The Plan

by Shawn Chesser

  Strands of auburn hair fell on her shoulders, while bleached bangs framed a cherubic face. And perched on her button nose was a pair of wire rimmed glasses.

  Benny made introductions, then nodded in Steve-O’s direction.

  He asked, “Who’s your friend in the Stetson?”

  No sooner had Benny asked the question than they all watched a fireplug of a man with a polished bald head and drooping handlebar mustache barge through the garage door. In his hand was a chrome revolver. He wore jeans and a white tee shirt. No belt, no shoes. A mess of black tattoos, most of questionable quality, dotted his arms and neck.

  In the wrong place at the wrong time, Steve-O was smacked by the door’s edge and sent back on his heels, one arm windmilling, the other securing the Stetson on his head.

  At the same time, Riker was inching his hand toward the holstered Sig.

  Simultaneous to those two actions, Tara slipped from behind Benny and her brother, the former beginning to shake, the latter suddenly gone rigid, his every muscle humming like a cable under maximum tension. Lips pressed into a thin line, she formed up by her brother’s right elbow, a murderous glare directed at Raul.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” said the man Riker assumed was Raul. “I was torn between retarded Garth Brooks or retarded Waylon Jennings. Maybe retarded Garth Jennings could be his stage name. That is if he can sing a lick.” Waving the chrome revolver in Steve-O’s direction, he asked, “Well, Retard, can you or can’t you?”

  Recovering from the sudden impact of the door opening in his face, Steve-O flipped the man the bird. “I’m not retarded,” he shot back. “I just have an extra chromosome. And you should really watch where you’re going, Baldy.”

  Raul bristled at that. Said, “Better put that finger away, boy. You don’t … I’m gonna break it off and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

  Steve-O held his ground.

  Benny said, “Relax, Raul. These are good friends of mine.”

  “Couple of darkies and a retard. For the record: Crystal is against all this. I don’t know what she sees in you, Rose. But you can stay. You are pretty easy on the eyes. Benny and the Jets, though—”

  Riker cut him off. “Why did you have to kill all those people at Clines Corners?”

  “Crystal’s card got declined. We needed gas. What’s a poor boy to do? Let’s just say that negotiations broke off real quick.” He waved the revolver in a tight little circle. “That old bitch forced me to bring out the closer.”

  Tara said, “You have to go, dude.”

  Raul said, “You’re mistaken, bitch. It’s you who has got to go. This place isn’t big enough for all of us. I just got done doing three-to-five in an eight-by-ten. No way I’m going to settle with a guesthouse while you all get the mansion.” He shook his head and moved the revolver’s muzzle from Benny to Riker. “What say you, John Henry?”

  “My sister is right,” Riker said. “Best you and your lady get your stuff, get in your new car, and go find someplace where the company and accommodations are more to your liking.”

  “Why don’t you just fuck right off. I’m the one holding the gun. I think you and the gang are going to need to readjust your expectations. Lower the bar, so to speak.” He stood on his toes and looked over everyone’s heads. “And I’ll be repossessing that snazzy pickup of yours. Lord knows I’ve had my share snatched out from under me.”

  Free hand palm up, Raul wiggled his fingers.

  Riker saw it for what it was: universal semaphore for Relinquish the keys.

  Showing Raul his left hand, Riker said, “I’m going to pull the fob from my pocket. Real slow. No monkey business.”

  “I see what you did there,” Raul said. “Monkey business.” Chuckling, he kept the revolver trained on Riker. Straight for center of mass. Twenty-five feet or so. Considering the short barrel on what looked to be a .357, odds were tilted toward the miss column. A miss for Riker, however, didn’t equate to a win. Because he was flanked by two people he loved. One was family. And one so close he might as well be.

  Two or so feet of loved one on each side of him.

  Not good odds.

  He needed a diversion.

  So he thumbed a certain button on the fob as he dragged it into the light.

  Everything seemed to slow as the command was relayed from the fob to the Shelby via unseen radio frequency.

  Back to back to back. In the span of a second, maybe two, there was a mechanical click and whine, then a low rumble of gas combusting, followed at once by the throaty growl of exhaust escaping through tuned pipes.

  With the remotely started Shelby vying for Raul’s attention, Riker tossed the fob in his direction.

  Likely under the influence of some kind of hard drug, meth was Riker’s assumption, Raul had a hard time deciding what commanded his attention more: Should he catch the fob? Or keep the revolver trained on the big man?

  Seeing the split-second’s worth of indecision flash across the interloper’s face, Riker made his move.

  As the Sig cleared the holster, he was doing two things at once.

  Acting upon the mantra cycling through his head, he thumbed off the safety and stuffed his finger into the trigger guard. While his right arm was in transit from bent and vertical to straight and horizontal, he was stepping to his right. His every intention, should it come down to it: Taking a miss that might be headed for Tara.

  Already halfway to a completed draw, all Raul needed to do was extend and squeeze the trigger. When it came to revolvers, however, squeeze had two meanings, each varying in time from start to finish.

  Seeing as how Raul hadn’t placed any kind of urgency on cocking the hammer beforehand, the first action the pull on the trigger was reserved for was drawing the hammer back. By the time the second component of Raul’s action commenced, Riker was fully shielding his only living kin and had superimposed the red reticle on the man and done some trigger pressing of his own.

  As he was wont to do at the range, anticipating the recoil, he dragged his first shot down and to the left. Instead of the 9mm round striking where he wanted, an inch or so above the shorter man’s breastbone, a blossom of crimson erupted on his white tee shirt, just under the right breast pocket, where all kinds of vital organs were packed in tight.

  Detecting the hiss-crackle of a bullet passing close by his face, Riker witnessed his second round strike a couple of inches to the right of the first.

  Good recovery.

  A second star-shaped red blotch instantly became one with the first. The added kinetic energy accelerated Raul’s trip to the ground that the first bullet strike had begun.

  The hollow thud and whip-like crack of Raul’s bald head hitting the pavers proved to be a cringe-inducing sound Riker knew would be all but impossible for him to unhear.

  As the first report from the Sig was crashing across the courtyard, Steve-O’s bird had dropped, and the put-on bravado was usurped by a look of shocked surprise.

  Before the back-to-back booms of Raul’s return fire had even registered, Steve-O and Benny were both in the middle of falling to their knees.

  While the initial hollow-point slug leaving Raul’s Colt Python at fourteen-hundred-feet per second cleaved the air between Riker’s left cheek and Benny’s right ear, the second carved a chunk of flesh from Benny’s right bicep and kept on going.

  Screaming as his knees hit the ground, Benny pitched forward, landing on the already damaged arm.

  Body beginning to shake from the surge of adrenaline, Riker steadied his gun hand and shot Raul once more, in the head, for good measure.

  There’s no getting up from that. Riker turned his attention from the unmoving corpse to Benny, who was now in a fetal position atop a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood.

  “Tell me where you’re hit,” Riker cried as he rolled Benny to his back and worked at prying the man’s blood-slickened arms away from his heaving torso. “Let me see. Let me see. Where are you hit, Benny? Stay with me. Wh
ere are you hit?”

  Hissing through clenched teeth, Benny said, “My arm. It’s numb. Can’t feel a thing.”

  Behind Riker, Tara had also gone to her knees. Only she wasn’t injured physically. She was stunned and, likely on the verge of going into shock, emptying everything from her stomach onto the sun-dappled pavers.

  Rose’s screams had reached a crescendo when a sleepy-looking Crystal filled up the doorway Raul had just exited.

  As the bleached blonde fell to her knees, weeping into her hands, a stout, gun-metal gray Pitbull terrier barged past her.

  Addressing Crystal, Riker said, “Keep your hands up.” Sig trained on the woman, he told Tara to bring him her phone. “Unlocked,” he added as his sister rose on wobbly legs.

  Taking the phone, Riker leaned in and said, “Take off my belt and fashion a tourniquet for Benny.”

  She worked the belt loose and stared at Riker. Clearly shock was setting in.

  Motioning Steve-O over, Riker whispered in his ear, saying, “I need you to get the multi-tool from Dolly and take the New Mexico plates off her. Take them outside the wall and bury them deep.”

  Working the belt over Benny’s damaged arm, Tara said, “What are you going to do, Lee?”

  Tapping on the iPhone screen, he said, “Only thing I can do … turn myself in.”

  Tara shook her head. “No. You can’t. You want to be trapped in a cell when society falls?”

  Steve-O said, “Baldy shot first.”

  Riker said nothing until the connection was made. After listening to the dispatcher, he said who he was and from where he was calling. Then he began to recount what had just taken place at Trinity House.

  Finished, Riker thumbed off the phone. As he was bombarded by questions, he fixed a hard stare on the wanna-be Mallory. “Why did you go along with it?”

  Her mouth moved but no words came.

  Riker said, “Save it for the sheriff, then. Probably for the best, anyway.”

  Epilogue

  Trinity House

  Four Days Later

  Riker woke up on the couch in the great room. It had been his bed for the last two nights while Tara tested out the beds in the master suites located at each end of their rural mansion.

  For now, Benny and Rose were staying in one of the smaller bedrooms, albeit smaller being a little bit of a misnomer.

  Sitting up, Riker slipped into a pair of black 5.11 chinos and dragged a sweatshirt over his head. Next, he took his bionic off the hewn-timber coffee table and snugged it on. Finished cinching the laces to both Salomons, he planted his hands on the wood-plank floor, extended his legs, and began knocking out his daily twenty-five, the first twenty-two for veterans lost daily to suicide, then finishing the set in memorium to his trio of fallen buddies.

  As Riker was knocking out the pushups, he smelled on the air the heady aromas of bacon, coffee, and something cooking in oil.

  Stomach grumbling, he rose and plucked his holstered Sig and pair of spare magazines from underneath the couch cushions.

  Compared to the solitary existence he’d been used to living, Trinity House was like a frat house and sorority all rolled into one. Par for the course, the gourmet kitchen was a beehive of activity this morning.

  Seated at the massive live-edge walnut table, Rose was shoveling fry bread and bacon onto two plates. Sliding one to Benny, she looked up and greeted Riker with a wave.

  Beaming, Benny said, “Saved plenty for you, brother.”

  “I only need coffee,” Riker said, “But you better have saved some scraps for Dozer. He gets cranky if all he finds in his bowl is Purina dog chow.”

  Tara was bellied up to the stove. With an economy of movement, she transferred a trio of pancake-looking things from a skillet of bubbling oil to a plate piled high with more of the same.

  She said, “Steve-O fed Dozer his scraps.”

  “Steve-O never has scraps,” said Riker, incredulous. “That boy always hoovers his plate clean.”

  Tara said, “Eat. Drink. Then use my phone to call the District Attorney.”

  “Won’t they call me if the grand jury isn’t going to convene?”

  “Squeaky wheel gets the grease, Bro.”

  “Alright, alright,” said Riker, taking a seat across from Benny and his girl.

  Favoring his bandaged right arm, Benny slid the phone to Riker left-handed.

  “How’s your wing?”

  “Hurts like a bitch. Itches, too.”

  Chewing a bite of fry bread, Rose said, “That’s what the pain killers are for.”

  “Better be careful with those,” Riker warned.

  Benny said, “Speaking from experience?”

  Riker nodded as he punched in the phone number listed on the D.A.’s card.

  He drank coffee and listened until the call went to the recorded message. He didn’t leave a message of his own. For shits and giggles, he hung up, then punched in 911 and put the phone on speaker.

  Nothing. There was no stock recording telling him circuits are busy, try again.

  Dead silence.

  Thumbing the end button, Riker slid the phone back to Benny.

  Tara said, “Nothing scheduled?”

  Riker said, “Apparently not today.”

  Dozer moseyed in from the east wing. Tara greeted him with a strip of bacon, which he wolfed down greedily.

  “Speaking of the man who wears the country music Mount Rushmore on his shoulder, where is he?”

  No sooner had the question left Riker’s lips than the older man burst from the hall, futuristic-looking aerial drone in hand and babbling about Sickos.

  Standing, Riker said, “How many? Bolts or Slogs?” He was already heading toward the garage when the answer came.

  “Three Sickos,” said Steve-O. “I don’t know what kind because they didn’t see me.”

  “But they’ll still follow the drone here, Steve-O. You have to remember that.”

  “I wanted to spare you the long walk,” replied Steve-O.

  “Let’s go,” said Riker, grabbing a coat and gloves from a table in the hallway.

  Moving through the mostly empty garage, Riker pulled on the black buckskin gloves and snatched his long rifle and go-bag from near the door.

  Exiting the garage, the first thing he saw were the twin bloodstains on the herringbone pavers. The one where Raul had died was nearly black and man-sized. The other was about as big around as a beach ball. A constellation of blood spatters ringed the smaller of the two.

  Though Tara and Rose had turned a hose on the blood as it was drying, the pavers were porous and had soaked it up.

  Riker asked, “How far out are the dead?”

  “In the southeast clearing. Near the bottom of the draw.”

  Coming up from Santa Fe, thought Riker. Good thing they were in the draw, because the lack of homes beyond meant he could shoot safely in that direction.

  The morning sun was weak and watery and trying its best to burn through the hanging fog.

  Coming out of the thicket of spruce and pines standing between Trinity House and where the land opened up, the view down the draw was impeded by only stunted scrub and some juvenile juniper.

  Straight away Riker smelled smoke on the air. Another dozen paces into the clearing and he detected the sickly-sweet odor of death mingling with the particulates hanging in the air.

  Looking south by east, over top of the trees edging the draw’s far side, he saw smoke plumes lifting into the air.

  Turning to Steve-O, he said, “Santa Fe is burning.”

  “I saw helicopters fly over just after dawn broke.”

  Riker said, “I heard them from inside. What kind, Steve-O? Sleek and fast? Or big and slow?”

  Steve-O’s face screwed up. After a moment of thought, he said, “In between the two. They had rockets and a gun underneath where the pilot sits.”

  “I’m guessing they were either Apaches or Cobras,” Riker said. “Good eye.”

  Steve-O pointed downhill.
“There they are. Three adult Sickos. I think the lady is slow. The men, I couldn’t tell.”

  Riker said, “We better put them down before we find out the hard way.” He chose a flat spot of ground next to a tree trunk and sat cross-legged. Once Steve-O was behind him, he rested his elbows on his knees and aimed the rifle downhill.

  Chambering a .308 Win round into the Era 3 Klepto bolt gun, he peered through the high-power Leupold scope.

  The female zombie was ranging right of the male zombies. It looked to Riker that he had a couple of minutes until she would reach the opposite side of the clearing. The males had gotten themselves into a pickle. They were stuck between a pair of trees that had been blown down and come to rest across each other. The pocket the zombies were trapped in was maybe two hundred yards downhill and resembled an inverted V from Riker’s vantage.

  Overlaying the crosshairs on one bobbing head, Riker threw the safety and drew in a deep breath.

  Exhaling, Riker pressed the Jewell trigger. The report crashed across the clearing.

  Nothing happened to the targeted zombie.

  Miss.

  Back to the drawing board.

  But the female was angling their way, and Steve-O was letting Riker hear about it.

  “Relax,” said Riker. “I have my pistol to fall back on if she gets too close. I should have targeted her first anyway.”

  It took two rounds to put down the female zombie, which just so happened to be a Slog, youthful appearance notwithstanding.

  Taking his time, Riker expended only three bullets in dropping the two males.

  Steve-O asked, “Are we going to check them out?”

  “No, buddy. I shot them. Think I’ll let Benny police them up once he’s able to.”

  “You don’t want to try to find out where they’re from?”

  “I’m afraid to, Steve-O. And that’s the honest truth. I guess that would fall under the heading of ignorance is bliss. However, there is one thing I need to do.” He set the rifle aside, put his right foot up on a fallen snag, and fished the multi-tool from a pocket.

  Pulling up his pant leg to expose the ankle monitor the judge in Santa Fe had ordered him fitted with, he went to work on removing the device.