Gary retrieved his Baofeng from the gun safe. He didn’t know why he kept it there, but he did. It was a $20 radio and he had six of them, but still that’s where he kept them. He turned the radio on and let the extended range antenna stick out the window and located a commonly used frequency in his area.
“CQ, CQ, calling CQ. This is WNFZ960. Whiskey-November-foxtrot-zulu-nine-six-zero.”
No one responded. He changed frequencies.
“CQ, CQ, calling CQ. This is WNFZ960. Whiskey-November-foxtrot-zulu-nine-six-zero.”
There was an immediate hit. “WNFZ960, WNFZ960, reading you loud and clear. Where you coming out of?”
It was strange that the person responding did not offer his call sign, so not wanting to be too specific, Gary responded, “Tazewell County, Virginia.”
“Well, Tazewell, you got Piney Flats, Tennessee, here.”
“How are things in Piney Flats?”
“We’ve had a lot of traffic. Folks west of us got a little scared that things were getting hot in Oak Ridge. You know, hot as in nuclear hot. People were trying to get away from anything nuclear in case the terrorists blew it up.”
“Did they?” Gary asked. “Did the terrorists hit anything in Oak Ridge?”
“No,” the man said. “I’ve spoken to someone that lives there in Oak Ridge and he says it was all just paranoia.”
“What about other nuclear sites?”
“There were some nuclear sites hit, but the folks I’ve talked to said there were no releases. Some of the plants got knocked offline and can’t send power out onto the grid, but there were no leaks or discharges that I’ve heard of.”
“That’s good to know,” Gary said.
“They did flood the shit out of Tennessee, though,” the man said. “Nashville is now Lake Nashville since they blew that dam.”
“I’ve been out of touch for a couple of days,” Gary said. “I’m just trying to catch up on what I missed. What’s your call sign, Piney Flats, in case I need an update in the future?”
“Just call me Jack,” the man said.
“Okay, Jack. I’m Gary.”
“Well, Gary, I wouldn’t be using your call sign anymore if I were you. Perhaps I’m just a paranoid old man, but considering the state of things, it’s probably best not to be broadcasting to the powers that be that you have a working HAM setup.”
“Surely no one cares,” Gary said. “There have to be a lot of sets out there, right?”
“Maybe no one cares,” Jack said. “Maybe they do. Maybe some sectors of the government thrive on chaos and they don’t want the sharing of news to dispel some of that chaos.”
That made sense to Gary. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll talk again.”
“Okeydokey,” Jack replied. “Take care of yourself and hang onto your scalp.”
Gary set the radio down on his desk. Tomorrow, he would inventory supplies. He would dig out his family band radios and make sure each house had one, talk to the neighbors about securing the road into their property, and try to figure out how they could set up a watch so that they wouldn’t be so vulnerable at night. For now, for tonight, he was doing nothing more than crawling into bed with his wife. Tomorrow was a new day.
As fantastic as his reunion with his family was, his reunion with his bed was also a special moment. His pillow remembered the shape of his head and his bed welcomed him like a long lost friend. As much as he’d complained about his sleeping conditions since Richmond, he hadn’t realized until just this moment how deeply and truly he loved his bed.
Before tucking himself in, he made sure his Glock lay ready on the nightstand with a flashlight beside it. He had retrieved his Smith & Wesson M&P-15 from the gun safe and it was propped against the nightstand too. He put the Baofeng earpiece in place and listened to the radio as he lay there in bed, hearing bits and pieces of regional news, filling in some of the gaps in his knowledge of the disaster. It was nothing that provided any comfort. Instead, it scared him a little. There was so much to do, so much to prepare, but his reunion with his bed – and the wife he’d finally come home to -- became all-consuming and he drifted off to sleep in her arms.
*
Gary slept like the dead until the whine of engines woke him. He was heavily disoriented, trying to remember where he was and who he was with. As someone who had grown up with a dirt bike, he recognized the sound of a two-stroke engine through the fog of his mind. He knew these were the riders Will had talked about. He jerked awake and sat up in the bed. In the dark, he listened carefully, trying to figure out what was going on. It was difficult to place exactly where the riders were because there were several of them and they were separated. The sound told him nothing, muffled by trees and bouncing off houses. The men could be anywhere.
He rose from the bed and stumbled to the window. He was still out of it, so used to waking up in the woods in the presence of his coworkers. Being inside a house felt different. He was sheltered, but realized he was still vulnerable. This was not what he’d expected from home, not what he’d hoped for. He stood to the side of the window so that he would not be visible if light splashed across it. He leaned from cover and looked out.
His bedroom window faced out toward his two daughters’ houses. He could see the erratic movement of light in the trees and across the houses. It looked like the riders were just doing laps around the houses, circling back and forth through the yards.
“Why are they doing this?” It was Karen, his youngest daughter, and she’d just entered the room.
“Stay over there with your mother,” Gary said. “Don’t get in the window. They could have guns.”
Karen sat heavily on the bed beside her mother. Debra was sitting up silently, her back against the headboard. Gary could tell that she was afraid but trying her best to be brave.
Gary then remembered what Will had asked him earlier, about how these riders still had gas to do this. He knew they were stealing it, they had to be. While all this activity was taking place on this side of his house, all of his fuel was on the other side of his house, where his cars were parked and where his outbuildings were.
He turned away from the window. “Is your window open, Karen?”
“Of course. It’s impossible to sleep around here with them closed. There’s no air at all.”
Gary picked up his AR. It had a light on it, but the flashlight on the nightstand was more powerful so he grabbed that too. “You all stay here.”
“Don’t go outside,” Debra warned.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m going to a window.”
Gary stepped quickly down the hall, the hardwood floor creaking beneath his bare feet. When he got to Karen’s room, he approached the window cautiously, then glanced quickly out from the shadows. At first he saw nothing, but as his eyes adjusted to the low light he noticed a pair of legs extending from beneath Karen’s VW Jetta.
He didn’t like to curse, but tonight he only applied that to saying them out loud. In his head, he let them roll. If the man was under the car, his intention was obvious. He was puncturing the tank so that he could steal the fuel inside it. Gary did not want to let that happen.
“Crap.” Gary felt his frustration boiling over, both at being awakened in the middle of the night and for having his return home immediately be disrupted by people who couldn’t stay on their side of the fence. Still, Gary did not want to kill a man for this. Jim might have, but Gary wouldn’t, not over gas. He was not that kind of man and he was trying hard not to be.
He drew his rifle up to a firing position and activated his red dot sight. Resting the barrel on the windowsill, he fired a round near the extended feet. He waited for the feet to jerk up beneath the car, but they didn’t.
Gary fired another round.
The feet still didn’t move. Although Gary could hear the bullets ricocheting off the asphalt, he assumed there would be some lead splatter spraying the man’s legs. It would hurt like hell. The man did not move, though.
He should have been running like a scalded dog by now.
“I’m coming down there!” Gary yelled. “If you’re still under the car, I’m shooting you. This is your only warning.”
Gary drew back further into the room and watched. He was giving the man an opportunity to run but the idiot didn’t take it. He went back to his bedroom and saw immediately that the dirt bikes were pulling off and heading back down the driveway. It was possible they had some kind of communication and the man under the car had warned them he’d been busted.
“I’m going downstairs!” Gary yelled to his wife and daughter. “Lock the bedroom door and do not come out.”
“Don’t go, Gary!” Debra yelled. “You just got home. Don’t take any chances.”
Gary was already gone, though, scuttling down the steps barefoot. He ran to the kitchen, onto the tile floor, and came to a stop at the door. He looked through a crack in the blinds and tried to see what was out there. Aside from the man beneath the car, he could see no one else.
It crossed his mind that this could be a trap, an effort to draw him outside. Still, he whipped open the door, raised his rifle, and depressed the switch that activated his weapon-mounted light. From the cover of the doorway, he played the light around his immediate surroundings to make sure no one was lying in wait for him. From what he could see, there was no one. Beneath the Jetta, the legs still protruded. Gary doused his light, crouched, and approached the car.
Gary kicked one of the scuffed boots, then immediately backed up, expecting to be shot through an ankle. Not seeing the man’s hands made him very nervous. “Out of there!” he ordered. “Get out now or I shoot.”
The man did not move.
Gary kicked him again.
No reaction.
Was the man passed out drunk? He’d heard of things like that happening, criminals who passed out mid-crime. They go to rob a house and fall asleep like Goldilocks in one of the bedrooms. Usually those people were on drugs or drunk. Gary needed a hand free. He held the rifle single-handed, the pistol grip in his hand, the stock pinched between his bicep and his body. The safety was off. This was not an accurate firing position but surely he could hit someone within arm’s length this way.
He crouched and grabbed an ankle, planning on pulling the man from beneath the car. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do then. Interrogate? Threaten? Shoot? He pulled as hard as he could with one hand, backing his body up and using his legs to pull. The man was holding on, though, and wouldn’t let go. He could not pull him out with a single hand.
“Let go, you bastard,” Gary hissed.
Frustrated, he moved from the front of the vehicle to the passenger side where he would be even with the man’s head. He dropped onto his side in the driveway so that he could peer beneath the car. He leveled his rifle at the man’s head and activated his light.
Gary sucked in a breath and stared in horror. It looked like a zombie from a movie, peeling skin, exposed skull, ragged and damaged features. The man’s entire upper body, face, and head were abraded to the point that he would have been difficult to recognize had Gary known him. Through the blood seeping from the man’s crusted face, Gary could see a rope leading from his distended, broken neck and knotted around a section of exhaust pipe. He imagined the man must have been dragged to death behind one of the motorcycles.
No wonder he couldn’t pull him from beneath the car. These sick maniacs had tied the man here. But why? Then he realized the simple and obvious answer.
To keep him occupied.
Suddenly his paranoia spiked and blew through the top of his head. Gary rolled away from the vehicle and rose to his knees, scanning his surroundings with the light. Aware that his light made him a fully illuminated target, he quickly got to his feet and backed into the house. He had the vague fear that someone may have slipped into the house while his back was turned, but he didn’t think so. He ran upstairs and stopped before he got to his bedroom.
“Are you all okay?” he called through the door.
“Yes,” Debra responded, her voice strained. “Are you okay?”
“I am,” he said. “You can come out.”
Debra threw open the door and hugged Gary tightly. “What happened?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said. “We’re going to have to change some things around here tomorrow. I think I just got played.”
Chapter 2
Boyd’s House
Bluefield, VA
Alice knew she should be afraid, but really, she was too tired and too depressed to muster the energy to be more scared. She felt defeated. She just wanted it to be over with at this point. This day, this journey, maybe even this life. She wanted to be home with her family and she couldn’t take much more of this nightmare. She was drained. If Boyd was going to kill her, she just wanted to get it over with. She couldn’t take another day like yesterday.
“What do you want, Boyd?” she asked.
He stared down at her, an obscure, menacing presence that absorbed all of the light in the room. He reached into his pocket and removed something, tossing it toward her. She tried to recoil, but she could not. Between the zip ties binding her and her stiffened muscles, she could barely twitch. The object clattered off the floor and bounced into her thigh.
Body lotion?
“It rubs the lotion on its skin,” Boyd said, his voice a stiff falsetto.
“What?” she asked in confusion.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin!”
You got to be kidding me, Alice thought. Silence of the Lambs? Really? She looked up at him blankly.
Boyd smiled. “Just messing with you,” he said. “I loved Silence of the Lambs. Always wanted to use that line on someone.”
He was clearly screwed up royally in the head. Who else would do something like that? Who would find this the time to make a joke? Then she realized that she had already answered that question. Someone crazy.
“Why am I tied up here, Boyd?” she asked, her throat parched and her voice cracking.
“I didn’t want you going anywhere before we had a chance to talk,” he said. He dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged across from her. “I prefer a captive audience.” He smiled at his own wit.
“Were you following me?”Boyd studied her, watching her face. She couldn’t understand why he was looking at her so intently. Although she had not been sure it was possible, his gaze made her even more uncomfortable than she already was. It gave her a glimpse into the blackness of his interior. Into his madness.
“Or did you just luck up and find me sleeping in that car?”
“I came across you sleeping there inside the car, sound as a baby. I was looking in cars, as you know I’m prone to do, trying to find supplies, and I found you in there. You were starting to stir, so I just slipped under the car and waited for you to step out.”
“Why?”
“I’m assuming that what you mean is why did I collect you, and the reason is because we need to talk. I guess I could have sat down with you in the car and talked but I didn’t think about that. I was kind of thinking on the run and hiding under the car was the first thing that crossed my mind. I apologize for the abruptness of it.”
“I don’t even really know you,” she said. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”
He stared at her again, as if trying to read her mind and see what she was thinking. Then it hit her. He was trying to figure out if she knew he had killed Rebecca.
He didn’t know where she went that night. He didn’t know if she ever saw Rebecca’s body or not. As far as he knew, she could have been long gone by that morning and never seen what took place there.
At the memory of the blood, the brutality, it was on the tip of her tongue to start screaming at him, curse him, and call him a monster. What would happen if she did? She knew what would happen. He would kill her. Her life would be over. Her family would never even know what had happened to her.
She would have to play innocent. “Where’s Re
becca?” she asked. She did her best to sound genuine. “Is she upstairs having a good laugh at my expense?”
He continued to stare at her, as though trying to sniff out a lie.
“I thought you two were travelling together,” she added.
He fiddled with his shoe lace, twirling the bow around a meaty finger. She noticed the crescent of dirt beneath the nail. “No, she’s not here. We were travelling together, but we’re not now,” he said. “You know how she is. She got in one her moods. She became hard to get along with. I couldn’t deal with her anymore. We parted ways.”
Alice nodded. “Oh,” she finally said. She tried to sound resolute, as if she both fully believed his statement and was satisfied with it.
“You haven’t come across her?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Alice shook her head, which was not exactly easy lying with her head resting against a concrete floor. Her forehead rocked against the cool floor with the effort. “I wasn’t exactly looking for her, though. I decided to just get myself home. She could find her own way. Never really liked the bitch anyway.”
She hoped this comment might somehow endear her to him and put them on the same side. It was a risk, though. If he felt bad about killing Rebecca, he may lash out at Alice for this slight against her.
Boyd nodded. “I’m sure she’s well on her way home,” he said. “She’ll probably be there any day now, if she’s not already.”
“I’m sure,” Alice agreed. She closed her eyes. Her body felt so heavy. She didn’t have the energy for these games. “What do you want from me, Boyd? I have a family I need to get home to. A husband. A son.”
Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series Page 3
