“What do you want!?” shrieked a thin, young woman, the desperate look on her dirty face more animal than human.
Startled by the unexpected figure, Kyle jumped back. “I just want to get some food. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
The woman backed further into the trailer. She eyed Kyle suspiciously as she moved, her gaze jumping from Kyle’s face to his gun, as her hands tugged a dirty blanket tight around her shoulders. Kyle watched her move away, reading the nightmare her life had become in the lines of her face and the fear in her eyes. Her matted hair, swollen cheek, and piercing, wild eyes spoke volumes about her struggle for survival.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Kyle insisted. “I’ve been sick. I just need to get some food.” Kyle could see that his gun made her anxious, and his rough appearance likely didn’t help either, but he wasn’t about to put down the only protection he had, meager as it was. “Did you see anyone pulling an old wood cart made with bicycle tires, last night?”
The woman shook her head almost imperceptibly, then backed against the wall of the trailer and slid down until she sat on her heels amongst the empty boxes, her eyes still locked on Kyle.
“Anyone else in here?” Kyle asked as he passed by her.
Refusing to speak, the woman shook her head, then, once Kyle was past her, scurried to the door of the trailer, jumped to the ground, and disappeared.
Intent on finding something to ease his hunger pangs, Kyle scanned the wall of boxes in front of him before noticing a half-empty case of soup on the floor. He pulled a can out of the box and read the label. Cream of Mushroom. It was a soup he hated, but he was starving. Quickly pulling the tab on the can, Kyle tossed the lid to the side and tipped the can back, gagging as the cold, slimy soup slid down his throat. It was better than nothing, and he swallowed it all, even scraping the can with his finger to salvage every glob. He emptied another can and then began searching through the stack of boxes.
When he was done rummaging, Kyle had a decent-sized stack of food haphazardly piled at the back of the truck. He ran to a nearby moving van, dug around unsuccessfully for a bag of some sort, then grabbed a large blanket that was wrapped protectively around a dresser. He tied the corners together to fashion a crude sling, then looped it over his head and returned to the truck to fill the sling with the food he’d collected: a dozen cans of soup, two jars of peanut butter, a case of tuna, and cans of olives, corn and mushrooms. Kyle wished he had his cart with him so he could have loaded up a couple of week’s worth of groceries, but he didn’t. That was his next item of business.
With a fuller stomach and an improved outlook, Kyle hurried towards the freeway, his eyes scanning the road in front of him for his cart. He looked back to the east, in case he’d missed the cart the night before in the dark, but saw no sign of it. Kyle walked down the ramp towards the freeway and scanned the road. In the distance he noticed a man’s head bobbing along on the far side of a flatbed trailer. Kyle’s pulse quickened as something about the man’s gait didn’t seem quite normal. Kyle focused his gaze under the truck and saw what appeared to be wheels rolling closely behind the man. Elated but unsure, Kyle stared, hoping for confirmation, then ran to the side of the road to get a better view and wait for the stranger to emerge from behind the truck. After several long seconds, the man appeared, followed by a familiar wooden cart.
Kyle’s heart skipped a beat, and a huge wave of relief swept over him. He’d found his cart. With the cans of food clanging about in the sling at his side, Kyle took off at a quick trot, the fastest he could move with his load. The sling of food was cumbersome and slowed him down, but it was too valuable to leave behind, so he wrapped his arm tightly around the bundle and continued to trot, the gap between him and his cart gradually shrinking.
Kyle’s mind raced in unison with his feet. How would he approach the man? Would there be a confrontation? Was the stranger armed? Kyle had been warned by other walkers about the lawlessness of the highway, and their words haunted him as he considered his options. Wanting to stop the man and retrieve his cart before getting too close to Denver, and guessing there was still a good mile between them, Kyle picked up his pace.
The terrain was fairly level, but the road was full of vehicles, giving Kyle the cover he needed in order to stay out of sight until he was ready to confront the stranger. The man with the cart traveled mostly on the left side of the freeway, so Kyle stayed to the right, moving quickly from vehicle to vehicle. Fifty minutes after first spotting the man, Kyle closed the gap to within thirty yards. He set his sling down behind a silver Chevy and trailed along until a semi-truck that was pulled well over on the right shoulder provided him with good cover. Waiting until the stranger was out in the open, Kyle took one last nervous breath, then stepped out from behind the truck and fired a shot into the dirt on his side of the road, just as he’d scripted it in his mind. Immediately he had the man’s attention.
At the sound of the shot, the stranger dropped to the ground, his head pivoting from side to side to see where it had come from. Kyle stayed close to the semi-truck with his gun held ready at his side. “Put your hands where I can see them,” Kyle yelled, “and get away from my cart.”
The man crawled behind the cart for protection, one hand raised in the air. “What do you want?’ he yelled back. “Why are you shooting at me?”
“I want my cart. You stole it from me yesterday. I want it back.”
“This is your cart?” the man asked incredulously, his head peering up from behind it. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t think you’d need it. I swear.”
“Well I’m not dead, and I want my cart.”
With both hands raised in the air, the man stood up from behind the cart. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “I’m just trying to get back home.”
“I don’t want any trouble either, but I need my cart.” Kyle lowered his gun slightly in a show of good faith.
“Okay! You can have it back. Just don’t shoot again.” The stranger took a step away from the cart, his eyes fixed on Kyle. Kyle appraised him as the tension of the moment began to ease.
The man appeared to be older than Kyle, maybe forty, and was physically bigger — taller, and broader in the shoulders. Like most guys Kyle had met on the road, the man had a full beard and a thin, dirty face. Unlike most, a tattoo of what looked like a dragon extended from below his right eye, disappeared under his beard, and continued down below the collar of the man’s sweatshirt. A well-worn Pittsburgh Steelers hat covered his head, and long, dark hair escaped from underneath it.
Kyle kept his gun pointed in the man’s general direction, maintaining his control.
“You can put the gun down,” the man shouted as he slowly lowered his hands and stepped back over to the cart. “I just need to get my stuff.”
Kyle lowered his gun a little more and took a cautious step away from the cover of the truck. He could feel perspiration forming on his forehead in sharp contrast to his mouth, which was so dry he could barely swallow. Standing in the middle of the highway, gun drawn, facing down a stranger, Kyle was unsure how the situation was going to play out, especially knowing there would be no one to step in and help if things went badly.
The man hesitated, then slowly pulled a green duffle bag from the cart and tossed it on the ground beside him. As Kyle watched the bag tumble to the ground, the man turned casually away from Kyle and seemed to be scratching his stomach before he spun back around a split second later, a handgun drawn and a wicked sneer on his face. Kyle dove back towards the truck as two shots rang out, one of the bullets shattering the truck’s headlight and showering the ground around Kyle with pieces of glass.