Desperation

by Bruno Miller

  Chapter Ten

  Three loud knocks on the door in rapid succession startled Ben, but not as much as it did Sandy. Ben was expecting Martin to come to their room for coffee, and now he regretted not telling him to just come on in when he was ready.

  “Who’s that?” Sandy said.

  “It’s probably Martin. I told him to come get some coffee earlier.” Ben started for the door, but before he could reach it, Martin burst into the room. His face was flush; he must have run full tilt to their room.

  “People… There’s people out there!” While Martin caught his breath, Ben and Sandy stared at each other for a few seconds in total silence before the gravity of the situation sank in. Ben’s worst fears about staying here had been realized. He felt the full effects of the coffee now, coupled with a surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins. His mind began to race, but before he assumed the worst, he needed to investigate for himself.

  Ben opted for the M24 this time and snatched the 9mm off the nightstand for good measure.

  “What do we do?” Sandy’s relaxed demeanor and friendly smile were gone now.

  “Martin and I will check it out. Tell Joel and the other kids what’s going on and have them help you get things packed up and into the trucks. We may need to make a hasty exit.” Ben tucked his pistol and concealed carry holster into his waistband, then pulled his shirt down over it.

  “There must… There must be a few of them. I can hear them talking,” Martin stammered. That wasn’t what Ben wanted to hear.

  “Better yet, get the bags ready but don’t load the trucks yet. I want everybody to stay in their rooms for now, at least until I figure out what’s going on.” Ben didn’t want to jump the gun on this and ruin their morning. Maybe it was just a couple of harmless travelers walking by on the road. But his gut and their experiences so far told him that probably wasn’t the case. So much for a relaxing start to the day.

  Ben looked at Martin. “Come on, let’s go.”

  He poked his head in the kids’ door on the way by and told them Sandy would explain everything and that they were to keep their door closed until he returned. Ben stopped at the next room down and briefly let Rita and Carlos know what was going on. He wished he had taken the time to cover the vehicles with the camouflage netting last night. He thought about it too late and couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed and do it, a mistake he hoped they all didn’t live to regret.

  He was trying to listen for voices, but as they made their way down the vestibule, all he could hear was Martin’s heavy breathing behind him. He was going to have to calm the guy down somehow or he wasn’t going to be much help. In hindsight, Ben should have left Martin to help with the packing and taken Joel instead.

  Ben stopped at the corner of the building and crouched down. He looked back at Martin. “Okay, we can take it easy for a minute.” He didn’t want the guy passing out on him. Martin nodded and stared down at the ground as he inhaled deeply. Ben wondered if he was having some kind of panic attack. He hadn’t even gotten this worked up during the gunfight at the compound.

  Martin’s breathing quieted eventually, and Ben was able to hear distant voices. How Martin had heard them initially was a mystery; he must have been outside by the trucks. It sounded like a man and a woman arguing and reminded him of a TV show playing in the background. He unslung his M24 and scoped the street from one end to the other but saw nothing.

  Ben gave the street another pass with his scope, slower this time, pausing at some of the smashed-out storefronts along the way. His patience paid off and he spotted something. There was someone inside the remains of a drugstore on the corner. By the looks of it, the old concrete building had been plundered long ago, and only a few badly cracked windows remained. He could see shadows moving behind the filthy glass.

  “The drugstore, on the corner,” Ben said softly, even though the looters couldn’t have heard him from this distance. They must have been outside on the street when Martin heard them before. They were likely going from store to store, looking for any supplies that might have been missed by the initial mob of looters. Good luck with that. All the places Ben had stopped to fuel up had been picked clean. The one convenience store where the kids lucked out and found a case of water hidden under the shelves was the only exception.

  “How many are there?” Martin asked.

  “I can’t tell yet. They’re inside the store.” Ben wondered if this was what Gunner had heard early this morning. That made no difference now, although he vowed to investigate Gunner’s premonitions more thoroughly from this point forward. He was relieved that the looters hadn’t spotted their vehicles, at least not yet.

  “I don’t think they know we’re here. I’d say we’re okay for the time being. No need to get too excited yet. But we need to keep an eye on them.” Ben wasn’t overly concerned about the looters’ presence. Maybe that was because of what they had just gone through with the moonshiners. He was more irritated than worried. He felt a sense of defiance about the situation. They deserved to be here as much as the looters did. And the thought of rushing everyone out of here under duress irritated him even more; these people had interrupted his otherwise peaceful morning.

  “Do you want me to go back and tell everybody to get ready to leave?” Martin sounded better now, his breathing close to normal.

  “Tell the others to continue getting their stuff together. It’s okay to pack the trucks, but no slamming doors. And tell them to finish eating breakfast. I think we’ll just wait the looters out. There can’t be anything left of any value. I’m hoping they’ll give up and be on their way soon.” Ben looked away from his scope and caught Martin as he was about to leave. “Hey, can you bring back one of the radios?”

  “Sure.” And with that, Martin was gone. He was a good guy. A little excitable, but solid so far when it came to taking orders. Martin did best when given specific jobs, even if it did require a little extra instruction at times. It was nice to take some of the burden off Joel, and Ben liked being able to leave his oldest with the younger two, especially in situations like this. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sandy or Allie to look out for the kids, but Joel felt a special responsibility for his brother and sister, and that made him a good babysitter by default.

  Ben kept the scope trained on the storefront. Hopefully Martin wouldn’t take too long getting back to him with the radio. He wanted to be in direct communication with the others in case the situation changed, something that was no longer only a concern these days but more like an expectation. Suddenly, Ben saw a flurry of movement, and a split second later, a small display case came flying through the window, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Large shards of glass landed on the sidewalk in front of the store. The display landed on its side and skidded to a stop in the street, leaving behind a trail of parts.

  Ben watched intently as the scene unfolded. The looters inside the building were now in plain sight thanks to the missing window. The way these people were dressed made him think of the moonshiners immediately. But maybe he thought that only because in the back of his mind, he half expected them to show up here this morning.

  The small group inside the drugstore comprised two men and a woman. And the men looked to be in the middle of a heated argument, which explained the display case being launched through the window. One had the other backed up against the opening while the woman watched in the background. She didn’t seem overly concerned with the scuffle, though; she continued looking around the place for anything of value. Her movements weren’t smooth but erratic, and occasionally, she appeared to shout at no one in particular.

  At first, Ben thought they were drunk; he knew firsthand that moonshine was in ready supply around these parts. But as he observed their actions and mannerisms from a distance, he began to think it was something else. If he had to guess, he would say they were high on something. He would have preferred drunks over whatever these people were. By the looks of things, he guessed that whatever they were o
n was in full effect.

  Ben remembered an incident that happened not too far from his store in Durango. A guy on meth wandered into one of the local coffee shops and started tearing the place apart. It was only a few doors down from the store, so Ben ran outside to see what was going on when he heard the commotion. He was just in time to see three cops wrestling with a guy on the ground. It took all the officers had to subdue the man and stuff him into the back of the patrol car.

  He’d watched them drive away with the man in custody, kicking the safety divider with his bare feet and screaming at the top of his lungs—but only after he’d exhausted his efforts to smash the rear window with his head.

  One of the officers stayed behind to talk to the nearby business owners about what had happened, and Ben had a chance to ask a few questions of his own. As it turned out, it wasn’t their first run-in with the guy. He was a known meth user they’d had plenty of problems with in the past. Ben was by far no expert, but he’d venture to guess that was exactly what these people were on.

  Their best bet to avoid trouble with the druggies was to stay off their radar. With any luck, they’d lose interest soon and go away. Meanwhile, Ben and his crew could stay here and finish their breakfast while they waited. They’d have to keep an eye on the meth heads as long as they stayed at the motel. It was a mitigated risk, one he’d gladly accept over a gang of moonshiners looking for revenge.

  Chapter Eleven

  Martin finally returned with the radio and a small bag thrown over his shoulder. He crouched down next to Ben and leaned his AR-15 against the brick wall of the motel.

  “Here you go. Brought you something to eat.” Martin pulled an MRE out of the backpack and handed it to Ben, then reached back into the bag and retrieved a pair of binoculars.

  “Thanks.” Ben held up the MRE. “You know there’s an SKS in the back of the Scout with a nice optic on it. It’s a little cumbersome, but I could teach you how to operate it and you’d have something better-equipped for a long-range shot.” Ben eyeballed Martin’s open-sighted rifle.

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” Martin answered.

  “Good, we’ll do that when we get a chance. Hey, do you mind keeping an eye on those guys while I eat?” Ben noticed Martin was busy watching the action at the drugstore.

  “Yeah, no problem. Take your time.” Martin spoke without looking down from the binoculars. Ben tore into the bag and got started preparing the main meal pouch before he realized he didn’t have the radio.

  “Did you remember the radio?” Ben searched the ground, thinking maybe Martin had set it by his rifle and he hadn’t noticed.

  “Oh yeah, sorry. Here it is.” Martin reached back into the bag and pulled out the small two-way. “Joel’s got the other one.”

  “Thanks.” Ben didn’t waste any time switching on the radio while he tore open a small pouch of peanut butter with his teeth.

  “Come in, Joel. Over.”

  “Joel here. What’s going on? Over.”

  “Just some looters out on Main Street. I’ll eat my breakfast here and keep an eye on them. You guys keep packing up and let me know when you’re ready to roll out. Over.” Ben tried to sound casual; he didn’t want Joel or the other kids to worry.

  That was the whole purpose of waiting the druggies out: not causing a scene or creating a situation that required force to get out of. He just wanted them all to have a low-key morning, especially after what they’d been through over the last couple of days. If that meant waiting at the motel for an extra half hour, so be it.

  “Putting on quite the show, aren’t they?” Martin was still watching the looters through the binoculars.

  “Yeah, they’re a mess, all right.” Ben was too hungry to look away from his meal.

  “I’ve seen people acting like that around the Hill District in Pittsburgh. It’s a bad section of…” Martin paused for a moment and looked away from the binoculars before returning his attention to the looters. “It was a bad section of the city. I had to drive through it every day on my way to and from work.”

  “Oh, they’re on something, all right. There’s no doubt about it,” Ben huffed.

  “There was a time when my wife and I thought nothing of running into the city for a meal. But that changed a long time ago. Pittsburgh went downhill fast over the last few years. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I won’t even stop for gas in some areas anymore. The meth and opioid addicts have taken over the run-down neighborhoods.” Martin put the binoculars down and shook his head. “We were gonna move away when I retired.”

  Ben thought about Martin’s story and wondered how many places across the country it could have been applied to. A lot, he was willing to bet. Even Durango was no longer a place Ben considered immune to these things, either. He’d watched the town undergo some big changes since he was a kid, and part of him was glad his parents weren’t around to see what had become of their once sleepy little mountain town. Durango’s saving grace was its location; he could drive out of town and be in the middle of nowhere within minutes. That and the fact that he lived above it all—literally, at nine thousand feet.

  “Pittsburgh wasn’t the only place with problems.” Ben glanced at Martin between bites of food.

  “Things were getting pretty bad before all this, weren’t they?” Martin shifted his weight to the other knee.

  “They were.” Ben swallowed the last bite of his MRE and began stuffing his trash into the main pouch.

  “Um, you mind if I head back to my room? I didn’t get a chance to, ah, finish cleaning up this morning. There are still some things I’d like to take care of, if you know what I mean. Just because there’s no water doesn’t mean I can’t use the toilet once, although I might not get the room deposit back with the way my stomach feels.” Martin made a face while rubbing his belly and laughing about it.

  Ben held up his hand. “Go ahead. I got it.” He didn’t need to hear any more about Martin’s morning plans. He thought about telling him the toilet could be flushed by dumping water into the bowl, but that would be a waste of resources they might regret later. Besides, it really didn’t matter how they left this place.

  “Thanks. Let Joel know if you need anything. I’ll be happy to run it out to you.” Martin almost left his rifle but stopped to grab it before heading for his room. Ben had to laugh a little bit. Joking around was Martin’s way of dealing with tough situations. It was better than the alternative of being down and gloomy, even if at times his sense of humor was a bit childish. There were plenty of reasons for Martin to have a bad attitude; he’d been dealt some pretty tough cards. A lesser man would have called it quits long before now. And Ben thought it was a testament to the guy’s character, the way he carried on in spite of things.

  Ben thought about something Martin had said before he hurried off: Things were getting pretty bad before all this, weren’t they? He was right about that. Long before the EMPs hit, the country was going downhill fast. At least it seemed that way on TV. The riots and protests were far from peaceful, and violent acts replaced words.

  This wasn’t the first time Ben thought about it, how in some small way, what was happening right now wasn’t all bad. And although the staggering amount of life lost was a terrible thing, he wondered if all this was inevitable sooner or later. If it wasn’t for the EMPs, he thought the country was headed for some type of civil war in his lifetime.

  The nation was too divided. No one trusted politicians or the government anymore. The media seemed intent on pushing a divisive agenda. And overall, Ben thought the country as a whole had lost its moral compass long ago. Foreign money had infected the system to the point where there were no longer repercussions for breaking the law if you were rich enough or powerful enough. Law and order had lost all meaning to the wealthy elite.

  The current worldview of the United States was not a good one. And Ben wondered if any of their supposed allies would come to their aid. If they did, he was sure help wouldn’t come without a price. He thought most
other countries would likely watch from afar, at least for a while, or until the threat of radiation poisoning subsided. Outside of not getting involved in a nuclear war, there were other reasons for countries to keep their distance. One of the biggest was that the U.S. didn’t have anything to offer them in return anymore. It was a harsh reality, but one he thought was true.

  He was scared for the children’s future, but there was nothing he could do about it. Teaching them how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world was the best he could offer them. He hoped it was enough. He didn’t just want them to survive, though. He wanted them to live fulfilling lives and have families of their own. That all seemed like a lot to hope for, given the current situation, and he just wasn’t sure if that was possible anymore.

  Ben took up his M24 and looked through the scope to see what the looters were up to now. His heart skipped a beat when he saw an empty drugstore. Then he realized they’d moved to the next building down the road in the direction of the motel. He had no reason to be concerned yet; they were still a good distance away.

  All right, any day now. Wrap it up. Ben wondered how long they’d have to wait this out and began thinking of other ways out of here. Or he could just say screw it, get the trucks loaded, and leave whenever they pleased. What would the looters do about it? They might make a small scene or throw something as the trucks drove past.

  The kids had certainly seen worse. But there was more to consider with four vehicles. What the first vehicle avoided, the last vehicle in the convoy would have to deal with. And his biggest concern was if the looters were armed; he couldn’t tell from this distance. Then another thought came to mind. What if they had a vehicle and decided to chase after the trucks as they left?