Tourists of the Apocalypse (20 page)

“Unlikely, but if so then I call next game.”

On the edge of the tree line we kneel and check out the scene. Donna gave us a tiny pair of binoculars she uses for bird watching. We are a mere twenty yards from the house, but I scan the windows for a clue on what is detaining the guys. When nothing is visible, we circle around the back, through what is an open field. Once behind the house, we see a beat up black station-wagon in the drive. It’s not Bill’s, as Jessica told us their two cars were in the garage. Taking a closer look at the wagon I’d guess early seventies. A chrome bowtie in the grill indicates it’s a Chevy. My best guess is it’s probably a points distributor and still drivable.

“Rusty piece of crap still runs,” Izzy mutters.

“Yes, and it seems to have delivered trouble,” I point out as a well-dressed man exits the side door of the house and heads to the car.

He’s wearing black jeans and a long sleeved white dress shirt. Wraparound sunglasses and slicked back dark hair give him a very clean appearance. Fresh clothes and washed hair would seem to indicate he’s not roughing it like the rest of us.
Where did he steal the car from?
I’d be surprised if he was driving it before this mess started. He pulls a duffle bag out of the backseat and heads back inside.

Izzy points around the garage and we continue circling, coming out behind it. It’s a large detached building easily big enough for two cars. When we come up the far side, I pause to look in the window. A silver truck and reddish sedan sit side by side. Izzy taps my shoulder and points a finger at the truck. Sticking up and hanging over the tailgate is a foot.
They already killed Bill or Ed
. The shoe is missing leaving a white tube sock.
They probably stole the shoes to wear.

“Only see one foot,” I whisper.

“They are both in there,” Izzy insists quietly. “Tossed-em in the truck bed and rolled down the door. These guys are probably street thugs or criminals from the city. They are looking for a place to lay low or just cherry picking the countryside. We should bail.”

I frown at her and she puffs up her bangs and glares at me with an unpleasant expression.

“How many you think?” she whispers.

“No idea, but I’d place the over-under at three.”

“Smart money takes the over,” she advises.

She hands me the shotgun and pulls off her hoodie. Reaching back she unhooks her bra and pulls it out the armhole of her t-shirt. This leaves her standing there in a grey t-shirt that’s wet with sweat. I’m stunned momentarily and then she jerks the handgun out of my hand and tucks it in the back of her jeans. She wiggles her hips until it’s comfortable, then pulls her shirt tail over it.

“You’re kidding me,” I scowl through gritted teeth.

“You don’t like them,” she teases, bouncing just a little to provoke me.

“You think that will distract them so you can get close?”

“They’re distracting you aren’t they?” she remarks smugly, stepping past me and peeking around the edge of the garage.

“Point taken, so what’s your plan?”

“I’ll go around and approach from the road. You stay here and watch. I’ll signal you how many. When you’re clear, slip up to the back of the place,” she explains. “You know me. I shoot first and apologize later. When you hear the first shot I’ll expect you to bust in with the street howitzer and do the rest.”

I think this over and consider that we may be biting off more than we can chew.
Maybe we should just go
. I realize the next stop for this crew is down the street at Jessica’s place, but Izzy might be right.
You can’t save them all.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” I stutter. “We should go.”

“You can’t get a girl all dressed up for a party and then tell her no,” she grins, looking a bit crazy. “This was your idea, besides my bra’s already off.”

With that, she pushes off into the underbrush to circle to the road. Her blood thirsty behavior is worrisome, but she did say she was para-military.
What’s that mean anyway?
Clearly there is some sort of training here. I wait, pensive, for her to appear out front. After ten minutes she strolls into the driveway and calls out innocently. The slick looking guy we observed earlier steps out the side door holding a large handgun. It dangles at his waist, but it gives me a chill as he wasn’t armed before.

A conversation I can’t hear takes place and it’s obvious her plan is a good one. His body language relaxes and from here it doesn’t look like he’s making much eye contact. Two more guys step out, making me wonder how many. I don’t have to wait long as she taps her foot three times, then pauses and repeats.
So it’s just the three then
.

Izzy greets the others with the same flirty smile. The slick looking guy, who I assume is in charge, turns and chats with the other two guys momentarily. They aren’t as well dressed, but do look showered and in clean clothes. They retreat into the house and
Slick Guy
continues what I assume is a verbal bum rush on my girl. If he can’t get her to join him with words, no doubt he plans to take her by force.

He gets close to her and I worry about him discovering her gun. She drapes an arm over his shoulder, but crooks her index finger at me and beckons me from my hiding spot. While she flirts, I slip out from behind the garage up to the rear of the house. I peek around the corner a mere five yards from her. With her hand still over his shoulder she points at the side door. I can hear them now and while his proximity to her makes me mad with jealousy, given she is basically a wet tee shirt contestant, it’s soothing to know he’s about to be very dead.
How blood thirsty am I now?

“You have to come with us,” he exhorts her in a European accent that feels like Italian. “We have plenty of food and supplies. We have a nice selection of cigarettes. Do you smoke?”

“Only in bed,” she remarks, a comment forcing me to struggle to stifle a laugh.

“You’re quite a nice surprise. Why don’t you come on in?”

“By the looks of those Italian loafers you’re not a country boy,” she observes. “This can’t be your house. Where are the people that live here? I wouldn’t want to trespass?”

“No idea,” he lies. “Haven’t seen them?”

“I have,” she boasts, twitching her nose. “I think they committed suicide in the garage.”

Slick Guy
just stands there looking confused. She smiles, waiting for him to speak with her hands on her hips. After nearly a minute he seems to compose himself, but oddly he does not sense that she’s messing with him.
Great tits seem to have rendered him defenseless
.

“You don’t say,” he stammers. “You were in the garage?”

“Yup,” she purrs, putting a hand on his hip and leaning in close.

She whispers something to him and he lowers his head to listen. Izzy must have pulled her gun because when it goes off the back of his shirt explodes, a crimson stain forming around a blast hole. She must have pressed the gun to his chest before she fired. He struggles, trying to get his gun arm up, but Izzy puts the barrel of the gun on his forehead and pushes. In an absurd visual he teeters, then falls on his back. By the time he hits the ground he’s too weak to lift his arm.
Being shot in the chest can do that to a guy
. Feeling the time is right, I step around the corner, only ten feet from the door. When the first guy comes rushing out I raise the gun to my shoulder and let fly. He is blown off his feet, hit in the side by a slug round.

Izzy fires a half dozen shots into the screen door before anyone else shows themselves. After a brief pause a third man falls forward, ripping through the now tattered screen. He hits the gravel hard, face first. I’m looking to Izzy for direction when more gunshots ring out. A fourth man has fired through a side window, missing Izzy, but exploding a side window on the station wagon. She hits the ground, scurrying around the other side of the vehicle on all fours. Crouching, I move under the window, stepping on shards of broken glass under it.

Two more shots hit the station-wagon, puckering the fender. Putting the gun over my head I point the shotgun in the window and fire blindly. One more shot from inside the house breaks another widow in the station-wagon. When there isn’t a follow up shot I rise up, putting the barrel straight in the window. There is an older man holding a handgun staring back at me. He freezes, clearly distressed from the last cannon shot I tossed in. I can see now that the shot missed him, striking the refrigerator behind him. Before he can fire, I put a round in the middle of his chest sending him flying into the fridge. He slides down, leaving a red smear on the textured white metal.

“Clear, but there might be more inside,” I shout.

“No, that’s it,” she huffs, coming around to my side of the car. “He said four.”

“Your taped your foot three times.”

“Yeah, he said fourth guy was a cripple. I didn’t think he would be armed.”

Cold sweat rolls down my arms and I tremble just a bit. I fired on cut outs of bad guys in the Army, but never on a living person prior to today. I was after all a purchasing clerk. A dark pall falls over my mood, but is lifted when Izzy wraps her arms around me from the side and kisses my cheek.

“Nice shooting Army,” she whispers. Let’s see what sort of goodies they got then drive the car back. At least the girls will have transportation for now.”

“I don’t think so,” I sigh, pointing at the back fender, under which gas is trickling out. “Gas tank’s ruptured.”

“Just my luck,” she pouts. “That’s sucks, we can’t take much back without the car.”

“Better put your bra back on,” I remark, but receive an annoyed glance.

“Suggested no man ever,” she points out after a pause.

On that point I have to agree with her. For the record she did not.

…

It’s nearly seven when we return. A very sad conversation takes place between Izzy and the ladies of the house. They sit around the kitchen table in misery until well after eight. A round of tea signals the end of the mourning period for now. We decide to stay the night rather than hike back to the car in near darkness. I am concerned the car won’t be there, but she points out we’d be in it by now if I wasn’t trying to save the world. She right on this, giving me the strength to promise we are done doing good deeds.
Sorry humanity you’re on your own
. We sleep off and on, the sound of the widows muffled tears echoing through the halls into the wee hours.

Izzy’s phone alarm goes off at 7 AM and she pushes me out of the bed with two cold feet in the back. She’s set on an early start this day. I’m ready as well, the thought of spending the day with two brand new widows sounds unbearable. Jessica and Donna beg us to stay, but are very understanding when we abandon them. We did buy them time when we eliminated the roving gang down the street, but their long term prognosis is poor.
They are as defenseless as the kids staring at their smart phones in Pensacola.

In a parting shot, Izzy tells them to invite any marauders in and then poison their tea or coffee. Donna suggests this is the plot of a movie titled
Arsenic and Old Lace
with Cary Grant, but Izzy claims she hasn’t seen it.
Being she’s supposedly from the future I am not surprised
. It does leave the widows in good spirits as we exit stage right.

It’s hot and sweat pours all the way back to the highway. When we get to the fence, Izzy puts out her arm to stop me. Pointing silently in the direction of the car I understand her meaning. A group of maybe a dozen people mill about our vehicle and the two it’s bunched in with. They are a random group, some in tattered business attire while others wear shorts and tee shirts. The passenger side car door is open, as well as the trunk. We confer in whispers about the pros and cons of moving them away at gun point. I’d prefer to wait, but as always Izzy is impatient to keep moving.

Leaving our backpacks behind for now, we hop the fence and start to the car. They see us right off and wave, beckoning us forward. There are four women and six or seven men. It’s hard to tell as at least one person is sitting in the passenger side of our car. We pull up ten yards short of them and Izzy leans the shotgun over her shoulder so they see it clearly.

“I’m gonna need you to step away from my car,” she barks, nodding her head at them.

“Which one?” a guy in a wrinkled and soiled suit jacket asks, glancing at the two newer cars pinned to the driver’s side of ours.

“Doesn’t matter,” she demands, just back up twenty yards and stay out my way. “Not looking to hurt anyone.”

“They syphoned all the gas out of them last night,” a thirty-something gal in yoga pants and a sweatshirt calls out. “Then a bunch of illiterate
Duck Dynasty
rejects punched holes in the gas tanks.”

We share an unhappy stare, and then Izzy starts toward them. I follow, but get the scent of gas almost immediately. Stepping up on the pavement ten yards from our car I see the concrete is damp under all three. I put out a hand and take Izzy’s elbow, stopping her.

“There’s gas all over the road,” I whisper in her ear.

“We need to check the car,” she complains, jerking her arm away. “Our car might not have been molested.”

“The trunks up,” I whisper. “Fair odds they did ours as well.”

“Where did you guys come from?” a well-dressed older woman calls out. “Is there anywhere to get some water and a meal around here?”

“Just walking down the highway like you,” I shout. “We haven’t seen anything.”

“Let’s follow them,” someone suggests. “They don’t look like they’re starving.”

Scanning the group, they all share shallow cheeks and ashen faces. Hunger and dehydration has taken a toll on every one of them. I’m struggling with my promise not to help anyone when Izzy elbows me and nods her head down the road. Three vehicles are headed our way. Pulling out the spy glasses I can make out two trucks and a tiny convertible, possibly an MG. I let her look and then she starts backing up. The people around the car see the convoy, putting hands to their foreheads to peer into the morning sun. Their attention off us for the moment, we walk away, staying on the road.