As Wind in Dry Grass

by H. Grant Llewellyn

  Then he shot the boy in the head. The mother was untied and left sitting in the chair.

  This was performed in front of a crowd of almost a thousand people who gathered without being compelled to do so by anything other than their own curiosity. The other conspirators were hung one after the other in front of this transfixed audience that did not utter one word of protest or attempt to intervene in any way. When the last individual fell through the trap and his neck snapped, they turned away en mass and went back to lining up for MREs and negotiating for sex.

  Albert had come into town salted among a group of refugees and melted into the crowd without any problems. At one point he had stood two feet from someone he knew but the man never took his eyes from the spectacle except to look at the ground.

  The captain then used the opportunity to swear in four new constables who stood very solemnly while he read from a manual provided by the UN "in conjunction with the government of The United States."

  Albert remained among a few hundred who stayed to watch this as well, television having been out of service now for six months.

  He recognized two of the four, including George Handalry the former chief of the volunteer fire department and the dog catcher, Harvey Armistad, a generally cheerful man who was uncharacteristically gentle with the animals he captured. Albert couldn't see Harvey as a real policeman but nothing much else held true either. The men were given M16 rifles and two clips each.

  "It is your job to protect these people," the captain said, sternly. "Only we stand between them and...God knows what."

  The four new constables stayed together talking for a while and scanning the crowd. Finally Harvey waved his hand at them indicating they should break up and go about their business. The group began to decay at once and in a few moments the field was empty. Harvey grinned and the other three laughed. He waved his hand again over the empty field and they laughed some more and they broke into pairs and set off patrolling.

  Albert followed Harvey and his partner as they wandered through the static crowd, almost immediately feeling entitled to the way folks parted to let them pass. Sometimes one or the other would nod if someone called out to them but they were careful not to allow too much familiarity. He watched Harvey stop a man who was walking quickly through the crowd and order him against the wall. Harvey's partner stood by, gun lowered, watching the people he was protecting with a stern gaze while Harvey patted the man down and pushed him roughly away. They went on their way, chatting seriously now and again and reassuring each other of the necessity to be hard with these people, "for their own good."

  He wanted to get off the main square and start checking out the little alleyways and driveways on the periphery. It would be good pickings for them as they were encouraged to confiscate anything that in their judgment could create problems among the populace. Neither was a smoker, as far as Albert could tell but they might take cigarettes to barter for something else and surely there will be women who can be persuaded to provide assistance to officers of the state.

  It was the other man who suggested they check out the side street north of the square and Albert continued to follow them. Their gait increased as they left the grassed park in front of the courthouse and aimed for the alley between two businesses, probably excited by the prospect of a little payoff sex from one of the women who held up the brick walls there. Albert held back until they had disappeared into the alley and then he hurried across the road and carried on up the sidewalk. He glanced down the alley as he passed and saw the two men standing in front of a young woman, no more than twenty. He saw Harvey push her against the wall and she pressed her hands on the bricks while they "searched" her for weapons. They let her up and she started to walk away but Harvey held her back. She then got down on her knees and Harvey handed his rifle to his partner who looked furtively down the alley and then returned his gaze to the event transpiring before him, her unhappy submission exciting him and making him want to hit her. In fact, he had decided he was going to hit her as soon as he got his chance.

  Albert was able to get behind him because the man was so mesmerized by the scene in front of him that he paid no attention as look out. Albert was able to slip the garrote around the man's neck and yank it tight with a sudden jerk that took him so by surprise he dropped the rifles on the ground and flailed wildly at his own throat. Albert knew the correct method was to turn around and haul the man off the ground onto his back, like he was carrying a sac. It would speed up the process and it completely disabled him, but Albert hadn't got the wire wrapped properly around his hands and he had to stand on his toes and lean into the man, pulling the piano wire with all his strength until he felt it part the flesh and press into the esophagus.

  The girl had seen the motion a moment before Harvey was aware and she bit down on his penis as hard as she could. Harvey screamed and started punching her madly in the head, but she wouldn't let go and instead she scissored her teeth back and forth until she had cut through most of the organ muscle and blood was spurting against her face.

  Albert dropped the dead man and then grabbed Harvey and dragged him to the ground where the sounds coming from him could not be described as screaming or crying but a cross between grunting and straining and praying. The girl stood up.

  "Leave," he said. "I'll take care of this."

  The girl tried wiping her face and realized it was hopeless and just ran down the alley and disappeared.

  Albert bent down and looked into Harvey's twisted face. His mouth was wide open and he was gasping and trying to scream. He wanted to ask him some questions but it was too late and he had to get moving himself.

  He took a child's squirt gun from his pocket and held it a few inches from Harvey's face. He pumped the methoxide into Harvey's eyes and down his throat and then for good measure he squirted the last of it onto Harvey's bleeding groin. Harvey was trying to rub his eyes now as the searing alkaloid burned away all the tissue around his eyeballs and seeped back into the retina where it bubbled as it toiled and then it began to burn through his throat. It tore up his vocal cords ending any hope of Harvey's, that he would ever utter another sound and then continued on down into his stomach where it burned through the stomach wall to his intestines.

  Albert had not slept now since the attack at the electric station, getting on forty eight hours and he could feel his brain starting to short circuit. He would start to do something and forget what it was in the middle of performing the task and then start again and before he knew it he was fading away again. It was too dangerous to keep going. The body starts to beg for sleep and sleep becomes more important than even life, the body will do anything to rest including surrender. He would never make it back to his campsite at Magneson's in his current state. It was a four-mile walk. But he could make it a mile back to the electric station and there might be a corner in the building where he could hole up for six or eight hours, enough to get him sensible again. With the two M16s over his shoulder he started north and passed out of the town limits without being seen.

  The station was still smoking and some of the wooden timbers were still glowing from the Hellfire strike, but the inside of the building was remarkably undamaged a testament to the builders’ optimism back then. Back then. When? Yesterday? It was too smoky to sleep in the building and he went back outside. No choice. Keep going.

  He lugged one foot after the other, head bowed as he pushed on through the woods alongside the road. It was much harder going but he was too vulnerable out in the open. He stopped every so often and leaned against a tree for a few minutes, closing his eyes long enough to feel them starting to lock up and then he'd force himself awake, drag himself upright again and start walking. He knew if he fooled himself into lying down for even a second or two, he'd collapse into sleep. He was never any good at staying awake, even as a trucker. He waited for his hours to run out and then he'd fall asleep almost immediately. The sleep of a clean conscience.

  He smelled it before he saw it. He thought it
was his imagination and tried to disregard it but it persisted and then he caught a glimpse of the flames when one of them threw on another piece of wood. His head cleared with the burst of adrenalin but he didn't know how long it would last. He felt suddenly alert and quietly took the weapons off his shoulder.

  He heard their voices now, at least two - no, three - men, not arguing. Some laughter. He took a step. Sudden silence. They rose and he saw their silhouettes against the orange glow. A bolt being drawn. Wait...wait...A flashlight beam struck through the trees and almost found him. It bobbed among the leaves and swung away and then another crossed over and looked in his direction again.

  "You chickenshit," someone said.

  Their laughter was nervous but they had already begun to convince themselves that they were still alone. Three men traveling together. What can it be besides bad?

  He crawled into a copse of cedar and Johnson grass and pulled it around himself as best he could and leaned back, his pulse thumping in his eyeballs. Don't do this. Have to. Get up. Can't. Won't. Whatever.

  He woke when their voices penetrated his sleep again and activated the alarm system in his brain. He allowed the pre-dawn light to adjust his eyes and then he turned his head in the direction of their voices which were getting louder. He couldn't move without being discovered and he couldn't stay without them walking right over top of him. He had the M16s and his .45 and his Emerson. He took one rifle and three magazines and rolled away from his position and stood up, still protected by a thin veil of leaves. They had heard him and stopped as well and he heard bolts locking and the flashlights started to play through the trees. They spread out and started to beat the brush towards him.

  "Probably a deer," he heard one say.

  "You obviously ain't never heard a deer," came the answer.

  Their lights were slashing the brush and the ground and he could see their forms clearly now as the night loosened and dissolved. A flashlight beam struck his blind and he squinted and tightened his grip in the rifle which he had switched to full auto. But the light moved on and the man walked right past him, no more than a foot away but concentrating on the ground ahead and ignoring where he had already been. Albert turned very slowly as they moved until all three had their backs to him. They were closing ranks again, no longer looking for anything.

  "Fuckin deer. Told ya."

  But then one stopped and others turned with him. Their guns - two rifles and a pistol - were pointed at him as they came back through the foliage.

  "Don't," he said. "I'm going the other way."

  "Put your gun down, boy," the handgun said. Albert felt his throat constrict. They took another few steps. Albert willed it not to happen. He focused on the hand gun and sent his will across the twenty five feet that separated them. It entered their brains like a spirit and burrowed deep inside and they stopped and the man with the pistol said: "Leave him be." And the others reluctantly started backing away and Albert felt himself breathing slowly and regularly again, his heart pounding loud and hard but with assurance as he watched the handgun start to rise a split second before he opened up on the older man who reeled backwards as the bullets slammed into his chest.

  Albert was down and prone and had already sighted the second man but they ran instead. They both turned and ran and Albert stayed right where he was for a full five minutes waiting to see if they'd come back and then he waited another five and then another and finally he got up and walked over to the man on the ground.

  He was at least 60 and he had grey hair and wore a baseball cap. Probably their father, he thought. His mouth and eyes were open. He'd been struck by at least ten bullets from the burst. He had died instantly. He knew he should go after them and kill them, but he was too tired. He couldn't face another march into town and back or a serpentine hunt through this woods. He had to go home.

  What home. There is no home. Just go. You will regret this. Yes.

  They had stayed at Magneson's or perhaps just ransacked it on their way through. He found most of the drawers pulled and tossed and anything that was not taken just thrown on the floor. They broke most of the dishes and tore the curtains off the windows. Albert picked up one chair and set it back on its legs and then left. He looked across the field to the ridge and thought about Walter and Marjorie and the two boys. There is no way they found them because they'd still be there. He turned away and dragged himself down the cow path to the woodlot and had enough presence of mind left to check the trail before going in. The indicators he'd set were still in place. They might have missed one or even two but three men couldn't have walked past all of them.

  The camp was just as he left it and he crawled into the lean-to and pulled the old army bag up to his chest. His arms remained outside, one hand firmly gripped around the 1911. He felt the sun through the trees.

  PART 2, CHAPTER 4

  Their only way in was along 61, a ragged little stretch from the edge of town to Grosevnor's Warehouse that had been slated for reconstruction through the bailout but the money never materialized and the road was twisted and rough and one quarter mile after leaving the warehouse, the convoy of UN Humvees would cross over an antiquated steel bridge.

  It was known as Friendly Bridge after Ernest Friendly who had paid to have it repaired once in 1954, in exchange for a plaque bearing his name. Friendly Bridge was constructed in 1937 with steel and rivets and it crossed a washout and creek bed that years ago was said to have run with bluegill, though that was disputed. Transports had not been permitted on it since the 1970s and they were routed along a suffering back road for two miles until they could rejoin 61 and continue north or come into town to deliver. The bridge had a 10-ton limit. Even though it was "structurally deficient," it met "minimum tolerable limits to be left in place as it is," according "the government," so everyone relaxed because they knew they were in safe hands, just like the people in Minnesota where I-35 West crosses the Mississippi River.

  There was no better spot for miles around to ambush a convoy and the UN troops realized this as well so they always sent a squad in to check the bridge for explosives and beat the light brush around the area for terrorists before crossing. There were three Humvees with .50 caliber Brownings, a driver and four extra men each and they were heading into Provost to protect the people from the terrorists who had murdered the two constables.

  The little English captain had decided he would find out who had done this no matter what it took. The affront to his authority was egregious and he was not going to permit it. He had learned in Ireland how important it was to make the population believe in your authority and once they did, once they surrendered to the inevitable they were always grateful. They could relinquish the responsibilities of governance to those most capable. Witness the love and respect the people of Belfast hold for the British Army, to this very day.

  Two of the Humvees stopped and the third one went on ahead and parked south of the bridge. The man on the .50 pulled the bolt and swung the great barrel here and there in a wide arc while his four compatriots disembarked and moved forward to the bridge. One by one they disappeared over the bank and the little English captain watched impatiently from the centre Humvee. First one and then another reappeared until all were back on the road and walking to their vehicle when the machine gunner toppled off the Humvee, a .308 bullet in his forehead.

  The crack of the shot soon followed

  It was a perfect shot from two hundred and fifty yards by the female marine Albert had run into at the camp. The machine gun on the captain's vehicle started to chatter immediately and sprayed a huge swath of lead across the field and the trees took a terrible beating. The second gun then started firing and someone had remounted the scout vehicle and added that voice to the chorus. The captain was shouting orders but he couldn't be heard above the racket and finally the .50s stopped and the vehicles spun around as he ordered them to retreat. They left the dead gunner on the road. The convoy returned to the warehouse and a few moments later, the Z10 took off and bul
led straight for the tree line, machine guns chattering from half a mile away. It made three passes before returning to the base.

  Albert had been watching through his field glasses from a line of trees west of the bridge and he hadn't expected the attack any more than had the little captain.

  He swung the glasses around and watched the helicopter land. The pilot got out and ducked to run inside but fell to the pavement, instead. Albert watched the troops hunker down behind their Humvees while the captain tried to pull the pilot into cover. Albert swung the glasses all the way around past the warehouse to the dense, wooded hillside to the south but he could not see anyone. They had probably already moved as two of the .50s were raking the hillside, slaughtering branches and leaves like there was no tomorrow.

  Then the firing started in earnest and Albert saw the muzzle flash of half a dozen rifles pouring bullets down on to the Humvees. Another machine gunner was hit and toppled from the vehicle but no one took his place. Albert watched him crawl towards the warehouse. The guns continued to fire down on the warehouse but the bullets fell harmlessly and after a while it stopped.

  The little captain must have realized he was now trapped inside with unmotivated troops and his helicopter pilot out of commission. Albert watched the hillside and eventually saw half a dozen figures crawling through the woods and heading for the underground gas tanks. The lone Humvee stationed there had closed itself up like a turtle. No one manned the .50 and it looked like it was getting ready to bolt.

  "Jesus," Albert said. "Fucking useless assholes."

  The Humvee jerked to life and turned a sharp right and headed for the warehouse, chased by a throng of lead bees that clinked and clunked and bounced off it. But Rumples and his gang had taken the gas station and were trying to get the pump generator going when a .50 opened up on them from the warehouse and took three of them out almost immediately. The other two fired a few desultory shots and retreated. Albert focused on each body and recognized the truck driver he'd spoken to who had been trapped in New York.