Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain

by William Allen

  Sarah jerked at the unexpected noise as Scott began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Just stubbed my toe on a box of irony,” he quipped. Shrugging, Scott got back to business, with an apologetic “I’ll tell you later,” tossed over his shoulder.

  He didn’t waste any QuikClot on the wound, but did bind the jagged entry wound tight enough to temporarily stop the bleeding. That would do, for now. Scott had questions, and he doubted the man would survive the process anyway.

  Unless Scott found out the man was in any way associated with the horde squatting in Lowell. In that case, Scott would make sure his death took a good long time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Scott drove the rattle trap old F-100 pickup slowly up the drive, aware he was under guns from the moment he turned off onto the dirt lane. Sarah sat in the passenger seat, her recently appropriated AR-15 clutched nervously in her lap. She wasn’t nervous, Scott figured. Just burning off some extra adrenaline from the scuffle in those woods.

  From his prior visit, Scott knew where the first guard post sat, and pulled up to a stop well back from the position and shifted the truck into park. Killing the engine, he left the keys in the ignition and cracked the door. Turning at the last minute, he spoke softly to Sarah.

  “If things go wrong, slide over here and get the truck running. Head for home and don’t look back.”

  “I thought these guys were friendly?” she asked, her voice tinged with a note of concern.

  “The Porters are fine folks, and Max seems to be a reliable scoundrel, but who knows what might have happened since Bruce and I visited. Always best to have a Plan B, you know.”

  “Well, my Plan B is to come after you, just so you know,” Sarah retorted, and Scott gave her a nod. She wouldn’t run, even if the cost was her life.

  Easing out of the truck cab, Scott left his rifle on the seat and kept his hands in plain sight as he ambled closer to the men he knew waited in the shadow of the tall myrtle bush beside the dirt road.

  “That’s far enough, stranger,” the expected voice rang out. “This here’s private property, and we aren’t expecting guests. Best you just turn around, go back to your woman and find somewhere else to spend the night.”

  The man sounded edgy, but not too aggressive. Probably a good sign, Scott mused.

  “Please let Jeb Porter and Max Scofield know that Scott Keller is here. I come bearing news, and a warning.”

  “Is that some kind of threat, mister?”

  “No, sir. Jeb and Max know me. I was just here the other day with Bruce Collins and a team from the Arkansas National Guard. No, I’m no threat, but the men I killed trying to scout your defenses, well, I doubt they were here to deliver Candygrams.”

  As he was speaking, Scott watched as one of the men from the guard post stuck his head out and hustled closer, his rifle held across his body. The man was in his mid-fifties, Scott guessed, with a slender build, medium height, and dressed more in farmer attire of overalls and a shapeless straw hat than anything associated with a motorcycle gang. He seemed to start as he got a better look at Scott, and then he stopped, shouting over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Buddy, it’s him. Get the boys to open the gate,” he called, then turned to focus on Scott.

  “Sorry, sir, didn’t recognize you at first. You mind if I catch a ride with you and the lady? It’ll be faster that way.”

  “Sure. That’s fine. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name when I was here the other day.”

  “Lem. L-E-M. Lem Brewster.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lem,” Scott replied, quickly shaking the proffered hand before continuing, “I hate to rush things, but Sarah managed to take one of these scouts alive, but he’s not long for the world. Best you get what info from him you can, while he’s still breathing.”

  Lem seemed to freeze as he processed this news.

  “You sure they were aiming to attack us, Mr. Keller? I mean, not just a group of stragglers?”

  Scott gave him a wolfish grin before answering.

  “Well, since I listened while they talked. Really poor noise discipline. When they got to how they wanted to divvy up the womenfolk when they hit your compound tonight, I figured Jeb and Max would be a mite bit concerned.”

  “Shit, I reckon. Let’s get going then. We gotta get the men up and ready.”

  With that, Lem led the way back to the truck and took a peek in the truck bed before approaching the door. He saw the five corpses stacked up like stiffening fence posts and the sixth, trussed up and still mumbling weak curses, along with the two dirt bikes strapped in with bungee cord.

  “All them were in the woods? And just the two of you took them out? How’d ya’ll manage that?”

  “Took ‘em two at a time,” Scott replied evenly. Then he seemed to brighten as he made introductions.

  “Lem Brewster, meet Sarah Trimble. Sarah, Lem.”

  “A pleasure to meet you ma’am,” Lem said in a distracted tone, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  Sliding over to allow Lem entry, Sarah shot a questioning glance at Scott, who nodded along. So far, so good.

  By this time, the gate was already open, and Scott followed Lem’s directions as the truck crept through the row of storage containers and colorful tents that Scott remembered from his last visit. Here and there, he saw children, and more than a few women, peeking out to catch sight of the stranger truck, but nobody seemed upset or alarmed by their arrival.

  Once again, Scott found himself ushered to the old barn that seemed to be the headquarters for this particular group of survivors. Except this time, instead of just Max or Jeb, Scot saw both men sitting out in the shade of the barn along with an older woman with her gray hair tied back in braids. All three appeared to be occupied shelling peas, from what Scott could tell, and the trio simultaneously, in what looked like a carefully choreographed maneuver, set their pots aside as the truck came to a halt a good forty feet from the seated folks.

  Lem, bolting out of the passenger side, approached the trio at a rapid pace at odds with his years and began talking and gesturing. Scott killed the truck again and risked a glance over at Sarah. The young woman was looking back at the way they came, examining the colorful array of tents.

  “Looks like something out of a fairy tale,” she commented absently. “I wonder where they came from?”

  “Don’t know,” Scott replied. “You can ask. Looks like we have a welcoming committee headed this way.”

  Indeed, all three men and the lady were walking toward the halted truck now. When Scott got out of the truck, he saw Max’s face relax in recognition and he released a sign of relief. He didn’t want to bull his way in here, but clearly the information he brought needed to be shared.

  “Good to see you again, Scott,” Jeb said, and gestured to his right, “this is my wife, Margaret Porter, but she goes by Marge. Max and Lem, you’ve already met.”

  “Yes, sir. And this is Sarah Trimble. She’s one of our defense force members. Sorry to show up unannounced, but we got trouble. All kinds of trouble.”

  “Lem mentioned something of that,” Max said carefully, trying to be subtle as he joined the conversation. “Said you potted some scouts looking to eyeball our perimeter. That them?”

  “Yes, sir. One of them was still breathing when we threw him in the back. Figured you might want to have a word with him,” Scott explained.

  “Hmmm. Shorty, get out here, please.”

  Max didn’t raise his voice above his normal speaking tone, but immediately, a tall young man in his late twenties can running from inside the barn. He was well over six and a half feet tall and looked like a bean pole, but when Max gestured, the stork-like man snatched up the injured man from the truck bed like someone might pick up a bale of hay.

  “Patch him up a mite,” Max said, “but don’t waste anything. He just needs to be able to answer a few questions. Then take him out back to the old smokehouse.”

  Turning to Scott, he co
ntinued.

  “Where’d you run into these guys?”

  “Sarah and I were headed over here to ask a favor, and I saw where a group on foot entered the trees about two miles up the road,” Scott explained. “Since I know there’s nothing much out this way but state land and the Porter farm, I decided to stop and take a look. I trailed them into the trees and heard two of the men talking about their plans. Not in any detail, but jawing over splitting up the spoils. If you know what I mean. Talked about an attack tonight, but I don’t know if there’s more of them or not.”

  “We’ll find out,” Max pronounced, his voice suddenly going cold. “Where’d you get the truck?”

  “Backtracked these guys to where they had it stashed,” Scott said. “Drove it over close enough to load the bodies, our bikes and the gear we salvaged.”

  “What was the favor?” Jeb asked, his lined face creased with concern. “If what you said is correct, we already owe you a big one.”

  “Well, here’s the funny thing,” Scott began, and stepped over to the side of the truck again. “I was going to ask Max if he had any trophies I could borrow. But lo and behold, I already got what I was looking for.”

  With his pronouncement, reached into the bed of the truck and retrieved the blood-splattered sleeveless denim jacket the wounded man had first been wearing. Written in Old English style script, with letters four inches tall, was the logo LOS LOBOS over the stylized image of a snarling wolf. Arrayed around the bloody and worn jacket, Scott could make out various other patches and insignias.

  “You needed a set of colors for something?” Max asked, not sure if he understood correctly.

  “Yes, and before you get all defensive, I wouldn’t dream of asking for one of your guys to sacrifice their colors. No, I was specifically looking for a jacket with a name other than the Copperheads. You know, like a keepsake. Or a souvenir.”

  Max laughed, a low and bitter bark. “Or evidence of wrongdoing, perhaps? A trophy? No, we got nothing like that laying around. This jacket, however, tells me a lot about the man we are about to question.”

  Sarah, looking interested for the first time, piped up with a question.

  “Really, you know what all that stuff means?”

  “Yeah, I do. We aren’t members of the same club, but some things are common across the culture,” Max replied, sounding more like a college professor than the chapter president of an outlaw biker gang, Scott thought.

  “For example, even though I’ve never seen him before, I can tell you a little about him. This man’s patches lead me to believe he is sergeant-at-arms for his chapter, which is based out of Little Rock. This patch,” Max declared, gesturing to one of the smaller stitched-on adornments, “indicates he has served time for violent crimes committed on behalf of the brotherhood, and this one,” he continued, “shows he has also been employed as a collection agent for the MC.”

  Looking around and seeing Scott was the only one following that last comment, Max explained, “He was a legbreaker and enforcer for their drug dealing business. Very nasty characters, these Lobos. And this man, whoever he is, is a very bad man. A real hardcase.”

  “So, you think you can get any useful intel out of him?” Sarah asked, all business.

  Max gave her a calculating look before replying with his own questions.

  “What? You volunteering to help?”

  Sarah smiled, and Scott knew it was a very dangerous smile. He’d seen it before, when they’d questioned Walter. At the time, he wasn’t sure if he could actually follow through with torturing the man. Now, after seeing the operation this Liberation Army was running in Lowell, Scott knew he would never have that problem again.

  “Folks, there’s also something else I need to mention,” Scott said, his voice going dead in a way that clearly caught Max’s attention. “I don’t know where these particular bottom feeders came from, but there’s a chance these men might be with the group Bruce and I came to warn ya’ll about last time we were here.”

  “You found them?” Jeb asked, his voice full of apprehension.

  “Yes, sir. Just the other day. A group of us tracked them to their headquarters. One of them, at least. It was…” Scott paused, not sure how to explain. How do you describe the indescribable?

  “They’ve set up at one of the old industrial parks in Lowell. We went in with scouting teams, and I got a pretty good look at most of the ones coming and going. I was trying to think how to explain, because what we saw was so terrible. Best count we could get was around twenty-three hundred. Centered around a gang out of Jefferson City, but they’ve recruited all over the state of Missouri before heading south. Think locusts, with a taste for human flesh and insane depravity.”

  “Oh, my lord,” Marge all but whimpered, but her face was set in stone. “Are they coming here?”

  “We don’t know. That’s what we need to find out, and fast,” Sarah replied, not unkindly. Whatever her concerns about meeting with a gang of outlaw bikers, she seemed to recognize these were just people, trying to survive. That the women she saw at the farm, and in the camp, didn’t appear to be chained up or abused probably had a lot to do with her attitude.

  “Where’s the Guard in all this? I thought they would be here with you?” Jeb challenged.

  “The National Guard has other issues to deal with right now,” Scott replied, perhaps more sharply than he intended. “Look, we strongly suspect there’s a second camp, but this one seems to have real paramilitary support. Homeland Security flavored support.”

  “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?” Max queried.

  “Yeah. You guys know about Parmeyer Farms, right?” Scott replied, forcing his tone to change to a more neutral tone.

  “Sure, we got some extra chickens from there, so we could get more hens laying,” Jeb replied, and his eyes went wide with realization. “Something happened to George?”

  Scott looked up, searching the sky, before replying this time.

  “Mr. Salazar is dead, as are most of the folks sheltering at the farm. They were attacked, twice, and the second time, they used drones. We think they used Hellfire missiles. Captain Devayne and a large chunk of the Guard were hit, as well. Not sure if the Captain made it. My scouts and I were able to confirm the force didn’t originate from the location in Lowell. We were onsite when the attacks went down.”

  Scott gave a short sigh and continued. “So, what’s left of the Guard is focused on locating and assaulting this other camp. That’s leaves us shorthanded in dealing with the attacks coming out of Lowell. What they lack in military gear and training, they make up for in viciousness and numbers.”

  “When you say us, Scott, just how many men do you have fighting this group of scum?” Jeb wondered.

  “Counting the two of us,” Scott gestured to Sarah, “we have seven at the moment.”

  “Oh, lord,” Marge muttered, “this is bad, isn’t it?”

  “Well, we did manage to take out two buses and about eighty of them today, dead and wounded,” Sarah replied darkly. “So, we only need to do that forty or fifty more times.”

  “Well, let’s go see what this jackass has to say first,” Max interrupted, getting back to the business at hand.

  “You want my help?” Sarah offered again.

  “Nah, we got this,” Scott told her and Max gave him a curious look. He just returned his look and started unbuttoning his shirt and removing his pistol belt.

  “What you planning, big boy? You got something you planning on scaring him with?” Max joked.

  Scott shook his head. “Don’t want to get any more blood on my shirt,” he replied honestly as he handed the bundle to Sarah. “While I’m busy, came you look through those other weapons? See if there’s anything we can use?”

  “On it,” she replied.

  Max was eyeing Scott, as if sizing up the other man. He’d done this before, the first time they’d met. Scott didn’t say a word as he walked with the older man into the shade of the barn.

/>   “Something’s changed about you, man,” he finally said, hesitation in his voice. “When you came by before, you still had that cop vibe going, you know? Now, it’s like you’ve peeled that persona back, or something.”

  Scott thought about that for a few minutes as they walked out the back of the barn through another set of large sliding wooden doors and approached a small building that took the younger man a moment to recognize. It was a smokehouse.

  “You’ve heard about some people who change their lives after having a visitation from the Lord? Or an angel comes to them when they are on the operating table, and suddenly they wake up all sweet and Jesus-y?”

  “Jesus-y? Is that even a word? Like Paul on the road to Damascus? Is that what you mean?” Max speculated, not sure where Scott was going with his explanation.

  Scott snapped his fingers. “Exactly. So a heavenly intervention can change someone’s entire way of thinking. Their soul, if you will. With me so far?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not getting an angelic vibe off you now, brother, if you get my drift. You are going to help with this guy, aren’t you?”

  Scott grunted. After a second, he made his answer.

  “At that camp, we had to hold our position and observe for the better part of two days, Max.” He went on, with emphasis. “Two fucking days. If God can appeal to our better selves, with angels and shit, what do you think watching Satan at work for that long did to my soul?”

  Max looked over to see if Scott was making some kind of joke, but the expression on the other man’s face made the aging outlaw biker swallow. Dressed in a dingy white wifebeater tee shirt and faded jeans, his beard sprouting in full growth and the back of his left hand still stained with blood, at first glance, Scott looked more like a Skid Row bum than anything else.

  Except his eyes. Scott’s eyes blazed with such a ferocious intensity that the hairs on the back of Max’s neck stood up.

  “After what we saw, after what we forced ourselves to witness, Max, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do to kill every single fucking one of those diseased animals,” Scott continued. “So yeah, I’ll go gut this guy like a trout, and cut off his balls and feed them to him, if that’s what we need to do. Maybe he’s part of this, and maybe he’s not. But God in heaven have mercy on him if he is, because I most assuredly will not.”