Prepper Central: A Prepper Fiction Novel (Prepping - Together we will Survive Book 1) (8 page)

My first course of action was to get to the wall where Derrick had informed me that Thomas would be waiting. I propped up the ladder that had been positioned behind the house and carefully climbed my way up. Surely enough, when I pushed my head over to get a view of the other side, Thomas was waiting. His face was drenched in sweat and his hands trembled the same way they did, that night when he was unsure of his fate.

‘Hi,’ I yelled to him.

Thomas turned around startled but was seemingly happy to see my face.

‘Sir,’ he whispered. ‘Did you get my note?’

‘I did. How do you know they took her?’

‘I can’t talk for long. I’m scared someone comes and finds me over here talking to you. It’s different when I’m just waiting here without you looking over because then they’ll think that I’m trying to break in, but if they see me talking to you, then that’s a whole different thing.’

‘Okay.’ I definitely understood what he was saying.

‘Will you meet me at that address? I can show you where they’re keeping her if you meet me there. But then, you’ll have to make sure to protect me afterward.’

I knew that when I got back to the guys, they’d be concerned that this was all a setup. A part of me wondered if Thomas didn’t have something to do with all this. The look on his face was one of sincerity and at this moment I didn’t have much of an option to not believe him. I climbed down the ladder, folded it together and placed it back behind the house where I had found it.

‘Guys,’ we’ve got to go to that address. The kid will show us where to go from there.’

The look on Stewart’s face, as expected, was one of mistrust. ‘How do you know we can trust this guy, Jimmy,’ he turned to me.

‘What other choice do we have?’ I replied sternly. ‘It’s the only lead we have so far and if we don’t listen to him, we could be driving through this entire town pointlessly for days on end. 

Stewart, Derrick and I made our way to the front of the Cul De Sac and waited by the Humvee that our new military friends had parked there earlier in the day. On the two way radio, Stewart got in contact with eight other guys, including Jonathan. These were the people who would accompany us out of the realms of our protected Cul De Sac and into the streets that have been ridden with danger.  The guys who were manning the front entrance started to undo the barbed wire for us. Within a short period of time Timothy, Alex and Lewis- the guys who drove the Humvee, arrived. Following them, were two cars, one driven by Jonathan and another driven by a strong and mean looking Henry. Lewis stayed back, allowing enough room for Stewart and me in the Humvee. The urgency of the situation didn’t allow for me to revel in the moment of being in an actual Humvee; of people able to sit in there and feel as though I was a part of something greater. Instead, I pulled myself in in a manner that would make anyone believe it was something I did on a regular basis. Through the back window, I saw that Lewis accompanied Jonathan in the car. It was time to get going. Stewart took the paper with the address out of my hand and read it through the radio.

Alex, who was driving, stepped on the gas and we were through the gates within the blink of an eye. At that moment, I couldn’t help but to think about Marge and what she must be going through. I wondered if she had found the note and what thoughts were going through her head at that time. Her not contacting me on the radio meant one of three things. The first was that she was too pissed to speak to me, the second that dad and mom had prevented her from doing so and the final, but most unlikely reason was that she actually understood.

I looked to my left, observing the streets that were once peaceful and clean. Unfortunately, this was no longer the case as there was no one to care about the appearance of our community. There were piles of trash lining the sidewalks and people wandering around with no purpose. In the middle of the road, there was evidence that fires had been started in the form of what was once a mattress was now spring, a minimal amount of material and a whole bunch of ash. In the bushes, I’m certain I spotted a body, but turned around before I could really determine if this was true. It was sad to see just how ruined everything was. However, the real sadness would sink in only when we approached the areas where people had been residing. There were masses of people outdoors, still protesting though I’m not sure they knew what they were fighting for. And then, out of nowhere, a bottle smashed right into our windscreen. The people didn’t like us and they wanted us to know. Not for a minute did I think we would have been accepted with open arms. After all, the manner in which we rolled in, big vehicles, cars filled with gas- these people must have thought that we were trying to rub our wealth in their faces. Another object landed on the vehicle and then swarms of people started to surround us, screaming and banging as though their lives depended on it. I wanted to yell at them to stop, but this wouldn’t have helped the cause.

‘Turn here,’ Stewart said to Alex, looking at the address to make sure that he’d gotten it right.

‘Yeah, that’s the turn,’ I said to them both. I knew the street because I’d traveled along it quite a bit when I was heading to work.

Alex did as he was told and made a left.

‘Now, we’ve just got to look for a 3. House number 3 it says,’ Stewart looked at me.

‘Yeah. House number three it is.’ 

Adrenaline rushed through my body like the way water rushes through a busted fire hydrant. The Humvee slowed down in front of the house with the dark cast iron three on the right side of the entrance way. I knew that we’d arrived. The longer we waited, the more people came running toward us. Alex and Timothy pointed their guns through the window, showing the people that they really didn’t want to get any closer. Surely enough, the majority of them stepped back. I glanced at the crowd and my heart broke as I spotted a few familiar faces. Though I couldn’t call them by name, I’d seen some of these people at their jobs- cashing checks at the bank, scanning groceries in the Supermarket and sitting behind a comfy desk in the bank. Now, they were all the same. There were no careers to define them. No cars or other fancy items to be proud of. They were just a group of people, fighting for survival. A group of people who had failed to prepare. A group of people who the government had failed.

Out of nowhere, a bold figure approached the vehicle, only grabbing my attention because Alex and Timothy whipped around and aimed at him.

‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘It’s him.’

‘Is that the boy,’ Stewart asked me.

Alex and Timothy lowered their guns but still pierced Thomas with their eyes.

‘Stewart, if he joins us, we’ll have to take him back with us. These people are all watching and they’ll kill him if they know that he was cooperating with us.’

‘Jimmy,’ Stewart replied and I knew just what he was going to say, but I wasn’t having it.

‘We’re not going to fight about this Stewart. We’re not going to use him and then feed him to the wolves. That would make us murderers.

‘He’ll be on you then,’ Stewart settled.

Timothy exited the vehicle and made room for Thomas to move in. –As soon as his foot had touched the ground he lifted his gun, pointing it from face to face in the crowd. Thomas squeezed past him, grabbed my hand and pulled himself up. Out of nowhere, a group of three men charged towards Timothy. One of them, a skinny, rough looking guy with a dirty face was the first to make it to Timothy. Spinning around, Timothy managed to get two shots off, causing the man in his full sprint to twitch his entire body as if he was wired with 4000 Volts. The force of his momentum slammed his now lifeless body into Timothy, whose face was struck with horror. The two of them fell to the ground, the dead man on top of Timothy. The two other men who had charged with the lifeless body on top of our friend now dragged and ripped on the clothes of their bleeding comrade, trying to move him off of the attacked. The crowd took this as their cue to swarm the vehicle. It must have been 40 people who were now closing in on the car, faces deeply engraved with anger and rage. It was as if these starving bodies were now seeing us as their prey. Stewart reached for his gun and I reached for mine. Alex was already busy pumping rounds into the crowd, seemingly smiling with every time his trigger finger set off a deadly bullet. I’d never fired my gun at a live target, but that day, I took a life, or two, or three; it was hard to tell. I watched as the man I had aimed at, fell to the ground. I watched as the life drained out of him, before his knees ever touched the crackling asphalt of the road. Timothy, still stunned by the impact of the man who had crashed into him, was now holding on to the rugged tire of the Humvee. He managed to pull himself to his feet, his M16 dangling from his shoulder. Shooting rounds at the people who were now grabbing for stones and other objects to launch towards the vehicle, he backed his way into the open door of the humvee.

‘Go. Go. Go. Go. Go,’ he yelled before managing to close the door.

My eyes couldn’t pull themselves away from the crowd and thus, my neck turned involuntarily, observing the commotion that we had caused by showing up. How many people had died? Was that guy that I guy that I had watched die the only one to feel the wrath of my bullet? There were so many questions clouding my mind. So many questions I’d never find the answers to.

‘Are you okay?’ Alex asked Timothy.

‘Those fucking bastards,’ he replied; his voice drenched in anger. ‘Can you believe it? You’d think that these idiots would realize that men in a fucking Humvee have enough bullets to take all of them out. Fucking jumping on me like that. What did they think would happen? Did they think we’d toss our guns down and just surrender to them? I can’t fucking stand it. I can’t stand having to deal with all this shit. Fucking scratched up my entire hand.’

I wanted to smack Timothy for complaining about his hand; for calling all those people names. If it weren’t for his fancy Humvee and his rounds of ammo, he might have found himself with nothing, just like those people. My heart bled for them. Our walls blocked out the pain of the nation but being out here made it all a reality. I knew that things were bad. I knew that there was no order in the country anymore. But not seeing something makes it easier to forget. Did Timothy not care about the lives we had just taken?

‘Calm down,’ Alex took a hand off the steering well and patted Timothy on the shoulder. ‘These people don’t have anything, so they’ve got to fight for the chance of having something.’ I was happy that at least someone in this vehicle, other than myself, had some form of sympathy for those people. Alex continued, ‘We’re the fortunate ones. We’re the ones who get to have a meal every day and a clean suit of clothes on our backs.’

Timothy shrugged. I wasn’t certain if he agreed or if he just didn’t want to have the conversation. After what had just happened, reading facial expressions was the least of my concerns.

‘You okay, Thomas?’ I said to the little boy whose teeth were chattering loudly next to me.

‘Yeah. It’s just scary. That’s all. I mean, they fight everyday, but the guns, just…’

‘I know. I’m sorry you had to see that. Now, you said you know where they took the doctor?’

‘Yes sir,’ Thomas replied confidently. ‘Ever since you guys let me go, I’ve been hanging out in this little tent close to your wall. Early this morning, I woke up because I heard a bunch of people talking and then, I saw them push and hoist one guy up over the fence. I ran and hid in the bushes because I knew that if they saw me, they would hurt me. I thought at first, that maybe they were just going to steal stuff but then they came back with the lady who I saw the other night. She was screaming loud, but none of your guys came to help her. Then, they put some duct tape over her mouth.’

‘Where did they take her?’

‘They took her to Mr. Jones’ house.’

‘And how do you know this?’ Stewart interrupted.

‘I know sir, because I heard them talking about how happy Mr. Jones would be that they got her. You see, someone attacked his wife and she’s not doing so good.’

‘Who’s Mr. Jones?’ I inquired.

‘He’s the guy who runs things out here. I know him because sometimes his people tell me to do stuff for them. They’re the ones who still have some food, but even when I help out, the only thing they give me is a drink of water.’

‘So where do we find him,’ I pushed the conversation in the right direction.

Thomas gave Alex the directions, turn for turn. Every street we turned into looked as sad as the one before. Horrific images of men, women and children were the only things to be seen. Here and there we’d see a corpse in the ditch in between broken down cars with smashed windows. After the image of the pain that the people out here had to endure on a daily basis had settled in, I allowed myself to shut it all out with a thought of my wife. We’d been driving for less than fifteen minutes at this point and though I doubted that the baby already came, I knew it was a possibility. Pregnant women aren’t meant to be stressed and a huge part of me regretted ever setting foot in the Humvee, though I knew it had been a necessity. I could only imagine the ghastly things going on in my wife’s head as she realized that I was no longer there to support her. I knew that mom and dad would do all they could to comfort her but of course, having her husband there would have made a big difference.

We pulled up to a large house with the outside walls covered in scrappy graffiti. Most of the houses in the community had shattered windows. However, this house was perfectly secured with wood replacing the curtains. This made it difficult to get a glance of what was going on on the inside. Thomas insisted that this was where Cindy was being held and so, soon enough, it would be time to bore our way inside and save the day. Unfortunately, it was clear that saving her wouldn’t happen without a fight. Standing guard were two men in their early twenties, equipped with an MP5 and what appeared to be a .44 Magnum each. At a different time, and in a different place, the two of them may have looked like decent human beings; but not today. Thomas told us that he doubted the guns were loaded as Mr. Jones had been more than generous-in the previous months- with the amount of ammunition he shelled out to those who opposed him. The men observed the vehicle in a manner that told us they weren’t to be messed with. If it were only Stewart and I who showed up to win Cindy back, I would have turned away and called it a loss. But with the man and firepower that our Humvee was packing, alongside the countless hours of battle experience, we clearly had what it takes to get answers. Behind us, Jonathan and Henry’s vehicles stopped. Alex was the first to exit, followed by Henry and Jonathan.