by Kate Morris
The men have gone into the primary log home structure, but occasionally one or two come outside to retrieve things from the back of the truck.
“Women,” John says, indicating behind one of the shacks.
Cory watches through his binoculars and as two women cook on an open fire. Three little kids run around the shack to join the women. They seem happy but are dirty and unkempt. Of course, most of the kids at the farm look like this until their parents force them into the shower. These children seem different from the kids on the farm, though. They look hungry and dirty like little street urchins or like the pictures of children he saw in textbooks during the Great Depression.
“Here we go again,” John says as the men exit the house and get into the vehicles again.
This time a few of the men from inside the cabin go with the men from the other settlement. Some from the last camp stay. They are exchanging people for some reason, and a few of them are carrying papers, perhaps maps with them to their vehicles.
“Looks again like about a hundred people,” Cory says.
“Right,” John agrees. “Let’s go.”
They run to the truck, but this time don’t see the other vehicles exit the path. They’ve lost them.
“Maybe they went out another way,” Cory suggests.
“Could be,” John says. “I didn’t see another way out, but maybe they have it hidden and covered over except for when they use it.”
Cory thinks about it for a minute. John could be right, but where were they going next? Were they headed out to rob people and kill innocents? Are these even the right people?
“Let’s head back,” John says. “It’s getting late. I want to let everyone know what we found.”
“Sounds good,” Cory agrees. “If we time it just right, we might miss evening chores.”
“You know it,” John jokes and nods.
They drive for another ten minutes when Cory spots someone up ahead turning left.
“Hey!” he alerts John. “Look. Was that them?”
John accelerates and follows closely enough without the vehicle in front being able to spot them. They make the same right turn and fall back even more. The truck in front of them turns left through what looks like a field of hay that has not been harvested in years. John approaches slowly and cautiously. They drive past the field.
“I don’t even see a driveway this time,” John remarks as they accelerate away from the site.
“No, I think they just drove through the field.”
A mile down the road, John turns around and drives back toward the field at a measured crawl. The vehicle is gone. The other companion ATV’s, motorcycles and the additional truck from the last place that joined the caravan are gone. There are dense woods at the end of the open pasture. They had to have gone into it to disappear so quickly.
“Let’s head home,” John says.
Cory would like to pursue them into those woods, but John seems reluctant. He’ll defer to his friend’s experience on this one.
Suddenly, a squeal of tires behind them alerts Cory, and he spins in his seat.
“Oh, shit! They’re on us!” Cory shouts as John hits the gas.
“Take care of them. Try to leave a survivor,” John orders.
“Yes, sir,” Cory answers and opens the slider window to the bed of the truck. He climbs through in one fluid motion, grabs his rifle off the front seat and pulls it through, too. Then he kneels on the bed of the truck as the first round is fired off from the truck behind them, whizzing past John’s door. It is the same red truck they followed here. They have either been flanked by these assholes, or else it is merely a coincidence that they pulled out and saw them when he and John were driving by. Either way, if they want a fight, they’re about to get one. If these men are the highwaymen, then they may have been hoping to rob him and John. They only thing they’ll be stealing today is a bullet.
Cory fires back, hitting their windshield. John swerves to miss debris in the road, and Cory is knocked slightly off-kilter. A bullet whirs past the truck like a whistling roman candle. He ducks. John floors it, sending them speeding at around fifty miles per hour. With his arm extended up in the air, Cory lies on his side and flips the selector switch to fully automatic. He fires off about ten rounds at the other vehicle while staying down and protected by the metal tailgate. Along with the driver and two men crammed in the cab, there are six or seven in the bed of the truck. So, he rises to one knee and takes more precise aim since the other vehicle is veering all over the road to avoid his first spray of suppressive fire. He squeezes three times, connecting with the windshield, the hood, and the grille and finally manages to hit the front, left steer tire, causing the already swerving vehicle to slide at an odd angle before the tires catch and cause it to roll. The men in the bed are sent flying. The truck rolls three times until it comes to its final resting position on its roof. The commotion is loud, deafening in the typical apocalyptic silence of the afternoon. There is no other vehicle noise on this freeway, no moving cars commuting to work, no delivery trucks trying to make their daily routes on time. It’s always like this, quiet, sometimes silent other than the sounds of birds.
John slams on the brakes, causing Cory to slide backward slightly. They both jump out at the same time and stalk toward the carnage. John signals that he’ll flank their position and sprints up into the woods beside the freeway. Cory moves cautiously forward, then squats behind an abandoned, turned over semi cab in the road when one of the survivors shoots at him. The trailer is jackknifed into oncoming traffic and also on its side. He will be able to use the entire big rig for cover.
He peeks around the tire where he’s hiding to scan the scene of the accident. The pick-up has smoke coming out of the crushed hood. Cory wishes Simon were here to snipe them from a high spot. Instead, he half bear crawls half shuffles to the other end of the truck’s trailer. If they are moving toward him, they’ll first head to the cab where he ran for cover. Cory finds a spot where the box trailer is hanging off the side of the road, a good fighting position for a few rounds, at least. He climbs down into the ditch, uses the trailer for cover and takes aim at the survivors.
Three men, who must’ve been thrown from the truck, are clamoring for cover. He fires a round, hitting one in the calf. The man goes to his knees with a cry of pain. Cory hits him again with a shot to his side. This will likely be a fatal wound, so he moves on to another. He fires quickly but misses, the round pinging off the bumper of an abandoned sedan with a metallic hiss. It pisses Cory off. He detests missing. The man dives for cover and immediately blasts Cory’s area with a fully auto burst. His firing pattern isn’t suppressive or precise at all but wasteful and angry. Good. If they’re angry, that means they’ve grown cocky and careless. They will be easy to defeat because they aren’t thinking clearly.
A shot rings out from his east, and Cory knows John is taking care of business. The men have scrambled and are hiding from them now. He has to push forward and trust that John has his back for cover fire. Cory rises from his place in the ditch and sprints toward the group. Shots ring out, but so do some from John’s position. He skids to a stop and slams his back against a bread delivery short cargo truck and waits a moment. He reaches around the corner of the back bumper and fires a blast toward them again. Then he gives up the cover of the truck and dashes toward their enemy. A man is crawling on his stomach out from under the wreckage, barely able to move. Cory puts him out of his misery with one shot. Then he fires a few more toward the hiders. He doesn’t hit anyone, but it keeps them down for a moment while he sprints closer. John is also laying down more rounds on them, this time from a new position further past the wreckage but still in the woods under heavy concealment.
Cory sprints in a hunched over position until he is at the empty cab of their truck. The other man or men who were riding inside are gone. He is left to assume that he is now going to be fighting them, too. Cautiously, he peers around the corner of the overturned truck and is near
ly struck by a bullet. The smoke is providing additional cover, so he volleys a few rounds back at them and takes off for a silver SUV. They are too busy shooting into the woods to try and take out John. Cory would like to offer them some advice. Nothing they do will take him down. John is an animal when it comes to war.
He squats low and pauses before swinging around to take aim again. Spotting a man moving between the other empty cars, Cory plugs him, hitting him between the shoulder blades. He screams out and falls forward. He doesn’t get up or move or make another sound, leaving Cory to believe he is dead or paralyzed. He sees another run for his friend, so he takes a shot at him and misses. John is there for the pickup and takes him out, a clean headshot from behind.
Cory creeps silently toward another parked car and hunkers down before he ends up in the same predicament as John’s last victim. His adrenaline is pumping, but he feels no fear. If this is where his life will come to a halt, then so be it. But he’s determined to eliminate as many of their enemy as possible. The roar of an engine in the distance alerts him, and Cory snatches his binoculars. Two trucks, led by a motorcycle are fast approaching in the distance. He and John must get out of here before they are overtaken.
Cory fires off on fully auto again a good spray and sprints back toward their truck. As he’s running, he radios John to let him know to fall back. John is already on his way. They meet up at the truck and get in as quickly as possible. Cory rides in the bed again and hits their enemy with a barrage of gunfire as they speed away. They are not pursued as far as Cory can see in the distance. It is not for at least ten miles that they finally manage to pull off into a neighborhood and drive around back to a rear-facing garage where they can hide and wait it out.
“What the fuck?” Cory asks rhetorically when he meets John at the side of the truck.
“Think they radioed for help?” John questions.
“Maybe,” Cory says. “They have tactical gear, so they probably have radios. We had them pinned down. I was two seconds from rushing them. I knew you had them pinned on the other side of the road.”
“Yep,” John agrees. “I think they had to have called in for backup. Reload. Get ready. We’ll move out soon.”
“Got it.”
Twenty minutes later, after John decides it’s been enough time, they head out again. He pulls out of the driveway and then out of the neighborhood slowly and with great caution. They wait a few minutes at the stop sign before pulling onto the main road again. The only thing Cory sees is a deer in the field across from them casually grazing on the long grasses. John looks both ways a few times, not for oncoming traffic but for creeps driving vehicles while shooting like they are angry at rush hour traffic and committing felonious road rage.
“Let’s roll,” John says and accelerates away.
A few miles down the road, they spy two of the ATV’s that were traveling with the group that was after them. They are parked alongside the road. Nobody is in sight.
“Disable ‘em,” John orders.
John pulls up slowly, and Cory hops out. He stabs his dagger into the front and back left tires of each. Then he jumps into the truck, and they take off again. Whoever was coming back to these is going to be disappointed when they get there. Cory knows they are most likely searching the woods right now for them.
“Wish we could stay and pick them off,” Cory laments.
“Not a good idea. They could radio for backup again. Now is the time for E and E. Not the time to be heroes who get shot before the war has a chance to kick off.”
He nods but still wishes the situation were different. They travel at a high rate of speed until they reach their town. John checks in with the guards to ascertain that nobody has attacked the town, and they are both relieved that it’s been quiet all day. He warns them to be on the lookout and to call it in if they see them or need help. Then they head for home.
Cory calls on the radio to the farm, and everyone is gathered in the barnyard when they arrive to hear of the incident.
“Do you both think it was them?” Derek asks after they explain the situation.
John shrugs, “Seems likely. They’re a threat. That much I’m sure of. They took no pause in shooting at us.”
“That’s for sure,” Cory chimes in.
“We need to go back out,” John says.
“Wait,” Reagan says quickly and with fear in her voice. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Me neither,” Paige agrees.
She looks at Cory but for just a brief second since her brother is standing next to her.
“If Simon had been with us, he could’ve taken out the rest of them. Easily,” Cory tells them. His best friend sends him a glare of contempt. “It’s true.”
“We should sneak in at night,” Kelly says. “Take just the one camp, the smallest. Snatch and grab. We’ll snag a dude and interrogate him.”
“I doubt if that will be an easy operation,” Derek says.
Doc puffs on his pipe and says, “Sneaking in and out of their camps will be very difficult. I don’t want you in that kind of danger.”
John says, “The men left both camps. I don’t think many stayed behind. They were all making plans or something.”
“We should let the stress from today’s skirmish settle before we try this,” Derek says. “They’ll likely stay close to their camps for a while to protect them. Then they’ll let their guards down. That’s the time to make our move, after they leave their camps again.”
John adds, “Right, that’s a good idea. They probably leave their camps often, so once they get back into the swing of things, that’s when we snatch and grab.”
Kelly amends his idea and says, “We should get a woman instead if we can. Take and interrogate her.”
“Kelly!” Hannah exclaims with shock.
“She’ll talk before the men will,” Kelly tells her. “We wouldn’t hurt her, baby. We’d only talk to her.”
“He has a point,” Reagan says in agreement. “They could return her once they’re done. Take her back a few days after and release her near the camp.”
Cory jumps in to suggest, “We could go in when the men leave one of the camps and grab a woman and talk to her. Maybe they aren’t there of their own free will and would want to talk.”
Sue says to him, “You said they slapped one of the women in the face. There’s a good chance they don’t want to be there in the first place. They may need our help.”
“Something to consider,” Doc says.
They discuss the situation a while longer until the sun falls on the McClane farm, and everyone goes about performing their evening chores. He rushes through feeding the cattle in the paddock. Then he moves on to watering the horses. They are strange animals sometimes. He’s noticed that most of them seem to drink more in the winter than in the stifling heat of summer.
Finishing quickly, Cory jogs away to look for Simon. He finds him milking cows. John is also there, but he discreetly leaves and offers to let Cory finish for him.
“Hey, man,” he says. “Can we talk?”
He can’t see Simon since he’s on the other side of the Jersey, the milk cow that provides them with butter and cream. Cory is milking a Holstein, which will give them drinking milk, especially for the little kids.
“I have nothing to say to you,” his friend returns.
“We should talk, Simon. You’re my best friend.”
“Was. I was your best friend. Friends don’t do what you did. You betrayed my trust.”
“I know,” he says as Simon stands and places his bucket in the sink behind him. Cory notices his bruised knuckles, and it makes him depressed that his friend had to do what he did.
He quickly finishes before Simon comes back from releasing his cow. He places his own bucket in the sink, too. Cory unties the heifer and releases her, as well. He shortcuts it and sends her out through the barn gate instead of walking her out to the paddock.
“Hey, wait,” he calls to Simon, who is w
alking down the aisle with his bucket. “Wait up, man. Let me explain, Simon.”
His friend swings around swiftly, making Cory wonder if he’s about to get punched again. It’s fine if he wants to. Cory won’t stop him. He didn’t yesterday. Simon is right. If the situation were reversed, Cory would beat the shit out of the dude, too. He doesn’t blame his friend or his reaction to hearing about himself and Paige.
“There’s nothing to explain, Cory,” Simon says with fervor.
“I want to. Just let me,” Cory says and continues before Simon can stop him. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Your sister is…well, she’s not just a conquest. I have feelings for her. I really do love her. I didn’t think after Em…” the words get stuck in his throat and he has to clear it because speaking his little sister’s name out loud is difficult for his heart to bear. He collects himself and keeps going, “Well, after Emma died I didn’t think I’d ever… that I’d ever let myself feel vulnerable like that again, but Paige changed that. She made me want to try. I love your sister. I didn’t mean to disrespect you with what we did, and I know I did. That shit sucks. You’re my friend, my best friend, Simon, and I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose. I wanted to tell you. I did.”
Simon glares at him. “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. There shouldn’t have been anything to explain. I never would’ve done this to you. I never would’ve slept with Em, even if she was closer to my age or I liked her or whatever.”
“I know, brother. You’re the better man. Clearly. You always have been. I couldn’t stop myself. I literally couldn’t. I liked her almost immediately. Damn, I mean, I think I fell in love with her the first time I met her in the woods. She’s just so…different.”
