Andy shrugged his shoulders then headed back to his mom’s side.
“Cute kid,” Curtis said.
“Yeah, well, that cute kid can’t be responsible with matches. That big barn you passed by on my homestead – the Omen didn’t burn that down, Andy did. He doesn’t mean to cause problems; they just seem to follow him.”
Carissa made the remark in a low tone, but Andy heard it.
With gun in hand, she said, “Well, let’s hang out here for a while and wait on Darrick and Marcus. They shouldn’t be long.”
Curtis followed her over to where Andy and Tonya were in the culvert. He took his pack off and laid it at his feet, then sat on the cool concrete floor, resting his back against the wall.
“Andy, look what Curtis found.”
Andy looked up and smirked. He took the toy race car and fidgeted with it. He never thanked Curtis, but Curtis saw Andy’s smile, and that was enough for him.
One mile east of Pontybridge
“The rest of the patrols have been taken into custody, boss,” Tony said to Rueben. “There’s still plenty of grounds security inside the compound.”
“Have there been any reports of the homesteaders?”
“Nothing but what we were able to extract from the Pontybridge patrols,” Tony responded with a tone of disappointment. Wanting desperately to give some good news to Rueben, his mind whirled with ideas and ways to approach Pontybridge, each one playing itself through to an end. Under no circumstances could he fail his boss. Any proposal he offered had to have a guarantee attached. One he could oversee himself to make sure it worked out right.
The only thing he had of any value was that Devin, Clint, and Allen had admitted to allowing the homesteaders into the compound. They also had the three Pontybridge patrolmen detained for questioning and to use as bargaining chips, should the need arise.
“Perhaps a demonstration of our strength would be the right thing to do here,” Tony offered up.
It almost seemed like the words fell on deaf ears. For a split second, Tony thought he had let Rueben down. “My friend,” Rueben said, breaking the silence, “there’s no such thing as right or wrong. There’s only strength and a means to attain it. Whether it’s right or wrong has nothing to do with it. The sooner you learn that morals are social constructs, the better off you’ll be. You’ll find true freedom in knowing you are without constraints.”
Suddenly Tony had a deeper understanding of Rueben’s mindset. Still, Tony was unsure if he could circumvent a lifetime of teachings that there is a right and a wrong. For him to simply turn off his moral switch might be a more difficult task than he was willing to acknowledge.
“That being said,” Rueben continued, “I like the idea. Round up everybody and form a show of force just outside the compound. I don’t want any rounds fired until I give the go.”
“Consider it done,” Tony said, leaving Rueben’s side.
Rueben was happy to at least know the homesteaders by name. The three Pontybridge captives had shared plenty of information with him. He was eager to meet Darrick and Carissa. Marcus was now showing promise. There was one issue with the homesteaders that Rueben had to find a way to contend with. His captives had told him the boy, Andy, was a strange kid. Rueben hoped for the best, that maybe in his strangeness, he could find strength rather than weakness. Only time would tell. Rueben was excited to have finally caught up with the men he would place in charge of his new world.
Pontybridge
An hour later
“Steven,” Roy shouted, poking his head into Steven’s office door, “you need to see this.”
“What is it?”
“Possibly another invasion.”
“Possibly? You’d better inform me of what you know ASAP!”
“There’s a very large group of people outside the gate. They’re all armed, and they’re asking for the leader. That’s you, so, are you coming?”
“Put the men on high alert, and make sure everyone’s armed.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant at arms said, running off to sound the alarm.
A hand-cranked alarm began to sound from within the train-station compound. Everybody positioned atop the train cars took a prone position and sighted on random people standing at the gate. Others came from within the station house and took up positions behind train cars. Each of them waited for orders to open fire.
Steven opened the door of the train station, and Roy followed closely behind. The two men approached the gate.
Just on the other side of the fence, the crowd parted and two men passed through the opening and approached the fence to meet Steven and Roy. It was Rueben and Tony. Rueben was holding his handkerchief over his face. “Are you the leader of this place?” Rueben asked.
Steven studied the man. Rueben was menacing. “I am.”
“You have something we want,” Rueben said, leaving the conversation open for dialogue. He wanted to test the leader’s resolve.
“Exactly what is it you want?”
“We know you have five individuals here. They attacked and killed some of my best people. It would behoove you to surrender them to me, and we will move on. Failure to produce them will cost you – dearly.”
“They were here. They’re not here anymore. We sent two of them on a mission a few miles east of here. The other three escaped in the night. We don’t know where they are.”
The news was disappointing to Rueben, to say the least. He didn’t know for sure if he believed the man. It could have been that the leader was just placating him with words.
“Wrong answer,” Rueben said, ducking back into the crowd.
Steven backed up and Roy followed. “Prepare to open fire,” Steven told Roy.
“On my mark,” Roy shouted.
About that time a few men ran up to the fence and pressed pipe-looking objects through that were attached to ropes. Steven saw the maneuver and recognized that they were about to attempt a breach of the fence. “Open fire,” he shouted, hoping to stop the incursion. It was too late.
The men open fire on the Enclave group, but they returned fire. The gate that was once tightly secured was jerked open by the ropes that were pushed through. The other ends were tethered to horses. Tony had used their strength, a couple of ropes, and a couple of rifle barrels to breach Pontybridge.
The gate was now down and the bullets were flying. Members of the Enclave were taking to the trees for cover. Others were running through the gate. In time, a quiet still fell on Pontybridge.
Rueben stood over Steven’s body. With his handkerchief over his face, he looked down on this poor excuse of a leader and stepped over him and a few others as he made his way through the compound. Here and there, sounds could be heard as members of the Enclave found and shot Pontybridge survivors. Rueben made his way through the carnage and eventually stumbled upon Steven’s office space. He had a beautiful antique desk and a private restroom. Realizing there was a mirror in the bathroom, Rueben entered and closed the door behind him.
“What have you done, my young protégé?” Denver asked. Rueben’s duel personality was looking back at him through the reflection.
“What do you mean, what am I doing? I am taking this place and searching for strong leaders to lead the new world order.”
“And killing innocents all the while!”
“Nobody’s innocent, Denver. You of all people should know this.”
“Rueben, guilt and innocence – these are old-world terms that we’re trying to abolish. You kill before you are able to share your vision with them. Try not to think in terms of guilty and innocent. Instead, think of knowledge and ignorance. Share your vision with the world as it lays itself before you. If it accepts you, adopt it. If it rejects you, abolish it.”
“You’re saying I should have spared more people?”
“Even now, your men are killing the remnants. A remnant that can replenish your lost ranks.”
Rueben burst out of the restroom to find Tony standing by the do
or. He’d heard the entire conversation but played like he heard nothing. “Tony, round up the survivors and form a Red Circle. We’ll determine who has insight and who is blind.”
“Yes, sir.” Tony ran out the door.
Rueben sat behind the desk.
South Carolina
Tommie was jolted awake by a pothole in the road. He found himself lying in the bed of the truck he’d joined the night before. He was surprised to see that they hadn’t reached their destination yet. Desiring an answer, Tommie sat up and wiped the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s going on? Why aren’t we at the FEMA camp yet?” he asked one of the men near him.
“Horowitz decided against it. He said something about it being taken, overrun, and abandoned by the pinkos. Just like the one in Georgia. My guess is we’re headed straight for the pinkos. We need to take them out and reacquire those FEMA supplies. If we don’t, this is going to keep happening. America is ours by birthright, newbie.”
“Take them out?” Tommie replied. “I don’t have a gun. I don’t have training. What am I supposed to do? Throw rocks?”
“Sit this one out, noob. When I joined this outfit, I only had a knife. You’ll get a gun soon. If we delete these pinkos, I’m sure you’ll land an M4 like those jarheads are using. Word is, they’ve been using them against us, anyway.”
As if on cue, everybody from the front of the convoy to the back began yelling, “Tangos ahead.” As soon as Tommie’s truck was able to hear what was being said, the Marines in the front of the convoy were pulling the triggers of their individual and crew-served weapons. The sound was distinctively a combination of semiautomatic fire and three-round bursts from machine guns. The convoy came to a stop and the men jumped out of their respective vehicles and began taking cover. They were on the edge of yet another forest region, so there was no shortage of cover and concealment.
Tommie found himself racing on foot to the nearest unoccupied tree. He was being shot at. Projectiles were hissing through the air, barely missing him. Some would stop short, impacting in the trees, causing splinters of wood to fly off, catching him in the face. There was a man to his front, running for the same tree, but he would stop and turn around to return fire. People were screaming as Tommie continued to run.
He found his tree and hunkered down behind it. His legs were inexplicably weak. Horror was probably the best word to describe his state of mind. He looked behind himself. The man who had been running alongside him was now dead. Just seconds ago, he was fighting. Now, an empty shell. He tucked himself back behind the tree. The terror of the moment overcame him as the world around him turned from vibrant colors and sounds to a hazy and muffled revulsion. Tommie wanted to run. He found himself sitting just feet from a dead man and yards from a combat-trained enemy force.
Do I run?
Do I fight?
How will this end?
Will I die?
The internal turmoil continued and the questions kept rolling in. Looking back one more time at the dead man, he considered his own life. It was blacked out by the thought of family and reaching his sister. She was his last hope of family, and he didn’t even know if she was alive.
A gun, he thought, looking back at the dead man.
“Newbie,” he heard coming from the direction of the fight. He looked toward the battle scene and saw another militiaman standing behind a tree. He would take cover and then return fire. This happened twice before the man looked at Tommie and yelled again, “Hey, newbie.” This time the man saw Tommie make eye contact with him. “Grab the rifle and jump in here,” he yelled.
Tommie ducked back behind the cover of the tree. He wanted to run. He wanted to leave out of a sense of fear. But there was another part of Tommie that was emboldened. A sense of patriotism was slowly welling up inside as he thought about the dead man and what he was fighting for. Tommie’s attention again turned toward Tonya. He wanted to find her, to fight for her.
He ran out from the cover of the tree and grabbed the rifle. Once in hand, he ran back to the safety of the tree. It was a civilian Colt-style rifle. He had little knowledge on the operation of it. A quick study of it and he knew where the sights were and where the trigger was located. All that was left for him now was to point the weapon in the direction of a Russian and pull the trigger.
Tommie swung around the edge of the tree and pointed the rifle downrange. The rear sight was round and the front sight was tall and rectangular. He surmised the correct way of sighting in a target was to align the front sight tip with the middle of the round rear sight.
I think I got this, he thought, looking over the rifle and finding a Russian to target.
The Russian force was thinning out. Tommie continued to look.
“There you are,” he said under his breath. He aligned his target with the front sight tip and centered them in his rear sight.
Just as his target was standing to shoot at a Marine, Tommie pulled the trigger. He didn’t see the impact, but he saw the Russian’s reaction to it. The Russian didn’t shoot. Instead, he dropped his rifle and grabbed his chest, falling to the ground, just out of sight.
“I hit him,” he said under his breath. Excited at his shot, he wanted somebody to know his success. “I hit him,” he shouted out loud to the man who had encouraged him to get in the fight.
“That’s awesome, brother. Now do it again. The fight’s not over.”
Tommie looked downrange, but was unable to see any more from his position. “I’m moving up,” he called out to the man.
“Yeah, I’ll cover you,” the man shouted back.
As time progressed, excitement about killing that Russian transitioned from excitement to guilt. He thought about sons and daughters and how he had just deprived them.
Tommie ran behind the man and moved forward, pressing in closer to the main combat scene. He was experiencing something new. It was a combination of fear, exhilaration, and guilt. He felt almost like a different man altogether. He took cover behind a Humvee and looked toward the Russians.
He saw Commander Horowitz engaging in hand-to-hand combat. A Russian soldier swung his rifle by the barrel at Horowitz and caught him in the knee, knocking him to the ground. The commander didn’t seem to have a weapon in his hand. The Russian jumped on top of Horowitz and began choking him with both hands.
Tommie saw an opportunity to shoot the Russian, so he sighted on him. Being completely confident in his newly acquired marksmanship skills, he was willing to take a shot so close to an ally. He hesitated, then went back to looking down his sights. He was preparing to shoot, but Horowitz had already knocked the combatant off himself. He reached for his side and pulled a KA-BAR knife out, thrusting it deep into his attacker’s side. The man stopped fighting and fell to the ground.
Tommie pulled the rifle away from his face, relieved that he didn’t have to shoot again. He was so amazed by what he was witnessing and engaging in that he failed to notice the shooting had subsided. The muffled sounds and the fog of war cleared, revealing a sunlit morning and several dead Russians, Marines, and militiamen.
“Sir,” a Marine said, calling out to Horowitz. The moment caught Tommie’s attention. He eavesdropped.
The Marine was Young. He took his Russian interpreter to Commander Horowitz and handed him a piece of paper. “The Russians kept an itinerary. Their recent attacks and upcoming attacks. Their missions are here. All of them.”
Horowitz grabbed the paper and opened it up. It was a map marked with Russian notations. Although he couldn’t read the writing, he saw the patterns in the lines drawn from location to location. “This shows a unit of Russians not too far from here.”
Horowitz leaned toward Young. “Have your friend translate these notes,” he ordered.
Young grabbed the interpreter and pulled him in to the map.
“It says there’s a warehouse with spoils of war right there.” He pointed to a specific location on the map. “It’s just a few miles from here,” he added with a strong accent.
“Ask him if the notes say anything about the size of the units protecting the warehouse,” Horowitz ordered.
The Russian heard Horowitz’s command. Major Horowitz never spoke directly to the interpreter. Much of the time, it was unnecessary to do so. He was normally within hearing distance of the commander, so he heard just about all of their talks. The really private stuff would land him handcuffed and held under armed guard while his captives met in private to discuss things nobody needed to hear.
“Maybe a hundred soldiers and support units. That particular location I have heard of. They say the towers are high and the sharpshooters don’t miss. The towers were taken from another location – a FEMA camp. They were dismantled and reassembled here.”
“Why wouldn’t they just store the goods in an area already taken over?” Young asked.
“My guess is that the Russian Federation knows FEMA camps are high-profile locations. To hide the spoils in them is too risky, so they’re using this place,” the Russian said, pointing to the sketched-in warehouse icon on the map. “FEMA camps aren’t on any maps because they were constructed late – before updated maps were printed and released. Your government didn’t want the American population to know its dirty secrets, I think, eh?” he said, smirking.
“Get that turd out of my sight,” Horowitz said, with more authority than usual.
Young led him away.
Horowitz stood there alone studying the map. Wondering if a warning might have been sent out for backup, he turned to look up at a communications tower. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. “Young!” he yelled. “Get the militia in order and make sure the Marines know we may have incoming.”
“Aye, sir,” Young replied.
They’re coming for us, Horowitz thought. We need to make a move.
Afraid to stay, afraid to leave, Tommie struggled with what he wanted to do. He wasn’t trained for this way of life. He was well aware of that. But he had something deep down that pushed him onward. It was love. His sister was his motivation and his sole purpose for living. To get to her, he would need to toughen up. He would need to become a new man, and that was going to take time.
Deadfall Page 10
