After the Day

by Matthew Gilman

  Isabel dropped all of her gear and ran up to meet her.

  “Mommy! I missed you.” Aurora said.

  “I told you I wouldn’t be gone long.” Isabel said.

  The door opened again and two more people came out to greet them, a man and an older woman.

  “Bruce and Norah?” John asked.

  “You must be John?” Norah replied. “Is that a baby?”

  The excited old woman came off the porch and quickly walked up to Fatima. Fatima back up a few steps unsure what was happening.

  “Oh how precious. Boy or girl?” Norah asked.

  “Boy.” Fatima said.

  “This is Fatima and John, my son.” John said introducing them.

  “Oh he has his mother’s eyes, so beautiful. He will be such a ladies man when he grows up. If he has his mother’s beauty then all the women will be in trouble.” Norah continued. Little John grabbed her finger and cooed.

  Everybody went into the house and gathered in the living room. Norah threw together some lunch and everybody ate as they discussed the trip. Of course the fact that Isabel’s dad was responsible for genocide was left out. Bruce could sense tension between Fatima and Isabel. He guessed it had to do with a past relationship. He figured he would ask Isabel about it later. Knowing that Fatima was at the house he was confident that Isabel was faithful.

  John, Norah, Bruce, and Isabel went into the kitchen after lunch and sat at the table to discuss their plan. Bruce told John about the time he watched the cannibals for a week and what they did. He gave details of the camp and how it was set up. How many people there had been. He even told in detail how they killed their prey. Bruce wanted John to understand what he was getting involved in.

  “Sounds like Iraq all over again.” John said.

  “Here is what I’m thinking.” John took the map that Bruce had supplied. “I think a two man team can set up on this hill here. Bruce, you spent a week there so I could use your help to get set up. These trails here are where all the runaways are going to head when bullets start flying. Now if we are going to do this we need to know that everyone in their camp is present. I can try to keep most of them in the camp until it’s over but odds are some will get away. Norah, I understand you’re pretty handy with the shotgun so you can set up along one of these trails and pick them off easy while they are in a panic. They won’t expect anybody to be there. Isabel, since you learned how to shoot you can join Norah as cover and help keep them in the camp from the opposite side.”

  John had everyone gather all the guns and ammo to see what their supplies looked like. Norah appeared to have a stash of hunting rifles that Bruce had never seen before. He was sure there was still more that she was hiding. All together they had two M4 rifles, the mosin-nagant, a double barrel twelve gauge shotgun, a pump action twelve gauge with a scope, John’s 9mm pistol, a .38 special that Norah pulled out of hiding, and finally an old muzzle loader that Norah’s husband liked to deer hunt with.

  “Ok here is what I’m thinking. We can’t have both of us firing in opposite directions. We will end up shooting at each other. So if the two of you set up here by this trail then you cover this range of fire. From the hill Bruce and I can cover the entire camp and this back part. It should cover everyone.”

  John looked at the ammo. Over a hundred rounds of twelve gauge slugs, fifty rounds of buck shot, three hundred rounds of bird shot. For the M4s they had over 2000 rounds of .223 full metal jackets, the .38 had about one hundred rounds, the 9mm John brought five full magazines that carried 17 rounds each. The mosin-nagant had two hundred rounds with it that he brought. It seemed like a lot for a mission to kill a twelve man team. If there was anything that John learned in Iraq it was to be prepared for anything.

  After they finished their plans Norah and Isabel prepared dinner.

  Fatima stayed in the living room watching over little John who was now starting to crawl. Aurora asked Fatima all kinds of questions and Fatima taught her some words in Farsi. Aurora liked how the words sounded and repeated them. Fatima wondered if she would still remember them after she was gone. She was happy to meet Aurora and now didn’t feel so bad about helping these people. She felt some guilt about what she said the day before but it was near to impossible to forgive Isabel for the death of her sons.

  That night the house was crammed. Norah still had her room to herself but it was her house. The other two rooms had Bruce, Isabel and Aurora in one and John, Fatima, and little John in the other. Little John was still waking up often at night and with the inside walls not insulated it woke everyone up.

  The next morning saw a very cranky Norah fixing breakfast and everyone else half awake.

  Once breakfast was finished John was back to work. He packed his bag and double checked all the weapons. He loaded all the guns himself and made the ammo pouches. Everyone would have what they needed when the shit went down. He helped Bruce pack his gear and get his gun ready.

  For the first three days John and Bruce would wait on the hill and make sure they knew who everyone was and that when they attacked they were all present. On the third day Norah and Isabel would meet them at the hill and figure out where they would set up for the attack. After that it was a matter of waiting for the first shot from John.

  John gave Fatima the .38 special to keep on her while she stayed at the house. The 9mm was given to Isabel along with her M4 rifle. Norah had the pump action shotgun. John carried the mosin-nagant and the .50 caliber muzzleloader. Bruce was in charge of the second M4 and the double barrel twelve-gauge in case things became close range.

  Fatima and John hugged before he left, they spoke in Farsi and everyone guessed at what was said. “Come home in one piece.”

  Marching out Bruce led the way. He admitted that it was dark when Aurora and he were running away. He remembered being found the next morning and knew what side of the farm he had come from. He never forgot where the cannibal’s camp was.

  An hour later they emerged from the woods to a hill with tall grass growing on it.

  “It looks the same as I remembered.” Bruce said.

  John told Norah and Isabel to stay put and stay out of sight. Bruce and John slowly moved up the hill until they reached the top. Staying in the grass John looked down to see a camp with about a dozen tents set up around a main camp fire. Four people were currently out doing things, the rest remained a big question mark in John’s mind.

  “Ok I’m going to talk to Norah and Isabel, tell them to go back home and meet us in three days.” Bruce nodded and John slid back on his belly. Moving down the hill he made sure not to be seen.

  “The camp is over there. So stick to the plan. Go home, don’t kill one another. And we will be back in three days.” John looked at Isabel.

  “We will be fine.” Norah said.

  Norah and Isabel hiked back home and Bruce and John started their job of keeping track of the camp. It would be a long three days for everyone.

  John and Bruce didn’t talk at all that first day. They wrote everything. As part of a two person scout recon team in Iraq, John was very good at communication without talking. They established that first day there were nine people in the camp. The next morning two more came out of the woods and joined the camp. John couldn’t tell if they were hunters that failed or if they were on recon missions for future hunts. They kept track of the guns they saw and so far spotted a .22 that John was not concerned about and a bolt action .223 that could even the odds for the cannibals if they were able to get their hands on it and knew how to use it. John guessed at the ammo size by the bullets that were in a sleeve on the butt stock.

  Day two Bruce became more comfortable and started trying to talk to John.

  “How did you know Isabel?” Bruce whispered.

  John wrote down his answer, went to the same church. Bruce knew a bit about her father’s church but didn’t really understand what it was after the collapse.

  Bruce wrote back, what did you do at the church?

  John wrot
e in answer, security.

  Bruce left it at that. He didn’t know why he still felt that John was a threat. A wife and child were waiting for him back at the farm. After this he was going back home and living out his days however he wanted. Bruce was hoping to live his out with Isabel. Maybe it was the uncertainty of their relationship that he was uncomfortable with. Maybe it had nothing to do with John.

  John perked up. He wrote down a question, did you say the leader wore a camouflage hat?

  Bruce replied, yes that’s him.

  So far the count at the camp was eleven. Bruce and John would take turns backing down the hill and doing their business in the woods. They would cover it with leaves the best they could. John remembered the days where he would only eat peanut butter and hold it in for days at a time to not be seen or smelled. Coming back to the base he would find any kind of laxative that he could get his hands on and spend hours in the latrine.

  That night a group of cannibals marched out into the woods. Before sunset they came back with two bodies. John ever questioned the story that Isabel gave him about cannibals. Now he was happy she sought him out to take care of these Neanderthals. It had been a long time since he felt like he had done something truly worthwhile. Growing food and hunting were one thing, helping the world as a whole was another type of high.

  That night Bruce and John took turns napping on the hill. John never really slept. He was back in his old routine. At times Bruce swore he could see John with his eyes open in the moonlight.

  The next morning John watched as the cannibals came out of their tents and took chunks of meat off the people they had killed the night before. They stood around talking and telling stories like things were normal. John thought about how fucked in the head these people were. If he didn’t have to wait for Isabel and Norah to come back he would start unloading the mosin right now. Everybody they had seen at the camp was present. All thirteen people were at the camp and from their notes they were not missing anybody.

  John rolled on his back and started loading the muzzleloader. It was his back up gun for his sniping job. If he needed to shoot and the mosin needed to be loaded he could shoot the .50 caliber to buy himself some time. Then while he was taking down targets Bruce could reload the muzzleloader. They had a two man system set up. They only had to remember it for things to work.

  It was late in the morning when Isabel and Norah showed up. They crawled up the hill and met Bruce and John.

  “What the hell happened to your eye?” Bruce asked Isabel. The purple and brown skin around it told most of the story.

  “Fatima feels better.” Isabel said.

  “I was hoping she would behave.” John said.

  “She did pretty good from what I saw.” Norah said.

  “Tell me about it later.” John said.

  “Are those…” Norah asked looking at the dissected bodies by the fire.

  “Yeah.” John said.

  “So when do we kill these assholes?” Isabel asked.

  “They are all there. So you two, I want by that tree line over there. Once I see you’re in place you wait for me to fire. Then pretend you’re shooting fish in a barrel.” Norah nodded and the two of them crawled back down the hill.

  “You’re wife has some spunk.” Bruce said.

  “That’s why I love her.” John said loading five rounds into the mosin-nagant.

  John watched through the scope as Norah and Isabel made their way to the tree line. He watched the camp to make sure nobody noticed them.

  “Ok, remember what I said. Anybody runs to the trees shoot them first. Discourage anybody from trying to leave. Work your way to the center of camp. If you see anybody duck tell me where and I’ll either scare them out or shoot them. Clear?”

  “Clear.” Bruce said.

  John looked at the camp through the scope. He wanted the first obvious target. He wanted the man in the camouflage hat. If there was one thing he learned about war it was to take out leadership and create confusion. At first John couldn’t find the man. Then he appeared. He didn’t have to have a head shot. With the Mosin he could settle for a body shot and whoever was hit would bleed out in twenty minutes. He watched the man with the camouflage hat for a few seconds. Then he looked at Bruce, the eyes said to him, “ready?” John turned back and put the cross hairs on the man with the camouflage hat. He watched as the man walked around the camp looking at the girls in the group. His rifle draped over his shoulder from the sling. The man was making plans for later that would never happen. John pulled the trigger.

  From that moment on, time slowed down for everyone. The man in the camouflage hat dropped. John had aimed for his stomach. The screams of pain would put fear into the hearts of the rest of them. Plus the man was in the middle of the camp and could be put down with a second shot if needed.

  John looked for a second target. A man was running towards the woods opposite of Isabel and Norah. John put him down about half way to the tree line. Another man was following and turned around once his friend was hit. John chambered the next round. He knew two out of the twelve were dead so far. He heard shots coming from the tree line. Norah and Isabel were busy. He wondered how many they had hit so far. Bruce was working his way through his first thirty rounds.

  “Make them count.” John said.

  He looked back through the scope and saw the man with the camouflage hat. His arm was raised, most likely calling for help. From a tent behind him a woman kept trying to reach out to him but was a good fifteen feet away. Dirt kicked up from her feet when she approached. John figured it was gun shots from Isabel. John put the cross hairs on the tent where the woman was hiding and fired. An arm dropped to the dirt in his view, not moving.

  A blur moved across the scope and John looked around. A man had run out and grabbed the rifle that the man with the camouflage hat was carrying. He raised it and fired at the tree line. He fired one more time before a mist of red sprayed out from his torso. Norah must have blasted him. That was four so far confirmed by John.

  “Concentrate on the outer sides of the camp.” John told Bruce.

  Shots were ringing out but mostly from the camp. The rest of the camp must have grabbed their guns. John heard some .22lr and shotgun rounds going off but nothing being shot towards them. John reloaded his rifle topping off the five round magazine. Then he looked at the tents and decided to try firing into them and seeing what popped out. The first shot he fired at a yellow tent on the outskirt of camp.

  “Yellow tent, shoot anything that moves.” John told Bruce.

  John fired. For a second nothing happened. Then there was movement. A man ran out, pistol in hand. He wasn’t hit, yet. Bruce took aim and fired. The man fell face first into the dirt.

  “Holy shit I hit him, I hit him.” Bruce said.

  “It’s not over yet.” John said. “Blue tent, same thing.”

  John put the crosshairs on the blue tent and fired. Two people ran out, a man and woman. The woman ran towards the tree line and she was hit by a blast of buckshot to the chest. Norah was now two for two. Bruce shot at the man running, he took two shots but finally got him on the third.

  “That’s seven from my count.” John said.

  John looked at the bundle of tents in the middle of the camp. It was the last refuge for the people still hiding.

  “Put a few rounds into that batch of tents and let’s see if we can drive them out.” John said.

  Before Bruce could pull the trigger a woman ran out and aimed a bow at the hill. She released her arrow and both John and Bruce were left watching the arrow sore through the sky towards them. As it fell both of them dropped their rifles and rolled away from each other. The arrow struck between them and the woman was notching a second arrow.

  “Fuckers” John said as he crawled quickly to the muzzleloader.

  He pulled the hammer back and placed the blasting cap on the nipple. The woman pulled her arm back and John aimed. She fired her arrow. John stayed put and fired the rifle. The delayed fir
ing was strange after shooting the Mosin and M4. A cloud of dirt kicked up behind the woman and she turned around to run. The second arrow landed in the hill in front of John and Bruce.

  John grabbed the Mosin and Bruce crawled back to his previous position. John found the woman in his sight and fired. She was almost to the tree line.

  “Four more, now shoot up those tents.” John said.

  Bruce started to empty his M4 into the tents. It wasn’t a controlled burst. He was erratic. John waited.

  Bruce was empty and John kept his sights on the tents. Nothing happened.

  “You think they’re done?” Bruce said.

  “If I could I would drop mortars on it.” John said.

  They waited in the sun. John told Bruce it was a waiting game. Patience would prevail. The longer they waited the more these people would feel safe and come out into the open. Then they heard the sound of someone behind them. It was Norah.

  “What are you doing here?” John said.

  “Isabel was hit. She needs to get back to the farm.” Norah said.

  “How back is it?” John asked.

  “She’s bleeding really bad. She’s keeping pressure on it but Fatima needs to see her if she is going to make it.”

  John thought for a minute.

  “Ok give me the M4. Both of you get Isabel back to the farm and I’ll be behind you. I’m going to make sure that this is over with.” John said.

  “I can go with you, clear the camp.” Bruce said.

  “No, I’ll do it. I have enough blood on my hands.”

  John grabbed the M4 and placed a new magazine into it. Bruce and Norah carried the muzzleloader and Mosin-Nagant back with them down the hill. John put the rest of the magazines into his tactical vest and walked down the opposite side of the hill towards the camp. He felt like he was back in Iraq.

  He kept the M4 up at all times. Where he turned it turned. The sight was never not aligned with his eye. He moved around the camp making sure to not get him-self surrounded by survivors. He spotted two that were dead in their tents. Most likely from Bruce’s shots early on. He kept moving, taking in everything as he moved. His heart raced. His breathing was slow but heavy. He came to the man with the camouflage hat. He was dead now. Lying in a pool of his own blood. John pulled his knife out and plunged it into his heart to make sure nothing came back to bite him in the ass.