The Lottery Winner

by Pete Thorsen

  I have now settled into a routine with plenty of exercises. I do practice some offensive and defensive moves every day too. Be nice to have a sparring partner, but I just make do alone.

  The mail is still coming once a week. I don't get much for mail, but I do get some. The bank statement still comes once a month and lists my balance so at least I know the bank is still open. I see the unemployment checks are still being deposited, much to my surprise because I thought they would stop.

  Of course, I'm happy the money is still coming in. But I wonder what the withdrawal limit is now and whether any stores will even take a check anymore. The money in the bank does very little good if you can not withdraw it and can not write a check against it.

  I had been concerned about my propane, so on one of the last trips to town I had stopped in at the propane dealer. It was on the outside of town on my side, so it was not out of the way for me. Someone was in the office there, and I asked about getting a delivery. Yes, I could get a delivery with a hundred gallon minimum, and yes, they would accept a check for payment. About two weeks later the gas man came and filled the tank, and I wrote him a check for it. This full tank of propane could be stretched out for a year, or a little more I think.

  I asked the driver about the situation in town. From what he said it did not sound like it was much different than the last time I had been in town. So the next day I drove in to see about getting more supplies. I went armed the same as last time.

  Chapter 10

  Gas was now well over eight dollars a gallon I noticed as I drove past a still open station. I am surprised they even show the price on the big sign when it's that high. Obviously, people would only buy gas now at the current high prices if they really needed it. I somehow doubt people were just going out for relaxing Sunday drives anymore.

  My first stop was at the bank. It was open, and the withdrawal limit was still the same at two hundred dollars every week. I got the limit of course. The armed guards were still there, and I saw no evidence of any past gun battles in the bank.

  Next, I went to Walmart which was also still open. I drove past the dollar store, and I was not surprised to see it closed down. I parked and went into Walmart after locking my truck. I almost left it unlocked just so no one would smash a window to get in but in the end, I decided to lock it anyway.

  Inside the big store, it was little changed since my last visit. The inventory levels looked similar to my last trip. I stopped at the checkout as I went past and asked about payment options. Checks or cash were all that was being accepted. This was perfectly fine with me. I had brought my checkbook this time with the hope I could still use it instead of cash.

  I grabbed two carts this time. Even with two carts, I had stuff piled high and on the shelf under the carts also. When I checked out I was very careful as I put everything back in the carts so I could make everything fit again. I did have stuff piled higher I think as I left the checkout. I had been tempted to get even a third cart but thought if things got no worse I could come back in again anytime.

  I was almost back to the truck when I saw the three guys heading my way. I went the rest of the way to my truck but turned the carts, so they were between them and me when I got to the truck, and I drew that little pistol out of my pocket. When they got closer, I leaned down some and aimed the pistol at them so they all could plainly see I had the drop on them and I was behind some cover in case they wanted to do a shootout. I guess they were actually smarter than they looked.

  They stopped, and I spoke.

  "I don't really care if I shoot you or not. But don't waste my time. Turn around and walk directly away or I will see if I can get two bullets into each of you before you can make it this far."

  The men glared at me, but none of them said a word as they turned and walked back the way they came. I did see that at least one of them had a pistol shoved into his waistband. I watched them until they were all the way back to where a couple of cars were parked. It was far enough, so I unlocked the truck and started filling the cab with stuff from the cart.

  I looked now and then at the three men, but they never made any attempt to leave or come closer. Several items I had to put in back on the truck and then I put my carts in one of the nearby cart cages and left the obviously dangerous parking lot behind. Those guys must just wait around there at the almost only store still open and look for people like me that still have enough money to buy a bunch of stuff.

  I stopped and filled the gas tank again. It took a little more because I had used the truck to go deer hunting those two times. I had also brought in the gas can, and I filled that too. I still ran the generator once a month for several minutes, and I would fill that with this fresh gas, and the remainder would likely fit in my truck by the time I got home.

  There was an old gate at the end of my driveway that I never used. For whatever reason today when I got home I closed that gate. It wasn't much of a gate, and I wondered why I was even bothering with it, but I did it anyway. I guess having to back down the three guys at gunpoint had put me on edge.

  I parked in the garage and started lugging the supplies into the house. I had a feeling, and I stopped to load a rifle, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and went back outside.

  Right around my place, the land is fairly flat. There are plenty of smaller hills in every direction, but none are all that close. I was able to climb the wood pile still stacked along side my wood shed, and I stood on the roof of that shed and looked back toward the road where I had just driven.

  The single stopped car stuck out like a sore thumb in the distance. It's not like there were trees or anything to hide it from my view. I just stood on that roof watching the car. It was not moving, and I guessed that maybe those inside were talking about exactly what to do next. I must have noticed the car behind me when I came home but thought nothing of it. Something had warned me somehow that there was trouble and that's why I was now outside with a rifle.

  When three doors opened, and then three men got out I knew exactly who they were and what was about to happen next. It was too far away to see their faces or if they had long guns but I had to assume they did. I could see that they headed in my direction though and I got down from the roof for a minute.

  As soon as I was down on the ground, I threw many pieces of wood up on the roof. Then I climbed back up but stayed low and piled the loose wood pieces in front of me and laid the rifle on the top with me lying prone behind that wood. The wood gave me some protection and offered a stable rest for the rifle. I laid out extra ammunition next to me so it would be handy for a reload.

  About a minute later I could see the men again. They were closer now and just passed my gate that I had closed. The gate still had the very faded sign that was on it when I bought the place that you could still read. It just said, "Keep Out."

  The men were close enough now that I could see through the scope that two of them had long guns. I assumed the third man had at least a pistol of some kind and maybe all of them had handguns.

  At about seventy-five yards I shot the man farthest back and then shot the man in front when the remaining two stopped. It took me three shots to bring down the last guy who had been in the middle because he was running away for all he was worth and zigging and zagging some too.

  When all three were on the ground, I reloaded the rifle and put one carefully aimed shot into each body before again reloading the rifle then climbing down to the ground again. In the Army, we never shot into the bodies after they fell to the ground but I always thought we should have done so.

  I walked up to each body and kicked it. They all were dead just as I assumed. I went through all their pockets and made a pile of their guns and what else they had been carrying with them. The keys I found I took with me, and after opening the gate I went and retrieved their car which I drove up near my house (though I did stop and throw all their stuff inside as I passed them).

  When I stopped the car, I brought the stuff from the bodies into the house and le
ft my rifle inside before going back to their car and thoroughly searching it. I took everything worth anything from the car. I left one of the full water bottles on the front seat.

  I drove the car back to the bodies and threw them into the trunk. The bodies would not all fit, and I took them out and removed the spare tire which I placed in the back seat. On the second try, it was still a tight fit, but the bodies were very limp, and arms and legs could be shoved in tight empty spots so all of them then finally fit in the trunk and I was able to close the lid.

  I went back inside and washed up. Then I grabbed a jacket, my small pocket pistol, and two of the candy bars I had previously taken from the car and got in the car and drove away.

  I drove the opposite direction away from town about five or more miles and found a wide spot in the road where I pulled over. It was a very barren area, and there was nothing around to catch on fire. I looked under the car to see where the gas tank was and though wasteful of that gas I stepped back and using my pistol I shot one shot into the gas tank.

  No, it did not blow up like they always do on TV. The gas started to drain out of the tank, though. I took some loose papers out of the glove box and the book of matches in there too. I left the keys in the ignition. With everything I wanted out of the car, I stood back near where the gas trail was leading as it drained from the gas tank. When I thought it was far enough from the car, I picked up a nearby rock and wrapped all the loose paper I had around it.

  Stepping back as far as I thought I could and still hit my target, I lit the paper covered rock on fire and then tossed it onto the trail of gas leading from the car. The trail of gas lit with a big whoosh, and I was running away when there was a much bigger whoosh as the car's gas tank took off all at once.

  It was not a real explosion. No big bang. Just a bigger whoosh and a big hot ball of fire. As I walked away back in the direction of my house, I ate the first of the candy bars while sipping on the bottle of water. The other candy bar was gone and the water bottle empty by the time I was back home again.

  The wallets, minus the money, were thrown in my wood stove. The rest of the items I put away with my stuff. I was one hundred and fifty-seven dollars plus some change richer. And I had another shotgun, another rifle, and two more handguns, along with at least a little ammunition for all of them.

  Chapter 11

  Many people say they could never kill another human being. I suppose it is possible that there are a very few individuals where that statement is true. For almost everyone else they just need the right motivation to kill. The most common motivation I think is self-defense or self-preservation. You could maybe throw in with this group killing one to save the life of another.

  Then there are the ones that want to kill, have the urge, or maybe the need to kill another. And then there are the ones where killing is just something that needs to be done, or you kill because it is the practical thing to do. You could maybe put the ones hired to kill in this slot also. It is part of the job, or it just needs doing like taking out the trash or mowing the lawn.

  As for me, I was in that last grouping when I killed those three guys, and I feel nothing. No remorse. They followed me here to kill me or at the least steal everything of value I had here. If they had succeeded in their task, they would have done the same to someone else the next day and the day after that and so on. Until they were killed, which would be the only way to stop them.

  With ones like this, you do not reason with them. You do not just tell them to leave other people alone. Occasionally you can beat them as I did with the other ones earlier that tried to steal from me. Once in awhile that will turn them away from crime. But nothing usually works except to kill them.

  So I killed them and got rid of their car and their bodies. I suppose it is possible that one or more of the guns could be traced to those I killed and maybe that would incriminate me. But it would only be circumstantial evidence at best. And likely all or most of those guns had been stolen at one point or another. Now those guys are dead, and they will hurt no more people.

  The guys that I had beat up awhile back; I had done some damage that would take a fairly long time to heal so they would have some time to think about changing their ways. The ribs would heal, but the badly damaged ankle on the one and the damaged shoulder on the other would be painful for some time. Maybe they would learn that crime does not pay. Or maybe they would not learn, and someday in the future, they will run into someone else like me, and they would then be dead. Then their crime spree would stop for good.

  I am not a do-gooder. I will not seek out bad guys and dispense my level of justice on them. But if they try to hurt me or steal from me and I manage to catch them, then I will do my best to either teach them a hard lesson that they will remember for a long time or I will just kill them. It matters not to me which one it happens to be.

  Hard times like we are going through right now will bring out the worst in people. The people that in normal times would have jobs that they worked just barely hard enough at so they didn't get fired at each job or never worked at real jobs and lived off government handouts would be the ones that now turned easily into a life of crime. Unless they were taught a lesson or killed.

  Some might say something like "What if he had a wife and kids at home?"

  To that, I would say that the wife and kids would be better off without him. And honestly, they are seldom the type to have a good woman at home waiting for them. And if guys like this do make a score, at best the wife and kids would only get the leftovers if anything at all.

  I was now stocked up fairly well here, and I wondered how soon I should make another trip into town. I decided I would give it two or three weeks at least before I went back. I could go once a week so that I could draw the maximum amount of cash out of the bank each time, but as this last trip showed me, there was risk involved with each trip to town too. I was not arrogant enough to think that I could not end up being the one lying on the ground if I had another encounter with bad guys.

  If I was a bad guy intent on stealing from others, I might just do it the easy way. Just shoot them from a distance when they are unaware that trouble is near. It would be way safer to rob people that way. And it is almost impossible to protect yourself from a sniper like that if he picks you as a target.

  No, the safest thing to do was to just hang out here at my place and let the world sort its problems out and get back on its feet. I had no real doubts that this was just a temporary setback. The economy would pick up again. It might take awhile, but it would happen. Unfortunately, many people would suffer until that time came when things were better again.

  But all through history there have been times of great suffering. And so it is again. This might prove to just be a small bump in the road, and things might pick up again this summer. Or not. I know the Great Depression lasted for about ten years. But it ended, and things got better again. But it ended with World War Two, and that was certainly not a good thing.

  I would think that people learned a lesson during the depression and this time it should be much, much shorter. Hopefully, unlike the last big depression, this one will not end with a world war. That would be bad. In fact, it could even wreck the planet. Those in power would never be that stupid, would they? Another world war would have no winners because it would certainly go nuclear. Who wins a nuclear war? No one.

  Life went on for me. I was having trouble keeping track of what day it was. I had no current calendar, and I wished that I would have bought one at the dollar store before it closed. I think other people were having the same trouble because the radio news would always state the day of the week and the calendar date at the beginning and end of each news slot.

  My mail got rather sporadic with it coming whenever it came. The longest stretch was eighteen days with no mail delivery. I thought things must be pretty bad if the post office could not even get here once a week. Though in all fairness maybe there was no mail to deliver to me. With no advertising of any kind com
ing in the mail there were only bills, and they only came once a month.

  I had another power outage, and this one lasted two days. I had to use the generator to get water a few times during the outage. I would guess that the electric company has likely laid off almost all their workers. Of course, I don't know that, and they would never say that on the 'news' but that is my guess and it is the reason the repair took so long this time. I do have automatic payment for my bill, and I see with each bank statement the electric company is still getting their money.

  I believe it was about six weeks before I made the next trip into town. I could have put it off much longer, but even I wanted to see first-hand what was happening in town and maybe get some real news.

  I had the only moving vehicle on the road until I got into the town proper. Then I saw two other moving cars. I drove to the bank first. There was a new sign on the door. The bank was now open only two days per week. Mondays and Thursdays. I was quite lucky in that today was Thursday. I got my two hundred dollars and left the bank.

  There were eight cars in the Walmart parking lot when I got there. I parked very close to the front doors this time. And I did lock my truck. Behind the seat in the cab, I had a rifle. On this trip, I would stop partway home and wait to see if anyone was following me. They wouldn't like it if they were.

  I stopped at the checkout and asked about payment options again. It was cash only now. Not an unexpected turn of events. I grabbed a cart and started shopping. Today I checked on a couple of things. I went to sporting goods to see if they had any ammunition.

  They did but very little. I was able to buy two boxes of rifle ammo, and that was the only thing they had I could use. I wished I had thought of this before. Not a big deal but still I would like to have had more.