365 Days At War

by Nancy Isaak

  * * * *

  As we headed toward the ballroom door, I gave out a few final instructions to Pauly and Kieran. “I want you down at Pavilions to begin with, setting up the command post there. And make sure that you set up a message relay first thing. Your guys need to be close enough to each other to pass along any commands or send info on the Crazies back to you.”

  “What about ammunition?” asked Pauly. “We get into a firefight, we’re going to run out pretty quick.”

  “Jacob set up an Ammunition Team before he left. Three of our guys whose only job is to carry ammo. They’ll be responsible for keeping your guys supplied. But you also need to let your teams know that they still have to keep track of their ammo. Soon as they’re running low, the Ammunition Team has to be told, so they can restock. Don’t have them wait until they’re completely out.”

  “Do we really have enough ammo for that?” asked Kieran, worried.

  “We’ve got a lot,” I said. “How long it will actually last when the shooting starts…well, I guess we’re going to be finding that out.”

  My armed guards were waiting at the door; I motioned toward them. “You guys split up. Half with Pauly, the rest of you with Kieran. Take whatever horses are left, but leave Beauty for me. You guys are going to be officers for Pauly and Kieran. And I’m counting on you guys to also keep these two knuckleheads alive.”

  “I don’t like leaving you unguarded,” said Kieran.

  Neither did my guards from the frowns they were now giving me. Even Pauly looked a little unsettled. He turned to Florenza and whispered something in her ear.

  “Chief is right,” she grinned, pushing him away. “Total knucklehead!”

  “You should at least keep a couple of the guys,” insisted Kieran. “Even if you’re staying in the compound, it only makes sense to keep you safe.”

  “You and Pauly will need my guards more than me,” I said. “And besides—I will have a guard. I’ll have Florenza.”

  Kieran’s expression soured immediately. He glanced over at Florenza, who had puffed up with pride.

  “That’s right, pretty boy,” she smirked. “Me and chief taking care of each other now…it’s called girl power!”

  * * * *

  The moment Pauly and Kieran had left the compound, I ran to where I had tied up Beauty. Florenza ran beside me, certain that I was up to no good. “Oo…Kieran’s not going to like this, is he?” she chuckled.

  “Kieran’s not in charge,” I said, untying Beauty’s reins and climbing up onto her saddle. When I reached down for Florenza, she backed up, looking horrified.

  “You kidding, right?”

  “Florenza…you really think you can keep up on foot?”

  “This is stupid,” she grumbled. Even so, she reluctantly moved closer, until I snagged her hand in mine.

  “Put your foot in this stirrup,” I instructed her. “Then, I’ll pull you up and you swing your other leg over the horse.”

  “Dude’s gonna’ kick me.”

  “Beauty’s not going to kick you.”

  “If it does, I’m gonna’ hit you…chief or no chief,” she warned me.

  “Fine,” I sighed, impatient. “Now, put your dang foot in the stirrup!”

  Four tries later, Florenza was safely positioned behind me, her arms clamped around my waist. As we trotted along the outside wall of the compound, she began to giggle. “It like tickles my vajayjay!”

  “Congratulations,” I told her. “Now you know why girls like horses so much.”

  “Man, when this thing’s over,” she snickered, “I am so getting me a horse!”

  * * * *

  We rode Beauty straight down to the Nature Preserve and up onto the top of the knoll. There was a watcher already stationed there—binoculars to his eyes—scanning the ocean that lay over a thousand feet below. The kid had to be about fifteen, with dark hair that hung in a long braid down his back and a painted line above and below his eyes.

  “Is that Xavier and Nate out there?” I asked him, as I got off the horse and helped Florenza down. I could see two dark shapes floating on the water in the distance, rising and falling with the waves.

  The kid nodded. “So far they haven’t seen anything. No movement…either along the coast or on the water.”

  “Well, the Crazies are coming,” I warned him. “So, keep your eyes open yourself. You’ve got a weapon, right?”

  He pointed to a rifle that leaned up against a nearby bicycle; a trumpet dangled from the bike’s handlebars, swinging slightly in the wind.

  “Whatever you do, don’t take any chances,” I warned the guy. “You see Crazies coming from the ocean, you sound that trumpet, then you get the heck out of here. Head down to Pavilions and find Kieran or Pauly. They’ll tell you what to do next.”

  “What about Nate and Xav?”

  I looked out at the two brothers, their boards just now descending into the trough of a giant wave. They disappeared for a moment, then rose up on the following crest.

  “Nate and Xavier can take care of themselves.”

  * * * *

  There was a small cairn at the center of the knoll—a mound of cemented rocks with a plaque on top. I climbed up on it now, using its height to search the Point and coastline beyond.

  “You looking for something I should know about?” asked Florenza. She was standing at the base of the cairn, staring up at me with bemusement.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It’s just something.”

  “It’s just something-what?”

  Sighing, I jumped down from the cairn. “I don’t know. It’s just that I’m feeling like I’m missing something, you know—a pattern that I should be seeing. Like I wish Connor was here, because I know he would have already figured it out.”

  “Maybe there isn’t anything you missed.”

  “Oh, there is definitely something that I’ve missed. I can feel it in my bones. It’s why I came here to the Nature Preserve. It’s the highest place on Point Dume. Guess I was thinking that I would be able to see what I’m missing from here.”

  “But you don’t?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t even see Pavilions. The Point is just too darn big.” For a moment, I just stood there—feeling overwhelmed—then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a map. “The wind’s picking up. Help me find some rocks to hold this down.”

  We spread out the map across the top of the cairn, placing rocks at each corner. The map had been scavenged from a gas station near Pavilions; it showed all of Point Dume, as well as, most of the nearby coastline and the Santa Monica Mountains leading up into the Conejo Valley.

  “Okay,” I said, my finger tracing along the paper. “We’ve got guys stationed all along here, so the highway is covered. Now, we know that the Crazies are coming down through the canyons and down from Mugu because the bonfires have been lit.”

  The two of us looked up then, searching for red smoke. High up on Mugu Peak to the north, the bonfire still blazed. In Encinal Canyon, however, the fires had been put out.

  “You think it was the Crazies who capped those bonfires over on Encinal?” asked Florenza, chewing worriedly on one of her long nails.

  I nodded. “Probably. All the bonfires had enough fuel to last at least a day. If they’ve gone out, it’s a good bet that the Crazies put them out.”

  “Look…Heavens Beach is going out, too!”

  As we watched, the wisp of smoke in the distance that we knew to be the bonfire at Heavens Beach turned from red to black…and finally, to white.

  “Dammit!” I hissed. “I was hoping they wouldn’t have made it that far.”

  “The two at Trancas are still burning, though” said Florenza, trying to be hopeful. “That means the Crazies haven’t reached Zuma Beach, yet, right?”

  “Not yet…but they’re getting close.”

  * * * *

  Slowly, I folded up the map and placed it in my pocket.

  “Come on, Kaylee,” I muttered to myself. “You know
you’re missing something…so what the heck is it?!”

  “Are you doing everything that you think that Jacob would do?” asked Florenza.

  “I think so. Just before he left we talked about his plan, what he’d do if the Point got attacked.” I kicked at a small stone, sending it skittering across the ground. “I’m pretty sure that I’m doing everything he said that he’d do.”

  “That’s your problem, then.”

  I looked up at her, confused.

  Florenza sniffed. “You been looking at this like a guy, but you a chick, Kaylee. So, time to get complicated, girl. My momma…” Florenza crossed herself, looking momentarily toward the heavens. “She said men and women…they think different, you know. Like a woman, she walks through a room, she sees cobwebs in the corners gotta’ be dusted, stain on the couch gotta’ be cleaned, newspaper on the floor gotta’ be put in the recycling. But a man…he walks through the same room…it’s just to get to the other side.”

  She slapped the cairn of rocks with her hand, grinning at me. “Okay, chief…you done it like Jacob. Now, you do it like Kaylee…like a woman. You get back up on these rocks and you take a good look at this Point—because it’s your room. So, you walk through your room and you tell me out loud what’s gotta’ get done.”

  * * * *

  I was back on top of the cairn—this time facing the ocean.

  “Time to clean house, Kaylee,” Florenza said, softly. She was standing a few feet away, watching me expectantly. “Tell me what you’re seeing, mami.”

  For a moment, I closed my eyes. Then, I took a deep breath and opened them, taking in the deep blue of the Pacific, the two tiny shapes in the distance, rising and falling with the waves.

  “Nate and Xav,” I murmured. “…out in the ocean…they’re there in case the Crazies come up the coast in boats. They can also see the highway from where they are…parts of it, at least…so they’ll see the Crazies coming from the north when they hit Trancas, maybe even some of the way if they come from the south.”

  My eyes moved onto the sentry at the far end of the knoll. He was turned sideways, so he could watch me as much as he was watching the two brothers out in the ocean. “Sentry on the knoll,” I continued. “If Nate and Xav see anything, they blow their trumpet, he blows his…the compound is alerted.”

  I looked down at Florenza suddenly, as an idea came to me. “We need to have Sophia send some food and water here for the sentry. I want to make sure he has enough ammo, too—just in case.”

  “See, girl,” said Florenza, nodding happily. “Now you’re doing it Kaylee-way.”

  My eyes left the sentry and traveled to the right, following along the bluff. “We’ve got cliffs all the way to Heathercliff…one main road coming up…we’ve got guys all along it.” I turned inward, facing the mountains. “That’s where they’ll come, that’s the weak point…Raiders on the other side of the highway, watching…Kieran’s got the left flank of the Point, Pauly’s on right.”

  “Papi,” murmured Florenza.

  Careful not to slip off the cairn, I turned to the right—facing south, toward Santa Monica and Los Angeles. “If they leave the highway there, the Crazies can come overland…ravine will slow them down, but not stop them. Alpha teams are watching…even if they come, we’ll have enough warning to reposition our guys.”

  Shuffling my feet, so I wouldn’t slip, I completed the circle on the cairn, ending back at the ocean. “Cliffs to the beach…Nate and Xavier watching. Anyone coming along the sand, they’ll be able to see them.”

  And then I stopped…and I thought.

  “Ooo…you figuring something out, aren’t you?” asked Florenza, moving forward.

  Ignoring her question, I turned back—fifteen degrees—until I was once again facing the coastline to my left, the side of the highway that curved down and around to Santa Monica and, eventually, toward Los Angeles.

  Almost immediately, the hackles on the back of my neck rose up, and I felt a sudden stab of fear lance through me. “The pearl necklace!”

  * * * *

  “My dad showed me it one night,” I told Florenza. “He took me up on the roof and pointed out all the lights along Pacific Coast Highway; they made it look like a sparkling necklace all the way into Santa Monica. And that’s what we haven’t got covered, yet—the pearl necklace.”

  “But we have,” insisted Florenza. “We got guys watching the highway south of us, and Nate and Xavier will see anyone coming on the water.”

  “Except that the necklace is more than just the lights from the cars on the highway…it’s the lights from the houses, too.” I jumped down off of the cairn. “If the Crazies come along the beach—through the houses and the rocks—even Nate and Xavier wouldn’t be able to see them...come on!”

  I ran over to where Beauty was nibbling at some poppies and clambered onto her back. Taking up the reins, I leaned back slightly and held out my hand to Florenza.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, as I helped her onto the horse.

  “I want to check out the cliffs to the south. If they are coming along the necklace, there’s only one place that I can think of where they can get up the cliffs without Nate and Xavier seeing them.”

  “Shouldn’t we go back to the compound first,” said Florenza. “Let them know where we’re going?”

  “It’ll just take a couple of minutes to check and we’re already close by. Besides, I’d be surprised if there was anybody there. I just want to take a quick look and then we’ll head back to the compound and send a sentry back to keep watch.”

  * * * *

  “Crap!” I whispered, the moment I peeked over the cliff.

  Florenza and I were hidden behind a line of rocks, looking down at the shoreline, a thousand feet below. The tide was high and the water was right at the cliff’s edge, but there were enough large rocks scattered here and there that the Crazies could balance just above the waves.

  “There’s sixteen of them,” said Florenza, counting.

  “Look down there,” I said, pointing to a house farther down the coast. “The Crazies are coming out from that house—on the other side of the pool cabana. Then, they’re moving behind the rocks to here.”

  “You were right…no way Nate or Xav could see them from the ocean.”

  “See that?” I motioned toward a small game trail, leading up the cliffside, eventually coming out between two large rocks. “That’s where they’ll come up…right there.”

  “I don’t see anymore guys coming out from that house,” said Florenza. “You think that’s all there is?”

  Quickly, I counted the Crazies scampering over the rocks toward the Point. “Which will mean twenty-five altogether. And it looks like the ones below us are waiting for the rest of them to arrive before they come up the trail.”

  “We gotta’ tell someone!”

  “This has to be why we haven’t been attacked, yet. Why the other Crazies are taking their time, coming down the canyons and along the highway. They’re probably waiting until these ones are in place first. Very smart…the Crazies are flanking us, surrounding us.”

  Florenza pulled urgently on my sleeve. “We need to go, Kaylee!”

  I shrugged off her hand.

  “Take Beauty,” I ordered. “Ride back to the compound and tell them what’s happening. I want everyone with a gun here ASAP!”

  “You’re not coming?!”

  “Somebody needs to keep track of what they’re doing. Now, hurry up! We’ve got maybe ten minutes before those other Crazies reach this cliff. You need to get our guys back here before then.”

  “On it!” Florenza moved so fast that I don’t think it even registered with her how easily she leapt onto the back of the horse. If she had been scared of Beauty before—she certainly wasn’t anymore.

  * * * *

  I found a small depression between two rocks where I could look over the cliff and, hopefully, not be seen from anyone looking up from below. There was a large bush just in front of m
e that helped to camouflage my position. Slowly, I lowered myself down until I was lying on the ground, inching forward along the depression until only the top six inches of my head was peeking over the cliff.

  The first thing I noticed was how many weapons the Crazies were carrying. Each guy had at least one gun, but most had two—and all of them carried machetes or knifes.

  The worst thing, however, were the handcuffs swinging from their belts. It was disturbing, because I knew there could be only one reason why the Crazies were carrying them.

  Prisoners.

  * * * *

  A few of the Crazies were laughing quietly, enjoying a private joke.

  It seemed to irritate one of the taller guys. He leaned over from the rock he was hanging onto and hissed something. Immediately, the other guys became more serious, their attention turning to checking their weapons and ammunition.

  As the taller guy returned to his own rock, he happened to glance upward.

  I froze, worried that he had somehow seen me. But the kid merely glanced along the cliff’s edge, as if studying it.

  Meanwhile, one of the new Crazies arrived. He swung around and over the rocks, easily making his way over to the tall kid.

  The new guy had a long rifle strung across his back, and there was a gun in a holster at his waist on one side, a machete hanging down from the other. He leaned in close to speak to the tall kid, the two of them conferring closely, their fingers pointing toward the game trail leading upward.

  There was something familiar about this new guy.

  I leaned a bit further out, over the edge of the cliff, trying to see more of his face. Unfortunately, his head was away from me and it wasn’t until he suddenly looked up—directly at me—that I realized who it was.

  Victor—the creep from the Zuma beach party who had attacked me.

  Once again, I froze—desperately willing myself to become invisible. For a long moment, it appeared that Victor and I were staring at each other. The bush in front of my face must have saved me, however, because Victor eventually turned away, returning to his conversation with the tall kid.