by Connor Mccoy
Time to stir them up a bit.
“Ready the flambés!” Jacob shouted.
Simon and Roderick lit their Molotov cocktails, then loaded them into special springs. They opened the cover on their windows just enough to launch them out into the front yard.
Jacob watched one of the cocktails hit one of the men right in the face. He went down in a mess of screams and flames. Another of the gunmen was hit with stray flame and dove toward the ground to put it out.
We want them agitated, Trang said. Fight them with all we got, and then we pull back.
The second Molotov cocktail exploded near the edge of the front porch, spraying three men with flames. Jacob easily could hear the cries of “Hit the front door! Hit the door and let’s get them!” Most of the force was aiming for the front door.
“Alright, Simon, Roderick, you’ve done enough!” Jacob shouted amid the continuing gunfire from outside. “To the den, now!”
Jacob fled from the window, leaving the now empty rifle behind. He had no more magazines, so it was worthless to him. Instead, he ran to the kitchen’s air vent, which laid open. He had placed the match there so he would be ready to light it when needed.
A fuse hung out of the duct. Jacob did what he had rehearsed in his mind several times and used the match to light the fuse on fire.
Now there’s no turning back, he thought.
“Doms, to the den!” Jacob cried.
Domino emerged in the hall. “Got the living room lit,” she said breathlessly.
Jacob joined her. “Trang!” he cried as they sped past the open attic pull-down stairway, “The den, now!”
Cramer’s men sprayed the door with gunfire, emptying their bullets into it as if their lives depended on it. They hadn’t even noticed that the gunfire from the farmhouse had ceased.
Finally, they had weakened the barricaded door enough to kick it open. “Yeah!” one of the men cried. “Let’s fry them! Make them pay!”
Cramer’s forces poured into the living room, firing their guns with abandon. Whoever was in there would not live to see another day. However, the invading force barged in unchallenged. It dawned on them that they should be encountering resistance, unless they had taken out the home’s defenders already.
They rampaged through the kitchen, in the process opening the kitchen door so more men could enter. A quick search revealed nothing from the kitchen, dining room, living room, or the first two bedrooms in the hall.
However, one of the men found the den door locked and barricaded. “Hey!” he shouted, “Get your butts over here! I can’t open this thing!”
Domino walked toward the closet. “Okay, Simon and Roderick are out.” Trang was there but hanging out of an opening in the ceiling. “Trang?” Domino turned her head upward.
“I’ll light the last of the fuses and catch up with you,” he said as he vanished into the attic.
Jacob gently pushed on Domino. “Time to go. They’ll be coming in here soon.”
“You’re going to be right behind me, right?” she asked.
Jacob nodded. “Don’t worry.”
Domino turned back to the closet. Meanwhile, the angry shouts from the other side of the den door grabbed Jacob’s attention. The door shook but held firm as it was pounded from the other side.
“Step back!” Jacob heard someone shout. “Let’s blow it open!”
Cramer’s men, frustrated at being held up, aimed their weapons at the door around the knob and the middle section and opened fire. Their bullets tore through the door, ripping the knob loose, and finally the door just gave way and swung open.
The men let loose with more gunfire before they ran into the den. No one from inside returned fire. They kicked over chairs, the sofa, anything that might reveal a gunman.
“Where the hell is he?” asked one of them. Nobody was present. If they had killed him and, judging from how many bullets they had pumped into this room, they darn well should have nailed him by now, then they ought to have found his corpse.
Finally, they checked the closet. It was an obvious place for him to hide. Two men flung the door open.
Except for some boxes, it was empty.
Underneath the house, Jacob scampered as fast as he could without making too much noise. If Cramer’s men discovered him crawling underneath his own house, he would be a dead man.
He almost laughed. He wondered how the men above would react when they couldn’t find him. They didn’t know about the secret door that Jacob had installed under the closet floor. He and Domino had used that same door to sneak into his own home when Terri Boss and Guy Wickers briefly had taken over. Domino already had used this secret passage to get out. Now he had to catch up with her.
He couldn’t linger. If Trang’s plan worked, Jacob couldn’t afford to be anywhere near his house. Even if he risked discovery, he had to move more quickly.
Soon he reached the side of his house. He heard commotion but saw no feet and legs rush past. Jacob hoped no one was in the immediate area. He inched out to the edge of his home as close as he dared. Then, he peered out to look.
There was indeed a crowd of armed men, but they were gathering near the front yard, their backs turned to him. Jacob had his chance. He slipped out from under the house. He took off toward the fields. The crops were nearby. Hopefully, they would provide some cover.
Then he noticed Trang was nowhere to be seen. Did he escape? With his limping, Jacob ought to have closed in on him by now.
Or did he ever plan on coming out with me?
Trang smiled. He wondered if Jacob had any inkling that he would not be joining him.
He had stashed the end of the last fuse up here. The fuse, like many of the others, ran down the HVAC line. He lit the match, then applied its flame to the fuse. The flame crackled down the fuse and soon disappeared into the duct, kicking up a trail of smoke.
Trang felt the floor rattle with the impacts of multiple footsteps. Good. They were coming up here. He hoped he would see their faces.
I hope you don’t feel too bad, Jacob, Trang thought. He knew his leg had not fully healed. He surely would be a burden to Jacob, slowing him up when Jacob needed to stay one step ahead of Cramer’s men. Besides, Trang had suspected this would be his fate. He had prepared himself for it. But this time, his end would not be one of despair. He had held his ground long enough to draw in Cramer’s forces for this special moment.
Five bearded men swarmed around him, guns drawn. Trang held his own firearm on them but said nothing. Cramer’s men looked at each other. Trang almost laughed. Their looks were so confused.
“Hey,” said a man in a flannel shirt with a long black beard. “Avery. He’s the guy who runs this farm. Where is he?”
“You mean you haven’t found him?” Trang asked in mock surprise.
“He was shooting at us and now we can’t find him. Where’s he hiding? Where’s the rest of his family? Are they hiding in the forest?” the man asked.
Another man, this one with a much shorter beard, coughed. “What is that smell? It’s like something’s burning in here.”
Another two men stormed up the stairs. “Hey! Something’s wrong! I smell gas in the kitchen!” one of them barked.
It should be any second now, Trang thought. The trap was set. Trang was right about Cramer. He’s probably downstairs. I hope so. Even if he isn’t, if he’s still outside, if he manages to escape, he’ll be at a greater disadvantage.
“Well, Hien, I suspect we are about to meet, at least I hope,” he said quietly.
One of the men stormed up to him. “Hey! What are you mumbling about—”
A loud bang cut him off. The floor burst, engulfing all of the men in a rapid fireball.
Trang, from his position, was privileged to witness a few seconds of the explosion before the blast consumed him just as quickly.
Neither Cramer nor any of his men had been aware of what Jacob and Trang had cooked up. As the men stormed through the house, ransacking it to find Jacob
or any of his company, the fuses Jacob, Domino and Trang had lit had been traveling down to the caches of gasoline Jacob and his allies had installed under the floor of the homestead. The sudden absence of gunmen in the house lured Cramer’s forces into a false sense of security. They did not believe the house posed any further danger.
Except they did not know that the house itself would be their assailant.
Trang had planned the explosions well. The den went first. About seven armed men were inside it when the gas tank went off. The explosion tore through them instantly. The explosive caches in the kitchen oven, the water heater and in the ducts tore apart the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen.
About twenty men there all perished.
The other rounds of gasoline blew through the halls, the bedrooms and the bathrooms. Trang had worked frantically to rig up the attic before morning. He made sure to lure as many of Cramer’s men up there as he could. Between the attic, the halls and the other rooms, about fifteen more of Cramer’s men were incinerated.
Finally, Trang had made sure to rig up enough combustible material that the explosion would fan out from the house to catch any of Cramer’s men who were close to it. His plan proved prescient. The explosion not only sent fire radiating outward, but blasted flaming debris in multiple directions. The fire engulfed several men. Others were struck and killed by the wash of fiery wreckage. Some of the men even were flung off their feet and into Avery’s fence, with one even striking the trunk of a nearby tree.
Some of Cramer’s men were not instantly killed. A few were far enough away to catch the fire but not succumb. Instead they ran in a panic, with some smart enough to drop and roll while others did not know what to do and eventually were overcome by the flames. Other men were hit by debris but not killed. Wooden shards impaled their legs or arms. They crawled around on the ground screaming for aid, but no one was looking to help, and the smoke-filled air eventually choked their lungs and put an end to them.
In all, over half of Cramer’s forces died from the explosion.
Chapter Eighteen
The bang sounded in Jacob’s ears as he charged through the crops. He did not witness the explosion. With the high corn stalks around him, turning to look would be hard in any case.
Trang had said that Cramer’s greed would be his downfall. Had Cramer decided to raid the survivors, it would have gone much worse for Jacob, his family, and everyone else in their company. They would have been trapped fighting a guerilla war in and around the trees against a well-armed, numerous and savage force. The starving survivors would not have stood a chance.
But Cramer wanted the farm first. And so Cramer would strike there before going into the forest. Trang knew they could make that work to their advantage. They would turn the Avery farm into a deathtrap.
What Trang didn’t say was that he would stay behind and die with the Avery house.
Judging from the sound of the explosion and the sudden draft of hot air, Trang’s plan was a success. Miraculously, they had enough gasoline to make it happen. Jacob still had gas supplies culled from stalled vehicles on the roads when he and his family were journeying back from Doc Sam’s. With some instruction from Trang, they converted the house into a giant bomb, using a fuse system that fed into strategically placed gas tanks throughout the house. Help from the Skylar survivors in placing the tanks and setting up the fuses made it all possible to do in a single night.
Jacob vowed not to let Cramer conquer his home. Jacob had kept that vow. Cramer would not have it, nor would anyone else.
Now he had to rendezvous with Domino. The explosion, hopefully, had taken out Cramer. Even so, the plan was to make tracks once the big bang was set off. The explosion likely had taken out a lot of Cramer’s forces, so now the odds were more even. With the guns Jacob had supplied the survivors, they stood a chance of fighting off the rest of Cramer’s men as they headed for Fall Crossing.
However, a bang followed by a sudden burst of pain in his leg felled him. He crashed into a row of lettuce. Someone had shot him!
Cursing loudly, Jacob fought the urge to cradle his wounded leg as he tried crawling for cover. Unfortunately, his shooter rapidly was marching into view.
“Mister Avery,” spoke Alex. “Looks like I was right. You did have an escape plan after all. It paid to avoid your house and wait out there.”
“Alex!” Jacob swung and shot at him, but his aim was so bad he didn’t get anywhere close. By contrast, Alex’s next shot nearly grazed Jacob’s shoulder. If it wasn’t for the crops around him, Alex might have aimed better.
By now Alex had made it between the row of corn stalks and carrots. Jacob jumped to his feet, but the burst of pain in his leg nearly made him fall down again. He fired in Alex’s direction twice, hoping to keep him off balance.
“Are you angry, Jacob? Angry that I’m beating you at your own game?” Alex shouted as he fired back, his bullet lodging in a corn cob near Jacob’s face. Jacob tried to run, but only could hobble. “What do you think, Jacob? The man who tried to civilize you is now one of you, a barbarian!”
Jacob panted. The pain of the wound was putting pressure on his lungs. “Damn you, Alex, are you this far gone?”
“I realized, Jacob, we’re all far gone. I don’t have anything left but my own strength. That’s the way life works. No police, no army, no one to help you. It’s just one gun barrel against another.”
Alex emerged into Jacob’s row. Jacob’s heart raced. Now Alex was right behind him! Jacob tried picking up the pace, but his leg pain would not cooperate.
Before Alex could squeeze the trigger again, another shot rang out. Alex suddenly dove for the ground.
“Jay!” Domino cried from ahead. She was running towards him, aiming her gun past him. She shot again. Alex rolled to the right, out of her immediate range. “Are you okay?”
“He nailed me in the leg. Hurts like hell.” Jacob caught up to her. Only now did he spare a moment to look at his leg. To his relief, he only had been trailing drops of blood. The wound was not a gusher.
Domino took him by the arm. “Trang?”
Jacob shook his head. “He stayed behind. The others?”
“They made it. We have to get to the forest.”
But before the pair could turn to flee the fields, a flaming bottle zipped over their heads. It exploded nearby, setting a row of lettuce ablaze. The fire quickly spread. Jacob could smell gasoline from it.
Another fire broke out from just ahead, cutting off their path of escape. Coughing, Domino and Jacob hurried to the next crop row, with Domino aiming her gun ahead of them.
“Are you two impressed?” Alex crowed from nearby, though he remained unseen. “I know the ways of this world. I’m not letting you two escape!”
From her place in the forest, Sheryl could not take her eyes off the stack of smoke that rose from the distance. She knew what it meant, and she hoped her brother and her sister-in-law had made good their escape before the blast went off.
Jubilee and Brandon were a few steps ahead of her, approaching Krysta and the boys. Courtney and Arnie flanked Sheryl. Arnie was confused about the explosion. “What was that?” he asked.
Sheryl looked at him, envying the man’s innocence. They had not filled in Arnie on the specifics of their plan, fearing they might upset him if he knew they were going to blow up their house. But they did inform him that they had to leave for a new home. The news seemed to excite him at first, but now he appeared confused at being ushered out here.
“We got rid of a lot of bad guys,” Sheryl said with a pained smile. “And now Mr. Jacob and Mrs. Domino are going to join us so we can move on to our new home.”
Arnie didn’t look totally convinced. He glanced down at Courtney. The teenager just took his hand and looked at him sadly.
Sheryl led the bunch toward Brandon and Jubilee. The two of them were carrying their backpacks plus some light handbags. The rest of their possessions were in the hands of some of the men, the ones strong
enough to handle big loads. The two children fidgeted. The destruction of their home was having an emotional impact on them, though Sheryl was sure they were more worried about their parents.
“I guess…we wait here,” Brandon said, almost sounding like a question. He already had been told they would hold their position or at most just retreat a little farther into the forest unless Cramer’s men ambushed them.
“It won’t be long,” Sheryl said, trying to put on a confident façade.
Rapid footfalls turned their heads back toward the edge of the forest, toward the Avery land. “Maybe that’s them right now,” Sheryl said.
But it wasn’t. Instead it was Roderick. The man stopped and rubbed a bloody lip. “Greg,” he said through his rapid breathing. “He jumped me, got my gun. He ran back to the farm.”
“Oh hell.” Sheryl gritted her teeth. “Damn him. I guess we couldn’t trust him after all.”
“Wait.” Courtney shot a glance at Krysta and her boys, who seemed puzzled by what was going on. “Greg wants to take Krysta and Jamie and Ford away, doesn’t he? Why is he going back out there?”
Krysta looked around. “Hey, does anyone know where Josephine is?”
Sheryl realized she had not seen her around either. Did she slip away while she was leading the kids out into the forest?
Domino shot into the smoky air once again. Her gun clicked with the sound of an empty chamber when she pulled the trigger again. “I’m out! My back pocket! Dig another magazine out!”
Jacob complied. The number of gunshots around them was intensifying. Alex must be closing in on them. They still had not made it to the end of the crop rows, and the increasing smoke in the air was causing their chests to burn. But as Jacob fished out the magazine, a thought occurred to him.
“That might not be Alex.” Jacob pushed the magazine into Domino’s hand. “The survivors of Cramer’s men.” He stopped to cough. “They must be closing in.”
