Eastwood: Book Two in The No Direction Home Series

by Mike Sheridan

  At the end pump, an old blue station wagon was parked. It appeared to have been abandoned. Someone must have been low on gas and pulled in here, she presumed. When they couldn’t get the pumps going, they must have headed off on foot.

  She dismounted the Honda and pulled out her Glock, then walked cautiously over to the vehicle. Peering in through the window, she confirmed it was unoccupied. No dead bodies inside. The back seat was stacked with cardboard boxes. Looking closer, she saw that they were laden with cans of food, boxes of spaghetti, packs of instant noodles, and chocolate bars.

  Who on Earth would leave their food behind like that?

  She was about to step away when a woman’s shrill voice rang out. “Stop right there, mister! Move one inch and I’ll blow you to pieces.”

  Simone froze. Still wearing her helmet and a motorcycle jacket, she realized the woman had mistaken her for a man. That only made the situation more dangerous.

  “Drop that pistol on the ground,” the woman ordered, her voice crackling harshly. “Real slow, you hear?”

  Simone bent over and placed her Glock down on the forecourt’s asphalt surface.

  “All right, turn around.”

  Simone turned to see a woman step out from around the corner of the building, a double-barreled shotgun raised to her shoulder. Perhaps seventy years of age, she had squirrel-gray hair that was tied up in a bun, and wore a pair of faded dungaree overalls over a white cotton blouse. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a strap at her chest.

  “D-don’t shoot, ma’am,” Simone said anxiously. “I’m not going to cause any trouble.”

  The woman took another step forward. Her bushy eyebrows scrunched up as she looked Simone up and down. “Is that a girl’s voice I hear? Take off your helmet, dammit. Let me get a look at you.”

  Simone did as she was told, and lifted off her helmet.

  “I’ll be damned!” the woman exclaimed as Simone’s dark curls cascaded to one side of her face. “Why, you don’t look more than fifteen years old. Where the hell did you come from?”

  “I’m from Charlotte. And I’ll be sixteen in August.”

  The old lady took this all in. “Still no excuse to go stealing someone’s food,” she said sternly, keeping the shotgun pointed at Simone. “I wasn’t gone more than a minute to take a pee around the back when I heard your motorcycle. Soon as I popped my head around the corner, there you were about to steal my stuff.”

  “I was just taking a look!” Simone protested. “I thought your car was abandoned.” She gestured over to her motorbike. “I got my own food. I don’t have room for any more.”

  “A likely story,” the woman said with a snort. “Why would you think my car was abandoned? Can’t you see I drove here to gas up?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But the pumps don’t work, not since the power went down. That’s why I thought it got left here.”

  The old lady grimaced. “Can’t say you’re wrong there. Never occurred to me the pumps wouldn’t work until I tried them.”

  A brief smile came over Simone’s face. “Me too, the first time.” She hesitated. “Ma’am, can I put my hands down now?”

  The woman stared at her a moment, considering things. “I guess I can trust you. You seem sweet enough.” She lowered the shotgun. “Go on, child. Pick up your gun.”

  “Thank you,” Simone said gratefully. She stooped down and picked up her Glock, shoving it back inside her jacket pocket.

  The old lady came over to the vehicle and rested her shotgun against the tailgate. “See? I trust you.”

  “Ma’am, where are you from?” Simone asked curiously. “And where you heading to?”

  “I’m from a farm near Clemson, not more than fifteen miles from here. My husband, son, and his entire family died last week. I’ve been on my own for the past ten days.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. How come you’re alone? Did none of your neighbors survive?”

  “A few of the smart ones did. Families that took precautions as soon as they found out what was going on. They barricaded themselves into their farms and wouldn’t let anyone within five hundred yards of their properties. Last time I tried visiting one, they shot at me. Damn well nearly killed me too.”

  “Why?” Simone asked, puzzled. “You obviously aren’t infected.”

  “They were worried I might be a carrier,” the old lady explained. “There was talk on the radio that those who are immune to vPox can still spread the disease.” She shrugged. “I guess I understand. They’re just protecting their families. Still, it left me awful lonely. That’s why I packed up and left today. Thought I’d better go search for some fellow survivors. You know, others like me, immune to this damned thing.” She stared at Simone keenly. “How about you, child? What’s your story?”

  Simone took a deep breath before speaking. “I was living with my father when the pandemic started. After he died, I lived on the supplies I took from our local corner store. When I went out to get more, all the stores were empty and the supermarkets were under armed guard.”

  “Under armed guard? By who? The Army? The police?”

  “No, by street gangs. And if you’re not part of a gang, you don’t eat. Simple as that.”

  The woman glanced over at Simone’s motorbike. “So you joined one, I take it. Else you wouldn’t have all that food you told me about, would you?”

  Simone shook her head firmly. “I got my food the hard way. I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

  The woman stared at her. “For someone so young, you sure know how to take care of yourself.”

  Simone shrugged. “My father was a police officer. He taught me stuff. How to shoot, how to stay out of trouble, what to do if I got into it. I guess that’s helped.”

  “I’ll say. Tell me, where are you traveling to?”

  “Gainesville. I have family there. I’m just praying some of them are still alive.” Simone thought for a moment. “You can come with me if you want.”

  The old lady brightened at her proposition. “Sounds like a good plan. Trouble is…” She banged the roof of the station wagon with the flat of her hand. “I can’t get no gas into this damned thing. Reckon I got enough to take me another twenty miles. That won’t get me to Gainesville, that’s for sure.”

  Simone pointed to her Honda. “My motorcycle is big enough to take both of us. How about you grab some food and spare clothes, and ride with me?”

  The old lady stared at Simone, her eyes widening. Then she let out a loud cackle. “A teenager and an old granny riding the freeway on two wheels. That’ll be a rare sight. All right, young lady. Count me in. It’s not like I got much in the way of choices.”

  CHAPTER 12

  At Camp Benton, Rollins had convened an emergency meeting. Sitting with him around the staffroom table were Bert Olvan, Mary Sadowski, and Henry Perter.

  All four faces were creased with worry. Ninety minutes ago, after receiving Ned Granger’s frantic radio message, Rollins and a group of eight men had rushed out of the camp in two pickups. Twenty minutes later, coming around a bend on the Sloans Gap Road, they’d encountered Granger’s blue Nissan parked fifty yards ahead.

  A devastating scene lay before them. Joe Meyer’s motionless body slumped over the Nissan’s bedside panel, while just yards away, Bob Harper lay sprawled face down in the grass. Both men were riddled with bullets. Approaching the vehicle, they discovered Marcus Welby inside the blood-splattered cabin.

  Ned Granger was nowhere to be seen, and the men immediately commenced a search of the area. Rollins also radioed the North Cookson checkpoint, telling the guards to keep an eye out for Granger in case he was making his way back to the camp on foot.

  After a fruitless thirty-minute search, two men picked up Bob Harper and placed him in the back of the Titan alongside Joe Macey. Then Marcus Welby was taken out of the cab and put in the back too. Leaving four men to continue the search for Granger, the rest of the group returned to Camp Benton.

  On the way back,
Rollins got on the radio again, with orders that no one was to leave the camp. He’d gotten in touch with both Cookson checkpoints and instructed them to return immediately. Their positions were far too exposed for a situation like this until he had a better idea of what was going on. Arriving back at camp, Rollins keyed in to the Wasson Lodge channel to inform Chris about the dismantling of the checkpoints, telling him to be on high alert for gang activity in the area.

  Henry Perter leaned back in his chair and checked his watch for the umpteenth time. “Where the hell is he? It’s been nearly two hours,” he said worriedly. He and Granger had been close friends before the pandemic, and the strain of the situation was affecting him the most. His nervous disposition didn’t help either. “If he escaped through the forest, he should have made it back by now.”

  “Unless he was too badly injured,” Bert Olvan replied. “In which case…”

  Mary Sadowski frowned. “You sure there was no sign of a blood trail leading anywhere?”

  ”We checked both sides of the road. There was blood leading up to the forest edge,” Rollins responded, “a few feet past where Bob lay, then it just stopped.”

  Sadowski raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  Rollins shrugged. No one at the camp was an expert tracker. It had been impossible to know exactly what had occurred during the shootout. “Maybe it was Bob’s, and he turned back for some reason.”

  “Why would he do that?” Sadowski asked. “Anyway, didn’t you tell me he was facing in the direction of the forest?”

  Rollins nodded. “Perhaps he tried to surrender. Perhaps they kept shooting and he tried to run off again. The thing I don’t understand is, why they were attacked in the first place? Nothing was taken. Not the truck, nor any weapons. It makes no sense.”

  “They must have bumped into a gang, and for whatever reason got caught up in a gunfight,” Olvan said. “There’s plenty of desperate people roaming the area these days. God knows I’ve seen enough of them myself on guard duty.” He turned to Rollins. “By the way, John, withdrawing our men from the checkpoints was the smart thing to do. No point exposing them while there’s people like that out there.”

  Since dismantling the checkpoints, Rollins had beefed up security on the camp perimeter. Five hundred yards up the camp driveway, Papa Three was no longer an observation point but a well-guarded checkpoint, and now the official entranceway in and out of Camp Benton.

  Mary Sadowski, who had been staring off into the distance for the past minute, chose that moment to speak again. “There’s another possibility. Something we haven’t discussed yet.”

  All three men faced her.

  “Go on,” Rollins said. “What?”

  “Maybe whoever killed our men took Ned with them.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  “Mary, why in hell’s name would they do something like that?” Olvan asked incredulously.

  Sadowski stared back at him. “For information, Bert. Maybe they’re planning on taking this camp.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Back at Old Fort, Mason and Russ sat at the garden table drinking beers. Inside the house and under guard, Tania was fixing up their prisoner’s wounds. None were life threatening, so long as he didn’t bleed to death. Once they learned all they could from him, Ned could bleed out all he liked as far as Mason was concerned. In fact, he might even help him out.

  The group hadn’t stayed long at the ambush point. Walking over to Ned, Russ had found a two-way radio lying in the grass nearby and told Mason they needed to move it, and fast. Four men dragged the sapling off the road, concealing it behind the tree line, then bundled their prisoner into the back of Mason’s pickup, and raced all the way back to Old Fort.

  Sipping on his beer, Mason thought for a moment about Russ. Sly, furtive, with a constant smirk on his lips, Mason had come to rely on him more and more since his arrival in the Cohutta. While at first it had simply been because he knew the area, it had quickly become more than that. Without a doubt, Russ was the smartest man on his crew, and his natural understanding of tactics was something Mason was increasingly becoming more reliant on.

  As if reading his mind, Russ chose that moment to speak up. “I was thinking, Mason. Maybe we ought to make another trip to the lake before taking the lodge tonight.”

  “What for?”

  “To make a hit and run on the sheriff’s two roadblocks. Once we take the lodge, I doubt they’ll keep them there. This might be our last chance to pick off some more of his men.” Russ grinned. “Let’s whittle them down to a stump.”

  Mason stared at him. “You know, for a scrawny little runt, you got a hell of a devious mind.”

  Russ smirked. “Us scrawny runts generally do.”

  “All right,” Mason said with a chuckle. “This afternoon we’ll take a crew back up there, see if we can’t have a little more fun.”

  He stared up at the skies, where earlier a thick bank of rainclouds had drifted in from the east. It boded well for what was to come that evening. Poor visibility would favor the gang during their attack.

  “Go fetch the map,” he told Russ. “I want to go over the plan again. Once we take the lodge, then we can concentrate on Camp Benton, as Ned calls it. By the way, you’ll need to work him hard. Make sure he gives up everything he knows about the place.”

  Russ grinned. “Don’t worry, if need be I can always make a run into town for a blow torch and pliers,” he joked. “That’ll get him talking.”

  “Fetch them,” Mason grunted. “He’s a tough bastard. We’re probably going to need them.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The second leg of Simone’s journey got off to a shaky start. Unaccustomed to her new companion’s weight at the back, the initial takeoff out of the gas station lot caused the Honda to wobble dangerously.

  “Slow down, dammit!” Marcie, as Simone learned her cantankerous friend was called, yelled in her ear. “You’re going to get us both killed!”

  Simone ignored her elder and better’s advice. Instead, she pulled back on the throttle and the momentum from the powerful 250cc engine allowed the machine to right itself. Surprisingly, once they picked up speed on the highway, she found the motorbike no harder to ride than before.

  It took under two hours for the pair to reach Gainesville. Arriving at the southern outskirts of the town, Simone took the exit for Route 129 that would take them through Pendergrass, Talmo, then into the city. Thinking about the countless times she and her father had driven here together made her choke up with emotion. She had to flip open her visor and wipe away the tears that had misted up her vision.

  Fifteen minutes later, she passed the familiar Motel 6 on her right, then two hundred yards farther, drove under the I-985 overpass. Soon after, they arrived in the city center, where she swung right onto the deserted Jesse Jewell Parkway and headed north.

  The city didn’t have much in the way of fancy shopping options. Both sides of the highway consisted mainly of convenience stores, drugstores, discount stores, beauty supply stores, and grungy low-rise apartment blocks. Gainesville hadn’t been an affluent town. One in three residents had never completed high school, and that included her uncle.

  After a couple of miles, they reached the neighborhood of New Holland. A few blocks past the Baptist church, Simone turned onto Cornelia Street, then after a hundred yards took the first right onto Ridge Street.

  At the top of the block she drew up beside a shabby, one-story, ranch style house. “Well, this is it,” she said over her shoulder to Marcie.

  In the driveway was a beat up pale blue Pontiac, and parked on the lawn an even older Ford pickup with more rust on it than paint.

  Simone pointed over to them. “Those are both my uncle’s cars. Looks like no one’s left town.”

  Marcie stared at them dubiously. “I’m not so sure if that’s a good sign.” She clambered stiffly off the back seat and shrugged off her pack, placing it on the ground by the Honda’s back wheel, while holding onto her shot
gun, which she’d kept across her lap the entire journey. “All right child, let’s go take a look. Just don’t expect too much.”

  The two walked up the driveway past several folded metal chairs stacked to one side of the porch. Simone rapped lightly on the front door, then a second time. No one answered. The door was locked, the curtains drawn on both windows.

  “Let’s go around the back,” she said, her heart beating fast.

  With Marcie in tow, she trod up the narrow footpath that ran along the side of the house. At the end, a wooden gate led into the large, untidy garden. Passing through it, she spotted the metal swing where she used to push her cousin Brandon before chasing him around the overgrown shrubbery, and felt a lump in her throat. Everything looked the same as the last time she’d been here. That had been two months ago.

  One thing had changed, though. Coming around the corner of the house, she stopped in her tracks. On the back lawn were three recent graves. Each had a wooden cross planted in the freshly dug earth.

  Marcie came to a halt beside her. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “How many were in the family?”

  “Four,” Simone said in a tight voice. “My uncle and aunt, Chloe and…” she pointed to the smaller of the three graves, “Brandon. He was only seven.”

  That still left one more person. Someone strong enough to dig three graves.

  “Wait there.” Simone ran over to the back door. She turned the handle and it opened right away. Stepping inside, her heart sank as a familiar stench pervaded her senses, and she had to hold her nose to stop herself from gagging.

  She walked through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living room. Curled up in a fetal position on the couch was a fully dressed adult male. He wore muddy boots, his jeans caked in mud. Despite the ravaged and decomposing face, Simone recognized him instantly. With a sob, she turned around and ran back down the hall again.