The Price of Freedom Read online

  The sun was getting low in the west as I started off across a small field. There was a shed with some farm equipment in it, but I didn’t see any people, so I continued across a bridge and onto the secondary road. A sign indicated it was Railroad Avenue, which wasn’t surprising since a set of tracks ran alongside it. A quick glance at the map showed me I was in the right spot, so I folded it up and stuck it in a pocket.

  There were several buildings and a recycling center along the road. All of them were deserted. Their parking lots were empty, but their lights were on, as if everyone had run out of the buildings without worrying about thieves or what tomorrow would bring. I could understand their reasoning.

  I didn’t figure I needed anything from the recycling center, so I continued along the road. The next business, though, advertised dry suits, waders, and dry bags. As I was on the water and had ammunition—and hoped to get more—the dry bags were very interesting to me.

  Keeping my pistol ready, I crossed the parking lot with its seven empty parking spaces and approached the three buildings. There was a small office building that was nothing more than a double-wide trailer, a small production building, and a large warehouse. I looked into the office; it looked pretty much like every other small business office I’d ever seen. There was nothing of value, unless I wanted to liberate some staples or paper, which I didn’t, so I turned and went to the warehouse. That building had both a large roll-down door and a normal-size door. I checked the normal door and frowned; while the employees might have run out quickly, they had taken the time to lock it.

  This door had a metal frame, which defeated my first attempt at entry. The door yielded to my Size 12 entry pass on the second attempt, and I was in. A glorious smorgasbord of on-the-water equipment awaited me inside. Realizing time was wasting, I grabbed two big bags—one that rode on my back like a sailor’s seabag and another for my off hand that was as big as I thought I could carry comfortably. The packaging said their interiors wouldn’t be permeated by water at depths of less than 132 feet, which should be plenty; if I was that deep, I had other issues.

  With my prizes in hand, I left the warehouse, respectfully shutting the door behind me. It latched, barely, although it wouldn’t keep out any serious looters…not that it had before. There was nothing interesting the rest of the way down to the next intersection, which had a small restaurant and tap house on the corner. The lights were all on, and the music was blasting. I didn’t get too close, but it appeared a full-fledged party was going on. I shrugged as I strode on past; if you don’t know what to do when the end of the world happens, I guess a party was as good an activity as any. While I love a good party, I had more important things to do.

  Perspective is important in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Six

  I turned left onto Gable as the sun hit the horizon, and I knew I had to hurry; I still had a half mile to my destination. Before I got within sight of the building, though, I knew there was going to be a problem—I could hear gunfire coming from that direction.

  The parking lot had a thin screen of trees and shrubs, and I dashed from the road to the closest tree. I’m sure my “dash” wasn’t much more than the way zombies moved on the old TV shows—not the movie ones, the TV ones—but that was all I had left; I was running on fumes.

  As I peered from behind the tree, I could see a pitched battle underway between at least 20 people in the parking lot, hiding behind a fairly large number of cars, and an unknown number of people in the store. I caught a few flashes of the people inside; it didn’t look like the employees were defending the store, which meant the battle was one set of looters versus another. While some might have skills with a firearm, it wouldn’t be like going up against the employees of a gun store.

  And the big box store wasn’t built to be defensible.

  Running hunched over, I moved toward the closest looter I could see. As far as I could tell, he was on “my team.” We were the ones who wanted in, and I wanted in as quickly as possible; the longer the gunfight went on, the more of the store’s ammo the people on the inside would use up. A long gunfight was suboptimal. Besides, I was tired and night was falling.

  “Coming in!” I called so I didn’t completely surprise the looter I had picked to join.

  He jumped and spun, but when he saw me holding my hands up, he waved me forward. Whether that was in spite of the pistol in my hand or because of it, I didn’t know. I reached the car and leaned against it, breathing hard.

  The man, a short, heavy-set guy of about 50 looked me up and down once, probably deciding if he wanted me on his team. He looked like he’d seen some action already, as his clothes were dirty, and he had several cuts. “You look like shit,” he finally said in greeting.

  I decided that meant he wasn’t going to try to kill me right away, which I saw as a positive sign.

  “It’s been a hell of a day,” I said. “Survived a nuclear attack, been in three motorcycle accidents, and been shot at several times. How about you?”

  “Didn’t do the motorcycle shit, but I’ve been through the rest.” He nodded toward the store. “Guess you had the same thought?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “What’s the first thing you do after a nuclear holocaust? Go shopping.” I held up the bag in my left hand.

  The man smiled. “A man’s gotta eat.”

  “Yep.” I looked around at the rest of the people in the parking lot. They were mostly men with a couple of women. All of them seemed armed, although most had pistols, not rifles, which was why it had become a standoff—the people inside were better armed, but more and more people—like me—were being drawn to the store. I didn’t know which would run out first—their ammo or our people—all I knew was it was wasting my ammo. “I’d love to join you guys if you don’t mind,” I added. “I have some skills that may be helpful here.”

  “Do you now?”

  I nodded again. I jerked my head toward the closest group of men. “How many of these folks do you know?”

  “Most of ‘em,” he said. “Our neighborhood decided to put together this…what did you call it? A shopping trip? Whatever it was, we rounded up about 30 people and came over. Looks like another neighborhood or two had the same idea, and we got here just as they were leaving. They decided they didn’t want to share any of the guns and ammo they had, and things got heated. At least two of them and four of our folks are dead.”

  “That’s about what I figured,” I replied. I looked over the hood of the car again. It was almost dark out, and I didn’t have the time or desire to do this all night. “Tell you what. You let me join you and give me a cut of the goods, and I’ll get you into the store.”

  The man chuckled. “I’ve been here two hours,” he said. “You think you can just walk up and do something that the group of us couldn’t do in two hours? Sure; if you can do it, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “What if you get hit in the interim?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, and I could guess what he was thinking. “No, I’m not going to shoot you,” I added. “And I promise not to harm anyone from your group, as long as they don’t point a gun in my direction. I just want to know that you’re not going to turn on me after I get you into the store.”

  The man nodded once. “That’s fair, I guess.” He stood up a little so he could look over the trunk of the car. “Hey, John,” he called.

  The next man over turned to look at my companion. “Yeah?”

  “This guy here—” he pointed at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “Joe,” I said.

  “—Joe, says he can get us into the store.”

  “Oh, yeah?” John looked at me, obviously skeptical.

  I nodded. “All I want is my part of the loot and for you not to kill me on the way out.”

  The man laughed. “If you can get us into the store in the next ten minutes, you got it.”

  I turned back to the man next to me. “I need a rifle,” I said. “An
y of your guys have a rifle I can borrow?” His eyes narrowed again, and I sighed. “I’m not going to run off with your damn rifle; I can just use it better than any of you. Hell, you can come with me, and if it looks like I’m going to run off with it, you can shoot me yourself.”

  “Fair enough,” the man said with a nod. He held out his hand. “I’m Steven. Welcome to the Rose Manor Community Watch. John, over there, is the head of the group, so if he says you’re good, you’re good.”

  I reached over and took his hand. “Joe,” I replied. “Good to meet you, although I probably won’t be around for the next meeting. Give me a rifle, though, and the rest of you will be better armed for it.”

  Steven scanned the parking lot and nodded. “Ready to move?”

  “You bet,” I replied. “Let’s get moving before anyone else shows up.”

  “My sentiments exactly.” He rose and ran hunched over to where two men were hiding behind a pickup truck. I pulled the bag off my back, stuck the smaller bag in it, then raced after him. Although the people in the store hadn’t fired much at Steven, they opened up on me, and I heard several rounds go past.

  I made it to the truck and collapsed against the rear wheel, breathing heavily. “Next time…I’m going…first.”

  Steven chuckled. “They did seem to throw a little more lead your way than mine, didn’t they?” He turned to one of the men, both of whom were armed with rifles. “Roy,” John said to one of them, “let Joe borrow your rifle. He thinks he can get us into the store.”

  “That so?” Roy asked.

  I nodded. “I can, and I will.”

  “I want it back when you’re done.”

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  “Do I get to hold your pistol as insurance?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry; I’ll need it for the close-in work.”

  Roy sighed and handed me the rifle. It was an AR-15 clone. “There are about ten more rounds in the magazine.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I pointed toward the building. “I’ll leave it next to the entrance on the left.”

  “How do I know someone won’t steal it?”

  “Hopefully, you guys will be right behind me when I break through their guys at the door,” I replied. “I mean, the whole point of this is to get in there, right? Once I’m in, you’re coming, too, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess,” Roy said. Apparently, he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Wonderful.

  Steven patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said.

  I nodded. “Stay here,” I said. “When I charge the store, follow me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Closer.” I went to the back of the truck and got down on my stomach. I hated low crawling, especially with my skin already torn up from the day’s events, but I hated not being armed even more. Using my elbows and knees, I slid forward and a little further left. While the area directly in front of the store was wide open, due to a large number of handicapped parking spaces, there were a few random cars on the left, and then some low shrubs that would give me some concealment. They weren’t cover, as the bushes wouldn’t do anything to stop a bullet, but they might keep someone from seeing me approach.

  I worked my way up to a small gap between a tree and a fire hydrant, the only real cover in the area, and looked up at the target area. I was now about 100 feet from the main entrance on the left. A 20-foot entrance area projected from the main part of the building, which had an entrance/exit on both the left and right sides, and a small, half-height entrance in the center for loading in the shopping carts when they were being returned from the parking lot. A lot of the glass had been shot out of the doors, and I realized I was approaching at the right time. It had gotten darker outside, and the dim emergency lights on the inside of the building were starting to highlight the movement of the store’s defenders.

  Perfectly positioned, I smiled as I adjusted my aim, then frowned as I realized I had just put my elbow in someone’s spit-out gum. Wonderful. Because being in a nuclear war apparently wasn’t bad enough, I now had to wear someone else’s gum. Gross.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, resolving not to let it bother me or gross me out as I sighted down my rifle. From the angle I was at, I couldn’t shoot through the front of the store, but I had a great view through the left door. There appeared to be three men in the front lobby, one on each side, plus a floater who went back and forth between the other two.

  The man defending the doorway leaned out to take a shot, and I fired. The sights were a touch off; the shot through his chest went a touch lower than I intended. It would still be fatal, just not as quickly as I hoped. He fell backward, though, and was out of the fight.

  The floater had been looking the other way and hadn’t seen my muzzle flash, and he looked around wildly as he ran over to take the fallen man’s place. I greeted him with a round to the chest, aiming a little higher so the round took him through the heart.

  The defender on the other side was in a quandary—he couldn’t leave his position, and due to the shape of the building, there were blind spots he couldn’t see. Without the support of the other two men, he was partially blind, and he knew it; he called out for help. I ran up to the column that helped support the front portion of the building, which was about 15 feet from the front door, and carefully leaned the borrowed rifle against it.

  “What happened?” a new voice asked after a couple of moments.

  “I don’t know,” the man watching the right door said. “I was covering my side, and they got shot.”

  “Did you see where the shots came from?”

  “No, man—I can’t see that side from over here.”

  “Damn. Okay, Fred, you take this side and, Jimmy, you stay where you are. I’m going to round everyone up, and we’ll make a break out the back door. I’ll be right back to get you.”

  That wasn’t going to work for me—I didn’t want them to break out and take my weapons and ammo with them. I pulled my pistol from the pocket of my cargo pants.

  “Got it,” a new voice said, giving me an idea of where the additional defender—Fred—was. I gave the leader a count of ten to clear the area, then spun around the column in the direction furthest from Fred. He saw the movement and started to turn in my direction, but his weapon was pointed toward the parking lot, and he didn’t have time. I shot him twice in the chest as I ran forward and into the store.

  Jimmy heard the shots and started to turn back to our side, but I fired several shots in his direction. They were longer shots, as he was on the opposite side of the entrance foyer, but at least one of them got him in the stomach, and a second one hit him in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground.

  I turned to the door on my side and looked at the three defenders in the dim light. None of them were moving. I grabbed a rifle from the closest one—another AR-15 clone. A quick search of the man yielded two full magazines and two empty ones. I could see movement from the corner of my eyes as I stood—the rest of “my” group was running toward the building.

  Not wanting to get shot by an overzealous member who didn’t realize I was on their team in the gloom, I turned and ran into the main part of the store. The auto store was on the left side of the building, so I headed in that direction, figuring the guns and camping supplies would be on that side as well. While I wanted to stop the group from leaving, I didn’t want to attempt it by myself, so I figured I’d swing by the guns to see if they’d left anything.

  I arrived at the gun section as a firefight broke out behind me, and I could see flashes as the roar of gunfire echoed throughout the store. Apparently, my group had spread out and made contact with the other group before they could leave with all the guns and ammo.

  Which is what they had done, I saw as I reached my destination. The glass had been broken out of all the gun cases, and all the weapons were gone. They had taken all the ammo that was with the rifles, and the scopes and accessories, too. I spun, looking for anythi
ng of value in the area and saw a rack of shotgun shells. I pulled the bag from my back and scooped six boxes of 12- gauge buckshot into it, along with a couple of boxes of #2 and #6, and threw it onto my back again as the strobing and roar of gunfire continued. It seemed to be moving toward the back of the store, away from me. I was okay with that.

  I swore and ran over a couple of aisles to the camping supplies. A smile lit my face as I got the first good news I’d had in a while—the aisle was untouched. I couldn’t understand how the looters had forgotten this stuff—apparently, none of them were campers. Their loss; my gain. I set my rifle down and began shopping. Packaged food went into my bag. I didn’t bother pulling the pouches off the metal hangars; I just unclipped the metal rods from the wall and tossed entire racks into the bag. Some 2,400 calorie bars? Yes, please—I dumped the entire box. Iodine tablets and water filtration equipment, space blankets and waterproof matches, knives and multi-tools filled the bag. I was just throwing it onto my back when several men ran up.

  None of them recognized me, of course, and I dove to the side as one of them pointed a pistol at me and fired. With the added weight on my back, I hit hard as I slammed into the display on my left. I pulled something in my side—or reinjured something from one of my motorcycle accidents; it was hard to know which—and a flash of pain ripped through me.

  “I’m on your side, moron!” I yelled. I pulled my pistol as I dove and aimed at him, but he lifted his pistol, so I didn’t shoot him. Yet. “I’m the person that got you in here,” I added. “The guns, however, are already gone. We have to stop them.”

  “Do you know where they went?” one of the other men asked.

  Apparently he had missed the continuing gunfire from the back of the store, I thought, grunting as I climbed to my feet and picked up my rifle. It had decreased in volume, but random shots still rang out, although they were a little muffled compared to the original ones. It dawned on me what the other group was doing; they were delaying as they loaded their loot—which included my weapons and ammo—into their escape vehicles.