by Chris Lowry
I looked at the people in the bus again. Hannah was soothing her mother who was crying quietly. The kids were quiet, Byron's boys were quiet. I could feel him and Tyler watching me, gauging my reaction to Brian.
“We can't play rescue with every group we come across.”
“Agreed.”
“We don't know what we would be up against, and I'm not risking any of our people to save strangers.”
“Agreed.”
“Then why are we talking Brian?”
“Because I told her I would,” he smiled at Peg.
She nodded in the mirror.
“We're going to put miles between us and the hillbillies,” I told him. “We're going to find a safe place to hole up, and then we're going to make a plan to move on. We're not going to drive a school bus full of kids to a gun fight with an enemy we don't know.”
He held up both hands.
“I'm not disagreeing with you. I like that plan. I just wanted you to know that we appreciate you. Thank you for coming back for us. Again.”
He held out his hand and we shook.
Byron watched him go back to the front of the bus and then stared at me, but he didn't come over to talk.
I was glad for it and stared back with my best poker face.
He grinned like a maniac.
I was never very good at poker.
Anna kept petting me. I reached up and put my hand on top of hers.
“Do you want me to stop?” she whispered.
“Never,” I whispered back.
So she kept doing it and I cursed myself in silence. That was the same voice I used that got me two ex-wives.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Why don't you ever drive?”
Brian stood next to me at the bottom of a gravel road that led up a rise several hundred feet to stop at a huge open space on a ridge.
“Traffic gives me road rage.”
He twisted his head and checked to see if I was joking.
“Not much traffic now,” he offered.
“That's what helps. Keeps me from losing it.”
He snickered and clapped me on the back, then apologized as I winced.
“Still hurt?”
“Pills are wearing off.”
“We'll go hunt for more for,” Byron said as he marched up from the yellow school bus with Tyler in tow.
“Not yet,” I said. “Tell us about this.”
Tyler dug his toes in the rocks as color flushed up his cheeks.
“Limited access,” he stuttered. “That's the only road. Clear cut at the top so you can see for miles. Looks like a well for water.”
“We'll need to get a generator up there to make that work,” Byron took over. “Tyler says there's one building now. You can see the roof from here.”
That was the white glinting between the trees. White roof. Grey walls. It looked like a barn, long low slung structure, or a garage.”
“No house though?” Brian studied the barn through the trees.
“Foundation,” said Tyler.
“No fence.”
“We passed a trucking company about three miles ago. I saw something that gave me an idea.”
He told us, but he looked at me while he said it. Brian noticed.
“We haul trailers up there, push them over on their sides and butt them up end to end. Gives us an instant fence that's fifty-three feet long, ten feet deep and strong enough that we can man the walls. Plus, we can use those ten feet as extra room or storage.”
He grinned at me, ready to be heaped with praise. I glanced at Brian. I could see the wheels working in his head as he thought about using trailers as fence and defense structures.
He must have thought it was a good idea because he nodded.
“We need the generator first,” he said. “And food for a couple of days while we get it all set up.”
Byron nodded.
“My boys don't know how to drive the big rigs,” Byron pouted.
“I'll show you,” I told him and his face lit up again. “Tyler and two more follow us up the ridge while we check it out.”
The clearing at the top was just as he described. Clear cut open space along the ridgeline that offered a commanding view of the hills and valleys around us. We were forty miles north of Birmingham on the edge of a small town called Jasper. I had the misfortune to have my car break down at ten o'clock one night at the Jasper exit off the brand-new highway that ran from Birmingham to Memphis. Three good old boys stopped to help, fixed the car and sent me on my way. The little town had friendly people and I wondered what was left of it. Friendly people didn't survive long now.
The barn was a metal building with a pitched roof. It was fifty by twenty, all open space over a bare concrete floor and designed for storing equipment that wasn't there and a one room office in the corner next to a bathroom. It would be a tight night or two until we dragged more shelter to the top of the ridge but after all day in the bus, it would feel like the Taj Mahal.
“Nice work,” I told Tyler.
“Thanks.”
“Think you can find us food?”
He nodded, grabbed one of the other boys and they left to run down the hill.
“Should I go get the others?” Brian asked.
But he didn't need to. Byron stood next to Peg as she drove the bus up the steep grade and parked it next to the barn.
The boy hopped out of the door.
“This will work?”
I nodded. Byron waved over four of his boys and directed them to grab weapons.
“You sent Tyler for food,” he told me. “We're going to scavenge the houses around here for supplies.”
“Take the bus,” said Brian.
“Too big.”
“We don't have anything smaller and you're going to need to bring back mattresses, blankets, chairs.”
“I'm not a moving company,” Byron snapped.
Hannah looked up from corralling the children into the building and passed the baton to Harriet to keep them moving. She walked over to us and put her hand on Byron's arm.
“We can't sit on concrete,” she explained.
Byron turned his glare from Brian to her and his face softened.
“I knew that,” he told her.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
He shook his head.
“We can handle it. I just don't like being told what to do.”
The glare was back, aimed at Brian. He made a big gesture of shrugging his shoulders and walking away.
“Do you want anything in particular?” the boy whispered to Hannah.
“I'd like to sleep on a real mattress,” she sighed. “A real bed. We've been on the floor forever.”
He leaned in and kissed her on the lips, tender and sweet.
“We can make that happen,” he turned to me. “What about you my warlord? Can I get you anything?”
I shook my head too fast.
There was something I wanted. Something I was missing. I wasn't sure if there would be time for it, or if there was even a place for it in the new world now. But I told him anyway.
“If you see books, bring them back.”
Byron twisted his head to one side and quirked up an eyebrow.
“Kindling?”
“Reading.”
“You read?”
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“I guess I shouldn't be,” he sniffed. “It seems so out of place.”
“Don't I look like a reader?”
Hannah snorted this time.
“We may not have time to read,” I ignored her but shot a smirk in her direction. “It would be nice to have just in case.”
Byron nodded.
“I'm a reader. Was a reader. Two or three books a week. I didn't have much social life back then. I understand.”
He kissed Hannah again and rounded up his boys into the bus. They took off down the ridge.
“Come see this,” Brian called.
He stood on the
edge of the ridge where it began to slope down to the narrow valley below. A stream ran next to train tracks that cut through the valley and stretched off around a blind corner a half a mile further on.
Brian pointed.
A train was on the tracks, or at least a dozen open cars full of coal.
“Alabama,” Brian strutted. “Coal mines and steel mills.”
“We gonna make diamonds?”
“No sir,” he strutted some more. “We're gonna build stoves and a steam engine. It's gonna be warm this winter.”
He turned and began surveying the space, sketching a layout with his hands. “Trailers here to form the wall, gardens over there,” he described to me. “Think the raiders could find a couple of above ground pools?”
“You planning to do some swimming?”
“Fish farming,” he winked.
“Does he know you call them raiders?”
“Why?” Brian shrugged. “He a Cowboy's fan?”
I snorted. Football humor. I hadn't thought about the game in months. No playoffs this year. Nothing normal this year, maybe not ever.
Our plans involved holing up and riding it out. But until when?
And when did I start thinking of them as our plans?
I thought about that as I followed Brian around the clearing, listening to his vision for our next Fort. Fort Jasper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Byron's Raiders sounded much better than boys, though I still thought of them that way in my head. They scavenged enough food for a few days from surrounding houses, brought in furniture and bedding first.
The next day we hauled trailers up and set them in place.
Who would have thought getting them up the hill would be the easy part? Once the trailer was detached, we attached a winch across the body and flipped it on its side, then shoved it in place through sheer manpower.
It took all of that day to knock them all over and put them in place.
Tyler came up with a solution for a gate, and went hunting with Brian. They returned with two rolling gates that they set up between an opening in the trailers.
Byron insisted the entrance be set to the side of the road which forced anyone who wanted to come in and go to travel the length of two trailers to get in our out. This prevented a straight shot up the drive and tactically was a sound plan.
A pain in the ass to bring supplies in and out, but if someone decided to make a run up the hill to take the compound, they would have to run a couple of hundred feet in front of trailers to reach the gate.
“I'm going to put a turret next to the gate,” he told me as we walked toward the road. “And place foxholes on either side of the driveway for guards.”
“Deer stands,” I suggested.
“That's better.”
He had a dozen plans worked up for defending the place.
His raiders found Brian three swimming pools that he worked on turning into fish ponds. He would still need to stock them, and he was trying to figure out a way to keep the pumps working with a windmill.
It didn't feel like home. Not quite. But it became homey after three days. The kids settled into a routine under the watchful eyes of Hannah and Harriet and a
few of the newbies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
On the fourth day Tyler came back riding a motorcycle. He pulled the Honda 220 dirt bike up in front of the barn and smiled when I walked out.
“For your trip,” he said.
It was a good-looking machine.
“Found it in a garage,” he explained. “I had to tinker with it to get it started, but the tank is full. And I found those.”
He tilted his head to indicate the two aluminum jerry cans tied to the rear fender with rubber cords. I tapped them and listened to the sloshing inside.
Three tanks were enough to get me to Arkansas from here. A dirt bike was perfect for travelling on the side of the highway on the shoulder. Even the lanes when they were clear.
It was a good choice.
“Thanks,” I clapped him on the back. “Good work.”
He beamed and slid off the saddle.
“Want to give it a spin.”
“I'll save it for the trip,” I answered.
I had transportation and we were only three hundred miles from Little Rock. I had been planning to go out with the boys and find a truck or car, but the bike was a better choice. I could use it to get there, and find a bigger vehicle to come back with the kids.
If we came back this way. Arkansas was my first destination, but after that, I was going to start hunting for my youngest. The three of us could find her together and then we would hide in a cabin in the woods for a year.
I could keep all three safe.
The crowd that had gathered around the bike dispersed after the initial energy of something new wore off. Everyone had a job assigned by Brian and overseen by Byron.
I'm not sure what created the uneasy peace among them, though I suspected Hannah's hand in it. They were getting along and building up the compound, Byron in charge of defense and Brian in charge of day to day operations.
It worked.
“Where am I supposed to sit?”
Anna snuck up behind me and ran her finger along the seat of the bike. They weren't designed for two riders, and even though we both could fit, it wouldn't be comfortable for long.
“Here,” I told her. “I'm going to run over, grab the kids and come back to get you.”
She had one of the best poker faces I've ever seen. I have heard it called resting bitch face, always on the verge of being angry, or like she was mad, and that look was great for hiding feelings.
I should know.
My kids always asked me why I was angry all the time. I told them, it's just my face.
Just hers too.
Until her lower lip puffed out a fraction of an inch and her eyes got glassy.
“I'm not going with you?”
I held out my hand and she took it so I could pull her into my arms. I wrapped them around her and pressed her head to my chest.
A million excuses rolled through my head, trying for logic, trying for emotion, clicking through reasons why she shouldn't go, why she should stay here safe.
Then I settled on the one thing I wasn't sure I could pull off.
Honesty.
“I don't want you there if I can't find them. Or if they've turned.”
I could feel the heat coming off her face and neck as she nodded. She snaked her arms around my waist and squeezed.
“But who is going to take care of you?” she whispered.
I kissed the top of her head and squeezed back.
She had been my shadow for weeks, tending my wounds, curled up next to me each night, sometimes with a shotgun if she thought I needed protection. Anna had been my guardian angel.
“If I took you, I'd have to worry about your safety,” I told her. “I just need to get in, find them, and get out.”
I didn't tell her about the second hunt I had planned. Not yet. Though I would invite her for that one. We would get a Land Cruiser or a Van, a larger SUV that could double as a safe sleeping place at night.
We would go east and run down the coast searching refugee camps.
But I didn't tell her yet.
I had to cross the river first, the Big Muddy my own Rubicon.
“It might take you more than a day to find them.”
I stroked her hair.
“You'll be safer here.”
“Who will watch your back?”
“I need you here to watch the others.”
She sniffed in my shirt.
“Are you wiping snot on me?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
I put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up, pressed my lips to hers.
“It's four hours there,” I said after a moment. “And four hours back.”
“How many days between those hours?”
I didn't answer. I couldn't. She knew t
he hunt across the river could take days. Or weeks.
I wasn't sure what I'd run across. Or what happened if the kids had turned. The thought of it made my vision dim, washed in a red haze and I dismissed it fast.
It was time for action, not introspection. There would be enough time to plan A through Z while on the bike.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Anna helped me pack. It didn't take long. She put a jar of peanut butter and cans of tuna into a small backpack, then four boxes of ammunition for the hunting rifle I was taking from our stock. She slid two boxes of pistol ammo next to it, and cleaned the weapon while I met with Brian and Byron.
“It's time?” Brian asked.
“While you set up here, I'm going to cross over and find them.”
He nodded. He didn't believe me, but he nodded.
“We'll come with you,” Bryon said. “My squad can help you knock this out quick.”
There was a certain appeal to it. Even though I called them boys, they were on the verge of being men, most sixteen and seventeen. I wondered once why they followed a fourteen-year-old pyscho, but he saved them, kept them fed and sheltered for weeks. That bought a lot of loyalty.
Pyshco or no, the boy was a natural leader. All you had to do was ask him and he would tell you. I don't know if it was true because he said it so much, or just part of his personality make up.
Their seven guns watching my back, Tyler breaking off to scout could help me find kids or answers faster.
Brian needed them here. The kids needed them here. If we got across the river and ran into trouble, that would leave this compound too vulnerable.
My second family needed protection too.
I told them so and Byron nodded.
“Besides, we'd look funny with eight of us piled on a dirt bike. Like clowns at a circus.”
“I never went to a circus,” he shrugged.
At least Brian laughed. A little. More like a courtesy laugh, but I appreciated the effort.
“There's a lot of work to do here still,” I kept going. “I don't plan to be gone long, but just in case it's more than a couple of days they'll need you here.”
They nodded.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“First light. I'll take the bike and go out with the raiders.”
