“Pete, hand me my rifle,” Jim said.
“Do I need mine?”
Jim shook his head. “Just mine,” he said. “You stay here with Pops. I’ll take a radio and if I need you, I’ll call.”
That may not have been the answer Pete wanted, but he knew this was not the time to argue. He went into the house and returned with Jim’s M4 and a pouch with two spare mags. Jim took the rifle and the mags and jogged to his truck. He drew back on the charging handle and chambered a round before he entered the vehicle. He started the engine, backed out of his parking place, and sped off down the driveway while Pops and Pete watched anxiously from the porch.
Driving down the driveway, Jim was forced to weave around the barriers that his family had put in place while he was walking home. They didn’t block the driveway completely, but they made it impossible to charge up the driveway at any more than about ten miles per hour. As Jim neared the gate, he recognized the oddly-dressed man standing at his gate and slowed down. He picked up his radio.
“It’s Lloyd,” Jim said into the radio. “It’s just Lloyd. He made it. I’m going to let him through the gate.”
“Roger that,” Pete said. “I like Lloyd. I’m glad he’s here.”
Jim chuckled. “I’ll let him know.”
Jim jumped out of the driver’s seat. “You’re alive!” he said. “Good to see you.” He strode to the gate and unlocked it, pulling it toward him and letting it swing open. He hugged his friend.
“You had doubts about my fate?” Lloyd asked.
“Not really. Well, maybe. You did have a cop at gunpoint. Sometimes that ends badly.” Jim saw that there was a second person in the car at that point. “Is that Masa?”
Lloyd shook his head. “No, Masa decided to stay with some hippie friends on their farm outside of town. It’s practically a commune. He thought this trip might be too risky for his delicate disposition,” he said. “This guy is a neighbor of yours. He says his name is Buddy Baisden. I picked him up hitchhiking.”
Jim wasn’t quite sure what to make of seeing this pair traveling together. Seeing those two worlds meet was odd. “Well, you all come in and I’ll lock this gate back. Did you check on your parents? I was planning on heading down there tomorrow.”
Lloyd shrugged. “Let’s talk about that at the house.” Something in the way he said it already told Jim that what he found wasn’t good.
Jim pushed the gate open and let Lloyd drive through. He locked it back, then headed back to his own vehicle. He backed into a three-point turn and led Lloyd and his Scamp up to the house. As they approached, Jim could see that the whole family had come to the porch. He figured that Pete must have told them all that Lloyd was here. They all knew the story of how Lloyd had helped get Jim home.
Jim’s parents had watched Lloyd grow up too, since he was inseparable from their own son. They were glad to see him alive, particularly since they knew his role in helping support Jim in his journey home. Everyone knew that the last time Jim had seen his best friend, he’d been holding an angry cop at gunpoint. Everyone wanted to know how that ended.
When they arrived at the house, Jim parked his truck and Lloyd rolled in behind him. Everyone spilled from the porch and came down to the yard. Jim’s parents hugged Lloyd and thanked him for helping Jim. Ellen hugged him too. Pete, who had always idolized Lloyd for his taste in old cars, shook his hand. The aloof Ariel waved halfheartedly. It took a lot to impress her.
Buddy got out of the car and stood back from the group. While Lloyd was hugging and shaking hands, Jim approached Buddy and extended his hand. He thought it odd that Buddy was dressed in vintage army fatigues but he said nothing about it.
“Buddy, how you doing?” Buddy shook Jim’s hand.
“I’m okay, I guess. Haven’t seen you in a while. How you been?”
“Just got home,” Jim replied. “Had to walk back from Richmond. It was a long, hard trip.”
Buddy smiled. “I’ll bet. I heard a little about it from your friend, Lloyd.”
“How did you two meet up anyway?”
“I was hitchhiking,” Buddy said. “I had some business in Macktown and my truck got stolen.”
Jim nodded. “It’s a dangerous world right now.”
“Jim,” Ellen called. “We’re getting ready to eat. There’s plenty for company. Let’s head back into the house before it gets cold.”
“Buddy, you heard the woman,” Jim said.
Buddy shook his head. “No, really, that’s okay. I’m just going to walk back up the road to my house, I reckon. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t reckon,” Jim said. “You can eat with us. The food is fixed already. I’ve been wanting to get up with all the neighbors anyway and this will save me a trip.”
Buddy worked it over in his head, then conceded. Maybe part of getting on with his new life was making some new acquaintances.
“Okay,” he said. “I appreciate the hospitality.”
*
“So what happened with you and the cop?” Pete asked Lloyd after everyone was seated with a plate of food. It was the unasked question on everyone’s mind.
“You’ll probably find it a little disappointing,” Lloyd said. “You know I’m a storyteller so I spent my whole drive over trying to think of some way to embellish the story and make it more interesting. I couldn’t come up with anything, so I’ll tell you the truth. I made him get in the trunk of his car and I locked him in there.”
“Don’t newer cars have those emergency releases inside them?” Jim asked.
“I’ve never owned a newer car, so I don’t know. That ’73 model out there is one of the newest I’ve ever owned,” Lloyd said. “But I had heard that, so to make sure he couldn’t get out, I took one of those heavy cargo straps and ratcheted the trunk lid down. I figured it would keep him for a little while, until someone heard him hollering and let him out. The highlight was when he complained that he’d suffocate so I offered to shoot a few air holes in the trunk. He declined my offer.”
Pete, always amused with Lloyd, thought this was hilarious and cackled.
“After that, Masa and I had to come up with a plan pretty quick. We loaded all my good instruments and some of my guns into my old truck and he drove them out to a friend’s farm where he planned on staying for a while. It’s nothing but a bunch of hippies and Masa likes hanging out with them because they go skinny-dipping all the time. I wanted to check on my parents, so I gassed up the old Scamp and burned up the back roads to get over here.”
“Any trouble with that plan?” Jim asked. “I remember telling you I didn’t think that would work.”
“I ran into plenty of trouble,” Lloyd said. “Did you see all the bullet holes?”
“Were those from the good guys or the bad guys?” Ellen asked.
“Anyone shooting at me is a bad guy,” Lloyd said. “I don’t care who they work for or what uniform they’re wearing.”
“I told you that the run and gun approach might be harder than you expected,” Jim said.
“It was a hell of a lot harder than I expected. I made it two exits down the interstate before I had to get off it. I had the Army and a state trooper both chasing me. Fortunately, the Army was too slow and the trooper couldn’t drive worth a lick.”
Lloyd paused for a bite. “All the back roads were full of wrecks or blocked by wacked out rednecks who’d decided they were highwaymen. Took me three days to get back home that way. I ended up having to take that old dirt road that runs from Atkins to Burke’s Garden.”
“We came through near there,” Jim said. “We got off the Appalachian Trail there.”
“That place creeps me out,” Lloyd said. “All those Amish running around like Children of the Corn.”
“They were nice to us,” Jim said. “Gave us food and water.”
“Guess you didn’t blow by them at seventy-five miles-per-hour and scare the Cocoa Puffs out of them, did you?” Lloyd asked.
“Uh, not on foot, I didn’t,” J
im replied.
“What about your parents?” Jim’s mother asked. “Did you stop by your house yet?”
Lloyd grew quiet and set down his fork. He was looking for the words when Buddy interjected.
“They didn’t make it,” Buddy said quietly. “We stopped by there just after Lloyd here picked me up on the road.”
“I feel awful,” Jim said. “If I’d gotten by there sooner, maybe I could have done something.”
“No one could have done anything,” Lloyd said. “It looked like some kind of accident. It must have happened several days ago.” He left it at that.
There was an uncomfortable silence. While they were just two deaths out of many, they were important people to Lloyd. Life could seem cheap in a disaster, but not the lives of the people that meant something to you. They still mattered. It still hurt.
“So what were you wanting to talk to me about?” Buddy asked Jim, changing the subject. “You said you were trying to get around to all of the neighbors?”
“I don’t guess anything in particular,” Jim said. “I wanted to check in with everyone and see who was alive and if they were doing okay. I was going to talk to folks about using a common radio channel if they have walkie-talkies so we would all have a way to communicate if we need to. I doubt the trouble is over and I want to make sure we all have backup if we need it.”
Buddy nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. Not sure if I have any walkie-talkies, though.”
“We have plenty,” Jim said. “I’ll send you home with one.”
“Speaking of home, I was wondering about staying with you guys,” Lloyd said. “After what happened at my parents’ house, I’m not sure I want to stay there. It looks like you all have a full house, though.”
“We can make room,” Jim said. “I wouldn’t turn you away.” At the same time, he knew that they were overcrowded. Jim wasn’t a people person and he preferred having a little extra space if he had the option. He loved his family but he needed space to think sometimes.
“He could stay with me,” Buddy offered. “I’ve got plenty of room and it’s…it’s just me up there.”
“I’m sorry,” Jim said, recalling what Ellen had said about Buddy’s daughter. “I was gone when your daughter died. Sorry to hear about it.”
Buddy waved him off. “It’s done now. It’s taken care of.”
It sounded like an odd comment to Jim. He wasn’t sure how the death of a loved one was ever taken care of, but as long as the man was at peace with it, it wasn’t for Jim to question. Everyone had their own way of dealing with loss.
“You sure you got room for me?” Lloyd asked.
“There’s plenty of room,” Buddy said. “I’m a little behind on my housekeeping. We’ll have to do a little work to get things in order but it won’t be a problem.”
“I brought my own food, liquor and guns,” Lloyd said. “I’ll try not to be a burden.”
“And he provides comic relief,” Jim added.
Buddy laughed. “I could use some of that.”
“Then it’s settled,” Lloyd said.
Chapter 13
Kent’s Ridge Road
Outside of Richlands, VA
Gary liked to think he was a student of the power of positive thinking, and managed to convince himself that the drive home would go smoothly as long as he kept telling himself that. He developed an affirmation and started repeating it aloud.
“We’re going to be fine,” he said. “We won’t encounter any trouble.” He even forced a little smile. He felt like Obi Wan Kenobi telling the Imperial Troopers that these were not the droids they were looking for.
He started repeating this mantra as soon as he pulled the truck out of his old office complex and onto the four-lane highway. The road was clear ahead of him. He checked his mirror and saw that Alice was right behind him. That was a good start.
“We’re going to be fine,” he repeated. “We won’t encounter any trouble.”
The highway remained as empty as it had been on his way in earlier. He saw no cars and no people moving around. The world was quiet, just the way he wanted it.
“We’re going to be fine,” he said. “We won’t encounter any trouble.”
He was able to get the truck up to nearly fifty miles per hour on the smooth road. It didn’t drive well, and he was afraid to go any faster than that. The alignment was off and he constantly had to work the steering wheel to keep it moving in the right direction. Scoring the truck was a big accomplishment. His plan was coming together. If they could get this truck loaded in the next day or two and get on the road, they would be at Jim’s place in no time.
“We’re going to be fine,” he said. “We won’t encounter any trouble.”
About five minutes after leaving the office, he crossed the bridge over the Little River and prepared to turn left onto Kent’s Ridge Road. There used to be a traffic light there. Not only was it now useless without power, but someone had been shooting at it for entertainment. It looked like a sad yellow piñata.
Gary looked up the road to make sure there were no vehicles headed in his direction. His attention was so focused on the oncoming lane that he didn’t notice that several fence posts had been thrown out into the intersection, completely blocking the road. Gary had to slam on the brakes to stop in time. They whined in protest and the truck shuddered to a stop. While the fence posts weren’t huge, he wasn’t sure he could drive over them. He didn’t want to take a chance of damaging the vehicle. A punctured oil pan or damaged brake line could delay, if not derail, his entire plan.
The squeal of tires behind him indicated that neither had Alice seen the obstruction. There was no impact; she’d somehow managed to stop in time. Gary’s window was down and he followed the sound of laughter to the guardrail. There sat five scruffy men, nearly hidden in the shade of overhanging branches. Judging by their amusement, they were the source of the fence posts.
“Darn it,” Gary said under his breath. So much for the stupid affirmation.
One of the men stood and hitched his pants. He was tall and thin with a wispy beard. He wore a wife beater tank top and torn jeans. His lip puffed out from tobacco he’d managed to find somewhere. He spat as he strolled toward Gary’s truck. He’d clearly come upon this piece of highway sometime in the last couple of hours and decided that it was his.
Gary’s rifle was in the seat beside him. Without making any obvious movements, he pulled it over into his lap and got hands where they needed to be. He glanced down, confirming there was a round in the chamber. Red dot on, safety off. Then, as casually as he could, he unholstered his Glock and held it across his lap as well.
“You were about to run over my fucking fence posts,” the man said as he walked toward Gary’s truck. “You mess up my roadblock and I’m liable to get pissed off.”
His buddies laughed. He turned around and grinned at them, enjoying playing the badass. In his peripheral vision, Gary saw a bottle moving between the hands of the men on the guardrail. A man raised it to his lips and drank from it.
Gary was not playing this game. “You need to move that,” he said, his voice flat and firm, with no room for misinterpretation.
As much as he didn’t want to kill anyone else, he and Alice were outnumbered here and he wasn’t sure he could count on her. He’d never seen her perform under this kind of pressure. From everything he knew, she preferred to mediate rather than fight. Sure she’d shot at him back in the stairwell but that was out of fear. It didn’t mean she was up for this.
The man frowned at Gary, displeased with the reaction he’d received. “Look at you, giving all the damn orders and telling me what to do. I don’t like the way you’re talking to me. The toll just went up.” He turned back to his friends. “How much is the toll now, boys?”
“What they got?” one of the men replied.
“Toll?” Gary said. “I’m heading home. I live on this road. I’m not paying you any toll.”
“Then you’re not using my fuckin
g road,” the man said with finality.
“It’s not your road and I’m not turning back.”
“I didn’t say that leaving was an option,” the man replied, staring Gary hard in the eye.
“He’s got a woman behind him,” came a voice from the guardrail. “You all can have what’s in the damn truck. I want the woman.”
The rest of the men laughed. The man got up and started walking confidently toward Alice’s car, smoothing his hair down and grinning at his friends.
“What’s in the truck?” the man outside of Gary’s window asked, pulling Gary’s attention back.
He was closer now. He’d moved at least two steps closer while Gary had been watching the man on the guardrail. The other man, the one approaching Alice, was past Gary now and heading behind the truck. Gary could not watch him without taking his eyes off the man beside him and he was sure that was a bad idea. He could not let this man get the jump on him.
Behind him, he could hear Romeo talking to Alice through her window. A quick glance at the side mirror showed the man leaning over to rest his arms in Alice’s open window. Gary turned his eyes back to the man outside his own window. He’d moved another step forward. If he leaned forward, he could touch the handle of Gary’s door.
“Get out of there and open the back of this truck before I pull you out of there,” the man ordered. “I want to see what you’re hauling.”
Gary tried to think. The other men remained on the guardrail, laughing at the romantic gestures of their partner. This was obviously the most fun they’d had all day.
“Get out now!” the man repeated to Gary. He was getting agitated. This was going south. Gary sensed that there was no salvaging the situation.
There was the sudden pop of a gunshot from behind the truck. The man beside Gary turned in surprise and reached for his waistband. There was no time to think. Gary quickly raised his Glock over the door frame and shot the man twice through the open window, double-tapping him right through the heart. He fell over backward, a red stain spreading on his dirty white shirt. Instead of sticking his head out the window to check the situation behind him, Gary glanced at his mirror first and saw that Romeo had fallen and was writhing in the road, holding his abdomen. Alice must have shot him through the car door.
Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series Page 17