“Didn’t cut very deep,” Buddy said. “Can’t have you bleeding to death before I’m done.”
“Just kill me!” the man screamed. “Fucking kill me and get it over with!”
Buddy shook his head. “That would be mercy,” he said. “And I don’t have any to offer.”
“I’m sorry,” the man said, whimpering. “I’m sorry about your girl.”
“Rachel,” Buddy reminded him.
“Rachel,” the man corrected. “RACHEL!”
Buddy pulled a can of lighter fluid from a pocket of his fatigue pants and began squirting it on the man’s pants. The man yelled and fought, trying in vain to find a way to move himself to safety. Buddy stepped onto the man’s limp foot to pin him in place. The man threw his head up and screamed.
“Quit moving now,” Buddy said calmly, directing the stream of lighter fluid up and down the man’s straining body.
Buddy talked quietly to his dead daughter as he set fire to the sheets that served as curtains. He told her that things would be okay now. When he sprayed the remainder of the lighter fluid onto the sofa and struck fire to it, the flame rose quickly and black smoke billowed against the ceiling.
When his work was done, Buddy stepped out of the front door and stood looking around. His hand was on his gun, ready to use it if he needed to. If any one of the druggies had remained, he was sure that the screams of pain from the burning man would drive them into flight. As those screams filled the air, Buddy let them seep into his body, praying they would fill him and push out the images of his dead Rachel.
Buddy could smell the smoke stronger now, the crackling of the growing fire filling his ears. He stepped from the porch, took the muddy path to the road, and walked away without so much as a look back. When he reached the spot where he had parked his truck, he was not surprised or even angry to find that it was no longer there. The truck had been of little consequence, its only purpose being to get him to the house. Whether or not he got home afterward did not matter to him any more than if he lived or died today. All that mattered was that the man he came after had died and he died hard.
He paused for a moment in the spot the truck had been parked. He realized that he still had his gun in his hand. He holstered it and started walking. He felt like he was walking a foot off the ground, his burden lighter than it had been in days. Some men could go to church and pray away the weight of their transgressions, finding salvation and peace in God. Some men required direct action, only finding peace in a solution that they built themselves, with their own two hands.
Buddy was the latter, a man from a line of men who did not find the world to be a complicated place at all. Most problems had a solution if you had it within yourself to bring it about.
He felt suddenly tired and started his walk home.
Chapter 7
Gary’s House
Richlands, VA
With the departure of Gary’s neighbor and his extended family, Gary and his clan were left alone in their isolated hilltop neighborhood. Even though the two families were not extremely close, they were neighbors and had been supportive of each other while respecting each other’s privacy. With just two families and six homes on the hill, that support had been important on several occasions. They’d supported each other through numerous deaths, weather events, and mechanical problems over the years.
One of the things that Gary had always liked and appreciated about Scott’s family was that Scott’s wife, Theresa, didn’t work outside of the home. Scott was traditional in that he felt it was his wife’s job to take care of the house, cook, shop, and shuttle the kids to where they needed to be. Because Theresa didn’t work, she was at home all day and able to see if anyone came into their neighborhood that didn’t belong there. Having a nosy neighbor was significantly better than having an alarm system. That had always provided them with a feeling of security and comfort. Their neighborhood had once been safe. Gary’s family had once been safe. That feeling of safety, was eroding quickly, washing away like sidewalk chalk in a thunderstorm.
After the group finished emptying Will and Sara’s house of essentials, they took a break for lunch before starting on Dave and Charlotte’s house. Karen and Debra had made a soup of some remaining fresh food that had to be eaten. Gary thought it was delicious, his palate still reeling from the flavorless diet he’d consumed on the trip home. When they finished eating, it was Will and Sara’s turn to watch all of the children while Dave, Charlotte, and Gary shuttled critical items from their home to Gary’s. This time Gary made sure that several radios were distributed so that each group was able to communicate with the other. Though they were cheap Motorola radios that he had bought on a whim, they did the job.
When Karen and Debra had restored order to the kitchen after the meal, they joined the rest of the group to play with the children.
“With such a large group of babysitters, I don’t think you all need me anymore,” Will said. “Do you mind if I go check the gate? I want to make sure that Scott closed it on his way out.”
“That’s a good idea,” Debra said. “Just take a radio and your rifle. If there’s trouble, let us know.”
Will quickly assembled his gear and left. As much as he loved his children, he was not cut out for tending to a larger herd of children. He was anxious to get outside and distract himself with some physical activity.
On his walk to the gate, Will passed Scott’s house and the houses Scott’s two sons built for their families. As Will passed, he noticed a large note taped to Scott’s door. He stood in the road in front of the house staring at it but he couldn’t read it across the distance. The house appeared empty and there were no vehicles visible. He decided he had to walk up and see what the note said.
As soon as he got to the base of the porch steps, he could read the sign:
To whom it may concern: My family is safe. We are staying at the church camp. If you are a friend or a loved one, you know where that is. If you do not know where that is, then you have no business here and should get off my property.
Will frowned. He understood that Scott wanted folks to know that he was safe. He did not think it was a good idea, though, to advertise to anyone who might stop by that this house and the two others adjacent to it were empty. Even though it bothered Will to remove something from a neighbor’s property, he took the sign down, folded it, and shoved it into his pants pocket.
He turned to walk away, glancing at the doors to the other two empty houses and saw that they each had the same sign on the door. Will removed them, shoving each in his pocket, and hoping that he was doing the right thing.
When he reached the gate, Will felt a little better about removing those signs. Scott had driven through the gate and left it open behind him. While the man was not a bad neighbor, his concern never really extended beyond his family and his church family. If you were not among them, your importance to him was minimal. He could have gotten out of his car and closed the gate behind him as he left. He could have considered that leaving that sign on his door might alert the bad guys that there were fewer people up there now to defend the neighborhood. He didn’t.
Will grabbed the red gate and pulled it closed. The gate groaned in protest. A chain and padlock hung from a tall locust post at the edge of the pavement. Will had a key to that padlock on his key ring. He removed the padlock, threaded the chain through the gate, and locked it back. With the gate closed, there was still enough space beyond both sides of the gate for an ATV to drive around and enter the property. The gate was really only in place to keep out cars, so he’d never noticed that it wasn’t tied to any fencing. Closing the gate would not stop the dirt bikes and four wheelers that had been harassing them. They’d have to do something about that.
When Will returned to the house, the mower had returned with the last trailer of items from Charlotte and Dave’s house. He set his rifle aside and pitched in to help with the unloading and storage of the items. While they worked, Will mentioned his concern over the ga
te not providing adequate protection from off-road vehicles.
“I think I’m going to walk over to the police station and talk to someone,” Gary said. “We shouldn’t have to barricade ourselves in up here. I didn’t see much in the way of laws being enforced on the way home, but that doesn’t mean there’s no law enforcement here in our town. I’m going to see what I can find out.”
“Want me to go with you?” Will asked.
Gary shook his head. “I want you to keep an eye on everyone here. You did a good job of keeping everyone safe while I was gone and I appreciate that more than I’ve probably said. I’ll just run down there on my own and hopefully be back by dark. It’s only about two miles each way.”
“If you’re sure, Gary,” Will said. “I worry about anyone going out there alone.”
“I’ve seen a lot these past few weeks,” Gary said. “I can’t imagine there’s anything my home town can throw at me that I’ve not already been through.”
*
Gary’s home was right at the edge of the town limits. Once he walked off his steep hill and turned left along the road, he was immediately within the boundaries of Richlands, Virginia. Most of the neighborhoods between him and the center of town were older. Mobile homes, aging single-story houses with white aluminum siding, and empty cinderblock buildings were scattered along both sides of the road. Ahead, a convenience store that he’d often relied on for gas and last minute loaves of bread or gallons of milk sat on the right shoulder. The plate glass windows were broken out and a trail of garbage, packaging, and damaged merchandise led from the shattered windows.
This little valley area was heavily populated for a small town. Appalachian towns were that way. There was always a shortage of buildable property, so homes clustered wherever there was decent bottomland. Looking around him, Gary could see hundreds of houses, apartments, and trailers. Despite it being the middle of the afternoon, very few people stirred outside. Some sat on shaded porches rocking in swings, the rhythmic creaking of the chains carrying across the distance.
Gary wondered what these people were doing for cooking. Most of them had grills or could cook on fires outside in the yard, but in a densely-populated area, like this valley, there would be no hiding the fact that you had food to cook. Even the smells of a cookout on a hot summer weekend would carry for long distances and drive the neighbors nuts with hunger. He assumed that now, with some people starting to run out of food, the smell of cooking meat might be like throwing blood in shark-infested waters. If people weren’t yet willing to go next door and kill you for your dinner, they would be soon.
Gary could feel eyes on him as he walked the road. He looked toward some of the homes he passed, their fenced yards extending right to the shoulder of the road and their doors no more than thirty feet from him. Sometimes he caught shadowy figures watching him from behind storm doors. At one house, a group of rough-looking men stood in a driveway studying something in the tarp-covered bed of a pickup truck. Gary briefly wondered if it was his generator, but it was too small.
As Gary passed, they stopped speaking and lowered the tarp. They returned his nod with menacing glares that reminded Gary of a dog guarding a bone. He paid them no attention. The trip home had hardened him. Never a man that sought a fight, he would not run from one either. He would have killed the first man among the group that threatened him. As he walked on, the men returned to their conversation, raising the tarp back up and gesturing at some hidden cargo.
Gary was reminded that he was not the same man anymore. While he may look the same to his family, he had been through things. He had changed. They had not seen the extent of those changes and he hoped they wouldn’t have to. What would it be like for his daughters to see him kill? He remembered the shocked look his wife and daughter Karen had given him when they saw him rolling the dead man onto the sled.
He walked a little further and approached a shopping center built around a local chain grocery store. From his position on the road he could see the back of the store and saw a compact car parked at the back door, by the loading dock. There was a sign on the side of the car advertising a private security company. Inside the vehicle, Gary could see a man smoking a cigarette. From the bulk around his shoulders, it looked like he was wearing body armor. From the window, a rifle barrel protruded skyward. While it was not pointed in a threatening manner, Gary was sure that it was intentionally displayed. Sometimes the projection of strength and preparedness was all that was required to deter someone with bad intentions.
When the street led him past the front of the same grocery store, Gary could see another private security vehicle parked by the front doors. The plate glass windows in the front of the store had been boarded up with sheets of plywood. Someone had used orange spray-paint to write across the plywood:
SOLD OUT. NO FOOD. CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Curiosity got the best of Gary and he detoured from the street into the parking lot. The grocery store parking lot held a few abandoned vehicles, some neatly parked, and others obviously pushed from the street after they ran out of fuel. Gary walked toward the security guard’s car, and the man went on alert. Gary was still fifty feet away when the driver’s door swung open and the man crouched behind it, leveling the barrel of an M4 rifle through the open window.
“That’s far enough,” he said from behind the door.
Gary studied the man. He had the right idea, concealing himself behind the door, but the sheet metal of a Ford Cobalt offered no ballistic protection at all. Had Gary wanted to shoot him, he could have put .40 caliber bullets through that door all day long without losing any velocity. A better choice would have been for the man to place himself on the other side of the hood with the engine block between them. That would slow or stop a bullet.
“I’m not after food,” Gary said.
“Beer’s gone too,” the man shot back as if he made this speech all day long, every day.
“I’m not after beer,” Gary replied.
“Cigarettes?” the man asked. “Because I wish to hell they had some of those. I’d be in there getting a few packs for myself.”
“Not cigarettes, either,” Gary said. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, you’d be the first one that showed up here not wanting inside that store,” the man said.
“Like I told you, I just want to ask a few questions,” Gary said. “I’ve been out of town and just got back. I was wondering what things have been like here. You’re the first person I’ve run into who seemed like they might know.”
Gary was obviously believable because the man rose from behind the car door. Either that, or the man’s knees had been killing him from being crouched there.
“You just ask them from there,” the man told him, easing the rifle barrel from Gary’s direction, but continuing to hold it in a ready position. “I don’t mind answering questions but I like my personal space.”
“That’s not a problem. How long have you been here?” Gary asked.
“Four days,” the man said. “After the attacks, the store was pretty much cleaned out. Took a few days for people to figure out the severity of the situation, then they hit the stores like rats on dog food. They had to send cops up here to help keep order. With just one cop per store, it was pretty damn crazy so they called us in. I wasn’t here for that part. The store was already closed when I showed up.”
“It sold out?” Gary asked.
“That’s what they tell me,” the man said. “I haven’t been in there. I was told that all they had left was non-food items. Spatulas, turkey basters, aluminum foil – that kind of stuff. We’re just here to make sure no one wrecks the joint because they’re pissed off that there’s no food.”
“Or beer,” Gary remarked.
The man laughed. “Definitely,” he said. “Alcoholics and smokers are having one hell of a time right now.”
“Do you know if the cops are still working?”
“Some are. I
hear their radio chatter. One stops by every day and asks me if anyone has tried to break in. We’ve been able to keep most folks away. Anyone who lives around here knows that the store got cleaned out, anyway.”
Gary nodded. “What about the town itself? Are things pretty calm?”
“The night guy says there’s a lot of shit going on after dark,” the man said. “Shooting, fighting, all kinds of carrying on.”
That didn’t surprise Gary. If anything surprised him, it was that the days were any calmer than the nights. “Well, I’ll leave you alone. I’m on my way to the police station.”
“Good luck with that,” the man replied. “I hear there’s one cop there guarding the equipment and working the radio. He’s locked up tight and armed to the teeth. He probably won’t even answer the damn door.”
“I would be armed to the teeth too.”
“You reporting a crime?” the man asked. “There’s not much the police can do for people now.”
“No,” Gary replied. “I guess I just want to see if the cops are still an option for handling things. We’ve got a little situation that’s going to get out of control pretty fast if something isn’t done. I’ve got some visitors who need a deterrent.”
The guard slung his M4 back over his shoulder and lit a cigarette. He leaned back against the car. “You want some advice?”
Gary hesitated a second before replying. “Sure.”
“If you got a problem that won’t go away, don’t involve the cops,” the man suggested. “Just do what needs to be done and go on with your life. Make sure that once this mess has all blown over, nothing can be traced back to you. The cops aren’t arresting people right now because they can’t take care of prisoners. They had to let them all go. They won’t be able to help.”
“That’s an idea,” Gary said. “I was hoping there was a better way.”
Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series Page 10
