Chapter 11: Who Is This Bob White

Years before the Earth became aware of the Swarm and over a thousand miles southeast of one of the recent extractions, Robert Pepper Quayle was born in small town Georgia. He was known by one and all as Pepper until his second grade teacher took his class on a field trip to a farm. While walking across a field to view the horses, they flushed a covey of quail, and the teacher told her excited students that they were ‘quail’ and often called ‘bobwhites’ because of their distinctive call. The excited youngsters became enamored with the similarity to Pepper’s name, and from then on he was known as Bobby White, or later, Bob White.

Bobby was fascinated with animals and collected them, especially injured critters that he could nurse back to health. He was an avid wildlife photographer, an excellent student, and everyone expected him to become the town’s next veterinarian. Then, when he was fifteen, a predator that appeared to be stalking his fourteen-year-old sister killed his family. While Bobby was returning from a midsummer, twilight photography session, his parents and younger brother, Howie, were murdered as they were watching television. Susan was raped, bound, and taken away.

Entering the house, he heard the family cat howling and wailing. Then he saw Meatloaf circling the bodies of his parents and Howie, lying in pools of blood on the floor. The upset feline was carefully avoiding the blood. Susan typically spent her evenings in her room on the phone with her friends and wasn’t lying among the dead. Cold and shaking, Bobby rushed to her room and found her gone - her bed rumpled and the coverlet bloody.

Bobby went rogue.

He went to the gun safe and retrieved his father’s liberated 1911.45 and M-14 with a highly illegal auto fire selector switch. He grabbed three loaded magazines for each and placed the spares in the backpack he had been wearing. He added water, granola bars, packets of salt and sugar, and a large first aid kit. He left the house and looked for tracks. Then he dialed 911.

As an Explorer Scout, he’d spent time in the emergency call center working on a merit badge, so he recognized the operator’s voice. “Nancy, it’s Bobby White. I just got home and found Mom and Dad and Howie murdered. Susan’s gone and there is blood on her bed. There’s tracks out the backdoor. I’m armed and following them. I’m turning the ringer off on my phone. I’m in camo, so tell the deputies not to shoot me in the back by accident.” Before she could respond, he’d hung up, silenced the ring tone, and was following a single set of tracks coming and going into the woods behind his home.

The almost full moon aided his tracking, and he followed the trail when the tracks turned up an old logging road some six hundred yards from the house. After ten minutes, he found where the kidnapper had mounted an ATV four-wheeler and headed back in the same direction it already traveled. It didn’t make sense. The sheriff could follow the tracks better than he could, and moving the ATV to the highway a little further on would make the kidnapper easy to spot. But ... If there were a second vehicle, say a truck, parked at the old turnoff, that made sense. The ATV could be picked up and its tracks would disappear.

He decided that he would let the sheriff follow that trail, and he cut over to the highway and reversed direction. His phone vibrated, and he ignored it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the sheriff to know where he was, but bejeezus if he’d be kept from the searching for Susan.

Bob was lucky. As he walked down the road, he crossed back and forth to inspect every driveway entering the highway. Far up the road, he saw reflections of flashing red and blue lights - just about where he knew his driveway turned off. And then in one driveway, he saw fresh vomit smeared with footprints and a clump of dirt shaped like the ATV’s tread. He could see faint marks where a ramp had been used, and wet, partial prints where two men had maneuvered Susan back onto the ATV. The kidnapper had used an accomplice to help him double back; then the accomplice left, maybe to lay a false trail.

The young man walked up the driveway until he reached a familiar path that wandered off by several fields and then circled a lake with seven abandoned ‘summer cabins’. Jason unslung his rifle and carried it at the ready. He followed the tire tracks, and sure enough, when he finally neared, he saw an ATV behind a cabin. As he sneaked near, a car drove up and parked.

From the cabin, a voice sounded, “That you Jake? Have any trouble sneaking that pickup back?”

“Now, who in the Hell did y’all think it’d be?” came the surly response. “And no, I parked it right back where we took it. Swept the back out too. Let’s go in, I’m ready for my turn at that prime piece of pussy!”

Bobby went still colder inside. He called 911 and whispered, “Nancy, I think I’ve found them at the old summer cabins by the lake. At least two men, maybe more. Tell the sheriff. I’m gonna go look.” He disconnected without waiting for a reply.

Not knowing for certain the number of adversaries he might need to face, he crept to the wall and peered through a dirt-streaked window. Inside the dingy, yellowish painted room, a wild eyed, bearded man watched as the man Bobby supposed was Jake dropped his pants and approached Susan who was lying face down on a bare mattress-covered bed. Her butt was bare and blood showed between her legs. She was still wearing her favorite purple Smurfs tee shirt.

The man, standing in profile to Bobby, heaved her over to her back and cursed when she rolled to her side. He slapped her butt and told her, “Okay cunt. I know y’all are awake. Me ‘n Preston are gonna break ya in good, so nobody around here will ever want y’all back. Then we’re gonna fuck ya some more, dump a few loads in your ass, and have y’all just right for our buyer in New York. Our first time is just so you’ll know what real cock feels like, then we’ll give y’all something that really makes ya feel it. When we are done, y’all are just gonna crave cock and the juice.”

He stood over her and took out a wicked Bowie-style knife. He ran his thumb along its edge in cliché movie style and cursed when his thumb ran red. He shook his hand, splattering blood drops, and returned his attention to Susan. “I wanna see those prime little titties while I fuck...” and he forced her over again, reached for her tee shirt, and sliced up the front while she screamed.

Bobby, fearing that the window glass would deflect his shot, moved the selector on his father’s M-14 to full automatic and fired a three round burst at Jake’s head. Bobby had been correct; the glass deflected his first round enough to take off Jake’s nose, but the second two flew true and entered his ear and temple. Bullets, brains, and gore flew across the room, spattering the far wall.