by J. L. Bourne
Horse hooves kept clicking on the cobblestone as we transitioned down a gentle hill. I saw a horse statue up ahead. Approaching closer, I could see a large stethoscope around the statue’s neck and a doctor’s head mirror atop its head. A red cross was painted on the ribcage. The sight of the vet office pushed me ahead a little faster as Molly grunted in protest. I was scope-locked on the horse statue, tunnel visioned as I rode.
Maggie’s rifle report snapped me out of my focus as her shot ricocheted off the road with a loud ZING!
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” a woman screamed from cover.
My carbine was out of its scabbard before the woman could finish her sentence. I trained the red dot on the group of trees from where her voice had come, flipping over the magnifier to give me a little more clarity on the situation. I pulled the reins and gave Molly the command to walk backwards.
My faithful horse reluctantly complied, not wanting to back into the loud noise she’d just heard coming from the barrel of Maggie’s gun.
“Come out, or we’re shooting!” I yelled, my carbine leveled to the trees, red dot beaming bright like the eye of the devil.
As the bushes began to move, I was off my horse, taking concealment behind a nearby vehicle. A woman stepped out of the bushes, dirty and disheveled, holding the hand of a young girl. I moved the devil’s eye away from them.
“Stop there,” I commanded loudly. “What do you want?!”
“Food. My husband is too weak to hunt and my child is hungry. Just food. That’s all. What are you doing here?” the woman asked, her eyes searching near Molly, trying to find me.
“We’re here for medication; my friend has an infection,” I responded.
“I have medication at our house. Antibiotics, ibuprofen, and morphine. If you could spare food, anything . . .” the woman said as she began to beg. “No one is left here. We’re not important enough for help. Everyone that lived here left already. We thought we could make it through on our farm.”
The woman began to sob and the girl reached her hands up into the air for the woman to pick her up.
I looked over to Maggie to get a read on what she was thinking. As expected, she rolled her eyes and I watched her lips as she mouthed, “Whatever.”
I told the woman not to make any sudden movements. I whispered to Maggie that I was going to check the clinic to see what was left inside. I handed Maggie the reins and stepped over to the building, mindful of the woman and the child. If she were to pull a gun from underneath her rags, I’d have little choice but to waste her in front of her daughter.
And then what?
Leave the child to die out here? If I were being honest to myself, I’d probably let the fucking woman shoot and kill me.
The woman didn’t skin a gun and remained still as I breached the front door to the vet clinic, negotiating around the receptionist.
“Payment is due upon services rendered” was the sign posted prominently atop the receptionist desk. I made it to a door leading to the back office, which happened to be locked. I breached the door with a well-placed kick, sending it flying so hard that the knob dug into the drywall.
I tossed the place top to bottom looking for drugs. They were long ransacked along with the rest of this town. I realized at this point that I had no choice but to negotiate with the woman outside.
—————
Brenda
I walked into the bright light once more, meeting the woman and child.
“Take us to your place. We need antibiotics,” I told her.
Maggie looked at me, but I couldn’t read her at the moment. She had the facial expressions of a T-Rex. You could never tell if she wanted to kill you.
The woman turned to walk back into the tree line.
“Don’t try anything—don’t make me add another demon to trampoline on my soul. I’ve had enough,” I said, not really sure why I took the time to say that.
The woman trekked through the trees for half a mile until everything opened up to a hay field that eventually rounded a bend to a farmhouse and large white barn. The woman asked me to wait outside so she could speak to her husband.
“That’s fine, but my friend and I will fall back until you come back out,” I told her.
After a few minutes, she came out with her husband leaning on her shoulder for support.
He looked a lot worse than Maggie.
“I’m Brenda, and this is John. This is our farm. The reason you couldn’t find any meds at the clinic was because we took them. John was a vet tech there—he had permission.”
I got right down to business, telling them that Maggie and my horse had a nasty infection from a gunfight with the Chinese military. They both smiled at hearing that and offered that we come inside.
John looked Maggie over, determining that she probably had some shrapnel still inside her arm. After applying a local anesthesia, he opened her up and removed a small metal shard with a pair of sterilized tweezers. During the operation, the man looked as if he’d pass out from exhaustion. He carefully stitched her back up and asked his wife to help him to the porch once more.
Maggie stayed in bed, waiting for the medication to wear off as John struggled down the front porch steps to look at my horse. Molly was a little leery of the new smell and tried to step away from John, but I comforted her with a pat and a soothing voice.
“She’s infected pretty bad. How long you been running her like this?” John said.
“A few days. No choice.”
John continued to examine Molly, nearly earning a kick to the leg after the horse reacted to the sharp pain from the check-up.
“Well, mister, the good news is that I have enough antibiotics to kill your friend’s infection, but I can’t help the horse now. From the looks of the swelling, I’d say she has a few days, maybe a week if you get damn lucky. She’s going to be in considerable pain between now and then.”
I let that sink in for a long while, petting Molly and kissing her on her nose. She was pleased by the affection, but I could see that she wasn’t doing well.
I went back inside the farmhouse to check on Maggie. Brenda had her on an IV drip bag and was already administering antibiotics.
I retrieved some rations from my saddlebag and handed them to Brenda, who immediately began to prepare food for the little girl, who was called Naomi.
After considerable deliberation, I decided to do the right thing.
I asked John to give the meds to Maggie in exchange for enough horsemeat to see them through the rest of the winter, if they prepared it right and didn’t waste anything.
I took Molly out back behind the proverbial barn and said my good-byes. Maggie came out to support me and she could see that I was a little torn up over what I had to do, but I didn’t want the poor animal to suffer any longer than was necessary. I kissed and rubbed the horse one last time.
Reassuring her that she was a good girl, I put my suppressed muzzle up to her head and pulled the trigger.
The thump of Molly hitting the ground was psychologically louder and more damaging than those of humans I’d sent to the ground over the past year. The horse was loyal to me and was a good companion during our journey from the Arkansas mountains to where we now found ourselves. Molly’s death solved a lot of problems for John, Brenda, and Naomi, but they caused problems for Maggie and me. Elvis was a stout horse that could carry Maggie and most of the supplies, but not everything. We’d need to figure it out.
Part of the deal was that Brenda and Maggie harvest the horsemeat, as there was no goddamned way I could bring myself to do that. I spoke to John as the women worked behind the barn and ascertained that he was sick with the flu and malnutrition, and I hoped that the new meat would bring him and his family strength and get them through the winter. I threw in a small bottle of vitamins to go along with the meat. I hadn’t even bothered breaking the seal on it since we left and figured that he and his family could use them more than I could.
HOOVES TO HYDRAULICS
Maggie and I took a few hours in the old white barn to strategize our next move. Being down a horse wasn’t going to do us any favors. Using our detailed charts, we circled every airfield within ten miles of our intended path through Virginia. After some deliberation and checking of runway lengths, we picked our target airfield and planned our route. We said our good-byes to the family the following evening amidst the heart-stinging aroma of cooking horse meat.
Maggie showed marked improvement since she began the antibiotics. She was still recovering, so obviously she’d be taking Elvis in case we got into some trouble. I doubt that ornery animal would let me ride him anyway. He was used to Maggie; I’d even go so far as to say he was partial to her. As we moved ahead on foot, Elvis’s load was a littler heavier, but so was mine.
Every so often I’d catch Elvis looking back for Molly, the travel companion that would never be there again. I’m glad it was dark—Maggie wouldn’t notice my watering eyes. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being devastated over losing my horse, but not over killing men. It was a strange world in which we lived, and every day proved that.
With our radios completely powered down and batteries removed, our chances of being geolocated became exponentially more remote. These chances were even more to our favor if we kept moving at night and sleeping during the day.
About halfway to the airfield, we saw a light on the highway far ahead and disappeared into the brush. A few minutes later, a bicycle pedaled by, its headlight shining brightly onto the road—an older man traveling hard to his destination.
Pedaling as if his life depended on it.
At that instant, I suspected that our previous host had called the bicyclist on the radio about their newfound food. I prayed that they didn’t say anything else over the airwaves.
After discussing this theory with Maggie, we both agreed we might have to get off the road quick at the first sound of rotor blades beating the cold night air. One advantage to not having Molly was that I didn’t get very cold. I was working pretty hard to keep my forty pound pack from getting the best of me as I tried to keep up with Maggie and Elvis on point. Just before the eastern sky began to change hue, we made it to the top of a hill looking down on the airfield.
We had some work to do.
—————
After arriving at the airfield perimeter, we had to cut the chain link fence to get inside. I didn’t want to attempt entry at the terminal side of the small airstrip in case someone was camped out there. After splitting the fence wide enough, Maggie put Elvis in the brush for the time being. If all went well, poor Elvis would be on his own.
The runway was littered with small branches and other debris from suffering a year of zero maintenance. Six aircraft sat evenly spaced apart, with lines tethering them to pad eyes on the ground. We eventually made it through the thick grass and stepped out onto the concrete. An old windsock was swaying in the breeze, half torn apart. Adjusting our NVDs and making our guns ready, Maggie and I moved in on the aircraft, hangars, and admin buildings scattered through the eastern side of the airfield. We purposely didn’t choose a larger airfield, as we’d have a much lesser chance of finding a ride out of here.
I checked the first aircraft, an old 172. Her cockpit glass was riddled with small caliber bullet holes and her pilot the same. I opened the door and pulled the shriveled corpse out onto the frosty tarmac. The interior smelled like I imagined it would.
Death.
I thought I’d get lucky and the aircraft would only have damage to the cockpit window, maybe some minor airframe damage, but I wasn’t. The controls, glass cockpit, and much of the avionics were damaged. Worst of all, the fuel tanks were ruptured, having long ago spilled their fuel onto the ground. A puddle of oil formed below the engine cowling where another bullet must have struck something underneath. Dozens of 5.56 cases lay on the ground. Picking one up to examine more closely under a flashlight, I observed that they were tarnished and far from fresh, just like the body that was rotting inside the aircraft for months, maybe since the beginning.
I moved on to the next aircraft. One of the tires was flat, but that was a problem that could be solved, unlike the bullet riddled mess I’d just inspected. Much to my frustration, the aircraft passed inspection up until the point I examined the wings. A perfectly round 5.56 hole punctured the wingtip, probably killing this aircraft just like the last one.
Maggie yelled at me from one of the nearby hangars. I got so involved with inspecting the aircraft outside that I’d forgotten about her. I had a couple more aircraft to inspect, but I broke off the search to see what she needed. I stepped through the hangar door into the darkness, letting my NVD adjust to the sight of a business jet sitting diagonally inside.
“Well?” Maggie said.
“I’m not multi-engine rated, Maggie,” I told her, pretty sure that this ten-million-dollar monstrosity wasn’t what we were looking for this morning.
“Well, I am, you sexist bastard. Flew a few Evergreen sorties in my day, long before you got sheep dipped, young blood,” Maggie snapped back, startling me with the tip of her sharp tongue.
You haven’t said much more than that since we’d left Arkansas, I thought but didn’t say aloud.
“Okay, so you can fly this thing. It’s a jet and hasn’t had a maintenance check in a pretty long time,” I said.
“Yes, I know it’s a goddamn jet, but it takes less to maintain this thing than most of those pieces of shit out there. Let me take a crack at the checklist and see what’s up. Go get Elvis.”
Not wanting to discourage her, I did what she asked, but not before securing the airfield. There were no signs of recent activity in the area. After retrieving Elvis, I rigged up some rope to him and tied off an old tarp I’d found sitting in a stack next to the hangar.
I spent the rest of the morning until sunup leading Elvis up and down the runway, getting rid of branches, rocks, and other bullshit that could get stuck inside a jet intake on takeoff or blow a brittle tire. Halfway back to the hanger with a full tarp dragging behind Elvis, I heard the sound.
A loud, high-pitched engine noise shot from the hangar door out onto the runway. I quickly scanned my surroundings to see if the noise caused movement at any of the perimeters. So far, I saw nothing, no flash of a weapon light or vehicle reflector motion.
I left Elvis where he was and ran over to the hangar to find Maggie’s face covered in grease as she held a set of wrenches in her hand. Over behind the jet, I saw a power cart plugged into the aircraft with a fuel hose running to support equipment from outside the door.
The jet door was open, its steps already lowered to the hangar floor.
“Is it serviceable?!” I screamed over the power cart engine.
“Yeah, I think so! Open that hangar door, will you?!” Maggie said, pointing to the large doors.
I went over the control panel thinking that pushing the button would do something, finally realizing that the power cart was plugged into the aircraft and not the building. I disengaged the motor on the bay doors and manually began to retract them up into the ceiling, revealing the morning sun as it spilled over the top of the hangar, casting a large shadow just before the light shone and sparkled from the ice on the ground beyond.
Elvis looked over at us as if we were insane, cocking his head to the side. He didn’t dare approach the noise without being led. With the bay doors open, the fumes from the power cart began to thin out, allowing Maggie to work. I took a glance at the manual she was looking at between wrench turns and panel pops. It appeared as if she was doing the monthly check on the aircraft.
My suspicions were confirmed after an engine panel was closed and she stepped down off the ladder.
“Everything looks safe enough. I wouldn’t take it across the ocean, but as long as we have a few divert airfields preplanned, I think we’ll be okay as far as dying goes. Fuel state will give us about four hours of flight time, way more than we need. I could top it off with what’s in the tan
k outside, but I know the stuff in the jet is still good. I took a sample.” Maggie wiped the sweat from her forehead with an oily shop rag.
After shutting down the power cart, Maggie asked when I thought it’d be best to leave. We had a discussion and decided we should at least get a little sleep and figure out what we were going to do about Elvis. With everything shut down, we brought the horse inside and tied him off to the tool cabinet.
I didn’t feel safe enough to sleep, as the hangar doors were open wide to the adjacent road. I sat on the wing, eating some of the last of my rations, watching for any signs of trouble as Maggie slept. She’d be piloting, so I wanted her fresh enough for a safe takeoff and landing, the two times that we’d be at the most risk.
—————
I fought the urge to fall asleep while sitting on the wing of the Gulfstream, my back to the fuselage. The flurries started midmorning, prompting me to start a fire outside the hangar. Maggie was asleep in her bag, but I was on sentry duty and freezing my ass off.
I gathered some of the branches Elvis and I cleared from the runway and made a small bonfire. Elvis came sauntering over to warm up. I gave him some pats on the neck and fed him the hay I had shoved in the increasingly open space of my pack. I still reeled with guilt from having to shoot Molly, and the thought of leaving poor Elvis out here to fend for himself only increased the sickening feeling in my stomach.
“When we go, you don’t stop for anyone. Head west, back over the mountains, okay?” I said to the animal, hoping it’d somehow understand.
As I fed Elvis the last of the hay, I caught a flash from the corner of my eye on the road through the chain link fence. The same place we’d cut through.
My gun came up quickly but there was no target to engage. Whatever had caught my attention was gone. Trusting my gut, I rushed over to Maggie, waking her up. My kit was already stowed, buckled into one of the leather passenger seats inside.