Carl turned back to Dave and asked, “Are you two like that all the time?”
“Pam and I?” Dave asked. He included a hand gesture with his reply. His index finger bounced between him and Pam several times in a second, verifying with Carl he understood the relationship he was referring to, and Carl nodded. Dave considered the question for an instant and said, “Mm, pretty much. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Carl answered.
A few minutes later, the decision was made. The mattress Ben and Joe attempted to inflate was in fact, good enough. Provided it was only used by Jaxon and Braxton since they were small and light enough not to risk bumping their butts on the floor when they rolled over in their sleep. Mike and Lynn took the other, but only after every other adult promised to wake them both if anyone wanted to get some shuteye. None of them thought about waking them after they fell back to sleep in less than two minutes.
“What’s this plan you have?” Dave asked Ben.
“It’s not my plan,” Ben said. “I think it was CJ who mentioned it.”
“It was Jacob’s idea,” CJ replied.
“Sorry about that,” Ben apologized.
“It happens all the time,” CJ cheerfully assured him.
“Go ahead, Jacob, let’s hear it,” Carl coaxed.
“It’s really not a plan,” Jacob said. “I just think it might be a good idea to post some guards.”
“Guards?” Dave asked.
“No. Not guards,” Jacob paused. “Sentries. You know. Like lookouts. A couple of us could go out past the edges of the lot and into the brush. You know, like on opposite sides. They could just keep low and watch for anyone trying to sneak up on us. Dad always says…”
“You can’t be too careful,” Dave finished for him.
“Right!” Jacob agreed. “Joe and Ben said you guys had some walkie-talkies. The sentries could use those to keep in communication with each other.”
“And home base,” CJ reminded him with a nudge.
“Right,” Jacob said, looking only at Carl. “With each other and here at home base. That way, no one at the base would worry about the sentries. Of course, they’d take their guns with them on the mission, in case they needed them. But they could use the radios to check with home base to see if everything was okay, or how things were going, important stuff.”
“And the sentries would keep an eye on everything outside,” CJ jumped in. “And if the home base tells us, I mean the sentries, to get back to the base as fast as they could, the sentries wouldn’t argue with the base, or anything. They swear to it.”
“Give us a moment,” Dave said. He stepped between Carl and his sons, placing his back to face them and block their view of Carl’s face. “It’s not a horrible idea,” Dave tells Carl quietly. “It’d give us some advance warning if anyone tried to creep up on us.”
“What about the dogs?” Carl whispered.
“They’ve got the guns,” Dave replied. “You already said they know how to use them.”
“I know what I said,” Carl hissed. He wasn’t angry with Dave, or about being reminded what he’d said less than an hour ago. He was angry because it made perfect sense and his sons had thought of it before anyone else. Normally he’d be swelling with pride, but this idea could be dangerous and there was no way he’d be able to stop them from doing it if they all agreed it was a good idea. “Would you let your sons go out there?” he asked Dave.
“Yes,” Dave said after a moment to truly consider the question.
“Dang it,” Carl muttered.
“Who’d you have in mind for these sentries?” Carl asked. He hadn’t moved an inch when he’d asked the question. He didn’t want to risk Jacob or CJ seeing his expression, but Dave saw it. He was staring right at him and could see his eyes becoming misty with tears as he asked.
“Me and CJ,” Jacob announced proudly. Both of their chests puffed out some, even after abusing their lungs with the mattress.
Carl blinked away the drops filling his eyes and quickly wiped them dry with the back of his hand as he stepped from behind Dave. He couldn’t remember ever being so proud of his sons and at the same time, terrified for them.
“You’d have to keep those radios on and turned up at all times,” Carl told them.
“I saw a bunch of impulse shopping stuff by one of the cash registers,” Zack said, joining the conversation now that his young boys were sleeping. “The walkie-talkies have ports on them. Maybe we can check the front of the store to see if we can find headphones that fit,” he offered. “It’s worth a look. That way, the radio can’t go off at the wrong time and if it does, they’ll be the only ones to hear it.”
“Go check,” Dave told him. “There should still be enough light out there from the emergencies, but keep your eyes open, and not just for headphones!”
“Understood,” Zack said, heading to the door.
“Would you mind watching the kids,” Brigette asked Pam. “They’re sound asleep.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them. You’d better go with him,” Pam said.
Brigette grabbed her gun from where she’d leaned it earlier and followed Zack. A few minutes later they were back with cheap headphones. They would have been perfect if not for the bright pink color with Hello Kitty on the earbuds. Brigette and Zack assured them the only choice was the set they’d come back with, Strawberry Shortcake or Smurfette. But the cord on the last one was light blue. Given the options, Jacob and CJ agreed with their selection.
Everyone who was awake was gathered in the warehouse, standing at the bay door with the ramp leading to the lot. They’d used the key on the ring to free the chain used to raise and lower the door, from the C-shaped door track it was locked to. They’d turned off the warehouse lights in preparation for raising the door to let CJ and Jacob out and to bring vehicles in without drawing any more attention to their activities than they had to.
The brothers had already put their black coats on and were wearing their masks. They just hadn’t pulled them down over their faces. They also found some thin gloves for covering. And to assist in keeping them warm, Brigette and Zack had found some packages of instant hand warmers at one of the checkout stands. They were the kind you just had to open and shake to activate. Both brothers grabbed three sets and shoved them in their pockets. They’d even inspected their rifles and ammunition before slinging them onto their backs.
Pam insisted each of them be given one of the remaining sets of store keys so they couldn’t accidentally be locked outside. She’d even taken all the keys to the interior door locks and plastic fobs off the rings and taped a dime to the grip ends of the keys for the front door. The backdoor keys she left unadorned. This limited the selection in case of emergency or panic and made them identifiable by feel, if they couldn’t see to tell them apart for some reason. She’d looked for small first aid kits for them to carry but decided that might be pushing it. They would be close enough that if they required first aid, they could be gotten to in relatively the same amount of time it would take to extract the small boxes from their pockets and get them open. Pam knew this for certain because she and Carl timed them to make the final decision. Pam was becoming quite attached to the two men and realized this after running them through the fifth kit drill. She considered she might be mothering them a smidge too much.
But Pam’s overprotective worrying was minute compared to Carl’s handwringing smothery. After the timed kit drills, triple and quadruple checking of the walkie-talkies, tightening their rifle straps which they would then be forced to loosen the moment their father wasn’t looking, CJ and Jacob were ready to escape the extra attention.
“Relax a little,” Dave finally had to tell Carl. “They’ll be fine and the rest of us are right here. And it’s not like they’re going to be out there all night. I’m planning on Ben and Joe relieving them in two hours. Then either we can take a turn or Zack and Brigette can go before us.”
“What?” the twins asked at the same time. “What do you m
ean by relieved?” Jacob added.
Dave explained his plan for two-hour shifts outside until sunup, or until they were ready to depart, hopefully the latter, first. When he’d finished with the brief outline, Jacob looked apprehensive and CJ looked deflated.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Richter,” Jacob said.
“Please. Call me Dave and why not?” Dave asked.
“There’s a bunch of reasons,” Jacob said, folding his arms across his chest, satisfied his point was well-made.
“You’re going to need to tell me some of them if you want me to change my mind,” Dave told him.
“To start with,” Jacob began, pausing to look at Carl and organize his thoughts. “It was our idea.”
“Go on,” Dave said when he didn’t offer anything further.
“And it’s going to take a few minutes to get out there far enough to be useful. We figured a couple hundred yards at least.”
“A couple hundred!” Carl objected. “That’s too far away!”
“Let him finish,” Dave told him.
“We have to be out that far to be able to watch all around the building,” Jacob said, glancing nervously at his father.
“And the trees across the road,” CJ threw in.
“If we keep rotating people out, anyone watching us will be able to add up how many of us there are,” Jacob said.
“Who said anybody was watching us?” Carl asked, but Jacob kept going without answering.
“And there’s too much of a chance something might happen during the switch. Our attention will be split between what we’re supposed to be doing out there and you know like, making sure we don’t accidentally shoot our replacements. Plus, the less attention we draw, the better. If someone is watching us,” he said, looking directly at Carl when he said it. “They’re sure to see all the movement.”
“Or anything attracted by movement,” Pam said to herself, but loud enough for the others to hear her. She was remembering the guy who had chased after her and Dave in the park, back in Columbus. He hadn’t even noticed them until the movement of their car captured his attention.
“It’s better and safer for everyone if we go and stay out there until we’re ready to go or the sun comes up,” Jacob said.
“I don’t like it,” Carl told him. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t like it. You’ll freeze out there!”
“It’s not that cold and besides, we’ve got these things,” he replied. A huge grin spread across his face as he pulled his ski mask down to cover it. CJ copied his younger brother a second later, grinning an identical grin. “Not so stupid now,” Jacob said. His grin stretched farther, and the corners of his lips slipped behind the sides of the mouth hole in the black, knitted mask.
“Jesus Christ! We’re not staking them out there like bait! They’ll have guns and walkie-talkies,” Dave blurted at Carl.
“If you need anything, get thirsty or get cold, you’ve got a radio. Just call us,” he tells the twins.
“If either of you gets cold,” Pam tells them, tugging at the top of CJ’s coat and zipping it up another inch, while simultaneously glaring at Dave. “Just come back inside.”
“Shit! I don’t really care what they do. If they have an unnatural fear of urinating outside and just need to piss indoors,” Dave replied to Pam, but the words were aimed at Jacob, CJ, and Carl. He couldn’t help noticing the brothers snicker when he said piss and their reaction forced him to start smiling. “They can bring their happy dry asses inside. In fact, if they’ve changed their minds and don’t want to go out there at all, I’m not going to force anyone. All I’m saying,” he continued beginning to get angry, “is whoever goes outside, if anyone goes outside, they’ll have a fucking radio! And nobody is going to force anybody to go or stay outside. That’s all.” He finished with a hiss, staring at Carl.
“You’re right, Dave,” Carl replied solemnly.
“I know I’m fucking right,” Dave barked. “Of course, I’m fucking right. I’m a lot of things but I’m not a liar.”
Carl recoiled from Dave’s terse reaction and said, “You sound pretty arrogant to me, and I asked you politely about your language.”
“My language? It’s English,” Dave ranted. “Use it to think about what I said and try to see if there’s any way I could be wrong. In the meantime, I’m going to bring two of the cars here to start mounting the mesh to the windshields before I use my language to say something I might regret!”
“Before?” Pam smirked.
“Joe! Zack!” Dave shouted their names even though they were only a few yards away. “Come on. Let’s go get the cars. We’ll look for a replacement for mine while we’re at it.”
“Do we have to?” Zack asks, egging on his father’s discontent.
“Don’t fucking start with me,” Dave warns. Taking the chain that controlled the door in both hands, he yanked it like a hangman trying to ensure a clean and fatal break. The gear at the top of the bay door spun with equal force and the warehouse door raised seven feet with the single effort. Dave stomped down the ramp, slapping at his pockets to find the cigarettes he no longer had.
At three in the morning, Jacob and CJ had been on watch for over four hours, having declined any relief efforts that had been offered, twice. When they’d started the shift, their status updates were coming every minute or two. Dave chalked this up to the novelty of using the walkie-talkies. They insisted on using call signs rather than actual names. Jacob claimed Red Team and CJ preferred Blue Team. They were reporting back to Carl, who insisted on carrying the third radio so he could have direct contact with his sons. The twins referred to him as Color Wheel in all their transmissions. The only thing they’d reported for the first hour was that there was nothing to report and everything was all clear. By three a.m., their radio chatter had dropped off to only transmitting if Color Wheel was checking on them.
Mike and Lynn were awake by then. Mike was acting as foreman, supervising the activities in the warehouse while sipping coffee. Lynn was in the break room preparing something for everyone to eat once the work was completed. She’d decided everyone would do better with a hot meal in their stomachs and was using the microwave to try and prove it. While she was in there, she kept an eye on Braxton and Jaxon, who were both still fast asleep despite the activity going on around them. Everyone else was in the warehouse, prepping for their departure. All the other vehicles had been fueled up and had CBs installed and tested. Supplies had been loaded, the mesh was mounted over the glass and they were ready to go. Mike had strongly objected when they began drilling holes into the frame around the windshield of his Mercedes SUV. His protest mentioned something about destroying the resale value and the sleek, German-engineered design, but was summarily outvoted and the holes went in as planned. The only thing left to do was for Dave to select a suitable replacement vehicle and get it outfitted with the mesh for the windows and one of the CB radios from the case of them Ben had found. He’d already limped the rogue into the warehouse and completely unloaded it before rolling it back out and bidding a nearly tearful farewell.
“Blue Team. Did you hear that?” Jacob asked his brother over the radio. All activity in the warehouse ceased as Carl jerked the walkie-talkie from his belt.
“What’d you hear?” he asked, nearly crushing the talk-button in fear for his sons.
“Color Wheel, this is Blue Team. Maintain radio protocol,” CJ admonished.
“This is Red Team. The sound I was referring to may have been gunfire, but it was too far off to be sure.”
“Color Wheel, this is Blue Team,” Jacob interrupted. “I don’t think it was gunfire. It lasted almost a minute and sounded more like a motor. Might have been a chainsaw or something.”
“CJ. I mean, Blue Team. This is Color Wheel,” Carl replied, catching himself despite his panic. “Gather Red Team and return to base. Do you hear me? Return to base.”
“Say again, Color Wheel,” CJ replied. “Did not copy.”
/> “They’re still not using, over,” Brigette whispered to Zack. I know, he mouthed in reply.
“Hold on,” Dave said calmly to Carl, placing his hand over the walkie-talkie Carl was squeezing, so the color teams didn’t hear him. “With everything going on, I’m surprised they haven’t heard any gunshots until now. Don’t panic right from the start. I’ve got my eye on the one-ton utility van in the lot and we’re just about done with the other vehicles. All we have to do is drive it in here, prep it like the others and load up our shit. We’ll be done within the hour and be on the road. Don’t pull them back in after the first real noise they’ve heard.”
Carl started to protest. Started to tell Dave it’d be different if it was his kids out there in the dark. He tried to pull his hand free and repeat his order over the radio, but Dave tightened his grip slightly. Not enough to wordlessly threaten him or take the walkie-talkie away, but enough to force Carl to look Dave in the eye.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dave said, the compassion in his eyes making his intentions clear. “But don’t be that kind of father. Let them have this. You have my word at the first inkling of actual trouble, you’re going to have to race me to the radio to call them in. And to hell with the call signs,” he added.
Carl visibly relaxed but only enough to assure Dave he could remove his hand from the radio.
“Red and Blue Teams, this is Color Wheel. Maintain your positions and keep us posted,” he said with crushing resignation. He faced Dave and told him, “They’re all I have,” before handing over the radio and walking away.
Dave watched him walk over to the others and begin helping where he could. Dave noticed Carl’s movements were stiff and more than once he saw him casually wipe at his eyes. For the first time, Dave seriously considered the question Carl had asked him when CJ had first brought up the sentry idea and volunteered himself and his brother for the job. Carl had rejected the idea, but Dave had supported it. He’d asked Dave if he’d feel differently if his sons were the ones going out there. At that moment, Dave had answered almost immediately. He had Pam, their kids and even Mike and Lynn to draw strength from. He’d never dream of putting any of them at unneeded risk, but the fact was, he had all of them. Now he was placing himself in Carl’s shoes and thought about how he would have reacted. What if he was the one who’d raised CJ and Jacob all alone? What would it be like to have the only people in the world that mattered to him, connected to him, sitting out there in the dark with nothing but the stupid walkie-talkie he was holding tethering them to him? How would he feel if some bastard he’d just met, told him to go ahead and risk everything by stretching that precious and fragile connection a little further? Suddenly, Dave felt like the world’s biggest asshole and silently cursed himself for his earlier, cavalier answer.
The F*cked Series (Book 3): Mean Page 10