Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5)

by Arthur Bradley

“Are you saying I’m weird?”

  She gave him a sidelong glance.

  “I wasn’t saying it, but now that you bring it up…”

  He gave her a playful shove.

  “Which way now?” she asked.

  “Let’s walk south to the Arlington Bridge. We can go back out the way we came in, maybe even on the same motorcycle.”

  “Do you really think it’s still there after all this time?”

  He smiled. “Sam, it’s only been a few days.”

  “No.” She looked up at him. “Really? A few days?” It seemed impossible that so much had happened in such a short time.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Wow. We really live a busy life.”

  Tanner laughed. “We do at that. If we can just get home, though, I think things will finally settle down. Who knows? Maybe we can even get on with living a more peaceful life.”

  She made a face that said she wasn’t buying it.

  “No? Why not?”

  “Tanner, you and I aren’t built for that.”

  Her words surprised him. “That’s a strange thing to say. If we weren’t built for a peaceful life, what were we built for?”

  She stared at the mayhem stretching in every direction.

  “I hate to say it, but I think we were built for this.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. What about you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Really? Nearly the entire world died, and you’re good?”

  He shrugged. “I never really liked the world much.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too many rules, I guess.”

  She thought about that a moment.

  “Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem for you.”

  “Because I’m a criminal?”

  “Because you’re a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do.”

  He nodded. “Got that right.”

  They started walking south on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Despite the threat of feral dogs, roadway bandits, and desperate survivors, the walk seemed much less stressful than their trek through the animal-infested park had been. Violent men were one thing; bacteria-laden dragons were another.

  After two long miles, they came to a concrete ramp leading up to an overpass. To their left, they could see that the overpass crossed back over the Potomac, and to the right, it headed deeper into Arlington. Without stopping to discuss options, Tanner started up the ramp.

  Samantha hesitated as she tried to make sense of several large green signs that hung over the highway. They didn’t look familiar.

  “Are you sure this is the right bridge?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  She shrugged and hurried after him. When they got to the top of the ramp, they both turned and stared across the six-lane bridge packed with cars and trucks. While it was about the same size as the Arlington Memorial Bridge, it was definitely not the same bridge.

  Samantha pointed to a brass plaque hanging on a lamppost.

  “It’s the Key Bridge.”

  “I see that.”

  “You said it was the same bridge we crossed over.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So… you were wrong.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Not really.” She turned and looked back down the quarter-mile long ramp “Now what? Back that way?”

  “Nah. Let’s head west on Highway 29. We’ll find something else to drive once this traffic thins a little.”

  She hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I was kind of looking forward to riding on the motorcycle. Last time, I was pretty sick and didn’t really get to enjoy it.”

  “Then we’ll find another bike.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wow. Thanks Tanner.”

  “You seemed surprised that I’m so accommodating.”

  “Doesn’t accommodating mean helpful, cooperative, that sort of thing?”

  “That’s right.”

  She nodded.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It just explains why I was so surprised.”

  They headed west on Lee Street, hugging a twelve-foot stone wall meant to contain the traffic noise—something that clearly no longer posed a problem. The highway paralleled I-66, which had cars nearly piled on top of one another for miles in every direction. After a few blocks, the interstate and street diverged, and with that separation, the traffic on Lee Street started to thin out a little. While the road was still impassable to cars, Tanner thought that a motorbike might be able to navigate the jam.

  He spotted an interesting brick building across the intersection. The front of the structure was rounded, like the guard tower of a medieval castle. Mounted above the door was a black bar with a row of three gold spheres hanging below it. The sign on the window read First Cash Pawn.

  “That looks promising,” he said, heading toward the entrance.

  “What could we possibly need from a pawnshop?”

  “I won’t know until I see it.”

  The glass on the front door was riddled with small caliber bullet holes, each fanning out into spiderweb-like cracks. Even if the glass could be safely broken out, a security door constructed from thick steel bars blocked entry. Tanner peered in through the broken glass. The store had been packed up and put away, the long glass counter cleaned out of jewelry and handguns. A few inexpensive guitars still hung along one wall, but what really caught his eye was an old World War II motorcycle with an attached sidecar, sitting on display behind a felt rope at the rear of the store.

  “See?” he said, pointing to the relic.

  She rubbed the glass in an effort to see it more clearly.

  “What is it?”

  “What do you mean what is it? It’s a motorcycle.”

  “It looks like it belongs in a museum.”

  “Maybe it does, but that’s the beauty of pawnshops. You never know what you’ll find. It’s like Christmas all year ’round.”

  “How do you think it ended up here?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “I wonder if a famous general rode it,” she said, succumbing to the lure of finding hidden treasure. She grabbed the bars and gave them a quick shake. “Too bad we can’t get inside.”

  “Oh ye of little faith.”

  Tanner stepped back and studied the store. It had been built like a jail cell, which explained why it was the only store in sight that hadn’t been ransacked. He took off walking around the building, and Samantha quickly followed. Attached to the rear of the pawnshop was the Tarbouch Mediterranean Grill. Surprisingly, it featured a large green and yellow Brazilian flag hanging in the window. Either the owners were confused about their geography, or more likely, they had discovered that Americans didn’t really care much about where the recipes came from as long as the food was good.

  Tanner kicked aside what was left of the door and stepped into the restaurant. The main dining room was completely clear of tables or chairs, and the floor had been stripped down to bare wood. An electric sander was still plugged in, covered in a thin coating of drywall compound. Along one wall sat several used rollers, as well as a few buckets of dried paint. Leaning against one of the buckets was a bright yellow, forty-two-inch wrecking bar.

  “It looks like they were trying to fix the place up,” she said.

  Tanner walked over and picked up the wrecking bar.

  “Maybe we can help,” he said, tapping the heavy bar against his palm.

  Samantha didn’t bother trying to hide her concern.

  “Please don’t hit anyone with that.”

  “You act like I’m the most violent man in the whole world.”

  “Do I need to remind you that the last time you picked up a hooked metal object, you jabbed it through a man’s face?”

  “Not my fault,” he said, leading them through a swinging saloon-style d
oor.

  They found themselves in a large kitchen. The restaurant’s industrial gas grill remained, but the pots, pans, and cooking utensils had all been cleared out as part of the remodeling effort. Tanner pointed to a matching set of doors on the opposite side of the kitchen.

  “There.”

  Through the second set of doors, they found a sink with an overhead sprayer, a boxy stainless steel dishwasher, and a matching steel table used for preparing salads and other appetizers. A gray plastic tub sat beneath the table. Tanner bent over and took a quick peek into the tub and was nearly knocked down by the stench. Inside were a dozen heads of lettuce, all of them black and slimy. He quickly dropped the lid back in place.

  “Whew,” Samantha said, waving her hand in front of her nose. “I didn’t think anything could smell worse than dead bodies.”

  Tanner straightened up and slowly turned in a full circle, as if trying to get his bearings before heading out on a hike.

  “What are you doing?”

  Instead of answering, he pointed in the direction of the dishwasher and said, “What do you think is that way?”

  “A dishwasher?”

  “Past the dishwasher.”

  “A wall.”

  “And what’s on the other side of the wall?” he said with a toothy smile.

  She thought for a moment, and then her eyes came alive.

  “The pawnshop.”

  “Exactly.”

  He walked over and jerked on the lip of the metal sink. There was a loud moan as the heavy equipment slid across the floor. He yanked on it several more times until the entire station pulled free. Slipping in behind the sink, he rubbed his hands over the wall. It was covered with a thick plastic paneling, designed to keep dishwater from damaging the wallboard beneath. He tapped on the wall a few times to judge where the studs were located. When he was satisfied, he stepped back and swung the prybar. The heavy claw thunked through the wall. He tilted it, prying out a chunk of wallboard to leave a hole six inches across.

  “You’re going in through the wall,” she said. “That’s so clever.”

  “Actually, you’ll probably have to be the one to go in on account of my… my…”

  “Your girth?”

  He squinted at her.

  “Your heft?”

  His squint turned into a glare.

  “Your bulk?”

  “My size. Because of my size.”

  She stifled a laugh.

  “Typical spacing is around sixteen inches between studs, and I’m not likely to squeeze through that.”

  Samantha put her hands about sixteen inches apart and held them out in front of him. It wasn’t even close. She bit her lip and said nothing.

  Tanner swung the prybar again and pulled out another fist-sized piece of wallboard. Behind it, sat a thick layer of yellow fiberglass insulation, which he used the hook to rip out. When he had it clear, he continued bashing and prying until he had opened a hole roughly three feet high. He bent over and stuck his head in through the hole, hoping to get a glimpse of what lay beyond. Unfortunately, the room was thick with shadows, and his burly shoulders prevented him from going in far enough to see much of anything.

  He looked back at Samantha and weighed the decision one last time. Part of him said that there was no good reason to send her into a dark room, but another part reminded him that it was his responsibility to teach her to be self-sufficient. And that meant stepping into the unknown from time to time.

  “Okay, Sam. You’re up.”

  She set her backpack on the floor and slipped the rifle off her shoulder.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “See if you can get the front door open. There’s probably a latch on the inside.”

  Samantha turned and faced the small hole. What would surely have been the source of protest weeks earlier now only drew a determined nod.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ve got this.” She poked the rifle’s muzzle through the hole and disappeared into the darkness.

  Samantha shuffled through the hole and into a storeroom filled with tall wooden shelves. Every shelf was piled high with a collection of cardboard boxes, many of which had strange objects poking out the top. The scene was as mysterious as the warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the Ark itself had somehow managed to make its way into the room.

  Everything was quiet and still, except for the faint tick-tick-tick of a wall clock that continue to mark the passage of time even in the absence of anyone to observe it. The room smelled of body odor, dust, and motor oil. Not pleasant by any means, but definitely better than the tub of rotten lettuce.

  Tanner’s voice sounded from the hole behind her.

  “Sam, you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she shouted back.

  “I’ll meet you around front.”

  “Right.”

  Tanner disappeared, and she heard him kicking the saloon doors open as he made his way back out of the kitchen. He was not a man who moved quietly, ever. Some of it was surely unintentional due to his size, but most was by his own design, a statement he made to the world: I’m coming, and you’d better clear the way.

  Samantha studied the layout of the storeroom. There were three ways out: a set of metal double doors that she thought must lead to a loading dock, a glass door that led into a small office, and an open doorway that connected to the retail portion of the store. She went first to the double doors, wondering if it might be easier to let Tanner in that way. The doors were thick and solid, and held together by a heavy chain wrapped around the push bar. She tapped on one of the doors, and it hurt her knuckles. Definitely not that way.

  She walked next to the office door and gave it a tug. It too was locked. Inside, she could see a desk, a filing cabinet, and a couple of bookshelves. Everything looked worn and dusty, and the chair behind the desk had a dark sweat stain across the back. While she thought she could probably break into the office, she didn’t see any compelling reason to do so.

  Samantha turned and headed for the doorway that led deeper into the store. As she passed the shelves, she couldn’t help but notice some of the strange items. Gaming stations, televisions, jewelry boxes, and drum sets were all to be expected, but she also found a leather saddle with shiny silver beads hanging from the stirrups, and a small jar filled with human teeth. Everywhere she looked were artifacts and collectibles, many bordering on the bizarre.

  As she passed into the main part of the store, she discovered that it was actually shaped like an L. A long glass counter ran its length, and the motorcycle sat in the alcove. The bike was even more interesting to see in person than it had been from the door. The entire motorcycle was painted a dull tan color, and a black swastika had been silkscreened on the front of the sidecar. She rubbed her fingers across the blue and white emblem on the vehicle’s gas tank: BMW. She had heard of the brand but wouldn’t have associated it with motorcycles.

  She stepped up and swung one leg over the huge bike. The seat was hard and cold and three sizes too big for her bottom. She climbed off and inspected the sidecar. It was nothing more than a metal box, rounded at the front, with a simple seat inside. It reminded her of a carnival ride, the one that looked like a spider and always made her feel like throwing up.

  She stepped away and shook her head, not at all sure that she wanted to ride cross-country floating a foot off the ground in a metal box.

  A bump sounded from the front door, and she glanced over to find Tanner peering in through the cracked glass. She waved.

  He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to come and unlock the door.

  She hurried over and inspected the setup. The cracked glass door had two deadbolts, both of which she quickly unlocked. Careful not to shatter the glass, she gently swung the door inward. Tanner stared at her through the steel bars of the security door.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now we get this open,” he said, reaching his fingers through the bar
s and feeling of the lock. It was a double cylinder, requiring a key to open from either side. “Crap. We’re going to need a key.”

  “Can’t you just pry it open? You’ve been known to do that.”

  “Not with these bars, I can’t. You’ll have to find the key.”

  Samantha turned and considered her options. The long glass counter was empty. Behind it was a rack for rifles and shotguns, but it too had been cleaned out. A few guitars were hanging on the opposite wall, but there was no peg hook from which to hang a key.

  She remembered the small office in the storeroom.

  “There’s an office in back,” she said. “If there’s a key, it’s probably there.”

  “Go look.”

  “I’ll have to break in.”

  He shrugged. “So, break in.”

  She turned and hurried back to the office. The door was locked from the inside, and the only way to get in was to break the glass and reach through to turn the lock. She took a couple of steps back, raised her rifle and fired a single shot at the center of the door. The small .22 caliber slug punched a neat little hole through the security glass, but it didn’t break. She stepped forward and hit the door with the butt of her rifle. Again, nothing. Getting through the glass would require a little more effort than she had first thought.

  She glanced around the storeroom. There were thousands of items, but none jumped out as being well suited to breaking the glass. She thought about the prybar that Tanner had used. It would probably do the job, but standing that close might be dangerous.

  Samantha stepped over to the nearest rack and began studying items on the lowest shelf, figuring that the heaviest items would be kept closest to the ground. In the first box was a striped leather duffle bag with the name Weber monogrammed on top. She slid the zipper down and smiled when she saw what was inside: a shiny green bowling ball. She slung her rifle across her back and hefted the ball. It measured eight and a half inches across and weighed a full sixteen pounds.

  Carrying it with both hands, she waddled over to stand a few feet from the door. Not having the strength to hurl the ball, she squatted down and swung it back and forth between her legs, like a pendulum building up momentum. When she got it up to full speed, she flung it toward the door. The polyurethane ball hit the door at about knee level, smashing through the security glass and rolling behind the desk. She used the butt of her rifle to clear out the remaining shards of glass, until nothing but the metal frame remained. Rather than try to unlock the door, she bent over and carefully stepped through the open hole.