by Bobby Akart
Shots rang out as an arm swung around the doorjamb and fired wildly down the hall. One of the rounds shot out a light fixture in the ceiling, and the other two sailed over Jake’s head. He didn’t fire back, instead making a mental note of the clicking sound made by the shooter.
Revolver. Not a cannon like a .357. Probably a .38. You’ve got two left, maybe three.
Jake kept his eye on the front door and the living room window as he reached for a book sitting atop the foyer table. He grabbed it and threw it down the hallway toward the linen closet door. It hit the hollow door with a thud but had the desired effect.
The shooter, probably frightened, fired again in the opposite direction. This time two bullets hit the center of the door, but the last two pulls of the trigger created empty clicks.
“You’re out of gas, jerk off,” mumbled Jake as he charged down the hallway. He peppered the doorjamb with bullets and heard the man scream. As Jake reached the opening, the heavyset man was desperately trying to carry his large frame through the window opening.
Jake didn’t hesitate to fill his back with bullets.
Then Ashby fired off another round. The report echoed down the hallway, causing Jake to react. He ran toward the kitchen to help her, and then he heard her rack another round and fire.
BOOM!
In the small enclosed kitchen, the shotgun sounded like a cannon had let loose.
“Got him!” Ashby spontaneously shouted.
Jake swung his rifle toward the living room, where he thought he heard the sound of crunching glass. But his attention was quickly diverted to the front door, where a large-caliber gun was shooting at the door lock.
Hunting rifle? No, this has to be semiautomatic. Probably a .45.
His mind was remarkably clear considering it was his first gun battle. He allowed his training to take over. Jake was patient and he listened. He heard the crunching sound again.
By his count, there were two guys left. Hopefully he was right, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. All of a sudden, one of the men threw his body weight against the front door. That was all Jake needed.
“Don’t come—!” shouted a voice from the living room, but it was too late. Jake had taken down the fifth man.
Just as he squeezed the trigger, littering the man’s body with bullets, the guy in the living room revealed himself. Without hesitating, Jake burst into the opening and pointed his rifle at the man’s chest.
“Drop it!”
The man was holding a baseball bat and allowed it to slowly slip through his fingers, dropping it to the rug. “Please don’t shoot me,” he begged.
“How many of you?” Jake growled as he closed the gap to see the man better in the dark. He was small, wiry and wearing similar clothing to the dead head honcho, the Negan wannabe.
“Um,” he hesitated.
“How many?” Jake barked.
“Six, man. Just six. Come on. I’m unarmed. You can’t shoot me. You know. Hands up and everything.”
Jake managed a smile as he thought back to the whole bogus hands up, don’t shoot campaign from years before. None of the people who got shot ever put their hands up, and certainly none of them complied with the police officer’s instructions. If they had, they wouldn’t have been shot.
Now Jake was faced with a conundrum, one that went beyond what he had been taught as a law enforcement ranger, or the moral code he lived by. But things had changed, he convinced himself.
His mind raced as he recalled reading in a post-apocalyptic novel once about a family who was facing a similar circumstance. They let the marauder go because he was unarmed and begging for his life. That evening, the guy came back, heavily armed, with his friends. They killed the father only after they took turns torturing and abusing the wife and kids in front of him.
Jake loved Ashby and he was not going to allow this guy to come back later. Without hesitating, he shot the man twice in the chest and then once in the forehead after his body slumped to the floor.
After a final look around the room, he made his way to the kitchen. “Ashby, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” she groaned. “I think we’re gonna have to pop my shoulder in again.”
Jake backed into the kitchen as he continued to monitor the front of the house. He leaned down and whispered to her, “I need to sweep the outside. Keep an eye on this back door. If you see movement, shoot.”
“But what if—?” she began to ask before Jake held his finger up to his lips. He pulled the slide on her shotgun and got it ready.
“I’ll announce myself, okay?”
She managed a smile and nodded. Jake patted her leg and stood. He moved quietly and efficiently through the back bedrooms to make sure no one had slipped in while he wasn’t looking. Satisfied, he moved to the front porch through the bedroom window.
Outside, he confirmed two dead, and the third was barely alive, as his body had been knocked backwards onto the front steps. Jake kicked his gun away and moved around the side of the house.
As he neared the destroyed Dutch door, he said, “Ashby, it’s me. I’ve got two dead guys back here. I’ve got one guy bleeding out on the front stoop. Be careful.”
He faintly heard her reply and he swept the far side of the house to make sure nobody was lurking nearby. When he returned to the front, Jake kicked the man’s legs, causing him to groan and slide headfirst into the accumulating ash.
“How many men are with you?” he hissed at the dying man.
“Six. Please help me. It hurts.”
Jake laughed. “I’m sure it does, tough guy.” Jake towered over the man and picked up the .45-caliber handgun. He dropped the magazine and checked the number of rounds left. It was half-full.
Jake shouldered his rifle and shrugged. He pointed the handgun at the man’s head, and just as he squeezed the trigger, he said, “This’ll make it feel better.”
Jake took a deep breath and exhaled. Amazingly, throughout the gun battle, he’d managed to keep his N95 mask on. As he looked around the front porch littered with human debris, he wondered when it would be safe to breathe the air and live a normal life.
“Jake? Is it over?”
He glanced one more time at the three dead men and wandered over to the living room to climb through where the fourth body was bleeding out on the area rug.
“Yeah, it’s over, for today.”
Chapter 54
Pressley Farm
West of Vale, Oregon
“Let me help you up,” said Jake as he carefully lifted Ashby off the floor. She was favoring her right shoulder, which had been dislocated again by the shotgun’s recoil. They walked into the hallway, and Ashby veered toward the living room before Jake gently stopped her. “This way.”
Walking down the hallway to the master bedroom, Ashby noticed volcanic fallout blowing in through the window of the guest bedroom. She stopped to look inside, but Jake once again shielded her from seeing the dead man, who hung out the window. Finally, he managed to get her into the master bedroom, and he closed the door behind them to prevent the ash from entering.
“Okay, let’s get you settled,” said Jake as he carefully removed Ashby’s shirt and laid her on the bed near the edge. “You know the drill. We’ve got to pop your shoulder back into place.”
Moments later, for the second time in four days, Ashby’s shoulder was reunited with her arm. Jake placed her arm across her belly and retrieved a bottled water off the other nightstand. He helped her drink and rustled through the Pressleys’ medicine cabinet in the bathroom in search of Advil. He gave her eight hundred milligrams of the anti-inflammatory drug for starters.
Jake sat quietly with her for a moment, both to soothe her nerves and to keep an ear out for the dead thug’s friends, if any. Also, he wanted Ashby to relax as she processed taking another human being’s life.
Fortunately, she wasn’t able to see the bodies of the men she’d shot, or the ones Jake had dispatched. Actually, seeing the gruesome effect her shot
gun blasts had had on the faces and chests of the men lying dead on the back porch would’ve compounded the trauma for her.
Jake had never taken another human being’s life, but he’d talked with some of his fellow rangers who had served in the military. They said their first kill was surreal. Oddly, for the ones he spoke with, seeing their buddies die on the battlefield, while heart wrenching, paled in comparison to actually firing the round that killed another man. One described how he walked up to that lifeless body with half its chest missing, dropped to a knee, and prayed for the terrorist’s soul, and then his own.
Others had a sense of guilt upon returning stateside. It bothered them that they’d made it home to their family, but some members of their platoon did not.
Then there were the chosen few who, for whatever reason, were immune to the emotions associated with killing. One fellow ranger in particular, a devoted and loving father of four kids, said after the first kill, he reconciled it in his mind within seconds—him or me. He’d absolved himself of the responsibility for that lifeless body in front of him—someone’s son, father, or husband—on the basis that he was defending himself and, in a way, his family.
Him or me.
That was the mindset Jake adopted, although he didn’t know it until it was over. In the moment, he’d killed the unarmed man standing in the living room without compunction or remorse.
Him or me.
When the head thug was pounding on the door with his baseball bat, Jake hadn’t hesitated to use his high-powered rifle to blast through the door and drop the man to the porch in a flurry of bullets.
Him or me.
With each successive kill, he reminded himself afterwards, it was him or me and Ashby. He was now responsible for the life of this beautiful woman lying on the bed. Peaceful, calm, alive, and, now, asleep.
Jake slipped out of the bedroom and set about the task of removing the dead bodies from Ashby’s view. Make no mistake, he had no intention of burying them. They didn’t deserve it. They’d failed their families, society, and themselves.
One by one, he dragged them to the side of the house and piled them up. He contemplated burning them, but he didn’t want to waste the fuel to ignite the fire. They weren’t worth it. It was morning now, and the sun was shining brightly somewhere in the sky, but not above Central Oregon.
Jake returned to the back porch and found a broom. He swept ash over the pools of blood that had formed at the back door and at the front where the other three dead bodies had landed. He wanted to shield Ashby from the carnage the best he could. At some point that day, he planned to talk to her about what had happened, but he wanted to do it on her terms. She might not be able to accept taking another’s life the way he did.
With the cleanup out of the way, Jake decided to inspect their vehicles to see if they contained anything of value. They were parked at various angles near the Bounder.
He’d seen something like this before at the Salton Sea Recreation Area when he’d lived in Los Angeles. Although they looked like dune buggies to most people, they were technically street-legal dune buggies known as sandrails. Very lightweight and built for traveling on sandy terrain, they became popular in Southern California for off-road enthusiasts who also wanted something to drive on the street.
Beefed-up Volkswagen engines approaching two hundred horsepower were not uncommon. The stock engines produced a more practical fifty horsepower, but considering the engine only had to push a thousand pounds, the performance allowed them to be safe for everyday use.
Jake walked around the sandrails. He couldn’t imagine a better vehicle for the ash fallout, which had accumulated even more overnight. He turned toward the motor home and groaned.
The side of the motor home had been hit by a couple of stray bullets, including one that had found its mark in the sidewall of the right front tire. The tire was flat.
“That’s just peachy,” Jake mumbled, paying homage to Dusty-speak. With his hands on his hips, he stared at the flattened tire. Aggravated, he stomped to the back of the motor home and looked for the spare tire. There wasn’t one, nor was there a jack to help mount it.
He cursed himself for not checking these things out. He walked to the driver’s side and noticed a series of compartments along the bottom, just below where the racing stripes used to be before the pyroclastic blast. He tried the latch on the largest door and found what he was looking for. A spare tire, but there was no jack.
“Thanks, Brett.” Jake went on to mutter some more choice words for the car salesman in Challis.
He rolled the tire around the motor home and propped it against the deflated one. He looked at the sandrails and then back at his own ride. Five hundred miles was a long way in a toy car with no roof, doors, or windows.
He was pretty sure Ashby wouldn’t go for it.
Chapter 55
Pressley Farm
West of Vale, Oregon
“How’s it going?” Ashby asked as she emerged on the front porch. She had ripped some strips off a sheet and created a sling to hold her arm in place.
Jake had been staring at the vehicle options and turned to address her. As he was walking back to the porch, he explained their predicament. “We’ve got a right front tire flat on the Bounder. The good news is I have a spare. The bad news is there is no jack. I’ve looked in all the compartments and there’s nothing.”
“What are you gonna do?” asked Ashby, who looked around the front porch. Jake had hidden the dead bodies, which didn’t hurt her feelings at all. She really hadn’t taken the time to process what had happened yet. She’d rather not.
“My hunch is the Pressleys have a barn behind the house somewhere. I’m gonna walk back there and see. If you’re okay, we should stick together. Come with me?”
Ashby laughed. “Sure, I could use some fresh air.”
Jake ran inside and grabbed their weapons. He slung both rifles over his shoulder and helped Ashby navigate the steps. She carefully stepped down the stairs and slipped a little on the last step but caught her balance with Jake’s assistance. She joined Jake and he immediately looked at her shoulder.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Not as bad as the first time,” she replied. “Just think, the next time will be even easier.”
Jake started laughing and then thought of Rita. He wanted to say you’re such a dork, but thought better of it. Ashby didn’t need to be reminded of death right now.
“Not funny. Let’s go find that barn, because if we can’t change the spare, you’re not gonna like the alternative.”
“Which is?” she asked.
“Dune buggies.”
“Ugh.”
Ashby inquired about the dead men, but Jake deflected as they walked down the gravel driveway covered in thick ash. Using the white field fencing as their guide, the visibility eventually allowed them to make out a barn and two utility buildings nearby. As they got closer, they heard the sound of a horse’s whinny.
They both picked up the pace and within a minute were inside a large barn with a hayloft. They were not alone. Eight horse stalls lined both sides of the barn, which held four horses and two ponies. Some of them seemed agitated.
“Jake, they’re never gonna make it through this,” started Ashby. “Their respiratory system is designed to move large amounts of air in and out of their body. Compared to us and other mammals, a horse takes in a staggering amount of oxygen.”
Jake walked along and saw that their water troughs were empty. He looked around the barn until he found a hydrant. On a farm, a hydrant was not what most people would visualize as a fire hydrant. It was a pump-looking handle affixed to a steel pipe sticking out of the ground. It was often tied to the property’s underground well system.
Ashby found a bucket and handed it to Jake, who promptly filled it up. They gave it a visual examination for contaminants. Then they conducted a smell test to check for sulfur. It looked okay. Jake offered to run back to the house and retrieve his digital water t
ester, which he carried in his backpack.
“When I camped, I never knew if the streams were toxic due to underground activity around Yellowstone. I always had the water tester with me.”
“Don’t bother, Jake. I hate to put it this way, but these horses aren’t gonna make it long because of what they’ve inhaled. Especially the little ones. The best we can do is fill their troughs with water and give them lots of hay. Can you do that while I search for what you need?”
“Yeah. Look around for something that looks like a tall jack—called a cowboy jack. It’s what most people call a farm jack. They’re designed to lift heavy loads and equipment. On a farm, they’re used for tearing out stumps, pulling out fence posts, and as an all-purpose winch.”
Ashby glanced around and then asked, “What else?”
“Also, I’m looking for gas cans and a heavy-duty chain.”
“What’s the chain for?”
“Well, those sandrails might come in useful depending on how things go as the ash continues to fall. If we can fix the Bounder’s tire, then I’m thinking about taking one back with us.”
Ashby thought for a moment. “If? What if you can’t fix the tire?”
“Then you and I will have his and hers sandrails.”
Ashby shook her head and began the search. “I’ll find you a jack, don’t worry.”
Jack had to climb into the loft to locate hay for the horses and found the chain he needed to tow a vehicle behind the motor home. It had been used in the past for lifting motors out of farm equipment, so it had heavy-duty steel hooks on both ends.
Ashby located two diesel containers and the farm jack. In one of the outbuildings, there was a five-hundred-gallon tank that was nearly full of farm diesel. After a final check of the horses, they returned to the house.
Jake undertook the laborious task of changing the spare tire while Ashby got their things ready for the trip. She made them sandwiches, using up the Pressleys’ perishable foods first. Once Jake was finished, she brought inside a variety of dry goods and lined them up on the kitchen counter for the couple to see when they returned.