They made a quick stop and dumped the two cans of gas wedged between the KLR and Tahoe into the tank. That was only 10 gallons and they were just above a half of a tank right now. Getting more gas was a priority. Haliday figured Gadsen would be the ideal place to do so. Just about another half an hour and they’d be there. They’d break for lunch, grab some gas and get back on the road.
It was late afternoon and they were pulling into Gadsen, or at least what he thought was Gadsen. There was a sign and that was about it. Mike said, “What the hell is this?” Linda asked him what he meant. He said, “There isn’t anything here.”
Kayla said, “No kidding, is this what you mean by BFE Dad?”
Haliday said, “This is worse.” They just kept cruising through. Haliday spotted a sign up ahead for an airport. It was just a regional airport, but worth checking out. Next city was another 15 minutes down the road; he wanted to fuel up by then.
They pulled into an open gate and took a look around. Up by the main building there were a few BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus and other expensive cars. Maybe a couple dozen vehicles total. Then throughout the property, some service trucks, a couple tractors and of course a few planes. It was the Indy executive airport catering to the rich, who could afford private planes and the place to keep them. Midway down the runway was what was left of a small gulfstream scattered about. “Guess he picked a bad time to land,” Haliday said. Everyone just looked around; it was like a ghost town.
Haliday drove down between the hangars. There was an open hangar door and Haliday paused and looked inside. He drove the Tahoe into it and turned it around so it was facing the door. He went over to see if the door would close manually, and after disengaging a chain drive he was able to lower it. “Ok,” he said, “Mike and Kayla, you guys keep watch and I’ll make some food real quickly. Make sure you guys pay attention.”
He pulled out a butane stove and can of butane. Within seconds it was lit and ready. He grabbed a pouch of dehydrated veggies and opened it up, dumping the contents into a small pan with some water. He let it sit there a few minutes to rehydrate a bit. Next he dumped in a pouch of powdered egg and mixed it thoroughly.
This started to cook up and he grabbed a vacuum-packed pouch of cooked bacon crumbles and opened it up. “Ah, bacon,” he said. “Gotta love bacon.” Next he tossed in some powdered cheese and just scrambled it all. He walked over to the truck and pulled out some flour tortillas he had grabbed off his counter at home to take on the trip. He whipped up some big breakfast burritos, and although it was late afternoon, they did the job just fine. Quite tasty too.
He had thrown some Gatorade mix in some bottles of water. Kayla didn’t want any. “You don’t have a choice,” he said, “you need the electrolytes to keep your system balanced.” She reluctantly drank it. So did everyone else. “Ok, this is for the road,” he said. He grabbed a thermos, heated up some more water and filled it with instant coffee. A small luxury right now, but since everyone was out in their own little world it might help them stay focused. He grabbed a chunk of beef jerky and tossed it to the dog. “Don’t get used to that mutt,” he said.
After the stove cooled and he wiped out the pan, they packed everything up. They were ready to get on the road. He asked anyone if they needed to use the bathroom before they went to look for gas. They took turns watching out while everyone went to go do their thing. Haliday peeked out the door and ducked back in real quickly. He told everyone to grab their guns and find cover. There were three guys coming down the road between the hangars. He told everyone to just hang tight. It dawned on him that he hadn’t given Linda a weapon. “Just stay low,” he said. They weren’t sure what to expect.
He heard them as they approached. It seemed that they were looking in every hangar as they went down the row. He could hear them forcing doors open and anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes later they would move to the next hangar. As far as he could tell, they had only one more before they got to theirs. Everyone just sat there. Haliday held his finger to his mouth to tell everyone to keep quiet. He placed his hand out and motioned for them to get down.
The door opened and one of the guys peeked in; he whistled and Haliday could hear the other guys come over and start talking to their friend. “God damn, how the hell did that get here?” one said.
“Hell if I know, but if it runs, it’s ours.” They walked into the hangar and started looking around. “You smell bacon?” he heard one say.
“Hell ya, someone has been in here hiding or something.” One of them walked over to the Tahoe and peeked inside. “Holy shit, we got a gold mine.” Linda shifted slightly and a small can on the ground near her feet fell over.
One of the men raised a rifle up and said, “Who’s there?” There wasn’t an answer. “I said who’s there, damn it.” Another one of the men took a pistol out and started looking around as well. Haliday tried to watch them through a reflection in the glass of the truck. He knew one had a rifle and one had a pistol, but he didn’t have any idea if the third one was armed and if so what he had. By the looks of this crew, it was a man in his late forties and two younger guys in their twenties. He was thinking father and sons.
The older man who had the rifle spoke up. “Listen, you’re gonna wanna show yourself and if ya ain’t alone you’re gonna wanna both come out.” Linda shifted a bit more and the can now rolled out from behind the toolbox she was hiding behind. “I see you, you better get up.” Linda panicked and stood up and put her hands in the air. “Don’t you move, who else you got in here lady?”
“Just my husband,” she said.
“He some kinda cop or something?”
“No, we just found the truck.”
“Awww bullshit, we saw what’s in there. We ain’t stupid, you tell him to come out now. We ain’t gonna hurt anyone.”
"How do I know that?" Linda asked.
One of the younger guys yelled out. “Listen bitch, you’ll know what we want you to, now do what the hell he said and tell that asshole husband of yours to get out here now before we change our mind.” Mike didn’t know what to do. He was behind a starting cart that had been left in the hangar.
Kayla was over at the far side of the hangar and was hiding behind another toolbox next to what looked like a larger Cessna of some type. She actually had the best cover. Haliday had ducked into the small office that was in the hangar. He could catch a peek now and then, but nothing to formulate a plan or see what was going on. He looked over toward the door that they had come in. There was a bag there. He thought about this for a minute. They were looting. They were going hangar to hangar and probably through every car and plane here taking anything they thought was valuable.
He was trying to think this one through. Why the hell hadn’t he gotten radios and head sets, he wondered. On the other hand, he had two passengers he didn’t count on either. How much gear could he afford or even carry? Wouldn’t do much good having just two sets, but then again, he told himself, that would have been two coordinated people. That would have been better than this cluster.
He was trying to think this one through. “Damn it,” the older guy yelled, “get a move on bitch.” Max, who had just been laying there, stood up and started yapping now. “Damn mutt, shoot it,” the older man said.
One of the younger ones replied, “I ain’t shooting it, you shoot it.”
The older man said, “I’m watching this dumb bitch, shoot it or give your brother the gun.” That’s exactly what Haliday needed to know. The odds were better, but still not good.
Haliday was about ready to crawl over to the doorway when he heard the man say, “That’s it bitch I warned you.”
Mike stood up and said, “Wait, wait, don’t shoot.” Haliday bolted over to the doorway and started firing toward the group. They returned fire in his direction and he dove to the office floor. Linda dropped to the ground and lay there paralyzed. Mike ducked down and was trying to flip the safety off his rifle. He heard a few rounds strike nearby. He was afraid to get up again and
get shot.
Haliday heard an AR fire; he didn’t know who it was. Rounds started flying everywhere. No one could get a good shot on anybody, good or bad. Haliday was laying there when the window above him shattered. He covered his neck as the glass fell. His hands were cut and bleeding. There was a lot of screaming going on at each other. Haliday popped up and aimed at the man with the rifle and fired then ducked down again. The guy dropped. More rounds came his way. Mike looked around the side of the starting cart and fired off almost a full magazine in their direction.
Kayla took aim at the older guy, who was still firing from the ground; he had been hit, but not mortally. She fired three shots toward him and the man stopped moving at that point. She didn’t have any more lines of sight and made sure she was covered as well as she could be. The toolbox in front of her rattled from the pistol fire from the kid who had been shooting it. Soon enough there was a click.
“Cease fire,” Haliday yelled, “cease fire.” There were a few minutes of silence. Haliday crawled over to the doorway and took a quick peek into the hangar. All he saw was haze from the gunpowder and the men now huddled up near the Tahoe. He got up and peeked around the corner again. It was now or never. He reeled around the door frame and aimed at the group. One of them was holding their dad in his arms. The other was laying there next to him holding his leg and chest.
Haliday had drawn down on them and approached them slowly. He kicked the rifle aside that they had been using. It was an older AK variant. He told Mike to come out and get the rifle and check it. “Pull the bolt handle back Mike,” he said. Mike came out, grabbed the rifle and checked the chamber, it was empty.
“Hold onto it.” He called out to Linda and Kayla, “You guys ok?”
Linda said, “Yes,” Kayla said “Yes.” Ok, come on out but be careful.”
Haliday was still looking at the men. The youngest was crying as he held his father. The other kid was no longer holding his leg and Haliday noticed his shirt was full of blood. The kid was foaming at the mouth with a frothy pink foam. He must have been hit in a lung. Haliday was about to walk up and check him when the kid flipped his arm around. Haliday squeezed off a round out of his .40 the same time the kid fired at Haliday’s chest. The kid had hidden a small snub nose. The kid didn’t have a chance to fire another round; the .40 struck him center mass.
Haliday stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. He laid there trying to get his legs to move and get his feet up under him. He wasn’t able to get up. Kayla ran over and started yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, are you ok?" Haliday couldn’t speak right now either. No words could come to his mouth. His breathing wasn’t normal. The younger kid looked over at him and said, “That’s what you get you bastard. You can rot in hell.” Mike whipped the kid with the AK stock, knocking the kid out.
Linda went over to Haliday and knelt down. Kayla was holding his hand crying. She noticed it was blood covered. Haliday spoke, but he managed only a few words. “I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you too, Daddy,” she said. Max came over from cowering under an oil can rack and sniffed at Haliday and whimpered. Haliday’s eyes blurred and then started to go black. He closed them and tried to take as deep a breath as he could and then exhaled. Kayla spoke to him, but there was no response.
Max walked around in a few circles and whimpered some more. Linda was shaking Haliday, but there was no movement. Mike had been keeping an eye on the kid who shot Haliday. He was now starting to come around. Kayla ran over to the Tahoe and grabbed a first aid kit. She ran back over to Haliday’s body. She knelt down next to his head. She opened the box and pulled a small capsule out and snapped it in the middle, then waved it under Haliday’s nose. Haliday opened his eyes and whipped his head to the side. The ammonia capsule did the trick.
Kayla asked him how he was doing. His breathing was still a little off. “Damn, I feel like someone dropped a brick wall on me. I’m pretty sure my ribs are broken.” Haliday had managed to catch the round from the .38 snubbed nose with his body armor. The impact had knocked the wind out of him and knocked him down. Kayla had thought he was hit because of the blood on his hands, but then noticed his shirt didn’t have any blood on it.
She remembered he still had his vest from when he worked as a police officer and used to tell her he would make contact with people because he had a little protection. It was only a level two vest, but would stop most handgun rounds. He sacrificed safety for comfort, a dumb thing to do. There was no doubt a level III would be better in this situation.
He looked at everyone and said, “From now on we make sure everyone is dead.” Linda asked him how they would do that. “With a head shot,” he replied. Mike, with an unsure tone of voice, asked him if he wanted him to shoot the last kid. Haliday looked over at the kid, who was staring at him. “No, just tie his ass up, and then come over here and help me get up.” Haliday laid there for a few minutes while they tied up their prisoner. The kid never said a word. Mike then came over and they all helped Haliday get on his feet.
Haliday took his shirt off and ripped open the Velcro side flaps holding the vest in place. He took it off wincing as he did this. He had a large welt growing on his right side. It would be a massive bruise soon. He pushed in and felt his ribs. “Might not be broken clean, but hairline fractured for sure,” he said. “A good 2 or 3 of them. This hurts like hell.”
He told Kayla to grab his bag. She brought it over and he dug out a t-shirt that was part cotton and lycra and changed his shirt. It was a size too small. He hoped the compression would help a bit. He called it his “Ahh-nuld” shirt. He’d put it on, tried his best Swarzenegger accent, and tried to look super buff. Kayla used to laugh at him and make him change it.
He kept it to help keep his “12 pack”, as he called it, from bouncing around during training. Next he wrapped it with an ace bandage. He looked at the vest and was amazed. Best investment he ever made at this point. He put the vest back on and then his shirt. The hole in the shirt would be hard to explain he thought.
Next he looked around and went over to the small office. Broken glass crunched under his feet. He opened a refrigerator that was inside complete with a couple bullet holes. Linda said, "You aren’t going to eat that stuff in there are you?"
“Nope,” he said. He held up some bottles of Fiji water, “Gotta love snobs and their quest for quality,” he said. “I’m going to wash my hands off.” He grabbed a couple of clean rags from one of those Box-O-Rags things and wiped his hands down. He asked Kayla to bring some antiseptic rinse over and she did.
As he wiped his hands with the rinse, he asked her how she was doing. She said, “I’m ok Dad.”
He said, “Come here sweetie.” She walked over and he hugged her. “It’s going to be ok,” he told her. “We had to do this, if we didn’t there’s no telling what might have happened.” Kayla teared up a little bit. Haliday had spent a lot of time with her training her in marksmanship and weapons handling, but never expected one day she would need it. She was a natural at it, just like her old man was.
They walked back over to the truck. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all. There were quite a few holes in the body and a couple in the side window glass. The kicker was a flat tire. A quick check of the KLR and it turned out to be ok, except for one hole in the front fender. Unfortunately the bike wouldn’t hold them all. He looked down at the ground trying to think this through. There was Max looking at him wagging his tail. “Max the mutant,” he said aloud.
“Hey, I heard that,” Kayla said.
Mike said, “I have an idea. I’ll take a quick look around at the vehicles here and see if I can find a match. If anything has the same bolt pattern and rim size, we can put one on.”
“The spare tire is full size and will work if it’s not flat,” Haliday said.
Mike said, “Ya, that might be fine, but then we’re out of a spare tire in case we get another flat. I’ll go look and see. You guys wait here.” Haliday thought that was a good idea.
“Hey
Linda, grab a rifle and go with him. I’m going to have Kayla keep an eye on me while I rest a bit.” He laid down and did not get up until almost two hours later.
Linda was standing there watching him now. Kayla had laid down as soon as they got back, while Mike was working on the truck. Haliday got up still sore and moving a little slow. “How’s it going Mike?” he asked.
Mike looked up from the wheel and said, “Almost done.”
“I found a Chevy pickup around the back of the hangars; they must use it for plowing. I took the best two tires off it and put them on the back here. That’ll give us a matched pair in the back and we still keep our spare.”
“Thank you,” Haliday said. He looked around the hangar and saw Mike had dragged the bodies over to the side and covered them with a tarp. “Thank you again.”
Kayla got up now and stretched. The event took a toll on her. You can never fully prepare for this kind of thing. She walked over to the truck, reached in and grabbed the thermos with the coffee. “What are you doing with that?” Haliday asked her.
“What, I can’t have any?” she asked.
“Not unless you share,” he said.
She poured out four cups, one for each of them. They drank it down and looked around. It was now late evening and dark out. Haliday walked over to the kid sitting there tied up. The kid just looked up at him and told him to go to hell. “You’re going to pay for this,” he added.
Haliday said, “Look kid, we were just minding our own business trying to get home. Nothing here is stolen. You were walking through this place like it was your personal shopping mall. None of that stuff in that bag over there belongs to you. How do you explain that smart-ass? Not quite the exemplary citizen, are you?”
“Then you’re going to go pointing guns at people, then bitch and moan about getting shot at?” Haliday was getting angry now. Kayla walked up and touched his arm, “Dad, relax,” she said, “his gene pool is probably a little shallow.” She was a smart-ass like Haliday in this regard. He turned and walked away.
Dark Days Rough Roads Page 11