At least ten minutes already passed by, and not a single person in the truck said a word. Sure enough, the atmosphere inside the cabin was getting heavier, and so did the three people at the back. Once in a while, I took a peek at the rearview mirror, and saw them standing still, each with a very tense look on their face. The strange thing was, it was almost as if they were also watching us very carefully.
Not long after that, Jonathan sped up the truck for quite some time to the speed of 160 km/h, and he suddenly stopped the truck with a handbrake. All the three people behind were obviously not aware of Jonathan's action, as they all hit the rear window right after he pulled the brake. Luckily, they did not seem to be seriously injured because of the impact.
Both me and Ryan watched him confusedly, but he just stared the road ahead sharply and then ordered us to get out from the truck.
"You two," he said with a low voice, "get out."
"What? But-" replied Ryan confused.
"Trust… me…" cut Jonathan as he looked to Ryan and then to me.
I had no idea why he told us to get out from the truck, but I had a gut feeling that Jonathan was sensing a near threat, so I pulled Ryan's arm to get out from the truck together with me.
Right after both of us went out the truck and closed the door, Jonathan also did the same.
"Hey, you guys okay?" asked Jonathan to the three people on the back of the truck. "I hope you guys did not get hurt much from the impact just now."
"What the hell were you thinking?!" the young man from the three people yelled.
"I guess I was kind of dizzy from driving the long road..." Jonathan replied with a couple of gentle knock on the right door.
And then, it made me realized that the knocks were the signal he mentioned earlier. I pulled Ryan slowly, and it only took a brief moment for him to realize what was going on. He slowly began to crawl down towards the front of the truck while bringing Jonathan's rifle on both of his hands.
"I have an idea..." Ryan said quietly as he started to crawl, "but you will have to pretend like you do not know anything at all about it."
I only nod in response to his move, as he continued to crawl again.
As I watched Ryan briefly, I felt a brief dazzling metallic shine in my right eye. At first I tried to ignore it as I assumed that it was only the reaction of my exhausted eyes. However, when I tried to look at the direction of the three strangers, I felt the same shine again and for a moment, I realized that it was most likely came from a booby trap set on the road, possibly caltrops or nail booby traps. It was also at that moment that I became aware of what Jonathan was doing.
Jonathan must have experienced the same thing when he was driving the truck, on a high speed, and pulled the handbrake immediately right after he felt the dazzling shine. Hence, he told us to get out of the truck, and to trust him that something was not right. I was impressed by his vision ability, but then again he was an officer of the Air Force.
Judging by how far it had gone, Jonathan was probably assuming that the three strangers were the ones who set up the trap, and was trying to force other vehicles to run through the traps so that they could rob everyone inside the unlucky vehicles.
By the time I had grasped completely what was going on, the situation between Jonathan and the three strangers was already tense, as the young male stranger kept on yelling to Jonathan, who replied him calmly.
"You bled both me and my mom's nose, and you will not even apologize?!" yelled the young stranger as he held his nose.
"Well… I thought you would understand that I was exhausted as I have traveled so far up until this point." replied Jonathan calmly.
"You-" the young stranger was about to say something, but Jonathan immediately cut his sentence,
"In that case, do you want to replace me as the driver instead? We are willing to switch places if you guys want to…" Jonathan said right after he cut off the young stranger's sentence.
"Yeah well news flash, big guy! I cannot drive truck! None of us can!" the young stranger yelled to him, again, as if he was triggered by what Jonathan had just said.
"Yeah, sure you can." replied Jonathan. "Otherwise, you guys would not be able to position those three vehicles in such a neat line."
All of the three strangers gave a surprised expression from what Jonathan said to them.
"Or rather is it because you guys also expect to face another impact on the road up ahead?" he continued, tauntingly.
'That's the signal.' I thought to myself. I was also very sure that Ryan clearly heard what Jonathan just said.
"Alright," the young stranger responded, holding up his handgun towards Jonathan, "stay away from the truck!" he continued, yelling.
One other stranger, the middle-aged woman also pointed her handgun towards me. The other stranger, the young woman pulled out a pocket knife from her pocket and leaned closer slowly towards Jonathan.
"Heh, at least we do not have to use that last set of caltrops ahead." scoffed the young male stranger.
"No. You will not." replied Jonathan. "Because it looks like you are going to face the impact right here."
Right after he said the word, I immediately grabbed the door handle and opened it fast. The middle-aged woman shot her handgun continuously, but it did not hit me as the door shielded me from the fired rounds.
The young couple were distracted by our actions, and Jonathan responded by moving forward very quickly, grabbing the young woman's hand hard, thus forcing her to drop her folding knife to the ground. The young male stranger pointed his handgun towards Jonathan, trying to force Jonathan to let the young woman go.
"Freeze! Let her go!" yelled the young stranger.
For a moment, I was confused on how to help Jonathan as I too was being held by the middle-aged woman. I also sensed her nearing me slowly as she stopped firing. It was at this time that I was wondering where Ryan had gone to because he was not in front of the truck.
Suddenly, the young male stranger got himself grabbed by someone on one of his leg from below the truck, dropping his body to the ground with a clattering sound. It seemed that he also dropped his handgun when he was falling as Jonathan immediately followed by pushing the young woman back which made her fall to the ground, took up the folding knife and held it against the young male stranger. Ryan than emerged from below the truck, revealing that it was him who grabbed the young stranger's leg. This action made the middle-aged woman distracted briefly, and I used that opening for me to fend her off from me.
I got off from in front of the door, and rushed to her direction as she managed to fire a round. Luckily it did not hit me as I already held her handgun away from me, but my left ear was ringing as the round was fired close to my left ear. It did not take me long to snatch the handgun away from her hands, and thus freeing me off from my nearby threat. I decided not to point the handgun towards her, as I was sure that she would not be of any threat without her weapon.
I took a brief look at the handgun, which was different from my handgun that was broken by the tall slender creature back in the sewers. The broken handgun in the sewers was a Berretta M92F, and the current handgun in my hand was a Heckler & Koch USP. Although of different models, the two shared the same bullet capacity of 15 rounds.
The middle-aged woman began to walk slowly towards the young couple while also looking at me. As she finally gathered together with the young couple, I noticed that the young man's handgun which was now held by Ryan, was also the same as the one in my hand.
"Where did you guys find this handgun?" I asked, curiously.
None of them seemed to be willing to answer, as none of them were looking straight at me. Jonathan folded his hands, and Ryan holsters the handgun inside his pants pocket with his left hand.
"This handgun is not the standard issue sidearm for any of the official military branches, nor it is for the Chicago Police Department." I said, trying to make them understand. "So, I will ask you all again. Where did you guys find this gun?"
"A house with a basement." The young woman replied.
All three of us – me, Jonathan, and Ryan looked at her direction. I leaned towards her to ask her other questions.
"Okay. Where is this house with a basement?" I asked her.
"We do not remember the exact location, but the house complex is right in front of a small Italian beef sandwich restaurant." She replied.
"Is it the one near the Chicago Fire Department?" Jonathan responded.
"Yes. And there is also a Catholic Church not far from the fire department." The young woman responded. "But there was nothing left there. If you think that you may find something for self-defense, then forget it. We barely found anything there either when we struggled to find any weapons there and in the police department. Even worse, survivors kill each other to survive" she continued.
"Huh… why am I not surprised about it…" Jonathan smirked.
Suddenly, the young man made a sudden move towards Ryan, snatching the handgun from him and pointed his gun toward us. The middle-aged woman followed by taking the handgun away from my hand, and pointed it towards me.
"Okay. Enough of the small talk, we are taking the truck, now!" yelled the young man.
"Hey, cannot we just… let them go, this time?" pleaded the young woman.
The young man, responded by firing his handgun straight towards her chest twice, dropping her to the ground.
"Wha-?! How could you?!" surprised Ryan.
"When I said enough, it means enough." said the young man as he almost reached the truck door handle. "Or would you rather also fall, like how you made me did earlier?!" he continued.
As the conversation had just finished, I felt a sudden quake on the ground, and then a bright purple light beam stroke down from the dark sky directly towards the truck, blowing it up instantly together with the young man and the middle-aged woman, and sending us three flying back.
All I heard as I tried my best to get back on my feet was nothing but intense ringing on my ears. I could see Ryan trying to reach the young woman, only to realize that she was already lifeless.
Fortunately, it did not take long for my hearing to come to.
"So much for the hold ups…" sigh Jonathan who was already standing behind Ryan, who was mourning for the young woman.
I was expecting that some kind of a large flying object to be present above us, but it was too hard to make sure through the darkness that enveloped the road. As such, I believed that the best move was to exit the highway and to proceed to Chicago Fire Department.
"No kidding! We have to get off from the highway, now!" I shouted, as both of them followed me entering a nearby street which was about 300 feet away from us.