Gary ‘Gearhead’'s Arc

Chapter 11 of 15

The radio stayed quiet for three hours after his truck left. Gary kept working the welds on the east gate, but his attention drifted to the static hiss every few minutes. When Sherrie's voice finally came through, it wasn't a report—it was a warning. Her people had intercepted Ravens hauling weapons on the eastern route—rotary guns with mounted tripods, still packed in military crates. The markings matched nothing in circulation except one cache buried years back on the eastern strip. Gary's chest tightened. He'd relocated his wall foundation to avoid the vault he'd found, but if Sherrie knew about a buried cache out here, the Ravens might too. He asked her to describe the site. She said her scout found a shovel still standing in disturbed earth near the old highway marker, two miles from his property line. The hole was fresh—dug within the last week. Gary cut the radio and walked to his trailer, pulling out the surveyor's map he'd used to mark his original foundation stakes. The eastern strip ran parallel to his scrapyard for miles, but only one section had enough cover to hide a dig site without being spotted from the road. He traced the line with his finger and stopped where it crossed the old access path he'd used for salvage runs. That path led directly to his north wall—the same wall he'd moved to avoid exposing the vault. The Ravens hadn't found his cache, but they'd been digging close enough to stumble onto it if they kept searching. He folded the map and locked it in his desk. His marketplace couldn't grow if armed gangs tore through his property looking for weapons. He picked up the radio and told Sherrie he'd check the site himself and report back what he found. She warned him to stay low—the Ravens were still patrolling the area.