by Flacco, Jack
The armed group from the armory joined Hendricks, David, Billy and several others, handing them guns and ammunition. David and Billy gazed at the guns in their hands as if they had said to Hendricks that they had no idea how to use them. One step ahead of them, Hendricks exchanged their guns for knives. They didn’t have a problem using knives. No triggers to worry about and no safety switch to forget to unlock.
Armed and ready, Hendricks and the prisoners trotted from the brig toward the general’s quarters. They didn’t make it ten feet before a ragtag team of soldiers, who once had emerged from their barracks half-dazed from the confusion by the blowout preventer explosion, sprayed bullets in their general vicinity. This forced Hendricks and his men to find cover behind the barracks closest the general’s quarters.
Assessing control of the camp, Hendricks put it all in perspective. First, they had the guard towers. Second, they had freed the prisoners from the brig including David and Billy. Third, they had lost Harold and possession of the trucks. Fourth, if they could get to the general, they’d have complete control of the camp. With a few dozen men at his disposal going up against a few dozen on the general’s side, Hendricks thought they had a chance. He didn’t count on one thing—the soldiers holding their positions behind a row of sandbags also had brought a rocket launcher to the field. A soldier of no apparent designation, Mr. Rocketlauncher, propped it against his shoulder, aimed it at the colonel’s men, and missed. The truck next to them exploded, unleashing a fireball into the air and debris into their direction. Luckily, everyone had ducked and no one was hurt. The shot was intentional to release debris toward anyone behind the barracks without destroying the barracks.
Another shot missed the barracks and flew into the dirt. The impact slammed three of the colonel’s men against the barrack walls, flattening them dead. Hendricks commanded his men to retreat, but he remained stationed behind the corner of the barracks. He had one more thing working for him that the soldiers didn’t count on, the guard towers. Colonel Hendricks whistled a signal and one of the snipers in the northeast tower aimed his crosshairs at Mr. Rocketlauncher. With a single bullet, Mr. Rocketlauncher fell backward. Payback for the three men he’d killed. The other snipers sprung into action, taking out the soldiers one at a time.
It was then that a truck barreled from the darkness. Its lights had flooded the east side of the base. It rammed the gate, smashing it to splinters. It stopped at the general’s quarters all the while Hendricks and his men looked on. Without waiting, Randy shot from the backseat with a gun in his hand and raced to the office door where he thought the general was hiding. He didn’t look back, thinking his friends had the same idea.
“Randy, wait!” Ranger called to the boy who wanted to end the siege.
Randy didn’t wait, he barged in and disappeared into the general’s quarters ignoring Ranger’s cries. What a stupid thing to do, Ranger thought. Stupid. Utterly stupid.
Matty pulled her gun from hiding and hopped to the ground. Following Randy, she didn’t get very far. A hail of bullets pushed her back into the truck as Ranger fired his shotgun blindly scattering pellets everywhere. Seconds later, he joined her. In the meantime, to avoid stray shots, Jon had hid behind the backseat.
“This was a great idea.” Matty yelled at Ranger from the floor of the truck. She had cupped her hands over her head.
“What in damnation was Randy thinkin’?” Ranger shot back.
“I don’t know, but if we don’t do something, we’re dead.”
“I happen to agree with my sister on this, Ranger!” Jon screamed.
Not about to leave Randy, Ranger pressed his door open lending cover to any gunshots flying his way. So far, none of the bullets had hit the windshield, which made Ranger think the soldiers had bad shots or purposely missed.
Hendricks called to his team to move forward to the next set of barracks closest to the soldiers’ position. Without hesitation, the armed prisoners emerged from the corner and fired everything they had at the soldiers. The snipers in the guard towers supplemented cover fire, forcing the soldiers to retreat behind the sandbags.
“Over here,” Hendricks waved to Ranger. “Over here.”
Seeing how Hendricks and his men wore red bandanas around their arms and were shooting at the soldiers, Ranger took a chance by crouching to Matty’s vantage point. “Listen to me, take Jon and head over there. You’ll be safe.”
“No way. I’m not going anywhere.” Matty raised her head grabbing a glimpse of Hendricks waving.
“Matty, you got to do this. I gotta go after Randy. If anyone finds out who he is, they won’t stop until they get what they’re after from him.”
“Not this time, Ranger. You’re going to have to put up with me. I’m coming with you and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Damn it, are you kiddin’ me? I ain’t got no time to be foolin’ with you. Get your ass over there!”
“Said the man who crashed through the gate with absolutely no plan of—”
“Guys,” Jon stuffed his head between the front seats, “I hate to break this up, but it looks like Randy’s coming to us.”
Ranger and the kids raised their heads to peer from the SUV’s windows. The door to the general’s quarters had opened and a team of MPs scampered to the trucks that had survived the earlier rocket assault. General Grayson held Randy tight against his body as he wobbled from the deck to his jeep with two other MPs. The snipers had the general on target, but then they realized he had a gun stuck in Randy’s back. Hendricks whistled twice to the snipers to hold fire after he discovered the general’s willingness to kill another without any remorse. The team that had taken possession of the trucks abandoned the base in a caravan formation. In seconds, the general would join them.
“General Grayson.” Ranger held his shotgun on the goon. “You can’t go anywhere. Even if you leave here, we’ll catch you. Let the boy go.”
The soldiers behind the sandbag exchanged fire with Hendricks’ prisoners and the sound deafened the conversation between Ranger and the general.
“You must be delusional.” The general jammed the gun under one of Randy’s ribs, making him jerk from the pain. “I wouldn’t have guessed this day would come. The boy walked into my hands. He must have been born stupid because what kind of idiot would do something like that?”
“Let him go and you might get yourself a fair trial. If you don’t, my sharp shootin’ friend here,” Ranger pointed to Matty who had her aim set on the general’s head, “She will not be as forgivin’ as I am.”
“Listen to me carefully.” Grayson and Randy shuffled in unison toward the jeep, “You know as much as I do that if you kill me, Randall here, will die as well. Yes, I know all about him. He’s the reason for this little escape.”
“Ranger, we can’t let him leave alive.” Matty said, still holding her aim centered on General Grayson.
“Now, if you don’t mine, I’m a busy man. If anyone decides to follow me, I’ll shoot the boy and you’ll be responsible. You do not want to carry this guilt on your head for the rest of your life. It’ll age you before your time. You won’t have anything to look forward to.”
“Don’t do anything, Matty.” Ranger kept his shotgun on the general. “He’s not goin’ to let Randy go.”
The general slipped into the back of the jeep first, sucking Randy inside with him. As the Resistance took siege of the rest of the camp, including quelling the gunshots from behind the sandbags, the general sat safely in the backseat with his gun pointed directly at Randy’s head, his insurance policy. The MPs escort piled into the front and started the engine.
“They can’t leave with Randy.” Matty said as she crawled from her seat and opened the door.
“We can’t do anything right now.” Ranger missed grabbing her to keep the teen inside the vehicle.
“They’re getting away!” Matty stomped her feet and pounded the top of the truck where she left a dent from the frustration she had with Ranger and the
situation.
He shook his head knowing he couldn’t do anything. Even if one of them had attempted to take the general out, his reflexes would have pulled the trigger on Randy, and that would have quashed any hope they had to end the alien siege on earth. Ranger thought the day would come where he’d have his revenge on General Grayson for all the evil he’d done. The day would come when they’d save Randy. That day had yet to arrive.
* * *
As the jeep left, joining the caravan, and as the last of the soldiers gave up their arms to the Resistance, Matty had all she could do to contain her anger against Ranger. Jon crawled from the SUV and stood next to Ranger where they both watched Matty unravel from her calm disposition. She let loose a barrage of kicks and punches on the truck. She rammed it twice with her small body, and she kicked her side’s quarter panel leaving dents all along the way.
Then, she pulled out her gun.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ranger said, pushing Jon’s head behind the door and diving behind it himself. “Put the gun away, Matty.”
“Shut up, Ranger.” Matty’s gaze turned black. She aimed her weapon at the general’s office and pulled the trigger.
The windows went first. The sign with General Grayson’s name followed. Next were the lights, the door, the steps and the walls. She kept reloading clip after clip, pounding one shell into the dwelling after another. The shots startled Jon enough to cause him to cap his ears with his hands so he wouldn’t go deaf by the time she had finished dumping her rage on the building.
Hendricks and his men turned to the commotion not knowing what to think. Her gunfire even startled the soldiers who had surrendered with their hands behind their head and the Resistance who retained control over them.
The scene brought a slight smile on Matty’s face as her satisfaction grew knowing that if the general were ever to come back, he wouldn’t have a place to come back to. That knowledge widened her smile further and lit her eyes to a brilliant color, removing the darkness that once captured them.
By the time she finished, she had unloaded seven clips, which lay strewn in a big pile of spent shells at her feet. Grayson’s name on the building snapped in two after Matty had sliced through it with her bullets.
When she hid the gun, Ranger and Jon raised their heads and slowly watched Matty turn to them with a big grin plastered over her face.
“Feel better?” Ranger asked.
She chuckled. “Yeah, actually. I do.”
“Good. We have to go after him.”
* * *
Ranger and Hendricks pushed against the bullet-laden door of General Grayson’s former office that Matty had shot through earlier. The flashlight Ranger carried lit the way as the pair cricked and cracked their feet on the debris with the hope that something might have survived Matty’s tantrum. Everything the light illuminated had a hole in it. A map would have been helpful. A manifest of some sort would have gone a long way to establish where the general had gone with Randy as his prisoner.
Sifting through the debris, Hendricks asked, “What did you say your name was?”
“Ranger. Ranger Martin.”
“Kind of unusual name. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose.” Ranger had his mind on Randy and blamed himself for letting the general go. Why didn’t Randy wait for him? Why did he walk right into the general’s hands? Why did he do such a stupid thing? The questions made Ranger wipe away the debris on the general’s desk and throw the chip rock that had fallen from the ceiling on the dirty floor. The light traveled along the length of the desk and around the edges to establish a perimeter.
“I’m Hendricks.” The colonel offered his hand to the zombie killer.
Ranger shook it and asked, “Are you the reason for General Grayson’s sudden disappearance from the camp?”
“We planned this for a while.” Hendricks tossed broken pieces of glass on the floor, disturbed by the sight of the mess Matty had made. “Those kids with you?”
“Been that way for a while.”
“What about the redhead? Is she always this—”
“Explosive?”
“Yeah.”
“This is one of her better days.” Ranger said, then smiled knowing how true that statement might have been.
Hendricks didn’t say much after that. The strain of living in the camp caught up with him and all he wanted fell in line with Ranger’s goals. They wanted to find the general.
In Ranger’s case, he wanted Randy back. The guilt gnawed at his stomach and he pressed his hand to it as they tiptoed their way to the files behind the general’s desk. Ranger lent his light while Hendricks tossed the folders.
* * *
Outside, Matty had her arms folded at her chest as she leaned against the SUV watching the Resistance take the camp’s soldiers as their prisoners. The soldiers had tossed their hands in the air and the Resistance had pressed the barrel of their guns against their backs to show them to the brig. The fire from the corrupt blowout preventer burned strong, spewing an evil cloud of thick, black smoke and flames into the sky. The night had lit in a fireworks display no one wanted to see, but felt compelled to watch.
Leaning next to her, Jon ate a candy bar while staring at the former guards of the camp in the hands of the Resistance. He closed his eyes for a moment when he saw one of them crack a rifle butt against the skull of a former guard. He didn’t want to see what the world had become. He had trouble enough sleeping without the reminder of what humans are capable of doing to other humans.
“C’mon.” Matty said, pushing herself from the truck into the direction of the brig.
“Wait. What are you doing?” Jon said.
“You’ll find out.”
“I don’t want to find out. Where are we going?”
“Follow. Okay?”
Throwing the candy bar wrapper on the ground, Jon tagged along. Whatever his sister had in mind had nothing to do with being nice. He knew this for a fact because of her pulling her gun and loading the chamber with a bullet while walking the short thirty feet across the compound toward the former guards.
When the Resistance saw Matty approach them with her gun by her side pointed to the ground, some backed away.
Even the former soldiers had all they could do to remain calm. The sweat trickled from their hairline to the back of their shirt collars. Some gulped while others began to breathe heavily, afraid of what Matty might do. After all, they had witnessed her fearless assault on their general’s office and they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of her next rage-filled episode.
Matty showed up ten feet from their location with the gun still in her hand, she said, “Who will tell me where the general went?”
The soldiers stopped in their line, glanced at each other, then laughed. As if a girl with a gun would have the capacity to find out General Grayson’s destination. They may have had fear in their face but they weren’t stupid. Not stupid enough to give away his destination.
Without blinking, Matty quickly raised her gun and shot a clip of bullets over the head of the toughest one she saw in the line. The former soldiers saw the bullet holes that Matty had sunk into the wall of the brig and measured how close the bullets had flown between the heads.
“Wichita!” One of them answered without restrain.
Jon smiled.
Chapter 29
With the former guards now prisoners in the brig, the Resistance fighters prepared for an eventual confrontation with General Grayson’s forces. They knew the general had planned his exit strategy since the beginning and they wanted to make sure they had the resources at their disposal to end the conflict without further losses. They ransacked the armory of its largest weapons and moved them to the center of camp with other soldiers piling crates one on top of the other.
“General Grayson’s men took all the vehicles.” Hendricks said, standing over the pile of guns with Ranger and the kids by his side. “We’ll need trucks and jeeps.”
“Don’t worry.” Ra
nger dusted the dirt from his cap and placed it back on his head. “I know where to find them. I’ll need a couple of your men, and plenty of ammo.”
Hendricks nodded, then asked. “Where did you come from?”
“Temple City.” He turned and walked toward his truck, wanting to inspect the damage the soldiers may have caused when they arrived to a hail of bullets.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” Hendricks and the kids followed.
“Should I?”
“I wouldn’t think you could. I was the sniper in the building who had saved your hide when you came to us for help the first time.”
Ranger stopped and turned to the colonel. “You mean you were the one who shot the dog that had me by the pant leg while I tried climbin’ the fence to safety at the train yards?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Ranger huffed. He then searched the ground for a response, but couldn’t find one that would suit him. He decided to show his response. With Matty and Jon standing by his side, he let loose a right hook to Hendricks’ jaw. The colonel hit the ground in a puff of dirt. One of the snipers in the towers next to Ranger’s truck shouted, “Hands in the air. Now!”
Why Ranger would choose to hit the colonel went beyond words. Ranger and the kids raised their hands above their head anyway.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hendricks stared at Ranger in disbelief, rubbing the left side of his face.
“That dog didn’t deserve to die. It was hungry and protectin’ its territory.”
“You decked me because of that?” Hendricks rose to his feet.
“Dogs don’t know better than to act on instinct for their food and safety. It’s a helpless creature, man’s best friend.”
“Put your hands down.” Hendricks waved at Ranger. “I’m not upset at you for what you did. Although I wouldn’t mind pounding you right about now.”