Half Past Midnight

by Jeff Brackett

  Whoomp!

  We all watched as the first jar tumbled through the air to land about twenty feet in front of the indicated target. It shattered on impact and sprayed water in about a ten-foot radius.

  Tanner grinned. “Just remember, if that had been a cocktail, everywhere you saw water splash would be burning right now.” Then he closed one valve, opened another, sighted over Williams’ shoulder, tugged down on the back end of the air cannon, and tapped him on the head once more.

  Whoomp!

  Again, a scintillating jar tumbled through the air; this time, it landed within three feet of the target, saturating it with water.

  Another valve adjusted, another tap, another whoomp, and another jar broke within feet of the one before it. The tree was soaking wet from the length of a football field away.

  A cheer went up from the crowd, and they began to surge forward before Tanner raised his hand to stop them. “Wait a second! We have one more thing this bucket of bolts can do. Stay back for a minute more.” That started a round of muttering.

  He reached back into the battered duffel and pulled out three handkerchief-wrapped bundles. Dropping one into each of the barrels, he pointed to a small group of trees just across the creek.

  Tap. Whoomp!

  Tap. Whoomp!

  Tap. Whoomp!

  Three handkerchiefs fluttered to the ground amidst mutters from the crowd. From where I stood, I couldn’t see that there had been any effect on the trees. Williams, evidently confident of success, had already set the air cannon on the ground and begun walking over to where we stood. Tanner just turned and smiled. “Anyone like to go check them?”

  Several people waded across the creek to inspect the trees; the mutters quickly turned to excited exclamations. “They’re peppered!” someone yelled. “They’re full of nails and glass!”

  Tanner just stood there as the people around him began clapping him on the back. Meanwhile, Williams came over to speak quietly with Jim and me.

  “Got enough material to make three more. I need six men that have enough snap to know how to read pressure gauges and route high-pressure air systems. Gotta be willing to work hard and take orders, too.”

  Jim waited for him to continue, but Williams just stood there looking at us. “Anything else?” Jim asked.

  “Nope.”

  Jim turned to the trees that had been filled with shrapnel. “What’s the range of those things?”

  “Accurate for cocktails at about a hunnerd and twenty yards. Shrapnel at about a third that.”

  The mayor nodded. “Take anyone you need. Tell ‘em it comes from me.”

  And so we acquired a mortar brigade.

  We put Larry’s boys through hell at night. We’d fire cocktails or arrows from the trees at random hours of the night, just to keep them awake, if nothing else. Sometimes we were even able to kill a guard or two if they were careless enough to get within bowshot of the trees.

  On some occasions, the opportunity to do some real damage presented itself, like the night one of our raiding parties set an HTMD booby trap in a building the enemy used as a barracks. Watchers reported two dead and nine wounded.

  Another time, Ken snuck in and planted a soup can of homemade thermite in the treads of one of the tanks, crippling it. Unfortunately, it was the tank that had already been damaged in the Battle of the Bridge. Larry’s final Abrams remained intact.

  Other times, things went the other way. We lost three squads before word made it through our camp that if you were on a raid and saw the big Asian guy, the best thing you could do was to run as fast and as far as you could. The lone survivor of the third group to run afoul of Han summed it up simply. “The dude’s unstoppable.”

  Worse though, was an incident a few nights later. An entire foraging group missed its rendezvous. The tracker we sent to find them said he’d found signs of a fight and two heads posted on poles. “They was th’ supervisors.”

  “Just the supervisors?” I’d made it a point to be with Jim when the tracker made his report.

  The man nodded at me. “Yup. Looks like they killed th’ supervisors an’ took th’ four slaves toward town. Ah follered their tracks as far as th’ treeline an’ high-tailed it on back here.”

  That night, our attack groups came back early. They reported that the slaves who’d been taken had been mutilated and crucified on the outskirts of town.

  Mark had led the team that found them. “I ain’t ever seen anything like what they did to those poor bastards. Looks like they tortured ‘em for a while before they died.” He shuddered.

  The next night, we ambushed a squad of goons who thought they would teach the locals a lesson. Ammunition was so low at that point, much of our fighting was done with bows, machetes, clubs, and knives, meaning that our attack was silent. We hit them from behind, and most died without even knowing they had been attacked. Two got off a couple of wild shots, but that probably only served to make the incident that much spookier to any observers. We hung their bodies in the trees around town for the rest to see next morning.

  Megan began leading a squad with Eric, Andrew’s father. Their group became well-known on both sides for their fearlessness. They took pride in sneaking past perimeter guards to zones that the USR amp;D troops thought were safe, getting into barracks, and slitting the throats of dozens of men before they slipped out again, completely undetected.

  Larry had to know we were raiding the buildings on the outskirts of town. He may have even known why. He had no way of knowing where we had our various stashes, however. Still, he began setting random booby traps, so we never knew what to expect when we opened a door or stepped on a floor. Usually, we were able to take someone with us who knew the building and could help spot anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t always help.

  After two months, we had lost twenty-three men and women. We made it a point to get particularly nasty with the enemy whenever we lost any of our own, and we did our best to demoralize them while avenging our losses.

  Still, we began to wear down. Our lives had become an endless cycle of scavenging for supplies and raiding the enemy. We were constantly on the move, and the pace was exhausting.

  Ken and I talked about it one morning as we marched to our new camp. Dew lay heavy on the ground which, combined with the fact that we were wearing makeshift backpacks and threadbare shoes, made the footing, if not treacherous, at least inhospitable. Most of us had learned the trick of feeling with our feet before settling our entire weight into a step, though occasional stumbles and curses marked those who were still in the learning curve.

  “We can’t keep this up,” I told him. “It’s draining us. Keep going, and it won’t be much longer before we start making stupid mistakes from sheer exhaustion.”

  Ken was silent until I began to think he wasn’t going to answer. “We got no choice. Stop for two days in the same place, and that’ll be the day Larry’s all over us. We’re still outgunned, and he still has that last tank.”

  “So why can’t we stay deep in the woods, where he can’t get to us with the tank? We can take a break for a couple of days, recuperate. He’ll never know where we are.”

  Ken shook his head. “Can’t do it, Lee. First, we need to keep up the pressure on Larry’s troops. We have to make sure they never get a good night’s rest. Keep them scared that a cocktail is going to come out of nowhere and set their beds on fire, or that some crazy people with knives are going to slip in and slit their throats while they sleep. We have to keep the pressure on.

  “Second, there’s the fact that we’re too damn big to stop. We’re just under six thousand strong. We stay in one place for even a few days, and we’ll be sending out so many people in so many directions to gather food that we might as well still be on the move. And each day, they’ll have to go farther and farther. By foraging as we go, we help save time on gathering for meals, and we keep hitting fresh territory, which means no food shortage. There’s enough area around Rejas for us to keep moving
for months without running short on food.”

  So we were forced to coast along, reacting to events as they were thrown at us.

  After three more weeks of this nomadic lifestyle, the weather began to turn wet and miserable. A deep depression settled in and morale, which had been so high after our initial victory, began to rapidly deteriorate.

  Added to that was the pressure of depleted supplies. Food was tight, but with foraging, we would be fine. What hurt us most were other shortages, ammunition, clothing, shoes, and common tools, such as cooking utensils. It was like being part of a tribe of Stone Age hunter-gatherers.

  I began to hear people muttering among themselves that they might be better off leaving Rejas to Larry, moving on to another town. Starting over. About the only thing that stopped them was the observation that Larry’s men appeared to be in the same boat.

  Ken brought up the subject one night as several of us huddled around a small, shielded campfire. “It doesn’t look like Larry was any more prepared for a drawn-out fight than we were. I would guess he’s used to walking in and taking whatever he needs without any significant resistance.”

  Jim grinned. “Guess he ain’t run into nobody with th’ balls o’ Rejas.”

  “Maybe not. But he’s still got a definite advantage in hardware and location.”

  “You really think so?” I asked. “I’ve been thinking about that. Granted, he has the one tank left, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of his boys using night goggles in the last week. And they hardly ever return fire at night anymore. Looks to me like they’re conserving resources, at the least. Might even be completely out of a few things.”

  “Like maybe the batteries for the goggles?” Ken rubbed his chin, appearing to think about it for a second. “Makes sense, ours didn’t last more than a few days. Why should we assume theirs would last any longer? You might be right.”

  “And as for location,” I continued, “well, they might have the town, but all the people who know the best ways in and out are here with us. Seems to me that balances the scales in that department. On top of that, even though we’re having a hard time of it getting enough food to keep us going, think about how bad it must be for them. We know the land around town better than they do. We know where the best foraging areas are, and we’re using them. What are they doing for food?”

  Jim grunted. “Maybe things ain’t as bad as we thought.”

  Ken was still reserved. “Okay, I’ll grant you that. But you and I both know they’ve got some source of food, or they wouldn’t have made it this long. Either they brought in supplies in some of their vehicles, or they’re sending out foraging teams the same as we are.”

  “So, why haven’t we seen any of them?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a big forest, and we only cover a tiny bit of it each day. For all we know, they could be sending teams out the south side of town while we work the north. Who knows? The point is, we can’t sit here and hope to starve them out.”

  The talk went on for another hour or so, and the only thing we finally concluded was that we couldn’t continue the way things were for much longer. In a war of attrition, the enemy still had the advantage.

  Brad Stephenson was my second on a night raid, but it was ultimately my responsibility. We’d had a fairly useless night, discovering that Larry’s boys had already found the supply cache we’d gone after and had left a nest of young copperheads in its place. No one had been bitten, but only because the enemy had left so many booby traps that we had learned to take nothing for granted. At least that trap didn’t explode, as some of the others had.

  We were slogging back along the bank of a drainage ditch when our point person, Rene, called for a stop. “Jefe,” she whispered, “I think we got some wild garlic here.” She pointed out a swath of plants growing near the water. “You want to take some back to camp?”

  It was SOP for any raiding party to gather anything they thought might be useful, especially food. Wild onions, garlic, rice, and several other staples could often be found growing near the ditches and reservoirs around Rejas, so everyone had taken to wearing leather sacks on their belts to carry whatever loot they came across. That night, it looked as though it would be nothing more than seasoning for the stew pots, but there was plenty of it, and it was better than nothing.

  I sighed. “Might as well. No reason for the night to be a total loss. Everyone fill your sacks.”

  I had just yanked what seemed like my hundredth plant from the ground when Brad came up beside me. “Leeland?”

  “Yeah?” I barely glanced up, concentrating on finding another plant in the darkness.

  “I don’t think this is garlic.”

  I found another plant and pulled it from the moist earth. “What is it, some kind of onion?”

  I started to lift it to my face to sniff, but Brad grabbed my arm with a sudden force that stopped me cold. “What?”

  “I don’t think they’re onions, either.”

  I squinted at the plant I’d just pulled out of the earth. It certainly smelled like garlic, but I knew Brad well enough to listen. “You got my attention. Talk to me.”

  “Look.” He held out the plant he had just pulled. The moon had not yet risen, and it was difficult to see what he held-difficult, but not impossible. Attached to the stem, grouped in with a few leaves and tiny berries, was a single, wilted flower, a pale, bell-shaped flower that started alarms in my head.

  I had read about those, long ago, while studying in a library for a life I had never thought to lead. My herbal knowledge was sketchy at best, but I still recalled something about white, bell-shaped flowers. “What is it?”

  “Lily of the Valley.”

  I dropped the plant and wiped my hands on my pants. “Everybody stop!” I hissed. “Put the plants back down!”

  But I was too late. Behind me, I heard the sounds of someone retching. A young girl about Megan’s age knelt on her hands and knees, shaking and vomiting. “Check her, Brad!”

  I ran through the squad to make sure that everyone knew what was happening. “This isn’t garlic. It’s poisonous! Don’t rub your eyes. Don’t put your fingers in your mouth. Don’t get it on any cuts or scratches. This stuff can kill you!” People dropped the plants like they had found another nest of snakes.

  “Drop your sacks and wash your hands in the water.” It was too dark to see their expressions, but no one wasted time with questions. They dumped everything they had immediately. A young kid of about nineteen dropped to his knees and rinsed his mouth in the creek.

  Seeing that, I groaned, knowing that he had probably tasted some of the plant as he picked it. That was common enough while foraging, but this time it could prove fatal. I only hoped he hadn’t eaten very much.

  “How much would it take to kill someone?” Brad was the one who had realized what we were picking, so I assumed he knew something about the plant.

  “Not much, I would guess.” The catch in his voice made me turn.

  The girl he held was no longer retching or shaking. Nor was she breathing.

  “Damn!” I turned to the squad. “Who else tasted this stuff?”

  Only one other hand raised, and it belonged to the kid I’d seen rinsing his mouth.

  “How do you feel?”

  “O-okay.”

  “You tell me if you start feeling anything, all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I turned to the rest of the squad. “Who knows this girl?”

  “I do.” Rene raised her hand. “Se llama…” She took a deep breath. “She… her name is Rosalyn. Rosalyn Johnson.” Johnson. I vaguely recalled her as a sometime friend of Megan’s who’d occasionally dropped by the house before Megan had begun spending all her free time with Andrew. Damn.

  “Okay. You four,” I indicated four men, “gather up Rosalyn and carry her with us. We’re going back to camp as fast as we can. Anyone who feels the least bit sick, sing out!”

  Unfortunately, the damage was done. Less than a mile into the
forest, the young man I had spoken with began complaining of severe cramps and a headache. He fell, shivering and cramping, and died along the way. Richard Lister complained of his eyes burning and had to be guided by two others. That slowed us down considerably, and it was more than an hour before we made it back to the main camp. We caused quite a commotion coming in at a run, even more so when people found we were carrying two dead and one wounded.

  Someone must have told Jim right away, because he was there almost immediately. “What happened, Lee? Booby trap?”

  Panting from the long run, I took a minute to catch my breath. “Lily… of the… Valley.”

  “What? Lily of the Valley?”

  “Thought… it was… garlic. Two dead.” I hung my head. Two dead. My responsibility. My fault.

  Jim must have known what I was thinking and knew better than to try to say anything. He just squeezed my shoulder and handed me an open canteen. I took a quick swig and nearly choked. Now not only was I out of breath, but my eyes were watering as well.

  “Jeez! What the hell is that?”

  He showed his teeth in a slight smile. “Moonshine. Tastes like mule piss, with the kick thrown in as an afterthought. Don’t drink too much.”

  “No problem there.” I handed the canteen back and wiped my eyes. Looking at the tears on the back of my hand, I remembered Richard. I climbed back to my feet and went to see him.

  Debra was examining him by the light of the small, shielded fire. As I walked over, I could see how red and puffy the area around his eyes was.

  “Can you see my hand?” Debra waved three fingers in front of his face.

  He blinked repeatedly and squinted. “Yeah, but my eyes burn like hell!” He blinked several more times, forcing tears from his eyes, and then asked what must have been on everyone’s mind. “Am I gonna go blind? Is this stuff gonna blind me?” He kept his tone controlled and matter-of-fact, but his Adam’s apple bobbed with apprehension.

  Debra was silent for a moment, as if considering her answer. Finally, she answered calmly, “I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Lister. There’s a chance that it will.”