him so.

  For John to start smoking again meant that he had given up or didn’t really care about himself anymore. Or maybe Vince was just paranoid and the guy was simply leaning on an old crutch to get him through a tough time. That was certainly understandable, all things considered.

  What they were doing now was unprecedented in every way. And aside from the hardships of the everyday struggle to survive, there was the constant mental drain of things unknown. Everybody lost family to the EMPs or had loved ones so far away that it was easier to think of them as dead than to imagine them living through hell.

  Vince tried to focus on something else; he was starting to ruin his otherwise peaceful morning with unhealthy thoughts about things he had no control over. He reached the front door and fished the keys out of his pocket, grateful for something to do that would take his mind off things. As he flung it open, the door let out its familiar squeak and disturbed the dust that had settled on the near-empty shelves overnight. He almost reached for the light switch but stopped himself and shook his head at his own foolishness. Old habits were hard to break.

  Vince didn’t really have anything specific in mind when he decided to come over to the garage, but he did know that coming here would give him the best chance for a quiet morning. If he hung around the motel, people would be milling about sooner or later, and they would have questions—questions he didn’t have the answers to.

  Today would be worse when it came to the questions. With time to themselves, people would have the opportunity to think about things at length and talk to one another. While that was a good thing and essential to building the sense of community they needed, it could also lead to trouble. Vince hoped that wouldn’t be the case and once again wondered why he worried about so many things beyond his control. Either way, he planned to hide out here for as long as he could.

  He found the shop flashlight behind the counter and made his way into the back. He probably didn’t need the light; the route was more than familiar, and he navigated the hallway almost on instinct alone. But he did use the flashlight to inspect the electrical room, as they were calling it now. Everything looked as he expected, and the system was still secured from last night.

  Vince was reminded of the conversation he had with Tom yesterday about devising a way to monitor the power they were using and to show how much they had remaining, something the digital system attached to the solar panels could have told them easily before the EMPs hit.

  Tom said that the easiest thing to do would be to connect a simple voltmeter to the power supply. It could give a constant readout of their current power supply and usage. The downside was that it would draw a small amount of electricity. But it was worth knowing whether or not you could shower or run a power tool or light up a couple of spotlights to help ward off maniacs hell-bent on killing you.

  Vince added the voltmeter to the list of parts and pieces he was keeping an eye out for. The folded-up piece of paper in his back pocket had taken the place of his wallet, which he now left in the room most days.

  Also on the list was a belt for the loader. The other day, when he was looking it over, he noticed that the fan belt on the John Deere was frayed. It had seen better days, for sure, and he was certain that it would need replacing sooner rather than later. He didn’t actually expect to find a fan belt for a John Deere 544B loader, but he could probably find one that would work if he checked enough cars or trucks.

  He found nothing even remotely similar in all the Chevys they used to build the wall. Vince figured he needed to find an eighteen-wheeler or a dump truck; something commercial might have a big enough donor belt for the loader. Of course, that was easier said than done, since all the trucks he’d encountered on the interstate were burnt-out or totaled.

  Maybe that was what he should do today. The looters seemed pretty predictable in their attacks. Late-night or early-morning attempts were becoming common. Vince was beginning to expect them nightly between the hours of midnight to 3:00 a.m. He should be perfectly safe in the wagon out there. It was running well right now, and he had zero concerns about it breaking down. If all else failed and he found himself in a jam, he was confident in the car’s ability to outrun just about anything.

  Mary wasn’t going to like the idea very much, but maybe he wouldn’t really tell her. He was a grown man; he didn’t need permission to go for a drive if he want
ed to. The loaded shotgun would be on the seat next to him, and he’d have the .45 as well. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

  Besides, now that the thought was in his head, he couldn’t stop planning his parts-scavenging hunt. He could almost hear the thunderous exhaust of the wagon as he opened her up on the interstate, the wind blasting in his open window. He needed to do this for himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Before Vince could satisfy his desire to get out on the road, he needed to take care of something here first. Last night, he’d promised himself that mounting some type of security lights was going to be a priority. He’d feel a whole lot better on his drive if they were up and ready for use before he left.

  But first he needed to find the lights he was looking for and mount them on either side of Main Street near the wall. He had two poles in mind; one was a telephone pole and would be easy to climb, but the other was an actual streetlight and might require the loader to lift him up enough to mount the light.

  Vince searched the back wall of the electrical room. His old parts room was now mostly full of batteries and shelving to house more batteries as they found them. The remaining miscellaneous car parts and pieces had been unceremoniously stacked in the corner. Being the neat and organized person he prided himself on being, he was a little ashamed of the unorganized mess.

  Vince began sorting through the pile with both hands while he held the small but bright flashlight in his mouth. He had saved a pair of halogen headlights from a fairly new BMW that had been towed to his shop from an accident on the interstate some time ago.

  The people’s insurance company totaled the car, and it wound up sitting on his back lot for two months, waiting for them to come and tow the car away. But they never did, and eventually, they offered Vince the car at a price he couldn’t refuse. His plan was to sell the parts online and turn a tidy profit, which should have been easy with the price he paid, but the furthest he’d gotten on that project so far was removing the headlights and testing them.

  They were the kind of lights that really annoyed Vince when he was driving at night, especially when he was on the receiving end of their bluish-white glare. They were xenon high-intensity discharge lights, and they were perfect for what he needed now. The lights would cut through the darkness with ease and do a fine job of lighting up the road and grassy areas beyond the gate.

  Eventually, he found both lights among the other parts, and fortunately, Tom and Fred had gathered enough wire yesterday to run from the poles back to the garage. At least he hoped it was enough. If not, he’d have to find more. Either way, he was doing it on his own. There was no way he was bothering Tom about any of this. He would have Tom look things over before he powered anything up. Vince didn’t want to risk damaging their power grid because of his lack of skill with anything electrical.

  He wasn’t planning on bugging anyone about anything today. Nothing work-related, anyway. A promise was a promise in his book, and that was what he made to everyone. Of course, he couldn’t guarantee total respite from the chaos their lives had become. What he could do, though, was not demand work out of everyone for a change.

  He might snag Cy for a few minutes. After all, he’d need someone to lift him in the loader bucket so he could mount the lights. But that was it. He made himself say it again: That’s all. Vince recognized his tendencies to let one project evolve into another. One minute, he’d be in the basement cleaning his rifle, and before long, he’d be building shelves or organizing his workspace, all the while casually doing some reloading at the bench. Never one to be idle, he felt best when he had a purpose or a job. The closest he ever came to sitting still for an extended period of time was when he was hunting, but that was different.

  Even when fishing, he was in a perpetual state of motion, making his way from one spot along the river to the other, repeatedly casting his rod to present that perfect fly. Vince wondered if he and Cy would ever get out to the river again. They would, but it would be different. Fishing wouldn’t be a luxury anymore; it would be a necessity, and they would most likely keep everything they caught so they could help feed the others. That was the reality of it.

  The same went for hunting. Not that they ever hunted for any other reason than to put meat in the freezer. It was an enjoyable hobby, but now, bagging a deer was more important than ever. And they would start to do that as soon as they had a reliable way to preserve meat without salting the daylights out of it.

  Vince slowly walked backward as he lay a trail of wire out on the ground. Then he gradually picked up his pace. As far as he knew, Cy wasn’t up yet, and rather than waking him, Vince decided to go ahead and do all the groundwork first. Leaving about fifteen feet of wire coiled up at the bottom of each post and then running back to the garage, Vince got it all laid out and ready to hook up.

  To save himself the extra work of having to scavenge more wire, he tied the farthest light into the closest one and ran one wire to the garage. This meant they would both come on together, but that was probably for the best anyway.

  Just as Vince was finishing the wire layout, Cy showed up and seemed eager to help his dad with the project. The two of them worked for a couple of hours until they were satisfied they had done all they could without Tom checking their work.

  They’d even managed to get the lights mounted with the use of the loader. Vince did his best to aim the lights, but he knew he would have to come back and reposition them when it was dark out. He also realized that he would need to devise some type of shield that wouldn’t restrict too much light but would make it harder for the looters to shoot them out.

  He felt a little guilty when they were running the loader. The cackling diesel was bound to wake somebody up, but he promised everyone a day off, not a day free of noise. And what they were doing needed to be done. It wasn’t like he was asking them to be out here in the heat with him.

  Vince was tempted to make the final connections on his own, but he wanted to run the lights off a separate breaker and isolate that circuit; they needed the ability to shut everything down but keep the spotlights on. This was the only sure-fire way to eliminate all other lights but the spots and to ensure there were no easy targets for the looters to single out.

  Unfortunately, setting the circuit up that way was above his pay grade, as he referred to it. It would be worth the peace of mind to let Tom do it right. The last thing he wanted to do was blow something up and add more parts to his ever-growing list.

  While he and Cy were cleaning up in the open garage bay, he noticed Sarah, Bill’s wife, relieving John of his watch duties. Vince half-expected John to pay them a visit at the garage after watching them set up the lights all morning from the truck, but he didn’t. After a few minutes inside the motel, John emerged and headed straight for the Andersen place on the corner.

  Vince fought the urge to call him over. If John wanted to talk, he would have come over on his own. It was his day to do what he wanted, and if spending time alone over in a run-down old house and trying to come up with a plan to convert it into a police station made John happy, then who was Vince to stop him? He could easily sympathize with John’s need to be alone once in a while.

  He expected to see more people up and about around the motel, but he could also understand why there wasn’t; they were probably afraid he would put them to work if they showed their faces. The sound of the loader was probably enough to make them pull the covers over their heads. At least Reese and Mary had made brief appearances to play with the dogs in the parking lot and let them romp around for a while, but otherwise, it had been a quiet morning.

  Vince sat on one of the workshop stools with what he told himself was going to be his last cup of coffee for the day. Now that the hard part of running the wire and mounting the lights was over, he was actually starting to relax. And if he wasn’t mistaken, he was starting to feel optimistic about the day, which made it that much more unsettling when he heard the blast of the air horn.

  Vi
nce nearly dropped his mug on the floor when the piercing whelp went off the second time. So much for peace and quiet.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  How could this be happening already? The looters were just here a few hours ago, it seemed. It wasn’t even noon yet. Why were they back so soon? Vince wrestled with these thoughts for a couple of seconds before standing up and looking at Cy.

  “You get the door and meet me inside.” Vince gave the order, and without waiting for an answer, he ran toward the storefront portion of the building. Luckily, he still had the radio, but he’d left it on the counter while he and Cy washed off in the sink. He heard the large garage bay door rumble closed as he reached for the radio and fumbled around with it for a second.

  “Sarah, come in. This is Vince. What’s going on? Over.”

  “I see two people walking in from the interstate. They’re still a long way off. Maybe a mile or more… Oh, sorry. Over,” she answered.

  “Only two? Over,” Vince asked.

  “Hey, Major. It’s Bill here. I’m looking at them through my scope, and it looks like an older couple carrying some bags. I’m guessing it’ll take ’em a good fifteen to twenty minutes to get to us at the rate they’re moving. Over.” Vince wasn’t surprised to hear Bill answer. He was always close by when his wife stood watch.

  “All right. Cy is over here at the garage with me. We’ll make our way over to you guys. Make sure everyone stays out of sight for now, at least until we’re sure there are only two. Over.”

  “Roger that. We’ll keep an eye on ’em till you get here, Major. Over.”