Pilliars in the Fall

by Ian Daniels

  “Hey I didn't mean to snoop, but I found something earlier that seemed kind of weird and wanted to ask you about it.”

  "Sure," I shrugged, not really having anything to hide. "What'd you find?"

  “A stuffed animal... a little stuffed teddy bear,” she answered sheepishly.

  "And that seems weird to you?"

  Maybe I did have something to hide.

  "Well yes. You don’t seem like the type to sleep with a stuffed animal, plus the tags are still on it. There are literally no other family mementos or anything else, so it just seemed kind of odd."

  “Eh, what can I say, I like it. It keeps me cold and depressed at night,” I vaguely hinted at the true answer to her question.

  She stared at me for a minute before the light bulb finally clicked on. "It was for a baby wasn’t it? Oh God I am so sorry, I didn’t... does anyone know?" she stumbled over her words.

  "Nope, it happened a while back. It's why she left. I've come to terms with it and we've got other stuff to worry about right now anyway."

  "Okay, still, I'm really sorry."

  "Yeah, me too," I said honestly and then felt an old ping of anger rise up again that I thought I had moved on from.

  I was still fighting the last of the fleeting residual emotions from the experience. It had been a few months ago by now and I was sad that we had lost the baby, and sad that Heather, my girlfriend at the time, couldn’t deal with it and had broken up with me.

  Those emotions I had processed. What I was still at odds with was the anger at myself for feeling relief of not having to deal with an unplanned pregnancy with a girl I had only been seeing for a short while, and also anger at the relief of not having to bring a child into this shit storm of a world right now. I was mad at myself for being so selfish and irresponsible, and also practical. I was mad at my own ability to process and dismiss it all in what felt like was too quick of a period of time. Of course it wasn’t like I didn’t have bullets and arrows and shit being shot at me often enough to remind me that life goes on... until it doesn’t.

  It was a full and proper screwed up situation.

  That second night with all of us together at my house, I again couldn’t sleep. Clint found me at my workbench, tinkering with an old Krinkov kit that I had bought a while ago and stuck away in a box. Currently, I was wondering if I shouldn’t just put it together and exploit the utility of what it could be, over the possible felony of having an unregistered short barreled rifle.

  “You want to talk?” Clint asked me now that we had a second to ourselves, Blake and Danielle having gone to bed already.

  "Not really," I answered him a little too quickly and then forged ahead. "Do you remember when you first got me into all of this a few years ago?"

  "Sure," he replied evenly.

  “The shooting, the tracking, the radio stuff, the patrol and recon... well I don’t know if you remember it, but you also told me one time about your first kill; a biker in some garage right?”

  "Oh yeah, I remember," he assured me.

  “Well I always kind of figured you were doing that thing you do where it’s half incredible intelligence, and half passive aggressiveness parenting. You know, lead me to water but don’t make me drink...”

  “Okay,” he prodded me along.

  “Well you told me how much it can change a person. I don’t know, maybe we’re different, or maybe I’m wrong or messed up, but I don’t seem to have a problem with it. I mean, at the trailer with Brad and the tweaker's wife or whatever she was, I took out someone that wasn’t just a threat, it wasn’t just a possibility or to get them before they got us, it was actively taking out someone that was actively trying to kill us. I understand the slippery slope and all that, but it hasn’t made anything harder or easier. It wasn’t harder or easier to do it again with Blake and those idiots on the road today. It just was.”

  “You took out threats that gave you a reason to take them out. You might not like having to do it, but I have never had any thoughts whatsoever that you couldn’t do it, and couldn’t keep doing it if it was necessary... and only for the right reasons. If i didn't know that, I never would have gotten you into all this and I wouldn’t be here now.”

  “I just feel like I’m supposed to feel more of something, anything, but I don’t. I’m not numb, but, well I don’t know.”

  “Hey, you did what you had to do. It might not be what you want to do, but it’s what you had to do. That’s being a man, man,” he punched me lightly in the shoulder.

  That was not really all that was bothering me. What was really on the top of my mind that I was struggling with was whether or not to divulge to Clint that I was having doubts on what intentions Blake, his son, had acted on earlier that day. I decided to keep it to myself for now. If I saw any other signs I would address them at that time, but he was my best friend and had saved my life only hours before. It turned out we would have plenty of opportunities to test all of our characters in the very near future.

  Chapter 11

  Ice crystals had formed around the raised collar of my jacket, reminding me that I had worked up too much of a sweat and was breathing too hard while trudging up the last section of the long hill. I stopped to let my breathing come back under control and shifted the weight of the big Tigir Dragunov rifle slung at my back. The four foot long monstrosity was not the best gun in the world, but during the cold weather it somehow seemed appropriate to carry it out here with me, giving the gun a chance to relive its earlier life of cold days and nights in Mother Russia.

  Flexing my toes slightly told me just how cold it really was this early morning before the sun had a chance to really rise and shine down on the landscape. It was only a little farther to a favorite spot of mine up on top of a cliff where I could watch and enjoy the crisp and clear sunrise in peace.

  The little bit of sleep that I had managed to get had done me some good, even though I still woke up much too early and knew that it was the type of waking you don’t go back to sleep from. Instead I quietly grabbed a gun and my pack and took a morning walk to clear my head.

  At my little cliff top overlook I removed the big thermos of steaming hot coffee, then dropped down and sat on my small backpack to insulate me from the cold of the frozen ground. It was rare for me to find little moments like this that used to come so easily; they used to require no effort at all, not lately though. Up here I was finally able to quiet the events of the last few days and months and just be me again.

  I needed this. I needed it because I knew all too well that the peace would not last. Over the last year we had seen it happen on the news and more recently had heard about it on the radio. It was always in other places around the country, not here. Now it looked like it may just be our area's turn to completely go nuts. All we could hope to do would be to avoid and survive any chaos that came our way and then pick up the pieces afterwards. I just wanted to ride out the reset with as minimal involvement as possible. I should have known better.

  I drank my coffee, ate my meager breakfast and smiled despite myself. Watching the sun inch up into the gray sky behind the charcoal landscape, I saw the long shadows cast by trees, shrubs, and rock outcroppings as they all methodically retracted. Except for the whisper of a slight wind, it was beautifully quiet.

  My solitary reprieve was short lived though as I picked up my gear, stomped the warmth back into my feet and set off again to meet the others back at my house, hopefully in time for another larger and warmer breakfast before we set out.

  I went quickly and quietly, constantly looking for deer or anything else that could be eaten and only saw a single coyote out trotting through a field. It was all too common these days as the game had gotten scarce with more and more families trying to feed themselves from the woods. That was another reason I didn’t mind the idea of walking out to the Wrangle Church and the Parvish's place today.

  When I came back in to the unfinished construction project I called my house, everyone was up and it looked like
they were putting the finishing touches on packing up to leave.

  "Hey, where've you been?" Blake asked me after I had a chance to set my stuff down and stand by the fire with a fresh cup of coffee.

  "Oh you know me, I don't like to poop when there's other people close by."

  An audible sigh came from the lone female member of our group.

  “So I was wondering, I mean, if we’re going out again, can I borrow a different gun?” Blake asked me sheepishly.

  “Sure I guess. I mean of course, but why?”

  I had no problem loaning him anything, and I had plenty of everything to loan, but I was surprised he wanted something different than the AR he had carried just the day before.

  “Well it's like this, when I was lined up on that group yesterday, I felt so… I don’t know, under-gunned, I guess is the term. I like the capacity of the AR and that’s a nice ass scope you have on it, but right then I really was wishing I had a bigger bullet if I was going to have to shoot. I just didn’t feel confident I guess," he finally got to the point.

  "Well for fighting with a gun you had never shot or even held before, I'd say you did okay. But I hear what you’re saying. I think I’ve got just the thing you’re looking for. It’s heavy, but it might suit you better, especially out in the open where we’re headed.

  Blake and I walked over to the utility and storage room door and I opened it to reveal the embarrassingly large gun safe hidden inside.

  “Whewww…” he whistled after I spun in the combination and opened it up, which in turn caught Danielle's attention and she came over to see what it was that Blake thought was so impressive.

  "You know you can only use one of those at a time right?" she peeked her head around to see into the open door.

  "Eh, it’s a hobby," I shrugged.

  "Model trains are a hobby, this is... I don’t know what this is. Is that a grenade launcher?!" she gasped, seeing the short, single shot wooden stocked M79 clone hanging from a hook.

  “And you were giving me a hard time about my pistol,” Blake said in disbelief.

  “It’s a thirty seven mil launcher,” I answered her, ignoring Blake's smart ass comment. "Gas, smoke and flares... nothing that will go boom,” I respond flatly, trying hard to fight a big smile.

  "A Department of Corrections guy I knew was in some financial trouble and was selling some of his guns and stuff, so I ended up taking this thing and I got the good CS rounds from him too. I initially thought it was just a novelty item and figured it may have some sort of a purpose if I could ever find the right rounds to shoot in it, or find someone to reload something fun for it," I eyed Clint.

  “Okay,” Danielle burst out, “I think I’ve been a pretty good sport about all this so far, but bullet proof vests, grenade launchers… why the hell do you have all this stuff? We didn’t even have stuff like this in the Army,” she picked up a long stick magazine for a Glock pistol and shook it to accent her point.

  “Bullet resistant, not proof,” I played into her outburst.

  “What?” she looked squarely at me, not sure if I was joking with her or not.

  “The vests I've got will in the best case scenario stop a pistol round from penetrating your body... if it hits in the protected area. It’ll still do some good damage but hopefully won’t kill you right away,” I gave the quick lesson on the soft armor vests I had piled up on a shelf next to the safe.

  They had come from a small auction that included four lightly used vests from an armored truck company that was going out of business a few years ago. I had worn one concealed occasionally in town or at a shooting class, and twice when Clint and I had been out on one of the more dangerous calls we used to go on, but I had really just picked them up because they were a good deal at the time.

  “Seriously, you think this is a good time to screw with me?” Danielle challenged me.

  Despite her tone, the slight smile at the edges of her lips showed me that she had at least a little appreciation of what I was saying.

  "In fact here, try this one on. It's not cut for a woman but should fit you alright," I dug through the stack and handed her a smaller sized vest.

  "Oh and now I don’t have any boobs, is that what you're saying?" she jokingly yelled at me.

  "Ah Honey, you’ve got more than enough for me," Blake drawled and advanced at her with his palms out. "Here, let me help you put that on..."

  "You just keep your hands to yourself there Grabby. Having to wear armor again, in country this time, doesn’t exactly put me in the mood. Thanks but I think I'll pass for now. Even if it might not be the worst idea if things keep getting worse," Danielle admonished the idea of wearing the vest and then changed her mind after acknowledging our recent events.

  "Here, you'll like this," I changed the subject and handed Blake my one and only FAL. His wide eyes told me that I had guessed right; he did indeed like it... a lot.

  "Now that’s what I'm talking about!" he crowed and broke into a big goofy grin.

  "You are a really bad influence on him," Danielle stated flatly and turned to go put her vest on and get one last warm cup of tea.

  "Is it sighted in"? Blake asked me while moving the gun around, experimenting with the way it pointed and swung.

  “It is for me. The bad news is I only have five magazines for it. You might want to run the bolt and trigger and try a few mag changes now while you can. Also, don’t forget to top off your pistol again," I reminded him.

  The ammo can of good hollow point nine millimeter was still where he had left it after the last time he had refilled his magazines. In the scheme of things, I had plenty, although if this kept up, my ammo stores were going to take pretty a hard hit and we'd be going old school with all hard ball full metal jacketed rounds.

  "I think I have something for you in here too," I told Danielle when she came back over with a mug of tea in hand. Handing her various guns to hold, I began rummaging through to the back of one of the rows in the big fireproof safe.

  "Here it is," I hoisted out the little M1 Carbine that I had stuck away in the very back.

  "Oh, I'm fine with Clint’s shotgun," Danielle started to say, but I handed it to her anyway. "Wow it is light isn’t it?" she commented after giving me back the handful of other rifles I had dug through to get to the M1C.

  "Yep it’s a sweet little shooter too. I got it to go with the Garand as a kind of complete set," I explained to her.

  "Didn’t these not work too well in Korea?" she asked. I smiled and looked to Clint, dispelling rumors through analytical fact was his arena.

  "Oh the old not-powerful-enough-to-shoot-through-layers-of-frozen-coats story? Aw well just aim for the head," he said over his shoulder and went back to packing his bag.

  A whole lot of help that was, I rolled my eyes.

  "If I remember right it had something to do with old powder burning slow in subzero temperatures combined with the frozen layers of clothes and it was a completely overblown issue,” I said. “Plus, you shouldn’t have that problem with these," I removed a magazine from a bandoleer and tossed it into the air for her to catch.

  "Not exactly a legal hunting round is it?" she said skeptically after looking at the modern red tipped bullet in the top of the magazine.

  "Depends what you're hunting," I smiled. "Those little suckers are expensive as hell so I've only got two mags worth loaded up with them, most all the others are soft points."

  "But were going out hunting right, isn’t a shotgun pretty much the best thing for that?"

  "For smaller birds, yeah it is. There're no small birds left around here this time of year and either you or I should be able to pick off a turkey or pheasant with what we'll have.”

  "How far out can this thing really shoot?" she eyed the little carbine again, and again showed that she knew the right questions to ask.

  "Probably should keep it under two hundred yards or so... but it'll be a hell of a lot better than that shotgun if we get into a tight spot and you need more than a
couple of rounds," I evaluated when I saw the look on her face. "Feel free to carry whatever you want, but that is about the lightest and still powerful package I can offer."

  Instead of saying thank you, she went right into a series of working the action, inserting and removing a magazine and getting familiar with the gun. I guess that was a “thank you” in its own right.

  "Clint, do you want to upgrade to something made in this century or are you still good with that muzzle loader?" I pointed to his Enfield that was leaning against the wall near him.

  "Just keep talking," he laughed.

  Clint was a true woodsman and marksman, and although I knew he owned some modern and expensive firearms, more often than not he would be seen carrying an old favorite. It didn’t matter; he was truly the weapon no matter what tool was in his hands.

  “Wait, we’re going out towards Wrangle right?" Blake said a few minutes later as he walked back down the stairs that led to the upper unfinished story of the house and saw me getting the gun ready that would be accompanying me.

  “Yep,” I answered simply.

  “And you’re just going to take that mini caliber AK thing into the hill country and farm fields?” he scrutinized my AK74.

  “Absolutely. I'm more than happy to let you carry the heavy gun so I can just prance along beside you with my light little toy gun,” I kidded him.

  “Dude seriously, what if we need some firepower?”

  “Then you’re it,” I said dead serious this time. He obviously wasn’t sold, so I expanded.

  “Look, your dad has the long range and precision covered, you’ve got the heavy hitter, and Dani can cover us close in. Me on an AK is not some narrow niche, if I do say so myself. If we all carried the same gun like a scoped bolt action, then we could all do the same things it does well, but none of us could cover what it doesn’t do well. Plus the silencer and red dot are, for lack of a better term, force multipliers, and when there's only four of us..."

  “Well yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he said mulling it over, “I know I will feel better with this thing instead of that AR,” he hefted the big FAL in his arms.