“You know I have three kids, right? While I would like to survive the night, I would also very much like it for them to do so, too.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that it might be easier to get back in the truck and drive across the bridge to Alabama…or maybe back to Dauphin Island or Bayou La Batre. Somewhere where the laws are functional and the people aren’t actively trying to kill us. You know, like here.”
“They aren’t trying to kill us here yet. Aside from Jones and Johnson, who seemed to be okay with it, no one else knows about him.” I nodded to Frank. “By the way, I am not cleaning that up.”
“And this would be a great time for us to leave, while they are still in that state.”
“It would also be a great time to hit the assholes here and install you as the leader of this island, where laws also still apply…and will even more so, once we get rid of the people who would corrupt them while your uncle is gone.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
George shrugged. “What happens when my uncle returns? He and my father didn’t part under very good terms, he might not be happy to see me.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Who knows? We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. He may never show back up again—you saw that Frank obviously thought he wasn’t coming back, or he wouldn’t have been taking the liberties he was. Besides, I want to stay around and meet your uncle. If I look like this guy who was friends with an Agent—i.e., a company guy—your uncle, as upper management in that same company, might have some information on who I am. Hell, maybe he even knows me. Like I said—”
“You’re not dying without knowing who you are.”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
George sighed and seemed to slump a little. “Okay, so what’s the plan if we stay here?”
“The first thing is to nip any of Frank’s assholes in the bud, so fewer assholes come after us tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever they decide to make their play. If we get all of them at the start, we don’t have to worry about them later.”
“Which means we…”
“We go to Room 702, tell them how it’s going to be, and kill everyone who disagrees.”
“Do you always have to solve your problems with violence?”
“In the world I woke up to? Yeah, it seems like it. Talk was great in the old world—before everything worthwhile got nuked—but people just seem to respond better to violence now. I’ve also found that people aren’t as likely to try to kill me if they’re dead.”
“So why don’t you install yourself as the new boss?”
“That’s not my job. You’re the relative of the bigwig; I’m not. It therefore falls to you to be the new boss. After I kill all the assholes downstairs, no one’s going to want to work for me anyway. I’ll make a great enforcer and bodyguard for you—for the time being, anyway—but people will be too afraid of me to work well for me. That’s my plan, anyway.”
“For the time being?”
“Until you are safely installed. After that, I will follow up any leads I can find to figure out who I am.” I shrugged. “I only promised to help get you here; I never promised to stay. Now, stop stalling. Are you in or out?”
George contemplated a couple of moments, then straightened his back and stood a little taller. “I’m in. What do you need from me?”
“Stay behind me, don’t get hit by any stray bullets, and shoot anyone that looks like he’s going to shoot me.”
“I can do that.”
“Good. Follow me then.” I reached over Frank’s puddle to grab his shirt collar and began dragging him to the door, but then looked back at the mess it was making.
“I know,” George said, before I could speak. “You’re not cleaning that up.”
“Nope. The real first order of business for you is to find the cleaning crew and get that cleaned up, so your kids can move up here where they can be better protected.”
“I can clean that up.”
“RHIP. You’re not cleaning it up either.”
“RHIP?”
“Rank hath its privileges. The big boss doesn’t clean up piss or blood. That’s what you have minions for.”
“I get minions?” George asked. “I’m liking this job more and more all the time.”
“One thing, though?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not your minion. I’m not cleaning that up.”
“I think we’ve established that.”
“Okay, just checking. Let’s go then.” I continued dragging Frank out the door, then down the stairs, the back of his heels thumping down them as we went. It wouldn’t have been hard to find where the men were; even with the door closed, the sounds of their partying could be heard in the stairwell. It wasn’t that the soundproofing was bad—they were just that loud.
We reached 702, and I pulled out one of my pistols and adjusted my grip on Frank’s collar before motioning George to open the door.
He tried the handle. “It’s locked.”
“Of course it is.” I shook my head. “See? Violence is needed, more often than not.”
I let Frank’s head drop onto the concrete walkway with a solid thwack! I didn’t figure he cared anymore, and neither did I. Then I squared up and kicked in the door. Inside was a hallway, leading to a large room full of people. The furniture had been pushed back to the walls, leaving the space open. Several kegs of beer were in the middle of the room, and most of the people either had a beer in their hand, were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, or both.
“Stay here,” I said to George as I grabbed Frank’s collar again and pulled him into 702. Between the music and people yelling to be heard over it, no one noticed me kicking the door in and dragging a dead body into the party.
It looked like a good party.
More violence was required, so I dropped Frank again, drew my pistol, and fired a round into the ceiling. As George’s new room was 801, I wasn’t worried about putting a hole in his floor…or anything that might drain through it.
The yelling stopped as everyone turned to look at me, and the music stopped a second or two later.
“Hi, Everyone,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know that there’s been a change of management.” I nodded back over my shoulder. “George Boudreaux is here to take over until his uncle gets back from his trip. Frank here—” I indicated him with a kick, “—had issues with the change of management. I was hoping to avoid any further unpleasantness, but heard that some of you might be opposed to such a change.”
“And who the fuck do you think you are?” asked a large, hairy man as he set his beer down. He looked a lot like Frank, and I could see he was going to be a problem. He jumped to the top of my target list.
“People call me Fred,” I replied. “Aside from that, I’m one of George’s friends, and someone who would like to see a stress-free shift of power.”
“What about him?” a second tough asked, pointing to Frank.
“I can assure you,” I said, “Frank isn’t feeling any stress at the moment. Now, I’m hoping that everyone will play nicely and go along with this.”
“Or what?” asked the first guy. I noticed his hand had gone behind his back.
I fired, and a round went through his forehead. His head snapped back, and he collapsed, dropping the pistol he’d drawn.
“Or that is what is going to happen.” I sighed theatrically. “Look, I’m hoping we can all just get along.”
“And if we can’t?”
“My first thought would be to kill you, but Mr. Boudreaux says I need less violence in my life. Because of that, I am willing to give anyone who wants to leave a 30-minute head start. You’ll have 30 minutes to grab any of your things and get off the island. Anyone who is still here in 30 minutes had better be willing to follow Mr. Boudreaux’s orders, or we’re going to have issues. The kind where one of us—probably you—gets a terminal case of lead poisoning.” I smiled. “Now,
would anyone like to take me up on my generous offer of letting you leave before things get ugly?”
A few hands went up. After a couple seconds of looking around, a couple more went up.
“Okay, you’re free to go. As long as you don’t draw your weapons, you can even take them with you.” I nodded toward the door. “Go ahead; get out of here. George, if any of them draw their weapons, shoot them.”
“I intend to,” George said from behind me.
Six people nervously walked to the door and out. I could hear at least a couple of them break into a run once they were clear.
“Okay, that leaves you folks,” I said, looking around the room. About 9 people remained—six men and three women. “Are any of you still here because you would like to continue in the employ of Mr. Boudreaux?”
Five hands went up.
“Welcome to the new and improved management team,” I said. “Please put your weapons on the floor—carefully!—and go out to the hallway outside. I’ll be with you shortly.”
Four of them did so, but one tried to take me. I shot him twice, but that set the room into motion as the rest of the thugs all went for their guns. I dove to the side as the first man fired, and shot him in the chest. From my spot on the floor, I hit several more, and George tagged at least two from the doorway.
Seeing no movement, I got to my feet. At least two of the people who’d wanted to join our team were dead. Oops.
“Fuck…you…” said the second man who’d spoken. He had two rounds through the chest and had collapsed into a sitting position against a couch. “You can’t kill us…all. We’ve got…friends. They’ll get…revenge…” I shot him once through the head. The time for threats was over.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and dove to the side, but wasn’t fast enough. My right leg burned as the round went through the meat of my thigh.
I hit the ground and rolled as he fired twice more. Both rounds went over me as my pistol came around and the sights lined up on him. It wasn’t a “him,” though, it was a “her,” and I shot her twice in the chest. One of the rounds passed through her and shattered the glass door behind her onto the balcony, the falling glass coating her dead body as she collapsed.
“Fuck!” I yelled as the pain hit my leg.
I pulled myself to my feet and put new magazines into my pistols. “If you’re with me, raise your hand.” Two hands went up. I limped around the room and put a bullet into the rest of the people’s heads, just to be sure, then spun as best I could to the doorway as footsteps sounded outside.
“You in the room, it’s me, Johnson!” a voice said.
“Easy, George,” I said. His pistol was up, pointed at the doorway, and his eyes were huge. Johnson was pretty smart—George probably would have shot him. “C’mon in,” I added a little louder.
“One of your kids just got snatched!” Johnson exclaimed as he came around the corner.
“What?” George asked. “By who?”
“By one of these guys’ friends, I suspect,” Johnson said, indicating the bodies scattered throughout the room.
“Shit,” I said as I hobbled to the door. “Where’d he go?” I asked, more to the point.
“He jumped in a car and is headed out.”
I raced out the door and looked over the railing into the parking lot, with Johnson and George right behind me. “Which direction?” I asked.
“He’s headed toward the bridge,” Johnson said, pointing to the north. “There! The green Volkswagen!”
I looked and saw the convertible blow through a stop sign then race off toward the bridge. It went behind a stand of palm trees, then it broke into the clear, a long way off. There was a man driving, and I could see a girl in the back seat. Damn it, I liked Alice. “Give me your rifle,” I said, the pain in my leg forgotten as the adrenaline kicked in again.
“Shit,” Johnson said. “That’s just a waste of damn ammo. You can’t hit him from here.”
“Give me the gun,” I repeated. I could see another patch of palm trees ahead of the man, and knew if he made it to that cover, he’d be home-free to the bridge. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew I could hit him, but I needed to shoot now.
“Shit,” Johnson said. “That’s a long damn shot, and you’re just as likely to hit the girl. Ain’t never going to happen.”
“Give me…the fucking gun…now!” Something in the way I said the last word seemed to move him—a tone of command, perhaps—and he handed me the rifle.
I gave it a quick glance. AR-15 clone, probably chambered in either a .223 or NATO 5.56 round. Whatever NATO was. But it was a light round, and more easily affected by the wind.
With a grunt, I put the rifle to my shoulder. It felt right, as if I’d done this before. A lot. Maybe I’d been a soldier before the war. I sighted on the fleeing man. The palm leaves weren’t moving near him, so no wind. That would help.
I led him as I’d been taught…taught? I had been a soldier!...took a breath and, as I let it out, slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle fired, surprising me so much I almost dropped it, but somehow I held onto it long enough.
“Told you it was too far,” Johnson said as the car streaked toward the bridge.
“Nope,” I said. “He should have dodged.” The words had no sooner come out of my mouth, then the man pitched forward onto the steering wheel. The car lost speed, then swerved to the right and slammed into a palm tree.
“Well, I’ll be fu—”
“Not by me you won’t,” I replied, starting toward the stairs. “We need to go quickly,” I added. “Not sure I killed him, and we don’t want him to get away.”
George and Johnson ran to where the car rested against the tree, just ten feet shy of the start of the bridge. I hobbled as best I could, and got there to find George hugging Alice. The round had taken the kidnapper through the spine, just where it entered his head. He never knew what hit him and was probably dead before the car hit the tree.
“Dayum,” Johnson said. “That was one hell of a shot. A head shot from that distance? I would have said it couldn’t be done.”
“Me, too,” I muttered. I’d been aiming lower—between his shoulder blades—to get a center of mass hit. Even with all that, to hit a moving target that far away…it was still a pretty nice shot. Maybe I’d been some sort of sniper.
“Maybe Jones was right about you,” Johnson asked. “Maybe you were one of those company people. If nothing else, you must have been a sniper or something in the army.”
“Maybe,” I said with a nod. “Either way, though, I don’t remember doing it.”
“Well, you sure shot the shit out of him.”
“Yep.”
There was a tapping on my back, and I turned to find Alice looking up at me, her eyes huge. “Thank you for saving me, Mr. Fred,” she said. “Daddy says he’s ready for me to have that pistol training you promised me, but never did.”
There’s never enough time to do everything you want to in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
The thugs, when they came that night, were very good. Not professional grade, but very good for amateurs. I had napped during the time between Alice’s rescue and when everyone else went to bed, besides getting my leg wound treated, and I was—if not 100%—at least in the upper 80s.
Two people were lowered from the roof at the same time someone opened the door to the suite of rooms. While I couldn’t see the front door from my vantage point in the coat closet, I could easily see the man and woman on the back porch through the sliding glass door. Neither had night vision gear on, but the moon was full and bright, and it gave the scene enough light for them to see. Not enough to see me through the missing two slats of the closet door, but more than enough to see into the room.
They checked the door—it was locked—then waited with their pistols drawn. Two men came into view from the hallway by the front door. I suspected there would be at least one more there, maybe two, as lookouts
. It’s what I would have done, anyway.
The two from the front door both had night vision goggles on, and one stood at the entranceway to the main room, while the other crossed to the sliding glass door onto the balcony. That was my cue, and I aimed, closed my eyes, and fired at the man on overwatch.
I opened them to find him slumping, while the man at the glass door spun around. The two people on the porch were pointing in my general direction, but the other thug with NVGs on had his back to them and couldn’t see what they were doing. They couldn’t shoot at me, as he was between us.
As the man’s eyes searched the condo, I took care of that problem by shooting him while he was looking at the other side of the room.
He slumped, giving the two on the porch a line of fire into my position, but I was already in motion as they began firing, and I heard the sounds of glass shattering and rounds hit the walls behind me as I dove through the hole I’d made in the closet wall leading to the second bedroom. I crawled to the door and raised my pistol as one of the men walked into the main room. He quickly scanned it once, then moved toward the closet door as his partner walked in from the porch.
She stopped to look around and had a split second to see me and draw in a breath to warn her partner before I shot her in the chest. She fell, and I was up and back to the hole in the wall into the closet as the man spun, trying to find out what had killed her. I shot him from about two feet away, close enough to see his blood and brains spray out, even in the dark.
“What’s going on?” a voice said from the hallway. “Did you get ‘em?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Steve?” the voice asked. “Richard? Jackson? Are they dead?” He paused. “Joan?”
“They’re all right here,” I replied in a stage whisper. “Why don’t you come in and get them?”
“But…argh!”
I could hear what sounded like a body hitting the floor.
“Is it safe to come in?” a man’s voice asked from the door.
“Depends on who you are,” I replied, moving quickly to the bedroom door in case the person was trying to figure out where I was.
Don't Call Me Ishmael Page 12
