Resurrecting Home

by A. American

  “Suck it up. Best coffee I’ve had in a long time.”

  “It’s the only coffee you’ve had in a long time.”

  “Exactly,” Sarge replied, draining his cup and refilling it.

  “Move your shit. I’m gonna move this thing,” Mike said.

  Sarge grabbed the thermos and Mike pulled the truck around behind the greenhouse. Sarge met him on his way back. “Let’s set up under these juniper trees,” he said, pointing to a row of trees along the fence. Moving under the trees, they took a seat in the soft litter of fallen needles.

  “Get comfy, sweetheart,” Sarge said as he broke off a couple of small limbs from the trunk of the tree.

  Mike sat quietly, using his NVGs to keep an eye out. Having gone so long without any caffeine, the chicory coffee was producing a hell of a buzz, so staying awake wasn’t going to be an issue for him. Feeling as energized as he was, Mike was surprised to hear a small snore come out of the old man after about an hour of observation. He looked over to see Sarge’s chin on his chest. He kicked his boot, waking him up. Ordinarily he would have given him hell for falling asleep, but they had to be quiet. Mike was then hit with a realization: his mentor was getting older. He had a lot of respect for Sarge, having spent years under his tutelage, but the undeniable fact was that he was moving into his twilight years. With age, things changed whether you wanted them to or not. Mike could see Sarge’s silhouette in the darkness, stretching. Smiling to himself, Mike decided to let it go. If the old man needed a nap, he could have one.

  It was about midnight when the visitors showed up. Sarge saw them first, tapping Mike’s leg to indicate that he had them in his sights. Through the NVGs, they watched them approach, walking up the dirt road as though they didn’t have a care in the world. There were three of them, all carrying some sort of long gun.

  As they approached, Sarge whispered to Mike, “Wait for them to get to the door. Let’s hear what they’ve got to say.”

  “How do you want to take them down?”

  “You still got that Taser?”

  “Yeah,” Mike replied.

  “We’ll just knock two of them in the head, give that third one a jolt if need be.”

  Mike nodded. As the visitors came closer to the house they could hear their conversation.

  “They better have more today. I told them last time what they gave us wasn’t enough,” one of them said.

  “Why don’t we just move in here? It’s better than that shitty-ass trailer we’re in.”

  “Soon enough. The more we get out of them now, the better for us. If we move in on them too soon, they’ll just try and shut down. Right now they’re growing a lot of vegetables. When that’s all ready to harvest we’ll take it. Let them do the work for us,” an older man replied.

  “We could just take ’em and make ’em do the work. It’s worked before.”

  “Yeah, I got a job for that little bitch,” one of the men said with a laugh.

  “You ain’t the only one. I want some new pussy too.”

  “If your pecker was an inch longer, you’d get some new pussy with what we got now,” the old man responded, causing the other man to laugh. Sarge’s blood boiled at the callous way they were talking about Gena. Mike could see his clenched jaw in the darkness.

  Two of the men hung back as the older man approached the house and pounded on the door. After a moment he pounded again. “Don’t make me wait too long!” he shouted.

  Shortly a dim yellow light flickered in the windows. Dylan stood in the doorway and looked out, looking around. The old man looked around too. “What’cha looking for? I’m right here.”

  “Nothing, just looking around.”

  “Where’s my groceries?”

  Irked, Dylan replied, “Let me go get ’em.”

  “Send that sexy little piece of ass out with them!” one of the other two men called, getting a belly laugh from his partner.

  Dylan glared at the man. The old man urged him on. “What? You gonna do somethin’ about it? Don’t get stupid, just go get what’s ours and we’ll be on our way.”

  Dylan quickly returned with a plastic shopping bag, handing it to the old man. He took the bag and hefted it. “What’s this shit? This ain’t enough for us.”

  “Look, we gotta eat too. We can’t provide all your food.”

  As they were talking, Sarge motioned to Mike and they slowly and quietly started to move out of their hide. They deftly made their way toward the open gate as the old man continued.

  “I told you last time we needed more, and this isn’t even as much as we got then. You’re going in the wrong direction. Get back in there and find us something else.”

  “It’s all we have until some of the other plants in the garden are ready. I’m not going to starve so you can eat. I grow this food. Be glad you’re getting anything,” Dylan spat back.

  “What’d you say?” one of the other men barked as he walked toward the house. “You got a smart mouth on you. Now get your ass back in there and get us the rest of it!”

  The third man was obviously hyped up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Sarge motioned to Mike that he would take this one, and for him to move quickly on the other two. Mike nodded as they closed the last couple of yards. In a swift motion, Sarge planted the butt of his carbine into the base of the man’s skull as Mike moved quickly for the other two. The sound of the first one falling caused the second man to begin to turn. Mike caught him just above his ear with the butt of his rifle, toppling the man.

  The older man was startled by the sudden violence and tried to bring his rifle up, but Mike swung the butt of the carbine back, hitting him in the teeth. Staggering, the old man dropped his rifle and reached for his face. Taking a moment, Mike searched the two men for additional weapons, pushing the old man down to the ground. He removed their rifles and tossed them into the yard. When he finished, Dylan and Gena came out the door, each carrying an AK.

  “Dylan, keep an eye on them two. Mike, go pull the truck around here and put some light on our subjects.” Mike nodded and trotted off to get the Hummer.

  Dylan was imbued with rage. Kicking one of the men, he shouted at him, “You sons-a-bitches! Who do you think you are?”

  The old man was lying in the grass, moaning. From the way he sounded, his mouth suffered some serious injury. “Whaf the hell’s goin’ on?” he mumbled.

  Mike pulled up in the Hummer. Flipping on the high beams, the yard was flooded with light. The old man shielded his face from the light as he looked back over his shoulder. The first man, the one Sarge took down initially, was also coming around, sitting up in the grass and holding his head.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he asked as he rubbed the back of his head.

  Sarge stood in front of the old man. “Get out there with your partner,” Sarge said, pointing with the muzzle of his carbine. When the old man didn’t respond, Sarge kicked his thigh. “Get your ass moving! Get out there.” The old man raised a hand in submission and began crawling across the yard.

  “You too,” Mike said to the other man, giving him a motivating kick to the ass.

  “You boys are in the wrong business. It’s time someone showed you the error of your ways,” Sarge said.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man struck in the back of the head asked.

  “A life lesson incarnate,” Sarge replied. “You’ve been taking advantage of these good folks here, and that’s done now.”

  “We gotta eat too,” the old man said, spitting blood into the grass.

  “True, you do. But you can’t take it from someone else. You need to find your own way.”

  The old man was holding his jaw. Looking up, he said, “You can take, you have to take.”

  Sarge grunted. “You can, huh? You just go around taking what you want?”

  The old man looked up at Sarge, grinning. “We take what there is to be taken. Survival of the fittest.”

  “You bastards are done taking from me,” Dylan said, then spat
at him.

  “The question now is, what are we to do with you?” Sarge said.

  “We got your message. We won’t be back,” the old man said.

  “Like hell,” one of the others muttered. The old man looked at him and shook his head slightly.

  “And there’s the problem with shit like you: instead of seeing the error of your ways, you’re just going to want to get even. That only leaves us with one option,” Sarge said.

  The old man squinted into the light. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “To put you somewhere so you can’t bother anyone else.”

  “The fucking dirt,” Mike said sternly.

  The reality of the situation suddenly struck them. “What? Are you crazy? We haven’t hurt anyone!” one of the younger men bellowed.

  Sarge snorted. “I find that hard to believe. You may not have hurt these folks, but I’m pretty sure you have hurt people in the past and, left unchecked, you will in the future.”

  “We only do what we have to! It’s a hard life now.”

  “We’ve got a bunch of kids we’re taking care of. They need to eat,” the old man said.

  “Where’d the kids come from?” Sarge asked.

  “Here and there. We find ’em and take ’em in. We’re doing the world a service, taking them young ’uns in.”

  “How many of their parents did you kill?” Sarge asked. The old man made eye contact with the other two, but none of them replied. “Where’s the rest of your group?”

  With a snicker, the old man replied, “You really don’t expect me to answer that.”

  “I didn’t ask it to hear myself talk. Where are they?”

  “We ain’t telling you shit,” one of the younger men barked.

  Sarge waved Dylan over and whispered into his ear. Dylan nodded and disappeared back in the house. The three on the ground watched him go, unsure of what was happening. When Dylan reappeared, he was carrying a hammer.

  “What the hell you going to do with that?” one of the young men asked.

  Sarge took the four-pound mini-sledge from Dylan and held it up. “It’s called negative reinforcement.”

  “What?”

  The old man looked over at his partner. “It means he’s going to bash you with it, jackass.”

  “Whether or not you get hit with it is totally up to you. Now, where’s the rest of your group?” Sarge asked.

  “We can’t tell you that. You wouldn’t tell us if the shoe was on the other foot,” the old man replied.

  “I admire your tenacity, but you know we can’t just let you go,” Sarge said, letting out a long breath.

  “I give you my word we won’t come back. We’ll be on our way,” the old man said.

  Sarge knelt down in front of the man. “You know, I would really like to believe you, I really would. But would you believe me if, as you said, the shoe was on the other foot?”

  The old man looked at the grass and slowly shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Where’s that leave us, then?”

  “I reckon that’s up to you.”

  “Just let us go. We won’t bother them again,” one of the other men said.

  “Maybe not, but you’ll find someone else to steal from, to intimidate,” Mike said.

  Sarge pointed to the old man. “What’s your name?”

  “Name’s Claude.” Pointing to the younger men, he said, “That’s Billy an’ that’s David.”

  “All right, Claude. You three, get on your feet,” Sarge barked.

  As they stood, the old man asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Out there to that truck. Go on, grab that push bar there,” Sarge said, pointing to the tubular push bar on the front of the Hummer.

  Wearily the three men moved out to the truck. Sarge told Mike to get some of the heavy zip ties from the back of the truck. Using these they tied the men’s hands to the bar.

  “What are you doing?” one of the younger men cried.

  “The way I see it we only have two choices here: either I kill you, which honestly is my first choice because that way I know you won’t be back, or I fix you so you can’t hurt anyone,” Sarge said.

  The old man gripped the bar. “And how are you going to do that?”

  Sarge set the hammer on the hood of the truck, resting on its head with the handle upright. The old man closed his eyes tight. “Get on with it.”

  “You can’t do this!” David shouted and tried to pull against the tie wrap, but it was useless—there was no way he was getting his hand out.

  Sarge gripped the hammer. “It’s this or a hole in the ground.”

  “Why the hell are you doing this?” Billy cried.

  “If you can’t hold a weapon, you aren’t a threat, are you? You know, in the Middle East they cut your hands off for stealing. I’m not going to cut your hand off,” Sarge replied.

  “Just smash it,” Claude muttered.

  “We weren’t stealing. They gave us the stuff,” Billy pleaded.

  “Like we had a choice! You three showed up here with guns after we did freely give you some food. You came back with guns and told us to give you more and more. Every day it’s more,” Dylan said, then stepped around them so he could see their faces. Pointing into the face of one of the younger men, he added, “And I heard what you said about my wife too.”

  “And I heard what you said earlier,” Mike said. “Disgusting.”

  Billy looked at him. “It was just talk. Please don’t do this!”

  “Not used to being the ones begging, are you?” Dylan asked.

  Sarge took the hammer from the hood and gripped Claude’s wrist. “Remember, you brought this on yourself.” Claude closed his eyes and grit his teeth. Sarge raised the hammer and brought it down on the knuckles of his right hand, resulting in a sickening thud and crunch. Claude’s knees buckled as he let out a scream of pain. Raising the hammer again, Sarge delivered the left hand a similar blow. Again, Claude emitted a howl of pain as his knees gave completely and he slumped against the front of the truck moaning.

  The other two men began to violently struggle against their bonds, screaming profanities they fought to get loose. Mike drew the Taser. Removing the cartridge from it, he placed it against David’s neck and hit the trigger. David went rigid as a result of the voltage coursing through him. Sarge used the opportunity to deliver the first blow. Through the incapacitation he still managed to scream, a bloodcurdling screech that rose in pitch. After five seconds, the Taser timed out, and before he could recover Sarge brought the hammer down on his other hand. This time the scream was more forceful, filled with agony. Billy, having seen what awaited him, was blubbering. He’d wet himself and begged for relief from what surely awaited him.

  Gena stood on the porch, her hands covering her face. The mechanical approach the old soldier displayed was horrifying. He was maiming men with no more thought, it appeared, than one would have about swatting a fly. The smoke now hanging low to the ground only added to the surreal scene, like something from a horror movie. Not able to take any more, she went in the house and shut the door.

  Once Mike placed the Taser to Billy’s neck, he started to shout but was cut off by the application of voltage. Sarge quickly grabbed his right wrist and delivered the two blows swiftly and efficiently. Just as the first two had, Billy let out wails of pain, slumping to the ground. Sarge stepped back and looked at the three men. The blows had been savage. Blood ran down their arms and dripped from their limp fingers. Bones were obviously broken, as well any number of blood vessels.

  “Cut ’em loose, Mike,” Sarge said, setting the bloody hammer on the hood of the truck.

  Mike used a pair of EMT shears to cut the ties. It took some maneuvering to get them into position, causing even more pain for those involved. Once cut loose, Mike and Sarge stood the men up, leaning them against the truck.

  “You boys can be on your way now. Be glad you’re leaving with your lives,” Sarge said.

  With gritted teeth,
Claude looked at his hands. “You’ve killed us. It’ll just take longer.”

  “That’s up to you an’ your group, ain’t it? Next time you might come up against a group that will kill you. Taking from others isn’t going to get you far.”

  “Come on, boys,” the old man croaked. The three started to stagger off, holding their injured hands out in front of them like a surgeon after scrubbing up.

  Sarge, Mike, and Dylan watched them disappear into the darkness. Once they were gone, Dylan said, “You think they’ll die from that?”

  “Could, but probably not. They got other people with their group that can take care of them. Speaking of which . . . Mikey, follow them and see where they go,” Sarge said.

  Mike lowered NVGs down over his eyes and started following them, disappearing into the murk. Sarge and Dylan stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Sarge asked, “You all right?”

  Dylan nodded. “Yeah, just not what I expected.”

  “What’d you expect? You wanted to kill them?”

  Dylan shook his head. “No, I don’t really know what I expected. It just seemed brutal.”

  “It’s a brutal world. This is how things are now. The rules are what you make them. They had their own rules, coming here and taking from you. We just made new rules.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but it was just that seeing it . . . made it different.”

  “Always is.”

  Dylan pointed off in the direction Mike went. “What’s he going to do?”

  “I want to know where they’re staying so we can keep an eye on them. If they don’t move out soon, we’ll move them out.”

  “They aren’t a threat anymore. They can’t hurt anyone now.”

  “We don’t know that. How many more are back there? Do you know?”

  Dylan shook his head. “Guess I don’t.”

  “I think you should go check on Gena. I’ll be out here for the rest of the night. Mike will be back soon.”

  Sarge retrieved his thermos and returned to the truck. After pouring himself a cup, he rested on the hood, sipping the coffee and staring into the darkness.

  * * *

  Mike stayed far enough behind the three men that they wouldn’t see him should they venture a look. It really wasn’t a worry, though, as they were too consumed with their injuries. Their hands were useless to them—they couldn’t so much as unzip their flies to take a piss. The three staggered along, heading on the paved road toward Altoona. From time to time Mike could hear the men say something: sometimes words, sometimes cries of pain. Their lamentations had no effect on Mike—he felt nothing for their plight. If they hadn’t been out with nefarious intentions, they wouldn’t be in their current situation.