Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  Hell, even though the town had changed almost as much as Jack himself, he still had memories of the people in the area, still had feelings for a few of them. There was a small portion of his soul that was bleeding, weeping at the deaths of Joe Ditweiller and Herb Cambridge. He'd gone to school with them. They'd never been good friends, but he'd seen them every day, and they'd played a few games of baseball behind the church. They'd even had a few mutual friends, like Petey Donovan. There was a time when he and Pete had been inseparable. Hell, they'd been blood brothers. When Jack broke his arm at the age of twelve, it'd been Pete who half-dragged and half-carried him all the way to Doc Johnson's place. They'd even…

  Jack forced his thoughts away from the past, doing his best to concentrate on the list of names the Colonel was reciting. "… Sam Williams, Peter Donovan"-Jack jumped a little at the name of his old blood brother-"William Tidwell and Paul Summerfield. All five have been implicated by the rest of their good buddies. The big problem is all of them are either from out of town, or simply haven't been found at their residences. Does anyone here know anything at all about these people's whereabouts?"

  Jack couldn't help but notice the Colonel's eyes looking his way when that last bit came out. He smiled beneath his breathing gear. "Colonel Anderson, sir. Has anyone looked into the textile mill?"

  Anderson looked at him, his face set in an expressionless way. "No. But now that you mention it, that's not a bad idea. Brightman's been giving his people a lot of hours, especially when you consider that there's nothing in his mill that he can move." For the briefest moment, the man's face stretched into a semblance of a smile. Then he turned towards Hawthorne. "Get a squad out there. I want the place checked completely. Oh, and why don't you take Osborn with you? He's bound to know who belongs there and who doesn't.

  "Other problems to deal with; Paul Summerfield has a record with the FBI. Seems he's wanted for several activities of a violent nature. He's a career protester. We don't have any idea what he's doing in town, but he's likely behind about half of the tactics the redneck brigade's been using against us." Anderson took the time to hold up a large, grainy picture of the man. It looked like a driver's license photo that had been enlarged substantially. "Also, we've got a food crisis on our hands, folks. The people in this town apparently don't believe in conserving their resources. We've got shipments coming in today, and we need to disperse the supplies to the houses in the area. No one's allowed outside of their homes, but we're going to make an exception to that rule.

  "Lieutenant Powell. I want you and twenty men to handle dispersing the supplies. You are to go from block to block, allowing the people at each block to come out of their homes and gather the supplies. Each household gets one box of rations, unless there are more than five people living in the house. If there're more than five, give them a second one. Anybody gets antsy out there, shoot 'em. Is that clear?"

  Powell nodded, saluted, and left the tent. Jack knew he'd be picking his men. So far, Jack was not among the chosen.

  "I want to emphasize again, that any civilians found on the street are to be arrested." The Colonel looked towards Jack again, acknowledging, in his own way, the wisdom of Jack's earlier arguments. "But if anyone so much as belches the wrong way, you are to shoot to kill. We've lost too many people in this town, and I want it stopped.

  "The good news along those lines is that we now know where the civilians have been getting their firearms. Just out of the town proper, across the street from the Miller farm, where the first of our boys ended up dead, there's a farm belonging to Victor 'Bud' Markle."

  "Markle's been selling firearms to a few of the locals. He's been making a handsome profit, too." Jack jumped slightly in his seat. He'd known Bud Markle for years, and never would have suspected the man of trafficking illegal guns. The man'd always seemed content to raise his dogs and tend to his crops. Hell, Markle was one of the regulars in church, or at least he had been before Jack left town. "According to our most recent prisoners, Lucas Brightman's been financing the 'Collier Militia.' That's going to stop, immediately."

  Anderson looked around the room for a moment, before nodding towards Lieutenant Evans. Evans was the only soldier Jack had ever met who never seemed to smile. He sometimes wondered if the man was a sociopath, for that reason alone. "Evans," the colonel continued. "I want you to pay a visit to Markle's place. I want every weapon there seized. When that's done, I want Brightman's textile mill gone over. I don't want so much as a pocketknife left behind. Any questions? No? Good. Get to it."

  Calloway got chosen for the assignment. He didn't know which sounded worse, staying with Anderson or going out to face Markle and his dogs. Armor or no, he recalled the animals being very large and very mean. For the first time since he'd come to Collier, Jack felt comforted by the weight of his rifle.

  3

  Eric Pendleton looked over towards Jack and shook his head. "I hate dogs, Calloway. I always have."

  Jack chuckled beneath his respirator. "Then you're gonna love Markle's place. I hear he's been raising pit bulls. Big, mean motherfuckers, who'd as soon chew your arm off as look at you."

  "That's a nice thought." Pendleton's helmet rotated from side to side. With a sigh, the man climbed from the back of the truck they'd used to get to Markle's farm. The heat was already beyond unbearable, and the bad stretch of weather was showing signs of burning the peach trees, growing in neat, orderly rows along the roadside that led to the farmer's house. Everything looked withered and baked. Inside his survival suit, Jack understood how the crops had to feel. He was practically ready to melt into a puddle himself.

  Twelve men total walked along the dusty trail between the trees. All of them worked for ONYX. They'd hoped to have Frank Osborn along for the show, simply because they wanted everything to end as quickly and peacefully as possible. No luck. Officer Frank wasn't to be found. C'est la vie.

  Each soldier was armed with an assault rifle and plenty of ammunition. They were wearing high-impact armor, capable of stopping almost any bullet, and they were well-versed in the art of war. And every one of them let out a whimper when they saw the dogs coming at them like a swarm of rats. Jack lost count at twenty of the beasts. Perhaps it was simply a primal reaction to the low-slung, muscular forms darting towards them from the farmhouse. Maybe it was just an automatic response to the low, deadly rumbles that came from the dogs.

  For Jack, it was the sudden realization that, despite his years of training and war games, he'd never once had to fight against anything that wasn't human. Humans tended to run from people dressed in armor and carrying serious firepower. The dogs couldn't have cared less. Humans could be reasoned with. The pit bulls didn't seem the least bit interested in listening to reason.

  The dogs just wanted meat.

  Off in the distance, a short movement caught Jack's attention. Markle was standing near his house, his legs wide spread and his pondulous belly peering from beneath his stained, yellow T-shirt. As Jack looked on, the man started waddle-running towards the barn on the other end of the property.

  Before Jack could react, the dogs were there. The armor was a blessing, but the impacts from the two monsters running into his body sent Calloway sprawling to the ground. He was chagrined and terrified at the same time. All around him the sounds of rifles firing started, a series of gentle pops that couldn't compare to the devastation the weapons caused. Jack shot the first of the dogs trying to chew through his armor, making sure to aim away from his body, and feeling the surprising pressure of the animal's teeth as they worried the edge of his shin guard. The dog practically exploded as the hail of bullets tore through its rear flanks.

  He both thanked God for the gun and cursed himself for leaving it on fully-automatic. Even with armor, he could have blown his leg off too easily for him to want to consider.

  Beside him, Wenkowsky cut loose with a scream of epic proportions as one of the dogs managed to slip past the armor on his belly and tear into his side. He fired on the dog even as it ch
omped into the raw flesh of his hip. The dog stopped biting, but the damage was done. The man would likely bleed to death if someone didn't get to work on him and soon.

  For a time the air was filled with the sounds of men and dogs screaming and growling, as well as the chatter of rifle fire. Then there was silence, save for heavy breathing and the gentle noise of blood flowing from carcasses. The dogs, while fearsome and ferocious, never really had a chance. They died in pain and violence.

  Then a new sound came to Jack, even as he was helping Pendleton put a few pressure bandages on Wenkowsky. It sounded like a low rolling thunder at first, then it became the clear sound of a diesel engine roaring into life.

  Jack looked in the direction of the sound and saw a sight that was enough to make his stomach drop out. Markle came spilling from the darkness of his barn riding on a tractor. The damned thing looked big enough to knock down the trees between the farmer and the men from ONYX. Just to make matters worse, the oversized farmer was wearing the armor from one of the dead soldiers.

  The survival gear didn't fit him well. Markle looked like a sausage half-erupting from its casing, but he knew all too well how solid that armor was. Despite the effective use of animal darts, in the soft patches between the armor plates, that the Collier Militia had adopted, the damn stuff was bulletproof. There wasn't a man among the soldiers who wasn't a marksman, but the tractor's cage wasn't going to make hitting him any easier.

  Calloway had doubts the armor could withstand a tractor running it down.

  Pendleton cursed as he reached into the ammo pocket hanging against his thigh. "That motherfucker's wearing Brian's suit."

  Brian Henry Brooks. The first of the soldiers murdered in Collier. Jack had heard about what they'd done to Brooks, but he hadn't seen the body. He'd been just as angry as everyone else when he heard about it. Brian'd been a fun, amiable guy. He was also one of the few soldiers at ONYX who was married. Anita Brooks was a widow, and from what Brian had been speaking about just before they took off for Collier, she was also expecting a child in a few months.

  Somehow, the idea of running lost its appeal. There was some vengeance to take care of, and he aimed to handle the matter. Evans' voice cut through the thunder of the tractor's engine revving hard, and charged into the eardrums of every single soldier there. Only Wenkowsky failed to respond when the order to "Hammer him" went out. No one even noticed. As a unit, the soldiers turned and focused on the tractor coming their way.

  Fingers squeezed triggers, and the bullets cut through the air, heading towards Markle on his John Deere. This time there were new noises as well. The scream of metal bouncing off steel and punching through the tractor's engine; plus the screams of fear and pain from Markle. Markle learned the hard way what the soldiers already knew. Bullets tend to find a way to do damage.

  The tractor moved forward for a few more seconds, then veered into a tree, sputtered, and died. Markle bled to death before anyone could reach him. No one tried too hard to get there in a hurry.

  After searching the grounds and all of the buildings, the men came up with two shotguns and a battered, rusty .22-caliber pistol. Following the Colonel's radioed orders, the tractor, the farm and the house were all set ablaze. The dead farmer was packed into a body bag and dragged away from his burning property.

  Wenkowsky was handled more carefully. He was alive, after all, and he'd never killed a family man. Or if he had, the man hadn't been a part of their family. Not like Brian Brooks.

  CHAPTER 11

  1

  By the time Jack's unit had placed Wenkowsky in the care of the medical staff, four new men had been added to the group. These guys even brought along a few new toys: grenades and tear gas canisters. Then, just for fun, another dozen men joined them. Evans spoke to the group for a few minutes, making certain that everyone understood the plan of attack. Everyone did.

  The Brightman Textile Mill rested on the side of town farthest from the lakebed. It was a large, gray brick building which could easily have been mistaken for a penitentiary if there'd been bars on the windows. Jack had not seen the building since he was very young. It'd always scared the hell out of him, especially when they were manufacturing the rubber matting for some of the outdoor carpets and the stench from the place seemed to belch forth across the entire town. Back when he was living in the town, his father had often come home from working at the mill with a strained smile on his face. Often, late at night after he though Jack was asleep, Richard Calloway would tell his wife stories of how bad it was at the mill. He'd regale her with bitter anecdotes about Brightman and the working conditions. When he was a young man and his father thought him safely out of earshot, he'd heard tales of people losing fingers and arms to the machines inside. Once he'd even heard about Dewett Hammil's son, Arthur, getting himself caught in some sort of cutting machine and getting shredded like so much wheat. He'd also heard rumors that Brightman arranged to have the boy pushed into the industrial monster. Remembering the old man's passionate tirades about how the niggers were destroying the country and ruining the youth of America, Calloway could just about believe it, too. There was a time when Jack knew he'd end up working in the mill, same as everyone else in town. As he stared at the bloated hulk, he thanked God that things hadn't worked out quite the way he'd anticipated.

  The parking lot was empty, but that didn't mean the building itself was unoccupied. Just to be certain there were no surprises this time, no more dead bodies with poisonous darts protruding from a soft spot on the armor, the soldiers took the time to break a few windows and let loose a barrage of tear gas canisters into the mill. Every single one of the soldiers double-checked the pressure seals on their breathing apparatus. That damned stuff burned when it touched any membrane, and each and every one of them had been forced to breathe the gases in on at least three occasions, for the sake of training. None of them ever wanted to go through feeling that again.

  When the white cloud began spilling evenly through the entire building, the soldiers moved forward. Jack held his breath for a few seconds after entering the chemical fog. He needn't have bothered; his outfit was properly air tight, even where the dog had tried chewing his shin to pieces earlier.

  They checked every room, pushing aside bundles of cloth and rolls of carpeting when they found access blocked. While they found no people, Jack and three of the others managed to locate a nest built in one of the back storage rooms. The nest had a large collection of empty bleach bottles, ammonia bottles, and cooking pots. There were boxes for candle wax and empty crates that had once held jam jars. Four jars remained, half filled with bleach, and then sealed with wax. Filling the top half with ammonia would make a wonderful little mustard gas bomb, and Jack suspected that was what had hit his room the night before. That was what had started the fires. Quick, efficient, and deadly, but God help the fool who got clumsy when carrying them.

  There were also a few bits and pieces of armor from the other victims who'd been cut by knives, before the Collier Militia had come across the handguns and dan guns that had made them a serious threat. Evans whistled long and low, apparently forgetting that his mike was on, until everyone around him winced at the sudden feedback. He mumbled an apology and then spoke out. "These guys are good. They've got enough medical supplies here to start their own hospital."

  Jack looked over at the piled pill bottles and vials that had once held various drugs. He shook his head. "No wonder we've been dropping like flies. There's enough shit there to kill a bull elephant. Hell, a whole herd of 'em."

  Evans touched his jawline, but Jack heard nothing from him. Private line to Anderson. He waited, dreading what the orders from the commanding officer might be.

  A moment later, he found out. "Burn it down, boys. Colonel Anderson says he doesn't want these freaks to have any place left to hide."

  "Sir? That's just crazy. What are we gonna do if the fire spreads?" A slightly-built sergeant named Wilson Piddock beat Jack to the punch with that particular question.
r />   Evans shook his head. "I already talked to the Colonel about that, Piddock. He wants five men left here to make sure the fire stays where he wants it. You just got elected. You, Ordover, Davilla, Spivy and Hanson just became firemen. There's a couple or three fire hydrants around the perimeter, and there're hoses on the walls inside. Set up the hoses and then torch it."

  Piddock said something, but his mike was off and no one was close enough to him to hear what he said. Evans overlooked the breach of protocol, or just plain didn't hear it. Jack opted not to point it out to the Lieutenant, just in case.

  "As for the rest of you. We've got another target on our agenda today. We're going to visit Lucas Brightman's litde palace and see what there is to see."

  As Evans spoke those words, Calloway was filled with a sense of dread. Brightman was well known and respected in the community, even if he wasn't very well liked. He was quite literally the main source of income for most of the people living in Collier, just as his father before him had once been. If Brightman was involved in this mess, Jack had a nasty suspicion he'd have made arrangements to see his house well protected.

  Interlude

  While Jack Calloway and his patrol were out handling the dangerous business of removing the potential risks of the Collier Militia, Walter J. Powell was trying to remain calm. The people of Collier were hardly grateful for the food they were given. Most of them were quiet, but enough made gestures or foul-mouthed comments to set Powell's teeth on edge.

  Powell was a career man. Even if he hadn't been chosen for ONYX, he knew he'd have eagerly spent his life in service to his country. He thrived on the structure of the military lifestyle. More importantly, he understood the ways of the military. Discipline, that was what made a country great.