The Good Kill

by Kurt Brindley

  Dumbfounded, Killian watched as RJ loaded Toni into the passenger seat of the Cuda and then ran around to the other side and hopped in behind the wheel. Why the hell are you running? he screamed at the images on the screen. RJ slammed her door shut, fired up the engine, slammed the car into reverse and spun it expertly around until the grass and dirt that was being thrown up behind it was being pelted right into the lens of the camera, and then sped away out of view. Why the hell didn’t you just lock yourselves inside the bunker? It’s a fucking bunker!

  The two large men came running out of the barn and took cover behind the Caddy just as the Cuda was making the turn around the corner. The ponytailed muscle leveled his gun at the Cuda as it tore its way past them and headed up the drive, but the bald-headed muscle called him off. They quickly piled their large masses back into the Caddy, which seconds later threw up a large rooster tail of dirt and gravel as it did a 180 to get itself headed in the right direction. It then flew back up the drive and was quickly out of frame in its hot pursuit of the fleeing women.

  His worst fears confirmed, Killian sprinted toward the back of the bunker and flung open the door to the machinery room, a small room which held the NBC air filtration system, the water pump, the septic pump, a rack of twenty six-volt gel cell batteries, which were wired to be charged from any of the bunker’s four power sources, be it local civilian power, solar power from the EMP-resistant panels arrayed on the barn’s northside roof, wind power from a sixty-foot windmill located midway between the farmhouse and the barn, and which could also be used to provide power to the well water pump if something were to happen to the bunker’s electric pump, or a diesel-powered generator, supplied by a buried 500-gallon fuel tank, both of which were located at the backside of the barn. The generator could be set up as the bunker’s primary source of power if need be or to trip on automatically if there were no other sources of power coming into it.

  In the back of the room, Killian reached up to the top of the wall. Hidden behind ventilation ducting, his fingers found a button. When he pressed it, the wall panel in front of him receded slightly and then hissed away smoothly to the left to expose a thick armored door; an impressive door, but nowhere near as impressive as the blast door located in the back of the root cellar. He leaned his right eye down in front of a small, protruding lens similar to the one on the blast door, and a red beam threw a web of light around it, scanning it for verification. After the locks released, he stepped back and pulled open the heavy door. Stored inside the climate-controlled room were enough weapons and ammunition to arm a small army.

  Racked tight along three of the walls were five Remington 870 12-gauge shotguns, five Bushmaster Carbon 15 M4 Semiautomatic Carbines, five Springfield M1A SOCOM II big game rifles, five always reliable and virtually indestructible AK-47s, and, for perimeter defense, three MacMillan TAC-50 Browning machine guns. The shelves above the racks were lined with dozens of handguns of various makes and caliber. Above the handguns, hanging from pegboard lining the wall, were an assortment of compound bows, recurve bows, and longbows. In the right back corner, various evil looking traps either hung from the wall or were stowed against it. On the wall next to the traps hung fishing poles and nets; tackle boxes were stacked on the floor underneath them. The remainder of the right wall and near corner was stacked with crates and boxes of ammunition. Killian grabbed an HK45C pistol off the shelf above the TAC-50s, inspected it briefly, charged it with one of the five, eight-round magazines readied next to it, and then stuck the weapon into the back of his pants. He then grabbed two extra magazines for an added measure of insurance.

  The Demon roared to life and Killian laid down yet another set of tracks on top of RJ’s as he followed them around to the front of the barn. When he reached the end of his drive, he knew to turn left onto Rust Creek from watching the camera feeds; but, even without them he would have known by the breadcrumb-like tire marks that RJ and the car in pursuit had laid on the asphalt as they made their hard left turn. The Demon made such short work of the quarter mile from his drive to the first crossing that Killian didn’t have time to fully take notice of the white pickup truck parked along the side of the road, just on the other side of the one-way bridge. Following the skid marks, he turned left at the crossing onto White Church Road, barely slowing down for the stop sign, and sped toward the next crossing two miles up.

  His mind felt as finely tuned as the Demon, powered by the high-octane, mind-clearing adrenaline pumping through his body. The fog that had been clouding his mental view for so long had lifted and an idea came to him. He grabbed RJ’s phone from the seat and woke it up. He was relieved to find that she didn’t keep it locked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  If there was one advantage RJ had on whomever it was chasing her, it was her knowledge of the area and all its many back roads. Unfortunately, that was about her only advantage since, even though the Barracuda had the muscle to provide them with the speed to make their initial escape, it was obvious that the Cadillac chasing her, with its 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 engine producing 640 horsepower, had the muscle to catch up to them easily enough. The question was, could she prevent it from using its muscle to overcome them. She feared the answer, for it was also obvious that the person driving the Cadillac was a much better driver than she. Every move she made, every straightaway that she flew down, or every last second turn off she made, the Cadillac was right there with her. But the women’s biggest disadvantage was that they were not armed and their pursuers were. RJ saw that one of the goons chasing them had a gun leveled at them as they made their escape. And that worried her. It worried her so much that she could hardly concentrate on the road from her constant checking of the mirrors to see if that gun was sticking out one of the Caddy’s windows getting ready to fire at them. However, despite all these disadvantages, RJ thought she had a plan that might allow them to escape, provided she could outrun their pursuers long enough to see it through.

  RJ glanced over at Toni. The young woman, her curly brown hair looking dried out and askew and she looking wan and aged well beyond her years, was wrapped in a bedspread staring out the front window as if she were hypnotized. At least she wasn’t freaking out, RJ thought. She was probably still stoned from the pills she had popped back at the bunker, she realized. But right after RJ had made another last second turn down a narrow dirt road that cut through a shorn and desolate corn field – it was more a path than a road, one made for rugged field tractors, not high-performance muscle cars – she felt Toni glaring at her.

  “What is it, Toni?” RJ asked as she stole another glance at her passenger before locking her sights right back onto the harrowing terrain before her. She had to holler to speak over the rumbling of the road and rattling of the car.

  “I need you to pull over and let me out,” Toni hollered back. “Like right now.”

  RJ flashed Toni a look of disbelief just as the car caught air from the path taking an unexpected sharp decline down to the dirt road, a proper dirt road, running perpendicular to it. RJ had to fight to make an immediate hard right turn as the car slammed down onto the road. When she had things back under control, she said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Toni. There is no way I am going to pull over. We have no idea who these assholes are chasing us.”

  “Like hell we don’t,” Toni said. “I told you back in the bunker or whatever the hell that crazy ass place was we were in, that these mother fuckers would come for me. I told you then that I didn’t want to run. So enough of this bullshit. Pull the fuck over and let them have me. They’ll take me to my sister.”

  “And like I said before,” RJ said as she strained to keep the car from careening off into the ditch as she followed a sharp curve to the left, “what the hell do you think they’ll do with me? No way am I pulling over, Toni. If I can make it through that forest up ahead, then we might just have a chance to get to the county police station.”

  RJ checked her mirrors. The Cadillac had just made the
sharp turn and was now speeding up to regain its place right on their tail.

  “No. You can’t go to the police,” Toni snapped. “If you do, they’ll kill my sister. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sorry, Toni,” RJ said without taking her eyes off the road, “but I’m not prepared to—” The Cadillac tapped their bumper and the Cuda fishtailed dramatically.

  Even as she rocked with the careening of the car, Toni seemed oblivious to the danger of the high-speed drama she was in. “Bitch, I swear to god, if you try to make a run for the police, you won’t have to worry about the assholes chasing us. I’ll be the one who fucking kills you.”

  “What the fuck, Toni?” RJ said in disbelief after she had gained some space again between them and the Cadillac. “I said I would help you. I didn’t say I would die for you.”

  Toni wasn’t listening. She was searching through the glovebox looking for a weapon. Nothing was in there except an ancient owner’s manual and vehicle documentation. She searched under the seat and in the door compartment. Nothing. She turned around and leaned in between her chair and RJ’s to look in the back.

  “God damn it, Toni. Sit back in your chair or you’re going to get us both killed,” RJ screamed.

  There was a backpack setting on the back seat. Toni grabbed it and brought it up front with her.

  “What is that?” RJ demanded.

  Toni ignored her. She opened the bag and right away pulled out the bloodstained machete. She unsheathed it and, with wide crazed eyes, pointed it at RJ. “Listen to me, bitch. You pull this mother fucking car over right now or I swear to god, I’ll chop off your mother fucking head just like your boyfriend chopped off Mr. Savage’s. You hear me?”

  RJ turned to look at the weapon pointing at her head and the sight of it caused her to jerk away from it. The car swerved, and once again it was a struggle for her to not lose control of it. “Jesus Christ, Toni, are you out of your fucking mind? Put that thing away. If I pull over, for all I know these guys will kill us both.”

  “No, they won’t kill me. They’ll take me to wherever my sister is. And they might not kill you either. Put on some decent clothes and some makeup, you just might be worth a few dollars to them. Either way, your chances are better with them than they are with me if you don’t do what I say and pull this fucking car over right now.”

  “Sorry, Toni,” RJ said as they left the fields behind and plunged into a dense forest, “then you’re going to have to kill me because I am not pulling this car over. We’re either going to lose these assholes and I get us someplace safe, or we’re not. So, go ahead and do what you got to do.”

  Toni took the machete by two hands and repositioned herself in her chair so she could get a good swing on it. She cocked it back, ready to strike. The blade shook in her hands. Finally, she let out a desperate scream and then let the knife fall to the floor. She sat back in her seat and started crying.

  “I’m sorry, Toni,” RJ said softly. “I know how much you love your sister.”

  From inside the backpack, there was a vibration sound followed by music. A Tupac Shakur song. “Holler If You Hear Me.” Toni recognized the ringtone. She dug through the bag and pulled the phone out.

  “This is Mr. Savage’s phone,” Toni said quietly.

  “Mr. Savage?” RJ said questioningly. “You mean your... Who’s calling? Do you recognize the number?”

  “No. It’s a 717 area code.”

  “717? That’s from around here. Wait, what’s the number?”

  Toni read off the number to RJ.

  “Holy shit, answer it. That’s me.” RJ said excitedly.

  Toni answered the call and put it on speaker.

  RJ screamed out, “Killian, is that you?”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  God damn it, RJ, why didn’t you just stay in the god damn bunker?! That thing was built to survive a nuclear fucking blast for Christ’s sake!” Killian knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as he said it.

  Because RJ had him on speaker phone, there was a lot of outside noise coming through on Killian’s end, however, RJ’s response came through loud and clear. “God damn it, Killian, now is not a good time to try to second guess my decisions. I’m sorry, but I was afraid that these assholes now right on my ass would have ambushed you when you returned to the bunker. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Forget it. I’m heading south on White Church, just past the golf course and coming up on Tavern Road as we speak. Where are you?”

  “We just entered Riley’s Forest. My plan was to take the camping trail down to the gulf so I could—”

  Even through all the noise coming through on her end, Killian could hear the distinct pop of the gunshot. “RJ? What happened? Are you hit?”

  RJ called out his name, but it sounded like the phone was no longer near her when she spoke. Toni began screaming when he heard the gut-churning sound of metal scraping on metal. Then both RJ and Toni were screaming. Then their screams were cut short by the sick, horrifying sound of a loud crash. And then the line went dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Igot to hand it to you, Happy, you got skills behind the wheel,” McKnight said.

  Henderson smiled. But before he could respond, McKnight added, “But god damn, dude. Do you always have to talk so god damned much? I think you have some serious issues, bro. Did your parents keep you gagged as a child or something?”

  Henderson’s smile faded only briefly before re-emerging even stronger. “Come on, Big Mack, you gotta know by now my conversing is simply a way for me to keep myself relaxed during high-stress situations.”

  “Well then, Hap, if that’s the case, you must be one of the most relaxed mother fuckers I know,” McKnight said. “Seriously, dude. I haven’t made much of it up to this point because you’re still a fuckin’ new guy, but I can’t take it any longer. You need to find some other way to relax yourself. Especially when the guns are out.”

  McKnight turned to check on the women. Toni, still wrapped in the bedspread, was wedged into the corner of the back seat with her head leaning back. RJ lay folded over with her head resting on Toni’s lap. He turned back to the front and looked at Henderson, expecting some sort of response, smartass or otherwise, to justify himself. But, uncharacteristically, Henderson stayed silent.

  McKnight took out his phone and selected the number at the top of his most recent calls list. It was answered on the first ring.

  “Status?” the voice on the other end of the call said.

  “We have the package,” McKnight answered. He looked at the car’s navigation screen. “We’re 127 miles out from the rendezvous. Approximately two hours drive time.”

  “Roger that. Transport will be ready for you by the time you get there,” the voice said.

  “Copy that,” McKnight said. “Uhm... Heads up. We’ll actually be delivering two packages instead of one. Things got a little off track. But no worries. Both are ready for transport, except the primary package is bare and will need to be gift wrapped before delivery.”

  The voice was silent for a moment. Then, “Roger that. Proceed as planned. We’ll provide the wrapping.”

  McKnight ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket.

  “Well?” Henderson asked.

  “Just as I said would happen,” McKnight answered. “We bring Ginger along with us.”

  Henderson smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

  McKnight looked at his partner. “Why? You think you’re gonna take her out on a date or something once we get back?”

  Henderson adjusted his rearview mirror so he could see RJ. “No, but she sure is nice to have around. A little on the old side, but still easy on the eyes, you know. Well, except for the puke running all down the front of her.”

  “Well, don’t get too attached,” McKnight said as he leaned his head back against the headrest and rubbed his eyes. “Either DeBlanc will be pleased with her and include her into his stable, or he won’t. Either way
, at some point she becomes our complication to resolve.”

  “So, what I’m hearing then is that there is a possibility that Ginger and I could still end up living happily ever after,” Happy said with a wink to McKnight. When McKnight didn’t respond, he adjusted the mirror so he could see Toni. “I tell you, bro, it’s fucking amazing how much package number one here looks like Ruby. I can’t wait to see them side by side, you know.”

  McKnight grunted his affirmation.

  Henderson straightened out his mirror and returned his attention to the road. “So, Ham didn’t say nothing to you about us looking into why all this got so fucked up?” Henderson asked.

  “Not a word,” McKnight said wearily. “Like I said before, our job right now is to get the hell out of here as clean as we can. We’ll have time enough to debrief and figure out how this op got so fucked up after these two ladies are properly attended to.”

  “You know, big guy, I’d be more than happy to properly attend to either one of those babes back there,” Henderson said, lifting himself up in his seat as he did so he could take another peep in the mirror at the hostages in the back.

  McKnight shook his head. “Damn, dude. How about you keep your eyes off of DeBlanc’s girls and on the road. I know you’re a shit hot driver and all, but I don’t feel like having to outrun a state trooper after he tries to pull you over for reckless driving.”

  Henderson focused on the road for several quiet miles before taking another peek in the rearview mirror. He then looked over at McKnight. The big man’s eyes were closed and his head had begun to loll to the right. He looked back at the road for a few seconds and then back at his partner. The car was quiet, very quiet.