“Come in, Cy. Are you there? Over.”
Cy decided to lower the bucket. It was the least risky thing to do, and hopefully the shooter would expose himself.
“Hang on, Tom.” Cy laid his AR on the floor of the cab so he could hold onto the seat frame while he used his other hand to operate the lever. The hydraulics hissed and whined as the arms slowly descended. No sooner had the bucket touched the ground than Cy heard a gunshot and the familiar ring of steel as it was struck by the bullet.
Please let this work. Cy waited in silence, hoping the others had seen the shooter’s location. His patience was rewarded by the distant crack of a rifle, but he remained still and didn’t dare make a move.
“Was that them?” Tom yelled, still hidden inside the bucket.
“I think so.” Cy wondered if maybe now he could make a go for the radio, but even if it was John and his dad, there was no telling if they had hit the shooter or not.
“Cy, come in. The shooter is down. Over.” His dad’s voice was stoic now, much different than before. Cy released his death grip on the loader and grabbed his AR before dropping to the ground. He fetched the radio but was careful to stay hidden behind the machine.
“We’re here at the loader. Over,” he answered.
“You sure there was only one? Over,” his dad asked.
“Yeah, pretty sure. Over.” Cy hoped he was right.
“Okay, we’re coming to you. Over.”
Tom cautiously emerged from the bucket, holding his gun up with his good arm and ready for action. He crept over to Cy before finally relaxing his stance and lowering the AR to his side. Neither said a word as they cautiously moved to the other side of the machine and met the wagon as it pulled into the gravel lot. Vince, John, Bill, and Travis all got out. They still had their weapons handy. All except Travis, who hadn’t been allowed to keep his pistol.
“You guys all right?” Vince walked over to Cy, put his hand on his shoulder, and looked at his knee.
“Yeah.” Cy glanced at Tom. “Yeah, we’re okay. It’s just a cut.” He had forgotten all about his knee.
Tom let out a sigh of relief. “A little shook up, maybe, and deaf, but we’re good.”
“I’m gonna go make sure he was alone.” John headed off toward the house.
“We’ll all go, just in case,” Vince said. “You guys can stay if you want.” He looked at Cy and Tom.
“No, that’s okay.” Tom laid his gun over his shoulder and followed John.
“I’m coming, too.” Cy wanted to see who had been shooting at them for the last thirty minutes. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe to make sure the guy was dead more than anything. Travis brought up the rear and hung back a good ten yards or so, but Cy didn’t blame him, seeing as how he was unarmed. Travis also looked a little pale and uneasy. Kind of the way Cy had after their first encounter with the looters.
They approached slowly, and everyone was ready with their weapons as they closed in on the pile of rubble and charred wood where the shooter had been hiding. There was no one else nearby, and after John had a quick look around, they decided the guy was alone.
Cy wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but the shooter was an older man, maybe his dad’s age. He was wearing jeans and a ripped T-shirt that was filthy and now also soaked in blood. There was no way of knowing why he had been shooting at them, and they probably never would. Cy stared at the body while John pried the rifle from his hand and checked the man’s pockets.
John shook his head. “A .22? What was he gonna do with that?”
It didn’t make any sense, but then again, not much did these days.
Chapter Eleven
After making sure it was unloaded, Vince tossed the .22 rifle into the back of his wagon. Everyone gathered around the loader and prepared to help retrieve the spool of wire. Cy insisted on running the loader and finishing the job he and Tom had started, but Vince and the others would stick around and escort them back into town. After what happened, it seemed like a bad idea to leave them out here on their own again. As far as they knew, the shooter had been alone, but why take the chance? The wall could wait for now. Vince was already kicking himself for going against his gut and not coming with Cy and Tom in the first place.
He had been too focused on making good time and trying to finish the wall. Speed was no substitute for safety, and he vowed to be more cautious in the future. What use would all these security measures be if he got them all killed in the process of putting them in place?
With the loader doing the heavy lifting, they quickly cleared a path to the smaller spool of wire. Once he could reach it, Tom inspected the spool and determined that it would suffice to carry power to the motel from Vince’s garage without any trouble. He suggested that they run a separate section of wire from the motel to the proposed police station rather than straight from the garage because the motel was closer. With the size of the wire they were working with, he was concerned there would be too much of a voltage drop to run it that far. They wouldn’t be running any major appliances at the new police station, not like they would occasionally do at the motel, but it was something they needed to consider.
With the correct spool loaded into the bucket, it was time to head back, and Vince was more than ready to continue working on the final pieces of the wall. He was also happy to head back into town. After the incident here with the shooter, he wasn’t too keen on being this far out and couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder for trouble. The guy didn’t look like he was part of the same gang that had been giving them trouble, but he couldn’t be sure. Vince didn’t recognize the man from Cloverdale, and for that, he was thankful.
There was a chance that the guy was just plain crazy. That was a real possibility, given their circumstances. Some people just weren’t equipped to deal with situations of this magnitude. Some of their own group had been pushed to the limit, and a few people came to mind, John being one of them, although Vince was never worried about John being a threat to the others. If anything, Vince half-expected to wake up one day and find that John had disappeared.
But today he was glad to see a little of the old John for the first time since the EMPs hit. He hoped that the idea of rebuilding law and order in Cloverdale, along with the police station, would give him the renewed sense of purpose he needed to carry on. At the very least, it would be a welcome distraction, and Vince was all for it as long as John didn’t isolate himself too much over at the Andersen place. That was the only part of John’s plan that worried him, but he’d just have to hope that didn’t happen for now.
Eventually, they all arrived back at the car lot, and Vince, John, and Bill returned to loading the trailer with the last of the cars for the wall while Travis did his best to look busy without really helping. Cy and Tom continued on to town, where Cy would drop off Tom and the wire before joining everyone else at the car lot. It was past the hottest part of the day now, or at least it should have been. Even though the sun was noticeably lower in the sky, the heat and staleness of the air changed little. They were all running low on water but decided to push through and finish the task at hand. They were too close to quit now, and the promise of sleeping behind a somewhat secure wall was a good motivator.
By the time Cy returned in the loader, the trailer was filled to capacity and ready to tow. Vince was happy to see the big yellow machine roll around the corner and come into view, but it wouldn’t have bothered him any if it had taken Cy a few more minutes to return.
Mary’s warning to take it easy today and not overdo it ran through his head. Maybe tomorrow. There was still too much to be done. Besides, there would be plenty of time for rest once the bigger jobs were complete. It wasn’t like he was going to open the garage up for business anytime soon. Or maybe ever again, for that matter.
More likely, keeping the looters at bay and trying to maintain some sense of normalcy would be a full-time job for all of them until things returned to normal. He huffed and shook his head as the thought crossed his min
d. He didn’t believe normal would ever happen again. He did wonder when the government would show up or if it would show up. It had to at some point, right? They were almost a week into this thing, and there was no sign of any help from the outside. Of course, Cloverdale was just a blip on the map, and as far as the government was probably concerned, it was one of thousands.
The federal government had a doomsday plan in place for occasions such as this. He knew there were bunkers from the Cold War scattered across the country, built for the sole purpose of sheltering the president and the political elite. Saving its own butt would be the government’s first priority; the welfare and survival of common folks would be a distant second, if it would even rank very high on a list of priorities.
Most people probably thought those types of provisions and underground sanctuaries were largely a myth and the bunkers that did exist had been abandoned after the Cold War, but Vince knew differently. After September 11, 2001, the federal government’s interest in a doomsday protocol was renewed, along with the allotment of funds and resources dedicated to making sure the country was prepared to maintain continuity of government. It would be a shadow government of sorts, but the structure would remain the same, along with the state’s ability to control assets both foreign and domestic in the event of an Armageddon scenario.
Vince didn’t know the details or the exact extent to which the government was prepared, but he had little doubt that these places were real and in fact existed across the country. It would be some time before the government would risk exposure, though, and time was on its side. These bunkers were underground cities in their own right and in most cases were completely self-sustainable for a year or more if need be.
These bunkers were equipped with air scrubbers and all had their own hospitals, mess halls, office spaces, and even movie theaters. The stockpiles of weapons and ammunition within the fortified confines of these bunkers were no doubt staggering as well.
The government wouldn’t risk exposure to the possibly contaminated air until the risk was low or gone altogether. No, Vince wasn’t surprised at the lack of government or FEMA presence yet, and he didn’t expect any help for a while, if ever. Outside of those bunkers, people like him were on their own. If they were going to survive, it was up to them to make that happen. They couldn’t rely on outside assistance.
The last week of their lives was just a taste of things to come. Resources would become scarce and maybe run out, so they would have to create what they could. And people like the gang of looters, which seemed hellbent on Cloverdale’s demise, would become more common, unfortunately. Vince wasn’t trying to be pessimistic, but it was the truth, and the sooner they all accepted that, the sooner they could get on with the business of survival. There were some among the group who Vince felt were in denial about these things. He was willing to give them time to come around to the cold, hard facts of this new life on their own, but if it didn’t happen soon, there would have to be a “come to Jesus meeting,” as Mary liked to say from time to time.
And it wasn’t just about survival. Vince wanted more than that for all of them but especially the kids and the younger generations like Cy and Reese. They were the ones with the most to lose from all this. Their lives as they knew them were cut short because of something they had no control over. It wasn’t fair, but “fair” wasn’t a word that carried much weight anymore. There was no such thing.
Chapter Twelve
Vince was glad to have reached the southern section of the wall, and as they followed the loader and trailer through the remaining opening, he thought about how far they had come in such a short amount of time. It was surreal, really. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined anything like this happening a week ago. Sure, like a lot of people, he followed the news and knew that a nuclear attack was possible, but it was always one of those things that people never actually thought would happen. Yet here they were, building a wall around Cloverdale with mostly brand-new cars in an effort to keep out the murderous thugs who wanted what they had.
He was relieved to be back at the wall, and in spite of the heat, he hopped out of John’s Bronco with an eagerness that surprised even him. Keeping busy with their hands and minds meant less time to think, and that was a good thing these days. Although the work was hard and the conditions miserable, it beat sitting around and thinking about a life that would never be again.
Vince and the others went about placing the last few cars without talking much. They were all tired and drenched in sweat. And at this point, they all knew what roles they needed to play to get the job done. Vince didn’t bat an eye as Cy stacked an economy-level two-door Chevy Spark hatchback on top of a fully loaded, shiny red Corvette convertible in order to give the section of wall more height. That would have been something that made him cringe when they first began this endeavor. The car enthusiast inside of him died a little bit at the sight. In his opinion, the Corvette was a work of art, as were many cars. They were marvels of engineering that had captured his imagination since he was a child. Those emotions had been numbed by the heat, the exhaustion, and the reality of their situation, but for the most part, he just couldn’t bring himself to care right now. Besides, with the way the world was going, they might all be on horseback by winter. Of course, that depended on whether or not they could find any horses.
Cy gave the rear bumper of the suburban a nudge with the backside of the loader’s bucket. The oversized SUV rolled into place while Bill steered it into the space they had left open for an entrance at this end of the wall. It was satisfying to see the last piece of the puzzle moved into place; well, it was almost the last. There were still gaps between houses and buildings here and there. Those could be filled in with the loader over time. The main idea was to keep vehicles from freely entering the section of town they had isolated themselves in. And that much was accomplished. Of course, this meant another gate to man and another access point to worry about.
Vince and the others had considered just building a solid wall on this end of Main Street, but there were too many potential resource opportunities out this way. Not to mention, this was the way to many of their houses. Some they knew were still standing and intact, like Mary’s place. For some, like his own, they had no idea what to expect. A few days ago, Vince resigned himself to not expecting much when it came to his house surviving the fires. It didn’t have a solar electric system like Mary’s house or the garage. And as far as he was concerned, the motel was a fluke, an extremely lucky one at that.
Vince envisioned his house and barn as nothing more than charcoal by now. He did, however, still hold out a bit of hope that his safe in the basement would be intact. Covered in two stories of debris, but intact nonetheless. It wouldn’t be a big deal to excavate the remains of his house and pull the safe out with a chain, not with the loader they had. He had previously thought his dad’s old tractor would be the only way he could extract the safe. Vince’s heart sank at the thought of the tractor being scorched and melted beyond recognition, all his hard work of restoring the piece of history gone, up in flames like so many things.
He felt guilty about concerning himself with the old Massey Ferguson when so many people had lost so much more, but he couldn’t help it. He knew he was lucky to still have the things he did: his son, Mary, some friends, not to mention the garage. Vince had no room to complain, at least not out loud.
“Well, I guess that about does it.” John wiped his brow with a rag from his back pocket.
“Just the few places that need filling in, and there’s plenty of rubble and debris from the neighborhoods to fill in the gaps in the wall.” Bill slammed the door on the Suburban.
Vince nodded. “I’m not worried about those spots so much. We can tackle those at our leisure over the next few days or whenever we have time. If they want to attack us now, they’ll have to do it on foot or from outside the wall.”
John eyed the Suburban. “We’re gonna need a man with a radio on this gate.”
“Yeah, everybody is going to have to stand a few extra watch shifts,” Bill added.
“We can help. I mean, I’m willing to help out. I’m sure Jackie and Dalton will, too.” Travis stood up from his seat in the shade and joined the conversation.
“We’ll have to work up a new schedule and see how the rotation works out,” John answered.
Vince remained silent as he watched the newcomer pace back and forth a few times. Travis was a little too eager to guard the gate for his taste, but then again, Vince didn’t think much of him to begin with. He hadn’t been that big of a help today, and they probably would have accomplished the same amount of work without him. Vince knew he was lazy, but so far, he’d been nothing more sinister than that. Not that he could prove, anyway.
If Vince had any say in the matter, it would be a long time before Travis stood a watch shift on his own at night. At Mary’s behest, he allowed Travis and the other two to live here for now. But if Jackie and Dalton were anything like him, they wouldn’t be entitled to the same benefits as the other members of the group, especially when it came to food and weapons.
Cloverdale couldn’t continue to offer its food and resources to the three if they weren’t willing to chip in, and Vince’s idea of chipping in meant rolling your sleeves up and getting a little dirty. Or a lot, depending on the job that needed doing. He hadn’t seen Travis show that level of interest or much enthusiasm at all for what they were doing. He hoped Mary had more success and good things to report about the other two working with her at the motel.
Travis rode with John back to town while Bill hopped into the passenger side of the wagon and rode with Vince. Cy was taking the loader straight to the garage for diesel, then to see if Tom needed help. Vince was headed to the garage as well. He was anxious to see how the wiring was going, and he could drop Bill off at his truck. It was pushing five in the afternoon, but he wasn’t ready to call it a day yet, even though his aches and pains were telling him to do otherwise.
Cloverdale (Book 4): Confrontation Page 6