by Ryan Schow
“No,” a stern voice replied.
Jagger opened his eyes, saw the people standing all around him. The people safeguarding his eyes from the direct shine of the sun.
“You’re the pilot, right?” someone asked, kicking him in the side with a boot like they were checking for a response, or trying to force one. He’d been kicked the same way you’d kick a dog you thought was dead or unresponsive. Jagger managed a grunt in the affirmative.
“Your entire crew is dead. You know that, right?”
Jagger managed to sit up, but he was eye level with everyone’s crotch at that point and they didn’t look like anything special. Just a bunch of college dropouts in dirty clothes and old shoes.
“Yeah,” he managed to say, tasting blood and stickiness in his mouth.
“How’d they die?”
He looked up, shielded his eyes from the slivers of sun but he still couldn’t see their faces that well.
“In the crash.”
“So this guy got all them bullet holes in ‘em from crashing?” a voice said.
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Not that strange. ‘Cause in wrecks like this, real bad ones where most everything is damn near disintegrated, guns don’t go off and pop folks square in the forehead like that.”
He held his tongue.
“You know who they are?” the same voice said. Looking around at his peers, he said, “Do any of ya? That there is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“And you know that how?” someone asked.
“Well?” another voice said to Jagger. “Is it true? Is he the Joint, the Chairman of Staff, or whatever?”
“Something like that.”
Now everyone got real quiet and Jagger knew he’d come to the end of his life. He knew he’d have to one day answer for his violent transgressions, he just didn’t think it would be today. Much less by a mob of halfwits, thugs and would-be murderers.
“You sure?” one guy said to the other. “Because it could be anybody.”
Jagger remained silent.
“Of course I’m sure,” the first guy said. “I’m pos-ee-tive. That’s why we ain’t killin’ the pilot. Doing something like that…popping this dude afterwards—or just before—he’s earned the right to live in my book.” Now looking down at Jagger, he said, “But we’re taking your stuff, an’ all their stuff. You survived this crash, so you’ll survive this, too. But we came for things and things we’ll have, and if you try to stop us, we’ll shoot you dead.”
Jagger lowered himself back to the earth, his brain still foggy, all of this feeling like some twisted continuation of the bad dream that started with the drone strike in Texas.
For the next half hour, the pack that dragged him from the beaten side of the helo managed to loot the surviving sections of the craft, salvaging whatever they could including Jagger’s service weapon. He heard them taking the clothes off the victims that weren’t ruined beyond repair and he was extra pissed off when he heard them whistling as they stripped off Camila’s clothes.
“If those tits are real, then I’m thinking dead or not, we take her with us,” one of them said with a sort of dripping lust.
When Jagger turned over and heaved, a few voices fell silent. One of them came over and said, “What about his flight suit? There’s not much blood, and it looks hearty.”
“Hey Bobby, come check out this chick’s cans. My God they’re beautiful!”
The girl stomped over and Jagger heard the cocking sounds of a round being chambered.
“Put her shirt back on and get away from her. Goddammit Merle. I swear on my mother’s life if you pull down her panties I’ll sink two in the back of your skull!”
Jagger planted his hands preparing to get up and go after this piece of—a foot stomped down on his shoulder, pinning him to the earth. The person holding him down was but a shadow standing before a bright afternoon sun.
“Gonna kill you,” Jagger growled.
A shotgun racked its load, the barrel hovering mere inches from his face. Jagger stopped speaking. Instead, he turned his head sideways and blew throw up snot from his nose.
“Okay, okay,” the guy violating Camila’s body said. “We’s just funnin.’”
“Well stop,” the girl said. “Now.”
The idiot named Merle stopped, but Jagger’s blood was already boiling. Hearing what those boys were doing, what they’d done, inside Jagger’s head walls were coming down and entire buildings were collapsing and crumbling to ruin. He was rage and retribution; he was cold hard vengeance. If not now, when he had his wits, he’d make them pay for what they did, that much he promised himself.
As they were leaving, one of them stood over the top of him, frothing at the mouth, clearly not right in the head. The shadow hid most of his features. Still, something of a chilled fear shot straight into Jagger’s heart as this creep stared down at him.
“C’mon Rowdy!” someone barked.
“He’s a witness,” Rowdy said in a voice like crushed gravel. The tenor was deep and cruel sounding. Like killing was not a necessity but a need. Some baseline response to breathing, to seeing something wounded, to leaving nothing behind to stop him from killing over and over again. Someone else joined Rowdy. They both stood over the top of him, two shadows against the burning afternoon sun.
“Witness to what?” the other person asked. “There ain’t no cops, no judges, no courts of law. This is the wild west man. Who cares if he lives or dies?”
“I care,” Jagger said.
Rowdy fired his weapon and a sharp spit of dirt kicked up in Jagger’s face, cutting his cheek and making his ear ring. He rolled over, a silent scream pulling his body tight against itself while Rowdy laughed and laughed and laughed.
Then they were gone. Walking out of the fields toward an old farmhouse sitting along the horizon.
With the sun beating on his already crash-hammered face, and his body damn near obliterated from the wreck, he dropped his head back in the dirt and fought to settle his thoughts. For a long time he measured the pros and cons of two very different scenarios: get back home to Lenna and the boys, or find that pack of savages and tear their spines from their bodies. In the end, as pissed off as he was about that Rowdy character and the one looking at Camila’s body, Jagger realized these clowns were a hell of a lot closer to him than home was.
Yeah, Lenna and the boys would have to wait just a little bit longer.
Despite the rage that afflicted him earlier, Jagger felt incredibly weak as he lay there in the dirt. With a bit of concentrated effort, he dragged his body up and staggered over to Camila. She was flopped over in a pair of panties with her pants pulled roughly to her ankles and her bra sitting in the dirt beside her like a coiled snake. He couldn’t bare to see her like that.
It revolted him, left him so sick to his stomach he felt like screaming. Had every bone in his body not ached straight down to the marrow, he would have kicked the wreckage and pitched a righteous tantrum. But everything hurt, including his broken heart.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
There was enough light in the day to see the brutal effects of the crash upon her body. She had bruises everywhere, compound fractures on her left leg and arm, and half her face was crushed in. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he shook with a swift, indelible pain. He got out of his flight suit, unable to stop the roar of grief washing over him. Slowly, reverently, he worked her broken body into his flight suit, averting his eyes as best as he could, cursing God and those dumbass kids and every one of those scumbags in Silicon Valley that brought the civilized world to its knees.
When he was done protecting Camila’s virtue, Jagger leaned down, placed the lightest of kisses on her lips and begged for her forgiveness. And then he wiped his eyes, looked in the direction that the pack of heathens had gone and imagined a retribution so ferocious he all but worked himself into a fit.
He was weak though, exhausted, so the anger burned off fast leaving him in d
ire need of rest. He sat down in the dirt beside Camila. A second later, he laid beside her and put a protective arm around her. As he imagined her soul floating in the heavens above him, seeing his thoughts, knowing the depth of his pain, his eyes fell shut on their own and he drifted off under the pulsing rays of the afternoon sun.
He woke sometime during the night. It was time to go. He said a long good-bye to Camila, then stood and headed toward the nearest farm house. Along the way, he found foot prints in the dirt, so he followed them.
He staggered on through the fields for what felt like forever, passing two gorgeous mansions on his way to…wherever he was going. The tracks took him to a road where he sat until first light. He walked the road up to a landscaped thatch of property with a house, a barn and some old farming equipment.
In the faint, pre-dawn light he saw the glimmer of a candle flickering against a window.
Jagger’s legs weighed a thousand pounds and his frozen cold body ached, but he had to check it out, just in case it was them. When he pressed his face to the dirty window, he saw the girl from the field. Instantly his senses flared.
He looked back to where his helo crashed. It was in the distance and hardly visible at ground level. From the second story floor, however, they’d be able to see everything. No wonder they found him. He looked back at her again and wondered if she lived there alone, or if they were all holed up inside.
He prayed for the latter.
Jagger snuck around the house, peeking in the first floor windows until he’d seen into every single one of them. He’ found no one else. It was too dark. Peering up, he counted half a dozen windows on the second story floor. Those had to be bedrooms.
Turning his eyes to the horizon, the sun arrived, casting light and life upon the farmland.
Shivering, the crisp morning air smelling like moist earth and foliage, he staggered across the yard to a rectangular barn filled with tilling and reaping equipment. There was an old tractor sitting in the shadows and rows of rafters on either side of the barn. He found an old ladder, leaned it against the rafters, painfully made his way up top. Breathing heavy, he dragged the ladder up behind him. There was nothing up there but bare lumber and spider-webs. At least he’d be left alone to sleep and plan. He laid down, closed his eyes and waited. Somewhere along the way, his body began to ache, but then it tapered off and he managed to fall back to sleep.
He didn’t hear them in the barn until one of them fired their weapon. The gunshot tore Jagger from his sleep, but he was smart enough and alert enough to wake in perfect stillness, a measure of his training.
Down below there was giggling. Then the sounds of kissing.
“Make her watch,” a female voice said, followed by the squirming sounds of a child.
“Yeah,” a male voice said, “she ain’t gonna want to miss this.”
Jagger inched his face over the rafters, snuck a peek. Below there was the woman and one of the guys making out; standing beside them was Rowdy, the guy with the gravely voice and the serial killer vibe. Rowdy was holding a child who couldn’t be more than eight or nine years old. He had a fistful of her hair and was forcing her to watch.
The couple kept kissing and then the guy pulled her top down and Rowdy said, “Watch.” Rowdy held the squirming child’s head firm, gave it a jerk, then said, “Learn.”
Jagger couldn’t look anymore. What the hell kind of racket was this? Eventually he heard the sounds of the couple having sex and he plugged his ears. The heat that warmed his neck now laid fire to his face and he swore he would put an end these vile creatures.
When it was over, Rowdy said, “Did you learn something?” When the girl said nothing, he said, “Speak!”
“Yes,” she whispered with anguish in her voice.
Jagger’s body went piano wire tight as he struggled to envision a way to help the child. But there was no way. He had no weapons, he was too broken to jump down and not break a leg or his back, and worst of all, he was too far away from where they were at to do any good. Giving away his position would mean his own death, so he sat there and listened to what was happening and he plotted.
When the foursome left the barn and headed outside, Jagger waited until it was safe, and then he waited a little longer. Finally he slid the ladder over the side, gingerly made his way down to the barn floor. Every single bit of his body screamed in revolt, enough for him to know his spine was severely out of alignment.
He turned his neck, which was stiff, made himself pop it on one side and then the other. After that, he set the ladder down, laid on his back across it and loosened his muscles until the arch cracked his vertebrae.
The pain was blinding and enormous, but he felt relief as the nearly unbearable static in his nerves settled down. He stood and walked a few feet, stopped at the flaring in his shoulder and the warm tingling of the nerves in his arm.
He found a dark corner—just in case someone returned—then slowly stretched his neck from side to side and from front to back. It was beyond rigid, aching to the point of his head hurting. Worst of all, the pain was messing with his back. When he was loose enough, he tilted it all the way to one side, relaxed, then jerked it enough for it to pop.
Already it felt better.
Moving to the other side was not so easy. He was stiff as hell there. He tried to relax, to move it, but it wouldn’t give. Jagger used his hand to slowly pull his head over. The applied pressure hurt, but each time he found his limit, Jagger forced himself to relax long enough to crane it a bit more. When he was tilted as far as he would go (which was half as far as he could normally go), he lowered his hand, held his head there, then gave it a solid jolt.
Nothing but pain.
Damn.
He did it again and still nothing but misery. By now his head was throbbing and he was pissed off beyond measure. Relax, he told himself.
Breathe.
Tilting his head the other direction, he gave it two solid jerks to the side and got a small pop for his effort. For whatever reason, this seemed to free up something in the other side of his neck. He tilted his head back to his stiff side, which now felt ten times better, and gave it a sharp jolt. This resulted in a deep, satisfying pop! Everything loosened from there. Rolling his shoulders and neck, he felt a thousand times better.
When he cracked open the barn door leading into the property, he saw the front yard was clear. The sun was now low on the horizon, the air a touch chillier than he expected. Had he really slept the entire day? It appeared so. Off to the right leading away from the home, he saw more field equipment: a plow blade, a stack of shovels, a plastic bin with the lid kicked off. There was also an fifties style pick-up with whitewall tires and the hood propped up.
Jagger slunk toward the truck, keeping his eyes and ears peeled. He got to the old Chevy, ducked behind it. The baby blue paint was faded the primer, and large patches of rust marred the truck’s already disgraceful body. He glanced inside the open hood, saw the bare dirt.
Great. No engine.
Inside, the seats had been pulled and presumably thrown out since they were no where to be found. This must be someone’s idea of a restoration in progress.
No seats and no engine? Talk about useless!
Along the back of the truck it looked like the rear fender had been dented in an accident. Set up along the fender were tools, specifically an old claw hammer. There was a rumpled blanket lying under the bed of the truck. By the look of it, someone was trying to hammer out the dent from the inside. Clearly that hadn’t worked. For him, though, the claw hammer would most certainly work.
Taking the hammer, he hurried low and fast toward the house, his body protesting mightily but working nevertheless. When he got to the clapboard side of the farm house, he moved to a back door, ducked under a dirty pane of glass, glanced inside.
Nothing.
He tried the knob and it turned. Just as he was about to open the door, he saw movement through the glass and stood back. A second later the door opened up a
nd a man walked out. Jagger spun the hammer in his hand, gripping the clawed head. When the moment was right, he drove the wood handle down on the guy’s head with such force he staggered twice and dropped the rifle he was holding. Merle. The guy who took off Camila’s clothes.
He wasn’t dead, he was just out cold.
Jagger dropped the hammer and grabbed the shotgun. The very sight of the man left him seething. He couldn’t forget what this cockroach had done. How disrespectful he’d been with his co-pilot and his longtime friend. With three ferocious strikes, Jagger used the butt end of the shotgun to hammer in the side of the man’s head.
Face down in the dirt, Jagger was certain he was dead.
He wiped down the bloody end of the gun then lowered himself to a knee and patted down the corpse. Jagger stopped on a lump just under the heavy jacket. He drew back the jacket and found his service revolver tucked in the back of Merle’s pants.
“Maggot,” he muttered.
After dragging Merle off to the side of the house, Jagger snuck inside the house, moving quietly down a dark hall and to the nearest room. He held Merle’s rifle so he could either shoot it or crack someone over the head with the stock. He tried the first room’s doorknob. It turned. Ignoring the clamoring of his heart and the sweat gathering along his neckline, he eased open the door, prepared for whatever awaited him.
What he found was the girl. Tied to the bed. Her wrists and ankles were bound by rope that had cut into her skin. The room was cold, a foul smelling odor creeping up to meet him. He turned away, his eyes watering instantly. This was a horrible, choking stench, one he could not forget: death.
Alongside the wall were two people, a man and a woman about his age, both deceased. The rot of their corpses was a stench so thick it seemed to bear weight. He gagged, then dry heaved once, mightily ashamed of himself.
The girl didn’t seem to notice. She just looked at him with dead eyes and that thousand yard stare you see in victims of extreme violence or abuse.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
She said nothing. He took in the sight of her, measuring it all, hating what he was seeing. Her sandy-blonde hair looked unwashed and unkempt. Her face was dirty, her eyes a crystal blue that should have held more life than they did. And that bruised little face of hers...his heart ached for all the horrors she must have endured.