by S. A. Cosby
Buddy Lee was sitting on the bench that ran along the back wall of the structure. He was holding an AR-15 with an extended mag. Ike grabbed an automatic shotgun out of the crate and loaded it with high-velocity shells. He sat down at the table that was situated near the center of the building. He checked his watch. It was 7:30 P.M.
“You think there’s anything after this? After we die, I mean?” Buddy Lee asked.
“You worrying about your soul, Buddy Lee?” Ike said. He was cradling the shotgun like a newborn.
Buddy Lee cleared his throat.
“I mean, if there is, I’m pretty sure where I’m headed. I’ve made peace with that, I reckon. I just wonder, I mean, do you think we’ll see the boys? Like, if we don’t make it out of this, you think we’ll pass them on our way down south?” Buddy Lee said. Ike peered out the window. The sun had set but a half-moon had clocked in for the night shift.
“I hope not,” Ike said.
“You hope not? Man, the only thing that keeps me holding on to any of that shit my pastor used to scream about while he was juggling them old copperheads they kept in the back of the church is the notion I might see my boy again. Get a chance to tell him all the things I should have before they took him from me,” Buddy Lee said.
“The only thing I’d want to say to Isiah is that I’m sorry. And I couldn’t say it enough even if I had forever to say it. I couldn’t say it enough,” Ike said. His voice trailed off to a whisper.
* * *
In the distance they both heard the roar and thunder of motorcycle engines. Wordlessly they both got up from their seats. Buddy Lee cut the zip ties that secured Gatsby to the folding chair. He also cut the ones around his ankles.
“Get up,” Ike said. He grabbed Gatsby by the arm and walked to the roll-up door.
Ike pushed a button on the wall next to the door and it began to rise. He gripped his shotgun tight and stood shoulder to shoulder with Gatsby. Buddy Lee did the same on the other side. He checked his watch. It was 7:45.
“They tried to get the jump on us,” Buddy Lee said.
“It’s like that story. The wolf gets to the turnip patch at six in the morning. The rabbit been there and gone,” Ike said.
“We the rabbits, in that story, right?” Buddy Lee said.
“Yeah, but we gonna eat them like we’re the wolves,” Ike said.
* * *
A phalanx of motorcycles poured into the meadow. They pulled in front of the tactical course and faced the building. Ike counted twenty-five by the time the Cadillac SRX pulled in behind them. The blond Viking was riding a chopped hog with ape hangers and a high sissy bar in the back. There was a green sack covering the sissy bar. The blond biker popped his kickstand and got off his bike. The green sack was attached to his saddle bags with bungee cords. He released the cords and removed the green sack. Arianna was in a car seat that was strapped to the sissy by about five miles of rope.
Ike almost shot him right then and there.
The air shimmered with the heat from the collected engines revving and growling. Gerald climbed out of the Cadillac. He was wearing a white button-down shirt open at the throat and loose-fitting khakis. He strode over to stand in front of the Viking. Gerald put his hands on his hips and jutted out his chin. Buddy Lee gripped his rifle. He knew when a prick was preening. He was trying to use some bullshit psychological manipulation. Maybe he thought if he didn’t act like he was scared shitless it would make it so.
“You okay, Pop?” Gerald yelled. Gatsby shook his head.
“What have you done to him?” Gerald said.
“He’s fine. He got to see how the other half lives, is all. Other than that, he’s alright. Now cut the girl loose,” Buddy Lee said. Sweat was working its way across his brow like a lazy caterpillar. The night had enveloped them all.
“You know the story of Alexander the Great and the island of Tyre?” Gerald said.
“You giving a fucking history lesson … now?” Buddy Lee asked. Gerald smiled.
Ike said, “Tyre was supposed to be impenetrable, but Alexander took it after six months. The point was that he had more determination than any other general. Now, can we get on with it?”
Gerald stopped smiling.
“You ain’t the only one who can read a fucking book, Winthrop,” Ike said.
“Send my father over,” Gerald said.
“Cut the girl loose and send her over,” Buddy Lee said.
“Grayson,” Gerald said. Grayson unbuckled Arianna from her car seat. He lowered her to the ground. The wind came up and tossed her curls around her head.
“Hey, Little Bit!” Buddy Lee said.
“Come on over, booboo,” Ike said. Arianna took a step toward them. Grayson’s hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. Arianna squealed. The sound set Buddy Lee’s teeth on edge.
“Let. Her. Go,” Ike said.
“Grayson, I have this under control,” Gerald said.
“Bullshit. You ain’t got nothing under control. These bastards have your daddy, and you just letting them get their little mongrel back? Fuck that. Same time, shitkicker.”
“Same time. We send them at the same time,” Buddy Lee said. He nudged Gatsby. The old man took a few tentative steps. Grayson released Arianna’s arm.
“Run,” Grayson said.
Arianna held her left hand against her ear. She took a few steps, then stopped.
“Come on, Little Bit. Come on over,” Buddy Lee said. Arianna began to cry.
“Oh no, Little Bit, don’t cry. Just come on, baby girl,” Buddy Lee said. Gatsby was halfway across the yard.
“Arianna. Come on, baby girl. Come to … come to Granddaddy,” Ike said. Arianna took a halting step.
“That’s right, baby, come on to Granddaddy,” Ike said. Arianna took off running. Her chubby legs pistoning up and down in short choppy bursts of movement. She ran past Gatsby as he stumbled toward Gerald.
“Come on, Pop, let’s get you out of here,” Gerald said. He held out his arms for his father.
The rest of the club had dismounted their bikes. Guns appeared in their hands like a quick-cut editing technique. Ike got down on one knee and held out his arms to Arianna while balancing his shotgun against his shoulder.
“Yeah, sugar, that’s it. Come on to Granddaddy,” Ike said.
Grayson moved to his right. He pulled his .357 from his waistband. He wanted to get up close and personal with these fuckers.
Arianna leapt into Ike’s waiting embrace. He gripped her tight with one arm and grabbed the shotgun with the other before falling back into the bunkhouse.
Gerald smiled at his father. The old man pulled the duct tape away from his mouth with a determined snap of his wrists.
“Gerald, what the hell have you gotten yourself mixed up in this time?” Gatsby roared.
Gunfire erupted as Buddy Lee dropped the roll-up door. Bullets exploded through the metal siding and ripped dime-sized holes through the roll-up door. Buddy Lee went to one of the windows and began returning fire with the AR-15. He strafed the entire meadow from left to right. The bikers scattered like roaches. A few hid behind the backstops of the tactical targets. A few more flipped one of the picnic tables and used that as cover as they returned fire. The majority of them retreated into the brush that surrounded the meadow and began returning fire from the shadows.
Ike opened the crate near the back wall of the bunkhouse and lowered Arianna into it. A burning sensation erupted in his left bicep like he’d been touched by a hot poker. Ike flopped to the floor and crawled over to the window opposite Buddy Lee.
The automatic shotgun bucked hard as he unloaded on the darkness. The rear parking lights of the SRX cast a red glow across the meadow as the car began to lurch forward. Ike saw a group of bikers trying to make a run for the far side of the compound. They danced and jumped like religious zealots in the throes of ecstasy as the slugs from the shotgun ripped into them.
No, you don’t, you motherfucker. You don’t get to leave the
party early, darling, Buddy Lee thought. He emptied a fusillade of bullets into the SRX. The SRX’s fiberglass body was no match for the AR-15’s power. Each bullet punched quarter-sized holes in the vehicle from the engine to the hatchback. The car careened off the side of the road and down a slight embankment until it crashed into the wide trunk of an oak tree.
Buddy Lee popped out his empty clip and slammed another one home. Ike likewise had to reload. The bikers took this opportunity to advance on the bunkhouse. They peppered the steel building with an endless tempest of gunfire as they pushed forward.
Ike wiped his eyes and his hand came away mottled in red. Chunks of concrete and slivers of metal sheeting were raining down on them. Ike and Buddy Lee may have had the more powerful weapons, but the Rare Breed had the numbers. Buddy Lee dropped to the floor, held his rifle aloft, and fired blindly through the nearest window. Ike fired one last barrage before tossing the automatic shotgun aside. He knew he had taken out a few of the Breed but not enough. Not nearly enough.
He crawled across the floor on his belly until he reached the fifty-five-gallon drum. As Buddy Lee continued to shoot blindly, Ike set the “timer.” The timer was in actuality a cannibalized CD player and a simple circuit attached to an old ignition switch. The ignition switch was taped to the underside of the lid of the drum.
Ike had come up with the idea as soon as he’d seen what was in that special crate near the back wall. It was their way out. It was what was going to allow them to pay the debt they owed their boys. A debt that was about to be paid in blood.
Ike had known they needed something powerful on their side against Gerald and his boys. Something that would level the playing field. Something made with the ammonium nitrate–rich fertilizer Ike had in dozens of bags back at his warehouse. A landscaper might not have guns, but he had a lot more than shovels. Neither one of them had much experience, but Google had helped them once again.
The huge drum was nearly full of fertilizer and gasoline. When the timer went off it would send a charge through the circuit to the ignition switch. The ignition wires had been peeled back just enough to make room for a spark. A simple but deadly effective bomb.
* * *
“Let’s go!” Ike said. He disappeared inside the crate near the back wall. Buddy Lee let off one last salvo, then made a dash for the crate. He shimmied down the aluminum ladder and followed Ike, with Arianna in his arms, into the tunnel that ran under the bunkhouse.
Grayson emptied his .357 into the building, dropped the empty shells, then reloaded. He only had two more speedloaders left. That was twelve shots. Dome hit the building with a blast from his MAC-11. Grayson heard a few more shots from his brothers. He peered from around the backstop at the building. It resembled a block of Swiss cheese. Inside, a fluorescent light fixture hung from the ceiling by a thin wire. It swung lazily back and forth creating a strobe-light effect through the window. Grayson fired three more shots at the window.
There was no return fire.
“Goddamn it, I think we got their asses!” Grayson thought. He stood up straight.
Nothing. Not a peep from the outbuilding.
“We got ’em. WE GOT ’EM!” Grayson roared. He smacked Dome on the back.
“Go drag ’em out. We gonna make an example of these fuckers,” Grayson said. Dome stood up but hesitated a moment. He really didn’t want to see that little girl’s dead body.
“Don’t make me have to tell you again,” Grayson said. Dome forced his legs to move. The rest of the members of the club that weren’t dead or injured followed him as he stalked toward the building.
Dome kicked open the front door that was to the left of the roll-up door.
When the orange flash filled his entire field of vision, one word appeared in his mind seconds before he was vaporized.
Karma, Dome thought.
Then everything went black.
* * *
Ike almost cried out for joy when his hands found the cool metal rungs of the ladder that sat at the bottom of the faux privy. He pulled himself and Arianna up one rung at a time until they emerged inside the outhouse. Ike pushed the door open and took great deep breaths as he and Arianna stepped out into the sweltering night. Buddy Lee followed them covered in soot and coughing up a lung. Arianna was sobbing uncontrollably.
“It’s okay, baby girl. We gotcha,” Ike murmured as he held her tight.
“Jesus H. Christ, you’d think Chet would have put a better ventilation system in that tunnel. It’s got everything else but an easy chair down there,” Buddy Lee said.
“I’m gonna take her to the truck. She’s scared,” Ike said.
“I’m gonna stay here and see if I can catch me a breath. When you get back we’ll go on down there and see about our friends,” Buddy Lee said. He started coughing again.
“Be right back,” Ike said.
“I’ll be here,” Buddy Lee said as Ike and Arianna made their way up the path.
Ike strapped Arianna in the passenger’s seat. He pulled up a game on his cell phone that involved flying pieces of fruit and put the phone in Arianna’s lap.
“Grandpop gotta go check on something, okay?” he said. Arianna ignored him as she moved her tiny fingers across the phone’s screen.
* * *
Ike and Buddy Lee walked back along the path to the compound in silence. Ike could smell the results of their handiwork on the breeze. A witch’s brew of immolated flesh and a harsh chemical scent halfway between chlorine and alcohol.
“Fucking hell,” Buddy Lee said when they reached the compound. More accurately, when they reached the place where the compound had once stood. A flickering ring of flames one hundred feet in diameter encircled the former militia headquarters. The steel outbuilding was gone. The concrete footing that it had sat upon was cracked in the middle and scorched from end to end. The tactical shooting range had been obliterated. Piles of burning hay from the target backstops littered the ground in all directions.
The motorcycles that had been parked in diagonal lines with military precision were formless clumps of metal more akin to amoebas than machines. Here and there were recognizable parts. A handlebar, a foot peg, a front wheel, but for the most part the bikes had been reduced to twisted amalgamations of leather, steel, iron, and chrome. Their owners had suffered a similar fate.
* * *
Ike carried Gatsby’s pistol. Buddy Lee had his knife and the AR-15 slung over his chest on a strap. They moved through the bodies ready to finish what they had started, but Ike soon came to realize that wouldn’t be necessary. The Breed was done. The ones who hadn’t been torn asunder by the initial explosion had found their insides liquefied by the subsequent shock wave.
Bodies and body parts were strewn across the clearing like party streamers. Buddy Lee glanced up at a pine tree near the tactical course. There were two arms in the tree. They were both left-handed. Buddy Lee shook his head.
“I think this chapter of the Rare Breed done got closed down permanently,” Buddy Lee said.
Ike was about to respond when they heard a pitiful whimpering coming from the direction of the SRX. Ike and Buddy Lee looked at each other, then walked over to the vehicle. All the windows had been shattered from the force of the blast. Ike peered inside the car.
Gatsby was lying over on his side. Blood was dripping from his ear. His lower torso and lap were soaked in red. Ike could smell the pungent odor of shit wafting up from the inside of the car. Ike reached his hand inside the window and put his fingers to the older man’s neck. There was no pulse.
Buddy Lee opened the driver’s side door.
Gerald Winthrop Culpepper fell to the ground like a sack of wet laundry. He was moaning and whimpering from a place deep in his broad chest. His khakis were so soaked in blood they appeared burgundy. Gerald pulled himself along the ground through the detritus that covered the forest floor. Buddy Lee pushed aside a clutch of brambles as he followed behind Gerald. Ike came up alongside them. Buddy Lee put his foot in the midd
le of the Gerald’s back and stopped his forward progress.
“Where you going, hoss?” Buddy Lee asked conversationally. Ike came around the back of the car. He had the .44 down by his side. Buddy Lee grabbed Gerald by his shoulders and flipped him over.
“Please don’t,” Gerald rasped.
“Don’t what?” Ike said.
“Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Gerald said. His broad face was slick with sweat. All around them the gentle crackling of the flames filled the night, drowning out the natural sounds of the forest.
“Everybody sorry when they get caught,” Buddy Lee said.
“Please, I’m sick. I’m a sick man,” Gerald said.
“Oh, you sick? Why, because you liked being with Tangerine?” Ike asked.
“Yes! I need help!” Gerald gasped. Ike leaned forward and stared in the man’s bloodshot eyes.
“You think my son was sick? Or his son? Or Tangerine? You think they deserve to die because you can’t deal with who you are?” Ike asked. Gerald said nothing. Ike straightened himself.
“The funny thing is, if my boy was here, he’d feel sorry for you. If his son was here he’d probably forgive you,” Ike said. Buddy Lee opened his knife. It clicked as he locked the blade in place.
“But they ain’t here, are they?” Buddy Lee asked.
“No, they ain’t,” Ike said.
* * *
Ike and Buddy Lee threaded their way through the woods as they took the path back to the truck. They didn’t speak because there wasn’t anything left to say. Ike felt like he could sleep for a hundred years. His mind and body both felt as if they had been wrung dry. For the first time in a long time Buddy Lee didn’t want a drink. He didn’t want anything to dull this moment. Not one damn thing.
They came up on to the private road where the truck was parked.
The passenger door was wide open.