The old woman moved slowly toward an old television and turned it on. When the screen only showed white snow she looked up at Preacher and shook her head.
“Went out yesterday and hasn’t come back on. I sure hope those news people are ok, especially that little Asian girl who does the weather. She’s always so nice.”
Uncle Joe coughed and then motioned toward the single phone that hung on the wall where the living room and kitchen connected.
“Phone is out too. All we get is a busy signal. The whole damn city is shut down except for the sons-a-bitches running around trying to burn it to the ground.”
Aunt Nadine’s mouth curled sharply downward into a disapproving frown as she pointed at her husband of fifty-three years.
“We have guests, Joe! Watch your language!”
Joe Blackstone chuckled. His color had improved significantly since getting the new bottle of oxygen delivered to him by his nephew. The old man wobbled unsteadily for a second as he stood up and then motioned toward the front door.
“I’m gonna sit out on the porch for a spell and make sure the neighborhood is still there. Anyone else is welcome to join me.”
Preacher looked down at Akrim and then tipped his head toward the door as well.
“We’ll come out with you, Uncle Joe.”
Aunt Nadine nodded her approval as she looked up at Sarah.
“I know you said you weren’t hungry but I don’t feel right not making something. You want to help me in the kitchen? I think I have enough bread left for sandwiches.”
Ten minutes later found Sarah helping deliver newly made sandwiches to the men seated on the small home’s front porch as long shadows crept across the street signaling the day would soon be giving way once again to night.
Nadine sat down next to Joe while Sarah took a seat between both Preacher and Akrim. The sandwiches were soon gone. Everyone was far more hungry than they had realized.
Uncle Joe stared out at the other homes in the neighborhood he had called home for decades while holding the hand of his wife. For the next hour as the daylight continued to fade he told stories of his time fighting in Vietnam, shared memories of growing up with Preacher’s father, and how proud he was of the man Preacher had become.
Nothing was mentioned about Preacher’s time in prison, or the crime that took him there.
“You three should head west. If I had it in me, that’s where I’d go - somewhere away from all this mess.”
Preacher shook his head.
“I wouldn’t leave you like that, Uncle Joe.”
Joe’s face tightened into a scowl as he grunted his disapproval.
“What business does a young man like you have worrying over someone like me? Your aunt and I will be just fine, but that don’t mean we shouldn’t want something better for you. Now you told me how you met up with these two here, and they seem like real nice people, Atlin. They the ones you need to worry over now, not some old man with a foot in the grave already. No sir, I won’t have that on my conscience. You get to gettin’ while the gettin’ is still good!”
Nadine said nothing but nodded her head in agreement with the words of her husband as Preacher’s uncle continued.
“Why you choose that little scooter thing of yours to get around?”
Preacher glanced at the parked, light blue scooter and then shrugged.
“It was what was there to take at the time. When I was released from the prison…well…things were ugly down there and gas was hard to come by. Most the stations were closed. I had a truck at first. Got about forty miles and ran out of fuel. Then there was an abandoned car just idling in the middle of the street in a little neighborhood outside Fort Worth. That got me as far as Camden, Arkansas before it ran out of gas. So I came upon this thing inside a dealership that had already been looted. Cars all broken into, windows busted, but this thing was sitting there untouched and a full tank of gas. I found those extra cans, siphoned some gas out of some of the cars and made my way here driving mostly at night to avoid being seen. It’ll do fifty or sixty easy, and gets almost a hundred miles to the gallon while doing it.”
Nadine gave her nephew a warm smile.
“You’ve always been a smart boy, Atlin.”
Uncle Joe motioned toward the small single garage at the side of the house with his right thumb.
“Well, if you’re gonna be using two wheels to travel instead of four, I suspect your companions here will need something to get along with too, right?”
Preacher’s head tilted slightly to the left as his eyes narrowed.
“They have a car…”
Uncle Joe shook his head.
“Said yourself gas is tough to come by and that thing don’t look like it’s one of those fuel-efficient kind.”
Akrim nodded his agreement.
“No, it isn’t.”
Preacher’s uncle stood up, paused to catch his breath and then began to make his way slowly down the porch steps toward the garage.
“C’mon then, got something to show you.”
Preacher and Akrim followed the old man while Sarah stayed with Nadine on the porch.
Joe opened a side door to the garage, turned on the lights and then the parchment-like skin of his wizened face broke apart from the onslaught of a very wide, proud smile.
“There she is, restored her myself. Just about every bit of her was redone. Took me almost ten years and by the time I was finished the emphysema made it too tough for me to get out and ride her much and the last time I took rode a few years back that Muslim family down the street complained about the noise.”
Preacher and Akrim looked in wonder at a pristine, dark gray 1965 Harley Davidson Electra-Glide. The motorcycle whispered of a bygone era when America still built things that were the envy of the world.
Uncle Joe moved himself slowly over to the bike and then ran a slightly shaking left hand over the gas tank.
“Push-button start, windshield, factory backrest, leather saddle bags, rear bag rail, fender tips…every option available at the time is included. I have a ten-gallon gas can we can fill with the fuel left in your car and then strap it on top of the bag rail. It would fit fine back there and give you more than enough fuel to get you far from here.”
Preacher stood next to his uncle and shook his head.
“I can’t take this from you, Uncle Joe. And besides, I said I ain’t leaving you and Aunt Nadine alone, ok?”
Uncle Joe spun around to face his nephew, his eyes lit with the determination of a man not willing to have his request refused.
“I told you, boy! You need to get out of this place! Don’t waste any more time on the past. You spent all those years locked up. I won’t have you replacing one prison for another and me and your aunt being the cause. You will take this bike and use it to go, understand? You and your friends can stay over tonight, and then first thing tomorrow you get your ass on the road and I ain’t hearin’ nothin’ else from you about it!”
Preacher sighed and then placed his right arm gently around the narrow, bony shoulders of his sickly uncle and was about to say something more when the garage lights suddenly went dark.
The three men waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness as Uncle Joe commented on the power outage.
“Shit, there it goes again - been happening more and more. Still, at least we ain’t cooped up in some hellhole like Chicago! Those poor folks have it real bad!”
Preacher slowly guided his frail uncle from the garage as Akrim followed close behind while Nadine called out from her chair on the porch.
“Did you show him the bike, Joe?”
Joe nodded to his wife.
“Sure did, and he’s gonna be gone from here first thing tomorrow morning, ain’t that right, Atlin?”
Preacher attempted a small smile but it appeared more like an uncomfortable grimace.
“If that’s what you and Aunt Nadine want, I suppose I am.”
Three hours later:
Akrim sudden
ly awoke from his makeshift bed on the couch of Joe and Nadine Blackstone’s living room. The house was quiet except for the soft sound of Preacher’s breathing where he lay asleep on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. Sarah was asleep in the home’s small second bedroom across the hall from Joe and Nadine’s room.
Something’s not right.
Akrim had no idea what that something could be. He just knew it was important and that his failure to realize it was dangerous to all of those inside the small house.
The garage…Mr. Blackstone’s motorcycle.
Akrim stood up from the couch and moved quietly toward the front window and then peered between the closed blinds to the street outside. The street lamps were dark. The electricity remained off.
A chill ran down Akrim’s spine as he suddenly recalled something Preacher’s uncle had said while showing them the Harley motorcycle.
There she is, restored her myself. Just about every bit of her was redone. Took me almost ten years and by the time I was finished the emphysema made it too tough for me to get out and ride her much and the last time I took her out a few years back that Muslim family down the street complained about the noise.
Akrim’s heart pounded in his chest as his eyes scanned the street looking for any sign of movement.
…that Muslim family down the street complained about the noise.
Akrim knew there was but one primary mosque in this area of Dearborn and that it was the very same mosque he and Sarah had so recently escaped from. He stared at his car parked on the street in front of the Blackstone home.
What if that Muslim family down the road went to the same mosque I did? Would they recognize my car? Do they know of the Imam’s death?
A blur of moving darkness disappeared behind a small truck fifty yards to the right of Akrim’s car. Akrim blinked his eyes to try and make certain he actually saw something.
“What is it?”
Preacher’s deep voice was a low, hushed whisper from where he stood to Akrim’s left.
“I’m not sure. I thought I saw something moving outside. Your uncle mentioned a Muslim family that lives just down the street.”
Preacher’s eyes widened.
“Shit…your car is right out front! You think they’d recognize it?”
Akrim nodded his head, the spine-chill turning into a deep freeze.
“Yeah.”
Preacher shook his head and then closed his eyes as he attempted to quiet the quickly forming panic in his mind.
“Ok…one of us keeps watch while the other sleeps. I’ll take the first shift. In a few hours it’ll be your turn.”
Akrim opened his mouth to offer to take the first shift himself but was cut off by Preacher who tilted his head toward the couch.
“Go ahead.”
The Iraqi immigrant didn’t think he would be able to get any rest but within minutes of laying back down his eyes closed and sleep overtook him once again.
By the time he awoke it was early morning and Preacher remained standing at the window looking outside.
“You were supposed to wake me!”
Preacher shrugged while keeping his eyes fixated on the street outside.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to sleepless nights.”
Akrim wiped his eyes with both hands and then stood next to Preacher.
“Any sign of trouble?”
Preacher cracked opened the blinds a half inch more and pointed toward a cream-colored home four houses down on the opposite side of the street where a younger, dark-skinned bearded man wearing tan khaki shorts and a white t-shirt stood saying something into what appeared to be a walkie-talkie.
“You recognize him?”
Akrim thought the man looked familiar but couldn’t recall a name.
“Perhaps.”
“He’s been watching us for the last hour.”
Both men turned to look behind them at the sound of someone walking toward them from the hallway. It was Nadine dressed in a long, light blue robe and matching slippers.
“What are you two looking at?”
“Aunt Nadine, do you recognize that man out there?”
Nadine squinted as she peered between the partially parted blinds.
“Yes, that’s one of the boys who lives in the house down the street - one of those Muslim families. They yelled at your uncle the last time he rode his motorcycle past them. Apparently didn’t care for all the noise, not that I blame them.”
Then Nadine’s voice became very serious as she looked up into her nephew’s face.
“Is there trouble, Atlin?”
Preacher gave his aunt a soft hug.
“I think there might be. Does Uncle Joe still have his gun collection?”
Nadine nodded, her face continuing to show even more concern.
“Yes…do you really think that’s necessary?”
A loud, dry cough erupted inside the home as Preacher’s uncle emerged from the bedroom dressed in his old olive green Vietnam-era military jacket and matching trousers.
“For goodness sake, Joe, what on earth are you doing wearing that?”
Joe Blackstone had not worn his U.S. Army uniform since he last participated in a Dearborn Veteran’s Day parade nearly twenty years earlier.
“Protecting yours and mine is what. Atlin, I’m gonna need your help in the backyard. I heard you ask your aunt if I still have my gun collection. The answer is you’re damn right I do. Let’s go get ‘em.”
Uncle Joe’s eyes shone with a spark of life not visible just yesterday. Perhaps it was the uniform, or feeling needed, but it was clear the sick old man was at that moment feeling just a bit younger and more capable than before.
Though the distance to the red hand-built wood shed in the fenced backyard was no more than forty feet from the back porch, it took Preacher’s uncle a few minutes to get there. He had to stop once to catch his breath, and then when they did finally reach the shed door, his breathing was a series of short, rattling gasps.
“Uncle Joe, you gonna be ok?”
Joe Blackstone straightened his shoulders and grinned back at his nephew.
“Truth be told, it’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.”
Inside the small shed was a wall devoted to a small collection of rifles. Two were basic 30-30 bolt-action hunting rifles but the third was a semi-automatic M16 assault rifle.
“Yes sir, that’ll help hold down the fort don’t you think? Took some doing getting it back home from Vietnam, but there she is.”
Preacher helped his uncle to remove the rifles from the wall. The two hunting rifles shared a box of thirty shells while the M16 had three full twenty-round magazines.
“These should give you a bit more peace of mind when you’re on the road.”
Preacher looked at his uncle, confused by the statement.
“We’re not leaving you alone now. Not with those men watching the house.”
Uncle Joe sneered at the thought of being afraid of a few bearded men outside his door.
“Shit, Atlin, I’d rather stare down a hundred of those Allah-lovin’ pricks than just a few Vietnamese ‘cause let me tell you, those little yellow bastards were tough!”
Preacher tried to remain respectful while also remaining firm in his decision to not leave his aunt and uncle alone.
“Uncle Joe, this isn’t Vietnam.”
Joe Blackstone appreciated his nephew’s concern while also being just as determined to not see Atlin putting himself in danger for two old people who were far more worried over their nephew’s safety than their own.
“The hell it ain’t! Same principle applies. Watch your ass and stand your ground! And don’t you worry, I got something more than just those three rifles there to keep your aunt safe.”
Preacher’s brows rose slightly as he looked around the shed wondering what his uncle was talking about.
“Over there in the corner, pull that blanket off.”
Joe’s nephew did as he was told and then l
et out a long low whistle as he looked down at what had been hidden underneath the dust-covered dark green military blanket.
“Damn, Uncle Joe, you weren’t kidding!”
Preacher’s uncle chuckled as he attempted to lift the tripod-attached M60 machine gun and automated 100-round ammo belt from the floor. Preacher quickly reached down to do it himself knowing the weight of the weapon would likely be too much for his uncle who was still wheezing after his short walk from the house to the shed.
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 8