by Bobby Adair
He was shaking his head.
I looked over at the house’s dark windows. “Unless there’s some kind of super sniper in there, he’s not going to be able to hit me, as fast as I’ll be running across the lawn. Once I’m inside, I’m home free.”
Murphy’s brow furrowed as he looked at the house and back at the Humvee. “Any decent shot will get you before you get halfway across.”
I huffed and looked back and forth across the lawn. “I’ll be halfway there before anyone even sees me.”
“Maybe.” Murphy scooted further back into the trees. “You wanna take that chance?”
Yes. Some days I felt invincible, though I had to constantly remind myself that my delusions of invincibility were driven primarily by anger and stupidity. Reluctantly, I asked, “What do you think?”
“No point in chancing it. If we wait ‘til dark, we just hike across, get in and drive off. No danger. No risk.”
I looked longingly at the Humvees, knowing Murphy was right.
He said, “Let’s fade back in the woods a bit, walk around the perimeter, and see what we can see. We’ll gather up as many Claymores as we can. I’m thinkin’, in our future, shit that blows up will always be useful. At dusk, that’ll be the hardest time to be seen running across the lawn. Depending on what we learn when we’re checking this place out, that’s when we’ll steal our Humvee back.”
Chapter 35
We started on a zigzag path through the trees, going up near the fence where we could see the house, then back downhill and away. With much of the day to burn, we had plenty of time for our Claymore Easter egg hunt, and we found them with ease. The tripwires had been strung with some silvery wire that was pretty easy to see over the brown and green background, at least when you knew to look for it.
After I’d put a fourth Claymore into my pillowcase, we rounded a curve on the hill and found ourselves in a haze of smoke. Murphy stopped and sniffed the air, looking in the direction of the house. “Damn, that smells good.”
I said, “I can’t believe those fuckers are up there having a barbecue.”
“We might have to steal some of that, if we can.” Murphy hiked up the hill, following the smoke back toward the house.
I followed as the smoke drifted through the tree branches overhead.
Murphy looked back at me and whispered, “I’m surprised they’re not drawing in every White in the neighborhood with that smell.”
“What are they cooking?” I asked.
“What?” Murphy sniffed the air.
“They can’t run down to the H-E-B to buy a brisket,” I said. “So what do you think? A deer? A dog? Maybe a wild pig?”
Murphy shrugged. “There are plenty of wild pigs in the woods in east Texas.”
“That’s wishful thinking. If anything, it’s deer, I’ll bet.” I took a look around us in the woods. Always checking for anything that might be sneaking up. “I’ve never seen a wild pig around here.”
Murphy licked his lips. “I don’t care if it’s a deer, or a dog, or a cat.” He started forward again.
The hill grew steeper the closer we got to the fence, and by the time we were at a level to see across the backyard, we were mostly invisible from the house, hidden by the slope. The backyard was only half as big as the front and was mostly covered by an expansive patio. On the near side of the patio, behind several cords of neatly stacked oak wood, I spotted the source of the smoke: a long barbecue smoker, chugging white clouds into the air. The tops of two heads were visible just on the other side of the smoker.
I nudged Murphy and pointed. He’d been looking across the pool to the other side of the yard and was frowning when he looked up. He said, “I see ‘em. C’mon.” Murphy took off, moving quickly across the slope, staying far enough down so that he couldn’t be seen from the backyard.
I hurried after, curious what had spurred him to hustle.
We dodged prickly pears that were scattered between the cedars and stayed away from loose, gravelly spots in which we might noisily slip, bringing unwanted attention from the people who stole our Humvee.
Eventually, Murphy came to a stop and crouched down as he started back up the slope on his hands and knees. I did the same and we worked our way up until we were able to once again see the backyard. I looked across the width of a swimming pool, across the patio, and saw the smoker, still spewing pungently delicious white smoke that drifted lazily with the wind in the other direction. The two people who’d been tending the smoker were now absent. Back in the house, or so I guessed.
Murphy nudged me and pointed to our left.
Along the fence at the back corner of the yard stood a rectangular construct of chain link fence, sealed across the top with fencing material and partitioned into four equal parts, each with a closed gate. It was a kennel, but it didn’t hold dogs, it held Whites. Some were standing, a few were lying in the dirt, but most were squatting and looking despondently out at the yard or into the trees.
Murphy scooted back down the slope a few feet. I stayed where I was, sneaking peeks at what I could see. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Why imprison Whites?” I asked.
Murphy shrugged and pulled a face. “Doesn’t matter why, I guess. Every time we come across some of these Slow Burn knuckleheads, we see something new.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?” Murphy raised his hammer and looked around.
“No,” I said, “not that.”
“What?”
“I’ll bet they’re livestock,” I said, feeling disgust at voicing the thought.
“Livestock?” Murphy asked.
“I’ll bet I know what’s on that smoker.”
Shaking his head, Murphy said, “No, that’s disgusting.”
I looked back in the direction of the smoker. “They’ve got some kind of meat in that smoker.”
Murphy turned away and slowly scanned through the woods. “I find myself liking the world less and less every day.”
“I hear you.”
Murphy took a moment to think about the Whites in the kennels. “Barbecued Whites, I don’t give a shit. That doesn’t change anything for us.”
“Okay.”
Murphy pointed back up toward the house. “There’re at least two of them up there.”
“I wonder how they get them into the kennels,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Murphy said. “We probably need to steer clear of that kennel unless we want them making some noise when they see us. You never know what those fuckers will do.”
“Okay.”
“When you saw those two behind the barbecue pit, did you see any gun barrels sticking up or anything?”
“Nope,” I answered. “Just the tops of their heads.”
“Yeah, me too. So we don’t know anything about them yet, except maybe what they like to have for dinner.”
I asked, “So what are you thinking? Plan A? Go out front and wait ‘til dusk, then steal our Humvee back?”
“Or we get out of here.” Murphy rubbed a hand over his bald head. “We don’t know anything about how many are in there, what they’re up to, or what they’re capable of.”
“Is that what you want to do?” I was looking at the kennels when I asked the question, and I realized there was something odd about the occupants of one section. “Oh, shit.”
Murphy was immediately ready to fight again. “What do you see?”
I waved Murphy back up. “Come take a look at this.”
Murphy was beside me. “What?”
“Those Whites in the far section of the kennel.” I pointed.
Murphy squinted. “It’s hard to make ‘em out with the Whites in the other cages in the way.”
“Yeah.” I turned and sat down on a flat piece of limestone. “Keep looking and tell me what you see.”
“What am I supposed to see?” Murphy asked. After a moment, he said, “Wait.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. I don’t think those ones are
Whites.”
I got up off my comfortable flat piece of stone, and together Murphy and I worked our way around the curve of the fence to a place that would give us an unobstructed view of the end of the kennel in question. It was only twenty or thirty feet away from us when we peeked up over the sloping edge of the backyard.
Shaking his head, Murphy lowered himself back out of sight. He took a deep, frustrated breath.
I knelt down beside him. “Looks like half a dozen naked girls with normal skin color.”
“Of course,” Murphy said, disgusted. “If you’re gonna have a rape kennel, you gotta have ‘em naked.” He pounded his hammer into the dirt a few times.
“A rape kennel?” I asked. “You think that’s what it is?”
Shaking his head again, Murphy said, “I don’t know. Does it matter? They’re people—normal people, girls—in that cage. This place is just as fucked as that tattoo parlor. Maybe more fucked.”
I was as disgusted as Murphy. “You know what I’m thinking.”
“Null Spot?”
I nodded. There was no point in pretending that I wasn’t.
“Me, too,” Murphy offered. “I want to smash somebody’s head with my hammer right now.”
I hefted my machete and agreed.
Chapter 36
We continued to work our way around the fence, keeping hidden in the trees and just down the slope until we came across a section of the property that was covered with oaks and barely visible from the house.
Murphy looked at me and said, “This is the place. You sure you wanna do this?”
“Stupid question, Murphy.” I scrambled quickly up the hill, made short work of climbing the fence, and took up a position behind a thick oak tree while I waited for Murphy to catch up. I peeked around the trunk and saw a window on the side of the house. It was open; the sun glaring on the screen made it impossible to tell what was inside.
Murphy came to a stop beside me, panting. “I slipped off the fence and fell on my ass.”
“You all right?”
“I’m good. You see anything yet?”
“Nope.”
Murphy nodded his head toward the house. “Lead the way, Null Spot.”
I sprinted to another thick tree trunk a few dozen feet ahead, came to a stop, and knelt. I looked past it at the window. Still only darkness within the house. A second open window revealed the same. I waved Murphy to come up beside me. The house was maybe another fifty or sixty feet away. Most of the covering oaks were behind us, between the fence and us.
I pointed at a series of three air conditioning units sitting on the ground, attached to the house by copper umbilical tubes and wires. Knowing it was just as dangerous crossing open ground on this side of the house as it was in front did nothing to quell my angry, fuck-it attitude. I took off at a crouching sprint, trying to keep the bulk of my body below the line of sight of anyone sitting inside one of those dark windows and casually gazing out.
Without incident, I came to a stop against the house’s stone wall, between two of the air conditioner units. I pressed myself against the limestone and looked back at Murphy. If someone inside either window noticed me, Murphy would see a reaction before I would. He looked from window to window a couple of times before giving me a thumbs up. I motioned with an upturned palm for him to stay put as I raised my head up from my hiding spot and looked up and down the length of the wall. I listened, but heard nothing. I pointed at the window to my left and Murphy gave me a nod.
Off I went, creeping along the wall, careful and slow as I stepped through dry mulch, avoiding sprigs of crisp brown flowers and crackly brown leaves fallen off the shrubs. Once I was below the window, I came to a stop and listened.
I heard breathing.
Someone was breathing, heavily and slowly.
The faint sound of a big man sleeping is what I heard. Looking first left, then right, and seeing no dangers, I chanced a peek in the window, quick up and then back down.
A big man with pale white skin—skin just like mine—was asleep on the bed, on his belly, head turned facing the other wall. But at the foot of the bed—
I took another peek in the window, longer than before.
Coming back down, I was shaking my head. At the foot of the bed a girl sat on the floor, legs curled up against her chest, head between her knees, wrist cuffed to the bedpost. Her skin color assured me she was normal.
That made three bad guys, at least. Two were up barbecuing. One was sleeping late or taking a nap after his morning rape session. The world had truly turned into a fucked up place.
When I looked back across the lawn, I saw Murphy looking at me with wide curious eyes. I held up one finger and then pointed to the window. I closed my eyes and put my hands together, then leaned my head over to indicate sleep. Murphy nodded and set his face in a hard frown. He was apparently thinking what I was thinking. That screen was a thin defense for the sleeping man.
Thinking the house’s occupants were sloppy in their security, I took off moving quickly to the next window, again taking care to avoid any dead garden plants that might give away my presence with an audible crunch. I stopped below the window, just as I’d stopped by the first one. I listened, heard nothing, and got sloppy myself.
Expecting nothing but an empty room or a sleeping man, I leaned over to gaze through the screen and found myself face to face with a surprised man on the other side of the screen, trying to get a look outside.
Startled, I jumped sideways and pushed myself against the wall.
“Hey,” the guy inside the window shouted. “Hey.” The screen bulged out on a feeble push but didn’t give.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Not being a fan of indecision, I put my balls on the table and made my bet, sprinting away from the window and arcing out from the wall, hoping that Murphy would figure out what I was up to in time to lend a hand.
The voice from the man in the room shouted back into the house. “We got infected in the compound!”
I made a hard turn left and angled toward the first window. Committed to my latest date with impulsive stupidity, I planted a foot and sprang at the opening, leading with a shoulder, and flew right through the screen. With a rattle of the screen’s metal frame, I hit the floor on the other side.
Rolling over to my feet and onto my knees I found myself facing a wide-eyed girl, still cuffed to the bedpost. I jumped up and hauled my machete back over my shoulder for a swing. I stepped forward as the big white-skinned man on the bed was just sitting up. The last thing his bleary eyes saw was the backhand swing of my machete splitting his skull horizontally across the cheekbones. Blood sprayed across the wall and spewed onto the sheets.
The girl gulped, but didn’t scream.
A commotion from the room next door accompanied the metallic sound of the screen being pushed out.
A man’s voice hollered, “Billy, he’s trying to get in your window.”
I looked at the slumping body on the bed. Billy was too busy dying to listen to his buddy next door.
“Jake! Keith!” The shout was followed by two dull cracks: sound suppressed rifle shots. I don’t know what made me madder at the moment, the fact that that hollering jackass was using my stolen rifle or that he was shooting at Murphy. Either way, I could still count, and I figured I had four—no, three—remaining adversaries, all armed with automatic weapons and all inside the house.
Bumping walls and scooting furniture from somewhere far across the expansive house told me I had some moments before I had more trouble than I could handle. For the moment, surprise was still on my side, but it was rapidly evaporating.
I ran into the hall and tore off at full speed toward another doorway. Caution was a commodity I couldn’t afford. I cut the corner into the room and immediately spotted the backside of the man I’d met just a few moments before. He was standing at the window, weapon at his shoulder, looking for a target.
I saw his shoulders flinch and his head started to turn as my machete c
ame down vertically into his neck, cutting down between his shoulder blades. He grunted under the impact and fell forward out the window as I yanked my blade free of the bone in which it had stuck.
Choosing to ride my frenzied wave of surprise, I ran out of the room, around a corner, and into a long wide hall that appeared to run the length of the house. I figured my best chance was to catch the last two before they figured out I was in the house. I accelerated to full speed.
Oops.
Two men half-stumbled and ran out of a side room and into the hall in front of me. Urgency changed instantly to fright as the guy in front saw me coming at him. I screamed my wildest White howl, realizing I’d never reach him before he managed to get his rifle up to put a few holes in my chest. In a desperate hope, I threw my machete and dove through a door on my left. Bullets sizzled the air in the hall. I tumbled over a chair, scrambled over crates and things I didn’t have time to identify, and dove through another window screen. Coming down on a cactus plant, I howled and rolled into the dead grass even as I scratched at the ground to pull myself away. A moment later, I was on my feet and dodging between cars as I crouched and ran.
Not realizing how fast I was moving, or quite how I’d gotten away from the house, I found myself next to my Humvee and I grinned. I put it between me and the house as I looked through the windows to find my pursuers. Indeed, a man was poking his head and a rifle barrel out the front door. I slipped inside the Humvee, safe for the moment. I looked around inside. All of the weapons, ammo, and camping supplies were gone. Only canisters of fifty-caliber ammunition remained. Standing up inside the Humvee, I opened the top hatch and slowly climbed up to position myself behind the heavy machine gun.
My pursuer at the front door was looking around cautiously at the trees, bushes, and cars. I was guessing he thought I was just another brain-fried crazy White, not smart enough to open the Humvee door. Too bad for him.
My fifty-caliber machine gun had a belt dangling from it. The guys in the house had apparently gone to the trouble to load it for me. I pulled the handle back on the right side, stood up straight, and swung the barrel around at the house’s front door.
