If things worked out, Frank would send up his own smoke signal for help. If not, he’d just have to trust his guns out there in the fields where he’d be a sitting duck.
Frank walked over to his snowmobile, which was still obediently idling. He made sure the Glock was secured in the back of his waistband. He wedged the submachine gun between his legs, placed the extra empty magazine in the small storage compartment, then pressed the throttle with his thumb. The motor revved up, the track studs bit in, crunching the gravel, and the snowmobile moved forward.
A lot of places held annual snowmobile drag races on short grass. He didn’t know how these machines would run out in the tall grass of the field, but it seemed Tony and Carmen were doing fine. They had already opened the gate and were out in the field, cutting a path through the grass. The whine of their motors carried across the flat field as clear as a bell.
Frank drove across the yard and through the gate at the back of the property, then stopped. The two trucks on the dirt road made their last turn to the house and accelerated hard down the dirt road, the dust billowing up behind. They were a couple hundred yards away. The land was too flat for them not to have spotted the two snowmobiles trekking away from the house. Not unless they were stoned out of their minds.
Frank got off his machine, walked out to the end of the open gate, then walked the gate back to the fence and latched it closed. Forcing Ed to open the gate would add precious seconds onto their lead, and he wanted Tony and Carmen as far ahead as possible. They were already more than a hundred yards ahead of him. He straddled his seat, secured the P90 again, and pressed the accelerator hard with his thumb.
The engine whined, the studs bit in, and the snowmobile jumped forward into the thigh-high grass that slid by on either side with a hiss. Pale butterflies danced about the meadow along with bees and other bugs. The machine accelerated. The ride on the grass and hard ground was bumpy, but he pressed the accelerator down a little more. The snowmobile lunged forward, picking up speed. He hit some random grasshopper with the front of his machine, and it bounced up over the small windshield and smacked into his cheek. One of its hard spiny legs poked him, leaving a sting behind.
The field was huge, at least a mile deep, maybe more. A field made for the capacity of modern machinery. Next to it, separated by a barbed-wire fence, was another deep field. Frank looked back. The big yellow pickup rolled into the driveway and sped past the house and barn to the gate. The van emerged from the dust on the road a few seconds later and pulled in behind.
The snowmobile was doing just fine in this grass. But he suspected the yellow pickup would do better. Tony and Carmen were probably going thirty. Fast enough, but not so fast the children would bounce off. However, thirty would be nothing for the pickup. Its big wheels and suspension were made to go off-road, and the terrain here was fairly smooth, all the hard edges leveled from years of plowing and harrowing. The pickup would easily catch up.
Frank turned his snowmobile in a wide arc until he was crossways to the house. The big yellow pickup stopped at the gate. Ed got out.
Frank got off the Polaris and left it idling. He knelt behind it, alongside the track. He fetched the second ear plug out of his pocket and stuffed it in his ear. Then he snugged the P90 into his shoulder and rested his elbow on the seat to stabilize his aim.
The gadget-looking P90 was an animal between a handgun and a rifle. An average hand gun had a barrel that was around four inches in length. The M16, the standard Army issue rifle, had a barrel length of twenty inches. The P90 Frank held in his hand had a barrel just over ten inches, but it was pulled back in a bullpup configuration, which brought the action and magazine behind the trigger and alongside the shooter’s face, putting part of the gun in the stock. This meant the P90 was only twenty inches long, about the length from the end of a man’s middle finger to his elbow—a compact and deadly little thing, designed for tight spaces, designed to be easy to stash and operate in the cab of a car, a cockpit, or in a hallway. It was also designed to be shot from the left or right side without any adjustment; all the spent casings were ejected downward, not to the side.
The maximum effective range of a hand gun on a point target—the range where an average shooter could hit a human-sized target 50% of the time and cause a casualty—depended a lot on the ammo, the gun, the weather conditions, and the shooter. But on average, it was around fifty meters. The maximum effective range of the M16 was about 550 meters. The P90 Frank held had an effective range of 200 meters, about the length of two football fields.
The gate was a ways back, closer to the two footballs fields away, but Frank wasn’t an average shooter. At least, he hadn’t been in the years before his time living in concrete. He was looking at maybe a tenth of a mile, 170 yards. Maybe less. And while skills degraded without use, the pickup was a large target.
Ed opened the gate and swung it wide.
Frank couldn’t let them in. There was just too much room in this field. He took a breath, let it out, used the red dot of the reflex sights to acquire his target. Then he squeezed the trigger. There was a bang and the gun kicked. A moment later the bullet thwacked against wood. He thought he saw it hit the ancient chicken coop, which meant these sights were way off or prison had indeed put some rust on his skills. Or maybe this particular gun just wasn’t reliable at this range.
Ed spun around at the noise and drew his handgun. At 170 yards, he was as likely to hit a stray cow as he was to hit what he could see of Frank sticking above the grass.
Frank adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again. Another bang and kick. This time the bullet smacked through the windshield, not of the truck, but of the van about five feet on the other side. Half the windshield turned white, then disappeared.
Ed yelled and waved his arms at the men with him. The driver of the pickup put his vehicle in reverse and punched it hard. The tires spun gravel all over, and he shot back past the van. The side door of the van rolled open and three guys piled out. Two of them had handguns, but the third had something much larger. The two with handguns ran behind one of the old weathered coops. One of the guys was wearing a gray and white baseball cap. The other had big hair. The third had an assault rifle and took cover behind the old rusting tractor. The driver of the van got out holding the side of his face. Ed barked at him, and the man climbed back in and backed up the van in a big J to move it out of the way.
Frank adjusted his aim, put Ed right in his sights, and squeezed again. Ed jumped, but where that third shot had gone, Frank had no idea. It probably buzzed right by Ed and continued on past the barn and house and was right now sailing over the fields. He was shooting like some friggin’ Gomer in his first day of boot camp. Back in the day, Ed would be on his back by now. Frank sighed. He wasn’t going to nail anything with this current setup unless he got closer.
Ed popped back up and ran to the pickup.
The guys behind the coops opened up. Their muzzles flashed. The guns banged. The bullets zinged past Frank, yards off target, but still close enough they might get lucky if they put enough lead into the air. The third man behind the big back wheel of the rusted tractor took his shot. The muzzle of his rifle flashed with a smart crack. The bullet whistled past Frank, maybe only a foot or so away, and sent a surge of adrenaline that made the hair on the back of Frank’s whole body stand up and dance.
The Gorozas weren’t employing a gang of idiot punks who were still in puberty; it appeared Tractor Man had received some training.
Tractor Man’s muzzle flashed again and the snowmobile’s windshield shattered. Frank flinched. His heart stopped a beat.
Tractor Man definitely had some training.
Frank swung his aim away from Ed.
Tractor Man stood behind the wheel of the tractor, using the top to brace his arm, exhibiting a great deal of shooting sense.
Frank abandoned the red dot of the reflex sight and lined up the backup iron sights on the hollow of Tractor Man’s neck, which was the center of the por
tion of Tractor Man that was visible, and squeezed the trigger. A moment later the bullet made a metallic smack into the big steel disc of the tractor tire very close to the target. Tractor Man flinched, but he did not duck down.
Frank used the iron sights again, raised his aim a bit more, and squeezed the trigger. Another bang, another metallic clang.
Tractor Man fired again, but he was off. Those last two shots had probably gotten the man’s heart pounding, and he was now finding it a bit more difficult to aim.
Frank let loose another round. Didn’t hit, but it was close enough that Tractor Man ducked down. Frank lined himself up and waited for the man to show himself again. The other two men by the coops were still cracking the air with their pistols, the bullets singing all about him.
Frank risked a glance back at Tony and Carmen. They should have been a mile away by now, but they weren’t. They were stopped in the field. Tony and the girls with him were off his snow machine. Carmen was sitting on hers, waiting for the little boy to shoehorn himself on. There was a girl in front of Carmen on the seat. Two behind, one on either side, looking like they were standing with one foot on the running board and the other on the flat chassis that extended behind. The little boy was struggling, then Tony helped him get his leg up into the lap of the girl in front of him, then Carmen gave her snowmobile some gas and moved forward. The kids lurched a bit, but stayed on.
What where they doing?
Frank turned around, saw Tractor Man slowly rising up and positioning his gun.
Frank fired at him. There was another thwank of metal on metal, which irritated Frank to no end. He should have had that shot. Frank adjusted his aim up just a bit and squeezed the trigger again. The compact P90 banged and kicked. A moment later a piece of the rubber close to Tractor Man flew up. He stumbled back a few steps like maybe he’d been struck by something and fell to the ground.
Frank glanced back at Tony and Carmen. Carmen was now moving east, across the field toward the fence, not south as they’d been traveling at first. Tony was still back with the other snowmobile. It was obviously having some kind of engine trouble, which illustrated the problem with stolen goods—you never knew what you were going to get.
Frank turned back to the house. Ed and his driver were in the pickup, pedal to the metal, backing out. The driver cranked the wheel and spun the front end around. Then he put it in drive and floored it. The wheels spun, kicking up dust and gravel, and they fish-tailed out the driveway.
Tractor Man had moved from his last position out of sight. The two by the coops were slowing down, taking their time. One bullet hissed through the tall grass only a few feet away.
Then the pickup exited onto the dirt road and accelerated past the house. Ed didn’t scare that easily. Where were they going?
Another gun cracked, and the bullet sang right above his head. Frank needed to even up the odds of this fight. He needed to get in the game. No more pot shots. He slid back onto his snowmobile all hunched over, then pressed the throttle lever. The engine revved up to a whine and he shot forward through the tall grass. The guys by the coop started shooting wildly again, crack, crack, crack, probably thinking this was their last chance. Then they emptied their magazines and the guns fell silent.
Frank made a wide arc toward the shooters, kind of like a fat C, then quickly slid off and positioned himself behind the Polaris. He was now about seventy yards out, positioned so any overshot would fly away from the direction Carmen and Tony were traveling.
The driver of the van had been hunkered down this whole time. Now he ran to the back door of the house, all bent over to make himself a small target. He was probably going for ammo. Probably wondering where Jesus and the others were.
Frank raised the P90, looked for Tractor Man, but couldn’t see him. So he aimed at the coop, waiting for the two guys to show themselves.
There was a loud crack and a bullet struck the passenger’s seat. Another crack, and another bullet slammed into the chassis a little closer.
Tractor Man had taken up a new position between the seat of the tractor and engine. The tractor seat and engine blocked him in. It was like he was shooting from a bunker.
Frank swiveled his gun, took aim, his elbow on the seat again. His heart was racing, his breath coming quicker, his arms itching to move with adrenaline. Frank exhaled, tried to relax, squeezed the trigger. There was a bang and kick, then a metallic clang from the tractor. He took in a breath, exhaled again.
Then Big Hair and Baseball Cap by the coop opened up. The guns cracked, the bullets whistled by much too closely. One hissed into the grass to his left. Another thudded into the seat.
Frank ducked down. Holy hell, maybe seventy yards was too close. The guys by the coop rushed the fence, taking up position behind some old metal barrels. Past the house, the big yellow pickup suddenly appeared in the field adjacent to this one. A flanking maneuver? Trying to get behind him?
Frank needed to soldier up. This was turning into a complete cluster.
The guys by the coop opened up again as did Tractor Man. The muzzles flashed. The bullets whistled over head and buzzed through the grass. They were keying in on the snowmobile.
Frank dove away from the Polaris, rolled, and came up again.
The man who had run to the house opened the back door and shouted something. He must have seen the dead man on the kitchen floor. He must have smelled the propane.
He turned, but it was too late. There was a dull thump then the doorway behind him flashed bright yellow. The propane had finally filled the basement to the level of the pilot light. The flash was followed by a horrendous thunderclap and one half of the house exploding in a massive ball of flame. The sound and shockwave slammed into Frank like a sledgehammer. It rang him like a gong. Every hair follicle on his body stood on end.
The fire rose up in a tall, fat pillar of flame, smoke, and debris, and then the cloud began to roll in on itself. Chunks of wood and drywall and siding fluttered up into the sky. A huge chunk of roof spun like a UFO, sailing out in a huge arc.
Frank couldn’t feel his heart. It was like the blast had emptied him right out. The driver of the van wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The men by the barrels were on the ground. Tractor Man had disappeared.
The flames and smoke rolled up in a small mushroom cloud.
Now that was a bomb!
A moment later Tractor Man rose. He put a hand out on the tractor to brace himself and gawk at the spectacle, obviously forgetting Frank was behind him in the field.
Frank exhaled. Found Tractor Man with his iron sights. Calmed himself. Squeezed. There was a bang he barely heard. A moment later the bullet slammed into Tractor Man’s back, about where his left shoulder blade would be. The lead blew a hole out the front and spun him around. His rifle went flying, and he dropped like a stone.
Frank turned to the coop boys. The two coops had been blown over. It appeared Big Hair was trapped under some of the debris. Frank pivoted to find the guy with the gray and white baseball cap with his sights, but the man took off running toward the field where Ed had gone.
Frank took two shots and missed both times. Then he remembered Ed was on his flank somewhere. He turned.
Ed was way down the adjacent field. His brake lights were on. He’d obviously heard the explosion and stopped, but the brake lights went off, the motor revved, and the pickup shot forward. Way down where Tony was, it looked like there was a gate in the barbed-wire fence linking the field Frank was in to the one where Ed was. Carmen and the children had already ridden through the gate into Ed’s field. They were moving at their steady slow pace, the children all stacked on and clinging to each other. The pickup was gaining on them.
Tony, who must have fixed his snowmobile problem, was racing toward the gate to try to cut Ed off. Tony pulled out his semi-automatic.
How far down were they? Three-quarters of a mile? Ed was racing through the field. Tony was flying, his motor whining. No way Frank was going to catch up before those two colli
ded.
Hell-a-mighty.
An aluminum window frame fell out of the sky and thumped into the grass not three feet away from Frank. He started and looked up. Chunks of debris, some of them trailing smoke, dotted the sky above him. They began to thud into the grass all around him. The big piece of roof that looked like a UFO was starting to fall as well, but it was way up there and on the other side of the burning house, twisting slowly in the sky, headed for someone else’s field.
Frank jumped onto his seat, wedged the P90 between his legs. “God,” he said. “Now would be a really good time to step in.”
16
Dirt
FRANK DUCKED LOW and pushed the throttle, hoping he didn’t get conked on the head by the kitchen stove or a can of beans. A length of 2x4 that had been split to a point came sailing from the heavens and staked the ground up ahead on his left. A spoon smacked into the plastic shroud covering the snowmobile’s engine. He knew a set of knives would be next. Frank jammed the throttle forward, and he and the snowmobile raced away from the death by bungalow falling from the sky.
In the distance, Tony shot through the gate, gunned his machine out into the field, then stopped hard, placing himself between the racing yellow pickup and the snowmobile with Carmen and the children farther down the field. He stepped off his snowmobile and raised his semi-automatic and began firing.
The pickup did not slow down. Instead, the driver gunned it.
Tony emptied his gun. Brave as he might be, the fact was he was too far away, much too far for an inexperienced shooter—it appeared every shot had missed.
Tony looked down at the gun, looked up at the pickup still racing toward him.
“Get behind the machine!” Frank yelled.
But Tony didn’t hear or listen. Instead, he ran out in front of the oncoming truck, took a few running steps, then hurled the pistol at the vehicle.
The gun arced over the grass and bounced off the corner of the windshield on the passenger’s side. The glass cracked. The driver swerved and slowed.
Bad Penny Page 18