Without Law 4

by Eric Vall

  “You’re right,” the brunette said with a nod. “I think I’m good now.”

  “Good, then let’s go pick the gear off the dead guys on the bridge and get home,” I said.

  We hurried back through town, out the grisly gate, and back to the powder blue truck. We tossed the Ramen into the back, loaded up, and headed back down the road towards the bridge and our home.

  A few hours later I parked the beaten up blue pickup truck, got out, and walked down the bridge. I let my rifle hang on its sling but pulled out my pistol. The area was quiet, but I would rather not be caught off guard. It was a partly cloudy day, and in the shade of the trees it was the perfect temperature.

  “Oh man, I can smell the dead guys already,” Paige said as we got closer to the bridge.

  “Yeah, these guys aren’t going to be pretty,” I replied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been torn up by animals.”

  “I think I’ll be okay,” Paige said.

  “I do too,” I agreed. “That’s one of the reasons I picked you to come with me, but you should take one of these, it might help a little.” I tossed the brunette a red bandanna and then tied a black one around my face. It wouldn’t block the smell completely but it would at least help take the edge off.

  If any of the girls were going to be okay with decomposing bodies, it was going to be Paige.

  I stepped onto the bridge and looked around. The whole area was splattered with dry blood, littered with spent bullet casings, and covered in half eaten bodies.

  “Nature works fast,” Paige said.

  “Lucky for us it only wants the bodies,” I said.

  Paige stowed her weapon, put on a pair of blue latex gloves, and then bent over and pulled a gore covered AR-15 out from under one of the corpses.

  “Well, at least I know what we are going to be doing once we get back to campus,” she said as she unloaded the rifle. Then she walked over and tossed it into the back of the truck.

  “Not all the guns are quite as messy,” I said as I scooped up a pistol and ejected the empty mag. I pulled a duffle bag out of my backpack and put the pistol inside. “Toss the stuff in here. Once it’s full we can load it into the truck.”

  “Cool, will do,” Paige said with a nod.

  We were almost done with the bodies on our side of the bridge when Paige stopped and looked in the direction of the cars. She dropped the cheap rifle in her hands and went for her shotgun.

  I looked to where she was staring and saw three dogs emerge from behind the cars. The beasts were covered in patches of matted fur and had layers of blood caked onto their muzzles.

  The closest beast, a large brown dog with floppy ears, bared its blood covered fangs are let out a low growl.

  I stood up, pulled my rifle into my shoulder, and took a couple steps back to stand next to Paige.

  Five more dogs came around the cars as the first three started to step closer. The second batch still chomped on the bits of decaying flesh they had torn from the corpses. The beasts were a grim sight, and a far cry from what they once were.

  “We should have burned these bodies too,” I muttered.

  “Too late now,” Paige replied

  We didn’t wait for the dogs to charge us before we opened fire.

  Paige’s shotgun blast tore through the first beast taking part of the dog’s face with it.

  A second dog, this one mangey and black, fell with a whelp as my shot caught it in the chest.

  The rest of the pack surged forward as the first two dogs fell. Drool fell in long strings from their glistening fangs, and their eyes were fixed on Paige and me.

  Three more mongrels rushed out from behind the cars as Paige and I continued to fire. We moved back with each shot as we tried to keep some distance between us and our targets, but the dogs were fast and kept coming even after we killed the first two.

  Paige cried out as she stumbled over the corpse of a biker behind her, fell onto her ass, and dropped her gun.

  A dog opened its gore soaked maw and leapt at the helpless brunette, but I spun towards the creature and put a bullet through its head while it was in midair.

  Paige tried to scramble out of the way, but the dog landed hard on her chest and covered her in fresh gore.

  I turned my attention back to the others dogs who were now nearly upon us. I opened fire, caught one in the side, and hit another in the back.

  Thankfully, the whole pack broke, scattered, and retreated towards the far side of the bridge.

  As they disappeared out of sight I rushed to Paige’s side and pushed the dog off of her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I tried to wipe the blood off her so I could see if she was injured.

  “I’m fine,” she said as she sat up. “Thanks for being a good shot.”

  “No problem,” I said. Despite her assurance I took a moment to look her over completely. There was a chance that she had taken a wound and not even realized it. Though a moment later I stood up, certain she was okay. I wiped my bloody hands on my pants and then pulled Paige to her feet.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” she said as she scooped up her gun.

  “Kinda,” I said, “I figured we would run into some sort of animal around here.”

  “Sorta sad it had to be dogs,” Paige replied.

  “We can at least put parts of them to good use,” I said as I picked up one of the dogs and tossed it into the back of the truck.

  “It’s always nice to get more bait for the trotlines,” Paige said as she grabbed another one of the dogs.

  “Maybe I was going to eat them,” I joked.

  “Have fun eating alone then,” Paige teased.

  I chuckled, shook my head, and gathered some more guns. Once the duffle bag was full, I tossed it into the bed of the truck with the rest of the stuff.

  “Well, this was fun,” Paige grunted while she hefted the third dead dog in with the others.

  “Of course you would say that,” I chuckled.

  “What’s that mean?” She asked.

  “You just seem to enjoy fighting quite a bit,” I said.

  “Is there anything wrong with that?” Paige asked.

  “Not really,” I said, “it just reminds me to never get on your bad side.”

  “Damn right,” Paige grinned.

  “Alright there killer, let’s finish up and get back to campus,” I chuckled.

  “Aw, you sure we can’t wait around until those dogs wander back up this way?” she asked.

  “No, they can have what’s left of the dead,” I said, “If they are here next time we roll through here we will clear them out.”

  “Alright, I guess that makes sense,” Paige said.

  It only took us a few more minutes to strip the rest of the guns, ammo, and gear from the dead bikers. We checked all of their bikes too, but they weren’t good for much but spare parts anymore. We threw everything into the truck bed with the rest of our loot, and climbed back into the cab.

  “I’m glad I got to come with you today,” Paige said as we rolled off down the road.

  “I was a little surprised you didn’t argue to stay and hunt with Anna,” I replied.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love hunting, but we have spent a lot of time in the woods around campus lately, and I needed a change of scenery,” she explained.

  “There will be plenty of chances to get off campus in the coming weeks,” I said.

  “Oh yeah?” She asked. “You have some plans?”

  “Yep,” I said with a nod. “I was thinking that since the area is safer, we should explore some more of the local farms and check out more of the places in the mountains.”

  “Sounds fun,” Paige said.

  “Don’t get too excited,” I said, “We still need to finish our projects on campus first.”

  “Yeah, but none of those should take too long,” Paige said.

  “That’s the hope,” I said.

  A few minutes later, we arrived back at the campus.

&nb
sp; I parked the truck, hopped out, and grabbed an armload of guns out from the back. Paige did the same, and the two of us made our way towards the firepit where it looked like the others had already gathered.

  Tara jumped up to greet us as we got close. The platinum blonde hair that framed her smooth and sexy face bounced in tandem with her perky round breasts as she skipped towards us. Her outfit of skinny jeans and tight black belly shirt really went a long way in showing off her supple form, and she stared at me with her hungry eyes.

  “Glad to see you two made it back safe,” Tara said. She nodded towards the blood soaked Paige. “Looks like things got interesting though. Let me guess, there were still bikers out there.”

  “Nah, we just ran into some dogs,” I said.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Paige grinned

  “How’d it go at the camp then?” Tara asked. “Did you guys find any slaves there or anything?”

  “It looked like everyone managed to get free,” Paige said.

  “Yeah, we found a few places that look like they probably held prisoners, but there was nobody there,” I added.

  “That’s good news,” Tara said. “Well, it sounds like you guys had better luck than we did today. We couldn’t find anything out there.”

  “Did you at least find any good tracks?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Tara said.

  “We did,” Anna called over to us.

  “Yeah, we’re pretty sure we found a commonly used trail,” Bailey added from where she sat next to Anna.

  “That’s good,” I said with a smile. Then I took a seat next to the fire.

  Anna sat across from me and turned a spit full of fish as she looked at me. Her long red hair was pulled back into a braid that cascaded down her back, and the light of the fire glinted off her brilliant green eyes. She had on hiking boots, a pair of jeans, a forest green T-shirt with the Nike swoosh on the right sleeve, and she had her sidearm strapped to her hip. Anna’s rugged outfit did little to hide the athletically muscular frame beneath.

  Bailey sat next to her. Compared to her athletic companion, the blonde was small. She was a thin woman with small perky breasts, and shoulder length natural blonde hair. She had on a pair of skinny jeans, her faded black Chuck Taylor shoes, and a pastel yellow shirt with a large peace symbol printed on the front. Her grayish-blue eyes were fixed on the fish roasting over the fire, and she played absently with her golden nose ring as she waited for the food.

  “Rolly still on lookout?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “I tried to relieve him but he insisted he was good.”

  “That old man’s pretty stubborn,” Tara pointed out.

  “Oh, I know,” I chuckled.

  “He did say that he wanted to spend some time in the dorm building this afternoon,” Anna said. “Since we have so many guns now he was thinking about knocking down a couple walls and converting some of our space into a more official armory.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Bailey said with a nod.

  “Speaking of guns and stuff, we got back early today and went through all the shit we got from the bikers,” Tara said.

  “What’d we end up with?” I asked.

  “Lots of rifles,” Anna started.

  “Mostly AR-15s,” Bailey said. “An SKS, a couple lever action rifles, three AKs, and some bolt action stuff. There were a couple military guns in there though. M16s like what Tara has been using.”

  “We got some shotguns too,” Tara said. “Mainly semi autos, but a few pump actions too.”

  “What about ammo?” I asked.

  “There was tons of ammo,” Tara said

  “Mostly .223 and 5.56 ammo,” Anna began, “but that’s not a surprise considering how many ARs we picked up.”

  “We got a decent amount of 9mm, .40, and .45 too,” Tara said.

  “Yeah, each of those guys was packing at least one pistol,” Anna added.

  “So what I’m hearing is that we are pretty well stocked,” I said.

  “Hell yeah,” Anna said.

  “Do we have specific numbers on what exactly we got?” I asked

  The athletic redhead nodded, pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, and handed it to me.

  I looked over the sheet of paper. It had an exact number of each gun and a rough estimate of each type of ammo written on it. There were twenty one AR-15s, six M16s, four semi-auto shotguns, two pump action, three SKS rifles, four lever action 30-30s, and a couple old bolt action rifles. There was a lot more variety when it came to the pistols, but a majority of them were Smith and Wesson M&P .40. Though there were also a couple desert eagles, a few Colt 1911s, and several revolvers of various calibers and sizes.

  The list of ammo extended to the end of the paper and over onto the back. There were over a thousand rounds of both 9mm, and 5.56, and a few hundred rounds of everything else. We had more than enough ammo for a couple hours of range time in the coming weeks, and we had more guns than we would ever know what to do with. Thankfully guns were always useful in trade.

  “Thanks for making this,” I said as I tucked the list into my pocket.

  “Of course,” Bailey said with a small nod. “Anna helped a lot, too.”

  “Well, we are going to need to update that list once we clean up the guns we got today,” Paige said.

  “We didn’t put any of the old stuff on that list either,” Anna said. “I wasn’t sure if we wanted to make a complete list or not.”

  “We can worry about that once we have a better way to organize it all,” I replied.

  Anna nodded and pulled the fish off the fire. Then she pulled up a couple plates and started to split the food between us all.

  “Soooooo... are we going to talk about the fact that Paige is covered in blood?” Bailey asked after she took her first bite of fish.

  “We got attacked by some wild dogs, and she was close when I shot it,” I explained.

  “Yeah, the mutt almost got me, but thankfully Tav was there,” Paige said.

  “Well, I’m glad you guys are okay,” Bailey said with a smile.

  “After those bikers, a few dogs hardly seems like something to worry about,” Paige said.

  “Yet one of them still almost got you,” I teased.

  “I just wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings,” Paige said.

  “Clearly,” I chuckled.

  “Good thing you were there to have her back,” Anna said.

  “That’s why we don’t go out alone,” I said.

  “You mean that’s why us girls don’t go out alone,” Tara corrected. “You go out alone all the time.”

  “Well maybe once you guys have done a couple tours of duty you can go off on your own too,” I said with a smile.

  “Fair point,” Paige said.

  For a few minutes the group fell silent as we finished our lunch.

  Once my plate was clear, I sat back and let out a contented sigh. “That was damn good.”

  “Yeah, thanks for cooking,” Tara said to Anna.

  “No problem,” Anna said. “I would much rather cook than clean up after the meal.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” I said. “We have a truck full of dogs to gut, and blood covered guns to take apart and clean.”

  “Ugh, no thanks,” The redhead said as she rolled her eyes.

  I laughed, shook my head, and tossed the last of the fish onto a plate. Then I handed it over to Anna. “How about you go take this to Rolly and replace him on watch. It will at least get you out of cleaning.”

  “Gladly,” the athlete said as she stood up. “Try not to have too much fun without me.”

  “We’ll try, but I won’t make a promise I can’t keep,” I teased.

  Anna shook her head and walked off towards the dorms. A moment later she disappeared inside the building.

  “Do we really have to clean more guns this afternoon?” Tara asked.

  “Some of them are pretty nasty and if we let
them sit too long, they’ll become worthless,” I explained.

  “Don’t worry, only a few of them are truly terrible,” Paige said.

  “Not it!” Tara exclaimed.

  “I’ll do it,” Paige said, “The gross stuff doesn’t really bother me.”

  “I’ve noticed, and I’m really grateful for that,” Bailey said. “The less dirty work I have to do, the better.”

  “It is always nice to have someone who isn’t bothered by the dirt and blood,” I said.

  “You’re just lucky that I was pre-med,” Paige said.

  “Are we going to get this over with then?” Tara asked as she pushed herself to her feet.

  “Probably a good idea,” I agreed with a nod.

  Rolly walked over to our fire. The old man had on his usual brown leather newsboy cap, a pair of faded work jeans, and a green long sleeve button up shirt. His wide smile deepened all of the wrinkles on his leathery face.

  “Perfect timing,” I said to the handyman.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked. “We doing something exciting?”

  “Cleaning guns,” Bailey said.

  “Sounds fun,” Rolly said with a shrug.

  “You guys start grabbing the guns,” I began, “I’ll grab a table and our cleaning supplies.” Then I gave the group a nod and headed towards the dorm building.

  First, I stopped in my old room and grabbed all of the gun cleaning supplies we had scavenged so far, and then I went downstairs and folded down one of the many long tables in the cafeteria area. We certainly would never have any need for tables as long as we stayed here on campus. Then I headed back outside to where I left the others.

  Paige had pulled the dogs out of the truck and was gutting them on the lawn. She had set aside all of the entrails so that we could grab them and take them to the stream.

  Tara, Bailey, and Rolly had laid out all of the guns on the grass and put all the ammo in a pile beside it.

  “How many of them did we manage to grab?” I asked as I set up the table.

  “Ten pistols, and eleven long guns,” Rolly said.

  “Only four of them are truly disgusting too,” Tara said.

  “Just set those aside for me,” Paige said

  “We already have,” Bailey said.