by Eric Vall
“What about the captain?” Tara asked after a while.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He’s in the other building over there,” she said. “He’s not doing anything. We could take him out first.”
“We could,” I agreed. “But we’ll need to see what’s in that building as well. I don’t see any drums of fuel in the refinery, though they could be in our blindspots.”
“Or they could be in there with the captain,” the platinum blonde sighed.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Though I doubt it. They’re most likely in the actual refinery, and we just can’t see them from this position.”
“But that means we can’t attack from over here, either,” Tara said.
“Right,” I confirmed. “It’d be too dangerous. Even if our weapons wouldn’t set the fuel on fire, we don’t want to damage any of the equipment or put a hole in any of the fuel drums.”
“Anything specific we’re looking for while we’re here?” the platinum blonde asked.
“Just keep an eye on where everyone is,” I said. “We’ll move to the other building next.”
“On it,” Tara replied.
We watched the men inside for about an hour as the day grew even hotter, and I could feel sweat begin to bead on my forehead. There hadn’t been a shift change yet, and nobody had changed positions or moved from their assigned work stations. I wondered if it was like this every day. Did they need to constantly make fuel? If what Brody had said was true, then they had at least twenty drums filled, if not more. It looked like they went out on runs every day, but still, there shouldn’t be a need for that much fuel.
It was possible that they were stocking it up to take it somewhere, but with such a good setup I wasn’t sure how likely that was. Fresh fuel was almost as valuable as food and water in the current society, and I knew plenty of people would probably trade everything they had for a drum of it.
But these asshole’s weren’t trading, so what was the point?
“Alright,” I told Tara. “Let’s head to the out building.”
“Finally,” the platinum blonde said. “These guys are boring.”
“Reconnaissance is inherently boring,” I chuckled as I remembered the many weeks I’d spent shitting in a bucket while I watched a warlord’s camp with the hope that he’d show up.
“Yeah, but these guys in particular,” she said. “They’ve just been working this whole time.”
“They have a job to do,” I said with a shrug.
“Yeah,” the platinum blonde agreed. “But why do they need so much fuel anyways? Brody said they had twenty drums full.”
“I was wondering about that myself,” I admitted. “Come on, let’s get to the other building. We still have plenty of scouting to do today.”
The platinum blonde and I made our way back through the grass, then to the trees. I stopped there to check on Bailey, Paige, and Anna, but found Paige missing.
“Where’s Paige?” I asked my second in command.
“She went around to map out the place,” the redhead said.
“Alright,” I agreed. “We’re going to check out the other building.”
“The guy giving orders went in there,” Bailey whispered. “We haven’t seen him since.”
“That’s what I figured,” I said with pinched together eyebrows.
It seemed strange to me that the guy in charge had given orders to his crew and then retreated to the barracks all day. We had been there for well over an hour, and nobody had seen him since he gave everyone their tasks that morning. What was he possibly doing in there? Whatever it was, I was going to find out.
I led Tara to the back part of the building and stayed up against the wall. We were careful not to make any noise as we listened carefully, and then we peered in through each window.
Finally, in the far corner of the building, I heard a voice that had to be the guy in charge. I listened for a moment, and it sounded like he was talking to himself in a very erratic way. He yelled, and cursed, then grew quiet for a moment, then he would yell again.
“Is he crazy?” Tara mouthed to me with wide eyes.
I raised my shoulders and hands in the universal ‘I don’t know’ gesture.
The more I listened, the crazier this guy sounded, especially since his was the only voice I heard. He obviously wasn’t yelling at anyone else, and that made the whole thing that much more strange.
With how sporadic his talking was, I didn’t trust his movements to be any less sporadic, so looking through the window seemed out of the question.
The platinum blonde and I waited for a few minutes, but then the voice grew quiet, and I heard the distinct sound of a lighter. I quickly popped my head up and glanced through the window.
The captain sat on a disheveled bed with a clear tube pipe up to his mouth. I recognized it right away. This guy was either on meth or crack, probably just another reason they were making so much fuel. People on drugs tended to want to get things done when it came to getting their fix, and if this guy was on something, then there was a chance that all these guys were, too.
My only question was where were they getting it? Were they making it here? Is that why they were out stealing people’s supplies, to get more ingredients to make their drugs? Maybe they were trading the fuel to someone for drugs?
I had seen all I needed to see, so I ducked back down and led Tara back to the trees.
I watched as the perimeter guards strolled the area, cigarettes in their mouths, and no concern whatsoever in their steps. It was only midday, so there hadn’t been a shift change yet, but imagined that one was bound to happen fairly soon.
Tara and I had checked out the back of the building, the second building, and we had a pretty good view of the front from the trees, but there was still another side of the building that we needed to get to, and with the way the land was there was only one way to do it. We would have to go back around to the back of the building and crawl all the way around.
I led the platinum blonde past the trees once more, and we belly crawled carefully through the grass past the back of the building, until we came to a large pile of trash just before the dirt road that went through the place.
There was a grove of trees on the other side of the road, but with patrols and the amount of people inside it would be dangerous to try to cross. I waited for the guards to pass by once, then twice, and when I was sure I knew how much time it took between rounds, I grabbed Tara and sprinted across the small road to the large patch of trees.
We nestled into the wooded area, and I pulled out my binoculars. There wasn’t much on this side of the building, but it did give me a good view of where the guards stopped on their shift. There was a small wooden shed that was terribly built, and it sat at the corner of the building. It almost looked like an outhouse, but it was open on one side, and just big enough for two or three full-grown men to stand in.
I watched the small structure and waited. After a while two guards came around the back of the building, ducked into the shed, and pulled out a pipe similar to the one I had seen the captain use earlier.
I shook my head at these men’s actions. It was bad enough that they were killing people and stealing from them instead of just bargaining with what they had, but the fact that they were all on drugs made it that much worse. In my experience drug addicts would do whatever they could to get their fix, not to mention they were often trigger happy, delusional, and completely unreasonable to negotiate with.
After the two men smoked from their small pipe, they were obviously more energized, and they exited the shed with a lot more urgency than when they had entered it. They chatted away as they made their rounds at double the pace they had before.
“What the fuck,” Tara whispered.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We watched through the trees for another hour or so and saw several other guards do the same thing. Eventually they switched, and a new six guards took over.
I felt we
had seen all we needed from the refinery itself, but I wanted to see the men who had left earlier and what they came back with, so we waited.
It was probably four in the afternoon or so when the men came back, and I knew it would be dark within the next two hours, so it was about time for us to move on, but I waited until these guys offloaded their truck first.
They pulled out jugs of different cleaners, some clothes, and some canned goods, but not much else, and all the men who arrived seemed slightly on edge.
I watched with narrowed eyes as one of them approached the captain and told him something with his head bent down. Whatever he had said, the captain did not take the news well, he bit his knuckle then started to kick the tires of the jeep and scream curse words.
“Did you get the rest of it?” the captain asked after he had calmed a bit.
“We got what was in the house,” the guy said, and he held up a bag of white crystalline powder. “But it wasn’t much.”
Jesus, we had taken out their suppliers.
It was time for us to go.
Chapter 11
I ushered Tara back to the trees and found the other three girls still nestled in the woods, so I gave them a nod and led them back through the field by the refinery.
Nobody spoke until we made it back to the abandoned house where we had left our bikes earlier that day. The sun was low in the sky, and it would be dark soon. We needed to find a place to camp for the night and figure out our plan for the morning. There was a lot to go over.
“Okay,” I said. “Before we get into things, let’s figure out where we’re going to camp tonight.”
“Why don’t we just stay here?” Anna asked.
“We can,” I agreed. “But probably no fire if we stay here. There’s too much of a risk that it would be seen from the refinery.”
“Alright,” the redhead said. “Let’s head back down the road a ways.”
“I think I saw another house further back,” Bailey said. “We can stop there for the night.”
“Okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”
We hopped on our bikes and Bailey led us to a small house about two miles up that was set back from the road. We cleared the place easily, then I gathered some firewood while Paige got a fire pit ready for us. The sun was about to set, and it grew darker and colder with each passing minute.
It was a good thing we had chosen to go somewhere else for the night, otherwise we all would have been cold, especially the girls. Most of them didn’t have enough body mass to keep warm without some sort of outside heat.
After the tent was set up, the fire going, and a pot of stew ready to be set on it at any time, we finally got to talking.
“Alright,” I said. “So what did we learn today?”
“We learned they’re all a bunch of drug addicts,” Tara said.
“What?” Bailey asked with surprise.
“Yeah,” the platinum blonde said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you all might have seen it, we should have led with that.”
“That was what was in the bag when the other guys showed up at the end of the day,” Paige said with a nod.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And from the sounds of it those guys we took out earlier were their dealers.”
“Of course they were,” Anna said with a shake of her head.
“You think they were making enough to supply this whole place?” Paige asked skeptically. “I’m not sure about that.”
“You think there could be someone else out there supplying them?” Tara asked.
“There could be,” I said. “But right now we’ll focus on the men here, that shouldn’t affect us too much with what we need to do.”
“Right,” the redhead agreed. “It’s just strange. Small world.”
“Yes it is,” I chuckled. “And it’s even smaller now.”
“I have a map of the area,” Paige said, and she held out a small notebook with several diagrams of the area and the buildings.
“Great,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I counted twenty-four men,” Bailey said. “Including the captain.”
“Alright,” I agreed. “Nice job.”
“And six on patrol duty at all times,” Anna said. “With shift changes every six hours.”
“Okay,” I said. “We also found out that they send out a scouting party each morning.”
“It seemed that way, yeah,” the redhead agreed.
“That’s who we should take out first,” Bailey said.
“I agree,” I said with a nod. “But we’ll need to know where they’re headed.”
“They’re going to head north again,” Paige said with confidence.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Well,” the brunette started, “it’s much farther to get anywhere of substance if you go south. Plus, the captain looked really upset about the drugs, I bet he’ll send the group back up there to make sure that the guys today didn’t miss any.”
“That’s a good point,” I agreed. “I think you’re right.”
“If that’s the case then they’d use the same road,” Anna said.
“Right,” I said with a nod. I wanted to give the girls some freedom here to help come up with the plan.
“So we should wait for them here,” the redhead said. “We’ll take out the scouting party first, then we’ll go take out the guys at the refinery.”
“That makes sense,” Bailey piped up. “And at the refinery the guards should be next.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And then what?”
“Well,” Paige said with a frown. “They don’t do shift change until, what, six hours?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “And nobody came out of the refinery before that from what I saw.”
“Me, either,” I confirmed.
“So if we took out the guards quietly, then we would have to wait for the other guys to come out,” the brunette said.
“Yeah,” I said. “And that would take far too long, but also, before we take out the guards we need to take out the captain.”
“Yeah,” Bailey said. “He was just in that building all day today.”
“How are we going to get the guys out of the building, though?” Tara asked. “We can’t shoot the building because we don’t want to damage the equipment, but if they know we’re there, then they definitely won’t come out.”
“That’s a good point,” Anna said. “And I don’t know if we could lure them out.”
“What if we held the captain guy hostage?” Bailey asked. “Do you think they’d come out then?”
We all turned to look at the blonde hippie with surprise. It wasn’t a bad idea, but I didn’t think I had ever heard something so morbid come out of her mouth.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Paige said. “But all of these guys have weapons.”
“Right,” I said. “They could shoot without thinking, especially if they’re hopped up on something.”
“What if we go in with our knives?” Anna asked.
“Hm,” I said and I thought for a moment. “That’s much more dangerous than taking them out with our guns.”
“Well, yeah,” the redhead agreed. “But they could just hold up in there. I’m sure they know that most people aren’t stupid enough to shoot the refinery.”
“That’s probably true,” I said. “And I did see that most of them had guns, not knives.”
“Right,” Anna said. “I think going in with our knives is the best option.”
“We may be able to draw them out by taking out the guards,” I said. “And if we can, then we’ll take them out that way.”
“And if we can’t?” the redhead asked.
“Then we’ll have to go in with our knives,” I said.
“Nice,” Anna said with a grin.
“If we do that, then it will be sneaky,” I said. “We’ll try to get as many without getting noticed as we can.”
“Of course,” Tara said with a smile.
“You all are excited about this, aren’t you?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“We don’t really get to use our knife skills very often,” Paige said.
“Well, we’re going to do a refresher tonight,” I said. “I want you all prepared for tomorrow.”
“That seems reasonable,” Bailey said.
“And remember that the knives are our backup plan,” I said. “We’re going to try to lure them out by taking out the guards first.”
“Right,” Anna agreed.
“Alright,” I said with a clap. “Everyone grab a small stick and pair up.”
The girls smiled and did as I requested. I rotated them frequently and had them practice front attacks and back attacks. I hoped we would only need the latter, but if one of them got into trouble, then there was the chance they would need to attack from the front.
Anna and Tara had the strongest knife skills, but I was confident in Paige and Bailey as well. They weren’t quite as efficient as Anna and Tara, but I knew that Paige and Bailey were fighters, and with a bit of adrenaline in their veins I knew they’d be just fine.
The girls were split into pairs, and they practiced taking out opponents from behind while keeping them quiet.
“Again,” I commanded for the third time.
The sound of a car on the road brought us to a halt, then I saw lights grow closer to where we were.
“Wait here,” I said, and I pulled out my pistol and headed to the tree line.
“Yeah, right,” Anna said, and they all began to follow me.
We got to the trees by the road, and I watched as the two jeeps trucked along slowly. It seemed like they weren’t actually trying to get anywhere, like maybe they were looking for something.
“Do you think that’s Brody’s people?” Bailey whispered.
“I’m not sure,” I said, my eyebrows pinched together in concentration.
The jeeps slowed even more, and soon a guy stepped out. He was small, and looked nervous, and I figured these definitely weren’t guys from the refinery, but I also couldn’t be positive they were Brody’s people since I didn’t really know what any of them looked like.
