by Bruno Miller
“That’s okay. Stick to the plan. Over.”
“Looks like a pickup and a small dump truck. Over.”
“Roger that. Over.”
Ben had a feeling the dying man’s last words were as worthless as he was. This was precisely why Ben had laid the trap the way he had. As long as they all came to him and were close together, it wouldn’t matter if there were 100 of them. He just hoped he had been convincing enough on the radio for them to buy into the plan.
The last thing he wanted was for the people to get off the bridge and split up.
“The loader moved the last car. They’re through the roadblock. Loader is parking across both lanes blocking the bridge. Now the driver is out and getting into the first car. Here they come. Over.”
“Good. Let me know when they pass your position. Over.” Ben was that this part, at least, was going to plan.
The loader was crucial to them getting out of here, and he’d been afraid they might drive it all the way over to him. He didn’t want the loader anywhere near the explosion for fear the blast would destroy it. A ruined loader wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would mean going all the way back over to the quarry and having to find another working loader to use.
That was time Ben would rather spend putting miles between them and this place. He was already disappointed at the amount of time this whole ordeal had cost them.
Please, God, let this go as planned. Ben took a few deep breaths and got ready for what was about to go down.
“They’re all coming, but the car is way out in front of the others. Going fast. It’s a guy and a woman. Over,” Joel said on the radio.
“Roger that. Over.” It must have been the woman on the radio, and Levi, who Ben presumed was the leader of this sick bunch of criminals.
“The car is passing us now. Pickup and dump truck not far behind. Over.”
Ben turned the volume down on both handheld radios. Hopefully the man and woman wouldn’t get here too far ahead of the others. He needed them all in the same spot for this to work.
“Pickup and dump truck passing now. Over.”
“Roger that. Now sit tight until you hear from me. Over.” Ben’s eyes were fixed on the road as he waited for the first vehicle to come around the bend.
He didn’t have to wait long before he could hear the rumble of a vehicle approaching. It was a black Trans Am with a big gold eagle on the hood. An older woman smoked a cigarette in the driver’s seat. Next to her in the passenger’s seat sat a man who looked about the same age.
They began to slow down, and Ben was sure they had spotted the Bronco sitting in the middle of the road. Then the Trans Am stopped moving altogether and parked. The pair was talking back and forth until the man motioned with his hand for the woman to keep going.
They slowly approached the Bronco and parked about 10 feet away. Neither one got out of the car immediately. The man held the radio up to his face, and Ben heard him instantly come through on the radio next to him.
“Where are you guys? We’re here at the truck. Come in.” There was a long pause before he continued. “I thought you were at the bridge. What’s goin’ on?”
Ben watched through his scope as the man grew visibly frustrated and eventually threw the radio down. He swung the door open on the Trans Am and pulled himself up and out by the door. Standing there for a minute, he looked around suspiciously at the woods on both sides of the road.
The woman joined him, getting out of the car on her side.
They both turned as the pickup came into view, followed by the small dump truck. The pickup drove up next to the Trans Am and parked. A middle-aged man got out right away and walked to the front of his truck and stood. He looked at the Bronco before turning to the older couple.
“Well, where are they?” Ben heard him ask.
“No idea, and they ain’t answering the radio.” The older man threw his hands up and turned to watch as the dump truck came to a stop.
The guy driving the truck didn’t bother getting out and instead leaned out the window. “Where are they?”
The pickup driver shook his head and walked toward them. He looked in the front seat first and then made his way around the back. “Nothing in here but the box of dynamite.”
“I told them not to take the whole box! Idiots. Grab that and bring it here, will you?”
Ben tensed up as the guy grabbed the wooden crate out of the back of the Bronco. It had to feel a little lighter, but the guy didn’t act like anything was amiss as he walked toward the Trans Am and the dump truck.
“Give me the keys so I can open the trunk. I left mine in the loader,” the driver of the Trans am yelled.
The woman tossed the keys in his direction but missed him by a mile. Ben heard him curse as he walked to where the keys had landed.
Meanwhile, the guy carrying the dynamite shook his head and set the wooden crate down by the rear tire of the Trans Am.
“You put it in the trunk. I’m going up to the next bridge to see if they’re up there,” the pickup driver said.
“I’ll follow you,” the dump truck driver called out.
Ben couldn’t believe what just happened. Here, he had been worried about getting them close to the dynamite. Now it was sitting on the ground in the middle of them all.
Ben thumbed the radio call button twice and took aim. He thought about the faces on the stack of bloody licenses as he pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twelve
BOOM!
The shock wave from the explosion passed over Ben as the ground shook. He instinctively curled up and covered his head and ears with his arms.
Seconds after the explosion, dirt and gravel showered him. The sound of the explosion still echoed in the distance like rolling thunder. He brushed himself off and looked up to survey the damage. The devastation was awe-inspiring.
The remains of the Trans Am and the pickup truck lay intertwined and burning in the median some 50 yards from where they had been parked. Both vehicles were unrecognizable and completely destroyed.
The dump truck fared better but not by much. It was pushed back 20 or 30 yards and had much of its cab blown off. Metal parts littered the highway like crumpled-up pieces of paper, some of them still burning. The only recognizable piece remaining of the truck was the solid steel dump body.
The Bronco was badly damaged and lay on its side. Although not totally destroyed, it had some serious body damage from rolling over several times and was beyond salvaging.
Ben got off the ground and brushed more dirt and bits of asphalt from his hair. He quickly gathered his gear and headed back to the road.
As he got closer, he could see he’d made the right choice in not using the dynamite to deal with the roadblock. Ben eyed the crater left by the explosion. The dynamite had blasted a hole through several layers of blacktop to the dirt below. The hole in the road almost spanned the entire width of the westbound lanes. The explosion would have destroyed the bridge or at the very least made it too unstable and risky to cross.
He dug the radio out of the bag and reached out to Joel. “How about coming to get me in the truck so we can get out of here? Over.”
“We heard it! On our way. Over.”
A wave of conscience hit Ben. He had just blown four people up. He looked around for bodies. He doubted there was much left of the older couple or the pickup driver but thought the guy in the dump truck might be around somewhere.
He walked around the wrecked vehicles for a few minutes as he surveyed the damage a little closer. If there were any remains or bodies, he’d like to find them before the kids got there. But there were none to be found, and before long he heard the familiar exhaust note of the approaching Blazer.
Joel stopped the Blazer well outside the blast zone and got out of the truck. He had a look of astonishment on his face. “Wow! That was a big explosion!”
He eyed the damaged vehicles. Allie hopped out of the truck on her side but stopped before she closed the door and he
ld her hand up to a whining Gunner. “Stay here, boy. There’s too much stuff on the ground.”
Gunner reluctantly sat down in the passenger’s seat and hung his head out the open window.
“That really did a lot of damage. We could feel it from where we were,” Joel said, his eyes wide.
“Yeah, well, that was a lot of dynamite,” Ben said.
“So… I guess they’re all dead?” Allie tentatively eyed the remains of the dump truck as she walked past.
“Don’t feel sorry for them, Allie. They were terrible people. Murderers.” Ben thought about the licenses again. “I found more evidence in the Bronco to confirm that. Trust me when I say the world is a better place without them.”
“At least other people will be able to travel through here safely,” she said.
“That’s right. Who knows? It could be us. We may end up coming back this way at some point. You never know.” Carrying his gear, Ben headed for the Blazer but handed off the newly acquired hunting rifle to Joel.
“What is it?” Joel asked.
“A .243 short mag,” Ben answered.
Joel partially unzipped the soft case and peeked in at the rifle. “Looks nice.”
“Yeah, it’s in good shape. I found a box of ammo for it also. It’s there in my bag. I figured it was too nice to leave, and it may come in handy down the road.”
“Cool.” Joel zipped the case up and headed to the truck as he took one more look around at the aftermath of the dynamite.
Allie had already started walking back to the Blazer but Ben and Joel quickly caught up to her. She was standing on the shoulder of the road and staring up in silence.
“What is it?” Joel asked.
Allie remained silent and frozen in her tracks for a moment before she pointed up into a nearby tree.
There, some 20 feet off the ground, hung the body of the dump truck driver. The corpse was draped over a large limb, its appendages dangling like those of a rag doll. One of the legs was missing from the knee down. All that remained in its place were dangling ribbons of flesh.
Ben was glad the body had at least landed so that the face wasn’t visible. He hadn’t even noticed it when he was searching earlier—not that he could have done anything to hide the body, even if he had seen it.
Joel put his arm across Allie’s shoulders and forced her away from the gruesome scene with a gentle whisper. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ben was worried by the blank expression on her face. Was this death and destruction going to be too much for her to cope with? Other than following Joel’s lead and heading for the truck, Allie didn’t respond. She didn’t say anything until they got back to the Blazer and greeted Gunner with strained enthusiasm. “Hey there! Did you miss me?”
Gunner wagged his tail and hopped into the back seat, where he anxiously waited for her to climb in and join him, which she did.
Ben and Joel loaded the gear into the truck as they talked out their next steps.
“So how about you run me back to the loader and then follow me to the next bridge? It shouldn’t take too long to clear a path and we’ll be on our way.” Ben took a big drink from his water bottle.
“Sounds good to me. Do you know how to drive one of those things?” Joel asked.
“Yeah, it’s been a while, but I’ll manage.” Ben got situated in the passenger seat while Joel got back behind the wheel and started the truck.
“I still can’t believe how loud that explosion was,” Allie chimed in from the back seat.
“You could probably hear that for miles,” Joel added.
“Yeah, that was pretty impressive,” Allie said.
Ben was glad Allie was back with them and at least engaging in conversation again. He didn’t dare confess his fears that the explosion could have possibly drawn too much attention to their location. There was no need to bring it up anyway. They already had enough of a reason to keep things moving and get out of there.
Ben ached all over. He was close to pushing his physical limit for the day and exhausted from the morning’s activities. The only thing keeping him going was his determination to save the day from being a total loss.
But for as hard as he was pushing himself and the kids, the day still seemed to be slipping away impossibly fast. It was already past noon, and they still had a lot of work ahead of them before they could get back on the road.
Providing everything went well with the loader, he hoped they could be underway in an hour. Maybe less. That might give them a few hours of actual driving time. They’d throw in a pit stop for gas and he’d consider it a success to get into Illinois tonight and find a good, safe place to sleep.
“How far do you think we’ll get today?” Allie asked.
She must have noticed him looking at his watch. “A hundred miles or so into Illinois, with any luck.” Ben turned in his seat to face her for a second. “We’ll be really close to Pittsburgh by the end of the day tomorrow.”
Allie forced a crooked little smile, but uncertainty danced in her eyes.
He smiled back, hoping to reassure her, and turned to face the road again. He didn’t blame her for having doubts and knew she had to process this in her own way. So would Joel, for that matter. Ben knew he couldn’t hide all the bodies.
The loader was parked sideways across the bridge with its massive front bucket resting on top of the concrete lane divider. The old faded yellow four-wheel drive model had long ago lost its emblems. The paint was peeling off in several areas, revealing a rust-pitted finish underneath.
It was the worst-looking piece of equipment Ben had ever seen.
He grabbed the radio and started to get out of the truck before Joel had a chance to come to a complete stop. “Wait until I get it started before you take off.”
“I thought you wanted us to follow you?” Joel asked.
“No, that’s fine.” Ben hopped out of the truck. “I’m thinking you and Allie can go on up ahead and maybe make us some lunch, if you don’t mind. It’s going to take me a while to get there in that thing. And it’ll probably take at least half an hour to clear the roadblock. If we eat now, maybe we can push on a little longer this evening. Just keep your radio on.”
“Will do.”
Ben closed the truck door as Allie was climbing into the passenger’s seat. He walked toward the loader. The front bucket was equipped with larger-than-standard metal forks. They had welded additional metal to the fork ends to make each one about three feet longer than the original length. He figured they must have done this to make moving the cars around easier.
Ben climbed up the rusty, bent metal treads to the cab and opened the door. He was relieved to see the keys hanging in the ignition.
If the driver had kept the keys on him, they might have never found them after the blast. With the way this thing was parked, they would have been trapped all over again without a way to move it.
He sat down in the torn, duct-taped seat and felt it sink down on its struts as he turned the key to the halfway position. As soon as the glow plug indicator lit up, he turned the key the rest of the way. The big diesel engine roared to life and spewed a big puff of black smoke from the stack.
Ben looked at the Blazer and gave Joel a thumbs-up before he pulled the cab door shut. Joel finished the U-turn he’d started making when they first got there and headed toward the second bridge.
Ben cut the wheel hard to the left and put the loader in reverse. The front bucket scraped along the top of the concrete divider before he had a chance to lift it with the joystick.
“Oops,” he muttered. While he was lifting the bucket out of the way, the loader came to an abrupt stop as one of the rear tires made contact with a minivan that had been part of the roadblock. Ben grimaced and shook his head. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
He was rushing and he needed to slow down before he went any further. The weariness of the day was setting in.
Nice and easy, he thought. Bucket up,
wheel turned.
The loader crept forward slowly as he feathered the gas pedal. The articulated steering was something he needed to get used to, but the controls were similar to the loader he had driven in the army, and before long, he had it straightened out and was heading down the road.
He pushed the gear selection lever by the steering column into the highway position and felt the lurch of the transmission as it shifted into a higher gear set.
No surprise that only a few of the gauges worked in the old loader, so Ben had no idea how fast he was going, but it felt painfully slow. He mashed the pedal down as far as it would go, trying to coax as much speed out of the old equipment as possible.
As the engine raced, he looked back and saw thick black smoke pouring out of the exhaust stack. He quickly backed off on the throttle, not wanting to push too hard.
Better to get there slow than not at all. The last thing he wanted to do was go to the quarry and get another loader. That might not even be an option, though. This was most likely the only working piece of heavy equipment they had. He’d seen newer equipment in the yard, but it was probably non-operable due to the EMP, just like most everything else.
The only working gauge seemed to be the temperature indicator, which was steadily rising. Ben backed off a little more on the gas pedal and anxiously glanced between the gauge and the road for a few minutes.
Eventually the little needle dropped out of the red zone on the gauge and stabilized at an acceptable engine temperature. Ben breathed a tepid sigh of relief.
He just needed this old rust bucket to hold together a little while longer.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Ben reached the second bridge, Joel and Allie had the stove out and were boiling water. Joel had the Blazer parked off the road in the shade of some trees at the wood line.
Ben was glad to see they were on the opposite side of the road from where he’d hid the first body. Then he wondered if that was why they were parked on that side.