by Rick Tippins
“I’ll go after I eat something.” Bart kept his end of the deal so far, so why am I thinking of just taking off and leaving the old fart here in this dank building with less than three days’ food left to survive? Jared doubted very strongly the old coffin dodger would allow him to leave with the trailer loaded with all his belongings anyway.
Bart sat staring at Jared before speaking. “You thinking of taking off on me?”
Jared nodded his head, he didn’t know why, and he braced for the storm he was sure would come.
“Fair enough, I get it. I sit here and risk nothing holding up my end of the deal, while you gotta go out and possibly get killed. I get it.”
“It’s not that,” Jared said. “It’s like this whole thing hasn’t sunk in. It’s not real, and here I am living in your building, learning to shoot a gun, and now I’m about to go out and deal with who knows what.”
Bart stood, spreading his arms out wide. “Want to call the deal off?” His arms fell back to his sides. “I’m pretty sure if we call off the deal, we will both die within the next couple of weeks. You will be murdered and I will starve to death.”
Jared took a deep breath and started making coffee. “I’m going out for you, Bart, don’t worry, I’m going out.”
Bart sat back down and seemed suddenly frail, his shoulders slumped. “Good, I respect a man of his word. One last thing,” Bart started, “I won’t belabor the issue of moving out in the open since you were able to get all the way down here on your own, but I will say this, you have to know the difference between cover and concealment.”
Jared nodded like he understood, even though he had no idea what the old guy was talking about, but he also knew Bart was going to tell him about this whether he liked it or not. It was Bart’s way of ensuring his supplies made it back. So, for the next ten minutes, Bart explained that cover was something Jared could hide behind that would not only conceal him, but stop bullets, while concealment was something he could hide in or behind that would conceal his presence, but would not stop bullets
Bart droned on about always keeping a gunfight fluid, moving whenever possible to keep your opponent off-balance, making him constantly adjust to you and not the other way around. Bart explained how tall grass and bushes were great concealment, but were shitty cover should the bullets start flying. He told Jared how a car could be great cover as long as you positioned yourself behind the engine or a rim. The lesson lasted about fifteen minutes, ten minutes longer than Jared felt necessary.
After the cover and concealment lesson, Jared ate, had a cup of joe, was briefed by Bart…again, prepped his bike and trailer, rechecked the map, making sure he had the route committed to memory, and left out the back of the business. He pedaled hard for several blocks before slowing. He navigated to the first site, an REI, and pulled up in front and across the street. He set up his usual observation spot, far enough away to see but not too close.
Jared hadn’t heard gunfire since he’d been with Bart, and chalked that up to the fact that he was in an area where people didn’t live or scavenge for food. After an hour, Jared got to his feet and ran across the parking lot to the front doors of the store. He entered the dark store and cracked a light stick, using it to light his way to the sleeping bags section.
He hadn’t only memorized the route, but most of the shopping list as well, getting right to work throwing items into the sleeping bag as he dragged it up and down the aisles. When he had everything the old bastard wanted, he crept back to the front of the store, shoving the light stick in his pants pocket before peering out into the brightly lit day. There was no sign of danger, so he hurried to the bike, loaded the trailer, and pedaled off towards the gun shop.
He arrived back at Bart’s place without incident, rapping on the back door. Bart opened it with half a smile on his face. Jared pushed past him, moving the bike and its load inside, where he immediately felt safer, shedding the coat of tension that had clothed his body since the moment he left the gun store and this cantankerous old man.
By the end of the first day, Jared had completed three trips, one to REI, one to Home Depot, and the last to CVS. He was able to pick up most of the items Bart had on his lists, and the things he didn’t get were due to the stores having already been looted. Bart took no medications before the event, instructing Jared to only grabbed health-related items like vitamins, nonperishable medications and ointments along with a truckload…or a small bike trailer load of bandages and other accoutrements related to the first aid family.
When Jared passed through the back door for the last time, he was spent. After the physical exertion combined with the high level of concentration it took to clear a building, he was exhausted, famished and a bit jittery. Bart had food ready and forced Jared to drink more water than he cared to drink at the moment, but the old son of a bitch just rolled in to some diatribe about staying hydrated and blah, blah, blah. While Jared quietly ate, Bart went about inventorying his new gear, which he stored in the workshop. The old man was meticulous about his inventories and how he stowed it all.
Bart finished what he was doing and turned to Jared. “You see anyone out there today?”
“A couple of people, but we both steered clear of each other.”
Bart slowly nodded. “I don’t mean to harp on you, but that last load you brought in, you had your shirt open and the pistol was exposed. Someone gets the drop on an unarmed man, they’re more likely to be careless. If they see you’re armed, they’re probably just going to shoot you rather than risk a gunfight.”
Jared took a deep breath and didn’t argue.
“Yeah, I want you to get all my stuff, but whether you believe me or not, I don’t want to see you get killed out there.”
Jared turned back to his food and took another bite. This guy was the strangest man he’d ever met. He was sure Bart would kill him in a New York minute if Jared gave him cause, and now he was telling him he actually cared about his welfare, just flipping strange. Maybe the old guy was lonely, Jared didn’t have a clue, but every day, Bart did or said something that contradicted his usual harsh exterior. Jared was sure the crusty old guy had not been the type to ever volunteer at a soup kitchen, but the more time the two spent together, the more Jared saw a slightly different side to the man.
“Tomorrow’s a big day,” Bart said. “You’re going to a food source, and you are almost certain to meet other people—desperate people and possibly violent people. I want you mentally ready. Your mental readiness is ten times more important than your physical readiness.”
Jared was too tired for any more speeches, opting to simply nod his head as he ate the last of his freeze-dried lasagna.
That night, Jared dreamed of the beating he’d taken in the Belmont store and was jolted out of a deep sleep, not by the dream but by the sound of gunfire. He heard Bart moving through the hallway and got up himself, moving into the hall. Bart had a rifle and was peering through the front of the shop.
“No lights,” hissed Bart as he scanned. There was more gunfire and voices, men yelling. Some sounded in distress; others sounded like they were issuing orders. It all sounded very close as the two men stood frozen in the hallway, listening to what could very well be the killing of other human beings.
Jared’s breath was coming in short ragged gasps, and he could feel the adrenalin surging through his veins, threatening to take over in the form of panic. He took a moment, trying to gather himself. He needed to control what was happening and to take stock of his body and how it was reacting to a threat that was real, but not necessarily imminent. The commotion was outside the gun store, close enough so Jared could decipher the voices as male and the language as English, but too distant to make out exactly what they were saying.
Bart turned slightly, looking over his shoulder. “You good?”
Jared nodded.
“Where’s your fucking weapon, man?” Bart growled.
Jared slipped sheepishly back into his room and grabbed the Glock off his b
ed, returning to Bart’s side.
“Finger off the trigger,” was all Bart said as the two listened to the voices as they faded into the distance. Bart stood at the front of the shop for another thirty minutes before turning to Jared. “Leave that pistol behind again and I’ll duct-tape it to your fucking hand.” Without another word, Bart stalked off to bed.
Jared couldn’t remember having a worse night’s sleep in his life. He tossed and turned, fell asleep and dreamed of the screams he heard that night, then would wake feeling fatigued and uneasy.
Not much was said the next morning as the two men ate, drank coffee, and got Jared out the back door and on his way. He was sure to keep his shirt pulled down, covering the Glock on his right hip along with the four extra magazines on his left side. The ammo was heavy, the tops of the magazines chafed his side if he wasn’t careful, and the added weight had his back aching by three in the afternoon. Bart came unglued when Jared mentioned carrying the ammo in the trailer, causing Jared to quickly abandon the idea purely in an effort to stop Bart’s barrage of curses and insults.
Jared knew today’s route better than all the others, having mentally rehearsed all the turns and street names in his head prior to leaving. As he pedaled, his mind raced with all these thoughts, but he was also scanning the road ahead, looking for anything that looked like it wasn’t right. Three blocks from the Safeway store, Jared passed two dead men lying face down in a front yard. They were on the ground in a myriad of awkward positions, like puppets dropped by a child suddenly called for dinner. Jared wondered if they had been shot, and assumed they were leftovers from the previous night’s festivities.
Jared pedaled on past the corpses, closing to within a block of Bart’s designated Safeway. He dismounted the bike, pushing it along the sidewalk, all the while searching for a good spot to watch the store before going in. He moved to the rear of a business across the street from the Safeway, hiding the bike and trailer behind a dumpster. Jared found an old pallet and leaned it against the side of the building, climbing up till he could reach the rungs of a ladder that stretched up to the roof.
He grabbed the rungs and hoisted himself up the ladder until he crested the rooftop, where he transitioned into a slow crawl across the roof towards the opposite side. The roof was flat tar and gravel that played hell with his knees during the crawl. He reached the far side, swallowed hard, then peeked over the slightly raised edge towards the Safeway. Jared brought the binoculars to his eyes in order to scan the front of the deserted shell of a business.
The store was in a state of disarray, with shopping carts strewn about, the front glass on the business smashed, and the interior too dark to discern anything inside. Jared sat on the rooftop for what seemed like hours, nothing moving except his occasional shift to relieve aching joints. Birds flew by, the wind blew, and the clouds blotted out the sun’s warming rays. The temperature had dropped and Jared was beginning to feel stiff. He was also aware of the time he was taking out of his day by watching the store. He would get maybe two loads at this pace, but he was more than a little apprehensive about simply strolling into this store and running down the shopping list.
Jared heard a scuffing sound and tensed, slowly pulling the binoculars from his eyes in order to widen his field of view. He didn’t see anything, but he had definitely heard something other than the birds and the light breeze. Instinctively, he lowered his body so only his eyes peered over the top of the roof line.
The human eye is attracted to movement, and this little fact didn’t fail Jared as he caught something in his peripheral vision, to the left of the Safeway. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brought the binoculars back to his eyes and stared down at the spot where he’d seen movement. He locked on the cause, and his blood felt cold running through his veins as he looked at the face of the very man he’d seen murder two young boys just days before.
Adrenalin surged through Jared’s body, washing over him like a tsunami. His breath quickened and became shallow as he gazed upon the man’s smiling face. The man walked with two others, most likely the same two he’d been with at the time of the murders, but Jared wasn’t sure. He was focused solely on the cause of the boys’ deaths, and he was staring at the same man’s smug fucking face now.
Jared’s mind wandered to an old man he knew and his words regarding situations like this very one. Let the rush be your motivator, let it strengthen you, don’t let it weaken you, Bart had said. Bart had gone on to say Jared would never feel more alive than when he was face-to-face with death himself. It was like riding a giant wave: you could fight it and end up balled up on the ocean’s floor, or you could ride it, feel the wind in your hair and enjoy the rush, Bart had chortled. Jared could feel the ill effects of this rush starting to take hold and, with it, a twinge of fear tightened in his chest.
He rolled over and took a deep breath, trying to steel his nerves. Goddamn, that felt better. He took two more deep breaths as he rolled back over and reacquired the murderous trio below. He felt a hell of a lot better being able to see them than when he rolled over and lost sight of them. He pondered this for a moment and decided to visit this little phenomenon at a later time, and he’d do it over a bourbon with the old man.
It was weird how he’d just done that. He’d gone from a mental fetal position to one of almost a predator. He watched as the men approached the front of the store, entered and were out of sight for several minutes before reappearing, each man holding a bottle of alcohol. The men were laughing and joking and drinking the liquor as they made their way to a set of tables and chairs outside the store. They sat on a table and continued drinking and talking. They didn’t seem concerned about their surroundings as they drank and prattled on about who knows what. Jared was too far from the men to hear what they were saying, only catching an occasional word along with their loud laughter.
The men drank for what seemed like an hour before picking up and slowly moving up the street in the direction they’d come. Without thinking, Jared slunk to the roof’s edge where he’d originally ascended, and dropped silently down the same ladder, landing lightly on the ground. He moved around the building until he had a visual of the retreating men. The men were about two hundred yards in front of Jared as he threaded his way through bushes and abandoned vehicles, following at what he thought was a safe distance.
Bart had told him the range on a handgun was not more than about twenty-five yards, and that was in the hands of a trained and experienced person. Jared didn’t think that untrained drunk assholes would be good past ten yards, so his two-hundred-yard cushion felt right. The men were obviously intoxicated by now, their voices growing louder and louder with each gulp of the liquor.
The men went no more than three hundred yards up the street before turning into the yard of a small cottage-style house. Jared watched as the men moved onto the porch and sat down, talking, laughing and drinking. Jared watched from the cover of an abandoned SUV as the men sat on the porch. The cottage was well kept by its previous owners, making the thugs look starkly out of place on its front porch.
As Jared watched the hoodlums, his eye caught an ever so slight movement in the window of a neighboring house. He scanned the front and thought he saw a shadowy figure hunched in the front window as if watching the three men. There hadn’t been many people on the streets, and Jared hadn’t given it much thought till now, wondering if it was due to men like these. The kind of men who caused decent people to hole up in their homes, too frightened to venture out. He imagined a family with small children inside the house, held hostage by these animals. The thought angered him and then scared him equally as bad.
In the old world of just a few days ago, Jared could have been angered by some other human’s driving, cutting in line or whatever, and he would have simply been angry, and that would have been the end of it. People could glare at each other and even raise their voice at one another, but the threat of physical violence was very low. Jared was quickly realizing a dirty look in this new and not so improv
ed world would likely land you face down in a puddle of your own fluids. He wondered what the end result would be after the dust settled and people began living their lives again. Would it be a more polite society or a society in which people simply avoided contact with each other?
After some time, the men began to talk less, slump in their chairs, and generally look like a bunch of drunk and tired criminals. Jared moved around the block and climbed over a couple of fences until he positioned himself in the side yard of the house next to the little cottage. He was less than ten yards from the men and could clearly hear them conversing in their slurred slang. One of the men had actually passed out and was slumped over in the chair he occupied, while the other two talked about harassing him, but never did. Jared drew the Glock and slowly pointed it at the man he’d seen murder the two boys.
His breathing slowed as he held the weapon on the man’s chest, simply enjoying the ability to point the gun at the man and have there be no consequences. He moved his finger to the trigger, thinking of the two young boys this animal had gunned down like dogs, his finger tightening ever so slightly on the weapon’s trigger.
A calm had blanketed Jared, making him feel very comfortable pointing his weapon at these vermin. He thought as he took in the slack on the Glock’s trigger how the man would be surprised and would never know why Jared had shot him. This animal would die with a huge question mark flooding his head. Another thought invaded Jared’s mind: it was the other two men and how as soon as he shot their friend, he’d either have to flee or shoot the other two as well. This thought caused some anxiety, causing him to ease the pressure off the trigger.
Although the pressure was off the trigger, Jared held the sights on the man’s chest as he sat with his friends, completely oblivious to how close the Reaper was to taking his putrid life. Something in the dark and far depths of Jared’s brain told him to look up. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but when he looked up, he went rigid.