The van rolled away from the woods in a casual hurry, weighed down a little more than usual as Mike belted in and Tanner drove. His phone rang, and she gave him a troubled look. He picked it up and smiled, silently.
“Hello Catherine.” he grinned.
“Still alive? I’m impressed. Is Deacon?” she asked casually.
“No he’s not going to be a problem for us. Tanner is perfectly fine too. Everyone else is dead. You believe in anything now?”
“I believe you have a serious problem.” she replied coldly.
“Don’t we all?” Mike joked.
“Mike, be honest with me…you don’t have any men outside my house, you never did. That was a bluff. The Molotov brothers don’t exist. There’s no team or they would have hit my safehouse with you. That means you’re either on your way here to die with that stupid whore of yours, or you’re running right now, and all I have to do is chase you down, and you won’t be there waiting at the end of my driveway to shoot me from a mile away when I stand next to my window right now.” she confidently said peering out.
“You’re absolutely right. There's no team. Now I just killed your entire group, and you aren’t stupid enough to follow me, so I have faith that you will do the right thing and stay your ass in that house, let us drive away. I don’t need an answer, just pray on it.” he said, hanging up. Tanner looked at him, worried and confused.
“So she just keeps on breathing, and we have to sleep at night on faith alone that she won’t hunt us down? That’s not very reassuring. What if she just hires someone new to kill us? She has security guards, she has money, she can build a new team. Will we ever be safe?”
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“I do.” She nodded. He smiled and picked up the phone.
“We’re out. Safe and sound” Mike said. “Yes, you have the order. Code Lakeshot is confirmed. Go active.” He said waiting patiently.
Catherine scoffed and stood at her window, staring at the skyline, smirking and sipping a glass of brandy in front of her fireplace. Her devilish mind just pondering the options as all manner of twisted vengeance plots flowed through her head, and then suddenly it hit her. It was not the perfect plan going through her head, but a 7.62 x 54 steel core round from a Dragunov sniper rifle, painting the gray fireplace a lovely dark shade of red to match her brandy. Her corpse collapsed with a subtle plop and the shattering of glass.
Carl let out a therapeutic sigh of relief. Picking up the phone again.
“That’s a confirmed kill. So does that mean my sins are forgiven and you'll never visit my house?”
“Of course, Carl. You did good work. I have no reason to harbor hate in my heart for you, and every reason to forgive. Thank you for your atonement. Enjoy it. You just got promoted to the biggest killer in the area.” mike replied.
“Oh good, and you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. I hated her so much. I’m gonna really do some good work now that I’m self-employed again. Hey, good luck with the move, hope it’s somewhere nice. You two deserve it. And uh, preacher Mike…can I give you one bit of advice about Tanner?” he asked.
“I’m listening.” Mike sighed.
“You need to give up that vow of celibacy or whatever you got going. You’re 51, man. Take the shot while the barrel still…points forward. You two have something special, for God’s sake don’t wait until your weapon is too rusted to work to take it out for a range day, if you know what I mean. She has the patience of a saint, spoil the little brat already. She’s earned it.”
“I’ll take that advice to heart, Carl. You have fun being your own boss. It was good doing business with you.” Mike said smiling and putting the phone down next to him.
“Was that Carl?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Catherine won’t be making any calls about us, or anyone. Ever. Looks like she caught something pretty serious, like lead poisoning. Life is short, old age is a real bitch, and one day it just hits you between the eyes, and you never expect it. Real shame.”
Mike rolled the creaky door up on a storage unit in the middle of nowhere, Tanner blinking in disbelief as she stared at the old UHAUL truck.
“So when you said a backup home, you mean a backup mobile home…inside a moving van.” she sighed.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Well, when I set this up I didn’t plan to have anyone else with me, so it’s gonna be cramped and mostly necessities for hunting. Narrow bunk bed, tiny bathroom, no real kitchen.”
“Like I can cook anyway. Who gets the bed?” she asked, biting her lip.
“We do. The bad news is there’s no couch.” He shrugged.
“Oh that’s the first good bad news I’ve heard all week. Shame we have to leave the bike behind.” She said noticing a dark blue crotch-rocket gathering dust.
“Bike fits in the top hatch, folds out into a ramp. Easy way to store a bike that would be hard for someone to find without a search warrant.”
“A Kawasaki Ninja bike, and a Ford 350 Moving truck. That’s a weird combo, Mike and I never would have guessed you for either."
“Nobody would take me for a crotch-rocket guy, that’s the point. But it allows mobility and less attention than a van going to every crime scene.”
“So are you a Ford guy, or is there a misleading reason for that?” she eyebrowed.
“It was cheap, and big enough to hold the bike.”
“Oh…kinda expecting more to that.” She sighed, a little disappointed.
“Carl has orders to torch the house, plenty of bodies at the safehouse roughly my size to leave behind. It should just look like a mass killing spree ending with me. We do have one stop before making a run for it.” he yawned. "Turn here."
Mike turned the keys and opened the door to the old gun shop, stepping in and turning on the first set of lights as he stopped dead in his tracks to the sound of a pump shotgun racking in the dark.
“Hello Mike.” Said old Frank’s voice.
“This is hard to explain, but I have someone with me, and you don’t wanna fire that thing with her near me.” Mike said, considering reaching for the HK.
“Mike I’ve noticed someone has been dicking around in my shop, things moved around, figured it was you since most of the time it happened after I left you in the range to lock up. Never stole anything of value, always paid me more than what you took, and you don’t seem like the kinda guy to rob an old man. So what exactly is this?”
“Frank I don’t have time or the words to explain that fully. Do you believe God works in mysterious ways?”
“Sure do.” Frank nodded.
“You believe the laws and criminal justice system are inadequate and failing us?”
“Hard to argue there too.” Frank sighed.
“Well, some bad people wanted me dead, God didn’t seem to agree with that outcome, and I have to leave the state, take my work elsewhere where it’s needed. The problem is that I wasn’t fully prepared to leave yet, and I can’t leave a paper trail. I know you are a legit FFL dealer but if you have any guns off the books, I would pay cash and over value.” He said slowly placing the MP5 on the table next to him. “Even trade.”
“Mike, you’ve been good to the community, you’ve been good to me, and you’ve helped out my family when we needed it, so I can't imagine whatever the hell you’re doing illegally is wrong, and if you don’t tell me what it is, I won’t be able to make that judgment. So follow me to the back, and we’ll see what we can do here.” Frank said, waddling to the back room. “Now I don’t exactly have the best personal collection, and I can’t give you anything registered to me, which narrows your options down to gun show parking lot deals and things I collected at random in case of troubling times. I think this qualifies. I got 3 guns. Sig MPX, and a par of 22 magnum Keltecs. Not exactly anything you wanna take into a warzone.”
“How does a fully automatic, suppressed genuine HK MP5 sound as a trade?”
“Sounds like you’re losing about 18 grand, Mike that’s a terrible deal.” he huffed.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about the results. I can work with those, but a stolen MP5 is a red flag. You’d be getting a gun used in a crime, that would be a great gun to keep locked in a safe for an apocalypse, high risk to sell, and a terrible gun to have out in the open. I’d be getting 3 clean guns, and I assume ammo for them.”
“Mike I’m 92, I’ll be dead before they put me in jail for it, but that’s a lot of money for my family. They’re not gonna bother prosecuting a guy in retirement home who sold an illegal gun he found in a ditch and didn’t report. You can have all the ammo and supplies you want, and these, but I tell ya, the Keltecs gum up and jam when they aren’t clean and oiled often, and I found out after I bought these for a steal that it don’t matter what brand you buy, rimfire ammo just isn’t reliable enough to bet your life on it, hence the Sig I got for the safe. Parking lot special, thousand bucks cash. Fantastic little gun, just not worth the sale price of an MP5.”
“Everything is fixable with the right effort and ingenuity.” Mike said with a smile and a handshake, making his way to do some reloading gear shopping.
The moving van rolled down the highway, the two killers smiling and warming up with a cup of hot trucker coffee to get through an all-night drive. Tanner smiled and playfully pawed his arm. He looked back and just shook his head.
“Lord forgive me, I’m bound to do something sinful with this poor woman. So…where do you wanna go?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” she shrugged. “We got the whole family here, you, me, the good Lord, Gwen and Rachel, and a regular gunsmith camper. Wherever we go, we got each other. Are there any states that wouldn’t have cabins for rent, plumbing stores, and violent criminals that glow in the dark?”
“No, I suppose most or all of them have what we need. How about Texas? Gun laws are pretty loose there.” He shrugged.
“Amen to that.” Tanner smiled.
Frank heard the door open again and sighed, getting read to un-close his shop again instead of going home.
“Mike, you forgetful chump, what else do you need from me? I would like to actually go home tonight.” He said prying himself up from the chair and staring at the figure in the dark. “Where’s the girl?” he asked. The figure replied with a series of 3 muffled shots, locking the door behind it. Frank sat down in his chair with a heavy plop, looking at the blood on his hand and noticing Mike seemed oddly taller.
“You’re not Mike… who are you and what do you want?” he coughed.
“I’m the boatman. It’s time to take you home, Frank.” Said a muffled voice in the dark, the last bullet landing center of the forehead. “Goodbye old man.” He sighed. The light turned off, footsteps in the dark made their way around the store as the gentle sound of blood dripping on the concrete floor accented it like the marching of a funeral procession. Cicada roaring lightly in the background played his soul to the other side, as the dripping slowed down, and finally stopped; Silently.