Runner Boy | Book 2 | Rider Kid

by Mackey, Jay

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Takka takka! Gunfire! Automatic rifle fire mixed with single shots, coming from down the train somewhere. I rip the door open.

  Rachel says, “Shit. They opened a door to a boxcar down there and someone inside started shooting.”

  I can see people running away from the train. From inside a car I can see flashes as someone is firing out. Takka takka. Someone is down.

  The engineer is at the door. “Please. I go now.” He pushes past me.

  “Let him go,” I tell Rachel.

  Bam! Takka takka. Another body hits the ground.

  “Let’s go! Go, back this way!” I follow the engineer off the train. He’s running along the tracks, away from the train. I go that way too, making sure Rachel’s following. Then I go right, across the tracks, trying to get as far away from the gunfire as possible. I can’t see any shots being fired on this side of the train, so I keep going, past the dirt piles that line the train yard. I stop and duck behind a big pile. Rachel drops down next to me.

  “Where are Rick and his buddy?” I ask. I didn’t see them around the locomotive when we ran past the front end.

  “Rick asked me if we had everything under control in the cab, and I said yes, so he and his friend went down to help look in the cars.”

  “When? Just now?”

  “No. Right after we got the train stopped.”

  The gunfire has stopped.

  I say, “Look. Everybody’s running. I don’t think we’re going to help anybody back there. I say we keep going. Get as far away as we can.”

  She nods and gets back to her feet.

  We run.

  We’ve left our bikes out behind some trees near the road north of town. We run, dodging through alleys and dark streets, winding our way north through town. I hear one exchange of gunfire as we run, but it sounds very far away. We don’t see a single one of our gang before we reach our bikes.

  34

  27 days until the Pulse Anniversary

  The front page of what serves as our newspaper makes the whole thing even worse. Someone’s got a camera that works, really unusual in these times, and they’ve managed to print the pictures in the paper. I’m staring at the pics, gruesome as they are, and I can’t seem to put them down. I just keep looking, hoping, I guess, that something will change, but nothing does.

  There are four pictures, one for each of our friends, comrades, who were killed in the fucked-up train raid. We knew about Wilson, of course. Rob was standing less than six feet away when Wilson managed to pry open the door to the freight car, the one that had the money. One of the militia men inside the car hit Wilson in the face and chest with a burst from his automatic weapon, removing half his skull and killing him instantly. Rob said he instinctively fired his handgun into the car, wildly, out of shock, and turned and ran. There was never any question of doing anything for Wilson. He was gone in that instant.

  The pics show Rick, too, sprawled across a railroad track, lying awkwardly, so it’s obvious that he’s gone too. I know I’m partly responsible for Rick’s death. If I hadn’t gone in the cab to get the engineer to stop the train, then Rick would have, like it had been planned. But because I did it, Rick went down to the freight cars to help, and now he’s dead.

  Two others I didn’t know, a young woman, staring up into nothing, and a man who could be Flip but isn’t, just another thirtysomething guy with long hair and a beard, missing part of his face.

  I’m with Rachel and Rob. Rachel’s sobbing. Rob is staring off into nothing. I’m trying to make sense of what I’m looking at. We’re all at Jake’s, hiding out. We’ve been here since the night of the train raid. Rachel and I met up with Rob on the road back to Lafayette. When we heard about what happened, the ambush, we decided not to go to the DuBonnettes’ house, and decided on Jake’s because he hadn’t been on the raid and wasn’t suspected of any other resistance activity that we knew of.

  Jake has just returned from campus, where he found the newspaper. He says people are pissed, but it’s a mix of those upset by the pictures, those mad at the government for shooting people, and those who think the RIP is at fault for attacking the government and bringing all this down on themselves.

  The newspaper identifies the dead as members of the RIP, and ties them to the camp raid. The red bandanas are clearly visible in all the pics, although they have been removed from the dead so the faces—what’s left of them anyway—are visible.

  Wilson is identified by name as one of the camp escapees. Rick and the young women are also identified, but the older man is not. The fact that they know Wilson’s identity makes us feel even more at risk, because we all have ties to him. Well, not Jake, but the rest of us.

  “This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” I say after a long period when none of us say a word. “We never wanted to kill people, or get killed. It all started with us trying to save Wilson from that camp. And now look.”

  “That’s always how it starts,” says Jake. “Trying to right a wrong. But then things escalate. Get out of control. Before you know it, nobody understands how they got to where they are.”

  “I was so stupid,” I say.

  “No, that’s not it,” says Jake, walking into the little living area from the open kitchen where he’d been standing. “Or I guess I should say, if you were stupid, then we all were.” He sits on one of the three stools lined up at his counter. His place is in an apartment complex north of campus, not far from downtown West Lafayette, which is much smaller than Lafayette and mostly empty right now. He moved into the apartment after the pulse, because it has better access to water and sewers than his house, located further north.

  Rob says, “Things are so fucked up.” He’s been morose since we got here, barely speaking, barely even moving. It’s a major event if he eats something.

  “That’s exactly right. They are,” says Jake, looking at Rob with surprise—surprise that he said something, probably. “That’s why we did the stupid things we did. I was on board, too, you know. I was there at the camp raid. It’s because we have a president who’s taking this country in the wrong direction. He’s a fascist.”

  “Still, there was no reason for Wilson to die,” says Rob, still looking up at the ceiling. “He never hurt anybody. He’s the last one who should have died.”

  None of us feels like talking. We’re all so bummed about Wilson. Rachel’s been crying on and off since we found out. I’ve felt like crying. Even Jake, who barely knew Wilson, has been depressed. And Rob’s mostly catatonic, but he’s the one who breaks the long silence. “I’m so angry,” he says, not sounding angry. “It’s building up, and building up, and I don’t know what to DO!”

  “Who are you angry at?” asks Jake.

  “I don’t know. You. Me. Everybody. That’s the problem. I’m just angry at everything.”

  Jake gets up and gives Rob a squeeze on the shoulder as he walks by on his way out the door. There isn’t anything any of us can say that’s going to make Rob feel better.

  After dark, as I return from a long run, I find that we have visitors. I approach carefully, not recognizing the back of somebody’s head that’s visible through the kitchen window of Jake’s apartment. As I get closer I spot a familiar face talking with Jake, so I relax. It’s Jerry Pospisil, and he’s got a friend with him.

  The man is named Len, an old friend of Jerry’s from the army who just arrived yesterday. Jerry brought some of his vodka, so we spend the evening drinking and listening to Len’s stories.

  Rob drinks, but it’s hard to tell if he’s listening at all. He doesn’t ask questions, and doesn’t respond except with grunts or moans.

  Len could be a younger version of Jerry. He’s got the same broad shoulders and deep chest, but he’s more fit, probably because he’s at least ten years younger. He’s also got a big scar on his head, on the right side. It looks like a bad burn or something, and his hair doesn’t grow where the burn is.

  It’s a little hard to understand how he and Jerry wer
e army buddies with so many years between their ages, but I don’t question it, and neither does anybody else. Len’s got more hair, except where the burn is, blond and long, with a wispy beard, not unlike the mess I’ve got growing on my face. I try to scrape mine off once in a while, hoping that it’ll come in fuller, without so many bare patches when it regrows, but no such luck. Len seems content to let his grow wherever it wants to.

  He came from the east, not far from where Jerry lived in eastern Pennsylvania, he says. Despite the number of really big cities in the east, which suffered tremendously with the pulse because of tall buildings and lack of resources like food and water, he says they are now doing much better than we are here in the RNA. That’s in large part due to the immediate help they got from the military, particularly the Navy, which has giant ships that had been somewhere in the world where they escaped the pulse. The ships could then anchor near the cities and provide relief, power and law enforcement where necessary. He says that there are areas, not whole cities but areas, where they are generating power and supplying water and sanitation.

  The Great States of America is doing better, too, largely because they’ve been getting a lot of help from Russia. They aren’t as far along as the East, or the West Coast, which has been getting aid from Asia, but still they’re ahead of us.

  I asked why we’re so far behind. He says it’s part geography and part politics. We don’t have any great partner like Russia or China or Japan, and Pounds’ government is very “stiff.”

  “I don’t know, but from what I hear, Pounds is very suspicious of anything he thinks of as charity,” says Len. This is after a few shots from the vodka jug, which he and Jerry seem to be in a race to empty, so I’m not sure how much to believe. “Even early on, when everybody was desperate for help and nobody know who was in charge of what, he insisted that he was the rightful leader, and if you wanted to come in with a planeload of goods, you had to acknowledge his position. Plus, if you weren’t Christian, or you were morally questionable for some reason, then he’d be reluctant to deal with you.”

  I’ve had a few of those vodka shots too, and I ask, “What do you mean, morally questionable?”

  “Oh, like some of the European countries are too lax with gays, for example, according to him.”

  Rachel, who hasn’t been pounding down quite as many shots and is therefore probably thinking a little more clearly than me, says, “Is it just Pounds, or is it other people too? I mean, he can’t be making all the decisions. The RNA is too big.”

  “No, he’s surrounded himself with a bunch of these right-wingers.”

  “How do you know all this?” asks Jake. “Are you in the government, or the military?”

  Len cocks his head and nods. “No. I was in the military. I think Jerry told you that, right? But I know people. And they know other people. I try to stay connected.”

  Jake doesn’t look like he’s totally happy with that answer. “And what brings you here?”

  Taking another shot, Len shrugs and says, “Jerry invited me out. I wasn’t doing anything, so I headed this way.”

  “How?” Rachel asks. “Did Jerry pick up his phone and give you a call?”

  Len laughs. “He sent me a letter.”

  “Didn’t know the US Post Office was back in operation,” says Rachel. Her skepticism shows on her face.

  “A friend of both of ours, another army buddy, was headed through, on his way east, and I gave him note to give to Len, if he ever hooked up with him,” says Jerry.

  “You’d be surprised, though,” says Len. “There’s more and more fuel, diesel, mostly, being shipped into the East Coast. They put it on trucks and rail cars and send it all over. And they’re either shipping in locomotives from Europe, or they’re getting the parts to repair what’s here, like they’re doing with trucks and with cars, too. That’s why you see trains running again. Switches are still a problem, but they’re working on it.” He takes another shot. “There’s some mail moving on those trains now. I understand you just had a little encounter with a train.”

  “You could say that,” says Jake. I’m not going to respond to that one. “Encounter” doesn’t seem like the appropriate word here, especially with Rob sitting here.

  “Were you there, Jerry? At the train?” asks Jake.

  “Yeah. I was. Down at the tail end, so I wasn’t too close to the shooting, thank God.”

  Jake nods his head. He’s the one who wasn’t there.

  Jerry says, “That’s one of the reasons I asked Len to come. Not the train, but what we’re up against here. He’s got some experience. Some skills that I thought would be good to have.”

  “Like what?” asks Rachel. “What skills?”

  “From the army. He led men on missions. Is experienced at putting together a plan, getting the right resources, taking care of his people.” He shakes his head. “I don’t mean to speak ill, but we need that kind of experience.”

  He and Len exchange looks. It’s obvious that there’s something between them. Then Jerry looks at me and says, “Oh, one other thing.” He looks at Len and points at me. “This here is the kid I call Rider Kid, who I was talking about. He’s got some ability with a rifle.”

  Len looks at me and seems to be sizing me up. Jerry continues, “Len is—was—a sniper. As in, a militarily trained sniper who saw action on the battlefield. Battlefields. He could probably teach you a thing or two.”

  Len says, “You know I’ve got my rifle with me.”

  “I know,” says Jerry. “I saw you bring the case into the house yesterday.” He turns back to me. “You should see this thing. It makes your rifle look like a little popgun.”

  I smile. “That’s fine. I’m just a lucky shot, really. And I hope I don’t have to shoot it again.”

  Len says, “That’s the right attitude, kid. I hope I never have to shoot mine for real, too. But you know, sometimes we have to. Sometimes, it’s necessary.”

  “I don’t plan seeing any of those sometimes. I’ve had enough of the killing.”

  From behind me comes a voice. “Somebody has got to shoot that fucker Pounds.” It’s Rob, who’s been quiet the whole night, just sitting there in the corner, sipping on vodka. “One of you. I don’t care. But he’s got to go.”

  35

  22 days until the Pulse Anniversary

  Len’s rifle is amazing. It’s all metal, while my .30-06 has a wooden stock. Len’s can be disassembled with no tools in a minute if you’ve practiced enough. His is supposedly accurate up to a mile, about twice the range of mine. But it’s heavy, two or three times what mine weighs, although Len says it’s very light for a true sniper rifle, about thirty pounds. It fires a bigger cartridge, which is one reason it’s more accurate, and has built-in legs, which fold up when you’re carrying it.

  We’ve all moved out to Jerry’s; we agreed that staying at Jake’s in town is riskier than out here in farmland. Len showed me his rifle when we got out here. I tried to play like I wasn’t interested, but after a day or so my curiosity got me and I went shooting with him. He started teaching me about being a sniper, which is a lot more about where to position yourself and how to hide and how to select your target than about shooting the rifle. He says he usually had a spotter, a buddy who fed him info on weather conditions, surrounding terrain, what was going on with enemy movements, and stuff like that, so he could concentrate on making the shot. He does that for me for a while, which seems strange. But he let me shoot too, which is fun. Well, not fun, really. It’s hard to imagine anything being fun anymore. But it helps me get out some aggression, some frustration, even if only on a tree that’s nearly a mile away.

  Today Jerry and Len are gone all day, so I go shooting by myself, using Len’s rifle. After shooting for an hour or so, I clean it, reassemble it, take it apart, and repeat. It’s something to do.

  Rob is still morose, and Rachel is waiting on him constantly, trying to get him to react, or at least to eat a little. I’m not sure she’s having much s
uccess. Linda, Jerry’s wife, seems a little upset that I’m taking up her table with my gun cleaning and assembling activity. I tell her that I’ll pick up everything just as soon as she wants me to, or when Jerry comes back, whichever comes first.

  Turns out it’s Jerry. He and Len roll in just after dark, all excited.

  “Jesus, you have to hear this,” says Jerry as he and Len burst through the door. “Tell them, Len.”

  Len seems almost out of breath as he says, “I just talked to a friend of mine. One of the guys I mentioned before. Highly connected. So he says Pounds is preparing to attack the east. The USA.”

  “Shit.” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Jerry. “Shit is right.”

  “When is this supposed to happen?” I ask.

  “Soon,” says Len. “My guy says they’re nearly through the planning stages, so it won’t be long.”

  “Who is this guy, anyway?” asks Rachel. “How does he know about this?”

  “Like I said, he’s connected,” says Len.

  “Yeah, right,” says Rachel. “How do we know he’s not making this up?”

  “Doesn’t sound right to me,” I say. “It was Bowers who was the big enemy.”

  “True,” says Jerry. “But now Vega is an even bigger enemy, according to Len’s guy.”

  “I don’t know if that’s it,” says Len. “Maybe it’s just that Vega’s got a good thing going and Pounds wants it. Maybe Pounds and Bowers are buddies again. Who knows? All I know is a guy who’s in position to know this shit says Pounds is getting ready to attack Vega.”

  “Why are you telling us, anyway?” asks Rachel. “We’re a bunch of kids who can’t even show our faces because we’ll probably get arrested, or worse. What are we supposed to do?”

  “It’s one more reason to shoot Pounds,” says Rob, who’s been here the whole time but hasn’t said a word until now. I look at him and nod, not so much to agree with him, but to acknowledge that he spoke.