Half Past Midnight

by Jeff Brackett

  But now Larry had our son, and she didn’t hesitate. That was as extreme as it got for her. I helped her strap on some of my extra blades and gave her the shotgun and shells we had retrieved from one of the hidden caches. All the while, I couldn’t help praying she wouldn’t have to use them. For though the look in her eye forbore any thought of trying to keep her from coming, I feared she hadn’t the skill to last long in a fight.

  It took us less than half an hour to gather what we thought we might need and, as we prepared to leave, I looked around Amber’s empty house.

  Megan walked in the front door without knocking. “I just heard.”

  I slung the machete over my shoulder. “We’re just about to leave.”

  Megan seemed hesitant, as if something bothered her.

  “Megan?”

  She shook her head a few times, her mouth working of its own accord, but no words came.

  Debra went to her and pulled her close. “It’s okay. We’ll get him back.”

  Megan pushed away. “I should have known what he was up to. We had been planning…” She seemed unable to continue.

  At first, I thought I’d heard wrong. But I saw her face and knew I hadn’t. My chest suddenly tightened. “Planning?” My voice began to rise without my intending it to. “Planning what?”

  Megan started to turn away, but I grabbed her arm and spun her around to face me. “You’re telling us you knew about this? And you didn’t say anything?”

  “No!” she sobbed. “Taking Zachary wasn’t part of it! We never discussed that! We just wanted-”

  “What?” It was only with considerable restraint that I was able to lower my voice again. “You just wanted what?”

  We were interrupted by a tentative knock at the door. Ken stepped back defensively when I snatched it open. I started to tell him that it was a bad time when I glanced over his shoulder. A small group waited just behind him, Cindy, Rene, Sarah, Billy, Edwin, and several others, all looking surprised at my apparent ferocity.

  “Um, did we come at a bad time?” Ken asked.

  “Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Sorry. You might say that. Family business.”

  He and Cindy started to turn away.

  “Ken?” They turned back.

  “You two are family.” I sighed. “Now would you please get in here before I do something I’ll regret later?”

  Cindy smiled, and Ken gripped my shoulder as they slipped past me into the house.

  I turned back to the rest of the people in the front yard. “Sorry, guys, this shouldn’t take too long.” I went inside, closing the door behind me.

  Ken and Cindy looked a little disconcerted to see Megan sobbing into Debra’s shoulder. No doubt they were wondering what they had walked in on.

  As soon as I saw Megan, my anger flared again. I couldn’t help it. “Megan was just explaining how she had known Eric was up to something. How she had even been making plans with him!”

  To Ken’s credit, he approached the whole thing a lot calmer than I had. “Megan? What’s this all about?”

  Cindy went over to Debra and Megan and began stroking Megan’s back. “It’s okay, baby. Nobody’s mad at you.”

  At first Megan didn’t say anything. She just huddled against her mother. Then, so gradually that I couldn’t tell where the transition occurred, Megan was laughing. “That right, Dad? Nobody’s mad at me?” Her laughter had an eerie edge that bordered on hysteria. “Hey, Ken? Ask Dad if anyone’s mad at me, would you?”

  I raised my finger, pointing it in her face, and opened my mouth to shout at her, to release some of the pent-up anger from where it wormed around in my gut and let it fly at my daughter. I was past reason for a second or two, and something of that must have shown in my face.

  “Leeland, stop it!” Debra never shouted. Never. When she got upset or angry, she got quiet-calmly, glacially quiet. Her shout was all it took. As quickly as that, my anger was gone, replaced by embarrassment. Megan was hurting and, no matter what she had done, she deserved better from me than accusations before I heard her out.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s been kind of a rough day.” For lack of anything more constructive to say, I repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  “Rough?” She pulled away from Cindy and Debra and started toward me. “Try losing the person you’re planning to marry!” Debra grabbed her arm, but Megan twisted away and within three steps, stood nose-to-nose with me. “You think you’ve had a rough day? I’ve had a rough day for four damned months!” She turned to walk away. Then, apparently deciding otherwise, she spun back to face me. Her slap was slow and deliberate, daring me to stop it.

  Maybe I felt I deserved it, or maybe I felt she deserved some act of penance for my apparent insensitivity. Maybe I was just too shocked at the idea that she would actually do it. Somehow though, I sensed that if I stopped my daughter from making this gesture, this token of defiance, it would open an irrevocable rift between us that would be immeasurably difficult, if not impossible, to repair.

  She stood there for a second, daring me to respond, daring me to reprimand her, to chide her or somehow treat her like a child. When I didn’t, it seemed to infuriate her even more.

  “Damn you! Don’t you understand? Larry is the one responsible for Andrew’s death, and you were all going to sit back and let him get away with it!”

  She stepped back and spun to face the rest of us. “We had to do something!”

  Ken spoke gently, and I heard a touch of admiration in his voice. “You were going after him, weren’t you? That’s what you and Eric were planning.”

  Megan nodded. “It was just going to be me and Eric. We weren’t going to involve anyone else. We were going to track Larry down, sneak into his camp at night, and kill him.”

  “You would never have gotten away with it. They would’ve killed you both.” As soon as I said it, I saw that she had accepted that long ago.

  “Not until after we’d gotten Larry.”

  It was a brassy solution. A suicide mission by two of our best fighters with only one thought on their minds-get Larry at all costs. Never mind what it would take, or what might come after, just get Larry. I was numb with the knowledge that, had they succeeded, I would have likely lost my daughter.

  “How did you think you were going to get close enough?”

  Her shoulders slumped as she turned away. “That was why we hadn’t already left. We couldn’t figure it out.”

  Ken spoke softly in the quiet room. “Eric did.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess he did.” My thoughts raced ahead, trying to get a handle on this new information, this new perspective. We were heading toward something that was likely to get very confusing, and there was no time for confusion. “Okay. Megan, there’s something here that has to be said, and you’re not going to like it.” She didn’t look at me.

  “Look,” I started, “I need to know… I mean, Eric’s been a friend. He’s been a good friend. But this is…”

  Debra surprised me then, both by butting in and by what she said when she did. “Eric just found a way to do what you wanted to do, Lee. What we wanted to do.”

  “He took Zachary!” How could she say such a thing? “He took him to Larry!”

  “When Jim and the rest of the council decided to let Larry go,” she continued, “you and Eric argued loudest against it. You didn’t want to leave things alone either, did you?”

  “Of course not!” I snapped. “But I didn’t kidnap anyone! I didn’t say ’Hey, Eric, let’s go kidnap someone and take them to Larry so Rejas’ll have to come after him!’ And I sure as hell didn’t tell him to take my own son!”

  Megan spoke then. “Andrew was Eric’s son. Eric couldn’t just sit by while everyone let his son’s killer walk away!”

  Ken stepped in. “So that gives him the right to set your brother up to be killed too?”

  Megan looked at him for a second. “What would you have done if Larry had killed Cindy and everyone had let him go?” S
he turned to me. “I don’t even have to ask you. You taught me. I already know your answer. If Larry had killed Mom, you wouldn’t have rested until you’d caught him and made him wish he’d never been born.” She was right. She knew it, and I knew it.

  “Well guess what? Eric loved his son.” Tears were running down her cheeks, but her voice was eerily calm. “So did I, and Larry took him away from me.

  “I was going to find him. I was going to use every trick I ever learned from any of you, and I was going to make sure he never killed anyone’s husband or wife or child ever again!”

  She stopped and took a deep breath before turning back to me. “But now you want to know what I’m going to do when we get to Larry? Am I going to help you get Zach, or will I be so caught up with getting Larry that I’ll be useless to you? Right?”

  “Yeah, basically. This is hard for all of us, Megan. And there’s more to it than that. What are you going to do if it turns out that we have to kill Eric?”

  Everyone started talking at once. No one else had even considered that.

  “I can’t believe you even brought that up.” Megan shook her head, her expression shifting from disbelief to disappointment, and finally resolving into sudden anger. “I’m sorry I ever told you any of this.” She turned away and headed for the door.

  “Megan, wait!”

  She stopped, but didn’t turn back. “I’ve got nothing more to say to any of you.”

  “Megan, I understand this is painful for you, but you have to know that if Eric harms Zachary, he’s no better than Larry. And to keep that from happening, I’ll do whatever I have to.”

  Her shoulders slumped a bit, but she nodded. “I know. And if it comes to that, so will I. Just don’t expect me to like it. And don’t ever expect me to like you asking me to choose like this.”

  “Your Dad isn’t the one that’s put us in this situation, Megan,” Debra said. “Eric’s done this on his own. Don’t lose sight of that.”

  Megan stalked out without another word. The echo of the door slamming was the only sound in the house for several seconds. I turned back to the others. “Did I overdo it? Am I wrong?”

  No one spoke at first. Finally, Ken shook his head. “That’s not a question any of the rest of us can really answer, Lee.” He pursed his lips as if considering his next words carefully. “Cindy and I love you guys like family, just like you said a minute ago, but the truth is, as much as we may care for Zachary, he isn’t our son. So I can’t presume to think I know what you’re going through. We’ve never had a child kidnapped.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more, but wasn’t sure how. Finally, he took Cindy’s hand, and the two of them started for the front door. As they started to step outside, Cindy stopped and turned around. For the first time since she and Ken had walked in the house, she spoke to me. “Leeland? We may not have ever had a child kidnapped before, but we’ve never had a child murdered like Eric has, either.” She turned, and the two of them left.

  Damn, I hated it when they did that.

  The crowd I had seen when I let Ken and Cindy in still milled out front. In fact, when Debra and I stepped out, I saw that it had grown from the dozen or so I had seen earlier to more than twice that number. Sarah Graham stepped forward.

  “Heya, Sensei.” She turned to indicate the group gathered in the yard. A lump formed in my throat as I regarded the faces gathered there-Billy, Mark, Rene, and others that I had grown to know well over the last few months. At the back of the group, Jim waved to me. I returned the gesture as Sarah, who had somehow become the unofficial spokesperson, continued, “We all decided it might be better if we finished things with Larry. We don’t feel he really understood how unwelcome he is in these parts.”

  She asked in all seriousness, “You want to come with us? We could use your help.”

  For the first time, I understood how much it frustrated people to have to listen to me as I tried to joke off a serious matter. Still, I appreciated what Sarah was trying to do, meet me on my own terms, so to speak. Too choked up to reply immediately, I could only nod. Then, after I swallowed the lump in my throat, I answered as simply as I could. “Yeah, I would. I’d like to come.”

  Debra stepped forward and hugged Sarah tightly. “Thanks.” She turned to the rest of the group. “Thank you all.”

  As we walked through, our friends parted before us, and I again saw Jim leaning alone against one of the captured Humvees. I walked over to him.

  The mayor seemed uncomfortable as he cleared his throat, not wanting to meet my eyes. “I can’t go with you, Lee. Too many folks here lookin’ to me, now.”

  “I understand. I didn’t expect you to pack up and leave. It’s not your responsibility.”

  The mayor examined his boots for a moment. “Yeah. Still…” He tossed me a set of keys and patted the side of the vehicle he leaned against. “Roads bein’ what they are these days, it’ll probably take you a day or two to get to Bixby. There’s enough supplies in the back to last you for a week. Extra gas in the jerry cans on back. Also, I kinda spread the word around town that anybody that didn’t have nothin’ better to do might consider takin’ a road trip with y’all. ’Course with what these folk have all been through, I don’t know if it’ll do much good. Still, it might scrounge up a few more hands for you.”

  “Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.”

  Then, James Kelland did something that caught me completely by surprise, something I would never have suspected him capable of doing. He buried his machismo, leaned forward, and hugged me tight. “You come back to us, you sumbitch. You hear?”

  “I hear you. And I promise not to scratch up your fancy new car, either.”

  “Yeah.” He slapped the hood of the banged-up vehicle. “Well, just make sure you don’t.” He turned and walked away.

  Simply as that, it was time for us to go. Our clan climbed into Jim’s Humvee, all of us but Megan, who pointedly took a seat elsewhere. The others boarded whatever vehicles they had. I surveyed the pitifully small group and shook my head.

  Ken noticed. “Less than thirty people, armed with less than a dozen firearms and an assortment of hand weapons, chasing after three times as many men armed with machine guns and who knows what other hardware.”

  He inspected the group and shrugged. “Hell. It isn’t the first time the odds have been stacked against us, is it?” He was right, of course.

  But as we drove through town, our odds grew increasingly better. We picked up additions to our convoy at nearly every other street. By the time we left the Rejas city limits, we had more than tripled our number.

  It reminded me of a scaled-down version of the battle we had recently won. Superior numbers, inferior firepower, and though we had won that one, it had cost us tremendously.

  Chapter 20

  November 30

  De batailler ne sera donne signe,

  Du parc seront contraints de sortir hors:

  De Gand l’entour sera cogneu l’ensigne,

  Qui fera mettre de tous les siens a morts.

  The signal to give battle will not be given,

  They will be obliged to go out of the park:

  The banner around Ghent will be recognized,

  Of him who will cause all his followers to be put to death.

  Nostradamus — Century 10, Quatrain 83

  So began our last great confrontation with Larry’s army. It wasn’t the short two- or three-day trip I expected. I was off my game-no planning, no strategy, nothing but simple reaction.

  We had to stop for the night about halfway to Bixby. As much as I hated to do so, it would have been foolish to try heading into a town where Larry’s troops might be camped with our headlights announcing us from miles away.

  “I’m gonna see what all we’ve got in this sorry excuse for an army.” Ken climbed out of the Humvee. “Why don’t you guys just kick back and take it easy. You’ve all had a rough day.”

  “Thanks, Ken,” Debra said. “I could use some sleep.” She grab
bed my hand. “Coming?”

  “Sure.” I knew I’d never get to sleep. There was just too much going on in my head, but Debra seemed to want the company.

  We lay wrapped up in a blanket, my wife tucked in close beside me. Before long, her soft and steady breathing told me she was asleep. I waited a few more minutes, then slipped away to a campfire someone had started nearby.

  Ken found me there a bit later and sat beside me as I stared at the fire. “Ninety-three people with twenty-two handguns, nineteen rifles, forty bows, and an assortment of blades. Every one of them here to help you get Zachary back, Leeland.” I nodded absently. “So what’s the plan?” I shrugged.

  Ken slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on. You can tell me. What do you have in mind?”

  “What do you mean?” Wasn’t it obvious? I was going to get my son. If anyone got in my way, I would do whatever was necessary to get him out of my way.

  “I mean, how do you plan to get Zachary back? You know you can’t just walk in and grab him. So what’s the game plan?” He grunted when I hesitated. “That’s what I thought. You haven’t got a clue, do you?”

  “Not really.” I admitted. “Before everyone else joined the party, I figured on some kind of sneak attack.”

  “You mean something like Megan had in mind with Eric?”

  I shrugged. “It was all I could come up with on short notice.”

  “And now?”

  “Well, I don’t think we’re likely to sneak a hundred people to anywhere within a mile of Larry. There’s just too many of us.”

  “Yep.” He looked at me. “Want some advice?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The relief must have been evident in my voice, because Ken smiled before he began. “Their greatest advantage is their firepower, the fifties and the seven-sixty-twos mounted on their vehicles. So we find a way to take out their vehicles. Larry’s gonna expect you to come after him in Bixby.” Ken drew an X in the dirt with a stick. “So in the morning, we go to Jennings.”