by Flacco, Jack
The guard in the center of the camp blew his whistle again, Hendricks, and Jonah shook hands and bid each other good luck.
* * *
When nightfall advanced, Colonel Hendricks put his plan in motion. Knowing the barracks had bugs, connecting their conversations to General Grayson’s office, they worked out a code with hand signals used to communicate their intentions without uttering a word. Hendricks flashed a few signals and his men would wait until he’d set his diversion in action.
As the guard tower light scanned the walls of the barracks, Hendricks slipped through the door outside, followed the light, and ducked into the shadows behind his barracks and the fence, just as the light retraced its steps. He did not intend to hop the fence, since he wouldn’t survive without provisions. Instead, he followed it, passing the brig to slap his shoulders against the back of the building. Several feet lay between him and the trucks parked next to the blowout preventer. A guard made his rounds, coming around the corner to where Hendricks had planted himself. When the guard turned the corner, Hendricks had disappeared and the guard continued on his way. Once gone, Hendricks rose from behind a crouch next to the fence where he had his back turned toward the guard and made a run for the truck. Smacking against the military vehicle, he took a breath to steady himself. The next few steps would be crucial for everything to work like clockwork.
The truck stood parked between two guard towers, and the tower on his side directed its light on another part of the camp, away from all the trucks near the blowout preventer. There were eight trucks in all. He searched for the gas tank on his side of the truck, front and back. It wasn’t there. One problem, the other guard tower’s light passed several times a minute on the opposite side where the gas tank rested. The second problem, he had the guard that had passed him earlier making his round again. Hendricks thought for sure he’d soon get shot. He was stuck between two evils. He had to do something. He couldn’t stand there wasting time.
In the meantime, Jonah waited for Hendricks’ signal. He didn’t know what to expect, so he held tight in the barracks staring through a crack in the door.
Once the guard passed between the barracks and the trucks and disappeared again around the corner, Hendricks began to breathe again. No sooner had air passed his lips that the guard backtracked to the trucks. The guard ambled between the trucks, around the fence on the other side of the vehicles to encounter the guard tower light had fixed its rays on him. After studying the truck, and the blowout preventer behind him, he waved to the guard tower an all clear and went on his way, marching his path around the barracks with a tempered step.
One more time, the light scanned the truck and Hendricks, who hid on his back under the belly of the vehicle counted how long it took the light to make its way back to the gas tank. Not long, the light appeared again. He had time. Colonel Hendricks pulled a piece of torn shirt Jonah had given him from his wardrobe. Then, he pulled his boot off and with a quick flick retrieved a small lighter hidden in its heel.
After he’d waited for the light to pass, he made his move to the opposite side of the truck where the gas tank rested. Quickly he unscrewed the cap, stuffed the rag into the mouth of the tank and set it ablaze.
Chapter 27
Explosions ripped apart the fencing at the far side of the camp. The guards in the towers shined their lights at the location where the oil well’s blowout preventer used to lay dormant. Huge plumes of black smoke filled the air. Flames shot through the smoke rendering the underside orange and yellow. The blaze spurted from the oil as it gushed into the air without relent. Debris from the fencing lay strewn over the outside of the camp. A gaping hole replaced impenetrable fencing.
“Move the trucks away from the fire!” One of the officers issued orders to his subordinates, as the team of six ran from the mess hall to save the vehicles from destruction.
An alarm sounded, filling the air with a wail that alerted all the other soldiers in the barracks to haul their butts from bed and help their buddies with camp security. As they poured from the doorway, soldiers slipped into their boots while others had their shirttails hanging.
Colonel Hendricks, having learned the whole layout of the camp, emerged from the hiding spot behind his barrack and waved to Jonah to take the towers.
The Resistance began their climb. Two per tower, eight fighters scaled the stairs to rid the towers of their lights. The camp’s entrance faced east. The northwest corner tower, where the light had remained fixed on the burning oil well, became the first victim to Hendricks’ plan. The prisoners sprung from the hole in the center of the tower, relieved the guards of their weapons and tossed the soldiers over the edge.
The other towers soon followed. The southwest tower fell to the Resistance amid the loud sound of spewing oil in the air, as did the southeast. The guards stationed at the northeast tower, however, caught one of the prisoners as he scaled the stairs. They shot him dead but his backup, who had hid under the floorboards, pounced through the tower’s center hole and wrapped his arms around one of the guards, using him as a shield. The other guard shot his companion but to save himself, the prisoner pulled out the dead guard’s gun and shot the second guard. He fell to his death.
With the towers under their control, Hendricks ordered half his men to the armory. He then divided the other half into two groups. One group led by Jonah would take the trucks the guards had saved, and the other he would lead to attack the brig. All the men wielded shanks.
The two guards stationed at the brig entrance fell without trouble as the prisoners overpowered and robbed them of their guns. Hendricks quickly found Harold, David and Billy sitting in individual cells awaiting their fate. He opened the cell doors with the keys he had wrestled from the guards who had fallen into a deep sleep, big thanks to the knock on the head by his men.
The next part of Hendricks’ plan involved him leading his group to the other side of the camp where he thought General Grayson would have hid himself in his office.
* * *
Turning off the lights to the truck, Ranger and the kids noticed the glow in the sky beyond the hill. Matty rolled up her window as the stench of burning oil seeped into her nostrils.
“Something’s burning.” Matty said.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Ranger turned off the truck’s lights, eased on the gas pedal and drifted slowly up the hill.
“What do you think’s going on?” Randy asked.
“Could be anything. We may be either too early for a fight or too late for a barbeque. Judgin’ from the smell, I don’t think it’s a barbeque.”
The odor became so strong that Matty slipped her hand under her top and plugged her nose with it.
It didn’t take long for Ranger to drive the truck all the way up the hill and park it away from view. The base’s orange glow reflected off the vehicle’s silver grill. Jon’s eyes widened as he pressed his chin against Ranger’s seat, watching black clouds rise from the oil well. Randy and Matty couldn’t stop staring at the flames spewing into the sky.
Amid the bustle, a group of men ran along the inside perimeter of the east fence and stormed the trucks that had escaped the fire. The soldiers in the vehicles attempted to fight back, but the prisoners used the shanks to capture the trucks without much effort.
“Looks like someone got here before we did.” Matty said.
“I don’t see anyone looking like the general anywhere.” Ranger said.
“Before you barrel your way down there,” Randy leaned from the backseat, “Are you sure this is the right camp?”
“This is the only camp.” Matty turned to him. “How many camps do you think we’d encounter in the middle of the desert? We’re in the right place. Let’s get this over with, Ranger.”
Ranger and Jon raised their eyebrows at Matty’s reaction. They thought the same thing. For a simple question, the answer came off somewhat harsh.
Randy leaned into his seat, “Why are you upset?”
“Upset? Who said I’m u
pset? I say that it’s the only camp in the desert and you’re saying I’m upset? I’m not upset.”
“Fine.” He stared out of his passenger window.
“This is neither the time nor the place to talk about this.”
“Fine.”
“Look, I don’t know if you know, but we have a war to fight. There’s none of this second-guessing our actions. We have to know what we’re doing and not get on each other’s nerves while we muddle through this mess.”
Turning his focus on Matty, he said, “All I asked was if it was the right camp. I didn’t mean to offend you. All I wanted to know—”
“Offend me?”
Ranger and Jon eased away from Matty, leaning as tight to their doors as they could.
She turned to Randy and kneeled on her front passenger seat so she could face him. “Is that all you can think about? That you’ve offended me? I’ll have you know I’m so close to smacking you. I thought we were clear about where we stood with each other. The whole idea that you would think that you had offended me reeks of self-centeredness. I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”
If Randy’s jaw could have dropped further, it would have. He didn’t expect her chew-out session.
But Jon knew why she went crazy, and he couldn’t bear to watch Randy take his sister’s lashing anymore. “This is about you, liking him. Isn’t it?”
“What?” Matty’s face turned a deep red.
“You’re upset because Randy’s not paying attention to you like he did back at the motel. You can’t tell him, so now you’re taking it out on him in a passive aggressive way.”
“Passive aggressive?” Ranger chuckled through his words. “She well near killed the boy with that tongue of hers. I wouldn’t call that passive aggressive.”
Matty sunk into her seat and crossed her arms.
“Is that the reason, Matty?” Randy took a chance and leaned forward again. “Is that the reason why you ripped into me?”
She didn’t answer, choosing instead to stew in her seat while she stared at the base’s destruction.
“After the other night’s conversation, I thought you wanted some distance between us—”
“What other night’s conversation?” Jon asked.
Ranger shushed Jon, knowing it was a private matter between Matty and Randy.
Randy continued, “I thought you just wanted to be friends. I thought you were afraid to get close to me because you didn’t want to get hurt. How was I supposed to know you didn’t mean what you said? I mean, you’re the one who said, ‘Maybe one day, but not now.’ Remember? Was I wrong? Did I make a mistake? Are you angry with me because I actually did what you wanted me to do?”
“Yes!” She turned around and faced him again.
“Awkward.” Jon said.
“And here I thought you didn’t want to be my friend anymore.” Randy rubbed away the stress from the back of his neck. “You’re one confusing chick.”
“A girl’s allowed to change her mind.” She looked right at him without wavering. “There’s no way ever I couldn’t consider you as my friend. I just need time to sort this thing out, okay?”
“I think I’m going to throw up.” Jon held his stomach after having heard his sister say one of the corniest lines ever.
Ranger traced the contours of the steering wheel with disinterest. They had things to do and all the kids could think about was who liked who. He wondered what it would be like being a kid again without worrying about zombies, aliens and the military.
In all this, Matty couldn’t help herself. Her girl side had come out and she needed to validate her feelings for Randy.
“Okay.” Randy said. “I’ll be fine with whatever you want to do, Matty.”
* * *
The four guards stationed as sentries at the base’s gates fell behind two oil drums filled with water. They fired round after round of ammo on the group charging from the brig. Prisoners fell to the gunfire. For the first time, the Resistance began to incur heavy losses. As they retreated, the guards sat holed up without budging from their positions behind the drums.
In the meantime, half the group that had taken to the trucks didn’t expect soldiers to descend from the rear of one of the vehicles. With automatic weapons in hand, the soldiers delivered a fatal blow. The prisoners armed with shanks, dropped as soon as the bullets hit them. Other than a handful of men, the soldiers had burned through the group quickly. Jonah, who had led the group, wasn’t about to surrender. If he’d die, he’d die an honorable death, he thought. With the shank pointed in their direction, he sprinted to the soldiers like a mad man.
The soldiers cut Jonah down in his tracks. The remainder of his group fell to the bullets that had whizzed through the air and struck them dead.
Behind the water-filled oil drums, the guards let loose another volley across the clearing to those fleeing the doorway from the brig. One of the bullets caught Harold in the shoulder. While he fell into Hendricks’ arms, another bullet sunk into Harold’s chest. With David and Billy’s help, Hendricks dragged Harold inside the brig once again.
“Goes to show,” Harold coughed through his words. “I wasn’t much of a team player.”
Crouched behind while holding him, Hendricks said, “Hang in there. In a little while, you’ll wonder what the big deal was. Hold on. Okay?”
“I should have won those three hundred bucks when they’d picked me up playing pool.” Before anyone could put pressure on the wound to his chest in order to stop the bleeding, Harold breathed his last. It took a few moments for everyone to absorb the meaning of his death. He’d been a leader among them. He’d shown defiance in the wake of persecution. David and Billy wouldn’t have thought Harold would have died that way.
Hendricks closed Harold’s eyes with his hand, bringing the young man peace. David’s breath, on the other hand, grew rapidly and vengeance caught him full swing. He rose and marched from Harold’s body to the doorway, but Billy intercepted and held him back, pushing him against the wall as bullets smashed into the entrance of the brig.
“Are you insane? You’re unarmed. What are you going to do, kill them with your bare hands? You can’t win. We can’t win.”
“I can’t let them get away with this.”
“They won’t. Not if I have anything to do with it. Let the plan work. We’ve got the guard towers, we have the armory, the trucks will be ours and so will General Grayson. Let everyone do their job and your time will come to get even.”
Hendricks left Harold’s body in the corridor, leaped to his feet and scurried to the entrance of the brig. He peeked around the corner to the guards behind the barrels. More bullets hit the side of the entrance to the brig and a piece of debris exploded into Colonel Hendricks’ face. Wiping off the dirt, he announced, “We have to get out of here.”
“This is the only entrance to this place.” Billy said, letting David go from his grip.
“I don’t know why they don’t come in here and slaughter us.” David adjusted his clothes from the wrinkles made by Billy’s hands.
“They’re afraid.” Billy said.
“Right.” Hendricks nodded. “They are afraid. They thought they could hold us and convert us like the others. They were caught off-guard with this attack and they’re firing in hopes of scaring us into surrendering.”
“We’re not surrendering, are we?”
“Not a chance. Once we get the general in our hands, the camp is ours.”
* * *
Ranger and the kids sat in the truck, Ranger scratching the stubble on his chin wondering what to do while the kids stared through the windshield at the fire coming from the blown oil well and the black smoke billowing into the sky. Matty had calmed herself from the earlier disruption with Randy and now began to think of questions to ask the zombie slayer. Questions like, is this a good idea? What are we doing here? Why did I ever suggest going after the general? Can we leave now?
There was no turning back. Ranger had set his mind to be
rid of the general once and for all. Not only for the conversions carried out under his command, but also of what he had done to others when they were waiting for their change. He thought through the scenario a few more times. He would run his truck through the gate, avoid the guards and shooters, and in the heat of battle find the general’s quarters.
No matter how many times he thought it though, he concluded they wouldn’t come out alive. A range of scenes played out in his head. The truck would stall. The Guards would capture, place them under arrest and throw them into the brig to await their turn for conversion. The shooters would tear them down as soon as they’d step foot into the camp. The general would have an entourage of soldiers at his disposal to protect him in the event of a siege.
Ranger couldn’t see how they could win.
“It looks like a base overthrow.” Randy said. “We have to help them. If we don’t, General Grayson will win, converting and destroying us one person at a time. We can’t let him do that, Ranger. We just can’t.”
“He’s right.” Matty added. “If we don’t, one day it’ll be us down there fighting for our lives.”
Chapter 28
Leaning against the doorway to the brig, Hendricks slipped his thumb and his index finger to his lips and whistled the signal to his friends at the armory. Hearing Hendricks, the prisoners filed outside with guns, knives and grenades in hand. The reinforcements had arrived.
When the guards behind the barrel saw the group exit the armory fully armed firing their weapons at them, their faces went white with fear. They fired their guns at the group, but it was more cover fire than anything else. They rose from behind the barrels, scurried across the compound twenty feet, and escaped inside the general’s quarters.