Collision Course (25 page)

“Sorry, man,” DJ said. “I didn't mean to shoot you.”

Peter's mouth moved to form his two-word response. Little sound came out, but DJ had no problem reading his lips. It didn't anger DJ, though. He would have been pissed, too. He began to think about what would happen now. Would Margaret be able to get Peter to the hospital in time? He hoped so. What would this mean?

Suddenly something bit DJ in the side and in the leg and roared at him. For the second time in less than a minute, he was confused. It burned like a red-hot poker and sent his brain back into overdrive.

“You son of a bitch! You shot my husband!”

DJ turned and saw Margaret charging at him with the shotgun. He distinctly saw her pump the action, and the empty shell arced out of the receiver. As her left hand pushed the forearm up to return the gun to battery, DJ realized that the next “bites” might really be hazardous to his health. The pistol in his hand came up instinctively, and three shots were fired before he could contemplate the consequences of his reaction.

DJ didn't know if all three of his bullets had found their target or not, but at least one of them did. It struck Margaret above the left eye and stopped her kamikaze charge in an instant. The shotgun flew out of her hands as she crumpled into a heap on the ground. It hit the earth a split second after she did.

DJ walked up to her, his pistol still trained in her direction. It was obvious that she'd been dead before she hit the ground. He felt a little remorse at having to kill the woman who'd insisted her husband take him in, but he'd seen last night how deadly she could be with the scattergun. It was her or him, and DJ wanted to live.

He turned back toward Peter and saw the man trying unsuccessfully to get up. DJ was pretty sure he wouldn't make it without some urgent care within an hour or so. There was no sense in letting the man suffer. He limped up to Peter and pointed the pistol at the prone man's head. “I'm really sorry about this,” he said sincerely as the hate raged in Peter's face.

The boom of the big pistol echoed between the house and the detached garage for a moment, and then all was quiet.

* * *

“And you want to do this next Saturday afternoon?” the preacher said.

Gabe and Jane both nodded.

The preacher broke into a big grin. “I think that's wonderful, and I'd be honored to perform the ceremony.”

“Thank you so much, Reverend Washington,” Gabe said as he extended his hand to the preacher.

“You are more than welcome, brother Horne and sister Walker.” The old man shook Gabe's hand energetically.

“And thanks for the sermon this morning, Reverend,” Gabe said.

“You don't have to thank me for that. I was only following my convictions.”

“Well, I think you got through to a lot of people. We'll have to see what happens with the meeting this afternoon, but I expect there won't be nearly as much resistance to Paul's plan as there was.”

“I hope and pray you're right, brother Horne,” the preacher said.

CHAPTER 27

D
J went into the house and climbed the stairs. He entered the master bedroom and walked into the master bath. Laying his carbine on the vanity, he opened medicine chests and cabinets, strewing items across the small room until he found a first aid kit. He gingerly hiked up his pants and looked at his leg. The buckshot had passed through his calf muscle. He wiped the blood away and got a clear, quick look at the wounds before they overflowed with blood again. DJ knew from the little EMT training he had taken that as long as he could get the bleeding under control, infection was probably the biggest threat he would face from this injury.

He pulled out a bottle of peroxide and poured it over both sides of the wound. Once it quit bubbling, he placed a large piece of gauze over the holes and wrapped enough tape over them to hold them in place. Next, he turned his attention to his side. Removing his shirt, he could see that there was no exit wound. He got a closer look in the mirror, and saw that the pellet had entered his flank well to the side of anything vital. It wasn't bleeding badly, but he cleaned it up and dressed it just as he had done his calf.

The wounds hurt, but he needed to get the backyard cleaned up before he worried about that. He pulled the bedspread and blanket off the bed in the master suite and made his way out back. First he wrapped Margaret's body up and then Peter's. He dragged them to the garage where the raiders' bodies were and placed them at the end of the line.

He headed back to the master bath and started looking through the medicine he had scattered on the floor. Most of the names on the bottles he didn't recognize. Finally he found one he did: a bottle of Vicodin with eleven pills left. He took two. Then he found the liquor cabinet and grabbed an almost full bottle of bourbon. He took two big swigs out of the bottle and then replaced it.
That should dull the pain
.

* * *

Gabe decided that he would run the meeting. He didn't expect any trouble, but after what had happened yesterday with Paul, he couldn't take any chances. The auditorium of the small church was packed with people standing around the back, along the sides of the pews, and even in the aisle. Reverend Washington had asked his wife to take the children into the fellowship hall and entertain them so that there would be more room for the adults, but it wasn't enough. When people were still arriving right before the meeting started, he invited some to sit in the choir loft. That helped a bit, but there were still a few standing outside when Gabe called the meeting to order. He was sure that after the sermon this morning, the defense plans would pass easily.

“I'll get right down to business,” he said.

“We can't hear you!” someone in the entryway hollered.

“I said, I'll get right down to business. We need to vote on the defense plans that Captain Lozano suggested last night. All in favor—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Horne, but I would like to say something before we vote,” a voice called out from the floor.

Crap,
Gabe thought. “Of course,” was all he said.

It was the man who had complained that taking out a bridge would force him to drive farther to get into town at the last meeting. He seemed nervous about talking in front of everyone.

“My name is Jake Solis and I live across Cotton Creek, about five miles from here. At the last meeting, I objected to removing the bridge that I and others have to take to get here. I talked with most of my neighbors today and they feel the same as I do.” The man paused. The fact that no one said anything appeared to make him nervous. “Anyway, we do understand why you all want to do it, but it would cut us off from help and from the closest route we have to town. We discussed it and we think we might have a solution that would benefit everyone. What if we established a roadblock two miles north of the Cotton Creek Bridge? There's a big hill on the side of the road there and we should be able to push enough of it over to stop anybody in a vehicle. This would not cut us off from town and it would add eighteen families to your community. That should add enough manpower to really help with the checkpoint and other things.”

The man makes a good argument,
Gabe thought. “Paul, what do you think?” he asked.

“I think that is a great plan.”

“Then all in favor?”

The positive response filled the auditorium.

“It looks like the ‘Ayes' have it,” Gabe said as he looked at the faces in the crowd. They were all smiling at him. He wondered how things could be going so well. He wasn't drinking anymore, he was in love and going to get married, his neighbors respected him and looked up to him. It had taken the world falling apart to put his world back together. He smiled back at the people in the church. Suddenly he realized he didn't know what to say next. His brain raced for a solution. “I'm going to turn the meeting over to Paul to discuss how we can get our plan implemented in the shortest amount of time. Paul?”

Paul stood and walked to the podium. The expression on his face told Gabe that he wasn't really ready for this, either. He gripped the sides of the lectern tightly and looked at all the expectant faces. He cleared his throat. “I think that maybe the best thing for us to do is to get together with anyone who would be willing to work on the roadblocks or man one of the checkpoints. If you want to help out, stick around after the meeting and we'll see who and what we have. Gabe?”

Gabe walked back up knowing that he deserved to have the tables turned on him the way Paul had done it. He wasn't happy it had happened, but he still had to smile about it. “Is there anything else we need to talk about?” he said when he reached the podium.

“Yeah,” someone said, “when is school going to start?”

Gabe looked around the room. “Mr. Evans, are you here?”

“Right here.” The man stood up in the back corner of the sanctuary. “We were hoping to get started on Wednesday, but we still have some things to work out. We are aiming for next Monday now and we're pretty sure we'll be ready by then.”

No one answered, but almost everyone over the age of thirty was nodding.

“That's good,” Gabe said. “Is there anything else?”

No one said anything. Gabe was about to dismiss everyone when a thought crossed his mind. He looked at Jane. “I have a personal announcement I'd like to make if you all don't mind.” Jane gave him a nod. “Jane Walker and I are getting married next Saturday at two and we'd like to invite you all to the ceremony right here at the church.”

It was quiet for a moment and then applause started in the back and swept through the whole room. Gabe was a little embarrassed. He looked at Jane and could see that she had not expected this reaction, either. He held his hands up to try to stop the clapping. It took a minute, but finally he thanked everyone for their support and adjourned the meeting.

He wanted to talk to Jane before the next meeting started, but he saw that several of the ladies had surrounded her and they were all moving toward the door.

Gabe sat in the front row while Paul spoke about what they should work on first. Gabe caught most of what was being said, but his mind kept drifting to Jane. Had he really just told everyone that they were getting married? How was that possible? He loved her, he knew. In fact, he hadn't been this happy since . . . well, for a long time. What baffled him was that she could love him. He vowed that he wouldn't let her down.

“So it looks like the hardest project is blocking the road north of Cotton Creek,” Gabe heard Paul say. “Mr. Solis has volunteered his tractor, but we are still going to need several people to run shovels. Can I get some volunteers?”

Gabe raised his hand. From the look on Paul's face, his must not have been the only one. “That's great,” Paul said. “Thank you all very much.”

Paul began to talk about manning the checkpoints once they were built, but Gabe was having more and more trouble focusing on the conversation. He just wanted to go to Jane, look in her eyes, and kiss her.

Finally the meeting ended and Gabe made his way to Jane's house.

“So, how was the roadblock meeting?” Jane asked.

“It went pretty good. We have one major problem, though,” Gabe said.

“What is that?”

“Ammunition. Nobody has much ammo. Several guys have military-type weapons, but only one of them has over a couple of hundred rounds. Some of the guys don't have more than a few rounds for their deer rifles. I'm just lucky I found a few boxes for mine when we went to town.”

“What are you going to do?” Jane said.

“I really don't know. I guess all we can do is be careful. Hopefully, we won't need much ammo. If we get the checkpoints put together right, Paul thinks that just the show of force should prevent most problems.”

“What about blocking the roads off? Isn't that going to be hard?”

“A little. The bridge over York Creek is wooden, so that will be easy to take apart. Pushing enough dirt over Cotton Creek Road would be easy if we had a bulldozer, the guys told me. But all we have are some tractors with front-end loaders on them. They'll make it easier than using shovels and wheelbarrows, but it is still going to require quite a few man-hours. And Paul said that without some security at the sites, there's no way to guarantee the barriers won't be breached. We just have to hope it creates a big enough obstacle to discourage people.”

“I see. Do you think it will work?”

“I hope so,” Gabe said. “All we can do is hope so.”

* * *

The sky was pink and purple when DJ woke up. He wasn't sure if it was dawn or sunset at first, but he rolled out of bed and stumbled to the window. The most brilliant hues were to the west. He turned back toward the bed and saw the mostly empty liquor bottle lying on the floor. Surprisingly, his side didn't hurt much at all unless he touched it, but his calf was still quite sore. At least the drugs and alcohol had worked on one of the wounds, although they seemed to have moved the pain from his side to his head.

DJ grabbed his stuff and cautiously went down the stairs one step at a time. In the kitchen he saw the uneaten breakfast Margaret had cooked still sitting on the table. He put his bag on the floor and started opening the cabinets. He was surprised to see how full they were. There was no way he could carry this much on his quad. Not without the trailer. It was too bad he'd never be able to come back and get it all. He limped out to the barn and unlocked the door. There was just the hint of a smell from the bodies. DJ removed his last good jerry can and his siphon hose from his machine. He unlocked the gas cap on the Buick and began to drain the fuel. When the can was full, he topped off the quad and refilled the fuel container. Then he pulled the quad out and locked up the building. He should be long gone by the time anyone found the bodies, he figured.

It didn't take long to load his gear and as much of the food as he could onto his big vehicle. It was stacked a little higher than he would have preferred, but there wasn't much farther to go. After sweeping through the house once more, DJ was back on the road.

The air was cool on his face and he smiled at the feel of the big engine growling softly beneath him. He would finally be at his old retreat by tomorrow night. Life had thrown obstacles his way, but he had overcome them. Others would not have been able to make the difficult choices he had made. They would pay for their weakness, maybe even with their lives. It was a new world and it would take hard men, men like him, to survive . . . no, to
thrive
in it.

DJ began to think about what he would do when he got to his destination. The first order of business would be to find a trailer to pull with his quad, or if that failed, a pickup truck. Then enough fuel to get back to his broken trailer. Between what he had buried from the trailer and what was in his cache, he could easily live for several months.

Suddenly his entire field of view in the night vision flashed white. DJ instinctively hit the brakes and turned to miss whatever had magically appeared in his path. The big bike plowed into the large blob and DJ felt his momentum begin to lift him from the padded seat. Just as he thought he would sail over the handlebars, someone hit him with a giant pillow and he flew off the back of the quad instead. It felt as if he hung in the air for hours, wondering what had happened. The ground rose to meet him and he felt the mass that had knocked him off the four-wheeler, now not nearly so pillowlike, land on top of him.

It went dark as he felt his night-vision goggles fall off. He lay on the ground, under something warm and quivering, and attempted to breathe. Try as he might, he could not get his lungs to pull in a fresh breath of air. Finally he felt oxygen rush through his system. A split second later, he felt a searing pain in his lower back that almost took his breath away again. He tried to hold as still as possible, as if the pain would succumb to his playing possum. When it ratcheted down to a deep ache, DJ began to move his arms to see if he could determine what had hit him.

He felt short, soft hair on the blob and warm, sticky goo that could only be blood. He placed both hands on the body and pushed to try to exorcise his legs from underneath. A blinding, white-hot flash of agony traveled up his back. He heard himself moan out a sound that reminded him of a dying animal. He lay still for several minutes as the pain slowly subsided. When it was down to a tolerable level, DJ made himself think before he took any more action.

His lungs worked, as did his arms and hands, with little increase in pain. He turned his head fully to one side and then back to the other. That motion was painless, too. When he raised his head so that his chin touched his chest, there was a little discomfort in his back, but his neck seemed fine, thank goodness. He wiggled his toes and then his feet at the ankles. The left ankle was slightly sore, but nothing that he couldn't tolerate easily. Trying to bend his knees was difficult because of the weight of whatever was on him, and slightly painful, although nowhere near what he'd felt a few moments ago.