by JJ Zep
Another moan from the rear of the vehicle.
“Galvin? Mons?”
No reply came. Instead Jojo heard the sound of a vehicle coming to a stop. Doors opened and then slammed. Now he heard voices and the sound of dirt shifting as someone came sliding down the embankment.
three
Charlie was fifty feet away from the wrecked Humvee when he heard the sound of vehicles approaching. He immediately found cover behind some brush and saw Wackjob do the same. Now the vehicle passed on the road and Charlie was unsurprised to see that it was one of Goliath’s matt black pickups. He silently cursed himself for not destroying the Eater’s vehicles when he’d had the chance. Another pickup drifted past, then another, this one with the deadly shape of the fifty-mil silhouetted against the early morning sky.
The first pickup had come to a stop on the shoulder, more or less in line with where the Humvee lay on its side like a dead bug. Charlie heard voices as men dismounted from the pickup. One of them scrambled down the embankment.
After a moment came an impatient voice that Charlie would have recognized anywhere. “What we got?” Goliath demanded, then when his man didn’t reply fast enough, “I said, what we got?”
“Four,” the man shouted. “We got four of them.”
The other pickups had now come to a stop, spilling men onto the tarmac, Goliath barking instructions to them.
“Boss!” the man at the Humvee shouted. “Boss, you’ve got to get yourself down here. You’re going to want to see this!”
Charlie directed his gaze from the Humvee back up the embankment. Goliath had just stepped into view, the early morning glow reflecting off his coppery beard.
“What I want to see is you hauling that stock out from the vehicle, so we can load up and leave,” Goliath snarled. “The rest of you, get down there and help.”
“But boss!” the man protested. “You don’t understand. One of these fellers is the motherfucker that escaped from the camp.”
Goliath had been turning away when the man spoke. Now he snapped back as though pulled by a rubber band. “Say what?”
“One of these fellers in the Humvee is the motherfucker that ran out on us, the one that had a knife on Davey.”
Hidden in the brush fifty feet away, Charlie heard those words and realized their impact. It was Jojo in the Humvee, had to be.
“He dead?” Goliath said.
“Looks that way.”
“Pity,” Goliath said after a moment, “Oh well, haul him out. Either way, I’m carving me a sirloin from his ass tonight. The rest of you move!”
The rest of the Eaters, bar Goliath, the drivers and the gunner, came sliding down the embankment stirring up a mini dust storm.
Charlie felt a cold fury well up in him and spill over. A quick glance told him that the fifty-mil gunner was too far back to fire into the gully. The vehicle would have to be pulled forward to give him that arc of fire. Charlie was never going to give him the chance. He backed off a few paces, bringing the gunner into view, lined up on him. From the direction of the Humvee came shouts and whoops.
“Those are yours,” he said to Wackjob and pulled the trigger.
The crack of the rifle sounded very loud in the early morning stillness. Charlie was instantly on the move, charging up the embankment as Wackjob’s M-60 burst into life. “Mornin’ Eaters!” he heard Wackjob yell over the staccato rhythm of the machine gun.
Then Charlie was over the top, not bothering with cover, running on pure rage-driven adrenalin. These men had killed his brother. They were going to pay. A bullet through the windshield took out the driver of the first vehicle. The second managed to get to his truck and was backing her up when Charlie put a bullet in his brain. In his peripheral vision, he saw Goliath scrambling for the remaining pickup. He'd almost reached the truck when Charlie pumped a round into the meaty part of his thigh. The driver, meanwhile, had got the truck straightened out and floored her, leaving his boss behind. Charlie let him go. His entire focus was on the man who lay on the tarmac, his screams now supplanting the roar of the departing pickup.
“You shot me! Son-of-a-bitch, you shot me!”
Goliath had both hands clutched to his thigh, his entire focus on the blood that was pumping out between his fingers. Then he looked up and his eyes widened. “You…but, I thought….”
“You thought what? That I was lying dead in the Humvee? You should know by now, Goliath, I don’t die easy.”
The sound of gunfire from the arroyo had died down.
“Wackjob, you alright down there?”
“Never better, boss.”
“Check on the crew then,” Charlie said. He turned back to Goliath.
“The man lying dead in that Humvee is my brother.”
“I didn’t know,” Goliath whined. “If I’d known –”
“You’d what? Have let him pass, the way you let me pass.”
“I would have, I swear.”
“Don’t go to hell with a lie on your lips, Goliath.”
“You’re going to kill me? I’m unarmed.”
“Someone should have told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Never come to a gunfight without a gun.”
He raised his rifle and fired. Then he turned and ran towards the lip of the arroyo.
four
Charlie slung his rifle and went sliding down the embankment, a mini-avalanche of dirt racing him into the arroyo. The Humvee lay on its side, punctured by bullet holes, its windshield shattered and streaked with blood. He could make out two men in the cab. He tried not to look at them. If what Goliath had said was true, one of those men was Jojo. Charlie tried to convince himself that that wasn’t true. Jojo was back in Pendleton. He would never have left his post.
He diverted his gaze towards the side of the Humvee where another of the crew lay crushed under the vehicle’s weight. The man’s features were a bloody mess, but a tan Ranger beret lay in the dust nearby. Charlie knew who it was even before he read the nametag on the man’s uniform. Mons was one of his guys, a brother in arms.
Tears prickled at the corners of Charlie’s eyes and he brushed them away. A feeling of trepidation descended on him. The certainty he’d felt about Jojo a moment ago seemed to evaporate. He walked almost reluctantly to the side of the vehicle, where Wackjob was leaning in through the passenger window. Wackjob dropped to the ground, turned to face Charlie, a haunted expression on his face. “It’s K-Mart, boss… and Jojo.”
Charlie brushed past him, got a grip on the door and pulled himself up. Jojo was in the passenger seat, suspended in mid-air by the safety harness. There was blood in his hair, thick dollops of it dripping from his forehead. Charlie couldn’t bring himself to look at his brother’s face yet. He looked instead past Jojo into the cab. K-Mart, who had been through so many close scrapes with Charlie, lay against the driver’s door, the top of his head removed. There was another man in the back, his body lying among the ammo cases and diesel canisters. Galvin had been with Charlie in El Centro and had accompanied him on that ill-fated mission to Mexicali. He’d been a good man.
Eventually, Charlie turned to Jojo. He studied the familiar lines of his brother’s face, its expression so restful that it appeared Jojo was sleeping. “Aw Christ, Joe,” he mouthed, “What have you gone and done to yourself?”
A wash of emotion swept over Charlie. Tears sprung into his eyes and pattered into the cab. His training and battle experience had taught him to deal with death. It hadn’t prepared him for the death of his twin brother. He reached out a hand, ran the back of his fingers along Jojo’s cheek, bit back the sob that crept into his throat.
It was then that Jojo fetched a breath.
At first, Charlie was certain that he’d imagined it, that he’d wished his brother back into life. Then he directed his fingers to the side of Jojo’s throat and detected a pulse, faint but most definitely there. He dropped to the ground and turned towards Wackjob. “Get up there,” he said. “Get a hand on th
at safety harness, release it when I say.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just do it,” Charlie said, already running around to the front of the vehicle. He applied his boot heel to the shattered windshield. Then he got a grip on the glass and pulled it free, using a strength that seemed to come from beyond him. He crawled into the cab and stood up into a crouch, wedging his boot between the passenger and driver’s seat. Difficult though it was, he was careful not to tread on K-Mart’s body. Fallen comrades deserved respect.
Charlie straightened his back and stood, bringing himself face-to-face with Jojo. From this angle he could see the severe head trauma his brother had suffered, the bloody concave depression to the side of the skull. He got into a catching position, ready to receive Jojo’s weight once Wackjob released the catch on the safety harness.
Charlie braced and gave Wackjob a nod. Then Wackjob punched the catch and Jojo slipped free of the harness and slid into Charlie’s arms.
“Easy does her,” Wackjob said as Charlie dropped into a crouch and duck-walked half a pace and passed Jojo through. Wackjob had barely relieved him of the weight when he scurried through and helped to lay Jojo gently down in the dirt.
Charlie dropped his ear to his brother’s chest and listened for a heartbeat. Then he surveyed Jojo’s wounds. A shard of bone protruded from Jojo’s right arm, but it was the head wound that gave Charlie the most cause for concern. And that wasn’t even accounting for any internal injuries. One thing was certain. Jojo needed medical attention. Without it he was going to die.
five
Chris eased his foot on the gas, slowing the SUV as the blue expanse of the lake came into view between the trees. To his right lay Boulder Bay, left a pine-covered ridge, sparsely dotted with homesteads. This was to be their first line of defense, the place where they’d lay wire to cut off the peninsula.
“You realize this won’t work,” Joe said from the passenger seat.
Chris made no response, not wanting to acknowledge, even to himself, that what Joe said was true.
A heavy laden vehicle, the third they’d seen this morning, drifted past in the opposing lane, heading east.
“Why are we even looking at this?” Joe persisted. “We can’t make this work, compadre.”
“Got any better ideas,” Chris replied, sharper than he’d intended.
“Hell yeah, I’ve got a better idea. We pack up our gear and head out, like those folks we just passed back there. Town’s emptying out faster than a gambler’s wallet.”
“Now there’s a plan that won’t work,” Chris said. “You know Kelly won’t go.”
“She will if you convince her of the seriousness of our situation.”
“She’ll never leave while Jojo’s out there. And now with Charlie gone too.”
“Chip off the old block that boy,” Joe chuckled.
Chris ignored the comment. “And even if I could convince Kelly,” he continued. “There’s Hooley. He won’t budge. Says he won’t leave Janet behind. He’s convinced that her spirit lives in the woods around their old cabin.”
“That cracker always did have peculiar ideas.”
Chris applied the brakes, slowed the Jeep to a crawl, angled it across the blacktop.
“That’s half a mile,” Joe said as they reached the pinch of land where the road ran up against the western shore of the bay. “Where are we going to get enough wire to run half a mile?”
“We pull it in from the outer barrier,” Chris said. He allowed the SUV to drift to a stop on the soft shoulder. Sugar whined and scurried across the seat and Chris stretched across and popped the door for her. The wolf pawed it open, jumped from the car and bolted for the lake. Chris watched her go, then elevated his gaze to the pine covered mountains that seemed to shimmer out of the water. Beyond that lay a swathe of untarnished blue sky. He released a sigh. They’d had five happy years here. Five years during which he’d almost come to forget the chaos that reigned beyond their sheltered enclave. Now it seemed that chaos was about to pay them a visit.
“It’ll take a week to lay that much wire,” Joe said, continuing the debate. “Something tells me we won’t have that much time. We sure as hell don’t have the manpower.”
That much was true. Ever since the town hall meeting, people had been drifting away, first in ones and twos, then in growing numbers as rumors and scare stories began to take hold. Chris couldn’t say he blamed them. Given the choice, he'd have done the same.
“Which brings me back to my original question,” he said. “What’s the alternative?”
Joe was silent for a moment as he contemplated his reply. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I think. Now don’t get me wrong compadre, your original idea was solid, based on the number of folks you were expecting to stay behind. But right now, I’m guessing we’ve got maybe two hundred people left in town out of the one and a half thousand we thought there’d be. That allows us to set up a much smaller stronghold and that’s good news. It will be easier to prepare, easier to defend. How am I doing so far?”
“So far I’m still listening.”
“Good. Now the way I figure, there are two options. Either we go with a scaled down version of your original plan. We still use Pleasant Point, still use the boats for emergency evacuation. However, we bring in our defense line much tighter, say along Pine Court.”
“I’m guessing from your tone, that’s not your preferred option.”
“Too much time and not enough manpower become issues again. Why go through all that trouble when we can hole people up at the mall –”
“The Lakes?”
“Is there another mall I’m not aware of? We get folks into the mall, blockade the entrances and set up an escape route via Stanfield Cutoff. That’s an easy three hundred yards along Big Bear Boulevard.”
“The Z’s could surround us at the Mall.”
“Not if we put a sentry on the roof to give us an early warning.”
“And if they come over the Cutoff from the north, blocking off your escape route?”
“Then we head straight up Sandalwood to the lakeshore where we’ll have a few launches waiting. I got that one from you.”
“You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been up nights.”
Chris’ CB radio squawked into life. “Chris, come by.”
Chris lifted the handset. “Yeah, Sheriff.”
“We got trouble, Chris,” Sheriff Walcott came back.
Tell me something I don’t know, Chris thought. Out loud, he said. “Trouble Sheriff?”
“Your man Hoolihan’s been involved in an altercation with the Dumfries boys. I’m afraid it don’t look good.”
six
Chris brought the Jeep to a stop outside the Big Bear Lake Police Department. Sheriff Walcott’s report had been cryptic, saying only that Chris should get down to the station as soon as possible. Now, he and Joe hurried along the path and pushed through the glass front doors where the Sheriff awaited them. Walcott was a tall, frail looking man with a prominent Adam’s apple and a few strands of hair raked over his bald pate. He looked shaken today. Then again, he usually did.
Chris heard a commotion from the direction of the holding cells. “We get out of here, Hoolihan and we comin’ for you,” Creed Dumfries yelled. “Count on it! You’re gonna regret the day you bushwacked the Dumfries boys! We gonna hurt you bad, boy!”
“Yeah!” Creed’s brother Colt agreed.
Walcott gave Chris an embarrassed look.
“Where’s Hooley?” Joe said.
“I think we’d better have a little talk first,” Walcott said, pointing them to his office.
“Fuck that, Theo. Where’s Hooley?”
“He’s in the cell next to Creed.”
“Let him out,” Joe demanded.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Joe. He’s under arrest.”
“The fuck he is. Gimme the keys.”
Walcott looked to Chris for suppo
rt.
“Joe,” Chris said. “Calm down. Let’s at least hear what the Sheriff has to say.”
“He doesn’t belong in here, Chris. Not in his fragile state of mind. If there’s been trouble with Creed Dumfries we all know who caused it.”
“Fine, and if that’s the case, I’m sure the Sheriff will release Hooley as soon as we can straighten this out. The quicker we do that, the quicker Hooley walks free. Right Sheriff?”
“Well –” Walcott started.
“Hey!” Creed Dumfries voice boomed. “Who’s out there? Let us the fuck out of here. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong. We’re the victims here!”
“Let’s talk in my office,” Walcott said.
“No,” Joe said. “Let’s talk here. Why are you holding Hooley?”
“He beat up on the Dumfries boys.”
“All three of them?”
“All three. Put Clay in the hospital, did a pretty good job on Creed and Colt, too.”
Joe let out a chuckle. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Gnarly old cracker’s still got some sap. You should be deputizing him Sheriff. That there’s the ass kicking those boys have been asking for ever since they rolled into town.”
“Be that as it may,” Walcott said. “It’s still a serious offence.”
