I was a little puzzled then I realized that he wasn’t taking me the route through town; in fact, we weren’t even going to be anywhere near town at the rate we were going.
“So you think there’s a big group of people who bugged out near Jessica’s camp?” I asked finally.
“Yes, and for a long while, I thought you had gotten mixed in with that bunch, your prepping and stashing foods… Then you started dating that Jessica girl—”
“Grandpa, taking a dog training class is hardly dating. She had a boyfriend back then even.”
“I think you’re protesting too much,” he told me and cackled while I fumed.
I busied myself by watching the mirrors and the way ahead of me, ignoring his pointed barbs.
The two track was barely that, but I could see that much like the one that ran our fence line, this one had been used recently by a lot of vehicles. I drove to the end and parked near an old tumbled down shack. Its wood was gray with age and green with where moss and algae had started growing in the moist spots. The roof had caved in mostly, the beams exposed. They looked like red fangs pointing at the sky.
“She said east of here,” Grandpa said, reaching into his pocket. “Now, boy, you follow me some. You let me go out front.”
“Yes, sir,” I said softly, turning the motor off and getting out, pocketing the keys.
We both closed our doors softly, then pushed on them to make sure they had latched. It was something that had been drilled into my head a thousand times. I used to go on moonshine runs with Grandpa, and it was second nature to me. A slammed car door sounded like nothing else, and unless there were trees and hills to break it up, that sound traveled a long way. Grandpa pulled a small Silva compass out of his pocket and checked it then nodded to himself.
I followed, and we set out in silence. For twenty-five minutes we moved like we were stalking deer. After a moment, I realized Grandpa was leading us down a game trail that cut through the tall grass and undergrowth in an area that had been logged before I was born. Why were we on a game trail? I knew better than that. When poaching, you never used an easily followed path, especially from the road. It was too easy for the game wardens to catch you doing that, and I remembered more than a few stories Grandpa had told me about how the wardens or the law would try to get ahead of him or catch him in the act. He’d set traps.
Since I was carrying the whiskey, I didn’t want them to clink together, so I put one of them under my arm and tapped Grandpa on the shoulder. He turned a finger to his lips. I shrugged and made a ‘what’ gesture, hoping my expression conveyed my meaning.
He nodded and pointed at me, then him, then the trail. Then he bent over and pointed to his eyes and made a motion between the thumb and fingers of both hands across the trail. Tripwire? Oooohhhhh, he was watching for traps. Again I made the gesture. He stood up disgustedly, adjusting the rifle sling that had slipped some.
“I’m watching where I’m going,” he said a little out of breath.
“I know you are, but you haven’t moved this much in months, and what the hell we doing on a game trail?” I asked him.
“It’s what Jessica would expect, remember, she said she’d find us if we walked in. She doesn’t know nothing about us except that we run shine. We ain’t poachers today, we’re waiting to be found. Probably use that damn bear dog hybrid she got,” he shivered.
“It’s just that easy?” I whispered back.
“Actually, it is,” Jessica said from behind me.
I didn’t actually jump out of my skin, but I spun around so violently that I stumbled. In a move so smooth, I caught hold of a sapling.
Grandpa chuckled softly, and I turned to see she was wearing an outfit pretty similar to what she had been when I’d last seen her.
“Ready for that date?” I asked her lamely.
She smiled. “You came all that way out here to ask me out again?” she said, dimples forming at the edge of her grin.
“Well, I… you know…”
“Things around our place have soured, we need some help,” Grandpa said flatly.
Jessica and I sobered up at that and remembering why I was there it wasn’t hard for me.
“Lance and his boys have the Guthrie’s held at the Crater of Diamonds. I think they’ve been beating on them to find out where Curt’s got his food stashed.”
“Follow me,” Jessica said without any further word and moved past me on the trail. Grandpa stepped aside, and she took off in front of us, whistling a strange melody.
“Probably a signal letting the others know everything is A-OK.”
“She is,” a voice behind me said, and I startled again, looking back.
A form in a ghillie suit was following, a long black rifle in his hands with a long suppressor on the end of what looked like a bolt gun like my ought six.
“I take it—”
“Yup.”
We stopped in a clearing. A tree had been cut down at some point, and the rounds had been placed in a semi-circle around an old fire pit. It looked like it hadn’t been used for a while, but Jessica unslung her carbine and leaned it against one and sat down.
“Make yourselves comfortable, some of the others will be here shortly,” Jessica told us as she took her boonie hat off and wiped her brow.
I sat down and looked at the guy in the camo suit. He pulled a hood back, and I realized it was Jessica’s father. He looked at me and grinned.
“Came a little far into the woods for a date. I don’t know if that bodes well for you, boy.” The words were at odds with the small smile on his pale face. “Give me the quick version.”
I started to talk, but Grandpa interrupted. I let him, and he recounted everything Grandma and I had talked to him about. How the Crater had been converted into an RV parking lot and campground. The two of them listened, and several people walked out of the woods from different directions and took a seat as Grandpa finished talking.
“We’d been wondering where Curt and Margie were,” a brick of a man asked.
“I saw them punching Curt,” I told them. “As I was walking in I heard her screaming and then it shut off, and they started in on him.”
Everyone nodded. “We were wondering what was going on,” another man said, one I didn’t recognize from town, same as the living brick. “Day after the guard finished with the town, a bunch of pickups and campers headed west on the main road. We figured they’d been lying low, waiting for the coast to be clear to get out of the area.”
“They didn’t, though; they set up shop across the road, a good twenty minutes to half an hour’s worth of walk from our house. If they have Curt and Margie held, what're the chances they have others?” My question was meant for everyone, but nobody spoke up.
They looked at each other for long moments. Finally, Jessica stood up.
“We can’t leave Curt and Margie with Lance Warcastle’s guys, it ain’t right. How many men can we put on the field?”
“How many you say there was again, Wes?” her father asked me.
“Few dozen at least,” I admitted.
“And you want to go in and do what… rescue them?” her father asked.
“It’s not like we’re going against trained professionals,” the man shaped like a brick said, his big hands wrapped around an AR pointed at the ground.
“You don’t know that,” another man who was vaguely familiar said.
“We need to get eyes on the situation before we do anything,” Dave Carpenter said. “I’d go, but my ticker’s still acting funny, but I can send Linda.”
“Mom can’t go,” Jessica said to him sharply.
“Your mom has better eyes than me, hides in cover better, and she’s a better shot,” he said, motioning with his rifle.
“Mom can’t… you know what, fine. Mom, Lyle, Carter, and Jimmy will go with me.” Two of the men there jerked as their names were mentioned, but I didn’t know which was which. “We’ll get some solid intel and then make a decision on what to do.”
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“I can help,” I said, standing up.
“That’s cute and all,” Carter or Jimmy said, “but we haven’t worked nor trained with ya. Curt and Margie are one of ours.”
“Fine,” I said, starting to pace, “you guys take care of it; meanwhile, is the guard out of the area? What’s going on? The executive order—”
“Hold your horses,” Dave said, “we’ll fill you in.”
22
Some members left and came back while Grandpa and me waited and talked. Dave, Jessica’s dad, did most of the talking. The guard had moved to the outer areas yesterday, and as far as they could tell they had left the area. All told, most of the residents in town had been swept up. Actually, many were glad to go. Food had been scarce, and without any gas to go elsewhere and no food to buy at the grocery store… Most of them turned into the food stocks they had left and gotten on the transport trucks that were making trips to the city almost nonstop.
The fireworks they had been expecting hadn’t come either. Jessica had anticipated that some people wouldn’t go or refuse to give up their guns, but it was a silent sweep of the countryside. We didn’t get great radio reception where we lived, so we’d long stopped listening to the radio when the temporary AM radio station started playing. In town, one person discovered it, and the news of it spread. A lot of people were ready to go.
More people came and went as Jessica finished the story, from all different directions. I looked around the clearing and could tell that we had to have been somewhere near by the time it took somebody to go get something and then come back. Guns and gear started piling up. It looked like they were planning a day trip or…
“Can you give us a ride to your place?” Jessica asked me suddenly.
“I… I did a headcount. There’s seven of us,” I said.
Grandpa started chuckling, “Looks like somebody’s going to have to double up,” he said and dropped a wink in Jessica’s direction.
Jessica’s mother, Linda, who I’d just met again, cut her eyes to Grandpa and rolled them. “Unless—”
“Silver flask?” Jessica asked sweetly.
I grinned as Grandpa started to sputter. Linda Carpenter was slightly taller and thinner than her daughter. She looked like a woman who could run a 5K race as a warmup, yet strong enough to endure a triathlon right after that. They say the daughter takes after the mother - I shook my head.
Linda’s words had Grandpa grumbling and he kicked at a branch, almost slipping. We laughed, and I steadied him. He wasn’t strong enough to have anybody sit in his lap. If anything, he’d have to sit on somebody's. We started for the car. Carter was the human brick shithouse I’d noticed earlier, Jimmy was the other man. Carter was somewhere around my age, and though he looked familiar, I didn’t know him. We all set off down the trail with Grandpa and me in the middle of the bunch.
“How many of you are out here?” I asked Jessica who was walking nearby.
“More than a couple, less than ten dozen,” she answered, then smiled.
“Eleventy billion times twenty,” Linda chimed in.
“I mean… how… Is this state land out here? How do you all live? Camping out, or were you able to pull—”
“You’ve got a ton of questions,” Carter said from behind me.
“Nervous,” I admitted.
“Things are about to get worse,” Lyle said.
Ended up that Jessica rode on her mother’s lap in the backseat. They were both right behind me so I could feel her knees in my back as we took the long route back. A hundred times I wanted to ask them why they didn’t just drive over, but I felt like that would have been rude. Did they have enough fuel? That was something I wasn’t going to worry about for a while. I could make my own fuel. Jessica had me park half a mile back, and everyone got out and got their gear.
“Wes, here,” she said, handing me a heavy radio with a ton of buttons. “Just keep it on that channel. I’ll let you know in about twenty minutes if it’s safe to bring the car all the way in. Your grandma and Raider know me, so hopefully I won’t get mauled.”
“Yeah, I bet he’ll be glad to see you. You really think this is necessary?”
“If they heard you leave, they’ll hear you coming back. If they’re watching your place, we can find them first and…” Her words trailed off, and I shivered.
Each had put in the truck a small backpack and several long guns. There wouldn’t have been any room in here if they’d carried everything, the way we were crammed in.
“You be careful,” I said and watched as she looked at her mom then me and nodded.
The group left, and I shut the car down so the sound of the engine wouldn’t echo. Was twenty minutes enough to walk half a mile, making sure they were safe, and that we hadn’t had a trap set for us?
“You’re worrying about something,” Grandpa said as I watched them start spreading out, some on our side of the road, some on the other.
“Everything. It wasn’t until Carter mentioned in the car that they might have heard the motor fire up and try to get to us…”
“Let me ask you something,” Grandpa said after my pause. “Did you hear them dragging in those RVs, campers, and all those Harleys you said you saw?”
“No.”
“So chances are, they are far enough away and have enough of a bugger between us ‘n’ them that they didn’t hear us.”
“Yeah, but Lance has been after me, sicced his boys on me more than once now. Tried to run me off the road. I wouldn’t put anything past him,” I said softly.
“I know.”
The radio crackled, and I held it up. I heard a tic sound like somebody tapped the side of the plastic case. Then I heard it again, tic tic. I looked at Grandpa who shrugged. I strained to hear more but didn’t want to fiddle with all the buttons on it. It wasn’t a regular walkie talkie. It was a Baofeng and what little I knew about radios was that I thought I remembered this one. It was supposed to be a HAM radio or a GMSR radio or… I wasn’t for sure.
“Wes, come on in slowly, looks like the coast is clear,” Linda’s voice said over the radio.
“Damn, they were fast,” Grandpa said.
I looked at the clock on my radio and saw it had been almost the twenty-minute mark. How long had I stared off into the distance? I shook my head and started the engine and drove back to the house. When I pulled in, Grandma was on the front porch rocking, Raider sitting in his spot between the chairs. I could see right away that Linda and Jessica were leaning against the railing, chatting away, their rifles on their shoulders.
“I wonder if Raider even moved,” I said to myself and then got out.
Grandpa followed, and I watched him. He was still a little wobbly from all the walking he’d done today, but he put a hand on the car to steady himself as he walked up to the porch.
“You get yourself into trouble?” Grandma called Grandpa.
He looked at the other ladies with a baleful eye and started sputtering, cursing, and tried to kick a rock. Grandma put her hand over her mouth to hold back her laugh, and I noticed right away what it was.
“Grandpa, you forgot to hide your flask,” I told him.
He looked down and patted his pocket in the middle of his bibs, “Sumbitch,” he said then twisted the top off and took a small sip. “If I’m in trouble already, might as well be guilty, eh?” he asked me, handing me the flask.
I took a very small sip and offered it to the ladies who shook their heads. “Nothing?” I asked them, handing the flask back to Grandpa.
“Didn’t see any more sign that one man coming and going a time or two. When we got out of sight, Mom headed off a ways and scouted ahead.”
“Must have been moving fast,” Grandpa opined.
“I can jog through the woods the same pace most men can run on the road,” she told him.
“I used to be able to do that,” Grandma said, patting Raider on the head.
He seemed to be in his element, sitting there, comfortably, getting petted
with his tongue hanging out the side.
“Didn’t you miss me, boy?” I asked him.
He stood up and barked once and walked over. I reached my hand down to pet him, and he pushed himself against my side, rubbing his head to his rear shoulders on my leg the way a cat would.
“I think he did,” Linda said.
“Now, what’s the plan?” I asked. “How are we going to rescue the Guthrie’s and anybody else they snatched?”
“You’re going to stay here and watch over your homestead. I’m leaving Jessica here to coordinate with us. I’m going with Carter and Lyle to observe first, and Jimmy should already have a spot for them all picked out by now,” Linda said.
“And then what?” I asked her.
“We figure out how to get them out,” she told me simply. “We can’t rely on the cops around here anymore. The Sheriff’s Department has been in on the rounding up of supplies and people, and as far as I know, they’ve left the area too.”
I started to say something, but Grandpa kicked my shoe, the universal signal of shut up. It was something that was out of visual range, and it had saved me a lashing from Grandma a time or two growing up. It was a lesson I put to use now.
“Where are you going to set up?” Jessica asked her mother.
“Someplace high, with a good view of everything,” she said, patting the rifle Jessica’s father had been carrying.
“That’s a huge can,” Grandpa said. “How loud is that baby?” he asked.
“Probably about the same as yours. What you got, a .25/270?” Linda asked.
“How’d you know?” Grandpa asked her, his voice going from friendly to one of amazement.
“It’s a great poaching round. Looks like it’s been in the field longer than these kids been alive,” she said, pointing to Jessica and me.
For once, Jessica met my gaze, and she was the one who blushed. I grinned and nodded to Linda who didn’t miss the exchange.
“I reckon it’s put food on the table,” Grandpa said. “Yours a .308?”
Blackout: Still Surviving Page 18
