Taken anw-4

by John O'Brien

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Lynn asks coming out of her thoughts. I thought I had said that to myself but apparently not.

  “I was just thinking about the kids. I don’t know what to do with them. Training is one thing but how much do I let them actually participate and get experience,” I say.

  “Jack, they’ve done very well in training. I don’t rightly know how to answer that for you but face it, you’re not going to be around forever, Jack, and they have to learn,” she says watching them with me.

  “You’ve changed your tune. But what is the right amount of participation? That’s the one that has me stuck,” I reply.

  “I don’t know that there is a right answer to that one. Robert has seen a lot of action and he has done well but you know anything can happen at any time regardless of the where or what. I’m afraid you’re on your own with this one,” she answers.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I respond.

  Movement in my peripheral catches my attention and I whip around bringing my M-4 up. Lynn, seeing me move like that, turns, and just as quickly, goes to her knee with her weapon ready. I see three people walking slowly across the far end of the parking lot by the auditorium. They freeze at our movement.

  “You over there,” I call out. “Hands where I can see them and walk slowly over.”

  The raise their arms and begin walking toward us. I see in my peripheral that my shout has caught the attention of the others and they are kneeling by the vehicles or sighted across them. I turn quickly and check out behind us in case this is a ruse but see nothing.

  “Red Team, keep a watch behind us,” I shout over to where they are focused on the three walking. They begin scanning the surrounding area.

  The three make their way across the parking lot. As they approach, I see that one is the driver of the red truck I had in my sights. The picture of Bri and her injured arm enters. My anxiety and a rush of adrenaline are quickly replaced with growing anger. I told you that fear turns to anger when a situation stabilizes somewhat. My red dot is firmly placed on his head and my finger tightens on the trigger. Lynn senses the change in my aura and glances over to see my finger wrapped firmly around the trigger. She reaches out and touches my arm.

  “Jack?” She asks as if to ask what’s wrong.

  “That’s the driver of the red truck,” I answer. I haven’t released the pressure on the trigger but I haven’t tightened it further either.

  “Jack, let’s see what they have to say first,” Lynn says but keeps her hand on my arm.

  “I’m not really that interested in hearing anything except my round leaving the chamber,” I reply.

  “Jaaaack,” Lynn says.

  “Okay, fine,” I say releasing a little pressure. They draw within twenty feet. The two on the outside are clearly fearful but the one in the middle, the driver, is scowling. Not exactly his best move ever.

  “That’s far enough. Kneel with your hands on your heads,” I tell them. The two do as I say immediately but the driver continues to stand although with his hands on his head.

  “Get your ass down while you still have the choice of standing,” I say with a growl. This man ran my kids off the road and hurt my little girl. My patience and tolerance of him is not at an all-time high.

  “You’d best do what he says asshole. He’s not in a very good mood. Now get down,” Lynn calls out.

  He slowly sinks down to his knees on the pavement. His glower doesn’t let up though. I know this type; headstrong and not much else. He doesn’t like to take guff from anyone and the fact that it came from a woman doesn’t sit too well with him. He’ll try to maintain what he considers his manliness to the bitter end. I’m also guessing he has a thing with authority. I don’t know about you but if I have someone with a gun pointing at me and telling me to get to my knees, I may not like it but I’m not so weary of this world that I’m in a rush to leave it. Well, maybe a little but there are the kids and Lynn to think of. I’m kinda fond of being around them.

  I rise and head to within five feet of them. Not so close that they can lunge but close enough that the hole at the end of my barrel looks mighty large. Funny how intimidating such a small hole can be. The hands of the man kneeling to my left are shaking. The driver stares straight into my eyes with a deep set anger. He’s a bully, although a dangerous one, and doesn’t like his situation one bit. He will wait and look for the first opportunity — that I know.

  “Care to share your story?” I ask.

  “Well, mister, we were….” the man on the right starts up but is silenced by a look from the driver.

  “You killed our friends in cold blood,” the driver says still glaring.

  So, that’s how it’s going to be. Take the offensive. Make yourself right. Honestly, I don’t see how this tactic will work but I have time to kill before the transports arrive.

  “Really! So I suppose that justifies you holding those people against their will, kidnapping others, and forcing them to be your slaves,” I say nonchalantly.

  “They were weak and needed someone to take charge to make them stronger; to be able to survive,” he counters.

  “And you consider running people off the road and kidnapping them to be helping them huh? You just wanted to make them stronger, is that it?”

  “We were helping these people and you have no right to hold us here,” he says.

  “You mean like you were holding the other people against their will. You mean like that? You do understand your life is hanging by a very thin thread right now?” I say.

  “Only the strong will survive in this world. It’s always been that way,” he says.

  “This world has no place for the likes of you. You’ll apologize to my daughter for hurting her you before you leave,” I state.

  “I’ll do no such thing,” he replies.

  I pull my Beretta out and place it close to his forehead. Not directly against his head mind you. Placing the barrel of your gun against something hard and pulling the trigger is not a good way to keep your gun in one piece. A little distance keeps the slide attached to the gun and keeps it from slamming into your face. Over-pressurization of the barrel and chamber does nasty, nasty things to a gun.

  “You might seriously want to rethink that answer,” I say holding my hand steady.

  Lynn steps up and places her hand on my arm. “Jack, he’s unarmed,” she says drawing me away.

  “This world doesn’t need people like him in it,” I counter.

  “But killing an unarmed man when he’s surrendered isn’t right even if you don’t like him,” she says. “You know that.”

  “You’d better listen to your bitch,” the driver says. Lynn’s lips tighten and her blue eyes blaze with anger. I could think of no way to leave this world quicker than to utter those exact words to Lynn. This man must have a death wish.

  The subdued crack of a gun booms across the otherwise silent lot. The driver’s throat sprouts a bright blossom of blood which sprays both men kneeling beside him. His hands fall to his ruined throat attempting to stop the damage already done. He gurgles once and slumps forward to the ground; his head hitting the pavement with a crack. Blood quickly fans out to either side; so thick the breeze causes ripples across its surface. I lower my 9mm with a wisp smoke still trailing out of the suppressor.

  Lynn lowers her M-4. “Jack?”

  “I beat you to it,” I say.

  “How did you know….” she says with her voice trailing off.

  She realizes we know each other so well that I knew what she was going to do and did it myself. I knew she would agonize more over her action than I would so I shot him first. I didn’t want her to get caught up in her own guilt. I knew I’d get over it much quicker; so much so that I’m already over it. Well, maybe not altogether as I’ll ponder whether I did the right thing from time to time.

  The radio squelches with an incoming call. “Everything alright, sir?” Gonzalez asks.


  “We’re good here, thanks,” I answer.

  I look at the other two kneeling on the ground alternating their stares from the body of their comrade and the bloody pool, now slowly streaming as the lowest parts of the pavement dictate, to us. They are obviously scared.

  “You have twenty seconds to be out of my sight,” I say.

  “Take us with you,” the one with the shaking hands says.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so and you’d best use the fifteen seconds remaining to you wisely,” I reply.

  There is no hesitation as the two rise and start running across the lot toward the downed fence line. I shake my head as I watch them bolt across the pavement, out of the gate, and down the road. There’s a definite surreal quality to the events of the past few days. I mean marauders, night runners, and having to rescue our own from our own backyard. I’m ready to wake up now.

  “This is like the Wild West stories; handing out justice at the end of a gun,” Lynn says.

  “He did have it coming. He practically begged for it and to be honest, I’m a little jealous,” I reply thinking he doesn’t have to deal with this messed up world anymore.

  “I’m not saying he didn’t. It’s just, well, fuck, I don’t know exactly,” she responds.

  “Lynn, truly, what were we to do? Take him back and lock him up? We don’t have the facilities or manpower to do something like that. And lock him up for how long? If we let him go, he would have just continued in a similar manner as before. Think about the ones who left to try it on their own. He would have found them. We probably saved a soul or two as he was a dangerous sort,” I say trying to make some sense of it.

  “I know all of that, Jack. But where do we start and end with it? Do we just go around dispensing justice to those who think differently or don’t agree with us?” She asks.

  I can tell she is having a hard time with the outright shooting of someone, especially as they were unarmed. I know she has no qualms whatsoever in battle or if someone is endangering those around her. I am honestly having a hard time with it as well. What is the line? To me, if they represent a danger to our survival, the answer is clear.

  “We’ll just have to deal with it as it comes I guess. I don’t think there’s a right answer here. At least not yet,” I say.

  “Yeah, true. Let’s start getting those portable lights so we can get out of here when the transports arrive,” she says coming out of whatever hole she climbed into momentarily.

  We gather the lights and long cords that led to a number of generators placed around the field and wait. Waiting makes me feel like a seven-year old on a family road trip — are we there yet? I want to get back to base and figure our next steps out. I feel the exhaustion set in. The post adrenaline and time awake is taking its toll. The chill of the morning air gives way to a warmer but humid mid-morning. The transports arrive and we start the laborious process of loading them up.

  We arrive back in our own compound. It feels like weeks since I left but it is in fact just a matter of days. The place, although similar, has undergone and is still undergoing quite a few changes. I see people out in the grass fields to the south working on fencing. A lot of fences have gone up in the fields and a large concrete slab sits next to the parking lot to the north. They’ve been busy. The school buses are parked next to the other Humvee and transport trucks.

  We help offload and then it’s time for rest. My muscles are still screaming their protest from the night prior and I feel the fogginess of no sleep settle in. Inside, the compartments Bannerman had constructed for quarters are complete. Bannerman and Frank are talking with the new arrivals to the side and I assume arranging places for them. We now have close to two hundred people with us. Lynn’s going to be quite busy with her training. I trudge upstairs past the congregation, find my cot, and collapse.

  I finally awaken and spend a little time with the kids on the roof. The clouds have thickened and promise rain soon. A chill breeze blows across the rooftop but it’s nice to spend the time with them and I’m thankful we are able to do so. We chat for a while and head down earlier than we normally would as there is no glorious sunset to send the day off with. Robert and Bri eat and chat with Julie during our dinner and our leadership group meets afterwards. It seems like longer since we’ve met as the enormity of events over the past few days makes it seem like more time has passed.

  I start by giving a synopsis of our little outing to catch everyone up on my side. Bannerman then relates the events here.

  “We’ve started the fences and such for the livestock as I’m sure you saw upon your arrival. I expect we’ll be finished with those sometime tomorrow. We’ve also poured foundations for several large greenhouses. I found quite a few big ones at various nurseries that can be dismantled and carted easily. We can start bringing in any livestock that are left within the next couple of days. Building barns and stables will be next but with the amount of people we have to help now, that should be short work,” he reports.

  “Nicely done! What about Watkins and the teams getting the windmill?” I ask.

  “They report they’re able to remove the turbine and truck it north in pieces. They should actually be finished there in the next day or so,” Drescoll says.

  “The challenge will be to engineer a solution for the water pump,” Bannerman adds. “But we’ll figure something out.”

  “Good. How about supplies?” I ask.

  “Well, we’ve gathered quite a few and have hit most of the stores around here and cleared out quite a few of them. To be honest, with this greater influx of people, we should start thinking bigger, Jack. We have enough food to get us through but feeding two hundred people a day will hit us pretty hard. Plus, there is a storage problem with that many. I worked in supply for a while so I know about that,” Bannerman says.

  “So what are you suggesting?” Lynn asks.

  “Well, first, we should be hitting any distribution centers in the area. They’ll have anything the stores have but in much greater quantities. Plus, I talked with Frank here and we think the there’s a chance that the security of the distribution centers should be in effect limiting any night runner activity inside. They are also usually built away from heavily populated areas. I think we should grab all we can, load them into trucks and haul them back. As far as storage, well, we should also grab shipping containers. They have some that are refrigerated as well,” Bannerman answers.

  “Let’s not forget about hospital and medical equipment either,” Drescoll chimes in.

  “They’ll have a lot of basic medical supplies plus meds for the pharmacies,” Bannerman replies.

  “But I mean more of hospital equipment, you know, tables, and stuff like that,” Drescoll clarifies.

  “Yeah, we’re going to need items like that as well. With the influx of people, and I think we’ll see more as time goes on, we’ll have to think about housing for all of them. It’s getting a little crowded here using this for storage and housing,” Frank adds.

  All of these ideas and suggestions being thrown out are taking a toll on my psyche. Still so much to do and each will take time and resources. I’m pretty much done being in charge now and I’d like to go home. These are all valid points but it’s a matter of putting them into a priority basis. The problem is that all seem to have an equal priority. Food, water, and shelter remain high on the list. We have winter coming which means much shorter days and we aren’t in a position to be self-sufficient as yet. One thing is certain and that is we’ll have to have the barns, stables, greenhouses, and other buildings for the livestock in place before winter sets in.

  “Well, I think we continue with the building of the fences and structures for food supplies. Horses are a great idea as who knows if we’ll be able to manufacture bio-fuels and the bio-fuels will only provide for the diesel-powered equipment. However, even with that available, we won’t have manufacturing to replace broken equipment although we can scrounge for quite a while longer in that area. As far as the rest, I’ve had
a couple of thoughts in mind and want to throw those out and see what everyone thinks,” I say.

  “I see we have two choices as far as a permanent residence goes. We can stay here and build what we need, apartment buildings, storage, water towers, and such or we can begin fortifying the Fort Lewis and McChord areas. Seal them off as we did here, remove the night runners from within, and move up. We’d have to start off by sealing off and clearing smaller areas like the housing, armories, vehicle storage and maintenance areas, and the hospital,” I continue.

  There’s a silence as everyone ponders the idea. “I’ve honestly thought along those lines as well,” Bannerman finally says. “There are advantages and disadvantages to that. The disadvantages are fairly obvious I think. It’s mostly about clearing those areas. We’d have to have the manpower to do it and keep it clear. Time and resources as you put it.”

  “But we’d basically have a functioning city if we could do it,” Drescoll says.

  “Keeping it clear and patrolling that vast of an area sounds like it would suck up all of our resources if we could even clear it sufficiently,” Lynn chimes in.

  “We’d have to take it in stages and base out of here while we were doing it,” I say. “Then we could keep this area as our food supply although there are enough open areas up there to do that as well.”

  “It’s ambitious, I’ll give you that but if we could do it, I think it would be worth it,” Greg says.

  “Everything is already in place there. The advantages I see are that the power is in place. Bases were meant to be self-sufficient in that and other regards. We’d have tools, storage, and armories right there. Plus, they already have the water tower in place. We could have a large field of those wind turbines by the airfield and vast arrays of solar panels. There are also fuel depots we could utilize. The disadvantages, like Lynn mentioned, are keeping the night runners out and patrolling. And clearing it to begin with. That will be a major undertaking in and of itself,” Frank says.