“Time’s running out. Where are we, boys?”
Three scruffy men, sitting in a literal pile of mechanical parts and tools and manuals, glanced up at the imposing middle-aged man filling the doorframe. A force to be reckoned with, Gaylord Royce Andrews III was a former CEO for a multi-billion dollar research and consulting firm that developed advanced weapons systems for the U.S Armed Forces. Along with the hideous name, he had inherited wealth, brilliance, and cunning from a long line of ambitious ivy-league leaders in business and politics. When he left home to make his own way in the world, he dropped the first two names and went by Andrews from that point forward. With a slick, debonair appearance and a physique rightfully earned in a high-end gym, his very presence demanded respect. After years of practice in the company’s boardroom, his voice could range from silky smooth to solid steel, but at this moment it came across like a demanding boss. “Well?”
The shortest of the three men, sprouting a long, thin braid down his back, stood without speaking and approached Andrews at the threshold, holding a strange sculpture of metal out in front of him. Mr. Andrews took the large contraption from him, turning it over in his hands. “Looks good. Will it work?”
Travis Long’s leathery face broke into a cocky grin. “Let’s go find out.” A Gulf War vet in his early fifties who fit every stereotype of the “biker” dude, Travis was cold-hearted and calculating, the perfect hand-picked leader for Andrews’ motley security team.
Mr. Andrews pivoted and disappeared into the dark hall with the contraption. Travis quickly grabbed a wrench lying nearby and gestured to Mike and Charlie, who held a replica of what Andrews had taken. The three men jogged to catch up, the beams from their flashlights leading the way. The wide underground passageway had a series of doors on both sides, ending at a stairway that led up into the barn. Mr. Andrews had left the door open at the top of the stairs, and they caught up with him crouching behind his old pickup, moving the gadget back and forth at different angles under the bumper.
“It’s not going to fit!” he announced in an irritated tone as they arrived.
Charles “Charlie” Sullivan approached nervously, setting down the one he was carrying. He was the youngest of the three recruits and fairly intimidated by Andrews. He, like Travis, was a U.S. Veteran, having served one short tour in Iraq. On this sole experience he blamed his drinking problem and the inability to build meaningful relationships. However, his niche of confidence was his mechanical talent. Now he had to prove himself to Mr. Andrews. He knelt down and quietly rotated the part into place; it fit like a glove. Custom-designed to use the truck’s ball hitch and provide extra stability, it would distribute a large weight over the full width of the truck frame. Charlie made a few adjustments with the wrench Travis handed him and bolted it into place. The other men all watched in silence.
Charlie stepped back and waited. Mr. Andrews rubbed his chin and looked the contraption over thoroughly, even standing on it and bouncing until the rear shocks joined in. Finally he smiled. “Impressive!” The men began to breath. Charlie shifted his weight and looked at his feet to hide a half-smile and the color rising in his cheeks. “Let’s not celebrate too soon,” Andrews cautioned. He gestured to the large part still lying on the floor. “Get that one fitted, too.” Charlie scurried to the next bay to attach the hitch onto a second truck, the one Travis had stolen from a neighbor’s driveway to get to Mr. Andrews’ retreat. He didn’t have the key...but that had never stopped Travis.
Nodding with appreciation, Andrews gave two good knocks on the rusted tailgate with the side of his fist and looked at the men with anticipation evident in his sparkling eyes and perfect veneered teeth. “We’re ready. Let’s roll out in 30 minutes. You know what to do.”
***
The dark, cloud-laden sky made the cold night feel colder. Travis led with the tractor, pulling the hay wagon at a top speed of 30 miles per hour. Charlie’s years of souping up vehicles for tractor pulls at local fairs had come in handy, although Mr. Andrews had made it clear that the modifications in this job were for pulling extra weight, not for speed. Crouching in the back of the hay wagon was a large shape in the form of Mike Peterson, a former bouncer at a local bar who had been a football star in college until a series of concussions scared the pro team scouts off. He was wearing night vision goggles and armed with an AR-15. Beside him were two gas cans filled with extra fuel, a siphon hose for pilfering gas from abandoned vehicles instead of wasting their own, a stack of neatly folded tarps, a tool box, a coil of rope, a burlap sack filled with various sizes of bungee cords, and a small box of fireworks, just in case a diversion was needed.
Following the slow moving tractor was Andrews’ old pickup truck, driven by Mr. Andrews, and the other old, ugly pickup, driven by Charlie. It was risky, taking three vehicles with only one lookout, but it had only been four days since the grid had gone down, and Andrews was willing to bet that the smaller towns weren’t quite in panic mode yet. Plus, he justified it by saying that he was doing a good deed; he was going to save an entire town.
They were a little over two hours into the trip and almost to their destination, a small town just off Interstate 80. It was after 10:00 pm, and if they were to be back at the retreat by dawn, they would have to hustle. To avoid some curious and ambitious group from setting up an ambush, they would take a different route home. Andrews knew that the loud, slow tractor engine would attract attention, even in the dark. The route home would be more circuitous and would take longer, but it would pass fewer residential areas and therefore be less risky.
All four men had studied the maps and knew the plan, so no one was surprised when Travis pulled off the main road and led them into the business district. So far, Mike hadn’t spotted any movement, but he was challenged to watch both sides of the road at once, especially now with so many close-to-the-road places for someone to hide. The men noticed that glass storefronts were still fully intact and the town still looked “normal,” a credit to Mr. Andrews’ theory.
Within minutes Travis pulled into a car dealership, driving past the shiny, new, useless cars and beyond the showroom to a large lot in the back. Lined up in a perfect row were moving trucks and trailers of various sizes. Andrews was only interested in the largest trailers. He needed two, one for each pickup.
“Damn!” His fist took his frustration out on the steering wheel. The large trailers were not there; that was the risk with one-way rentals. He jumped out of the truck without thinking of who might be watching. Mike stayed in the wagon and continued to scan the 360-degree area; Travis and Charlie met up with Andrews.
“Plan B,” Mr. Andrews grunted. “I’m not going to waste my time hooking these small things up; we need more room. Keep your eyes open for larger trailers–anything we can pull. We’ll get onto the interstate if we have to! It will be a virtual parking lot of hauling trucks.”
“Boss?” Charlie spoke up tentatively.
“Speak your mind, Charles,” Andrews answered with forced patience.
“Well, I was thinkin’ that maybe there will be trucks at the warehouse...you know, loading or unloading when the grid went down. Why couldn’t we use them?”
“Don’t you think they’d most likely be semi’s with full-length trailers and hydraulic systems locked down tight? Even if we could hitch them, we couldn’t pull them. Why didn’t you say something when we made our plan?”
Charlie fidgeted and his eyes darted around nervously. “I...uh...was hoping that the outage didn’t reach this far...and, um, we would get here and find help.”
Travis and Mike raised their eyebrows and watched as Andrews stepped up to Charlie, nose to nose, and quietly said, “This outage goes from coast to coast. How would you like to drive that clunker to California to see if I’m right?”
When Charlie didn’t answer, Andrews nailed the boy across the jaw and sent him sprawling. Calmly leaning over the startled fallen figure, he commanded softly, “Don’t doubt me again.”
“No, Sir!” Charlie was smart enough to respond as he scrambled to his feet.
Turning back to the hay wagon, Andrews barked at the other men. “That goes for you, too. Now, roll out!” Everyone darted back into place and Plan B was underway.
Rubbing his jaw from the safety of the truck cab, Charlie wondered if the million dollars that Mr. Andrews had promised each of them after the grid came back up would be enough.
***
After striking out at the two other self-moving truck locations that he knew of, Andrews had to decide whether they would head to the warehouse on the outskirts of town or in the opposite direction to the interstate. His men wisely waited while Andrews paced, silently thinking through the scenarios. Finally, his head snapped up and he informed the men that it was too late and too risky to head to the interstate, and the longer they stayed in town, the more time it gave the locals a chance to mobilize against them. “Head straight to the distribution center, but watch for something along the way that we can pull. We need more space for supplies. A lot more. Hopefully, we get lucky.”
They pulled out of the lot with Andrews in the lead and the tractor last, allowing Mike to watch their rear. The next fifteen minutes were nerve-wracking for Charlie, Travis, and Mike as their eyes scanned side to side continuously for any sign of life. They were only about half a mile from the warehouse when Andrews pulled into another used car dealership. Even on a cloudy, starless night, Mr. Andrews had excellent vision. Although a variety of models and ages of cars lined the lot, the sign also boasted “custom built trailers.”
All four men dismounted and pulled up their guns within seconds without making a sound. Andrews gestured to Mike to sweep the outside of the building, while he pointed Travis and Charlie into the showroom. Travis easily broke in through the side door to the service entrance and cautiously looked around, using their flashlights sparingly. The showroom had a shiny new utility trailer that looked like it could be used for hauling motorcycles or a sports car, but they needed something enclosed, or at least with higher sides. Making their way back through the service bays and into an attached pole building, Travis and Charlie found a very happy boss bent over the hitch attachment of an aluminum eighteen-foot long stock trailer.
Andrews stood and manually opened the bay door, startling Mike who had just reached the back corner of the building. Instructing Mike to pull Andrews’ truck around and back it into the bay, Charlie readied the trailer hitch for connection. It didn’t take long to make the necessary adjustments with the modified hitch, and Mike made a wide swing out of the bay to clear the corner.
In the back of the large room there were a couple of very small, open trailers and pieces of trailers, but nothing else that could haul the amount of supplies they needed. However, Mike took the men outside to show them something he had found when circling the grounds. On one overgrown edge of the fenced-in property he had noticed a very old, deep brown colored, fully-enclosed trailer. Partially concealed by the growth, it was nearly impossible to see in the darkness. “It’s a bit rusty, Mr. Andrews, but I think it’s still solid. What do you think?”
Even though it was a little smaller than the stock trailer, it was the biggest option available for the second truck. Mr. Andrews waved his hand with impatience toward Travis’ pickup truck, and Charlie took off running. The other three tried rocking the trailer back and forth to budge it out of the comfortable ruts it had nestled itself into as the seasons cycled past.
“It’s no use,” Andrews huffed. “Go find us some leverage!”
Mike and Travis dug through the trailer parts in the shop and found a couple of long metal bars. By then, Charlie had backed the truck up to a good spot nearby. The four men heaved until the trailer was clear of the hard earth and rolled it with great effort the last three feet to the truck. The tires were shot from being weathered and sitting for so many years. It took longer than it should have to change the tires and hitch up the trailer, but finally they were on their way to accomplish their mission: to clean all the food and bottled water out of the distribution center and help the people of Tionesta survive the long winter ahead.