by Ray Gorham
Kyle forced himself to try and calm down and think. He needed to make a decision, but it needed to be the right one. If he went the wrong way, he would never find the cart. Pacing on the side of the road, Kyle reflected back on the last two days. In the hours he’d been awake, he’d seen more people heading west, their travel, for the most part, mimicking the way cars normally traveled: westbound walkers on the north side of the road, eastbound walkers on the south.
After a final scan of the road to the east, Kyle slung his rifle over his shoulder and set off at a run towards Denver. In his weakened condition, he struggled to maintain the fast pace for more than a few minutes at a time and was forced to slow down and walk ten minutes for every five that he ran. All the while, his mind raced ahead, trying to figure out what he could do if he’d made the wrong decision and his cart was heading towards Nebraska. With the exception of his rifle and the clothes on his back, everything he had was in the cart, and the chances of replacing the other supplies were slim at best.
He’d only been hunting for his cart for about five miles, but Kyle’s legs felt like rubber, his lungs burned, and the rumblings in his stomach reminded him that he’d kept little down for the past two days. In the descending darkness, he came to a rest area filled with at least a dozen trucks and knew it was a good place to spend the night. He searched the parking lot for his cart but didn’t see it anywhere, then found an empty berth and retired for the evening; weak, hungry, and terrified he might not make it home.
Sunday, October 2nd
The first hint of sunlight found Kyle feeling better and more determined than ever to find his belongings. The morning air was brisk, and he rubbed his arms as he climbed down from the truck and got his first look at the parking lot in daylight. A further search showed that his cart truly wasn’t at the rest stop, but there was a grocery truck that had gone unnoticed the night before. He hurried to the truck, the steady rumblings of his stomach setting his priorities, and pulled open the back doors, flooding the trailer with light. Most of the trailer was knee deep in empty boxes, but Kyle could see that there were still full cases of food stacked to the ceiling at the far end.
“Hello!” Kyle shouted while climbing inside the trailer. There was no reply. He had just started kicking his way through the debris when a mound of boxes only a few feet in front of him erupted, and a figure sprang out.
“What do you want!?” shrieked a thin, young woman, the desperate look on her dirty face more animal than human.
Startled by the unexpected figure, Kyle jumped back. “I just want to get some food. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
The woman backed further into the trailer. She eyed Kyle suspiciously as she moved, her gaze jumping from Kyle’s face to his gun, as her hands tugged a dirty blanket tight around her shoulders. Kyle watched her move away, reading the nightmare her life had become in the lines of her face and the fear in her eyes. Her matted hair, swollen cheek, and piercing, wild eyes spoke volumes about her struggle for survival.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Kyle insisted. “I’ve been sick. I just need to get some food.” Kyle could see that his gun made her anxious, and his rough appearance likely didn’t help either, but he wasn’t about to put down the only protection he had, meager as it was. “Did you see anyone pulling an old wood cart made with bicycle tires, last night?”
The woman shook her head almost imperceptibly, then backed against the wall of the trailer and slid down until she sat on her heels amongst the empty boxes, her eyes still locked on Kyle.
“Anyone else in here?” Kyle asked as he passed by her.
Refusing to speak, the woman shook her head, then, once Kyle was past her, scurried to the door of the trailer, jumped to the ground, and disappeared.
Intent on finding something to ease his hunger pangs, Kyle scanned the wall of boxes in front of him before noticing a half-empty case of soup on the floor. He pulled a can out of the box and read the label. Cream of Mushroom. It was a soup he hated, but he was starving. Quickly pulling the tab on the can, Kyle tossed the lid to the side and tipped the can back, gagging as the cold, slimy soup slid down his throat. It was better than nothing, and he swallowed it all, even scraping the can with his finger to salvage every glob. He emptied another can and then began searching through the stack of boxes.
When he was done rummaging, Kyle had a decent-sized stack of food haphazardly piled at the back of the truck. He ran to a nearby moving van, dug around unsuccessfully for a bag of some sort, then grabbed a large blanket that was wrapped protectively around a dresser. He tied the corners together to fashion a crude sling, then looped it over his head and returned to the truck to fill the sling with the food he’d collected: a dozen cans of soup, two jars of peanut butter, a case of tuna, and cans of olives, corn and mushrooms. Kyle wished he had his cart with him so he could have loaded up a couple of week’s worth of groceries, but he didn’t. That was his next item of business.
With a fuller stomach and an improved outlook, Kyle hurried towards the freeway, his eyes scanning the road in front of him for his cart. He looked back to the east, in case he’d missed the cart the night before in the dark, but saw no sign of it. Kyle walked down the ramp towards the freeway and scanned the road. In the distance he noticed a man’s head bobbing along on the far side of a flatbed trailer. Kyle’s pulse quickened as something about the man’s gait didn’t seem quite normal. Kyle focused his gaze under the truck and saw what appeared to be wheels rolling closely behind the man. Elated but unsure, Kyle stared, hoping for confirmation, then ran to the side of the road to get a better view and wait for the stranger to emerge from behind the truck. After several long seconds, the man appeared, followed by a familiar wooden cart.
Kyle’s heart skipped a beat, and a huge wave of relief swept over him. He’d found his cart. With the cans of food clanging about in the sling at his side, Kyle took off at a quick trot, the fastest he could move with his load. The sling of food was cumbersome and slowed him down, but it was too valuable to leave behind, so he wrapped his arm tightly around the bundle and continued to trot, the gap between him and his cart gradually shrinking.
Kyle’s mind raced in unison with his feet. How would he approach the man? Would there be a confrontation? Was the stranger armed? Kyle had been warned by other walkers about the lawlessness of the highway, and their words haunted him as he considered his options. Wanting to stop the man and retrieve his cart before getting too close to Denver, and guessing there was still a good mile between them, Kyle picked up his pace.
The terrain was fairly level, but the road was full of vehicles, giving Kyle the cover he needed in order to stay out of sight until he was ready to confront the stranger. The man with the cart traveled mostly on the left side of the freeway, so Kyle stayed to the right, moving quickly from vehicle to vehicle. Fifty minutes after first spotting the man, Kyle closed the gap to within thirty yards. He set his sling down behind a silver Chevy and trailed along until a semi-truck that was pulled well over on the right shoulder provided him with good cover. Waiting until the stranger was out in the open, Kyle took one last nervous breath, then stepped out from behind the truck and fired a shot into the dirt on his side of the road, just as he’d scripted it in his mind. Immediately he had the man’s attention.
At the sound of the shot, the stranger dropped to the ground, his head pivoting from side to side to see where it had come from. Kyle stayed close to the semi-truck with his gun held ready at his side. “Put your hands where I can see them,” Kyle yelled, “and get away from my cart.”
The man crawled behind the cart for protection, one hand raised in the air. “What do you want?’ he yelled back. “Why are you shooting at me?”
“I want my cart. You stole it from me yesterday. I want it back.”
“This is your cart?” the man asked incredulously, his head peering up from behind it. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t think you’d need it. I swear.”
“Well I’m not dead, and I wa
nt my cart.”
With both hands raised in the air, the man stood up from behind the cart. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “I’m just trying to get back home.”
“I don’t want any trouble either, but I need my cart.” Kyle lowered his gun slightly in a show of good faith.
“Okay! You can have it back. Just don’t shoot again.” The stranger took a step away from the cart, his eyes fixed on Kyle. Kyle appraised him as the tension of the moment began to ease.
The man appeared to be older than Kyle, maybe forty, and was physically bigger -- taller, and broader in the shoulders. Like most guys Kyle had met on the road, the man had a full beard and a thin, dirty face. Unlike most, a tattoo of what looked like a dragon extended from below his right eye, disappeared under his beard, and continued down below the collar of the man’s sweatshirt. A well-worn Pittsburgh Steelers hat covered his head, and long, dark hair escaped from underneath it.
Kyle kept his gun pointed in the man’s general direction, maintaining his control.
“You can put the gun down,” the man shouted as he slowly lowered his hands and stepped back over to the cart. “I just need to get my stuff.”
Kyle lowered his gun a little more and took a cautious step away from the cover of the truck. He could feel perspiration forming on his forehead in sharp contrast to his mouth, which was so dry he could barely swallow. Standing in the middle of the highway, gun drawn, facing down a stranger, Kyle was unsure how the situation was going to play out, especially knowing there would be no one to step in and help if things went badly.
The man hesitated, then slowly pulled a green duffle bag from the cart and tossed it on the ground beside him. As Kyle watched the bag tumble to the ground, the man turned casually away from Kyle and seemed to be scratching his stomach before he spun back around a split second later, a handgun drawn and a wicked sneer on his face. Kyle dove back towards the truck as two shots rang out, one of the bullets shattering the truck’s headlight and showering the ground around Kyle with pieces of glass.
Kyle frantically gathered himself behind the truck’s tire, a slight groan escaping his lips as the sound of the man’s cold laughter carried across the freeway. Clutching his rifle in his trembling hands, Kyle climbed onto the step of the truck and peered through the window. The man in the Steelers cap was kneeling behind the cart and rummaging with one hand through his duffle as he watched for Kyle.
“I just want my cart!” Kyle called out. “I don’t want any trouble!”
Through the window of the truck, Kyle saw the man stand up, smiling as though he were holding three aces in a game of poker. The man was now carrying another handgun, this one with a longer barrel, and after checking his weapons, the man crouched and began to circle wide around the front of the truck that Kyle was using as his shield. Kyle tugged on the door of the cab, but it wouldn’t open. Panicked, he ran along the step of the truck towards the rear of the tractor, grabbed the rail at the back, and swung himself around to stand on the back tires of the rig. On the back of the cab was a rack that was used to hold chains. Kyle quickly scaled it, then peered over the fairing for his assailant.
A hundred and fifty feet in front of the truck, the man knelt on the pavement and scanned under the truck. Kyle, his heart pounding so forcefully he worried it might shake him from his perch, ducked back down and tried to calm himself. He had shot a deer or an elk almost every year for as long as he could remember, he’d even hunted bear once, but he had never shot at another human being. His older brother had been in the service and one night over beers had opened up to Kyle about the horrors of combat, but Kyle never imagined himself being in a situation where he might have to actually shoot a person.
Kyle reached down and grabbed his rifle from where he’d propped it while doing the math in his head to figure out how many shots he had left. He was pretty sure he had at least four, maybe five, but couldn’t remember exactly when he’d last filled his clip, nor how many bullets he’d used since reloading. With one hand holding tight to the top of the truck, Kyle slowly rose up and looked over the fairing again, pointing his gun towards the spot where his assailant had been kneeling. “I don’t want anyone hurt,” he yelled with undisguised desperation.
The man had moved and was now crouching in the grass on the north side of the road. At the sound of Kyle’s voice he rolled sideways and fired in Kyle’s direction. Kyle squeezed of a wild shot and dropped down as two holes exploded in the fairing beside him, peppering him with shards of fiberglass. He leapt down from the top of the truck, then jumped onto the road on the south side of the truck in a desperate attempt to flee. With the man in the grass on the opposite side of the truck, Kyle, using the semi as a shield, raced towards the median. He slid into the meager shelter of the vegetation and rolled onto his stomach, his gun shouldered and ready to fire if the opportunity presented itself.
Holding his breath and praying that he hadn’t been spotted, Kyle strained to see any sign of movement. The grass around him had grown unchecked for at least a month and provided some camouflage, but Kyle knew the thigh high grass wouldn’t stop any bullets if he was spotted. Feeling agonizingly vulnerable, he edged eastward on his stomach while watching under the truck for his pursuer.
A flash of movement caught Kyle’s eye, and he saw the legs of the man moving towards the back of the trailer, bringing him frighteningly close to where Kyle was hiding. Kyle instantly jumped to his feet and sprinted across the median, an eastbound pickup truck about thirty yards to his left his goal. Covering the distance in record time, Kyle ducked behind the truck just as a shot rang out and a bullet struck metal, hitting a foot or two from where he’d taken shelter. A second shot echoed, and the windshield of the truck exploded, sending glass bouncing in every direction.
Clutching his gun to his chest, Kyle swung around to the back of the pickup and popped his head up just long enough to catch a glimpse of the man standing half-exposed at the back corner of the semi-trailer. Another shot rang out and whistled by somewhere overhead. “You can have the cart!” shouted Kyle from his shelter. “I don’t want to die….and I don’t want to hurt you!”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate,” the man shouted back. “You took a shot at me when I had my back to you. You think I’m going to let that go?”
“I didn’t shoot at you!” Kyle protested as he scrambled towards the front of the pickup on his hands and knees. He looked under the pickup in the direction of his attacker, but the westbound roadway was ten feet higher than the eastbound side and made it impossible for Kyle to see beyond the median from under the truck. Stopping at the passenger door, Kyle cautiously raised his head until he could peer through the broken windows towards the semi. The man still stood at the back of the truck with much of his body exposed, almost daring Kyle to take a shot. Kyle looked to the west to assess his chances of escape, but it was at least a hundred yards to the next vehicle. To the east, the closest vehicle was maybe fifty yards away, but if he ran in that direction, it would take him directly in front of the shooter, giving the guy an easy shot.
“I can’t shoot you!” screamed Kyle. “I have no argument with you. I’m just trying to get home. Please, just let me go. You keep everything.” The fear of dying alone on the freeway in the middle of Colorado weighed on him, almost pinning him to the ground. To die like an animal, with his journal in the cart heading to some unknown destination, would mean that Jennifer and the kids would never know what happened to him. His body would rot on the side of the road until animals and nature had their way with it, then, if he was lucky, be tossed into a grave along with other unidentified bodies. He couldn’t let that happen.
Kyle squatted behind the pickup, still struggling to breathe, listening for what seemed like an eternity for an answer to his plea. His hands and knees shook uncontrollably, and he forced himself to take some deep breaths. He held onto the side of the truck to steady himself and rose to take another look. The man hadn’t moved, but was no longe
r pointing his guns towards Kyle. Instead, his arms were pulled back and resting against his body, his elbows bent with his hands up by his shoulders, pointing the guns at the sky.
Kyle stayed crouched behind the truck and tried to come up with a plan while still watching the man, hoping he would give up and leave. When it became obvious his attacker was willing to wait him out, Kyle summoned his courage and raised his head and both hands slowly into view. The man stepped closer to the trailer but didn’t make any threatening movements. Kyle continued to rise, his eyes locked on his assailant, watching for any hint of danger, but the man made no attempt to move and the his face was blank -- no fear, no anger, no murderous rage, just a placid look that wouldn’t have been out of place at a children’s ballgame. Kyle was now exposed from the waist up, holding his rifle by the barrel in his left hand with the stock against his arm and pointed unthreateningly in the air. The man still didn’t react. Kyle forced himself to move his legs, shuffling them clumsily towards the back of the pickup, his eyes still locked on the figure across the highway. Reclaiming his cart was no longer his goal. It was now survival.
Kyle reached the back of the truck, knowing that in just a few more steps he would be fully exposed. “I’m going to move along. You can have the cart,” he shouted. Kyle gave the man a look, as if to ask permission to continue, but the man didn’t respond, his face seemingly carved in stone. Kyle held his breath and tried to move, but his legs resisted, as if they had a mind of their own and were refusing the assignment. With a forced step, then a second, and then a third, Kyle slowly emerged from behind the truck until he was out in the open. Still the gunman didn’t react. Taking courage, Kyle took a breath and another few steps.