The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  “I marked the map. We could both hit this one here and torch it, and when the other two come to investigate, we shoot them from ambush.”

  It was actually a good plan. The way the properties lined up, two of the cousins almost shared backyards with a third.

  “How many of them have wives, kids?” I asked.

  “Just this house,” she said, pointing to the yellow smudge of a highlighted property. “Just a wife, no kids. Rhonda said the others have ex-wives, but none of them, nor the kids live with the families.”

  I’d let her do most of the talking with Rhonda. I’d slipped and scared the woman so badly that she’d tried to stab me. I knew that was a lot of people’s first inclination to do to me, but I would never be around her long enough to gain her trust. I counted on Courtney getting through to her because she had a calming quality, and because she was a young woman. Plus, when Ricky had explained that she was my daughter, I hadn’t corrected him. Courtney was about to start her snickering again when Becky asked her if she was Maggie.

  She shot me a look and turned to the little girl, telling her that Maggie was my littlest daughter. She didn’t correct her. Again, her words were not the full truth, yet they weren’t lies. She was covering for me again. Even though she was also one of the many people whose first inclination had been to put a bullet in my head.

  “We kill the men. If the woman was involved though…” the words trailed off as I recalled pulling the trigger.

  I’d never killed a woman before today. Of all the death and destruction that I’d been a part of or caused, I’d never done that and it was tearing me up inside. I’d kicked the door in, seen the knife hand move, and instinct and training had taken over. From that distance, there was no way I could have missed. It was hard not to think about how little regard I’d given that woman when I’d woodenly pulled the trigger.

  “Dick, Dick?” Courtney was waving a hand in my face.

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “What do you want me to do with the lady, if she was in on it?” she asked.

  “Use your best judgement,” I told her.

  “I’m sorry, if it’s any consolation.”

  “About what?”

  “You having to do what you did today. Not the men, that was pretty much automatic. The wife of Ben.”

  I nodded. Once again, she could see right through me.

  “If it has to happen, I won’t lose sleep, not after what I heard Ben’s wife tell Rhonda. They sounded like they should all be playing banjo music on some old movie set. Deliverance,” I told her.

  “Yeah, that.” She spat the words. “I’ve got nothing against hillbillies and rednecks, but raping lowlifes like…” I was watching her hands and saw the cords of muscle in her arms bunch up as she made a fist.

  I took her hand, much like Mel had taken mine, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, and smoothed her palm out. She resisted at first and then saw what I was doing.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that, kiddo,” I said, bumping the bottom of her chin with my free thumb.

  “Yeah, ok, Dad,” she said in her snottiest voice.

  I got it, her anger, her pain. How she’d championed taking care of the boy and later, the wife and daughter. She was still hurting and in pain. She was letting one emotion override the other. Grief and anger are two sides of the same coin in a lot of cases. What we were planning though, wasn’t murder per se, but more along the lines of justice. We were taking back the stolen supplies, and making sure to put down anybody who’d be coming to avenge the deaths of the few I’d reaped today. It was killing for the sake of saving Rhonda’s family from any more killing.

  “Don’t you Dad me,” I said in a low voice. “I’ll put you over my knee and spank you.”

  Her eyes got huge, and her mouth dropped open in shock. I knew it was a double entendre after what had almost happened between us during an unguarded moment, which was still a bit embarrassing, but I gambled on humor. She busted up laughing after a moment.

  “Gotcha,” I said, and walked toward the door to the side of the house.

  “I didn’t, you… It… GAH!”

  “This old dog can still sling some snark,” I said quietly as I knocked on the side door.

  “Mr. Dick,” Ricky said opening the door, “Momma and sissy are napping on the couch.”

  The kid was hesitating, unsure if he should let me in or not. I just wanted to say goodbye for now.

  “Don’t wake them. I’m going to go get your stuff back, like the stuff we carried to the basement.”

  “There’s a lot of it. Do you have a big enough spot for it in your van?” he asked, pointing to the Hummer.

  “Yeah, I should be able to. Don’t worry. Hey, do you know any of those folks?”

  “Yeah,” he said shyly, looking at his shoes. “They won’t be coming back for my momma and sister, will they?”

  “No, sweetie,” Courtney said. “We’re going to make sure of that, ok?”

  “Ok. My mom and sis were so scared, and they cried and I guess they just got a little too sleepy. If they don’t wake up when you come back, can you stay with me till they do?”

  That got me, and I had to turn away as some dust blew into my eye. The kid was a thousand times better than he had been earlier, with a knot the size of a goose egg on the side of his head. He’d seen his father murdered and had had to consider that his mom and sister were gone as well. Or worse. Now, this six or seven-year-old dude was taking care of the ladies of the house.

  “I will,” I said.

  He looked up and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was a grim, bitter day, but for him, it was over. All he had to do was keep on living, burying the horrors of the day in memory.

  Ricky let the screen door close.

  “You want to drive?” Courtney asked me.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  As we got into the Hummer, Courtney busted up laughing again.

  “What?”

  “’Bend me over your knee’? You know, that isn’t the most ‘fatherly’ comment I’ve heard this year.”

  I chuckled, “Yeah, figured it’d crack you up. Sorry if it was out of line.”

  “No, you just shocked the hell out of me. You kind of reminded me of how my dad was. So serious that you’d think a smile would crack his face, yet he would come up with wisecracks out of the blue, and I’d be left wondering if that sense of humor had always been there.”

  “I guess I have a little bit of a sense of humor, but don’t let it get around. It might hurt my street cred.”

  She grinned and put the Hummer in gear. I sat back, checking my KSG and topping it off. I’d forgotten to earlier when the woman with the knife had been holding Rhonda. Still had a ton in the gun, yet I was out of habit. Maybe getting closer to the end would have me getting sloppy? I hoped not, sloppy got people killed and I’d almost had enough death. Still, three more souls would be joining their loved ones in Heaven and Hell shortly. Three more men, who would otherwise rob, murder, kidnap and destroy lives.

  “We pulling into Ben’s?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She parked the Hummer in the spot the trucks had been parked when I’d freed Rhonda, and killed the ignition. The map showed that the houses were within an easy walking distance. Not close enough that my shotgun blast could have been pinpointed, otherwise they would already be here, checking things out. Half to three quarters of a mile.

  “Come on, follow me.” I made my way toward the tangled mess at the back of the property.

  “More corn?” she complained, but I could tell the whine was more out of habit than anything real.

  “Until we hit the wooded fence line that borders the small cul-de-sac where the others live.”

  She grumbled once, but I could see her mind was elsewhere. She followed, about ten paces behind me, as I slowly worked my way through, using the tree line in the distance as a landmark. It would get me within spitting distance of the backyards of the subdivision. W
e were going about this plan somewhat sloppy. We didn’t know for sure how many houses were occupied, but instead, were relying on the Humint (Human Intelligence) we’d heard from Rhonda. Most of the township had either left or stayed in place. Food and medicine were scarce and those who didn’t have their own well, often died of waterborne illnesses.

  It would have to be enough, though. I didn’t want the men to discover what we’d done and mount a counterattack. We were still outnumbered, which seemed to be par for the course. Still, by having a plan, training and fighting from surprise and ambush, we’d been able to accomplish amazing feats and keep ourselves alive. These were the thoughts I dwelled on as I made it to the tree line and waited for Courtney to catch up.

  “Which one is it?” I whispered, meaning the first house that we were going to hit and torch.

  From this angle, it looked nothing like the map that we’d seen, and I was trying to get my bearings.

  “That white house,” she said, pointing.

  That was what I was afraid of. We’d have to sneak through the backyards of three of the houses before we made it to the right one. I could tell which one it was, because it was the only white house I could see. The others were more of a gray or earth tones. Their yards were overgrown, the grass turning a shade of brown from a dry summer and early fall. Still, the white house had a large fishing boat beside it, and after looking at all of the dead grass I had an idea, if this was where the flare gun had come from. I still hadn’t figured out what they were trying to do with it, but I wasn’t about to sit them down and ask them either.

  “Grass and corn is too dry to light the house. Let’s check the boat first, then do the dirty deeds,” I whispered.

  She nodded and we set out. Moving along the outer fence lines was nerve wracking. Every darkened window could hold a sniper, every door could have men stacked up, ready to come boiling out with gunfire or worse, attack dogs. I kept these happy thoughts running on a loop as my adrenaline started pumping, making my ears and eyes seem to pulse with the heavier blood flow. A small tension headache was forming. I didn’t give it any thought as I kept crawling, only checking on Courtney once. She was following my movements, her carbine pointed more or less toward the empty houses in an army style crawl, even lower to the ground than I was.

  I stopped at the edge of the last house before we made it to the white one. This was the first house we’d encountered, where there seemed to be light flickering at a window. A candle or lamp perhaps. I looked up to the sky and was surprised to see that it had started to get dark. With that happy thought my stomach rumbled, reminding me that the entire day was almost over and I’d yet to eat. We still had too much work to do, so I ignored that and watched the windows as I made my way over to the fishing boat.

  On the right side, where the driver, pilot or whatever you called them sat, was a fire extinguisher. Clipped next to it was a hand held air horn. The kind people buy to use at stadium games and give other people big fucking headaches. I unclipped it and put it in my left dump pouch. That being done, we got into a crouch and pushed our way to the front door through the overgrown lawn and scrub, that had probably been growing here before the EMP.

  “Want me to knock?” Courtney asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Knock? Really?” What was she thinking?

  She undid the top button of her BDU top, took her hat off and shook her hair out. Well shit, I had to look somewhere else for a second.

  “Yeah, just be ready,”

  She slung her carbine, pulled her pistol with her right hand, and held it behind her back. She boldly walked up to the front door and banged on it with her left hand and stepped back. Immediately, we could hear footsteps pounding toward the front door.

  “Lucy, I told you, I don’t have more milk—”

  “Avon lady,” Courtney told him.

  Those were the last words cut off by a .45 in the heart. The report was loud, but the man never registered the fact that Courtney wasn’t Lucy. Oh shit, was she the woman from the house behind him? I fumbled for the air horn as Courtney pushed him inside and we shut the door. It took us a minute to clear the house and already we could hear some shouts from the backyard. It had to be the other two men from the raid, asking if everything was all right.

  “Give me the horn,” Courtney said.

  I did and she sprinted toward the front door and started depressing the button. The horn blasted the mostly silent twilight into a loud raucous. She held it down for a long note and then started honking it with short one second blasts and then dropped it. She still had her .45 in her other hand and took position just to the left of the door. When it opened, she would be just out of sight. Outside, I could hear two men calling to each other and the sound of them moving through the uncut yard toward the porch.

  “…Probably drunk and shot himself in the leg…” one voice said as the doorknob wiggled.

  “He didn’t lock it, did he?”

  Courtney let out another blast. It startled me and she shrugged her shoulders, dropped the canister on the ground, and took the .45 in a two-handed grip.

  “It sticks,” a deeper voice said and the handle turned and with a bump, the door popped open.

  The first thing they would see was the corpse of their dear departed friend. The second thing would be me rising from where I was crouched in the shadows, at the back of an afghan-covered couch.

  When it kicked off, one man went to a pistol holstered in one hand and another started bringing up an old side-by-side shotgun as if in slow motion. I don’t know who shot first, me or Courtney, but both men were hit multiple times by each of us. They fell where they had tried coming in the doorway, wedging themselves in place and in death.

  “That was too easy,” I said, reaching into the dump pouch to start reloading the four slugs I’d just expended.

  When we were done, I would make my loadout more along the lines of what I normally would do; alternate slugs with buckshot.

  “Dick, I’ll be back,” Courtney said as I was pumping the last shell in the KSG’s inner magazine.

  “Want me to watch your back?” I asked her.

  “I got this. Either she’s going to be a problem, or she’s not.”

  I reached out and grabbed the corpse holding the pistol and pulled, making the other fall into the doorway, his head almost up the man I was dragging’s ass.

  “Hurry back and be safe,” I said. “I’m going to find the supplies they took here and meet you outside. Give me a whistle as you come, so I know it’s you.”

  “You got it.” And she was gone.

  47

  There was a lot of stuff in the house. Enough that I forgot about the coppery metallic scent of blood, the disgusting smell of loose bowels, and just stared. I’d seen people with some stuff, but this couldn’t have all been taken from the R family’s house. It was just too much. I started pulling boxes out of a walk-in pantry just off the kitchen and set them on the table. A lot of the items had been bought locally, but there were things that just didn’t fit… At least, not what I was expecting. Some of the food had labels in Cyrillic, like nothing I’d seen around here.

  In the bedroom, there was another find. An M249 SAW leaned up against the wall. Military weapons and foreign food? I could see the preppers’ food easily enough, buckets of wheat, beans, rice and dehydrated foods… but cases upon cases of MREs that I knew to be Russian surplus? What the hell had we walked into?

  I heard a woman scream, and I grabbed the SAW as I made my way out of the house. I pulled the charging handle and saw that the belt had been already fed and a live round was in the chamber there. I hurried more than I liked to, visions of Courtney being slowly skinned alive, filling my brain. I rushed around the corner to see Courtney stalking toward me, a white cloth-wrapped bundle in her hands. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she ignored the thin brunette screaming bloody murder behind her. My eyes got huge as the cloth bundle was put into my left hand, my right barely holding the SAW.

 
; It moved, and a baby’s squall startled me so badly I almost dropped it. Instead, I dropped the SAW onto the soft overgrown lawn as the woman screamed again.

  “He did it for my baby, and you killed him!” The woman’s sobs were so extreme that her whole body shook.

  Courtney was also on the verge of all-out sobs herself. The baby in my hands made a noise again, and I moved the blanket off its face. As soon as the waning light touched its skin, it quieted and looked up at me with big brown eyes. I reached in and touched its perfect skin with one scarred finger. Soft, but hot. Fevered, even.

  “Lucy?” I asked as Courtney shot me a look and put her .45 in her holster. She picked up the SAW I’d set down beside me.

  “Ye..Yes...” She kept crying.

  “Your husband, was he one of the men who came over here to check on this guy?” I said, pointing to the house.

  She nodded.

  “Your husband and these men killed a farmer down the road, stole his supplies, and kidnapped his wife and daughter.”

  She fell to her knees, her hands ripping at the grass as she shook her head.

  “We had to make sure they didn’t go back and kill the woman and children,” I told her, never having been in a situation like this that I could ever remember.

  “She’s sick, and if she don’t get more milk in her, she’s going to di… di…”

  She couldn’t say it. Obviously, the child was sick. I could feel it now, the heat radiating through the thin cotton blanket it was swaddled in.

  “Did you know they were going to do some killing?” I asked her.

  She was too pathetic to be a monster who would go along with something like this. I wanted to see if she knew beforehand though, or what her thoughts were. Maybe it would make it easier to figure out what to do. For as tough as Courtney talked, she was as wrecked as the woman was and my heart was breaking over all of this, for the second or third time in one day. Why couldn’t things be black and white? Good guys, bad guys… not screaming, crying wives and sick babies. No more dead husbands, who had been playing in the barn with their sons, trying to teach them some new skillsets.