What's Left of My World: A Story of a Family's Survival

by C. A. Rudolph

  “Guys, I’m normally not the voice of reason and I really hate to be the one to point this out, but we don’t have enough people for this,” Peter said.

  The others looked at him with mixed expressions.

  “Pete’s right,” Michael agreed. “We’d need at least six able-bodied men working security at all times. Two here, two on the north end, and two for random road patrols. Bryan really shouldn’t leave his wife and daughter alone, and I don’t want to leave Kristen by herself either.”

  “Amy can handle herself, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving her and the boys by themselves—especially with what’s going on,” Peter added.

  “We could always go further north of Perry,” Fred said, “and see if the Bradys would be interested in helping.”

  The other three men gave Fred a barrage of curious looks.

  “Well, I’ve heard it all now. The Brady bunch?” Peter asked. “You’re not serious…”

  “Yeah, Fred. We tried that before,” Michael pointed out. “It didn’t work out very well from what I remember.”

  “The situation has changed, so maybe they’ll reconsider,” Norman said.

  “Yeah, or maybe they’ll just choose to cook us and eat us,” Peter said. “They’re barbarians.”

  “They’re survivors, Pete,” Fred asserted. “More so than you, or me, or anyone we know.”

  “Fred, the last time I checked, they preferred to keep to themselves and I’m happy to let it stay that way,” Peter said. “Old man Brady is a raving lunatic and the rest of his family aren’t much different—it’s like they’re inbred or something. I remember waving to him last time I saw him and all I got in return was his middle finger.”

  “You got off easy—it could’ve been the business end of his double-barrel shotgun,” Michael said. “I’ve seen that myself a couple times.”

  “Did I mention he was naked?” Peter said.

  Norman and the others got a good laugh. He sighed and said, “Inbred or not, there’s enough Bradys to increase our numbers substantially if we can convince them. It’s an option worth considering.”

  “Then let’s consider it,” Fred said. “As far as standing guard, my boys can handle the job. Those two are a couple of monkeys, but they can do it.”

  “Mine can as well,” Norman said. “Both John and Lee are excellent shots and can handle themselves.”

  “Our immediate threat is here, though,” Michael digressed, pointing to the ground. “We need to address this today. Do we all agree on that?”

  As he finished his sentence, the sound of engines could be heard in the distance. Fred immediately turned around to face the Virginia side of the road, lifting his rifle to the ready position.

  “Yeah…those would be motorcycles,” Peter said with a wide-eyed look of surprise.

  “Spread out and find some cover now!” Fred said in a loud whisper while waving his hand behind him. He moved to the right of the road and found cover behind a thicket-covered embankment beside a primitive campsite. Norman and Michael ran to the left of the road and dove into the drainage ditch. Peter turned to look behind him and remembered that his truck was sitting in view, just on the other side of the barricade. He took off in a sprint toward his truck. Fred turned to see him running as the sound of the motorcycle engines began to get louder.

  “Get the fuck down, dumbass!” Fred yelled.

  Hearing Fred and realizing he couldn’t make it to the truck in time, Peter lunged forward over the embankment and landed behind a tree. He dropped his pistol somewhere in the leaves when he landed. He began rifling through them in an attempt to find it, making sure to stay as low as he could.

  Remaining under the cover of the bank beside him, Norman got to his knees and lifted his AK-47 to his shoulder, laying the barrel in the leaves. He looked right and could almost see the muzzle of Fred’s M1A protruding out near the roadside, but he could not see Fred and that didn’t surprise him. He assumed a former Ranger probably knew quite a bit about camouflage. Michael laid prone behind Norman and had his pistol drawn. Norman looked back at him and placed his finger to his lips. Michael nodded and turned to see Peter desperately trying to find the pistol he had dropped. He snapped his fingers a couple of times to get Peter’s attention. When Peter looked up, Michael repeated Norman’s signal. Peter nodded and ducked down.

  Three motorcycles approached the campsite entrance and turned into it. All of the drivers had guns in their hands resting on their handlebars. They each turned into the campsite parking lot. They circled through it and came to a stop beside one another, shutting off their engines. One of the drivers got off of his bike and pointed his gun in the direction of the car campsites.

  “Mickey, check over there,” he said. “See if they decided to have themselves a little camp out.”

  “10-4,” Mickey said as he got off of his motorcycle with what appeared to be an H&K MP5 submachine gun in his hand. He walked bow-legged over to the entrance of the roundabout. “There’s some cars over there…looks like they’ve been here a long time. I don’t see any bikes.”

  The third biker walked to the edge of the parking lot and proceeded to relieve himself. “I hope we find those fuckers before it gets dark,” he said. “I got shit to do.”

  “We will,” the first biker said as he continued to look around, his own submachine gun at the ready. From the way he presented himself, he appeared to be the leader of the pack.

  Norman looked back at Michael. He lifted his hand and held up three fingers. Michael nodded. Norman then made his hand look like a gun and began rapidly moving his thumb, trying to indicate to Michael that the bikers had machine guns. Michael nodded again, but it was unclear to Norman if he understood the specific information he was trying to get across. Neither one of them were as adept at hand signals as they would’ve liked to have been, at this very moment.

  The bikers convened in the middle of the parking lot and each lit up a cigarette, one right after the other. Fred watched their movements and noticed they were constantly looking all around them. They never got complacent and never let their guard down and that indicated to him, they weren’t amateurs by any means. He moved his scope’s crosshairs to align with the leader’s head.

  “How much longer are we going to look for these guys?” the one that the others had called Mickey asked. “It’s not like they can’t take care of themselves. They probably found some bitches and decided to hole up with them.”

  “That’s not the point, dumbass,” the leader said. “You know what Damien will do to us if we come back empty handed.”

  “Yeah, I’m not trying to find out,” the third biker said.

  “Our instructions were clear. Find Jesse and find Vance, and don’t bother coming back until we do,” the leader asserted.

  “That’s what I heard too,” the third biker said.

  “Fine,” Mickey said as he pulled on the crotch of his jeans. He then rubbed his belly. “Damn hell, I’m hungry. Let’s find something to eat while we’re doing this and let’s find something soon.”

  “That’s actually not a bad idea,” the third biker said.

  The leader nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette. He said, “All the houses we passed on the way here looked ransacked to me. Let’s head on down this hill here and see what we can find. Who knows? Maybe they’re not far. There should be some houses down there, so hopefully we can get some food.”

  “And maybe find us a little something-something while we’re at it,” Mickey said with a smile. “I like country girls.”

  The three bikers stood silent for a moment and finished their cigarettes, then mounted their motorcycles. Fred had heard everything they had said. In a moment, these three men, armed with machine guns, would be headed down and over the hill toward the barricade. They would quickly see Peter’s truck and become alerted to their presence. This was not a good thing and he knew it. Fred was a man of action and knew that there was no way he could allow this to happen. He tried to signal Norma
n, but noticed that he wasn’t looking in his direction. As the motorcycles began to exit the parking lot, Fred took aim and fired a single shot from his M1A. The tracer bullet grazed the gas tank of the bike belonging to the leader, causing it to rupture and catch fire. The rider yelped, laid the bike over and fell to the ground. He began rolling around on the gravel, in an attempt to put the fire out that had spread to his clothes, letting out cries as he did. He began barking orders to the other bikers to shoot back. And that, was when all hell broke loose.

  The remaining two bikers began a hail of simultaneous full-automatic gunfire toward and around Fred’s position. He pulled back and ducked under cover as best he could as dirt and debris flew all over him and bullets whizzed by his head. Norman slapped off his safety and immediately began firing his AK rapidly in the direction of the bikers, even though several trees were preventing him from having a perfect sight picture. The remaining two bikers laid their bikes down instinctively and fell behind them for cover. One of them began firing full-auto bursts in Norman’s direction, forcing him to duck. Unable to aim his shots now, he pulled the trigger blindly, knowing that if he stopped, they would simply concentrate their fire at Fred’s position and keep him pinned down. With their fully automatic weapons they had fire superiority. The only chance was to attack them from multiple locations and establish a crossfire.

  Fred began firing his rifle from cover in their general direction, but his unaimed shots only managed to hit the ground near them. One of the bikers stopped shooting long enough to load a new magazine and he soon began another onslaught of rapid fire at Norman’s position.

  After several painstaking minutes of searching, Peter had finally managed to find his pistol. He remained under cover from the other side of the road, in between the gunfight and the barricade for a moment, then decided to break cover and try to move behind and hopefully flank the bikers. When he finally was able to see them, he laid down behind a large fallen tree and began to fire at them. His shots were aimed, but were out of range for his weapon and skillset. He had never practiced shooting his handgun at long distances before and quickly realized that having done so, would be very useful at this moment.

  With the bikers being fired on from three different positions, one of which they had no cover from, they were beginning to get flustered. Sensing a break in the assault, Fred suddenly broke cover firing multiple shots at the bikers. As he ran, he took a well-placed single shot, killing the lead biker as he continued to roll around on the ground, half-covered in flames. When the bolt of his M1A held open, Fred realized he had emptied his magazine and went to the ground, simultaneously unholstering one of his 1911 .45 pistols. Upon seeing this, the third biker yelled, “To hell with this!” and hopped on his bike, tearing off through the woods behind him in a cloud of dust. Fred rolled to take a shot at him, but there were too many trees in the way. He then drew down on the remaining biker, the one the others had called Mickey. As Mickey aimed his gun in Fred’s direction, Norman stood up with his AK at the ready. With a full magazine, he began to fire in the direction of the remaining biker. When one of the bullets darted past his head, Mickey dropped his gun and held his hands up. Seeing this, Norman stopped pulling the trigger. He wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.

  “Stop shooting at me, dammit!” Mickey said. “I give up!”

  Fred got up and ran over to him. He kicked his submachine gun out of his reach. He then brought the buttstock of his M1A down on Mickey’s head, knocking him to the ground nearly unconscious. Norman approached soon after in an all-out sprint. He passed by rapidly, running in the direction of the biker who had escaped into the woods. Michael walked over with his pistol in hand as did Peter. Fred looked at Peter and smiled.

  “Nice work,” Fred said. “Your shooting really caught them off-guard.”

  “It was nothing,” Peter said trying to brush off a very stressful situation. He was almost out of breath.

  “Too bad you didn’t hit a damn thing,” Fred poked. Peter just offered a semi-shocked look and mocked him silently.

  Fred rolled the man over and pulled a set of plastic zip cuffs from his vest pocket, then used them to secure the man’s hands behind his back. He patted him down quickly and removed everything from his pockets, tossing the belongings on the ground near Michael’s feet. Michael looked the items over and picked up a fairly new Spyderco folding knife.

  A few minutes later Norman walked up to them, breathing heavily with his AK resting on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, guys. He’s long gone,” Norman said in between breaths. “There’s tracks leading down into the gulch and back onto the road. He was gone before I could even get a clear shot.”

  “Shit!” Fred exclaimed, showing his disgust. “That’s just fucking great.”

  “I could go after them,” Peter said, pointing at the last remaining undamaged motorcycle, “but you managed to shoot out all the tires, Fred.”

  Fred glared quickly at Peter and began to say something regarding his ability to hit a target, but only thought it for a moment and dismissed it. He figured he’d let Peter have his moment.

  “This really changes things,” Michael said as he pocketed the knife. “And I bet people heard that gunfire for miles.”

  Fred nodded and pulled his radio from a pouch on his vest and pressed the push-to-talk button. “All stations, this is Mason one. The gunfire was us. We are all OK, I repeat, we are all OK,” he said into the microphone.

  Fred’s wife’s voice came back over the speaker, a few seconds after he’d released the push-to-talk button. “Fred, what’s going on up there?” Kim’s voice said over the radio.

  “We had a small firefight, but we’re all ok, Kimmy,” Fred replied.

  “We heard the shots,” Kim said. “We copy that you’re ok.”

  “We’ll be back soon,” Fred said. “Out.” Fred placed the radio back into its pouch and sighed.

  “Well, one thing’s for certain. They’ll be coming for sure now,” Norman uttered.

  “You think?” Fred said, still sounding a bit disgusted.

  “Who’s this guy?” Norman asked.

  Fred nudged Mickey the biker’s vest a bit, exposing a patch that read, “ENFORCER.”

  “Enforcer, huh?” Fred said. He poked the muzzle of his rifle into Mickey’s cheek, causing Mickey to cringe. “What exactly is it that you enforce?”

  Mickey ignored him and said nothing.

  “Wake up, dipshit! We got some questions for you,” Fred said, sounding a bit perturbed.

  Mickey opened his eyes and spit out a wad of blood on the ground. “I don’t give a shit about your questions,” he said. “You can fuck off.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Fred huffed.

  Peter walked over to the lead biker and began kicking dirt over him, in order to douse the remaining flames. He then rolled him over with his foot.

  “Oh, shit,” Peter said, “You killed a club officer, Fred.”

  “What do you mean?” Michael asked.

  “His patch says he’s the Treasurer,” Peter replied. “The money man. Wonder what he does now—now that money is obsolete.”

  “I should’ve killed all three of them,” Fred said as he eyeballed Mickey, who was now sitting up, looking very rattled after getting his bell rung by the buttstock of Fred’s rifle. Fred didn’t take his eyes off of the man. He kept the muzzle of his weapon aimed directly at him.

  Norman just shook his head. “That’s great,” he said. “Yesterday at the Ackermanns, it was the Vice President and today, it’s the Treasurer.”

  Mickey looked up at Norman with a cold expression on his face. He said nothing.

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Norman?” Fred asked. “You never said anything about that.”

  “Didn’t really think it was relevant,” Norman said. “One dead biker is the same as another, right?”

  “Oh, it’s relevant,” Peter began, “if you know how these clubs work.”

  Everyone paused.


  “Do you mind elaborating, Pete?” Michael asked.

  Peter nodded and said, “It takes a lot to become a member and these clubs take their membership seriously. Especially their officers. We know this dead guy today is—well, was the Treasurer. If one of the guys Mr. Ackermann shot was indeed the Vice President of the club, that’s two dead club officers in as many days. The other members will not take kindly to losing two of their main guys.”

  “They were both killed in self-defense, though,” Michael said.

  “Sorry, Michael. Intent doesn’t mean a damn thing to them,” Peter said.

  “No, it won’t matter,” Mickey said confidently, “not one goddamn bit.”

  “Shut the hell up, idiot,” Fred said as he lifted his rifle to his shoulder.

  “Go ahead, kill me. It won’t change anything,” Mickey said with a sinister smile, displaying his discolored teeth.

  “Oh, it will change plenty,” Fred said. “You see…it’ll make you dead and not alive anymore—which is perfectly fine with me. I won’t have to hear you talk and I won’t have to drag your fat ass down this hill and tie your ass to a tree.”

  “It won’t change the fact that all three of you walking dead men,” Mickey said. “Damien will find you and he’ll kill all of you. If y’all killed Jesse and Vance, you just started a shitstorm that can’t be stopped.”

  “Who’s Damien?” Fred asked. Mickey turned away and spat on the ground. Fred pushed the muzzle of his M1A into Mickey’s temple. After a few more seconds of silence, Fred asked again with a much louder, gruff tone, “Talk, asshole. Who is Damien?”

  “He’s the President,” Peter said. “The main man. Big cheese. Head honcho. Judge, jury, and executioner.”

  Mickey laughed. “Damien is more than that,” he said. “He’s your new god.”

  Norman, Fred, Peter, and Michael all looked at each other. The looks on their faces transitioned from dumbfounded to worried. Fred’s expression was hard to calculate. He looked more annoyed than anything. Norman noticed Fred’s finger was no longer alongside the trigger guard of his rifle. It was resting lightly on the trigger now. Fred wanted to kill this man. The biker didn’t seem to care much that his life was now hanging by a thread. On top of everything else he had on his mind, this really made Norman nervous. If this guy wasn’t afraid to die, it was certainly possible that every member of this gang viewed death in the same way.