Devil's Haircut

by Sam Sisavath

“Can you take out the Jeep from this distance?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Don’t forget to account for—” Keo began.

  “Shut up and do it,” Rita said.

  Keo grinned and began walking toward the technical.

  He stepped into the light and had managed to cover ten meters before the man standing next to the Wrangler’s driver-side door turned around and saw him. Keo had his submachine gun slung and his hands in front of him, palms rubbing against each other to generate heat. It wasn’t completely a performance; it was actually that cold.

  The Bucky that first spotted him must have said something to the others, because the machine gun in the back swiveled around and Keo grimaced slightly as the red dot underneath the M249 ran across his eyes before lowering to rest on his chest.

  Don’t miss, Rita! Keo thought even as he continued walking, hands rubbing furiously in front of him, and called out, “Hey, don’t shoot, for Christ’s sake!”

  The Buckies didn’t say anything, but the red dot didn’t leave Keo’s chest, either. It was, ironically, using the circled M on Keo’s vest as a target.

  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess.

  Keo kept walking with purpose, without showing any signs of fear. After all, he was wearing the right clothes, which meant he belonged here, so why would he be afraid of other Buckies?

  Yeah, that’s it. Keep telling yourself that, pal.

  He had made up ten more meters on the patrol when the Bucky on the passenger side walked round the front grill of the vehicle. Like his partner, he was armed with an AR rifle, but it wasn’t their weapons Keo was focused on. It was the machine gun and the man squinting behind its iron sights in the back. God, he hated those guns, especially when they were pointed at him.

  “Don’t shoot!” Keo shouted.

  “What are you doing here?” one of the Buckies standing around the car shouted back.

  “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m on patrol!”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  Partner? Keo thought, then remembered how every patrol he’d seen so far had consisted of at least a two-man team. Right. Partner.

  “He’s taking a leak!” Keo shouted. “I don’t know what’s taking him so long, though! You’d think he’d get his shit together by now!”

  Keo hoped that was enough of a signal.

  It was, and barely two seconds after now left his lips, there was a soft, echoing plompt! from somewhere behind him as Rita finally fired the M203.

  The 40mm grenade was sailing over Keo’s head when he lunged forward and down onto one knee, about a second before the Wrangler went up in a ball of flames. The last image of the machine gunner was the man craning his neck to see what was flying toward him—and then he was gone.

  The explosion also engulfed the Bucky standing in front of the vehicle and blew the second one clear. The man landed nearly five meters away, and to Keo’s surprise was picking himself back up almost right away.

  Idiot, you should have stayed down, Keo thought before he squeezed off four rounds. He wasn’t sure how many hit their target, but enough did that the man collapsed and remained down this time.

  Keo vaulted back up to his feet, turned, and shouted at Rita and Jeremy, “Go, go, go!”

  They were already running out of the shadows before he got the final go out and racing toward the fence. Rita was in the lead, fumbling to reload the M4 between strides, while Jeremy seemed to struggle to catch up to her despite being almost a whole foot taller.

  Keo was about to join them when something flickered in the corner of his left eye, and he spun back toward the burning carcass of the Wrangler—and right past it.

  The white Chevy was back, its spotlights already dancing across the open ground as it chewed up the distance in the blink of an eye.

  Sonofabitch.

  Keo had been hoping for a little more time—ten seconds, maybe even twenty—as the other Buckies tried to figure out what was happening along this part of the fence, but whoever was in charge of the other patrol was apparently on the ball.

  A competent Bucky. Swell!

  Keo began running after Rita and Jeremy, shouting, “Don’t stop! Go, go, go!”

  He looked past the two fleeing figures at the fence but didn’t see what he was hoping to find. There was no Claire or Gholston or Rudolph waiting for them. There were nothing but shadows and outlines of cornstalks in the fields beyond.

  Where are you, Claire? Don’t let me down, kid!

  He wasn’t more than two—three?—seconds into his mad dash to catch up to Rita and Jeremy when he heard the sound he had been dreading:

  Brap-brap-brap!

  Brap-brap-brap!

  Brap-brap-brap!

  Nineteen

  The night air instantly went from cold and chilly to hot and scorching with every breath he managed. Of course, the fact that he was breathing at all was a good sign. So was the ability to still be running for his life as the brap-brap-brap! bellowed and bullets zip-zip-zipped! past his head. More than a few vanished into the ground around him, kicking up dirt at his pant legs and waist and chest. Like rain, except falling up instead of down.

  Keo ran, because there was nothing else to do. Only an idiot would stop and try to take on a technical. If the Chevy revving its engines as it streaked toward him (How close was it now? Did it matter? It didn’t need to be close for that mounted machine gun to cut him into ribbons.) didn’t have an MG in the back, then Keo would have risked it; but it did, and so he didn’t.

  Run faster! Run faster, you idiot!

  He did—or thought he did, anyway. The truth was, he wasn’t sure how fast he was going, but it felt like he was putting everything he had into every stride even as he zig-zagged to make the machine gunner’s job a little harder. He glimpsed the red laser dot raking the ground to his left and right out of the corners of his eyes as the man tried to get a bead on him.

  Faster! Faster!

  The only bright spot was that while the Chevy and its MG were intent on reducing Keo to nothing, that left Rita and Jeremy to make a run for the fence. He kept waiting to hear the sound of Rita firing the M203 at the fence to make them a hole to run through, but for some reason it hadn’t happened yet. What was she waiting for?

  All thoughts of escape vanished in a blink when he felt the sting and was knocked off his feet. It was all Keo could to do to throw both hands, the MP5SD clutched between them, ahead of him even as he lunged forward and tucked and—slammed into the ground on the back of his neck.

  But the back of his neck was better than on his head and he was rolling, snapping back up to his feet even as he did his best to ignore the pain! Ignore the pain! coming from his right thigh. He was bleeding, he was sure of it even if he couldn’t afford the second or two it would have taken to check just how bad the injury was. Thank God for the adrenaline, or else the pain would have been worse. He still grimaced and fought back a scream as he shot (Wrong choice of words, pal!) up to his feet and launched right back into a full sprint.

  In front and to the right of him, Rita and Jeremy were still making a mad dash for the fence. Jeremy was running for all he was worth and had somehow taken the lead, his taller frame carrying him ahead of Rita. Keo guessed there was nothing quite like the fear of impending death to get you running as fast as humanly possible.

  Rita was glancing back at Keo, and they locked eyes.

  “Do it!” Keo shouted. “Do it!”

  Rita turned back around and was aiming the M4 toward the fence when a red dot appeared on the ground in front of him. But it didn’t stay there. Instead, the dot began moving, moving, moving toward—

  Rita and Jeremy.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Brap-brap-brap!

  Rita was suddenly surrounded by bursts of pink clouds. Then the same thing happened to Jeremy, slightly in front of her.

  Oh, Jesus!

  One second Rita was there, in midstride even as she prepared
to fire at the fence, and the next she was gone.

  Just like that, Rita Ortega was gone.

  And Jeremy, too, but Keo didn’t know the young man as well as he did Rita. Hell, he didn’t know Rita that well, either, but he knew her for a longer time than the turncoat Bucky. That familiarity, no matter how brief, left him with a huge hole in the pit of his stomach, even as Keo stopped running forward and pivoted and went right instead, seeking out the safety of the darkness, because there was nothing in front of him but lights and death.

  There, a building—it looked like some kind of warehouse. Moonlight glinted off the structure’s steel frame, and it called to him like a siren.

  He ran toward it, forcing himself to forget the image of Rita and Jeremy disappearing in puffs of mist, and just run.

  Run, run, run.

  But he couldn’t outrun the red dot, and it streaked across the wall in front of him. Keo slid to a stop a few feet from slamming face-first into the building and lunged to his right—

  Ping-ping-ping! as bullets bounced off the metallic side of the warehouse. A few slugs came dangerously close to taking off his head on the ricochet. He ducked to lower his profile while still running, racing along the side of the building, hoping and praying to be swallowed up by the shadows so that cursed MG couldn’t find him.

  But the laser dot followed him and so did the bullets, the continuous ping-ping-ping! only occasionally broken up by the roar of the Chevy as it got louder. That meant it was getting closer and soon, very soon, it would catch up to him, because no matter how fast he ran, Keo wasn’t going to outrun a truck. No one was that fast.

  Another sudden stab of pain—this one coming from one of his arms; he couldn’t even be sure which one, or how high—knocked him off his feet, and Keo dropped to the ground. This time, he didn’t have the wherewithal to stick out his hands and perform another gravity-defying tuck-and-roll maneuver. This time, he twisted in the air before slamming back down to earth on his side with a heavy oomph!

  Somehow, through all that, he managed to maintain his grip on the submachine gun. He had no idea how; maybe he just knew that his survival in the next few seconds depended on keeping the H&K with him right where it belonged. It was still there, in his hands, when bright lights found him, nearly blinding him in the process.

  The truck had located him, but it also gave Keo something to shoot at.

  He pulled the trigger at the lights as they grew closer and closer, and didn’t stop until both of the incoming Chevy’s headlights disappeared in a shower of glass and sparks.

  Darkness again!

  For him, anyway. The truck was still moving in the light, and Keo focused on its front grill, firing at it until he was completely empty.

  The technical slammed on its brakes as smoke shot out from its hood and the driver struggled to see through his bullet-riddled windshield. In the next split second, Keo realized that the machine gunner had stopped shooting for some reason.

  What the hell?

  Then he saw why: the Bucky in the back of the technical was struggling with the box of ammo that hung underneath his weapon. The MG was either out of bullets or it was jammed.

  Either/or’s good for me!

  The Chevy had stopped thirty meters or so in front of Keo. That was close enough for him to make out one of the Buckies in the front seats—the passenger, who leaned forward and over the dashboard to get a better look at Keo.

  They locked eyes for about two heartbeats, though it could have been much shorter—or even longer. Keo couldn’t be absolutely sure, because his chest was pounding, sweat pouring down his forehead the way it had Jeremy’s earlier, and fire was ravaging the length of both legs and arms. He had no idea how that was possible, but then again, every single one of his senses were overloaded, and he couldn’t be sure about anything at the moment except the slightly damp ground underneath him and the cold metal wall of the warehouse behind him.

  The MP5SD was impossibly light in his hands when Keo dropped it and drew the Glock. It was easier and faster than trying to reload the submachine gun. At the same time, the Buckies in the front seats kicked open their doors and jumped out of the vehicle.

  But Keo ignored them and focused on the man in the truck bed as he scrambled to open the M249’s cover in order to either reload or fix the jam. Not that it mattered what he was doing or why, only that he had stopped shooting momentarily.

  Momentarily!

  He opened up on the machine gunner with the pistol. The first two rounds went high and the man flinched, but didn’t stop working. The next round bounced off the hood of the Chevy, and the fourth and fifth shots found their target and the man vanished behind the cab.

  A bright light suddenly lit a bullet-riddled section of wall about two feet to the right of Keo’s head as one of the Buckies switched on a flashlight. Keo didn’t need lights to see the Buckies, because they were standing out in the open.

  He shot the man with the flashlight even as the Bucky was racing toward him. The man jerked off his feet and fell on his back. His flashlight went flying out of his hand and landed somewhere nearby.

  Pop-pop-pop! as the third Bucky began shooting from the passenger side of the Chevy. Unlike his comrade, who had charged at Keo, this one was smarter and was using the open door as cover.

  Keo flattened his chest against the ground as a bullet zipped! over his head and pinged! off the building behind him. He was hugging the dirt when the entire world shook as something exploded near the Chevy.

  Now what?

  He looked up and saw the Bucky doing the same thing, staring wide-eyed across the truck when a second explosion lifted the technical about five inches off the ground as something tore into the five-thousand-something pound vehicle from underneath it. The Bucky disappeared in a rain of fire and shrapnel.

  Keo was scrambling to his feet when he heard a familiar voice shouting his name: “Keo!”

  He spun toward the fence and glimpsed a dark figure on the other side waving wildly in his direction.

  Who…?

  “Keo!” the figure shouted again.

  It was female and very familiar—

  Claire? Was that Claire?

  “Get your ass over here!” the figure shouted.

  Keo grinned and ran—though it was probably a fast hobble, at most—toward the fence, when a large shape appeared next to Claire (or, at least, he assumed that was Claire). Keo opened his mouth to scream a warning, but before he could, there were muzzle flashes and the very loud brap-brap-brap of machine-gun fire.

  He almost dived headfirst back to the ground, except the bullets weren’t coming at him but being directed to his left instead. He glanced in that direction even as he ran and saw Buckies coming out of the shadows. They didn’t get very far before they were picked off and went down. One, two—a half-dozen!

  It didn’t take long for ones still standing to get the hint. They turned and fled back toward the buildings for cover. Keo didn’t blame them. He’d just endured an MG firing at him, and he knew exactly what kind of pure terror the bastards were feeling right now.

  The large figure on the other side of the fence (Was that Rudolph or Gholston, or someone else?) was still shooting, pinning the Buckies down while the smaller figure (Claire?) hurried down the length of the fence and waved for him to follow. Keo obeyed, and it didn’t take long before he saw a third shadowed form pulling open a section of the fence not far from where Rita’s and Jeremy’s bodies still lay.

  Rita. Jesus, Rita.

  Keo couldn’t help but stare at what was left of her, brilliantly illuminated by one of the lampposts. Jeremy lay very close to her, one hand still clutching the M4 he’d never gotten the chance to use. They were dead. Shot to pieces and lying in pools of their own blood. Part of him wanted to run back for Rita’s body. After all, they had done it for Chang and Banner, so Rita deserved the same consideration.

  Except Keo didn’t, because he couldn’t. Right now, either Rudolph or Gholston were holding the Bucki
es back with a constant stream of MG fire, but that wasn’t going to last forever.

  I’m sorry, Rita. I’m sorry!

  He ran toward the opening where Claire—and he was sure it was Claire now; he could see her in the light, even though she was wearing black fatigues and boots—was waiting for him with the other man. It was Gholston, pulling a section of the fence open for him. So the one behind the MG farther up the fence was Rudolph.

  “Hurry up!” Claire shouted.

  It seemed to take an eternity (Am I slow or is it just that far?) before he finally reached them and ducked under and through the jagged slit, ignoring the sudden slivers of pain coming from his arms and legs as the sharp edges of the cut links sliced into his skin through his clothes.

  He didn’t stop moving for even a second, even after he was on the other side. If anything, Keo thought he had picked up speed, but it was entirely possible that was all in his mind. He was, after all, hurting from a few dozen cuts and bruises and bullet wounds.

  The brap-brap-brap! finally stopped, and someone shouted, “Rudolph! Let’s go!”

  It was male, so he assumed it was Gholston.

  Keo glanced over his shoulder and saw Claire’s eyes up close. She was on his heels, her face locked in a tight grimace as she reached out and grabbed him.

  Why was she grabbing him? Oh right, because he was falling and didn’t know it.

  And why was he falling? Because he had been shot. Twice.

  “Jesus, Keo, you’re bleeding everywhere,” Claire said. She was struggling to keep him upright, which meant he was in much more pathetic shape than he thought.

  Rudolph appeared on their left side, shouting, “Go now! Chat later!”

  It was a good plan, and Keo summoned as much remaining energy as he had available and ran toward, then through the wall of corn that popped up in front of him out of nowhere. Claire was still next to him, both hands around one of his arms to keep him from falling, while Gholston led the way and Rudolph had slowed down until he was behind them.

  “Keep going!” he shouted at Keo as they exchanged a glance.

  Don’t have to tell me twice, Keo thought, but he was too busy trying to fight for every breath to spit the words out. His lungs were burning and both feet were more tree trunks submerged in concrete than legs. Next to him, Claire was breathing just as hard and struggling to remain upright, too.