Haven From Hell (Book 2): Warrior's Chronicle

by Won, Mark

  With that in mind I got on the horn and tried calling over. It didn’t take long to get ahold of the local warlord chieftain wannabe. Actually, calling him that was something of an insult to all the petty warlords that I’d sniped over the years. The least of my targets would have eaten that poser for breakfast. In the case of certain African despots, the devouring would not have been metaphorical.

  I decided to play it cool. “So, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”

  He answered, “I’m Gator. Y’all wanna pass ya gotta pay da toll,” in some pleasant southern accent.

  “How much is the toll, Gator?”

  “How much ya got?” With a witless answer like that things were beginning to look a lot like bloodshed. Still, I had to try.

  “Hey, Gator, Who’s that guy with the stupid looking cap on his head? The one on the boat right ahead our group? Can you see how he has the bill stuck up off to the side like he doesn’t know which side of his head his face is on?”

  Gator answered, “What you talking about, man?”

  That’s when I shot the cap off his head. I had to hit the bill from the side to do it without killing him. I guess you could call it my idea of an intelligence test.

  I took up the radio again, “You may think that you’ve got things all your own way, Gator, but I’m just wondering how many of you I’ll get to kill before this is over. Now, can we deal or not?”

  I’d made the shot at five hundred yards. I was pretty confident that I could at least kill off their pilots before they could get close enough to be a serious threat. It was getting past the main body of them that appeared problematic.

  Gator must have seen the cap go flying. “Okay, okay man. Just take it easy! How much you willin’ to pay?”

  “I’ll give you ten grocery bags of canned goods plus a baseball cap to make up for the one I shot. Deal?”

  “Right. It’s a deal. Just drive up to us and we’ll take payment.”

  That was a very disappointing response. He didn’t dicker. What kind of toll-taking pirate doesn’t dicker over the price? The kind that plans to plunder you, obviously. Not that I would have just sailed over to him in any case.

  “Do you guys trade?” I asked, trying to buy time.

  Gator said, “Sure we do. What you got to trade?”

  “I’ve got a whole bunch of food from a warehouse along the coast. If you want, we could do some serious business.”

  He said, “Yeah sure, bring it all in. We can trade.”

  “It was more than we could pack on the boats for an extended voyage. But we might as well trade it with you before we head north. Do you have any medical supplies to spare? Or any spare clothing?” It felt like poor stupid Gator might need some help outwitting me, hence the leading questions.

  It took him a moment to catch on but when he did, “Oh yeah, man, we got all kind of medicine and shit! Clothes too.”

  “Okay then. It will take us two days to get there and two days back. Plus one more to load everything up. So I’ll be back to trade in five days, Okay?”

  I could hear the greed in his voice, “Sure, sure; see you in five, man.”

  Then I got us turned around and we all sailed away.

  -

  “So, what’s the plan?” That was from Zander. We had retreated for about a day traveling at a nice slow pace, making sure that we weren’t followed. Then I invited the adults aboard for a planning session.

  I looked at everybody and said, “Obviously, if we try to negotiate with Gator he’ll rob us blind. Probably kill some or all of us, to boot.”

  Lucy turned to Marge and commented, “See, I told you it was safer to travel north. Imagine how many more pirates we’d have run into if we’d sailed south!” Marge nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

  Tony spoke up, “Maybe we could slip past at night?”

  Zander replied, “I don’t think so. Some of us might make it, but not all. Too risky. Besides, come morning they could chase us down if they felt like it.”

  I continued, “I’ve got a plan. All of you stay here at Port Rich. In four days I’ll come back and get you. Then we can continue on.” Port Rich was the name of the tiny hamlet that we’d looted, just inside the mouth of the Mississippi.

  They all looked at me like I had left something out of the plan. Eventually Marge said, “What are you going to do in four days?”

  Oh, right. “I’m going to sneak back there and remove the obstacle to our advance. Probably by killing a lot of people. The killing shouldn’t take all that long; mostly it’s the sneaking around part that gets time consuming.” That’s usually the way it worked out for me, anyhow.

  Mr. Johnson wanted to know, “How are you going to do that, Paul?”

  A fair question. Everyone else looked pretty curious about that one, also. Except my wife. She didn’t look happy, but at least she knew the score. “I’ve killed a lot of people doing my twenty-and-out.” Actually it was more like twenty-five, but who’s counting. “I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I even have medals and everything.”

  Jim had a fair question of his own, “What should we do if you don’t come back?” I had to admit it was a pleasure to commune with such intelligent people. In the military everyone had such tedious communication skills. Rarely to the point. Always going off on rare tangents. Talking about this that and the other thing.

  Like this one officer I had who constantly kept harping on what I should do if I failed to dispatch a certain dictator. The ‘second primary’ target. The third. And so on. Then we had go over a list of targets of opportunity. The first most important, the second, etc. It was all so pointless. Eventually I asked him if there was anyone in the dictator’s military compound that I shouldn’t kill. He said no. So, obviously, the solution was to just kill everyone. I mean, really, why not just start there? I was a good soldier, though, I did things his way regardless of how inefficient it seemed at the time.

  Anyhow, I just told everybody to listen to my wife. Then, when the party broke up, I told her to sit tight and defend the town. It was as good a place as any to hold up. She didn’t look too happy about it, but she could tell there was nothing for it. If we ever wanted to reach her parents, we had to do something. My wife’s the best, and even with her pregnancy I knew I could trust her to keep things together come hell or high water.

  We sent the kids to bed early, and after my wife and I said our goodbyes, I took one of the lifeboats and began making my way back to the city. When I arrived I pulled ashore well short of my eventual destination. I wanted to question some of the locals along the river bank about the whole situation.

  Armed, I walked along the bank until I came across a small group of hungry looking people cooking fresh fish over an open flame. I made a point of calling out to them long before I might be mistaken for a threat.

  They all had a fearful look about them but settled down after I handed out a couple cans of canned meat. There were two men, one woman and a child around the fire. After introducing myself I started in by asking the bigger of the two men about recent events. His name was Jose.

  He answered, “The way I hear it the zombies have risen everywhere but here. As bad as this is, at least we don’t have to deal with the walking dead. All our dead stay dead.”

  That had me curious. “What’s a zombie?” Weird word.

  “The walking dead, man. That’s what they are. I don’t know why we were spared. The loa maybe.”

  “But where do you get the word ‘zombie’ from? And what are loa?”

  Jose answered, “That’s Voodoo, man. That’s why the world is full of zombies. The loa are like spirits. They can do stuff.”

  “So, wait a minute. If the zombies aren’t around here why does New Orleans look as messed up as everywhere else I’ve seen?”

  Jose explained, “Oh, that’s all just from the riots and stuff. Don’t tell anybody I said so, but I hope the cops win.”

  As genuinely fascinating as that entire line of inquiry was to me, I ne
eded to bring the conversation back around to my main purpose. “So, Jose, what’s up with those guys blocking the river? Who are they?”

  “You don’t want to mess with those dudes, man, they suck. They’re half the reason so many folks around here got killed. Looks like they’ll be taking over the whole riverside, too. The cops got all they can do to hold on to the lake side.”

  “You said that the dead don’t turn into zombies here, Jose. Do you know how far out that holds true?”

  He told me, “Just in the city itself, man. I’ve seen people the River Blood have killed and dumped overboard come walking back on shore.”

  That seemed like a potential opportunity. “Do any of you guys ever talk to the cops?”

  The smaller of the two men answered, “Sure we do. They hand out fish sometimes. Not this fish,” he said while motioning to his repast, “They got the fishing organized in the lake. If they see you they might put you to work, though. Like a work-for-food thing.”

  “What’s the chief of police’s name?” I asked.

  Once I had my answer I wrote Chief Martin a nice letter of intent. I used my wallet as an envelope and put a bronze star in it, hoping that the award might make the contents of my letter both more believable and better received. I had brought a couple of medals just in case it might help me out with the locals. Some people respect that kind of thing.

  “If I give you another can of spam will you deliver this to Chief Martin, Jose?”

  He was surprised, “You want to give the chief a letter? Why?”

  “The River Blood are a boil which I’m about to lance, but I have to move on immediately afterward. My family and I might be back this way, and I might want to say hello to the boss when I have more leisure time on my hands. Perhaps I could get a job if he’s hiring. The letter is more explicit. Basically, it’s rude to kill a lot of people and blow things up without at least giving the local authority a heads up.

  “You’re crazy, man!”

  “I’m motivated. Will you do it?”

  After I received his assurances, I took a nap, making sure to set my alarm for just before sundown. Then I got back on mission. I kept close to the bank and used the oars since I was only a mile away. I made sure that I had my timing just right. It’s important in those kinds of situations to show up well rested just after sundown. The barges were right where I’d left them, so I had no surprises there.

  The next step was for me to slip into the water and go for a nice swim. The water was pleasant; a fine evening for a quick dip. Since it was my intention to murder everybody as quietly as possible I didn’t see any reason to encumber myself with a long arm. I was fairly certain that someone on board the pirates’ boats would have a rifle I could borrow, in a pinch.

  During the swim over I had time to contemplate how much damage that I’d need to do. I was leaning toward burning everything to the waterline, but you never know. Maybe I’d just have to settle for slitting a few throats. I didn’t know if that was one of those situations when cutting off the head causes the (metaphorical) snake to die, or if that was one of those cases when cutting one head off would cause two to heads to (metaphorically) grow back in its place. Also, sometimes it helps to not be so metaphorical when it comes to decapitation. It all depended on the character and will of the opposition.

  The enemy disposition was to have all the smaller boats and barges tied to the larger central barge. The central barge had some artificial structures added to it and some people were walking around its deck. A smaller barge off to port had a towboat attached.

  When I reached the nearest boat (a cuddy cabin) I climbed up a really convenient ladder which was permanently attached to the stern. From there it was a quick job to scan the deck and move to the cabin hatch. By the faint moonlight I could see a couple inside, sleeping on the floor. The door was, naturally, locked.

  The tricky part about picking a lock with people sleeping immediately on the other side of the door, has always been doing the job quietly. Anticipating the possibility that at some point I might have to bypass a secured door I had thought to bring my set of homemade lock picks with me. They weren’t as good as the ones I’d been issued back in my service days, but they were good enough for some cheap civilian lock. I even had some for fuel tank access, if it came to that.

  The small shelf space in the cabin was host to shoes, purses, jewelry and perfume bottles. I found the couple sleeping on a bunch of dirty blankets. That presented me with a quandary. And since opening the hatch had alerted the woman to the presence of an intruder I had to make a life or death decision in a hurry.

  Reasoning that I could always kill everybody later, I quickly moved forward and struck the female in the head hard enough to take the fight out of her. The hand she futilely attempted to fend me off with was covered in about a dozen wedding rings. My actions had awakened her male counterpart so he got the same treatment from me. From there it was a simple matter to apply wire ties to their wrists and ankles. Once I had the situation under control I turned to the woman and began to question her. I made sure to keep the man gagged.

  “Ma’am, has this man been hurting you? Would you like to leave? I have a boat ready.” Which was technically true. I had the boat I was on.

  She looked at me in a state of fear and confusion. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. That was just great. It made me feel like such a heel.

  I tried again, “Ma’am, had this man been hurting you?” As I said that I placed my knife against his throat. Keep it simple, that’s the key.

  “N-no.”

  That was good enough for me. If she weren’t under duress then she was one of the enemy. Guilty by association. I then had the justification I needed to eliminate her if I wanted to. Unlike some, I’m the kind of guy who needs justification. I’m soft that way.

  I took a closer look around. The shoes I’d noticed earlier had clearly been previously used, and some of the jewelry still had blood on it.

  It was time for me to get down to business. “Where is Gator right now?”

  She didn’t want to answer. I’ve always been an equal opportunity kind of guy. It’s just how I was raised. But I’ve never really had the stomach to torture women. Usually there was someone else around to handle that kind of work when the need arose. So I slit her throat and turned to the man.

  I got a bit of a shock, then. I was just beginning to explain the man’s situation to him when she surged against her bonds and managed to tear her hands free. She started stretching for me, but I backed off on instinct. The man tried to scream past his gag. When she tried to stand she fell flat and began pawing clumsily at her ankle restraints. That’s when I moved in and put the blade through her skull. Lesson learned. Now I knew how those other pirates must have felt when I’d shot their pilots.

  Refocusing my attention on the man,“Sir, I’d really like to know where Gator is right now.” A lot of people think torture doesn’t work. Those people are wrong. Usually, once someone understands that he’s about to die if he doesn’t talk, he talks. Most people just aren’t that dedicated. Frankly, in my personal experience, low ranking thug types require almost no encouragement whatsoever to talk. You might say that one only needs to threaten to spill their guts to make them spill their guts (ha ha). My only fear had been that killing his lover might have caused him to dig in his heels.

  In any case, my victim was clear, concise, and informative. And not just about the location of his boss. I got everything but an exact head count from him. Number of boats, location of fuel storage areas, the number of crew for each boat, armament, ammunition, short term plans, etc. I even encouraged him to draw me a map. Then I slit his throat as well.

  The second time I was ready. He started straining as soon as he died. I don’t know how else to put it. The end of his life was clearly what caused the metamorphosis. His blood had stopped pumping for a few seconds and then he was at it again. Before he got free I planted my knife in his brain. That killed him. Again. I waited but
there was no re-resurgence.

  My normal way of going about this sort of thing would be to repeat the whole process over again on another boat. Then I could compare the information and check for potential lies. I didn’t see any reason to bother, though. The man I’d questioned seemed honest enough.

  With the keys to the boat in my pocket I had one potential exit strategy, but I planned on keeping my eyes open for another. Something with lots of fuel would have been nice. Maybe something like that towboat I’d seen.

  I had a choice to make. Either assassinate Gator or go for the fuel supply. I decided to try for the gas first. So slipped back into the water and made my way around to the next barge over. It was the smaller of the two, only about thirty-five feet wide and maybe two hundred feet long. The deck was abandoned. It seemed that everyone either preferred to stay together on board the larger main barge or in the smaller boats tied to it.

  Fuel barges are specifically designed to not explode just because someone carelessly tosses a cigarette down the wrong hole. And just because I had made a decent set of lockpicks didn’t mean that I had access to an inventory of high explosives. Having planned on blowing something up, the best that I could do was repurpose some old fireworks left over from Independence Day. Doing field work back in the day had left me with a strong reliance on planning and with an equally strong aversion to improvisation. Even so, devising impromptu detonators was standard operating procedure. Especially if evidence of potential military involvement was to be avoided.

  Keeping low, I crept over to a likely looking intake valve and got to work. After lowering my bomb into the guts of the barge I carefully replaced the seal and moved on to my next priority.

  That meant the next stop for me was over on the main barge. The pirates had turned it into a floating town of sorts, complete with tents and sheds set up on the deck. The barge was pretty big, about a hundred yards long and fifty feet wide. There were a few drunken pirates wandering the deck. I began blending in.