by Dana Fraser
More likely they'd been walking toward the old man's truck, one of only a few vehicles still running on the roads.
Cash figured there were more people with fuel, but they were lucky enough to already be sheltering in place. The people around him were the unlucky ones.
So was he.
He coughed up a dry chuckle then took a sip from one of the bottles of water he'd bought in Champaign. He'd kept the empty containers, their skeletons rattling around in the plastic bag tied to his belt.
"What have you heard?" a man asked, breaking from the small crowd closing in on Cash. "When are they gonna get the power back on?”
“Have they mobilized the Army to distribute gas?" another asked.
Cash shrugged. He was dead tired from holding onto a thin edge of wood for the last hour. Every last one of the approaching people had seen him roll off the back of the truck and almost collapse. If he looked like someone who had any answers, they were all more blind than Cash could comprehend.
The government distributing gas, seriously?
It wasn't gas they should be worrying about. It was water and then food. The entire lot of them was lucky the weather was still seasonable because too hot, too cold, or too wet could kill a person quicker than going without food or water.
Cash pushed forward. The small crowd separated like sheep. He headed toward the street and looked down the road. None of the other businesses had vehicles in their lots. Everything was closed. Turning back toward the truck stop, he counted the rows of trucks and cars. Excluding the big rigs, there had to be a hundred vehicles — not a single cop car among them.
It appeared that the people of Effingham were leaving the travelers to fend for themselves. No open doors here.
A chuckle drier than the first filled his mouth. The city billed itself as the Crossroads of Opportunity. Every last stranded soul on the lot could see the nearly two hundred foot steel cross that was Effingham's claim to fame glowing white with moonlight.
It didn't matter that every restaurant in the town liked to inundate its customers with church radio. The travelers were on their own.
He was on his own.
Seeing a short line along one side of the building, Cash convinced his legs to start moving again. It was mostly women and little kids, but a man with a flashlight waited at its end. He passed by the man, who was nothing more than a tall kid probably just out of high school. A woman with two children argued with him.
"We’ll only flush once,” she promised.
"Twenty bucks each, five minutes each," the kid harped. “Decide because you're holding up the line."
Near tears, the woman took the children's hands and walked away from the building. Cash was close enough to see they were little girls, one about four and the other about Gabby's age. The woman was whispering something but her throat was too twisted with emotion for Cash to make out what she was saying.
Pulling a twenty from his pocket, he went to the back of the line. A few people dropped out ahead of him, some realizing that the kid was holding fast to the twenty per person fee, others finding they couldn't wait another minute to take care of business. Others went in and finished quickly. After thirty minutes, it was Cash's turn.
"Twenty bucks, five minutes," the kid said. “Don't flush if all ya gotta do is piss.”
Cash handed him the money and entered the bathroom. A candle burned on the shelf above the single sink. He shut and locked the door as the others had done before him. Then he moved the trash can to further block it in case the kid had a key.
Ignoring the toilet, he pulled the empty bottles from the plastic bag and started filling them. There were ten total and the stream was slow. The kid must have finally figured out what Cash was up to because he unlocked the door. Cash braced his bottom and legs against the trash can and leaned forward, replacing and capping the bottles as each finished filling.
Task done, he secured the water bottles to his body, pulled another twenty out and unholstered his pistol. Keeping the M&P45 concealed behind the open flap of his jacket, he pushed the trashcan out of the way and watched as the kid burst into the room and sprawled on the floor with its thick stains of unidentifiable origins that Cash didn’t want to think about.
He stepped outside, the kid quickly recovering and hot on his heels. Turning, he made sure the kid got a good look at the pistol before he handed him the second twenty dollar bill. Even if the kid knew the gun was illegal for Cash to carry, he couldn’t call 911.
"I believe that was ten minutes instead of five."
"Hey, I didn't say you could fill no water bottles."
His expression narrowing, Cash gave the kid a second peek at the M&P45 before addressing the complaint. "You didn't say I couldn't. Next time, strike a better bargain."
He spoke the last bit more for the people still standing in line. He hoped some of them were listening, but he doubted it. Looking them over, he didn't see a single survivor — at least not among the adults. And when the parents fell, so would the children.
Sighing, Cash walked toward the back of the lot where asphalt gave way to a lush green field of recently mowed grass, the vast lawn part of the monument to Christ that was Effingham's gaudy cross.
He stopped before he reached the lawn. Shedding his pack, he placed it against one of the truck stop's two dumpsters then sat down and re-holstered his pistol, but didn't fasten the restraining strap.
Reaching into his cargo pocket, he pulled out two protein bars and his phone. Holding his breath, he pressed the power button. Seeing zero signal, he put the device back in his pocket, ate the protein bars and drank one of the waters.
Vehicle by vehicle, the lot went quiet.
Keeping one hand on the pistol, Cash managed to sleep in small chunks of time that he measured by the progress of the moon across the sky. It was restless sleep, part of him remaining alert for the faintest sound of an approaching person.
The way he jerked awake each time a cricket so much as burped, he felt like he was on patrol again, back in the deserts of Iraq or the unyielding mountains of Afghanistan. It had taken him the first year of living with his mother, Marie, and the kids, before he stopped jerking awake through the night.
He had only stopped after Jason had tried to tiptoe past his bed. Out of reflex, Cash had snatched the toddler up, his grip tight and hurting the boy.
One terrified scream from a child he loved more than his own life had broken eight years of battle readiness. Now, if he wanted to get back to that child and the rest of his family, Cash needed every bit of his Army training and all the other skills he'd picked up preparing the homestead to be self-sufficient.
Drifting toward sleep again despite the hint of daylight on the horizon, Cash calculated that he had almost two hundred fifty miles to go. It had taken him all day and three separate rides to get the eighty miles from Champaign to Effingham. If he had to do the rest on foot, without any type of roadblock or other trouble, he was looking at three weeks. He estimated ten miles a day with the pack would burn at least three thousand calories. With what he knew he had in his pack, he would run out of food by the end of the second week. He would run out of water in just a couple of days.
Every day, he would have to devote time — and miles — to securing water.
Three weeks to make it home was a pipe dream.
Coming fully awake, Cash swiped a rough hand along his jaw. Those who would fall in the coming days would talk about pipe dreams and impossibilities. Their words, internal or spoken out loud, would soften them up, preparing them to fail. They'd sit down before the day was half over because it was "too hard," and they'd stay sitting too long, making themselves easy targets for those intent on surviving no matter the cost.
It might take him three weeks or four. But Dover was a reliant place, with a small population. The neighbors around the homestead would provide a buffer against any ill intentioned visitors.
Just as it would take Cash weeks to get to his family, it would be a while before
certain people near the homestead got desperate enough to turn against one another. And his most concrete worry — that leering freak Banker Lee Petty — was close to a hundred and fifty miles away from Dover at the Harrow State Penitentiary for violating his parole.
Cash never would have taken the run up around the Great Lakes if Banker had still been in Dover, not after the man had tried to physically restrain Marie from getting in her car outside the meat market.
His family was still safe, Cash assured himself. And they would remain so in the short term. Feeling sorry for himself would only slow him down. That meant he needed to get his ass up, decide his route and start putting one foot in front of the other until he reached the homestead. He wasn't undertaking some fabled thousand mile journey. It was two hundred fifty measly miles and he would crush every damn one of them under his heel.
Standing up, Cash dragged his pack a few feet so he could step behind the dumpster and relieve the pressure that had built up in his bladder. Finished, he moved about his business with an efficiency he didn't feel. He opened up one of the water bottles and drank it between bites of two power bars. As he chewed and sipped, he pulled out his paper map of the state, the one they gave free at the state line rest stops.
Unfolding the map, he placed it on the ground and weighted it down on one side with his pack and on the other side with the radio. Turning the radio on, he made a quick run up and down the AM stations. With nothing but static, he switched to the short wave setting. A glance at his watch told him he had five minutes worth of waiting if that Bobby Joe Gallows was sticking with yesterday's schedule.
Working on the second protein bar, he pulled out a blue highlighter and a pink one. The most direct route home started by continuing south on I-57. Sticking to the highway in these early days might give him his best chance of catching a ride from the few cars that still had fuel in them and drivers desperate to get to some other location that they weren't sheltering in place.
Yesterday's experience told him he'd have a hard time actually catching a ride. Those benevolent souls were being choosy — taking families if they had room. Others had been opportunistic, demanding more than he thought wise to offer up in case their greed turned deadly once the vehicle was in motion.
Of course, they could have every damn dollar he had on him if it would shave even a few days off his journey.
Using the blue highlighter, he drew a line all the way down I-57 until he hit I-24. The route would take him through Mount Vernon and Marion, cities about the same size as Effingham's fifteen thousand or so residents.
Adding a few miles heading east then going down U.S. 45 would increase total miles, but give him smaller towns to skirt and mostly locals to encounter on the roads instead of the more desperate interstate travelers.
He drew a pink line along U.S. 45 as Bobby Joe Gallows started talking over the radio. The tension of waiting to see if there was someone still getting the news out, however second hand it might be, eased from Cash's shoulders.
"The sun is coming up folks and we are waking to a new world, a very frightening world for some of you out there."
Cash heard movement coming from the vehicle closest to the dumpsters. A man and a woman were sitting in a Lexus, one window down, the other windows up. Cash had heard the woman complaining a few hours earlier when the car’s battery died.
A lot of batteries had died overnight as people stayed in their own little silos and tried to find a station still on air or keep the dome light on as they nursed the small pretense of safety.
"It isn't just the power being down all over the country or illegals and cartel members running across our southern border. There are reports coming in from ham operators. Bad things are happening. Not just one or two rumors, but multiple reports from dozens of cities."
Gallows paused and Cash could hear him suck in a ragged breath as the driver side door of the Lexus opened.
"Boston shocked you."
Cash felt his heart sink so low it had to be lodged in his bowels.
"San Bernadino reminded you it was more than juvenile delinquents living on welfare who would take up arms and slaughter innocent people for following another faith."
Cash found himself sweating in the cool morning air. Half of it was the dark tone of Gallows and what he was leading up to. The other half was how more car doors were opening, people who had nothing but empty stations on FM and AM radios or dead batteries leaving their vehicles and forming a small crowd about a dozen feet away from him, some inching closer.
"Maybe by Orlando, with fifty dead bodies littering a gay nightclub, you shrugged. Not your city, not your lifestyle."
In the crowd, a woman started to weep softly, the sound having a domino effect on some of the children who had left their cars with their parents.
"Dark skinned males, women in black head scarves," Gallows reported. "Assault rifles, bombs, targeting police stations and hospitals, high school gyms open to stranded motorists. Dallas, San Francisco, Albany, Tampa...the list goes on. There’ll be more as people wake up and spread the news. This is all coming in from ham operators like me, folks. The commercial stations are silent."
Gallows paused again, took a sip of something before continuing. Cash imagined it was coffee but a hard shot of whisky or moonshine wasn't unwarranted.
"Dead silent," Gallows intoned ominously. "Did they just run out of power? Was there some virus on their machines, is that what happened with the power plants, too? A virus waiting to cycle down or leaving it vulnerable until a signal was given? Was this all part of a larger plan or are these Jihadi terrorists taking advantage?"
Another pause. Another sip.
"I know where I'd place my bet. That's right. It's on, folks. I hope you've been preparing because THEY certainly have."
Finished scaring the shit out of anyone listening, Gallows signed off as he had the day before.
"I'll be back on the hour. Until then, stay safe. Keep your bible close but your guns closer."
The half circle of people around Cash tightened. Deciding he would take U.S. 45 after Gallows' broadcast, he tried to ignore them as he packed the radio and map back in place.
"Do you believe what he said?” the Lexus driver asked. Somewhere in his late thirties, he looked like he got most of his exercise walking from his golf cart to the putting green or chasing his secretary around her desk.
"Guy is just a crank, right? All he has is gossip!" Lexus Guy insisted.
Cash didn't answer. Feeling the tension begin to point in his direction, he pulled the two halves of his Browning BLR from the pack and locked the bolt into the barrel extension. He put one magazine and a single 308 WIN, 180 grain soft point bullet to the side then distributed some protein bars and an extra magazine of ammo around his cargo pockets.
Pulling out the rifle was moving from a discreet violation of the state’s laws with the pistol concealed under his windbreaker to openly flouting them.
Cash figured he could follow the law or he could live.
"Let me buy that radio off you," Lexus Guy said, stepping to within a few feet of Cash, the crowd moving with him but holding back several steps. Digging into his pocket, Lexus Guy pulled out a roll of money and shoved a hundred dollar bill in Cash's face.
A few days ago, the radio retailed for sixty bucks. The batteries in it were fresh, but it could also be powered by a hand crank and a solar charger. It would keep his phone charged, letting him access some of the survival ebooks and maps stored on the device. It was no longer worth sixty dollars, or a hundred.
It had become damn near priceless.
Cash shook his head. "Save the money for the next time you need to take a dump. At least your ass will be clean after."
The man's mouth bobbed like a fish just hauled onto land. Shoving the hundred dollar bill into his pocket, he ripped the Rolex off his wrist and thrust it at Cash as he closed the distance between them.
"You don't need two guns. This is worth fifty times what you're carrying."
Finished attaching the sling to the rifle, Cash chambered the loose round and slapped the box magazine in place. Pulling the hammer to its half cocked position, Cash stared up, his gaze letting the man know there would be no sale.
He stood, then cautiously got his pack on one shoulder, switched the hand holding the Browning and threaded his other arm through the second shoulder strap, his gaze on the man and the people around him in case anyone turned really stupid. Gallows’ broadcast had ramped up their fear of domestic terrorists, but the immediate threat was all around them in that parking lot.
And if one of their fellow, upstanding citizens didn't bash their head in, then dehydration would likely get them before any terrorists or local criminals found them.
With his pack on and his rifle at the ready, Cash eased far enough away until no one in the crowd was close enough to rush him. He turned, and started walking at a normal pace, his ears attuned to the sounds behind him.
At about twenty feet from the crowd, a rock bounced off his backpack.
Cash faced the small, tense mob.
"Where the hell are you going?” Lexus Guy shrieked, his cheeks flushed with anger — and maybe some guilt. "It's like this everywhere!"
Looking at the ground, Cash found the fist-size rock someone had thrown.
"You do this?" he asked the man as the toe of his hiking boot brushed softly at the rock.
Another deep flush of red colored the man's cheeks. Cash bent and located a smaller, sharper rock. As he picked it up, everyone near Lexus Guy, even his traveling companion, peeled away from the man. A quick whip of the rock and a gash appeared over the driver's left eye.
"You'll want to clean that," Cash said over his shoulder as he turned his back on the crowd one last time. “Just don't use that hundred dollar bill. Thing about money is, it's dirty."
Chapter Six
With a working map of Effingham’s streets in his head, Cash left the truck stop intent on avoiding well-armed, trigger happy folks guarding their homes. He picked his way down Rainey, passing the small manufacturing shops and heavy equipment retailers that catered to the surrounding farms and the truckers passing through. Hitting Pike Avenue, he cut east, his balls suddenly shriveling at the sputtering rumble of a military grade Humvee.