Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  So here he was, doing his job and making sure the ignorant rednecks in this backwater town were given their food and supplies-not the standard shit served out in the Army, either, but name-brand foods and even Coca-Cola for God's sake-and his thanks for this task was to hear the little shits call him names and curse his existence. The soldiers with him were getting just as fed up with the attitudes of the locals. He could tell by the way they moved, and by how brusque they'd become when handing out the food supplies. They'd all started off with "Have a nice day" as their way of dismissing a person who'd received supplies. They'd even taken the time to answer questions when they could, about the current state of affairs in. the job of removing the bogey, from the lake. (Things were looking much better, ever since the ship had tried to extricate itself and had loosened the hard crust around its base.) Now, they handed out their food and nodded a dismissal, or shrugged in answer to questions asked by the citizens of Shithole, Georgia, if they bothered with any sort of gesture at all.

  That suited Powell just fine. These morons didn't want the food, they didn't have to come out of their houses. They wanted companionship, they should have thought about that before hand, and stayed somewhere else. He'd had it up to his eye teeth with listening to the whining locals go on and on about how hard their lives were. Enough already.

  When the last house of Market Street had received its supplies, Powell ordered them on to Beaver Ride Road. The names around here were laughable, but then again, so was the entire town. Mayberry RFD with an attitude problem.

  Powell picked up his megaphone and explained the situation to the closed doors around him. Just as he was starting to give his speech about how one person from each house could come out into the street and receive a supply package, the local version of Andy Taylor showed up. Captain Frank Osborn pulled up behind the supply truck in his old Mustang. At least the man had good taste in cars. One of the other soldiers went over to speak to the man, and Powell went back to the business of telling the pissants how to behave themselves.

  When he was finished, the doors of the houses on the street opened, and a small group of people walked towards the truck. None of them looked friendly, and most were likely the sort who'd say something just to piss him off. A short man with red hair and a cheesy mustache nodded amiably and grabbed his package. The man was wearing blue jeans and an oversized white T-shirt that billowed around him almost like a miniskirt. There was something about him that was familiar, but Powell couldn't place him.

  A massive black man stepped forward, grinning sheepishly, and asked one of the soldiers how his day was going. The soldier responded with a friendly tone, and Powell understood why. Dewett Hammil was a nice old man and the local baker. Still, something about the short man bothered him.

  Hammil took the large box of supplies the soldier handed to him, and Powell smiled. Every one of them had heard about the Great Cookie Incident, when the old fart had just about gotten himself killed so he could bake a few dozen cookies. It was one of the few little moments of their time in town that had actually been lighter in nature. The soldiers had taken the liberty of adding chocolate chips, pecans and walnuts to the man's supplies. They'd come from his own store, and they suspected he wouldn't mind.

  Hammil looked a little stressed under the load, his limp became more pronounced, and the short man turned immediately to him, offering to help. As the two men switched packages, Powell saw the butt of a pistol sticking out the backside of Shorty's pants.

  There was no hesitation: Powell swung the business end of his rifle towards the short man and screamed. "Stop where you are!"

  Both men stopped, and turned their heads slowly to face Powell. The lieutenant felt his pulse rate increase, as he thought about the risks involved in trying to stop the would-be terrorist. His mind raced at a hundred miles an hour, and his senses sharpened, even as they focused almost exclusively on the short man.

  Behind him, Powell heard the sounds of Frank Osborn calling out. He couldn't hear what the man said. Even as Osborn's voice came his way, Dewett Hammil was suddenly falling to the ground, crying out in pain. The short man dropped Hammil's package and started to turn towards the fallen giant. The rational part of Powell's mind understood that Hammil was injured.

  The emotional side of his brain, however, only saw that Shorty was moving, his hand coming dangerously close to the small of his back and the firearm that rested there. All around him, the soldiers tried talking at the same time, and the people on the street moved away from Shorty, or in a few cases, towards Hammil.

  Perhaps it was simply paranoia. Maybe it was too much stress and too much time spent in the survival suit and in the blazing heat of the day. Whatever it was, it made Powell pull the trigger on his rifle. Three bullets shot towards their target, and Officer Richard "Buck" Landers of the Collier Police Department died as they penetrated his chest and neck. Around the same time the bullets hit, Powell finally made the connection with the policeman he'd only ever seen in uniform.

  Frank Osborn's cry of rage was buried beneath the panicked screams of the people living on Beaver Ride Road. Powell never heard them. But he felt the hand that grabbed his shoulder, and he had just enough time to register the barrel of a gun shoved against his neck before Osborn pulled the trigger. The helmet was well-designed, and the bullet that blew a hole through the top of Lieutenant Walter J. Powell's skull bounced around like a pinball, making mincemeat of the dead man's face and brains.

  Like Powell before him, Frank Osborn had just enough time to realize that he'd made a hideous mistake before his life ended in a swarm of hot lead. Nineteen well-trained men with automatic rifles turned and fired at Osborn before they even gave the idea any conscious thought.

  And that was how the final battle for Collier really started.

  2

  Someplace behind them, the Brightman Textile Mill was dying in a fire strong enough to melt steel and ignite concrete. Somewhere ahead of them, just around the next bend in the road, Lucas Brightman's palatial home stood waiting, brooding as they came towards it.

  Brightman's house should have been beautiful. Jack could look at the classic lines of the Victorian manor and appreciate the craftsmanship that had gone into building the place. It was three stories tall, and sitting on its perfectly manicured lawn, the dark brown mansion looked like it was just waiting for a chance to be photographed for Better Homes and Gardens. It was the sort of house he'd once dreamed about owning, sometime before he'd lost his hopes of ever being more than a grunt in a secret military operation.

  Still, the place terrified him. Jack Calloway could feel his pulse racing, and was breaking out in a hard sweat, despite the natural cooling effects the canned oxygen he breathed had on his body.

  Damn, I just know this gonna blow up in our faces. I can feel it. The words went through his mind again and again; a private mantra that he desperately hoped would somehow protect him from the coming devastation.

  The usual chatter from the other soldiers was missing, and Calloway suspected they felt some of what he felt. He knew what part of the problem was: despite the captured people the day before, they'd never managed to get their hands on the damned tranquilizer guns used in most of the slayings. Someone, somewhere, had a weapon that was perfectly designed to kill a soldier, even one in a suit specifically made to keep people safe. All they had to do was get a clean shot at the softer parts of the armor, even behind the knee, and it would all be over for one more of Uncle Sam's boys in black. He didn't know what even half the drugs he'd seen packages for were supposed to do, but he was willing to bet there wasn't a cure for the shit if it got into a person's system.

  There was no sign of activity from the house. Jack didn't find that very comforting. He was having trouble catching his breath, and he knew it wasn't because his oxygen supply was running low; they'd all changed tanks before coming over here.

  The group broke apart into four smaller squads, each taking a separate part of the perimeter. Jack and his men, includin
g Pendelton and three men he'd barely ever worked with, moved towards the eastern section of the house, covering the front end of the building. Evans and his squad took the northern area, where the long wraparound porch was likely to be a problem. Walker and his squad took the western part of the house and Chadwick's squad covered the southern portion.

  The idea was simple enough: each squad would start at the edge of the heavy woods around the house and move carefully towards the building itself, checking for any potential threats and eliminating them. Once at the house, they'd do the same thing they'd done at the textile mill. A little tear gas, a little patience and then a full sweep of the interior.

  It shouldn't have been a problem. Naturally, it didn't work out the way they'd hoped it would.

  The four leaders stayed in constant communication, using the separate band held aside for just such situations. Because there were only two radio bands available to them, they were privy to what was happening in Collier. They got to hear all about the deaths of Buck Landers, Walter J. Powell and Frank Osborn.

  Maybe if they hadn't been so stunned, they could have predicted what happened next.

  Corporal Leonard Walker stepped on a homemade land mine. Whoever designed the damned thing knew what he was doing. The entire grounds of the building shook from the impact of the mine going off. Walker never knew what hit him. Nails and steel shavings penetrated every part of his body that wasn't armored, and the impact was sufficient to divorce his right leg from the rest of his body. Even though they were on the private band, the soldiers could hear the screams from Walker's squad as they cut through the air.

  Jack Calloway switched over to the standard radio band and called for his men to stay where they were. If there was one land mine, there might well be others. They were close to the house, but Jack didn't feel safe backtracking just yet and he couldn't be certain what was ahead of him.

  "Pendleton," Jack said, as his initial adrenaline rush started to fade to a tolerable level. "How many spare clips do you have?"

  "I've got an additional hundred and twenty rounds, Sergeant."

  "Good, we might need them. How about those grenades? How many does the squad have?"

  "Three, Sergeant."

  "Beautiful. Throw one to me."

  "Excuse me?"

  The panic in Pendleton's voice made Jack laugh nervously. "With the pin still in place, Pendleton. I'm not quite ready to die just yet."

  Jack turned and waited patiently until Pendleton's nerves were good enough to let him make the throw. Just the same, the man's aim was off and Jack felt himself tense up as the small bomb bounced and rolled across the lawn. Ten feet between him and the explosive, just lovely.

  "I want everyone on the ground and prone. If I'm gonna do something stupid, no one gets hurt but me. Understood?" They all voiced their agreement and carefully lowered to the ground, waiting patiently.

  Jack switched his rifle from fully automatic fire to single action, then fired a bullet into the ground six inches from where he was standing. He wanted to scream, but held it in. When nothing exploded, he did it again at roughly the twelve-inch mark. Then at eighteen inches, then at twenty-four inches. Nothing blew up, so he moved two feet closer to his prize. Again and again he fired into the ground. Again and again, nothing went kablooey.

  When he finally reached the grenade, his entire body was shaking. "O-okay, guys. This is the routine. I'm gonna throw this bad little boy, and we're all going to duck low. Make sure the soft areas on your suits are covered as best you can."

  "What are you doing, Sergeant Calloway?" Pendleton sounded ready to wet his pants. Jack couldn't blame him, but felt obligated to do his best to at least appear like he felt confident.

  "If the mines are pressure sensitive, then the grenade ought to set them off without blowing us to hell and back. Get it?"

  Before Pendleton could respond, Evans' voice came through his head set. "Calloway, give me a status report."

  "All's well here, so far, Lieutenant. I'm gonna set off a grenade over here in a few seconds, see if I can't detonate any prizes waiting for us in the ground."

  Evans was silent for a moment. Then, "Good idea. Glad I thought of it. I'm gonna do the same thing over here."

  "Anything from Walker's squad?"

  "Them that ain't dead are wishing they were."

  "How about Chadwick?"

  "All well so far. I'm gonna suggest he try your grenade method. Why don't we handle this with a countdown."

  "Sounds like a deal, sir."

  "I'll get back with you in a second."

  Calloway switched bands again, back to the regular communication frequency, and ordered his men to "think small thoughts" while they squatted. By the time his men responded to the order, Evans was back on the radio. "At zero, gentlemen. Ten… nine… eight… seven…" Jack waited as patiently as he could, and when the Lieutenant reached zero, he pulled the pin from the grenade, rolled it to a spot about halfway to the house, and pulled himself into a standing fetal position.

  The grenade went off with a resounding BOOM, and then the ground ten feet away, on Calloway's right hand side, disappeared in a lightning-strike explosion. He felt the nails and pennies as they slapped against his side. He also felt the shock wave lift him from the ground and launch him through the air like a tennis ball going up against Andre Aggasi.

  About half a minute later, he realized that his head was still attached to his neck. The ringing in his ears made the sounds coming from his helmet little more than garbled squawks. "I don't know what you're saying," Jack mumbled, "but it's damned nice to hear you."

  A few seconds later, Pendleton grabbed his shoulders and started shaking him. Since the motion made the world want to spin, Jack slapped the man's hands away.

  "…aid, can you hear me, Sergeant Calloway?" The voice in his ears was concerned, almost frantic.

  "I've got you, Lieutenant. Sorry about that. I guess I was a little close to the land mine."

  Pendleton's voice broke in. "I'd say. I've never seen anyone thrown like that before. Are you sure you're okay?"

  "Yeah. At least I think so. Everything moves, and I'm only seeing one of you, so I guess that's a good sign." He knew there was something he wanted to ask, but it took him a little while to remember just what it was. "Is everyone else okay, Lieutenant?"

  "All's well over here. Count your blessings and give yourself a pat on the back. Chadwick's side of the building had three mines. No one hurt, but everyone's good and shaken."

  Jack nodded, then stopped that when he realized it only made things start spinning again. "What's next, sir?"

  "Next? Grab another grenade and make your own door in this shithole. I don't trust the ones we already have. Better still, do the tear gas, then the grenades. Maybe we'll get lucky and the place will blow sky high. Then we wouldn't have a problem."

  "Pendleton."

  "Yes, Sergeant?"

  "Smoke the place. And don't miss this time, dammit."

  "Yes, Sergeant!"

  Calloway watched the bomb bounce off the side of the house, got up himself and threw the canister through the closest window. Thirty seconds later, the tear gas started spilling out again. In the meantime, he took the liberty of yelling at Pendleton, and questioning the man's heritage.

  "Pendleton?"

  "Yes, Sergeant?"

  "Walk your skinny ass over here and hand me a grenade."

  After telling everyone to drop again, Calloway tossed the second grenade and watched the east wall of Chateau Brightman explode into toothpick-sized flinders of wood and shards of glass. "All clear over here, Lieutenant. Orders?"

  "Wait just a minute…" The building shook twice, then Evans spoke again. "Move 'em in, people. Let's catch us some bad guys."

  There were no more mines in the house. But there was trouble just the same.

  Interlude

  Colonel Mark Anderson ordered the helicopters off the ground right after somebody decided to roll a burning car down the hill towards
his tent. Fortunately for him, the car veered to the right and joined with the remains of Pastor William O'Rourke's vehicle at the bottom of the lake's bed.

  Unfortunately for the would be car bombers, they only managed a few hundred yards in their getaway vehicle before the soldiers returned the favor. Two more citizens of Collier lay dead in the front of a battered white pickup truck that had last seen a fresh paint job sometime before Carter was elected President of the United States. Their blood mingled with the radiator fluid spilling across the asphalt.

  Anderson sighed and reemphasized his orders to the pilots and their flight crews. Shoot to kill; ask questions later. Hawthorne sat nearby, looking worn and frazzled. He'd aged a decade in the last week. Anderson didn't want to think about what he himself must be looking like by now,

  Frank Osborn was dead less than two hours, and already everything had gone to Hell. How the news got out was anyone's guess, but the vast majority of the people in town were now making their dissatisfaction well known. An elderly man on Second Avenue was arrested when he mooned two of the soldiers. They couldn't quite bring themselves to shoot the moron, and Anderson couldn't blame them. Mayor Milo Fitzwater was fit to be tied. He'd torn into the Colonel's tent like a Baptist minister into a brothel.

  The short man even managed to look scary when he got truly angry. Fitzwater ripped into Anderson verbally for fifteen minutes, and through it all, he let the man have his say. Even the soldiers who'd actually been on the scene said it was Powell who fired the first shot.

  Thanks to one of his trusted lieutenants, two officers of the law were dead. Worse, those two men were the closest thing Anderson'd had to allies in the city. They were the force that kept everyone in Collier from going bugshit crazy.

  Fitzwater actually having made it to the tent was a sign that everyone in the town must have gone insane. He would never have made it anywhere near the command post if the soldiers out there didn't already have their hands full.