Caught in the Web Page 8

  But his sister and Shane would both be at the gym. If there was something there, he had to go and get them out. Now he knew they were in trouble and needed him. He had to go and get them to safety.

  He turned away from the young man and looked in the direction of town. While his eyes couldn’t see too much beyond the corn and some of the trees, he could see the gym in his mind. He imagined the death, carnage, and violence. Most of those people had never seen violence, except on television. They had never experienced and been a part of it. His stomach knotted knowing his sister and her family were caught up in it. He had seen enough death in his time. It was easy to image the horrors that she had to fight her way through. What madness was going on in there? What was causing it?

  “Sergeant? Sergeant, what should we do?”

  He realized the young man was still talking to him. The specialist probably thought they should move in and try to restore order to the town. That was his first thought, too. He wanted to go in and help. He wanted to make sure that the people and the town were okay.

  That was supposed to be their job. When things get out of hand, or additional help is needed…whether it be to support local police or helping the hungry…you called in the National Guard. Right now, they were doing the opposite of what they were supposed to do. They were cutting people off from the supplies they needed to survive, and staying away while it was getting out of control in there. Law would break down unless someone went in there and stopped it…namely, the National Guard.

  “How are you getting these reports? Communication was to be locked down.”

  “Radio chatter. Police radio, as well as some civilian ham radios.”

  “Jam it.”

  He had to look away from the soldier. He could feel the wetness at the corner of his eyes. He was having to fight to keep it from escaping. He was a United States soldier in the line of duty. He would not be able to go in there and save his family. He had to save his country from his family. He had to push all that down.

  “Sergeant?”

  “You heard me!”

  He was losing it. He knew by how the soldier looked at him that he had gone too far. Snapping for no reason wasn’t right. He needed to keep his cool and calm down. Pushing down so much pain caused his tempter to flare, and he couldn’t allow that. He had to stay calm.

  But he knew what his men were really asking. They wanted to know what was going on. They wanted to know how far they would have to go. Their families were possibly at risk, too. How far was this going to go? Who was going to get hurt? They were the protectors. They should be in there restoring law and order, not allowing riots or whatever was happening. So, when the day was done, was the commander going to take the responsibility for it?

  Did he really think they were worrying about who would take responsibility? No, he wasn’t, either. Sure, it seemed like an obvious question, and had they been anywhere else, he was sure that might be on their minds. He needed to stay calm, and he needed to get their minds off of where they were. He needed to push them, keep them going, make it so they weren’t thinking about it.

  “Move! Get your asses moving and get it done. Keep the patrols moving through the corn. Rotate out with the barricades. Move!”

  What the hell was this country coming to?

  He turned to look toward the town again.

  It truly was a nightmare scenario, but even in his worst nightmares, he had never thought anything as bad as this would happen. Locking down a town; no information as to what was going on; the idea that every potential person trying to leave that town, even his own family, could be a threat…

  “Sergeant! Colonel Fey is on the line for you!”

  And the day just keeps getting better, he thought sarcastically, having to bite back the words before he actually said them.

  Between generals and colonels calling, he didn’t know what was going on out there on the outer line, but he could tell there were too many cooks in the kitchen. Even though he wished they would give him some more information, they were just going to ignore his request. He knew they weren’t calling to see how they could help him. They were too busy going back and forth, and he had to hear orders come down in triplicate. This day was only going to get worse before it had any chance to get better…if it could get any better.

  CHAPTER 7

  Travis inhaled deeply, relishing the soothing sensation that seemed to envelope him. The sensation seemed to flow like warm water around him before he let it out in a long exhale.

  The cigarette felt good. The damned heat did not.

  “Damned cop,” Travis muttered under his breath again since he now had to walk outside to smoke his cigarette and would no longer be able to play the “8’s”. He had been muttering it a lot, even when the fucking pig could hear him. Travis really didn’t give a shit. Let the bastard hear him. What the hell was he going to do about it? Nothing, that’s what! Because the damn pig was just going to sit there and watch him, but wasn’t going to do a damn thing about it. Well, yeah, because the damned bartender was too damned scared to let Travis continue doing anything.

  It hadn’t been going that well for him anyway, but the fucking pig didn’t have to come in there and ruin it. Travis’ luck had been about to change. He had felt it. He had that itch, the one on the back of his hand. It told him something was up, and with the shit that had been happening, it had to have been something good. He’d shoveled too much shit recently, so something good had to be coming. It had to be his time.

  And why the hell did the son have to be there? Fuck that. Why did the son have to leave and put that damn imbecile behind the bar? Hell, that asshole didn’t even know where the tub had been to play the “8’s”. That old man had to go back behind the bar and find the tub for the bastard. Why the fuck was that guy back there? It didn’t matter, though. The son had been no luck, and that SOB was even worse. They had just been taking Travis’ money. Don’t they know he needed that? He needed that damn money. Where else was he going to get it?

  And that fucking pig. Fuck the three of them. They could all just go straight to hell.

  “Fuckin’ pig,” Travis said to the empty parking lot around him as he let out another twin line of smoke from his nostrils. He wasn’t sure if it was the cigarette burning his lungs, or the anger he felt that made him want to slam his fist against the wall. He wanted to pound something, beat something, and feel it break.

  At first, he had thought about going to one of the other bars closer to downtown. When he had stormed out to light up his smoke, he had meant to start walking. It was a ten block walk, but it would be away from there. Yeah, but what the hell were his choices? He was kicked out of the Diamond, and his damn ex-bitch was bartending during the afternoon at the Razorback, so that wasn’t an option, either. He had a new wife now, but that pussy downtown still liked to spread stories about him. The lying whore was not one to let things go. Who gives a fuck about the damned child support? She had a damned job. Hell, she should be supporting him.

  The other problem with going downtown was that they were all closer to downtown and right near the cop shop. He wouldn’t be able to smoke in there, either, as they had problems with the police already keeping a watchful eye. None of them came close to taking chances with getting caught breaking the cigarette ban. Gambling, sure, but fuck. None of those places let him run a tab anymore. They all knew him, and most were still saying he owed them. Money hungry bastards, all of them.

  “Motherfucker,” Travis said, closing his eyes, letting himself fall back so that his back came into contact with the hot siding of the tan building. As his body settled back against it, he kicked back, slamming the heel of his steel-toed boot into the hard cement of the foundation. Nothing happened, but he hadn’t really expected it to. He just needed to lash out against something, and the building behind him felt as good as any.

  He knew he should be home. They didn’t have the money for him to waste up there. His wife was pissed at him and wanted him home. “Save mon
ey and drink at home,” she had said.

  Yeah, like he wanted to be around her nagging all day. She wouldn’t be leaving for work for at least another couple of hours, and the last thing he wanted to do was sit there, listening to her bitch and the baby scream. It was bad enough he had to spend all damn night at home, listening to the damn thing wail, but he was damn sure not going to waste all of his damn day listening to it.

  Besides, maybe he could run into someone here who needed some odd jobs done. Then maybe he could earn some extra cash. What would sitting at home get him? More time to drink and just think about how he had lost his job in another layoff? How the fuck would that benefit him? How would that do them any good? As long as he was at the bar, he was looking for work.

  “Fucking pig.”

  Exhale.

  Travis felt the warmth in his fingers and knew the cigarette was close to burning him. It would taste like shit now, but he wasn’t going to let anything like that disrupt it. He needed to get what he could out of every damn smoke. He had enough money for a few more beers and another pack, but that would have to last him all night. He couldn’t be going about wasting them.

  If the pig wasn’t there, he could play a few more rounds of “8’s”. He had felt it right before the cop came in. His luck was changing. He was on the edge of it. He had just needed a few more fucking pulls.

  Damn fucking pig.

  That fucker was keeping him from his money. That cop was fucking stealing from him, that’s what it was. He was stealing right out of his pocket, taking away money from his hard-working family. Not only that, but Travis needed that money. He would need cigarettes tomorrow, and if Laurie didn’t make enough tips that night, he wouldn’t have any drinking money until Wednesday when his unemployment check came in.

  Travis took the last pull of the cigarette and tossed the butt with a flick of his fingers, not watching wherever it landed.

  “Damn pig better leave soon,” Travis said as he opened his eyes and pushed himself off the wall.

  He stopped when he noticed that someone was walking down the middle of the street towards the bar. Travis normally wouldn’t have paid much attention to the man. Hell, people often walked down the street because there weren’t any sidewalks, and the middle was just as good as anywhere else. It was quiet enough so a car coming would be heard long before it ever reached the person.

  But something was off with how the man was walking. He had seen many late night wobbles and staggers of drunks making their way to their cars. Who was he kidding? He was usually one of them. But it was only noon. It was way too early for anyone to be doing the late night shuffle. It just wasn’t right. The man would stumble, jerk, nearly fall, catch his balance, then stumble again. Not like he was drunk, but like he had no control over what he was doing. It looked almost puppet-like, like there was an unseen master somewhere in the sky above, controlling the strings.

  Yeah, he had seen a few people that bad off, but this was in broad daylight. Whoever was that wasted had one up on Travis, even in his worst days.

  Whatever. It wasn’t his damned problem. He had enough of his own problems to worry about rather than worrying about some other sorry S.O.B.

  * * * *

  Rob heard the loud clang of the spring against the cheap wooden door as it was slammed closed. He never knew why, but it always seemed like whatever bar he had ever been in always seemed to have cheap doors on the bathrooms. They either had that heavy spring on them, causing it to slam closed, or they just had no door at all. He never knew why bars always felt that having such a powerful spring on the door was something they all required, but it seemed to have been hidden somewhere in some secret bar owner’s manual. Plus, they always kept the light dim so when you came in from outside you were blinded until your eyes adjusted.

  Oh, well, he thought.

  He was annoyed, a headache was looming just behind his temple, and he was trying his hardest not to show it as Bruce had been trying to make Rob feel like it was all going to be okay. He just wanted to get his car towed, fixed, and get the hell out of the little town and back home. Not that the town was bad, but something in his stomach was warning him. There was a flutter, and he had the growing feeling things were not right. He could see that Bruce was feeling the same way. When he heard the phones were out, he had planned to leave and get out of there. Rob wasn’t sure why the truck driver stayed.

  Rob had been looking out the open front door every couple of minutes or so to see if he could see his car finally being towed into the garage down the road. They had a nice view down the street and all he had to do was walk over and take a look. He had done it many times already and Bruce was starting to give him questioning glances, but Rob was more concerned about his car. He wanted it done.

  He walked around from the back of the bar just as the tall, rough-looking man that had taken a walk outside, probably for a cigarette, was sitting back down. The man had been giving Rob nasty looks since he had come in, and had been making snide little comments. He obviously had some issues with the local law, and Rob was just another one in a uniform. It was probably just better to let it drop.

  The last thing Rob needed was to have an altercation in a bar that he shouldn’t even have been in, even if he was only in partial uniform. Rob had taken the shirt off while he had been in the bathroom. Now he was only wearing the black slacks, gun belt, and white undershirt. The shirt was near transparent from all the sweat, and he was sure his smell had to have been pretty ripe. He doubted he would want to sit next to himself.

  The man gave him that long glare again, then he turned away and went back to studying his beer. Rob wondered if the man realized just how beaten down he seemed when he wasn’t looking at Rob with all that hate. Whenever he looked away, it seemed like he just died a little more inside. His shoulders sagged; that lost, aimless look melted into a gaze looking at nothing but the shimmering gold of his beer.

  Another jobless one. Rob had sensed it from the beginning. It was becoming a look he was getting used to seeing. More factories in the area were laying workers off, and that look was becoming a growing cancer of many residents in the towns. Plus, with the drought last year raising food prices, it was like adding a brain tumor to an already suffering man. It just made life that much harder to think about and live with.

  Rob tried to tune into Bruce, who was going on about some story. It was something about how he had either been broken down or stuck in some traffic jam. Rob wasn’t sure which. He had missed or just not paid any attention to that part of the story. The gist was that he had been sitting down in Arkansas in heat worse than this, his air conditioning was out, and he had to wait for five hours. Rob didn’t know how many more trucker tales he could take.

  “So, Bruce,” he finally broke in as he saw the bartender bring Bruce another cola. “Thanks for all the help. I thought you were rushing home to get to your wife and little…girl, right?”

  Bruce took the can of soda, took a drink from it, then set it down, a long look on his face. Rob wasn’t sure what he had said, but he didn’t mean to upset the older man.

  “Yeah, it’s going to be nice getting home. I miss ‘em. I miss ‘em way too often. It’s going to be nice doing a local contract that gets me home most nights and on the weekend. It’s going to be something.” Rob heard a melancholy in the man’s words that didn’t seem to go with what he was saying.

  “You don’t sound too happy about that.”

  “I am, I guess. I mean, I am. Really. I love my family. They are my everything, and when I wake up in the morning, they are the reason I get behind that wheel and drive for those eleven hours. They are my heart and soul.”

  Poetic words, Rob thought as he put his empty soda at the end of the bar. There was a good heart in the large man. Rob could feel it. There was something else, though. Rob had this strange feeling there was a dark shadow hovering over the man, and a storm was threatening the horizon. He didn’t know how he knew it or what it was. It only appeared to him whe
n he looked at the man out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t mistake it. It was there, a cloud of something vicious that was entangling the man.

  Rob nodded to the bartender as he set down another soda, blinking away the visions of what he saw. The can was already open, and Rob listened to the fizz, pop, and sizzle in the silence as he waited for Bruce to continue. He thought it was best to wait the man out, and Rob had a sense that there was something he needed to get off his chest. He wondered if the man really had anyone he could talk to. He took a sip of the soda, felt the icy chill as it slid down his throat, then felt the soothing sensation as it hit his near-empty stomach. It reminded him that he was getting pretty hungry, but the Coke tasted so damn good. How long had it been since he had allowed himself to drink soda?

  “Yeah. Starting Monday, I’ll be home every night. You know what, though? I’ve been driving over-the-road for ten years. It’s a lifestyle. I’m, well…I’m worried I won’t last at home. As it is, whenever I’m home more than three or four days, me and my wife start to fight. I love her to death, but it just seems like we can’t stand to be around each other too long. What if me being home every night is a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know, man. You love them. I know that isn’t always enough, though.”

  “Yeah. My contract…actually, my lease, but I always call it a contract because it’s felt like a noose around my neck since I signed it…will be done. I turn the truck in, then I’ll be done with her.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing.”

  “Yeah. I don’t have to go local, though. That’s what I keep thinking. I can always sign another lease, take on a new truck or, hell, I could go back to being just a company driver. I don’t know how well I would do giving up my freedom, and going on them damn electronic logs, though. I don’t know if I’d survive.”