The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set)

by Taylor Michaels

  "Oui, I understand. George and I could take the Demon and go out for reconnaissance."

  "But you might shoot me, mon amour. We cannot have too many teams out at one time. You should stay here and protect the food and the others. We may need cover to return. You can do that. Oui?"

  Her soft voice gave Pierre comfort. "Mais oui. Of course. But I will worry about you."

  "If we are all ready, I'll call George," said John.

  They turned off the kitchen light and sneaked out into the darkness. George drove the Dark Demon over to the side of the house and turned on the illuminators as the four left the building. After they were a distance away from the building, George turned off his infrared illuminators and Charles led them through the maze of spider holes.

  "You were busy with that backhoe, Charles," John whispered, when they had come to the back of the property and away from Charles' earthworks.

  "Most of the holes only required a few scoops. What now?"

  John turned his attention from Charles and onto Cho. "Generals Cho and Marceau, what now?"

  "John and Cho go that way," Cho said pointing to the left. Marceau and Charles go other way."

  "Don't forget," Charles said. "These glasses aren't perfect. Watch out for dark spots. They could be holes in the ground."

  "Dark spot. What mean, dark spot. Everything dark."

  John readjusted Cho's goggles and she said. "Now see much better. Still much dark."

  John and Cho walked away after Cho had readjusted her goggles again. They both looked like giant bugs from old sci fi movies with the strange binocular goggles on their heads. After five minutes, John saw a light. "Cho. Check out the light ahead. I think it's another set of goggles, but with the illuminator turned on. I made sure ours were off."

  "That why everything so dark."

  A wall of trees hid them from their enemy. They pressed themselves behind a large tree, taking quick peeks at the light. The light bobbed up and down and moved back and forth as the wearer walked. After a few minutes, they heard footsteps in the leaves. And finally they made out the silhouette of a person picking his way slowly between the trees. The person had short hair and walked like a man, but it was hard to tell with the goggles. The enemy was carrying a rifle and a backpack.

  Cho waited until the person was only thirty feet away and threw a knife. John could hear the swoosh of the knife and then the thump when the knife hit its target. The person screamed and a few seconds later, a second swoosh and another thump. The person fell to the ground. Cho quickly removed her goggles, handing them to John, and ran over. She picked up the man's rifle and hit the man in the head with it, then retrieved her knives.

  "Dead," she whispered. Then she opened the man's backpack and ran her hands through it. She pulled out a revolver and two boxes of bullets. "Check tomorrow in light. We go on?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  They surveyed the perimeter for another hour and saw nobody. John pressed the transmit button on his radio twice to signal they were returning to the Home. On the way back, they walked by the man Cho had knifed and picked up his backpack and guns. They arrived back at the Home a few minutes after Charles and Marceau. Cho put the backpack onto the kitchen counter and began rifling through it.

  "Clothes and little food," she said.

  Pierre picked up the rifle and began looking at it. "It is a sniper rifle, I think. No iron sight. Scope with large objective lens, floating barrel and adjustable stock. Perhaps the man was to watch us from a great distance and shoot anyone he saw. Through the windows even."

  "What kind of range do you think it would have?" asked John.

  "More than one thousand feet. Possibly three thousand feet or more. Far more than my little rifle." Pierre had a gleam in his eye. "I shall keep this one."

  "If they send another person with a similar gun, at least we have a chance. Charles, what do you think? Would it make sense to have only one sniper? Out back? Logically, it would sound like two would be needed?"

  Charles reflected, but only for a moment. "As you said before, they harass us from the back and allow us to leave from the front. Then, they are down the road and ambush us. Not a bad strategy."

  "A great strategy. We would have no defense, but we could stay here forever and eat all the food."

  "If the electricity comes from solar panels on the roof, it would be easy to put the panels out of service with such a rifle," said Pierre. "With no electricity we would have no water. With no water, we must leave in a few days."

  John snapped his fingers. "So, that's it. They would only have to wait for three days, maybe a few more if we drained the hot water tanks. A good plan. Too good. This is a strategic, smart group we've encountered. So, what's our plan, Charles? We need to be smarter than they are."

  "If I were running their operation, I would make the ambush point several miles away, if I knew where we lived and what road we would take. That would give them a greater element of surprise. If they didn't know our route, the ambush point would have to be close. I recall the road and, to be sure they hit us, with only two groups, their ambush point would have to be only a few thousand feet."

  "So, we assume they don't know our path and we continue our nighttime raids and take them out, one at a time. I wonder how long it will take for them to discover he's missing." John's eyes landed on the backpack.

  "He didn't have a radio. So, probably not until morning. I'll take first watch in the rear of the buildings. One of my spider holes is bigger than the rest. More of a manhole. I'll be back in four hours."

  "I'll go next," said John, "although I'm not crazy about the name, spider hole."

  "It helps to tuck your pants into your socks and your shirt into your pants."

  "What do I tuck my head into?"

  "If I have to tell you …" Charles picked up one of the night vision goggles and turned off the kitchen light before going outside.

  Pierre watched with a quizzical look on his face as Charles left. "Your friend Charles is a strange man, Jean. But a valuable one. I will return to my station by the front window. I will tell Fred to get some sleep. Someone should."

  John pulled out his radio to retrieve an update from George in the Dark Demon. "What's up, George?"

  "Not much. You back in? I heard the scream. Not you I hope."

  "Nope. Cho hit a sniper. We think their base is close. If you want to cruise around looking for it, I'll ride shotgun."

  "Sure."

  "John, you go sleep."

  "Cho, you go sleep. I'll be back in an hour. I'll sleep then."

  "Cho go protect John."

  "Get some sleep."

  John walked to the front office room where Pierre had stationed himself. Pierre had fortified his barricade of furniture with old gray metal file cabinets. John told Pierre the plan. Then, John walked out the back door, waving to Charles, or where he thought Charles might be. George waited in the driveway of the Retirement Home where John slid into the passenger seat with his rifle.

  "Everything OK? Odd about the sniper."

  "Yeah. Pierre thought he was going to harass us and take out the solar panels on the roof. We'd have to leave and pass by some ambush point. I'd like to find that ambush point. It shouldn't be too far. Maybe only a quarter of a mile. Should be one in each direction."

  "Which way, first?"

  "The sniper was coming from the east. Let's try that."

  George slowly drove east on the highway with the infrared illuminators turned off. The screens showed the landscape in a dark gray. "Hard to see without lights."

  "Go as slow as you want. We're not going that far and we're in no hurry."

  After ten minutes, John said, "Let's try the other way. Nothing here."

  They went back past the Home and a mile in the other direction, still finding no sign of life and returned to the Home, frustrated that they had not found anything.

  "What do you think, John? Down one of the side streets?"

  "Sure, go east again and see wh
at you can find. I still think that's our best bet."

  George drove up and down several side streets before coming to a house where the windows showed a strange glow.

  Rolling down the window and looking out, John could see no signs of life, but George always said the cameras were more sensitive than the human eye. George backed the Dark Demon up the street and back to the highway, parking the car between two houses.

  "We go investigate?"

  "No, George. I go investigate. You go back to the Home and tell Fred. You stay out of sight with the Demon. We don't want the Demon to be lost. It's too important."

  George smiled and said, "Sure. Whatever you say, 'ol bud. Not like you're too important or anything."

  John looked at George and said, "My old friend, I've said it many times to many people. You are a genius and more than anybody, you are responsible for our many successes. I think you are the most important person here and your Dark Demon is our most important possession. You and your Demon are what I have to protect and I will protect you with my life."

  George smiled and wiped his eyes as John opened the door and left with his rifle and his night vision goggles.

  John walked back the way they had come, took cover behind the house next door to the target house and waited. Twenty minutes later, Fred showed up.

  "Anything?"

  "No, Fred. No movement. No sounds. A little spooky with that glow. Let's go around back and find out if we can see anything else."

  They stole around to the back of the house, human stealth mode in control, careful not to make any noise or step in any holes. From there, they could see the back of the house they suspected. They waited and watched for another ten minutes, but saw nothing and heard nothing. They moved closer, hoping to hear something.

  Another ten minutes passed and John heard a noise and then a voice.

  "Put down your weapons. You're surrounded."

  John turned to see a man holding a shotgun.

  "I said drop your weapons."

  "You also said we were surrounded. I only see one person. We are two. It takes more than one to surround two."

  Another voice came from the side of the house. "Make it two. Drop your weapons."

  John looked at Fred and nodded. They both dropped their rifles. The second person was behind the brick chimney of the house. Even if they could shoot the first man, the second had good cover and they had none. The second man could easily shoot one of them. Probably both.

  "You fell into our trap. We put just enough light in that house that you'd notice it. But we made it look like the light was covered up. Nice car you have. Stealthy. Night vision."

  "Thanks. We like it," John said, furiously thinking of a way out of this ambush, but nothing came to mind. No matter how hard he thought, the only thing to come to mind was "John you are so stupid." They were alone and without backup.

  "We almost didn't see it the first time. We want it. We will bargain your lives for your car. And, of course, we get the Retirement Home and all the food, too. Sound fair?"

  "Sounds fair, but why would you let us go once you have the car. Why not take the car and then shoot us? We would have no leverage on you once you had the car. No reason for us to give up the car."

  "Life is full of chances. You can take the chance or we can shoot you and go back to our backup plan to disable the solar panels and drive you out. We will still have the food and the car."

  "You must know quite a bit about the place," John said, thinking that the man didn't know that his sniper had been killed. He had one piece of information his captor didn't.

  "Worked at the home a couple years ago. Forgot about it until I got hungry a week ago. Didn't know anybody was still around. Thought everybody had died. Got ambushed by that big guy. Shot my friend. But I put one into him. Bastard."

  "You killed him and his kid."

  "His kid wounded me. Left shoulder. Rotten little brat. If you are going to act like a soldier, you have to be willing to die like a soldier."

  Any respect John had for the cleverness and strategic moves of this group was gone after hearing that. A child of seven did not have to die, not for wounding someone who killed his father. John hated this war, but he checked the anger welling up inside of him. He had to before he could speak again.

  "Hope you don't mind if I ask, but why did you send in four people on cycles? They just stood out front. Almost begging to be shot."

  "We saw the woman and her kid leave. Didn't know we killed the guy. They figured the darkness would protect 'em even if he was still around. Thought the motorcycle noise would scare him off, if he was still around. I told 'em that wouldn't work."

  "It didn't. You were right. But you lost a lot of people."

  "I lost four mouths to feed. And it served its purpose. It got you out. That's what I wanted. I knew you had plenty of food. With only five of us, that Retirement Home will feed us for a long time. And with those solar panels, it will recharge your fancy car. Sorry, my fancy car."

  "It would feed five for years," said John, thinking the man had made a mistake revealing their numbers. Also the man revealed that he didn't know the sniper was dead, two others must be guarding the other road. John hoped those two hadn't been called to come in for backup.

  "Now if you're finished wagging your chin, call your man and tell him to bring that car over here or you two are dead and we go back to our backup plan."

  John's brain had been running in overdrive, but still couldn't come up with a plan. If the car was all they lost and they all lived through this, then that would be a big loss, but not something they couldn't recover from. He pulled out his radio and pressed the transmit button twice. Then once. Then twice. "Hey George. Bring the car back to the house we were watching. Some people here want to look at it. But stop at the end of the street, near the highway. You have twenty minutes. Then walk back to the home. When you're out of range, drop the keys and call me and tell me where you put the keys."

  "Ten-four," was the reply.

  "Hey, that was not the deal. They bring the car here, if you want to live. Call them back. Give them the real story."

  "That was the real story. I want to live, but I want my friends to live too. The keys are the insurance I wanted. It's a complicated machine. You wouldn't be able to hot-wire it."

  Twenty minutes later John could hear the whir of the Dark Demon and hear the tires on the gravel of the side of the road. He heard the door open and close and George's footsteps going away.

  "That's the car. Want to go see it? We'll go first. Unless you want us to walk behind you."

  "Go ahead and don't try anything funny." He poked the gun into Johns ribs. "You know you can't outrun this shotgun and you know I don't have to be a marksman to remove your insides with one pull of the trigger."

  "Yes, you have me there. No funny business. Got that Fred?"

  "Uh, sure." The only thing Fred knew for certain was that when John said 'no funny business,' he was certain that some funny business was just ahead. John had a plan. His blood was already pounding in his ears. He looked all around, trying to see what John was talking about. He listened to everything to hear anything out of the ordinary. But, no clue. He would just have to watch John and follow his moves.

  As they walked around the corner of the house, John's first impulse was to run. He had the corner of the house as cover. Then, he thought about his gun. He jumped against the side of the house pulling Fred with him and grabbed for his three twenty seven magnum, but heard a swish and another and another and another. He looked back around the corner to see both men fall. Then he heard running as Cho appeared from the darkness, gun in hand, followed by Marceau and Charles. Cho ran up to the men and fired point blank into the skull of each.

  The total brutality of it all hit John like a two by four in the face. He could have died. George could have died. Fred could have died. But the coin didn't fall with that side up. Instead Cho had performed the brutality required and he was alive. To live another day. T
o try to survive yet another threat. John bent over, thinking he would throw up, but it didn't happen.

  "Cho protect John," she said pulling him upright.

  He smiled and said, "I love you. You know that?" He grabbed her, pulling her close and hugging her.

  "John, not do that. Get too strong. Going to break Cho. But, Cho loves John, too."

  "Sorry. Your speech is changing. What gives."

  "Been standing for fifteen minutes. Waiting for good shot. Cho nervous. Not want to hit John or Fred. Want to save John. Afraid lose John," she said, wiping her eyes.

  "Any more of them, John?"

  "Two more, Charles. The other way. Do we have to do them tonight?"

  "You, Fred, Cho and Marceau go back to the Retirement Home. You've done enough. George, Harry and I will take care of them. If that's the last two, we can use the sniper rifle. If they had these night vision goggles, they might have something else interesting. We need to find their nest and check out their toys."

  "Cho go too. What Marceau think?"

  "Sure, it should be fun. I like this raiding. I might not have become a chef if I had known that soldiering was so much fun."

  "Cho thought spying fun. This much better. Whoosh. Thump. No problem. Marceau should see Cho at distillery. Whoosh, whoosh, thump, thump. Two knife. Two die. Marceau be proud. Mamma be proud."

  John looked at Charles with tears still in his eyes and shook his head. "Charles. Look at this. You started it. You fix it."

  Chapter 53 - Partners

  A month passed with everyone busy harvesting, canning, chopping wood and building new equipment. The weather had been wet. Not a day went by that it didn't rain or threaten to rain. But it wasn't wet enough to stop essential work. George and Fred erected a new building behind the lodge for the gasifier electricity generator and the generator was nearly finished with a tunnel connecting to the lodge for access and for plumbing and electrical wiring.

  "I know I always say this after dinner, but thanks to Marceau, again for a great dinner. All those fresh vegetables are delicious. And with the greenhouse, we are likely to have fresh veggies for several more months."