Don't Call Me Ishmael Read online

  I shot her again, just to make sure, and climbed to my feet with my left arm on fire. Again. John was trading shots with the truck driver—mostly just wasting ammunition—and I waved at George to pull forward. He slid into the driver’s seat, keeping low, and shifted the truck into gear as I rounded up all of the weapons and ammo I could.

  As he reached the gap between the cars in the barricade, it must have dawned on the truck driver that we were escaping; he shifted into gear and floored the gas pedal.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I yelled as I dove into the back of the truck. Something broke my fall with dual explosions, and I realized I had just smashed two bags full of potato chips.

  George stayed on the gas, and the truck leaped forward into the maze. He weaved through the second rank of cars as the truck hit the cars behind us. He slammed into them, driving them forward, but we made the next turn, and they missed us. One more hard turn to get around the last row of cars, and we were in the clear. We went over a small rise in the bridge for boats to go under, then Dauphin Island was in sight.

  George slowed the car. “Want to drive?” he asked through the window.

  “Not really,” I replied. As the adrenaline left my system, all I wanted to do was lay on the crushed bags of chips and sleep for about five days. I looked to the side. All three kids looked okay—well, not really ‘okay,’ but I didn’t see any blood leaking from any of them—so we at least had that going for us.

  “Um, I could really use a hand,” George said.

  Something about the way he said it set me on edge—like he was almost saying it through gritted teeth—and I rolled over and slid up to the window into the cab. He was holding his left arm across his chest while he drove with his right. He turned toward me a little, and I could see a drop of blood drip from his left elbow onto his lap. His leg already had a small wet spot there.

  “Pull over,” I said. I snorted as I looked in front of us; not surprisingly, there was no traffic. “The hell with that,” I added. “Force of habit. Don’t worry about pulling over; just stop the damn truck.”

  He nodded once, then slowed us to a stop. Grabbing one of the first aid kits, I vaulted out of the truck, adrenaline surging again.

  “What’s wrong?” John asked.

  “Nothing,” I said as I pulled the driver’s door open. “Just stay in the back.” If it were bad, I didn’t want them to see it.

  “Oh, my God, Daddy!” Alice screamed. “You’ve been shot!”

  Well, that wasn’t helpful. “Yes, he has,” I said, looking back, “and I’m going to fix him right up. But I need you to be calm and not scream anymore while I do it, okay?”

  She nodded her head, but tears were already flowing down her cheeks. There were also tears on her younger brother’s face, and he was snuffling heavily. Even John looked like he was losing the battle to hold back his tears—both eyes were glistening in the late morning sun.

  Watching me work on their father wasn’t going to make it any better, either. “I need your help,” I said. “I need all of your help. It’s going to take me a minute or two to fix up your dad, but I don’t want the bad men to surprise us. I need all three of you to watch behind us for them. Don’t take your eyes off the road—it’s really important. Can you do that for me?”

  They all nodded, so I pointed back down the road. “Okay, then—all eyes back there. Let me know if you see anyone coming.”

  John nodded once to me, then looked pointedly at his siblings. “Good job,” he mouthed as I passed him. He turned his face back to look behind us. I figured he understood what I was doing…but he probably didn’t want to see his father’s blood, either.

  George slid from the front seat and leaned back against it, his face pale.

  “Where are you hit?” I asked quietly.

  “Upper arm,” he said, squinting against the pain. “I leaned out to get one of the truckers, and the other one got me. Hit me in the humerus…”

  I opened my mouth to say something, and he added, “And no, I don’t think that’s very funny.” I closed my mouth again.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” he added.

  “Awesome,” I replied. “Well, let’s get your jacket off and take a look.”

  He moved to the side a little so I could set down the first aid kit. His face scrunched up as I slid the jacket down and off. It was bloody, but not too bad; at least it hadn’t hit any of the main arteries. I opened the kit and grabbed some gauze. “Here. Hold this over the wound.”

  I surveyed the rest of the contents of the kit, then picked up a packet. “Here’s some chewable aspirin. They’re small, but maybe they’ll help a bit.” He opened his mouth, and I dropped them in.

  I pulled on a pair of gloves. “This is going to hurt,” I said. He turned his head and flinched as I probed the wound. The bullet had passed though the arm, and had grazed the bone on its way through. Aside from an x-ray or a surgical procedure, there was no way to tell if there were bone splinters inside, but nothing was poking from either of the holes, nor did my probing appear to cause more pain than it should, so I hoped it was a clean break.

  I figured the worst thing would probably be infection, as there was no way to tell what the bullet pulled into the wound when it passed through. I certainly wasn’t going to dig around looking and make it worse. Happily, the wound didn’t look like it needed stiches so I wiped down the area around the holes with antiseptic cleansing wipes, then applied antibiotic ointment liberally and covered them with large adhesive bandages.

  “Well, the good news is it isn’t that bad,” I said.

  “Aside from the whole ‘getting shot’ sort of thing,” he said through gritted teeth as I worked.

  “Well, yeah, that. At least it didn’t hit an artery, and the bullet appears to have gone through, without splintering the bone. You need to watch for signs of infection like fever or chills. If you change the bandages yourself and see an increased redness, swelling, or drainage—especially nasty, pus-like drainage, we’ll have to find you a doctor. Maybe go back to Bayou La Batre or something.” I don’t know where the info came from, but it flowed like I’d said it many times previously.

  He nodded, and I rigged up an extra jacket to immobilize his arm, then helped him back into the truck on the passenger’s side.

  “Are you going to be okay, Daddy?” Alice asked.

  He mustered a weak smile. “Yeah, Fred hooked me up as good as new. I think I’ll just sleep for a bit, though.”

  With the shape he was in, I didn’t feel the need to correct him, but damn, I was getting tired of that name.

  I got him as comfortable as I could, put away the first aid kit, and got the kids settled in the back with a snack to take their minds off what had already been a traumatic day. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t even quite noon yet.

  Grabbing one of the bags of crushed chips to snack on, I jumped in the cab and started driving. I’d only eaten a couple of handfuls of chips before we crossed Cedar Island and approached Dauphin Island. I slowed again and sighed. The way was blocked with yet another barricade.

  The more things change, the more some things stay the same in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  With a second sigh, I slowed the car. Again. George’s eyes snapped open. “Wha…what’s going on?”

  “Another barricade,” I said.

  “Wha…what are we going to do?”

  I looked into his eyes and could tell that while the lights were on, there was no one home. “Nothing,” I said. “Go back to sleep. Everything’s fine.”

  “Mmm…okay,” he said. His eyes closed, and he was out.

  “Well shit,” I muttered as I stopped the truck about 100 yards from the barricade. Shaking my head, I got out.

  “Want me to cover you?” John asked from the bed of the truck. He was on his knees, looking over the roof of the cab, and he had one of the rifles in his hand.

  I motioned for him to lower it. “Put that down
,” I whispered. “We don’t want to piss these people off or make a bad impression.”

  “But what if—”

  “No,” I said, interrupting him. “We need to play nicely with these folks. We can’t go back, unless you want to play chicken with a big truck.”

  “Not really.”

  “Me, either. Also, your dad is kind of out of it; all things considered, I’d like to make nice with these people. We may need a doctor to look at his arm if it gets infected, and they may have one. We’re not going to do anything that might make them think poorly of us.”

  I flipped my pistols onto the driver’s seat and walked toward the barricade with my hands up.

  “That’s far enough,” one of the men said as I got within about 10 yards of the barricade.

  I stopped. There were at least five rifles on me; it seemed prudent.

  “You armed?” the man asked.

  “Not at the moment,” I replied.

  “There was a lot of shooting from down the bridge a bit ago,” the man noted. “Care to tell me what happened?”

  “There was a barricade there, too,” I replied. “They wanted one of our children to pass; we decided on a different arrangement.”

  “Are they all dead?”

  I shrugged. “All but one, I think. He’s got a big semi-truck cab and wanted to run us off the bridge when we killed the rest of his friends. All things considered, I’d rather not go back to face him without some heavier armament than I have.”

  “Damn,” one of the other men said. “He’s the first person to get by them in five days; and he almost killed them all? We should go finish them off.”

  “So what’s your story?” the man asked me.

  “I woke up about a week ago and couldn’t remember anything about my past. When I left the building I was in, I got attacked. I killed a bunch of them, but had to run away from the rest. I met up with a family, but the killers showed up again. I killed a bunch more, then we ran from the rest. We’ve had people try to waylay us several times on the way here, and we’ve left a lot of them dead behind us.”

  “That’s a lot of dead people,” the man said. “We’re really not looking for killers here.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone who didn’t attack me or my friends first,” I replied. “We also left one of our own along the way, and I got one more with a bullet wound in his arm from the folks back along the bridge.”

  “What is it you’re looking for, exactly?” the man asked.

  “We’re hoping to use the ferry over to the other side of the bay. The family I’m with is from Pensacola, and I told them I’d help them get there.”

  “How much are they paying you?”

  “Paying me?” I asked, my brows knitting. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Just curious,” the man replied. “You seem to be pretty handy with a gun, and I’m curious why you’re with them. You don’t seem like someone who would care about children a lot.” He nodded toward our truck.

  I looked back and could see all three kids looking at us. So much for that secret.

  I shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t know who I am, so one place is as good as another. I’m hoping something will jog my memory as we go.”

  “Anything yet?”

  “Nope.” Somehow, it didn’t seem wise to tell him the only thing I’d really figured out was that I was probably a psychopath.

  “There’s still time, I guess,” he said. He peered at me intently.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Now that I look at you, you seem familiar. Do I look familiar to you?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t say you do. Is the ferry running?” I asked, as the silence grew uncomfortable. “If so, what’s it take to use it?”

  “Yes, the ferry is running,” the man said. “It’s running on barter, though; money’s pretty useless these days.”

  “I figured.” I cocked my head at him. “But I guess you folks want something first to let us through?”

  “You’re a pretty smart guy,” the man said. “Here’s the deal. There are only a few remaining islands of civilization right now, and most of them are, literally, islands. Like Dauphin Island, here. The laws still apply here. We have police and most of the services we had before the bombing started. There’s only one thing we’re missing, and that’s gas. We can feed ourselves pretty well, as long as we have fuel to run our boats. Unfortunately, that comes from Bayou La Batre, and we haven’t received a shipment since the folks you met moved onto the bridge and started intercepting our fuel shipments.

  “It’s getting to the point where we were about to have to do something about them ourselves, but if you’ve broken up the ring, you’ve done us a service. If, perhaps, you were to lead a team that finished them off, since you know their disposition, we’d probably let you onto the island. You’d have to work out passage on the ferry yourself, though.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” I replied. “I think we have some pretty good things to barter. My question is the word ‘probably’ you used. If I go wipe out the rest of them for you, are you going to let us through?”

  The man looked at me for a moment and nodded once. “Yeah,” he said. “We will.”

  “And how do I know you’ll honor that promise?”

  “I reckon you don’t,” the man said. He set his rifle on the hood of the car he was behind and came out to join me. I could see he was wearing a police uniform. He held out his hand. “I’m Chief of Police Dan Bradley,” he said. “My word is my bond. If you can open up the bridge again, I promise to let you onto the island.”

  I took his hand and shook it. “Fair enough,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have a doctor who could look at my friend’s arm, do you? It would be a damn shame to orphan his kids if his wound were to get infected and kill him.”

  “We have a doctor,” the chief of police said with a nod. “I’ll even pay him out of my funds to look at your friend.”

  “You must want that fuel badly,” I replied.

  “We’re getting low on food,” he said. “Happily, it wasn’t the tourist season yet, so we don’t have all those mouths to feed.” He shrugged. “Still, there were enough snowbirds here that it’s hard enough. We’re putting them to work as best we can, though.”

  He nodded toward the barricade and one of the men bowed. “Rod Jewell, from Ontario, at your service. I may not be able to run a fishing boat, but I can man a barricade and fire a rifle.”

  The chief of police nodded back to him. “See?” he asked. “Everyone’s doing their part.” He turned to me. “So, Mister…what did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” I replied. “Like I said, I don’t know what it is.”

  “What do the people you’re traveling with call you?”

  I sighed. “Fred. But that’s not my name.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t remember anything. It could be Fred, then, couldn’t it?”

  “I guess it could,” I replied. “But I don’t think it is.”

  “Well, until we have something better, that’ll work for now. Nice to meet you…Fred.”

  I sighed again.

  There are some things you just have to learn to live with in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  The chief called for reinforcements to take George and his kids to the doctor while the rest of us went to check on the mid-bridge barricade. Honestly, I’d seen so many road blocks in the last few days they were all staring to run together. They opened up their barricade, and I drove the truck through and parked it on the side of the road. The doctor arrived, and George’s family was led off to one of the nearby buildings, a former restaurant by the looks of it.

  I made a mental inventory of the back of the truck, then walked back to the barricade, armed with two pistols and plenty of magazines.

  “You don’t have a rifle?” the chief asked.

  “We’re about out of ammo for it,” I replied. “
I’ve got a couple of shotguns, but I’d rather have my pistols. I seem to do well with them.”

  “Up to you,” he said, obviously more comfortable with his rifle. He waved to his people who were milling about. “All right, everyone, listen up. We’re going to take three vehicles and the backhoe that will be arriving shortly. That’s a driver and a passenger-slash-shotgun rider in each. Fred here—” I nodded, reluctantly, “—will be in the lead vehicle, since he’s already been through there once. The plan is to clear up any remaining criminals, remove any blockage on the main thoroughfare, and re-establish our barricade on the landward end of the bridge. Once we’ve reached the other end of the bridge, we’ll call back and have you move forward.

  “The most dangerous time will be while our main force is in motion, so we’ll want to make sure we’re well dug in before we call back, so it may be a little while before we call. Any questions?”

  “Yeah, Chief,” another man in a police uniform said. “Why don’t we just take everyone and go in one large group? Wouldn’t there be safety in numbers?”

  “There might be, Collins,” the chief said. “There also might be more criminals there than what Fred left behind. With only three vehicles, we can get turned around quickly and scamper back here, pronto. Even if we get ambushed, there will still be a big group here that can defend the island. The worst case scenario would be to take a big force and get hit by surprise by an even bigger one while we’re disorganized. If they got past us, they’d be onto the island, and that’s something I’m not going to let happen.”

  The other man nodded, satisfied with the answer.

  “Anything else?” the chief asked.

  When no one else said anything, the chief said, “Mount up, then,” and we jumped into our cars.

  My driver’s name was Tom Stevens, who was driving a year-old Mustang. “This the car you want to go into battle with?” I asked. “You saw the bullet holes in my truck, right?”