At least.
The vehicles finally came to a stop forty yards up the road. First the Jeep, then the two trucks. The big rig was next, stopping behind the other three vehicles, its brakes squealing loudly, the highway groaning underneath its efforts. They turned off their engines, and Blaine saw the man in the passenger seat of the Jeep talking into a radio. Blaine was too far away to hear anything, but he could make out the man’s large shock of white hair.
“Blaine?” Sandra said behind him. “Maybe you should come back here with us…”
“I’ll be okay,” Blaine said. “Just stay calm and follow my lead.”
The man with white hair stood up in the Jeep, waved over at them, then shouted, “Hello over there! You folks have car trouble?”
“Not anymore!” Blaine shouted back.
“I’m coming over,” the man said, and started to climb out of the Jeep.
“Not necessary!”
The man didn’t seem to have heard him. Or if he did, he didn’t care, because he climbed down to the road anyway.
Shit.
The man with white hair began walking toward him. He wore a sweat-stained white T-shirt, cargo pants, and a gun belt with the holster tied low around his right leg like some kind of gunfighter’s rig. Blaine thought that was amusing, but not enough that he cracked a smile. Instead, he scowled at the guy, hoping to intimidate him into stopping.
It didn’t work, and the man with white hair kept coming.
“Maybe he didn’t hear you?” Sandra asked nervously behind him.
“He heard me,” Blaine said.
“This is trouble right here, Blaine,” Deeks said.
Tell me something I don’t know, old-timer.
“That’s far enough,” Blaine shouted, even though he didn’t have to.
The man stopped twenty yards away. Closer now, the white hair looked more pronounced, like a dye job. How could hair be that white? The man looked to be in his fifties, but it was hard to tell with all the white hair.
“What’s with the hostility?” the man asked.
“I don’t know you,” Blaine said.
“And I don’t know you. But that’s no need for all this aggressive behavior.”
“Sorry. But it’s a dangerous world out here.”
“That’s true. Which is why we’re offering help. Nice Jeep, by the way.”
“Yours don’t look so bad.”
The guy looked back at his Jeep. “Not as nice as yours. Got a lot of wear and tear on it. You folks came out of Dallas?”
“Around there, yeah.”
“Us, too. Took a while to get down here. Looks like it’s the same for you guys. Dangerous out there, especially at night. But that’s why we’re together.” He indicated the mini-caravan behind him. “Safety in numbers.”
“We’re doing just fine on our own.”
“We have supplies. Maybe we can trade. I’m sure we have something you might need, and I’m sure you have something we might want.”
“We don’t have anything to trade, and chances are you don’t have anything we want.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You should go back to your Jeep and keep heading down the road.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” the guy said. And he held his hands up in surrender, then casually smiled at Blaine.
“There won’t be any if you just go back and—”
Blaine never finished, because at that moment someone popped up behind the roof of the F-150, the sun glinting off the steel barrel of a rifle as the guy laid it across the roof and took aim. Blaine saw it two seconds before the guy fired and he felt the bullet chop into his left side, exit, and bury itself in the asphalt highway behind him.
He heard Sandra’s voice: “Blaine!”
Blaine didn’t think, didn’t try to figure out what the hell was going on, and instinctively lifted the AR-15 to open up on the guy with white hair. But the guy was anticipating it and was already running sideways, and he leaped into the ditch before Blaine could fire. Suddenly without a target, Blaine swiveled the assault rifle back to the F-150 and fired off two quick shots. His bullets stitched the front windshield of the truck, and the sniper ducked back behind cover.
Blaine saw the Jeep’s driver scurrying behind the Jeep. Meanwhile, two men had rushed out of the GMC, both armed with rifles.
“Blaine!” Sandra screamed behind him again.
He turned and began running back as the two guys at the GMC opened up on him with full-automatic rifles. The highway around him exploded into big, scorching chunks of asphalt, and Blaine swore there was no way he was going to survive this. He could hear bullets ricocheting off the sides of the Jeep and zipping past his ears.
Sonofabitch!
He and Deeks were stuck with semi-automatic rifles while the bad guys were unloading on full-auto. That was some shitty luck right there.
Deeks was at the hood of the Jeep, shooting back with his AR-15. Casually, like he had all the time in the world. The old man was either delusional or didn’t realize how much trouble they were in.
Sandra was crouched next to the Jeep’s front grill when Blaine reached it. Her eyes, wide with relief at the sight of him, quickly turned to horror. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”
“I know, I know.” It was all he could get out.
He knew he was bleeding because he had felt the throbbing pain all the way from the back of the Jeep to the hood. The bullet had gone clean through, which he thought was a good thing — not that he knew anything about getting shot. He was sure of one thing, though — it hurt like a sonofabitch.
Blaine popped up from behind the Jeep and fired off four quick shots at the guys at the GMC. They had retreated behind the vehicle now and were firing back from safety. Blaine saw the Jeep’s driver hiding behind his own vehicle, shooting with an assault rifle. Blaine thought it looked like an AK-47.
Suddenly, the driver of the F-150 opened his door and dived out and ran for cover behind the truck. As he did so, the sniper in the bed of the truck popped back up and fired over the roof. Blaine felt the bullet zip past his head, an inch from taking it clean off at the shoulders. He ducked back behind the Jeep, thankful he still had a head to duck with.
He became aware of Sandra fumbling with his waist, trying to stanch the flow of blood. He had no idea when she had started doing that, but he didn’t stop her. He was bleeding too badly and he was already feeling light-headed from the blood loss. At least it wasn’t a gut shot. He wouldn’t be dead right away from a gut shot, but he wouldn’t get better, either. A bullet that went clean through his side meant he could survive it. Probably.
Then Blaine heard a loud pop and turned and saw Deeks falling to the highway behind Sandra. There was a hole in Deeks’s left temple and one side of his head was completely gone. His AR-15 clattered to the hot asphalt next to him. Sandra saw the body and clutched her mouth to keep from screaming, though her eyes screamed plenty for her.
The guy with white hair! That fuck!
It had to be. The gunshot had come from up close, and it was from a handgun. No one was going to hit Deeks with a handgun from forty yards away. But the guy with white hair was closer, and the last time Blaine had seen him, the man was diving into the ditch beside the road.
Blaine leaned out from behind the Jeep’s grill in the direction of the ditch and saw white hair moving steadily up the highway, crouching low. The guy saw Blaine a split-second after Blaine saw him, and the man fired — too fast — and the bullet ricocheted off the Jeep’s hood and burrowed into dirt along the ditch, but it kicked up enough paint and metal that Blaine felt the heat against his face even as he pulled his head back.