Hell's Requiem: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by ML Banner

  “You two better shut up. No one’s going to save you. The boss has great plans for you,” the guard said, now paying full attention to them.

  Scarface didn’t hesitate, his years of experienced taking control. “The kid and I are having a conversation. Why don’t you mind your own damned business? Or is that too complicated for your little br—”

  The guard thrust the butt of his rifle into Scarface’s head, knocking him over onto his back.

  That went far easier than planned.

  Scarface shook away the butterflies fluttering around the periphery of his vision now. He blinked once, and then looked straight up from his back, where he was uncomfortably lying on his wrists. He would not speak any more, having accomplished his goal. All of his attention was focused on the ground beneath him, but his eyes were directed at the guard standing over him. “That was for mouthing off to me,” the guard said, while grinning at his own physical superiority above them.

  Scarface’s bound hands explored the soft dirt until they found the broken shard of glass he’d first seen when checking out the grounds. After the guard propped him back up against the fence, the rough edge of the glass was already working slowly on his bindings.

  24

  It was almost too easy to find them.

  After they had disappeared over the bridge, Tom had snuck back into the trees and slogged his way toward the dry moat around town. It was slow, but he didn’t want to take the chance of revealing himself to anyone until he knew his odds. The only advantage he had at the moment was the element of surprise.

  Crossing the river was quick, but still frightening. He had dashed across the cracked dirt of what had once been a roaring river—often during extensive rains this river was bursting its banks. Now it was empty, and that was the frightening part.

  Scarcely six months had passed since the solar storms had begun. Yet in that short time, almost all the water was gone. In the seconds it took to beat a dusty path across the river bottom, he tried to recall when it had last rained, even before the solar storms had started. By his calculations, it had been eight months since water fell from the heavens.

  No wonder the river was gone.

  Tom had been spared most of the effects of the perpetual draught because of a deep well that fed off an aquifer. But this area, just a few miles north of him, was different.

  He held up under the protection of a slag of willows in a low area, dug out by a bend in the river’s shoreline. It was one of the few green spots around. In its shade was a dark spot he’d seen from the other side of the river bank. He didn’t really want to take the time to stop here, but after the mental math had confirmed that finding water on his journey was going to be difficult at best, he needed to collect it whenever he had the chance. Plus, if his mission to save the boy was successful, and the kid came with him, he would need twice the water for their walk to Cicada. This spot would serve another purpose as well.

  Tom huffed a sigh of relief when he confirmed with a finger that the dark area was in fact a low-lying muddy patch. The survival knife came out to first break up the clumpy earth. Then using the wide blade like a spade, he pulled out the mud until a hole formed. It quickly pooled with silty water. The knife was methodically wiped clean and resheathed, and then he clawed at the hole with both hands until they disappeared into a cloudy soup. Pulling out two palms full of mud, he closed his eyes and worked each palm-full across his forehead and down his face to his neck. He did the same over his arms. He glanced at his reflection in the signal mirror and was shocked.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he looked at himself, but the man staring back at him wasn’t him. The eyes were hollow, almost crazy-looking. Perhaps that was always the way he looked before he prepared to kill someone. He only knew that he wouldn’t want to come across himself at that moment. Moving the mirror from side to side, he clinically analyzed the coverage, feeling satisfied all his exposed skin was concealed, achieving the proper effect he was after. It was time to gather the water.

  For this he’d use the mini water filtration system. It was a quart baggie containing a water bladder, plunger, mini water filter, and straw. Drawing water from the dirty hole using the syringe-like plunger, he pushed the filtered water—50ML at time—into the bladder. When that was full, he filled each empty bottle.

  Everything was packed up and he scurried over the last stretch of the dry river, and hopped the low edge of a long fence line. The owner of this large property was well known. And if he was correct, the boy and Scarface would be there.

  He just didn’t expect they’d be held in an open animal corral. They were plainly visible when he peered from the tree line. The boy had his hands tied behind him, and Scarface was hog tied, like three other captives beside them. Although Tom didn’t know yet what he was going to do or how he would do it, their being out in the open made his job a lot simpler. Now for the intel.

  He spent the next few minutes looking around, to get the lay of the land, feeling pretty comfortable with the distance between him and the guards stationed around the corral. The majority were clustered by the corral’s entrance gate, in the sun. Tom remained invisible in the shade of the red birch trees which encircled the open area around the corral. The biggest problem with trying to free them was huge.

  The guards appeared to be well-armed: all but a few carried either a hunting, a carbine, or a military-styled rifle. Several also had holstered pistols. To mount his assault, Tom only had a hunting knife and a pea-shooter rifle.

  To Tom’s favor, they all looked tense and unsure of themselves. Then their bodies snapped to attention, their eyes shooting toward an area outside of the corral area.

  A man wearing a Stetson ambled up to the men and volleyed heated words at them. Although Tom couldn’t see his face, he knew who it was instantly.

  Too far away to hear their conversation, Tom worked his way closer, remaining hidden within the trees’ shadows. All the while he kept his attention on the Stetson-wearing man, who hadn’t yet turned his face in Tom’s direction to confirm what he knew. The group of guards parted for the Stetson-wearing man, who then pointed to various parts of his property, barking off orders while turning three-sixty. The face became clear: the square chin, cleanly shaven; the pursed lips; the furrowed brows; and the blood-shot eyes. It was the corrupt sheriff of Warsaw, Bart Martinson.

  When Tom saw Griff on the highway, he was sure he’d find Bart behind everything. It all made sense, as he had suspected Bart had his hands in the till before the apocalypse. Naturally he’d keep control afterward. And Griff was his muscle. Tom also suspected that it was Bart’s men who had left the human warning sign on the highway. No doubt the kid, Scarface, and the others were going to be used for similar messages on other arteries leading into town. He just couldn’t figure why they were being held first. Maybe they were waiting for nightfall, or even sunrise. Regardless, Tom considered that he might need to act more quickly than he wanted to if he was going to save the kid.

  Bart barked off more orders to his guards, an unending fusillade of demands: something about making sure none of the prisoners escaped. Tom wished he could catch more of the words, but he didn’t dare get any closer. The men nodded compliantly. Then Bart appeared to be finished as several of them stepped lively to different parts of the tree line, moving like they were late for an appointment.

  One was walking in Tom’s direction.

  As much as Tom wanted to recede farther into the trees and avoid any possibility of being seen, he was just within earshot and felt he needed to watch and listen some more. But the man continued his march closer.

  Tom quickly slung his rifle to his back and withdrew his survival knife, sliding behind the black trunk of a Cottonwood, holding his body motionless while studying both Bart and the man drawing ever closer.

  Other townspeople were gathering around the street side of the corral.

  Bart seemed to notice this too, and so he proceeded through the gate, held open by one of the g
runts to whom he had been giving orders. After the gate clanked closed, Bart spoke toward his gathering minions in a booming voice. “You have been caught stealing the precious resources of this town. As an officer of the law, I will be carrying out your execution tomorrow at sunrise in the town’s square. If you have anything to offer in restitution for your crime, which we haven’t already reclaimed, now’s the time to tell us.”

  Tom slipped a little farther behind the tree, making himself invisible to the oncoming man. He couldn’t see the public display either, but he listened intently. The approaching man was perhaps twenty feet away now.

  From inside the corral, someone barked, “What about our trial?” Tom suspected it was one of the other three men hog-tied beside Scarface.

  “There are no trials here. Last chance—if you have anything to offer, speak now,” replied Bart in his booming voice.

  A branch cracked underfoot... Maybe three yards now.

  Tom anticipated hearing Scarface’s voice, suspecting he would speak up. This man seemed fairly capable in the art of killing people, based on what he did on his own ranch, and that was certainly a skill this group would treasure. But the man remained silent. And so did the boy, who Tom also thought might offer some sort of admonishment from the Bible, like “Thou shall not kill.”

  Another branch snapped, and a small bush rustled from being pushed aside... Five feet now, at the most, and he was coming to Tom’s knife side.

  His fingers wrapped tighter around the knife’s handle, in preparation for impact.

  Another voice from the corral begged feebly, “Please mister...”

  The man’s shadow passed in front of Tom...

  “... I didn’t do nothing. It was them. Day made me...”

  ... The shadow bristled into view and halted: it was a small, bulbous man who reeked of body odor. As if sensing Tom, the man’s head snapped back, and their eyes met...

  ... “Shoot this whimpering pile of human garbage,” Bart commanded...

  ... Bulbous man’s face seized with surprise, first at Tom’s presence, and then at the knife being driven up and into the soft flab of the man’s ample second chin. Tom covered the man’s gaping mouth with his other hand, as he folded the dying man over quietly to the ground.

  A shot clattered around the corral, but Tom didn’t even shudder. Like a gymnast, he pivoted around the nearly dead man, silently dropping to his knees behind the lifeless guard, and was now able to see the show at the corral.

  One of the corral guards stepped away from a prisoner—one of the three other men in the pen with Scarface and the kid. The prisoner lay motionless in a heap.

  “Is there anything else anyone wants to say?” Bart bellowed.

  “I can tell you where there are bags of gold,” one of the remaining two other prisoners pleaded. “If-if you let me go.”

  Bart chortled, not restraining a grin which crawled up his weathered face. He bristled at his white whiskers with the tips of his fingers. “Well, if you could show me a way to eat gold, we might have something to talk about.” Bart abruptly turned and strolled out of the paddock and through the gate. The two remaining prisoners whimpered. The boy and Scarface said nothing, staring stoically at their captors.

  As Tom watched the sheriff move out of sight, he finally withdrew the knife from the dead man’s neck and inspected the body. There was nothing useful for here, not even a weapon. So he slipped back into the deadfall. It was time to get ready for battle.

  25

  On automatic pilot, Tom prepared for the evening’s activities, rushing to finish before nightfall. All the while, he was possessed by the strangest feeling of elation.

  When he took the life of the bulbous man, something inside him snapped, or more like reset. Now he couldn’t shake an all-encompassing feeling of excitement. But the question of why was more troubling.

  Was it just his endorphins kicking in after having to react to the guard?

  He felt pretty sure that wasn’t it. He was very calm before the kill. He’d purposely focused on his breathing and maintaining his heart rate so that he’d make the right move at the right time. The exhilaration of endorphins usually followed a pulse-pounding race or some other adrenaline-induced activity. This was neither.

  Then... the excitement had to be from killing the man?

  This thought was a little scary, because he never took joy in killing another person, and he easily remembered every one of his hand-to-hand kills. The last life he had taken had been during his final tour of Syria. Back then, it was a required part of his mission, not unlike now. But back then, he knew the guy he had killed, and that guy was a really bad dude. This guy was just some schmo who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Tom’s mental logic wanted to draw a moral line and place this man on the wrong side of it. But that wouldn’t work here. That poor SOB was probably conscripted by the sheriff and had no choice. In other words, Tom had just murdered an innocent.

  Dammit!

  Even when the choices were clear, there were often times when moral confusion clouded a mission. This was certainly one of those times. From training and experience, Tom found it best to simply remember his ultimate mission. Usually, this was to finish his job and then get back home. Back then, it was to his family, and his Heaven Ranch. They were all gone. But he had a new home now, and perhaps a new family awaiting him at Cicada. He needed to stick to the plan, get the job done, and get going to his new home. Yet his subconscious was unrelenting.

  The next thing he did when these mental wars raged inside was to compartmentalize his feelings. He did this before every mission battle. Then he did this during the entire tour. And then later, he found himself doing the same thing when he was back home with his wife and son. And even after they were gone.

  He understood then, ever since he started taking lives in service to his country, he compartmentalized all his emotions. He still didn’t know why he felt joy, but perhaps it was time to embrace it, regardless of why he felt it.

  He had stopped working while he had been performing his moral juggling act. Now, enjoying his elation, he started on the next task while another tune from his cerebral jukebox began to play. It was from Queen, and he quietly hummed the melody, in between taking gulps of water from one of his just-filled water bottles.

  He mouthed the words, “I’m just a poor boy; I need no sympathy.”

  He paused, took a final swig from the water bottle, and grinned at the irony of the song and his move.

  Next up.

  Because he didn’t have the luxury of shooting everyone, considering his rifle’s obvious limitations, he decided he’d use it only on the guards who had taken positions around the periphery of the corral, before proceeding to the target. But to do this, he’d need to take care of the noise. Although 22s didn’t create a large sound wave, compared to larger and faster rounds, it was still too loud, especially at night. And because of weight and space concerns, his bug-out bag didn’t have a sound suppressor. So he’d have to build one that was durable enough to last three to five shots. The empty water bottle was perfect for this.

  He cut the bottle into two halves and made a larger than 22-sized hole in what would be the end-cap. Then a section of heavy screen that was to be used as a small grill was rolled around the gun’s barrel to create a tube. Pulling it off, he used his multi-tool to cinch it down and then cut a notch for the front gun sight. The tube was then zip-tied to the barrel. Then he slid the first half of the bottle along the grating to the barrel end and gorilla-taped it on. Using some strips of cloth he had cut up, he bunched these inside the bottle for his baffles. Sliding on the other half of the bottle, he taped them in the middle. The rolled grating protruding outside the end-cap was bent back. This held the suppressor together as part of the rifle.

  Finally, he shook the now-suppressed rifle to distribute the suppressor’s baffling more evenly, and to test its steadiness. It wasn’t going to win any engineering awards, nor would it be as good as a manufactu
red suppressor. But with the sub-sonic rounds he carried, it would dampen the sound enough to not draw attention to him before he took out the guards. It looked good.

  Next, it was time to work on the diversion.

  26

  Nightfall came quickly after Tom had finished all his preparations. He had hoped the darkness would give him the cover he needed to operate stealthily. But the heavens had other plans for him.

  As it was anymore, immediately after sunset, a second sunrise of green and red exploded all over the expanse above, splashing its spectral light everywhere. By all measures, it was a spectacular show put on by the Creator; Tom had a different one planned.

  He found a vantage point where he could sneak up on one guard, and then shoot the other two, using his newly-sound-suppressed weapon. That point was also the closest to the corral, where the kid and other prisoners were held. He’d then wait for his diversion, while he’d grab the gun from the guard he’d taken out from close quarters and make a run to the corral. He’d use the guard’s larger caliber gun to fire upon anyone else in his way, where he’d cut the kid’s bindings and they’d escape. That was his plan. But he knew it would go down differently: no plan ever went as designed.

  Tom reviewed his strategy once more, as he moved snail-like to a point just behind the chosen guard. With his modified rifle slung behind him, he withdrew his knife and proceeded to where the guard had been standing when he’d last looked. When he reached his point of attack, the guard was missing.