by Ian Daniels
“Circle?”
“Yeah circle. In a small group, as long as all of the people have enough common sense and work ethic to see what needs to be done and they can all work together to do it, you don’t need one asshole with a clipboard directing traffic. The group of people that can all work together and are willing to lend a hand pretty well will never exist though, or they will never last. Something will always come up to make people butt their heads together,” I explained.
“But if you get a small family together that each has individual skills and can all work for the common good out of love for the others…” Breanne deduced with sudden clarity and realization of that scenario being exactly what I did with her family. “Oh,” she summarized.
“Yeah, now you’re asking yourself ‘Who’s using who?’ aren’t you?” I laughed a sad little laugh to myself.
“No, I wasn’t,” she pretended.
“The truth is, I just show up and stir things up to appease my boredom.”
That at least got a little laugh out of her, but it was a laugh to cover up for her racing mind.
“And in a bigger circle?” she asked, finally coming back to my metaphor.
“Well, in a bigger circle there is much more of a need of a structured hierarchy to keep things in check. I guess you can figure my views fall somewhere in the middle between socialism and Feudal Warlord. Add in a form of currency though and neither of those are even workable thoughts. And since there is really no form of currency right now…” I trailed off, unsure of where I was even going with the conversation.
Breanne had a way of pulling my introspective thoughts out into the sunlight, right where they should never be. Shutting my mouth a little too late, we drove on in silence.
The missile site turned out to be a bit of a bust. The barbed wire topped chain link fence was still standing, although the gate across the road had been torn down. We drove up to the two small buildings, their windows were broken, the doors locked tight with padlocks, and the gravel airstrip was overgrown from disuse.
I didn’t exactly expect to find old military trucks or gear sitting out, or for the silo doors to be open for us to look down into, but it was still a neat bit of history that few people ever got to explore first hand.
We didn’t spend much time at the site and we were almost enjoying the nice easy drive back to the check out the neighbor’s houses when the whiz and crack of an incoming round splintered the windshield in front of us.
“What the f… Down!”
It took me a very long quarter of a second to realize what was going on. Checking the rear view mirror I couldn’t see well enough past our own dust cloud to make out any specifics. Someone could see us though, that was for sure. I looked ahead to the road in front of us and other than a slight turn a long ways off, there was nothing helpful there either.
“Can you reach the map? See what we have coming up?” I asked Breanne, who was crouched low in the passenger seat.
“Yeah… there’s nothing. A couple bends, no driveways or bridges or anything for a couple miles!” she yelled back after quickly studying the land around us.
“Alright… stay as low as you can but try to spot whoever is taking shots at us.”
I was racking my brain for options and any good ones were still not coming to me as of yet.
“Got em! Little blue Volkswagen back behind us!”
“Good. Kindly shoot the shit out of them would you please? Pour some at the driver, the radiator and the tires.” I said it as easily as I used to order a soda with lunch.
Breanne lifted her Galil and leaned back into the rear passenger seat. Even with the muzzle extended that far back behind us, I knew exactly when she was firing, mostly because I was being pinged and pelted with the hot brass casings that ejected from her gun right into my face. Luckily my sunglasses saved me from any real damage, but they still stung and hurt like hell.
“I can’t get a good shot!” Breanne yelled and looked over at me. “Oh shit, you’re bleeding!”
“Don’t wait for the good shot, just get them to back off a little. You have a spare mag ready?” I yelled back to her.
“Yeah, why?”
Our conversation was interrupted by her rapidly pulling the trigger again.
“If I can get far enough ahead of them, we’re going to stop and bail out, then shoot them from the ground.”
Breanne released a few more shots and then peered intently over the top of her gun. “They’re still back there, but not as close!”
We were just coming around the small turn in the road with the tires squealing in protest when I saw something close enough to what we needed. It was only a few small dirt mounds close to the road, but it would have to do as there was literally nothing else in sight.
“We’re going to stop and bail out to those berms on the left. I want you farther down from me. I’ll try to get them while they’re still moving and if they get up to us or stop, then line up and take your shots. Got it?”
“Yeah!” she yelled loud enough to be heard over the rest of the noise.
I slammed on the brakes and steered into the middle of the road, throwing my right arm out to stop Breanne from crashing into the dash board… Seat belts save lives. We were both out as soon as the 4Runner slid to a stop; each of us running to the side of a dirt berm we would be able to shoot from.
I could hear Breanne changing magazines and recharging her gun to the left and behind me while I was busy trying to get myself set up as well. The ground was concrete hard and uneven, rocks and rigid weeds bit into me as soon as I threw myself down. I forced that to the back of my mind and readied a spare magazine as I snuggled my cheek down onto the rifle’s stock.
“Hey didn’t you say if it was you or a truck to bet on the truck?” Breanne yelled over to me, momentarily breaking my concentration.
“Thank you!” I rolled my eyes and called back in response to her timely reminder.
I would in fact normally bet on a truck, or any speeding German designed people hauler for that matter, but right now I was pissed off and out of options. And when I got mad and backed into a corner, you could also bet that I would bull my hard head through a brick wall if that’s what it took. Finesse was not one of my strong suits these days.
Our dust was finally clearing and the little VW Bug was just coming around the bend in the road as I got my eye to the scope. At this point I was done trying to stop the car itself and was searching for softer targets. The driver was visible for only an instant before I pressed off the first round. The recoil pushed the end of the stock off my shoulder just enough to enlighten me to the fact that I was overlooking the basics of shooting that mattered the most. Unwisely, I pushed through the misaligned butt stock and fired a second round before readjusting my position on the gun. So far, my shots did not seem to be affecting their forward momentum.
I reacquired the Bug in my scope once again and shifted my hips slightly to place the crosshairs to the passenger side of the windshield this time. A sudden fleeting notion ran through my head that I couldn’t remember the deflection angle of a shot going through an angled glass window, or even if it mattered with a big caliber like the 308, but right now I didn’t really care either way and fired again.
They were nearly parallel with us when the driver must have realized he wasn’t going to squeeze by the 4runner that I had stopped at an angle, blocking a little more than half of the road with it. They were definitely slowing, but had been coming way too fast and were not going to be able to completely stop before they passed by.
I tracked and fired another three quick shots into the flat side of the car as they passed by me, and was rewarded with three nice holes in the blue door. Somehow they managed to squeeze by without crashing directly into the 4runner, although the passenger door that Breanne had left open when she ran was not so lucky.
I fired off two more quick rounds now from behind them, aiming the shots through the rear window only to feel the mush of an empty gun ru
n through my finger on the next attempt to pull the trigger. The passenger door of the 4runner ended its flight with a crash and was still sliding down the roadway as I removed the empty magazine from my gun and inserted a fresh one.
The Bug finally stopped close to the berm of dirt that Breanne was using for cover. I spun the dial on my scope’s magnification down to its lowest setting and was up and in a crouch, looking for a better spot to shoot from and finding that there really wasn’t one. When the driver’s door of the Volkswagen began to open, it was quickly hammered back by a string of gunfire from Breanne.
“I guess that’ll take care of whatever was left of the driver,” I thought to myself.
Standing upright, I caught a slight movement on the far side of the little car. Snapping my gun up, this time the stock found the perfect spot on my shoulder and I fired along with Breanne, who was letting off another quick burst. The passenger side window glass splintered and was stained red.
“Hold up,” I yelled over the irritating high pitched ringing in my ears, “you all right?”
“I’m good! I can see them from here… they’re dead,” Breanne called back to me.
I didn’t want to solely take her word for it, but I also knew that nobody could have survived that barrage we had just unleashed. Instead of walking directly to the Bug, I first went over to Breanne who was still kneeling at her spot halfway behind the dirt mound. She seemed stuck, looking intently forward at the twisted scene of blood, jagged metal and broken glass. She wasn’t staring or zoned out... just looking. Noticing this, I moved to stand directly in front of her, blocking the view and holding out my hand to help her up.
“I’m sorry,” she was saying as she took my hand, “I tried, but I just couldn’t get a good shot at them when we were driving back there.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t know anyone that could have gotten a good shot off given those circumstances. You did exactly what we needed. You backed them off and created enough room for us to stop and set up,” I consoled her.
Steering her hand, I tuned her away from the mess on the road in an attempt at being comforting. “You don’t have to look at it,” I said softly. “Stay here, grab some water, check your ammo and watch the road.”
“I’m fine,” she said quietly and confidently, pulling away just enough to be able to look at my face.
“Well you don’t have to be.”
“What about you?” She studied me for a second, her voice softening slightly.
What about me? This crap was routine at this point and no one but her had ever showed any sign that they cared about the stresses it may have placed on me.
“What about me?” I offered an opening to expand or clarify her statement.
“Your head… I mean, let me look at that cut.” she amended.
Oh, that… I had wiped the blood off my face with my sleeve and had almost forgotten about the small cut until now.
“Later,” I dismissed easily.
“It looks deep… might leave a scar,” she grabbed my chin and turned my head to get a better look at the minor wound.
“Bre,” I laughed, “I don’t think I was ever going to go to my grave all dressed up and pretty.”
Poking through what was left of the Bug’s contents there was not much to salvage. Even the stock of the old bolt shotgun in the back seat had been hit by our gunfire. The old and cheap looking AR15 that the guy in the passenger seat had used to shoot at us with was a gooey mess. One spare twenty round magazine, two boxes worth of shells that had been spilled on the floor, one nearly empty pack of mini cigars and a red plastic gas can that was half full of a putrid smelling mix was all I could find.
There were no wallets or papers with any sort of addresses on them to tell me if these guys were from around here or if they had indeed followed us from the day before. Frustratingly, there wasn’t really anything at all that gave me one clue or another about who they were or where they came from. By their lack of supplies, all I could really guess at was that they were holed up and camping somewhere within driving distance. With no food or sleeping bags with them, that was as much as I could deduce.
“Smoke?” I offered one of the scavenged cigarettos through clenched teeth as I bounded up to join Breanne sitting on the tailgate of the 4Runner.
“So this is what you’re really like after sex isn’t it?” she said sarcastically, unwrapping one of the cheap and dried out little cigars.
“This is my favorite time of any day, the part where I’m still alive… you’ve really gotta learn to enjoy the little things in life,” I smiled, leaning back and getting comfortable.
We sat there together, taking in the peaceful scenery, temporarily ignoring and otherwise oblivious to the carnage that was so near to us. Neither of us spoke or even thought that much, it was just a serene moment in a setting that was anything but.
"Aren’t you ever afraid or lonely out here, being on your own, and then doing this stuff?" Breanne broke the silence.
I wasn’t surprised by her question, although I didn’t really have an answer for it either.
“Yes and no. You more than anybody know what I’ve lost… Then I almost get killed everyday from starvation, disease, a stupid mistake out of sleep deprivation, or by a prick with a gun. I might not be able to give you my metaphysical reason to live, but I don’t have a reason to just roll over and die either.”
She thought about that for a moment then almost to herself muttered, “Damnit I don’t know if I should pity you or envy you sometimes. I don’t know what to even think anymore.”
“Don’t think about it, you’ll sleep better at night, just like everyone else does,” I smiled again and bumped her shoulder playfully with my own. “It’s probably one of the healthier things to keep bottled up inside of you… at least that’s what I do.”
We sat quietly again for a few more minutes until the crappy cigars burned low and the errands of the day came back to the forefront of our minds.
“What do you want to do with the bodies?” Breanne asked.
“Screw ‘em… Give the buzzards something to gnaw on,” I replied with just a hint of malice.
The rest of the day we spent at the three nearest neighbor’s houses recovering anything that could be of use to us or the soon to be relocated family. It was well into the afternoon when we rattled up to the gate with the newly borrowed trailer in tow. It must have been Jake’s turn at the lookout position overlooking the road and we could hear him laughing over the radio when I checked in as we pulled up. Apparently he found something funny with the sight of Andrews beloved Toyota missing a passenger door.
“So how’d that go?” Derek greeting us after directing the trailer we had towed back to a spot where it could be easily loaded from, then looking at the newly spider cracked windshield.
“Same as usual,” Breanne answered him with another roll of her eyes.
“You making friends again?” He punched me lightly in the shoulder.
“Yeah something like that… We’re minus two assholes back on the road to the south,” I told him and tossed the two newly acquired long guns on the front lawn. “And somebody’s gone through the neighbor’s places,” I changed the subject slightly and looked up at Stan as he came out of the front door with a bin full of stuff to be loaded.
“What do you mean?” Stan wrinkled his brow.
“Pantry’s were raided, fuel drained out of everything; we weren’t able to find much to bring back.”
“Was it the ones you ran into?” Derek jumped to the easy answer.
“Could’ve been, I don’t think so though. I have a feeling these two were the guys Bre and I saw last night. They might have followed us, but something tells me it wasn’t them at the neighbor’s places.”
I wasn’t going to let on that I had now pretty much figured out how RJ and Stan had kept their family supplied out here, even after being berated by Stan for suggesting we do the very same thing.
“Well if you guys are okay then why d
on’t you come inside and rest for minute and have something to eat,” Karen suggested, trying to look out for our best interest.
“No time, too much to get done. How’s it been going here?” I asked them all.
“Actually pretty good; we’ve got most the house stuff packed up, just need to get the trailers hooked up and start loading them up,” Derek said before Karen took over again.
“We’ll finish off the last minute stuff in the morning, then we just have to load the animals and their stuff, and then…” she trailed off.
Karen was doing an excellent job of mediating for her family, but even she was slow to plainly speak of abandoning this place. They might have known the reality of needing to leave, but this was still their home.
“Have we given any thought to dinner tonight?” Breanne asked her.
“Drew and RJ are down getting some fish now,” Derek supplied.
“…yeah, alright.”
I was actually excited at the prospect of the drastic change in meals, but I somehow had a hard time justifying two guys sitting at the edge of a lake fishing when we had so much work to do.
“What do you want to do about a lookout at the road tonight?” Breanne asked me quietly when we walked over to retrieve our bags from the 4Runner.
“I’d like to try to get as much packing done as we can, even if we have to do it by candlelight…and I don’t know about you, but I’d love to kick my boots off tonight and have some fun for a change.”
“Hmmm, you want to do that right here or a little more privately out at the road?” Tiffany asked mischievously from the front door.
Everyone else was busy going back and forth with boxes and bags of stuff to be loaded, and I erroneously had thought that no one had been listening.
I noticed Breanne stiffen slightly at the naturally flirtatious nature between the two of us, but Tiffany had caught me off guard and I didn’t try to smother my quick laugh.
“We can probably get away with no watch out there tonight. A little fish fry, and god willing if there is a drop of booze left anywhere around this place, it would go a long way,” I said to both of the women.