There was still a lot to do before he could put his plan into action. Still questions that needed to be answered. Still reinforcements to recruit.
He wouldn’t go until he was confident he could do it without Sarah and his daughters getting hurt.
After all this time, he owed them that much.
An hour later, Dave was on the outskirts of the little town of Dugan. From the maps in his travel atlas, he knew it to be the county seat of Winslow County. That meant they had either a police department or a county sheriff’s office. And that meant help.
He parked the big Explorer at a highway rest area just outside of town. The truck parking area was adorned with about twenty big rigs, parked when the lights went out so their drivers could nap or use the restroom, and slowly turning to dust in the year since.
He parked in the narrow space between two of the rigs, which effectively hid his vehicle from view of the highway.
It also gave him a convenient place to get a little bit of rest, for the trucks on either side of him were equipped with sleeper cabs.
He slowly exited his vehicle and inspected the area around him for any signs of movement. He saw none.
The cabs of both trucks were empty. The first, an older GMC, smelled of mold and mildew. Dave suspected the driver had left the ventilation doors open in the ceiling of the sleeper when he abandoned the rig. All the rains over the months since then had done their damage.
The other sleeper looked promising. It belonged to Allied Freight, one of the biggest cross-country movers in the nation. One of the things Dave had learned from his journey from Texas was that large trucking companies were very image conscious. They required that their trucks be kept reasonably clean, and their drivers as well. Some of them employed people who traveled the nation, hanging out at truck stops, pulling random safety and cleanliness inspections of any of its rigs which just happened to pull in.
And in recent years just prior to the blackout, such companies had the ability to track their rigs with GPS, giving them the option of just showing up on a trucker’s doorstep whenever they wanted.
Dave could therefore be fairly certain that such rigs, although abandoned for more than a year now, would still provide him a reasonably clean, reasonably comfortable, place to lay his head.
Sure enough the second rig, a Ford Freightliner, was neat as a pin. It smelled stale, from having been sealed up for so long. But that wasn’t a bad thing. It meant that wandering nomads hadn’t been using it, and hadn’t left their fleas or bedbugs behind.
He checked his watch before he crashed, and noted it was just after three a.m.
He locked the doors behind him and made sure the windows were tightly sealed, and that all the vents were closed.
He knew that with no ventilation, he wouldn’t be able to oversleep.
The mid-morning sun would bake the fiberglass cab, raising the temperatures to close to a hundred degrees before noon. He’d likely wake up in a sweat. But at least he’d wake up in time to accomplish the day’s mission, instead of sleeping the day away.
Chapter 14
The little old man looked friendly enough. At least he smiled when Dave walked through the door marked “Winslow County Sheriff’s Office: Serving Proudly Since 1846.”
“Well good morning, young fella. Or is it afternoon yet? My old wind up watch finally gave out a few weeks ago and it’s kinda hard to tell now.”
Dave checked his own watch and said, “It’s almost one p.m., and I’m doing okay. Thanks for asking, sir. How about yourself?”
“Couldn’t be better, unless the lights and the air conditioner suddenly started working again. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for the sheriff, if he’s around. I have this letter to give him.”
Dave unfolded the letter given him by Frank Woodard before he left San Antonio.
“It’s a letter of provenance,” Frank had explained. “They were used a lot in the old days, when someone was traveling to a strange land where he might be viewed as unsavory or hostile. It was given to someone in authority, to prove that the traveler was who he said he was, and not just somebody looking for trouble.”
The little old man opened the letter and read it while Dave looked around the room.
To Whom It May Concern,
My name Is Frank L. Woodard. I am a Senior Deputy with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department in San Antonio, Texas.
I can vouch that the bearer of this letter, Dave Speer, is a personal friend of mine who is also a permanent resident of Bexar County.
Mr. Speer means you no harm or ill will. He is merely on a journey to find his family who was stranded in the Kansas City area when the blackout occurred.
Please aid him on his journey if you are able, and not hinder him in any way.
As testament to my own identity and credentials, I urge you to contact Jason Willingham, Sheriff of Winslow County. I have known Jason for many years, and I know he is well known and respected throughout the State of Kansas. Jason knows the sound of my voice, and will vouch for me if he contacts me via ham radio. Dave knows the frequencies I monitor.
Respectfully Yours,
Frank L. Woodard
Once finished, the man refolded the letter and handed it back to Dave. For several seconds he said nothing, but Dave thought he detected a sense of sadness in the old man’s demeanor.
Then he said, “My name is Willingham too, but I’m afraid I’m not the man your friend was referring to. Jason was my son, and the sheriff of Winslow County for many years. He was a damn good sheriff, too. I know because I was in the same business. I ran this office myself when I was a young feller like you. I raised my Jason to respect the law and do right for others, and he learned well. When I announced my retirement, he ran as my replacement and won by a landslide. There’s been a Willingham running this office for over fifty years now.
“At least, there was until about a year or so ago.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Jason was on horseback, leading a posse who was tracking some escaped convicts from Leavenworth Prison. The bastards lay in wait for them. Got them in a crossfire. Ambushed ‘em, like cowardly villains in an old western movie.”
The man looked Dave in the eyes, and Dave could see unfallen tears.
“Jason, the only one I had left in this world, got shot in the back and died there, in the dirt, like a damn dog.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Only two of them made it back alive, and they were both wounded. One died the following day. The other was gut shot, but managed to survive. He said his days of volunteering for posses was over, though, and refused to go back out. Said he owed it to his wife and daughter to stay alive. Can’t say I blame him much.”
“Did you get them?”
“No, I’m afraid not. By that time able bodied men were hard to come by. They was killin’ themselves and their families right and left, or stickin’ to themselves and protectin’ their families. I couldn’t raise a second posse, and lit out after them myself. They told me I was crazy, but with Jason gone I honestly didn’t care if I lived or died anyway. The only thing I had left to live for was revenge.
“But I never found ‘em. They were long gone. Killed a prepper and stole his truck, and lit out west toward Colorado, I heard. I was tempted to go after them, but Colorado’s a big place, and you can’t track a pickup truck on pavement by horseback.
“So I came back here, to do what I can for the rest of the townsfolk.”
“I’m sorry, sir. It sounds like you’ve been through hell.”
“Well, no more than a lot of other people, I’d expect. Who’d have ever thought that taking away something as simple as electricity would bring this world down to its knees like it did?”
Dave simply nodded. He had no answers for the old man, and began to feel guilty for bothering him. He’d come here looking for help, but it was obvious the man had none to give.
But he offered anyway.
�
�You still haven’t said what you needed to see Jason about, son. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I’ve come up here from Texas, to get my wife and daughters and to take them back to San Antonio with me. But I found out they’re being held against their will, by the same kind of escaped convicts that killed your son and the others.”
“They’ve turned this whole state into a big graveyard. More than six hundred got out, and less than a third of that recaptured. Where are they at, exactly?”
“At the Spencer farm.”
“Is that in this county?”
“Yes, sir. South and east of here.”
“Can’t say I’m familiar with it. But a lot of places have changed hands since I retired and Jason took my place. Do you know how many are there?”
“I haven’t had much time to stake it out, but I counted at least nine, and probably more.”
The old man whistled under his breath.
“I’m afraid what I can do for you is next to nothing, son. I’ll go back with you if you want, but I won’t do any shooting. It’s not that I don’t have the heart. And not that the bastards don’t deserve it. But I’m eighty two now. You’d have to help me on and off my horse. And although I can see you well enough to know you’re a man and not a woman, I can’t see much farther than that. I’m afraid the bullets from my gun would have just as much chance of finding your wife or young’uns as they would a bad guy.”
“Is there anyone else?”
“Nobody willing to take on those odds. I’ll ask around, but the anger against the escaped convicts is gone in most folks now. The survivors we have here have pretty much accepted an uneasy ceasefire with the convicts that are still out there. Kind of a you don’t bother us and we won’t bother you type of arrangement.”
“What about the state police?”
“The state police don’t exist anymore, son. They disbanded a month after the world went black.”
“The national guard? The Army? Surely there’s somebody who can help.”
“The National Guard was absorbed by the Army, which is now under control of FEMA. And you can’t get FEMA to do a damn thing they don’t wanna do. I know ‘cause I’ve tried. It’s an exercise in futility, like dealing with the Three Stooges. Only not that funny.”
“So there’s nothing you can do to help me?”
“I can pray for you, son. That’s about it.”
Dejected, Dave thanked the man for his time and started to leave.
Then the old man’s face brightened and he said, “Wait. Maybe there’s one more way I can help you. Wait here.”
He turned and shuffled slowly over to a large gun safe at the back of the office. He took a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket and balanced them on the end of his nose, then slowly turned the combination lock.
The heavy door creaked as it opened.
“I’ve been meaning to oil that. But I guess it doesn’t really creak any more than my old bones do.”
He took out a long rifle, with a scope setup as big as Dave’s forearm. And on the front of it was something Dave had seen in movies, but never in real life.
The old man seemed to take great delight in Dave’s smile.
He asked, “You know what this is?”
“A big damned silencer, is what it looks like.”
The man laughed.
“Well, you’re half right. It’s a big damn silencer, and a big damn flash suppressor.”
“What kind of rifle is it, and where the hell did you get it?”
“It’s a sniper rifle. It uses a regular .556 round, but it’s meant to take out targets at up to a thousand meters. At least that’s what Billy said. I don’t speak metrics myself. I wouldn’t know a thousand meters from a hole in the ground. I’m too old to learn a whole new measurin’ system just ‘cause the government said we oughta.”
“Who’s Billy?”
“Billy was one of my son’s deputies. He was killed in the same ambush as my son. Billy was an agent for The Drug Enforcement Agency before he got tired of the federal government and decided to try something a bit slower. They took this off a couple of nomads right after the blackout. No way of telling where they might have gotten it.
“Anyway, Billy said he’d only seen one other one like it, when he was working for the DEA. He said they confiscated it along the border with Mexico, not far from El Paso. The drug lords down there were hiring snipers to shoot their rivals from long distances.”
“He said it was a shame the night vision don’t work. Takes batteries, you see, and as you know they’re a thing of the past. But you can still use it in the daytime. The silencer suppresses the muzzle flash, so not only can they not hear where the shot came from, they can’t see the flash either.”
Dave almost told him that he had batteries, but he thought better of it.
“Can I borrow it?”
“Hell, son. You can have the damn thing. No one used it while we had it, and now there’s no one left to use it. And if you take out just one of those bastards who escaped prison, then I reckon it’s for a good cause. Because every one of those scumbags you shoot will help make this county just a little bit safer.
“And besides, it’ll help ease my conscience a bit. See, as much as I’d like to, I can’t help you with reinforcements. If you walk out of here with this, then I won’t feel quite so bad. I’ll know I helped you in another way.”
“You got any ammunition to go with it?”
The man produced two boxes of shells and placed them on the counter next to the weapon.
“There you go, son. Good luck to you. You’re gonna need it, going up against that kind of odds.”
“I’ll prevail,” Dave stated matter-of-factly. Because I have right and justice on my side. And the good guys always win in the end.”
Chapter 15
Dave said goodbye to his new friend, and decided to stay in Dugan until nightfall. He couldn’t retrieve his vehicle until after dark anyway, and he didn’t want to carry his new sniper rifle down the lonely road in daylight.
He was afraid that if he came across a band of armed men, they might try to take it from him.
And he didn’t want to have to kill them for it.
Dave didn’t like killing men. He had killed several insurgents in Iraq. The Marine Corps never actually told him so, but he knew it. In a firefight, when several Marines are firing at the same target, there exists a comfortable sense of plausible deniability.
Those who freak out at the prospect of killing another human being can always justify to themselves in their own mind that someone else’s bullet was the fatal shot.
Dave, because he was a great shot and didn’t rush his shots as most others did under fire, assumed that some of his bullets found their mark. Knowing that he more than likely sent men to meet Allah left a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. But then again, they were trying to kill Dave. And better them than him.
He’d apply the same logic to anyone he met on the road who tried to take his weapons. Leaving him to battle the escaped convicts without firepower was, in essence, condemning him to death. For Dave knew that he’d go in with his bare hands if he had to. So if the only choice he had was to kill in order to keep his weapons and increase his odds of success, then he had no problem in doing that.
But he’d rather not, if he could avoid it.
So he’d sit under a tree on the outskirts of town, the sniper rifle stashed in the bushes behind him, until it was dark enough to travel the lonely roads safely.
He napped under the tree as he waited for nightfall, and was awakened by a swarm of pesky mosquitoes just before midnight.
It was longer than he’d intended to sleep, but his body wouldn’t have rested if he hadn’t needed it.
By two a.m. he was back on Highway 71, the Explorer safely tucked between an abandoned tractor trailer and a rusty old dump truck.
By the time the sun broke on the horizon he’d made three fast trips back to the tunnel, sh
uttling water and provisions. He’d decided to make the forest end of the tunnel his base of operations while he continued his recon, and stay there day and night until the battle was over. The big green fiberglass box was just as secure as the sleeper cabs and was comfortable day or night. The tunnel was cooler in the daytime, since it was several feet below ground and well ventilated. At night, there were no mosquitoes, and he could come and go from the fiberglass box without much chance of being seen.
After he locked himself inside the tunnel for the last time he took stock of what he’d brought. He had food and water for at least four days. That might not be enough for an extended campaign, but he wouldn’t be ready to wage war for a couple of days anyway. As much as he’d like to go immediately, he was still short on intel.
And intel was as important to his family’s survival as were weapons and bullets.
He’d go back out the following night and lug back more food and water from the Explorer. He wanted enough for at least a week before he started. Because his guerilla campaign would put the enemy on high alert, and his movements would be extremely risky after the first shots were fired.
He had three weapons, including his new sniper rifle, and over four hundred rounds of ammunition. He wasn’t one to waste his shots, so that was plenty.
He had his Army Ranger knife, which he’d selected to bring with him instead of his favorite hunting knife.
The Ranger knife was lighter, and had a wrapped grip. He’d be able to hold it better when it was covered with blood.
Lastly, he had a comfortable sleeping bag and an inflatable air mattress. He could have left the air mattress behind, but good quality sleep was essential to keep him battle ready. And a sleeping bag on a bare concrete floor would be anything but comfortable.
He was tired from walking several miles, but not yet sleepy enough to crash.
So he sat on the floor of the tunnel, his back against the tunnel’s cool wall, and used his AR-15’s cleaning kit to clean the sniper rifle while he thought of Sarah and the girls.
The Battle: Alone: Book 4 Page 6