The Borrowed World (Book 4): No Time For Mourning

by Franklin Horton

  “Don’t relax yet,” he said. “There’s another vehicle coming.”

  She went back to her position without a word.

  He plucked his radio from the pouch on his belt. “Jim?”

  “Jim here,” came a reply.

  “There’s a black Humvee coming into the valley now,” Gary said. “I’m at my house.”

  “Stay safe,” Jim said. “Let us know what you see.”

  Gary pocketed his radio. He could hear Jim talking to Pete, confirming that he’d heard Gary’s warning.

  “I heard,” Pete said. “Not in my line of sight yet.”

  Gary went to the front window and looked out at the road. He hoped Jim was able to hide the Humvee he’d confiscated from his visitors. The black Humvee continued winding its way along the road. When it got to his driveway, it slowed, then stopped, idling outside his gate.

  Gary mumbled a curse. The horn honked, a single long burst. Gary’s mind raced. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to break cover, nor did he want to provoke a confrontation. Maybe it was better to pretend like he had nothing to hide.

  “I have to go out,” he told Brenda.

  Her eyes got wide and she shook her head. “NO!”

  “I have to,” he said. “If I don’t go, they may think we’re hiding something. Who knows what kind of weapons they have or how many of them there are? I don’t want to draw their attention down on us. The best thing to do is pretend like things are normal.”

  Will stood silently to the side. “I’m trusting you with my life, Will” Gary said. He picked up his Savage .338 and adjusted the turrets on the scope. “We ranged that gate earlier. The scope is adjusted to hit dead-on. If things go downhill, start shooting. I’ll need cover fire to get away.”

  Will nodded and took the rifle. “Got you covered.”

  “Brenda,” Gary said to his wife, “radio Jim and tell him what’s happening.”

  He kept his sidearm on in the exposed holster and walked out of the house. He waved at the Humvee both to catch their attention and to show that he was not carrying a rifle and jogged casually toward them, closing the distance. The driver killed the engine. He slowed to a walk as the heavy passenger door of the vehicle was pushed opened and a large man got out.

  When he reached the gate, Gary stood close to it. He did not cross it nor unlock it. He found himself facing a tall, bald man in black military fatigues. He carried an AK-47. He was wearing some kind of badge that Gary couldn’t read over the distance. He nodded at Gary.

  “I’m looking for some buddies of mine,” he said without introduction. “They would have been in a vehicle like this one but tan. You see them?”

  He was all business. The fact that he was kind of overweight in the current state of society also said a lot. He obviously had connections to resources. Most people were having to tighten their belt to keep from losing their pants these days.

  “I haven’t seen any vehicle traffic through here at all,” Gary replied. “It’s been days since I noticed anyone come by and then it was only a tractor.”

  The man studied Gary hard—cop look—trying to determine if he was telling the truth. Gary knew he wasn’t a good liar. He didn’t have any expectation that he could fool anyone. All that mattered was how the man reacted. Would he sense that Gary was lying and challenge him on it or would he sense that Gary was lying and go on about his business?

  “I heard a shot,” he said. “Was it you?”

  Gary shook his head. “There’s a lot of shooting goes on back here. This is the country. People hunt. I heard shooting earlier too.” Gary looked the other man in the eye. Was that you shooting earlier? What were you shooting?

  The man didn’t bite. “I thought I heard a couple of rifle shots.”

  “Probably a deer hunter,” Gary said.

  He studied Gary, then his eyes moved to the house. “You live here with your family?”

  Gary saw no reason to lie about that. “Yeah.”

  “You getting by?” he asked.

  Gary nodded to that. “Things are tight, but yeah,” he said, not offering any more.

  He looked off down the road. “There a lot of people live down through here?”

  “Yeah,” Gary replied. It was an exaggeration. Since the man didn’t know how many people lived there it probably meant he wasn’t a local. It also meant he didn’t have any business being back there.

  “Be seeing you,” he said, getting back into his vehicle.

  Gary backed away from the gate. He watched to see if the vehicle would continue into the valley or if it would return the way it came. He was disappointed to see it continue into the valley. He was also concerned with the way that the man said he would be seeing him. With that was the implication that they were not going anywhere. They would be back at some point and he would have to deal with them again.

  Chapter 47

  The Valley

  Randi’s house was a short walk from Jim’s driveway. When they got there, the radio call came through from Gary.

  “We’ve got a second Humvee,” he said on the radio.

  “Shit! You’re going to have to look after these guys for a second,” Jim told Randi. “I’ve got to move that vehicle we left in the road.”

  “The tractor shed behind my house is empty,” Randi said. “You can put it there.”

  Jim ran back for the vehicle. Randi kept her prisoners a safe distance ahead of her, a rifle on them the entire time, safety off. When they reached the tractor shed, Jim was racing down the driveway in the heavy vehicle.

  The two prisoners stood in the door of the tractor shed watching him approach.

  “You better be backing up,” Randi told them. “He doesn’t yield to pedestrians.”

  They heeded Randi’s advice just in time to avoid being flattened. Jim nosed the machine as far into the shed as he could get it. He flung the door open, got out, and slid the tall shed doors closed on their steel tracks. With the door closed, the level of illumination dropped to what ambient light crept in through cracks, holes, and the dusty windows.

  “You men sit down and keep quiet,” Jim said. “Not a fucking word or I slit your throats.”

  The men were tired, scared, and weak enough at this point that they did not protest. Jim ran to the door and watched through the cracks. He could hear the vehicle approaching.

  “I hope Buddy and Lloyd are somewhere safe,” Randi said.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Jim said. “They’re resourceful.”

  “Did you close the gate when you came through?” Randi asked.

  “Shit,” Jim said. “I forgot. I was in a hurry. Where are your kids and grandkids?”

  “They’re hiding out in the basement for now.”

  The black Humvee stopped at the entrance to Randi’s driveway. The horn honked.

  “Are you going out?” Randi asked.

  “No way,” Jim said. “They want us, they have to come get us.”

  The vehicle honked again. Jim held his breath. If they wanted to come to the house the gate was wide open and they could drive right in. There was nothing stopping them. They could drive right to the shed. They could drive right to the house.

  Then the vehicle accelerated away and was gone. Jim let out his breath and turned back to the prisoners. “I’m going to assume those guys were with you. Who are you people and what are you doing in my valley?”

  The one with the shoulder wound was pale and his head bobbed a little. If they were going to provide medical attention, he needed it soon. The other man appeared to be uninjured but very scared.

  “What’s your name?” Jim asked the uninjured man.

  “He told me his name was Hunter,” Randi said when there was no response.

  Jim stood in front of him, looking him in the eye. His fear was palpable. “Who are you people?” There was nothing conversational about the tone of Jim’s voice. It held nothing but the promise of bad things.

  His hand trembling as he wiped the sweat
from his forehead, he replied, “We’re regular guys. We’re not here to hurt anybody.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We came for cattle.”

  Jim was startled by a sound from outside. He started to swing his pistol away from his captive, then recognized the sound as the crunch of gravel under hooves.

  “It’s Buddy!” Randi said.

  Jim went to the door, pushed it slightly open. Buddy and Lloyd were leading their horses and breathing hard, their faces red.

  “We didn’t expect you to be here,” Buddy said. “We had to get off the road and hide when we heard that vehicle coming. Once it was gone, we decided to bolt for the nearest shelter.”

  “Tie your horses up behind the shed and get in here,” Jim said. “I’m still not sure it’s safe to be in the open.”

  Jim started back into the shed and his radio chirped.

  “Dad?” It was Pete.

  “Here,” Jim said. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re at the end of the driveway, Dad. They can’t get through. They’re sitting there with the engine running.”

  “Ellen, are you listening?” Jim asked.

  “Here,” she said.

  “Don’t engage these guys,” he said. “They went away when we didn’t come outside. I’m at Randi’s. If they get out of the vehicle, let me know immediately and I’ll be there. Otherwise, stay inside.”

  “Got it,” Ellen said.

  “Got it,” Pete said.

  Buddy and Lloyd returned from tying up their horses and slipped through the corrugated steel door. Jim pulled it shut behind them. They all stared at the men on the ground.

  “I thought there was three of them,” Buddy said.

  “There were definitely three of them when she left,” Lloyd said.

  “One got ornery,” Randi said.

  “Gary disarmed him,” Jim added.

  “I wish you’d quit saying that,” Randi said with disgust.

  Jim shrugged.

  “Excuse me for changing the subject but what was that stunt you pulled back there, Randi? You shouldn’t have done that,” Lloyd said. “You’re lucky they didn’t shoot your ass. You didn’t know those people. You weren’t under any obligation to help them.”

  Randi frowned at him. “I’ve already had a lecture, thank you,” she said. “I won’t do it again. You all don’t understand. The nurse in me did feel obligated.”

  “Tell that nurse she’s a dumbass,” Lloyd said.

  Randi gave him a look that said things were about to get serious.

  “This is not the time,” Jim said.

  “Jim, you should see the setup these guys have,” Buddy said. “They’ve got shipping containers of gear, semi trailers of food, and a bunch of campers with generators. They moved in right under our noses and we didn’t even see it. We left a big hole in our defenses and they drove right through it.”

  The information didn’t sit well with Jim. He had planned on blowing that road, but they’d had trouble scraping together the supplies. He should have done something, even if it was simply felling trees in the road. If he kept screwing around someone was going to get killed. They needed to be more decisive. They needed to figure things out and take action.

  Jim looked at Hunter. “Is this true?”

  He looked back at Jim and nodded slowly.

  “Sounds like you plan on staying a while.”

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said. “I guess. Maybe.”

  Jim holstered his pistol and leaned over, his hands on his knees. “Let’s start with a simple question. Where did you come from?”

  “Wallace County. The Glenwall golf course,” Hunter said, a tremor in his voice.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “We bought cattle off a man. We figured out where he was getting them from and my boss decided to set up a camp over here. He didn’t want to have to go through a middleman to get cattle. When he got over here, he decided it seemed like a safe place to stay.”

  Jim knew those men loading cattle that day had been up to something. Despite what the cattle thieves’ intentions had been, they had brought these other men into their valley. They had endangered the lives of everyone in the valley.

  “So who are you, Hunter? What did you do before shit fell apart?” Jim asked.

  “I worked for Wallace County. On the road crew. Mostly a backhoe operator.”

  “How did you become affiliated with this group?”

  “When things got bad, the people living on the golf course wanted to hire private security. They paid the county’s Emergency Management Coordinator to find people for them.”

  Jim nodded in the direction of the other man. “All of you are county employees?”

  “No. There’s some campus security, some deputies, people from the county maintenance shop. None of us had any place to go. They promised us food and a roof over our heads if we came to work for them.”

  “Sounds like a good deal,” Jim said. “So why did you all bring so much gear over here if you have such a cozy setup over there in Wallace County?”

  “Our boss, Baxter, is concerned that Glenwall isn’t safe,” Hunter said. “He says that eventually the hungry people in the community will overrun it and take our supplies.”

  “Baxter?”

  “Yeah,” Hunter said. “He’s the Emergency Management Coordinator. We work for him.”

  “Baxter decided you needed to have a backup plan?”

  “Basically.”

  “So the backup plan is to move all the folks from Glenwall golf course into my valley?” Jim asked. “That’s a lot of people. That would take an enormous effort.”

  Hunter shook his head. “No. Just those of us that work for him. That’s all that was coming.”

  “Those supplies out there, they belong to you all or did you steal them from the golf course?”

  Hunter hesitated, then replied, “We stole them.”

  Jim straightened out and let out a low whistle. “Stealing from the hand that feeds you. That takes some balls. Baxter the Badass, huh?”

  Hunter didn’t respond.

  Jim went back to the door and stared out, checking the road. “Did it not occur to you, Hunter, that there were already people living here?”

  Hunter shrugged. “We have a lot of guns. We weren’t worried.”

  Now Jim was worried. He didn’t like the sound of that. “How many men work for Baxter?”

  “Maybe two dozen,” Hunter admitted. “A few less now.”

  Jim looked at his friends. There was an entire world contained in that look. All in the room had seen the look before and knew what it foretold. Jim met Randi’s eyes. Her lips tightened and she looked away. He met Buddy’s and he nodded a grim nod. Lloyd shrugged as if he didn’t know what to do.

  Randi’s horse blankets lay over a wooden sawhorse. Jim took one and folded it into quarters, drew his Beretta, then wrapped the blanket around his hand.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter asked fearfully.

  “If I let you go, I’ll only have to fight you later,” Jim said. “Some of my people may get hurt. I have a rule about that, something my grandfather told me when I was a kid.”

  Hunter looked around frantically. “Don’t let him do this,” he begged, locking eyes with Randi.

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Do you need to go outside?” Jim asked her.

  She put her balled fist to her mouth and shook her head.

  “You don’t need to do this!” the man pleaded. “You can’t!”

  Jim raised the Beretta to the back of Hunter’s head, dropped the safety, and pulled the trigger. While the sound was still loud in the confines of the metal shed, the blanket hopefully muffled it enough that it wouldn’t carry to the other Humvee. Hunter fell forward, arching, clawing, kicking, then was still. Jim watched with a sick feeling in his gut. Headshots weren’t always instant. You never knew how the brain would react to a slug. It was ugly work.

 
Jim unwrapped his hand, then cycled the action since the blanket had inhibited the movement of the slide after that shot. He looked at the other man. He was pale from blood loss and perhaps going into shock. He had no response to his friend’s death nor to his own impending death. Jim raised the gun and did it again. This time the man fell forward and was gone instantly.

  Jim looked around the room. Buddy was staring impassively at the bodies. Lloyd was shaking his head. Randi was crying.

  “Do you understand why I had to do this?” he asked her. “I had to.”

  “It’s my fault,” Randi said. “I shouldn’t have brought them here. Their deaths are on me.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have,” Jim agreed. “but if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t have known what was happening.”

  “That’s why I made myself watch,” she said. “I’ll remember next time. So I’ll think first.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Jim said. “Their deaths are not on you, though. They came to our valley. They made this decision.”

  Lloyd moved over to hug Randi and she let him.

  Chapter 48

  Wallace County

  When the semi returned to the golf course, the guards manning it moved the cars out of the way to allow Baxter through.

  Baxter climbed from the vehicle and explained to his men what had happened. He told them that the plan had been expedited and this would be their last night at Glenwall. He gave them instructions for what he wanted done when their shift on the gate ended and then he got back in the truck.

  They parked the semi at the maintenance shop and Baxter called together all of his men who weren’t performing a critical task at the moment. He repeated the story of what had transpired at the camp in Russell County.

  “I need you men to go to your rooms and pack all of your personal gear. Do not load anything in a vehicle until after dark. We can’t allow the residents to see us bugging out. Anything you want to take needs to be packed and ready for transport. Are we understood?”

  He looked around the maintenance shop and all of the workers nodded. It struck Baxter that his force was not as big as he recalled it being. He had perhaps a dozen men remaining, not counting those who were dead or in Russell County.