Outside the Fire

by Boyd Craven

  “Yes,” Jeff said, his voice carrying well over the crowd. “It went a lot further than I expected. It’s a good thing Doug’s wife knows how to cook this stuff, or we’d have leftovers going bad!”

  Chuckles in the crowd gave him a little confidence.

  “Now, I talked with Dwight Abbott today, he’s the one who provided the ham and soup bone. He’s having troubles of his own, but nothing like the families that have been robbed at gunpoint—”

  “What are the cops going to do about that?” somebody shouted, the voice shrill and hard to determine if it was a male or female.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t seen any—”

  “Fitzpatrick’s woman is a cop,” a different voice interrupted and the crowd erupted in murmurs.

  “Hold on a second,” Steve said putting his hands up. “Let me get through this, and then I’ll let Jeff handle the discussions.”

  After a few more moments of hushed conversation, they quieted enough for Steve to continue.

  “Like I was saying, The Abbott Farm has had its own problems. Everything from fuel theft to somebody stealing the livestock, some of what you’re eating now came from his farm,” he said, and he could see several people look into their bowls. “You asked me to talk to him, and I did. What he can use in return is some help. Everything from security to people turning wrenches. There won’t be enough jobs for the entire community, he just doesn’t have enough. So if you’re in a bad way, out of gas, out of food or out of medicine, we need to figure out a way to keep going.”

  “Is your church going to send more food after this runs out?” a young woman yelled, probably barely eighteen-years-old, but it was hard to tell as hunger had left its mark on her features.

  “There’s only so much to go around, but this is what I could do right now. You have to remember, there are more problems out there than just the ones we’re having inside here. The police and local governments—”

  “They’re folding up,” Lucy said standing up, ignoring Matthew who was pulling on her hand. “Which is why I’m going to be assisting Mr. Taylor there in the community watch. I know police procedure and the laws, but with no communications and no help, we’ve essentially been cut off. I know Steve Taylor there threw the idea out and had some detractors,” she said and people looked pointedly at Morris, “but it’s a good one. I’ve taken emergency management classes and I have an idea on how ugly this is going to be if we don’t organize now.”

  She sat back down and a few people clapped politely. Steve looked over at Jeff and then finished. “I’d like any volunteers for the watch and for the Abbot Farm to talk to me once we’re done here tonight, so we can organize. That’s all I got. Jeff?”

  Jeff stepped up, and he held up the book Steve had found on his lap when he was napping.

  “I’ve had my world view rocked. The last two days have really changed my view on things. For a long time, I fought Mr. Taylor on planting beans in his planter box and now six months later I’m reading a book about converting my front yard into a sustainable garden. You want to know why?”

  Nobody said anything, their words were quiet.

  “Look around. We’ve all lost weight. The fuel is gone, the power is out. A few ‘unauthorized,’” he said, using his fingers to air quote, “hand well pumps are the reason that many of us survived. I’ve heard of a few passing away and seen firsthand that emergency services are not timely if you can even get ahold of them. Things are different now. Like it or not, we have to change and adapt.”

  “But if their church helped us out once, they probably can again!” a voice shouted.

  “Yeah, maybe we should head over there!”

  “Steve, where do you go?” another shouted.

  A car horn went off in the distance, and then a second. Gunfire erupted. Steve got to his feet, his bowl flying out of his hands. He knew the direction of the gunfire and turned, catching Lucy and Matthew’s eyes. They were already rising.

  “That’s Dwight,” Steve said stepping over Angela and Amber who was already trying to raise herself.

  “Steve—”

  “Keep Amy safe,” Steve commanded as his youngest was already trying to rise too.

  He took off at a dead run, hearing the whip crack of gunfire from multiple locations. He’d fired enough rounds from his carbine to recognize the gunfire wasn’t from only handguns. He heard the occasional boom of return fire that signified Dwight’s .30/06 and the fact that he was still in the fight. Knowing he had to hurry to make a difference, he started running, his eyes sweeping side to side to make sure he didn’t fall into the trap of tunnel vision. He’d done that once already and had a concussion and stitches to show for it.

  “Meet you there,” Amber said breathlessly and then took off like a streak.

  Steve couldn’t keep up with his daughter, she poured on the speed only the way a sixteen-year-old who ran two miles before breakfast could. He pounded the pavement, hearing the larger and heavier Matthew cursing and Lucy shouting encouraging words. Amber got two blocks ahead of her father and he saw her stop briefly, unlock the front door and head in. By the time his feet hit the pavement the garage door was already opening.

  “Dad,” Amber yelled, not realizing he was close.

  Her hair was plastered to her head and sweat ran down her temples, her shirt just starting to stick to her, a stark contrast to Steve who was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. She had two of the ARs from the gun safe. After she had startled for half a heartbeat, she held one out to her father and then hurried back into the “mechanical” room. Steve was breathing too hard to hear her, but she came back with his AR-500 vest with magazine holders and a hanging dump pouch. Steve handed her back the AR and started putting the vest on just as a cursing Matthew came rushing in.

  As soon as he’d gotten the vest mostly strapped in, Amber shoved the AR back into his hands and turned.

  “Wait—” Steve said, “Give the other one to Matt or Lucy,” he said panting.

  Amber didn’t hesitate and shoved the carbine past Steve’s body and rushed back into the mechanical room. Steve bent over a second with the extra weight of the metal plates in the vest and half a dozen magazines and breathed in deeply, filling his lungs, praying it was enough. After what seemed like an eternity but probably was five seconds, Amber ran back up with a double handful of already loaded magazines.

  “I’m getting my pistol out,” Amber said.

  “You’re not joining the fight,” Steve told her sternly.

  She nodded. “Mom and Amy will be over soon, I’m getting things ready for them also. Come back safe, Daddy,” she said and then wrapped her dad in a big hug.

  Steve gave her a squeeze back and then led Matthew and Lucy past the mechanical room and through the house to the back door. Until this point both Matthew and Lucy had been silent.

  “I told Matt to come here with the ladies,” he said, his own face beet red from the insane dash through the neighborhood.

  “Thank you,” Steve said. “I’m sure Amber will keep him safe.”

  Lucy snickered as they opened the back door and rushed out. Steve wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the big man whisper “asshole” before following him to the gate. Shouts from the community and people yelling back and forth to each other could be heard, punctuated by rapid-fire from smaller calibers and then the booming of the old man’s deer gun.

  “Slow down,” Lucy hissed.

  She took the AR from Matthew and then checked the magazine he held out to her.

  “Green tips?” she asked.

  “Yeah, steel core. I have one mag of black tips if we…I mean….” Steve stammered.

  Lucy didn’t hesitate, she inserted the mag, pulled the charging bolt and put it on safe like she’d been born with one in her hands.

  “Nice sights,” she said.

  “My wife’s,” Steve told her and then walked through the gate.

  “Sounds like four shooters,” Matthew said.

  “Fiv
e,” both Lucy and Steve said in unison.

  “Oh yeah, Dwight,” Matthew said, pulling his shirt up and pulling a black pistol out.

  Steve couldn’t tell what it was with a quick glance, but it looked like a Glock to him and wasn’t surprised when Lucy elected to take the longer-range gun. She’d done more training than any of them with it and if everybody was shooting rifle rounds, the only thing the big guy could do was watch for somebody running a pincer behind them.

  “Let’s move along the fence line, towards the shooting backstop. He’s got some tall weeds left from his last corn crop that’ll probably break up our profile,” Lucy said.

  “I agree, but stay down. I don’t think at this distance Dwight can figure out if we’re good guys or bad guys.”

  Matthew nodded and followed. Lucy took point, something Steve almost argued about because he was wearing a vest, but the way she moved told him she’d done this before. He realized he didn’t know much about her past and made a mental note to ask politely at some point. They made it to the back of the shooting backstop, a large mound of stumps covered with rocks and topped with soil.

  Lucy hissed, and Steve looked around.

  “Oh, we’re in the shit now,” Matthew said.

  CHAPTER 24

  Amber was closing the garage door when she saw her mom and Amy running down the block. Angela had one hand holding onto Amy’s but the other was holding onto her side, where her .45 was bouncing around. She waited, seeing Matt Junior running behind them with somebody hot on his heels. It made her twitch and she tried looking beyond Matt but couldn’t make an identification.

  “Where’s your father?” Angela asked in a gasping breath.

  “Him and the others went out the back gate. They’re shooting at Uncle Dewey,” she said, breathing easy.

  Amy was a little red in the face from her run, but she was probably in almost as good a shape as her older sister.

  “What did he say, do they need—”

  “My dad said to come help you guys,” Matt Junior said, running and panting.

  Angela looked at him, then back at her daughter who wore her own pistol on her hip and then back at the young man and nodded.

  “Downstairs,” she said, and turned to start pulling the garage door down as Billy Wilson came barreling in.

  Angela hesitated, if she hadn’t, the closing door would have taken his head off. Instead, he barely cleared it and came to a sliding stop, almost into Amber.

  “I came to check on…” he said, and then knelt down and started to dry heave.

  “We’re fine,” Amy said. “If you upchuck on our floor, Momma’s gonna be pissed.”

  “Amy,” both Angela and Amber chorused, one a hint of a laugh, the other voice a hint of surprise and annoyance.

  “We’re fine,” Angela said. “You should go check on your parents.”

  “They’re at the community center. Almost everyone is. There are half a dozen people heading this way to help. I think they are the volunteers for the—”

  His eyes widened as he saw the open door to the mechanical room and the boxes piled up. What caught his eye was the open hatch that led down into the storm shelter, where food wasn’t disguised.

  “Move,” Amber said shoving him backwards and slammed the door to the mechanical room.

  “You have a panic room?” he asked, a hint of wonder in his voice.

  “Tornado shelter. Go on now, I need to check on my husband and I want to shut the garage door.”

  Torn, Billy looked between Amber and Angela for a couple moments and then shrugged and started walking. As he passed Angela on his way out, her nose wrinkled. Once he was out, she pulled the overhead door and then turned to her daughter.

  “How much did he see?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. The safe was open, but Mom, the food down there isn’t…” her words trailed off as she pointed to the boxes and Rubbermaid totes that concealed the food storage they had at the house.

  “We’ll just have to pray. Get everyone in the tornado shelter and I’m going to make sure the house is locked up. I’ll join you in a second, so don’t lock it.”

  “Ok, Mom,” Amber said, and Angela was almost tackled by both Taylor daughters in a big hug.

  “Come on, Matty,” Amy said, taking Matt’s hand and pulling him towards the closed door.

  “Tornado shelter?” he asked.

  “He would find out sooner or later,” Amber said. “Lead the way, sprat.”

  “I am not a brat, you’re a meany head!”

  “No, I said sprat…you know what? Never mind. Move,” Amber said, a note of authority in her voice.

  Amy moved, and Matt followed, shooting Amber a confused look.

  “You see them?” Matthew asked.

  “Yeah, I got three, no four by the blue tractor,” Steve said.

  “And a group of two to the left, near the tailgate of his truck,” Lucy told them.

  Steve cursed silently and put his carbine up to his shoulder and sighted in.

  “Don’t we need to coordinate—”

  “I’m trying to see what we’re dealing with,” Steve said, and a moment later Lucy brought hers up as well.

  “Wait, those look like police or government….”

  The black BDUs and vests looked like something straight out a Hollywood Swat Team, except there was no identifying patches or lettering on their clothing. Two of them looked like they were wearing baklavas bunched up on the top of their head like a watch cap. Steve saw one raise an AR and take aim towards the farmhouse, where most of the shooting had been concentrated.

  Pink mist exploded and the man’s head seemed to split in two just as Steve was trying to time his shot between heartbeats. With the man dropping, several of the gunmen turned to see him fall, blood and unmentionable things splattering them. One of them screamed a curse and stood up and began firing rapidly at the house.

  “Fuck this,” Lucy muttered just as Steve started firing.

  A moment later, probably half a heartbeat later, Lucy did as well. The NATO rounds with the steel penetrators ripped into the first men who had no idea they’d been flanked. They had their backs mostly to the group, with part of their sides showing. Steve aimed for their sides, a smaller target than the back, but if they were wearing vests too, there was less likely of a chance they had the side armor also.

  The first two men crumpled before the last one at the tractor realized he was now under fire from two directions, and moved to try to protect himself. The two by the truck threw themselves flat and crawled out of sight. As one man maneuvered too far, another shot boomed out from the house and almost like in a movie, he slapped his hand over his heart before his legs buckled and he fell out of sight.

  “Reload,” Lucy said. “Even if your mag is full.”

  Steve did it automatically, realizing that one or both kills had come from him, but in the heat of the shooting he couldn’t tell whose shots hit who, or who even missed entirely. He looked back to see Matthew waving off a group coming up towards their back. With his blood up, Steve swung his AR in that direction to have Matt grab it by the hot barrel and point it straight up.

  “It’s our people,” he hissed and let go, shaking his hand.

  “Dumbass, you grabbed it by the hot end.”

  “’Tis only a scratch,” Matthew said, putting a couple fingers in his mouth where they’d been on the barrel.

  “The Black Knight?” Steve asked incredulously. “That didn’t work out too good for him, Monty Python.”

  “I’ll bite yer ankles, get over here, ya two-legged freak,” he said and then ducked as a shot boomed out from the farmhouse.

  “Who the SAM HELL is out there?” Dwight’s voice boomed out.

  Everybody looked at Steve, he stood up slowly, his barrel in the air and walked out from around the shooting backstop. He kept his head on a swivel and yelled as he came in sight of the farmhouse, “It’s me, Steve.”

  “You got anybody with you?” Dwight aske
d.

  “Yes, Matthew, Lucy and further back some folks from the community.”

  “You three, come up slow. Be careful, I saw two of them running for the hills. Tell the rest of the people to get out of here for now.”

  “We heard you. You need anything?” a voice shouted from behind them.

  “Yeah, somebody get me a god damned medic. I took a hit.”

  Lucy and Matthew did what they could to get in touch with the authorities with no luck. Instead, they took the bodies and loaded them into the bucket of the front-end loader for a later burial. They didn’t know how to drive most of the equipment and Matthew wasn’t about to let Junior on the farm till things had settled down.

  Steve had passed word back and then walked his wife to the farmhouse where Dwight was swaying in the doorway, his shooting stick and Remington within easy reach. He’d taken his shirt off and had wrapped it around his left arm. Steve was cursing at the old man as soon as he saw him, a red anger at the dead men almost consuming him.

  “I got this, how about you go check on everyone,” Angela said, knowing her husband needed to be elsewhere while she worked.

  “The girls?” Steve asked hoarsely after his dismissal kicked in.

  “Locked in the shelter, with the house, mechanical room, and garage locked. They’re safe. How about you go get some information before I have to sit on the old man here.”

  Steve cursed again, but Angela let it go without comment and watched her husband storm out of the house.

  “You’d think he was the one shot, not me,” Dwight said after a pregnant silence.

  “Right in the ass, too,” she snarked and they both laughed.

  “What happened?” she asked, unwrapping his arm.

  “I was going to go put down one of the feeders and start processing him for the smokehouse,” Dwight said and winced as the sticky cloth pulled away from his arm.