A Powerless World (Book 2): When the Peace is Gone

by P. A. Glaspy

  “That ain’t right, Clay. Why should they give us their stuff? They gotta eat, too. Why don’t we try huntin’, or fishin’? I know how to fish and how to clean ‘em.”

  “Because Momma hates fish, or have you forgotten that? If you want to eat it, that’s fine, but we still need meat for her. And that home canned venison old lady Dotson gave us was awesome. She wouldn’t have given us that if she didn’t have a whole bunch more stored up. Now c’mon, let’s check the place out.”

  Jay reluctantly followed his brother up to the gate. Clay had gotten his hands on a nice set of binoculars on one of his “supply runs”, which he pulled out to get a better look at the house. He didn’t see any movement outside, but it was just getting daylight so it was hard to see that far. He was just about to climb the fence when Jay whispered, “Do you hear something? I think I hear a truck or something.”

  Clay listened hard and picked up the sound his brother had heard. Just as he was about to tell Jay to hide, the truck rounded the corner and caught them in its headlights. Rich Hawkins jumped out of the passenger side with a pistol pointed at them while Alan was screeching to a halt.

  “Hold it right there, fellas. Keep those hands where we can see them. What you boys doin’ out here so early?”

  Clay counted two more in the truck, getting out through both doors, armed as well. Shit, outnumbered. He held his hands out to the sides of his body. Jay mimicked his brother’s stance.

  “Um, just checking this place out, to see if there’s anyone living there. We’ve run out of food, and most of the houses out here have already been picked over. This was the next one in line for us. How bout you guys? What brings you out this way?”

  By then, Alan had gotten out and walked up to take over. “Same thing. We need supplies. So, you live around here? You know the folks that live up there?” He motioned toward the house with his head.

  “We live the other side of town. We know them by name, ya know, just to say hi in passin’ if we see them in town. You fellas live around here? I don’t reckon I’ve seen you around before.”

  “We’re staying with some friends that live out this way, the Callens. Actually, they aren’t there. Not sure where they were when it all went down, but we knew them before so we didn’t figure they’d mind if we crashed at their place. So, if you know these folks, any idea if they’re home, or what they might have up there? We’re running low on food where we’re staying.” Because those bastards, the Callens, took it all with them. Alan could tell by the guilty looks on their faces that they had been up to no good out here. These might be the kind of guys he was looking for to build his crew up.

  “Well, old lady – I mean, Mrs. Dotson – she’s crippled so she don’t get out much, but she has a nice garden every year, and Mr. Dotson is a big hunter. She cans all kinds of stuff, so we figured if they ain’t home we might be able to get some food here. You fellas are more than welcome to come up with us to check. I’m sure there’d be plenty to share, cuz that’s what folks should be doin’ now, ain’t it? Sharin’ with their neighbors.”

  “Yes, yes they should. What’s your name, buddy?”

  “Clay. This is my brother Jay. What’s yours?”

  I’m Alan. This is Rich and Steve. Pleased to meet you boys. Let’s go up and check this place out, together. Who knows what we might find?”

  Clay nodded and started to climb the fence. Alan stopped him.

  “No need to climb, Clay. We have a key.” He motioned to Steve, who ran to the truck and came back with a pair of bolt cutters. He cut the chain and as it was falling to the ground, Alan opened the gate and gestured for Clay and Jay to go through first.

  “After you, friends. Let’s go see what these folks might have to help out a neighbor.”

  Clay wasn’t happy at the prospect of sharing whatever they found, and he didn’t bother telling their new acquaintances they already had a pretty good idea what was up there since they had already been to the house, but having other guys around to help if things went bad was a plus. Old man Dotson was going to be in for a rude awakening if he came after them with a shotgun this time.

  ****

  When they got to the house and found it abandoned, Clay was slightly disappointed. He would have loved to see the look on Jim Dotson’s face when five of them showed up at his door. Bet he wouldn’t be so apt to not share what he had then. He was even more disappointed to find that they had taken all their food and supplies with them. He came running up from the basement as Alan was slamming cupboard doors open.

  “Nobody’s here, and there’s nothing left. No food, no guns – nothing. They even took their clothes. Where would they go? How could they get there? His truck’s in the driveway, and probably won’t run anyway, cuz it’s too new.”

  Alan raised an eyebrow at Clay. “You were looking for guns?”

  Clay stammered, “Well, uh, you know you can always use a gun for hunting, and um, you never know when you might need to protect yourself, I mean, who knows, with everything gone to shit like it is, when you might, you know, run into some assholes on the road…not that you guys are assholes, but, you know…”

  “Yeah, I do know. Shut up. Did they have any other vehicles they might have left in? Anything older that could still be running?”

  “Not that I know of. Hang on a sec.” Clay went out the back door. In just a minute, he was back. “They had a motorhome parked out back. It’s gone. But I don’t know how they could have used it to leave. It shouldn’t be running either. It wasn’t that old.”

  “Anybody else live out here they might have moved their motorhome to, if they figured out how to move it?”

  Clay stood there thinking. Jay finally spoke – it was the first time since being confronted by Alan and his crew. “The Warren place is only about a mile or so away as the crow flies. Their place is big. They could have gone over there, I guess.”

  Alan looked at Jay. “This Warren place: where is it exactly?”

  “Well, from here, you go out to the main road, turn right, go about a mile, turn right again, then go about two miles. It’s on the left, but it’s not easy to find these days. They’ve got the gate hidden and you can’t see in the place from the outside anywhere.”

  At the words “gate hidden”, Alan looked to Rich and Steve, who were both listening intently to Jay’s description. Alan turned all of his attention to Jay.

  “Do you know how many people are at that farm, what was it, the Warren place?”

  Jay was uncomfortable with the newfound interest Alan had in him and what he had to say. He backed up a step, coming into contact with one of the kitchen chairs. “Um, well, there used to only be the Warrens, which was two people. But, we ran into them a couple of weeks ago on the road out in front of their place and they had some other guys with them we didn’t know. So, no, no idea how many is in there now but I do know it’s a lot more than two.”

  “Give us a minute, would ya fellas? I need to talk to my buddies about something.”

  Clay saw his opportunity to get Alan’s attention again. “Sure thing, Alan. We’ll just wait out on the porch. C’mon, Jay.”

  As the Glass brothers went out the door, Alan looked again at Rich and Steve. “Well, guys, we were needing some more men to help us take that place. These two might be a good addition. They know this area and the folks who live here pretty good, so it seems. They may be able to get them to open the gate and let us walk in. What do you think?”

  Not wanting to incur the wrath of their slightly psychotic friend, they both nodded and smiled. Rich replied, “Sure, Alan. Sounds like a great plan. But, what if they don’t want to join us?”

  Alan headed toward the door to bring in his new recruits. “You say that like they have a choice.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “I can’t believe Pete went off alone with no backup. How many times do we have to go over safety protocols??” Mike was ranting as he and Bill quickly headed toward the spot Pete was clearing.

  Bill shrug
ged his shoulders. “I hear ya, but some people just don’t get how unstable and dangerous things are right now. Do you know if he at least has a sidearm with him?”

  “He had one on earlier when we went to get the Dotsons. I just hope he kept it with him.”

  They got to the spot where Russ and his crew were working on the new cross fence line. Russ saw the look on Mike’s face. “What’s up? Has something happened?”

  Mike stopped long enough to relate the story to Russ. Russ shook his head, frustrated as well. “I truly hope it doesn’t take someone getting hurt or worse, possibly killed, to get the message across that it is a very unsafe world we are living in right now. No one should go anywhere alone, even within the relative safety of this place. You want any help? These guys can handle this without me. I’m pretty sure Matt and Nick have strung more fence than all of us put together.”

  At the sound of their names, the Thompson brothers looked up and grinned around the barbed wire staples in their mouths. I was just walking up with a jug of water and cups and almost tripped over a root laughing at their antics. They looked like something out of a bad B-rated horror movie. When I finally got control of myself I asked if anyone wanted a cool drink. I held back from Matt and Nick.

  “You boys might want to pass. We wouldn’t want your new teeth to rust.”

  Matt spoke around the staples. “It’s alright, Miss Anne. They’re galvanized.”

  At that, we all had a good laugh. However, that came to an abrupt halt when we heard what sounded like gunfire coming from the direction Pete was working. We all dropped everything, picked up our rifles, and ran toward the sound.

  ****

  Alan had taken the route Jay told them about to within a half-mile of our gate. They got out of the truck and walked along the road, looking for any weak points. They found none.

  Clay was nervous since they had been “invited” to join the crew, but was trying to be nonchalant about it. “So, what are we looking for out here anyway?”

  Alan turned to him. “Simple. A way in.”

  Clay’s eyes got wide. “Man, we can’t go in there. They’ve got I don’t know how many people in there. I just know it’s a hell of a lot more than the five of us. And I think they have guards or something. When we were out here before, a bunch of them came out of the gate to run us off.”

  Alan had already partaken of the meth again, and had a wild look on his face. “Then we won’t use the gate. Who lives there?”

  He pointed to Matt and Nick’s house. “That’s the Thompson place. We ain’t seen nobody over there, and no one answered the door when we knocked a week or so ago. I don’t reckon they were home when everything went off.”

  Alan grinned at him. “Well, then, let’s go see if there’s another way in to this place. I’m sure the Thompsons won’t mind if we cut across their yard.”

  As they started down the tree line, they heard what sounded like an engine running. Rich looked toward the sound. “Is that a tractor?”

  Alan leered at his crew. “That’s exactly what that is. Let’s go introduce ourselves to the neighbors.”

  ****

  Pete had been working the tree line from our side of the property. He pulled down trees and cleared brush up to the fence. Since we weren’t allowing the livestock free range of the property, it wasn’t a problem to cut the fence back there. Once he had a few sections of fence cut away, he climbed back on the tractor and continued with the clearing on the other side, pushing over the fence posts as he went.

  He had really gotten the hang of handling the big machine and was about to declare the path cleared when he felt something hit him in the back. A sharp, burning pain emanated from the spot. He reached back and felt something wet, and when he brought his hand back in front, it was covered in blood. He realized he had been shot, but he thought it would hurt more than that. He reached down to turn the tractor off and felt another bullet hit him in the shoulder. That one hurt a lot more. He yelped in pain as a third flew over his head. He slumped forward in the seat, the tractor jolting and stopping when his foot came off the clutch. It seemed like time had slowed down, or he was in some kind of slow motion. Every attempt at movement felt like how he imagined being in quicksand would feel.

  When the final bullet hit him in the neck, he closed his eyes and thought of his wife and son. He prayed they would stay safe in this horrible new world. Hopefully the people here could protect them for him, since he wouldn’t be there to do it himself. He was gone before we got to him.

  ****

  “OH MY GOD, YOU SHOT HIM! YOU JUST SHOT HIM!!” Jay was beside himself with shock as Alan lowered the rifle and ejected the spent casing. He turned to the group of men with him and saw a mixture of shock, disgust, and downright fear. Rich and Steve were no strangers to murder, but Alan had done most of the killing in their trek across the county. Moreover, those people had been an immediate threat to the men as they took their homes, supplies, children, and wives. This man never even knew they were there. Something about that seemed off to them.

  Alan became indignant at the accusing stares. “What? Did you think we were just gonna go knock on the door and ask for their supplies? One down, that’s how I see it. And look – he was nice enough to open the back door for us.”

  Jay was backing away, tugging on his brother’s arm. “C’mon, Clay. This ain’t us. We don’t murder people. We might steal stuff, but we ain’t killed nobody, and I ain’t ready to start.”

  Alan pulled the rifle back up and pointed it at Jay. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, asshole, ‘til I say you do. You’re just as guilty as the rest of us by being here, so you might as well go all the way now. Anyone who tries to leave ends up like that guy.”

  He motioned with his head toward Pete’s body. Jay stopped his backward movement, but didn’t come any closer to Alan. He looked at his brother, who appeared to be in some kind of state of shock, as he wasn’t talking, wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything except staring at what remained of Pete. Clay slowly turned to face Alan. In fear for his and his brother’s lives, he nodded slowly.

  “Sure, Alan. Let’s do this. Lead the way.”

  Jay looked at his brother like he’d lost his mind. “Clay, you can’t be serious. We can’t do this!”

  Clay shook his head. “We’re in it now, little brother. Might as well go for the gold – or whatever they’re hiding in there.”

  Alan grinned. “Now that’s more like it. Let’s go see what they ARE hiding in there.”

  Alan headed toward the tractor, hugging the tree line, oblivious to anything except getting inside our place to see what we were protecting so fiercely. As he walked, Clay held back a bit and grabbed Jay. Under his breath he whispered, “Play along. First chance we get we’re outta here. We ain’t murderers.”

  Jay saw that his brother had a plan, so he kept walking. He just hoped they’d find that chance before either of them were killed.

  ****

  We ran nonstop to where Pete had been working. Mike got there first, saw that Pete was down, crouched low and held up his fist in the motion that meant freeze. He had been teaching us tactical hand signals during our trainings. We all stopped in our tracks. He then moved his hand down toward the ground in the crouch signal. We all got low. He crept up toward the tractor, checking the area through the scope of his rifle. The rest of us were within the tree line, watching his every move. He turned and pointed to Russ and Bill to come to him, staying low. Bill headed that way. Russ looked at me.

  “Anne, please go back. I can’t do this if I’m worried about you. We need Kate to get ready for Pete, if he’s still alive. You need to let her know.”

  I shook my head forcefully as tears ran down my face. “Hell no. I’m not leaving you. Pete looks dead, and I can’t bear the thought of that happening to you. No, I’m staying. I’ve got your back. I love you, Russ Matthews. Keep your head down, dammit.”

  He nodded and sighed, kissed me, and headed toward Mike. I turned to Matt and Nic
k, who were right behind me. “Nick, go find Monroe. Tell him to put the front guard on high alert, that we have shots fired. They probably didn’t hear them, since we barely did over the tractor. DON’T tell Sara anything until we know what shape Pete is in. Have Millie get the kids to the basement. Everybody goes into lockdown mode. We’ve drilled on it. This is why. Stay down, but hurry. Now GO!”

  After the first encounter with the Glass brothers, we had worked up a protocol of sorts as to what to do when the alarm was raised for any reason. Millie was in charge of getting the little kids to the basement, with Sara’s help since she was still apprehensive about using a gun. She could, she just wasn’t comfortable with it yet. Everyone else had an assigned post. No matter who was on security watch, those positions would change to Brian and Ryan in the holes, with Marietta, who had turned out to be quite the sniper, in the treehouse. Bob was ground patrol, along with Mike. Since Mike was with us, Sean would take the area around the house and buildings. Janet and Kate held positions inside the house, along with Ben and Rusty. Monroe was pretty much the foreman, overseeing all of it and manning the radio we normally kept in the kitchen. Once we went into lockdown, the ones in the basement stayed there until the phrase “Freedom comes with a price” was spoken through the door. If anything other than that phrase was delivered, Millie would fill the doorway with double-ought buckshot. We hadn’t had to test that scenario yet, and I truly hoped now wasn’t the time.

  Nick took off for the house. Matt watched his brother run off, then turned back to me. “Is Pete dead, Anne?”

  With tears streaming down my face, I looked at him. “I don’t know, honey. I hope and pray he’s just hurt. Stay down.”

  Mike pulled the rifle down and held up five fingers. Five bad guys. Holy shit. He was positioned on the far side of the tractor, with the engine block between him and the shooters. He was beside Pete, who was still slumped over the steering wheel. He reached up with two fingers and placed them against Pete’s neck on the carotid artery. After a moment, he brought his hand down. With a look that was a mix of sheer agony and anger, he turned to us and shook his head. Matt lowered his gaze, sobbing quietly. I wrapped my arms around him and we cried together.