Bled Dry

by Lou Cadle

  “Probably not as much yelling involved in yours,” Wes said.

  “Ha. You haven’t seen Arch in a mood. His real calling in life was probably being a drill sergeant.”

  Curt said, “You have a bit of that in you.”

  Sierra stared at him in shock. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “No, a commissioned officer,” Wes said. “Coming up with the plan. That’s higher grade work than a drill sergeant.”

  “So you’ll take orders from me?” She wasn’t being flip. She was curious. Would he?

  Tad snorted. “You are full of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve killed more than a dozen men so far,” she said. “And rescued a family from Payson. I’m still alive. I suppose it builds confidence, you know? Well of course. I’m sure you know,” she said. “You’ve had the same kinds of experience, right?”

  There was silence in the car for the next five minutes. About halfway through the silence, Curt nudged her and winked at her. She looked up to see that Wes, who was driving, was watching them. She smiled at him, friendly. And she felt it. She liked him already. Tad, she wasn’t warming up to. But if he could shoot well, that’s all that mattered. They didn’t need to be best friends. They just needed to have each other’s backs.

  Wes broke the silence by saying, “So, Sierra, where do you get this guerilla stuff?”

  “Arch’s library. He has an extensive library of paper books. Army manuals, war theory, history, the history of weapons, you name it. When I knew enough to know what guerilla warfare was, I focused on that, because with our numbers and lack of support from tanks and planes and so on, it seemed like that’s what we were. Not guerillas trying to bring down a government, but guerillas trying to protect our own.”

  “Probably what guerillas would all say they were doing too.”

  “Good point.”

  “Anything in particular give you this idea? About the flyers?”

  “No. I didn’t read about any specific propaganda campaign or anything. I just knew they did it. And it’s kind of a Trojan Horse concept, you know? Not a literal horse, but that sort of thing. Misdirection, plus placing something dangerous in its effect right in their midst.”

  “Huh. Well, I think it’s a good idea,” Wes said.

  Tad said, “If we don’t get shot trying to do it.”

  Curt said, “We’ll try to avoid that.”

  Sierra directed Wes to where they’d parked their car before, but he said, “Not going to risk that. If they looked around and identified the spot, they might periodically come back there. I know a few places that will work just fine.”

  He did, as it turned out. He drove them on a road that led to a subdivision on the outskirts of town and pulled off on a dirt track that she’d never have seen, with brush grown up so that the car was scraped as they pushed through. But the track opened up into a clearing big enough for him to K-turn and get the car aimed so it was headed back out.

  He said, “If we get separated for any reason, we’ll meet right here at sunset. Clear?”

  “Shit,” said Curt.

  “What?” Sierra asked him.

  “Those walkie-talkie plug-ins. We could have brought those and cell phones.”

  “What is that?” Wes said.

  Curt explained the device.

  “See, you have more to trade than you realized,” Tad said.

  “Not really ours to trade,” Sierra said. “It’s Rudy’s. He’s not technically one of us. I mean, he is and he isn’t. He’s new, like Joan,” she said.

  “We’ve not added a soul,” Tad said. “We’re more cautious. Or maybe you’re too trusting.”

  “So far, so good,” Curt said. “I suppose if you help people, they end up owing you some loyalty. Or so we can hope. Otherwise, there’s no reason to do any of this for Payson, is there?”

  Wes reviewed the communications signals they were to use and, once he was sure they all knew them, said, “No more chatter. Let’s go in quiet in case they have patrols out here in the woods now.”

  They moved quietly from then on. Sierra wasn’t familiar with anything she saw until they came to a ridge above town. She recognized it, for she and Dev had been here.

  Wes motioned them all close and spoke barely above a whisper. “I’m not seeing any patrols. Wait, hunt for them, or move in?”

  “Spread out for more recon,” Tad said.

  Curt shook his head at that.

  “Start here, start now,” Sierra voted. “Quick raid in, then retreat and move around several blocks. For all we know, they might be headed this way.”

  Wes said, “Okay, general.” But he wasn’t really mocking her. He was actually agreeing with her.

  “Let’s watch for five to make sure no one is watching us, and then start,” Curt said.

  Wes had them spread out several yards apart, and they all watched the streets of Payson for ten minutes. Sierra had the Quinn binoculars and could see two women out in a backyard garden, one weeding, one checking corn nearly as tall as her. If they’d planted from seed at the beginning of the food crisis, corn wouldn’t be ready yet. But maybe this household had their own garden planted before the end of oil.

  If the gardeners looked up, they’d see them emerge from the woods. So be it. Unless they were collaborators, and collaborators with some sort of communications capability, it didn’t matter one way or the other.

  While the newer sections of Payson had no above-ground electrical wires, this section did, with treated wooden poles holding up the strands of wires. Sierra realized she had no idea of the words for any of the other things up there, the cylinders and coiled metal things and the bits that held the wires to the pole. Living in a house with its own power plant, she’d never bothered to think much about how city people got their power, or why it failed, or how it worked even when the wind wasn’t blowing or the sun shining.

  Wes’s signal to come back interrupted her thoughts. She took one last look around in the streets below, saw nothing of concern, and returned to the others.

  “Ready?” Wes said, when they were all together again. “I’m stopping halfway down, ready to cover your retreat if need be. Curt, you’re on guard on the street at the base of the hill. Sierra, you and Tad are posting the flyers, right?”

  Sierra tapped her pocket with the staple gun. Tad had tape for use on metal posts or stone, and if there was nowhere to post the flyers, he’d fold them in half and shove them into screen doors. “Not mail slots if you see any,” Sierra had told him, back up at the meeting site as they were getting ready to leave. “That won’t do any good. They need to be visible.”

  “I get it, I get it,” he had said.

  Wes looked at them. “Everybody good? Let’s do it.”

  Sierra led, scrambling down the slope, holding her rifle tight to her side. She jumped the last couple feet and hit the pavement with a loud slap. Without pausing, she ran for the first utility pole, pulled out a flyer, and stapled it up. The flyer said:

  Attention, citizens of Payson.

  We are your neighbors in the hills to the east. We’ve learned of your situation. On Monday morning, six days from today, at dawn, we will attack the town and kill the invaders who are holding you hostage.

  Either stay inside and keep your children safe there, or come out and join us with rocks, knives, baseball bats, and any hidden weapons you have. We’ll return your town to you and drive out the men who have hurt you.

  Long live Payson!

  They weren’t neighbors to the east, and that’s not what they were going to do. They had discussed whether anyone would know the day of the week any more, but as Sierra pointed out, it didn’t matter, as long as the invaders thought they were coming in six days at dawn.

  The trick here was, they weren’t coming then. Despite how it was worded, the flyer was not for the Paysonites at all. It was for the invaders. It was guerilla misdirection.

  Chapter 7

  Sierra jammed a flyer onto the pol
e, stapled it twice, and ran on to the next pole. They were doing this in quick spurts, figuring no more than five minutes on the street, then back up in to the woods. She wanted to get as many of these up in five minutes as she could. Another flyer went up. Another run up the street. Another flyer. A fourth utility pole.

  Curt clicked to her, their own signal, to get her attention. She turned her head and he motioned her back. She nodded as she stapled, smelling the scent of old creosote in the pole. She heard a door slam on the other side of the street and glanced over, half expecting to see someone standing on a front porch. But there was no one.

  She ran up the nearest sidewalk, stuffed a flyer into the crack between screen door and jamb, and ran back another three houses toward the woods and did it again. Curt was motioning with more urgency. Tad was already a few feet up the hill, with Wes well above him looking out. He didn’t look panicked. But then would he? He seemed professional about this, and panic might never be a problem for him.

  She gave up on the idea of putting any more flyers onto houses and ran for Curt, who fell into step with her. “Move it,” he whispered. “We’re over five minutes.”

  She ran in Tad’s wake, pushing up the hill. With her hands full, she couldn’t use them to help her balance, and at one point, she felt herself tilting too far back. But a hand—Curt’s—caught her in the small of the back and gave her support, and she kept to her feet. At the top of the hill, she rolled the flyers and put them in her pocket and tucked away the staple gun.

  “No one is coming,” Wes said. “We did okay.”

  “Good. Let’s hope the people of Payson don’t snatch down all the flyers before the bad guys find them,” Tad said.

  “That’s why we need to find the patrols,” Sierra said. “Work just ahead of them so they find them before the residents do.”

  This was the part of the plan everyone but Sierra liked least. In order to be certain the lie would reach the eyes they wanted it to, they had to court danger, get a couple blocks ahead of the food-collecting patrol, and put the flyers up there. Sierra had suggested they penetrate into the center of town, but that was roundly vetoed. Edges only, quick dashes in and out, and take that one chance to get close to the roving guards. Once they believed the message had been received by the enemy, they were to get the hell out of there.

  “What if the Payson people see the flyers?” Francie had asked.

  “Can’t do any harm,” Kelly had said. “And maybe we’ll give them hope. Or courage. Because when we attack, I’d feel better if we were joined by the good women of Payson.”

  The good women of this Payson street didn’t have guns, but they might be the first to know that help was coming. Sierra hoped the knowledge did prompt them to some sort of action.

  Wes got them marching again quickly, moving counterclockwise through the woods around the town, well back from the sight of anyone who might be on the street. Fifteen minutes later, he stopped them and said, “I think here.” They crawled back out to the edge of the woods, spent five minutes watching, and repeated the raid. The food collectors were still not in sight. Sierra posted five flyers this time and only shoved one into a door of what looked most like an abandoned house. She didn’t want them all picked up by residents.

  As they met again in the woods, she said, “I should have practiced this. I’ll be way better at it by the end of the morning.”

  Tad said, “I hope we locate the patrol sooner than noon. If they’re on the far side of town, it’ll be a long day. I mean, all of us are coming back day tomorrow night for the real fight, yeah?”

  Sierra said, “We are.”

  “You too?” he said to Curt.

  Curt nodded.

  “Hold the talk,” Wes said. “There’s a subdivision ahead in the hills. People will be up and about.”

  They had to pass a stretch where the woods were sparse. On one side was the subdivision, and on the other the town. Not much green space had been left between. Where they were was mostly bushes, and as Sierra passed through them, she discovered some of them were raspberry bushes. Thorns tried to grab at her vest. One branch grabbed her so well she had to stop.

  Curt helped pull the thorns from her clothes. She mouthed a “thank you” to him, and he gave her a half smile and dipped his head, an indication that they should move forward. They’d fallen behind the others several feet.

  She had taken another two steps when Wes gave the signal for danger. His arm waved them down. Sierra hit the ground, the staple gun punching her in the gut. She lifted herself a few inches and pushed it to the side so it didn’t hurt so damned much to lie on.

  They lay still for at least ten minutes before Wes gave the all-clear signal.

  She rose and hurried up to the others.

  Wes motioned forward, pointing at a stand of trees ahead, and then moved toward them himself. When she and Curt caught up, he was hunkered down. She joined him, wincing when her side hurt. She must have really thrown herself down on that staple gun. Hopefully the thing hadn’t gotten broken when she did.

  “See them?” Curt asked Wes.

  “I saw a truck down in town. Two guys in the back with rifles.” He looked at Tad. “You saw the same thing?”

  “Yeah. One of the rifles was not just a hunting rifle. Military issue, I think.”

  “Or police,” Wes said. “But they weren’t collecting food. What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Sierra said. “Maybe they changed up their routine. Did you see which direction they turned?”

  “Didn’t see.”

  “I think we should do more flyers. Hope we see the food team out collecting, like we planned.”

  “They might already know about the flyers,” Tad said. “Maybe that’s what the truck means, and we should withdraw.”

  Sierra shook her head. “Not until we’re sure. We’ve not left that many flyers yet. I want to get at least a hundred out there. Two hundred would be better.”

  “I wish we had a plane to drop them from,” Tad muttered.

  Curt said, “Haven’t heard a jet or small plane in weeks. I’m sure aviation fuel also stopped getting delivered.”

  “Irrelevant,” Wes said. “Doesn’t matter what we don’t have. Matters what we do have. And that’s four people and a fistful of flyers. I think Sierra’s right. We should do more. Let’s give it another effort. If we don’t see any sign that we’re close to a food collecting group, we can retrace and go around town in the other direction.”

  “So only hit half of town,” Sierra said.

  “Did you see them out in the afternoons ever?”

  “Random patrols but no food collecting. And some patrols at night.”

  “I tell you what would be great,” Tad said. “If they were meeting already about what to do when we attacked.”

  Wes said, “That would be convenient, which also means it’s the least likely thing to happen. More likely they’ll come try to find us, as that’s the worst case scenario. Murphy’s law. Let’s keep getting those flyers up. If we have to run, I want to have done as much of this as possible first.”

  They were even more watchful after that. Two stops later, Wes gave an urgent signal to retreat, and without even glancing up, Sierra dropped the flyer she was pressing to the utility post and ran for the brush.

  When she’d reached the others in the cover of the woods again, she said, “What?”

  “A truck was driving down the cross street,” Wes said.

  “Did they see us?”

  “Must not have, or they’d be headed this way. They aren’t.”

  “Good.” She shifted and couldn’t help but wince at the pain in her side. Damn, had she broken a rib when she threw herself down?

  “What is it?” Curt said.

  “Just bruised myself, I think,” she explained.

  “Let me look.”

  It was easiest to remove the vest. At Kelly’s insistence, she had borrowed Dev’s hunting vest, useful both for camouflage and pockets. She ha
d a thin stretch tank top on underneath. She shucked off the vest. “Hey, Tad, hold this, would you?” she said, holding out the vest.

  He took it and nearly dropped it. “Whoa. Heavy.”

  “Extra ammo. Binoculars.” She raised the tail of her tank top. “See any bruising?” she said to Curt.

  “I see a staple.”

  “What?”

  “You stapled yourself. Hang on.” He pulled out a Swiss Army knife, picked a tool, and said, “This may sting.”

  “Go on.”

  A sharp tug, and it was done. He held up a long-armed staple with blood on the ends. “How on earth did you do that?”

  “Didn’t know I had.” She felt pretty stupid about it. “I fell, and somehow the gun decided to do it, I guess.” She let go of her top and rubbed the spot.

  “You’re getting blood on that shirt,” Curt said. “You want the staple?” He held it out to her.

  That made her laugh. “Why would I want the staple? As evidence I can be an idiot?” She held her hand out for her vest instead and Tad handed it over. He was right: loaded like this, it was heavy. But wearing it was no strain.

  “Lucky it wasn’t a real gun rather than a staple gun,” Tad said, watching her button her vest.

  Wes hadn’t been watching her. He’d been keeping an eye on the street. He said, “Let’s move. I see a spot that should give us a good vantage, a view of several streets.”

  When they arrived, Wes asked to borrow her binoculars.

  She watched him scan the town. And scan, and scan. He was taking his time about it. “I think we got them. I mean, I believe they took the bait.”

  “Why?” Curt said.

  He handed over the binoculars. “Look back over to your far right. There is a car and a truck, and I’m sure they are parked right where Sierra and Tad were putting up flyers.”

  Curt looked through the binoculars. “I’m only seeing a car driving away now. How many men did you see?”

  “Couldn’t say for sure.”

  Curt watched for a minute more. “Okay, the car is quartering the streets, it looks like.”

  Sierra shielded her eyes and looked. In a moment, she saw a man with a rifle emerge from behind the cover of the houses, looking up at the woods where they’d been a half-hour ago.