The Living Hunger

by Dennis F. Larsen

  “Get those other boys on the horn,” he said, stepping from the truck long enough to stretch and eat a handful of cookies he’d brought as a snack. The driver keyed the mic on his handset, speaking quickly to fulfill Don’s request, however, there was no reply, even with repeated attempts.

  “Can’t reach ‘em. Maybe they’re out of range.”

  “Or dead,” Don replied, with very little emotion, as crumbs fell from the corners of his mouth.

  * * *

  “What da ya think?” Cory asked his buddy, as they sat waiting for the pair of lighted vehicles to come upon them.

  “I think we’re screwed,” Clayton replied, his hands firmly on the wheel of the open jeep, as he contemplated slamming his foot to the accelerator and catching up with the convoy. “Don’t think they’ve missed us yet or we’d have heard from the Sarge.”

  “Yeah, he’s going to be none too happy with us once he realizes we aren’t with ‘em,” Cory predicted.

  “I can just hear him: ‘you boys are dumber than a sack of hammers’ or something like that,” Clayton laughed, thinking of the good times they’d had with their friends who were winding their way to freedom.

  “I’m gonna miss Farrell if we don’t get out of here. We’ve had some good laughs, that’s for sure. He’s been the big brother I never had. Kinda like you’ve been the baby sister I never had,” Cory inserted, trying to get a rise out of Clayton before their world came crashing down.

  “Oh crap, here they come. You ready up there?” Clayton asked.

  “Ready as I’m gonna be. Give me enough time to empty what’s left of this belt into the first one, and then get us out of here. I’ll try to get the last belt loaded while you get us behind the station. We can hit ‘em again from there.”

  “Got it. Hey man, good luck - love you dude,” Clayton said, the words coming easy to the good-natured farm boy.

  “Yeah, don’t go getting all soft on me, but if we don’t make it, I’ll wait for you on the other side. Just be another great adventure,” Cory assured his friend.

  The boys watched as the trucks advanced down the road toward their position, the jeep sitting sideways in the road. “What if they’re friendlies?” Clayton asked.

  “Hadn’t thought of that. Who else is gonna be out here after dark?”

  “I don’t know but I’d hate to open up on a bunch of kids or something.”

  “Agreed,” Cory concurred. “I guess we’ll find out pretty dang quick, they just stopped. Must be eyeing us over, deciding what they want to do.”

  The two trucks, each filled with four heavily armed and very agitated men, halted in the middle of the road, the headlights just making out a reflection from the jeep ahead. “What’s this?” the driver said, not necessarily to anyone but just thinking out loud.

  “Well, I think it’s a jeep with a couple guys in it,” a man offered from the club cab, as he leaned over the seat to make sure the driver heard him.

  “I can see that numb nuts! I was thinking more in terms of, ‘is this an ambush’,” the driver clarified.

  “Oh, so why didn’t you say that?”

  “Do I have to spell everything out for you, Dopey?”

  “Hey, Don told you to stop callin’ me that. It’s disrespectful and all,” the man blurted from the backseat, still leaning over between the two men seated in the front.

  “Well, Mr. Dopey, why don’t you haul your butt out of that backseat and wander up there and see what them boys got in mind,” the driver said, taking another shot at his passenger.

  “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Guess that’s for me to decide. Don didn’t say nothin’ to me about you being the boss.”

  The driver quickly pulled his Colt .45 from the little holster wrapped around his calf and stuffed the barrel under Dopey’s nose, pushing the top of his head against the ceiling of the cab. “This here .45 is making me the boss! You got any questions?”

  With the gun firmly thrust up against his nose, the less-gifted man rotated his head slowly side-to-side, indicating that he understood perfectly.

  “I didn’t think so. Now get out there and see what we got to deal with.”

  The man slowly opened his door and slid out, taking his shotgun with him. The driver kept him aligned with the sights of his pistol, fully prepared to kill his own man if he gave him any more grief. Dopey walked slowly away from the truck, stopping only once to look around to see the bore of the semi-automatic aimed between his eyes. The thought briefly crossed his mind to bring his own weapon up and teach that bossy so-and-so a lesson, but the idea faded quickly when Cory yelled from the jeep, “That’s plenty close! What’s your business?”

  Dopey stopped but made the mistake of raising the shotgun into a ready position across his chest, finger on the trigger and left hand on the pump lever.

  “Hold it right there! Don’t you dare move a muscle or I’m gonna fill you so full of lead you’ll look like a strainer!” Cory belted out, bringing his eye down to align the machine gun’s sights on the anxious intruder.

  “Whoa, whoa, just hold up there a minute. Don’t go shootin’ anybody. We just need to get past ya and get down the road a piece. You got a problem with that?”

  “Uh, what do you think? Nobody’s getting past us tonight. You go on home and come back in the morning and the road will be all yours,” Clayton said, joining the three-way conversation.

  As the boys were talking with the less than bright negotiator standing in the headlights before them, a man from the second truck quietly left the bed of the vehicle and crawled into the ditch bank at the side of the road. Using the cover there, he moved with stealth bringing him 75 feet from the boys’ jeep. Kneeling in the weeds he lifted his .30 caliber rifle to his shoulder and was taking a bead on the man standing in the back of the vehicle when he heard the crackle of a radio.

  “Where are you boys? Thought I told you to snug it up and stay close!” Farrell’s angry voice carried easily through the cool night air, alerting both parties to the Security Chief’s mood.

  Clayton flicked his own device; “We dropped back a bit to slow ‘em down.”

  “You did what? Get your butts in the saddle and catch up to us! Now!”

  “Too late. We’ve got a little situation we’re trying to iron out . . . ” Clayton was cut off when a shell ricocheted off the roll bar, narrowly missing both he and Cory.

  As C&C ducked for cover, Dopey saw his opportunity for glory and charged the jeep, firing the shotgun from the hip as he went. Steel-shot from the 12-gauge peppered the jeep and its occupants, stinging and penetrating their bare flesh, but the determined attacker was not close enough to have his rounds truly count. Cory wasted no time in bringing his focus back to the Browning’s sights, squeezing the trigger of the mounted weapon once he had Dopey engaged. The big gun erupted with a loud burst as each shell ignited a charge of powder, sending a deadly projectile toward the intended target. In this case, Dopey had no chance. The shells stitched a trail of fist-sized wounds from his belt to his forehead as Cory elevated the gun, moving from the man to the front of the first truck. Dopey lay dead, the first casualty of the night’s firefight.

  Unsure of where the first shot had been fired from, Clayton launched the jeep forward, spinning the tires against the pavement after he saw the shotgun-blasting foe go down. Cory struggled to bring the machine gun’s fire to bear on the trucks, while trying to remain upright and his head protected. Shells bounced and pinged off their ride’s supporting structures but the cloud created by the smoking tires was enough to turn the shooters’ aim from skill to guesswork. Bullock’s men stood behind the doors of their trucks, firing indiscriminately at the fleeing pair. Once the jeep was stable and angled in a straight line to the station, Cory leaned his shoulder into the heavy gun and emptied the belt of ammo that slithered through one side of the breech and out the other. The slugs crashed into the pavement several feet in front of the lead truck before the gunner adjusted and dispatched the truck’s engine with
a final burst.

  The jeep raced up the road, still taking the occasional hit to the chassis but the men were relatively unharmed. Both were experiencing the discomfort of multiple BB sized wounds and steel shot, just under the surface of the skin, but nothing life threatening. Suddenly, a well-placed bullet struck the jeep’s rear tire, sending it into a slide, which Clayton managed to overcome with a few quick turns of the steering wheel but their speedy getaway was slowed considerably.

  “Get that other belt fed!” Clayton yelled.

  “I’m trying! I’m trying! Won’t this thing go any faster?” Cory responded, working feverishly with the heavy ribbon of bullets, trying to compensate for the undulating motion of the vehicle.

  “We’re almost there. Keep your head down for another few seconds.”

  The barrage of fire laid down by the machine gun had somewhat deterred the men but not stopped them. Darcy, the driver and quasi-leader, rallied his men, reminding them of the accolades they would receive if they were able to bring Don the Security Chief’s head. In the dirt at the side of the road they drew out a hastily prepared plan, agreeing to send a diversionary force up the left side of the road, while the operational truck would flank the jeep and take out the machine gun and its crew. Darcy opted to drive, assuming that a good leader should always be encased in steel and glass. Five men stood on the running boards of the truck as they slowly crept up the gradual incline leading to the abandoned station ahead. A hundred feet before their destination, the five jumped from the truck and trudged up the left hand side, their guns pulled to their shoulders and fingers on the triggers. Those on foot watched as the truck swung wide through a barren field to the right, positioning itself for a flanking charge once they were in place.

  Behind the station, Cory and Clayton were summing up their situation. “Well, that didn’t go quite as we had planned,” Cory was quick to appraise.

  “They’re going to flank us, right?” Clayton asked, wanting to confirm his worst fear.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Guess so,” Clayton agreed.

  “I think I hit the one truck so some of ‘em are gonna be on foot. Get us over by that dumpster to protect our right side. Put it nose up so I can still shoot to our right. You better get your scoped rifle and lay in the weeds or ditch where they can’t see you.”

  “What you gonna do?” Clayton asked.

  “I’ll finish what’s left of the belts and then join you. But don’t shoot me!”

  “Very funny. Keep your head down. I think we got about six or seven guys after us and this jeep ain’t gonna get us very far.”

  “I got a little equalizer, Farrell slipped it to me when we left the school, said he was saving it for a special occasion,” Cory said, patting the incendiary grenade that he had stored away in his coat pocket.

  “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “I try to be but I think it’s these guys who are going to be surprised.”

  With the jeep positioned next to the large metal dumpster and Clayton in a shallow ditch a few meters away, the two boys waited for the show to begin. A half moon overhead, assisted by a few billion stars, illuminated the battleground. Clayton’s scoped-view appeared gray. Looking through the combination of lenses, the scatter of light provided movement and shape but no significant detail. He kept the edge of the station as a landmark, moving the scope right, then back to the edge, before sweeping back again for targets or movement. Cory did the same, keeping both hands on the machine gun and his feet firmly planted in the back of the jeep’s box. By stretching himself up onto his tiptoes he could barely see over the dumpster and what may be coming from their left.

  Cory thought he could just make out the faintest sound of an engine moving slowly somewhere beyond the building but could not be sure. He elevated himself to take a peek, when the crack of Clayton’s rifle made him recoil back into the bed of the jeep, his arms rigid with tension. Sporadic gunfire began to light the area near the store’s corner and across the street, where a patch of thick weeds was providing some disguise for the attackers. Clayton continued to pick and choose targets, taking the shot when he was sure the dark mass filling the scope’s field was human. The attackers’ muzzle flashes acted as miniature targets for Cory, who fired in controlled bursts just as Farrell had taught him with his AR-15. ‘Fire a burst, regain control, find a target and repeat’, the Security Chief had told him a dozen times.

  The occasional sound of a man going down, either wounded or dead, could be heard in between bursts that filled the night’s air. Darcy, feeling the time was right for their triumphant entry into the fray, dropped the hammer on the accelerator and raced around the southern periphery of the station, rear end fishtailing, a cascade of rocks shooting into space behind them. Cory eased off the trigger long enough to see what was coming their way. The truck was approaching fast; a man leaned from the passenger’s window with a deadly looking weapon primed to spit lead.

  “Clayton, the truck is swinging in from the left! Watch for it! I’m almost out!” Cory screamed above the sound of the battle. The only reply he got was the sound of Clayton’s .270 Winchester taking another attacker out of the action.

  The truck roared past Cory’s position, putting Darcy on the side of the station and the shooter on Cory’s. There was no pretense of slowing as the truck blasted past, the man firing wildly at unknown targets but getting a good look for the second pass. The machine gun chugged out round after round from the back of the jeep dotting the side of the truck but not stopping it. Cory held the hammer down on the Browning until the belt dropped from the weapon’s hungry mouth and the last shell was fired. He jumped from the shooting platform and ran for the ditch and his friend.

  “That’s it! No more ammo!” Cory said, sliding into the earth’s narrow opening next to Clayton. “That truck will be coming around again!”

  “I know!”

  A few seconds later the truck did make another pass, this time firing specifically at the jeep, even though it was now empty. Cory and Clayton did their best to return fire but were unsuccessful at stopping it. The men on foot were slowly working their advantage: with the truck as a distraction, they were putting less ground between themselves and the valiant duo. The flashes coming from the young pair’s barrels were also acting as beacons for the attackers to home in on. A few lay dead, dying or wounded, leaving a handful of attackers to converge on the team while Darcy continued to play murderer’s merry-go-round.

  The next few minutes seemed like forever for the two young men huddled close together in the ditch. To their front was the blocking force, to their back, the jeep, which was offering no hope of breaking out. Darcy and company occupied the space to their left, leaving only a flat, empty field as an avenue of escape. Neither man liked the odds of running across the field, not knowing what was on the other side with men in a 4x4 who could easily chase them down and finish the fight.

  Buzzing lead hornets continued to bite into the dirt all around them. The two returned fire, as they were able, the few shells they carried in their pockets almost completely spent.

  “We need to get closer to the guys ahead of us,” Cory called out.

  “Closer? What? Why?”

  “I’ve got to have them close enough to use the grenade,” Cory said, being careful not to speak loud enough for the opposing players to hear. “Don’t shoot for a minute. Maybe they’ll think they’ve hit us and move in for a better look.”

  “I don’t like it but I think it’s our only chance. I’ve only got two rounds left. How ‘bout you?” Clayton confirmed.

  “I’m out! You better save those last two shells for the truck. If we can hit the other guys with the grenade, maybe we can secure a couple of weapons. Once the grenade goes off, we’re gonna have to charge their position. You with me?”

  “You know I am.”

  As they were concluding the desperately lacking plan, Darcy shot by again, the gunner pouring lead down on the boys’ position
. Dirt sprayed up in small geysers each time a round struck the earth. The two hugged the ground, flattening themselves as much as they were able. The truck disappeared around the corner of the station but C&C did not move. They waited and listened, Cory’s hand clutching the grenade, ready to throw it as soon as he felt the assailants were close enough to take it in the teeth. Minutes passed, the shooting slowed to almost a ceasefire when the truck appeared again, this time screeching to a stop 60 feet from the protective ditch.

  Cory brought his index finger to his lips, quieting Clayton, as Darcy and the gunner left the safety of the cab and stood in front of their idling vehicle.

  “You think we got them?” Darcy asked.

  “Don’t know. You guys know where they are? Did we get ‘em?” he yelled to the advancing others.

  “They’re in the ditch! Hasn’t been any shots from there for a minute, we must’ve hit them,” came the reply.

  “You guys move in and we’ll watch the ditch,” Darcy commanded, thumbing the safety off on his .45.

  “Do what? Are you crazy?”

  “Get in there or I’ll shoot you myself. If they pop up, they’re dead. Go on, we got ‘em from here.”

  “Okay, okay, but keep us covered!”

  “Yeah, just drag their bodies out here so we can take them back to Don,” the would-be leader asserted.

  Cory listened carefully, straining and using his best judgment to determine when he might let the incendiary go. The crackling of dry brush and the incessant grumbling of the men worked to his advantage, as he pulled the pin of the grenade, rolled over onto his back and lofted it over his head and into the general vicinity of the advancing men. Cory’s hand cleared the edge of the ditch as he hurled the device. Reflexively, the gunner watching the ditch pulled the trigger back on his weapon, running a series of shells up the bank and over the ditch but not striking the boys. A split second later, the incendiary exploded, throwing flame and devastation in a 15-foot radius, burning at 4000 degrees and consuming everything in its path. Cries were heard but only very briefly as flesh and bones were melted into pools of unrecognizable tissue.