The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse (23 page)

In the end, it was my eternal predisposition toward sightseeing that saved my life.   I was in the lead, and we were puttering along cautiously on the ATVs, winding our way down the mountain.  Coming around one bend I could see Lloyd’s town in the distance, easily recognizable by the tower of the town hall.  I turned sideways, raising my arm to point toward it.

“There’s the town,” I called to the others.

I had barely closed my mouth when everything went to shit.  A strand of barbed wire that had been lying across the road hidden by leaves was suddenly jerked tight to the level of my neck.  Because of the way I was turned sideways with my arm upraised, the wire caught the inside of my bicep and dislocated my shoulder rather than catching the inside of my neck and dislocating my head.  In an instant, I was lifted from the seat of my ATV and thrown backward.  In another fluke of timing, I landed on my back in the trailer I was pulling, then continued rolling backward into the road.  The trailer broke my fall sufficiently that I was not severely injured but I hit the back of my head on the pavement and lay there stunned.  Randi, riding behind me, reacted quickly and swerved to the left, only missing me by a tight margin. 

A little further back, Gary eased off the throttle and slammed on his brakes.  Even with my eyes closed, I could identify the hollow sound of ATV tires skidding on pavement.  I could not tell that everyone was focused on me but they must have been because no one noticed the man with the gun climbing down the high inside bank of the road until it was too late.

“Don’t move a damn muscle,” he said, leveling a pistol at them.

I recognized the voice, but continued to lay still, my eyes closed, my head spinning.  I could feel warmth spreading under my arm, blood running from the deep burn of a gash.  The son of a bitch had sliced me open with the wire.  A barb had gone under my arm pit and cut me at the same time that it was dislocating my shoulder.  The pain of the dislocated joint was excruciating and my only defense right now was to feign unconsciousness and hope that I could get a jump on the guy.  My shoulder screamed, and it was all I could do not to writhe with the pain.  It felt like a red hot knife was being twisted around inside the joint.

“Turn them damn things off!” he yelled, gesturing at the four-wheelers.  One ATV turned off, then the next.  I had no idea where mine had ended up.  I could only hear the ticking of cooling engines and the scuff of footsteps walking across the pavement toward us.

“You’re the bitch that killed my little brother,” the man said.  “And now most of the rest of my family is dead, too.  Any good reason I shouldn’t shoot all of you right now?”

No one replied.

“I got my own good reason to not shoot you,” he told them.  “It’s because I want to slice you open and let you bleed to death slowly.  I want you to have time to think about the mistake you made when you crossed my family.  That sound like a party?”

I cracked my eyes open as faintly as I could and saw the man stood in front of Randi, an old revolver in his hands, pointed right at her.  Katie sat behind her, eyes wide in fear, already traumatized by her encounter with these people.

“Looks like you got a little cut there on your cheek,” he said to Randi.  “We do that?”

“I didn’t do it to my damn self,” Randi answered defiantly.

“We gonna do more than that in a minute,” the man said. 

From my cracked eyelids, I saw the man slowly insert his index finger in his mouth and suck on it.  Then he pulled it from his mouth and moved it toward Randi’s mouth.  He rubbed his wet finger across her lips before forcing it between them.  She did not cooperate, but she never closed her eyes, never wavered from his direct gaze.

“Open your mouth, bitch,” he hissed, putting the gun to her forehead.

She let her jaw go slack and his finger probed her mouth, stroking around, moving in and out.  He smiled the disturbing smile of a pervert.  Then his smile turned to shock, then pain, when Randi bit his finger as hard as she could, grinding it between her molars as she attempted to pulverize it flat.

When the man’s brain was finally able to process the incoming flood of pain signals, he responded quickly and backhanded the revolver across Randi’s face.  She crumpled, and the man slowly drew back his injured finger, shaking it as if he could shake the pain free.  The finger was bleeding heavily.  Randi clearly had bigger balls than most men I knew.

“You’re gonna hurt for this, bitch,” the man hissed, raising his foot in the air, his intent clearly to stomp on Randi’s face and head.

Gary must have stood in response because I heard him call out in anger.  The man spun toward Gary and fired a single shot.  So much for killing everyone slowly.  Katie screamed when Gary dropped.  The man turned back toward Katie, steadied his pistol, and shot her in the face without a word. My assessment of the man as a sociopath appeared to be accurate.  He was a cold-blooded, remorseless killer.

Knowing that I would be next, that the man would put a bullet in my head just to make sure I never rose again, I took the opportunity to grab for my handgun while he was still deciding what to do with Randi.  Because my right arm was injured, I had to reach across my body with my left hand.  The gun was not positioned for a left hand draw since I was right-handed.  It left me grabbing the weapon awkwardly by the handle, then having to lay it down on my belly before I could take it back up in a proper shooting grip.  It was a difficult move that I wished I’d drilled on, but it was too late to worry about it now.  Fortunately the safety was ambidextrous and I was able to find and release it after a second’s bobble.  I raised the gun just as the man began to slowly turn in my direction.

The front sight wavered over his body and the 9mm barked once, catching him in the lower left quadrant of his back.  He spun and I hit him again in the chest.  He dropped his gun, clutched his chest and remained standing, his eyes glued on me.  I fired again, steadier this time, and hit him in the throat, tearing out a chunk.  A gusher of blood erupted and completely saturated him before he fell over backward. 

I dropped my gun, unable to move myself and hold it at the same time.  I crawled toward the closest ATV and used my good hand to pull myself up.  I could do nothing until I reset my shoulder.  Trying to recall how to most easily reduce the dislocation by myself, I could think of nothing I could use except the ATV.  Every movement of the injured arm was excruciating.  I leaned over and clamped my hand as tightly as I could around one of the steel tubes that supported the cargo rack.  The support was at thigh level.  I straightened my back.  In an explosion of movement, I used my legs to propel my body straight up while holding to the ATV as tightly as I could.  There was a burst of pain, then a pop, then a wave of relief as the shoulder joint reseated itself. 

I let go of the rack and spun around in a daze, eyes watering, clutching my arm.  I was suddenly aware that my head ached from the impact with the pavement and I felt dizzy.  I fought to stay conscious.  I remembered the shot, Gary, and my gun on the pavement.  I had killed a man.  Randi had been knocked out.  Or had she been killed?  I couldn’t remember.  I scanned the pavement for my Beretta and leaned over for it.  I probably would have passed out from the motion of bending over had I not experienced a fiery wave of pain from using my recently dislocated shoulder to grab for the gun.  My mouth filled with vomit from the pain and dizziness.  I spit it out. 

I passed the Beretta to my left hand and checked the guy I shot.  He was dead.  I kicked his pistol to the side in case he experienced some kind of spontaneous resurrection.  I wasn’t taking any chances.  I scanned my surroundings and saw no movement.  I moved to Randi.  There was a whopper of a bruise forming on her left cheek and around her eye.  I touched it to see if the cheekbone was broken but it didn’t seem to be.  The pain from my fingers probing the bruise made her stir.  She’d be okay.

At the rear of the ATV, Katie lay on the ground in a pool of her own blood.  Her face was a misshapen and damaged pulp.  It was a wound no one could live with, nor would they want to. 

I delayed checking Gary.  I did not want to see my friend dead.  He’d taken a round and it had dropped and silenced him.  I had nothing to treat a chest wound.  If he was still alive it was possible we could have gotten him to town to a doctor, but there was no sound, no cries of pain, no pleas for help.  I had to assume the worst.  He was dead.  What would I tell his family? 

I stepped around Gary’s ATV and studied his fallen body.  There was a puddle of blood beneath his head, probably from hitting the pavement.  I watched him for a moment and was shocked when I saw his chest rise.  I immediately crouched and began looking for the wound, ready to plug it despite the inevitable futility of it.  I finally found an entrance wound but there was no blood around it.  I set my pistol down, put my left hand over his chest and probed the wound with my finger, but it felt odd.  I found hot metal.  I drew my finger back and ripped open the loose button-up shirt he was wearing.

Body armor.
  Gary was wearing fucking body armor.

“What happened?” asked a voice behind me.

I spun, making myself dizzy in the process.  My head throbbed and I felt a wave of nausea.  Randi was standing there, probing her face gently, checking the wound as I’d just done with her a moment ago.

“He took a bullet coming to your aid,” I said.  “I thought he was dead, but he’s wearing some kind of body armor.”

I finished unfastening his shirt, spread it open, and it was clear that his vest had caught the round and stopped it.  Of course, I also knew that blunt trauma over the heart could be fatal in its own right.  I removed the Velcro straps under his armpits that held the vest in place and lifted the vest up.  There was no evidence that the bullet had penetrated the vest.  No blood underneath it.

“Bring me some water,” I said.

Randi went to her ATV.  I heard a loud intake of breath.

“Katie,” Randi said.  “Oh sweetie!”

I realized that Randi had already been knocked out when Katie was shot.  She hadn’t known.

“Water,” I reminded her, trying to draw her attention from the grim scene in front of her.

In a second, Randi was behind me, passing me a bottle of water.  I unscrewed the cap and splashed some across Gary’s face.  He stirred, then bolted upright immediately, his eyes wide in fear.  He started gasping, trying to take in the scene, trying to figure out if he was dead or alive.  He frantically patted his chest, searching for a wound.  He found no bullet hole, but did grimace in immediate pain when his fingers probed his ribs.

“Oh, Jesus,” he croaked.  “I’ve got a broken rib.”

I put a hand behind him and eased him back down onto the pavement. 

“I’m sure you do,” I said.  “But you’re still alive.  A broken rib we can deal with.”

“The vest,” he said.  “Police surplus.  Kept it in my bugout bag.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” I said.  “I didn’t even realize you had it.”

He reached for the water bottle and took a long drink.  “I never said anything because I felt bad that I didn’t have one for you guys.  I felt guilty.”

I laughed.  “No need to feel guilty, man.  The damn thing saved your bacon.”

“Katie’s dead,” Randi said.

Gary’s smile left his face and he looked around at the scene surrounding us.  He shook his head.

“On the practical side, there’s no need to haul these two bodies any further,” Randi said.  “We can put them to rest off the road somewhere.  Together.”

I looked at Randi and nodded, not sure I really had any words left in me for this experience.  It just kept getting crazier every day.  How long would it take us to get home?  How many bodies would we leave behind?  Would we all make it?

Throughout the day, Ellen and her family focused on the variety of jobs that needed to be performed to keep things functioning.  They continued to run the generator at intervals, processing frozen meats into longer lasting products for the day the generator fuel would run out, slicing some into jerky and dehydrating it.  Some roasts and steaks got cut into cubes and canned in the pressure cooker.  They used the grill for this, heating the pressure cooker on the gas grill’s accessory eye.

They tended the garden, charged batteries, and scanned radio stations for news.  Even all the basic tasks, such as cooking and washing dishes, now took much longer.  Above all, they maintained vigilance, keeping an eye on the road and the perimeter of their property.

There had been more traffic today on the gravel road at the front of their property.  Several different groups had gone by, both on foot and on ATV.  There was even a pickup that coasted slowly by earlier, the bed full of people.  Whoever was on watch kept a set of binoculars handy and dutifully reported what they observed.  From what they were seeing, it appeared that folks were looking for the missing men, the ones that Pete had shot last night and Ellen had buried in the pasture.

Later in the evening, they had a dinner of rice topped with canned soup.  It was a simple, filling meal that was easy for a group. They ate it from paper plates, with plastic utensils, which limited cleanup to the pots used for making the rice and the big spoon used for serving it.  At the children’s prompting, they concluded dinner with coffee, hot chocolate, and some cookies.  While they sat around enjoying dinner on the back porch, the clanging at the gate came again.

Ellen was instantly filled with anxiety.  Conversation came to an end, and her anxiety turned to anger.  She grabbed the AR-15 that lay nearby, stood and shouldered it.

“Pops, I’ll need you to cover me from the truck.  Let’s go.   Use the 870 shotgun,” Ellen said.  “It will have good coverage if you need to use it.”

Pops nodded, obviously distressed by how things were turning ugly.  He was a social being and not prone to violence.

Ellen drove toward the gate.  She could see the pickup from earlier stopped in front of it.  A man and a woman stood at the gate, beating on it with a stick.  Ellen drove to within twenty feet of the gate, stopped, and threw open her door.  She exited the vehicle, but remained behind the door, speaking to the group through the open window.

“What the hell do you people want?” she asked.  “I thought I told you I had nothing to give you.”

The woman at the gate was the woman Ellen had spoken with yesterday.  “We’re looking for my husband,” she said.  “He didn’t come home last night.”

Ellen thought about this for a moment.  “What was he out doing last night?”

“Hunting,” the woman said.

Ellen mulled that over.  The men had been hunting, alright – hunting for things they could steal.  “We haven’t seen him,” Ellen said. 

“We heard shots last night,” said the man standing beside the woman. 

Ellen assumed it was the woman’s son.  He looked to be around seventeen or eighteen years old.

“We heard them, too,” Ellen said.  “They didn’t come from here.”

“You mind if we come through and look for him?” the woman asked.

“I fucking well do mind,” Ellen replied.  “He shouldn’t have had any legitimate reason to be on my property so I don’t see that you have any reason to go tearing through my property looking for him.”

“I ain’t asking,” the boy said, tightening his grip on the top rail of the gate.  “I’m fixing to come across this damn gate and I better not find out that you done anything to him.”

Ellen raised her AR and leveled it at him.  “I’ll kill the first person that steps onto my property.”

The group stood still, apparently certain that this was not a bluff on Ellen’s part.

“You kill my husband?” the woman asked.  She appeared to be on the verge of tears.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Ellen replied coldly.  “But if your husband was out stealing from people last night and got himself killed, he brought that on himself, didn’t he?”

The woman stared back at Ellen just as coldly.  “If we have to steal to feed our families, we’ll do it,” she told Ellen.

“Then I’ll just lay it out here plain and simple for you,” Ellen said.  “We’re done talking.  I ain’t coming to this gate anymore to powwow with you folks.  My suggestion to you is that you head out of here and see if there are government shelters or something set up to help people.  I strongly suggest you don’t try to start stealing off your neighbors around here, or a lot of people will end up dying.”

No more words were exchanged.  Ellen climbed back in the truck, reversed up the driveway, and parked the vehicle behind the house.

“That went well,” she said.  “Wouldn’t you say?”

Pops was shaking his head.  “I think we should just get out of here and go back to our house in town.”

“No,” Ellen said.  “You all can leave if you want, but the kids and I are staying here.  It will probably get worse than this in town soon because there are fewer people with the resources to grow their own food.  We can survive here for a long time if we can manage this conflict.”

Pops patted Ellen on the arm.  “I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt,” he said.  “I couldn’t live with it.”

She looked at him and there were tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to see anyone hurt, either,” she said.  “And we have a backup plan that would be safer than the house.  Maybe it’s time to use it now.”

“A backup plan more secure than what Jim already set up for you?” Pops asked.

“You have no idea,” Ellen said.  “We have a cave.  A fortified cave.  Jim’s been working on it for years.”