Blood Bought: Book Four in The Locker Nine Series

by Franklin Horton

  The vehicles were lined up on the side closest to the road, screening most of the parking lot from anyone who might be walking by. That would allow the kids, stir-crazy from the confinement, to get out and play on the church playground. Mothers and a single armed man watched over them, everyone hyperaware now that violence could explode from nowhere. Marauders could stream out of the hills. Hordes could come by road. Nowhere was safe anymore and that fact was an acid that burned a hole in the stomach of each parent on this trip.

  "I need to speak to my men,” Congressman Honaker told his wife. "You try to get some rest. It shouldn't be much longer now before we get where we’re going and settle in."

  "Okay," his wife replied.

  Her response lacked any hint of emotion. He knew she blamed him for their son’s death. He hated that she felt that way but she needed to deal with it. It wasn’t like she could leave him with the world being in such a state. He continued to assure her that the boy was probably alright and would show up at some point but she didn’t believe him. He’d sent a security detail after Jeff and they hadn’t returned either. Jeff was dead. She knew it and he knew it.

  He burst out the door of the RV, anxious to escape the oppressive cloud of grief and blame contained inside. When he located his command team, they were trying to figure out security arrangements for this new site. Bradshaw was barking out orders, dispatching men to establish a hasty perimeter.

  “I think we need to send an advance team into town before we go any further," Colonel Jacobs said. “I don’t like the idea of streaming all these vehicles into a little town where we don’t know what’s going on or who’s in charge. We've suffered enough losses already. We could find ourselves trapped, locked into an ambush we couldn’t back out of.”

  Bradshaw handled most of the operational logistics of the caravan. Jacobs was retired military and served in more of a consulting role. He and Bradshaw butted heads frequently but the congressman depended heavily upon their advice in these situations.

  "What do you mean by an advance team?" the congressman asked.

  "I would suggest a two-man recon team on foot. They could do some low-key intel gathering and let us know what the situation is there in town. It could be a ghost town or it could be full of highwaymen living off what they steal from travelers. We need to know before we get any closer.”

  "Does that mean another night on this road?" the congressman asked.

  Both of his chief advisers nodded.

  "It might mean a couple of nights on this road, to be honest, but that can't be helped,” Bradshaw said. He was a former commander with the Capitol Police and had known the congressman for two decades. "The men we send out will need to cover several miles on foot. We don’t know how long it will take them to scope out the town and make a thorough assessment. There's no choice if we want to proceed cautiously."

  The congressman shook his head and sighed deeply. "I understand that but it won’t make it any more digestible for these families. They’re terrified and anxious to get somewhere. Anywhere beats this. It’s like we’re on a never-ending family vacation."

  "We may be here a couple of nights at the most," Colonel Jacobs offered. "We can’t lose sight of safety and security just because people are tired. We’ve come too far and risked too much to lose it because of sloppiness."

  Congressman Honaker remembered explaining his whole bug-out plan to his friends back in Washington. It had sounded so easy in theory. He hadn’t seen any way it could fail, but so far every single step had been harder than he imagined. In fact, trying to take Arthur's compound had been like hitting a brick wall with his fist. Sometimes he could be stubborn but there was a point where even he realized it was time to step back and regroup. That reassessment led to the change of plans. They gave up on Arthur’s compound, heading north in hopes they could take Robert Hardwick’s place, whatever it ended up being. The congressman prayed it was worth the effort.

  What he’d envisioned as a casual jaunt north had, like the assault on Arthur’s compound, turned out worse than he imagined. Nothing was casual anymore. Nothing was easy. Certainly, he wanted to believe they could just drive their vehicles up to Robert Hardwick's home tomorrow. He’d like to imagine they could easily drive out Robert’s family while he was stuck on the road somewhere. Why should he expect that to be easy though? So far, nothing else had been. Maybe it was all just destined to be a goat rope–an impossible, tangled effort that would lead nowhere.

  From the beginning, he’d been so confident that he felt no need to have any fallback plans. He knew they’d take Arthur’s place. That was all there was to it. Then he couldn’t make that happen. The idea to take Robert Hardwick's property wasn't really a fallback plan, but a face-saving effort arrived at because he honestly had no other choice.

  Having experienced such bitter defeat, did he now have a backup plan in case his current plan fell through? Of course not. Worst of all, it wasn’t like they could tuck their tails and go back home if this effort failed. They were trapped. There wasn't enough fuel to get back home now and the level of violence on the highways was increasing as food was running out and people became more desperate. All the dark scenarios that scientists and military planners had predicted would accompany an extended power outage were coming to fruition.

  There were probably places they could find to hole up—empty summer camps, campgrounds, or farms—but they needed something that was survival-ready. They wanted a place with solar power, fresh water, and stores of survival gear like food and medicine. Admittedly, there probably weren't many places around the country with that type of infrastructure in place. Certainly not many where you could walk in with a few men and take it all for yourself.

  In hindsight, arriving much too late, his last couple of years might have been better spent building a fully-stocked survival retreat of his own. He had the money. He had friends with the knowledge to design it. Why hadn’t he done it? Why had he so boldly insisted that his plan would be to take somebody else's place by force?

  The whole notion was so narcissistic, so entitled, but that was who he’d become over the years. It was the way he thought at this point in his life. Now it was too late to fix any of it. He’d started down a road with no way to turn around. He was committed and he had committed all of these folks along with him.

  "So we have perimeter security out now?" Congressman Honaker verified, trying to pull himself from the depressing spiral of thought.

  The other men nodded.

  "Then how about we try to get a meal together while it's still light. I’d prefer to have everyone back in their quarters by dark. No campfires or marshmallows tonight. We don’t know this area and I won’t want anyone out here presenting themselves as an illuminated target.”

  Bradshaw nodded in agreement.

  “I agree,” Jacobs said. “I’ve never felt it was safe to have fires at night.”

  The congressman shrugged. “I wanted to maintain morale. I wanted this to feel like a camping trip but it’s too late for that now. Too many men have been lost. Too much blood spilled. Now it’s just a salvage operation.”

  6

  The fact that there was no one around to listen to her complaining did not stop Debbie from expressing her feelings. One minute her face contorted in ugly sobbing, moaning that her mother, Leslie, had abandoned her to die. She’d chosen the Hardwicks—strangers—over her own flesh and blood. The next moment, having cried herself out, anger returned and she kicked viciously at the roadside weeds, cursing to the top of her lungs that she’d make her mother pay for what she’d done.

  “What kind of mother does that?” she bellowed. “An evil bitch! That’s what kind! You don’t love me. You never loved me.”

  When she encountered a house, she picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could, seeking to vent her anger. It bounced off the siding and landed on the porch. It felt good but she was unsatisfied by the failure to break anything. She picked up another and hurled it with greater concentr
ation. This one shattered a window.

  Satisfied, she jumped up and down with glee, clapping her hands like a child at Christmas. The gunshot that rang out startled her and she fell flat on her ass. A second shot zinged off of the pavement beside her and she scrambled to her feet, trying to get away. Her legs tangled and she fell again, scraping both her knees and a palm. She got back up and ran, tears pouring once again at the pain and injustice of it all.

  Out of sight of the house, she stopped to catch her breath. She’d had no idea anyone was in the house, especially anyone that might shoot at her. She rubbed her knees. She was wearing cut-off jeans and both knees were bleeding. The scrapes stung, the pain exacerbated by sweat. She didn’t even have anything to clean or bandage them with. Her eyes flooded with tears yet again.

  “You see this, Mommy!” she blubbered. “This is your damn fault! If you hadn’t left me out here to die none of this would have happened. You almost got me killed!”

  She heard voices coming from the direction of the house. There were people and they were coming after her. She ran again, cursing to herself the entire time. Her body had been stiff and aching even before the fall from spending the previous night in an abandoned vehicle. It had been sweltering hot but she’d been afraid to leave the windows cracked or the doors unlocked, terrified of what lurked out there. She’d tossed and turned all night, uncertain whether she got any sleep at all. Every sound from the blackness was someone intent on breaking the window and pulling her through the jagged opening to her death. Every shadow was someone with a gun taking aim at her, ready to end her life, or worse.

  She didn’t run very far before she had to slow down again but there were no voices behind her anymore. Maybe they felt she wasn’t worth pursuing. She’d have to be more careful. A more accurate shot and she’d be bleeding to death in the ditch at that very moment, like a deer pulverized by the bumper of a car.

  It occurred to her again that this too was all her mother’s fault. She understood her mom being a little upset at the things that had taken place. Maybe Debbie should have done more to keep Paul from roughing her mother up but what she was supposed to do? After all, he’d done the same thing to her several times. Certainly if she had any secret to make him stop hitting she’d have used it when he got violent with her. It was just one of those things you went through. You did your best to avoid any serious damage then you got up and went on with your life. Wasn’t that what all women did?

  Maybe she shouldn’t have manipulated Dylan into revealing where he and Leslie were staying? It was a little dirty using her child like that, but again, what was she supposed to do? These were hard times. She and Paul were hungry and needed their medications. Her whole world had come crashing down. Every decision she’d made had backfired on her. Now she didn’t have a home, she didn’t have any food, she didn’t have any drugs, and she was entirely on her own because she didn’t have Paul either. To top it all off, her mother had completely washed her hands of her, just as she’d threatened to do for years.

  What was she going to do?

  The only place she knew to go was into town, into Damascus. If her mother was still staying with those Hardwick people at their fancy solar-powered house then maybe she could get away with staying in her mom’s house in town. The idea of returning to the old mobile home she’d shared with Paul was too depressing. It was nasty, reeked of every imaginable odor, and the roof leaked. The only good thing about it was it was cheap, leaving them more money for whatever drug they were into at the time.

  The last time she’d been to town, she and Paul had left her mother’s house in pretty bad condition, continuing to use the toilet even when the water wasn’t working and you couldn’t flush it. They’d also trashed the place while looking for drugs or hidden food, neither of which they found. At least that house didn’t leak though. It was also surrounded by more houses she might be able to steal from. Maybe some of those houses even had food or things she could trade for food. Maybe there were pills. She was also going to need a gun if she was going to survive on her own. If she found one perhaps she’d go back and teach her mother a lesson. That idea brought a smile to her face.

  Although she wasn’t very good at guessing distances she thought she was at least twenty miles from town. She recalled someone throwing out that number once. While she had no idea how far twenty miles was in terms of days and hours spent walking, she had no choice. If she stayed out here, she’d starve to death or someone would kill her for trying to steal from them. This was not a time when people were overflowing with Christian charity, especially toward someone like her. People were taking care of their own and the people they knew, not vagrant druggies with nothing to bring to the table.

  There was a time when people had not looked at her that way. She’d been raised by good parents in a good home. She was always clean and her mother did things with her hair every day, but then she became a teenager and things changed. She didn’t want to listen to anyone. She did the opposite of everything her parents told her to do, dated bad boys, and made bad decisions. She made no effort to hide it either, rubbing her indiscretions in their faces just to show them they couldn’t control her. She’d be who she wanted to be whether they liked it or not.

  There were a lot of hard miles between those rebellious teenage years and where she was now. Those miles showed. She’d let herself go. Her hair was unkempt and not cut in any particular style. She just hacked it off at the sink when it started bothering her or when it knotted so bad she couldn’t comb it out. She didn’t bathe regularly and knew she smelled. Her skin was bad and her teeth were worse. She’d never been beautiful or smart but she’d been a lot better off earlier in her life.

  She should have listened to her parents. She should have thought about those decisions she made just a little longer. After a series of bad decisions in those early years, she made the poorest of all when she linked her fate to Paul’s. Most of the worst things in her life happened after he came along. She loved him and he said he loved her. That made everything alright, didn’t it? He beat her, but he loved her. He let men use her for drugs, but he loved her. He broke her bones so the doctors would write her pain prescriptions, but he loved her.

  With him gone, perhaps this was her opportunity to reinvent herself. Maybe it was time to be somebody else and improve her life. She could find herself a better man with a better future if any were still available in this world. If she could love Paul, she could learn to love anybody. With a little work, she could clean herself up and look like somebody. She could become someone new.

  Debbie had almost convinced herself then laughed aloud. “You’re fooling yourself, girl.” She was never going to be anything but what she was now. If she was headed in any direction, it was only further down. She tried to muster up more positive self-talk, to reassure herself that anything was possible, but she couldn’t find the words.

  At a heavily-wooded section of road, a sign indicated that the Virginia Creeper Trail was on the left. Debbie had never been on the trail but knew hundreds of thousands of bicyclists rode it every year. It was supposed to be a downhill trail that led right into town. She didn’t know much about it except that it went past her mom’s house. After a moment’s pause she took the left turn onto the old railroad bed that was now a bike path.

  Debbie didn’t walk many places. She was amazed at how slow it was. No wonder people drove cars. The pace and discomfort of walking was just ridiculous. She would plod along for what felt like forever, then look behind her to see that she hadn’t come that far at all.

  It made her wonder about these backpackers who flooded the town every year. What was the point of that? You walked all day, carrying a bunch of heavy crap, and you stunk so bad no one but other hikers could stand to be around you. At least they had an excuse for smelling bad. People seemed to like them though. The people in town were nice to them. They helped them out, fed them, and opened their homes to them. She was just as grubby and people turned up their noses at her.<
br />
  Maybe she needed a backpack?

  If she threw on a pack, that, coupled with her appearance, might be enough to convince people that she was a backpacker simply stuck here by circumstances. She would immediately be part of a group liked and respected by outsiders. She would look less threatening. Also, if she came upon other hikers, wouldn’t they be obligated to help her out of some kind of hiker code or something?

  That settled it. She needed a pack. There were a lot of stores in town that sold them. There were probably a lot of people in town that owned them too since it was kind of an outdoorsy town. She would have to be on the lookout. The idea made her smile. It would not be a reinvention of herself; she could never be one of those people. Yet it could be a disguise. She could hide in plain sight as a hiker on the Appalachian Trail.

  As the Virginia Creeper Trail wound through the woods of the Jefferson National Forest it crossed numerous old railroad trestles spanning Whitetop Laurel Creek. The trestles had been redone with flat surfaces and railings to make them safer for bicyclists. When Debbie reached trestle number twenty-one she was astounded to see a backpack sitting on the trestle and propped upright against the railing. She slowed and watched but saw no one. Thinking it safe to approach the pack, she crept toward it, walking slowly so that her steps would not echo on the wooden planks. She stopped at the pack, standing over it, and was preparing to touch it when a loud voice nearly made her pee in her pants.

  “HEY! Get away from my pack!”

  Debbie leapt back as if she’d been electrocuted, her head whipping around to locate the speaker. She finally spotted the brightly colored clothing on the creek bank below the trestle. She stepped closer to the railing and saw there was a man nearly below her. He had a bushy beard and ruddy cheeks. He was wearing a red shirt, dirty khaki shorts, and ankle-high boots. He had something in his hand, pumping water from the creek into a water bottle.