Jamie stepped up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. It wasn’t an erotic or romantic kiss, but I knew it was close to a line I couldn’t cross. I stood there, trying to master my emotions and control, because something was welling up inside of me that I had a hard time dealing with. I was starting to care more. Not in a romantic sense, though I’d thought of it from time to time in an erratic manner, as people who have gone through some shit together and share a bond that nobody else can understand will. Almost how Courtney or Danielle were to me. I felt something close to affection for Jamie, and I fought it with every thought and heartbeat. Mary would kill me, even if we were divorced; she had very rigid values in regards to adultery. And Jamie was still married.
“It is, but this isn’t yours and Mel’s fight. You’re stuck here with me. I don’t want to see you hurt. Courtney and Luis volunteered,” I told her.
“It’s not your fight either and, for the record, I’m volunteering Mel and me, as much as you’ve let us,” she told me, starting to walk again.
I let her go once I made it to the tithe pile and watched as she entered the church. Pastor Horton and the old man who’d been hoeing his garden earlier joined me near the pile. It was an ATV, our bikes that we hadn’t taken possession of yet, some summer squash, dozens of bags of varied produce, several heads of lettuce, a pile of canned goods, jugs of what was supposed to be gas and diesel, and clothing of all sizes and shapes. It looked like an eclectic pile, but Pastor Horton was still worried. It was the smallest offering they’d made yet.
“Who’s the main guy you deal with?” I asked him.
“The one in charge calls himself Chaz,” the pastor said.
“He’s a useless ass-munch,” the old man offered and then laughed at Horton’s expression.
“Any of these guys good shots?” I asked, meaning the raiders.
“As good as anybody, I guess?” the pastor asked. “I mean, I don’t know. I think the guys we have up high are our best shots, but we’ve never really had a shootout with these men.”
“You just let yourselves get shot?” I asked.
Nobody talked, and the old man tapped my arm. I looked over and saw he had an old Colt Navy revolver in a cross draw holster under his shirt. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“A few years ago I used to do some cowboy rodeo shooting. You don’t have to worry about me. These guys ain’t balloons.”
“A few years ago or forty?” I asked him with a chuckle.
“You want to find out, son? You got a smart mouth,” he shot back, but he was grinning.
I’d known men like him off and on in my life. My favorite sarge had been like him, pretending anger when he was poking fun. Sarcastic and profane when it suited him.
“No sir,” I told him. “But I wouldn’t mind you backing my play if we have to get involved.”
“You got that fancy shotgun, you should be ok,” he said, grinning.
“You like that?” I asked him, smiling and looking around the subdivision.
Three dozen men and women could be equipped with rifles the townsfolk had, and they had all professed their marksmanship. I wasn’t going to bet my life on it and planned on making my own luck, but I’d also stacked the deck a little bit. I’d brought a couple frag grenades with me from the stash we lifted off the Russians, and I’d sort of forgot to mention that to Salina’s group before we’d left. From what it sounded like, the men liked to bunch up and came in two trucks.
The townsfolk normally were scarce when they showed up, and it sounded like Chaz’s bunch was a well-armed set of ass-munchers or whatever it was the old gardener called them. I was sure they had more firefight experience than most of the folks here, if not all. What they didn’t have anymore was the advantage of numbers. One last look confirmed that everyone was out of sight.
“Is that some new space age bullshit?” the old man asked me, pointing to the KSG.
“No, it’s a gimmicky shotgun that holds way more shells than most. I can select which side I want the breach to be loaded with. Today I’ve got a mixture of buckshot and sabot slugs.”
“That’s nasty,” he told me. “But a cleaner death than these bastards deserve.”
I pondered that as the sun beat down on us. We were all sweating, and I adjusted the sling for the KSG a bit.
“Who’d you lose?” I asked him softly.
“My wife,” he answered without looking to me.
“You’re not planning on doing anything heroic today, are you?” I asked him.
“Me? Hell no. I’ve got my daughter and grandkids to look after. After we find a hole to put these assholes in, that is.”
“Good, I don’t want any martyrs here,” I said to him. The pastor was staring at the both of us with his mouth slightly ajar. “No offense, pastor.”
“No, no… it’s… I thought I was prepared. I mean, my parents were horrified when I left the LDS church to become a Lutheran. I always thought my faith and my values worked well, and I tried to prepare for the worst and prayed for the best. But this talk of killing to prevent further death and the whole plan… I never planned on having to do this, ever. It’s not something they teach you about in my profession.”
“It’s something they teach in mine,” I told him quietly. “It's dealing with the nightmares where they fall short. That and the VA, and transitioning back into civilian life.”
“How long were you in, son?” the cowboy shooter asked.
“Twenty-two and a half years,” I told him.
“So you never really got out?” he asked me.
“Medically retired a few back,” I said, not meeting his eyes.
I felt him pat my shoulder. “If your dreams bother you, then you’re one of the good guys.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, turning to him, genuinely curious.
“If they didn’t bug you, you wouldn’t have a conscience. A man like that can be good in a firefight, but a piss poor man. I think we’re about to run into men without conscience and without morals.”
“I wonder if these are the same moral questions and objections men have been running into over the ages,” Pastor Horton asked.
I heard something on the wind: the sound of motors. It was far off, but it was moving this way. They’d always come in the same way and in trucks, never deviating one iota. If they followed form, they would be killed almost to a man in the opening salvo. I had forty gunmen and women and half as many support people nearby and ready with shells. The place had literally been an ant hive of activity until the last thirty minutes, and now that it was game time, it seemed like a ghost town.
9
I had that itchy sensation again, right between the shoulder blades. I knew it was nerves, and fearing the worst, I’d stashed my pack inside the church long ago, but I still had on my vest, my .45, and for some reason, I’d stashed the .44 I’d taken off the kid at the small of my back. I probably had too much firepower, but I didn’t want to be the one running out of bullets. Still, this was their fight, and I wasn’t going to put my people in unacceptable danger when I had so many willing to help out.
“That’s Chaz,” Pastor Horton said, pointing to one of three men who’d jumped out of the bed of a pickup truck. After looking around, they spotted the pastor and walked in our direction.
They’d come in exactly as expected, parking one in front of the other now that we’d positioned a couple of broken-down cars on either side of the tithe pile. I didn’t want them to pull up side by side; the kill box would be too big.
“What’s this shit?” Chaz yelled at us from thirty feet away, pointing at the pile.
He was wearing what I would call tacti-cool gear with a holstered pistol and an M4. That made me curious; none of the townsfolk had mentioned that, but as I glanced at the men getting out of the trucks, most were armed with nonmilitary gear. Maybe a couple AR variants here and there… I mentally counted and saw fourteen.
“This is all we could come up with,” Pastor Horton calle
d back.
The pastor for once looked scared sick. Not a sickness of the stomach, but for what he knew was about to happen.
“I hope you’re kidding,” Chaz said, getting closer.
I could make out the faded lettering on his vest as he turned to make a hand signal to the group of men now walking towards us. They followed behind Chaz by a good ten feet. It was a DHS vest. My heart sank a little bit. Chaz wanted to be out front, he wanted to be the big man. He must have felt like a fucking sexual tyrannosaur with all that cool shit, bullying people around. The truth is, assholes like him were overcompensating for something, or they got off on bullying. I hated people like that.
“No kidding here, Chaz,” I shouted, and he stopped a good fifteen feet from me.
The air was quiet, and the heat shimmered off the asphalt of the parking lot. I knew in the next few seconds I was going to be feeling how hot it was if things went to plan, but I wanted to make a point and maybe get some information.
“Who are you?” he asked, pointing his M4 in my direction, though not shouldered.
“Somebody here to help Pastor Horton with his worldview. Who you working with, Chaz?” I asked.
“So you’re fine with this pitiful pile?” Chaz asked, turning and slapping the man to his left on the chest and laughing.
“No, we just needed some bait.”
I could hear actions worked and safeties released, but it wasn’t by our people. Hopefully, they all were frosty. I was trying to get him to talk and stalling for enough time to let the men line up side by side. It was almost comical that they actually were nearly in place. It was just about time to give the signal.
“Excuse me? Bait? Who do you think you are, God? I know you ain’t God, cuz Horton there isn’t praying to your ass.” Again he was laughing at his own joke, and a few chuckled at his lame display.
“No, but I know a better trick,” I said, holding up my left hand. “I can snap my fingers and make your life hell. God can’t even do that.”
“Snap your fingers?”
I snapped the fingers on my left hand as both men beside Chaz were hit by heavy rifle rounds from the best hunters in the community. The reaction was immediate, and Chaz started shooting bursts at us before his rifle was shouldered all the way. I had time to bring my shotgun up, and I was about to fire when three quick shots beside me had me dropping for cover and dragging the preacher down by his injured arm.
“Got ‘em,” the old cowboy shooter said, grinning. “That’s for Emily.”
The entire town opened up, and the gunfire echoed all across town. Oddly, the pavement smelled better than the cordite. I pulled the crying pastor behind the rim of the Buick, close to the engine block to give him better protection, and I looked under the hood. Men were screaming and falling. Somebody shouted for them to get to the trucks, and I looked up to see the four men left on two feet running. I’d had enough and started pumping and shooting. I didn’t know who got them, me or the town, but at least two dozen shots were fired, hitting the men in the legs and back.
The screaming of the anguished raiders was loud. There were at least three or four more wounded, but they would remain alive for the time being. I wasn’t going to let the townsfolk do this part, this was for the hardened. For somebody who was beyond redemption and who walked the Devil’s Road. I let the shotgun fall to my waist and pulled my .45, releasing the safety.
“Hold,” I screamed, walking up to the closest trio.
The two men that had been by Chaz were gone, but Chaz was rolling on the ground. I kicked the M4 away from him and pulled the pistol from his holster and threw it back. I didn’t know what else he had, but I didn’t want him all the way dead yet. I frisked him, tossing a Ka-Bar off to the side. Grabbing Chaz’s vest by the shoulders, I rolled him on his back so he could look at me. He was holding his stomach with one hand and his chest in the other. He must have been in a lot of pain, because he had tears in his eyes, though no sob broke through the sudden silence.
“Did the vest stop them all?” I asked him.
“I think… it hurts…” he said, gasping for breath, probably from broken ribs and having the wind knocked out of him.
I didn’t see any other gunshots. I poked the three bullet holes and found the lead balls immediately. The old guy was shooting black powder!
“Ok, you hold tight,” I said, standing up. “And if you move, you’re a dead man.”
“I’ll… you’re all dead…”
I shot him in the chest from three feet away, and his body straightened out as the pain overloaded his senses. That one had a lot more powder and was a lot closer. If the bullet didn’t penetrate, he might still die of shock. I wasn’t too worried. I started walking towards the men who were left alive and ending them with one shot to the head. I was lining up my last shot when I was grabbed on my shoulder and spun. I knew it was probably the cowboy, coming out to cover me… but I was wrong. It was Pastor Horton and the cowboy shooter. The pastor was crying.
“This is murder,” he said. “Let my doctors—”
A shot rang out, and a hole appeared in the center of the cowboy’s head, who was standing just next to Horton. Gunfire erupted in front of me, and I had time to look and see the last man I’d been ready to dispatch had pulled a gun from somewhere. I dropped to the pavement, pulling the pastor down again as the fire from the townsfolk hit all around us, quite a bit of it hitting the man who’d used his last breath to take one more shot at us.
“No,” I said to him angrily once the gunfire stopped. “What happened to the cowboy was murder. I don’t even know his name.”
I was pissed. I would have ended the scumbag if the pastor hadn’t stopped me, and for a moment, I almost lost myself and decked the holy man. He’d been directly responsible, and it took everything I had to contain the beast in me that wanted to run amok, berserk. Instead, I left the pastor, who fell to his knees over the cowboy, and walked back to Chaz.
He had managed to get the vest off, but he hadn’t gone towards the weapons I’d kicked or thrown away.
“Where’s your camp?” I asked him.
He made a choking sound, and a stringer of blood ran out of his mouth. I knelt over him and pulled out the Ka-Bar. I slit his shirt up the front and saw the reason why. None of the shots had penetrated the body armor, but there was a dent in his otherwise normal chest. He’d been busted up by my close-range shot and had a rib poking a lung. I rolled him on his side so he wouldn’t choke and used his own vest to prop him.
“How many more of you are there?” I asked him.
He was still gasping, but he made no move to answer me.
“Not feeling talkative, huh? Well, let me tell you how this is going to happen. I’m going to find out whether or not you tell me. What you did was take a peaceful community and drag them down to your level. The thing I can’t decide is whether to let you drown in your own blood, or let the townsfolk patch you up so they can hold a mock trial and then hang you at a later date.”
His eyes were wide, and I could tell he was going into shock.
“Not going to talk?” I asked him, putting the knife back in the sheath.
He motioned for me to come closer. I did, and every word bubbled in his throat. I promised him I’d get the doc, but by the time I got the location and how many were left, he’d died.
There were only a dozen remaining men according to the raider. I spent the day scoping them out and verifying Chaz’s story. They were holed up in an old telephone company building. It was built entirely out of brick and didn’t have any windows, with hefty steel doors. The parking lot was also fenced in, and a few people at a time would come out and walk around, smoking or on patrol. I knew the fact that Chaz’s men hadn’t come back had to have them alarmed, so the plan I made up was simple, effective, and deadly.
“This is killing my back,” David groused.
We’d driven the two trucks with willing townsfolk to within sight of the building. I’d left my entire cadre of friends b
ehind and was sitting in the back of the bed like a jack-in-the-box. Now, I had one person in the driver’s seat and everyone else pushing the lead truck with the other kept back out of sight. They would ride up when the games began.
“Shut up, we want them to think the truck is disabled,” I said. “And have them come out or open the gates so we don’t have to crash through them.”
“If it was only…”
“That radiator… again… tow your ass…” The shouted greeting carried over the gentle wind.
I looked through the back window and saw the gate to the small parking lot rolling open with a few men walking out. Only two of them carried guns, so I surmised our ruse had worked: show the enemy what he expects and then sucker punch him when he isn’t looking. In the end, it all worked perfectly. They were lured close enough for the men to open up. Chaz had lied, though, there weren't a dozen men. There were only nine.
I didn’t have to fire off a shot, and the remaining men inside had given up without a complaint. They were trussed up and tossed into the back of the second truck as we looked at the parking lot and inside the old telephone company. A semi pup trailer had been parked there, and supplies and tools had been stored inside. Food items had been getting stockpiled inside of the phone company building, and that’s when David and Kevin’s eyes had gotten wide.
There was enough there to have supplied the raiders for at least two years. A dog-eared map that had been tacked on the wall had three communities circled in red grease paint. The one we had just left, and two neighboring areas. One was next to a golf course along the river. I just shook my head and tore the map off the wall and stuffed it in my pocket after folding it.
“Load one truckload with all the food you can fit. The other truck stays here with half the group. We’ll get this back to the community and go from there.”
“One group left back to guard what’s here?” Kevin asked me.
The Devil's Road: Devil Dog Book 2 (Out Of The Dark) Page 10
