“Where do we all sit?” Bobby asked.
The men who didn’t fit in the truck sat on the edges of the trailer and they kept the speed low and slow to not only cut down on the noise, but to keep the fuel from sloshing around. They had a vague plan of meeting up with Duncan’s group near the lane to the homestead and when they got there, the rest of Sandra’s squad was there to watch the approach from both sides.
The ladies had hidden well, and anybody coming from either direction would be at an immediate disadvantage. Their spots had been chosen by Duncan before he’d left and once he’d explained how and why he chose each spot, the ladies each identified a secondary fallback position. It wasn’t difficult once the basics where shown to them. Now, they watched in disbelief as a white and brown nose poked up from the bed of the truck and then more and more.
“Are those rabbits?” a voice ghosted out of the brush, startling Bobby.
“Yeah uh…”
Melissa ghosted out of the brush herself and rushed to the truck. She gave her father a look, then hugged Bobby before scooping her arms through the bed of the truck.
“Uh… Somebody’s coming,” Curt said shortly.
His tone of voice made Melissa look up and everyone tensed. There was nowhere to hide the truck and trailer quickly so everyone took positions and got their guns ready as they listened to a truck coming down the road opposite from the direction they’d travelled. Everyone breathed out a sigh of relief when they recognized Blake’s old Dodge D. Duncan was driving and everyone looked relaxed and at ease. When they pulled to a stop, the trucks were pointing nose to nose, about 100 yards apart. Everyone relaxed as then men unloaded and headed to the one where Curt and Bobby sat.
“What the…” Duncan said as he watched Melissa smile and return to the bed of the truck and reach in to pull out a rabbit.
“We’ll explain later. We got everything you asked of us except for the dynamite,” Bobby said.
“I know where to get some. I’m worried that the group is going to have some forward observers blazing in here soon. Here’s what we have to do…”
+++++
“Do you have eyes on the target?” Gerard asked a sweating David.
“Not right now, I’ve been watching them for two days,” he said, before letting go of the talk button.
“What did you see?”
“Several men coming and going. A woman hanging laundry outside on a line. A couple young ones. Could be boys or girls. The women and children looked scared or pissed. I don’t know which.”
“Defenses?”
“There’s a burned out truck near the house by the driveway. Don’t know what that’s about but you can drive straight up, there are no physical obstructions.”
“Why are you suddenly being so helpful? You usually are a quivering sack of shit? I’m curious.”
David sighed and looked at the others. Bobby put his hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. It wasn’t meant to hurt or intimidate, but comfort. The past two days David had really come out of his shell and surprised everyone. It was this confidence that Gerard had started to pick up on. Their eyes met.
“Just be yourself, to him,” Bobby motioned to the radio.
“Gerard, I could have taken your gear and your coms and gotten away. Instead I’m helping you pick out a target.”
“Yes, that’s what I don’t get,” his voice sounded amused.
“Because I’m running out of food and I have no one to help me keep watch. With nowhere to go….” David let his voice trail off.
“So you think we’ll just take you with us?”
“Well, I mean… I was hoping that… Yeah.” David said after stammering out a reply.
“Ahhhh, well, we’ll see. I’m making no promises. I’m looking at a map here and there appears to be only two ways in before we get to the small interstate. How is it for stalled traffic?”
“Are you taking me with you when you go?” David demanded, an edge to his voice.
“How is the traffic?” Gerard said with a sniff.
“Dammit, I’m not playing games here. I want out,” his voice cracked and if he wasn’t smiling, the homestead group would have believed that David was stressing out.
“Ok, fine. If you queer the deal I’ll kill you myself. Got that?”
“I got it.”
“Now,” Gerard’s voice was low and menacing, “how is traffic?”
“It’s stalled pretty bad around mile marker 198 but opens up a bit.”
“Enough for a small semi trailer to get through?” Gerard asked.
“Yeah. If you let me know when you are going to be rolling through, I can meet your men out there to help you push cars out of the way…” as soon as he said it, he knew he was reaching and Gerard’s derisive snort was all the answer he needed.
“Well, I mean. I want to earn my place with your men.”
There was silence on the line while they waited for Gerard to reply. Seconds turned into a minute. One minute turned into two. David wiped sweat off his brow and looked to the room of strangers staring at him, fighting down the panic of his public performance.
“You know, why not. I’ll be rolling through there Thursday morning. Two days. I don’t know the time, traffic’s been a bitch.”
“Ok, I’ll meet you by the 198 mile marker. I’ll be on the North bound side.”
“I’ll see you there. Two days.”
“Two days, and there better be enough ladies there. You’re sure on the numbers?”
“Yeah, one or two might be a little young, but that didn’t matter to my cousin…” David spoke softly, his hands almost pulverizing the mic in nervousness.
“Not to us either son. Not to us either. We’ll pick you up after we hit the place. Gerard out.”
David set the mic down and stood up, stretching. He noticed a quiet woman standing on the edge of the group. He’d heard of her, had known she was the one who had her boyfriend killed along with Weston. Her red rimmed eyes filled his vision as she came close to him and put her hands on his arms over his elbows. She looked him in the eyes then spoke.
“Thank you. I know I shouldn’t want revenge and death for others, but I want Kenny gone. Dead, torn apart, planted deep.”
“Thank you guys, for giving me a chance. I know you were all expecting me to double cross you all, but… I can’t.” He hugged Patty briefly before turning to see the rest of the group, “as bad as things were when you found me, you could have killed me. I know you kept me alive to talk to Gerard, but I’ve done that and I’m still here. Thank you for giving me a chance at redemption.”
“Your performance was wonderful,” Blake’s voice rang out from behind the standing group from the homestead.
Once again, he’d struggled out of bed and was leaning heavily on the cane Martha had scavenged from the barn and Chris helped hold his weight on the other side.
“Once this is done with, I want you to know something…” his voice was quiet and everyone knew he was still weak from his ordeals at the hands of Kenny, Marv and Jerry, “I’ve talked with everyone here in this room about you. We all can see how hard this is for you, how hard you are trying. A week ago I would have doubted your sincerity but you just proved to me that when the chips are down… Welcome to the family.” Everyone smiled.
Blake thought the women and children would have been the first ones to object but when he explained it, but Curt’s mother, the Psychologist explained things to everyone in a way that made them open their minds and hearts. By her observations, David had only done what he had to do to stay alive in that camp. Not once did he ever do more than talk mean and tough to any of them and had secretly snuck some of them food or a blanket, aspirin or some other small comfort when nobody was watching. Once they all started sharing stories they realized that David was one of the last vestiges of the horror and hatred they felt for their captivity and abuse. Once that was realized… They didn’t have much to say. Curt’s mother called it the beginning of their true he
aling.
Duncan was the one who had been somewhat of a hold out but his mind was changed the previous day when he was finishing the outdoor rabbit pen. The kids had been flocking the rabbit enclosure almost nonstop. Even though he’d helped mix and set the charges in the hillside and filled things back in, he still pounded posts and hung fence in the rich grass. He opened a makeshift gate that let the rabbits out of the small stall in the barn to the grass and they took off like a shot. A little girl squeaked in delight, her hands clapping at the sight of two dozen rabbits and their weaned offspring running out into the grass. David never hesitated but picked her up and set her down inside the enclosure before jumping the fence himself.
Duncan almost started running, but Lisa had put a hand on his arm. Duncan had hesitated and then another kid approached and he lifted that kid over. Soon, all of the little ones were inside and he motioned for them to sit down. It wasn’t five minutes before children’s laughter filled the summer evening as rabbits started hopping up to the kids. Some of them were scared, but most had been pretty tame to begin with.
“You know, he isn’t a half bad guy,” Lisa had remarked and that’s the moment Duncan knew it was time for forgiveness.
Sandra had always doubted that David was as evil as the others, just a quiet guy who got bullied into a situation, so when Blake spoke up to the group, she turned and hurried to his side to usher him to a chair.
“Come on now, really. You aren’t supposed to be up,” Sandra told him.
“I had something to say. It’s your home too,” he said aloud, not to his wife but the group, “we work together, we protect each other. If needed, we die together; but not after we do our best to send Gerard and his boys to hell first.”
“What’s in hell?” Chris’s little voice cut through the cheers that had broke the silence and instead the cheers turned into outright laughter.
“Just the bad guys little man, just the bad guys,” Blake told him, running his hand through his adopted son’s hair.
“Good, then let’s send all the bad guys there.”
This brought down the house and when the group composed themselves again after what never would have been funny in any other time or place they planned. If Gerard was telling the truth, the first forward observers would be through tonight or tomorrow. The ladies who had been watching Kenny’s hunting lodge had been recalled, debriefed and traded out for fresh bodies to watch the roadside for the FO’s. Only two tics on the mic would be their signal that they had gone past, so somebody always sat by the radio. Since Blake had been laid up, that was going to be him.
“Those of you who can, get some rest. I want to know if the FO’s appear to be suspicious or onto us. The fact that there probably isn’t a ton of women and children at the lodge will make them nervous enough. That’s when we take them out. Let’s let Gerard assume something bad happened or the hills are blocking the signal. Does everyone know what they are doing?” Sandra’s voice was quick and precise.
“No,” was echoed all around the room.
“I wouldn’t want to piss her off,” Curt told Bobby in a hushed voice.
“No you don’t, she’d tear your arm off and beat you with it,” Bobby said deadpan when the room went quiet suddenly.
He’d realized he’d just been overheard by everyone who was now looking at him. A flush crept up his cheeks and he looked at Sandra who had her arms around Blake now.
“I was just telling Curt here about how I met you.”
Blake laughed and Sandra snorted and everyone smiled. Even Duncan was grinning ear to ear and Lisa gave him a puzzled look.
“When he tried to uh… Introduce himself to Sandra?” Blake told her and Lisa’s expression changed and she chuckled.
“What?” Curt asked.
“She laid some Kung Fu on your son in law.”
“My son in law… wait, is there something –“ His question was cut off by Bobby running out the front door and a swearing and cussing Curt giving chase.
Everyone busted up again and Blake told Sandra she better save Bobby from a father’s wrath. He was innocent as far as everyone knew, as the barracks afforded little privacy.
Chapter 4 –
Pinhoti Trail Alabama
Michael awoke. He was confused at first by the utter lack of illumination, he swung his legs off the end of the cot. It was cold, stiff. He rubbed his arms to get the circulation going again and then pushed his sleeping bag off of his body and stood up. He stretched, feeling his shoulders and back pop. The damp smell of the cave brought back memories of how he got there. He was still full from his meal the night before but needed to take his camp shovel and go dig a hole somewhere.
He crawled out of the cave and the smell of smoke immediately was evident. With no fire in sight, he decided to hike towards the lake again, hoping the break in the skyline would let him see. He grabbed his small daypack and headed out. After a while Michael made it there. Instead of the small columns of smoke he saw last night, there were towering, blooming and huge. Five thousand planes. The thought intruded into the forefront of his brain. Five thousand planes in the sky over the country at any given moment. He shivered. He felt the impacts, at first thought they were planes but then dismissed it.
“It couldn’t have been,” Michael said to no one.
He filled two water bottles with his small Katadyn filter and started to hike out towards his bike. The humidity wasn’t bad and the mosquitoes weren’t requesting landing clearance so the walk wasn’t unpleasant, but in the pit of his stomach he thought there was something off, something wrong. He knew it. Feeling the pangs of fear, the voice startled him after being on the Pinhoti for a while.
“Excuse me?” A man said, stepping out into the trail just in front of Michael.
“Oh, uh, hi,” Michael said, unsure what else to say.
The man was obviously a novice hiker or camping enthusiast. His shoes were brand new and his clothing had the crisp lines of being recently starched. He would have blisters and a rash if he wasn’t careful. He was pudgy, somewhere in his mid forties if Michael had to guess. His face was sweating and his voice was high and thin despite the eighty pounds of size difference he had over Michael.
“Hey, uh, Can you help me break the chain on this?” The man motioned to Michael’s bike.
“No… It’s my bike.”
“Oh hey, I need it. The car won’t start and my cell phone died sometime last night. I need to ride into town and make a call.”
“My phone is dead too,” Michael told him, shocked that somebody, the man even, was trying to steal his bike and seemed ok with it.
“Ok, so unlock this and we’ll be good. I’ll bring it back with the tow truck.”
Michael’s bad feeling only got worse. The guy was going to be a pain, an insistent pain.
“No, it’s my bike. I’ve got to ride back and find out what’s happening.”
“Hey, I’ve got kids to look out for,” he argued.
“I am a kid,” Michael almost shouted back angrily.
“Listen kid, I need this. I’ll bring it back to you later on today, what don’t you get about that?” The man stepped away from the bike and tried to tower over Michael.
It worked, Michael took a step back. It wasn’t so much that he was intimidated in the Mickey Mouse voiced man, it was in surprise that a grown man was trying to steal his bike. In front of him, using intimidation and suggesting strong arm tactics.
“Dude, get out of my face. I’m going to take my bike and…” Michael started to say but was knocked to the ground by a sucker punch.
The punch to the gut knocked the wind out of him and left him gasping for air. His back hurt where he fell on his day pack and something sharp was poking him in the lower back. He saw the man move back to where his bike was chained and he played with the combination lock some more. Michael was shocked, and he rolled on the ground trying to force oxygen back into his lungs.
“What’s the combination kid?” The man said, putt
ing his hands under Michael’s arms to pull him to his feet.
Michael almost had his wind back, but he frantically ran his hands over the ground and as he rose, he found a rock the size of a baseball. He threw it and hit the guy in the temple, his fingertips almost reaching to the man’s chin. The rock glanced off the side of the strangers head and Michael was free. He crawled to his feet to see the guy on one knee, his hand covering the side of his head. He shrugged out of his daypack and held it loosely in one hand, ready to drop it and run if the guy came after him.
His ribs hurt and falling on the daypack gave him a sore spot he was worried may be a bad scrape or cut. He kept one wary eye on the now cussing figure and looked at his pack. He’d fallen onto his folding shovel and belatedly remembered he hadn’t had a chance to go to the bathroom. The stranger made his way to his feet and glared at Michael, the side of his temple red with blood.
“Did I do that?” Michael thought to himself, the adrenaline in his body making him feel sick and shaky.
“I’m going to kill you for that,” the man’s voice dropped two octaves, sounding masculine for once.
Michael walked backwards, not wanting to take his eyes off the man. He’d already proven that he was quick with his hands and in an all out sprint, he was confident he could have outran the man if he wasn’t already hurt. His ribs, his back protesting loudly. An incoherent shout was all the warning he had before the man charged. Michael’s right hand found the folding shovel’s handle and swung it when the man was within reach. It made a sickening, crunching sound against the man’s skull, his forward momentum unchecked, he slammed into Michael at an angle.
The wind was knocked out of him a second time and he pushed the limp body away. He had never heard something so sickening as the sound the folded shovel made when it hit his head, and he didn’t dare look at the man’s face. He kept his eyes from the man’s chin down and rolled him on his back.
“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be…” he felt for a pulse, like he was taught in all of his first aid courses.
Tears Of The World: A Post-Apocalyptic Story (The World Burns Book 4) Page 3
