Silent Interruption Page 14

  Tara took it gently. “No prob.”

  Shyanne turned and asked Preston, “Why were you scared?”

  Preston grimaced. Tara knelt down by the girl and said, “Mister Preston just doesn’t like very high places. You see, some of us are afraid of things because we think they can hurt us, even if they don’t. We call that anxiety.”

  “Anxiety?” Shyanne asked, sounding the word out as if she had heard it for the first time.

  “Yeah.” Tara nodded. “It’s something a lot of grownups have.” She looked to Carl and gave a slight nod of her head, as a reminder of the conversation the pair had shared while on the overpass.

  “Did you have ang…anxiety, too?” Shyanne asked, “When you ran away?”

  Tara grimaced. “You could say that. I’m afraid we’re all scared of something.”

  Shyanne turned and looked up at Carl’s face. “I bet Mister Carl is not scared of anything.” Then she grinned.

  “Well I wouldn’t say anything.” Carl approached her. “Tax season can be pretty scary.” He laughed, and she laughed with him, even if she didn’t know what tax season really meant. She was happy to laugh along with him.

  In truth, though, he wished he could agree with Shyanne. He was scared of a few things, most notably of something happening to her or anybody else under his protection.

  Thank God no one was hurt on that impact, he thought as he looked at the truck’s hood against the fence. This truck plan had been risky. It had presented a great danger to Carl and his friends.

  He turned back to the overpass. Their little trip down the off ramp did propel them pretty far from that mob, and out here, there didn’t seem to be any anarchists or anyone else around to threaten them. Perhaps some additional risk is needed now, Carl said to himself. With a more dangerous world, perhaps taking greater risks was necessary to reap the benefits of living for another day.

  Carl allowed them a longer period of rest while he scouted a little on the other side of the fence. The strip mall ahead appeared deserted, but Carl’s party also had arrived on the mall’s right side. The actual storefronts faced to the left. A street looped close to the mall even farther ahead. To the right, the property line intersected with the grassy land some yards away, which then met the fence their truck had impacted. Basically, they were fenced in on the right. Their path would have to take them through or past the strip mall.

  By now, Tara had donned her jacket and re-holstered her rifle. She was taking sporadic peeks up at the overpass with her binoculars. Preston had recovered his strength and now was pacing back and forth alongside the truck. Shyanne was jumping and skipping across the grass in a semicircle near Tara.

  “Our friends turned and went back into town,” Tara said as Carl approached her.

  “As I thought. They’re more interested in taking over the city. That’ll be a godsend for the survivors we saw back there. It means the anarchists won’t be chasing them into the suburbs.”

  “But we are going to make it out of town ourselves, right?” Preston asked.

  “We are, but it may take most of the day to make up the ground we lost.” Carl turned to their right, where the fence boxed off the mall property. He pointed in that direction.

  “If I remember right, there’s a road that leads that way into the suburbs. But we’ll have to hike around this mall to make it there.”

  “Just as long as a high overpass isn’t involved,” Preston said.

  Shyanne turned to Preston. “I can hold your hand so you won’t be too scared.”

  Preston blushed while Tara quickly sucked in her lip. She turned away. A roar of laughter followed. “Oh that is so adorable,” she said after she got the laugh out of her system.

  Preston just grimaced as he walked up to Carl. Carl just smiled at him. “You got to admit, that was great thinking on her part, putting that hood on you up there,” Carl said quietly.

  “Yeah. That was a lifesaver, I’ll say that. By the way, did you figure out why she fled earlier?”

  Carl frowned. The details he had received from her were pretty thin. He wasn’t sure what to divulge. He simply replied, “Something bad went down before she met us. I think we should wait until she’s ready to spill the story.” Preston accepted Carl’s reply and did not press further.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Carl waited by the edge of a booth as Tara swung her rifle into the main section of the restaurant. Nothing. Not a sound. Still, Carl wasn’t sure this restaurant wasn’t totally devoid of people, at least not yet.

  He turned to Shyanne. Preston was behind her. “Stick with Mister Preston. I’m going to have a look inside.” Carl looked up to Preston. “If anything happens, shout.”

  “Be careful,” Shyanne said. Preston nodded.

  Carl then gave the okay to Tara to proceed deeper into the restaurant. Their behavior felt so ludicrous. They had discovered this restaurant in the center of the abandoned strip mall. The glass door was unharmed, without so much as a scratch, so Carl figured this place hadn’t been ransacked. The tables were abandoned, with only dirty plates remaining, and the flies buzzing around them, attracted to the bits of dried-up food on the plates.

  But lack of property damage didn’t mean a vagrant or a pack of ruffians couldn’t have taken shelter in here. So Carl’s training kicked in. He’d scout out the place with military-informed precision. Tara, though she possessed no military training, still had experience in the outdoors, plus she was armed. It was easy enough for Carl to give her orders.

  Carl and Tara looked around every corner and checked inside the restrooms, then the kitchen. The only person he discovered was an elderly server, slumped in the corner, still in her waitress apron and uniform. Her cell phone lay next to her on a table. Carl guessed the stress of the blackout had given her a heart attack. Tara said a brief prayer for her, and then the pair moved on.

  Finally, Carl and Tara delivered the good news to Shyanne and Preston—the place truly was deserted. Better yet, there was still some food wrapped in plastic from the day before that still was edible. It was mostly dessert cakes, vegetables, and salads. Carl urged them to sit and eat. The power had gone out only yesterday, and if the food was covered in plastic, odds were that it was not spoiled. Besides, they couldn’t know when they were going to eat food this good again.

  The foursome gathered at a booth at the far end of the restaurant. It was the one farthest from the flies, though they still had to bat away an errant one that showed up looking for food.

  Carl wiped his mouth. The meal of corn, green beans and potatoes wasn’t fresh, but it went down fine. He no longer would take anything for granted, even sitting in a restaurant booth. Judging from the expressions of everyone at the table, they all seemed to silently agree.

  As their meal finished, Carl scratched his left arm. It still stung a little after he had bailed out of the truck. “I’d love to stick around here but we need to keep moving. Let’s see what we can find before we go. Clean washcloths from the kitchen, toilet paper…”

  “Toilet paper?” Preston asked.

  “Yeah, unless you want to use tree leaves,” Carl said.

  Shyanne raised her hand as if she was in school. “Can I go before we leave?”

  “Sure. It’s only going to be one flush because the water’s out, but I don’t think this place is going to have any customers anytime soon,” Carl replied.

  Tara then gazed at Carl. “We need one more thing before we go.”

  “What?” Carl asked.

  Tara snickered. “Not that I don’t appreciate the view…” She pressed on Carl’s left ab. “But you really should put on a shirt.”

  Carl realized he had been without a shirt since he had used it to light the SUV on fire. The events of the past evening and morning had sped by so quickly he had forgotten. “I guess I better see if they have a shirt in back.”

  Carl tugged at his new brown button-up shirt. Before his party left the restaurant, he had rummaged through a closet in the manage
r’s office and found it. It was a size too small for him, so he only buttoned the middle buttons. It would have to do.

  By now the group had passed the strip mall. In fact, the road itself simply curved back toward the east, but that was not the direction Carl wanted to go. So, he simply started walking across the grass beyond the curb.

  In a few minutes, they had discovered the river that flowed under the Earhart overpass. Unfortunately, their flight over the bridge had taken them back over the river, so now they were on the wrong side. Also, the ground was much, much higher here. They now were about four feet above the river and the ground on the other side rose to a similar height.

  “We’re going to have to follow the river until we find a bridge across it,” Carl said.

  Tara looked down. The land sloped down steeply, meaning if anyone wanted to reach the river, they would have to climb down. “Can we just wade across?”

  As Tara finished her question, a cracked beer bottle drifted by. The water was flowing pretty fast, not rapidly, but enough to make Carl’s skin itch. “We don’t know how deep that water is,” he said.

  Preston pointed to another piece of trash, a piece of wood with a nail sticking out from the top. “This river also looks like it could use a visit from the EPA,” he said.

  Carl took a moment to study the river. Preston had a point. Wood and metal debris was flowing downstream at a steady rate. Debris from the riots in the city must have poured into this water. The idea of taking Shyanne through these waters was bad enough, but now it seemed she could be pierced or scraped by a shard of metal. Carl also wondered how many chemicals the river had taken on.

  “We’re going to find a way across,” Carl said firmly. “No swimming.”

  The former Marine led the way. It took some time walking before Carl finally slowed his pace. Here, the river narrowed considerably, not by what Carl considered a safe distance to wade across, but there did seem to be an avenue to get them across—an old metal pipe that stretched across the water to the other side.

  Carl knelt down over the place where the pipe met the ground. The pipe was bolted into concrete housing nestled in the ground. Although the bolts were corroded, the pipe seemed secure. There were no holes that Carl could see.

  “Might be strong enough to hold us,” Carl whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Preston asked, “Carl, you’re not saying we’re going to walk over on that pipe?”

  “We don’t have to walk across.” Carl stood up. “We can walk or we can crawl. Either way, I think we can manage it.”

  Preston looked at the pipe with a grimace. Tara asked him, “Do you need the hood again?”

  He shook his head. “No! No, this isn’t that high up. I’m just thinking there should be a bridge somewhere close by. Why don’t we just keep walking?”

  Suddenly, Shyanne pointed just ahead of them and cried out, “Dogs!”

  Shyanne had spotted a pair of dark brown dogs chomping on a carcass. It was too far to see what the canines were snacking on, possibly a dead raccoon.

  “Tara, take a look at those dogs,” Carl said.

  Tara whipped out her binoculars and took a peek through them. “Damn. Those two look like they’ve had a rough night. One of them’s got a scrape on his side, a cut, maybe he got clawed.” Tara gritted her teeth. “They’re eating like there’s no tomorrow. I sure wouldn’t want to try petting them.”

  “Are those bad dogs?” Shyanne asked.

  “If you mean feral dogs, or wild dogs, they sound like it.” Carl turned to Preston. “Sorry, Preston, but we got to cross this river, pronto.”

  Preston gave the pipe one more painful glance before he knelt down and grabbed onto it. It was wide enough that Preston could crawl on top of it without hanging over. However, the cylindrical shape played hell with his balance.

  He started crawling—slowly.

  Tara kept watch over the dogs. “They’re still eating. Wow, one of them looks like part of his ear got bit off.”

  Carl turned back to Preston. The man barely had reached a quarter of the way across the river. His limbs seemed to shake. His acrophobia might very well be hindering him, or perhaps he just wasn’t confident in his physical abilities.

  “Dammit, Preston, pick up the pace!” Carl called to him.

  “I’m trying!” Preston pushed his right arm forward. “Forgive me, but pipe crawling’s pretty new to me!”

  “Well, become an expert, fast! Remember our talk earlier about Marine training? If you don’t speed up, I will start using live rounds to motivate you!”

  Preston gritted his teeth and let out a foul swear word. But somehow, he managed to crawl a little faster.

  “They’re not eating,” Tara said. “Now they’re just circling the dead animal.”

  Carl turned back to Preston. He had reached the halfway mark. Carl planned to take Shyanne on his back and crawl out there, but he wouldn’t do it if for some reason Preston froze on the pipe. If the dogs gave chase, they might try to cross the pipe after them.

  Just then, Tara cried out, “Um, Carl, they’re looking this way!”

  Carl’s pulse quickened. He reached down and scooped up Shyanne. It was either running on the ground, swimming across the river, or crawling across the pipe. He had to pick the least dangerous option, and fast.

  “Tara, do you think you can cover us?” Carl asked.

  The two dogs then started in Carl’s direction. “No problem.” She lowered the binoculars and let them dangle on her chest. With the canines approaching, there was no need to use them.

  Carl stepped up to the pipe. The dogs definitely looked every bit as fearsome as Tara had described. In addition to their wounds, Carl spotted drool dripping from their mouths. No doubt about it, these dogs had a taste for blood.

  He got on the pipe. “Hang on tight to me,” he said to Shyanne. The girl clung to his back as he put his hands and legs onto the pipe. Then he started crawling.

  The canines viewed this as some kind of provocation and let loose with angry barking. Tara leveled her rifle as she backed up toward the pipe. “Alright, Marmaduke and Snoopy, back off!”

  The dogs broke into a run, but Tara just as quickly fired off two shots. One of them struck the ground right in front of the canines. The other hit one of the animals in the right leg. Whining, the dog stumbled and fell over. The second canine continued.

  As Tara fired, Carl crawled rapidly across the old metal, so fast that he was closing in on the backs of Preston’s shoes. The man still was a few feet from the other side. “Preston, hurry!”

  “I’m trying! Oh shit, I slipped!”

  “You didn’t slip! You didn’t slip! Just push your arms and legs up!” Carl barked.

  “Move it, Mister Preston!” Shyanne shouted.

  Preston cringed. “Great, even the girl’s acting like a soldier now.” He pushed his limbs with great effort. His right leg did slip a little, but not enough to make him lose his balance.

  With Preston renewing his efforts, Tara now stood up on the pipe itself and began backing away on it. The uninjured canine had arrived just short of the pipe. The dog stopped and growled at the retreating Tara.

  “Yeah, you think you’re hot stuff.” Tara kept the rifle on him as she backed up. “But I can send you to doggie Hell with one shot, so be smart and back off.”

  The dog took one slow step closer to the pipe. Another step, and the dog’s right paw would be on the metal.

  Tara kept backing up. She now was midway across the river. She kept her sights on the animal.

  By now, Preston had reached the other side. He flopped over onto the ground. Carl quickly followed. Shyanne rolled off his back, letting Carl stand up. Tara still was standing on the pipe, her gun trained on the dog.

  “Why…” Preston coughed. “Why doesn’t she shoot him?”

  “Wounded animals can be far worse. You really got to put them down with one shot,” Carl said. “Maybe Tara thinks the dog will give up.” Then he held out his hand
. “Preston, let me see the gun, just in case.”

  Preston complied. Carl walked to the edge of the river and aimed at the animal. Tara had begun backing up on the pipe. He was impressed with her balance, but it would take only one slip for her to fall.

  Tara was three quarters of the way across when the dog jumped onto the pipe.

  “No, you bastard. Don’t even think about it,” Carl whispered.

  Tara was approaching. A few more steps would carry her onto Carl’s side of the river. But now the dog was walking across the pipe. If he chose to run…

  “Tara, make a break for it!” Carl suddenly cried.

  Tara didn’t question Carl’s order. She turned and ran across the pipe. The dog barked and started running. However, Carl planned for the canine’s actions. He aimed for the center space above the pipe and pulled the trigger.

  The dog was hit in the chest. The animal fell, slid across the pipe, and then plunged into the river. Carl swallowed hard as he lowered the gun. The dog quickly was carried off by the river.

  Tara rushed over to him. “Hey! Thanks for saving me.”

  Carl let out a breath. “Yeah.” His eyes met Tara’s. “You had some great balance out there.”

  “Thanks. I took some gymnastics lessons as a teenager, but never went through with them.”

  Preston was leaning against a tree. “I hope I can end the day without hanging off one more tall perch to save my life.”

  “Oh, grow some balls.” Tara chuckled. “You didn’t do too bad for a wussy leftie.”

  Shyanne looked up at Carl. “Those were bad doggies.”

  Carl patted the girl on the back. “Definitely.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tara’s boots crunched the ground loudly with each step. Carl had placed her in the lead of the group for the moment. A short walk from the river led them to an open field of tall grass, so Carl wasn’t expecting any surprises. There were no houses or buildings nearby for assailants to spring from, and with this open field, trouble could be spotted from farther away. Besides, Carl needed a respite. He could keep on full alert only for so long before he mentally tired out.