by D. J. Molles
Sam smiled weakly.
“Listen, Sam. As far as I’m concerned, you handled yourself like a man back there.” He put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re a man in my book.”
Sam nodded by way of acknowledgment, then took a long gulp from his bottle of water.
Lee held the pistol toward him. “Have you ever used one of these?” Sam stared at it. Eventually he shook his head. “Okay. Listen really closely. You have to pay attention.” Sam looked from the pistol to Lee. “I’m going to put this on the ground right next to you. This is not a toy and you do not play with it. In fact, I don’t even want you to touch it. The only time it’s okay for you to touch it is if you see one of those guys that was chasing you, okay? Then all I want you to do is pick it up, hold it just like this, point it at them, and I want you to pull the trigger three times.” Lee held up three fingers. “Three times, Sam. If he’s not down after that, pull the trigger three more times. Okay? Did you get all of that?”
“Don’t touch it.” Sam nodded. “If I see a bad guy, shoot him three times. If he doesn’t die, shoot him three more times.”
Lee smiled. Kids grew up fast these days. Even faster during social collapse. “That’s right.” Lee set down the pistol. “You ever play Call of Duty?”
“Yeah.”
Lee nodded. “It’s just like in Call of Duty. Just remember that.”
“Just like in Call of Duty.” The kid looked briefly terrified. “Okay.”
Lee stood up and patted his leg. “Tango! Come!” To Sam he said, “You like dogs?”
“Sure,” Sam nodded.
“This is Tango. He’s gonna help keep you safe.” Lee rubbed Tango behind the ears, then pulled him toward Sam. “Let him smell you.” Sam offered his hand for Tango to smell and lick. Lee snapped his fingers to get Tango’s attention, then pointed to the ground at Sam’s feet. “Tango, guard it, boy. Guard it!”
Tango sat down in front of Sam. The kid was already small for his age, but next to the big dog he looked shrunken.
“Alright. I gotta go back up there for a little bit. No matter what you hear, don’t move from this spot. Stay right here with Tango until I get back.”
Sam nodded and Lee turned to leave. “Mister…”
Lee turned and looked at him.
“Are you gonna kill those men?”
No need for baby talk. Lee nodded. “Yes.”
Sam just looked at him, but he didn’t respond. Lee turned and dipped back into the gully and was gone.
* * *
Nearly ten minutes had elapsed since they shot Sam’s father.
Lee’s mind was hot and cold. He was a pressure cooker, building heat each time he replayed the image of Sam’s father and the bloody cloud exploding out of his head. Sam’s eyes, trying to make sense of it all. The men’s faces as they laughed. But through the anger, his hands were still, his heart steady, and his mind a blank slate. He had no words, only images of death. With no remorse, he was going to kill everyone.
He crept quietly but speedily through the creek bed, then up over the lip and into the lower part of the Petersons’ backyard. He took cover behind a tree with a thick trunk and listened for a moment. Over the background noise of birds and insects, Lee could hear voices and what sounded like moving furniture.
They were ripping the house apart looking for Sam.
Lee darted from his point of cover, diagonally across the southwestern corner of the property and back into the wood line of the forest between his house and the Petersons’.
Then he stalked, low to the ground, just inside the shadows of the trees, moving parallel to the wood line toward the house. With each step he carefully avoided twigs and dry patches of leaves. His feet rolled slowly heel to toe, his movements noticeable only to his own attuned ears. To anyone else, they made no more sound than the movements of a cat.
He stopped and knelt to the ground, keeping everything slow and deliberate now that he was in view of the house. Quick movements drew the eyes.
He smelled cigarette smoke.
From his perch about fifty yards out from the house, Lee spotted the smoker. He stood on the back deck with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, looking out into the woods while he enjoyed his smoke. Cigarettes were a sign that the enemy felt safe, relaxed, and in control.
Lee had the advantage. He already knew how many men there were. With one on the deck, four more remained inside. Including Fat Boy, the man who had shot Sam’s dad. From where Lee sat inside the woods, he could just barely make out the bed of the red pickup truck. He only had to slither a few more yards through the brush to get an angle on the truck that allowed him to see inside. One of the occupants had left a back door open, and the way the truck was parked, it provided Lee with a perfect view of the inside.
There was no one inside the truck. Lee thanked God for the first stroke of luck all day. A man in a red hat joined Smoker on the deck and they started talking. The conversation was lighthearted, and it included much backslapping and laughing. These boys were raucous and it made Lee think of drunken rednecks. They stood around grab-assing while their buddies tried to find a thirteen-year-old boy, as that boy’s father lay dead in the dirt.
Lee wanted to pull Red Hat into the shadows and slide his KA-BAR deep into his guts, working it around until he hit the heart and lungs. He wanted to hold his hand over Red Hat’s mouth and watch as the life fled from his eyes. He wanted to know that the last image Red Hat would ever see would be Lee’s smiling face.
That would be satisfying in the moment, but it had little chance of success.
A half-dozen different plans ran through Lee’s mind. But sometimes the best plan was no plan at all. What Lee had was initiative. He knew that he could take out both Red Hat and Smoker before they had a chance to react. That left Fat Boy and two others inside the house. The only question remaining was, would they fight or flee?
Lee felt confident they would die either way.
Lee settled down into a prone position, most of his body hidden behind a thick tree, just his head and rifle visible, though it was difficult for someone in the bright sunshine to see inside the shaded woods. They probably wouldn’t see him, even if he was standing up and wearing hunter orange.
He took a few deep breaths and pulled the trigger on the exhale. He took out Smoker first with a single shot to the temple. Red Hat watched his buddy fall over, his own face splattered with brains, blood, and skull fragments. His mouth opened in terror, but he never had a chance to yell. Lee put two in his chest and tried for The Mozambique, but the target was already falling back and the third shot went a few inches high.
Lee eased back into a kneeling position and waited. He could hear shouting from inside the house. “Kenny? What the fuck was that?” Lee waited for them to find out. “Fuck! JC, they’re both dead!”
“What?”
“I think someone shot ’em!”
“Get back!”
The rest of it was muffled, as the remaining three men retreated into the house. They would either try to peer out the windows and find Lee—which would cost them their lives—or they would make a run for the pickup truck and try to escape.
The sound of the front door slamming and footsteps across the front porch answered Lee’s question.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Moving with controlled urgency, Lee pushed the barrel of his M203 grenade launcher forward, then extracted a 40mm grenade, which resembled a giant bullet; shoved it into the barrel; and locked the barrel back into place. He elevated the weapon and pulled the trigger on the launcher. The grenade flew out with a heavy thump. Lee was worried that his timing might have been off, but it was spot-on. Just as the three men came into view, sprinting for the pickup truck and closing at about thirty feet, the 40mm grenade arced out of the sky and the cab of the pickup went up in a white flash and a billow of smoke.
All three men lifted their hands to shield their faces and fell flat on their backs.
Lee came out of the wood line with his M4 leveled and firing. The first man tried to get up and grab his gun, so Lee put two in him, one ripping into his shoulder and the other punching a neat hole in his neck. The man fell back, choking on his own blood.
Fat Boy and a man in a plaid shirt were still sitting on the ground, and both threw their rifles away and held up their hands.
Lee put one in Plaid’s chest at about fifteen feet out. The man grabbed his chest and started rolling around, wheezing and letting out pathetic sounds. What right did he have to plead for mercy or scream in pain? The man they’d killed only a short time ago had died defending his son and he’d done it in silence.
Fat Boy stared at Plaid with his mouth hanging open. He was paralyzed with shock. He looked at Lee and snapped back into the moment. If he had been a fighting man he would have known that it was over anyway and made a break for his rifle so that he would go out swinging.
But Fat Boy was just a fat boy, just an out-of-shape hillbilly with a taste for teenage boys. His heart wasn’t made of tough stuff and his mind had never been combat hardened. He only knew fear—how to induce it and how to feel it.
Lee was standing now within a few feet of both men. Plaid continued to moan loudly and roll on the ground. Lee felt that two men to dig a grave was one too many. Still holding Fat Boy’s gaze, Lee finished Plaid off with two more rounds. He didn’t watch where they hit, but Plaid was silent after that.
“Please don’t fucking kill me! Please!” The fat man started to cry.
Lee shook his head. “Stop crying.”
Fat Boy whimpered and sobbed.
“Seriously. Stop crying.” Lee kicked his legs. “Get up. Come on.”
Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, hunched over and cowering. He’d been so bold and brash just a short time ago. Now he was reduced to groveling and… pissing himself. A dark stain was growing on his crotch and spreading down the length of his right leg.
Lee motioned the man forward, which the man complied with hesitantly, like a beaten dog. As he got within arm’s reach, Lee punched him in the throat, then planted his other fist deep in the man’s jiggling gut, doubling him over. The man fell sideways onto the ground, hacking and coughing.
Lee wanted to do more, but he also wanted the man alive a little longer. “Relax and breathe. You’re not injured, you’re just hurt. Give it a minute.”
Fat Boy rolled onto his hands and knees and wheezed for a few moments before regaining his wind.
“Up.” Lee poked him in the back of the neck with the barrel of his M4. “You have some work to do.”
* * *
Fat Boy dug like his life depended on it. Which it did.
He told the man that if he looked like he was taking his time with the digging or being disrespectful toward the body of Sam’s father, that Lee was going to gut shoot him and leave him to die, then finish the digging himself. Fat Boy had four dead friends who bore witness to the fact that Lee was willing and able to carry out that level of violence.
It took the man about a half hour to dig a grave that Lee felt was of suitable depth to bury Sam’s father in. He then escorted Fat Boy at gunpoint to collect the body and carry it to the grave. Before taking the body, Lee searched it and saw the man was wearing a gold watch. He took it off his wrist for Sam. Fat Boy struggled at first, then finally was able to pick up the body and carry it over his shoulder.
After Sam’s father had been laid to rest, Lee ordered Fat Boy to remove the shoelaces on his right boot. Fat Boy complied and provided Lee with a two-foot length of cordage that Lee used to bind Fat Boy’s hands behind his back.
At gunpoint, Lee marched Fat Boy down the hill and into the woods.
“Where are you taking me?”
Lee felt no reason to lie to the man any longer. “To the boy whose father you killed. The boy you were gonna rape.”
Fat Boy stopped in his tracks and looked at Lee, terrified. “Why you doin’ that?”
“Because I’m going to let him kill you if he wants to.”
Fat Boy’s eyes erupted in tears again. “No! Please, mister!” He got down on his knees. “I wasn’t gonna rape him! Why you gonna let him kill me over nothing? I ain’t done nothing wrong!”
Lee looked at the man with indifference. “You’ve done a lot wrong.” Lee could actually see Fat Boy trying to think of something, anything to argue his case. But Lee cut him off before he could continue arguing. “You murdered a man today. You know it and I know it. And I watched you do it with a smile on your face, which makes me think that maybe this isn’t the first time you’ve done it. So for the boy’s father and anyone else you’ve murdered, I would dearly like to put a bullet in your brain. But I’m going to let the boy decide what to do with you. So you can either keep walking and have a chance—however slim—of the boy sparing your life, or you can stop right here and I will gladly do the job myself.”
Fat Boy looked Lee in the eye and tried to match his cold determination, but couldn’t muster the stones and looked down at his feet. Then he turned and continued walking in the creek bed.
It was only a short distance before Lee saw the top of the root system where Sam and Tango were hiding. He pushed Fat Boy down to his knees and looked up over the top of the gully. “Sam?”
Sam’s head poked up as well as Tango’s.
Lee motioned with his head for Sam to come over. The boy moved to Lee, but hesitantly, all the while nervously peeling the bark from a small twig that he clutched in his hands. Lee felt conflicted about what he was going to ask the kid, but it somehow felt more just than simply killing the man after he’d finished digging the grave. It was Sam’s father the man killed. It should be Sam’s decision what happened to him.
As Sam made his way over, Lee knelt down and whispered quietly in Fat Boy’s ear, “Don’t say a word. I promise you’ll regret it.”
Sam slid down into the gully, his khaki pants now smudged with mud. He stood a safe distance away and stared at Fat Boy where he knelt. His expression was unreadable to Lee, and again he second-guessed his decision to bring the man to Sam.
But it was a fucked-up world and this day would always be a dark blotch in this young man’s mind. Sometimes revenge heals, sometimes it makes things hurt worse. It wasn’t for Lee to decide how Sam dealt with this.
Lee stepped between Sam and Fat Boy but angled himself so that Fat Boy was still in his field of vision. He put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and spoke in low tones.
“You know who that is, right?”
Sam’s eyes drifted to Fat Boy and he nodded after a moment.
“And you know what he did?”
“He killed my dad.”
“Yes. Whatever you decide to do with him, he’ll deserve it.” Lee dipped his head down to the kid’s level so that their eyes made contact. “Look at me, Sam. You know the world is very different than it was a little while ago. You know how things have changed. We don’t have police and courtrooms to take care of people like him anymore, so now we have to do it ourselves. And it’s ugly, and sometimes it hurts, but it has to be done. You understand me?”
Sam nodded slowly, looking at the crying man on his knees. His eyes were cold, which put a chill down the back of Lee’s neck. He didn’t look so small now. “Yeah, I understand.”
“It was you that he hurt, so it’s up to you what you do with him, okay?”
Sam’s jaw muscles bunched, his lips becoming a tight line. His was a face built for smiling, not for scowling, and when the expression came on his face, it was disconcerting. “Can I borrow your gun?”
The way he said it was as if he was asking Lee to loan him a dollar. Lee didn’t think about it too long. He shook his head. “I’ll do it. You just decide.”
“Okay…” Sam seemed partially relieved.
Sam walked forward and looked at Fat Boy, who must have known he was about to die and was weeping uncontrollably now. The man had not an ounce of courage to stay his tears at least for the moment of his death. Instea
d he blabbered on, snot running down his upper lip and bubbling with each mumbled syllable.
The young man looked at Fat Boy for a very long time, then leaned in close and whispered to the man something that Lee could not hear. Then he turned and walked back to Lee. “Let him go,” he said calmly.
Lee watched him climb the side of the gully and sit back down with Tango, who stuck his nose into Sam’s neck and licked him happily. Looking back at Fat Boy, Lee saw the man’s eyes were heavy-lidded and his mouth hung agape. He looked numb.
Lee slid his pistol back into its place and walked over to him. He tapped him on the shoulder, which did not seem to break into his daze. “Come on.”
The man on the ground turned his head slowly, visibly trembling, and looked up at Lee. “Are you really going to let me go?”
Lee shrugged. “The kid doesn’t want to kill you.”
Fat Boy stumbled to his feet, eager to be released. “I swear I won’t come back!”
“Mmm hmm.” Lee smiled humorlessly. “Start walking.”
They walked in silence back through the streambed, Fat Boy stumbling along with his hands still tied behind his back and Lee following. They reached the back edge of the Petersons’ property and Lee instructed Fat Boy to stop. The man stopped, then looked back toward Lee.
Fat Boy took a shaky breath. “I promise. You’ll never see me again.”
Lee nodded and withdrew his KA-BAR from its sheath on his chest rig. “I know.”
Then he reached around and gripped Fat Boy by the forehead, applying rearward pressure, and inserted the KA-BAR into the base of his skull, just above vertebrae C1, severing his spinal column. Fat Boy’s body became a 250-pound sack of concrete and immediately collapsed. Lee wiped the blade off on his pants, then slid it back into its sheath and walked toward Sam and Tango, leaving Fat Boy where he fell.
CHAPTER 7
Guardian
Lee found Sam sitting on his go-to-hell pack with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head hanging down. As he got closer, Lee realized the kid was crying. He stopped where he was, wondering if he should give him a minute. He swore under his breath, directing his anger at himself. He should not have brought Fat Boy down there, should not have put that decision on Sam. That was too much for a twelve-year-old to handle. Aside from all of that, the kid was still processing the death of his father. Once the adrenaline subsides, the mind has a chance to start replaying what has happened, and that’s when the emotions start to break through.
