No Direction Home (Book 2): Eastwood

by Mike Sheridan

  On arrival the previous day, the group had driven their vehicles off the highway and up an unpaved road where, at the top of a small rise, they unhitched the trailers. Nestled between two hills, the road was out of sight from anyone passing through the Alaculsy Valley.

  Standing next to his pickup, Walter stood waiting for everyone. “All right people. First thing I’d like to do is go through a few security principles,” he said when all seven had arrived and stood around him in a semicircle. “I need you to have a clear understanding on how I want our defenses set up.”

  He pointed down the hill in the direction of the highway. “Up here on this saddle offers us a sloping field of fire against anybody coming up from the valley.” He pointed along the dirt road in the other direction, where it cut deeper into the hills. “This route behind us gives us a means of escape if we need it. That’s important. The ability to retreat from an overwhelming force is one of the key requirements of a good defensive position.

  “As discussed, as soon as we have a larger group, we’ll move down to the farm, but while Pete and the others are away, vigilance and concealment are our two best defense strategies. That makes this a good spot for now.”

  Down in the valley and out of sight from the camp was what had been a cattle farm with several outbuildings. There was no sign of the cattle. Where they had gone was anyone’s guess. However, the land was flat, and the Conasauga River flowed along the eastern border of the property. While it was a prime location, in Walter’s view, it was too exposed a place to defend with such a small group.

  “What are you saying, Walter?” Greta asked, her brow furrowing. “You intend on us just hunkering down here, or are we actually going to set up some type of defenses?”

  Walter smiled. “Of course we are. We’re going to build an easy to make, yet effective, defensive position. That’s why I sent some of you out to Dalton City earlier.” He pointed over to the bales of barbed wire they’d brought back. They were stacked by one of the trailers, alongside the rest of the supplies. “Ideally, I would have preferred coiled razor wire, but it’s hard to find. Other than for US military properties, it was against most building codes to use it. These rolls of farm barbed wire will do fine, though.”

  He walked over to the Tundra and pulled out his A4 jotter through the open window. Placing it on the hood, he indicated for everyone to gather around him.

  On the pad, he’d sketched out the camp’s terrain, marking out various positions such as where they should park their trucks and trailers, where and how the barbed wire should be lain to construct what he called “low wire entanglements”. Also, where the trees they would cut down with the chainsaw should be placed at the bottom of the hill, preventing easy access into the camp.

  Lastly, he pointed over to the planter boxes. “Pack those to the brim with dirt,” he instructed. Turning back to the map, he indicated the exact positions where they should be deployed. “These will stop any vehicle that tries to storm the camp.”

  “How many people will these defenses hold back?” Emma asked. “You told us some of the gangs number fifteen, twenty people.”

  “Depends on a lot of things,” Walter replied. “How well-armed they are, how resolute we are. Typically, though, defenders gain around a three to one advantage. Positioned up here in the hills, I’d say that’s about right.” He pointed to the higher of the two hills. “See up there? From the top, it commands a view of both approaches into the valley. We’re going to place someone up there day and night to keep watch. Remember what I said: concealment is our first priority. If they don’t see us, most people coming this way will probably just pass on through.”

  “What if they decide to occupy the farm?” Ralph asked.

  “The farm is ours,” Walter replied firmly. “For now, we got a better chance of holding it from here than being overrun down in the valley.”

  Greta stared at him. “So when do we start keeping lookout?”

  “Right now. And you’ve got first watch.” Walter pulled his binoculars from off his neck and handed them to her. “Before you leave, I’ll key in our new radios. You can take one up with you.”

  Greta nodded obediently. Cody couldn’t help but smile to see her pacified by Walter’s gentle but firm demeanor. Greta was quite a handful, and had naturally slipped into position as second in command at the camp.

  “How about nighttime?” he asked. “It’s going to be harder to keep watch. Guess we’ll just have to look out for car lights and the sound of engines, right?”

  Walter nodded. “Exactly. I got something that will help us. Back in Knoxville, I picked up a pair of night vision glasses. Even if they come on foot, we’ll be able to spot anyone long before they see us.” He grinned. “All right people, enough talk. Time for us to roll up our sleeves and break into a sweat.”

  ***

  “That Walter, he’s one smart dude. Got a good attitude too,” Clete said, puffing a little as he and Cody dragged a large sapling across the track a hundred yards down the hill from the camp. It marked the perimeter of cleared ground that Walter called a “kill zone,” an area where any would-be intruders would be exposed as they approached their position. Earlier, Walter had split the group into pairs, and Clete and Cody had been chosen to work together. They had just cut down the tree, tied it to the back of Clete’s pickup, and hauled it down the hill.

  “He sure does.” Cody stood up and rubbed his hands together, removing the dirt from them. “We’re going to build something good here. A place that’s got a real future.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Clete paused a moment. “Hey kid, what say you and me go into the forest tomorrow morning? See if we can’t get some fresh game for everyone.”

  Cody’s eyes lit up. “That’d be cool. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t had a chance to go hunting lately.”

  “I was thinking of something a little different,” Clete said. “You ever trap before?”

  “Nope, but I’d sure like to learn,” Cody said eagerly. Trapping was an essential survival skill in a place like the Cohutta, and he was anxious to learn everything he could from the man they called Mr. Hillbilly.

  Clete grinned. “It’s the lazy man’s way of getting meat. Once you’ve set your traps, you can spend the rest of the day getting drunk. Next time you swing by, you got a meal waiting for you. Get to sleep early. Don’t let that pretty girl of yours keep you up all night. Tomorrow at dawn, I’ll be over to pick you up.”

  CHAPTER 10

  At 10:30 a.m., Ned Granger collected a team of three men and headed out of Camp Benton in his Nissan Titan. His destination was Cleveland, in search of more supplies so that he could complete work on the final stage of the camp’s defenses.

  Granger had recently constructed a secondary defense line he called the Ring, a fallback position centered around the main square in the event that the camp got overrun in an attack. On the south side of the Ring, he planned on creating an emergency extraction route down to South Beach, from where the group could escape by boat across the Baker Creek inlet.

  While he sincerely hoped this was a scenario that would never materialize, they had to be prepared for all eventualities. With the camp located on a peninsula and surrounded on three sides by water, it was important that their escape route was carefully planned.

  Sitting beside him in the front passenger seat was Marcus Welby, a young man in his twenties whose father Granger had known before the epidemic. Behind in the truck bed were Bob Harper and Joe Macey, two men he had barely known before the disaster. In their thirties, both were hard workers, tough, and determined. They were good with weapons too. Just the kind of people needed at the camp.

  As a man who’d seen plenty of combat during the first Gulf War, Granger had figured out pretty quickly which of the men would be any use to him in the heat of battle. He estimated that, out of the seventeen adult men, perhaps eight or nine would show true grit in a firefight. As for the fifteen women, other than for Mary Sadowski, i
t was hard for him to judge. Granger had never fought alongside women before. At some stage, perhaps sooner rather than later, he knew that might change.

  His mind wandered back to the previous evening when Rollins had introduced him to the three new arrivals. Learning their story and briefly studying their demeanors, he reckoned they could be relied on in a tight situation, particularly the Irish couple. Colleen, the petite blonde woman, had a steely look in her eye. As for her husband, though barely intelligible with his thick Dublin brogue, he had the look of someone who had been around the block before, probably several times.

  “Ned, where are we going to get supplies?” Marcus asked, breaking him away from his thoughts. “They’re getting hard to find now. At the Home Depot in Chat yesterday, just about everything worth taking was gone.”

  “Don’t worry, Bert’s given me some places to check out,” Granger told him. “After thirty years in construction, he’s gotten to know just about every hardware store and builder’s yard in the area.”

  “That’s good. Hopefully we’ll find everything we need.”

  They reached Sloans Gap Road. Granger steered the Nissan around a sharp bend. To either side of the road, dense pine forest grew almost all the way up to the asphalt. Straightening out the wheel, he picked up speed again.

  Ahead, he spotted movement. Two men crouched on either end of a large sapling that had been dragged across the road. Both held rifles, pointing at the oncoming Nissan.

  Granger jammed his foot on the brakes. “Ambush!” he yelled.

  Welby immediately grabbed his rifle. He slid the selector switch off safety and poked the barrel out the window as the Nissan came to a stop a hundred yards before the tree.

  About to reverse, Granger glanced in his rearview mirror. Behind him, two pickup trucks tore around the corner and screeched to a stop. In the truck bed, Harper and Meyer had seen them too. Squatting on their heels, they raised their rifles, aiming their sights toward the trucks.

  Granger peered out through the windscreen, trying to gauge whether he could drive along the side of the road and squeeze past the felled sapling or not. The bandits had positioned it perfectly, though. There wasn’t a hope in hell.

  A fusillade of gunfire suddenly opened up from behind the tree line where several men had lain in wait. Granger barely had time to react when the front passenger window shattered. Instantly, blood sprayed across the windscreen and Welby keeled face forward onto the dashboard. Horrified, Granger saw that several rounds had caught him in head.

  In the load bed, Joe Macey returned fired into the forest in short bursts. Hunkered down below the tailgate, Bob Harper started shooting at the two pickups parked on either side of the road.

  There was no hope for Welby. He had died instantaneously. Granger snatched his radio from off the seat divider, then opened his door and jumped out onto the road.

  Back at the bend, bandits spilled out of both vehicles, rifles in hand. Taking cover behind the tree line, they opened fire on the exposed Nissan. In the other direction, the men behind the sapling scattered into the forest, getting out of the line of fire from their own men.

  Granger crouched behind his door and pulled out a Ruger P95 from his holster. He shouted up to Harper and Meyer in the truck bed. “Bob, Joe, get down here!” Currently, the driver’s side of the truck provided the greatest shelter from the gunfire.

  He jabbed the Talk button on his radio. “Bravo Two to base. Ambush on Sloans Gap Road!” he screamed into it. “There’s at least ten of them. Repeat, ambush on Sloans Gap Road.”

  Bob Harper jumped over the side of the truck to join him as bullets whistled around them.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  Several more rounds ripped through the metal structure of the vehicle.

  “Where’s Joe?” Granger yelled at Harper.

  Harper shook his head grimly. “He’s gone.”

  The two men’s only hope of survival was to escape into the forest. Granger pointed ahead as bullets continued to whine around their ears. “Bob, we got to move!”

  Harper nodded, and in a low crouch, the two men darted across the road heading for the trees.

  Granger made it five yards when he heard a short grunt, then Harper was no longer running alongside him. A moment later, a bullet tore into his foot. Stumbling forward, another caught him in the forearm and the Ruger fell from his grip. He hobbled on, waiting for a final bullet to finish him off. A round caught him in the shin, shattering the bone, and he fell to the ground in agonizing pain.

  He tried to rise to his feet as the shooting petered out. “Stop, mister, you got nowhere to run!” a deep voice bellowed.

  His position hopeless, Granger sat back on the ground. He faced his attackers, raising both hands in the air. Ten feet away, Bob Harper lay face down on the grass verge. Several bullets had caught him in the head, and his face was twisted into an ugly grimace. Granger knew instantly he was dead.

  Staring over at the Nissan, he saw Joe Macey’s body drooped over the side panel. Granger was the last man alive. He doubted he would remain so much longer.

  A group of eight or so men emerged from the forest. They fanned out across the road and strode toward him.

  Leading the group was a huge baldheaded man with a few wisps of long sandy hair at the back. He stopped ten feet from Granger and stood there grinning at him.

  “I think it’s fair to say you weren’t expecting that, were you?” he said in a low-toned voice, the same that had called out earlier.

  Granger spat on the ground. “Sonofabitch,” he said hoarsely. “There was no need for that.”

  A small, weedy man in a red and black jacket with unkempt brown hair stepped forward to stand beside the giant. In one hand, he carried a motorcycle helmet.

  “Now see, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, smirking at Granger. “And in case you’re wondering, the reason you’re still alive is cos I know who you are. You’re the sheriff’s second-in-command, ain’t you? I’m sure you got plenty of interesting things to tell us.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Simone rode north up the Billy Graham Parkway, the rays of the bright morning sun beaming down on her. Weaving through a line of abandoned cars piled up in front of the exit, she drove past Douglas International Airport on her left, picked up Interstate 85, and headed west out of the city.

  She traveled light. Inside a waterproof bag strapped to the motorcycle tank were her only possessions: a spare set of clothes, and the food and water she’d stolen from the Aldi supermarket the previous day.

  Slung across her back was a Mossberg Patriot Bantam, the hunting rifle her father had bought her recently. Weighing only six and a half pounds, it was designed for smaller statured shooters such as herself. Chambered in .243 Winchester, it had a light recoil, and at the shooting range she had shot well with it, though she’d yet to hunt a live animal. That would be the real test.

  The previous evening, she’d ditched her Yamaha 125 and taken a red Honda 250 CRF parked in a neighbor’s driveway at the top of the street. Breaking into the house hadn’t been a pleasant experience. The stink of rotten bodies inside was almost unbearable. Thankfully, she soon found the Honda’s key on top of the refrigerator and had rushed straight out again.

  The 250cc machine was the biggest model she felt comfortable riding. Simone was only five two. Gassing it up had been easy. She’d simply bust open the fuel cap off another motorcycle, dropped a piece of hose into the tank, and siphoned the fuel out into a plastic can. She’d even managed to do it without getting a mouthful of gas.

  In her jacket pocket was a road map. On it, she’d marked out a route to Gainesville, Georgia. Two hundred miles away, riding on an empty highway, she estimated she would make the trip in three hours. Plenty of time to arrive before nightfall.

  Her reason for choosing Gainesville was simple. Her father was originally from the town, and her Uncle Tyler still lived there with his wife, a fourteen-year-old daughter, and a seven-year-old son. Being a small city, m
ore of a country town, she hoped it would be safer than Charlotte.

  It was a place Simone knew well. Since her mother’s death from leukemia eighteen months ago, she’d become increasingly withdrawn from her friends. Being an only child, her father had thought it would do her good to spend time with close family, and had taken her to Gainesville regularly on weekends and holidays.

  Her father had been right. Simone loved spending time at the unkempt house on Ridge Street, with its sprawling back garden that ran all the way down to the railway track. Her uncle’s family was so warm to her, and she got on particularly well with her cousin Chloe. She hadn’t spoken to them for over a week, not since her cell phone and the Internet went down, and while she had no idea if any of them were still alive, at least there was a chance.

  The other reason for heading there was that she hoped there might still be fresh food. Gainesville was the poultry capital of America, and her uncle had worked for Fieldale Farms, the largest private employer in the city.

  The job hadn’t paid too well. “Wringing chickens’ necks ain’t much of living,” Uncle Tyler said on more than one occasion with an ironic grin. Still, surely the survivors would have kept some of the processing plants going around the city? How hard was it to feed chickens? Driving down the center of the highway at seventy miles an hour, she would find out soon enough.

  ***

  Ninety minutes later, she stopped for her first break. At a town called Northlake, she took the exit ramp where a gas station was signposted. She didn’t need gas, but she did need to pee. Though she’d only passed three other travelers the whole time she was on the road—who’d all ignored her, and she, they—caution told her it was best to park somewhere off the highway for her rest stop.

  She drove down the ramp where, at the bottom, she spotted a Shell station. At the junction, she turned into it and parked by the first pump. Gazing around, she saw that the station’s window had been smashed, and snack foods and other items were strewn across the ground outside.