by Boyd Craven
“I just came here to check in. My name’s Wes, this is my girlfriend Jessica. We’ve been tracking the group and wanted to see…”
“If we’re still here or pushing up daisies?” the bitter woman asked, but most of the fight was out of her.
“Mom, what’s pushing up daisies mean?” Laney asked.
The other woman rolled her eyes. “Thank you for checking on us. We’re taking your advice, we have a place we can go to today. We have to wheel Grandpa in one of the wheelbarrows, but the older boys and girls have been moving stuff already.”
“I… I was just checking. I feel horrible about—”
Laney’s mother raised her hand as if to slap me. I thought Raider and Jessica were about to erupt when she changed her mind and put her hands over her face. Silent sobs started wracking her and Laney dropped some candy, trying to shove it in her pockets so she could run to her mom’s side. I watched a moment.
“We all knew what our husbands had done and were doing. I guess it makes us guilty as well,” the woman I guessed to be Aunt Emily said, “but it’s hard to feel guilty when our kids are crying, their bellies are empty, and there’s all this terrifying loneliness, not being sure who’s going to come back, if ever. Our kids risk their lives every day to try to pick enough berries and fruit for themselves. We don’t want them to, but we’ve all been forced to do it. There’s not enough food to go around. It’s hard to feel guilty about accepting the fact our husbands are dead and we told them they shouldn’t do it, but we let them anyway.”
“I feel horrible about things,” I said simply, “I just want to make sure you guys get out, and as soon as possible. Things aren’t safe around here anymore.”
The crying woman dropped her hands and wiped her face. “I’m sorry for hitting you,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry. For everything,” I told her, meaning it.
The power outage, her husband, how they’d had to adjust their morals to even be able to feed their kids. What I didn’t say was that I wasn’t sorry that I now felt a little number. I’d gotten the… what was the word? Closure? I felt a little better about things, despite her tears.
Raider barked then got to his feet, nosing the dropped candies. Laney saw that and shrieked once. She had since pocketed the remaining candy and jumped on the ground like a soldier covering a grenade to save his teammates from shrapnel. Raider gave her a doggy grin, then put his nose by her ear, licking the side of her face.
“He looks like Boppy, but bigger,” Laney said as she got to her feet.
The name had Raider turning his head to the side, considering the girl.
“He does a bit,” her mom said with a sniff, “but your dad said Boppy got hit by a car, remember?”
The three of them choked up at once, and I closed my pack and put it back on my shoulders. Jessica handed me the rifle. Laney nodded to her mom, a tear falling down her face. I was watching Raider, who was suddenly taking a new interest in the little girl.
“We need to coordinate things with our families after everything settles down,” Jessica said, looking at the farmland and the barn.
“What do you mean?” Emily asked.
“Do you have the fuel and help needed to run the farm the way it should?”
“Not anymore,” the other one said in a hoarse whisper.
“We can help. Do you guys have radios?”
The ladies shook their heads. Jessica handed me her rifle this time, and she dug in her own pack. She pulled out a Baofeng, like the one I had been given. “This one has two frequencies programmed in as one and two. Check it off and on, once things cool down here, our group will be in touch. Maybe we can help each other out? In the meantime, the gang that’s coming here… it’s way too big for us to handle. For anybody to handle.”
“I wish we could just blow them all up,” Laney said suddenly.
Jessica looked at me, and I knew she had an idea.
“Me too kid,” I told her.
“We have to go. We’ll see you two later,” Jessica said, and took her rifle back from me.
“Thank you,” Emily called over our shoulders.
I waved, too numb from the conversation.
“Now what?” I asked Jessica after we’d gone a mile down the road.
She pointed to a spot under a tree where the tall grass was. “Strip.”
“Wait, what?”
“Time to get our camo on.”
I was disappointed, but it was part two of her plan. She stripped off my shirt she had stolen from my dresser and had a lightweight camo pullover covering her up before I could even get a double take. I pulled my pack off and got my camo netting out. There was still enough color in the summertime that my usual clothing wouldn’t give me away with the netting on. I started pulling handfuls of long grass, snapped some green saplings, and started weaving them through the netting.
She looked at me and nodded, then we settled down in the shade. My canteen was in my pack instead of my belt, along with a thermos of hand-pumped well water. I hoped it would stay cool long enough. We sat back and waited for her radio. Raider sat next to me, though I could tell he was restless. I wanted him more for his senses than his attack dog nature. I hoped I wouldn’t need it.
At some point I dozed. The heat of the day had come and gone. Now, it was starting to get merely muggy and not horrible. Jess was stretched out next to me, laying on her stomach, her field glasses in front of her, and a notebook with some numbers scratched on it, but no Raider.
“Jess,” I whispered.
She turned and shot me a grin. She’d crawled under the netting herself, getting into the shade. One end was propped up with some broken sticks making an opening we could see out of, but it would be difficult to make us out unless you walked right up on us.
“Where’s my dog?” I asked her.
“Raider,” Jess whispered.
“Yeah, where’s my…” my words trailed off as a small form stood up and stretched on the other side of her.
“I think he likes me,” she whispered back.
The dog had crawled to her side somehow and had been lying flat next to her. I hadn’t even seen him he’d been holding so still.
“I think so too. Anything?” I asked her.
“No,” she whispered back. “The scouts said the family took off in a large group, heading toward the back of the property where they lost them.”
“Good, I’m glad they got out of there. Now we just have to make sure when the Hillbilly Mafia comes, they leave the area good and disgusted. Hopefully without burning the place down.”
“Couldn’t stop them even if we tried,” Jess whispered back.
Part two of the plan was simple: watch, observe, be one set of eyes. Make sure the families got out today. The actual farm was going to be watched by a team of men whom I’d never met, and Jess hadn’t volunteered names. We were on the outer edges of the rough semi-circular perimeter of the area being watched, with the crater at one end. Jess’ group must have some significant fears about Lance’s group if they were actively spending man power to watch what was going on. Even if the cops were around, they would also be outmanned and outgunned according to what I’d learned. We hoped to see them off safely and avoid any advance scouts that Lance’s crew was bringing in ahead of schedule. It seemed like the smart thing to do, so we had decided after we’d spoken with the ladies and confirmed that they were going to leave, that we’d sit and wait to make sure they had.
That way, if there were eyes there that Jess’ scouts had missed, they might be forced to split and follow the family or us. The camp at the crater had grown, but her group hadn’t known that Marshall was gone. Had a quiet coup gone down using Lance’s family as leverage? The kid seemed stupid to me, but not a killer. A small part of me hoped he’d got away from those assholes safely. If he was guilty of anything from what little I’d seen of him, it was terminal stupidity coupled with a healthy curiosity. I remembered having had him at shotgun point before. There wasn’t a
lot of guile in the kid, but I hadn’t understood why Lance was so protective of him. But even that didn’t change the fact that Lance had kidnapped, tortured, and had people murdered. He’d get his day.
The day had grown long, and I’d pulled out some food I’d packed in for Raider. He was hungrily eating it out of a pie tin I used in place of a pan to cook in. I wasn’t planning on cooking in it today or tomorrow anyway. We were waiting, watching and, if possible, following. With the farmer’s family bugging out, Lance’s crew would be hitting an empty homestead. They had all been gone for hours now, according to the handful of people a lot closer than us.
I was worried what would happen if the Hillbilly Mafia decided to go hit our place next, but we’d done pretty good to make it look like we were empty. That’s why Jess and I were the furthest ones away and spitting distance from home. If they drove past us, it was a quick run back to our homestead, and Jess and Grandma had outlined the plan. None of that was good enough, until Jess all but told me that Carter and Jimmy were watching our place. Half of me wondered if the both of us with Raider should have been at the farm instead of here, but then we wouldn’t have time alone.
“So how much longer do you want to wait until we head back to the farm?” I asked her, our main mission done.
“Let’s wait for dusk, maybe another twenty minutes?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
Raider chuffed in amusement and got up to stretch. Jess held the camo netting open and told him to go use the potty. I grinned at her choice of words. She had guys named Yager and Diesel, but… potty? I decided to keep the humor to myself. Raider darted out from under the netting and picked a tree a good twenty feet back from our hide to do his deed. We waited. Jess was going to head back to the house with me, and we were going to relieve Carter and Jimmy, so they could watch the Crater crew.
“Here he comes,” Jess said as Raider came trotting back.
He stopped at the netting, sniffed, then chuffed and laid down in front of us.
“Come on in, boy,” I said, patting the spot on my side.
Instead, he put his nose between us and pushed his way through. Jess and I scooted a bit to make room, then Jess stiffened and rolled to her side, giving the dog a lot of room. She held a hand over her ear and pressed the PTT button on her shirt.
“Go ahead, Carter. Yeah? Jimmy did? You weren’t supposed… Uh huh. Ok, I don’t like it, but she’s the expert. They did what? Ok, we’re going to hunker and wait longer then. Ok, out.”
“Don’t you worry about using names on your radios?” I asked Jess.
“I’m set on an encrypted line. They would have to use our key to unscramble it; otherwise it sounds like garbage or static. They can DF us but—”
“DF?” I interrupted.
“Directional Finding. When we transmit, we make the needle jump. They know somebody’s transmitting, but can’t listen in. They could hunt us that way, that’s why we limit our transmissions and always move shortly afterward. Like we’re about to have to do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“My mother and the rest of our happy band of patriots here split the forces at the house. Jimmy was keeping an eye on the Crater crew. He radioed that Jimmy had just returned and said half of the forces were gone.”
“They’re moving out early?” I asked her.
“Apparently.”
I couldn’t even trust murderers and crooks to keep their word. Wait… Still, I fumed for a moment, chewing on that. Then I remembered we’d convinced the families to leave and were neutralized by the fact that the Hillbilly Mafia would be rolling into an empty farm. None of the crops were ripe enough to pick, there was no food, and everyone was gone. I once again hoped they didn’t torch the place.
“We heading back to the house now?” I asked her, concerned.
“Yes, then Carter, Jimmy, and I are going over to the Crater to wait and watch.”
“If you’re going, I’m going,” I told her softly, reaching over Raider and flattening down the back of her hair that was sticking out of her boonie hat.
“Who is going to watch your grandparents?” she asked me softly.
I mentally cursed. I knew Grandpa and Grandma could handle themselves pretty good when I was younger, and both were full of piss and vinegar… But neither of them would be ready for something like this and shooting the twelve-gauge had bruised Grandpa horribly the last time he’d had to use it. He said that’s why he got the lighter one he hung over the door, but I knew that wasn’t the real reason. He was getting older, a little bit weaker, and for a long while, he’d been sick.
“Me, but I wish like hell you would stick around too,” I told her.
She leaned over Raider and kissed me on the cheek as I fumed. I turned to her, but she rolled on her back, holding one hand up in the universal ‘wait’ gesture with the other hand to her ear.
“This is Jess, I got it,” she said into the mic, then hooked a finger in my direction.
I leaned in close, and she pulled me half on top of the dog and her, kissing me. Raider objected and squirmed out by backing to our feet, making a disgusted sound. I laughed, breaking the kiss.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“That the crew was headed into downtown and away from here. We can head back to your grandparents’ place now.”
8
Carter had been waiting with Jimmy when we’d slunk onto the property line from the back, behind the barn where we normally stashed the old tractor. Raider had run ahead of us to the house, unable to contain his excitement, letting out a few playful barks, scattering the few chickens still not in the coop. We’d gone inside and told everyone what we’d seen and how things had gone. Jimmy then cleared his throat and told us his side of things.
“By the time I got there, most of the gang had left, but there were a few pickup trucks heading out. I was able to see ten guys or more per truck.”
“How many trucks?” I asked.
“A few. Our numbers have to be off. If I watched thirty to forty men leave, how many were already out there? I mean, they’re all armed and some as good as we are,” he said, nodding to an AR-15 he’d leaned up against the counter next to him.
“Prisoners?” Jess asked.
Jimmy shrugged. “Hard to tell. They left the women behind. There are some kids there, but for the most part, the people I saw were there by choice. There were a few who had ankle and wrist restraints like you’d use at a courthouse somewhere, but I didn’t see many of them. Ten? Twelve? Who knows.”
I cursed softly.
“Don’t you talk like that under this roof,” Grandma said suddenly.
“I… I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’d love to know where everyone is coming from. If you guys had already guessed the numbers at seventy-five to eighty people, and they left the ladies and kids behind… you see what I mean?”
“Before the last truck left, I saw a guy dragging a bound woman into one of the bunkhouse campers. She screamed for a good five minutes while he was in there. I could hear it all the way across the Crater. Then he jumped into the bed of the truck.”
“Do you think he—”
“Don’t,” Grandpa said, and then pulled out a familiar looking flask and handed it to me.
I unscrewed the cap and took a long slug, before handing it to Jess. She shook her head, and I offered it to others who also refused. Grandpa took it gratefully and had himself a shot before putting the cap back in place. The liquor warmed me going down, and seemed to steady my nerves. I wanted to do something. I had no doubt what had been done to the bound woman. She had been dragged into the camper, probably hurt if not raped. The torture of the Guthries had been mild compared to the stories that had come out since their rescue. I just wished we had been able to do more.
Jess’ team had focused in on them and were able to split them away with a diversion. An explosion, if I remembered correctly. Then I got an idea.
“Brother, you shouldn’t play po
ker,” Carter said, smacking me on the shoulder. “I don’t know what you just thought of, but the look on your face makes me think somebody tried to piss in your Cheerios and you’re gonna smack them around a bit.”
“Something like that,” I said with a grin. “Grandpa, do you have any of that aluminum powder left?”
“Sure, but… say, you’re wanting to make thermite again?”
“You can make thermite?” Jess asked, perking up.
“He’s a chemistry nut. When we couldn’t fix an internal part on the tractor he yanked it out. Filled in the void with metal and used the thermite to weld it, before grinding it smooth all over again,” Grandpa said.
“My grandson loves his chemistry, kind of like what’s between the two of you,” Grandma said, totally taking me out of my thoughts. I saw Jess turn a little red in the face as I realized what she’d said.
My mind was racing. What if… what if there was a way to set up some preplanned diversions or traps? Funnel the gang into an area and drop the hammer on them.
“See, he’s lost again,” Carter said, laughing.
“You know what Tannerite is made of?” I asked them suddenly.
“Um… no, I flunked IED school,” Carter said, holding up his hands. “Still got all my fingers though.”
The joke fell flat, and I ignored him. “I can take some of Grandpa’s fertilizer, some of the aluminum powder left over from the welding projects, and make something similar to Ammonal,” I told them.
“Why not just make ANFO?” Jess asked.
“Too big for what I have in mind,” I told her.
“What do you mean?”
“ANFO takes at least a stick of dynamite to let off. I can think of a ton of ways to do that remotely, but what if we can sneak something in close enough to make noise. Startle them, get them to come looking?”
