Jake felt immediately vulnerable, then instantly angry, and then confused and aroused all at the same time.
He wondered if he had again misread Ava. Maybe she was going to kill him after all.
Jake watched as she slowly walked close enough to press the gun barrel hard up against his chest.
Ava could feel slight vibrations ripple through the gun and down into her hand from Jake’s violent heartbeat. The sensation made her feel good…powerful. She had control now. But killing Jake wouldn’t do her any good. No, she’d found something new in herself, something she had felt before but wasn’t sure exactly what to do with or how to harness. Now she knew, and she was going to utilize this newfound power.
She slid the barrel of the gun down Jake’s chest to his stomach, paused and then moved it lower, turning it sideways and pressing its cold hard steel up against him.
Suddenly he grabbed her wrist forcefully. She could see him gritting his teeth, his jawbones clenched, the muscles in his cheeks bulging. She didn’t wait for his next move as she used to, instead she went on the offensive, kissing him forcefully. She could tell he was surprised at having the first move stolen from him, but again, she was happy with the results as a moment later she felt his hands find her firm butt as he lifted her off her feet and laid her down upon the cold vault floor. She was content to let him dominate – for now.
They weren’t finished by the time Wicks returned. Jake told him to wait outside until they were done. They could sense him watching, but that was okay; they both kind of liked it.
Jake realized that letting Wick’s eyes linger on Ava’s supple body worked as an enticement to help keep him close, and more importantly, loyal through the hopes – futile though they might be – of one day getting his own chance with her.
When they were done, they took a quick inventory of their haul – twelve hand guns, three shotguns, five rifles, five assault rifles, and numerous assorted boxes of ammunition for all the weapons. They also counted 18 hunting knives.
“What’s that over there?” Jake asked, motioning Wicks over to three wooden crates stacked against the wall.
Wicks ambled over and fumbled to open the top box.
After a moment of impatient waiting, Jake said, “Well?”
Wicks lifted a bottle from inside the box and held it for Jake and Ava to see. “Whiskey!” he grinned foolishly. “Good whiskey.”
“Load it into the SUV,” Jake instructed. “Then get started on the guns and ammo.”
Wicks set the bottle back inside the box and hurried to get started hauling their loot outside.
Jake pulled a pack of crumpled cigarettes from his coat pocket and offered one to Ava. She accepted, and then he took one for himself. He lit her cigarette and then lit his.
“Things are starting to come together,” he nodded with a cocky smirk.
“More than you know,” Ava wanted to say, but she kept silent.
After Wicks had gotten the SUV loaded, Jake pulled him aside. “You got any buddies?” he asked the spindly man.
“Yep,” Wicks nodded. “A few.”
“They like it here?”
Wicks shrugged, “Not really. They’re struggling to make it like everybody.”
“You think they’d be willing to leave Memphis if the situation was right?”
“Probably,” Wicks shrugged again.
Jake walked over to the SUV. Ava followed him and climbed into the front passenger seat. There he paused, pulling a pen from his coat and scrawling something on a piece of paper he’d found in the vehicle’s center console. Then he walked over and handed it to Wicks.
“Tell them to come to this address at five o’clock tonight. I think they’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
Wicks looked down at the paper and then back up at Jake.
Jake turned, walked back to the SUV and climbed inside. He rolled down the window, blew a puff of cigarette smoke out and then started the engine.
“But wait!” Wicks called after him. “How will I get home?”
Jake put the SUV into gear and called out the window as he hit the gas, “Walk!”
Wicks stood in the cold, still holding the scrap of paper Jake had handed him as he watched Jake and Ava drive away in his vehicle. He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He couldn’t say he was happy with the situation, but he wasn’t unhappy either. He wasn’t a leader, and he found it oddly comforting that in a world that no longer had any rules, he’d finally found someone who would tell him what to do.
* * *
Jake and Ava returned to the warehouse in high spirits although no one would have known it from their outward appearance. They looked – just as always did – angry and not to be fucked with.
Ava waited in their new ride as Jake got out and opened one of the warehouse doors so that they could drive inside. They left the SUV fully loaded just in case they needed to get out quick. The only things Jake took from the vehicle were two assault rifles, several empty magazines, a box of ammo, and a bottle of whiskey. He smashed the neck of the bottle against the SUV’s bumper and took a long drink; then he handed the bottle over to Ava. She took a drink just as long as his. They stood for a minute, passing the bottle back and forth, each one watching the other as they drank, each one seeming to take just a little bigger swig with each pass of the bottle as if trying to outdo one another.
Ava’s challenge and the effects of the booze were getting to Jake. And just as Ava raised the broken bottle to her lips for her sixth gulp, he grabbed her hand, causing her loose her grip on the bottle which fell and smashed upon the warehouse’s concrete floor. He pulled her close up to him. Something about her had changed. Jake didn’t like it but at the same time he did. He was finding her more irresistible now than ever. He led her over to their grungy mattress laid on the cold concrete, a mound of blankets atop it. There they did it again in a drunken frenzy that left both of them out of breath and exhausted, Jake trying his best in every way to reassert his dominance. Afterwards they both fell asleep, naked, their warm bodies intertwined among the blankets.
They woke later to the sound of a vehicle engine outside. Jake looked at his watch. It was five o’clock on the dot. As he threw on his clothes, he found himself still a little woozy from the booze he’d consumed; that and not eating anything but beans since yesterday. His breath came out in clouds inside the icy warehouse as he dressed. Ava slipped quietly into her skin-tight clothing behind him.
Wicks arrived with three other men, one of whom was his brother. His brother looked a lot like him – tall, thin, and without a backbone. The two other men were stockier. They weren’t necessarily big, but bigger than Wicks – and bigger than Jake for that matter. They pounded loudly on one of the warehouse doors and Jake had Ava let them inside. Each took their share of lusty eyeful of Ava as they entered.
Wicks and his brother stood together. The other two men stood slightly apart from them.
Jake sauntered up, not showing the least bit of interest in the new arrivals. He slowly lit a cigarette. The other men watched him impatiently. Finally, one of the two heavier men, who wore a black knit cap that was rolled up on the sides like a dock worker might, spoke up. “Well? Why the fuck we here?”
Jake inhaled a deep lung-full of cigarette smoke, slowly exhaling as if he hadn’t even heard the man.
The man snorted and looked around at the others, fidgeting nervously with his hands. “You the tough guy who stole Chadwick’s ride?” he asked, trying to play the big man.
Wicks started at the floor, swaying nervously, hands in his coat pockets.
Jake didn’t acknowledge the man’s question, not even taking a glance in his general direction. Instead, he casually kept smoking his cigarette. His silence seemed to agitate the other men.
The man in the knit cap looked over at Ava and then back at Jake. “Who’s that?” he asked. “Your bitch? How’d a scrawny little fuck like you manage to haul down a piece of ass like that,” he leered, looking
over at Ava again. “Maybe you’d like to try a real man on for size,” he winked at her.
Jake knew exactly what the man was doing. He was trying to provoke him, and probably hoping he’d anger him enough into making a mistake. He was sure Wicks had blabbed everything to these guys. They probably knew there was plenty of booze and guns here. That’s why they came. That’s what Jake had wanted. He wanted guys who had a taste for both.
But he also knew that this was likely the same reason these guys weren’t standing together. They were going to try to get Jake to make a move, but they figured splitting up would make it harder for him to get the drop on all of them at once. He figured they guessed that by dividing their forces it would make it difficult for Jake to pick a primary target. But if that was the case, Jake knew already that they had faltered in their planning. He knew exactly who he’d go for first.
The guy in the knit cap snorted again and shook his head. “Come on,” he said turning to leave. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Jake knew he was bluffing.
“You’re here because I asked you to be here,” Jake said.
The guy in the knit cap stopped and turned around. “Oh, so you do speak,” he said.
Jake ignored him. “You’re here because you like booze, you like guns…” he gestured toward Ava, “…and because you like broads. And I can give you all those things.”
“What makes you think we can’t get those things ourselves?” said the guy who had been standing next to the man in the knit cap, and who wore no hat at all, exposing a completely bald – or shaved, Jake wasn’t sure which – head.
“If you could, you wouldn’t be here,” Jake said confidently. “Now let’s stop fucking around and talk business.”
“Alright, let’s hear it,” said the man in the knit cap, who walked slowly back to where his buddy stood.
Ava remained in the background, quietly watching, catlike, ready to pounce in an instant but only if the situation called for it.
“Atlanta,” Jake sneered.
“Sheesh,” the knit-capped man scoffed. “What about it?”
“I’ve got the word that it’s become quite the party town these days,” Jake nodded, walking slowly closer to the two men. “A land of new opportunity for those willing to take it. And I’m going to get in on the action. So I’m looking for a few like-minded individuals to go down there with me and take our piece of the action. And now I’ve got the firepower to do it.”
The guy in the knit cap shook his head. “I’ve heard the same thing about Biloxi. Guy just came back from there though and said it was dead as shit. So what makes you think your information is any better?”
Jake walked up closer to the guy in the knit cap so that he stood just a few feet from him. He dropped his cigarette butt on the floor and crushed it out with a boot. The man stood at least six inches taller than Jake and probably had a good 30 pounds on him, but from the look in the two men’s eyes, you would have thought it was the opposite. Jake watched as the man’s eyes flickered nervously between his buddy, Jake, and Ava.
Jake looked directly, unflinchingly into them. “Because it’s my information,” he said.
“And why should we join you?” the dude in the knit cap said, trying to return Jake’s steely-eyed stare but failing.
“You shouldn’t join me,” Jake shook his head. “You should follow me.”
“I don’t follow anybody,” he sneered at Jake.
Jake shrugged, starting to turn away. “Well, I guess you’ve made your decision.” And with a lightening quick move, he let a switchblade slide from inside his jacket sleeve, ejected its blade, whirled back around, and shoved it into the man’s abdomen. The razor-sharp blade slid into the man’s gut so easily that Jake could hardly tell it’d struck home. The only way he knew was by the look of terror in the man’s eyes. Before the man even had time to react to the first injury, Jake had the blade out and had whipped it across his throat, finishing him. As the man crumpled to the floor, Jake turned to his buddy and the Wick’s boys. They of course stood frozen. Jake knew that they would. They were followers. The knit cap fellow’s bald buddy looked uncertain. He started to reach behind him for what Jake assumed was a concealed piece.
Jake looked at him and then raised a finger, waggling it back in forth. “Think about it first,” he said.
The man paused, his hand halfway behind him; then he glanced over at Ava. She had two 9 millimeter handguns trained upon him that she’d pulled from holsters slung across her chest and that were concealed beneath her leather jacket. They were her lucky guns and she carried them always. And right now, her lucky guns were trained on him.
“Care to reconsider?” Jake asked the bald man.
Baldy’s hand reappeared, and he nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Atlanta’s as good a spot as any. I’m up for a good time.”
Jake knelt and wiped his knife clean on the dead man’s knit cap. “Good boy,” he said to the other man. “You won’t regret you’re decision. Anybody else want to play tough guy?” He looked up and around to the other men and then stood, knowing there was no chance of response from weakly Wicks and his brother. “I didn’t think so,” he went on. “I call the shot’s here. Does everyone understand that?” There were quiet murmurs from the Wicks boys. “I said, DOES EVERYONE UNDERSTAND THAT?” Jake bellowed, his voice echoing through the warehouse.
“YES!” the men called back to him in unison.
“Good,” Jake nodded. “And now that we’ve got things sorted out, let’s stop fucking around and get down to business. Now here’s the plan,” Jake sneered. “We’re going to take Atlanta by the balls.”
Ava lowered her guns, content to watch her man do his thing. She was fine with a little detour in the plan she’d been working over in her mind. Going to Atlanta wouldn’t be on the top of her “good ideas” list, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than Memphis. She decided then and there that Atlanta would just become a stopping point in her grand scheme, and she was willing to give Jake a little play time. As long as he still thought that he was in control, she could harness him and steer him toward her true objective. She realized that she could become the brains behind the operation; he was just the brawn…if you could call his scrawny ass brawny. The most critical portion of her plan had begun to develop, the part that included forming up a new band of mercenaries.
Now they had their core – albeit a somewhat rotten one with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, the Wicks boys. They were order takers though, and it was good for Jake and Ava’s purposes that they weren’t independent thinkers. The main thing was that they be well-armed, liquored up, and most importantly, well directed and led…by her.
CHAPTER 16
The night of our arrival at the farm, we got the best sleep we’d had in weeks. Even those who slept in the barn found themselves warm, comfortable, and well fed. We donated what little venison meat we had left to the cause, and it turned out that Wilma was a real wiz when it came to food preservation. She brought out pickled eggs, canned beats, dried apples, and grape juice to add to our dinner. It was a wonderful feast, and by the end of the meal, all of us felt full and satisfied. It was nice to finally have a multi-dimensional meal again, adding a variety of flavors to our meat course. Sharron was especially pleased with the options available to her, and Wilma even broke out a small jar of seasoned green beans just for her.
As Wilma puttered around in the kitchen making the dinner preparations, I noticed she had this quirky little way of asking herself questions and then answering them herself. I figured it probably got pretty lonely at the farm, and she’d likely developed this habit as a way of keeping herself company when Jonah was out working. It was actually kind of endearing.
Claire, Jason and I got a double bed in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs. Pam and Ray got the other upstairs spare bedroom. It was wonderful to sleep in a real bed again.
The next day dawned bright, sunny and warm. It was a beautiful blue sky, and I’d say it reac
hed somewhere into the low-60s, although the sun made it feel warmer. I only wished we’d had such weather when forced to sleep outdoors.
I offered our services – at least for those of us who weren’t sick or injured – to Jonah in return for the hospitality he’d shown us. He seemed extremely grateful for the help and said he’d been having a tough time trying to maintain the farm all on his own. He’d fallen behind on his chores and had an extensive list of projects to be handled. We reviewed the list and started taking projects based upon our strengths and abilities. Ray and I offered to assist Jonah in his wood cutting. Meanwhile, Pam and Claire offered to scrape the aging front yard picket fence, while Sharron, Sarah, Joanna, and Shane followed behind them giving it a fresh coat of paint. Meanwhile, Dad and Paul set about cleaning out Poobah the horse’s stable, and we set Will up out back on a stool with a huge pillow on it to cushion his rear, gave him a whetstone, and let him work on sharpening knife and ax blades. Even Emily helped out. She was provided with a supply of thread and needles and was left to work on sewing clothes and bedding that were in need of mending.
It felt good putting in a hard day’s work and pulling our weight; and it was nice to see how appreciative of our services Jonah and Wilma were.
Jonah didn’t talk much, but when he did, we liked to listen to his stories. He talked about growing up on the farm with his brothers and sisters. All his siblings had left the farm after high school, moving away to the city or other states. He had no idea what had become of them now. He had been the only one to stay at the farm and had taken care of his mother and father until they passed away.
Wilma had been his high school sweetheart and was content to stay with him and work on the farm. Now they were living out their final years in much the same way as they had lived before the flu, quietly on their farm, away from the rest of the world, and content to keep one another company.
I kind of envied their situation. It somewhat reminded me of what we’d had back at the castle. However, I was quickly beginning to realize that available resources were scarce in this part of Georgia.
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