Neither one of us spoke on the drive to the corn bin where we buried the girl. We strung the bodies of her assailants together with a tie strap and propped them against the corn bin.
Finished, I pulled out a can of red spray paint I’d found at Jase’s house and painted large letters on the bin above the men: R-A-P-I-S-T-S.
I stared at the letters for a couple minutes. With no law enforcement, it seemed fitting to somehow note these men’s crimes. When I tossed the can on the ground, Clutch gave me a nod and headed back to the truck.
We drove around for an hour, scanning for the minivan, and only saw a zed here and there. The bastard was either long gone or had gone to ground, and neither option did us any good. I felt like our duty wouldn’t be done be until we could find the fourth rapist. Only then would the poor girl finally be avenged.
All in all, taking care of corpses took us five hours. We sat in the truck and ate the sandwiches I’d made this morning.
“Check out the warehouse next?” I asked between bites. I had the bolt cutters along, and Clutch had been hankering to get his hands onto all the surplus gear.
He nodded while he chewed.
Not even a minute later, thunder rolled, and the damn rain picked up again. I watched heavy drops pelt the windshield. “It’ll be tough watching for zeds in this.”
“Agreed. We’ll try again tomorrow,” he grumbled as he wiped his hands on his pants.
“At least the storms should keep other looters away, too,” I offered.
He grunted. “We can only hope.” And he started the truck.
By the time we’d returned to the farm, the rain had become relentless. Jase stepped out from his cover under a nearby shrub. With the rain parka, he blended seamlessly into the foliage around him. He unlocked the heavy chain and pushed at the gate. Metal screeched as he shoved it open. Something clanged, and the gate broke free from its rollers and swung out at an odd angle.
“Damn it. I knew we were going to have problems with that piece of shit gate,” Clutch muttered before gunning the engine through the open space. Once through, he jumped out of the truck and I followed.
It took all our strength to right the gate. The wind pushed against us and the hail pelted our heads. Once the gate was back in place, we tied it to the barbed wire fence we’d reinforced with chain link on each side. It wasn’t pretty but it would at least hold the gate and slow down anyone—alive or otherwise—trying to get onto the farm.
A thunderous boom shook the ground. A crack echoed through the air, followed by a large branch off an old maple tree slamming into the ditch behind us.
“C’mon!” Clutch yelled out, his voice a whisper over the wind. “We need to get inside. Now!”
We ran to the truck. Even though there was a backseat, Jase and I both tumbled onto the front bucket seat.
The truck lurched forward, buffeted by the wind that seemed to come at us from every direction. “This one’s going to be bad,” Clutch muttered.
Going to be? Spring storms in the Midwest were known to get nasty. But, maybe because I’d lived in a city where buildings tempered the winds, I didn’t remember a storm this bad in a long time.
Hail bombarded the truck, the noise deafening. When we reached the shed, both Jase and I tumbled out to slide open the large door. The hail hurt, and the wind had become vicious. The sky had turned an ominous green. We started pulling the door shut while Clutch drove the truck into the shed. Once in, he jumped out and helped slide the large door closed.
Hail sounded like an atrocious muddle of drums on the shed’s metal roof.
Then the screaming winds mysteriously stilled and the hail stopped.
We all stood and looked up as if we could see through a metal roof. Chills crawled over my skin.
“This can’t be good,” Jase said.
“We should get to the cellar,” I said. I headed to the side door to make a break for the house, but Clutch stopped me.