by Schow, Ryan
“What kind of flags are those?” Faith asked, leaning forward and squinting.
“Hayseed Rebellion,” he said.
Faith sat back, then cast him a sideways look. The closer they got, the more these guys and girls looked exactly like the thugs they’d left behind in Nicholasville.
“Get the Smith & Wesson ready,” he said.
“Already done.”
He looked down and saw that she had her Smith & Wesson SHIELD in her hand, but she was not calm, cool, and collected. She looked like she was wound so tight her internal strings were bound to snap at any minute.
“Relax,” he said, patting her thigh. “Just breathe.”
“I don’t want to have to shoot someone, Colt. I wanted to shoot Keaton back at the house, but that’s because I knew him. I saw what he did to our garden, to you, and to Trixie. But these guys are just a bunch of idiots dancing around—”
“You only shoot if you feel the situation warrants it,” he said, interrupting her, “or if I tell you to shoot.”
She racked the slide, let it slap back in place like she was taught. She then upped her vigilance, looking for whatever problems were about to occur, obvious or otherwise.
When they crept into the intersection, the wall of bodies parted, but all eyes had turned on them. The meanest looking men were already walking toward the Jeep.
“Can you speed up?” Faith asked, frantically.
“Stay calm,” he said.
“Colt.”
A few more people moved in on the Jeep, and then everyone closed in on them. Lots of hands slapped the glass at first, and then dozens more began slapping every inch of the Jeep. Then these degenerates started to rock the vehicle, shouting for them to open the doors.
The noise levels continued to climb, as did the anger of these people when they didn’t get their way. Colt tempered his fear without punching the accelerator. He didn’t want to run anyone over unless he had to.
One wiseass tried to get out in front of the Jeep, to stop him, but Colt knew better. He bumped the gas pedal enough to give the kid a jolt of fear and a less than subtle nudge to the midsection.
People were now tugging on the door handles and beating the windows with fists. He felt Faith’s fear, fought to keep his own in check.
“We need to get the hell out of here, Colt!” she turned and hissed.
The uproar from the gathering crowds became so loud, Faith said something to him that he couldn’t quite hear. Outside the Jeep, right by Faith’s window, half a dozen bodies parted, revealing a guy holding a big rock. He was getting ready to overhand it into Faith’s window. She turned the gun and pointed it at him. The guy with the rock thought twice, then fell back as Colt successfully drove them through the intersection. The tangle of animated bodies closed back in on them, so many hateful faces screaming so many hateful things.
Colt managed to steer the vehicle onto the grass in front of the Chase building, then move safely through the assembly of bodies before finding an opening and punching it.
He careened over a flimsy wire fence then dropped down into a Rally’s parking lot, the Jeep bouncing hard on its descent. When the Jeep hit pavement and stopped rocking, Faith glanced back in time to see the masses losing interest.
“I almost shot that guy,” Faith said, breathless.
“Which guy?” he asked.
“The one about to throw that rock at my window.”
“You did well,” he said, glancing over at her. “But that was a warm-up for what’s to come. At least…we need to think like that.”
“I thought my heart was going to explode,” she confessed.
He looked at her with compassionate eyes. “You’re not conditioned for this, but this was what it was like sometimes in Afghanistan. Those people were different in many ways, but the sensation of being mobbed could be very real, just like it was today.”
“We never really talked about that,” she said.
He never spoke of those days on purpose, which wasn’t fair to Faith. But he wasn’t the kind of guy to talk things out. He needed to internalize them, turn the pieces over and over again, figure out where everything went wrong, and then put his life back together. His time in the sand was a giant puzzle that was constantly rearranging itself.
“Sometimes there were threats, ambushes, IEDs—things you give a tremendous amount of consideration to as a soldier. We were trained for conflict, trained for these kinds of eventualities, but we were also programed to deal with things any good soldier truly fears.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“A lot of times, these Afghani kids would run up to the Humvees. They were enamored with the American soldiers, but sometimes it was the parents who approached us. They were asking, no, begging, for our help. In this regard, some people came at us with good intentions while others knew the game and played it the way we expected.”
“This isn’t a game, Colt,” she said.
“Sure it is,” he replied. “It’s the game of life and death without consequence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me simplify this for you. To survive this world we’re now in, to survive these people, you need to remember only two things. One, if they try to get to you or get inside the Jeep, and you feel like they might succeed on either count, shoot them, but shoot to kill.”
“And two?” she asked.
“We’ve been hit with an EMP, so there is no law and order. There is only street justice. Meaning if you kill someone, no one will come to arrest you, try you in a court of law, put you before a jury of your peers with the threat of life in prison, or penalty of death. Whoever you kill might have friends, family, or crew nearby. That’s what you worry about. Retaliation. And that’s why you don’t hang around to lament your actions. You stay on the move, and you never stop being that rolling stone.”
“We could have gone around those guys,” she said.
She was right. He could’ve changed his route from the outset, but he’d taken the chance anyway. The longer she looked at him, the more he realized she was aware of this.
“You wanted to take me through that, didn’t you?”
“None of them looked like they had any real weapons,” he said, a confession without an admission of guilt. “Our Jeep versus their bodies and our guns would have been bad for them. So yes, I took you through there on purpose. But only once, just to get a feel for what it might be like in and around the bigger cities. Trust me when I tell you, we won’t be doing that on purpose again.”
They were quiet for a long time, but then she said, “When you tell me what we’re up against, Colt…I already sort of know these things.”
“I know that, Faith, but I feel compelled to impart some of my hard-earned wisdom from my time at war.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“You’ve never been on the battlefield or suffered an insurgency. My thinking is that if you have an idea about what awaits us, then you will be better prepared if we get in the shit again. That BS we just came through was relatively tame. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see far worse than that by the day’s end.”
“I’ll have to trust your judgment, I guess. But I have the feeling that what you’re going to tell me will scare me. Colt, I’m already scared.”
“You only need to hear me once,” Colt said, trying to calm her down. “What I have to tell you will improve your reaction times if you need to defend yourself, me, or both of us.”
“I knew the risks when I said I wanted to get the kids. If you have to say it, if it’s on your mind and you need to get it out, then just say whatever it is you need to say.”
He nodded, then looked at her. He hated what he was about to tell her, but it needed telling because the times necessitated it. That didn’t make it any easier. He had the firm belief that a good man doesn’t scare his wife. He makes her feel loved and protected. A good man also shoulders the burden of fear so his wife doesn’t have to. So, was he being a good man? Or
was he failing to adhere to his own beliefs?
“When you kill someone, and you will likely have to do that today or tomorrow, you have to be brutal, precise, and you must not hesitate. If you show even an ounce of weakness around these fiends, if any of them so much as sees a hint of fear in you, they will tear your heart right out of your chest.”
She listened, but didn’t say anything.
He looked right at her.
She looked numb.
By now they were back to the two-lane streets with grassy shoulders, walking and biking paths, and white picket fencing. It would have been peaceful, if not for all the dead cars and this tough, one-way conversation.
On the hillsides far off the main roads were homes, apartments, a church or two, the occasional park. But then, in the distance, he saw a huge column of billowing smoke.
“What do you think is burning?” Faith asked.
“Structure fire,” he said.
“It’s all going to burn, isn’t it? This country, our way of life, the world because of what was done to us here?”
He didn’t say anything because she already knew the answer to that question.
When they reached Rapid Run Drive, they saw huge mobs of people in front of the big church on the corner. Had they burned down the church? Of all the things they could torch to make a point, these animals burned down a church. To Colt, this was a testament to who they were, but more importantly, this was a solid representation of the ever-growing mobs and their penchant for violence and debauchery.
He looked to the right and saw people heading toward the Jeep. The left was the same. He shifted into reverse, but behind him, the rest of the mob was closing in. He made a mental note for him to get Faith behind the binoculars so she could see what was coming in time to actually warn him about it.
“Get me the carbine,” he said with more force than he intended.
She handed him the Ruger PC 9mm they’d confiscated from Keaton’s crew, the seventeen-round mag sitting snugly in place.
“Get ready,” he said.
“Turn the Jeep around, Colt,” she said in a panicked tone.
“I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”
He rolled down his window and took his foot off the accelerator. There was a run-down old bus and four cars that looked pushed-together to block the intersection. To the right, the burning church was in full view, and to the left, there was a large grassy knoll filled with people, the same as on Saron Dr.
Colt spotted a gun barrel coming out of one of the windows on the stationary bus. He pushed himself out his window and opened fire, hitting the potential shooter and killing several other people in the bus. The horde descended on them with ruthless abandon, causing Faith to freak out.
He slid back into the Jeep and said, “Give me the SHIELD, pop a new mag in the Ruger! Hurry!”
She handed him the SHIELD. He dumped the entire mag, hitting all his targets before they reached them. All kinds of things started hitting the Jeep, including bats and rocks. On Faith’s side of the Jeep, there was a crush of bodies. They weren’t slapping the flats of their hands on the windows like the previous mob had done earlier, they were actually punching the Jeep now!
He handed her the SHIELD and said, “Be ready with the Ruger!”
Terrified, she took the gun.
“Now!” he said.
She handed him the Ruger carbine.
He swerved hard to the left, driving right into the mob, and then he gassed it to create space between them. He fired on a few people to keep them away, but then the bumper-slammed into a pissed-off girl with green hair. She went down hard, and then she went under the Jeep. Fractions of a second later they ran over what Colt suspected was her leg, as well as some other kid on the other side who didn’t have the good sense enough to move. They rolled over both of these dumbasses, the emotional effects strangely satisfying. Colt shot two more people, and then he cut the wheel hard to the right and opened fire again.
His aim was off with the carbine because he was shooting one-handed, but still, bodies were dropping right and left. The smart ones turned and ran, but some idiot threw a rock the size of a lemon at him. The rock struck the inside pillar, ricocheted in through the open window, then clipped him in the chin.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled, touching his chin. “Give me the SHIELD!”
Faith handed it over even as the bodies continued to beat on her side of the Jeep. He grabbed the weapon, lined up the shot on the guy who threw the rock, and then squeezed the trigger. A red hole opened in his chest, causing him to stagger backward and collapse.
Guys with bats went after the hood, the roof, the sides. He shot more of them than he wanted, but then he handed Faith the gun and said, “If anyone breaks the glass, shoot them!”
“Okay,” she said, scared.
“Don’t hesitate!”
The second he relinquished the weapon, he veered left, aiming for the crowd of scumbags on the lawn.
Everything was suddenly moving too fast. But then he had to slow down to roll up onto the curb. After he got over the curb, he was going to punch it and run over all of them.
The smashing sound in the back of the Jeep startled them both. These dogs just broke the back window!
“Handle that!” he shouted.
Faith spun in her seat and fired the SHIELD into the mob of men trying to climb inside. The report was so thunderous, each shot felt like a punch to his ear drums. If she kept it up, Colt was bound to suffer permanent hearing loss in his right ear.
He gunned it, started plowing through the bodies, most of them getting out of the way but a few getting dragged under the wheels. Two or three guys were running after them, firing at them with small caliber weapons. Fortunately, they weren’t very good shots. A few of the bullets struck the Jeep, but none of them did any real damage, at least, not that he could tell.
He opened his mouth to pop his ears, but the ringing persisted. Looking at Faith, he said, “Are you okay?”
She nodded but she was terrified, her eyes wide open and wild, the shaking in her hands and face the worst he’d ever seen.
“I shot those men, Colt. That’s what you said to do, right?”
“Damn right.”
“My ears are ringing really badly,” she said.
“Mine are, too,” he replied.
She swallowed hard and sat back, frozen stiff and looking like she’d just escaped a horror show.
Glancing over at her, he said, “Babe, you did great. We’d be up the creek without a paddle if you hadn’t done what you did.”
“I don’t want to go through that again,” she said, her lips trembling.
“Whether you want to or not, it’s probably going to happen again, so you might as well settle in for the long haul. Don’t lose sight of the fact that Leighton and Rowan are expecting us. Otherwise, what was the point of coming?”
She reloaded the weapons, then rearranged them so they could get to them easier. Over the next few miles, she sat in contemplative silence.
In that time, the ringing in his ears dropped from a level eight to a level two. Faith said the same thing about her hearing, which was a relief. The extra drive time allowed him to settle his heart, which had become a pounding fist inside of his chest.
“The first time I killed a person,” he said, telling her something he’d never told anyone, “I threw up. I turned my back from the action, found a corner to run to, and then I threw up. That act alone could have gotten me killed, but fortunately I had guys who had my back.”
She looked over at him.
He opened his jaw again, popping his ears.
Eyes on the scenery, constantly scanning the landscape for threats, he continued. “The kid I killed was in his late teens, or maybe even his early twenties. I can still see him. That look in his eyes. His head was wrapped in black cloth and he was wearing his civilian robes. He had a grenade in his hand. The second I realized this, he broke into a run toward us. I caught him with a thr
ee-round burst in the chest.” He tapped the part of his chest just above his heart. “The shots were clean and grouped tight. Those dark, hateful eyes shot open wide as he fell over dead. A second later, the grenade blew him to pieces. I never thought I’d kill a kid, or watch a body blow apart like that, but that’s not what bothered me most. It was the pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes that still haunts me today.”
Inside of him, the beast made his hands into fists, its knuckles cracking. It liked stories like this. It lived for them, but it also wanted to make more stories like this. This was why Colt hated the beast, why he had locked it up. If he had his way, he would bury it down inside of himself and throw away the key.
“I didn’t know all that,” Faith said, humbled.
“That was a tough day, but worse days followed,” he replied. “That’s why I told you the hard truth, why the reality of what’s to come is so important.”
He wondered if he should tell her about the day he decided to leave the service, but he decided it was easier for her to see him as a water-treatment guy, or a farmer, than as a guy who did what he did.
“I’m sorry you had to shoot those men today,” he said, taking her hand.
“I wanted to kill Keaton so badly,” she said. “I guess I didn’t think about him as a person, just as a nuisance.”
“He was a nuisance.”
She turned in her seat, facing him. “No, he was an asshole. But those guys…what if they thought they were on the right side? What if they were good guys who were just doing what they had to do to protect their family, or maybe get people to safety?”
“You cannot rationalize any of this, Faith. This is a kill-or-be-killed world and no one gets to be right all the time.”