by A. American
“You guys really think we’ll have to shoot our way out of here? I mean, shoot at people?” She was steadily stuffing rounds into the mag.
“I hope the hell not, but it may come to it. We didn’t do anything to them. Hell, we helped them, and this is how they thank us. Remember I said we can’t trust anyone?” I answered.
“Listen guys, here’s what I’m thinking. If they round the end of the swamp and come up here, we ambush whoever it is. Then you two jump and run to the south, to the other tree line. If there is anyone else, they will come to the sound of the shots and try and follow. I’ll be behind them. We can try and get them in a cross fire.” This was really off the cuff; I was thinking out loud more than anything else.
“I don’t like it, Morgan. I agree with the first part, but then you need to come with us. We all go. We stay together.” Thad really didn’t like the idea of us getting separated.
“I’m with Thad. We stay together, no matter what.” Jess sealed the deal.
“You’re right, I agree. Make sure you got all your stuff and be ready to move. Do you guys see that little palm right there?” I was pointing out to our front; it was about fifteen yards away. “From there to the little cherry tree is the kill zone. When they enter there, Thad you fire first. I’ll follow up. Jess, you wait. You’re the reserve.” With that we sat in silence, listening to the men hunting for us.
It was about seven thirty when I caught movement out to the east, first one and then two; Robert was the second one. They were working their way toward us, checking the pines to our front and the edge of the swamp we were lying in. They worked their way along the edge, getting closer to us with every step. They stopped just shy of the palm tree marking the eastern edge of the kill zone. We clearly heard them talking.
“Come on, man, let’s go back. They’re gone, dude.” It was the other man.
“Where in the hell could they have gone? We were on the road last night. They didn’t come out that way. All they could have done was come out here,” Robert replied.
“We ain’t seen no tracks. If they went out here, they’re pretty damn good. I don’t think I want to fuck with ’em.” He was practically looking at me. “They’ll be more people. We’ll get what we need,” the other man said.
Robert was holding a lever-action 30-30. The other man didn’t have any visible weapon. They stood there for another couple of minutes, looking around.
“Come on, man, let’s get the hell out of here; go that way. I ain’t walking back around this swamp. When we get out to the dirt road, we’ll wait on the truck.” Robert turned and started to walk to the west; in less than a dozen paces, he passed the palm tree.
Thad looked over at me; I shook my head slowly. They were leaving; they gave up. Once they were gone, we could sneak away. But that was when Murphy made his appearance. In the center of the kill zone, directly in front of us, Robert put his arm out across the chest of the second man, stopping him in his tracks.
“Is that a boot print?” Robert still had his arm across the other man’s chest when Thad’s shotgun coughed fire and thunder.
The two barrels seemed to fire almost simultaneously but were separated by a fraction of a second—the shot tearing through the brush, kicking up a cloud of debris; leaves, dirt, and twigs went flying into the air. Both of the figures in front of us collapsed, one of them letting out a painful scream. Jess dropped her head and covered it with her hands. Boom!
It felt like I was hit in the back of the head with a hammer. Fire, something was on fire and smelled awful. Dull thuds landed on my head, causing pain to shoot through my skull. Thad was gone. I couldn’t hear. I saw Jess’s face; she was screaming. There was a monster; it had to be a monster. No man could make the sound that fought through the fog in my head to my ears. Popping, lots of popping; the monster was bellowing, thunder, screams, more thunder. Time seemed to have slowed; it was surreal.
I couldn’t see well. Reaching up to my face, my glasses were gone. I struggled to my feet. Someone was pulling on me. I saw Jess’s face. She was still screaming. She had me by my left arm, and the poncho was wadded up in the other; she was dragging me along. I had the XD in my right hand and was dragging my pack with the other while Jess pulled me along. Coming out of the swamp, two bodies were lying on the pine needles, covered in blood and gore.
From the dirt track in front of us, a truck crashed into the pines, heading right for us. I raised my pistol and fired. I had no kind of sight picture; the shot went wild. Jess slapped my arm down as the truck skidded to a stop in front of us. The windshield had several bullet holes. Thad stepped from the truck; his mouth was moving, but all I heard was a muffled bellow. This was the monster, I thought fuzzily. He ran up and grabbed my pack. Jess pushed me around to the passenger side. Opening the door, she shoved me in and slammed the door behind her as she scrambled in. The truck slammed into reverse and tore through the trees, bouncing out onto the little dirt road, then swung around to the left and bounced hard over the bodies lying on the road. Thad slammed on the brakes, shifted into gear, and took off, slinging dirt as it lurched away, leaving two bodies in its wake behind us.
Jess was still screaming. Thad was yelling back.
“He’s bleeding. . . . shot . . . put pressure on his . . . around his head.” I couldn’t tell who said what. At the moment I didn’t care. My head was pounding, and the vague realization that I had been shot in the head came to me. I wasn’t afraid; I wasn’t anything.
I was jerked from sleep when little Ashley landed on my chest. “Wake up, Daddy, wake up!” I only wish I had that kind of energy! At seven years old, she was a ball of energy. She was bouncing up and down on my bed.
Mel rolled over. “You’re being summoned. Go.” She planted her palm on the center of my back and pushed. I planted my feet on the floor.
Ashley landed on my back. “Piggyback! Go, Daddy, go!”
The truck jerking roused me again. I couldn’t see out of my right eye now. My head still throbbed; my right ear was on fire. It only lasted a minute, though.
I walked out into the kitchen, Ashley still on my back. “Pancakes, Daddy, I want pancakes!” Saturday mornings at my house usually worked a couple of ways; this was one of my favorites. “Can I crack the egg, Daddy? I want to stir it. Let me stir it!” I set a ten-inch skillet on the stove and turned the knob. With a whoosh, the blue flame jumped from around the edge of the pan.
Thad had his big hands around my head. We were stopped. Jess was crying. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Open his pack. Get his first-aid kit. Come on. Look, shit happens, get it? Hurry now, we can’t be here long.” Thad was moving my head from side to side.
“Morgan, can you hear me?” He lifted my face up. “Can you hear me?”
“Unnghh.” I tried to nod.
“Take it easy, man. I’m gonna wrap your head up, gonna have to cover your right eye, okay? It’s just a bandage, okay?” He was tearing open an Israeli bandage.
“Mkpph.” I tried to answer; it still sounded like I was at the bottom of a well. I caught sight of Jess. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears staining her face. My right eye got fuzzy and then dark. My head was laid back on the seat. We started to move again.
The sizzle of pancake mix hitting the skillet and the sound of the other girls moving around in the kitchen filled the house. Taylor was juicing some oranges; she loved orange juice. Lee Ann was making coffee. Sixteen years old, and she drank coffee like a crewman on a sub. “Who wants pancakes?” Little Ash was flipping pancakes; she loved to help cook.
Chapter 5
Someone was pawing at my head again, moving it around. I tried to open my eyes.
“He’s lucky . . . came out here . . . stitches . . . clean and dry.” A thin white face was in front of me. A hat with a 101st Airborne Division patch sat on the head; it was perfectly pressed, as was the collared work shirt under it
. “Lie down, son, take . . .”
I finally came around, surprised to be in an actual bed. Thad was sitting in a chair beside the bed I was in. Opening my left eye—the right one was still in the dark—I saw I was lying on a neat little bed in an equally sparse but neat room. The curtains were open on the windows, light filling the small room. Several framed documents were on the wall—couldn’t focus enough to tell what they were. My ears were still ringing, but there was a strange noise in the background, like someone talking, but it was obscured by static.
Thad’s face was covered with that big smile of his. “Hey, man, how you feelin’?”
In a hoarse voice, I replied, “Like shit; my fuckin’ head is pounding. Water, I need some water.”
Thad handed me a glass of cool water. I took a sip. “Take it easy. You been out for a couple of days.”
This statement made me cough on the water. “What, how long, what the hell happened? Last thing I really remember was your gun going off. What the hell happened?”
“They saw a footprint. They were gonna find us. So I fired and took both of them out. Then I heard the truck on the road, so I ran out to it. They tried to get out, but I had the drop on ’em and got ’em both,” Thad said.
“What happened to me? Did they hit me?” I put a hand up to my head.
“It was an accident. Jess has cried the entire time. I finally got her to go to bed earlier today. She sat up with you for two days, wouldn’t leave your side. She feels real bad.” He lowered his head. “When I fired, it scared her. She covered her head with her hands, but she had the pistol in it. When she did it went off and hit you.”
“Jess shot me in the damn head?” I was starting to put some of the pieces together.
“Man, she feels bad. It was an accident. You’re lucky, though. Linus said if it was a hollow point that hit you, you’d be dead, but it was one of the ball rounds I gave her. It went in behind your right ear and came out the back of your head. It just went under the skin, didn’t crack your skull or anything. Just two little holes, in an out.”
“I remember something burning. What was burning?” I was trying to remember.
“Your hair. The pistol wasn’t a foot from your head. It set your hair on fire from the muzzle blast. Jess slapped on your head to put it out.” He sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. Another man walked into the room. “How’s he doin’, Thad?” It was the man I saw earlier. Standing in front of me now, I saw that even his pants were pressed and his shirt was tucked in with a perfect military line. He was probably in his late fifties.
“He’s awake, but his head hurts. Morgan, this is Linus Mitchell. We’re at his place.” Thad nodded toward him.
“First Sergeant Mitchell. Hell, it oughtta hurt. He took a round point-blank. You’re lucky, son,” he offered as an introduction.
I spent the next day in bed. Sarge wouldn’t have it any other way, and he was one persuasive dude. While I was “confined,” as Sarge termed it, I got the rundown on how and why we were here. Thad, being a truck driver doing a rather long and boring route, would sometimes detour from I-75 over to Highway 19. Sarge was retired and spent his days on the ’net, monitoring his radios. He was a serious ham and CB ratchet jaw. It was how he spent his retirement, talking up folks from all around the world.
He and Thad had started talking on Thad’s frequent passes and developed a friendship. They finally met in person when Thad dropped by Linus’s place on a return trip from Tallahassee. Hitting it off right away, they became true friends. Thad had that kind of personality; he made friends with anybody, and I was truly thankful he and I did.
Thad came into the room, carrying a tray. “You hungry? I hope so ’cause Sarge said you gotta eat, an’ if you ain’t gonna, you gotta tell him so.” He set the tray down on the chair beside my bed. I looked over at it; there was a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a cut-up apple accompanied by what looked like a glass of tea.
“Is that tea?” I had my eyes locked on the glass.
“Yeah, why?” Thad looked a little confused.
“Sweet tea?”
“Is there another kind?” Linus walked into the room. “What, you one of them damn Yankees that don’t like sweet tea? You know what a damn Yankee is, don’t ya?”
“Yeah, one like you that came here and didn’t leave,” I replied. He was standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips; our eyes were locked, waiting to see who blinked first. Knowing he was retired army, there was no way I could stare him down. Instead, I stared at him for a minute and then started to make my right eye and the right side of mouth start to twitch. After I blinked, I shouted, “I didn’t blink; not my fault! It’s the head wound, dammit!” Then a big smile broke out across my face.
Linus held his stare a minute longer and then burst out laughing. “You’re right, Thad. He’s all right.”
Thad was still standing beside the bed, laughing as well. The only person I didn’t see around was Jess. I’d have to see how she was doing.
“And for your info, son, I’m no damn Yankee. I’m purebred Florida cracker,” Sarge replied.
“Well, Sarge, we have something in common then—so am I.” I picked up the tea and took a long drink. “Damn, that’s good. You don’t boil the bags, do you?”
“Hell, no. Who the hell does that?” Sarge barked back.
“Damn Yankees,” I replied as I took another sip. He and Thad both broke out into laughter again.
“You eat your lunch. I’m gonna go check on the radios.” Linus turned and started out the door.
“Radios, what radios? How the hell do you have radios, and who the hell are you talking to?” This shocked the shit out of me. How can he have radios?
“You get some rest, Morgan. There’s plenty of time for me to show you my setup.” He walked out.
“You know, I said you was weird. Sarge is one of them super survivalists.” Thad’s eyebrows were raised, which made him look surprised. “He’s got more shit stacked up around here than you would believe. And the radio thing, that’s just weird on a whole ’nuther level. He’s got a whole room of them, and the closet is full of batteries and stuff.” Thad reached over and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. “See, his whole house is wired up to it.”
“He must have a solar system. I wonder how he protected all of it. I have one at my house. It can’t run the whole place, but it runs a lot of it. If his are working, then mine might too.” I hoped mine was working. It would make Mel’s life so much easier.
“Hey, man, where’s Jess?” She had been on my mind. I’m sure she was pretty upset.
“She’s outside doing laundry. She is trying to clean up your clothes.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I lifted the covers on the bed and looked down and then back up at Thad. “Ah, who undressed me?”
That big smile spread across his face again. “I did, why?” I guess my face betrayed me and showed my embarrassment. “Don’t worry; you ain’t got nuthin’ I ain’t never seen before. Just smaller and paler.” With that he let out a bellowing laugh.
“Oh, thanks a lot. Kick a guy when he’s down, classy. Get your ass outta here.” I threw a pillow at him.
“Soon as you feel up to it, Sarge is gonna give you the grand tour. You’ll be impressed.” He turned to walk out of the room.
“Hey, where are we anyway?” I asked, catching him before he left.
“Outside of Old Town.”
“Ah, thanks. And thanks for getting my ass out of there. I mean it.” I nodded my head at him.
“Don’t worry about it. You’d a done it for me. Let’s just hope you don’t have to repay that debt.”
“Amen, my friend, amen.” Thad walked out, and I ate my lunch, finally enjoying the soft bed I was in.
Jess came in after Thad left. As soon as she saw me, she started to cry again. I have a wife and three daughters and
see more than my fair share of crying.
“Oh, knock it off,” I said as she came in. She looked up with surprise. “I know what happened. It was an accident. Just learn from it ’cause if you ever shoot me again, I’m shootin’ back.” I gave her a little smile.
“I’m really sorry. I had no idea it would be like that. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Like I told you several times already, it’s a different world now. You gotta meet the challenge or you’re going to die. Do you want to die?” She had her head down; she wouldn’t look at me.
“No. But I don’t want to kill someone by accident either.” She looked up at me and started to cry again.
“Look, I don’t blame you. I gave you the gun. It’s my fault really. I should have spent time training you to make sure you were comfortable. Don’t blame yourself anymore. It’s done and over.” She wiped her eyes.
“Okay.”
“One thing, though. You gotta do me a favor,” I was going to try to make her feel a little better.
“Sure, what?”
“Keep your finger off the trigger, okay?” I smiled at her, and she finally cracked a smile.
“I promise.” She gave me a hug and left my room.
My dinner was brought to me in bed. I still wasn’t allowed up yet. I was surprised by the fried fish, I mean, like fresh filleted fish. There was also corn bread and pinto beans. It was like being back at James and Edith’s house. The fish was great and, of course, so was the sweet tea that came with it. After dinner, Sarge came in, and we talked a little about things—what had happened, and what may come. This seemed to be the number one conversation these days. I told him what I had done to get here, at least all I remembered.
“You haven’t heard any outside news?” Linus was sitting in the chair beside the bed, leaning back with his palms on his knees.
“No, nothing. I have a small shortwave. I tried it once but never heard anything; never tried it again.” I was sitting up in the bed.
