by Robert Boren
“An hour too soon?” Curt asked.
“Suits us,” Gray said.
“I’m good,” Kyle said.
Jason nodded in agreement.
“Okay, let’s meet by the gate in an hour,” Curt said.
Jason climbed the steps into his coach. Kate and Carrie were drying off Chelsea.
“Hi, daddy,” she said.
“Hi, sweetie.”
“Something wrong?” Carrie asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“There were some nasty attacks in east Texas last night. Deadwood and Carthage. I’d expect Eric to be around that area. I want to check my e-mail.”
“You sent a message to Eric?” Carrie asked.
“Yeah,” Jason said. He took his laptop out of the case and set it up on the dinette table. “Oh, we’re leaving in an hour, if that’s okay with you two.”
“Fine by me,” Carrie said.
“Me too,” said Kate.
“Good. Gray’s people are going with us.”
“I was hoping,” Carrie said.
The laptop got through its boot-up, and Jason got on the Wi-Fi, then went to his e-mail. “Dammit.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope,” he said. “I’ll leave it on until we’re ready to go.”
“Okay, honey, I’ll get ready. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Hell, a bar is good enough for me,” he said. “Had some of Curt’s coffee. He still has some left, if you guys want some.”
“Good idea,” Kate said. “I’m going. See you guys in a little while.”
“Okay,” Carrie said. “Thanks for the help with Chelsea.”
“Yeah, thanks Aunt Kate,” Chelsea said. Kate smirked as she walked out the door.
Carrie put her hand on Jason’s shoulder, and pulled him into an embrace. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just worried. Eric’s pretty smart. He probably got away clean.”
“I hope so,” Carrie said.
They fed Chelsea and themselves, then got the coach ready to roll. Jason went outside to unhook the utilities just as Curt was closing up the tailgate on his toy hauler.
“Get anything from Eric?” he asked.
“Nope,” Jason said. “Hope he’s all right.”
“He probably is. He’s one tough son of a bitch.”
“You guys about ready?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” Curt said. “I was gonna walk over and say goodbye to Brushy.”
“Okay,” Jason said. “I’ve got a little more to do. See you at the gate.”
Curt nodded as he walked towards the office.
Jason came back into the coach and took one more look at the laptop. No message from Eric. He sighed and shut it down.
“Still nothing?” Carrie asked from the bedroom.
“Nope,” Jason said. “He boondocks a lot, so he might not have had Wi-Fi for a while.”
“That’s probably all it is, honey,” Carrie said, walking out with Chelsea. “Get in your car seat, honey.”
“Okay, mommy,” Chelsea said. Jason put on her straps and kissed her forehead. Dingo jumped on the couch next to the car seat and curled up.
“Ready?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Carrie said. They went to the front seats. Jason fired up the engine and they pulled forward, driving to the gate. Kyle drove up behind them. Curt was shaking hands with Brushy. Jason stopped in front of the office.
“Thanks, Brushy,” he said out the window.
“Thank you,” Brushy said. “Good to meet you. Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“I hope so,” Jason said. “Take care.”
Jason drove to the gate as Curt trotted to his rig. They were all on I-10 in a matter of minutes, going westbound.
“This road is deserted,” Carrie said.
“I know.” Jason checked his rear-view mirror. “Gray’s got a lot of vehicles. Hope they called ahead to the Fort Stockton RV Park.”
“Me too,” Carrie said. “What do they have?”
Jason looked again. “Looks like three class A motor homes, a couple travel trailers, and five Harleys.”
“Wow,” she said. “We’ve got a growing army, don’t we?”
“Damn straight,” Jason said.
“That’s a bad word, daddy,” Chelsea said.
“You’re right, honey. Sorry.”
Carrie glanced at him, smiling.
They settled in for the drive, watching the scenery become more arid as they went further west.
Chapter 17 – Road Carnage
“We ready to go yet?” Junior asked, walking up to Kelly. He was checking the air in his new tires.
“Five minutes, okay?”
“Yeah,” Junior said.
“You might want to check the air in your tires too, you know.”
“Did already,” he said. “Before I came in for coffee,” he said. “The guy at the RV store gave me a lot of pointers.”
“Good,” Kelly said. “How far we going today?”
“Fort Stockton is just under four hours if we take the I-10 route,” Junior said. “Checked it on the coach GPS this morning. It works, by the way.”
“Good,” Kelly said. “Glad I got one of those. Un-hackable.”
“Did you say four hours?” Brenda asked. “That’s a long way to drive these rigs, and we’ve still got a lot of Route 290 to get through, going through towns where we’ll have to slow down. Fredericksburg and Harper, for instance.”
“We could stop in Sonora, I suppose,” Junior said. “Or Ozona.”
“Maybe we ought to see how the road is and decide later,” Kelly said. “If we’re still feeling good when we get to Sonora, we could suck it up and finish the trip.”
“That works for me,” Junior said. “I’ll go finish getting ready to leave.”
“We just about ready, sweetie?” Brenda asked.
“You got the kitchen stuff stowed?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Then we’re ready,” Kelly said.
“I’ll put drinks in that small cooler and stick it behind the seat.”
“You got your gun, right?”
“Yeah, my pistol is in my purse,” she said. “Expecting trouble?”
“Not really, but there’s a lot of enemy fighters around. Better safe than sorry. I stuck the sawed-off shotgun behind the seat, too.”
Kelly folded up the three chairs next to the trailer and threw them in the back of the pickup. Brenda went into the coach and filled the cooler. They were rolling out of their space in minutes. Junior fell in behind them. Route 290 was more crowded than the day before.
“People are taking off,” Kelly said. “Wonder where they think they’re going?”
“They could leave the state,” Brenda said. “I was on my phone earlier reading about it. You can leave the state. You just can’t get back across the border if you’re not a resident.”
“Interesting,” Kelly said.
“The Governor is supposed to make a big announcement today,” Brenda said. “Lot of people think he’s gonna take Texas out of the union. You heard that, right?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “That’s gonna start a shit-storm.”
They drove for about twenty minutes, watching the scenery roll by.
“Look up ahead,” Brenda said. “Is that a motor home turned over on the side of the road?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Looks like it just happened. Maybe that’s why the traffic is slower than normal.”
“Should we pull over and see if somebody needs help?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Nobody else is. What’s wrong with people?”
Kelly’s phone rang. He answered it.
“Yeah, Junior?”
“You see that? Maybe we ought to stop.”
“Thinking the same thing. Pull up behind me. Looks like the shoulder is wide enough.”
Kelly slowed, his right signal on. He rolled to a stop on the shoulder about twenty yards past the
wreck. Junior pulled up behind him, and they all got out.
“Anybody alive?” Kelly yelled as they walked up. There was a woman crying inside. “Hear that?” They ran to the front of the coach and looked in the front windshield. The driver was still belted into his seat, half his head blown away.
“Watch it,” Junior said, looking around. “That man was shot.”
“There’s the woman, behind the front seats,” Brenda said. “Hello! Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” the woman said. “I can’t get out. This thing is laying on the door.”
“We’ll break out the back window,” Kelly shouted. “Come back there after you hear it.”
“Okay,” she said.
Kelly ran back to his truck and grabbed the shotgun, then trotted to the rear of the disabled coach. He slammed the pistol grip of the stock into the rear window until it broke through, and then Junior pulled the shards of glass out of the way. The woman’s face appeared. She had black hair and brown eyes, aged about forty-five, short and thin. Kelly and Junior helped her out of the wreck.
Brenda looked at her when she was out. “You have cuts on your face.”
“Glass from the gunshots,” she said, starting to cry.
“Was that your husband?” Kelly asked.
“My brother,” she said. “We should get out of here. They might come back. They were following us on and off since we left Houston.”
“I’m so sorry,” Brenda said.
“Do you have a cellphone?” Kelly asked.
“Yeah, but it went flying when we crashed.” she said. “Dave had one, too.”
“We have to leave the cellphones. The enemy has been using them to track people,” Kelly said.
“That’s okay, I’m not going back into that motor home after it. Where you guys going?” she asked.
“West,” Kelly said.
“What’s your name, sweetie?” Brenda asked.
“Rachel,” she said.
“I’m Brenda. This is Kelly, and that’s Junior.”
“Thanks so much for stopping.”
“You’re welcome,” Kelly said. “Let’s get out of here before they come back.”
“Yes, please,” Rachel said.
“You can ride with us in the truck,” Brenda said. “C’mon.”
“Call me if you want to stop somewhere on the way,” Junior said.
“Will do,” Kelly said. “You got guns up front, right?”
“My sawed-off shotgun is next to the driver’s seat, and I got my piece too, of course.”
“Good,” Kelly said. “Stay sharp. I think the road is dangerous now.”
“They can’t track us anymore, can they?” Brenda asked as they got to the truck.
“I don’t think so, but they might be going after people randomly.”
“We weren’t random,” Rachel said.
They got into the truck and Kelly drove back onto the road, Junior behind him. They got up to speed quickly.
“Well, that was what caused the traffic to slow down,” Kelly said.
“Sorry,” Rachel said. She sat against the window, Brenda in the middle next to Kelly.
“What happened in Houston?” Brenda asked.
“My brother was one of the citizens who went into the city to fight the Islamists,” she said. “He got attacked at his house later that day. Fought them off. Killed several of them.”
“So he fled,” Brenda asked. “Why did you go with him?”
“Things are really bad along the gulf coast now. There’s been boat after boat dumping enemy fighters. They’re regrouping with people already in Houston. It isn’t safe there.”
Kelly and Brenda glanced at each other.
“Why the hell isn’t that on the news?” Kelly asked. “They’re covering the riots as if they’re just something normal. This ain’t normal. It’s an invasion.”
“Something’s wrong with the city government,” Rachel said. “The media is afraid to say anything in Houston. The Mayor is threatening to declare martial law, with or without support of the Governor.”
“He can’t do that,” Kelly said. “Only the Governor can do that.”
“People in Houston are saying they won’t comply, and a lot of the police have left their jobs to protect their families and fight the Islamists. Dave and I were the only two members of our family living there. The rest of the family is in El Paso. We were trying to go back there.”
“Tell us about the attack on the road,” Kelly said.
“Two pickup trucks, Islamists in the beds. They drove next to us and shot Dave in the head.” She broke down and cried.
“Do you know if your brother talked to the Houston PD with his cellphone?”
“Yes, I know he did,” she said. “After that battle. He had to go in for questioning. I thought they were gonna lock him up for killing enemy fighters. Why are you asking that?”
“Austin PD’s cellphones got hacked. I talked to them and got infected, then infected my friends. That’s how they found us.”
“Wait, you guys got attacked too?” Rachel asked.
“You see the video of the Superstore attack in Dripping Springs, and the battle in Austin?” Kelly asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes getting big. “You guys were involved with that?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “They were tracking us. We couldn’t figure out how at first. When we figured it out, we dumped our cellphones. Haven’t been hit since.”
“You’ve got one there,” she said, nodding towards the cellphone on the dashboard next to the GPS unit.
“We got new ones. We don’t think they can hack us again if we don’t talk to any infected phones. Austin PD figured that out too.”
Brenda chuckled. “We put all of our old phones on a freight train to Newark. The Islamists blew it up after it crossed the border into Jersey. They might think we’re all dead now.”
“You’re joking,” Rachel said.
“God’s honest truth,” Kelly said.
“What are you guys gonna do now?”
“We’re meeting the rest of our group in Fort Stockton,” Kelly said. “There are other groups we’re joining with.”
“What then?” she asked.
“We take the fight to the enemy,” Kelly said.
“Oh.” She looked at Brenda. “You okay with that? It’s pretty obvious you two are together.”
Brenda sighed. “Yeah, I’m with him all the way, but it scares me to death.”
“Think I could join you guys? I know how to shoot.”
“The more the merrier,” Brenda said.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll pull my weight.”
“Why do you want to do this?” Kelly asked.
“To avenge my brother, and to avenge Houston.”
“You don’t want to go to El Paso?” Brenda asked.
“I left there for a reason,” she said. “Both of us did.”
“El Paso might not be safe anyway,” Kelly said. “It’s right across the border from Mexico.”
Kelly’s phone rang. He looked at it. “Junior.” He put it to his ear.
“Yeah, Junior.”
“Hey, would a truckload of Islamists interest you? They’re coming up behind me in a hurry.”
“Why yes, it would.”
“Wow, they’re in a hurry. They’re getting ready to pass me.”
“Gonna take a pot shot?”
“They’ll be past me too fast.”
“Okay, I see them coming around. I’ll speed up so they have plenty of room to get behind me. I need a few seconds to get the shotgun out. Be careful. Don’t hit the debris.” He ended the call.
“Oh shit,” Brenda said.
“Hand me the shotgun,” Kelly said.
“You sure about this?” she asked as she reached behind the seat.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve had enough of these creeps.”
“I say blow them away,” Rachel said.
“Here it is,” Brenda s
aid, putting it across their laps. “Do I need to cock it?”
“Nah, it’s a semi-auto.” Kelly brought it up, resting it on the window sill, it’s short pistol grip under his arm. “Good, they’re getting ready to pass us on the left.” Kelly watched in the rear-view mirror. “Hold onto the steering wheel.”
“Kelly…” Brenda said. She grabbed the wheel. Kelly’s hands went on the shotgun. As the cab of the truck came into view, Kelly pulled the trigger, filling it with buckshot. The truck careened onto the shoulder and rolled several times.
“Yes!” Kelly said. Then they heard a shotgun blast behind them. Another truck behind them swerved, almost losing control, trying to get away from Junior’s shotgun. He fired again, hitting several men in the truck bed.
“Junior?” Brenda asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah, that truck is trying to get away. Coming alongside again. You know the drill. Hold the wheel.”
Kelly watched as the truck came up, men in the cab shouting at each other, hunkered down, terrified. When they got even with Kelly he fired again, two shots, killing the men inside. The truck rolled slowly to a stop.
“See any more?” Brenda asked.
“Nope,” he said.
“We’re not going to stop?” Rachel asked.
“Hell no,” Kelly said. His phone rang again. Kelly put it to his ear.
“Hey, Junior. Nice shooting.”
“Same to you,” he said. “There’s bodies from the bed of that last truck littering the road back there. Truck didn’t roll though, just stopped. Think they’re dead?”
“I sent two loads of buckshot into the cab,” Kelly said. “Doesn’t do your face much good. If they ain’t dead, they’re close.”
“Good. You okay to keep going?” Junior asked.
“Yes,” Kelly said. “You?”
“Yeah, I didn’t get a scratch from that. How’d Rachel take it?”
“She told me to blast them.”
Junior laughed. “I’ll keep one eye on the rear-view in case any more show up.”
“Good,” Kelly said. “Talk to you later.”
“We’re coming up on Fredericksburg already,” Brenda said.
“That’s gonna slow us down,” Kelly said.
“Yeah, the road goes right through the middle of town,” Rachel said. “Think they’ll try to stop us because of what happened back there?”
“They don’t even know about it yet,” Kelly said. “I didn’t see anybody on the road other than those two trucks, either behind us or in front of us.”