The men stared toward the dense woods with wide eyes as the gum fell, making a huge racket in the dry brush as it hit limbs falling down into the shadows.
At her direction, they clumsily sat down on the road.
“Bring your man over here, too, Elmer.”
Elmer gave Pudgy a shove with his shotty, herding him over to his friends. “Criss-cross applesauce,” he loudly muttered and pointed to the ground.
Reluctantly, the man sat down with his drinking buddies, still keeping his eyes on the forest.
Elmer stood over the men, his gun pointed at them. He looked at Emma and raised his eyebrows. “Go git that rope.”
Emma slowly walked backward, keeping her eyes on them as long as she could, and then jumped into the wagon to get her bag. She jumped back out, carrying it with her and dug into it, pulling out a sandwich baggie full of large plastic zip ties. “Look. Always wondered what use I’d find for these,” she said, and held up the bag for Elmer to see.
He nodded his approval.
One by one, she locked the men’s hands behind their backs with zip ties, and then tied all three zip ties together with a long piece of paracord from her bag, putting them back to back and then tying that around a tree off the side of the road, like a leash.
When she got to Pudgy, he just couldn’t help himself. “Your hands are soft, princess. How about you and me spend some time in that wagon before you go? A little roll in the hay? That old man can’t have much lead left in his pencil.” He laughed. “I get loose from this, and I’m going to have a go at it anyway… but, I promise you’ll like it.”
Emma leaned over and spit at the side of his face. “I’d rather be dead.”
“That can happen, too,” Pudgy promised, shaking his head in anger.
Emma stepped in front of him and raised her gun, pressing it tight against his forehead. Flashbacks of her childhood played like a movie in her head. Terrible things at the hands of a drunken man would never happen to her again. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. Her finger moved into the trigger guard and itched to pull.
Elmer intervened, slowly pushing the gun away from Pudgy. “He’s drunk. Pay him no mind, girl.”
Emma stood still, battling the ghosts in her mind. Finally, she pushed them aside, and asked, “Where’s the keys to the cars?” They still needed to move the roadblock so they could get through.
No one spoke up.
Emma put her boot between Rake’s legs, hovering over his balls. He stared at the boot and then up at her. “I don’t know! Ask them,” he yelled.
She stepped down hard and every man there flinched in pain. “I’m asking you… where’s the keys?”
Rake screamed like a girl and tried to roll over onto his side. His friends shoved at him, and pulled him back upright, keeping him in a sitting position while he tried to suck in air. Emma hovered her boot over him again. It didn’t take any more than that for the coward to sing. “Over there. Behind that big square rock,” he gasped.
He pointed toward the rock with his head.
Elmer left Emma watching the men while he went looking. He found both sets of keys and sat down in the Cavalier first, hoping it had enough gas to start so he could move it.
It did.
Surprisingly, it actually had half a tank. More than enough for him and Emma to make a fast get-away. He’d be home with Edith all the sooner. He considered telling Emma… but quickly changed his mind. He couldn’t leave his tractor behind. He’d need it come planting-time now more than ever. It could mean the difference between life and death for him and Edith.
But if these hooligans had gas, why were they just sitting around robbing people? Surely, there’s somewhere they could go with better pickings than this old deserted road, he thought.
Carefully, he maneuvered the car out of his way and hurried back to Emma. “Let’s go, Emma.” He glared at the men. “She’s going to hold that gun on you while we get down the road. If any of y’all move, she’s going to shoot you. If you stand up, she’s going to shoot you. Don’t even think about getting up at all until you can no longer see or hear us… or she’ll shoot you. Is that clear enough? You’ve been warned.”
Pudgy grimaced when she tightened his zip tie. “You can’t just leave us here. We’ll die. What if someone else comes along and shoots us or something?”
Elmer rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like they were tying up their feet. These men had some gear somewhere, he was sure of that, and he was leaving them this way so they could move around. As soon as they were gone, he felt sure they’d find a knife or something in their gear and get free. It might take them awhile having to move together as a team, but that was even better. He and Emma would be long gone by then.
And they’d be on foot, because he was taking the car keys with him.
Emma shrugged. “Our watchers in the woods will keep an eye out for you until we’re way down the road. After that, they’ll follow us and it’s not my problem. Bad things happen to bad people and you are bad people. Would you rather we shoot you? That’s what you threatened to do to Elmer, isn’t it?”
She stepped up on the wagon, keeping her gun trained on the men. Elmer made his way to the tractor and they slowly pulled away, Emma keeping her gun steady, barely blinking an eye.
They were less than fifty feet away when Pudgy tried to stand, jerking his buddies up with him.
A shot rang out, followed by horrifying, blood-chilling screams.
22
Ruby carried the motley crew out of Tullymore and onto the bypass toward town. Jake and Grayson were in the front. Tina, Tarra, Tucker and two guys from the ‘hood were in the back. Tucker had chosen Mickey and Frank because their firearms had been visible in low-hanging holsters as they had sat at the tables eating with their wives. It was an easy choice.
The neighbors had all contributed money—as though they really thought the group could come back with a full truck of groceries—and had called out things they needed.
Tucker had ignored them all, Sarah’s baby the only thing on his list.
All had high hopes to find something useful, but they each kept them to themselves.
Tucker could only think about formula for Sammi. He had to help her. He felt that nothing else good could happen if he failed the first person that needed him. Especially if that person was a child. His group would never trust or believe in him again if he couldn’t help her. He’d like to think that even if he wasn’t their designated leader, he’d still risk everything to save a child—any child. But he was their leader, and things had just gotten real… real fast.
Of course, first on the ladies’ minds was fuel. Neither spoke it aloud but they both hoped to see that by some miracle, FEMA finally had their act together to move faster in disasters, and had arrived with tankers of gas and truck loads of food and water. They’d discussed the possibility that the outage was regional, and hopefully not the entire United States. Maybe just the East coast. They both held that hope close to their hearts.
Grayson wanted more bullets, beans and Band-Aids. He hoped for anything he could get to add to their group supplies, but he especially wanted coffee. He hadn’t yet broken the news to the group that one of the things they no longer had—thanks to Olivia—was the magic beans that made their brains function and their mornings brighter. If they found that out, the shit really would hit the fan at the farm.
He, for one, could not deal with Olivia without coffee. Not for him… but for her. Jake had told him Tina and Tarra thought they were seeing claws-out from Olivia, but if they thought they saw them now, they were in for a real eye-opener if she didn’t get her morning cup of java.