by Harley Tate
Colt handed up a rifle and Larkin took it. “If I’m right, we’ll find everything we need. Doug, you stay here as guard. Larkin, Dani, and I will clear the building.”
Dani nodded and climbed out into the damp Oregon air.
Chapter Eleven
DANI
Chili’s
Springfield, Oregon
2:00 p.m.
While Larkin picked the back door, Colt pulled Dani aside. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that door. Those boarded up windows mean either the manager took some precautions or someone’s inside and doesn’t want to be found.”
Dani hoped for option number one. Larkin stood up and Colt stepped back, gun aimed and ready. Dani sucked in a breath. It wasn’t any different than the neighborhood searches she’d been doing all week, but she couldn’t stop the tremor in her hands.
Larkin turned the handle and pulled the door open. The misty light from outside lit a wedge of linoleum and Colt took the lead. Dani eased in behind him and Larkin followed. The door shut and sealed them inside.
Dani’s heart pounded so loud she missed Colt’s instruction. Larkin prodded her in the back and she side-stepped down the hall, following blindly as her eyes sucked up the inky dark.
She couldn’t see more than a foot in any direction. The end of the rifle blended into the shadows and Colt was more a feeling than a person two steps away.
Colt tapped her on the arm and she jumped. He motioned toward the kitchen, two fingers up and to the right. He wanted her to follow. She nodded and fell in step behind him. Her back grazed the wall as they ducked inside the commercial space.
What she wouldn’t give for some fancy military gear. Back at the University, Larkin probably had access to all sorts of crazy stuff like night vision goggles and scopes. Colt stopped a few yards into the kitchen and leaned back against the wall, handgun up and ready. Dani followed suit.
They stood in the darkness, waiting while the frustration built and their eyes adjusted.
After a few minutes, the kitchen work surfaces separated from the dark beyond and Dani could make out enough to navigate. Colt motioned for her to clear the south corner and she took off, ducking behind a long prep surface to investigate the metal shelving beyond.
Everything appeared more or less intact. No turned-over shelves, no empty cans of food thrown about. Vandals hadn’t turned it into a trashcan. She worked her way slowly through the gloom, relying on what little light filtered through the gaps in the plywood out front to see. It wasn’t much.
A person could be hiding practically anywhere and Dani wouldn’t see him until almost too late. But she came up empty. No people in her little corner of the kitchen.
Colt found her waiting where they first separated. “Anything?” His whisper cut the silence like a shout.
“No.”
“Good the rest of the kitchen is clear. Bathrooms, too.”
Larkin approached a moment later. “Seating area is clear. The place is empty.”
Dani exhaled in relief. They found somewhere to hide at least for one night. She didn’t know what about the place made Colt want to stop, but she was damp, tired, and ready to relax for a few hours.
Colt flicked on a flashlight and handed it to Dani. “Start searching the kitchen for food and supplies. Start at one end and be systematic. Go through every cabinet, shelf, and cardboard box you can find.”
Dani nodded. “What if I find something?”
“If we can use it, put it on the prep table. We can sort it there.”
While Colt and Larkin went to gather everyone still inside the Humvee, Dani set to work following his instructions. She started with the prep area, opening doors and drawers one after the other. Nothing but pots and pans and every kind of baking dish ever made. The top racks held serving plates and bowls and saucers, but no food.
She spun around in frustration. Where was it all? Dani had never been inside a kitchen of this scale. Most of her food prep experience came from the nasty counter at her mother’s or Gran’s tidy little kitchen before she got sick.
They didn’t have more than five feet of counter between them. This place was enormous. She thought about what it must be like full with cooks and waiters running around. Where would they keep the food?
Panning the flashlight around the space, she paused on a giant metal door at one end of the kitchen. A fridge and freezer? Dani approached with caution. Everything in there was probably rotten and disgusting, but she had to know.
She wrapped her hand around the handle and brought her arm up to shield her nose from the smell. The door opened with a sucking sound and Dani gagged. Smell wasn’t the right word. Putrid, nasty stench from the depths of hell was more like it.
Coughing and hacking, Dani advanced into the room with her sweatshirt tight against her nose. It took all her self-control not to throw up. At one point it had been a fridge. Now black and moldy lumps of produce off-gassed on metal shelves and milk curdled in glass jars.
She grimaced as she stepped farther inside. There had to be something of value in there. Not everything rotted in a month. The room was still cooler than the rest of the place. It couldn’t be all bad.
Dani ran the flashlight beam over each shelf, pausing if anything showed promise. A wheel of cheese still encased in wax. She didn’t know if it was edible, but it was worth a shot. Three sacks of potatoes on the bottom shelf. A bag of onions. A handful of things that looked like fat, white carrots. A root vegetable? One of those things she’d heard about in books but never seen?
She grabbed the bundle and tossed them along with everything else remotely passable onto an empty cart. It wasn’t much, but they could get by for a few days on what she found. As she wheeled the cart out, the rest of the crew piled into the kitchen.
Doug stood in front of the prep counter, rubbing his shoulders and back. The poor guy was too big to cram down around Harvey’s feet, and thanks to the river crossing, most of his clothes were still wet.
Melody held Lottie tight to her chest as she looked around the space. Ever since the run-in with the people on the street, she’d been silent. Dani didn’t know if she’d been in some sort of denial about how bad things could be, but she hoped Melody would snap out of it.
Harvey and Gloria and Will stood off to one side, huddled in a sad little group.
Everyone looked beat down and out of sorts. Dani pushed the cart up to them all with a smile. “It’s not much, but I think we can make some of this work.”
Melody wrinkled up her nose. “What’s that smell?”
“Rotting vegetables, mostly. I found all this in the fridge. It’s as big as a house.”
Doug nodded as he rubbed a kink out of his neck. “Commercial kitchens are massive. Have you found the dry goods yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll look for them.”
Dani smiled in thanks and watched as he sauntered off toward the metal shelves on the other side of the kitchen. She was tired and frustrated and rethinking leaving Eugene, but Dani knew it had been the right decision.
They might be cold and wet and hungry, but they were out from under Jarvis’s control. He couldn’t come after them across the river. It might be the hardest thing any of them had ever done, but hitting the road would turn out to be the best call, she knew it.
Everyone set to work as quickly as possible while they could rely on daylight to mask their flashlights from passersby outside. Gloria and Melody made makeshift sleeping areas in the restaurant using the cushions from the booths and tablecloths from the laundry.
Harvey helped Doug cart dry goods over from the shelving and stage them on the prep table. Larkin found a tarp in the supply closet and used it to cover the Humvee. It wasn’t perfect, but it would give them decent cover when night fell.
Colt stood in front of the deep fryer with an empty jug and a scowl. Dani walked up to him. “Don’t tell me you want to cook with that stuff. It’s got mold growing all over it.”
He s
hook his head. “Not cook. But we need to bottle it somehow.”
Dani raised an eyebrow. “What for?”
“You’ll see. Look around for some sort of funnel.”
Dani couldn’t find a funnel, but she came back with a roll of heavy duty aluminum foil. “I figure we can make one.”
Within five minutes, they had fashioned a funnel out of the foil and set it up inside an empty apple juice jug. Colt opened the drain valve on the bottom of the fryer and drained enough oil to fill that jug and five more besides. When they finished, he stood back and smiled. “It might just work.”
Dani waited, but he didn’t explain and she wasn’t going to press him. Whatever he needed nasty used cooking oil for, he could have it.
As the sun began to set outside, everyone collected around three tables Melody had pushed together. With Gloria’s help, the pair of women had assembled a veritable feast. Crackers and cheese and still-edible oranges. A massive can of beans and spiced apples. It might as well have been a Christmas goose and hot stuffing like Dani read about last year in school.
They were lucky today.
Gloria held up her glass of water and the table fell silent. “I want to thank Colt and Larkin for all they’ve done to get us this far. I didn’t appreciate how difficult leaving Eugene would be. Without the Humvee or Larkin’s driving skills, we would never have crossed the river. Without Colt’s quick thinking, we wouldn’t be sitting around a table eating and drinking and being merry. So thank you.”
Larkin held up his hand. “No thanks necessary.” After everyone took a drink, Larkin leaned back in his chair. He glanced around the table and a slow smile spread across his face. “How about we lighten it up a little, huh?” He pointed at Colt. “Favorite song. Go.”
Colt broke into a grin. “‘Friends in Low Places.’” He pointed to Melody. “Your turn.”
She stammered and her cheeks turned red. “You’ll laugh.”
Larkin drummed the table. “Out with it.”
“‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’” She pointed to her brother. “Your turn.”
“Red Hot Chili Peppers. ‘Under the Bridge.’” Doug pointed at Harvey. “You’re up, Wilkins.”
“Anything by Bob Seger.”
Larkin waggled his finger. “Pick one.”
Harvey glanced up at the ceiling. “‘Travelin’ Man,’ I guess. Will, how about you?”
“Anything by Twenty One Pilots.” Will beamed, but most everyone around the table drew a blank.
“I don’t even know who they are.” Larkin shook his head. “Shows how old I’m getting.”
“Not as old as some of us.” Gloria smiled. “For me, it’s ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter.’”
Dani swallowed as Larkin pointed at her. She didn’t know what to say. “I don’t really have a favorite song.”
“Oh, come on, there has to be one.”
She thought about the music her grandmother used to listen to. “Gran always used to listen to musicals. She had an old record player we listened to on Sunday afternoons.” Dani smiled. “I always liked the one in Guys and Dolls…” She paused as she sang it in her head, trying to remember the title. “‘Luck Be A Lady,’ I think.”
Larkin nodded. “Impressive. One of Frank’s best.”
“How about you, Larkin? What’s your favorite?”
“Me? Oh, I’m a Kenny Rogers guy, through and through. ‘The Gambler.’ That’s my all-time favorite.”
Colt leaned back in his chair and looked around. “So we’ve got a few country fans, a rocker, a cheesy pop lover, and a surprising throwback to the standards.” He smiled at Dani and she tried not to blush. Larkin might not have meant to, but thinking of her grandmother made Dani grateful for everyone sitting around the table. She didn’t choose this ragtag family, but that’s what they had grown to be.
Leaving as a group had been the right call. As everyone finished dinner, Colt excused himself. “I’ll take first shift tonight.”
Dani spoke up. “I can do it if you want to sleep.”
He shook his head. “No. You get some rest. I couldn’t sleep if I tried.” He picked up a rifle and checked his handgun in his holster before walking toward the front of the restaurant.
“Do you think we’ll be safe tonight?” Melody’s question voiced the fear percolating in Dani’s stomach.
Larkin shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Chapter Twelve
COLT
Chili’s
Springfield, Oregon
11:00 p.m.
The tenuous nature of their existence hit Colt full-force as he peered out into the dark. Thanks to the restaurant, they were able to eat and drink and sleep for the night, but it wasn’t permanent. The lack of lookout positions drove him crazy.
He’d been all over the damn restaurant, trying to find somewhere to set up for a while. Nowhere worked. A few gaps between the front windows served as a decent vantage point during the day, but were useless at night. The back was all metal and concrete block.
What they needed was height. A little elevation and one or two people could maintain passable security. A one-story restaurant with solid doors and nooks and crannies everywhere wasn’t the best option. Not by a long shot. He eased the rear door open and squinted into the night.
Clouds floated across the moon and cast an eerie glow across the parking lot. At least he could see. The door closed with a click behind him and Colt stood still; a dark figure against the beige paint of the wall.
Something about the place was too good to be true. Why wasn’t it looted? The location in a mostly residential area? The boarded-up windows? He wasn’t sure either counted as sufficient deterrents.
Maybe no one as desperate as the people they’d seen downtown had stumbled across it. They were a long way from the woman crying in the street. He thought about Melody and her inability to process this new reality.
What she didn’t understand was that there could be no more charity. Colt’s run-in with the father-daughter team of the day before made that clear. Desperation had kicked in for everyone. He pushed off the wall and eased into the parking lot, scanning every few steps in a 360-degree circle.
As a SEAL, preliminary scouting wasn’t his specialty. He never patrolled an area, attempting to keep it secure. He went in, did the job, got out. Sticking around wasn’t a part of the plan. He hated patrol.
Too many variables. Too many avenues of attack.
Colt walked the perimeter with quiet steps, searching for a place to set up. A tree thirty yards across the lot held promise. So did a spot just behind the restaurant’s sign near the road. He could get comfortable, hide behind the unlit sign and watch. He circled the restaurant and paused.
A rustling sound came from the back near the Humvee. He faded into the shadows like a ghost and moved closer.
The tarp.
It shook and shimmied on top of the vehicle. Colt lifted the rifle and held the scope to his eye. Damn. Too close to use as a sight. Perfect if he needed to shoot an apple off the Humvee’s hood, but terrible to find the source of the noise.
He slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled out his Sig. Crept another five feet along the building’s edge.
“Told you! It’s military!”
“Shh. They’ve gotta be inside.”
Colt froze. Two unidentified males. He couldn’t tell if they were kids or old enough to be dangerous. He hugged the wall and focused on their voices.
“They gotta have guns. We should bust in there. Check it out.”
“You got a death wish? They probably already know we’re here.”
Colt kept the smile to himself. At least one of them had a brain.
“Let’s just get inside and check it out.”
Damn it. He couldn’t let that happen. Colt stepped out of the dark. “You’re damn straight I know you’re here. Now leave.” He leveled the gun at the shape moving about around the vehicle.
“You don’t look military to me.” The shape s
huffled closer and separated into three. Shit. Although they couldn’t have been older than twenty, what they lacked in age they made up for in size. The one in front outweighed Colt by a good fifty pounds. A big, hulking beast of a kid.
Colt pointed the barrel at his chest. “Guess you’ve never met a SEAL. I won’t ask a third time. Leave.”
“Don’t sound like you’re askin’ at all, mister.” The smaller of the three stepped forward. “We weren’t doin’ nuthin’. And this ain’t your store anyway. You got no right to ask us to leave.”
“That’s my vehicle you’re poking around.” Colt didn’t want to shoot them. The gunfire would terrify everyone inside the restaurant and call a ton of unwanted attention. Who knew what the sound of a shootout would bring out of the woodwork.
He made a show of cocking the gun. “You don’t want to die over a puffed-up ego. Leave and I won’t put a bullet in your head.”
The quiet one reached into his pocket. Colt took aim on his chest. As the kid removed his hand, a knife blade caught the moonlight. Colt groaned to himself. What is it with me and knives lately? The blade upped the odds of having to shoot. It was still the worst option.
He pointed at the knife with his gun. “You know how to use that thing or just showing off?”
The kid made a swiping motion with the blade. Guess that’s a yes. Colt widened his stance and unlocked his knees. If only he had Larkin to back him up.
All three young men fanned out, surrounding Colt in a half-circle. He had a choice to make. Use the gun and end this now or do it the hard way.
Shooting them meant at least three bullets, six if he didn’t want to take a chance. It would just about run him dry. It would also mean they had to leave as soon as possible. No sleeping in, no calm and orderly breakfast before hitting the road. No chance to wash some of the grime off.
