by Steven Bird
“The man who fled Peronne knew quite a bit of the goings-on in town, and he knew some people who he thought might have been able to help. Help they did, which led us to Rosa.”
“Is she okay?” Leina asked, worried that the woman’s involvement in her escape may have led to something horrible for her.
“She’s okay now,” Jessie replied. “T. R., he’s the man who fled and then teamed up with me, died as we made a move on one of Peronne’s assets where they kept her.” Looking to the floor to gather his thoughts, Jessie solemnly said, “I guess you could say he made good on vindicating himself. Anyway, she was safe when I left her to come here. She told us everything she knew about your situation, and putting two plus two together, I assumed you were a victim of the ambush.”
Nodding in the affirmative, Leina wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Yes, that was us. They killed all of the other adults, but took the children and me. I haven’t seen them since I got here. Peronne kept promising to return them to me, but it was all a ruse to get me to...” Pausing to search for the words, Leina changed the course of the conversation, saying, “So, where are the others? The others that helped you rescue Rosa. Are they out here with us somewhere, also?”
“One of them was injured pretty bad. Rosa is caring for him now. The man’s daughter helped us also. She’s safe as far as I know, but I haven’t had reliable enough contact to know her exact whereabouts or intentions. For all practical purposes, we have to assume it’s just you and me for now.”
“That suits me just fine,” Leina replied. “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will die killing him if need be, and I’m at peace with that.”
“Neither of us will die if I can help it, but I agree with you. A life not lived to the fullest is a life not worth living, and that doesn’t just go for the pleasures in life. That’s another one of the things that led the world down the path it was on. Everyone was so consumed by their own personal gain, happiness, and comfort, that none of us stood together to do the hard things. The wicked and the corrupt took full advantage of our brain-dead, reality-TV-consumed, self-centered society and pushed our once-polite society to the breaking point and beyond. Sadly, they did it before our very eyes, yet no one hardly even noticed.”
“My husband, Cas, used to say the same things,” she said, smiling at the warm memories she still held of her late husband.
“Where is he? If I may ask,” Jessie asked carefully.
“Let’s just say you and I have similar pasts,” Leina replied as she looked around the room. Changing the subject once again, she said, “So, what’s the plan?”
“I’ve had a pretty simple plan so far,” Jessie replied, “but the usefulness of that plan is about to end. The sun is almost up, and it’s going to make being a ghost that pokes at Peronne’s men until his ranks start to crumble a little harder. There’s no way to take on their numbers head on, but if we can chip away at his men’s morale, and cause them to question their allegiance to such a tyrant and a monster, then we might have a chance. As long as we can stay alive in the process, that is.”
“We’re gonna need a better plan than that,” she said. “Unless, of course, we can lie low until tonight.”
“I doubt that would work very well,” Jessie replied. “With the cover of darkness gone, Peronne will be emboldened to tear this town apart until they find us. No one has ever hit him so hard or embarrassed him so much. He’s not gonna let this stand. He’s not gonna just let it wash away. No, he’s gonna need to make a point, and strong point, with us, to keep the rest of the people in town at bay. A tyrant who feels that he has had a chink in his armor revealed will be quick to make a show of force, and more than likely, he will do it in a very brutal way.”
Interrupted by an incoming radio transmission, both Jessie and Leina stopped to listen, hearing:
Hello, there, shepherd. You may think you’ve put yourself in a position of power, but you’re wrong. All you’ve done is endanger your flock. I’m going to start preying on your sheep if you don’t show yourself soon. Baaaaaa baaaaa baaa...
“What? What’s he gonna do?” she asked.
“I imagine he’s threatening to do people harm in an attempt to lure me out. That’s not a wise move. If he inflicts acts of brutality against the innocent, the population he’s trying to control, he could lose his most important aspect of control—their willingness to continue to sit on the sidelines to preserve their own safety. His desperation is setting in quicker than I thought,” Jessie replied. “That’s not good. Things are gonna get real ugly, really fast.”
“Are you going to reply?” she asked.
“No, I’m done with the radio for now. They’ve had time to gather themselves together and get their hands on radio direction finding gear that I would imagine a department such as theirs would have been before the collapse would have on hand. He’s probably taunting me to reply so that they can DF our position and move in. No, we’ll hold off on using the radio again.”
“What do you have for weapons?” she asked. “I had a rifle, but it was lost in the home. All I have is this...” reaching for her sidearm, she realized it was no longer there.
“Relax,” Jessie said reassuringly. “Your Glock is right here. I merely removed it because I wasn’t sure what state you would be in when you awoke. I didn’t want you to think I was one of them and get myself shot.”
Reaching the duty belt with the holstered Glock to her, he added, “I’ve got an AR-15 I picked up from one of Peronne’s men. I lost my personal rifle in the insanity of the night as well. Other than that, all I have is my old Colt, here,” he said, patting his open hand on the side of his old leather cowboy-style holster. “Oh, and a compound bow and several broadhead arrows I found in one of the closets upstairs. You never know when something like that will come in handy,” he said, pointing to the bow he had securely tied to a small pack he had found as well.
“We’re gonna need to do better than that,” she replied. “Two pistols and a rifle aren’t gonna get us far against these guys.”
“They’ll get us far enough,” he replied with confidence. “Now, you get some rest while I stand watch. You’ve had a rough night, and I can’t imagine today being anything other than a rough day. Let’s take advantage of the remaining darkness to sit and rest for a while, because with the rising sun, trouble will come.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
With his boots propped up on the nightstand next to the bed where Leina slept, reclining in an office chair he found in the study of the abandoned home, Jessie’s eyes felt heavy as he gazed out the window on the other side of the room. Jessie was thankful for the illumination the full moon was providing them, helping him to keep an eye on the goings-on in the surrounding neighborhood.
Chills ran up Jessie’s spine as he heard a low and ominous growl coming from just outside the window. Standing up slowly, drawing his trusty old Colt from its holster as he crept across the room, Jessie’s heart skipped a beat to see a large, gray wolf standing just outside the window, its fangs exposed with the blood of a fresh kill still dripping from its muzzle.
As the wolf raised its head toward the moonlit sky, it let out a spine-chilling howl as other wolves in the pack began howling all around the house.
Nearly falling out of his chair as he was startled awake, Jessie reached for his Colt, almost dropping it on the floor, still in a half-awakened state of confusion. Realizing it was only a dream, Jessie’s spine tingled. Something is wrong! he thought as he shook Leina by the arm, awakening her from her much-needed rest.
“What, what is it?” she asked, trying to focus her eyes as she looked frantically around the room for a threat.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Jessie said with a look of panic on his face.
“What? What is it?” she again asked.
“No time. Just come,” he said as he grabbed his rifle and pack, peeking out the window. Seeing one of Peronne’s SUVs parked just down the street, almost out of
sight, he said, “Crap. Let’s move.”
Leading Leina down into the basement, Jessie hurried over to a window that was built into the block foundation of the home. Having previously stacked several boxes beneath the window, preparing it in advance for such an occasion, he said, “The moonlight is on the other side of the house. It should be dark along the foundation. I’ll climb out and stay low. Once I determine it’s safe, I’ll help you out, and we’ll make a run for that old metal garage behind the house across the street. We’ll make a plan up on the fly from there, based on what we see.”
Trusting Jessie’s insistence in the matter, Leina watched as he climbed atop the boxes, tilted the window open, and pulled himself up and outside. After a quick scan of the area, she saw Jessie reach down into the basement from the outside, saying, “Come on.”
Working her way outside and alongside the house as Jessie recommended, Leina whispered, “What is it?”
“I don’t know, but trust me,” he said again, insistently.
As he looked around trying to assess the situation further, Jessie and Leina were both startled by a loud and powerful impact of a battering ram smashing through both the front and back doors of the house simultaneously, followed by the concussive blast of what appeared to be flash-bang grenades.
“Now!” he said as the two began running across the lawn, hidden in the shadows of the moonlight toward the old, metal garage as planned.
Ducking behind the garage, in between the adjacent neighborhood street, a row of trashcans, and several overgrown shrubs, Leina grabbed Jessie by the arm and asked, “How the hell did you know they were coming?”
“I didn’t,” he replied, still scanning the area for more threats.
“What?” she asked, confused by his short and nonsensical answer.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, fixated on the SUV parked just fifty yards from their current position up the adjacent street.
“It looks like there is only one man by that vehicle. They must have had him standing watch on the perimeter while they made their move. I would assume each of the streets surrounding the house will have similar watches,” Jessie said, explaining their situation.
“Are you sure he’s alone?” she asked.
“It looks like it. I wouldn’t normally expect them to leave a critical position staffed with only one man, but they do have fewer officers on the roster now than they did at the start of the day yesterday.”
“I’ve gotten around seven of them, myself,” she said. “I’ve lost track, though.”
Glancing at her with an impressed look on his face, Jessie said, “Damn, that’s... that’s impressive and scary all at the same time. I’m glad I took your pistol until you awoke,” he said with a chuckle.
“Don’t mess with a momma bear’s cubs,” she replied.
“Good point,” he said. “Okay, back to our friend out there by the SUV. If we can take him down, we can get our hands on a second rifle and some ammo that we will desperately need sooner rather than later.”
“Just how do you plan on doing that without alerting the rest of them?”
Pulling the pack off his shoulder, Jessie removed the bow, took an arrow from its quiver, and secured the nock of the arrow at the nock loop.
“Are you sure you can hit him from here... in the dark?” she asked, uneasy about Jessie’s intentions.
“With my own bow, yes. Not knowing exactly how the pins on this sight are sighted in, or if it’s even sighted in at all... no. I can assume the yardage for each of the fiber-optic sight pins, and estimate the yardage to the target, and if it’s set up the way I hope, I can pull it off. If not, well, we run, because he will be on the radio as soon as the arrow bounces off of whatever it hits.”
As he drew the bowstring back to full-draw, Jessie said, “Damn, I wish I had a mechanical release. If you’ve got a better idea, now is the time to share it with me.”
“Make it count,” she replied.
“Roger that. Here goes,” he said as he floated what he assumed was the fifty-yard pin on the target, controlled his breathing, and let the string fly, following through with his hold until the arrow had cleared the bow and was on its way to the target at over three-hundred feet per second.
With a deep thud, the arrow struck the man in the gut, just below his ballistic vest, dropping him instantly to his knees. Seeing him writhe around in pain, Leina sprang to her feet and sprinted toward him with everything she had as Jessie watched her pounce on top of the injured man with extreme violence of action, stabbing him repeatedly in the neck until he fell over, dead upon impact with the ground.
Running up to her side, Jessie saw her breathing heavily with blood splatter on her face. He stood there for a brief moment, speechless to what he had just witnessed.
Looking at him while wiping the blood from her face with her own shirt, she said in a calm and collected voice, “He was gonna die, but wasn’t dead. He had a radio and a gun. He could have given it all away.”
“Good job,” Jessie replied, still in awe of her actions. Releasing his duty belt to retrieve his radio and sidearm, Jessie shoved it into his pack while Leina unclipped the sling of man’s rifle, removing it from around his body.
Searching the SUV for anything else of use, Jessie heard over the vehicle-mounted radio:
The house is clear. They were here, but are gone.
Followed by a profanity-laced tirade in Peronne’s voice:
Damn it! Get that son-of-a-bitch and that whore! Tear this town apart until you find them! Kill anyone who gets in your way! I want them, and I want them now!
Removing a pen and a notepad from the vehicle, Jessie wrote a note and tacked it to the man by shoving the pen into his flesh. Leina looked at the note, which read, If you keep serving Peronne, we will keep stalking you.
Looking at Leina, Jessie said, “Never miss an opportunity to fuck with the enemy’s mind. Get in his head and stay there. Never relent.”
Nodding in agreement, the two slipped away into the darkness just as an SUV from the raid on the house reached the scene. Turning to watch for just a second, Jessie and Leina saw the men reading the note. Wasting no further time, they slipped away from the scene, putting as much space between them and the officers as they could.
Chapter Thirty
Slowly working their way across town under the cover of the remaining darkness, Jessie and Leina could see the sun shining its first rays of morning light over the eastern horizon. “Our cover is almost blown,” Jessie said, admiring the beauty of the glowing orange horizon. “You know, I’ve always had a thing for sunsets and sunrises. We had magnificent views from our Rocky Mountain homestead. Sunrise was when I would have my first cup of coffee in the morning, and sunset was when I would have my first sip of wine at night. Although I no longer have that life to celebrate with the rising and setting of the sun, I still hold onto them as my most favorite moments of the day. These days, the sunrise lets me know I have at least one more day on Earth to leave my mark, and the sunset lets me know I survived another day.”
“Pretty deep thoughts for a man who doesn’t hesitate to kill,” Leina said, remarking about the complexity of Jessie’s personality.
“I don’t hesitate when, in my opinion, the person on the other end of my gun, my knife, or in last night’s case, my bow, has voluntarily put themselves in a position where their death is required so that others can live. Peronne’s men, for example, choose to kill and oppress others. So the way I see it, they are the ones making the decision to die, more so than I am making the decision to take their life. The lives of the innocent and the good are what matter in this world, not the lives of the wicked. The wicked have a choice. They don’t have to go down that path.”
“Have you ever killed someone who wasn’t...wicked, as you put it?” she asked, probing deeper into Jessie’s thoughts.
“There was one, not so long ago,” Jessie replied, with a softening of his voice. “He had lost his mind. I tried to reason with him, b
ut he was in another world than me. I pleaded with him to stop what he was doing, but there was no reasoning with him. I waited until I basically saw the flash of light from the muzzle of his rifle before I fought back. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just let him take me. He wasn’t a bad man. He had just been beaten down by this world to the point that he had no ability to see what was really around him anymore. Perhaps the world would have been better off with him in it today instead of me? I dunno. I acted in self-defense, but it sure doesn’t make it easier to know that.”
“It sounds to me as if he wanted out of this world, too.”
“Maybe so,” Jessie replied. Changing the subject, he pointed up ahead and said, “There it is, we’re almost there. I just need to check on one thing before we lie low for the day.”
“What? Where? The cemetery?” she asked, unsure of what Jessie was pointing out.
“Yeah, in that mausoleum to the left of the front gates. That’s where I left Jack and Rosa,” Jessie said, noticing that Leina was giving him a strange look. “It’s another one of those long story things. Hopefully, we will live long enough for me to catch you up on everything,” he said with a crooked smile.
As they approached the cemetery, the sun was now over the horizon, and the night had fully given way to a magnificent morning. Pointing to an old abandoned seventies-era pickup truck on the side of the road, Jessie said, “Take up an over-watch position from the bed of that truck. That old aluminum camper top on the back should allow you a decent view while staying out of sight. I’m gonna slip on over to the mausoleum to check on Jack and Rosa.”
Turning toward the old truck, Leina paused and said, “Be careful.”
Answering with only a smile, Jessie worked his way to the cemetery, taking cover along the way where he could. Upon reaching the cemetery gates, he stayed low, using the surrounding headstones as visual cover.