by D. J. Molles
A half-dozen different plans ran through Lee’s mind. But sometimes the best plan was no plan at all. What Lee had was initiative. He knew that he could take out both Red Hat and Smoker before they had a chance to react. That left Fat Boy and two others inside the house. The only question remaining was, will they fight or flee?
Lee felt confident they would die either way.
Lee settled down into a prone position, most of his body hidden behind a thick tree, just his head and rifle visible, though it was difficult for someone in the bright sunshine to see inside the shaded woods. They probably wouldn’t see him, even if he was standing up and wearing hunter orange.
He took a few deep breaths and pulled the trigger on the exhale. He took out Smoker first with a single shot to the temple. Red Hat watched his buddy fall over, his own face splattered with brains, blood, and skull fragments. His mouth opened in terror, but he never had a chance to yell. Lee put two in his chest and tried for The Mozambique, but the target was already falling back and the third shot went a few inches high.
Lee eased back into a kneeling position and waited. He could hear shouting from inside the house. “Kenny? What the fuck was that?” Lee waited for them to find out. “Fuck! JC, they’re both dead!” “What?” “I think someone shot ‘em!” “Get back!” The rest of it was muffled, as the remaining three men retreated into the house. They would either try to peer out the windows and find Lee—which would cost them their lives —or they would make a run for the pickup truck and try to escape.
The sound of the front door slamming and footsteps across the front porch answered Lee’s question.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Moving with controlled urgency, Lee pushed the barrel of his M203 grenade launcher forward, then extracted a 40mm grenade which resembled a giant bullet, shoved it into the barrel, and locked the barrel back into place. He elevated the weapon and pulled the trigger on the launcher. The grenade flew out with a heavy thump. Lee was worried that his timing might have been off, but it was spot-on. Just as the three men came into view, sprinting for the pickup truck and closing at about 30 feet, the 40mm grenade arced out of the sky and the cab of the pickup went up in a white flash and a billow of smoke.
All three men lifted their hands to shield their faces and fell flat on their backs.
Lee came out of the wood-line with his M4 leveled and firing. The first man tried to get up and grab his gun, so Lee put two in him, one ripping into his shoulder and the other punching a neat hole in his neck. The man fell back, choking on his own blood.
Fat Boy and a man in a plaid shirt were still sitting on the ground and both threw their rifles away and held up their hands.
Lee put one in Plaid’s chest at about 15 feet out. The man grabbed his chest and started rolling around, wheezing and letting out pathetic sounds. What right did he have to plead for mercy or scream in pain? The man they’d killed only a short time ago had died defending his son and he’d done it in silence.
Fat Boy stared at Plaid with his mouth hanging open. He was paralyzed with shock. He looked at Lee and snapped back into the moment. If he had been a fighting man he would have known that it was over anyway and made a break for his rifle so that he would go out swinging.
But Fat Boy was just a fat boy, just an out of shape hillbilly with a taste for teenage boys. His heart wasn’t made of tough stuff and his mind had never been combat hardened. He only knew fear—how to induce it, and how to feel it.
Lee was standing now within a few feet of both men. Plaid continued to moan loudly and roll on the ground. Lee felt that two men to dig a grave was one too many. Still holding Fat Boy’s gaze, Lee finished Plaid off with two more rounds. He didn’t watch where they hit, but Plaid was silent after that.
“Please don’t fucking kill me! Please!” the fat man started crying.
Lee shook his head. “Stop crying.”
Fat Boy whimpered and sobbed.
“Seriously. Stop crying.” Lee kicked his legs. “Get up. Come on.”
Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, hunched over and cowering. He’d been so bold and brash such a short time ago. Now he was reduced to groveling and...pissing himself. A dark stain was growing on his crotch and spreading down the length of his right leg.
Lee motioned the man forward, which the man complied with, hesitantly, like a beaten dog. As he got within arms reach, Lee punched him in the throat, then planted his other fist deep in the man’s jiggling gut, doubling him over. The man fell sideways onto the ground, hacking and coughing.
Lee wanted to do more, but he also wanted the man alive a little longer. “Relax and breathe. You’re not injured, you’re just hurt. Give it a minute.”
Fat Boy rolled onto his hands and knees and wheezed for a few moments before regaining his wind.
“Up.” Lee poked him in the back of the neck with the barrel of his M4. “You have some work to do.”
***
Fat Boy dug like his life depended on it. Which it did. Lee was going to kill him anyway, but he let Fat Boy believe that there was hope.
He told the man that if he looked like he was taking his time with the digging, or being disrespectful towards the body of Sam’s father, that Lee was going to gut shoot him and leave him to die, then finish the digging himself. Fat Boy had four dead friends that bore witness to the fact that Lee was willing and able to carry out that level of violence.
It took the man about a half hour to dig a grave that Lee felt was of suitable depth to bury Sam’s father in. He then escorted Fat Boy at gunpoint to collect the body and carry it to the grave. Before taking the body, Lee searched it and saw the man was wearing a gold watch and took it off his wrist for Sam. Fat Boy struggled at first, then finally was able to pick the body up and carry it over his shoulder.
After Sam’s father had been laid to rest, Lee ordered Fat Boy to remove the shoelaces on his right boot. Fat Boy complied and provided Lee with a two-foot length of cordage which Lee used to bind Fat Boy’s hands behind his back.
At gunpoint, Lee march Fat Boy down the hill and into the woods.
“Where are you taking me?”
Lee felt no reason to lie to the man any longer. “To the boy whose father you killed. The boy that you were gonna rape.”
Fat Boy stopped in his tracks and looked at Lee, terrified. “Why you doin’ that?”
“Because I’m going to let him kill you if he wants to.”
Fat Boy’s eyes erupted in tears again. “No! Please mister!” he got down on his knees. “I wasn’t gonna rape him! Why you gonna let him kill me over nothing? I ain’t done nothing wrong!”
Lee looked at the man with indifference. “You’ve done a lot wrong.” Fat Boy’s mind scrambled for something, anything to argue his case. Lee cut him off before he could continue arguing. “You murdered a man today, you know it and I know it. And I watched you do it with a smile on your face, which makes me think, maybe this isn’t the first time you’ve done it. So for the boy’s father and anyone else you’ve murdered, I would dearly like to put a bullet in your brain. But I’m going to let the boy decide what to do with you. So you can either keep walking and have a chance— however slim—of the boy sparing your life, or you can stop right here and I will gladly do the job myself.”
Fat Boy looked Lee in the eye and tried to match his cold determination, but couldn’t muster the stones and looked down at his feet. Then he turned and continued walking in the creek bed.
It was only a short distance before Lee saw the top of the root system where Sam and Tango were hiding. He pushed Fat Boy down to his knees and looked up over the top of the gully. “Sam?”
Sam’s head poked up as well as Tango’s.
Lee motioned with his head for Sam to come over.He walked over, hesitantly, holding a small twig in his hands that he was nervously peeling the bark off of. Lee felt conflicted about what he was going to ask the kid, but it somehow felt more just than simply killing the man after he’d finished digging the grave.
It was Sam’s father the man killed. It should be Sam’s decision what happens to him.
As Sam made his way over, Lee knelt down and whispered quietly in Fat Boy’s ear, “Don’t say a word. I promise you’ll regret it.”
Sam slid down into the gully, his khaki pants now smudged with mud. He stood a safe distance away and stared at Fat Boy where he knelt. His expression was unreadable to Lee, and again he second-guessed his decision to bring the man to Sam.
But it was a fucked up world and this day would always be a dark blotch in this young man’s mind. Sometimes revenge heals, sometimes it makes things hurt worse. It wasn’t for Lee to decide how Sam dealt with this.
Lee stepped over to the Sam, putting himself between him and Fat Boy, but angling himself so Fat Boy was still in his field of vision. He put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and spoke in low tones.
“You know who that is, right?” Sam’s eyes drifted to Fat Boy and he nodded after a moment. “And you know what he did?” “He killed my dad.” “Yes. Whatever you decide to do with him, he’ll deserve it.” Lee dipped his head down to the kid’s level so that their eyes made contact. “Look at me, Sam. You know the world is very different than it was a little while ago. You know how things have changed. We don’t have police and court rooms to take care of people like him anymore, so now we have to do it ourselves. And it’s ugly, and sometimes it hurts, but it has to be done. You understand me?”
Sam nodded slowly, looking at the crying man on his knees. His eyes were cold, which put a chill down the back of Lee’s neck. He didn’t look so small now. “Yeah, I understand.”
“It was you that he hurt, so it’s up to you what you do with him, okay?”
Sam’s jaw muscles bunched, his lips becoming a tight line. His was a face built for smiling, not for scowling, and when the expression came on his face, it was disconcerting. “Can I borrow your gun?”
The way he said it was as if he was asking Lee to loan him a dollar. Lee didn’t think about it too long. He shook his head. “I’ll do it. You just decide.”
“Okay...” Sam seemed partially relieved.
Sam walked forward and looked at Fat Boy, who knew he was about to die and was weeping uncontrollably now. The man had not an ounce of courage to stay his tears at least for the moment of his death. Instead he blabbered on, snot running down his upper lip and bubbling with each mumbled syllable.
The young man looked at Fat Boy for a very long time, then leaned in close and whispered to the man something that Lee could not hear, then he turned and walked back to Lee. “Let him go,” he said calmly.
Lee watched him climb the side of the gully and sit back down with Tango who stuck his nose into Sam’s neck and licked him happily. Looking back at Fat Boy, Lee saw the man’s eyes were heavy-lidded and his mouth hung agape. He looked numb.
Lee slid his pistol back into its place and walked over to him. He tapped him on the shoulder, which did not seem to break into his daze. “Come on.”
The man on the ground turned his head slowly, visibly trembling and looked up at Lee. “Are you really going to let me go?”
Lee shrugged. “The kid doesn’t want to kill you.”
Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, eager to be released. “I swear I won’t come back!”
“Mm-hm.” Lee smiled humorlessly. “Start walking.”
They walked in silence back through the stream bed, Fat Boy stumbling along with his hands still tied behind his back, and Lee following. They reached the back edge of the Petersons’ property and Lee instructed Fat Boy to stop. The man stopped then looked back toward Lee.
Fat Boy took a shaky breath. “I promise. You’ll never see me again.”
Lee nodded and withdrew his Ka-Bar from its sheath on his chest rig. “I know.”
Then he reached around and gripped Fat Boy by the forehead, applying rearward pressure, and inserted the Ka-Bar into the base of his skull, just above vertebrae C1, severing his spinal column. Fat Boy’s body became a 250-pound sack of concrete and immediately collapsed. Lee wiped the blade off on his pants, then slid it back into its sheath and walked back towards Sam and Tango, leaving Fat Boy where he fell.
CHAPTER 7: GUARDIAN
Lee found Sam sitting on his go-to-hell pack with his arms wrapped around his knees, and his head hanging down. As he got closer, Lee realized the kid was crying. He stopped where he was, wondering if he should give him a minute. He swore under his breath, directing his anger at himself. He should not have brought Fat Boy down there, should not have put that decision on Sam. That was too much for a 13-year-old to handle. Aside from all of that, the kid was still processing the death of his father. Once the adrenaline subsides, the mind has a chance to start replaying what has happened, and that’s when the emotions start to break through.
Lee was quite familiar with that phenomenon, having lost men in his unit while in Iraq. One to sniper fire and two others to a roadside bomb that took out their Humvee. In both cases, he hadn’t felt much during the incidents, except for fear and some panic, a feeling of helplessness, like there was something he could be doing to help them, but could never figure out what it was. Later, off patrol and back behind the wire, he would lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling, overcome with a heavy sadness that felt like being trapped in a strange dream with no way to wake up.
Lee remembered the terrible emptiness, and along with it, the loneliness.
He walked quietly up to Sam. Still edgy after what had transpired, Sam jumped when he heard a twig snap and looked up to find Lee kneeling down beside him. Sam wiped his eyes quickly, then set his chin on his arms and regarded the forest floor.
Lee took a long, deep breath and stared at the ground along with him. “You made a good choice, Sam. Don’t ever feel bad about showing someone mercy.”
“I don’t,” Sam mumbled, his voice thick with tears.
They sat in the quiet of the forest for a long moment. Lee listened to the sounds of the forest, hearing the occasional small branch falling, and the incessant chatter of birds, lost in conversations shouted from one end of the woods to the other. Finally, Lee spoke. “What was your dad’s name?”
“Labib.” Sam gave Lee a sidelong glance. “What’s your name?”
“Lee Harden,” he extended his hand, which Sam shook once. “I’m a captain with the US Army.”
“The army?” Sam looked incredulous. “I thought the army was gone.”
Lee suddenly felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. He knew the government would not be at work in the chaos of a post-collapse world, but hearing it come from a kid’s mouth as common knowledge that there was no US Army still hit him hard. He didn’t let the effects show and smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“Oh, we’re not gone. We’re just working a little more quietly than normal.”
“Where are all your guys? Don’t you guys work in teams?” Sam looked behind Lee as though perhaps there were others he had missed.
“Not me kiddo. I’m trained to work alone.”
Sam nodded. “You did just kill a bunch of guys all by yourself.” Lee wasn’t sure what to say. Sam continued. “Is my dad still up there?”
Lee placed the butt of his M4 on the ground and leaned on it. “Yeah, but he’s buried now, Sam.”
“You mean I can’t see him?” Sam’s lip tensed as he tried to hold back more tears.
Lee thought about telling the boy that he didn’t want to see his father like that, considered telling him that it wasn’t his father, it was just a body, but it all seemed so trite, so he didn’t say anything at all. He just shook his head so the boy knew that he couldn’t see his father. He reached into the cargo pocket of his combat pants and withdrew the gold watch he’d removed from Labib before burying him. He looked at the watch-face, wiped a smudge of dirt off with his thumb, then extended it towards Sam. “Here.”
Sam took the watch and looked at it, unable to hold the tears back.
“I’m sorry you can’t see him.”
He still had a viable safe house, and he intended to use it.
As if to reiterate what Lee was thinking, somewhere in the woods, a very human voice screamed out with very inhuman anger. Lee immediately remembered the crazed girl from under his front steps and the sound she’d made when she’d seen him. It was the same, insane, rage-filled screech. And it wasn’t too far away.
Lee shouldered his rifle and his eyes scanned the woods. “Come on, Sam...we should get indoors.”
***
The trio moved through the woods without speaking. Sam had put away his grief for the moment. His eyes were clear and focused. He scanned from right to left in a constant arc, as cautious as any good soldier on patrol. At first, Lee was impressed by this, wondering how Sam had learned to scan and move so quietly through the woods. Then he realized that, though he himself was new to this world, it was the harsh reality that Sam had lived the past month in. Necessity and survival were brutal tutors, and they only gave pass or fail.
The screeching from the woods began to sound less like rage to Lee, and more like a beckoning call. Like the howl of a wolf on the scent of game. The similarity made him pick up the pace a bit—they were still a hundred yards from the house. After a few minutes, Lee could swear he heard an answer to the screeching, coming from the opposite sides of the woods.
Boxing them in.
Lee reached behind him and grabbed Sam by the arm, pulling him closer as they walked. He spoke in a low voice. “You ever hear that before?”
Sam nodded vigorously. “They heard the shooting.”
