Half Past Midnight

by Jeff Brackett

  Then a bell rang out above the storm, and Larry’s men began to pour out of the buildings just behind the street barricades. Yelling and screaming, they actually seemed angrier at being forced into the storm than concerned about the attack.

  Hearing the alarm, Team One went to ground, hiding in ditches, behind stumps, taking cover wherever they could. We knew Larry’s men were just as short of ammunition as we were, but Ken had planned our attack based on the assumption that they would break out reserves for such a major battle.

  He was right. Though we hadn’t heard the sound in several days, the sudden eruption of sporadic gunfire was deafening, even over the fury of the storm. Of our first five hundred attackers, only half had any kind of firearm to accompany their bows and arrows. Of those with firearms, most had less than twenty rounds each. Even with half his troops gone, Larry still had a serious advantage in the area of firepower.

  The momentum of Team One’s charge faltered, then stopped altogether. Larry’s thugs laughed aloud when they saw our people apparently trapped. But Ken had planned well.

  He personally led the charge of Team Two from the southeast. While the enemy’s attention was engaged with trying to pick off hiding targets, Ken’s wing made it within firing range for the air cannons and cut loose with a salvo of Molotov cocktails. The actual physical damage was minimal, but the psychological effect was devastating. Their laughter turned to screams as the naphtha burst among them, blinding against the black of the storm. Plastic and wooden barricades quickly added dense, black smoke to the confusion. Worse yet were the unfortunate souls splashed with the liquid fire. Their screams and stench fed the enemy’s fear and sent them into a retreat.

  There was no order to their withdrawal, nothing but blind hysteria. And that, finally, was my signal to attack with the final force from the west. Team Three had crawled into town as the fighting began, and lay in wait a few blocks behind. Once they began their retreat, we poured out of the side streets to wash over them in a wave of fury. We lost more than fifty men and women in that charge, for those of us attacking from the west bore nothing but blades and spears against their rifles. But we were relentless. It was our final battle, and we knew it. We waded in, screaming our hatred and terror, and before they had a chance to regroup, we were on them, hacking and slashing, so close that their firearms became more hindrance than help.

  I fought once more with a blade in either hand-machete in the right, Brad’s dagger in the left. Both acquitted themselves well as I freed my anger and frustration into the fight. The blades came alive, parrying and thrusting of their own accord as I led my team in.

  Hoping to find him in the middle of his men, I looked for Larry, scanning the faces of my enemies as they fell, but each time disappointed. My personal nemesis was evidently engaged elsewhere.

  To my left, Eric Petry, katana in hand, danced with the enemy, so graceful as he whirled, leaving death in his wake. I saw him slice completely through an upraised rifle to cleave the skull of the man behind it. Amazed, I allowed myself to become distracted and very nearly died as I was smashed in the ribs with the butt of a rifle and knocked off balance. I rolled away but found myself out of range as my assailant reversed his weapon to shoot me.

  But Megan stepped in from behind him and, with deadly precision, used her machete to relieve my attacker of his weapon. It took the poor soul less than a second to realize that she had relieved him of his hands as well. Before he could open his mouth to scream, she further relieved him of his final burden.

  Glancing back to make sure I was all right, she waded deeper into the fray, counting her deadly coup against those who had killed her fiance.

  In such close quarters, the advantage was decidedly ours. I saw several of the enemy attempting to block an overhead strike from a stick or machete, only to open themselves up to an underhand slice to the belly. It was a basic technique I had drilled into my students, and I was at once proud and horrified to see how effectively it was being used.

  Mercy was neither asked for, nor offered, by anyone, and in less than twenty minutes, the last of Larry’s men in our area lay dead. My blades, arms, legs, and face were splattered with blood and rain. I looked around, panting, sickened at the gruesome carnage I had helped to create, yet elated to be alive.

  But it wasn’t over, for deeper within the town I could hear the sounds of machine guns firing. Someone still had an ample supply of ammo, or had decided to use everything they had in a last-ditch effort to escape. It didn’t take much thought to guess who that someone was.

  Determined to put an end to the bloodbath, I sprinted toward the sound. No matter how many hundreds, or even thousands, of people were involved in the slaughter, I knew in my gut that it all boiled down to Larry and me. He was as determined to get me as I was him and, whichever way the battle went, the war would not end until one of us was dead.

  Ken was already there when I found the fight. It was in the underground parking garage of the Nation’s Bank building, where a pair of mounted machine guns protected the only entrance. I recognized the sound of the fifty calibers.

  It was a clever idea, getting the huge guns off of the otherwise useless Abrams tanks. There was no way anyone was going to rush them.

  “Any ideas?” Ken shouted to be heard above the storm.

  “Me? You’re joking, right?”

  Ken grinned briefly. “A man’s gotta have hope.”

  “You think he’d surrender if we asked real nice?” I peeked around the corner. I barely ducked back in time, as the guns chewed up the side of the building we hid behind.

  “Doesn’t seem too likely,” was Ken’s dry reply.

  “Can we get behind them?”

  Again, he shook his head. “Already tried. The back is natural stonework with a couple of louvered glass windows. Perfect little sniper holes. We lost five people trying. All we got out of it was a report that there are at least twenty people holed up inside, and they’re working on something in the garage.”

  That sounded ominous. My first fear was that if they could rig the fifty calibers from the tanks, maybe they could rig the cannons, too. A moment’s thought nixed that idea, though. We had managed to destroy the cannons on all of the tanks, with the exception of the one buried under twenty feet of water at the reservoir bridge. I didn’t think it likely that they could salvage that one. So what were they up to?

  “What about the air cannons?”

  Ken shook his head. “Out of naphtha. I doubt if we could get close enough, anyway. If we had any incendiaries left, I’d try bringing in the slingshots and lobbing in from behind other buildings. Might as well wish for them to surrender.”

  Several engines sputtered to life, and suddenly we knew what they had been working on. Ten Humvees and a personnel truck skidded out of the garage, each one overburdened with men. All of the vehicles appeared to have been fitted with at least one of the machine guns from the tanks.

  I quickly did the math. Six tanks, minus the one in the reservoir, each with one fifty caliber and two of the smaller 7.62mm meant fifteen machine guns.

  A few of our people rushed from hiding to fire the last of their precious ammunition at the fleeing enemy and half a dozen soldiers crashed to the pavement. But the machine guns took their deadly payment, and we lost ten more of our own.

  Helpless, I could only stare as Larry sped away.

  There was both celebration and mourning as people reunited with loved ones, or found their bodies. We’d had a questionable victory at best, and almost half our number would never know we had won. There were more casualties than we’d had during the entire month after D-day. It was the cost of using sheer numbers to overrun superior firepower, but only after the fighting was over did this really hit home.

  According to the signs at the edge of town, Rejas had once been a community of 9,893 “smiling neighbors.” We were less than a third of that now, and not a smile in the town.

  We knew there were still several supply caches around town that La
rry’s boys had missed, but only in those areas where they hadn’t spent much time. They had demolished just about everything they had occupied. The fighting had ruined even more. We wouldn’t know for some time but, from what I had seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had lost more than half the buildings.

  Even worse was the realization that it wasn’t that great a loss, because that would still be plenty of room for our reduced numbers. Entire neighborhoods had been destroyed, and still we had room.

  Of the survivors, over a hundred were seriously wounded, and many more were in shock. Mostly, everyone was just tired. Tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of fighting.

  Still, it didn’t feel over.

  That night, Jim convened an emergency meeting of what was left of the town council. Eric Petry and I, along with a handful of others, appealed to them to put one last band together to track Larry down.

  “You saw them! There’s maybe sixty or seventy of them left. We can put together a group to go after them and leave tonight!”

  “And then what?” Jim shook his head wearily. “What would you do once you find him? Throw another hundred bodies at them? Two hundred? Three?”

  “Yes!” Eric blurted before I could try reason. “Yes, we would! If that’s what it takes, then we do it. The man killed hundreds of our neighbors, our wives and children.” Tears ran freely down his cheeks. “He killed my son! He destroyed our homes and our families.” Eric turned and faced the crowd. “Who the hell here hasn’t lost a friend or relative? Did we do anything to him? Did we?

  “Troutman started his killing on D-day. The first opportunity he got, he killed a bunch of innocent folks. Tried to kill Leeland. Larry Troutman had four men with him then. Two years later, he had three thousand! From four to three thousand in less than two years! This time, he’ll be starting with more than fifty! We can’t let him do it again, or next time he’ll come in with three times as many people, and there won’t be any stopping him.”

  No matter how much we reasoned or pleaded, it did no good. Then Eric made things worse when he lost his temper, calling them “a bunch of ball-less fucking cowards” before he stormed out.

  The vote was unanimous. I couldn’t blame them, since I was as weary as anyone else. But neither could I believe that Larry was going to simply leave and let us get on with our lives. His ego wouldn’t allow it. He had hunted me for nearly two years for having dared deny him our supplies. The latest defeat would, in his eyes, be infinitely more insulting. It would gnaw at him, festering until he found a way to exact his revenge.

  But Jim summed up the town’s weariness later when I appealed to him in private. “Let it go, Lee,” he told me with a sigh. “We won. It’s over.”

  Our war had simply been too costly, and Rejas’s soul had been damaged, perhaps beyond repair.

  Exhausted beyond belief, I walked through streets as dark as my mood. The more I dwelt on the evening, the darker my mood became, working me into a foul depression that made me want to strike out at someone, anyone.

  When Eric found me, he was evidently just as angry. “Leeland!”

  Swallowing a curse, I scowled back at him. “What do you want, Eric?”

  “I want to know why you let them get away with that goddamned ruling. I want to know why you didn’t fight with me to get a group together and go after that son of a bitch!” His belligerent tone grated, and it was just what I needed to put me over the edge.

  Without thinking, I shoved him. “You’ve already pissed off what’s left of the council, Eric. You don’t want to piss me off, too!”

  His balance was off for a second, and I think it shocked him that I had actually shoved him. I saw the emotions on his face go from confusion to fury in less than a second. Then, he swung at me.

  It wasn’t the wild punch of a drunken brawler, telegraphed and uncontrolled. It was a linear missile thrown by a man who had trained his body for striking efficiency for most of his adult life. I barely had time to see it coming before I felt the impact on my left cheek.

  I staggered, but managed to stay on my feet as Eric screamed, “He fucking killed my son! You don’t know what that’s like.” His tears flowed freely. “He killed Andrew.”

  As abruptly as that, his anger was spent, and he raised his hands to cover his face. His sobbing robbed me of my anger as well, and I approached him cautiously. “Eric? I’m sorry, man.” I didn’t know what else to say and laid an awkward hand on the man’s shoulder.

  The contact seemed to lend him the strength to push his emotions back. After a few seconds, he sniffed and looked back at me. “Sorry, Lee.” Then he pushed my hand away. “You and me, we’re the same. D-day changed us all, but you… me… a few others… it’s chosen us to be warriors. We’ve grown into our roles in this world. Not just soldiers, but true warriors. The kind that hasn’t existed outside the military in a long time. I’ve thought of you as a brother because of that bond.”

  I nodded. “I feel the same way, Eric.”

  “There are other things that pull us, though. That first night, when they killed Andrew, I knew that it wasn’t the poor bastard Megan killed that caused his death. And I knew I would find out who it was, and I would do whatever it took to kill him.”

  “Look Eric, I know how you feel, but-”

  “No, you don’t.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, but you still have your kids. You just can’t understand. A man would go through hell and back for his kids.” His face took on a look of grim resolve. “A man would do anything for his kids.”

  He turned and walked away, saying, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  There was plenty of work to do over the next several days, and it was eerily familiar. Once more, we gathered bodies and took them to communal graves. Once more, we inspected abandoned homes. This time, however, we were especially careful, looking for any booby traps that Larry’s men may have left behind.

  I was on one of those salvage crews the next Saturday morning when Ken found me. He’d been running and was out of breath, but the look in his eyes told me there was trouble. “You’d better get home, Lee.”

  I dropped my shovel. “What’s wrong?”

  “Zach, it’s… Zach…”

  I’d been riding the dirt bike around during the days, so I sprinted to where I’d left it and immediately tore cross-country toward home. Debra sat in the front yard when I got there, rocking and holding herself as if holding in a great wound.

  “Deb?”

  The crowd gathered around her parted as I approached. Someone laid a hand on my shoulder in sympathy, saying things that were probably meant to be consoling.

  Jim was there, and he tried to pull me aside, but I wasn’t having any of it. I went straight to Debra. Afraid to ask, but more afraid of not knowing, I forced myself to question her. “Zach?”

  Still weeping, she handed me a piece of paper. Fearing what it might say, I refused to read it. Instead, I turned to Jim. The expression on his face put a chill through my soul. “Where’s Zachary?” God, don’t let him be dead! Not my son, my baby! I grabbed Jim in panic. “Where’s Zachary?”

  “We think he’s okay, Leeland. Now calm down. You ain’t doin’ nobody no good like this.”

  My breath burst forth before I realized that I had been holding it. I took a few deep breaths and nodded. “Okay. Yeah, you’re right.” First, do what needs to be done. Time enough for emotions later. “Okay. What happened?”

  “Read the note.”

  I looked down at the paper I held in my hand. It was one of Larry’s old “turn over the war criminal” fliers. Eric’s note was scrawled on the back.

  I’m truly sorry about this, Leeland. I’m taking Zachary to Larry. I made arrangements to meet with him in Bixby. I told him I’d be bringing your son to him to prove to him that I’ve turned against you. I guess in a way, I have.

  The way I see it, there are only a few ways this can play out. Either I fool Larry enough to get close to him and kill him, or I don’t, he kills me, and
you come after him to get Zachary.

  Either way, I get to kill the motherfucker.

  If you want Zachary back, you’ll have to come take him from Larry.

  Consider this my veto of the council’s vote,

  Eric

  I read again before I turned to Jim in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what I had read. “Eric? Eric did this?”

  “Looks like it.”

  I’m not sure how long I stood there before I became aware of Ken standing beside me. For the first time in months, I felt truly lost. “He took my boy, Ken. He got Zach.”

  He nodded, then handed me the bundle he carried. I regarded the bundle dumbly for a moment before recognizing my machetes and knives, the same blades I’d been so eager to put away a few short days before.

  Ken’s reply was simple. “Let’s go get him back.”

  There was no discussion about who would go and who would stay. I was going. It was as simple as that. Anyone who wanted could go with me. Anyone who didn’t could stay. I didn’t care.

  I could see Debra felt the same way, and it was with a mixture of sadness and pride that I watched her set personal feelings aside and arm herself. In all the years we’d been together, I had only seen her armed twice, and both of those times since D-day. Even during the long months spent battling Larry’s troops, she had elected to stay and help with the management of the exodus, tending the wounded, gathering food.

  She was very much in tune with life. I recalled the day she had come to me and told me she was pregnant with Zachary. She had known from the first that she carried a boy, just as she had known with Megan that it would be a girl.

  Always calm, never judgmental, she tried her best to walk apart from the conflict that engulfed us, though she never gave any indication she thought any less of those who had fought, or even of those who had killed. It was just that, no matter how much she knew intellectually that the fight had been necessary, her peaceful nature simply wouldn’t allow her to contemplate the idea of taking another life.