Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation

by Richard Cosme

  “What happened to the men that did it?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Not then. Nothing helped. But it does now. Now that I got distance, it sits right. Wouldn’t be able to live with the memory if I knew they were still out there. I wasn’t the first. Wouldn’t have been the last. Let me try to explain. You kill them, it’s not gonna make you feel any different, any better. But if you don’t…”

  “…then the book’s still open,” Merlin finished.

  “Wait a minute,” Sarah said. “You’ve got to understand that revenge isn’t a cure.”

  “There is no cure,” Stevie said. “Only displacement. Find something more important. Like people.”

  “I feel like I can’t ever leave this house,” Merlin said. “I’m a prisoner. Everyone will see me as…as a piece of cheap meat.”

  “Merlin,” Sarah said. “Besides those of us in this room, only James knows what really happened to you.”

  “And he ain’t tellin’,” Weasel said. “Got his word on it. Said he owed us one and that’s what I took. He’s the only one heard it said over the walkie talkie besides Mac and Sarah.”

  “The code,” Merlin said, a faint glimmer of hope in his voice. “He’ll keep his word, James will. God bless the code.”

  “When it works in our favor,” I said.

  “But the Messengers,” Merlin said, forlorn again. “They know. They’ll tell everyone. Every People clan will know.”

  “They got their asses kicked up in that building,” Weasel said. “They’ll never talk to anyone about what happened.”

  Merlin thought about it, sat there in his chair thinking of shame and fear and revenge. After a few minutes he spoke. “I don’t feel much different. Everything’s still there. I don’t know who I hate more—myself or them. I know you’re trying to help. It’s just not working.”

  None of us pointed out that this was the first time he had talked in six days, that he hadn’t had a toke in the last twenty minutes, that he had identified his fears.

  “There’s no time limits here,” Stevie said. “No schedule or set of expectations you’ve got to meet. I was here six months before I even begin to trust these three. Hell, Merlin,” he laughed, “Duke was the only one I’d talk to.”

  Merlin smiled. It was pretty weak, but I’m sure I saw his lips move.

  “I gotta go take a shower,” he said.

  • • • •

  When the water started running, Sarah turned to Weasel, “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. We had no idea. I’m very proud of you for trying to help like that, giving up yourself for Merlin.”

  “Don’t be too proud, Sarah,” Weasel said, a mischievous smile flickering on and off. “That stuff about being raped was all a damn lie.”

  “Jesus, Weasel,” she exclaimed, “what if he finds out? He’ll be devastated. That was what finally started him talking.”

  Weasel looked at the three of us. “How in the hell is he ever going to find out?”

  “Good point,” I said. “But what if he wants to talk, asks for details about what it was like when it happened to you?”

  “Never happen,” Weasel said. “Man doesn’t ask another man that. Besides, he already knows. Nothing happened to me could be any worse than what happened to him. He’ll never ask me.”

  “He’s right, Mac,” Stevie said. “None of us want Merlin to tell us what they did to him, do we? If he wants to talk, that’s fine. But there’s no purpose in our seeking out the details.”

  He was right. There was no benefit in the knowledge.

  “No,” Sarah said. “We don’t need to know. And maybe he’ll never want to tell any of you. Perhaps it took all he had to tell me. It’s probably easier to tell a woman than a man, anyway. All he needed was the knowledge that someone understood what he was feeling. It’s no cure, but it is a start. But,” she admonished, “if he wants to talk, Weasel, don’t you be encouraging any revenge fantasies on his part. He’s a brave, resourceful man. But he’s no soldier.”

  “We needn’t be worrying about that, Sarah,” I said. “We’ll be seeing the fat man again. Duke made an awful mess of his face. Merlin is going to have deal with him again whether he wants to or not.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  They found us ten days later, the Messengers did. They made their first incursions just before dawn. We had hoped for a night attack. We knew the ground better, and our NVG’s were superior to theirs. But that’s the thing about enemies, they don’t often cooperate. We were five on that day—Merlin was still with us—and a dog, only a fraction of their number. But it was our turf. We knew the secrets, the traps, the mines, the tunnel system.

  And we were expecting them. Had been for years.

  Merlin had been drifting back and forth. Here for a day or two, gone for a time. He was mending his wounds, looking for distractions, trying to retrieve a taste of his old lifestyle. When he returned, he remained generally taciturn, but occasionally spoke a few words. Sometimes flashed a smile. He had even cut down on the showers and incessant dope smoking. The fact that he kept coming back was an encouraging sign. There was something about us that drew him back. It was an indicator that he hadn’t given up on himself.

  He came back again the night of the attack, was sleeping soundly in his room when the first warnings were sounded. It was a trickle at first, like when you initially notice a few wasps hovering around, scoping out the site of a possible nest, and then suddenly they’re all over the place. Within five minutes two mines had exploded and three of the inside lights indicating breech of pasture land had flashed in the house. Before the third light had begun blinking, we were all in position, night goggles in place, comm head sets on.

  Weasel and I were in the tower, red light patrol. We each had a image intensifying night scope on our sniper rifles. We had noise suppressing headphones and all of us had communicators.

  Weasel was using the Hechler and Koch PSG-1. I had the Mauser SP 66. Both fired 7.62 rounds and had flash suppressors to keep our location hidden.

  We started with a quick survey of the land outside the walls with Zeiss binocs, military model rigged for night vision. It was a disheartening sight.

  “Shit,” Weasel said, his voice echoing the sense of loss he felt, knowing this would be the last night we would ever spend in the compound. “What do you count, Mac?”

  “At least two hundred. Maybe three,” I replied. Our voices were carried to Stevie, Merlin and Sarah through the comm sets. They each manned a gun slot on the second floor. Duke was with Merlin tonight. First time he had ever made the wrong choice.

  “Jesus,” Sarah sighed. “We’re fucked.”

  “Not us, Sarah,” Weasel comforted. “Just the compound. And we got all we need to start over in the truck.”

  It had been loaded for weeks. Mobile armory. We could fight the Hundred Years War using it as a base.

  “We need bigger bedrooms anyway,” Stevie said.

  Weasel gave us a reminder of the plan of battle. “We whittle ‘em down as much as we can without presenting any serious danger to our selves. Then we get the fuck out of here. Two in the truck. The other three through separate tunnels. Meet at Fox Valley, Sears entrance. It’s ready for us.”

  Stevie and Merlin had been working at the mall a couple of days a week for over a year. Called it the new storm cellar. Sarah and I hadn’t seen it. Nor had Merlin. We always stayed back to keep working on the compound. We knew we couldn’t keep the Messengers out. Our efforts were concentrated on making the price of entry very expensive.

  “I’m sure going to miss all that music and vids,” Merlin said. “And that microwave. Man, that’s the best.”

  “You don’t know me very well, do you, Merlin?” It was Weasel. “Let’s get to work. Remember stay in your zones unless someone calls for help. No chatter on the circuit. Business only.”

  By the time The Messenger soldiers started their first exploration of our defenses,
the sun was a semi-circle on the eastern horizon. Our night vision goggles were no help. They wouldn’t be presenting easy targets to us with the red lights on the infrareds of their NVG’s.

  Their first assault was straight toward the front of the house. They were cautious. The threat of a land mine ripping your lower body apart will do that to a person. And when mines on two sides of the force exploded, the soldiers figured out the right path and grew bolder. We used the scopes on the sniper rifles and picked up the targets as they stood and began their dash toward our front. Weasel and I began pruning their numbers, all the time looking for The Babe among the first wave. We had little hope of seeing him this soon. The general would send in grunts first.

  At first, they thought they were out of rifle range, but our sniper rifles were well beyond the reach of any weapon they were familiar with. By the time Weasel and I finished our first sweeps, each handling 180 degrees of the territory, picking out each man as he stood to begin his dash, the Messenger soldiers began scrambling back beyond our range, triggering several more mines in the spokes of the wheel that was the grasslands leading to the barbed wire. We diminished their numbers by approximately twenty in the first stage. Only Weasel and I had fired. Sarah, Stevie and Merlin were still unknowns to the attackers.

  A stillness descended, replacing the sharp explosions of our sniper rifles. Weasel and I swept away expended shell casings and restocked our ammo supplies, saving his five round clips to be oiled and reloaded when it was safe once again. The Mauser I was using was bolt action, three rounds and reload. I restocked my ammo pouch, primed for the next wave.

  • • • •

  They avoided the mine fields in the next assault. They came full blast, balls out, from all sides, requiring all five of us to defend our positions. They started chanting before they began the second run, a low three beat thrumming that I couldn’t make out until it approached its crescendo, seconds before they commenced their charge.

  “MESS-EN-GERS. MESS-EN-GERS.” Over and over.

  Designed to scare us. Did a good job on me. It took a big bunch of voices to make that much noise. The chant came from every compass point. A perfect circle…with us at the center.

  I had been surrounded by a dog pack once, little over a decade ago. The day I met Sarah. They too formed a circle and made noise. I had an empty M 16—ammo expended, it was little more than a high tech club—and a buck knife. They slowly closed the circle while I whirled, never allowing my back in one place too long, swinging at the bravest or hungriest, the ones who leapt toward me, darting forward with canines gnashing, attempting to remove some flesh from my bones, then pulling back before my M 16 could find their heads. The low pitched, high decibel resonance of their growls and snarls filled my world…

  The chant of the soldier/dogs reached its zenith, peaked and shattered, exploding into hundreds of high pitched scream fragments and snapping me back to the present. In the next moment, as if on command, they stood and charged, over a hundred strong, dope-fortified maniacs, garbed in the detritus of 20th cen football and hockey teams, carrying molotovs and assault rifles instead of footballs and hockey sticks.

  They had nearly two hundred meters to cover between their position and barbed wire/thistle/grape vine barrier. It was naked territory, no cover, nothing to hide behind, no obstacles to deflect the path of our bullets.

  Weasel and I started with the sniper rifles, but there were too many of the Messengers this time, and in a few seconds we had to discard the snipers for automatics. I put the tripod-mounted HK21A1 belt fed machine gun into service while Weasel went to his assault rifle.

  Beneath us the sounds of Sarah, Stevie and Merlin firing from their positions were added to the wall of fire designed to break the Messenger’s circle. The heavier ordnance of the machine gun was the extra help we needed. It drove them back, those of them who could still flee, but, without a flash suppressor to hide the barrel flashes, the machine gun also marked our location on top of the roof. We came under heavy fire toward the end of the second wave.

  Some of the molotovs, probably shine or paint solvent with rag wicks, made it to the barbed wire barrier. But our preparations paid dividends. The flames licked at the vegetation, and finding no purchase, faded into nothingness, leaving the barbed wire hidden.

  I surveyed the killing ground with the binocs. Outside our walls a circle of bodies littered the landscape. Some were moving, crawling back to the Messenger lines, hoping for succor from their savage mates. We let them go. Wounded men were a bigger drain on their resources than the dead.

  I remembered the dog pack then, how when they were closing the circle, their eyes intensely focused on me, their breakfast, I had finally said to myself, fuck it, and tried to bust out, make it to a tree just twenty short meters away.

  I didn’t have a prayer. I bashed two of them with the M 16 stock, then used the buck knife, whittling my way through what appeared to be a tiny arc of weakness in their circle. It was an illusion. They were too fast and too strong. The last sensations I remembered were the intense pain in my legs and arms as their teeth tore at my muscle and the horrible noise of their hunger, the snarls and growls, so precisely perfect that I could make out individual animal sounds, even through the thickness of my arms which were clenched tightly about my neck and head.

  We needed to break out of the circle before it closed too tightly. “I think it’s time to get away from here,” I told Weasel.

  “You’re right,” Weasel replied. He began breaking down the machine gun. “Next charge is gonna bring some of ‘em to the barrier. The razor wire’s gonna hold ‘em back, but not forever. And it gets them close enough to try’n burn us out.” Figure we got five, ten minutes. Let’s pack it up and head for the truck and tunnels.”

  “I still think all of us should go in the truck, Weasel.” It was Sarah. Everybody was on the comms. She hadn’t agreed with the original plan but had been out-voted.

  “Ain’t the plan, Sarah,” Weasel responded. “If we split up, it divides them up too. Besides, they get lucky enough to punch out a couple of tires, that truck’s gonna be dead in its tracks. I’d hate to see that happen if all of us was in it.”

  “OK. I’m just worried about you and Stevie.”

  “We worry about you too. This way gives us all a better chance of starting over again. And a greater opportunity of finding The Babe out there. We don’t get him on this try, he’s still gonna be coming for us.”

  “All right,” I interrupted, “enough chatter. All of you get to your positions. I’ll stay up here and pepper the next wave so they don’t get the idea we’re breaking out.”

  “Be careful,” Sarah’s voice.

  “You too,” I said. “Meet you in the basement.”

  Weasel shouldered the machine gun, also taking my sniper rifle along with his, and began climbing down to the second story from our perch. Before his head disappeared from view, he said, “Don’t stay too long. Let ‘em come but don’t make it too easy for them.”

  “Don’t forget the prisoner,” I said.

  “We got the rig all set for him,” Weasel replied.

  The plan was to harness the Messenger in the closet to the front of the truck, a hood ornament, hoping it would buy a few seconds hesitation from his comrades. Weasel nodded at the three remaining assault rifles. “Don’t leave them little beauties behind. See you outside.”

  The Messengers started the chanting again, building to another crescendo and launching from their cover at its zenith, a full circle of men, several pairs carrying ladders. Didn’t look like they left anyone back this time. I didn’t have time to count, but around 200 seemed right. Far too many for one man to slow down. I briefly wondered who was minding the home fires. It looked like The Babe had brought just about everyone old enough to walk.

  He was a good tactician. They came in three waves. I concentrated on the men with ladders first, taking out three before their first assault line got in range of their M 16s. Then eight of them, each occ
upying a piece of the circle, hit the ground while the rest kept charging for the safety of the wall. I immediately came under fire from their assault rifles. There wasn’t much I could do because they had me from all angles.

  As the bullets chipped away the wood of the cupola, I snatched up my three rifles and told everyone I was coming down, leaving the battleground to the Messengers. When they realized my firing had stopped, their screams filled the air. They thought they had us.

  None of us had seen The Babe yet. But there was no doubt he was out there, directing the troops with his Radio Shack walkie talkie, the mate of which I still carried.

  I sprinted to the kitchen. I went to the door connecting the kitchen to the huge remodeled garage to check on Weasel and Stevie. I heard the screams from the man who had occupied our closet for weeks, the house guest from hell, before I entered.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to be? A fucking battering ram? You guys are fucking nuts. My boys gonna skin you like a deer. Fuck you assholes. Your time is coming.”

  The prisoner was tied in mesh cage to the front of the hood. Sort of looked like the front of the old sailing ships, like in Moby Dick, where they had figure of a woman projecting from the prow. If he survived the gunfire, the bars of his cage would protect him from projectiles and razor wire. Our hope was that because of our prisoner’s status in the hierarchy of the Messengers, the soldiers wouldn’t fire upon the truck.

  The doors to the garage were already open. Outside, the shooting had stopped. Weasel and Stevie were scurrying around the truck, last minute checks of the vehicle that carried our most valued contents, weapons, electronics, munitions, artwork, books, disks. The tank was filled with almost all of our ethanol. The remainder of the fuel was stashed at the mall, held back for the generators.

  “You two get the hell out of here,” I told Weasel. “They’re at the barrier, and they’re gonna try to use ladders to get over.”