There was no question as to whether or not we would investigate. We couldn’t afford to wait and see what happened. After all, that had been a lot of gunfire, and we were in no position to call the police.
“Okay,” I said. “Who goes, and who stays?”
Zachary piped up. “I wanna go!” Quick in the way of an eight-year-old boy, he turned toward the pistols on the couch.
Debra caught his shoulder. “The kids and I will stay here and watch things while you’re gone.” She knelt in front of Zachary. “Zach, I need you to stay here with me. I’m too scared to stay here alone.”
Zachary frowned, probably sensing he was being manipulated. “But I need to go with Dad.”
Debra turned to me, her eyes asking for help.
“Zach, come here.” I said it conspiratorially, appealing to the part of every child that wanted to be an adult. “Your mom won’t admit it, but she’s afraid of guns. She’s probably going to need some help loading them. Can you do me a favor and look after her?”
Still appearing unsure, but willing to be talked into it, he finally agreed. “Well, okay.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Cindy added.
“I’m going.” Megan sounded as if she expected an argument. In truth, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, she was my daughter, just sixteen years old, and I couldn’t help feeling that I shouldn’t allow her to go into a potentially dangerous situation. On the other hand, however, I would be happy to have her help. After all, I had trained her myself, and she had held up under the pressure of a tight situation to save my bacon once already.
“Fine. Ken?”
“I’m going,” he said. “You’ll need me to show you the back trails through the woods.”
I nodded and picked up the carbine. “Everybody, take your pick.” I headed back to the bedroom that Debra and I shared. I reached under the bed and pulled out two canvas sport bags, then quickly stripped down to my underwear. One was my trusty bag of tricks, which I immediately dug into and began strapping my hidden arsenal into place.
When finished, I reached into the other bag and pulled out several pairs of camouflage pants, shirts, jackets, and gloves. That bag contained all of mine and Megan’s old paintball gear. Still in the bag were a couple of protective face masks, several safety goggles, a dozen smoke bombs, web belts with plenty of pouches, two paintball guns, and other paintball paraphernalia.
I slipped on camouflage pants, a t-shirt, and a jacket over most of my toys, until I was dressed much as I had been on the drive out from Houston, except camouflaged from head to toe. I also grabbed half of the smoke bombs and stuffed them into a pouch on my web belt. Each one would put out a huge cloud of thick white smoke when you pulled the ring on the side. They had been a lot of fun when playing paintball and worked well in thick brush.
I left the room in a hurry. “Megan,” I called, “your cammies are on the bed in our room. Make it fast!” She grabbed one of the Kalashnikovs and headed for the bedroom.
I turned to Ken. “There are some more cammies in the bedroom. When she comes out, why don’t you see if any of them will fit you?”
Ken waved and went back to coordinating the defense of the house with Cindy and Debra. With the rest of us leaving, it would be up to the women to defend the homestead if anything happened. It quickly became obvious that Ken knew more about firearms than I ever would.
He had never mentioned his hitch in the military during our two week incarceration in the shelter. They were evidently memories he preferred to forget, but he hadn’t forgotten the knowledge of weapons he’d acquired. He went from Debra to Cindy, recommending weapons and positions for defense of the house. I just watched, listened, and learned.
Debra had a problem with depth perception, so she got the.30–06 with the telescopic sight for long range where she could take her time in aiming. If any action began to get close, she would have to switch to the twelve-gauge so the spread could help compensate for her vision.
Cindy got the Kalashnikov that Megan hadn’t taken. They had enough ammunition to take on a small army, and Ken showed Zachary how to load rounds into the empty magazines for the various firearms. Everyone was taking it very seriously. Maybe it would turn out to be nothing, but it sure hadn’t sounded like it.
Megan emerged dressed in her camouflage. In addition, she wore one of our old team patches on her shoulder and had slung the crossbow across her back. She had already proven herself with it, and we might need a good, long-range, silent weapon. Her philosophy and mine were much the same; better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
While Ken hurried into the bedroom to change, Megan and I took the opportunity to help each other stretch our legs and arms for maximum flexibility and blood circulation. It occurred to me that this was the first time since we had gotten here that we had so much as thought about our martial arts training, and I vowed it would become part of our daily routine.
Ken returned wearing cammies. He had helped himself to one of my sheath knives, as well. Everyone was ready, or as ready as we were likely to get. We told the women we would be back before dark and set up recognition signals, so they wouldn’t shoot us if we came back in a hurry.
I turned to Megan. “Just one more thing. This isn’t paintball.”
Her face was set, silent and intense. She tended to get that way when concentrating on something important. I had seen her like that many times before sparring in class or tournaments.
I continued, “There are two big differences. First, the range on these guns is much farther than paintball guns. Always remember that.” She nodded.
“And second-”
“I know,” she interrupted. “If you get hit, you don’t come back in for the next game.”
“You got it.” I pushed back an urge to force her to stay behind. Instead, I turned to Ken. “Ready to go?”
Ken hefted the AR-15. “Waiting on you.”
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, then slung my machete over my shoulder. “Let’s find out what all the ruckus is about.”
Megan and I quickly taught Ken our hand signals, and we trudged through the brush in silence. For me, the feeling of deja vu was intense. The last time I had gone sneaking through the woods like this had very nearly been fatal. Actually, it had been fatal, to Edgar and Michael.
The shots had come from south of Amber’s spread, past Ken and Cindy’s place. That was all we had to go by, so Ken led us through the brush on barely seen game trails. He whispered that he and some of his neighbors used many of these trails when they were hunting, so a multitude of crisscrossed tracks led to and from most of the homes in the area.
After several minutes, Ken signaled for us to slow down and come forward cautiously. When we moved next to him, he whispered, “This is the back of old man Kindley’s place.”
I pointed out that the house looked vacant.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Do you want to check it out?”
I remembered what Amber had said about all of the deaths and radiation sickness in the area. “Not really…” Visions of grisly, mummified carcasses filled my head. “But I guess we should.”
First, we skirted all around the house making sure no unfriendlies hung about. Then, we quickly ran up to the back door.
“What do we do now?” I asked. “Kick it in?”
Ken turned the knob, and the door swung inward. “The trouble with living in the city is that you can’t trust anyone.” He grinned. “You wouldn’t even dream of leaving your house unlocked, would you?”
I shook my head, and Megan and I followed him in. A quick search of the dark and musty interior revealed it to be mercifully empty. We noted a pantry full of canned goods that we could come back for at a later date, but there were no bodies.
The next house was two miles further, and turned out to be much the same as Kindley’s. As we trekked down the trail, Megan snapped her fingers to get our attention. She pointed to her nose and mimed sniffing the air.