When he recovered his sight picture that was momentarily knocked askew from the rifle’s recoil, Tim took another look through the riflescope. The tire was already flat, a big chunk of rubber missing and flopping around the wheel well as the car came to a stop. Satisfied that his shot was right where he wanted it, Tim waited, keeping the crosshairs on his target.
To the vehicle’s occupants, it would appear at first to be just a blowout, for they wouldn’t have heard the shot at all from inside the old car. It rolled to a stop along the overgrown shoulder and the driver exited, squatting down in front of the ruined tire to inspect it.
Tim placed the crosshairs directly between the man’s shoulder blades, and when the man stood suddenly and shouted something unheard to the vehicle’s occupants, Tim squeezed the trigger, the round striking his target right where he wanted.
A gout of blood erupted from the man’s chest, spraying in a fan over the car’s windshield, and he dropped lifeless in a crumpled mass by the left fender of the car.
“Good shooting,” John whispered.
Tim stood, picking up his M4 carbine. “Follow me.”
* * *
Jimenez climbed the wooden staircase to the second floor of the house wearily, having just finished a rather unpleasant task that took him most of the morning. He peeled off his t-shirt, which was soaked with sweat in spite of the cool autumn morning.
Using it as a rag, he wiped his brow and chest and plodded off down the hallway to the bedroom that he and Robyn shared. He slowly opened the door, and peering inside, saw Robyn lying quietly, eyes closed. Her left arm and right leg were covered in stark-white plaster, and her complexion matched, for she was growing paler every day, and getting more and more lethargic, to Jimenez’ horror.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes fluttered open weakly, and he brushed a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. “Hey, baby,” he said, bending down and kissing her on the forehead.
“Hey, Taco,” she replied, “is it done?”
“Yeah,” he replied sadly. “I got him out over by that tree he liked to sit under.”
“I wish I could have helped you, babe,” she said.
“It’s alright. I handled it.”
“Izzy was my friend, too, Taco,” she said, starting to cry.
“I understand. The only thing I want you to do is get better.”
“I’m trying, honey, but I feel worse,” she said.
Jimenez put his hand on her forehead, and felt how hot she was. He took a rag that was soaking in a bowl of water on the nightstand, wrung it out and put in on her head, not knowing what else to do.
“I’m racking my brain for anything that will help you feel better,” he told her, and wondered if she didn’t have some sort of internal injuries that Izzy hadn’t found. Her lower abdomen was swollen, hard to the touch, and each day she grew paler, and wasn’t able to hold down any food.
If she didn’t eat soon, she’d waste away to nothing. He was scared, very scared. Over the last few weeks, he’d seen the wound that Izzy had received in his knee fester, in spite of the hefty doses of antibiotics he was taking, until the leg turned gangrenous, and finally, unable to do anything more, the blood poisoning had run rampant in his old, tired body.
Izzy had finally succumbed to it the previous evening, and that was what Jimenez had spent the entire morning doing, burying his friend at the edge of the forest. In the late morning sunlight coming through the bedroom window, he was witnessing Robyn slowly get sicker, and it tore him apart.
He hadn’t felt this alone, this hopeless, since the very start, when everyone died, and he was rapidly losing control of his emotions. Try as he might, he couldn’t hold it in any longer, and started to cry unabashedly. He knew he needed to stay strong for her, he just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
He rested his head on her chest and wept, and Robyn took her good arm and held him as tightly as she could.
“Babe, I’m so scared,” he said in between sobs.
“I know, Taco. I’ll be alright. Daddy always said I was too ornery to die,” she said, which instead of reassuring him, elicited another bout of sobbing from Jimenez.
“I don’t know what else to do!”
“You need to Ranger up, goddamn it! Get some intestinal fortitude!” she said.
“I’m trying, I really am.”
“I’ll get better. I just have a bug is all. Daddy will get back soon, and everything will be okay,” she said to him, her voice tired but reassuring.
He thought about Tim, whom he hadn’t heard from in over a month. He thought about the promise he’d made to Tim, and also of the promise he’d made to Izzy in his last gasps of air, making him promise he’d take care of Robyn. He was so full of doubt.
He lifted his head from her bosom, and through tear-streaked eyes, tried to smile weakly. Robyn wiped the tears from his eyes. She took hold of his hand and looked at his fingernails.
“You’re filthy. Why don’t you go get a shower, and then come back and cuddle me? You haven’t done that in a while.”
“What haven’t I done in a while, babe?” he asked. “Cuddle you, or take a shower?”
“Both. Your personal hygiene has been lacking considerably, Lance Corporal.” “Babe, I love you so, so much,” Jimenez said.
“I love you too, Taco. Now go, I’ll be here when you get back.”
He stood and gazed down at her, frowning. She was already asleep again, eyes closed, holding onto Bad Bear tightly.
He trod silently out of the room, closing the door gently. He made his way down the narrow corridor to the bathroom, where he stripped out of his dirty clothes, turned on the hot water in the shower and let the steam fill the room. The hot water gradually eased the aches and pains of his muscles, and when he started to feel better he lathered up and scrubbed the dirt from his body, digging the encrusted red Arizona soil from under his fingernails.
Rinsing off, he let his mind wander, bringing back memories of the past, of his growing up in the Barrio of South Phoenix, all the horrible things he’d witnessed in his young life, and how, when it seemed like his life had no purpose left after everyone had died, Tim and Robyn had come along, changing things forever.
He’d joined the Marine Corps, hoping to get away from the squalor, and had thought that had made him into a man. He had been sadly mistaken. It took the end of the world and that grizzled old sergeant major to make him into a man, and Robyn, the love of his life, to teach him of responsibility.
Yet again, his life had been turned upside down. Tim was gone, and no matter how much Robyn wished and hoped, he probably wasn’t coming back. He was alone again, and even Izzy, a grandfatherly figure he was always able to talk to even when Tim wasn’t available, was now dead and buried. Jimenez felt completely alone and was swiftly sinking into a pit of despair.
Not bothering to get dressed, he padded back towards the bedroom naked thinking of Robyn again, and how sick she was becoming. She was lying on the bed angel-like, the late morning sun coming through the window bathing her in golden light.
He drew the curtains closed, darkening the room considerably, tiptoed back to the bed, and carefully crawled in beside Robyn. He put his arm around her, and in her slumber, she moved closer to him, nestling up to his naked body.
He sighed again, kissed her head, and whispered, “Baby, I don’t know what I’m going to do if you leave me.”
* * *
Tim circled around a dilapidated shed near the road, and when he got within a few yards of the disabled Buick, he could hear the voices of the sergeant and Colin. He squatted down in the cold morning air, using thick blackberry bushes as cover. John Meadows came up behind him silently, and Tim raised his index finger to his lips.
Tim peered around the corner of the wooden building, and could see the sergeant standing on the far side of the road, the disabled car between him and Tim, and Colin, standing near the body of the driver, hands on the M3 machinegun. The third passenger was at the rear of
the vehicle, trunk open. He was rummaging around for the jack and the spare tire, it appeared.
Tim knew that the weeks of minor attacks , one or two shots here and there, had made his quarry lax, thinking this time was like all the rest. They felt comfortable, thinking that those two shots would be the only ones, and felt at ease standing in the open the way they were doing now.
Thumbing the safety off his M4 carbine to three-round burst, he motioned to John to go around the other side of the shed. “Wait for my signal,” he whispered.
“What’s the bloody signal?”
“You’ll know,” Tim responded. “Take out the fucker at the trunk.”
John disappeared around the side of the shack as Tim eased his way forward. He was bringing his carbine up to his shoulder as he rounded the corner. The sergeant caught sight of him and shouted out a warning, and then dropped out of sight behind the car.
Tim swore to himself, and drew a bead on the only target he had, Colin. Colin was turning in alarm towards Tim, trying to bring the old submachine gun up to bear, but Tim beat him to the draw and let loose two rapid bursts, sending six rounds out as fast as Tim tapped the trigger.
Colin spun on his heels, screaming in pain and dropping to his knees. Tim dropped into a prone position, still holding his sights on the screaming Aussie, who finally fell into a fetal position next to the dead body in the middle of the road.
Tim heard more screaming from behind the car, and knew it must be the sergeant. He heard the sounds of another M4 firing to his right and behind him, and he saw out of his peripheral vision the man who had been by the trunk drop to the ground, the old style bumper jack clanking loudly on the asphalt, the spare tire that the man had been wrestling out of the trunk rolling away like an oversized donut.
Two down, one to go, Tim thought, straining to see where the sergeant had gone. He saw movement from underneath the car, and could then make out the sergeant’s booted feet, exposed from mid-shin down.
Tim squeezed the M4’s trigger, letting loose another three-round burst, skipping his shots off the pavement and underneath the car, striking the sergeant once in the ankle. The man screamed in pain, dropping his own weapon, and fell to the ground behind the car.
Tim stood cautiously, keeping the muzzle of his carbine pointed at his closest threat, the screaming Colin, writhing on the road. Never taking the rifle from his target, Tim walked over and kicked the machine gun way from his hand. John rounded the shed at this point, holding his carbine at the ready, and approached the rear of the car.
“Are you good, mate?” John called out from behind the car. “This bloke’s dead.”
“I’m good. Too bad this piece of shit isn’t,” Tim said, looking coldly into Colin’s eyes. With satisfaction, he could see the terror there, and smiled when he saw a dark stain on his crotch. “Pissing yourself, already? The fun hasn’t even started yet,” Tim said cruelly.
John came over hurriedly, and nodded to Tim, pointing his rifle at the center of Colin’s chest.
Taking another look around, Tim readied his carbine and rounded the front clip of the car, to find the sergeant seated, back to the door, grimacing and holding his ankle. Tim kept his weapon trained on the sergeant as he approached.
“Don’t move a fucking muscle,” Tim hissed.
“I don’t plan on doing anything, Flannery,” the sergeant said.
Tim reached down, taking the sergeant’s M4. He fingered the magazine release, dropping the magazine out of the well onto the ground, and then racked the charging handle to eject the round in the chamber. Once the rifle was cleared, Tim tossed in onto the Buick’s roof and looked down on the sergeant.
The whole time, Colin was screaming and moaning in pain loudly. Tim looked over at John, who was at the trunk, checking the gas bottles. “Shut him the fuck up, okay?” he instructed.
Walking over to the writhing man, John kicked him hard in the side of the head, silencing him, and almost as an afterthought, spat on the unconscious Aussie.
“It’s always the biggest, toughest assholes who scream the loudest for their mommy, eh?” Tim said to the sergeant amiably.
They heard the clip-clop sound of a horse approaching, and Sam Didinato rode in a fast trot up to the scene. When he reached his comrades he dismounted, letting the horse wander off. Taking his own M4, he walked over to Tim, and looked down at the wounded sergeant.
“Now what?” Sam asked.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead, Sam,” Tim responded, squatting down and frisking his prisoner, taking the man’s M9 pistol and pocketing it before he stood again. He reached into his parka’s pocket, and pulled out a set of handcuffs, tossing them to Sam. “Put these on this asshole and look at his foot. Give him a Band-Aid and an aspirin.”
While Sam was doing that, Tim went back around the car to where John and Colin were. A dark red splotch of blood was creeping across Colin’s lower abdomen.
Kneeling down on the cold asphalt, Tim said to John, “Help me get his clothes off.”
“You aren’t seriously thinking of helping him now, are you, mate?”
“Fuck no. I just want to help him truly experience a wonderful winter in rural Maryland,” Tim said, winking at John and unlacing Colin’s boots, pulling each one off and tossing them as far as he could into the overgrown shoulder of the road.
When the two men finished stripping Colin, Tim took note of his wound. He was a little disgusted that he’d only hit him once, in the lower abdomen. It was a nasty wound, though, and there was no telling what damage the little 5.56mm bullet had done.
Tim retrieved another set of handcuffs, and tossing them to John, said, “Drag him over to that guardrail, and cuff him to it.”
Tim walked back over to where Sam was tending to the sergeant’s ankle. “What’s the prognosis, doctor?”
“He’s out of contention for the Boston Marathon this year, but he’ll live,” Sam quipped, wrapping the man’s shattered ankle with a battle dressing. “Let’s head to that farmhouse over there,” Tim said. “We’ll spend the night there, and then in the morning, he and I will go have a little chat with the president.”
“Shit, you aren’t serious, are you?”
“I am. This shit has got to end, one way or another.”
“It’s suicide,” Sam said in alarm.
“Your man is right, Flannery. You go there now, you know what will happen,” the sergeant said.
“My mind is made up, Sam. Go and get the Suburban, will you? I left it over that way about five hundred meters. It’s parked behind a barn.”
Dejectedly, Sam left the two men and walked off through the underbrush in the direction Tim had pointed out. Tim took in the denuded trees and shivered involuntarily. It felt like it was getting even colder, and he wanted to get into some kind of shelter soon.
He peered down the road at Colin, naked and unconscious, cuffed to the guardrail. It was a shame it was winter now. He’d liked to have tried something he’d heard of long ago. The Native Americans sometimes would take a prisoner, strip him down, and stake him to the ground over an anthill. He liked that idea for this piece of shit, but even the bears would be in hibernation by this time, and the only predators about would be a few coyotes, maybe a few wolves. The ravens and buzzards would have a feast once the big man bled out.
Tim hoped it would be a while, maybe a few days. He also hoped that he woke from his daze, so he would be awake during his suffering. Yeah. That would be fitting.
He stopped himself in mid thought, and wondered if he was turning into some kind of animal. He’d never been this sadistic before; why was he reveling in another’s suffering so much?
As quickly as that thought entered his mind, he erased it, not caring about it anymore. The image of April’s dead body was burned in his mind, and she needed justice, even if it meant lowering himself down to a primeval level to achieve it.
Devoid of all emotion, Tim looked down on the sergeant with icy, unblinking eyes. The sound of the approaching
Suburban drew their attention, and a single crow cawed somewhere off in the distance.
* * *
Jimenez lay with Robyn for a long time, shadows lengthening on the far wall, sleep eluding him. Robyn was still asleep on the bed, her faced pained and her breath ragged in the darkening evening.
He was lying close to her, his arms around her tightly. He nestled into her, and kissed her neck. “Baby, please get better,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”
It was late, and he was mentally and physically drained from burying Izzy. He closed his tear filled eyes, finally drifting off to sleep, wishing for some kind of miracle he knew would never happen.
* * *
Tim, Sam, and John were in the living room of the old, rundown nineteenth century farmhouse, the sergeant lying on the floor by the fireplace, asleep. They had built a fire, warming the room considerably. They were eating an evening meal of MREs that were well past their use-by date.
Tim chewed the last bite of his chicken tetrazzini. “My word is final, guys. Tomorrow morning, you two take the Suburban and the horse, and head back to Arizona or Nebraska. Either way, I’m heading out from here alone.”
“If you’re not going to let us come with you, I’m going back to Arizona. I think Taco is going to need us,” Sam said emphatically. “I wish you’d change your mind.”
“I’m all for coming with you too,” John said, sipping on a canteen cup of coffee.
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