by Ben S Reeder
“He got in his head,” she said, then turned to me. “She’s got you pegged.” We moved among the haphazardly piled office furniture until we saw the glow of lanterns ahead of us. Two men in brown stood at the windows, facing away from me. I drew the SOCOM and the suppressor and started to screw it onto the barrel. Hernandez and Kaplan unlimbered their SMGs.
“Okay, how do you guys want to do this?” I asked the two Marines. “I’d rather not kill these two, but if one of them gets a call out…”
“I thought you had this all planned out,” Kaplan said softly. I shook my head.
“I’ve been mostly making this up as I go along,” I said.
“Great,” Amy muttered. “More Xanatos speedchess.”
“Can you two knock someone out quietly?” I asked. Kaplan shrugged, and Hernandez pulled her crowbar from her belt. We crept up behind the two men. Their attention was on their radios, and they never heard us. Hernandez swung her crowbar at the back of her target’s head, and he went down in a heap. Kaplan grabbed his man, spun him around and punched him. There was an odd comfort in seeing someone getting punched out that wasn’t me. I knelt beside Hernandez’s man and pulled his radio from his shirt pocket. As I checked the indicator for the channel Hall’s people were using, several people started walking toward us, coming into the light. A group of them were dressed in suits or designer jeans and tops, but behind them were people in less expensive clothes, mostly jeans and t-shirts, and one familiar figure in boxer shorts and a white tank top.
“Mr. Garza,” I said to him as I pulled the guard’s shirt off. “I was hoping I’d find you on the way out.” I yanked his shoes off as Garza stepped forward.
“What do you want?” he asked, his tone wary. I tossed the shirt to him and started undoing the unconscious man’s pants.
“Come with us if you want to live,” I quoted as I pulled the brown trousers free and tossed them Garza’s way.
“You’re taking me with you,” an older man in a gray suit jacket and slacks said. His round face sported multiple chins and his button down shirt was stained with sweat. Several of the well-dressed men and women stepped forward and voiced their agreement.
“The plan was to help you all get out of here if you wanted,” I said as I switched the radio I’d taken to the new frequency.
“That’s not good enough,” the man said. “You have to get me to safety. Do you even know who I am? I’m Cyrus Wall, the owner of Wall Propane. My tax dollars pay your salary, and I have important friends in Washington. If you people know what’s good for you, you’re going to get me to the nearest inprocessing center and you’re going to make sure my ass is on the first flight to St Louis. You got it?” I cocked my head at him as I found myself face to face with the kind of person I used to have to listen to at Provident American, then turned and raised an eyebrow at Kaplan and Hernandez. Both of them shook their heads, and I glanced over my shoulder at Amy. Her expression dripped disgust.
“You’re on your own, Cyrus,” I said. “We can help you get out of here, but after that the best I can tell you is to head east or south of here.” Several people nodded, including some of the crowd behind Cyrus.
“We’ll help,” Garza said. “Just let us know what we can do.”
“For the moment, I need everyone to stay quiet,” I said as I help up my stolen radio. Garza nodded, and the room went silent. I held the radio up and pressed the transmit key. “Hey, Daniel. It’s Dave. You listening?”
“I’m here,” Hall said. “I thought you would have had the balls to try to kill me by now.”
“Nah, it’s too much fun watching you sweat. I just wanted to tell you something before things get serious, though. I lied when I said the last thing you were going to hear before I killed you was the sound of my voice.”
“What am I gonna hear instead, David?” he asked tightly.
“Silence.” I dropped the radio as Hall’s frantic voice came through the ear bud. The sound of a round being chambered in a pistol was loud in the room, and I looked to my left to see Cyrus pointing the other guard’s gun at us. Kaplan, Hernandez and I brought our guns up in unison.
“I’ve had enough!” he snapped. “You’re going to do what you’re told or I’m going to shoot someone!” He waved the gun back and forth, then he focused in on Amy and brought the barrel to bear on her. “I’ll start with the dead weight. Now put the guns down. Now!” All three of us lowered the barrels of our guns, but none of us set them down. Slowly, I put my finger on the trigger of the SOCOM, and the laser sight put a green dot on Wall’s stomach.
“Don’t threaten her,” I said. “It’s bad for you.”
“Fuck you!” he yelled. “I’m the man with the gun, I’ll shoot whoever the hell I want! I’m sick of people like you thinking you fucking matter. You’re failures for a reason! Now get your lazy asses in gear and get me out of here.”
“People like me,” I said softly. Slowly, I brought the green dot up to his hand. “You know the big difference between ‘people like me’ and douchebags like you?”
“About twenty million dollars a year,” Wall sneered.
I pulled the trigger.
For a moment, he stood there and looked down at the ruin of his right hand as the gun flew to one side. Everyone behind him jumped at the sound of the SOCOM’s suppressed bark. Then he grabbed at his hand and let off a pitiful little wail. He dropped to his knees and kept up the high pitched keening. When I took a step toward him, he shrank back from me.
“I don’t point a gun at someone unless I’m ready to pull the trigger,” I told him, then turned to face the rest of the people that had gathered. “Anyone who wants to make a break for it is welcome to tag along, but I’ll warn you now, it’s likely to be a fight to get out of the garage. Honestly, if it’s safety you want, you’re better off staying here. If you can live with what you have to give up for a little security, then by all means…stay. Otherwise, follow me.” I scooped up the naked guard’s gun belt and started walking back the way we’d come from.
“You can’t leave me like this,” Wall whimpered as I went past him. I stopped and turned a hard gaze on him.
“You threatened my kid,” I told him. “You don’t fucking matter.” I turned and walked away. Garza caught up with me as we headed through the darkened hallway toward the elevators. I offered the gun to him, but he held up a hand to refuse it. I shrugged and we walked in silence, but I could feel his eyes on me every step of the way.
“What’s the plan?” Kaplan asked when I stopped at the other stairway. Ten, maybe twelve people were milling around behind him with one of the lanterns lighting the group’s way.
“The three of us go down into the garage and grab one of the Strykers…maybe two, if we have someone else who can drive one. There’s an armory upstairs, and given the way things have been going tonight, it might be lightly guarded. If some of you wanted to… ummm… liberate some weapons while we take care of the guards downstairs, we’ll wait for you.”
“We’ll need some guns,” one of the men said. I held up the pistol I’d taken and the shotgun. The man who’d spoken stepped forward and took the gunbelt. A woman came up and took the shotgun. I studied them in the lantern’s glow as they looked the guns over. The man was in his thirties, with dark hair that was cut close to his scalp. Judging by his jeans, the dark button down shirt and sturdy combat boots, I would have guessed he’d been a cop before the world went nuts. The woman was a different story altogether. In her forties, she had the look of a professional, with brown hair streaked with gray. Her dark slacks had obviously seen better days. The pale silk blouse she wore had been torn in a couple of places, and her feet were bare. While the man handled the pistol with the smooth confidence of long familiarity, the woman handled the shotgun like she’d never held one up close. However, with each passing second, I could see that she was becoming more and more comfortable with it. Her eyes and hands moved over the weapon, and after a few moments she racked the pump back carefully, lettin
g it move just enough to see if there was a shell in the chamber. When she could see that the chamber was empty, she completed the action and turned to face me.
“Do you have any more ammunition for this?” she asked. I smiled and handed her the box of shells I’d taken for it. She immediately thumbed one into the tube and grabbed another handful and stuck them in her front pocket.
“No more than one rifle and one pistol per person,” Kaplan said. “Go heavy on the ammo.”
“We got this,” the man with the pistol said as he and the woman led some of the others up the stairs. Kaplan joined Hernandez and me at the door to the stairwell.
“I hope one of you can drive a Stryker,” I said.
“I’m an LAV driver,” Hernandez said. “A lot of the basics are the same.”
“I’ll grab one of the Humvees,” Kaplan added.
I turned to Amy. “When the other group gets back, I need you to lead everyone down and keep folks out of harm’s way if there’s any shooting going on, okay?” She nodded and I gave her a quick hug before we took off down the stairs under the blue glow of my flashlight. Two flights down, and we were at the door. I slowly pushed it open and we slipped out into the underground parking garage. I killed the light and followed them as we crouched low and made our way to the Strykers and Humvees. Low voices drifted toward us from the red door Amy and I had been led through when we first arrived. I peeked over the trunk of a car to see five men standing in front of the door, bathed in the yellow glow of a kerosene lantern. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see Kaplan pointing toward the row of green vehicles that were parked forty feet away from the group of sentries. I nodded and we stalked forward. When we reached the first Humvee conversation stopped for a moment, and we froze in place. A moment or two later someone said something, and we started moving, using their laughter to cover our sound. We split off there, with the Marines going to the vehicles while I crept still closer and unslung the M39.
A low slung red sports car was parked next to the Stryker closest to the door, and I kneeled down so I could see the sentries through the windows. If I kept still, they wouldn’t even know I was there. I took a slow breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. With each breath, I let my muscles relax a little and imagined myself melting a little into my surroundings. I let my eyes drift to the right of the men at the door and closed my right eye to let it adjust to darkness again. My grandfather had taught me a hundred little tricks like that as a kid, taking me out for weekend hunting trips, camping trips over the summers, and the occasional road trip. It was only when I got older that I realized those trips also coincided with my father’s unexplained absences. It was on one of those early trips that he’d taught me how to be still. Not to just sit there, but to become part of the landscape. Gramps just called it thinking like a bush. Later, I figured out something else Gramps had been teaching me: how to listen. Eventually, I’d learned how to tell when animals were approaching, and over time, I could tell by the sounds they made what I was hearing. More importantly, it taught me to listen to my instincts. As I sat there listening to the guards muttering about how they should have been drinking and screwing Sinner chicks, my hackles went up and I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. As the chill passed over me and faded, I was left with the sense of something out in the night, waiting in the darkness. For a moment, it was like the angel of death had just passed my door, like everything men ever feared in the darkness was lurking at the edge of the light. I forced myself to keep breathing slowly, to keep my attention focused on the men at the door, but each breath felt like a sigh of relief.
Finally, I heard the soft tread of feet, and I slowly turned my head. Amy came around the rear of the Stryker and put a hand on my arm. I got to my feet and opened my right eye once I was looking away from the light as I followed her. The group of refugees was gathered behind the Humvee that Kaplan had chosen. Hernandez was crouched beside the Stryker’s rear door, and Kaplan was between the two vehicles.
“We’re almost ready,” he whispered to me. “But loading up is going to make too much noise to hide. And once we start the engines…” he let the sentence trail off. I nodded.
“I’ll keep them busy,” I said. “Just save a seat for me.” I turned and padded back to the sports car, crouching behind the rear wheel this time. I brought the rifle up and trained it on the tallest of the men at the door. As I waited for the first tell-tale sound to alert them, I hoped the scope hadn’t been knocked out of whack.
It was the squeak of a vehicle door that first got their attention. As they unlimbered their guns, I took a deep breath and let out a low moan, hoping I sounded at least a little like one of the zombies. It had the desired effect, as they huddled closer to the lantern. One of them pulled a flashlight from his belt and shined it into the darkness. He aimed it at the open space in front of the vehicles, and of course came up empty. Then Hernandez started the Stryker’s engine.
Their reaction was quick, and as well thought out as most hasty decisions tended to be. They shot at the armored vehicle. As their rounds bounced off the Stryker’s armor, I put the scope on the chest of a guy at the rear and stroked the trigger. The M39 kicked and my target was knocked back against the wall. The blackshirts dove for cover then, and Hernandez pulled the Stryker out into the middle of the drive. Bullets pinged into the car I was behind as the guards fired into the darkness, so I ducked down and moved to the front of the car. When I popped back up I saw one of the guards trying to get closer to my position, so I sent a round his way. He dove for cover between two other cars. I turned and put another couple shots into the wall nearest the other three guards to let them know I still cared, then ducked down and slipped behind the Stryker behind me. I heard the Humvee roar to life, and the squeal of rubber as Kaplan got it moving. There was a crash as he plowed through the barrier they’d erected in front of the ramp, and then I heard the Stryker’s engine rev.
“Dave!” I heard Amy shout. I fired at the car I’d last seen the sneaky guard hiding behind, then turned to look her way. She had the rear door of the Stryker open and was gesturing for me to get in. I ran for the front of the Stryker I was using for cover, then stopped and poked my head around its nose. The sneaky guard popped up and took aim at me, so I took the chance and sprinted for the open crew door. I heard a burst of gunfire and the whiz of rounds passing all too close to my tender hide, then the clang and whine of copper jacketed bullets ricocheting off armor plating as I dove through the opening.
“He’s in!” someone yelled. “Go!” The armored behemoth lurched under me, then I was bounced off the floor as it hit the barrier. The floor tilted and then I was thrown to my left. I was way too familiar with this ride. As soon as she hit level ground, I handed Amy the M39 and made my way forward to the command seat. I heard the ping of the occasional round bouncing off the Stryker’s impervious hide as we made another right, then a left, and relative silence fell.
Then it struck me: I had no idea what to do next.
Chapter 7
A Voice In the Darkness
~ Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark. ~ Dan Millman
We were back to plan A: get the hell out of the city. All that had changed was the way we were doing it. We had the vehicles, and with the Stryker, we could probably push our way past any of the road blocks on the bridges. Hernandez followed Kaplan back to the neighborhood we’d been captured in and filled me in along the way.
“The lieutenant saw the trucks roll up on you two, and he figured you’d either talk your way out of it or get your ass shot. Either way, he figured they’d come looking, so we grabbed all our gear and hid it. Then we tried to follow one of the patrols back so we could figure out how to get you out.” Amy was crouched behind the driver’s seat, her face half-illuminated by the screens and instrument lights. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she’d shucked her armor. I was listening to Hernandez ove
r the vehicle’s comm system in the crew helmets.
“Did you plan ahead to use the classic ruse of letting yourselves get captured as your way in, or were you improvising,” I asked.
“We saw how well it worked for you,” she shot back.
“I’m a professional. Don’t try this at home.” She laughed and pulled the Stryker into a left turn, then I felt the vehicle come to a stop. A few moments later, someone tapped at the rear door. One of our passengers, an Asian man in slacks and a pale colored dress shirt, opened the door to reveal Kaplan and the man who’d taken the pistol back at New Eden.
“Supply stop,” Kaplan said. I started to pull myself out of the gunner’s seat, but he stopped me with a raised palm. “I need you on the radio,” he said, then pointed to one of the other well-dressed people, a blond woman in a grey business skirt and blouse and the man who’d opened the door. They followed him, and I let myself relax back into the seat, grateful for the break. As my overworked muscles started to relax a little, I switched the headset over to the radio feed and set it to scan.
“Sentries said they headed east,” Mickey’s voice came over the radio after a few seconds. “Ya’ll head for that house we found with the cars in front of it. They might go back to it. And remember, you kill them Marines, and you can even rough that sumbitch Stewart up some, so long as he survives the trip back, but you don’t hurt the girl. She belongs to the Prophet.” I switched back over to the internal system.
“They’re heading this way, we might want to get moving.” I pulled the headset off and went to the rear door. The man Kaplan had commandeered was trotting back from an old garage that opened onto the alley we were parked in, hustling back to the Stryker with my cache tube and one of the boxes of food, with the woman right behind him carrying a backpack and a box of her own. I grabbed the pack and tossed it through the opening then held my hands out for the box. She was all too ready to rid herself of her burden.