"You're nuts, you know that?" he said as he kissed her again. They laughed together, and then he told her that they should be able to get another truck in Kimball the next day. After that she fished the meat, which she had wrapped in foil and placed over the coals at one edge of the fire, out, and they ate. They ate it with relish, and laughed at each other about what pigs they were, and then after a swim in a clear mountain stream that flowed nearby they crawled into the tent. They made love, and then fell asleep in each other’s arms.
They were only three miles outside of Kimball the next morning, when the truck finally gave up the ghost.
It died with one dreadfully long rattle deep within the block of the engine. Joe coasted over to the side of the road and they simply left it. He had tried to start it, but it would not turn over. Joe took the Remington, and Becky held the machine pistol as they walked along the road. It took better than an hour to walk into Kimball, but when they arrived it was still early morning.
They had both been bothered by a feeling that they had been followed, or were being watched. It was unsettling, and they were constantly glancing around themselves as they walked, but they saw no one.
They were standing on the pavement looking over a long line of vehicles, trying to decide which one to take, when the first shot came.
The windshield on the truck directly in front of them imploded, covering the interior in small jewel like chunks of glass. They both reacted almost instantly, dropping to the ground and rolling towards the rear of the truck.
When they reached the rear of the truck they both crouched low and sprinted deeper into the lot. Another shot rang out as they ran, and Becky watched as a wide hole was suddenly punched through the fender of a truck just a few inches ahead of her. She dropped to the ground and rolled over on her back, raising the machine pistol instinctively in front of her. It was all that saved her life.
Joe was still running deeper into the lot, not realizing Becky was no longer beside him. The sound of the machine pistols chatter behind him stopped him cold, and he turned and ran back towards the front of the lot.
When Becky had fallen, a tall dark haired kid had appeared from in front of the truck, and directly into the steel sight of the machine pistol. He raised what looked to be an automatic rifle, but before he could fire Becky began squeezing the trigger of the pistol, and it jumped and began to bark in her hands. Joe had just come up beside her, and watched as the man toppled over, nearly cut in two. The sound of screeching tires out on the roadway dragged his mind away from the still twitching body of the young man, and as Becky jumped up into a low crouch they both began to run towards the road. Joe stopped only long enough to pick up the automatic rifle from the ground where the man had dropped it.
When they reached the road a small Jeep was moving rapidly away from them, and a blond haired man, not much more than a kid, Joe realized, was crouched in the back aiming a rifle at them, while a dark haired young woman sat behind the wheel. They both dropped once more to the ground, and opened up on the Jeep as the young man began to fire. The slugs from the young man’s rifle ripped into the pavement, tearing huge chunks out of it close to Joe's face as he fired back at the Jeep.
The blond haired kid suddenly bolted upright, and seemed to jump from the rear of the Jeep. He landed in the roadway, rolled, and then was still. Both rear tires blew out on the Jeep as Becky's gun continued to speak, and before it had traveled far the young woman lost control, and it flipped several times rolling down the middle of the road. The young woman fell headfirst in a heap on the pavement where she had been thrown, and had then been rolled over by the Jeep as it continued to flip down the road.
Smoke curled up from the overturned Jeep. Within seconds it attracted a small circle of flames from under the hood that grew and began to curl up and lick at the rubber of the still turning front tires.
"You okay?" Joe asked, in a panicked voice as he looked at Becky.
A thin stream of blood crept away from one elbow she had scraped on the pavement. "I think so," she said shakily. "Why did they do that?"
He answered after they both had risen slowly to their feet, and he had her turn around to make sure she was not cut anywhere else. "That's the opposition," he stated flatly, "if we're the good guys, then I guess you could say they're the bad guys. Honey, we're going to have to be a lot more careful from now on."
They both walked slowly down the road to where the bodies of the young man and the young woman lay, they were perhaps twenty feet apart. Becky had thought that possibly the young woman might still be alive, but she was not. Her neck was broken, and they had quietly carried both bodies off the road and into a field before returning to the lot. They had debated briefly whether or not they should bury them, but had decided not to. It was not a decision made out of spite though, but out
