Chapter 9

Carl started the Humvee and began to slowly head west; all the while keeping his eyes out for gas stations that had diesel pumps and sporting goods stores. All of the sporting goods stores that he had come across had been looted of all guns and ammunition but the mobs were leaving the heavy clothing, tents and sleeping bags. With typical mob intelligence they were only thinking of today; not thinking that this warm summer weather would soon give way to the chill of autumn. He hoped to have his camp secure before winter set in. The winters could get brutal in West Virginia.

He pointed to the weapons in front of her seat, "The safety is off on those and there's a bullet in the chamber. Be careful that you don't shoot yourself."

"My name is Bennie," she said, "It's really Bernadette but I used to call myself Bennie when I was little and I guess it just stuck."

Carl looked out of the windshield at the outlet mall ahead of them. He stopped and took out his spotting scope and checked to see if he could see anyone lurking around the mall. He had stopped the truck about a half a mile from the mall behind some trees.

When he had focused the scope he saw three dirty men sitting on the curb outside the mall talking. Each of the men had a full beard and each man carried a rifle. Their clothes were filthy and ragged. Carl scanned the mall to see if the three were alone. He didn't see anyone and he turned his attention back to the three men. He watched them for several minutes and all they did was talk. Suddenly the three men looked back toward the mall as a fourth man came into view pushing a teenager and a man in front of him. The man kept pushing the man in front of him with the rifle and Carl could see the bearded man's mouth moving as if he was yelling at the man and the teenager.

Carl knew what was about to happen and he reached behind him and got out the Windrunner sniper rifle that he had picked up at the Armory. He got out of the truck, lay on the ground and sighted the gun on the man that had the most to say. Carl was hoping that he was picking out the leader as the man's life and the teenager's life depended on it. As he was sighting the rifle in on the leader of the group he saw the man that had led the pair out of the mall, shoot the man in the back of the head. The others began to laugh and the teenager dropped next to the man and started to scream.

Carl swung the sight around to the man that had pulled the trigger and when he was sure that the bullet would run straight and true, he pulled the trigger. The other men were more interested in the teenager and they were surrounding her and never saw their cohort fall. Carl was too far away for them to hear the retort of the Windrunner. Carl sighted on another of the group and pulled the trigger. As he had expected the remaining two looked at the man that had just been shot in awe. He sighted on one of the remaining two men and pulled the trigger. The last man started to run before the Carl's target hit the ground. Carl shot the last man in the back.

The teenager stared at the dead men in shock. She made no attempt to get up and run. When she saw that each of the men were dead, her attention turned back to the man that had been shot by the man. Carl jumped back in the truck and headed toward the mall.

"Who the hell are you?" Bennie asked, "You didn't even think twice about killing those men; you just did it."

"There's a L. L. Bean store and a Dick's Sporting Goods in this mall. We need some sleeping bags and heavy clothing for winter. I hope that the store hasn't been picked clean," he replied.

Bennie didn't ask any more questions and they continued cautiously to the mall. Carl parked a short distance from the teenager and walked into the mall. He kept his weapon ready to fire, but he didn't meet anyone else in the mall. Every store had been ransacked. When he walked into the Dick's Sporting Goods he saw that the store had already been visited by people trying to survive. He found that the sleeping bags hadn't been taken yet. He knew that after the first cool day there would be no sleeping bags or heavy clothing left.

He heard a noise behind him and he swung around and saw Bennie leading the sobbing teenager into the store. He hadn't expected Bennie to follow him. He relaxed and continued to look around the store for anything that they would need to survive. He could hear Bennie trying to comfort the teenager.

He walked over to the pair, "Bennie, you'd better keep an eye on the Humvee. Make sure that you don't let anyone get close to the truck. Kill anyone that tries."

Bennie look up at him warily and he knew that she was afraid that he would either kill the teenager or leave her for the roving bands to get her. He motioned with his gun to go to the truck. She slowly back away from the girl and headed out of the mall.

Carl turned to the teenager, "Who was the man that was shot?"

"That was my father. We've been hiding in the mall for two weeks. Every day there's a new gang that comes by. No one found us until today."

Carl thought for a minute, "Have you any place that you can stay?"

The girl shook her head, "My mother and two brothers were killed while my father and I were out trying to get some food. The gang took everything that they could and then set fire to the farm. My father cried every night."

Carl turned and looked around the store, "Get warm clothes for winter, a sleeping bag, a tent and whatever tools that are left. We'll take them out to the truck and figure out how we're going to put this stuff in the truck."

The girl continued to cry as she scurried around the store, Carl thought about what he was doing. He should just leave these two women and save himself. He felt sorry for Bennie because he had been the one that had destroyed her home. He felt an affinity for the teenager because she looked almost exactly like his older sister that the gangs had killed. He decided to take them with him and dump them as soon as he found someplace safe.

The teenager called him, "Mister, I saw a trailer out back a couple of days ago. We might be able to load this stuff on it."

She led Carl out back and he saw, few stores away, what looked like a landscaper's trailer. When he inspected it he saw that the hitch was different then what the military used but he figured that he could come up with something that would work. He walked to the Humvee and told Bennie to pull it behind the mall. After working on the trailer and the Humvee's hitch for a while he finally had a workable connection. The military hitch would hold the trailers' hitch just barely and the safety chains would keep the hitch from jumping off.

Carl knew that pulling the trailer would be slow but it would greatly increase the amount of gear that he would be able to carry. He told the women to unload the Humvee of everything except the weapons and secure it in the trailer.

"I've got to take care of something," he said, "I'll be right back. I want to look in the other stores. Keeps an eye out for anyone trying to sneak up on you."

He slipped away from the pair and went to where the bodies of the men that he had shot were. He pulled the bodies into a drainage ditch and then went back and pulled the body of the young girl's father further into the brush.

On his way back to the Humvee Carl went through the Dick's store for anything that they might need to help them survive. He found that the store had been picked clean of anything that he could use until he began to inspect the storage area above the office. He found four Barnett Revolution crossbows that the gangs had either overlooked or had ignored in their lust for guns. He searched further and found a case of arrows for the crossbow. A search of the back room produced a hand truck and Carl loaded the crossbows and arrows on it and wheeled it to the Humvee. The two women were loading the last of the gear on the trailer as he wheeled the hand truck to the trailer.

Chapter 10