Family Reunion "J" (6 page)

Behind the counter, one body stood out as markedly different than the others. The children’s tune ran through her head,
One of these things is not like the other…
The almost skeletal remains looked as if they’d been picked clean—well, not
clean.
Bits of flesh here, an eyeball there… She bent over and put her hands on her knees and dry heaved several times before she got control of her rolling stomach.

Surrounding the unfortunate soul were the bodies. Some were missing a substantial percentage of their heads, evidence of his or her heroic efforts to fend off the onslaught of death.

She turned her attention away from the victim and toward the guns. There were a lot from which to choose. Behind the counter, a rack full of rifles and shotguns covered the wall. Ryan had taken her to the range on many occasions and she was familiar, if not expert, with the different varieties of caliber and type. Her favorite to shoot was the AR15. Ryan was a bit miffed that she turned out to be a better shot than he was, but once he got over the bruised ego he’d helped her hone her skills with tips that increased her skill even more. The AR15 didn’t kick like her son’s thirty-aught-six and it was lighter to carry.

She went behind the counter, stepping carefully around and over the mess, and selected one of the many ARs. She checked the barrel to find the caliber and saw that it could accommodate both .223 and 5.56. It had a holographic site on it, which would be fine. Then she collected a box of magazines and started looking for the ammunition. There was a display case with boxes of the different types of ammunition that the store carried, but they were empty.

Against the wall and below the gun rack, a long wooden set of plywood cabinets stretched the entire length of the counter. Each set of doors had a heavy-duty padlock through the protected hasp, locked up tight. Jay set the box of magazines down on the counter and began inspecting the cabinets to see if she could break into them. Surely, this is where the ammunition was located.

The fact that this was a pawnshop and not just a gun store worked in her favor. Contractors apparently pawned their tools when work was scarce; she found a pry bar that was suitable and returned to the cabinets. She made quick work of the first hasp and found what she was looking for. She tried to remember what Ryan had told her about the type of ammunition that was most effective for different situations. She figured the 55-grain stuff was not what she wanted, because Ryan called those “target rounds.” She selected a 62-grain jacketed hollow point. She recalled both “jacketed” and “hollow point” as key words that he mentioned.

She took the time to load the magazines, inserting the rounds as Ryan had shown her. She then banged on the bottom of the magazine, followed by the side. She had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to accomplish, but remembered Ryan always doing that. She paused, wondering where he was and if he was all right. That made her think again of the kids, not that they were ever far from her thoughts.
I have to get to Auddy. I’ll head home, get Mark and Patty set up with Ryan’s truck and off to the bug-out camp, then head for South Carolina.
She kept planning in her head as she continued to load the twelve magazines that were in the box. Then she turned her attention to the handguns. She didn’t like Ryan’s .45 caliber because it was heavy and recoiled too much for her. On the top shelf was a peculiar-looking Glock with a red-dot sight like the one on Ryan’s AR15. She broke the lock on the case and pulled it out. It had the glow-in-the-dark iron sights too; she couldn’t remember their name. She turned on the red dot and pushed the pistol out away from her, quickly focusing on the front sight. The red dot came into focus as she reached full extension of her arms. The Glock also had a tactical flashlight attached under the barrel. It was light and held seventeen rounds. It would do nicely.

She located extra magazines for the Glock and similar jacketed hollow-point ammo as well. Once again, she took the time to load the magazines, and found a holster for the Glock as well. The holster was the kind that strapped down to her thigh, which she thought would be good for easy access to it while riding the Harley. She decided to take the time to look around the pawnshop for anything else that might prove valuable during her travels. Attached to the pawnshop was a boutique of sorts with a sign over the entryway reading
Wife’s Closet.

She wandered in to find a large assortment of women’s wear. Apparently the wife of the pawnshop owner had her own thing going on. It was a place for women to unload their Gucci bags and Jimmy Choo shoes when they left their rich husbands and needed some quick cash. Thinking that she wished she had known about this place before, she looked through the different racks and grabbed a pair of designer jeans that were her size and in a tall no less. She also found several shirts that she could throw into the saddlebags. She had lost the only change of clothes she had brought with her. She was on her way back into the other room when she spied a mannequin wearing a complete set of riding leathers, boots and all, and they might be the right size.
Score!
She undressed the mannequin and took the leather outfit with her to the dressing room. She thought about just changing right there in the middle of the store, but somehow that just seemed wrong.

She looked herself up and down in the mirror of the dressing room. Not too damn bad. The boots were a little big… Then it struck her suddenly that she was being ridiculous. She shrugged it off and rationalized the shopping spree.
These are practical for the ride, and besides, they make me look hot!
She smiled as she looked over her shoulder at the mirror on the way out.

The other room sucked her right back into reality; she felt the bile rise in her throat as she collected her weapons and loaded up the bike. She had nabbed a big Gucci bag from the boutique, which she filled with the spare magazines and extra ammo. She strapped it to the back of the seat with bungee cords that she found in the bottom of the saddlebags.

She wolfed down a couple of Snickers and drank a bottle of water as she double-checked that everything was secure. With the AR15 snugged down across her back with its two-point harness, she fired up the bike and levered it into gear. When she goosed the throttle, the back tire spun in the gravel and she almost went down. Looking around, embarrassed, she reminded herself of the first rule of riding—she shouldn’t get cocky. The cocky motorcycle rider was usually the one in the hospital, or worse.

Three hours later she was getting close to Morgantown. So far, the trip had passed without any major problems. The Road King suspension made the long ride much easier on her than the Softail they had owned. She and Ryan had made the trip from Charleston to Myrtle Beach on the Heritage Softail shortly after they bought it. It took her a full day lying on the beach to recover from that trip. Being a biker chick had its price.

Her stomach rumbled and the thought of another candy bar was unappealing. Time to forage for some food. She thought about the best place to find something. She’d passed a few people so far on the trip, but that number would probably increase once she got into Morgantown. It was a college town and its population dropped dramatically in the summer, but it was still one of West Virginia’s larger cities. Better to stop at Cheat Lake and find a small convenience store than to venture into a big supermarket. The place would probably be crawling with people buying up everything in sight. She also needed to start thinking about where and how she was going to fill up the bike.

Auddy heard the sound of a car screeching to a halt out front. She ran to the door and opened it in time to see Danny sprinting up the stairs. The look on his face was one of abject terror. She stepped out onto the porch, only to be grabbed and dragged back inside. Danny slammed the door and leaned against it, his breath coming in huge gulps.

“Danny, what’s the matter?”

He held up a hand while bent over, trying to catch his breath. “Just a minute.” She had never seen him this rattled before, and it was scaring her.

“You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.” Shaking his head as he finally got control of his breathing, he said, “Hell, I don’t believe what I saw. There has to be some explanation.”

That got her attention. Danny never swore, not so much as a “damn it,” and certainly not a “hell.” Danny saying that was as unusual as her dropping an F-bomb.

“Okay, Danny, you’re scaring me. What happened out there?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but poor old Bill is dead, and I found Mr. Dietrich eating one of the wait staff. He looked like a frickin’ zombie. And I saw a bunch more people running across the eighteenth fairway.”

She started to laugh but cut it off halfway out. The resulting sound was a
“Hak!”

“I am not kidding you, I swear I’m not.”

“Come on Dan, those guys are just pulling some kind of joke on you. You sure you weren’t being videoed for one of those ‘gotcha’-type prank sites?”

“If they are, they’ve gone to some awful expense to do it. The entire clubhouse is trashed, the restaurant, the pro shop, all of it is a mess. I found Bill behind his counter looking like he’d been attacked by a school of piranha. Then Mr. Dietrich…” Danny shook his head and shivered as he recalled the scene. “Mr. Dietrich was eating one of the waiters, for God’s sake. And what about the lights? I haven’t seen any lights around here, or even close by… What about the cell towers? A prank? I don’t think so.”

Auddy furrowed her brow. “So help me Danny, if you’re pulling some kind of fast one on me, I’m going to kill you.”

“Quit looking at me like that. I am not ‘pulling’ anything on you.” He took her by the hand and went to the back door slider, opened it, and stepped out onto the porch. She started to say something else, but he raised his hand and shushed her.

He must be losing his mind. Did he just
shush
me?
she thought, but she didn’t say anything. He was listening, his head cocked a little to one side.

“There! Did you hear that? Listen, do you hear that shrieking sound?” She listened. Then she heard what he was talking about.

“Babe, I think you’re getting a little overstimulated or something. That could be a cat fight or any number of things.” She refused to be sucked into whatever paranoid delusion he had created in his head.

“Fine, I’m going downstairs to Mrs. Honaker’s place. See if she has any idea what’s going on.” Then she did laugh. Mrs. Honaker was the biggest conspiracy theorist she had ever met—well, besides her dad.

“Be careful, that crazy old lady might think you’re a Fed and shoot you.”

“Whatever, just humor me and stay put. Do not go outside, okay?” He looked at her intently.

“Babe, I’ll be fine,” she said, brushing past him on her way back inside. “You, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.”

Danny let it go and went to the front door. He peered through the peephole. The fisheye view took in nothing but the dark porch. He slowly opened the door. He aimed his beam of light into each corner and down the stairs.
So help me God, if this is some kind of prank I will kill the bastards.
He was truly frightened, more than he could remember ever being. His search turned up no boogeymen. He crept out of the condo, dreading closing the door behind him, knowing that he had to. Auddy didn’t believe a word of what he had said, but it didn’t matter. He knew what he had seen. He turned off his flashlight, then stood there for a full minute, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He slowly worked his way down the stairs. He turned at the bottom and went to Mrs. Honaker’s front door.

She had made him learn a special knock, one that she would recognize as unique to him. At the time, he laughingly played along. He used the special knock now, humming the rhythm in his head.
Tap taptaptap tap…
He waited, then heard
tap tap
in response. “Mrs. Honaker, it’s me, Danny,” he whispered loudly into the crack of the doorway.

The elderly woman opened the door an inch and looked out at him. She quickly shut the door and removed the chain. “Come in Danny, hurry, you mustn’t be out there.” Danny slid in and she hurriedly shut the door behind him. Her condo was completely dark. She clicked on her flashlight. Smothering the light with her fist, she led the way to the master bathroom. Once inside with the door shut, she turned up the light of the camp stove on her vanity to a low shimmering setting.