It was easy for Jack to visualize the place in his mind. He'd long harbored a fantasy of packing up the family and moving to the country to lead a self-sufficient lifestyle, away from the crowds and noise of the city. It was a nice thought when he was tired of staring at a computer screen for hours on end at work, but at the time, a pipe dream all the same. He couldn't picture Amy or his sons on a farm.
"I can almost smell the rhubarb and cherry pie. Damn it Wyatt, why'd you make me smell the pie?" Jack asked.
"How do you think I feel? I know what the pie tastes like," Wyatt said.
"The real money came from up high in the hills, up away from the highway and way back in a holler. That's where my granddaddy would set his still up. He stayed up there a good portion of the year with his brothers during the prohibition days. There's a spring up there, and they turned cornmeal, sugar, yeast, and that spring water into the smoothest tasting white lightning you've ever had," Wyatt pulled a cigarette out and stuffed it between his lips.
"There weren't any jobs for an uneducated hillbilly. Nothing you could make any money at, anyhow. But my granddaddy said something that stuck with me. Nothing can stop a determined man once he hardens his mind to a task. It's just a matter of making up your mind to do it. You do what you gotta to for your family."
So his wisdom did have a source. He could almost hear Wyatt's grandfather relating the phrase to a young Wyatt, who Jack comically pictured with a cigarette in his mouth.
Jack pedaled on, daydreaming of a different kind of life. One in which he would never need to leave his family behind again, where he could provide everything they needed, right from the land with his own two hands, and with everyone he loved alongside him.
Chapter 22
Gunfire echoed off the side of the neighbor's houses, each shot spaced three to four seconds apart. Amy lined the bright green pistol sights up in the center of the target, her breathing controlled and steady, bringing all of her focus to the center of the target. One smooth exhale, and she squeezed off the last round.
Pop.
The bullet punched a hole dead center of the black circle on the paper target. Amy ejected the magazine, pulled the slide back, locked it, and looked down the barrel to make sure there wasn't another round in the chamber. Confident that her weapon was unloaded, she picked up the empty brass casings from the ground and stuck them pocket.
The Ruger LC9 was her favorite pistol by far. She pulled her earplugs out and shot Kenny a cocky grin. Four weeks of daily target practice, shooting three sessions a day, and it felt she like was finally getting better. She walked out to the target in the middle of the back yard and retrieved the shot up paper, noting the placement of the holes.
"Nice shooting, mom. Way better than dad could ever shoot," he said.
"Is that why he bought all the laser sights?" she asked. The Ruger LC9 had off the shelf green optic sights, nothing too fancy. Jack affixed laser sights on the shotguns and a few of his other firearms that painted a red laser dot on the target. The dot was set to be dead on at twenty-five yards, but you could adjust your aim by raising the barrel a little if you were further away.
The Remington 870 tactical pump action shotgun terrified her at first. It just looked menacing, and delivered a powerful kick that would put you on your rear end if you weren't ready for it. The 870 was her favorite now. She could set the red dot on a target and blow a huge hole in it, with buckshot or a slug. It was a visceral pleasure that couldn't be explained, only experienced to fully appreciate it.
"Dad said the laser sights are good for home defense, for when you just need to point and shoot without thinking. Plus it looks cool," Kenny said.
"I'll grant him that, it does look cool. Let's wrap it up and get some dinner. It's getting dark out, and we don't want to be out here too late in the day attracting attention," she said.
They went inside, and she dumped the spent shell casings out of her pocket into a plastic painters bucket next to the back door. They had a hoard of ammunition, but it felt wrong to just throw things away. The empty casings weren't immediately useful, but who knows, maybe one day they would find reloading equipment.
She opened the cabinet and perused the canned goods there. It was already late and she hadn't planned anything for dinner tonight, there was just too much work to be done. Kenny and Danny had put a lot of effort into digging a pit for the new outhouse, but it was tiring work, and she felt obligated to help. The list of things they took for granted before the EMP grew longer every day.
Something banged loudly against the front door.
Amy flinched, and ran to the front of the house. Peeking out the window, what she saw filled her with panic.
A dirty tattooed biker stood at the end of the driveway, dressed in a leather jacket. His long hair and beard blew in the wind as he tossed a rock at the front door, banging loudly against the door as it hit. Another man crouched down behind one of the neighbor's cars, holding Danny by arm.
"Come out lady. We have your boy. We don't want to hurt him. We want to make a trade. The boy for guns," the biker in the driveway shouted.
"Oh my God. They had Danny," she said.
She went to the front porch, sliding her hand onto the grip of her pistol. Her throat tight and dry, she couldn't find her voice as she watched Danny struggle against the man holding him.
"All we want are some guns, and then we'll let --"
Danny came running towards the house, right past the biker at the end of the driveway, who reached out but failed to grab him.
"Ah! The little shit stabbed me with my own knife, grab him," the biker who had held him in a headlock yelled.
Amy backed into the house, holding the door open for Danny, ready to slam it shut just as soon as he came through the door.
"Run Danny, Run," she yelled.
Danny ran full speed toward the house, the biker hot on his heels a few paces behind him. He made it onto the porch and into the doorway when he suddenly cried out.
She was about to slam the door shut, but an arm appeared in the doorway, grabbing Danny by the neck, preventing him from fully entering the house.
Amy grabbed Danny's arm and pulled with all her strength, holding on to her son.
"Come here you little shit," the biker yelled.
They struggled in the doorframe, Danny clinging on to the door and grasping at her arm. She used her free arm to slam the door shut on the biker, trying to release his hold on Danny.
The biker kicked the door back open, pulling Danny backwards. He slipped his arm around Danny in a headlock, preventing her from pulling Danny into the house.
"Mommy," he said, his voice coming out in a squeak, caught between her and the biker in a tug of war.
"Danny! Danny! Let him go you animal," Amy said. She held on to Danny's arm as she pried at the man's arm held tight around Danny's throat. He gripped Danny like a constricting snake, and she couldn't get a purchase without digging into her son's throat.
Danny's face was red and he choked, struggling to breathe in the biker's stranglehold.
Amy pulled as hard as she could, and Danny nearly slipped through the biker's grip, coming through the doorway, dragging the man with him. She pushed the door against the biker's arm and leveraged herself against the wall and the front door, pining his arm so that he couldn't escape with Danny.
The biker yanked back, pulling Danny the other way, refusing to give up his purchase on Danny's neck. That left Amy a tenuous grip on his arm as she herself was yanked to her feet, unable to counter balance the biker's physical strength and weight.
Danny lips turned blue as he was suffocated by the tug of war. His eyes wide with fear, tears streamed down his face.
Now that she had the door pinned, she freed one of her hands, and released one of Danny's arms so she could grab her gun. She brought the weapon up and aimed at the man's forehead, three feet away. For a second, she had a clean shot, but something held her back from taking it. It felt wrong, killing the man without wa
rning.
"Let him go! I'll shoot," she said.
The man ducked his head behind Danny's own head, obstructing her shot. He was now partially shielded by Danny, and she couldn't get a clean shot. Danny and the man wavered in and out of her sights as they tugged at each other.
"Screw you lady, you're not going to shoot. You'll hit your kid," he said.
Danny's eyes rolled back in his head, his lips drained of color, face turning blue. Drool ran down his chin from his lips.
What if she missed? What if she hit Danny? Indecision paralyzed her, and her hand wavered as she aimed.
A red dot appeared on the man's forehead, followed by an explosion of sound.
Amy fell to the floor, Danny tumbling inside the house after her, the man's arm no longer around his neck. Her ears rang with a high-pitched whine. Time seemed to slow down and compress. She held on tightly to Danny, unwilling to let him go. Adrenaline clouded her mind, and she didn't understand what was happening.
Kenny appeared and moved into the doorframe. He dropped to a knee and tucked a rifle against his shoulder. Putting his face to the stock he fired off a round, then another, and then another, the loud rifle shots hurting her ears in the confined foyer. "Don't come back, I'll kill you too," he yelled.
Danny sputtered and coughed as he fought to regain his breath. After a panicked moment his eyes opened as he gulped in deep breaths, clinging to her tightly.
"Kenny?" she asked. Her mind was a whirl of confusion. "What happened? Kenny? What just happened?"
Chapter 23
The green mile marker sign alongside the road indicated four more miles until they hit Raywalk Kentucky, the middle of the state. Seven days of hard biking had brought them here. They were making good time, his body had become used to the daily grind of riding up the increasingly steep hills. He wasn't looking forward to the slopes he would face once they were truly in the Appalachian mountain range, but that was a problem for another day.
On the road ahead, a middle-aged man and woman, their clothes soiled and dirty, pulled a cart laden with wood down the highway. The man bent over at the waist as he pulled at the ropes attached to the cart like a mule. The woman pushed the back of the cart, her sunken eyes boring into him, full of suspicion. She looked over her shoulder, sneering at them, until they were out of sight.
People hardly looked the same anymore. Exhausted, gaunt faces, with dirty clothes covering thin bodies. The effects of the EMP were becoming more visible. Early on, people like these clung to the belief that the world would go back to normal, and they waited for the power to come back on. They remained hidden in their homes, eating through their food supplies until there was nothing was left.
He was seeing the hardest hit, those people who couldn't remain hidden away in their homes any longer, forced to venture out to beg, borrow, or steal food. There would be others that were still holed up in their homes, waiting for something to change.
A few miles down the road from the old couple with the cart, they rode into a small town. Small boutique shops lined both sides of the road, and were mostly boarded up. An antique store was the lone exception. A sign standing on the sidewalk advertised they were open for business. A group of men talked quietly among themselves just outside the store, rifles and shotguns slung over their shoulders, grim and serious looking.
"Jack, pull over up here. Let's go see if we can barter for some supplies," said Wyatt.
Jack slowed down and pulled the rig onto the sidewalk in front of the antique store. The bike and trailer got them a few strange looks from the armed men, but they quickly lost interest and resumed talking amongst themselves.
"Stay here and watch our stuff. I'll go inside and see what they've got," said Wyatt.
Jack leaned the bike and trailer against the brick outcropping of the building, and walked along the sidewalk peering at the curiosities in the antique shop windows. A wiry, bearded man appeared in the window's reflection, ragged and dangerous looking.
Jack flinched, then felt foolish as he realized he was looking at his own reflection. His appearance was startling. He looked... so different, it was hard to accept.
His beer belly was gone, the fat burned away as he pedaled over hundreds of miles, hauling Wyatt and their gear. The thick brown beard made him look rugged, like a lumberjack or coal miner. He combed his fingers through the tangled beard, straightening it. What would Amy think of him? He doubted she would even recognize him.
Hygiene had taken a back seat to making progress on the road. He had a pretty simple system, when he started to stink, he would jump in a lake or a pond with a bar of soap. He still brushed his teeth twice a day, but that was as far as it went.
A shave and a haircut were luxuries he didn't have the time or supplies for. Setting small game traps, foraging for food, and resting was far more important. Getting home was their primary goal, it didn't matter to them what they looked like when they arrived.
Jack's ears perked up as he overheard some of the armed men's conversation. He stepped a bit closer to them, looking around at the shops along the street, trying not to be too obvious in his eavesdropping.
"They said it was half the town now was sick with typhoid fever the last I heard. A couple of our folks tried to go to the FEMA depot there to trade for salt, but national guard soldiers in hazmat suits had the whole city cordoned off. Barricades everywhere, not letting anybody in. That ain't even the worst of it. Jim Braddock said the National Guard conscripted his nephew. That boy is only seventeen years old. He 'aint even signed up for the draft yet. They took him away jus' as pretty as you can please and set him to work digging graves for the people that died of typhoid. They took a bunch of our youngsters too, putting them all to work. They're burning the bodies in before they bury them, all in a big pile.
Jim's brother, the boy's pa, was right mad and walked up to the national guard armory, a shotgun tucked under his arm, and demanded to speak to the man in charge. They took him inside, and I don't know what was said in there, but when he came out he looked scared out of his skin, and he didn't have no shotgun anymore neither. Wouldn't say a word about it to anybody, just went on home and never said another word about it," the taller man with a rifle said.
"Not just typhoid fever either. A man came through a week ago from upstate and said his family caught a bad case of the stomach flu. Tore through the whole family in a couple of days, made them terrible sick, and laid them out flat for a full week. They're ok now, but he said it was a close thing," another man said.
"Catching sick the last thing folks need to worry about, on top of all the rest of. There's hardly any food left among the city people, and no way for the farmers to bring in the crops standing in the field. With no harvesters to bring it in, it'll go to waste. Hand picking, that's what it's come down to. Once the FEMA folks in the cities run out of supplies, there's going to be a world of hurt coming our way," the shorter man said.
Wyatt came through the door of the shop, the bells attached to the glass door chiming loudly as he left. "Will do, take care of yourself too now. Be seeing ya," he said to a man following him out the door. The stock of a long barreled rifle tucked into the crook of his elbow, he lugged a brown grocery sack in his other hand.
Wyatt nodded to the group of armed men as he passed them, and stowed the bag and rifle in the bike cart. "Ready Jack? Let's get a move on."
Jack pushed the bike train into the street and hopped on, pedaling in a low gear as he built up momentum. His strong legs carried them quickly through the main street of the small town, and when they were a few hundred yards past the last building, Jack turned over his shoulder and yelled back at Wyatt. "How in the heck did you get that gun? How did you pay for it?"
Wyatt waggled his eyebrows at Jack and reached into his pocket. Jack's eyes widened as Wyatt flipped a gold coin a little larger than a quarter into the air before he caught it again and stuck it back in his pocket.
"Remember back in 2000 when gold dropped below $300 an ounce? I bo
ught as much as I could afford and set it aside. I'm just a dumb old hillbilly, but I know a good deal when I see one. Gold has been the currency of crisis going back to the time of the Romans. That antique shop owner would have laughed me out of town if I'd brought in a wallet full of greenbacks, and would have tossed me out on my head if I'd pulled out a credit card. Gold holds its value, becomes even more valuable when the chips are down. You can feel the weight of it, and admire the color of it. Every idiot knows that gold is worth something, even if they don't know why. It is engrained into us as human beings."
Wyatt pulled a cigarette out and stuck it between his lips, cupping the lighter against the wind as he brought the flame to life.
"You know I almost cashed out all of my gold completely a few years back. In 2012 gold went over $1600 bucks an ounce. Unbelievable. I sold half of it then. I used the money to care for my mother, and pay the taxes on my granddaddy's farm. The rest of 'em I hid in a few places, just for emergencies. I had a few hidden in my truck," he said.
EMP Aftermath Series (Book 1): The Journey Home Page 14
