by Robert Boren
“They’re going to charge us a tax for every person outside the checkpoints who comes here,” Sparky said. “Including employees. Starts in a week. Eventually it’ll force businesses to only hire people who live inside their checkpoints. They’re going to tighten the noose. Segregate us from each other. Strict neighborhood control. Just like a banana republic. Just like the Nazis. Just like Stalin.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come,” Sparky said.
A woman in a cocktail dress slipped through the door, her mascara running down from her teary eyes.
“Trish, what’s wrong?” Sparky asked.
“One of those guys grabbed me, ouch, on my boob. When I resisted, he looked at his cellphone and read off my parent’s address. Then he stomped out the door.”
Chapter 7 – Card Club
“About time you got here,” Emma said, getting up off the porch step as Seth walked up. It was dusk.
“What’s wrong?” Seth asked. “Why are you outside?”
“Had a big fight with my step-dad,” she said. “Mom wants me to stay, and he tried to be the enforcer. I wish she would believe me.” She caught herself and looked away, pausing for a moment. “There’s been bad things happening at checkpoints.”
Seth took her hand. “What did you mean? About your step-dad?”
“Never mind, I’m just mad,” she said as they walked to the 4Runner.
Seth helped her into the car and got into the driver’s seat. “Something did happen with him. Before you moved out.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said. “Let’s just get to my apartment, okay?”
Seth bit his tongue and started the car. They made it to the South Redondo apartment without problems, both silent the entire way.
“Should I park on the street?” Seth asked.
“Let’s go around back and look at the carport. The roommates are probably still gone.”
“Okay,” Seth said. He drove down the thin driveway and turned right. “Looks like it’s open.”
“Yeah, go ahead and park there, then,” she said.
Seth parked and got out to help her. She avoided eye contact with him as they took the walkway to the apartment, fumbling with her keys at the door. Seth took them away from her and opened the door quickly, eyes darting around before he followed her in.
“Nobody’s been here since we were here last,” she said as she walked to the kitchen. “Wonder where they went?”
“The answering machine is blinking,” Seth said, pointing to it on the end table to the left of the couch. “Whose phone is that?”
“Cindy’s,” Emma said.
“Should we listen?”
“She doesn’t like it when I do that,” Emma said. “She gets sex messages. Some of them are really bad.”
“Might not get her pissed off now, with everything that’s been going on. She might need help.”
Emma stood silently for a moment, thinking, then pushed the button.
“Emma? Are you there? Oh my God. These Islamists stopped both of our cars near the Nevada border. They killed Jerry, and they’re raping Kathy right now, on the hood of her car. Oh no, one of them sees me back here.
“Drop phone, bitch!”
“No! Help me! Somebody help me!”
“Nobody around, bitch. Let see what you look like.”
“No! Emma. Tell my parents. Tell Jerry’s parents. Ouch. Let go of me! Stop it!”
The call ended abruptly, the last sound a crunch as the cellphone was ground beneath the tormentors heel.
“Oh my God,” Emma said, as fear swept through her. Seth rushed over and took her into his arms. She sobbed against his chest.
“How long ago was that message?”
“I don’t know how to tell,” she said. “Dammit. Everything’s wrong. Everything’s evil. Being home was just as bad.”
“What happened there?” Seth asked, sitting on the couch and pulling her down next to him.
“My step dad,” she cried. “He tried to take me again.”
“What?” Seth asked. “What did he do?”
“He watched me when I was showering, and then cornered me while my mom was dead drunk,” she said.
“Did he rape you?” Seth asked.
“No, because I kicked him in the balls and got away. I tried to tell my mom, but she was out of it. She never believes me.”
“That was the real reason you left, wasn’t it?” he asked, face flushing with anger. “Maybe I ought to go back over there and introduce him to Mr. Winchester.”
“Then the only person I trust in the world will be gone,” she said, looking at him through tears.
“Did he ever actually rape you?”
“No, but he tried more than once, and he’s touched me more times than I can count. He does it right in front of mom when she’s drunk enough.”
“This can’t stand,” Seth said, seething with anger. “Always wondered about that creep when he used to kiss you on the neck.”
She shuddered. “Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay?”
“I’ll be right back,” Seth said.
“Where are you going?”
“I left my rifle out in the car. I want to bring it in. Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”
“For once I think that’s a good idea,” Emma said. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”
“Lock the door after me,” Seth said as he slipped out. “Don’t open it unless you see me by myself.”
She nodded and got up, tears still running down her cheeks.
Seth rushed down the walkway to the car ports. It was quiet there. Too quiet. Curtains pulled. Nobody around. Very few cars parked in the back, which was normally full. He opened the tailgate of his 4Runner and moved the blanket hiding the rifle. He picked it up and grabbed a box of ammo from the rear storage compartment. Two car doors shut towards the front of the building. Seth froze and listened. He heard a man’s voice in Arabic, then another voice in response.
Seth’s heart hammered in his chest. He cocked his rifle as softly as he could and snuck to the beginning of the walkway. Footsteps plodded on ahead of him. Then there was a hard knock on Emma’s door. No reply. The first man turned and whispered something to the second.
The other man ignored him and tried the doorknob, then banged on the door again. Seth inched around the corner, looking at them. One of them was trying to open the door with a credit card. Then Emma screamed.
Seth came around the corner, aimed, and fired at the man with the credit card, hitting him in the side.
“You pig!” yelled the other man as his friend fell dead. Seth cocked the lever gun again, aimed right at the man.
“Freeze, asshole,” Seth said.
“I kill you, dumb kid, and rape your woman.” He pulled a pistol out of his pocket.
Seth fired, hitting the man in the upper torso. He continued to step towards him, eyes fluttering, trying to take aim. Seth shot him again, this time in the face, splattering the man’s head all over the porch. The first man moaned as he tried to get his weapon out. Seth rushed over and shot him again.
“Emma?” he cried. “They’re both dead. Open the door.”
“Oh, my God,” she said as she opened it, stepping over the bloody bodies. “We can’t stay here.”
“No, we can’t,” Seth said. “Grab your stuff. There may be more of these creeps around.”
“Yeah,” she said, racing back to throw clothes into a pillow case.
“Hurry,” Seth said, glancing around, finger on the trigger of the Winchester.
“Let’s go,” she said. They ran to the car, throwing the pillow case in the open tailgate and slipping the gun on the floor in front. Seth backed out and turned, seeing that a white van had blocked the driveway.
“Crap,” Seth said. He stopped the car and rushed to the van, Winchester in hand. The keys were in the ignition. He got in and backed the van out onto the street, then looked behind him. There were several AK-47
s and two metal ammo boxes back there, plus a crate. He picked up the rifles and rushed them back to the 4Runner as Emma watched in rising panic, then went back for the ammo and the crate. He pulled the blankets over the weapons, closed the tailgate, and jumped back into the driver’s seat, gunning the engine, flying out of the driveway.
“Oh, crap, look at the side of that van,” Emma said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Seth looked. The van had the UN logo on the side. “Son of a bitch, I knew it.” He slapped the steering wheel hard as drove onto the street, heading for his apartment in Walteria, hoping against hope that there wasn’t a checkpoint on the way.
***
Officer Ryan was on the cot in the clubhouse, head propped up with pillows, typing on the laptop sitting on his belly. His eyes grew wide.
“Sam! Clem! Get in here!”
Sam heard him and came in. “You okay?”
Ryan smiled as he downloaded the first file and went onto the second one.
“We just got the motherlode,” Ryan said, face grim.
“What’s the matter, then?”
“The message tag on the package of files, from CHP Commissioner Frawley.”
“What about it?” Sam asked as Clem ran in.
“Everything okay?” Clem asked as he rushed over.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Commissioner Frawley put out an encrypted package which contains a bunch of info on the invaders.”
“What kind of info?” Clem asked.
“Well, for starters, the location of a lot of enemy bases and supply depots in California,” Ryan said.
“What was wrong, though?” Sam asked as he came over.
“Frawley’s tag on the package,” Ryan said, the grim expression back. “He said I’m dead and so are Cooley, Katz, and Smith.”
“Who are those guys?” Clem asked.
“The leadership of the CHP. The ones who disappeared before Patrick and I were captured,” he said. “Except that turncoat Smith. He helped the bad guys.”
“Does the enemy know the info is out there?” Clem asked.
“Only if there are some higher-level CHP folks who’ve been turned,” Ryan said. “Give me some e-mail addresses and some CD-ROMs. I want this backed up. It’ll get taken down from the CHP site pretty quickly, I suspect.”
“You’ve saved them to that laptop, right?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” Ryan said.
Sam jotted down his e-mail address and Connie’s, handing the slip of paper to Ryan. He e-mailed the files to both as Clem went out to gather other e-mail addresses.
“You open any yet?”
“Yeah, I’m looking at the one with locations of the enemy supply depots right now,” Ryan said. “This information came from the Governor’s office. I can tell by the way it’s formatted.”
“You think somebody hacked Sable?” Sam asked.
“Well, that, or he gave the files to Frawley,” Ryan said. “I don’t like the guy because he’s a flaming lefty, but he’s not a traitor. At least not that I’ve seen.”
Clem came back in with a list of e-mail addresses. “Here’s our core folks. We’d better keep this data to a small group. Just enough to insure we never lose it.”
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Because we’ll need surprise on our side when we attack them,” Clem said.
“He’s right,” Sam said. “What’s the closest supply depot to us?”
“Just outside of Fernbrook,” Ryan said.
“Hell, that’s probably why they hit Poway,” Clem said. “How far away is that from here?”
Sam pulled out his cellphone and went to the map application.
“It’s just over an hour on the highways,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to go all the way there on the big roads, though. I think this is gonna call for some off-roading.”
“I’ll go get the other guys,” Clem said. “We don’t want to sit on this. We need to hit them now. Before they get wind of what’s in those data packages.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Let’s meet back here in ten minutes.”
“Agreed,” Clem said.
“I’ll bring up Google Earth and take a look at the terrain going in,” Ryan said.
“Sounds good,” Sam said as he walked towards the door. Connie almost ran into him as he rushed out.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“We just got the locations of the enemy supply depot near Poway,” he said. “We’re going to meet about it in a few minutes.”
She watched him walking towards Sid’s RV, then went into the clubhouse.
“What the hell did you guys find out?” she asked Ryan. He looked away from the screen for a moment.
“The Commissioners of the CHP leaked a whole bunch of data about the enemy,” Ryan said. “They gave their lives to get it out, from what I can tell.”
“Won’t the enemy be ready to protect the depots when they see the info out there?”
“It’s encrypted,” Ryan said. “You need to have special access to get into it.”
“Shoot, we need to hit them fast, before the info isn’t good anymore,” Connie said.
“Yep,” Ryan said. “Hopefully there’s others who are seeing this and taking action in the other locations. This state is so damn huge. It’s going to take a lot of teams like us to stop these cretins.”
Clem came back in with John and Sarah. Sam followed with Sid and Yvonne. Sam saw Connie next to Ryan and rushed over to her side.
“You know we’re going to have to do this, right?” Sam asked her.
“Yes, I know,” Connie said. “I saw some of the video from Poway. I was coming to tell you about it when I ran into you at the door.”
“Heard there was an attack,” Sam said.
“The fight is still going on. The rednecks are holding their own, but there’s a large force to deal with. The bad part was the mass beheading.”
“No, they didn’t,” Sam said.
“Yeah they did,” she said. “Wish I hadn’t seen it.”
Sam’s face turned red with anger. “This is Saladin. I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch this time.”
“Where’s the supply depot?” Sid asked, walking up to Ryan. He pointed it out to him on the laptop screen. Sid looked at Yvonne and grinned. “You see what this is near?”
“Yeah, the Barona Reservation,” Yvonne said. “Think they’d help?”
“Yeah,” Sid said.
“How do we get there?” John asked, looking at the screen. “The highway is way up here.”
“We’ll get nailed if we take route 67 all the way there,” Sam said. “Let’s plug this laptop into the big screen, okay?”
“Yeah, go for it,” Ryan said.
Sam took it and connected it, then switched on the TV. It displayed the map.
“Look here,” Sam said. “We go up route 94 until we get to route 67, just past El Cajon here. Then stay on that until we get to Mapleview Street here. Take that behind the El Capitan High School and then get on Ashwood Street. That’ll turn into Wildcat Canyon Road, see?”
Sid laughed. “Yep, right to the Barona Reservation. I know that area. We’re gonna need four-wheel drive vehicles to get from the Barona Reservation to the supply depot. I mean good four-wheel drive, too. There’s a couple of stretches where there’s no road at all, and it’s not flat. Probably be best on horseback, frankly.”
“We need to take mortars and the claymore mines,” Sam said. “And we should attack after dark if we can.”
“Yeah,” Sid said. “When we light the place up, we need to have snipers up here on these ridges, to pick off everybody who survives the initial attack.”
“Who’s going?” Sam asked.
“You’re not going without me,” Connie said.
“Fair enough, sweetie,” Sam said. “We’ll take our Jeep. Who else?”
“Sid and I,” Yvonne said. “In our Jeep. It’s only a two door, not a four door like yours, though.”
“Think my four-
wheel drive truck will make it back there?” John asked.
“Yeah, probably,” Sid said. “That’s three vehicles. We’ve got two couples, plus John and Clem. Only six people.”
“I’m going,” Sarah said.
“You sure, honey?” John asked.
“I can shoot better than you can, and you know it,” she said. “I’ll be a sniper.”
“Okay, then let’s get moving,” Sam said.
“I’ll see if I can get more intelligence,” Ryan said. “If I find anything out I’ll be in touch.”
“Use the land line,” Sam said. “Remember we might not be able to trust our phones. Don’t use them on the road. Keep them switched off once we get as far as route 67. Got it?”
“I’ve got two sets of walkie talkies,” Sid said.
“Yeah, we’ve got a set too,” Connie said. “Let’s check the batteries and get them on the same channel.”
“Good idea,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”
“Somebody give that laptop back to me,” Ryan said. “I can’t get up by myself yet.”
Sam nodded and handed it back. Then everybody rushed out of the room as Ryan logged back onto the CHP site. “Let’s see who else can help.”
***
Morgan brought a tray of drinks to a table in the middle of the room. The game was Omaha, the players intense.
“Thanks a lot, little lady,” said a middle-aged man wearing a cowboy hat.
“You’re welcome, sir,” Morgan said with a smile.
“Call me Tex, honey,” he said
“Place too dead,” an old Asian lady said, looking around. “Wonder if them bad players?”
Tex glanced where she was looking. “Eurotrash UN creeps, Alice,” he said under his breath. “I’d like to take their money, but then I’d have to smell them.”
Alice cackled, and others at the table snickered. The UN Peacekeepers at the other table took notice.
“Uh oh,” Morgan said. “I think they heard you.”
“Don’t care,” Tex said. “I’ll waste them if they mess with me.”
“You bring place down,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Don’t do. Only fun we have now.”
One of the UN Peacekeepers motioned Morgan over. She felt her heart beating faster as she walked over, trying hard to appear calm.