by Eric Vall
“How did we miss that yesterday?” Tara asked.
“We weren’t exactly on the lookout for drug dens,” Anna said dryly.
We watched as greasy hair parked the cart outside, along with three other carts that were filled with garbage, and then the two men went inside.
“Why with the cart?” Tara asked, and she shook her head in shock. “I don’t get it.”
“They’re drug addicts,” Paige said. “It’s not going to make sense.”
“Let’s watch the house for a few minutes,” I said. “If they haven’t come out in ten, then we’ll head over there and see if we can get a vantage point.”
“Okay,” Bailey said.
“Hopefully this won’t take long,” I said. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”
“If it’s not shopping, it’s drug addicts,” Tara said with a shrug, and I had to smile.
We watched the small house for a moment. The porch was half falling over, and the windows had plastic duct tape on them. It looked like there had been a dog in the yard at one point, but there wasn’t any longer. I figured they couldn’t feed it once the EMP hit, and either they let it go, or it broke away. I didn’t want to consider the other alternative, though I thought it highly plausible.
The men were quiet for several minutes, and I was about to call it and formulate a plan to head over there when I heard a glass break. I turned my head back to the house to see another glass fly through the front door after greasy hair ran out and ducked.
“What the fuck!” greasy hair shouted.
“You spilled our product!” baldy yelled from inside.
“I did not,” greasy hair hollered back.
“Did, too!” baldy called.
“They’re like children,” Anna whispered with a shake of her head.
“Get your ass back in here,” baldy said. “We gotta make us some more.”
“Shit,” Paige said.
“What?” Anna asked.
“They’re making meth,” the brunette said.
“How do you know it’s meth?” Tara asked.
“They’re twitchy,” Paige said, “they keep arguing over nothing, can’t focus, and the scabs all over them.”
“People who do meth have scabs all over them?” Bailey asked with genuine surprise.
“Those who are long-term users,” I said with a nod.
“Damn,” Tara said. “But why is that a bad thing?”
“It means we can’t shoot them while they’re inside,” I said.
“Why not?” Bailey asked.
“The chemicals,” Paige explained. “Making meth is a chemical process, and it can easily explode under the right circumstances.”
“Well, shit,” Tara muttered.
“Isn’t that gonna be a big explosion?” Anna asked with skepticism.
“Depends on their setup,” Paige said, and she looked around at the other girls with surprise. “Haven’t any of you ever watched the news and seen something about a meth lab exploding?”
“What the fuck,” Tara said. “No, who watches the news for stories about meth lab explosions?”
“You don’t watch it for that…,” Paige said, but she put her fingers to her temples and took a deep breath. “I’m just saying it’s on the news sometimes.”
“So what do we do?” Bailey asked.
“We need to draw them out,” I said.
“What is with us having to lure people everywhere lately?” Tara asked in reference to the men trying to steal our boat the other night.
“Better to lure them out than get our boat shot or be in a meth explosion,” I chuckled.
“Alright,” Anna said. “How are we going to do it?”
“Well, they’re pretty paranoid,” Bailey said. “Maybe we can play off of that?”
“That’s a good idea,” I told the blonde.
“We just have to make sure we get both of them out here,” Paige said. “And we can’t attack until they’re both far enough away.”
“Paige is right,” I said. “We don’t want to give one of them the opportunity to run back inside.”
“Alright,” Anna said. “But how are we going to get them to come out?”
“Do you think we could move one of their shopping carts?” Bailey asked.
“Why?” Paige asked.
“Oh, my God,” Tara snickered. “That’d be so funny.”
“What?” the brunette asked again.
“If we move one of the shopping carts, they’ll definitely notice,” Bailey explained. “The one guy seems kind of obsessed with them.”
“Oh,” Paige said with a smile. “I like it.”
“We can move it to the middle of the road,” Anna said.
“I like it,” I said. “We’ll have to be careful, though.”
“Their windows are blocked off,” Paige said. “But they might have other ways of looking out that we don’t know about.”
“Bailey,” I said. “Can you find a building that gives you a good vantage point on the road?”
“Of course,” the blonde responded.
“We need to be far enough back that if something goes wrong, we won’t get caught in the crossfire,” I reminded the girls.
“Right,” Paige agreed.
“I’ll move the cart,” I said.
“I think I should do it,” Tara piped up.
“I agree,” Anna said.
“Tara is the ninja,” Bailey added.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“We know,” the platinum blonde chuckled. “You never like it. But I’m the sneakiest, so I’m going.”
“It might be good to have you on the roof with Bailey,” Paige pointed out. “That way if they’re both out of the house you can each take one.”
“Alright,” I reluctantly agreed. “Tara will move the cart. Paige and Anna, you two get on either side of the house and keep an eye out for the men.”
“Roger that,” the redhead said.
“Tara, I don’t want you to move until you get the nod from both Paige and Anna,” I instructed.
“Got it,” the platinum blonde assured me. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I said. “Everybody knows their positions?”
“Yup,” Bailey said.
“Mhm,” Paige responded.
“Cart duty,” Tara added.
“Let’s do it,” Anna said with a grin.
“Alright,” I said seriously. “Move out.”
Paige, Anna, and Tara headed down the road while Bailey and I went to the back of the houses across the street from the meth lab. We found one with a nice upstairs window. The backdoor was already open, so we cleared the place quickly, then set up upstairs.
I watched as Anna and Tara crossed the street. The redhead flanked up, but Tara headed in a straight line for the backside of the house. Paige had stayed on our side of the street to get a view from the left side of the house, and I kept a close eye on all of them as they got into position.
Bailey set up her rifle next to me, and she made it look like a breeze. Her new Barrett M82 was a powerful weapon, and it had a decent weight on it, but she held it against her shoulder with not a single shake. It would have been much easier if we were able to lay down for the shot, but since we were up against a window, there wasn’t much we could do.
I did open the window for us so we wouldn’t have to deal with shattered glass, but we would have to hold our rifles up and aim. Typically that would weaken someone’s shot, but I knew Bailey, and I knew her talent. There wasn’t much that could weaken her shot.
“Are they in position?” the blonde asked.
“Yeah,” I said as I double checked the girls.
I watched as Paige gave Tara the nod, followed by Anna. Once the platinum blonde knew she was clear, she snuck up along the side of the house until she was right by the carts.
Next, she grabbed the newest one the man had brought over earlier, carefully turned it around to face the road, and gave it a quick,
hard shove.
The cart made a terrible rattle sound as it sailed across the asphalt, and Tara ducked down further and slipped back behind the house.
“What the fuck was that!” one of the men yelled from inside.
I held my breath as I waited for them to come out.
Greasy hair was the first. He kicked the door open with his pistol extended long and swung it around from side to side.
“Who’s there!” he yelled, and his head darted back and forth.
“Ain’t nobody out there!” baldy called from inside.
“The fuck there isn’t,” greasy hair responded, and he pointed his gun at the shopping cart. “Someone moved my damn shopping cart.”
“It was probably the wind,” baldy said.
“Ain’t no fuckin’ wind can move a cart to the middle of the road,” greasy hair snapped.
“Lemme see,” baldy said.
Greasy hair had barely come out of the doorway, and I had begun to grow impatient. These guys needed to hurry up and get out of the damn house.
Baldy came up to the doorway, but he was still half hidden behind greasy hair, and neither one of them were far enough out that they were feasible targets.
The two men argued over the cart while their hands gestured wildly with their weapons.
Finally, greasy hair had had enough.
“Come out here, you sonofabitch!” he yelled, and he shot off a round into the sky.
“Leave it!” baldy commanded.
“You never believe me!” greasy hair cried.
The sound of breaking glass a few houses down interrupted their fight.
“You hear that?” greasy hair asked.
“Of course I heard that,” baldy said, and he raised his pistol. “Come on.”
The two men stepped slowly down the ramp that led to their front door.
“You want baldy or greasy hair?” I asked Bailey.
“I was calling him oily hair in my head,” the blonde chuckled. “But I think I’ll take him.”
The men had stopped moving though, and they stood at the bottom of the ramp and scanned the area with their pistols.
“Hello?” baldy called out.
The sound of more breaking glass resonated through the air, and the two men visibly jumped.
“Fuck this!” greasy hair yelled. “Are you with me or not?”
“I’m with ya,” baldy said after a second, then both of the men took off toward the sound.
I waited until they were at least a hundred feet away from the house, then I lined up my target. Baldy ran quickly, but I adjusted for his speed, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.
Just as he went down with a shot through the temple, Bailey’s rifle cracked. The .50 cal let out a massive bang, and the greasy haired guy’s head nearly exploded off his body from the impact. There was nothing left above his neck except for a few strands of flesh and a large amount of blood that splattered the pavement and spilled out from his throat in large gushes.
Blood pooled around the two men, and I scanned the area once more to be sure we were in the clear.
“Good shot,” I told Bailey as I slung my rifle over my shoulder.
“You, too,” the blonde said with a smile.
“How was that Barrett M82?” I asked.
“Amazing,” Bailey gushed. “The scope is fantastic. I could see his nose hairs!”
“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Let’s go find the other girls.”
“I wonder who broke that window?” Bailey asked as we made our way down the stairs.
“I don’t know,” I said with pinched eyebrows.
I knew it had to be either Anna or Paige from where it had come from, but I wasn’t sure which. It was a good call from whoever had taken the initiative.
“Hey,” I called out as Bailey and I made our way to the street and found Paige, Anna, and Tara.
“That went pretty smooth,” Anna said.
“It went well,” I agreed. “Who broke the windows?”
“Wasn’t me,” the redhead said.
“Me either,” Tara admitted. “I moved the cart, that was it.”
“I did,” Paige said. “That dumbass let off a shot so close to the house, and I panicked and felt like I had to get them out of there soon.”
“You did good,” I told the brunette. “That showed great initiative. That shot made me nervous as well.”
“I mean it probably would have been more fun if we had let them blow themselves up,” Tara chuckled.
“Probably,” I agreed. “But then the whole neighborhood would know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the platinum blonde said. “Still, though, I would have liked to see that.”
“Should we check out the house?” Anna asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We don’t want to mess around with any of those chemicals.”
“If we leave it, then they could explode on their own,” Paige pointed out. “Especially once it gets hot out.”
“Alright,” I agreed. “We’ll go in and see what we can do to neutralize the situation.”
“Ew,” Tara said with a grimace.
“Well, we don’t want the house exploding and causing a huge fire,” Paige said.
“I know,” the platinum blonde agreed. “But it’s still icky.”
“I’m sure it will be,” I agreed. “We’ll try to make it quick, we’ve wasted enough time with these assholes.”
We approached the house carefully, and I stepped inside. The stench of rotten food and death permeated the air, and I nearly gagged as I quickly ran back out and took a deep breath of fresh air.
“What the fuck,” Anna groaned, and she doubled over and heaved.
“Paige,” I said. “Let’s see what we can find quickly.”
“On it,” the brunette said, and she moved past me with her hand over her mouth and nose.
I took a deep breath and then stepped back into the house. On the kitchen table was a setup with empty boxes of sudafed, some jugs of chemicals, and a propane bunsen burner. The burner was still lit, so we shut it off first, then Paige poured out what was in the beaker, and I tossed the bottles of chemicals outside.
“Let’s get out of here,” the brunette said.
“Gladly,” Tara said as we all pushed toward the door.
Once we were outside, I was able to take a full breath, so I breathed deep for a moment just to cleanse my nostrils.
“Jesus, that was terrible,” Anna said.
“Oh, yeah,” Bailey agreed.
“We’re probably going to smell like that place for a week,” Tara said with a grimace, and she sniffed her shirt.
“We got it taken care of, though,” Paige said happily.
“Can you give us a second to barf before you get all chipper on us?” Tara asked as she doubled over.
“Oh, right,” the brunette said. “My bad.”
After a couple minutes of catching our breath, we were all ready to move forward once more.
“Before we head out let’s check the area quickly,” I said. “I saw a bike behind the house Bailey and I were in. Let’s see if we can find a couple more.”
“Good idea,” Anna agreed.
“I think I saw one behind the tweakers house,” Tara announced.
I retrieved the yellow bike from behind the sniper house, and Tara came out from behind the meth house with a black one, while Anna came down the street with a red one.
“No luck?” I asked Paige and Bailey as they joined us.
“No,” Paige said with a shake of her head.
“Sorry,” Bailey added.
“No need to apologize,” I said.
“The bikes are of no use if we don’t all have one,” Anna said.
“Speak for yourself,” Tara said.
“Oh, hush,” the redhead retorted with an eye roll.
“Anna’s right,” I agreed. “But we still have a little bit to go through town. Let’s hold on to the bikes and see if we can find a few more
before we get to the interstate.”
“Okay,” Tara agreed, and she moved to hop on the bike.
“No,” I laughed. “You’ll have to walk it.”
“You are so not fun,” the platinum blonde said with a glare.
We made our way through town as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was mid morning already, and though we had spent some time on the tweakers, I felt it was worth it. We couldn’t have left them there, not since we had to come back through in order to pick up our boat. Besides, getting a couple of drug addicts off the street didn’t seem like too much of a waste of time. Not that there was much of a street left.
It was a warm spring day, and I felt myself begin to sweat as we walked.
“Hold up,” I told the girls.
“What’s wrong?” Anna asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “But it’s getting hot out, and we’re going to be walking all day, so I want everyone to drink some water.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Paige chuckled.
We each pulled out our water bottles and took a quick drink. I also took off the sweater I had put on that morning and shoved it in my backpack. I knew it was gearing up to be hot as hell, and I did not want to be caught in that sweater any longer.
As we kept on through town, I made a point to check yards for bikes. If we could find two more for Paige and Bailey, then we would be able to make a lot better time than we would on foot.
I did find one, but closer inspection showed that the tires were both flat.
We were almost to the interstate, and I had about given up hope when Anna stopped and stared off to the left.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I think those are bikes,” the redhead said, and she headed to the house across the street.
I didn’t see anything at first, but the more I looked I saw some pink and green come through the slats of the porch.
Anna made her way through the overgrown yard and crawled under the porch. A moment later she had two dirty but usable bikes.
“Good spot,” I said with a grin.
Paige and Bailey retrieved the bikes, Paige with the pink, and Bailey with the green.
“Nice, thank you,” Bailey said with a wide grin.
“Alright,” I said after everyone was back on the road. “Let’s hop on.”
“Finally,” Tara said with a smile.
“Paige,” I said. “Lead the way.”