by Joe Russell
The Storm Before the Storm
A Novel of Preparedness and Survival
Book One of the American Sundown Series
By Joe Russell
License Notes
Copyright © 2017 Joe Russell. All rights reserved.
Cover Art by Purple Fern Photography
Editing by Sabrina Jean, FastTrack Editing
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Contents
The Storm Before the Storm
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
A Note From The Author
Chapter 1
Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Present Day.
Dave slowed to a stop on the rough gravel road and turned the knob that engaged the truck’s four-wheel drive. It was early summer in West Virginia, and a few heavy thunderstorms over the last week had apparently washed out parts of the road pretty badly. The uneven terrain, steep slopes, and sheer drop offs with no guard rail convinced him that this was one of those times that it would be better to be safe than sorry. Then again, his wife’s not so subtle driving suggestions didn’t hurt either. He smiled to himself. For the most part, she was the cautious one in the relationship, and although it got on his nerves sometimes, he recognized that it was a good compliment to his relatively reckless style and did appreciate it. Maybe reckless wasn’t the right word. He wasn’t reckless, at least he didn’t think so. He was thoughtful about what he did and said, just had a different threshold for the border between reasonable and dangerous than she did. That was more like it. And, although he often used her nerves for his own comic advantage, this was not the time. She was right. If they slid off this road, who knew how long they would roll before the trees stopped the truck from pinballing any further down the mountain, or how long it would be before anyone found them.
They had left early that morning from their home in Middletown, Virginia. It was a small town that was known more for the community college there than for anything else. If they needed anything more than a tank of gas and a bottle of water, they usually saddled up the wagon and headed into Winchester, a small city ten minutes or so, depending on who was driving, up Interstate 81, just short of the West Virginia line. They were not actually in the town, consisting of U.S. Route 11 with a couple of side streets, but a few miles west of town toward North Mountain. This was near where Dave’s wife, Sandra (or Sandi, as Dave liked to call her) was originally from. She had grown up in the nearby town of Strasburg, and her parents still lived there with her little sister, Jennifer. Sandra had been twelve when her parents had this little “surprise”. Sandra also had an older brother, Mark, who had graduated from college with a business degree and moved to New York City several years ago to pursue just about anything as long as it was away from Northwestern Virginia, which according to him, should have been part of West Virginia. Ironically, it was exactly what Mark hated about the area that kept Sandra from leaving when she herself graduated. She liked the small-town atmosphere, where she couldn’t go to the grocery store without also attending a small high school reunion for both herself or her parents, who had also grown up in town.
She was quiet at this moment. Dave didn’t know if it was because she was tired from getting up early, or nervous about the road they were on. They were in Dave’s 2005 Chevrolet Silverado four-wheel drive. It was a dark blue with a camper cap, perfect for these kinds of outings. It had a moderate lift with BF Goodrich All-Terrains on the stock wheels and the 5.3-liter V-8. The gas mileage left something to be desired, but it was just about perfect in every other way. It was tough and nice looking, but not flashy – just how Dave liked it. It was comfortable to ride in, not too bad to drive, and held as much as they ever needed to for any trip like this. Several times on camping trips, they had rolled out their sleeping pads in the back instead of fooling with their tent. Finally, the four-wheel drive came in handy at times like this. Dave liked to say that most SUVs were more like big cars with truck engines than trucks, and with some exceptions, all-wheel drive was often a misleading description. Either way, right now he was happy that they were in his truck because the road wasn’t getting any better.
Progress was slow on the rough road, but they were most of the way up the mountain now. They were climbing a forest road east toward Spruce Knob, a remote wilderness area in the Monongahela National Forest. It was one of the couple’s favorite excursion spots, and they tried to get there once a year or so. They had been there in every season and even hiked in the snow. This time, however, they couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. They had just finished up a short hike in the valley beneath them, and were returning to town, being a relative term, to meet Sandra’s sister and her new boyfriend. This part of their weekend plan certainly hadn’t been Dave’s masterpiece.
Dave was caught off guard when he rounded the bend and saw a car in the ditch, and a rough-looking truck parked near it. He realized that he had been daydreaming about their hike and the rest of the weekend ahead of him. They had crested the ridge top and it was more level here, and he slowed as he approached the vehicles. He could see a late model Toyota Corolla had gone off the road and its front passenger tire was in the muddy ditch. Outside the car were two rough-looking young men to match what Dave assumed was their truck, looking very interested at what was inside the car. As they crept closer, Dave could make out a young person in the car who looked like she didn’t want to talk to the men outside.
As the two men became aware of the approaching truck, they turned their attention from the woman in the car and straightened. Dave drove the Chevy slowly toward them until he was about fifty feet from the men and the disabled car, then put it in park. He rolled down the window, stuck his head out, and addressed the men who were, by this point, focused completely on him.
“Morning!” he said with a forced cheeriness. He didn’t know what the guys were up to, but didn’t want to assume that they were here by choice of the woman in the car. “Y’all need a hand with that?”
The men glanced at each other, then back to Dave. “No,” one of them said. “I think we can handle this.”
Dave looked at the men for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the woman in the car. The expression on her face and the rolled-up windows of the Toyota told him all he needed to know. He opened the door and began to get out, pausing when Sandra grabbed his forearm. Turning to her, he saw the nervous expression on her face. He knew that she knew what he was thinking.
“Be careful,” she told him, knowing that if she tried to stop him, he probably wouldn’t listen. There were more than a few things in this world that made Dave’s blood boil, and what could be brewing here was one of them.
“I’m not sure this lady here wants your help,” he said as he stepped out of the t
ruck and began approaching the men, “so y’all can just head on down the road, okay?” He maintained his friendly tone, but it must have been clear to at least one of the men that he wasn’t coming up to give them a high five. One of them looked nervous, as if Dave was carrying a baseball bat.
The other man, however, grinned and said mockingly, “No, we got this. Now, just move right along.”
Dave was nervous, but was keeping it together. He knew that in a situation like this, what these two were inferring from him was more important than what he was actually feeling. Just like wolves, these animals would smell his fear, Dave thought. He knew that they were bluffing at least as much as he was, and that he needed to focus on remaining stoic and not getting tunnel-vision. ‘If they think I’m some Outlaw Josey Wales, I’ll win this’, he thought to himself. The thought caused him to smile to himself; just a little, but the two men saw it. “Well,” he said coolly, “I guess I could, but your truck there seems to be parked right in my way.” Then, with whatever benevolence that had been in his expression and voice melting away, he added, “So, I think it’s time you gentlemen moved on.”
“Billy, I think we should go,” the nervous man said. He was of average height, but scrawny and with a face that reminded Dave of some rodent. The other man kept his gaze on Dave, not making any movements for a moment, as if sizing Dave up and debating to himself if this was really worth the trouble. He was a big man, bigger than Dave. Not tall, but very stocky. Compared to Dave he was chunky, probably two hundred and fifty pounds or more. However, Dave knew that men with physiques like this weren’t weak; usually the bigger boulders just had a little more moss on them. What made Dave the most uneasy, however, was the look in the man’s eyes. Something wasn’t right about him. Dave couldn’t put his finger on it, but it gave him the creeps. He didn’t like this man. At all.
Still, Dave wasn’t a little guy. Just shy of six feet, he was a solid hundred and ninety pounds. At thirty-one years old, he found it a little harder to maintain this level of health and appearance than it had been ten years ago, but he was still relatively young and wouldn’t let himself make any contradictory excuses. Not yet.
Billy must have indeed been weighing his options as Dave had mused hopefully, because after another moment that seemed much longer than it surely was, he broke his still composure. Smiling a little too much, he gave Dave a faux-friendly pat on the arm and said, “All right, Doug, let’s go. That bitch didn’t seem grateful for us stopping to help her much anyway.” He appeared to be addressing Doug, presumably the nervous man, but kept his eyes fixed on Dave’s the entire time. There wasn’t friendliness or fear in them and Dave tensed, preparing for some unexpected trick or attack. He obviously didn’t appreciate being touched, which of course Billy knew, and Dave didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of flinching or reacting otherwise if the motion turned out to be harmless. Indeed, Billy turned and the two got back in the old truck. Before Billy shut the driver’s door, he leaned out a little bit from behind the cracked windshield to address Dave one more time. “See you around,” he said, with a smile and tone that Dave assumed was supposed to be taken as somewhere between a threat and a warning. With that, the old piece of junk roared to life, backed into a turn, and tore away to the east in a cloud of noise and dust.
Dave remained where he stood until the truck had disappeared and he could no longer hear it. It was then that his attention was turned back to the woman in the car. He had been so focused on the men that he had forgotten the main reason he had even wanted to stop, and she was less than ten feet away from him. As he turned to her, he heard a door shut and Sandra approaching from behind. He was glad she was there; after what could have almost just happened, he figured that Sandra’s presence would put the woman more at ease.
He was right. As Sandra moved to his side and took his hand, the woman opened her car door and got out slowly. She was young, probably in college, or at least that age. The way she dressed made Dave assume that she wasn’t from around here. “I’m glad that didn’t turn into anything,” she told him softly. “For a second there, I wasn't sure how it was going to go.” Dave nodded in agreement, but was still thinking about the words that Billy had left him with. It probably wasn’t anything, and he wasn’t going to tell her, but he filed it away. He had seen too much despite his few years to make those kinds of naïve assumptions.
The woman approached the couple, seeming much calmer now. “Thank you,” she said softly, but a bit exasperated.
“What happened?” Dave asked.
“I was cruising down this way, a little too fast,” she admitted sheepishly, “when a bunch of turkeys came across the road out of nowhere. I tried to stop, but I slid on the gravel and ended up in this ditch.” She absentmindedly motioned to the side of the road with her hand, as if Dave and Sandra needed clarification. “I got out and walked for a while, trying to find cell service. Of course, this whole area is one big dead zone and as I was coming back to the car, I heard that truck. I got scared, and even though I needed help, I got back in the car and locked it when I saw the way those guys were looking at me.” She shuddered. “I’m glad you all showed up when you did… they might have just been teasing me with no really bad intentions, but I don’t know...” she trailed off.
“Yeah, I’m glad we did too. You’d be walking all day if you had to find service.” Sandra spoke aloud for the first time, trying to be cheery and lighten the mood. Dave thought, she has been with me long enough to not give people in those types of situations the benefit of the doubt, so she knows. But there was no point in dwelling on it now. The woman had been visibly shaken up already. “I’m Sandra,” she said, extending her hand to the woman.
“Taylor,” the woman said, smiling. They shook hands and then she turned to Dave with her hand still extended.
“Dave,” he said, smiling back. He was trying to be light, although inside he was still feeling the adrenaline that had taken over his body and mind just a few minutes before.
“Stupid question, probably,” Taylor began, “but you don’t happen to have service here, do you?”
“No,” Dave said, this time smiling for real, “but I can do you one better. I have a rope.”
Dave got back in the truck and pulled it just past Taylor’s car, so that his back bumper was about fifteen feet from hers. He used a key on his second keyring to open the cap of the truck, and began fishing through a large plastic crate. A few seconds later, he produced a poly rope with hooks on either end. He quickly hooked one end of the rope from an eye hook on his tow hitch, then walked the other end to the back of the Corolla and knelt down. He was worried that being an economy passenger car, there wouldn’t be hooks under the bumper and he might damage the cheap plastic trying to pull the car out of the ditch. He was pleasantly surprised, however, to find one hook off the bottom of the bumper frame on the driver’s side. He was able to hook his rope to it easily and after pulling the rope so that it was at about the angle that his truck would pull it, determined that it shouldn’t damage the car. He hoped that in plunging into the ditch, the undercarriage hadn’t bottomed out and damaged something important. He figured they’d find out. Either way, it had to get back onto the road.
Dave asked Taylor to get back in the car and start it up. He told her that he was going to ease the truck forward until all the slack was out of the rope. Then he was going to move the truck forward, slowly but steadily, pulling her back the way she had gone in. At that point, she was to have the car in reverse and give it a little gas, not enough to spin tires, but to help itself out once the tension from the rope began pulling it backward.
Dave did just this, and it worked perfectly. The front axle of the car was on the edge of the roadway, but with a little nudge from the relatively large truck, it came right back the way it had entered the ditch. A quick inspection showed no apparent damage, so Dave considered it a success.
“Thanks again for stopping.” Taylor said to Dave and Sandra when her car was safely back
on the road. “You saved me from having to walk all day to get a tow truck, and maybe from a lot worse...” her words trailed off and she shuddered. Dave wanted to ask her what she was doing out here by herself, but didn’t. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. I have a paper to write this weekend, and I was planning on trying to get back to Morgantown by this afternoon to start it. At least I got a good hike in before this happened,” she said, turning her glance to the ditch where her car had been a few minutes ago.
“We’re glad we could help,” Sandra said warmly. “Who knows how long it would have been before you would have gotten service.”
Dave rolled his eyes inwardly. Although he suspected that Sandra was more on the same page as him than she was letting on, he thought that the more obvious relief should have been the dismissal of the “help” she had already found before they had arrived. Even though this girl, or woman, was only ten years younger than him, he fought his fatherly instinct to scold her for being out here alone. He didn’t consider himself sexist, at least not in the sense that men were superior to women. In fact, he believed that women were better than men at a lot of things. He considered himself driven by practicality more than anything else, and in this context, that meant recognizing that men and women are different the same way a running back and a linebacker are different. God created men and women to complement each other, not to compete with or rule over each other. The fact of the matter was, in his mind, that women faced different dangers in this world than men did. A presumably unarmed woman of one hundred and twenty pounds was typically less able to defend herself than a larger man, and more importantly, more of a target for creeps like the ones they had just encountered. If anything, women were often at a disadvantage due to the shortcomings of men, not their own shortcomings. At the end of the day, life was about rolling with the punches and not arguing with the referee, and in his opinion, that meant recognizing the unique dangers and challenges each person faced, and reacting accordingly. In this case, that meant not coming out here to a place where no one could hear her scream without a dog, friends, a revolver…