Bug Out! Part 8: RV Park Terror (21 page)

“Well, that’s half the battle. I’d suggest all of you guys get ceramic heaters for your rigs. That way you can save on the propane. I’d also make sure that the diesel tanks are full up before winter sets in. That way if you lose power you’ll have a backup.”

“You have ceramic heaters?” Dobie asked.

“Nah, I can’t compete with Walmart on those. You should swing by there on your way out.”

“Okay,” Gabe said.

“You guys find the bar that Chet had out there?” he asked, grinning.

The men looked at each other.

“Yeah, we did,” Gabe said. His heart was starting to race. “Nice find. Not sure the women folk are that happy about it.”

“I’ve got a sizable hangover because of that place,” Jake said, laughing.

“Well, Hilda probably isn’t happy to see it,” Howard said, chuckling. “Ger used to tell me about that. He said she made him take his booze out to the deer blind. Wish I’d been able to see that. He said he turned it into a man cave.”

Terry started laughing. “I was in that thing. Lots of booze out there, plus a good stash of girly magazines.”

Howard started cracking up. “Yep, that sounds like Ger. I used to wonder how he and Hilda stayed married so long.”

“Wish I would’ve seen Hilda’s park,” Gabe said. “Hopefully the cretins didn’t completely ruin it.”

“Yeah,” Howard said. “Where do you want me to load the tires?”

“I’ve got all of the wheels in the back of my bobtail. You guys can mount and balance, correct?”

“Of course, just back it up by the bays over on the far side of this building,” he said, pointing.

“Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll go bring ‘er around.”

The men walked out the door. Jake and Terry went around the back to get the bobtail, while Gabe and Dobie stood outside, soaking up the sun in front of the store. Dobie elbowed Gabe.

“What?”

“Check out those rednecks over there,” Dobie said. He nodded towards the gas pumps. There was a dirty old pickup truck fueling up. The truck had four militia-looking men in the back.

“Cretins?” Gabe whispered “My phone didn’t go off.”

“Mine neither,” Dobie said.

Dobie and Gabe looked
at the rednecks in the truck at the gas pumps.

“They might just be hunters, you know,” Dobie said.

“I know,” Gabe said. “How can we tell?”

“The guy gassing up is wearing a tank top. If they pulled chips out of their arms recently, he’ll have a scar…maybe even a bandage. I’m going to walk over there and take a look.”

“Alright, Dobie. Be careful,” Gabe said.

He nodded and walked over to the far side of the gas pumps, close to the truck. The men in the back were joking around. It sounded like they had a wild time at a bar last night. The guy pumping gas saw Dobie checking them out.

“Want something, Friend?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, no, sorry,” Dobie said. “I lost my fuel cap key. It might be in that stall next to you.”

“Oh,” the man said. He smiled and nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, man,” Dobie said, smiling back at him. He could see his triceps clearly. No scar. No bandage.

“So, did you nail her?” asked one of the guys in the back of the truck, laughing.

“Naw, she said she was married,” said another.

“Horseshit,” said the third.

Dobie pretended to look around on the ground next to the pumps.

“Dammit,” Dobie said. “Not here.” He started back.

“That sucks,” the gas pumper said. “Sorry, man.”

Dobie nodded and smiled at him as he walked away. He got next to Gabe again. “No scars, no bandages. Those guys are alright.”

“Whew,” Gabe said. “Had me worried.”

“Me too. Jake get the truck pulled around?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “You wanting to go to Walmart today for those heaters?”

“No, I think we ought to get back,” Dobie said. “Then I need to bring my truck back here for the fifth wheel hitch. If the shit hits the fan, we’ll need to get outta dodge in a hurry. I want to be ready.”

“Okay,” Gabe said.

It took about two hours to get the tires mounted and the propane tanks filled up. When men had everything loaded up and ready to go, Gabe walked back into the store to pay up and say goodbye to Howard.

“Hey, Howard, everything’s done,” he said, pulling out his credit card. Howard took it and got busy ringing it up.

“Gonna go to Walmart?” he asked.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Gabe said. “We’ll see. Dobie will be back pretty quick to get that fifth wheel hitch installed.”

“Today?”

“I’m guessing early tomorrow,” Gabe said. “We’ll see how the day goes.”

“You guys seem pretty anxious to be able to high-tail it out of there,” Howard said.

“Well, yeah,” Gabe said. “This group’s had to leave in a hurry more than once. If bad folks start getting past the Kansas border, we’re gone. The park is nice, but it’s not even a little bit defendable.”

“Oh,” Howard said. “Makes sense, I guess. That area
is
flatter than a pancake.” He handed the card back to Gabe, with a receipt.

“Okay, thanks, Howard,” Gabe said, shaking hands with him.

“Good luck,” Howard said. “I hope you get to stick around. Nice having you guys here.”

Gabe nodded on the way out.

The drive back to the park was uneventful. They got through the gate, and drove back by the trailers. Terry got out of the cab of the bobtail, and was walking towards his trailer. Trish saw him, and came running, jumping on him, hugging and kissing, her legs wrapped around.

“You weren’t worried about me the whole time, I hope,” Terry said, grinning.

“I’m going to worry about you whenever you’re out of my sight, so get used to it,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“It was a safe trip,” Terry said. “The cretins aren’t around.”

“Hopefully,” she said warily. “I’m still nervous. You guys get everything you needed?”

“Everything except for the fifth wheel hitch for Dobie. He’ll have to take his truck in for that. He’ll probably do it tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said. “Here comes Jerry and Jasmine.” Terry turned and saw them coming. They had concerned looks on their faces.

“Hey, everybody,” Jerry said. “We need to have another meeting. Could you come to the clubhouse?”

“Sure,” Terry said. Gabe turned and nodded yes.

“Everything okay?” Dobie asked.

“We got an email from Malcolm Davis,” Jerry said.

“Holy shit,” Dobie said. “Let’s go.”

They all followed Jerry and Jasmine back towards the clubhouse.

“Hey, Jane, it’s starting,” Jasmine yelled as they passed by the barn. Jane came out and met them, carrying the laptop, open. Charlie, Hilda, Kurt, and Jackson were all on their way in. Jeb and Rosie were already inside, having coffee with Earl and Mary.

“Okay, I think we’re all here,” Jerry said. “Frank, we need you to break away for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Frank said, walking over. “What’s going on?”

“Jane got an email very early this morning.”

“From who?” Frank asked. “General Hogan?”

“Malcolm Davis,” Jane said. There was a murmur amongst the group.

“No way,” Mary said. “What’d it say?”

“Gather around. I have it up on my laptop,” Jane said. Everybody got close as they could and read. It took a few minutes, because not everybody could get close enough at once.

“You haven’t replied to this yet, have you?” Frank asked.

“No, of course not,” Jane said. “We wanted to discuss it before we do anything.”

“They know where we are, so they’re showing up whether we like it or not,” Jeb said. “In reference to us, are these good guys or bad guys?”

“Well, that’s the real question,” Jerry said. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is a gift.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“We know where most of the enemy leadership is, and we’re pretty sure that General Hogan is being held captive as well. We think we know where.”

“Go on,” Charlie said.

“George and Malcolm are very experienced fighters. Hell, George is Special Forces. Don’t you think they might come in handy when we’re trying to take out the leadership, and rescue the General?”

“How do you know they’d go along with that?” Kurt asked.

“Well, I don’t know, for sure,” Jerry said. “But it’s worth talking to them about.”

“What if they just show up, get the info they need from the dungeon, and then kill all of us?” Hilda asked.

“Why would they do that?” Jasmine asked. “I’ve been doing research on these guys since we got the email, and I already knew a fair amount about Malcolm. They don’t tend to kill innocents. They kill the bad guys and all their friends. Okay, maybe they do too much without due process, but there aren’t any cases where they’ve shot up folks like us.”

“One other thing to keep in mind,” Trish said. “If Scott is still alive, he’ll eventually come back here. Wouldn’t it be better if we helped these guys take him out?”

“She’s got a good point,” Jasmine said. “We don’t want that guy around. He’s somebody who
would
kill all of us if he had the chance, and he doesn’t have a chip in him. He could sneak up on us.”

“So I take it you’re saying that we should invite these folks over,” Earl said.

“Yep,” Jerry said. “I say we tell them that we have evidence, and invite them to come stay a while. Oh, and by the way, they’re both in RVs.”

There was a chuckle from the group.

“Well, spaces we have,” Gabe said, grinning. “I say we try to strike a deal with these guys, but part of the deal has to be no premature notification of law enforcement about the dungeon. We can tell them why.”

“I agree,” Frank said. “We could use these guys, and I bet they’ll play ball.”

“Yep, Kurt said. “I agree. Anybody opposed?”

Nobody said anything.

“Oh, one thing I forgot to mention,” Jasmine said. “I found evidence of murders similar to what we had here moving slowly to the east. Malcolm’s onto something. Scott kept going after he left. Still can’t tell if he’s really dead or not.”

“Okay, I’ll take the laptop back out to the barn and send a reply,” Jane said. “I’ll tell him that we’ve found evidence, and that they’re welcome to come stay with us for a while, but they must not notify the authorities, due to our issues with the enemy.”

“Sounds good,” Charlie said. “Anybody object? Last chance.”

“I say we go for it,” Jeb said.

“Okay, thanks, everybody,” Jane said. She picked her laptop up and walked back out to the barn. Jerry stayed behind and followed Frank over to the PC.

“How’s it coming?” he asked. Frank looked over at him and smiled.

“Decided not to tell me about that right away, huh?” Frank said. Jerry looked uncomfortable.

“We knew we couldn’t meet until the guys got back from town, so we decided to leave you alone.”

“Don’t worry, you did the right thing,” Frank said, smiling.

“How’s it going?”

“Slow,” Frank said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get better than test mode with the app. Not a problem, except then not everybody can run it themselves. I’ll teach you to run it, though.”

“What’s the difficulty?”

“Getting the program to make fine adjustments by itself,” Frank said. “That’s pretty tough.”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “You have any reservations about George and Malcolm?”

“No, I think you got the situation pegged. It’s a gift.”

“It’ll probably mean that more of us survive,” Jerry said.

“Exactly,” Frank said.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. Let me know if you need anything.”

Frank nodded as Jerry left the clubhouse.

In Salt Lake City, George, Heidi, and Malcolm were sitting down to eat lunch, at a large truck stop on the east side of town. George and Heidi were on one side of the booth, and Malcolm was on the other.

“Good to have a little rest,” Malcolm said. “I’m getting tired a little faster than I used to.”

“You want to hang here for the rest of the day and take off tomorrow morning?” Heidi asked.

“Naw, I’d rather hit it,” Malcolm said. “But I’m glad you came up with the closer alternative for tonight.”

“Okay, Malcolm,” George said, “but don’t push yourself too hard. We don’t need you going off any cliffs. We can spend the night somewhere in the Rockies if we have to.”

Malcolm smiled back at them. Then a bell tone came from his phone. His smile broadened, as he pulled it out of his pocket.

“Our friends?” George asked.

“Yep,” Malcolm said. “We’ve been invited to come visit them, and stay a while at their RV Park.”

“Really?” George asked. “I’m surprised. Those people have been run ragged for a while now. I didn’t expect them to be so trusting.”

“You aren’t going to hurt these people, right?” Heidi asked.

“No way,” Malcolm said. “I’ve been following them now that I know about them. They’re part of the resistance. Like I said earlier, if anything, we’ll help them.”

“They put any condition on our visit?” George asked.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said. “They ask that we don’t go to the local police or the press with what they show us…at least not right away.”

“Why?” asked Heidi.

“The enemy wants to know where they are,” Malcolm said. “If what they found makes the news, it wouldn’t be good for them.”

“Oh,” Heidi said. “I get it.”

The waitress brought their food. They dug in quickly.

“Wonder if the news has picked up on our handiwork from earlier?” Malcolm said.

“We haven’t had the radio on,” Heidi said. “You think the authorities might come after us?”

“Naw,” Malcolm said. “They’d probably buy us all a beer. These guys were worse than criminals.”

“Seriously,” George said. “How would you like it if your parents were traveling in their motorhome and ran into folks like that?”

“I know, I know,” Heidi said.

“She a little upset about the bonfire?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh, just a little,” George said. “I told her why we did it.”

“Why do you think we did it, George?” asked Malcolm.

“To instill fear in the enemy, of course,” he replied.

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Oh, brother, here it comes,” Heidi said, getting a weary look on her face.