A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  “That was a long way from here,” he said.

  “God,” she mumbled as she thought, was that really only two days ago? “So I bet I’m seeing Major Tobey now.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “My men would probably have agreed.”

  She thought then shook her own head. “I just realized I don’t even know your last name. You must think I’m such a slut.”

  “Tobey Pendleton,” he said, “pleasure to make the lady’s acquaintance.” He held out a hand and like their Mexican friends, offered her a little bow.

  She took the hand with a little giggle. Sparks seemed to fly between their fingertips. She pulled gently and he joined her on the sleeping bag. He sat stiffly and radiated discomfort. She put an arm around his middle and slid closer, nuzzling her face into his neck. The quivering of his body was a palpable thing to her. “Are all majors this nervous around a woman?” She reached her other hand over and began undoing his belt.

  “Are all reporters that forward?” he asked and pulled her hand away, quickly getting to his feet. “I don’t want to leave them for long. I loaned Enrico my H&K, but I don’t know if he could handle it in a pinch.”

  Kathy felt flustered and confused. “Don’t leave,” she asked.

  “I don’t want to,” he admitted.

  “Then stay.”

  “Stay and what?”

  “Stay and make love to me again?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why?” she repeated with a single laugh. “Why, because it feels good. Why, because I like you. I like you a lot.”

  “I don’t know if that’s enough,” he said and reached for the door knob.

  “Why, because I just killed a bunch of people and I saw their faces in my sleep,” she admitted. He looked over his shoulder at her, searching her face for the truth of it. “I don’t want to be alone, Tobey, I don’t want to feel that pain.” She sobbed and felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Those stories from all those people, the world is falling apart. Damn it, if having you inside me for a few minutes gives us pleasure and makes me forget about that fucked-up hell we just lived through, how is that a bad thing?!”

  “It isn’t,” he said, turned, and held out his hands. She flew up from the sleeping back and fell into his arms, her head against his well-muscled chest and sobbed like a little girl. “Shhh,” he whispered, “it’s okay. I know how it feels.”

  “Do you?” she gasped and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She slowly looked up in his eyes and saw it there. A look she would not have understood until that day. It was the look of someone who’d killed. It was a look she would face in the mirror every day for the rest of her life. “Oh, Tobey!” she bawled and fell to her knees.

  He went down with her and held her tight. She wasn’t certain but she thought she felt his own tears falling on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry it had to happen.”

  She couldn’t reply, only nod her head and cry.

  Sometime later, when the tears had passed, her hand strayed between his legs and she found him hard. “Do you really want to do that?” he asked.

  “More than anything,” she replied. His strong, callused hand found her breast and she gasped as he gently squeezed her nipple. “Oh yes,” she said and rubbed him through the thick denim.

  He swept her up in his arms. She sucked in her breath, surprised with the ease that he lifted her. She could feel the muscles in his chest and arms like bands of steel. It made her quiver, way, way down.

  Then they were on the sleeping back and clawing at each other’s clothes. She got his belt undone as he pulled her pants and panties down in one halting motion. His underwear were rudely jerked out of the way, freeing his hardness as she lay back and he moved between her legs.

  “Yes, now,” she hissed as he used his hand to position and slide into her. She could never remember being so wet in her life. He slid in with almost no resistance and began pumping hard.

  “Oh, Kathy,” he said, a hand squeezing her breast and his mouth found hers.

  “Harder,” she grunted, managing to free one leg from her pants and panties she wrapped them around his waist and pulled him in, urging him on.

  “I’m not going to last long,” he warned.

  “Me neither,” she growled and bit his neck.

  “Jesus,” he moaned, “I’m cumming!”

  “Oh, oh, ooooh!” she cried out as she felt him pound into her one more time. She could feel him jumping deep inside her as he climaxed, so she worked her hips, rubbing against him and exploded with him, her body shaking like a leaf in the wind. The whole act had taken less than a minute, but had given her one of the most intense orgasms of her entire life.

  They lay in each other’s arms for some time later, the afternoon sun moving upwards along the far wall. Tobey was asleep in her arms. She marveled at how peaceful he looked and sighed. The house was almost quiet, many of their new friends also trying to sleep. She hoped they hadn’t announced the event to everyone, then didn’t care. As she felt herself also drifting off she remembered her other bag, still back on the abandoned ATV somewhere in Mexico. On it were a few personal things. Nothing she’d miss too much. Just some extra clothes, hair brush, toiletry kit. And condoms. “Well fuck,” she said, and fell fast asleep.

  * * *

  It was a scream and a gunshot that woke them up. Kathy looked around in confusion, but Tobey was on his feet like he’d never been asleep. He was naked as the day he was born but somehow had a pistol in his hand and was sweeping the room. Some part of her mind marveled at both the reaction, and his physical perfection.

  “That was a shot,” she said.

  “And a scream,” he agreed, and put the gun on the floor. The house was coming awake as there were shouts in Spanish. In a second he’d slid into his pants, threw on a T-shirt and snatched up his pistol. “Lock the door, you still have the gun?”

  She fumbled next to the mussed sleeping bag before finding it.

  “Good, keep it handy and stay here.” He pulled the door open to the sounds of shouts outside. “And you probably better get some clothes on.”

  As the door closed she looked down and realized she was naked too. Well, not entirely true. Her pants were still looped around one ankle. She padded over and locked the door. “What the fuck, Kathy,” she said as she looked for her bra and panties, “you’re acting like a teenager.” She was just pulling the shirt over her head when she heard another shot followed closely by a third. She was sure they were all from the same gun. Then came the deep booming report of Tobey’s HK-91, first one shot, then two more in quick succession. Then a fusilade of firing followed. Everything from little pops that reminded her of the .22lr her grandfather had taught her to shoot to the guns you hunt ducks with.

  After a few seconds it tapered off to nothing. A couple individual bangs followed, then silence. Kathy sat in the middle of the sleeping bag, gun held in both hands, watching the door with a growing feeling of dread as the seconds ticked by. Then she heard footsteps approaching. The wood floor of the old building creaked and popped as the steps came closer. Her hands were shaking as she raised the part plastic pistol and lined the little glowing sights up on the center of the door. When the knock came she almost fired.

  “Seniorita?” someone said. “Senior Tobey says come down stairs.”

  “O- okay,” she stammered and the footfalls retreated away. She sat and just sucked air for a few seconds, painfully conscious of how close she’d come to killing whoever that was. Finally, she climbed to shaky feet and went to the door.

  Downstairs she had to move through a crowd of several dozen cramming the front room of the house. Many were men, and most were armed with a dizzying array of guns, explaining the sounds of shooting. They moved aside when they recognized her. The front door was open and Tobey was standing on the porch, his big rifle held cross body. Scattered on the ground outside and leading away was a trail of bodies. The last on
e was at the foot of the steps. It was a boy, no more than ten years old. A woman had his head cradled in her lap and was rocking back and forth making keening sounds. His torn out throat told a story that didn’t take a detective to solve.

  She came up behind Tobey. What exactly was he to her now? Savior, certainly. Lover? Without a doubt. More? She didn’t know, but that could wait. She put a hand on his shoulder and he glanced back. “What happened?”

  “The boy went out, thought he saw a rabbit and was going to get it for food. One of them jumped him,” he said and pointed at the dead. “He almost made it back. A dozen more showed up and it turned into a one-sided fire fight. They just kept coming.”

  She nodded in understanding and looked at the hard faced men on the porch. All had weatherbeaten faces, cracked from untold days under the southern sun. All looked as hard as the sun baked earth they toiled on. They held their weapons with grim determination.

  “Quite a militia you have here,” she said.

  He shrugged. “They’re determined, at least. Probably only have a few dozen rounds each.”

  “Hadn’t we better get them moving?” she asked. “Those shots are going to bring more.” She glanced at the sky and was surprised to realize it wasn’t much past noon. It felt like they’d gotten here a week ago, instead of just a few hours.

  “We can’t.”

  “Why?” she asked. He gestured with his rifle barrel.

  Kathy looked in the direction he was pointing and gasped. Several hundred yards away were dozens. Hundreds. Fuck, maybe a thousand of them. They stood there, watching the house without any outward sign of emotion. They weren’t jumping up and down, waving their arms, or even moving around. They were standing perfectly still. “What are they doing?”

  “Waiting,” he said.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “If they were intelligent, I’d say waiting for reinforcements or artillery.”

  “They’ve only acted insane before,” she said, “like animals.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “and this is worrisome.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it suggests they could use tactics. And tactics means planning.” He walked down off the porch and she followed automatically. He went around the side and to the rear of the house. The land behind was similar except that an old grove of trees were there, spreading off into the distance. There was no sign of anyone as far as they could see. Tobey clutched his gun with white knuckled force and sucked air through his teeth.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This place crawls,” he said finally.

  “Huh?”

  “Ambush,” he explained, “they’re trying to scare us out.” He shouldered the rifle and used the powerful scope to sweep from side to side. He was just moving back to the other direction when he suddenly stopped and went back. “Yeah, they’re out there.”

  “How many?”

  “I can see a couple, hiding behind trees and there’s one behind a wood pile. Mother fuckers are trying to flush us into them!”

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Make them come to us.”

  “But you’ve just got your rifle and a bunch of other little guns the Mexicans brought!”

  “Oh, we’ve got a little more that, remember?” He turned around and examined the house for a long moment. “I always thought that thing looked stupid out here in the damned Texas desert,” he said. “Now all I can say is; thank you Mr. Hughes. Thank you very much.”

  Kathy looked confused up at the strange architectural work as Tobey ran up the back stairs yelling for Enrico and his son.

  It was just past noon when they came. The line of enfermo that had been waiting in the afternoon heat just suddenly decided it was time and they came. Quiet at first, they quickly picked up speed until they were sprinting. Then they began to scream. Visceral, inhuman screams from throats already raw from screaming.

  “Wait!” Kathy yelled to make herself heard over the screams. “Wait…” Tobey had told her what trees marked the hundred-yard line. It was the place he deemed to be the most effective range for their ‘arsenal’ of weaponry. When they crossed it, she screamed. “Now!”

  Every gun they owned opened fire with a roar. From the powerful .308 H&K she wielded to ancient 6mm single shot hunting rifles and down to .22 LR pistols. They all fired as quickly as they could be accurately aimed and shot. The line of attackers passed the tree marking the 100-yard point and were engulfed in volleys of flying lead.

  Kathy used the scope this time. The range was almost perfect for the sight. The rifle was set to single shot as she fired, moved, and fired again. “Center of mass,” Tobey had told her as he instructed her how to use the ranging marks on the rifle. “It’s a big cartridge. One shot to center of mass each.”

  “What if they don’t go down?”

  “It’s a .308 my dear, they’ll go down. If not immediately, in only a few heartbeats.”

  The first one she shot was a big bull of a man in tattered overalls. The sight’s crosshairs were firmly centered over his Adam’s apple, one tick high as he’d told her at that range. When the rifle settled from the recoil she saw him plowing into the ground, a hole the size of her fist in the center of his back. Breathe, new target, fire. Shift target, breathe, fire.

  The front of the human wave fell like it was wheat under a scythe. Dozens dropped screaming to the ground. Some got back up to shamble or hobble on. Others didn’t move. Still more tried to crawl and were run down by those behind them. Others tripped over their fallen fellows. She saw one woman clearly who she’d been about to shoot trip over a splayed leg, her face smashed into a sharp rock. At the speed she’d been running it split her skull like a grapefruit. Kathy swallowed her gorge and moved on, being glad for the saved round and cursing herself for that thought. That had been a woman, someone’s child. Now she lay out there with a split skull, dying in the dirt.

  Fifty yards out and they were coming fast. Everyone was firing as quickly as they could. Kathy’s magazine went empty. She fumbled for the release before finding it, the metal box clattering to the floor among the spent brass as she turned the smoking gun sideways so she could fit another in the mag well. There were eight more on the once ornate dressing table next to her. She slapped the slide release, just like Tobey showed her, and the gun charged. Forty yards out as she started firing. A hundred or more were down, and they weren’t slowing. She felt her pulse pounding in her ears like a big kettle drum. Her eyes wide with fear. All around the scope, her vision was red and nothing else was visible. It was like looking down a tunnel. Shoot, move, shoot.

  “Fuck, fuck fuck!” she screamed. They were running past the corpses from the earlier attack, only yards from the house when the machinegun opened up with a long “Brrraaaap!”

  Tobey worked the M-240 down along the line of packed crazies. The .223 rounds chewed through flesh and bone, often penetrating through one body and into another at the close range. The belt fed smoothly form the huge pile on the floor. He’d emptied three boxes, linking the belts together to give him 750 rounds. Against every instinct he just held the trigger and gave them a continuous string of death.

  Bright white lines of tracers every three rounds told him where to aim from the captain’s walk high on the house. He used the ornate ironwork to support the gun. It would have been a horribly exposed position against an armed attack. Against unarmed lunatics, it was ideal.

  He didn’t aim for the vanguard. Instead he picked the mass clumped up behind them. Those slowly slightly by the bodies on the ground. They were a concentrated wall of targets that he methodically chewed into hamburger with the chattering gun. He could see smoke rising from the barrel as the first belt of 250 marker went by and he kept working it from side to side. “Wooohooo!” he yelled as he unloaded belt-fed death.

  The first of them hit the porch and threw themselves at the doors. They crashed into the heavy wood with bone shattering force. Many broke arms, shoulders, even skulls as they
smashed against the ancient oaken door. Ten, twenty, fifty of them plowed in behind until the porch was so full it groaned under the weight.

  Tobey stopped firing long enough to lean out over the side and look down to see the traffic jam. The crowd crushed dozens of their number to hideous screaming death as they continued to bear down on the doorway until it gave, spilling their number into the huge front room and entry area. He waited for a long five count as they rushed in and found every exit bared and nailed shut. The stairs were stuffed with every piece of furniture that would fit. “NOW ENRICO!” he screamed.

  Down on the second floor landing Enrico just barely heard the missive from high above. He nodded his head, picked up the thing Tobey had called a ‘clacker’, and just as he’d been shown, smacked his hand down on the spoon once, twice, three times.

  When Kathy had taken the M-240 and the ammo for it, she’d had a little room left on the trailer so she’d gabbed a final crate without even looking at what it said. When Tobey unloaded and moved the machinegun inside, using the villagers to help haul the gun and ammo up to the captain’s walk, they’d brought that box to him in confusion. When he saw it he laughed so hard they thought he was going insane.

  He’d taken the contents and set up them all up. Half in the living room and by the front door, the other half all around the front of the porch. When Enrico hit the detonator three times, he set off all twenty Claymore mines at once. Each one unleashed seven hundred steel ball bearings propelled by a half a kilogram of high explosives set in a convex shaped charge that created an inconceivable zone of death.

  The daisy chain of explosions tore at Kathy’s hearing, making her scream and drop the rifle to its sling as she instinctively put her hands over her ears. The Claymore’s ball bearings tore through flesh and bone, eviscerating and shredding bodies five or six deep as it killed hundreds. All around the house bodies flew apart like they were made of cobwebs hit by a wind machine. An arc of killing fifty meters deep spread gore in all directions as the house thundered and shook from the impact, almost completely shredding the first floor which was empty of all but the enfermo. One second later, it was a grisly slaughterhouse.