Honor Road

by Jason Ross

  The screaming of the pigs was deafening. Mat’s neck pulsed with the blow he’d taken when he’d hit the roadblock. Around the corners of his vision, he saw flashes of light and dark, squiggly shapes. He could barely see, much less think tactically.

  “Sarge!” Deputy Smith screamed for Mat. “He’s hurt bad, Sarge! He’s... I think he’s dead! They killed Chuck Junior. They killed him!”

  Smith cradled Chuck Junior’s green coverall-clad body against his chest. Chuck’s head hung in a position that made no anatomical sense.

  “Goddamn rats,” raged Deputy Rickers.

  The rats were in chaos after the violence of the collisions. They sprinted across the fields, ducked around the smashed up cars and generally flitted around like a flock of pigeons when an old man shows up with a bread bag. It gave Mat’s team time to recover the body of Chuck Junior and get it in the passenger seat of the police cruiser.

  The six surviving men ran back to the capsized truck. Halfway there, some rats opened fire on them. A dozen rats had taken cover behind the roadblock. The majority carried improvised weapons like clubs, even a few spears, but few had firearms. What was left of the convoy—the deuce and two cruisers—was trapped on the McKenzie side—the flipped semi sealed the roadblock.

  “Just leave! Take your people and go!” called a rat voice from the roadblock.

  A chorus of hoarse, panicked voices joined. “Just leave. Don’t fight us! Please. We need the food! Just leave the pigs and go!” The rats pleaded rather than threatened.

  “Shut up! Shut up!” boomed the first voice—a man behind one of the smashed vehicles. “It’s over, cops. Take your people. We won’t shoot you if you leave your guns.”

  That last demand must’ve been a visit from the Good Idea Fairy. Mat doubted the original plan had anything to do with stealing firearms from cops. The rats had a leader, and he had a pair of brass balls, but the promise of food trumped all. The gun thing was icing on the cake.

  Even through the thundering percussion in his neck, Mat felt pretty sure he had the measure of the enemy. They were near panic, and a counter-attack would flatten them like a pup tent. They sure-as-hell weren’t getting any guns from Mat and his guys. The rats would be lucky to leave with their lives. The two deputies carried AR-15s and the sheriff had loaned Mat a SCAR Heavy rifle. The brothers, Juan and Jesus Cabrera, had been issued pump shotguns from the sheriff’s gun locker. All six men wore soft body armor.

  They could Alamo-up and try to hold this ground for the forty-five minutes it’d take to scrounge up another hauler from Henry and salvage the pigs. They only had the one hauler on the McKenzie side and now it was tits-up, blocking the road. Or, they could ditch the pigs and light out for McKenzie. But this wasn’t Indian country—this was their precious link to the pig farms. After his latest success, Mister Loudmouth Leader would ambush them again and again. Better to destroy the threat now. Mat knew right where to find the guy. He might never get this chance again.

  Deputy Rickers shouted at Mat, “Sarge, they’re coming. Holy shit. They’re ALL coming.”

  Thousands of refugees sprang from the muddy fields and rushed from the treeline. What Mat had mistaken for a vanilla tactical problem, flashed suddenly into an apocalyptic shitstorm.

  He’d read stories about British soldiers fighting African tribal nations in the 1800s—when a handful of Brits would be attacked by thousands of spear-wielding natives. Even just reading about them, his throat had tightened; a couple dozen men, circled by the carcasses of their wagons, facing the fury of five thousand enraged warriors. But in real life, the cavalry never came. In most of those desperate battles, every white man died dangling from the end of the enemies’ spear.

  Until that moment on the road, behind the dead big rig, witnessing waves of humanity pouring across the mud-soaked fields, Mat had thought of this as a standard contracting gig.

  Teach a town to defend itself. Help them build a perimeter wall. Tighten up security, then get back on the road. One-and-done. Over-and-out. Mat Best rides off into the sunset, once again.

  What his eyes beheld buggered that idea all to hell. He had not been trained for this. They didn’t teach Army Rangers how to defeat thousands of Zulu warriors with fifty rounds of ammo, twenty men and six, broke-axle wheel carts. The army had you read those Zulu stories so you wouldn’t be stupid enough to get in those situations in the first place.

  Just the rats from the immediate vicinity of the ambush numbered in the thousands. The mud fields crawled with them—scrambling, high-stepping, clawing toward Mat’s position. The rats right in this bog outnumbered the residents in town. There had to be ten or more times that many refugees in the woods, surrounding McKenzie.

  A filth-ridden man and woman launched out of a tall stand of grass toward Mat. They clambered onto the road and swung homemade clubs in one hand, steak knives in the other. She wore a filthy, gold and purple dress—like she’d fled the big city wearing the nicest thing she owned.

  Mat’s hands operated automatically—they flicked off his safety and put two rounds, center mass, into each of them. The couple crumpled off the road and rolled back into the muck.

  Two more nasty-looking creatures crouched in the bushes behind Mat’s position. He didn’t see weapons, but he couldn’t allow the flank. He fired two rounds into each through the grass, and they pinwheeled backward—a woman’s scarf trailed magenta and saffron. Mat shook his head at the weirdness of it, which sent his thundering neck ache up to his brain pan. The cacophony in his coconut went from bongo drums to acid rock.

  The man he’d just blind-shot behind the bush cut loose with a soul-wrenching keen of anguish. The dude jumped up, alone now, and rushed. Both Mat and Rickers put rounds into him and he went down hard, flipping over backward, just like in the movies.

  A refugee in orange coveralls broke into a sprint along the shoulder, right down their throats. Juan Cabrera blasted him with buckshot and the guy vanished off the road and into a pile of trash.

  Was that a prison jumpsuit or an orange dress? A flicker of color in the tall grass caught Mat’s eye. Yellow silk? A child’s coat? There were children in those fields. Mat despaired, Please God, don’t make me shoot kids today.

  He breach-checked his rifle in order to yank himself back to reality. His mind had flickered for a moment, right in the middle of a firefight. He poked his head over the fender of the semi for a tactical assessment.

  The fight had lulled. The rats numbered in the thousands, but they were no fierce Zulu warriors. They wanted a meal, not victory. He and his men had killed a dozen or more of them—their bodies littered the road. The slayings gave the field of refugees pause. Without religious fervor or a warrior’s creed, they were legion, but confused.

  Mister Loudmouth Leader shuffled around behind the wreckage. He wasn’t going to leave well-enough alone. The bastard screamed, inciting the masses, “They’re trying to take our food! Stop them! Stop them! They’re taking the pigs away! Get them! GET ‘EM NOW! GET ‘EM NOW!”

  Thousands jumped from the winter-dead, knee-high grass and stormed toward Mat’s team. The ARs and shotguns barked a steady, murderous rhythm, and the rats stumbled over each others’ bodies. The rush faltered and the rats slunk backward behind clumps of shrub and tall grass. The dead and wounded littered the ground. Their moans were like piles of sorrowful demons, torn from the breast of hell.

  Snick-snick-snick, Mat’s guys consolidated ammunition from half-empty mags.

  The air tasted of burned powder and the sweat of his mens’ terror. The pigs’ screams had almost vanished like the background noise of a busy dungeon.

  The armed rats behind the blockade fired willy-nilly at his team. Mat shot two young women rushing onto the road, one wearing what looked like a green ball gown and the other in a cocktail dress. The woman in the ball gown hurled a spear before a round punched her chest. The makeshift spear clattered to the ground at Mat’s feet.

  Was that a Zulu, a woman or a mirage? The sparkles
around the edge of his vision had graduated into lightning bolts. He rubbed his eyes so hard it made them ache.

  A wave of rats attacked from the roadblock. Guns, knives and clubs flashed. Mat’s knot of men answered with a wave of thunder. Deputy Smith ran out of rifle ammo, drew his revolver and fired into a man’s belly at the same moment he jammed a stick into Smith’s eye. Smith shrieked, and fell back into Juan Cabrera, who killed two guys with one blast of his shotgun. The wounded remnant of the rat attack scurried back to the smashed-up cars.

  Mat needed to end this. Things weren’t going well. He didn’t know if the problem was the whiplash from the crash or the absurdity of the jacked-up zombie bullshit. He knew he couldn’t keep this up for another forty-five minutes.

  He sprinted for the semi trailer without telling his guys what he was doing. The time was ripe for some special forces, Hail Mary shit. The dumped-over pig hauler rocked with the violent thrashing and ear-piercing wails of the swine.

  He bounded up on the trailer, which was now on its side, and yanked the last remaining cross-pin free from the half door. The trailer gate crashed to the ground. Pigs shot out, like fat, pink cannonballs, scattering in every direction. The first wave of hogs bowled over a knot of refugees rushing Mat. One guy hit his head so hard on the asphalt Mat could hear the plack sound from atop the hauler.

  The rats’ attention flashed to the bolting food. “The pigs! There they go!”

  A mighty torrent of three hundred-pound animals streamed from the trailer and into the fields. The refugees dashed after them, but the pigs blew through them like living, stampeding, wrecking balls. Rats in the field went down in swaths. Yet others swarmed into the melee, trying desperately to get their hands on some bacon.

  “Rickers and Jesus, cover fire on the roadblock,” he screamed. Now, Mat knew what to do. It was high time to roll up the HVT—the High Value Target. Mr. Loudmouth Leader was fresh out of cannon fodder, and by demanding the guns, he’d put himself in Mat’s gunsight. Mat couldn’t shoot thousands of refugees—at least not today—but he sure as hell could take down the party planner.

  Mat ran to where Deputy Smith lay sprawled on his back with both hands over his eye. Mat hauled him to his feet and half led, half dragged him to the passenger side of the deuce-and-a-half. Then he circled his hand in the air, the signal for Wiggin, Rickers, and the Cabrera brothers to rally on him.

  Two of the rats at the roadblock fell to their gunfire. That left five rats focused on the gunfight, and only four with guns. Mat alone was worth twenty armed rats.

  “Juan cover Smith and provide overwatch. You three push the center of the road. Don’t take any risks. Move up, cover to cover. Keep a steady pace of fire. I’m flanking to the right. Don’t fucking shoot me. No shooting toward the right shoulder of the road. Got it?” It would be a test of Mat’s brilliant new idea: the quick-and-dirty L-ambush training-under-live-fire. What could go wrong?

  Mat signaled forward, and his three shooters pressed up the center of the road, leap-frogging to the police cruiser and then pushing toward the blockade. The AR15s sent steady waves of lead into the roadblock. The rats managed only wild, unaimed shots in return.

  Mat slid down the road embankment and darted forward. The hundreds of rats on that side were otherwise occupied with the hog rodeo. He didn’t wait to see if anyone would notice him. He sprinted forward and slid around the side of the barricade with his rifle at the ready.

  All but two of the rats took rounds. Mr. Loudmouth Leader surrendered, throwing down an SKS rifle, and raising his hands above his head. Mat’s men moved in and overtook the blockade.

  Jesus Cabrera waited until the leader’s arms were zip-tied behind his back, then he smashed the douchebag’s nose with an elbow.

  Mat shouted, “Cabrera! You’re with me and Mr. Loudmouth in the deuce-and-a-half! Jesus and Rickers.” He turned to the deputy. “Take the cruiser. We’ll leave the other cruiser here for now.”

  To Rickers he rasped, “You’re on point. Don’t stop until we hit the checkpoint. GO.”

  The pigs had run off the field and into the tree line. One rat dangled around a hog’s neck, stabbing it like a prison fight. The running, squealing pig shucked him off and disappeared into the trees. Another man shot a pig with his nine millimeter to no apparent effect. Somehow, someone had gotten a single pig on the ground and a brawl broke out over the carcass.

  Rats one. Pigs forty-nine.

  Even hungry and desperate, people were no match for the pigs. Eventually, the refugees would probably get most of them in the stew pot, but it’d take time and ingenuity. In any case, Mat’s team had bought back their lives with those fifty pigs. There was little doubt how the Zulu siege was going to end.

  Mat did a tactical reload and hoisted himself into the driver seat of the deuce-and-a-half. The big truck had been idling this whole time, wasting fuel. Mat rocked it into gear, punched the accelerator and lurched for town.

  “Juan, make sure those new guys withdraw to McKenzie with us. Radio the northeast checkpoint, and have them call in at least twenty more guards in case the mob gets any more big ideas.”

  As Cabrera completed one radio call, Mat gave him another, “Radio McKenzie HQ and have the next shift start now for all checkpoints. Double coverage. Have HQ warn the hospital we’re coming in with Smith. Someone’s going to have to tell the family that Chuck Junior’s dead.” Mat would give anything not to be that guy.

  There was a moment when he feared the heavy vehicle might stick in the wet gravel. Mat pushed the deuce through a loose spot in the half-deconstructed highway. The wheels caught and in a few seconds he was grumbling toward the safety of town. He mashed the gas pedal to the floor, but the deuce barely noticed.

  After what he’d just seen—countless thousands of rats, pouring toward the promise of food—how safe was town, really? How long until the rats made their big push?

  It wasn’t just the ringing in his ears or the war drums in his raging brain stem; Mat had landed in the middle of an unwinnable fight. McKenzie would inevitably fall, like the Battle of Isandlwana when the Zulu crushed the mighty British with 20,000 spearmen. Everyone here would die—either at the hands of the refugees or in the famine that would follow. The winter had only just begun. The hunger could only get worse, all the way through April.

  Mat needed to put a shine on his personal exit strategy or this contract would be his last. He’d hoped, at least, to stabilize this place and leave them with a fair, fighting chance. He owed Caroline at least that: to leave her brother William in a good home, preferably with a wall around the town. At that moment, Mat couldn’t see it happening—couldn’t make the numbers work in his head.

  A quarter-finished HESCO barrier around town. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of famished refugees. Very few guns and little ammunition.

  Mat thought of himself as being pretty damn clever, but big numbers have a power all their own.

  Juan Cabrera must’ve read his mind. “We need a better plan, Sarge.”

  Indeed, thought Mat. A better plan for the town and a better plan for Mat Best.

  Fifty-five minutes after the ambush, Mat knocked on the open door of Sheriff Morgan’s office. He walked in without waiting—still a little rattled and adrenaline-drunk. Sheriff Morgan looked up from the conversation he was having with a man Mat didn’t know.

  “Here to debrief?” Sheriff Morgan smiled grimly at Mat. “How’s Smith? Can they save the eye?”

  Mat shook his head. “The doc didn’t think so. Smith asked me to tell you he’d be back on duty tomorrow. I don’t doubt he means it.”

  “The man’s got grit,” the sheriff agreed.

  Mat continued his interruption. “I sent a team to reconnoiter the ambush site. The cruiser’s gone; probably stolen for its gas. We’re going to need some kind of wrecker to get the pig hauler back on its tires. It’s blocking the whole road.”

  “What the hell happened out there?” The sheriff knew the outcome, but he hadn’t been bri
efed.

  Mat flicked a glance at the man sitting across from the sheriff.

  “This is Jim Jensen,” the sheriff explained. “He’s our kids’ science teacher. I’ve asked him to join the security committee. He has some ideas about chemical weapons.” You can speak freely, the sheriff seemed to imply.

  Mat hadn’t “spoken freely” with anyone since Caroline’s death, and he already didn’t like where this was going. He’d gone to war to stop Sadaam Hussein and chemical weapons, and it put a bad taste in his mouth to even hear them mentioned on American soil. He accepted the man’s outstretched hand for a handshake. The science guy didn’t stand up to greet him, which was strike two in Mat’s book.

  “We’ve met,” Jensen said. “His younger brother William comes to my class.” Meeting Mat’s eyes the science guy said, “Good to see you again.” Mat had no memory of ever meeting him.

  Mat moved on to the sheriff’s question about the ambush. “We had bad operational security. The rats knew where and when to hit us. I underestimated them by putting the convoy trips on a fixed schedule. They’re organizing.”

  “Okay,” said Sheriff Morgan. “What was your oversight?”

  “More of an assumption than an oversight,” Mat said. “I assumed a leadership vacuum among the rats...”

  Sheriff Morgan cleared his throat. “I don’t like that name. Rats. These are people. I don’t like dehumanizing the refugees.”

  Mat didn’t like being pulled up by the short hairs for political correctness, but he respected Sheriff Morgan—even liked him. Mat let it slide. Jensen sat up a little straighter, almost like he was taking note of the micro-fracture between the two men. Mat continued, “I had assumed the refugees weren’t coordinated. We didn’t vary our route and timing. It was my mistake.”