Kyle led them across the street to another two-story home that wasn’t boarded up. “I have a feeling about this one,” he said.
“OK, now what the hell was that all about?” James asked, clearly angered.
“Relax, James,” Billy said with a pat on his shoulder. “We weren’t going to hurt them. Some of these people have to be given the proper motivation. That’s all.”
“I don’t want any part of this,” James said. “It’s not right.”
“Fuck right, man. We’re just trying to survive like everyone else,” Billy said.
“That’s enough out of both of you,” Kyle said. He signaled everyone to stop once they reached the front yard of the next house. Kyle then turned to James, displaying a hint of understanding. “Your reservations are duly noted, James. Just remember that you came to us. This is what we do. Now, if you aren’t with us, then we have no other choice but to cut you and your friends loose, got it?”
James tried to think as the group stared at him coldly. Their fingers caressed the triggers of their weapons, and it was at that point that James knew he was in real danger, along with the rest of his group. Kyle’s veiled threat clearly registered.
“That won’t be necessary,” James said. “I’m with you guys.”
Kyle smiled with satisfaction, then signaled his men to follow him to the next house.
Quinn’s giant frame approached the front door and he kicked it in swiftly. The men ran into the house without hesitation. Inside it looked similar to the other ones. James had a troubling premonition that people were there. He dreaded what was to follow.
“You two, take upstairs,” Kyle said to Billy and Frank. “Quinn, clear the bedrooms down here. Eli, take the kitchen.” He then looked to James with a hint of disappointment. “James, you cover us.” Before James could respond, they were off. He could hear them rifling through each room. His only hope was that no one was there. Beyond that, he just wanted the entire unpleasant night to be over with.
Things weren’t going to be that easy. James heard screaming from the bedroom upstairs. Then more screaming from the bedrooms downstairs, followed by shouts and threats from Kyle and his men. They soon corralled a family from both floors and led them to the living room. Quinn emerged with three teenage boys at the barrel of his rifle. Billy and Frank came downstairs with a middle-aged couple and an elderly man and woman. James was ready to take his pistol and put an end to Russell’s men, but the scene was too chaotic. Initiating a shootout with several armed men in the presence of so many innocent people was a recipe for disaster, and James knew it.
“So what do we have here?” Kyle asked the terrified family. “Is this everybody? Is there anyone else we should know about?”
“What do you want?” the middle-aged man asked. He looked like an accountant of some sort, nebbish and balding. He was wearing plaid pajamas. James couldn’t believe that they were harassing people so abjectly defenseless. It made him sick inside, but he didn’t know what to do. He was defying his own principles.
“Food, weapons, ammunition, cash, and medicine for starters,” Kyle said. “You give us what we need and no one gets hurt.”
“Anything you want, just don’t hurt us,” the man cried out.
“That’s what I said, asshole. You give us what we need, and we’ll be out of here before you know it.”
“I have money. Lots of cash,” the man said. “I’ll give you whatever you need.”
His wife, the elderly couple, and the teenage boys huddled together, sobbing. It was clear the man would do anything to protect them.
“Where’s Brian?” his wife blurted out.
“Brian?” Kyle asked. “Who the fuck is Brian?”
At that moment, a burly man rushed down the stairs, gripping a pistol in his trembling hand.
“You sons of bitches!” he shouted, firing the weapon at the men. The shots took Frank down before anyone could register what was happening. Once he hit the ground, Billy raised his rifle into the air and sprayed the room with bullets. Quinn, Eli, and Kyle followed in a merciless symphony of gunfire. The captive family in the living room fell to their stomachs on floor in a panic. James stumbled back against the wall and tumbled over. The deafening sounds of gunfire jolted him and rendered him incapacitated.
The vigilante gunman was instantly ravaged by gunfire. He crashed onto the ground in a mangled heap. The room reeked of gunpowder. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Kyle’s group took a moment to examine themselves for wounds. They had lost Frank. His lifeless body lay on the hardwood floor below in a pool of blood.
Kyle shined his flashlight throughout the room to assess the situation. It was time to leave. However, he took keen notice of the three teenage boys huddled in the middle of the living room with their parents. “Grab the boys and let’s go!” he shouted.
“Frank,” Billy said. “What about Frank?”
“Frank’s dead,” Kyle said. “We have to get out of here now. Grab the boys. All three of them.”
Quinn and Billy got their act together and vaulted over to the boys, tearing them away from their parents’ arms. The woman screamed in agony as the boys cried out.
“Shut up!” Kyle said. “Eli give them a hand.” Eli grabbed one of the boys in a chokehold. Quinn held the second one while Billy held the other. “Let’s move,” Kyle said, directing them out the door. Their parents continued screaming. The boys struggled the best they could but were no match for Kyle and his men. James followed them out into the street, looking for an opportunity to free the boys and kill Kyle’s men in the process. But no such thing would happen. James knew that whatever he did would put his friends in harm’s way back at Camp Liberty. He hated himself for it, but he chose to do nothing.
They took the boys at gunpoint, all the way back to the cargo truck, where little was said. James couldn’t make sense of anything. Everything had been so surreal, so impossible. He never thought in a million years that things could have gone as bad as they did. Their captives were silent and constricted by fear.
When they got back to the truck, Kyle instructed everyone to stay focused on the goal at hand. Quinn and Billy forced the boys into the back of the truck, and they were soon off. James’s mind raced with options. “It was a mistake,” he thought. “All of it.” But he would have to play his cards wisely. He knew that they had to escape Camp Liberty. Their lives depended on it.
Showdown
It was a silent ride back to Camp Liberty, broken only occasional sobs. James watched the trembling boys, hunkered down in the back of the truck with Quinn and Billy watching them. The captives were stricken with fear and wisely kept their mouths shut. Their hands had been bound behind their backs with zip-ties. They were nearly identical, possibly triplets: tall, dark-skinned, and athletic-looking. They each had black hair and were distinguishable mainly by their haircuts. The boy on the end had neatly trimmed hair. The one in the middle had grown his hair to his shoulders, while the one next to him had shaved it on one side, and the other, wore it hanging over his eye. They had been yanked from their house without being able to take a thing besides shoes, wearing only what they had slept in.
James said little. He felt that there was nothing he could do without causing more bloodshed. His mind raced with options, but keeping his group safe was paramount. He tried his best not to raise any suspicion among the men as they would surely leave him behind riddled with bullets.
Before they left the scene of the crime, Kyle asked James directly if everything was OK. James insisted that he was good and even helped get their captives into the truck. The only thing left for him to do was keep his mouth shut, get his people, and leave the camp without issue. Of course, nothing would be so easy.
Billy was noticeably upset about Frank. He objected to leaving him there, but everything had happened so fast and had turned so messy. They hadn’t gathered enough supplies, but Kyle made the call without hesitation. He figured three new recruits would make up for th
eir botched run. Billy looked at Quinn as the teenager boys stared at the ground, shaking.
“It’s just not right leaving Frank there like that. It’s bullshit. We need to go back there and get him.”
“Not gonna happen,” Quinn said.
“Then what kind of men are we? This goes against every principle our group is supposed to stand for,” Billy said. “I’ll tell you one thing, Russell isn’t going to be happy. I’m going to tell him everything. I’m going to tell him how Kyle fucked this whole thing up. Mark my word.”
“It’s over, just drop it,” Quinn said.
Billy looked at James. “You wanna weigh in here?” he asked. “You think we should have left Frank’s body back there?”
James noticed both Billy and Quinn watching him, waiting for a response. “Nobody wanted to leave him, but we had to get out of there. It was our only option.”
“Bullshit. I don’t care if we brought back twenty kids to the camp, the fact that we lost one highly trained and able man is going to infuriate Russell,” Billy said.
“I guess we’ll have to wait and find out,” James said. Overall, he didn’t care what Russell thought. James was out. It was final. He glanced down at the kids. They hadn’t said a word the entire trip until the one in the middle finally spoke.
“Where—where are you taking us?” he asked.
“What’d you say? Speak up,” Billy said. He moved over to the boy and kicked him in the side, causing him to fall over and gasp for breath.
“That’s enough!” James said. He suddenly moved between Billy and the boy he had kicked. “You think hurting them is going to solve anything?”
Billy stared at him but saw that James was not going to back down. “Ah, hell. What do you know?” Billy said, waving his hand in the air. He took a seat on the passenger bench and said no more.
James helped the boy back onto his knees. “It’s going to be OK,” he said. The petrified teenager nodded slightly. The truck slowed and James knew they were close as the truck veered off back down the rural path into the woods.
“Hang on,” James told their captives. “And stay close to each other. It’s about to get really bumpy.”
Atlanta, GA
The day before James’s unfortunate outing, Terrance and Tobias reached Atlanta, only a few miles away from home. The sky grew lighter as the morning sun began to rise above the horizon. Terrance knew they were cutting it close. The hit and run incident had set them back, and now they would have to contend with Atlanta in broad daylight.
Their initial foray into town was even more unsettling than what they had seen in McDonough. Once he got off their last exit, Terrance kept his van to the shoulder of the road to avoid the line of vehicles before them. He was racing against the sun, trying to get them home, before too much attention was drawn.
The fuel gauge teetered above the empty line. He had used up most of their fuel before leaving the hospital. Up ahead, amid desolate shops and stores, was a corner gas station. Terrance didn’t see anyone around and figured he’d take the risk and see if the pumps worked. The Citgo station consisted of eight pumps and a small white building covered in black soot.
It looked as if someone had attempted to torch it. Every window and door was secured behind security gates. Behind the gates were metal sheets, blocking the view inside the store. Whoever owned the place wasn’t playing around.
Terrance pulled up to the first pump and parked. He told Tobias to keep a lookout and exited the van. Tobias scanned the area, checking everything out. There were several high-rise, rundown apartment buildings, and what looked like public housing project. He could see people looking out their windows nervously, some were hiding behind curtains. Most of all, he noticed all eyes on them. They were being watched from all directions. He hurried to the pump and examined it. The digital display was blank, and it was credit card only.
“Damn,” Terrance said. He took one of the pumps out anyway and flipped up the lever. Nothing happened. He put the pump back and looked to the stream of cars out on the road. The siphon hose in the back of the van would be their only hope now. However, he didn’t feel comfortable doing it out in the open with the sun coming up and tenants looking at him from their building. All Terrance knew is that he needed to get home. Their real home.
Tobias remained hopeful that Atlanta would be back to normal soon. But that morning, things were a little too quiet. It became clear that the power was still out, as there wasn’t a single working street or traffic light. Terrance swung the driver’s side door open and jumped into the van.
“Nothing,” he said. “Their pumps are shot. We’re gotta get this van home, and then go from there.”
Just as Terrance started the van, he looked up and noticed a mob of people walking directly in his path roughly fifty feet ahead.
“Dad,” Tobias said. “Dad?”
“I know,” Terrance said.
He revved the engine while the mob of forty or so people slowly spread out to block his path. They had baseball bats, pipes, crowbars, and other blunt instruments. Terrance thought about his handgun, but there were far too many people. Their faces, young, old, male, and female showed solidarity as well as the desperation felt by each one of them. Having felt abandoned by powerful, affluent political leaders and left to fend for themselves, they were more than ready to take the van at whatever cost.
Terrance revved the engine again, hard, to send a message. The mob slowly moved closer, glaring at them like a pack of wolves. They weren’t letting up.
“Get ready, son,” Terrance said.
“No, Dad. Don’t!” Tobias pleaded.
Terrance shifted the van into Drive and floored it. The van barreled toward the mob like a freight train. Tobias closed his eyes and gripped the armrests of his seat. A few seconds later, Terrance slammed on the brakes, within inches of striking one of them. No one had moved an inch. His game of chicken had failed.
Tobias opened his eyes to see the menacing group right in front of them. He hadn’t a clue what Terrance was doing. Terrance fumbled with the gear shift, trying to get it to go into reverse. He glanced into his rearview mirror and saw that another mob had formed behind them, boxing them in.
One particularly large black man in the front took a step back and swung his bat as hard as he could into the left headlight, pulverizing it instantly. The mob shouted and cheered in a heightened frenzy. The shattering startled Terrance and Tobias as things escalated beyond comprehension.
Rocks were thrown at the van from all sides. People jumped to the doors trying and tried to pull them open. Someone smashed the back windows, and then they started on the windshield. Terrance took a deep breath and pushed the gas pedal lightly down. The van lumbered forward as the mob followed it. The bumper pushed against those in front and they finally moved out of the way, convinced their efforts were futile.
Terrance gradually pushed the mob aside and when he saw his opening, he gunned the van full throttle, leaving over fifty angry people in a trail of dust. They swarmed together and chased the van even as the gap widened to an unreachable distance. Terrance raced down the road, trying to navigate his way out of the dangerous slum they were in and into the relative safety of their neighborhood.
“Are you all right?” he asked Tobias.
“Yeah, I’m fine. That was a close call.”
“Sure was,” Terrance said.
The east side of Atlanta looked like something out of a dystopian movie. Trash littered the streets. Graffiti consumed nearly every structure. Vandalized stores were wide open, emptied, and deserted. It was a disaster area in the truest sense.
They were a long way from the city’s showcases, like Midtown, Emory University, City Hall, Piedmont Park, and the Georgia Dome. Terrance suspected that most people had fled those places hoping to find some assistance. But plenty of people still remained. Terrance shifted around each car in their path and turned down back road after back road, trying to evade anyone who took notice.
T
obias remained quiet for the most part while looking for any signs of danger. He heard the sound of pops in the distance. He’d often heard them around town, but not so early in the morning. Terrance’s eyes were ahead. He flew around each corner like a madman, leaving tire tracks in their wake. He pushed the van hard, almost too hard, but had no greater priority than getting home. The fuel gauge was right at Empty, but they were close; their house was only three blocks away.
Terrance tore down their neighborhood street then began to slow down as he didn’t see anyone outside in their yards or walking down the road. With the exception of some stranded cars, nothing looked out of place. They were fortunate to live on a cul-de-sac where there was no outlet. It prevented people who didn’t live there from venturing past. Taking in the relative peace and quiet of the neighborhood put Terrance’s mind at ease. Tobias felt ecstatic to be back. As they pulled into their driveway, it seemed like returning from a vacation. For one moment, Tobias forgot that anything was out of the ordinary.
Their small lawn was slightly overgrown, but the one-story house remained intact. There had been no vandalism and hopefully no breakins whatsoever.
They parked, got out of the van, and stretched. Terrance looked around and didn’t see anyone. Their neighbors on both sides, and across the street, all had their blinds drawn. The sky above lit up in an orange blaze following the tranquil sunrise. The true beauty of the world could so often be overlooked. Terrance observed the house and approached it with caution. He told Tobias to stay behind him. The shades were closed just as they left them, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t inside. Squatters were an epidemic in the area.
Terrance gripped his pistol and slowly unlocked the door. He opened it to the house that seemed just as they had left it. The living room looked untouched, along with the kitchen. The house was musty and there was still no power, but as he walked to the dining room, Terrance noticed the sliding glass door to the porch was open. He jumped back against the wall and held up his pistol.
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