by Weston Ochse
McQueen had sprawled in his hasty fighting position, legs akimbo, one arm above his head and holding the pistol, the other covering the wound. Blood was already soaking through the spaces between his fingers.
“I feel like John Wayne in The Cowboys,” he gasped.
Boy Scout crouched over him. “Wrong movie, my friend. He was shot in the back in that movie.”
“Then it was Rio Bravo or El Dorado,” McQueen managed.
“Same movie, different actors, except for Wayne,” Boy Scout said.
“Will you two stop your fucking Hollywood repartee?” Preacher’s Daughter cried. Tears covered her cheeks. “I am so sorry, McQueen. I am so damn sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. You were right.” He smiled weakly. “I’m getting fat. Body armor rode up a bit.”
“How bad is it?” Boy Scout asked.
McQueen winced, lifted his hand to peek at the wound, then returned it. “Does the pope fart in the woods when a tree falls?”
“Lore, help me get him back to the RV.”
They each took an arm, but McQueen leaned heaviest on Boy Scout. They limp-carried him to the RV. They struggled for a moment getting him up the steps, but finally managed to push him onto the couch. Boy Scout removed McQueen’s body armor and checked for an exit wound. He found it two inches to the right of the spine.
“Someone get this started and on the road,” Boy Scout ordered, searching the cabinets for medical supplies.
“No can do. Two of the tires are blown,” Preacher’s Daughter said.
Boy Scout glanced at the window at the three burning hulks. “Fuck.”
Then Charlene was there, holding a first aid kit in her hands.
“You knew,” Boy Scout said, taking it. “You fucking knew and you let him get shot.”
Charlene remained silent as he dug into the first aid kit. The small plastic box of Band-Aids was meant to fix a hangnail, not treat a gunshot. Still, he took the ACE Bandage and tore it in two. He put one section in back and stuffed the hole, then used the remainder for the front. He’d seen duct tape somewhere earlier and ordered someone to bring it to him. Meanwhile, he wanted to keep McQueen awake.
“Why Operation Boom Boom?” he asked.
“We had three UAVs on the roofs with pipe bombs attached to them.” He grimaced as Boy Scout hoisted him up to wrap the duct tape around the ACE Bandages, holding them in place. He laid McQueen back down. “When the vehicles came, I operated the UAVs from my position and kamikazied each of them into a vehicle. Blew them up good.”
“Shouldn’t it have been called Operation Boom Boom Boom, then?” Boy Scout asked, trying to smile.
McQueen stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “You were always smarter than me, boss.”
“That’s why I’m the boss.”
“We have to do something,” Preacher’s Daughter cut in.
McQueen shifted and made a face like he’d impaled himself on a spear. Then his expression softened and he began to breath shallowly, probably to minimize the pain.
“What is there to do?” Boy Scout said, sitting back heavily. “If we try and carry him, we’ll never make it.” To McQueen he said, “What do you want me to do?”
“You said they were the same movie,” McQueen murmured. “Tell me about them.”
Boy Scout had been there before. He remembered holding SSG Pavarnik’s head in his lap as he bled out from too many wounds to patch back in Iraq. “Tell me a story, Starling,” he’d said. All he’d wanted was to hear another voice—something to connect him to humanity for the last time. So Boy Scout did as he was told and gave McQueen words to anchor himself to the living.
“There were actually three movies, all done by director Howard Hawks. Rio Bravo, then El Dorado, then Rio Lobo. They were all essentially the same, about a sheriff trying to protect his town from bad guys. Dean Martin played the drunken sheriff in Rio Bravo and Robert Mitchum played the drunken sheriff in El Dorado. They both had a sidekick. In Rio Bravo it was the singer Ricky Nelson playing Colorado. In El Dorado it’s James Caan playing Mississippi.”
“Was that James Caan from the Godfather?”
“Sure was. Sonny Corleone. A funny thing about Rio Bravo is that Robert Mitchum was supposed to have a limp and he kept forgetting which leg to limp on. If you watch the movie you can see him limping on the left sometimes and on the right.”
McQueen stared into space long so long that Boy Scout thought he might have died.
Every second Boy Scout’s chest felt more and more hollow.
But finally, McQueen took a deep breath and said, “Sort of reminds me of when we were in the fugue. We kept replaying the same thing, trying to get it right. Maybe if we’d had Howard Hawks, we could have finished sooner. Tell me about the last one—what was it?”
“Rio Lobo.”
“Yes. Rio Lobo. Is that the same as the others?”
“It starts out different, but in the end everyone is barricaded in the sheriff’s office just like the others.”
“Why’d the director repeat it?”
“Trying to get it right, I guess. Maybe the director, Howard Hawks, was in his own fugue.”
A moment passed where McQueen had closed his eyes. “What was there to get right?”
“I suppose he had a vision and kept trying to make real life fit into it.”
McQueen laughed, then coughed, then laughed again. “Funny how you call the movies real life.”
“Can I get you some water?” Preacher’s Daughter asked. “Can I get you anything?”
“Sure,” McQueen said. “I feel so dry.”
Boy Scout and Preacher’s Daughter met each other’s gaze and shared their desperation.
She got up and grabbed a bottle of water, opened it, and dribbled some of the contents into McQueen’s mouth.
McQueen coughed once and his eyes fluttered.
“Don’t blame yourself, Lore. I can see... see it in your eyes. It was a firefight. Crazy shit happens in a firefight.”
Boy Scout could blame himself as well. Maybe if he’d taken Faood up on his offer, McQueen wouldn’t be lying here.
“But it was my bullet fired, from my gun that got you,” she said, and cried.
“Technically you were using one of the dervish’s rifles,” Boy Scout said in barely a whisper.
She looked down into what was probably a bottomless pit of regret and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Still, I was the one who fired it.”
“I love you, Lore,” McQueen said.
“I love you, too, my big fat gay hipster.”
McQueen tried to laugh, shuddering with the effort. His eyes closed for a long moment, then opened again. He turned his face to Boy Scout. “Remember our conversation about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
“First John Wayne and now Buffy? What is this?” Preacher’s Daughter grabbed McQueen by the sleeve.
“Hush now,” Boy Scout said. “Yes, I do. You said that I was Buffy. You even said I should change my call sign.”
McQueen smiled weakly. “We agreed that Lore was Anya, the vengeance demon.”
“I remember that.”
McQueen’s eyes squeezed shut as though he was about to cry. Then he opened them again. “What about me? I don’t want to be left out. Who am I, Boy Scout? What character am I, Bryan? Am I even in the show?”
Boy Scout’s face softened as he cupped McQueen’s cheek. “You’re Xander.”
McQueen frowned. “Why him? He has no power. He’s just a regular dude. He... he’s pretty much comic relief.”
“You don’t get it,” Boy Scout said. “You’re the expert of the show and you don’t even see it. Sure, he has no power. Sure, he’s sometimes comic relief. But so are you.”
Preacher’s Daughter broke in. “Xander’s arc was about trying to get others to respect him. Don’t you see it, my fat gay hipster? You spent your entire career trying to show people that it’s cool to be gay and fat and hipster.”
McQueen coughed, th
en smiled thinly. “I’m not fat,” he said. Then added, “Well, maybe a little.”
“See, Xander is the heart of the show,” Boy Scout said. “Without him, the show would be lost, which was why he was in every episode but one. He grounds the others. He makes them more human. Among all the monsters and demons and slayers and vampires, Xander is the most human of them all. That’s what you do for us, McQueen. You make us more human.”
McQueen stared at Boy Scout for a long moment. Then, “Fuck me, boss. You’re going to make me cry.”
“Which was something that Xander would definitely have said.”
Then they all cried, even Charlene—right up until the sound of a helicopter roaring past, making them all stare hopefully at the roof.
Chapter Forty
Why It’s Called Death Valley
PREACHER’S DAUGHTER LEAPT up and ran to the window. She stared out a moment, then said excitedly, “It looks like Noaks.” She grabbed a rifle and headed to the door. “Going to check.”
When she was gone, Boy Scout asked Charlene to get him a wet rag. She brought it to him and he wiped McQueen’s face clean. He was pallid and sweaty. He desperately needed medical attention. The helicopter could be a life saver.
A minute later, Preacher’s Daughter came back to the RV.
Poe was right behind her.
Boy Scout reached for his pistol.
“Easy, Boy Scout. I’m just here to help.”
Boy Scout’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you know we were here?”
“I saw everything from satellite. When the dervishes made their move, I made mine and tried to get here in time.” He nodded to McQueen. “I saw him go down. How is he?”
McQueen’s eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.
“We need a Level One Trauma Center.”
“Nearest one is Las Vegas. Fort Irwin is closer. They could at least stabilize him.” Poe, who had been edging close to McQueen to see how he was doing, suddenly backed to the door. “Wait a minute. What are you wearing?”
“A suicide vest.”
“What the fuck, Starling?”
“If I don’t wear it the yazata takes over,” he said in monotone. Damned if he wasn’t tired. “Long story.”
“Are you serious?” He glanced at Preacher’s Daughter. “Is he serious?”
She nodded.
“Those things going to go off?”
Boy Scout looked at Poe. He wished he didn’t have to answer dumb questions, but if they wanted a ride, he’d need to at least cooperate. “I hope not. Instead of worrying about me, can we get McQueen some help?”
Poe hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s get him to his feet.”
Together they carried McQueen to the waiting helicopter.
Noaks was in the front seat and appeared concerned. He acknowledged Boy Scout with a friendly albeit worried nod.
They laid McQueen across the floor rather than trying to strap him into a seat.
Tom the Operator sat near the closed far door. Across from him sat a dervish, his hands and feet shackled to the floor.
“I found one alive,” Tom said. “He was hiding behind one of the vehicles. The rest are dead.”
Boy Scout glanced at the operator and growled.
Poe said, “Nothing funny is going on here, I swear.”
“Let’s just get McQueen to the hospital,” Boy Scout said.
“We could use our first aid kit in the helicopter, but I’m afraid we might do more harm than good. Looks like you staunched the bleeding.”
“He’s bleeding internally,” Boy Scout said. “Nothing we can do about that here.”
“Then let’s get him to help.”
Everyone climbed aboard. When Charlene was about to get in the helicopter, Poe said, “Where is she going?”
“With us,” Boy Scout said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Listen,” Preacher’s Daughter said. “I don’t know what hard-on you have for her, but she’s coming with us.” She gestured to the desert. “There’s nothing out here and nowhere to go. We can’t leave her. We won’t leave her.”
Poe looked as if he wanted to argue the point.
“What if the dervishes come to collect their dead and find her?” she asked.
Boy Scout could tell the man liked Preacher’s Daughter.
Charlene remained silent through it all. Of course she did—she knew what the response was going to be before anyone did. “Okay, you’re right.” Poe held out a hand and helped Charlene board.
Boy Scout situated himself on the floor with his legs spread and McQueen laying between them, his head on Boy Scout’s lap. He held his old friend with both hands.
Once in the air with their headsets on, Noaks said, “Twenty-two minutes’ flying time to Fort Irwin.”
After a few moments, Poe said, “The Turkish Consulate is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Boy Scout asked.
“The creature it held—the daeva—others came for it.”
“How did they—” The whales. The same way Faood had known. “That must have caused quite the disturbance.”
“It would have, but they were invisible to the naked eye.” Poe pulled out a tablet and pressed a few buttons, then held it out. “This showed up on thermal.”
And there it was. Eleven giant thermal images with impossibly long arms pulling apart the building as they worked their way to free one of their own. Chunks of walls and floors and ceilings were hurled into the street, landing on cars and trucks. Bystanders must have been mystified as to why the building suddenly just came apart. Boy Scout watched, entranced, for several moments, then saw them board their thrones and roar away.
“What’s the official story?” Boy Scout asked.
Poe raised an eyebrow. ”They’re going with highly localized tornado.”
“Who’s going to buy that?” Preacher’s Daughter scoffed.
Poe shrugged. “It’s LA. They’ll buy anything. Give it a day and they’ll stop asking questions. Give them a week and they’ll forget it ever happened.”
Boy Scout remembered when he’d first seen them in that valley so high in the Hindu Kush where the JSOC Colonel was making a drug deal. They had been invisible at first.
“Where did they go?” Boy Scout asked.
Poe looked at him. “I think they were headed this way.”
“You think they were...” Boy Scout sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me first?”
“Getting McQueen help was more important. We can fly faster than they can, anyway.”
“How can you be so sure?” Boy Scout asked, remembering his increasingly dexterous ability to move on the astral plane.
“Hey, we could have not come,” Poe said, exasperation clear in his voice. “We’ve put ourselves in harm’s way just by being here.”
Boy Scout nodded. “I get it. Do you think they’re coming after me?”
“Or what’s inside of you. It’s another reason we’re here. Even with our differences, I couldn’t leave you behind.”
“About our differences,” Boy Scout began. “I—”
Poe cut him off. “I’m sorry I even tried to do what I was going to do,” he began. “I spoke again with the House Subcommittee and we agreed to call everything off. There were too many procedural violations and laws we would have to break to imprison you, not to mention the federal ban on human experimentation.”
Boy Scout shook his head. “Human experimentation? I don’t even want to know what you had planned.”
“It wasn’t me,” Poe insisted. “I was just the delivery man.”
“I was just following orders,” Boy Scout said sarcastically.
Poe could only frown.
“I’m just happy cooler heads prevailed,” Boy Scout said.
“Now you can walk down the street and not be in fear of getting picked up,” Poe said.
Boy Scout stared out the window on the helicopter’s side door and nodded. “Sure.” Then he turned and made eye contact
with Charlene. He scowled as he said, “I know you knew he was going to get shot.”
She nodded.
“You could have warned me sooner,” he said through gritted teeth.
She shook her head, eyes imploring for him to understand. Finally, she said, “But I did warn you.”
“Too late. You warned me too damned late. I don’t get it.” He lowered his gaze back to McQueen. “Why’d you help me and not him?” he asked, patting McQueen’s chest ever so gently.
“Faood did something he shouldn’t have. He needed to be taken off the board.”
Boy Scout tried to make sense out of her words. “Taken off the board?”
She cocked her head and paused, staring into space. Then she seemed to come to a decision and returned her gaze to him. “Faood wasn’t who you thought he was,” she said carefully. “Faood was Rumi. Rumi discovered how to take over a yazata and forced it to merge with Faood, creating a single entity. He lives within you now. You have both the original yazata and Rumi inside of you.”
“That’s impossible! I saw the yazata consume the essence of Faood.”
“The yazata did try, but it was unable to succeed. Even as strong as it was, Rumi’s self-awareness saved him.”
Boy Scout’s mind was spinning. He had so many questions he wanted to ask. He settled for, “What was Faood… going to do?”
Charlene inhaled before she spoke. “Bring on the end times. Rumi knows the truth of it all.”
“Bring on the—how would he do that? Why?”
“He believes that the greed and murder and hatred of the world is because of overpopulation. He’d see it changed even if it meant the deaths of billions of people,” Charlene said.
“Are we talking about the end of the world as in the Rapture? Or the end of the world because of something that man did?”
“He wants to release all the yazata. He’s been gathering them in a single place. He wants to release them in the world and let them be free.”
Boy Scout remembered the video of the rays of light shooting out of his mouth. He remembered the power of the being inside him when he confronted it. Having the world populated with hundreds, if not thousands, of these creatures would certainly mean the end times. Did Rumi really want the world to end like that? It also explained why Rumi had been so easy to find. He was always there, because he knew where Boy Scout was. The reason Faood no longer searched for Rumi was because he’d already found him and had been taken over.