Morning. Lamar and TJ began laying block. Karla left with a flatbed towed by a dump truck, Jeff and Rainy riding shotgun. She skirted west of town, avoided the interstate, and loaded the flatbed at Kings on 12th Street—the only place in the city with the quantities she needed.
As they readied to leave, Rainy pointed at two men on motorbikes. They sat at the corner on Sixth Street.
“They just got here,” Rainy said.
The man on the left spoke into a handheld. His partner unslung his assault rifle.
“Shit,” Karla said. “We should have all come. Let’s go before they multiply.”
Jeff swung into the cab and drove toward the men: no choice on the dead end street. Karla hopped on the trailer and rested the M24 on the cement block. Rainy sat behind the next pallet clutching an M16.
The men left the bikes and moved to the street. One fired a warning shot from a rifle. Jeff looked in the mirror. Karla motioned for him to stop. Maybe there was a peaceful way.
Rainy stood and followed Karla’s instructions. “What do you want?” she yelled.
“Get down from the truck.”
“Why?” Rainy called back.
“Our turf. Into the street. Hands where we can see them.”
“We’re leaving. No trouble. We’ll be gone in a minute.”
The man fired a shot through the truck’s windshield. Karla pulled the trigger. The man’s hands flew up as he crashed to the pavement. His partner got off a single shot before Karla dropped him, too.
“Go! Go!”
Karla hopped to the street and picked up the men’s weapons and handheld. Jeff made the turn south then slowed as Karla ran to catch up. She leapt on the trailer and he accelerated. She caught her breath lying on a pallet of block, covering their retreat while Rainy watched cross streets.
Another pair of motorbikes appeared from behind as the truck approached the turn at Fifteenth. Karla monitored the biker’s report on the handheld, then signaled Jeff to slow. She sighted on the bike to the right and fired. The bike wobbled and went over, the rider skidding on the road. The second rider swung back to him. Jeff made the turn west and drove several miles before heading north.
Karla listened to the handheld chatter until it faded. She checked the men’s weapons and smiled. Bushmaster 5.56s. Twenty-two rounds in one thirty round clip, eighteen in the other. They didn’t carry spares. Ammo seemed to be a problem.
* * *
Karla exhaled. “Morons. Stand in the street and fire a warning shot. Put one into the truck like we’re supposed to faint from fear.”
Ray sat up in bed—his fever gone and his color returned. “They might be stupid. But they’re still dangerous.”
“I know. Anyone can get lucky.”
“Yeah that, too. I meant they’re getting by somehow. It’s not easy, and I’m guessing they’re not farmers. The good news is they haven’t encountered any real tough guys or they wouldn’t act like that.”
“They sounded like street punks, arguing about turf. I can’t imagine what there is to steal unless they found a government storage depot.”
“That’d be sweet.”
“Well let’s hope so. Then they’ll have no reason to leave their prized stomping grounds.”
“Punks think highly of vengeance,” Ray said.
“Even after they’ve been stung?”
“I’d guess they’re already talking up ambush and working out how to pay you back.”
“Be nice to know their numbers and territory.”
“You could call and ask. Tell them your gang would be glad to stay off their territory, if you knew where it was. Second thought. It’d be better if I did it.”
“I think we should scout them out first, when we have a minute. In the meantime, someone stays with the handheld.”
Ray nodded.
“One more thing. I need a load of I beams. Only place I can get them is on Mount Vernon Road. Warehouse isn’t five miles from where we were today.”
“When do you need them?”
“Day after tomorrow would work nice.”
“You ought to bring the whole crew.
* * *
Karla had left only Rainy to look after Ray and the house and took everyone else to fetch the steel. They had met no resistance and now, Jeff worked the home-built boom as Karla guided beams into slots in the foundation sidewalls.
She spotted Lamar, watching carefully as she tapped the beams into position then bolted them to the supports, straining arms and legs to snug them in with the help of a three foot cheater bar—her predrilled holes aligning precisely.
Karla stepped off the last beam, sweat soaked in a sleeveless top. “Something bothering you?”
“You don’t communicate very well,” Lamar said.
“So they say.”
“You could have given a few hints what you were up to.”
“I figured I’d avoid arguments.”
“I thought you were digging a hole to crawl into.” He looked out at the plywood forms for the concrete floor separating the levels. “I’ve lived in a cave. Not much to write home about.”
“Me, too. Wouldn’t do it again if I had a choice.”
“You need some help with the plumbing?” He paused. “I worked construction jobs more than a few summers. Done wiring and drywall, too.”
“So why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I see you have a plan. . . . And you know what you’re doing.”
“Give it a month. I think it will surprise even you.”
“There’d be more enthusiasm if you explained.”
“I’m not making promises. We might all be dead tomorrow.”
“That why you bust your ass?”
Karla shrugged and started for the tractor. “You’d have to ask my therapist.”
* * *
The ground floor was closed in and the passage to the old house completed. The generator, fuel tanks, and emergency water had been installed and a metal roof was in progress to hide the inner concrete one. The finish work would take months. But two bathrooms were operational and the first bedrooms would be finished in a week.
Lamar smoothed a drywall joint and leaned the putty knife on the mud bucket. Karla worked around the corner on bathroom tile. They were the last still on the job.
“Got a question for you,” Lamar said.
Karla looked up.
“I know a dozen people who could use a place to stay. A few more citizens will give this community some needed heft.”
“So you waited for work to slow here, and I’m sure food to become scarce there.”
“We didn’t get off to a good start. I was expecting when you got to know me better, you’d listen to my proposal.”
“Go ahead.”
“We were in a cave in Arkansas. Twenty-six at first. Fourteen after a year. Who knows, now. They were all from town. Most from the school. Game was plentiful. Bullets were not. We got better with arrows and traps and at identifying edibles.”
“But there’s no privacy, the place stinks, the sidewalks roll up at dark, and, you haven’t had a vegetable in a year,” Karla said.
“You forgot the ever present rogues, though we’ve been more fortunate than those in Craig.”
Karla waited.
“Me and one other were sent to find more suitable digs. The feeling was the empty west would be more hospitable.”
“I’ve heard that theory.”
“It wasn’t. What you’ve done looks golden.”
“How many of your crew can shoot?”
“Five including me.”
“And work the fields?”
“That’s the thing.”
“Cave life can make you lazy,” Karla said. “A couple hunt, a couple pick, a couple cook. Maybe someone mends clothes.”
Lamar nodded. “Cave’s in the woods. We tried a garden the first year. It was half a mile away. We lost it all. No mo
re seeds to be had, anyway.”
“I’ll take the four who can shoot and the three that will work.”
“I thought we might put it for a vote, with your permission.”
“No votes, Lamar. I laid that out in Craig.”
“Everyone’s got a stake in what happens here.”
“Discussion is a good thing. But not everyone’s thoughts carry equal value. And some people’s stake is much higher than others.”
“It’ll come to it, someday.”
“Not as long as I’m alive.”
“What have you got against letting people decide what they want?”
“We will have to defend this place. If we voted on what to build, we wouldn’t have this. We’d probably still be arguing over whether to bother, who would do what, or a committee would be studying plans. If we vote on how to respond to an imminent attack, we’ll be dead before we reach agreement.”
“A committee could appoint you to manage the defense.”
“Everything is about defense and survival. If I’m in charge of it, why would we need a committee?”
“Oversight.”
Karla smiled. “Then I’m not in charge. You can’t have it both ways.”
“When decisions affect others there need be controls.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone makes mistakes.”
“And committees manage to multiply them.” Karla let that settle. “I’ll finish this place, Lamar. Then I’ll make it a better place to live until I die. Anyone who sees a better option out there is free to vote with their feet.”
Lamar worked his mouth into a pucker. “Despite your benevolent dictatorship, I’d like to bring a few people here.”
“You pick the ones who will fit in.”
“And the rest?”
“They’ll have to look out for themselves.”
Lamar swallowed heavily. “It’s my understanding you could have left Ray in Craig and avoided considerable bloodshed.”
“And we’re both glad I chose not to.”
“Jeff and Rainy didn’t have to go back for you.”
“You even voted for them not to. I don’t hold that against you. You didn’t know at the time you had a stake in keeping me part of the group.”
“They saved your life.”
Karla shrugged. “I appreciate their reciprocity, but I was holding my own.” She turned back to her work. “If you want to invite people to visit go ahead. But if they bring trouble, they’re welcome will be short lived.”
Chapter 90
The windmill stood on a wooded rise behind an isolated house thirty miles northwest of the farm. The tower was over a hundred feet and anchored in concrete. Karla had seen it in her travels and coveted it. Until now, she hadn’t had the resources to move it.
Karla and Rainy circled the nearby house, saw no sign of recent activity, then entered the house, both carrying M16s. They breathed easier after they’d cleared the dwelling and found it unoccupied. Karla flipped a light switch to no effect, then another. She found the breaker box and checked incoming lines. They were dead as well. She sighed and hoped the problem wasn’t serious. The tower was important, but a fifty kilowatt turbine would be hard to replace.
A little disappointed, Karla climbed the ladderless tower, dragging along two stout ropes tied to winch cables from the Ram and a mini-dozer. She slung the rope over a cross member near the top and threw down the leads. Out of habit, Karla checked the lines for power before disconnecting them. The lead was live.
She didn’t believe the cable to the house was broken. If the power no longer arrived there, it was because it had been diverted elsewhere. She disengaged the turban blade and signaled the men.
Jeff and Lamar tugged the rope and hoisted the cables. Karla attached them and zipped down. On the ground, she told Rainy to keep an eye out, concerned someone nearby might investigate the power disruption. Karla cut the anchor bolts and casually picked up her rifle as the men at the winches lowered the tower to the flatbed towed by the dump truck.
They used a winch on the trailer to pull the top of the tower flat on the bed, then cable-clamped it. With the turbine lying on the front, the tower hung more than seventy feet off the back, angled slightly up from a log placed at the end of the flatbed. The length forced them to cut four trees to swing the load out of the yard.
On the return trip. Karla and Lamar took the Ram, now with the mini-dozer trailered behind. They drove a mile ahead of the slow moving tower, scouting.
“You got the trip to Arkansas worked out?” Karla asked.
“I need a vehicle. A van would be best.”
“And fuel. And maintenance, probably.”
“Probably.”
“You have a plan to get one?”
“I’d appreciate a little help.”
“We can find you a vehicle. You’ll have to handle the gas. I’ll guess seventy five gallons down and back.”
“Your pump would come in handy.”
“I can show you how to build one. But were I you, I’d just siphon with a garden hose. We can set you up with that, too.”
“Weapons and ammo?”
Karla nodded. “If you run into trouble alone, they probably won’t help.”
“Food for a couple days?”
Karla made the turn onto the farm road. A vehicle headed toward them, half a mile away. Karla swung the wheel and stabbed the emergency brake.
“Jump!” She opened the door clutching her rifles, leaped from the still moving truck, then bolted for the dozer. Lamar scrambled out behind her and hunkered behind the cab.
The approaching pickup slowed. At three hundred yards, it swerved forty-five degrees, exposing a second vehicle, then a machine gun on a stand in the truck’s bed. A man at the gun opened fire. Bullets smacked the gravel, then rose as the man sighted in, ripping through the truck, tearing at the trailer, and ricocheting off the many angles of the dozer.
Karla popped from behind the dozer’s track for a quick look. A second man rested a rifle on the front fender of the truck. Karla dropped. A rifle bullet hit the dozer, then another. The machine gun quieted. The rifleman continued to ping bullets off the dozer and trailer.
Karla shifted left. The bulk of the dozer now between her and the rifle man. She called out to Lamar. “Want a vote on how to handle this?”
“We can make the tall grass in the ditch. Slip back and warn the others.”
Karla showed Lamar the handheld. “Already done.”
A quick burst from the machine gun tore into the dozer.
“In ten seconds, lift your rifle over the hood and fire two shots toward the truck.”
Lamar didn’t move.
“Do it!” she screamed.
Lamar poked up the rifle, fired into the clouds, and drew in behind the engine. Bullets shattered the windows and shredded sheet metal. Karla swung the M24 across the dozer track, found the gunner and fired. He backed half a step, one hand still on the gun. He let off a burst over Karla’s head as she worked the bolt and shot him again.
Bullets tore into the trailer from a rifle on full auto. A man charged from the second vehicle and jumped to the machine gun. Karla swung out and shot him. The second vehicle lurched forward and made a sheltered U-turn behind the first truck. The man at the fender of the lead vehicle let off another burst.
Karla crawled around the dozer. The man at the fender was gone—reloading the rifle or planning his escape. Eight shots from down the road. Nothing there but the farm and the second vehicle.
What’s going on?” Lamar asked.
“Someone is about to be killed.”
The truck door moved. Karla pictured the man crawling in. She stood on the dozer’s track and leaned the rifle on the frame. The door opened wider. She fired three shots through it, then ran into the field, gaining an angle at the truck door.
The man sat against the truck, the rifle held in one hand. The other pressed
on a bloody leg. Karla yelled for him to drop the rifle, then charged in when he did. She searched him for other weapons and left him face down on the road, calling Lamar to stand guard.
The Ram was dead. Karla climbed into the wounded man’s truck and drove toward the farm, wishing Ray were with her. Behind her, the dump truck turned the corner with the tower.
Chapter 91
The sound of machine gun fire was unmistakable. Ray stuffed the Beretta in his belt and grabbed a rifle. His shoulder hurt. He shook his head to clear the spider webs. A quick burst of automatic rifle fire. He made his way along the corridor from the old house cellar to the addition. He stared at the sixty inch camera display on the wall: three men were in the house. A truck and an SUV sat in the yard. Brittany stood in the ground floor bedroom wing behind a closed door.
One man searched the kitchen of the old house. Another went up the stairs, firing blindly around corners. The third man stepped over TJ’s body in the doorway of the addition. He fired a burst inside and stepped into the serpentine hall. Ray remotely shut down the upstairs monitor.
The man fired again at the turn in the corridor. He reached the open door to the unfinished living quarters and let off another burst. He shot at the door leading to Brittany, then jumped back, surprised by the solid steel and the flying bullets. He kicked the door twice and moved on. He poked the gun around the corner and fired down the stairway, bouncing bullets off concrete walls. Ray dimmed the display and backed tight to the wall.
The man stepped slowly down. He repeated the pattern from above, leading with the rifle. Ray seized the barrel as it swung around the final turn and held it away. The man uselessly pulled the trigger as Ray stepped out and shot him with the Beretta. Ray dragged him off the stairs and returned to the monitor, anticipating how many they would send after him.
Men hauled goods from the house and garage, mostly to the SUV, leaving the machine gun unrestricted. One man headed toward the addition. Ray climbed the stairs, figuring the man wouldn’t fire blindly while his comrade was unaccounted for.
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