by Tom Abrahams
He quickly adjusted his aim and pulled the Springfield’s trigger again. A second shot met flesh and dropped another rider. They were down to five.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he murmured. He turned the gun to a building on the opposite side of the road. It was close to the road, a one-room shack with windows but no front door.
He looked up from the scope to watch the coming quintet. Two of the men rode close to the house and he quickly lowered his eye to the scope. He found a rectangular black box sitting atop a quartet of bricks wrapped in brown paper inside the open doorway and fired a single shot.
The resulting explosion evaporated the building and the two men closest to it.
* * *
The ground under Lou’s feet rumbled. She crossed Fourth Street near the old courthouse, and the billowing black smoke and remnant flames caught her attention.
“One down,” she said. “We better get moving.”
The two of them hurried to the courthouse, quickly climbing the stairs to the roof. They rushed to the ledge and against the low red brick that encircled the top of the building.
Both worked to catch their breath. Lou gingerly pulled the rifle sling over her head and leaned the weapon’s barrel over the ledge. She rubbed her shoulder with her thumb and winced but nodded at Dallas she was okay.
Dallas moved away from her toward the eastern corner and readied himself there. He checked the magazine and swapped it out for an extra, fully loaded one he carried in his jacket pocket. He slapped the mag into the rifle and aimed the barrel toward the smoke. It was still thick, but had quickly dissolved from black to gray.
Lou looked west and saw Norma standing on the path between the street and the U-shaped building in which she was supposed to retreat if necessary. She had her hands on her hips, one resting on a handgun, the other on a radio.
The radios didn’t work well. Only two of them functioned at all. Using them was a risk. Lou had told Marcus that. He’d told her it was a backstop, a last resort if everything else failed. He told her he’d tested them and they’d been okay. Lou knew that if their lives depended on those radios working, they were as good as dead. All of them, even the two guys who had nothing to do with anything, Blake and Aaron.
Wait…Blake and Aaron.
Lou picked up her rifle, bent over at her waist, and scurried across the rooftop to the rear northeast corner. That position gave her a better vantage point of the overpass. She dropped to one knee and aimed her scope toward the spot Blake and Aaron were supposed to be.
She scanned from west to east until two motionless heaps on the shoulder of the road came into view. She couldn’t be certain the bodies belonged to Marcus’s neighbors, but she was pretty sure.
That meant five of them remained. And that was if Rudy was okay. She hadn’t seen him as she and Dallas bolted to the courthouse roof. Only Marcus had been exposed in the middle of the street.
She cursed under her breath and moved back to her original spot. “I think Blake and Aaron are dead, Dallas,” she said. “I don’t know about Rudy.”
Dallas rolled onto his side to look at Lou. “I can’t tell how many there are, but they’re coming fast.”
Lou pressed her eye to her scope. “Do you have a shot? I don’t have a good angle.”
Dallas rolled back into firing position and nodded. “Yes, I have a shot.”
“Take it,” said Lou. “Don’t wait. Take it.”
* * *
Despite having the cover of the building, Rudy instinctively ducked and lost his balance when he felt the surprise, percussive blast of the explosion. His ears ringing, he got back to his feet. Fifty’s ears were pinned back and his tail was tucked. Rudy unsuccessfully tried shaking the dull tone from his ears. Then it hit him. The explosion was his signal to move again.
Rudy blinked his eyes to clear his head. He took another deep breath and ran into the street. Fifty hesitated but followed him. He spotted Marcus standing in the middle of the street, inviting his own death, it seemed, and saw his body jerk with the recoil of the Springfield. A moment later another explosion followed.
Rudy had worried the detonators wouldn’t work. Marcus knew that firing a round directly into the C-4 they had stored on the second floor of the jail wouldn’t do much, but hitting an active detonator could trigger the explosive.
It did work. Twice. Though from his vantage point, which wasn’t great, Rudy couldn’t tell whether the blasts had done anything to diminish the advancing threat. The building straight ahead of him was the courthouse. He stood in its shadow next to the jail and ordered Fifty to sit at his side. The dog obeyed and they waited.
Rudy peered around the corner, looking toward the U-shaped building where he knew his wife was holed up. He couldn’t see her, but getting a glimpse of the building was satisfying enough.
He peeled back into the shade, where the temperature was noticeably lower. He flexed his hands one at a time to ward off the stiffness that came with winter. He was younger than Marcus, but everyone who met them thought them the same age. Somehow, he’d aged faster than a man who’d seemingly lived a thousand lives.
Rudy envied Marcus in some ways: his skill, his confidence, his indifference to death. In other ways, he pitied the man others called Mad Max. To Rudy, Marcus frequently teetered on the edge of sanity. It was evident in his eyes, in the occasional mumbling in which he appeared to be carrying on a conversation with someone inside his own head.
He was a walking oxymoron, a man who fought to live but gave his own life and that of those around him so little consideration. He was a decorated war hero who made the careless mistakes of a man who’d never picked up a gun, let alone used it on the front lines in a foreign land. He was sullen and withdrawn, but could fill a room with his company.
Rudy shook his head, thinking about the risk he was taking, the risk they were all taking to fend off yet another ne’er-do-well who came seeking Marcus’s head. A wave of anger washed through his body and he tightened his grip on his weapon until his knuckles lost their color.
What had he allowed Marcus to do to his hometown, to his family and friends? Marcus wasn’t their savior, he was their undoing.
As much as he cared for his friend, as much as he was indebted to Marcus for helping rescue his wife from the Llano River Clan, Rudy couldn’t allow this to be the end. He couldn’t let Marcus’s narcissism win the day.
He clicked at Fifty and the dog’s ears pricked. “Let’s go,” he said, and marched out into the street with his rifle drawn. Marcus was off to the side of the street, using the smoke and debris for cover while three men, now on foot, fired at him.
Rudy heard shots from overhead. Without looking back, he knew they were coming from Lou and Dallas. None of them were finding their mark. Three men were closing in on Marcus. The large piece of truck-sized plaster that stood as a crumpled barrier between Mad Max and the enemies wouldn’t hold for long.
“Sic ’em,” Rudy hissed. While Fifty leapt forward, galloping toward the trio of threats, Rudy took aim and fired.
The first shot clinked off a piece of metal roof and missed. The second was true. It hit its target in the arm, knocking the weapon from his hands at the moment Fifty pounced.
Still advancing, Rudy moved to a second target and fired. The man was preoccupied with Marcus and never saw the bullet that drilled a hole through the side of his face. He stumbled, fired a reflexive, errant shot into the air, and dropped to a heap on the street.
Fifty was tearing through the first man when the final target turned his attention away from Marcus and toward the dog. The man was tall and lean, with a shaven head. He was muscular and his face carried with it the scowl of revenge. Rudy was certain the man still standing was the one called Junior.
The man swung one hundred eighty degrees and took aim at Fifty. He tightened the rifle to his shoulder and lowered the barrel at the dog. The rest of it unfolded in slow motion.
In the instant the man pulled his trigger, Marcus put
a bullet in the back of his thigh. The man hitched at the impact of the wound and the shot sailed harmlessly off target.
Marcus pulled his trigger again, but he was empty, having used the five shots preloaded into the weapon. Off balance, the man managed to level the weapon again. He pressed it against his body.
Without hesitation, Rudy applied pressure to the trigger. He pulled it repeatedly. Twice, three times. Four.
They sliced through the air and into the man’s body. Punch after punch, the shots knocked the man to one knee. He dropped his weapon.
Rudy rushed to the man’s side and kicked the weapon away, arriving there a beat ahead of Marcus. Fifty, blood dripping from his jaws, climbed across the bodies and debris to stand next to his master. He was panting and his tail wagged in large arcing sweeps.
The man was on his back. His chest heaved. His eyes were wide and stared blankly toward the cloudless sky.
Marcus stepped in front of Rudy, patting his friend on the shoulder as he straddled the dying man and squatted over him. He poked a finger at one of the bullet holes and twisted it.
The man wailed and his eyes squeezed shut in agony. He coughed and blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
“You Junior?” asked Marcus.
A wide smile eased across Junior’s face as he reopened his eyes, blood framing his teeth. The grin answered Marcus’s question. He wiped his finger on Junior’s shirt and gripped a fistful of the fabric to pull the man’s torso toward him.
He lowered his face closer to Junior and sneered. “This the revenge you were planning?”
Rudy inched closer. Fifty jumped a body and sniffed at Junior’s dying body.
Junior’s eyes fluttered. Garbled air leaked from his lungs.
Marcus yanked on the shirt. “Answer me,” he said through his teeth. “Is this what you came for?”
Rudy put his hand on Marcus’s back. “He’s dead, Marcus.”
Marcus shoved Junior backward and let go of the shirt. Junior’s head slapped against the road, his neck twisted to the side. Blood drained from his mouth and pooled on the asphalt. Marcus stared at it leaching outward.
“It’s over, Marcus,” said Rudy. “You beat him.”
Marcus used Junior’s corpse to push himself to his feet. He lifted his eyes and surveyed the damage. Smoke rose from the buildings he’d blown up. Parts of men, their horses, and splintered debris were strewn onto the street as if washed ashore and abandoned as a swollen tide retreated into the sea. He faced Rudy and struggled to look him in the eyes.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re the one who ended this. You, Lou, Dallas, the boys from next door, and Norma. You’re the ones who ended it.”
Rudy nodded faintly, looking at his boots. “Yeah,” he said. “It was a team effort. But it doesn’t matter. We did it. Like I said, it’s over.”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s never over, Rudy. Not as long as I’m around. I put all of you at risk. All of you.”
Rudy didn’t disagree with Marcus. He didn’t reassure Marcus everything was copacetic. He didn’t offer sympathies or gratitude. The only thing breaking through the suddenly uncomfortable silence was Fifty’s rhythmic panting.
CHAPTER 18
FEBRUARY 10, 2044, 2:00 PM
SCOURGE + 11 YEARS, 4 MONTHS
BAIRD, TEXAS
Rising twin plumes of smoke bloomed toward the early afternoon sky south of the interstate. Taskar tried to eyeball the distance. Not far, he deduced.
He eased the car toward an approaching exit and accelerated along the ramp. A folded, greenish sign pitched at forty-five degrees announced the location.
“Baird?” he questioned aloud, his voice echoing inside his mask. “Population one thousand five hundred and thirteen.”
He chuckled at the number. He doubted Baird had seen that size population in more than a decade. He’d driven past the town countless times and never noticed it. He never even knew it was there, frankly, which would have led him to believe it was abandoned.
The twin towers of smoke told him otherwise. Someone was there. Good or bad, there was a human presence. There was someone he could warn, someone he could enlist to sound the alarm in Abilene and beyond.
His focus shifted between the smoke and the road directly in front of the hearse. Then a real alarm sounded.
The oxygenator at his chest was beeping. It was running low, the internal lithium ion battery signaling a low charge. He sucked in shallow breaths to conserve what was left. He had no clue how much longer the filter giving him clean, unspoiled air would last. At that point he’d have to remove his suit.
The first beads of nervous sweat populated his temples and between his nose and mouth. The back of his neck was damp again. He didn’t think he had any fluids left in his system, let alone enough to produce an intensifying case of flop sweat.
He was nearly drenched inside his suit by the time he reached Fourth Street and approached the burned, smoking hulls of buildings that signaled him into Baird. There was one on either side of the street. Between them was the result of what he presumed to be explosions. Debris, body parts, and other unrecognizable things littered the narrow street.
Beyond the mangle stood five people, all of them armed. Two of them were aiming their rifles straight at him. Taskar pressed the brake, slid the hearse into park, turned off the engine, and sat motionless with both hands on the wheel.
He was trying to sip the air in the suit as the incessant beeping warned him of the failing air supplier. With the weapons pointed at him, and the motley crew of men and women marching toward him suspiciously, Taskar found it increasingly difficult not to swallow large gulps of air to calm his nerves. Other than that, he didn’t move until the gruffest looking of the group approached the driver’s side window. There was something familiar about him.
The man was tall, his sinewy muscles straining against the tight fabric of his worn, life-stained shirt. His broad shoulders made him appear taller than he probably was. His face was the roadmap of a hard life. There were wrinkles within wrinkles.
His brow appeared tattooed with worry lines that stretched in deep parallel lines from temple to temple. Thin crow’s-feet fanned from the corners of his sad, deep-set eyes, white-radiating traces of the spots the sun hadn’t reached. The sandpaper scruff that framed his mouth, chin, and jaw was a patchwork of brown, red, and white. His close-cropped hair was cut in the same severe manner he’d seen on the mercenaries that roamed the border.
The man tapped on the glass. “Roll down the window.”
Taskar lowered the glass, then put his gloved hand back on the wheel. He could only imagine what this familiar-looking stranger was thinking—a hazmat-suited driver of a hearse in a nothing town ten years after the apocalypse.
The man narrowed his eyes, the purplish circles underneath them flattening. “Do I know you?”
That was not the question Taskar had expected. “Maybe,” he said. “I think I’ve seen you somewhere.”
The man stepped back and studied the hearse. Then his eyes widened with recognition. “The border. You were at the wall. Six or seven years ago. I saw you there.”
Taskar still couldn’t place the man, but he was likely right. Lots of people had seen Taskar at the wall. He’d seen lots of people too. During the final days of the Cartel, the few crossing points were teeming with those looking to leave and those looking for whatever meager existence they could eke out.
“Could be,” he said. “Probably.”
The man poked the barrel of his rifle at the beeping oxygenator. “What’s that?”
Taskar swallowed. He could taste the air now. It was thicker and laden with the plastic of his hazmat suit. The others outside his hearse had drawn closer. A young woman with a sideways baseball cap twirled a knife on her fingers. A middle-aged man with a round, kind face stood with his rifle in one hand. There was a tattoo on his forearm Taskar couldn’t read.
A woman who was likely his wife was at his shoulder. A young man
who didn’t seem to fit with the rest of them stood awkwardly off to one side. His weapon was shouldered and aimed through the windshield.
“What’s that?” the man at the window repeated. “Why are you wearing that suit?”
The plastic of the suit crinkled and sweat traced Taskar’s spine from his neck to the small of his back. “It’s an oxygenator,” he said. “It supplies filtered air into my mask. This suit…I’m…it’s—”
“What are you protecting yourself from?”
“My name is Timothy Taskar.”
“I didn’t ask your name.”
“I’m a courier,” said Taskar. “I drive people where they need to be. Sometimes I take them from one side of the wall to the other.”
The man took another step back and adjusted his rifle, nestling it against his shoulder. His eyes danced along the length of the hearse. They settled on Taskar and he shook his head. “You’re not transporting anyone,” he said, his pleasantly inquisitive tone gone. There was urgency and suspicion now. “You’re alone. What. Are. You. Doing?”
The quartet in front of the hearse took another collective step closer. The man at the window held his ground.
“Get out of the vehicle,” he barked. “Open the door and get out.”
A well of nausea swelled in Taskar’s gut. “Okay, but please don’t shoot.”
He shouldered his way out of the hearse and raised his hands above his head. The oxygenator was beeping faster. Clearly, it was almost out of air.
Taskar’s knees were knocking. “I’m not sick.”
“Where are your passengers?” asked the young woman with the knife. She was holding it by its grip now.
“They’re dead,” he said. “I killed them.”
“I think you should shoot him, Marcus,” said the young woman. “This whole thing stinks.”
Taskar shook his head inside the hooded mask. “I had to,” he said. “I didn’t want to kill them. I did it to save lives. I came here because I need your help. I came here to warn you.”