Burning Nation

by Trent Reedy

  Finally I stopped the truck and shut off the engine. There wasn’t much fuel left in the pickup’s gas tank, and I didn’t want to waste it by leaving the thing idling. The more gas in the pickup, the bigger the explosion.

  Now me and Cal did the rest of our job, dropping the tailgate and tilting the fougasse at about a forty-five-degree angle. Cal was stronger, so he held the barrel while I slid a brick under one side.

  “This is a perfect spot,” Cal said. “Around the curve so they won’t see the truck until it’s too late, and with the pickup parked right in the middle like this, they’ll have to stop.”

  Kemp would be coming down from the ridge to set the time fuse and light the thing. Me and Cal jogged out of our end of the tunnel and started climbing up to join our team on the ridge.

  “Abort! Abort! Abort!” Kemp’s voice came on my little Motorola radio. “They’re early! They’re one minute out! Get out of there!”

  I radioed back. “Roger. Stand by.”

  Cal swore. “Great job keeping watch, guys,” he said.

  “Kemp and everybody must have just got up there,” I said. “Stay here!” I sprinted back into the tunnel, heading for the pickup. I couldn’t let all our effort go to waste.

  “I’m coming with you!” Cal ran right behind me.

  “You don’t know nothing about time fuse,” I said.

  “What’s to know? Light it and run!”

  When I made it to the pickup, I could hear the Fed trucks coming through the long tunnel. I whipped out my bayonet to cut the time fuse. There were a bunch of black tick marks spaced a few inches apart on the thick plastic rope-type thing. Each segment was supposed to be one minute’s burn, but Kemp had told me it wasn’t exact. A combat engineer would cut off one segment, light it, and check how long that segment took to burn. He’d then know how much fuse to use. I didn’t have time for a test. I cut the fuse down so it wouldn’t even burn through a whole segment before the blasting cap set it all off. We had less than a minute.

  “Oh shit! Lighter! I don’t got no —”

  “Truck lighter!” Cal tossed me the little silver pop-out truck lighter. I burned the hell out of my hands catching it.

  “Get out of here!” I shouted. “I’m right behind you!” I could see the light from the convoy’s headlights coming around the bend. Cal took off running. I held the red-hot coils of the truck lighter to the fuse. I’d never lit time fuse before. Smoke started rising from the end, and the fuse hissed. I pulled the lighter away. We had a good burn.

  “Wright! Get out of there!” Cal yelled.

  I jumped from the truck and sprinted even faster than I would on my most desperate touchdown run. A few shots went off, and rounds sparked against the wall.

  Then a sound like a kettledrum blasted a second before my eardrums were punched out and my chest crushed. The light from the fire lit up the little bit of tunnel still ahead of me. A wall of heat hit my back, and I stupidly looked back to see if I was burning.

  A pure white-hot spinning eye of flame held me in its gaze. The front grille of the pickup looked like the exposed teeth of a burning skull, and the truck’s back end was shredded like a frayed rope. Behind it, flames covered every surface of the Stryker fighting vehicle that had led the convoy. Its tires had melted, sticking it in place. The five-ton truck behind that had stopped as well, its canvas tarp gone and supplies in back burned. Over the roar of the fire, I heard the agonized shrieks of dozens of people. Combat troops assigned to kill me and anyone else in the Idaho Army, yeah, but also truck drivers and supply specialists. Guys like Specialist Mueller. All burning. A soldier screamed and dropped down out of the passenger side, her uniform and skin shredding as her hair melted and burned. She tried to roll on the ground, but that too was covered in flames.

  I finally broke away and tried to run again, but my chest ached like I’d run the Army two-mile test. I gasped. Ground wobbled. Mouth dry. Eyes itched. Gripped throat. Tried suck air. Feet wood. Fell …

  * * *

  Pain in my cheek. “Wright!” A gray-black shape. “Wright! Come on, buddy!”

  I sucked in as deep a breath as I could, but coughed. I felt like I’d been smoking nonstop for three days straight. “Wa-ter.” My blurred vision cleared. Cal looked down at me. His face was bright red.

  “Here, buddy.” He handed me a clump of snow. “Eat this.”

  I crammed the snow in my mouth and pushed it around on my tongue to melt it. The cool water at the back of my throat gave me life when I thought there was none. I ate more snow.

  “You passed out,” Cal said. “No air in there. I went in to get you. Had to hold my breath. It was like walking into an oven.” He smiled. “You got a little cooked. No eyebrows. Worst sunburn I ever seen.”

  I hurt everywhere. “The others?”

  Becca crouched down next to me and put her hands on my chest. “Two trucks backed out of the tunnel. We had to shoot them up. Everybody else is unloading the useful stuff from the backs of them.”

  “What’d we get?” I asked.

  Cal smiled. “Explosives, ammo, and food. Everything an army needs for a war.”

  I sat up and looked around. Cal had pulled me out of the tunnel and off the road into the snow. “The fire?”

  “It burned out in a few minutes,” said Becca as she rubbed my back. “I don’t think it could get enough air.”

  “Neither could the Feds, or the engines of their trucks. We torched up three five-tons. One of them was a ways away from our pickup and wasn’t burned that bad. I think its engine shut down from no air. The soldiers in it suffocated.”

  Becca wrinkled her nose and turned away, but Cal told the whole story with the same kind of excitement that he might have when talking about a great football game.

  “That’s how I would have died if you hadn’t pulled me out of there,” I said.

  Cal smiled, stood, and held out his hand to help me up. “Got you covered, buddy.”

  I let him help me, glad I could still walk. Thick black smoke still rolled out of the tunnel, and then the smell hit me — a mix of gasoline and summer barbecue. I thought of the soldier falling out of her truck, helpless to do anything but watch the skin burn from her bones until her eyes melted away or she died. My stomach heaved and I bent over to puke, but I had nothing in me, so I just retched until my face was hot and tears were in my eyes.

  Becca patted my back. “Danny, we have to get out of here.”

  I gripped her arm to steady myself, nodded, and stood upright. “Let’s go.”

  “Dude, you should check out the tunnel first, though,” Cal said. “The Feds in the Stryker must have gotten their hatch unlocked, but that’s about it. I finally got it pried open with a crowbar. Those dudes weren’t burned at all, but cooked alive. Their skin was all juicy and split open —”

  “Cal!” Becca looked at him.

  “What?” He shrugged.

  “Let’s just move out,” I said, before they could start fighting.

  We met up with Kemp, who said only, “Glad to see you’re okay.” He was trailing a line of shock tube while Sparrow and Luchen crammed C4 charges into the walls at the mouth of the Fed end of the tunnel. “We found a combat engineer’s treasure chest on one truck. C4, TNT, det cord, time fuse, shock tube. You name it.” He plugged the end of the shock tube into an M81 detonator. “I think I can rig this so if any Feds come up and try to move any of these wrecks, they’ll pull the pin on one of these detonators and set off more nasty explosives. We’ll never get the tunnel collapsed, but it’ll take them even longer to clear it.”

  I nodded, suddenly dead tired. We finished setting up the booby traps and took off on our snowmobiles, loaded up with as many Fed supplies as we could carry.

  “Riccon, get a fire going,” Kemp said as we came into the cabin.

  Crocker ran down the stairs to meet us. “How did it go? Is everyone okay? I have some bandages and things ready in case —”

  Sergeant Kemp frowned. “Specialist Crocker
! Have you abandoned your post?”

  “Um, well, I … Just for a second. I mean —”

  “Get on that radio and put the call out! Fed convoy destroyed in Freedom Lake!”

  “Yes, Sergeant!” Crocker ran back upstairs to his shortwave radio.

  Cal slapped a high five with Luchen as they cheered. Even Sparrow smiled. Sweeney put his arm around me. “I’m not sure if what you did was really brave or really stupid, but great job. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  We all joined Crocker in the tower to watch him send the message. “Fed convoy destroyed on Silver Mountain. We torched ’em!”

  “Nice shooting, rebels.” “Rise up, Idaho!” “We’ll give them a war!” People from who knew where answered us. If we still had the Internet, we would have had a high star rating for this FriendStar post.

  That night, our group celebrated our first victory with an ancient bottle of some nasty whiskey stuff called Drambuie, which Becca had found during her kitchen inventory. I had one shot, then I put my coat on and went to the door. “I’ll set up the machine gun and take first watch in the igloo.”

  Cal knocked back a shot of the liquor. “Wright, come on! We’re celebrating! You gotta party with us. Some of this might help your eyebrows grow back.”

  I couldn’t get in the party spirit. My hot skin kept pulling my mind back to that fire. Those screams. I forced a smile. “Another time, maybe.” Becca slipped her snowmobile suit back on. I elbowed her. “Hey, you should stay and have fun if you want.”

  She zipped up the suit and then mashed a big knitted stocking hat down on her head. “Rule number one.”

  “Nobody goes alone.” I nodded.

  A few minutes later we had the .50-cal machine gun set up on its tripod in the igloo. It was a dark, snowy night, and cold, but the wood and snow walls would shield us from the storm and keep us at least a little warmer than we would be just sitting out here exposed.

  “We should have built the walls higher in this thing,” I said to Becca, tilting my head to the side under the low ceiling.

  She was laying down over on the side away from the machine gun. “You want to fix it?”

  “Not right now,” I said. “I’m kind of fried after the attack.”

  She shrugged. There was enough space between her and the tripod for me to lie down as well, and there’d be nothing wrong with trying to make myself a little less miserably uncomfortable out here. I told myself it wasn’t like we were laying down naked in my bed or something. We were both wearing about six layers that we’d found at nearby cabins to try to stay warm. I rolled onto my side next to her.

  “How long are we on duty for?” she asked after a while.

  “Don’t know. Long as they party. Maybe longer if they get real wasted.” I looked out the window at the intersection of the main road and ours. The wind was picking up. If the road snowed over, the Fed would probably come plow it again. Hopefully, they’d stay off our road.

  We didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t get …”

  “Don’t get what?” Becca asked after a moment.

  “Nothing.”

  She elbowed me. “Come on. You can say anything to me. You know that.”

  I looked at her, trying to ignore how cute she looked in that red stocking cap with the little puffball on top. “I don’t get how they can party. Back in football, we used to always say we were going to kill the other team. Or we’d win a game and celebrate afterward, talking about how we’d killed them. But we never really …” I bit my lip for a second. “It’s like, I hate the Fed. I do. I want them out of Idaho more than anyone. And I know we gotta do, you know, these terrible things to beat them. I fantasize about seeing all these Fed soldiers out in the field getting all shot up until the rest of them run away and leave us alone.”

  I took a deep breath. “Still, when I see their faces … They’re soldiers, yeah, but they’re still people. They ain’t all maniacs like Alsovar. Not even all infantry. Today we killed … people who probably thought they were joining the Army just as a job, or to pay for college. I can’t forget the screams and all the bodies from that tunnel fire.” I thought of the purple-black burned meat left on the bones of their arms and legs, their exposed skulls. I was shaking now, but not just from the cold. “I can’t stop thinking about how many we left dead on the ground in that tunnel.” I clenched my fists. “Then I get mad at the Fed all over again. We wouldn’t have to be doing attacks and shit if they’d just leave us alone!” I pressed my forehead to the snow. “Now I’m blaming them for me killing them? I can’t figure out what to think.”

  Becca didn’t answer right away. She was always a good listener.

  “Maybe I’m not supposed to think or feel anything, you know? Maybe I’m supposed to be all ‘mission first’ and the hell with everything else. Am I a weak soldier?”

  Becca moved closer to me and pressed up against my side. “Danny, you could never be weak. What you’re thinking, feeling … It has to be normal, right? You should feel bad about —”

  “But sometimes I like it. Well, almost. Not like I like it, but sometimes when we’re taking out the Fed, I feel good, like I’m glad there’s some justice or that I’m getting revenge or whatever. And I think sometimes I love the feeling of power that comes from handling all our badass guns, the adrenaline rush of the fight. What kind of sicko thinks that way?” I looked up at her. “What the hell is happening to me, Becca? I think like, even if I survive this war, I’m dying inside.”

  “Hey.” Becca put her gloved hand on my arm. “Hey, Danny, no.” She took her glove off and touched my face. Her hand felt so soft and warm. “This is hard on all of us. The fact that you can recognize those feelings, the fact that they bother you, is proof that you’re no psycho. This is so hard for you, it bothers you so much, because you do have a soul, and you are a good person.” Her fingers caressed my cheek and I closed my eyes. “And you’re so brave, and so kind.” She had leaned close to me, and when she spoke again, I could feel the warmth of her breath on my skin. “And we’re here for you. I’m here for you, Danny.”

  I opened my eyes and saw her shaking a little. Was she shivering from the cold or because we were so close? I put my arm over her to try to warm her, but I didn’t stop looking into her eyes.

  I don’t know how it happened, who made the first move, but we were kissing. Our lips parted and we shared breath and held each other close. In this world where everything had gone wrong, shot through by gunfire, somehow in that moment, being with Becca felt very right.

  * * *

  Our team wanted to maintain the momentum and morale on our side, to keep the enemy off-balance with no time to recover. So three days later, me, Cal, Becca, and Luchen crouched in the attic in Samantha Monohan’s grandma’s old house. Mrs. Monohan had moved to an apartment in Spokane when the federal blockade started, leaving a nice, furnished two-story house with a big attic. TJ had asked Samantha if some “friends of his” could use the place.

  I was looking out the window at our target across the street when I felt Becca’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you all set?” she asked quietly.

  I stepped away from her touch. I’d kind of been avoiding her since our time in the igloo, telling myself that I needed to stay focused on our mission, that I couldn’t afford any distractions. While that was true, I also hated like hell that I had made the idea of us as a couple stronger in her mind, and maybe stronger in my own too.

  “You okay?” she asked when I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But I need you to cover the door. Rule number three. Always post a guard.”

  A pained look passed through her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Fine.”

  “Hey, you guys, check this out!” Cal came out from behind a stack of dusty boxes and trunks, pulling a saber from its scabbard. “An old calvary sword!”

  I laughed. “I think you mean cavalry.”

  Cal gave me his usual openmouthed stare. “What’s the
difference?”

  “Calvary is the name of the hill where they crucified Jesus,” said Becca. She paced back to the stairs that led down from the attic. Luchen’s job was to hide out on the ground floor to prevent any Feds from sneaking up on us or cutting off our escape. Becca was the backup in case the Feds found another way up or if they took Luchen out without us knowing. “Now put that back, Cal. It’s probably been in the Monohan family for generations.”

  “Hell no! This is war, and I need me a sword.”

  Becca looked to me, but I shrugged. “It could come in handy,” I said. “But right now, Cal, I need you over here, ready with the SAW.” I’d found a wristwatch in our cabin, and I checked it now. “Six thirty. They should be lighting the place up now.”

  “I’m still not sure this is right. Mary Beth is nice,” Becca said.

  “We’ve been over this,” I said. “Her father works with the Fed. Her dead uncle’s house is fair game.”

  “Shh, someone’s coming!” Becca whispered. She took a knee at the side of the door, keeping her M4 pointed down the stairs. I grasped my own rifle, and took a position standing, pressed behind Becca. Sweeney walked up to the base of the stairs, saw our weapons, and froze. Becca and me relaxed.

  “Luchen’s doing a bang-up job guarding the ground floor,” I said when Sweeney had joined us in the attic.

  “He’s got it covered,” said Sweeney. “He about shot me before he realized it was me sneaking in through the back door. Anyway, Operation Wet Blanket is a success. Kemp and Sparrow told me to tell you the torch is lit.”

  “Now we just wait,” I said. We’d had TJ pass the word to some people we could trust— guys from the old football team, mostly. They were supposed to keep eyes on the Fed’s vehicles, and then, at six twenty, they’d dump water into Fed fuel tanks. At six thirty the house across the street would start to burn. Skylar Grenke’s dad was on the Freedom Lake Volunteer Fire Department. Skylar promised that his dad would make sure the guys in the fire department weren’t around to volunteer for this fight. The Fed would have to either let the house burn and risk all the houses nearby, or they’d have to send soldiers to drive the fire trucks themselves. When they showed up, conveniently without many armored vehicles, they’d have very little protection, and we’d start shooting them from the window. Sparrow and Kemp were in the attic of another abandoned place several houses down across the alley. They had the .50-cal rifle, and that thing would tear up anyone, body armor or not, from over a thousand meters away.