Nick stepped forward and shook his hand. He glanced around, giving the area outside the gate where Jake was parked a once-over, nodded a final goodbye and turned to head back into the shop.
Jake looked around him for any signs of trouble. All was quiet next door at the shopping strip mall and drugstore. But for the first time he noticed the windows of all those businesses had been broken out and the drugstore was now boarded up and closed for business.
His heart fell. That was his next stop, and the most important.
Loose items littered the parking lot; clothes, empty boxes, bits and pieces of something or the other. They were probably cleaned out before they were boarded up. Other than the part for Ruby, this was a wasted run and wasted gas.
On the other side of the shopping strip was a run-down residential property that was well-known to be frequented by drunks and rednecks squatting there for days on end. Piles of beer cans littered the yard most Mondays when he passed by on his way to work.
Lots of activity over there. It was a small crowd of probably ten or fifteen people and Jake could hear them yelling, although he couldn’t make out the words. Probably just drunk and rowdy.
He shoved the part for Ruby into the saddle-bag on the back and climbed onto the 4-wheeler feeling nervous about the ride to Grayson’s. He fired up the engine, getting the attention of the crowd.
“Hey!” someone yelled. Two men broke away from the group and walked toward him. Jake squinted, trying to determine if he knew the men. It’d be nice to talk to someone. Trade information at the very least, maybe find out what anyone was saying about the power being out.
Jake threw his hand up in a friendly wave. “Hey.”
One of the men shoved the other, viciously pushing him to the ground and broke into a brisk run. “I saw it first!” he yelled.
The 4-wheeler. They want it.
A handful of others split from the crowd and ran toward Jake, mere seconds behind the first two. Soon, they’d all be on him.
He quickly put the ATV in reverse.
The engine died.
He tried to start it again.
It turned over, over, and over… but didn’t fire.
Oh shit. Jake had no idea how old the battery was. Hell, where’s a mechanic when you need one, he thought in panic, looking up to see if Nick had heard the problem and come back out—hopefully carrying his gun.
No sign of Nick.
One more time, he tried it, chanting ‘please’ under his breath and hoping he wasn’t flooding it with too much gas. He looked over his shoulder. Two of the men had put some distance in front of the others. They were close. He studied their desperate faces for a second. He didn’t know either of them and they certainly weren’t running to help.
Jake’s heart raced.
He could hear his blood rushing through his ears.
Panic settled over him in a cold sweat. He couldn’t hold off a crowd of five men alone.
He looked for Nick; he wasn’t there.
Then, another glance over his shoulder.
Two of the men were fifty feet away and gaining fast. They looked like a couple of thugs.
Could this get violent? Over a 4-wheeler? Had life gone from normal to this in two days?
Finally, the engine turned over. He shifted into reverse and whipped the 4-wheeler around, nearly running over the first of the men to reach him.
Suddenly, Jake was whipped off the ATV with an elbow around his neck and thrown to the ground. He hit the pavement hard enough to rattle his teeth, landing on his ass. Tucker would kill him if his 4-wheeler was stolen. He came off the ground in a crouch spewing a burst of obscenities and lunging forward in a rush of adrenaline.
His attacker threw a leg over and landed precariously, barely on the seat, but frantically turned the handlebars to make his getaway.
Before Jake could take the four steps back to the ATV, his attacker was thrown off and landed at Jake’s feet. The second thug was on the bike now.
Jake and his attacker both leapt in tandem to reach the second man who was seconds away from gone, knocking him off the bike in a jumble of fists.
A sharp elbow cracked Jake in the forehead, knocking him back down and stunning him a second. He shook it off and sprung to his feet, and pitched forward to catch the 4-wheeler by the back rack; it was rolling away.
His hand was nearly jerked off the bike as another attack had him on his back foot, being pulled from behind. He tried to hold his ground but the ferocity of the assault was intense; he fought to pull forward but it wasn’t long before he took one step back, then another. He let go, made a sudden turn and swung behind him. The heel of his hand caught the man on the chin with the force of his body behind the blow. Jake heard something snap and the hoodlum hit the ground, only replaced by the other attacker, who took Jake down with one sweep of his foot and hopped on the bike like a cowboy at a rodeo, hooting his success.
Jake cursed his bad leg and reached behind him, pulling out the pistol he had tucked into the back of his pants, drawing it as he fell, thinking this can’t be happening. He hadn’t been in a fist fight since eighth grade, and he remembered why; it hurt like hell. He couldn’t think straight; fear and confusion clouded his mind.
What was he doing pulling a gun?
How had things ratcheted up to this level?
His finger found the trigger as his body smacked the pavement, jarring his spine.
A loud boom cracked through the air and Jake watched the thug fall from the bike in slow motion, hit the ground and lay still, while the other hooligan froze and then ran the opposite way.
17
“YOU TWO GO FIRST,” Gabby offered.
Olivia and Emma squatted while Gabby watched out for them, hopping from one foot to the other and constantly looking from the large group of people on one end of the rest area to Larry on the other end, hoping he wouldn’t leave them.
They were stupid. One of them should’ve stayed with Larry and the car. It wasn’t like he had any morals or ethics, at least as far as she could see. Gabby didn’t doubt for one second he’d leave them, if he could part Olivia from her watch first, and he still had their T-shirt bags full of stuff.
Emma jumped and pulled her pants up. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Gabby asked. She and Olivia cocked their heads, listening.
Olivia stood and jerked her pants up too, nodding with wide eyes. “I hear it.”
Farther into the woods, behind them, a small sound carried on the wind.
Gabby couldn’t wait any longer. She squatted. “Just a minute. I can’t wait. One of you watch that way and the other watch the rest area. Make sure those guys stay on their side and Larry doesn’t leave us.”
She hurried to take care of her business and then stood too, ready to go. “Come on.”
“No, Gabby. Listen. It sounds like a kitten,” Olivia whispered. “Or a baby…”
They stood very still. There it was again, but this time over the wood-bugs and birds chirping and chipping, they also heard a grunting noise. “Sounds like a wild pig,” Emma whispered. “And a kitten.”
Gabby grabbed Emma and Olivia’s arms and squeezed. “Wild pigs will attack you. They have tusks. They’re very dangerous,” she whispered. “Let’s go back to the car.”
“No. We have to go look,” Olivia whispered. She pushed the branches apart and stepped further into the woods, with Emma following closely behind.
Gabby threw her hands up into the air. “If it’s a pig, you better be able to climb a tree fast or back up and sneak away. Seriously, it can kill you…”