by Billy Roper
After her fitful night’s sleep, Dell had decided to take off behind the three men. She didn’t consider herself to be following them, really, more like just seeing where they were going. They had several hours’ head start, and she had to pass by two other groups before she found the right one, but for some reason she was fixated on the trio which had passed through her park. Probably it was their laughter. She wanted to hear some more of it.
They hadn’t really gone very far, not even five blocks, before doubling back three blocks to search a couple of houses they had passed by with fake disinterest a little earlier. There they had spent the night, and there they were searching the house’s cabinets by daylight when Dell’s now superb tracking skills led her to them. None of the other groups she had passed by in the late morning coolness had seen her.
The young men were sharper, though. Maybe it was her scent, or maybe they were better at this than they looked, but one of them was on lookout, and saw her dart across the driveway below him to crouch behind the car squatting on its flat back tires. “Hey!” he shouted. She ducked lower, hoping he hadn’t gotten a good luck at her hiding place. “Hey, you, behind the car!” the outlook added, dashing her dreams. She considered whether to put her hands up and come out, to explain to them that she had only wanted company, then imagined how that would work out for a girl by herself with three guys. While she weighed her options, a grumbling rose up from behind her, a noise like a sick dragon’s rattling cough. Engines. Big ones. Now who still had gas around here? Uh-oh.
The three guys had heard them, too, and came pouring out the front of the house like a swarm of hornets. They must think that I’m with the engines, she realized, but didn’t know how to convince them otherwise without getting in deeper than she already was. The trio stopped, staring at the street in hesitation, before their uncertainty was snapped in a moment of quick conversation. Again, she couldn’t hear what they said, this time because the engines were getting louder and closer. Dell dropped to the ground, lay down flat, and tried scooting under the front end of the car as much as she could, but the flattened rear tires only let her wedge herself in halfway. Was it enough?
Jian’s father would be as proud of his first combat kill as he had been of the antique books which now graced the ambassador’s dining room. Often he had talked about how his own grandfather had marched with Mao to defeat the Nationalist running dog lackeys of capitalism whose descendants had now been welcomed with open arms back into the nation with the occupation of Formosa. Now the family would renew its hard-won military honor once again, in this new war on a new continent to be conquered.
Granted, it looked to just be one or two civilians running from car to car in front of them, but he would show them what happened when trespassers in a forbidden zone didn’t get out his way fast enough. He used the throat mike to order a man out of each Humvee out on their feet to flank the interlopers on the sidewalks, since the half-clogged road made a dangerous bottleneck ahead. Then, he told his driver to go faster, before they could escape.
The dismounted soldiers ran up the sidewalk alongside the lead Humvee, crouched over and sweeping their rifles from side to side in an overlapping arc while the machine gun traversed its own deadly oscillation. On the other side of the street a blast rang out. Jian thought it was an improvised explosive device, a roadside bomb, in the instant before the soldier on that side crumpled and disappeared. No, it had been a shot! These outlaws were armed, against the strict laws of the occupational government. The punishment for private firearm ownership was death by execution. Added to that, they had just defied the People’s Army to his face. Rage boiled up inside him. His father would be dishonored by this. He must take vengeance and capture or kill this bandit! Jian screamed for the machine guns to open fire, but they already just had. Bullets from the lead Humvee tore through the parked car, then the one in front of it, at waist level. He hoped the assassin had not ducked in time.
From the other side of the street a series of shots rang out, these rattling against the APC’s front snout ineffectually. They were taking fire from both sides, now, and someone was aiming at him, this time. As the lead vehicle sped up to get out of the crossfire, a flaming jug fell down from the second story window it was passing under, landing with a thunking splash which whooshed into a yellow fireball, enveloping the two men in the back. Jian threw up his arm to shield his face from the glare, and missed the sight of the flaming soldiers throwing themselves out of the Humvee to roll on the ground in screaming agony. The vehicle sped up faster, the panicked driver trying to outrun the fire which burned its way through the back of his seat with a hunger. He crashed into the building at the end of the block and didn’t get out as the utility vehicle was consumed in smoke.
Jian ordered his driver to stop, causing the Humvee behind them to smack into their rear end as that driver and his crew were distracted by the shooters, who had opened up from both sides on the two remaining vehicles. Their machine gun couldn’t get an angle clear of the APC to open fire in return.
Dell had heard more than seen the action, up until the point when the huge Molotov did its work. She peeked under the drooping chassis in time to see running feet coming up the sidewalk in her direction, then stop as the remaining flanker took cover behind the same vehicle she had chosen. She cursed her luck silently. He knelt just inches away, around the corner of the old Chevy. Quietly she drew her knife, knowing she didn’t have room to swing the machete, and it was no good for stabbing.
In all of her looting, Dell had seen many dead bodies. Most of them had been shot, a few had been burned, but none of them were very fresh. In most cases, they had dried out and stopped smelling. She hadn’t actually killed anyone, herself. It might be time to learn.
Engines raced, more shots rang out, and suddenly his face was right in hers, surprising both of them. The soldier was young, with a cluster of pimples around his lips, and a hint of dark fuzz almost hiding them. He’d hit the ground to lower his profile, and there she was. He gasped in shock. She closed her eyes and slashed out, extending her arm in a sharp jab between her body and the front fender. He squealed and said something that was probably a bad word, so she jabbed again. The soldier had had enough. He jumped up just in time to expose himself to the next searching shot from the ambushers, and fell forward into the car to slide back down onto the ground again. Dell opened her eyes and saw his own almond shaped ones looking back as his mouth worked soundlessly. Or, if he was saying anything out loud, she couldn’t hear it above the gunshots which continued to blast into where he had stood a moment before, and she couldn’t have understood him, anyway. She counted the two small wounds in his neck that her knife had made, and the much larger one in the top of his head, from which blood pumped in a rhythm that seemed mechanical. He was just a teenager, and had been brought halfway around the world to die in an empty street of an abandoned ghetto. For what? Maybe that was what he was trying to ask, before the lights faded and his yellow cheeks went gray. Dell’s gaze shifted away from the soldiers’ blank eyes to his side, where he had dropped his rifle.
Jian didn’t see the second flanker die, he had dropped down into the hatch just for a moment, he told himself, to speak more directly with the driver and navigator. This was what had happened in Portland, when the ambassador’s limousine had been hit by improvised incindiaries. The LGBTQP alliance had used human wave attacks as a distractions before a suicide bomber with a gas and oil filled jar and a lit rag had ran through the military police line. He had heard all about it from his father. He didn’t want to burn.
His driver was backing up, pushing the Humvee with them, and the navigator was screaming into the radio for backup. Closer to the naval base, they could have had air support there in a few minutes, but even that would be too late, if he didn’t do something now. Jian ordered his driver to change gears and go forward again, risking another firebomb to free up the machine gun behind them. Then he told the Humvee to go around them as soon as the street opened up af
ter the APC pulled forward and swerved to the right onto the curb to straddle the sidewalk. In twenty seconds they were clear. But then the ambushers were behind them, firing again into the backs of the machine gunners in the Humvee which had roared past. The driver slammed on the brakes and stopped, then slewed around in his seat to move the wounded men out of the way, trying to get to the mounted gun and return fire. One of them was laying against it, blocking him. In frustration he pulled his sidearm and shot back, wounding the flanker nearest to Dell, who was leaning across the hood of the Lumina taking aim with a rifle. She squeezed off a series of shots, quickly, missing the driver but causing him to close his door and put the vehicle back into gear as one of the wounded machine gunners pulled the other one over to get to the handles.
The flanker who had been hit lay in the street, holding his stomach and kicking the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum. It looked bad. His buddy upstairs had ran back down and took in the scene with a glance before running to help him. The other civilian across the street provided covering fire just in case, but noone was shooting back. The two remaining vehicles took off down the street and turned the corner without slowing, the Humvee following close behind the APC.
Jian rehearsed his report to himself in his mind several times, getting every detail exact before commanding both drivers to pull over. First, he had to see to his men. The three of them in the APC were uninjured, but both of the machine gunners in the back of the Humvee were hurt badly. One was worse than the other, with a bullet in his lungs. There was no going back for the bodies of the five men they had lost, they’d have to be recovered later, but at least he wasn’t leaving any wounded behind.
His father would be honored, and the family status upheld. The Party would publicize it as a victory, with himself as a hero of the people. Probably he could avoid being sent south to fight the Mexicans. He might even be given a medal. The ambassador would really be proud of his son, then.
He ordered the driver to help him carry both men to the back of the personnel carrier, and told his driver to open the rear hatch, laying both men as gently as possible inside while making sure to get their blood thoroughly over his own crisp green uniform. With both of them transferred, he assigned his navigator to provide first aid to them as best he could, then ordered them all back to base. He rode in the Humvee with its driver, for a more courageous effect. Jian had made sure they all had a clear memory of what had happened. A large group of armed rebels had ambushed them from both sides of the street as well as from above, probably fifty in all, using overwhelming numbers and firebombs. Only by using his wits and keeping his cool had Jian rallied a counterattack that drove off the attackers and saved the lives of the rest of his command. His men would go along with it because the story made them heroes, too, and guaranteed combat bonuses for them as well as state provided compensation to the families of the soldiers who had died. Yes, his father would be proud. It would look good on his record. And next time, he would know better than to pull a George Armstrong Custard.
Dell helped the two men hold their friend down while they tried to get the bullet out, but it was no use. He was losing too much blood, and they needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. A clean-up platoon would definitely be back before dark to search for the attackers. By then they had to be blocks away, holed up somewhere safe, not in the middle of a street with a screaming, bleeding man.
The firebomber, who went by Maximus, “call me Max”, introduced himself first, so she returned the favor. He was the one who had yelled at her from the window. The other rifleman, who he said was named Jim, was preoccupied with the gutshot man, whom they didn’t give a handle to. It was just as well, he wasn’t going to be around long enough to make small talk, anyway. Jim tried to give him some water, then told Dell to keep pressure on his abdomen where the blood seeped through. He and Max walked around gathering up weapons and ammunition from the dead soldiers, talking between themselves as they did. They ended up with three rifles and four pistols, from the two dead flankers and the two burned soldiers, one of which was still alive but unconscious, thankfully. Dell had the other rifle and there was no point in trying to salvage anything from the first Humvee, which was still burning. This time, she was able to hear most of what they were saying, despite the ringing in her ears.
“You think it’s going to blow?”
“Maybe. No point in checking it out, nothing to save.”
“Yeah…this one’s still alive, barely. This one’s done.”
“Get their extra ammo, and see if they have anything else worth taking.”
“Their uniforms are too small for us, otherwise…”
“Hahaha, I know, right?...”
“They’re both gone. You got him good.”
“Thanks. Nice one from up there, too, you saved our asses.”
“Yeah. Just wish. Man. He’s not gonna make it, is he?”
“Honestly, not without an ER and a surgeon and all kinds of shit we don’t have.”
“No.”
“No…”
“If we leave him here, he may last until they get back. They could torture him, make him tell where our hideouts are, it’d be back for him, that way.”
“We can’t carry him all the way. It’d slow us down too much, and for what?”
“I know….”
“And what about the crazy goth chick?”
“Crazy, out of nowhere.”
“Can I keep her, daddy?”
“Hahahah, I don’t know, son, she may grow up to be bigger than you think.”
“She would be my responsibility, pa, I know. Hahaha.”
“Seriously, can she keep up? And can we trust her?”
“I guess we’ll see…”
Jim gave Dell one of the pistols, along with an extra magazine for the rifle, which she paused in her compression for a second to take, then he went upstairs to get the rest of their stuff. Max knelt beside his wounded friend for a second, gripped his hand, and bent to whisper something in his ear. His friend nodded, vigorously, and clenched his teeth to be quiet. It seemed to take a supreme effort. He looked up at Dell and tossed his head to shoo her away, then looked up at Max and grinned. Dell stood, straightening her back, and turned to get the pistol holster from the nearest dead Chinaman. Max shot his sitting friend in the forehead, almost dead center. He lay over like he was going to sleep, still smiling sarcastically. Dell knew it was coming, but still missed a step.
Max finished off the burned soldier with one in the back of the head, too, before following Dell’s example and taking all the holsters and web gear that were salvageable. They had more guns than they could carry, now, with the two pistols and the shotgun they had already had, but when Jim threw the three refilled backpacks out the broken window to Max and came back down the two of them decided that they each would keep a rifle, and the shotgun, and all of the pistols. Max carried both the shotgun and a rifle, Jim carried a rifle, they both carried two pistols, and they let Dell keep one pistol and a rifle. The other rifle they hid with a magazine in a house two blocks away, for future reference.
The guys had given Dell their friend’s backpack as well as her own to wear, so she was loaded down, but her status still wasn’t clear as they headed east towards the lakeshore. She kept casting sideways glances at Jim, figuring him for the easier mark to win over, but it was Max who made the decision.
“Looks like we got an opening now”, he grunted, at the edge of being out of breath as they made time while the sun was up.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. We can get to know you and work out the details once we’re clear of here by a ways further than they’ll search, but for now, just know that if you steal from us or lie to us, I’ll kill you. Just like I did back there.”
“Me, too,” she answered. Without stopping Max turned to look at her. She smiled her sweetest psycho bitch smile, and he chuckled. Jim grunted. He was already pouting. There was always drama, Dell thought. Always drama.
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br /> Chapter Five
There was trash everywhere. Civilization had puked up its guts in the trees, on the grass, and in heaps and piles along the road. Soggy paper. Plastic bags. Brightly colored bits and dull grey sludge. All of it had been picked over again and again until there was nothing worth scavenging. Not close to town, and not near the road.
The cold rain never seemed to stop for days. At least it broke up the fog and if it wasn’t safe to drink, well, they should have all been dead by now. Plenty to drink. Never enough to eat. All the animals had pulled back deep in the woods, losing their trust of man. He couldn’t blame them.
Walking alongside the clearing off the shoulder of the road made it easy to hide in the woods when he heard an engine. Even a horse clopped and snorted louder than the rain. Bad part was, all of the houses within sight of the road had been looted to the walls many times. Low-hanging fruit.
So it seemed smart to pull back from the roads like the animals had. There wasn’t even any road kill to scavenge. Not that he had gotten that hungry. Well, he might would have, but there wasn’t enough traffic to make any. He’d skulk around in the woods, avoiding people. And there were plenty of people, whether the world had come to an end or not. Hungry, desperate people with nobody telling them to be nice. Most of the ones who didn’t need to be made to act nice by the law, well, they had been the first to die. Now there wasn’t any law, not away from the towns that still had some. Not as much trash, either. He didn’t miss the law or the trash.
There had been a time when the scariest thing to dread was semester exams and driving tests. Nobody would ever get that sick feeling in their stomach when they saw blue lights in their rear view mirror again. Surely a sign of the failure of civilization, even before the war, had been seat belt laws. Most uncomfortable things ever invented.
They forced you, for your own safety, to wear a seat belt. If you refused to be safe they would pull you over, and give you a fine. If you didn’t pay the fine they’d come after you to arrest you. If you didn’t want to be arrested they’d kill you, to keep you safe. Future generations who grew up after traffic laws would never believe it could have ever been true. If there were any.
