He needed to get to Joel, though, and as fast as possible. Those two in the truck might have been the last of the moonshiners or there might be a couple more. There was no way of being sure, and Ben wasn’t willing to take any chances. He wouldn’t be satisfied until they’d searched and cleared every square inch of this place, including the makeshift container houses. That was something he wasn’t looking forward to, but they didn’t have a choice. He imagined that some of their stuff had already made it inside some of the meager shacks.
He moved swiftly from one shadow to the next until he reached the body of the man who had been running with the AR-15. He found the weapon a few feet away and popped the magazine out to inspect it. There were at least a dozen rounds left, so Ben tucked it into his back pocket and would later pass it on to Joel.
This was going to be a close-quarters battle from here on out, and the pistol he confiscated would work fine to fight his way through the camp. In fact, he almost preferred it for the maneuverability it would allow. Ben continued on and stopped behind a large stack of wooden pallets before approaching the junk pile where Joel was hiding. He didn’t see his son at first, and his heart skipped a beat before he realized that Joel was doing exactly what he’d told him to; he was keeping low. Joel poked his head up over a tire, his weapon ready to fire.
“Joel…” Ben followed up his call with a sharp whistle in an effort to be heard over the roar of the truck’s engine and exhaust. Joel searched in his direction, and after a couple of seconds, he spotted his dad and acknowledged him with a quick wave before returning his forward hand to the AR-15. Ben held his finger up, then pointed at the wrecked truck. He’d get the magazine to Joel in a minute. He just wanted to check on the driver and passenger of the truck first.
The engine screamed at nearly full throttle with the back tire spinning as fast as it could in the dirt; the driver still had the pedal pushed to the floor, and the engine screamed with a high-pitched whine that echoed through the woods like some kind of crazed animal. If he didn’t shut it off soon, the engine would surely blow, not that he cared, but that god-awful noise was making it hard to think straight.
Ben confirmed the driver was dead but kept the pistol ready until he made sure the passenger was dead as well. He reached in and yanked the key from the ignition, careful not to get any of the driver’s blood on himself, which was no small feat considering the interior of the truck was plastered in it. Ben guessed that one of the .338 rounds had done him in, but he also noticed a few bullet holes among the cracks that covered the windshield. There were three distinct bullet holes on the driver’s side, and Ben could see that Joel had landed a few well-placed shots of his own.
He couldn’t blame Joel for spending what he figured to be the rest of his ammunition on the truck; he would have done the same thing in that situation. Ben was almost positive Joel was out of bullets now, and the sooner he joined up with him, the better.
Leaving the truck and the two bodies behind, Ben headed back toward Joel. Careful to keep his eyes peeled for any remaining moonshiners, he closed in on Joel’s position as fast as he could. With the truck engine shut down, Ben could hear the dogs barking from their cages, and he thought about the two moonshiners he’d seen around the fire. Were they among the dead, or were they still out there in the compound somewhere, armed and dangerous? They were pretty tuned up on moonshine when he last laid eyes on them, but panic could sober a man in a hurry, at least enough to fight. He hadn’t recognized any of the bodies as theirs, not that he’d been looking that well.
“Hey… Hey, it’s me,” Ben whispered as loud as he dared while making his final approach to Joel. With the truck silenced, the woods were quiet again, all except the occasional crackle or pop as another jar of moonshine burst in the fire.
“I see you,” Joel answered.
Ben jumped over the stack of tires Joel was crouched behind and went straight to the ground next to him.
“Here.” Ben shoved the magazine from his back pocket at his son while keeping his gaze out toward the camp.
“Great, I’m out.” Joel expelled his empty magazine and let it fall to the ground, then inspected the replacement for a second before shoving it into his rifle.
Ben looked his son over. “You okay?”
Joel nodded. “I’m good.”
“I figure there’s at least two of them left out there somewhere if Rita was right. Maybe more. She was kinda vague about the number of kids but pretty specific about there being eight men and four women. How many did you manage to take out?”
“I think three.” Joel pointed out into the camp, indicating two different lumps on the ground. “The third one took off around that way, but I know I hit him.”
“Well, that’s eight for sure, then, and maybe nine. Let’s check the bodies for weapons. Then we’ll get back to the others and let them
