Breaking the Beast

by Steven Bird

  “Joe,” Ronnie said softly from behind me.

  Pausing for a moment, I declared, “I know,” before continuing toward the door.

  Once I reached the door, I stared at the knob with dread. As my hand reached for the knob, I could visibly see it trembling. Somehow, I knew I wouldn’t be the same after I looked inside. My life had been a good one. I’d worked hard and lived a comfortable, reasonably successful life, and for the most part, had avoided the pain, suffering, and heartache that many had been forced to endure. I had lost my parents to lung cancer, which was something that could be seen coming from a long way off. I hadn’t faced the level of suffering and misery that so many had. Up until now, my emotions had been spared the sudden, agonizing loss of a family member.

  I looked to my left and saw Ronnie watching me from the living room. He exhaled and gave me a nod as if he understood why it was that I needed to face what was on the other side of the door.

  I slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked as the door slowly swung open to reveal what was evidently a child’s bedroom. It was a girl’s room—probably belonging to the young girl in the pictures lining the hallway. My eyes scanned the room that was now barely lit by the sunset through the dust-covered windows. I could see light dancing around the room from the setting sun shining through the branches of the mature trees that surrounded the home.

  As I stepped into the room and looked to my right, around an elaborately adorned antique wardrobe painted white with stickers of pink unicorns and puppies and kittens of various types scattered across the front, I froze in my tracks. My eyes fell on the decayed body of what appeared to be an adult male sitting on the floor, leaned against the wall and slumped over against the white, antique child’s bed.

  The corpse appeared to have suffered severe head trauma, a gunshot wound, no doubt. The wall behind the body contained the splatter of old blood stains and damage to the drywall that would be consistent with an injury from a bullet as it had exited the man’s skull.

  I looked around the body and saw no weapon. I knew that’s the one thing the looters wouldn’t have left behind. Even if they had respect for the former occupants of the home, a handgun that had somehow escaped confiscation after the prohibition on personally owned weapons had been enacted, would be far too valuable to leave behind in this horrid new world.

  As my eyes left the corpse and looked to the bed next to him, I could see the silhouette of a young girl beneath a white sheet. My heart sank as tears welled up in my eyes. I could now paint the scene clearly in my mind.

  The girl, no doubt the light of her father’s life, had succumbed to the Sembé virus. She’d died with her father by her side, and it was more than he could bear. My heart ached. I couldn’t imagine such a loss. I couldn’t imagine mustering the desire or strength to go on after such a devastating, soul-crushing moment.

  I had always wanted children, but it just never seemed to come. I had never had a relationship that felt solid enough, or right enough, to settle down and have a family. I had always felt as if something was missing in my life. Perhaps that something was a hole that needed to be filled by the love of a family.

  Today, though, I was glad I didn’t have to suffer through the agony of such a terrible loss. The pain and suffering that millions of people all over the globe had faced in the wake of the Sembé virus.

  My heart quickly turned from pain and sadness to rage and hatred. This scene was a scene that had no doubt played out all across the world as families had watched their loved ones die from the horrible fate brought on by the virus—the virus that had been intentionally inflicted upon the world by the OWA.

  I stormed out of the room to see Ronnie standing there in the hallway, waiting for me. He reached out his hand and placed it on my shoulder as I struggled to contain my emotions. I had never felt such rage, such hatred.

  “Joe,” he said in a soft, caring voice. “This is why we’re doing what we’re doing. If we can help the ones out there who are left to avoid such losses and potentially break the OWA’s stranglehold on humanity’s future…”

  “I know,” I said, trying to shake off the dark cloud that was now hanging over my head. “Where are the others?” I asked. “The others from the pictures.”

  “I found what appears to be two graves in the back yard. The mother and the son must have gone first, leaving the father and his little girl behind. When the girl passed, it was probably too much for the father to take. She was probably all he had left to live for. She was no doubt his very reason for being, and without her...”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, wiping a tear from my eye.

  Chapter Seven

  The rest of that evening was mostly spent in silence. Ronnie and I sifted through the gear and provisions provided by his friend, with only the occasional word spoken between us. I had heard about the horrors of the world outside the OWA’s safe areas, and I had thought I’d come to grips with it all. After seeing the heartbreaking scene down the hall, though, it all came back on me like a ton of bricks.

  I felt claustrophobia setting in, although I had never had such a phobia before. I felt as if the world around me was squeezing me, preventing me from breathing or escaping. A psychiatric professional would have probably had a good multi-word diagnosis for how I felt that night, but I was at a loss. Throughout the roller coaster of anxiety and the feeling of total helplessness, the one thing I never felt was futility. Not once did I feel as if there was nothing that I could do. Not once did I regret hitching my horse to Ronnie’s wagon and undertaking this crazy, suicidal mission to break the OWA’s grip on humanity. The realization of that little fact helped me press on through the darkness I felt around me.

  Using a small flashlight he had brought along, Ronnie made a makeshift lamp, using a semi-transparent cloth to muffle and soften the light. He didn’t want the full-strength beam of a flashlight to inadvertently give away our position to anyone who may be observing the home. When he was happy with the amount of light being omitted, we began sifting through the gear and provisions left in the Toyota for us by Ronnie’s friend, the medic.

  Once we had finished sorting and inventorying our supplies, we had tallied up a month’s worth of MREs, if we ate only two meals per day, that is. They had expired, but as Ronnie put it, “They’ll keep us alive… hopefully. Besides, they probably put bogus expiration dates on them just so the government would have to buy more.”

  In addition to the MREs, there was a reasonably complete first aid and trauma kit for each of us. We had several lighters, four cans of Sterno fuel for campfire-free/smokeless cooking, two changes of clothes for each of us. The clothing consisted of mostly natural greens, browns, and tans, socks and all. There were also two lightweight day-pack backpacks, two all-weather sleeping bags, and two solar rechargeable flashlights.

  He had also provided us with a nice pair of Vortex Kaibab 18x50 high-power binoculars. Those would definitely come in handy during the journey to help us gather intel, as well as helping us to avoid walking into unnecessary danger.

  On the more exotic end of the spectrum were several jewels that made us feel as if we had indeed hit the jackpot, at least the jackpot for folks who were on the run, that is. Ronnie’s friend had provided us with a Pulsar thermal monocular, as well as several extra battery packs and a portable, solar recharging setup, along with a Faraday bag to store it in and protect it from the OWA’s electromagnetic weapons systems capabilities.

  The grand prize, of course, was a pair of Glock 22 pistols chambered in .40S&W that were both former police service pistols from before the collapse, as well as a classic World War II vintage M1 Garand.

  It had been quite some time since either Ronnie or I had handled conventional firearms. Once the OWA had banned the possession of private arms and weapons, using Symbex as leverage to get people to follow through with their ordered surrender, all we had seen were the newer, advanced weapons platforms such as our CX series weapons manufactured by Global Def
ense Industries (GDI).

  I remember watching Ronnie pick up one of the Glocks, staring at it like a kid who was in awe of his new toy. “Man, I’ve not seen one of these in years,” he said. “Not since we carried them with the Capitol Police, that is.”

  We both reacquainted ourselves with the manual of arms of the classic law enforcement handguns, and placed them in our day packs, along with three magazines and two fifty-round boxes of ammunition, and then moved on to the Garand.

  “My grandfather used to own one of these beauties,” I said as I held the rifle, admiring its classic lines while checking its condition and function. “This one was made by International Harvester.”

  “The tractor company?” he asked.

  Chuckling, I explained, “Yes, the tractor company. During World War II, America’s manufacturing might was called to arms. GM made airplanes. Ford made tanks. Hell, even IBM and the Smith-Corona typewriter company made rifles. IBM manufactured M1 carbines, and Smith-Corona manufactured M1903 bolt actions.”

  “How do you know all of that?” Ronnie asked, looking at me as if he had just met me for the first time.

  “I’ve always been an unofficial history buff—mostly military stuff. WWI, WWII, the Civil War, you name it. I’d have been a gun collector if I hadn’t lived in D.C. where such things weren’t allowed.”

  “What the heck is this?” Ronnie asked, holding up one of the Garand’s enbloc clips.

  Taking it from him, I explained, “That’s the clip. Just like the name implies, it’s just a metal clip that holds eight rounds of .30-06 cartridges in place. The spring-loaded feeding system that’s built into a weapon’s magazine these days is housed internally in the rifle itself.”

  Holding the rifle in front of myself, I locked the charging handle back and demonstrated, “Hold the clip in your hand like this, with the blade of your hand against the charging handle. Shove the clip into the rifle with your thumb like this, ensuring that you hold back the charging handle with the blade of your hand, then release.”

  After the bolt slammed forward, I said, “If you don’t guard the charging handle like that, it’ll bite you, and you’ll get what they called Garand thumb.”

  Continuing, I said, “These things may be ancient technology, but even with mere iron sights, they shoot true out further than most people can see well enough to aim. They’ll do what you need them to do, and they’ll do it well. These are from the days of the main battle rifle when hard-hitting bullets were fired at distances of hundreds of yards, long before CQB was even a term. And best of all, they don’t need batteries.”

  Handing the rifle to Ronnie, I watched as he went through the motions of the Garand’s unique loading procedure. “I can see how this thing could really bite you,” he commented.

  “Where do you think your friend got these?” I asked.

  “I imagine he had them buried somewhere, expecting a day like this to come when he needed to retrieve them.

  “Of all the weapons to squirrel away, why an old relic like this?” Ronnie wondered aloud. “I mean, there were a lot of really cool rifles out there before the ban.”

  Pondering his question for a moment, I guessed, “I’d imagine it was easier for him to give up a few cookie cutter rifles than a war hero and a classic such as this. Just imagine turning over something that has gone through a world war like this rifle has, only to have it destroyed and melted down.”

  “I imagine you’re right,” he said.

  “How much ammo did he give us for it?”

  Quickly counting five twenty-round boxes, I said, “One hundred.”

  “That’s not much,” he complained.

  “Yes, it is,” I countered. “This stuff hits pretty hard on both ends. You won’t be rapid firing it very often. That, and you’ll only need to hit each guy once with it.”

  Once we had finished the tasks at hand and had all of our gear packed away and ready to go at a moment’s notice, Ronnie said, “We need to get some rest. The sun will be up soon, and we’ll have another long day ahead of us. Let’s take shifts. I’ll take first watch.”

  “Nonsense, Ronnie,” I protested. “You’re nursing a wound. I’m not. Get yourself some rest before it gets the best of you. I’ll wake you in a few hours, and we’ll swap.”

  Looking me in the eye and seeing that I wasn’t going to budge on the issue, Ronnie acquiesced and moved to the corner of the room, where he rolled out his sleeping bag and settled in for a much-needed nap.

  Going through the gear had done a good job of distracting me from the dark cloud that had been hanging over me that night, but once Ronnie was asleep, snoring like a poorly tuned chainsaw, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic scene frozen in time just down the hall.

  Just as my mind started drifting back to that dark, dreadful place, I heard a noise that sounded as if it came from behind the house, just by the kitchen door.

  With my senses now focused on the potential threat, all other thoughts vacated my mind. Hearing a faint, muffled sound, I thought, was that whispering? Holy crap. It is. There’s someone outside.

  Verifying the readiness of my CX91 carbine, I stood and started to sneak across the room toward Ronnie, only to realize his snoring may be exactly what I needed. Anyone with reasonable hearing would know someone was asleep inside the home. If I were to wake him, even if I kept him from speaking, they’d sense the change and would be on alert to our knowledge of them, or alter their plans. No, with Ronnie snoring away, they’d maintain the idea that they had the drop on us.

  Being outside the safe zones, the threat could be any number of things. It could be a gang of thugs that laid in wait during daylight hours, observing people as they traveled through, only to launch their raid under cover of darkness, it could be someone desperate and hungry, or it could be the OSS, here to put an end to our two-man rebellion. Either way, this wasn’t a good way to spend our first night outside the zones.

  Hearing the back door knob rock quietly back and forth, I moved toward the kitchen counter and lay down in the prone position just below the sink. This would give me the best opportunity to take a shot while requiring the intruder to rotate all the way around the door to engage me, especially if they were right-handed; this would put them at a severe disadvantage. It would also reduce my visible profile to anyone trying to see in either the front or back windows while their counterpart made an entry.

  As a figure entered the room, it was much too dark for me to see any detail. Once Ronnie laid down to take his nap, we had extinguished the small flashlight we had been using previously as a lamp, leaving only a trace of moonlight shining through the gaps between the curtains to illuminate the room.

  Evidently, we hadn’t done a good enough job with regard to our light discipline. The odds of someone merely stumbling across this house the same night as us were very slim. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like it one bit. Whoever was here more than likely knew we were in the home, which meant they were ready and willing to fight.

  I felt like a bat using sonar to see. I was using the sounds of the soft, carefully placed steps of the intruder to estimate his position in the room. Once I was sure they were all the way inside, I carefully placed my left thumb on the button used to activate the weapon-mounted light built into my CX91, and flicked it on strobe, while shouting, “Down! Down on the floor! Now!”

  Hearing the simultaneous scream of what sounded to be a young girl, and the sounds of Ronnie struggling to his feet in confusion, I could see through the intense strobes of disorienting light a small figure that was maybe five feet tall, acting confused and conflicted about what to do. I could tell whoever it was wanted to run, but was frozen in fear.

  “Down on the floor, I said!” I again commanded, causing the figure to reluctantly comply.

  “D…d…daddy,” the figure stuttered, as what I now recognized to be a young girl lowered herself to the floor.

  Hurrying to my side, Ronnie knelt and covered the girl with his carbine, saying, “Wh
at the hell, man?”

  “There’s at least one more outside,” I said calmly. “She just called for her father, but that may be a ruse.”

  “Kick the door shut with your feet,” I said to the young girl.

  Once she had done so, I switched my light to the steady beam setting so we could get a good look at our intruder. Like I had suspected, it was a young girl who appeared to be no more than twelve or thirteen years old.

  “Daddy!” she again shouted as she began to sob heavily.

  “Are you infected?” I asked.

  “N…no…” she replied.

  “Well, we are, so you’d better keep your distance,” I said in a calm, yet authoritative voice.

  Avoiding exposing himself in front of the window, Ronnie attempted to look outside for the father the girl kept calling for. “Where is he? How many are with you?” Ronnie asked.

  “It’s just my dad and me,” the girl replied, beginning to regain her composure.

  “What are you doing here? Are you robbing us?” he asked.

  “We… we’re hungry,” she said. “We’ve not eaten in several days. My father isn’t doing well.”

  “Is he infected?” Ronnie asked.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Then why isn’t he doing well?”

  “A few nights ago, we were robbed,” she explained. “Daddy was beaten pretty bad. They took everything we had. They took the last of our food. We just want something to eat and a safe place to spend the night. That’s all, I promise. We didn’t know anyone was here.”

  “Tell him to show himself,” Ronnie demanded.

  After a moment of silence, he again insisted, “Look, if he doesn’t show himself, we’re going to assume you’re lying and that you meant us harm.”