by D A Carey
<< Levi >>
Levi was once again riding shotgun in Greg’s truck. Cami was in the back seat alone, having left her dog at home. They eased up the gravel road and over the cattle crossing to Todd’s Point Road outside of Simpsonville, Kentucky. To anyone observing, it was a pleasant country drive, nothing different from a month ago. Greg drove back roads and turned onto Highway 53 for a few miles, then onto Ballardsville Road. They drove the curvy, hilly country roads that were so common in the southeast. They passed old farms and miles of box wire fence topped with barbed wire. Many of the farms and homes had the modern metal pole barns of various sizes that had been built by the thousands across the country because they were so economical. The soldier in Levi thought they would be great places to hide because there were so many of them that no one would know which one they were in. At the same time, he wouldn’t want to have to defend one because they had few windows, and the thin metal walls offered no ballistic protection.
Soon they came to the small town of Eminence from the west. A police car and a few trucks were parked on the left side of the road at the old high school. There was a sawhorse in the road with a sign directing traffic to the parking lot with the police cruiser.
When Greg pulled into the school, Levi asked, “Do we have time for this? Are you sure it’s safe?”
“We don’t have time not to,” Greg said soberly. “I need to know what’s going on, and it wouldn’t be neighborly not to stop. It would cause more suspicion and problems to try and pass without stopping.”
Levi nodded, trusting Greg’s judgment.
As Greg rolled up beside the police car, he lowered his window. “How y’all doing?” he said affably. “Sittin’ out getting some rays?”
Before the policemen could reply, one of the civilians in a truck nearby said, “Greg Simpson, is that you?”
Greg shielded his eyes to better see who was speaking.
“It’s Terry King,” the man said. “I did some concrete work for you a few years back. Do you still have that farm over off of Todd’s Point Road?”
“Yes, I do. Haven’t seen you in a while, Terry. How have you been?”
“Fair to middlin’. Do you still rabbit hunt?”
“I do. I’ve got a couple of good dogs right now, but I’m always on the lookout for a new place to let ’em run.”
“When this all blows over, I know a couple places we can try,” Terry said.
“If it blows over,” Greg said somberly.
“Heck yeah, it’ll blow over,” Terry said. “Criminals is lazy, and the government will send in the National Guard or something. They always do.”
Greg noticed the policeman watching the conversation closely and could sense Levi was becoming tense about the delay. “So how are things here in Eminence?” he asked the policeman. “Any problems?”
“We have our share of riffraff. We mostly know who they are and where they live. The real problem we have is people we don’t know coming through and causing problems,” the policeman said with a glare. It was clear he was weary and wary. “We only have three policemen in the town, and we split it up into shifts. Some of the locals stay with us to add some firepower in case a carload of troublemakers come through.”
“Makes sense to me,” Greg said cheerfully.
“So why are you out driving around in this mess?” the policeman asked suspiciously.
“I promised a buddy of mine I’d get this big galoot here,” Greg indicated Levi, “up to a little village they built near Carrollton.”
“I heard about that place. I may want to check it out sometime.”
Levi leaned across Greg and said, “You’d be welcome any time. I know the owner, and he always likes good people to come around.”
“I hear it’s expensive if you want to live there.”
“The details can always be worked out for the right people,” Levi offered. “We do need to be moving on, though. Is the route open and safe?”
“My town should be okay.” He once again sounded officious. “Still, be careful. You might get a potshot, or if you stop, someone might try something. So move on through as fast as you can without speeding. If we hear shots, we’ll come running.”
“Thank you,” Greg said.
“If you’re going through New Castle, though, it’s closed. I wouldn’t advise going around it, either.”
“Why is it closed?” Greg said, sounding exasperated. “I’d rather not go around if I can help it. Those roads are twisty one-laners that would be easy to trap me on.”
“I should have said it’s mostly closed to through traffic and out of towners. I’ll write you a note saying we know you and you’re from Todd’s Point. That might do the trick for you. You’re right, though. I wouldn’t advise going down some of those one-lane roads right now. It might be safe, but if it’s not, you’d be all on your own. You’d be hard pressed to run, and you’d end up fighting at the place they chose.”
“Sounds like you’ve seen some combat,” Levi remarked.
“One tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. I never expected I’d be protecting convoys at home in Kentucky from ambushes like I was over there.” The disgust was obvious on his face.
“Well, we need to get going,” Greg said, trying to change the topic. “Do you have something to write on for that note?”
“I’ll use the back of a citation from my pad so they know it’s me. I suppose they could think I got shot and had my citation pad stolen, but I don’t think most criminals think that far in advance.”
After a few minutes, with note in hand, Greg eased up to the four-way stop in Eminence and turned left headed toward New Castle. As they passed some closed businesses on the left and a Dairy Queen on the right, they could see people watching them. It was clear some were getting hungry and desperation wasn’t that far away. Greg and Levi both wondered what this town might be like in a few days or weeks if things didn’t clear up.
Even though it wasn’t a long drive to Carrollton, the trip was already taking longer than planned.
Fortress
“Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.”
- Ulysses S. Grant
<< Vince >>
Vince knew that their luck had been too good so far. Something was bound to go wrong. In the grand scheme of things, having a mini-van break down wasn’t a big deal. The exchange was made as fast as possible, and the van pushed into some brush at the back of the gun store’s parking lot to be retrieved later if possible.
After evading the shooters, they made the run through West Baden Springs and then into French Lick at dusk with little interaction with any locals. When they got to the heart of French Lick, the people of the city were nowhere to be found. While the town may appear abandoned, many of them were likely hiding in their homes. From here, they only needed to cut over east on Highway 145 to Hunters Road. When they spotted the collision center on Hunters Road, Gus’s wreckage yard was only a little further up the gravel, tree-lined road.
French Lick was a quaint area that had first seen growth back before the advent of electricity. The area boomed in the twenties when the railroad brought people from Chicago for the resort and the springs. Vince remembered coming here with Ellie during the good times of their marriage to see the arboretum and stay at the resort. He would play on the world class golf course while Ellie enjoyed the spa. Later they would enjoy a great dinner at the resort. Sometimes Vince would spend a few hours at the casino cards tables while Ellie played the slots before they would go up to their room.
Few people outside the area knew how beautiful it was. Vince worried it would be one more irreplaceable thing destroyed during the turmoil.
<< Liz >>
Liz was gazing out her window, scanning the area Vince asked her to as they went through French Lick and headed east. They passed an automotive repair business, then went up a tree-li
ned gravel road. Liz saw a huge pile of junked cars scattered haphazardly the height of a two-story building at the top of a rise. The piles of mashed cars even covered the gravel entrance to the junkyard. To Liz’s eye, there was no way in to the junkyard and nothing worth going in for. It appeared to be nothing more than junk, junk, and more junk.
Vince stopped the truck and opened the door. “Please stay in the truck,” he said to Liz, then got out and walked toward the pile with his hands in the air.
“Stay there,” someone shouted down. “I’m coming out.”
To Liz’s surprise, three crushed cars stacked one on top of the other swung out to the left. The pile was actually an overlapping wall, like a concentric circle. Within that wall where the outer layer surpassed the inner, the three smashed cars were revealed to be strapped on a forklift that was protected behind the wall. The forklift was driven forward to swing out like a door. Once the wall of cars was moved far enough, it created an opening that couldn’t be seen unless you knew where to look. A person would have had to walk right up to that section of the wall and then turn to their right to notice an access point.
Liz saw Vince and an older man speaking. They were smiling, and then the older man patted Vince on the shoulder and invited him to follow.
<< Kate >>
On seeing the fortress of junk, Kate went from confusion to awe upon seeing how it was constructed and the ingenuity involved.
The caravan followed the older man in a golf cart through the opening into a labyrinth of junked cars to a metal building near a brick ranch-style home in the center. The opening was another concentric circle of junk that pivoted out enough to let them go in before pivoting back with the use of a forklift and junked cars strapped together. From inside the walls, Kate could see observation platforms high in the junk that couldn’t be seen from the outside. She could now see that what appeared to be nothing more than mounds of junked vehicles from the outside were actually walls of junk protecting an inner sanctum. Kate was sure she had only seen a portion of the inside of the junk kingdom. There were many sections and areas all divided by a complex warren of scrap.
There were more strategically placed forklifts at various places along the path. Although she couldn’t be sure, Kate assumed some of the walls of junk were just that, while others were strapped or bolted together so they could be moved like the outer door they just entered through a moment ago. She could only surmise that certain portions of the network of walls could be changed to open and close paths and confuse intruders.
Kate was sure she heard chickens clucking, along with cattle or goats lowing. It made sense that they could create pens for livestock. If they had those, then they must have sections for gardens as well in the maze of junk.
The entire thing reminded her of the corn mazes her dad used to take her to on Halloween when she was young. The complexity and size of this was so much larger than anything she could have imagined.
If it were not constructed of junk, people would have regarded it as an inspired work of architecture.
<< Malik >>
Malik couldn’t go any further. He and Tid holed up in an empty hotel more than a mile away. It sat beside a creek well below where Gus’s wreckage yard and business was located.
From studying the map, Malik saw the road dead ended, and there was no way out the way they went in. While he had no idea what they were doing up there, they had to come out eventually. If they didn’t, he and Tid would go in.
“Those type people won’t stay back there for too long,” Malik said to Tid. “I ain’t going in after ’em and getting us killed.”
“We’ll get ’em,” Tid said, because he knew that was what Malik wanted to hear. He was scared of Malik. Even though they were best friends, Malik could lose his temper and kill anyone at any time. Except his brother Raheem, whom he had worshipped. That was why Tid knew Malik had to kill these people or die trying. Whatever slight hold on sanity Malik once had would fade away to nothing if he didn’t. Then who knew what would happen? Whatever it was, Tid doubted he would survive it. He didn’t think about that consciously in an intellectual way; it was more of an instinctive subconscious knowledge.
While they were waiting, Malik sent Tid out searching for food, women, or liquor. He wanted some time alone, and Tid was a resourceful man. He usually found something. Malik didn’t worry about him coming back empty handed. Tid was sneaky and knew how to get things.
<< Levi >>
Dave finally received a call on the SAT phone. He was overjoyed to learn that Vince, Liz, and the group made it safely to Gus’s place in French Lick. The call was short and done in code-like double speak. They had no reason to believe they were being listened to. Yet why chance it?
Dave wanted to tell Vince that Levi was on his way to Kentucky, to be there to help if possible. However, because he hadn’t heard from Levi in two days and didn’t know for certain he had made it safely to Carrollton, Dave elected not to mention it. Vince had enough to worry about without wondering if his best friend was out there somewhere hurt and needing his help.
***
Greg eased the red Ford truck to a stop in front of a blockade at the city limits of New Castle, Kentucky. New Castle was a quaint country town that resembled a thousand other small towns across America. It would have looked natural in a Norman Rockwell painting. It was built on high land with a commanding view of the surrounding area from the courthouse or another tall building like the Christian church along Main Street.
Although Greg never let anything bother him, Levi was concerned about the roadblock. Greg lowered the window and opened the door to get out of the truck. One of the men on the blockade held up his hand in a gesture to stay put. Another man who was armed and wearing a bulletproof vest and military load-bearing gear moved to a position to cover the first man who cautiously approached Greg’s window.
“The town’s closed to through traffic and anyone who doesn’t live here. You’ll need to turn around,” the man said. He wasn’t rude about it but wasn’t leaving the door open for questions or argument either. As he began backing away, Greg reach into his pocket for the note from the policeman in Eminence. Suddenly the man in the bulletproof vest moved to a few feet from the vehicle and brought his rifle from low ready to his shoulder, aimed directly at Greg’s head.
Everyone froze for a few seconds. A couple more men raced from the blockade, yelling commands, and pulled Greg from the truck, put him face down on the ground with a knee in his back, while keeping guns trained on Levi and Cami. There was a moment when everyone stopped yelling. An older man sauntered out from blockade and announced it was his shift to be in charge.
He knelt next to Greg. “Greg, what in tarnation are you up to? You’re too old to be wrestling with these young bucks. The way things are these days, you’re lucky they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Bill McMaster? Is that you? It’s hard to see anything while I’m lying on my chest with my hands cuffed behind me. That young feller’s kind of strong,” Greg said, once again smiling. “You think he might undo me?”
Bill motioned for them to uncuff Greg, and they walked a few feet away from the others to speak.
“Bill, we haven’t seen you at the church men’s group in over a year,” Greg said straightaway.
“I don’t have much of an excuse. It’s a bit of a drive over to Shelbyville, and I stay busy with these Rocky Mountain horses. I know I should get over there more often,” Bill said sheepishly.
“Heck, Bill,” Greg teased, “those horses ain’t nothing more than big ole dogs. Those are about the friendliest horses the good Lord ever made. I know they’re comfortable and will go anywhere. I just can’t make myself ride ’em, though.”
“Well, why not?” Bill said, sounding offended and already having forgotten they are at the blockade.
“’Cuz,” Greg said with a gleam in his eye, “when they look at me with those big ole puppy dog eyes and lean their head on my shoulder to be petted
, I feel like I’m climbing up on the back of an old Labrador retriever. That just don’t seem right to me.”
By this time, Bill knew Greg was teasing him. He shook his head and moved the topic back to the blockade. “So what are you doing out driving? You ought to be at home hunkered down and taking care of your cows.”
“I would, and some of the other men from the church’s men’s group are staying with me for a while. But that big ol’ boy in the passenger seat flew all the way here from Colorado. He needs to get to Carrollton. I said I’d take him, and here we are.”
“Why do you have to take him?” Bill asked. “Why can’t he take himself?”
“He’s a good friend of Vince Cavanaugh. Vince’s stepdaddy was my best friend, and Vince is now my buddy too. Besides, Cami wants to go see that town they’re building on the hill near Carrollton. I promised I’d take her out to dinner there too.”
“Well, the town is closed. You can’t go this way, and the way around is dangerous.”
“I was thinking about that while that big ol’ boy was kneeling on my back.” Greg eyed the man who pushed him on the ground a moment ago. “I have a note from a policeman in Eminence that the sheriff here needs to see, and this galoot here with me may have some news from outside the state that the sheriff needs to hear. So it’s your duty to take us to the sheriff to be checked out. You can vouch for us being safe at least that far.”
