by Eric M Hill
Chief King lifted himself and stood over the man, filled with murderous rage that this killer and no-doubt, rapist, had invaded his home and threatened him and his family. He took the guns from the man’s waist and pocket. He pointed one of them at the man’s forehead. His finger applied pressure.
“Barry,” whispered Ana, “the girls.”
Training cut through his rage. The girls. Ana was right. They didn’t know what had happened upstairs. They had to assume the worst and prepare to engage.
POP! POP! POP!
POP! POP!
A shotgun blast. BOOM!
More gunfire outside. Thirty or forty rounds.
Chief King and Ana looked at one another. What was going on? Gunfire upstairs. Gunfire in the back yard. Now a shootout outside. Had there been more predators with this crew? Had the community self-defense group engaged them?
Chief King looked at the laid out man. “We gotta restrain him.”
With no hesitation, Ana walked to the drapes and pulled the thin ropes from both sides. She tied the predator’s hands behind his back, and tied his feet together. She moved aside the fake floral arrangement and reached inside a large vase and took out a semi-automatic with a high-capacity magazine. She took out the three extra magazines and looked at what she was wearing. She didn’t have any pockets. She tossed two magazines to her husband. “No pockets,” she said. Then she clamped the one magazine she kept between her front teeth. Her mouth would be her pocket for now, leaving her left hand unencumbered. She pulled the slide back a little and eyed the pre-chambered round.
Gunnery Sergeant King looked through the slits of his watery, burning eyes at his scout sniper partner, the Ghost. “Ready?”
She gave a slow, resolute nod.
It was on.
Chapter 23
The Home Defense Grant awarded to Chief King through the Anderson Foundation included an inside-the-home safety check feature. Every room, including bathrooms and closets, had two hidden buttons, side-by-side and colored. Green meant good; red meant bad. The King’s had never used it because they never had a reason to use it, thank God. But they now had the worst of reasons.
Chief King went to a wall and got on one knee. He pulled the six-inch faux baseboard piece off and grimaced. A heavy ball formed in his gut. He was a Marine who had been in the hell of combat, but these were his daughters. He looked at Ana. He knew she had that same ball in her gut. He pushed the button.
A low, melodic chime sounded upstairs.
The downstairs fire team waited in dread for the response. A corresponding chime downstairs meant all was good. A shrill, pulsating sound meant there were bad guys upstairs. And no response meant the girls had been captured, severely injured, or dead.
The sweetest sound the parents had ever heard emitted softly from the downstairs speaker system. They shared looks of relief and crept toward the back, each taking separate paths.
“Kilo. Foxtrot. No duress,” a little girl’s voice yelled from upstairs.
Both parent’s faces lit up. Kilo…King, foxtrot…family. King family, no duress. The predators were down! All the training had paid off. Their little girls were alive!
“Kilo. Foxtrot. No duress,” yelled both parents.
The girls bounced down the stairs.
They all hugged.
“Mommy, Daddy, your eyes?” said Autumn.
“Where’s Tracy?” asked Ana, beating her husband to the question.
“I don’t know,” said both girls.
Chief King and Ana looked anxiously at one another, the lump having returned. “The shots from the back yard,” said Chief King. “That had to have been her.”
Both parents knew that Tracy was okay. They had heard three shots, close together. That wasn’t return fire. It was a set from one firing position, and they knew their youngest Marine would not have been seen by the predators until it was too late. Those shots had all come from Mommy’s little ghost.
“The dog house,” said Lauren, her eyes wide with the excitement of mission accomplished! “Just like we practiced, Daddy. Defense in depth. I drew him in and Autumn flanked him. We did it!”
He rubbed her face and pulled his ten-year-old to his side. Then he pulled a beaming eight-year-old Autumn to his other side. “I’m recommending you both for the bronze star.”
“With the Combat V?” asked Lauren.
“If your mother approves it. She outranks me by something like ten minutes.” He looked at Ana. “I’ll go get Tracy. Find out what that other shooting was out front. There must’ve been more predators.”
“There were two, Daddy, but only one came upstairs. That’s the one we killed,” said Lauren.
“Then the other one must be the one Tracy engaged,” said Ana.
“I’ll go get Tracy,” said Chief King, as he headed toward the door.
“I’m going with you, Daddy,” said Lauren. “I’ll watch your six.”
Chief King looked at his little girl. He was both elated and proud of her maturity and lethality. But he was momentarily heavy-hearted and ashamed that he had turned little girls into killing machines. The moment passed. He wasn’t responsible for the Great Crime Spike. He was responsible for the safety of his beautiful daughters. The predators had declared war on society, and especially on females. His little girls lived in a world of wolves, and the only way they would not become victims of the wolves was to make victims of the wolves.
“That sounds good, Lauren,” he said. “Overconfidence…” he waited for her to finish the sentence.
“Overconfidence kills,” said the ten-year-old.
“Let’s go,” said Gunnery Sergeant King.
***
The high-powered hidden microphones strategically placed around the backyard fed into the tunnel. Tracy heard Daddy talking. “Foxtrot. Kilo. No duress. All clear.” After several moments, Chief King heard crying coming from under the trampoline flap. He looked underneath. Out first came a large pink teddy bear carrying a furry M4 carbine rifle that had been assigned by Tracy to guard the fallback position. Next came an inconsolable six-year-old with two long pony tails crawling to her daddy, dragging Lance Corporal Teddy.
Nothing Chief King and Lauren said or did stopped Tracy from crying. They couldn’t make out what she was trying to say through her tears. Chief picked her up and carried her toward the house. They entered. The girls had gone out front and joined a crowd of people, leaving the tied up and busted up predator on his belly on the floor. Chief let go of the window blinds and went out front with Lauren and Tracy.
A bunch of people from the community self-defense group were gathered around a man’s bullet riddled body that had fallen onto the steps of the driver’s side of the UPS truck. He was on his knees, slumped over. His career as a predator forever ceased.
“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner, Chief,” said his next door neighbor, Stan. “Oliver was down the street on his bicycle. He says there was something off about the UPS truck when it passed him. He saw the guy spray you.”
Chief looked at the young man. He was the same age as Lauren. He reached out his hand to shake. “You did good, Oliver. You were alert and took immediate action. I’m grateful.”
“I got in a couple of shots, Chief,” said Oliver. “I wasn’t armed.” He looked at his dad with shame. “Sorry, Dad, I was only riding up and down the street. I won’t go out without my gun again.” The young man looked at the chief. “I saw when you tossed your gun on our side.”
“A good learning experience,” said Chief king.
“Overconfidence kills,” Lauren said to Oliver.
Chief King looked at the two news drones that hovered at ten feet just to the left of the crowd. He seethed at the hologram that emitted from the drone. He didn’t know which of the news agencies this was, but whoever it was, he was sure they were here to criticize gun happy Austin, and to defend the Constitutional rights of predators. In a few moments, the sky would be filled with self-righteous, pin head philosophers.
The hologram CNN reporter began to speak to his live audience.
America, this is Randy Green, CNN Virtual News. I am reporting to you live from outside the home of the most famous chief of police in the nation. The occasion is both somber and sad. What you see on the ground is the lifeless body of a man ambushed and shot to death without warning by many of the people you see standing around him. Our footage shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man was leaving Chief King’s property. He wasn’t threatening anyone when he was so brutally attacked by the mob.
Randy’s expression emoted one of a man struggling to find words to convey the tragedy he’d witnessed. Although he knew exactly what he was going to say. He shook his head.
America—a country decades ago that was known as the land of liberty, now a land of savagery and barbarism. A land where the rule of law has been supplanted by fear and revenge and everything base. A land where even its children are encouraged to commit what some would justifiably call murder. We’ll play this clip for you again.
The reporter paused and said with the gravest of tones,
Lovers of the Constitution, you be the judge.
Back in Atlanta, a producer looked at the little girl in the wayward chief’s arms. The child was inconsolable. She was traumatized. It was probably his daughter. What better way to demonstrate the psychological damage done to children who are forced by people like Chief King to be exposed to this murderous behavior? “Get to the little girl,” he told the reporter.
Once the clip of the community self-defense group blasting the predator was over, the hologram reporter approached the chief and the traumatized little girl. “Chief King, this is quite a disturbing sight. A dead man in your driveway,” the reporter paused for effect, “shot dead by a mob.”
“There’s another disturbing sight upstairs in our home,” said the chief.
The reporter was aghast. “Another dead man upstairs?”
“Another dead predator upstairs, yes, sir.”
The reporter thought he had heard a hint of glee in the chief’s tone. “Does that bother you?”
“Not at all. But lest you think I’m heartless, I do admit that it would’ve bothered me had it been the other way around and the predator had raped and killed my little girls.”
The reporter saw himself losing the high ground. He had to get on the crying girl in the chief’s arms. “Is this your daughter?”
“She is. This is Tracy. Our youngest little Marine.”
At this Tracy started crying louder.
The reporter looked sympathetically at the little girl, then at the second drone. The one that was broadcasting the hologram. “Look what this is doing to your daughter. A dead body upstairs. A man murdered in her front yard by neighbors. Look how she’s crying. She’s traumatized by what you’ve done to this man.”
Chief King had had enough of this hologram. “Look, you digital—”
“That’s,” sniffle, “not,” more sniffles, “why,” sniffle, “I’m crying,” said Tracy.
The hologram’s eyes lit up. Randy used his most sympathetic voice. “Tell us, Tracy, why are you so upset?”
Her little head bounced as she fought her tears. “I didn’t,” sniffles, “complete,” sniffles, “my mission.” Her bottom lip curled downward and her voice quivered as she managed a couple of words between starting and stopping. “I used…the big gun. I put it in…the stabilizer. All I had to do…was hit the upper…body. I shot three times.” Her mouth opened and rapid breaths went in and out of her mouth as her chest and head bounced. “He…fell down. I thought I got him.” She burst into tears when she spoke the last word. “But then he got up. I only shot him in the booooodeey”
The hologram reporter was stunned and stilled. For a moment, it appeared that there was a malfunction in the drone.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” said Tracy.
“It’s okay, baby. You did good. You did everything just as we practiced. The predators are dead and we’re alive.”
“Can we go to the range?” she asked.
He kissed her on the head. “We’ll go soon. Okay?”
“Okay. Because next time I shoot a predator, I’m going to kill him.”
“That’s right, baby,” said King.
The hologram reporter turned from the chief and his daughter and began speaking directly to his live audience. Chief King listened to all he could stand and put Tracy down. He went into the house. The predator had revived and was trying to free himself, though his broken ribs greatly minimized the effort.
“We’re going to meet again, Chief,” said Shank, through gritted teeth. “They’re going to let me out. They always do. And next time you won’t know I’m coming. That pretty wife and those little girls of yours—” The predator looked up sideways with a smile.
Chief King got on one knee next to the predator. “What about that pretty wife and my little girls?” The chief held his rage in check as the man told him in detail what he was going to do to his wife and daughters before slowly slitting their throats.
Chief King put in a call to the governor. The governor called Wendy Shuman, the Travis County District Attorney. She had just gotten out of intensive care and was lucky that the armed robbery hadn’t turned into the rape that her assailants had planned for her—thanks to an armed woman who had come to her rescue. So she had no problem with what the governor asked.
***
The crowd looked wide-eyed at the front door of the chief’s house. Actually, it was Chief King they were looking at. He was dragging a man on his belly with one hand by his tied ankles. The man’s chest slid across the grass as he cursed the chief.
Chief King pulled the man to where the hologram reporter was and dropped his feet onto the grass. He looked at his neighbors. “This is one of the three predators who invaded our home. If our family had not been resolved and trained to deal with predators, my wife and daughters would’ve been raped and all of us would’ve been killed. I went into the house and this predator told me that it’s not over.”
“It’s not over, cop,” the injured man hissed. “When I get out, I’m coming back for you—for all of you! I won’t be by myself. There’ll be a lot of us. You killed my little brother. I’m going to make you pay for that. I’m going to take your wife—”
Chief King dropped upon the bound man and unleashed the fury of hell onto the predator’s face until he was certain his family’s safety was no longer in the hands of a broken judicial system. He pushed himself off the bloodied, lifeless man and leaned on his hands and knees, staring at the grass beneath him.
He knew this predator deserved to die. He knew this criminal would’ve made good on his threat the first chance he got. He knew that in a civilized society with a working judicial system, what he had just done would’ve been murder. He wished he could feel guilty. He wished he could look at himself in the mirror and see a monster. If he could, it would mean there was still something good left in society and that he had violated it, had given law and order the middle finger. But that was the very reason he felt no guilt. There was no law and order.
The swarming termites of vicious criminals had eaten away law and order, and now all American society had left was the appearance of law and order. But it was all a façade. He was the chief of police. He knew it was a façade.
Even with Anderson’s money, Austin had been successful only in not allowing itself to become a Chicago or Memphis or Los Angeles. And as he lingered beside the predator’s body, on his hands and knees and under the weight of these unwelcome thoughts, he felt as though reality had cornered him like the school bully and there was no way to escape.
What really was the difference in Austin and cities like Chicago and Memphis and Los Angeles? Sure, Austin had better curb appeal. The grass was green and cut and they had still managed to surround the freshly painted home with beautiful flowers. But the termites were there. The house was compro
mised. It was only a matter of time before Austin became Chicago and Memphis and Los Angeles.
But something deep in Gunnery Sergeant King’s gut rebelled at this fatalistic conclusion. His magazine wasn’t empty. He stood to his feet as a warrior. “Get over here, Mr. La La Land,” he ordered the hologram reporter. “I’ve got something to say to you, to your softhearted audience of ignorant lambs, and to every predator in Austin and every predator thinking of coming to Austin.”
Chief King roughly turned the dead man over to his belly. He grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head up backward for the second hologram. The sight was hideous. His back was bowed, his neck stretched, and his face was no longer a face.
“This monster’s brother raped two little girls…that we know of. There are probably others. The justice system let him and hundreds of other violent criminals out of prison because a judge felt the conditions of the prison violated their Constitutional rights. Three days after the judge freed this predator, he used his freedom to come to Austin and beat and rape a woman in front of her husband.
“By the grace of God, our paths happened to cross and I justifiably put eight 124 grain bullets into his worthless body—ensuring that the last woman he raped was in fact the last woman he’d ever rape.
“His brother,” he pulled Shank’s head up higher, “this dead predator, came to my home with his crew to rob and rape and kill.” Chief King pointed to his marked car in the driveway. “He saw the car and attacked us anyway.” He pushed the dead man’s head and let it go. It hit the grass hard. “I didn’t ask for this war, but I’m in it. You’re in it,” he said to his attentive neighbors. “No more passive waiting around for predators to rob and rape and murder. No more filling out worthless police reports.