The bodies from yesterday were still lying where they fell. Worse, the ones too badly wounded to move were still outside, too. Occasionally, one or another would gather the strength to hoarsely call for aid. None was forthcoming. The red-haired obese woman had managed to drag her body a hundred yards before dying.
I went farther along the ridge to where I could see the barricade and guard shack by the junction at the north end of town. One of the guards was outside the shack, rifle in hand staring off in the direction of the town. He’d probably heard my rifle shots.
The other guard was inside the shack sitting in a chair. I could barely see the top of his head. From my position, it was nearly five hundred yards to the shack. I aimed the Enfield where I thought his mid-back would be and squeezed off a round. The bullet went through the wood siding of the shack, and the man came out of his seat, danced around inside the small confines, and then dropped from sight.
The guard outside dropped to a kneeling position and fired off a full magazine in my direction. I could hear the bullets clipping through the trees, but not close enough to worry about. I racked another .303. Because of the distance, I knew he felt the bullet hit his knee before he heard the sound of it being fired. The impact of the round knocked his leg from under him and he fell, curling into a fetal position clutching his shatter knee to his chest.
I went back along the western ridge, crossed a shallow valley to access the southern ridge, and then hunkered down to watch a particular house. During my pre-attack observations I’d noted in my pad the house was occupied by a woman and a young girl. After a prolonged period of watching, I saw the girl, she appeared to be six or seven, dart out the front door. The woman ran out to grab her and took her back inside.
Having verification that the home was still occupied, even though it was broad daylight, I felt comfortable sneaking through the forest to the small clearing behind her house. I rested a few minutes and then went to the ground-level rear deck and peered through the window of the back door. All I viewed was a hall that led straight to the front door.
I eased along the siding to a set of sliding glass doors. Through a gap in the vertical blinds, I saw the woman sitting with the girl in her lap reading a book. There was a shovel and a rake leaning against the wall at my corner of the house. I went for the shovel and then stood by the frame of the glass doors again. Knowing tempered glass was hard to break, I swung the shovel as hard as I could. The door glass shattered into a million pieces. I dropped the shovel, drew my pistol, and stepped through the opening.
The lady was too stunned to move. She and the child looked at me with terror-filled expressions.
“Lady, if you want to stay alive you will remain in your seat. Hold onto your child. Do not let her up. Do you understand me?”
She tried speaking, but only a squeak came out.
“Nod your head if you understand me. I’m not here to kill you, but I will if you leave your seat.”
She nodded her head up and down several times.
“Good. I don’t know if I’ve killed the Bradfords yet, so I want you to deliver a message to whoever’s left in charge. Pay attention.
“Your village no longer has water, electricity, or fuel. My men and I can kill everyone here, but we will leave on two conditions. We want the young women and girls being used as slaves here, and we want all the children. This community is not a fit place for them, seeing as how it’s existing on the blood of other people.”
The woman found her voice. “Who are you to look down on us? You’re the one that’s killing innocent men and women. What the Bradfords do is their business, all I know is the world’s changed and they made us a safe haven. Like Kenneth said last night, it’s all about survival now.”
I said, “I don’t give a damn how you justify your existence. Keep your mouth shut and listen. If you don’t, I’ll put a hole in your head, take the child now, and go find myself another messenger. Lady, don’t push it or the last memory this girl will have of you is your death.
“Since you didn’t mention Kenneth in the past tense, tell him at noon tomorrow I expect to see the young women driving vehicles past the south barricade. They’re to bring all the children with them and enough food and water to last them a week. Tell him that so far, we’ve avoided attacking the Resort, but if our demands aren’t met, we will wipe it from the face of the earth and then kill every adult left in the village and take the children when we’re through.
“And lady, if your child isn’t with the women when they leave, you will be one of the first to die.”
She sneered and shook her head. “You blew his brother up. Kenneth will never agree to your demands. You can have the whores, but he damn sure won’t let you take the children, especially his nephew. They’ll hunt your gang down and fill your do-gooder asses full of holes. ”
“Oh, I think you’re wrong. I think Kenneth is a coward, and would sell his mother to guarantee his own safety. He’ll know his Disneyland’s been destroyed. All the amenities that made this place worthwhile are gone. Let me tell you something lady, you called those women whores. I call them victims. You and the rest of the citizens in this trash pit are rapists and murderers through association. I’m following orders, but personally, I hope Kenneth refuses. I want to kill every last one of you.”
I left her place. From the hillside, I waited and watched. Fifteen minutes after my visit, she left her home, little girl in tow, headed in the direction of the Resort.
On the way to my camp, I thought about her claiming I was killing innocent people. It was an easy internal conflict to resolve. Would humanity be better off without them? She was right that it was now a world where the fittest would survive. After I got the women and children, I’d prove to them that the fittest have always been those of the humane persuasion. She’d know I was a liar, because I still intended to kill them all.
I returned to my ledge to watch the Village, mainly the Resort. Eventually the woman and child appeared on the veranda and departed for their home.
I ate my supper, a can of pear halves and a can of mixed greens. Midway through the greens, I caught a glimpse of two men sneaking up the hillside behind the Resort. I started to attempt a shot, but at nearly two thousand yards, I knew I would take an extreme instance of luck for me to get a hit.
I decided to ignore them. It was so late in the day. Even if they were experts at tracking and picked up my trail to and from my observation point, night would catch them before they were half way around the ridgelines to my position.
I decided to sleep outside of the tent. The evening temperature was mild and the sleeping bag alone would be warm enough, but mainly the inside of the tent smelled like mildewed cloth and old socks.
I woke to a rank odor, snorting, and something poking at me. I opened my eyes to view a mass of black fur. A huge bear was using its front paws to prod me. It snorted, hooked the claws of one paw into the fabric of the sleeping bag to roll me over. I doubt it was on purpose, but the narrow ledge I was on left no room for rolling except for rolling off.
Confined inside the sleeping bag, all I did was go with the flow, rolling, flipping, and sliding the hundred or so feet to the tree line. On the way down, I took some hard thumps, but didn’t feel any bones snap. Near the end of my journey, my forehead hit something harder than it was and I felt the skin split.
A tree stopped me. By then I wasn’t moving very fast and it didn’t hurt. Fearing the bear was on its way to me, I hustled from the sleeping bag, drawing my pistol as I did. Blood was running down my face, blinding one eye. I kept that eye closed and scanned for the bear. It wasn’t in sight.
Holding the gash on my forehead with one hand, pistol at the ready in the other, I stood there for a long time, jumping at every slight sound, fully expecting the bear to rush from the dark forest and begin ripping me to shreds.
My breathing slowed and my courage returned. I crept up the slope to my camp prepared to fight for my territory. A slight rank odor was all that remai
ned of the bear. It’d had its fun and left.
The gash on my forehead was over an inch long. After the prodigious initial flow, it was barely seeping blood. I dug through my pack for a rag and duct tape. I tore off a piece of tape and stuck an edge of it to the fabric of my pants. Then I used the rag to wipe and dry the skin above the wound, stuck the tape there, and used the rag to wipe below the cut. My other hand followed behind with the tape, pulling the gash closed. I wet the rag and washed the blood from around my eye and then my face.
Twenty minutes later, having retrieved my sleeping bag and using it for a cushion, I sat staring down into the village. The episode with the bear hit me and a shudder ran through my body.
Hyper-vigilant, my ears perked for the slightest sound of the bear returning, I heard brush cracking in the trees to the right of me. M-16 set for automatic in my hand, I was ready to settle the score. The sounds of something moving came closer.
It wasn’t the bear coming.
“I’m telling you I heard something,” a man said.
“Well then, keep your damn mouth shut and watch where you put your damn feet. Jesus, you’re a dumbass.”
“Yeah, and you ain’t no Daniel Boone—”
The sound of a heavy body rushing, snorting through the underbrush cut him off. One of the men screamed and the other shouted, “Oh fuck!”
I ran in the direction of the disturbance. Twenty yards into the dark forest, I saw movement and slowed. The lack of gunfire, the sound of a man screaming and the crackling of the underbrush told me the beast was having the better of the two men. When I was closer, I saw one of the men was down; one side of his face, from chin to forehead was ripped free from his skull.
Standing on its hind legs the bear hugged the other man, claws ripping into his back. I raised the barrel of my rifle and emptied a mag into the dancing duo, and then I drew my pistol. The bear and his victim were down, with the bear on top.
The man with the ripped face was moaning. I moved closer and put a bullet into the temple of the non-injured side of his head.
The bear was still twitching. The man under him appeared to be dead. I gave both of them a head shot, too.
I gathered the men’s weapons and ammo and went back to my pad. A moment after sitting, the second shudder of the night ripped through my body, this time raising the hair at the back of my neck.
My head hurt, I was bruised and battered from my tumble down the hill. The wound in my side was throbbing. My nerves were shot to hell, but for some reason I was okay with all that. For the first time since watching Becky, Will, and Jen die, I felt glad for life, glad I was still breathing the good air of the earth.
I looked to the dark sky and asked Him to watch over my darlings. I asked Him if I was on the right course. He didn’t answer the question. I think it was because He gave us free will.
It wasn’t long after the ordeal with the bear that two men carrying a lamp came out onto the veranda of the Resort. I didn’t bother with the Enfield, just loosed a few rounds with the rifle in their direction to let them know their men were dead and I was still alive.
I fell asleep sitting on my pad with the rifle cradled in my lap. A loud voice speaking through a megaphone startled me. My eyes jerked open and I swung my head in every direction looking for danger. The area was clear. My ears were tuned to the words being broadcast. My watch showed 9:27 a.m.
“This is Kenneth Bradford, commander of the township. I’m speaking to the murdering scum hiding in the hills above our city. You are not getting our children. I want you to send a representative to speak with me personally so we can resolve this situation. Fire one shot if you agree to my terms. I’ll expect your representative by noon.
“If you do not respond, we will begin killing the female house servants one at a time until you do. You have my word on that.”
I took my time to respond, standing to retrieve the case holding the Enfield. I hadn’t reloaded the spent slider clips, but figured the five remaining full ones would be sufficient for now.
It took long moments, peering through the scope but I found a target, a man hiding by a window jamb on the second floor of the Recreation Center. I held fire and searched the front of the Resort. The only target there was an exposed booted foot and shin of a man using a huge planter on the stone-floored veranda to shield him.
William, in one of his many lectures, had covered the psychological value of hostage taking. The enemy wins through coercing one’s humane values, their love for others.
I knew the shot at the man’s leg was a probable miss, so I aimed low. The bullet hit the stone in front of the leg. Either the bullet ricocheted or it sent stone chips flying, the leg jerked from sight, and a man screamed in pain, getting to his feet to make a stumbling run for the door of the Resort. I worked the lever on the Enfield and aimed low, targeting his ass. Through the scope, I saw blood blossom on his shirt, high, in the middle of his back.
A man in the second floor of the Recreation Center had spotted my position and opened fire, an automatic burst of rounds coming in my direction. Bullets chewed the ground and foliage around me as he emptied his magazine. He wasn’t the man I’d marked for my next target. This shooter was at a window on the opposite end of the cupola.
Instead of ducking from sight to reload, the fool stood in the opening. I aimed for his belly and hit his chest. Panning my rifle left, I placed the scope on the other man. He’d seen where the other man had placed his rounds and spotted me. He fired his weapon as I fired mine.
His bullet hit the tarp beside me, a foot from my left hip. My bullet dropped him from sight.
I had no more targets, but just in case anyone else had spotted me, I gathered my weapons and ammo and moved my position two hundred feet to the right, bringing the pad in case I had another long wait. I’m glad I did.
Time passed with no movement to see and no megaphone communication from Bradford. Most important, I heard no weapon fire indicating a slave girl was killed.
An hour ticked by and then I did hear a weapon fire, two quick shots. A minute later, the megaphone activated and a voice, not Bradford, but someone else speaking.
“Kenneth Bradford is dead. Watch the front of the Resort. We’re tossing his body out.”
A body was thrown, not through the entrance, but through a window to slam the stone veranda and roll a few feet.
“We are not killing any of the servants. We are sending them and children out the southern entrance to the Village like you ordered. I ask that the rest of us be allowed to leave north in return for acting in good faith. Fire a shot if this is agreeable. Please not at any of us.”
I didn’t have a target anyway. I thought about the request. There were still quite a few men and women down there who, even though the Bradfords were dead, had been in cahoots with them. I knew there was no way I could keep watch 24/7, and that by twos and threes, many of them would slip away in the night.
The main thing was, once I had the servant girls and children, I would have to escort them to the Armory. I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted as loud as I could, “Can you hear me?”
Seconds passed and the man replied, “We can’t understand your words.”
I sat and waited. He didn’t disappoint me.
“Can I send one of the servant girls to you?”
I gathered my weapons and ammo. One shot fired from the Beretta into the air was my answer. As soon as I pulled the trigger, on the possibility I’d marked my position for a barrage of weapons fire, I stayed low and concealed, and left that spot.
Nothing happened. I remained crouched, watching the entrance to the Resort. A woman came out and began walking directly toward my ridge.
It took her forty-five minutes to cross the village and scramble up the forested hillside. I saw she was off line by a few hundred feet and moved to meet her.
I found a small clearing and called for her. She was a slim little thing, barely five feet tall. Her hair was dark brown but the blonde tips showed it had
once been dyed.
I saw nothing in her hands; even so, I had her stop and turn to see if she had a hidden weapon. She was wearing jeans with a jacket covering her pullover top.
“I’m going to ask you to take your jacket off. Do it slowly. I’m only checking to make sure you don’t have any weapons.”
She unzipped the jacket, speaking as she shrugged out of it.
“I don’t have any. Are you going to hurt me?”
With duct tape closing the cut on my forehead, several days of facial growth and filthy BDUs, I knew I presented an unsettling appearance. “No, girl, I’m not. Toss me the jacket.”
Snagging her toss, I could tell by the weight of the jacket there were no weapons in it. “Turn one more time so I can see your back.’
She did a complete turn and I tossed her the coat.
“Put it on, it’s chilly.”
She slid it back on and asked, “Why are you all killing everybody?”
“You don’t know why?”
“Most of us girls think it’s because of what Kenneth and James and his men were doing, but some of them think you might be just as bad as them.”
“So you know about the killing and raping.”
“Plenty of killing and raping all the time. Raping us, raping women they catch. Killing anybody that doesn’t measure up to what they want. Listening to them talk and laugh about how people begged for their lives and how they suffered dying. Yeah, we know about the killing and raping.”
She began crying. “They rape us every night, and during the day, too. We don’t even fight ‘em because all that gets you is hurt.”
“Listen, they won’t be doing that anymore. My name is Ralph. What’s yours?”
“Stephanie Owens.”
“How old are you, Stephanie?”
“Sixteen.”
That set me aback. Hard use had added five years to her face and ten years to her eyes.
THE TRASHMAN Page 23
