Defiance (The Defending Home Series Book 1) Read online

  The same process had unfolded in Encendido as well, albeit at a much slower pace. When Lori had passed away a week and a half ago, the town had been in a quarantine of sorts, instituted by Joe Wilcox and designed to keep families tucked away in their houses. But when people’s food began to run out and the thirst started setting in against hundred-degree heat, it was inevitable that order would begin to unravel. People were mostly animal after all, no matter how much we tried to dress them up and pretend otherwise. In extreme situations, when wants and then needs were slowly stripped away, men who were normally timid could quickly become cold-blooded killers.

  Dale came to a sharp curve in the road and slowed the Chevy to a crawl. It wasn’t because there were other cars coming in the opposite direction. So far, his was the only working vehicle on the streets. The roads appeared deserted. Those who had the means to leave had done so long ago. The rest had either died or hunkered down, terrified to set foot outside.

  But the real reason he had slowed the truck was because this particular turn in the road held a rather sorrowful significance in his heart. It was where his wife Julia had died.

  If he could say anything about Julia, it was that she was a stickler for the rules. Never drove without a seatbelt and always obeyed the speed limit. She’d been heading out to see Nicole that day to bring her a gift after an unexpected miscarriage. The driver coming in the opposite direction hadn’t been drunk or speeding. He’d been doing something far worse. He’d been making a video of himself with the likely goal of posting it online. When the turn came, his focus had been on the camera and not the road. His car had barreled straight into Julie, sending both of them skidding into the ditch. In one way, the idiot had been lucky, because if he hadn’t been killed going through the windshield―the consequence of not wearing his seatbelt―then Dale would surely have finished the job, although at a much slower pace. For all the conveniences that technology brought to the world, Dale couldn’t help wonder what price we often paid.

  While driving through Shane’s neighborhood, Dale witnessed much of the same vandalism he’d seen on Colton’s street. He had spoken to his brother via the shortwave radio yesterday afternoon and had sensed more than a little tension in his voice. Neither Shane nor his wife were sick, but something seemed to be bothering Shane a great deal.

  They lived in the kind of simple wooden two-story home common throughout small towns in America. The street was lined with them, most exhibiting the same slashes of red paint and signs of vandalism and neglect. Dale was thankful to see that Shane’s house remained largely intact. Wooden boards had been nailed to the first-floor windows and on them a warning that trespassers would be shot on sight. His brother had left the upstairs windows intact, apparently to allow sunlight to enter the home. Just because someone lived under siege didn’t mean they needed to live in a cave.

  Dale pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. He was familiar enough with his brother’s layout to know that the main entrance was now through the back door.

  Shotgun in hand, he headed that way, calling his brother’s name to be sure he wouldn’t be mistaken for an intruder.

  “Put the gun down,” a voice called out.

  “Relax, Shane, it’s me.”

  Dale heard movement in a tree at the back of the property where Shane had built a treehouse in anticipation of the birth of their son, a birth that had never come to be. His brother climbed down from the treehouse, hopping the last few feet, a scoped hunting rifle slung over his back. He had been using it as a tree stand, watching over the rear entrance into the house.

  “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Shane told him as he approached. If Dale had inherited his father’s steel will and determination, then Shane had inherited the old man’s good looks. His olive complexion and fine features had put him in high demand with the ladies growing up, but it had also kept him from reaching his full potential. His younger brother had become accustomed to having things handed to him. There was no fire in his belly, a lack of drive that tended to frustrate his wife, Nicole, as much as it had frustrated Dale.

  As his brother came closer, Dale reached into his back pocket, pulled out his mask and slid it on.

  “I’m fine,” Shane said. “You don’t need that.”

  Dale tossed his brother a spare mask. “I’m sure you are, but we haven’t seen each other in a few days and I don’t wanna take any chances, brothers or not.”

  Reluctantly, Shane put the mask on. “You’re not here to bust my hump, are you?”

  Dale frowned. “I’m here to see how you two are doing.”

  Nicole appeared just then, sliding open the back door and sticking her head out. Every bit as attractive and fit as Shane was, Nicole tended to draw men’s gazes whether she was shopping for a new dress or decked out in sweats at the grocery store.

  “Dale,” she exclaimed, like it was any other Saturday afternoon. “So nice to see you.” She ran over to give him a hug and instead found a mask awaiting her. She put it on and the two embraced.

  “How’s it been?” Dale asked.

  “I’ll live,” Shane replied, playing with the strap on his rifle. “Although things have been rough. There’s been widespread burglaries up and down the street. I was even shot at by some idiot while I was nailing those boards over the windows. Encendido isn’t a big town. Chances are if I didn’t know the name of the guy bearing down on me, I’d at least recognize his face. Seems over the last few days the situation’s gotten worse and worse. Neighbors one day, enemies the next.”

  “That’s the nature of all conflict,” Dale observed. “A battle over ever-diminishing resources. The old adage that nice guys finish last is truer now than ever, I’m afraid.”

  More faces appeared at the sliding glass door, an elderly man and woman.

  “I stocked the shelves in my basement with enough supplies to last Nicole and I more than a month. But when armed thieves attacked her parents’ home, we knew we couldn’t just leave them there.”

  “How long have they been with you?” Dale asked.

  “A week,” his brother said. “Maybe closer to two.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “I didn’t see what difference it would make. I thought I could handle the situation. But I was going over what we have left and realized we’re starting to run low.”

  “So you want food?” Dale asked, not meaning the question to sound like a condemnation.

  Shane shook his head. “I was thinking we might take you up on your offer.”

  “You wanna come back to the house?” Dale said, surprised. It was a request he’d expected sooner, but one he’d known would come eventually.

  Nicole threaded her fingers beneath her chin. “We hate to even ask, but I just don’t see how we can make it work.”

  “What about your folks?” Dale asked, genuinely worried.

  Shane’s face squished up. His eyes scanned the ground, refusing to meet Dale’s. “We were hoping they might be able to come too.”

  Chapter 7

  “There are more than enough resources on the farm,” Shane said.

  “First of all, it isn’t a farm,” Dale corrected him. “I don’t sell any produce. It’s more of a self-sustaining homestead.”

  “Okay, fine, but the old man’s a Korean war vet, man,” Shane said, shifting tacks.

  This wasn’t news to Dale. He had met Nicole’s parents, had even spent some time speaking to Walter at a family barbecue and found him to be intelligent and even-tempered. He was less familiar with Ann other than through polite conversation, but didn’t have a bad word to say about her.

  “Here’s what you don’t know,” Shane said, clearly trying to sweeten the pot. “When we moved their things over, he brought his weapons collection. I think this guy was preparing for some kind of invasion or something.”

  Nicole hit Shane’s shoulder. “Be nice, you.”

  With his Mossberg and two pistols, Dale was sure he had more than enough fir
epower to keep himself and his family safe. His hesitation had more to do with the request being thrown at him from out of nowhere. Adding two extra mouths to feed wasn’t the sort of decision he could make in under a second. Overestimate and he might be the one breaking into people’s houses looking for food.

  “It’ll be tight,” Dale said at last. “And everyone will need to pitch in, but if you’re all fine with that, we should be able to make it work.”

  Shane and Nicole both agreed.

  “Then let’s load up as much as we can,” Dale told them. “Hopefully we can make it in one trip.”

  “That sounds fine,” Shane said. “I’ll start loading up my truck.”

  “Just remember,” Dale told him, picturing the vandalized houses lining the streets, “whatever you leave behind will probably be gone forever.”

  •••

  They spent the next hour collecting as much food and weaponry as the trucks could handle. In spite of his brother’s general lack of drive, the setup at his house was impressive. A cold room dug into the ground contained ten large cans of meat, vegetables and fruit, two three-kilogram bags of rice, as well as two sacks of beans and one of oatmeal. Added to that were plastic containers with salt, pepper and a variety of spices as well as jars of honey. For their part, the Whitakers contributed first-aid supplies, boxes of jam preserves and pickled eggs as well as Walter’s sizeable gun and ammo collection. Several of the weapons were .22s, along with five .308 hunting rifles, two AR-15s and a dozen pistols of varying calibers.

  To facilitate the transfer, they had wheeled both trucks around the back of the house. A cache of goods that large sitting in the driveway was only an invitation for trouble. Regardless, Dale spent most of the time on guard duty, ensuring that no one came sneaking up on them while they were busy loading the vehicles.

  As he walked back and forth, his mind returned to the men he’d killed earlier and the distorted looks on their faces as they’d lain dead. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Shane, unsure whether he ever would. In a perfect world, he would never need to raise a weapon in anger again, but even as the thought flitted through his mind, he knew the world was far from perfect and that it was only set to get worse. In only a handful of weeks, their normally peaceful Arizona town had become as ruthless and unsafe as everywhere else in the country, a lesson which had been driven home with perfect clarity. In a full-blown crisis, nowhere was safe.

  Chapter 8

  Dale’s Chevy and Shane’s Ford pickup trucks maneuvered out from the backyard and were preparing to hit the road when a patrol car rolled up in front of them. A woman emerged and Dale saw straight away it was Deputy Sandy Hartman. Early thirties, with long dark hair, soft skin and hazel eyes, she was the epitome of a country girl—beautiful enough to take to a fine restaurant on Friday night and rough-and-tumble enough to take duck hunting the next morning.

  Months after the death of Dale’s wife, the two had grown close, first as friends then as something more. In a way he didn’t quite understand, it had helped him deal with the grieving process. Although, deep down, he’d grown increasingly worried about how their secret relationship might affect Brooke. When Dale’s feud with Randy Gaines had begun to escalate, with lies spreading through town that Dale and Sandy had been involved romantically before Julie’s death, he had decided it was best to let things cool off for a bit. In a way, the wedge driven between the two of them had been something of a victory for Randy, one Dale had reluctantly allowed for the sake of his daughter.

  Dale exited the Chevy and met her halfway.

  “I was just coming to find you,” Sandy said.

  The comment had all types of implications that were firing through Dale’s mind all at the same time. “Nothing bad, I hope.”

  This was feeling awkward and Dale was trying hard not to show his discomfort.

  “I heard about the shooting,” she said, her left hand resting on the edge of her utility belt.

  He wasn’t wearing a mask and for some reason didn’t feel like he needed one, not with her.

  “I’d do the exact same thing if it happened again,” he told her. “I hope they’re not fixing to charge me. Doesn’t take more than a glance up and down the street to see how many homes have already been broken into.”

  Her eyes fell. “What sickens me the most,” she said, “is there are too few of us to have a hope in hell of stopping any of it.”

  “I suppose I’m just glad we still have law enforcement around at all,” Dale said, hoping he didn’t offend her, but still silently wishing the cops had done more to keep people’s property safe.

  “Three days ago we discovered a family of four in their home,” she said, holding him with her troubled brown eyes. “They’d been tied up and shot in the head execution-style. A wife, husband and their two young kids. Of course, the house had been ransacked, the man’s body showing clear signs of torture. He had apparently been hiding food, purified water, even a small stash of weapons. The thieves had worked him over until he gave up his secrets.”

  “That’s terrible,” Dale said, thinking of his own daughter and Colton waiting for them.

  “It’s the new normal,” Sandy said, staring off into the distance. It looked like she hadn’t slept in days. When she snapped out of it, she said, “All that will change once the military shows up.”

  Dale sighed. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  He watched the way her index finger tapped against her belt. She was in pain, they were all in pain, and there was nothing he could do to fix that, and the knowledge was killing him.

  “I met the new sheriff,” Dale said, hoping to change the subject.

  Sandy shook her head. “Sheriff Gaines and his brother Deputy Clay aren’t the only new faces around the station,” she told him. “We also lost the mayor and you won’t believe who’s taken over for him.”

  Dale was drawing a blank.

  “Hugh Reid.”

  Dale felt the news hit him like a sharp blow to the guts. “The guy shut down the only major source of jobs in Pima County and they thought he would have the town’s best interests at heart?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll be the first to admit, there weren’t a lot of names to choose from. But I was just as shocked as you. Get this. His first order of business was to deal with the water shortage problem.”

  The noonday sun was beating down on them, making the implications of Sandy’s comment seem all the more prescient.

  “I don’t need to tell you, without adequate electricity, we can’t pull water out of the town’s main reservoir. So Mayor Reid’s got a handful of local men breaking into houses and gathering up any remaining water they can find.”

  Dale’s eyes went wide, his thoughts turning immediately to the man he’d caught in Colton’s garage. At the time the man had claimed to be working for the city, and Dale hadn’t believed him. Fact, he’d nearly blown him away. “So you’re telling me the new mayor has sanctioned breaking into people’s homes?”

  Sandy shook her head. “I never thought I’d see the day, but I know that without the proper generators he’s had to come up with something. Fuel’s also in short supply. Over the next few days, we may not have enough to run patrols anymore, the few we still manage. At some point you may find me riding around town on a bike.”

  “At least you’ll get a nice tan,” Dale said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “If the flu’s mortality rate had been closer to ninety-nine percent rather than seventy-five,” Sandy said, “we might have been better off.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “There are too many mouths to feed,” she said. “Too many people shuffling into the center of town, begging for the bare necessities. By my estimates, there are somewhere close to three thousand still living in Encendido. When the virus took hold, we lost the very people who kept everything going on a daily basis. The truck drivers who deliver food, fuel for our cars and coal for the power plant. Add to that the technicians who kept it all running s
moothly. At least anyone with solar panels is doing a little bit better.”

  “That would be me,” Dale said, not trying to brag. His incentive had nothing to do with environmentalism, but with sheer practicality and a stubborn insistence on being independent from the grid.

  She leaned in. “We’ve also seen a major influx of migrant raiding parties from across the border, moving up and hitting poorly defended areas. I heard the mayor’s been bribing them to stay away.”

  Dale cupped his head in the palm of his hand. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Start that and you’ll only encourage them to come back stronger. I remember reading somewhere that by the end of the Empire, the Romans were doing the same thing to keep the barbarians from attacking. Look how that turned out.”

  “There’s something else you should know,” Sandy said, her features darkening. “It’s the main reason I was coming to see you. Mayor Reid’s managed to expropriate all of the private wells in the area, at least the ones with solar or wind pumps. Most gave him what he asked for without much of a fight. In the handful of instances where folks resisted, Randy and the other deputies were sent in to take it by force. But all those wells combined aren’t nearly as big as the reservoir on your land.”

  Dale had worried that something like this might be coming around the bend. “Are you saying I should be worried?”

  “As your friend...” She paused, as though she wished to take the word back, exchange it for something more. “I’d suggest you think long and hard about giving in. I did my best to stay off those details, but Randy and his new deputies can get pretty rough when they don’t get what they want.”