by D. J. Molles
That sound was so distinct and unexpected that when the rifle report cracked through the woods a second later, Harper didn’t put them together. Everyone seemed to stand motionless after the rifle report. The only body moving was that of the man with the SKS, pitching forward with the right half of his head missing. He struck the side of the truck and then collapsed to the ground.
Then all hell broke loose.
The girl started screaming.
Josh made a break for the truck and his rifle inside.
The man who had pulled Harper out of the truck shouted something unintelligible at Josh and began swinging his weapon toward him. Harper thought it looked like another SKS, but this one had a long and wicked bayonet attached to it and all Harper could see was that rusty-looking blade swinging toward Josh.
Without thinking, he lurched out and grabbed the rifle.
The man turned toward Harper and began frantically pulling at the rifle, trying to break Harper’s grip on it. The “man” wasn’t much older than Josh, Harper thought, but his face was lean and savage, like the difference between a lap dog and a coyote.
The rifle bucked in their hands as they struggled, the bullet punching a neat hole in the door panel of the pickup truck.
“I’munna fuckin’ kill you!” the savage shouted repeatedly, furious at first, and then terrified as he began to lose his grip on the rifle. “I’munna fuckin’ kill you! I’munna fuckin’ kill you! I’munna…”
Harper twisted his body, pulling the man-boy off his balance, and then planted a foot in his midsection and ripped the rifle from his hands. They both toppled backward—Harper into the truck and his attacker to the ground.
He tried to tell the kid to stay down, but his wind was gone from his lungs and the only thing that came out was a hoarse croak. In his mind the words circled manically like flies around a corpse: Don’t get up! Don’t get up! DON’T GET UP!
In the background, another wet smack was followed by another delayed rifle report.
The kid reached for his belt, still laying on his back, and produced a buck knife. For a second, Harper thought maybe he was going to throw it down and surrender, but instead he leaned forward and tried to get up.
Harper moved fast, with a shout of rage and horror that came out of a place inside of him he hadn’t known existed. Rage at the kid’s apparent willingness to die and horror at his own ability to oblige him. But he didn’t stop himself, and he rammed that bayonet straight down into the kid’s stomach. He felt the initial resistance from clothing and taut skin, and then the sudden, sickening release as the rusty blade slipped inside.
The man-boy’s eyes went wide and panicked and he made a choking, gagging noise. Then he found his breath and started screaming. Harper screamed along with him until his lungs were empty, but the kid would not stop. He just kept going, kept screaming, endlessly, stop screaming stop screaming stop screaming please please stop screaming! And through it all, like a wild animal stuck in a trap, he kept thrashing around underneath the blade and trying to pull it out of himself, but Harper leaned his entire weight down on it so that he could feel the tip of the blade scraping concrete.
Finally, Harper could take the screaming no more. Overwhelmed with panic, he pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. The muzzle blast obliterated the kid’s chest and punched the life right out of him. He collapsed very suddenly, eyes half open.
Harper just stood there, unmoving.
What do I do now? And then, absurdly: Am I gonna get arrested?
Someone was still screaming.
CHAPTER 9
The Hard Road
Lee raced through the woods, downhill toward the roadblock.
He’d taken the first man out with a well-placed shot to the head. The second shot had taken one of the two men behind the barricade in the chest, after which he saw Harper take the third one, and Lee could hear the screams even from his perch high on the hilltop. They sent a chill down his back. The fourth man had fled after firing off two rounds of birdshot that skittered harmlessly across the front of the truck, doing little but nicking the paint.
Now, as the trees lashed Lee’s face, sprinting toward the road with his rifle in his right hand and his left unsuccessfully warding off the branches in front of him, he could hear someone else screaming, though he couldn’t tell who it was.
When Lee burst through the trees a moment later, he found the scene in chaos.
Doc stood at the side of the truck, staring down at the first man Lee had shot. The bullet had so cleanly removed the interior of the man’s head that the inside of the skull was a nearly perfect white, hardly stained by blood.
Lee’s thought was singular and strange: Melon baller… it looks like it was scooped out by a melon baller.
Harper stood on the other side of the vehicle, holding the SKS with one hand, the other running repeatedly over his bald head. He stared down at the body, and then looked up to the source of the screaming, as though he didn’t know whether he should stay with the body or go help whoever was yelling.
Breathing heavily, Lee jogged around the front of the pickup truck and saw what the commotion was.
The girl lay seated on the ground, back against one of the cars in the roadblock. Her skin was pale, her lips gray. Blood was pooling under her right leg and a trail led from the middle of the street to where she was seated now. A sheen of greasy sweat had broken out across her face and she stared at the men, terrified and taking quick, shallow gulps of air.
Miller had his pistol out and was trying to get to the girl, screaming that he was going to kill her. Josh tried to hold him back, tried to get him to calm down.
“It’s her fucking fault! I’m gonna fucking kill that bitch!”
“Chill out, man!”
Lee moved in quickly and snatched Miller’s wrist, torquing the joint and pulling the pistol smoothly out of his hands. Miller spun, his eyes full of blind rage that seemed to instantly dissipate when he realized who had taken his weapon.
“C-captain…” he stammered.
Lee was stern but not harsh. “You need to breathe. Go take a break.”
“But she…” Miller looked rapidly between her and Lee. “She was the one…”
Lee grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in close so he could speak quietly into his ear. “She’s gonna be dead in a minute as it is, Miller. You really wanna be the one to shoot her in cold blood? You really wanna be the one to take that on? Just leave it be.”
Harper’s voice came from behind Lee. “It was me. It was my fault.”
Lee released Miller and watched Harper moving slowly toward the girl, holding the SKS by the muzzle, the buttstock dragging on the ground. His face was blank and his speech hazy. He seemed in shock.
“Harper.” Lee moved to his side.
“The gun…” He seemed to be having trouble forming words. “It went off when I was fighting over it.”
Lee only nodded. Harper stopped about five yards from the girl and stared at her. She was barely clinging to consciousness and took a moment to realize they were standing there. Her wounded leg was as still as a dead fish, but her good leg began jerking around like she was trying to backpedal away from them.
Lee laid his rifle on the ground and held up his empty palms. “It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you anymore.”
Her leg stopped moving, but she still stared at Lee with wide, fearful eyes. He knelt down beside her, felt the wetness of her blood soak through to his knees. She must have seen some softness in his face, because the fear fled from her eyes.
Her voice was thin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Lee nodded slowly. He took her wrist gently and felt for the radial pulse with two fingers. Nothing. Then he reached across and pushed his fingertips into the crease of her hip and thigh, feeling for the femoral artery. He readjusted twice and felt only a faint, thready pulse that might have come from his own fingers.
She didn’t seem to notice his prodding. She spoke like she was a
sleep, in the throes of a nightmare. “They made me. They made me do things…”
“Shh,” Lee spoke quietly. “It’s okay.” He put two fingers to her carotid and felt the pulse there, but only weakly. Rote memorization of medical training rolled through his brain: Radial pulse equals systolic blood pressure of at least eighty. Carotid plus femoral equals between seventy and eighty. Carotid only equals between sixty and seventy.
With only a carotid pulse, her blood pressure had dropped too low.
He took both of her hands in one of his. They were cold and clammy.
“I didn’t want this,” she whispered.
Lee forced a reassuring smile, feeling drained. “I know. I know you didn’t.”
“I didn’t want this,” she repeated.
Behind him, the other four men had gathered and now silently stared on, their faces as ashen and hollow as Lee felt.
She looked around. “Can you take me home?”
Lee thought about what was best to say to her, then finally nodded. “Sure I can.”
“You can take me home?”
“We’re gonna go right now, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What’s your name?” Lee wished he hadn’t asked, because he didn’t want to know.
“Rebecca.” Her eyes were moving around restlessly. “Rebecca Stilwell.”
“Okay, Rebecca. We’re gonna take you home.”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you go to sleep now, Rebecca?”
“Okay.”
“You’ll be home in just a minute.”
The girl closed her eyes and the smile on her lips was as faint as her pulse. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
And then the girl lying in the middle of the road simply ceased to exist.
* * *
They left the bodies where they fell.
They took the guns and ammunition. Two SKS rifles, one with seven rounds in the magazine, the other with a full ten. Two 12-gauge shotguns, one a nice over-under Beretta with two spent shells in the tubes, and one busted-up Remington with a loose barrel and five live shells.
Miller was able to siphon out another gallon of gasoline between the two cars in the roadblock. The one on the side of the road was empty. This brought them up to about eight gallons total, two gallons short of their comfort zone.
Just inside the woods where the two young men had lain in ambush, they found a duffel bag that contained wads of cash, jewelry, watches, and eight cans of chili. Their hunger drove the brutality of the last half hour out of their minds, and they immediately divvied up the entire eight cans of chili and ate until they were full.
Josh puked most of his up a few moments later.
Miller made an effort to appear unfazed, but he was quieter than usual.
Doc didn’t say a word.
Harper and Lee packed up the guns and left the duffel bag full of worthless cash. Harper made the joke that they could use it for kindling, but no one laughed. They took their seats in the truck and drove on, leaving the roadblock behind them.
Harper would never admit it, but he could not stomach chili after that day.
* * *
They left Highway 210 to avoid passing through downtown Smithfield. The small backstreets kept them turning and kept them wary. More roadblocks mired their progress, and they approached each with extreme caution, slowing them down even more than before. No one wanted a repeat of earlier that day.
It was late afternoon and the sun was a few hours into its downward slope when they crossed a bridge that passed over I-95. The interstate was a mess of accidents and abandoned vehicles, both creating small traffic jams behind them. People had attempted to drive their cars around the blockages only to get stuck in a muddy median, or they had slipped into a ditch and created an impassable wall of cars. With no way to clear these vehicles, the traffic was a gridlock in both directions.
They found their first good luck of the day directly across the overpass. On the left side of the road was a used car lot that appeared largely untouched by the general looting and property damage that had ravaged everything else around it. The serenity of the parking lot did not set any of them at ease, but rather caught their attention as suspicious and caused them to stop their vehicle nearly a block back and observe the car lot for a long stretch of time.
The cars were all in pristine shape, as untouched as Lee had imagined they were when a sleazy car salesman was still hocking them to witless consumers. Their windshields were emblazoned with colorful paint that advertised 0% FINANCING!!! and NO MONEY DOWN!!! The glass windows all around the dealership’s main building were completely intact. An American flag stirred restlessly in the breeze, the metal grommets tapping an uneven rhythm against the flagpole.
Harper’s eyes were narrow slits. “What you thinkin’, Captain?”
“I’m thinking there’s gotta be some gas in those cars.”
“Don’t you think it looks a little too good to be true?” Josh sounded unsure.
Lee nodded. “But do you want to leave it without checking?”
“No.”
Lee leaned into the back and retrieved one of the SKS rifles they had taken from the roadblock. “Josh, why don’t you hop up in the bed with Miller and cover him with the other rifle while he works.”
Josh traded his shotgun for the other SKS and stepped out.
Lee kept his eyes on the car lot but felt the truck list slightly as Josh climbed into the bed with Miller. The two exchanged words that Lee couldn’t hear, then tapped the roof to indicate they were good.
Lee pointed to the main entrance. “Take us up to the gate right there, Harper.”
The older man nodded and eased the pickup forward.
The main entrance to the car lot was gated off, chained, and locked. But it was constructed to keep cars in, not to keep people out. As the truck came to a stop, Miller grabbed an empty gas can and the siphon tube and jogged quickly over to the nearest car. It took him a moment to jimmy the locked gas cap with a pocketknife, but when he fed the tube into the gas tank and blew air through it, he looked up with a smile and a thumbs-up.
“Good.” Harper seemed to relax a bit. “Hopefully we’ll get what we need.”
Lee heard him speaking but wasn’t paying attention. He was leaning forward in his seat, looking up through the windshield at the flagpole in the center of the lot. His face was focused and thoughtful.
“You see something?” Harper asked, immediately going back to high alert.
Lee broke his stare to glance at Harper. Without answering his question, he opened his door and slipped out, taking the SKS rifle with him. Over his shoulder he said, “Just sit tight for one minute,” and then closed the door behind him.
Miller watched Lee moving purposefully toward him and straightened up, his eyes moving around as though something was wrong but he couldn’t figure out what it was. “Everything okay, Captain?”
Lee was still staring to the center of the car lot. “Lemme borrow your pocketknife for a second.”
Hesitantly, the younger man produced the knife and placed it in Lee’s palm. “Sure.”
Lee didn’t say anything else. He took the knife and walked into the parking lot toward the flagpole. His gaze lifted steadily as he neared it, until he was staring straight up the metallic shaft, fixated on the banner that wavered at the top. After a moment’s regard, Lee opened the pocketknife and cut the rope holding the flag in place.
He lowered the flag slowly, as ceremoniously as any member of an honor guard, and gathered it in his arms, taking care to not let it touch the ground. It was not a large flag, and it rolled up easily. He turned his back to the flagpole and walked directly back to Miller.
“Do you know how to do this?”
“I was in the Scouts,” Miller said, by way of an answer.
“It should only take a second.” Lee offered him the grommeted base of the flag, where the white trim met the deep blue background in the field of stars. He backed up a few steps so t
he flag was stretched taut, then folded it in half longways, then in half again. Making careful triangles of the red and white stripes, Lee worked his way up to Miller so they were facing only a foot apart and the stripes turned into stars.
He tucked the loose end in snugly. “Thanks.”
With the flag folded properly, Lee took it back to the pickup truck.
Climbing back into his seat, Harper regarded him with a curious smile. “A little something to remember America by?”
The look that Harper received in return was sharp, but Lee spoke evenly. “The United States is an idea, Harper. The best one we’ve ever had.” He looked down at the folded flag in his lap. “The only way to destroy an idea is to kill everyone who believes in it. And I’m not dead yet.”
Harper didn’t respond, because he had nothing to say.
Miller finished siphoning the gas tank, which yielded a full five-gallon gas can and brought them into their twelve-gallon comfort zone with a little extra to spare. He put the gas in the tank and the can and tube in the bed. Josh hopped out, Miller took his place, and the group was on its way again.
CHAPTER 10
Beans and Bullets
As I-95 faded in the distance, Lee finally pulled the GPS unit out of the cargo pocket of his pants. It was a thick handheld device, built specially for the Coordinators stationed in each of the lower forty-eight states. They all had access to a series of supply bunkers, the number depending on the populace of the state they were in. The GPS unit was designed to help the Coordinators keep those bunkers all to themselves.
Only the Coordinator to which that device was assigned could access the GPS unit, and therein the location of his bunkers. There was much discussion during the planning stages of Project Hometown about whether or not to allow all of the Coordinators to access all of the bunkers. The argument that ended the debate was a simple observation: If they all had access to all the bunkers, it would only take one coordinator to be captured and tortured and turned to destroy the entire mission. In the end it was decided that they wouldn’t place all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.
