“Your hands are shaking.”
“He hasn’t eaten for three days,” Courtney reminded her.
“Well, I’ll get him a bowl, but you have to eat, too. You haven’t eaten a full meal since… well, come on, you two.”
I noticed the woman hadn’t finished the thought, and I appreciated it. By the smell of things, something with tomato and basil was being cooked. Walking in behind her, I squeezed past a young boy who was spooning noodles into a bowl while the ruddy-faced woman tipped a ladle full of spaghetti sauce on top, making two quick bowls.
“Sebastian, this is Dick and Courtney. They’re guests of the O’Sullivans.”
I looked at the kid and realized the connection immediately. A son or close nephew. Freckles dotted his face, and his red hair was cropped close to his skull.
“Pleasedtomeetcha,” he said all in one word, handing us bowls.
“Hey,” Courtney said.
I just smiled. He was about Pauly’s age. I gave him a nod and solemnly, he gave me a nod in return.
“Now, head out to the porch to eat. I’ll have the next shift in here in moments, and I don’t have room for you to lollygag about.” She made a shooing movement, flicking sauce with every hand gesture.
We fled the kitchen, and as we got to the door, I asked, “Who was that?”
“Beth, one of the neighbors. I guess she takes care of most of the baking and cooking. Just took over. I think Steve is scared of her.”
I looked at a random fleck of red staining my shirt and used my thumb to wipe it up, then I licked it off. Sauce.
“I can see how that happened,” I said. “If this is half as good as it smells…”
We sat down on a long bench made out of 2x8s that ran along the front porch of the house on either side of the doors. We weren’t the only ones eating out there; there were several other men, women, and children. Many of the men and one of the ladies wore the sheriff’s department uniform. A few months into the collapse of the world, and there were still cops in clean uniforms. It amazed me. I dug in and found that the food tasted fantastic.
I tried not to lick the bowl clean when I was done, but my stomach was growling. I didn’t think I’d ever had anything that good in my life. I looked up to see Courtney smiling for the first time. Outright smiling, as I cleaned up the bowl.
“I told you, she took over.”
“I thought it was because of her personality,” I said, wiping my mouth with a free hand.
“That was the original reason, I was told,” she said, her face going blank again.
“You finish that up,” I said pointing to the bowl.
“I’m not hungry.”
“If you want to kill the guys who attacked and hurt so many, you’re going to need your strength.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she held the bowl up to her mouth, almost gagging as she shoveled the pasta and sauce in. She didn’t lick the bowl, but after a couple attempts to hold the food down, she calmed and stood, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You want some payback?” I asked her.
She nodded, wiping at her eyes.
“Let's go turn these in and check out the defenses of this place.”
37
I didn’t find Daniel Wright in the bunker under the barn, nor at the gate. The deputies at the gate told us that he was walking the perimeter. A forty-acre fenced-in perimeter. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough yet to walk it all, but I was going to try.
“I need to stop a second,” Courtney said, pulling a canteen out and taking a drink before handing it to me.
I took a drink myself, washing down the last of the taste of the pasta, and gave it back. I checked on the action of the AR-15, one of the farm’s standard guns. I’d taken it right from the front room where the safes were. I was told they were for the defense of the farm, so I made sure to get one and a couple of mags. I found out that if I didn’t tie my sweatpants tightly, the mags pulled the sweats off my ass, so I carried a spare one in my left hand.
“Dick, I was wondering…”
“Yeah?”
“How long… I mean… you and Mary. I know she’s not dead like Luis, but how long did it hurt? When you two split.”
There were no secrets between us, and the once fierce woman was now a shadow of what she’d sounded like when I’d first met her.
“It still hurts, but every day I accept it a little more. I don’t want to, I want her to be right here right now… but it doesn’t feel like somebody sitting on my chest as much, as time passes.”
She leaned forward, letting her head rest on my shoulder for a moment. I was about to pull her close for comfort, but she already was moving back.
“I love him still,” she said.
“I know. That’s why we’re going to kill the fuckers who attacked us, and bust open the FEMA camp.”
“You were out of it, but we were barely able to hold them off,” Courtney said. “I had to leave your side to fight.”
We started walking the fence line, and I could see a figure in the distance.
“How did they come at this place?” I asked her.
“Up to the main gate. Asked questions first, then made demands. Steve made a show of force, and they backed off, only to hit us later on with no warning.”
“Big guns, or all small arms?”
“Bigger than a SAW?” she asked.
“Yeah, RPGs, grenades, mortars or heavy machine guns like .50 cals?”
She shivered.
“No, just guns.”
That made me think of my KSG, and I wondered where my old friend had gone. Probably in a weapons locker somewhere, taken by the DHS. I nodded to her and kept going slowly. The figure saw us and waved. I waved back, and he started walking our way.
“That’s probably him,” I said.
“I think it is,” Courtney said. “Looks like the guy who came upstairs to check on Steve a few times and talk about stuff.”
The man’s uniform wasn’t clean and spit shined like the other deputies I’d seen, and there was a dried fleck of blood on his collar. He didn’t look like he had been shot, so it must have been from someone else, I reasoned.
“Daniel Wright?” I asked.
“That’s me. You’re Dick and Courtney?” He offered me his hand.
I shook and nodded.
“Yeah, Steve asked me to talk to you. See if I can think of some ways of setting up more defensive measures.”
He gave me a long look and then nodded. “Let's find somewhere in the shade, and I’ll sketch things out for you.”
The farmhouse, barn, and wells were in the front third of a forty-acre parcel. It was planted in hay and Sorghum currently, and was almost utterly flat. Much of the surrounding land was as well, which could be a double-edged sword. We could see them coming from a long way off, but they could rain in shells from a long way off. Truth be told, that was my biggest worry, them finding our range and dropping artillery on us from afar. It’d be tough to miss, depending on if they had the right equipment and experience. If they had NATO troops with them, I didn’t doubt they’d have the experience.
So, instead of seeing how to fortify it, I started looking at how to booby trap the ways in and out. Would they roll straight up the road again, or come across the country? I was worn out from the walk and still weak from my ordeal, so I headed upstairs to rest, sleep, and consider the problem before me. Before laying down, I looked out of the windows. The view was almost breathtaking: food, glorious food, planted as far as the eye could see. Corn, grains, grass for livestock—if there were any left in the area— and probably no way to harvest any of it.
That was what burned me. Why were they interring people at the camps, when they could have them out here, helping and building a community? What kind of work were they forcing them to do, besides gardening and clean up? Courtney had mentioned something about electrical components, but the expectations for the workers was very hard to meet, and it’d resulted in some harsh punishments. T
he more I heard about the camp, the more I wanted to bust it wide open.
From what I’d found out during my talk with Wright, the camp had forty DHS goons there fulltime. The sheriffs had made up thirty-five men, for an internal police force before they’d left with their families, and they guessed there were at least two hundred citizens left behind. What we didn’t know, was the numbers of the NATO force that had swept in to support them.
“So you have a plan?” Courtney asked, watching me from the doorway.
“Kill them, run them off. Haven’t worked the details out yet. Just a rough outline.”
“Tell me,” she said.
I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, and she joined me, plopping into the chair close to the bed.
“Two parts. Booby trap any entrances and exits they might use, or make it impassable for their heavy vehicles. The second part, sabotage their trucks and supply chain. Then, depending on what fate forces us to do, we’ll either defend here, or we’ll try to push them out first. The advantage is theirs, unless we come up with some nasty surprises.”
I turned as I heard footsteps and saw Mel standing in the doorway. I smiled and motioned for her to come in.
“My dad’s sleeping again. Mom was wondering what you thought?”
“Come in and sit down, I’ll fill you in.”
I told her what I’d started telling Courtney so far.
“So, like you did at the trap house in Chicago?” she asked.
“Trap house?” Courtney asked.
“You weren’t with us yet,” Mel explained. “Dick rigged this apartment building to blow up, tricked the bad guys inside. Locked them in, rode a slide out of it, and blew it up before they could come out.”
“What?!” Courtney looked at me with wide eyes.
“It wasn’t as much fun as she’s making out. But yeah, it was designed to get them all inside, draw them into one spot, then pick them off or slow them down one by one, and commence termination procedures.”
“You blew them up?” Courtney asked.
“Well, yeah. This is farm country. And unless we’re in an organic farming community, all the materials I need are right here.”
“But can it go through the armor of those Hummers?” Courtney asked.
“If I can flip it, it won’t matter much. It’ll be unable to function. I thought I heard only a couple of vehicles were armored, though.”
“We don’t know what the NATO people have,” Mel reminded me.
“That’s true, but I doubt they’re driving a ton of troop carriers with a turret.”
“One of them had a big gun on a turret,” Mel said.
“Yeah, and when we find something like that, we’ll have to take it out quick before—”
“I told him he needed to rest,” I could hear Doc’s voice as an acrid smell assaulted my nose.
Smelling salts. I opened my eyes to see several people hovering over me.
“Hey,” I said, pulling myself into a sitting position.
“You’re either the most stubborn man alive, or one of the most ignorant,” Doc said, a little red-faced.
I noticed his hands were shaking and he was huffing like he was out of breath.
“Did you run over here?” I asked him.
“Yes, I had to stop my lunch and run—”
“Doc,” I said softly, “you’ll work yourself into a heart attack. You’re more important around here than I am. Please remember that.”
I could see Jamie at the outer edges of the throng of people with Mel kneeling next to Courtney, who was sitting Indian style on the floor next to me. The rest consisted of Wright and a few deputies, probably responding to the call as if it were everyday America and they were doubling as medics, too.
“I’m not going to let an idiot like you die after I used all that medicine on getting you better. Steve says you’re to be… I mean…” the doc sputtered. “They need you to help them… to set up…”
“I know, Doc,” I said, throwing him a lifeline.
“They need him for what?” a red-faced deputy asked, probably in his mid-twenties.
“To teach us how to defend against the government agents,” Soams told him.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “Why would we need an old junky? If we have the equipment and manpower to raid a government camp to rescue him, we can definitely take care of ourselves here.”
“It’s not that easy,” I told him. “Mortars or field artillery can take this entire farm out from miles away. They could send an armored column that will just drive through your fences and small arms fire. Unless you have heavy weapons and explosives, you don’t have much of a chance.”
“Hey,” Mel said softly, “Dick’s pretty good at this stuff, Scott.”
“Come on, kid, stay out of it. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Scott said. Evidently, he was somebody that the O’Sullivans knew.
Jamie was giving him a pointed look, but he wasn’t getting the message.
“I know more than you do,” she spat back.
“Listen kid—”
“Scott, is it?” I asked, standing up. “Maybe you don’t need me. But unless you’ve ever served, you don’t have the training to take on military forces.”
“We took on those DHS goons, killed them, and broke you out. I just don’t understand why Steve and Doc wasted medicine on you. You got yourself hooked on the crack, and I’m sick of people wasting resources. You’d be dead, if Doc hadn’t used a ton of stuff up. Those were medicines that we can’t just go to the pharmacy and refill.”
Several deputies stepped back as I flexed my shoulders, making a fist and feeling my tendons pop.
“You didn’t take on military forces,” I told him. “You took on hastily trained cops. Hell, I think even sheriff’s deputies have less training than the DHS goons, they just have better equipment—”
“Better training than us?” he interrupted. “I spent four years in college and then went through the academy training to get to where I am. I’m not going to listen to a washed out crackhead—”
His words turned into a garble as I popped him in his Adam’s apple, pulling the rabbit punch, so it wasn’t a lethal one that crushed his windpipe. As he leaned forward, I helped his forehead find my knee that was rising. The contact sent a bolt of pain through my knee, but he crumpled onto his side, a nice red mark covering half of his face. My whole body shook in anger at the asshole’s words. I didn’t need to be a super soldier to realize that he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the job of law enforcement anywhere besides Podunk, Nebraska. He wasn’t hard enough.
“Yes, better training than you guys,” I said to the room at large, that had been stunned into silence. “I’ve got a masters in History, and almost seventeen years of combat experience. I’ve been to places that you can’t find on a map, and I’ve killed people that I’m not allowed to even talk about. If you folks don’t want my help, then you all can go fuck yourselves, but I’m going to make sure my daughter is safe.”
Everyone looked at me and then around the room pointedly. Mel walked up and took my hand; it was still clenched into a fist at my side. Slowly, she made me open my hand and I felt myself calming. Doc knelt next to Scott, checking him for a pulse. I knew he’d find one. I’d just knocked him silly, so he didn’t piss me off enough to cause me to have to kill him and make an example of him.
“Dick, it’s ok,” she told me, smiling weakly.
“It’s ok, Maggs, I won’t run out on you here.”
“Who’s Maggs?” Beth said, coming out of the kitchen and pausing at the sight of Scott laying on the floor.
“My daughter, Maggie…” I said, the anger leaving me swiftly.
Jamie looked at me, pity in her eyes. That puzzled me, and I took Maggie’s hand. She gave me a squeeze back, and I turned to look at her. That was when I realized it was Mel.
“Oh, I thought you were talking about Mel there,” Beth said. “What happened to him?” She pointed to Scot
t, who was starting to come around.
I let go of Magg—Mel’s hand.
“He thought he had better training and that I was an oxygen thief. I let him test out his theory.”
“You sucker punched him,” Doc said angrily, holding a capsule of smelling salts under Scott’s nose, much as he’d done with me.
“Well, yeah. He’s in his early twenties. I’m not going to fight him fair. That’s a good way to get hurt or get dead. See, that’s why none of you are probably going to enjoy what I have to say. None of you cops probably have all the training you’d need… and we’re not just going against DHS goons. It sounds like there’s a NATO team now to reinforce them. Steve as much said so,” I said, pointing up.
Now that the action was over, the adrenaline was starting to leave me, showing me how weak I still was. It had only partially masked the weakness, shakes, and wobbles. I’d done too much, too fast, and I was paying the price. I’d be lucky, if I could do more than go back to bed for the day.
“So, you beat on him to make a point?” Beth asked, incredulous.
“No, I did it because he never would have believed me otherwise. They say you can’t train an old dog. Well, you can, you just have to work with it more. You also can’t train a young pup to listen when he’s too headstrong, unless you beat it until it recognizes the alpha.”
“You’re crazy,” one of the deputies said. “A schizo-junky, military-trained killer. I don’t know who’s scarier, you or the DHS.”
He walked out, and after a couple of seconds, so did the rest of the deputies. Doc was helping Scott to his feet, shooting me an angry look before walking out. I walked to the windows, using the ledge to steady myself as they walked to the barn. The sliding side door was open, and although I couldn’t make out everything inside, I could see movement. They had to have had bedding set up inside there, or in the entrance to the bunker.
“Dick,” Jamie said from across the room, “I tried to cover for you before. I kind of think the cat’s out of the bag.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When you get angry or stressed, you lose your grip. You go off the handle and hurt people. You get Mel confused with Maggie. I tried to keep that part of you secret from everyone, but they’re right. You are a scary man… but I know you’re a good one. They don’t. You just made a point to everyone that they don’t have enough training… but you also showed them that you’re unstable and that nobody on either side of the fence is safe.”
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 41
