by Akart, Bobby
Chapter 37
Science Hill, Kentucky
It had to be Kristi and Tommy guarding the back of the convenience store as the vicious pit bulls roared through the woods in their direction. The two members of the group who’d devoted their lives to protecting and saving animals of all kinds were now facing the unfathomable.
Kristi heard what she thought were horses galloping through the woods. She tilted her head and slowly raised the AR-10 given to her by Isabella. She’d been shown how to use the powerful weapon but had never actually shot it. That was about to change.
“Tommy, they’re coming,” she said in an eerily calm voice.
“But, what?”
Kristi didn’t respond, instead shouting to the others, “Hey! We need help!”
All at once, four of the pit bulls burst from the woods and rushed into the opening. Body after furry body spilled out of the trail. The pits, in all sizes and color variations, had one thing in common—a ravenous appetite for flesh, alive or dead.
The dogs snarled and barked as more emerged, biting at each other, angrily fighting to be the first to feast on the two dead men in front of them. Fur flew, drool sprayed out of their mouths, and teeth gnashed as the first of the pack pounced on the stepfather.
“Shoot them!” shouted Levi as he rounded the corner. He’d seen what voracious eaters canines could be when in a frenzy. He pulled the bolt on his rifle and shot into the pack.
Kristi and Tommy set aside their love for all kinds of animals, whether they were African wildlife or pit bulls trained to kill. They began firing at the dogs.
More of the charging herd spilled out of the woods, diving into the pile of their dead mates to gnaw at the human flesh. Then, inexplicably, two of them broke away from the feeding frenzy and ran north around the building.
Levi gave chase, shouting as he ran, “The horses! They’re going after the horses!”
The faint sound of an owl in the distance struck Kristi as odd, but she continued to fire round after round into the pack of pit bulls until her only twenty-five-round magazine was emptied. She cast the rifle aside and pulled her handgun, taking up a defensive position next to Tommy.
Tommy was more selective in his firing, choosing to aim and acquire a target, a difficult task in the driving rain and darkness. Bravely, he stepped a few paces toward the frenzy and held his fire as he searched the darkness for the last remaining dog. He squeezed the trigger and it was killed instantly.
The owl sound could be heard again, and so was gunfire and shouting.
“Shoot the dogs!”
“They’re taking the horses!”
“Watch out!”
Kristi began to run toward the trees where the horses were kept. “Come on, Tommy! We have to help them!”
Tommy hesitated and then shouted back, “No! I have an idea. Come this way!”
Kristi ran back to join him, and they rushed into the dark woods, following the trail the best they could without falling. Using the tracks in the mud left by the pack of crazed dogs, Tommy pushed forward, the barrel of his rifle leading the way.
More gunshots could be heard, and soon the insanely barking dogs were silenced. However, that didn’t deter Tommy from following up on his hunch. He continued to lead Kristi through the woods until a clearing appeared in front of them.
“Let’s wait here,” he quietly instructed her.
“It’s just a house,” she said.
He nudged her and pointed to their left. The coming daylight provided just enough illumination to reveal the dog runs. He turned back to her and whispered in her ear, “That wasn’t an owl back there. I know owls, and they wouldn’t be communicating in the midst of all this gunfire and dog barking. I think that was a signal of some kind.”
“Somebody was distracting us?” she asked.
“Yeah, to steal our horses. They used the Labrador to distract Carly and Isabella. Why wouldn’t they use the other dogs to distract the rest of us while they went after—”
Kristi clamped her hand over his mouth. “Shhh, I hear something.”
The unmistakable sound of heavy horse hooves tromping through wet turf came from their left. Tommy turned to Kristi and pointed for her to take up a position behind a four-foot-tall stack of firewood. He pointed toward a broken sedan sitting on cinder blocks on the opposite side of the yard.
“Let them come into the middle of the yard and I’ll confront them first. You come out afterwards so they see they’re surrounded.”
“Okay,” she whispered as she ran along the edge of the woods until she reached the woodpile.
Tommy rushed across the open lawn until he slipped near the broken-down car. He quickly regained his composure and crawled around the fender to get into position.
Seconds later, two riders approached on the Boones’ horses. Once they were in the center of the backyard, Tommy burst out from behind the car.
“Stop right there!” he shouted.
William and his sister were not experienced riders, so they were unable to halt their horses. Kristi recognized this immediately, so she charged from behind the woodpile to grab the reins.
She never saw the kids’ inebriated mother emerge from the sliding glass door off the living room. The woman had a .22-caliber rifle and fired wildly into the air. The bullet never had a chance to locate a target, but Tommy’s .308 rounds came closer. He shot three rounds in rapid succession that obliterated the glass doors and embedded in the vinyl siding near the woman.
The woman and her kids screamed; the horses panicked and rose on their back legs, unceremoniously dumping the two kids onto the wet ground. With the remaining family of three crying in fear, Tommy walked briskly to the woman who’d fired the errant shot. He ripped the rifle out of her hands and shook his head in disgust as she lay sprawled on the wood deck with her robe wide open.
“Cover yourself up!” he shouted as he tucked her rifle under his arm. He turned around to assist Kristi, who was struggling to calm the horses. With his rifle trained on the two kids, who were hugging each other on the ground, he shouted at them, “Do you have any weapons?”
“What?” said the girl.
“Guns! Do you have a gun?”
William responded and begged for their lives, “No. No guns. Please don’t kill us.”
“We should kill you!” screamed an irate Kristi, and then pointed at the boy’s waist. “What’s that?”
She’d controlled the horses and handed the reins to Tommy. She stomped through the mud, pointing her handgun at them as she approached. “Stand up! Now!”
The two kids found their way onto their feet. They were crying and barely able to speak. She grabbed the pistol from the kid’s waistband and then turned to the girl. She readily retrieved her weapon from behind her back and gave it to Kristi.
Kristi berated them for a moment and then told them to take their mother inside. They ran through what was left of the sliding door, her mother so drunk and high she didn’t notice the broken glass she was walking through in her bare feet.
“Here comes the cavalry,” said Tommy as two horses arrived carrying Chapman and Levi.
“Y’all good?” asked Levi as he quickly dismounted.
“Yeah,” replied Kristi. “It appeared to be a family enterprise.”
Tommy laughed. “Well, they’re out of business now. Let’s hit the road.”
Chapman looked toward the sky, which was turning from black to gray. The rain pelted his face again. He didn’t have to say the phrase aloud, as they all knew what he was thinking.
Same shit. Different day.
Chapter 38
Volunteer Fire Department
Mount Victory, Kentucky
After more than a week on the road, during which time they’d survived the caving in of the tunnel, a man wielding a gun, a massive hurricane, and then bad people doing bad things with bad dogs, the group had flat-out hit rock bottom—emotionally, mentally, and physically.
For Sarah, the death of Squi
re had been painful in every way. The suddenness of his illness, coupled with the revelation he’d been hiding his pain from her, angered her at first, and she felt guilty for it. Now, as she slowly woke up, she cried. Not just because of the predicament they were in, from losing their home to the ordeal they’d been put through, but because she never really had a chance to say goodbye to her husband. Speaking to the dead at a funeral didn’t count as far as she was concerned.
She rose out of the back seat of a fire engine. It was a proud, majestic shiny apple red machine that once saved the lives of a farmer and his family. Today, it sat inside the Mount Victory Volunteer Fire Department, involuntarily retired like every complex modern machine. Now, it had served as her bedroom for the night.
As she gathered the courage to face another day, she exited the truck and immediately noticed the bay door of the corrugated-steel building had been rolled up. It was already daylight and she shook her head and rolled her eyes as she climbed down the side of the beautiful truck.
Obviously, it had been put out of commission by the geostorm before the house across the street had burned to the ground. The home was still smoldering despite Mother Nature’s own prolific fire-suppression system having doused the flames a day earlier.
She smelled coffee, which immediately brought a smile to her face. Her family greeted her with subdued good mornings and forced smiles. Like her, they were putting on a happy-to-be-here façade. Sarah made her way to the bathroom, where a bucket of water stood ready to assist in flushing the toilet. She sat there for a moment, trying to look back with gratitude at the incredible gifts that had been bestowed upon her family, new friends, and her own health. It gave her some comfort in knowing God had her back.
She rinsed her hands in the bucket full of rainwater and then flushed the toilet by pouring it into the bowl. Once it filled to a certain level, the volume of water triggered the gravity design of the toilet and it flushed itself.
Before getting her morning coffee and engaging the group in small talk, she did a self-assessment of their current circumstances.
Have we hit rock bottom? Is this as bad as it gets?
If she were to base her answer on the looks of the tired, dejected faces of her family huddled around the fire as Isabella and Carly prepared breakfast, the answer would be a resounding yes.
The family still trusted in the plan, and fortunately, for harmony’s sake anyway, nobody had questioned Chapman and Isabella’s advice to leave Riverfront Farms. The constantly rising water was continual evidence to all of them that the planet was being subjected to a massive upheaval. A cataclysm that, in Sarah’s mind, could only have the hands of God all over it.
Certainly, she’d heard whispers between Levi and Carly, the two members of the group she considered to be contrarian—a polite way of saying arguers-in-chief. It was simply their nature to disagree and be somewhat pigheaded during a debate. Sarah smiled as she thought to herself, Just like Squire. She firmly believed Levi would always question the decision to leave their home at Riverfront Farms. Frankly, had he not been instrumental in approving their choice of destination in the Cumberland Gap, their ancestors’ old stomping grounds, he and his family might have refused to leave.
Sarah recalled the phrase Levi had introduced to the family. Words inscribed on the back of a compass he’d retrieved from the dead pilot in Canada. Every adventure requires a first step. Well, Sarah would add her own ditty to those words. Like any good adventure, it’s only worthwhile if you come back smarter and stronger.
There were solid lessons and wisdom to be garnered from what they’d been through since Squire’s death. One of those was the realization their days at Riverfront Farms had been numbered one way or the other.
She’d always thought they’d stretched their finances through the purchases of the old Boone lands surrounding Riverfront Farms. Squire had been hell-bent on establishing some kind of legacy, not satisfied with the one he had under his feet already. Regardless, she’d agreed, which made her equally culpable in putting the family in a financial pickle with Bully Billy, the functional equivalent of a Vlasic slicing machine.
Nonetheless, the demise of the American power grid may or may not have saved the farm, but the hand of God and the epic flood He created certainly would have taken it. Sarah sighed as Kristi noticed her standing alone. Her quiet time to reflect on where they’d come from was over. It was time to focus on the future. Maybe, she thought to herself, her family was feeling the same way. Perhaps they needed a pep talk.
“Mom, are you okay?” asked Kristi as she brought her a mug of coffee. “Carly made it, so beware, it’ll grow hair on your chest.”
The two women shared a laugh as Sarah took her first sip. She pulled her sweatshirt away from her neck and stared down to her chest. “Sure enough, it’s sproutin’ out of there like daffodils in the spring.”
Kristi laughed so hard she snorted coffee through her nostrils. Sarah couldn’t help herself as she did the same, and then oddly, both women started to cry.
But they weren’t tears of sadness. True, they were emotional, but mostly, they came from the heart. They immediately hugged each other and then, embarrassed by their sudden breakdown, laughed and teased one another.
The rest of the group looked in their direction, trying to discern what had just happened between mother and daughter. Nobody would be able to understand if the two women tried to explain it. The bond they shared was one Carly would share with Rachel one day, but not until they were much older. When a daughter approached a certain age, like forty, suddenly she and her mom became somewhat like sisters. Kristi’s absence from home had prevented that new phase in their relationship from developing until now.
“How is everybody this fine morning?” began a now chipper Sarah. “Great coffee, Carly. Thank you for fixing it. I guess the comfy, cozy back seat of a fire truck was just what my old bones needed to sleep in.”
As Isabella doled out the oatmeal to everyone, Sarah walked just outside the building and reached down to grab a handful of limestone rock that made up the driveway to the building. She walked back to a group of curious eyes.
With a slight smile, she dropped the rocks on the floor at their feet and gently kicked them with her toe to spread them out. Then she began to speak.
“Rock bottom. Does everyone know what I mean by that?”
Most nodded, a couple shrugged, and the kids, who were playing with Brooke on a ladder truck, didn’t care.
Chapman was the first to speak. “Sure, Mom. What are you saying?”
“By a show of hands, how many of you think we’ve hit rock bottom? I mean right here, right now.”
Carly and Kristi raised their hands.
“How many of you think rock bottom was the day we pulled out of the farm?”
She and Levi raised their hands.
“How many of you think rock bottom may still be up ahead?”
Chapman and Tommy raised their hands.
Isabella was the only one who didn’t render an opinion, so she explained her feelings. “My grandfather told me the best day to be alive is tomorrow. As long as I am still breathing, there is no rock bottom. When I stop breathing, well, it is at that point that I know I cannot go any lower.”
“Come here,” said Sarah, gesturing with her arms for Isabella to join her side. “I knew from the moment I met you that you were a special person.” She hugged Isabella and then turned back to the group.
“I woke up this morning feeling sorry for myself. I missed my husband. I regretted being mad at him for not telling me sooner about his illness. And I was incredibly sad I never got to say goodbye.
“I thought I’d hit rock bottom, too. I realized, though, after reaching what I thought was my lowest point, I started to take stock of my life. All of our lives, really. I considered the fact our situation can and will get better. Are we going to face challenges and adversity? Absolutely. Even after we get settled, life won’t be easy.
“That said, the gems
mined in the darkest moments of our journey are what give us courage to persevere, wisdom to make good choices, and a richness that can’t be given by money.
“We can all sit here feeling sorry for ourselves. To that I say, all you’re gonna do is chafe your butt.”
Chapman chuckled. “If you saw mine, Mom, you’d realize it’s been like that since we left the farm. Saddle sores are a bitch!”
“TMI, brother!” teased Kristi.
“Don’t laugh. I’m right there with ya, man,” added Tommy.
Everyone started laughing as they overshared the conditions of their buttocks, from skin abrasions to an acne-like rash to Chapman finally admitting he had a boil on his butt.
This last revelation blew the doors off Sarah’s otherwise serious pep talk, but in a way, it served its purpose. The distraught and dejected travelers lifted their spirits and were soon talking about the days ahead and the last sixty miles or so to Middlesboro, where they would enter the Cumberland Gap.
Chapter 39
Daniel Boone National Forest
Kentucky
Levi and Chapman took their turn at driving ahead in the Mustang that day. It had been a truly valuable resource, enabling the group to send scouts out in front of the slowly moving covered wagon and horses. In addition, the Ford Econoline, now referred to as the Scooby van, was pulling the horse trailer with a recovering patient—the horse injured by the metal roof panel. Kristi and Tommy were diligent about caring for the horse’s wound and were pleased with her progress. However, the trauma had left her weak, and she required transportation in the trailer. The slow pace of the wagon was an overall benefit to the other horses’ recovery, too.
Levi was concerned with the intersection of the two-lane highway with the Rockcastle River. The massive presence of the Laurel River Lake, which was fed, in part, by the Cumberland River, dictated their route.