The Abandon Series | Book 2 | These Times of Retribution

by Schow, Ryan

  “Swell,” she said.

  He walked down the hill, crossed the street. Just off the driveway, he saw Colt standing over a fire that was slowly burning inside of a pit.

  “Whatcha doing, bro?”

  “Getting rid of evidence,” Colt said.

  Gator glanced down into the pit and it just looked like a bunch of sticks burning.

  “What’s that?”

  “Round three with these scumbags.”

  “Those the guys who did that to Trixie?” he asked.

  “You sound like you know her.”

  “I picked her up the other day walking back from town, remember? Apparently, her cockroach boyfriend made her go get coffee, on foot, in the rain. Her feet were messed up, but that girl’s tough as nails.”

  “I’m a little worried about her,” Colt said, dumping a little bit of gas on the fire to keep it going. “But I’m worried for us, too.”

  “She’ll land on her feet,” Gator said. “Girls like that always do.”

  “I’m not worried about her, like how she’s going to recover from this. I’m worried she’ll take our stuff, or trash the place, or become a burden.”

  “She thought the same thing,” Gator said. Colt looked up at him, raised his eyebrows, and fixed his mouth. “I can take her if she becomes a drain on either your patience or your resources.”

  “You want to play hero to a hooker,” Colt said, “be my guest.”

  Gator frowned. “Is she really…a hooker?”

  “Not really, I guess. Close though? She was an exotic dancer and this guy saved her from that life only to drag her into this one.”

  “You know what’s going on, right?” Gator asked. Colt nodded. “Did you talk to Garrity?”

  “Yeah. He’s piss drunk. But I got him back in line.”

  “Just throw some dirt on those bones and quit wasting your gas. Ain’t nobody coming to look for these scumbags anyway. We have bigger problems.”

  Gator glanced over at the Jeep. “Does this thing even run?”

  “Yeah, I fired it up yesterday. I haven’t taken it around the block, though.”

  “I’m gonna head inside, see what’s what.”

  “Be my guest,” Colt said.

  Gator went inside, rummaged around the place, looking for anything good, then he frowned. Through the kitchen window, overlooking the driveway and the side yard where Colt was working, he saw his friend grabbing the shovel. Turning away, he went through the remaining rooms, seeing the place in disarray, like it had been properly tossed.

  He wandered back outside, saw Colt pushing dirt over the burning remains, and said, “Was that you guys who ransacked the place?”

  He nodded. “Trixie and I did. Faith did a little bit, too.”

  “Anything good?”

  Colt smiled. “A lot of weaponry. I wondered if maybe you’d find something I missed, otherwise I’d have said something.”

  “You got the keys to this gas hog?” Gator asked, nodding toward the beat-up CJ7. Colt spiked the shovel in the loose dirt, then dug in his pockets and pulled out a ring of keys. He tossed them to Gator, then grabbed his shovel and resumed his work.

  Gator climbed in the Jeep, put the key in the ignition, started it up. It sputtered and coughed a bit, but then it caught and the engine came on strong.

  “Peachy,” he said with a grin.

  Leaving the vehicle running, he got out and had a look under the hood. Standing before a simple engine just doing its job, Gator nodded and said, “So is this your new ride?”

  “Sure is,” Colt said, shoveling the rest of the dirt on the plus-one grave. “Faith and I need to get up north, pick up Leighton. Then we’re going to drive into Ohio and see about Rowan and Constanza. She’s eight months pregnant.”

  “Really?” he asked, thoroughly surprised.

  “Really,” Colt said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “So now you’re going to be grandpa Colt,” Gator teased.

  “I’m too young for that, so if you call me that again, we’re gonna be fighting.”

  “I’m going to win,” Gator said.

  “I know that, which is why I won’t play fair,” Colt teased.

  Eyes back on the Jeep, Gator saw that work had been done recently. “Looks like it’s been freshly outfitted.”

  “That’s why it’s still running. I’m pretty sure it’s not the original engine. It’s basically EMP proof.”

  Gator got down on the ground and studied the undercarriage. He started rattling off the improvements he could see. “Suspension is new, same for the wheels and tires. New axles, too. Some new welds…this thing looks legit.” He pushed himself back out, stood up, and dusted himself off. Catching Colt’s eye, Gator said, “Do you think they knew?”

  Colt had been wondering about this, but not with any seriousness. “I can’t imagine that being the case. These guys looked like they were scraped off someone’s boot. They’re nothing, just a pack of nobodies.”

  “Word is, the Hayseed Rebellion is not the organizing faction, that they were funded by bigger dogs—filthy dogs with deep, deep pockets.”

  “Most people know that by now,” Colt said.

  “Yeah, but who were they funded by?” Gator asked. “I mean, we know the usual suspects, the collaborating forces…but would they do this? Do they hate America that bad?”

  “These Maoist idiots have always had a hard-on for destroying America, so yeah,” Colt said. “Think about it. This is the greatest country in the world in terms of personal liberties and economic freedom. If they toppled America, it would be a sign that they’re in charge, and now the entire world is fair game.”

  “You think the Chinese did this?” Gator asked, trying on the possibilities, which was what he’d been doing non-stop since he learned about the EMP.

  Colt shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe China with the UN, I don’t know. Maybe you pull in some personal money, get some solid ground forces, treat it like a military insurgency. They can activate gangs, rile up the scumbags, but you’d need someone pretty high up to set off that EMP. So now we’re talking about military application and coordination. Can you see where things start getting funky?”

  Gator agreed. “It’s so hard, thinking of the levels of coordination and cooperation this would require.”

  “A lot of these turds were rolled up at the end of 2020 and into 2021,” Colt said, seemingly thinking out loud.

  “Yeah, they put measures in place to try to slow the cancer,” Gator added, thinking aloud as well. “But then again, where the overt Marxist cocksuckers started dropping like flies, the Hayseed Rebellion sprung up to take its place. I’m not sure who’s worse, to be honest.”

  Gator jumped in the Jeep, then rolled down the window and said, “Get in, let’s take this bucket for a spin. After that, we’ll head back to the house.”

  On the Kentucky backroads, with the steadily drumming sounds of knobby tires on asphalt, Gator said, “These factions, each one is just another arm of a giant octopus. If these shadowy conglomerates are ever going to be stopped, America has to figure out how to drive a stake into the middle of the octopus’s head, rending each of its arms useless.”

  “Good luck with that,” Colt said, turning around. Gator got the Jeep up to sixty-five miles per hour before backing off and slowing down.

  “Well, I’m reasonably certain Faith won’t hate this completely,” Colt laughed. Gator raised both eyebrows at him and grinned. “Okay, she’s absolutely going to hate it.”

  “When you’re gone picking up Leighton, assuming that’s in the cards—”

  “It is.”

  “—what are you going to do with Trixie? Are you just going to leave her in the barn?”

  “Better than being on the street,” Colt replied, “or being back in that disgusting house.”

  “Your man-cave is way better than the dump across the street. Speaking of leaving town, are you sure you’re ready for what’s out there? It’s not just you, you know. Faith
is tough, but she’s also a beacon of light in the dark.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know your wife is hot, right?” Gator said.

  Colt huffed out a short laugh.

  “And you’re a…a water treatment guy turned farmer.”

  Now Colt turned and flashed him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you got soft,” he said, reaching over and grabbing Colt’s stomach, which wasn’t fat but wasn’t rock solid like when he was in the Army.

  Colt smacked his hand, then said, “Don’t get frisky with me, Sunshine.”

  “I’m just saying you stopped looking around, so you stopped seeing the threats.”

  “Were those guys burying me, or was I burying them?” he challenged. “Because no one’s touched me beyond a stupid sucker punch.”

  “That you didn’t see coming.”

  “I’m here, they’re not.”

  “So you killed a couple of guys, so what?” Gator asked, ribbing him.

  He knew Walker could have cut through those guys like they were nothing, but he wasn’t sure about Colt. Then again, knowing he’d put those two clowns down was encouraging.

  “You say that like it was nothing,” Colt said.

  “We all killed guys.”

  “In the sand, yeah, with the blessing of Uncle Sam. But not stateside, and not in your own backyard.”

  “We’ve been hit by an EMP, Colt.”

  “Thanks for the update.”

  “So who did this, and why do all these HR guys have cars that work? And why is this Jeep outfitted with an old engine and even older parts?”

  Colt said, “Maybe those jackwagons didn’t know the end game, but whoever was funding them, or running them, maybe they knew. On this bigger picture thing, though, seriously, if you want to stretch that hard, take a yoga class. Me? I’m not buying it.”

  “You should let me take Trixie.”

  “She’s not a toy we just pass around,” Colt said. “I’m the one who shot her boyfriend and his friend. She has no one, so it’s kind of our duty to at least help her get her head back on straight.”

  “You can’t take in strays, Colt. She’s gonna eat into your supplies.”

  “We don’t even know the full scale of this thing.”

  “That’s why we should head into town,” Gator said. “We have to see Garrity, see how things are holding up.”

  “Regarding what?” Colt asked.

  “I want to see if society is unraveling.”

  “It won’t be, not this soon.”

  “In the natural order of things, I’d say I agree. But there is nothing natural about this,” Gator said. He looked down at the gas gauge, saw the needle riding low. “How are you doing on gas reserves?”

  “Keaton was doing better. That’s why I didn’t mind burning him and his friend. They’re stocked up pretty well.”

  “And that doesn’t give you pause?”

  Colt said nothing.

  Instead of heading into town, he turned and went back to Vitaliy’s house.

  “Where are you going?” Colt asked.

  “Getting gas, in case there’s none to be had in town, and in case we have to dig in for some reason.”

  In back of Vitaliy’s place, they went through the garage, as well as a small shed. The stores of gasoline were plentiful and added to his conspiracy theory.

  “All total, there’s like a hundred and fifty gallons of gas, maybe more,” Gator said. “Why would these guys store jugs upon jugs of gas in their garage when there’s a station up the street?”

  “You didn’t know these guys,” Colt said. “They couldn’t plan their own way out of bed.”

  Gator shook his head and said, “I don’t know about that.”

  “The last time these guys were together, before Garrity thinned their herd, they were getting high and shooting fruit. They couldn’t even hit a watermelon, that’s how wasted they were.”

  “Let’s head back to town, see what’s what,” Gator said. “If everything is calm, and nothing’s sketchy, then maybe I’ll buy the whole thing about these guys being exactly what they were—just a bunch of innocent hillbillies with aspirations of being preppers, or whatever. But if things are cracking loose, if we see a bunch of looting, rioting, or whatever—guys like this harassing the good people of Nicholasville—then this is going to be our first battlefield of many.”

  “They say that the best soldiers leave the war, but the war never leaves them.”

  “I don’t want this,” Gator said.

  “Sure you don’t.”

  Maybe he did want to see some action again. But the kind of action he was after those days was the kind of action he could get in the sack with a woman like Trixie, or if God shined His eternal light on him, maybe a woman like Faith. He wasn’t sure if Colt was off in his assessment about Trixie, or if he was dead on. Either way, be it the HR or the strawberry-blond, he figured he was bound to do something fun!

  “How did you kill those guys?” Gator asked.

  “First guy was nine-hundred yards out, single shot, took off half his head with the M82. Second guy got his spine blown in half, right behind the breastbone.”

  Gator smiled, gave a little laugh. “When you were shooting the mannequin’s heads up at the range, when you shot them, who did you see in their place?”

  “Keaton Dodd,” Colt turned and said.

  “The war never left you either, bro,” he told his friend. “You just buried it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been unearthed.”

  Up at the house, Colt told Faith he and Gator were going to head into town to figure things out. Gator wandered down to talk to Trixie.

  “So we’re going into town,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Gonna see what’s going on, if what’s happening here is emblematic of some larger issue we need to be concerned with.”

  “I’m blond up here,” she said, touching her hair, “but not down here,” she said, pointing to her privates.

  “Meaning?”

  “I got intelligence. I know the score, what’s what.”

  He grinned, appraising her now, thinking maybe behind those bruises and all that ink, she might be able to clean up alright.

  “Enlighten me,” he said.

  “Grid’s down, power’s gone kaput, society is about to implode. That about right?”

  He nodded, slightly more impressed.

  “We’ve been attacked, but no one knows by who, so we’re out here in the rough, tying our dicks in knots until we’re either attacked again, rounded up, or told what’s going on.”

  “Two for two.”

  “Food is going to get scarce, resources will dwindle, and pretty soon, we’re all going to turn on each other. After that, it’s every man and woman for himself or herself.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Go to town, check things out, do whatever you want.”

  “I want you to save me,” he said.

  “What?” she laughed.

  “Yeah, maybe you save me, I’m like a damsel in distress, but I’m a dude.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You’re something else. And here I was going to tell you not to try to save me.”

  “I’m no hero,” he said with a smirk.

  “Of course you are.”

  “Stay frosty?”

  “Let’s go, Gator,” Colt called out from the Jeep.

  Before he got into the Jeep, Gator nodded a good-bye to Trixie who nodded right back. He then turned and waved at Faith who was kind enough to return the gesture.

  When he got in the Jeep, Gator said, “Is it safe, leaving them alone?”

  “Faith knows to kill first and ask questions later.”

  He nodded, then said, “You know, this is going to get really rough.”

  “That’s like telling me the surface of the sun is hot.”

  Colt drove forward, swung the Jeep around, then pulled up next to Trixie. “You’re welco
me to stay for a few days, maybe longer if we can afford it, but don’t make me regret it.”

  “I won’t,” she said, trying not to bristle.

  “If anything happens to Faith because of you, the first bullet goes through your pretty head.”

  She stared at him and he stared back at her, unblinking. “I liked you better before you shot Keaton,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said.

  When they drove off, Gator said, “See, bro? She’s pretty chill.”

  “She’s chill until she’s not, and then she’s a problem, which means I’ll have to take care of that problem.”

  “Everything’s a problem, Colt. But right now she’s not one of them. And if she becomes one, I’ll take her off your hands, I promise.”

  Colt looked at him; he looked right back.

  “We’ll see,” Colt said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Aaron Westfield

  Aaron sat in his dorm room trying to figure out what to do next. He got out of bed, pushed the photo album of Leighton aside, and got dressed. That’s when he decided on an appropriate course of action. He moved his former roommate’s bed aside, found what he needed.

  His roommate’s name was Jason something or other. As a former Cincinnati native, Jason was a baseball fan and a complete tool. Aaron ran him out of there early in the semester, but for good reason. This douchebag had come home drunk after a party with one of his frat-boy friends. Aaron laid there listening to both of them trying to hold down their vomit. It was three in the morning and Aaron was exceptionally tired, and these idiots were burping up puke and swallowing it again. Finally, Jason got up and puked in the sink.

  Aaron flew out of bed, unable to take it anymore, and punched him in the kidney.

  Half falling down, hanging on the sink, he kept puking. The vomit got all over the floor, and when Jason tried to get away from Aaron, he turned and puked all over the door and the carpet in front of it.

  Aaron kicked open the door, shoved the kid out into the hall, beat him some more.

  “Get your shit worked out, Jason. And when you do, come inside, clean up your puke, and get the hell out of my room.”

  He stalked back inside, looked at the frat kid that Jason came home with. He started to speak, but Aaron grabbed him by the hair and dragged him out of the room. Out in the hallway, he ran with the kid, his legs barely keeping up with his body, and then Aaron tossed him.