The Survivalist (Solemn Duty)

by Arthur T. Bradley

  And that was on Issa.

  Spencer and many of the soldiers who remained behind were housed in barracks located on the west side of Mount Weather. Most of those barracks were now vacant or sparsely populated due to Korn having taken the majority of Mother’s army to deal with The Farm. While Issa understood Mother’s decision to send forces to punish them for their cannibalistic practices, she also worried that it had left the compound dangerously unprotected.

  The clandestine trek across the compound went undetected, and within minutes, Issa and Kendra found themselves crouching behind a large propane tank. Candlelight shone from a nearby barracks’ windows, and they could see men moving about inside as they prepared for bed.

  Issa turned to Kendra. “Are you sure Spencer bunks here?”

  She nodded. “Seen him comin’ and goin’ a few times.”

  “And the Coleman brothers?”

  “Can’t say for certain ’bout that.” As she spoke, Kendra pulled the revolver from her waistband and checked to see that the cylinder contained five fresh .38 cartridges.

  “Do you even know how to use that thing?”

  She flicked the cylinder closed. “I know if I squeeze the trigger, someone’s gon’ die.”

  Issa didn’t like the reckless vengeance in Kendra’s voice. It was the sound of a woman prepared to kill anyone who had the bad luck of getting in her way. While the burning desire for revenge could bring unbridled courage, it could also result in a lifetime of regret.

  She studied the barracks, wondering if it shared the same general layout as the one in which she was living. If it did, there might be an easier way than just shooting the place up.

  “We’ll wait until they’re asleep and then slip in to find Spencer and the others. That way we can avoid drawing attention to ourselves or killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “And when we do find ’em?”

  Issa touched one of the knives hanging across her chest.

  “We’ll do to them what they did to Chloe.”

  Kendra nodded, the unmistakable lust of hate shining in her eyes.

  “Most of the soldiers are away, so there can’t be more than a handful inside. Even so, we need to be careful to get the right men.”

  “Fine, but all three of ’ems gotta die.”

  “Agreed.”

  Issa turned around and settled her back against the old fuel tank. After a minute or two of watching the barracks, Kendra flopped down beside her.

  “They say you killed quite a few folks. That true?”

  Issa thought of the lives she had taken, all of them violent men doing unspeakable acts.

  “It’s not something I enjoy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I wasn’t sayin’ that.” She paused. “What’s it like, killin’ someone?”

  Issa’s mouth twisted. “It’s an awful thing. The air stinks of blood, and you can hear men trying so hard to hang onto life, or worse, begging to get out of what they know they’re due.”

  Kendra’s eyes became distant as she envisioned taking Spencer’s life. She needed for him to know that it was her doing the slicing. If she had to, she would pry his eyes open as she slowly sawed through his throat.

  Issa placed a hand on her shoulder, and Kendra instinctively jerked away.

  “Sorry,” she said, trying to smile, “my mind musta been somewhere else.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I know you had feelings for Chloe.”

  “’Course I did,” she said defensively. “We all did.”

  “Yes, but yours were different.”

  Kendra’s eyes tightened. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  “I know,” Issa said with an understanding nod.

  Anger quickly changed to grief, and Kendra’s eyes filled with tears.

  “How could you know somethin’ like that? I ain’t never told no one.”

  “Love isn’t something you have to say out loud.”

  “You think the others know?”

  Issa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. No one’s going to judge you, not anymore they won’t. All of us understand that love is precious.”

  “Love,” she whispered, tears starting down her face. “It ain’t fair.”

  “No, it’s not. But it is beautiful.”

  Kendra put a hand to her mouth to keep from crying.

  “I’m hurtin’,” she choked, “deep down in my belly.”

  “I know.”

  Issa put her arms around Kendra, and the young woman began to sob. They sat like that for twenty minutes, speaking in hushed voices. Mostly, they spoke of Chloe, of how she had managed to find happiness even in the worst of circumstances. Kendra explained that she had fallen in love with her when they were living down in the tunnels but had always been afraid to make her feelings known. With Chloe now gone, regret and loss felt like a weight that could never be lifted.

  When Kendra had finally gotten it all out, she settled back and took a few deep breaths to collect herself.

  “Better?” asked Issa.

  She nodded. “I loved her. I can say it now, and that helps a little.” She reached over and squeezed Issa’s hand. “Thank you. You ain’t like some of the women say.”

  Issa smiled. “And how exactly do they say I am?”

  “You know, cold and mean, like you don’t care ’bout no one but your own little family.”

  “You’re my family too. All the women are.”

  Kendra nodded. “I’m glad of that.”

  Issa leaned back against the propane tank, reflecting on her words. The women really were her family. Like prisoners of war, they had learned to depend on each other for the most basic of necessities. In doing so, they had developed a bond that went far beyond that of simple friendship.

  Thoughts of family brought with them the image of the only man Issa had ever loved, a man so mean and ornery that he would send a honey badger scurrying for cover. God, she missed him. Tears came to her eyes, and she had to take deep breaths to keep from crying.

  “You okay?” asked Kendra.

  “No,” she said softly, “but one day, I will be.”

  They sat quietly for another long hour before the lights in the barracks finally went out.

  “How much longer we need to wait?” Kendra asked, peeking around the tank.

  “Long enough for them to get good and asleep. Maybe another hour or two, just to be sure.”

  “I swear, you got the patience of a saint.”

  “No,” corrected Issa, “of a hunter.”

  “You’re calm too.” She held out one of her hands. “Look at me. Now that I got all that cryin’ done, I’m shakin’ like a leaf.”

  “You’ll do all right.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I don’t feel angry no more, just set on gettin’ it done. That good or bad?”

  “It’s good. It’ll keep you from doing something stupid.”

  They waited, the night slowly swallowing them. An hour after the lights went out, Kendra bumped Issa’s shoulder.

  “Issa!” she whispered.

  “A little longer,” Issa said, not bothering to open her eyes.

  “No, look! They comin’ out.”

  Issa leaned around in time to see three men step out through the back door of the barracks. Each was carrying a rifle.

  “Is that them?” whispered Kendra.

  As one of the men turned his face to the moonlight, Issa saw him clearly.

  Spencer.

  “It’s them.”

  “Why they comin’ out at night?”

  Before Issa could answer, the men started across the compound with a sense of purpose.

  “Come on,” she said, standing up. “Let’s see where they’re going.”

  Issa shuffled after them, careful to stay out of sight. Kendra trailed behind her, not daring to speak. At first, Issa thought the men might be circling around to have another go at the widows, but when they turned east, she accepted t
hat they were up to something else. After a few minutes, they met up with a larger group of men standing in the shadows of one of the buildings. Issa counted at least twenty, all clustered together in silence with only the occasional hushed voice breaking the night.

  “What you think they doin’?” whispered Kendra.

  Issa wasn’t sure. “It’s a meeting of some sort.”

  “A meetin’ where everyone’s bringin’ guns.”

  Issa had noticed that too. Whatever they were up to, violence was to be a part of it.

  More men arrived, a few at a time, eventually bringing their total to nearly forty.

  “That’s darn near half the men left behind,” said Kendra.

  It wasn’t until Issa saw a tall figure hobble forward with a stiff side-to-side motion, like that of a spider tottering across cotton, that she began to understand.

  “That’s Gaius,” Kendra whispered, putting words to Issa’s thoughts. “What would a general be doin’ out in the night like this?”

  Given the circumstances, Issa could think of only one reason a large group of armed men would gather in the dead of night.

  She turned to face Kendra, and when she spoke there was a noticeable tightness to her voice.

  “Get back to the women, now!”

  Kendra shook her head. “I came to kill Spencer, and that’s exactly what I’m gon’ do.”

  “No,” hissed Issa, “you’re going do as I say.”

  The intensity in Issa’s gaze caused Kendra to shrink away.

  “Issa, what’s happening?”

  “Tell the women to gather up their belongings and slip out of the compound. They need to move quickly.”

  Kendra’s eyes grew wide. “You think Gaius and the others are comin’ to kill us.”

  “No, not yet, but they will soon.”

  “Then what they doin’?”

  Issa jaw tightened. “They’re going after Mother.”

  Chapter 15

  Thanks to Laroche, Mason knew almost to the minute when the convoy would be arriving. When it was t-minus fifteen, he had Beebie and Bowie get into position behind a thick buffer of trees lining the median. Bowie didn’t seem too keen to have Mason leave him yet again, but with a bit of cajoling, he finally did as instructed and settled in beside Beebie.

  “You understand the timing?” Mason said, figuring that it couldn’t hurt to go over it again.

  “I’m not cherry, Marshal,” Beebie said with a growl.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “After the second-to-last truck goes across, I pop the flare and toss it onto the oil. Once it’s lit, Bowie and I hightail it down the highway and wait for you to pick us up.”

  “Do your best to keep Bowie in check. If he gets wind of a fight, he’s likely to break ranks and charge headfirst into the fray.”

  “Roger that. Just remember that you don’t have much firepower.” Beebie patted Mason’s M4, which now hung across his back alongside his own AK-47.

  “Carrying a rifle would only make my job that much more difficult. Besides, I shouldn’t need it. The goal is to have this whole thing go off without a shot being fired.”

  Beebie cracked a smile. “I’m pretty sure Custer said those exact words at Little Bighorn.”

  “Let’s hope we have better luck.” Mason checked his watch. It was time. “Stay frosty.” He leaned down and kissed Bowie on the nose. “Be good and do what Beebie tells you to do.”

  The dog licked him across the mouth.

  “Yeah, yeah, I love you too.”

  Mason turned and hurried to the other side of the road. When he arrived at the pipes, he used the thick metal bands holding them together as footholds to climb to the top of the structure. Once he reached the point where the pipes turned ninety degrees to traverse across the road, he lay flat on his belly and shimmied out over the highway. Even though the pipes felt sturdy enough to easily support his weight, Mason couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy crawling fifteen feet in the air with nothing but hot asphalt waiting to catch him.

  He took a moment to carefully wrap the weathered white tarp around his body, tucking the ends securely beneath him. While not perfect, the tarp seemed to blend well with the faded paint covering the pipes. The total width of the structure measured at least five feet, enough for him to feel confident that no one was likely to see him lying atop them. Even so, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of being one of those little yellow ducks that pops up in a shooting gallery.

  He peeked out through a small opening.

  No sign of the convoy.

  If his internal clock was right, Mason estimated he had about three minutes to spare. He took those minutes to run through what might go wrong. The worst thing that could happen was for him to be seen. A quick burst from a fifty cal., and he would be indistinguishable from a sack of blood-soaked hamburger meat. With the oil slick, crashed truck, and dead body, he felt reasonably confident that the convoy drivers would have plenty to keep their attention. Of course, reasonably confident and certain were two very different things.

  Mason laid his head down and became still, his eyes facing in the direction that the convoy would be approaching. During his time in the Army, he had learned to remain motionless for many hours at a time. While it was never something he enjoyed, he had become quite skilled in the fine art of waiting.

  He heard the convoy well before seeing them, two armored HMMWVs with four big rigs sandwiched between. They were moving fast and in tight formation.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  He had been hoping there would only be a single protective vehicle, and that it would be riding point. For his plan to work, both HMMWVs would have to cross the oil and leave the target exposed. Mason was in no position to entice them to do so, so it would be up to Beebie to make that happen.

  The convoy rolled to a stop a few yards shy of the oil slick. Two men dismounted from the lead HMMWV and approached with caution. Mason recognized the first as Diego, a lean Hispanic man barely old enough to shave. The other was a middle-aged Caucasian man with a cast on one forearm and a thick wad of chewing tobacco filling his cheek.

  It took Mason a moment to believe his eyes.

  Dix.

  The world it seemed was not without a sense of humor.

  As they approached the slick, Mason could hear the men speaking directly beneath him.

  “What you think happened here, jefe?” Diego said in a thick Hispanic accent. When Dix didn’t answer, he squatted down and touched the oil with his fingertips. “It’s fresh.”

  Dix kept his eyes on the body lying face down in the road ahead.

  “I don’t like the looks of that.”

  Diego stood and fired a short burst from his rifle, peppering the body.

  “Looks dead to me.”

  “Even so, this whole thing stinks of an ambush.”

  Both men looked left and then right, carefully studying the trees.

  “What you wanna do?”

  Dix spat onto the oil. “I want to grow old sucking titty and drinking gooseberry wine.”

  Diego snickered. “I’m with you on that, jefe. But until we get this shipment delivered, we ain’t gonna do much of either.”

  Dix studied the pickup sitting in the ditch up ahead. It looked like a roadside bomb if ever there was one.

  “We need to get eyes on that before any of the trucks cross.”

  “All right, but we better take it nice and slow.” Diego rubbed his oil-covered fingertips together. “This stuff’s slicker than your girlfriend’s panocha.”

  They returned to the HMMWV and carefully steered it out onto the oil slick. Several times during the brief stretch, the backend began fishtailing, but by slowing to a crawl, they managed to regain control. When they finally arrived back on dry land, they dismounted and carefully checked the pickup.

  No bombs. No one in hiding.

  Dix rolled the body over to get a better look. Thanks to Diego’s shooting, it was impossible to tell if the man had b
een shot prior to their arrival.

  “Looks like he crashed, or maybe got jumped,” said Diego. “Either way, he’s dead now.”

  Dix still didn’t like it.

  “We can always turn back,” offered Diego.

  Dix knew that doing so would mean they wouldn’t get paid. Such a decision would leave him a very unpopular man in a community where being unpopular was downright dangerous.

  “Let’s just get this done.” He turned and waved for the first truck to come across as he and Diego returned to the HMMWV.

  As the semi passed directly beneath Mason, the top of the trailer came to within two feet of the pipes, close enough that he could have reached out and rubbed his hands across it. He didn’t, of course. Instead, he remained perfectly still. Nothing to see here, he thought. Just some old pipes minding their own business.

  Dix and Diego stood overwatch as the truck slowly proceeded across. Dix manned the HMMWV’s Browning M2HB machine gun while Diego stood ready with his M4 braced on the hood. The eighteen-wheeler made it about halfway across the slick before losing control. The trailer started to jackknife, and the driver only managed to save it from swinging off into the ditch by coming to a complete stop. He tried to straighten out, but his wheels spun like they were on wet ice. With the cab sitting at forty-five-degrees to the trailer, the driver finally opened his door, leaned out, and threw both hands in the air, as if to say, “Now what?”

  There was really only one solution and that was to tow the truck out of the oil. Dix and Diego briefly debated on who had what role in the rescue operation, with Diego reluctantly accepting that as the junior member on the team, he was stuck with getting messy. He sat down on the ground, pulled off his boots and socks, and began skating out across the oil with a tow rope trailing behind him. When he arrived at the front of the rig, he hooked the rope around a thick bar under the bumper and gave it a firm tug to snug it up.

  Satisfied that it wouldn’t fall off or tear the bumper free, he carefully skated his way back to the HMMWV, cursing every slimy step of the way. Once across, he wiped his feet off with an old t-shirt and climbed in behind the wheel. Dropping the transmission into reverse, he slowly pulled the rope taut. As he did, Dix continued sweeping the area with the Browning.