The woman stood on one leg. Tim held her waist as she hopped five feet. Karla shook her head.
“You will have to carry her or get another vehicle.”
“A mile?”
Karla started toward the Golf. “If she were mine, I’d carry her five miles and wouldn’t be crying about it.”
Tim scooped her up, carried her not halfway to the car and put her down. Karla stepped over and bent her knees.
“Hop on.” The woman did and Karla carried her piggy-back to the car while Tim walked ahead. “I hope you’re not too stuck on him.”
“Are there better choices where you come from?”
Karla laughed as she helped the woman into the back seat. “Only if you wait for all the pretty girls to die.”
Karla met Tim at the passenger door. “I’d prefer my passengers weren’t armed.”
Tim made to get in. Karla reached around and pulled the gun from his belt.
“You’ll get it back when you get out.”
Karla drove east in silence until Tim said to turn at an unmarked gravel road. She followed it for ten minutes. When he said to turn again, it was up a rutted dirt road. A mile along, he motioned to a farm. Karla crept down the drive and stopped well short of the buildings.
Tim got out, then the woman.
“How about my gun?”
“I’ll leave it at the end of the drive.”
Tim hefted the woman and started for the barn. Three men stepped out, two with rifles. Karla backed the Golf. One of the men handed off his rifle and trotted after her. She reached the road and stopped to leave off Tim’s pistol.
“Hold up,” the man shouted. He was broad-shouldered and narrow hipped. Tall and fit, with short brown hair and blue eyes. He could have been Ray’s missing brother, if his tattoo had not read “Semper Fi.”
Chapter 120
His name was Derek. He and eleven others lived in the barn—the five Karla had seen along with five more women and two children. Karla stood near the doorway, back to the wall, rifle ready, the Golf in plain view pointed out.
“This is Karla,” Derek said. “She’s been on her own a while, been shot at a few times. She’s a mite jumpy. I don’t think you could pry that rifle from her hands.”
A few people moved closer.
“Tim rolled the truck. Karla was kind enough to bring him and Missy on back to us.”
“How far’s the truck?” a man asked.
“Eighteen miles,” Karla said.
“Still too close,” the man said. “We need to get it out of there.”
“It won’t drive,” Karla said. “Or I would have flipped it. Steering’s wrecked.”
Derek stared at Tim.
“Front tire was pointed funny,” Tim said.
“It’s fixable,” Karla said “If you have tools, parts, and a tow truck. I’d drag it into the scrub, tidy up a bit, and get another one.”
Derek nodded. “Get rid of it. We’ll look for a replacement in a few days.”
Tim and another man climbed into a Chrysler minivan, the only vehicle in the barn, and drove off. Karla stood in the doorway with Derek and looked the crew over. Dirty, poorly groomed, exceedingly thin—like twelve living in a barn without much food or water. Blankets were spread on the dirt floor at various points along the outer walls. A fire ring and a few pans sat to the right of the door. No open flames, they had that right.
“How long you been here?” Karla asked.
“A month,” Derek said. “We move around. Where you from?”
“I’ve been moving, too. Just now from Colorado.”
Derek startled. “Denver?”
“No way. I steer clear of cities.”
“Don’t mean to be nosy, but you eat regular, your clothes are clean, and I can still smell shampoo.”
“I had a house in the mountains. All the amenities.”
“So why are you here?”
“Time to move. Nowhere is safe forever.”
“Where to now?”
“East, I think. What are your plans? No offense, but times look pretty hard here.”
“We get by.”
“You come across the militia?”
“Don’t know them.”
“Paramilitary out of Pueblo.”
“Pueblo’s gone. Denver crew rolled right over it.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people. Wish I’d been along to watch.”
“They killed every man and put in chains every woman.”
“The men had it coming.”
“I sense a little hostility.”
“They were cannibals. They killed my daughter.”
“I’m sorry. The Denver bunch won’t eat you. But you might wish they had.”
“So maybe you should tell me about them.”
“They control Colorado and into New Mexico, Kansas, and Wyoming, probably some of Oklahoma.”
“We’re in their territory.”
Derek nodded. “We’ve been moving, but haven’t got out of it yet.”
“How can you tell?”
“The planes. They fly over, looking for clusters of people.”
Karla thought of Nebraska. “For what purpose?”
“They run farms and factories, a refinery, I’ve heard. All slave labor. In Denver, they have water and electricity, telephones and TV.”
“And vehicles going up and down the interstate. So how are they getting slaves to do all that?”
“They separate out skills they need. Doctors, pilots, engineers, mechanics, and other special talents. Those few live okay. The rest are on farms and factories, power plants and sludge piles. The choice isn’t theirs. They have quite an operation. I’d guess ten thousand at least.”
“I take it you were there.”
“Visited, once. Trustee of sorts. But home base wasn’t in the city.”
“And everyone else?”
“Some were there. Others we met in our travels. Would you like to join us? I take it you can use that gun.”
“I’m best on my own.”
“At least stay for dinner.”
Karla had not spoken to another person in three months. She wanted to know more about Denver but was certain these people didn’t have extra food. “Only if I provide it,” she said.
* * *
Karla and Derek climbed a cell tower and scanned miles in every direction. Karla spotted a creek leading to a small pond and pointed. They drove in electric mode and left the Golf a quarter mile from the water. They walked closer, sat upwind in tall grass and waited. A few hours later, Karla killed a buck.
They cooked the deer over charcoal in the waning daylight. Karla sat with Derek near the door, watching people eat like it hadn’t happened in a while. Game seemed available. She’d bagged a deer in under four hours. Something was not right.
“Okaaay, is there a reason you don’t hunt?”
“Just not having any luck, I guess.”
“Because you don’t have ammo for those guns, and you’re using rocks?”
“We’ve got some.”
“More than twenty rounds?”
Derek took a bite of the meat.
“You have anything that takes 5.56, I can leave you a few rounds.”
“Can’t convince you to stay even a little while?”
Karla scanned the gathering. The question for her wasn’t whether to stay, but if she should ask the group to join her. Derek was a keeper and maybe two others. But without them, the rest would be dead in a month. Then, they might not last much longer even together.
“I was thinking you might join me.”
“You’re not just wandering the highway, are you?”
“I have a place to go.”
“Secure?”
“As anything is these days.”
Derek glanced into the barn. “And them?”
“I don’t know your arrangement. I can’t put more than three in
the car, and that’s crowded.”
“You have a man waiting for you?”
“Only in my dreams.”
A dark-headed woman emerged from the shadows and sat next to Derek. She was young and starvation thin. She put out a hand. “I’m Elena. Thank you for dinner.”
“When was the last time you had meat? Derek seems a bit vague on the subject.”
“A week, more or less. We eat, just not so much meat.”
“Bow hunting can work. You should give it a try.”
Elena smiled and put her hand on Derek’s knee. “You come from the Amazons?”
Karla laughed. “It seems like it sometimes.” She stood and stretched, accepting the message. “I’m available to stand a watch if you have the need. Otherwise I’ll catch some sleep.”
“See you in the morning, then,” Derek said.
Chapter 121
“They’re coming. They got a tank!” Tim raced into the barn, screaming over the rumble of approaching vehicles.
Karla grabbed the TAC 50, the M16, and a canvas ammo bag. Derek crossed the barn at a dead run. “You can’t fight a tank.”
“I’m not going to a slave camp.”
One of the women sprinted for the house. A machine gun traced the dirt behind her then sent her to the ground in a bloody heap.
“That how you want it?” Derek asked.
Karla shrugged. “Except I figure to take a couple with me.”
She moved with Derek to the wall and peered through a gap in the boards. An armored vehicle and two trucks idled outside.
“It’s an LAV, but it’ll still rip this place to shreds.”
“Will a fifty dent it?” Karla asked.
A loudspeaker pierced the air. “Step outside. Single file. Hands in the air. Carry nothing with you.”
The people in the barn looked to each other and began to line up at the door. Elena stepped out, hands high.
“Move to the clear space in front of the lead vehicle.”
Elena complied and the next person followed. Derek hugged Karla. She kissed him lightly and backed away. He glanced to the doorway—only four left inside, now.
“We’ve got a chance if we walk out.”
“You’ve got ten bullets,” Karla said. “May as well put them to good use.”
“You got a plan other than shoot till they kill you?”
“That’s basically it.”
Derek spat. “Why couldn’t you have just kept on going?”
Karla climbed to the rafters on 2 x 4s nailed to the wall. Derek picked up his rifle and went up the other side.
“Last chance to come out alive.”
Karla peered out another gap. A woman, Megan, was talking to a man in fatigues. He turned and motioned to the barn. A short burst of machine gun fire ripped holes in the front wall and more still as the bullets exited the back side. A pair of men with rifles jogged for each door. Karla raised the M16 and aimed at the door on her right. She smiled at Derek, lined up on the other end.
The men called to each other and stepped in, low and swinging rifles. Karla shot the two on the right. Derek got one on the left, slower with the bolt action Savage. A bullet tore through the joist Karla kneeled on. Another bullet sliced her neck as she pivoted and shot the second man.
A third man dove into the barn and sprayed bullets too low on full auto. Derek shot him. The man rolled and aimed higher. Karla hit him twice in the head. She signaled Derek to cover the doors and spun to the gap.
Outside, the man who’d pointed at the barn spoke into a handheld. Karla shot him, then a man behind the turret gun on the armored vehicle, and another leaning out the front hatch. She traded rifles, guessed at the engine and driver and fired at the vehicle itself. She fought the urge to scream as the first fifty caliber round penetrated. She followed up with five more as fast as she could work the bolt.
A rifle cracked behind her. A man went down in the doorway. Another man fired bursts into the rafters as Karla leaped joist to joist with the M16. Wood splintered. Derek fired. Karla missed her footing and flopped to her stomach. She shot two men charging the rear door.
Karla rolled to the wall and scrambled down. Bullets tore through the barn boards. A truck backed away in the yard. Karla shot the driver, then ran as automatic fire raked the position she had just abandoned.
She burst outside, shot a man crossing toward the barn, then hit the dirt. Bullets slapped the ground and wall beside her. She shot a man under a truck and another peering from behind the armored vehicle. Karla rolled to her feet and raced for cover. Bullets screamed past her head. She hit one more man on the run and swung behind a truck. She heard rapid fire from the barn and hoped the best for Derek.
Karla climbed to the truck’s roof, no idea how many men remained. The armored vehicle spewed black smoke and crawled forward. A man clung to the side. He eyed the machine gun and Karla shot him. She leaped off the roof, landed on the hood and slid to the ground. She caught up to the lumbering LAV, stuck her rifle to a hole made by the fifty, and fired. She jogged beside it, shooting through three more holes before her rifle emptied, and the vehicle shuddered to a halt, the sound of ricocheting bullets mixing with the mechanical cacophony of the dying engine.
Karla slapped in a new clip and let off a few more rounds. Then a better idea. She bolted to the truck and unhooked a fuel can. She scanned the yard, saw no hostiles, and dragged the fuel to the LAV. She leaned the can at a bullet hole, letting diesel fuel splash inside as well as over the vehicle. She lit the puddle and backed away.
Dark smoke leaked from the holes. Karla poured more fuel. The front hatch burst open and a bloodied man crawled out. Karla swung at footfalls to see Derek trotting from the barn. He pointed a rifle at the man’s head and put him on the ground. Karla clambered up and dumped fuel down the hatch, intent on destroying the vehicle.
* * *
Women and children rounded up weapons from the dead and went through the trucks. Derek and another man questioned a wounded truck driver and the LAV man. Karla sat on the house porch, bandaged the cut on her neck, then started on antibiotics.
Two shots sounded. Derek stepped around the house. “We need to go,” he shouted. “Ten minutes, everyone in a vehicle.” Then he made his way to Karla.
He handed her a series of pictures inside clear vinyl sheets held together with a steel ring. Above her cropped face was the word “Reward.” Below was the offered price—two thousand Denver Dollars if taken alive; five hundred if dead.
Derek’s picture was in the set with seven others, all named, and marked with the caption: “Escaped. Do Not Return.”
“You know about this?” Derek asked.
Karla shook her head. “No clue how they got it.”
“Captain had them. Seems they know us both.”
“At least they don’t have orders to kill me,” Karla replied.
“No. But they still get paid if they do.”
Karla pulled her picture from the vinyl, tore it into small pieces, and tossed them in the air. She handed back the others and walked to her car. The picture could only have come from Craig, though she couldn’t figure out how. Surely the men hadn’t snapped her picture between rifle shots.
Karla fueled the Golf from the tanks on the truck and hooked two spare cans to the car. She roped two more to the minivan before ten people piled in. Derek jumped in with Karla.
“Where to?” she asked.
“East.”
Karla pulled down the drive.
“I thought you ought to know,” Derek said.
“I have never been in their custody or posed for a picture.”
“Well, they know who you are, and you’ve done something to annoy them.”
Karla rolled past the tank like vehicle. “What is that thing?”
“LAV. Light armored vehicle. They protect troops from small arms and can throw a hell of a lot of rounds in a hurry. If their men weren’t in the barn, you would h
ave seen a show.”
“Why’d they send them in, then?”
“It’s how you clear a building. No one carries enough ammo to knock down every structure they see. If you’d fired first, it’d have been different. But their real mistake was parking so close you could shoot at it. ’Course they never figured someone would fire a canon at them.”
“It’s only fifty caliber. The SLAP rounds add the punch. Judging from the weight, they might be depleted uranium. Never had a chance to try one before this.”
“How’d you get them?”
Karla shrugged. “A few came with the rifle. The military SLAPS don’t fit.”
“Your dad want a son or did you marry a survivalist?”
“Been around guns all my life. A friend taught me the military side.”
“The rifles?”
“I have a few Howitzers back home, too.”
Derek whistled. “Girls with big guns.”
They cruised through Meade and spotted a diesel F350. Karla spent an hour making it roadworthy and filling the tank with the stolen fuel. While she was busy, Derek, Tim and Elena scavenged the city. When they returned, four people and much of the cargo switched from the minivan. Then the caravan continued east, Derek driving the new pickup, Karla alone in the lead.
East of Coldwater, Kansas, Karla turned south into low hills and parked in dense though leafless trees along a seasonal creek bed. They spaced the vehicles and covered them, then set up tents and ate cold deer meat. No fires. Karla convinced Derek they’d been spotted by night flying planes using thermal imaging. If the equipment was good, there was no hiding.
Karla spread her bag near thick brush a hundred feet from the tents and half as far from her car. Derek threw his bag down beside her.
“Where’s Elena?”
“Tempered a bit by the show you put on. No one would believe that story unless they’d seen it. I sure wouldn’t.”
“No point in thinking about it. They come for me, I’m going to make it as hard on them as I can. I can’t see why people walk willingly into their arms.”
“They’re afraid. Rather take any chance to avoid death. I would have joined them, before the pictures.”
“You’ve been there, why?”
Times What They Are Page 45