Fight the Shock

by William Oday

She didn’t know the combo and so would have to initiate a conversation sooner than she’d planned. She turned to go back inside and yelped as a figure darted out of the shadows from the side yard. She had just enough time to bring the flashlight up for defense as something swung down at her head.

  A metal bat clanged off the flashlight. The blow so hard it bounced the flashlight handle into her head before knocking it out of her grasp. She stumbled backward and the shadow drove her to the ground.

  Strong hands closed around her throat.

  Her ears rang and her brain buzzed. She grabbed at the sleeves of a black jacket, but couldn’t push the arms away. Pressure filled her head and her chest ached for breath.

  She clawed at a face deformed by stretched panty hose. The sheer fabric molded the features into a grotesque horror. Her nails came up inches short. The man’s arms were longer than hers.

  Ethan’s voice echoed out of the house. “Mom? Where are you?”

  No! She couldn’t let him get hurt!

  She glanced to the side and saw the flashlight. Grabbed it the instant before her attacker reacted, and then smashed it into his head.

  He rocked to the side but somehow managed to keep his fingers locked around her throat. He let go with one hand and snatched the flashlight away.

  A smushed, twisted grin opened beneath the hose. He raised the flashlight over her head. He was too strong. She couldn’t stop what would happen next.

  A furious growling exploded out the door. Dennis launched into the man, knocking him to the ground. His jaws snapped down on the arm of the jacket.

  The man howled with pain.

  Sam rolled away as Ethan came outside.

  “Mom!”

  She spotted the bat and scrambled over to it. She was going to smash this murderer’s skull in two. She got to her feet and sucked in a breath to steady herself.

  But by then, he had squirmed out of the jacket. He kicked Dennis away and sprinted for the fence.

  Dennis gave chase but he vaulted up and over and was gone.

  “Come here, boy,” Sam said, calling the dog over.

  Dennis glanced back, but then returned to a frenzied barking.

  Ethan retrieved the flashlight. “Mom, are you okay?” His eyes wide with worry and fear.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. Tears streamed down her cheeks and slid along the lines of her jaw. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She wasn’t crying for her own sake. She would deal with that later. She was crying for her daughter and husband.

  If something like this could happen in her own backyard, what horrors might they be facing?

  She now realized that she’d gotten lucky. She’d been too slow in coming to terms with this new reality. Things could’ve easily gone differently and she and her son could’ve ended up dead.

  She’d deal with the guilt later.

  Now was the time to get up to speed, and fast.

  42

  A rooster crowed outside and Cade’s eyelids cracked open. He pawed the crust out and saw the pink light of sunrise leaking in around the edges of the curtains. A sick feeling landed in his stomach. A queasy concern that maybe they’d been wrong to trust Wesley. That it was a mistake to have let their guard down and now they were going to pay for it.

  He rolled over and saw that the two AR-15 type rifles were leaned against the wall by the side table, exactly where he’d left them the night before. His bags were in a pile on the floor, also exactly where he’d left them.

  He let out a big sigh of relief.

  Of course they were right where he’d left them.

  Wesley wasn’t some ridiculously manipulative villain who gave them a ride for hundreds of miles, fed them a meal fit for a king, gave them a place to sleep, only to then reveal his devious and deadly plan.

  Cade pinched his eyes shut, thinking he was an idiot and feeling guilty for doubting someone who was obviously a good person.

  By nature, he wasn’t a trusting soul. And with the world falling apart like it was, deciding to trust the wrong stranger was enough to get you killed.

  Still, it felt like a betrayal to have doubted Wesley even for a second.

  A little more awake now, he smelled something in the air that made his stomach grumble with interest. Unless he was very much mistaken, bacon was on the breakfast menu. He swung his legs out to the floor and groaned. Speaking of breakfast favorites, they felt like two bloated sausages.

  He had a pretty nice mountain bike back home, but it had been a couple of years since it had gotten regular use. He and Lily used to go out and ride trails just about every week. But that regularity had fallen off the older she got. She’d gotten busier with school and friends and, almost before he knew it, months had gone by without them going out for a ride.

  And that was before she got a boyfriend. Before that idiot Colton showed up, acting like a perfect gentleman, doing his best to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

  But Cade had never been fooled. He’d always known the truth. Of course, he hadn’t been able to speak that truth. Not with his wife and daughter fawning all over the guy like he could do no wrong.

  That all took a one-eighty after Lily dumped his sorry butt. His true colors came out and Cade had been proven right after all. He was still disappointed that Sam had stopped him from beating the snot out of that sniveling punk.

  He massaged some feeling into his legs and knew he was going to be hobbling around for a while until the muscles got warmed up. He torqued his chin to the side and got a couple of good cracks out of his neck.

  He looked at Hudson sleeping in the bed on the opposite wall of the small room. One of his arms hung off the edge of the twin bed, his hand twitching with whatever was happening in a dream. A trail of drool hung off his lip and connected to the pillow. His head jerked and the tendril jiggled and then broke away, adding to the soaked spot in the cloth.

  And that was about all Cade wanted to see of that.

  “Time to rise and shine,” he said.

  No response.

  “Sleeping beauty, it’s time to get up,” he said again, this time at twice the volume.

  Still nothing.

  He pushed up out of bed and hobbled over. He gave the kid’s shoulder a tug and Hudson’s eyes blinked open.

  They were wide with fear and confusion.

  “It’s me, Cade. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

  That wasn’t remotely true on the grander scale, but it was true enough for the moment.

  Hudson looked around and settled as he remembered where they were. He yanked the covers over his head but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Cade jerked them back down. “Sleeping time is over. We have to get on the road. Smells like Wesley has breakfast ready.”

  Hudson cracked one eye open. “Breakfast?”

  After a few minutes, they were both up and around. They tidied up the room and headed into the kitchen.

  The table had three large bowls with a towel draped over the top of each. A note was next to a couple of plates. In a scrawl that was just this side of intelligible, Wesley told them there was coffee on the stove. And to eat up and that he’d be around.

  Cade lifted the towels to reveal scrambled eggs in one bowl, a pile of crispy fried bacon in another, and a half-dozen biscuits in the last. A slab of soft butter and a mason jar of jellied preserves next to that.

  Hudson scooped up an empty plate and started piling on the food. “I could get used to this.”

  “We’re not staying. I’m not staying, anyway.”

  “Are you always like this in the morning?”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Does he have a latte machine?”

  Cade pointed at the metal kettle on the stove. It was coffee. What more did this kid want?

  “Yeah, sure,” Hudson said before returning his attention to the growing mound of food on his plate.

  Cade poured out a cup for eac
h of them and then filled up a plate of his own. They decided to eat out on the porch and opened the door only to find dozens of eager furry faces staring through the screen door. The whole pack was waiting for them.

  “Back it up. Come on, now,” Cade said as he eased the screen door open. The pack of insistent beggars fell back enough to let them out, but not an inch more.

  They went over to the chairs, but didn’t feel comfortable sitting down. Not unless, they were going to hold their plates above their heads while they ate.

  A sharp whistle pierced the air.

  The beggars turned tail and ran. They spilled down the steps like a dam broke loose.

  Wesley waved on his way over from the barn. “Morning! Hope my mongrels didn’t clean you out.”

  “Good morning,” Cade said as he took a seat. “No, they’re fine. And thank you for this. For all of this.”

  Hudson held up a slice of bacon. “Is this organic?”

  Cade pinched his eyes shut. There was a time and place, and this wasn’t it. He wondered if the kid would ever clue in to that.

  Wesley pulled off a pair of dusty work gloves as he came up the stairs. “You not going to eat it if it isn’t?”

  Hudson folded the long strip into his mouth in answer.

  Wesley chuckled. “I suppose you all will be off today.”

  Cade murmured affirmation through a mouth full of eggs.

  “I wanted to talk to you about that. There may be a better way for you to get to Vegas than hopping back on those bikes.”

  That got Cade’s attention.

  Which was really saying something because the flaky, buttery biscuit layered with a dollop of strawberry preserves was all he could think about one second before.

  43

  Cade returned the biscuit to his plate. “What did you have in mind?”

  Wesley ran a hand over his damp, white hair. The sun was barely above the horizon and he’d clearly been hard at work for hours. He scooped up Queen Lottie out of the middle of the pack, passed around a few scratches to the others and then joined them on the porch.

  “I have a friend, well, not a friend. I know a guy who is a bit of a tinkerer with all things mechanical. Cars especially. He never met a wreck he didn’t like. He brings some of them back from the dead, but mostly I think he just likes collecting.”

  He poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the railing and gulped it down. He filled it up again and let Lottie lap out of the glass.

  She was definitely queen of the castle. And the rest of the pack gathered round the bottom step appeared to be okay with that. Maybe they knew she needed the extra attention.

  “You think he would sell us one? I’ve got cash.” Cade thought of the money in his belt and also the money he’d scavenged off a few corpses.

  Wesley shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t have much use for paper money. He operates more in a barter economy. You’d have to trade him something.”

  Cade went through a mental inventory of their few possessions. They didn’t have much.

  “I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but I bet he’d trade one of his working wrecks for one of those rifles you picked up yesterday.”

  The two AR-15s.

  With a long journey ahead, scoring them had been an unexpected windfall. The extra firepower could end up being the difference between making it and not. Then again, they still had a long way to go to Vegas, let alone Durango. And he was not looking forward to getting back on the bike. His sit bones ached like he’d had a run in with a bucking bull.

  Could he part with one?

  It wouldn’t be like he’d be defenseless without it.

  “I could do that,” Cade said, wiping some jelly from his chin. “For the right car.”

  “Well, I’ll take you over when you’re finished with breakfast.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Cade said.

  Wesley waved him off. “I’ve been meaning to go by anyway. He’s had a busted irrigation pump of mine forever and might need a kick in the pants to remember that I want it fixed.”

  They plowed through the rest of their plates and helped clean up inside. After putting their things in the back of the farm truck, they pulled away and Cade watched the quaint little farmhouse slide by.

  The yapping, howling, barking pack followed at first, but fell away by the time they made it to the main road and pulled up onto the pavement.

  “Thanks again for putting us up for the night,” Cade said.

  “Seriously, I almost feel human,” Hudson added.

  Cade thought he saw the flash of a smile on the kid’s face. That was good.

  “It was my pleasure. I don’t get many visitors and it’s nice to talk with someone who walks on two legs for a change.”

  “Have you always lived alone?” Hudson asked.

  A sadness creased the lines in Wesley’s face. “No. I was married for forty-one years to the one and only love of my life. Mrs. Mabel Guthrie. We couldn’t have children but there were always folks around back then. The Lord took her thirteen years ago. Went to the doctor about some dizzy spells that wouldn’t go away. Found out it was cancer in her brain. It didn’t take long from there.”

  He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. A gruff laugh came out. “She never would’ve allowed the farm to be taken over by those mongrels, I’ll tell you what. She was a good woman, but she was particular.”

  He seemed to drift into memories.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cade saw that Hudson had done the same.

  They rode the rest of the way in quiet contemplation, until they pulled up to a tall chain link gate with barbed wire coiled along the top. It connected to a span of similar fencing that stretched out to the sides and wrapped around a large property.

  A piece of plywood strapped to the gate had a warning in red spray paint.

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT AND FED TO THE DOGS!

  The inside of the fence was filled with dilapidated wrecks. Some missing hoods, trunks, fenders, doors. One a bare chassis with wheels but no tires. A relatively newer one had a puddle of oil underneath. Nature had taken over the rusted out older ones. Weeds grew out the windows and through the engine blocks.

  Three Doberman Pinchers hopped out of open trunks and charged over to the fence, barking their heads off and showing their teeth. The message was loud and clear. Step a foot inside and they would tear it clean off.

  Two ramshackle mobile homes sat back a ways from the fence. Plastic tarps draped over the roofs were held down by car tires. The siding was peeling away and had been replaced by a mishmash of random materials where it wasn’t. It looked like it had been repaired with whatever happened to be closest. Black polysheet, plywood, corrugated metal, a shed door. A wood pallet was stacked with five gallon propane tanks.

  There was more, but that was more than enough to cause concern.

  “How well do you know this guy?” Cade asked.

  “I know him. Like I said, we’re not friends because I’d never choose to spend time with him beyond doing business.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You’ll see,” Wesley said as he climbed out of the truck and approached the fence.

  The dogs went rabid in response.

  Wesley stopped a couple of feet short and yelled. “Eugene! You in there?”

  He yelled a few more times, but eventually gave up. He returned to the truck and laid on the horn until one of the trailer doors flew open.

  A man came out swearing up a storm carrying a shotgun under his arm. No shirt and overalls with only one shoulder holding them up. Bare feet crusted in dirt. A silver flame of hair sticking up on top. He yelled at the dogs to shut up as he moseyed over. He stopped a few feet away from the gate, but made no move to open it.

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  Wesley met him outside. “Can you just let us in already?”

  The old man shot a stink eye at Cade and Hudson still sitting in the t
ruck. “You, maybe. Them, no.”

  Wesley blew out an exasperated breath. “They’re looking for a working vehicle.”

  Eugene shrugged. “So. What’s that got to do with me?”

  “They’re willing to trade for it.”

  Eugene’s gray eyes sparkled with life, but then he got suspicious again. “Who are they?”

  “Friends of mine.”

  “How come I ain’t never seen these so-called friends of yours around here?”

  “They’re new friends.”

  “So you don’t really know them then, do you?”

  “For crying out loud, Eugene. Open the stupid gate!”

  He considered a minute and then nodded. “Let me put the pups away. Wouldn’t want anyone losing a hand.”

  If those were the kind of pups that popped out of boxes at Christmas, kids everywhere would be dying of shock.

  Eugene returned a few minutes later and let them in. As soon as the truck was inside, he slammed the gate shut and secured the chain and padlock.

  Cade and Hudson climbed out and Wesley circled around to make the introductions. He got a few words into it, but Eugene cut him off.

  “So you’re looking to trade, huh?”

  Cade nodded.

  He spat a glob of tobacco juice into the dirt, close but not onto Cade’s boot.

  So the negotiations had already begun.

  “That is assuming any of these junkers are worth anything.” Cade nodded toward a rusted out heap with a missing roof that had sunflowers growing up where the front seat should’ve been. “I’m looking for something that drives, something reliable. Not a flowerpot.”

  Eugene’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s step into my office to discuss it.”

  44

  Cade didn’t budge. “No sense discussing anything if all you have is what I see around here.”

  Eugene stuttered to a stop.

  Wesley’s brow arched and he fought to keep from snickering.

  “All this up here is for the lookie loo’s driving by. The good stuff is in the back.” He pivoted in that direction and started walking.

  “Does that mean we’re supposed to follow?” Hudson whispered.