by M. C. Allen
Alex brought Doris back. They had been talking the whole time I had been going over the weapons with Angel and Joseph. Alex had been crying. Her eyes were red and her face looked puffy. Doris looked a little misty eyed too. I hoped Alex took it easy on the old gal; she was simply scared at what she just could not accept. Doris surprised me by walking right up to me and giving me a hug. It was warmer than expected, coming from one skeleton to another.
“What you have done for these kids is commendable. I’m sorry for doubting your intentions. Please take care of them the best you know how.”
I was a little shocked. Damn, Alex, what did you tell her?
“Doris, everything I told you was true. Please keep Alexsandra’s story to yourself. Alex likes her privacy and doesn’t want her name spread around camp.”
Doris pulled away. She was really a tiny, very old lady. Her wrinkles had wrinkles. “Her story is safe with me. Unless I had heard it from her, I would not have understood what was really going on. William Pogozelski can go piss up a rope!” She stormed back toward camp, raising hell the whole way.
“Does that mean we get to stay?” I asked.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
The mystery guns were perplexing. Raiders had gone from dragging people away in the dead of night to setting up complicated ambushes. Somewhere or somehow, these guys had gotten a supply of weapons, and I didn’t keep them around to ask them about that little fact. Next time I questioned someone, I’d need to keep them alive long enough to answer any follow-up questions. I thought I had gotten everything I needed: camp location, size of enemy, food supply (yuck), and general disposition. I forgot to go over their weapons.
Devin did say that they had mostly rifles and sidearms. Well, he was truthful, but he neglected the part about military-grade hardware. My weapons were decent, and I didn’t need fully automatic weapons to drop someone at three hundred yards. Unless someone is trained how to manage it, shooting full auto is a waste of ammunition. The only time a relatively untrained group would use it to the best benefit would be as suppressive fire. Keep your enemy behind cover while a team maneuvers to better positions.
There was a reason I gave Alex my AK clone with the spare drum magazines. When we were being overrun, I had her lay down as much fire as she could to clear a path for us to drive out of our neighborhood. The barrel of that ugly little rifle was smoking by the time we finally got away. She only stopped to reload, and she did admirably since we were in a moving vehicle. Dale and Kofi helped, but they had to stop frequently to change out their smaller magazines. We burned through a lot of ammunition that day.
The reason we were overrun? They had the numbers. We may have had decent fighting positions, but they sent a massive wave of bodies at us. I remembered the frantic calls over my radio. Kofi and Dale were close to being swallowed up by the enemy. Most of the horde didn’t even have weapons. They were civilians who were being forced into our kill zone at gunpoint. Anyone who turned around was immediately shot. Women, children, and men were gunned down by me and my neighbors. We didn’t have a choice. The line of raiders behind the civilians started firing into our positions as we tried to keep the mass of humans out.
I thought of something that happened that day. “Dale, do you remember what Billy said over the radio right there at the end?”
“He said that the raiders had machine guns. I could hear a lot of shooting in the background, and it sounded like really fast shooting. Do you think he was right? He was over on the north defensive line, where the first breach happened.”
Billy’s last transmission had been my trigger to get out. I knew once that line was broken, there wouldn’t be enough of us to plug the gap.
“Someone tell me if I’m being really paranoid, but that last group of raiders were better armed and prepared than others. Could they have been provided with weapons like this group here?” I was conflicted. It just didn’t make any sense.
Regina was tracking what I was thinking. “Why would anyone arm a group of killers? Why not come in and give us those weapons? We were trying to pull things together. When you went back, did you get a chance to ‘talk’ to them?”
After we broke out and were sure we weren’t followed, I hid the kids and the truck. I waited until dark and made my way back on foot. In the morning, I started getting some payback. From a rooftop over four hundred yards away, I picked off as many of the raiders as I could. When they finally figured out my location, I moved to another and waited until dark. I repeated the process until I was low on ammunition. The suppressor may not defeat the sonic crack of the bullets breaking the sound barrier, but it did a decent job keeping me undetected.
I went back and met up with the kids, picked up another load of ammunition, made sure they were fine, and went back to kill some more. I never got close enough to the raiders to get my questions answered. When they sent out patrols, I would wait until they were far enough away before continuing the decimation of their ranks. They tried to only move at night. That didn’t work out for them either. I knew I didn’t get all of them. That would have been unrealistic. I was not going to go door-to-door, looking for them. I left the bodies where they lay for the scavengers to pick over.
When I had my fill, I came back to the kids. I told them that I had tried to get justice for all of our friends and the innocent people we were forced to kill. I didn’t keep a body count. I counted how may rounds I had fired and did some quick mental math to account for a few misses and a couple of follow-up shots. There are some numbers you don’t share: a lady’s weight, the number of sexual partners you really have had, and the number of people you dropped like a sack of meat.
“Um, Mr. M? Are you still there?” Dale gave me a little tap on the arm to break my train of thought. They had to do that sometimes to get me back.
“Sorry, I was just trying to connect the data points. I just don’t have enough to go on right now. I guess I need to fix that. Soon.” I looked across the little watering hole to the north.
“Right now, we need to get you fed and cleaned up. I’ve put out some guards with Pam and Jordan. They can show them the ropes. I hope Doris and Barbara have convinced the camp to accept you by now. If they still can’t come to a decision, you can at least eat and wash your nasty clothes.” Joseph wrinkled his face. “I mean, do you know how bad you all smell?”
Regina piped in, “Thanks for reminding us. Someone neglected to pack enough soap for all of us. We ran out over a week ago. There wasn’t enough to get our clothes clean and keep us clean, so we had to decide.”
“That was my fault. Remember, I was only prepared for two people, not five,” I said quietly.
Joseph and Angel didn’t understand that comment, but they let it go for now. We collected our little metal cups and spoons and moved over to the picnic area for “breakfast,” which was very similar to what we had eaten for the last meal, only thinner. I wondered if they added water and vegetables to the pot and kept it simmering all night.
I needed to help Barbara with the variety, at least. She was sweating over the pot, keeping it stirred so nothing burned on the bottom. What’s a few drops of sweat in the pot with friends? I walked over to her and pasted on a smile.
“Have you thought more on digging for roots to add to the meals?” I pointed over to the defunct garden.
“I’m going to try to dig one of them up today and try to cook it,” Barbara replied.
“Take some people to help and learn how to do it. You need to delegate or you are going to be dead on your feet soon.” I was being a little pushy, but she needed to take charge of these people. They had let her work herself to death. She nodded tiredly and sighed before she said anything.
“Can I count on your kids to help show us? I know you are about to have enough to do.”
“Oh, have you decided to let us stay?” I was playing hard to get, but they needed to know that we could be on the trail in just a few minutes and leave them behind to fend for themselves.
“We were finally able to convince enough people that you and your kids would be a big help. We even had a vote. Just so you know, it was not unanimous.” She cut her eyes over to where pig-headed Mr. Pogozelski was holding court with his worthless minions.
I noticed that Doris was not sitting with them. This made it easy to figure out who your enemies really were in this camp. This was like the junior high lunchroom cliques. Were we the jocks or the burnouts? I definitely did not feel very athletic. Were we the popular kids? Nope, that didn’t fit us either. We were the geeks, but well-armed geeks. That thought made me laugh and snort a little stew. That led to a coughing fit.
Kofi rolled his eyes and muttered, “See, that’s why we never get to eat at fancy places.”
Dale and Regina started laughing and they ended up hugging each other on the ground where we all sat. Alex didn’t crack a smile, but her eyes lit up just a little. It was the relief that we had a place to stay for now. We didn’t trust all of these people, but there was comfort in knowing we were not all alone in this.
I wanted this little moment to last, so I took my time eating like I did the day before. Finally, I knew I had loitered long enough. I hated asking for things, but we needed this.
I looked to Barbara. “Do you have any soap I can use? We all need a good scrubbing but ran out of soap.”
She turned to one of her helpers, who went into the screened-in cabin. She returned with a small sliver of white soap. Without saying a word, she handed it to me. Yes, I smelled bad, and I was about to go fix that problem.
I started handing out tasks to the kids.
“Regina and Alex are on weapons cleaning; that new rifle will need it. Dale, you are on water production. Kofi, I want you to work with Barbara on foraging for food. Show her and her helpers how to get the root tap and the seeds. After that, take them around and show them the different greens we located on patrol. I’m going to start doing some laundry by the creek. After I get my stuff cleaned, I want the next person to do theirs. Don’t throw out the water from the bag, we can do all of our clothes today. The problem will be drying them out. Regina, go ahead and charge batteries while you work on weapons cleaning. Only clean one weapon at a time. If you finish your tasks early, come find me. I may be with the people at the camp, making plans. Questions?” We had done this a few times so this was second nature for them. One day they may end up leading their own group so they needed to learn how to do everything and to teach others. Joseph was a good man, but not one to take charge. I’d deal with that later; first, I needed to get clean.
I fished around in my pack and found a pair of nylon athletic shorts and two thick contractor-grade garbage bags. I also dug out all of my clothes. They were all in different grades of filthy. I was wearing my cleanest set. I took the laundry detergent, the trash bags, and all of my dirty clothes down to the edge of the water. Looking around first, I quickly stripped and put on the athletic shorts. I had to cinch the drawstring to keep them on. I carefully filled both bags with several gallons of water. The bags kept falling over, so I dug out two large holes in the sand to cradle them. I added a small amount of the powdered detergent to bag number one, and stirred it up with my hand. I dumped all of my clothes in the bag and started shaking it like crazy. In my youth, I had dropped a similar bag into the back of my five-ton truck and bounced across the Saudi Arabian desert. It had worked then; now I had to supply the agitation.
I pulled each piece out of the bag and rubbed at the stains and body oils impregnated in the fabric. After twenty minutes of shaking and rubbing, I wrung each piece of clothing out, letting the soapy water fall back into the bag and transferred it all to the bag with no soap. This was the rinse phase. I repeated the process for another twenty minutes. Wringing each piece out again, I spread the clothes out on the bushes. The direct sun would dry them faster, so I tried to place it all strategically. When the laundry was done, I started to wash myself.
With the beard and the long hair, it was a hassle. I needed to find a mirror and some scissors and clean it up some—I probably looked crazy. My beard was streaked with gray. That was nothing new, but the amount of gray was more than it had been a year ago.
Once I felt I was as clean as I was going to get, I moved back to our little campsite.
Regina and Alex had the AK broken down and were cleaning it up. It had not been fired since our escape from Arlington, but we tried to keep everything clean if we could. They must have finished with the M4. It was leaned against the tree next to Alex, with a magazine inserted. Knowing her, it had a round chambered and was ready to go. Nodding to the new weapon I asked, “Is that one ready for me to check it out?” They knew I inspected their work, but not like a drill instructor screaming at them for something they could not control. There was a difference between a rifle ready for the parade ground and a rifle ready for combat.
The action had been cleaned and oiled. The bore was in great condition. I expected some rust from being out in the elements, but I remembered something. We didn’t get any rain in the last two months. Everything was dry here until the rains came back.
Kofi was working with Barbara down in the cooking area. They must have been preparing that bull nettle they were going to dig up. Dale was down on the beach, working on our water supply. He didn’t acknowledge me while I was washing myself. We try to allow each other to feel some sense of privacy. When we have to clean ourselves, we just turn our backs and keep doing our thing. We were a family. Alex and Regina were sisters to Kofi and Dale.
“Hey Dale, do you want to take a break and get cleaned up?” Dale nodded and finished pouring the cooled water into one of the two-quart water bottles.
“Where is the soap?” he asked.
“I left it sitting on the rock by the ‘washing machine.’” I pointed it out. It was a small piece of soap. We needed to find some supplies soon. The camp was clearly running out of necessities.
While I was down attending to my personal hygiene, Joseph and a few other people had been busy. Most of the smaller cars had been moved from the parking lot and were now in a circle near the middle of the campground. That must have taken most of the people in camp. I wondered if he had taken my warning about the fuel tanks to heart. That could get messy.
I had other things to worry about though. His circus, his monkeys. I was feeling relaxed, and that was not a good thing. Every time I felt safe, something bad happened. After my clothes were dry and my kids were settled, I planned to jump back into the grinder. I had a mystery to solve and some animals to kill.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Getting everyone cleaned up took the entire day. As a precaution, I only let one member of my team be “out of uniform” at any time. I was paranoid that we would be attacked while we were lounging around with our weapons scatted in messy piles of parts. That was one of my reoccurring nightmares. Another one was pulling my pistol on an intruder and the weapon not firing. The magazine is empty and I have to run around the house finding loose bullets in various places, but none are the right caliber. That little dream freaks me the hell out and makes me act obsessive compulsive about keeping our weapons ready at all times. I recounted the dream to the kids once and they just nodded and said they have similar nightmares. I guess I was the only one sharing. Thanks kids, make me look like the freak.
The rest of the day was blessedly uneventful, until it was time for dinner. Barbara made a big show of telling everyone how Kofi had showed her and some other people how to get an edible root that everyone thought was a weed all that time. Well, to be honest, it is a weed, but the root tastes similar to potatoes.
The root had been boiled, cut, and added to the pot for all to enjoy. Mister pain-in-the-butt Pogozelski made a critical mistake at that point. He went after one of my kids.
“Well, I guess the nigger knows all about digging in the dirt, looking for bugs; that’s all they have ever been good for.”
A shocked silence went across the entire eating area. Every single pe
rson looked at the piece of garbage then looked at me. They all knew he crossed an imaginary line and gone too far with that insult. They all waited for my reaction. I stood up and turned toward him.
“Apologize for that right now, mister.” My voice was calm but based on the way everyone between us parted like the Red Sea to Moses, they expected me to start pumping rounds into his stupid fat head. William didn’t know when to quit.
“Why? We all know you are just a filthy pedophile. You brainwashed those kids into following you and doing whatever you say. I bet you have even used your little nigger boy here that way.” Those words were all I needed to tip me over the edge.
“Is there anyone here who agrees with William? If so, go ahead and speak now. Get it off your chest.” Not a soul moved or spoke.
I set my cup of stew down by my feet, and I handed my rifle to Kofi. When I’m angered, I don’t waste time posturing and strutting around trying to screw up my courage. Instead, I launched my body over the concrete picnic table and smashed into Mr. Pogozelski, knocking him back and off his bench. I could have just stabbed him. I could have knocked him out. I didn’t. I beat the living hell out of him. I threw elbows and open palm slaps to his head. I wanted him to suffer, and I wanted it to last. When he fell to the ground, I picked him back up to continue his beating. I finally had to stop. Beating a man is more strenuous than simply killing him. I caught my breath and loomed over his mewling form.
“Cry it out, Mr. Pogozelski. I’m done beating you for now. I’ll finish the job if I ever hear you insult my children again.” I turned to the crowd who stood there stunned. “What do you expect me to do, just keep taking his insults? You don’t have to put up with people like this anymore. Kick them out or banish them. If they can’t act like decent human beings then don’t feed them. If you are too lazy to help, then leave! Obviously, that is what some of you want so I’ll oblige your wishes. Kids, it’s time to hit the trail.”
