Ch. 8 Athena's Gift

Chapter 8

“America’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can always be made better.”-Anthony Walton

Jill and Jeff took the first driving shift. Not that shifts were working very well, Suzanne and I were wide-awake. With no National Guard presence, we just felt the need to be very organized.
As we got to the Paxton checkpoint we could see smoke rising out of the burned out hulk of the fuel station. There had been a raid in the night, and someone’s truck had crashed into a set of pumps. I thought I saw a bloody puddle across the entrance drive to the station and I tried to erase the image of a child’s shoe at the edge of the puddle as we pulled onto the Interstate.

We were between herds, a large group of five vehicles ahead of us and about three behind us. Everyone seemed comfortable with the formation and we stayed that way for about half an hour. As our padding of distance between herds began to erode we decided to speed up and get ahead of the mob. The herd cars thought they were safer in a large group, but we believed that maneuverability was more important. We let all of the vehicles we passed see our guns, and they let us go on our way.

We had just passed the Kankakee exit when we could see about four off road motorcycles pull up onto the road, shooting the tires out of a small red car ahead of us. We immediately slowed and pulled off to the side. The black sedan behind us honked when we slammed on our brakes, and then sailed right past us. We tried to wave them down, but they ignored us. There was about a hundred-yard space between us.

As we watched, two of the motorcyclists parked and began yelling at the occupants of the downed red vehicle. One of the riders fired a shot into the air. The other rider slowed and began to sight in on the black sedan, thinking to nail two vehicles. The black sedan tried to speed past them once they realized they were in trouble.

One of the tires blew on the sedan and it spun out of control, clipping one of the motorcycles. The rider of the mangled bike flew off and landed on a piece of metal fencing. He wasn’t moving.


“Suzanne, I am going to move us up. When I get out, I want you to take the wheel. Be ready to swoop in and get us. Jill, you stay with Suzanne. Shoot anything that looks like it might take out the car.” Jeff crept the car forward, honking the horn.

“Be sure to watch around you. This could be a bigger ambush than it looks like.” I said. Getting my 14 gage loaded up, and loading Jill’s 20.

Suzanne already had her shiny new-to-her Colt Python 357 out and across her lap. I really hoped she didn’t have to fire that thing. She was quite a sight target practicing in the back yard.
Jill was less than thrilled about having the guns out. That worried me.

Jeff flung his door open and stepped out; Jill did the same allowing me to get out behind her. Jeff and I immediately brought our rifles to bear on the scene ahead of us.

The three moving motorcyclists seemed uncertain of us. They clearly wanted to get this done before tangling with us. Gesturing to shoot the occupants of the red car, one of them in a blue helmet started to track a male passenger as he opened the door to run.

The would be shooter dropped as Jeff and I both shot him. The other two returned fire in a haphazard manner, trying to get their motorcycles turned around to escape.

I shot the motorcycle that presented the widest target first and then waited for the other guy to turn his. He didn’t cooperate and another idea formulated in my mind as the guy with the disabled bike started to climb on the back of his friend’s bike.

Jeff and I walked behind the open doors of the Vega as Suzanne crept forward with it. I kept my eye firmly on the panicked pair riding the last motorcycle.

When they had gone far enough into the tall weedy hillock that coming back on foot wouldn’t be easy, I sighted in and shot the bike twice. While it went down I took a moment to reload and stepped away from the door.

Jeff was intent on the passengers of the sedan and the little red car. Jill was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear her. I was lost in my own concentration and desire to get rid of these parasites. I was….angry!

The cyclists got back up, kicking the dead bike in frustration. I watched the first one go for the gun he had dropped, calmly waiting for my shot. As he reached down, I shot his arm, just above the wrist. No gun for you…

The other attacker already had his gun and was sighting down on me. As I took my time trying to sight on his legs, his head rocked back to the crack of a rifle behind me.

“Not today, Sunshine!” Jill said in a dark voice, she still had a cigarette between her lips. “You want me to shoot the other one?”

He was howling in pain and running off.

“No, no. I think his ambushing career is over. We should try to retrieve all of the guns and ammo though.” I said, surprised at the coldness in her manner.
***************

Jill smoked like I’ve never seen anyone smoke before. She had a steady ranting conversation with herself that would have made that angry Irish comedian proud. In the end, she agreed that other people would have died if she hadn’t done something.

She and Suzy made the rounds picking up guns and ammo from the fallen. The guy on the fence post had been impaled through the abdomen and bled out, he probably hadn’t woken up to feel a thing.

The air bags had deployed on the black sedan, but the overall damage was minimal and cosmetic. With some help from the people in the little red car we got it pushed out of the ditch and the tire changed. It turns out that the couple in the sedan only lived about ten minutes away in Manteno. The young woman was visibly pregnant, so we decided to send them on their way before anything else happened. But, not before we gave them one of the rifles and a quick shooting/safety lesson.

The little red car contained three seminary students from Notre Dame. They were on their way to a Catholic parish in Chicago to help out with homeless operations. They didn’t have much gas and were concerned that they wouldn’t make it. Finding checkpoint stations that were still operational was becoming difficult.

Several cars had passed us on the road, but none of them slowed down or stopped to help. I couldn’t blame them.

We put one of our extra cans of gas into the tank of the little red car and changed their tire. All they had was a pretty sorry looking donut, so we knew it was going to be tedious travel from here on in. If that donut blew, the threesome was going to be stranded because there simply was no room in the Vega.

These guys, bless their hearts, were the most inept and unprepared group I had come across. First of all, they were starving. So we gave them a bunch of carrots and peanut butter. Not one of them could shoot a rifle, so Jeff took the most likely candidate to the side of the road and got him started. We took care of the gas issue. They were nice enough guys; lets just hope that the fate of the world never rests on their shoulders.

Richard, we’ll call him the smart one of the bunch, had been talking to Jeff during their lesson. Apparently, the Parish boys thought Jeff might be useful. We were all welcome to follow them in, and see if we could stay at the Parish for a while.

To me, that sounded uncomfortably close to unloading Jeff somewhere. I wasn’t prepared for that yet. But, I was outvoted, so we followed Dead Eye Richard down the road.
*********************
I’ve traveled through Chicago before. I’ve spent time in the suburbs. What I was seeing as we switched Interstates and headed for downtown didn’t look much like what I remembered. The crowded together row houses with overlapping roofs were missing a house now and then. The empty spaces looked like blacked out teeth.

The tall concrete barriers between residential neighborhoods and the Interstate were crumbling in places. There were signs of large impacts all over the roads.

The National Guard still maintained a presence here. But they weren’t operating checkpoints anymore. They seemed to be on defensive duty, monitoring traffic from overpasses and other high spaces. They could have blown us off the road at any time, and if we started acting squirrelly I had no doubt they would. Stopping to ask questions just didn’t seem like a good idea anymore.

An hour later, in a dirty garbage strewn area, we pulled into a manned parking garage outside of a gorgeous Gothic style cathedral. The carved facade had a blackened sooty look to it, but nothing could mask the gracefully detailed stonework.

The church ran the parking structure and wouldn’t charge us until we left. Trusting.
We followed Dead Eye, Moe and Curly in the Administrative services door. The guys were welcomed and were requested to meet with the Assistant Priest. We, the Ladies that is, were asked to please have a seat.

The dark corridor had dark wainscoting and dark red industrial grade carpeting. The curtains around the only window were a dark hunter green with ducks, circa 1980. Suzanne, Jill and I looked around for about thirty seconds before we had to roll our eyes at each other.

“I can just imagine the guy that decorated this place…” Jill began.

“And you know it had to be a guy…”I filled in.

“Yeah, but can you imagine the guy that still likes it this way?” Suzanne finished before we started giggling.

“Hm Hmm.” A loud, clearly disapproving female cleared her voice. “I was called in to see to your accommodations for the night.”

She looked us up and down and found us lacking. I think we found the person that still liked the hall decoration.

“I had thought we might find you a spot in the convent, but I can see that won’t be possible.” She sniffed, “I think you will be better suited for the shelter.”

I think we were just insulted. This woman was just like every nun I had ever heard about- stern, judgmental and substantial.

Jill stood up and walked forward, extending her hand. I held my breath.

“Hi, I’m Jill. This is my sister Suzanne and our friend Lucy.” Jill let her hand hang in the air, only inches from the nun. “And you are?”

“Sister Agnes.” The woman appeared flustered at her lapse in manners. Then she seemed to collect herself and the attitude returned. She reluctantly shook Jill’s hand, complete with an internal struggle not to wipe her hands on her skirt.

“Actually, Sister Agnes” Jill began, her hand miraculously unfrozen. “We would prefer it if you could give us the name of a decent hotel close by. We wouldn’t want to take resources away from someone who needs it more than us.”

Robbed of a fearful reaction, Sister Angry informed us that the Church had recently made a building across the street habitable. We would be among the first women to rent rooms there. She assured us that she would inform Jeff of our whereabouts when he came out of his meeting.

“You know. Maybe we should just wait here for him. We can all go over together.” I suggested. Sister Angry’s icy glare made me realize that my suggestions were not appreciated.

“That simply won’t do.” Sister Angry informed me with a sweet smile that didn’t make it up to her eyes.

“We are trying to run a seminary and a convent here. Surely you can understand how your presence might be disruptive.” She explained in slow careful words, as if to a young child.

As we walked across the street we could feel the chill receding behind us.