Fireside

by Brian Parker

  The building that he’d chosen to be his sniper perch didn’t have any windows on the ground floor. He’d have to check every door that he came to in the darkness. It was convenient for his safety, but the gloom was a horrible choice for trying to get around. Without any type of ambient lighting, his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the pitch black and he was just as blind now as when he initially entered the lobby. He wished that he had a flashlight or a torch….

  Aeric slapped himself on the forehead in his mind. Of course! He had several lighters in his pack. He’d used them to start their cooking fires at night. There had always been an abundance of the damn things around. Even thirty-five years after the end of the world, they were everywhere. He shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped the top flap. The sound of something hard scraping against the floor in the darkness made him pause and stare blindly towards where he thought it had come from.

  He waited several seconds. When he didn’t hear anything else, he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him and jammed his hand into the pocket where his lighters were. He pulled one out and zipped the bag closed before slinging it up onto his shoulders once again.

  Light blossomed from the precious little tube of plastic, bathing the area around him in a soft orange glow. He stood, more or less, in the middle of a large hotel lobby. The furniture had long since been hauled away, whether for use as it was intended or for firewood, he’d never know. What he thought was a blanket was the fabric from a couch or chair, though, so he leaned towards the firewood explanation. Not much else remained in the small circle of light around him.

  Far across the open space, he saw three sets of eyes glittering brightly back towards him. The glow from the lighter’s flame reflected green in the darkness. He breathed a sigh of relief; green usually meant a dog or cat, both things that he could handle. If the eyes were red, he would have been worried. Rodents’ eyes reflected red in firelight and while the demonbroc wasn’t a rodent, their eyes shone red as well.

  Whatever the creatures were, they stared at him without making a move to run away or attack, so he decided to continue his search for the stairs. The lighter quickly got hot on his thumb and he had to release the button, plunging the lobby into darkness once more. He used the memory of the open space that the light had showed him to navigate towards one of the walls as the lighter cooled. Once he got there, he turned towards the interior of the building and began walking along the wall until he came to a doorway.

  He struck the lighter and the dark blue and white pictogram of a male shone back at him. Aeric definitively did not want to go in there. Since the building was off-limits, the bathroom was likely used by street people or workers in an emergency. No one would have cleaned it in decades. Yeah, not a pretty picture.

  Aeric continued along the wall, stopping at each doorway he came across. Ladies’ restroom, supply, concierge, vending, finally he came to the doorway labeled stairs. He opened the door cautiously and examined the stairwell. Once he determined that it was safe, he began to climb.

  TWELVE

  “Ahh, what a lovely morning for a war,” Starr purred as she strapped a pistol belt around her slim waist.

  Kendrick smirked at her choice of wording. “Yes, it is. We’re going to wipe those clowns off the face of the earth and then the Vultures will rule all of the remaining parts of Texas.”

  She picked up one of her knives and then stopped. “How long did you say it was gonna take?”

  He sighed; the girl couldn’t remember details about anything to save her life. “It’s about 160 miles, so we’ll be there in a week.”

  “A week? That’s so far away!” She flopped dramatically onto the couch at the end of their bed. “Can’t we make them walk faster?”

  “Not if we want the army in any condition to fight when they get there,” Kendrick answered. “The tanks can’t go that fast either, their engines are cobbled together from the other vehicles and the fuel has so much stabilizer in it that it’s damn-near worthless. I think twenty, twenty-five miles a day is about right.”

  Starr held her knife out for him to see, waving it lazily in front of him. There were dried streaks of blood on the blade and he felt himself stiffen against the restraining fabric of his pants. “I need some entertainment then,” she stated. “We need to bring some of the inmates along. Maybe we could have a tournament or something each night, like a gladiator ring or a marksmanship competition where we start at the feet and work our way up to the head.”

  “Sure, we can bring a few of them along.” He changed his tone and asked, “Don’t you think it’d be better to allow your frustration to build during the march? Then, when we get to San Angelo, you can take it out on Traxx and his band of rejects. Wouldn’t that be more satisfying?”

  Her eyes flashed from their normal dark brown to almost black. “You can’t expect me to go an entire week without torturing someone. I’ll go insane! The longest I’ve gone was three days that time I had the flu. When I got better, I didn’t even torture that bastard; I just killed him and bathed in his blood. No,” she stamped her foot like a child. “A week is too long.”

  Sometimes Kendrick did indeed question her sanity. He liked to torture people too; it was cathartic to hear their screams and know that he held their very lives in his hands, but Starr took it to a whole new level. Her tastes ran towards long-term torture so she usually got a month or two out of each of her victims before they died. He’d already planned on bringing several hundred prisoners back with him. They could use them as slaves in the fields until they were called to the palace.

  “We’ll take a couple of inmates with us, then. It will be good entertainment for the troops,” he said, warming to the idea. “It’ll help to increase their blood lust. They’ll be foaming at the mouth by the time we get there, and when the walls explode, they’ll rush in and murder everything in sight.”

  “How many of them do I get?”

  “Hmm… Three? Four? What do you think you’ll need for the trip? It’s not that far away.”

  “No, my lord,” she replied, her dark eyes practically glittering in the light from the windows. “How many of the slaves from San Antonio do I get?”

  “The ones that we keep, we have to feed,” he reminded her.

  “Not all of them. Starvation is an exquisite form of mental and physical torture. Of course, I’ll need to keep some of them healthy so they can survive the cutting—” she stopped suddenly. “I want women. Lots and lots of women. I’m tired of the same things. Cutting off testicles and ramming things up men’s asses has gotten stale.”

  Kendrick nodded. Besides the occasional woman, most were kept safely away from Starr since they needed good breeding stock to replenish their population. If it came to it, one male could get every woman pregnant, so they were much more expendable. He reached out to his lover and pulled her close to him. “Then you will have one hundred women to experiment on.”

  “And little boys?”

  “Of course, my dear. Whatever you desire.”

  She pushed herself away from his embrace and whirled around to face him. “Oh my god. I am so turned on right now.”

  He grinned even wider than he had before. “Me too. We need to get going, though.”

  Starr didn’t pay any attention to what he said. Instead, she turned and picked up one of her homemade sex toys off the table beside the couch. A mischievous smile made her dimples appear and she tossed the object to him. He caught it and wondered how much longer the toy would be good for, they usually only lasted a week or so before they began to rot and the smell became a turn-off.

  The first time he used one of her toys on her, he’d been horrified. The implement had brought her to orgasm quickly and her level of passion afterward had been unmatched. Now, they rarely went more than a few days without one of them. She left her pistol belt on, sliding her pants down around her ankles and bent over the couch, presenting him with an ample view of her. Kendrick unbuttoned his own pants and adjusted his grip on the seve
red human arm. He knew what she needed.

  *****

  Aeric glanced at the sky. The early morning sun was still low on the horizon, but they’d lost about two hours of daylight. Given all the activity around the palace, the army should have left hours ago. It seemed like everyone was ready to go and something had caused them to delay. The Vultures didn’t seem concerned with how long they could march before they needed to make camp.

  A man walked into his line of sight from the south leading two horses. He stopped by the center door and waited for whoever was coming out. This is probably the moment I’ve been waiting for, he told himself. The horses were likely for Kendrick and his second in charge. The doors opened and he peered through the rifle’s scope.

  The old man had been telling the truth. It was Kendrick; the man he’d called his son. He’d filled out since he disappeared, much more muscular than before. Now that he was older, he looked like the man that raped his beloved Kate and impregnated her. He wore a sneer openly. Aeric remembered that it had begun to appear when he thought no one was looking during those last few years in San Angelo. Traxx wondered if it was his dissatisfaction at something that was happening on the ground or if he always wore the expression.

  He continued to watch him as he walked down the steps, arm in arm with a scantily-clad Hispanic or Asian woman; he couldn’t really tell at this distance. He wondered if she was Kendrick’s wife. What if she was pregnant with his child, would that only perpetuate the cycle of hate as another child grew up fatherless? Then, he thought of something entirely different, Why in the hell would anyone go into the wastes wearing a skirt and halter top? All of these thoughts jumbled through his mind until one question surged to the forefront.

  Could he do it? This was his best opportunity to kill Kendrick.

  The man who’d led the horses held out a stirrup for the leader of the Vultures so he could mount the horse. Of course he could kill him; he planned to murder everyone that Aeric knew in a few days. The thought of the death of his children and grandchildren, Veronica and Tyler, Lorelei and other friends galvanized him into action. He flipped the safety on the silenced 30.06 to fire and centered the crosshairs on Kendrick’s head.

  He’d already thought that the man was dead; what would a confirmation of all those years of wondering matter? The meaty part of his finger rested against the trigger and he exhaled his breath, pausing afterward like the Shooters had taught him. The flesh on his index finger spread slowly as he gently applied pressure on the rifle’s trigger.

  *****

  “I’m so ready to get on the road,” Starr sighed.

  Kendrick threw his head back and laughed, “You’re anticipating the—”

  A scream of pain erupted from the page who’d brought his horse. The man fell to the ground, writhing in pain as a crimson smear spread slowly across his shoulder. Kendrick’s mind went through several instantaneous calculations to determine what had happened.

  After the page helped him into the saddle, he stood off to the side respectfully out of the way. Someone had been aiming a weapon at his head; when he’d laughed at Starr’s impatience to be on the road towards San Angelo it caused his head to move. The bullet traveled past his face and into the unfortunate man standing beside the horse.

  “Go!” Kendrick screamed, kicking the animal hard in the flank as he grabbed its mane and held on tightly.

  The horse took off like a rocket and then stumbled as another bullet slammed into its rump. Kendrick hadn’t been prepared for the movement and flew over the horse’s head, falling hard against one of the concrete-topped stone retaining walls near the second set of stairs. His shoulder impacted against the low wall with bone-jarring force. He didn’t wait for another shot and had enough presence of mind to decide that they were coming from somewhere in the city. He scrambled behind the stone, lying flat on his stomach.

  His shoulder was on fire. The sound of running horse hooves echoed in the morning; his horse lay on its side, back legs groping for traction on the cement. Kendrick recognized that the noise had come from Starr’s horse, which was upright and making its escape from the kill zone. Was she still in the saddle or had she fallen as well?

  He quickly forgot about the horse as men all across the palace lawn began to scream in panic. The Vultures were under attack! Several men already lay sprawled at odd angles on the ground, their blood puddling underneath them.

  “The city! The attack is coming from the city!” he shouted to the Vultures huddled behind whatever cover they could find.

  “My lord!” someone shouted from around the corner of the palace.

  Kendrick turned towards the voice and the bones in his shoulder grated together. He screamed in pain. His arm was definitely fucked up. He saw Quellan, the captain of the palace guard peeking around the corner.

  “My lord! Come this way!” Quellan called.

  “The attack is coming from the city!” Kendrick grimaced.

  Quellan looked out beyond the long-dead trees that lined the palace walk. His eyes drifted upward towards the remaining high-rises. “The hotel, my lord! They must be shooting from the hotel.”

  Kendrick peeked up over the retaining wall and was rewarded with a massive cut from flying cement chips. He ducked his head down and ordered, “Have the buildings searched and anyone found inside killed.”

  “Yes, sir!” Quellan replied before he disappeared back behind the building.

  Kendrick adjusted his position behind the wall and probed his shoulder with his fingers. He winced in pain, the damn thing was dislocated.

  *****

  “Fuck!” Joseph muttered. “Goddamned prideful old bastard missed.”

  He peered through his scope and acquired another target. Then he squeezed the trigger, punching a hole through the chest of a Vulture standing near the steps that the man and woman had walked down before they mounted their horses. The Shooter assumed the man that Aeric had shot at was Kendrick.

  Joseph adjusted his aim and picked out another target, firing again before swiveling to a third person. He was on what Captain Griffith called “autopilot.” Apparently, before the war, the military could tell one of those computer-things what to do and then leave it alone to complete the task it was given. That was what they called autopilot.

  Aeric had stopped trying to shoot at the man behind the stone wall by the time Joseph had killed his fifth Vulture. Now the mayor was helping to pick off anyone who was still in the open. Joseph fired once more and then dropped the magazine on the M-2010 sniper rifle that he used. It had a five-round magazine. He’d been able to cheat on the first one by having a round already chambered to give him six shots. He rapidly went through the second magazine and replaced that one as well.

  Then it was time to move. He’d shot—and likely killed—eleven of the Vultures in under four minutes. He threw the sniper rifle over his shoulder and picked up the shorter M-4 carbine. The stairs flew under his feet as he raced down from the sixth floor of an old building of some kind. The layout had confused him when he first entered because he’d been expecting an apartment building like the ones in San Angelo. This was strange, though. Each floor was a wide-open area with pieces of old desks and chairs. It didn’t seem all that comfortable, making him wonder what the old timers meant when they talked about how nice the old world had been.

  Joseph’s upper body started to pitch forward as his momentum carried him faster than his feet could go. He grabbed the metal handrail to right himself and forced his legs to go slower. If he fell in the dark stairwell, he could easily break a leg and then it was over.

  He burst through the door into the office building’s lobby. Three men stared back at him in shock. Their eyes were impossibly wide as Joseph flipped the safety on the carbine off and fired four rounds from the hip into the two men on the right. The rapid crack of the rifle echoed across the lobby and out the broken windows to the street. There was no hiding his location now.

  His momentum carried him into the third attacker and
Joseph dropped his shoulder. He hit with the force of a demonbroc attacking a child and the man went flying backwards. The Shooter fell forward onto his stomach, the rifle skittering away across the concrete floor.

  He was out of time. He couldn’t afford a long, protracted fight, so he pulled the pistol from the holster on his hip and fired a round into the man. The pop of the military M-4 rifle had been nothing compared to the explosion of the .45 handgun in the confined space. The rifle had been designed to be as quiet as possible to help conceal a soldier shooting the weapon; the .45 on the other hand was an up-close-and-personal killing machine with zero considerations for sound dampening.

  Joseph didn’t wait to see if the third Vulture was down for good; he couldn’t afford to waste the time. He pushed himself up awkwardly as the large rifle across his back threatened to off-balance him. He ran bent over at the waist to where his M-4 lay and scooped it up before straightening up and dashing through the doorway onto the street.

  He’d taken the time to rehearse his escape route, so he didn’t hesitate when he came out. The alley was off to his left and he darted into the gloom as chips of masonry from the wall on the corner flew towards him. More of his pursuers had found him.

  He sprinted down the alley, making minor adjustments to his path because he had no way of knowing if they were at the head of the alley, aiming rifles down on him. Behind, the rough coughs of several guns echoed down the alley. Somehow, they missed and he was spared.

  Up ahead, the narrow space ended at another street and Joseph darted around the corner. He paused to catch his breath, pulling a grenade from his pouch. He took a deep breath and pulled the pin, then spun back into the mouth of the alley. Several men were about halfway down and he threw the explosive with everything he had.