by Reed, N. C.
“I can’t say,” Zach shrugged. “Never been here other than out riding and drinking beer, and we never stopped. Always was told to stay away from out here, and we mostly did. Didn’t want any trouble with this bunch.”
“Well, they have trouble this evening,” Xavier’s voice was grim. “Be watchful for a guard, then. We will move further north before moving in. Perhaps that will reveal any observation posts to us before we attack. Any questions?”
“Some of them girls likely ain’t here by choice,” Zach noted, letting the comment hang.
“If she isn’t trying to kill us, I see no reason to kill her,” Xavier agreed. “Our bone of contention, so to speak, is solely with this Bone family. Which still sounds like some sort of voodoo cult every time I say it.”
“I know,” Zach snorted. “There is, or was anyway, a big gang in Memphis called the Bone Family, long time ago. Rumor had it they even sent someone up here to ‘suggest’ the Bones stop using the name.”
“What became of that envoy?” Xavier asked as he refitted his NVD to his face.
“Ever hear the song ‘Rocky Top’?” Zach snickered.
“Ah, I see,” Xavier chuckled. “’Strangers haven’t come down, so assume they never shall?’ Something of that sort?”
“Close enough for someone of your social standing,” Zach smothered his own laugh.
“Thank you,” Xavier’s voice was dry. “Are you ready?”
“I am indeed,” Zach promised. “Lead the way.”
-
“What makes you think they’d go after them?” Greg asked, still blinking sleep from his eyes. He had been asleep less than an hour when Clay had shaken him awake.
“What else would they be doing?” Clay asked, clearly exasperated by the entire situation. “They’re both close to Amanda, and she was almost killed today. And you’ve already said that this will be a feud situation that will last until they feel they’ve gotten even. What kind of challenge would that sound like to the two of them?”
“A rather strong one I can assure you,” Brick’s deep voice startled them both. They turned to see him standing in the doorway, filling the doorway might be a better way of putting it, leaning on the frame.
“Exactly,” Clay recovered quickly. “My official estimate is that they’ve gone after the Bones to make sure what happened today doesn’t happen again.”
“And you’re unhappy with this, why?” Greg asked, confused.
“I really don’t want to lose those two,” Clay told him. “Or any other two, for that matter.”
“Dude, there ain’t no way that bunch can take down those two without Zeus himself coming down with a lightning bolt on both of them,” Greg scoffed. “In the dark? With those two slipping through their tiny hamlet, going from hovel-to-hovel? If they really have gone after them, I’d say the odds are that the Bones are as good as dead. If I was you, I’d be more worried about what Adcock, or worse, Gaines might say when they find out.”
“I find myself agreeing with the Sheriff in this matter, Clayton,” Brick said quietly. “The two of them are a formidable team, and they will not allow anything remotely resembling a fair fight. There is little chance that this family will be able to stop them.”
“But there is a chance, small though it may be,” Clay nodded as if Brick had just made his point for him.
“Fine,” Greg got tiredly to his feet. “Let me get my gear and we can go. But if you’re wrong,” he told Clay, “and they aren’t there, then we’re going to start a great big firefight that they will definitely hear in Lewiston. So be prepared for that.”
“I’ll worry about that if it happens,” Clay promised. “Right now, I’m more worried about my men.”
“It’s a wasted worry, man, I’m telling ya,” Greg said over his shoulder, already on his way to gear up.
“It won’t cost me anything,” Clay insisted. “You want to go along?” he asked Brick, thinking he would need a bigger MRAP if so.
“I do not believe this requires my attention,” Brick shook his head. “I honestly don’t believe it warrants yours, either, but then you are in command and have the responsibility none of the rest of us have. Good luck,” he added as he turned to go.
“Thanks.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Elmer Bone walked out of the small house his family used as a bar and stood on the porch, stretching. He had been sitting in the same chair for hours, playing cards with his brother and cousins. He belched suddenly, tasting the shine he had been downing since before the sun had set.
He chuckled to himself as he staggered down the four steps at the end of the porch, intending to head for the hotel. His own house was in the other direction but there was no one else there. The hotel, on the other hand, well, it had-,
Elmer Bone felt something wrapping around his forehead and then a cold sensation along his neck. He screamed for help, expecting his family to come running, but his vocal cords had already been severed even as his life’s blood poured from his ruptured jugular.
Behind him, Zach Willis drug the much heavier Bone into the shadows between the ‘bar’ and the next building, taking the time to settle the body on the ground. A casual glance would show someone sleeping off a drunk that had gotten out of hand.
Wiping his knife on the pants leg of his victim, Zach paused to listen. He heard no sound of alarm, no one crying out. Good. This was number four for him. With this one done, he circled around the bar, ignoring it for now. The plan was to eliminate everyone they could find alone first. Then they would team up to go after the rest.
Across the narrow lane between the rows of houses, Xavier Adair had entered a third home, finding a fat man in a soiled wife beater and boxer shorts sitting in a recliner, snoring. Covering the man’s mouth with his free hand, Xavier slipped his blade between the man’s ribs, piercing his heart the man’s eyes had flared open but only for an instant before closing again, this time for good. Xavier waited fifteen seconds before removing his hand. He looked at the soiled clothing in disgust before cleaning his knife on the only slightly cleaner chair. As he moved the blade across the chair, he heard a whimper from the back of the house. He closed his eyes for just a few seconds, knowing in his heart what that sound meant.
Moving quietly to the back of the house, he opened a door that he assumed led to a bedroom. Peeping inside, he found exactly what he feared, though slightly worse than he’d expected.
A girl who could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years old sat huddled on a filthy bed, a chain around her neck holding her to the headboard. As far as Xavier could tell, the child was stark naked.
Promising himself he would return, he slipped away without the girl ever knowing he was there. As he passed her now very dead tormentor, Xavier wished he had killed the man more slowly, and much more painfully.
This would complicate matters.
-
“Why is this taking so long?” Clay demanded.
“Dude, we are literally waking people up who have been asleep for maybe an hour,” Jose rolled his eyes. “They need a minute to get straight.”
“What if we were being attacked right now?” Clay asked him, borderline angry.
“Then I would imagine they’d be doing better,” Jose shrugged. “We’re not, though. So, they’re working on it.”
Clay stalked away, his anger having nothing to do with Jose, how slow everyone seemed to be moving, or even X and Zach.
Not that it mattered.
-
Xavier knew as soon as he saw Zach exit the last house on his side of the street that the teen had found something similar to his own discovery. Moving in shadows, the two met up one house down from their remaining targets.
“Dude, I-,” Zach began, but Xavier cut him off.
“I know,” the older man assured him. “I discovered the same. One thing at a time, remember. Count?”
“Six,” Zach reported. “You?”
“Seven,” Xavier smiled despite the situation
. “You lag behind, young apprentice,” he joked as he pulled his pistol and checked the magazine and the suppressor.
“Well, a man your age should know more than me, anyway,” Zach shot back, though clearly not in a joking mood.
“Estimate for their recreation lodge?” Xavier nodded to the little bar.
“At least five, counting the guy acting as a bartender,” Zach told him. “What about the hotel?”
“No way to know for sure,” Xavier shook his head. “There are ten rooms, five upstairs and five down. All are closed. For all we know they are all empty, though I seriously doubt it. Suggestions?” Even in such a time as this, Xavier was teaching.
“Take the bar together and then move on the hotel,” Zach said at once. “Once we start making noise, we need to stick together. We can’t afford to get pinned down here. The ones in the bar only make it eighteen, total. There has to be more than that.”
“We’ll know for sure very shortly,” Xavier informed him. “Your plan is a good one, so we’ll go with it. I will take the right; you shall take the left. Once we clear the building, we go immediately to the hotel. We will eliminate any upper floor opposition first, then move to the ground floor. I should expect the lower rooms are the most likely to be occupied if the establishment isn’t full.”
“Works for me.”
-
“Can we go now?” Clay was getting testier by the minute. He knew that he was, knew why and was trying his best not to. It wasn’t working very well, but he was making the effort.
“Yes, bwana, we go now,” Greg told him, rolling his eyes. “Mount up,” he ordered. Shane Golden was behind the wheel with Greg taking the passenger seat. Behind them sat Clay, Mitchell Nolan and Stacey Pryor.
“Which way?” Shane asked as they approached the highway.
“South, I think,” Greg replied, frowning.
“You think?” Clay repeated.
“I know roughly where we’re going,” he promised. “Just never been there at night is all. I don’t know the exact exit I need to take using the interstate, so I’ll have to wing it.”
“Of course, you will,” Clay groaned and sat back, shaking his head.
“We’ll be there soon enough,” Greg assured him.
-
One minute everyone was having a good time, two men shooting pool while the other three played darts, then the next, blood and brains were flying everywhere as what sounded like firecrackers exploding rolled through the room.
Xavier and Zachary both exchanged magazines in their pistols before moving. The next move was for Xavier to check the bodies to make sure they were, indeed, dead, while Zach watched the door. That completed, it was the work of less than a minute to clear the rest of the ramshackle building.
“Now on to the main event,” Xavier whispered as the two moved out a side door into the shadows. The examined the windows for any sign of light or life but found none. Hopeful, the two found a rickety fire escape ladder and carefully climbed their way to the top floor, stopping twice along the way as the ladder groaned painfully and swayed dangerously. Finally, they stepped over the railing and onto the top floor runway.
Xavier walked to the first door and simply turned the doorknob. It opened without resistance and Xavier stuck his head inside as Zach covered him. A lone man sat up from the bed, sleep still clouding his vision.
“Pete? Is that-,”
His question died with him as Xavier put a round in his head. Before he could so much as speak, the woman next to the now dead man came screeching to her feet, hands curled like claws as she rushed at Xavier. Surprised, Xavier reacted as he would have to any threat and shot her in the head.
“I would never have imagined a woman being here willingly,” he whispered to Zach. Zach merely shrugged. There was no accounting for taste.
The next two rooms were empty, but the fourth room found two male members of the Bone outfit and a very helpless woman tied to a metal bed frame. This time it was Zach who was first in, killing both men before they could react. The woman looked up at him, desperate pleading visible on her face. Zach put a finger to his lips and held up a finger, and the gagged woman nodded frantically.
The fifth room on the top floor held two women, both of whom attacked them at once, and died just as quickly.
“I do not understand how any woman would live in such conditions,” Xavier said, shaking his head. The two returned to release the woman in the fourth room, warning her to stay quiet, then asking her if she knew how many men might be downstairs. She didn’t know, but instantly began pleading with them to take her with them.
“Quiet,” Xavier told her. “We shall, but we aren’t leaving just yet. This is the safest place for you until we have completed our business here. Remain in this room, lock the door and say quiet. We’ll knock when we return so you know it’s us.”
The woman tried to argue but a warning look from Xavier shut her down and she moved to a corner behind a cheap dresser and hid.
“She is soon to go into shock, I would think,” Xavier noted as they made their way to the stairs.
“Nothing we can do about that,” Zach replied. “We have to finish now that we started.”
“Just so,” Xavier nodded. “Reverse order, this time,” he said, moving to the room on the far right to start, but finding it empty. The next two rooms were likewise empty, but the middle door had made a loud screeching noise when opened and the two sighed at the jarring sound. Sure enough, the fourth door flew open and a man naked but for the jockey shorts he wore stomped out, already cursing a blue streak at ‘whichever of you dumb sons-a-bitches woke me’.
Zach shot the man between the eyes before he ever realized he wasn’t cursing at someone he knew. He tried to catch the man’s body before it hit the porch, but the man fell backwards, out of reach.
“Hurry,” Xavier warned, patting Zach’s shoulder. The two moved immediately to the final door, which Zach busted open with one sharp kick, ducking as he did so.
Xavier stayed high, his pistol shooting the single occupant of the room as he tried to grab a shotgun from beside his bed. In the movies, the man would have been flung backwards into the headboard or the window behind him, but in real life he simple crumpled off the bed onto the floor as his head snapped back on his shoulders.
“I would love to say we are finished, but we are not,” Xavier sighed.
“No,” Zach agreed. “You get the woman upstairs. I’ll start on the houses. We need to drag all these cretins out to the track bed and burn them, I guess. These houses aren’t really suitable for anyone to live in though,” he mused, thinking.
“We need to ensure the safety of those children before we concern ourselves any further with this riffraff,” Xavier interrupted his planning. “Let us be about it.”
-
“Turn here,” Greg ordered. Shane dutifully took the small ramp that led to an equally small back road.
“I think this is it,” Greg said firmly.
“You said that last time,” Clay noted. “And the time before that, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure, this time,” Greg sounded confident.
“Why?”
“Because that truck sitting back there came from the farm,” Greg jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward the interstate.
“What truck?”
“The one they took to get here, man,” Greg was shaking his head. “It’s a good thing you’ve got me around, dude.”
“Yeah,” Clay muttered. “Great thing.”
“Look,” Shane pointed toward the horizon. “Up there,” he was pointing south-east of them.
“Well, that’s a fire,” Greg stated matter-of-factly. “You need any more proof this is where your boys are?”
-
Once the four entirely too young girls and one severely abused woman were secured in a pickup truck that had been in use by their captors, Xavier and Zach had decided it was best to drag the bodies out rather than burn the buildings. This was more in the int
erest of safety than any desire to preserve the filthy hovels the group had been living in. No one wanted another brush fire of any size.
Zach had upended ten full gallons of moonshine onto the pile of bodies before setting them aflame, ensuring that there would be nothing left once the fire was finished. The two were in the process of gathering any plunder within the houses, especially weapons and ammunition, when they heard a vehicle approaching. Moving into the shadows, they waited.
“Perhaps a few of them were out pillaging somewhere,” Xavier said calmly as he attacked a suppressor to his rifle. Zach nodded while doing the same.
“That did occur to me,” the teen admitted. “No way to know if we got them all. Had we thought of it we might have asked the woman, but I wouldn’t put her through that if I could help it.”
“Indeed,” Xavier agreed. “Better to chance running up on one of them somewhere else. At any rate, whoever might remain will have little to work with once we’re finished here.”
The two fell silent at that as headlights popped into view, flickering as they ran behind a line of trees before turning into the lane that served as a drive for the former home of the Bone family.
“Well, shit,” Zach sighed, seeing the light bar on the Cougar and the star on the hood.
“Succinctly put,” Xavier nodded. “We are, as they say, busted.” Neither seemed overly concerned about it. Shutting off their night vision, the two moved into the open where the lights of the Cougar would illuminate them. Greg Holloway was the first out of the vehicle, slouching forward with a smirk on his face.
“Fancy meeting you two here,” was all he said. Before anyone else could speak, Clay arrived.
“What in the hell do you two think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“We’re killing people and breaking shit,” Zach replied evenly.
“How many people?” Greg asked, frowning.
“Twenty-six,” the two said in unison. “Twenty-three men and three women,” Xavier clarified.
