by Sam Sisavath
“Ghoul problems?” Keo asked.
“Not out here,” Jonah said. “Not this close to the ocean. You know about that, I assume?”
“That the only thing the little critters fear more than sunlight and silver is large bodies of salt water?”
“Uh huh. Saw one of them come close a few years back, but that was it. Only the really desperate ones would even think about trying their luck with us all the way out here.”
Or the really hungry ones, Keo thought, remembering the one he had killed in his cabin.
There was constant ambient noise around him, crickets filling the air in front and the ocean waves pounding the beach at the back. A pair of sentries walked by below, talking quietly among themselves. Jonah had also put four men on each side of the beach in case of a surprise night attack. Overall, it was a decent perimeter defense and convinced Keo that Shorty knew what he was doing. Mostly, anyway.
I guess no one’s getting a lot of sleep tonight.
He looked back at the trees. There was something foreboding about it, and he couldn’t shake the feeling there were people in there watching him back. If there were, they’d be getting a pretty clear look at him with an LED lantern hanging almost directly above him. The lights were solar-powered and hung from the edges of each one of the six buildings.
Talk about a spotlight, Keo thought, before taking a couple of steps back from the railing until he was partially hidden in the shadows.
“What’s the matter?” Jonah asked when he came back out onto the deck and handed Keo an unlabeled bottle of beer. “You look spooked.”
“Just being careful,” Keo said. He took the bottle and was surprised to find it cool to the touch. “You got a working fridge in there?”
“Nah. We keep a cooler full of them in the ocean. I fished these out earlier.”
Jonah had already taken off the cap, so Keo took a sip. The beer had lost most of its flavor and body, but it was still better than drinking bottled water. He watched Jonah lean against the railing, at about the same spot he had been earlier, and thought about telling the man he probably shouldn’t expose himself so readily, but decided he was just being paranoid.
“It was nice while it lasted,” Jonah said, taking a sip from his beer.
“You sound like you’ve already given this place up.”
“I’m a pragmatist, and I know what these Buckies are capable of.”
“Are we talking about personal experience?”
Jonah grunted. “Maybe.”
“What else did you hear about this Copenhagen guy?”
“Not much, but anyone who could hire these old chums of ours to do the dirty work isn’t someone to fuck with. It takes a lot of balls to be in charge.” He paused to take another sip before lowering the bottle and staring off into the night. “Decisions have to be made, and sometimes men sacrificed for the greater good. It takes a toll on you, grinds you down. The only way it doesn’t is if you don’t have anything for it to grind down in the first place.”
“Is it safe to say you weren’t just a foot soldier in the day?”
“Not quite.”
“So what happened?”
“Ran into people who were tougher than me. Smarter, too.”
“Ain’t that always the case?” Keo took another sip from the beer. It wasn’t the best thing he’d ever tasted, but it was cool enough that it didn’t taste too bad. “So if you’ve already given this place up, where are you guys going?”
Jonah looked back at him. “Why should I tell you? You’re leaving us tomorrow anyway, aren’t you?”
“Who said anything about leaving?”
“Oh, come on. You came here looking for two very specific people. You got some information from the Winding Creek refugees, and now you’re going to go back out there to continue the search. It’s a no-brainer.”
I guess he’s making up for the lack of height with some smarts, Keo thought, and said, “Maybe.”
“I have a plan and let’s leave it at that.”
“It’s always nice to have a plan,” Keo said, and thought, I wish I had one right now. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“I like having options,” Jonah said. “You never know when the world will try to kick you in the nuts. When that happens, I like being able to pivot. I find that it’s a good way to keep from dying unnecessarily.”
“Has that always worked for you?”
“So far…” He paused, then, “By the way, where’s your horse?”
“My horse?”
“Yeah. I saw it walking around on the beach earlier. I don’t see it anywhere down there.”
Keo shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s not actually my horse.”
“No?”
“For some reason, it keeps following me—”
Keo didn’t hear it, but there was no confusing what it was when something chopped into the wooden railing about six inches from Jonah’s chest, spitting wood into the air before zipping past Keo’s waist and punching into the wall behind him with an echoing thunk!
“Sniper!” Keo shouted, and spun toward the door.
He didn’t hear the next three shots, but he saw them landing—two embedding into the wall to his left before the third shattered a window just as Keo raced past it. The beer bottle flew out of his hand sometime between the second and third shot, but Keo wasn’t paying enough attention to be sure where it landed.
“Fuck all!” Jonah shouted behind him.
“Fuck all?” Keo thought even as he leapt through the open door and slammed into the floorboards inside the house.
There was another LED lantern on a table nearby that partially lit up the room, though not enough to cover all of the spaces. Keo was rolling over onto his back and into a patch of shadow just in time to see Jonah slipping inside after him. The man grabbed the door and swung it shut as two more rounds smacked into it from the other side—thunk! thunk!—but didn’t penetrate.
Jonah ducked as he jumped over Keo, then slid to the floor and crawled over to a nearby wall far from any of the windows. Keo thought that was a fine idea—the sniper couldn’t hit what they couldn’t see—and crawled over to the table where he had laid down his MP5SD, reached for it, then went over to join Jonah.
Keo had just reached Jonah’s position when a radio squawked and an alarmed voice said through tiny speakers, “What was that? Did someone shout something?”
Jonah unclipped the two-way from his hip and keyed it. “It’s me. There are snipers in the field. I repeat: There are snipers in the field.”
Keo had to admit, he was impressed with Shorty’s calmness. The man didn’t scream into the radio or shout incoherently.
He’s definitely been through this before.
“Should we return fire?” someone else asked through the radio.
“Not unless you can see them,” Jonah said. “You’ll just make yourselves into a target. Until then, stay low. That goes for everyone.”
“Roger that,” someone answered.
“Are you hurt?” a female voice asked. Keo recognized Sherry.
“No, got indoors with everything still intact,” Jonah said, patting himself down just to be sure. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Keo?”
“He’s fine, too.”
“Nice of her to ask,” Keo smiled.
“Well, you did save her life out there,” Jonah said. Then, into the radio, “Landry, Max—you guys see anything?”
“Who’s Landry and Max?” Keo asked.
Jonah looked up at the ceiling.
The rooftop sentries.
“I got nothing,” a male voice answered. Jonah mouthed the word Max at Keo, before Max added, “I’m not seeing anything out there, Jonah.”
“Are you using your night-vision?” Jonah asked.
“Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m still seeing squat. If he’s out there, I don’t see him. But there’s a mile of grass. He could be anywhere.”
“What about you, Landry?”
He waited for a r
eply.
Five seconds, then ten.
Uh oh, Keo thought, when Jonah said into the radio, “Landry. Are you there? Landry, answer me, goddammit.”
But whoever Landry was, he never answered.
“Shit,” Jonah whispered. Then, calmly into the radio, “Max. Can you see him?”
“He’s down,” Max said. “He’s down, Jonah. Landry’s down.”
“Where?”
“On the roof. He’s still on the roof, but he’s not moving…”
Jonah exchanged a look with Keo, and even in the semidarkness Keo could tell the man was trying to figure out what to do or say next. Keo wanted to help the poor guy out, but all he could think about was running out there, looking for Horse, and escaping through the beach. And he could do just that without ever having to see a single Bucky. The bad guys were probably shooting from the woods (which was possible but not likely—it was a damn mile, after all) or they were already staked out in the fields (which was much more likely), but the beach would be cleared. All Keo had to do was find Horse and point him either south or north and keep going along the sand.
Unless, of course, the Buckies had people watching both beach directions, too. What were the chances of that? It would almost entirely depend on how many they had brought this time.
Five this morning. Maybe five again tonight.
Or more…
Keo was still thinking about his options when Jonah keyed the radio and said into it, “Baker, I want you to wake everyone up.”
“Got it,” someone answered.
“Stratton,” Jonah said, “take a group to bolster the guards on our south. Jerry, I want you to do the same on our north—”
“Fuck!” someone shouted through the radio just before a rifle fired—the pop-pop-pop filling the world outside in a rush of gunfire. Someone was unloading an entire magazine and didn’t stop until they had run empty.
Jonah waited until the last shots faded before he keyed his radio. “What was that? What just happened?”
“They shot Barnes,” another man answered through the radio. “Goddammit, they got Barnes. Shot him through the head. Jesus.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see them.”
“Anyone else?” Jonah asked.
“I don’t see anything out there,” someone else answered.
“I can’t see anything from my building, either,” Sherry said.
“Okay, okay.” Jonah seemed to take a breath. Then, “Stay out of the open. They can’t shoot what they can’t see. Watch your spots, and if you see anything moving out there, let them have it. But don’t expose yourself if you don’t have to. Got it?”
“Roger that,” Sherry said.
A few others responded in the affirmative.
“Where was Barnes?” Keo asked.
Jonah put his radio down. “What?”
“Barnes.”
“South end.”
“And Landry was on the north end?”
Jonah nodded. “Yeah. So?”
“Someone took a shot at us in the middle.”
“What’s your point, Keo?”
“My point is, there are at least two of them out there, with the possibility of three or more. They have the south and north ends covered, along with the center.”
It took a few seconds, but Jonah finally got it. “Oh, crap. They’ve got us cut off from any routes of escape. Even through the beaches.”
“Looks that way,” Keo nodded, and thought, There goes my out. “Even if there’s just three of them out there, they can pick us off if we try to make a run for it in any direction. They might not get all of us, but they’ll get enough.”
“Goddammit. Got any more good news for me?”
“Yeah. I dropped my beer.”
Jonah gave him an “Are you serious?” look before chuckling. “I’ll get you another one when this is over.”
“I gotta wait for this to be over?”
“Hey, life’s full of sacrifices, buddy.”
“I guess so,” Keo said, and laid his submachine gun in his lap and leaned back against the wall.
“I didn’t hear it,” Jonah said. “The first shot or the others. I heard them hit, but I didn’t hear the actual shots.”
“They’re using suppressors,” Keo said. “My guess is they’re already in the fields. Probably spent the last few hours crawling through it from the woods. There could be a few hundred of them out there, for all we know. It wouldn’t be hard in that pitch darkness.”
Jonah sighed. “I guess it was too much to hope they might wait a few more days before they made their move. Most of our emergency supplies are already in moving crates.”
“When was moving day supposed to be?”
“I was going to make the announcement tomorrow morning.”
Jonah looked toward the closest window, which was also the one that had been shot out. Moonlight and chilly air filtered inside, and Keo pulled his shirt’s collar up and over his neck for warmth. There were just the crickets in front of them and the surf behind them again.
“How many of your people know what they’re doing out there?” Keo asked.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, how many have killed before?”
Jonah shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like I gave everyone an interview before I let them join us.”
“You said they were all collaborators. How many wore uniforms like you?”
“Most of them.”
“But not all.”
“Like I said—”
“Right, you didn’t ask.”
“No, I didn’t. What’s your point?”
“The Buckies,” Keo said. “The ones that were at Winding Creek and the ones out here this afternoon. They’re not amateurs. They’ve had some training. I mean, real training. Not the collaborator’s idea of training.”
“Makes sense, seeing how easily they took the towns,” Jonah said. He looked over at Keo. “And you’re telling me you don’t know who they are? Or what that M of theirs stands for?”
“Not a clue,” Keo lied.
Jonah narrowed his eyes at him, clearly not believing Keo, but before he could push further, the pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire exploded outside again. The gunfire came from nearby, to Keo’s left.
Then someone else joined in, and the shooting continued for ten seconds before the last shot finally faded, and there was just the crickets and the waves again.
“What happened?” Jonah said into his radio.
“It was me,” someone answered.
“Jameson?”
“Yeah,” the voice said. “Sorry, I thought I saw someone in the grass.”
“Did you?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
“I shot, too,” someone else said through the radio.
“Did you get anyone?”
“No, I don’t think so. I thought I saw something moving out there, but I don’t—I don’t know.”
Johan shook his head and gave Keo an exasperated look. Then, into the radio, “All right, all right. No one fires unless they’re absolutely sure. You’re just giving away your position every time you do. As long as we stay out of the open, they’ll have to come get us. When they do that, then shoot the hell out of them.”
“Copy that,” Sherry said. “Everyone, calm down. Just…calm down.”
Jonah put the radio away. “Does that answer your question?”
Keo smiled. “Hey, at least they’re not shooting at each other.”
“Yeah, there’s that, I guess.” He glanced back at the window for a moment. Then, “You got any ideas?”
I got a few thousand ideas, but all of them involve me running away on horseback, Keo thought, but he said instead, “I’ll let you know in about an hour.”
“Why an hour?” Jonah asked.
“Because the first thing that immediately pops to mind is absolutely idiotic, and it’s going to take me at least that long to even convince myse
lf to do it.”
TWENTY-TWO
IT ACTUALLY TOOK him two hours to convince himself, and it was five past midnight when Keo told Jonah about it.
Shorty laughed when he was finished. “You’re insane. But it’s your life, man. You wanna do it, it’s your call. I’m not gonna stop you.”
“You could at least try,” Keo had said.
“I stopped trying to make people do something they don’t wanna do a long time ago. All it gets you is a bullet.”
“You saying I want to do this?”
“I’m saying this is probably not your first time doing something this stupid.”
Keo had sighed, and thought, He’s got a point.
He didn’t blame Jonah for thinking that way, and the truth was he thought it was kind of crazy, too, but it wasn’t like he had any choice. The snipers were proof that the Buckies had set their sights on Jonah’s and everyone inside it. By morning there would either be more snipers out there or the entire Bucky Nation. Either way, Keo liked his chances better if he knew exactly how many were out there, and if the number was manageable, then cut it down to give the people at Jonah’s a fighting chance in the morning.
He got everything he needed from Jonah’s well-stocked supplies. The MP5SD fit into the waterproof bag, and a strip of rawhide rope was enough to keep it in place. He added a second bag for spare magazines and a knife, and a third for clothes, socks, and a pair of sneakers. He had considered dropping a handgun in there, but he was already going to be carrying too much weight and the submachine gun had to do. And besides, if everything went according to plan, he could always acquire a pistol later.
Yeah, if everything goes according to plan.
Positive thoughts, positive thoughts…
Sherry warned him that the water was going to be cold, but he had no idea until he dipped a testing toe into it and immediately pulled his entire foot back.
“I told you,” Sherry said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Keo said.
“Maybe you should wait for morning.”
“It’ll be too late in the morning.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know the best defense is always a good offense.”