The Unit

by Terry DeHart

  Dad runs after me, but Luscious sees us then. He drops his axe and reaches for something. I see the whites of his eyes as his big hands close over a rifle. It’s like my worst nightmare, but somehow I’m not afraid.

  Dad takes a shot with his bow. His arrow arcs over my head and misses Luscious by an inch and goes cracking into the far trees. He shoots another arrow, but Luscious dives behind his stack of firewood. Dad drops the bow and takes out his little revolver and pop, pop, pops away, but no one is killing anyone yet.

  There’s still time, so I get exactly between them and I hold up my hands. A voice comes out of me that I’ve never heard before. I tell them to stop, for once in their lives to stop and think! It feels damned good to say it. Maybe I’m crazy because I’m not afraid anymore. And now that the fear is gone, I’m lifted up into the buzz of what I’m doing.

  I stand between them, waving my hands over my head like a crazy woman. And they do stop. Dad stops shooting. He reloads the revolver, but when it’s loaded he keeps it pointed at the ground. Luscious points his rifle at us, but he doesn’t fire.

  They look at me. They look at each other. Dad tries to move sideways so I’m not in his line of fire, but I sidestep to keep myself between them. He says, Please, baby, but I’m not a baby anymore. I’m doing the first logical fucking thing I’ve seen anyone do since this shit began.

  I hear Dad start to move behind me. He walks straight toward me, and I immediately walk straight toward Luscious. Dad stops. I stop. Luscious smiles and shakes his head.

  “Y’all are crazy,” he says. “All y’all.”

  “Well then, let’s be crazy together,” I say.

  “Let her go. She hasn’t done anything to you,” Dad says.

  “Well, maybe you missed the part when she did a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people. Maybe we want our little whore back.”

  Dad raises the revolver and Luscious raises his rifle.

  “Stop,” I say. “Let’s talk. We have food. We could sit down and eat and talk.”

  It’s like they don’t hear me. They’re looking right through me. The anger flares up so high that I can barely see.

  “Dammit! Damn you all! Can’t you pull your heads out of your asses?”

  I hold my arms out and take a few steps closer to Luscious.

  “It’s over,” I say. “The National Guard is on the way. FEMA and cops and insurance adjusters and bail bondsmen and all that crap. The world is putting itself back together. It’s time to get back to being normal.”

  Then Bill Junior walks out of the back door of the house. He’s carrying a black rifle, but he’s not pointing it at anyone.

  “We’ve got the most normal thing in the world going on right here, girl,” he says. “Come over here, why don’t you, and give us some sugar.”

  His voice is soft, but it makes me want to puke. With Bill Junior and Luscious and Dad out in the open, the geometry is impossible, and I can’t stand between them all. Donnie Darko comes out of the house, too. He’s holding a pistol down behind his skinny butt. I don’t think he’ll shoot us, but he’s another life to worry about. I back up until Dad is close behind me. He grabs my shoulders. I let him. He whispers to me.

  “You’ve had your say. Let’s just back away now.”

  He points his revolver with his right hand and wraps his left arm around me. He pulls me backward, but I don’t move my feet. How could I? I’m doing something worthwhile and I can’t stop now.

  I try to peel his arm from around me, but he tightens his grip. He pulls me backward. I’m back to screaming again, because I scream at him to stop. My boot heels leave twin lines in the snow. He says something about running, and then he twists me around very fast. He’s shielding me from the boys, but he doesn’t know that my power can’t save us when it’s not in plain sight.

  I hear the popping of gunshots. Dad lifts me off my feet and I have no traction to fight him. He fires his revolver over his shoulder, then he drops it and holds me leg-straddled in front of him and he starts to run. I hear more shots and something hits me and I can’t catch my breath. I don’t want to, but I rest my chin on Dad’s shoulder and he hikes me up higher to get a better grip. I look down and see the backs of his boots, running. The snow is granulated here, too, and there’s blood in it, and I can’t help but think it’s a properly flavored snow cone now.

  Scott

  The helicopters land. Six Black Hawks and two Apache gunships. Their green paint is so dark that I can’t read the black letters and symbols that identify them. They put down in a field of snow not far from the skeleton of Old Bill’s Cessna.

  “Here’s our ride,” Mom says.

  She’s wearing a daypack. She found a new shotgun in town, and she’s carrying it in her good hand. She looks down at it, then props it against the wall of the saloon. She motions to the helicopters.

  “Shall we?” she says.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Our heroes,” I say.

  The townspeople throw their doors open and run long lines across the buried roads and fields to meet the helicopters. Their packs are light, but their feet are clumsy in the snow. They smile at each other as they run. It might be one of those good times that people keep in their memories and tell their kids about, years later. It might be a rescue and the beginning of a return to a normal way of life, but I’m not ready for normal.

  I slip into my pack and walk the other way. Of all the guns in town, I chose a scoped Kimber 30.06. I’ll be walking in open country, and it feels good to have a rifle that can reach out across it. I have a .40 caliber Glock at the small of my back, for close-in fighting, and plenty of ammo for both guns.

  Mom was heading toward the helicopters, but she stops right away when I don’t pull up beside her. She turns and runs after me. She has a spastic running form, with her arm in the sling, but she’s still pretty fast. She picks up her shotgun and follows me. Part of me is happy to have her with me, but I don’t want her to be around when I catch up to the ambushers.

  We get some buildings between ourselves and the rescuers. Mom pulls up beside me and I stop. I lift my head in the direction of the helicopters.

  “You should go,” I say.

  “We both should go,” she says.

  “I’m not going.”

  “Okay. But I’m coming with you.”

  She looks right into my eyes, and her lips are welded together.

  “I won’t take any orders from you. If you see something you don’t like, I’ll appreciate it if you keep quiet about it.”

  “I’m not here to be your conscience.”

  “Good.”

  “But I do have one request. Let’s find your father and sister first.”

  “That’s the plan, but it might not work out that way. What if we find Bill Junior’s crew first?”

  “If we do, I’ll help you. God help me, but I want to hurt them, too.”

  “I’m not talking about only hurting them.”

  “I know.”

  She’s looking straight at my face. My freak-show face. I turn it away from her and we head to the center of town.

  I put on my best pace. The snow in town is packed hard, and I’m really moving. Mom has trouble keeping up. I slow down. I can’t wait to see Dad and Melanie. I can’t wait to see the little assholes who brought us so much hell, and return the favor. I believe some of them are alive, and I want to see them through my rifle scope.

  But Mom is still skinny from the radiation, and I’m not exactly in the best shape of my life, either. We lean against a building to catch our breath. We turn to watch the rescue. The helicopters are still on the ground, and their rotors are still turning. The pilot of the first helicopter motions for people to hurry. The dark visor of his helmet is down, so we can’t see his face. I try to imagine what it would be like to be him, but I can’t.

  When the people from town get right into the whipping rotor wash, soldiers jump out of the second helicopter and point their rifles. They shout something and
the people drop what they’re carrying and lie down with their hands straight out from their sides. My tongue gets really cold because my mouth is open. Sam tries to run back to town, but the soldiers shoot into the snow around him. The snow flies up and sticks to his clothes and clouds of it swirl around him. Mom makes a little strangled sound. Sam stops. He drops the Mini-14 he had slung over his shoulder. He looks right at us and gives us a nod, and we crouch down behind the building. The building has old gray wood siding. It’s the café that Sam’s mother used to run. It has a wooden boardwalk in front of it, all snowdrifted, and I go prone in the snow and watch the rescue turn into a mass abduction.

  The soldiers put plastic zip ties on people’s wrists. They drag them to the helicopters and lift them inside. Engines wind up and rotors beat harder and they make a big mushroom cloud of snow. When the helicopters lift out of the top of their cloud, they’re dark and loud and they fly with their doors open. The faces of the good townspeople are down against nonskid floors as they’re taken away to God knows where.

  We walk south. I borrowed something from a tourist shop in Virginia City. I’m wearing a pair of badass Oakley sunglasses. They feel like armor for my eyes, but Mom is squinting in the snow-glare, so I offer her the sunglasses. She refuses, but I say, “We’ll trade off wearing them,” and she takes them. They look good on her.

  The cold numbs my patchwork face, and almost makes it feel bulletproof. I break a trail in the snow that leads straight down the middle of the road. I know what I need to do, and I’m not worried about anyone stopping me. I’m not afraid of ambushers or soldiers because I’m following the still, clear voice of God. The ambushers will be like fruit on the vine when I find them, and so shall I reap them.

  I have no fear of man or beast. The soldiers might be running wild, but I don’t think so. I think they’re just being careful. They probably got shot at in some of the other towns, so they’re just taking precautions. The people of Virginia City are good people, and the soldiers shouldn’t have treated them like assholes, but like Jesus said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

  No. The soldiers aren’t the enemy. At least not yet.

  Donnie

  I’m the only one left. I shot those other two. They were shooting at Melanie and I had to stop ’em, didn’t I? Captain Bill was pretty surprised when I popped him with his own fucking Beretta. Blood came out of his neck. It squirted like a hose. He put his hand over it, but he couldn’t stop it. He smiled at me, and his teeth were bloody like a vampire that just bit someone. He tried to say something, but I don’t know what. Probably one of his little speeches about pirates. Then he fell and didn’t move anymore.

  I don’t remember shooting Luscious, but he’s dead as shit, too. It’s no use trying to bring them back to life, so I pick up their guns and go back inside the house. It’s quiet and maybe it’s safe, but I don’t like being alone. Maybe it’s stupid, because people always do bad things to me, but I like to have some people around. Especially Melanie. But I think she got hit. I know she did, and her old man took her away and I’ll probably never see her smile again.

  Life is a trip. There’s nobody to boss me around now. No skanky mom to bring her johns home and no drunk assholes putting their cigarettes out on me and no lying social workers making up stories about me then sending me to get ass-fucked in juvie. My ass is mine for the first time in my whole life. I’m not sorry I shot those other two, but I wish I had someone to talk to.

  It’s cold in the house because we burned up all our firewood in the night. I bring in the firewood that Luscious chopped up before he got killed. I build a hot fire in the woodstove, then I go upstairs and tear apart the room Captain Bill stayed in. He had some cans of food stashed under his bed. I open a can of pork and beans and eat it cold. My belly gets full and tight, and I like the way the sauce coats my mouth with a brown sugar taste. I sit and listen to the wind in the trees. Branches creak and snow falls from them in big clods, but it doesn’t scare me. It makes me kind of sad, because no one else can hear what I’m hearing.

  I sleep until first light. When I wake up, I know exactly what I need to do. I need to go find Melanie and her old man. I’m still Melanie’s doctor, and I need to check on her. I don’t think her old man would shoot me just for trying. It didn’t seem like he hated me enough to kill me. I had to shoot him with my slingshot that time, or Bill Junior would’ve killed me. I hope he knows that.

  Anyhow, they’re the only people in the world I give two shits about, and I want to see them again.

  Jerry

  Only three rules are left: Start the breathing, stop the bleeding, and treat for shock. But she’s lung-shot and I have to seal the hole first. Her skin is slick with blood. I’m wired on adrenaline and I’m sick to my stomach, so it takes me a while to get her sealed up, but I finally get the entry and exit holes covered with duct tape. I have to breathe for her at first, but then her left lung inflates and she’s breathing on her own, thank God. But her breathing is labored, and then blood comes from her mouth. It’s choking her. I roll her onto her side and I put my knee into her back and pull her into it, trying to put pressure on the bleeder. I pray please, please, please, praying that pressure will stop the bleeding, but she’s coughing blood everywhere and I know I’ll have to unplug the patches and find the leak. Find a way to pinch it closed.

  Her coughs grow weaker and my arms are about to fall off from the effort of holding pressure against her chest. I’m as cold as I’ve ever been in my life, but I can see dust in the air. We’re in a pool of blood and the fibers of the floorboards expand like tiny ropes as they drink it in. It’s no use. I’m losing her. I need to try something else.

  I roll her onto her stomach so she won’t choke on her blood. I run to the kitchen. I searched it when we first arrived, and I remember finding a drawer filled with miscellaneous possibles. I open it, and yes, yes, yes, it’s just what I need to tie off bleeders. A small pair of yellow-handled needle-nose pliers and a roll of six-pound-test fishing line.

  “I found it, Mel,” I say. “We’ll be okay now.”

  But when I get back to her, she’s gone quiet. I give her CPR again, my breath wheezing into her lungs and my numb arms pushing contractions against her ribcage. The universe is black and there’s only this, the grunting of one alive and the quiet fighting of one on the brink.

  I try to bring her back until I’m neither here nor myself. I stop only when my arms refuse to move. I’m angry at my arms. I shake some blood into them and try to resume the compressions, but I almost pass out. It’s very quiet. The front door is open, and a gust of wind gives the trees a good shake.

  I look at her face. Something pops inside me, and I fall to the floor. I don’t understand how I failed her. I had her in my arms and my body was shielding hers, so how did she get shot? And that’s when I look down and see the blood pulsing from my side. The blood is dark, almost black. It’s a high liver hit, probably, and it doesn’t hurt until I see it, then the pain powers against the horror, and I’m almost glad for it.

  I’m saying no, no, no, and then I’m floating somewhere in rusty water, and then I come back to living hell. I look at her face again. I ask her how she’s doing. She’s being very quiet, but I think I see her eyes sparkle, so maybe she’s up to something. I slide across the bloody floor and stretch out beside her. I listen for the slightest sound, but there’s nothing. She’s very good at this game, so I join her. I don’t move a muscle, holding as still as possible, seeing how long I can last before the game comes to its natural conclusion.

  Susan

  We walk through time and space and random humanity. We crest Donner Pass and continue southwest on Highway 80 in order to move north on I-5. Pine woods. Cabins on the hills, some of them puffing woodsmoke into the weak sky. Gun muzzles track us from time to time, but we’re serving God’s purpose and we pay them no heed. We pass plywood-patched convenience stores. Some of them are open for business, with few saleable goods and astronomical pr
ices and nodding clerks and alert armed guards.

  I use one of the gold coins to buy six cans of ready-to-eat chicken noodle soup. A thin man sees the coin. He follows us out of the store and we unsling our guns and he goes back inside. I stand watch with my shotgun while Scotty lights a fire and heats two cans of soup. The glorious smell of hot food rises into the air and my stomach clenches. We sit back to back with our weapons at the ready as we slurp it down. We burn our mouths tasteless, and the feast is over too quickly, the warmth fading from our bellies as we walk, but hope no longer seems like a fool’s errand.

  Every turn of the road is a mystery. The radiation was concentrated in certain places, and we cover our faces and pass pools in the river fouled with rotting trout and corpses of deer and bobcat and skunks and porcupines and opossums. Human corpses are rare but not absent, the expressions of their final pain preserved by the cold.

  We walk until I no longer need the sling for my arm, and I toss the filthy thing away in the snow. The exit wound is a puckered anus, but it seems to be sealed against the world’s infections. The muscles are wasted thin and the skin of my forearm is itchy from its confinement, but it feels fine to swing both arms as I walk. It makes me feel wider, somehow, and more substantial as I march with restored symmetry

  We walk down the middle of unplowed mountain roads, the lichen hanging thick on mason-built retaining walls, the rust growing Rorschachs on green bridges. The sun sends its rays through flocked trees, but the sun has no heat and we walk in strobes of glare and shadow, paying no mind to people sitting on porches, calling out to us for food or news but offering us nothing in return. We’re armed, but our weapons remain on our shoulders until we stop in the nights, shivering together in abandoned houses, not standing watch. The soup lasts a week, then we eat whatever scraps we find in strange cupboards, but most often we eat nothing at all.