135 In A 70 - Dime Story 3

[methos]

Another short one that's been rattling around for a few months. Hope you enjoy.

As always feedback is greatly appreciated.

Jack punched angrily at the radio station buttons in his truck. He wondered for a moment why he bothered to be angry, he had performed the exact same frustrated scanning of the radio each morning in search of decent music to enjoy his thirty mile drive down the interstate from his little piece of heaven to work in town.

Perhaps he just had to be angry at something in the morning. All he really wanted was to be rid of the vacuous radio dead heads spouting their daily nonsense about the latest celebrity gossip, pranking someone's fiancée with fake cheating phone calls, or nonsense puff piece news to placate the sheep of the world.

The world was going to hell in a hand basket and these people were worried about who had their picture snapped by the paparazzi in some indiscreet moment of partial clothing meltdown.

Jack punched the final button to the AM band and brought himself back to the oldies country station. He knew it before he even started, right back where he began.

"Like you're any better than a sheep Jack," he said to himself in the empty cab of the pickup. "You're a fake prepper, half hearted almost ran." He slapped the black steering wheel in frustration with his life. It was way too early in the morning to get this worked up, and he knew it.

Jack glanced out the passenger window in time to see the semi-truck driver he happened to be passing give him an odd look and his outburst.

Jack smiled weakly and tipped his hat to the man. Jacks mother hadn't raised an angry man, but the past few years had taken a toll. He knew he wasn't the young man who had started to make this drive every day some twenty years ago.

He goosed the accelerator briefly, bringing the red Dodge three quarter ton up to seventy-two while enjoying the soft hissing music of the turbo-charger on the Cummins diesel as it wound up ever so slightly. Seeing the trucker clearly in his rear view now Jack carefully signaled and resumed his spot in the right lane. The cruise set he started his careful daily observation of the rolling wooded countryside and ripening corn fields that passed along Interstate 35.

Situational awareness Jack, he thought to himself. That's what a real prepper is always thinking of. What's changed today? What path would you take here if you had to take shank's mare back home. Where can you hole up? Jack's brain had figured out a new way to entertain itself this morning.
Those games where why Jack noticeably jumped as the white Ford Econoline sped past him in the left lane. He cursed himself for not noticing it coming up behind him. Guess the situational awareness was failing there Jack! He cursed himself silently.

After a sip of burning hot coffee from his mug Jack carefully packed his pipe with dark cavendish tobacco. He then performed a task that he had done probably thousands of times over the years without incident. His knee's took over the steering wheel, one hand lit the Zippo lighter and the other steadied the pipe until it lit.

Had the tobacco been a little wetter that morning, had the lighter not lit on the first strike, Jack would have missed one of the strangest sights in his life a quarter mile ahead of him.

Through the haze of new smoke Jack watched a herd of twenty white tailed deer raced across the interstate.

Two deer were a little slow that morning. and the semi in the right lane spun parts of two of them into the left lane right into the windshield of the white Ford van.

Black rubber tire smoke rose from the rears of both vehicles as they braked hard.

"Oh crap." Jack's foot moved to his brake and his right hand dropped the lighter and grabbed the shifter.

[CGTech]

LOL very realistic. Is there another chapter?

[sssarawolf]

Yeah is there another chapter? I am a read-a-alcoholic.

[kaijafon]

That's not all is it ??? you should KNOW how we rabid readers are .... like zombies feasting on flesh, we have the intoxicating NEED to feed on MOAR story!!!!!

so can ya feed us please????

[debralee]

N E E D...... M O A R.... This sounds great. Please don't let this be all there is. Thanks for lunch..hee hee.

[methos]

"What do you expect? Einstein? Freud?...Buddha? Sorry Joe. I'm just a guy." - Highlander - Methos


The bright red Dodge came to a controlled stop fifty feet behind the smoking white van. The semi, a little farther ahead too added to the acrid smell in the air.
Jack checked his mirror for trouble, and seeing none, turned on his flashers and reached for his cell phone. Traffic was light today he noticed, probably because there was a football game in town today and the majority of the crowd was already tailgating getting their buzz on for the weekly bread and circuses.
He could smell the fresh blood in the air as the light northerly breeze swirled around the sight. Jack tasted the sickly coppery smell as the trucker and he stepped from their vehicles to survey the carnage.

"You ok?" Jack yelled, perhaps a little louder than he needed too. The adrenaline was really starting to kick in now. The trucker waved his hand back too him and started his walk around to check his truck.

"911, what is your emergency?" The phone next to Jack's ear came alive. He couldn't even remember dialing it. "Yes ma'am, I need to report a multi-vehicle deer accident on the interstate." Jack's voice was shaky now and he cursed himself for not being able to remain calm during this, just a minor emergency.

"Can you tell me a mile marker sir?" came back the calm female voice, rubbing salt into Jack's ego.

"Just a sec and I'll check."

"Is anyone hurt?"

"We're looking now, hold on." Jack turned full circle until he found a mile marker he could read. "Mile marker is 144 ma'am."

"Thank you, I'm still waiting to hear if there are any injuries but cars have been dispatched to your location. Be advised that they are about twenty minutes away right now." The dispatcher sounded almost cheerful now and Jack took some deep breaths so that he could imitate her calm.

As Jack watched the trucker return from the front of his semi a booted foot kicked open the door of the white van. The door sprung back catching the leg between itself and the running board. Yelling from the cab began in earnest now.

The man that jumped out of the driver's seat was a tall character, now well worked up at having hit the deer and now favoring a bruised shin bone.

Jack chuckled once then stopped as the man started jumping up and down, kicking the van door closed his shouting clearly audible from the short distance away.

The driver turned toward the semi and started yelling and pointing at the truck driver, his finger jabbing toward the man as if he could pin him to the road from that distance and punish him for the accident. Jack thought it odd as the man carried on that he couldn't understand a work he was yelling, but he could guess the general conversation.

"Great, another uninsured Mexican no doubt." he hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the dispatcher had already caught it.

"Sir, if one of the drivers appears to be an undocumented worker, you must treat them as any other citizen, they have the same rights as you."

Jack started to warm up now himself, feeling his little bit of calm ebb. "We used to call them criminals," was all he said crisply.

The semi driver, an older heavy set man in bright blue flannel had both palms up, trying to calm the agitated tall one, but to no avail.

"Hell, that doesn't sound like spanish." Jack seemed to have a problem with his inner monolog control this morning and he cursed himself for the third time that morning.
Turning to check behind him now, Jack saw two semi's approaching from behind. Judging the distance to be safe, Jack stepped into the middle of the lanes and started to wave his arms back and forth to make sure they were aware of what was in front of them.

As he turned back he saw the van driver reach into his cab. When he came back out Jack suddenly became very situationally aware. The AK-47 rifle was quickly brought to bare on the now still semi driver. Even the wind seemed to stop at that moment as the three people standing there along the beautiful rural road had very different thoughts flowing through their heads.

The sound of the rifle shots and the scream of the semi driver scared the redwing blackbirds from the roadside barbed wire fence as the slow motion scene unfolded in front of Jacks wide eyes. The full auto weapon sliced up from the truckers belly to the top of his head before it stopped.

Jack thought it took thirty seconds for the old man to fall back to the ground, almost gracefully, as if diving off the high dive board, except for the fountain of blood that shot from his neck onto the white grain trailer of his rig. One, two, three. Jack counted the spurts, the last beats of a dying man's heart.

"He shot him. Full auto, this isn't right." Jack almost whispered now.

"Shot? Is someone shooting?" The dispatch girl didn't sound so calm now and was definitely feeling out of the loop.

The tall man turned around pulling the magazine from his rifle, only then becoming aware of Jack. His face was wild, contorted almost in his rage as he grabbed for another magazine from the van seat and slid it home.

Jack had a moment of revelation before the end of his life. No, that wasn't spanish, thought Jack. Allah akbar is tough to miss when shouted at you repeatedly.

While Jack's brain contemplated his situation, his body just didn't keep up. Like the clothing store dummy, it was frozen in place.
As the rifle raised Jack thought that it had a mighty big black hole on the business end. The dispatcher's voice sounded odd in that tunnel she was now in and seemed so very far away.

The roar he now heard didn't sound so very far away, and the moment his hat flew from his head Jack's body decided to lean just slightly toward the ditch. That little bit saved him from a nasty bump as the semi barreled past, mirror taking the bush hat from his head and sending it airborne.

The last thing Jack remembered was thinking that that head sailed an awfully long ways, as if kicked by the punter in the final ticking moments of the game. The rest of the tall musselman became a long red smear against the ruined grain trailer.

Albari bin Homed it seemed, was not situationally aware.