Free Bug Out! Part 10: RV Race to Battle by Robert Boren

ran back to the road and threw up, then came back alongside Branson.
    “You okay?” he asked.
    “Yeah, sorry,” Deputy Lawrence said. “Ricky and I were going on a double date tonight. Now he’s in a ditch.”
    Sheriff Branson put his gun away. “Whatever happened here is over,” he said.
    Deputy Lawrence put his gun in the holster. “Two of our guys, plus two bikers out here.”
    “What do you notice?” Sheriff Branson asked.
    Deputy Lawrence looked around. “Looks like the biker shot Ricky and he shot back.”
    “No, that’s what they want us to think,” Sheriff Branson said. “Pistol wounds in the biker’s torso, and a shotgun blast in the Deputy’s face. Not much chance that they both fired like that at the same split second.”
    “Oh,” Deputy Lawrence said sheepishly. He looked around some more.
    “License plates!” he said. “Bikers are from Michigan. A long way from home.”
    “Good,” Sheriff Branson said, smiling. “We need to call the FBI, but let’s look around a little first. What else do you notice?”
    “These guys look too clean cut to be real bikers,” Deputy Lawrence said. “Oh, crap, is that a Bluetooth headset on that one?”
    “You’re making progress, Deputy,” Sheriff Branson said. “This looks like yuppies on a road trip to me. This wasn’t some drug deal gone bad. These folks weren’t expecting a fight. Neither of these bikers are armed. It’s pretty obvious that the shotgun didn’t belong to this guy.”
    “Why?” asked the deputy.
    “See anything on his bike that would hold a shotgun?”
    “Oh,” he said. “You’re right.”
    They walked down the driveway, and the Deputy noticed a body laying against the wall of the barn, just inside the door. “Sheriff, body over there.”
    Sheriff Branson walked over to it. “Just a kid. Looks about seventeen or eighteen.”
    “Should we be taking pictures?” Deputy Lawrence asked.
    “Later,” he said. “Let’s check the rest of the place. See all that chrome back there, reflecting? Looks like there are at least six more bikes.”
    “Is that a woman hanging on the wall by the front door?” the Deputy asked.
    “You got good eyes,” Sheriff Branson said. “Look out in the middle of the yard. Two more bikers laying there.”
    They walked over to them. One moaned.
    “Sheriff, this one’s still alive,” the Deputy shouted.
    “Call it in,” Sheriff Branson said, looking at the other biker. “This one’s toast. Half his head is gone. Look at all the dead guys on the driveway. This was a massacre.”
    “Seriously,” Deputy Lawrence said. He called for an ambulance, then knelt down next to the man. “Can you hear me?”
    The man looked up at him with heavy eyelids and smiled weakly. “Thank God,” he whispered.
    “The ambulance will be here in a minute,” Deputy Lawrence said. “What happened here?”
    “I don’t know,” he said softly. “We were just coming here for a party. Somebody pulled a motor home across the driveway and shot at us.”
    “Anything I can do for you while we’re waiting?”
    “Yeah, there’s a bottle of water in the saddle bag on my bike. Could you get it for me?”
    “Of course,” Deputy Lawrence said. He found it and handed it to him.
    “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “You go ahead on. I’ll be okay until the ambulance gets here.”
    The deputy trotted over to the driveway. Sheriff Branson was kneeling down next to one of the bodies.
    “Anybody alive over here?” Deputy Lawrence asked.
    “Nah,” he said. “Hunting rifles. They really tear a man up. That one over there gonna make it?”
    “I don’t know, maybe. He’s gut-shot, but he’s fairly alert.”
    “He say anything?”
    “Yeah, motor home pulled across the driveway and opened fire,” Deputy Lawrence said.
    “Probably was in that barn,” Sheriff Branson said. “Thought I saw tracks in there.”
    They walked up to the porch. The woman was hanging on the wall, blood around her neck and down her