“Why did they have to park in the road?” Robert grumbled. “I’m pretty sure this is probably not one of the approved campsites either.”
“You think that really matters anymore?” Jeff asked, looking at Robert like he was idiot. “You’ve been cutting locks and bypassing gates all day.”
“The main road is on the other side of these vehicles, according to the map. That’s exactly where we’re headed,” Sonyea said. “They probably came in from that side and didn’t expect people to show up here.”
“Is there another road?” Robert asked. “Any way around?”
“There’s no other road unless we backtrack a long way.”
“Backtracking is wasting fuel,” Robert said. “We only have so much and I’m not certain it’s even enough to do what we need to do. We have to get around them if we can.”
“Then go ask,” Sonyea suggested. “Maybe they’ll let us slip through. Not everything has to end violently. There’s probably still room for some discussion and negotiation in this world.”
“I hate to take the chance,” Robert said. “We don’t know what kind of people they are. It could end badly.”
“Guess you’re going to find out. Someone’s coming this way,” Jeff said.
Sonyea and Robert had been distracted mulling over the map and hadn’t noticed two men striding toward them. Both had rifles in their hands but not pointed in their direction, more curious than cautious. That was probably a normal reaction to someone showing up at your campsite in a remote area. Almost simultaneously, there were two metallic clicks within the Razer as both Sonyea and Robert released the safeties on their weapons.
Sonyea had a flannel shirt in the back that she’d been wearing earlier in the day. She tossed it into Jeff’s lap. “Cover those cuffs. Now!”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jeff hissed. “I’m defenseless here. I’m a sitting duck.”
“That goes for you too—nothing stupid,” Robert said. “Now sit back and shut up.” He threw a hand up and waved at the approaching men. It was a casual wave, like men passing on a country road, but it felt anything but casual.
One of the men waved back, not smiling but not unfriendly. He looked to be in his thirties with long hair and a beard. He was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. Despite the normality of that outfit, it looked odd to Robert after seeing nothing but camo, military, and tactical clothing for the last few days. The other man, wearing jeans and a NASCAR shirt, hung back and didn’t approach the vehicle.
The man coming up on Robert’s side appeared more interested in the Razer than Robert. “I always wanted one of these,” he said. “Fast, aren’t they?”
Robert nodded. “It’ll move along.”
“What the hell you doing out here running around the woods? You hunting? And where did you get gas for this thing?”
Robert shrugged. “We haven’t been able to get any gas. We’re just running on what we had left at the house. We’re not hunting. This is my wife and son. We’re trying to reach my mother-in-law.” It sounded like the best story. Something nearly everyone could relate to, trying to reach family.
The man cast an eye around the vehicle at Robert’s “family.” “Not sure I’d be running toward my mother-in-law. More likely I’d be running the other way.”
Robert forced a laugh. “Family has to pull together in hard times. Even with those family members you don’t particularly care for.”
The man in the black t-shirt was still examining them in detail. His eyes wandered across the passengers, their clothing, and the items sitting around them. Then his gaze wandered to the packs, the plastic totes of gear, and the multiple jerry cans of fuel. He pointed at the fuel cans. “Any of those full? We’d pay good money for a can of gas. We got fish and meat to trade.”
“I appreciate the offer but I can’t spare any,” Robert said. “I’m not even sure I have enough to get to my mother-in-law’s house. It’s going to be tight.”
The man looked more disappointed than angry. His eyes wandered to take in the wooded valley, his expression that of a man regarding a dream home that’s turned into a money pit. “We decided to come up here where the game was better until things get back to normal. Thought we’d have a better chance getting by. Figured we could at least put food on the table. I ain’t so sure now that it was the best move.”
“Why’s that?” Robert asked.
“We burned up what fuel we had looking for game trails. Now we’re doing it all on foot and it’s a lot harder. This is big country out here and it’ll wear a man down traipsing these hills all day long. Something like this Razer would make it a lot easier.”
As the man said it, Robert could see an idea take shape in his eyes. He’d put together that he could probably take this vehicle from these strangers and turn them out on foot. Who was there to stop him? What could they do about it? So pleasing was the vision unveiling itself in his mind’s eye that he couldn’t keep a faint smile from curling the edges of his mouth. That was when Robert understood he had a short window in which to get this back on track before it got ugly.
“We were hoping to get by those vehicles of yours and be on our way,” Robert said, trying to redirect the man. “This is kind of an emergency. We have people waiting on us. So if you could just help us out here and get those out of the way, we’ll get out of your hair.”
“Those people of yours might be waiting a long time,” the man replied.
Robert’s chest tightened and his blood ran cold. “Why do you say that?”
The man gave a smile that bore no sincerity. “Those vehicles won’t move without gas. Now if you’d traded us some, I might could have moved them. Things being what they are, I reckon we’ll just leave them be.”
Robert frowned and looked around the windshield toward the vehicles. “Can’t you push them?”
The man’s expression revealed what he thought of that suggestion. “Probably could but I think I like them right where they are. I push them somewhere else, I have to walk farther if I need something out of them. That inconveniences me, you see. But maybe if you were to pay a toll—like a can of gas—we might be inclined to help you out. What do you say?”
Robert tried to gauge the man. It was a standoff now. As much as the idea burned his ass, should he go along with it? There was an inherent risk in it. They still might be surrounded and all their fuel taken. If he gave up anything at all, where did it stop? They might be killed for their vehicle or for the totes of food. He needed to get out of here. All of this talk was going nowhere. Negotiation was a waste of time.
“I think we’ll just be on our way,” Robert said. “Thanks and good luck to you.”
The man at Robert’s side still had his hand on the roll cage and Robert noticed the grip tightening, as if the man was so desperate to keep them there that he thought he could hold the vehicle in place. He was searching for words, looking for a new angle, for anything he could say to get Robert out of the vehicle, when a third man emerged from between two of the campers.
“Who the hell is that?” the man snarled.
It was at this point that Jeff did something completely unexpected. He shrugged the flannel shirt from his lap and yanked his handcuffed hands up as far as his bonds would allow. He showed them to the man at Robert’s door.
“Please help me,” he begged. “I’m not his son. These people kidnapped me. They’re going to kill me.”
Robert was taken by surprise. He’d lost control of the situation. Everything began moving in slow motion. He whipped his head from Jeff’s direction toward the man at his side of the vehicle. He saw horror and surprise on the man’s face. Then the stranger’s eyes rolled down to catch his and a decision was made. The man began hauling his rifle up toward his shoulder.
“Noooo!” Robert roared. His AR pistol was laying across his lap with the safety off, pointed right toward the door and toward the man on the other side of it. Without even raising the weapon, he squeezed off three rounds, shooting right th
rough the plastic door. At least one of the rounds found flesh because the man screamed and back-stepped, collapsing on the deep moss behind him. The man writhed on the ground, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his bleeding thigh and groin.
The sound of gunfire exploded in the peaceful valley. NASCAR man, standing just ahead of the vehicle, was desperately working the bolt-action of his own rifle when Sonyea fired a hastily-aimed shotgun blast over the roll cage. It was not a direct hit but staggered the man, forcing him to drop the rifle as he fell to the ground.
There were shouts and screams from people around the campers that they couldn’t see. In seconds there could be dozens of weapons on them. Robert was paralyzed with fear and frustration.
“Go! Go!” Sonyea yelled. “Get us out of here!”
Robert shifted to reverse and punched the throttle. The racks and gear blocked his vision, forcing him to hang his head out the door to get a clear view behind them. A sound of warning from Sonyea made him glance forward and he saw two men at the campsite raising rifles in their direction.
Still reversing, he raised the AR pistol with one hand, resting it on the roll cage above the windshield, and pulled off three hasty shots. They were nowhere close to hitting anyone but they scattered the men.
Sonyea knew they were still sitting ducks. “Give me that,” she said, unfastening her seatbelt and leaning forward to grab Robert’s AR pistol.
“Safety is OFF!” Robert warned her, but she was already shooting before he was finished with the sentence.
Standing in the back seat, Sonyea dumped rounds at the riflemen, trying to force them behind cover so they couldn’t get a decent shot at the Razer. Backing up this straight, narrow road, it wouldn’t take any skill at all for a shooter to put a couple of rounds through the windshield. She couldn’t let anyone get that shot.
Finally hitting a wide spot in the road, Robert spun the wheel hard to the left, making a sharp bootlegger turn. He’d failed to warn Sonyea and she went flying, hitting the roll cage, and sagging to the floor. She was still healing from the injuries she’d sustained fighting Gamma Ray at her farm and the pain took her breath. She collapsed in the back seat, holding her ribs, the AR pistol clattering to the floor.
Sonyea was crying and cursing, struggling for breath, but Robert couldn’t focus on her. He shifted to Forward and hit the gas, wheels spinning as the vehicle sought traction on the damp ground. He threw a quick glance at the rearview mirror, trying to spot his friend but she was not in his view, curled in the floor.
“Sonyea! You okay?”
When she didn’t respond, he spun in his seat, wanting to see how she was doing but not wanting to take his eyes from the road long enough that they might run up a tree. He found her red-faced, eyes filled with tears, struggling to catch a breath.
“You okay?” he repeated, turning back around just in time to slide around the first of the switchbacks taking them back up the mountain from which they’d just come.
“Eyes on the road!” Jeff screamed. “You’re going too fast and there’s no guardrail. You go over, we’re dead.”
Robert hit the brakes and skidded to a stop. He could see the road beneath them and there were no pursuers yet. He looked behind him. “Are you okay, Sonyea?”
She nodded, her eyes closed. When he turned back to the road, Robert caught Jeff out of the corner of his eye. This was all his fault. Before he could stop himself, he backhanded Jeff with a hammer fist, catching him below the left eye socket.
“What the hell, dude?” Jeff cried, bending over and cradling his face.
“This is your fault,” Robert hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you right now. Do you think I won’t? Do you think I’m playing around?”
When Jeff didn’t answer, Robert fired another fist at the side of the man’s head, causing him to cry out and flinch away from him.
“I don’t think you’re playing!” Jeff yelled. “I don’t. Quit hitting me. I’m sorry.”
Robert grabbed Jeff by the hair. “You get one of us hurt again and I’ll drag you behind this vehicle until there’s nothing left of you. I swear to God I will.”
“I hear you!” Jeff sobbed.
A hand on Robert’s shoulder got his attention. It was Sonyea. He caught her eyes.
“Drive,” she whispered. “Keep moving. We can deal with him later.”
They stopped at a natural clearing high on the mountain with vistas that went for hundreds of miles in all directions. In the distance, power line right-of-ways traced wide swaths across rolling hills, the towers bearing useless wiring that provided nothing now but a resting place for birds. They were perhaps only five miles from where the shootout occurred but they’d followed a convoluted path in their retreat. Hopefully the men they’d run into were being honest about not having gas and would be unable to search for them. Without vehicles, it was unlikely anyone would hike those steep switchbacks just to track them down.
Sonyea lay on the ground beside the Razer, stretched out on a sleeping bag. She’d taken acetaminophen and was waiting for the pain to subside to a tolerable level before they got on the road again. Robert was drinking water from a Nalgene bottle and studying the map. With their planned route to Highway 64 blocked by the vehicles they’d just encountered, he needed to find an alternative route as soon as possible. Every minute they were delayed, he imagined the caravan of families bypassing them and driving into what would soon be a battle for possession of Arthur’s compound.
As much as he hated himself for it, the idea had entered his mind that he could just keep going and drive in the direction of home. He had no idea how far this fuel would get him but any movement north would be progress. He wouldn’t do it, though. He was determined to help his friends and be a better person. Still, it was hard to force the idea from his head. The more he tried to not think about home, the more he found himself thinking about it.
“Hey, I need to take a bathroom break,” Jeff said.
Robert glared at him. At Sonyea’s prompting, he’d reluctantly given the young man a bottle of water. His preference was leaning toward just killing Jeff and being done with it. Robert still felt like he could have talked his way through the situation on the road if Jeff hadn’t whipped out his cuffs and claimed to be a kidnap victim. While technically he was a kidnap victim, hadn’t he agreed to this? Hadn’t he come along willingly to help save his family?
An idea hit Robert like a bad smell. It was an utterly disgusting revelation. To some extent, he and Jeff were alike. They were both struggling with trying to do the right thing. They were both weighing selfishness against selflessness. They were weighing what they wanted to be against what they needed to do. Both of them were regularly coming up short. It reminded Robert of that old saying that the things that bothered you most in other people were sometimes the things that reminded you of yourself. The thought that he and Jeff were similar was disturbing to him. If anything, it should encourage him to strive harder to be a better man. He hoped that was true.
“I just gave you that water,” Robert said. “It go right through you or something?”
“I don’t need to pee,” Jeff said, lowering his voice and throwing an embarrassed look in Sonyea’s direction. “Must be all this bouncing around or something. I’m not sure how long I can wait.”
“Geez,” Robert groaned. He folded the map and dropped it in the driver’s seat, then pulled a twelve foot length of chain from a bag strapped into the back of the Razer.
Before unhooking Jeff’s cuffs from the grab handles, he fastened the chain to the cuffs with a padlock, and then released them from the grab handle. Robert drew his gun and stepped away from the passenger door. “You’re going to walk over there to that poplar tree. I’m going to wrap this chain around the tree and secure it with a padlock. Then you can take care of your business. Holler when you’re done.”
Jeff eased out of the vehicle and scanned his surroundings. “Which tree?”
Robert pointed
. “That one.”
Jeff started in that direction and Robert hung back, ready to do whatever had to be done if Jeff tried to make a break for it. When they got to the tree, Robert ordered Jeff to stand about eight feet away while he padlocked the chain around the tree. When Robert was done, Jeff extended his cuffed hands toward Robert.
Robert shook his head. “No way, man.”
Jeff looked disappointed. “Dude, really?”
“Really.”
“How am I supposed to do what needs to be done?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“TP?”
“Nature will provide.”
“Dude, that’s messed up,” Jeff said, revolted. “We’re men, not animals.”
“Animals don’t use anything. Grass is a step above the animals.”
“Well, it’s one hell of a step down from Charmin.”
Robert walked off. “Deal with it or use your sock,” he called back. “Not my problem.”
He could hear grumbling behind him as he went back to the Razer. He got the map and sat down in the grass, leaning back against the plastic door. He looked over at Sonyea and saw her eyes were open. “You doing any better?”
“A little,” she said. “I should be fine in a few. The Tylenol is taking the edge off.”
“You’re a tough woman.”
“Don’t feel so tough now.”
“You know, he could have got us killed.”
“A lot of things could have killed us,” Sonyea said. “He’s just one of them. But we’re still here.”
“Here we are having to go the long way around, thanks to him.”
Compound Fracture Page 11