Chapter 2

Day Two: Monday

The next morning I awoke hot and sticky. I had slept in my shorts and the two women slept in their only items of clothing, the bikinis they were wearing the day before. Because of the lack of air conditioning and the humid climate the top sheets and other bed clothing had been tossed off the bed during the night. The sheet we slept on was soaked with sweat and each of us was covered by a fine sheen of perspiration. I woke first and immediately headed for the toilet and afterwards decided that even though the water was going to be cold, I desperately needed a shower. I was used to cold showers from my Navy days but that didn't mean that I enjoyed them. I was hurriedly performing this task when I heard the women awake.

Julie first ran into the bathroom and darted for the toilet. She sat there and I could hear Irene exhorting her to finish so that she could take her turn. The byplay sounded more like two kids than two grown women. I don't know whether it was kidding or not but Irene told Julie that if she didn't hurry she was going to sit on her lap and show her how badly she needed to go. I spoke up and jokingly said that she could come relieve herself in the shower if she was that much in a hurry and before I finished my statement the curtain was ripped open and Irene was pushing in with me. That was until the cold water from the shower hit her back and then she was struggling to push past me to get to the back of the shower. Julie started laughing so hard that I thought she was going to fall off the toilet. I grabbed the only completely dry towel before it got soaked and exited the shower with Irene still fuming.

I dried off and found my dry underwear and dressed in my clothes from the day before. I put on my boat shoes and headed to the other rooms to collect towels for the two girls. That's when it dawned on me that I had left two naked women in my room. When I went out into the outside breezeway I looked around to see what the weather had in store. I had a clear view of the Intercoastal Waterway over the vegetation and the one-story houses that were the only other buildings in the area. I saw no traffic on the waterway or on the highway and nothing in the air. The weather was clear with a light breeze and the sky seemed somehow bluer than the day before. It was going to be another sweltering day.

I had just turned to go into the other room when I heard a noise that sounded like a couple of firecrackers going off. It was far enough away that it could have been firecrackers but it could also have been gunfire. I went to the railing again and listened wanting to know the direction of the shots, if they were shots. They didn't repeat and the first ones sounded as if they had come from the direction of Gulf Breeze but I couldn't be sure. I hurriedly grabbed the towels and took them back to the room.

The sight that greeted my eyes when I entered the door almost made me forget the sounds I had heard. Irene was bending over trying to dry her legs with the damp towel that I had used the night before. Julie saw where my eyes were fixed and started giggling. Irene looked up at her, followed her eyes back to me and I was caught staring. Julie said, "Serves you right, he was perving on me yesterday."

I threw Irene a dry towel and interrupted their banter by asking if anyone had heard the popping noises. Neither one had. I described what I had heard and told them that it sounded like it had come from the direction of Gulf Breeze but that I couldn't be sure. That seemed to sober the two women up and both quickly dressed.

I apologized to Irene for staring but told her that if she was going to dry off with her butt pointed my way, I was going to look. I told them both that I was a normal healthy guy which meant that I was using all of my self control to keep my hands to myself. Those comments brought smiles to their faces and a resumption of their earlier banter.

Irene smiled and said, "Who said I wanted you to keep your hands to yourself?"

Julie then said, "Irene's a slut anyway. I'm sure she bent over that way to give you a good look as you came though the door."

Irene huffed up and turned red. She said, "I did not. She just told me that my legs were wet right before you came in. I bet she saw you coming and did that deliberately."

I looked at both of them and grinned. I looked to Julie and said, "Thank you darlin'. If you did that then we are even for every nasty thing you said yesterday."

We were all smiling and suddenly broke into spontaneous laughter. We all moved together and pulled each other into a group hug. I looked at both of them and said, "Well I guess the good news is that we don't have a lot of luggage to carry down to the car and we can check out any time we want."

Irene laughed and said, "So what is the bad news?"

I grinned at her and said, "The bad news is we don't have a lot of luggage to carry down to the car."

We decided to take the Pathfinder as the higher ground clearance made it a much more practical vehicle than my convertible. I had a sentimental attachment to the convertible but I could always come back for it later. I was worried about the gunfire but I decided not to dwell on that as I didn't want to panic the women. That was not out of chauvinism but out of a belief that unspecified fears of the unknown might drive us towards a bunker mentality. I thought that we needed to establish a base of operations somewhere that we could scout out the situation in the area and had a good idea where.

"I think we should go through Navarre and then drive north to Whiting Field Naval Air Station (NAS). It is a Navy training base on a hill in the north end of the county and has several hundred small planes and helicopters and should be fairly secure."

As soon as I said that Julie surprised me and agreed, "I think that's a good idea. You know the area better than we do. I think we need to stop somewhere along the way for something to eat and for new clothes for all of us. I'm not used to wearing the same clothes two days in a row."

Irene looked over at me and said, "Those shorts of yours need replacement as well. I don't care where we go. I'm sure you'll take good care of us."

As she was saying that I started shaking my head no. I glanced over at their puzzled looks and said, "I'm glad you think so but it can't be just me. Obviously if you had your own business you're both smart so we'll work together on this. I'll provide knowledge of the area and you help where ever you can. That way we can all take care of each other."

While they were thinking about that we heard gunfire. This time I was sure it was gunfire and not firecrackers. It was not too far up ahead on the road. I immediately pulled off the road and pulled the car behind an overturned pick-up. Luckily the shooting was not at us. I wasn't armed as I had left both a pistol and shotgun locked up on my boat. I kept them there because of sporadic episodes of piracy and drug running in the gulf. I also have several hunting rifles at my house, but at the moment that was even further away than my boat. Because I was unarmed I was extra careful. I thought about backing the SUV up and heading out the other way but in the present circumstance I wasn't sure if I could get back to my boat by circling around. I asked Julie and Irene to stay in the car and keep it running so that we could quickly leave if it came to that. I told them that I was going to try and to see if I could get any closer without being observed.

I was lucky that there were several cars strung along the road I could use for cover. This was an area where there must have been a line of cars moving down the road and they had randomly crashed on both sides of it. I picked my way forward slowly and still hadn't quite pinpointed the location of the shooting when I saw a police car that had the front end wrapped around a power pole. I made my way over to the car and found keys still in the ignition. Crouching by the side of the car I reached in through the shattered side window and grabbed the keys. I was lucky that the trunk key was on the ring as I knew that most law enforcement in the area had carried a shotgun along with other emergency equipment in the trunk. Still crouching, I opened the trunk, holding it to keep it from popping open all the way. I figured the lower profile, the better.

The trunk was packed full of stuff so it took me a few minutes to find what I was looking for. The shotgun was a Remington 12-gauge pump and was loaded with the chamber empty. It was secured but not locked into a rack and it took me a few minutes to release the mechanism to free the gun from the rack. There was an ammo can that I found had extra '00' buckshot for the shotgun as well as extra nine mm pistol ammo. Obviously the pistol was with the missing officer. There was a bulletproof vest and I took the time to put it on. There were also several roadside flares with a self striking cap. I put two of these in my back pocket and closed the trunk. I then opened the ammo box and stuffed half-a-dozen shells in my front pockets.

I moved forward slowly, keeping as low as I could. The shotgun gave me a measure of self-confidence. I knew from my Navy survival training that some confidence is good but overconfidence could be deadly. Of course, if I had taken what I had learned from that course to heart I would have been moving in the other direction anyway. I moved two cars closer and I heard shots ring out again. This time a loud male voice could be heard screaming, "Girl, get down on your face, NOW!"

I peered over the hood of what had once been a nearly new red mustang and saw the shooter, a young man in a tank top and shorts, about 25 yards ahead of me on the other side of the road. His back was to me and he had a snub-nosed revolver broken open and was busy reloading. His victims, a girl who seemed to be 10 to 12-years old and a younger boy were down in the road. The blonde haired girl was face down in the road with her arms stretched out. She was crying and holding onto the hand of the boy who was down on his back in a pool of blood. She had blood all over her but I couldn't be sure if she was shot or not. The boy was most likely dead. There appeared to be another person lying half-hidden behind a car 25 feet beyond them. That person was also not moving.

I knew that my best chance was to go for him while he was reloading his gun. I had to hope that there wasn't another shooter. I had only heard one type of shot and knew that if this guy had a partner, his partner either hadn't fired or had an identical handgun. I moved quickly out into the open and screamed, "Drop that gun and drop it now."

Things happened as if everything were in slow motion. The shooter started turning around while flipping the revolver closed and bringing it up. I wasn't about to let him get all the way around on me and I pulled the trigger before he was even half-way around. He never finished turning. The force of the shotgun pellets tearing into him threw him backward onto the side of the road. About that time there was a scream behind me and I turned swinging the shotgun around. Julie and Irene were running down the road towards me from behind a car about four cars back. I hollered, "Stay back!" Not wanting them to get in the middle of any action in case there was more than one gunman. Thankfully there was no second gunman.

As soon as I figured that out I yelled for Julie and Irene. They quickly walked up looking wide-eyed at the scene laid out before us. As soon as they saw the girl lying there they raced forward to her. Irene, I found out later, had worked for a time as a paramedic. She checked the girl over while she was down and then practically had to pry her away from her brother. Julie held the girl and let her sob. I noticed that Julie was crying in empathy, matching her tear for tear. Irene quickly checked the boy and started to move to the guy I shot but I pointed out the other guy lying on the side of the road half-hidden behind a car. She ran down and checked him out. After checking out the guy I shot she quietly told me that they were all dead.

The only six people that I knew for sure had survived the past 24 hours and three of them were now dead. I felt badly about killing the guy with the handgun but it was him or me. I picked up the gun from the shooter and took the opened box of ammunition from the car hood where he was reloading. The girl was alive and other than a few scrapes on her arms and knees was unhurt. After looking at her again I revised my estimate of her age. She was evidently older than 10 as you could see grotesque reverse imprints of her small breasts on the front of her T-shirt inked in by the blood of her brother. Her blood streaked hair was dirty blonde and cut shoulder length. She had blue eyes and her eyebrows gave me an indication that her hair color was not from a bottle. I estimated then that she was between 13 and 15. She was short for her age and was only about five feet tall.

Julie took her hand and led her back to our car. She hung on to Julie's hand for dear life and walked quietly, her almost glazed-over eyes fixed stoically ahead on the ground. We were about half way there when I realized that there was a first aid kit in the trunk of the police car and I started walking back to retrieve it. By the time I finished I had taken the first aid kit, the extra ammunition, the flares and a blanket from the back of the patrol car.

I gave Irene the handgun and put the shotgun and the ammo box in the back of the car after making sure the chamber was empty. I put the first aid kit in the back seat next to Julie and the young girl. She could tape up the girl's cuts and scrapes while we were moving. I carefully drove around the bodies and about a half-hour later made it back to the marina. I went to my boat and retrieved my own handgun and shotgun and loaded them in the back of the car.

Next we headed up Highway 87 to Milton, the county seat. We had to go past Milton to get to the Naval Air Station. I had moved only a short way up that road when Irene spoke up and said, "I thought we were going to stop and get something to eat?"

Eats were not a problem. I pulled over at the next convenience store. I wasn't hungry myself. There's something about killing a man before breakfast that ruins your appetite. As I sat there waiting with the girl for the women to come back I thought about the future. There were still bread and other baked goods on the racks now but those would eventually go bad and the only thing left to eat would be from cans or from government surplus MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat). Like most people in this hurricane prone area, I had a garage full of MREs. Those had almost an indefinite storage life under ideal conditions.

I thought about it and got out and led the crying girl into the store. I found a cheap Styrofoam cooler and half filled it with a variety of still cool drinks from the chill box. I got the girl to help me carry it out the door. I could have easily carried it myself but I felt the need to take her mind off of what had happened. We went outside and I opened the large ice bin and found half-melted bags of ice still inside. I took some of those and filled the cooler over the drinks. Julie saw what I was doing and took some large drink cups from inside and filled them with the ice. She took the warm Dr. Pepper she had been drinking and poured it over the ice. Irene watched her and did the same thing. The young girl saw what they were doing and took one of the cups.

Irene said, "What kind of drink do you want honey?"

"Pepsi," was the first word we heard the girl say. We all smiled at her when she said that for some reason.

I went back into the store and grabbed her a Pepsi from the chill box. While I was gone Julie and Irene had taken the initiative and introduced themselves to the girl, hoping that she would keep talking. I came back out just in time to hear her say, "I'm Kari Kilpatrick." When she said that, she looked at me as if she was expecting something.

I wasn't too slow on the uptake; I was hoping she would speak again and ask me my name. When she didn't, I replied, "My name is Steve Clement."

Beyond that I didn't really know what to say. I didn't want to reinforce memories of the horrific morning to Kari by asking any further questions and yet I knew something had to be said. I got down on one knee in front of her and took her hands. I looked her in the eyes and said, "Kari, we are all so very sorry about what happened this morning with your family. I am sorry I didn't get there sooner but I had no idea you were in trouble until I heard the shots. We are heading to Whiting Field in hopes of finding out something about what is going on. I hope, no, we all hope that you will want to come with us and stay with us."

Kari, who had come out of her shock enough to find her tongue to tell us her favorite drink and her name, crossed her arms across her blood stained T-shirt and just nodded her acceptance. I pulled her into a brief hug and stood up. I took the cooler, popped the hatchback on the car and positioned the cooler in the back with the other items. After that we got back on the road, heading north. Looking in the rearview mirror at Kari in her bloody T-shirt, still hugging Julie, I knew that our next stop needed to be somewhere to get clean clothes for all of us.

We stopped at a well known department store on the outskirts of Milton. It was spooky being in such a large store that was completely empty. All of us were of somber spirit as the import of the mornings happenings began to sink in. I still couldn't fathom the need of the young man to kill when so much life had evidently already been extinguished. I knew it might be necessary to kill again but I hoped to try and preserve as much life as I could in the future.

The department store in question had a good selection of clothes and I asked the ladies to limit themselves to one outfit to wear and two others that we would take with us. Of course we also needed undergarments and shoes. The women's section being closer to the front of the store meant that Julie and Irene went first. They showed no modesty in completely stripping and trying things on with me there. That surprised Kari a bit. I tried to remain unaffected but my appreciation of their bodies soon appeared as a bulge in the front of my shorts. I tried to keep this hidden from Kari but that was impossible.

Irene looked at me and winked at Julie and said, "Steve is perving on us again."

As soon as she said it she realized that Kari had not been a part of the earlier banter and might either be shocked or deeply offended. She turned to Kari and said, "Kari, I'm sorry that was just an inside joke. Steve isn't really a pervert; he just has a man's normal reaction to a naked woman. It's just that we have all been so serious and I couldn't help teasing Steve, who is such a good sport about things."

Julie wasn't going to let Irene off that easily. Ignoring the fact that she was equally as naked as Irene, she said, "Kari, you need to try to stay away from Irene's bad influence. She teases poor Steve unmercifully by flaunting her naked naughty bits."

Irene, not seeing the mirth in Julie's eyes said, "I don't flaunt anything."

Julie laughed, having achieved her purpose. After the exchange the two women quickly picked out their clothing. They each knew their own sizes, weren't looking for fashion and so quickly were outfitted in new bras panties, then light cotton blouses and jeans. They picked similar items as extras along with shorts to replace the long pants. I was amazed as it was the fastest I had ever seen two adult women shop and agree on things.

Kari's selections were not such easy decisions. Kari seemed happy with anything they selected and because of that Julie, who seemed to have a bent toward mothering Kari, was especially critical of every item. Since Kari was so small the choices in her size seemed to be clothes for younger girls. Julie rejected many items for that reason.

Kari had silently witnessed the exchange after both Irene and Julie stripped in the women's section and hesitated only momentarily before pulling off her blood splattered T-shirt and shorts. She looked at me and blushed a deep crimson as she pulled down her white cotton panties. I tried to appear casual towards her nakedness, but the truth was that the sight of her young body affected me even more than Irene and Julie's had moments before. My hopes that Kari wouldn't notice my noble reaction to her body were dashed when I saw her stealing glances at my bulging shorts.

As I looked at Kari I noticed that she still had a good deal of blood on her chest, arms and legs. In addition, she had numerous small scratches and cuts, mainly on her arms. There were even spatters of blood droplets on her face and neck. She must have been standing very close to her brother when he was shot. While Julie and Kari were looking through the racks of clothes I caught Irene's eye and motioned her over to me. I pointed out the blood all over Kari and suggested that Kari might want to wash up before putting on her new clothes. I told her that there might even be an employees changing area in the back with a shower. Irene smiled and agreed.

The women quickly picked out several outfits for Kari from all of the clothes they had pulled from the rack. Irene then suggested there might be a shower in the back and Julie asked me if I could pick out my own clothes without them. I smiled and told her that I had been doing that very thing for years. Irene nodded and said, "We noticed."

I looked offended and said, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Julie said, "Your boat shoes have holes in them. Your shorts have a belt loop pulled loose in the back and are the most awful shade of pea green that I have ever seen. And with your Navy experience you would think that you would be smart enough to get a shirt that was dark enough to hide coffee stains. At least I hope those are coffee stains."

I said, "Hey, these are my fishing clothes. I didn't expect to spend time with three beautiful women. If I had expected that I do have shirts without coffee stains, shoes without holes and well ... I happen to like this particular shade of green."

Julie said, "That's it. Irene you go with him and make sure he doesn't screw up things too badly." Turning to me she said, "If I'm going to have to spend all of my time with you, and it doesn't look like there is any choice on that, then you are going to at least not look like some colorblind, backwoods hobo."