“Retaining wall! Far side of the gazebo!” Krenshaw swung his rifle wide and Thomas’s followed. The two returned fire, fracturing bits of concrete into the air as they missed. The guard bolted around the side. Alright, There's at least two more of his men out there. “I thought they would have given up by now.”
“Can't expect that from wild dogs!” Krenshaw shouted.
“Over there!”
The guard's retreat must have pushed the women from hiding, bunching them together like sheep on the hillside. They screamed, still in an absolute panic, ducking and hiding, trying their best to avoid the conflict. Thomas was sure they wanted to run off, but could only imagine the questions running through their heads. Where will we go? How will we survive? Can we survive? The Butcher had corrupted their sense of value, leaving them broken and completely reliant on their handlers.
“Krenshaw! We have to get those women out of here.”
They pushed back from their position, leveled their rifles, then broke toward the gazebo's hillside. Crack! The guard emerged from the nearside of the gazebo, sending a round buzzing past Thomas’s side. Crack! Another barely missed. Without breaking stride, Thomas spun his rifle toward the man. Crack! Crack! Crack! The stranger's body twisted awkwardly, and he fell onto his side but quickly tried to gather his feet underneath him. It was no use as Krenshaw incapacitated him with a well-placed shot to the stomach. Someone else is going to have to handle him if he gets up. We have to get the women on their way before they get hurt.
They rounded the nearside of the gazebo and were immediately greeted by screams.
“Don't kill us!”
“Please don't!”
A distant gunshot. More screams and several women took off running.
“Wait!” Cindy called to the others. “I know him!” She turned to Thomas, tears and dirt covered her face.
He barely recognized her from before—this woman he had spent only a brief moment with inside that unsavory tent. But it proved long enough to build trust between them. He was probably the only man who ever lay next to her since the world ended that didn't try to take advantage of her situation.
“Save us! Please, oh God,” Cindy sobbed. “Get us the fuck out of here!”
“You're wrong!” another woman shrieked, tugging at Cindy, begging her to run, but she wouldn't. “They're here to kill us!”
“No. They're not.” Cindy’s voice was calm.
Thomas reached his hand out and Cindy took it. Her soft hand trembled in his, creating stillness to the world while the rest of the camp continued to fall apart. There was something about her, although in this moment Thomas couldn't tell what.
“I...” Thomas started, but the hysterical woman's incessant begging took him from the moment.
She tugged once more at Cindy, bringing her away from Thomas, but instead of fleeing, Cindy spun around and slapped the woman across the face. “Shut up! He's here to help us, damn it!”
Thomas’s mouth dropped. Maybe she didn't feel what I did.
The woman held her cheek. Both she and Thomas stood there stunned, shaken with this unexpected outburst. Cindy began apologizing, but Thomas interrupted her, “We're here to save you, point blank, nothing more.”
More women came forward.
“Take your group and head down there.” Thomas pointed to the road that eventually curled around to the south. “All the way around. Wait there and we'll get you somewhere safe.”
They smiled—no one appeared to second guess Thomas’s order as they fled.
A final volley of gunfire hit the camp. Thomas and Krenshaw threw themselves to the ground, taking cover behind the concrete retaining wall. A ping of metal. The sharp crack of concrete followed by a distinct cry from a short distance away. Then nothing. An impossible silence seemed to hit the camp in that instant. The adrenaline pushed at Thomas to do something, but he denied the suggestion, patience being a virtue at the moment. Hidden behind the wall at the foot of the hill, he waited, hoping for some indication that it was over. Mere silence could never be trusted.
“Come out, Butcher! Your men are dead!” Thomas heard the voice announce from behind him. “We'll take you alive, if you'd like. Or dead.”
Who the hell? Thomas’s eyes went wide, irate with whoever would take command, take what was his to determine. He turned to Krenshaw. “Get around to the front, now!” They both lifted their backs from the wall—Krenshaw peeled off to his left, but Thomas bolted for the stairs.
With each drop of his boot, his anger grew. Thomas had seen the Butcher's temperament, he didn't feel that alive should be an option. In the little time he had spent in the camp, nothing existed that could build a case for redemption. The Butcher could not be rehabilitated. There were no men to rehabilitate here. Only the women and children could be saved. If they could be saved. Maybe they too were beyond help, but that determination would not be made today, not with a bullet like it would be with the men. The women would take time.
The moment the top step felt the crunch of his boot, his vision was pinpoint—the edges of the world a fading black. He brushed past a slumped body bent over a rail—only a foot caught between the balusters prevented it from flipping. He hardly acknowledged its existence as he approached the railing overlooking the carnage. Ten of his men, five rifles toward the bathrooms, the remainder guarded the rear, hitting the wood line with their rail-mounted lights. None of the dead among them mattered. The Butcher was cornered. Nowhere to go.
“He dies!” Thomas shouted, leaning forward between the columns of the gazebo. “There is no other way. Captain Able assigned me to this trial, so it's my decision.”
James moved toward him, separating himself from the others, taking the stairs to the top of the hill. “This joker doesn't deserve our mercy,” he said. “Look at this man here.” He threw his rifle’s light across the body still hanging from the tree. “There was no trial for him. There wasn't anything. He just strung hi—”
James’s body jerked as if stung from behind. Although the gunshot had to have come first, Thomas hadn't heard it. It was only the violent jolt that caught his attention. James collapsed. To his knees first, then further down with one palm in the mulch as his other hand grasped for his chest. The rifle lay beside him, illuminating James’s face—it read of pain and knowing death.
The men reacted swiftly, cutting their lights and taking cover within the trees.
“Find him!” Thomas shouted.
A team of four stole for the bathrooms, and Thomas went for James, but another shot ripped half of one of the columns from the gazebo and forced Thomas to the decking. Hang in there, damn it. This isn't the end for you. He watched as James lay in the mulch, taking painful breaths from only yards away. Thomas tried to get to James, but with each careful lurch forward another shot would send him back to the floor. All he could do was listen as each breath became shorter than the last. It took everything within him not to run for James.
“Find where it's coming from, damn it!”
“Bathrooms are clear!”
From up the drive, Thomas saw a light—not a beam from a flashlight or from fire that had spread, but slightly dull and fixed. He tried to discern exactly from what or where it came, but it shut off seconds later. What the hell was th— The trucks! Thomas came to a knee, then to his feet. There was no shot to curl him back onto the floor.
“He's at the trucks!” Thomas shouted before sprinting to James, taking to his side, but he wasn't there. He had already passed. His brown eyes lost within the stars above. “I'll be back for you,” Thomas whispered. He spun for that light in the distance, clutching his rifle in a death grip.
At some point through the chaos, the Butcher had made his move. Thomas knew the man’s pride wouldn't have allowed him to leave his goods—what he probably viewed as his right. The women were gone. He would have to have something in his hands when he returned home. But why now? Why not lay low? It made no sense, but of course pride made people do foolish things. To go down
in a blaze of glory was what made some men heroes.
The U-Haul’s engine kicked on, and the rattle of gunfire responded. The truck barreled down the drive, accelerating while the engine groaned from the pedal being kicked through the floorboard. Flashes of gunfire from the wood line were met with a furious response from the cab of the truck—that booming, mechanical trill of an AK-47.
Thomas lined up with the last bend in the road. The windshield would be straight on, ensuring he would have a few shots at his target. With little time to think, he banged the rifle into the nook of his shoulder and laid himself directly in its path, the angle projecting a clear shot where the truck would be. The headlights! He snatched the night vision scope from the rail. It would have to be raw sight alignment. He began to take the slack out of the trigger as the truck approached. The sights aligned, front into rear. He exhaled, pushing everything he had from his lungs. Here it comes! Make it count. No more failures. Hold... Hold...
He could hear the cargo in the back of the truck banging as it negotiated the bend in the drive, turning straight toward Thomas as he lay in wait. Here it is! Clear shots and he took them. Quick presses, aggressive pulls of the trigger toward the back. Fragments of glass dissipated into the air as the windshield splintered in response to the rounds piercing it, penetrating the cab.
There was no more turning of the wheel—it held, barreling straight for Thomas—the operator now seemingly inanimate as the truck no longer responded to any change in direction of the street. Thomas rolled from his position and the truck stumbled, rocking with its weighted suspension over the unevenness of the ground. A loud bang followed by the snapping of a tree—its branches bracing for its anticipated fall to earth.
Thomas rose to his feet, the rifle guiding him to the vehicle. The truck smoked heavily from its front end. A loud buzzing noise. The impact jarred the electronics, leaving the lights on from inside the cab.
From the rear of the truck, through the side mirror he could see spatters of blood. The muzzle of the AK rested against the door frame, protruding from inside. Thomas approached, snatched the rifle and pulled hard, throwing it to the ground. A quick glance inside. The Butcher lay on the cushioned seat, his suit ravaged and bloody.
“The world has always had places like this—” the Butcher coughed. “Needs places like this. People need to act out their darkest secrets.”
“You're sick!” Thomas popped the door open and jerked him from the vehicle. He fell limply against the dirt. The Butcher put his hands up to show he wasn't armed. Thomas pulled his sidearm and aimed squarely at his face. No turning back! This is who you are now!
“Hold on! Just...” The Butcher ran one of his hands through his hair. “I'm ready for—”
Chapter Eleven
A blanket of clouds had been pulled across the sky—the sun noticeably absent in the east. Colors that normally accompany the twilight hours gave up today, leaving only gray—a somber mix of two extremes. Black and White. New life and death. Celebration and mourning. Indeed gray as Thomas stood motionless in a fog of sleep depravity and quiet reflection. And as others took to warming themselves in the glow of a fire, he chose to stay with James.
Throughout the night, many of the Soldiers came and went from his side in between bouts of sleep and work. Every word of sympathy was met with silence, reducing these brief exchanges to consoling pats upon Thomas’s shoulder. The ones that chose to give him his space stood nearby, quiet, frowning with their heads drooped into their chests. Each man would deal with it in their own way.
There would be no rays of sunshine to thaw their hearts. In this chilled silence, Thomas gathered his thoughts, appreciating James for what he was and what he wasn't. He couldn’t help but consider that it might be best to keep his heart frozen. It was the thawing out that hurt—that coming to terms with the loss. I should’ve never let him go through with this. His head wasn’t in it from the start. I knew this was a damned mistake.
An engine groaned, and one of the Butcher’s trucks crept into the center of camp—Riley and Krenshaw stepped out. They dropped the tailgate and slid two bodies onto the pavement. The two of them smiled while looking over the bodies strewn about. “Pretty sure that’s the lot of them,” Riley said while dusting his hands off.
“Just waiting on the women now.”
Thomas took his eyes back to James. Death should be easy by now, right? You’d think that, but I guess it depends on who deserves it. He looked to the dead lying about—brought here in haste and thrown down without care. They deserved it. More will deserve it. He wiped from the corners of his mouth then scratched his chin. It’ll get easier… He knelt down. “You shouldn’t have been here,” he spoke under his breath while crossing James’s arms over his chest. He did his best to hide the wound and blood absorbed into his clothing. James appeared at peace—his eyes closed, his body still.
“You doing okay?” Riley approached, dragging the full length of one of the surviving tents behind him.
“Yeah, definitely,” Thomas lied.
“I’ll take care of it.” Riley bedded down the nearby grass by spreading out the tent.
“Not by yourself.” Thomas grabbed the other end and evened it out. “You ready?”
“Are you?” Riley’s eyes showed concern, but Thomas ignored him.
Thomas grasped underneath James’s armpits, being mindful not to shake his arms from his chest. Riley took hold of the legs, and they moved him onto the flattened tent. They curled the edges, creating a handle similar to that of a stretcher and carried his body to the pickup truck.
“I'll ride in here with him once we leave,” Thomas said. Riley nodded as they placed him onto the bed of the truck. Thomas clutched James’s hands and squeezed, his mind replaying the scene, the carelessness. How could I let this happen? Damn…
“Nothing we could have done would have changed this.”
Thomas smiled weakly.
“I mean it. There—” Riley turned around, noticing that Thomas’s attention went beyond him.
Blaine strolled toward the truck, grinning, chatting to a few of the Soldiers that were gathered by a campfire as he passed by them. He motioned for Riley to step away, wiping the grin from his face as they approached one another. “Allow me some time to speak with him,” Blaine spoke softly from a distance, but Thomas still heard. He sat down on the tailgate, working over his knuckles. A long, deliberate breath escaped him before he spoke. “Come and sit with me.”
“No thanks.”
“You did what you could,” Blaine offered
Thomas looked to the sky then banged his fist against the truck. “Damn it! This wasn't supposed to happen.” He pressed the palms of his hands into his forehead and groaned. “I...” His chin dropped, and he rested his forehead against the wall of the truck's bed. “After all the shit leading up to this, for him to go— for him to go like this. It’s crazy. I just...” An exasperated breath and he lifted his head. “I just can't believe it.”
“It's not yo—”
“Everything was perfect, you know?” Thomas interrupted him forcefully.
Blaine stood from the tailgate and walked over to the side of the truck opposite Thomas. “Everything on paper always is.”
Thomas disregarded this tactless remark, choosing instead to pull the tent further over James’s body—a last attempt at protecting him from the world. “You get wrapped up in these damn ideas.”
“What do you mean?” Blaine helped to cover James.
“I saved him two days ago?”
Blaine paused for a moment and looked to Thomas.
“He almost got us killed then. You should have seen him run.” A stifled chuckle and an uneasy smile faded from his face. “Only got a graze. He really was a...” His mind went adrift as he stared into the folds of the tent. He really was a good soldier despite himself.
Blaine stopped fidgeting with the tent and rested his hands along the bed of the truck. “I think...” Thomas snapped his head toward Blaine, glaring
at him in anticipation of another insensitive remark. “I don't—” He swallowed the lump that had lodged in his throat. “I don't think it’s productive to assign blame. Certainly, not on yourself. Not in the slightest. That's all I'm offering. It won't do any good.”
“His death is on me no matter what you or anyone says. I let his carelessness— his lack of attention run too long. I should have reeled it in.” Thomas turned his back to Blaine. “He really was a good man. Even through all the bullshit...”
“It wasn't your place to stop him.”
“It was though.” Thomas snapped back. “We served together in Syria. He was the same damn guy there too!” His voice rose to a shout, catching the attention of the Soldiers gathered around the fire. “I know his limits, and he got carried away. He’s so damn cocky all the time. I should have scaled him back. I owed him that.” Thomas’s voice broke slightly. He cleared his throat. “It was him that got me home from six thousand miles away. He had to make the hard choice then. It was my turn, and I…” Thomas rubbed across the coarse hairs on his chin. “I couldn't even get him four miles.”
“Here they come,” One of the Soldiers shouted, pointing to the now, fully-clothed women and children cresting the last hill of the southern service road. Thomas shot his attention toward them. Their laughter and boisterous conversations carried—their smiles oblivious to the sacrifices made to secure their newly-found freedom.
Deep down Thomas understood their elation was appropriate. He wanted it that way—set out days ago to make it that way. But in this moment, their joy scraped at his bones. The life of a decent man had been lost, and they would never truly know the extent of it. The cause was always bigger than the individual in battle.
Thomas had seen it first-hand. He knew the men that were lost in Syria, he would never forget, but to most, the deceased were the mere brush strokes in a mural. It didn’t matter to them which of the good guys made it home, only that the good guys won.
Days Since...: Thomas: Day 758 (Almawt Virus Series Book 1) Page 16