by Chuck Rogers
Malibou Lake is in Agoura Hills.
Not Malibu.
Go figure.
But here's a fun fact. You've probably seen it.
Remember the original Frankenstein movie? When the monster tossed the munchkin?
Right there.
What? You thought they shot that in the Bavarian Alps?
I hadn't prepared for cold weather but I put on every piece of clothing I had and curled up around the old fire hole. I'd slept a lot rougher. The night stayed overcast.
I watched the Southern California Aurora turn the clouds above into pulsing, genuinely disturbing, aortal organs of Crayola crayon red, purple and blue and worried about winter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Go ask Alice.
THE RUMORS WERE TRUE.
Agoura Hills had burned bad. The mudslides and flooding had been even worse. The springtime carpet of green couldn't hide how badly torn up the landscape was. Entire hillsides had been stripped to bedrock. There were a couple of craters I didn't like off to the east but they were miles away from any houses or water sources and at this distance the dosimeter showed no interest. I sat near the top of the hills that separated Agoura Hills and Greater Malibu.
Like the name said, Agoura Hills was a bunch of hills and valleys. Most of the city proper was located on the north side of the Ventura Freeway. You couldn't see it from here. Malibu Lake and a few other little enclaves were some miles south with mountains and hills between them, the 101, and the horrors of Los Angeles.
Of course most Agourians had commuted to LA every day . . .
But the southern parts of Agoura Hills had been a lovely little haven until it had burned.
People appeared to be burning it now.
I saw blackened houses on the north side of the lake. Not burned as in the massive fires and then rained out of existence by The Flood. These houses were blackened. As in arson. As in recently. I saw a house suddenly go up and some assholes and at least one assholette run out and jump in an SUV. The SUV and two pick-ups loaded with loot moved out. The more I looked the more I saw recent, non-Deathstar related devastation.
This wasn't good.
I went down the hill.
The cover wasn't what it could be. It took me most of the morning to work my way down the mountain using ravines and gulches. There were far too many long moments of being way too exposed. Once I got down to the floor cover was easy. I had an address and map. Other than taking care to not be seen, finding Alice wasn't hard.
She lived on the appropriately named Lookout Drive. Some of the houses had burned. Some hadn't. Nothing seemed recent. It looked like the predation hadn't gotten to the south shore yet. I spent some time observing Alice's house. A little sign outside proclaimed her house was protected by one of the companies that linked your alarms to your computer and your phone. I had a fairly strong feeling that after three months without Internet it was no longer operational.
I scouted the perimeter clockwise and counterclockwise. To the casual observer the house looked abandoned, but there were fresh horse tracks everywhere and some recent horse shit on the driveway. I heard a nickering noise in the garage and knew she was stabling at least one horse out of sight. I noticed an old time clangy alarm bell beneath the eaves and didn't want to set it off with assholes looting across the lake. I didn't have a boom box to hold up and play love songs outside her house.
I didn't have any fry-bread.
With assholes on the loose, knocking might get me shot through the door.
I went old timey, pre-cell phone, teen romance.
I slung my carbine, put the PPK in the small of my back for a surprise quick-draw, and tossed pebbles against her upstairs window.
I tossed thirty of them.
Then I had to go down the drive to get more.
I was squatting in the gravel picking pebbles when the window slammed open. I stared up the muzzle of an Indian Wars looking 'Yellowboy' carbine.
"Fuck off!"
The woman behind the rifle was MILFy. Close to my age. She was wearing a red bandana in the 'doing housework' style to hold her hair back.
I stood very slowly and raised my hands. "I have a letter for you."
She had a Hollywood-worthy smirking bitch-face. She worked the lever on the rifle. "Oh, fuck you."
I drew myself to attention. "Alice McKeefe?"
She blinked. The rifle never wavered. "Who wants to know?"
She had a permanent morning-after voice that I liked.
I wove some truth with some very stretched facts. I used my military-dealing-with-citizenry voice. "Ma'am, my name is Benjamin Frame, Gunnery Sergeant. United States Marine Corps. I bear a letter for you from Malibu Mayor pro-tem Sophina Smythe."
That was good for a jaw drop.
I slowly held out the packet of letters. "I walked three days to get here. With your permission I'll slide this under the door and wait while you read it."
The world had ended. She was a woman under siege. It was probably the best offer she'd had in a while.
"Okay."
I slid the letters under the door. It was a nice day. I sat on the step, drank some water and enjoyed the sunshine.
Ten minutes later the door opened.
"Sergeant Frame?"
"Just Frame."
"Please come in."
She was wearing riding boots, jeans, a plaid shirt and what looked to be a six-inch stainless steel .38 on her hip. She was still wearing the reading glasses she'd worn to read the letters. She looked exhausted and just about ready to start crying. There were family pictures of her with a man and a little girl on the walls but it was pretty clear she was alone.
"Sophina's dead."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You were there?"
"I was."
She led me into the dining room. Her rifle and the three letters were on it.
"Have you eaten?"
"Not since last night."
She went to her pantry. "I didn't know there were marines anymore."
I looked up at her seriously. "As long as I'm alive there's one. As for my beloved Corps? I do not know its status."
Alice set out two little, yellow cans of Italian anchovies, two pairs of chopsticks and two paper napkins. I pulled the tabs on the tins and she surprised me by taking out what I knew was a forty dollar bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We ate tiny canned fish a filet at a time and washed them down with wine. I grinned. "You have good taste in wine pairing."
Alice had a tremendous, smirking bitch-face.
"No, really." I chop-sticked another anchovy. "It's pungent on the nose, like the fish. But it's crisp and tangy. Cuts through the salt."
"Well, look at you."
"Yeah, but for me? Anchovies have always been an appetizer."
"Dude!" She slammed down her chopsticks. "That's lunch! That's what I got!"
"We can do better."
Alice glared and started to tilt back the empty can to drink the oil. She really wanted every calorie.
"Save that."
"For what?"
"I want it for the rub."
"What are you talking about?"
"You want meat?"
Alice's dim view of me did not brighten. "I don't think hunting in the woods is such a good idea right now."
"No, we have meat here."
"What are you talking about?"
"I did a lap around your perimeter before I knocked."
"Oh?" Alice gave me a vaguely violated look. "And?"
"You've got possums living under your deck."
"Oh." Alice considered this strange and wonderful news. "I've never eaten a possum."
"Would you like to?"
She suddenly shot me a grin. "I think I should like that very much!"
I broke out my tactical gloves and my Mini-Maglite and did a Marine Corps Confidence Course humping under the wire beneath Alice's back deck. For a man my size?
It was tight under there.
And hot.
And it smelled like a nest of possums.
"You're going to get rabies!" Alice opined.
Most of the marsupials fled skittering before me. I managed to corner one. It hissed and gave me the possum Satan face. I bellowed and gave it my USMC war face. Mr. Possum went stiff as a board and toppled over.
Mr. Possum was playing possum.
He gave me the 'I'm dead or worse!' stink out of both anal glands and I nearly gagged. I grabbed him by the tail before he could decide to 'wake up' and buzz saw my forearm down to the bone. I side-armed Mr. Possum skull-first into a cement deck pillar.
Despite the stench and filth as I emerged?
Alice was hella impressed.
I skinned the possum, gutted and cleaned it.
She hosed the death stink off both of us. She seemed far more interested in the skinned possum than the naked Marine. Though, when she looked at Lalli's necklace? Then looked at the scars on my face, and suddenly did the math . . .
"You've got to be fucking kidding me! You killed a bear? With what? Your bare hands?"
"Naw, it took an Uzi, a PPK and a jeep," I shrugged modestly. "But it was still pretty epic."
"Epic . . ." Alice hung my clothes to dry and got me a bath towel to gird my loins.
I took Mr. Possum inside, spatchcocked him and gave him a loving rubdown with anchovy oil.
Alice drooled openly. "Okay, fuck that. It's on!"
She went to the big drawer beneath her oven. It was filled with sand. She pulled out two potatoes, two carrots and two onions. She paused, visibly fought temptation, lost, opened another drawer full of sand and it was my turn to drool as she pulled out two Fuji apples.
Alice had been holding out on me.
"How long will those hold like that?"
"The root vegetables? At least a good six months."
I'd vaguely heard of storing fruits and vegetables in sand. I think I saw it on a cooking show. I'd have to bring this up with Lalli. Alice produced a jar with a couple thimblefuls of bacon fat and forty-five minutes later we were eating anchovy oil rubbed marsupial over a bed of roasted root vegetables rubbed with grease.
Washed it down with the rest of that Sauvignon Blanc.
A second bottle was required.
That was some pretty fine, salty possum eating.
I went to the matter at hand. "So who are these jack-holes on the other side of the lake?"
"I don't know. I've only seen them from a distance. But they're killing people. Rumor is they're taking people too. That and they're taking just about everything. Like stripping houses down to the studs. Though why they're burning the houses they strip is beyond me."
"They're turning you into refugees. The Malibu Lake hold outs will either have to flee or come to them on their knees."
"Fucking bastards!"
"It's what you did to my people. Works like a champ."
"Fuck you Dances with Bears! I'm Irish!"
I nearly blew wine out my nose.
Alice was beautiful when she was angry.
I liked her.
"So why are you sticking around?"
Alice took a very large slug of wine. "There's a vineyard east of here, about fifty-five acres. Of course the fires and then the floods wiped it out and the family that ran it are dead or pulled up stakes. But its good land, and right now? Those hills are covered with ash and mud. Some of us more agriculturally minded folk were thinking about some feeding the masses scale farming. But this part of Agoura Hills is mostly emptied out. That's why I was corresponding with Sophina. We'd need warm bodies to plant and to harvest. I was thinking of some kind of co-op. We need to set up a pony express across the Santa Monica Mountains. For that matter, we need to get every mare, cow, nanny, sow, bitch, and, God help us, every un-spayed cat pregnant. We can't have another winter like the last one."
"Maybe you should be Mayor of Agoura Hills."
"There's been talk."
"Then the assholes showed up."
"Yeah," Alice glared out towards the lake. "Then those assholes showed up."
"What can you tell me about them?"
"I scouted them from horseback when I heard there'd been trouble in Saratoga Hills. I got shot at and chased. The guys on the dirt bikes almost got me, but I was on a horse and I know the trails. I sent a letter with my friend Donny to ask Sophina for help. I guess he didn't make it. Maybe it doesn't matter. I don't know if there's any fighting these guys. If they're on the lake, then they took Saratoga Hills, and if they took the Hills then they took the downtown. I mean, they must be everywhere. Like an army."
"You said you saw them. Anything you can tell me."
"Yeah, some of them were wearing colors."
"Really."
"Yeah, you know, like biker vests."
I nodded. "I know. Did you see what club they were?"
"Club? Oh, you mean gang."
I rolled my eyes. "Club. You catch a name? See a symbol?"
"No, when I was close enough to see they were chasing me and I was going the other way. But the guys wearing colors? There were only a few of them. It looked like they were in charge. The rest were like probies, or--"
"Prospects."
"You know a lot about this stuff."
"I do."
"I thought you were a Marine."
"I am a Marine."
"So . . .?"
I sighed tolerantly. "A lot of members are vets. Anything else?"
"Yeah, they took over the Lodge."
"The Lodge?"
"It's our little country club down on the lake. They're using it as their local headquarters. Sometimes trucks show up and haul stuff off large scale."
This was getting worse and worse.
"I'm gonna go take a look at them."
"Really."
"Yeah, tonight. Can I stay here until then?"
"Of course." Alice frowned. "You want me to go with you?"
That was bold.
"Actually, you should really consider getting out of here. How many horses do you have?"
"Two here. Two more back in the canyons."
"I'll scout the assholes in the Lodge tonight. Depending on what I see I may want to go to the Saratoga Hills and then the freeway. If I do that I'd like to borrow a horse. Probably the one you mind losing least."
A big frown-line creased Alice's brow. She didn't want to part with any of her beasts. She finally heaved a sigh. "All right. Someone has to do it. I already tried and got my ass kicked."
"Thank you."
A silence fell between us.
Alice surveyed the remains of the possum. "Let's save the rest. I have a few potatoes left in the drawer. Tomorrow I'll make hash."
I grinned. "I think I should like that very much."
Alice laughed. Then another silence fell across the table and it was awkward. We drank wine and looked at each other and it got more awkward. I cleared my throat. "I could really use a nap. You got someplace I can stretch out?"
"Oh, well you can have the couch. Or the guest room."
"Couch will be fine."
"Okay." She led me to a couch that was actually big enough for me and got me a pillow and a couple of throws.
"Alice?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks."
"Thank you for coming." Alice disappeared back in the kitchen. I sprawled out on her couch for some well-deserved rack time and closed my eyes. Half an hour later I opened my eyes to find Alice cuddling in against me.
"Don't get any ideas."
Like I said. Primates need primates. Sometimes a warm body is enough. Alice threw an arm and a leg over me. She smelled slightly sweaty with hints of spatchcocked possum and dish soap.
I had all sorts of ideas.
It don't know if it was psychosomatic, but I swear I felt the Santa Muerte medal tingle in warning against my chest.
I kept my hands to myself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There's a trigger in your mind, and you love it, like a gun.
THE ASSHOLES WERE NOT EXPECTING AN AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT.
They sure as hell weren't expecting the United States Marines. Swimming in boots and carrying an assault rifle/grenade launcher combo with associated ammo is never fun, but the lake was barely two hundred meters at its widest. You really couldn't call it a combat swim with a straight face.
The Lodge at Malibou Lake was the local wedding and event venue. Alice had been there many times and she drew me a pretty decent map of the place. The assholes had bonfires going in the parking lot out front and on the lawn in the back. That gave me plenty of light to navigate by.
They had two sentries on the Lake Vista Bridge. An SUV parked sideways blocked both lanes.
I swam right underneath them and listened.
Sentry duty was boring the world over. Probably more so after the world ended. These guys were expecting zero resistance. They might as well have been a comedy team. One guy was complaining about everything.
There's one in every unit.
'Only True Sons got coffee. Only True Sons got girls. Only True Sons of Ged got to keep slaves. This was a shit assignment. Agoura Hills was empty. They did all the looting and house stripping but they didn't get to keep anything.' The other guy was mostly ' Don't know, don't have an opinion. Ged knows what he's doing.'
They Ooh'ed! when a particularly spectacular meteor streaked down.
That shit didn't get old.
The lingo was a little different but it sure sounded like True Sons were members and these guys were prospects. I was going to have to find out more about this man-with-the-plan Ged.
Slaves had a real nasty ring to it.
I swam on past the bridge and then I was in Medea Creek and on the Malibou Lake Lodge waterfront. There was plenty of cover and I emerged out of the reeds like the Creature from the Malibou Lagoon. I wore Man-in-Black base layers and I'd burned one of the Sauvignon Blanc corks to darken my face. I knelt in place, did a post-swim weapons check and observed. There were six tents pitched on the lawn but no one appeared to be in them.
I pulled a fade into the trees.
The perimeter walk showed me what I expected. There was no one by the pool. The tennis courts were abandoned. I circled around to the landward side of the Lodge. A back access road led to the Mulholland Highway. Two sentries stood guard with a car parked horizontally blocking access. I followed the sound of death metal along the backside. The Lodge didn't have power and most of it was dark. The assholes had a generator and the ballroom was lit up by a string of construction lights. The music got loud.