The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  I nodded. “I knew I wasn’t the most popular guy here, but I had no idea this shit show was going to happen,” I told Jamie, “and I certainly wasn’t trying to get arrested by these two assholes.”

  “You just hate cops, all cops,” one of the teenagers who hadn’t left the semicircle said.

  “No, I was once a cop of sorts myself,” I told him. “But like I said before, this isn’t a police action. I just came down here to get more info. To help you folks out. Like I’ve been doing since—”

  “Since the doc used up a lot of medicine getting you off drugs? Stuff we could have used to survive longer?” another voice chimed in.

  It was a thin woman, holding a young boy and a girl on each hip. Twins, if I had to guess. They were towheaded and looked at us sleepily, the little boy holding a thumb in his mouth.

  “Rory,” Jamie said in a low growl I’d never heard before. “Get your woman under control. We don’t need any more fighting like this.”

  “Infighting? Those two have hurt and killed our own and you’re worried about us hurting them?” She screeched at Jamie.

  “Melissa, calm down,” Rory said, holding up a placating hand. Interesting, another Melissa.

  “Why should I? Ever since Jamie got home, things have changed and everything’s gone to hell. These two have done nothing but cause trouble, and you’re sticking up for them? No wonder Steve wrote you off as dead.”

  “Excuse me?” Jamie said, her tone icy cold.

  “Stop it, Melissa,” her husband warned, louder this time.

  “Steve’s out there trying to get his girlfriend’s body back and you’re in here safe and sound, defending this scuzz ball. Whose side are you on? Maybe you’re sleeping with him, too?”

  I turned and looked at Mel and Jamie as the words sank in. Something inside of her broke and Mel looked at me, confusion on her face. I knew it wasn’t about the half question/half accusation, but rather the bit about her father. I looked down and to the side and walked close to Rory, my head near his as I leaned in to whisper.

  “I’m out of here soon anyway, but if your wife doesn’t shut the fuck up, you all might be as well. She didn’t know about Frankie. Steve was going to talk to her about it.”

  “Understood,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “By the way…”

  “Yeah?” he said, meeting my eyes.

  “That’s my shotgun. You must have gotten it from the camp.”

  He hesitated half a second, and then took it off and handed it over to me.

  “What’s she talking about, Dick?” Jamie asked.

  “Courtney, let’s get out of here. I’ll see if we can borrow a handset from someone,” I told her, ignoring Jamie.

  “Somebody want to tell me what’s going on?” Mel asked, a waver in her voice.

  A boy of about the same age stood next to her. I saw that he’d snaked his hand into hers and she was squeezing it back absently.

  “No, not really,” I said. “I think it’s time for me to go home.”

  “Dick!” Jamie said in half command, half plea.

  I kept walking. As much as I loved her, that was one set of news that wasn’t going to come from me. I couldn’t be the one to tell her, not without shattering her and leaving us both vulnerable. I was too raw, and leaving her would be the next hardest thing I’d ever done. I didn’t want her last memory of me to be my telling her that her husband had fallen in love with another woman.

  43

  I took the supplies I needed out of the front room and tried to ignore the screams and cries from upstairs. Steve had arrived home with the men, and he was already in a foul mood. Rory’s wife’s words must have stuck with Jamie because I kept hearing Frankie’s name. It sounded like Steve was coming clean, something that couldn’t have been easy. He’d been put in an almost impossible situation and now, he had to figure out how to go forward from here. I was doing the same thing.

  “I don’t feel right, taking this stuff,” Courtney said.

  We were both near the front door, getting stuff together. “Don’t,” I told her. “A lot of it came from the DHS and the FEMA camp.”

  “Oh, well…”

  “Dick?” Jamie called.

  I hadn’t noticed it, but the yelling had stopped and she’d made her way downstairs.

  “Hey,” I said, tying a sleeping pad on the pack.

  “How long did you know?”

  “So you know now?” I asked her, nodding toward Steve, who was just coming down the stairs.

  “I told her,” Steve said, his face set in a grim expression.

  “Yes, dammit. It’s bad enough my husband… but you knew, and you never told me?”

  “It wasn’t my place,” I told her. “I knew the day before she died. Steve was trying to find the words to tell you himself… and once she was gone… I mean, that wasn’t my place.”

  She opened and closed her mouth several times to respond but instead nodded, and then looked at my bags. “So, that’s it? You’re leaving?”

  “I think our time here is up,” I told her. “Trouble seems to follow me. More than that, though, it’s time for me to get going to Mary and Maggie.”

  I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Were you even going to say goodbye?” A tear trickled down her cheek.

  “Of course we were,” Courtney said, reminding me that she was still there next to me. “We were just going to get a jumpstart on packing.”

  I shot her a thankful look. To be honest, goodbyes were not my strong suit, and I’d been thinking of slinking off while they were still fighting.

  “I’m not leaving just yet,” I said, trying to shoot her a smile.

  “Good, because it would crush Mel and…”

  “Hey, we’re still here, aren’t we?” I said, and she looked up and met my gaze.

  I had to smile. She looked half ready to wage war on the world, and I didn’t blame her. Her world had been turned upside down, sideways and then served with a bitter pill to swallow it down with. Still, my goofy visage probably helped break the tension.

  “Dick,” Steve said, walking up and putting a protective arm around her shoulders, “would you both stay through dinner? It’s almost ready and I can make sure it’s just Mel, Jamie, and I with you and Courtney.”

  I nodded, still smiling.

  “I’m dying to know what happened at the camp,” Courtney said, changing the subject, something she was good at.

  “That’s what I want to discuss with him. That and the Air Force Base.”

  If we hadn’t been stopped in the bunker, we would have walked into what was happening around the country and the President’s next address. Apparently, a lot had been going on in the world, and the DHS/NATO troops may not have been trying to attack the farm directly, rather, only retaliated when Steve’s men and women blew the hell out of them. By the sound of it, they were bugging out to Offutt Air Force Base. Holding civilians had been…

  “Hey, listen to this,” Steve broke in, turning up the handheld radio he always had on, and pulled the earwig plug out of the side and turned up the volume.

  A voice, recognizable as the 44th President of the United States came over, strong and clear.

  “My fellow Americans. Today, we’ve suffered the grave loss of Laughlin Air Force Base. Forces of the new Caliphate, supported by members of ISIL and North Korea, over-ran one of our southernmost military bases. At this time, all personnel are presumed lost or captured. A small force of American commandos and heroes tried to intervene, but they were also overrun and killed to a man.

  “I cannot strongly enough renew a call for unity and request that all able bodied Americans check in with any military recruitment center, base or National Guard unit. Our Navy and Marines have still been tied up in land and sea operations defending both coasts, and making strategic strikes against our enemies in their homelands.”

  I looked at the others at the table in shock. Attacked at home… And losing?! They all looked as
bewildered as me.

  “Our country has undergone tremendous hardships, yet there are more still to come. Within our own government, certain departments have been working against our own country in a coup attempt. At this point in time, I am disbanding the DHS by Executive Order and by my authority during Martial Law. Those who served the DHS lawfully, may turn themselves in to be processed and their guilt determined. Let me say this clearly… From this moment forward, if you are approached by someone who says they are from the DHS, know that they are not a part of the United States of America’s Government. Protect yourselves within the rules of law we have enacted.

  “Furthermore, NATO resources are in the process of falling back to local Air Force bases to be evacuated. To say their presence here in America has been a disaster, would be an understatement. Most of the forces are good and trustworthy, but as with politics, there’s been far too much corruption and I’m calling for every NATO force, not directly under American command, to return to base and be bivouacked.”

  “I’ll be dipped in shit…” Steve muttered. “They were falling back?”

  “Shhhh,” Jamie said, and I shot her a grin of appreciation. Eat that, Steve.

  “Now for the good news,” the President said, and then coughed to clear his throat. “Our camps in Kentucky have become models for America going forward. People are willingly working together, training together, and building the components we need to jump start the electrical grid in many parts of the country. The program that FEMA Director Jackson has come up with has become a model that has been copied throughout surrounding areas.

  “Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri and Mississippi have all been converted to Blake Jackson’s new method, and everyone who wants to eat and work, can. Farmers are harvesting late summer and early fall crops, and with some good old American ingenuity, we’ve got dozens of old diesel trains repaired and working. Commerce and the movement of goods shall be starting, albeit a bit slowly.

  “Power has been restored to parts of the Pacific Northwest, where we have refineries making fuel again, to power the plants needed to energize the Silicon Valley, to continue to speed the process.

  “If you aren’t working on rebuilding America, please consider helping defend it. When I have more to report, I will. Until then, God bless.”

  “That Muslim-loving, no good, piece of monkey feces. I don’t believe him one bit,” Steve spat.

  “He did say that the DHS is now defunct,” Courtney said, grinning slightly.

  I nodded to her in return. It meant ‘open season’ on those bastards, and I knew Courtney was thinking the same thing.

  “He’s blaming everybody but himself. He hasn’t ever even met with his DIA Chief of Staff, how does he even know the DHS is corrupt? He doesn’t listen in to his own security briefings— “

  “Steve, it’s their last night. Please. Dick and Courtney were accosted here on our property, in the bunker. I’d like them to at least, get the information they were almost shot for.”

  “Listen, most of those guys would have done the same. It’s training, second nature,” Steve said.

  “And Mr. Dick’s second nature is to kill men who point guns in his face, yet he didn’t,” Mel told her father pointedly. “And he’s really good at it, so obviously it could have been a lot worse for your officers.”

  Point for the squirt.

  “I… Listen, what happened down there was unfortunate, and the way you manhandled my men, again, was unacceptable. I can’t have that happen, so your decision to leave couldn’t have come at a better time.”

  The entire conversation happened without Courtney and I opening our mouths to defend ourselves, yet I was ready to. The jealous green monster was rearing its ugly head again and I wanted him to trip himself up. As it was, he sort of did it himself.

  “A better time? I heard you talk to him, the day you carried him upstairs,” Jamie spat. “You wanted him gone from the day you met him.”

  Steve’s resolve cracked. “You don’t know that I saw the way he looked at you two? It was like you were his family! What was I supposed to have thought?”

  “I don’t know. Did you consult your girlfriend first?”

  The words came out of Mel’s mouth and Jamie let out a surprised sound, more of a shriek cut off on the opening note. A pregnant silence filled the room, and then Courtney started giggling for no reason I could tell. I looked at her in surprise, and she covered her mouth and shook her head at me. No matter what she was trying, it wasn’t working.

  “This isn’t funny, dammit!” Steve shouted, his voice raising.

  Jamie started smiling and then giggling herself, albeit more quietly. “Yes, it is. You’re just an asshole sometimes. I love you anyway.”

  Mel looked at her mom in surprise, and then I smiled at the look she made. It was like the girl had been asked to swallow a live squid or something equally disgusting.

  “I get it,” I said. “You don’t like me. I don’t blame you. For what it’s worth, you have a wonderful family, and as you and your men have said… I’m a broken man. I’m not trying to steal them from you, and I understand you wanting to protect them, even from me. What I don’t get, is how you can keep sticking your head up your ass. Instead of thumping your chests here at the farm, why aren’t you all out there in the public, keeping the peace?”

  My words quieted everyone, including the two cackling hens.

  “We were, before,” Steve said.

  “At the camps. It looks like the camps have now been disbanded. As the highest elected official in the county, what the hell are you going to do about things now?”

  Steve’s face screwed up in deep thought. He started to answer once or twice, and I wanted to jump on the table, do an Irish Jig and say, “Your damned job, like you should have been doing all along!”, but I didn’t. Instead, I sat there and watched him suffer.

  “You have the men, you have the comms, and now you don’t have DHS and NATO breathing down your neck, unless they are renegades. And those are going to get hunted down, if the radio transmission is any indication.”

  He just looked at me, then turned and walked toward the dining room table. With nothing else to do, we followed him.

  “This is going to be the last time we see Jamie and Mel, isn’t it?” Courtney asked me quietly as we neared the seats.

  “Yeah. Hey, what caught your funny bone back there?” I asked her, wondering what had caused her outburst of giggles at such a tense moment.

  “I wasn’t expecting an open pissing contest between you and Steve. The look on Mel’s face when she realized what was going on was priceless. Jamie…”

  “Yeah, she must have seen it too, huh?”

  “Yeah. It was priceless.”

  “Hurry up you two, I’m hungry,” Mel said loudly.

  Caught whispering, we joined them at the table to catch up and say our final goodbyes while sharing a meal.

  44

  Leaving them was the hardest thing I’d ever endured, including when Mary and Maggie had left me in Chicago, all those years ago. It was a long teary goodbye that lasted half into the night. We were going to leave at dawn, taking one of the Hummers. Steve’s men were working hard to make sure the DHS markings on the door were covered up, so we wouldn’t be shot on sight because of the President’s address, but we were basically taking the lightly armored version without a turret. Enough to stop casual potshots, but a pig on fuel. Luckily, it was diesel and there would be plenty of broken down semis on the sides of the road, and diesel lasts forever.

  “This sucks,” Courtney said for the fourth or fifth time, during my first hour of driving.

  I didn’t answer her. I was too raw, and I absolutely hated goodbyes. We’d said ours late the night before, and had gone to bed. This morning, we’d left before any of them had come down. If we hadn’t snuck out, I wasn’t sure I could have left, if I’d had to face the girls in person again.

  “Yeah,” was all I told her in response.

  We sat th
ere in silence. Steve’s neighbor lady had baked us a couple loaves of bread, and we had fresh food in the form of bread and smoked sliced ham that would last us a day or two, and then two five gallon buckets of rice, beans, lentils and mixed veggies. Both of us still had our packs and we had enough ammunition for our guns to make walking uncomfortable. Still, there was a lot of empty space in the Hummer, even with the fuel cans in the back.

  “Tell me about Mary’s parents’ farm,” Courtney asked, after minutes of me weaving in and out of traffic.

  “I don’t know if it was the drugs, or what I’ve been through, but I can only remember flashes and snatches of it. We weren’t there often. I don’t think her dad liked me.”

  “Really? Somebody didn’t like you? Who could believe that?”

  I smiled at her sarcasm. In fact, it was a welcome change from the sullen silence of the morning.

  “Yeah, the thing is, I don’t know if it was any one thing, or the fact that she was his only daughter…”

  “Dads are funny about daughters,” she said, and then looked out the side window so I couldn’t see her face. “Is it a big place?”

  “From what I can remember, it’s forty or sixty acres sitting in the bottom of a valley between some hills. I remember one time, heading there with my buddy, Mary, and Maggs… It had gotten cold. People on those hills in Arkansas don’t get much practice driving on the ice. If you don’t have four-wheel-drive, you’d have a hard time getting there in the best of weather. When it was icy….”

  I held up my hand and made the iffy gesture.

  “Are there a lot of folks around the farm?”

  “Just the old man, his wife, and Mary and Maggs. No neighbors, none that live nearby that is. It’s funny, because it’s probably the best spot in the entire state to hunt and fish. The stream that runs through the east side of the property is full of fish.”

  “So, I know I’m playing twenty questions and all, but one more. What’s Mary like?”

  I looked at her, and her gaze met mine. I started to tell her, but a flare flying up over the horizon drew my attention and I slowed the Humvee. Only forty miles from Jamie’s farm, I saw. Shit.