American Apocalypse Wastelands

by Nova

  “Yeah.”

  Donna told him, “See you. I hope you feel better.” She turned to me. “I gave him a pain-killer. He’s going to be groggy before too long.”

  “Thanks, Donna. Come on, kid, I’m not going to cuff you.” I grabbed him by the elbow and steered him to the door.

  We settled into the truck, and I put it into drive and headed down the road. Traffic was light and the sun was starting to set. Summer was fast disappearing, and the maple and oak leaves would soon be changing in their annual display of color. My favorite time of year, by far.

  The kid had slumped against the door and his eyes were shut. He was still breathing, so I left him alone. I better make sure he is breathing a couple miles out from the pickup, I thought. I doubt Big Daddy would be very happy with me if I delivered a corpse.

  He surprised me a couple miles further down the road when he started talking. “You know, you could drop me here and no one would ever be the wiser.”

  “Kid, if that happens, you won’t know because you’ll be dead.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  “Let me guess. Daddy gives you a hard time about being gay.”

  He laughed. It was bitter one. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Kid, I don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Wake me up when we get there.”

  I didn’t need to; his dad’s security team did. I pulled into the gas station. It was empty. Casey’s breathing was heavy and slow. I rolled down the window. The smell of trees, old oil, and grass drifted in. Across the meadow next to the lot I saw three deer burst out from the tree line and move east through the wild grass.

  There’s one, I thought to myself.

  That’s when the black Suburbans came roaring in. Where the meadow and the parking lot met in front of me, two men rose up from the grass. Even their weapons were camouflaged. The Suburban doors swung open, and about a second later I had a pistol pressed against my head and was being dragged out of the driver’s seat and dropped, hard, to the ground.

  “Lay flat and spread them.” They patted me down quickly and professionally, first relieving me of my Ruger. “Roll over!” Then it was the Colt. I had left the bayonet back in a desk drawer in the office. They even took the little penknife I wore around my neck. “Roll over.” Back I went onto my stomach. “He’s clean!”

  I couldn’t see but I heard the sound of an inbound helicopter. It came down in the middle of the meadow. I bet it scared the crap out of the deer. I heard the truck door open on Casey’s side.

  “Got him. Go! Go! Go!” Wow, his daddy really did love him. He had ordered up a medevac.

  The helicopter’s rotors had slowed but never stopped spinning; now I listened to them increase in speed and I knew he was gone. I just lay there facedown in the asphalt, waiting for their next move or the bullet, while I watched an ant travel past my nose.

  Five minutes after the sound of the departing helicopter had faded into the twilight, I was jerked upright and told, “Time to talk to the man.” They frog-marched me to a black Suburban that looked no different than any of the others. The passenger doors were open on both sides. I was jerked to a stop about five feet from the open door.

  “Wrists!” someone yelled. I held them out and was flex-cuffed. “Okay. In you go.”

  I was alone. It was starting to look like Plan A might need some modification. I was trying to remember what Plan B was when I heard footsteps approach.

  “Thank you. I have it from here. Post them out twenty feet and tell Major Debose that this should not take long.”

  He climbed into the seat beside me. He was six foot two, in shape, fifty years old plus or minus a couple, and a hundred ninety pounds. He was wearing black jump boots with a mirror shine. I knew he didn’t polish them himself. He was in khakis—the most popular power suit of the current administration after camo BDUs. His hair was the color of professionally polished silver, and his tan had been color coordinated to accent his blue eyes. I still didn’t recognize him.

  “Officer Gardener?”

  I nodded. Who the hell else was he expecting? I thought.

  “Thank you for coming. I just got off the phone with the medic team. My son is in good condition. They confirmed your diagnosis. There is the question of the injuries to his hand and forehead. It is their opinion that those are not consistent with a car crash. My son also confirms that.”

  “It is extremely important that he is not allowed any outside communication, including access to a cell phone.”

  “Why would that be?”

  “We are not done cleaning up after him.”

  He stared at me and then activated his Bluetooth and told someone to make sure his son had zero access to any type of communications device until further notice. He looked at me. “Satisfied?”

  “Can you confirm he has not had access up to this time?”

  He had never closed the link. He muttered something into it. He waited twenty seconds and then replied, “Thank you.”

  “No. He asked to call his mother. They told him to wait until they landed because of the noise.”

  “You’re very polite,” I told him.

  “I can afford to be.” He shifted in the seat so he could look directly at me. “What do you want?”

  I almost said “a cheeseburger,” but the smart part of me slapped my brain in time. Instead: “Recognition.”

  “That’s it? What do you want: a statue? A medal?”

  “No. I can also offer you a guarantee.”

  “First tell me about the guarantee.”

  “By this time tomorrow morning, if you can keep your son isolated, I can guarantee that there will be no witnesses left alive who can put him at the scene of the murder. Or anything else.”

  “Tell me about what my son has gotten himself into.”

  I told him about the old man and his wife. And what had happened to them after they were jacked. That his son had been working as a spotter. That I knew he would flee again and I would not be able to catch him, so I rammed him. That he tried to draw on me and I dissuaded him of that. That he was a smart-mouthed punk who didn’t know when to shut up.

  His face remained expressionless throughout my tale. His eyes narrowed slightly when I ended. Then he laughed. “Tell me about the recognition.”

  “My guess is the area outside the Zone is a concern. We are not separatists. We are Americans—Americans who are also outside of the Zone. With support, we could provide you assistance in the way of intelligence gathering, policing the area, especially the roads, and perhaps trading the food we raise for money, goods, or both. We wouldn’t need to enter the Zone. We could set up a trading post in a neutral area to transact our business.”

  He looked at me. After a period of time that almost became uncomfortable, he replied.“Make a list. Someone will be in touch.” Then he left.

  I sat there for about five minutes until a soldier filled my side of the door. “Wrists!” Jesus, these guys were big into shouting. I stuck out my arms, and he cut the cuffs.

  “Out of the vehicle!” He and another soldier assisted me out and then frog-marched me back to where I had started.

  “On the ground. Face first!” I could hear the vehicle engines turning over. They were leaving.

  The soldier who cut my cuffs told me, or rather my backside, that I was to stay in this position for ten minutes. If I moved, I would be shot. After the ten minutes had passed I could get up and go about my business. Did I understand?

  “Yes. I did.” That’s what I said. I don’t know what it sounded like to them, as I was planted facedown. I don’t think they cared. They left without saying another word.

  I waited twelve minutes. Then I stood up and stretched. My weapons had been emptied and left on the hood of the truck. I got in and headed home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I swung by the station in town. Once our patrol car was repaired, we planned to install one of the CBs we had scrou
nged up. Max would get one for his truck, and the farm would have one. We already had a set of walkie-talkies, but we didn’t have the batteries for them.

  The station had POTS—plain old telephone service—as did Shelli’s diner. Our communications didn’t bother me as much as it did Max and Night. They were used to a functioning system, and our half-assed patchwork of CBs, POTS, cell phones, e-mail, and notes stuck to doors made them crazy.

  I didn’t expect Max to be back at the station, but he was, along with everyone from the motel, plus Diesel and Hawk.

  Night ran to meet me and gave me a big hug, which surprised me. She was not much into public displays of affection. It reminded me that I still had the rings in my pocket. I did the greeting thing and kicked Ninja out of my chair. Night sat on the desk next to me.

  “So, are you all here just to listen to me talk about my exciting adventure at daycare?”

  “That and to plan a house call.”

  “Oh. Well, Max, you’ll pleased to know that in exchange for my being released with all my body parts intact, I agreed to the stipulation that you will return to active duty.”

  Dead silence and jaws dropping. I loved it. I waited a couple seconds and said, “Just kidding.”

  “Gardener, you’re an asshole.”

  I laughed. “No, really all is well. Big Daddy agreed to Plan A.”

  Night asked what I knew Max was thinking. “What was Plan A again?”

  “We get to give him a list of goodies we want. We get recognition as the civil authority in this part of the world and trade rights with the Zone.”

  We talked about the ramifications of that, and whether or not Big Daddy would actually come through. Night liked my part about guaranteeing the cleanup.

  “He’ll never know for sure that we aren’t holding back on some crucial piece of evidence.”

  Diesel’s reply, which I had not thought of, was, “So then he just comes back and kills us all.”

  “No,” Max shook his head, “he would never be sure he got everyone. Plus, he may be powerful, but I think wiping out small towns for personal reasons is a bit of a stretch, even for him. No, that was well played, Gardener.”

  Night reached over and rubbed my back. I thought, Well, I guess I’ll skip the part about how I didn’t think of Plan A until I was staring at him.

  Then Ninja asked the question we had all been avoiding. “So the little shit gets away with it?”

  Night started to answer him but I cut her off. She was coming to my defense, but I was really the one he was addressing.

  “He’ll be back, Ninj. He can’t help himself. He doesn’t fit in the Zone, and he thinks he can survive out here. Plus, he thinks Big Daddy will always have his back. No, he and I will definitely talk again.”

  Ninja looked at me. I mean, he really looked at me. He knew. Truth. He nodded his head and smiled. The smile reminded me of Night when she knew she had me backed into a corner.

  Casey was a dead man.

  While I was with Big Daddy, Night had gone back to the trailer and printed a Google map of the address Casey gave us.

  It was a farmhouse, a lot like Tommy’s, with the usual scattering of outbuildings, except this one had a barn. A lot of rural houses didn’t, which surprised me. It had taken me a while to grasp that rural didn’t mean they had a herd of cows. This was an older house; these older farmhouses usually had barns. At one time barn wood was in high demand for new construction. I doubted if that was still true.

  The last part of the nearest road was dirt, running for almost half a mile before it reached the farmhouse turnoff. It continued on for a number of miles until it crossed back over a paved county road. They weren’t alone out there, but they were on sixty acres, which is about as close to alone as you get in this part of the world.

  Night had printed a zoom of the house and then another one so that we could see the lay of the land.

  “Very nice,” I told her.

  “Thanks. It’s also the last one I’m going to be able to do. We’re out of ink.”

  “Really? I thought we had spare cartridges.”

  She reached over and slapped Ninja upside his head. He didn’t move, other than to look down. “Some idiot has been printing porn.” Another slap.

  I just shook my head. “We’ll get some more, or get a printer that still has good cartridges. Sounds like a job with your name on it, Ninja.” I looked at him. He checked to see if Night was looking at him; she wasn’t, so he rolled his eyes.

  “So, Max, how do you want to do this?”

  “It’s your call, Gardener. I’m not going.”

  That surprised me. I waited for the Just kidding but it didn’t come.

  “Gardener, while you were out, we talked about the militia plans. We are going to split it into two groups. The town guard will be just that. They will also handle the tollbooths and do limited patrols around the outskirts of town. The second group will be rangers. That will be the younger men and woman. They’re going to do deeper patrols and serve as the muscle when needed. You’re going to lead them.”

  I was stunned. Truly freaking stunned. Night was beaming at me, and so was everyone else. I was genuinely touched. “Why thanks, Max—I think.”

  “Yeah. Try not to fuck up too bad. So, let’s hear your plan for this op.”

  I had looked at the photos and on the way back I had thought about how I would handle the Bunker Busters, so it wasn’t hard to tell everyone what I had in mind.

  My idea was along the same lines as what the sheriff—who was still on my to-do list—had planned for us.

  “We’ll approach on foot. I want to do this right before dawn. Hawk, I want you on the Barrett as overlook. Kill them fucking dogs if you see them. I think these people deserve something special other than a bullet. Diesel will take out the front window with the shotgun. Then I toss a Molotov through it. We hit the door with another. We each fade right and left of the house and take cover. Ninja—damn, we’re going to need Old Guy. You two got the back. Torch the door. Fade back. Watch the second-story windows. We kill them all. We go home. We stop at the diner, and the goat burgers or whatever’s on the menu are on me.”

  Everyone, including Max, thought it was a good plan.

  I gave Night her engagement ring and hid the wedding ring in the bottom drawer of the chest we shared. I didn’t get any sleep. She was just drifting off when it was time for me to get up.

  Old Guy was now living on the farm, and he had the bedroom next to us. He snored, loudly. I never mentioned it to him because I didn’t want to hear him complaining about the noise we made. And we did make some noise.

  I knocked on his door and heard him grunt. I did the same for Ninja and then went into the kitchen and started the coffee.

  Getting ready for a new morning was not the same as it once was, especially a morning like this when full dress was required. Once upon a time it was: Pull on some pants, grab a shirt, and go. No longer, especially for something like what we were doing today.

  I was going to be wearing a battle dress uniform in the Woodland pattern. I called it my GI Joe suit. I already had my underwear on. I put on a cup over them and then I pulled on the pants. Next came a brown T-shirt that was borderline—it almost failed the sniff test. I shrugged and pulled it over my head. Socks came next. I skipped the sniff test with them.

  Then I put on my armor. Luckily, it was getting cooler and this op would be over by 0830. Otherwise, wearing armor in the summer really sucked. I wiggled it around and adjusted it. Next was the belt for the pants and then my gun belt. I was wearing the bayonet now, so I slid it in and out of the sheath three times for luck.

  I put my kneepads on next. Max wore only one kneepad when he got geared up. Most of the time they ended up around my ankles, but I liked wearing both. I would never admit it, but wearing them and everything else made me feel like a medieval knight.

  I slipped the Colt into my gun belt. I stuffed my BDU pockets with a water bottle, an apple, and a piece of brea
d. In another pocket went my personal wound kit, which fit inside a metal Band-Aid box. Then it was time to pull on my boots and lace them up. Finally, my fisherman’s vest went over the armor. All I had to do was put on my hat and I was ready.

  The others were doing the same thing, just not to the extreme that I carried it. Old Guy wore a vest and a gun belt, and slung a daypack over his shoulder. Ninja wore a load-bearing vest that he always kept ready to go. He had a ballistics vest under it, and he usually took forever to lace up his boots.

  I poured coffee for everyone. We didn’t eat. When everyone was ready and had taken that last piss, we headed out. We took two cars—Max’s truck and Old Guy’s Chevy—just in case one of them broke down. Tommy stayed behind to keep an eye on things at the farm, and Max was doing the same in town.

  We picked up Hawk and Diesel and hit the road. There was no other traffic. I couldn’t get used to that. Roads were supposed to have traffic, a lot of it. No traffic always creeped me out; it was as if everyone had been abducted by aliens, or had all gotten the secret memo that I never got.

  We stopped about a half mile from the turnoff. We parked the vehicles off a road being reclaimed by Queen Anne’s lace and burdock. It led to a lot that still had an old Don’s John on it. The land had been scraped a couple of years ago in preparation for site work that had never happened.

  We walked single file, with Ninja at point and me next in line, carrying a cooler with the Molotovs in it. It was awkward to carry. We walked on the opposite side of the road from where the house was. There was a bush and tree line running parallel to the road on both sides. It was thick enough this time of year that I felt comfortable approaching the farmhouse access road this way. It was also easier in the darkness.

  From the access road to the house, it got a little trickier. Hawk dropped off to find a place to set up in his blind. Ninja and Old Guy continued on the road a bit and then started working through the woods, which stopped about seventy-five yards from the house. From there they would have open ground to cross, not quite a lawn, in order to get behind the house. I told them to watch for the dogs, as that would probably be where they were.