Escaping Home (11 page)

“Talking to her boss. Let's just say she's got a couple fewer hairs on her head from our interaction.”

Fred grabbed Jess by the hand and led her toward one of the tables. “Tell me everything.”

I
went to the house to start pulling the power plant out of the shop. Thad said he'd help me while the other guys went to load up for another trip. No one was home, so I figured the girls were still out shooting. I pulled the fridge open and saw a bowl with some leftovers from last night.

“You hungry?” I asked Thad.

“You know it.”

I set the bowl on the table with a couple of forks.

“Not too bad cold,” I said.

“No, pretty good.”

Chewing, I said, “Found another body.”

“Where?”

“The house I got the trailer from, he put a bullet in his head. I found a bottle of insulin on the table next to him. Guess he didn't want to suffer a slow death.”

Thad thought about it for a moment. “I read somewhere how they treated diabetics before there was insulin. They had to eat a very low-calorie diet, almost like a starvation diet.”

“I'm sure he was probably already on that at this point.”

Thad looked at the nearly empty bowl. “Yeah, prolly so.”

After Thad finished eating, I had to completely disconnect the power as we had to disassemble the battery bank and move the inverter into the trailer. It was a good thing that Thad is a big guy; those batteries were heavy. We were inside the trailer reconnecting the cables between the batteries when Mel came out.

“Hey, the power's out!”

I looked at her and then back at the batteries in the trailer, then at Thad. “Huh, I wonder why.” Thad laughed.

“What are you doing? Why'd you take it all apart?”

“I'm setting it all up in here so that if we had to move real quick, we could take it with us.”

Before Mel could comment, the girls came bouncing out the back door. Taylor had a huge smile on her face.

“Where'd you get that?” I asked her, pointing to the H&K slung over her shoulder.

She looked at it and smiled, “Pretty cool, huh? Ted gave them to us.”

I looked at Mel. “Us?”

“Yeah, we all have one. He was having a hard time getting everyone, as he put it,
proficient with a pistol
, so he got these out.” She looked back at the girls. “We're all pretty good with them too.”

Taylor swiveled the weapon around so she could hold it up. “It's even got full auto!”

Mel quickly looked at her. “Which you're not going to use.”

“Yeah, I know. Just showing Dad.”

“That's some fine hardware there,” Thad said.

Taylor beamed. She was so happy, she couldn't stand still.

“For now, go put it in the house.” I looked at Mel. “Where are the other ones?”

“Hanging on the hooks by the front door.”

“Unloaded, I hope.”

“Of course. I'm not stupid.”

Looking at Taylor, I said, “Go put yours there too. You don't need to carry that thing around the house.”

“Why? You carry yours everywhere, so does he,” she said, pointing to the Glock on Thad's hip.

The statement really pissed me off and I almost flew off the handle. “Taylor, I agreed that you guys could be armed for self-defense. There's nothing to defend yourself from around here, because me and Thad are armed. If we go anywhere, then you guys will be armed. For now they stay in the house.”

She stood there looking like she was going to protest. “Now!” I said in my sternest father “or else” tone.

Reluctantly she went inside. I told Mel the power would be back on soon, and she and Lee Ann headed for the house as well, leaving Little Bit with us.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“Can you finish this, Thad? I want to go pull the wire out of the shop so we can reroute it into here.”

He nodded and went back to connecting the batteries. I looked over at Little Bit and smiled. “Come on. You can help me.”

There were two sets of cables into the shop: one was from the solar panels, the other from the feed that went to breaker box. My connection to the house was not exactly up to code. I brought the line in from the inverter and connected it to a two-pole breaker in the panel. When the power went out, the process was to turn off the main breaker coming from the meter and turn this one on so it wasn't feeding the grid. All of the wire was in conduit buried in the ground, which meant the trailer would have to sit beside the shop where all the wires entered.

Inside, I let Little Bit cut cable ties and pull wires loose. Then we went outside and she used a screwdriver to take covers off the boxes so we could pull the wire out. Of course, with her
help
this all took longer than if I had done it alone, but it was a lot more fun. Once the wire was out of the building, it only took a couple of holes being drilled into the trailer and the wire was in. The wire outside was wrapped in rubber electrical tape and that was in turn covered with vinyl tape to protect it.

After unhooking the trailer, I turned the power back on and went in the house to check it. Everything was up and running again, much to the relief of the girls. Heading for the door, I told Mel I was going to go over to Reggie's house. By that point in the day, the trailer should have been loaded. I wanted to hook it up for tomorrow's trip to the cabins. Thad was waiting in the truck when I got back, and we headed out.

We found Sarge and Ted sitting in Sarge's buggy at the intersection of Reggie's road. Stopping, we got out to find Doc, Danny and Reggie walking up from his house. We gathered around the front of the truck and shot the shit for a bit about the next load.

“You get that power plant loaded into the trailer?”

“Yeah, we got it. Glad he was there to help.” I nodded toward Thad.

“What about the panels? How long to get them loaded?”

“Just a couple of minutes, they have some wing nuts and plugs and they come right down.” I looked around at everyone. “How come no one is at the barricade?”

“We were just getting ready to figure out who was going. You want to?” Ted asked.

“Don't matter to me, I can. Who's coming with me?”

“I'll go,” Danny said.

Reggie stretched his arms over his head, arching his back. “Good, 'cause I didn't—”

He was cut off by a loud crack and crumpled to the ground. Ted, Doc and Sarge were immediately on the ground; Danny, Thad and me a second behind them, a little slower than the guys that had been in combat.

“Did anyone hear the shot?” Sarge called out.

“No, just the round!” Ted replied as he looked around, his M4 at his shoulder.

“Shit! Reggie's hit!” Doc shouted as he crawled over to him.

“Where'd he get hit?” Sarge asked.

Reggie was lying facedown in the road, a gurgling sound coming from him. Doc rolled him over to reveal a large exit wound in his chest. “In the back! Someone get my bag out of the buggy!”

I got to my knees to crawl over. “Stay down, dammit!” Sarge shouted.

Crawling to the buggy, I reached in and fumbled around for the pack. Doc looked up. “It's in the backseat!”

“The shot came from down there somewhere!” Sarge shouted, pointing down the road toward the barricade.

I managed to drag Doc's bag out and back to him. What I saw was horrible: a hole the size of a tennis ball in the center of Reggie's chest, pooled with blood. Reggie's eyes were open and he was looking up, as if beyond us. Blood trickled from his mouth.

“Ted, can you see anything out there? Anywhere the shot could have come from?” Sarge shouted.

“Thad, come over here and help us move him!” Doc shouted.

Thad crawled over. “Oh shit!”

“Come on, grab his shoulders. Morgan, help him, let's move!”

“I didn't see shit; he's got to be way out there,” Ted shouted back.

The three of us quickly moved Reggie down the road twenty yards or so. Doc was stuffing a large dressing of some kind into the wound with one hand as we moved. “Hang on, Reggie, hang on!”

Setting him down, Doc told us to roll him on his side. When we did, blood poured from his mouth. “Shit!” Doc screamed. “Morgan, check for a pulse.” Doc was furiously trying to stop the bleeding, though even I could tell that if he did manage to stop it, there was no way in hell we could keep him alive. The amount of blood loss was massive; he needed a transfusion now.

“I can't find one,” I said, checking both sides of his neck.

“Check his femoral artery, inside his thigh.”

“Nothing, there's nothing there.”

“Son of a bitch!” Doc shouted.

“What's the word, Doc?” Sarge called out.

Doc looked over at him and shook his head.

“Well, shit!” Sarge was shaking his head. “Teddy, we need to find that sumbitch!”

“And fucking kill him!” Ted shouted back.

“Go to the house and get my M1A. We're going to find his ass.”

“How are you going to do that?” Danny asked.

Sarge looked at him, then at his buggy. “Morgan, stay low, but get in that truck and block the road. Do it fast and get out.” He paused. “
Fast
, understand?”

I nodded and darted to the passenger side and climbed in. Thankfully it had a bench seat in the front, and so I crawled over to the driver's side. Lying across the front seat, raising my head just enough to see, I started it and threw it in reverse, backing it out in a wide arch in the road. I quickly climbed out the driver's side and ran for the side of the road. Another crack and the two rear windows on either side of the truck spiderwebbed.

“Bastard's still out there!” Ted shouted.

“Morgan, how can we get up to the end of the road without this sumbitch seeing us?” Sarge asked.

“I know a way.”

“Perfect.” He crawled over to the buggy and pulled a bag out, handing Danny a small handheld. “You and Thad stay here and give him something to see.” He looked over at me. “Give me your jacket.”

I didn't know what he was up to, but I did as he asked, tossing it over to him. Sarge zipped it up and started looking around. “I need something to stuff in this thing.”

“There's a roll of plastic in the trailer; I'll go get it,” Danny said, taking off in a sprint.

“Bring a broom too!” Sarge shouted.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ted asked.

“We're going to make a dummy and put it in the seat of that buggy. Danny can lie on the floor and drive it; he'll be behind the armor so he can't be hit. He's gonna drive it straight down the road here, and then we'll be in position to see the next shot, hopefully.”

“You're gonna do
what
?” Thad asked incredulously.

“Oh, Danny's gonna love that.”

When Danny got back Sarge and Ted spent a few minutes assembling the dummy. The jacket was stuffed with plastic, the broom handle running up it. Sarge used a green triangular bandage to make a scarf around the face and a Kevlar helmet for a head.

“Give me your shades,” Sarge said to Ted, holding his hand out.

“What? Why?”

“We need some eyes on this thing! Now give 'em here!”

Very reluctantly, he handed them over. Sarge pushed them on the head and the two of them set the decoy in the driver's seat, taping the sleeves to the steering wheel with duct tape. Sarge gave Danny the rundown of what he wanted him to do.

“Are you fucking nuts?” Danny asked, shaking his head.

“You'll be behind the armor, as long as you keep your head down you'll be fine. We got to find this guy, or he'll pick us off one by one.”

“I think it's a shitty idea.”

“That's fine, you can think that. Now get your ass in there,” Sarge said, pointing to the buggy.

Danny climbed in, trying to squeeze himself onto the floor. Sarge told Thad to wait for him to call. He wanted him to go out behind the truck and move around some, not to stand still, but to move, then run off the road. He needed to keep the guy busy. Thad nodded and Sarge looked at me to lead the way.

We passed Doc who was still sitting beside Reggie, Sarge looked at him. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“There was nothing you could do with a wound like that. Get it together; we need you.”

“Go on, I'll be all right.”

“Doc, if we get a line on this SOB and start shooting, tell Danny to swing back around and pick you an' Thad up. We may need you guys to maneuver on his position.”

“Roger that,” Doc said as he started to stand, pausing to wipe the blood from his hands on Reggie's pants.

“Teddy, where's that sixty-millimeter tube?” Sarge asked.

“At the house, want it?”

“Yeah, go get it. How many rounds did we get for it?”

“Twenty, all high-explosive HE rounds.”

“Bring five of 'em.”

Ted ran off toward Reggie's place while we waited. Sarge pulled the buggy's SAW off its mount, draping belts of ammo over his shoulder. After a few minutes, Ted was back with a tube about three and a half feet long and had a plate on one end with a handle. He handed me the tube and slung a heavy-looking pack over his shoulder.

“Is this a mortar?” I asked, looking at it.

“Yep, if we find that bastard, Teddy'll shove a round up his ass.” Sarge grinned. “Lead the way!”

We took off through the backyards of houses in the neighborhood, scaling multiple fences. When we came to my yard, the girls were outside throwing a Frisbee that Meathead was eagerly trying to catch.

“Get inside and stay there!” I shouted as I cleared the fence.

Little Bit took off at a run for the house. “What's going on?” Taylor asked.

“There's a sniper out here somewhere. Get in the house!”

“Really? I didn't hear anything.”

We were running past her and Lee Ann, but they were just standing there, dumbstruck. “Move your asses, in the house
now
!” Sarge barked.

That got them in gear. We used the hole in the fence to get into Howard's yard, knowing the next property over would be the best one to use to take cover. That one had a screen of cedars planted along the road that would provide great concealment.