by M. L. Banner
“What’s up, hon?” Lisa’s arms were getting tired training her weapon on Clyde and Judas’s location, the adrenalin-high having long since worn off. She hoped her husband had an answer to break this stalemate, before Clyde’s obvious ploy worked. He was waiting for them to drop their guard, hiding behind their sea wall. She feared that Clyde had much more in mind. They couldn’t stay on alert forever. She knew that they had a big weakness. Neither she nor Bill would just shoot someone, but she suspected that Clyde would have no problem pulling the trigger when given the chance. It didn’t matter. He may be an asshole, as Max often said, but he had also been a guest at their home many times. She would not take the first shot.
“I have an idea,” Bill said as Miguel took over his position on the north end of the patio door. “I want to try something that might get us out of this stand-off.” Pausing only briefly to peck Lisa on the cheek as he passed, then trotting past the kitchen, he went into their pantry and after a bit of bumping around came out with an A-frame ladder. He set it in the middle of the kitchen, and climbed to a precarious stance near the very top. Taking a screwdriver from his pants pocket, he proceeded to remove the screws from the frame of the domed milky-white skylight.
~~~
“Where the hell is that kid?” Clyde asked Judas, who stood behind him sheepishly, not sure what to do next. “Ah, fuck it. It’s time to move to Plan B.” He held out his hands, a request for Judas to hand him what he wanted.
“No, we can’t. Let’s give them more time.” His voice was whiney and crackling. Judas wanted the food, but didn’t really want to kill to get it. He always figured they would just fold, like he would. Just give up and do what Clyde demanded.
“They aren’t going to give up. If we start a shootout with the Mexican weapons we found, it’ll take too long and one of us might get shot. Besides, I’m tired of waiting. We cut our losses, get rid of the Kings, and see what we can find at Thompson’s house. As you said, smugglers killed Thompson.”
“It was the cartel, and he wasn’t killed, he was kidnapped.” Judas corrected him, half expecting to get slapped for it. “Besides, we don’t want to destroy all of the Kings’ supplies.” The thought of murder was starting to nauseate him.
“Jesus and Mary, you sure do snivel a lot. You said that most of the supplies are either in Thompson’s beach house or the one across the street. That should be more than enough for us for a while.” Clyde was annoyed at having to explain himself, but he wanted the little pervert fully on his side so that he would continue to do things for him. It was a lot easier than threatening and looking over your shoulder. “Look, Judas, we kill two birds with one stone. We kill the Kings; we have full access to Thompson’s supplies. So, please hand me our presents. It’s Christmas in July.” He flashed a politician’s grin.
Judas shrugged, giving in, and reached into a box they had both hauled to the beach wall earlier. He took out two of the many bottles marked Jose Cuervo Gold with rags stuffed in the neck of each and handed them to Clyde.
Clyde eyed them like a child with new toys, only these were much more deadly than any toy ever given at Christmas. Turning them upside down, he watched the bottles’ contents wick into each rag. The pungent scent of tequila filled the air. Clyde figured he would find a use for this crappy tequila someday. He giggled at the irony of this. Every year he received a bottle of Jose Cuervo from the Kings around Christmas time. He wasn’t about to drink the stuff when there were so many good tequilas in Mexico. Why waste your palate on a bad one? Yet, he accepted each with thanks and stored them away, for what he didn’t know. Well, now was the time he could re-gift them their own tequila. “Okay, light me up.”
Judas flicked his disposable lighter a few times before a blue flame danced all over the top of one bottle. Clyde touched the other bottle to the lit one, and then took a few steps back judging weight and distance. He stood still, his muscles tensing, ready to release.
~~~
Bill removed all the screws of the bracket that held the plastic lip of the skylight in place, then climbed down the ladder and ducked into their safe room for a while.
“Señor Bill is smart, Señora Lisa. He goin to shoot dos men from da roof,” Miguel said, still training his gun on the spot where the two men had ducked behind the wall.
“Oh.” Lisa now understood Bill’s plan, but didn’t care for it one bit. “Yes, I’m afraid you’re right.” Trying to get her mind off it and relax a little, she forced herself to smile. “Congratulations on your new baby, Miguel. What is her name?”
“Ana, after Maria’s sister who—” He stopped and they both turned to see Bill coming out of the safe room’s doorway carrying another rifle like the one Lisa had, and a bundled roll of rope and poles. He headed to the kitchen, went back up the ladder, and proceeded to set up the rolled-up emergency ladder on the skylight frame, now open to the sky.
“Señora Lisa, sompin is happin!”
Lisa turned to see Clyde appear in the mouth of the beach-access stairwell holding a smoking object in each hand. He leaned somewhat backward, his left arm sticking straight back to the beach, looking for a moment like he was going to tip over. Then, like a mouse trap, he sprang, releasing whatever was in his hand. “Oh my God, Miguel, get back from the window!” Lisa yelled as she raced back toward the living room, desperate to put distance between her and the patio door. Miguel practically leaped after her. They all heard a bottle break against the wall followed by a whoosh. Only a couple of seconds later, a second bottle broke right outside the open patio door. Some of its pieces scuttled inside, sliding all the way into the kitchen. Another whoosh and…
“FIRE!” Lisa yelled. They all scrambled for the front door.
“Shit-shit-shit!” Bill let the escape ladder drop, landing beside the kitchen island, and he jumped off the A-frame. “Lisa, is it clear out front?”
“No, dammit.” Her face dripped with fear. “Lots of men with guns.” Then she spoke in a quieter tone, “Some across the street and one outside our window right here. Whatawedo?”
“Miguel, shoot a couple of rounds out the patio door. I’ve got another idea,” Bill yelled, already racing into the safe room entrance, and then disappearing into the garage.
Miguel walked into the kitchen. Pow-pow, he fired off two shots with Bill’s .45. Maria and Ana stayed with Lisa, crying as their panic grew. After a couple seconds, pow-pow, another two shots.
Bill appeared again with a much longer extendible ladder. “Miguel, go up first. I’m going to hand you this. Then Maria, then Ana, then Lisa, then me.” Bill took controlled breaths, trying to remain calm, pleased he wasn’t panicking. He watched Miguel scurry up the ladder, disappearing for a moment in the void outside, before reappearing to reach down for the extendible, which he grabbed and hoisted through the opening.
After the flames started eating their blinds and the ceiling above, the hungry monster unleashed by their neighbor reached into the dining room to consume its furniture.
“Okay, Maria, let me hold Ana and you climb up. Then I’ll hand her to Miguel.” Bill was working it out as he spoke, not really sure how he would ascend the ladder while carrying a howling baby. He looked at Lisa, who seemed outwardly steady, but he knew she was terrified. Bill smiled and received a tepid one in reply. Maria was almost all the way up, Miguel already grabbing her arms and pulling her through. “Lisa, help me get the baby up there.” He handed Ana to his wife, who slung her weapon around her back like she might have tossed on a purse only days ago. Pushing the A-frame directly under the rope ladder, Bill hopped up a few steps and took the baby from Lisa, then turned and carefully mounted two more steps to hand her off to Miguel, who was already hanging down at the ready. He cradled Ana in temporary safety.
“Give me the rifles. You go after me.” Needing no urging, she did and he disappeared through the hole with them. Lisa scurried up the rope ladder after him. Half way, she paused and watched the fire-monster consume their flat-screen in the living room, and begin
working its way to them. No time to be sentimental, not with the heat baring its teeth in warning. She clambered through the opening.
Bill was already at the back corner of the roof, bringing his rifle up and leveling it on Clyde, who was poised to fling another one their way. Bill squeezed off a hasty shot, knowing he missed before the report even hit him. However, the shot did the trick, grazing and startling Clyde, who dropped his Molotov cocktail on the backswing. It crashed into a box holding several more, broke the others, and the box exploded in flames, some of which jumped onto the splattered liquid covering Judas. The flames flew up one arm and down one of his legs. “I’m on fire!” he screeched as he jumped up and down, patting at the flames searing his skin. He flopped into the sand writhing in pain and panic. Clyde hid behind the sea wall, away from the danger.
Bill ran back to the skylight and tugged the ladder toward the eastern edge. “Help me, Miguel. Grab that end and hold it.” Bill yanked on the ladder, elongating it to almost twenty-five feet, until he was at the roof edge. Bill hoped that was enough, if he remembered the numbers correctly. “All right, we only have one shot at this,” he said as he walked toward Miguel midway along the ladder, pushing the base into the parapet. “Lift it and then walk toward me.” Miguel did so as Bill held the base down until they had it standing upright, as if they were planning to climb up into the heavens.
Two loud noises toward the front of the house caught their attention. Lisa had unloaded a couple of shots towards the armed men out front. Shadows scurried around trying to gain cover. Brilliant, Bill thought.
Bill steadied the ladder while Miguel tightened his grip on the bottom, planting his feet against the parapet base, butt on the ground and hands holding the second rung; he looked like a water skier waiting to be launched. “All right, here goes. Whatever you do, don’t let go,” Bill said as he pushed it forward, towards Max’s house. Like a tree felled by a lumberjack, it slowly listed at first and then rapidly raced to the other house, its bulk and gravity causing it to tumble, until finally it crashed onto Max’s roof. The force lifted Miguel two feet, but his hands held tight as Bill threw all his weight on their side of the ladder to keep it from bouncing off. Momentary silence… It held!
“Miguel, you first. Lisa, you still watching the front?” He sat on the ladder, straddling the wall ledge, while Miguel shimmied across the void of their side yard below.
“They’re hiding, staying out of sight,” Lisa responded. Bill watched the rear of the house. Both Judas, who must have been close to dead, and Clyde were gone. He turned back to see where the other men with guns were. Where were they, and more importantly who were they?
“Ta bien,” Miguel called out.
“Maria, you next,” Bill ordered gently, once again taking her baby. This was going to be much more difficult.
32.
Big Guns
Laramie, Wyoming
“Oh my God.” Sherriff Ralf stood statuelike, still unprotected, staring north toward the University of Wyoming. Coming down the road was something Laramie has never seen, except at its museum.
“Is that a fricking ta-tank?” Edgar was hyper-ventilating again. “It is, and it’s moving. Sheriff, how is that possible? I thought cars and trucks won’t work ever again. That’s what Dr. Reid said. How can they…” he trailed off, needing all his focus to keep breathing, having none to spare for chit-chat.
Ralf was just as perplexed. Not a single car or truck started since this thing everyone had been calling the Event hit. Something to do with their electronic ignition system, but then here was this tank. It looked ancient; perhaps the reason for its functionality, and it looked familiar. “It’s the tank from the Old West Museum, where they compared Civil War weapons to World War II weapons.” Ralf attempted to figure this out aloud. “And what the hell is that mounted to the outside of the tank? It looks like an old wire lathe.” He answered himself. And then knelt with Edgar on the wall, partially protected, frozen by no less shock than if ET had come down and demanded entry.
The clatter of the tank’s tracks on the asphalt pavement rattled the earth beneath their walkway, an approaching tremor announcing its intent to unleash a violence against which they had no defense. A squeak-squeak-squeak from the wheels accompanied the clap-clap-clap of the track. The roar from the tank’s thunderous engines echoed off the clapboard facades of the turn-of-the-century homes that lined what had always been a quiet residential street.
“Go-go-go!” Ralf bellowed to the three men and one woman on the wall with him. “Head into town and we’ll make a stand there.”
~~~
Frank could see the sheriff and his people climbing down the wall, as if they were already surrendering. He looked past the gate and down the street and found the reason for their panic.
“It’s a damned Sherman tank.”
“Th-that’s not all, look at the northern gate now.” Jeff stared, mesmerized, not really hearing what Frank said.
“What is this, the World War II museum of old weapons? That’s a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun… I sure hope that antique doesn’t work, or we’re in a world of trouble,” Frank grumbled.
A horse-drawn carriage turned around, its driver coaxing the draft horse back, so that the machine gun was pointed at the wall. An operator sat behind the Browning, ready to rain terror on their town.
Frank decided the operator would be the first person he took out. He chambered a round in his 7mm hunting rifle, placed the cross hairs on the man’s chest, and waited. He had agreed to the sheriff’s orders earlier to not fire first. Yet, he feared by the time he could fire, the conflict would be over.
~~~
Carrington called his device Zeus, not because of any godly aspirations, but because the Zeus of mythology was known for brandishing lightning bolts and, if his calculations were correct, so would his device. He examined the floor-to-ceiling containers housing the same metal plates Melanie was using on the streets, sandwiched between sheets of glass for insulators and encased in these massive housings. Six separate units made up Zeus’ bank of capacitors. Large cables ran from each capacitor through a rough three-foot hole bored into the bricks in the western wall across to the railroad tracks, which supplied them with a so-far unlimited supply of electrical energy, as long as the CMEs continued. There were six more just like them at the corner of Grand and 3rd, forming the power storage for the Executioner project Melanie had been leading. He ascended the stairs, following the tangle of massive cables—the diameter of each roughly the size of his fist—leading up to the roof. Stepping up onto the flat rooftop, he continued along the path of cables, making sure there were no kinks that would cause interruptions of the electrical current.
“Hello Doc,” said Fred Fisher, who’d been a physics professor at the university before the event and was now the lead on the Zeus project.
“Fred”—Carrington wasted no time—“you know what’s going on?”
“Sure, just look over the wall. There must be a couple dozen of them on the other side. I assume you want to get this baby humming?”
“Correct. You finish what I asked?” Carrington examined their weapon. It looked sort of like a giant cannon from a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. It was just over five feet long, with a giant parabolic metal dish midway, focusing the energy to its point. The cannon was fixed on a large swiveling base and a vertical swivel that someone from town constructed for them. It was like an oversized paparazzi’s tripod, allowing the user to move it up-and-down or side-to-side with ease toward its intended target.
The theory was quite simple. Why not use the induced current that is everywhere, but especially around the train tracks? Store the current in a large enough capacitor and then flip a switch to discharge it, directing it through and out the cannon, hopefully focused enough that it would fly toward its intended target. Knowing that the electrical current, like lightning, would try to find a natural ground, they had the community set up the metal plates along the street. When enough enemies were
on the metal track, they would flip the switch and aim this toward them. The Executioner was similar, only its capacitor bank was directly connected to the plates, between them and the single rail spur.
These devices had been intended as the last line of defense, if their opponent broke through their defenses and because they simply didn’t have enough ammo to sustain a prolonged firefight.
“Yep, I’ve been working on this all night. I think it’s ready.” Fred puffed up with pride.
“All right, let’s go through our checklist and ready the weapon then.”
33.
Defenses
Wright Ranch, Illinois
Wilber remained quiet, behind the rock wall, listening to the sounds of the invaders. Occasionally he would catch the small crack of a twig, evidence of boots walking their way, or the hushed murmur of two people discussing attack plans below. However, it still wasn’t time; since they were at the top of the hill, the sounds seemed to resonate and amplify on the way to their ears, as if this valley were in a giant parabolic dish. Thankfully the reverse didn’t seem to be true. The invaders apparently couldn’t hear his people’s voices or observe their movements very well. He twisted around and signaled his son up in the windmill on the ridge.
“D O Y O U S E E A N Y T H I N G?” Wilber transmitted Morse code by deflecting the sun’s rays off a little mirror in Buck’s direction. All the years of prepping with his son paid off, in spite of the boy’s constant resistance.
“N O,” then a pause, “M U C H L O N G E R?” Then, “S C A R E D.”
“B E O V E R S O O N”… “L O V E Y O U S O N.” He didn’t want to push it because he didn’t want to bring any more attention to him. Wilber made hand signals to his people: first to O, who was close enough that he could see her hand trembling as she signaled to their new friend, Steve, behind a large tree that had supported generations of tire swings and tree houses, and now would assist with bloodshed and death. Steve acknowledged, but seemed to be unfocused, like he was somewhere else. Probably just nervous. Wilber nodded to himself as Steve spun and immediately signaled to his father on top of the pig shelter. Then Wilber turned the other way and signaled Doc Reynolds. Doc’s was a face of strength, revealing a certainty of purpose, knowing their cause was a just one. Further down the wall was Emma Simpson, a woman of peace, who would be welcoming death soon enough. Her shiny dome, void of all hair from the cancer, was covered in a camo-green bandana Wilber had given her. She thought it made her look tougher than the wispy pink scarves she usually wore to cover her baldness. Her green head nodded, and then she signaled her husband who was out of view from them.