Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation

by Richard Cosme

  One of the soldiers had a pistol barrel headed my way. The other was just beginning his pull. I put two 126shots in the center of the first man’s chest with the Beretta. The other man took two steps and kicked out at my gun hand before I could swing on him. As the gun bounced off the wall and the soldier began stomping all over me, I rolled to my back, sweeping my right arm with all my strength across his heels as I did so.

  The man’s feet left the floor, and he landed flat on his back.

  I jumped up and kicked him hard in the nuts. He grunted and began flopping like a fish. As he jackknifed forward in response to the groin kick, I punched him square in the nose. Then for good measure, I hit him in the throat.

  Weasel grabbed me from behind, pushed me forward, and we both ran down the hall, the flames following, took a right into the dining room and headed for the kitchen, where we slipped out the back door.

  “You missed the solar plexus,” he said. “Cover me a minute.”

  He sprinted to the armory, unclipped two grenades, pulled the pins and tossed them through the window.

  Weasel loped back. “Let’s get some distance between us and that building.” As we ran toward the river, I could feel him smiling at me in the dark. There were two explosions in the armory, followed by several others, each more powerful than the former.

  By the time we had returned to the safety of the bluff, the chem lab was engulfed in flames. The adjacent houses, one side the armory, the other, The Babe’s, were also ablaze. In the flickering light of the flames, we watched in fascination as The Babe stomped and bellowed, his chemist at his side, sending men into the fiery chem lab to save what they could. It wasn’t much.

  A similar operation was occurring in their armory. Scores of men rushed in to retrieve the weapons and ammo. One of them balked when two more explosions rattled their compound, and The Babe pulled the .45 from his shoulder rig and put two shots into the man’s faced. The remaining soldiers’ work ethic suddenly improved. They saved some of the weapons and ammo before the building crumbled in the flames.

  Weasel and I watched as a gentle pre-dawn breeze from the west nudged the flames from one townhouse to the other, finally stopping at the end closest to the river where the fire ran out of fuel.

  “Damn,” he said, fascinated by the progress of the flames. “That sure worked out fine. It’ll set them back at least six months. Wish their arms warehouse would have gone up faster.”

  “Set what back six months?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But he’s building something. And it’s based on the guns. The drugs get him the guns. He’s been working up to this for about five years now. Whatever it is, it ain’t good for anyone who isn’t a Messenger.”

  “What was with all those batteries?” I asked. “And those two drums of chemicals?”

  “There’s a new drug out. Being marketed by the Messengers as the next generation of Slammer. Hits quicker, peaks higher, lasts longer. That chem we saw is the guy who’s making it. I would have iced him if I got the chance.”

  Slammer was a powerful drug, a narcotic for soldiers. It pumped them up, created a mental myth of superiority, enhanced their reflexes, they imagined…for a few hours. It was a combination of methamphetamine, PCP and LSD. A more powerful version in the noses of clan warriors was not pleasant to contemplate.

  “They’re calling the new drug Bad Boy. Been on the streets a couple of months. It’s a white crystal with grey flecks in it. I wanted to see what was in it. Think I know now. I’m pretty sure those two drums were embalming fluid.”

  It was a common ingredient in wicki sticks—a joint enhanced with PCP and embalming fluid.

  “I think the new Messenger chem is distilling battery acid to add to the Bad Boy. Pulverizing the residue and blending it into the final batch. That’s what the grey stuff is. What we got is probably PCP, crystal meth, embalming fluid, some kind of hallucinogen and the distilled battery acid.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “how in the hell they come up with these ideas?”

  But I knew the answer. The clans had been experimenting with substances that could get them up for years. Paint thinners, old spray cans, chemical solvents, varnish—you name it; they tried it. If someone died or went into a coma, they tried something else. I once saw two guys sprinkling their weed with the chemicals people in the 20th used to keep algae out of their swimming pools. If someone went into convulsions, but managed to come back out, it was a sign to them that they were on to something good. Just needed another ingredient or two. Maybe an adjustment in the dosage. No surprise that someone came upon battery acid.

  So now we had a newer, nastier drug…and the Messengers selling it for guns and ammo.

  Upside—we bought some time.

  Downside—the Babe lived.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  All the pain I hadn’t felt while I was getting stomped in the Babe’s camp, seeped into my bones as the adrenaline leeched away. My back, near the kidneys, my ribs left side, left thigh, and the start of a good black eye.

  “Getting a little hitch in yer get along,” Weasel said on the hike back. “Need me to carry some of your gear?”

  I shot him a weak smile, more of a grimace. No way he was carrying anything. It would take 10 years to work that one off.

  As the sun peeked over the horizon, we entered our east neighbor’s basement, neutralized the booby traps, opened Weasel’s door that no one but us could see, (sometimes I thought he played too many video games), traversed the tunnel, and entered our basement.

  The door protested loudly, just as we wanted, and on the other side in the middle of a brightly lit bare room with four concrete walls was Sarah with a Franchi SPAS-12 combat shotgun, Duke with a kevlar vest and ears at high mast, and Stevie pointing a HK G36 at us.

  “When the alarm went off, but we didn’t hear an explosion,” Stevie said, “we figured it was you two.”

  “Good job,” Weasel replied. “Just like we rehearsed.”

  “One thing,” Sarah said. “A surprise. Duke alerted before the alarm. That’s before you opened the tunnel door nearly 80 yards away.”

  “Nice,” said Weasel.

  “You gents look a little worse for wear,” Sarah said. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

  “I’ll reset everything,” Stevie said, disappearing down the tunnel.

  In the kitchen, Sarah helped us get out of our gear and shed our weapons. “Seems like a lot of blood here for a simple scout,” she commented.

  “Most of it ain’t ours,” Weasel said.

  “Before I start on Mac,” Sarah said to Weasel, “anything you need looked at?”

  “Nothin’ a good night’s sleep won’t take care of.” He could have had his arm bitten off and said the same thing.

  “Me too,” I said. “Little sleep and I’ll be good as new.”

  “Get that shirt off,” she told me. She began a close inspection of my face and torso. I felt like a prize cow. Sarah poked a finger between two ribs.

  “OWWWW!!”

  “Enough of your macho bullshit, Mac. Let me see what’s going on. You need to get the pants off too. You have serious trauma here.”

  All of us knew how to set bones, sew someone up, clean wounds, inspect for injuries, apply tourniquets and compress bandages. If I could walk several hours back home, I was going to be ok. But Sarah was always thorough, and forever our paladin, veterinarian, and house physician. We knew about internal bleeds, and that was her concern.

  She inspected and prodded while we broke down and cleaned the weapons, waiting for Stevie to return before detailing our journey.

  The tunnel door squalled like a haunted house and Stevie stomped back up the stairs. He grabbed the Steyr 93R and started disassembling. Looking at my face, he said, “Gotta be a story here.”

  Weasel said, “We were scouting The Babe’s new camp. Got into a bit of a scuffle.”

  Stevie stopped working on the Steyr. Sarah stopped futzing with my bruises. Weasel watched S
tevie.

  Stevie got tighter. LIke he was being compacted. His fingers curled in. Head came up. Shoulders hunched. Duke rose and moved to his side, ears up. He didn’t say much, but it came out slowly and deliberately. A struggle to keep the words from breaking the dam and flooding the room.

  “You know where The Babe is, when he’s gonna be there, and you don’t take me with you? What the fuck! That’’s low, Weasel. I thought we were all open and honest here. Not like out there.”

  “Plenty of reasons for that. You want them all now?”

  “Yeah, every single fucking one.”

  Weasel paused a couple of beats. Pushed the parts of the HK to the side. “Ain’t givin’ you all the reasons. In your mind you know all of them. But you need to remember this. We all want him dead, Stevie. I was watching him before Mac and Sarah and me teamed up. He makes a lot of noise. Always something. And it’s getting more noisy. But here’s the thing, Stevie. I never seen anyone come close to killing him. We’ll do it, son. But only when getting it done means we get to survive and stay together. And all of us will be there when he takes that last breath.”

  Sarah walked over to Stevie’s spot at the table and a pulled chair next to him. She leaned in a bit, but didn’t touch him. “You forgot about trust, hon,” she said quietly. “I can understand that. All of us can. Trust takes time to grow. The mission was two people home and two on the scout. Logical. We are not going to betray you, Stevie. All of us have a bond.”

  The tension in the spring eased. Stevie’s shoulders loosened up. His hands opened. The muscles in his face relaxed. He looked like a teenager again. A little pissed and confused. But that was what normal looked like.

  Weasel and I gave them the chronology of the scout. The weapons, the drugs, camp life. The dust up at the end and the camp’s destruction.

  Stevie said, “I don’t like having to remember those years, and most of the camp operation sounds the same, but a couple of things are different. First it sounds like there’s more soldiers and what maybe we’d call grunts or laborers. Also slaves and sex women. Plus I never saw an armory or drug house. Everybody had their weapons. Drugs were just always there. Huge quantities of booze and home brew too. Every camp had a still. Clans aren’t big on storing and organizing.”

  “That helps,” Weasel said. “I been thinking for a bit that the fat man’s got something going. Only a few reasons to have an armory.”

  “First, you plan to acquire more soldiers,” Sarah said.

  “Or, you plan to trade for something else,” I countered.

  “Which presents two more problems,” Stevie chimed in. “Where do your new soldiers come from?”

  Sarah finished the thought. “What are you looking for in trade that’s more valuable than weapons?”

  “If you’re going to war,” I said. “Who’s your enemy?”

  Weasel looked around the table. Shook his head. “We got a big story here. Started when Stevie was a clan kid. Gonna end with The Babe dead. Got some people in the story. But we don’t know nothin’ else.”

  “And we don’t know how long it takes to get to the end. And we do know The Babe isn’t telling anyone his plans.” Sarah said.

  “You just described every day of our lives,” I said. “We wake up, have a goal, survival plus making life better, but have no idea how we’re getting there.”

  “Well, hell. When you put it that way,” Sarah said, “It doesn’t sound so big anymore. We have the whole day ahead of us, let’s go to work.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FEBRUARY 16, 2056

  Once we understood computers, we figured out the that the little stick wrapped around my wrist in duct tape by my parents was a flash drive. But I wouldn’t let anyone open it. It drove Sarah crazy and she kept on my until I finally relented.

  “OK,” I said. “But you look. Then tell me.”

  Sarah took two days with the flash drive. She came to me evening of the second day. She showed me a new side, a vulnerable one. Her vulnerable was easier to deal with than my wrapped up tight crap. Her eyes were red. She sat on the bed and hugged me, and began to quietly weep.

  I couldn’t understand my emotions, but I was good at supporting hers. I held her, stroked her head. Didn’t say anything. Eventually, she reached into her nightstand and pulled her stash, selected Mississippi Mellow, a sleepy Indica, and we smoked a bowl. I put on Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone and we drifted off a bit, holding each other.

  An hour later, I squeezed her shoulders and asked, “That bad, huh?”

  She looked up at me. “No,” she said, “that good. I’m crying for the beauty. There is so much of it on the drive. The truth of Armageddon is also there. The information on The Collapse isn’t beautiful. That story makes me angry. In the morning we all learn the truth, the bad stuff. Tell the boys to get some sleep.”

  “But we don’t talk about my stuff yet, right?” I said.

  “You let me know when you’re ready,” she said.

  • • • •

  Dawn. Weasel was making coffee. Stevie setting the table. Sarah’s was preparing pancake batter to accompany the eggs and sausage from the Dekalb hippies. I fed Duke and took him for a walk.

  “Got big stuff going today,” I told him. “Gonna learn more about The Collapse. Maybe the final pieces of the puzzle. Might learn why some of your doggie friends are so mean.”

  He gave my hand a snuffle and headed back to the house. We were behind the barrier, but I dragged a huge pine branch over our tracks just in case. A little wind, a dusting of snow, and we didn’t exist.

  • • • •

  Duke took his spot underneath the table, we all sat with our coffee or hot chocolate and waited for Sarah to begin.

  “Unintended consequences and Mother Earth,” she began. “That’s what brought on the environmental cataclysm. Earth was suffering from a plague of humans and she needed to eradicate the infestation. The coexistence of humans and the planet was not sustainable.”

  Before she could continue, Weasel jumped in. What followed was our first major conflict. Sarah said later that she was tired, on edge, on a roll, and not open to criticism. Weasel communicated as he always did. Directly with no obfuscation. (Gotta tell him that word.)

  What follows is the blow by blow of the Weasel/Sarah War:

  Weasel: What is “she”? Who ya talkin’ about?

  Sarah: The key word is “sustainable”, not “she”. Earth survived and healed. We survived and have yet to heal. Which would be a better bet to be prospering hundred years from now? Humanity or the planet? Dogs might have a better chance than humans.

  Weasel: Who decides? We gotta say in this, don’t we?

  Sarah: Earth decides. She is sustainable, self-healing.

  Weasel: Waddya, crazy? You sayin’ Earth is alive?

  Sarah: Well, she…

  Weasel: She???

  Sarah: She certainly has a circulatory system, and a respiratory system…

  Stevie jumps in: And an excretory system. She gets rid of all kinds of crap.

  Mac jumps in: Digestive? She’s self-sustaining. Energy, photosynthesis, biodegradation. Renewal, four seasons.

  Weasel: Blah, blah, blah. Sheeee (he bent the word) can’t think. Got no nervous system. Boo ya!

  Sarah: There’s lots of electricity, Weasel. And all the solar energy you could want. She cleans up, creates new life, buries the dead. And has been alive almost forever in our terms. I say there is a nervous system. Therefore, the capacity for thinking.

  Weasel: Well, shiiit. I ain’t ever winnin’ this one. Just keep movin’ and we’ll save this for later.

  A pause here. A brief silence. Enough for me to study Sarah’s face. There’s something new, I said to myself.

  Sarah: No! (Emphatic and bright eyed and finger pointing) There is no later! Look at us, Weasel! Hurricanes, typhoons, drought, flooding, heat waves, cold waves, virus, bacteria, fungi. Earth can bake us, boil us, freeze us, drown us, starve us, rot us from the inside, att
ack us with her beasts large and small, and allow us to think we are superior to her. We were here only with her permission. It got revoked.

  She slammed her fist on the table, pushed back her chair with enough force to topple it and left the table.

  Things got quiet.

  • • • •

  Sarah went to make more coffee. She cleared our cups and rinsed them in the sink. The cups made more noise than usual.

  Stevie helped Sarah. Weasel and I sat. Quiet.

  “I didn’t mean no harm,” Weasel whispered.

  “You need to tell her that,” I said.

  Weasel pushed back from the table. The kitchen was big. He walked like the distance from the table to the sink was ten miles with a heavy load. Weasel stood behind Sarah, shuffling from foot to foot. She knew he was there.

  Stevie did a quick trot back to the table.

  “Who’s gonna say something first?” he whispered.

  “A week of dishes says Sarah,” I said.

  “Done.”

  A full minute of silence passed. Weasel stopped shuffling. Sarah messed with the coffee, doing the same thing over and over.

  “I ain’t never had to to this,” Weasel told Sarah. Her back was still to him.

  “Do what, Weasel?” she said. “Realize that someone other than you knows something?”

  “No… I mean yes.”

  She turned. Her eyes glistened. Her mouth and chin quivered. I went on high alert. This was rare. And very important. The last time this happened was when I told her about meeting the Babe at the airport and experiencing the knowledge that maybe I would never return to her.

  Stevie was still as a June sunset. I didn’t know what the right words for Weasel were. For me they would have been I’m sorry. That was selfish and petty. You deserve more from me. The key would have been that it was true. The key was respect.

  But Weasel wasn’t me and he hadn’t lived with Sarah for 15 years. He had been alone for more years than Stevie. Weasel had no subterfuge, or tricks, or ploys. Whatever came next would be a first time event for him.

  Weasel’s head was down. Two feet separated them. Sarah silently, patiently stood. “I do know more than you in some ways,” he began. “And it gives me great comfort to pass my knowledge on. Nobody ever respected me for what I know.”