by Bobby Adair
“It’s okay.”
“You lost a lot of blood.”
Tommy maneuvered himself into a sitting position with his legs dangling out of the back of the SUV. Looking around, he saw they were parked in the lot in front of the hospital, a good distance from the entrance. People, healthy and injured, military and civilian, were everywhere, some hurrying, many standing. A few large tents had been set up to handle hospital overflow. Ambulances were parked along the curb, some with lights still flashing.
The guy seemed to deflate as he looked at the chaos. “Shit wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
His interest piqued, Tommy asked, “What do you mean?”
The guy stared at Tommy blankly, and then he grinned. “Compartmentalization. I forget sometimes. Not everybody knows everything.” He reached out toward Tommy’s fake wound but didn’t touch the shoulder. “You sure you’re okay, buddy?”
“What was shit supposed to be like?”
“Oh hell, you heard what they said. You musta.”
Tommy responded by staring.
“How the people would rise up on our side when we swept the NonCons out of government. You don’t remember that? You should wait for the gurney.”
Tommy shrugged. “What’s really happening?”
The guy looked up at the mountainsides cloaked in the night’s darkening shadows. “Lots of people up here keep guns. Plenty of ‘em don’t understand what we’re doing.”
“They shooting back?”
The guy’s eyes swept across the parking lot. The pseudo-military hospital tents were enough of an answer. “Down in Fairplay it ain’t nothin’ like this. Everything went smooth, but they didn’t have a NonCon attack.”
“The NonCons only attacked here?” asked Tommy.
“Man,” the guy leaned close to examine Tommy’s head, “maybe you got your bell rung or lost too much blood. You don’t know anything?”
Tommy shrugged again, remembering that the fake wound in his shoulder should have made the gesture impossible.
“They attacked across the country,” said the guy. “Now, I don’t know all that for a fact, so don’t go tellin’ anybody, know what I mean?”
Tommy stared, but said nothing.
“Down in Denver, I heard we’re getting our asses walloped. Three separate groups coordinated to take the capitol. Then the city cops, state police,” the guy snorted, “National Guard troops came in. Half those units turned to take our side.”
“Half?” Tommy didn’t want to believe that number. Couldn’t believe it.
“That’s what I heard. We didn’t get the governor, though. He’s an anti-Hazelton sympathizer. But everybody knows that.”
Tommy didn’t, but he nodded anyway.
“Fires are burning from Lodo all the way out to the airport.”
“That’s half the city,” observed Tommy.
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the guy. “I wouldn’t believe it, neither. So much bullshit these days.”
“True.”
“You probably won’t believe what I heard about Los Angeles, then.”
“What’s that?” Tommy asked, thinking he was going to hear about another fake, Photoshopped volcano or an earthquake sliding it into the sea.
In the most serious tone the guy had taken so far, he said, “They nuked it.”
Tommy hadn’t seen that one coming. “Who?”
“Pakistanis is what I heard.”
Against his better judgment, Tommy asked, “Why would Pakistan nuke Los Angeles?”
“It’s just what I heard.”
With improbable rumors starting to fly, Tommy figured he’d pumped the guy for all the good news he was worth. “Where’d they take the girl?”
The guy pointed vaguely at the emergency room entrance. “Inside, I think. Don’t know who decides who goes where.”
Tommy slipped out of the truck and started toward the hospital emergency entrance on foot. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Buddy, you gotta—”
"I'm okay," Tommy told him, careful to keep his gait slow and shaky.
***
Through a gauntlet of people gawking at him like an untouchable leper and those offering to help, Tommy waded into the ER waiting room. Red-eyed people filled every chair and sat along the walls, huddled and hugging, caught in the rat trap of unforeseen drama, life trying to beat death. Some cried with eyes hiding in shoulders, muffling their sobs in shame. Others cast about loudly, open with their tears, begging the universe to show them a less-painful reality. Many were drained dry, too tired to give a shit about anything but sleep.
Tommy found his way into a nearby restroom, and as the door swung closed on spring-softened hinges, quiet settled in around him. For a moment, he felt unexpectedly secure. The feeling dissolved as soon as he noticed an undead apparition in the wall-to-wall mirror over the row of hand sinks, his reflection. It was a testament to how bad things had become that he hadn’t been tackled and rushed into an exam room upon crossing the emergency room threshold.
“You’ve looked worse,” Tommy lied to his image, as he discarded the towel stuffed in his jacket to staunch the flow of blood from his mock wound. He leaned over the sink and washed the gore off his face.
“Jesus,” muttered someone from behind Tommy, just as an automatic sensor flushed a commode.
Tommy looked in the mirror to see a guy wearing a crisp 704 jacket standing in the open door of a stall behind him.
“You okay?” he asked.
The sink was swirling with red water. More blood was in Tommy's hair, and on his clothes. What wasn't bloody was dirty. "Most of it isn't mine."
“You look worse than Los Angeles.”
His face clean, and showing only cuts and bruises from the night before, Tommy went to work soaping up his hands and trying to get to the crap packed under his fingernails.
“You haven’t heard, have you?”
“No.” Tommy scrubbed at his hands.
“They nuked it.”
“NonCons?” Tommy asked.
“Fuckin’ Pakistanis is what I heard.”
Tommy turned off the water and reached for a paper towel.
The guy shuffled slowly over. “Man, what happened to you?”
It was time to unpack the lies to sow the long-shot plot he first came up with when he'd told Dan and Aaron not to take any weapons or ammo from the ranch they'd attacked. "Ambushed."
“The NonCons?” The guy was certain in his guess. “Where?”
“Down the valley a bit,” Tommy lied. “Wasn’t the NonCons, though. It was those CTS guys from down Fairplay way.”
“Colorado Truth Society attacked you?” The guy didn’t believe it.
"Not just me.” Tommy looked over at the guy to give him a full, eye-to-eye dose of swear-on-my-mother's-soul sincerity. "Shot most of us.” Tommy rubbed his shoulder where the hole in his jacket looked every bit the gunshot wound. "Nicked me."
“That’s no nick. You need to have that looked at.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Who’d you tell about the CTS attack?”
Tommy faked a wince and grabbed at his shoulder, not wanting to answer that question.
The guy stepped over and put his unwashed hand on Tommy’s much dirtier jacket, but still, the hand wasn’t washed. Tommy tried not to cringe. “Come with me,” he said, “we need to get you looked at.”
Tommy didn’t move. “I can’t. I need to find the girl first.” Tommy raised his good hand until it was even with his nose. “About this tall. Blonde.”
“After we get you looked at.”
Tommy refused. “I have to see her first.”
The guy appraised Tommy, trying to guess what was driving Tommy to refuse medical attention.
"Her unit just joined up with us," Tommy ad-libbed. “She saved my ass. Before she passed out, I promised I’d get her to the doctor.”
Tommy nodded through the saddest face he could muster.
Trying his best to show his understanding, like he’d done the same for fallen comrades all day, the guy gave Tommy the directions to all the places where he’d have the best luck in finding the girl. He told him which nurses’ desks to check in with, and explained that the computer system that logged patients might not be much help as people were coming in so fast with all manner of injuries, the hospital’s systems were overloaded.
With the seeds of discord planted, Tommy thanked the guy for the information he hadn’t needed and made for an exit. A doorway out the back of the building couldn’t be far.
***
It was full dark when Tommy stepped into the pool of light outside the hospital’s rear exit. The glass doors closed behind him, trapping the noise of havoc and despair inside. Tommy’s eyes adjusted to the dimness as he looked across the narrow employee parking lot laid out between the building and the mountain’s steepening slope. Out there on the other side, meandering through the trees at the edge of the forest, ran the bike path. In the shadows out there, he was supposed to meet up with Summer.
Only he couldn’t just walk across the parking lot and disappear into the night, not without catching the attention of what Tommy guessed were a trio of 704 guards. They were loitering at the bumper of some doctor’s Range Rover, feet propped up on the bumper, smoking, and gossiping, and already looking at him.
In the dark, Tommy couldn’t make out their faces, not with the distance between them, yet he saw the change in their collective demeanor. He’d need to deal with them.
Never one to pine for solutions that coulda been or shoulda been, if only this or only that, Tommy accepted the cards he’d been dealt and stalked right toward the 704s like he’d meant to meet up with them all along. “Hey,” he called.
Grunts were greeted back at him as the distance quickly shrank.
Tommy tapped a pair of fingers against his lips. “Cigarette?”
They were smokers. They understood the need of an addicted comrade without a fix. A hand slipped into a pocket, and without another word, a pack was offered.
And there it was. Tommy was there, among them, accepting the pack with a smile. He shook a cigarette loose, put it in his mouth like it was an old habit and accepted a light from the other of the men who was a smoker.
Unable to fake all of it, Tommy coughed as he inhaled.
All three guys laughed.
“Been a few years,” Tommy choked.
"I started again this morning," said one of the three as he stared off at the tall, dark trees.
“You look like you’ve had a helluva time,” said another.
Tommy nodded. He didn’t offer any details.
“You okay?” asked the third, as he pointed back at the hospital with his cigarette. “They check you out already?”
Tommy took another drag, doing his best not to cough. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
One guy chuckled. “It looks pretty bad.”
“You see a blonde come this way?” asked Tommy, pointing at the bike path. “People inside said she came out here.”
“We just came on shift,” said the guy who’d offered Tommy the cigarettes.
Tommy stared toward the path. “You guys been here all day? At the hospital, I mean.”
“Started in town last night,” said one. “Rounding up NonCons.”
“At the gym?” Tommy asked.
The guy who’d been staring turned toward Tommy with suspicion in his eyes. “Where you from?”
Recognizing right away that he was being challenged, Tommy flicked his cigarette at the guy’s feet. “You got a problem, buddy?”
“Hey,” said another of them.
Tommy stepped up to his questioner, who took a step back but placed his hands menacingly on his weapon. It left Tommy in the center of the triangle with one of them at each point. It was right where he wanted to be.
“Hey Mike,” said one of the guys, talking to the one who’d challenged Tommy, “It’s been a long day.” Turning to Tommy, he said. “Mike doesn’t recognize you, is all.”
“I have a house up on Thunder Ridge,” Tommy told Mike. “I travel a lot for work.”
“There,” said the peacemaker, “he’s from around here.”
“Doc Kernan and Frank Lugenbuhl are personal friends of mine,” Tommy spat.
Those names worked like magic to relax the situation and put smiles on a few faces. Mike let out a breath he’d been holding, and Tommy knew it was time.
He headbutted Mike in the face, threw an elbow into the throat of the guy to his right, and smashed a knee into the groin of the guy on his left as he spun toward him. As that guy doubled over, Tommy grabbed him by the collar and rammed his head into the Range Rover's bumper. He then thrust his fist up into the choking man's jaw. That one lost unconsciousness and fell, leaving only Mike on his feet, reeling with a hand over his face as he reached out for a car fender to steady himself. He didn’t see Tommy come for him.
It was over in seconds, three armed men down, because Tommy had gone in with a plan, and they didn’t see the attack coming. One had a gruesome head injury he’d not recover from. One was on his back, choking his last breaths through a crushed larynx, and Mike’s face was shattered from where Tommy had slammed it into the fender. He was on the ground, eyes blinded with blood, gurgling through broken teeth and a tongue he’d bitten through. He was mad as hell but unable to do much more than keep from drowning on the blood cascading down his throat.
Tommy knelt and relieved Mike of his AK-47, ammunition, and sat-phone. "Next time you 704 fucks wanna come down to Fairplay and swing your dicks around like you’re in charge, you remember this, because next time I won’t be so nice.” Tommy jumped to his feet and kicked Mike in the ribs.
Having sown another feeble seed of discontent, Tommy stole an AR-15, a pair of pistols, and ammo from the other downed men. Knowing he’d spent more time in the parking lot than was safe, he made his quick escape between a pair of parked cars and headed for the trees.
Chapter 13
“What the hell?” Summer hissed as she stepped out of the shadows.
From where she’d been hiding, Tommy knew she’d seen what just happened in the parking lot. He hurried past her on the bike path. “We can’t stay here.”
“Who are you?”
Tommy didn’t slow down. “C’mon.”
She didn’t, though. Tommy didn’t need to turn to see her standing with her arms crossed, her nostrils flaring, and her feet planted on the crushed stone. He couldn’t leave her, so he stopped.
“I’m not taking another step,” she announced through a flood of wrestling emotions.
The work Tommy needed to do was best done outside the boundaries of normative feelings and burdensome guilt. He’d learned his lesson on that count long ago. Still, he was rusty. It had been many years since he’d lived a life ruled by those lessons, the kinds of things he doubted Summer could never learn. She was ruled by her emotions, driven by her passions. Disconnected from them, she’d be aimless.
But they made her unpredictable.
Dangerously so.
Tommy considered going on into town without her. The bike path ahead crawled up the side of a mountain as it followed the course of the two-lane highway down to Spring Creek. The paths diverged where they hit the edge of town a mile up the valley. From there, it was maybe another mile to Spring Creek’s bombed-out city hall and the center of town. Tommy knew the way well. It was an easy hike in the dark. Still, Summer had spoken the truth about Tommy’s lack of familiarity with Spring Creek’s residents. She knew them. He’d never been much more than a visitor.
“Who are you?” she demanded again.
Tommy glanced toward the hospital to see if anyone was coming to investigate what he’d done to the Battalion 704 men in the parking lot.
Nothing yet.
He had minutes. Or maybe just seconds.<
br />
Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it fast. “I need your help. We both know. Would you—”
“My help?” asked Summer, in a voice entirely too loud to go unnoticed. “I… I… don’t even know what to say.”
Tommy stepped in close and whispered, “We can’t stay here. We need to move.”
Summer looked at Tommy with wide, tearful eyes. “Are you a hitman?”
“No. We have to go.”
“Is that why you’re always out of town? Is that why nobody seems to understand what you really do?” She caught herself and gasped. “Oh, my God.”
Tommy took hold of her arm. “We have to leave before those bodies are discovered, do you understand me?”
Summer looked toward the doctor’s Range Rover in the parking lot, knowing the corpses were behind it. “That’s why Faith’s father doesn’t like you. He knows, doesn’t he?”
That took Tommy by surprise—he didn’t have time for it. Neither of them did. “Listen to me. You and I need to move. We can jog down to town. We can hike up the path to Breck. We can run off into the woods. Whatever. We just need to get out of here. The longer we stay, the more likely it is we’ll be caught and you know what happens then, right? We both saw what these GI Joe wannabes are capable of.”
Summer’s sanity seemed to click back into gear with the memory of the burned barn, yet she couldn’t come to a decision.
“I’m going downtown,” Tommy told her. “I have to do what I have to do. Come if you want, but don’t stay here.” He turned to jog away, not sure if he wanted her to come along or to run away from what he knew lay ahead. Before he had time to put too much thought into it, he heard Summer’s feet racing to catch up.
With that question settled, Tommy put thoughts of Summer’s dilemma out of his mind and he focused on the problem at hand. Running down the bike path to get into town was going to be a risk. Tommy didn’t believe the 704s would have had a chance to set up ambushes along the path, yet they probably had checkpoints. Those he could handle. He’d be able to see them on the trail in the light of the moon and avoid them. He and Summer would have to take care to keep quiet.